Chapter XIV: Part 14

“Tu, mea, tu moriens, fregisti commoda, frater;
Tecum unà tota est nostra sepulta domus;
Omnia tecum unà perierunt gaudia nostra,
Quæ tuus in vita dulcis alebat amor:
Quojus ego interitu totâ de mente fugavi
Hæc studia, atque omnes delicias animi.”

Catullus seems to have entertained a sincere affection for his brother, and to have deeply deplored his loss; hence he generally writes well when touching on this tender topic. Indeed, the only remaining elegy of Catullus worth mentioning, is that entitled _Inferiæ ad Fratris Tumulum_, which is another beautiful and affectionate tribute to the memory of this beloved youth. Vulpius had said, in a commentary on Catullus, that his brother died while accompanying him in his expedition with Memmius to Bithynia. This, however, is denied by Ginguené, who quotes two lines from the _Inferiæ_—

“Multas per gentes, et multa per æquora vectus,
Adveni has miseras, frater, ad inferias,”

in order to show that the poet was at a distance at the time of his brother’s death, and celebration of his funeral rites. It is possible, however, that these lines may refer to some subsequent pilgrimage to his tomb, or, what is most probable, his brother may have died at Troy, while Catullus was in Bithynia.

None of the remaining poems of Catullus, though written in elegiac verse, are at all of the description to which we now give the name of elegy. They are usually termed epigrams, and contain the most violent invectives on living characters, for the vices in which they indulged, and satire the most unrestrained on their personal deformities; but few of them are epigrams in the modern acceptation of the word. An epigram, as is well known, was originally what we now call a device or inscription, and the term remained, though the thing itself was changed(511). A Greek anthology consisting of poems which expressed a simple idea—a sentiment, regret, or wish, without point or double meaning, had been compiled by Meleager before the time of Catullus; and hence he had an opportunity of imitating the style of the Greek epigrams, and occasionally borrowing their expressions, though generally with application to some of his enemies at Rome, whom he wished to hold up to the derision or hatred of his countrymen. Most of these poems were called forth by real occurrences, and express, without disguise, his genuine feelings at the time: His contempt, dislike, and resentment, all burst out in poetry. So little is known concerning the circumstances of his life, or the history of his enmities or friendships, that some of the lighter productions of Catullus are nearly unintelligible, while others appear flat and obscure; and in none can we fully relish the felicity of expression or allusion.

These epigrams of Catullus are chiefly curious and valuable, when considered as occasional or extemporary productions, which paint the manners, as well as echo the tone of thought and feeling, which at the time prevailed in fashionable society at Rome. What chiefly obtrudes itself on our attention, is the gross personal invective, and indecency of these compositions, so foreign from anything that would be tolerated in modern times. The art of rendering others satisfied with themselves, and consequently with us—the practice of dissembling our feelings, at first to please, and then by habit,—the custom, if not of flattering our foes, at least of meeting those we dislike, without reviling them, were talents unknown in the ancient republic of Rome. The freedom of the times was accompanied by a frankness and sincerity of language, which we would consider as rude. Even the best friends attacked each other in the Senate, and before the various tribunals of justice, in the harshest and most unmeasured terms of abuse. Philip of Macedon, in an amicable interview with the Roman general Flaminius, who was accounted the most polite man of his day, apologized for not having returned an immediate answer to some proposition which had been made to him, on the ground that none of those friends, with whom he was in the habit of consulting, were at hand when he received it; to which Flaminius replied, that the reason he had no friends near him was, that he had assassinated them all. Matters were little better in the days of Catullus. At the time he flourished, everything was made subservient to political advancement; and what _we_ should consider as the most inexpiable offences, were forgotten, or at least forgiven, as soon as the interests of ambition required. Accordingly, no person seems to have blamed the bitter invectives of Catullus; and none of his contemporaries were surprised or shocked at the unbridled freedom with which he reviled his enemies. He was merely considered as availing himself of a privilege, which every one was entitled to exercise. In his days, ridicule and raillery were oftener directed by malice than by wit: But the Romans thought no terms unseemly, which expressed the utmost bitterness of private or political animosity, and an excess of malevolence was received as sufficient compensation for deficiency in liveliness or humour. As little were the Romans offended by the obscene images and expressions which Catullus so frequently employed. Such had not yet been proscribed in the conversation of the best company. “Among the ancients,” says Porson, in his review of Brunck’s _Aristophanes_(512), “plain speaking was the fashion; nor was that ceremonious delicacy introduced, which has taught men to abuse each other with the utmost politeness, and express the most indecent ideas in the most modest language. The ancients had little of this: They were accustomed to call a spade, a spade—to give everything its proper name. There is another sort of indecency which is infinitely more dangerous, which corrupts the heart without offending the ear.” Hence the Muse of light poetry thought not of having recourse to the circumlocutions or suggestions of modern times. Nor did Catullus suffer in his reputation, either as an author or man of fashion, from the impurities by which his poems were poisoned. All this would have been less remarkable in the first age of Roman literature, as indelicacy of expression is characteristic of the early poetry of almost every nation. The French epigrams of Regnier, and his contemporaries Motin and Berthelot, are nearly as gross as those of Catullus; but at the close of the Roman republic, literature was far advanced; and if it be true, that as a nation grows corrupted its language becomes pure, the words and expressions of the Romans, in these last days of liberty, should have been sufficiently chaste. The obscenities of Catullus, however, it must be admitted, are oftener the sport of satire, than the ebullitions of a voluptuous imagination. His sarcastic account of the debaucheries of Lesbia, is more impure than the pictures of his enjoyment of her love.

No subject connected with the works of Catullus is more curious than the different sentiments, which, as we have seen, he expresses with regard to this woman. His conflict of mind breathes into his poetry every variety of passion. We behold him now transported with love, now reviling and despising her as sunk in the lowest abyss of shame, and yet, with this full knowledge of her abandoned character, her blandishments preserve undiminished sway over his affections. “At one time,” says a late translator of Catullus, “we find him upbraiding Lesbia bitterly with her licentiousness, then bidding her farewell for ever; then beseeching from the gods resolution to cast her off; then weakly confessing utter impotence of mind, and submission to hopeless slavery; then, in the epistle to Manlius, persuading himself, by reason and example, into a contented acquiescence in her falsehoods, and yet at last accepting with eagerness, and relying with hope, on her proffered vow of constancy. Nothing can be more genuine than the rapture with which he depicts his happiness in her hours of affection; nor than the gloomy despair with which he is overwhelmed, when he believes himself resolved to quit her for ever.” And all this, he wrote and circulated concerning a Roman lady, belonging, it is believed, to one of the first and most powerful families of the state!

Lesbia, as formerly mentioned, is universally allowed to be Clodia, the sister of the turbulent Clodius; but there has been a great deal of discussion and dispute, with regard to the identity of the other individuals against whom the epigrams are directed. Justus Lipsius(513) has written a dissertation with regard to Vettius and Cominius. The former he supposes to be the person mentioned in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, and by Suetonius, as having been suborned by Cæsar, to allow himself to be seized with a weapon on his person, and to confess that he had been employed by the Chiefs of the Senate to assassinate Pompey—a device contrived by Cæsar, in order to set Pompey and the Senate at variance. Cominius was an accuser by profession, and impeached C. Cornelius, whom Cicero defended(514). Lipsius believes Alphenus to be Pompey, and thinks that the epigram, directed against him, is supposed to be written in the person of Cicero. He is of opinion that the poet durst not venture to mention Pompey’s name, and therefore designed him by an assumed one; but the epigrams on Julius Cæsar prove that Catullus was neither so scrupulous nor timid. The greatest number, however, and the most cutting of the epigrams, are aimed at Gellius, his successful rival in the affections of Lesbia—

—— “Quem Lesbia malit,
Quam te cum totâ gente, Catulle, tuâ.”

There were two persons of this name at Rome in the time of Catullus—an uncle and nephew. The first was a notorious profligate, who had wasted his patrimony, and afterwards headed mobs in the Forum for hire(515). The nephew was equally dissolute. After the death of Cæsar, he conspired to assassinate Cassius in the midst of his army, and, having been pardoned, deserted to Antony. One of the various crimes of which he was suspected, identifies him as the Gellius branded by our poet, and whose vices were so great—

—— “Quantum non ultima Tethys,
Non genitor nympharum abluit Oceanus.”

This idea, by the way, of crimes of such crimson dye that they cannot be washed out by the wide world of waters, seems to have been originally derived from some verses of the chorus in the Choephoræ of Æschylus—

—— “ποροι τε παντες ἐκ μιας ὁδου
Βαινοντες τον χαιρομυσου
Φονον καθαιροντες ἰουσαν ατην.”

The great successor of Æschylus expressed the same idea, in different language, in the _Œdipus Tyrannus_—

“Ὀιμαι γαρ ὀυτ’ αν Ιστρον ὀυτε Φασιν αν
Νιψαι καθαρμω τηνδε στεγην, ὁσα
Κευθει.”

Seneca, imitating Catullus, in his _Hercules Furens_, says—

—— “Arctoum licet
Mæotis in me gelida transfundat mare,
Et tota Thetis per meas currat manus,
Hærebit altum facinus.” ——

There is a remarkable resemblance betwixt this idea and a well-known passage in _Macbeth_:

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?” ——

Much dispute has existed with regard to the comparative merit of the epigrammatic productions of Catullus, and those of Martial, who sharpened the Latin epigram, and endeavoured to surprise, by terminating an ordinary thought with some word or expression, which formed a _point_. Of the three great triumvirs of Latin literature, Joseph Scaliger, Lipsius, and Muretus, the last considers Catullus as far superior to his successor, as the wit of a gentleman to that of a scoffer and buffoon, while the two former award the palm to Martial. Their respective merits are very well summed up by Vavassor.—“Catullum quidem, puro ac simplici candore, et nativa quadam, minimeque adscita, excellere venustate formæ, quæ accedat quam proxime ad Græcos. Martialem acumine, quod proprium Latinorum, et peculiare tunc fieri cœpit, valere; adeoque Catullum toto corpore epigrammatis esse conspicuum, Martialem clausula præcipue, atque ultimo fine, in quo relinquat, cum delectatione, aculeum spectari(516).”

There can, I think, be no doubt, that, as an epigrammatist, Martial is infinitely superior to Catullus; but it is not on his epigrams that the fame of Catullus rests: He owes his reputation to about a dozen pieces, in which every word, like a note of music, thrills on the heart-strings. It is this felicitous selection of the most appropriate and melodious expressions, which seem to flow from the heart without study or premeditation, which has rendered him the most _graceful_ of poets:—

—— “Ce naif agrement,
Ce ton de cœur, ce negligé charmant,
Qui le rendit le poëte _des Graces_(517).”

Few poets, besides, have shown more freshness in their conceptions—more truth and nature in their delineations of amatory passion—more heartfelt tenderness in grief—and none, certainly, ever possessed a more happy art of embellishing trivial incidents, by the manner in which he treated them. Indeed, the most exquisite of his productions, in point of grace and delicacy, are those which were called forth by the most trifling occasions; while, at the same time, his Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis proves, that he was by no means deficient in that warmth of imagination, energy of thought, and sublimity of conception, which form the attributes of perfection in those bards who tread the higher paths of Parnassus. Catullus is a great favourite with all the early critics and commentators of the 16th century. The elder Scaliger alone has pronounced on him a harsh and unmerited sentence: “Catullo,” says he, “docti nomen quare sit ab antiquis attributum, neque apud alios comperi, neque dum in mentem venit mihi. Nihil enim non vulgare est in ejus libris: ejus autem syllabæ cùm duræ sint, tum ipse non raro durus; aliquando vero adeo mollis, ut fluat, neque consistat. Multa impudica, quorum pudet—multa languida, quorum miseret—multa coacta, quorum piget(518).” In conclusion, the reader may, perhaps, like to hear the opinion of the pure and saintly Fenelon, concerning this obscene pagan.—“Catulle, qu’on ne peut nommer sans avoir horreur de ses obscenitéz, est au comble de la perfection pour une simplicité passionnée—

‘Odi et amo: quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio; sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.’

Combien Ovide et Martial, avec leurs traits ingenieux et façonnéz, sont ils au dessous de ces paroles negligées, ou le cœur saisi parle seul dans un espéce de désespoir.”

The different sorts of poetry which Catullus, though not their inventor, first introduced at Rome, were cultivated and brought to high perfection by his countrymen. Horace followed, and excelled him in Lyric compositions. The elegiac measure was adopted with success by Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius, and applied by them to the expression of amatory sentiments, which, if they did not reach the refinement, or pure devotedness of the middle ages(519), were less gross than those of Catullus.

In his epigrammatic compositions, Catullus was imitated by several of his own contemporaries, most of whom also ranked in the number of his friends. Their works, however, have almost entirely perished. Quintus Lutatius Catulus, who is praised as an orator and historian by Cicero(520), has left two epigrams—one, _Ad Theotimum_, translated from Callimachus, the name Theotimus being merely substituted for that of Cephissus—and the other, _Ad Roscium Puerum_, addressed to the celebrated actor in his youth, and quoted by Cicero in his treatise, _De Naturâ Deorum_(521)—

“Constiteram, exorientem Auroram forte salutans;
Cum subito a lævâ Roscius exoritur.
Pace mihi liceat, Cœlestes, dicere vestrâ;
Mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo(522).”

This epigram formed a theme and subject of poetical contest among the French _beaux esprits_ of the 17th century, who vied with each other in sonnets and madrigals, entitled _La Belle Matineuse_, written in imitation of the above verses. One will suffice as a specimen—

LA BELLE MATINEUSE.

“Le silence régnait sur la terre et sur l’onde,
L’air devenait serein, et l’Olympe vermeil,
Et l’amoureux Zephyr affranchi du sommeil
Ressuscitait les fleurs d’une haleine féconde.
L’Aurore déployait l’or de sa tresse blonde,
Et semait de rubis le chemin du soleil.
Enfin ce Dieu venait au plus grand appareil,
Qu’il fût jamais venus pour éclairer le monde.
Quand la jeune Philis au visage riant,
Sortant de son palais, plus clair que l’Orient,
Fit voir une lumière et plus vive et plus belle.
Sacre flambeau de jour, n’en soyez point jaloux;
Vous parûtes alors aussi peu devant elle,
Que les feux de la nuit avoient fait devant vous.”

From a vast collection of Italian sonnets on the same subject, I select one by Annibal Caro, the celebrated translator of Virgil—

“Eran l’aer tranquillo, e l’onde chiare,
Sospirava Favonio, e fuggia Clori,
L’alma Ciprigna innanzi ai primi albori
Ridendo empia d’amor la terra e ’l mare.

“La rugiadosa Aurora in ciel più rare
Facea le stelle; e di più bei colori
Sparse le nubi, e i monti; uscia già fuori
Febo, qual più lucente in Delfo appare.

“Quando altra Aurora un più vezzoso ostello
Aperse, e lampeggiò sereno, e puro
Il Sol, che sol m’abbaglia, e mi disface.

“Volsimi, e ’n contro a lei mi parve oscuro,
(Santi lumi del ciel, con vostra pace)
L’Oriente, che dianzi era si bello.”

Licinius Calvus was equally distinguished as an orator and a poet. In the former capacity he is mentioned with distinction by Cicero; but it was probably his poetical talents that procured for him the friendship of Catullus, who has addressed to him two Odes, in which he is commemorated as a most delightful companion, from whose society he could scarcely refrain. Calvus was violently enamoured of a girl called Quintilia, whose early death he lamented in a number of verses, none of which have descended to us. There only remain, an epigram against Pompey, satirizing his practice of scratching his head with one finger, and a fragment of another against Julius Cæsar(523). The sarcasm it contains would not have been pardonable in the present age; but the dictator, hearing that Calvus had repented of his petulance, and was desirous of a reconciliation, addressed a letter to him, with assurances of unaltered friendship(524). The fragments of his epigrams which remain, do not enable us to judge for ourselves of his poetical merits. He is classed by Ovid among the licentious writers(525); but he is generally mentioned along with Catullus, which shows that he was not considered as greatly inferior to his friend—

“Nil præter Calvum et doctus cantare Catullum.”

Pliny, in one of his letters, talking of his friend Pompeius Saturnius, mentions, that he had composed several poetical pieces in the manner of Calvus and Catullus(526); and Augurinus, as quoted by Pliny in another of his epistles, says,

“Canto carmina versibus minutis
His olim quibus et meus Catullus,
Et Calvus ——”(527)

VALERIUS ÆDITUUS,

Of Valerius Ædituus, another writer of epigrams and amorous verses in the time of Catullus, little is known; but the following lines by him, to a slave carrying a torch before him to the house of his mistress, have been quoted by Aulus Gellius—

“Quid faculam præfers, Phileros, qua nil opu’ nobis?
Ibimus, hoc lucet pectore flamma satis.
Istam nam potis est vis sæva extinguere venti,
Aut imber cœlo candidus præcipitans:
At contra, hunc ignem Veneris, nisi si Venus ipsa,
Nulla ’st quæ possit vis alia opprimere(528).”

Aulus Gellius has also preserved the following verses of Porcius Licinius—

“Custodes ovium, teneræque propaginis agnûm,
Quæris ignem?—Ite huc: quæritis? ignis homo est.
Si digito attigero, incendam silvam simul omnem,
Omne pecus: flamma ’st omnia quæ video(529).”

During the period in which the works of Lucretius and Catullus brought the Latin language to such perfection, the drama, which we have seen so highly elevated in the days of the Scipios, had sunk into a state of comparative degradation. National circumstances and manners had never been favourable to the progress of the dramatic art at Rome; but, subsequently to the conquest of Carthage, the increasing size and magnificence of the Roman theatres, some of which held not less than 60,000 people, required splendid spectacles, or extravagant buffoonery, to fill the eye, and catch the attention of a crowded, and often tumultuous assembly.

Accordingly, in the long period from the termination of the Punic wars till the Augustan age, there scarcely appeared a single successor to Plautus or Pacuvius. That the pieces of the ancient tragic or comic writers still continued to be occasionally represented, is evident from the immense wealth amassed, in the time of Cicero, by Æsopus and Roscius, who never, so far as we know, condescended to appear, except in the regular drama; but a new tragedy or comedy was rarely brought out. This deficiency in the fund of entertainment and novelty, in the province of the legitimate drama, was supplied by the MIMES, which now became fashionable in Rome.

Though resembling them in name, the Latin Mimes differed essentially from the Greek Μιμοι, from which they derived their appellation. The Greek Mimes, of which Sophron of Syracuse was the chief writer, represented a single adventure taken from ordinary life, and exhibited characters without any gross caricature or buffoonery. The fifteenth Idyl of Theocritus is said to be written in the manner of the Greek Mimes(530); and, to judge from it, they were not so much actions as conversations with regard to some action which was supposed to be going on at the time, and is pointed out, as it were, by the one interlocutor to the other, or an imitation of the action, whence their name has been derived. They resembled detached or unconnected scenes of a comedy, and required no more gesticulation or mimetic art, than is employed in all dramatic representations. On the other hand, mimetic gestures of every species, except dancing, were essential to the Roman Mimes, as also the exhibition of grotesque characters, which had often no prototypes in real life. The Mimes of the Romans, again, differed from their pantomime in this, that, in the former, most of the gestures were accompanied by recitation, whereas the pantomimic entertainments, carried to such perfection by Pylades and Bathyllus, were _ballets_, often of a serious, and never of a ludicrous or grotesque description, in which everything was expressed by dumb show, and in which dancing constituted so considerable a part of the amusement, that the performers danced a poem, a chorus, or whole drama, (_Canticum saltabant_.)

It is much more difficult to distinguish the Mimes from the _Fabulæ Atellanæ_, than from the Pantomimes or Greek _Mimi_; and indeed they have been frequently confounded(531). It appears, however, that the characters represented in the Atellane dramas were chiefly provincial, while those introduced in the Mimes were the lowest class of citizens at Rome. Antic gestures, too, were more employed in the Mimes than the Atellane fables, and they were more obscene and ludicrous: “Toti,” says Vossius, “erant ridiculi.” The Atellanes, though full of mirth, were always tempered with something of the ancient Italian severity, and consisted of a more liberal and polite kind of humour than the Mimes. In this respect Cicero places the Mimes and Atellane fables in contrast, in a letter to Papyrius Pætus, where he says, that the broad jests in which his correspondent had indulged, immediately after having quoted the tragedy of Œnomaus, reminds him of the modern method of introducing, at the end of such graver dramatic pieces, the buffoonery of the Mimes, instead of the more delicate humour of the old Atellane farces(532).

These Mimes, (which, with the Atellane fables, and regular tragedy and comedy, form the four great branches of the Roman drama,) were represented by actors, who sometimes wore masks, but more frequently had their faces stained like our clowns or mountebanks. There was always one principal actor, on whom the jests and ridicule chiefly hinged. The second, or inferior parts, were entirely subservient to that of the first performer: They were merely introduced to set him off to advantage, to imitate his actions, and take up his words—

“Sic iterat voces, et verba cadentia tollit;
Ut puerum sævo credas dictata magistro
Reddere, vel partes mimum tractare secundas.”

Some writers have supposed, that a Mime was a sort of _monodrame_, and that the _partes secundæ_, here alluded to by Horace, meant the part of the actor who gesticulated(533), while the other declaimed, or that of the declaimer(534). It is quite evident, however, from the context of the lines, that Horace refers to the inferior characters of the Mime(535). I doubt not that the chief performer assumed more than one character in the course of the piece(536), in the manner in which the Admirable Crichton is recorded to have performed at the court of Mantua(537); but there were also subordinate parts in the Mime—a fool or a parasite, who assisted in carrying on the jests or tricks of his principal:—“C. Volumnius,” says Festus, “qui ad tibicinem saltârit, secundarum partium fuerit, qui, fere omnibus Mimis, parasitus inducatur(538);” and to the same purpose Petronius Arbiter,—

“Grex agit in scenâ Mimum—Pater ille vocatur,
Filius hic, nomen Divitis ille tenet(539).”

The performance of a Mime commenced with the appearance of the chief actor, who explained its subject in a sort of prologue, in order that the spectators might fully understand what was but imperfectly represented by words or gestures. This prolocutor, also, was generally the author of a sketch of the piece; but the actors were not confined to the mere outline which he had furnished. In one view, the province of the mimetic actor was of a higher description than that of the regular comedian. He was obliged to trust not so much to memory as invention, and to clothe in extemporaneous effusions of his own, those rude sketches of dramatic scenes, which were all that were presented to him by his author. The performers of Mimes, however, too often gave full scope, not merely to natural unpremeditated gaiety, but abandoned themselves to every sort of extravagant and indecorous action. The part written out was in iambic verse, but the extemporary dialogue which filled up the scene was in prose, or in the rudest species of versification. Through the course of the exhibition, the want of refinement or dramatic interest was supplied by the excellence of the mimetic part, and the amusing imitation of the peculiarities or personal habits of various classes of society. The performers were seldom anxious to give a reasonable conclusion to their extravagant intrigue. Sometimes, when they could not extricate themselves from the embarrassment into which they had thrown each other, they simultaneously rushed off the stage, and the performance terminated(540).

The characters exhibited were parts taken from the dregs of the populace—courtezans, thieves, and drunkards. The Sannio, or Zany, seems to have been common to the Mimes and Atellane dramas. He excited laughter by lolling out his tongue, and making asses’ ears on his head with his fingers. There was also the Panniculus, who appeared in a party-coloured dress, with his head shaved, feigning stupidity or folly, and allowing blows to be inflicted on himself without cause or moderation. That women performed characters in these dramas, and were often the favourite mistresses of the great, is evident from a passage in the Satires of Horace, who mentions a female Mime, called Origo, on whom a wealthy Roman had lavished his paternal inheritance(541). Cornelius Gallus wrote four books of _Elegies_ in praise of a Mime called Cytheris, who, as Aurelius Victor informs us, was also beloved by Antony and Brutus—“Cytheridam Mimam, cum Antonio et Gallo, amavit Brutus.” It appears from a passage in Valerius Maximus, that these Mimæ were often required to strip themselves of their clothes in presence of the spectators(542).

As might be expected from the characters introduced, the Mimes were appropriated to a representation of the lowest follies and debaucheries of the vulgar. “Argumenta,” says Valerius Maximus, “majore ex parte, stuprorum continent actus.” That they were in a great measure occupied with the tricks played by wives on their husbands, (somewhat, probably, in the style of those related by the Italian novelists,) we learn from Ovid; who, after complaining in his _Tristia_ of having been undeservedly condemned for the freedom of his verses, asks—

“Quid si scripsissem Mimos obscœna jocantes?
Qui semper juncti crimen amoris habent;
In quibus assidue cultus procedit adulter,
Verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro(543).”

We learn from another passage of Ovid that these were by much the most popular subjects,—

“Cumque fefellit amans aliquâ novitate maritum,
Plauditur, et magno palma favore datur.”

The same poet elsewhere calls the Mimes, “Imitantes turpia Mimos;” and Diomedes defines them to be “Sermonis cujuslibet, motûsque, sine reverentiâ, vel factorum turpium cum lasciviâ imitatio, ita ut ridiculum faciant.”

These Mimes were originally represented as a sort of afterpiece, or interlude to the regular dramas, and were intended to fill up the blank which had been left by omission of the Chorus. But they subsequently came to form a separate and fashionable public amusement, which in a great measure superseded all other dramatic entertainments. Sylla (in whom the gloomy temper of the tyrant was brightened by the talents of a mimic and a wit) was so fond of Mimes, that he gave the actors of them many acres of the public land(544); and we shall soon see the high importance which Julius Cæsar attached to this sort of spectacle. It appears, at first view, curious, that the Romans—the most grave, solid, and dignified nation on earth, the _gens togata_, and the _domini rerum_—should have been so partial to the exhibition of licentious buffoonery on the stage. But, perhaps, when people have a mind to divert themselves, they choose what is most different from their ordinary temper and habits, as being most likely to amuse them. “Strangely,” says Isaac Bey, while relating his adventures in _France_, “was my poor Turkish brain puzzled, on discovering the favourite pastime of a nation reckoned the merriest in the world. It consisted in a thing called tragedies, whose only purpose is to make you cry your eyes out. Should the performance raise a single smile, the author is undone(545).”

The popularity and frequent repetition of the Mimes came gradually to purify their grossness; and the writers of them, at length, were not contented merely with the fame of amusing the Roman populace by ribaldry. They carried their pretensions higher; and, while they sometimes availed themselves of the licentious freedom to which this species of drama gave unlimited indulgence, they interspersed the most striking truths and beautiful moral maxims in these ludicrous and indecent farces. This appears from the Mimes of DECIMUS LABERIUS and PUBLIUS SYRUS, who both flourished during the dictatorship of Julius Cæsar.

LABERIUS.

In earlier periods, as has been already mentioned, the writer was also the chief representer of the Mime. Laberius, however, was not originally an actor, but a Roman knight of respectable family and character, who occasionally amused himself with the composition of these farcical productions. He was at length requested by Julius Cæsar to appear on the stage after he had reached the age of sixty, and act the Mimes, which he had sketched or written(546). Aware that the entreaties of a perpetual dictator are nearly equivalent to commands, he reluctantly complied; but in the prologue to the first piece which he acted, he complained bitterly to the audience of the degradation to which he had been subjected—

“Ego, bis trecenis annis actis, sine notâ,
Eques Romanus lare egressus meo,
Domum revertar Mimus. Nimirum hoc die
Uno plus vixi mihi, quàm vivendum fuit.
Fortuna, immoderata in bono æque atque in malo,
Si tibi erat libitum, literarum laudibus
Floris cacumen nostræ famæ frangere,
Cur cum vigebam membris præ viridantibus,
Satisfacere populo, et tali cum poteram viro,
Non flexibilem me concurvàsti ut caperes?
Nunc me quo dejicis? quid ad scenam affero,
Decorem formæ, an dignitatem corporis?
Animi virtutem, an vocis jucundæ sonum?
Ut hedera serpens vires arboreas necat;
Ita me vetustas amplexu annorum enecat(547).”

The whole prologue, consisting of twenty-nine lines, which have been preserved by Macrobius, is written in a fine vein of poetry, and with all the high spirit of a Roman citizen. It breathes in every verse the most bitter and indignant feelings of wounded pride, and highly exalts our opinion of the man, who, yielding to an irresistible power, preserved his dignity while performing a part which he despised. It is difficult to conceive how, in this frame of mind, he could assume the jocund and unrestrained gaiety of a Mime, or how the Roman people could relish so painful a spectacle. He is said, however, to have represented the feigned character with inimitable grace and spirit. But in the course of his performance he could not refrain from expressing strong sentiments of freedom and detestation of tyranny. In one of the scenes he personated a Syrian slave; and, while escaping from the lash of his master, he exclaimed,

“Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdidimus;”

and shortly after, he added,

“Necesse est multos timeat, quem multi timent,”

on which the whole audience turned their eyes to Cæsar, who was present in the theatre(548).

It was not merely to entertain the people, who would have been as well amused with the representation of any other actor; nor to wound the private feelings of Laberius, that Cæsar forced him on the stage. His sole object was to degrade the Roman knighthood, to subdue their spirit of independence and honour, and to strike the people with a sense of his unlimited sway. This policy formed part of the same system which afterwards led him to persuade a senator to combat among the ranks of gladiators. The practice introduced by Cæsar became frequent during the reigns of his successors; and in the time of Domitian, the Fabii and Mamerci acted as _planipedes_, the lowest class of buffoons, who, barefooted and smeared with soot, capered about the stage in the intervals of the play for the amusement of the rabble!

Though Laberius complied with the wishes of Cæsar, in exhibiting himself on the stage, and acquitted himself with ability as a mimetic actor, it would appear that the Dictator had been hurt and offended by the freedoms which he used in the course of the representation, and either on this or some subsequent occasion bestowed the dramatic crown on a Syrian slave, in preference to the Roman knight. Laberius submitted with good grace to this fresh humiliation; he pretended to regard it merely as the ordinary chance of theatric competition, as he expressed to the audience in the following lines:—

“Non possunt primi esse omnes omni in tempore.
Summum ad gradum cum claritatis veneris,
Consistes ægre: et citius quam ascendas, decides.
Cecidi ego—cadet qui sequitur(549).” ——

Laberius did not long survive this double mortification: he retired from Rome, and died at Puteoli about ten months after the assassination of Cæsar(550).

The titles and a few fragments of forty-three of the Mimes of Laberius are still extant; but, excepting the prologue, these remains are too inconsiderable and detached to enable us to judge of their subject or merits. It would appear that he occasionally dramatized the passing follies or absurd occurrences of the day: for Cicero, writing to the lawyer Trebonius, who expected to accompany Cæsar from Gaul to Britain, tells him he had best return to Rome quickly, as a longer pursuit to no purpose would be so ridiculous a circumstance, that it would hardly escape the drollery of that arch fellow Laberius; and what a burlesque character, he continues, would a British lawyer furnish out for the Roman stage(551)! The only passage of sufficient length in connection to give us any idea of his manner, is a whimsical application of a story concerning the manner in which Democritus put out his eyes—

“Democritus Abderites, physicus philosophus,
Clypeum constituit contra exortum Hyperionis;
Oculos effodere ut posset splendore æreo.
Ita, radiis solis aciem effodit luminis,
Malis bene esse ne videret civibus.
Sic ego, fulgentis splendore pecuniæ,
Volo elucificare exitum ætatis meæ,
Ne in re bonâ esse videam nequam filium(552).”

According to Aulus Gellius, Laberius has taken too much license in inventing words; and that author also gives various examples of his use of obsolete expressions, or such as were employed only by the lowest dregs of the people(553). Horace seems to have considered an admiration of the Mimes of Laberius as the consummation of critical folly(554). I am far, however, from considering Horace as an infallible judge of true poetical excellence. He evidently attached more importance to correctness and terseness of style, than to originality of genius or fertility of invention. I am convinced he would not have admired Shakspeare: He would have considered Addison and Pope as much finer poets, and would have included Falstaff, and Autolycus, and Sir Toby Belch, the clowns and the boasters of our great dramatist, in the same censure which he bestows on the _Plautinos sales_ and the Mimes of Laberius. Probably, too, the freedom of the prologue, and other passages of his dramas, contributed to draw down the disapprobation of this Augustan critic, as it already had placed the dramatic wreath on the brow of

PUBLIUS SYRUS.

The celebrated Mime, called Publius Syrus, was brought from Asia to Italy in early youth, in the same vessel with his countryman and kinsman, Manlius Antiochus, the professor of astrology, and Staberius Eros, the grammarian, who all, by some desert in learning, rose above their original fortune. He received a good education and liberty from his master, in reward for his witticisms and facetious disposition. He first represented his Mimes in the provincial towns of Italy, whence, his fame having spread to Rome, he was summoned to the capital, to assist in those public spectacles which Cæsar afforded his countrymen, in exchange for their freedom(555). On one occasion, he challenged all persons of his own profession to contend with him on the stage; and in this competition he successively overcame every one of his rivals. By his success in the representation of these popular entertainments, he amassed considerable wealth, and lived with such luxury, that he never gave a great supper without having sow’s udder at table—a dish which was prohibited by the censors, as being too great a luxury even for the table of patricians(556).

Nothing farther is known of his history, except that he was still continuing to perform his Mimes with applause at the period of the death of Laberius.

We have not the names of any of the Mimes of Publius; nor do we precisely know their nature or subject,—all that is preserved from them being a number of detached sentiments or maxims, to the number of 800 or 900, seldom exceeding a single line, but containing reflections of unrivalled force, truth, and beauty, on all the various relations, situations, and feelings of human life—friendship, love, fortune, pride, adversity, avarice, generosity. Both the writers and actors of Mimes were probably careful to have their memory stored with common-places and precepts of morality, in order to introduce them appropriately in their extemporaneous performances. The maxims of Publius were interspersed through his dramas, but being the only portion of these productions now remaining, they have just the appearance of thoughts or sentiments, like those of Rochefoucauld. His Mimes must either have been very numerous, or very thickly loaded with these moral aphorisms. It is also surprising that they seem raised far above the ordinary tone even of regular comedy, and appear for the greater part to be almost stoical maxims. Seneca has remarked that many of his eloquent verses are fitter for the buskin than the slipper(557). How such exalted precepts should have been grafted on the lowest farce, and how passages, which would hardly be appropriate in the most serious sentimental comedy, were adapted to the actions or manners of gross and drunken buffoons, is a difficulty which could only be solved had we fortunately received entire a larger portion of these productions, which seem to have been peculiar to Roman genius.

The sentiments of Publius Syrus now appear trite. They have become familiar to mankind, and have been re-echoed by poets and moralists from age to age. All of them are most felicitously expressed, and few of them seem erroneous, while at the same time they are perfectly free from the selfish or worldly-minded wisdom of Rochefoucauld, or Lord Burleigh.

“Amicos res opimæ pavant, adversæ probant.
Miserrima fortuna est quæ inimico caret.
Ingratus unus miseris omnibus nocet.
Timidas vocat se cautum, parcum sordidus.
Etiam oblivisci quid scis interdum prodest.
In nullum avarus bonus, in se pessimus.
Cuivis dolori remedium est patientia.
Honestus rumor alterum est patrimonium.
Tam deest avaro quod habet quam quod non habet.
O vita misero longa—felici brevis!”

This last sentiment has been beautifully, but somewhat diffusely expressed by Metastasio:

“Perchè tarda è mai la morte
Quando è termine al martir?
A chi vive in lieta sorte
E sollecito il morir.”—_Artaserse_.

The same idea is thus expressed by La Bruyere: “La vie est courte pour ceux qui sont dans les joyes du monde: Elle ne paroit longue qu’a ceux qui languissent dans l’affliction. Job se plaint de vivre long temps, et Salomon craint de mourir trop jeune.” La Bruyere, indeed, has interspersed a vast number of the maxims of the Roman Mime in his writings,—expanding, modifying, or accommodating them to the manners of his age and country, as best suited his purpose. One of them only, he quotes to reprehend:

“Ita amicum habeas, posse ut fieri inimicum putes.”

This sentiment, which Publius had borrowed from the Greeks, and which is supposed to have been originally one of the sayings of Bias, has been censured by Cicero, in his beautiful treatise _De Amicitia_, as the bane of friendship. It would be endless to quote the lines of the different Latin poets, particularly Horace and Juvenal, which are nearly copied from the maxims of Publius Syrus. Seneca, too, has availed himself of many of his reflections, and, at the same time, does full justice to the author from whom he has borrowed. Publius, says he, is superior in genius both to tragic and comic writers: Whenever he gives up the follies of the Mimes, and that language which is directed to the crowd, he writes many things not only above that species of composition, but worthy of the tragic buskin(558).

Cneius Matius, also a celebrated writer of Mimes, was contemporary with Laberius and Publius Syrus. Some writers have confounded him with Caius Matius, who was a correspondent of Cicero, and an intimate friend of Julius Cæsar. Ziegler, though he distinguishes him from Cicero’s correspondent, says, that he was the same person as the friend of Cæsar(559).

Aulus Gellius calls Matius a very learned man, (_homo eruditus et impense doctus_,) and frequently quotes him for obsolete terms and forms of expression(560). Like other writers of Mimes, he indulged himself a good deal in this sort of phraseology, but his diction was considered as agreeable and highly poetical(561).

The Mimes of Matius were called Mimiambi, because chiefly written in iambics; but not more than a dozen lines have descended to us. The following verses have been praised for elegance and a happy choice of expressions—

“Quapropter edulcare convenit vitam,
Curasque acerbas sensibus gubernare;
Sinuque amicam recipere frigidam caldo
Columbatimque labra conserens labris(562).”

The age of Laberius, P. Syrus, and Matius, was the most brilliant epoch in the history of the actors of Mimes. After that period, they relapsed into a race of impudent buffoons; and, in the reign of Augustus, were classed, by Horace, with mountebanks and mendicants(563). Pantomimic actors, who did not employ their voice, but represented everything by gesticulation and dancing, became, under Augustus, the idols of the multitude, the minions of the great, and the favourites of the fair. The _Mimi_ were then but little patronized on the stage, but were still admitted into convivial parties, and even the court of the Emperors, to entertain the guests(564), like the Histrions, Jongleurs, or privileged fools, of the middle ages; and they were also employed at funerals, to mimic the manners of the deceased. Thus, the Archimimus, who represented the character of the avaricious Vespasian, at the splendid celebration of his obsequies, inquired what would be the cost of all this posthumous parade; and on being told that it would amount to ten millions of sesterces, he replied, that if they would give him a hundred thousand, they might throw his body into the river(565). The audacity, however, of the Mimes was carried still farther, as they satirized and insulted the most ferocious Emperors during their lives, and in their own presence. An actor, in one of these pieces which was performed during the reign of Nero, while repeating the words “_Vale pater, vale mater_,” signified by his gestures the two modes of drowning and poisoning, in which that sanguinary fiend had attempted to destroy both his parents(566). The _Mimi_ currently bestowed on Commodus the most opprobrious appellation(567). One of their number, who performed before the enormous Maximin, reminded the audience, that he who was too strong for an individual, might be massacred by a multitude, and that thus the elephant, lion, and tiger, are slain. The tyrant perceived the sensation excited in the Theatre, but the suggestion was veiled in a language unknown to that barbarous and gigantic Thracian(568).

The Mimes may be traced beyond the age of Constantine, as we find the fathers of the church reprehending the immorality and licentiousness of such exhibitions(569). Tradition is never so faithful as in the preservation of popular pastimes; and accordingly, many of those which had amused the Romans survived their dominion. The annual celebration of Carnival prolonged the remembrance of them during the dark ages. Hence, the Mimes, and the Atellane fables formerly mentioned, became the origin of the Italian pantomimic parts introduced in the _Commedie dell’ arte_, in which a subject was assigned, and the scenes were enumerated; but in which the dialogue was left to the extemporary invention of the actors, who represented buffoon characters in masks, and spoke the dialect of different districts. “As to Italy,” says Warburton, in an account given by him of the Rise and Progress of the Modern Stage, “the first rudiments of its theatre, with regard to the matter, were profane subjects, and with regard to the form, a corruption of ancient Mimes and Atellanes.”—Zanni is one of the names of the Harlequin in the Italian comedies; and Sannio, as we learn from ancient writers, was a ridiculous personage, who performed in these Latin farces, with his head shaved(570), his face bedaubed with soot(571), and clothed in party-coloured garments—a dress universally worn by the ancient Italian peasantry during the existence of the Roman Republic(572). The lowest species of mimic actors were called _planipedes_, because they performed without sock or buskin, and generally barefooted, whence Harlequin’s flat unsho’d feet. A passage of Cicero, in which he speaks of the Sannio, seems almost intended to describe the perpetual and flexible motion of the limbs, the ludicrous gestures, and mimetic countenance of Harlequin. “Quid enim” says he, “potest tam ridiculum quam Sannio esse? qui ore, vultu, imitandis motibus, voce, denique corpore ridetur ipso(573).” Among the Italians, indeed, this character soon degenerated into a booby and glutton, who became the butt of his more sharp-sighted companions. In France, Harlequin was converted into a wit,—sometimes even a moralist; and with us he has been transformed into an expert magician, who astonishes by sudden changes of the scene: But none of these was his original, or native character, which, as we have seen, corresponded to the Sannio of the Mimes and Atellane fables. In the year 1727, a bronze figure of high antiquity, and of which Quadrio gives an engraving(574), was found at Rome; and it appears from it, that the modern Pollicinella of Naples is a lineal descendant of the _Mimus Albus_ of the Atellanes(575). Ficoroni, who, in his work _Larve Sceniche_, compares his immense collection of Roman masks with the modern Italian characters, was possessed of an onyx, which represented a Mime with a long nose and pointed cap, carrying a bag of money in one hand, and two brass balls in the other, which he sounded, as is supposed, like castanets when he danced. These appendages correspond to the attributes which distinguished the Italian dancer of Catana, known by the name of Giangorgolo. Another onyx exhibits a figure resembling that of Pantalone. It is also evident from the Antiques collected by Ficoroni, that the Roman _Mimi_ were fond of representing caricatures of foreign nations, as we find among these ancient figures the attires of the oriental nations, and the garb of old Gaul—a species of exhibition in which the _Commedia dell’ arte_ also particularly delighted.

These _Commedie dell’ arte_ were brought to the highest pitch of comic and grotesque perfection by Ruzzante, an Italian dramatist, who both wrote and performed a number of them about the middle of the sixteenth century, and who, in addition to Zany and Pollicinella, peopled the stage with a new and enlivening crowd of mimetic characters. There appears to be something so congenial to the Italian taste in these exhibitions, that they long maintained their ground against the regular dramas, produced by the numerous successors of Trissino and Bibbiena, and kept supreme possession of the Italian stage, till at length Goldoni, by introducing beauties which were incongruous with the ancient masks, gradually refined the taste of his audience, made them ashamed of their former favourites, and then, in some of his pieces, ventured to exclude from the stage the whole grotesque and gesticulating family of Harlequin.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Having said so much (and, I fear, too much) of the Mimes, and other departments of the Roman drama, it would not be suitable to conclude without some notice, I. of the mechanical construction of the theatre where the dramatic entertainments were produced; and, II. of the actors’ declamation, as also of the masks and other attributes of the characters which were chiefly represented.

I. Such was the severity of the ancient republican law, that it permitted no places of amusement, except the circus, where games were specially privileged from having been instituted by Romulus, and exhibited in honour of the gods. Satiric and dramatic representations, however, as we have seen, gradually became popular; and, at length, so increased in number and importance, that a _Theatre_ was required for their performance.

The subject of the construction of the Roman theatre is attended with difficulty and confusion. While there are still considerable remains of amphitheatres, scarcely any ruins or vestiges of theatres exist. The writings of the ancients throw little light on the topic; and there is much contradiction, or at least apparent inconsistency, in what has been written, in consequence of the alterations which took place in the construction of theatres in the progress of time.

Those stages, which were erected in the earliest periods of the Roman republic, for the exhibitions of dancers and histrions, were probably set up according to the Etruscan mode, in places covered with boughs of trees, (Nemorosa palatia,) in tents or booths, or, at best, in temporary and moveable buildings—perhaps not much superior in dignity or accommodation to the cart of Thespis.

But, though the Etruscan histrions probably constructed the stage on which they were to perform, according to the fashion of their own country, the Greek was the model of the regular Roman theatre, as much as the pieces of Euripides and Menander were the prototypes of the Latin tragedies and comedies. The remains of a playhouse believed to be Etruscan, were discovered at Adria about the middle of the seventeenth century. But there was a wider difference between it and the Roman theatre, than between the Roman and the Greek. The Greeks had a large orchestra, and a very limited stage—the Romans, a confined orchestra, and extensive stage; while in the Adrian theatre, the orchestra was larger even than in the Greek(576).

The first regular theatre at Rome was that constructed for Livius Andronicus on the Aventine Hill. This building, however, was but temporary, and probably existed no longer than the distinguished dramatist and actor for whose accommodation it was erected. In the year 575, M. Æmilius Lepidus got a theatre constructed adjacent to the temple of Apollo(577); but it also was one of those occasional buildings, which were removed after the series of dramatic exhibitions for which they had been intended were concluded. A short while before the commencement of the third Punic war, a playhouse, which the censors were fitting up with seats for the convenience of the spectators, was thrown down by a decree of the senate, as prejudicial to public morals; and the people continued for some time longer to view the representations standing, as formerly(578). At length, M. Æmilius Scaurus built a theatre capable of containing 80,000 spectators, and provided with every possible accommodation for the public. It was also adorned with amazing magnificence, and at almost incredible expense. Its stage had three lofts or stories, rising above each other, and supported by 360 marble columns. The lowest floor was of marble—the second was incrusted with glass; and the third was formed of gilded boards or planks. The pillars were thirty-eight feet in height: and between them were placed bronze statues and images, to the number of not fewer than 3000. There was besides an immense superfluity of rich hangings of cloth of gold; and painted tablets, the most exquisite that could be procured, were disposed all around the _pulpitum_ and scenes(579).