A History of Roman Literature

FOOTNOTES:

1 Even if this work and some treatises on grammar should be ascribed to a later Ennius, which is not proved, the works of the great poet were sufficiently various.

2 Ancient customs and men cause the Roman republic to prosper.

3 Whom no one with the sword could overcome nor by bribing.

4 This line occurs in a context which is worth translating. “I do not ask gold for myself, and do not you offer me a ransom: not waging the war like hucksters, but like soldiers, with the sword, not with gold, let us strive for our lives. Let us try by our valor whether our mistress Fortune wishes you or me to rule.”

5 Aulus Gellius, xii, 4.

6 Quoted by Cicero, De Deor. Nat. II, 35, 89.

7 Rudens, 160-173.

8 Persa, 204-224.

9 Phormio, 784 ff. Translated by M. H. Morgan.

10 Quoted by Pliny, N. H. xxix, 7, 14.

11 De Re Rustica, i.

12 A brief description of some of the feet and metres most frequently used by Roman poets may be useful. These were, with the exception of the Saturnian verse (see p. 7), borrowed, with certain modifications, from the Greek. The most usual feet are the iambus (?—), the trochee (—?), the spondee (——), the dactyl (—??), the anapÆst (??—), and the choriambus (—??—). The dactylic hexameter consists of six feet, each of which is either a dactyl or a spondee, though the sixth is always a spondee and the fifth almost always a dactyl. An illustration of this is the line from Lucilius,

Maior erat natu; non omnia possumus omnes,

the rhythm of which is retained in this translation:

He was the elder by birth; not all of us all things can compass.

The iambic senarius consists of six iambics, as

Hominem inter vivos quaÉritamus mÓrtuom.

(Plautus, Menaechmi, 240.)

Among the living we do seek a man who’s dead.

This is a common metre in the dialogue parts of dramas. It is one foot longer than the line in English blank verse. The trochaic septenarius, also a common metre in the drama, consists of seven trochees and an additional long syllable. The English line

Do not lift him from the bracken; leave him lying where he fell

gives an idea of the rhythm.

The elegiac distich consists of an hexameter followed by a so-called pentameter, that is, a line made up of six dactyls or spondees, with the omission of the last half of the third and of the sixth feet. This is illustrated and described by Coleridge in the lines,

In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column.

In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

In the iambic and trochaic metres other feet are often substituted for the iambus and the trochee, but without change of rhythm.

Some of the other metres will be explained or illustrated as they occur.

13 iv, Frg. 8, MÜller.

14 v, Frg. 33, MÜller.

15 vi, Frg. 16, MÜller.

16 libr. incert., Frg. 1, MÜller.

17 Lucius Ælius PrÆconinus Stilo, of Lanuvium, Stoic philosopher, philologist and rhetorician, was the first to give regular lessons in Latin literature and eloquence and to apply the historical method to the study of the Latin language. He was born not far from 154 B. C., and lived well into the first century B. C. His contemporary, Quintus Valerius Soranus (from Sora), also wrote on Latin literature, the study of which was, in his case, joined with that of Roman antiquities. Volcacius Sedigitus, of whose personality nothing is known, wrote a didactic poem on the history of Latin literature about 90 B. C. Besides these, numerous works on grammar, philology, antiquities, agriculture, and other subjects were written by various authors, whose names are in many cases lost, but whose works served as quarries from which Varro and other writers derived their treasures of learning.

Many prominent Romans played some part in the progress of literature. So Publius Rutilius Rufus (born about 158 B. C., consul in 105, died about 75) studied the Stoic philosophy, published speeches, juristic writings, and an autobiography in Latin, and wrote a history in Greek, while Quintus Lutatius Catulus (born about 152 B. C., consul in 102, died in 87) published orations and epigrams. Among the letters written and published in this period none were more admired than those of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.

18 Jerome, in Eusebius’ Chronicle, year 1922 of Abraham, i. e., 95 B. C.

19 Vita Vergilii, 2.

20 Ad Quintum Fratrem, II, xi, 4.

21 Book i, 921-947.

22 iii, 830 f.

23 Book ii, 172.

24 ii, 14 ff.

25 v, 18.

26 Book i, 271-294.

27 ii, 323-332 and ii, 40-43.

28 i, 716-725.

29 ii, 573-579.

30 ii, 29-33.

31 i, 1-9, translation by Goldwin Smith.

32 Book ii, 1-13, translated by C. S. Calverley.

33 c. cxiii, l. 2.

34 cc. xi and xxix.

35 Translated by Theodore Martin.

36 c. v.

37 c. iii. Translated by Goldwin Smith in Bay-Leaves.

38 c. xxxi, Translated by C. S. Calverley.

39 De Oratore, i, 15, 64.

40 Ibid., i, 8, 34.

41 Pro Ligario, 1.

42 Pro Lege Manilia, 5, 11.

43 Pro Archia Poeta, 7, 16.

44 In Verrem, ii, v, 52.

45 De Divinatione, ii, 1.

46 Ep. ad Atticum, iii, 5, Shuckburgh’s translation.

47 Ep. ad Familiares, ix, 1, Shuckburgh’s translation.

48 Ep. ad Atticum, ix, 18.

49 Hirtius, De Bello Gallico, viii, 1.

50 Catiline, 1.

51 Ibid., 31.

52 Ecl. i, 1-10. The selections from the Eclogues are given in the translation by C. S. Calverley.

53 Ibid., 42-45.

54 Ecl. iv, 1-17.

55 Ecl. v, 1-18.

56 Georgics, i, 461-483.

57 Georgics, ii, 136 ff.

58 Ibid., ii, 458-460.

59 Ibid., iii, 9-18.

60 Ibid., iv, 149 ff.

61 Æneid, i, 142-156. The selections from the Æneid are given in Conington’s translation.

62 Æneid, iv, 607-629.

63 Ibid., vi, 868-686.

64 Æneid, ix, 446-449.

65 Epist. II, ii, 51.

66 Sat. I. v.

67 Sat. I, iv, 103-120, freely translated by Conington.

68 Sat. I, x, 40-49, freely translated by Conington.

69 Epode ii, 1-4.

70 Epist. I, xix, 23.

71 Od. I, xxxviii, translated by Sir Theodore Martin.

72 Od. I, ix, Calverley’s version.

73 I, iii, 1-9, 53-56, translated by James Grainger.

74 I, xii. Elton’s translation.

75 Ex Ponto, IV, xvi.

76 Book i, 499-507. The same subject is continued through line 530.

77 Book v, 540-615.

78 Tristia, IV, x, 69.

79 Tristia, II, 107 ff.

80 Ovid, Amores II, xviii, 27 ff.

81 Lines 177 ff.

82 Tristia, I, vii, 13 ff.

83 Argonautica, III, 750 ff. Virgil, Æneid, IV, 522 ff., imitates Apollonius more closely.

84 Especially Tristia, IV, x.

85 Ibid., I, iii, 1-4.

86 Ibid., I, vi, III, iii, IV, iii, V, ii, 1-44, xi, xiv, Ex Ponto, I, iv, III, i.

87 Tristia, III, vii.

88 xxxvii, 39 ff.

89 xxi, 10.

90 This is the generally accepted date, but it is possible that Vitruvius may have lived somewhat later.

91 Hercules Furens, Troades (or Hecuba), PhoenissÆ (or ThebaÏs, two disconnected scenes from Theban myths), Medea, PhÆdra (or Hippolytus), Œdipus, Agamemnon, Thyestes, and Hercules ŒtÆus. The Fabula PrÆtexta entitled Octavia is not by Seneca.

92 Lines 893-944. Translated by Ella Isabel Harris.

93 This Lucilius has been supposed, though without sufficient reason, to be the author of the Ætna (see p. 141).

94 Pharsalia, ix, 256-283.

Verum hÆc ipse equidem spatiis exclusus iniquis
PrÆtereo atque aliis post me memoranda relinquo.
Virgil, Georgics, iv, 147 f.

96 Thebais, xi, 580-585.

97 Pliny, Ep. III, xxi.

98 I, xiii. These selections are translated by Goldwin Smith in Bay Leaves.

99 III, xxxv.

100 III, xli.

101 IV, viii.

102 Inst. Orat., vi, 3, 5.

103 Ibid., vi, 3, 5.

104 Ibid., vii, 7, 2

105 The prÆnomen is uncertain. The best manuscript (Mediceus I) gives it as Publius, later manuscripts and Sidonius Apollinaris as Gaius.

106 Agricola, 2.

107 Annals, i, 58.

108 Ann., ii, 77.

109 Ann., iii, 6.

110 Ann., iii, 27.

111 Hist., ii, 95.

112 Hist., iv, 74.

113 Agric., 9.

114 Sat. i, 30.

115 Sat. i, 79.

116 Sat. i, 85 f.

117 Sat. iii, 41 ff.

118 Sat. x, 356.

119 Sat. vi, 165.

120 Sat. x, 81.

121 Sat. vi, 223.

122 Sat. vi, 347.

123 Sat. viii, 84.

124 Sat. xiv, 47.

125 Ep., II, xvii.

126 Ibid., V, vi.

127 Ibid., VI, xvi, xx.

128 Ibid., VII, xxxiii.

129 Ep., VII, xx.

130 To-morrow he shall love who ne’er has loved, and he who has loved to-morrow shall love.

131

It is new spring; spring already harmonious; in spring Jove was born.

In the spring loves join together; in the spring the birds wed.

132

She (the swallow) is singing, we are silent. When will my spring come?
When shall I become like the swallow and cease to be silent?
I have lost the Muse by keeping silent, and Apollo cares not for me.

133 The poem is the last of the Instructiones. The title reads: Nomen Gasei and the initial letters of the lines read from the last to the first from the words: Commodianus mendicus Christi. From this it is inferred that Commodian was GasÆus, i. e., from Gaza.

134 The chief Latin writer on philosophy was Firmicus Maternus, whose eight books, Matheseos (Of Learning), published about 354 A. D., are occupied with Neoplatonic astrology. He is to be distinguished from his Christian contemporary and namesake, who wrote of the Error of the Pagan Religions. Gaius Marius Victorinus, who also lived about the middle of the century, was an African by birth, but taught rhetoric at Rome. He was the author of philosophical works, chiefly translations and adaptations from the Greek, but is best known by his extant work on metres in four books, and by some other extant grammatical treatises. In his later life he became a Christian, and wrote commentaries on St. Paul’s epistles, besides some controversial tracts.

135 These grammatical works have little literary value of their own, and owe their importance to the fact that they contain information which is not elsewhere preserved. The same is true of several handbooks of various kinds compiled in the fourth century. Such are the Itineraries, giving the distances and routes between the towns along the Roman roads, the Notitia, describing the regions of the city of Rome, and a historical handbook of Rome for the year 354 A. D. preserved most fully in a manuscript in Vienna. A few maps of this period also exist, the most famous of which is the Peutinger Tablet (Tabula Peutingeriana), now in Vienna. A handbook of Agriculture (De Re Rustica) by Palladius, and the Epitome of Military Science (Epitoma Rei Militaris) by Flavius Vegetius Renatus, who also wrote an extant treatise on Veterinary Medicine (Mulomedicina), may properly be mentioned here, and these works possess also some slight literary interest.

136 In 369 A. D. Festus wrote a handbook similar to that of Eutropius, but of less merit. The list of prodigies that took place from 249 to 12 B. C., compiled by Julius Obsequens from an abridgment of Livy, probably belongs to about the same time. Since a large part of Livy’s history is lost, such works as these are of some value.

137 De Bello Gildonico, i, 21-25.

138 De Reditu Suo, i, 55-66. Translated by A. J. Church.

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