Chapter III: Golden Age of Roman Literature (3)

The loss of the decades relating to the civil wars is much to be deplored, and it has ever been the hope of scholars that some day the missing parts would be found. Several times has the literary world been thrown into excitement by false rumors of their discovery. Once, we are told, a learned man detected in the parchment covering of a battledoor with which he was playing a page of the favorite historian; but on hastening to the maker of the toy, to rescue the prized manuscript to which it had belonged, he found that all had been utilized in a similar manner. A meagre synopsis of the books that have perished, serves only to make us regret their loss the more keenly. (_Read Taine’s “Essai sur Tite Live.”_)

Livy’s “Annals” is a model of elegant historical writing, and a repertory of tales and traditions of early heroism, which have made Roman virtue and prowess the admiration of the world; yet his statements must be taken with many grains of allowance. Not that he wilfully misrepresented, but rather that he trusted too implicitly authorities of doubtful veracity, and shrunk from the labor of thorough original investigation. Moreover, a vein of exaggeration runs through his pages. It was doubtless his intention to be impartial; but carried away by a natural bias, he was too ready to color or cover over the blots on his country’s escutcheon. That he stooped not to curry favor with his superiors is evident from the epithet applied to him by Augustus—“the Pompeyite”—by reason of his warm praises of Cæsar’s rival. Ignorance of geography, military science, and even of the constitutional development of Rome, is conspicuous in his narrative.

As an artist, however, Livy was great. He excels in depicting character, whether directly by description, or indirectly in the actions or utterances of the old Roman worthies. Hence, artificial as they are and often smelling of the rhetorician’s lamp, the speeches which Livy puts in the mouths of his different personages display his genius to advantage. One of the finest, given below, is that of the old Horatius, pleading with the people for the life of his son. According to the legend, in a war between Rome and Alba Longa, it was agreed by the contending parties, to save unnecessary bloodshed, that the question at issue should be decided by a hand-to-hand conflict between three champions on each side,—the brothers Horatii for Rome, the Curiatii for Alba. All fell save one Horatius. We leave the conclusion of the story to Livy:—

THE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT OF HORATIUS.

“Horatius advanced at the head of the Romans, bearing in triumph the spoils of the three brothers. Near the gate Capena he was met by his sister, a maiden who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii; observing on her brother’s shoulder the military robe of her lover, made by her own hands, she tore her hair, and with loud and mournful outcries called on the name of the deceased. His sister’s lamentations, in the midst of his own triumph and of so great public joy, irritated the fierce youth to such a degree that, drawing his sword, he plunged it into her breast, at the same time upbraiding her in these words:‘Begone to thy spouse with thy unseasonable love, since thou couldst forget what is due to the memory of thy deceased brothers, to him who still survives, and to thy native country; so perish every daughter of Rome that shall mourn for its enemy!’

Both the senate and people were shocked at the horrid deed; but still, in their opinion, his recent merit outweighed its guilt: he was, however, instantly carried before the king for judgment. The king, unwilling to take on himself a decision of so melancholy a nature, summoned an assembly of the people, and then said:‘I appoint two commissioners to pass judgment on Horatius for murder, according to the law.’ The law was of dreadful import:‘Let two commissioners pass judgment for murder; if the accused appeal from the commissioners, let the appeal be tried; if their sentence be confirmed, cover his head, hang him by a rope on the gallows, let him be scourged either within the Pomœrium[47] or without the Pomœrium.’

The two commissioners appointed were of opinion that, according to this law, they were not authorized to acquit him; and, after they had found him guilty, one of them pronounced judgment in these words: ‘Publius Horatius, I sentence thee to punishment as a murderer; go, lictor, bind his hands.’ The lictor had come up to him, and was fixing the cord, when Horatius, by the advice of Tullus, who wished to give the mildest interpretation to the law, said,‘I appeal;’ so the trial on the appeal came before the Commons.

During this trial, the people were very deeply affected, especially by the behavior of Publius Horatius, the father, who declared that ‘in his judgment his daughter was deservedly put to death; had it not been so, he would, by his own authority as a father, have inflicted punishment on his son.’ He then besought them that‘they would not leave him childless, whom they had beheld, but a few hours ago, surrounded by a progeny of uncommon merit.’ Uttering these words, the old man embraced the youth, and pointing to the spoils of the Curiatii, which were hung up in the place where now stands the Horatian column, exclaimed:—

‘O my fellow-citizens! can you bear to behold him laden with chains, and condemned to ignominy, stripes, and torture, whom but just now you saw covered with the ornaments of victory, marching in triumph—a sight so horrid that scarcely could the eyes of the Albans themselves endure it? Go, lictor, bind the arms which but now wielded those weapons that acquired dominion to the Roman people; cover the head of that man to whom your city owes its liberty; hang him upon the gallows. Scourge him within the Pomœrium; but do it between those pillars to which are suspended the trophies of his victory. Scourge him without the Pomœrium; but do it between the graves of the Curiatii. For to what place can ye lead this youth, where the monuments of his glory would not redeem him from the ignominy of such a punishment?”

The people could not withstand either the tears of the father, or the intrepid spirit of the youth himself, which no kind of danger could appall; and rather out of admiration of his bravery than regard to the justice of his cause, they passed a sentence of acquittal. Wherefore, that some expiation might be made for the act of manifest murder, the father was ordered to make atonement for his son at the public expense. After performing expiatory sacrifices, which continued afterward to be celebrated by the Horatian family, he laid a beam across the street, and, covering the young man’s head, made him pass, as it were, under the yoke. The beam remains to this day, being constantly kept in repair at the expense of the public, and is called the Sister’s beam. A tomb of squared stone was raised for Horatia on the spot where she fell.”—BAKER.

In addition to the “Annals of Rome,” Livy also wrote historical and philosophical dialogues, which we know only by name. (_See Capel’s “Introduction to the Study of Livy.”_)

=Pompeius Trogus=, contemporary with Livy, produced a history of the world, extending from the founding of Nineveh to the Christian Era. Macedonia fills an important place in this work, an abridgment of which is still in existence.

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A prominent rhetorician of the Augustan period was the elder SENECA, of Cordova, in Spain. Portions of his works (which consist of rhetorical exercises on imaginary cases, historical events, and circumstances in the lives of great men, written for the benefit of his sons) have survived; but nothing remains of a history of Rome ascribed to him.

The orators MESSALA and ASINIUS POLLIO graced the early years of the first emperor’s reign; but, when political eloquence was interdicted, they retired to private life,—Pollio, to win new laurels by his tragedies and other literary compositions. Both were patrons of literature, and loved to gather round them the eminent poets of their day. Messala’s orations, known to us only by a few fragments that remain, were regarded as almost equal to Cicero’s; while Pollio, none of whose works have been preserved, was ranked by his contemporaries with Cicero as an orator, with Virgil as a poet, and with Sallust as an historian.

MINOR POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.

HELVIUS CINNA (50 B.C.): author of the lost epic “Smyrna,” the fruit of nine years’ labor. In one of his Eclogues, Virgil compared himself in the company of Cinna and his friend Varius to a goose among swans.

LICINIUS CALVUS (82-47 B.C.): poet and orator; elegies, epigrams, and love-songs in the style of Catullus; an epic “Io;” no remains.

VALGIUS RUFUS, a friend of Horace: an epic and elegiac poet.

ÆLIUS GALLUS: a noted jurist.

TU’BERO (48 B.C.) the historian: contemporary with Sallust.

VERRIUS FLACCUS: a renowned grammarian; author of a voluminous Latin lexicon, which is lost. His work was subsequently condensed into twenty volumes.

VITRUVIUS POLLIO, the great architect of the Augustan Era: he prepared a comprehensive work on the science of architecture, long received as authority.

TITUS LABIE’NUS: an orator and historian.

NOTES ON EDUCATION, ETC., AMONG THE ROMANS.

Education never compulsory, as in Greece. Its chief aim in early times to make warriors and statesmen. Children usually grounded in the rudiments by their mother, the father occasionally doing service as a teacher of reading and writing. From the Greeks, the Romans adopted the custom of employing _pædagogi_ to instruct their children or accompany them to and from school.

Private schools in Rome about 450 B.C.; Virginia insulted by Appius Claudius, while on her way to school. The youth instructed at these institutions in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and required to memorize the laws of the Twelve Tables. Grammar was next essayed; and a course in rhetoric and oratory completed the Roman boy’s education. Many continued their studies at Athens, Rhodes, or Alexandria.

The teachers often provincials or freedmen. In the golden age, Greek tutors very generally the companions and flatterers of the wealthy Romans. During the reign of Augustus, great schools at Cordova and Marseilles rivalled the academy of Flaccus at Rome, the favorite of the emperor, who paid Flaccus a salary of $3,600, and offered special inducements in the way of prizes to such as would join his school. Under Vespasian the first Roman college, the Athenæum, was established; botany, zoölogy, and mineralogy, now became favorite studies.

Rome had its booksellers in the golden age, to supply the demand for standard authors and school manuals. Books multiplied rapidly by transcription, and were cheap in proportion. At the beginning of the first century B.C., many private libraries in Rome; every noble took pride in his collection of manuscripts. First public library founded by Asinius Pollio, whose example was followed by others. (_Consult Gove’s “Companion to School Classics.”_) Earliest known attempts at journalism, 59 B.C. The _Acta_ of the senate and of the people, the first publications. The latter, a daily (_diurna_, whence _journal_), had an extensive circulation throughout the Roman territories. Stenography practised at this time by the Romans, and subsequently taught in their schools. A freedman of Cicero said to have invented the system of short-hand. Sympathetic ink in use for writing love-letters and secret correspondence. For this purpose Ovid recommends milk, which may be made visible by dusting powdered charcoal on the letters. To keep mice from gnawing their papyrus and parchment rolls, some Roman writers mixed wormwood with their inks.