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POST-AUGUSTAN POETRY

From Seneca to Juvenal

By

H.E. BUTLER, Fellow of New College

PREFACE

I have attempted in this book to provide something of an introduction to the poetical literature of the post-Augustan age. Although few of the writers dealt with have any claim to be called poets of the first order, and some stand very low in the scale of poetry, as a whole the poets of this period have suffered greater neglect than they deserve. Their undeniable weaknesses tend in many cases to obscure their real merits, with the result that they are at times either ignored or subjected to unduly sweeping condemnation. I have attempted in these pages to detach and illustrate their excellences without in any way passing over their defects.

Manilius and Phaedrus have been omitted on the ground that as regards the general character of their writings they belong rather to the Augustan period than to the subsequent age of decadence. Manilius indeed composed a considerable portion of his work during the lifetime of Augustus, while Phaedrus, though somewhat later in date, showed a sobriety of thought and an antique simplicity of style that place him at least a generation away from his contemporaries. The authorities to whose works I am indebted are duly acknowledged in the course of the work. I owe a special debt, however, to those great works of reference, the Histories of Roman Literature by Schanz and Teuffel, to Friedländer's Sittengeschichte, and, for the chapters on Lucan and Statius, to Heitland's Introduction to Haskin's edition of Lucan and Legras' Thébaïde de Stace. I wish particularly to express my indebtedness to Professor Gilbert Murray and Mr. Nowell Smith, who read the book in manuscript and made many valuable suggestions and corrections. I also have to thank Mr. A.S. Owen for much assistance in the corrections of the proofs.

My thanks are owing to Professor Goldwin Smith for permission to print translations from 'Bay Leaves', and to Mr. A.E. Street and Mr. F.J. Miller and their publishers, for permission to quote from their translations of Martial (Messrs. Spottiswoode) and Seneca (Chicago University Press) respectively.

H.E. BUTLER.

November, 1908.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE DECLINE OF POST-AUGUSTAN POETRY

Main characteristics, p. 1.
The influence of the principate, p. 1.
Tiberius, p. 2.
Caligula, p. 4.
Claudius, p. 5.
Nero, p. 6.
Decay of Roman character, p. 9.
Peculiar nature of Roman literature, p. 10.
Greatness of Augustan poets a bar to farther advance, p. 11.
Roman education: literary, p. 12;
rhetorical, p. 14.
Absence of true educational spirit, p. 16.
Recitations, p. 18.
Results of these influences, p. 19.

CHAPTER II

DRAMA

i. THE STAGE.
Drama never really flourishing at Rome, p. 23.
Comedy, represented by Mime and Atellan farce, p. 24.
Legitimate comedy nearly extinct, p. 25.
Tragedy replaced by salticae fabulae, p. 26;
or musical recitations, p. 28.
Pomponius Secundus, p. 29.
Curiatius Maternus, p. 30.

ii. SENECA: his life and character, p. 31.
His position in literature, p. 35.
His epigrams, p. 36.
His plays, p. 39.
Their genuineness, p. 40.
The Octavia, Oedipus, Agamemnon, and Hercules Oetaeus, p. 41.
Date of the plays, p. 43.
Their dramatic value, p. 44.
Plot, p. 45.
Descriptions, p. 48.
Declamation, p. 49;
at its best in Troades and Phaedra, p. 51.
Dialogue, p. 55.
Stoicism, p. 58.
Poetry (confined mainly to lyrics), p. 63.
Cleverness of the rhetoric, p. 65.
Sententiae, p. 68.
Hyperbole, p. 69.
Diction and metre; iambics, p. 70;
lyrics, p. 71.
Plays not written for the stage, p. 72.
Influence on later drama, p. 74.

iii. THE OCTAVIA. Sole example of fabula praetexta, p. 74.

Plot, p. 75.
Characteristics, p. 76.
Date and authorship, p. 77.

CHAPTER III

PERSIUS

Life, p. 79.
Works, p. 81.
Influence of Lucilius, p. 83;
of Horace, p. 84.
Obscurity, p. 85.
Qualifications necessary for a satirist; Persius' weakness through
lack of them, p. 87.
Success in purely literary satire, p. 88.
Lack of close observation of life, p. 90.
Persius' nobility of character, p. 91.
His Stoicism, p. 93.
His capacity for friendship, p. 95.

CHAPTER IV

LUCAN

Life, p. 97.
Minor works, p. 99.
His choice of a subject, p. 101,
Choice of epic methods, p. 102.
Petronius' criticism of historical epic, p. 103.
Difficulties of the subject, p. 104.
Design of the poem, p. 106.
Characters: Pompey, p. 106.
Caesar, p. 108.
Cato, p. 109.
Descriptive passages, p. 112.
Hyperbole, p. 115.
Irrelevance, p. 116.
Lack of poetic vocabulary, p. 116.
Tendency to political satire, p. 117.
Speeches, p. 120.
Sententiae, p. 122.
Metre, p. 123.
Summary, p. 123.

CHAPTER V

PETRONIUS

Authorship of Satyricon: character of Titus Petronius, p. 125.
Literary criticism, p. 127.
Attack on contemporary rhetoric, p. 128.
Eumolpus the poet, p. 129;
laments the decay of art, p. 130.
Poem on the Sack of Troy, p. 130.
Criticism of historical epic, p. 131.
The poetic fragments, p. 133.
Epigrams, p. 134.
Question of genuineness, p. 135.
Their high poetic level, p. 136.

CHAPTER VI

MINOR POETRY, 14-69 A.D.

I. DIDACTIC POETRY

i. THE AETNA. Its design, p. 140.
Characteristics of the poem, p. 141.
Authorship, p. 143.
Date, p. 145.

ii. COLUMELLA. Life and works, p. 146. His tenth book, a fifth Georgic on gardening, p. 147. His enthusiasm and descriptive power, p. 148.

II. CALPURNIUS SICULUS, THE EINSIEDELN FRAGMENTS, AND THE PANEGYRICUS IN PISONEM

Pastoral poetry, p. 150.
Calpurnius Siculus; date, p. 151.
Who was he? p. 152.
Debt to Vergil, p. 152.
Elaboration of style, p. 153.
Obscurity, affectation and insignificance, p. 154.
Einsiedeln fragments; was the author Calpurnius Piso? p. 156.
Panegyricus in Pisonem, p. 157.
Graceful elaboration, p. 158.
Was the author Calpurnius Siculus? p. 159.

III. ILIAS LATINA

Early translations of Iliad, p. 160.
Attius Labeo, p. 160. Polybius p. 161.
Ilias Latina, a summary in verse, p. 161.
Date, p. 162. Authorship: the question of the acrostic, p. 162.
Wrongly attributed to Silius Italicus. p. 163.

IV. MINOR POETS

Gaetulicus, p. 163.
Caesius Bassua, p. 164.

CHAPTER VII

EMPERORS AND MINOR POETS, 70-117 A.D.

I. EMPERORS AND POETS WHOSE WORKS ARE LOST

Vespasian and Titus, p. 166.
Domitian. The Agon Capitolinus and Agon Albanus, p. 167.
Literary characteristics of the Flavian age, p. 168.
Saleius Bassus, Serranus, and others, p. 169.
Nerva, p. 169.
Trajan, p. 170.
Passennus Paulus, p. 170.
Sentius Augurinus, p. 171.
Pliny the Younger, p. 172.
Almost entire disappearance of poetry after Hadrian. p. 174.

II. SULPICIA

Sulpicia, a lyric poetess, p. 174.
Martial's admiration for her, p. 175.
Characteristics of her work, p. 176.
Her Satire, p. 176.
Is it genuine? p. 177.

CHAPTER VIII

VALERIUS FLACCUS

Epic in the Flavian age, p. 179.
Who was Valerius? His date, p. 180.
The Argonautica, unfinished, p. 181.
Its general design, p. 182.
Merits and defects of the Argonaut-saga as a subject for epic, p. 183.
Valerius' debt to Apollonius Rhodius, p. 183.
Novelties introduced in treatment; Jason, p. 184;
Medea, p. 185.
Valerius has a better general conception as to how the story should be
told, but is far inferior as a poet, p. 186.
Obscure learning; lack of humour, p. 187.
Involved language, p. 188.
Preciosity; compression, p. 189.
Real poetic merit: compared with Statius and Lucan, p. 191.
Debt to Vergil, p. 191.
Metre, p. 192.
Brilliant descriptive power, p. 193.
Suggestion of mystery, p. 193.
Sense of colour, p. 195.
Similes, p. 195.
Speeches, p. 197.
The loves of Jason and Medea, p. 198.
General estimate, p. 200.

CHAPTER IX

STATIUS

Life, p. 202.
Character, p. 205.
The Thebais; its high average level, p. 206.
Statius a miniature painter, p, 207.
Weakness of the Theban-saga as a subject for epic, p. 208.
Consequent lack of proportion and unity in Thebais, p. 210.
Vergil too closely imitated, p. 211.
Digressions, p. 212.
Character-drawing superficial, p. 213.
Tydeus, p. 214.
Amphiaraus, p. 216.
Parthenopaeus and other characters, p. 218.
Atmosphere that of literature rather than life, p. 220.
Fine descriptive passages, p. 221.
Dexterity, often degenerating into preciosity, p. 224.
Similes, p. 225.
Metre, p. 226.
The Achilleis, p. 227.
The Silvae, p. 227.
Flattery of Domitian, p. 228.
Extraordinary preciosity, p. 229.
Prettiness and insincerity, p. 230.
Brilliant miniature-painting, p. 232.
The Genethliacon Lucani, p. 233.
Invocation to Sleep, p. 234.
Conclusion, p. 235.

CHAPTER X

SILIUS ITALlCUS

Life, p. 236.
Weakness of historical epic, p. 238.
Disastrous intrusion of mythology, p. 239.
Plagiarism from Vergil, p. 240.
Skill in composition of early books, p. 240.
Inadequate treatment of closing scenes of the war, p. 241.
The characters, p. 241.
Total absence of any real poetic gifts, p. 242.
Regulus, p. 244.
The death of Paulus, p. 246.
Fabius Cunctator, p. 247.
Conclusion, p. 249.

CHAPTER XI

MARTIAL

Life, p. 251.
The epigram, p. 258.
Martial's temperament, p. 259.
Gift of style, p. 260.
Satirical tone, good-humoured and non-moral, p. 261.
Obscenity, p. 263.
Capacity for friendship, p. 264.
His dislike of Rome, p. 267.
His love of the country, p. 268.
Comparison with Silvae of Statius, p. 271.
Flattery of Domitian, p. 271.
Laments for the dead, p. 272.
Emotion as a rule sacrificed to point, p. 275.
The laureate of triviality, p. 276.
Martial as a client, p. 277.
His snobbery, p. 279.
Redeeming features; polish and wit, p. 281.
The one perfect post-Augustan stylist, p. 284.
Vivid picture of contemporary society, p. 285.

CHAPTER XII

JUVENAL

Life, p. 287. Date of satires, p. 289. Motives (Sat, i), p. 291. Themes of the various satires; third satire, p. 293; fourth, fifth, and sixth satires, p. 294; seventh and eighth satires; signs of waning power, p. 295; tenth satire, p. 296; eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth satires, p. 297; fifteenth and sixteenth satires, showing further decline of power, p. 298. Juvenal's narrow Roman ideals; hatred of the foreigner, p. 299. Exaggeration, p. 301. Coarseness, p. 303. Vividness of description, p. 304. Mordant epigram and rhetoric, p. 308. Moral and religious ideals, p. 311. Sententiae, p. 315. Poetry, p. 316. Metre, p. 317. The one great poet of the Silver Age, p. 317.

INDEX OF NAMES, p. 321

FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER I

THE DECLINE OF POST-AUGUSTAN POETRY

During the latter years of the principate of Augustus a remarkable change in literary methods and style begins to make itself felt. The gradual extinction of the great luminaries is followed by a gradual disappearance of originality and of the natural and easy-flowing style whose phrases and felicities adorn, without overloading or obscuring the sense. In their place comes a straining after effect, a love of startling colour, produced now by over-gorgeous or over-minute imagery, now by a surfeit of brilliant epigram, while controlling good sense and observance of due proportion are often absent and imitative preciosity too frequently masquerades as originality. Further, in too many cases there is a complete absence of moral enthusiasm, close observation, and genuine insight.

What were the causes of this change? Was it due mainly to the evil influence of the principate or to more subtle and deep-rooted causes?

The principate had been denounced as the fons et origo mali.[1] That its influence was for evil can hardly be denied. But it was rather a symptom, an outward and visible sign of a deep-engrained decay, which it accentuated and brought to the surface, but in no way originated. We are told that the principate 'created around itself the quiet of the graveyard, since all independence was compelled under threat of death to hypocritical silence or subterfuge; servility alone was allowed to speak; the rest submitted to what was inevitable, nay, even endeavoured to accommodate their minds to it as much as possible.' Even if this highly coloured statement were true, the influence of such tyrannical suppression of free thinking and free speaking could only have directly affected certain forms of literature, such as satire, recent history,[2] and political oratory, while even in these branches of literature a wide field was left over which an intending author might safely range. The direct influence on poetry must have been exceedingly small. If we review the great poets of the Augustan and republican periods, we shall find little save certain epigrams of Catullus that could not safely have been produced in post-Augustan times. Moreover, when we turn to what is actually known of the attitude of the early emperors towards literature, the balance does not seriously incline against them. It may be said without hesitation of the four emperors succeeding Augustus that they had a genuine taste and some capacity for literature.

Of two only is it true that their influence was in any way repressive. The principate of Tiberius is notorious for the silence of literature; whether the fact is due as much to the character of Tiberius as to the temporary exhaustion of genius following naturally on the brilliance of the Augustan period, is more than doubtful. But Tiberius cannot be acquitted of all blame. The cynical humour with which it pleased him to mark the steady advance of autocracy, the lentae maxillae which Augustus attributed to his adopted son,[3] the icy and ironic cruelty which was—on the most favourable estimate—a not inconsiderable element in his character, no doubt all exercised a chilling influence, not only on politics but on all spontaneous expression of human character. Further, we find a few instances of active and cruel repression. Lampoons against the emperor were punished with death.[4] Cremutius Cordus was driven to suicide for styling 'Brutus and Cassius the last of all the Romans'.[5] Mamercus Scaurus had the misfortune to write a tragedy on the subject of Atreus in which he advised submission to Atreus in a version of the Euripidean

[Greek: tas t_on turann_on amathias pherein chre_on][6]

He too fell a victim to the Emperor's displeasure, though the chief charges actually brought against him were of adultery with the Princess Livilla and practice of the black art. We hear also of another case in which obiectum est poetae quod in tragoedia Agamemnonem probris lacessisset (Suet. Tib. 61). It is worthy of notice that actors also came under Tiberius's displeasure.[7] The mime and the Atellan farce afforded too free an opportunity for improvisation against the emperor. Even the harmless Phaedrus seems to have incurred the anger of Sejanus, and to have suffered thereby.[8] Nor do the few instances in which Tiberius appears as a patron of literature fill us with great respect for his taste. He is said to have given one Asellius Sabinus 100,000 sesterces for a dialogue between a mushroom, a finch, an oyster, and a thrush,[9] and to have rewarded a worthless writer,[10] Clutorius Priscus, for a poem composed on the death of Germanicus. On the other hand, he seems to have had a sincere love of literature,[11] though he wrote in a crabbed and affected style. He was a purist in language with a taste for archaism,[12] left a brief autobiography[13] and dabbled in poetry, writing epigrams,[14] a lyric conquestio de morte Lucii Caesaris[15] and Greek imitations of Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius, the learned poets of Alexandria. His taste was bad: he went even farther than his beloved Alexandrians, awaking the laughter of his contemporaries even in an age when obscure mythological learning was at a premium. The questions which delighted him were—'Who was the mother of Hecuba?' 'What was the name of Achilles when disguised as a girl?' 'What did the sirens sing?'[16] Literature had little to learn from Tiberius, but it should have had something to gain from the fact that he was not blind to its charms: at the worst it cannot have required abnormal skill to avoid incurring a charge of lèse-majesté.

The reign of the lunatic Caligula is of small importance, thanks to its extreme brevity. For all his madness he had considerable ability; he was ready of speech to a remarkable degree, though his oratory suffered from extravagant ornament[17] and lack of restraint. He had, however, some literary insight: in his description of Seneca's rhetoric as merae commissiones, 'prize declamations,' and 'sand without lime' he gave an admirable summary of that writer's chief weaknesses.[18] But he would in all probability have proved a greater danger to literature than Tiberius. It is true that in his desire to compare favourably with his predecessors he allowed the writings of T. Labienus, Cremutius Cordus, and Cassius Severus, which had fallen under the senate's ban in the two preceding reigns, to be freely circulated once more.[19] But he by no means abandoned trials for lèse-majesté. The rhetorician Carinas Secundus was banished on account of an imprudent phrase in a suasoria on the hackneyed theme of tyrannicide.[20] A writer of an Atellan farce was burned to death in the amphitheatre[21] for a treasonable jest, and Seneca narrowly escaped death for having made a brilliant display of oratory in the senate.[22] He also seriously meditated the destruction of the works of Homer. Plato had banished Homer from his ideal state. Why should not Caligula? He was with difficulty restrained from doing the like for Vergil and Livy. The former, he said, was a man of little learning and less wit;[23] the latter was verbose and careless. Even when he attempted to encourage literature, his eccentricity carried him to such extremes that the competitors shrank in horror from entering the lists. He instituted a contest at Lugudunum in which prizes were offered for declamations in Greek and Latin. The prizes were presented to the victors by the vanquished, who were ordered to write panegyrics in honour of their successful rivals, while in cases where the declamations were decided to be unusually poor, the unhappy authors were ordered to obliterate their writings with a sponge or even with their own tongues, under penalty of being caned or ducked in the Rhone.[24]

Literature had some reason to be thankful for his early assassination. The lunatic was succeeded by a fool, but a learned fool. Claudius was historian, antiquary, and philologist. He wrote two books on the civil war, forty-one on the principate of Augustus, a defence of Cicero, eight books of autobiography,[25] an official diary,[26] a treatise on dicing.[27] To this must be added his writings in Greek, twenty books of Etruscan history, eight of Carthaginian,[28] together with a comedy performed and crowned at Naples in honour of the memory of Germanicus.[29] His style, according to Suetonius, was magis ineptus quam inelegans.[30] He did more than write: he attempted a reform of spelling, by introducing three new letters into the Latin alphabet. His enthusiasm and industry were exemplary. Such indeed was his activity that a special office,[31] a studiis, was established, which was filled for the first time by the influential freedman Polybius. Claudius lacked the saving grace of good sense, but in happier days might have been a useful professor: at any rate his interest in literature was whole-hearted and disinterested. His own writing was too feeble to influence contemporaries for ill and he had the merit of having given literature room to move. Seneca might mock at him after his death,[32] but he had done good service.

Nero, Claudius' successor, was also a liberal, if embarrassing, patron of literature. His tastes were more purely literary. He had received an elaborate and diversified education. He had even enjoyed the privilege of having Seneca—the head of the literary profession—for his tutor. These influences were not wholly for the good: Agrippina dissuaded him from the study of philosophy as being unsuited for a future emperor, Seneca from the study of earlier and saner orators that he might himself have a longer lease of Nero's admiration.[33] The result was that a temperament, perhaps falsely styled artistic,[34] was deprived of the solid nutriment required to give it stability. Nero's great ambition was to be supreme in poetry and art as he was supreme in empire. He composed rapidly and with some technical skill,[35] but his work lacked distinction, connexion of thought, and unity of style.[36] Satirical[37] and erotic[38] epigrams, learned mythological poems on Attis and the Bacchae,[39] all flowed from his pen. But his most famous works were his Troica,[40] an epic on the Trojan legend, which he recited before the people in the theatre,[41] and his [Greek: Iion al_osis], which may perhaps have been included in the Troica, and is famous as having—so scandal ran—been declaimed over burning Rome.[42] But his ambition soared higher. He contemplated an epic on the whole of Roman history. It was estimated that 400 books would be required. The Stoic Annaeus Cornutus justly remarked that no one would read so many. It was pointed out that the Stoic's master, Chrysippus, had written even more. 'Yes,' said Cornutus, 'but they were of some use to humanity.' Cornutus was banished, but he saved Rome from the epic. Nero was also prolific in speeches and, proud of his voice, often appeared on the stage. He impersonated Orestes matricida, Canace parturiens, Oedipus blind, and Hercules mad.[43] It is not improbable that the words declaimed or sung in these scenes were composed by Nero himself.[44] For the encouragement of music and poetry he had established quinquennial games known as the Neronia. How far his motives for so doing were interested it is hard to say. But there is no doubt that he had a passionate ambition to win the prize at the contest instituted by himself. In A.D. 60, on the first occasion of the celebration of these games, the prize was won by Lucan with a poem in praise of Nero.[45] Vacca, in his life of Lucan, states that this lost him Nero's favour, the emperor being jealous of his success. The story is demonstrably false,[46] but that Nero subsequently became jealous of Lucan is undoubted. Till Lucan's fame was assured, Nero extended his favour to him: then partly through Lucan's extreme vanity and want of tact, partly through Nero's jealousy of Lucan's pre-eminence that favour was wholly withdrawn.[47] Nevertheless, though Nero may have shown jealousy of successful rivals, he seems to have had sufficient respect for literature to refrain from persecution. He did not go out of his way to punish personal attacks on himself. If names were delated to the senate on such a charge, he inclined to mercy. Even the introduction into an Atellan farce of jests on the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina was only punished with exile.[48] Only after the detection of Piso's conspiracy in 65 did his anger vent itself on writers: towards the end of his reign the distinguished authors, Virginius Flavus and the Stoic Musonius Rufus, were both driven into exile. As for the deaths of Seneca and Lucan, the two most distinguished writers of the day, though both perished at Nero's hands, it was their conduct, not their writings, that brought them to destruction. Both were implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy. If, then, Nero's direct influence on literature was for the bad, it was not because he was adverse: it suffered rather from his favour: the extravagant tastes of the princeps and the many eccentricities of his life and character may perhaps find a reflection in some of the more grotesque extravagances of Lucan, such for instance as the absurdly servile dedication of the Pharsalia. But even in this direction his influence was probably comparatively small.

In view, then, of what is known of the attitude of the four emperors of the period most critical for Silver Latin literature, the period of its birth, it may be said that, on the worst estimate, their direct influence is not an important factor in the decline.[49] On the other hand, the indirect influence of the principate was beyond doubt evil. Society was corrupt enough and public life sufficiently uninspiring under Augustus. After the first glow of enthusiasm over the restoration of peace and order, and over the vindication of the Roman power on the frontiers of empire had passed away, men felt how thinly veiled was their slavery. Liberty was gradually restricted, autocracy cast off its mask: the sense of power that goes with freedom dwindled; little was left to waken man's enthusiasm, and the servility exacted by the emperors became more and more degrading. Unpleasing as are the flatteries addressed to Augustus by Vergil and Horace, they fade into insignificance compared with Lucan's apotheosis of Nero; or to take later and yet more revolting examples, the poems of the Silvae addressed by Statius to Domitian or his favourites. Further, these four emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty set a low standard of private life: they might command flattery, they could hardly exact respect. Two clever lunatics, a learned fool, and a morose cynic are not inspiring.

Nevertheless, however unhealthy its influence may have been—and there has been much exaggeration on this point—it must be remembered that the principate found ready to its hand a society with all the seeds of decay implanted deep within it. Even a succession of sane and virtuous Caesars might well have failed, with the machinery and material at their disposal, to put new and vigorous life into the aristocracy and people of Rome. Even the encroachments of despotism on popular liberty must be attributed in no small degree to the incapacity of what should have been the ruling class at Rome. Despotism was in a sense forced upon the emperors: they were not reluctant, but, had they been so, they would still have had little choice. The primary causes of the decline of literature, as of the decay of life and morals, lie much deeper. The influence of princeps and principate, though not negligible, is comparatively small.

The really important causes are to be found first in the general decay of Roman character—far-advanced before the coming of Caesarism, secondly in the peculiar nature of Roman literature, and thirdly in the vicious system of Roman education.

It was the first of these factors that produced the lubricity that defiles and the lack of moral earnestness that weakens such a large proportion of the literature of this age. It is not necessary to illustrate this point in any detail.[50] The record of Rome, alike in home and foreign politics, during the hundred and twenty years preceding the foundation of the principate forms one of the most fascinating, but in many respects one of the most profoundly melancholy pages in history. The poems of Catullus and the speeches of Cicero serve equally to illustrate the wholesale corruption alike of public and private morality. The Roman character had broken down before the gradual inroads of an alien luxury and the opening of wide fields of empire to plunder. It is an age of incredible scandal, of mob law, of coups d'état and proscriptions, saved only from utter gloom by the illusory light shed from the figures of a few great men and by the never absent sense of freedom and expansion. There still remained a republican liberty of action, an inspiring possibility of reform, an outlet for personal ambition, which facilitated the rise of great leaders and writers. And Rome was now bringing to ripeness fruit sprung from the seed of Hellenism, a decadent and meretricious Hellenism, but even in its decay the greatest intellectual force of the world.

Wonderful as was the fruit produced by the graft of Hellenism, it too contained the seeds of decay. For Rome owed too little to early Greek epic and to the golden literature of Athens, too much to the later age when rhetoric had become a knack, and

the love of letters overdone Had swamped the sacred poets with themselves.[51]

Roman literature came too late: that it reached such heights is a remarkable tribute to the greatness of Roman genius, even in its decline. With the exception of the satires of Lucilius and Horace there was practically no branch of literature that did not owe its inspiration and form to Greek models. Even the primitive national metre had died out. Roman literature—more especially poetry—was therefore bound to be unduly self-conscious and was always in danger of a lack of spontaneity. That Rome produced great prose writers is not surprising; they had copious and untouched material to deal with, and prose structure was naturally less rapidly and less radically affected by Greek influence. That she should have produced a Catullus, a Lucretius, a Vergil, a Horace, and—most wonderful of all—an Ovid was an amazing achievement, rendered not the less astonishing when it is remembered that the stern bent of the practical Roman mind did not in earlier days give high promise of poetry. The marvel is not wholly to be explained by the circumstances of the age. The new sense of power, the revival of the national spirit under the warming influence of peace and hope, that characterize the brilliant interval between the fall of the republic and the turbid stagnation of the empire, are not enough to account for it. Their influence would have been in vain had they not found remarkable genius ready for the kindling.

The whole field of literature had been so thoroughly covered by the great writers of Hellas, that it was hard for the imitative Roman to be original. As far as epic poetry was concerned, Rome had poor material with which to deal: neither her mythology—the most prosaic and business-like of all mythologies—nor her history seemed to give any real scope for the epic writer. The Greek mythology was ready to hand, but it was hard for a Roman to treat it with high enthusiasm, and still harder to handle it with freshness and individuality. The purely historical epic is from its very nature doomed to failure. Treated with accuracy it becomes prosy, treated with fancy it becomes ridiculous. Vergil saw the one possible avenue to epic greatness. He went back into the legendary past where imagination could have free play, linked together the great heroic sagas of Greece with the scanty materials presented by the prehistoric legends of Rome, and kindled the whole work to life by his rich historical imagination and his sense of the grandeur of the Rome that was to be. His unerring choice of subject and his brilliant execution seemed to close to his successors all paths to epic fame. They had but well-worn and inferior themes wherefrom to choose, and the supremacy of Vergil's genius dominated their minds, becoming an obsession and a clog rather than an assistance to such poetic genius as they possessed. The same is true of Horace. As complete a master in lyric verse as Vergil in heroic, he left the after-comer no possibility of advance. As for Ovid, there could be only one Ovid: the cleverest and most heartless of poets, he at once challenged and defied imitation. Satire alone was left with real chance of success: while the human race exists, there will always be fresh material for satire, and the imperial age was destined to give it peculiar force and scope. Further, satire and its nearest kin, the epigram, were the only forms of literature that were not seriously impaired by the artificial system of education that had struck root in Rome.

Otherwise the tendency to artificiality on the one hand and inadequacy of thought on the other, to which the conditions of its birth and growth exposed Roman literature, were aggravated to an almost incredible extent by the absurd system of education to which the unformed mind of the young Roman was subjected. It will be seen that what Greece gave with the right hand she took away with the left.

There were three stages in Roman education, the elementary, the literary, the rhetorical. The first, in which the litterator taught the three R's, does not concern us here. In the second stage the grammaticus gave instruction in Greek and Latin literature, together with the elements of grammar and style. The profound influence of Greece is shown by Quintilian's recommendation[52] that a boy should start on Greek literature, and by the fact that boys began with Homer.[53] Greek authors, particularly studied, were Aesop, Hesiod, the tragedians, and Menander.[54] Among Roman authors Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, Afranius, Plautus, Caecilius, and Terence were much read, though there was a reaction against these early authors under the empire, and they were partly replaced by Vergil, Horace, and Ovid.[55] These authors were made vehicles for the teaching of grammar and of style. The latter point alone concerns us here. The Roman boy was taught to read aloud intelligently and artistically with the proper modulation of the voice. For this purpose he was carefully taught the laws of metre, with special reference to the peculiarities of particular poets. After the reading aloud (lectio) came the enarratio or explanation of the text. The educational value of this was doubtless considerable, though it was impaired by the importance assigned to obscure mythological knowledge and unscientific archaeology.[56] The pupil would be further instructed by exercises in paraphrase and by the treatment in simple essay form of themes (sententiae). 'Great store was set both in speaking and writing on a command of an abundance of general truths or commonplaces, and even at school boys were trained to commit them to memory, to expand them, and illustrate them from history.'[57] Finally they were taught to write verse. Such at least is a legitimate inference from the extraordinary precocity shown by many Roman authors.[58] This literary training contained much that was of great value, but it also had grave disadvantages. There seems in the first place to have been too much 'spoon-feeding', and too little genuine brain exercise for the pupil.[59] Secondly, the fact that at this stage boys were nurtured almost entirely on poetry requires serious consideration. The quality of the food supplied to the mind, though pre-eminently palatable, must have tended to be somewhat thin. The elaborate instruction in mythological erudition was devoid of religious value; and indeed of any value, save the training of a purely mechanical memory. Attention was called too much to the form, too little to the substance. Style has its value, but it is after all only a secondary consideration in education. The effect upon literature of this poetical training was twofold. It caused an undue demand for poetical colour in prose, and produced a horrible precocity and cacoethes scribendi[60] in verse, together with an abnormal tendency to imitation of the great writers of previous generations.[61]

But the rhetorical training which succeeded was responsible for far worse evils. The importance of rhetoric in ancient education is easily explained. The Greek or Roman gentleman was destined to play a part in the public life of the city state. For this purpose the art of speaking was of enormous value alike in politics and in the law courts. Hence the universal predominance of rhetoric in higher education both in Rome and Greece.[62] The main instrument of instruction was the writing of themes for declamation. These exercises were divided into suasoriae— deliberative speeches in which some course of action was discussed— and controversiae—where some proposition was maintained or denied. Pupils began with suasoriae and went on to controversiae. Regarded as a mental gymnastic, these themes may have possessed some value. But they were hackneyed and absurdly remote from real life, as can be judged from the examples collected by the elder Seneca. Typical subjects of the suasoria are—'Agamemnon deliberates whether to slay Iphigenia';[63] 'Cicero deliberates whether to burn his writings, Antony having promised to spare him on that condition';[64] 'Three hundred Spartans sent against Xerxes after the flight of troops sent from the rest of Greece deliberate whether to stand or fly.'[65]

The controversia requires further explanation. A general law is stated, e.g. incesta saxo deiciatur. A special case follows, e.g. incesti damnata antequam deiceretur invocavit Vestam: deiecta vixit. The special case had to be brought under the general rule; repetitur ad poenam.[66] Other examples are equally absurd:[67] one and all are ridiculously remote from real life. It was bad enough that boys' time should be wasted thus, but the evil was further emphasized by the practice of recitation. These exercises, duly corrected and elaborated, were often recited by their youthful authors to an audience of complaisant friends and relations. Of such training there could be but one possible result. 'Less and less attention was paid to the substance of the speech, more and more to the language; justness and appropriateness of thought came to be less esteemed than brilliance and novelty of expression.'[68]

These formal defects of education were accompanied by a widespread neglect of the true educational spirit. The development on healthy lines of the morale, and intellect of the young became in too many instances a matter of indifference. Throughout the great work of Quintilian we have continued evidence of the lack of moral and intellectual enthusiasm that characterized the schools of his day. Even more passionate are the denunciations levelled against contemporary education by Messala in the Dialogus of Tacitus.[69] Parents neglect their children from their earliest years: they place them in the charge of foreign slaves, often of the most degraded character; or if they do pay any personal attention to their upbringing, it is to teach them not honesty, purity, and respect for themselves and their elders, but pertness, luxurious habits, and neglect alike of themselves and of others. The schools moreover, apart from their faulty methods and ideals of instruction, encourage other faults. The boys' interests lie not in their work, but in the theatres, the gladiatorial games, the races in the circus—those ancient equivalents of twentieth-century athleticism. Their minds are utterly absorbed by these pursuits, and there is little room left for nobler studies. 'How few boys will talk of anything else at home? What topic of conversation is so frequent in the lecture-room; what other subject so frequently on the lips of the masters, who collect pupils not by the thoroughness of their teaching or by giving proof of their powers of instruction, but by interested visits and all the tricks of toadyism?'[70] Messala goes on[71] to denounce the unreality of the exercises in the schools, whose deleterious effect is aggravated by the low standard exacted. 'Boys and young men are the speakers, boys and young men the audience, and their efforts are received with undiscriminating praise.'

The same faults that were generated in the schools were intensified in after-life. In the law courts the same smart epigrams, the same meretricious style were required. No true method had been taught, with the result that 'frivolity of style, shallow thoughts, and disorderly structure' prevailed; orators imitated the rhythms of the stage and actually made it their boast that their speeches would form fitting accompaniments to song and dance. It became a common saying that 'our orators speak voluptuously, while our actors dance eloquently'.[72] Poetical colour was demanded of the orator, rhetorical colour of the poet. The literary and rhetorical stages of education reacted on one another.[73]

Further, just as the young poet had to his great detriment been encouraged to recite at school, so he had to recite if he was to win fame for his verse in the larger world. Even in a saner society poetry written primarily for recitation must have run to rhetoric; in a rhetorical age the result was disastrous. In an enormous proportion of cases the poet of the Silver Age wrote literally for an audience. Great as were the facilities for publication the poet primarily made his name, not by the gradual distribution of his works among a reading public, but by declaiming before public or private audiences. The practice of gathering a circle of acquaintances together to listen to the recitations of a poet is said first to have been instituted by Asinius Pollio, the patron of Vergil. There is evidence to show that all the poets of the Augustan age gave recitations.[74] But the practice gradually increased and became a nuisance to all save the few who had the courage to stand aloof from these mutual admiration societies. Indiscriminate praise was lavished on good and bad work alike. Even Pliny the younger, whose cultivation and literary taste place him high above the average literary level of his day, approves of the increase of this melancholy harvest of minor poetry declaimed by uninspired bards.[75] The effect was lamentable. All the faults of the suasoria and controversia made their appearance in poetry.[76] The poet had continually to be performing acrobatic feats, now of rhetoric or epigram, now of learning, or again in the description of blood-curdling horrors, monstrous deaths and prodigious sorceries. Each work was overloaded with sententiae and purple patches.[77] So only could the author keep the attention of his audience. The results were disastrous for literature and not too satisfactory[78] for the authors themselves, as the following curious passage from Tacitus (Dial. 9) shows:

Bassus is a genuine poet, and his verse possesses both beauty and charm: but the only result is that, when after a whole year, working every day and often well into the night, he has hammered out one book of poems, he must needs go about requesting people to be good enough to give him a hearing: and what is more he has to pay for it: for he borrows a house, constructs an auditorium, hires benches and distributes programmes. And then—admitting his recitations to be highly successful—yet all that honour and glory falls within one or two days, prematurely gathered like grass in the blade or flowers in their earliest bloom: it has no sure or solid reward, wins no friendship or following or lasting gratitude, naught save a transient applause, empty words of praise and a fleeting enthusiasm.

The less fortunate poet had to betake himself to the forum or the public baths or some temple, there to inflict his tawdry wares upon the ears of a chance audience.[79] Others more fortunate would be lent a room by some rich patron.[80] Under Nero and Domitian we get the apotheosis of recitation. Nero, we have seen, established the Neronia in 60 and himself competed. Domitian established a quinquennial competition in honour of Jupiter Capitolinus in 86 and an annual competition held every Quinquatria Minervae at his palace on the Alban mount.[81] From that time forward it became the ambition of every poet to be crowned at these grotesque competitions.

The result of all these co-operating influences will be evident as we deal with the individual poets. Here we can only give a brief summary of the general characteristics of this fantastic literature. We have a striving after originality that ends in eccentricity: writers were steeped in the great poets of the Augustan age: men of comparatively small creative imagination, but, thanks to their education, possessed of great technical skill, they ran into violent extremes to avoid the charge of imitating the great predecessors whom they could not help but imitate; hence the obscurity of Persius—the disciple of Horace—and of Statins and Valerius Flaccus—the followers of Vergil. Hence Lucan's bold attempt to strike out a new type of epic, an attempt that ended in a wild orgy of brilliant yet turbid rhetoric. The simple and natural was at a discount: brilliance of point, bombastic description, gorgeous colour were preferred to quiet power. Alexandrian learning, already too much in evidence in the Augustan age, becomes more prominent and more oppressive. For men of second-rate talent it served to give their work a spurious air of depth and originality to which it was not entitled. The necessity of patronage engendered a fulsome flattery, while the false tone of the schools of rhetoric,[82] aided perhaps by the influence of the Stoical training so fashionable at Rome, led to a marvellous conceit and self-complacency, of which a lack of humour was a necessary corollary. These symptoms are seen at their worst during the extravagant reign of Nero, though the blame attaches as much to Seneca as to his pupil and emperor. Traces of a reaction against this wild unreality are perhaps to be found in the literary criticism scattered tip and down the pages of Petronius,[83] but it was not till the extinction of Nero and Seneca that any strong revolt in the direction of sanity can be traced. Even then it is rather in the sphere of prose than of poetry that it is manifest. Quintilian headed a Ciceronian reaction and was followed by Pliny the younger and for a time by Tacitus. But we may perhaps trace a similar Vergilian reaction in the verse of Silius, Statius, and Valerius.[84] Their faults do not nauseate to the same extent of those of their predecessors. But the mischief was done, and in point of extravagance and meretricious taste the differense is only one of degree.

Satire alone attains to real eminence: rhetoric and epigram are its most mordant weapons, and the schools of rhetoric, if they did nothing else, kept those weapons well sharpened: the gross evils of the age opened an ample field for the satirist. Hence it is that all or almost all that is best in the literature of the Silver Age is satirical or strongly tinged with satire. Tacitus, who had many of the noblest qualifications of a poet, almost deserves the title of Rome's greatest satirist; the works of Persius and Juvenal speak openly for themselves while many of the finest passages in Lucans are most near akin to satire. It is true that under the principate satire had to be employed with caution; under the first two dynasties it was compelled to be general in tone: it was not until after the fall of Domitian, under the enlightened rule of Nerva and Trajan, that it found a freer scope and was at least allowed to lash the vices of the present under the names of the past.

It is in satire alone that we find any trace of genuine moral earnestness and enthusiasm; and the reason for this is primarily that the satirists wrote under the influence of the one force that definitely and steadily made for righteousness. It is the Stoic philosophy that kindles Persius and Lucan, while Tacitus and Juvenal, even if they make no profession of Stoicism, have yet been profoundly influenced by its teaching. Their morality takes its colour, if not its form, from the philosophy oh the 'Porch'. The only non-satirical poetry primarily inspired by Stoicism is the dramatic verse of Seneca. That its influence here is not wholly for the best is due only in part to the intrinsic qualities of its teaching. It is rather in its application that the fault lies; it dominates and crushes the drama instead of suffusing it and lending it wings; it insists on preaching instead of suggesting. It is too insistent and aggressive a creed to harmonize with poetry, unless that poetry be definitely didactic in type and aim. But it is admirably suited to be the inspiration of satire, and it is therefore that the satire makes a far stronger moral appeal than any other form of post-Augustan literature.

Satire apart, the period is in the main an age of belles lettres, of 'the literary gourmet, the connoisseur, the blasé and disillusioned man of society, passionately appreciative of detail, difficulties overcome, and petty felicities of expression.'[85] It is the fashion to despise its works, and the fashion cannot be described as unhealthy or unjust. Yet it produced a few men of genius, while even in the works of those who were far removed from genius, the very fact that there is much refinement of wit, much triumphing over technical difficulties, much elaborate felicity of expression, makes them always a curious and at times a remunerative study. But perhaps its greatest claim upon us lies in the unexpected service that it rendered to the cause of culture. In the darkness of the Middle Ages when Greek was a hidden mystery to the western world, Lucan and Statius, Juvenal and Persius, and even the humble and unknown author of the Ilias Latina, did their part in keeping the lamp alive and illumining the midnight in which lay hidden the 'budding morrow' of the Renaissance.

CHAPTER II

DRAMA

I

THE STAGE

The drama proper had never flourished at Rome. The causes are not far to seek. Tragic drama was dead in Greece by the time Greek influence made itself felt, while the New Comedy which then held the stage was of too quietly realistic a type and of too refined a wit and humour to be attractive to the coarser and less intelligent audiences of Rome. Terence, the dimidiatus Menander, as Caesar called him, though he won himself a great name with the cultured classes by the purity and elegance of his Latin and the fine drawing of his characters, was a failure with popular audiences owing to his lack of broad farcical humour. Plautus with his coarse geniality and lumbering wit made a greater success. He had grafted the festive spirit of Roman farce on to the more artistic comedy of Athens. Tragedy obtained but a passing vogue. Ennius, Accius, and Pacuvius were read and enjoyed by not a few educated readers, but for the Augustan age, as far as the stage was concerned, they were practically dead and buried. The Roman populace had by that period lost all taste for the highest and most refined forms of art. The races in the circus, the variety entertainments and bloodshed of the amphitheatre had captured the favour of the polyglot, pampered multitude that must have formed such a large proportion of a Roman audience.

Still, dramatic entertainments had by no means wholly disappeared by the time of the Empire. But what remained was of a degraded type. The New Comedy of Athens, as transferred to the Roman stage, had given ground before the advance of the mime and the fabula Atellana. The history of both these forms of comedy belongs to an earlier period. For the post-Augustan age our evidence as to their development is very scanty. Little is known save that they were exceedingly popular. Both were characterized by the broadest farce and great looseness of construction; both were brief one-act pieces and served as interludes or conclusions to other forms of spectacle.

The Atellan was of Italian origin and contained four stock characters, Pappus the old man or pantaloon, Dossennus the wise man, corresponding to the dottore of modern Italian popular comedy, Bucco the clown, and Maccus the fool. It dealt with every kind of theme, parodied the legends of the gods, laughed at the provincial's manners or at the inhabitants of Italian country towns, or depicted in broad comic style incidents in the life of farmer and artisan. Maccus appeared as a young girl, as a soldier, as an innkeeper; Pappus became engaged to be married; Bucco turned gladiator; and in the rough and tumble of these old friends the Roman mob found rich food for laughter.[86]

The mime was of a very similar character, but freer in point of form. It renounced the use of masks and reached, it would seem, an even greater pitch of indecency than the Atellan. The subjects of a few mimes are known to us. Among the most popular were the Phasma or Ghost[87] and the Laureolus[888] of Catullus, a writer of the reign of Caligula. In the latter play was represented the death by crucifixion of the famous brigand 'Laureolus'; so degraded was popular taste that on one occasion it is recorded that a criminal was made to take the part of Laureolus and was crucified in grim earnest upon the stage.[89] In another mime of the principate of Vespasian the chief attraction was a performing dog,[90] which, on being given a pretended opiate, went to sleep and later feigned a gradual revival in such a realistic manner as to rouse the wildest applause on the part of the audience.

Both Atellan and mime abounded in topical allusions and spared not even the emperors. Allusion was made to the unnatural vices attributed to Tiberius,[91] to the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina,[92] to the avarice of Galba,[93] to the divorce of Domitian,[94] and on more than one occasion heavy punishment was meted out to authors and actors alike.[95]

Legitimate comedy led a struggling existence. An inscription at Aeclanum[96] records the memory of a certain Pomponius Bassulus, who not only translated certain comedies of Menander but himself wrote original comedies; while in the letters of Pliny[97] we meet with Vergilius Romanus, a writer of comedies of 'the old style' and of mimiambi. He possessed, so Pliny writes, 'vigour, pungency, and wit. He gave honour to virtue and attacked vice.' It is to be feared that such a form of comedy can hardly have been intended for the public stage, and that Vergilius, like so many poets of his age, wrote for private performance or recitation. These two writers are the only authors of legitimate comedies known to us during the Silver Age. But both fabulae palliatae and togatae, that is to say, comedies representing Greek and Roman life respectively, continued to be acted on the public stage. The Incendium[98] of Afranius, a fabula togata, was performed in the reign of Nero, and the evidence of Quintilian[99] and Juvenal[100] shows that palliatae also continued to be performed. But true comedy had been relegated to a back place and the Silver Age did nothing to modify the dictum of Quintilian,[101] in comoedia maxime claudicamus.

As with comedy so with tragedy. Popular taste rejected the Graeco-Roman tragedy as tedious, and it was replaced by a more sensuous and sensational form of entertainment. The intenser passions and emotions were not banished from the stage, but survived in the salticae fabulae and a peculiar species of dramatic recitation. Infinitely debased as were these substitutes for true drama, the forms assumed by the decomposition of tragedy are yet curious and interesting. The first step was the separation of the cantica from the diverbia. Lyric scenes or even important iambic monologues were taken from their setting and sung as solos upon the stage.[102] It was found difficult to combine effective singing with effective gesture and dancing, for music had become more florid and exacting than in the days of Euripides. A second actor appeared who supplied the gesture to illustrate the first actor's song.[103] From this peculiar and to us ridiculous form of entertainment it is a small step to the fabula saltica, which was at once nearer the legitimate drama and further from it. It was nearer in that the scenes were not isolated, but formed part of a more or less carefully constructed whole. It was further inasmuch as the actor disappeared, only the dancer remaining upon the stage. The words of the play were relegated to a chorus, while the character, actions, and emotions of the person represented by the words of the chorus were set forth by the dress, gesticulation, and dancing of the pantomimus. How the various scenes were connected is uncertain; but it is almost a necessary inference that the connexion was provided by the chorus or, as in modern oratorio, by recitative. To us the mimetic posturing of the pantomimus appears an almost ridiculous substitute for drama; but the dancing of the actors seems to have been extraordinarily artistic and at times to have had a profound effect upon the emotions of the audience,[104] while the brilliant success in our own time of plays in dumb show, such as the famous Enfant Prodigue, should be a warning against treating the pantomimus with contempt.

This form of entertainment was first introduced at Rome in 22 B.C. by the actors Pylades and Bathyllus,[105] the former being famed for his tragic dancing, the latter for a broader and more comic style, whose dramatic counterpart would seem to have been the satyric drama.[106] The satyric element seems, however, never to have become really popular, the fabula saltica as we know it dealing mainly with tragic or highly emotional themes. Indeed, to judge from Lucian's disquisition on the art of dancing, the subjects seem to have been drawn from almost every conceivable source both of history and mythology.[107] Many of these salticae fabulae must have been mere adaptations of existing tragedies. Their literary value was, according to Plutarch, by no means high;[108] it was sacrificed to the music and the dancing, for the emotional effect of which Lucian can scarcely find sufficiently high terms of praise.[109] The themes appear to have been drawn from the more lurid passages in mythology and history. If the libretto was not coarse in itself, there is abundant evidence to show that the subjects chosen were often highly lascivious, while the movements of the dancers—not seldom men of the vilest character—were frequently to the last degree obscene.[110] Inadequate as this substitute for the drama must seem to us, we must remember that southern peoples were—and indeed are—far more sensitive to the language of signs, to expressive gesticulation and the sensuous movements of the body[111] than are the less quick-witted and emotional peoples of the North; and further, even if for the most part these fabulae salticae had small literary value, distinguished poets did not disdain to write librettos for popular actors. Passages from the works of Vergil were adapted for such performances;[112] Lucan wrote no less than fourteen fabulae salticae,[113] while the Agave of Statius,[114] written for the dancer Paris, is famous from the well-known passage in the seventh satire of Juvenal. Nothing survives of these librettos to enlighten us as to their literary characteristics, and the other details of the performance do not concern us here.[115] It is sufficient to say that the pantomimus had an enormous vogue in the Silver Age, and won a rich harvest by his efforts, and that the factions of the theatre, composed of the partisans of this or that actor, were scarcely less notorious than the factions of the circus for the disturbances to which they gave rise.[116]

Of the musical recitations of portions of existing tragedies or of tragic episodes written for the occasion we possess even less knowledge. The passages selected or composed for this purpose were in all probability usually lyric, but we hear also of the chanting of iambics, as, for instance, in the case of the Oedipus in Exile, in which Nero made his last appearance on the stage.[117] Of the part played by the chorus and of the structure of the librettos we know nothing; they may have been purely episodic and isolated or may, as in the salticae fabulae, have been loosely strung together into the form of an ill-constructed play. That they were sometimes written in Greek is known from the fact that the line quoted by Suetonius from the Oedipus in Exile mentioned above is in that language. Of the writers of this debased and bastard offspring of drama we know nothing save that Nero, who was passionately fond of appearing in them, seems also to have written them. (Suet. Ner. 39.)

The tragic stage had indeed sunk low, when it served almost entirely for exhibitions such as these. Nevertheless tragedy had not ceased to exist even if it had ceased to hold the stage.[118] Varius and Ovid had won fame in the Augustan age by their Thyestes and Medea, and the post-Augustan decadence was not without its tragedians. One only is mentioned by Quintilian in his survey of Roman poetry, Pomponius Secundus. Of him he says (x. 1. 98), 'Of the tragedians whom I myself have seen, Pomponius Secundus is by far the most eminent; a writer whom the oldest men of the day thought not quite tragic enough, but acknowledged that he excelled in learning and elegance of style.' Pomponius was a man of great distinction.[119] His friendship for Aelius Gallus, the son of Sejanus, had brought him into disgrace with Tiberius, but he recovered his position under Claudius. He attained to the consulship, and commanded with distinction in a war against the Chatti in A.D. 50. Of his writings we know but very little. Of his plays nothing is left save a brief fragment[120] from a play entitled Aeneas; whether it dealt with the deeds of Aeneas in his native land or in the land of his adoption is uncertain, though it is on the whole probable that the scene was Italian and that the drama was therefore a fabula praetexta. Whether his plays were performed on the public stage is not quite clear. Tacitus tells us of riots in the theatre in A.D. 44,[121] when 'poems' by Pomponius were being recited on the stage. But the words used by the historian (is carmina scaenae dabat) point rather to the recitation of a dramatic solo than to a complete tragedy of the orthodox type. Pomponius, dramatist and philologist,[122] remains a mere name for us.

Another distinguished writer of plays was Curiatius Maternus, a well-known orator; it is in his house that Tacitus places the scene of the Dialogus, and he is the chief character of the conversation. He had written his first tragedy under Nero,[123] and at the time of the Dialogus (A.D. 79-81) his Cato—a fabula praetexta—was the talk of Rome.[124] He had written another historical drama on the ancestor of Nero, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the persistent foe of Julius Caesar, who perished on the field of Pharsalia.[125] He had also written plays on the more hackneyed themes of Medea and Thyestes.[126] He had all the opportunities and all the requisite gifts for a successful public career, but his heart was with the Muses, and he resolved to quit public life and to devote himself wholly to poetry, for there, in his estimation, the truest fame was to be found.[127] Here our knowledge ends. Of the details of his life we are as ignorant as of his plays.

A few other names of tragic poets are known to us. Paccius wrote an Alcithoe,[128] Faustus a Thebais and a Tereus,[129] Rubrenus Lappa an Atreus,[130] while Scaevus Memor,[131] victor at the Agon Capitolinus and brother of Turnus the satirist, wrote a Hercules and a Hecuba or Troades.[132] Martial (xi. 9) styles him the 'glory of the Roman buskin', but he too is but the shadow of an empty name. The tragedies of the age are lost to us, all save the tragedies of the philosopher Seneca, plays of which, save for one casual reference[133] in Quintilian, contemporary literature gives no hint, but which, however little they may have deserved it, were destined to have no negligible influence on the subsequent history of the world's drama.

II

SENECA

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, one of the most striking figures among the great writers of Rome, was born at Cordova[134] about the opening of the Christian era, to be the most remarkable member of a remarkable family. His father, who bore the same name, was the famous rhetorician to whom we have already referred. His elder brother, M. Annaeus Novatus,[135] was adopted by L. Iunius Gallio, whose name he assumed, had a distinguished public career, and is best known to us, in his capacity of governor of Achaea, as the 'Gallio' of the Acts. The youngest of the family, M. Annaeus Mela,[136] remained in the equestrian order and devoted himself to the acquisition of wealth, regarding this as the safest path to fame. He succeeded to some extent in his object, but his main claim upon our remembrance is as the father of the poet Lucan. Lucius Seneca came to Rome at an early age,[137] and, in spite of the bad health which afflicted him all his life long,[138] soon made his mark as an orator. Indeed, so striking was his success that—although he showed no particular eagerness for a political career—his sheer mastery of the Roman speech wakened the jealousy of Caligula,[139] who only spared his life on the ground that he suffered from chronic asthma and was not likely to live long, and contented himself, therefore, with mordant but not unjust criticism of the style of his intended victim.[140] But though oratory provided Seneca with the readiest means for the gratification of his not inconsiderable vanity, and for the exercise of his marvellous powers of wit and epigram, it was not the pursuit of rhetoric and its prizes that really held the first place in his heart. That place was claimed by philosophy. His first love was Pythagoreanism, which he studied under Sotion[14l] of Alexandria, whose influence was sufficient to induce his youthful pupil to become a convinced vegetarian. But his father, who hated fads and philosophers, persuaded Seneca without much difficulty to 'dine better', and the doctrines of Pythagoras were soon displaced by the more fashionable teaching of the Stoics. From the lips of Attalus[142] he learned all the principles of that ascetic school. 'I besieged his class-room,' he writes; 'I was the first to come, the last to go; I would waylay him when out walking and lead him to discuss serious problems.' Whether he denounced vice and luxury, or extolled poverty, Attalus found a convinced disciple in Seneca. His convictions did not possess sufficient weight to lead him to embrace a life of austere poverty, but he at least learned to sleep on a hard mattress, and to eschew hot baths, wine, unguents, oysters, and mushrooms. How far his life conformed to the highest principles of his creed, it is hard to say. If we are to believe his detractors, he was guilty of committing adultery with the Princess Julia Livilla, was surrounded with all the luxuries that the age could supply, and drained the life-blood of Italy and the provinces by extortionate usury.[143] During his long exile in Corsica he could write a consolatory treatise to his mother on the thesis that the true philosopher is never an exile;[144] wherever he is, there he is at home; but little more than a year later he writes another consolatory treatise to the imperial freedman Polybius, full of the most grovelling flattery of Polybius himself and of the Emperor Claudius,[145] the same Claudius whom he afterwards bespattered with the coarse, if occasionally humorous, vulgarity of the Apocolocyntosis.[146] He was tutor to the young Nero, but had not the strength to check his vices. He sought to control him by flattery and platitudes rather than by the high example of the philosophy which he professed.[147] The composition of the treatise ad Neronem de Clementia was a poor reply to Nero's murder of Britannicus.[148] He could write eloquently of Stoic virtue, but when he himself was confronted with the hard facts of life over which Stoicism claimed to triumph, he proved no more than a 'lath painted to look like iron'. Such is the case against Seneca. That it can be rebutted entirely it is impossible to claim. But we must remember the age in which he lived. Its love of debauchery was only equalled by its prurient love of scandal. Seneca's banishment on the charge of an intrigue with Livilla is not seriously damaging. The accusation may have been true: it is at least as likely to have been false, for it was instigated by Messalina. That he lived in wealth and luxury is undoubted: his only defence was that he was really indifferent to it; he could face any future; he had, therefore, a right to enjoy the present.[149] That he ground down the provincials by his usury is possible; the standard in such matters was low, and the real nature of his extortions may never have come home to him; he must have depended largely on his agents. With regard to his management of the young princeps the case is different. Seneca was given an almost impossible task. Neither his nature nor his surroundings made Nero a suitable subject for moral instruction. Seneca must have been hampered at every turn. He must either bend or break. At least he won the respect of his pupil, and the good governance of the empire during the first five years of Nero's reign was due largely to the fact that the power was really in the hands of Seneca and Burrus.[150] Many of the weaknesses of his character may be accounted for by physical debility, and we must further remember that a Stoic of the age of Nero found himself in a most difficult position. He could not put his principles into full practice in public life without incurring the certain displeasure of the emperor. The stricter Stoic, therefore, like Thrasea, retired to the seclusion of his estates 'condemning the wicked world of Rome by his absence from it'.[151] Seneca, weaker, but possessed of greater common sense, chose the via media. He was content to sacrifice something of his principles to the service of Rome—and of himself. It is not necessary to regard him as wholly disinterested in his conduct; it is unjust and absurd to regard him as a glorified Tartuffe.[152] Such a supposition is adequately refuted by his writings. It is easy for a writer at once so fluent and so brilliant to give the impression of insincerity; but the philosophical works of Seneca ring surprisingly true. We cannot doubt his faith, though his life may at times have belied it. He reveals a warmth of human feeling, a richness of imagination, a comprehension of human failings and sorrows, that make him rank high among the great preachers of the world. Even here, it is true, he has his failings; he repeats himself, has little constructive talent, and fails at times to conceal a passion for the obvious beneath the brilliance of his epigram. But alike in the spheres of politics and literature he is the greatest man of his age. In literature he stands alone: he is a prose Ovid, with the saving gift of moral fervour. His style is terse and epigrammatic, but never obscure; it lacks the roll of the continuous prose of the Augustan age, but its phrases have a beauty and a music of their own: at their best they are touched with a genuine vein of poetry, at their worst they have a hard brilliance against the attractions of which only the most fastidious eye is proof. He towered over all his contemporaries. In him were concentrated all the excellences of the rhetorical schools of the day. Seneca became the model for literary aspirants to copy. But he was a dangerous model. His lack of connexion and rhythm became exaggerated by his followers, and the slightest lack of dexterity in the imitator led to a flashy tawdriness such as Seneca himself had as a rule avoided. He was too facile and careless a composer to yield a canon for style. The reaction came soon. Involved, whether justly or not, in the Pisonian conspiracy of 65 A.D., he was forced to commit suicide. He died as the Stoics of the age were wont to die, cheerfully, courageously, and with self-conscious ostentation.[153] Within a few years of his death the great Ciceronian reaction headed by Quintilian began. The very vehemence with which the Senecan style was attacked, now by Quintilian[154] and later by Fronto,[155] shows what a commanding position he held.

He was poet as well as philosopher. Quintilian tells us that he left scarcely any branch of literature untouched. 'We possess,' he says, 'his speeches, poems, letters, and dialogues.'[156] Two collections of poems attributed to Seneca have come down to us, a collection of epigrams and a collection of dramas. There is strangely little external evidence to support either attribution, but in neither case can there be any serious doubt as to the general correctness of the tradition.

The Anthologia Latina, compiled at Carthage in the sixth century, opens with seventy-three epigrams, of which three are attributed by the MSS. to Seneca (Poet. Lat. Min. 1-3, Baehrens). The first is entitled de qualitate temporis and descants on the ultimate destruction of the world by fire—a well-known Stoical doctrine. The second and third are fierce denunciations of Corsica, his place of exile. The rest are nameless. But there are several which can only be attributed to Seneca. The ninth is entitled de se ad patriam, and is addressed to Cordova by one plunged in deep misfortune—a clear reference to his banishment in Corsica. The fifty-first is a prayer that the author's two brothers may be happier than himself, and that 'the little Marcus may rival his uncles in eloquence'. The brothers are described one as older, the other as younger than the author. It is an obvious inference that the brothers referred to are Gallio and Mela, while it is possible that the little Marcus is no other than the gifted son of Mela, Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, the epic poet.[157] The fifteenth represents him as an exile in a barren land: he appeals to a faithful friend named Crispus, probably the distinguished orator Passienus Crispus, the younger, who was consul for the second time in 44 A.D.[158] There are also other epigrams which, though less explicit, suit the circumstances of Seneca's exile. The fifth is written in praise of the quiet life. The author has two brothers (l. 14), and at the opening of the poem cries, 'let others seek the praetorship!' In this connexion it is noteworthy that at the time of his banishment Seneca had held no higher office than the quaestorship. The seventeenth and eighteenth are on the same subject, and contain a solemn warning against regum amicitiae, appropriate enough in the mouth of the victim of a court intrigue. Epigrams 29-36 are devoted to the praises of Claudius for his conquest of Britain. Claudius had banished him and was a suitable subject for flattery. For the rest the poems are largely of the republican character so fashionable in Stoic circles during the first century of the empire. There are many epigrams on Cato [159] and the Pompeys. Others, again, are of a rhetorical nature, dealing with scholastic themes;[160] others of an erotic and even scandalous character. We can claim no certainty for the view that all these poems are by Seneca, but there is a general resemblance of style throughout, and probability points to the whole collection being by the same author. The fact that the same theme is treated more than once scarcely stands in the way. We cannot dictate the amusements of a weary exile. It would be rash even to deny the possibility of his being the author of the erotic poems.[161] Philosopher as he was, he had been banished on a charge of adultery: without in any way admitting the truth of that accusation, we may readily believe that he stooped to one of the fashionable amusements of the day, the composition of pointed and unsavoury verse; for the standard of morality in writing was far lower than the standard of morals in actual life.[162]

The poems repay reading, but call for little comment. They lack originality. The thought is thin, the expression neat, though scarcely as pointed as we might expect from such an author, while the metre is graceful: the treatment of the elegiac is freer than that of Ovid, but pleasing and melodious. At times powerful lines flash out.

qua frigida semper praefulget stellis Arctos inocciduis (xxxvi. 6)

Where the cold constellation of the heaven gleams
ever with unsetting stars.

shines out from the midst of banal flattery of the emperor with astonishing splendour. The poem de qualitate temporis (4) closes with four fine lines with the unmistakable Senecan ring about them—

quid tam parva loquor? moles pulcerrima caeli
ardebit flammis tota repente suis.
omnia mors poscit. lex est, non poena, perire:
hic aliquo mundus tempore nullus erit.

Why speak of things so small? The glorious vault of heaven one day shall blaze with sudden self-kindled flame. Death calls for all creation. 'Tis a law, not a penalty to perish. The universe itself shall one day be as though it had never been.

Cato (9) deliberates on suicide with characteristic rhetoric, artificial in the extreme, but not devoid of dignity—

estne aliquid, quod Cato non potuit?
dextera, me vitas? durum est iugulasse Catonem?
sed, quia liber erit, iam puto, non dubitas.
fas non est vivum cuiquam servire Catonem:
quinctiam vivit nunc Cato, si moritur.[2]

Is there then that which Cato had not the heart to do?
Right-hand, dost thou shrink from me? Is it hard to slay
Cato? Nay, methinks thou dost hesitate no more, for thou
shalt set Cato free. 'Tis a crime that Cato should live
to be any man's slave; nay, Cato truly lives if Cato die.

Cleverest of all is the treatment of the rhetorical theme of the two brothers who meet in battle in the civil war (72). The one unwittingly slays the other, strips the slain, and discovers what he has done—

quod fuerat virtus, factum est scelus. haeret in hoste
miles et e manibus mittere tela timet.
inde ferox: 'quid, lenta manus, nunc denique cessas?
iustius hoste tibi qui moriatur adest.
fraternam res nulla potest defendere caedem;
mors tua sola potest: morte luenda tua est,
scilicet ad patrios referes spolia ampla penates?
ad patrem victor non potes ire tuum.
sed potes ad fratrem: nunc fortiter utere telo!
impius hoc telo es, hoc potes esse pius.
vivere si poteris, potuisti occidere fratrem!
nescisti: sed scis: haec mora culpa tua est.
viximus adversis, iaccamus partibus isdem
(dixit et in dubio est utrius ense cadat).
ense meo moriar, maculato morte nefanda?
cui moreris, ferrum quo moriare dabit.'
dixit et in fratrem fraterno concidit ense:
victorem et victum condidit una manus.[163]

What had been valour now is made a crime. The soldier
halts by his foe and fears to launch his shafts. Then
his courage rekindled. 'What! coward hand, dost thou
delay now? There is one here whom thou shouldst slay
sooner than the foe. Naught can assoil of the guilt of
a brother's blood save only death; 'tis thy death must
atone. Shalt thou bear home to thy father's halls rich
spoil of war? Nay, victor thus, thou canst not go to meet
thy sire. But victor thou canst go to meet thy brother;
now use thy weapon bravely. This weapon stained thee with
crime, 'tis this weapon shall make thee clean. If thou hast
heart to live, thou hadst the heart to slay thy brother;
thou hadst no such murderous thought, but now thou hast;
this thy tarrying brings thee guilt. We have lived foes, let
us lie united in the peace of the grave.' He ceased and
doubted on whose sword to fall.' Shall I die by mine own
sword, thus foul with shameful murder. He for whom thou diest
shall give thee the steel wherewith to die.' He ceased, and
fell dead upon his brother, slain by his brother's sword.
The same hand slew both victor and vanquished.

This is not poetry of the first class, if indeed it is poetry at all. But it is trick-rhetoric of the most brilliant kind without degenerating into bombastic absurdity. There is, in fact, a restraint in these epigrams which provides a remarkable contrast with the turgid extravagance that defaces so much of the dramas. This is in part due to the difference of the moulds into which the rhetoric is run, but it is hard to resist the belief that the epigrams—written mainly during the exile in Corsica—are considerably later than the plays. They are in themselves insignificant; they show no advance in dexterity upon the dramas, but they do show a distinct increase of maturity.

The plays are ten in number; they comprise a Hercules Furens, Troades, Phoenissae (or Thebais), Medea, Phaedra (or Hippolytus), Oedipus, Agamemnon, Thyestes, Hercules Oetaeus, and—sole example of the fabula praetexta—the Octavia. Despite the curious silence of Seneca himself and of his contemporaries, there can be little doubt as to the general correctness of the attribution which assigns to Seneca the only Latin tragedies that grudging time has spared us. The Medea, Hercules Furens, Troades, Phaedra, Agamemnon, and Thyestes are all cited by late writers, while Quintilian[164] himself cites a line from the Medea as the work of Seneca. The name Seneca, without any further specification, points as clearly to Seneca, the philosopher, as the name Cicero to the great orator. The absence of any further or more explicit reference on the part of Quintilian to Seneca's achievements as a tragedian is easily explained on the supposition that the critic regarded them as but an insignificant portion of his work. Yet stronger confirmation is afforded by the internal evidence. The verse is marked by the same brilliant but fatiguing terseness, the same polish and point, the same sententiousness, the same succession of short stabbing sentences, that mark the prose works of Seneca.[165] More remarkable still is the close parallelism of thought. The plays are permeated through and through with Stoicism, and the expression given to certain Stoical doctrines is often almost identical with passages from the philosophical works.[166] Against these evidences the silence of Seneca himself counts for little. We may charitably suppose that he rated his plays at their just value. In any case a poet is under no compulsion to quote his own verses, or even to refer to them, in works of a totally different nature.[167]

A more serious question is whether Seneca is the author of all the plays transmitted to us under his name. The authenticity of four of these dramas has been seriously questioned. That the Octavia is by a later hand may be regarded as certain. Seneca could hardly have dared to write a play on so dangerous a theme—the brutal treatment by Nero of his young wife Octavia. Moreover, Seneca himself is one of the dramatis personae, and there are clear references to the death of Nero, while the style is simple and restrained, and wholly unlike that of the other plays. It is the work of a saner and less flamboyant age.[168] The Agamemnon and the Oedipus have been suspected on the ground that certain of the lyric portions are written in a curious patchwork metre of a character fortunately unique in Latin lyric verse. The Agamemnon further has two choruses.[169] But in all other respects the language, technique, and metre closely resemble the other dramas. Neither objection need carry any weight. There is no reason why Seneca should not have introduced a double chorus or have indulged in unsuccessful metrical experiments.[170] Far more difficult is the problem presented by the Hercules Oetaeus. It presents many anomalies, of which the least are a double chorus and a change of scene from Oechalia to Trachis. Imitations and plagiarisms from the other plays abound, and the work has more than its fair share of vain repetitions and tasteless absurdities. On the other hand, metre and diction closely recall the dramas accepted as genuine. It is hard to give any certain answer to such a complicated problem, but it is noteworthy that all the worst defects in this play (which among its other peculiarities possesses abnormal length) occur after l. 705, while the earlier scenes depicting the jealousy of Deianira show the Senecan dramatic style almost at its best. Even in the later portion of the play there is much that may be by the hand of Seneca. It is impossible to brand the drama as wholly spurious. The opening lines (1-232) may not belong to the play, but may form an entirely separate scene dealing with the capture of Oechalia: there is no reason to suppose that they are not by Seneca, and the same statement applies to the great bulk of ll. 233-705. The remainder has in all probability suffered largely from interpolation, but its general resemblance to Seneca in style and diction is too strongly marked to permit us to reject it en bloc. The problem is too obscure to repay detailed discussion.[171] The most probable solution of the question would seem to be that the work was left in an unfinished condition with inconsistencies, self-plagiarisms, repetitions, and absurdities which revision would have removed; this unfinished drama was then worked over and corrected by a stupid, but careful student of Seneca.

There is such a complete absence of evidence as to the period of Seneca's life during which these dramas were composed, that much ingenuity has been wasted in attempts to solve the problem. The view most widely held—why it should be held is a mystery—is that they were composed during Seneca's exile in Corsica (41-9 A.D.).[172] Others, again, hold that they were written for the delectation of the young Nero, who had early betrayed a taste for the stage. This view has nothing to support it save the accusation mentioned by Tacitus,[173] to the effect that the patronage and approval of Nero led Seneca to write verse more frequently than his wont. Direct evidence there is none, but the general crudity of the work, coupled with the pedantic hardness and rigidity of the Stoicism which pervades the plays, points strongly to an early date, considerably earlier than the exile in Corsica. There is no trace of the mature experience and feeling for humanity that characterize the later philosophical works. On the contrary, these plays are just what might be expected of a young man fresh from the schools of rhetoric and philosophy.[174] As to the order in which the plays were written there is practically nothing to guide us.[175] The Hercules Oetaeus is probably the latest, for in it we find plagiarisms from the Hercules Furens, Oedipus, Thyestes, Phoenissae, Phaedra, and Troades. Even here, however, there is an element of uncertainty, for it is impossible to ascertain whether any given plagiarism is due to Seneca or to his interpolators.

Leaving such barren and unprofitable ground, what can we say of the plays themselves? Even after making due allowance for the hopeless decline of dramatic taste and for the ruin wrought by the schools of rhetoric, it is hard to speak with patience of such productions, when we recall the brilliance and charm of the prose works of Seneca. We can forgive him being rhetorical when he speaks for himself; when he speaks through the lips of others he is less easily tolerable.

Drama is a reading of human life: if it is to hold one's interest it must deal with the feelings, thought, and action of genuine human beings and represent their complex interaction: the characters must be real and must differ one from the other, so that by force of contrast and by the continued play of diverse aspects and developments of the human soul, the significance, the pathos, and the power of the fragment of human life selected for representation may be fully brought out and set before our eyes. If these characteristics be absent, the drama must of necessity be an artistic failure by reason of its lack of truth. But it requires also plot, with a logical growth leading to some great climax and developing a growing suspense in the spectator as to what shall be the end. It is true that plot without reality may give us a successful melodrama, that truth of character-drawing with a minimum of plot may move and interest us. But in neither case shall we have drama in its truest and noblest form.

Seneca gives us neither the half nor the whole. The stage is ultimately the touchstone of dramatic excellence. But if it is to be such a touchstone, it must have an audience with a penetration of intelligence and a soundness of taste such as had long ceased to characterize Roman audiences. The Senecan drama has lost touch with the stage and lacks both unity and life. Such superficial unity as his plots possess is due to the fact that they are ultimately imitations of Greek[176] drama. A full discussion of the plots is neither necessary here nor possible. A few instances of Seneca's treatment of his material must suffice.[177] He has no sense of logical development; the lack of sequence and of proportion traceable in the letters is more painfully evident in the tragedies.

The Hercules Furens supplies an excellent example of the weakness of the Senecan plot. It is based on the [Greek: H_erakl_es mainomenos] of Euripides, and such unity as it possesses is in the main due to that fact. It is in his chief divergences from the Euripidean treatment of the story that his deficiencies become most apparent. Theseus appears early in the play merely that he may deliver a long rhodomontade on the appearance of the underworld, whence Hercules has rescued him; and, worst of all, the return of Hercules is rendered wholly ineffective. Amphitryon hears the approaching steps of Hercules as he bursts his way to the upper world and cries (523)—

est est sonitus Herculei gradus.

The chorus then, as if they had heard nothing, deliver themselves of a chant that describes Hercules as still a prisoner in Hades. When Hercules at last is allowed to appear, he appears alone, and delivers a long ranting glorification of himself (592-617) before he is joined by his father, wife, and children. As Leo has remarked,[178] this episode has been tastelessly torn into two fragments merely to give Hercules an opportunity for turgid declamation.

The Medea, again, is, on the whole, Euripidean in form, though it probably owes much to the influence of Ovid.[179] It is, moreover, the least tasteless and best constructed of his tragedies. It loses comparatively little by the omission of the Aegeus episode, but suffers terribly by the insertion of a bombastic description of Medea's incantations. The love of the Silver Age for rhetoric has converted Medea into a skilful rhetorician, its love for the black art has degraded her to a vulgar sorceress. Nothing, again, can be cruder or more awkward than the manner in which the news of the death of Creon and his daughter is announced. After an interval so brief as scarcely to suffice even for the conveyance of the poisoned gifts to the palace, in rushes a messenger crying (879)—

periere cuncta, concidit regni status. nata atque genitor cinere permixto iacent.

Cho. qua fraude capti? Nunt. qua solent reges capi, donis.

Cho. in illis esse quis potuit dolus?

Nunt. et ipse miror vixque iam facto malo potuisse fieri credo; quis cladis modus? avidus per omnem regiae partem furit ut iussus ignis: iam domus tota occidit, urbi timetur.

Cho. unda flammas opprimat.

Nunt. et hoc in ista clade mirandum accidit, alit unda flammas, quoque prohibetur magis, magis ardet ignis: ipsa praesidia occupat.

All is lost! the kingdom's fallen! Father and daughter lie in mingled dust!

Ch. By what snare taken?

Mess. By gifts, the snare of kings.

Ch. What harm could lurk in them?

Mess. Myself I marvel, and scarce though the deed is done can I believe it possible. How died they? Devouring flames rage through all the palace as at her command. Now the whole house is fallen and men fear for the city.

Ch. Let water quench the flames.

Mess. Nay, in this overthrow is this added wonder. Water feeds the flames and opposition makes the fire burn fiercer. It hath seared even that which should have stayed its power.

That is all: if we had not read Euripides we should scarcely understand the connexion between the gifts and the mysterious fire. Seneca, with the lack of proportion displayed in nearly all his dramas, has spent so much time in describing the wholly irrelevant and absurd details of Medea's incantations that he finds no room to give what might be a really dramatic description of the all-important catastrophe in which Medea's vengeance finds issue. There is hardly a play which will not provide similar instances of the lack of genuine constructive power. In the Oedipus we get the same long narrative of horror that has disfigured the Hercules Furens and the Medea. Creon describes to us the dark rites of incantation used to evoke the shade of Laius.[180] In the Phaedra we find what at first would seem to be a clever piece of stagecraft. Hippolytus, scandalized at Phaedra's avowal of her incestuous passion, seizes her by the hair and draws his sword as though to slay her. He changes his purpose, but the nurse has seen him and calls for aid, denouncing Hippolytus' violence and clearly intending to make use of it as damning evidence against him. But the chorus refuse to credit her, and the incident falls flat.[181] Everywhere there is the same casual workmanship. If we stop short of denying to Seneca the possession of any dramatic talent, it is at any rate hard to resist the conviction that he treated the plays as a parergon, spending little thought or care on their ensemble, though at times working up a scene or scenes with an elaboration and skill as unmistakable as it is often misdirected.

The plays are, in fact, as Nisard has admirably put it, drames de recette. The recipe consists in the employment of three ingredients—description, declamation, and philosophic aphorism. There is room for all these ingredients in drama as in human life, but in Seneca there is little else: these three elements conspire together to swamp the drama, and they do this the more effectively because, for all their cleverness, Seneca's description and declamation are radically bad. It is but rarely that he shows himself capable of simple and natural language. If a tragic event enacted off the stage requires description, it must outdo all other descriptions of the same type. And seeing that one of the chief uses of narrative in tragedy is to present to the imagination of the audience events which are too horrible for their eyes, the result in Seneca's hands is often little less than revolting. For example, the self-blinding of Oedipus is set forth with every detail of horror, possible and impossible, till the imagination sickens.

(961) gemuit et dirum fremens manus in ora torsit, at contra truces oculi steterunt et suam intenti manum ultro insequuntur, vulneri occurrunt suo. scrutatur avidus manibus uncis lumina, radice ab ima funditus vulsos simul evolvit orbes; haeret in vacuo manus et fixa penitus unguibus lacerat cavos alte recessus luminum et inanes sinus saevitque frustra plusque quam satis est furit.

The last line is an epitome of Seneca's methods of description. Yet more revolting is the speech of the messenger describing the banquet, at which Atreus placed the flesh of Thyestes' murdered sons before their father (623-788). Nothing is spared us, much that is impossible is added.[182] At times, moreover, this love of horrors leads to the introduction of descriptions wholly alien to the play. In the Hercules Furens the time during which Hercules is absent from the scene, engaged in the slaying of the tyrant Lycus, is filled by a description of Hades from the mouth of Theseus, who is fresh-come from the underworld. The speech is not peculiarly bad in itself; it is only very long[183] (658-829) and very irrelevant.

The effect of the declamation is not less unhappy. Seneca's dramatis personae rarely speak like reasoning human beings: they rant at one another or at the audience with such overwrought subtleties of speech and rhetorical perversions that they give the impression of being no more than mechanical puppets handled by a crafty but inartistic showman. All speak the same strange language, a language born in the rhetorical schools of Greece and Rome. Gods and mortals alike suffer the same melancholy fate. Juno, when she declares her resolve to afflict Hercules with madness, addresses the furies who are to be her ministers as follows (H.F. 105):

concutite pectus, acrior mentem excoquat quam qui caminis ignis Aetnaeis furit: ut possit animo captus Alcides agi magno furore percitus, nobis prius insaniendum est—Iuno, cur nondum furis? me me, sorores, mente deiectam mea versate primam, facere si quicquam apparo dignum noverca; vota mutentur mea: natos reversus videat incolumes precor manuque fortis redeat: inveni diem invisa quo nos Herculis virtus iuvet. me vicit et se vincat et cupiat mori ab inferis reversus…. pugnanti Herculi tandem favebo.

Distract his heart with madness: let his soul
More fiercely burn than that hot fire which glows
On Aetna's forge. But first, that Hercules
May be to madness driven, smitten through
With mighty passion, I must be insane.
Why rav'st thou not, O Juno? Me, oh, me,
Ye sisters, first of sanity deprive,
That something worthy of a stepdame's wrath
I may prepare. Let all my hate be change
To favour. Now I pray that he may come
To earth again, and see his sons unharmed;
May he return with all his old time strength.
Now have I found a day when Hercules
May help me with his strength that I deplore.
Now let him equally o'ercome himself
And me; and let him, late escaped from death,
Desire to die… And so at last I'll help
Alcides in his wars. MILLER.

She is clearly a near relative of that Oedipus who, in the Phoenissae, begs Antigone to lead him to the rock where the Sphinx sat of old (120):

dirige huc gressus pedum, hic siste patrem. dira ne sedes vacet. monstrum repone maius. hoc saxum insidens obscura nostrae verba fortunae loquar, quae nemo solvat. … saeva Thebarum lues luctifica caecis verba committens modis quid simile posuit? quid tam inextricabile? avi gener patrisque rivalis sui frater suorum liberum et fratrum parens; uno avia partu liberos. peperit viro, sibi et nepotes. monstra quis tanta explicat? ego ipse, victae spolia qui Sphingis tuli, haerebo fati tardus interpres mei.

Direct me thither, set thy father there.
Let not that dreadful seat be empty long,
But place me there a greater monster still.
There will I sit and of my fate propose
A riddle dark that no man shall resolve.
* * * * *
What riddle like to this could she propose,
That curse of Thebes, who wove destructive words
In puzzling measures? What so dark as this?
He was his grandsire's son-in-law, and yet
His father's rival; brother of his sons,
And father of his brothers: at one birth
The grandame bore unto her husband sons,
And grandsons to herself. Who can unwind
A tangle such as this? E'en I myself,
Who bore the spoils of triumph o'er the Sphinx,
Stand mute before the riddle of my fate.
MILLER.

There is no need to multiply instances; each play will supply many. Only in the Troades[184] and the Phaedra does this declamatory rhetoric rise to something higher than mere declamation and near akin to true poetry. In these plays there are two speeches standing on a different plane to anything else in Seneca's iambics. In the Troades Agamemnon is protesting against the proposed sacrifice of Polyxena to the spirit of the dead Achilles (255).

quid caede dira nobiles clari ducis aspergis umbras? noscere hoc primum decet, quid facere victor debeat, victus pati. violenta nemo imperia continuit diu, moderata durant; … magna momento obrui vincendo didici. Troia nos tumidos facit nimium ac feroces? stamus hoc Danai loco, unde illa cecidit. fateor, aliquando impotens regno ac superbus altius memet tuli; sed fregit illos spiritus haec quae dare potuisset aliis causa, Fortunae favor. tu me superbum, Priame, tu timidum facis. ego esse quicquam sceptra nisi vano putem fulgore tectum nomen et falso comam vinclo decentem? casus haec rapiet brevis, nec mille forsan ratibus aut annis decem. … fatebor … affligi Phrygas vincique volui; ruere et aequari solo utinam arcuissem.

Why besmirch with murder foul the noble shade of that renowned chief? First must thou learn the bounds of a victor's power, of the vanquished's suffering. No man for long has held unbridled sway; only self-control may endure … I myself have conquered and have learned thereby that man's mightiness may fall in the twinkling of an eye. Shall Troy o'erthrown exalt our pride and make us overbold? Here we the Danaans stand on the spot whence she has fallen. Of old, I own, I have borne myself too haughtily, self-willed and proud of my power. But Fortune's favour, which had made another proud, has broken my pride. Priam, thou makest me proud, thou makest me tremble. I count the sceptre naught save a glory bright with worthless tinsel that sets the vain splendour of a crown upon my brow. All this the chance of one short hour may take from me without the aid of a thousand ships and ten long years of siege … I will own my fault … I desired to crush and conquer Troy. Would I had forbidden to lay her low and raze her walls to the ground!

The thought is not deep: the speech might serve for a model for a suasoria in the schools of rhetoric. But there is a stateliness and dignity about it that is most rare in these plays. At last after dreary tracts of empty rant we meet Seneca, the spiritual guide of the epistles and the treatises.

Far more striking, however, from the dramatic standpoint, are the great speeches in the Phaedra, where the heroine makes known her passion for Hippolytus (600 sqq.). They are frankly rhetorical, but direct, passionate, and to the point. They contain few striking lines or sentiments, but they are clear and comparatively free from affectation. Theseus has maddened Phaedra by his infidelities, and has long been absent from her, imprisoned in the underworld. An uncontrollable passion for her stepson has come upon her. She appeals to the unsuspecting Hippolytus for pity and protection (619):

muliebre non est regna tutari urbium; tu qui iuventae flore primaevo viges cives paterno fortis imperio rege, sinu receptam supplicem ac servam tege. miserere viduae.

Hipp. Summus hoc omen deus avertat. aderit sospes actutum parens.

'Tis no woman's task to rule cities. Do thou, strong in the flower of thy first youth, flinch not, but govern the state by the power thy father held. Take me and shield me in thy bosom, thy suppliant and thy slave! Pity thy father's widow.

Hipp. Nay, high heaven avert the omen. Soon shall my father return unscathed.

Phaedra then begins to show her true colours. 'Nay!' she replies, 'he will not come. Pluto holds him fast, the would-be ravisher of his bride, unless indeed Pluto, like others I wot of, is indifferent to love.' Hippolytus attempts to console her: he will do all in his power to make life easy for her:

et te merebor esse ne viduam putes ac tibi parentis ipse supplebo locum.

I shall prove me worthy of thee: so thou shalt not deem
thyself a widow. I will fill up my absent father's room.

These innocent words are as fuel to Phaedra's passion. She turns to him again appealing for pity, pity for an ill she dare not name—

quod in novercam cadere vix credas malum.

He bids her speak out. She replies, 'Love consumes me with an all-devouring flame. 'He still fails to catch her meaning, supposing that the passion of which she speaks is for the absent Theseus. She can restrain herself no longer: 'Aye, 'tis for Theseus!' she cries (646):

Hippolyte, sic est; Thesei vultus amo [185] illos priores quos tulit quondam puer, cum prima puras barba signaret genas monstrique caecam Cnosii vidit domum et longa curva fila collegit via. quis tum ille fulsit! presserant vittae comam et ora flavus tenera tinguebat pudor; inerant lacertis mollibus fortes tori; tuaeque Phoebes vultus aut Phoebi mei, tuusque potius—talis, en talis fuit cum placuit hosti, sic tulit celsum caput: in te magis refulget incomptus decor; est genitor in te totus et torvae tamen pars aliqua matris miscet ex aequo decus; in ore Graio Scythicus apparet rigor. si cum parente Creticum intrasses fretum, tibi fila potius nostra nevisset soror. te te, soror, quacumque siderei poli in parte fulges, invoco ad causam parem: domus sorores una corripuit duas, te genitor, at me natus. en supplex iacet adlapsa genibus regiae proles domus, respersa nulla labe et intacta, innocens tibi mutor uni. certa descendi ad preces: finem hic dolori faciet aut vitae dies, miserere amantis.[186]

Even so, Hippolytus; I love the face that Theseus wore, in the days of old while yet he was a boy, when the first down marked his bright cheeks and he looked on the dark home of the Cretan monster and gathered the long magic thread along the winding way. Ah! how then he shone upon my eyes. A wreath was about his hair and his delicate cheeks glowed with the golden bloom of modesty. Strong sinews stood out upon his shapely arms and his countenance was the countenance of the goddess that thou servest or of mine own bright sun-god; nay, rather 'twas as thine own. Even so, even so looked he when he won the heart of her that was his foe, and lofty was his carriage like to thine. But in thee still brighter shines an artless glory, and on thee is all thy father's beauty. Yet mingled therewith in equal portion is something of thy wild mother's fairness. On thy Greek face is seen the fierceness of the Scythian. Hadst thou sailed o'er the sea with thy sire to Crete, for thee rather had my sister spun the magic thread. On thee, on thee, my sister, I call where'er thou shinest in the starry heaven, on thee I call to aid my cause. Lo! sisters twain hath one house brought to naught—thee did the father ruin, me the son. Lo! suppliant at thy knees I fall, the daughter of a king, stainless and pure and innocent. For thee alone I swerve from my course. I have steeled my soul and stooped to beg of thee. Today shall end either my sorrow or my life. Pity, have pity, on her that loves thee.

Then the storm of Hippolytus' anger breaks. Here at least Seneca has used his great rhetorical gifts to good effect. The passion may be highly artificial when compared with the passion of the genuinely human Phaedra of Euripides, but it is nevertheless passion and not bombast: crudity there may be, but there is no real irrelevance.

There is less to praise and more to wonder at in Seneca's dialogue. Instead of rational conversation or controversy, he gives us a brilliant but meretricious display of epigram, the mechanical nature of which is often emphasized by a curious symmetry of structure. For line after line one character takes up the words of another and turns them against him with dexterity as extraordinary as it is monotonous. The resulting artificiality is almost incredible. It appears in its most extravagant form in the Thyestes.[187] Scarcely less strained, though from the nature of the subject the extravagance is less repellent, is a passage in the Troades. Achilles' ghost has demanded the sacrifice of Polyxena. Agamemnon hesitates to give orders for the sacrifice. Pyrrhus, Achilles' son, enumerates the great deeds of his father, and asks, indignantly, if such glory is to win naught save neglect after death. Agamemnon has sacrificed his own daughter, why should he not sacrifice Priam's? Agamemnon—in the speech quoted above—refuses indignantly. 'Sacrifice oxen if you will: no human blood shall be shed!' Pyrrhus replies (306):

hac dextra Achilli victimam reddam suam. quam si negas retinesque, maiorem dabo dignamque quam det Pyrrhus; et nimium diu a caede nostra regia cessat manus paremque poscit Priamus.

Agam. haud equidem nego hoc esse Pyrrhi maximum in bello decus, saevo peremptus ense quod Priamus iacet, _supplex paternus.

Pyrrh. supplices nostri patris hostesque eosdem novimus. Priamus tamen praesens rogavit; tu gravi pavidus metu, nec ad rogandum fortis Aiaci preces Ithacoque mandas clausus atque hostem tremens.

By this right hand he shall receive his own.
And if thou dost refuse and keep the maid,
A greater victim will I slay, and one
More worthy Pyrrhus' gift: for all too long
From royal slaughter hath my hand been free,
And Priam asks an equal sacrifice.

Agam. Far be it from my wish to dim the praise
That thou dost claim for this most glorious deed—
Old Priam slain by thy barbaric sword,
Thy father's suppliant.

Pyrrh. I know full well
My father's suppliants—and well I know
His enemies. Yet royal Priam came
And made his plea before my father's face;
But thou, o'ercome with fear, not brave enough
Thyself to make request, within thy tent
Did trembling hide, and thy desires consign
To braver men, that they might plead for thee.
MILLER.

Agamemnon retorts, 'What of your father, when he shirked the toils of war and lay idly in his tent?'—

levi canoram verberans plectro chelyn.

Pyrrh. tunc magnus Hector, arma contemnens tua, cantus Achillis timuit et tanto in metu navalibus pax alta Thessalicis fuit.

Agam. nempe isdem in istis Thessalis navalibus pax alta rursus Hectoris patri fuit.

Pyrrh. est regis alti spiritum regi dare.

Agam. cur dextra regi spiritum eripuit tua?

Pyrrh. mortem misericors saepe pro vita dabit.

Agam. et nunc misericors virginem busto petis?

Pyrrh. iamne immolari virgines credis nefas?

Agam. praeferre patriam liberis regem decet.

Pyrrh. lex nulla capto parcit aut poenam impedit.

Agam. quod non vetat lex, hoc vetat fieri pudor.

Pyrrh. quodcumque libuit facere victori licet.

Agam. minimum decet libere cui multum licet.

Idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.

Pyrrh. Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms, Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre, That our Thessalian ships were left in peace.

Agam. An equal peace did Hector's father find, When he betook him to Achilles' ships.

Pyrrh. 'Tis regal thus to spare a kingly life.

Agam. Why then didst thou a kingly life despoil?

Pyrrh. But mercy oft doth offer death for life.

Agam. Doth mercy now demand a maiden's blood?

Pyrrh. Canst thou proclaim such sacrifice a sin?

Agam. A king must love his country more than child.

Pyrrh. No law the wretched captive's life doth spare.

Agam. What law forbids not, yet may shame forbid.

Pyrrh. 'Tis victor's right to do whate'er he will.

Agam. Then should he will the least, who most can do. MILLER.

The cleverness of this is undeniable: individual lines (e.g. the last) are striking. Taken collectively they are ineffective; we feel, moreover, that the cleverness is mere knack: the continued picking up of the adversary's words to be used as weapons against himself is wearisome. It would be nearly as great a strain to listen to such a dialogue as to take part in it: the atmosphere is that of the school of rhetoric, an atmosphere in which sensible and natural dialogue is impossible.[188]

The characters naturally suffer from this continued display of declamatory rhetoric. They have but one voice and language; they differ from one another only in their clothes and the situations in which they are placed. It is true that some of them are patterns of virtue and others monsters of iniquity. But strip off the coating of paint, and within the limits of these two types—for there are but two—the puppets are precisely the same. There is none of the play of light and shade so essential to drama: all is agonizingly crude and lurid. This is not due to the rhetoric alone, there is another influence at work. The plays are permeated by a strong vein of Stoicism. Carried to its logical conclusion Stoicism lays itself open to taunts such as Cicero levels at his friend Cato in the pro Murena,[189] where he delivers a humorous reductio ad absurdum of its tenets. Such a philosophy is fatal to the drama. It allows no room for human sentiment or human weakness; the most virtuous affections are chilled and robbed of their attractiveness: there are no gradations of temperament, intellect, or character: pathos disappears. The Stoic ideal was a being in whom the natural impulses and desires should be completely subjected to the laws of pure reason. It tends in its intensity to a narrowness, an abstract unreality which is unfavourable to the development of the more human virtues. What it gave with one hand the more rigid Stoic philosophy took away with the other. It preached the brotherhood of man and took away half the value of sympathy. And here in the plays there is nothing of the mitis sapientia, the concessions to mortal weakness, the humanity, which characterize the prose works of Seneca and have won the hearts of many generations of men. There the hardness of Stoicism is softened by ripe experience and a tendency to eclecticism, and the doctrinaire stands less sharply revealed. 'Sous l'austérité du philosophe, on trouve un homme.' The most noteworthy result of this hard Stoicism upon the plays is the almost complete absence of pathos springing from the tenderer human affections. Seneca's tragedy may sometimes succeed in horrifying us, as in the ghastly rhetoric of the Thyestes or the Medea. He moves us rarely.

But there are a few striking exceptions to the rule, notably the beautiful passage of the Troades, where Andromache bids her companions in misfortune cease from useless lamentation[190] (409):

quid, maesta Phrygiae turba, laceratis comas miserumque tunsae pectus effuso genas fletu rigatis? levia perpessae sumus, si flenda patimur. Ilium vobis modo, mihi cecidit olim, cum ferus curru incito mea membra raperet et gravi gemeret sono Peliacis axis pondere Hectoreo tremens. tunc obruta atque eversa quodcumque accidit torpens malis rigeusque sine sensu fero. iam erepta Danais coniugem sequerer meum, nisi hic teneret: hic meos animos domat morique prohibet; cogit hic aliquid deos adhuc rogare—tempus aerumnae addidit.

Why, ye sad Phrygian women, do ye rend your hair and beat your woeful breasts and bedew your cheeks with streaming tears? But light is our sorrow, if it lies not too deep for tears. For you Ilium but now has fallen, for me it fell long ago, when the cruel wheels of the swift ear of Peleus' son dragged in the dust the limbs of him I loved, and groaned loud as they quivered beneath the weight of Hector dead. Then was I overthrown, then cast to utter ruin, and since then I bear whatso falleth upon me, with a heart that is numb with grief, chilled and insensible, and long since had I snatched myself from the hands of the Greeks and followed my husband, did not my child keep me among the living: he checks my purpose and forbids me to die; he constrains me still to make supplication to heaven and prolongs my anguish.

Even here the pathos is the calm and reasoned pathos of hopelessness, the pathos of a Stoic who preaches endurance of evils against which his philosophy is not proof. Here, too, we find the Stoic attitude towards death. Death is the end of all; there is naught to dread; death puts an end to hope and fear: to die is to be as though we had never been (394):

post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil. velocis spatii meta novissima; spem ponant avidi, solliciti metum. tempus nos avidum devorat et chaos: mors individua est, noxia corpori nec parcens animae: Taenara et aspero regnum sub domino limen et obsidens custos non facili Cerberus ostio rumores vacui verbaque inania et par sollicito fabula somnio. quaeris quo iaceas post obitum loco? quo non nata iacent.

Since naught remains, and death is naught
But life's last goal, so swiftly sought:
Let those who cling to life abate
Their fond desires, and yield to fate;
Soon shall grim time and yawning night
In their vast depths engulf us quite;
Impartial death demands the whole—
The body slays nor spares the soul.
Dark Taenara and Pluto fell,
And Cerberus, grim guard of hell—
All these but empty rumours seem,
The pictures of a troubled dream.
Where then will the departed spirit dwell?
Let those who never came to being tell.
MILLER.

Death brings release from sorrow: the worst of torture is to be forced to live on in the midst of woe—

mors votum meum—cries Hecuba—(1171) infantibus violenta, virginibus venis, ubique properas, saeva: me solam times.

O death, my sole desire, for boys and maids
Thou com'st with hurried step and savage mien:
But me alone of mortals dost thou fear.
MILLER.

So, too, Andromache, in the passage quoted above, almost apologizes for not having put an end to her existence. Polyxena meets death with exultation (Tro. 945, 1152-9): even the little Astyanax is infected with Stoic passion for suicide (1090):

nec gradu segni puer ad alta pergit moenia. ut summa stetit pro turre, vultus huc et huc acres tulit intrepidus animo…. non flet e turba omnium qui fletur; ac, dum verba fatidici et preces concipit Vlixes vatis et saevos ciet ad sacra superos, sponte desiluit sua in media Priami regna.

And with no lingering pace the boy climbed the lofty battlements, and all about him cast his keen gaze with dauntless soul…. But he alone of all the throng who wept for him wept not at all, and, while Ulysses 'uttered in priestly wise the words of fate and prayed' and called the cruel gods to the sacrifice, the boy of his own will cast himself down to death on the fields that Priam ruled.

The enthusiasm for death is carried too far.[191] Even the agony of the Troades fails really to stir us: it depresses us without wakening our sympathy. So, too, with other scenes: in the Hercules Furens we have the virtuous Stoic—in the persons of Megara and Amphitryon—confronting the instans tyrannus in the person of Lycus: it is the hackneyed theme of the schools of rhetoric,[192] but derives its inspiration from Stoicism (426):

Lyc. cogere. Meg. cogi qui potest nescit mori. Lyc. effare potius, quod novis thalamis parem regale munus. Meg. aut tuam mortem aut meam. Lyc. moriere demens. Meg. coniugi occurram meo. Lyc. sceptrone nostro famulus est potior tibi? Meg. quot iste famulus tradidit reges neci. Lyc. cur ergo regi servit et patitur iugum? Meg. imperia dura tolle: quid virtus erit?[193] Lyc. obici feris monstrisque virtutem putas? Meg. virtutis est domare quae cuncti pavent. Lyc. tenebrae loquentem magna Tartareae premunt. Meg. non est ad astra mollis e terris via.[194] Lyc. Thou shalt be forced. Meg. He can be forced, who knows not how to die. Lyc. Tell me what gift I could bestow more rich Than royal wedlock? Meg. Or thy death or mine. Lyc. Then die, thou fool. Meg. 'Tis thus I'll meet my lord. Lyc. Is that slave more to thee than I, a king? Meg. How many kings has that slave given to death! Lyc. Why does he serve a king and bear the yoke? Meg. Remove hard tasks, and where would valour be? Lyc. To conquer monsters call'st thou valour then? Meg. 'Tis valour to subdue what all men fear. Lyc. The shades of Hades hold that boaster fast. Meg. No easy way leads from the earth to heaven. MILLER

So, too, a little later (463) Amphitryon crushes Lycus with a true
Stoic retort:—

Lyc. quemcumque miserum videris, hominem scias. Amph. quemcumque fortem videris, miserum neges.[195]

Lyc. Whoe'er is wretched, him mayst thou know for mortal. Amph. Whoe'er is brave, thou mayst not call him wretched.

Admirable as are the sentiments expressed by these virtuous and calamitous persons, they leave us cold: they are too self-sufficient to need our sympathy. Pain and death have no terrors for them; why should we pity them? But it would be unjust to lay the blame for this absence of pathetic power entirely on the influence of Stoicism. The scholastic rhetoric is not a good vehicle for pathos, and must bear a large portion of the blame, though even the rhetoric is due in no small degree to the Stoic type of dialectic. As Seneca himself says, speaking of others than himself, 'Philosophia quae fuit, facta philologia est.'[196] And it must further be remembered that of the few flights of real poetry in these plays some of the finest were inspired by Stoicism. The drama cannot nourish in the Stoic atmosphere, poetry can. Seneca was sometimes a poet. His best-known chorus, the famous regem non faciunt opes of the Thyestes (345), is directly inspired by Stoicism. The speeches of Agamemnon and Andromache, together with the chorus already quoted from the Troades, all bear the impress of the Stoic philosophy. The same is true of the scarcely inferior chorus on fate from the Oedipus (980).

But there are other passages of genuine poetry where the Stoic is silent. The chorus in the Hercules Furens (838), giving the conventional view of death, will stand comparison with the chorus of the Troades, giving the philosophic view. The chorus on the dawn (H.F. 125) brings the fresh sounds and breezes of early morning into the atmosphere of the rhetorician's lecture-room. The celebrated

venient annis saecula seris quibus Oceanus vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus Tethysque novos detegat orbes nec sit terris ultima Thule (Med. 375)

Late in time shall come an age, when Ocean shall unbar the world, and the whole wide earth be revealed, and Tethys shall show forth a new world, nor Thule be earth's limit any more.

has acquired a fictitious importance since the discovery of the new world, but shows a fine imagination, even if—as has been maintained—it is merely a courtly reference to the British expedition of Claudius. And the invocation to sleep in the Hercules Furens proved worthy to provide an inspiration for Shakespeare[197] (1063):

solvite tantis animum monstris solvite superi, caecam in melius flectite mentem. tuque, o domitor Somne malorum, requies animi, pars humanae melior vitae, volucre o matris genus Astracae, frater durae languide Mortis, veris miscens falsa, futuri certus et idem pessimus auctor, pax errorum, portus vitae, lucis requies noctisque comes, qui par regi famuloque venis, pavidum leti genus humanum cogis longam discere noctem: placidus fessum lenisque fove, preme devinctum torpore gravi.

Save him, ye gods, from monstrous madness, save him, restore his darkened mind to sanity. And thou, O sleep, subduer of ill, the spirit's repose, thou better part of human life, swift-winged child of Astraca, drowsy brother of cruel death, mixing false with true, prescient of what shall be, yet oftener prescient of sorrow, peace mid our wanderings, haven of man's life, day's respite, night's companion, that comest impartially to king and slave, thou that makest trembling mankind to gain a foretaste of the long night of death; do thou bring gentle rest to his weariness, and sweet balm to his anguish, and overwhelm him with heavy stupor.

But the poetry is confined mainly to the lyrics. In them, though the metre be monotonous and the thought rarely more than commonplace, the feeling rings true, the expression is brilliant, and the never absent rhetoric is sometimes transmuted to a more precious substance with a far-off resemblance to true lyrical passion. In the iambics, with the exception of the passages already quoted from the Troades and the Phaedra, touches of genuine poetry are most rare.[198] In certain of the long descriptive passages (H.F. 658 sqq., Oed. 530 sqq.) we get a stagey picturesqueness, but no more. It is for different qualities that we read the iambics of Seneca, if we read them at all.

Even in its worst moments the rhetoric is capable of extorting our unwilling admiration by its sheer cleverness and audacity. A good example is to be found in the passage of the Thyestes, where Atreus meditates whether he shall call upon his sons Menelaus and Agamemnon to aid him in his unnatural vengeance on Thyestes. He has doubts as to whether he is their father, for Thyestes had seduced their mother Aerope (327):—

prolis incertae fides ex hoc petatur scelere: si bella abnuunt et gerere nolunt odia, si patruum vocant, pater est. eatur.

And by this test of crime,
Let their uncertain birth be put to proof:
If they refuse to wage this war of death
And will not serve my hatred; if they plead
He is their uncle—then he is their sire.
So to my work!
MILLER'S translation slightly altered.

Equally ingenious is the closing scene between Atreus and Thyestes after the vengeance is accomplished and Thyestes has feasted on the flesh of his own sons (1100):

Thy. quid liberi meruere?
Atr. quod fuerant tui.
Thy. natos parenti—
Atr. fateor et, quod me iuvat, certos.
Thy. piorum praesides testor deos.
Atr. quin coniugales?
Thy. scelere quid pensas scelus?
Atr. scio quid queraris: scelere praerepto doles,
nec quod nefandas hauseris angit dapes;
quod non pararis: fuerat hic animus tibi
instruere similes inscio fratri cibos
et adiuvante liberos matre aggredi
similique leto sternere—hoc unum obstitit:
tuos putasti.
Thy. What was my children's sin?
Atr. This, that they were thy children.
Thy. But to think
That children to the father—
Atr. That indeed,
I do confess it, gives me greatest joy,
That thou art well assured they were thy sons.
Thy. I call upon the gods of innocence—
Atr. Why not upon the gods of marriage call?
Thy. Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime?
Atr. Well do I know the cause of thy complaint:
Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.
Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed
This horrid feast, but that thou wast not first
To set it forth. This was thy fell intent,
To arrange a feast like this unknown to me,
And with their mother's aid attack my sons,
And with a like destruction lay them low.
But this one thing opposed—thou thought'st them thine.
MILLER.

These passages are as unreal as they are repulsive, but they are diabolically clever. Seneca's rhetoric is, however, as we have already seen, capable of rising to higher things, and even where he does not succeed, as in the passages quoted above from the Phaedra and Troades,[199] in introducing a genuine poetic element, he often produces striking declamatory effects. The exit of the blind Oedipus, as he goes forth into life-long banishment, bringing peace to Thebes at the last, is highly artificial in form, but, given the rhetorical drama, is not easily surpassed as a conclusion—

mortifera mecum vitia terrarum extraho. violenta Fata et horridus Morbi tremor, Maciesque et atra Pestis et rabidus Dolor, mecum ite, mecum. ducibus his uti libet (1058).

With me to exile lead I forth 'all pestilential humours of the land. Ye blasting fates', ye trembling agues, famine and deadly plague and maddened grief, go forth with me, with me! My heart rejoices to follow in your train.

So likewise the last despairing cry of Jason, as Medea sails victoriously away in her magic car—

per alta vade spatia sublimi aethere,
testare nullos esse qua veheris deos

Sail on through the airy depths of highest heaven, and
bear witness that, where thou soarest, no gods can be.

forms a magnificent ending to a play which, for all its unreality, succeeds for more than half its length (l 578) in arresting our attention by its ingenious rhetoric and its comparative freedom from mere bombast. Excellent, too, is the speech (Phoen. 193) in which Antigone dissuades her father from suicide. 'What ills can time have in store for him compared to those he has endured?'—

qui fata proculcavit ac vitae bona proiecit atque abscidit et casus suos oneravit ipse, cui deo nullo est opus, quare ille mortem cupiat aut quare petat? utrumque timidi est: nemo contempsit mori qui concupivit. cuius haut ultra mala exire possunt, in loco tuto est situs, quis iam deorum, velle fac, quicquam potest malis tuis adicere? iam nec tu potes nisi hoc, ut esse te putes dignum nece— non es nec ulla pectus hoc culpa attigit. et hoc magis te, genitor, insontem voca, quod innocens es dis quoque invitis…. … … quidquid potest auferre cuiquam mors, tibi hoc vita abstulit.

Who tramples under foot his destiny,
Who disregards and scorns the goods of life,
And aggravates the evils of his lot,
Who has no further need of Providence:
Wherefore should such a man desire to die,
Or seek for death? Each is the coward's act.
No one holds death in scorn who seeks to die.
The man whose evils can no further go
Is safely lodged. Who of the gods, think'st thou,
Grant that he wills it so, can add one jot
Unto thy sum of trouble? Nor canst thou,
Save that thou deem'st thyself unfit to live.
But thou art not unfit, for in thy breast
No taint of sin has come. And all the more,
My father, art thou free from taint of sin,
Because, though heaven willed it otherwise,
Thou still art innocent….
Whatever death
From any man can take, thy life hath taken.
MILLER

It is, however, in isolated lines and striking sententiae that Seneca's gift for rhetorical epigram is seen at its best. Nothing could be better turned than

quaeris Alcidae parem? nemo est nisi ipse: (H.F. 84).[A] curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent (Phaedra 607).[B] fortem facit vicina libertas senem (Phaedra 139).[C] qui genus iactat suum, aliena laudat (H.F. 340). fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos premit (Med. 159). fortuna opes auferre, non animum potest (Med. 176). maius est monstro nefas:[D] nam monstra fato, moribus scelera imputes (Phaedra 143).

[A] Cp. Theobald: None but himself can be his parallel.

[B] Cp. Sir W. Raleigh: Passions are best compared with floods and streams, The shallow murmur but the deep are dumb.

[C] For dawning freedom makes the aged brave. MILLER.

[D] For thy impious love is worse
Than her unnatural and impious love.
The first you would impute to character,
The last to fate.
MILLER.

If nothing had survived of Seneca's plays but a collection of sententiae, we might have regretted his loss almost as we regret the loss of Menander.

Here his merits, such as they are, end: they fail to justify us in placing him high as a dramatist; and he has many faults over and above those incidental to his style and modes of thought. While freer than most of his contemporaries from the vain display of obscure erudition, he falls into the common vice of introducing 'catalogues'. They are dull in epic: in drama they are worse than dull. The Hercules Furens is no place for a matter-of-fact catalogue of the hero's labours, set forth (210-248) in monotonous iambics from the mouth of Amphitryon. If they are to be described at all, they demand the decorative treatment of lyric verse,[200] nor is a catalogue of the herbs used by Medea to poison the robe destined for her rival any more excusable.[201] Again, like his contemporaries, he shows a lack of taste and humour which in its worst manifestations passes belief. Not a few of the passages already quoted serve to illustrate the point. But for fatuity it would be hard to surpass the words with which Amphitryon interrupts Theseus' account of the horrors of the underworld:

estne aliqua tellus Cereris aut Bacchi ferax? (H.F. 697.)

Scarcely less absurd is the chorus in the Phaedra, who, when hymning the power of love, give a long list of animals subject to such passion: the catalogue culminates with the statement that even whales and elephants fall in love (351):

amat insani belua ponti Lucaeque boves.

But all such instances pale before the conclusion of the Phaedra. Not content with giving a ghastly and exaggerated account of the death of Hippolytus, Seneca must needs bring the fragments of his mutilated body upon the scene. Theseus, at the suggestion of the chorus, attempts to put them together again. The climax comes when, finding an unidentifiable portion, he cries (1267):

quae pars tui sit dubito, sed pars est tui!

The actual language of the plays is pure and classical. There is no trace of provincialism, nothing to suggest that Seneca was a Spaniard. Its vices proceed from the false mould in which it has been cast. There is a lack of connecting particles, and we proceed by a series of short rhetorical jerks.[202] It is the style that Seneca himself condemns in his letters (114. 1). Its faults are further aggravated by the metre: taken line by line, the iambics of Seneca are impressive: taken collectively they are monotonous in the extreme. The ear suffers a continual series of stabs, which are not the less unpleasant because none of them go deep. The verse seems formed, one might almost say punched out, by a relentless machine. It is never modified by circumstances; it is the same in narrative and dialogue, the same in passion and in calm, if indeed Seneca can ever be said to be either passionate or calm. Its pauses come with monotonous regularity at the end of the line, diversified only by an occasional break at the caesura in the third foot. Nor does the rule[203] observed by Seneca, that only a spondee or anapaest is permitted in the fifth foot, tend to relieve the monotony, though it does much to give the individual lines such weight as they possess. A more complete contrast with the iambics of the early Latin Tragedies cannot be imagined. What has been gained in polish has been lost in dignity. Whence the Senecan iambic is derived, is a question which cannot be answered with certainty. It is wholly unlike the early Roman tragic iambic. Elision is rare, and there is little variety. Instead of the massive and rugged measure of Pacuvius or Accius, we have a finished and elegant monotony. In all likelihood it is the lineal descendant of the iambic of Ovid.[204] In view of Seneca's great admiration for Ovid—he quotes him continually in his prose works—of Ovid's mastery of rhetoric and epigram, and yet more of the distinct parallels traceable between the Phaedra and Medea of Seneca and the corresponding Heroides of Ovid, it becomes a strong probability that the Senecan iambic was deeply influenced—if not actually created—by the iambic style of the earlier poet's lost drama, the famous Medea.[205]

As to the models to which he is indebted for his treatment of choric metres we know nothing. In spite of the fact that he employs a large variety of metres, and that his choruses at times stray from rhetoric into poetry of a high order, there is in them a still more deadly monotony than in his iambics. The chorus are devoid of life; they are there partly as a concession to convention, but mainly to supply incidental music. Their inherent dullness is not relieved by the metre. Of strophic arrangement there is no clear trace; in a large proportion of cases the choruses are written in one fixed and rigid metre admitting of no variety: even where different metres alternate, the relaxation is but small, for the same monotony reigns unchecked within the limits of each section. The strange experiments in mixed metres in the Agamemnon and Oedipus show Seneca's technique at its worst: they are composed of fragments of Horatian metres, thinly disguised by inversions and resolutions of feet: they lack all governing principle and are an unqualified failure. Of the remaining metres the Anapaestic, Asclepiad, Sapphic, and Glyconic predominate. He is, perhaps, least unsuccessful in his treatment of the Anapaest: the lines do not lack melody, and the natural flexibility of the metre saves them from extreme monotony, though they would have been more successful had he employed the paroemiac line as a solemn and resonant close to the march of the dimeter. But one wearies soon of the eternal Asclepiads and Glyconics which he often allows to continue in unbroken and unvaried series for seventy or eighty lines together. He rarely allows any variation within the Glyconic and never makes use of it to break the monotony of the Asclepiad. Still worse are his Sapphics. Abandoning the usual arrangement in stanzas of three lesser Sapphics followed by an Adonic verse, his Sapphic choruses consist almost entirely of the lesser Sapphic varied by a very occasional Adonic. The continual succession of these lines without so much as an occasional change of caesura to diversify the rhythm is at times almost intolerable. At the close of such choruses we feel as though we had jogged at a rapid trot for long miles on a very hard and featureless road.

Language and metre work hand in hand with rhetoric to make these strange plays dramatically ineffective. So strange are they and in many ways so unlike anything else in Classical literature, that the question as to the purpose with which they were written and the place they occupied in the literature of their day affords an interesting subject for speculation. Were they written for the stage? Decayed as was the taste for tragedy, tragedies may occasionally have been acted.[206] But there are considerations which suggest doubt as to whether the plays of Seneca were written with any such purpose. Even under Nero it is scarcely credible that the introduction of the mangled fragments of Hippolytus upon the stage would be possible or palatable.[207] Medea kills her children coram populo, and, not content with killing them, flings their bodies at Jason from her magic chariot high in air. Hercules kills his children in full view of the audience, not within the house as in the corresponding drama of Euripides. Such scenes suggest that the plays were written not for the stage but for recitation with musical interludes from a trained choir. Indications that this was the case are to be found in the Hercules Furens. While the hero is engaged in slaying his children, Amphitryon, in a succession of short speeches, gives the details of the murder. This would be ridiculous and unnecessary were the scene actually presented on the stage, whereas they become absolutely necessary on the assumption that the play was written for recitation.[208] This assumption has the further merit of being charitable; skilful recitation would cover many defects that would be almost intolerable on the stage.

It is improbable, however, that the drama of Seneca occupied an important position in the literature of their day. The golden age of tragedy was past, and it is hard to believe that these plays are favourable specimens even of their own age. The authors of the Silver Age virtually ignore their existence, and, with the exception of two references in Tertullian and one in Apollinaris Sidonius, they are quoted only by scholars and grammarians.

They have small intrinsic value: but they afford interesting evidence for the taste[209] of their own day, and their influence on modern drama has been enormous. In the Renaissance at the dawn of the drama's revival, Seneca was regarded as a dramatist of the first order. Scaliger ranked him above Euripides: it was to him men turned to find models for tragedy. Everywhere we see traces of the Senecan drama.[210] It is a tribute to the dexterity of his rhetoric that his influence should have been so enormous, but it is to be regretted in the interests of the drama. For to Seneca more than to any other man is due the excessive prominence of declamatory rhetoric, which has characterized the drama throughout Western Europe from the Renaissance down to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and has proved a blemish to the work of all save a few great writers who recognized the value of rhetoric, but never mistook the shadow for the substance.

III

THE 'OCTAVIA'

A tragedy with this title is included by the MSS. among the plays of Seneca. Its chief interest lies in the fact that it is the one surviving example of a fabula praetexta, or tragedy, drawn from Roman life. It deals with a tragic incident of Nero's reign, the final extinction of the Claudian house. Octavia, daughter of Claudius and Messalina, is the heroine. Her life was one long tragedy. Her childhood was darkened by the disaster that befell her unworthy mother, her maturer years by her marriage to Nero. She was a mere pawn in the game of politics. The marriage was brought about by the designs of Agrippina, to render Nero secure of the principate. To effect this end her betrothed Silanus was killed, Claudius, her father, and Britannicus, her brother, dispatched by poison. Soon her own wedded life turned to tragedy. Nero fell madly in love with Poppaea, and resolved to put away Octavia. At Poppaea's instigation she was accused of a base intrigue. The plot failed; the false charge could not be pressed home; she was divorced on the ground of sterility, and imprisoned in a town of Campania. A rumour arose that she was to be reinstated; the mob of Rome declared itself in her favour and gave wild expression to its joy. Poppaea's statues were cast down, Octavia's replaced. Poppaea was furious. She laid siege to Nero and won him to her will. The old false charge of adultery was trumped up; a complaisant freed man was found to confess himself Octavia's lover. She was banished to Pandataria and slain (June 9, 62 A.D.).

The play gives us a compressed version of the tragedy. It opens with a speech by Octavia's nurse, setting forth the sorrows of her young mistress. The speech over, she leaves the stage to be succeeded by Octavia, who, in a lament closely modelled on the lament of the Sophoclean Electra,[211] bewails the sorrows of her house, the deaths of Messalina, Claudius, and Britannicus. The nurse reappears, attempts to console her, and counsels submission to fate. Octavia changes her strain and prays for death. After a lament from the chorus, Nero and Seneca enter on the scene. Seneca urges moderation and sets forth his ideal of monarchy. Nero is quite his match in argument, rejects his advice, and, concluding with the words

desiste tandem, iam gravis nimium mihi, instare: liceat facere quod Seneca improbat (588).

Have done at last,
For wearisome has thine insistence grown;
One still may do what Seneca condemns …
MILLER.

declares his intention of marrying Poppaea without delay. An interesting chorus follows, describing how Rome of old expelled the kings for their crimes. Nero has sinned even more than they. Has he not slain even his mother? There follows a long and interesting description of the murder,[212] which serves as an introduction to the entrance of the ghost of Agrippina in the guise of an avenging fury, prophesying the dethronement and death of her unnatural son. She is succeeded on the stage by Octavia, resigned to the surrender of her position and content to be no more than Nero's sister; once more the chorus bewail her fate. At last her rival Poppaea appears in conversation with her nurse. The nurse congratulates her, but Poppaea has been terrified by visions of the night and is ill at ease. Her rival is not yet removed and her own place is still insecure. At this point comes the one ray of hope that illumines this sombre drama. A messenger arrives with the news that the people have risen in Octavia's favour. But the reader is not left in suspense for a moment. Nero appears and orders the suppression of the émeute and the execution of Octavia. The chorus mourn the fate of the beloved of the Roman people. Their power and splendour is but brief: Octavia perishes untimely, like Gracchus and Livius Drusus. She herself appears in the hands of soldiers, being dragged off to execution and death. Like Cassandra,[213] she compares her fate with that of the nightingale, to whom the gods gave a new life of peace full of sweet lamentation as a close to her troubled human existence. One more song of condolence from the chorus, one more song of sorrow from Octavia, and she is taken from our sight, and the play closes with a denunciation by the chorus of the hardness of heart and the insatiate cruelty of Rome.

It is not hard to summarize the general effect of this curious drama. Its author has read the Greek tragedians carefully and to some purpose; he has studied the characters of Electra, Cassandra, and Antigone with diligence, if without insight. He clearly feels deep sympathy for Octavia, and to some extent succeeds in communicating this sympathy to the audience. His heroine speaks in character: she is never a male Stoic, flaunting in female garb, she is a genuine woman, a gentle, lovable creature broken down by misfortune. The other characters are uninteresting. Nero is an academic tyrant, Seneca an academic adviser, Poppaea is little more than a lay figure. The most that can be said for them is that they do not rant. The chorus are on the whole a fairly satisfactory imitation of a chorus of sympathetic Greek women.[214] There is nothing forced or unnatural about them; they are real human beings; their sympathy is genuine, and its expression appropriate. But they are dull; monotonous lamentation in monotonous anapaests is the height of their capacity. The play is a failure: the subject is not in itself dramatic; if it had been, it would have been spoiled by the treatment it receives. We are never in suspense; Octavia has never the remotest chance of escape; our pity for her is genuine enough, but her character lacks both grandeur and psychological interest: the pathos of her situation will not compensate us for the absence of a dramatic plot. The fall of the house of Claudius compares ill with the tragedy of the Pelopidae. And the treatment of the story, from the dramatic standpoint, is childish. The play is scarcely more than a series of melancholy monologues interspersed with not less melancholy dirges from the chorus. The most we can say of it is that it is simple and unaffected: if it lacks brilliance, it also lacks exaggeration. Thought and diction are commonplace and uninspired, but they are never absurd—an extraordinary merit in a poet of the Silver Age.

It will have been sufficiently evident from this brief sketch that the Octavia is in all respects very different indeed from the other plays that claim Seneca for their author. It is free from their faults and their merits alike. It never sinks to their depths, but it never rises to their heights. Apart, however, from these general considerations,[215] there is evidence amounting almost to certainty that the Octavia is not by Seneca. The tragedy takes place in the lifetime of Seneca. Seneca himself figures in the play. The story is of such a nature that it could hardly have been written, much less published, in the reign of Nero. Yet more conclusive is the fact that the ghost of Agrippina prophesies the fate of Nero in such a way as to make it certain that the author outlived the emperor and was acquainted with the facts of his death.[216]

Who then was the author? When did he write? Evidence is almost absolutely lacking. From its comparative sanity and simplicity and its intense hatred of Nero it may reasonably be conjectured that it is the work of the Flavian age; the age of the anti-Neronian reaction and of the return to saner models in life and literature. But there is no certainty; it may have been written under Nerva, Trajan, or Hadrian. It stands detached and aloof from the literature of its age.

CHAPTER III

PERSIUS

It is possible to form a clearer picture of the personality of Aulus Persius Flaccus, the satirist, than of any other poet of the Silver Age. Not only are the essential facts of his brief career preserved for us in a concise, but extremely relevant biography taken from the commentary of the famous critic Valerius Probus, but there are few poets whose works so clearly reveal the character of their author.

Persius was born at the lofty hill-town of Volaterrae, in Tuscany, on the 4th of December, 34 A.D.[217] He was scarcely six years old when he lost his father, a wealthy Roman knight, named Flaccus. His mother, Fulvia Sisennia, married again, but her second husband, a knight named Fusius, died after a few years of wedded life. Persius was educated at home up to the age of twelve, when he was taken to Rome to be taught literature by Remmius Palaemon and rhetoric by Verginius Flavus. Of the latter nothing is known save that he wrote a much-approved textbook on rhetoric and was exiled by Nero;[218] the former was a freedman whose remarkable talents were only equalled by his gross vices; he had a prodigious memory, was a skilful improvvisatore, and the most distinguished teacher of the day.[219] At the age of sixteen, shortly after his assumption of the toga virilis, the young Persius made the friendship which was to be the ruling influence of his life. He learned to know and love the great Stoic teacher, Cornutus, with an attachment that was broken only by death. It was from Cornutus that he imbibed the principles of Stoicism, and at his house that he met the Greek philosophers, Petronius Aristocrates of Magnesia and the Lacedaemonian physician, Claudius Agathurnus, whose influence upon his character was only less than that of Cornutus. Among his intimates he counted Calpurnius Statura, who died in early youth, and the famous lyric poet, Caesius Bassus,[220] who was destined long to survive his friend and to do him the last service of editing the satires, which his premature death left unpublished and unfinished. Lucan also was one of his fellow students in the house of Cornutus,[221] while at a later date he made the acquaintance of Seneca, the leading writer of the day, although he never felt the seductive attractions of his fluent style and subtle intellect. More important influences were his almost filial respect and affection for the distinguished orator,[222] M. Servilius Nonianus, and his close companionship with Thrasea Paetus, the leader of the Stoic opposition.[223] At one time Persius, if the scholiast may be believed,[224] contemplated a military career. The statement is scarcely probable in view of the contempt and dislike with which he invariably speaks of soldiers, nor is it easy to conceive a profession less suited to the temperament of the quiet and retiring poet. Whatever his original intentions may have been, he actually chose the secluded life of study, the vita umbratilis, as the Romans called it, remote from the dust and heat of the great world. That he was wise we cannot doubt. It was the only life possible in those days for a man of his character. 'Fuit morum lenissimorum, verecundiae virginalis, pietatis erga matrem et sororem et amitam exemplo sufficientis: fuit frugi, pudicus.' Even in a saner, purer, and less turbulent age, such a one would have been more fitted for the paths of study than for any branch of public life. He died of a disease of the stomach on the 24th of November, 62 A.D., in his villa on the Appian Way, some eight miles south of Rome,[225] leaving behind him a valuable library, a small amount of unpublished verse, and a considerable fortune, amounting to 2,000,000 sesterces. The whole of this fortune he bequeathed to his mother and sister, only begging them to give to his friend Cornutus a sum of 100,000 sesterces, twenty pounds weight of silver plate, and the whole of his library, containing no less than 700 volumes by the Stoic Chrysippus. Cornutus accepted the books, but refused the rest, showing that indifference to wealth that was to be looked for, though not always to be found, in professors of the Stoic philosophy. The literary work left by the dead poet was submitted by his mother to the judgement of Cornutus, himself a poet.[226] The bulk of the work was not great. Persius had in his boyhood written a praetexta or tragedy with a Roman plot, a book of poems describing his journeys with Thrasea,[227] and a few verses on his kinswoman Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, immortalized by her devotion to her husband and her heroic death.[228] As the work of his maturer years he left his satires. Cornutus recommended that all save the satires should be destroyed; they alone, unfinished though they might be, were worthy of the memory of his dead friend. He began the task of correcting them for publication, but transferred it to Caesius Bassus, at the latter's earnest entreaty. Of the nature of the correction and editing required we are ignorant, save for the statement of Probus that a few lines were removed from the end of the book to give it an appearance of completion.[229] The poems met with instant success;[230] they excited both wonder and criticism; that they continued to be read is shown by the existence of copious scholia, which must, indeed, have been almost necessary for such continuance of their popularity.[231]

The slender volume of Persius' works is composed of six satires in hexameter verse and a prologue written in choliambi. The first deals with the corruption of literature; the second, addressed to Macrinus on his birthday, treats of the right and wrong objects of prayer; the third is an appeal to an indolent young man for energy and earnestness; the fourth, almost a continuation of the third, attacks the lack of 'self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control', in public men; the fifth, addressed to his friend and teacher Cornutus, maintains the Stoic doctrine that all the world are slaves; only the righteous man attains to freedom; in the sixth, addressed to Caesius Bassus, the poet claims the right to spend his wealth in reasonable enjoyment, and denounces the grasping and unseemly selfishness of an imaginary heir to his fortune. In the prologue—or epilogue as it is sometimes regarded[232]—he sarcastically disclaims any pretensions to poetic inspiration, and hints ironically that, in view of the number of poets who write merely to win their bread, inspiration may be regarded as unnecessary.

The ambition to win fame as a satirist was first fired in Persius by his reading the tenth book of the satires of Lucilius. If we may believe Probus, he imitated the opening of that book in his first satire, beginning like Lucilius by detracting from himself and proceeding to attack other authors indiscriminately.[233] Not enough of the tenth book of Lucilius has survived to enable us to check the accuracy of this statement, though it finds independent testimony in a remark of the scholiast on Horace, that the tenth book of Lucilius contained free criticisms of the early poets of Rome.[234] Further, the third satire is said by the scholiast to have been modelled on the fourth book of Lucilius, and there is a certain amount of evidence for supposing the choliambi of the epilogue to be an imitation of a Lucilian model.[235] We have, however, no means of testing the truth of these assertions: the debt of Persius to Lucilius must be taken on trust. Of his enormous indebtedness to Horace we have, on the other hand, the clearest evidence. It is hard to conceive two poets with less in common as regards ideals, temperament, and technique; and yet throughout Persius we are startled by strange, though unmistakable, echoes of Horace.

He knows his Horace by heart, and Horace has become a veritable obsession. He is not content with giving his characters Horatian names.[236] That might be convention, not plagiarism. But phrase after phrase calls up the Horatian original. He runs through the whole gamut of plagiarism. There is plagiarism, simple and direct.

O si sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria, dextro Hercule! (2. 10)

O that I could hear a crock of silver chinking under my harrow, by the blessing of Hercules. CONINGTON.

is undisguisedly copied from Horace (Sat. ii. 6. 10).

O si urnam argenti fors quae mihi monstret, ut illi, thesauro invento, qui mercennarius agrum ilium ipsum mercatus aravit, dives amico Hercule!

But as a rule, since he cannot keep Horace out, he strives to disguise him. The familiar

si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi

of the Ars Poetica (102) reappears in the far less natural

verum nec nocte paratum plorabit, qui me volet incurvasse querela (Pers. i. 91).

A man's tears must come from his heart at the moment, not from his brains overnight, if he would have me bowed down beneath his piteous tale. CONINGTON.