Chapter 19

orator must be a good man.

'Quintilian with admirable clearness insists on the great truth that bad education is responsible for bad life, and expresses with equal plainness the complementary truth that education, from the cradle upwards, is something which acts on the whole intellectual and moral nature, and that its object is the production of the _good man_.' --Mackail.

3. Style.

The style of Quintilian is modelled on that of Cicero, whom he is never tired of praising, and is intended to be a return to the usages of the best period. In spite of some faults characteristic of the Silver Age (e.g. his excessive use of antithesis) 'for ordinary use it would be difficult to name a manner that combines so well the Ciceronian dignity with the rich colour and high finish added to Latin prose by the writers of the earlier empire.' --Mackail.

For the death of his son, aged ten, a boy of great promise, for whose instruction he wrote the work, see Preface to Book VI.

_Quintiliane, vagae moderator summe iuventae, Gloria Romanae, Quintiliane, togae._

Mart. II. xc. 1-2.

_Nihil in studiis parvum est._ _Cito scribendo non fit ut bene scribatur, bene scribendo fit ut cito._

--Quintilian.

GAIUS SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, 86-35 B.C.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: SALLUST.]

A member of a plebeian family, Sallust was born 86 B.C. at Amiternum, in the country of the Sabines. As tribune of the people in 52 B.C. he took an active part in opposing Milo (Cicero's client) and the Pompeian party in general. In 48 B.C. he commanded a legion in Illyria without distinction, and next year Caesar sent him to treat with the mutinous legions in Campania, where he narrowly escaped assassination. He afterwards followed Caesar to Africa, and apparently did good service there, for he was appointed in 46 the first governor of the newly formed province of Numidia. In 45 he returned to Rome a very rich man, and built himself a magnificent palace, surrounded by pleasure grounds (the famous Gardens of Sallust, in the valley between the Quirinal and the Pincius), which in after years emperors preferred to the palace of the Caesars. After Caesar's death Sallust retired from public life, and it is to the leisure and study of these ten years that we owe the works that have made him famous.

2. Works.

(1) +De Catilinae Coniuratione+ (or _Bellum Catilinae_), a monograph on the famous conspiracy, in which Sallust writes very largely from direct personal knowledge of men and events.

(2) +Bellum Iugurthinum+ (111-106 B.C.) The writing of this monograph involved wide inquiry and much preparation.

(3) +Historiae+, in five books, dealing with the events from 78 B.C. (death of Sulla) to 67 B.C., of which only a few fragments are extant.

3. Style.

'Sallust aimed at making historical writing a branch of literature. He felt that nothing had yet been done by any Roman writer which would stand beside Thucydides. It was his ambition to supply the want. That could only be done by offering as complete a contrast to the tedious annalist as possible, and Sallust neglected no means of giving variety to his work. From Thucydides he probably borrowed the idea of his introductions, the imaginary speeches and the character portraits; from Cato the picturesque descriptions of the scenes of historical events and the ethnographical digressions.' --Cook.

'The style of Sallust is characterised by the use of old words and forms (especially in the speeches). He makes use of alliteration, extensively employs the Historic Infinitive, and shows a partiality for conversational expressions which from a literary point of view are archaic. His abrupt unperiodic style of writing (rough periods without particles of connexion) has won for Sallust his reputation for brevity. His style is, however, the expression of the writer's character, direct, incisive, emphatic, and outspoken; to have been a model for Tacitus is no slight merit.' --Cook.

_Nec minus noto Sallustius epigrammate incessitur:_ 'Et verba antiqui multum furate Catonis, Crispe, Iugurthinae conditor historiae.'

Quint. VIII. iii. 29.

'The last of the Ciceronians, Sallust is also in a sense the first of the imperial prose-writers.' --Mackail.

_Primus Romana Crispus in Historia_ (Mart. XIV. cxci.)

L. ANNAEUS SENECA THE YOUNGER, circ. 4 B.C.-65 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: SENECA.]

The son of Seneca the Elder, the famous rhetorician, was born at Corduba (_Cordova_), in Spain, and brought to Rome by his parents at an early age. His life was one of singularly dramatic contrasts and vicissitudes. Under his mother Helvia's watchful care he received the best education Rome could give. Through the influence of his mother's family he passed into the Senate through the quaestorship, and his successes at the bar awakened the jealousy of Caligula (37-41 A.D.) By his father's advice he retired for a time and spent his days in philosophy. On the accession of Claudius (41-54 A.D.) he was banished to Corsica at the instance of the Empress Messalina, probably because he was suspected of belonging to the faction of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. After eight years he was recalled (49 A.D.) by the influence of Agrippina (now the wife of Claudius), and appointed tutor to her son Nero, then a boy of ten. When Nero became emperor, at the age of seventeen (54 A.D.), Seneca, in conjunction with his friend Burrus, the prefect of the praetorian guards, became practically the administrator of the Empire. 'The mild and enlightened administration of the earlier years of the new reign, the famous _quinquennium Neronis_, may indeed be largely ascribed to Seneca's influence; but this influence was based on an excessive indulgence of Nero's caprices, which soon worked out its own punishment.' --Mackail. His connivance at the murder of Agrippina (59 A.D.) was the death-blow to his influence for good, and the death of Burrus (63 A.D.) was, as Tacitus says (_Ann._ xiv. 52), 'a blow to Seneca's power, for virtue had not the same strength when one of its champions, so to speak, was removed, and Nero began to lean on worse advisers.' Seneca resolved to retire, and entreated Nero to receive back the wealth he had so lavishly bestowed. The Emperor, bent on vengeance, refused the proffered gift, and Seneca knew that his doom was sealed. In the year 65, on the pretext of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso, he was commanded to commit suicide, and Tacitus (_Ann._ xv. 61-63) has shown his love for Seneca, in spite of all his faults, by the tribute he pays to the constancy of his death.

2. Works.

His chief works are:--

(1) +Dialogorum Libri XII+, of which the most important are the +De Ira+ and the +Consolatio+ to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved.

(2) +De Clementia+, in three Books, addressed to Nero, written in 55-6 A.D., to show the public what sort of instruction Seneca had given his pupil, and what sort of Emperor they had to expect.

(3) +De Beneficiis+, in seven Books. Seneca proves that a tyrant's benefits are not kindnesses, and sets forth his views on the giving and receiving of benefits.

(4) +Epistulae morales ad Lucilium.+ 124 letters are extant, and form the most important and most pleasing of his works.

(5) +Tragedies.+ Nine are extant, derived from plays by Sophocles and Euripides. The only extant Latin tragedies.

'As a moral writer Seneca stands deservedly high. Though infected with the rhetorical vices of the age his treatises are full of striking and often gorgeous eloquence, and in their combination of high thought with deep feeling have rarely, if at all, been surpassed.' --Mackail.

'Seneca is a lamentable instance of variance between precept and example.' --Cruttwell.

SILIUS ITALICUS, circ. 25-100 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: SILIUS.]

A letter of Pliny (iii. 7) is the chief source of our knowledge of the life of Silius. Pliny tells us that Silius had risen by acting as a _delator_ (informer) under Nero, who made him consul 68 A.D. He goes on to say 'He had gained much credit by his proconsulship in Asia (under Vespasian, _circ._ 77 A.D.), and had since by an honourable leisure wiped out the blot which stained the activity of his former years.' Martial also, who has the effrontery to speak of him as a combined Vergil and Cicero, tells us of his luxurious and learned retirement in Campania, and of his reverence for his master Vergil, 'whose birthday he kept more religiously than his own.' According to Martial (xi. 49) the tomb of Vergil had been practically forgotten, and was in the possession of some poor man when Silius bought the plot of ground on which it stood:

_Iam prope desertos cineres et sancta Maronis Nomina qui coleret, pauper et unus erat. Silius optatae succurrere censuit umbrae, Silius et vatem, non minor ipse, colit._

2. Works.

The +Punica+, an Epic poem in seventeen Books, on the Second Punic War, closes with Scipio's triumph, after the Battle of Zama, 202 B.C.

Silius closely followed the history as told by Livy, and without any inventive or constructive power of his own copies, with tasteless pedantry, Homer and Vergil. 'He cannot perceive that the divine interventions which are admissible in the quarrel of Aeneas and Turnus are ludicrous when imported into the struggle between Scipio and Hannibal. Who can help resenting the unreality when at Saguntum Jupiter guides an arrow into Hannibal's body, which Juno immediately withdraws, or when, at Cannae, Aeolus yields to the prayer of Juno and blinds the Romans by a whirlwind of dust?'--Cruttwell.

The _Punica_ is valuable for its historical accuracy, but it is one of the longest and one of the worst Epic poems ever written.

_Scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio._

Pliny, _Epist._ iii. 7.

P. PAPINIUS STATIUS, circ. 60-100 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: STATIUS.]

Statius was born at Naples, but early removed to Rome, where he was carefully educated and spent the greater part of his life. His father was a scholar, rhetorician, and poet of some distinction, and acted for a time as tutor to Domitian. Statius had thus access to the Court, and repaid the patronage of Domitian by incessant and shameless flattery. After the completion of his +Thebais+ he retired to Naples, which was endeared to him by its associations with Vergil, and there satisfied his real love of nature.

2. Works.

(1) The +Thebais+, an Epic poem in twelve Books, on the strife between the brothers Eteocles and Polynices, and the subsequent history of Thebes to the death of Creon.

The Thebaid became very famous: Juvenal (_Sat._ vii. 82-4) tells us

_Curritur ad vocem iucundam et carmen amicae Thebaidos, laetam cum fecit Statius urbem promisitque diem_ (i.e. for a public recitation of his poem).

'Its smooth versification, copious diction, and sustained elegance made it a sort of canon of poetical technique. Among much tedious rhetoric and cumbrous mythology there is enough imagination and pathos to make the poem interesting and even charming.' --Mackail.

(2) The +Silvae+, in five Books, are occasional poems, descriptive and lyrical, on miscellaneous subjects. These may well be considered his masterpiece. 'Genuine poetry,' says Niebuhr, 'imprinted with the character of the true poet, and constituting some of the most graceful productions of Roman literature.'

Among the best known are the touching poem to his wife Claudia (iii. 5), the marriage song to his brother-poet Arruntius Stella (i. 2), the _Propempticon Maecio Celeri_ (iii. 2), the _Epicedion_ (funeral song) on the death of his adopted son (v. 5), and the short poem (v. 4) on Sleep.

The greatest poet of the Decline.

GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, circ. 75-160 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: SUETONIUS.]

The little we know of his life is chiefly gathered from the Letters of Pliny the Younger, and from scattered allusions in his own works. The son of an officer of the Thirteenth Legion, Suetonius in early life practised as an advocate, and subsequently became one of Hadrian's private secretaries (_magister epistularum_), but was dismissed from office in 121 A.D. After his retirement from the service of the Court he devoted the rest of his long life to literary research and compilation, and published a number of works on a great variety of subjects, so that he became famous as the Varro of the imperial period.

2. Works.

His extant works are:

(1) +De Vita Caesarum+, the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, in eight Books (I-VI Julius-Nero; VII Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; VIII Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian). This is his most interesting and most valuable work. His Lives are not works of art: he is simply a gatherer of facts, collected from good sources with considerable care and judgment. 'He follows out with absolute faithfulness his own theory, which makes it necessary to omit no possible detail that can throw light upon the personality of his subject.' --Peck.

(2) +De Viris Illustribus+, a history of Latin literature up to his day. The greater part of the section +De grammaticis et rhetoribus+ is extant, as well as the Lives of Terence, Horace, and Lucan (partly), from the section +De poetis+, and fragments of the Life of Pliny the Elder from the section +De historicis+.

Extracts made from this work by Jerome (_circ._ 400 A.D.) in his Latin version of Eusebius' Chronicles are the source from which much of our information as to Latin authors is derived.

'Suetonius is terse, and in that respect he resembles Tacitus; he is deeply interesting, and there he shows some likeness to Livy; but his style is one of his own creation. His chief desire is to present the facts stripped of any comment whatever, grouped in such a way as to produce their own effect without the adventitious aid of rhetoric; and then to leave the reader to his own conclusions.' --Peck.

_Probissimus, honestissimus, eruditissimus vir._

Pliny, _Epist. ad Trai._ 94.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS, circ. 45 B.C.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: SYRUS.]

All we know of him is that he was an enfranchised Syrian slave, a native of Antioch, and wrote for the stage _mimes_ (farces) which were performed with great applause. Mime-writing was also practised at this time by the Knight Laberius, and Caesar is said to have patronised these writers in the hope of elevating their art.

2. Works.

+Sententiae+ (_Maxims_). We possess 697 lines from his mimes (unconnected and alphabetically arranged), a collection made in the early Middle Ages, and much used in schools. As proverbs of worldly wisdom, and admirable examples of the terse vigour of Roman philosophy, they are widely known, e.g.

_Cuivis potest accidere quod cuiquam potest._

CORNELIUS TACITUS, circ. 54-120 A.D.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: TACITUS.]

The personal history of Tacitus is known to us only from allusions in his own works, and from the letters of his friend the younger Pliny. He was born early in the reign of Nero, probably in Rome; his education, political career, and marriage into the distinguished family of Agricola prove that he was a man of wealth and position. He studied rhetoric under the best masters (possibly under Quintilian), and had, as Pliny tells us (_Epist._ II. i. 6), a great reputation as a speaker. He passed through the usual stages of an official career and was appointed _consul suffectus_ under Trajan, 98 A.D., when he was a little over forty. From 89 to 93 A.D. he was absent from Rome, probably in some provincial command, and during these years he may have acquired some personal knowledge of the German peoples. In 100 A.D. he was associated with Pliny in the prosecution for extortion of Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa, of whom Juvenal says (_Sat._ viii. 120):

_Cum tenues nuper Marius discinxerit Afros._

_Since Marius has so lately stripped to their girdles_ (i.e. thoroughly plundered) _the needy Africans_.

From this date Tacitus seems to have devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits and to have lived to or beyond the end of Trajan's reign, 116 A.D.

2. Works.

(1) +Dialogus de Oratoribus+, an inquiry into the causes of the decay of oratory, his earliest extant work. In the style of this work the influence of Quintilian and Cicero is strongly seen.

(2) +De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolae liber+, an account of the life of his father-in-law, particularly of his career in Britain, published shortly after the accession of Trajan, 98 A.D. 'The Sallustian epoch of Tacitus finds its expression in the _Agricola_ and _Germania_.' --Teuffel.

The _Agricola_ is perhaps the most beautiful biography in ancient literature.

(3) The +Germania+, or _Concerning the Geography, the Manners and Customs, and the Tribes of Germany_, published in 98 or 99. 'The motive for its publication was apparently the pressing importance, in Tacitus' opinion, of the "German question," and the necessity for vigorous action to secure the safety of the Roman Empire against the dangers with which. it was threatened from German strength.' --Stephenson.

'The +Germania+ is an inestimable treasury of facts and generalisations, and of the general faithfulness of the outline we have no doubt.' --Stubbs.

(4) +Historiae+, consisting originally of fourteen Books, is a narrative of the events of the reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, 69-96 A.D. Only Books I-IV and the first half of Book V are extant, and give the history of 69 and most of 70 A.D.

'The style of the _Historiae_ still retains some traces of the influence of Cicero: it has not yet been pressed tight into the short _sententiae_ which were its final and most characteristic development, but shows in a marked degree the influence of Vergil.' --Cruttwell.

In the _Historiae_, as Tacitus himself says, 'the secret of the imperial system was divulged--that an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome'; or, in other words, that the imperial system was a military and not a civil institution.

(5) The +Annales, ab excessu divi Augusti+, in sixteen Books, containing the history of the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, 14-68 A.D. There are extant only Books I-IV, parts of V and VI, and XI-XVI.

'The old criticism, tracing the characteristics of the style of Tacitus to poetic colouring (almost wholly Vergilian) and to the study of brevity and of variety, is well founded. They may be explained by the fact that he was the most finished pleader of an age which required above all that its orators should be terse, brilliant, and striking, and by his own painful consciousness of the dull monotony and repulsive sadness of great part of his subject, which needed the help of every sort of variety to stimulate the flagging interest of the reader.' --Furneaux.

His aim as an historian is best given in his own words: 'I hold it the chief office of history to rescue virtue from oblivion, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds' (_Ann._ iii. 65).

The greatest of Roman historians.

PUBLIUS TERENTIUS AFER, circ. 185-159 B.C.

1. Life

[Sidenote: TERENCE.]

Terence was born probably at Carthage, reached Rome as a slave-boy, and passed there into the possession of a rich and educated Senator, P. Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was educated and manumitted, taking from him the name of Publius Terentius the African. 'A small literary circle of the Roman aristocracy admitted young Terence to their intimate companionship; and soon he was widely known as making a third in the friendship of Gaius Laelius with the first citizen of the Republic, the younger Scipio Africanus. Six plays had been subjected to the criticism of this informal academy of letters and produced on the stage, when Terence undertook a prolonged visit to Greece for the purpose of further study. He died of fever in the next year, 159 B.C., at the early age of twenty-six.' --Mackail.

2. Works.

+Comedies.+--All the six plays written and exhibited at Rome by Terence are extant. They are the _Andria_ (exhibited 166 B.C., when the poet was only eighteen years of age), the _Heauton Timoroumenos_, _Eunuchus_, _Phormio_, _Hecyra_, _Adelphoe_.

'With Terence Roman literature takes a new departure. The Scipionic circle believed that the best way to create a national Latin literature was to deviate as little as possible, in spirit, form, and substance, from the works of Greek genius. The task which awaited Terence was the complete Hellenising of Roman comedy: accordingly his aim was to give a true picture of Greek life and manners in the purest Latin style. He was not a popular poet, in the sense in which Plautus was popular: he has none of the purely Roman characteristics of Plautus in sentiment, allusion, or style; none of his extravagance, and none of his vigour and originality.' --Sellar. Terence is, accordingly, in substance and form, as Caesar styles him, a _dimidiatus Menander (halved Menander)_:

_Tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander, Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator._

A Roman only in language, but as _puri sermonis amator_ worthy to be ranked by the side of Caesar himself and the purest Latin authors.

ALBIUS TIBULLUS, circ. 54-19 B.C.

1. Life.

[Sidenote: TIBULLUS.]

Tibullus was a Roman _eques_, and was probably born at Pedum, a Latin town just at the foot of the Apennines, and a few miles north of Praeneste, where his father possessed an ample estate. Much of his inherited property was lost; and it is possible that, like Vergil, Horace, and Propertius, he was a victim to the confiscations of the Triumvirs in 42 B.C. He, however, retained or recovered enough to afford him a modest competence. In 31-30 B.C. he served on the staff of his life-long friend and patron M. Valerius Messalla, the eminent general and statesman, not less distinguished in literature than in politics. The rest of his short life the poet spent on his ancestral farm at Pedum, amid the country scenes and employments congenial to his nature and habits.

2. Works.

+Elegies+, in four Books (or three, Postgate). Tibullus published in his lifetime two Books of elegiac poems: after his death a third volume was published, containing a few of his own poems, together with poems by other members of the literary circle of Messalla. Books I and II consist mainly of poems addressed to Delia and to Nemesis (cf. Ov. _Am._ III.