2. Works.

The Punica, an Epic poem in seventeen Books, on the Second Punic War, closes with Scipio’s triumph, after the Battle of Zama, 202 B.C.

Silius closely followed the history as told by Livy, and without any inventive or constructive power of his own copies, with tasteless pedantry, Homer and Vergil. ‘He cannot perceive that the divine interventions which are admissible in the quarrel of Aeneas and Turnus are ludicrous when imported into the struggle between Scipio and Hannibal. Who can help resenting the unreality when at Saguntum Jupiter guides an arrow into Hannibal’s body, which Juno immediately withdraws, or when, at Cannae, Aeolus yields to the prayer of Juno and blinds the Romans by a whirlwind of dust?’—Cruttwell.

The Punica is valuable for its historical accuracy, but it is one of the longest and one of the worst Epic poems ever written.

Scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio.

Pliny, Epist. iii. 7.

P. PAPINIUS STATIUS, circ. 60-100 A.D.

1. Life.

STATIUS.

Statius was born at Naples, but early removed to Rome, where he was carefully educated and spent the greater part of his life. His father was a scholar, rhetorician, and poet of some distinction, and acted for a time as tutor to Domitian. Statius had thus access to the Court, and repaid the patronage of Domitian by incessant and shameless flattery. After the completion of his Thebais he retired to Naples, which was endeared to him by its associations with Vergil, and there satisfied his real love of nature.

2. Works.

(1) The Thebais, an Epic poem in twelve Books, on the strife between the brothers Eteocles and Polynices, and the subsequent history of Thebes to the death of Creon.

The Thebaid became very famous: Juvenal (Sat. vii. 82-4) tells us

‘Its smooth versification, copious diction, and sustained elegance made it a sort of canon of poetical technique. Among much tedious rhetoric and cumbrous mythology there is enough imagination and pathos to make the poem interesting and even charming.’—Mackail.

(2) The Silvae, in five Books, are occasional poems, descriptive and lyrical, on miscellaneous subjects. These may well be considered his masterpiece. ‘Genuine poetry,’ says Niebuhr, ‘imprinted with the character of the true poet, and constituting some of the most graceful productions of Roman literature.’

Among the best known are the touching poem to his wife Claudia (iii. 5), the marriage song to his brother-poet Arruntius Stella (i. 2), the Propempticon Maecio Celeri (iii. 2), the Epicedion (funeral song) on the death of his adopted son (v. 5), and the short poem (v. 4) on Sleep.

The greatest poet of the Decline.

GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, circ. 75-160 A.D.

1. Life.

SUETONIUS.

The little we know of his life is chiefly gathered from the Letters of Pliny the Younger, and from scattered allusions in his own works. The son of an officer of the Thirteenth Legion, Suetonius in early life practised as an advocate, and subsequently became one of Hadrian’s private secretaries (magister epistularum), but was dismissed from office in 121 A.D. After his retirement from the service of the Court he devoted the rest of his long life to literary research and compilation, and published a number of works on a great variety of subjects, so that he became famous as the Varro of the imperial period.

2. Works.

His extant works are:

(1) De Vita Caesarum, the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, in eight Books (I-VI Julius-Nero; VII Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; VIII Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian). This is his most interesting and most valuable work. His Lives are not works of art: he is simply a gatherer of facts, collected from good sources with considerable care and judgment. ‘He follows out with absolute faithfulness his own theory, which makes it necessary to omit no possible detail that can throw light upon the personality of his subject.’—Peck.

(2) De Viris Illustribus, a history of Latin literature up to his day. The greater part of the section De grammaticis et rhetoribus is extant, as well as the Lives of Terence, Horace, and Lucan (partly), from the section De poetis, and fragments of the Life of Pliny the Elder from the section De historicis.

Extracts made from this work by Jerome (circ. 400 A.D.) in his Latin version of Eusebius’ Chronicles are the source from which much of our information as to Latin authors is derived.

‘Suetonius is terse, and in that respect he resembles Tacitus; he is deeply interesting, and there he shows some likeness to Livy; but his style is one of his own creation. His chief desire is to present the facts stripped of any comment whatever, grouped in such a way as to produce their own effect without the adventitious aid of rhetoric; and then to leave the reader to his own conclusions.’—Peck.

Probissimus, honestissimus, eruditissimus vir.

Pliny, Epist. ad Trai. 94.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS, circ. 45 B.C.

1. Life.

SYRUS.

All we know of him is that he was an enfranchised Syrian slave, a native of Antioch, and wrote for the stage mimes (farces) which were performed with great applause. Mime-writing was also practised at this time by the Knight Laberius, and Caesar is said to have patronised these writers in the hope of elevating their art.

2. Works.

Sententiae (Maxims). We possess 697 lines from his mimes (unconnected and alphabetically arranged), a collection made in the early Middle Ages, and much used in schools. As proverbs of worldly wisdom, and admirable examples of the terse vigour of Roman philosophy, they are widely known, e.g.

Cuivis potest accidere quod cuiquam potest.

CORNELIUS TACITUS, circ. 54-120 A.D.

1. Life.

TACITUS.

The personal history of Tacitus is known to us only from allusions in his own works, and from the letters of his friend the younger Pliny. He was born early in the reign of Nero, probably in Rome; his education, political career, and marriage into the distinguished family of Agricola prove that he was a man of wealth and position. He studied rhetoric under the best masters (possibly under Quintilian), and had, as Pliny tells us (Epist. II. i. 6), a great reputation as a speaker. He passed through the usual stages of an official career and was appointed consul suffectus under Trajan, 98 A.D., when he was a little over forty. From 89 to 93 A.D. he was absent from Rome, probably in some provincial command, and during these years he may have acquired some personal knowledge of the German peoples. In 100 A.D. he was associated with Pliny in the prosecution for extortion of Marius Priscus, proconsul of Africa, of whom Juvenal says (Sat. viii. 120):

Cum tenues nuper Marius discinxerit Afros.

Since Marius has so lately stripped to their girdles (i.e. thoroughly plundered) the needy Africans.

From this date Tacitus seems to have devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits and to have lived to or beyond the end of Trajan’s reign, 116 A.D.

2. Works.

(1) Dialogus de Oratoribus, an inquiry into the causes of the decay of oratory, his earliest extant work. In the style of this work the influence of Quintilian and Cicero is strongly seen.

(2) De Vita et Moribus Iulii Agricolae liber, an account of the life of his father-in-law, particularly of his career in Britain, published shortly after the accession of Trajan, 98 A.D. ‘The Sallustian epoch of Tacitus finds its expression in the Agricola and Germania.’—Teuffel.

The Agricola is perhaps the most beautiful biography in ancient literature.

(3) The Germania, or Concerning the Geography, the Manners and Customs, and the Tribes of Germany, published in 98 or 99. ‘The motive for its publication was apparently the pressing importance, in Tacitus’ opinion, of the “German question,” and the necessity for vigorous action to secure the safety of the Roman Empire against the dangers with which. it was threatened from German strength.’—Stephenson.

‘The Germania is an inestimable treasury of facts and generalisations, and of the general faithfulness of the outline we have no doubt.’—Stubbs.

(4) Historiae, consisting originally of fourteen Books, is a narrative of the events of the reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, 69-96 A.D. Only Books I-IV and the first half of Book V are extant, and give the history of 69 and most of 70 A.D.

‘The style of the Historiae still retains some traces of the influence of Cicero: it has not yet been pressed tight into the short sententiae which were its final and most characteristic development, but shows in a marked degree the influence of Vergil.’—Cruttwell.

In the Historiae, as Tacitus himself says, ‘the secret of the imperial system was divulged—that an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome’; or, in other words, that the imperial system was a military and not a civil institution.

(5) The Annales, ab excessu divi Augusti, in sixteen Books, containing the history of the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, 14-68 A.D. There are extant only Books I-IV, parts of V and VI, and XI-XVI.

‘The old criticism, tracing the characteristics of the style of Tacitus to poetic colouring (almost wholly Vergilian) and to the study of brevity and of variety, is well founded. They may be explained by the fact that he was the most finished pleader of an age which required above all that its orators should be terse, brilliant, and striking, and by his own painful consciousness of the dull monotony and repulsive sadness of great part of his subject, which needed the help of every sort of variety to stimulate the flagging interest of the reader.’—Furneaux.

His aim as an historian is best given in his own words: ‘I hold it the chief office of history to rescue virtue from oblivion, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds’ (Ann. iii. 65).

The greatest of Roman historians.

PUBLIUS TERENTIUS AFER, circ. 185-159 B.C.

1. Life

TERENCE.

Terence was born probably at Carthage, reached Rome as a slave-boy, and passed there into the possession of a rich and educated Senator, P. Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was educated and manumitted, taking from him the name of Publius Terentius the African. ‘A small literary circle of the Roman aristocracy admitted young Terence to their intimate companionship; and soon he was widely known as making a third in the friendship of Gaius Laelius with the first citizen of the Republic, the younger Scipio Africanus. Six plays had been subjected to the criticism of this informal academy of letters and produced on the stage, when Terence undertook a prolonged visit to Greece for the purpose of further study. He died of fever in the next year, 159 B.C., at the early age of twenty-six.’—Mackail.

2. Works.

Comedies.—All the six plays written and exhibited at Rome by Terence are extant. They are the Andria (exhibited 166 B.C., when the poet was only eighteen years of age), the Heauton Timoroumenos, Eunuchus, Phormio, Hecyra, Adelphoe.

‘With Terence Roman literature takes a new departure. The Scipionic circle believed that the best way to create a national Latin literature was to deviate as little as possible, in spirit, form, and substance, from the works of Greek genius. The task which awaited Terence was the complete Hellenising of Roman comedy: accordingly his aim was to give a true picture of Greek life and manners in the purest Latin style. He was not a popular poet, in the sense in which Plautus was popular: he has none of the purely Roman characteristics of Plautus in sentiment, allusion, or style; none of his extravagance, and none of his vigour and originality.’—Sellar. Terence is, accordingly, in substance and form, as Caesar styles him, a dimidiatus Menander (halved Menander):

A Roman only in language, but as puri sermonis amator worthy to be ranked by the side of Caesar himself and the purest Latin authors.

ALBIUS TIBULLUS, circ. 54-19 B.C.

1. Life.

TIBULLUS.

Tibullus was a Roman eques, and was probably born at Pedum, a Latin town just at the foot of the Apennines, and a few miles north of Praeneste, where his father possessed an ample estate. Much of his inherited property was lost; and it is possible that, like Vergil, Horace, and Propertius, he was a victim to the confiscations of the Triumvirs in 42 B.C. He, however, retained or recovered enough to afford him a modest competence. In 31-30 B.C. he served on the staff of his life-long friend and patron M. Valerius Messalla, the eminent general and statesman, not less distinguished in literature than in politics. The rest of his short life the poet spent on his ancestral farm at Pedum, amid the country scenes and employments congenial to his nature and habits.

2. Works.

Elegies, in four Books (or three, Postgate). Tibullus published in his lifetime two Books of elegiac poems: after his death a third volume was published, containing a few of his own poems, together with poems by other members of the literary circle of Messalla. Books I and II consist mainly of poems addressed to Delia and to Nemesis (cf. Ov. Am. III. ix. 31-32):

And to Messalla, e.g. El. I. vii. 55-6:

3. Style.

‘Tibullus is pre-eminently Roman in his genius and poetry. He is the natural poet of warm, tender, and simple feeling. Neither Greek mythology nor Alexandrine learning had any attractions for his purely Italian genius. His language may be limited in range and variety, but it is terse, clear, simple, and popular. His constructions are plain and direct.’—North Pinder.

‘To Tibullus belongs the distinction of having given artistic perfection to the Roman elegy.’—Sellar.

Elegia quoque Graecos provocamus, cuius mihi tersus atque elegans maxime videtur auctor Tibullus.

‘In elegy also we rival the Greeks, of which Tibullus appears to me the purest and finest representative.’

Quint. Inst. Or. X. i. 93.

‘Tibullus might be succinctly and perhaps not unjustly described as a Vergil without the genius.’—Mackail.

‘Tibullus and Vergil are alike in their human affection and their piety, in their capacity of tender and self-forgetful love, in their delight in the labours of the field and their sympathy with the herdsman and the objects of his care.’—Sellar.

C. VALERIUS FLACCUS, fl. 70 A.D.

1. Life.

VALERIUS
FLACCUS.

He lived in the reign of Vespasian (70-78 A.D.), to whom he dedicated his poem, in which he refers to Vespasian’s exploits in Britain and to the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, 70 A.D. There are also references to the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Quintilian is the only Roman writer who mentions him (X. i. 90): Multum in Valerio Flacco nuper amisimus, which shows that he must have died circ. 90 A.D.

2. Works.

The Argonautica, an Hexameter poem in eight Books, apparently unfinished. The poem is in part a translation, in part a free imitation of the Alexandrine epic of Apollonius Rhodius (222-181 B.C.) ‘His descriptive power, particularly shown in touches of natural scenery, his pure diction and correct style have inclined some critics to set Valerius Flaccus above his Greek model.’—North Pinder. The rhetorical treatment of the subject, so characteristic of the period of the decline, is, however, too prominent throughout his work. Both his rhythm and language are closely modelled on Vergil.

VALERIUS MAXIMUS, fl. 26 A.D.

1. Life.

VALERIUS
MAXIMUS.

All that we know of him is that he visited Asia in company with Sextus Pompeius (the friend of Ovid and of Germanicus), circ. 27-30 A.D.

2. Works.

Facta et Dicta Memorabilia, in nine Books. Each Book is divided into chapters on separate subjects (e.g. De Severitate, De Verecundia, De Constantia), under each of which he gives illustrations from Roman history and from the history of other nations, in order to show the native superiority (as he thinks) of Romans to foreigners, and especially to Greeks. As an historian he is most untrustworthy, but there are many gaps in Roman history (e.g. owing to the lost books of Livy) which he helps to supply. His style shows all the faults of his age and rhetorical training; his work was probably intended to be a commonplace-book for students and teachers of rhetoric.

M. TERENTIUS VARRO, 116-27 B.C.

1. Life.

VARRO.

Born at Reate, in the Sabine territory, which was the nurse of all manly virtues, Varro was brought up in the good old-fashioned way. ‘For me when a boy,’ he says, ‘there sufficed a single rough coat and a single under-garment, shoes without stockings, a horse without a saddle.’ Bold, frank, and sarcastic, he had all the qualities of the country gentleman of the best days of the Republic. On account of his personal valour he obtained in the war with the Pirates, 67 B.C., where he commanded a division of the fleet, the naval crown. In politics he belonged, as was natural, to the constitutional party, and bore an honourable and energetic part in its doings and sufferings. On the outbreak of the Civil War he served as the legatus of Pompeius in command of Further Spain, but was compelled to surrender his forces to Caesar, 69 B.C. When the cause of the Republic was lost Caesar, who knew Varro’s worth, employed him in superintending the collection and arrangement of the great library at Rome designed for public use. After Caesar’s death Varro was exposed to the persecution of Antonius, whose drunken revels and excesses at Varro’s villa at Casinum are vividly described by Cicero (Phil. ii. 103 sqq.) Through the influence of his many friends Varro obtained the protection of Octavianus, and was enabled to live at Rome in peace until his death, 27 B.C., in his ninetieth year.

2. Works.

Of all the works of Varro, embracing almost all branches of knowledge and literature, only two have come down to us:

(1) The De Re Rustica, in three Books, in the form of a dialogue, written in his eightieth year. It was a subject of which he had a thorough practical knowledge, and is the most important of all the treatises upon ancient agriculture now extant. Book I treats of agriculture; Book II of stock-raising; Book III of poultry, game, and fish.

(2) De Lingua Latina, in twenty-five Books, of which only V-X have been preserved. These contain much valuable information not found elsewhere, but Varro’s notions of etymology are extremely crude.

Of his other works, we have much cause to regret the loss of his Antiquities of Things Human and Divine, the standard work on the religious and secular antiquities of Rome down to the time of Augustus, and his Imagines, biographical sketches, with portraits, of seven hundred famous Greeks and Romans, the first instance in history of the publication of an illustrated book.

‘Varro belongs to the genuine type of old Roman, improved but not altered by Greek learning, with his heart fixed in the past, deeply conservative of everything national, and even in his style of speech protesting against the innovations of the day.’—Cruttwell.

Omnium facile acutissimus, et sine ulla dubitatione doctissimus.—Cicero.

Studiosum rerum tantum docet, quantum studiosum verborum Cicero delectat.—St. Augustine.

VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, circ. 19 B.C.-31 A.D.

1. Life.

VELLEIUS
PATERCULUS.

All we know of him is derived from his own pages. He descended from a distinguished family in Campania, and his father was a Praefectus equitum. He accompanied C. Caesar, the grandson of Augustus, on his mission to the East, and was present at the interview with the Parthian king. Two years afterwards, 4 A.D., he served under Tiberius in Germany as Praefectus equitum. For the next eight years Paterculus served under Tiberius in Pannonia and Dalmatia. Tiberius’ sterling qualities as a soldier gained him the friendship of many of his officers, and Velleius by his energy and ability secured that of Tiberius in return. The last circumstance of his life that he records is the election to the praetorship of his brother and himself as candidates of Caesar (Tiberius) in 14 A.D.

2. Works.

The Historia Romana in two Books. The beginning of Book I is lost; chapters 1-8 in our text are occupied with a rapid survey of universal history, especially of the East and of Greece. Chapter 8 breaks off at the rape of the Sabine women, and there is a great gap in the text before we reach in c. 9 the defeat of Perseus at Pydna in 168 B.C. Chapters 9-13 carry the narrative down to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 B.C. Book II continues the history and ends at the death of Livia 27 A.D.

‘The pretentiousness of his style is partly due to the declining taste of the period, partly to an idea of his own that he could write in the manner of Sallust. It alternates between a sort of laboured sprightliness and a careless, conversational manner full of endless parentheses. Yet Velleius has two real merits: the eye of a trained soldier for character, and an unaffected, if not a very intelligent, interest in literature.’—Mackail.

P. VERGILIUS MARO, 70-19 B.C.

1. Important Events in Vergil’s Life, and Chief Works.

VERGIL.

B.C. 70. Born at Andes, near Mantua.

  „ 65. Birth of Horace.

2. Works.

(1) Bucolica (Pastoral Poems), ten Eclogues (selected pieces), written 42-39 B.C. These are closely modelled on Theocritus, and have all the weaknesses of imitative poetry. ‘The Eclogues of Vergil have less of consistency but more of purpose than the Idylls of Theocritus. They are an advocacy of the charm of scenery and the pleasures of the country addressed to a luxurious and artificial society of dwellers in a town.’—Myers.

(2) Georgica, in four Books, written 37-30 B.C., at the suggestion of Maecenas, ‘the Home Minister of Augustus, and public patron of art and letters in the interest of the new government.’—Mackail. ‘The details of his subject Vergil draws mainly from his Greek predecessors, Hesiod, Xenophon, Aratus, and Nicander, but it is to Lucretius he is chiefly indebted. The language of Lucretius, so bold, so genial, so powerful, and in its way so perfect, is echoed a thousand times in the Georgics.’—Nettleship.

Book I treats of agriculture, Book II of the cultivation of trees, Book III of domestic animals, Book IV of bees (including the Myth of Aristaeus, ll. 315-558).

The purpose of the Georgics is to ennoble the annual round of labour in which the rural life was passed and to help the policy of Augustus by inducing the people to go back to the land.

‘The motto of the Georgics might well be said to be Ora et labora.’—Tyrrell.

‘The Georgics represent the art of Vergil in its matured perfection, and in mere technical finish are the most perfect work of Latin literature.’—Mackail.

(3) The Aeneid, in twelve Books, written 29-19 B.C.

The choice of the subject was influenced by the wish of Augustus to establish the legendary tradition of the connection of the gens Iulia with Aeneas through his son Iulus, and by Vergil’s own desire to write an epic on the greatness of Rome, in the manner of Homer. Thus ‘the centre of the mythical background was naturally Aeneas, as Augustus was the centre of the present magnificence of the Roman Empire. We surpass all other nations, says Cicero (De Nat. Deor. ii. 8), in holding fast the belief that all things are ordered by a Divine Providence. The theme of the Aeneid is the building up of the Roman Empire under this Providence. Aeneas is the son of a goddess, and his life the working out of the divine decrees.’—Nettleship.

‘At a verse from the Aeneid, the sun goes back for us on the dial; our boyhood is recreated, and returns to us for a moment like a visitant from a happy dreamland.’—Tyrrell.

‘In merely technical quality the supremacy of Vergil’s art has never been disputed. The Latin Hexameter, the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man, was brought by him to a perfection which made any further development impossible.’—Mackail.

‘As Homer among the Greeks, so Vergil among our own authors will best head the list; he is beyond doubt the second epic poet of either nation.’—Quint. X. i. 85.

‘The chastest poet and royalest, Vergilius Maro, that to the memory of man is known.’—Bacon.