Chapter VI: Part II: Satire (1)

Satire has always shone among the rest,
And is the boldest way, if not the best,
To tell men freely of their foulest faults,
To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts.

1. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY SATIRE

What prophecy was to the ancient Hebrews, the drama to the Greeks, the purpose-novel and the newspaper editorial to our own day, satire was to the Roman of the republic and the early empire--the moral mentor of contemporary society. This conception of the prophet as the preacher of his day is often obscured by the conception of him as one who could reveal the future; but a closer study of the life and times of these great religious leaders shows them to have been men profoundly interested in current life, who gave all their energies to the task of raising the standard of the religious and social thought of their own day. The function of Greek tragedy was ever religious. It had its very origin in the worship of the gods; and the presence of the altar as the center of the strophic movements of the chorus was a constant reminder that the drama was dealing with the highest problems of human life. Added to the general religious atmosphere of tragedy were the direct moral teachings, the highest sentiments of ancient culture, which constantly sounded through the play. Greek comedy, especially of the old and middle type, also served a distinct moral purpose in society. It did not, indeed, sound the same lofty notes as did its sister tragedy; but it was the lash which was mercilessly applied, at first with bolder license to individual sinners in high places, and afterward in a more guarded manner to the vices and follies of men in general. In either case, the powerful stimulus of fear of public ridicule and castigation must have had a real effect upon the manners and morals of the ancient Greeks.

When we turn to our own time, we find the literary preacher at the novelist's desk or in the editor's chair. The influence of the purpose-novel and the editorial can hardly be overestimated. In the generation immediately preceding our own, a very direct influence upon the public social life of his day was wielded by the pen of Dickens. His eyes were open to abuses of every kind--in educational, charitable, legal, and criminal institutions; and he used every weapon known to literary art to right these wrongs. In this task he was ably assisted by men like Thackeray, Reade, Kingsley, and others. And there can be little doubt that the improved conditions in the England of to-day are due in generous measure to the work of these novelist preachers. The editor's function is still more intimately and constantly to hold the mirror up to society, revealing and reproving its faults. And to-day there is probably no more potent force acting directly upon the opinions and conduct of men than the daily editorial.

Now, the literary weapon of the Roman moralist was satire. It flourished in all periods of Roman literature, both the word _satire_ and the thing itself being of Latin origin. In other fields of literature there is a large imitation of Greek models. Roman tragedy was at first but little more than a translation of the Greek plays, and the same is true of comedy. Cato, Varro, Vergil, and the rest who wrote of agriculture, had a Greek prototype in Hesiod, who in his _Works and Days_ had treated of the same theme; Lucretius was the professed disciple and imitator of Epicurus; Cicero, in oratory, had ever before his eyes his Demosthenes, and in philosophy his Plato and Aristotle; Vergil had his Homer in epic and his Theocritus in pastoral; Horace, in his lyrics, is Greek through and through, both in form and spirit, for Pindar and Anacreon, Sappho, Alcaeus, Archilochus, and the whole tuneful line are forever echoing through his verse. Ovid, in his greatest work, only succeeded in setting Greek mythology in a frame of Latin verse, though he told those fascinating stories as they had never been told before; while the historians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers--all had their Greek originals and models.

But in the field of satire the Romans struck out a new literary path for themselves. Even here we are bound to admit that the spirit is Greek, the spirit of the old comedy, of bold assault upon the evils of government, of society, of individuals. But still satire, as a form of literature, is the Roman's own; and beginning with Lucilius, the father of satire in the modern sense, the long line of satirists who followed his lead sufficiently attests the strong hold which this particular form of literature gained upon the Roman mind.

We have said that Lucilius was the father of satire in the modern sense; but the name at least, together with many of the features of his satire and that of his successors, reaches far back of him into the recesses of an ancient Italian literature, long since vanished, of which we can gain only the faintest hints. These hints as to the character of that ancient forerunner of the Lucilian satire come to us from two sources--the discussions of the Latin grammarians as to the derivation of the word _satura_ (satire), and the remote reflections and imitations of the old _satura_ in later works.

These far-off imitations give some idea of the character of the genuine satire of the earliest time,--that of a medley of verse of different meters, intermingled with prose, introducing words and phrases of other languages, and treating of a great variety of subjects. This literary medley or jumble probably had its origin in the farm or vineyard, where, in celebration of the "harvest home" or other joyous festival, it would be brought out, perhaps accompanied by some kind of musical recitation, and of course loaded with the rude wit of the time.

Such, then, we may suppose, was the character of the rude satire of ancient Italy. But alas for any real personal knowledge which we may gain of it, those merry, clumsy jests, those rustic songs, are vanished with the simple sun-loving race which produced them. The olive orchards still wave gray-green upon the sunny slopes, the vineyards still cling to every hillside and nestle in every valley; but the ancient peasantry who once called this land their home, whose simple annals old Cato loved to tell, and who could have given us material for precious volumes upon the folk-lore and customs of their times, have gone, and left scarcely a trace of their rude, unlettered literature.

The first tangible literary link that binds us to the old Roman satire is found in the poet Ennius, who flourished about two hundred years before Christ. The story of his life is outlined elsewhere in this book. His satires seem to have been a sort of literary miscellany which included such of his writings as could not conveniently be classified elsewhere.

The merest handful of fragments of these satires remains, although there is good ground for believing that there were six books of these. No adequate judgment can therefore be formed as to their character. It can with safety be said, however, that they were in a sense the connecting link between the early satire and the literary satire of the modern type. As has been said above, they were a literary miscellany or medley, and as such contain some salient features of their predecessors; and it is highly probable that they contained attacks upon the vices and follies of the time, in which respect they looked forward to a more complete development in Lucilian satire.

A most interesting fragment of the _Epicharmus_ describes the nature of the gods according to the philosophy of Ennius:

And that is he whom we call Jove, whom Grecians call
The atmosphere: who in one person is the wind and clouds, then rain,
And after, freezing hail; and once again, thin air.
For this, those things are Jove considered which I name to you,
Since by these elements do men and cities, beasts.
And all things else exist.

There was a satire by Ennius, as Quintilian tells us, containing a dialogue between Life and Death; but of this we have not a remnant. He also introduced the fables of AEsop into his writings. The following is the moral which he deduces from the story of the lark and the farmers--a moral which Aulus Gellius assures us that it would be worth our while to take well to heart. It may be freely translated as follows:

Now list to this warning, give diligent heed,
Whether seeking for pleasure or pelf:
Don't wait for your neighbors to help in your need,
But just go and do it yourself!

Surely Miles Standish might have gained from his Ennius, as well as from his Caesar, that famous motto:

If you wish a thing well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!

We may leave our present notice of Ennius with a glance at the epitaph which he wrote for himself. It is classed with his epigrams, but it may properly be considered in connection with the medley of his satires. In it he claims that unsubstantial immortality of remembrance and of mention among men which is even now, as we write and read, being vouchsafed to him.

Behold, O friends, old Ennius' carved stone,
Who wrote your father's deeds with lambent pen;
Let no tears deck my funeral, for lo,
My soul immortal lives on lips of men.

We have seen that the spirit of invective in Lucilius, which became in his hands the spirit of satire, is traceable to the old Greek comedy. The poetic form (the dactylic hexameter in which he wrote twenty of the thirty books of his satire) had already been naturalized in Roman literature by Ennius in his great epic poem. But to Lucilius is due the credit of being the first to incarnate this spirit in this form, and thus to establish an entirely new type in literature.

His satires contain invectives against luxury, avarice, and kindred vices, and prevalent superstitions; an attack upon the rich; ridicule of certain rhetorical affectations; grammatical remarks, and criticisms on art; observations upon the Stoic philosophy; the poet's own political experiences and expectations, also other anecdotes and incidents gathered from his own experience; an interesting account of a journey to Sicily, from which Horace probably obtained the model for his famous journey to Brundisium. These and many other subjects filled his pages, and suggest by their wide range the old-time medley-satire.

The poet lived in stirring times. Born in 180 B. C., eleven years before the death of Ennius, he died about 103 B. C., three years after Cicero's birth and the year before the birth of Caesar. He was thus contemporary with some of the most important and striking events in Roman history--the third Macedonian War; the Third Punic War; the Numantian War, in which he himself served as a knight under Scipio Africanus in 133 B. C.; the troubled times of the two Gracchi; the Jugurthine War, and the rise of Caius Marius. He was of equestrian rank, and lived on terms of intimacy with some of the best men at Rome, notably the younger Scipio and Laelius. With such backing as this, of family and friends, he was in good position to direct his satire against the wicked and unscrupulous men of his time, regardless of their rank, without fear or favor.

What did the Romans themselves think of Lucilius? To judge from the frequency and character of their references to him, the poet must have made a profound impression upon his countrymen. A study of these references shows that in the main this impression was favorable. He is _doctus_, that is, profoundly learned in the wisdom of the Greeks; and, according to Aulus Gellius, he was equally well versed in the language and literature of his own land. He is to Juvenal the _magnus_, the "father of satire," who has well-nigh preempted the field, to follow whom requires elaborate explanation and apology on the part of the would-be satirist. He is to Cicero _perurbanus_, preeminently endowed with that subtle something in spirit and expression which marks at once the polished man of the world. He is to Fronto remarkable for his _gracilitas_, that plainness, directness, and simplicity of style which, joined with the "harshness" and "roughness" of his "eager" spirit and of his righteous indignation, made his satire such a formidable weapon against the vices of his day. Persius says of him that he "slashed the citizens of his time and broke his jaw-teeth on them." And the testimony of Juvenal is still more striking: "But whenever Lucilius with drawn sword fiercely rages, his hearer, whose soul is cold within him because of his crimes, blushes with shame, and his heart quakes in silent fear because of his guilty secrets."

Like those of so many of his predecessors in literature, the works of Lucilius remain to us only in the merest fragments. For these we are indebted largely to the Latin grammarians, who quote freely from him, usually in illustration of the meaning of some word which they may be discussing. A comparatively small number of the fragments have come down to us through quotations on account of their sentiment, as when Cicero says: "Lucilius used to say that he did not write to be read by either of the extremes of society, because one would not understand him, and the other knew more than he did."

We shall now examine a few of the more important of the fragments which have been preserved to us. The following has been thought to be a vivid picture of the unworthy struggle of life as he saw it in the Rome of his own time. Lactantius, however, whose quotation of the fragment has saved it, thinks that the poet is portraying in a more general way the unhappy, unrestful life of mankind, unrelieved, as Lucretius would say, by the comforting reflections of philosophy.

But now, from morning to night, on holidays and work days, in the
same place, the whole day long, high and low, all busy themselves
in the forum and never depart. To one and the same pursuit and
practice have they all devoted themselves: to cheat as guardedly
as possible, to strive craftily, to vie in flattery, to make a
pretense of being good men, to lay snares just as if they were all
the foes of all.

There was a certain Titus Albucius, who, it seems, was so enamored with everything Greek that he was continually affecting the manners and language of that country. Such running after foreign customs and speech has not yet wholly disappeared. This weakness is the object of the poet's wit in the following passage, in which he tells how Scaevola, the propraetor of Asia, once "took down" the silly Albucius in Athens:

A Greek, Albucius, you would be called, and not a Roman and a Sabine, a fellow-townsman of Pontius and Tritanius, though they are both illustrious men, and first-rate standard-bearers. And so, as praetor at Athens, when I meet you, I salute you in the foreign style which you are so fond of: "+chaire+!"[A] I say; and my lictors and all my retinue inquire: "+chaire+?" Fie, Albucius! for this thou art my country's foe, and my own enemy!

[A] Hail.

The fourth satire, says an ancient scholiast, was an attack upon luxury and the vices of the rich. The following passage might well have been the opening lines of this satire, representing Laelius as exclaiming in praise of a vegetable diet and against gluttony:

"O sorrel, how praiseworthy art thou,
And yet how little art thou really known!"

over his mess of sorrel Laelius the wise used to cry out, chiding one by one the gluttons of our day.

And that he did not hesitate to call the glutton and spendthrift by name is shown by this fragment, which is evidently a continuation of the same diatribe:

"O Publius Gallonius, thou spendthrift," said he, "thou art a
wretched fellow. Never in all thy life hast thou dined well,
though all thy wealth on that lobster and that sturgeon thou
consumest."

The last selection which we shall present from Lucilius is the longest extant fragment. The passage is a somewhat elaborate definition of _virtue_ as the old Roman understood it. We use the translation of Sellar.

Virtue, Albinus, consists in being able to give their true worth
to the things on which we are engaged, among which we live. The
virtue of a man is to understand the real meaning of each thing:
to understand what is right, useful, honorable for him; what
things are good, what bad, what is unprofitable, base,
dishonorable; to know the due limit and measure in making money;
to give its proper worth to wealth; to assign what is really due
to office; to be a foe and enemy of bad men and bad principles; to
extol the good, to wish them well, to be their friend through
life. Lastly, it is true worth to look on our country's weal as
the chief good; next to that the weal of our parents; third and
last, our own weal.

2. QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS

Horace well sustains the character of preacher whose function it has already been said that satire performs. He found in his world the same frail human nature which had aroused the righteous scorn of Lucilius, and had led him to those bitter attacks upon the follies of his time for which his satire was justly dreaded. But Horace is cast in a different mold from Lucilius. While he sees just as clearly the shortcomings of society, he has a realizing sense that he himself is a part of that same society, guilty of the same sins, subject to the same criticism.

This consciousness of common frailty leads to moderation on the part of the preacher. He manifests a kindly sense of human brotherhood for better or for worse, which forms one of his most charming characteristics, and differentiates him from his great predecessor as well as from those who followed in the field of satire. It is true that Horace is sufficiently strenuous and severe in his polemics against the prevalent frailties of society as he saw them; but he has a habit of taking his hearers into his confidence at the end of his lecture, and reassuring them by some whimsical jest or the information that the sermon was meant as much for himself as for them. He had no idea of reforming society from the outside as from a separate world; but he proceeded upon the principle that, as real reformation and progress must be the result of reformed internal conditions, so the reformer himself must be a sympathetic part of his world.

It was in a homely and wholesome school that our poet learned his moral philosophy. In a glowing tribute of filial affection for his father, he tells us how that worthy man, who was himself only a freedman--a humble collector of debts by trade, or possibly a fishmonger, away down in his provincial home in Apulia--decided that his son should have a better chance in life than had fallen to his own lot. The local school in the boy's native village of Venusia, where the big-boned sons of retired centurions gained their meager education, was not good enough for our young man. He must to Rome and afterward to Athens, and have all the chances which were open to the sons of the noblest families of the land. And so we have the pleasing picture of the sensible old father, not sending but taking his boy to Rome, where he was the young student's constant companion, his "guide, philosopher, and friend," attending him in all his ways, both in school and out.

Horace tells us how this practical old father taught him to avoid the vices of the day. No fine-spun, theoretical philosophy for him; but practical illustration drove every lesson home. The poet dwells with pleasure upon this element in his education.

That Horace was a worthy son of a worthy father is proved in many ways, but in none more clearly than when, in after years, as a welcome member of the most exclusive social set in Rome, he affectionately recalls his father's training, and tells his high-born friends that, if he had the chance to choose his ancestry, he would not change one circumstance of his birth.

The practice of personal observations of the life around him, which he learned from his father, the poet carried with him through life, and is the explanation of the intensely practical and realistic character of his satire. See him as he comes home at night and sits alone recalling the varied happenings of the day. These are some of the thoughts, as he himself tells us, which come to him at such times, and find half-unconscious audible expression:

Now that's the better course.--I should live better if I acted
along that line.--So-and-so didn't do the right thing that
time.--I wonder if I shall ever be foolish enough to do the like.

It is after such meditations as these that he takes up his tablets and outlines his satires. We are reminded in this of the practice of the great Caesar, who is said to have recalled, as he rested in his tent at night, the stirring events of each day, and to have noted these for his history.

This method of composition from practical observation explains many peculiarities of the style of Horace's satires. They are absolutely unpretentious, prevailingly conversational in tone, abounding in homely similes and colloquialisms, pithy anecdotes, familiar proverbs, and references to current people and events which make up the popular gossip of the day. He also has an embarrassing habit of suddenly turning his "thou-art-the-man" search-light upon us just when we are most enjoying his castigation of our neighbors. He employs burlesque and irony also among his assortment of satiric weapons. He is, above all, personal, rarely allowing the discourse to stray from the personality of himself and his audience.

The following outline of one of his "sermons" will afford a good illustration of his style and method of handling a discourse. Its subject is the sin and folly of discontent and greed for gain, a sin which he frequently denounces, not alone in his satires, but in his odes as well. This satire is addressed by way of compliment to his patron Maecenas, and is placed at the beginning of his two books of satires.

How strange it is that no one lives content with his lot, but must
always be envying his neighbor! The soldier would be a merchant,
the merchant a soldier; the lawyer would be a farmer, the farmer a
lawyer. But these malcontents are not in earnest in this prayer
for a change; should some god grant their petition, they would one
and all refuse to accept the boon.

The excuse of those who toil early and late is, that when they
have "made their pile" and have a modest competency for a peaceful
old age, they will retire. They say that they seek gold only as a
means to an end, and cite the example of the thrifty ant. But
herein they show their insincerity; for, while the ant lives upon
its hoarded wealth in winter, and stops its active life, the
gain-getter never stops so long as there is more to be gotten.

"But," you say, "it is so delightful to have a whole river to
drink from." Why so? You can't possibly drink it all, and besides,
the river water is apt to be muddy. I prefer to drink from a clear
little spring myself. And then, too, you are liable to be drowned
in your attempt to drink from the river.

"But one _must_ have money. A man's social standing depends upon
his bank account." It's useless to argue with such a man. He can
see nothing but the almighty dollar. If he did but know it, he is
simply another Tantalus, surrounded by riches which he cannot, or,
in his case, will not enjoy. And besides he does not really care
for popular opinion as he professes to do. Poor wretch! he has all
the care and none of the pleasures of his wealth. Heaven keep me
poor in such possessions!

You say that money secures help in sickness? But _such_ help! Your
greed has alienated all who would naturally love and care for you;
and you must not be surprised if you do not keep the love which
you are doing nothing to preserve.

No, no! away with your greed; cease to think that lack of money is
necessarily an evil; and beware lest your fate at last be
miserably to lose your all by a violent death. No, I am not asking
you to be a spendthrift. Only seek a proper mean between this and
the miser's character.

But, to get back to the original proposition, no one is content
with his lot, but is constantly trying to surpass his fellows. And
so the jostling struggle for existence goes on, and rare indeed is
it to find a man who leaves this life satisfied that he has had
his share of its blessings.

With this conclusion another man would have been content. But Horace somehow feels that he has been a little hard upon his kind, and by way of softening down the seriousness of the lecture, and at the same time saving himself from the fault of verbosity, which he detests, he ends with a characteristic jibe at the wordy Stoic philosophers:

But enough of this. Lest you think that I have stolen the notes of
the blear-eyed Crispinus, I'll say no more.

In another satire, Horace rebukes the fault of censoriousness. His text practically is: "Judge not that ye be not judged." With characteristic indirect approach to his subject, he begins with a tirade against one Tigellius, until we begin to be indignant with this censorious preacher; when suddenly he whips around to the other side, assumes the role of one of his hearers, and puts the question to himself: "Have you no faults of your own?" And then we see that he has only been playing a part, and giving us an objective illustration of how it sounds when the other man finds fault, thus exposing to themselves those who, habitually blind to their own faults, are quick to discover those of other men.

The dramatic element, which seems to have been inherent in satire from the beginning, is one of the most noticeable characteristics of style in the satires of Horace. Indeed, his favorite method of expression is the dialogue, carried on either between himself and some other person, real or imaginary, or between two characters of his creation, whom he introduces as best fitted to conduct the discussion of a theme.

The most dramatic of his satires is that in which he introduces the bore. In this, the poem consists solely of dialogue and descriptions of action which may be taken as stage direction. It therefore needs but slight change to give it perfect dramatic form. The problem of the episode is how to get rid of the bore and at the same time keep within the bounds of gentlemanly conduct. This famous satire is given below in full.

THE BORE: A DRAMATIC SATIRE IN ONE ACT

The persons of the drama: Horace; the Bore; Aristius Fuscus, a
friend of Horace; an adversary of the Bore; Horace's slave-boy; a
street mob.

SCENE: The Sacred Way in Rome, extending on during the action into
the Forum.

[_Enter Horace, walking along the street in deep thought. To him
enters Bore, who grasps his hand with great show of affection and
slaps him familiarly on the shoulder._]

_Bore._ How are you, my dear old fellow? _Horace_ [_stiffly_].
Fairly well, as times go. I trust all is well with you? [_As the
Bore follows him up, Horace attempts to forestall conversation,
and to dismiss his companion with the question of formal leave:_]
There's nothing I can do for you is there? _Bore._ Yes, make my
acquaintance. I am really worth knowing; I'm a scholar. _Horace._
Really? You will be more interesting to me on that account, I am
sure. [_He tries desperately to get rid of the Bore, goes faster,
stops, whispers in the slave-boy's ear; while the sweat pours down
his face, which he mops desperately. He exclaims aside:_] O
Bolanus, how I wish I had your hot temper! _Bore_ [_chatters empty
nothings, praises the scenery, the buildings, etc. As Horace
continues silent, he says:_] You're terribly anxious to get rid of
me; I've seen that all along. But it's no use, I'll stay by you,
I'll follow you. Where are you going from here? _Horace_ [_trying
to discourage him_]. There's no need of your going out of your
way. I'm going to visit a man--an entire stranger to you. He lies
sick at his house away over beyond the Tiber, near Caesar's
gardens. _Bore._ O, I have nothing else to do, and I'm a good
walker. I'll just go along with you. [_As Horace keeps on doggedly
in sullen silence, he continues:_] Unless I am much mistaken in
myself, you will find me a more valuable friend than Viscus or
Varius. There's no one can write more poetry in a given time than
I, or dance more gracefully; and as for singing, Hermogenes
himself would envy me. _Horace_ [_interrupting, tries to frighten
him off by suggesting that the sick man whom he is going to visit
may be suffering from some contagious disease_]. Have you a mother
or other relative dependent on you? _Bore._ No, I have no one at
all. I've buried every one of them. _Horace_ [_aside_]. Lucky
dogs! Now I'm the only victim left. Finish me up; for a dreadful
fate is dogging my steps, which an old Sabine fortune-teller once
warned me of when I was a boy. She said: "No poisonous drug shall
carry this boy off, nor deadly sword, nor wasting consumption, nor
crippling gout; in the fulness of time some chatterbox will talk
him to death. So then, if he be wise, when he shall come to man's
estate, let him beware of all chatterboxes." [_They have now come
opposite the Temple of Vesta in the south end of the Forum, near
which the courts of justice were held. The hour for opening court
has arrived._] _Bore_ [_suddenly remembering that he has given
bond to appear in a certain suit, and that if he fails to appear
this suit will go against him by default_]. Won't you kindly
attend me here in court a little while? _Horace._ I can't help you
any. Hang it, I'm too tired to stand around here; and I don't know
anything about law, anyhow. Besides, I'm in a hurry to get--you
know where. _Bore._ I'm in doubt what to do, whether to leave you
or my case. _Horace._ Leave me, by all means. _Bore_ [_after a
brief meditation_]. No, I don't believe I will. [_He takes the
lead, and Horace helplessly follows. The Bore starts in on the
subject which is uppermost in his mind._] How do you and Maecenas
get on? He's a very exclusive and level-headed fellow, now, isn't
he? No one has made a better use of his chances. You would have an
excellent assistant in that quarter, one who could ably support
you, if only you would introduce yours truly. Strike me dead, if
you wouldn't show your heels to all competitors in no time.
_Horace._ Why, we don't live there on any such basis as you seem
to think. There is no circle in Rome more free from self-seeking
on the part of its members, or more at variance with such a
feeling. It makes no difference to me if another man is richer or
more learned than I. Every man has his own place there. _Bore._
You don't really mean that? I can scarcely believe it. _Horace._
And yet such is the case. _Bore._ You only make me more eager to
be admitted. _Horace_ [_with contemptuous sarcasm_]. O, you have
only to wish it: such is your excellence, you'll be sure to gain
your point. To tell the truth, Maecenas is a soft-hearted fellow,
and for this very reason guards the first approach to his
friendship more carefully. _Bore_ [_taking Horace's suggestion in
earnest_]. O, I shall keep my eyes open. I'll bribe his servants.
And if I don't get in to-day, I'll try again. I'll lie in wait for
chances, I'll meet him on the street corners, and walk down town
with him. You can't get anything in this life without working for
it. [_Enter Aristius Fuscus, an intimate friend of Horace. They
meet and exchange greetings_]. _Horace_ [_to Fuscus_]. Hello!
where do you come from? _Fuscus._ Where are you going? [_Horace
slyly plucks his friend's toga, pinches his arm, and tries by nods
and winks to get Fuscus to rescue him from the Bore. But Fuscus
pretends not to understand._] _Horace_ [_to Fuscus_]. Didn't you
say that you had something to say to me in private? _Fuscus._ Yes,
but I'll tell you some other time. To-day is a Jewish festival.
You wouldn't have me insult the Jews, would you? _Horace._ O, I
have no such scruples myself. _Fuscus._ But I have. I'm just one
of the plain people--not as strong-minded as you are. You really
must excuse me; I'll tell you some other time. [_Fuscus hurries
away, with a wicked wink, leaving his friend in the lurch._]
_Horace_ [_in a despairing aside_]. O, to think that so dark a day
as this should ever have dawned for me! [_At this juncture the
Bore's adversary at law comes running up._] _The Adversary_ [_to
Bore, in a loud voice._] Where are you going, you bail-breaking
rascal? [_To Horace._] Will you come witness against him? [_Horace
gives him his ear to touch in token of his assent, and the Bore is
hurried off to court, with loud expostulations on both sides, and
with the inevitable jeering street crowd following after._]
_Horace_ [_left alone_]. Saved, by the grace of Apollo!

The fourth and tenth satires of the first book are of especial value to us, because they contain Horace's own estimate of his predecessor, Lucilius; answers to popular criticism against the spirit and form of satire; much general literary criticism; and many personal comments by the poet upon his own method and spirit as a satirist. Following is an abstract of the tenth:

Yes, Lucilius _is_ rough--anybody will admit that. I also admit
that he is to be praised for his great wit. But wit of itself does
not constitute great poetry. There must also be polish, variety of
style, sprightliness and versatility. This is what caused the
success of the old Greek comedy. "But," you say, "Lucilius was so
skilled in mingling Latin and Greek." That, I reply, neither
requires any great skill, nor is it a thing to be desired. This
last assertion is at once apparent if you take the discussion into
other fields of literature than poetry. I myself have been warned
by Quirinus not to attempt Greek verse.

I have looked over the literary field and found it occupied by
men who could write better than I in each department--comedy,
tragedy, epic, pastoral. Satire alone promised success to me; but
still I do not profess to excel Lucilius. I freely leave the crown
to him.

But for all that I cannot help seeing his faults which I mentioned
in my former satire--his extreme verbosity and roughness. In
criticizing him I take the same license which he himself used
toward his predecessors, and which he would use now toward his own
extant works were he alive to-day. He surely would be more
careful, and take more pains with his work, if he were now among
us.

And that is just the point. One must write and rewrite, and polish
to the utmost, if he would produce anything worth reading. He must
not be eager to rush into print and cater to the public taste. Let
him be content with the applause of men of culture, and strive to
win that; and let him leave popular favor to men who are
themselves no better than the rabble whom they court.

Few Roman writers are more frankly autobiographical than Horace. His odes, epodes, satires, and epistles are full of his own personality and history. From various references in these poems, we learn that he was born in 65 B. C., in Venusia, a municipal town in Apulia; that his father was a freedman, a small farmer, and debt collector by trade; that he was educated in Rome under his father's personal care; that he finished his education in Athens, where he eagerly imbibed Greek philosophy and literature. But now the long storm of civil war, which had attended the rise of Julius Caesar and the struggle between that leader and Pompey for supremacy, and which had been temporarily allayed by the complete ascendency of Caesar, broke out afresh with renewed violence upon the assassination of the great dictator. The verse of Horace, especially in his odes, is full of the consciousness of this civil strife, and of deep and sincere regret for its consequence to the state.

The young student was just twenty-one years of age when the fall of Caesar startled the world. And when Brutus reached Athens on his way to Macedonia, and called upon the young Romans there to rally to the republic and liberty, the ardent heart of the youthful Horace responded to the summons. He joined the ill-fated army of the liberators, was made a military tribune, and served as such until the disastrous day of Philippi, when Horace's military and political ambition left him forever, together with all hope which he may have cherished of the lost cause. He made his way back to Rome under shelter of the amnesty which the merciful conqueror had granted, and there found himself in an unfortunate plight indeed; for his father was now dead, his modest estate lost, probably swallowed up in the general confiscations, and he himself with neither money, friends, nor occupation. He managed in some way, however, to secure a small clerkship, the income from which served to keep the wolf from his humble door.

But in this obscure, unfriended clerk one was now walking the streets of Rome to whom Rome's proudest and most princely mansions were before many years to open as to a welcome guest. For he carried within him, concealed in a most unpretentious personality, a rich store of education, experience, and genius, which was to prove the open sesame for him to the world's best gifts. To the exercise of this genius he now turned; and the appearance of the earliest of his satires, with perhaps some of his odes and epodes as well, was the result. All these things and much more the poet tells us, frankly giving the whole of his story with neither boasting on the one hand nor false pride on the other.

And now the event occurred which was the first link that bound Horace tangibly to his future greatness--his meeting with the poet Vergil, who was at this time famous and powerful in the friendship of Maecenas, Pollio, and even the emperor himself. This sweet and generous-souled poet, recognizing the kindred spirit of genius in the youthful Horace, straightway admitted him to his own friendship, a friendship which is one of the most charming pictures of that brilliant age, and which was destined to endure unbroken until parted by the death of Vergil himself. It was Vergil who in due time introduced Horace to another friend, a man who was one of the great personages of that age, a leading statesman, a man of letters himself, and a generous patron of letters--Maecenas, under whose sheltering patronage our poet grew and expanded to the full development of those poetic powers which first had brought him recognition.

From this shelter Horace writes a satire addressed to Maecenas, in which he recounts, among other circumstances of his life, the occasion of his introduction to his patron; and takes occasion to answer the envious criticisms which were aimed against him, that he, a mere freedman's son, should be elevated above his betters to this high social position. The theme of this satire, which he sturdily maintains, is, that in social, even if not in political matters, character, not family, should be the standard; or, in the language of another gifted son of poverty:

The rank is but the guinea's stamp;
The man's the gowd for a' that.

We give quotations from this satire in the translation of Francis.

The poet feels justified in addressing it to his patron, because, though Maecenas is of noble birth himself, he does not hold in contempt the worthy of lowly descent. Horace says that it is all very well to deny a man political advancement on the score of low birth; but when it comes to denying social advancement upon this score to a man of worth, that is quite unbearable. Horace cannot rightly be envied or criticized for his friendship with Maecenas, for this came to him purely on his merits and not by chance. A pleasing picture is given of his first introduction to Maecenas, and his final admission to that nobleman's charmed circle of friends.

As for myself, a freedman's son confessed;
A freedman's son, the public scorn and jest,
That now with you I joy the social hour,--
That once a Roman legion owned my power;
But though they envied my command in war
Justly, perhaps, yet sure 'tis different far
To gain your friendship, where no servile art
Where only men of merit claim a part.
Nor yet to chance this happiness I owe;
Friendship like yours it had not to bestow.
First my best Vergil, then my Varius, told
Among my friends what character I hold;
When introduced, in few and faltering words
(Such as an infant modesty affords),
I did not tell you my descent was great,
Or that I wandered round my country seat
On a proud steed in richer pastures bred;
But what I really was I frankly said.
Short was your answer, in your usual strain;
I take my leave, nor wait on you again,
Till, nine months past, engaged and bid to hold
A place among your nearer friends enrolled.
An honor this, methinks, of nobler kind,
That, innocent of heart and pure of mind,
Though with no titled birth, I gained his love,
Whose judgment can discern, whose choice approve.

The poet here pays a glowing tribute of filial affection to his father, to whose faithful care and instruction he owes it that he has been shielded from the grosser sins and defects of character.

If some few venial faults deform my soul
(Like a fair face when spotted with a mole),
If none with avarice justly brand my fame,
With sordidness, or deeds too vile to name;
If pure and innocent, if dear (forgive
These little praises) to my friends I live,
My father was the cause, who, though maintained
By a lean farm but poorly, yet disdained
The country schoolmaster, to whose low care
The mighty captain sent his high-born heir,
With satchel, copy-book, and pelf to pay
The wretched teacher on th' appointed day.
To Rome by this bold father was I brought,
To learn those arts which well-born youth are taught;
So dressed and so attended, you would swear
I was some senator's expensive heir;
Himself my guardian, of unblemished truth,
Among my tutors would attend my youth,
And thus preserved my chastity of mind
(That prime of virtue in its highest kind)
Not only pure from guilt, but even the shame
That might with vile suspicion hurt my fame;
Nor feared to be reproached, although my fate
Should fix my fortune in some meaner state,
From which some trivial perquisites arise,
Or make me, like himself, collector of excise.
For this my heart, far from complaining, pays
A larger debt of gratitude and praise;
Nor, while my senses hold, shall I repent
Of such a father, nor with pride resent,
As many do, th' involuntary disgrace
Not to be born of an illustrious race.
But not with theirs my sentiments agree,
Or language; for if Nature should decree
That we from any stated point might live
Our former years, and to our choice should give
The sires to whom we wished to be allied,
Let others choose to gratify their pride;
While I, contented with my own, resign
The titled honors of an ancient line.

Horace proceeds to draw a strong contrast between the very onerous duties and social obligations which fall to the lot of the high-born, and his own simple, quiet, independent life.

This friendship with Maecenas, of which the preceding satire relates the foundation, began in the year 38 B. C., when Horace was twenty-seven years of age. From this time on the poet received many substantial proofs of his patron's regard for him, the most notable of which was the gift of a farm among the Sabine hills about thirty miles from Rome.

Such a gift meant to Horace freedom from the drudgery of the workaday world, consequent leisure for the development of his literary powers, a proper setting and atmosphere for the rustic moods of his muse; while his intimacy in the palace of Maecenas on the Esquiline gave him standing in the city and ample opportunity for indulging his urban tastes.

Although this gift of the farm and other favors derived from the friendship of Maecenas were so important to Horace as to color all his after life and work, he nowhere manifests the slightest spirit of sycophancy toward his patron. While always grateful, he makes it very clear that the favors of Maecenas cannot be accepted at the price of his own personal independence. Rather than lose this, he would willingly resign all that he has received.

The following satire expresses that deep content which the poet experiences upon his farm, the simple delights which he enjoys there, and, by contrast, some of the amusing as well as annoying incidents of his life in Rome as the favorite of the great minister Maecenas. The satire is in the translation of Sir Theodore Martin.

My prayers with this I used to charge,--
A piece of land not over large,
Wherein there should a garden be,
A clear spring flowing ceaselessly,
And where, to crown the whole, there should
A patch be found of growing wood.
All this and more the gods have sent,
And I am heartily content.
O son of Maia,[B] that I may
These bounties keep is all I pray.
If ne'er by craft or base design
I've swelled what little store is mine,
Nor mean it ever shall be wrecked
By profligacy or neglect;
If never from my lips a word
Shall drop of wishes so absurd
As, "Had I but that little nook,
Next to my land, that spoils its look!"
Or, "Would some lucky chance unfold
A crock to me of hidden gold,
As to the man whom Hercules
Enriched and settled at his ease,
Who, with the treasure he had found,
Bought for himself the very ground
Which he before for hire had tilled!"
If I with gratitude am filled
For what I have--by this I dare
Adjure you to fulfil my prayer,
That you with fatness will endow
My little herd of cattle now,
And all things else their lord may own
Except what wits he has, alone,
And be, as heretofore, my chief
Protector, guardian, and relief!
So, when from town and all its ills
I to my perch among the hills
Retreat, what better theme to choose
Than Satire for my homely muse?
No fell ambition wastes me there,
No, nor the south wind's leaden air,
Nor Autumn's pestilential breath,
With victims feeding hungry death.

[B] Mercury, the god of gain, and protector of poets.

The poet proceeds to contrast with his restful country life the vexatious bustle of the city, and the officious attentions which people thrust upon him because of his supposed influence with Maecenas.

Some chilling news through lane and street
Spreads from the Forum. All I meet
Accost me thus--"Dear friend, you're so
Close to the gods, that you must know;
About the Dacians have you heard
Any fresh tidings?" "Not a word."
"You're always jesting!" "Now may all
The gods confound me, great and small,
If I have heard one word!" "Well, well
But you at any rate can tell
If Caesar means the lands which he
Has promised to his troops shall be
Selected from Italian ground,
Or in Trinacria be found?"
And when I swear, as well I can,
That I know nothing, for a man
Of silence rare and most discreet
They cry me up to all the street.
Thus do my wasted days slip by,
Not without many a wish and sigh:
Oh, when shall I the country see,
Its woodlands green? Oh, when be free,
With books of great old men, and sleep,
And hours of dreamy ease, to creep
Into oblivion sweet of life,
Its agitations and its strife?
When on my table shall be seen
Pythagoras' kinsman bean,
And bacon, not too fat, embellish
My dish of greens, and give it relish?
Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine,
When, with the friends I love, I dine
At mine own hearth-fire, and the meat
We leave gives my bluff hinds a treat!
No stupid laws our feasts control,
But each guest drains or leaves the bowl,
Precisely as he feels inclined.
If he be strong, and have a mind
For bumpers, good! If not, he's free
To sip his liquor leisurely.
And then the talk our banquet rouses!
Not gossip 'bout our neighbors' houses,
But what concerns us nearer, and
Is harmful not to understand;
Whether by wealth or worth, 'tis plain
That men to happiness attain;
By what we're led to choose our friends,--
Regard for them, or our own ends;
In what does good consist, and what
Is the supremest form of that.

At some such informal gathering of neighbors as this the story of the city mouse and the country mouse would be told. The poet's own moral of this homely tale is gathered from the farewell words of the country mouse as he escapes from the splendors--and terrors of the city:

"Ho!" cries the country mouse. "This kind
Of life is not for me, I find.
Give me my woods and cavern. There
At least I'm safe! And though both spare
And poor my food may be, rebel
I never will; so, fare ye well!"

3. AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS

The mantle of the satirist preacher which had fallen from Horace found no worthy claimant for nearly half a century. The successor, and, so far as in him lay, the sincere imitator of Horace, was Aulus Persius Flaccus. His circumstances were as unlike those of his great predecessor as can well be imagined. Horace was the son of a freedman, with no financial or social backing save that which he won by his own genius; Persius was, like Lucilius, of noble equestrian rank, rich, and related by birth to some of the first men of his time. Horace, while he had every opportunity for learning all that books and the schools could teach him, was, as we have already seen, preeminently a student of real life, having been taught by his father to study men as they actually were. Persius, on the other hand, saw little of the world except through the medium of books and teachers. When the future satirist was but six years of age, his father died, and he was brought up chiefly in the society of his mother and sister, carefully shielded from contact with the rough and wicked world. At the age of twelve he was taken from his native Volaterrae in Etruria to Rome, where his formal education was continued in the same careful seclusion until he assumed the toga of manhood. His writings do not, therefore, smack of the street and the world of men as do those of Horace, but they savor of the cloister and the library. Horace preached against the sins of men as he saw them; Persius, as he imagined them and read of them, taking his texts often from the more virile satires of Horace himself. Horace was devoted to no school of philosophy, but accepted what seemed to him best and sanest from all schools, and jeered alike at the follies of all. But Persius was by birth, education, and choice a Stoic. He became an ardent preacher and expounder of the Stoic philosophy, just as Lucretius had thrown his whole heart into expounding the doctrine of Epicurus a hundred years before.

Stoicism, as Tyrrell says, was the "philosophy in which under the Roman Empire the human conscience sought and found an asylum. It had ceased now to be a philosophy, and had become a religion, appealing to the rich and great as Christianity appealed to the poor and humble."