Tum autem lascivom Nerei sumum pecus
Ludens ad cantum classem lustratur (? choro);
(Then Nereus’ wanton snub-nosed flock in fun
Frolic to music choir-like round the fleet.)
or from his Andromeda: ‘Confluges ubi conventu campum totum inumigant’. (When the waters in their concourse congregate to flood the plain) (J. Wight Duff).
More has survived of the work of Naevius (c. 270–199), an Italian whose outspoken comments on the nobility, especially the Metelli, led to his imprisonment towards the end of the Hannibalic War. He wrote two plays in prison retracting his remarks, and so was released, but he later died in exile at Utica. His first plays were produced in 235. Titles of seven of his tragedies from Greek mythology survive. He first ‘contaminated’ plays by adopting features from two originals,6 and he set a new fashion by writing historical plays (fabulae praetextae): an Alimonia Romuli et Remi and Clastidium, celebrating the exploits of Marcellus in 222. His comedies and epic poetry, however, achieved greater fame. We have the titles of thirty-four comedies, which were apparently amusing, mordant and outspoken. Some were based on Greek New Comedy (palliatae), others on native life (togatae): from The Girl from Tarentum (Tarentilla) there survives a vivacious description of the wiles of a flirt. Even more important was his epic in Saturnians, the Bellum Punicum, describing the first war in which Naevius himself fought; the earlier part recounts the legendary origin of Rome and Carthage by way of introduction. This work had considerable influence on Ennius and Virgil. Naevius’ style is sometimes rigorous, sometimes bald (cf. his famous ‘noble Duke of York’ lines: Marcus Valerius consul|Partem exerciti in expeditionem|Ducit). But his fondness for compound words (as arquitenens, frundiferos) shows that a poetic diction was being created. His genius was essentially Latin; ‘full of Campanian (or as we should say “Castilian”) pride,’ he composed his epitaph which claimed that after his death men forgot to speak the Latin tongue at Rome: ‘Oblitei sunt Romai loquier lingua Latina’. At any rate he had laid the foundation of the national epic.
Q. Ennius (239–169), Rome’s soldier-poet who more truly than Livius can claim the title of father of Latin poetry, was born in Calabria and was brought to Rome from military service in Sardinia by Cato in 204. There he taught and wrote, winning the friendship of Scipio and Fulvius, and ultimately attaining full citizenship. He spoke Greek, Mesopic and Latin and showed great versatility of gifts. He took a large part in introducing Greek thought to Rome; in southern Italy he had absorbed much of the thought of Pythagoreanism, Epicharmus, Euhemerus and Epicurus. It is a paradox of fate that this Hellenist should have been brought to Rome by Cato. His comedies were slight, but he adapted at least twenty Greek tragedies, especially plays of Euripides whose critical spirit thus spoke from the Roman stage; he perhaps reintroduced the chorus into tragedy. He excelled in presenting moving situations, such as Alcmaeon hounded by the Furies, Cassandra’s sorrows, or the emotional farewell of captive Andromache:
O pater, O patria, O Priami domus,
Saeptum altisono cardine templum.
In his Saturne Ennius developed a new type of literature, a general commentary on life in the form of narrative, anecdote, fable or dialogue. To the satura may belong his Euhemerus and Epicharmus, his Scipio which honoured his patron Africanus, and perhaps his Ambracia which celebrated the exploits of Fulvius Nobilior. Ennius’ greatest contribution was the eighteen books of his Annals, an epic account of Rome from earliest times down to 172 BC, written in hexameters. His description of the First Punic War was slight, as Naevius had already covered the ground in Saturnians. Whether the mixing of epic poetry and contemporary history was successful or not, Ennius provided Rome with a national epic which found its unity, not in its form, but in its conception of the grandeur of Rome’s expanding greatness. The attempt by one who claimed to be the Roman Homer to adapt the Latin language to a Greek dactylic metre was bound to result in a certain roughness of form (e.g. the famous tmesis ‘Saxo cere comminuit brum’ for ‘Saxo cerebrum comminuit’); but there were flashes of real beauty and impressive sonority: ingenio maximus, arte rudis. Many lines epitomize the spirit of early Rome: ‘qui vincit non est victor nisi victu’ fatetur’; ‘moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque’; Curius ‘quem nemo ferro potuit superare neque auro’; and Fabius, ‘unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem’. The measure of Ennius’ success is the measure of the debt that Lucretius, Virgil and other poets owed him:
Ennius ut noster cecinit qui primus amoeno
detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam.
Later generations could with truth repeat the epitaph of such a poet:
Nemo me dacrumis decoret nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? Volito vivu’ per ora virum.
And Quintilian could say: ‘Let us worship Ennius like groves hallowed by age, where the great old oaks are not so much beautiful as awe-inspiring.’7
M. Pacuvius (c. 220–130), the nephew of Ennius, was a painter and writer. Beside saturae and a praetexta, named Paullus, he composed tragedies based on the Greek tragedians. His language was at times stilted and quaint, as in his description of dolphins as ‘Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus’, but he had a vivid pen and was regarded in the Ciceronian age as Rome’s tragic poet. The other claimant to this title was his junior L. Accius (170– c. 86), after whom the writing of tragedy declined.
T. Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184) specialized in comedy. His early hardships in Rome, where at one time he worked as an actor or stage carpenter, at another in a flour mill, have been questioned, but his later popularity doubtless stabilized his position. One hundred and thirty plays masqueraded under his name, until Varro drew up a canonical list of twenty-one, of which all survive, though one only in fragments. A few were written towards the close of the Hannibalic War, the majority in the second century. Plautus drew on Philemon, Diphilus, Menander and other writers of Greek New Comedy, but he did not reproduce them in detail. New Comedy of Athens was a comedy of manners far removed from the vigorous Aristophanic caricature of individuals. A certain variety was displayed in this social satire, but the characters and plots tended to conform to type: the young lover, the confidential slave, the parasite, the courtesan, the pander and the braggart soldier. To transpose this immoral world on to the Roman stage would have shocked some and bored others, but Plautus wrote for his audience with great skill. By retaining the Greek background he was able to convince his hearers that they were witnessing life in a foreign land; and many would enjoy a display of the weakness of human nature or the antics of an impudent Greek slave, if they thought it would not corrupt their own national life: ‘Licet haec Athenis nobis’ (Plaut., Stich., 448). By imposing a Roman touch here and there Plautus interested his audience, who heard Roman characters generally referred to as ‘barbarians’, but who also saw Roman military and legal customs prevailing in a Greek setting and heard Latin puns as well as occasional references to contemporary events. Plautus cared nothing for consistency, just as Shakespeare when following Plutarch did not hesitate to let Theseus appear in English court dress. He played to his gallery still further by replacing the polish of his models with a coarse and boisterous Roman humour of a knockabout type: the banging of doors, the beating of slaves, scenes of rioting, eating and drinking, or the elephantine tread of a man disguised as a bride would appeal more to a Roman than to a Greek playgoer. Finally, Plautus, perhaps developing a movement introduced by Livius and Naevius, changed his models into something approaching a modern comic opera. Menander’s plays were written mainly in iambic senarii which were spoken by the actor, but Plautus retained this metre only for about one quarter of each play; the rest was brisker, either delivered as a recitative accompanied by a flute or else pure lyrics which were sung. A Greek visiting a Roman theatre would have found the Plautine version of a play that he knew very different from the original.
Of the plays themselves little can be said here. Apart from the Amphitruo (imitated by Molière and D
ryden) which is a tragicomedy influenced by South Italian humour rather than a fabula palliata, they fall into various types as well as into ‘plays pleasant and unpleasant’. Many are comedies of intrigue, others are character plays (as the Miles Gloriosus), some are based on cases of mistaken identity (e.g. the Menaechmi, imitated in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors), others on the motive of recognition (ἀναγνώϱισιç); the Captivi is unique in containing no female characters. The appeal of Plautus lies primarily in his vis comica expressed in racy language. As in the New Comedy there was an underlying element of universal appeal, so Plautus strikes a semi-serious note at times, as in the treatment of his central theme of love. Though he lacks the lyrical sweetness of Aristophanes, he has something of the great master’s joy in living; his exuberant fun is not far removed from the full-blooded energy of the Elizabethans. Here lies his wide appeal to which even St Jerome and Luther responded.
Among other composers of palliatae was Caecilius Statius (c. 219–168), an Insubrian war captive who became the first Celtic author in Rome. In language he naturally fell short of the Latinity of Plautus or Terence, but his plots were considered first-class, either because he indulged in ‘contamination’ less than his contemporaries or perhaps because, like Terence later, he created an element of surprise by not disclosing the outline of the plot in his prologues. Better known through the survival of six plays, written between 166 and 160, is the younger poet whose work Caecilius encouraged: P. Terentius Afer (c. 195–159), an emancipated slave from Africa who became an intimate member of the Scipionic circle. By Terence’s day the attitude of Roman society to things Greek was changing, so that he found it possible to hellenize the palliatae still further. His plays are more homogeneous and lack the Roman element introduced by Plautus; the lyric parts are reduced in favour of spoken iambic parts; his interweaving of two plots is more skilful, so that Julius Caesar could call him ‘Menander halved’. The society and morality which he depicts is the same as in Plautus, but the tone is more refined; there is less coarseness and less comedy. The plots tend towards monotony; the reader never laughs and sometimes forgets to smile. But Terence shows a greater human interest and kindliness than his predecessor. His language is not an echo from the street, but from a cultured society. His neatness of expression has enshrined many a famous thought, as ‘fortes fortuna adiuvat’, ‘modo liceat vivere, est spes’, ‘quot homines, tot sententiae’, or ‘homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto’. ‘A lover of pure Latin’ (puri sermonis amator), Terence clothed Latin comedy most nearly in its original Attic grace. But in doing this he nearly killed Graeco-Latin comedy: Plautus had made it popular by partial nationalization, but Terence destroyed any chance of it becoming a popular national growth. The refinement and charm of his language and the dexterity of his plots might appeal to the educated Hellenists, but the common people, for whom the plays were really staged at the festivals, soon grew tired and found rope-dancers and gladiators more attractive than The Mother-in-Law (Hecyra).
This reaction against palliatae favoured the production of togatae. Titinius, a late rival of Plautus, solved the difficult problem of presenting the love story of Greek comedy in a Roman setting without offending Roman taste by choosing for his scene the free society of Italian village communities. The recovery of his lost plays, such as The Lady of the Dye Shop or The Dancing Girl of Ferentinum, would throw a welcome light on social conditions on which we have little contemporary evidence.
3. PROSE WRITERS
At Rome, as elsewhere, prose developed more slowly than poetry. It served law and government, legal and annalistic purposes, but it was long before history was written in Latin. The first Roman historian, Fabius Pictor, wrote an account of Rome from its origins in Greek, partly because his own language had not become flexible and partly as propaganda to impress the Greek world with the growing importance of the Roman people. His example was followed by Cincius Alimentus, who had been captured by Hannibal, by the son of Scipio Africanus, by Albinus the consul of 151, and by Acilius. Some of these works were later translated into Latin. Poetry might be left to freedmen, but those who had contributed to the making of Roman history naturally wished to leave some record of Rome’s struggles.
The father of Latin prose was Cato the Censor. He wrote a history in Latin, thereby setting an example which was followed by the annalists of the Gracchan era. This account of Rome’s development from early times down to Cato’s own time was called the Origines (see p. 370). Cato wrote other books, including an encyclopaedia which contained treatises on rhetoric, medicine and agriculture, and probably also on military affairs and law. His only surviving work is the De agri cultura, a practical manual of household economy and estate management; its style, modernized by later copyists, was prosaic, terse and simple. Of his speeches about 150 were known to Cicero; the style is blunt, vigorous and vivid, and Cato followed the advice which he gave to his son: ‘rem tene, verba sequentur.’ We hear of orators who preceded him: for instance, the stirring speech in which Appius Claudius denounced treating with Pyrrhus remained a Roman classic. Appius’ other literary activities included the authorship of Sayings inspired by Pythagorean doctrine, and a reform of Roman writing. Reference is made to the funeral speeches delivered by Fabius Cunctator for his son and by Q. Caecilius Metellus for his father. Ennius hailed Cethegus, the consul of 204, as ‘the very heart of persuasion’ (suadae medulla), while the elder Scipio, Sempronius Gracchus and Aemilius Paullus had good reputations as orators. Sextus Aelius Paetus, consul of 198, composed a legal handbook named Tripertita, which contained the text of the Twelve Tables, their interpretation, and forms of lawsuits. The work was regarded as the ‘cradle of the law’ (cunabula iuris).
That early Roman prose was as formless as the English prose of Chaucer is shown by early inscriptions, the rambling Duilian inscription or a passage from Ennius’ Euhemerus quoted by Lactantius. But the necessity of public debate in the Senate-house, Forum and law courts forced men to argue lucidly and to dignify their expressions in accord with the gravity of their themes. Cato might care little for the sound or rhythm of his words, but his earnestness to drive home his points must have shaped his words more keenly than a mere academic study of Greek rhetoric would have done. It was Roman public life, more than the inspiration of Greek models, that moulded the early prose into a language which under Cicero’s genius became ‘the prose of the human race’.
4. ART8
The enthusiasm for Greek art in the nineteenth century obscured the existence of Roman art, which was regarded as a pale and debased reflection of its Hellenic prototype. Even after Wickhoff’s discovery that Roman art had a separate existence, it was usually identified with the art of the Empire. But this is no longer possible. The existence of the primitive Italic stock, on which Etruscan and Greek shoots were grafted, has been recognized, though it is not always easy to see it distinctly through the luxuriant foreign growth. The Romans were not an artistic people in the same sense that the Athenians had been; their individualistic instincts might offend Greek aesthetic canons, but their realism was no less an expression of national character than was Greek idealism. The products of the Bronze Age and the Villanovans may not have reached a high standard of artistic perfection, but at least they contained the germs of a native art. This was fertilized by the Etruscans whose art had developed rapidly as a result of wider foreign contacts. But the evolution of Etruscan art was carried through on Italian soil and it is impossible to determine the share taken in this process by peoples of early Italic stock. Even if Etruscan art is set at its lowest level as deriving its whole vitality from Greece (and many would demur from so harsh a criticism), yet it cannot be denied that by fidelity to Ionic models it stimulated artistic production in many parts of Italy; and others would concede that the Italic background gave it something of value.9 It was through the Etruscans that Rome first came into contact with Greek art, but early in the fifth century she saw something of it first-hand. During the fifth and most of th
e fourth century Etruscan art was depressed, but it revived towards the end of the fourth. Rome’s widening influence then brought her first into Campania, where a flourishing Osco-Samnite variety of Italic art had succeeded the earlier culture of Etruscans and Greeks, and secondly into Magna Graecia and Sicily. But though ‘captive Greece overcame her savage conqueror and introduced the arts into rustic Latium’ she did not entirely overwhelm native characteristics.
A History of the Roman World Page 51