Chapter XII: Juvenal (2)

Fond man, though all the heroes of your line
Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine
In proud display: yet take this truth from me,
'Virtue alone is true nobility.'
Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,
The bright example of their lives pursue;
Let these precede the statues of your race,
And these, when consul, of your rods take place,
O give me inborn worth! Dare to be just,
Firm to your word and faithful to your trust.
Then praises hear, at least deserve to hear,
I grant your claim and recognize the peer.
Hail from whatever stock you draw your birth,
The son of Cossus or the son of Earth,
All hail! in you exulting Rome espies
Her guardian power, her great Palladium rise.
GIFFORD.

This is rhetoric, but rhetoric of the noblest kind. Of pure poetry there is naturally but little in Juvenal. Neither his temperament nor his subject would admit it. He had too keen an eye for the hideous and the grotesque, too strong a passion for the declamatory style. Hence it is rather his brilliant sketches of a vicious society, his fiery outbursts of rhetoric, his striking _sententiae_ that primarily impress the reader:

expende Hannibalem: quot libras in duce summo
invenies? (x. 147).

Great Hannibal within the balance lay,
And count how many pounds his ashes weigh.
DRYDEN.

finem animae quae res humanas miscuit olim,
non gladii, non saxa dabunt nec tela, sed ille
Cannarum vindex et tanti sanguinis ultor
anulus. i demens et saevas curre per Alpes,
ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias (x. 163).

What wondrous sort of death has heaven designed
For so untamed, so turbulent a mind?
Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war;
But poison drawn through a ring's hollow plate,
Must finish him--a sucking infant's fate.
Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,
To please the boys, and be a theme at school.
DRYDEN.

nemo repente fuit turpissimus (ii. 83).

For none become at once completely vile.
GIFFORD.

summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori
et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas (viii. 83).
si natura negat, facit indignatio versum (i. 79).

Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,
To purchase safety with compliance base,
At honour's cost a feverish span extend,
And sacrifice for life, life's only end!
GIFFORD.

It is lines such as these that first rise to the mind at the mention of Juvenal. But he was no mere declaimer. Here and there we may find phrases of the purest poetry and of the most perfect form. Far above all others come the wonderful lines of the ninth satire:

festinat enim decurrere velox
flosculus angustae miseraeque brevissima vitae
portio; dum bibimus, dum serta unguenta puellas
poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus (ix. 126).

For youth, too transient flower! of life's short day
The shortest part, but blossoms--to decay.
Lo! while we give the unregarded hour
To revelry and joy in Pleasure's bower,
While now for rosy wreaths our brow to twine,
While now for nymphs we call, and now for wine,
The noiseless foot of time steals swiftly by,
And, ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh!
GIFFORD.

Of a very different character, but of a beauty that is nothing less than startling in its sombre surroundings, is the blessing that he invokes on the good men of old who 'enthroned the teacher in the revered parent's place'.

di maiorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram
spirantesque crocos et in urna perpetuum ver,
qui praeceptorem sancti voluere parentis
esse loco (vii. 207).

Shades of our sires! O sacred be your rest,
And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!
Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,
And spring eternal shed its influence there!
You honoured tutors, now a slighted race,
And gave them all a parent's power and place.
GIFFORD.

The sensuous appeal of the 'fragrant crocus and the spring that dies not in the urn of death' is unique in Juvenal. This slender stream of definitely poetic imagination reveals itself suddenly and unexpectedly in strange forms and circumstances. At the close of the passage in the third satire describing the perils of the Roman streets, Juvenal imagines the death of some householder in a street accident. All is bustle and business at home in expectation of his return:

domus interea secura patellas
iam lavat et bucca foculum excitat et sonat unctis
striglibus et pleno componit lintea guto.
haec inter pueros varie properantur, at ille
iam sedet in ripa taetrumque novicius horret
porthmea nec sperat caenosi gurgitis alnum
infelix nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem (iii. 261).

Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate,
The servants wash the platter, scour the plate,
Then blow the fire with puffing cheeks, and lay
The rubbers and the bathing-sheets display,
And oil them first, each handy in his way.
But he for whom this busy care they take,
Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake;
Affrighted by the ferryman's grim face,
New to the horrors of the fearful place,
His passage begs, with unregarded prayer,
And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.
DRYDEN.

Out of the grotesque there gradually looms the horror of death and the friendless ghost sitting lost and homeless by the Stygian waters.

That there is small scope in his work for such distinctively poetic imagination is not Juvenal's fault, nor can we complain of its absence. But in technical accomplishment he shows himself a writer of the first rank. His treatment of the hexameter exactly suits his declamatory type of satire. The conversational verse of Horace, with its easy-going rambling gait, was unsuitable for the thunders of Juvenal's rhetoric. Something more massive in structure, more vigorous in movement, was needed as the vehicle of so much rhetoric and invective. The delicate tripping hexameter of contemporary epic was equally unsuitable.

Unlike the majority of post-Augustan poets, Juvenal is almost untouched by the Ovidian influence. As far as his metre has any ancestry, it is descended from the Vergilian hexameter, though with the licence of satire it claims greater liberty in its treatment of pauses and of elision. The post-Augustan poet with whom in this respect Juvenal has greatest affinity is Persius. For vigour and variety he far surpasses all other poets of the age; while even Persius, although at his best and in his more declamatory passages he is at least Juvenal's equal, does not maintain the same level of excellence, and his more frequent employment of the traditional dialogue of satire gives him fewer opportunities for striking metrical effect.

As regards his diction Juvenal is equally remarkable. He has suffered little from the schools of rhetoric and has gained much. He is pointed and clear, without being either obscure[737] or mechanical. There is no vain striving after antithesis and no epigram for epigram's sake. Grotesque he is not seldom, but the grotesqueness is deliberate and effective, and no mere affectation.

His one serious weakness is his lack of constructive power and his incapacity to preserve due proportion between the parts of his satires. The most glaring instances of this failing are to be found in the fourth, twelfth, and fourteenth satires, but except the third there is hardly a satire that can be regarded as wholly successful in point of construction. This defect, it may be admitted, is less serious in satire than in almost any other branch of literature. Such discursiveness was justified by the tradition and by the inherent nature of satire. But Juvenal offends in this respect beyond due reason, and only his extraordinary merits in other directions save him from the penalties of this failing.

Juvenal is the last of the poets of the Silver Age, and the only one of them to whom the epithet 'great' can reasonably be applied. He is no faultless writer, but he has genius and power, and has risen superior to the besetting sins of the age. He is a rhetorician, it is true, but he chose a form of literature where his rhetoric could have legitimate play. But he is no plagiarist or imitator; though, as in any other poet, we may find in him many traces and even echoes of his predecessors, he is in the best sense original. He is never a mere juggler in words and phrases, he is a true artist. Form and matter are indissolubly welded and interfused one with another. And this is because, unlike other writers of the age, he has something to say. He is poet by inspiration, not by profession. His excessive pessimism, his tendency to bias and exaggeration, cannot on the worst estimate obscure his merits either as artist or moralist. His picture of society has large elements of truth, and we can no more blame him for his tendency to caricature than we can blame Hogarth. Satire, especially the satire of declamatory invective, must be one-sided, and the satirist must select the features of life which he desires to denounce. And if this leads us at times into unpleasant places and among unpleasant people unpleasantly described, that does not justify us in denouncing the satirist. It must be remembered that the true satirist is not likely to be a man of perfect character. He must have seen much and experienced much; if his character has in the process become not merely unduly embittered, but perhaps somewhat smirched, these failings may be redeemed by other qualities. And in the case of Juvenal they are so redeemed.

He has not the lucid judgement of Horace nor the pure fervour of Persius. He is more positive than the former, more negative than the latter. But he has lived in a sense in which Persius never had, and possesses the gift of direct and lucid expression; therefore, when he strikes, he strikes home. He cannot, like Horace, 'play about the hearts of men,' he will have nothing of compromise, he cannot and will not adapt himself to his environment. The doctrine of [Greek: m_eden agan], the _aurea mediocritas_, have no attractions for him. Hence his ideal is often unpractical; 'the times were out of joint,' and Juvenal was not precisely the man to 'set them right'. But at least he sets forth an ideal, that any honest man must admit to be noble. It is precisely because he is no casuist, because he hits hard and unsparingly, and is translucently honest, and because his weapon is the most fervid and trenchant rhetoric, that Juvenal is the most quoted and one of the most popular of Latin poets. He has contributed little to the thought of the world, but he has taught men to hate iniquity. He does not rise to the height of such an immortal saying as

virtutem videant intabescantque relicta;

he is no philosopher, and his ideals have neither the exaltation nor the stimulating power of the Stoic ideal. But he unveils vice and folly, so that men may fly from their utter hideousness, in such burning words as it has fallen to few poets to utter. He is 'dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn'; had he possessed also the 'love of love', he might have reached greater heights of pure poetry, but he would not have been Juvenal, and the world would have been the loser.

INDEX OF NAMES

Abascantus 205 _n_, 299 _n_. Accius 12, 71, 89. Aeschylus 207 _n_, 212 _n_, 216 _n_. Aetna 140-6, 156. Afranius 12, 25. Agrippina 25, 74, 76. Antimachus 207 _n_, 209, 210. Antistius Sosianus 163 _n_, 164. Apollonius Rhodius 182 sqq. Aquilius Regulus 256. Arria 81, 275. Arrius Antoninus 173 _n_. Arulenus Rustieus 168. Asellius Sabinus 3. Asinius Pollio 18. Atedius Melior 205 _n_, 230, 256, 272. Attalus 32. Attius Labeo 160. Ausonius 174, 175.

Bassus, Caesius 80-2, 163-5. Bassus, Saleius 19, 168, 169. Bathyllus 27.

Caecilius 12. Caesar, C. Julius 103 sqq., 263. Caesennia 163. Calenus 175. Caligula 4, 5, 31, 163. Callimachus 207. Calpurnius Piso 35, 99, 152, 156-9, 251. Calpurnius Siculus 137, 150-9, 245. Calpurnius Statura 80. Calvinus 289. Carinas Secundus 4. Cassius Rufus 256. Cato 37, 38, 58, 101, 103 sqq., 262. Catullus, C. Valerius 2, 123 _n_, 176, 260, 261, 263. Catullus (writer of mimes) 24. Catullus (friend of Juvenal) 289, 297. Cicero 58, 172, 238. Claudia 204. Claudianus 174. Claudius 5, 25, 32, 36, 63. Claudius Agathurnus 80. Claudius Augustalis 146. Claudius Etruscus 205 _n_, 231, 256, 299 _n_. Clutorius Priscus 3. Codrus 291. Columella 137, 146-9, 180. Cornelius Severus 144. Cornutus 6, 79-82, 94, 95, 97, 267. Cremutius Cordus 2, 101. Crispinus (1) 205 _n_. ---- (2) 294. Curiatius Maternus 30.

Decianus 257, 264. Demosthenes 128. Domitianus 19, 21, 25, 168, 176, 181, 203, 204, 228, 229, 252, 271, 287, 293, 296, 303, 305.

Earinus 229. Einsiedeln Fragments 151, 156, 157. Ennius 12, 23. Epictetus 70, 238. Erotion 272. Euphorion 3. Euripides 45, 46, 74, 127, 207 _n_, 212 _n_, 216 _n_.

Faustus 30. Flaccilla 251, 272. Flaccus (father of Persius) 79. Flaccus of Patavium 180, 281. Fronto (rhetorician) 35. Fronto (father of Martial) 251, 272. Fulgentius 134, 135. Fulvia Sisennia 79.

Gaetulicus 163, 259, 261. Galba 25. Gallio L. Iunius 31. Glaucias 230, 272.

Hadrianus 290, 291, 294, 296. Hecato 43 _n_. Helvidius Priscus 168. Herennius Senecio 168. Hesiod 12. Homer 4, 12, 160, 161, 188, 221, 227. Horatius 10-12, 71, 83, 84, 89, 91, 92, 123 _n_, 171, 191, 241, 244, 284, 293, 317, 320. Hyperides 128.

Ilias Latina 22, 160-3. Italicus, Babius 163. Iulius Martialis 257, 264, 265, 270. Iuvenalis 21, 22, 91, 92,121,168,169, 170, 174, 236, 245, 256, 260, 261, 263, 275, 278, 279, 287-320.

Labienus 4. Latro 15 _n_. Lentulus Sura 256. Livilla 32, 33. Livius Andronicus 160. Livius, T. 4, 239, 242, 245. Lucanus 7, 8, 20-2, 28, 31, 80, 94, 97-124, 132, 179, 180, 187, 192, 221 _n_, 226, 229, 233, 235, 238, 239, 243, 244. 251, 260, 275. Lucian 27. Lucilius Iunior 144, 163 _n_. Lucilius (satirist) 10, 83, 89, 293. Lucinianus Maternus 256. Lucretius 123 _n_, 140, 143. Lynceus 207 _n_.

Macrinus 80, 82. Marcella 255. Marius Priscus 287. Marsus, Domitius 259, 261, 281. Martialis 8 _n_, 134, 139, 163, 167, 169, 173-6, 180, 204, 238, 243, 250, 251-86, 289. Matius, Cn. 160. Maximus Vibius 204, 205. Mela, M. Annaeus 31, 36, 97. Meliboeus 152, 156-9. Memor, Scaevus 30. Menander 12. Messala, Vipstanus 16, 126. Montanus, Curtius 163 _n_. Mummius 24 _n_. Musonius Rufus 8.

Naevius 12. Nero 6-8, 19, 20, 28, 33, 41, 43, 74-6, 89 _n_, 97, 98, 101, 102, 119, 125-7, 131 _n_, 132, 144, 151, 236, 251, 290, 291, 302. Nerva 21, 169, 170, 255, 296. Ninnius Crassus 160. Norbanus 256. Novatus, M. Annaeus 31, 30. Novius Vindex 205 _n_.

Octavia 40, 41, 74-8. Ovidius 11, 12, 17 _n_, 29, 46, 71, 112, 123 _n_, 143, 144, 161, 192, 207, 221 _n_, 226, 259, 260, 263.

Paccius 30. Pacuvius 12, 23, 71, 89. Paris, 28, 203, 291. Parthenius 8. Passennus Paulus Propertius Blaesus 170, 171. Passienus, Crispus 36. Patronius Aristocrates 80. Pedo, Albinovanus 259 _n_, 261. Persicus 289. Persius 20-2, 79-96, 160, 164, 191, 236, 267, 293, 318, 319. Pervigilium Veneris 174. Petronius Arbiter 16 _n_, 20, 103, 125-39, 239, 259. Phaedrus 3. Pindar 127. Piso, _see_ Calpurnius. Pisonem, Panegyricus in 156-9. Plato 127. Plautus 12, 23. Plinius (the younger) 20, 25, 163, 170-3, 232, 236, 245, 255, 268, 305. Plotius Grypus 205 _n_. Plutarch 94. Polla, Argentaria 100, 205 _n_. Pollius 231, 268. Polybius 4, 32, 161. Pompeius 37, 101, 102 sqq. Pomponius Bassulus 25, 170. Pomponius Secundus 29. Ponticus 207 _n_. Probus 79. Propertius 139, 170, 171. Pudens (friend of Martial) 257 Pudens L. Valerius (boy-poet) 14 _n_. Pylades (1) 27. ---- (2) 291.

Quintilianus 12, 16, 20, 25, 29, 35, 116, 164, 167-9, 179, 180, 251, 252, 256. Quintus Ovidius 257.

Remmius Palaemon 17 _n_, 79. Rhianus 3. Rubrenus Lappa 30. Rutilius Gallicus 205 _n_. Rutilius Namatianus 174.

Sappho 176. Scaurus, Mamercus 2. Seneca (the elder) 15, 31, 97. Seneca (the younger) 4, 5, 20, 31-78, 93, 94, 97, 115, 124, 132, 134, 144, 145, 161, 164, 179, 180, 185-7, 207 _n_, 221 _n_, 236, 251, 259, 260. Sentius Augurinus 170, 171. Serranus 168, 169. Servilius Nonianus 80. Severus, Cassius 4. Silius Italicus 20, 102, 123_n_, 145, 156, 163, 168, 179, 191, 236-50, 256. Silvinus 146. Sophocles 47 _n_, 127, 207 _n_, 216 _n_. Sotion 32. Statius (the elder) 169, 202, 203. Statius (the younger) 8 _n_, 20, 22, 28, 100, 123 _n_, 164, 167-9, 179, 191, 192, 202-35, 240, 260, 268, 270-2. Stella, Arruntius 169, 205 _n,_ 256, 280. Stertinius Avitus 256. Sulpicia (the elder) 174. Sulpicia (the younger) 174-8. Sulpicius Maximus 14 _n._

Tacitus 20, 21, 121, 125, 127, 168, 169, 170, 179, 243, 275. Terentius 23. Theocritus 150, 268. Thrasea 34, 80, 168. Thucydides 128. Tiberianus 174. Tiberius 2-4, 25, 102. Tibullus 174. Titus 167, 181, 252. Traianus 21, 127, 169, 170, 256, 290, 291, 296. Triarius 15 _n._ Turnus 30, 169.

Umbricius 289, 293, 294.

Vacca 97. Vagellius 163 _n._ Valerius Flaccus 20, 123 _n,_ 167, 168, 179-201, 212 _n,_ 220, 226, 235, 236. Varius 29. Varro (Atacinus) 183. Varro (Reatinus) 127. Varus 257. Vergilius Maro 4, 11, 12, 17 _n,_ 20, 101, 102, 115, 123 _n,_ 130, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 161, 179, 186, 187, 191, 193, 194, 198, 207 _n,_ 210, 211, 220 _n,_ 221, 226, 227, 237, 238-40, 243-5, 281. Vergilius Romanus 25, 170. Verginius Flavus 7. Verginius Rufus 169. Vespasianus 144, 166, 169, 170, 180. Vestricius Spurinna 169. Vopiscus 231.

FOOTNOTES:

1. See Teuffel and Schwabe, § 272.

2. Cf. Tac. _Ann_. i. 1. Velleius Paterculus is a good example of the servile historian. For an example of servile oratory of. Tac. _Ann_. xvi. 28.

3. Suet, _Tib_. 21.

4. Dion. 1 vii. 22; Tac. _Ann_. vi. 39; iv. 31.

5. Tac. _Ann_. iv. 34.

6. Dion. lviii. 24 [Greek: math_on oun touto ho Tiberios, eph' eaut_oi tote to epos eir_esthai eph_e, Atreus dia t_en miaiphonian einai prospoi_esamenos.] Tac. _Ann_. vi. 29.

7. 'Pulsi tum Italia histriones,' Tac. _Ann_. iv. 14.

8. III Prol. 38 sqq., Epil. 29 sqq.

9. Suet. _Tib_. 42.

10. Tac. _Ann_. iii. 49; Dion. lvii. 20.

11. Suet. _Tib_. 70

12. Suet. _Tib_. 71

13. Suet. _Tib_. 61

14. Suidas, s.v. [Greek: Kaisar Tiberios].

15. Suet. _Tib_. 70.

16. Suet. _Tib. 70._

17. Suet. _Cal. 53._

18. Suet. _Cal. 53._

19. Suet. _Cal. 16._

20. Dion. _lix. 20._

21. Suet. _Cal. 27._

22. Dion. _lix. 19._

23. Suet. _Cal._ 34 'nullius ingenii minimaeque doctrinae'.

24. Suet. _Cal. 20._

25. For his writings generally of. Suet. _Claud. 41, 42._

26. Tac. _Ann. xiii. 43._

27. Suet. _Claud. 33._

28. For his writings generally of. Suet. _Claud. 41, 42._

29. Suet _Claud. 11._

30. Suet. _Claud. 41. This is borne out by the fragments of the speech delivered at Lyons on the Gallic franchise. _C.I. L. 13, 1668._

31. Suet. _Claud. 28._

32. Sc. in the _Apocolocyntosis_.

33. Suet. _Ner. 52._

34. Suet. _Ner. 49_ 'qualis artifex pereo!'

35. Suet. _Ner. 52_; Tac. _Ann. xiii. 3._

36. Tac. _Ann. xiv. 16._

37. Suet. _Domit. 1_; Tac. _Ann. xv. 49_; Suet. _Ner. 24._

38. Mart, ix. 26. 9; Plin. _N. H. xxxvii. 50._

39. Persius is sometimes said to quote from the Bacchae. Cf. Schol. Pers. _Sat. i. 93-5, 99-102_. But see ch. in, p. 89.

40. Juv. viii. 221; Serv. Verg. _Georg. iii. 36, Aen. v. 370._

41. Dion. lxii. 29.

42. Dion. lxii. 18; Suet. _Ner. 38_; Tac. _Ann. xv. 39_. For fragments of his work see Baehrens, _Poet. Rom. Fragm., p. 368._

43. Suet, Ner. 10, 21.

44. Philostr. _vit. Apoll_. iv. 39 [Greek: ad_on ta tou Ner_onos mel_e ... ep_ege mel_e ta men ex Oresteias, ta d' ex Antigon_es, ta d' opothenoun t_on prag_odoumen_on aut_o kai _odas ekampten oposas Ner_on elugize te kai kak_os estrephen].

45. Suet. _vita Lucani_; see chapter on Lucan, p. 97.

46. See chapter on Lucan, p. 98.

47. Suet. _Luc_.; Tac. _Ann_. xv. 49.

48. Suet. _Ner_. 39.

49. It may be urged that the damage lies not in the loss of poetry suppressed by the Emperor, but in the generation of a type of court poetry, examples of which survive in their most repulsive form in the _Silvae_ of Statius and the epigrams of Martial. The objection has its element of truth, but only affects a very small and comparatively unimportant portion of the poetry of the age.

50. See Tacitus, _Dial._ 28 sqq. on the moral training of a young Roman of his day. Also Juv. xiv.

51. After the death of the great Augustan authors Alexandrian erudition becomes yet more rampant. It was a great assistance to men of second-rate poetical talent.

52. Quint, i. 1. 12.

53. Quint, i. 8. 3; Plin. _Ep._ ii. 14.

54. Quint, i. 9. 2; Cic. _Ep. ad Fam._ vi. 18. 5; Quint. i. 8. 6; Stat. _Silv._ ii. 1. 114; Ov. _Tr._ ii. 369.

55. Cp. Wilkins, _Rom. Education_, p. 60.

56. Op. Juv. vii. 231-6; Suet. _Tib._ 70. The result of this type of instruction is visible throughout the poets of the age, whereas Vergil and the best of the Greek Alexandrians had a true appreciation of the sensuous charm of proper names and legendary allusions, as in our literature had Marlowe, Milton, Keats, and Tennyson. Cp. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Bk. 1:

What resounds
In fable or romance of Uther's son
Begirt with British and Armoric knights;
And all who since, baptised or infidel,
Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,
Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore,
When Charlemain with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabia.

Or compare Tennyson's use of the names of Arthur's battles, 'Agned Cathregonion' and the 'waste sand-shore of Trath Treroit.'

57. Wilkins, _Roman Education_, p. 72.

58. See Wilkins, op. cit, p. 74.

59. Wilkins, _Roman Education_, p. 75.

60. The most striking instances of this precocity are Q. Sulpicius Maximus, who at the age of twelve and a half won the prize for Greek verse at the Agon Capitolinus A.D. 94 (cp. Kaibel, _Epigr_. Gr. 618), and L. Valerius L. F. Pudens, aged thirteen, who won the prize for Latin verse in A.D. 106. Cp. _C.I.L._ ix. 286.

61. For the importance attached to imitation sec Quint, x. 2.

62. The Greek rhetoricians of this period lay great stress on the importance of avoiding declamatory rhetoric. They belong to the Attic revival. But the Attic revival never really 'caught on' at Rome; by the time of Quintilian the mischief was done.

63. Sen. _Suas_. 3.

64. Ib. 7.

65. Ib. 2. I subjoin the text of the last. The author is Triarius.' 'Non pudet Laconas ne pugna quidem hostium, sed fabula vinci? Magnum est alumnum virtutis nasci et Laconem: ad certam victoriam omnes remansissent: ad certam mortem tantum Lacones. Non est Sparta lapidibus circumdata: ibi muros habet ubi viros. Melius revocabimus fugientes trecenos quam sequemur. Sed montes perforat, maria contegit. Nunquam solido stetit superba felicitas et ingentium imperiorum magna fastigia oblivione fragilitatis humanae conlapsa sunt. Scias licet non ad finem pervenisse quae ad invidiam porducta sunt. Maria terrasque, rerum naturam statione immutavit sua: moriamur trecenti, ut hic primum invenerit quod mutare non posset. Si tam demens placiturum consilium erat, cur non potius in turba fuginius?'

66. Latro is the author of the following treatment of the theme. 'Hoc exspectastis ut capite demisso verecundia se ipsa antequam impelleretur deiceret? id enim decrat ut modestior in saxo esset quam in sacrario fuerat. Constitit et circumlatis in frequentiam oculis sanctissimum numen, quasi parum violasset inter altaria, coepit in ipso quo vindicabatur violare supplicio: hoc alterum damnatae incestum fuit, damnata est quia incesta erat, deiceta est quia damnata erat, repetenda est quia et incesta et damnata et deiceta est, dubitari potest quin usque eo deicienda sit, donec efficiatur propter quod deiecta est? patrocinium suum vocat pereundi infelicitatem. Quid tibi, importuna mulier, precor nisi ut ne vis quidem deiceta pereas? "Invocavi," inquit, "deos", statuta in illo saxo deos nominasti, et miraris si te iterum deici volunt? si nihil aliud, loco incestarum stetisti.' Sen. _Cont_. i. 3.

67. e.g. Sen. _Cont_. i. 7 'Liberi parentes alant aut vinciant: quidam alterum fratrem tyrannum occidit, alterum in adulterio deprehensum deprecante patre interfecit. A piratis captas scripsit patri de redemptione. Pater piratis epistolam scripsit, si praecidissent manus, duplam se daturum. Piratae illum dimiserunt: patrem egentem non alit.'

68. For a brilliant description of the evils of the Roman system of education see Tac. _Dial_. 30-5. See also p. 127 for the very similar criticism of Petronius.

69. ce. 28-30. Cp. also Quint, i. 2 1-8.

70. The schoolmaster was not infrequently, it is to be feared, of doubtful character. Cp. the case of the famous rhetorician Remmius Palaemon. Cp. also Quint, i. 3. 13.

71. c. 35.

72. Tac. _Dial_. 26.

73. The influence of rhetoric was of course large in the Augustan age. Vergil and still more Ovid testify to this fact. But the tone of rhetoric was saner in the days of Vergil. Ovid, himself no inconsiderable influence on the poetry of the Silver Age, begins to show the effects of the new and meretricious type of rhetoric that flourished under the anti-Ciceronian reaction, when the healthy influence of the great orators of a saner age began to give way before the inroads of the brilliant but insincere epigrammatic style. This latter style was fostered largely by the importance assigned to the _controversia_ and _suasoria_ as opposed to the more realistic methods of oratorical training during the last century of the republic.

74. See Mayor on Juv. iii. 9.

75. Cp. Juv. i. 1 sqq., iii. 9. For the enormous part played in social life by recitations cp. Plin. _Ep_. i. 13, ii. 19, iv. 5, 27, v. 12, vi. 2, 17, 21, viii. 21.

76. Cp. especially the speeches of Lucan.

77. For some very just criticism on this head cp. Quint, viii. 5. 25 sqq.

78. For amusing instances of rudeness on the part of members of the audience ep. Sen. _Ep._ cxxii. 11; Plin. _Ep._ vi. 15.

79. Petr. 83, 88-91, 115. Mart. iii. 44. 10 'et stanti legis et legis cacanti. | in thermas fugio: sonas ad aurem. | piscinam peto: non licet natare. | ad cenam propero: tenes euntem. | ad cenam venio: fugas sedentem. | lassus dormio: suscitas iacentem.' Cp. also 3, 50 and passim. Plin. _Ep._ vi. 13; Juv. i. 1-21; iii. 6-9; vii. 39 sqq.

80. Plin. _Ep._ viii. 12.

81. Suet. _Dom._ 4.

82. Tac. _Dial_. 35

83. See ch. v.

84. There had always, it may be noted, existed an archaistic section of literary society. Seneca (_Ep._ cxiv. 13), Persius (i. 76), and Tacitus (_Dial._ 23) decide the imitators of the early poets of the republic. But virtually no trace of pronounced imitation of this kind is to be observed in the poetry that has survived. Novelty and what passed for originality were naturally more popular than the resuscitation of the dead or dying past.

85. Boissier, _L'Opposition sous les Césars_, p. 238.

86. Macrobius (_Sat._ 10. 3) speaks of a revival of the Atellan by a certain Mummius, but gives no indication of the date.

87. Juv. viii. 185.

888. Suet. _Calig._ 57; Joseph. _Ant._ xix. 1. 13; Juv. viii. 187.

89. Mart. _de Spect._ 7.

90. Plutarch, _de Sollert. Anim._ xix. 9.

91. Suet. _Tib_. 45.

92. ib. _Ner_. 39.

93. Ib. _Galb_. 13.

94. Ib. _Dom_. 10.

95. Ib. _Calig_. 27; _Nero_, I. c.; Tac. _Ann_. iv. 14.

96. _C. I. L_. ix. 1165.

97. _Ep_. vi. 21.

98. Suet. _Ner_. II.

999. Quint, xi. 3. 178.

100. Juv. iii. 93.

101. x. 1, 99.

102. Lucian, _de Salt_. 27.

103. Suet. _Ner_. 24.

104. Lucian, _de Salt_. 79.

105. Suet. _ap. Hieronym_. (Roth, p. 301, 25).

106. Plut. _Qu. Conv_. vii. 8. 3; Sen. _Contr_. 3. praef. 10.

107. Lucian, op. cit., 37-61.

108. Plut, _Qu. Conv_. iv. 15. 17; Libanius (Reiske) iii, p. 381.

109. Lucian, op. cit., 69 sqq.

110. e.g. Pasiphae, Cinyras and Myrrha, Jupiter and Leda. Lucian, 1. c.; Joseph. _Ant. Iud_. xix. 1. 13; Juv. vi. 63-6.

111. For the effect of such dancing cp. the interesting stories told by Lucian, op. cit., 63-6. Cp. also Liban., in, p. 373. For the importance attached to gesture in ancient times see Quint. xi. 3. 87 sqq.

112. Story of Turnus; Suet, _Ner_. 54. Dido; Macrob. Sat. v. 17. 15.

113. See p. 100.

114. Juv. vii. 92.

115. For the general history of the pantomimus see Friedländer, _Sittengeschicht,_ II. in. 3, and Lucian, _de Saltatione_.

116. Dion. liv. 17; Tac. _Ann_. i. 54 and 77; Dion. lvii. 14.

117. Suet. _Ner_. 46.

118. There is no clear proof of the performance on the Roman stage of any tragedy in the strict sense of the word during the Silver Age. The words used e.g. in Dio Chrys. (19, p. 261: 23, p. 396), Lucian (_Nigrin_. 8), Libanius (iii, p. 265, Reiske) may refer merely to the performance of isolated scenes. See note on Vespasian's attitude to the theatre, p. 166.

119. Pliny the elder wrote his life. Plin. _Ep_. iii. 5. Cp. also Tac. _Ann_. v. 8; xii. 28; Plin. _N.H_. xiii. 83.

120. Ribbeck, _Trag. Rom. Fr_. p. 268, fr. 1; p. 331 (ed. 3).

121. _Ann_. xi. 13.

122. Charis, _Gr. Lat_. i. p. 125, 23; p. 137, 23.

123. Tac. _Dial_. II.

124. Ib. 2, 3.

125. Ib. 3.

126. Ib. 3.

127. Ib. II.

128. Juv. vii. 12.

129. Juv. vii. 12.

130. Ib. vii. 72.

131. He flourished in reign of Domitian. Schol. Vall. luv. i. 20; Mart. xi. 9 and 10; Donat. _Gramm. Lat_. iv. p. 537, 17; Apollin. Sid. ix. 266.

132. In the fragment preserved by Donatus (Ribbeck, _Trag. Rom. Fr_. p. 269) the chorus address Hecuba under the name Cisseis. 'Fulgentius expos. serm. antiq. 25 (p. 119, 5, Helm) says _Memos_ (Schopen emends to _Memor_) _in tragoedia Herculis ait: ferte suppetias optimi comites_.'

133. xi. 2. 8.

134. Mart. _i._ 61, 7; _Poet. Lat. Min._ iv. p. 62, 19, Bachrens.

135. Tac. _Ann._ xv. 73; xvi. 17.

136. Tac. _Ann._ xv. 73; xvi. 17.

137. Sen. _ad Helv. de Cons._ xix. 2.

138. Sen. _ad Helv._ 1. c.; _Ep._ lxxviii. 1. Dion. Cass. lix. 19.

139. 5 Dion. Cass. 1. c.

140. Suet. _Calig._ 53. See ch. i. p. 4.

141. _Ep._ cviii. 17 sqq.; Hioronym. _ad ann._ 2029. That he knew and never lost his respect for the teaching of Pythagoras is shown by the frequency with which he quotes him in the letters.

142. _Ep._ cviii. 3 sqq.

143. Cp. the speech of Suillius, Tac. _Ann._ xiii. 42; Dion. Cass. lxi. 10.

144. _ad Helv. de Cons._ 6 sqq.

145. _ad Polyb. de Cons._

146. The _Apocolocyntosis_--almost undoubtedly by Seneca--hardly falls within the scope of this work. Such intrinsic importance as it possesses is due to the prose portions. In point of form it is an example of the _Menippean Satire_, that strange medley of prose and verse. The verse portions form but a small proportion of the whole and are insipid and lacking in interest.

147. He was forbidden by Agrippina to give definite philosophical instruction. Cp. Suet. _Nero_, 52.

148. Cp. _ad Ner. de Clem._ ii. 2; Henderson, _Life of Nero_, Notes, p. 459.

149. For what may be regarded as an academic _apologia pro vita sua_, cp. _Ep._ 5; 17: 20; _de Ira_, in. 33; _de Const. Sap._ 1-4, 10-13; _de Vit. Beat._ 17-28, &c.

150. Dion. Cass. lxi. 4. 5.

151. Tac. _Ann_. xvi. 28.

152. This is Dion's view, lxi. 10. For an ingenious view of Seneca's character see Ball, _Satire of Sen. on apotheosis of Claudius_, p. 34. 'It may be that Seneca cared less for the realization of high ideals in life than for the formulation of the ideals as such. Sincerity and hypocrisy are terms much less worth controversy in some minds than others.'

153. Tac. _Ann._ xv. 61-4.

154. Quint, x. 1. 125-9.

155. Fronto, p. 155, N.

156. Quint, x. 1. 129. Over and above his writings on moral philosophy we possess seven books _ad Lucilium naturalium quaestionum._

157. _Patruos duos_ more naturally, however, refers to Gallio and Mela, in which case Marcus is the son of Seneca himself.

158. Cp. _P.L.M._ iv. 15, 8; Plin. _N.H._ xvi. 242.

159. For these cp. _Ep._ xiv. 13; ib. civ. 29.

160. e.g. 7l 'de Atho monte', 57 'de Graeciae ruina', 50 'de bono quietae vitae', 47, 48 'morte omnes aequari', 25 'de spe'.

161. There is, in fact, direct evidence that he wrote such verses. Plin. _Ep._ v. 3. 5.

162. Cp. p. 263.

163. Cp. the not dissimilar situation in Sen. _Oed_. (936), where Oedipus meditates in very similar style, as to how he may expiate his guilt. The couplet _vivere si poteris_, &c., is nothing if not Senecan.

164. Quint, viii. 3. 31 ('memini iuvenis admodum inter Pomponium ac Senecam etiam praefationibus esse tractatum, an "gradus eliminet" in tragoedia dici oportuisset') shows Seneca as critic of dramatic diction; there is no evidence to show what these _praefationes_ were, but they _may_ have been prefaces to tragedies. The _Medea_ (453) is cited by Quintilian ix. 2. 8. For later quotations from the tragedies, cp. Diomedes, _gr. Lat_. i. p. 511, 23; Terentianus Maurus, ibid. vi. p. 404, 2672; Probus, ibid. iv. p. 229, 22, p. 246, 19; Priscian, ibid. ii. p. 253, 7 and 9; Tertullian, _de An_. 42, _de Resurr_. 1; Lactantius, _Schol. Stat. Theb_. iv. 530.

165. Cp. also the iambic translation of Cleanthes, _Ep_. cvii. 11:--

duc, o parens celsique dominator poli,
quocunque placuit: nulla parendi mora est.
adsum impiger. fac nolle, comitabor gemens
malusque patiar, facere quod licuit bono.
ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

166. Some of the more remarkable parallels have been collected by Nisard (_Études sur les poètes latins de la décadence_, i. 68-91), e.g. _Med_. 163 'qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil'. _Ep_. v. 7 'desines timere, si sperare desieris'. _Oed_. 705 'qui sceptra duro saevus imperio regit, timet timentes: metus in auctorem redit'. _Ep_. cv. 4 'qui timetur, timet: nemo potuit terribilis esse secure'. de Ira_, ii. 11 'quid quod semper in auctores redundat timor, nec quisquam metuitur ipse securus?'-_Oed_. 980 sqq.; _de Prov_. v. 6 sqq.; _Phoen_. 146, 53; _Ep_. xii. 10; _de Prov_. vi. 7; _Herc. F_. 463, 464; _Ep_. xcii. 14.

167. The arguments against the Senecan authorship are of little weight. It has been urged (a) that the MSS. assign the author a _praenomen_ Marcus. No Marcus Seneca is known, though Marcus was the _praenomen_ of both Gallio and Mela, and of Lucan. Mistakes of this kind are, however, by no means rare (cp. the 'Sextus Aurelius Propertius Nauta' of many MSS. of that poet: both 'Aurelius' and 'Nauta' are errors), (b) Sidonius Apollinaris (ix. 229) mentions three Senecas, philosopher, tragedian, and epic writer (i.e. Lucan). But Sidonius lived in the fifth century A.D., and may easily have made a mistake. Such a mistake actually occurs (S. A. xxiii. 165) where he seems to assert that Argentaria Polla, Lucan's faithful widow, subsequently married Statius. The mistake as regards Seneca is probably due to a misinterpretation of Martial i. 61 'duosque Senecas unicumque Lucanum facunda loquitur Corduba'. Not being acquainted with the works of the elder Seneca the rhetorician, Sidonius invented a new author, Seneca the tragedian.

168. See ch. on Octavia, p.78.

169. Leo, _Sen. tragoed._ i. 89-134.

170. It is not even necessary to suppose with Leo that these were the earliest of the plays and that these metrical experiments were youthful indiscretions which failed and were not repeated. Leo, i. p. 133.

171. For a detailed treatment see Leo, i. p. 48. Melzer, _de H. Oetaeo Annaeano_, Chemnitz, 1890; _Classical Review_, 1905, p. 40, Summers.

172. See p. 39 on relation of epigrams to dramas.

173. _Ann_. xiv. 52.

174. See also note on p. 42 for Leo's ingenious, but inconclusive theory for the dates of the _Agamemnon_ and _Oedipus_.

175. There is but one passage that can be held to afford the slightest evidence for a later date, _Med_. 163 'qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil' seems to be an echo of _Ep_. v. 7 'sed ut huius quoque diei lucellum tecum communicem, apud Hecatonem nostrum inveni ... "desines", inquit, "timere, si sperare desieris".' This aphorism is quoted as newly found. The letters were written 62-5 A.D. This passage would therefore suggest a very late date for the _Medea_. But Seneca had probably been long familiar with the works of Hecato, and the epigram is not of such profundity that it might not have occurred to Seneca independently.

176. For comparative analyses of Seneca's tragedies and the corresponding Greek dramas see Miller's _Translation of the Tragedies of Seneca_, p. 455.

177. The _Phaedra_ of Seneca is interesting as being modelled on the lost _Hippolytus Veiled_ of Euripides. Phaedra herself declares her passion to Hippolytus, with her own lips reveals to Theseus the pretended outrage to her honour, and slays herself only on hearing of the death of Hippolytus. Cp. Leo, _Sen. Trag_. i. 173. The _Phoenissae_ presents a curious problem. It is far shorter than any of the other plays and has no chorus. It falls into two parts with little connexion. I. (_a_) 1-319. Oedipus and Antigone are on their way to Cithaeron. Oedipus meditates suicide and is dissuaded by Antigone. (_b_) 320-62. An embassy from Thebes arrives begging Oedipus to return and stop the threatened war between his sons. He refuses, and declares the intention of hiding near the field of battle and listening joyfully to the conflict between his unnatural sons. II. The remaining portion, on the other hand, seems to imply that Oedipus is still in Thebes (553, 623), and represents a scene between Jocasta and her sons. It lacks a conclusion. These two different scenes can hardly have belonged to one and the same play. They may be fragments of two separate plays, an _Oedipus Coloneus_ and a _Phoenissae_, or may equally well be two isolated scenes written for declamation without ever having been intended for embodiment in two completed dramas. Cp. Ribbeck, _Gesch. Röm. Dichtung_, iii. 70.

178. _Sen. Trag._ i. 161.

179. Leo, op. cit., i. 166 sqq.

180. 530-658. The _Oedipus_ is based on the _O. Rex_ of Sophocles, but is much compressed, and the beautiful proportions of the Greek are lost. In Seneca out of a total of 1,060 lines 330 are occupied by the lyric measures of the chorus, 230 by descriptions of omens and necromancy.

181. It is also to be noted that the nurse does not make use of this device till after Hippolytus has left the stage, although to be really effective her words should have been uttered while Hippolytus held Phaedra by the hair. The explanation is, I think, that the play was written for recitation, not for acting. Had the play been acted, the nurse's call for help and her accusation of Hippolytus could have been brought in while Hippolytus was struggling with Phaedra. But being written for recitation by a single person there was not room for the speech at the really critical moment, and therefore it was inserted afterwards--too late. See p. 73.

182. Similarly, Medea, being a sorceress, must be represented engaged in the practice of her art. Hence lurid descriptions of serpents, dark invocations, &c. (670-842).

183. Seneca never knows when to stop. Undue length characterizes declamations and lyrics alike.

184. As a whole the _Troades_ fails, although, the play being necessarily episodic, the deficiencies of plot are less remarkable. But compared with the exquisite _Troades_ of Euripides it is at once exaggerated and insipid.

185. Cp. Apul. _Met_. x. 3, where a step-mother in similar circumstances defends her passion with the words, 'illius (sc. patris) enim recognoscens imaginem in tua facie merito te diligo.'

186. This speech is closely imitated by Racine in his _Phèdre_.

187. 2: Cp. esp. 995-1006: the _agnosco fratrem_ of Thyestes is perhaps the most monstrous stroke of rhetoric in all Seneca. Better, but equally revolting, are ll. 1096-1112 from the same play.

188. For other examples of dialogue cp. esp. _Medea_, 159-76, 490-529 (perhaps the most effective dialogue in Seneca), _Thyestes_, 205-20; H. F. 422-38. for which see p. 62.

189. _Pro M_. 61 'Fuit enim quidam summo ingenio vir, Zeno, cuius inventorum aemuli Stoici nominantur: huius sententia et praecepta huiusmodi: sapientem gratia nunquam moveri, nunquam cuiusquam delicto ignoscere; neminem misericordem esse nisi stultum et levem: viri non esse neque exorari neque placari: solos sapientes esse, si distortissimi sint, formosos, si mendicissimi, divites, si servitutem serviant reges.' &c. He goes on to put a number of cases where the Stoic rules break down.

190. Cp. Eurip. _Andr_. 453 sqq.

191. For still greater exaggeration cp. _Phoen_. 151 sqq,; _Oed_. 1020 sqq.

192. Cp. Sen. _Contr_. ii. 5; ix. 4.

193. Cp. Sen. _de Proc_. iv. 6 'calamitas virtutis occasio est'.

194. Cp. Sen. _Ep_. xcii. 30, 31 'magnus erat labor ire in caelum'.

195. Cp. Sen. _Ep_. xcii. 16 sqq.

196. _Ep_. cviii. 24.

197. Cp. _Macbeth_ ii. 2. 36, Macbeth does murder sleep, &c. For other Shakespearian parallels, cp. _Macbeth_, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? _H.F._ 1261 'nemo pollute queat | animo mederi.' _Macbeth_, I have lived long enough.... And that which should accompany old age, As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have. _H.F._ 1258 'Cur animam in ista luce detincam amplius | morerque nihil est; cuncta iam amisi bona, | mentem, arma, famam, coniugem, natos, manus.' J. Phil. vi. 70. Cunliffe, _Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy_.

198. An exception might be made in favour of the beautiful simile describing Polyxena about to die, notable as giving one of the very few allusions to the beauty of sunset to be found in ancient literature (_Troad_. 1137):

ipsa deiectos gerit
vultus pudore, sed tamen fulgent genae
magisque solito splendet extremus decor,
ut esse Phoebi dulcius lumen solet
iamiam cadentis, astra cum repetunt vices
premiturque dubius nocte vicina dies.

Fine, too, are the lines describing the blind Oedipus (_Oed_. 971):

attollit caput
cavisque lustrans orbibus caeli plagas
noctem experitur.

199. pp. 52 sqq., 59.

200. Cp. Eur. _H.F._ 438 sqq.

201. For further examples cp. _H.F._ 5-18, _Troades_ 215-19.

202. This terse stabbing rhetoric is characteristic of Stoicism; the same short, jerky sentences reappear in Epictetus. Seneca is doubtless influenced by the declamatory rhetoric of schools as well, but his philosophical training probably did much to form his style.

203. Exceptions are so few as to be negligible. The effect of this rule is aggravated by the fact that in nine cases out of ten the accent of the word and the metrical ictus 'clash', this result being obtained 'by most violent elisions, such as rarely or never occur in the other feet of the verse'. Munro, J. Phil. 6, 75.

204. The older and more rugged iambic survives in the fables of Phaedrus, written at no distant date from these plays, if not actually contemporary.

205. Cp. Leo, op. cit. i. 166, 174.

206. See p. 29.

207. These horrors go beyond the crucifixion scene in the Laureolus (see p. 24), and the tradition of genuine tragedy was all against such presentation. As far as the grotesqueness and bombast of the plays go, the age of Nero might have tolerated them. We must remember that seventeenth-century England enjoyed the brilliant bombast of Dryden (e.g. in _Aurungzebe_) and that the eighteenth delighted in the crude absurdities of such plays as _George Barnwell_.

208. Cp. also _Phaedra_ 707, where Hippolytus' words, 'en impudicum crine contorto caput | laeva reflexi,' can only be justified as inserted to explain to the hearers what they could not see. See also p. 48, note.

209. They have been influenced by the pantomimus and the dramatic recitation so fashionable in their day, inasmuch as they lack connexion, and, though containing effective episodes, are of far too loose a texture to be effective drama.

210. See R. Fischer, _Die Kunstentwicklung der englischen Tragödie_; J. W. Cunliffe, _Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy_; J. E. Manly, _Introductory Essay_ to Miller's _Translation of the Tragedies of Seneca_. The Senecan drama finds its best modern development in the tragedies of Alfieri. Infinitely superior in every respect as are the plays of the modern dramatist, he yet reveals in a modified form not a few of Seneca's faults. There is often a tendency to bombast, an exaggeration of character, a hardness of outline, that irresistibly recall the Latin poet.

211. The debt is as good as acknowledged, ll. 58 sqq.

212. ll. 310 sqq.

213. l. 915.

214. There is no direct evidence of the sex of the chorus in the _Octavia_. In Greek drama they would almost certainly have been women.

215. The diction is wholly un-Senecan. There is no straining after epigram; the dialogue, though not lacking point (e.g. the four lines 185-8, or 451-60), does not bristle with it, and is far less rhetorical and more natural. The chorus confines itself to anapaests, is simpler and far more relevant. The all-pervading Stoicism is the one point they have in common.

216. The imitation of Lucan in 70, 71 'magni resto nominis umbra,' is also strong evidence against the Senecan authorship.

217. _Probus, vita_. 'A. Persius Flaccus natus est pridie non. Dec. Fabio Persico, L. Vitellio coss.' Hieronym. ad ann. 2050=34 A.D. 'Persius Flaccus Satiricus Volaterris nascitur.' Where not otherwise stated the facts of Persius' life are drawn from the biography of Probus.

218. Quint, vii. 4, 40; Tac. _Ann_. xv. 71.

219. Suet. _de Gramm_. 23.

220. Bassus was many years his senior--addressed as _senex_ in Sat. vi. 6, written late in 61 or early in 62 A.D.--and perished in the eruption of Vesuvius, 79 A. D. Cp. Schol. _ad Pers_. vi. 1.

221. Lucan was five years his junior. Cp. p. 97.

222. Cp. Tac. _Ann_. xiv. 19; _Dial_. 23; Quint. x. 1. 102.

223. This friendship lasted ten years, presumably the last ten of Persius' life; cp. _Prob. vit_.

The second satire is addressed to Plotius Macrinus, who, according to the scholiast, was a learned man, who 'loved Persius as his son, having studied with him in the house of Servilius Nonianus.'

224. See O. Jahn's ed., p. 240.

225. _Prob. vit_.'decessit VIII Kal. Dec. P. Mario, Afinio Gallio coss.' Hieronym. ad ann. 2078--62 A.D. 'Persius moritur anno aetatis XXVIII.'

226. _Prob. vit_.

227. Such at least is a plausible inference. Probus tells us that he used to travel abroad with Thrasea. It is a natural conjecture that these _hodoeporica_ were in the style of Horace's journey to Brundisium.

228. Cp. Mart. i. 13; Plin. _Ep_. iii. 16. She was the mother of the wife of Thrasea.

229. This may mean that the last satire was actually incomplete, but that the omission of a few lines at the end gave it an appearance of completion; or that a few lines intended for the opening of a seventh satire were omitted.

230. So Probus. Cp. also Quint. x. 1. 94 'multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro meruit.' Mart. iv. 29. 7.

231. Hieronym. _in apol. contra Rufin._ i. 16 'puto quod puer legeris ... commentarios ... aliorum in alios, Plautum videlicet, Lucretium, Flaccum, Persium atque Lucanum.' The high moral tone of the work, coupled perhaps with the smallness of its bulk, is in the main responsible for its survival. Scholia from different sources have come down to us under the title of _Cornuti commentum_. Whether such a person as the commentator Cornutus existed or not is uncertain. The name may have been attached to the scholia merely to give them a spurious importance as though possessing the imprimatur of the friend and teacher of the poet.

232. The choliambi are placed after the satires by two of the three best MSS., but before them by the scholia and inferior MSS. It is of little importance which we follow. But it seems probable that Probus (see below) regarded the choliambi as a prologue. Such at least is my interpretation of _sibi primo_ (i.e. in the prologue) _mox omnibus detrectaturus._ The lines have rather more force if read first and not last.

233. _Prob. vit._ 'sed mox ut a schola magistrisque devertit, lecto Lucili libro decimo vehementer saturas componere studuit; cuius libri principium imitatus est, sibi primo, mox omnibus detrectaturus, cum tanta recentium poetarum et oratorum insectatione,' &c. This can only refer to the prologue and the first satire, and seems to point to its having been the first to be composed. According to the scholiast the opening line is taken from the first satire of Lucilius.

234. Porphyr. _ad Hor. Sat._ i. 10. 53 'facit autem Lucilius hoc cum alias tum vel maxime in tertio libro, ... et nono et decimo.

235. Cp. Nettleship's note ad loc., and Petron. 4.

236. e.g. Dama, Davus, Natta, Nerius, Craterus, Pedius, Bestius.

237. Instances might be almost indefinitely multiplied. The whole of Pers. i, but more especially the conclusion, is strongly influenced by Hor. _Sat._ i. 10. Cp. also Pers. ii. 12, Hor. _Sat._ ii. 5. 45; Pers. iii. 66, Hor. _Ep._ i. 18. 96; Pers. v. 10, Hor. _Sat._ i. 4. 19, &c., &c.

238. i. 92-102. According to the scholiast the last four lines--

torva Mimalloneis implerunt cornua bombis,
et raptum vitulo caput ablatura superbo
Bassaris et lyncem Maenas flexura corymbis
euhion ingeminat, reparabilis adsonat echo (i. 99)--

are by Nero. But it is incredible that Persius should have had such audacity as openly to deride the all-powerful emperor. The same remark applies to other passages where the scholiast and some modern critics have seen satirical allusions to Nero (e.g. prologue and the whole of Sat. iv). The only passage in which it is possible that there was a covert allusion to Nero is i. 121, which, according to the scholiast, originally ran _auriculas asini Mida rex habet_. Cornutus suppressed the words _Mida rex_ and substituted _quis non_. For an ingenious defence of the view that Persius hits directly at Nero see Pretor, _Class. Rev_., vol. xxi, p. 72.

239. i. 76 'Est nunc Brisaei quem venosus liber Acci, | sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur | Antiopa, aerumnis cor luctificabile fulta.'

240. The description of the self-indulgent man who, feeling ill, consults his doctor and then fails to follow his advice (iii. 88), is a possible exception. It is noteworthy that in Sat. iv he addresses a young aspirant to a political career as though free political action was still possible at Rome.

241. e.g. iv. 41.

242. But see below, p. 91.

243. Prob. vita Persii.

244. Our chief authorities for Lucan's life are the 'lives' by Suetonius (fragmentary) and by Vacca (a grammarian of the sixth century).

245. Vacca.

246. Tac. _Ann._ xvi. 17.

247. Vacca.

248. Vacca.

249. The young Lucan is said to have formed a friendship with the satirist at the school of Cornutus; Persius was some five years his senior. _Vita Persii_ (p. 58, Bücheler).

250. Suetonius and Vacca. The latter curiously treats this victory as one of the causes of Nero's jealousy. Considering that the poem was a panegyric of the emperor, and that it was Lucan's first step in the imperial favour, the suggestion deserves small credit.

251. Sueton. There is an unfortunate hiatus in the Life by Suetonius, occurring just before the mention of the visit to Athens. As the text stands it suggests that the visit to Athens occurred after the victory at the Neronia. Otherwise it would seem more probable that Lucan went to Athens somewhat earlier (e.g. 57 A.D.) to complete his education.

252. Sueton., Vacca.

253. Vacca; Tac. _Ann._ xv. 49; Dion. lxii. 29.

254. Vacca.

255. Suetonius.

256. Suetonius.

257. Sueton.; Tac. _Ann._ xv. 56.

258. Vacca; Sueton.; Tac. _Ann._ xv. 70. Various passages in the _Pharsalia_ have been suggested as suitable for Lucan's recitation at his last gasp, iii. 638-41, vii. 608-15, ix. 811.

259. Statius, in his _Genethliacon Lucani_ (_Silv._ ii. 7. 54), seems to indicate the order of the poems:

ac primum teneris adhuc in annis
ludes Hectora Thessalosque currus
et supplex Priami potentis aurum,
et sedes reserabis inferorum;
ingratus Nero duleibus theatris
et noster tibi proferetur Orpheus,
dices culminibus Remi vagantis
infandos domini nocentis ignes,
hinc castae titulum decusque Pollae
iucunda dabis adlocutione.
mox coepta generosior iuventa
albos ossibus Italis Philippos
et Pharsalica bella detonabis.

Cp. also Vacca, 'extant eius complures et alii, ut Iliacon, Saturnalia, Catachthonion, Silvarum x, tragoedia Medea imperfecta, salticae fabulae xiv, et epigrammata (MSS. _appamata_ sive _ippamata_), prosae orationes in Octavium Sagittam et pro eo, de incendio Urbis, epistularum ex Campania, non fastidiendi quidem omnes, tales tamen ut belli civili videantur accessio.'

260. Vacca.

261. See chapter on Statius.

262. See chapter on Drama.

263. Cp. Mart., bks. xiii and xiv.

264. There are two fragments from the _Iliacon_, two from the _Orpheus_, one from the _Catachthonion_, two from the _Epigrammata_, together with a few scanty references in ancient commentators and grammarians: see Postgate, _Corp. Poet. Lat._

265. Vacca, 'ediderat ... tres libros, quales videmus.'

266. Sueton. 'civile bellum ... recitavit ut praefatione quadem aetatem et initia sua comparans ausus sit dicere, "quantum mihi restat ad Culicem".' Cp. also Stat, _Silv._ ii. 7. 73:--

haec (Pharsalia) primo iuvenis canes sub aevo
ante annos Culicis Maroniani.

Vergil was twenty-six when he composed the _Culex_. Cp. Ribbeck, _App. Verg._ p. 19.

267. Vacca, 'reliqui septem belli civilis libri locum calumniantibus tanquam mendosi non darent; qui tametsi sub vero crimine non egent patrocinio: in iisdem dici, quod in Ovidii libris praescribitur, potest: emendaturus, si licuisset, erat.'

268. See p. 4.