ROMAN LITERATURE.

INTRODUCTION.—1. Roman Literature and its Divisions.—2. The Language; Ethnographical Elements of the Latin Language; the Umbrian; Oscan; Etruscan; the Old Roman Tongue; Saturnian Verse; Peculiarities of the Latin Language.—3. The Roman Religion.

PERIOD FIRST.—1. Early Literature of the Romans; the Fescennine Songs; the Fabulae Atellanae.—2. Early Latin Poets; Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius.—3. Roman Comedy.—4. Comic Poets; Plautus, Terence, and Statius.—5. Roman Tragedy.—6. Tragic Poets; Pacuvius and Attius.—7. Satire; Lucilius.—8. History and Oratory; Fabius Pictor; Cencius Alimentus; Cato; Varro; M. Antonius; Crassus; Hortensius.—9. Roman Jurisprudence.—10. Grammarians.

PERIOD SECOND.—1. Development of the Roman Literature.—2. Mimes, Mimographers, Pantomime; Laberius and P. Lyrus.—3. Epic Poetry; Virgil; The Aeneid.—4. Didactic Poetry; the Bucolics; the Georgics; Lucretius.— 5. Lyric Poetry; Catullus; Horace.—6. Elegy; Tibullus; Propertius; Ovid. —7. Oratory and Philosophy; Cicero.—8. History; J. Caesar; Sallust; Livy.—9. Other Prose Writers.

PERIOD THIRD.—1. Decline of Roman Literature.—2. Fable; Phaedrus.—3. Satire and Epigram; Persius, Juvenal, Martial.—4. Dramatic Literature; the Tragedies of Seneca.—5. Epic Poetry; Lucan; Silius Italicus; Valerius Flaccus; P. Statius.—6. History; Paterculus; Tacitus; Suetonius; Q. Curtius; Valerius Maximus.—7. Rhetoric and Eloquence; Quintilian; Pliny the Younger.—8. Philosophy and Science; Seneca; Pliny the Elder; Celsus; P. Mela; Columella; Frontinus.—9. Roman Literature from Hadrian to Theodoric; Claudian; Eutropius; A. Marcellinus; S. Sulpicius; Gellius; Macrobius; L. Apuleius; Boethius; the Latin Fathers.—10. Roman Jurisprudence.

INTRODUCTION.

1. ROMAN LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS.—Inferior to Greece in the genius of its inhabitants, and, perhaps, in the intrinsic greatness of the events of which it was the theatre, unquestionably inferior in the fruits of intellectual activity, Italy holds the second place in the classic literature of antiquity. Etruria could boast of arts, legislation, scientific knowledge, a fanciful mythology, and a form of dramatic spectacle, before the foundations of Rome were laid. But, like the ancient Egyptians, the Etrurians made no progress in composition. Verses of an irregular structure and rude in sense and harmony appear to have formed the highest limit of their literary achievements. Nor did even the opulent and luxurious Greeks of Southern Italy, while they retained their independence, contribute much to the glory of letters in the West. It was only in their fall that they did good service to the cause, when they redeemed the disgrace of their political humiliation by the honor of communicating the first impulse towards intellectual refinement to the bosoms of their conquerors. When, in the process of time, Sicily, Macedonia, and Achaia had become Roman provinces, some acquaintance with the language of their new subjects proved to be a matter almost of necessity to the victorious people; but the first impression made at Rome by the productions of the Grecian Muse, and the first efforts to create a similar literature, must be traced to the conquest of Tarentum (272 B.C.). From that memorable period, the versatile talents which distinguished the Greeks in every stage of national decline began to exercise a powerful influence on the Roman mind, which was particularly felt in the departments of education and amusement. The instruction of the Roman youth was committed to the skill and learning of Greek slaves; the spirit of the Greek drama was transferred into the Latin tongue, and, somewhat later, Roman genius and ambition devoted their united energies to the study of Greek rhetoric, which long continued to be the guide and model of those schools, in whose exercises the abilities of Cicero himself were trained. Prejudice and patriotism were powerless to resist this flood of foreign innovation; and for more than a century after the Tarentine war, legislative influence strove in vain to counteract the predominance of Greek philosophy and eloquence. But this imitative tendency was tempered by the pride of Roman citizenship. That sentiment breaks out, not merely in the works of great statesmen and warriors, but quite as strikingly in the productions of those in whom the literary character was all in all. It is as prominent in Virgil and Horace as in Cicero and Caesar; and if the language of Rome, in other respects so inferior to that of Greece, has any advantage over the sister tongue, it lies in that accent of dignity and command which seems inherent in its tones. The austerity of power is not shaded down by those graceful softenings so agreeable to the disposition of the most polished Grecian communities. In the Latin forms and syntax we are everywhere conscious of a certain energetic majesty and forcible compression. We hear, as it were, the voice of one who claims to be respected, and resolves to be obeyed.

The Roman classical literature may be divided into three periods. The first embraces its rise and progress, oral and traditional compositions, the rude elements of the drama, the introduction of Greek literature, and the construction and perfection of comedy. To this period the first five centuries of the republic may be considered as introductory, for Rome had, properly speaking, no literature until the conclusion of the first Punic war (241 B.C.), and the first period, commencing at that time, extends through 160 years—that is, to the first appearance of Cicero in public life, 74 B.C.

The second period ends with the death of Augustus, 14 A.D. It comprehends the age of which Cicero is the representative as the most accomplished orator, philosopher, and prose-writer of his time, as well as that of Augustus, which is commonly called the Golden Age of Latin poetry.

The third and last period terminates with the death of Theodoric, 526 A.D. Notwithstanding the numerous excellences which distinguished the literature of this time, its decline had evidently commenced, and, as the age of Augustus has been distinguished by the epithet "golden," the succeeding period, to the death of Hadrian, 138 A.D., on account of its comparative inferiority, has been designated "the Silver Age." From this time to the close of the reign of Theodoric, only a few distinguished names are to be found.

2. THE LANGUAGE.—The origin of the Latin language is necessarily connected with that of the Romans themselves. In the most distant ages to which tradition extends, Italy appears to have been inhabited by three stocks or tribes of the great Indo-European family. One of these is commonly known by the name of Oscans; another consisted of two branches, the Sabelians or Sabines, and the Umbrians; the third was called Sikeli, sometimes Vituli or Itali.

The original settlements of the Umbrians extended over the district bounded on one side by the Tiber, and on the other by the Po. All the country to the south was in possession of the Oscans, with the exception of Latium, which was inhabited by the Sikeli. But, in process of time, the Oscans, pressed upon by the Sabines, invaded the abodes of this peaceful and rural people, some of whom submitted, and amalgamated with their conquerors; the rest were driven across the narrow sea into Sicily, and gave their name to the island.

These tribes were not left in undisturbed possession of their rich inheritance. More than 1000 B.C. there arrived in the northern part of Italy the Pelasgians (or dark Asiatics), an enterprising race, famed for their warlike spirit and their skill in the arts of peace, who became the civilizers of Italy. They were far advanced in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the science of politics and social life. They enriched their newly acquired country with commerce, and filled it with strongly fortified and populous cities, and their dominion rapidly spread over the whole peninsula. Entering the territory of the Umbrians, they drove them into the mountainous districts, or compelled them to live among them as a subject people, while they possessed themselves of the rich and fertile plains. The headquarters of the invaders was Etruria, and that portion of them who settled there were known as Etrurians. Marching southward, they vanquished the Oscans and occupied the plains of Latium. They did not, however, remain long at peace in the districts which they had conquered. The old inhabitants returned from the neighboring highlands to which they had been driven, and subjugated the northern part of Latium, and established a federal anion between the towns of the north, of which Alba was the capital, while of the southern confederacy the chief city was Lavinium.

At a later period, a Latin tribe, belonging to the Alban federation, established itself on the Mount Palatine, and founded Rome, while a Sabine community occupied the neighboring heights of the Quirinal. Mutual jealousy of race kept them, for some time, separate from each other; but at length the two communities became one people, called the Romans. These were, at an early period, subjected to Etruscan rule, and when the Etruscan dynasty passed away, its influence still remained, and permanently affected the Roman language.

The Etruscan tongue being a compound of Pelasgian and Umbrian, the language of Latium may be considered as the result of those two elements combined with the Oscan, and brought together by the mingling of those different tribes. These elements, which entered into the formation of the Latin, may be classified under two heads: the one which has, the other which has not a resemblance to the Greek. All Latin words which resemble the Greek are Pelasgian, and all which do not are Etruscan, Oscan, or Umbrian. From the first of these classes must be excepted those words which are directly derived from the Greek, the origin of which dates partly from the time when Rome began to have intercourse with the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, partly after the Greeks exercised a direct influence on Roman literature.

Of the ancient languages of Italy, which concurred in the formation of the Latin, little is known. The Eugubine Tables are the only extant fragments of the Umbrian language. These were found in the neighborhood of Ugubio, in the year 1414 A.D.; they date as early as 354 B.C., and contain prayers and rules for religious ceremonies. Some of these tables were engraved in Etruscan or Umbrian characters, others in Latin letters. The remains which have come down to us of the Oscan language belong to a composite idiom made up of the Sabine and Oscan, and consist chiefly of an inscription engraved on a brass plate, discovered in 1793 A.D. As the word Bansae occurs in this inscription, it has been supposed to refer to the town of Bantia, which was situated not far from the spot where the tablet was found, and it is, therefore, called the Bantine Table. The similarity between some of the words found in the Eugubine Tables and in Etruscan inscriptions, shows that the Etruscan language was composed of the Pelasgian and Umbrian, and from the examples given by ethnographers, it is evident that the Etruscan element was most influential in the formation of the Latin language.

The old Roman tongue, or lingua prisca, as it was composed of these materials, and as it existed previous to coming in contact with the Greek, has almost entirely perished; it did not grow into the new, like the Greek, by a process of intrinsic development, but it was remoulded by external and foreign influences. So different was the old Roman from the classical Latin, that some of those ancient fragments were with difficulty intelligible to the cleverest and best educated scholars of the Augustan age.

An example of the oldest Latin extant is contained in the sacred chant of the Fratres Arvales. These were a college of priests, whose function was to offer prayers for plenteous harvests, in solemn dances and processions at the opening of spring. Their song was chanted in the temple with closed doors, accompanied by that peculiar dance which was termed the tripudium, from its containing three beats. The inscription which embodied this litany was discovered in Rome in 1778 A.D. The monument belongs to the reign of Heliogabalus, 218 A.D., but although the date is so recent, the permanence of religious formulas renders it probable that the inscription contains the exact words sung by this priesthood in the earliest times. The "Carmen Saliare," or the Salian hymn, the leges regiae, the Tiburtine inscription, the inscription on the sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the great-grandfather of the conqueror of Hannibal, the epitaph of Lucius Scipio, his son, and, above all, the Twelve Tables, are the other principal extant monuments of ancient Latin. The laws of the Twelve Tables were engraven on tablets of brass, and publicly set up in the comitium; they were first made public 449 B.C.

Most of these literary monuments were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used by the Latin poets. It was probably derived from the Etruscans, and until Ennius introduced the heroic hexameter, the strains of the Italian bards flowed in this metre. The structure of the Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay adduces, as an example of this measure, the following line from the well-known nursery song,——

"The queén was ín her párlor, | eáting breád and hóney."

From this species of verse, which probably prevailed among the natives of Provence (the Roman Provincia), and into which, at a later period, rhyme was introduced as an embellishment, the Troubadours derived the metre of their ballad poetry, and thence introduced it into the rest of Europe.

A wide gap separates this old Latin from the Latin of Ennius, whose style was formed by Greek taste; another not so wide is interposed between the age of Ennius and that of Plautus and Terence, and lastly, Cicero and the Augustan poets mark another age. But in all its periods of development, the Latin bears a most intimate relation with the Greek. This similarity is the result both of their common origin from the primitive Pelasgian and of the intercourse which the Romans at a later period held with the Greeks. Latin, however, had not the plastic property of the Greek, the faculty of transforming itself into every variety of form and shape conceived by the fancy and imagination; it partook of the spirit of Roman nationality, of the conscious dignity of the Roman citizen, of the indomitable will that led that people to the conquest of the world. In its construction, instead of conforming to the thought, it bends the thought to its own genius. It is a fit language for expressing the thoughts of an active and practical, but not of an imaginative and speculative people. It was propagated, like the dominion of Rome, by conquest. It either took the place of the language of the conquered nation, or became ingrafted upon it, and gradually pervaded its composition; hence its presence is discernible in all European languages.

3. THE RELIGION.—The religion and mythology of Etruria left an indelible stamp on the rites and ceremonies of the Roman people. At first they worshiped heaven and earth, personified in Saturn and Ops, by whom Juno, Vesta, and Ceres were generated, symbolizing marriage, family, and fertility; soon after, other Etruscan divinities were introduced, such as Jupiter, Minerva, and Janus; and Sylvanus and Faunus, who delighted in the simple occupations of rural and pastoral life. From the Etrurians the Romans borrowed, also, the institution of the Vestals, whose duty was to watch and keep alive the sacred fire of Vesta; the Lares and Penates, the domestic gods, which presided over the dwelling and family; Terminus, the god of property and the rites connected with possession; and the orders of Augurs and Aruspices, whose office was to consult the flight of birds or to inspect the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice, in order to ascertain future events. The family of the Roman gods continued to increase by adopting the divinities of the conquered nations, and more particularly by the introduction of those of Greece. The general division of the gods was twofold,—the superior and inferior deities. The first class contained the Consentes and the Selecti; the second, the Indigetes and Semones. The Consentes, so called because they were supposed to form the great council of heaven, consisted of twelve: Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Vulcan, Juno, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, and Vesta. The Selecti were nearly equal to them in rank, and consisted of eight: Saturn, Pluto, Bacchus, Janus, Sol, Genius, Rhea, and Luna. The Indigites were heroes who were ranked among the gods, and included particularly Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Quirinus or Romulus. The Semones comprehended those deities that presided over particular objects, as Pan, the god of shepherds; Flora, the goddess of flowers, etc. Besides these, there were among the inferior gods a numerous class of deities, including the virtues and vices and other objects personified.

The religion of the Romans was essentially political, and employed as a means of promoting the designs of the state. It was prosaic in its character, and in this respect differed essentially from the artistic and poetical religion of the Greeks. The Greeks conceived religion as a free and joyous worship of nature, a centre of individuality, beauty, and grace, as well as a source of poetry, art, and independence. With the Romans, on the contrary, religion conveyed a mysterious and hidden idea, which gave to this sentiment a gloomy and unattractive character, without either moral or artistic influence.

PERIOD FIRST.

FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR TO THE AGE OF CICERO (241-74 B.C.)

1. EARLY LITERATURE OF THE ROMANS.—The Romans, like all other nations, had oral poetical compositions before they possessed any written literature. Cicero speaks of the banquet being enlivened by the songs of bards, in which the exploits of heroes were recited and celebrated. By these lays national pride and family vanity were gratified, and the anecdotes, thus preserved, furnished sources of early legendary history. But these legends must not be compared to those of Greece, in which the religious sentiment gave a supernatural glory to the effusions of the bard, painted men as heroes and heroes as deities, and, while it was the natural growth of the Greek intellect, twined itself around the affections of the people. The Roman religion was a ceremonial for the priests, and not for the people, and in Roman tradition there are no traces of elevated genius or poetical inspiration. The Romans possessed the germs of those faculties which admit of cultivation and improvement, such as taste and genius, and the appreciation of the beautiful; but they did not possess those natural gifts of fancy and imagination which formed part of the Greek mind, and which made that nation in a state of infancy, almost of barbarism, a poetical people. With them literature was not of spontaneous growth; it was chiefly the result of the influence exerted by the Etruscans, who were their teachers in everything mental and spiritual.

The tendency of the Roman mind was essentially utilitarian. Even Cicero, with all his varied accomplishments, will recognize but one end and object of all study, namely, those sciences which will render man useful to his country, and the law of literary development is modified according to this ruling principle. From the very beginning, the first cause of Roman literature will be found to have been a view to utility and not to the satisfaction of an impulsive feeling.

In other nations, poetry has been the first spontaneous production. With the Romans, the first written literary effort was history; but even their early history was a simple record of facts, not of ideas or sentiments, and valuable only for its truth and accuracy. Their original documents, mere records of memorable events anterior to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, perished in the conflagration of the city.

The earliest attempt at versification made by the rude inhabitants of Latium was satire in a somewhat dramatic form. The Fescennine songs were metrical, for the accompaniments of music and dancing necessarily restricted them to measure, and, like the dramatic exhibitions of the Greeks, they had their origin among the rural population, not like them in any religious ceremonial, but in the pastimes of the village festival. At first they were innocent and gay, but liberty at length degenerated into license, and gave birth to malicious and libelous attacks upon persons of irreproachable character. This infancy of song illustrates the character of the Romans in its rudest and coarsest form. They loved strife, both bodily and mental, and they thus early displayed that taste which, in more polished ages, and in the hands of cultivated poets, was developed in the sharp, cutting wit, and the lively but piercing points of Roman satire.

In the Fescennine songs the Etruscans probably furnished the spectacle, all that which addresses itself to the eye, while the habits of Italian rural life supplied the sarcastic humor and ready extemporaneous gibe, which are the essence of the true comic. The next advance in point of art must be attributed to the Oscans, whose entertainments were most popular among the Italian nations. They represented in broad caricature national peculiarities. Their language was, originally, Oscan, as well as the characters represented. The principal one resembled the clown of modern pantomime; another was a kind of pantaloon or charlatan, and much of the rest consisted of practical jokes, like that of the Italian Polincinella. After their introduction at Rome, they received many improvements; they lost their native rusticity; their satire was good-natured; their jests were seemly, and kept in check by the laws of good taste. They were not acted by common professional performers, and even a Roman citizen might take part in them without disgrace. They were known by the name of "Fabulae Atellanae," from Attela, a town in Campania, where they were first performed. They remained in favor with the Roman people for centuries. Sylla amused his leisure hours in writing them, and Suetonius bears testimony to their having been a popular amusement under the empire.

Towards the close of the fourth century, the Etruscan histriones were introduced, whose entertainments consisted of graceful national dances, accompanied with the music of the flute, but without either songs or dramatic action. With these dances the Romans combined the old Fescennine songs, and the varied metres, which their verse permitted to the vocal parts, gave to this mixed entertainment the name of Satura (a hodge-podge or potpourri), from which, in after times, the word satire was derived.

2. EARLY LATIN POETS.—At the conclusion, of the first Punic war, when the influence of Greek intellect, which had already long been felt in Italy, had extended to the capital, the Romans were prepared for the reception of a more regular drama. But not only did they owe to Greece the principles of literary taste; their earliest poet was one of that nation. Livius Andronicus (fl. 240 B.C.), though born in Italy, and educated at Rome, is supposed to have been a native of the Greek colony of Tarentum. He was at first a slave, probably a captive taken in war, but was finally emancipated by his master, in whose family he occupied the position of instructor to his children. He wrote a translation, or perhaps an imitation of the Odyssey, in the old Saturnian metre, and also a few hymns. His principal works, however, were tragedies; but, from the few fragments of his writings extant, it is impossible to form an estimate of his ability as a poet. According to Livy, Andronicus was the first who substituted, for the rude extemporaneous effusions of the Fescennine verse, plays with a regular plot and fable. In consequence of losing his voice, from being frequently encored, he obtained permission to introduce a boy to sing the ode or air to the accompaniment of the flute, while he himself represented the action of the song by his gestures and dancing.

Naevius (fl. 235 B.C.) was the first poet who really deserves the name of Roman. He was not a servile imitator, but applied Greek taste and cultivation to the development of Roman sentiments, and was a true Roman in heart, unsparing in his censure of immorality and his admiration for heroic self-devotion. His honest principles cemented the strong friendship between him and the upright and unbending Cato, a friendship which probably contributed to form the political and literary character of that stern old Roman. The comedies of Naevius had undoubted pretensions to originality; he held up to public scorn the vices and follies of his day, and, being a warm supporter of the people against the encroachments of the nobility, and unable to resist indulgence in his satiric vein, he was exiled to Utica, where he died. He was the author of an epic poem on the Punic war. Ennius and Virgil unscrupulously copied and imitated him, and Horace writes that in his day the poems of Naevius were in the hands and hearts of everybody. The fragments of his writings extant are not more numerous than those of Livius.

Naevius, the last of the older school of writers, by introducing new principles of taste to his countrymen, altered their standards; and Greek literature having now driven out its predecessor, a new school of poetry arose, of which Ennius (239-169 B.C.) was the founder. He earned a subsistence as a teacher of Greek, was the friend of Scipio, and, at his death, was buried in the family tomb of the Scipio, at the request of the great conqueror of Hannibal, whose fame he contributed to hand down to posterity. Cicero always uses the appellation, "our own Ennius," when he quotes his poetry. Horace calls him "Father Ennius," a term which implies reverence and regard, and that he was the founder of Latin poetry. He was, like his friends Cato the censor, and Scipio Africanus the elder, a man of action as well as philosophical thought, and not only a poet, but a brave soldier, with all the singleness of heart and simplicity of manners which marked the old times of Roman virtue. Ennius possessed great power over words, and wielded that power skillfully. He improved the language in its harmony and its grammatical forms, and increased its copiousness and power. What he did was improved upon, but was never undone; and upon the foundations he laid, the taste of succeeding ages erected an elegant and beautiful superstructure. His great epic poem, the "Annals," gained him the attachment and admiration of his countrymen. In this he first introduced the hexameter to the notice of the Romans, and detailed the rise and progress of their national glory, from the earliest legendary period down to his own times. The fragments of this work which remain are amply sufficient to show that he possessed picturesque power, both in sketching his narratives and in portraying his characters, which seem to live and breathe; his language, dignified, chaste, and severe, rises as high as the most majestic eloquence, but it does not soar to the sublimity of poetry. As a dramatic poet, Ennius does not deserve a high reputation. In comedy, as in tragedy, he never emancipated himself from the Greek originals.

3. ROMAN COMEDY.—The rude comedy of the early Romans made little progress beyond personal satire, burlesque extravagance and licentious jesting, but upon this was ingrafted the new Greek comedy, and hence arose that phase of the drama, of which the representatives were Plautus, Statius, and Terence. The Roman comedy was calculated to produce a moral result, although the morality it inculcated was extremely low. Its standard was worldly prudence, its lessons utilitarian, and its philosophy Epicurean. There is a want of variety in the plots, but this defect is owing to the social and political condition of ancient Greece, which was represented in the Greek comedies and copied by the Romans. There is also a sameness in the dramatis personae, the principal characters being always a morose or a gentle father, who is sometimes also the henpecked husband of a rich wife, an affectionate or domineering wife, a good-natured profligate, a roguish servant, a calculating slave-dealer and some others.

The actors wore appropriate masks, the features of which were not only grotesque, but much exaggerated and magnified. This was rendered necessary by the immense size of the theatre and stage, and the mouth of the mask answered the purpose of a speaking trumpet, to assist in conveying the voice to every part of the vast building. The characters were known by a conventional costume; old men wore robes of white, young men were attired in gay clothes, rich men in purple, soldiers in scarlet, poor men and slaves in dark and scanty dresses. The comedy had always a musical accompaniment of flutes of different kinds.

In order to understand the principles which regulated the Roman comic metres, it is necessary to observe the manner in which the language itself was affected by the common conversational pronunciation. Latin, as it was pronounced, was very different from Latin as it is written; this difference consisted in abbreviation, either by the omission of sounds altogether, or by the contraction of two sounds into one, and in this respect the conversational language of the Romans resembled that of modern nations; with them, as with us, the mark of good taste was ease and the absence of pedantry and affectation. In the comic writers we have a complete representation of Latin as it was commonly pronounced and spoken, and but little trammeled or confined by a rigid adhesion to Greek metrical laws.

4. COMIC POETS.—Plautus (227-184 B.C.) was a contemporary of Ennius; he was a native of Umbria, and of humble origin. Education did not overcome his vulgarity, although it produced a great effect upon his language and style. He must have lived and associated with the people whose manners he describes, hence his pictures are correct and truthful. The class from which his representations are taken consisted of clients, the sons of freedmen and the half-enfranchised natives of Italian towns. He had no aristocratic friends, like Ennius and Terence; the Roman public were his patrons, and notwithstanding their faults, his comedies retained their popularity even in the Augustan age, and were acted as late as the reign of Diocletian. Life, bustle, surprise, unexpected situations, sharp, sparkling raillery that knew no restraint nor bound, left his audience no time for dullness or weariness. Although Greek was the fountain from which he drew his stores, his wit, thought, and language were entirely Roman, and his style was Latin of the purest and most elegant kind—not, indeed, controlled by much deference to the laws of metrical harmony, but full of pith and sprightliness, bearing the stamp of colloquial vivacity, and suitable to the general briskness of his scenes. Yet in the tone of his dialogue we miss all symptoms of deference to the taste of the more polished classes of society. Almost all his comedies were adopted from the new comedy of the Greeks, and though he had studied both the old and the middle comedy, Menander and others of the same school furnished him the originals of his plots. The popularity of Plautus was not confined to Rome, either republican or imperial. Dramatic writers of modern times, as Shakspeare, Dryden, and Molière, have recognized the effectiveness of his plots, and have adopted or imitated them. About twenty of his plays are extant, among which the Captivi, the Epidicus, the Cistellaria, the Aulularia, and the Rudens are considered the best.

Terence (193-158 B.C.) was a slave in the family of a Roman senator, and was probably a native of Carthage. His genius presented the rare combination of all the fine and delicate qualities which characterized Attic sentiment, without corrupting the native purity of the Latin language. The elegance and gracefulness of his style show that the conversation of the accomplished society, in which he was a welcome guest, was not lost upon his correct ear and quick intuition. So far as it can be so, comedy was, in the hands of Terence, an instrument of moral teaching. Six of his comedies only remain, of which the Andrian and the Adelphi are the most interesting. If Terence was inferior to Plautus in life, bustle, and intrigue, and in the delineation of national character, he is superior in elegance of language and refinement of taste. The justness of his reflections more than compensates for the absence of his predecessor's humor; he touches the heart as well as gratifies the intellect.

Of the few other writers of comedy among the Romans, Statius may be mentioned, who flourished between Plautus and Terence. He was an emancipated slave, born in Milan. Cicero and Varro have pronounced judgment upon his merits, the substance of which appears to be, that his excellences consisted in the conduct of the plot, in dignity, and in pathos, while his fault was too little care in preserving the purity of the Latin style. The fragments, however, of his works, which remain are not sufficient to test the opinion of the ancient critics.

5. ROMAN TRAGEDY.—While Roman comedy was brought to perfection under the influence of Greek literature, Roman tragedy, on the other hand, was transplanted from Athens, and, with few exceptions, was never anything more than translation or imitation. In the century during which, together with comedy, it flourished and decayed, it boasted of five distinguished writers, Livius, Naevius, Ennius (already spoken of), Pacuvius, and Attius. In after ages, Rome did not produce one tragic poet, unless Varius be considered an exception. The tragedies attributed to Seneca were never acted, and were only composed for reading and recitation.

Among the causes which prevented tragedy from flourishing at Rome was the little influence the national legends exerted over the people. These legends were more often private than public property, and ministered more to the glory of private families than to that of the nation at large. They were embalmed by their poets as curious records of antiquity, but they did not, like the venerable traditions of Greece, twine themselves around the heart of the nation. Another reason why Roman legends had not the power to move the affections of the Roman populace is to be found in the changes the masses had undergone. The Roman people were no longer the descendants of those who had maintained the national glory in the early period; the patrician families were almost extinct; war and poverty had extinguished the middle classes and miserably thinned the lower orders. Into the vacancy thus caused, poured thousands of slaves, captives in the bloody wars of Gaul, Spain, Greece, and Africa. These and their descendants replaced the ancient people, and while many of them by their talents and energy arrived at wealth and station, they could not possibly be Romans at heart, or consider the past glories of their adopted country as their own. It was to the rise of this new element of population, and the displacement or absorption of the old race, that the decline of patriotism was owing, and the disregard of everything except daily sustenance and daily amusement, which paved the way for the empire and marked the downfall of liberty. With the people of Athens, tragedy formed a part of the national religion. By it the people were taught to sympathize with their heroic ancestors; the poet was held to be inspired, and poetry the tongue in which the natural held communion with the supernatural. With the Romans, the theatre was merely a place for secular amusement, and poetry only an exercise of the fancy. Again, the religion of the Romans was not ideal, like that of the Greeks. The old national faith of Italy, not being rooted in the heart, soon became obsolete, and readily admitted the ingrafting of foreign superstitions, which had no hold on the belief or love of the people. Nor was the genius of the Roman people such as to sympathize with the legends of the past; they lived only in the present and the future; they did not look back on their national heroes as demigods; they were pressing forward to extend the frontiers of their empire, to bring under their yoke nations which their forefathers had not known. If they regarded their ancestors at all, it was not in the light of men of heroic stature as compared with themselves, but as those whom they could equal or even surpass.

The scenes of real life, the bloody combats of the gladiators, the captives, and malefactors stretched on crosses, expiring in excruciating agonies or mangled by wild beasts, were the tragedies which most deeply interested a Roman audience.

The Romans were a rough people, full of physical rather than of intellectual energy, courting peril and setting no value on human life or suffering. Their very virtues were stern and severe; they were strangers to both the passions which it was the object of tragedy to excite—pity and terror. In the public games of Greece, the refinements of poetry mingled with those exercises which were calculated to invigorate the physical powers, and develop manly beauty. Those of Rome were sanguinary and brutalizing, the amusements of a nation to whom war was a pleasure and a pastime.

It cannot be asserted, however, that tragedy was never to a certain extent an acceptable entertainment at Rome, but only that it never flourished there as it did at Athens, and that no Roman tragedies can be compared with those of Greece.

6. TRAGIC POETS.—Three separate eras produced tragic poets. In the first flourished Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius; in the second, Pacuvius and Attius; in the third, Asinius Pollio wrote tragedies, the plots of which seem to have been taken from Roman history. Ovid attempted a "Medea," and even the Emperor Augustus, with other men of genius, tried his hand, though unsuccessfully, at tragedy.

In the second of the eras mentioned, Roman tragedy reached its highest degree of perfection simultaneously with that of comedy. While Terence was successfully reproducing the wit and manners of the new Attic comedy, Pacuvius (220-130 B.C.) was enriching the Roman drama with free translations of the Greek tragedians. He was a native of Brundusium and a grandson of the poet Ennius. At Rome he distinguished himself as a painter as well as a dramatic poet. His tragedies were not mere translations, but adaptations of Greek tragedies to the Roman stage. The fragments which are extant are full of new and original thoughts, and the very roughness of his style and audacity of his expressions have somewhat of the solemn grandeur and picturesque boldness which distinguish the father of Attic tragedy.

Attius (fl. 138 B.C.), though born later than Pacuvius, was almost his contemporary, and a competitor for popular applause. He is said to have written more than fifty tragedies, of which fragments only remain. His taste is chastened, his sentiments noble, and his versification elegant. With him, Latin tragedy disappeared. The tragedies of the third period were written expressly for reading and recitation, and not for the stage: they were dramatic poems, not dramas. Amidst the scenes of horror and violence which followed, the voice of the tragic muse was hushed. Massacre and rapine raged through the streets of Rome, itself a theatre where the most terrible scenes were daily enacted.

7. SATIRE.—The invention of satire is universally attributed to the Romans, and this is true as far as the external form is concerned, but the spirit is found in many parts of the literature of Greece. Ennius was the inventor of the name, but Lucilius (148-102 B.C.) was the father of satire, in the proper sense. His satires mark an era in Roman literature, and prove that a love for this species of poetry had already made great progress. Hitherto, literature, science, and art had been considered the province of slaves and freedmen. The stern old Roman virtue despised such sedentary employment as intellectual cultivation, and thought it unworthy of the warrior and statesman. Some of the higher classes loved literature and patronized it, but did not make it their pursuit. Lucilius was a Roman knight, as well as a poet. His satires were comprised in thirty books, numerous fragments of which are still extant. He was a man of high moral principle, though stern and stoical; a relentless enemy of vice and profligacy, and a gallant and fearless defender of truth and honesty. After the death of Lucilius satire languished, until half a century later, when it assumed a new garb in the descriptive scenes of Horace, and put forth its original vigor in the burning thoughts of Persius and Juvenal.

8. HISTORY AND ORATORY.—Prose was far more in accordance with the genius of the Romans than poetry. As a nation, they had little or no imaginative power, no enthusiastic love of natural beauty, and no acute perception of the sympathy between man and the external world. The favorite civil pursuit of an enlightened Roman was statesmanship, and the subjects akin to it, history, jurisprudence, and oratory, the natural language of which was prose, not poetry. And their practical statesmanship gave an early encouragement to oratory, which is peculiarly the literature of active life. As matter was more valued than manner by this utilitarian people, it was long before it was thought necessary to embellish prose composition with the graces of rhetoric. The fact that Roman literature was imitative rather than inventive, gave a historical bias to the Roman intellect, and a tendency to study subjects from an historical point of view. But even in history, they never attained that comprehensive and philosophical spirit which distinguished the Greek historians.

The most ancient writer of Roman history was Fabius Pictor (fl. 219 B.C.). His principal work, written in Greek, was a history of the first and second Punic war, to which subsequent writers were much indebted. Contemporary with Fabius was Cincius Alimentus, also an annalist of the Punic war, in which he was personally engaged. He was a prisoner of Hannibal, who delighted in the society of literary men, and treated him with great kindness and consideration, and himself communicated to him the details of his passage across the Alps. Like Fabius, he wrote his work in Greek, and prefixed to it a brief abstract of Roman history. Though the works of these annalists are valuable as furnishing materials for more philosophical minds, they are such as could have existed only in the infancy of a national literature. They were a bare compilation of facts— the mere framework of history—diversified by no critical remarks or political reflections, and meagre and insipid in style.

The versatility of talent displayed by Cato the censor (224-144 B.C.) entitles him to a place among orators, jurists, economists, and historians. His life extends over a wide and important period of literary history, when everything was in a state of change,—morals, social habits, and literary taste. Cato was born in Tusculum, and passed his boyhood in the pursuits of rural life at a small Sabine farm belonging to his father. The skill with which he pleaded the causes of his clients before the rural magistracy made his abilities known, and he rose rapidly to eminence as a pleader. He filled many high offices of state. His energies were not weakened by advancing age, and he was always ready as the advocate of virtue, the champion of the oppressed, and the punisher of vice. With many defects, Cato was morally and intellectually one of the greatest men Rome ever produced. He had the ability and the determination to excel in everything which he undertook. His style is rude, unpolished, ungraceful, because to him polish was superficial, and, therefore, unreal. His statements, however, were clear, his illustrations striking; the words with which he enriched his native tongue were full of meaning; his wit was keen and lively, and his arguments went straight to the intellect, and carried conviction with them.

Cato's great historical and antiquarian work, "The Origins," was a history of Italy and Rome from the earliest times to the latest events which occurred in his own lifetime. It was a work of great research and originality, but only brief fragments of it remain. In the "De Re Rustica," which has come down to us in form and substance as it was written, Cato maintains, in the introduction, the superiority of agriculture over other modes of gaining a livelihood. The work itself is a commonplace book of agriculture and domestic economy; its object is utility, not science: it serves the purpose of a farmer's and gardener's manual, a domestic medicine, herbal, and cookery book. Cato teaches his readers, for example, how to plant osier beds, to cultivate vegetables, to preserve the health of cattle, to pickle pork, and to make savory dishes.

Of the "Orations" of Cato, ninety titles are extant, together with numerous fragments. In style he despised art. He was too fearless and upright, too confident in the justness of his cause to be a rhetorician; he imitated no one, and no one was ever able to imitate him. Niebuhr pronounces him to be the only great man in his generation, and one of the greatest and most honorable characters in Roman history.

Varro (116-28 B.C.) was an agriculturist, a grammarian, a critic, a theologian, a historian, a philosopher, a satirist. Of his miscellaneous works considerable portions are extant, sufficient to display his erudition and acuteness, yet, in themselves, more curious than attractive.

Eloquence, though of a rude, unpolished kind, must have been, in the very earliest times, a characteristic of the Roman people. It is a plant indigenous to a free soil. As in modern times it has flourished especially in England and America, fostered by the unfettered freedom of debate, so it found a congenial home in free Greece and republican Rome. Oratory was, in Rome, the unwritten literature of active life, and recommended itself to a warlike and utilitarian people by its utility and its antagonistic spirit. Long before the art of the historian was sufficiently advanced to record a speech, the forum, the senate, the battlefield, and the threshold of the jurisconsult had been nurseries of Roman eloquence, or schools in which oratory attained a vigorous youth, and prepared for its subsequent maturity.

While the legal and political constitution of the Roman people gave direct encouragement to deliberative and judicial oratory, respect for the illustrious dead furnished opportunities for panegyric. The song of the bard in honor of the departed warrior gave place to the funeral oration. Among the orators of this time were the two Scipios, and Galba, whom Cicero praises as having been the first Roman who understood how to apply the theoretical principles of Greek rhetoric.

All periods of political disquiet are necessarily favorable to eloquence, and the era of the Gracchi was especially so. After a struggle of nearly four centuries the old distinction of plebeian and patrician no longer existed. Plebeians held high offices, and patricians, like the Gracchi, stood forward as champions of popular rights. These stirring times produced many celebrated orators. The Gracchi themselves were both eloquent and possessed of those qualities and endowments which would recommend their eloquence to their countrymen. Oratory began now to be studied more as an art, and the interval between the Gracchi and Cicero boasted of many distinguished names; the most illustrious among them are M. Antonius, Crassus, and Cicero's contemporary and most formidable rival, Hortensius.

M. Antonius (fl. 119 B.C.) entered public life as a pleader, and thus laid the foundation of his brilliant career; but he was through life greater as a judicial than as a deliberative orator. He was indefatigable in preparing his case, and made every point tell. He was a great master of the pathetic, and knew the way to the heart. Although he did not himself give his speeches to posterity, some of his most pointed expressions and favorite passages left an indelible impression on the memories of his hearers, and many of them were preserved by Cicero. In the prime of life he fell a victim to political fury, and his bleeding head was placed upon the rostrum, which was so frequently the scene of his eloquent triumphs.

L. Licinius Crassus was four years younger than Antonius, and acquired great reputation for his knowledge of jurisprudence, for his eminence as a pleader, and, above all, for his powerful and triumphant orations in support of the restoration of the judicial office to the senators. From among the crowd of orators, who were then flourishing in the last days of expiring Roman liberty, Cicero selected Crassus to be the representative of his sentiments in his imaginary conversation in "The Orator." Like Lord Chatham, Crassus almost died on the floor of the Senate house, and his last effort was in support of the aristocratic party.

Q. Hortensius was born 114 B.C. He was only eight years senior to the greatest of all Roman orators. He early commenced his career as a pleader, and he was the acknowledged leader of the Roman bar, until the star of Cicero arose. His political connection with the faction of Sylla, and his unscrupulous support of the profligate corruption which characterized that administration, both at home and abroad, enlisted his legal talents in defense of the infamous Verres; but the eloquence of Cicero, together with the justice of the cause which he espoused, prevailed; and from that time forward his superiority over Hortensius was established and complete. The style of Hortensius was Asiatic—more florid and ornate than polished and refined.

9. ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.—The framework of their jurisprudence the Romans derived from Athens, but the complete structure was built up by their own hands. They were the authors of a system possessing such stability that they bequeathed it, as an inheritance, to modern Europe, and traces of Roman law are visible in the legal systems of the whole civilized world.

The complicated principles of jurisprudence of the Roman constitution became, in Rome, a necessary part of a liberal education. When a Roman youth had completed his studies, under his teacher of rhetoric, he not only frequented the forum, in order to learn the application of the rhetorical principles he had acquired, and frequently took some celebrated orator as a model, but also studied the principles of jurisprudence under eminent jurists, and attended the consultations in which they gave to their clients their expositions of law.

The earliest systematic works on Roman law were the "Manual" of Pomponius, and the "Institutes" of Gaius, who flourished in the time of Hadrian and the Antonines. Both of these works were, for a long time, lost, though fragments were preserved in the pandects of Justinian. In 1816, however, Niebuhr discovered a palimpsest MS., in which the epistles of St. Jerome were written over the erased "Institutes" of Gaius. From the numerous misunderstandings of the Roman historians respecting the laws and constitutional history of their country, the subject continued long in a state of confusion, until Vico, in his "Scienza nuova," dispelled the clouds of error, and reduced it to a system; and he was followed so successfully by Niebuhr, that modern students can have a more comprehensive and antiquarian knowledge of the subject than the writers of the Augustan age.

The earliest Roman laws were the "Leges Regiae," which were collected and codified by Sextus Papirius, and were hence called the Papirian code; but these were rude and unconnected—simply a collection of isolated enactments. The laws of the "Twelve Tables" stand next in point of antiquity. They exhibited the first attempt at regular system, and embodied not only legislative enactments, but legal principles. So popular were they that when Cicero was a child every Roman boy committed them to memory, as our children do their catechism, and the great orator laments that in the course of his lifetime this practice had become obsolete.

The oral traditional expositions of these laws formed the groundwork of the Roman civil law. To these were added, from time to time, the decrees of the people, the acts of the senate, and praetorian edicts, and from these various elements the whole body of Roman law was composed. So early was the subject diligently studied, that the age preceding the first two centuries of our era was rich in jurists whose powers are celebrated in history.

The most eminent jurists who adorned this period were the Scaevolae, a family in whom the profession seems to have been hereditary. After them flourished Aelius Gallus (123-67 B.C.), eminent as a law reformer, C. Juventius, Sextus Papirius, and L. Lucilius Balbus, three distinguished jurists, who were a few years senior to Cicero.

10. GRAMMARIANS.—Towards the conclusion of this literary period a great increase took place in the numbers of those learned men whom the Romans at first termed literati, but afterwards, following the custom of the Greeks, grammarians. To them literature was under great obligations. Although few of them were authors, and all of them possessed acquired learning rather than original genius, they exercised a powerful influence over the public mind as professors, lecturers, critics, and schoolmasters. By them the youths of the best families not only were imbued with a taste for Greek philosophy and poetry, but were also taught to appreciate the literature of their own country. Livius Andronicus and Ennius may be placed at the head of this class, followed by Crates Mallotes, C. Octavius Lampadio, Laelius, Archelaus, and others, most of whom were emancipated slaves, either from Greece or from other foreign countries.

PERIOD SECOND.

FROM THE AGE OF CICERO TO THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS (74 B.C.-14 A.D.)

1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN LITERATURE.—Latin literature, at first rude, and, for five centuries, unable to reach any high excellence, was, as we have seen, gradually developed by the example and tendency of the Greek mind, which moulded Roman civilization anew. The earliest Latin poets, historians, and grammarians were Greeks. The metre which was brought to such perfection by the Latin poets was formed from the Greek, and the Latin language more and more assimilated to the Hellenic tongue.

As civilization advanced, the rude literature of Rome was compared with the great monuments of Greek genius, their superiority was acknowledged, and the study of them encouraged. The Roman youth not only attended the schools of the Greeks, in Rome, but their education was considered incomplete, unless they repaired to those of Athens, Rhodes, and Mytilene. Thus, whatever of national character existed in the literature was gradually obliterated, and what it gained in harmony and finish it lost in originality. The Roman writers imitated more particularly the writers of the Alexandrian school, who, being more artificial, were more congenial than the great writers of the age of Pericles.

Roman genius, serious, majestic, and perhaps more original than at a later period, was manifest even at the time of the Punic wars, but it had not yet taken form; and while thought was vigorous and powerful, expression remained weak and uncertain. But, under the Greek influence, and aided by the vigor imparted by free institutions, the union of thought and form was at length consummated, and the literature reached its culminating point in the great Roman orator. The fruits which had grown and matured in the centuries preceding were gathered by Augustus; but the influences that contributed to the splendor of his age belong rather to the republic than the empire, and with the fall of the liberties of Rome, Roman literature declined.

2. MIMES, MIMOGRAPHERS, AND PANTOMIME.—Amidst all the splendor of the Latin literature of this period, dramatic poetry never recovered from the trance into which it had fallen, though the stage had not altogether lost its popularity. Aesopus and Roscius, the former the great tragic actor, and the latter the favorite comedian, in the time of Cicero, enjoyed his friendship and that of other great men, and both amassed large fortunes. But although the standard Roman plays were constantly represented, dramatic literature had become extinct. The entertainments, which had now taken the place of comedy and tragedy, were termed mimes. These were laughable imitations of manners and persons, combining the features of comedy and farce, for comedy represents the characters of a class, farce those of individuals. Their essence was that of the modern pantomime, and their coarseness, and even indecency, gratified the love of broad humor which characterized the Roman people. After a time, when they became established as popular favorites, the dialogue occupied a more prominent position, and was written in verse, like that of tragedy and comedy. During the dictatorship of Caesar, a Roman knight named Laberius (107-45 B.C.) became famous for his mimes. The profession of an actor of mimes was infamous, but Laberius was a writer, not an actor. On one occasion, Caesar offered him a large sum of money to enter the lists in a trial of his improvisatorial skill. Laberius did not submit to the degradation for the sake of the money, but he was afraid to refuse. The only method of retaliation in his power was sarcasm. His part was that of a slave; and when his master scourged him, he exclaimed: "Porro, Quirites, libertatem perdimus!" His words were received with a round of applause, and all eyes were fixed on Caesar. The dictator restored him to the rank of which his act had deprived him, but he could never recover the respect of his countrymen. As he passed the orchestra, on his way to the stalls of the knights, Cicero cried out: "If we were not so crowded, I would make room for you here." Laberius replied, alluding to Cicero's lukewarmness as a political partisan: "I am astonished that you should be crowded, as you generally sit on two stools."

Another writer and actor of mimes was Publius Syrus, originally a Syrian slave. Tradition has recorded a bon mot of his which is as witty as it is severe. Seeing an ill-tempered man named Mucius in low spirits, he exclaimed: "Either some ill fortune has happened to Mucius, or some good fortune to one of his friends!"

The Roman pantomime differed somewhat from the mime. It was a ballet of action, performed by a single dancer, who not only exhibited the human figure in its most graceful attitudes, but represented every passion and emotion with such truth that the spectators could, without difficulty, understand the story. The pantomime was licentious in its character, and the actors were forbidden by Tiberius to hold any intercourse with Romans of equestrian or senatorial dignity.

These were the exhibitions which threw such discredit on the stage, which called forth the well-deserved attacks of the early Christian fathers, and caused them to declare that whoever attended them was unworthy of the name of Christian. Had the drama not been so abused, had it retained its original purity, and carried out the object attributed to it by Aristotle, they would have seen it, not a nursery of vice, but a school of virtue; not only an innocent amusement, but a powerful engine to form the taste, to improve the morals, and to purify the feelings of a people.

3. EPIC POETRY.—The epic poets of this period selected their subjects either from the heroic age and the mythology of Greece, or from their own national history. The Augustan age abounds in representatives of these two poetical schools, though possessing little merit. But the Romans, essentially practical and positive in their character, felt little interest in the descriptions of manners and events remote from their associations, and poetry, restrained within the limits of their history, could not rise to that height of imagination demanded by the epic muse. Virgil united the two forms by selecting his subject from the national history, and adorning the ancient traditions of Rome with the splendor of Greek imagination.

Virgil (70-19 B.C.) was born at Andes, near Mantua; he was educated at Cremona and at Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy. After this he came to Rome, where, through Maecenas, he became known to Octavius, and basked in the sunshine of court favor. His favorite residence was Naples. On his return from Athens, in company with Augustus, he was seized with an illness of which he died. He was buried about a mile from Naples, on the road to Pozzuoli; and a tomb is still pointed out to the traveler which is said to be that of the poet. Virgil was deservedly popular both as a poet and as a man. The emperor esteemed him and people respected him; he was constitutionally pensive and melancholy, temperate, and pure-minded in a profligate age, and his popularity never spoiled his simplicity and modesty. In his last moments he was anxious to burn the whole manuscript of the Aeneid, and directed his executors either to improve it or commit it to the flames.

The idea and plan of the Aeneid are derived from Homer. As the wrath of Achilles is the mainspring of the Iliad, so the unity of the Aeneid results from the anger of Juno. The arrival of Aeneas in Italy after the destruction of Troy, the obstacles that opposed him through the intervention of Juno, and the adventures and the victories of the hero form the subject of the poem. Leaving Sicily for Latium, Aeneas is driven on the coast of Africa by a tempest raised against him by Juno; at Carthage he is welcomed by the queen, Dido, to whom he relates his past adventures and sufferings. By his narrative he wins her love, but at the command of Jupiter abandons her. Unable to retain him, Dido, in the despair of her passion, destroys herself. After passing through many dangers, under the guidance of the Sibyl of Cumae, he descends into the kingdom of the dead to consult the shade of his father. There appear to him the souls of the future heroes of Rome. On his return, he becomes a friend of the king of Latium, who promises to him the hand of his daughter, which is eagerly sought by King Turnus. A fearful war ensues between the rival lovers, which ends in the victory of Aeneas.

Though the poem of Virgil is in many passages an imitation from the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Roman element predominates in it, and the Aeneid is the true national poem of Rome. There was no subject more adapted to flatter the vanity of the Romans, than the splendor and antiquity of their origin. Augustus is evidently typified under the character of Aeneas; Cleopatra is boldly sketched as Dido; and Turnus as the popular Antony. The love and death of Dido, the passionate victim of an unrequited love, give occasion to the poet to sing the victories of his countrymen over their Carthaginian rivals; the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which he adopts in the description of Elysium, affords an opportunity to exalt the heroes of Rome; and the wars of Aeneas allow him to describe the localities and the manners of ancient Latium with such truthfulness as to give to his verses the authority of historical quotations. In style, the Aeneid is a model of purity and elegance, and for the variety and the harmony of its incidents, for the power of its descriptions, and for the interest of its plot and episodes, second only to the Iliad. It has been observed that Virgil's descriptions are more like landscape painting than those of any of his predecessors, whether Greek or Roman, and it is a remarkable fact, that landscape painting was first introduced in his time.

4. DIDACTIC POETRY.—The poems, which first established the reputation of Virgil as a poet, belong to didactic poetry. They are his Bucolics and Georgics. The Bucolics are pastoral idyls; the characters are Italian in all their sentiments and feelings, acting, however, the unreal and assumed part of Greek shepherds. The Italians never possessed the elements of pastoral life, and could not furnish the poet with originals and models from which to draw his portraits. When represented as Virgil represents them in his Bucolics, they are in masquerade, and the drama in which they form the characters is of an allegorical kind. Even the scenery is Sicilian, and does not truthfully describe the tame neighborhood of Mantua. In fact, these poems are imitations of Theocritus; but, divesting ourselves of the idea of the outward form which the poet has chosen to adopt, we are touched by the simple narrative of disappointed loves and childlike woes; we appreciate the delicately-veiled compliments paid by the poet to his patron; we enjoy the inventive genius and poetical power which they display, and we are elevated by the exalted sentiments which they sometimes breathe.

The Georgics are poems on the labors and enjoyments of rural life, a subject for which Rome offered a favorable field. Though in this style Hesiod was the model of Virgil, his system is perfectly Italian, so much so, that many of his rules may be traced in modern Italian husbandry, just as the descriptions of implements in the Greek poet are frequently found to agree with those in use in modern Greece. The great merit of the Georgics consists in their varied digressions, interesting episodes, and in the sublime bursts of descriptive vigor which are interspersed throughout them. They have frequently been taken as models for imitation by the didactic poets of all nations, and more particularly of England. The "Seasons," for instance, is a thoroughly Virgilian poem.

Lucretius (95-51 B.C.) belongs to the class of didactic poets. He might claim a place among philosophers as well as poets, for his poem marks an epoch both in poetry and philosophy. But his philosophy is a mere reflection from that of Greece, while his poetry is bright with the rays of original genius. His poem on "The Nature of Things" is in imitation of that of Empedocles. Its subject is philosophical and its purpose didactic; but its unity of design gives to it almost the rank of an epic. Its structure prevents it from being a complete and systematic survey of the whole Epicurean philosophy, but as far as the form of the poem permitted, it presents an accurate view of the philosophy which then enjoyed the highest popularity.

The object of the poem of Lucretius is to emancipate mankind from the debasing effects of superstition by an exposition of philosophy, and though a follower of Epicurus, he is not entirely destitute of the religious sentiment, for he deifies nature and has a veneration for her laws. His infidelity must be viewed rather in the light of a philosophical protest against the results of heathen superstition, than a total rejection of the principles of religious faith.

Lucretius valued the capabilities of the Latin language. He wielded at will its power of embodying the noblest thoughts, and showed how its copious and flexible properties could overcome the hard technicalities of science. The great beauty of his poetry is its variety; his fancy is always lively, his imagination has always free scope. He is sublime, as a philosopher who penetrates the secrets of the natural world, and discloses to the eyes of man the hidden causes of its wonderful phenomena. His object was a lofty one; for although the absurdities of the national creed drove him into skepticism, his aim was to set the intellect free from the trammels of superstition. But besides grandeur and sublimity, we find the totally different qualities of softness and tenderness. Rome had long known nothing but war, and was now rent by civil dissension. Lucretius yearned for peace; and his prayer, that the fabled goddess of all that is beautiful in nature would heal the wounds which discord had made, is distinguished by tenderness and pathos even more than by sublimity. He is superior to Ovid in force, though inferior in facility; not so smooth or harmonious as Virgil, his poetry always falls upon the ear with a swelling and sonorous melody. Virgil appreciated his excellence, and imitated not only single expressions, but almost entire verses and passages; and Ovid exclaims, that the sublime strains of Lucretius shall never perish until the world shall be given up to destruction.

5. LYRIC POETRY.—The Romans had not the ideality and the enthusiasm which are the elements of lyric poetry, and in all the range of their literature there are only two poets who, greatly inferior to the lyric poets of Greece, have a positive claim to a place in this department, Catullus and Horace. Catullus (86-46 B.C.) was born near Verona. At an early age he went to Rome, where he plunged into all the excesses of the capital, and where his sole occupation was the cultivation of his literary tastes and talents. A career of extravagance and debauchery terminated in the ruin of his fortune, and he died at the age of forty. The works of Catullus consist of numerous short pieces of a lyrical character, elegies and other poems. He was one of the most popular of the Roman poets, because he possessed those qualities which the literary society at Rome most valued, polish and learning, and because, although an imitator, there was a truly Roman nationality in all that he wrote. His satire was the bitter resentment of a vindictive spirit; his love and his hate were both purely selfish, but his excellences were of the most alluring and captivating kind. He has never been surpassed in gracefulness, melody, and tenderness.

Horace (65-8 B.C.), like Virgil and other poets of his time, enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of Maecenas, who procured for him the public grant of his Sabine farm, situated about fifteen miles from Tivoli. At Rome he occupied a house on the beautiful heights of the Esquiline. The rapid alternation of town and country life, which the fickle poet indulged in, gives a peculiar charm to his poetry. His "Satires" were followed by the publication of the "Odes" and the "Epistles." The satires of Horace occupied the position of the fashionable novel of our day. In them is sketched boldly, but good-humoredly, a picture of Roman social life, with its vices and follies. They have nothing of the bitterness of Lucilius, the love of purity and honor that adorns Persius, or the burning indignation of Juvenal at the loathsome corruption of morals. Vice, in his day, had not reached that appalling height which it attained in the time of the emperors who succeeded Augustus. Deficient in moral purity, nothing would strike him as deserving censure, except such excess as would actually defeat the object which he proposed to himself, namely, the utmost enjoyment of life. In the "Epistles," he lays aside the character of a moral teacher or censor, and writes with the freedom with which he would converse with an intimate friend. But it is in his inimitable "Odes" that the genius of Horace as a poet is especially displayed; they have never been equaled in beauty of sentiment, gracefulness of language, and melody of versification; they comprehend every variety of subject suitable to the lyric muse; they rise without effort to the most elevated topics; and they descend to the simplest joys and sorrows of every-day life.

The life of Horace is especially instructive, as a mirror in which is reflected a faithful image of the manners of his day. He is the representative of Roman refined society, as Virgil is of the national mind. His morals were lax, but not worse than those of his contemporaries. He looked at virtue and vice from a worldly, not from a moral point of view, and with him the one was prudence and the other folly.

In connection with Horace, we may mention Maecenas, who, by his good taste and munificence, exercised a great influence upon literature, and literary men of Rome were much indebted to him for the use he made of his friendship with Augustus, to whom, probably, his love of literature and of pleasure and his imperturbable temper recommended him as an agreeable companion. He had wealth enough to gratify his utmost wishes, and his mind was so full of the delights of refined society, of palaces, gardens, wit, poetry, and art, that there was no room in it for ambition. All the most brilliant men of Rome were found at his table,—Virgil, Horace, Propertius, and Varius were among his friends and constant associates. He was a fair specimen of the man of pleasure and society,—liberal, kind- hearted, clever, refined, but luxurious, self-indulgent, indolent, and volatile, with good impulses, but without principle.

6. ELEGY.—Tibullus (b. 54 B.C.) was the father of the Roman elegy. He was a contemporary of Virgil and Horace. The style of his poems and their tone of thought are like his character, deficient in vigor and manliness, but sweet, smooth, polished, tender, and never disfigured by bad taste. He passed his short life in peaceful retirement, and died soon after Virgil. The poems ascribed to Tibullus consist of four books, of which only two are genuine.

Propertius (b. 150 B.C.), although a contemporary and friend of the Augustan poets, may be considered as belonging to a somewhat different school of poetry. While Horace, Virgil, and Tibullus imitated the noblest poets of the Greek age, Propertius, like the minor Roman poets, aspired to nothing more than the imitation of the graceful, but feeble strains of the Alexandrian poets. If he excels Tibullus in vigor of fancy, expression, and coloring, he is inferior to him in grace, spontaneity, and delicacy; he cannot, also, be compared with Catullus, who greatly surpasses him in his easy and effective style.

Ovid (43 B.C.-6 A.D.), the most fertile of the Latin poets, not only in elegy, but also in other kinds of poetry, was enabled by his rank, fortune, and talents to cultivate the society of men of congenial tastes. A skeptic and an epicurean, he lived a life of continual indulgence and intrigue. He was a universal admirer of the female sex, and a favorite among women. He was popular as a poet, successful in society, and possessed all the enjoyments that wealth could bestow; but later in life he incurred the anger of Augustus, and was banished to the very frontier of the Roman empire, where he lingered for a few years and died in great misery. The "Epistles to and from Women of the Heroic Age" are a series of love-letters; with the exception of the "Metamorphoses," they have been greater favorites than any other of his works. Love, in the days of Ovid, had in it nothing pure or chivalrous. The age in which he lived was morally polluted, and he was neither better nor worse than his contemporaries; hence grossness is the characteristic of his "Art of Love." His "Metamorphoses" contain a series of mythological narratives from the earliest times to the translation of the soul of Julius Caesar from earth to heaven, and his metamorphosis into a star. In this poem especially may be traced that study and learning by which the Roman poets made all the treasures of Greek literature their own. "The Fasti," a poem on the Roman calendar, is a beautiful specimen of simple narrative in verse, and displays, more than any of his works, his power of telling a story without the slightest effort, in poetry as well as prose. The five books of the "Tristia," and the "Epistles from Pontus," were the outpourings of his sorrowful heart during the gloomy evening of his days.

7. ORATORY AND PHILOSOPHY.—As oratory gave to Latin prose-writing its elegance and dignity, Cicero (106-43 B.C.) is not only the representative of the flourishing period of the language, but also the instrumental cause of its arriving at perfection. He gave a fixed character to the Latin tongue; showed his countrymen what vigor it possessed, and of what elegance and polish it was susceptible. The influence of Cicero on the language and literature of his day was not only extensive, but permanent, and it survived almost until the language was corrupted by barbarism. After traveling in Greece and Asia, and holding a high office in Sicily, he returned to Rome, resumed his forensic practice, and was made consul. The conspiracy of Catiline was the great event of his consulship. The prudence and tact with which he crushed this gained him the applause and gratitude of his fellow-citizens, who hailed him as the father of his country; but he was obliged, by the intrigues of his enemies, to fly from Rome; his exile was decreed, and his town and country houses given up to plunder. He was, however, recalled, and appointed to a seat in the college of Augurs. In the struggle between Pompey and Caesar, he followed the fortunes of the former; but Caesar, after his triumph, granted him a full and free pardon. After the assassination of Caesar, Cicero delivered that torrent of indignant and eloquent invective, his twelve Philippic orations, and became again the popular idol; but when the second triumvirate was formed, and each member gave up his friends to the vengeance of his colleagues, Octavius did not hesitate to sacrifice Cicero. Betrayed by a treacherous freedman, he would not permit his attendants to make any resistance, but courageously submitted to the sword of the assassins, who cut off his head and hands, and carried them to Antony, whose wife, Julia, gloated with inhuman delight upon the pallid features, and in petty spite pierced with a needle the once eloquent tongue. Cicero had numerous faults; he was vain, vacillating, inconstant, timid, and the victim of morbid sensibility; but he was candid, truthful, just, generous, pure-minded, and warm-hearted. Gentle, sympathizing, and affectionate, he lived as a patriot and died as a philosopher.

The place which Cicero occupies in the history of Roman literature is that of an orator and philosopher. The effectiveness of his oratory was mainly owing to his knowledge of the human heart, and of the national peculiarities of his countrymen. Its charm was owing to his extensive acquaintance with the stores of literature and philosophy, which his sprightly wit moulded at will; to the varied learning, which his unpedantic mind made so pleasant and popular; and to his fund of illustration, at once interesting and convincing. He carried his hearers with him; senate, judges, and people understood his arguments, and felt his passionate appeals. Compared with the dignified energy and majestic vigor of Demosthenes, the Asiatic exuberance of some of his orations may be fatiguing to the more sober and chaste taste of modern scholars; but in order to form a just appreciation, we must transport ourselves mentally to the excitements of the thronged forum, to the senate, composed of statesmen and warriors in the prime of life, maddened with the party- spirit of revolutionary times. Viewed in this light, his most florid passages will appear free from affectation—the natural flow of a speaker carried away with the torrent of his enthusiasm. Among his numerous orations, in which, according to the criticisms of Quintilian, he combined the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates, we mention the six celebrated Verrian harangues, which are considered masterpieces of Tullian eloquence. In the speech for the poet Archias, he had evidently expended all his resources of art, taste, and skill; and his oration in defense of Milo, for force, pathos, and the externals of eloquence, deserves to be reckoned among his most wonderful efforts. The oratory of Cicero was essentially judicial; even his political orations are rather judicial than deliberative. He was not born for a politician; he did not possess that analytical character of mind which penetrates into the remote causes of human action, nor the synthetical power which enables a man to follow them out to their farthest consequences. Of the three qualities necessary for a statesman, he possessed only two,—honesty and patriotism; he had not political wisdom. Hence, in the finest specimens of his political orations, his Catilinarians and Philippics, we look in vain for the calm, practical weighing of the subject which is necessary in addressing a deliberative assembly. Nevertheless, so irresistible was the influence which he exercised upon the minds of his hearers, that all his political speeches were triumphs. His panegyric on Pompey carried his appointment as commander-in-chief of the armies of the East; he crushed in Catiline one of the most formidable traitors that had ever menaced the safety of the republic, and Antony's fall followed the complete exposure of his debauchery in private life, and the factiousness of his public career.

In his rhetorical works, Cicero left a legacy of practical instruction to posterity. The treatise "On Invention" is merely interesting as the juvenile production of a future great man. "The Orator," "Brutus, or the illustrious Orators," and "The Orator to Marius Brutus," are the results of his matured experience. They form together one series, in which the principles are laid down, and their development carried out and illustrated; and in the "Orator" he places before the eyes of Brutus the model of ideal perfection. In his treatment of that subject, he shows a mind imbued with the spirit of Plato; he invests it with dramatic interest, and transports the reader into the scene which he so graphically describes.

Roman philosophy was neither the result of original investigation, nor the gradual development of the Greek system. It arose rather from a study of ancient philosophical literature, than from an emanation of philosophical principles. It consisted in a kind of eclecticism with an ethical tendency, bringing together doctrines and opinions scattered over a wide field in reference to the political and social relations of man. Greek philosophy was probably first introduced into Rome 166 B.C. But although the Romans could appreciate the majestic dignity and poetical beauty of the style of Plato, they were not equal to the task of penetrating his hidden meaning; neither did the peripatetic doctrines meet with much favor. The philosophical system which first arrested the attention of the Romans, and gained an influence over their minds, was the Epicurean. That of the Stoics also, the severe principles of which were in harmony with the stern old Roman virtues, had distinguished disciples. The part which Cicero's character qualified him to perform in the philosophical instruction of his countrymen was scarcely that of a guide; he could give them a lively interest in the subject, but he could not mould and form their belief, and train them in the work of original investigation. Not being devoutly attached to any system of philosophical belief, he would be cautious of offending the philosophical prejudices of others. He was essentially an eclectic in accumulating stores of Greek erudition, while his mind had a tendency, in the midst of a variety of inconsistent doctrines, to leave the conclusion undetermined. He brought everything to a practical standard; he admired the exalted purity of stoical morality, but he feared that it was impractical. He believed in the existence of one supreme creator, in his spiritual nature, and the immortality of the soul; but his belief was rather the result of instinctive conviction, than of proof derived from philosophy.

The study of Cicero's philosophical works is invaluable, in order to understand the minds of those who came after him. Not only all Roman philosophy after his time, but a great part of that of the Middle Ages, was Greek philosophy filtered through Latin, and mainly founded on that of Cicero. Among his works on speculative philosophy are "The Academics, or a history and defense of the belief of the new Academy;" "Dialogues on the Supreme Good, the end of all moral action;" "The Tusculan Disputations," containing five treatises on the fear of death, the endurance of pain, power of wisdom over sorrow, the morbid passions, and the relation of virtue to happiness. His moral philosophy comprehends the "Duties," a stoical treatise on moral obligations, and the unequaled little essays on "Friendship and Old Age." His political works are "The Republic" and "The Law;" but these remains are fragmentary.

The extent of Cicero's correspondence is almost incredible. Even those epistles which remain number more than eight hundred. In them we find the eloquence of the heart, not of the rhetorical school. They are models of pure Latinity, elegant without stiffness, the natural outpourings of a mind which could not give birth to an ungraceful idea. In his letters to Atticus he lays bare the secret of his heart; he trusts his life in his hands; he is not only his friend but his confidant, his second self. In the letters of Cicero we have the description of the period of Roman history, and the portrait of the inner life of Roman society in his day.

8. HISTORY.—In their historical literature the Romans exhibited a faithful transcript of their mind and character. History at once gratified their patriotism, and its investigations were in accordance with their love of the real and the practical. In this department, they were enabled to emulate the Greeks and to be their rivals, and sometimes their superiors. The elegant simplicity of Caesar is as attractive as that of Herodotus; none of the Greek historians surpasses Livy in talent for the picturesque and in the charm with which he invests his spirited and living stories; while for condensation of thought, terseness of expression, and political and philosophical acumen, Tacitus is not inferior to Thucydides. The catalogue of Roman historians contains many writers whose works are lost; such as L. Lucretius, the friend and correspondent of Cicero, L. Lucullus, the illustrious conqueror of Mithridates, and Cornelius Nepos, of whom only one work was preserved, the "Lives of Eminent Generals." The authenticity of this work is, however, disputed. But at the head of this department, as the great representatives of Roman history, stand Julius Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus, all of whom, except the last, belong to the Augustan age.

Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) was descended from one of the oldest among the patrician families of Rome. He attached himself to the popular party, and his good taste, great tact, and pleasing manners contributed, together with his talents, to insure his popularity. He became a soldier in the nineteenth year of his age, and hence his works display all the best qualities which are fostered by a military education—frankness, simplicity, and brevity. His earliest literary triumph was as an orator, and, according to Quintilian, he was a worthy rival of Cicero. When he obtained the office of Pontifex Maximus, he diligently examined the history and nature of the Roman belief in augury, and published his investigations. When his career as a military commander began, whatever leisure his duties permitted him to enjoy he devoted to the composition of his memoirs, or commentaries of the Gallic and civil wars. He wrote, also, some minor works on different subjects, and he left behind him various letters, some of which are extant.

But by far the most important of the works of Caesar is his "Commentaries," which have come down to us in a tolerably perfect state. They are sketches taken on the spot, in the midst of action, while the mind was full, and they have all the graphic power of a master-mind and the vigorous touches of a master-hand. The Commentaries are the materials for history, notes jotted down for future historians. The very faults which may justly be found with the style of Caesar are such as reflect the man himself. The majesty of his character consists chiefly in the imperturbable calmness and equanimity of his temper; he had no sudden bursts of energy and alternations of passion and inactivity. The elevation of his character was a high one, but it was a level table-land. This calmness and equability pervades his writings, and for this reason they have been thought to want life and energy. The beauty of his language is, as Cicero says, statuesque rather than picturesque. Simple and severe, it conveys the idea of perfect and well-proportioned beauty, while it banishes all thoughts of human passion. In relating his own deeds, he does not strive to add to his own reputation by detracting from the merits of those who served under him. He is honest, generous, and candid, not only towards them, but also towards his brave enemies. He recounts his successes without pretension or arrogance, though he has evidently no objection to be the hero of his own tale. His Commentaries are not confessions, although he is the subject of them; not a record of a weakness appears, nor even a defect, except that which the Romans would readily forgive, cruelty. His savage waste of human life he recounts with perfect self-complacency. Vanity, the crowning error in his career as a statesman, though hidden by the reserve with which he speaks of himself, sometimes discovers itself in the historian.

The Commentaries of Caesar have been compared with the work of the great soldier-historian of Greece, Xenophon. Both are eminently simple and unaffected, but there the parallel ends. The severe contempt of ornament, which characterizes the stern Roman, is totally unlike the mellifluous sweetness of the Attic writer.

Sallust (85-35 B.C.) was born of a plebeian family, but, having filled the offices of tribune and quaestor, attained senatorial rank. He was expelled from the Senate for his profligacy, but restored again to his rank through the influence of Caesar, whose party he espoused. He accompanied his patron in the African war, and was made governor of Numidia. While in that capacity, he accumulated by rapacity and extortion enormous wealth, which he lavished in expensive but tasteful luxury. The gardens on the Quirinal which bore his name were celebrated for their beauty; and there, surrounded by the choicest works of art, he devoted his retirement to composing the historical records which survived him. As a politician, he was a mere partisan of Caesar, and therefore a strenuous opponent of the higher classes and of the supporters of Pompey. The object of his hatred was not the old patrician blood of Rome, but the new aristocracy, which had of late years been rapidly rising up and displacing it. That new nobility was utterly corrupt, and its corruption was encouraged by the venality of the masses, whose poverty and destitution tempted them to be the tools of unscrupulous ambition. Sallust strove to place that party in the unfavorable light which it deserved; but, notwithstanding the truthfulness of the picture which he draws, selfishness and not patriotism was the mainspring of his politics; he was not an honest champion of popular rights, but a vain and conceited man, who lived in an immoral and corrupt age, and had not the strength of principle to resist the force of example and temptation. If, however, we make some allowance for the political bias of Sallust, his histories have not only the charms of the historical romance, but are also valuable political studies. His characters are vigorously and naturally drawn, and the more his histories are read, the more obvious it is that he always writes with an object, and uses his facts as the means of enforcing a great political lesson.

His first work is on the "Jugurthine War;" the next related to the period from the consulship of Lepidus to the praetorship of Cicero, and is unfortunately lost. This was followed by a history of the conspiracy of Catiline, "The War of Catiline," in which he paints in vivid colors the depravity of that order of society which, bankrupt in fortune and honor, still plumes itself on its rank and exclusiveness. To Sallust must be conceded the praise of having first conceived the notion of a history, in the true sense of the term. He was the first Roman historian, and the guide of future historians. He had always an object to which he wished all his facts to converge, and he brought them forward as illustrations and developments of principles. He analyzed and exposed the motives of parties, and laid bare the inner life of those great actors on the public stage, in the interesting historical scenes which he describes. His style, although ostentatiously elaborate and artificial, is, upon the whole, pleasing, and almost always transparently clear. Following Thucydides, whom he evidently took as his model, he strives to imitate his brevity; but while this quality with the Greek historian is natural and involuntary, with the Roman it is intentional and studied. The brevity of Thucydides is the result of condensation, that of Salust is elliptical expression.

Livy (59-18 B.C.) was born in Padua, and came to Rome during the reign of Augustus, where he resided in the enjoyment of the imperial favor and patronage. He was a warm and open admirer of the ancient institutions of the country, and esteemed Pompey as one of its greatest heroes; but Augustus did not allow political opinions to interfere with the regard which he entertained for the historian. His great work is a history of Rome, which he modestly terms "Annals," in one hundred and forty-two books, of which thirty-five are extant. Besides his history, Livy is said to have written treatises and dialogues, which were partly philosophical and partly historical.

The great object of Livy's history was to celebrate the glories of his native country, to which he was devotedly attached. He was a patriot: his sympathy was with Pompey, called forth by the disinterestedness of that great man, and perhaps by his sad end. He delights to put forth his powers in those passages which relate to the affections. He is a biographer quite as much as a historian; he anatomizes the moral nature of his heroes, and shows the motive springs of their noble exploits. His characters stand before us like epic heroes, and he tells his story like a bard singing his lay at a joyous festive meeting, checkered by alternate successes and reverses, though all tending to a happy result at last. But while these features constitute his charm as a narrator, they render him less valuable as a historian. Although he would not be willfully inaccurate, if the legend he was about to tell was interesting, he would not stop to inquire whether or not it was true. Taking upon trust the traditions which had been handed down from generation to generation, the more flattering and popular they were, the more suitable would he deem them for his purposes. He loved his country, and he would scarcely believe anything derogatory to the national glory. Whenever Rome was false to treaties, unmerciful in victory, or unsuccessful in arms, he either ignores the facts or is anxious to find excuses. He does not appear to have made researches into the many original documents which were extant at his time, but he trusted to the annalists, and took advantage of the investigations of preceding historians. His descriptions of military affairs are often vague and indistinct, and he often shows himself ignorant of the localities which he describes. Such are the principal defects of Livy, who otherwise charms his readers with his romantic narratives, and his lively, fresh, and fascinating style.

9. OTHER PROSE WRITERS.—Though the grammarians of this period were numerous, they added little or nothing to its literary reputation. The most conspicuous among them were Atteius, a friend of Sallust; Epirota, the correspondent of Cicero; Julius Hyginus, a friend of Ovid; and Nigidius Figulus, an orator as well as grammarian. M. Vitruvius Pollio, the celebrated architect, deserves to be mentioned for his treatise on architecture. He was probably native of Verona, and served under Julius Caesar in Africa, as a military engineer. Notwithstanding the defects of his style, the language of Vitruvius is vigorous, and his descriptions bold; his work is valuable as exhibiting the principles of Greek architectural taste and beauty, of which he was a devoted admirer.

PERIOD THIRD.

FROM THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS TO THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF THEODORIC (14-526 A.D.).

1. DECLINE OF ROMAN LITERATURE.—With the death of Augustus began the decline of Roman literature, and a few names only rescue the first years of this period from the charge of a corrupt and vitiated taste. After a while, indeed, political circumstances again became more favorable; the dangers, which paralyzed genius and talent, and prevented their free exercise under Tiberius and his tyrannical successors, diminished, and a more liberal system of administration ensued under Vespasian and Titus. Juvenal and Tacitus then stood forth, as the representatives of the old Roman independence. Vigor of thought communicated itself to the language; a taste for the sublime and beautiful, to a certain extent, revived, although it did not attain to the perfection which shed a lustre over the Augustan age. Between the ages of Horace and Juvenal, Cicero and Tacitus, there was a gap of half a century, in which Roman genius was slumbering. The gradual growth of a spirit of adulation deterred all who were qualified for the task of the historian from attempting it. Fear, during the lifetime of Tiberius and Caligula, Claudius and Nero, and hatred, still fresh after their deaths, rendered all accounts of their reigns false. And the same causes which silenced the voice of history extinguished the genius of poetry and oratory. As liberty declined, natural eloquence decayed; the orator sought only to please the corrupt taste of his audiences with strange and exaggerated statements; the poet aimed to win public admiration through a style over-laden with ornament, and florid and diffuse descriptions. Literature, in order to flourish, requires the genial sunshine of human sympathy; it needs either the patronage of the great, or the favor of the people. Immediately after the death of Augustus, patronage was withdrawn, and there was no public sympathy to supply its place. In the reign of Nero, literature partially revived; for, though the bloodiest of tyrants, he had a taste for art and poetry, and an ambition to excel in refinement.