Chapter 14

phenomena--thunderstorms, tempests, volcanoes, earthquakes, and the like. It concludes with a theory of disease, illustrated by a fine description of the plague at Athens.

Professor Tyrrell says: 'It is interesting to point to places in which Lucretius or his predecessors had really anticipated modern scientific research. Thus Lucretius recognises that in a vacuum every body, no matter what its weight, falls with equal swiftness; the circulation of the sap in the vegetable world is known to him, and he describes falling stars, aerolites, etc., as the unused material of the universe.' The great truth that matter is not destroyed but only changes its form is very clearly stated by Lucretius, and his account (Book V) of the beginnings of life upon the earth, the evolution of man, and the progress of human society is interesting and valuable.

3. Style.

'Notwithstanding the antique tinge (e.g. his use of archaism, assonance, and alliteration) which for poetical ends he has given to his poem, the best judges have always looked upon it as one of the purest models of the Latin idiom in the age of its greatest perfection.' --Munro.

'The language of Lucretius, so bold, so genial, so powerful, and in its way so perfect.' --Nettleship.

_Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti, Exitio terras cum dabit una dies._ --Ovid. _Am._ I. xv. 23.

'But till this cosmic order everywhere Shattered into one earthquake in one day Cracks all to pieces ... till that hour My golden work shall stand.' --Tennyson, _Lucretius_.

MARCUS MANILIUS, fl. 12 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: MANILIUS.]

Nothing is known of his life. That he was not of Roman birth (perhaps a native of N. Africa) is probable from the foreign colouring of his language at the outset, which in the later books becomes more smooth and fluent from increased practice.

2. Works.

The +Astronomica+ in five Books of hexameter verse. The poem should rather be called Astrology, as Astronomy is treated only in Book I. He is proud of being the first writer on this subject in Latin literature. A close study of Lucretius is obvious from several passages: he often imitates Vergil, and in the legends (e.g. of Perseus and Andromeda) Ovid.

3. Style.

He is not a great poet; but he is a writer of real power both in thought and style. In his introductions to each Book, and in his digressions, he shows sincere feeling and poetical ability.

M. VALERIUS MARTIALIS, circ. 40-102 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: MARTIAL.]

He was born at Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis (E. Spain), a town situated on a rocky height overlooking the R. Salo:

_Municipes, Augusta mihi quos Bilbilis acri Monte creat, rapidis quem Salo cingit aquis._

X. ciii. 1-2.

His father gave him a good education, and at the age of twenty-three (63 A.D.) he went to Rome. After living there for thirty-five years, patronised by Titus and Vespasian, he returned to Bilbilis soon after the accession of Trajan (98 A.D.), where he died _circ._ 102 A.D.

At Rome he for a time found powerful friends in his great countrymen of the house of Seneca (Lucan and Seneca were then at the height of their fame), and from 79 to 96 (_temp._ Trajan and Domitian) he received the patronage of the Court, and numbered among his friends Pliny the Younger, Quintilian, Juvenal, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus. His complaints of his poverty are incessant. It is true that he lived throughout the life of a dependent, but it is probable that Martial was a poor man who contrived to get through a good deal of money, and who mistook for poverty a capacity for spending more than he could get.

2. Works.

+Epigrammata+ in fourteen Books (Books XIII and XIV, _Xenia_ and _Apophoreta_, are two collections of inscriptions for presents at the Saturnalia); also a +Liber Spectaculorum+ on the opening of the grand Flavian amphitheatre (the Coliseum) begun by Vespasian and completed by Titus.

3. Style.

'Martial did not create the epigram. What he did was to differentiate the epigram and elaborate it. Adhering always to what he considered the true type of the literary epigram, consisting of i. the _preface_, or description of the occasion of the epigram, rousing the curiosity to know what the poet has to say about it; and, ii. the explanation or commentary of the poet, commonly called the _point_--he employed his vast resources of satire, wit, observation, fancy, and pathos to produce the greatest number of varieties of epigram that the type admits of. . . . What Martial really stands convicted of on his own showing is of laughing at that which ought to have roused in him shame and indignation, and of making literary capital out of other men's vices.' --Stephenson. Among his good points are his candour, his love of nature, and the loyalty of his friendships.

Pliny says of him: _Audio Valerium Martialem decessisse et moleste fero. Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum in scribendo et sltis haberet et fellis, nec candoris minus--I hear with regret that V. Martial is dead. He was a man of talent, acuteness, and spirit: with plenty of wit and gall, and as sincere as he was witty._ --Pliny, _Ep._ iii. 21.

'The greatest epigrammatist of the world, and one of its most disagreeable literary characters.' --Merrill.

CORNELIUS NEPOS, circ. 100-24 B.C.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: NEPOS.]

Nepos was probably born at Ticinium on the R. Padus. He inherited an ample fortune, and was thereby enabled to keep aloof from public life and to devote himself to literature and to writing works of an historical nature. In earlier life he was one of the circle of Catullus, who dedicated a collection of poems to him (Catull. _C._ i.): 'To whom am I to give my dainty, new-born little volume? To you, Cornelius.' He was also a friend and contemporary of Cicero, and after Cicero's death (43 B.C.) was one of the chief friends of Atticus.

2. Works.

Of his numerous writings on history, chronology, and grammar we possess only a fragment of his +De Viris Illustribus+ (originally in sixteen Books), a collection of Roman and foreign biographies. Of this work there is extant one complete section, +De Excellentibus Ducibus Exterarum Gentium+, and two lives, those of Atticus and Cato the Younger, from his +De Historicis Latinis+.

3. Style.

Nepos is a most untrustworthy historian, and his work possesses little independent value. But his style is clear, elegant, and lively, and he did much to make Greek learning popular among his fellow-citizens.

PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, 43 B.C.-18 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: OVID.]

Ovid's own writings (espec. _Tr._ IV. x.) supply nearly all the information we possess regarding his life. He was born at Sulmo, a town in the cold, moist hills of the Peligni, one of the Sabine clans, situated near Corfinium, and about ninety miles E. of Rome. He was of an ancient equestrian family, and together with his elder brother received a careful education at Rome, and studied also at Athens. He was trained for the Bar, but in spite of his father's remonstrances preferred poetry to public life. 'An easy fortune, a brilliant wit, an inexhaustible memory, and an unfailing social tact soon made him a prominent figure in society; and his genuine love of literature and admiration for genius made him the friend of the whole contemporary world of letters.' --Mackail. Up to his fiftieth year fortune smiled steadily upon Ovid: his works were universally popular, and he enjoyed the favour and patronage of the Emperor himself. But towards the end of 8 A.D. an imperial edict ordered him to leave Rome on a named day and take up his residence at the small barbarous town of Tomi, on the Black Sea, at the extreme outposts of civilisation. Augustus proved deaf to all entreaties to recall him, Tiberius remained alike inexorable, and Ovid died of a broken heart at the ago of sixty, in the tenth year of his banishment.

2. Works.

(1) +Amores+, in three Books, poems in elegiac verse, nearly all on Corinna, who was probably no real person, but only a name around which Ovid grouped his own fancies, and wrote as the poet of a fashionable, pleasure-loving society. The _Mors Psittaci_ is pleasing and the _Mors Tibulli_ is a noble tribute to a brother poet.

(2) +Heroides+, twenty letters in elegiac verse, feigned to have been written by ladies or chiefs of the heroic age to the absent objects of their love (15-20 are in pairs, e.g. Paris to Helen and Helen to Paris, and are probably spurious). 'The Letters 1-14 are thoroughly modern: they express the feelings and speak the language of refined women in a refined age, and all exhibit an artificiality both in the substance and the manner of their pleading.' --Sellar.

(3) +Ars Amatoria+, in elegiac verse in three Books. This is an ironical form of didactic poetry in which Ovid teaches the art of lying quite as much as the art of loving.

(4) +Remedia Amoris+, in elegiac verse, while professing to be a recantation of the _Ars Amatoria_, shows, if possible, a worse taste.

(5) +Metamorphoses+, in hexameter verse in fifteen Books, containing versions of legends on transformations (_mutatae formae_) from Chaos down to Caesar's transformation into a star. In some respects this is his greatest poem: Ovid himself makes for it as strong a claim to immortality as Horace does for his Odes:

_Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, Ore legar populi perque omnia saecula fama, Siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam._

_Met._ XV. 877-end.

'The attractiveness of this work lies in its descriptions; but the attempt to divest it of the character of a dictionary of mythology by interweaving stories, after the fashion of the _Arabian Nights_, is only partially successful.' --Tyrrell.

(6) +Fasti+, in elegiac verse in six Books, a poetical calendar of the Roman year. Each month has a Book allotted to it, and Ovid probably sketched out Books vii-xii, but his exile made it impossible for him to complete the work. It contains much valuable information on Roman customs and some exquisitely told stories (_e.g._ the Rape of Proserpine), but leaves the impression of being an effort to produce on the reader the effect of a patriotism which the writer did not feel.

(7) +Poems Written in Exile.+

(i) +Tristia+, in elegiac verse in five Books: letters to Augustus, to Ovid's wife (for whom he had a deep affection) and to friends, praying for pardon or for a place of exile nearer Rome.

(ii) +Epistulae ex Ponto+: similar to the _Tristia_.

'These poems are a melancholy record of flagging vitality and failing powers.' --Mackail.

3. Style.

The real importance of Ovid in literature and his gift to posterity lay in the new and vivid life which he imparted to the fables of Greek mythology. 'No other classical poet has furnished more ideas than Ovid to the Italian poets and painters of the Renaissance, and to our own poets--from Chaucer to Pope, who, like Ovid,

'"Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."'

AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS, 34-62 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PERSIUS.]

He was born at Volaterrae in Etruria, and was the son of a Roman knight of wealth and rank. At twelve years of age Persius was removed to Rome, where he placed himself under the guidance of the Stoic Cornutus, who remained his close friend to the end of his short life. Persius (_Sat._ v.) touchingly describes his residence with Cornutus, and the influence of this beloved teacher in moulding his character:

_Pars tua sit, Cornute, animae, tibi, dulcis amice, Ostendisse iuvat:_

'_My delight is to show you, Cornutus, how large a share of my inmost being is yours, my beloved friend._'--C.

He was nearly related to Arria, daughter of that 'true wife' who taught her husband Paetus how to die (Mart. I. xiii.; Pliny _Epist._ i. 16). In the consistent life of Thrasea (the husband of Arria), who was a Cato in justice and more than a Cato in goodness, Persius had a noble example to follow. So during the short span of his life the poet lived and worked, a man of maidenly modesty, an excellent son, brother, and nephew, of frugal and moderate habits.

2. Works.

+Saturae+, six Satires in hexameter verse. The first, devoted to an attack upon the literary style of the day, is the only real Satire: the other five are declamations or dogmas of the Stoic system (e.g. Sat. ii., on right and wrong prayers to the gods), interspersed with dramatic scenes. It was to Lucilius that Persius owed the impulse that made him a writer of Satire, but his obligations to Horace are paramount. 'He was what would be called a plagiarist, but probably no writer ever borrowed so much and yet left on the mind so decided an impression of originality. Where he draws from his own experience, his portraits have an imaginative truth, minutely accurate yet highly ideal, which would entitle them to a distinguished place in any portrait gallery.' --Nettleship.

3. Style.

'The involved and obscure style of much of his work is the style which his taste leads him to assume for satiric purposes. He feels that a clear, straightforward, everyday manner of speech would not suit a subject over which the gods themselves might hesitate whether to laugh or weep. As the poet of Stoicism, using the very words of Vergil, he calls upon a benighted race to acquaint itself with the _causes_ of things: to an inquiry into the purpose of man's being, the art of skilful driving in the chariot-race of life, and the ordained position of each individual in the social system.' --Nettleship.

'Persius is the sole instance among Roman writers of a philosopher whose life was in accordance with the doctrines he professed.' --Cruttwell.

_Multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro Persius meruit._ --Quint. _Inst. Orat._ X. i. 94.

PETRONIUS ARBITER, obiit 66 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PETRONIUS.]

He is probably the Petronius of whose life and character Tacitus has given us a brilliant sketch in the _Annals_, xvi. 18. 19. 'His days were passed,' says Tacitus, 'in sleep, his nights in the duties or pleasures of life: where others toiled for fame he had lounged into it. Yet, as governor of Bithynia, and afterwards as consul, he showed himself a vigorous and capable administrator; then relapsing into the habit or assuming the mask of vice, he was adopted as +Elegantiae Arbiter+ (_the authority on taste_) into the small circle of Nero's intimate companions. No luxury was charming or refined till Petronius had given it his approval, and the jealousy of Tigellinus was roused against a rival and master in the science of pleasure.' Petronius anticipated his inevitable fate by committing suicide.

2. Works.

+Satirae+ (or +Satiricon+), a character-novel, often called, from its central and most entertaining incident, _The Supper of Trimalchio_. 'This is the description of a Christmas dinner-party given by a sort of Golden Dustman and his wife, people of low birth and little education, who had come into an enormous fortune. The dinner itself, and the conversation on literature and art that goes on at the dinner-table, are conceived in a spirit of the wildest humour.' --Mackail.

The chief interest of the _Satiricon_ for us is the glimpse which it affords of everyday manners and conversation under the Empire among all orders of society, from the highest to the lowest.

PHAEDRUS (_temp._ Augustus to Nero).

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PHAEDRUS.]

The Latin Fabulist, of whom we know nothing except what may be gathered or inferred from his fables. He was originally a slave, and was born in Thrace, possibly in the district of Pieria. He was brought to Rome at an early age, and there became acquainted with Roman literature. His patron appears to have been Augustus, who gave him his freedom. After publishing two books of fables he incurred the resentment of Augustus and was imprisoned. This was due probably to the bold outspokenness of many of his fables. He survived the attacks made on him, and Book V was written in his old age.

2. Works.

+Fables+, in five Books, written in _iambic senarii_, like those of Terence and Publius Syrus. The full title of his work is _Phaedri Augusti liberti fabularum Aesopiarum libri_. 'Phaedrus constantly plumes himself on his superiority to his model Aesop, but his animals have not the lifelike reality of those of the latter. With Phaedrus the animals are mere lay-figures: the moral comes first, and then he attaches an animal to it.' --Tyrrell.

'The chief interest of the Fables lies in the fact that they form the last survival of the _urbanus sermo_ (the speech of Terence) in Latin poetry.' --Mackail.

'Phaedrus is the only important writer during the half-century of literary darkness between the Golden and the Silver Age.' --Tyrrell.

T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS, circ. 254-184 B.C.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PLAUTUS.]

Plautus was born in the little Umbrian town of Sarsina, of free but poor parents. He came to Rome and made a small fortune as a stage-carpenter, but lost it by rash investment. He was then reduced to working for some years in a corn-mill, during which time he wrote plays, and continued to do so until his death.

2. Works.

+Comedies.+ About 130 plays were current under the name of Plautus, but only 21 (_Fabulae Varronianae_) were, as Varro tells us, universally admitted to be genuine. Of these, all except one are extant.

Though his comedies are mainly free versions of Greek originals--of Philemon, Diphilus and Menander, the writers of the New Comedy 320-250 B.C.--the characters in them act, speak, and joke like genuine Romans, and he thereby secured the sympatliy of his audience more completely than Terence could ever have done.

'In point of language his plays form one of the most important documents for the history of the Latin language. In the freedom with which he uses, without vulgarising, popular modes of speech, he has no equal among Latin writers.' --Sellar.

For Horace's unfavourable judgment of Plautus see _Epist._ I. i. 170-176, and A. P. 270-272; Cicero's criticism is more just: _Duplex omnino est iocandi genus: unum illiberale petulans flagitiosum obscenum (vulgar, spiteful, shameful, coarse), alterum elegans urbanum ingeniosum facetum (in good taste, gracious, clever, witty). Quo genere non modo Plautus noster et Atticorum antiqua comoedia_ (i.e. of Aristophanes), _sed etiam philosophorum Socraticorum libri referti sunt_. --_De Off._ I. civ.

GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS, 23-79 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PLINY THE ELDER.]

Born at Comum (_Como_) in the middle of the reign of Tiberius, Pliny passed his life in high public employments, both military and civil, which took him successively over nearly all the provinces of the Empire. He had always felt a strong interest in science, and he used his military position to secure information that otherwise might have been hard to obtain. Vespasian (70-78 A.D.), with whom he was on terms of close intimacy, made him admiral of the fleet stationed at Misenum. It was while here that news was brought him of the memorable eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. 'In his zeal for scientific investigation he set sail for the spot in a man-of-war, and lingering too near the zone of the eruption was suffocated by the rain of hot ashes. The account of his death, given by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, in a letter to the historian Tacitus (_Ep._ vi. 16), is one of the best known passages in the classics.' --Mackail.

2. Works.

A +Natural History+, in thirty-seven Books, is Pliny's only extant work. (For his numerous other writings see Pliny the Younger, _Ep._ iii. 5.) 'It is a priceless storehouse of information on every branch of natural science as known to the ancient world.' --Mackail.

His work has been called the first popular encyclopedia of natural science.

_Plinius Aetatis Suae Doctissimus._ --Gellius.

C. PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS, 62-113 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PLINY THE YOUNGER.]

Pliny the Younger was the son of C. Caecilius and of Plinia, the sister of the elder Pliny. He was born at Comum (_Como_), also the birthplace of his celebrated uncle. His father died when he was eight years old, and he was placed under the care of a guardian, Verginius Rufus, one of the most distinguished Romans of the day, since he had held the crown within his grasp and had declined to wear it, 68 A.D. Verginius was not much of a student, but Pliny learned from him high ideals of duty and noble thoughts about the Rome of earlier days, and never lost his unbounded admiration and respect for his guardian (_Ep._ ii. 1). Under his uncle's watchful care he received the best education Rome could give, and studied rhetoric under the great Quintilian. His bachelor uncle on his death in 79 left him his heir, adopting him in his will. Gifted with wealth, enthusiasm, taste for publicity, and a wide circle of influential friends, Pliny could not be content with the career of a simple _eques_. Accordingly he began the course of office that led to the Senate and the Consulship, and finally in 111 A.D. was appointed by Trajan governor of Bithynia, where he discharged his duties with skill and ability. His service seems to have been terminated only with his death.

2. Works.

+Epistulae+, Letters in nine Books, to which is added Pliny's correspondence with Trajan during his governorship of Bithynia. These and his +Panegyricus+, in praise of Trajan, are his only extant works.

It is on his Letters that Pliny's fame now rests, and both in tone and style they are a monument that does him honour. In many cases they were written for publication, and thus can never have the unique and surpassing interest that belongs to those of Cicero, but they give a varied and interesting picture of the time. 'In the Letters the character of the writer, its virtues and its weakness, is throughout unmistakeable. Pliny, the patriotic citizen,--Pliny, the munificent patron,--Pliny, the eminent man of letters,--Pliny, the affectionate husband and humane master,--Pliny, the man of principle, is in his various phases the real subject of the whole collection.' --Mackail.

'Pliny is an almost perfect type of a refined pagan gentleman.' --Cruttwell.

SEXTUS PROPERTIUS, circ. 50-15 B.C.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: PROPERTIUS.]

Of his life little or nothing is known, except what is recorded by himself. He was an Umbrian by birth, and probably a native of Asisium (_Assisi_), a town on the W. slope of the Apennines, not far from Perusia. Like Vergil and Tibullus, he lost his family property in the confiscation of lands by the Triumvirs in 42 B.C.; but his mother's efforts secured for him a good education, to complete which she brought him to Rome. He entered on a course of training for the Bar, but abandoned it in favour of poetry (IV. i. 131-4).

_Mox ubi bulla rudi dimissa est aurea collo, Matris et ante deos libera sumpta toga, Tum tibi pauca suo de carmine dictat Apollo Et vetat insano verba tonare foro._

His earliest poems (Book I, _Cynthia_), published at the age of about twenty, brought him into notice and gained him admission to the literary circle of Maecenas. He lived in close intimacy with Vergil, Ovid, and most of his other literary contemporaries, with the remarkable exception of Horace, to whom the sensitive vanity and passionate manner of the young elegiac poet were alike distasteful. He died young, before he was thirty-five, about 15 B.C.

2. Works.

+Elegies+, in four Books. (Some editors divide Book II into two Books, El. 1-9 Book II, and El. 10-34 Book III, so that III and IV of the MSS. and of Postgate become IV and V.)

Books I and II are nearly all poems on Cynthia.