6. ORATORY, RHETORIC, AND HISTORY.—We may distinguish three epochs in the history of Attic prose from Pericles to Alexander the Great: first, that of Pericles and Thucydides; second, that of Lysias, Socrates, and Plato; and, third, that of Demosthenes and Aeschines. Public speaking had been common in Greece from the earliest times, but as the works of Athenian orators alone have come down to us, we may conclude that oratory was cultivated in a much higher degree at Athens than elsewhere. No speech of Pericles has been preserved in writing; only a few of his emphatic and nervous expressions were kept in remembrance; but a general impression of the grandeur of his oratory long prevailed among the Greeks, from which we may form a clear conception of his style. The sole object of the oratory of Pericles was to produce conviction; he did not aim to excite any sudden or transient burst of passion by working on the emotions of the heart; nor did he use any of those means employed by the orators of a later age to set in motion the unruly impulses of the multitude. His manner was tranquil, with hardly any change of feature; his garments were undisturbed by any oratorical gesticulations, and his voice was equable and sustained. He never condescended to flatter the people, and his dignity never stooped to merriment. Although there was more of reasoning than imagination in his speeches, he gave a vivid and impressive coloring to his language by the use of striking metaphors and comparisons, as when, at the funeral of a number of young persons who had fallen in battle, he used the beautiful figure, that "the year had lost its spring."

The cultivation of the art of oratory among the Athenians was due to a combination of the natural eloquence displayed by the Athenian statesmen, and especially by Pericles, with the rhetorical studies of the sophists, who exercised a greater influence on the culture of the Greek mind than any other class of men, the poets excepted. The sophists, as their name indicates, were persons who made knowledge their profession, and undertook to impart it to every one who was willing to place himself under their guidance; they were reproached with being the first to sell knowledge for money, for they not only demanded pay from those who came to hear their lectures, but they undertook, for a certain sum, to give young men a complete sophistical education. Pupils flocked to them in crowds, and they acquired such riches as neither art nor science had ever before earned among the Greeks. If we consider their doctrines philosophically, they amounted to a denial or renunciation of all true science. They were able to speak with equal plausibility for and against the same position; not in order to discover the truth, but to show the nothingness of truth. In the improvement of written composition, however, a high value must be set on their services. They made language the object of their study; they aimed at correctness and beauty of style, and they laid the foundation for the polished diction of Plato and Demosthenes. They taught that the sole aim of the orator is to turn the minds of his hearers into such a train as may best suit his own interest; that, consequently, rhetoric is the agent of persuasion, the art of all arts, because the rhetorician is able to speak well and convincingly on every subject, though he may have no accurate knowledge respecting it.

The Peloponnesian war, which terminated in the downfall of Athens, was succeeded by a period of exhaustion and repose. The fine arts were checked in their progress, and poetry degenerated into empty bombast. Yet at this very time prose literature began a new career, which led to its fairest development.

Lysias and Isocrates gave an entirely new form to oratory by the happy alterations which they in different ways introduced into the old prose style. Lysias (fl. 359 B.C.), in the fiftieth year of his age, began to follow the trade of writing speeches for such private individuals as could not trust their own skill in addressing a court; for this object, a plain, unartificial style was best suited, because citizens who called in the aid of the speech-writer had no knowledge of rhetoric, and thus Lysias was obliged to originate a style, which became more and more confirmed by habit. The consequence was, that for his contemporaries and for all ages he stands forth as the first and in many respects the perfect pattern of a plain style. The narrative part of the speech, for which he was particularly famous, is always natural, interesting, and lively, and often relieved by mimic touches which give it a wonderful air of reality. The proofs and confutations are distinguished by a clearness of reasoning and a boldness of argument which leave no room for doubt; in a word, the speeches are just what they ought to be in order to obtain a favorable decision, an object in which, it seems, he often succeeded. Of his many orations, thirty-five have come down to us.

Isocrates (fl. 338 B.C.) established a school for political oratory, which became the first and most flourishing in Greece. His orations were mostly destined for this school. Though neither a great statesman nor philosopher in himself, Isocrates constitutes an epoch as a rhetorician or artist of language. His influence extended far beyond the limits of his own school, and without his reconstruction of the style of Attic oratory we could have had no Demosthenes and no Cicero; through these, the school of Isocrates has extended its influence even to the oratory of our own day.

The verdict of his contemporaries, ratified by posterity, has pronounced Demosthenes (380-322 B.C.) the greatest orator that has ever lived, yet he had no natural advantages for oratory. A feeble frame and a weak voice, a shy and awkward manner, the ungraceful gesticulations of one whose limbs had never been duly exercised, and a defective articulation, would have deterred most men from even attempting to address an Athenian assembly; but the ambition and perseverance of Demosthenes enabled him to triumph over every disadvantage. He improved his bodily powers by running, his voice by speaking aloud as he walked up hill, or declaimed against the roar of the sea; he practiced graceful delivery before a looking-glass, and controlled his unruly articulation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. His want of fluency he remedied by diligent composition, and by copying and committing to memory the works of the best authors. By these means he came forth as the acknowledged leader of the assembly, and, even by the confession of his deadliest enemies, the first orator of Greece. His harangues to the people, and his speeches on public and private causes, which have been preserved, form a collection of sixty-one orations. The most important efforts of Demosthenes, however, were the series of public speeches referring to Philip of Macedon, and known as the twelve Philippics, a name which has become a general designation for spirited invectives. The main characteristic of his eloquence consisted in the use of the common language of his age and country. He took great pains in the choice and arrangement of his words, and aimed at the utmost conciseness, making epithets, even common adjectives, do the work of a whole sentence, and thus, by his perfect delivery and action, a sentence composed of ordinary terms sometimes smote with the weight of a sledge- hammer. In his orations there is not any long or close train of reasoning, still less any profound observations or remote and ingenious allusions, but a constant succession of remarks, bearing immediately on the matter in hand, perfectly plain, and as readily admitted as easily understood. These are intermingled with the most striking appeals either to feelings which all were conscious of, and deeply agitated by, though ashamed to own, or to sentiments which every man was panting to utter and delighted to hear thundered forth,—bursts of oratory, which either overwhelmed or relieved the audience. Such characteristics constituted the principal glory of the great orator.

The most eminent of the contemporaries of Demosthenes were Isaeus (420-348 B.C.), an artificial and elaborate orator; Lycurgus (393-328 B.C.), a celebrated civil reformer of Athens; Hypereides, contemporary of Lycurgus; and, above all, Aeschines (389-314 B.C.), the great rival of Demosthenes, of whose numerous speeches only three have been preserved. At a later period we find two schools of rhetoric, the Attic, founded by Aeschines, and the Asiatic, established by Hegesias of Magnesia. The former proposed as models of oratory the great Athenian orators, the latter depended on artificial manners, and produced speeches distinguished rather by rhetorical ornaments and a rapid flow of diction than by weight and force of style.

In the historical department, Thucydides (471-391 B.C.) began an entirely new class of historical writing. While Herodotus aimed at giving a vivid picture of all that fell under the cognizance of the senses, and endeavored to represent a superior power ruling over the destinies of princes and people, the attention of Thucydides was directed to human action, as it is developed from the character and situation of the individual. His history, from its unity of action, may be considered as a historical drama, the subject being the Athenian domination over Greece, and the parties the belligerent republics. Clearness in the narrative, harmony and consistency of the details with the general history, are the characteristics of his work; and in his style he combines the concise and pregnant oratory of Pericles with the vigorous but artificial style of the rhetoricians. Demosthenes was so diligent a student of Thucydides that he copied out his history eight times.

Xenophon (445-391 B.C.) may also be classed among the great historians, his name being most favorably known from the "Anabasis," in which he describes the retreat of the ten thousand Greek mercenaries in the service of Cyrus, the Persian king, among whom he himself played a prominent part. The minuteness of detail, the picturesque simplicity of the style, and the air of reality which pervades it, have made it a favorite with every age. In his memorials of Socrates, he records the conversations of a man whom he had admired and listened to, but whom he did not understand. In the language of Xenophon we find the first approximation to the common dialect, which became afterwards the universal language of Greece. He wrote several other works, in which, however, no development of one great and pervading idea can be found; but in all of them there is a singular clearness and beauty of description.

7. SOCRATES AND THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS.—Although Socrates (468-399 B.C.) left no writings behind him, yet the intellect of Greece was powerfully affected by the principles of his philosophy, and the greatest literary genius that ever appeared in Hellas owed most of his mental training to his early intercourse with him. It was by means of conversation, by a searching process of question and answer, that Socrates endeavored to lead his pupils to a consciousness of their own ignorance, and thus to awaken in their minds an anxiety to obtain more exact views. This method of questioning he reduced to a scientific process, and "dialectics" became a name for the art of reasoning and the science of logic. The subject-matter of this method was moral science considered with special reference to politics. To him may be justly attributed induction and general definitions, and he applied this practical logic to a common-sense estimate of the duties of man both as a moral being and as a member of a community, and thus he first treated moral philosophy according to scientific principles. No less than ten schools of philosophers claimed him as their head, though the majority of them imperfectly represented his doctrines. By his influence on Plato, and through him on Aristotle, he constituted himself the founder of the philosophy which is still recognized in the civilized world.

From the doctrine held by Socrates, that virtue was dependent on knowledge, Eucleides of Megara (fl. 398 B.C.), the founder of the Megaric school, submitted moral philosophy to dialectical reasoning and logical refinements; and from the Socratic principle of the union between virtue and happiness, Aristippus of Cyrene (fl. 396 B.C.) deduced the doctrine which became the characteristic of the Cyrenian school, affirming that pleasure was the ultimate end of life and the higher good; while Antisthenes (fl. 396 B.C.) constructed the Cynic philosophy, which placed the ideal of virtue in the absence of every need, and hence in the disregarding of every interest, wealth, honor, and enjoyment, and in the independence of any restraints of life and society. Diogenes of Sinope (fl. 300 B.C.) was one of the most prominent followers of this school. He, like his master, Antisthenes, always appeared in the most beggarly clothing, with the staff and wallet of mendicancy; and this ostentation of self-denial drew from Socrates the exclamation, that he saw the vanity of Antisthenes through the holes in his garments.

Plato (429-348 B.C.) was the only—one of the disciples of Socrates who represented the whole doctrines of his teacher. We owe to him that the ideas which Socrates awakened have been made the germ of one of the grandest systems of speculation that the world has ever seen, and that it has been conveyed to us in literary compositions which are unequaled in refinement of conception, or in vigor and gracefulness of style. At the age of nineteen he became one of the pupils and associates of Socrates, and did not leave him until that martyr of intellectual freedom drank the fatal cup of hemlock. He afterwards traveled in Asia Minor, in Egypt, in Italy, and Sicily, and made himself acquainted with all contemporary philosophy. During the latter part of his life he was engaged as a public lecturer on philosophy. His lectures were delivered in the gardens of the Academia, and they have left proof of their celebrity in the structure of language, which has derived from them a term now common to all places of instruction. Of the importance of the Socratic and Pythagorean elements in Plato's philosophy there can be no doubt; but he transmuted all he touched into his own forms of thought and language, and there was no branch of speculative literature which he had not mastered. By adopting the form of dialogue, in which all his extant works have come down to us, he was enabled to criticise the various systems of philosophy then current in Greece, and also to gratify his own dramatic genius, and his almost unrivaled power of keeping up an assumed character. The works of Plato have been divided into three classes: first, the elementary dialogues, or those which contain the germs of all that follows, of logic as the instrument of philosophy, and of ideas as its proper object; second, progressive dialogues, which treat of the distinction between philosophical and common knowledge, in their united application to the proposed and real sciences, ethics, and physics; third, the constructive dialogues, in which the practical is completely united with the speculative, with an appendix containing laws, epistles, etc.

The fundamental principle of Plato's philosophy is the belief in an eternal and self-existent cause, the origin of all things. From this divine Being emanate not only the souls of men, which are immortal, but that of the universe itself, which is supposed to be animated by a divine spirit. The material objects of our sight, and other senses, are mere fleeting emanations of the divine idea; it is only this idea itself that is really existent; the objects of sensuous perception are mere appearances, taking their forms by participation in the idea; hence it follows, that in Plato's philosophy all knowledge is innate, and acquired by the soul before birth, when it was able to contemplate real existences, and all our ideas of this world are mere reminiscences of their true and eternal patterns. The belief of Plato in the immortality of the soul naturally led him to establish a high standard of moral excellence, and, like his great teacher, he constantly inculcates temperance, justice, and purity of life. His political views are developed in the "Republic" and in the "Laws," in which the main feature of his system is the subordination, or rather the entire sacrifice of the individual to the state.

The style of Plato is in every way worthy of his position in universal literature, and modern scholars have confirmed the encomium of Aristotle, that all his dialogues exhibit extraordinary acuteness, elaborate elegance, bold originality, and curious speculation. In Plato, the powers of imagination were just as conspicuous as those of reasoning and reflection; he had all the chief characteristics of a poet, especially of a dramatic poet, and if his rank as a philosopher had been lower than it is, he would still have ranked high among dramatic writers for his life- like representations of the personages whose opinions he wished to combat or to defend.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) occupies a position among the leaders of human thought not inferior to that of his teacher, Plato. He was a native of Stagyra, in Macedonia, and is hence often called the Stagyrite. He early repaired to Athens, and became a pupil of Plato, who called him the soul of his school. He was afterwards invited by Philip of Macedon to undertake the literary education of Alexander, at that time thirteen years old. This charge continued about three years. He afterwards returned to Athens, where he opened his school in a gymnasium called the Lyceum, delivering his lessons as he walked to and fro, and from these saunters his scholars were called Peripatetics, or saunterers. During this period he composed most of his extant works. Alexander placed at his disposal a large sum for his collections in natural history, and employed some thousands of men in procuring specimens for his museum. After the death of Alexander, he was accused of blasphemy to the gods, and, warned by the fate of Socrates, he withdrew from Athens to Chalcis, where he afterwards died.

In looking at the mere catalogue of the works of Aristotle, we are struck with his vast range of knowledge. He aimed at nothing less than the completion of a general encyclopedia of philosophy. He was the author of the first scientific cultivation of each science, and there was hardly any quality distinguishing a philosopher as such, which he did not possess in an eminent degree. Of all the philosophical systems of antiquity, that of Aristotle was the best adapted to the physical wants of mankind. His works consisted of treatises on natural, moral, and political philosophy, history, rhetoric, criticism,—indeed, there was scarcely a branch of knowledge which his vast and comprehensive genius did not embrace. His greatest claim to our admiration is as a logician. He perfected and brought into form those elements of the dialectic art which had been struck out by Socrates and Plato, and wrought them, by his additions, into so complete a system, that he may be regarded as, at once, the founder and perfecter of logic as an art, which has since, even down to our own days, been but very little improved. The style of Aristotle has nothing to attract those who prefer the embellishments of a work to its subject- matter and the scientific results which it presents.

PERIOD THIRD.

EPOCH OF THE DECLINE OF GREEK LITERATURE, 322 B.C.-1453 A.D.

1. ORIGIN OF THE ALEXANDRIAN LITERATURE.—As the literary predominance of Athens was due mainly to the political importance of Attica, the downfall of Athenian independence brought with it a deterioration, and ultimately an extinction of that intellectual centralization which for more than a century had fostered and developed the highest efforts of the genius and culture of the Greeks. While the living literature of Greece was thus dying away, the conquests of Alexander prepared a new home for the muses on the coast of that wonderful country, to which all the nations of antiquity had owed a part of their science and religious belief. In Egypt, as in other regions, Alexander gave directions for the foundation of a city to be called after his own name, which became the magnificent metropolis of the Hellenic world. This capital was the residence of a family who attracted to their court all the living representatives of the literature of Greece, and stored up in their enormous library all the best works of the classical period. It was chiefly during the reigns of the first three Ptolemies that Alexandria was made the new home of Greek literature. Ptolemy Soter (306-285 B.C.) laid the foundations of the library, and instituted the museum, or temple of the muses, where the literary men of the age were maintained by endowments. This encouragement of literature was continued by Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.). He had the celebrated Callimachus for his librarian, who bought up not only the whole of Aristotle's great collection of works, but transferred the native annals of Egypt and Judea to the domain of Greek literature by employing the priest Manetho to translate the hieroglyphics of his own temple- archives into the language of the court, and by procuring from the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem the first part of that celebrated version of the Hebrew sacred books, which was afterwards completed and known as the Septuagint, or version of the Seventy. Ptolemy Euergetes (247-222 B.C.) increased the library by depriving the Athenians of their authentic editions of the great dramatists. In the course of time the library founded at Pergamos was transferred to Egypt, and thus we are indebted to the Ptolemies for preserving to our times all the best specimens of Greek literature which have come down to us. This encouragement of letters, however, called forth no great original genius; but a few eminent men of science, many second-rate and artificial poets, and a host of grammarians and literary pedants.

2. THE ALEXANDRIAN POETS.—Among the poets of the period, Philetas, Callimachus, Lycophron, Apollonius, and the writers of idyls, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus are the most eminent. The founder of a school of poetry at Alexandria, and the model for imitation with the Roman writers of elegiac poetry, was Philetas of Cos (fl. 260 B. C), whose extreme emaciation of person exposed him to the imputation of wearing lead in the soles of his shoes, lest he should be blown away. He was chiefly celebrated as an elegiac poet, in whom ingenious, elegant, and harmonious versification took the place of higher poetry. Callimachus (fl. 260 B.C.) was the type of an Alexandrian man of letters, distinguished by skill rather than genius, the most finished specimen of what might be effected by talent, learning, and ambition, backed by the patronage of a court. He was a living representative of the great library over which he presided; he was not only a writer of all kinds of poetry, but a critic, grammarian, historian, and geographer. Of his writings, a few poems only are extant. Next to Callimachus, as a representative of the learned poetry of Alexandria, stands the dramatist Lycophron (fl. 250 B.C.). All his works are lost, with the exception of the oracular poem called the "Alexandra," or "'Cassandra," on the merits of which very opposite opinions are entertained. Apollonius, known as the Rhodian (fl. 240 B.C.), was a native of Alexandria, and a pupil of Callimachus, through whose influence he was driven from his native city, when he established himself in the island of Rhodes, where he was so honored and distinguished that he took the name of the Rhodian. On the death of Callimachus, he was appointed to succeed him as librarian at Alexandria. His reputation depends on his epic poem, the "Argonautic Expedition."

Of all the writers of the Alexandrian period, the bucolic poets have enjoyed the most popularity. Their pastoral poems were called Idyls, from their pictorial and descriptive character, that is, little pictures of common life, a name for which the later writers have sometimes substituted the term Eclogues, that is, selections, which is applicable to any short poem, whether complete and original, or appearing as an extract. The name of Idyls, however, was afterwards applicable to pastoral poems. Theocritus (fl. 272 B.C.) gives his name to the most important of these extant bucolics. He had an original genius for poetry of the highest kind; the absence of the usual affectation of the Alexandrian school, constant appeals to nature, a fine perception of character, and a keen sense of both the beautiful and the ludicrous, indicate the high order of his literary talent, and account for his universal and undiminished popularity. The two other bucolic poets of the Alexandrian school were Bion (fl. 275 B.C.), born near Smyrna, and his pupil Moschus of Syracuse (fl. 273 B.C.). It appears, from an elegy by Moschus, that Bion migrated from Asia Minor to Sicily, where he was poisoned. He wrote harmonious verses with a good deal of pathos and tenderness, but he is as inferior to Theocritus as he is superior to Moschus, whose artificial style characterizes him rather as a learned versifier than a true poet.

3. PROSE WRITERS OF ALEXANDRIA.—Many of the most eminent poets were also prose writers, and they exhibited their versatility by writing on almost every subject of literary interest. The progress of prose writing manifested itself from grammar and criticism to the more elaborate and learned treatment of history and chronology, and to observations and speculations in pure and mixed mathematics. Demetrius the Phalerian (fl. 295 B.C.), Zenodotus (fl. 279 B.C.), Aristophanes (fl. 200 B.C.), and Aristarchus (fl. 156 B.C.), the three last of whom were successively intrusted with the management of the Library, were the representatives of the Alexandrian school of grammar and criticism. They devoted themselves chiefly to the revision of the text of Homer, which was finally established by Aristarchus.

In the historical department may be mentioned Ptolemy Soter, who wrote the history of the wars of Alexander the Great; Apollodorus (fl. 200 B.C.), whose "Bibliotheca" contains a general sketch of the mystic legends of the Greeks; Eratosthenes (fl. 235 B.C.), the founder of scientific chronology in Greek history; Manetho (fl. 280 B.C.), who introduced the Greeks to a knowledge of the Egyptian religion and annals; and Berosus of Babylon, his contemporary, whose work, fragments of which were preserved by Josephus, was known as the "Babylonian Annals." While the Greeks of Alexandria thus gained a knowledge of the religious books of the nations conquered by Alexander, the same curiosity, combined with the necessities of the Jews of Alexandria, gave birth to the translation of the Bible into Greek, known under the name of Septuagint, which has exercised a more lasting influence on the civilized world than that of any book that has ever appeared in a new tongue. The beginning of that translation was probably made in the reigns of the first Ptolemies (320-249 B.C.), while the remainder was completed at a later period.

The wonderful advance, which took place in pure and applied mathematics, is chiefly due to the learned men who settled in Alexandria; the greatest mathematicians and the most eminent founders of scientific geography were all either immediately or indirectly connected with the school of Alexandria. Euclid (fl. 300 B.C.) founded a famous school of geometry in that city, in the reign of the first Ptolemy. Almost the only incident of his life which is known to us is a conversation between him and that king, who, having asked if there was no easier method of learning the science, is said to have been told by Euclid, that "there was no royal path to geometry." His most famous work is his "Elements of Pure Mathematics," at the present time a manual of instruction and the foundation of all geometrical treatises. Archimedes (287-212 B.C.) was a native of Syracuse, in Sicily, but he traveled to Egypt at an early age, and studied mathematics there in the school of Euclid. He not only distinguished himself as a pure mathematician and astronomer, and as the founder of the theory of statics, but he discovered the law of specific gravity, and constructed some of the most useful machines in the mechanic arts, such as the pulley and the hydraulic screw. His works are written in the Doric dialect. Apollonius of Perga (221-204 B.C.) distinguished himself in the mathematical department by his work on "Conic Elements." Eratosthenes was not only prominent in the science of chronology, but was also the founder of astronomical geography, and the author of many valuable works in various branches of philosophy. Hipparchus (fl. 150 B.C.) is considered the founder of the science of exact astronomy, from his great work, the "Catalogue of the Fixed Stars," his discovery of the precession of the equinoxes, and many other valuable astronomical observations and calculations.

4. ALEXANDRIAN PHILOSOPHY.—Athens, which had been the centre of Greek literature during the second or classical period of its development, had now, in all respects but one, resigned the intellectual leadership to the city of the Ptolemies. While Alexandria was producing a series of learned poets, scholars, and discoverers in science, Athenian literature was mainly represented by the establishment of certain forms of mental and moral philosophy founded on the various Socratic schools. Two schools of philosophy were established at Athens at the time of the death of Aristotle: that of the Academy, in which he himself had studied, and that of the Lyceum, which he had founded, as the seat of his peripatetic system. But the older schools soon reappeared under new names: the Megarics, with an infusion of the doctrines of Democritus, revived in the skeptic philosophy of Pyrrhon (375-285 B.C.). Epicurus (342-370 B.C.) founded the school to which he gave his name, by a similar combination of Democritean philosophy with the doctrines of the Cyrenaics; the Cynics were developed into Stoics by Zeno (341-260 B.C.), who borrowed much from the Megaric school and from the Old Academy; and, finally, the Middle and New Academy arose from a combination of doctrines which were peculiar to many of these sects.

Though these different schools, which flourished at Athens, had early representatives in Alexandria, their different doctrines, coming in contact with the ancient religious systems of the Persians, Jews, and Hindus, underwent essential modifications, and gave birth to a kind of electicism, which became later an important element in the development of Christian history. The rationalism of the Platonic school and the supernaturalism of the Jewish Scriptures were chiefly mingled together, and from this amalgamation sprang the system of Neo-Platonism. When the early teachers of Christianity at Alexandria strove to show the harmony of the Gospel with the great principles of the Greco-Jewish philosophy, it underwent new modifications, and the Neo-Platonic school, which sprang up in Alexandria three centuries B.C., was completed in the first and second centuries of the Christian era. The common characteristic of the Neo- Platonists was a tendency to mysticism. Some of them believed that they were the subjects of divine inspiration and illumination; able to look into the future and to work miracles. Philo-Judaeus (fl. 20 B.C.), Numenius (fl. 150 A.D.), Ammonius Saccas (fl. 200 A.D.), Plotinus (fl, 260 A.D.), Porphyry (fl. 260 A.D.), and several fathers of the Greek Church are among the principal disciples of this school.

5. ANTI-NEO-PLATONIC TENDENCIES.—While the Neo-Platonism of Alexandria introduced into Greek philosophy Oriental ideas and tendencies, other positive and practical doctrines also prevailed, founded on common sense and conscience. First among these were the tenets of the Stoics, who owed their system mainly and immediately to the teaching of Epictetus (fl. 60 A.D.), who opposed the Oriental enthusiasm of the Neo-Platonists. He was originally a slave, and became a prominent teacher of philosophy in Rome, in the reign of Domitian. He left nothing in writing, and we are indebted for a knowledge of his doctrines to Arrian, who compiled his lectures or philosophical dissertations in eight books, of which only four are preserved, and the "Manual of Epictetus," a valuable compendium of the doctrines of the Stoics. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius not only lectured at Rome on the principles of Epictetus, but he left us his private meditations, composed in the midst of a camp, and exhibiting the serenity of a mind which had made itself independent of outward actions and warring passions within. Lucian (fl. 150 A.D.) may be compared to Voltaire, whom he equaled in his powers both of rhetoric and ridicule, and surpassed in his more conscientious and courageous love of truth. Though the results of his efforts against heathenism were merely negative, he prepared the way for Christianity by giving the death-blow to declining idolatry. Lucian, as a man of letters, is on many accounts interesting, and in reference to his own age and to the literature of Greece he is entitled to an important position both with regard to the religious and philosophical results of his works, and to the introduction of a purer Greek style, which he taught and exemplified. Longinus (fl. 230 A.D.), both as an opponent of Neo- Platonism and as a sound and sensible critic, occupies a position similar to that of Lucian, in the declining period of Greek literary history. During a visit to the East, he became known to Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, who adopted the celebrated scholar as her instructor in the language and literature of Greece, her adviser and chief minister; and when Palmyra fell before the Roman power he was put to death by the Roman emperor. To his treatise on "The Sublime" he is chiefly indebted for his fame. When France, in the reign of Louis XIV., gave a tone to the literary judgments of Europe, this work was translated by Boileau, and received by the wits of Paris as an established manual in all that related to the sublime and beautiful.

6. GREEK LITERATURE IN ROME.—After the subjugation of Greece by the Romans, Greek authors wrote in their own language and published their works in Rome; illustrious Romans chose the idiom of Plato as the best medium for the expression of their own thoughts; dramatic poets gained a reputation by imitating the tragedies and comedies of Athens, and every versifier felt compelled by fashion to revive the metres of ancient Greece. This naturalization of Greek literature at Rome was due to the rudeness and poverty of the national literature of Italy, to the influence exerted by the Greek colonies, and to the political subjugation of Greece. In Rome, Greek libraries were established by the Emperor Augustus and his successors; and the knowledge of the Greek language was considered a necessary accomplishment. Cicero made his countrymen acquainted with the philosophical schools of Athens, and Rome became more and more the rival of Alexandria, both as a receptacle for the best Greek writings and as a seat of learning, where Greek authors found appreciation and patronage. The Greek poets, who were fostered and encouraged at Rome, were chiefly writers of epigrams, and their poems are preserved in the collections called "Anthologies." The growing demand for forensic eloquence naturally led the Roman orators to find their examples in those of Athens, and to the study of rhetoric in the Grecian writers.

Among the writers on rhetoric whose works seem to have produced the, greatest effect at the beginning of the Roman period, we mention Dionysius of Halicarnassus (fl. 7 B.C.). As a critic, he occupies the first rank among the ancients. Besides his rhetorical treatises, he wrote a work on "Roman Archaeology," the object of which was to show that the Romans were not, after all, barbarians, as was generally supposed, but a pure Greek race, whose institutions, religion, and manners were traceable to an identity with those of the noblest Hellenes.

What Dionysius endeavored to do for the gratification of his own countrymen, by giving them a Greek version of Roman history, an accomplished Jew, who lived about a century later, attempted, from the opposite point of view, for his own fallen race, in a work which was a direct imitation of that just described. Flavius Josephus (fl. 60 A.D.) wrote the "Jewish Archaeology" in order to show the Roman conquerors of Jerusalem that the Jews did not deserve the contempt with which they were universally regarded. His "History of the Jewish Wars" is an able and valuable work.

At an earlier period, Polybius (204-122 B.C.) wrote to explain to the Greeks how the power of the Romans had established itself in Greece. His great work was a universal history, but of the forty books of which it consisted only five have been preserved; perhaps no historical work has ever been written with such definiteness of purpose or unity of plan, or with such self-consciousness on the part of the writer. The object to which he directs attention is the manner in which fortune or providence uses the ability and energy of man as instruments in carrying out what is predetermined, and specially the exemplification of these principles in the wonderful growth of the Roman power during the fifty-three years of which he treats. Taking his history as a whole, it is hardly possible to speak in too high terms of it, though the style has many blemishes, such as endless digressions, wearisome repetition of his own principles and colloquial vulgarisms.

Diodorus, a native of Sicily, generally known as the Sicilian (Siculus), flourished in the time of the first two Caesars. In his great work, the "Historical Library," it was his object to write a history of the world down to the commencement of Caesar's Gallic wars. He is content to give a bare recital of the facts, which crowded upon him and left him no time to be diffuse or ornamental.

The geography of Strabo (fl. 10 A.D.), which has made his name familiar to modern scholars, has come down to us very nearly complete. Its merits are literary rather than scientific. His object was to give an instructive and readable account of the known world, from the point of view taken by a Greek man of letters. His style is simple, unadorned, and unaffected.

Plutarch (40-120 A.D.) may be classed among the philosophers as well as among the historians. Though he has left many essays and works on different subjects, he is best known as a biographer. His lives of celebrated Greeks and Romans have made his name familiar to the readers of every country. The universal popularity of his biographies is due to the fact that they are dramatic pictures, in which each personage is represented as acting according to his leading characteristics.

Pausanias (fl. 184 A.D.), a professed describer of countries and of their antiquities and works of art, in his "Gazetteer of Hellas" has left the best repertory of information for the topography, local history, religious observances, architecture, and sculpture of the different states of Greece.

Among the scientific men of this period we find Ptolemy, whose name for more than a thousand years was coextensive with the sciences of astronomy and geography. He was a native of Alexandria, and flourished about the latter part of the second century. The best known of his works is his "Great Construction of Astronomy." He was the first to indicate the true shape of Spain, Gaul, and Ireland; as a writer, he deserves to be held in high estimation. Galen (fl. 130 A.D.) was a writer on philosophy and medicine, with whom few could vie in productiveness. It was his object to combine philosophy with medical science, and his works for fifteen centuries were received as oracular authorities throughout the civilized world.

7. CONTINUED DECLINE OF GREEK LITERATURE.—The adoption of the Christian religion by Constantine, and his establishment of the seat of government in his new city of Constantinople, concurred in causing the rapid decline of Greek literature in the fourth and following centuries. Christianity, no longer the object of persecution, became the dominant religion of the state, and the profession of its tenets was the shortest road to influence and honor. The old literature, with its mythological allusions, became less and less fashionable, and the Greek poets, philosophers, and orators of the better periods gradually lost their attractions. Greek, the official language of Constantinople, was spoken there, with different degrees of corruption, by Syrians, Bulgarians, and Goths; and thus, as Christianity undermined the old classical literature, the political condition of the capital deteriorated the language itself. Other causes accelerated the decadence of Greek learning: the great library at Alexandria, and the school which had been established in connection with it, were destroyed at the end of the fourth century by the edict of Theodosius, and the conquest of Egypt by the Saracens in the seventh century only completed the work of destruction. Justinian closed the schools of Athens, and prohibited the teaching of philosophy; the Arabs overthrew those established elsewhere, and there remained only the institutions of Constantinople. But long before the establishment of the Turks on the ruins of the Byzantine empire, Greek literature had ceased to claim any original or independent existence. The opposition between the literary spirit of heathen Greece and the Christian scholarship of the time of Constantine and his immediate successors, which grew up very gradually, was the result of the Oriental superstitions which distorted Christianity and disturbed the old philosophy. The abortive attempt of the Emperor Julian to create a reaction in favor of heathenism was the cause of the open antagonism between the classical and Christian forms of literature. The church, however, was soon enabled not only to dictate its own rules of literary criticism, but to destroy the writings of its most formidable antagonists. The last rays of heathen cultivation in Italy were extinguished in the gloomy dungeon of Boethius, and the period so justly designated as the Dark Ages began both in eastern and western Europe.

8. LAST ECHOES OF THE OLD LITERATURE—From the time when Christianity placed itself in opposition to the old culture of heathen Greece and Rome, down to the period of the revival of classical literature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the classical spirit was nearly extinct both in eastern and western Europe. In Italy, the triumph of barbarism was more sudden and complete. In the eastern empire there was a certain literary activity, and in the department of history, Byzantine literature was conspicuously prolific.

The imperial family of the Comneni, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the Palaeologi, who reigned from the thirteenth century to the end of the eastern empire, endeavored to revive the taste for literature and learning. But the echoes of the past became fainter and fainter, and when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks, 1453 A.D., the wandering Greeks who found their way into Italy could only serve as language-masters to a race of scholars, who thus recovered the learning that had ceased to exist among the Greeks themselves.

The last manifestations of the old classical learning by the Alexandrian school, which had done so much in the second and first centuries before our era, may he divided into three classes. In the first are placed the mathematical and geographical studies, which had been brought to such perfection by Euclid, his successors, and after them by Ptolemy. In the second class we have the substitution of prose romances for the bucolic and erotic poetry of the Alexandrian and Sicilian writers. In the third class the revival, by Nonnus and his followers, of a learned epos, of much the same kind as the poems of Callimachus. Among the representatives of the mathematical school of Alexandria was Theon, whose celebrity is obscured by that of his daughter Hypatia (fl. 415 A.D.), whose sex, youth, beauty, and cruel fate have made her a most interesting martyr of philosophy. She presided in the public school at Alexandria, where she taught mathematics and the philosophy of Ammonius and Plotinus. Her influence over the educated classes of that city excited the jealousy of the archbishop. She was given up to the violence of a superstitious and brutal mob, attacked as she was passing through the streets in her chariot, torn in pieces, and her mutilated body thrown to the flames.

When rhetorical prose superseded composition in verse, the greater facility of style naturally led to more detailed narratives, and the sophist who would have been a poet in the time of Callimachus, became a writer of prose romances in the final period of Greek literature. The first ascertained beginning of this style of light reading, which occupies so large a space in the catalogues of modern libraries, was in the time of the Emperor Trajan, when a Syrian or Babylonian freedman, named Iamblichus, published a love story called the "Babylonian Adventures." Among his successors is Longus, of whose work, "The Lesbian Adventure," it is sufficient to say, that it was the model of the "Diana" of Montemayor, the "Aminta" of Tasso, the "Pastor Fido" of Guarini, and the "Gentle Shepherd" of Allan Ramsay.

While the sophists were amusing themselves by clothing erotic and bucolic subjects in rhetorical prose, an Egyptian boldly revived the epos which had been cultivated at Alexandria in the earliest days of the Museum. Nonnus probably flourished at the commencement of the fifth century A.D. His epic poem, which, in accordance with the terminology of the age, is called "Dionysian Adventures," is an enormous farrago of learning on the well-worked subject of Bacchus. The most interesting of the epic productions of the school of Nonnus is the story of "Hero and Leander," in 340 verses, which bears the name of Musaeus. For grace of diction, metrical elegance, and simple pathos, this little canto stands far before the other poems of the same age. The Hero and Leander of Musaeus is the dying swan-note of Greek poetry, the last distinct note of the old music of Hellas.

In the Byzantine literature, there are works which claim no originality, but have a higher value than their contemporaries, because they give extracts or fragments of the lost writings of the best days of Greece. Next in value follow the lexicographers, the grammarians, and commentators. The most voluminous department, however, of Byzantine literature, was that of the historians, annalists, chroniclers, biographers, and antiquarians, whose works form a continuous series of Byzantine annals from the time of Constantine the Great to the taking of the capital by the Turks. This literature was also enlivened by several poets, and enriched by some writers on natural history and medicine.

9. THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE GREEK FATHERS.—The history of Greek literature would be imperfect without some allusion to a class of writings not usually included in the range of classical studies. The first of these works, the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, before mentioned, and the Greek Apocrypha, may properly be termed Hebrew-Grecian. Their spirit is wholly at variance with that of pagan literature, and it cannot be doubted that they exerted great influence when made known to the pagans of Alexandria. Many of the books termed the Apocrypha were originally written in Greek, and mostly before the Christian era. Many of them contain authentic narratives, and are valuable as illustrating the circumstances of the age to which they refer. The other class of writings alluded to comprehends the works of the Christian authors. As the influence of Christianity became more diffused during the first and second centuries, its regenerating power became visible. After the time of Christ, there appeared, in both the Greek and Latin tongues, works wholly different in their spirit and character from all that is found in pagan literature. The collection of sacred writings contained in the New Testament and the works of the early fathers constitute a distinct and interesting feature in the literature of the age in which they appeared. The writings of the New Testament, considered simply in their literary aspect, are distinguished by a simplicity, earnestness, naturalness, and beauty that find no parallel in the literature of the world. But the consideration must not be overlooked, that they were the work of those men who wrote as they were moved of the Holy Ghost, that they contain the life and the teachings of the great Founder of our faith, and that they come to us invested with divine authority. Their influence upon the ages which have succeeded them is incalculable, and it is still widening as the knowledge of Christianity increases. The composition of the New Testament is historical, epistolary, and prophetic. The first five books, or the historical division, contain an account of the life and death of our Saviour, and some account of the first movements of the Apostles. The epistolary division consists of letters addressed by the Apostles to the different churches or to individuals. The last, the book of Revelation, the only part that is considered prophetic, differs from the others in its use of that symbolical language which had been common to the Hebrew prophets, in the sublimity and majesty of its imagery, and in its prediction of the final and universal triumph of Christianity.

The writings of the Apostolic Fathers, or the immediate successors of the Apostles, were held in high estimation by the primitive Christians. Of those who wrote under this denomination, the venerable Polycarp and Ignatius, after they had both attained the age of eighty years, sealed their faith in the blood of martyrdom. The former was burned at the stake in Smyrna, and the latter devoured by lions in the amphitheatre of Rome, In the second and third centuries, Christianity numbered among its advocates many distinguished scholars and philosophers, particularly among the Greeks. Their productions may be classed under the heads of biblical, controversial, doctrinal, historical, and homiletical. Among the most distinguished of the Greek fathers were Justin Martyr (fl. 89 A.D.), an eminent Christian philosopher and speculative thinker; Clement of Alexandria (fl. 190 A.D.), who has left us a collection of works, which, for learning and literary talent, stand unrivaled among the writings of the early Christian fathers; Origen (184-253 A.D.), who, in his numerous works, attempted to reconcile philosophy with Christianity; Eusebius (fl. 325 A.D.), whose ecclesiastical history is ranked among the most valuable remains of Christian antiquity; Athanasius, famous for his controversy with Arius; Gregory Nazianzen (329-390 A.D.), distinguished for his rare union of eloquence and piety, a great orator and theologian; Basil (329- 379 A.D.) whose works, mostly of a purely theological character, exhibit occasionally decided proofs of his strong feeling for the beauties of nature; and John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.), the founder of the art of preaching, whose extant homilies breathe a spirit of sincere earnestness and of true genius. To these may be added Nemesius (fl. 400 A.D.), whose work on the "Nature of Man" is distinguished by the purity of its style and by the traces of a careful study of classical authors, and Synesius (378-430 A.D.), who maintained the parallel importance of pagan and Christian literature, and who has always been held in high estimation for his epistles, hymns, and dramas.

MODERN LITERATURE.

At the time of the fall of Constantinople, ancient Greek was still the vehicle of literature, and as such it has been preserved to our day. After the political changes of the present century, however, it was felt by the best Greek writers that the old forms were no longer fitted to express modern ideas, and hence it has become transfused with those better adapted to the clear and rapid expression of modern literature, though at the same time the body and substance, as well as the grammar, of the language have been retained.

From an early age, along with the literary language of Greece, there existed a conversational language, which varied in different localities, and out of this grew the Modern Greek or Neo-Hellenic.

After the fall of Constantinople, the Greeks were prominent in spreading a knowledge of their language through Europe, and but few works of importance were produced. During the eighteenth century a revival of enthusiasm for education and literature took place, and a period of great literary activity has since followed. Perhaps no nation now produces so much literature in proportion to its numbers, although the number of readers is small and there are great difficulties in publishing. In these circumstances, the Ralli and other distinguished Greeks have nobly come forward and published books at their own expense, and great activity prevails in every department of letters.

Since the establishment of Greek independence, three writers have secured for themselves a permanent place in literature as men of true genius: the two brothers Panagiotis and Alexander Santsos, and Alexander Rangabe. The brothers Santsos threw all their energies into the war for independence and sang of its glories. Panagiotis (d. 1868) was always lyrical, and Alexander (d. 1863) always satirical. Both were highly ideal in their conceptions, and both had a rich command of musical language. The other great poet of regenerated Greece is Alexander Rangabe, whose works range through almost every department of literature, though it is on his poems that his claim to remembrance will specially rest. They are distinguished by fine poetic feeling, rare command of exquisite and harmonious language, and singular beauty and purity of thought. His poetical works consist of hymns, odes, songs, narrative poems, ballads, tragedies, comedies, and translations. There is no department in prose literature which is not well represented in modern Greek, and many women have particularly distinguished themselves.



ROMAN LITERATURE.

INTRODUCTION.—1. Roman Literature and its Divisions.—2. The Language; Ethnographical Elements of the Latin Language; the Umbrian; Oscan; Etruscan; the Old Roman Tongue; Saturnian Verse; Peculiarities of the Latin Language.—3. The Roman Religion.

PERIOD FIRST.—1. Early Literature of the Romans; the Fescennine Songs; the Fabulae Atellanae.—2. Early Latin Poets; Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius.—3. Roman Comedy.—4. Comic Poets; Plautus, Terence, and Statius.—5. Roman Tragedy.—6. Tragic Poets; Pacuvius and Attius.—7. Satire; Lucilius.—8. History and Oratory; Fabius Pictor; Cencius Alimentus; Cato; Varro; M. Antonius; Crassus; Hortensius.—9. Roman Jurisprudence.—10. Grammarians.

PERIOD SECOND.—1. Development of the Roman Literature.—2. Mimes, Mimographers, Pantomime; Laberius and P. Lyrus.—3. Epic Poetry; Virgil; The Aeneid.—4. Didactic Poetry; the Bucolics; the Georgics; Lucretius.— 5. Lyric Poetry; Catullus; Horace.—6. Elegy; Tibullus; Propertius; Ovid. —7. Oratory and Philosophy; Cicero.—8. History; J. Caesar; Sallust; Livy.—9. Other Prose Writers.

PERIOD THIRD.—1. Decline of Roman Literature.—2. Fable; Phaedrus.—3. Satire and Epigram; Persius, Juvenal, Martial.—4. Dramatic Literature; the Tragedies of Seneca.—5. Epic Poetry; Lucan; Silius Italicus; Valerius Flaccus; P. Statius.—6. History; Paterculus; Tacitus; Suetonius; Q. Curtius; Valerius Maximus.—7. Rhetoric and Eloquence; Quintilian; Pliny the Younger.—8. Philosophy and Science; Seneca; Pliny the Elder; Celsus; P. Mela; Columella; Frontinus.—9. Roman Literature from Hadrian to Theodoric; Claudian; Eutropius; A. Marcellinus; S. Sulpicius; Gellius; Macrobius; L. Apuleius; Boethius; the Latin Fathers.—10. Roman Jurisprudence.

INTRODUCTION.

1. ROMAN LITERATURE AND ITS DIVISIONS.—Inferior to Greece in the genius of its inhabitants, and, perhaps, in the intrinsic greatness of the events of which it was the theatre, unquestionably inferior in the fruits of intellectual activity, Italy holds the second place in the classic literature of antiquity. Etruria could boast of arts, legislation, scientific knowledge, a fanciful mythology, and a form of dramatic spectacle, before the foundations of Rome were laid. But, like the ancient Egyptians, the Etrurians made no progress in composition. Verses of an irregular structure and rude in sense and harmony appear to have formed the highest limit of their literary achievements. Nor did even the opulent and luxurious Greeks of Southern Italy, while they retained their independence, contribute much to the glory of letters in the West. It was only in their fall that they did good service to the cause, when they redeemed the disgrace of their political humiliation by the honor of communicating the first impulse towards intellectual refinement to the bosoms of their conquerors. When, in the process of time, Sicily, Macedonia, and Achaia had become Roman provinces, some acquaintance with the language of their new subjects proved to be a matter almost of necessity to the victorious people; but the first impression made at Rome by the productions of the Grecian Muse, and the first efforts to create a similar literature, must be traced to the conquest of Tarentum (272 B.C.). From that memorable period, the versatile talents which distinguished the Greeks in every stage of national decline began to exercise a powerful influence on the Roman mind, which was particularly felt in the departments of education and amusement. The instruction of the Roman youth was committed to the skill and learning of Greek slaves; the spirit of the Greek drama was transferred into the Latin tongue, and, somewhat later, Roman genius and ambition devoted their united energies to the study of Greek rhetoric, which long continued to be the guide and model of those schools, in whose exercises the abilities of Cicero himself were trained. Prejudice and patriotism were powerless to resist this flood of foreign innovation; and for more than a century after the Tarentine war, legislative influence strove in vain to counteract the predominance of Greek philosophy and eloquence. But this imitative tendency was tempered by the pride of Roman citizenship. That sentiment breaks out, not merely in the works of great statesmen and warriors, but quite as strikingly in the productions of those in whom the literary character was all in all. It is as prominent in Virgil and Horace as in Cicero and Caesar; and if the language of Rome, in other respects so inferior to that of Greece, has any advantage over the sister tongue, it lies in that accent of dignity and command which seems inherent in its tones. The austerity of power is not shaded down by those graceful softenings so agreeable to the disposition of the most polished Grecian communities. In the Latin forms and syntax we are everywhere conscious of a certain energetic majesty and forcible compression. We hear, as it were, the voice of one who claims to be respected, and resolves to be obeyed.

The Roman classical literature may be divided into three periods. The first embraces its rise and progress, oral and traditional compositions, the rude elements of the drama, the introduction of Greek literature, and the construction and perfection of comedy. To this period the first five centuries of the republic may be considered as introductory, for Rome had, properly speaking, no literature until the conclusion of the first Punic war (241 B.C.), and the first period, commencing at that time, extends through 160 years—that is, to the first appearance of Cicero in public life, 74 B.C.

The second period ends with the death of Augustus, 14 A.D. It comprehends the age of which Cicero is the representative as the most accomplished orator, philosopher, and prose-writer of his time, as well as that of Augustus, which is commonly called the Golden Age of Latin poetry.

The third and last period terminates with the death of Theodoric, 526 A.D. Notwithstanding the numerous excellences which distinguished the literature of this time, its decline had evidently commenced, and, as the age of Augustus has been distinguished by the epithet "golden," the succeeding period, to the death of Hadrian, 138 A.D., on account of its comparative inferiority, has been designated "the Silver Age." From this time to the close of the reign of Theodoric, only a few distinguished names are to be found.

2. THE LANGUAGE.—The origin of the Latin language is necessarily connected with that of the Romans themselves. In the most distant ages to which tradition extends, Italy appears to have been inhabited by three stocks or tribes of the great Indo-European family. One of these is commonly known by the name of Oscans; another consisted of two branches, the Sabelians or Sabines, and the Umbrians; the third was called Sikeli, sometimes Vituli or Itali.

The original settlements of the Umbrians extended over the district bounded on one side by the Tiber, and on the other by the Po. All the country to the south was in possession of the Oscans, with the exception of Latium, which was inhabited by the Sikeli. But, in process of time, the Oscans, pressed upon by the Sabines, invaded the abodes of this peaceful and rural people, some of whom submitted, and amalgamated with their conquerors; the rest were driven across the narrow sea into Sicily, and gave their name to the island.

These tribes were not left in undisturbed possession of their rich inheritance. More than 1000 B.C. there arrived in the northern part of Italy the Pelasgians (or dark Asiatics), an enterprising race, famed for their warlike spirit and their skill in the arts of peace, who became the civilizers of Italy. They were far advanced in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the science of politics and social life. They enriched their newly acquired country with commerce, and filled it with strongly fortified and populous cities, and their dominion rapidly spread over the whole peninsula. Entering the territory of the Umbrians, they drove them into the mountainous districts, or compelled them to live among them as a subject people, while they possessed themselves of the rich and fertile plains. The headquarters of the invaders was Etruria, and that portion of them who settled there were known as Etrurians. Marching southward, they vanquished the Oscans and occupied the plains of Latium. They did not, however, remain long at peace in the districts which they had conquered. The old inhabitants returned from the neighboring highlands to which they had been driven, and subjugated the northern part of Latium, and established a federal anion between the towns of the north, of which Alba was the capital, while of the southern confederacy the chief city was Lavinium.

At a later period, a Latin tribe, belonging to the Alban federation, established itself on the Mount Palatine, and founded Rome, while a Sabine community occupied the neighboring heights of the Quirinal. Mutual jealousy of race kept them, for some time, separate from each other; but at length the two communities became one people, called the Romans. These were, at an early period, subjected to Etruscan rule, and when the Etruscan dynasty passed away, its influence still remained, and permanently affected the Roman language.

The Etruscan tongue being a compound of Pelasgian and Umbrian, the language of Latium may be considered as the result of those two elements combined with the Oscan, and brought together by the mingling of those different tribes. These elements, which entered into the formation of the Latin, may be classified under two heads: the one which has, the other which has not a resemblance to the Greek. All Latin words which resemble the Greek are Pelasgian, and all which do not are Etruscan, Oscan, or Umbrian. From the first of these classes must be excepted those words which are directly derived from the Greek, the origin of which dates partly from the time when Rome began to have intercourse with the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, partly after the Greeks exercised a direct influence on Roman literature.

Of the ancient languages of Italy, which concurred in the formation of the Latin, little is known. The Eugubine Tables are the only extant fragments of the Umbrian language. These were found in the neighborhood of Ugubio, in the year 1414 A.D.; they date as early as 354 B.C., and contain prayers and rules for religious ceremonies. Some of these tables were engraved in Etruscan or Umbrian characters, others in Latin letters. The remains which have come down to us of the Oscan language belong to a composite idiom made up of the Sabine and Oscan, and consist chiefly of an inscription engraved on a brass plate, discovered in 1793 A.D. As the word Bansae occurs in this inscription, it has been supposed to refer to the town of Bantia, which was situated not far from the spot where the tablet was found, and it is, therefore, called the Bantine Table. The similarity between some of the words found in the Eugubine Tables and in Etruscan inscriptions, shows that the Etruscan language was composed of the Pelasgian and Umbrian, and from the examples given by ethnographers, it is evident that the Etruscan element was most influential in the formation of the Latin language.

The old Roman tongue, or lingua prisca, as it was composed of these materials, and as it existed previous to coming in contact with the Greek, has almost entirely perished; it did not grow into the new, like the Greek, by a process of intrinsic development, but it was remoulded by external and foreign influences. So different was the old Roman from the classical Latin, that some of those ancient fragments were with difficulty intelligible to the cleverest and best educated scholars of the Augustan age.

An example of the oldest Latin extant is contained in the sacred chant of the Fratres Arvales. These were a college of priests, whose function was to offer prayers for plenteous harvests, in solemn dances and processions at the opening of spring. Their song was chanted in the temple with closed doors, accompanied by that peculiar dance which was termed the tripudium, from its containing three beats. The inscription which embodied this litany was discovered in Rome in 1778 A.D. The monument belongs to the reign of Heliogabalus, 218 A.D., but although the date is so recent, the permanence of religious formulas renders it probable that the inscription contains the exact words sung by this priesthood in the earliest times. The "Carmen Saliare," or the Salian hymn, the leges regiae, the Tiburtine inscription, the inscription on the sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, the great-grandfather of the conqueror of Hannibal, the epitaph of Lucius Scipio, his son, and, above all, the Twelve Tables, are the other principal extant monuments of ancient Latin. The laws of the Twelve Tables were engraven on tablets of brass, and publicly set up in the comitium; they were first made public 449 B.C.

Most of these literary monuments were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used by the Latin poets. It was probably derived from the Etruscans, and until Ennius introduced the heroic hexameter, the strains of the Italian bards flowed in this metre. The structure of the Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay adduces, as an example of this measure, the following line from the well-known nursery song,——

"The queen was in her parlor, eating bread and honey."

From this species of verse, which probably prevailed among the natives of Provence (the Roman Provincia), and into which, at a later period, rhyme was introduced as an embellishment, the Troubadours derived the metre of their ballad poetry, and thence introduced it into the rest of Europe.

A wide gap separates this old Latin from the Latin of Ennius, whose style was formed by Greek taste; another not so wide is interposed between the age of Ennius and that of Plautus and Terence, and lastly, Cicero and the Augustan poets mark another age. But in all its periods of development, the Latin bears a most intimate relation with the Greek. This similarity is the result both of their common origin from the primitive Pelasgian and of the intercourse which the Romans at a later period held with the Greeks. Latin, however, had not the plastic property of the Greek, the faculty of transforming itself into every variety of form and shape conceived by the fancy and imagination; it partook of the spirit of Roman nationality, of the conscious dignity of the Roman citizen, of the indomitable will that led that people to the conquest of the world. In its construction, instead of conforming to the thought, it bends the thought to its own genius. It is a fit language for expressing the thoughts of an active and practical, but not of an imaginative and speculative people. It was propagated, like the dominion of Rome, by conquest. It either took the place of the language of the conquered nation, or became ingrafted upon it, and gradually pervaded its composition; hence its presence is discernible in all European languages.

3. THE RELIGION.—The religion and mythology of Etruria left an indelible stamp on the rites and ceremonies of the Roman people. At first they worshiped heaven and earth, personified in Saturn and Ops, by whom Juno, Vesta, and Ceres were generated, symbolizing marriage, family, and fertility; soon after, other Etruscan divinities were introduced, such as Jupiter, Minerva, and Janus; and Sylvanus and Faunus, who delighted in the simple occupations of rural and pastoral life. From the Etrurians the Romans borrowed, also, the institution of the Vestals, whose duty was to watch and keep alive the sacred fire of Vesta; the Lares and Penates, the domestic gods, which presided over the dwelling and family; Terminus, the god of property and the rites connected with possession; and the orders of Augurs and Aruspices, whose office was to consult the flight of birds or to inspect the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice, in order to ascertain future events. The family of the Roman gods continued to increase by adopting the divinities of the conquered nations, and more particularly by the introduction of those of Greece. The general division of the gods was twofold,—the superior and inferior deities. The first class contained the Consentes and the Selecti; the second, the Indigetes and Semones. The Consentes, so called because they were supposed to form the great council of heaven, consisted of twelve: Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, Vulcan, Juno, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, and Vesta. The Selecti were nearly equal to them in rank, and consisted of eight: Saturn, Pluto, Bacchus, Janus, Sol, Genius, Rhea, and Luna. The Indigites were heroes who were ranked among the gods, and included particularly Hercules, Castor and Pollux, and Quirinus or Romulus. The Semones comprehended those deities that presided over particular objects, as Pan, the god of shepherds; Flora, the goddess of flowers, etc. Besides these, there were among the inferior gods a numerous class of deities, including the virtues and vices and other objects personified.

The religion of the Romans was essentially political, and employed as a means of promoting the designs of the state. It was prosaic in its character, and in this respect differed essentially from the artistic and poetical religion of the Greeks. The Greeks conceived religion as a free and joyous worship of nature, a centre of individuality, beauty, and grace, as well as a source of poetry, art, and independence. With the Romans, on the contrary, religion conveyed a mysterious and hidden idea, which gave to this sentiment a gloomy and unattractive character, without either moral or artistic influence.

PERIOD FIRST.

FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST PUNIC WAR TO THE AGE OF CICERO (241-74 B.C.)

1. EARLY LITERATURE OF THE ROMANS.—The Romans, like all other nations, had oral poetical compositions before they possessed any written literature. Cicero speaks of the banquet being enlivened by the songs of bards, in which the exploits of heroes were recited and celebrated. By these lays national pride and family vanity were gratified, and the anecdotes, thus preserved, furnished sources of early legendary history. But these legends must not be compared to those of Greece, in which the religious sentiment gave a supernatural glory to the effusions of the bard, painted men as heroes and heroes as deities, and, while it was the natural growth of the Greek intellect, twined itself around the affections of the people. The Roman religion was a ceremonial for the priests, and not for the people, and in Roman tradition there are no traces of elevated genius or poetical inspiration. The Romans possessed the germs of those faculties which admit of cultivation and improvement, such as taste and genius, and the appreciation of the beautiful; but they did not possess those natural gifts of fancy and imagination which formed part of the Greek mind, and which made that nation in a state of infancy, almost of barbarism, a poetical people. With them literature was not of spontaneous growth; it was chiefly the result of the influence exerted by the Etruscans, who were their teachers in everything mental and spiritual.

The tendency of the Roman mind was essentially utilitarian. Even Cicero, with all his varied accomplishments, will recognize but one end and object of all study, namely, those sciences which will render man useful to his country, and the law of literary development is modified according to this ruling principle. From the very beginning, the first cause of Roman literature will be found to have been a view to utility and not to the satisfaction of an impulsive feeling.

In other nations, poetry has been the first spontaneous production. With the Romans, the first written literary effort was history; but even their early history was a simple record of facts, not of ideas or sentiments, and valuable only for its truth and accuracy. Their original documents, mere records of memorable events anterior to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, perished in the conflagration of the city.

The earliest attempt at versification made by the rude inhabitants of Latium was satire in a somewhat dramatic form. The Fescennine songs were metrical, for the accompaniments of music and dancing necessarily restricted them to measure, and, like the dramatic exhibitions of the Greeks, they had their origin among the rural population, not like them in any religious ceremonial, but in the pastimes of the village festival. At first they were innocent and gay, but liberty at length degenerated into license, and gave birth to malicious and libelous attacks upon persons of irreproachable character. This infancy of song illustrates the character of the Romans in its rudest and coarsest form. They loved strife, both bodily and mental, and they thus early displayed that taste which, in more polished ages, and in the hands of cultivated poets, was developed in the sharp, cutting wit, and the lively but piercing points of Roman satire.

In the Fescennine songs the Etruscans probably furnished the spectacle, all that which addresses itself to the eye, while the habits of Italian rural life supplied the sarcastic humor and ready extemporaneous gibe, which are the essence of the true comic. The next advance in point of art must be attributed to the Oscans, whose entertainments were most popular among the Italian nations. They represented in broad caricature national peculiarities. Their language was, originally, Oscan, as well as the characters represented. The principal one resembled the clown of modern pantomime; another was a kind of pantaloon or charlatan, and much of the rest consisted of practical jokes, like that of the Italian Polincinella. After their introduction at Rome, they received many improvements; they lost their native rusticity; their satire was good-natured; their jests were seemly, and kept in check by the laws of good taste. They were not acted by common professional performers, and even a Roman citizen might take part in them without disgrace. They were known by the name of "Fabulae Atellanae," from Attela, a town in Campania, where they were first performed. They remained in favor with the Roman people for centuries. Sylla amused his leisure hours in writing them, and Suetonius bears testimony to their having been a popular amusement under the empire.

Towards the close of the fourth century, the Etruscan histriones were introduced, whose entertainments consisted of graceful national dances, accompanied with the music of the flute, but without either songs or dramatic action. With these dances the Romans combined the old Fescennine songs, and the varied metres, which their verse permitted to the vocal parts, gave to this mixed entertainment the name of Satura (a hodge-podge or potpourri), from which, in after times, the word satire was derived.

2. EARLY LATIN POETS.—At the conclusion, of the first Punic war, when the influence of Greek intellect, which had already long been felt in Italy, had extended to the capital, the Romans were prepared for the reception of a more regular drama. But not only did they owe to Greece the principles of literary taste; their earliest poet was one of that nation. Livius Andronicus (fl. 240 B.C.), though born in Italy, and educated at Rome, is supposed to have been a native of the Greek colony of Tarentum. He was at first a slave, probably a captive taken in war, but was finally emancipated by his master, in whose family he occupied the position of instructor to his children. He wrote a translation, or perhaps an imitation of the Odyssey, in the old Saturnian metre, and also a few hymns. His principal works, however, were tragedies; but, from the few fragments of his writings extant, it is impossible to form an estimate of his ability as a poet. According to Livy, Andronicus was the first who substituted, for the rude extemporaneous effusions of the Fescennine verse, plays with a regular plot and fable. In consequence of losing his voice, from being frequently encored, he obtained permission to introduce a boy to sing the ode or air to the accompaniment of the flute, while he himself represented the action of the song by his gestures and dancing.

Naevius (fl. 235 B.C.) was the first poet who really deserves the name of Roman. He was not a servile imitator, but applied Greek taste and cultivation to the development of Roman sentiments, and was a true Roman in heart, unsparing in his censure of immorality and his admiration for heroic self-devotion. His honest principles cemented the strong friendship between him and the upright and unbending Cato, a friendship which probably contributed to form the political and literary character of that stern old Roman. The comedies of Naevius had undoubted pretensions to originality; he held up to public scorn the vices and follies of his day, and, being a warm supporter of the people against the encroachments of the nobility, and unable to resist indulgence in his satiric vein, he was exiled to Utica, where he died. He was the author of an epic poem on the Punic war. Ennius and Virgil unscrupulously copied and imitated him, and Horace writes that in his day the poems of Naevius were in the hands and hearts of everybody. The fragments of his writings extant are not more numerous than those of Livius.

Naevius, the last of the older school of writers, by introducing new principles of taste to his countrymen, altered their standards; and Greek literature having now driven out its predecessor, a new school of poetry arose, of which Ennius (239-169 B.C.) was the founder. He earned a subsistence as a teacher of Greek, was the friend of Scipio, and, at his death, was buried in the family tomb of the Scipio, at the request of the great conqueror of Hannibal, whose fame he contributed to hand down to posterity. Cicero always uses the appellation, "our own Ennius," when he quotes his poetry. Horace calls him "Father Ennius," a term which implies reverence and regard, and that he was the founder of Latin poetry. He was, like his friends Cato the censor, and Scipio Africanus the elder, a man of action as well as philosophical thought, and not only a poet, but a brave soldier, with all the singleness of heart and simplicity of manners which marked the old times of Roman virtue. Ennius possessed great power over words, and wielded that power skillfully. He improved the language in its harmony and its grammatical forms, and increased its copiousness and power. What he did was improved upon, but was never undone; and upon the foundations he laid, the taste of succeeding ages erected an elegant and beautiful superstructure. His great epic poem, the "Annals," gained him the attachment and admiration of his countrymen. In this he first introduced the hexameter to the notice of the Romans, and detailed the rise and progress of their national glory, from the earliest legendary period down to his own times. The fragments of this work which remain are amply sufficient to show that he possessed picturesque power, both in sketching his narratives and in portraying his characters, which seem to live and breathe; his language, dignified, chaste, and severe, rises as high as the most majestic eloquence, but it does not soar to the sublimity of poetry. As a dramatic poet, Ennius does not deserve a high reputation. In comedy, as in tragedy, he never emancipated himself from the Greek originals.

3. ROMAN COMEDY.—The rude comedy of the early Romans made little progress beyond personal satire, burlesque extravagance and licentious jesting, but upon this was ingrafted the new Greek comedy, and hence arose that phase of the drama, of which the representatives were Plautus, Statius, and Terence. The Roman comedy was calculated to produce a moral result, although the morality it inculcated was extremely low. Its standard was worldly prudence, its lessons utilitarian, and its philosophy Epicurean. There is a want of variety in the plots, but this defect is owing to the social and political condition of ancient Greece, which was represented in the Greek comedies and copied by the Romans. There is also a sameness in the dramatis personae, the principal characters being always a morose or a gentle father, who is sometimes also the henpecked husband of a rich wife, an affectionate or domineering wife, a good-natured profligate, a roguish servant, a calculating slave-dealer and some others.

The actors wore appropriate masks, the features of which were not only grotesque, but much exaggerated and magnified. This was rendered necessary by the immense size of the theatre and stage, and the mouth of the mask answered the purpose of a speaking trumpet, to assist in conveying the voice to every part of the vast building. The characters were known by a conventional costume; old men wore robes of white, young men were attired in gay clothes, rich men in purple, soldiers in scarlet, poor men and slaves in dark and scanty dresses. The comedy had always a musical accompaniment of flutes of different kinds.

In order to understand the principles which regulated the Roman comic metres, it is necessary to observe the manner in which the language itself was affected by the common conversational pronunciation. Latin, as it was pronounced, was very different from Latin as it is written; this difference consisted in abbreviation, either by the omission of sounds altogether, or by the contraction of two sounds into one, and in this respect the conversational language of the Romans resembled that of modern nations; with them, as with us, the mark of good taste was ease and the absence of pedantry and affectation. In the comic writers we have a complete representation of Latin as it was commonly pronounced and spoken, and but little trammeled or confined by a rigid adhesion to Greek metrical laws.

4. COMIC POETS.—Plautus (227-184 B.C.) was a contemporary of Ennius; he was a native of Umbria, and of humble origin. Education did not overcome his vulgarity, although it produced a great effect upon his language and style. He must have lived and associated with the people whose manners he describes, hence his pictures are correct and truthful. The class from which his representations are taken consisted of clients, the sons of freedmen and the half-enfranchised natives of Italian towns. He had no aristocratic friends, like Ennius and Terence; the Roman public were his patrons, and notwithstanding their faults, his comedies retained their popularity even in the Augustan age, and were acted as late as the reign of Diocletian. Life, bustle, surprise, unexpected situations, sharp, sparkling raillery that knew no restraint nor bound, left his audience no time for dullness or weariness. Although Greek was the fountain from which he drew his stores, his wit, thought, and language were entirely Roman, and his style was Latin of the purest and most elegant kind—not, indeed, controlled by much deference to the laws of metrical harmony, but full of pith and sprightliness, bearing the stamp of colloquial vivacity, and suitable to the general briskness of his scenes. Yet in the tone of his dialogue we miss all symptoms of deference to the taste of the more polished classes of society. Almost all his comedies were adopted from the new comedy of the Greeks, and though he had studied both the old and the middle comedy, Menander and others of the same school furnished him the originals of his plots. The popularity of Plautus was not confined to Rome, either republican or imperial. Dramatic writers of modern times, as Shakspeare, Dryden, and Moliere, have recognized the effectiveness of his plots, and have adopted or imitated them. About twenty of his plays are extant, among which the Captivi, the Epidicus, the Cistellaria, the Aulularia, and the Rudens are considered the best.

Terence (193-158 B.C.) was a slave in the family of a Roman senator, and was probably a native of Carthage. His genius presented the rare combination of all the fine and delicate qualities which characterized Attic sentiment, without corrupting the native purity of the Latin language. The elegance and gracefulness of his style show that the conversation of the accomplished society, in which he was a welcome guest, was not lost upon his correct ear and quick intuition. So far as it can be so, comedy was, in the hands of Terence, an instrument of moral teaching. Six of his comedies only remain, of which the Andrian and the Adelphi are the most interesting. If Terence was inferior to Plautus in life, bustle, and intrigue, and in the delineation of national character, he is superior in elegance of language and refinement of taste. The justness of his reflections more than compensates for the absence of his predecessor's humor; he touches the heart as well as gratifies the intellect.

Of the few other writers of comedy among the Romans, Statius may be mentioned, who flourished between Plautus and Terence. He was an emancipated slave, born in Milan. Cicero and Varro have pronounced judgment upon his merits, the substance of which appears to be, that his excellences consisted in the conduct of the plot, in dignity, and in pathos, while his fault was too little care in preserving the purity of the Latin style. The fragments, however, of his works, which remain are not sufficient to test the opinion of the ancient critics.

5. ROMAN TRAGEDY.—While Roman comedy was brought to perfection under the influence of Greek literature, Roman tragedy, on the other hand, was transplanted from Athens, and, with few exceptions, was never anything more than translation or imitation. In the century during which, together with comedy, it flourished and decayed, it boasted of five distinguished writers, Livius, Naevius, Ennius (already spoken of), Pacuvius, and Attius. In after ages, Rome did not produce one tragic poet, unless Varius be considered an exception. The tragedies attributed to Seneca were never acted, and were only composed for reading and recitation.

Among the causes which prevented tragedy from flourishing at Rome was the little influence the national legends exerted over the people. These legends were more often private than public property, and ministered more to the glory of private families than to that of the nation at large. They were embalmed by their poets as curious records of antiquity, but they did not, like the venerable traditions of Greece, twine themselves around the heart of the nation. Another reason why Roman legends had not the power to move the affections of the Roman populace is to be found in the changes the masses had undergone. The Roman people were no longer the descendants of those who had maintained the national glory in the early period; the patrician families were almost extinct; war and poverty had extinguished the middle classes and miserably thinned the lower orders. Into the vacancy thus caused, poured thousands of slaves, captives in the bloody wars of Gaul, Spain, Greece, and Africa. These and their descendants replaced the ancient people, and while many of them by their talents and energy arrived at wealth and station, they could not possibly be Romans at heart, or consider the past glories of their adopted country as their own. It was to the rise of this new element of population, and the displacement or absorption of the old race, that the decline of patriotism was owing, and the disregard of everything except daily sustenance and daily amusement, which paved the way for the empire and marked the downfall of liberty. With the people of Athens, tragedy formed a part of the national religion. By it the people were taught to sympathize with their heroic ancestors; the poet was held to be inspired, and poetry the tongue in which the natural held communion with the supernatural. With the Romans, the theatre was merely a place for secular amusement, and poetry only an exercise of the fancy. Again, the religion of the Romans was not ideal, like that of the Greeks. The old national faith of Italy, not being rooted in the heart, soon became obsolete, and readily admitted the ingrafting of foreign superstitions, which had no hold on the belief or love of the people. Nor was the genius of the Roman people such as to sympathize with the legends of the past; they lived only in the present and the future; they did not look back on their national heroes as demigods; they were pressing forward to extend the frontiers of their empire, to bring under their yoke nations which their forefathers had not known. If they regarded their ancestors at all, it was not in the light of men of heroic stature as compared with themselves, but as those whom they could equal or even surpass.