Latin Verse Satire

by Miller, Paul Allen

  It has long been believed that Livy’s chapter owes much to the Peripatetic formulation of the development of Greek drama from its beginnings to its maturity. In this theory an art form developed gradually to a peak of excellence, then underwent a slow degeneration and corruption. Even though some of the verbal correspondences suggested between Livy and Peripatetic treatises are not convincing, the description of the stages of dramatic evolution with Livius Andronicus occupying a position analogous to that of Crates, the fifth-century Athenian comic poet, show plainly the ultimate source of the framework of Livy’s hypothesis. Livy’s Roman sources found in Peripatetic literary theory a method of work that could be applied to the reconstruction of the early stages of Roman drama.52 Interest was fostered by Crates of Mallos, who broke a leg as a result of an attempt to explore the Cloaca Maxima. His visit, thus notoriously prolonged, was an important influence on the development of literary theory at Rome.53

  The question still remains: why was the hypothetical plotless stage show given the name satura or saturae? Nothing in Roman drama corresponds to the Greek satyr play, which had an important place in the theory and also the practice of Hellenistic times.54 It is possible that a Roman theorist finding no existing Roman dramatic form to correspond to a satyr play was able to postulate a primitive form of boisterous stage show and by a piece of linguistic opportunism give to it a similar sounding literary title.55 Further plausibility would have been given to the hypothesis by the existence of men in the guise of satyrs on the occasion of the Ludi Magni in Rome, a feature of the ritual that was instanced as an example of the similarity of Roman customs to those of Greece.56

  Livy’s motive in including this tendentious account of dramatic origins was in part at least patriotic. This accords with his approach to the writing of history: just as the Etruscan domination in politics was to be minimized so Greek influences on dramatic institutions were to be discounted.57 Patriotism may also be found in his hint (if such it be) that the literary form satura, well established by the time he composed his first decade, had an Italian origin; in the etymology of satura implied in impletas modis he showed that the name also was Italian. But Livy’s account is not merely uncritically patriotic. He is also influenced throughout his work by the notion that Rome’s political and social life had degenerated from an early integrity.58 Livy’s account of development of drama belongs to this pattern of thinking, in which his hypothetical dramatic satura is part of a pristine dramatic purity uncorrupted by actors’ vanity or material extravagance.

  There has been much speculation about the identity of Livy’s source or sources; Varro is often considered the most likely immediate source.59 Some general indications support this, for patriotism and a belief in human degeneracy are both marks of Varro’s way of thinking. But it seems unlikely that Varro, the conscientious and critical literary historian, wrote an account of the development of Roman drama which could not be reconciled with the fact of Greek influence, so that even if some details in Livy may be deemed to coincide with the views of Varro the account as a whole is probably not to be attributed to him. The poet and grammarian Accius has been suggested as Livy’s immediate source; another possible source, though this too is a conjecture, is the grammarian Aelius Stilo, who was the teacher of Varro, but no certain solution of this problem is possible.60

  The play title Satura lends no support to the hypothesis of dramatic satura. It occurs as the title of one of Pomponius’ Atellans. As shown earlier, satura can be used of a pregnant woman. That this is the meaning here is confirmed by another Atellan title, Novius’ Virgo praegnans, and by other descriptive titles.

  As Pomponius is known only as a writer of Atellans, Satura is unlikely to have been a generic designation of another literary form.61 Satura is also a title of a work by Naevius. This is more problematical. One fragment is extant:

  quianam Saturnium populum pepulisti?

  (why have you defeated the people dedicated to Saturn, i.e. the Romans?)

  The language is not comic: the metre may be Saturnian, and the subject matter seems to be historical and solemn. If it were assumed that the line was in a context of paratragic burlesque, the title could be taken as similar to those discussed above, but this is a speculation, and it is safer to admit that assuming this title to be correctly given we do not understand it.62

  Some advocates of the dramatic satura have sought to trace its influence in extant literary satura in such allegedly dramatic scenes and dialogues as the later part of the third satire of Horace’s second book. But this approach is illusory. If there had been a dramatic satura we would expect it to have influenced early satire, particularly that of Ennius; the extant remains do not show such an influence. Traces of dramatic satura have sometimes been found in scenes of revelry and dancing in Roman comedy, but modern knowledge of New Comedy and of the conditions of Hellenistic performances makes such a view untenable.63

  3 Drama and ritual

  Dissatisfaction with the traditional etymologies has also led to a postulated connection with Etruscan more complex than that already discussed […] It has therefore been suggested that saturno was the name of a fertility god brought by the Etruscans from Asia Minor who appeared early in Rome with the name Saturu and that scenes of song and dance at his festival were given the name satura with lanx satura as a symbol of fruitfulness. Livy thus preserves the truth about dramatic importations from Etruria.64 To this theory there are two main objections. First, apart from the general flimsiness of the linguistic evidence offered, it is a fact of language that the a in Saturnus is unequivocally long. Secondly, as the extent of Etruscan influence on the Roman stage is problematical, it is unwise to base an elaborate theory about satura on any such hypothetical dramatic connection.

  Two more theories link dramatic satura to the cult of a god. According to the first saturi are demonic men, the followers of Dionysus and satura, an abstract noun meaning ‘satiety’, is the song of the satisfied men. As dramatic satura is based on a cult of Dionysus, it is thus the counterpart in Rome of Old Attic Comedy.65 This ingenious hypothesis has considerable charm, but it is too speculative to win assent, and so it must he concluded that Dionysus has nothing to do with satire.

  The second theory seeks parallels for satura in the banter that was part of certain Demeter cults in Greece and Sicily and in the or mixed potion that had an important place in the religion of Demeter or Ceres.66 Satura, it is argued, is abstract and means ‘fullness’. Dramatic satura is thus the dance and song that belonged to a Ceres festival.67 Once again the speculation is enterprising, but it has serious weaknesses. There is no evidence for rough jesting at any Roman ritual belonging to Ceres and, as stated earlier, the association of the lanx with Ceres seems nothing other than the guess of a grammarian who speculated where his predecessors and betters had failed to specify.

  In conclusion it seems that all attempts to seek the origin of satura in jocularities attendant on the cults of Saturn, Dionysus or Ceres fail to convince and that theories deriving the word satura from Etruscan are at best not proven. Unless new literary or epigraphical material appears, it is reasonable to accept, possibly with reservations, Diomedes’ explanation that satura took its name from a full dish offered in solemn ritual or from a stuffed sausage.

  3 The Satires of Ennius1

  Ennius, the author of Rome’s first great national epic, was also the creator of Roman satura. He was the first Roman to gather into the same book verses of varied topic and metre, and for this miscellaneous collection he chose the name Saturae. In making such a collection he followed precedents from Alexandrian poetry and scholarship; in his choice of title he was original, for the word had never been used before of a species of literature, and was unique among Roman literary titles in that it was not a Greek loan-word.

  The late Latin grammarian Diomedes, whose testimony goes back to republican times, states that at first satura was poetry compounded of various pieces of verse as with Ennius and his nephew Pacuvius, and that late
r it developed in the hands of Lucilius and his successors into the poetry of castigation.2 Quintilian also seems to refer obliquely to a pre-Lucilian stage of satura.3 Ennius is the only exponent of this kind of satura of whose works we have any knowledge; no doubt they were earlier than the Saturae of his nephew Pacuvius, of which nothing whatsoever is known.4 It is clear from Diomedes that the tone and contents of the earliest satura contrasted fundamentally with the vituperation in the works of Lucilius and later satirists. Thus while there is some element of censoriousness in the extant fragments of Ennius’ satura, the quality for which satire has been famous is relatively unimportant in the work of its first practitioner.

  1 The life of Ennius

  Quintus Ennius was born at the small town of Rudiae (modern Rugge), near Lecce in ancient Calabria, the heel of Italy, in 239 B.C.; this was two years after the end of the first Carthaginian war and at a time when there was an intensification of Roman influence in southern Italy.5 He was of Messapian stock, descended from invaders from across the Adriatic and no doubt with more plausibility than truthfulness claimed as his ancestor King Messapus, who had settled in Italy.6 It is likely that he received his education at the nearby Greek city of Tarentum, and presumably this took place before Hannibal arrived in southern Italy after Cannae (216 B.C.). He served as a soldier in Sardinia probably with Rome’s Calabrian auxiliaries and during this period came to the notice of M. Porcius Cato, quaestor in Sicily in 204 B.C., who was said to have brought him back to Rome with him.7 The reason for Cato’s action has occasioned much speculation. It is unlikely that it was Ennius’ military prowess that attracted the attention of Cato. However hostile Cato’s attitude to Greek culture then and later, it seems likely that he brought Ennius to Rome in order to be instructed by him in the Greek language, for the story that he learned Greek late in life is improbable.8 In Rome Ennius, like Livius Andronicus before him, taught Latin and Greek in addition to his dramatic and other literary activities, and for all his connections with great men of the state lived on the Aventine until the end of his life simply and without the appurtenances of wealth.9 In 189 B.C. he was taken by the consul Fulvius Nobilior on his campaign in Aetolia as his personal poet10 and five years later, according to the ancient tradition, received Roman citizenship through the son of Nobilior, the colonial commissioner for Potentia.11 Ennius stated himself and Horace confirmed that he habitually composed poetry when inspired by strong drink. But this should not be taken too seriously, as the connection between the inspiration of wine and that of poetry was traditional.12 However he died of gout in 169 B.C. at the age of seventy.13

  Ennius’ first language was probably Illyrian, but when later he speaks of having tria corda he means that he was master of three media of thought and expression, Greek, Oscan and Latin. Oscan at that time was a lingua franca of southern Italy, and Ennius’ sister, as the name of her son Pacuvius shows, was married to an Oscan. Greek was the dominant language of education and culture in southern Italy, and the label semigraecus was as true of Ennius’ intellectual orientation as of that of Livius Andronicus.14 Tarentum was no doubt able to supply him with a knowledge of the classics of Greek literature, even though its importance as an intellectual centre seems to have been in decline by the later part of the third century B.C.15 Though Tarentum was probably the source of Ennius’ basic knowledge of Greek culture, it did not infect him with the local hostility to Rome, and from early manhood Ennius must have been an admirer of Roman influence and achievement.

  When Ennius arrived in Rome, Livius Andronicus, by then a poet held in high esteem and honoured by the commission to write a cult hymn in a time of crisis in 207 B.C.. may already have been dead,16 and Naevius the dramatist and chronicler of the first Punic war, after his imprisonment for attacking the Metelli, had left Rome, bequeathing the lesson that without the support of powerful families no poet dare be outspoken.17 The comic poet Plautus was already producing plays in Rome; in his Miles Gloriosus (211) he seems to refer to the imprisonment of Naevius as a current event.

  Soon after his arrival in Rome Ennius came under the patronage of Scipio Africanus, whose African campaign culminating in the decisive battle of Zama (202 B.C.) he lauded in a poem Scipio (Varia 1–14V) probably written shortly after the events. Ennius was highly esteemed by Africanus, and an anecdote preserved by Cicero shows easy familiarity between Ennius and Scipio Nasica, the cousin of Africanus. The tradition that Ennius’ statue and even his remains were placed beside those of the Scipios, though unlikely, suggests at least that he was particularly associated with the family and never completely estranged from them.18 In later years he seems to have owed both a commission and his citizenship to the Fulvii, political rivals of the Scipionic bloc. Fulvius Nobilior was criticized by Cato for having taken Ennius on his campaign in Aetolia. The apparently changed attitude of Cato towards his former client may be explained in various ways. The former soldier who taught Greek had become a purveyor of pernicious Greek culture, and Fulvius Nobilior was a political enemy, who indulged in the Greek practice of having a poet in his retinue to celebrate his success.19 Ennius was also a friend of Servius Sulpicius Galba, who seems to have been associated with the political group of Fulvius Nobilior20 Ennius from time to time served various of the chief men of the state, but he should not be regarded as a catspaw in the political struggles of rival family groups. Whether or not one accepts the opinion of the grammarian Aelius Stilo that the description in the Annals of the discreet political confidant is a self-portrait,21 the stories of easy familiarity with various members of the aristocratic establishment suggest that Ennius was able to perform commissions without being bought exclusively by a single political interest.

  Ennius was well equipped to be a poet both of the great deeds of men and affairs and also of the minutiae of their social intercourse. He had lived among people of widely differing societies and languages, and was expert in the classics of Greek literature. He knew military life both as a serving soldier and as the companion of a general in the field, and as the confidant of some of the most successful politicians of the age he was no doubt privy to important manoeuvres of statesmanship.

  2 The writings of Ennius

  Ennius’ main work was the Annals, the epic chronicle of the development of Rome from the beginnings to his own times. This was the archetypal creation of early Roman poetry and without it later poetry would have been fundamentally different.22 He was also famous for his tragedies on Greek themes, many of them tales of the valour and suffering of war.23 Thus he was primarily an inspired poet in the grand manner, the disciple of the Muses of Greek literature, who in the proem to the Annals stated that the shade of Homer had passed into him through a Pythagorean transmigration of soul.24 But he also wrote in less exalted genres of poetry. His comedies, of which almost nothing is known today, had no great reputation in antiquity. He also composed historical plays or praetextae, a variety of occasional poems, and the saturae.

  In this multifarious output no consistent pattern of poetic activity and development can be traced. The fragments are too few to show any stylistic evolution. Criteria from metrical technique are inconclusive, as Ennius may have permitted certain variations between the procedure of the Annals and that of the minor works.25 External indications for dating his works are few. He completed the tragedy Thyestes shortly before his death.26 The political poems Scipio and Ambracia were presumably written shortly after the events they celebrated.27 The dating of the saturae is problematical. Reference to Scipio (frg. 10–11) would suggest a relatively early date, probably though not certainly before his patron’s death in 184 B.C. If, as seems likely, the reference to the Ligurian town of Luna comes not from the Annals but from the Saturae this is a slight indication for a late date, as Luna did not become a Roman colony until 177 B.C.28 But there is no reason to suppose that all the miscellaneous poems that made up Ennius’ saturae were composed at about the same time. His main work, the Annals, occupied him for many years and may well have been interrupted fro
m time to time by occasional poems in a more relaxed manner.

  Porphyrio states that Ennius wrote four books of saturae and there is no good reason to doubt his explicit statement.29 A corrupt reference in some manuscripts of Donatus was emended by Stephanus into e sexto satyrarum Ennii. Even if this emendation were accepted, it would be reasonable to argue that the numeral had been corrupted at an early stage and that the error is more likely to have arisen in Donatus, who quoted merely in order to identify a source of Terence, than in Porphyrio, who states explicitly how many books of saturae Ennius wrote.30

  Our knowledge of the contents of Ennius’ saturae is scanty. Some thirty-one lines of verse are extant, most of them isolated lines quoted by writers from the Christian era for some lexical or grammatical oddity. There are in addition a prose paraphrase of one of the saturae and a few indirect references. Some fragments of Ennius and references are customarily assigned to the saturae not through the explicit attribution of the citing authority but on grounds of literary plausibility.31 Frequently a Greek parallel provides the only means of showing the possible context of a fragment.

  Some of the satires are devoted to or at least included the writer’s comments on his own life and descriptions of social situations:

  Enni poeta salve, qui mortalibus versus

  propinas flammeos medullitus. (6f.)

  (Good health to you, poet Ennius for passing on to mankind a deep draught of blazing verse.)

  These lines from the third book of the saturae illustrate one of the greatest difficulties in the interpretation of all fragmentary texts: we do not know whether the words purport to be spoken by Ennius or by some speaker whom the poet reports. If the poet is the speaker here, he either preens himself or justifies himself in the manner of a writer of Old Comedy. But the words may be spoken by an admiring god in a dream or (more likely) an ebullient fellow poet at a symposium or even a gratified patron.32