CHAPTER IV.

THE HISTORY OF POETRY TO THE CLOSE OF THE REPUBLIC--RISE OF ALEXANDRINISM --LUCRETIUS--CATULLUS.

As long as the drama was cultivated poetry had not ceased to be popular in its tone. But we have already mentioned that coincidentally with the rise of Sulla dramatic productiveness ceased. We hear, indeed, that J. CAESAR STRABO (about 90 B.C.) wrote tragedies, but they were probably never performed. Comedy, as hitherto practised, was almost equally mute. The only forms that lingered on were the _Atellanae_, and those few plebeian types of comedy known as _Togata_ and _Tabernaria_. But even these had now withered. The present epoch brings before us a fresh type of composition in the _Mime_, which now first took a literary shape. Mimes had indeed existed in some sort from a very early period, but no art had been applied to their cultivation, and they had held a position much inferior to that of the national farce. But several circumstances now conspired to bring them into greater prominence. First, the great increase of luxury and show, and with it the appetite for the gaudy trappings of the _spectacle_; secondly, the failure of legitimate drama, and the fact that the _Atellanae_, with their patrician surroundings, were only half popular; and lastly, the familiarity with the different offshoots of Greek comedy, thrown out in rank profusion at Alexandria, and capable of assimilation with the plastic materials of the _Mimus_. These worthless products, issued under the names of Rhinthon, Sopater, Sciras, and Timon, were conspicuous for the entire absence of restraint with which they treated serious subjects, as well as for a merry-andrew style of humour easily naturalised, if it were not already present, among the huge concourse of idlers who came to sate their appetite for indecency without altogether sacrificing the pretence of a dramatic spectacle. Two things marked off the _Mimus_ from the _Atellana_ or national farce; the players appeared without masks, [1] and women were allowed to act. This opened the gates to licentiousness. We find from Cicero that _Mimae_ bore a disreputable character, [2] but from their personal charms and accomplishments often became the chosen companions of the profligate nobles of the day. Under the Empire this was still more the case. Kingsley, in his _Hypatia_, has given a lifelike sketch of one of these elegant but dissolute females. To these seductive innovations the Mime added some conservative features. It absorbed many characteristics of legitimate comedy. The actors were not necessarily _planipedes_ in fact, though they remained so in name; [3] they might wear the _soccus_ [4] and the Greek dress [5] of the higher comedy. The Mimes seem to have formed at this time interludes between the acts of a regular drama. Hence they were at once simple and short, seasoned with as many coarse jests as could be crowded into a limited compass, with plenty of music, dancing, and expressive gesture-language. Their plot was always the same, and never failed to please; it struck the key-note of all decaying societies, the discomfiture of the husband by the wife. [6] Nevertheless, popular as was the Mime, it was, even in Caesar's time, obliged to share the palm of attractiveness with bear-fights, boxing matches, processions of strange beasts, foreign treasures, captives of uncouth aspect, and other curiosities, which passed sometimes for hours across the stage, feeding the gaze of an unlettered crowd, to the utter exclusion of drama and interlude alike. Thirty years later, Horace [7] declares that against such competitors no play could get a silent hearing.

This being the lamentable state of things, we are surprised to find that Mime writing was practised by two men of vigorous talent and philosophic culture, whose fragments, so far from betraying any concession to the prevailing depravity, are above the ordinary tone of ancient comic morality. They are the knight D. LABERIUS (106-43 B.C.) and PUBLILIUS SYRUS (fl. 44 B.C.), an enfranchised Syrian slave. It is probable that Caesar lent his countenance to these writers in the hope of raising their art. His patronage was valuable; but he put a great indignity (45 B.C.) on Laberius. The old man, for he was then sixty years of age, had written Mimes for a generation, but had never acted in them himself. Caesar, whom he may have offended by indiscreet allusions, [8] recommended him to appear in person against his rival Syrus. This recommendation, as he well knew, was equivalent to a command. In the prologue he expresses his sense of the affront with great manliness and force of language. We quote some lines from it, as a specimen of the best plebeian Latin;

"Necessitas, cuius cursus, transversi impetum Voluerunt multi effugere, pauci potuerunt, Quo me detrusit paene extremis sensibus? Quem nulla ambitio, nulla unquam largitio, Nullus timor, vis nulla, nulla auctoritas Movere potuit in inventa de statu, Ecce in senecta ut facile labefecit loco Viri excellentis mente clemente edita Summissa placide blandiloquens oratio! Et enim ipsi di negare cui nil potuerunt, Hominem me denegare quis posset pati? Ego bis tricenis actis annis sine nota, Eques Romanus e lare egressus meo, Domum revertormimus--ni mirum hoc die Uno plus vixi mihi quam vivendum fuit. * * * * * Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus." [9]

In these noble lines we see the native eloquence of a free spirit. But the poet's wrathful muse roused itself in vain. Caesar awarded the prize to Syrus, saying to Laberius in an impromptu verse of polite condescension,

"Favente tibime victus, Laberi, es a Syro." [10]

From this time the old knight surrendered the stage to his younger and more polished rival.

Syrus vas a native of Antioch, and remarkable from his childhood for the beauty of his person and his sparkling wit, to which he owed his freedom. His talent soon raised him to eminence as an improvisatore and dramatic declaimer. He trusted mostly to extempore inspiration when acting his Mimes, but wrote certain episodes where it was necessary to do so. His works abounded with moral apophthegms, tersely expressed. We possess 857 verses, arranged in alphabetical order, ascribed to him, of which perhaps half are genuine. This collection was made early in the Middle Ages, when it was much used for purposes of education. We append a few examples of these sayings: [11]

"Beneficium dando accipit, qui digno dedit."

"Furor fit laesa saepius patientia."

"Comes facundus in via pro vehiculo est."

"Nimium altercando veritas amittitur."

"Iniuriarum remedium est oblivio."

"Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest."

"Nunquam periclum sine periclo vincitar."

Horace mentions Laberius not uncomplimentarily, though he professes no interest in the sort of composition he represented. [12] Perhaps he judged him by his audience. Besides these two men, CN. MATIUS (about 44 B.C.) also wrote _Mimiambi_ about the same date. They are described as _Mimicae fabulae, versibus plerunque iambicis conscriptae_, [13] and appear to have differed in some way from the actual mimes, probably in not being represented on the stage. They reappear in the time of Pliny, whose friend VERGINIUS ROMANUS (he tells us in one of his letters) [14] wrote Mimiambi _tenuiter, argute, venuste, et in hoc genere eloquentissime_. This shows that for a long tune a certain refinement and elaboration was compatible with the style of Mime writing. [15]

The _Pantomimi_ have been confused with the _Mimi_; but they differed in being dancers, not actors; they represent the inevitable development of the mimic art, which, as Ovid says in his _Tristia_, [16] even in its earlier manifestations, enlisted the eye as much as the ear. In Imperial times they almost engrossed the stage. PYLADES and BATHYLLUS are monuments of a depraved taste, which could raise these men to offices of state, and seek their society with such zeal that the emperors were compelled to issue stringent enactments to forbid it. TIGELLIUS seems to have been the first of these _effeminati_; he is satirised by Horace, [17] but his influence was inappreciable compared with that of his successors. The pantomimus aspired to render the emotions of terror or love more speakingly by gesture than it was possible to do by speech; and ancient critics, while deploring, seem to have admitted this claim. The moral effect of such exhibitions may be imagined. [18]

It is pleasing to find that in Cicero's time the interpretation of the great dramatists' conceptions exercised the talents of several illustrious actors, the two best-known of whom are AESOPUS, the tragedian (l22-54 B.C.), and ROSCIUS, the comic actor (120-61? B.C.), [19] After the exhaustion of dramatic creativeness a period of splendid representation naturally follows. It was so in Germany and England, it was so at Rome. Of the two men, Roscius was the greater master; he was so perfect in his art that his name became a synonym for excellence in any branch. [20] Neither of them, however, embraced, as Garrick did, both departments of the art; their provinces were and always remained distinct. Both had the privilege of Cicero's friendship; both no doubt lent him the benefit of their professional advice. The interchange of hints between an orator and an actor was not unexampled. When Hortensius spoke, Roscius always attended to study his suggestive gestures, and it is told of Cicero himself that he and Roscius strove which could express the higher emotions more perfectly by his art. Roscius was a native of Solonium, a Latin town, his praenomen was Quintus; Aesopus appears to have been a freedman of the Claudia gens. Of other actors few were well-known enough to merit notice. Some imagine DOSSENNUS, mentioned by Horace, [21] to have been an actor; but he is much more likely to be the Fabius Dossennus quoted as an author of _Atellanae_ by Pliny in his _Natural History_ [22] The freedom with which popular actors were allowed to treat their original is shown by Aesopus on one occasion (62 B.C.?) changing the words _Brutus qui patriam stabiliverat_ to _Tullius_, a change which, falling in with the people's humour at the moment, was vociferously applauded, and gratified Cicero's vanity not a little. [23] Aesopus died soon after (54 B.C.); Roscius did not live so long. His marvellous beauty when a youth is the subject of a fine epigram by Lutatius Catulus, already referred to. [24] Both amassed large fortunes, and lived in princely style.

While the stage was given up to Mimes, cultured men wrote tragedies for their improvement in command of language. Both Cicero and his brother wrought assiduously at these frigid imitations. Caesar followed in their steps; and no doubt the practice was conducive to copiousness and to an effective simulation of passion. Their appearance as orators before the people must have called out such different mental qualities from their cold and calculating intercourse with one another, that tragedy writing as well as declaiming may have been needful to keep themselves ready for an emergency. Cicero, as is well known, tried hard to gain fame as a poet. The ridicule which all ages have lavished on his unhappy efforts has been a severe punishment for his want of self-knowledge. Still, judging from the verses that remain, we cannot deny him the praise of a correct and elegant _versateur_. Besides several translations from Homer and Euripides scattered through his works, and a few quotations by hostile critics from his epic attempts, [25] we possess a large part of his translation of Aratus's _Phaenomena_, written, indeed, in his early days, but a graceful specimen of Latin verse, and, as Munro [26] has shown, carefully studied and often imitated by Lucretius. The most noticeable point of metre is his disregard of the final s, no less than thrice in the first ninety lines, a practice which in later life he stigmatised as _subrusticum_. In other respects his hexameters are a decided advance on those of Ennius in point of smoothness though not of strength. He still affects Greek caesuras which are not suited to the Latin cadence, [27] and his rhythm generally lacks variety.

Caesar's pen was nearly as prolific. He wrote besides an _Oedipus_ a poem called _Laudes Herculis_, and a metrical account of a journey into Spain called _Iter_. [28] Sportive effusions on various plants are attributed to him by Pliny. [29] All these Augustus wisely refused to publish; but there remain two excellent epigrams, one on Terence, already alluded to, which is undoubtedly genuine, [30] the other probably so, though others ascribe it to Germanicus or Domitian. [31] But the rhythm, purity of language, and continuous structure of the couplets seem to point indisputably to an earlier age. It is as follows--

"Thrax puer, astricto glacie dum ludit in Hebro, Frigore concretas pondere rupit aquas. Quumque imae partes rapido traherentur ab amne, Abscidit, heu! tenerum lubrica testa caput. Orba quod inventum mater dum conderet urna, 'Hoc peperi flammis, cetera,' dixit, 'aquis.'"

This is evidently a study from the Greek, probably from an Alexandrine writer.

We have already had occasion more than once to mention the influence of Alexandria on Roman literature. Since the fall of Carthage Rome had had much intercourse with the capital of the Greek world. Her thought, erudition, and style, had acted strongly upon the rude imitators of Greek refinement. But hitherto the Romans had not been ripe for receiving their influence in full. In Cicero's time, however, and in a great measure owing to his labours, Latin composition of all kinds had advanced so far that writers, and especially poets, began to feel capable of rivalling their Alexandrian models. This type of Hellenism was so eminently suited to Roman comprehension that, once introduced, it could not fail to produce striking results. The results it actually produced were so vast, and in a way so successful, that we must pause a moment to contemplate the rise of the city which was connected with them.

Alexander did not err in selecting the mouth of the Nile for the capital that should perpetuate his name. Its site, its associations, religious, artistic, and scientific, and the tide of commerce that was certain to flow through it, all suggested the coast of Egypt as the fittest point of attraction for the industry of the Eastern world, while the rapid fall of the other kingdoms that rose from the ruins of his Empire contributed to make the new Merchant City the natural inheritor of his great ideas. The Ptolemies well fulfilled the task which Alexander's foresight had set before them. They aspired to make their capital the centre not only of commercial but of intellectual production, and the repository of all that was most venerable in religion, literature, and art. To achieve this end, they acted with the magnificence as well as the unscrupulousness of great monarchs. At their command, a princely city rose from the sandhills and rushes of the Canopic mouth; stately temples uniting Greek proportion with Egyptian grandeur, long quays with sheltered docks, ingenious contrivances for purifying the Nile water and conducting a supply to every considerable house; [32] in short, every product of a luxurious civilisation was found there, except the refreshing shade of green trees, which, beyond a few of the commoner kinds, could not be forced to grow on the shifting sandy soil. The great glory of Alexandria, however, was its public library, Founded by Soter (306-285 B.C.), greatly extended by Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), under whom grammatical studies attained their highest development, enriched by Euergetes (247-212 B.C.) with genuine MSS. of authors fraudulently obtained from their owners to whom he sent back copies made by his own librarians, [33] this collection reached under the last-named sovereign the enormous total of 532,800 volumes, of which the great majority were kept in the museum which formed part of the royal palace, and about 50,000 of the most precious in the temple of Serapis, the patron deity of the city. [34] Connected with the museum were various endowments analogous to our professorships and fellowships of colleges; under the Ptolemies the head librarian, in after times the professor of rhetoric, held the highest post within this ancient university. The librarian was usually chief priest of one of the greatest gods, Isis, Osiris, or Serapis. [35] His appointment was for life, and lay at the disposal of the monarch. Thus the museum was essentially a court institution, and its _savants_ and _littérateurs_ were accomplished courtiers and men of the world. Learning being thus nursed as in a hot-bed, its products were rank, but neither hardy nor natural. They took the form of recondite mythological erudition, grammar and exegesis, and laborious imitation of the ancients. In science only was there a healthy spirit of research. Mathematics were splendidly represented by Euclid and Archimedes, Geography by Eratosthenes, Astronomy by Hipparchus; for these men, though not all residents in Alexandria, all gained their principles and method from study within her walls. To Aristarchus (fl. 180 B.C.) and his contemporaries we owe the final revision of the Greek classic texts; and the service thus done to scholarship and literature was incalculable. But the earlier Alexandrines seem to have been overwhelmed by the vastness of material at their command. Except in pastoral poetry, which in reality was not Alexandrine, [36] there was no creative talent shown for centuries. The true importance of Alexandria in the history of thought dates from Plotinus (about 200 A.D.), who first clearly taught that mystic philosophy which under the name of _Neoplatonism_, has had so enduring a fascination for the human spirit. It was not, however, for philosophy, science, or theology that the Romans went to Alexandria. It was for literary models which should less hopelessly defy imitation than those of old Greece, and for general views of life which should approve themselves to their growing enlightenment. These they found in the half-Greek, half-cosmopolitan culture which had there taken root and spread widely in the East. Even before Alexander's death there had been signs of the internal break-up of Hellenism, now that it had attained its perfect development. Out of Athens pure Hellenism had at no time been able to express itself successfully in literature. And even in Athens the burden of Atticism, if we may say so, seems to have become too great to bear. We see a desire to emancipate both thought and expression from the exquisite but confining proportions within which they had as yet moved. The student of Euripides observes a struggle, ineffectual it is true, but pregnant with meaning, against all that is most specially recognised as conservative and national. [37] He strives to pour new wine into old bottles; but in this case the bottles are too strong for him to burst. The Atticism which had guided and comprehended, now began to cramp development. To make a world-wide out of a Hellenic form of thought, it is necessary to go outside the charmed soil of Greece. Only on the banks of the Nile will the new culture find a shrine, whose remote and mysterious authority frees it from the spell of Hellenism, now no longer the exponent of the world's thought, while it is near enough to the arena where human progress is fighting its way onward, to inspire and be inspired by the mighty nation that is succeeding Greece as the representative of mankind.

The contribution of Alexandria to human progress consists, then, in its recoil from Greek exclusiveness, in its sifting of what was universal in Greek thought from what was national, and presenting the former in a systematised form for the enlightenment of those who received it. This is its nobler side; the side which men like Ennius and Scipio seized, and welded into a harmonious union with the higher national tradition of Rome, out of which union arose that complex product to which the name _humanitas_ was so happily given. But Alexandrian culture was more than cosmopolitan. It was in a sense anti-national. Egyptian superstition, theurgy, magic, and charlatanism of every sort, tried to amalgamate with the imported Greek culture. In Greece itself they had never done this. The clear light of Greek intellect had no fellowship with the obscure or the mysterious. It drove them into corners and let them mutter in secret. But the moment the lamp of culture was given into other hands, they started up again unabashed and undismayed. The Alexandrine thinkers struggled to make Greek influences supreme, to exclude altogether those of the East; and their efforts were for three centuries successful: neither mysticism nor magic reigned in the museum of the Ptolemies. But this victory was purchased at a severe cost. The enthusiasm of the Alexandrian scholars had made them pedants. They gradually ceased to care for the thought of literature, and busied themselves only with questions of learning and of form. Their multifarious reading made them think that they too had a literary gift. Philetas was not only a profound logician, but he affected to be an amatory poet. [38] Callimachus, the brilliant and courtly librarian of Philadelphus, wrote nearly every kind of poetry that existed. Aratus treated the abstruse investigations of Eudoxus in neat verses that at once became popular. While in the great periods of Greek art each writer had been content to excel in a single branch, it now became the fashion for the same poet to be Epicist, Lyrist, and Elegy-writer at once.

Besides the new treatment of old forms, there were three kinds of poetry, first developed or perfected at Alexandria, which have special interest for us from the great celebrity they gained when imported into Rome. They are the didactic poem, the erotic elegy, and the epigram. The maxim of Callimachus (characteristic as it is of his narrow mind) _mega biblion mega kakon_, "a great book is a great evil," [39] was the rule on which these poetasters generally acted. The didactic poem is an illegitimate cross between science and poetry. In the creative days of Greece it had no place. Hesiod, Parmenides, and Empedocles were, indeed, cited as examples. But in their days poetry was the only vehicle of literary effort, and he who wished to issue accurate information was driven to embody it in verse. In the time of the Ptolemies things were altogether different. It was consistent neither with the exactness of science nor with the grace of the Muses to treat astronomy or geography as subjects for poetry. Still, the best masters of this style undoubtedly attained great renown, and have found brilliant imitators, not only in Roman, but in modern times.

ARATUS (280 B.C.), known as the model of Cicero's, and in a later age of Domitian's [40] youthful essays in verse, was born at Soli in Cilicia about three hundred years before Christ. He was not a scientific man, [41] but popularised in hexameter verse the astronomical works of Eudoxus, of which he formed two poems, the _Phaenomena_ and the _Diosemia_, or Prognostics. These were extravagantly praised, and so far took the place of their original that commentaries were written on them by learned men, [42] while the works of Eudoxus were in danger of being forgotten. NICANDER (230 B.C.?), still less ambitious, wrote a poem on remedies for vegetable and mineral poisons (_alexipharmaka_), and for the bites of beasts (_thaeriaka_), and another on the habits of birds (_ornithogonia_). These attracted the imitation of Macer in the Augustan age. But the most celebrated poets were CALLIMACHUS (260 B.C.) and PHILETAS [43] (280 B.C.), who formed the models of Propertius. To them we owe the Erotic Elegy, whether personal or mythological, and all the pedantic ornament of fictitious passion which such writings generally display. More will be said about them when we come to the elegiac poets. Callimachus, however, seems to have carried his art, such as it was, to perfection. He is generally considered the prince of elegists, and his extant fragments show great nicety and finish of expression. The sacrilegious theft of the locks of Berenice's hair from the temple where she had offered them, was a subject too well suited to a courtier's muse to escape treatment. Its celebrity is due to the translation made by Catullus, and the appropriation of the idea by Pope in his _Rape of the Lock_. The short epigram was also much in vogue at Alexandria, and neat examples abound in the _Anthology_. But in all these departments the Romans imitated with such zest and vigour that they left their masters far behind. Ovid and Martial are as superior in their way to Philetas and Callimachus as Lucretius and Virgil to Aratus and Apollonius Rhodius. This last-mentioned poet, APOLLONIUS RHODIUS (fl. 240 B.C.), demands a short notice. He was the pupil of Callimachus, and the most genuinely-gifted of all the Alexandrine school; he incurred the envy and afterwards the rancorous hatred of his preceptor, through whose influence he was obliged to leave Alexandria and seek fame at Rhodes. Here he remained all his life and wrote his most celebrated poem, the _Epic of the Argonauts_, a combination of sentiment, learning, and graceful expression, which is less known than it ought to be. Its chief interest to us is the use made of it by Virgil, who studied it deeply and drew much from it. We observe the passion of love as a new element in heroic poetry, scarcely treated in Greece, but henceforth to become second to none in prominence, and through Dido, to secure a place among the very highest flights of song. [44] Jason and Medea, the hero and heroine, who love one another, create a poetical era. An epicist of even greater popularity was EUPHORION of Chalcis (274-203 B.C.), whose affected prettiness and rounded cadences charmed the ears of the young nobles. He had admirers who knew him by heart, who declaimed him at the baths, [45] and quoted his pathetic passages _ad nauseam_. He was the inventor of the historical romance in verse, of which Rome was so fruitful. A Lucan, a Silius, owe their inspiration in part to him. Lastly, we may mention that the drama could find no place at Alexandria. Only learned compilations of recondite legend and frigid declamation, almost unintelligible from the rare and obsolete words with which they were crowded, were sent forth under the name of plays. The _Cassandra_ or _Alexandra_ of Lycophron is the only specimen that has come to us. Its thorny difficulties deter the reader, but Fox speaks of it as breathing a rich vein of melancholy. The _Thyestes_ of Varius and the _Medea_ of Ovid were no doubt greatly improved copies of dramas of this sort.

It will be seen from this survey of Alexandrine letters that the better side of their influence was soon exhausted. Any breadth of view they possessed was seized and far exceeded by the nobler minds that imitated it; and all their other qualities were such as to enervate rather than inspire. The masculine rudeness of the old poets now gave way to pretty finish; verbal conceits took the place of condensed thoughts; the rich exuberance of the native style tried to cramp itself into the arid allusiveness which, instead of painting straight from nature, was content to awaken a long line of literary associations. Nevertheless there was much in their manipulation of language from which the Romans could learn a useful lesson. It was impossible for them to catch the original impulse of the divine seer [46]--

_autodidaktos d'eimi, theos de moi en phresin oimas pantoias enephysen._

From poverty of genius they were forced to draw less flowing draughts from the Castalian spring. The bards of old Greece were hopelessly above them. The Alexandrines, by not overpowering their efforts, but offering them models which they felt they could not only equal but immeasurably excel, did real service in encouraging and stimulating the Roman muse. Great critics like Niebuhr and, within certain limits, Munro, regret the mingling of the Alexandrine channel with the stream of Latin poetry, but without it we should perhaps not have had Catullus and certainly neither Ovid nor Virgil.

It may easily be supposed that the national party, whether in politics or letters, would set themselves with all their might to oppose the rising current. The great majority surrendered themselves to it with a good will. Among the stern reactionists in prose, we have mentioned Varro; in poetry, by far the greatest name is LUCRETIUS. But little is known of Lucretius's life; even the date of his birth is uncertain. St. Jerome, in the Eusebian chronicle, [47] gives 95 B.C. Others have with more probability assigned an earlier date. It is from Jerome that we learn those facts which have cast a strong interest round the poet, viz. that he was driven mad by a love potion, that he composed in the intervals of insanity his poem, which Cicero afterwards corrected, and that he perished by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age. Jerome does not quote any contemporary authority; his statements, coming 500 years after the event, must go for what they are worth, but may perhaps meet with a qualified acceptance. The intense earnestness of the poem indicates a mind that we can well conceive giving way under the overwhelming thought which stirred it; and the example of a philosopher anticipating the stroke of nature is too often repeated in Roman history to make it incredible in this case. Tennyson with a poet's sympathy has surrounded this story with the deepest pathos, and it will probably remain the accepted, if not the established, version of his death.

Though born in a high position, he seems to have stood aloof from society. From first to last his book betrays the close and eager student. He was an intimate friend of the worthless C. Memmius, whom he extols in a manner creditable to his heart but not to his judgment. [48] But he was no flatterer, nor was Memmius a patron. Poet and statesman lived on terms of perfect equality. Of the date of his work we can so far conjecture that it was certainly unfinished at his death (55 B.C.), and from its scope and information must have extended over some years. The allusion [49]--

"Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo Possumus aequo animo, nec Memmi clara propago Talibus in rebus communi desse saluti,"

is considered by Prof. Sellar to point to the praetorship of Memmius (58 B.C.). The work was long thought to have been edited by Cicero after the poet's death; but though he had read the poem, [50] and admitted its talent, he would doubtless have mentioned, at least to Atticus, the fact of the editing, had it occurred. Some critics, arguing from Cicero's silence and known opposition to the Epicurean tenets, have thought that Jerome referred to Q. Cicero the orator's brother, but for this there is no authority. The poem is entitled _De Rerum Natura_, an equivalent for the Greek _peri physeos_, the usual title of the pre-Socratic philosophers' works. The form, viz. a poem in heroic hexameters, containing a carefully reasoned exposition, in which regard was had above all to the claims of the subject-matter, was borrowed from the Sicilian thinker Empedocles [51] (460 B.C.). But while Aristotle denies Empedocles the title of _poet_ [52] on account of his scientific subject, no one could think of applying the same criticism to Lucretius A general view of nature, as the Power most near to man, and most capable of deeply moving his heart, a Power whose beauty, variety, and mystery, were the source of his most perplexing struggles as well as of his purest joys; a desire to hold communion with her, and to learn from her lips, opened only to the ear of faith, those secrets which are hid from the vain world; this was the grand thought that stirred the depths of Lucretius's mind, and made him the herald of a new and enduring form of verse. It has been well said that didactic poetry was that in which the Roman was best fitted to succeed. It was in harmony with his utilitarian character. [53] To give a practically useful direction to its labour was almost demanded from the highest poetry. To say nothing of Horace and Lucilius, Virgil's Aeneid, no less than his Georgics, has a practical aim, and to an ardent spirit like Lucretius, poetry would be the natural vehicle for the truths to which he longed to convert mankind.

In the selection of his models, his choice fell upon the older Greek writers, such as Empedocles, Aeschylus, Thucydides, men renowned for deep thought rather than elegant expression; and among the Romans, upon Ennius and Pacuvius, the giants of a ruder past. Among contemporaries, Cicero alone seems to have awakened his admiration. Thus he stands altogether aloof from the fashionable standard of his day, a solitary beacon pointing to landmarks once well known, but now crumbling into decay. [54]

Lucretius is the only Roman in whom the love of speculative truth [55] prevails over every other feeling. In his day philosophy had sunk to an endless series of disputes about words [56] Frivolous quibbles and captious logical proofs, comprised the highest exercises of the speculative faculty. [57] The mind of Lucretius harks back to the glorious period of creative enthusiasm, when Democritus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus, successively believed that they had solved the great questions of being and knowing. Amid the zeal and confidence of that mighty time his soul is at home. To Epicurus as the inventor of the true guide of life he pays a tribute of reverential praise, calling him the pride of Greece, [58] and exalting him to the position of a god. [59] It is clear to one who studies this deeply interesting poet that his mind was in the highest degree reverential. No error could have been more fatal to his enjoyment of that equanimity, whose absence he deplores, than to select a creed, at once so joyless and barren in itself, and so unsuited to his ardent temperament.

When Lucretius wrote, belief in the national religion had among the upper classes become almost extinct. Those who needed conviction as a support for their life had no resource but Greek philosophy. The speculations of Plato, except in his more popular works, were not attractive to the Romans; those of Aristotle, brought to light in Cicero's time by the transference of Apellicon's library to Rome, [60] were a sealed book to the majority, though certain works, probably dialogues after the Platonic manner, gained the admiration of Cicero and Quintilian. The pre-Socratic thinkers, occupied as they were with physical questions which had little interest for Romans, were still less likely to be resorted to. The demand for a supreme moral end made it inevitable that their choice should fall on one of the two schools which offered such an end, those of the Porch and the Garden. Which of the two would a man like Lucretius prefer? The answer is not so obvious as it appears. For Lucretius has in him nothing of the _Epicurean_ in our sense. His austerity is nearer to that of the Stoic. It was the speculative basis underlying the ethical system, and not the ethical system itself, that determined his choice. Epicurus had allied his theory of pleasure [61] with the atomic theory of Democritus. Stoicism had espoused the doctrine of Heraclitus, that fire is the primordial element. Epicurus had denied the indestructibility of the soul and the divine government of the world; his gods were unconnected with mankind, and lived at ease in the vacant spaces between the worlds. Stoicism on the contrary, had incorporated the popular theology, bringing it into conformity with the philosophic doctrine of a single Deity by means of allegorical interpretation. Its views of Divine Providence were reconcilable with, while they elevated, the popular superstition.

Lucretius had a strong hatred for the abuses into which state-craft and luxury had allowed the popular creed to fall; he was also firmly convinced of the sufficiency of Democritus's two postulates (_Atoms_ and _the Void_) to account for all the phenomena of the universe. Hence he gave his unreserved assent to the Epicurean system, which he expounds, mainly in its physical outlines, in his work; the ethical tenets being interwoven with the bursts of enthusiastic poetry which break, or the countless touches which adorn, the sustained course of his argument.

The defects of the ancient scientific method are not wanting in him. Generalising from a few superficial instances, reasoning _a priori_, instead of winning his way by observation and comparison up to the Universal truth, fancying that it was possible for a single mind to grasp, and for a system by a few bold hypotheses to explain, the problem of external nature, of the soul, of the existence of the gods: such are the obvious defects which Lucretius shares with his masters, and of which the experience of ages has taught us the danger as well as the charm. But the atomic system has features which render it specially interesting at the present day. Its materialism, its attribution to nature of power sufficient to carry out all her ends, its analysis of matter into ultimate physical _individua_ incognisable by sense, while yet it insists that the senses are the fountains of all knowledge, [62] are points which bring it into correspondence with hypotheses at present predominant. Its theory of the development of society from the lower to the higher without break and without divine intervention, and of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, its denial of design and claim to explain everything by natural law, are also points of resemblance. Finally, the lesson he draws from this comfortless creed, not to sit with folded hands in silent despair, nor to "eat and drink for to-morrow we die," but to labour steadily for our greater good and to cultivate virtue in accordance with reason, equally free from ambition and sloth, is strikingly like the teaching of that scientific school [63] which claims for its system a motive as potent to inspire self-denial as any that a more spiritual philosophy can give.

Lucretius, therefore, gains moral elevation by deserting the conclusion of Epicurus. While he does full justice to the poetical side of pleasure as an end in itself, [64] he never insists on it as a motive to action. Thus he retains the conception as a noble ornament of his verse, but reserves to himself, as every poet must, the liberty to adopt another tone if he feels it higher or more appropriate. Indeed, logical consistency of view would be out of place in a poem; and Lucretius is nowhere a truer poet that when he sins against his own canons. [65] His instinct told him how difficult it was to combine clear reasoning with a poetical garb, especially as the Latin language was not yet broken to the purposes of philosophy. [66] Nevertheless so complete is his mastery of the subject that there is scarcely a difficulty arising from want of clearness of expression from beginning to end of the poem. There are occasional _lacunae_, and several passages out of place, which were either stop-gaps intended to be replaced by lines more appropriate, or additions made after the first draft of the work, which, had the author lived, would have been wrought into the context. The first three books are quite or nearly quite finished, and from them we can judge his power of presenting an argument.

His chief object he states to be not the discovery, but the exposition of truth, for the purpose of freeing men's minds from religious terrors. This he announces immediately after the invocation to Venus, "Mother of the Aeneadae," with which the poem opens. He then addresses himself to Memmius, whom he intreats not to be deterred from reading him by the reproach of "rationalism." [67] He next states his first principle, which is the denial of creation:

"Nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus unquam,"

and asks, What then is the original substance out of which existing things have arisen? The answer is, "Atoms and the Void, and beside them nothing else:" these two principles are solid, self-existent, indestructible, and invisible. He next investigates and refutes the first principles of other philosophers, notably Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras; and the book ends with a short proof that the atoms are infinite in number and space infinite in extent. The Second Book opens with a digression on the folly of ambition; but, returning to the atoms, treats of the combination which enables them to form and perpetuate the present variety of things. All change is ultimately due to the primordial motion of the atoms. This motion, naturally in a straight line, is occasionally deflected; and this deflection accounts for the many variations from exact law. Moreover, atoms differ in form, some being rough, others smooth, some round, others square, &c. They are combined in infinite ways, which combinations give rise to the so-called secondary properties of matter, colour, heat, smell, &c. Innumerable other worlds besides our own exist; this one will probably soon pass away; atoms and the void alone are eternal. In the Third Book the poet attacks what he considers the stronghold of superstition. The soul, mind, or vital principle is carefully discussed, and declared to be material, being composed, indeed, of the finest atoms, as is shown by its rapid movement, and the fact that it does not add to the weight of the body, but in no wise _sui generis_, or differing in kind from other matter. It is united with the body as the perfume with the incense, nor can they be severed without destruction to both. They are born together, grow together, and perish together. Death therefore is the end of being, and life beyond the grave is not only impossible but inconceivable. Book IV. treats of the images or idols cast off from the surface of bodies, borne continually through space, and sometimes seen by sleepers in dreams, or by sick people or others in waking visions. They are not illusions of the senses; the illusion arises from the wrong interpretation we put upon them. To these images the passion of love is traced; and with a brilliant satire on the effects of yielding to it the book closes. The Fifth Book examines the origin and formation of the solar system, which it treats not as eternal after the manner of the Stoics, but as having had a definite beginning, and as being destined to a natural and inevitable decay. He applies his principle of "Fortuitous Concurrence" to this part of his subject with signal power, but the faultiness of his method interferes with the effect of his argument. The finest part of the book, and perhaps of the whole poem, is his account of the "origin of species," and the progress of human society. His views read like a hazy forecast of the evolution doctrine. He applies his principle with great strictness; no break occurs; experience alone has been the guide of life. If we ask, however, whether he had any idea of _progress_ as we understand it, we must answer no. He did not believe in the perfectibility of man, or in the ultimate prevalence of virtue in the world. The last Book tries to show the natural origin of the rarer and more gigantic physical phenomena, thunderstorms, volcanoes, earthquakes, pestilence, &c. and terminates with a long description of the plague of Athens, in which we trace many imitations of Thucydides. This book is obviously unfinished; but the aim of the work may be said to be so far complete that nowhere is the central object lost sight of, viz., to expel the belief in divine interventions, and to save mankind from all fear of the supernatural.

The value of the poem to us consists not in its contributions to science but in its intensity of poetic feeling. None but a student will read through the disquisitions on atoms and void. All who love poetry will feel the charm of the digressions and introductions. These, which are sufficiently numerous, are either resting-places in the process of proof, when the writer pauses to reflect, or bursts of eloquent appeal which his earnestness cannot repress. Of the first kind are the account of spring in