No More Learning

Active as Cato was as a statesman, pleader, author, and Cato's mercantile speculator, family life always formed with him ^~^ the central object of existence ; it was better, he thought,
to be a good husband than a great senator. His domestic
was strict The servants were not allowed to leave the house without orders, nor to talk of what occurred in the household to strangers. The more severe punish-
discipline
pro
n8 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
merits were not inflicted capriciously, but sentence was pronounced and executed according to a quasi-judicial procedure : the strictness with which offences were punished may be inferred from the fact, that one of his slaves who had concluded a purchase without orders from his mastei hanged himself on the matter coming to Cato's ears. For slight offences, such as mistakes committed in waiting at table, the consular was wont after dinner to administer to the culprit the proper number of lashes with a thong wielded by his own hand. He kept his wife and children in order no less strictly, but by other means; for he declared it sinful to lay hands on a wife or grown-up children in the same way as on slaves. In the choice of a wife he disapproved marrying for money, and recommended
men to look to good descent ; but he himself married in old age the daughter of one of his poor clients. Moreover he adopted views in regard to continence on the part of the husband similar to those which everywhere prevail in slave countries; a wife was throughout regarded by him as simply a necessary evil. His writings abound in invectives against the chattering, finery-loving, ungovernable fair sex ;
it was the opinion of the old" lord that "all women are plaguy and proud," and that, were men quit of women, our life might probably be less godless. " On the other hand the rearing of children born in wedlock was a matter which touched his heart and his honour, and the wife in his eyes existed strictly and solely for the children's sake. She nursed them ordinarily herself, or, if she allowed hex children to be suckled by female slaves, she also allowed their children in return to draw nourishment from her own breast ; one of the few traits, which indicate an endeavour to mitigate the institution of slavery by ties of human
sympathy — the common impulses of maternity and the bond of foster-brotherhood. The old general was present in person, whenever it was possible, at the washing and
chap, xiii FAITH AND MANNERS 1 19
swaddling of his children. He watched with reverential care over their childlike innocence ; he assures us that he was as careful lest he should utter an unbecoming word in presence of his children as if he had been in presence of the Vestal Virgins, and that he never before the eyes of his daughters embraced their mother, except when she had become alarmed during a thunder-storm. The education of the son was perhaps the noblest portion of his varied and variously honourable activity. True to his maxim, that a ruddy-checked boy was worth more than a pale one, the old soldier in person initiated his son into all bodily exercises, and taught him to wrestle, to ride, to swim, to box, and to endure heat and cold. But he felt very justly, that the time had gone by when it sufficed for a Roman to be a good fanner and soldier ; and he felt also that it could not but have an injurious influence on the mind of his boy, if he should subsequently learn that the teacher, who had rebuked and punished him and had won his reverence, was a mere slave. Therefore he in person taught the boy what a Roman was wont to learn, to read and write and know the law of the land ; and even in his later years he worked his way so far into the general culture of the Hellenes, that he was able to deliver to his son in his native tongue whatever in that culture he deemed to be of use to a Roman. All his writings were primarily intended for his son, and he wrote his historical work for that son's use with large distinct letters in his own hand. He lived homely and frugal style. His strict parsimony tolerated no expenditure on luxuries. He allowed no slave to cost him more than 1500 denarii (^65) and no dress more than 100 denarii (^4 :6s. ) no carpet was to be seen in his house, and for long time there was no whitewash on the walls of the rooms. Ordinarily he partook of the same fare with his servants, and did not suffer his outlay in cash for the meal to exceed 30 asses {as. ) in time of war even
;
a
;
ir. a
i*> FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
wine was uniformly banished from his table, and he drank water or, according to circumstances, water mixed with vinegar. On the other hand, he was no enemy to hospi tality ; he was fond of associating both with his club in town and with the neighbouring landlords in the country ; he sat long at table, and, as his varied experience and his shrewd and ready wit made him a pleasant companion, he disdained neither the dice nor the wine-flask : among other receipts in his book on husbandry he even gives a tried recipe for the case of a too hearty meal and too deep potations. His life up to extreme old age was one of ceaseless activity. Every moment was apportioned and occupied ; and every evening he was in the habit of turning over in his mind what he had heard, said, or done during the day. Thus he found time for his own affairs as well as for those of his friends and of the state, and time also for conversation and pleasure; everything was done quickly and without many words, and his genuine spirit of activity hated nothing so much as bustle or a great ado about trifles.
So lived the man who was regarded by his contemporaries and by posterity as the true model of a Roman burgess, and who appeared as it were the living embodiment of the— certainly somewhat coarse-grained — energy and probity of Rome in contrast with Greek indolence and Greek im morality ; as a later Roman poet says :
Sferne mores transmarine*, millc habent offucias.
Cive Romano per orbem nemo vivit rectius.
Quippe malim unum Caionem, quam trecentos Soeratas. 1
p In the first edition of this translation I gave these lines in English on the basis of Dr. Mommsen's German version, and added in a note that I had not been able to find the original. Several scholars whom I consulted were not more successful ; and Dr. Mommsen was ai . he time absent from Berlin. Shortly after the first edition appeared, I received a note from Sir George Cornewall Lewis informing me that I should find them taken from Floras (or Floridus) in Wernsdorf, Poetae Lot Min. vol. iii.
p. 487. They were accordingly given in the revised edition of 1868 from the Latin text Baehrens (Poet Lat Min. vol. iv. p. 347) follow* Lucian MUller in reading offucia. — Tr. ]
chap, xiii FAITH AND MANNERS 121
Such judgments will not be absolutely adopted by history ; but every one who carefully considers the revolution which the degenerate Hellenism of this age accomplished in the modes of life and thought among the Romans, will be inclined to heighten rather than to lessen that condemna tion of the foreign manners.
The ties of family life became relaxed with fearful New rapidity. The evil of grisettes and boy- favourites spread manner* like a pestilence, and, as matters stood, it was not possible
to take any material steps in the way of legislation against
it The high tax, which Cato as censor (570) laid on this 184. most abominable species of slaves kept for luxury, would
not be of much moment, and besides fell practically into
disuse a year or two afterwards along with the property-
tax generally. Celibacy —as to which grave complaints
were made as early as 520—and divorces naturally in- 284. creased in proportion. Horrible crimes were perpetrated
in the bosom of families of the highest rank ; for instance,
the consul Gaius Calpurnius Piso was poisoned by his wife
and his stepson, in order to occasion a supplementary
election to the consulship and so to procure the supreme magistracy for the latter—a plot which was successful (574). 180. Moreover the emancipation of women began.
According to old custom the married woman was subject in law to the marital power which was parallel with the paternal, and
the unmarried woman to the guardianship of her nearest male agnati, which fell little short of the paternal power ;
the wife had no property of her own, the fatherless
and the widow had at any rate no right of management. But now women began to aspire to independence in respect to property, and, getting quit of the guardianship of their agnati by evasive lawyers' expedients —particularly through mock marriages —they took the management of their property into their own hands, or, in the event of being married, sought by means not much better to withdraw
virgin
Lumry.
169.
laa FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
themselves from the marital power, which under the strict letter of the law was necessary. The mass of capital which was collected in the hands of women appeared to the states men of the time so dangerous, that they resorted to the ex travagant expedient of prohibiting by law the testamentary nomination of women as heirs (585), and even sought by a highly arbitrary practice to deprive women for the most part of the collateral inheritances which fell to them without testament In like manner the exercise of family jurisdiction over women, which was connected with that marital and tutorial power, became practically more and more anti quated. Even in public matters women already began to have a will of their own and occasionally, as Cato thought,
" to rule the rulers of the world ; " their influence was to be traced in the burgess-assembly, and already statues were erected in the provinces to Roman ladies.
Luxury prevailed more and more in dress, ornaments, and furniture, in buildings and at table. Especially after 190. the expedition to Asia Minor in 564 Asiatico-Hellenic
luxury, such as prevailed at Ephesus and Alexandria, transferred its empty refinement and its dealing in trifles, destructive alike of money, time, and pleasure, to Rome. Here too women took the lead: in spite of the zealous invective of Cato they managed to procure the abolition,
195. after the peace with Carthage (559), of the decree of the 215. people passed soon after the battle of Cannae (539), which forbade them to use gold ornaments, variegated
dresses, or chariots; no course was left to their zealous 184. antagonist but to impose a high tax on those articles (570). A multitude of new and for the most part frivolous articles
—silver plate elegantly figured, table-couches with bronze mounting, Attalic dresses as they were called, and carpets of rich gold brocade — now found their way to Rome. Above all, this new luxury appeared in the appliances of the table. Hitherto without exception the Romans had
chap, xiii FAITH AND MANNERS
123
only partaken of hot dishes once a day; now hot dishes were not unfrequently produced at the second meal
and for the principal meal the two courses formerly in use no longer sufficed. Hitherto the women of the household had themselves attended to the baking of bread and cooking; and it was only on occasion of entertainments that a professional cook was specially hired, who in that case superintended alike the cooking and the
(Jirandium),
Now, on the other hand, a scientific cookery began to prevail. In the better houses a special cook was
The division of labour became necessary, and the trade of baking bread and cakes branched off from that of cooking —the first bakers' shops in Rome appeared about
Poems on the art of good eating, with long lists of 171. the most palatable fishes and other marine products, found
their readers : and the theory was reduced to practice. Foreign delicacies — anchovies from Pontus, wine from Greece — began to be esteemed in Rome, and Cato's receipt for giving to the ordinary wine of the country the flavour of Coan by means of brine would hardly inflict any considerable injury on the Roman vintners. The old decorous singing and reciting of the guests and their boys were supplanted by Asiatic sambucistriae. Hitherto the Romans had perhaps drunk pretty deeply at supper, but drinking-banquets in the strict sense were unknown ; now formal revels came into vogue, on which occasions the wine
was little or not at all diluted and was drunk out of large cups, and the drink-pledging, in which each was bound to
follow his neighbour in regular succession, formed the leading feature —"drinking after the Greek style" (Graeco
more bibere) or " playing the Greek " (jpergraecari, congrae- care) as the Romans called it. In consequence of this debauchery dice-playing, which had doubtless long been in use among the Romans, reached such proportions that it was necessary for legislation to interfere. The aversion
baking.
kept.
583.
Increase of amuse ments.
to labour and the habit of idle lounging were visibly on the increase. 1 Cato proposed to have the market paved with pointed stones, in order to put a stop to the habit of idling; the Romans laughed at the jest and went on to enjoy the pleasure of loitering and gazing all around them.
We have already noticed the alarming extension of the popular amusements during this epoch. At the beginning of apart from some unimportant foot and chariot races which should rather be ranked with religious ceremonies, only single general festival was held in the month of September, lasting four days and having definitely fixed maximum of cost (ii. 96). At the close of the
this popular festival had duration of at least six days and besides this there were celebrated at the beginning of April the festival of the Mother of the Gods or the so-called
A sort of parabasis in the Curculio of Plautus describes what went on In the market-place of the capital, with little humour perhaps, but with life-like distinctness.
Conmonstrabo, quo in quemqut hominem facile inveniatis loco, Ne nimio opcre sumat operant, si guis convention veto
Vel vitiosum vel sine vitio, vel probum vel inprobum.
Qui perjurum convenire volt hominem, ito in comitium Qui mendacem et gloriosum, apud Cloacinae sacrum. [Ditis damnosos maritos sub basilica quaerito.
Ibidem erunt scoria exolela quique stipulari solent. Symbolarum conlatores apud forum piscarium.
Inforo infumo boni homines atque dites ambulant In medio propter canalem ibi ostentatorts meri.
124
FAITH AND MANNERS
Confidentes garrulique et malevoli supra locum.
Qui alteri de nihilo audacter dicunt contumeliam
St qui ipsi sat habent quod in se possit vere dicier.
Sub veteribus ibi sunt, qui dant quique accipiunt faenort. Pone aedem Castoris ibi sunt, subito quibus credos male. In Tusco vico ibi sunt homines, qui ipsi sese venditant. In Velabro vel pistorem vel Ionium vel haruspicem
yd qui ipsi vorsant, vel qui aliis, ut vorsentur, pratbeant. Ditis damnosos maritos apud Leucadiam Oppiam.
The verses in brackets are subsequent addition, inserted after the 184. building of the first Roman bazaar (570). The business of the baker (pistor, literally miller) embraced at this time the sale of delicacies and the
providing accommodation for revellers (Festus, Ep. v. alicariae, p. 7, Mull. Plautus, Capt. 160 Poen. a, 54 Trin. 407). The same was the case with the butchers. Leucadia Oppia may have kept • house of bad
epoch,
;
i.
a
a
;
;
;
a
;;
]
1
it, a
chap, XIII FAITH AND MANNERS
125
towards the end of April that of Ceres and
that of Flora, in June that of Apollo, in November the Plebeian games —all of them probably occupying already more days than one. To these fell to be added the numerous cases where the games were celebrated afresh —
in which pious scruples presumably often served as a mere pretext —and the incessant extraordinary festivals. Among these the already -mentioned banquets furnished from the dedicated tenths no), the feasts of the gods, the triumphal and funeral festivities, were conspicuous; and above all the festal games which were celebrated —for the
first time in 505—at the close of one of those longer 249.
which were marked off the Etrusco- Roman religion, the saecula, as they were called. At the same
time domestic festivals were multiplied. During the second Punic war there were introduced, among people of quality, the already-mentioned banquetings on the anniver
sary of the entrance of the Mother of the Gods (after 550), 204 and, among the lower orders, the similar Saturnalia (after 537)i Doth under the influence of the powers henceforth 217. closely allied —the foreign priest and the foreign cook.
A very near approach was made to that ideal condition in which every idler should know where he might kill time every day and this in commonwealth where formerly action had been with all and sundry the very object of existence, and idle enjoyment had been proscribed by custom as well as by law The bad and demoralizing elements in these festal observances, moreover, daily ac quired greater ascendency. true that still as formerly
the chariot races formed the brilliant finale of the national festivals and poet of this period describes very vividly
the straining expectancy with which the eyes of the multi
tude were fastened on the consul, when he was on the point of giving the signal for the chariots to start. But
the former amusements no longer sufficed there was
Megalensia,
periods
;
a
;
a
It is
a 1
;
by
(p.
126 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
craving for new and more varied spectacles. Greek
athletes now made their appearance (for the first time in 186. 568) alongside of the native wrestlers and boxers. Of the
dramatic exhibitions we shall speak hereafter : the trans planting of Greek comedy and tragedy to Rome was a gain perhaps of doubtful value, but it formed at any rate the best of the acquisitions made at this time. The Romans had probably long indulged in the sport of coursing hares and hunting foxes in presence of the public ; now these innocent hunts were converted into formal baitings of wild animals, and the wild beasts of Africa — lions and panthers —were (first so far as can be proved in
186. 568) transported at great cost to Rome, in order that by killing or being killed they might serve to glut the eyes of the gazers of the capital. The still more revolting gladia torial games, which prevailed in Campania and Etruria, now gained admission to Rome; human blood was first
264. shed for sport in the Roman forum in 490. Of course these demoralizing amusements encountered severe censure:
268. the consul of 486, Publius Sempronius Sophus, sent a divorce to his wife, because she had attended funeral games ; the government carried a decree of the people prohibiting the bringing over of wild beasts to Rome, and strictly insisted that no gladiators should appear at the public festivals. But here too it wanted either the requisite power or the requisite energy : it succeeded, apparently, in checking the practice of baiting animals, but the appear ance of sets of gladiators at private festivals, particularly at funeral celebrations, was not suppressed. Still less could the public be prevented from preferring the comedian to the tragedian, the rope-dancer to the comedian, the gladiator to the rope-dancer ; or the stage be prevented from revelling by choice amidst the pollution of Hellenic life. Whatever elements of culture were contained in the scenic and artistic entertainments were from the first
chap, xiii FAITH AND MANNERS taj
thrown aside ; it was by no means the object of the givers
of the Roman festivals to elevate — though it should be
but temporarily —the whole body of spectators through the power of poetry to the level of feeling of the best, as the Greek stage did in the period of its prime, or to prepare
an artistic pleasure for a select circle, as our theatres endeavour to do. The character of the managers and spectators in Rome is illustrated by a scene at the triumphal games in 587, where the first Greek flute-players, on their 167. melodies failing to please, were instructed by the director
to box with one another instead of playing, upon which the delight would know no bounds.
Nor was the evil confined to the corruption of Roman manners by Hellenic contagion ; conversely the scholars
began to demoralize their instructors. Gladiatorial games,
which were unknown in Greece, were first introduced by
king Antiochus Epiphanes (579-590), a professed imitator 178-164. of the Romans, at the Syrian court, and, although they
excited at first greater horror than pleasure in the Greek public, which was more humane and had more sense of art than the Romans, yet they held their ground likewise there, and gradually came more and more into vogue.
As a matter of course, this revolution in life and manners brought an economic revolution in its train. Residence in the capital became more and more coveted as well as more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height Extravagant prices were paid for the new articles of luxury ; a barrel of anchovies from the Black Sea cost
1600 sesterces (j£i6)—more than the price of a rural slave ; a beautiful boy cost 24,000 sesterces (,£240)— more than many a farmer's homestead. Money therefore, and nothing but money, became the watchword with high and low. In Greece it had long been the case that nobody did anything for nothing, as the Greeks themselves with discreditable candour allowed : after the second
128 FAITH AND MANNERS book hi
Macedonian war the Romans began in this respect also to imitate the Greeks. Respectability had to provide itself with legal buttresses ; pleaders, for instance, had to be prohibited by decree of the people from taking money for their services ; the jurisconsults alone formed a noble exception, and needed no decree of the people to compel
their adherence to the honourable custom of giving good advice gratuitously. Men did not, if possible, steal out right ; but all shifts seemed allowable in order to attain rapidly to riches — plundering and begging, cheating on the part of contractors and swindling on the part of speculators, usurious trading in money and in grain, even the turning of purely moral relations such as friendship and marriage to economic account. Marriage especially became on both sides an object of mercantile speculation ; marriages for money were common, and it appeared necessary to refuse legal validity to the presents which the spouses made to each other. That, under such a state of things, plans for setting fire on all sides to the capital came to the knowledge of the authorities, need excite no surprise. When man no longer finds enjoyment in work, and works merely in order to attain as quickly as possible to enjoyment, it is a mere accident that he does not become a criminal. Destiny had lavished all the glories of power and riches with liberal hand on the Romans ; but, in truth, trie Pandora's box was a gift of doubtful value.
CHAP, xi y LITERATURE AND ART
119
CHAPTER XTV
LITERATURE AND ART
The influences which stimulated the growth of Roman literature were of a character altogether peculiar and hardly paralleled in any other nation. To estimate them correctly, it is necessary in the first place that we should glance at the instruction of the people and its recreations during this period.
Language lies at the root of all mental culture ; and this was especially the case in Rome. In a community where ? {
so much importance was attached to speeches and documents, and where the burgess, at an age which is still according to modern ideas regarded as boyhood, was already entrusted with the uncontrolled management of his property and might perhaps find it necessary to make formal speeches to the assembled community, not only was great value set all along on the fluent and polished use of the mother-tongue, but efforts were early made to acquire a command of it in the years of boyhood. The Greek language also was already generally diffused in Italy in the time of Hannibal. In the higher circles a knowledge of that language, which was the general medium of inter course for ancient civilization, had long been a far from uncommon accomplishment ; and now, when the change of Rome's position in the world had so enormously increased
the intercourse with foreigners and the foreign traffic, such
VOL, III
74
Knowledge languages.
IJ»
LITERATURE AND ART book III
a knowledge was, if not necessary, yet presumably of very material importance to the merchant as well as the states man. By means of the Italian slaves and freedmen, a very large portion of whom were Greek or half-Greek by birth, the Greek language and Greek knowledge to a certain extent reached even the lower ranks of the population, especially in the capital. The comedies of this period may convince us that even the humbler classes of the capital were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be properly understood without a knowledge of Greek than the English of Sterne or the German of Wieland without a knowledge of French. 1 Men of senatorial families, how ever, not only addressed a Greek audience in Greek, but even published their speeches —Tiberius Gracchus (consul
\Tl. 168. in 577 and 591) so published a speech which he had given at Rhodes —and in the time of Hannibal wrote their chronicles in Greek, as we shall have occasion to mention more particularly in the sequel. Individuals went still farther. The Greeks honoured Flamininus by compli mentary demonstrations in the Roman language 437), and he returned the compliment the "great general of the Aeneiades " dedicated his votive gifts to the Greek gods
A distinct set of Greek expressions, such as stratioticus, mathaera, nauclrrus, trapcrita, danista, drapeta, oenopoHum, bolus, malacus, morus, graphicus, logus, apologus, Uchna, schema, forms quite a special feature in the language of Plautus. Translations are seldom attached, and that only
in the case of words not embraced in the circle of ideas to which those which we have cited belong for instance, in the Trueulentus — in a verse, however, that perhaps later addition 1, 60)—we find the explana tion <pp6yijcit est sapientia. Fragments of Greek also are common, as in the Casino, (iii.
OpdyfULTd tun rapixut—Dabo fUya kokqsi, ut opinor. Greek puns likewise occur, as in the Baxchides (240)
opus est chryso Chrysalo.
Ennius in the same way takes for granted that the etymological meaning of Alexandras and Andromache known to the spectators (Varro, de L. L. vii. 8a). Most characteristic of all are the half-Greek formations, such aiferritribax, plagipatida, pugilice, or in the Miles Oloriosus (913):
euscheme herclt astitit sic dulice et comoedicel
Euge
I
is
is
:
6,
9) :
a
;
:
1
(i.
;
(ii.
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
131
after the Greek fashion in Greek distichs. 1 Cato reproached another senator with the fact, that he had the effrontery to deliver Greek recitations with the due modulation at Greek revels.
Under the influence of such circumstances Roman instruction developed itself. It is a mistaken opinion, that antiquity was materially inferior to our own times in the general diffusion of elementary attainments. Even among the lower classes and slaves there was much reading, writing, and counting : in the case of a slave steward, for instance, Cato, following the example of Mago, takes for granted the ability to read and write. Elementary instruction, as well as instruction in Greek, must have been long before this period imparted to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us initiated an education, the aim of which was to communicate not merely an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. Hitherto in Rome a knowledge of Greek had conferred on
its possessor as little superiority in civil or social life, as a knowledge of French perhaps confers at the present day in a hamlet of German Switzerland ; and the earliest writers of Greek chronicles may have held a position among the other senators similar to that of the farmer in the fens of Holstein who has been a student and in the evening, when he comes home from the plough, takes down his Virgil from the shelf. A man who assumed airs of greater im portance by reason of his Greek, was reckoned a bad patriot and a fool ; and certainly even in Cato's time one who spoke Greek ill or not at all might still be a man of rank and become senator and consul. But a change was
1 One of these epigrams composed in the name of Flamininus runt thus:
Zyvbs lui KpaiirvaiaL yeyaOoTti InrooOvam Kovpoi, lui Zirdpraf TvvSaplScu /9a<rtX«>,
Aircddas Tiros Ofifuif viripTarov Cmaat owpor VyMjuur rnifat raivlf {\tv0tfla*.
13a
LITERATURE AND ART BOOK ill
already taking place. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality had already, particularly in the aris tocracy, advanced so far as to render the substitution of a general humane culture for that nationality inevitable : and the craving after a more advanced civilization was already powerfully stirring the minds of men. Instruction in the Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The classical literature of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey, had all along formed the basis of that instruction; the overflowing treasures of Hellenic art and science were already by this means spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without any outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of the instruction the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature ; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus
acquired to dive into that Greek literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age—the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander.
In a similar way greater importance came to be attached to instruction in Latin. The higher society of Rome began to feel the need, if not of exchanging their mother- tongue for Greek, at least of refining it and adapting it to the changed state of culture ; and for this purpose too they found themselves in every respect dependent on the Greeks. The economic arrangements of the Romans placed the work of elementary instruction in the mother-tongue —like every other work held in little estimation and performed for hire—chiefly in the hands of slaves, freedmen, or foreigners, or in other words chiefly in the hands of Greeks or half-Greeks ; 1 which was attended with the less difficulty,
1 Such, e. g. , was Chilo, the slave of Cato the Elder, who earned money ob his master's behalf as a teacher of children (Plutarch, Cato Mai. ao).
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
133
because the Latin alphabet was almost identical with the Greek and the two languages possessed a close and striking
But this was the least part of the matter; the importance of the study of Greek in a formal point of view exercised a far deeper influence over the study of Latin.
Any one who knows how singularly difficult it is to find suitable matter and suitable forms for the higher intellectual culture of youth, and how much more difficult it is to set aside the matter and forms once found, will understand how it was that the Romans knew no mode of supplying the desideratum of a more advanced Latin instruction except that of simply transferring the solution of this problem, which instruction in the Greek language and literature furnished, to instruction in Latin. In the present day a process entirely analogous goes on under our own eyes in the transference of the methods of instruction from the dead to the living languages.
But unfortunately the chief requisite for such a transfer ence was wanting. The Romans could, no doubt, learn to read and write Latin by means of the Twelve Tables ; but a Latin culture presupposed a literature, and no such literature existed in Rome.
To this defect was added a second. We have already The stage described the multiplication of the amusements of the Ro- SS man people. The stage had long played an important part influence, in these recreations; the chariot-races formed strictly the
principal amusement in all of them, but these races uni formly took place only on one, viz. the concluding, day, while the earlier days were substantially devoted to stage- entertainments. But for long these stage-representations consisted chiefly of dances and jugglers' feats ; the impro vised chants, which were produced on these occasions, had neither dialogue nor plot (ii. 98). It was only now that the Romans looked around them for a real drama. The Roman popular festivals were throughout under the influence of the
affinity.
Rise of a literatme.
Greeks, whose talent for amusing and for killing time natu rally rendered them purveyors of pleasure for the Romans. Now no national amusement was a greater favourite in Greece, and none was more varied, than the theatre; it could not but speedily attract the attention of those who provided the Roman festivals and their staff of assistants. The earlier Roman stage-chant contained within it a dramatic germ capable perhaps of development; but to develop the drama from that germ required on the part of the poet and the public a genial power of giving and receiv ing, such as was not to be found among the Romans at all, and least of all at this period ; and, had it been possible to find the impatience of those entrusted with the amuse ment of the multitude would hardly have allowed to the noble fruit peace and leisure to ripen. In this case too there was an outward want, which the nation was unable to satisfy the Romans desired theatre, but the pieces were wanting.
On these elements Roman literature was based; and its defective character was from the first and necessarily the result of such an origin. All real art has its root in indivi dual freedom and cheerful enjoyment of life, and the germs of such an art were not wanting in Italy but, when Roman training substituted for freedom and joyousness the sense of belonging to the community and the consciousness of duty, art was stifled and, instead of growing, could not but pine away. The culminating point of Roman development was the period which had no literature. It was not till Roman nationality began to give way and Hellenico-cosmopolite tendencies began to prevail, that literature made its appear ance at Rome in their train. Accordingly from the beginning, and by stringent internal necessity, took its stand on Greek ground and in broad antagonism to the distinctively Roman national spirit. Roman poetry above all had its immediate origin not from the inward impulse of
134
LITERATURE AND ART book hi
it
;
a
;
it,
a
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
135
the poets, but from the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of the stage, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions —the school and the stage —were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolutionary. The gaping and staring idleness of the theatre was an abomina tion to the sober earnestness and the spirit of activity which animated the Roman of the olden type ; and— inasmuch as it was the deepest and noblest conception lying at the root of the Roman commonwealth, that within the circle of Roman burgesses there should be neither master nor slave, neither miUionnaire nor beggar, but that above all a like faith and a like culture should characterize all Romans —the school and the necessarily exclusive school- culture were far more dangerous still, and were in fact utterly destructive of the sense of equality. The school and the theatre became the most effective levers in the hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more so that they used the Latin tongue. Men might perhaps speak and write Greek and yet not cease to be Romans ; but in this case they accustomed themselves to speak in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life were Greek. It is not one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the most remarkable and in a historical point of view most instructive, facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not immediately political, and that the maitre de plaisir of the great public and the schoolmaster in close alliance created a Roman literature.
In the very earliest Roman author the later development Livius An-
r caM~
as it were, in embryo. The Greek Andronikos
(from before 482, till after 547), afterwards as a Roman 372. 207. burgess called Lucius1 Livius Andronicus, came to Rome
at an early age in 482 among the other captives taken at 272.
1 The later rule, by which the freedman necessarily bore the fratnowum of his patron, was not yet applied In republican Rome.
appears,
207.
136
LITERATURE AND ART book in
Tarentum 37) and passed into the possession of the
conqueror of Sena 348) Marcus Livius Salinator (consul 219. 207. 535, 547). He was employed as slave, partly in acting and copying texts, partly in giving instruction in the Latin
and Greek languages, which he taught both to the children of his master and to other boys of wealthy parents in and out of the house. He distinguished himself so much this way that his master gave him freedom, and even the autho rities, who not unfrequently availed themselves of his services —commissioning him, for instance, to prepare thanks giving-chant after the fortunate turn taken by the Hannibalic war in 547—out of regard for him conceded to the guild of poets and actors place for their common worship in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine. His authorship arose out of his double occupation. As schoolmaster he translated the Odyssey into Latin, in order that the Latin text might form the basis of his Latin, as the Greek text was the basis of his Greek, instruction and this earliest of Roman school-
books maintained its place in education for centuries. As an actor, he not only like every other wrote for himself the texts themselves, but he also published them as books, that he read them in public and diffused them copies. What was still more important, he substituted the Greek drama for the old essentially lyrical stage poetry. was in
240. 5M. year after the close of the first Punic war, that the first play was exhibited on the Roman stage. This creation of an epos, tragedy, and comedy in the Roman language, and that by man who was more Roman than Greek, was historically an event but we cannot speak of his labours as having any artistic value. They make no sort of claim to originality viewed as translations, they are characterized by barbarism which only the more percep tible, that this poetry does not naively display its own native simplicity, but strives, after pedantic and stammering fashion, to imitate the high artistic culture of the neighbouring
a
is
;
a
a
a
a ;
;
a
(ii. (ii.
a
is,
It
by
a
in
a
chap, xiv LITERATURE AND ART
137
people. The wide deviations from the original have arisen not from the freedom, but from the rudeness of the imitation ; the treatment is sometimes insipid, sometimes turgid, the language harsh and quaint. 1 We have no difficulty in believing the statement of the old critics of art, that, apart from the compulsory reading at school, none of the poems of Livius were taken up a second time. Yet these labours were in various respects norms for succeeding times. They began the Roman translated literature, and naturalized the Greek metres in Latium. The reason why these were adopted only in the dramas, while the Odyssey of Livius was written in the national Saturnian measure, evidently was that the iambuses and trochees of tragedy and comedy far more easily admitted of imitation in Latin than the epic dactyls.
But this preliminary stage of literary development was soon passed. The epics and dramas of Livius were re garded by posterity, and undoubtedly with perfect justice, as resembling the rigid statues of Daedalus destitute of emo tion or expression — curiosities rather than works of art.
1 One of the tragedies of Livius presented the line —
Quem ego nifrendem alui licteam immulgins opem.
The verses of Homer (Odyssey, xii. 16) :
oiS' ipa Ktpicriv it 'Aittio i\06mn eX^eoner, dXXA fi&\' S>xa
*A9' irrwaiiivn ' &na 3' ifuplirokoi (pipov alrr% vItov koX Kpla. 7roXXi koX aWowa. olvov Ipv0p6v.
are thus interpreted :
Tipper eiti ad aidis—vfnimds Circae Simili diiona dram (? ) —portant ad ndvis, Milia ilia in isdem — inserinilntur.
The most remarkable feature is not so much the barbarism as the thought lessness of the translator, who, instead of sending Circe to Ulysses, sends Ulysses to Circe. Another still more ridiculous mistake is the translation of altoiourtp ISuxa {Odyss. xv. 373) by lusi (Festus, Ep. v. affatim, p. n,
Such traits are not in a historical point of view matters of indifference ; we recognize in them the stage of intellectual culture which marked these earliest Roman verse-making schoolmasters, and we at the same time perceive that, although Andronicus was born in Tarentum, Greek cannot have been properly his mother-tongue.
Miilltr).
Drama. Theatre,
Ijfi LITERATURE AND ART book hi
But in the following generation, now that the foundations were once laid, there arose a lyric, epic, and dramatic art ; and it is of great importance, even in a historical
point of view, to trace this poetical development.
Both as respects extent of production and influence over the public, the drama stood at the head of the poetry
thus developed in Rome. In antiquity there was no permanent theatre with fixed admission-money ; in Greece as in Rome the drama made its appearance only as an element in the annually-recurring or extraordinary amuse ments of the citizens. Among the measures by which the
counteracted or imagined that they counter acted that extension of the popular festivals which they justly regarded with anxiety, they refused to permit the erection of a stone building for a theatre. 1 Instead of this there was erected for each festival a scaffolding of boards with a stage for the actors (proscaenium, pulpitum) and a decorated background (scaena) ; and in a semicircle in front of it was staked off the space for the spectators (eavea), which was merely sloped without steps or seats, so that, if the spectators had not chairs brought along with them, they squatted, reclined, or stood. * The women were probably separated at an early period, and were restricted to the uppermost and worst places ; otherwise there was
government
194. no distinction of places in law till 560, after which, as already mentioned (p. 10), the lowest and best positions were reserved for the senators.
179. 155.
1 Such a building was, no doubt, constructed for the Apollinarian games in the Flaminian circus in 575 (Liv. xl. 51 ; Becker, Top. p. 605) ; but It was probably soon afterwards pulled down again (Tertull. de Spat. 10I.
* In 599 there were still no seats in the theatre (Ritschl, Parerg. i. p. xviii. xx. 214 ; romp. Ribbeck, Trag. p. 385) ; but, as not only the authors of the Plautine prologues, but Plautus himself on various occasions, make allusions to a sitting audience [Mil. Glor. 82, 83 ; Aulul. It. 9, 6 ; Trucul. ap. fin. ; Epid. ap. fin. ), most of the spectators must have brought stools with them or have seated themselves on the ground.
(. hap, xiv
LITERATURE AND ART
139
The audience was anything but genteel. The better Audience, classes, it is true, did not keep aloof from the general re
creations of the people ; the fathers of the city seem even
to have been bound for decorum's sake to appear on
these occasions. But the very nature of a burgess festival implied that, while slaves and probably foreigners also were excluded, admittance free of charge was given to every burgess with his wife and children ;1 and accordingly the body of spectators cannot have differed much from what one sees in the present day at public fireworks and
gratis exhibitions. Naturally, therefore, the proceedings were not too orderly ; children cried, women talked and shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage ; the ushers had on these festivals any thing but a holiday, and found frequent occasion to con fiscate a mantle or to ply the rod.
The introduction of the Greek drama increased the de mands on the dramatic staff, and there seems to have been no redundance in the supply of capable actors : on one occasion for want of actors a piece of Naevius had to be performed by amateurs. But this produced no change in the position of the artist ; the poet or, as he was at this time called, the "writer," the actor, and the composer not only belonged still, as formerly, to the class of workers for hire in itself little esteemed 94), but were still, as formerly, placed in the most marked way under the ban of public opinion, and subjected to police maltreatment
company
Women and children appear to have been at all times admitted to the Roman theatre Val. Max. vi. 3, 12 Plutarch. Quaest Rem. 14 Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 24 Vitruv. v. Suetonius, Aug. 44,
but slaves were de jure excluded (Cicero, de Har. Resp. 12, 26 Ritschl, Parerg. p. xix. 223), and the same must doubtless have been the case with foreigners, excepting of course the guests of the community, who took their places among or by the side of the senators (Varro, v. 155 Justin, xliii. 5, 10 Sueton. Aug. 44).
Ac. )
Of course all reputable persons kept aloof from
(ii. 98).
such an occupation. The manager of the
;
1 ;
;
i.
(
;
3,
1 ;
;;
;
(p.
,
140
LITERATURE AND ART book hi
grefis, factionis, also choragus), who was ordi narily also the chief actor, was generally a freedman, and its members were ordinarily his slaves ; the composers, whose names have reached us, were all of them non-free. The remuneration was not merely small — a honorarium of 8000 sesterces (;£8o) given to a dramatist is described
shortly after the close of this period as unusually high —but was, moreover, only paid by the magistrates pro viding the festival, if the piece was not a failure. With the payment the matter ended; poetical competitions and
(dominus
such as took place in Attica, were not yet heard of in Rome — the Romans at this time appear to have simply applauded or hissed as we now do, and
to have brought forward only a single piece for exhibition each day. 1 Under such circumstances, where art worked for daily wages and the artist instead of receiving due honour was subjected to disgrace, the new national theatre of the Romans could not present any development either original or even at all artistic ; and, while the noble rivalry of the noblest Athenians had called into life the Attic drama, the Roman drama taken as a whole could be nothing but a spoiled copy of its predecessor, in which the only wonder is that it has been able to display so much grace and wit in the details.
1 It is not necessary to infer from the prologues of Plautus (Cos. 17 ; Amfh. 65) that there was a distribution of prizes (Ritschl, Parerg. i. ■29) ; even the passage Trin. 706, may very well belong to the Greek original, not to the translator ; and the total silence of the didascaliae and prologues, as well as of all tradition, on the point of prize tribunals and prizes is decisive.
That only one piece was produced each day we infer from the fact, that the spectators come from home at the beginning of the piece (Foot. 10), and return home after its close (Epid. Pseud. Pud. SticA. True. ap.
honorary prizes,
They went, as these passages show, to the theatre after the second breakfast, and were at home again for the midday meal ; the performance hus lasted, according to our reckoning, from about noon till half -past
two o'clock, and a piece of Plautus, with music in the intervals between the acts, might probably occupy nearly that length of time (comp. Horal Bp. ii. 1, 189). The passage, in which Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 20) makes the spectators spend "whole days" in the theatre, refers to the state (I matters at a later period.
Jin. ).
chap. XIT LITERATURE AND ART
141
In the dramatic world comedy greatly preponderated Comedy, over tragedy ; the spectators knit their brows, when instead
of the expected comedy a tragedy began. Thus it hap
pened that, while this period exhibits poets who devoted themselves specially to comedy, such as Plautus and Caecilius, it presents none who cultivated tragedy alone ;
and among the dramas of this epoch known to us by
name there occur three comedies for one tragedy. Of
course the Roman comic poets, or rather translators,
laid hands in the first instance on the pieces which had possession of the Hellenic stage at the time ; and thus
they found themselves exclusively1 confined to the range
of the newer Attic comedy, and chiefly to its best-known
poets, Philemon of Soli in Cilicia (394 ? 492) and Menander of Athens (412-462). This comedy came to
be of so great importance as regards the development
not only of Roman literature, but even of the nation
at large, that even history has reason to pause and con
sider it
The pieces are of tiresome monotony. Almost without Character exception the plot turns on helping a young man, at the
expense either of his father or of some leno, to obtain Attic
possession of a sweetheart of undoubted charms and of very doubtful morals. The path to success in love regularly lies through some sort of pecuniary fraud ; and the crafty servant, who provides the needful sum and performs the requisite swindling while the lover is mourning over his amatory and pecuniary distresses, is the real mainspring of
1 The scanty use made of what is called the middle Attic comedy does not require notice in a historical point of view, since it was nothing but the Menandrian comedy in a less developed form. There is no trace of any employment of the older comedy. The Roman tragi -comedy- after the type of the Amphitruo of Plautus —was no doubt styled by the Roman literary historians fabula Rhinthonica ; but the newer Attic co medians also composed such parodies, and it is difficult to see why the Romans should have resorted for their translations to Rhinthon and the older writers rather than to those who were nearer to their own times.
comeoy•
860-263. 342-292.
142
LITERATURE AND ART book in i
the piece. There is no want of the due accompaniment of reflections on the joys and sorrows of love, of tearful parting-scenes, of lovers who in the anguish of their hearts threaten to do themselves a mischief; love or rather amorous intrigue was, as the old critics of art say, the very life-breath of the Menandrian poetry. Marriage forms, at least with Menander, the inevitable finale; on which occasion, for the greater edification and satisfaction of the spectators, the virtue of the heroine usually comes forth almost if not wholly untarnished, and the heroine herself proves to be the lost daughter of some rich man and so in every respect an eligible match. Along with these love-pieces we find others of a pathetic kind. Among the comedies of Plautus, for instance, the Rudens turns on a shipwreck and the right of asylum ; while the Trinummus and the Captivi contain no amatory intrigue, but depict the generous devotedness of the friend to his friend and of the slave to his master. Persons and situations recur down to the very details like patterns on a carpet ; we never get rid of the asides of unseen listeners, of knocking at the house-doors, and of slaves scouring the streets on some
errand or other. The standing masks, of which there was a certain fixed number — viz. , eight masks for old men, and seven for servants —from which alone in ordinary cases at least the poet had to make his choice, further favoured a stock-model treatment. Such a comedy almost of necessity rejected the lyrical element in the older comedy—the chorus — and confined itself from the first to conversation, or at most recitation ; it was devoid not of the political element only, but of all true passion and of all poetical
elevation. The pieces judiciously made no pretence to any grand or really poetical effect : their charm resided pri marily in furnishing occupation for the intellect, not only through their subject-matter — in which respect the newer comedy was distinguished from the old as much by the
chap, xit LITERATURE AND ART
143
greater intrinsic emptiness as by the greater outward com plication of the plot—but more especially through their execution in detail, in which the point and polish of the conversation more particularly formed the triumph of the poet and the delight of the audience. Compli cations and confusions of one person with another, which very readily allowed scope for extravagant, often licenti ous, practical jokes — as in the Casina, which winds up in genuine Falstaffian style with the retiring of the two bridegrooms and of the soldier dressed up as bride— jests, drolleries, and riddles, which in fact for want of real conversation furnished the staple materials of enter tainment at the Attic table of the period, fill up a large portion of these comedies. The authors of them wrote not like Eupolis and Aristophanes for a great nation, but rather for a cultivated society which spent its time, like other clever circles whose cleverness finds little fit
scope for action, in guessing riddles and playing at charades. They give us, therefore, no picture of their times ; of the great historical and intellectual movements of the age no trace appears in these comedies, and we need to recall, in order to realize, the fact that Philemon and Menander were really contemporaries of Alexander and Aristotle. But they give us a picture, equally elegant and faithful, of that refined Attic society beyond the circles of which comedy never travels. Even in the dim Latin copy, through which we chiefly know the grace of the original
not wholly obliterated; and more especially in the pieces wnich are imitated from Menander, the most talented of these poets, the life which the poet saw and shared delicately reflected not so much in its aberrations and distortions as in its amiable every-day course. The friendly domestic relations between father and daughter, husband and wife, master and servant, with their love- affairs and other little critical incidents, are portrayed with
is is
it,
144 LITERATURE AND ART book hi
so broad a truthfulness, that even now they do not miss their effect: the servants' feast, for instance, with which the Stichus concludes in the limited range of its re lations and the harmony of the two lovers and the one sweetheart, of unsurpassed gracefulness in its kind. The elegant grisettes, who make their appearance perfumed and adorned, with their hair fashionably dressed and varie gated, gold-embroidered, sweeping robes, or even perform their toilette on the stage, are very effective. In their train come the procuresses, sometimes of the most vulgar sort, such as one who appears in the Curculio, sometimes duennas like Goethe's old Barbara, such as Scapha in the Mostettaria and there no lack of brothers and comrades ready with their help. There great abundance and variety of parts representing the old there appear in turn
the austere and avaricious, the fond and tender-hearted, and the indulgent accommodating, papas, the amorous old
man, the easy old bachelor, the jealous aged matron with her old maid-servant who takes part with her mistress against her master; whereas the young men's parts are less prominent, and neither the first lover, nor the virtuous model son who here and there occurs, lays claim to much significance. The servant-world —the crafty valet, the stern house-steward, the old vigilant tutor, the rural slave redolent of garlic, the impertinent page —forms transition to the very numerous professional parts. A standing figure among these the jester (parasitus) who, in return for permission to feast at the table of the rich, has to entertain the guests with drolleries and charades, or, according to circumstances, to let the potsherds be flung at his head. This was at that time formal trade in Athens and certainly no mere poetical fiction which represents such a parasite as expressly preparing himself for his work by means of his books of witticisms and anecdotes.