Part 6

Another story of divine interposition on the part of Castor and Pollux is vividly told by Macaulay in _The Battle of Lake Regillus_.

_6._ Compare with Vergil's account of the oracle given by the Sibyl to Aeneas, _Aeneid_, 6. 9 ff. Some of the more obvious resemblances in diction and thought are _Aeneid_, 6. 12, 29, 35, 44, 45, 46 ff., 50, 95, 98, 99, 100.

1. Utilius: equalling a superlative, of highest value. 2. qui ff.: Delphi was a city in north central Greece and Parnassus a mountain near it. 4. tripodes: this probably means the golden seat above the cleft in the ground in the adytum of Apollo's temple at Delphi. On this the priestess (vates, 1. 3; virgo, 1. 16) sat to breathe the rising vapors which induced the prophetic ecstasy. The tripus is named from being supported on three legs. adytis: from [Greek: aduton], 'not to be entered.' The adyta, or innermost parts of temples, were accessible only to priests. 5. lauri: the laurel was sacred to Apollo. 6. Pytho: the former name for Delphi. Pytho is poetically said to speak when the Pythian priestess speaks. 7. Delii: Delos, an island of the Aegean, nearly at the centre of the Cyclades, was sacred to Apollo, and was his birthplace. 12. ite obviam: oppose.

_7._ Plutarch, _Symposiacon Problematon_, V. 1 (Moralia, 674 B, C), tells essentially this same story. Parmeno, he says, was famous for his imitation of the grunting of a pig. Even when one came upon the stage having a real pig concealed under his cloak, the audience cried, 'This is nothing to compare with the sow of Parmeno.' Then he who had the pig threw it in the midst of them, 'to show that they judged according to opinion and not truth.'

1. Pravo favore: prejudice. labi: the metaphor is in evident contrast to that in stant of 1. 2. 2. pro iudicio...erroris: in defence of their mistaken judgment. 3. rebus manifestis: the disclosure of the truth. 4. Facturus ludos: who was about to give an entertainment. 8. scurra: a city wit. urbano sale: clever jesting, merry cleverness. The Romans sharply contrasted city manners with those of the country to the disadvantage of the latter. 12. loca: seats. 18. verum: sc. porcellum. pallio: mantle or toga. 19. simul: equals simul ac. 21. prosequuntur: honor. 27. degrunnit: grunts his best. 30. scilicet: to be sure. 32. vero: sc. porcello. 35. imitatum: sc. esse.

VI. SENECA.

3 B.C.-65 A.D.

Seneca the Younger, or 'the Philosopher,' was born in Spain at Corduba; was educated at Rome; was banished in 41 A.D. to Corsica by Claudius; was recalled in 49; became Nero's tutor; largely deserves the credit for the good government of the early part of that emperor's reign; was consul in 57, but lost influence with Nero, and was compelled by him to commit suicide on a charge of participation in the conspiracy of Piso.

His writings are chiefly philosophical and ethical. The frequent close resemblance of his views to those of Christianity occasioned the fabrication of a correspondence between himself and St. Paul. St. Jerome considered this genuine and therefore included him among the Christian saints.

Nine tragedies of Seneca's composition are extant. These have powerfully influenced the development of the English and French drama.

His style is forced and ornamental, moving, for the most part, in brief, disconnected, and often paradoxical sentences.

For Reference: Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman Literature_, vol. 2, p. 38 ff.; Leo, _L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae_ (Berlin, 1878-1879); Sherburne's _Tragedies of Seneca Translated_ (London, 1702); Kingery, _Three Tragedies of Seneca_ (New York, 1908); Harris, _The Tragedies of Seneca Translated_ (The Clarendon Press, 1904).

Metres: Anapaestic Dimeter Acatalectic with Anapaestic Dipody, G. & L. 777, 780, 782: _Selection_ 1. Dactylic Hexameter, B. 368; A. & G. 615: _Selection_ 2.

_1._ Cf. Horace, _Carmen_, 1. 3. 9-40. 1. Audax: cf. ll. 24, 39. nimium: cf. l. 8. 7, 8. With too slight a partition dividing the ways of life and death, i.e. separating from himself by merely a thin plank the sea in which he would perish. Cf. Juvenal, 12. 57-59. Line 7 nearly equals inter vitam et mortem. 18. Hyadas: a group of seven stars in the head of Taurus, whose setting at both the morning and the evening twilight was attended with storms. 19. Oleniae...caprae: one of the horns of the goat Amalthea, which fed Jupiter with its milk, was placed among the stars. The goat was Olenian, i.e. Aetolian. 21. Attica plaustra: Charles' Wain (the Great Dipper), which Bootes was imagined to drive. The latter constellation is called tardus as being so placed in the sky that it requires a long time for its setting. 24. Tiphys: the pilot of the Argo. 28. Thessala pinus: the Argo, the first ship, which, built under the direction of Pallas, with Jason as leader and heroes like Hercules, Castor, and Pollux as crew, sailed to Colchis in the Far East in quest of the Golden Fleece (which perhaps originally meant the fleecy, golden clouds of sunrise). The Sirens, Scylla, and the Symplegades were some of the dangers of the journey. Medea, daughter of the king of Colchis, aided Jason to secure the fleece and fled with him. See Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology_, 'Argonautae.' 32. illa: the Argo. 34. montes: the Symplegades, floating rocks at the entrance of the Euxine, which clashed together to crush whatever might come between them. 36. velut...sonitu: groaned as with ethereal sound, i.e. dashed together with a sound like thunder. 38. mare deprensum: the sea caught between and forced up by the closing rocks. 42. In the prow of the Argo was a piece of the speaking oak of Dodona. 43. virgo Pelori: Scylla. 45. omnes...hiatus: opened all her mouths together. 48. dirae pestes: the Sirens, maidens who by sweet songs lured sailors to their shore and devoured them. Orpheus saved his companions by drowning the Sirens' song with the music of his lyre.

These stories are told in _Odyssey_, 12, in Apollonius Rhodius, 4. 889 ff., and (in English) in Charles Kingsley's _Greek Heroes_.

55. Medea, abandoned by Jason for Creusa, in the later action of this play slays her rival and her own children. 68-72. Thule: a distant island not identified,--possibly Iceland, more probably the largest of the Shetland Islands,--regarded by the ancients as the northern limit of the known world.

Seneca, considering the progress of maritime discovery in the past, was led naturally to the thought that new lands would some day be discovered beyond the ocean. The conception was not new. Cicero, _Tusculanae Disputationes_, 1. 28, speaks of a south temperate zone, cultivated and inhabited, unknown to us. This, of course, is not necessarily beyond the sea, though Mela places it there. Cicero again in _De Republica_, 6. 20 implies that there are other islands than the Roman world surrounded by other seas than the Atlantic. Plato, _Timaeus_, 24-25, says that beyond and surrounding the Atlantic there is a vast continent, between which and the western coast of Europe and of Libya are a number of islands, of which Atlantis before its submergence was the largest. Strabo, 1. 4. 6, says it is quite possible that in the temperate zone there may be not only the island that forms the world as known to his contemporaries, but two such or even more, especially near the circle of latitude which is drawn through Athens and the Atlantic Ocean. See Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography_, 'Atlanticum mare' and 'Atlantis.'

Lowell, in his _Columbus_, represents the discoverer as naming this passage,--said also by tradition to have made a deep impression on his mind,--along with Canto XXVI of Dante's _Inferno_ and Plato's _Timaeus_ and _Critias_, as inspiring him to his attempt:

Then did I entertain the poets' song, My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell, I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains Whose adamantine links, his manacles, The western main shook growling and still gnawed. I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjorne's keel Crush the gray pebbles of the Vinland shore: _I listened musing to the prophecy Of Nero's tutor-victim_... And I believed the poets.

The son of the discoverer wrote in his copy of the tragedies opposite these lines,--'This prophecy was fulfilled by my father, the Admiral Christopher Columbus, in the year 1492.'

_2._ Agamemnon returns to Argos after the capture of Troy, his wife Clytemnestra expressing deep joy at his return. He has brought with him as a captive Cassandra the seer who, suddenly swooning, sees in prophetic frenzy Agamemnon's death and her own at the hand of Clytemnestra and her paramour, Aegistheus. Agamemnon worships Jupiter and Juno at the altar and then enters the palace to his death.

1, 2. Tandem...terra. Cf. Aeschylus, _Agamemnon_, 503 ff., 810 ff. laris: Roman coloring. 3. diu: taken with felix. 4. Asiae: objective genitive, after potentes, B. 204, 1; A. & G. 349, a. 5. vates: Cassandra. corpus: accusative of specification. 7. recipit diem: i.e. revives. 9. optatus ff.: with a double meaning to the audience. 10. Festus ff.: Troy fell immediately after the festivities that celebrated the withdrawal of the Greek fleet. Cf. _Aeneid_, 2. 246 ff. 11. Cecidit ff.: for the death of Priam cf. _Aeneid_, 2. 506 ff. 13. Priamum: King Agamemnon's fate is to be such as King Priam's. Priam was slain at the altar, and these altars (aras, 1. 11) awaken forebodings. 14. Ubi ff.: where faithless wives are, is calamity. 15. Libertas: the freedom of death. 19. dum excutiat deum: until she casts off the influence of Apollo who has thrown her into the prophetic frenzy. 21. pater: Jupiter. 24. cuncta: accusative of specification. 25. Argolica Iuno: Hera had a famous shrine at Argos. For an account of excavations there see Waldstein, _The Argive Heraeum_. 26. Arabumque donis: incense. supplice fibra: the entrails of the sacrificed animals (pecore votivo), whose condition was supposed to indicate the will of the gods.

VII. LUCAN.

39-65 A.D.

Lucan, full of warmth and vehemence, eminently quotable, but, to speak frankly, one whom, orators rather than poets should imitate.-- Quintilian, 10. 1. 90.

When I consider that Lucan died at twenty-six, I cannot help ranking him among the most extraordinary men that ever lived.-- Macaulay.

The whole production (the _Pharsalia_) is youthful and unripe, but indicative of genuine power.--Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman Literature_, vol. 2, p. 78.

Lucan was born in Spain; was taken early to Rome; was carefully educated; wrote much; and was much admired; but was disliked by Nero, who forbade him to publish poems or recite them, and finally put him to death on the charge of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso.

In philosophy Lucan was a Stoic, in style a rhetorician. The _Pharsalia_, his only extant work, is an epic poem of about eight thousand lines in ten books on the civil war between Pompey and Caesar.

The Cato of _Selections_ 2-5 is Cato the Younger, or 'the Stoic,' who in 46 B.C. was in Africa in command of a part of the Republican forces opposed to Julius Caesar. After the decisive defeat at Thapsus he refused to survive the Republic, taking his own life at Utica. His memory was revered throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages. Vergil makes him the lawgiver of Elysium (_Aeneid_, 8. 670), and Dante represents him as the warden of Purgatory, 'venerable,' his countenance adorned with the 'rays of the four consecrated stars,' his form destined to shine brightly on the last day.

For her [i.e. Liberty] to thee not bitter Was death in Utica, where thou didst leave The vesture, that will shine so, the great day.

See Longfellow's translation of the _Purgatorio_, with notes, Canto I.

Haskins, _Lucani Pharsalia_, Introduction, pp. 59-60, examines all allusions to Cato in the _Pharsalia_, and concludes that the picture is in its main outlines truthful, though the failure to depict 'the cross-grained perversity that moved the complaints of Cicero' makes it somewhat one-sided. 'Of course the portrait is colored by a loving hand: but it is none the worse for that.'

For Reference: Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman Literature_, vol. 2, p. 78 ff. Haskins, _Lucani Pharsalia_ (London, 1889).

Metre: Dactylic Hexameter, B. 368; A. & G. 616.

_2._ 4. deis placuit: that Caesar 'had the strongest battalions' proves that 'Heaven' was 'on his side.'

_3._ Cato, proceeding by land from the neighborhood of Cyrene toward Numidia, and coming to the temple of Jupiter Ammon,--geographically misplaced by Lucan,--is advised by Labienus to consult the god concerning the outcome of the war and the nature of virtue. The selection gives his reply. 1. mente gerebat: of. Seneca, _Epistula_ 4. 12 (41). 1, 2. 'God is near you, is with you, is within you. I have this to say, Lucilius: a sacred spirit has his abode within us.' 3. Labiene: Caesar's former second-in-command, who went over to Pompey's side at the beginning of the Civil War and was finally slain at Munda. 5. et: even. 6, 7. Fortuna perdat minas: whether Fortune threatens vainly. 8. et...honestum: and whether the right never grows more, right by success. 10. Haeremus ff.: We are in constant intercourse with heaven.--Haskins. 11. Sponte dei: by the inspiration of God.--Haskins. 12, 13. dixit...licet: the inner light of conscience. auctor: the Creator. 15-17. These lines suggested the passage in Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey:

I have felt...a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.

virtus: Grotius quotes Hierocles: 'God hath not upon earth a place more truly his than the pure heart,' and the Pythian oracle: 'I joy in reverent mortals even as in Olympus.' Superos...ultra: Why further do we seek the gods? Iuppiter...moveris: All that you see, and all your feelings, that is Jupiter.--Haskins. Cf. Seneca, _De Beneftciis_, 4. 8: Quocumque te flexeris, ibi ilium videbis occurrentem tibi: nihil ab illo vacat, opus suum ipse implet. 22. Servata fide: true to his word. 23. populis: dative, to the multitude, i.e. of Orientals waiting to consult the oracle.

_4._ 10. Fortuna fuit: i.e. was due to fortune rather than to virtue. Fortuna is predicate nominative. 14. quam...Iugurthae: i.e. than to win the victories of Marius.

_5._ This noble portrait is that of an ideal Stoic. Roman life had been deeply imbued with this philosophy, which had passed beyond the limits of the schools to become at once a religious creed and a practical code of morals for everyday use. See Mackail, _Latin Literature_, p. 171. 2. servare...tenere: to hold fast the mean, to observe the due limit. These and the following phrases are Stoic formulae. 4. Cf. Seneca, _Epistula_ 95 (15.3). 52-53, where he says 'we are members of a great body.' 'Let this line be both in our hearts and on our lips:

"Human I am, And every human interest is mine."'

See the entire passage. 12. sibi nata: selfish.

VIII. STATIUS.

40-95 A.D.

Statius, whose father before him was a poet, was born at Naples. His works consist of the _Thebais_, an epic in imitation of the _Aeneid_ and having for its subject the story of the Seven against Thebes; the _Achilleis_, intended to celebrate the deeds of Achilles, but never completed; and the _Silvae_, a collection of thirty-one miscellaneous poems, of which our selection is one.

For Reference: Fr. Vollmer, _Silvae_, Leipzig, 1898.

Metre: Dactylic Hexameter, B. 368; A. & G. 615.

_1._ 1. placidissime divum: cf. Statius, _Thebais_, 10. 126, 127: mitissime divum, Somne; Ovid, 11. 623-625-.

Somne, quies rerum, placidissime Somne deorum, pax animi, quem cura fugit, qui corda diurnis fessa ministeriis mulces reparasque labori;

and Shakspere, _Macbeth_, II. 2. 37 ff.:

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,... Chief nourisher in life's feast.

4. simulant...somnos: rounded tree-tops take the semblance of tired sleep. cacumina might mean mountain tops, but the parallelism of the passage with _Aeneid_, 4. 522-528 favors the interpretation as tree-tops. The trees, their rounded outline no longer broken by the winds, seem to sleep as if exhausted by their tossing. 6. terris...adclinata: we are reminded of those Elgin marbles which represent Thalassa, the personified sea, as resting in the lap of Gaea, the personified land. Cf. with lines 3-7 Goethe, _Wanderer's Nachtlied_, 1-6: 'Uber allen Gipfeln Ist Ruh, In allen Wipfeln Spurest du Kaum einen Hauch; Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde.' 7. Septima...Phoebe: the seventh moon-lit night. 8, 9. totidem...lampades: a second expression of the thought that it is the seventh night since he has slept. Oetaeae Paphiaeque: the planet Venus is called Oetaean since poetical tradition pictures it as shining from above Oeta, a mountain of Thessaly; and Paphian because the goddess Venus, whose star it is, was worshipped with especial devotion at Paphos in Cyprus. lampades: each nightly appearance of the star is poetically thought of as the kindling of a new torch. Tithonia: Aurora, the dawn, wife of Tithonus, to whom she had been able to give immortality, but not eternal youth. She is thought of as sprinkling the dew from the lash with which she drives her chariot team. 13. Argus: Io's thousand-eyed custodian, who was sacer, devoted to death, since he was doomed to be slain by Hermes, her liberator. 18. leviter...transi: pass lightly hovering above me.

Wordsworth's three sonnets _To Sleep_ should all be compared. The best is as follows:

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by, One after one; the sound of rain and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds, and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water and pure sky; I have thought of all by turns and still do lie Sleepless! and soon the small birds' melodies Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees; And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry. Even thus last night and two nights more I lay, And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth; So do not let me wear to-night away: Without thee what is all the morning's wealth? Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

IX. MARTIAL.

43-104 A.D.

He was a man of genius, of quick intelligence and vivacity, with a great deal of wit and pungency in his writings, and at the same time great candour.--Pliny, _Epistula_ 3. 21 (Sellar's translation).

Martial was born at Bilbilis in Spain. At twenty-three years of age he came to Rome, where he resided for thirty-five years in limited circumstances, returning to his birthplace three years before his death. He composed fourteen books of Epigrams.

As a man he was social and popular. As a writer he was eminently sincere (except when playing the courtier), natural, and witty. He had no equal among the poets of his time as a lifelike painter of the actual world of his day.

For Reference: Sellar and Ramsay, _Extracts from Martial_ (Edinburgh, 1884), Introduction; Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, _History of Roman Literature_, vol. 2, p. 121 ff.; Friedlander, _Martialis Epigrammaton Libri_ (Leipzig, 1886); Paley and Stone, _Select Epigrams from Martial_ (London, 1881).

Metres: Choliambic, A. & G. 618, a, b, c. _Selections_ 4, 12. Phalaecian, A. & G. 623, 624,625. 11: _Selections_ 1, 5, 7, 11. Elegiac, B. 369, 1, 2; A. & G. 616: _Selections_ 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 13.

_1._ 5. tu: the attorney who is conducting Martial's case. 6. periuria ff.: to a Roman the name of Carthaginian (_Punicus_) was a synonym for treachery. 7. Muciosque: Mucius, when captured in an attempt to assassinate King Porsena, showed his insensibility to threats by voluntarily holding his hand in the flame of an altar. Livy, 2. 12. The plurals in this line may be rendered by _Sullas, Mariuses_, etc.

_4._ Bassus is met at various points on the Appian Way farther and farther out from Rome. 1. pluit: because of the leaky aqueduct above. 2. Phrygium...ferrum: the priests of Cybele washed their knives in the Almo, a branch of the Tiber near Kome. 3. Horatiorum...campus: the traditional scene of the combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. 4. pusilli: the statue is small. fervet: is alive with worshippers. 10. coronam: hoop. 12. nondum victa faba: too young yet to crunch the bean. 15. Immo: No indeed!

_5._ 2. sed...fenestra: window-gardens were common in Rome. 4. nemus Dianae: i.e. a forest of 'big timber.' 7. corona: not understood. 16. sus Calydonius: the type of a huge and ferocious wild animal. 17. ungue Prognes: the talon of Progne, i.e. of the swallow. For myth see _Harper's Classical Dictionary_, 'Tereus.' 20. et...picata: a nut will take the place of the pitch-bedaubed dolium. 22, 23. praedium...prandium: lands...a lunch.

_6._ To a friend who has long been saying that to-morrow he will change it all and really live. 4. In the Orient, the region of the sunrise, is where that happy to-morrow is hiding, if anywhere. 5. These two are types of longevity.

_7._ 4. focus perennis: a kitchen fire never idle. 5. toga rara: a dress suit seldom. The toga was connected with burdensome duties, as with the service of client to patron. 6. vires ingenuae: a gentleman's measure of strength. 10. torus: wife. 12. quod...malis: Martial's principle in life, 'to be yourself and not strive to be somebody else.'

_8._ The eruption is that of 79 A.D., which destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. Epistles 6. 16 and 6. 20 of the younger Pliny, and the final chapters of Bulwer-Lytton's _Last Days of Pompeii_ may be read in this connection. 1. modo: but now. 2. presserat lacus: had filled the vats. 3. Nysae: a mountain in India where, according to the myth, Bacchus was born. 5. Veneris sedes: Venus was the protecting deity of Pompeii. 6. Herculaneum was named from and protected by Hercules. 7. mersa favilla: Pliny, writing of the eruption, says, Epistula 6. 20. 18, 'Everything was covered with deep ashes as with snow.' 8. nec...sibi: and the gods could wish they had not been permitted this.

_9._ When Brutus, the slayer of Caesar, committed suicide after the defeat at Philippi, his wife Porcia also took her own life. The common story was that her friends, suspecting her design, removed all weapons out of her way, and that she thereupon destroyed herself by swallowing live coals. The real fact may have been that she suffocated herself by the vapor of a charcoal stove,--a common method of suicide with the Romans. 4. fatis: by his death. patrem: Cato the Younger, who slew himself at Utica after the disastrous battle at Thapsus. 6. ferrum: emphatic.

_10._ 1. Arria: the wife of Caecina Paetus. In 42 A.D., on the charge of conspiracy against the government, Paetus was ordered by the Emperor Claudius to put an end to his own life. When he hesitated, Arria stabbed herself and handed him the dagger, saying, _Paete, non dolet_.

Pliny, _Epistula_ 3. 16. 6, says of her conduct on another occasion when, fearing the effect of the news on her husband, then dangerously ill, she concealed from him the death of their son:

Glorious indeed that act of hers, to bare the steel, to thrust her bosom through, to draw the dagger forth, to hand it to her husband, to add words immortal and almost divine, 'Paetus, I feel no pain!' But, doing this and saying this, glory and eternal fame were in her thought. How much greater is it, without the prize of fame, without the prize of glory, to hide the tears, conceal the grief, and, bereaved of a son, still to act the mother! 4. sed...dolet: i.e. it is your wound that will give me pain.