somewhat precarious in the case of an author like Petronius, writing
with great variety of style on a variety of subjects. But there are some
very marked resemblances between certain of these poems and verses
surviving in the excerpts from the Satyricon[332], and the evidence
_against_ the Petronian authorship is of the slightest. A possible
exception may be made in the case of the last eight epigrams preserved
by Binet, though even here Binet is just enough in pointing out the
resemblance of the first two of these to what is admittedly the work of
Petronius. But with regard to the rest we shall run small risk in
regarding them as selected from the lost books of the _Satyricon_.

These poems are very varied in character and as a whole reach a higher
poetical level than most of those preserved in the existing fragments of
the _Satyricon_.[1] The most notable features are simplicity and
unaffected grace of diction coupled with a delicate appreciation of the
beauties of nature. There is nothing that is out of keeping with the
classicism on which we have insisted as a characteristic of Petronius,
there is much that is worthy of the best writers of the Augustan age.
The five lines in which he describes the coming of autumn have much in
common with the descriptions of nature already quoted from the
_Satyricon_. The last line in particular has at once a conciseness and a
wealth of suggestion that is rare in any post-Ovidian poet:

    iam nunc algentes autumnus fecerat umbras
    atque hiemem tepidis spectabat Phoebus habenis,
    iam platanus iactare comas, iam coeperat uvas
    adnumerare suas defecto palmite vitis:
    ante oculos stabat, quidquid promiserat annus.[333]

    Now autumn had brought its cool shades, Phoebus' reins glowed
    less hot and he was looking winterward. The plane was beginning
    to shed her leaves, the vine to count its clusters, and its
    fresh shoots were withered. Before our eyes stood all the
    promise of the year.

Equally charming and sincere in tone is the description of the delights
of the simple life:

    parvula securo tegitur mihi culmine sedes
    uvaque plena mero fecunda pendet ab ulmo.
    dant rami cerasos, dant mala rubentia silvae
    Palladiumque nemus pingui se vertice frangit.
    iam qua diductos potat levis area fontes,
    Corycium mihi surgit olus malvaeque supinae
    et non sollicitos missura papavera somnos.
    praeterea sive alitibus contexere fraudem
    seu magis inbelles libuit circumdare cervos
    aut tereti lino pavidum subducere piscem,
    hos tantum novere dolos mea sordida rura.
    i nunc et vitae fugientis tempora vende
    divitibus cenis! me qui manet exitus olim,
    hic precor inveniat consumptaque tempora poscat.[334]

    My cottage is sheltered by a roof that fears no ill; the
    grape, bursting with wine, hangs from the fertile elm;
    cherries hang by the bough and my orchard yields its rosy
    apples, and the tree that Pallas loves breaks beneath the
    rich burden of its branches. And now, where the garden bed's
    light soil drinks in the runnels of water, rises for me
    Corycian kale and low-growing mallow, and the poppy that grants
    easy slumber. Moreover, whether 'tis my pleasure to set snares
    for birds or hem in the timid deer, or on fine-meshed net to
    draw up the affrighted fish, this is all the guile known to my
    humble lands. Go to, now, and waste the flying hours of life
    on sumptuous feasts! I pray, that my destined end may find me
    here, and here demand an account of the days I have lived.

These lines may be no more than an academic exercise on a commonplace
theme, but there can be no doubt of their artistic success. We find the
same simplicity in Columella, but not the same art. Compare them with
the work of Petronius' contemporary, Calpurnius Siculus, and there is
all the difference between true poetry and mere poetising. More
passionate and more convincing is the elegiac poem celebrating the
poet's return to the scene of former happiness:

    o litus vita mihi dulcius, o mare! felix,
      cui licet ad terras ire subinde tuas!
    o formosa dies! hoc quondam rure solebam
      naidas alterna[335] sollicitare manu.
    hic fontis lacus est, illic sinus egerit algas:
      haec statio est tacitis fida cupidinibus.
    pervixi; neque enim fortuna malignior umquam
      eripiet nobis, quod prior aura dedit.[336]

    O shore, O sea, that I love more than life! Happy is he
    that may straightway visit the lands ye border. O fairest
    day! 'Twas here that once I was wont to swim and vex the
    sea-nymphs with my hands' alternate strokes. Here is a
    stream's deep pool, there the bay casts up its seaweed: here
    is a spot that can faithfully guard the secret of one's love.
    I have lived my life to the full; nor can grudging fortune
    ever rob me of that which her favouring breeze once gave me.

But Petronius can attain to equal success in other veins. Now we have a
fragment in the epic style containing a simile at once original and
beautiful:

    haec ait et tremulo deduxit vertice canos
    consecuitque genas; oculis nec defuit imber,
    sed qualis rapitur per vallis improbus amnis,
    cum gelidae periere nives et languidus auster
    non patitur glaciem resoluta vivere terra,
    gurgite sic pleno facies manavit et alto
    insonuit gemitu turbato murmure pectus.[337]

    He spake, and rent the white hair on his trembling head
    and tore his cheeks, and his eyes streamed with a flood of
    tears. As when a resistless river sweeps down the valley
    when the chill snows have melted and the languid south wind
    thaws the earth and suffers not the ice to remain, even so
    his face streamed with a torrent of weeping and his breast
    groaned loud with a confused murmur of sorrow.

Elsewhere we find him writing in satirical vein of the origin of
religion,[338] on the decay of virtue,[339] on the hardship of the
married state[340]:

    'uxor legis onus, debet quasi census amari.'
    nec censum vellem semper amare meum.

    'One should love one's wife as one loves one's fortune.'
    Nay, I desire not always to love even my fortune.

But it is in a love-poem that he reaches his highest achievement:

    lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis
      carpebam et somno lumina victa dabam:
    cum me saevus Amor prensat sursumque capillis
      excitat et lacerum pervigilare iubet.
    'tu famulus meus,' inquit, 'ames cum mille puellas,
      solus, io, solus, dure, iacere potes?'
    exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta
      omne iter incipio, nullum iter expedio.
    nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire
      paenitet et pudor est stare via media.
    ecce tacent voces hominum strepitusque viarum
      et volucrum cantus turbaque fida canum:
    solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque
      et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.[341]

    I lay on my bed and began to enjoy the silence of the night
    scarce yet begun, and was yielding my wearied eyes to sleep,
    when fierce Love laid hold of me, and, seizing me by the
    hair, aroused me, tore me, and bade me wake. 'Canst thou, my
    servant,' he cried, 'the lover of a thousand girls, lie thus
    alone, alone, hard-hearted?' I leapt from my couch, and
    barefoot, with dishevelled robe, started on my errand, yet
    never accomplished it. Now I hurry forward, now am loth to go;
    now repent me that I have returned, and feel shame to stand
    thus aimless in mid-street. So the voices of men, the murmur
    of the streets, the song of birds, and the trusty watchdogs
    all are silent; and I alone dread the slumbers of my couch and
    follow thy behest, great god of love.

If this is not great poetry, it is at least one of the most perfect
specimens of conventional erotic verse in all ancient literature. If we
except a very few of the best poems of Propertius, Latin Elegiacs have
nothing to show that combines such perfection of form with such
exquisite sensuous charm. It breathes the fragrance of the Greek
anthology.

The general impression left by the poetical work of Petronius is
curiously unlike that left by any Latin poet. Sometimes dull, he is
never eccentric; without the originality of the greatest artists, he has
all the artist's sensibility for form. He writes not as one inspired,
but as one steeped in the best literature. Many were greater stylists,
but few were endowed with such an exquisite sense of style. As a poet he
is a _dilettante_, and his claim to greatness lies in the brilliant and
audacious humour of his 'picaresque novel'. But his verse at its best
has a charm and fragrance of its own that is almost unique in Latin, and
reveals a combination of grace and facility, to find a parallel for
which among writers of the post-Augustan age we must turn to the pages
of Martial.

CHAPTER VI

MINOR POETRY, 14-70 A.D.

DIDACTIC POETRY

Only two didactic poems of this period have survived, the poem of
Columella on gardening, and the anonymous work on Mount Etna, setting
forth a theory of volcanic action.

i

THE 'AETNA'

The _Aetna_ is a hexameter poem, 646 lines in length. The author laments
the indifference shown by poets to the natural phenomena of his day.
They waste their time on the description of the marvels of art, the
spectacular side of human civilization, and the surface-beauties of
Nature.[342] They write trivial epics on the voyage of Argo, the sack of
Troy, Niobe, Thyestes, Cadmus, Ariadne, the Battle of the Giants[343].
They tell of the terrors of the underworld[344], and the loves of the
gods[345]: they seek the false rather than the true, they neglect the
genuine wonders of Nature, the laws that govern heavenly and terrestrial
phenomena.

He will be wiser. But there is no need to travel far. He will not soar
skyward to treat of the stars in their courses, of the seasons and signs
of the weather, to the neglect of the marvels of mother earth.[346] The
greatest of miracles is close at hand, Etna, the home of eternal fire.
Deep in the heart of earth dwell two irresistible forces, wind and
fire.[347] It is their conflict that causes the outbursts of flame and
molten rock that devastate the slopes of Etna. It is no smithy of the
gods, no Titan's prison. The causes are natural, water and wind and
fire. He has seen Etna; he describes the crater,[348] the volcanic rock
that can imprison fire,[349] the clouds that continually veil the
mountain's crest,[350] the flames that burst from its summit, the
subterranean rumblings,[351] the terrors of the lava stream. He
concludes with the touching story of the Catanian brothers who,
neglecting all else, sought only to save their aged parents from the
flames. Their piety had its reward; they, and they alone, escaped from
the lava; their neighbours, who sought to save their chattels and their
wealth, perished in the stream, encumbered by their belongings.

Of the poet's theory of volcanic action we need not speak; it was the
current scientific theory of the day, and has no value for us; nor has
the author any claim to originality. As to the style and composition of
the work, brief comment will suffice. We may give the author credit for
a real enthusiasm, and for a just contempt of the prevailing themes that
engaged the attention of the minor poets of the day. But he has no gifts
for poetry. His theme, although it gave considerable opportunities for
episodic display, was one of great difficulty. Much dry scientific
detail was necessarily required. If Lucretius is sometimes tedious and
prosaic in spite of the vastness of his theme, the magnificence of his
moral background, and his inspired enthusiasm, what can be expected of a
poem on a minor scientific theme such as Etna? Volcanoes can hardly
compete with the universe as a theme for poetry. The subject is one that
might have fascinated an Alexandrian poet and found skilful treatment at
his hands. But the author of the _Aetna_ had not the stylistic gifts of
the Alexandrian. The actual arrangement of his matter is good, but, even
when due allowance is made for the corruption of our text, his obscurity
is intolerable, his imagery confused, his language cumbrous and wooden.
He has, moreover, no poetic imagination. _Aetna_, not the poet, provides
the fire. Even the beautiful story of the Catanian brothers, which forms
by far the best portion of the poem, never rises to the level of pure
poetry. It is illumined neither by the fire of rhetoric nor by the
lambent light of sensuous diction and rich imagination. A few lines may
be quoted to show its general character (605):

    Nam quondam ruptis excanduit Aetna cavernis,
    et velut eversis penitus fornacibus ingens
    evecta in longum est rapidis fervoribus unda.
    ardebant agris segetes et mollia cultu
    iugera cum dominis, silvae collesque rubebant.
    tum vero ut cuique est animus viresque rapinae
    tutari conantur opes, gemit ille sub auro,
    colligit ille arma et stulta cervice reponit,
    defectum raptis illum sua carmina tardant,
    hic velox minimo properat sub pondere pauper.
    ... haec nullis parsura incendia pascunt,
    vel solis parsura piis. namque optima proles
    Amphinomus fraterque pari sub munere fortes,
    cum iam vicinis streperent incendia tectis,
    aspiciunt pigrumque patrem matremque senecta
    eheu defessos posuisse in limine membra,
    parcite, avara manus, dulces attollere praedas:
    illis divitiae solae materque paterque:
    hanc rapient praedam. mediumque exire per ignem
    ipso dante fidem properant. o maxima rerum
    et merito pietas homini tutissima virtus!
    erubuere pios iuvenes attingere flammae
    et, quacumque ferunt illi vestigia, cedunt
    felix illa dies, illa est innoxia terra.
    dextra saeva tenent, laevaque incendia fervent;
    ille per obliquos ignes fraterque triumphant
    tutus uterque pio sub pondere: suffugit illa
    et circa geminos avidus sibi temperat ignis,
    incolumes abeunt tandem et sua numina secum
    salva ferunt. illos mirantur carmina vatum,
    illos seposuit claro sub nomine Ditis
    nec sanctos iuvenes attingunt sordida fata,
    securas cessere domus et iura piorum.

    For once Etna burst its caves and, glowing with fire, cast
    forth all that its furnaces contained; a vast wave, swift and
    hot with fire, streamed forth afar.... Crops blazed along the
    fields, rich acres with their masters were consumed, forest and
    hill glowed rosy red.... Then each man, as he had courage and
    strength to bear away his goods, strove to protect his wealth.
    One groans beneath a weight of gold, another collects his weapons
    and slings them on his foolish neck. Another, unable to carry away
    what he has snatched up, wastes time in repeating charms, while
    there the poor man moves swift beneath his slender burden.... The
    fire feeds on all it meets: nought will it spare, or, if aught it
    spares, only the pious. For Amphinomus and his brother, the best of
    sons, brave in the toil they shared, when the fires roared loud and
    were already nigh their home, behold their father and their mother
    fall fainting on the threshold fordone with years. Cease, greedy
    folk, to shoulder the spoil of your fortunes that are so dear to
    you: for these men father and mother are their sole wealth; this
    only is the spoil that they would save. They hasten to escape
    through the midst of the fire, which itself gave them confidence.
    O piety, greatest of all that man may possess, of all virtues that
    which most saves the righteous. The flames blushed to touch the
    pious youths, and yield a path wherever they turn their steps.
    Blest was that day; the ground they trod was unharmed. The fierce
    burning holds all things on their right and blazes on their left.
    The brethren move triumphant on their path aslant the flame, each
    saved by his pious burden: the fire shuns their path and restrains
    its greedy hunger where pass the twain; scatheless they escape at
    length and bear those whom they worship to a place of safety. The
    songs of poets hymn their praise and the underworld gives them a
    glorious resting-place apart, nor does any unworthy fate befall
    these youths that lived so holy. They have passed away to dwell
    among the blessed, and sorrow cometh not nigh their dwelling-place.

The narrative is clear, and the story delightful. But the telling of it,
though free from affectation, is dull, prosaic, and uninspired. And it
must be remembered that this passage shows the author in his most
favourable aspect. In his more technical passages the clearness and
simplicity is absent, the prosiness and lack of imagination remain,
nakedly hideous.

The author of the poem is unknown, the very date is uncertain. The
conception of the work is Lucretian, but in point of style, while full
of reminiscences of Lucretius, the poem owes most to Vergil, whose
hexameter has undoubtedly been taken for a model, though it has lost all
its music. Except in the avoidance of elision there is no trace of the
influence of Ovid. The poem might easily have been written in the latter
half of the reign of Augustus.[352] The obscurity is due to the lack,
not the excess of art, and the poem has no special affinity with the
Silver Age. Servius and Donatus, indeed, both seem to ascribe the poem
to Vergil,[353] while it is found in the MSS. which give us the
_Appendix Vergiliana_. But there are considerations which have inclined
editors to place it later, in the reign of Nero, or in the opening years
of the principate of Vespasian. In one of his letters (Sen. 79) Seneca,
writing to his friend Lucilius Junior, urges him to 'describe Etna in
his poem, and by so doing treat a topic common to all poets'. The fact
that Vergil had already treated it was no obstacle to Ovid's essaying
the task, nor was Cornelius Severus deterred by the fact that both
Vergil and Ovid had handled the theme. Later he adds, 'If I know you
aright, the subject of Aetna will make your mouth water.' Lucilius was
procurator in Sicily, and had sung the story of the Syracusan nymph
Arethusa.[354] It has been suggested that he[355] wrote the _Aetna_. But
Lucilius was an imitator of Ovid,[356] and Seneca advises him _not_ to
write a didactic poem on Etna, but to treat it episodically (_in suo
carmine_), as Vergil and Ovid[357] had done. It is conceivable that he
may have written a didactic poem on the subject, but Seneca's remarks
yield absolutely no evidence for the fact.

Others have made Cornelius Severus the author,[358] though it is
practically certain that his description of the volcano must have
occurred in his poem _On the Sicilian War_.[359] But the fact that
Seneca makes no reference to the existence of any learned didactic poem
on the subject carries a little more weight, and there are marked
parallels between Seneca's 'quaestiones Naturales' and passages in the
_Aetna_.[360] Further, the very badness of the poem makes us hesitate to
place it in the Augustan period. That age, no doubt, produced much bad
work as well as good, but a poem so obscure and inartistically prosaic
as the _Aetna_ was more likely to be produced and more likely to survive
in an imitative and uninspired age such as that which followed on the
death of Augustus. But for the evidence of Seneca we should place the
poem in the prosaic reign of Tiberius; the considerations adduced from
Seneca lead us, though with the utmost hesitation, to place it somewhere
between 57 and 79 A.D.[361] Of the lower limit there can be no doubt.
The fires of the Phlegraean plains are extinct,[362] therefore the poem
was composed before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.[363] The
question of the authorship of the _Aetna_ has necessarily been treated
at greater length than the merits of the poem deserve. It is a work of
small importance; its chief value is to show how low it was possible for
Roman didactic poetry to sink. In the _Aetna_ it sinks lower than epic
in the _Punica_ of Silius Italicus. That poem, for all its portentous
dullness, shows a certain ponderous technical skill and literary
facility. The author of the _Aetna_, though clearly a man of culture, is
never at his ease, the verse is laboured and lacking flexibility, and
there is no technical dexterity to compensate for a total absence of
genius. The terror and beauty of the mountain crowned with snow and fire
find no adequate expression in these monotonous lines. There remains a
conglomerate of unoriginal and unsound physical speculation.

ii

COLUMELLA

The _Aetna_ is a Lucretian poem decked out in a Vergilian dress. In the
tenth book of Columella we have a didactic poem modelled on the
_Georgics_ of Vergil. The author was of Spanish origin, a native of
Gades,[364] and the contemporary of his great compatriot the younger
Seneca.[365] He had served in a military capacity in Syria,[366] but his
real passion was agriculture. His ambition was to write a really
practical farmers' manual.[367] He had written nine books in prose,
covering the whole range of farming, from the tillage of the soil to the
breeding of poultry and cattle, and concluding with a disquisition on
wild animals and bee-keeping. But in the tenth book, yielding to the
solicitation of his friend Publius Silvinus,[368] he set himself a more
exalted task, no less than the writing of a fifth Georgic on gardening.
Vergil, in his fourth Georgic (148), had left the theme of gardens for
another's singing. Columella takes him at his word. The tenth book is
manifestly intended as the crown and conclusion of his work. But later
he changed his plan. Another friend, Claudius Augustalis,[369] demanded
a paraphrase, or rather an amplification in prose. This resulted in an
eleventh book, in which the care of the garden and the duties of the
_villicus_ are described, while the work was finally concluded in a
twelfth book setting forth the duties of the _villica_.[370]

It may be doubted whether Columella was well advised when he yielded to
the entreaties of his friend Silvinus and wrote his tenth book in
verse. He had no great poetic talent, nor did he possess the sleight of
hand of Calpurnius, the imitator of the _Eclogues_. But he possesses
qualities which render his work far more attractive than that of
Calpurnius. He is a genuine enthusiast, with a real love of the
countryside and a charming affection for flowers. And as a stylist he
is modest. He makes no attempt at display, no contorted striving after
originality. His verse is clear and simple as his tastes. He is content
to follow humbly in the footsteps of his great master, the 'starry'
Vergil.[371] He imitates and even plagiarizes[372] because he loves,
not because it is the fashion. He shows no appreciation of the more
intimate harmonies of the Vergilian hexameter; like so many
contemporaries, he realizes neither the value of judicious elision nor
varied pauses; but his verse, in spite of its monotony and lack of life
and movement, is not unmelodious. The poem is a sober work, uninspired
in tone, straightforward and simple in plan. It need not be described
in detail; its advice is obvious, setting forth the times and seasons
to be observed by the gardener, the methods of preparing the soil, the
choice of flowers, with all the customary mythological allusions.[373]
At its worst, with its tedious lists of the names of flowers, it reads
like a seedsman's catalogue,[374] at its best it is lit up with a
quaint humour, a love of colour, and a homely yet vivid imagination.
Mother earth--'sweet earth' he calls her--is highly personified; that
she may be adorned anew, her green locks must be torn from their tangle
by the plough, her old raiment stripped from her, her thirst quenched
by irrigation, her hunger satisfied with fertilizing manure.[375] The
garden is to be no rich man's park for the display of statues and
fountains. Its one statue shall be the image of the garden god, its
patron and its protector.[376] Its splendour shall be the varied hue of
its flower-beds and its wealth in herbs that serve the use of man:

    verum ubi iam puro discrimine pectita tellus
    deposito squalore nitens sua semina poscet,
    pingite tunc varios, terrestria sidera, flores,
    candida leucoia et flaventia lumina caltae
    narcissique comas et hiantis saeva leonis
    ora feri calathisque virentia lilia canis,
    nec non vel niveos vel caeruleos hyacinthos,
    tum quae pallet humi, quae frondens purpurat auro,
    ponatur viola et nimium rosa plena pudoris (94).

    But when earth, with parted locks combed clear, gleams, all
    soilure cast aside, and demands the seeds that are her due,
    call forth the varied hues of flowers, earth's constellations,
    the white snowflake and the marigold's golden eyes, the
    narcissus-petals and the blossom that apes the fierce lion's
    gaping maw; the lily, too, with calix shining white amid its
    green leaves, the hyacinths white and blue; plant also the
    violet lying pale upon the ground or purple shot with gold
    among its leafage, and the rose with its deep shamefaced blush.

He loves the return of spring with as deep a love as Vergil's, though he
must borrow Vergil's language to describe its coming and its power.[377]
But his painting of its harvest of colour is his own:

    quin et odoratis messis iam floribus instat:
    iam ver purpureum, iam versicoloribus anni
    fetibus alma parens pingi sua tempora gaudet.
    iam Phrygiae loti gemmantia lumina promunt
    et coniventis oculos violaria solvunt (255).

    Nay, more, the harvest-time draws near for sweet-scented
    flowers. The purple spring has come, and kindly mother
    earth rejoices that her brows are painted bright with all
    the many-coloured offspring of the year. Now the Phrygian
    lotus puts forth its jewelled orbs and the violet beds
    open their winking eyes.

All the glories of an Italian spring are in the lines in which a little
later he describes the joy of living when the year is young, and the
wasting heat of summer is still far off, when it is sweet to be in the
sun and watch the garden with its rainbow colours:

    nunc ver egelidum, nunc est mollissimus annus,
    dum Phoebus tener ac tenera decumbere in herba
    suadet et arguto fugientes gramine fontes
    nec rigidos potare iuvat nec sole tepentes,
    iamque Dionaeis redimitur floribus hortus,
    iam rosa mitescit Sarrano clarior ostro.
    nec tam nubifugo Borea Latonia Phoebe
    purpureo radiat vultu, nec Sirius ardor
    sic micat aut rutilus Pyrois aut ore corusco
    Hesperus, Eoo remeat cum Lucifer ortu,
    nec tam sidereo fulget Thaumantias arcu
    quam nitidis hilares conlucent fetibus horti (282).

    Now cool spring is come, the gentlest season of the year,
    while Phoebus yet is young and bids us recline in the young
    herbage, and 'tis sweet to drink the rill that flows among
    the murmuring grass, with waters neither icy cold nor warm
    with the sun's heat. Now, too, the garden is crowned with the
    flowers Dione loves, and the rose ripens brighter than Tyrian
    purple. Not so brightly does Phoebe, Leto's daughter, shine
    with radiant face when Boreas has dispersed the clouds, nor
    glows hot Sirius so, nor ruddy Pyrois, nor Hesperus with
    shining countenance when he returns as the daystar at the
    break of dawn, not so fair gleams Iris with her starry
    bow, as shines the joyous garden with its bright offspring.

These are the words of an enthusiast and a poet, and these few
outbursts of song redeem the poem from dullness. There is wafted from
his pages the perfume of the countryside, and the fresh air breathes
welcome amid the hothouse cultures of contemporary poets. And he is
almost the only poet of the age that can be read without a wince of
pain. He is at least as good a laureate of the garden as Thomson of the
seasons, and he has all the grace of humility. Even when the artist
fails us, we love the man.

II

CALPURNIUS SICULUS. THE EINSIEDELN FRAGMENTS AND THE 'PANEGYRICUS
IN PISONEM'

It may be said of pastoral poetry, without undue disrespect, that it is
the most artificial and the least in touch with reality of all the more
important forms of poetic art. Even in the hands of a master like
Theocritus, invested as it is with an incomparable charm, and
distinguished in many respects by an astonishing truth and fidelity, it
is never other than highly artificial. For its birth an age was required
in which the class whence the majority of poets and their audience are
drawn had largely lost touch with country life, or had at any rate
developed ideals that can only spring up in town society. This does not
imply that men have ceased altogether to appreciate the value of the
country life or the beauty of country surroundings, only that they have
lost much of their understanding of them; and so their appreciation
takes new forms. They love the country as a half-forgotten paradise,
they fly back to it as a refuge from the artificiality of town life, but
they take much of that artificiality with them. From the time of
Theocritus pastoral poetry pure and simple has steadily declined. Great
poems have been written with exquisite pastoral elements or even cast in
pastoral form. But they have never owed their greatness entirely, or
even chiefly, to the pastoral element. That element has merely provided
a charming setting for scenes or thoughts that have nothing genuinely
pastoral about them.

Of the small amount of pastoral poetry extant in Latin it need hardly be
said that the _Bucolica_ of Vergil stand in a class by themselves. And
yet for all their beauty they are unsatisfactory to those who know and
love Theocritus. Their charm is undeniable, but they are immature and
too obviously imitative. But Vergil was at least country-born and had a
deep sympathy for country life. When we come to the scanty relics of his
successors and imitators we are conscious of a lamentable falling away.
If Vergil's imitations of Theocritus fail to ring as true as their
original, what shall be said of the imitators of Vergil's imitations?
Even if they had been true poets, their verse must have rung false. But
the poets with whom we have to deal, Calpurnius Siculus and the
anonymous author of two poems known as the Einsiedeln fragments, were
not genuine poets. They had little of the intimacy with nature and
unsophisticated man that was demanded by their self-chosen task. That
they possessed some real affection for the country is doubtless true,
but it was not the prime inspiration of their verse. They had the
ambition to write poetry rather than the call; a slight bent towards the
country, heightened by a vague dissatisfaction and weariness with the
artificial luxury of Rome, led them to choose pastoral poetry. They make
up for depth of observation by a shallow minuteness. In the seven
eclogues of Calpurnius may be found a larger assortment of vegetables,
of agricultural implements and operations, than in the _Bucolics_ of
Vergil, but there is little poetry, pastoral or otherwise. The 'grace of
all the Muses' and the breath of the country are fled for ever; the
dexterous phrasing of a laborious copyist reigns in their stead.

Of the life of Calpurnius Siculus nothing is known and but little can be
conjectured. Of his date there can be little doubt. We learn from the
evidence of the poems themselves that they were written in the
principate of a youthful Caesar (i. 44; iv. 85, 137; vii. 6), beautiful
to look upon (vii. 84), the giver of splendid games (vii. 44), the
inaugurator of an age of peace, liberty and plenty (i. 42-88; iv
_passim_). This points strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The
young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of
his reign (_quinquennium Neronis_) were famous for good government and
prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which
clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the
autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed
shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., while the line

    maternis causam qui vicit Iulis (i. 45)

seems clearly to refer to the speech delivered by the young Nero for the
people of Ilium,[378] from whom the Iuli, Nero's ancestors on the
mother's side, claimed to trace their descent. It may therefore safely
be assumed that the poems were written early in the reign of Nero. A
most ingenious attempt has been made to throw some light on the identity
of their author.[379] He speaks of himself as Corydon, and he has a
patron whom he styles Meliboeus. He prays that Meliboeus may bring him
before Caesar's notice as Pollio brought Vergil (iv. 157 sqq.; also i.
94). It has been suggested with some plausibility that Meliboeus is no
other than C. Calpurnius Piso, the distinguished noble round whom in 65
A.D. centred the great conspiracy against Nero. The evidence rests on
the existence of a poem entitled _panegyricus in Pisonem_,[380] in which
a nameless poet seeks by his laudations to win Piso for a patron. The
style of the poem has a marked resemblance to that of Calpurnius. If, as
is possible, it should be assigned to his authorship, it becomes fairly
certain that he was a dependent of Piso, and the name Calpurnius would
suggest that he may have been the son of one of his freedmen.

The eclogues of Calpurnius are seven in number.[381] The first is in
praise of the Golden Age, with special reference to the advent of the
young princeps. Though given a different setting it is clearly modelled
on the fourth eclogue of Vergil. The second, describing a contest of
song between two shepherds before a third as judge, follows Vergil even
more closely.[382] Parallels might be further elaborated, but it is
sufficient to say here that only two of the poems show any originality,
namely, the fifth and the seventh. In the former we have the advice
given by an aged farmer to his son, to whom he is handing over his farm.
It is inclined to be prosy, but is simple and pleasing in tone, and the
old countryman may be forgiven if he sometimes seems to be quoting the
Georgics. The seventh is a more ambitious effort. A rustic describes the
great games that he has seen given in the amphitheatre at Rome. The
language, though characteristically decadent in its elaboration, shows
considerable originality. The amphitheatre is, for instance, thus
described (vii. 30):

    qualiter haec patulum concedit vallis in orbem
    et sinuata latus resupinis undique silvis
    inter continuos curvatur concava montes,
    sic ibi planitiem curvae sinus ambit arenae
    et geminis medium se molibus alligat ovum.
    balteus en gemmis, en illita porticus auro
    certatim radiant; nec non, ubi finis arenae
    proxima marmoreo praebet spectacula muro,
    sternitur adiunctis ebur admirabile truncis
    et coit in rotulum, tereti qui lubricus axe
    impositos subita vertigine falleret ungues
    excuteretque feras. auro quoque torta refulgent
    retia, quae totis in arenam dentibus extant,
    dentibus aequatis: et erat (mihi crede, Lycota,
    si qua fides) nostro dens longior omnis aratro.

    Even as this vale rounds to a wide circle, and with
    bending sides and slanting woods on every side makes
    a curved hollow amid the unbroken hills, so there the
    circle of the curving arena surrounds its level plain
    and locks either side of its towering structure into
    an oval about itself.... See how the gangway's parapet
    studded with gems and the colonnade plated with gold
    vie with each other's brightness; nay more, where the
    arena's bound sets forth its shows close to the marble
    wall, ivory is overlaid in wondrous wise on jointed beams
    and is bent into a cylinder, which, turning nimbly on its
    trim axle, may cheat with sudden whirl the wild beast's
    claws and cast them from it. Nets, too, of twisted gold
    gleam forth, hung out into the arena on tusks in all their
    length and of equal size, and--believe me, Lycotas, if you
    can--each tusk was longer than our ploughshare.

In its defence it may be urged that the very nature of the subject
demands elaboration, and that the resulting picture has the merit of
being vivid despite its elaborate ingenuity. It is in this poem that
Calpurnius is seen at his best. Elsewhere his love for minute and
elaborate description is merely wearisome. It would be hard, for
instance, to find a more tiresomely circuitous method of claiming to be
an authority on sheep-breeding than (ii. 36)--

    me docet ipsa Pales cultum gregis, ut niger albae
    terga maritus ovis nascenti mutet in agna
    quae neque diversi speciem servare parentis
    possit et ambiguo testetur utrumque colore.

    Pales herself teaches me how to breed my flocks and tells
    me how the black ram transforms the fleece of the white
    ewe in the lamb that comes to birth, that cannot reproduce
    the colour of its sire, so different from that of its dam,
    and by its ambiguous hue testifies to either parent.

It is difficult to give a poetic description of the act of
rumination, but

    et matutinas revocat palearibus herbas (iii. 17)

    And recalls to its dewlaps the grass of its morning's meal.

is needlessly grotesque. And the vain struggle to give life to old and
outworn themes leads to laboured lines such as (iii. 48)--

    non sic destricta marcescit turdus oliva,
    non lepus extremas legulus cum sustulit uvas,
    ut Lycidas domina sine Phyllide tabidus erro.

    Not so does the thrush pine when the olives are plucked,
    not so does the hare pine when the vintager has gathered
    the last grapes, as I, Lycidas, droop while I roam apart
    from my mistress Phyllis.

Calpurnius yields little to compensate for such defects. He meanders on
through hackneyed pastoral landscapes haunted by hackneyed shepherds. It
is only on rare occasions that a refreshing glimmer of poetry revives
the reader. In lines such as (ii. 56)--

                          si quis mea vota deorum
    audiat, huic soli, virides qua gemmeus undas
    fons agit et tremulo percurrit lilia rivo
    inter pampineas ponetur faginus ulmos;

    If any of the gods hear my prayer, to his honour, and his
    alone, shall his beechwood statue be planted amid my
    vine-clad elms, where the jewelled stream rolls its green
    wave and with rippling water runs through the lilies.

or, in the pleasant description of the return of spring (v. 16),

              vere novo, cum iam tinnire volueres
    incipient nidosque reversa lutabit hirundo,
    protinus hiberno pecus omne movebis ovili.
    tune etenim melior vernanti germine silva
    pullat et aestivas reparabilis incohat umbras,
    tune florent saltus viridisque renascitur annus,[383]

    When spring is young and the birds begin to pipe once more,
    and the swallow returns to plaster its nest anew, then move
    all your flock from its winter fold. For then the wood sprouts
    in fresh glory with its spring shoots and builds anew the
    shades of summer, then all the glades are bright with flowers
    and the green year is born again.

we seem to catch a glimpse of the real countryside; but for the most
part Calpurnius paints little save theatrical and _maniéré_ miniatures.
Of such a character is the clever and not unpleasing description of the
tame stag in the sixth eclogue (30). He shows a pretty fancy and no
more.

The metre is like the language, easy, graceful, and correct. But the
pauses are poorly managed; the rhythm is unduly dactylic; the verse
trips all too lightly and becomes monotonous.

The total impression that we receive from these poems is one of
insignificance and triviality. The style is perhaps less rhetorical and
obscure than that of most writers of the age; as a result, these poems
lack what is often the one saving grace of Silver Latin poetry, its
extreme cleverness. To find verse as dull and uninspired, we must turn
to Silius Italicus or the _Aetna_.

The two short poems contained in a MS. at Einsiedeln and distinguished
by the name of their place of provenance are also productions of the
Neronian age. The first, in the course of a contest of song between
Thamyras and Ladas, with a third shepherd, Midas, as arbiter, sets
forth the surpassing skill of Nero as a performer on the _cithara_.[384]
The second celebrates the return of the Golden Age to the world now
under the beneficent guidance of Nero. Neither poem possesses the
slightest literary importance; both are polished but utterly insipid
examples of foolish court flattery. The author is unknown. An ingenious
suggestion[385] has been made that he is no other than Calpurnius Piso,
the supposed Meliboeus of Calpurnius Siculus. The second of these
eclogues begins, 'Quid tacitus, Mystes?' The fourth eclogue of
Calpurnius Siculus begins (Meliboeus loquitur), 'Quid tacitus, Corydon?'
Is Meliboeus speaking in person and quoting his own poem? It may be so,
but the evidence is obviously not such as to permit any feeling of
certainty.

But it is at least probable that the poet had access to the court and had
been praised by Nero. Such is the most plausible interpretation of a
passage in the first eclogue, where Ladas, in answer to Thamyras, who
claims the prize on the ground that his song shall be of Caesar, replies
(16, 17):

    et me sidereo respexit Cynthius ore
    laudatamque chelyn iussit variare canendo.[386]

    On me, too, has the Cynthian god cast his starry glance and
    bidden me accompany the lyre he praised with diverse song.

Whether the author be Piso or another, the poems do him small credit.

The _Panegyricus in Pisonem_ remains to be considered. Attributed to
Vergil by one MS.,[387] to Lucan by another,[388] the poem is certainly
by neither. Quite apart from stylistic evidence, which is convincing
against its attribution to Lucan, it is almost certain that the name of
Lucan has been wrongly inserted for that of Vergil. That it is not by
Vergil would be clear from the very inferior nature of the verse, but it
can further be shown that the Piso addressed is the Calpurnius Piso of
the reigns of Claudius and Nero to whom we have alluded above. If the
account of Piso given by Tacitus be compared with the characteristics
described in the _Panegyricus_, it will be found that both alike refer
in strong terms to his eloquence in the law courts so readily exercised
in defence of accused persons, and also to his affability and capacity
for friendship.[389] Further, we have the evidence of a scholium on
Juvenal as to his skill in the game of draughts.[390] He played so well
that crowds would throng to see him. One of the chief points mentioned
in the _Panegyricus_ is the skill of Piso at the same game.[391] Nor is
it a mere casual allusion; on the contrary, the writer treats this
portion of his eulogy with even greater elaboration than the rest. There
can, therefore, be little doubt as to the date of the poem. It is
addressed to Calpurnius Piso after his rise to fame (i.e. during the
latter portion of the principate of Claudius, or during the earlier part
of the reign of Nero). The poet prays that Piso may be to him what
Maecenas was to Vergil. It is hardly possible for a poem of this type to
possess any real interest for others than the recipient of the flattery
and its author. But in this case the poet has done his work well. The
flattery never becomes outrageous and is expressed in easy flowing verse
and graceful diction. At times the language is genuinely felicitous. Any
great man might be proud to receive such a tribute as (129)--

                                   tu mitis et acri
    asperitate carens positoque per omnia fastu
    inter ut aequales unus numeraris amicos,
    obsequiumque doces et amorem quaeris amando.

    Mild is thy temper and free from sharp harshness. Thou
    layest aside thy pride in thy every act, and among thy
    friends thou art counted a friend and equal, thou teachest
    men to follow thee and seekest to be loved by loving.

There is, moreover, little straining after effect and little real
obscurity. The difficulties of the description of Piso's
draught-playing are due to our ignorance of the exact nature of the
game.[392] The actual language is at least as lucid as Pope's famous
description of the game of ombre in _The Rape of the Lock_. The verse
is of the usual post-Augustan type, showing strongly the primary
influence of Vergil modified by the secondary influence of Ovid. It is
light and easy and not ill-suited to its subject. It has distinct
affinities, both in metre and diction, with the verse of Calpurnius
Siculus, and may be by the same hand; but the resemblance is not so
close as to afford anything approaching positive proof. Minor poets,
lacking all individuality, the victims and not the controlling forces
of the tendencies of the age, are apt to resemble one another. There
are, however, two noteworthy passages which point strongly to the
identity of the author of the _Panegyricus_ with the Bucolic poet. The
former, addressing Piso as his patron (246), says:

                                   mea vota
    si mentem subiere tuam, memorabilis olim
    tu mihi Maecenas tereti cantaberé versu.

    If my prayers reach thy mind, thou shalt be sung
    of as Maecenas in my slender verse, and future ages
    shall tell of thy glory.

The latter, addressing his patron Meliboeus and begging him to commend
him to Caesar, exclaims (iv. 152):

    o mihi quae tereti decurrent carmina versu
    tunc, Meliboee, meum si quando montibus istis (i.e. at Rome)
    dicar habere larem.

    O how shall my songs trip in slender verse then, Meliboeus,
    if ever men shall say of me 'He has a house on yonder mountain'.

Is it a mere coincidence, a plagiarism, or a direct allusion? There is
no certainty, but the coincidence is--to say the least--suggestive. If
the identity of authorship be assumed as correct, it is probable that
the eclogues are the later production. To place one's patron among the
_dramatis personae_ of an eclogue argues a nearer intimacy than the
writing of a formal panegyric. That the poet is more at home as a
panegyrist than as a writer of idylls does not affect the question. In
such an age such a result was to be expected.

THE ILIAS LATINA

Latin poetry may almost be said to have begun with Livius Andronicus'
translation of the _Odyssey_ into the rude Saturnian metre. This
translation had great vogue as a school book. But the _Iliad_ remained
untranslated, and it was only natural that later authors should try
their hand upon it. Translations were produced in Republican times by
Cn. Matius[393] and Ninnius Crassus,[394] but neither work attained to
any popularity.

With the growth of the knowledge of Greek and its increasing use as a
medium of instruction in the schools on the one hand, and the appearance
of Vergil and the rise of the Aeneas saga on the other, the demand for a
translation of the _Iliad_ naturally became less. The Silver Age arrived
with the problem unsolved. It was a period when writers abounded who
would have been better employed on translation than on any attempt at
original work. Further, in spite of the general knowledge of Greek, a
translation of Homer would have its value in the schools both as a
handbook for the subject-matter and as a 'crib '.

Three works of the kind seem to have been produced between the reigns of
Tiberius and Nero.

Attius Labeo[395] translated not only the _Iliad_ but also the _Odyssey_
into hexameters. But it was a poor performance. It was a baldly literal
translation, paying small attention to the meaning of the original.[396]
Persius pours scorn upon it, and one verse has survived to confirm our
worst suspicions[397]--

    crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos.

Polybius, the well-known freedman of Claudius, also produced a work,
which is praised by Seneca as having introduced Homer and Vergil to a
yet larger public than they already enjoyed, and as preserving the charm
of the original in an altered form.[398] As Polybius had dealt with
Vergil as well as Homer, it may be conjectured that the work praised by
Seneca was a prose paraphrase. Lastly, there is the _Ilias Latina_,
which has been preserved to the present day. It is written in graceful
hexameter verse, and is an abridgement rather than a translation. It
consists of 1,070 lines, of which the first five books in fact claim a
little more than half. The author wearied of his task and finished off
the remaining nineteen books in summary fashion. While the twenty-second
occupies as much as sixty lines, the abridgements of the thirteenth and
seventeenth are reduced to a meagre seven and three lines respectively.

That such work is of small importance is obvious. It must have been
useless from its birth save as a handbook for the schools, and even for
this purpose its value must have been greatly impaired by its lack of
proportion. Its survival can only be accounted for on the assumption
that it was written and employed as a textbook. In fact, during the
Middle Ages, when the original was a sealed book, there is definite
evidence that it was so used.[399] The work is trivial, but might well
have been worse. The language is clear and often vigorous, and there is
an easy grace about the verse which shows that the author was a man of
culture, knowing his Vergil well and his Ovid better. The date cannot be
proved with certainty, but there can be no doubt that it was written
before the death of Nero.

The lines (899),

    quem (Aenean) nisi servasset magnarum rector aquarum
    ut profugus laetis Troiam repararet in arvis,
    augustumque genus claris submitteret astris,
    non carae gentis nobis mansisset origo,

    Unless the ruler of the mighty deep had preserved Aeneas to
    found in exile a new Troy in happier fields, and beget a line
    of princes to shine among the stars, the stock of the race we
    love would not have endured to bless us.

can only have been written under the Julian Dynasty.

The work is clearly post-Ovidian and must therefore be attributed to the
principates of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, or Nero. Further evidence of
date is entirely wanting. No meaning can be attached to the heading
Pindarus found in certain MSS.[400] There is, however, an interesting
though scarcely more fruitful problem presented by the possible
existence of two acrostics in the course of the poem.[401] The initial
letters of the first nine lines spell the name 'Italices', while the
last eight lines yield the word 'scqipsit'. Baehrens, by a not very
probable alteration in the eighth line, procures the name 'Italicus',
while a slighter and more natural change yields 'scripsit' at the
close.[402] Further, a late MS. gives Bebius Italicus as the name of the
author.[403] On these grounds the poem has been attributed to Silius
Italicus. But Martial makes no reference to the existence of this work
in any of his references to Silius, and indeed suggests that Silius only
took to writing poetry after his withdrawal from public life.[404] This
would make the poem post-Neronian, which, as we have seen, is most
improbable. Further, the style of the verse is very different from that
of the _Punica_. When, over and above these considerations, it is
remembered that the acrostics can only be produced by emendation of the
text, the critic has no course open to him but to abandon the
attribution to Silius and to give up the problem of the acrostics as an
unprofitable curiosity of literature.

IV

LOST MINOR POETS

In addition to the poets of whom we have already treated as writing
under the Julian Dynasty there must have been many others of whom chance
or their own insignificance has deprived us. But few names have
survived,[405] and only two of these lost poets merit mention here, the
erotic poet Lentulus Gaetulicus and the lyric writer Caesius Bassus.

Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus was consul in 26 A.D.,[406] and for
ten years was legatus in Upper Germany, where his combination of
firmness and clemency won him great popularity.[407] He conspired
against Caligula while holding this command, and was put to death.[408]
Pliny the younger speaks of him as the writer of sportive and lascivious
erotic verse, and Martial writes of him in very similar terms.[409] His
mistress was named Caesennia, and was herself a poetess.[410] It is
possible that the poems in the Greek Anthology under the title [Greek:
Gaitoulikou][411] may be from his pen, but the only fragment of his
Latin poems which survives is from a work in hexameters, and describes
the geographical situation of Britain.[412]

More important is the lyric poet Caesius Bassus,[413] whose loss is the
more to be regretted because of the very scanty remains of Roman lyric
verse that have survived to modern times. Statius attempted with but
indifferent success to imitate the Sapphics and Alcaics of Horace, while
the plays of Seneca provide a considerable quantity of lyric choruses of
varying degrees of merit. But of lyric writers pure and simple there is
scarcely a trace. That they existed we know from Quintilian. If we may
trust him, certain of his contemporaries[414] attained to considerable
distinction in this branch of poetry--that is to say, they surpassed all
Roman lyric poets subsequent to Horace. But when all is said, it is
scarcely possible to go beyond Quintilian's emphatic statement, that of
Roman lyricists Horace alone repays reading. If any other name deserves
mention it is that of Caesius Bassus, but he is inferior to Quintilian's
own contemporaries. Caesius Bassus is best known to us as the editor of
the satires of Persius. The sixth satire is actually addressed to him:

    admovit iam bruma foco te, Basse, Sabino?
    iamne lyra et tetrico vivunt tibi pectine chordae?
    mire opifex numeris veterum primordia vocum
    atque marem strepitum fidis intendisse Latinae,
    mox iuvenes agitare iocos et pollice honesto
    egregius lusisse senex.[415]

    Has winter made you move yet to your Sabine fireside, dear
    Bassus? Are your lyre and its strings and the austere quill
    that runs over them yet in force? Marvellous artist as you
    are at setting to music the primitive antiquities of our
    language, the manly utterance of the Latian harp, and then
    showing yourself excellent in your old age at wakening young
    loves and frolicking over the chords with a virtuous touch.
                                                        CONINGTON.

The only information yielded by this passage is that Bassus had a
Sabine villa, that he was already advanced in years, that he affected
'the simple and manly versification of antiquity', and that he dealt
also with erotic themes. But few other facts are known to us. He wrote
a treatise on metre--a portion of which has been preserved to the
present day,[416] and he perished at his Campanian villa in 79 A.D.,
during the great eruption of Vesuvius.[417] The fragments of verse
enshrined in his metrical treatise suggest that he wrote in a large
variety of metres,[418] but they may be no more than examples invented
solely to illustrate metres unfamiliar in Latin. The one quotation that
is explicitly made from his lyrical poems is, curiously enough, a
hexameter line. As to his literary merits or defects, it is now
impossible even to guess.

CHAPTER VII

THE EMPERORS FROM VESPASIAN TO TRAJAN AND MINOR POETS

THE EMPERORS AND POETS WHOSE WORKS ARE LOST

After the death of Nero and the close of the Civil War a happier era,
both for literature and the world at large, was inaugurated by the
accession of Vespasian in 69 A.D. A man of low birth and of little
culture, he yet had a true appreciation of art and literature. Of his
own writing we know nothing save that he left behind him memoirs.[419]
But we have abundant evidence that he showed himself a liberal patron of
the arts. He gave rich rewards to poets and sculptors,[420] effected all
that was possible to repair the great loss of works of art occasioned by
the burning of the Capitol,[421] and did what he could for the stage,
perhaps even attempting to revive the legitimate drama.[422] Above all,
he set aside a large sum annually for the support of Greek and Latin
professors of rhetoric,[423] the first instance in the history of Rome
of State endowment of education. Against this we must set his expulsion
from Italy of philosophers and astrologers, an intemperate and
presumably ineffective act, prompted by reasons of State and probably
without any appreciable influence on literature.[424] His sons, however,
had received all the advantages of the highest education. Of Titus'
(79-81 A.D.) achievements in literature we have no information save that
he aspired to be both orator and poet. The language used in praise of
his efforts by Pliny the elder, our one authority on this point, is so
extravagant as to be virtually meaningless.[425] Of the literary
exploits of his brother Domitian (81-96 A.D.) there is more to be said.
It pleased him to lay claim to distinction both in prose and verse.[426]
His only prose work of which any record remains was a treatise on the
care of the hair;[427] his own baldness rankled in his mind and turned
the _calvus Nero_ of Juvenal into a hair specialist. As to his poems it
is almost doubtful if he ever wrote any. He professed an enthusiasm for
poetry, an art which, according to Suetonius, he had neglected in his
youth and despised when he came to the throne. But Quintilian, Valerius
Flaccus, and Martial[428] all load him with praise of various degrees of
fulsomeness, though, reading between the lines of Quintilian, it is easy
to see that Domitian's output must have been exceedingly small. The
evidence of these three authors goes to show that he had contemplated,
perhaps even begun, an epic on the achievements of his brother Titus in
the Judaic War. Whether these _caelestia carmina belli_, as Martial
calls them, ever existed, save in the imagination of courtiers and
servile poets, there is nothing to show. If they did exist there seems
no reason to regret their loss.

Domitian's chief service to literature, if indeed it was a true service,
was the establishment of the Agon Capitolinus in 86, a quinquennial
festival at which prizes were awarded not only for athletics and
chariot-racing, but for declamations in verse and prose,[429] and the
institution of a similar, though annual, contest at his own palace on
the Alban Mount, which took place as often as the great festival of
Minerva, known as the Quinquatria, came round.[430] But his interest in
literature was only superficial; he had no originality and read nothing
save the memoirs and edicts of Tiberius.[431] His capricious cruelty
extended itself to artists and authors;[432] twice (in 89 and 93 A.D.),
following his father's example, he banished philosophers and astrologers
from Rome;[433] the crime of having written laudatory biographies of the
Stoics Thrasea and Helvidius Priscus brought Arulenus Rusticus and
Herennius Senecio to their deaths.[434] But Domitian's tyranny had
little effect on _belles-lettres_, however adverse it may have been to
free-spoken philosophy, rhetoric, or history. Valerius Flaccus, Silius,
Statius, and Martial, all wrote during his reign, and the works of the
last-named poet and Quintilian give ample evidence of widespread
literary activity. The minor poet replenished the earth, and the prizes
for literature awarded at the Agon Capitolinus and the festival of the
Alban Mount must have been a real stimulus to writing, even though the
type of literature produced by such a stimulus may have been scarcely
worth producing. The worst feature of the poetry of the time is the
almost incredibly fulsome flattery to which the tyranny of Domitian gave
rise. As a compensation we have in the two succeeding reigns the biting
satire of Juvenal and Tacitus, rendered all the keener by its long
suppression under the last of the Flavian dynasty.

But, however impossible it may have been to write really effective
satire during the Flavian dynasty, of poets there was no lack. It was,
moreover, under the Flavians that there sprang up that reaction towards
a saner style to which we have already referred as finding its
expression in the Ciceronianism of Quintilian, and to a lesser degree in
the Vergilianism of Valerius, Statius, and Silius. Of lesser luminaries
there were enough and to spare. Serranus and Saleius Bassus are both
warmly commended by Quintilian for their achievements in Epic. The
former died young, before his powers had ripened to maturity, but showed
great soundness of style and high promise.[435] Of Saleius
Quintilian[436] says, 'He had a vigorous and poetic genius, but it was
not mellowed by age.' That is to say, he died young, like Serranus. In
the _Dialogus_ of Tacitus he is spoken of as the best of men and the
most finished of poets. He won Vespasian's favour and received a gift
from him of five hundred thousand sesterces. His poems brought him no
material profit; both Tacitus and Juvenal emphasize this point:

    contentus fama iaceat Lucanus in hortis
    marmoreis; at Serrano tenuique Saleio
    gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est.[437]

Statius' father, a distinguished teacher of rhetoric at Naples, had
written a poem on the burning of the Capitol in 69 A.D., and was only
prevented by death[438] from singing the great eruption of Vesuvius.
Arruntius Stella of Patavium,[439] the friend of Statius and Martial,
wrote elegies to his wife Violentilla. Turnus,[440] like Juvenal the son
of a freedman, attained considerable success as a satirist, while the
two distinguished soldiers, Verginius Rufus[441] and Vestricius
Spurinna,[442] wrote light erotic verse and lyrics respectively. In
addition to these there are a whole host of minor poets mentioned by
Statius and Martial. In fact the writing of verse was the most
fashionable occupation for the leisure time of a cultivated gentleman.

With Nerva and Trajan the happiest epoch of the principate set in. Nerva
(96-98 A.D.) sprung from a line of distinguished jurists, was celebrated
by Martial as the Tibullus of his time,[443] and is praised by the
younger Pliny for the excellence of his light verses.[444] Trajan, his
successor (98-117 A.D.), though a man of war, rather than a man of
letters, wrote a history of the Dacian wars,[445] and possessed--as his
letters to Pliny testify--a remarkable power of expressing himself
tersely and clearly. He was, like Vespasian, a generous patron to
rhetoric and education,[446] and the founder of the important library
known as the _Bibliotheca Ulpia_.[447] But the great service which he
and his predecessor rendered to literature was, as Pliny and Tacitus
bear eloquent witness, the gift of freedom. This did more for prose than
for poetry, save for one important fact--it was the means of enriching
the world with the satires of Juvenal. If the quantity of the literature
surviving from the principates of Nerva and Trajan is small, its quality
is unmistakable. Pliny the younger, Tacitus, and Juvenal form a trio
whose equal is to be found at no other period of the post-Augustan
principate, while the letters of Pliny give proof of the existence of a
highly cultivated society devoted to literature of all kinds. Poets were
numerous even if they were not good. Few names, however, survive, and
those have but the slightest interest for us. It will suffice to mention
three of them: Passennus Paulus, Sentius Augurinus, and the younger
Pliny. With the dramatic poets, Pomponius Bassulus and Vergilius
Romanus, we have already dealt.[448] Pliny shall speak for himself and
his friends.

'Passennus Paulus,' he writes,[449] 'a distinguished Roman knight of
great learning, is a writer of elegies. This runs in the family; for he
is a fellow townsman of Propertius and indeed counts him among his
ancestors.' In a later letter[450] he speaks with solicitude of his
failing health, and goes on to describe the characteristics of his work.
'In his verse he imitates the ancients, paraphrases them, and reproduces
them, above all Propertius, from whom he traces his descent. He is a
worthy scion of the house, and closely resembles his great ancestor in
that sphere in which he of old excelled. If you read his elegies you
will find them highly polished, possessed of great sensuous charm, and
quite obviously written in the house of Propertius. He has lately
betaken himself to lyric verse, and imitates Horace with the same skill
with which he has imitated Propertius. Indeed, if kinship counts for
anything in the world of letters, you would deem him Horace's kinsman as
well.' Pliny concludes with a warm tribute to Passennus' character. The
picture is a pleasant one, but it is startling and significant to find
Pliny awarding such praise to one who was frankly imitative, if he was
not actually a plagiarist.[451]

Pliny is not less complimentary to Sentius Augurinus. 'I have been
listening,' he writes,[452] 'to a recitation given by Sentius Augurinus.
It gave me the greatest pleasure, and filled me with the utmost
admiration for his talent. He calls his verses "trifles" (_poematia_).
Much is written with great delicacy, much with great elevation of style;
many of the poems show great charm, many great tenderness; not a few are
honey-sweet, not a few bitter and mordant. It is some time since
anything so perfect has been produced.' The next clause, however,
betrays the reason, in part at any rate, for Pliny's admiration. In the
course of his recitation he had produced a small hendecasyllabic poem in
praise of Pliny's own verses. Pliny proceeds to quote it with every
expression of gratification and approval. It is certainly neatly turned
and well expressed, but it is such as any cultivated gentleman who had
read his Catullus and Martial might produce, and can hardly have been of
interest to any one save Augurinus and Pliny. Pliny was, in fact, with
all his admirable gifts, one of the principal and most amiable members
of a highly cultivated mutual admiration society. He was a poet himself,
though only a few lines of the poems praised by Augurinus have survived
to undergo the judgement of a more critical age. Pliny has, however,
given an interesting little sketch of his poetical career in the fourth
letter of the seventh book. 'I have always had a taste for poetry,' he
tells his friend Pontius; 'nay, I was only fourteen when I composed a
tragedy in Greek. What was it like? you ask. I know not; it was called a
tragedy. Later, when returning from my military service, I was
weather-bound in the island of Icaria, and wrote elegiac poems in Latin
about that island and the sea, which bears the same name. I have
occasionally attempted heroic hexameters, but it is only quite recently
that I have taken to writing hendecasyllables. You shall hear of their
origin and of the occasion which gave them birth. Some writings of
Asinius Gallus were being read aloud to me in my Laurentine villa; in
these works he was comparing his father with Cicero; we came upon an
epigram of Cicero dedicated to his freedman Tiro. Shortly after, about
noon--for it was summer--I retired to take my siesta, and finding that I
could not sleep, I began to reflect how the very greatest orators have
taken delight in composing this style of verse, and have hoped to win
fame thereby. I set my mind to it, and, quite contrary to my
expectations after so long desuetude, produced in an extremely short
space of time the following verses on that very subject which had
provoked me to write.'

Thirteen hexameter verses follow of a mildly erotic character. They are
not peculiarly edifying, and are certainly very far from being poetry.
He continues:

'I then turned my attention to expressing the same thoughts in elegiac
verse; I rattled these off at equal speed, and wrote some additional
lines, being beguiled into doing so by the fluency with which I wrote
the metre. On my return to Rome I read the verses to my friends. They
approved. Then in my leisure moments, especially when travelling, I
attempted other metres. Finally, I resolved to follow the example of
many other writers and compose a whole separate volume in the
hendecasyllabic metre; nor do I regret having done so. For the book is
read, copied, and even sung; even Greeks chant my verses to the sound of
the _cithara_ or the lyre; their passion for the book has taught them to
use the Latin tongue.' It was this volume of hendecasyllables about
which Pliny displays such naïve enthusiasm that led Augurinus to compare
Pliny to Calvus and Catullus. Pliny's success had come to him
comparatively late in life; but it emboldened him to the composition of
another volume of poems[453] in various metres, which he read to his
friends. He cites one specimen in elegiacs[454] which awakens no desire
for more, for it is fully as prosy as the hexameters to which we have
already referred. Of the hendecasyllables nothing survives, but Pliny
tells us something as to their themes and the manner of their
composition.[455] 'I amuse myself by writing them in my leisure moments
at the bath or in my carriage. I jest in them and make merry, I play the
lover, I weep, I make lamentation, I vent my anger, or describe
something or other now in a pedestrian, now in a loftier vein.' As this
little catalogue would suggest, these poems were not always too
respectable. The good Pliny, like Martial, thinks it necessary to
apologize[456] for his freedom in conforming to the fashionable licence
of his age by protesting that his muse may be wanton, but his life is
chaste. We can readily believe him, for he was a man of kindly heart and
high ideals, whose simple vanity cannot obscure his amiability. But it
is difficult to believe that the loss of his poetry is in any way a
serious loss to the world.[457] We have given Pliny the poet more space
than is his due; our excuse must be the interest of his engaging
self-revelations.

In spite of Pliny's enthusiasm for his poet friends, there is no reason
to suppose that the reign of Trajan saw the production of any poetry,
save that of Juvenal, which even approached the first rank. With the
accession of Hadrian we enter on a fresh era, characterized by the rise
of a new prose style and the almost entire disappearance of poetry. Rome
had produced her last great poet. The _Pervigilium Veneris_ and a few
slight but beautiful fragments of Tiberianus are all that illumine the
darkness till we come upon the interesting but uninspired elegiacs of
Rutilius Namatianus, the curiously uneven and slipshod poetry of
Ausonius, and the graceful, but cold and lifeless perfection of the
heroic hexameters of Claudian.

II

SULPICIA

Poetesses were not rare at Rome during the first century of our era; the
_scribendi cacoethes_ extended to the fair sex sufficiently, at any
rate, to evoke caustic comment both from Martial[458] and Juvenal.[459]
By a curious coincidence, the only poetesses of whose work we have any
record are both named Sulpicia. The elder Sulpicia belongs to an earlier
age; she formed one of the Augustan literary circle of which her uncle
Messala was the patron, and left a small collection of elegiac poems
addressed to her lover, and preserved in the same volume as the
posthumous poems of Tibullus, to whose authorship they were for long
attributed.[460]

The younger Sulpicia was a contemporary of the poet Martial, and, like
her predecessor, wrote erotic verse. Frank and outspoken as was the
earlier poetess, in this respect at least her namesake far surpassed
her. For the younger Sulpicia's plain-speaking, if we may judge from
the comments of ancient writers[461] and the one brief fragment of her
love-poems that has survived,[462] was of a very different character
and must at least have bordered on the obscene. But her work attracted
attention; her fame is associated with her love for Calenus, a love
that was long[463] and passionate. She continued to be read even in the
days of Ausonius and Sidonius Apollinaris. Martial compares her with
Sappho, and her songs of love seem to have rung true, even though their
frankness may have been of a kind generally associated with passions of
a looser character.[464] If, as a literal interpretation of
Martial[465] would lead us to infer, Calenus was her husband, the poems
of Sulpicia confront us with a spectacle unique in ancient
literature--a wife writing love-poems to her husband. Her language came
from the heart, not from book-learning; she was a poetess such as
Martial delighted to honour.

    omnes Sulpiciam legant puellae,
    uni quae cupiunt viro placere;
    omnes Sulpiciam legant mariti,
    uni qui cupiunt placere nuptae.
    non haec Colchidos adserit furorem,
    diri prandia nec refert Thyestae;
    Scyllam, Byblida nec fuisse credit:
    sed castos docet et probos amores,
    lusus delicias facetiasque.
    cuius carmina qui bene aestimarit,
    nullam dixerit esse nequiorem,
    nullam dixerit esse sanctiorem[466].

    Read your Sulpicia, maidens all,
    Whose husband shall your sole love be;
    Read your Sulpicia, husbands all,
    Whose wife shall reign, and none but she.
    No theme for her Medea's fire,
    Nor orgy of Thyestes dire;
    Scylla and Byblis she'd deny,
    Of love she sang and purity,
    Of dalliance and frolic gay;
    Who should have well appraised her lay
    Had said none were more chaste than she,
    Yet fuller none of amorous glee.
                                A. E. STREET.

Although the thought of what _procacitas_[467] may have meant in a lady
of Domitian's reign raises something of a shudder, and although it is to
be feared that Martial, when he goes on to say (loc. cit.)

    tales Egeriae iocos fuisse
    udo crediderim Numae sub antro,

    Such sport I ween Egeria gave
    To Numa in his spring-drenched cave.
                                A. E. STREET.

had that in his mind which would have scandalized the pious lawgiver of
Rome, we may yet regret the loss of poems which, if Martial's language
is not merely the language of flattery, may have breathed a fresher and
freer spirit than is often to be found in the poets of the age. Catullus
and Sappho would seem to have been Sulpicia's models, but her poems have
left so little trace behind them that it is impossible to speak with
certainty. As to their metre we are equally ill-informed. The fragment
of two lines quoted above is in iambic _senarii_. If we may believe the
evidence[468] of a satirical hexameter poem attributed to Sulpicia, she
also wrote in hendecasyllables and scazons. The genuineness of this poem
is, however, open to serious doubt. It consists of seventy hexameters
denouncing the expulsion of the philosophers by Domitian, and is known
by the title of _Sulpiciae satira_.[469] That it purports to be by the
poetess beloved of Calenus is clear from an allusion to their
passion.[470] Serious doubts have, however, been cast upon its
genuineness. It is urged that the work is ill-composed, insipid, and
tasteless, and that it contains not a few marked peculiarities in
diction and metre, together with more than one historical inaccuracy.
The inference suggested is that the poem is not by Sulpicia, but at
least two centuries later in date. It may readily be admitted that the
poem is almost entirely devoid of any real merit, that its diction is
obscure and slovenly, its metre lame and unimpressive. But the critics
of the poem are guilty of great exaggeration.[471] Many of its worst
defects are undoubtedly due to the exceedingly corrupt state of the
text; further, it is hard to see what interest a satire directed against
Domitian would possess centuries after his death, nor is it easy to
imagine what motive could have led the supposed forger to attribute his
work to Sulpicia. The balance of probability inclines, though very
slightly, in favour of the view that the work is genuine. This is
unfortunate; for the perusal of this curious satire on the hypothesis of
its genuineness appreciably lessens our regret for the loss of
Sulpicia's love poetry and arouses serious suspicion as to the veracity
of Martial. It must, however, in justice be remembered that it does not
follow that Sulpicia was necessarily a failure as a lyric writer because
she had not the peculiar gift necessary for satire. The absence of the
training of the rhetorical schools from a woman's education might well
account for such a failure. At the worst, Sulpicia stands as an
interesting example of the type of womanhood at which Juvenal levelled
some of his wildest and most ill-balanced invective.

CHAPTER VIII

VALERIUS FLACCUS

The political tendency towards retrenchment and reform that marks the
reign of Vespasian finds its literary parallel in a reaction against the
rhetoric of display that culminated in Seneca and Lucan. This movement
is most strongly marked in the prose of Quintilian and the _Dialogus_ of
Tacitus, but finds a faint echo in the world of poets as well. The three
epic poets of the period--Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius
Italicus--though they, too, have suffered much from their rhetorical
training, are all clear followers of Vergil. They, like their
predecessors, find it hard to say things naturally, but they do not to
the same extent go out of their way with the deliberate intention of
saying things unnaturally.[472] We may condemn them as phrase-makers,
though many a modern poet of greater reputation is equally open to the
charge. But their phrase-making has not the flamboyant quality of the
Neronian age. If it is no less wearisome, it is certainly less
offensive. They do not lack invention; their mere technical skill is
remarkable; they fail because they lack the supreme gifts of insight and
imagination.

Valerius Flaccus chose a wiser course than Lucan and Silius Italicus. He
turned not to history, but to legend, for his theme; and the story of
the Argonauts, on which his choice lighted, possessed one inestimable
advantage. Well-worn and hackneyed as it was, it possessed the secret of
eternal youth. 'Age could not wither it nor custom stale its infinite
variety.' The poorest of imitative poetasters could never have made it
wholly dull, and Valerius Flaccus was more than a mere poetaster.

Of his life and position little is known. His name is given by the MSS.
as Gaius Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus.[473] The name Setinus suggests
that he may have been a native of Setia. As there were three Setias, one
in Italy and two in Spain, this clue gives us small help. It has been
suggested[474] that the peculiarities of his diction are due to his
being of Spanish origin. But we have no evidence as to the nature of
Spanish Latin, while the authors of known Spanish birth, who found fame
in the Silver Age--Seneca, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian, Columella--show
no traces of their provenance. No more helpful is the view that he is
one Flaccus of Patavium, the poet-friend to whom two of Martial's
epigrams are addressed.[475] For Martial's acquaintance was poor and is
exhorted to abandon poetry as unlucrative, whereas Valerius Flaccus had
some social standing and, not improbably, some wealth. From the opening
of the _Argonautica_ we learn that he held the post of _quindecimvir
sacris faciundis_.[476] But there our knowledge of the poet ends, save
for one solitary allusion in Quintilian, the sole reference to Valerius
in any ancient writer. In his survey of Latin literature[477] he says
_multum in Valerio Flacco nuper amisimus_. The work of Quintilian having
been published between the years 93 and 95 A.D., the death of Valerius
Flaccus may be placed about 90 A.D.

The poem seems to have been commenced shortly after the capture of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. At the opening of the first book[478] Valerius
addresses Vespasian in the conventional language of courtly flattery
with appropriate reference to his voyages in northern seas during his
service in Britain, a reference doubly suitable in a poem which is
largely nautical and geographical. He excuses himself from taking the
obvious subject of the Jewish war on the ground that that theme is
reserved for the inspired pen of Domitian. It is for him to describe
Titus, his brother, dark with the dust of war, launching the fires of
doom and dealing destruction from tower to tower along the ramparts of
Jerusalem.[479] The progress of the work was slow. By the time the third
book is reached we find references to the eruption of Vesuvius that
buried Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D.,[480] while in the two
concluding books there seem to be allusions to Roman campaigns in the
Danube lands, perhaps those undertaken by Domitian in 89 A.D.[481] At
line 468 of the eighth book the poem breaks off suddenly. It is possible
that this is due to the ravages of time or to the circumstances of the
copyist of our archetype, but consideration of internal evidence points
strongly to the conclusion that Valerius died with his work uncompleted.

Not only do the words of Quintilian (l.c.) suggest a poet who left a
great work unfinished, but the poem itself is full of harshnesses and
inconsistencies of a kind which so slow and careful a craftsman would
assuredly have removed had the poem been completed and received its
final revision.[482] These blemishes leave us little room for doubt. The
poem that has come down to us is a fragment lacking the _limae labor_.
Like the _Thebais_ of Statius and the _Aeneid_ itself, the work was
probably planned to fill twelve books. The poem breaks off with the
marriage of Medea and Jason on the Isle of Peuce at the mouth of the
Danube, where they are overtaken by Medea's brother Absyrtus, who has
come in anger to reclaim his sister and take vengeance on the stranger
who has beguiled her. It is clear that the Argonauts[483] were, as in
Apollonius Rhodius, to escape up the Danube and reach another sea. In
Apollonius they descended from the head waters of the Danube by some
mythical river to the Adriatic; it is in the Adriatic that Absyrtus is
encountered and slain; it is in Phaeacia that Jason and Medea are
married. In Valerius both these incidents take place in the Isle of
Peuce, at the Danube's mouth. The inference is that Valerius
contemplated a different scheme for his conclusion. It has been pointed
out[484] that a mere 'reproduction of Apollonius' episodes could not
have occupied four books'; and it is suggested that Valerius definitely
brought his heroes into relation to the various Italian places[485]
connected with the Argonautic legend, while he may even, as a compliment
to Vespasian,[486] have brought them back 'by way of the North Sea past
Britain and Gaul'. This ingenious conjectural reconstruction has some
probability, slight as is the evidence on which it rests. Valerius was
almost bound to give his epic a Roman tinge. More convincing, however,
is the suggestion of the same critic[487] that the poem was designed to
exceed the scope of the epic of Apollonius and to have included the
death of Pelias, the malignant and usurping uncle, who, to get rid of
Jason, compels him to the search of the golden fleece. To the
retribution that came upon him there are two clear references[488] and
only the design to describe it could justify the introduction of the
suicide of Jason's parents at the outset of the first book, a suicide to
which they are driven to avoid death at the hands of Pelias.

The scope of the unwritten books is, however, of little importance in
comparison with the execution of the existing portion of the poem. The
Argonaut Saga has its weaknesses as a theme for epic. It is too
episodic, it lacks unity and proportion. Save for the struggle in
Colchis and the loves of Jason and Medea, there is little deep human
interest. These defects, however, find their compensation in the
variety and brilliance of colour, and, in a word, the romance that is
inseparable from the story. The scene is ever changing, each day brings
a new marvel, a new terror. Picturesqueness atones for lack of epic
grandeur. For that reason the theme was well suited to the Silver Age,
when picturesqueness and rich invention of detail predominated at the
expense of poetic dignity and kindling imagination. In many ways
Valerius does justice to his subject, in spite of the initial
difficulty with which he was confronted. Apollonius Rhodius had made
the story his own; Varro of Atax had translated Apollonius: both in its
Greek and Latin forms the story was familiar to Roman readers. It was
hard to be original.

Much as Valerius owes to his greater predecessor, he yet succeeds in
showing no little originality in his portrayal of character and
incident, and in a few cases in his treatment of plot.[489] In one
particular indeed he has markedly improved on his model; he has made
Jason, the hero of his epic, a real hero; conventional he may be, but he
still is a leader of men. In Apollonius, on the other hand, he plays a
curiously inconspicuous part; he is, in fact, the weakest feature of the
poem; he is in despair from the outset, and at no point shows genuine
heroic qualities; he is at best a peerless wooer and no more. Here,
however, he is exalted by the two great battles of Cyzicus and Colchis;
it is in part his prowess in the latter battle that wins Medea's heart.
In this connexion we may also notice a marked divergence from Apollonius
as regards the plot. Aeetes has promised Jason the fleece if he will aid
him against his brother Perses, who is in revolt against him with a host
of Scythians at his back. Jason aids him, does prodigies of valour, and
wins a glorious victory. Aeetes refuses the reward. This act of
treachery justifies Jason in having recourse to Medea's magic arts and
in employing her to avenge him on her father. In Apollonius we find a
very different story. The sons of Phrixus, who, to escape the wrath of
Aeetes, have thrown in their lot with the Argonauts, urge Jason to
approach Medea; they themselves work upon the feelings of their mother,
Chalciope, till she seeks her sister Medea--already in love with Jason
and only too ready to be persuaded--and induces her to save her nephews,
whose fate is bound up with that of the strangers. This incident is
wholly absent from Valerius Flaccus, with the result that the loves of
Jason and Medea assume a somewhat different character. Jason's conduct
becomes more natural and dignified. Medea, on the other hand, is shown
in a less favourable light. In the Greek poet she has for excuse the
desire to save her sister from the loss of her sons, which gives her
half a right to love Jason. In the Latin epic she is without excuse,
unless, indeed, the hackneyed supernatural machinery,[490] put in motion
to win her for Jason, can be called an excuse. This crude employment of
the supernatural leaves Valerius small room for the subtle psychological
analysis wherein the Greek excels, and this, coupled with the love of
the Silver Age for art magic, tends to make Medea--as in Seneca--a
sorceress first, a woman after. In Apollonius she is barbaric,
unsophisticated, a child of nature; in Valerius she is a figure of the
stage, not without beauty and pathos, but essentially melodramatic.

But Apollonius had concentrated all his powers upon Medea, and dwarfs
all his other characters, Jason not excepted. It is Medea alone that
holds our interests. The little company of heroes embarked on unsailed
seas and beset with strange peril are scarcely more than a string of
names, that drop in and out, as though the work were a ship's log rather
than an epic. In Valerius, though he attempts no detailed portraiture,
they are men who can at least fight and die. He has, in a word, a better
general conception as to how the story should be told; he is less
perfunctory, and strives to fill in his canvas more evenly, whereas
Apollonius, although by no means concise, leaves much of his canvas
covered by sketches of the slightest and most insignificant character.
In the Greek poem, though half the work is consumed in describing the
voyage to Colchis, the first two books contain scarcely anything of real
poetic interest, if we except the story of Phineus and the Harpies, a
few splendid similes, and two or three descriptive passages, as brief as
they are brilliant. In Valerius, on the contrary, there is abundance of
stirring scenes and rich descriptive passages before the Argonauts reach
their goal. His superiority is particularly noticeable at the outset of
the poem. Apollonius plunges _in medias res_ and fails to give an
adequate account of the preliminaries of the expedition. He has no
better method of introducing us to his heroes than by giving us a dreary
catalogue of their names. Valerius, too, has his catalogue, but later;
we are not choked with indigestible and unpalatable fare at the very
opening of the feast. And though both authors take five hundred lines to
get their heroes under way, Valerius tells us far more and in far better
language; Apollonius does not find his stride till the second book, and
forgets that it is necessary to interest the reader in his characters
from the very beginning.

But though in these respects Valerius has improved on his predecessor,
and though his work lacks the arid wastes of his model, he is yet an
author of an inferior class, and comes ill out of the comparison. For he
has little of the rich, almost oriental, colouring of Apollonius at his
best, lacks his fire and passion, and fails to cast the same glamour of
romance about his subject. While the Dido and Aeneas of Vergil are in
some respects but a pale reflection of the Medea and Jason of
Apollonius, the loves of Jason and Medea in Valerius are fainter still.
His heroine is not the tragic figure that stands out in lines of fire
from the pages of Apollonius. His lovers' speeches have a certain beauty
and tenderness of their own, but they lack the haunting melody and the
resistless passion that make the Rhodian's lines immortal. And while to
a great extent he lacks the peculiar merits of the Greek,[491] he
possesses his most serious blemish, the blemish that is so salient a
characteristic of both Alexandrian and Silver Latin literature, the
passion for obscure learning. A good example is the huge, though most
ingenious, catalogue of the tribes of Scythia at the opening of the
sixth book, with its detailed inventory of strange names and customs,
and its minute descriptions of barbaric armour. His love of learning
lands him, moreover, in strange anachronisms. We are told that the
Colchians are descended from Sesostris;[492] the town of Arsinoe is
spoken of as already in existence; Egypt is already connected with the
house of Lagus.[493]

In addition, Valerius possesses many of the faults from which Apollonius
is free, but with which the post-Augustan age abounds. The dangerous
influence of Seneca has, it is true, decayed; we are no longer flooded
with epigram or declamatory rhetoric. Rhetoric there is, and rhetoric
that is not always effective;[494] but it is rather a perversion of the
rhetoric of Vergil than the descendant of the brilliant rant of Lucan
and Seneca. From the gross lack of taste and humour that characterizes
so many of his contemporaries he is comparatively free, though his
description of the historic 'crab' caught by Hercules reaches the utmost
limit of absurdity:

                                laetus et ipse
    Alcides: Quisnam hos vocat in certamina fluctus?
    dixit, et, intortis adsurgens arduus undis,
    percussit subito deceptum fragmine pectus,
    atque in terga ruens Talaum fortemque Eribotem
    et longe tantae securum Amphiona molis
    obruit, inque tuo posuit caput, Iphite, transtro. (iii. 474-80.)

    Alcides gladdened in his heart and cried: 'Who challenges these
    waves to combat?' and as he rose against those buffeting waves,
    sudden with broken oar he smote his baffled breast, and, falling
    headlong back, o'erthrows Talaus and brave Eribotes and far-off
    Amphion, that never feared so vast a bulk should fall on him, and
    laid his head against thy thwart, O Iphitus.

This unheroic episode is a relic of the comic traditions associated
with Hercules, traditions which obtrude themselves from time to time in
serious and even tragic surroundings.[495] Apollonius describes the
same incident[496] with the quiet humour that so strangely tinges the
works of the pedants of Alexandria. Valerius, on the other hand, has
lost touch with the broad comedy of these traditions, and his attempt
to be humorous only succeeds in making him ridiculous.[497]

His worst fault, however, lies in his obscurity and preciosity of
diction. The error lies not so much in veiling simple facts under an
epigram, as in a vain attempt to imitate the 'golden phrases' of Vergil.
The strange conglomeration of words with which Valerius so often vexes
his readers resembles the 'chosen coin of fancy' only as the formless
designs of the coinage of Cunobelin resemble the exquisite staters of
Macedon from which they trace their descent. It requires more than a
casual glance to tell that (i. 411)

    it quem fama genus non est decepta Lyaei
    Phlias inmissus patrios de vertice crines

means that Phlias was 'truly reported the son of Bacchus with streaming
locks like to his sire's'; or that (vi. 553)

    Argus utrumque ab equis ingenti porrigit arvo

signifies no more than that the victims of Argus covered a large space
of ground when they fell.[498] How miserable is such a phrase compared
with the [Greek: keito megas megal_osti] of Homer! And though there is
less serious obscurity, nothing can be more awkward than the not
infrequent inversion of the natural order of words that we find in
phrases such as _nec pereat quo scire malo_ (vii. 7).[499]

Of mere preciosity and phrase-making without any special obscurity
examples abound.[500] Pelion sinks below the horizon (ii. 6)--

    iamque fretis summas aequatum Pelion ornos.

A fight at close quarters receives the following curious description
(ii. 524)--

    iam brevis et telo volucri non utilis aer.

A spear flying through the air and missing its mark is a _volnus raptum
per auras_ (iii. 196). More startling than these is the picture of a
charge of trousered barbarians (vi. 702)--

    improba barbaricae procurrunt tegmina plantae.

One more peculiarity remains to be noticed. Here and there in the
_Argonautica_ we meet with a strange brevity and compression resulting
not from the desire to produce phrases of curious and original texture,
but rather from a praiseworthy though misdirected endeavour to be
concise. The most remarkable example is found in the first book, where
Mopsus, the official prophet of the expedition, falls into a trance and
beholds a vision of the future (211):

    heu quaenam aspicio! nostris modo concitus ausis
    aequoreos vocat ecce deos Neptunus et ingens
    concilium. fremere et legem defendere cuncti
    hortantur. sic amplexu, sic pectora fratris,
    Iuno, tene; tuque o puppem ne desere, Pallas:
    nunc patrui nunc flecte minas. cessere ratemque
    accepere mari. per quot discrimina rerum
    expedior! subita cur pulcher harundine crines
    velat Hylas? unde urna umeris niueosque per artus
    caeruleae vestes? unde haec tibi volnera, Pollux?
    quantus io tumidis taurorum e naribus ignis!
    tollunt se galeae sulcisque ex omnibus hastae
    et iam iamque umeri. quem circum vellera Martem
    aspicio? quaenam aligeris secat anguibus auras
    caede madens? quos ense ferit? miser eripe parvos,
    Aesonide. cerno et thalamos ardere iugales.

    Alas! what do I see! Even now, stirred by our daring, lo!
    Neptune calls the gods to a vast conclave. They murmur, and
    one and all urge him to defend his rights. Hold as thou
    holdest now, Juno, hold thy brother in thine embrace: and
    thou, Pallas, forsake not our ship: now, even now, appease
    thy brother's threats. They have yielded: they give Argo
    entrance to the sea. Through what perils am I whirled along!
    Why does fair Hylas veil his locks with a sudden crown of
    reeds? Whence comes the pitcher on his shoulder and the azure
    raiment on his limbs of snow? Whence, Pollux, come these
    wounds of thine? Ah! what a flame streams from the widespread
    nostrils of the bulls. Helmets and spears rise from every
    furrow, and now see! shoulders too! What warfare for the fleece
    do I see? Who is it cleaves the air with winged snakes, reeking
    with slaughter? Whom smites she with the sword? Ah! son of
    Aeson, hapless man, save thy little ones. I see, too, the
    bridal chamber all aflame.

These lines form a kind of abridgement or _précis_ of the whole
_Argonautica_, or even more, for we can hardly believe that the scheme
of it included the murder of Medea's children and her vengeance on the
house of Creon[501]. They are also far too obscure to be interesting to
any save a highly-trained literary audience, while their extreme
compression could only be justified by their having been primarily
designed for recitation in a dramatic and realistic manner with
suitable pauses between the different visions.[502] A yet worse and
less excusable example of this peculiar brevity is the jerky and
prosaic enumeration of Medea's achievements in the black art
(vi. 442)--

    mutat agros fluviumque vias; suus alligat ingens
    cuncta sopor, recoquit fessos aetate parentes,
    datque alias sine lege colus.

    She changes crops of fields and course of rivers. [At her
    bidding] deep clinging slumber binds all things; fathers
    outworn with age she seethes to youth again, and to others
    she gives new span of life against fate's ordinance.

The attempt to be concise and full[503] at one and the same time fails,
and fails inevitably.

But for all these faults Valerius Flaccus offends less than any of the
Silver Latin writers of epic. He rants less and he exaggerates less;
above all, he has much genuine poetic merit. He has been strangely
neglected, both in ancient[504] and modern times, and unduly depreciated
in the latter. There has been a tendency to rank him with Silius
Italicus, whereas it would be truer criticism to place him close to
Statius, and not far below Lucan. He is more uneven than the former, has
a far less certain touch, and infinitely less command of his instrument.
He has less mastery of words, but a more kindling and penetrating
imagination. His outlines are less clear, but more suggestive. He has
less rhetoric; beneath an often obscure diction he reveals a greater
simplicity and directness of thought, and he has been infinitely more
happy in his theme. Only the greatest of poets could achieve a genuine
success with the Theban legend, only the worst of poets could reduce the
voyage of the Argonauts to real dullness. On the other hand, in an age
of _belles-lettres_ such as the Silver Age, and by the majority of
scholars, whose very calling leads them to set a perhaps abnormally high
value on technical skill, Statius is almost certain to be preferred to
Valerius. About the relative position of Lucan there is no doubt. He is
incomparably the superior of Valerius, both in genius and intellect. But
Valerius never sins against taste and reason to the same extent, and
though he has less fire, possesses a finer ear for music and rhythm, and
more poetic feeling as distinct from rhetoric. Vergil was his master; it
has been said with a little exaggeration that Valerius stands in the
same relation to Vergil as Persius to Horace. This statement conveys but
a half-truth. Valerius is as superior to Persius in technique as he is
inferior in moral force and intellectual power. He is, however, full of
echoes from Vergil,[505] and if his verse has neither the 'ocean roll'
of the greater poets, nor the same tenderness, he yet has something of
the true Vergilian glamour. But he has weakened his hexameter by
succumbing to the powerful influence of Ovid. His verse is polished and
neat to the verge of weakness. Like Ovid, he shows a preference for the
dactyl over the spondee, shrinks from elision, and does not understand
how to vary his pauses.[506] Too many lines close with a full-stop or
colon, and where the line is broken, the same pause often recurs again
and again with wearisome monotony. In this respect Valerius, though
never monotonously ponderous like Lucan, compares ill with Statius. As a
compensation, his individual lines have a force and beauty that is
comparatively rare in the _Thebais_. The poet who could describe a
sea-cave thus (iv. 179)--

    non quae dona die, non quae trahat aetheris ignem;
    infelix domus et sonitu tremibunda profundi,

    That receiveth never daylight's gifts nor the light of the
    heavenly fires, the home of gloom all a-tremble with the
    sound of the deep.

is not to be despised as a master of metre. And whether for
picturesqueness of expression or for beauty of sound, lines such as
(iii. 596)

    rursus Hylan et rursus Hylan per longa reclamat
    avia; responsant silvae et vaga certat imago,

    'Hylas', and again 'Hylas', he calls through the long wilderness;
    the woods reply, and wandering echo mocks his voice.

or (i. 291)

    quis tibi, Phrixe, dolor, rapido cum concitus aestu
    respiceres miserae clamantia virginis ora
    extremasque manus sparsosque per aequora crines!

    Phrixus, what grief was thine when, swept along by the swirling
    tide, thou lookedst back on the hapless maiden's face as she
    cried for thine aid, her sinking hands, her hair streaming o'er
    the deep.

are not easily surpassed outside the pages of Vergil. But it is above
all on his descriptive power that his claim to consideration rests.[507]
For it is there that he finds play for his most remarkable gifts, his
power of suggestion of mystery, and his keen sense of colour. These
gifts find their most striking manifestation in his description of the
Argonauts' first night upon the waters. They

    were the first that ever burst
      Into that silent sea.

All is strange to them. Each sight and sound has its element of terror:

    auxerat hora metus, iam se vertentis Olympi
    ut faciem raptosque simul montesque locosque
    ex oculis circumque graves videre tenebras.
    ipsa quies rerum mundique silentia terrent
    astraque et effusis stellatus crinibus aether.
    ac velut ignota captus regione viarum
    noctivagum qui carpit iter non aure quiescit,
    non oculis, noctisque metus niger auget utrimque
    campus et occurrens umbris maioribus arbor,
    haud aliter trepidare viri (ii. 38).

    The dark hour deepened their fears when they saw heaven's vault
    wheel round, and the peaks and fields of earth snatched from
    their view, and all about them the horror of darkness. The very
    stillness of things and the deep silence of the world affright
    them, the stars and heaven begemmed with streaming locks of gold.
    And as one benighted in a strange place 'mid paths unknown pursues
    his devious journey through the night and finds rest neither for
    eye nor ear, but all about him the blackness of the plain, and
    the trees that throng upon him seen greater through the gloom,
    deepen his terror of the dark--even so the heroes trembled.

There are few more vivid pictures in Latin poetry than that of the
benighted wanderer lost on some wide plain studded with clumps of trees
that seem to throng upon him in the gloom, seen greater through the
darkness. Not less imaginative, though less clear cut and precise, is
his picture of the underworld in the third book:

    est procul ad Stygiae devexa silentia noctis
    Cimmerium domus et superis incognita tellus,
    caeruleo tenebrosa situ, quo flammea numquam
    Sol iuga sidereos nec mittit Iuppiter annos.
    stant tacitae frondes inmotaque silva comanti
    horret Averna iugo; specus umbrarumque meatus
    subter et Oceani praeceps fragor arvaque nigro
    vasta metu et subitae post longa silentia voces (iii. 398).

    Far hence by the deep sunken silence of the Stygian night lies
    the Cimmerians' home, a land unknown to denizens of upper air,
    all dark with gloomy squalor. Thither the sun hath never driven
    his flaming car nor Jupiter sent forth his starry seasons. Silent
    are the leaves of its groves, and all along its leafy hill
    bristles unmoved Avernus' wood: thereunder are caverns, and the
    shades go to and fro; there Ocean plunges roaring to its fall,
    there are plains with dark fear desolate, and after long silences
    sudden voices thunder out.

It is a more theatrical underworld than that of Vergil, and the picture
is not clearly conceived, but its very vagueness is impressive. The poet
gives us, as it were, the scene for the enactment of some dim dream of
terror. He is equally at home in describing the happy calm of Elysium.
Though the picture lacks originality, it has no lack of beauty:

    hic geminae infernum portae, quarum altera dura
    semper lege patens populos regesque receptat;
    ast aliam temptare nefas et tendere contra;
    rara et sponte patet, siquando pectore ductor
    volnera nota gerens, galeis praefixa rotisque
    cui domus aut studium mortales pellere curas,
    culta fides, longe metus atque ignota cupido;
    seu venit in vittis castaque in veste sacerdos.
    quos omnes lenis plantis et lampada quassans
    progenies Atlantis agit. lucet via late
    igne dei, donec silvas et amoena piorum
    deveniant camposque, ubi sol totumque per annum
    durat aprica dies thiasique chorique virorum
    carminaque et quorum populis iam nulla cupido (i. 833).

    Here lie the twin gates of Hell, whereof the one is ever open
    by stern fate's decree, and through it march the peoples and
    princes of the world. But the other may none essay nor beat
    against its bars. Barely it opens and untouched by hand, if e'er
    a chieftain comes with glorious wounds upon his breast, whose
    halls were decked with helm and chariots, or who strove to cast
    out the woes of mankind, who honoured truth and bade farewell to
    fear and knew no base ambition. Then, too, it opens when some
    priest comes wearing sacred wreath and spotless robe. All such
    the child of Atlas leads along with gentle tread and waving torch.
    Far shines the road with the fire of the god until they come to
    the groves and plains, the pleasant mansions of the blest, where
    the sun ceases not, nor the warm daylight all the year long, nor
    dancing companies of heroes, nor song, nor all the innocent joys
    that the peoples of the earth desire no more.

Many lines might be quoted that startle us with their unforeseen
vividness or some unexpected blaze of colour; when the fleece of gold is
taken from the tree where it had long since shone like a beacon through
the dark, the tree sinks back into the melancholy night,

    tristesque super coiere tenebrae (viii. 120).

At their bridal on the desolate Isle of Peuce under the shadow of
approaching peril, Jason and Medea gleam star-like amid the company of
heroes (viii. 257):

    ipsi inter medios rosea radiante iuventa
    altius inque sui sternuntur velleris auro.

    Themselves in their comrades' midst, bright with the rosy
    glow of youth, above them all, lie on the fleece of gold
    that they had made their own.

This characteristic is most evident in the similes over which Valerius,
like other poets of the age, would seem to have expended particular
labour. He scatters them over his pages with too prodigal a hand, and
they suffer at times from over-elaboration and ingenuity.[508] Desire
for originality has led him to such startling comparisons as that
between a warrior drawn from his horse and a bird snared by the limed
twig of the fowler,[509] surely as inappropriate a simile as was ever
framed. More distressing still is the maudlin pathos of the simile which
likens Medea to a dog on the verge of madness.[510] But such gross
aberrations are rare; against them may be set some of the freshest and
most beautiful similes in the whole range of Latin poetry. The silence
that follows on the wailing of the women of Cyzicus is like the silence
of Egypt when the birds that wintered there have flown to more temperate
lands. 'And now they had paid due honour to their ashes; with weary
feet, wives with their babes wandered away and the waves had rest, the
waves long torn by their wakeful lamentation, even as when the birds in
mid-spring have returned to the north that is their home, and Memphis
and their yearly haunt by sunny Nile are dumb once more'--

                           qualiter Arctos
    ad patrias avibus medio iam vere revectis
    Memphis et aprici statio silet annua Nili (iii. 358).

The beauty of Medea among her Scythian maidens is likened to that of
Proserpine leading her comrades over Hymettus' hill or wandering with
Pallas and Diana in the Sicilian mountains--

    altior ac nulla comitum certante, prius quam
    palluit et viso pulsus decor omnis Averno (v. 346).

    Taller than all her comrades and fairer than them all or
    ever she turned pale, and at the sight of Hell all beauty
    was banished from her face.

The relief of the Argonauts, when at last they reach haven after their
fearful passage of the Symplegades, is like that of Theseus and
Hercules, when they have forced a way through the gates of hell to the
light of day once more.[511] Most remarkable of all is the strange
accumulation of similes that describe the meeting of Jason and Medea.
Medea is going through the silent night chanting a song of magic,
whereat all nature trembles. At last, when she has come 'to the shadowy
place of the triune goddess', Jason shines forth before her in the
gloom, 'as when in deepest night panic bursts on herd and herdsman, or
shades meet blind and voiceless in the deep of Chaos; even so, in the
darkness of the night and of the grove, the two met astonied, like
silent pines or motionless cypress, ere yet the whirling breath of the
south wind has caught and mingled their boughs'[512]--

    obvius ut sera cum se sub nocte magistris
    inpingit pecorique pavor, qualesve profundum
    per chaos occurrunt caecae sine vocibus umbrae;
    haut secus in mediis noctis nemorisque tenebris
    inciderant ambo attoniti iuxtaque subibant,
    abietibus tacitis aut immotis cyparissis
    adsimiles, rapidus nondum quas miscuit Auster (vii. 400).

These similes suffer from sheer accumulation.[513] Taken individually
they are worthy of many a greater poet.

In his speeches Valerius is less successful, though rarely positively
bad. But with few exceptions they lack force and interest. At times,
however, his rhetoric is effective, as in the speech of Mopsus (iii.
377), where he sets forth the punishment of blood-guiltiness, or in the
fierce invective in which the Scythian, Gesander, taunts a Greek warrior
with the inferiority of the Greek race (vi. 323 sqq.). This latter
speech is closely modelled on Vergil (_A._ ix. 595 sqq.), and although
it is somewhat out of place in the midst of a battle, is not wholly
unworthy of its greater model. But it is to the speeches of Jason and
Medea that we naturally turn to form the estimate of the poet's mastery
of the language of passion. These speeches serve to show us how far he
falls below Vergil (_A._ iv) and Apollonius (bk. iii). They offer a
noble field for his powers, and it cannot be said that he rises to the
full height of the occasion. On the other hand, he does not actually
fail. There is a note of deep and moving appeal in all that Medea says
as she gradually yields to the power of her passion, and the thought of
her father and her home fades slowly from her mind.

    quid, precor, in nostras venisti, Thessale, terras?
    unde mei spes ulla tibi? tantosque petisti
    cur non ipse tua fretus virtute labores?
    nempe, ego si patriis timuissem excedere tectis,
    occideras; nempe hanc animam sors saeva manebat
    funeris. en ubi Iuno, ubi nunc Tritonia virgo,
    sola tibi quoniam tantis in casibus adsum
    externae regina domus? miraris et ipse,
    credo, nec agnoscunt hae nunc Aeetida silvae.
    sed fatis sum victa tuis; cape munera supplex
    nunc mea; teque iterum Pelias si perdere quaeret,
    inque alios casus alias si mittet ad urbes,
    heu formae ne crede tuae.

'"Why,"' she cries (vii. 438), '"why, I beseech thee, Thessalian, camest
thou ever to this land of ours? Whence hadst thou any hope of me? And
why didst thou seek these toils with faith in aught save thine own
valour? Surely hadst thou perished, had I feared to leave my father's
halls--aye, and so surely had I shared thy cruel doom. Where now is thy
helper Juno, where now thy Tritonian maid, since I, the queen of an
alien house, have come to help thee in thy need? Aye, even thyself thou
marvellest, methinks, nor any more does this grove know me for Aeetes'
daughter. Nay, 'twas thy cruel fate overcame me; take now, poor
suppliant, these my gifts, and, if e'er again Pelias seek to destroy
thee and send thee forth to other cities, ah! put not too fond trust in
thy beauty!"' Yet again, before she puts the saving charms into his
hands, she appeals to him (452):

    si tamen aut superis aliquam spem ponis in istis, aut tua praesenti
    virtus educere leto si te forte potest, etiam nunc deprecor, hospes,
    me sine, et insontem misero dimitte parenti. dixerat; extemploque
    (etenim matura ruebant sidera, et extremum se flexerat axe Booten)
    cum gemitu et multo iuveni medicamina fletu non secus ac patriam
    pariter famamque decusque obicit. ille manu subit, et vim conripit
    omnem. inde ubi facta nocens, et non revocabilis umquam cessit ab
    ore pudor, ... ... ... ... ... ... ... pandentes Minyas iam vela
    videbat se sine. tum vero extremo percussa dolore adripit Aesoniden
    dextra ac submissa profatur: sis memor, oro, mei, contra memor ipsa
    manebo, crede, tui. quando hinc aberis, die quaeso, profundi quod
    caeli spectabo latus? sed te quoque tangat cura mei quocumque loco,
    quoscumque per annos; atque hunc te meminisse velis, et nostra
    fateri munera; servatum pudeat nec virginis arte. hei mihi, cur
    nulli stringunt tua lumina fletus? an me mox merita morituram
    patris ab ira dissimulas? te regna tuae felicia gentis, te coniunx
    natique manent; ego prodita obibo.

'"If thou hast any hope of safety from these goddesses, that are thine
helpers, or if perchance thine own valour can snatch thee from the jaws
of death, even now, I pray thee, stranger, let me be, and send me back
guiltless to my unhappy sire." She spake, and straightway--for now the
stars outworn sank to their setting, and Bootes in the furthest height
of heaven had turned him towards his rest--straightway she gave the
charms to the young hero with wailing and with lamentation, as though
therewith she cast away her country and her own fair fame and honour.'
And then, 'when her guilt was accomplished and the blush of shame had
passed from her face for evermore,' she saw as in a vision (474) 'the
Minyae spreading their sails for flight without her. Then in truth
bitter anguish laid hold of her spirit, and she grasped the right hand
of the son of Aeson and humbly spake: "Remember me, I pray, for I,
believe me shall forget thee never. When thou art hence, where on all
the vault of heaven shall I bear to gaze? Ah! do thou too, where'er thou
art, through all the years ne'er let the thought of me slip from thy
heart. Remember how thou stood'st to-day, tell of the gifts I gave, and
feel no shame that thou wast saved by a maiden's guile. Alas! why stream
no tears from thine eyes? Knowest thou not that the death I have
deserved waits me at my father's hand? For thee there waits a happy
realm among thine own folk, for thee wife and child; but I must perish
deserted and betrayed."'[514]

All this lacks the force and passion of the corresponding scene in
Apollonius. This Medea could never have cried, 'I am no Greek princess,
gentle-souled,'[515] nor have prayed that a voice from far away or a
warning bird might reach him in Iolcus on the day when he forgot her, or
that the stormwind might bear her with reproaches in her eyes to stand
by his hearth-stone and chide him for his forgetfulness and ingratitude.
The Medea of Apollonius has been softened and sentimentalized by the
Roman poet. Valerius knows no device to clothe her with power, save by
the narration of her magic arts (vii. 463-71; viii. 68-91). Yet she has
a charm of her own; and it needed true poetic feeling to draw even the
Medea of Valerius Flaccus.

In no age would Valerius have been a great poet, but under happier
circumstances he would have produced work that would have ranked high
among literary epics. As it is, there is no immeasurable distance
between the _Argonautica_ and works such as the _Gerusalemme liberata_,
or much of _The Idylls of the King_. He is a genuine poet whose genius
was warped by the spirit of the age, stunted by the inherent
difficulties besetting the Roman writer of epic, overweighted by his
admiration of his two great predecessors, Ovid and Vergil. He is
obscure, he is full of echoes, he staggers beneath a burden of useless
learning, he overcrowds his canvas and strives in vain to put the breath
of life into bones long dry; in addition, his epic suffers from the lack
of the reviser's hand. And yet, in spite of all, his characters are
sometimes more than lay-figures, and his scenes more than mere
stage-painting. He has the divine fire, and it does not always burn dim.
Others have greater cunning of hand, greater force of intellect, and
have won a higher place in the hierarchy of poets. He--though, like
them, he lacks the 'fine madness that truly should possess a poet's
brain'--yet gives us much that they cannot give, and sees much that they
cannot see. With Quintilian, though with altered meaning, we too may say
_multum in Valerio Flacco amisimus_.

CHAPTER IX

STATIUS

Our information as to the life of P. Papinius Statius is drawn almost
exclusively from his minor poems entitled the _Silvae_. He was born at
Naples, his father was a native of Velia, came of good family,[516] and
by profession was poet and schoolmaster. The father's school was at
Naples,[517] and, if we may trust his son, was thronged with pupils from
the whole of Southern Italy.[518] He had been victorious in many poetic
contests both in Naples and in Greece.[519] He had written a poem on the
burning of the Capitol in 69 A.D., had planned another on the eruption
of Vesuvius in 79 A.D., but apparently died with the work
unfinished.[520] It was to his father that our poet attributed all his
success as a poet. It was to him he owed both education and inspiration,
as the _Epicedion in patrem_ bears pathetic witness (v. 3. 213):

    sed decus hoc quodcumque lyrae primusque dedisti
    non volgare loqui et famam sperare sepulcro.

    Thou wert the first to give this glory, whate'er it be,
    that my lyre hath won; thine was the gift of noble speech
    and the hope that my tomb should be famous.

The _Thebais_ was directly due to his prompting (loc. cit., 233):

                            te nostra magistro
    Thebais urgebat priscorum exordia vatum;
    tu cantus stimulare meos, tu pandere facta
    heroum bellique modos positusque locorum
    monstrabas.

    At thy instruction my Thebais trod the steps of elder
    bards; thou taughtest me to fire my song, thou taughtest
    me to set forth the deeds of heroes and the ways of war
    and the position of places.

The poet-father lived long enough to witness his son well on the way to
established fame. He had won the prize for poetry awarded by his native
town, the crown fashioned of ears of corn, chief honour of the
Neapolitan Augustalia.[521] Early in the reign of Domitian he had
received a high price from the actor Paris for his libretto on the
subject of Agave,[522] and he had already won renown by his recitations
at Rome,[523] recitations in all probability of portions of the
_Thebais_[524] which he had commenced in 80 A.D.[525] But it was not
till after his father's death that he reached the height of his fame by
his victory in the annual contest instituted by Domitian at his Alban
palace,[526] and by the completion and final publication in 92 A.D. of
his masterpiece, the _Thebais_.[527] This poem was the outcome of twelve
years' patient labour, and it was on this that he based his claim to
immortality.[527] He had now made himself a secure position as the
foremost poet of his age. His failure to win the prize at the
quinquennial Agon Capitolinus in 94 A.D. caused him keen mortification,
but was in no way a set-back to his career.[528] By this time he had
already begun the publication of his _Silvae_. The first book was
published not earlier than 92 A.D.,[529] the second and third between
that date and 95 A.D. The fourth appeared in 95 A.D.,[530] the fifth is
unfinished. There is no allusion to any date later than 95 A.D., no
indication that the poet survived Domitian (d. 96 A.D.). These facts,
together with the fragmentary state of his ambitious _Achilleis_, begun
in 95 A.D.,[531] point to Statius having died in that year, or at least
early in 96 A.D. He left behind him, beside the works already mentioned,
a poem on the wars of Domitian in Germany,[532] and a letter to one
Maximus Vibius, which may have served as a preface to the
_Thebais_.[533] He had spent the greater portion of his life either at
Rome, Naples, or in the Alban villa given him by Domitian. In his latter
years he seems to have resided almost entirely at Rome, though he must
have paid not infrequent visits to the Bay of Naples.[534] But in 94
A.D., whether through failing health or through chagrin at his defeat in
the Capitoline contest, he retired to his native town.[535] He had
married a widow named Claudia,[536] but the union was childless; towards
the end of his life he adopted the infant son of one of his slaves,[537]
and the child's premature death affected him as bitterly as though it
had been his own son that died. Of his age we know little; but in the
_Silvae_ there are allusions to the approach of old age and the decline
of his physical powers.[538] He can scarcely have been born later than
45 A.D., and may well have been born considerably earlier. His life, as
far as we can judge, was placid and uneventful. The position of his
father seems to have saved him from a miserable struggle for his
livelihood, such as vexed the soul of Martial.[539] There is nothing
venal about his verse. If his flattery of the emperor is fulsome almost
beyond belief, he hardly overstepped the limits of the path dictated by
policy and the custom of the age; his conduct argues weakness rather
than any deep moral taint. In his flattery towards his friends and
patrons his tone is, at its worst, rather that of a social inferior than
of a mere dependent.[540] And underlying all the preciosity and
exaggeration of his praises and his consolations, there is a genuine
warmth of affection that argues an amiable character. And this warmth of
feeling becomes unmistakable in the _epicedia_ on his father and his
adopted son, and again in the poem addressed to his wife. The feeling is
genuine, in spite of the suggestion of insincerity created by the
artificiality of his language. No less noteworthy is his enthusiasm for
the beauties of his birthplace, which shines clear through all the
obscure legends beneath which he buries his topography.[541] These
qualities, if any, must be set against his lack of intellectual power;
his mind is nimble and active, but never strong either in thought or
emotion: of sentiment he has abundance, of passion none. Considering the
corruption of the society of which he constituted himself the poet, and
of which there are not a few glimpses in the _Silvae_, despite the
tinselled veil that is thrown over it, the impression of Statius the man
is not unpleasing: it is not necessary to claim that it is inspiring.

Of Statius the poet it is harder to form a clear judgement. His
masterpiece, the _Thebais_, from the day of its publication down to
comparatively recent times, possessed an immense reputation.[542] Dante
seems to regard him as second only to Vergil; and it was scarcely before
the nineteenth century that he was dethroned from his exalted position.
Before the verdict of so many ages one may well shrink from passing an
unfavourable criticism. That he had many of the qualifications of a
great poet is undeniable; his technical skill is extraordinary; his
variety of phrase is infinite; his colouring is often brilliant. And
even his positive faults, the faults of his age, the crowding of detail,
the rhetoric, the bombast, offend rather by their quantity than quality.
Alone of the epic[543] writers of his age he rarely raises a derisive
laugh from the irreverent modern. Again, his average level is high,
higher than that of any post-Ovidian poet. And yet that high level is
due to the fact that he rarely sinks rather than that he rises to
sublime heights. His brilliant metre, always vivacious and vigorous,
seldom gives us a line that haunts the memory; and therefore, though its
easy grace and facile charm may for a while attract us, we soon weary of
him. He lacks warmth of emotion and depth of colour. In this respect he
has been not inaptly compared to Ovid. Ovid said of Callimachus _quamvis
ingenio non valet, arte valet_.[544] Ovid's detractors apply the epigram
to Ovid himself. This is unjust, but so far as such a comprehensive
dictum can be true of any distinguished writer, it is true of Statius.

Scarcely inferior to Ovid in readiness and fertility, he ranks far below
the earlier writer in all poetic essentials. Ovid's gifts are similar
but more natural; his vision is clearer, his imagination more
penetrating. 'The paces of Statius are those of the _manège_, not of
nature';[545] he loses himself in the trammels of his art. He lacks, as
a rule, the large imagination of the poet; and though his detail may
often please, the whole is tedious and disappointing. Merivale sums him
up admirably:[546] 'Statius is a miniature painter employed on the
production of a great historic picture: every part, every line, every
shade is touched and retouched; approach the canvas and examine it with
glasses, every thread and hair has evidently received the utmost care
and taken the last polish; but step backwards and embrace the whole
composition in one gaze, and the general effect is confused from want of
breadth and largeness of treatment.'

He was further handicapped by his choice of a subject.[547] The Theban
legend is unsuitable for epic treatment for more reasons than one. In
the first place the story is unpleasant from beginning to end. Horror
accumulates on horror, crime on crime, and there are but three
characters which evoke our sympathy, Oedipus, Jocasta, and Antigone.
These characters play only subsidiary parts in the story of the
expedition of the Seven against Thebes, round which the Theban epic
turns. The central characters are almost of necessity the odious
brothers Eteocles and Polynices: Oedipus appears only to curse his sons.
Antigone and Jocasta come upon the scene only towards the close in a
brief and futile attempt to reconcile the brothers. The deeds and deaths
of the Argive chiefs may relieve the horror and at times excite our
sympathy, but we cannot get away from the fact that the story is
ultimately one of almost bestial fratricidal strife, darkened by the
awful shadow of the woes of the house of Labdacus. The old Greek epic
assigned great importance to the character of Amphiaraus[548] persuaded
by his false wife, Eriphyla, to go forth on the enterprise that should
be his doom; it has even been suggested that he formed the central