LATIN TRANSLATION AT SIGHT (continued 7)

(ii) = towards, with the idea of favour or compliance.

oboedire = hearken to. obsĕqui = follow compliantly.

PER-, = through, along.

(i) = through, all over.

perrumpere = break through. perspĭcēre = look through.

(ii) = thoroughly, to completion.

perdiscere = learn thoroughly. perfungi = go through a duty, discharge. permagnus = very large.

PRAE = in front.

(i) = (of place) before, in front.

praefĭcere = put at the head of. praeses (sĕdeo) = guardian.

(ii) = (of time) before, too soon.

praediscere = learn beforehand. praevĕnire = outstrip.

(iii) = before others, in comparison, greatly.

praecellens = surpassing.

PRO-, PROD-, = before, in front of, forth.

prod-ire = come forth. provĭdēre = look onwards or ahead.

SUB-, SUF-, SUM-, SUP-, SUR-, SU-, SUS-, = beneath, under.

(i) = under.

subĭcere = throw under, subject. supprĭmere = press under, suppress.

(ii) = up.

succingere = gird up. sustĭnēre = hold up, check.

(iii) = to the help of, close to.

subvĕnire = come up to aid of.

(iv) = secretly.

subdūcere = withdraw secretly.

(v) = slightly.

subrīdere = laugh somewhat, smile. sublustris = giving some light.

SUPER = over, upon.

(i) = over, upon (of place).

superpōnere = place upon or over.

(ii) = metaphorically.

sūperesse = remain, survive, abound.

TRANS-, TRA-, = across.

(i) = across.

transgrĕdi = step across.

(ii) = a change or transference.

trādere = hand over, surrender.

(iii) = through to the end.

transĭgere = complete a business.

II. SEPARABLE PARTICLES, which do not appear as Prepositions in Latin.

AMB-, AM-, AN-, = around, on both sides.

ambīre = go around, canvass. amplecti = fold oneself round, embrace.

DIS-, DI-, DIF-, DIR-, = in twain.

(i) = asunder, apart.

discēdere = part asunder, depart. discernere = separate, distinguish. dīmittere = send in different directions.

(ii) = un- (negative).

displĭcēre = displease. diffīdere = distrust.

(iii) = exceedingly.

differtus = crammed to bursting.

(iv) = individually, separately.

dīnŭmĕrare = count up (singly).

IN- (cf. ἀν-, ἀ-) = UN-, usually with adjectives.

ignoscere = not to know, forget, pardon. innŏcens = not guilty, harmless.

PER- (cf. παρά) = in a sense of wrong or injury.

perdere = destroy. perfĭdus = faithless.

RED-, RE-, = back.

(i) = back, backwards.

rĕcumbere = lie down. rĕflectere = bend back.

(ii) = in response, or return.

reddere = give in return.

(iii) = against, behind.

rĕpugnare = fight against. rĕlinquere = leave behind.

(iv) = again.

rĕfĭcere = make again, repair. rĕpĕrire = find again, discover.

(v) = intensive action.

rĕvellere = pluck by the roots.

(vi) = un- (negative).

rĕfīgere = unfix.

SED-, SE-, = apart.

sēcernere = sift away, separate. sēcēdere = go aside, withdraw. sēd-ĭtio = a going apart, secession.

APPENDIX III

LIST OF IMPORTANT SUFFIXES

I. DERIVATION OF NOUNS.

(i.) TOR (-SOR), M. -TRIX, F. Agent or doer of an action

ac-tor = doer, formed from √ag = do.

auc-tor = maker „ √aug = increase.

vic-tor = conqueror „ √vic = conquer.

petī-tor = candidate „ √pet = seek.

ton-sor = barber „ √tem = cut.

(ii.) Abstract Nouns and Names of Actions.

-OR, -SUS (= -TUS), M.

-ĒS, -IA (-IES), -TIA (-TIES), -IŌ, -TIŌ, -TĀS, -TŪS, -TŪDŌ, -DŌ, -GŌ, -NIA, F.

-US, -IUM, -ITIUM, -NIUM, -LIUM, -CINIUM, N.

tĭm-or = fear formed from tĭm-ere = to fear.

sen-sus = feeling „ sent-ire = to feel.

sēd-ēs = seat „ sĕd-ēre = to sit.

audāc-ia = boldness „ audax = bold.

segnĭt-ies = laziness „ segnis = lazy.

tristĭ-tia = sadness „ tristis = sad.

lĕg-io = a collecting a legion „ lĕg-ere = to collect.

sălūtā-tio = a greeting „ salutare = to greet.

bŏnĭ-tas = goodness „ bonus = good.

sĕnec-tūs = age „ senex = old.

magni-tudo = greatness „ magnus = great.

cupī-dō = desire „ cupere = to desire.

vertī-go = a turning giddiness „ vertere = to turn.

pĕcū-nia = money (chattels) „ pecus = cattle.

gĕn-us = race, birth „ √gen = to be born.

auspĭc-ium = an omen „ auspex = a soothsayer. avis + spicio

gaud-ium = joy „ gaudēre = to rejoice.

lā̆tro-cinium = robbery „ latro = robber.

auxĭ-lium = help „ augēre = to increase.

(iii.) Nouns denoting acts, or means and results of acts.

-MŌNIA, F.; -MEN, -MENTUM, -MŌNIUM, N.

quĕri-monia = complaint, formed from quĕri = to complain.

ag-men = line of march band formed from agere √ag = to lead.

mŏnŭ-mentum = a memorial, formed from mon-ēre = to remind.

nō-men = a name formed from √gno = to know.

(iv.) Nouns denoting means or instrument.

-BŬLUM, -CŬLUM, -BRUM, -CRUM, -TRUM, N.

stā-bulum = stall formed from stare = to stand.

vĕhĭ-cŭlum = wagon „ vehere = to carry.

sĕpul-crum = tomb „ sepelīre = to bury.

ărā-trum = plough „ arāre = to plough.

II. DERIVATION OF ADJECTIVES.

(i.) Adjectives expressing diminution, and used as Diminutive Nouns.

-ŬLUS, -ŎLUS, -CŬLUS, -ELLUS, -ILLUS.

rīv-ulus = a streamlet formed from rīvus = a brook.

fīlĭ-olus = a little son „ filius = a son.

mūnus-culum = a little gift „ munus = a gift.

cōdic-illi = writing tablets „ codex = a block of wood.

lĭb-ellus = a little book „ lĭber = a book.

(ii.) Patronymics, indicating descent or relationship.

-ADES, -ĬDES, -ĪDES, -EUS, M.

-AS, -IS, -EIS, F.

Atlanti-adēs = Mercury Atlant-idĕs = the Pleiads formed from Atlas.

Tȳd-īdēs = Diomedes „ Tydeus.

Cissē-is = Hecuba „ Cisseus.

(iii.) Adjectives meaning full of, prone to.

-ŌSUS, -LENS, -LENTUS.

form-ōsus = beautiful formed from forma = beauty.

pesti-lens = pestilent „ pestis = plague.

vĭŏ-lentus = violent „ vis = force.

(iv.) Adjectives meaning provided with.

-TUS, -ĀTUS, -ĪTUS, -ŪTUS.

fūnes-tus = deadly formed from funus (funer-) = death.

barb-ātus = bearded „ barba = a beard.

turr-ītus = turreted „ turris = a tower.

corn-ūtus = horned „ cornu = a horn.

(v.) Adjectives meaning made of or belonging to, or pertaining to.

-EUS, -ĬUS, -ĀNEUS, -TĬCUS, -ĀLIS, -ĀRIS, -ĪLIS, -ŪLIS, -ĀNUS, -ĒNUS, -ĪNUS, -ENSIS, -TER (-TRIS), -ESTER (-ESTRIS), -TĬMUS, -ERNUS, -URNUS, -TURNUS (-TERNUS).

aur-eus = golden formed from aurum = gold.

patr-ius = paternal „ pater = a father.

subterr-aneus = subterranean „ sub terrā = under­ground.

dŏmes-ticus = domestic „ domus = a house.

nātūr-ālis = natural „ natura = nature.

pŏpŭl-aris = fellow-countryman „ populus = a people.

vĕtĕr-ānus = veteran „ vetus (veter-) = old.

sĕr-ēnus = calm, of evening stillness „ serus = late.

dīv-īnus = divine „ divus = god.

fŏr-ensis = of the forum „ forum = a market-place.

lac-teus = milky „ lac (lacti-) = milk.

subl-icius = resting on piles „ sublica = a pile.

pălus-ter = marshy „ palūs = a marsh.

silv-ester = woody „ silva = a wood.

fīnĭ-timus = neighbouring „ finis = a boundary.

ver-nus = vernal „ vēr = spring.

dĭ-urnus = daily „ dies = day.

diū-turnus = lasting „ diū = long (time).

(vi.) Adjectives expressing the action of the Verb as a quality or tendency.

-AX, -ĬDUS, -ŬLUS, -VUS (-UUS, -ĪVUS, -TĪVUS).

pugn-ax = pugnacious formed from pugnare = to fight.

cŭp-idus = eager „ cupere = to desire.

bĭb-ulus = thirsty (of sand etc.) „ bibere = to drink.

nŏc-uus = hurtful „ nocēre = to hurt.

cap-tivus = captive „ capere = to take.

(vii.) Adjectives expressing passive qualities but occasionally active.

-ILIS, -BĬLIS, -ĬUS, -TĪLIS.

frăg-ilis = frail formed from frangere √frag = to break.

nō-bilis = well known „ noscere √gno = to know.

exĭm-ius = choice, rare „ eximere = take out.

tex-tilis = woven „ texere = to weave.

(viii.) Adjectives originally gerundives.

-NDUS, -BUNDUS, -CUNDUS.

sĕcu-ndus = second (the following) favourable formed from sequi = to follow.

mŏrĭ-bundus = dying „ mori = to die.

fā-cundus = eloquent „ fa-ri = to speak.

III. NOUNS WITH ADJECTIVE SUFFIXES.

-ĀRIUS, denotes person employed about anything. argent-ārius = silversmith, banker formed from argentum = silver.

-ĀRIUM, denotes place of a thing. aer-arium = treasury formed from aes = copper.

-ĪLE denotes stall of an animal.

bŏv-īle = cattle-stall formed from bōs (bŏv-) = ox.

ŏv-īle = sheep-fold „ ovis = sheep.

-ĒTUM denotes place where a tree or plant grows. querc-ētum = oak-grove formed from quercus = an oak.

IV. DERIVATION OF VERBS.

(i.) From Nouns and Adjectives.

stĭmŭlo, -āre = to goad, incite formed from stimulus = a goad.

nŏvo, -āre = to renew „ novus = new.

vĭgĭlo, -āre = to watch „ vigil = awake.

albeo, -ēre = to be white „ albus = white.

mĕtuo, -ere = to fear „ metus = fear.

ăcuo, -ere = to sharpen „ acus = needle.

mōlior, -īri = to toil „ moles = mass.

custōdio, -īre = to guard „ custos (custod-) = guardian.

(ii.) Verbs from other Verbs.

-SCO denotes the beginning of an action. (Third Conjugation.)

lăbā-sco = begin to totter formed from labo = totter.

mītē-sco = grow mild „ mītis = mild.

-TO, -ĬTO, (rarely -SŌ), -ESSO, denote forcible or repeated action.

iac-to, -ăre = hurl formed from iacio = throw.

quas-so, āre = shatter „ quatio = shake.

făc-esso, -ĕre = do (with energy) „ facio = do.

-TŬRIO (-SŬRIO) denotes longing or wishing.

par-turio, -īre = produce to bring forth formed from pario = bring forth.

ē-surio (= ed-turio) = to be hungry „ edo = to eat.

APPENDIX IV

GROUPS OF RELATED (COGNATE) WORDS

English derivative.

√AC = sharp.

āc-er = sharp. eager (F. aigre).

ăc-erbus = harsh, cruel. acerbity (= harshness).

ăc-ervus = a heap.

ăc-ies = edge, keen look. army in battle array. Fr. acier (= steel).

ăc-idus = sour. acid.

ăc-uo = to sharpen.

ăc-utus = sharpened, sharp. acute (Fr. aigu).

ăc-umen = a point, acuteness. acumen.

ăc-us = a needle. Fr. aiguille.

√AUG = be active, strong.

aug-eo = increase.

aug-mentum = an increase. augment.

auc-tio = a sale by increase of bids, an auction auction.

auc-tor = a maker, producer. author.

auc-toritas = a producing, authority. authority.

aug-ustus = majestic, august. august.

aux-ilium = aid, help. auxiliary.

√CAP = take hold of, seize.

căp-io = take hold of. captive.

căp-ax = capacious. capacious.

căp-ulus = handle, hilt of a sword.

ac-cĭp-io (ad + capio) = take to, receive. accept.

ex-cĭp-io (ex + capio) = take up. exception.

man-cĭp-ium (manus + capio) = property, a slave. emancipate.

muni-cĭp-ium (munia + capio) = a free town. municipal.

prin-ceps (primus + capio) = first, chief. principal. prince.

√GEN-, GNA- = beget, become, produce.

gi-gn-o (= gi-gĕn-o) = to beget. indigenous.

gĕn-i-tor = a father. (pro)genitor.

gen-s = clan, house, race. gentile.

in-gens = vast.

gĕn-us = birth, race. genus (Fr. genre).

in-gĕn-ium = innate quality, character.

in-gĕn-uus = native, free-born, frank. ingenuous.

in-gĕn-iosus = of good natural abilities. ingenious.

pro-gĕn-ies = descent, descendants. progenitor.

gĕn-er = son-in-law.

gĕn-ius = the innate superior nature, tutelary (protecting) deity. genius.

indi-gĕn-a = nature. indigenous.

gĕn-erōsus = of noble birth, noble-minded generous.

gĕn-ĕro = to beget, produce. generate.

gĕn-ĕtivus = of or belonging to birth, genitive. genitive.

na-scor = gna-scor = to be born. native.

nā-tūra = nature. nature.

nā-tio = birth, a race. nation.

APPENDIX V

HOW TO THINK IN LATIN

Numbers in the left margin (Ia, Ib...) were added by the transcriber for use with the notes.

Flaminius atones for his rashness.44

|| Ia, Ib Tres ferme horas pugnatum est et ubique atrociter; circa consulem tamen acrior infestiorque pugna est. || IIa Eum et robora virorum sequebantur, et ipse, quacunque in parte premi ac laborare senserat suos, impigre ferebat opem; || IIb insignemque armis et hostes summa vi petebant et tuebantur cives, donec Insuber eques (Ducario nomen erat) facie quoque noscitans consulem, || IIc ‘En’ inquit ‘hic est’ popularibus suis, ‘qui legiones nostras cecidit agrosque et urbem est depopulatus. || III Iam ego hanc victimam manibus peremptorum foede civium dabo.’ || IVa Subditisque calcaribus equo per confertissimam hostium turbam impetum facit, obtruncatoque prius armigero, qui se infesto venienti obviam obiecerat, consulem lancea transfixit; || IVb spoliare cupientem triarii obiectis scutis arcuere.

Livy, xxii. 6.

The heading and the author will at once suggest the stirring incident in the Battle of Lake Trasimene, when Flaminius atoned for his rashness by his gallant example and death.

You have seen how Analysis helps you to arrive at the main thought of the sentence, and you are familiar with the principles that govern the order of words in Latin, and the important part played by the emphatic position of words. So you may now try to think in Latin; that is, to take the thought in the Latin order, without reference to analysis or the English order. You will do well to follow closely this advice of experienced teachers:—‘Read every word as if it were the last on the page, and you had to turn over without being able to turn back. If, however, you are obliged to turn back, begin again at the beginning of the sentence and proceed as before. Let each word of the Latin suggest some conception gradually adding to and completing the meaning of the writer. If the form of the word gives several possibilities, hold them all in your mind, so far as may be, till something occurs in the progress of the sentence to settle the doubt.’

Ia 1. Tres ferme horas = for nearly three hours. This construction (Acc. of extent of time) will be familiar to you. Notice the emphatic position of the phrase.

pugnatum est = the battle was fought. This use of the so-called impersonal passive is very frequent, and is generally best translated by taking the root-idea of the verb as a subject.

et ubique atrociter = and everywhere fiercely.

Ib 2. circa consulem tamen = around the consul however.

acrior infestiorque pugna est = the battle is more keen and more vehement. This presents no difficulty; acrior and infestior must qualify pugna, which follows immediately.

IIa 3. eum = him, plainly consulem (i.e. Flaminius), for no one else has been mentioned. Notice the emphatic position of eum.

et robora virorum sequebantur = both the strongest of his troops followed. You may know that robur (lit. hard wood) is often used of the toughest troops, the flower of an army.

et ipse = and himself, i.e. the consul (Flaminius).

3-4. quacunque in parte = in whatever part.

4. premi ac laborare senserat suos = he had seen his men hard pressed and in distress. No other meaning is possible, nor does the order present any difficulty, but notice the emphatic position of suos.

4-5. impigre ferebat opem = actively he bore help.

IIb 5. insignemque armis = and distinguished by his arms, clearly referring to consulem (l. 2). Cf. eum (l. 3).

et hostes summa vi petebant = both the enemy with all their might attacked. et might, of course, = also (cf. et, l. 2), but the second et which immediately follows determines the meaning both.

6. et tuebantur cives = and his fellow-citizens (Romans) defended (him).

donec Insuber eques = until an Insubrian trooper. donec may mean while, but the context shows that until or at last is the right meaning here.

6-7. Ducario nomen erat = (his) name was Ducarius, i.e. ei nomen erat Ducario, where Ducario is possess. dat. in appos. to ei understood. It is, however, possible that the trooper’s name was Ducario, but cf. page 126, l. 2.

7. facie quoque noscitans consulem = by his face also (i.e. as well as by his armour) recognising the consul.

IIc 7-8. ‘En’ inquit ‘his est’ popularibus suis = See, said he, to his fellow-countrymen (comrades), this is the man.

8. qui legiones nostras cecīdit = who slaughtered our legions. There is a slight difficulty here, but a moment’s thought will remove it. It must be cecīdit, perf. of caedo, and not cecĭdit, perf. of cado, which is intransitive.

8-9. agrosque et urbem est depopulatus = and laid waste our fields and our city.

III 9-10. Iam ego hanc victimam mānibus peremptorum foede civium dabo = now I will give this victim to the shades of our countrymen foully slain. Mānibus cannot = hands (mănibus), for peremptorum civium, which immediately follows, fixes the right meaning.

IVa 10-11. subditisque calcaribus equo = and putting spurs to his horse. You will not attempt to translate this Abl. Absol. literally.

11-12. per confertissimam hostium turbam impetum facit = through the closely packed crowd of the enemy he makes his charge.

12. obtruncatoque prius armigero = and first cut down the armour-bearer (i.e. of Flaminius).

12-13. qui se infesto venienti obviam obiecerat = who had thrown himself in the way of him advancing at the charge.

infesto venienti is clearly dative with obviam.

13. consulem lancea transfixit = ran the Consul through with his lance.

IVb 13-14. spoliare cupientem = (him, i.e. Ducarius) wishing to spoil (the consul).

14. triarii obiectis scutis arcuere = the triarii (veterans) thrusting their shields in the way kept off.

This passage is quite simple, but it will serve to show you how you may with practice learn to take the thought in the Latin order, and to grasp the writer’s meaning. All that now remains for you to do is to write out a translation in good English, using short coordinate sentences, each complete in itself, in place of the more involved structure of the original. The following version by the late Professor Jebb will serve as a model:—

They fought for about three hours, and everywhere with desperation. Around the consul, however, the fight was peculiarly keen and vehement. He had the toughest troops with him; and he himself, whenever he saw that his men were hard pressed, was indefatigable in coming to the rescue. Distinguished by his equipment, he was a target for the enemy and a rallying-point for the Romans. At last a Lombard trooper, named Ducario, recognising the person as well as the guise of the consul, cried out to his people, ‘Here is the man who cut our legions to pieces and sacked our city—now I will give this victim to the shades of our murdered countrymen.’ Putting spurs to his horse, he dashed through the thick of the foe. First he cut down the armour-bearer, who had thrown himself in the way of the onset. Then he drove his lance through the consul. He was trying to despoil the corpse, when some veterans screened it with their shields.

APPENDIX VI

SHORT LIVES OF ROMAN AUTHORS

DECIMUS MAGNUS AUSONIUS, 309-392 A.D.

1. Life.

AUSONIUS.

Born at Burdigala (Bordeaux), and carefully educated. At the age of thirty appointed professor of rhetoric in his native University, where he became so famous that he was appointed tutor to Gratian, son of the Emperor Valentinian (364-375 A.D.), and was afterwards raised to the highest honours of the State (Consul, 379 A.D.). Theodosius (Emperor of the East, 378-395 A.D.) gave him leave to retire from court to his native country, where he closed his days in an honoured literary retirement.

2. Works.

A very voluminous writer both in prose and verse.

1. Prose: The only extant specimen is his Gratiarum Actio to Gratianus for the Consulship.

2. Verse: Of this we have much: it has little value as poetry, but in point of contents and diction it is interesting and valuable. Some of his Epigrammata and Epitaphia are worth preserving, but his claim to rank as a poet rests on his Mosella, a beautiful description of the R. Moselle, which is worthy to be compared with Pliny’s description of the R. Clitumnus (Ep. viii. 8).

‘In virtue of this poem Ausonius ranks not merely as the last, or all but the last, of Latin, but as the first of French poets.’—Mackail.

GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR, 102 (or 100?)-44 B.C.

1. Important Events in Caesar’s Life.

CAESAR.

B.C. 102. Gaius Julius Caesar, nephew of Marius, born July 12th.

„ 83. Marries Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, the friend of Marius.

B.C. 81-78. Served with distinction in Asia.

„ 76. Studies oratory at Rhodes.

„ 68. Begins his political career as Quaestor, partly at Rome, partly in Spain.

„ 65. Curule Aedile. Incurs enormous debts by his splendid shows.

„ 61. Propraetor in Spain: conquers Lusitanians: amasses wealth.

„ 60. Coalition of Pompeius, Caesar, and Crassus: First Triumvirate.

„ 59. Consul. The Leges Iuliae.

„ 58-50. Subjugation of Gaul and two invasions of Britain (55 and 54).

„ 56. Meeting of Triumvirate at Luca.

„ 50. The trouble with Pompeius begins.

„ 49. Crosses the Rubicon. Civil war with Pompeius. Dictator a first time.

„ 48. Pharsalus. Defeats Pompeius. Dictator a second time.

„ 46. Thapsus. Defeats Scipio, Sulla, and Afranius. Declared Dictator for ten years.

„ 45. Munda. Defeats Gn. Pompeius and Labienus. Dictator and Imperator for life.

„ 44. Assassinated in the Senate House on the Ides of March.

2. Works.

(1) THE DE BELLO GALLICO.—This work describes Caesar’s operations in Gaul, Germany, and Britain during the years 58-52 B.C., the events of each year occupying a separate Book.

Book I. B.C. 58. The Helvetii and Ariovistus the German defeated.

„ II. „ 57. The Nervii, the bravest Belgian tribe, almost exterminated.

„ III. „ 56. Conquest of the coast tribes of Brittany (Veneti, &c.) and of the South-West (Aquitani).

„ IV. „ 55. Inroad of Germans into Northern Gaul repulsed. Caesar crosses the Rhine a first time. First invasion of Britain.

„ V. „ 54. Second invasion of Britain. Fresh risings of the Gauls put down by Labienus and Q. Cicero.

„ VI. „ 53. Caesar crosses the Rhine a second time. Northern Gaul reduced to peace.

„ VII. „ 52. Uprising of the Gauls under Vercingetorix. Siege and capture of Alesia. Surrender of Vercingetorix. He is taken in chains to Rome, to adorn Caesar’s triumph.

„ VIII. „ 51 (added by Hirtius). Final subjugation of Gaul.

Caesar’s object was threefold:—

(i) To provide materials for professed historians.

(ii) To justify the conquest he describes.

(iii) To vindicate in the eyes of the world his opposition to the Senate and the Government.

(2) DE BELLO CIVILI.—This work, in three Books, is similar in plan to the De Bello Gallico. It describes the events of the Civil War during the years 49-48 B.C. Book III. ends abruptly with the words:

Haec initia belli Alexandrini fuerunt.

Book I. B.C. 49. Caesar crosses the Rubicon. Follows Pompeius to Brundusium and conquers Afranius in Spain.

„ II. „ 49. Caesar takes Massilia. Submission of Varro in Further Spain. Defeat and death of Curio before Utica.

„ III. „ 48. Caesar follows Pompeius into Illyria. The lines of Dyrrachium and the Battle of Pharsalus. The beginning of the Alexandrine War.

(3) OTHER WORKS.—All Caesar’s other writings (Speeches, Poems, &c.) have been lost, with the exception of a few brief Letters to Cicero.

3. Style.

Remarkable for brevity, directness, and simplicity. The simplest facts told in the simplest way. Ars est celare artem.

‘Caesar’s Commentaries are worthy of all praise; they are unadorned, straightforward, and elegant, every ornament being stripped off as if it were a garment.’—Cicero.

MARCUS PORCIUS CATO, 234-149 B.C.

1. Life.

CATO.

For his military and political career, his Consulship (195 B.C.), his famous Censorship (184 B.C.), and his social reforms, see some good history, e.g. Mommsen, vol, iii.

2. Works.

His chief works are:—

(1) His treatise De Re Rustica or De Agri Cultura (his only extant work).—A series of terse and pointed directions following one on another, somewhat in the manner of Hesiod, and interesting ‘as showing the practical Latin style, and as giving the prose groundwork of Vergil’s stately and beautiful embroidery in the Georgics.’—Mackail.

(2) The Origines.—‘The oldest historical work written in Latin, and the first important prose work in Roman literature.’—Mommsen. Nepos, Cato, 3, summarises the contents of the seven books.

Cato struggled all his life against Greek influence in literature and in manners, which he felt would be fatal to his ideal of a Roman citizen. In a letter to his son Marcus he says Quandoque ista gens suas litteras dabit, omnia corrumpet. He was famous for his homely wisdom, which gained him the title of Sapiens, e.g. Rem tene: verba sequentur—‘Take care of the sense: the words will take care of themselves.’

GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS, circ. 84-54 B.C.

1. Life.

CATULLUS.

Born at Verona, of a family of wealth and position, as is seen from his having estates at Sirmio:—

and near Tibur: O funde noster seu Sabine seu Tiburs (C. 44). His father was an intimate friend of Caesar. He went to Rome early, where he spent the greater part of his short life,

with the exception of an official journey to Bithynia, 57 B.C. to better his fortunes: cf. Iam ver egelidos refert tepores ... Linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, campi (C. 46). After a life of poetic culture and free social enjoyment he died at the early age of thirty, ‘the young Catullus,’ hedera iuvenilia tempora cinctus (Ovid, Am. III. ix. 61).

2. Works.

116 poems written in various metres and on various subjects, Lyric, Elegiac, Epic.

‘The event which first revealed the full power of his genius, and which made both the supreme happiness and supreme misery of his life, was his love for Lesbia (Clodia).’—Sellar.

‘Catullus is one of the great poets of the world, not so much through vividness of imagination as through his singleness of nature, his vivid impressibility, and his keen perception. He received the gifts of the passing hour so happily that to produce pure and lasting poetry it was enough for him to utter in natural words something of the fulness of his heart. He says on every occasion exactly what he wanted to say, in clear, forcible, spontaneous language.’—Sellar.

‘The most attractive feature in the character of Catullus is the warmth of his affection. If to love warmly, constantly, and unselfishly be the best title to the love of others, few poets in any age or country deserve a kindlier place in the hearts of men than “the young Catullus.”’—Sellar.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, 106-43 B.C.

1. Important Events in Cicero’s Life, and chief Works.

CICERO.

B.C. 106. Born at Arpinum. Birth of Pompeius.

„ 102. Birth of Quintus Cicero, and of Caesar.

B.C. 91. Assumes the toga virilis. Q. Mucius Scaevola the augur becomes his tutor in civil law. Writes an heroic poem in praise of Marius.

„ 89. Serves his first and only campaign under Pompeius Strabo.

„ 87. Studies Rhetoric at Rome under Apollonius Molo of Rhodes.

„ 81. Delivers his first speech (causa privata) Pro P. Quinctio.

„ 80. Delivers his first speech (causa publica) Pro S. Roscio Amerino.

„ 79-7. Studies at Athens and Rhodes. Marries Terentia.

„ 75-4. Quaestor at Lilybaeum in Sicily.

„ 70. The six speeches In C. Verrem.

„ 69. Curule Aedile. The Pro Caecina.

„ 68. Date of the earliest extant letter.

„ 67. Praetor. The Lex Gabinia.

„ 66. The De Imperio Cn. Pompeii (Pro Lege Manilia).

„ 64. Birth of his son Marcus. Marriage of Tullia to C. Piso Frugi.

„ 63. Consul. The four speeches In Catilinam. The Pro Murena.

„ 62. Cicero hailed ‘pater patriae.’ The Pro Sulla and Pro Archia.

„ 60. Poem ‘De consulatu meo.’

„ 59. The First Triumvirate (Caesar, Pompeius, and Crassus). The Pro Valerio Flacco.

„ 58-7. Cicero in Exile. The four speeches Post Reditum.

„ 56. The Pro Sestio and De Provinciis Consularibus (his recantation).

„ 55. The De Oratore and De temporibus meis.

„ 52. The Pro Milone. The De Legibus: the De Republica.

„ 51-50. Proconsul of Cilicia. Is granted a supplicatio.

„ 49. Joins Pompeius at Dyrrachium.

„ 47. Becomes reconciled to Caesar.

„ 46. The Brutus and Orator.

„ 45. Death of Tullia. The De Finibus and Academics.

„ 44. The Tusculanae Disputationes: the De Natura Deorum: De Divinatione: De Amicitia: De Senectute: De Officiis.

Philippics i-iv.

„ 43. Philippics v-xiv. The Second Triumvirate (Antonius, Octavianus, and Lepidus). Murder of Cicero.

2. Works.

(1) Speeches.—We possess 57 speeches, and fragments of about 20 more, and we know of 33 others delivered by Cicero.

‘As a speaker and orator Cicero succeeded in gaining a place beside Demosthenes. His strongest point is his style; there he is clear, concise and apt, perspicuous, elegant and brilliant. He commands all moods, from playful jest to tragic pathos, but is most successful in the imitation of conviction and feeling, to which he gave increased impression by his fiery delivery.’—Teuffel. Quintilian says of him that his eloquence combined the power of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates.

(2) Philosophical Works.—The chief are the De Republica (closed by the Sommium Sciponis): the De Legibus: the De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum: the Academics: Tusculan Disputations with the De Divinatione: the De Senectute and De Amicitia: De natura Deorum, and the De Officiis.

As a philosopher Cicero had no pretensions to originality. He found the materials for most of these works in the writings of the Greek philosophers. ‘I have to supply little but the words,’ he writes, ‘and for these I am never at a loss.’ It was however no small achievement to mould the Latin tongue to be a vehicle for Greek philosophic thought, and thus to render the conclusions of Greek thinkers accessible to his own countrymen.

(3) Rhetorical treatises.—The chief are the De Oratore (in 3 Books), perhaps the most finished example of the Ciceronian style: the Brutus or De Claris Oratoribus, and the Orator (or De optime Genere Dicendi).

(4) Letters.—Besides 774 letters written by Cicero, we have 90 addressed to him by friends. The two largest collections of his Letters are the Epistulae ad Atticum (68-43 B.C.) and the Epistulae ad Familiares (62-43 B.C.).

These letters are of supreme importance for the history of Cicero’s time. ‘The quality which makes them most valuable is that they were not (like the letters of Pliny, and Seneca, and Madame de Sévigné) written to be published. We see in them Cicero as he was. We behold him in his strength and in his weakness—the bold advocate, and yet timid and vacillating statesman, the fond husband, the affectionate father, the kind master, the warm-hearted friend.’—Tyrrell.

The style of the Letters is colloquial but thoroughly accurate. ‘The art of letter-writing suddenly rose in Cicero’s hands to its full perfection.’—Mackail.

(5) Poems.—The fragments we possess show that verse-writing came easily to him, but he never could have been a great poet, for he had not the divinus afflatus, so finely expressed by Ovid in the line Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo.

‘Cicero stands in prose like Vergil in poetry, as the bridge between the ancient and the modern world. Before his time Latin prose was, from a wide point of view, but one among many local ancient dialects. As it left his hands it had become a universal language, one which had definitely superseded all others, Greek included, as the type of civilised expression.’—Mackail.

CLAUDIUS CLAUDIANUS, flor. 400 A.D.

1. Life.

CLAUDIAN.

Born probably at Alexandria, where he lived until, in the year of the death of Theodosius 395 A.D., he acquired the patronage of Stilicho, the great Vandal general, who, as guardian of the young Emperor Honorius, was practically ruler of the Western Empire. He remained attached to the Court at Milan, Rome and Ravenna, and died soon after the downfall of his patron Stilicho, 408 A.D.

2. Works.

In his historical epics he derived his subjects from his own age, praising his patrons Stilicho (On the Consulate of Stilicho) and Honorius (on the Consulate of Honorius), and inveighing against Rufinus and Eutropius, the rivals of Stilicho. Of poems on other subjects, ‘his three books of the unfinished Rape of Proserpine are among the finest examples of the purely literary epic.’—Mackail.

‘Claudian is the last of the Latin poets, forming the transitional link between the Classic and the Gothic mode of thought.’—Coleridge.

3. Style.

‘His faults belong almost as much to the age as to the writer. In description he is too copious and detailed: his poems abound with long speeches: his parade of varied learning, his partiality for abstruse mythology, are just the natural defects of a lettered but uninspired epoch.’—North Pinder.

QUINTUS ENNIUS, 239-169 B.C.

1. Life.

ENNIUS.

He was born at Rudiae in Calabria (about 19 miles S. of Brundisium), a meeting-place of three different languages, that of common life (Oscan, cf. Opici), that of culture and education (Greek), that of military service (Latin). Here he lived for some twenty years, availing himself of those means of education which at this time were denied to Rome or Latium. We next hear of him serving as centurion in Sardinia, where he attracted the attention of Cato, then quaestor, and accompanied him to Rome, 204 B.C. Here for some fifteen years he lived plainly, supporting himself by teaching Greek, and making translations of Greek plays for the Roman stage, and so won the friendship of the elder Scipio. In 189 B.C. M. Fulvius Nobilior took Ennius with him in his campaign against the Aetolians, as a witness and herald of his deeds. His son obtained for Ennius the Roman citizenship (184 B.C.) by giving him a grant of land at Potentia in Picenum. Nos sumus Romani, qui fuimus ante Rudini. The rest of his life was spent mainly at Rome in cheerful simplicity and active literary work.

2. Works.

The chief are:—

(1) Tragedies.—Mainly translations, especially from Euripides. A few fragments only remain. ‘It was certainly due to Ennius that Roman Tragedy was first raised to that pitch of popular favour which it enjoyed till the age of Cicero.’—Sellar.

(2) Annales.—An Epic Hexameter poem, in 18 books, which dealt with the History of Rome from the landing of Aeneas in Italy down to the Third Macedonian War (Pydna, 168 B.C.). About 600 lines are extant.

‘In his Annals he unfolds a long gallery of national portraits. His heroes are men of one common aim—the advancement of Rome; animated with one sentiment, devotion to the State. All that was purely personal in them seems merged in the traditional pictures which express only the fortitude, dignity and sagacity of the Republic.’—Sellar.

3. Style.

For the first time Ennius succeeded in moulding the Latin language to the movement of the Greek hexameter. In spite of imperfections and roughness, his Annals remained the foremost and representative Roman poem till Vergil wrote the Aeneid. Lucretius, whom he influenced, and to whom Vergil owes so much, says of him:

‘As sang our Ennius, the first who brought down from pleasant Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame of which should ring out clear through the nations of Italy.’

And later, Quintilian, X. i. 88: ‘Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem: Let us venerate Ennius like the groves, sacred from their antiquity, in which the great and ancient oak-trees are invested, not so much with beauty, as with sacred associations.’—Sellar.

FLAVIUS EUTROPIUS, fl. 375 A.D.

1. Life.

EUTROPIUS.

Very little is known of his life. He is said to have held the office of a secretary under Contanstine the Great (ob. 337 A.D.), and to have served under the Emperor Julian in his ill-fated expedition against the Persians, 363 A.D.

2. Works.

His only extant work is his

Breviarium Historiae Romanae.—A brief compendium of Roman History in ten books from the foundation of the city to the accession of Valens, 364 A.D., to whom it is inscribed.

3. Style.

His work is a compilation made from the best authorities, with good judgment and impartiality, and in a simple style. Its brevity and practical arrangement made it very popular.

FLORUS, circ. 120 (or 140?) A.D. (temp. Hadrian).

1. Life.

FLORUS.

L. Julius (or Annaeus) Florus lived at Rome in the time of Trajan or Hadrian. Little else is known of his life.

2. Works.

An Epitome of the Wars of Livy, in two Books:—

Book I. treats of the good time of Rome, 753-133 B.C. (the Gracchi).

„ II. treats of the decline of Rome, 133-29 B.C. (Temple of Janus closed).

3. Style.

A pretentious and smartly written work abounding in mistakes, contradictions, and misrepresentations of historical truth. It was, however, popular in the Middle Ages on account of its brevity and its rhetorical style. Florus is useful in giving us a short account of events in periods where we have no books of Livy to guide us.

S. JULIUS FRONTINUS, circ. 41-103 A.D.

1. Life.

FRONTINUS.

He was praetor urbanus 70 A.D., and in 75 succeeded Cerealis as governor oi Britain, where, as Tacitus tells us, he distinguished himself by the conquest of the Silures: sustinuit molem Iulius Frontinus, vir magnus, quantum licebat, validamque et pugnacem Siturum gentem armis subegit: ‘Julius Frontinus was equal to the burden, a great man as far as greatness was then possible (i.e. under the jealous rule of Domitian), who subdued by his arms the powerful and warlike tribe of the Silures.’

In 97 he was nominated curator aquarum, administrator of the aqueducts of Rome: the closing years of his life were passed in studious retirement at his villa on the Bay of Naples. Cf. Mart. X. lviii.

2. Works.

Two works of his are extant:—

(1) De Aquis Urbis Romae.—A treatise on the Roman water-supply, published under Trajan, soon after the death of Nerva, 97 A.D.; a complete and valuable account.

(2) Strategemata.—A manual of strategy, in three books, consisting of historical examples derived chiefly from Sallust, Caesar, and Livy.

3. Style.

Simple and concise: ‘he shuns the conceits of the period and goes back to the republican authors, of whom (and especially of Caesar’s Commentaries) his language strongly reminds us.’—Cruttwell.

As a mark of his unaffected modesty, Pliny (Ep. ix. 19) tells us: vetuit exstrui monimentum: sed quibus verbis? ‘impensa monimenta supervacua est: memoria nostri durabit, si vita meruimus.’

AULUS GELLIUS, circ. 123-175 A.D.

1. Life.

GELLIUS.

All that is known about his life is gathered from occasional hints in his own writings. He seems to have spent his early years at Rome, studying under the most famous teachers, first at Rome and afterwards at Athens, and then to have returned to Rome, where he spent the remaining years of his life in literary pursuits and in the society of a large circle of friends.

2. Works.

The Noctes Atticae (so called because it was begun during the long nights of winter in a country house in Attica) in twenty books consists of numerous extracts from Greek and Roman writers on subjects connected with history, philosophy, philology, natural science and antiquities, illustrated by abundant criticisms and discussions. It is, in fact, a commonplace book, and the arrangement of the contents is merely casual, following the course of his reading of Greek and Latin authors. The work is, however, of special value to us from the very numerous quotations from ancient authors preserved by him alone.

3. Style.

His language is sober but full of archaisms, which he much affected (he gives, therefore, no quotations from post-Augustan writers). His style shows the defects of an age in which men had ceased to feel the full meaning of the words they used, and strove to hide the triviality of a subject under obscure phrases and florid expression. Yet, on the whole, he is a very interesting writer, and the last that can in any way be called classical.

‘Vir elegantissimi eloquii et multae ac facundae scientiae.’—St. Augustine, 400 A.D.

QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS, 65-8 B.C.

1. Important Events in the Life of Horace.

HORACE.

B.C. 65. Born at Venusia (Venosa) on the confines of Apulia and Lucania.

B.C. 53-46. Educated at Rome under the famous plagosus Orbilius.

„ 46-44. At the University of Athens.

„ 44-42. Served under Brutus as tribunus militum: fought at Philippi.

„ 42-39. Pardoned by Octavianus and allowed to return to Rome. His poverty compelled him to write verses, prob. Sat. I, ii. iii. iv., and some Epodes. Through these he obtained the notice of Varius and Vergil, who became his fast friends and

„ 38. introduced him to Maecenas, the trusted minister of Augustus.

„ 35. Satires, Book I published. (Journey to Brundisium described, Sat. I. v.)

„ 33. Maecenas bestowed upon him a Sabine farm (about 15 miles N.E. of Tivoli). For fullest description see Epist. I. xvi.

„ 31. Satires, Book II, and Epodes published.

„ 23. Odes, Books I-III published.

„ 20. Epistles, Book I published.

„ 17. Carmen Saeculare written at the request of Augustus for the Ludi Saeculares.

„ 13. Odes, Book IV published.

„ 12. Epistles, Book II published.

„ 8. Died in the same year as his friend and patron Maecenas.

3. Works.

(1) Odes, in four books, and Epodes.—The words of Cicero (pro Archia 16) best describe the abiding value of the four Books of the Odes—Adolescentiam alunt (strengthen), senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. In them we see a poet, as Quintilian says, verbis felicissime audax—most happily daring in his use of words and endowed, as Petronius says, with curiosa felicitas, a subtle happiness of expression—‘what oft was thought but ne’er so well express’d.’

(2) Satires (Sermones) in two Books.—Horace’s chief model is Lucilius, whom he wished to adapt to the Augustan age. To touch on political topics was impossible; Horace employed satire to display his own individuality and his own views on various subjects. Book I (his earliest effort) is marred by faults in execution and is often wanting in good taste; but in Book II ‘he uses the hexameter to exhibit the semi-dramatic form of easy dialogue, with a perfection as complete as that of Vergil in the stately and serious manner. In reading these Satires we all read our own minds and hearts.’—Mackail.

(3) The Epistles (Sermones) in two Books, and Ars Poetica (Ep. ad Pisones).—These represent his most mature production. As a poet Horace now stood without a rival. Life was still full of vivid interest for him, but years (fallentis semita vitae) had brought the philosophic mind. ‘To teach the true end and wise regulation of life, and to act on character from within, are the motives of the more formal and elaborate epistles.’—Sellar.

The Ars Poetica is a résumé of Greek criticism on the drama.

3. Style.

‘With the principal lyric metres, the Sapphic and Alcaic, Horace had done what Vergil had accomplished with the dactylic hexameter, carried them to the highest point of which the foreign Latin tongue was capable.’—Mackail.

‘As Vergil is the most idealising exponent of what was of permanent and universal significance in the time, Horace is the most complete exponent of its actual life and movement. He is at once the lyrical poet, with heart and imagination responsive to the deeper meaning and lighter amusements of life, and the satirist, the moralist, and the literary critic of the age.’—Sellar.

JUSTINUS, circ. 150 A.D. (temp. Antoninus Pius).

1. Life.

JUSTINUS.

We know nothing positively about him, though probably he lived in the age of the Antonines. Teuffel says ‘Considering his correct mode of thinking and the style of his preface, we should not like to put him much later than Florus, who epitomised Livy.’

2. Works.

Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi, in forty-four Books.—An abridgment of the Universal History of Pompeius Trogus (temp. Livy). The title Historiae Philippicae was given to it by Trogus because its main object was to give the history of the Macedonian monarchy, with all its branches, but he allowed himself, like Herodotus, to indulge in such large digressions that it was regarded by many as a Universal History. It was arranged according to nations; it began with Ninus, the Nimrod of legend, and was brought down to about 9 A.D.

3. Style.

Justinus (as he tells us in his Preface) made it his business to form an attractive reading-book—breve veluti florum corpusculum feci (an anthology)—and his chief merit is that he seems to have been a faithful abbreviator.

DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS, 55-138 A.D.

1. Life.

JUVENAL.

Of Juvenal’s life very little is certainly known. Thirteen lives of him exist, which are confused and contradictory in detail. From the evidences of the Satires we learn that he lived from early youth at Rome, but went for holidays to Aquinum, a town of the Volscians (where perhaps he was born in the reign of Nero); that he had a small farm at Tibur, and a house in Rome, where he entertained his friends in a modest way; that he had been in Egypt; that he wrote Satires late in life; that he reached his eightieth year, and lived into the reign of Antoninus Pius. He complains frequently and bitterly of his poverty and of the hardships of a dependent’s life. In short, the circumstances of his life were very similar to those of Martial, who speaks of Juvenal as a very intimate friend.

The famous inscription at Aquinum—which Duff considers does not refer to the poet but to a wealthy kinsman of his—indicates that he had served in the army as commander of a Dalmatian cohort, and, as one of the chief men of the town, was superintendent of the civic worship paid to Vespasian after his deification.

All the Lives assert that Juvenal was banished to Egypt—Juvenal himself never alludes to this—for offence given to an actor who was high in favour with the reigning Emperor (Hadrian according to Prof. Hardy), and that he died in exile.

2. Works.

Saturae, sixteen, grouped in five Books.

Books I-III (Satires 1-9) are sharply divided both in form and substance from Books IV-V (Satires 10-16), which are not satires at all, but moral essays, in the form of letters. The first nine satires present a wonderfully vivid picture of the seamy side of life at Rome at the end of the first century. We must, however, read side by side with them the contemporary Letters of Pliny, in which we find ourselves in a different world from that scourged by the satirist.

‘His chief literary qualities are his power of painting lifelike scenes, and his command of brilliant epigrammatic phrase.’—Duff. Nothing, for instance, could surpass his picture of the fall of Sejanus (Sat. x. 56-97). His power of coining phrases is seen in these sententiae: nemo repente fuit turpissimus—expende Hannibalem: quot libras in duce summo | invenies: maxima debetur puero reverentia: mens sana in corpora sano—which are familiar proverbs among educated men.

Juvenal tells us that he takes all life, all the world, for his text:

(the motley subject of my page).—Sat. i. 85-6.

TITUS LIVIUS PATAVINUS, circ. 59 B.C.-17 A.D.

1. Life.

LIVY.

Livy was born at Patavium (Padua) between the years 59 and 57 B.C. Little is known of his life, but his aristocratic sympathies, as seen in his writings, seem to suggest that he was of good family. Padua was a populous and busy place, where opportunities for public speaking were abundant and the public life vigorous; thus Livy was early trained in eloquence, and lived amid scenes of human activity. About 30 B.C. he settled at Rome, where his literary talents secured the patronage and friendship of Augustus. But though a courtier he was no flatterer. ‘Titus Livius,’ says Tacitus (Ann. iv. 34), ‘pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cn. Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship.’ He returned to his native town before his death, 17 A.D., at the age of about 75.

2. Works.

History of Rome (Ab urbe condita Libri), a comprehensive account in 142 Books of the whole History of Rome from the foundation of the City to the death of Drusus, 9 A.D. It is probable that he intended to continue his work in 150 Books, down to the death of Augustus in 14 A.D., the point from which Tacitus starts. The number of Books now extant is 35, about one fourth of the whole number, but we possess summaries (Periochae or Argumenta) of nearly the whole work. The division of the History into decades (sets of ten Books), though merely conventional, is convenient. According to this arrangement the Books now extant are:

Books I-X, 754-293 B.C., to nearly the close of the Third Samnite War.

Books XXI-XXX, 219-201 B.C., the narrative of the Second Punic War.

Books XXXI-XLV, 201-167 B.C., describe the Wars in Greece and Macedonia, and end with the triumph of Aemilius Paulus after Pydna, 168 B.C.

3. Style.

His style is characterised by variety, liveliness, and picturesqueness. ‘As a master of style Livy is in the first rank of historians. He marks the highest point which the enlarged and enriched prose of the Augustan age reached just before it began to fall into decadence. . . . The periodic structure of Latin prose, which had been developed by Cicero, is carried by him to an even greater complexity and used with a greater daring and freedom. . . . His imagination never fails to kindle at great actions; it is he, more than any other author, who has impressed the great soldiers and statesmen of the Republic on the imagination of the world.’—Mackail.

4. The Speeches.

‘The spirit in which he writes History is well illustrated by the Speeches. These, in a way, set the tone of the whole work. He does not affect in them to reproduce the substance of words actually spoken, or even to imitate the colour of the time in which the speech is laid. He uses them rather as a vivid and dramatic method of portraying character and motive.’—Mackail. ‘Everything,’ says Quintilian (X. i. 101), ‘is perfectly adapted both to the circumstances and personages introduced.’

5. The Purpose of his History.

The first ten books of Livy were being written about the same time as the Aeneid; both Vergil and Livy had the same patriotic purpose, ‘to celebrate the growth, in accordance with a divine dispensation, of the Roman Empire and Roman civilisation.’—Nettleship. Livy, however, brought into greater prominence the moral causes which contributed to the growth of the Empire. In his preface to Book I, § 9, he asks his readers to consider what have been the life and habits of the Romans, by aid of what men and by what talents at home and in the field their Empire has been gained and extended. Only by virtue and manliness, justice and piety, was the dominion of the world achieved.

‘In ancient Rome he sees his ideal realised, and romanus hence signifies in his language all that is noble. He thus involuntarily appears partial to Rome, and unjust to her enemies, notably to the Samnites and Hannibal.’—Teuffel.

‘As the title of Gesta Populi Romani was given to the Aeneid on its appearance, so the Historiae ab Urbe Condita might be called, with no less truth, a funeral eulogy—consummatio totius vitae et quasi funebris laudatio (Sen. Suas. VI. 21)—delivered, by the most loving and most eloquent of her sons, over the grave of the great Republic.’—Mackail.

M. ANNAEUS LUCANUS, 39-65 A.D.

1. Life.

LUCAN.

Important Events in the Life of Lucan.

A.D. 39. Born at Corduba (Cordova) on the R. Baetis (Guadalquivir).

A.D. 40. His father migrates with his family to Rome.

„ 54-68. Nero Emperor.

„ 55. Lucan under Cornutus, the tutor also of Persius.

„ 57-9. At the University of Athens.

„ 60. Wins the favour of Nero, who begins to hate Seneca.

„ 61. Lucan quaestor: famous as a reciter and pleader.

„ 62. Disgrace of Seneca. Pharsalia I.-III. published. Death of Persius.

„ 63. Marries Polla Argentaria, a marriage of affection.

„ 64. Nero, from jealousy, forbids Lucan to publish poems or to recite them.

„ 65. Pisonian conspiracy discovered. Lucan compelled to die.

Lucan was a nephew of M. Annaeus Novatus (the Gallio of Acts xviii. 12-17), and of Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero. ‘Rhetoric and Stoic dogma were the staple of his mental training. For a much-petted, quick-witted youth, plunged into such a society as that of Rome in the first century A.D., hardly any training could be more mischievous. Puffed up with presumed merits and the applause of the lecture-room and the salon, he became a shallow rhetorician, devoted to phrase-making and tinsel ornament, and ready to write and declaim on any subject in verse or prose at the shortest notice.’—Heitland. Silenced by Nero, in an enforced retirement—probably in the stately gardens spoken of by Juvenal vii. 79-80 contentus fama iaceat Lucanus in hortis Marmoreis—Lucan may repose in his park adorned with statues and find fame enough—he brooded over his wrongs, and despairing of any other way of restoration to public life, joined the ill-fated conspiracy of Piso.

2. Works.

The Pharsalia (or De Bello Civili), an epic poem in ten Books, from the beginning of the Civil War down to the point where Caesar is besieged in Alexandria, 49-48 B.C. His narrative thus runs parallel to Caesar’s De Bello Civili, but it contains some valuable additional matter and gives a faithful picture of the feeling general among the nobility of the day.

3. Style.

‘To Lucan’s rhetorical instincts and training, and the influence of the recitations which Juvenal Sat. iii. tells us were so customary and such a nuisance in his day, are due the great defects of the Pharsalia. We see the sacrifice of the whole to the parts, neglect of the matter in an over-studious regard for the manner, a self-conscious tone appealing rather to an audience than to a reader, venting itself in apostrophes, digressions, hyperbole (over-drawn description), episodes and epigrams, an unhappy laboriousness that strains itself to be first-rate for a moment, but leaves the poem second-rate for ever.’—Heitland.

The general effect of Lucan’s verse is one of steady monotony, due to a want of variety in the pauses and in the ending of lines, and a too sparing use of elision, by which Vergil was able to regulate the movement of lines and make sound and sense agree.

‘In spite of its immaturity and bad taste the poem compels admiration by its elevation of thought and sustained brilliance of execution; it contains passages of lofty thought and real beauty, such as the dream of Pompeius, or the character which Cato gives of Pompeius, and is full of quotations which have become household words; such as, In se magna ruunt—Stat magni nominis umbra—Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum (a line which rivals Caesar’s energy).’—Mackail.

The brief and balanced judgment of Quintilian (Inst. Orat. X. i. 90) sums up Lucan in words which suggest at once his chief merits and defects as a poet: Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus et magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus—Lucan has fire and point, is very famous for his maxims, and indeed is rather a model for orators than poets.

GAIUS LUCILIUS, circ. 170-103 B.C.

1. Life.

LUCILIUS.

Lucilius was born in the Latin town of Suessa of the Aurunci, in Campania, of a well-to-do equestrian family. Velleius tells us that the sister of Lucilius was grandmother to Pompeius, and that Lucilius served in the cavalry under Scipio in the Numantine war, 134 B.C. Lucilius lived on very intimate terms with Scipio Africanus Minor and Laelius, and died at Naples (103 B.C.), where he was honoured with a public funeral.

2. Works.

Saturae in thirty Books, in various metres. Fragments only are extant.

‘After Terence he is the most distinguished and the most important in his literary influence among the friends of Scipio. The form of literature which he invented and popularised, that of familiar poetry, was one which proved singularly suited to the Latin genius. He speaks of his own works under the name of Sermones (talks)—a name which was retained by his great successor and imitator Horace; but the peculiar combination of metrical form with wide range of subject and the pedestrian style of ordinary prose received in popular usage the name Satura (mixture).’—Mackail.

Satura quidem tota nostra est, in qua primus insignem laudem adeptus Lucilius.—Quint. X. i. 93.

‘The chief social vices which Lucilius attacks are those which reappear in the pages of the later satirists. They are the two extremes to which the Roman temperament was most prone: rapacity and meanness in gaining money, vulgar ostentation and coarse sensuality in using it.’—Sellar.

Juvenal says of him (Sat. i. 165-7):

‘When old Lucilius seems to draw his sword and growls in burning ire, the hearer blushes for shame, his conscience is chilled for his offences, and his heart faints for secret sins.’

T. LUCRETIUS CARUS, circ. 99-55 B.C.

1. Life.

LUCRETIUS.

Very little is known of his life. The subiect of his poem prevented him from telling his own history as Catullus, Horace, and Ovid have done, and his contemporaries seldom refer to him. The name Lucretius suggests that he was descended from one of the most ancient patrician houses of Rome, famous in the early annals of the Republic. He was evidently a man of wealth and position, but he deliberately chose the life of contemplation, and lived apart from the ambitions and follies of his day. Donatus, in his life of Vergil, tells us that Lucretius died on the day on which Vergil assumed the toga virilis, Oct. 15, 55 B.C.

2. Works.

The De Rerum Natura, a didactic poem in hexameter verse in six Books. The poem was left unfinished at his death, and Munro supports the tradition that Cicero both corrected it and superintended its publication. The object of the poem is to deliver men from the fear of death and the terrors of superstition by the new knowledge of Nature:

This terror of the soul, therefore, and this darkness must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun or the bright shafts of day, but by the outward aspect and harmonious plan of nature.—S.

The source of these terrors is traced to the general ignorance of certain facts in Nature—ignorance, namely, of the constitution and condition of our minds and bodies, of the means by which the world came into existence and is still maintained, and, lastly, of the causes of many natural phenomena. Thus:

Books I and II uphold the principles of the Atomic Theory as held by Epicurus (fl. 300 B.C.).

Book I states that the world consists of atoms and void. At line 694 is stated the important doctrine that the evidence of the senses alone is to be believed—sensus, unde omnia credita pendent, the senses on which rests all our belief.

Book II treats of the motions of atoms, including the curious doctrine of the swerve, which enables them to combine and makes freedom of will possible: then of their shapes and arrangement.

Book III shows the nature of mind (animus) and life (anima) to be material and therefore mortal. Therefore death is nothing to us:

Book IV gives Lucretius’ theory of vision and the nature of dreams and apparitions.

Book V explains the origin of the heavens, of the earth, of vegetable and animal life upon it, and the advance of human nature from a savage state to the arts and usages of civilisation.

Book VI describes and accounts for certain natural phenomena—thunderstorms, tempests, volcanoes, earthquakes, and the like. It concludes with a theory of disease, illustrated by a fine description of the plague at Athens.

Professor Tyrrell says: ‘It is interesting to point to places in which Lucretius or his predecessors had really anticipated modern scientific research. Thus Lucretius recognises that in a vacuum every body, no matter what its weight, falls with equal swiftness; the circulation of the sap in the vegetable world is known to him, and he describes falling stars, aerolites, etc., as the unused material of the universe.’ The great truth that matter is not destroyed but only changes its form is very clearly stated by Lucretius, and his account (Book V) of the beginnings of life upon the earth, the evolution of man, and the progress of human society is interesting and valuable.

3. Style.

‘Notwithstanding the antique tinge (e.g. his use of archaism, assonance, and alliteration) which for poetical ends he has given to his poem, the best judges have always looked upon it as one of the purest models of the Latin idiom in the age of its greatest perfection.’—Munro.

‘The language of Lucretius, so bold, so genial, so powerful, and in its way so perfect.’—Nettleship.

MARCUS MANILIUS, fl. 12 A.D.

1. Life.

MANILIUS.

Nothing is known of his life. That he was not of Roman birth (perhaps a native of N. Africa) is probable from the foreign colouring of his language at the outset, which in the later books becomes more smooth and fluent from increased practice.

2. Works.

The Astronomica in five Books of hexameter verse. The poem should rather be called Astrology, as Astronomy is treated only in Book I. He is proud of being the first writer on this subject in Latin literature. A close study of Lucretius is obvious from several passages: he often imitates Vergil, and in the legends (e.g. of Perseus and Andromeda) Ovid.

3. Style.

He is not a great poet; but he is a writer of real power both in thought and style. In his introductions to each Book, and in his digressions, he shows sincere feeling and poetical ability.

M. VALERIUS MARTIALIS, circ. 40-102 A.D.

1. Life.

MARTIAL.

He was born at Bilbilis in Hispania Tarraconensis (E. Spain), a town situated on a rocky height overlooking the R. Salo:

X. ciii. 1-2.

His father gave him a good education, and at the age of twenty-three (63 A.D.) he went to Rome. After living there for thirty-five years, patronised by Titus and Vespasian, he returned to Bilbilis soon after the accession of Trajan (98 A.D.), where he died circ. 102 A.D.

At Rome he for a time found powerful friends in his great countrymen of the house of Seneca (Lucan and Seneca were then at the height of their fame), and from 79 to 96 (temp. Trajan and Domitian) he received the patronage of the Court, and numbered among his friends Pliny the Younger, Quintilian, Juvenal, Valerius Flaccus, and Silius Italicus. His complaints of his poverty are incessant. It is true that he lived throughout the life of a dependent, but it is probable that Martial was a poor man who contrived to get through a good deal of money, and who mistook for poverty a capacity for spending more than he could get.

2. Works.

Epigrammata in fourteen Books (Books XIII and XIV, Xenia and Apophoreta, are two collections of inscriptions for presents at the Saturnalia); also a Liber Spectacu­lorum on the opening of the grand Flavian amphitheatre (the Coliseum) begun by Vespasian and completed by Titus.

3. Style.

‘Martial did not create the epigram. What he did was to differentiate the epigram and elaborate it. Adhering always to what he considered the true type of the literary epigram, consisting of i. the preface, or description of the occasion of the epigram, rousing the curiosity to know what the poet has to say about it; and, ii. the explanation or commentary of the poet, commonly called the point—he employed his vast resources of satire, wit, observation, fancy, and pathos to produce the greatest number of varieties of epigram that the type admits of. . . . What Martial really stands convicted of on his own showing is of laughing at that which ought to have roused in him shame and indignation, and of making literary capital out of other men’s vices.’—Stephenson. Among his good points are his candour, his love of nature, and the loyalty of his friendships.

Pliny says of him: Audio Valerium Martialem decessisse et moleste fero. Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum in scribendo et sltis haberet et fellis, nec candoris minus—I hear with regret that V. Martial is dead. He was a man of talent, acuteness, and spirit: with plenty of wit and gall, and as sincere as he was witty.—Pliny, Ep. iii. 21.

‘The greatest epigrammatist of the world, and one of its most disagreeable literary characters.’—Merrill.

CORNELIUS NEPOS, circ. 100-24 B.C.

1. Life.

NEPOS.

Nepos was probably born at Ticinium on the R. Padus. He inherited an ample fortune, and was thereby enabled to keep aloof from public life and to devote himself to literature and to writing works of an historical nature. In earlier life he was one of the circle of Catullus, who dedicated a collection of poems to him (Catull. C. i.): ‘To whom am I to give my dainty, new-born little volume? To you, Cornelius.’ He was also a friend and contemporary of Cicero, and after Cicero’s death (43 B.C.) was one of the chief friends of Atticus.

2. Works.

Of his numerous writings on history, chronology, and grammar we possess only a fragment of his De Viris Illustribus (originally in sixteen Books), a collection of Roman and foreign biographies. Of this work there is extant one complete section, De Excellentibus Ducibus Exterarum Gentium, and two lives, those of Atticus and Cato the Younger, from his De Historicis Latinis.

3. Style.

Nepos is a most untrustworthy historian, and his work possesses little independent value. But his style is clear, elegant, and lively, and he did much to make Greek learning popular among his fellow-citizens.

PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO, 43 B.C.-18 A.D.

1. Life.

OVID.

Ovid’s own writings (espec. Tr. IV. x.) supply nearly all the information we possess regarding his life. He was born at Sulmo, a town in the cold, moist hills of the Peligni, one of the Sabine clans, situated near Corfinium, and about ninety miles E. of Rome. He was of an ancient equestrian family, and together with his elder brother received a careful education at Rome, and studied also at Athens. He was trained for the Bar, but in spite of his father’s remonstrances preferred poetry to public life. ‘An easy fortune, a brilliant wit, an inexhaustible memory, and an unfailing social tact soon made him a prominent figure in society; and his genuine love of literature and admiration for genius made him the friend of the whole contemporary world of letters.’—Mackail. Up to his fiftieth year fortune smiled steadily upon Ovid: his works were universally popular, and he enjoyed the favour and patronage of the Emperor himself. But towards the end of 8 A.D. an imperial edict ordered him to leave Rome on a named day and take up his residence at the small barbarous town of Tomi, on the Black Sea, at the extreme outposts of civilisation. Augustus proved deaf to all entreaties to recall him, Tiberius remained alike inexorable, and Ovid died of a broken heart at the ago of sixty, in the tenth year of his banishment.

2. Works.

(1) Amores, in three Books, poems in elegiac verse, nearly all on Corinna, who was probably no real person, but only a name around which Ovid grouped his own fancies, and wrote as the poet of a fashionable, pleasure-loving society. The Mors Psittaci is pleasing and the Mors Tibulli is a noble tribute to a brother poet.

(2) Heroides, twenty letters in elegiac verse, feigned to have been written by ladies or chiefs of the heroic age to the absent objects of their love (15-20 are in pairs, e.g. Paris to Helen and Helen to Paris, and are probably spurious). ‘The Letters 1-14 are thoroughly modern: they express the feelings and speak the language of refined women in a refined age, and all exhibit an artificiality both in the substance and the manner of their pleading.’—Sellar.

(3) Ars Amatoria, in elegiac verse in three Books. This is an ironical form of didactic poetry in which Ovid teaches the art of lying quite as much as the art of loving.

(4) Remedia Amoris, in elegiac verse, while professing to be a recantation of the Ars Amatoria, shows, if possible, a worse taste.

(5) Metamorphoses, in hexameter verse in fifteen Books, containing versions of legends on transformations (mutatae formae) from Chaos down to Caesar’s transformation into a star. In some respects this is his greatest poem: Ovid himself makes for it as strong a claim to immortality as Horace does for his Odes:

‘The attractiveness of this work lies in its descriptions; but the attempt to divest it of the character of a dictionary of mythology by interweaving stories, after the fashion of the Arabian Nights, is only partially successful.’—Tyrrell.

(6) Fasti, in elegiac verse in six Books, a poetical calendar of the Roman year. Each month has a Book allotted to it, and Ovid probably sketched out Books vii-xii, but his exile made it impossible for him to complete the work. It contains much valuable information on Roman customs and some exquisitely told stories (e.g. the Rape of Proserpine), but leaves the impression of being an effort to produce on the reader the effect of a patriotism which the writer did not feel.

(7) Poems Written in Exile.

(i) Tristia, in elegiac verse in five Books: letters to Augustus, to Ovid’s wife (for whom he had a deep affection) and to friends, praying for pardon or for a place of exile nearer Rome.

(ii) Epistulae ex Ponto: similar to the Tristia.

‘These poems are a melancholy record of flagging vitality and failing powers.’—Mackail.

3. Style.

The real importance of Ovid in literature and his gift to posterity lay in the new and vivid life which he imparted to the fables of Greek mythology. ‘No other classical poet has furnished more ideas than Ovid to the Italian poets and painters of the Renaissance, and to our own poets—from Chaucer to Pope, who, like Ovid,

AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS, 34-62 A.D.

1. Life.

PERSIUS.

He was born at Volaterrae in Etruria, and was the son of a Roman knight of wealth and rank. At twelve years of age Persius was removed to Rome, where he placed himself under the guidance of the Stoic Cornutus, who remained his close friend to the end of his short life. Persius (Sat. v.) touchingly describes his residence with Cornutus, and the influence of this beloved teacher in moulding his character:

‘My delight is to show you, Cornutus, how large a share of my inmost being is yours, my beloved friend.’—C.

He was nearly related to Arria, daughter of that ‘true wife’ who taught her husband Paetus how to die (Mart. I. xiii.; Pliny Epist. i. 16). In the consistent life of Thrasea (the husband of Arria), who was a Cato in justice and more than a Cato in goodness, Persius had a noble example to follow. So during the short span of his life the poet lived and worked, a man of maidenly modesty, an excellent son, brother, and nephew, of frugal and moderate habits.

2. Works.

Saturae, six Satires in hexameter verse. The first, devoted to an attack upon the literary style of the day, is the only real Satire: the other five are declamations or dogmas of the Stoic system (e.g. Sat. ii., on right and wrong prayers to the gods), interspersed with dramatic scenes. It was to Lucilius that Persius owed the impulse that made him a writer of Satire, but his obligations to Horace are paramount. ‘He was what would be called a plagiarist, but probably no writer ever borrowed so much and yet left on the mind so decided an impression of originality. Where he draws from his own experience, his portraits have an imaginative truth, minutely accurate yet highly ideal, which would entitle them to a distinguished place in any portrait gallery.’—Nettleship.

3. Style.

‘The involved and obscure style of much of his work is the style which his taste leads him to assume for satiric purposes. He feels that a clear, straightforward, everyday manner of speech would not suit a subject over which the gods themselves might hesitate whether to laugh or weep. As the poet of Stoicism, using the very words of Vergil, he calls upon a benighted race to acquaint itself with the causes of things: to an inquiry into the purpose of man’s being, the art of skilful driving in the chariot-race of life, and the ordained position of each individual in the social system.’—Nettleship.

‘Persius is the sole instance among Roman writers of a philosopher whose life was in accordance with the doctrines he professed.’—Cruttwell.

Multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro Persius meruit.—Quint. Inst. Orat. X. i. 94.

PETRONIUS ARBITER, obiit 66 A.D.

1. Life.

PETRONIUS.

He is probably the Petronius of whose life and character Tacitus has given us a brilliant sketch in the Annals, xvi. 18. 19. ‘His days were passed,’ says Tacitus, ‘in sleep, his nights in the duties or pleasures of life: where others toiled for fame he had lounged into it. Yet, as governor of Bithynia, and afterwards as consul, he showed himself a vigorous and capable administrator; then relapsing into the habit or assuming the mask of vice, he was adopted as Elegantiae Arbiter (the authority on taste) into the small circle of Nero’s intimate companions. No luxury was charming or refined till Petronius had given it his approval, and the jealousy of Tigellinus was roused against a rival and master in the science of pleasure.’ Petronius anticipated his inevitable fate by committing suicide.

2. Works.

Satirae (or Satiricon), a character-novel, often called, from its central and most entertaining incident, The Supper of Trimalchio. ‘This is the description of a Christmas dinner-party given by a sort of Golden Dustman and his wife, people of low birth and little education, who had come into an enormous fortune. The dinner itself, and the conversation on literature and art that goes on at the dinner-table, are conceived in a spirit of the wildest humour.’—Mackail.

The chief interest of the Satiricon for us is the glimpse which it affords of everyday manners and conversation under the Empire among all orders of society, from the highest to the lowest.

PHAEDRUS (temp. Augustus to Nero).

1. Life.

PHAEDRUS.

The Latin Fabulist, of whom we know nothing except what may be gathered or inferred from his fables. He was originally a slave, and was born in Thrace, possibly in the district of Pieria. He was brought to Rome at an early age, and there became acquainted with Roman literature. His patron appears to have been Augustus, who gave him his freedom. After publishing two books of fables he incurred the resentment of Augustus and was imprisoned. This was due probably to the bold outspokenness of many of his fables. He survived the attacks made on him, and Book V was written in his old age.

2. Works.

Fables, in five Books, written in iambic senarii, like those of Terence and Publius Syrus. The full title of his work is Phaedri Augusti liberti fabularum Aesopiarum libri. ‘Phaedrus constantly plumes himself on his superiority to his model Aesop, but his animals have not the lifelike reality of those of the latter. With Phaedrus the animals are mere lay-figures: the moral comes first, and then he attaches an animal to it.’—Tyrrell.

‘The chief interest of the Fables lies in the fact that they form the last survival of the urbanus sermo (the speech of Terence) in Latin poetry.’—Mackail.

‘Phaedrus is the only important writer during the half-century of literary darkness between the Golden and the Silver Age.’—Tyrrell.

T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS, circ. 254-184 B.C.

1. Life.

PLAUTUS.

Plautus was born in the little Umbrian town of Sarsina, of free but poor parents. He came to Rome and made a small fortune as a stage-carpenter, but lost it by rash investment. He was then reduced to working for some years in a corn-mill, during which time he wrote plays, and continued to do so until his death.

2. Works.

Comedies. About 130 plays were current under the name of Plautus, but only 21 (Fabulae Varronianae) were, as Varro tells us, universally admitted to be genuine. Of these, all except one are extant.

Though his comedies are mainly free versions of Greek originals—of Philemon, Diphilus and Menander, the writers of the New Comedy 320-250 B.C.—the characters in them act, speak, and joke like genuine Romans, and he thereby secured the sympatliy of his audience more completely than Terence could ever have done.

‘In point of language his plays form one of the most important documents for the history of the Latin language. In the freedom with which he uses, without vulgarising, popular modes of speech, he has no equal among Latin writers.’—Sellar.

For Horace’s unfavourable judgment of Plautus see Epist. I. i. 170-176, and A. P. 270-272; Cicero’s criticism is more just: Duplex omnino est iocandi genus: unum illiberale petulans flagitiosum obscenum (vulgar, spiteful, shameful, coarse), alterum elegans urbanum ingeniosum facetum (in good taste, gracious, clever, witty). Quo genere non modo Plautus noster et Atticorum antiqua comoedia (i.e. of Aristophanes), sed etiam philosophorum Socraticorum libri referti sunt.—De Off. I. civ.

GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS, 23-79 A.D.

1. Life.

PLINY THE ELDER.

Born at Comum (Como) in the middle of the reign of Tiberius, Pliny passed his life in high public employments, both military and civil, which took him successively over nearly all the provinces of the Empire. He had always felt a strong interest in science, and he used his military position to secure information that otherwise might have been hard to obtain. Vespasian (70-78 A.D.), with whom he was on terms of close intimacy, made him admiral of the fleet stationed at Misenum. It was while here that news was brought him of the memorable eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. ‘In his zeal for scientific investigation he set sail for the spot in a man-of-war, and lingering too near the zone of the eruption was suffocated by the rain of hot ashes. The account of his death, given by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, in a letter to the historian Tacitus (Ep. vi. 16), is one of the best known passages in the classics.’—Mackail.

2. Works.

A Natural History, in thirty-seven Books, is Pliny’s only extant work. (For his numerous other writings see Pliny the Younger, Ep. iii. 5.) ‘It is a priceless storehouse of information on every branch of natural science as known to the ancient world.’—Mackail.

His work has been called the first popular encyclopedia of natural science.

Plinius Aetatis Suae Doctissimus.—Gellius.

C. PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS, 62-113 A.D.

1. Life.

PLINY THE YOUNGER.

Pliny the Younger was the son of C. Caecilius and of Plinia, the sister of the elder Pliny. He was born at Comum (Como), also the birthplace of his celebrated uncle. His father died when he was eight years old, and he was placed under the care of a guardian, Verginius Rufus, one of the most distinguished Romans of the day, since he had held the crown within his grasp and had declined to wear it, 68 A.D. Verginius was not much of a student, but Pliny learned from him high ideals of duty and noble thoughts about the Rome of earlier days, and never lost his unbounded admiration and respect for his guardian (Ep. ii. 1). Under his uncle’s watchful care he received the best education Rome could give, and studied rhetoric under the great Quintilian. His bachelor uncle on his death in 79 left him his heir, adopting him in his will. Gifted with wealth, enthusiasm, taste for publicity, and a wide circle of influential friends, Pliny could not be content with the career of a simple eques. Accordingly he began the course of office that led to the Senate and the Consulship, and finally in 111 A.D. was appointed by Trajan governor of Bithynia, where he discharged his duties with skill and ability. His service seems to have been terminated only with his death.

2. Works.

Epistulae, Letters in nine Books, to which is added Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan during his governorship of Bithynia. These and his Panegyricus, in praise of Trajan, are his only extant works.

It is on his Letters that Pliny’s fame now rests, and both in tone and style they are a monument that does him honour. In many cases they were written for publication, and thus can never have the unique and surpassing interest that belongs to those of Cicero, but they give a varied and interesting picture of the time. ‘In the Letters the character of the writer, its virtues and its weakness, is throughout unmistakeable. Pliny, the patriotic citizen,—Pliny, the munificent patron,—Pliny, the eminent man of letters,—Pliny, the affectionate husband and humane master,—Pliny, the man of principle, is in his various phases the real subject of the whole collection.’—Mackail.

‘Pliny is an almost perfect type of a refined pagan gentleman.’—Cruttwell.

SEXTUS PROPERTIUS, circ. 50-15 B.C.

1. Life.

PROPERTIUS.

Of his life little or nothing is known, except what is recorded by himself. He was an Umbrian by birth, and probably a native of Asisium (Assisi), a town on the W. slope of the Apennines, not far from Perusia. Like Vergil and Tibullus, he lost his family property in the confiscation of lands by the Triumvirs in 42 B.C.; but his mother’s efforts secured for him a good education, to complete which she brought him to Rome. He entered on a course of training for the Bar, but abandoned it in favour of poetry (IV. i. 131-4).

His earliest poems (Book I, Cynthia), published at the age of about twenty, brought him into notice and gained him admission to the literary circle of Maecenas. He lived in close intimacy with Vergil, Ovid, and most of his other literary contemporaries, with the remarkable exception of Horace, to whom the sensitive vanity and passionate manner of the young elegiac poet were alike distasteful. He died young, before he was thirty-five, about 15 B.C.

2. Works.

Elegies, in four Books. (Some editors divide Book II into two Books, El. 1-9 Book II, and El. 10-34 Book III, so that III and IV of the MSS. and of Postgate become IV and V.)

Books I and II are nearly all poems on Cynthia.

Book III contains, besides poems on Cynthia, themes dealing with friendship (El. 7. 12. 22) and events of national interest (El. 4. 11. 18). The poet struggles to emancipate himself from the thraldom of Cynthia and to accomplish work more worthy of his genius.

Book IV contains poems on Roman antiquities (El. 2. 4. 9. 10), written at the suggestion of Maecenas, the paean on the great victory at Actium (El. 6), and the noblest of his elegiacs, the Elegy on Cornelia (El. 11).

3. Style.

The aim of Propertius was to be the Roman Callimachus: Umbria Romani patria Callimachi (IV. i. 64).

The flexibility and elasticity of rhythm of the finest Greek elegiacs he made his own. The pentameter, instead of being a weaker echo of the hexameter, is the stronger line of the two, and has a weightier movement. In Book I he ends the pentameter freely with words of three, four, and five syllables, and we find long continuous passages in which there is scarcely any pause: e.g. in I. xx. 33-37:

‘In some respects both Tibullus and Ovid may claim the advantage over Propertius: Tibullus for refined simplicity, for natural grace and exquisiteness of touch; Ovid for the technical merits of execution, for transparency of construction, for smoothness and polish of expression. But in all the higher qualities of a poet Propertius is as much their superior.’—Postgate.

AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS, 348-circ. 410 A.D.

1. Life.

PRUDENTIUS.

Prudentius (as he tells us in the brief metrical autobiography prefixed to his poems) was born in the N. of Spain, and, like so many of the Roman poets, began his public life as an advocate. He was afterwards appointed by Theodosius (379-395 A.D.) judge over a district in Spain. His active and successful discharge of this office induced Theodosius (or Honorius, 395-423 A.D.) to promote him to some post of honour about the Emperor’s person. His later years he devoted to the composition of sacred poetry, and published his collected works 405 A.D., after which date we know no more of his history.

2. Works.

His best known works are his Cathemerina, a series of poems on the Christian’s day and life, of which the most graceful and pathetic is the Funeral Hymn, e.g.

and his Peristephanon (περὶ στεφάνων liber) in praise of Christian martyrs. ‘These represent the most substantial addition to Latin lyrical poetry since Horace.’—Mackail. We also have his Contra Symmachum in two Books of indifferent hexameter verse, in which he combats Symmachus (Consul 391 A.D.), the last champion of the old faith, and claims the victories of the Christian Stilicho as triumphs alike of Rome and of the Cross.

‘Prudentius has his distinct place and office in the field of Latin literature, as the chief author who bridged the gulf between pagan poetry and Christian hymnology.’—North Pinder.

MARCUS FABIUS QUINTILIANUS, circ. 35-95 A.D.

1. Life.

QUINTILIAN.

Quintilian is the last and perhaps the most distinguished of that school of Spanish writers (Martial, the two Senecas, and Lucan) which played so important a part in the literary history of the first century. Born at Calagurris, a small town on the Upper Ebro, he was educated at Rome, and afterwards returned to his native town as a teacher of rhetoric. There he made the acquaintance of the proconsul Galba (68-9), and was brought back by him to Rome in 68 A.D., where for twenty years he enjoyed the highest reputation as a teacher of eloquence. Among his pupils were numbered Pliny the Younger and the two sons of Flavius Clemens, grand-nephews of Domitian, destined for his successors. In 79 A.D. he was appointed by Vespasian professor of rhetoric, the first teacher who received a regular salary from the imperial exchequer. Domitian (81-96 A.D.) conferred upon him an honorary consulship, and the last ten years of his life were spent in an honoured retirement, which he devoted to recording for the benefit of posterity his unrivalled experience as a teacher of rhetoric.

2. Works.

Institutio Oratoria, the Training of an Orator, in twelve Books. This great work sums up the teaching and criticism of his life, and gives us the complete training of an orator, starting with him in childhood and leading him on to perfection.

Thus:—

Book I gives a sketch of the elementary training of the child from the time he leaves the nursery. Quintilian rightly attaches the greatest importance to early impressions.

Book II deals with the general principles and scope of the art of oratory, and continues the discussion of the aims and methods of education in its later stages.

Books III-VII are occupied with an exhaustive treatment of the matter of oratory, and are highly technical. ‘Now that the formal study of the art of rhetoric has ceased to be a part of the higher education these Books have lost their general interest.’—Mackail.

Books VIII-XI treat of the manner (style) of oratory. In Book X, cap. i, in the course of an enumeration of the Greek and Latin authors likely to be most useful to an orator, Quintilian gives us a masterly sketch of Latin literature, ‘in language so careful and so choice that many of his brief phrases have remained the final words on the authors, both in prose and verse, whom he mentions in his rapid survey.’—Mackail.

Book XII treats of the moral qualifications of a great speaker. The good orator must be a good man.

‘Quintilian with admirable clearness insists on the great truth that bad education is responsible for bad life, and expresses with equal plainness the complementary truth that education, from the cradle upwards, is something which acts on the whole intellectual and moral nature, and that its object is the production of the good man.’—Mackail.

3. Style.

The style of Quintilian is modelled on that of Cicero, whom he is never tired of praising, and is intended to be a return to the usages of the best period. In spite of some faults characteristic of the Silver Age (e.g. his excessive use of antithesis) ‘for ordinary use it would be difficult to name a manner that combines so well the Ciceronian dignity with the rich colour and high finish added to Latin prose by the writers of the earlier empire.’—Mackail.

For the death of his son, aged ten, a boy of great promise, for whose instruction he wrote the work, see Preface to Book VI.

GAIUS SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, 86-35 B.C.

1. Life.

SALLUST.

A member of a plebeian family, Sallust was born 86 B.C. at Amiternum, in the country of the Sabines. As tribune of the people in 52 B.C. he took an active part in opposing Milo (Cicero’s client) and the Pompeian party in general. In 48 B.C. he commanded a legion in Illyria without distinction, and next year Caesar sent him to treat with the mutinous legions in Campania, where he narrowly escaped assassination. He afterwards followed Caesar to Africa, and apparently did good service there, for he was appointed in 46 the first governor of the newly formed province of Numidia. In 45 he returned to Rome a very rich man, and built himself a magnificent palace, surrounded by pleasure grounds (the famous Gardens of Sallust, in the valley between the Quirinal and the Pincius), which in after years emperors preferred to the palace of the Caesars. After Caesar’s death Sallust retired from public life, and it is to the leisure and study of these ten years that we owe the works that have made him famous.

2. Works.

(1) De Catilinae Coniuratione (or Bellum Catilinae), a monograph on the famous conspiracy, in which Sallust writes very largely from direct personal knowledge of men and events.

(2) Bellum Iugurthinum (111-106 B.C.) The writing of this monograph involved wide inquiry and much preparation.

(3) Historiae, in five books, dealing with the events from 78 B.C. (death of Sulla) to 67 B.C., of which only a few fragments are extant.

3. Style.

‘Sallust aimed at making historical writing a branch of literature. He felt that nothing had yet been done by any Roman writer which would stand beside Thucydides. It was his ambition to supply the want. That could only be done by offering as complete a contrast to the tedious annalist as possible, and Sallust neglected no means of giving variety to his work. From Thucydides he probably borrowed the idea of his introductions, the imaginary speeches and the character portraits; from Cato the picturesque descriptions of the scenes of historical events and the ethnographical digressions.’—Cook.

‘The style of Sallust is characterised by the use of old words and forms (especially in the speeches). He makes use of alliteration, extensively employs the Historic Infinitive, and shows a partiality for conversational expressions which from a literary point of view are archaic. His abrupt unperiodic style of writing (rough periods without particles of connexion) has won for Sallust his reputation for brevity. His style is, however, the expression of the writer’s character, direct, incisive, emphatic, and outspoken; to have been a model for Tacitus is no slight merit.’—Cook.

Nec minus noto Sallustius epigrammate incessitur:

‘The last of the Ciceronians, Sallust is also in a sense the first of the imperial prose-writers.’—Mackail.

Primus Romana Crispus in Historia (Mart. XIV. cxci.)

L. ANNAEUS SENECA THE YOUNGER, circ. 4 B.C.-65 A.D.

1. Life.

SENECA.

The son of Seneca the Elder, the famous rhetorician, was born at Corduba (Cordova), in Spain, and brought to Rome by his parents at an early age. His life was one of singularly dramatic contrasts and vicissitudes. Under his mother Helvia’s watchful care he received the best education Rome could give. Through the influence of his mother’s family he passed into the Senate through the quaestorship, and his successes at the bar awakened the jealousy of Caligula (37-41 A.D.) By his father’s advice he retired for a time and spent his days in philosophy. On the accession of Claudius (41-54 A.D.) he was banished to Corsica at the instance of the Empress Messalina, probably because he was suspected of belonging to the faction of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. After eight years he was recalled (49 A.D.) by the influence of Agrippina (now the wife of Claudius), and appointed tutor to her son Nero, then a boy of ten. When Nero became emperor, at the age of seventeen (54 A.D.), Seneca, in conjunction with his friend Burrus, the prefect of the praetorian guards, became practically the administrator of the Empire. ‘The mild and enlightened administration of the earlier years of the new reign, the famous quinquennium Neronis, may indeed be largely ascribed to Seneca’s influence; but this influence was based on an excessive indulgence of Nero’s caprices, which soon worked out its own punishment.’—Mackail. His connivance at the murder of Agrippina (59 A.D.) was the death-blow to his influence for good, and the death of Burrus (63 A.D.) was, as Tacitus says (Ann. xiv. 52), ‘a blow to Seneca’s power, for virtue had not the same strength when one of its champions, so to speak, was removed, and Nero began to lean on worse advisers.’ Seneca resolved to retire, and entreated Nero to receive back the wealth he had so lavishly bestowed. The Emperor, bent on vengeance, refused the proffered gift, and Seneca knew that his doom was sealed. In the year 65, on the pretext of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso, he was commanded to commit suicide, and Tacitus (Ann. xv. 61-63) has shown his love for Seneca, in spite of all his faults, by the tribute he pays to the constancy of his death.

2. Works.

His chief works are:—

(1) Dialogorum Libri XII, of which the most important are the De Ira and the Consolatio to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved.

(2) De Clementia, in three Books, addressed to Nero, written in 55-6 A.D., to show the public what sort of instruction Seneca had given his pupil, and what sort of Emperor they had to expect.