The
Dialogus
de Oratoribus.
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The world has now grown old; we are gray from the
cradle onwards, swathed with the husks of outworn creeds, and
rocked upon the lap of immemorial mysteries. The travail of
the whole earth, the unsatisfied desires of many races, the
anguish of the death and birth of successive civilizations, have
passed into our souls. Life itself has become a thousandfold
more complicated and more difficult for us than it was in the
springtime of the world. With the increase of the size of na-
tions, poverty and disease and the struggle for bare existence
have been aggravated. How can we, then, bridge over the gulf
which separates us from the Greeks? How shall we, whose souls
are aged and wrinkled with the long years of humanity, shake
hands across the centuries with those young-eyed, young-limbed,
immortal children? Can we make criticism our Medea, — bid the
magnificent witch pluck leaves and flowers of Greek poetry and
art and life, distilling them for us to bathe therein, and regener-
ate our youth like Æson?
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Like a young man newly come from the wrestling-ground,
anointed, chapleted, and very calm, the Genius of the Greeks
appears before us. Upon his soul there is yet no burden of the
world's pain; the creation that groaneth and travaileth together
has touched him with no sense of anguish, nor has he yet felt
sin. The pride and the strength of adolescence are his: audacity
and endurance, swift passions and exquisite sensibilities, the alter-
nations of sublime repose and boyish noise, grace, pliancy, and
stubbornness and power, love of all fair things and radiant in
the world, the frank enjoyment of the open air, free merriment,
and melancholy well beloved. Of these adolescent qualities, of
this clear and stainless personality, this conscience whole and
pure and reconciled to nature, what survives among us now?
The imagination must be strained to the uttermost before we
can begin to sympathize with such a being. The blear-eyed
mechanic, stified in a hovel of our sombre Northern towns, can-
opied through all the year with smoke, deafened with wheels
that never cease to creak, stiffened by toil in one cramped post-
ure, oblivious of the sunlight and green fields, could scarcely
be taught even to envy the pure, clear life of art made perfect
in humanity, which was the pride of Hellas. His soul is glad-
dened, if at all, by a glimpse of celestial happiness far off. The
hope that went abroad across the earth so many centuries ago
has raised his eyes to heaven. How can he comprehend a mode
of existence in which the world itself was adequate to all the
wants of the soul, and when to yearn for more than life affords
was reckoned a disease ?
We may tell of blue Ægean waves, islanded with cliffs that
seem less real than clouds, whereon the temples stand, burning
like gold in sunset or turning snowy fronts against the dawn.
We may paint high porches of the gods, resonant with music and
gladdened with choric dances; or describe perpetual sunshine and
perpetual ease, - no work from year to year that might degrade
the body or impair the mind, no dread of hell, no yearning after
heaven, but summer-time of youth and autumn of old age and
loveless death bewept and bravely borne. The life of the schools,
the theatre, the wrestling-ground, the law courts; generous con-
tests on the Pythian or Olympian plains; victorious crowns of
athletes or of patriots; Simonidean epitaphs and funeral orations
of Pericles for fallen heroes; the prize of martial prowess or
poetic skill; the honor paid to the pre-eminence of beauty,— all
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
these things admit of scholar-like enumeration.
Or we may
recall by fancy the olive groves of the Academy; discern Hymet-
tus pale against the burnished sky, and Athens guarded by her
glistening goddess of the mighty brow,- Pallas, who spreads her
shield and shakes her spear above the labyrinth of peristyles
and pediments in which her children dwell. Imagination can
lead us to the plane-trees on Cephisus's shore, the labors of the
husbandmen who garner dues of corn and oil, the galleys in Pei-
ræan harborage. Or with the Lysis and the Charmides beneath
our eyes, we may revisit the haunts of the wrestlers and the
runners; true-born Athenians, fresh from the bath and crowned
with violets,-chaste, vigorous, inured to rhythmic movements of
the passions and the soul.
Yet after all, when the process of an elaborate culture has
thus been toilsomely accomplished, when we have trained our
soul to sympathize with that which is so novel and so strange
and yet so natural, few of us can fairly say that we have touched
the Greeks at more than one or two points. Novies Styx inter-
fusa coercet: between us and them crawls the nine times twisted
stream of death. The history of the human race is one; and
without the Greeks we should be nothing. But just as an old
man of ninety is not the same being as the boy of nineteen, -
nay, cannot even recall to memory how and what he felt when
the pulse of manhood was yet gathering strength within his
veins,- even so now, civilized humanity looks back upon the
youth of Hellas, and wonders what she was in that blest time.
A few fragments yet remain from which we strive to recon-
struct the past. Criticism is the product of the weakness as well
as of the strength of our age.
In the midst of our activity,
we have so little that is artistically salient or characteristic in
our life that we are not led astray by our own individuality,
or tempted to interpret the past wrongly by making it square
with the present. Impartial clearness of judgment in scientific
research, laborious antiquarian zeal, methodic scrupulousness in
preserving the minutest details of local coloring, and an earnest
craving to escape from the dreary present of commonplace rou-
tine and drudgery into the spirit-stirring freedom of the past,-
these are qualities of the highest value which our century has
brought to bear upon history. They make up in some measure
for our want of the creative faculties which more productive but
less scientific ages have possessed, and enable those who have
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our
but little original imagination to enjoy imaginative pleasures at
second hand, by living as far as may be in the clear light of
antique beauty.
The sea, the hills, the plains, the sunlight of the South, to-
gether with some ruins which have peopled Europe with phan-
toms of dead art and the relics of Greek literature, are
guides in the endeavor to restore the past of Hellas. Among
rocks golden with broom-flowers, murmurous with bees, burning
with anemones in spring and oleanders in summer, and odorous
through all the year with thyme, we first assimilate the spirit of
the Greeks. It is here that we divine the meaning of the myths,
and feel those poems that expressed themselves in marble 'mid
the temples of the gods to have been the one right outgrowth
from the sympathy of man, as he was then, with nature. In the
silence of mountain valleys thinly grown with arbutus and pine
and oak, open at all seasons to pure air, and breaking downwards
to the sea, we understand the apparition of Pan to Pheidippi-
des, we read the secret of a nation's art that aimed at definition
before all things. The bay of Naples, the coast of Sicily, are
instinct with the sense of those first settlers, who, coasting round
the silent promontories, ran their keels upon the shelving shore,
and drew them up along the strand, and named the spot Neap-
olis or Gela. The boys of Rome were yet in the wolf's cavern.
Vesuvius was a peaceful hill on which the olive and the vine
might slumber. The slopes of Pozzuoli were green with herbs,
over which no lava had been poured. Wandering about Sor-
rento, the spirit of the Odyssey is ours. Those fishing-boats with
lateen sail are such as bore the heroes from their ten-years' toil
at Troy. Those shadowy islands caught the gaze of Æneas
straining for the promised land. Into such clefts and rents of
rock strode Herakles and Jason when they sought the golden
apples and the golden fleece. Look down. There gleam the
green and yellow dragon scales, coiled on the basement of the
hills, and writhing to each curve and cleavage of the chasm.
it a dream ? Do we in fact behold the mystic snake, or in the
twilight do those lustrous orange-trees deceive our eyes ? Nay,
there are no dragons in the ravine — only thick boughs and bur-
nished leaves and snowy bloom and globes of glittering gold.
Above them on the cliff sprout myrtle rods, sacred to love; myr-
tle branches, with which the Athenians wreathed their swords
in honor of Harmodius. Lilies and jonquils and hyacinths stand,
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
each straight upon his stem, - a youth, as Greeks imagined, slain
by his lover's hand, or dead for love of his own loveliness, or
cropped in love's despite by death that is the foe of love. Scar-
let and white anemones are there: some born of Adonis's blood,
and some of Aphrodite's tears. All beauty fades; the flowers
of earth, the bloom of youth, man's strength, and woman's grace,
all wither and relapse into the loveless and inexorable grave.
This the Greeks knew, mingling mirth with melancholy, and love
with sadness, their sweetest songs with elegiac melodies.
Beneath the olive-trees, among the flowers and ferns, move
stately maidens and bare-chested youths. Their eyes are starry-
softened or flash fire, and their lips are parted to drink in the
breath of life. Some are singing in the fields an antique, world-
old monotone of song. Was not the lay of Linus, the burden
of yarpai tai òpies ŭ Mevaiza (High are the oak-trees, O Menalcas),
some such canzonet as this? These late descendants of Greek
colonists are still beautiful - like moving statues in the sunlight
and the shadow of the boughs. Yonder tall, straight girl, whose
pitcher, poised upon her head, might have been filled by Electra
or Chrysothemis with lustral waters for a father's tomb, carries
her neck nobly as a Fate of Pheidias. Her body sways upon the
hips, where rests her modeled arm; the ankle and the foot are
sights to sit and gaze at through a summer's day. And where,
if not here, shall we meet with Hylas and Hyacinth, with Gany-
mede and Hymenæus, in the flesh ? As we pass, the laughter
and the singing die away. Bright dresses and pliant forms are
lost. We stray onward through the sheen and shade of olive
branches.
The olive was Athene's gift to Hellas, and Athens carved its
leaves and berries on her drachma with the head of Pallas and
her owl. The light which never leaves its foliage, silvery beneath
and sparkling from the upper surface of burnished green; the
delicacy of its stem, which in youth and middle and old
age
retains the distinction of finely accentuated form; the absence of
sombre shadow on the ground beneath its branches, — might well
fit the olive to be the symbol of the purity of classic art. Each
leaf is cut into a lance-head of brilliancy, not jagged or fanciful
or woolly like the foliage of Northern trees. There is here no
mystery of darkness, no labyrinth of tortuous shade, no conflict
of contrasted forms. Excess of light sometimes fatigues the eye
amid those airy branches, and we long for the repose of gloom
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
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to which we are accustomed in our climate. But gracefulness,
fertility, power, radiance, pliability, are seen in every line. The
spirit of the Greeks itself is not more luminous and strong and
subtle. The color of the olive-tree, again, is delicate. Its pearly
grays and softened greens in no wise interfere with the lustre
which is the true distinction of the tree, Clear and faint like
Guido's colors in the Ariadne of St. Luke's at Rome, distinct as
the thought in a Greek epigram, the olive branches are relieved
against the bright blue of the sea. The mountain slopes above
are clothed by them with light as with a raiment; clinging to
knoll and vale and winding creek, rippling in hoary undulations
to the wind, they wrap the hills from feet to flank in lucid haze.
Above the olives shine bare rocks in steady noon, or blush with
dawn and evening. Nature is naked and beautiful beneath the
sun,-- like Aphrodite, whose raiment falls waist downward to
her sandals on the sea, but whose pure breasts and forehead are
unveiled.
Nature is thus the first, chief element by which we are en-
abled to conceive the spirit of the Greeks. The key to their
mythology is here. Here is the secret of their sympathies, the
well-spring of their deepest thoughts, the primitive potentiality
of all they have achieved in art. What is Apollo but the magic
of the sun whose soul is light ? What is Aphrodite but the
love charm of the sea ? What is Pan but the mystery of nature,
the felt and hidden want pervading all? What, again, are those
elder, dimly discovered deities, the Titans and the brood of
Time, but forces of the world as yet beyond the touch and ken
of human sensibilities? But nature alone cannot inform us what
that spirit was. For though the Greeks grew up in scenes which
we may visit, they gazed on them with Greek eyes, eyes differ-
ent from ours; and dwelt upon them with Greek minds, minds
how unlike our own! Unconsciously, in their long and unsophisti-
cated infancy, the Greeks absorbed and assimilated to their own
substance that loveliness which it is left for us only to admire.
Between them and ourselves — even face to face with mountain,
sky, and sea, unaltered by the lapse of years — flow the rivers of
Death and Lethe and New Birth, and the mists of thirty centu-
ries of human life are woven like a veil. To pierce that veil,
to learn even after the most partial fashion how they transmuted
the splendors of the world into æsthetic forms, is a work which
involves the further interrogation of their sculpture and their
literature.
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
RAVENNA
From (Sketches in Italy)
The
HE Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval
stations, and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-
shore, which received the name of Portus Classis. Between
this harbor and the mother city a third town sprang up, and was
called Cæsarea. Time and neglect, the ravages of war, and the
encroaching powers of nature, have destroyed these settlements,
and nothing now remains of the three cities but Ravenna. It
would seem that in classical times Ravenna stood, like modern
Venice, in the centre of a huge lagoon, the fresh waters of the
Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the Adriatic
round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on piles;
canals instead of streets formed the means of communication,
and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from
the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast
morass, for the most part under shallow water, but rising at
intervals into low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello
which surround Venice. These islands were celebrated for their
fertility: the vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from
a fat and fruitful soil, watered with constant moisture, and fos-
tered by a mild sea wind and liberal sunshine, yielded crops that
for luxuriance and quality surpassed the harvests of any orchards
on the mainland. All the conditions of life in old Ravenna seem
to have resembled those of modern Venice: the people went
about in gondolas; and in the early morning, barges laden with
fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked from all quarters to
the city of the sea. Water also had to be procured from the
neighboring shore; for as Martial says, a well at Ravenna was
more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and the
mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagoon, like that
on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the
air of Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease
of life that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the sit-
uation of the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the
monarchs of Italy during those troublous times in which the em-
pire nodded to its fall. Honorius retired to its lagoons for safety;
Odoacer, who dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded
him; and was in turn supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
Ravenna, as we see it now, recalls the peaceful and half Roman
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
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rule of the great Gothic king. His palace, his churches, and the
mausoleum in which his daughter Amalasuntha laid the hero's
bones, have survived the sieges of Belisarius and Astolphus, the
conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels of iconoclasts with the
children of the Roman Church, the mediæval wars of Italy,
the victory of Gaston de Foix; and still stand gorgeous with
marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around
them.
As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated
to such a distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens
were cultivated on the spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars
rode at anchor. Groves of pines sprang up along the shore, and
in their lofty tops the music of the wind moved like the ghost of
waves and breakers plunging upon distant sands. This Pinetum
stretches along the shore of the Adriatic for about forty miles,
forming a belt of variable width between the great marsh and
the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and velvet
crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an oasis
on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach them-
selves from an inferior forest growth of juniper and thorn and
ash and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their
breadth of sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy
brushwood. It is hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful
and impressive scene than that presented by these long alleys of
imperial pines. They grow so thickly one behind another that
we might compare them to the pipes of a great organ, or the
pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic columns of the Giant's
Causeway. Their tops are ever green, and laden with the heavy
cones from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. Scores
of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose
business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at
certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones
in the sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The
empty husks are sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony
shells reserved for exportation. You may see the peasants — men,
women, and boys — sorting them by millions, drying and sifting
them upon the open spaces of the wood, and packing them in
sacks to send abroad through Italy. The pinocchi, or kernels, of
the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, and those of Ravenna
are prized for their good quality and aromatic flavor. When
roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more mealy kind
:
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a little
dangerous. They have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and
having climbed often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon
the branches and detach the fir cones with a pole — and this for
every tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business.
As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form
the haunt of innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by
myriads in the grass. Doves coo among the branches of the
pines, and nightingales pour their full-throated music all day and
night from thickets of white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet
with aromatic scents: the resin of the pine and juniper, the may-
flowers and acacia blossoms, the violets that spring by thousands
in the moss, the wild roses and faint honeysuckles which throw
fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or maple, join to
make one most delicious perfume. And though the air upon the
neighboring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads a
genial health. The sea wind murmuring through these thickets
at nightfall or misty sunrise conveys no fever to the peasants
stretched among their flowers. They watch the red rays of
sunset flaming through the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring
on its fretted rafters of entangled boughs; they see the stars
come out, and Hesper gleam, an eye of brightness, among dewy
branches; the moon walks silver-footed on the velvet tree-tops,
while they sleep beside the camp fires; fresh morning wakes them
to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and twinkling of dew-
drops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and death
have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few
yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached
the charmed precincts of the forest.
You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between
the pines in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood,
the sunlight and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns
at your side, prevent all sense of loneliness or fear.
Huge oxen
haunt the wilderness - gray creatures, with mild eyes and spread-
ing horns and stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest,
.
the fathers and the mothers of many generations who have
been carried from their sides to serve in plows or wagons on
the Lombard plain. Others are yearling calves, intractable and
ignorant of labor. In order to subdue them to the yoke, it is
requisite to take them very early from their native glades, or else
they chafe and pine away with weariness. Then there is a sullen
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
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canal, which flows through the forest from the marshes to the
sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes.
You may see
these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the
flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers, - lithe
monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen.
It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would
spend whole days alone among the forest glades, thinking of
Florence and her civil wars, and meditating cantos of his poem.
Nor have the influences of the pine wood failed to leave their
trace upon his verse.
VENICE
V ,
"
TENICE, thou Siren of sea cities, wrought
By mirage, built on water, stair o'er stair,
Of sunbeams and cloud shadows, phantom-fair,
With naught of earth to mar thy sea-born thought!
Thou floating film upon the wonder-fraught
Ocean of dreams! Thou hast no dream so rare
As are thy sons and daughters,— they who wear
Foam flakes of charm from thine enchantment caught.
O dark-brown eyes! O tangles of dark hair!
O heaven-blue eyes, blonde tresses where the breeze
Plays over sunburned cheeks in sea-blown air!
Firm limbs of molded bronze! frank debonair
Smiles of deep-bosomed women! Loves that seize
Man's soul, and waft her on storm melodies !
THE NIGHTINGALE
1
WENT a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
Hard task it were to tell how dewy-still
Were flowers and ferns and foliage in the rays
Of Hesper, white amid the daffodil
Of twilight flecked with faintest chrysoprase;
And all the while, embowered in leafy bays,
The bird prolonged her sharp soul-thrilling tone.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
But as I stood and listened, on the air
Arose another voice, more clear and keen,
That startled silence with a sweet despair,
And stilled the bird beneath her leafy screen:
The star of Love, those lattice boughs between,
Grew large and leaned to listen from his zone.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
The voice, methought, was neither man's nor boy's,
Nor bird's nor woman's, but all these in one:
In Paradise perchance such perfect noise
Resounds from angel choirs in unison,
Chanting with cherubim their antiphon
To Christ and Mary on the sapphire throne.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
Then down the forest aisles there came a boy,
Unearthly pale, with passion in his eyes;
Who sang a song whereof the sound was joy,
But all the burden was of love that dies
And death that lives,- a song of sobs and sighs,
A wild swan's note of Death and Love in one.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
Love burned within his luminous eyes, and Death
Had made his fluting voice so keen and high,
The wild wood trembled as he passed beneath,
With throbbing throat singing, Love-led, to die;
Then all was hushed, till in the thicket nigh
The bird resumed her sharp soul-thrilling tone.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
But in my heart and in my brain the cry,
The wail, the dirge, the dirge of Death and Love,
Still throbs and throbs, flute-like, and will not die,
Piercing and clear the night-bird's tune above,-
The aching, anguished wild swan's note, whereof
The sweet sad flower of song was overblown.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14367
FAREWELL
I
Tis buried and done with,
The love that we knew :
Those cobwebs we spun with
Are beaded with dew.
I loved thee; I leave thee:
To love thee was pain;
I dare not believe thee,
To love thee again.
Like spectres unshriven
Are the years that I lost;
To thee they were given
Without count of cost.
I cannot revive them
By penance or prayer:
Hell's tempest must drive them
Through turbulent air.
Farewell, and forget me;
For I too am free
From the shame that beset me,
The sorrow of thee.
THE FEET OF THE BELOVED
F
EAR not to tread,- it is not much
To bless the meadow with your touch:
Nay, walk unshod; for as you pass,
The dust will take your feet like grass.
Oh dearest melodies, oh beat
Of musically moving feet!
Stars that have fallen from the sky
To sparkle where you let them lie;
Blossoms, a new and heavenly birth,
Rocked on the nourishing breast of earth;
Dews that on leaf and petal Aling
Multitudinous quivering;
Winged loves with light and laughter crowned;
Kind kisses pressed upon the ground!
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JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
EYEBRIGHT
A®
SA star from the sea new risen,
As the waft of an angel's wing,
As a lark's song heard in prison,
As the promise of summer in spring,
She came to me through the stillness,
The shadows that ring me round,
The dungeon of years and illness
Wherein my spirit is bound.
She came with her eyes love-laden,
Her laughter of lily and rose,
A fragile and flower-like maiden,
In the season of frosts and snows.
She smiled, and the shades departed;
She shone, and the snows were rain:
And he who was frozen-hearted
Bloomed up into love again.
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14369
TACITUS
(55 ? -? )
BY CHARLES E. BENNETT
UBLIUS CORNELIUS TACITUS (the prænomen Publius, long a mat.
ter of dispute, is now definitely assured) was born about 55
Suur A. D. The place of his birth is quite uncertain: by some
scholars this honor has been assigned to the Umbrian town Inter-
amna, by others to Rome; but neither of these views rests upon any
adequate foundation. Of the details of his
life we are but scantily informed. In his
Dialogus de Oratoribus' he tells us that
when a youth he attached himself to Mar-
cus Aper and Julius Secundus, the foren-
sic leaders of his day. Whether he also
enjoyed the instruction of Quintilian, the
famous rhetorician, is a matter of doubt.
In the year 78 he married the daughter of
Agricola, governor of Britain. Subsequently
he filled the offices of quæstor under Titus,
of prætor under Domitian, and of consul
(year 97) under Nerva. From the year 100
on, he appears to have held no public trust,
Tacitus
but to have devoted himself exclusively to
his literary labors. His death probably occurred shortly after the
publication of the Annals(115-117 A. D. ).
WORKS
1.
The Dialogus de Oratoribus. Tacitus's earliest work was prob-
ably published about 81 A. D. , and gives an account of a discussion
at which the writer represents himself as having been present some
seven years previously. The chief disputants are Aper and Messalla;
the theme is the quality of contemporary eloquence. Aper maintains
that the new oratory really marks a great advance upon that of pre-
ceding epochs: it is brilliant and attractive, where the earlier oratory
was dull and tedious. An audience of to-day, Aper declares, would
not tolerate such speakers. Even Cicero, with all his fame, was not
free from the faults of his day; and was worthy of admiration only
in his later speeches.
XXIV–899
## p. 14370 (#564) ##########################################
TACITUS
14370
In reply to Aper, Messalla vigorously defends the oratory of the
Ciceronian era, and arraigns contemporary eloquence as disfigured by
meretricious embellishment. To Messalla's mind the prime cause of
this decadence is neglect in the training of the young. Formerly the
mother personally superintended the education of her children; now
these are given over to irresponsible slaves and nurses. Again, in
the earlier days, a young man preparing himself for the profession
of oratory was wont to attach himself to some eminent advocate or
jurist; and so to acquire the mastery of his art by practical experi-
ence. To-day, Messalla complains, it is the fashion merely to declaim
artificial show-pieces in the schools.
Secundus and Maternus, who share in the discussion, urge also
changed political conditions as another important reason for the
decline of eloquence. Under the republic there had been an active
political life and keen strife of parties; under the empire the for-
tunes of the State were directed by a single head. What wonder
then that eloquence had declined, when the causes that created it
were no longer in existence!
In its fine dramatic setting, its profound grasp of the moving
causes in Roman civilization, and in its elevated diction, the Dia-
logus) is a consummate literary masterpiece; Wolf well recognized
its merits and its charm when he characterized it as an aureus libellus
(golden little book).
2. The Agricola, Between the publication of the Dialogus) and
of the Agricola' seventeen years intervened. Of this period fifteen
years were occupied by the reign of Domitian, under whom freedom
of speech had been rigorously suppressed. The accession of Nerva,
however, in 96 A. D. , followed by that of Trajan at the beginning of
98, was the augury of a new era; and encouraged Tacitus to publish
his Life of Agricola' in the latter year. Agricola, Tacitus's father-
in-law, had died in 93; and it is quite possible that Tacitus's account
of his life was written in the months immediately following that
event, and then withheld from publication until the dawn of a more
auspicious period. How keenly Tacitus had felt the intellectual and
moral servitude enforced upon his countrymen by Domitian's rule
is made clear by a passage of remarkable power contained in the
preface to this work (here quoted).
The best years of Agricola's life had been spent in the service of
his country, and for the most part in the field. His most conspicu-
were achieved in Britain. He had been appointed
governor of that province in 78, and remained there seven years. In
the course of his administration he had not only reduced the entire
island to subjection, as far north as the highlands of Scotland, but
had also established the Roman civilization among the Britons. All
these achievements are pictured in glowing colors and with signal
ous
successes
## p. 14371 (#565) ##########################################
TACITUS
14371
-
affection by the writer. Tacitus's apostrophe to his departed father-
in-law (here quoted), is a lofty and impressive illustration of the
writer's genius.
3. The (Germania. ' This was published in 98 A. D. , the same
year as the Agricola. ' It is a brief treatise on the geography, peo-
ples, and institutions of the Germans. The larger portion of the
work — and by far the most interesting — is devoted to a considera-
tion of those customs and institutions which are common to the Ger-
mans as a whole; such as their political organization, their military
system, the courts, religion, dwellings, clothing, marriage, amuse-
ments, slavery, and industrial occupations. The remainder of the
work treats of the location of the separate tribes, and of the institu-
tions peculiar to each.
The purpose of the 'Germania' has been differently conceived by
different critics. Some have thought that Tacitus's object was, by
holding before his countrymen a picture of the Germans, to mark the
contrast between the two civilizations, German and Roman, and to
commend the rugged simplicity of the one as opposed to the degen-
eracy of the other. Others have regarded the treatise as a political
pamphlet, written in support of Trajan, and intended to justify the
attention which that prince was then bestowing upon the problems
presented by the tribes of the North. Yet others have thought that
the work was prepared as an introduction to the extensive historical
writings which Tacitus had already projected.
But there are serious objections to each of these views; more-
over, it seems improbable that the Germania) was written with any
« tendency” or purpose beyond the natural and obvious one of ac-
quainting its readers with accurate details of German geography and
institutions. The German people had long been known to the Romans,
and for a century and a half had furnished a more or less constant
opposition to the Roman arms. Nor was the subject new: Cæsar,
Livy, Pliny, and others, had given detailed accounts of this interesting
and important race. That Tacitus, therefore, should have undertaken
a fresh presentation of their situation and customs, seems perfectly
natural, without resort to the theory of a special extraneous motive.
Whatever its original purpose, the “Germania) must be recognized as
a mine of authentic information concerning the ancient Germans, and
as a source of the first importance for all modern study of Germanic
institutions.
4. The Histories. ' In the preface to the Agricola,' Tacitus had
already announced his purpose of writing the history of the reigns
of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. Later, this plan was modified. The
new project embraced the history of the imperial period from the
death of Augustus to the death of Domitian,- a space of eighty-two
## p. 14372 (#566) ##########################################
14372
TACITUS
us.
years. This period naturally fell into two eras: the former that of
the Julian-Claudian dynasties (from the accession of Tiberius to the
death of Nero), the latter that of the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian to
Domitian), including the transition period of turmoil during the brief
reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. It was the latter of these two
eras that Tacitus treated first, giving to the work the title His-
toriæ. ) The events he describes had all occurred within his own
memory, and many within the range of his own observation and
experience. The entire work consisted probably of twelve books,
published at intervals between 104 and 109 A. D. Of these twelve
books only the first four, and half of the fifth, have come down to
The preserved portions begin with the accession of Galba, and
carry the history only to the beginning of the reign of Vespasian.
A vivid picture is given in this narrative of the stormy events of the
years 68 and 69; including the murder of Galba, the defeat and sui-
cide of Otho, the overthrow of Vitellius, the accession of Vespasian,
along with the formidable insurrection of the Batavians under Civilis.
But the descriptions are almost exclusively military. There is less
of the fine psychological analysis which appears later as a striking
characteristic of the Annals. ' Doubtless this feature inay have been
more prominent in the lost books of the Histories) (6-12), which
covered the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. One of the
most interesting portions of the extant books is the account of the
Jews, given at the beginning of Book v. The description of the siege
and capture of Jerusalem by Titus is unfortunately lost.
5. The Annals. ' The second part of Tacitus's programme em-
braced a history of the earlier period, from the accession of Tiberius
to the death of Nero (14-68 A. D. ). The exact title of this work was
(Ab Excessu Divi Augusti’ (From the Decease of the Divine Augus-
tus); but owing to the treatment of events year by year, Tacitus him-
self alludes to his work as (Annals,' and this designation has become
the current one. The Annals, like the Histories,' was probably
published in installments, about 115-117 A. D. The entire work in all
likelihood consisted of eighteen books. These eighteen seem to have
been devoted, in groups of six, to three epochs: the first six to the
reign of Tiberius; the next six to the reigns of Caligula and Claudius;
the concluding six to the reign of Nero. Large portions of the work
have been lost. Books 7-10, along with 17 and 18, have disappeared
completely; while extensive gaps occur in several of the others. The
portions which we still have, deal with the reign of Tiberius, the con-
cluding years of the reign of Claudius, and the reign of Nero down
to 66 A. D. The account of Caligula is entirely lost.
The (Annals' is universally regarded as Tacitus's ripest and great-
est work. While nominally a history of the times, it is in reality a
## p. 14373 (#567) ##########################################
TACITUS
14373
series of masterly character sketches of figures of commanding inter-
est and importance: the emperors, their advisers, their opponents, the
members of the imperial family.
In his psychological analyses, Tacitus can hardly be regarded as
free from prejudice and partisanship; in the case of most of the
emperors and their consorts, he sees no good trait, recognizes no
worthy motive. On the other hand, he is at times guilty of undue
idealization; as in the case of Germanicus, who, though popular with
the soldiers and the people, seems to have been deficient both in
force of character and in military genius.
Tacitus's pictures, however, while overdrawn, give us in the main
an accurate view of the imperial court: they exhibit the tyranny,
cruelty, and wantonness of successive sovereigns, the servility of the
courtiers, the degradation of the Senate, and the general demoraliza-
tion of the aristocracy, in colors as powerful as they are sombre. It
is greatly to be regretted that none of the ameliorating influences
and tendencies of the imperial régime receive recognition at Tacitus's
hands. The contemporary social, industrial, and commercial prosper-
ity are completely ignored: it is the dark side only that is revealed
in his pages.
Tacitus's STYLE. — The artistic form in which Tacitus clothed the
products of his genius is not only unique in itself, but also exhibits
a striking development from his earliest work to his latest. In the
Dialogus) he is manifestly under the influence of Cicero. The
'Agricola' and 'Germania,' published seventeen years later, show an
almost complete emancipation from this early model. The strong
individuality of the writer now reveals itself in greater condensation,
in frequent boldness of word and phrase, and in sombre earnestness
of thought; Sallust's influence is particularly noticeable at this stage.
In the Histories and in the ‘Annals) we note the fullest culmina-
tion of Tacitus's stylistic development. What in the Agricola' and
(Germania' was a tendency, has become in the Histories,' and espe-
cially in the Annals,' a pervading characteristic. Short incisive
sentences follow each other in quick succession: a single phrase or
a single word is often as pregnant with meaning as a paragraph in
another writer; poetic expressions abound (Virgil's influence being
particularly noticeable); while a lofty moral earnestness dominates
the whole.
This striking contrast of style between Tacitus's earliest and lat-
est work is unparalleled in Roman literature; and for a long time
tended to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Dialogus. It is not,
however, without a parallel in other literatures; and the difference
between Carlyle's Life of Schiller) and his Frederick the Great'
)
.
>
## p. 14374 (#568) ##########################################
14374
TACITUS
has been aptly compared with that between the Dialogus' and the
Annals. '
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - The best editions of the works of Tacitus are,-
for the Dialogus,' Gudeman (Boston, 1894): for the Agricola' and
(Germania, Furneaux (Oxford, 1891, 1896); for the Annals,' the same
editor (Oxford, 1884, 1891); for the Histories,' Spooner (Oxford, 1890).
The best English translation is by Church and Brodribb (London,
1885, 1888).
CAE Berett
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN
From (A Dialogue on Oratory)
W
Ho does not know that eloquence and all other arts have
declined from their ancient glory, not from dearth of
men, but from the indolence of the young, the care-
lessness of parents, the ignorance of teachers, and neglect of the
old discipline? The evils which first began in Rome soon spread
through Italy, and are now diffusing themselves into the prov-
inces. But your provincial affairs are best known to yourselves.
I shall speak of Rome, and of those native and home-bred vices
which take hold of us as soon as we are born, and multiply with
every stage of life, when I have first said a few words on the
strict discipline of our ancestors in the education and training
of children. Every citizen's son, the child of a chaste mother, was
from the beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased
nurse, but in that mother's bosom and embrace; and it was her
special glory to study her home and devote herself to her child-
ren. It was usual to select an elderly kinswoman of approved
and esteemed character to have the entire charge of all the child-
ren of the household. In her presence it was the last offense to
utter an unseemly word or to do a disgraceful act. With scru-
pulous piety and modesty she regulated not only the boy's stud-
ies and occupations, but even his recreations and games. Thus it
was, as tradition says, that the mothers of the Gracchi, of Cæsar,
of Augustus, - Cornelia, Aurelia, Atia,-directed their children's
education and reared the greatest of sons. The strictness of
## p. 14375 (#569) ##########################################
TACITUS
14375
the discipline tended to form in each case a pure and virtuous
nature, which no vices could warp, and which would at once with
the whole heart seize on every noble lesson. Whatever its bias,
- whether to the soldier's or the lawyer's art, or to the study of
eloquence,- it would make that its sole aim, and imbibe it in its
fullness.
But in our day we intrust the infant to a little Greek servant-
girl, who is attended by one or two- commonly the worst of
all the slaves — creatures utterly unfit for any important work.
Their stories and their prejudices from the very first fill the
child's tender and uninstructed mind. No one in the whole
house cares what he says or does before his infant master. Even
parents themselves familiarize their little ones, not with virtue
and modesty, but with jesting and glib talk; which lead on by
degrees to shamelessness, and to contempt for themselves as well
as for others. Really I think that the characteristic and peculiar
vices of this city-a liking for actors and a passion for gladi-
ators and horses are all-but conceived in the mother's womb.
When these occupy and possess the mind, how little room has it
left for worthy attainments! Few indeed are to be found who
talk of any other subjects in their homes; and whenever we
enter a class-room, what else is the conversation of the youths ?
Even with the teachers, these are the more frequent topics of
talk with their scholars. In fact, they draw pupils, not by strict-
ness of discipline or by giving proof of ability, but by assiduous
court and cunning tricks of flattery.
DOMITIAN'S REIGN OF TERROR
From the Agricola)
W
TE HAVE read that the panegyrics pronounced by Arulenus
Rusticus on Pætus Thrasea, and by Herennius Senecio
on Priscus Helvidius, were made capital crimes; that not
only their persons but their very books were objects of rage, and
that the triumvirs were commissioned to burn in the forum those
works of splendid genius. They fancied, forsooth, that in that
fire the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate,
and the conscience of the human race were perishing; while at
the same time they banished the teachers of philosophy, and
exiled every noble pursuit, that nothing good might anywhere
confront them. Certainly we showed a magnificent example of
## p. 14376 (#570) ##########################################
14376
TACITUS
SO
patience; as a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty,
we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the informer
robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We should
have lost memory as well as voice, had it been as easy to forget
as to keep silence.
Now at last our spirit is returning, And yet, though at the
dawn of a most happy age Nerva Cæsar blended things once
irreconcilable,- sovereignty and freedom; though Nerva Trajan
is now daily augmenting the prosperity of the time, and though
the public safety has not only our hopes and good wishes, but
has also the certain pledge of their fulfillment, — still, from the
necessary condition of human frailty, the remedy works less
quickly than the disease. As our bodies grow but slowly, perish
in a moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and
its pursuits. Besides, the charm of indolence steals over us, and
the idleness which at first we loathed we afterwards love. What
if during those fifteen years,— a large portion of human life, -
many were cut off by ordinary casualties, and the ablest fell
victims to the Emperor's rage, if a few of us survive, - I may
almost say, not only others but our own selves survive, though
there have been taken from the midst of life those many years
which brought the young in dumb silence to old age, and the
old almost to the very verge and end of existence! Yet we
shall not regret that we have told, though in language unskillful
and unadorned, the story of past servitude, and borne our testi-
mony to present happiness. Meanwhile this book, intended to
do honor to Agricola my father-in-law, will, as an expression of
filial regard, be commended, or at least excused.
APOSTROPHE TO AGRICOLA
From the Agricola)
T"
HOU wast indeed fortunate, Agricola, not only in the splen-
dor of thy life, but in the opportune moment of thy death.
Thou submittedst to thy fate, so they tell us who were
present to hear thy last words, with courage and cheerfulness,
seeming to be doing all thou couldst to give thine Emperor full
acquittal. As for me and thy daughter, besides all the bitter-
ness of a father's loss, it increases our sorrow that it was not
permitted us to watch over thy failing health, to comfort thy
weakness, to satisfy ourselves with those looks, those embraces.
## p. 14377 (#571) ##########################################
TACITUS
14377
Assuredly we should have received some precepts, some utter-
ances, to fix in our inmost hearts. This is the bitterness of our
sorrow, this the smart of our wound: that from the circumstance
of so long an absence thou wast lost to us four years before.
Doubtless, best of fathers, with the most loving wife at thy side,
all the dues of affection were abundantly paid thee; yet with too
few tears thou wast laid to thy rest, and in the light of thy last
day there was something for which thine eyes longed in vain.
If there is any dwelling-place for the spirits of the just; if, as
the wise believe, noble souls do not perish with the body, - rest
thou in peace; and call us, thy family, from weak regrets and
womanish laments to the contemplation of thy virtues, for which
we must not weep nor beat the breast. Let us honor thee not
so much with transitory praises as with our reverence; and if our
powers permit us, with our emulation. That will be true respect,
that the true affection of thy nearest kin. This too is what I
would enjoin on daughter and wife: to honor the memory of that
father, that husband, by pondering in their hearts all his words
and acts, by cherishing the features and lineaments of his charac-
ter rather than those of his person. It is not that I would for-
bid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but
as the faces of men, so all similitudes of the face are weak and
perishable things, while the fashion of the soul is everlasting,
such as may be expressed not in some foreign substance, or by
the help of art, but in our own lives. Whatever we loved, what-
ever we admired in Agricola, survives, and will survive in the
hearts of men, in the succession of the ages, in the fame that
waits on noble deeds. Over many, indeed, of those who have
gone before, as over the inglorious and ignoble, the waves of
oblivion will roll: Agricola, made known to posterity by history
and tradition, will live for ever.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GERMANS
From the (Germania)
GOVERNMENT.
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
TH
HEY choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit.
These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the
generals do more by example than by authority. If they are
energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they
## p. 14378 (#572) ##########################################
14378
TACITUS
lead because they are admired. But to reprimand, to imprison,
even to flog, is permitted to the priests alone; and that not as
a punishment, or at the general's bidding, but as it were, by the
mandate of the god whom they believe to inspire the warrior.
They also carry with them into battle certain figures and images
taken from their sacred groves. And what most stimulates their
courage is that their squadrons or battalions, instead of being
formed by chance or by a fortuitous gathering, are composed of
families and clans. Close by them too are those dearest to them,
so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants.
They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his brav-
ery -- they are his most generous applauders. The soldier brings
his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from counting
or even demanding them, and who administer both food and
encouragement to the combatant.
Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way
have been rallied by women, who, with earnest entreaties and
bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of cap-
tivity; which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on
behalf of their women, that the strongest tie by which a State
can be bound is the being required to give, among the number
of hostages, maidens of noble birth. They even believe that the
sex has a certain sanctity and prescience; and they do not
despise their counsels, or make light of their answers. In Vespa-
sian's days we saw Veleda, long regarded by many as a divin-
ity. In former times too they venerated Aurinia, and many other
women; but not with servile flatteries or with sham deification.
DEITIES
Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship; and on
certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with
human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with more law-
ful offerings. Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the
occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered noth-
ing but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley,
indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not
consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to
confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of
any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves;
and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which
they see only in spiritual worship.
## p. 14379 (#573) ##########################################
TACITUS
14379
AUGURIES AND METHOD OF DIVINATION
Augury and divination by lot no people practice more dili-
gently. The use of the lots is simple. A little bough is lopped
off a fruit-bearing tree, and cut into small pieces; these are
distinguished by certain marks, and thrown carelessly and at
random over a white garment. In public questions the priest of
the particular State, in private the father of the family, invokes
the gods; and with his eyes towards heaven, takes up each piece
three times, and finds in them a meaning according to the mark
previously impressed on them. If they prove unfavorable, there
is no further consultation that day about the matter; if they
sanction it, the confirmation of augury is still required. For they
are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and
the flight of birds. It is peculiar to this people to seek omens
and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these
same woods and groves are white horses, pure from the taint of
earthly labor; these are yoked to a sacred car, and accompanied
by the priest and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their
neighings and snortings. No species of augury is more trusted,
not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the
priests; who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and
the horses as acquainted with their will. They have also another
method of observing auspices, by which they seek to learn the
result of an important war. Having taken, by whatever means,
a prisoner from the tribe with whom they are at war, they pit
him against a picked man of their own tribe, each combatant
using the weapons of their country. The victory of the one
or the other is accepted as an indication of the issue.
COUNCILS
A BOUT minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more
important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests
with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the
chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency,
on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they
consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of busi-
ness. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by
nights; and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal
appointments. Night they regard as bringing on day. Their
## p. 14380 (#574) ##########################################
14380
TACITUS
freedom has this disadvantage,- that they do not meet simulta-
neously or as they are bidden, but two or three days are wasted
in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper,
they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who
have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the
king or the chief — according to age, birth, distinction in war, or
eloquence - is heard, more because he has influence to persuade
than because he has power to command. If his sentiments dis-
please them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satis-
fied, they brandish their spears. The most complimentary form
of assent is to express approbation with their weapons.
PUNISHMENTS.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
IN THEIR councils an accusation may be preferred, or a capital
crime prosecuted.
The world has now grown old; we are gray from the
cradle onwards, swathed with the husks of outworn creeds, and
rocked upon the lap of immemorial mysteries. The travail of
the whole earth, the unsatisfied desires of many races, the
anguish of the death and birth of successive civilizations, have
passed into our souls. Life itself has become a thousandfold
more complicated and more difficult for us than it was in the
springtime of the world. With the increase of the size of na-
tions, poverty and disease and the struggle for bare existence
have been aggravated. How can we, then, bridge over the gulf
which separates us from the Greeks? How shall we, whose souls
are aged and wrinkled with the long years of humanity, shake
hands across the centuries with those young-eyed, young-limbed,
immortal children? Can we make criticism our Medea, — bid the
magnificent witch pluck leaves and flowers of Greek poetry and
art and life, distilling them for us to bathe therein, and regener-
ate our youth like Æson?
## p. 14357 (#551) ##########################################
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14357
Like a young man newly come from the wrestling-ground,
anointed, chapleted, and very calm, the Genius of the Greeks
appears before us. Upon his soul there is yet no burden of the
world's pain; the creation that groaneth and travaileth together
has touched him with no sense of anguish, nor has he yet felt
sin. The pride and the strength of adolescence are his: audacity
and endurance, swift passions and exquisite sensibilities, the alter-
nations of sublime repose and boyish noise, grace, pliancy, and
stubbornness and power, love of all fair things and radiant in
the world, the frank enjoyment of the open air, free merriment,
and melancholy well beloved. Of these adolescent qualities, of
this clear and stainless personality, this conscience whole and
pure and reconciled to nature, what survives among us now?
The imagination must be strained to the uttermost before we
can begin to sympathize with such a being. The blear-eyed
mechanic, stified in a hovel of our sombre Northern towns, can-
opied through all the year with smoke, deafened with wheels
that never cease to creak, stiffened by toil in one cramped post-
ure, oblivious of the sunlight and green fields, could scarcely
be taught even to envy the pure, clear life of art made perfect
in humanity, which was the pride of Hellas. His soul is glad-
dened, if at all, by a glimpse of celestial happiness far off. The
hope that went abroad across the earth so many centuries ago
has raised his eyes to heaven. How can he comprehend a mode
of existence in which the world itself was adequate to all the
wants of the soul, and when to yearn for more than life affords
was reckoned a disease ?
We may tell of blue Ægean waves, islanded with cliffs that
seem less real than clouds, whereon the temples stand, burning
like gold in sunset or turning snowy fronts against the dawn.
We may paint high porches of the gods, resonant with music and
gladdened with choric dances; or describe perpetual sunshine and
perpetual ease, - no work from year to year that might degrade
the body or impair the mind, no dread of hell, no yearning after
heaven, but summer-time of youth and autumn of old age and
loveless death bewept and bravely borne. The life of the schools,
the theatre, the wrestling-ground, the law courts; generous con-
tests on the Pythian or Olympian plains; victorious crowns of
athletes or of patriots; Simonidean epitaphs and funeral orations
of Pericles for fallen heroes; the prize of martial prowess or
poetic skill; the honor paid to the pre-eminence of beauty,— all
## p. 14358 (#552) ##########################################
14358
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
these things admit of scholar-like enumeration.
Or we may
recall by fancy the olive groves of the Academy; discern Hymet-
tus pale against the burnished sky, and Athens guarded by her
glistening goddess of the mighty brow,- Pallas, who spreads her
shield and shakes her spear above the labyrinth of peristyles
and pediments in which her children dwell. Imagination can
lead us to the plane-trees on Cephisus's shore, the labors of the
husbandmen who garner dues of corn and oil, the galleys in Pei-
ræan harborage. Or with the Lysis and the Charmides beneath
our eyes, we may revisit the haunts of the wrestlers and the
runners; true-born Athenians, fresh from the bath and crowned
with violets,-chaste, vigorous, inured to rhythmic movements of
the passions and the soul.
Yet after all, when the process of an elaborate culture has
thus been toilsomely accomplished, when we have trained our
soul to sympathize with that which is so novel and so strange
and yet so natural, few of us can fairly say that we have touched
the Greeks at more than one or two points. Novies Styx inter-
fusa coercet: between us and them crawls the nine times twisted
stream of death. The history of the human race is one; and
without the Greeks we should be nothing. But just as an old
man of ninety is not the same being as the boy of nineteen, -
nay, cannot even recall to memory how and what he felt when
the pulse of manhood was yet gathering strength within his
veins,- even so now, civilized humanity looks back upon the
youth of Hellas, and wonders what she was in that blest time.
A few fragments yet remain from which we strive to recon-
struct the past. Criticism is the product of the weakness as well
as of the strength of our age.
In the midst of our activity,
we have so little that is artistically salient or characteristic in
our life that we are not led astray by our own individuality,
or tempted to interpret the past wrongly by making it square
with the present. Impartial clearness of judgment in scientific
research, laborious antiquarian zeal, methodic scrupulousness in
preserving the minutest details of local coloring, and an earnest
craving to escape from the dreary present of commonplace rou-
tine and drudgery into the spirit-stirring freedom of the past,-
these are qualities of the highest value which our century has
brought to bear upon history. They make up in some measure
for our want of the creative faculties which more productive but
less scientific ages have possessed, and enable those who have
## p. 14359 (#553) ##########################################
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14359
our
but little original imagination to enjoy imaginative pleasures at
second hand, by living as far as may be in the clear light of
antique beauty.
The sea, the hills, the plains, the sunlight of the South, to-
gether with some ruins which have peopled Europe with phan-
toms of dead art and the relics of Greek literature, are
guides in the endeavor to restore the past of Hellas. Among
rocks golden with broom-flowers, murmurous with bees, burning
with anemones in spring and oleanders in summer, and odorous
through all the year with thyme, we first assimilate the spirit of
the Greeks. It is here that we divine the meaning of the myths,
and feel those poems that expressed themselves in marble 'mid
the temples of the gods to have been the one right outgrowth
from the sympathy of man, as he was then, with nature. In the
silence of mountain valleys thinly grown with arbutus and pine
and oak, open at all seasons to pure air, and breaking downwards
to the sea, we understand the apparition of Pan to Pheidippi-
des, we read the secret of a nation's art that aimed at definition
before all things. The bay of Naples, the coast of Sicily, are
instinct with the sense of those first settlers, who, coasting round
the silent promontories, ran their keels upon the shelving shore,
and drew them up along the strand, and named the spot Neap-
olis or Gela. The boys of Rome were yet in the wolf's cavern.
Vesuvius was a peaceful hill on which the olive and the vine
might slumber. The slopes of Pozzuoli were green with herbs,
over which no lava had been poured. Wandering about Sor-
rento, the spirit of the Odyssey is ours. Those fishing-boats with
lateen sail are such as bore the heroes from their ten-years' toil
at Troy. Those shadowy islands caught the gaze of Æneas
straining for the promised land. Into such clefts and rents of
rock strode Herakles and Jason when they sought the golden
apples and the golden fleece. Look down. There gleam the
green and yellow dragon scales, coiled on the basement of the
hills, and writhing to each curve and cleavage of the chasm.
it a dream ? Do we in fact behold the mystic snake, or in the
twilight do those lustrous orange-trees deceive our eyes ? Nay,
there are no dragons in the ravine — only thick boughs and bur-
nished leaves and snowy bloom and globes of glittering gold.
Above them on the cliff sprout myrtle rods, sacred to love; myr-
tle branches, with which the Athenians wreathed their swords
in honor of Harmodius. Lilies and jonquils and hyacinths stand,
## p. 14360 (#554) ##########################################
14360
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
each straight upon his stem, - a youth, as Greeks imagined, slain
by his lover's hand, or dead for love of his own loveliness, or
cropped in love's despite by death that is the foe of love. Scar-
let and white anemones are there: some born of Adonis's blood,
and some of Aphrodite's tears. All beauty fades; the flowers
of earth, the bloom of youth, man's strength, and woman's grace,
all wither and relapse into the loveless and inexorable grave.
This the Greeks knew, mingling mirth with melancholy, and love
with sadness, their sweetest songs with elegiac melodies.
Beneath the olive-trees, among the flowers and ferns, move
stately maidens and bare-chested youths. Their eyes are starry-
softened or flash fire, and their lips are parted to drink in the
breath of life. Some are singing in the fields an antique, world-
old monotone of song. Was not the lay of Linus, the burden
of yarpai tai òpies ŭ Mevaiza (High are the oak-trees, O Menalcas),
some such canzonet as this? These late descendants of Greek
colonists are still beautiful - like moving statues in the sunlight
and the shadow of the boughs. Yonder tall, straight girl, whose
pitcher, poised upon her head, might have been filled by Electra
or Chrysothemis with lustral waters for a father's tomb, carries
her neck nobly as a Fate of Pheidias. Her body sways upon the
hips, where rests her modeled arm; the ankle and the foot are
sights to sit and gaze at through a summer's day. And where,
if not here, shall we meet with Hylas and Hyacinth, with Gany-
mede and Hymenæus, in the flesh ? As we pass, the laughter
and the singing die away. Bright dresses and pliant forms are
lost. We stray onward through the sheen and shade of olive
branches.
The olive was Athene's gift to Hellas, and Athens carved its
leaves and berries on her drachma with the head of Pallas and
her owl. The light which never leaves its foliage, silvery beneath
and sparkling from the upper surface of burnished green; the
delicacy of its stem, which in youth and middle and old
age
retains the distinction of finely accentuated form; the absence of
sombre shadow on the ground beneath its branches, — might well
fit the olive to be the symbol of the purity of classic art. Each
leaf is cut into a lance-head of brilliancy, not jagged or fanciful
or woolly like the foliage of Northern trees. There is here no
mystery of darkness, no labyrinth of tortuous shade, no conflict
of contrasted forms. Excess of light sometimes fatigues the eye
amid those airy branches, and we long for the repose of gloom
## p. 14361 (#555) ##########################################
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14361
to which we are accustomed in our climate. But gracefulness,
fertility, power, radiance, pliability, are seen in every line. The
spirit of the Greeks itself is not more luminous and strong and
subtle. The color of the olive-tree, again, is delicate. Its pearly
grays and softened greens in no wise interfere with the lustre
which is the true distinction of the tree, Clear and faint like
Guido's colors in the Ariadne of St. Luke's at Rome, distinct as
the thought in a Greek epigram, the olive branches are relieved
against the bright blue of the sea. The mountain slopes above
are clothed by them with light as with a raiment; clinging to
knoll and vale and winding creek, rippling in hoary undulations
to the wind, they wrap the hills from feet to flank in lucid haze.
Above the olives shine bare rocks in steady noon, or blush with
dawn and evening. Nature is naked and beautiful beneath the
sun,-- like Aphrodite, whose raiment falls waist downward to
her sandals on the sea, but whose pure breasts and forehead are
unveiled.
Nature is thus the first, chief element by which we are en-
abled to conceive the spirit of the Greeks. The key to their
mythology is here. Here is the secret of their sympathies, the
well-spring of their deepest thoughts, the primitive potentiality
of all they have achieved in art. What is Apollo but the magic
of the sun whose soul is light ? What is Aphrodite but the
love charm of the sea ? What is Pan but the mystery of nature,
the felt and hidden want pervading all? What, again, are those
elder, dimly discovered deities, the Titans and the brood of
Time, but forces of the world as yet beyond the touch and ken
of human sensibilities? But nature alone cannot inform us what
that spirit was. For though the Greeks grew up in scenes which
we may visit, they gazed on them with Greek eyes, eyes differ-
ent from ours; and dwelt upon them with Greek minds, minds
how unlike our own! Unconsciously, in their long and unsophisti-
cated infancy, the Greeks absorbed and assimilated to their own
substance that loveliness which it is left for us only to admire.
Between them and ourselves — even face to face with mountain,
sky, and sea, unaltered by the lapse of years — flow the rivers of
Death and Lethe and New Birth, and the mists of thirty centu-
ries of human life are woven like a veil. To pierce that veil,
to learn even after the most partial fashion how they transmuted
the splendors of the world into æsthetic forms, is a work which
involves the further interrogation of their sculpture and their
literature.
## p. 14362 (#556) ##########################################
14362
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
RAVENNA
From (Sketches in Italy)
The
HE Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval
stations, and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-
shore, which received the name of Portus Classis. Between
this harbor and the mother city a third town sprang up, and was
called Cæsarea. Time and neglect, the ravages of war, and the
encroaching powers of nature, have destroyed these settlements,
and nothing now remains of the three cities but Ravenna. It
would seem that in classical times Ravenna stood, like modern
Venice, in the centre of a huge lagoon, the fresh waters of the
Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the Adriatic
round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on piles;
canals instead of streets formed the means of communication,
and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from
the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast
morass, for the most part under shallow water, but rising at
intervals into low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello
which surround Venice. These islands were celebrated for their
fertility: the vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from
a fat and fruitful soil, watered with constant moisture, and fos-
tered by a mild sea wind and liberal sunshine, yielded crops that
for luxuriance and quality surpassed the harvests of any orchards
on the mainland. All the conditions of life in old Ravenna seem
to have resembled those of modern Venice: the people went
about in gondolas; and in the early morning, barges laden with
fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked from all quarters to
the city of the sea. Water also had to be procured from the
neighboring shore; for as Martial says, a well at Ravenna was
more valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and the
mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagoon, like that
on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the
air of Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease
of life that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the sit-
uation of the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the
monarchs of Italy during those troublous times in which the em-
pire nodded to its fall. Honorius retired to its lagoons for safety;
Odoacer, who dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded
him; and was in turn supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
Ravenna, as we see it now, recalls the peaceful and half Roman
## p. 14363 (#557) ##########################################
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14363
rule of the great Gothic king. His palace, his churches, and the
mausoleum in which his daughter Amalasuntha laid the hero's
bones, have survived the sieges of Belisarius and Astolphus, the
conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels of iconoclasts with the
children of the Roman Church, the mediæval wars of Italy,
the victory of Gaston de Foix; and still stand gorgeous with
marbles and mosaics in spite of time and the decay of all around
them.
As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated
to such a distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens
were cultivated on the spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars
rode at anchor. Groves of pines sprang up along the shore, and
in their lofty tops the music of the wind moved like the ghost of
waves and breakers plunging upon distant sands. This Pinetum
stretches along the shore of the Adriatic for about forty miles,
forming a belt of variable width between the great marsh and
the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and velvet
crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an oasis
on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach them-
selves from an inferior forest growth of juniper and thorn and
ash and oak, the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their
breadth of sheltering greenery above the lower and less sturdy
brushwood. It is hardly possible to imagine a more beautiful
and impressive scene than that presented by these long alleys of
imperial pines. They grow so thickly one behind another that
we might compare them to the pipes of a great organ, or the
pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic columns of the Giant's
Causeway. Their tops are ever green, and laden with the heavy
cones from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. Scores
of peasants are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose
business it is to scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at
certain seasons of the year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones
in the sun, until the nuts which they contain fall out. The
empty husks are sold for firewood, and the kernels in their stony
shells reserved for exportation. You may see the peasants — men,
women, and boys — sorting them by millions, drying and sifting
them upon the open spaces of the wood, and packing them in
sacks to send abroad through Italy. The pinocchi, or kernels, of
the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, and those of Ravenna
are prized for their good quality and aromatic flavor. When
roasted or pounded, they taste like a softer and more mealy kind
:
## p. 14364 (#558) ##########################################
14364
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
of almonds. The task of gathering this harvest is not a little
dangerous. They have to cut notches in the straight shafts, and
having climbed often to the height of eighty feet, to lean upon
the branches and detach the fir cones with a pole — and this for
every tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly lost in the business.
As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form
the haunt of innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by
myriads in the grass. Doves coo among the branches of the
pines, and nightingales pour their full-throated music all day and
night from thickets of white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet
with aromatic scents: the resin of the pine and juniper, the may-
flowers and acacia blossoms, the violets that spring by thousands
in the moss, the wild roses and faint honeysuckles which throw
fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or maple, join to
make one most delicious perfume. And though the air upon the
neighboring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads a
genial health. The sea wind murmuring through these thickets
at nightfall or misty sunrise conveys no fever to the peasants
stretched among their flowers. They watch the red rays of
sunset flaming through the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring
on its fretted rafters of entangled boughs; they see the stars
come out, and Hesper gleam, an eye of brightness, among dewy
branches; the moon walks silver-footed on the velvet tree-tops,
while they sleep beside the camp fires; fresh morning wakes them
to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and twinkling of dew-
drops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and death
have been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few
yards of their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached
the charmed precincts of the forest.
You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between
the pines in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood,
the sunlight and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns
at your side, prevent all sense of loneliness or fear.
Huge oxen
haunt the wilderness - gray creatures, with mild eyes and spread-
ing horns and stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest,
.
the fathers and the mothers of many generations who have
been carried from their sides to serve in plows or wagons on
the Lombard plain. Others are yearling calves, intractable and
ignorant of labor. In order to subdue them to the yoke, it is
requisite to take them very early from their native glades, or else
they chafe and pine away with weariness. Then there is a sullen
## p. 14365 (#559) ##########################################
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14365
canal, which flows through the forest from the marshes to the
sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes.
You may see
these serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the
flowering rush, or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers, - lithe
monsters, slippery and speckled, the tyrants of the fen.
It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would
spend whole days alone among the forest glades, thinking of
Florence and her civil wars, and meditating cantos of his poem.
Nor have the influences of the pine wood failed to leave their
trace upon his verse.
VENICE
V ,
"
TENICE, thou Siren of sea cities, wrought
By mirage, built on water, stair o'er stair,
Of sunbeams and cloud shadows, phantom-fair,
With naught of earth to mar thy sea-born thought!
Thou floating film upon the wonder-fraught
Ocean of dreams! Thou hast no dream so rare
As are thy sons and daughters,— they who wear
Foam flakes of charm from thine enchantment caught.
O dark-brown eyes! O tangles of dark hair!
O heaven-blue eyes, blonde tresses where the breeze
Plays over sunburned cheeks in sea-blown air!
Firm limbs of molded bronze! frank debonair
Smiles of deep-bosomed women! Loves that seize
Man's soul, and waft her on storm melodies !
THE NIGHTINGALE
1
WENT a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
Hard task it were to tell how dewy-still
Were flowers and ferns and foliage in the rays
Of Hesper, white amid the daffodil
Of twilight flecked with faintest chrysoprase;
And all the while, embowered in leafy bays,
The bird prolonged her sharp soul-thrilling tone.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
## p. 14366 (#560) ##########################################
14366
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
But as I stood and listened, on the air
Arose another voice, more clear and keen,
That startled silence with a sweet despair,
And stilled the bird beneath her leafy screen:
The star of Love, those lattice boughs between,
Grew large and leaned to listen from his zone.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
The voice, methought, was neither man's nor boy's,
Nor bird's nor woman's, but all these in one:
In Paradise perchance such perfect noise
Resounds from angel choirs in unison,
Chanting with cherubim their antiphon
To Christ and Mary on the sapphire throne.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
Then down the forest aisles there came a boy,
Unearthly pale, with passion in his eyes;
Who sang a song whereof the sound was joy,
But all the burden was of love that dies
And death that lives,- a song of sobs and sighs,
A wild swan's note of Death and Love in one.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
Love burned within his luminous eyes, and Death
Had made his fluting voice so keen and high,
The wild wood trembled as he passed beneath,
With throbbing throat singing, Love-led, to die;
Then all was hushed, till in the thicket nigh
The bird resumed her sharp soul-thrilling tone.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
But in my heart and in my brain the cry,
The wail, the dirge, the dirge of Death and Love,
Still throbs and throbs, flute-like, and will not die,
Piercing and clear the night-bird's tune above,-
The aching, anguished wild swan's note, whereof
The sweet sad flower of song was overblown.
I went a-roaming through the woods alone,
And heard the nightingale that made her moan.
## p. 14367 (#561) ##########################################
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
14367
FAREWELL
I
Tis buried and done with,
The love that we knew :
Those cobwebs we spun with
Are beaded with dew.
I loved thee; I leave thee:
To love thee was pain;
I dare not believe thee,
To love thee again.
Like spectres unshriven
Are the years that I lost;
To thee they were given
Without count of cost.
I cannot revive them
By penance or prayer:
Hell's tempest must drive them
Through turbulent air.
Farewell, and forget me;
For I too am free
From the shame that beset me,
The sorrow of thee.
THE FEET OF THE BELOVED
F
EAR not to tread,- it is not much
To bless the meadow with your touch:
Nay, walk unshod; for as you pass,
The dust will take your feet like grass.
Oh dearest melodies, oh beat
Of musically moving feet!
Stars that have fallen from the sky
To sparkle where you let them lie;
Blossoms, a new and heavenly birth,
Rocked on the nourishing breast of earth;
Dews that on leaf and petal Aling
Multitudinous quivering;
Winged loves with light and laughter crowned;
Kind kisses pressed upon the ground!
## p. 14368 (#562) ##########################################
14368
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
EYEBRIGHT
A®
SA star from the sea new risen,
As the waft of an angel's wing,
As a lark's song heard in prison,
As the promise of summer in spring,
She came to me through the stillness,
The shadows that ring me round,
The dungeon of years and illness
Wherein my spirit is bound.
She came with her eyes love-laden,
Her laughter of lily and rose,
A fragile and flower-like maiden,
In the season of frosts and snows.
She smiled, and the shades departed;
She shone, and the snows were rain:
And he who was frozen-hearted
Bloomed up into love again.
## p. 14369 (#563) ##########################################
14369
TACITUS
(55 ? -? )
BY CHARLES E. BENNETT
UBLIUS CORNELIUS TACITUS (the prænomen Publius, long a mat.
ter of dispute, is now definitely assured) was born about 55
Suur A. D. The place of his birth is quite uncertain: by some
scholars this honor has been assigned to the Umbrian town Inter-
amna, by others to Rome; but neither of these views rests upon any
adequate foundation. Of the details of his
life we are but scantily informed. In his
Dialogus de Oratoribus' he tells us that
when a youth he attached himself to Mar-
cus Aper and Julius Secundus, the foren-
sic leaders of his day. Whether he also
enjoyed the instruction of Quintilian, the
famous rhetorician, is a matter of doubt.
In the year 78 he married the daughter of
Agricola, governor of Britain. Subsequently
he filled the offices of quæstor under Titus,
of prætor under Domitian, and of consul
(year 97) under Nerva. From the year 100
on, he appears to have held no public trust,
Tacitus
but to have devoted himself exclusively to
his literary labors. His death probably occurred shortly after the
publication of the Annals(115-117 A. D. ).
WORKS
1.
The Dialogus de Oratoribus. Tacitus's earliest work was prob-
ably published about 81 A. D. , and gives an account of a discussion
at which the writer represents himself as having been present some
seven years previously. The chief disputants are Aper and Messalla;
the theme is the quality of contemporary eloquence. Aper maintains
that the new oratory really marks a great advance upon that of pre-
ceding epochs: it is brilliant and attractive, where the earlier oratory
was dull and tedious. An audience of to-day, Aper declares, would
not tolerate such speakers. Even Cicero, with all his fame, was not
free from the faults of his day; and was worthy of admiration only
in his later speeches.
XXIV–899
## p. 14370 (#564) ##########################################
TACITUS
14370
In reply to Aper, Messalla vigorously defends the oratory of the
Ciceronian era, and arraigns contemporary eloquence as disfigured by
meretricious embellishment. To Messalla's mind the prime cause of
this decadence is neglect in the training of the young. Formerly the
mother personally superintended the education of her children; now
these are given over to irresponsible slaves and nurses. Again, in
the earlier days, a young man preparing himself for the profession
of oratory was wont to attach himself to some eminent advocate or
jurist; and so to acquire the mastery of his art by practical experi-
ence. To-day, Messalla complains, it is the fashion merely to declaim
artificial show-pieces in the schools.
Secundus and Maternus, who share in the discussion, urge also
changed political conditions as another important reason for the
decline of eloquence. Under the republic there had been an active
political life and keen strife of parties; under the empire the for-
tunes of the State were directed by a single head. What wonder
then that eloquence had declined, when the causes that created it
were no longer in existence!
In its fine dramatic setting, its profound grasp of the moving
causes in Roman civilization, and in its elevated diction, the Dia-
logus) is a consummate literary masterpiece; Wolf well recognized
its merits and its charm when he characterized it as an aureus libellus
(golden little book).
2. The Agricola, Between the publication of the Dialogus) and
of the Agricola' seventeen years intervened. Of this period fifteen
years were occupied by the reign of Domitian, under whom freedom
of speech had been rigorously suppressed. The accession of Nerva,
however, in 96 A. D. , followed by that of Trajan at the beginning of
98, was the augury of a new era; and encouraged Tacitus to publish
his Life of Agricola' in the latter year. Agricola, Tacitus's father-
in-law, had died in 93; and it is quite possible that Tacitus's account
of his life was written in the months immediately following that
event, and then withheld from publication until the dawn of a more
auspicious period. How keenly Tacitus had felt the intellectual and
moral servitude enforced upon his countrymen by Domitian's rule
is made clear by a passage of remarkable power contained in the
preface to this work (here quoted).
The best years of Agricola's life had been spent in the service of
his country, and for the most part in the field. His most conspicu-
were achieved in Britain. He had been appointed
governor of that province in 78, and remained there seven years. In
the course of his administration he had not only reduced the entire
island to subjection, as far north as the highlands of Scotland, but
had also established the Roman civilization among the Britons. All
these achievements are pictured in glowing colors and with signal
ous
successes
## p. 14371 (#565) ##########################################
TACITUS
14371
-
affection by the writer. Tacitus's apostrophe to his departed father-
in-law (here quoted), is a lofty and impressive illustration of the
writer's genius.
3. The (Germania. ' This was published in 98 A. D. , the same
year as the Agricola. ' It is a brief treatise on the geography, peo-
ples, and institutions of the Germans. The larger portion of the
work — and by far the most interesting — is devoted to a considera-
tion of those customs and institutions which are common to the Ger-
mans as a whole; such as their political organization, their military
system, the courts, religion, dwellings, clothing, marriage, amuse-
ments, slavery, and industrial occupations. The remainder of the
work treats of the location of the separate tribes, and of the institu-
tions peculiar to each.
The purpose of the 'Germania' has been differently conceived by
different critics. Some have thought that Tacitus's object was, by
holding before his countrymen a picture of the Germans, to mark the
contrast between the two civilizations, German and Roman, and to
commend the rugged simplicity of the one as opposed to the degen-
eracy of the other. Others have regarded the treatise as a political
pamphlet, written in support of Trajan, and intended to justify the
attention which that prince was then bestowing upon the problems
presented by the tribes of the North. Yet others have thought that
the work was prepared as an introduction to the extensive historical
writings which Tacitus had already projected.
But there are serious objections to each of these views; more-
over, it seems improbable that the Germania) was written with any
« tendency” or purpose beyond the natural and obvious one of ac-
quainting its readers with accurate details of German geography and
institutions. The German people had long been known to the Romans,
and for a century and a half had furnished a more or less constant
opposition to the Roman arms. Nor was the subject new: Cæsar,
Livy, Pliny, and others, had given detailed accounts of this interesting
and important race. That Tacitus, therefore, should have undertaken
a fresh presentation of their situation and customs, seems perfectly
natural, without resort to the theory of a special extraneous motive.
Whatever its original purpose, the “Germania) must be recognized as
a mine of authentic information concerning the ancient Germans, and
as a source of the first importance for all modern study of Germanic
institutions.
4. The Histories. ' In the preface to the Agricola,' Tacitus had
already announced his purpose of writing the history of the reigns
of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan. Later, this plan was modified. The
new project embraced the history of the imperial period from the
death of Augustus to the death of Domitian,- a space of eighty-two
## p. 14372 (#566) ##########################################
14372
TACITUS
us.
years. This period naturally fell into two eras: the former that of
the Julian-Claudian dynasties (from the accession of Tiberius to the
death of Nero), the latter that of the Flavian dynasty (Vespasian to
Domitian), including the transition period of turmoil during the brief
reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. It was the latter of these two
eras that Tacitus treated first, giving to the work the title His-
toriæ. ) The events he describes had all occurred within his own
memory, and many within the range of his own observation and
experience. The entire work consisted probably of twelve books,
published at intervals between 104 and 109 A. D. Of these twelve
books only the first four, and half of the fifth, have come down to
The preserved portions begin with the accession of Galba, and
carry the history only to the beginning of the reign of Vespasian.
A vivid picture is given in this narrative of the stormy events of the
years 68 and 69; including the murder of Galba, the defeat and sui-
cide of Otho, the overthrow of Vitellius, the accession of Vespasian,
along with the formidable insurrection of the Batavians under Civilis.
But the descriptions are almost exclusively military. There is less
of the fine psychological analysis which appears later as a striking
characteristic of the Annals. ' Doubtless this feature inay have been
more prominent in the lost books of the Histories) (6-12), which
covered the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. One of the
most interesting portions of the extant books is the account of the
Jews, given at the beginning of Book v. The description of the siege
and capture of Jerusalem by Titus is unfortunately lost.
5. The Annals. ' The second part of Tacitus's programme em-
braced a history of the earlier period, from the accession of Tiberius
to the death of Nero (14-68 A. D. ). The exact title of this work was
(Ab Excessu Divi Augusti’ (From the Decease of the Divine Augus-
tus); but owing to the treatment of events year by year, Tacitus him-
self alludes to his work as (Annals,' and this designation has become
the current one. The Annals, like the Histories,' was probably
published in installments, about 115-117 A. D. The entire work in all
likelihood consisted of eighteen books. These eighteen seem to have
been devoted, in groups of six, to three epochs: the first six to the
reign of Tiberius; the next six to the reigns of Caligula and Claudius;
the concluding six to the reign of Nero. Large portions of the work
have been lost. Books 7-10, along with 17 and 18, have disappeared
completely; while extensive gaps occur in several of the others. The
portions which we still have, deal with the reign of Tiberius, the con-
cluding years of the reign of Claudius, and the reign of Nero down
to 66 A. D. The account of Caligula is entirely lost.
The (Annals' is universally regarded as Tacitus's ripest and great-
est work. While nominally a history of the times, it is in reality a
## p. 14373 (#567) ##########################################
TACITUS
14373
series of masterly character sketches of figures of commanding inter-
est and importance: the emperors, their advisers, their opponents, the
members of the imperial family.
In his psychological analyses, Tacitus can hardly be regarded as
free from prejudice and partisanship; in the case of most of the
emperors and their consorts, he sees no good trait, recognizes no
worthy motive. On the other hand, he is at times guilty of undue
idealization; as in the case of Germanicus, who, though popular with
the soldiers and the people, seems to have been deficient both in
force of character and in military genius.
Tacitus's pictures, however, while overdrawn, give us in the main
an accurate view of the imperial court: they exhibit the tyranny,
cruelty, and wantonness of successive sovereigns, the servility of the
courtiers, the degradation of the Senate, and the general demoraliza-
tion of the aristocracy, in colors as powerful as they are sombre. It
is greatly to be regretted that none of the ameliorating influences
and tendencies of the imperial régime receive recognition at Tacitus's
hands. The contemporary social, industrial, and commercial prosper-
ity are completely ignored: it is the dark side only that is revealed
in his pages.
Tacitus's STYLE. — The artistic form in which Tacitus clothed the
products of his genius is not only unique in itself, but also exhibits
a striking development from his earliest work to his latest. In the
Dialogus) he is manifestly under the influence of Cicero. The
'Agricola' and 'Germania,' published seventeen years later, show an
almost complete emancipation from this early model. The strong
individuality of the writer now reveals itself in greater condensation,
in frequent boldness of word and phrase, and in sombre earnestness
of thought; Sallust's influence is particularly noticeable at this stage.
In the Histories and in the ‘Annals) we note the fullest culmina-
tion of Tacitus's stylistic development. What in the Agricola' and
(Germania' was a tendency, has become in the Histories,' and espe-
cially in the Annals,' a pervading characteristic. Short incisive
sentences follow each other in quick succession: a single phrase or
a single word is often as pregnant with meaning as a paragraph in
another writer; poetic expressions abound (Virgil's influence being
particularly noticeable); while a lofty moral earnestness dominates
the whole.
This striking contrast of style between Tacitus's earliest and lat-
est work is unparalleled in Roman literature; and for a long time
tended to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Dialogus. It is not,
however, without a parallel in other literatures; and the difference
between Carlyle's Life of Schiller) and his Frederick the Great'
)
.
>
## p. 14374 (#568) ##########################################
14374
TACITUS
has been aptly compared with that between the Dialogus' and the
Annals. '
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - The best editions of the works of Tacitus are,-
for the Dialogus,' Gudeman (Boston, 1894): for the Agricola' and
(Germania, Furneaux (Oxford, 1891, 1896); for the Annals,' the same
editor (Oxford, 1884, 1891); for the Histories,' Spooner (Oxford, 1890).
The best English translation is by Church and Brodribb (London,
1885, 1888).
CAE Berett
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN
From (A Dialogue on Oratory)
W
Ho does not know that eloquence and all other arts have
declined from their ancient glory, not from dearth of
men, but from the indolence of the young, the care-
lessness of parents, the ignorance of teachers, and neglect of the
old discipline? The evils which first began in Rome soon spread
through Italy, and are now diffusing themselves into the prov-
inces. But your provincial affairs are best known to yourselves.
I shall speak of Rome, and of those native and home-bred vices
which take hold of us as soon as we are born, and multiply with
every stage of life, when I have first said a few words on the
strict discipline of our ancestors in the education and training
of children. Every citizen's son, the child of a chaste mother, was
from the beginning reared, not in the chamber of a purchased
nurse, but in that mother's bosom and embrace; and it was her
special glory to study her home and devote herself to her child-
ren. It was usual to select an elderly kinswoman of approved
and esteemed character to have the entire charge of all the child-
ren of the household. In her presence it was the last offense to
utter an unseemly word or to do a disgraceful act. With scru-
pulous piety and modesty she regulated not only the boy's stud-
ies and occupations, but even his recreations and games. Thus it
was, as tradition says, that the mothers of the Gracchi, of Cæsar,
of Augustus, - Cornelia, Aurelia, Atia,-directed their children's
education and reared the greatest of sons. The strictness of
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TACITUS
14375
the discipline tended to form in each case a pure and virtuous
nature, which no vices could warp, and which would at once with
the whole heart seize on every noble lesson. Whatever its bias,
- whether to the soldier's or the lawyer's art, or to the study of
eloquence,- it would make that its sole aim, and imbibe it in its
fullness.
But in our day we intrust the infant to a little Greek servant-
girl, who is attended by one or two- commonly the worst of
all the slaves — creatures utterly unfit for any important work.
Their stories and their prejudices from the very first fill the
child's tender and uninstructed mind. No one in the whole
house cares what he says or does before his infant master. Even
parents themselves familiarize their little ones, not with virtue
and modesty, but with jesting and glib talk; which lead on by
degrees to shamelessness, and to contempt for themselves as well
as for others. Really I think that the characteristic and peculiar
vices of this city-a liking for actors and a passion for gladi-
ators and horses are all-but conceived in the mother's womb.
When these occupy and possess the mind, how little room has it
left for worthy attainments! Few indeed are to be found who
talk of any other subjects in their homes; and whenever we
enter a class-room, what else is the conversation of the youths ?
Even with the teachers, these are the more frequent topics of
talk with their scholars. In fact, they draw pupils, not by strict-
ness of discipline or by giving proof of ability, but by assiduous
court and cunning tricks of flattery.
DOMITIAN'S REIGN OF TERROR
From the Agricola)
W
TE HAVE read that the panegyrics pronounced by Arulenus
Rusticus on Pætus Thrasea, and by Herennius Senecio
on Priscus Helvidius, were made capital crimes; that not
only their persons but their very books were objects of rage, and
that the triumvirs were commissioned to burn in the forum those
works of splendid genius. They fancied, forsooth, that in that
fire the voice of the Roman people, the freedom of the Senate,
and the conscience of the human race were perishing; while at
the same time they banished the teachers of philosophy, and
exiled every noble pursuit, that nothing good might anywhere
confront them. Certainly we showed a magnificent example of
## p. 14376 (#570) ##########################################
14376
TACITUS
SO
patience; as a former age had witnessed the extreme of liberty,
we witnessed the extreme of servitude, when the informer
robbed us of the interchange of speech and hearing. We should
have lost memory as well as voice, had it been as easy to forget
as to keep silence.
Now at last our spirit is returning, And yet, though at the
dawn of a most happy age Nerva Cæsar blended things once
irreconcilable,- sovereignty and freedom; though Nerva Trajan
is now daily augmenting the prosperity of the time, and though
the public safety has not only our hopes and good wishes, but
has also the certain pledge of their fulfillment, — still, from the
necessary condition of human frailty, the remedy works less
quickly than the disease. As our bodies grow but slowly, perish
in a moment, so it is easier to crush than to revive genius and
its pursuits. Besides, the charm of indolence steals over us, and
the idleness which at first we loathed we afterwards love. What
if during those fifteen years,— a large portion of human life, -
many were cut off by ordinary casualties, and the ablest fell
victims to the Emperor's rage, if a few of us survive, - I may
almost say, not only others but our own selves survive, though
there have been taken from the midst of life those many years
which brought the young in dumb silence to old age, and the
old almost to the very verge and end of existence! Yet we
shall not regret that we have told, though in language unskillful
and unadorned, the story of past servitude, and borne our testi-
mony to present happiness. Meanwhile this book, intended to
do honor to Agricola my father-in-law, will, as an expression of
filial regard, be commended, or at least excused.
APOSTROPHE TO AGRICOLA
From the Agricola)
T"
HOU wast indeed fortunate, Agricola, not only in the splen-
dor of thy life, but in the opportune moment of thy death.
Thou submittedst to thy fate, so they tell us who were
present to hear thy last words, with courage and cheerfulness,
seeming to be doing all thou couldst to give thine Emperor full
acquittal. As for me and thy daughter, besides all the bitter-
ness of a father's loss, it increases our sorrow that it was not
permitted us to watch over thy failing health, to comfort thy
weakness, to satisfy ourselves with those looks, those embraces.
## p. 14377 (#571) ##########################################
TACITUS
14377
Assuredly we should have received some precepts, some utter-
ances, to fix in our inmost hearts. This is the bitterness of our
sorrow, this the smart of our wound: that from the circumstance
of so long an absence thou wast lost to us four years before.
Doubtless, best of fathers, with the most loving wife at thy side,
all the dues of affection were abundantly paid thee; yet with too
few tears thou wast laid to thy rest, and in the light of thy last
day there was something for which thine eyes longed in vain.
If there is any dwelling-place for the spirits of the just; if, as
the wise believe, noble souls do not perish with the body, - rest
thou in peace; and call us, thy family, from weak regrets and
womanish laments to the contemplation of thy virtues, for which
we must not weep nor beat the breast. Let us honor thee not
so much with transitory praises as with our reverence; and if our
powers permit us, with our emulation. That will be true respect,
that the true affection of thy nearest kin. This too is what I
would enjoin on daughter and wife: to honor the memory of that
father, that husband, by pondering in their hearts all his words
and acts, by cherishing the features and lineaments of his charac-
ter rather than those of his person. It is not that I would for-
bid the likenesses which are wrought in marble or in bronze; but
as the faces of men, so all similitudes of the face are weak and
perishable things, while the fashion of the soul is everlasting,
such as may be expressed not in some foreign substance, or by
the help of art, but in our own lives. Whatever we loved, what-
ever we admired in Agricola, survives, and will survive in the
hearts of men, in the succession of the ages, in the fame that
waits on noble deeds. Over many, indeed, of those who have
gone before, as over the inglorious and ignoble, the waves of
oblivion will roll: Agricola, made known to posterity by history
and tradition, will live for ever.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE GERMANS
From the (Germania)
GOVERNMENT.
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
TH
HEY choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit.
These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the
generals do more by example than by authority. If they are
energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they
## p. 14378 (#572) ##########################################
14378
TACITUS
lead because they are admired. But to reprimand, to imprison,
even to flog, is permitted to the priests alone; and that not as
a punishment, or at the general's bidding, but as it were, by the
mandate of the god whom they believe to inspire the warrior.
They also carry with them into battle certain figures and images
taken from their sacred groves. And what most stimulates their
courage is that their squadrons or battalions, instead of being
formed by chance or by a fortuitous gathering, are composed of
families and clans. Close by them too are those dearest to them,
so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants.
They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his brav-
ery -- they are his most generous applauders. The soldier brings
his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from counting
or even demanding them, and who administer both food and
encouragement to the combatant.
Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way
have been rallied by women, who, with earnest entreaties and
bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of cap-
tivity; which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on
behalf of their women, that the strongest tie by which a State
can be bound is the being required to give, among the number
of hostages, maidens of noble birth. They even believe that the
sex has a certain sanctity and prescience; and they do not
despise their counsels, or make light of their answers. In Vespa-
sian's days we saw Veleda, long regarded by many as a divin-
ity. In former times too they venerated Aurinia, and many other
women; but not with servile flatteries or with sham deification.
DEITIES
Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship; and on
certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with
human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with more law-
ful offerings. Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the
occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered noth-
ing but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley,
indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not
consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to
confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of
any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves;
and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which
they see only in spiritual worship.
## p. 14379 (#573) ##########################################
TACITUS
14379
AUGURIES AND METHOD OF DIVINATION
Augury and divination by lot no people practice more dili-
gently. The use of the lots is simple. A little bough is lopped
off a fruit-bearing tree, and cut into small pieces; these are
distinguished by certain marks, and thrown carelessly and at
random over a white garment. In public questions the priest of
the particular State, in private the father of the family, invokes
the gods; and with his eyes towards heaven, takes up each piece
three times, and finds in them a meaning according to the mark
previously impressed on them. If they prove unfavorable, there
is no further consultation that day about the matter; if they
sanction it, the confirmation of augury is still required. For they
are also familiar with the practice of consulting the notes and
the flight of birds. It is peculiar to this people to seek omens
and monitions from horses. Kept at the public expense, in these
same woods and groves are white horses, pure from the taint of
earthly labor; these are yoked to a sacred car, and accompanied
by the priest and the king, or chief of the tribe, who note their
neighings and snortings. No species of augury is more trusted,
not only by the people and by the nobility, but also by the
priests; who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and
the horses as acquainted with their will. They have also another
method of observing auspices, by which they seek to learn the
result of an important war. Having taken, by whatever means,
a prisoner from the tribe with whom they are at war, they pit
him against a picked man of their own tribe, each combatant
using the weapons of their country. The victory of the one
or the other is accepted as an indication of the issue.
COUNCILS
A BOUT minor matters the chiefs deliberate, about the more
important the whole tribe. Yet even when the final decision rests
with the people, the affair is always thoroughly discussed by the
chiefs. They assemble, except in the case of a sudden emergency,
on certain fixed days, either at new or at full moon; for this they
consider the most auspicious season for the transaction of busi-
ness. Instead of reckoning by days as we do, they reckon by
nights; and in this manner fix both their ordinary and their legal
appointments. Night they regard as bringing on day. Their
## p. 14380 (#574) ##########################################
14380
TACITUS
freedom has this disadvantage,- that they do not meet simulta-
neously or as they are bidden, but two or three days are wasted
in the delays of assembling. When the multitude think proper,
they sit down armed. Silence is proclaimed by the priests, who
have on these occasions the right of keeping order. Then the
king or the chief — according to age, birth, distinction in war, or
eloquence - is heard, more because he has influence to persuade
than because he has power to command. If his sentiments dis-
please them, they reject them with murmurs; if they are satis-
fied, they brandish their spears. The most complimentary form
of assent is to express approbation with their weapons.
PUNISHMENTS.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
IN THEIR councils an accusation may be preferred, or a capital
crime prosecuted.
