The Story of Civilization: Volume III: Caesar and Christ

by Will Durant

  Polybius could have justified himself, perhaps, by recent incidents tending to show that, despite Plautus and philosophy, superstition still was king. When the disaster of Cannae seemed to leave Rome defenseless against Hannibal, the excitable populace fell into a panic, and cried, “To what god must we pray to save Rome?” The Senate sought to still the commotion by human sacrifice; then by prayers to Greek gods; then by applying the Greek ritual to all the gods, Roman and Greek alike. Finally the Senate decided that if it could not prevent superstition it would organize and control it. In 205 it announced that the Sibylline Books foretold that Hannibal would leave Italy if the Magna Mater—a form of the goddess Cybele—should be brought from Phrygian Pessinus to Rome. Attalus, King of Pergamum, consented; the black stone which was believed to be the incarnation of the Great Mother was shipped to Ostia, where it was received with impressive ceremony by Scipio Africanus and a band of virtuous matrons. When the vessel that bore it was grounded in the Tiber’s mud, the Vestal Virgin Claudia freed it, and drew it upstream to Rome, by the magic power of her chastity. Then the matrons, each holding the stone tenderly in her turn, carried it in solemn procession to the Temple of Victory, and the pious people burned incense at their doors as the Great Mother passed. The Senate was shocked to find that the new divinity had to be served by self-emasculated priests; such men were found, but no Roman was allowed to be among them. From that time onward Rome celebrated, every April, the Megalesia, or Feast of the Great Goddess, first with wild sorrow and then with wild rejoicing. For Cybele was a vegetation deity, and legend told how her son Attis, symbol of autumn and spring, had died and gone to Hades, and then had risen from the dead.

  In that same year (205) Hannibal left Italy, and the Senate complimented itself on its handling of the religious crisis. But the wars with Macedon opened the gates to Greece and the East; in the wake of soldiers returning with Eastern spoils, ideas, and myths came a flood of Greek and Asiatic captives, slaves, refugees, traders, travelers, athletes, artists, actors, musicians, teachers, and lecturers; and men in their migrations carry along their gods. The lower classes of Rome were pleased to learn of Dionysus-Bacchus, of Orpheus and Eurydice, of mystic rites that gave a divine inspiration and intoxication, of initiations that revealed the resurrected deity and promised the worshiper eternal life. In 186 the Senate was disturbed to learn that a considerable minority of the people had adopted the Dionysian cult, and that the new god was being celebrated by nocturnal bacchanalia whose secrecy lent color to rumors of unrestrained drinking and sexual revelry. “More uncleanliness was wrought with men than with women,” says Livy; and he adds, probably turning gossip into history, that “whoever would not submit to defilement . . . was sacrificed as a victim.”23 The Senate suppressed the cult, arrested 7000 of the devotees, and sentenced hundreds to death. It was a temporary victory in the long war that Rome was to wage against Oriental faiths.

  IV. THE COMING OF PHILOSOPHY

  The Greek conquest of Rome took the form of sending Greek religion and comedy to the Roman plebs; Greek morals, philosophy, and art to the upper classes. These Greek gifts conspired with wealth and empire in that sapping of Roman faith and character which was one part of Hellas’ long revenge upon her conquerors. The conquest reached its climax in Roman philosophy, from the stoic Epicureanism of Lucretius to the epicurean Stoicism of Seneca. In Christian theology Greek metaphysics overcame the gods of Italy. Greek culture triumphed in the rise of Constantinople as first the rival and then the successor of Rome; and when Constantinople fell, Greek literature, philosophy, and art reconquered Italy and Europe in the Renaissance. This is the central stream in the history of European civilization; all other currents are tributaries. “It was no little brook that flowed from Greece into our city,” said Cicero, “but a mighty river of culture and learning.”24 Henceforth the mental, artistic, and religious life of Rome was a part of the Hellenistic world.III

  The invading Greeks found a strategic opening in the schools and lecture halls of Rome. A swelling stream of Graeculi—“Greeklings,” as the scornful Romans called them—followed the armies returning from the East. Many of them, as slaves, became tutors in Roman families; some, the grammatici, inaugurated secondary education in Rome by opening schools for instruction in the language and literature of Greece; some, the rhetores, gave private instruction and public lectures on oratory, literary composition, and philosophy. Roman orators—even the mishellenist Cato—began to model their addresses on the speeches of Lysias, Aeschines, and Demosthenes.

  Few of these Greek teachers had any religious belief; fewer transmitted any; a small minority of them followed Epicurus and preceded Lucretius in describing religion as the chief evil in human life. The patricians saw where the wind was blowing, and tried to stop it; in 173 the Senate banished two Epicureans, and in 161 it decreed that “no philosophers or rhetors shall be permitted in Rome.” The wind would not stop. In 159 Crates of Mallus, Stoic head of the royal library at Pergamum, came to Rome on an official embassy, broke a leg, stayed on, and, while convalescing, gave lectures on literature and philosophy. In 155 Athens sent as ambassadors to Rome the leaders of its three great philosophical schools: Carneades the Academic or Platonist, Critolaus the Peripatetic or Aristotelian, and Diogenes the Stoic of Seleucia. Their coming was almost as strong a stimulus as Chrysoloras would bring to Italy in 1453. Carneades spoke on eloquence so eloquently that the younger set came daily to hear him.25 He was a complete skeptic, doubted the existence of the gods, and argued that as good reasons could be given for doing injustice as for being just—a belated surrender of Plato to Thrasymachus.26 When old Cato heard of this he moved in the Senate that the ambassadors be sent home. They were. But the new generation had tasted the wine of philosophy; and from this time onward the rich youth of Rome went eagerly to Athens and Rhodes to exchange their oldest faith for the newest doubts.

  The very conquerors of Greece were in person the sponsors of Hellenistic culture and philosophy in Rome. Flamininus, who had loved Greek literature before invading Macedon and freeing Greece, was deeply moved by the art and drama he saw in Hellas. We must lay it to the credit side of Rome that some of its generals could understand Polycleitus and Pheidias, Scopas and Praxiteles, even if they carried their appreciation to the point of robbery. Of all the spoils that Aemilius Paulus brought back from his victories over Perseus, he kept for himself only the library of the King, as a heritage for his children. He had his sons instructed in Greek literature and philosophy as well as in the Roman arts of the chase and war; and so far as his public duties permitted he shared in these studies with his children.

  Before Paulus died, his youngest son was adopted by his friend, P. Cornelius Scipio, son of Africanus. Following Roman custom, the lad took the name of his adoptive father and added the name of his father’s clan; in this way he became the P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus whom we shall hereafter mean by Scipio. He was a handsome and healthy youth, simple in habits and moderate in speech, affectionate and generous, so honest that at his death, after having all the plunder of Carthage pass through his hands, he left only thirty-three pounds of silver and two of gold—though he had lived like a scholar rather than as a man of means. In his youth he met the Greek exile Polybius, who earned his gratitude and lifelong friendship by giving him good advice and good books. The boy won his spurs by fighting under his father at Pydna; in Spain he accepted the challenge of the enemy to single combat, and won.27

  In private life he gathered about him a group of distinguished Romans interested in Greek thought. Chief among them was Gaius Laelius, a man of kindly wisdom and steadfast friendship, just in judgment and blameless in life, and second only to Aemilianus in eloquence of speech and purity of style. Cicero, across a century, fell in love with Laelius, named after him his essay on friendship, and wished he might have lived not in his own turbulent epoch but in that exalted circle of Rome’s intellectual youth. Its influence on literature was considerable; through participation in it Terence deve
loped the elegant precision of his language; and Gaius Lucilius (180-103) perhaps learned here to give a social purpose to the satires with which he lashed the vices and luxury of the age.

  The Greek mentors of this group were Polybius and Panaetius. Polybius lived for years in Scipio’s home. He was a realist and a rationalist, and had few illusions about men and states. Panaetius came from Rhodes and, like Polybius, belonged to the Greek aristocracy. For many years he lived with Scipio in affectionate intimacy and reciprocal influence: he stirred Scipio to all the nobility of Stoicism, and probably it was Scipio who persuaded him to modify the extreme ethical demands of that philosophy into a more practicable creed. In a book On Duties Panaetius laid down the central ideas of Stoicism: that man is part of a whole and must co-operate with it—with his family, his country, and the divine Soul of the World; that he is here not to enjoy the pleasures of the senses, but to do his duty without complaint or stint. Panaetius did not, like the earlier Stoics, require a perfect virtue, or complete indifference to the goods and fortunes of life. Educated Romans grasped at this philosophy as a dignified and presentable substitute for a faith in which they had ceased to believe, and found in its ethic a moral code completely congenial to their traditions and ideals. Stoicism became the inspiration of Scipio, the ambition of Cicero, the better self of Seneca, the guide of Trajan, the consolation of Aurelius, and the conscience of Rome.

  V. THE AWAKENING OF LITERATURE

  It was a basic purpose of the Scipionic circle to encourage literature as well as philosophy, to mold the Latin tongue into a refined and fluent literary medium, to lure the Roman muses to the nourishing springs of Greek poetry, and to provide an audience for promising writers of verse or prose. In 204 Scipio Africanus proved his character by welcoming to Rome a poet brought there by Cato, the strongest opponent of everything represented by the Scipios and their friends. Quintus Ennius had been born of Greek and Italian parentage near Brundisium (239). He had received his education in Tarentum, and his enthusiastic spirit had been deeply impressed by the Greek dramas presented on the Tarentine stage. His courage as a soldier in Sardinia attracted Cato, who was quaestor there. Arrived in Rome, he lived by teaching Latin and Greek, recited his verses to his friends, and found admittance to the circle of the Scipios.

  There was hardly a poetic form that he did not try. He wrote a few comedies and at least twenty tragedies. He was in love with Euripides, flirted like him with radical ideas, and plagued the pious with such Epicurean quips as, “I grant you there are gods, but they don’t care what men do; else it would go well with the good and ill with the bad—which rarely happens”;28 according to Cicero the audience applauded the lines.29 He translated or paraphrased Euhemerus’ Sacred History, which argued that the gods were merely dead heroes deified by popular sentiment. He was not immune to theology of a kind, for he announced that the soul of Homer, having passed through many bodies, including Pythagoras and a peacock, now resided in Ennius. He wrote with verve an epic history of Rome from Aeneas to Pyrrhus, and these Annales became, till Virgil, the national poem of Italy. A few fragments survive, of which the most famous is a line that Roman conservatives never tired of quoting:

  Moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque—

  “the Roman state stands through its ancient morals and its great men.” Metrically the poem was a revolution; it replaced the loose “Saturnian” verse of Naevius with the flowing and flexible hexameters of Greek epic poetry. Ennius molded Latin to new forms and powers, filled his lines with the meat of thought, and prepared for Lucretius, Horace, and Virgil in method, vocabulary, theme, and ideas. To crown his career he wrote a treatise on the pleasures of the palate, and died of gout at seventy, after composing a proud epitaph:

  Pay me no tears, nor for my passing grieve;

  I linger on the lips of men, and live.30

  Ennius succeeded in everything but comedy; perhaps he took philosophy too seriously, forgetting his counsel that “one must philosophize, but not too much.”31 The people rightly preferred laughter to philosophy, and made Plautus rich and Ennius poor. For like reasons they gave little encouragement to the tragic drama in Rome. The tragedies of Pacuvius and Accius were acclaimed by the aristocracy, ignored by the people, and forgotten by time.

  In Rome, as in Athens, plays were presented to the public by state officials as partial celebration of a religious festival or as the obsequies of some distinguished citizen. The theater of Plautus and Terence consisted of a wooden scaffolding supporting a decorated background (the scaena), and, in front of this, a circular orchestra, or platform for dancing; the rear half of this circle formed the proscaenium, or stage. These flimsy structures were torn down after each festival, like our reviewing stands today. The spectators stood, or sat on stools they had brought, or squatted on the ground under the sky. Not till 145 was a complete theater built in Rome, still of wood and roofless, but fitted with seats in the Greek semicircular style. No admission was charged; slaves might attend, but not sit; women were admitted only in the rear. The audience in this period was probably the roughest and dullest in dramatic history—a jostling, boisterous crowd of “groundlings”; it is sad to note how often the prologues beg for quiet and better manners, and how the crude jokes and stereotyped ideas must be repeated to be understood. Some prologues ask mothers to leave their babies at home, or threaten noisy children, or admonish women not to chatter so much; such petitions occur even in the midst of the published plays.32 If an exhibition of prize fighting or rope walking happened to compete, the play, as like as not, would be interrupted until the more exciting performance was over. At the end of a Roman comedy the words, Nunc plaudite omnes, or some variant, made plain that the play was finished and that applause was in order.

  The best feature of the Roman stage was the acting. The leading part was usually played by the manager, a freeman; the other performers were mostly Greek slaves. Any citizen who became an actor forfeited his civic rights—a custom that lasted till Voltaire. Female parts were taken by men. As audiences were small, actors in this age did not wear masks, but contented themselves with paint and wigs. About 100 B.C.., as audiences grew larger, the mask became necessary to distinguish the characters; it was called persona, apparently from the Etruscan word for mask, phersu; and the parts were called dramatis personae—masks of the play. Tragedians wore a high shoe, or “buskin” (cothurnus), comedians a low shoe, or “sock” (soccus). Parts of the play were sung to the obbligato of a flute; sometimes singers sang the parts while actors performed them in pantomime.

  The Plautine comedies were written in rough and ready iambic verse, imitating the meter as well as the matter of their Greek models. Most of the Latin comedies that have come down to us were taken directly, or by combination, from one or more Greek dramas; usually from Philemon, Menander, or other practitioners of the New Comedy in Athens. The author and title of the Greek original were usually named on the title page. Adaptations of Aristophanes and the Old Comedy were ruled out by a law of the Twelve Tables punishing political satire with death.33 It was probably fear of this lethal legislation that led the Latin playwrights to keep the Greek scenes, characters, customs, names, even coins, of their originals; but for Plautus Roman law would have banished Roman life almost completely from the Roman stage. This police supervision did not exclude coarseness and obscenity; the aedile wished to amuse the crowd, not to elevate it; and the Roman government was never displeased by the ignorance of the multitude. The audience preferred broad humor to wit, buffoonery to subtlety, vulgarity to poetry, Plautus to Terence.

  T. Maccius Plautus—literally, Titus the flat-footed clown—had made his first entrance in Umbria in 254. Coming to Rome, he worked as a stage hand, saved his money, invested it eagerly, and lost it. To eat he wrote plays; his adaptations from the Greek pleased by the Roman allusions scattered through them; he made money again and was given the citizenship of Rome. He was a man of the people and the earth, exuberantly jolly, Rabelaisianly robust; he laughed with eve
ryone at everyone, but felt a hearty good will toward all. He wrote or refurbished 130 plays, of which twenty survive. The Miles Gloriosus is a jolly picture of a braggart soldier, whose servant feeds him hopefully with lies:

  Servant: You saw those girls who stopped me yesterday?

  Captain: What did they say?

  Servant: Why, when you passed, they asked me,

  “What! is the great Achilles here?” I answered,

  “No, it’s his brother.” Then says the other one,

  “Troth, he is handsome! What a noble man!

  What splendid hair!” . . . and begged me, both of them,

  . . . To make you take a walk again today,

  That they might get a better sight of you.

  Captain: ’Tis a great nuisance being so very handsome! 34

  The Amphitryon turns the laugh upon Jove, who, disguised as Alcmena’s husband, calls upon himself to witness his own oath and offers pious sacrifice to Jupiter.35 The day after he seduces the lady she bears twins. At the end Plautus asks the god to forgive him and to take the lion’s share of the applause. The story proved as popular in the Rome of Plautus as in the Athens of Menander, the Paris of Molière, or the New York of our own time. The Aulularia is the tale of a miser’s hoard, told with more sympathy than in Molière’s Avare; the miser collects the parings of his nails, and laments the wasted water in the tears he has shed. The Menaechrm is the old story of twins and their climactic recognition—a source for Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors. Lessing thought the Captivi the best play ever staged;36 Plautus, too, liked it, and made its prologue say: