I. ROMAN
Reading edition
BY FRANK JUSTUS MILLER
The University of Chicago Chautauqua Press
CHAUTAUQUA, NEW YORK MCMXIII
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY FRANK JUSTUS MILLER Third Edition, 1913
The Chautauqua Print Shop Chautauqua, New York
PREFACE
The accumulated literature of centuries of ancient Roman life, even after the loss of more works than have survived, is still so large that, were we to attempt to cover the whole field, the space allotted to this volume would suffice for only the most superficial mention of the extant authors. The writer has therefore chosen to present to his readers the field of poetry only, and to narrow the scope of his work still further by the selection of certain important and representative phases of poetry, namely, the dramatic, satiric, and epic.
These different phases of the Roman poetic product will be presented in the order named, although it is by no means certain which class of poetry was first developed at Rome. It is more than likely that satire and comedy had a common origin in the rude and unrecorded literary product of ancient Italy. Ennius, indeed, prior to whose time the extant fragments are exceedingly meager, produced both drama, satire, and epic. And the same is true, though to a more limited extent, of other writers of the same early period.
Each of these phases of poetry is treated separately in this volume, according to its chronological development. We shall, therefore, traverse the field three times by three parallel paths: from Andronicus to Seneca, from Ennius to Juvenal, and from Nævius to Vergil.
F. J. Miller
Chicago.
CONTENTS
BOOK I. ROMAN
PAGE
PART I. THE DRAMA
THE BEGINNINGS OF ROMAN LITERATURE AND OLD ROMAN TRAGEDY 1
LATER ROMAN TRAGEDY AND SENECA 8
ROMAN COMEDY 38
PART II. SATIRE
INTRODUCTION AND EARLY SATIRE 70
QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS 80
AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS 99
DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS 105
PART III. EPIC POETRY
CN. NÆVIUS.—THE FIRST NATIONAL ROMAN EPIC 119
QUINTUS ENNIUS 121
PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARO 128