It was the Pharsalia that won Lucan undying fame. Three books of this ambitious historical epic were finished and given to the world during the poet's lifetime.[265] These the poet had, at any rate in part, recited in public, calling attention, with a vanity worthy of himself and of the age, to his extreme youth; he was younger than Vergil when he composed the Culex![266] The remaining seven books never had the benefit of revision, owing to the poet's untimely end,[267] though curiously enough they show no special signs of lack of finish, and contain some of the finest passages in the whole work. The composition of all ten books falls between 60 and 65 A.D. Lucan had chosen for his theme the death-struggle of the republic. It was a daring choice for more reasons than one. There were elements of danger in singing the praises of Pompey and Cato under the principate. To that the fate of Cremutius Cordus bore eloquent testimony.[268] But Nero was less sensitive about the past than Tiberius. The republic had never become officially extinct. Tyrannicide was a licensed and hackneyed theme of the schools of rhetoric; in skilful hands it might be a subtle instrument of flattery. Moreover, Nero was descended in direct line from Domitius Ahenobarbus, who had fought and died for Pompey on the field of Pharsalus. In the books published during Lucan's lifetime there is not a line that could have given personal offence to the princeps, while the fulsome dedication would have covered a multitude of indiscretions.[269] Far more serious were the difficulties presented by the nature of the story itself. Historical epic rarely admits of artistic treatment, and the nearer the date of the events described, the more insoluble is the problem.

Two courses were open to Lucan: he might treat the story with comparative fidelity to truth, avoiding all supernatural machinery, save such as was justified by historical tradition; on the other hand he might adopt the course subsequently pursued by Silius Italicus in his poem on the Punic War, and introduce all the hackneyed interventions of Olympus, sanctioned by Vergil and followed by many a poet since. The latter method is obviously only suited for a purely legendary epic, though even the legendary epic can well dispense with it, and it might have been supposed that an age so sceptical and careless of the orthodox theology, as that into which Lucan was born, would have felt the full absurdity of applying such a device to historical epic. Lucan was wise in his choice, and left Olympus severely alone. But his choice roused contemporary criticism. In the Satyricon of Petronius we find a defence of the old conventional mechanism placed in the mouth of a shabby and disreputable poet named Eumolpus (118). He complains 'that young men plunge headlong into epic verse thinking that it requires no more skill than a showy declamation at the school of rhetoric. They do not realize that to be a successful poet one must be steeped in the great ocean of literature. They do not recognize that there is such a thing as a special poetic vocabulary,[270] or that the commonplaces of rhetoric require to be interwoven with, not merely tacked on to, the fabric of their verse, and so it comes about that the writer who would turn the Civil War into an epic is apt to stumble beneath the burden he takes upon his shoulders, unless indeed he is permeated through and through with literature. You must not simply turn history into verse: historians do it better in prose. Rather the poet should sweep on his way borne by the breath of inspiration and untrammelled by hard fact, making use of cunning artifice and divine intervention, and interfusing his "commonplaces" with legendary lore; only so will his work seem to be the fine frenzy of an inspired bard rather than the exactitude of one who is giving sworn evidence before a judge'. He then proceeds in 295 verses to deal, after the manner he has prescribed, with the events contained in the first three books of the Pharsalia, the only books that had been made public at the time when Petronius' romance was composed. Pluto inspires Caesar to the crime of civil war. Peace, Fidelity, and Concord fly from the earth at his approach. The gods range themselves on this side and on that. Discord perched high on Apennine incites the peoples of Italy to war. The verse is uninspired, the method is impossible, the remedy is worse than the disease. The last hope of our taking the poem seriously has departed. Yet this passage of Petronius contains much sound criticism. Military and political history does not admit of being turned into genuine poetry; an epic on an historic war must depend largely on its purple patches of description and rhetoric: it almost demands that prominence of epigram and 'commonplace' that Eumolpus condemns.[27l] Petronius sees the weakness of Lucan's epic; he fails because, like Silius Italicus, he thinks he has discovered a remedy. The faults of Lucan's poem are largely inherent in the subject chosen; they will stand out clearly as we review the structure and style of the work.

In taking the whole of the Civil War for his subject Lucan was confronted with a somewhat similar problem to that which faced Shakespeare in his Julius Caesar. The problem that Shakespeare had to meet was how to prolong and sustain the interest of the play after the death of Caesar and the events that centre immediately round it. The difficulty was surmounted triumphantly. The obstacles in Lucan's path were greater. The poem is incomplete, and there must be some uncertainty as to its intended scope. That it was planned to include the death of Cato is clear from the importance assigned him in the existing books. But could the work have concluded on such a note of gloom as the death of the staunchest champion of the republic? The whole tone of the poem is republican in the extreme. If the republic must perish, it should not perish unavenged. There are, moreover, many prophetic allusions to the death of Caesar,[272] which point conclusively to Lucan's intention to have made the vengeance of Brutus and Cassius the climax of his poem. The problem which the poet had to resolve was how to prevent the interest from nagging, as his heroes were swept away before the triumphant advance of Caesar. He concentrates our attention at the outset on Pompey. Throughout the first eight books it is for him that he claims our sympathy. And then he is crushed by his rival and driven in flight to die an unheroic death. It is only at this point that Cato leaps into prominence. But though he has a firmness of purpose and a grandeur of character that Lucan could not give Pompey, he never has the chance to become the protagonist. Both Pompey and Cato, for all the fine rhetoric bestowed on them, fail to grip the reader, while from the very facts of history it is impossible for either of them to lend unity to the plot. Both are dwarfed by the character of Caesar. Caesar is the villain of the piece; he is a monster athirst for blood, he will not permit the corpses of his enemies (over which he is made to gloat) to be buried after the great battle, and when on his coming to Egypt the head of his rival is brought him, his grief and indignation are represented as being a mere blind to conceal his real joy. The successes are often merely the result of good fortune. Lucan is loth to admit even his greatness as a general. And yet, blacken his character as he may, he feels that greatness. From the moment of his brilliant characterization of Caesar in the first book[273] we feel we have a man who knows what he desires and will shrink from nothing to attain his ends; he 'thinks naught yet done while aught remains to do',[274] he 'strikes fear into men's hearts because he knows not the meaning of fear',[275] and through all the melodramatic rhetoric with which he addresses his soldiers, there shines clear the spirit of a great leader of men. Whoever was intended by the poet for his hero, the fact remains that Caesar dominates the poem as none save the hero should do. He is the hero of the Pharsalia as Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost.[276] It is through him above all that Lucan retains our interest. The result is fatal for the proper proportion of the plot. Lucan does not actually alienate our sympathies from the republic, but, whatever our moral judgement on the conflict may be, our interest centres on Caesar, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the true tragedy of the epic would have come with his death. The Pharsalia fails of its object as a republican epic; its success comes largely from an unintended quarter.

What the exact scale of the poem was meant to be it is hard to say. Vergil had set the precedent for an epic of twelve books, and it is not improbable that Lucan would have followed his example. On the other hand, if Cato and Caesar had both to be killed in the last two books, great compression would have been necessary. In view of the diffuseness of Lucan's rhetoric, and the rambling nature of his narrative, it is more than probable that the epic would have exceeded the limit of twelve books and been a formidable rival in bulk to the Punica of Silius Italicus. On the other hand, the last seven books of the existing poem are unrevised, and may have been destined for abridgement. There is so much that is irrelevant that the task would have been easy.

But it is not for the plot that Lucan's epic is read. It has won immortality by the brilliance of its rhetoric, its unsurpassed epigrams, its clear-cut summaries of character, its biting satire, and its outbursts of lofty political enthusiasm. These features stand out pre-eminent and atone for its astounding errors of taste, its strained hyperbole, its foolish digression. Lucan fails to make his actors live as they move through his pages; their actions and their speeches are alike theatrical; he has no dramatic power. But he can sum up their characters in burning lines that live through all time and have few parallels in literature. And these pictures are in all essentials surprisingly just and accurate. His affection for Pompey and the demands of his plot presented strong temptations to exalt his character at the expense of historical truth. Yet what can be more just than the famous lines of the first book, where his character is set against Caesar's? (129):

vergentibus annis in senium longoque togae tranquillior usu dedidicit iam pace ducem: famaeque petitor multa dare in volgus; totus popularibus auris inpelli plausuque sui gaudere theatri; nec reparare novas vires, multumque priori credere fortunae, stat magni nominis umbra: qualis frugifero querens sublimis in agro exuvias veteres populi sacrataque gestans dona ducum: nec iam validis radicibus haerens pondere fixa suo est, nudosque per aera ramos effundens trunco non frondibus efficit umbram.

One aged grown Had long exchanged the corselet for the gown: In peace forgotten the commander's art, And learned to play the politician's part,— To court the suffrage of the crowd, and hear In his own theatre the venal cheer; Idly he rested on his ancient fame, And was the shadow of a mighty name. Like the huge oak which towers above the fields Decked with ancestral spoils and votive shields. Its roots, once mighty, loosened by decay, Hold it no more: weight is its only stay; Its naked limbs bespeak its glories past, And by its trunk, not leaves, a shade is cast. PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

Even the panegyric pronounced on him by Cato on hearing the news of his death is as moderate as it is true and dignified (ix. 190):

civis obit, inquit, multum maioribus inpar nosse modum iuris, sed in hoc tamen en utilis aevo, cui non ulla fuit iusti reverentia; salva libertate potens, et solus plebe parata privatus servire sibi, rectorque senatus, sed regnantis, erat. ... invasit ferrum, sed ponere, norat; praetulit arma togae, sed pacem armatus amavit: iuvit sumpta ducem iuvit dimissa potestas.

A man, he said, is gone, unequal far To our good sires in reverence for the law, Yet useful in an age that knew not right, One who could power with liberty unite, Uncrowned 'mid willing subjects could remain, The Senate rule, yet let the Senate reign. * * * * * He drew the sword, but he could sheathe it too, War was his trade, yet he to peace inclined, Gladly command accepted-and resigned.—PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

Elsewhere he is as one of the 'strengthless dead', here he lives. Elsewhere he may be invested with the pathos that must cling to the shadow of a mighty name, but he is too weak and ineffective to be interesting. His wavering policy in his last campaign is unduly emphasized.[277] When he is face to face with Caesar at Pharsalus and exhorts his men, he can but boast, he cannot inspire.[278] When the battle turns against him he bids his men cease from the fight, and himself flies, that he may not involve them in his own disaster.[279] No less convincing portrait could be drawn. The material was unpromising, but Lucan emphasizes all his weaknesses and wholly fails to bring out his nobler elements. He is unworthy of the line

nec cinis exiguus tantam compescuit umbram.

So, too, in a lesser degree with Caesar. For a moment in the first book he flashes upon us in his full splendour (143):

sed non in Caesare tantum nomen erat nec fama ducis: sed nescia virtus stare loco, solusque pudor non vincere bello. acer et indomitus, quo spes quoque ira vocasset. ferre manum et numquam temerando parcere ferro, successus urgere suos, instare fauori numinis, inpellens quidquid sibi summa petenti obstaret, gaudensque viam fecisse ruina.

Not such the talisman of Caesar's name, But Caesar had, in place of empty fame. The unresting soul, the resolution high That shuts out every thought but victory. Whate'er his goal, nor mercy nor dismay He owned, but drew the sword and cleft his way: Pressed each advantage that his fortune gave; Constrained the stars to combat for the brave; Swept from his path whate'er his rise delayed, And marched triumphant through the wreck he made. PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

Here at any rate is Caesar the general: in such a poem there is no room for Caesar the statesman. But from this point onward we see no true Caesar. Henceforward, save for a few brief moments, he is a figure for the melodramatic stage alone, a 'brigand chief', a master hypocrite, the favourite of fortune. And yet, for all his unreality, Lucan has endowed him with such impetuous vigour and such a plenitude of power that he dwarfs the other puppets that throng his pages even more, if possible, than in real life he overtopped his contemporaries.

Cato, the third great figure of the Pharsalia, was easier to draw. Unconsciously stagey in life, he is little stagier in Lucan. And yet, in spite of his absurdity, he has a nobility and a sincerity of purpose which is without parallel in that corrupt age. He was the hero of the Stoic republicans[280] of the early principate, the man of principle, stern and unbending. He requires no fine touches of light and shade, for he is the perfect Stoic. But from the very rigidity of his principles he was no statesman and never played more than a secondary part in politics.

Lucan's task is to exalt him from the second rank to the first. But it is no easy undertaking, since it was not till after the disaster of Pharsalus that he played any conspicuous part in the Civil War. He first appears as warrant for the justice of the republican cause (i. 128). We next see him as the hope of all true patriots at Rome (ii. 238). Pompey has fled southward. Cato alone remains the representative of all that is noblest and best in Rome. He has no illusions as to Pompey's character. He is not the leader he would choose for so sacred a cause; but between Pompey and Caesar there can be no wavering. He follows Pompey. Not till the ninth book does he reappear in the action. Pompey is fallen, and all turn to Cato as their leader. The cause is lost, and Cato knows it well; but he obeys the call of duty and undertakes the hopeless enterprise undismayed. He is a stern leader, but he shares his men's hardships to the full, and fortifies them by his example. He is in every action what the real Cato only was at Utica. On him above all others Lucan has lavished all his powers; and he has succeeded in creating a character of such real moral grandeur that, in spite of its hardness and austerity, it almost succeeds in winning our affection (ii. 380):

hi mores, haec duri inmota Catonis secta fuit, servare modum finesque tenere naturamque sequi patriaeque inpendere vitam nec sibi sed toti genitum se credere mundo.

'Twas his rule Inflexible to keep the middle path Marked out and bounded; to observe the laws Of natural right; and for his country's sake To risk his life, his all, as not for self Brought into being, but for all the world. SIR E. RIDLEY.

Here is a man indeed worthy to be the hero of a republican epic, did history permit it. Our chief reason—at moments there is a temptation to say 'our only reason'—for regretting the incompletion of the Pharsalia is that Lucan did not live to describe Cato's death. There was a subject which was worthy of his pen and would have been a labour of love. With what splendour of rhetoric he might have invested it can only be conjectured from the magnificent passage where Cato refuses to inquire into his fate at Ammon's oracle (ix. 566):

quid quaeri, Labiene, iubes? an liber in armis occubuisse velim potius quam regna videre? an sit vita nihil, sed longa? an differat aetas? an noceat vis ulla bono, fortunaque perdat opposita virtute minas, laudandaque velle sit satis, et numquam successu crescat honestum? scimus, et hoc nobis non altius inseret Hammon. haeremus cuncti superis, temploque tacente nil facimus non sponte dei; nec vocibus ultis numen eget, dixitque semel nascentibus auctor quidquid scire licet, steriles nec legit harenas, ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum. estque dei sedes, nisi terra et pontus et aer et caelum et virtus? superos quid quaerimus ultra? Iuppiter est quodcumque vides quodcumque moveris. sortilegis egeant dubii semperque futuris casibus ancipites; me non oracula certum, sed mors certa facit. pavido fortique cadendum est; hoc satis est dixisse Iouem.

What should I ask? Whether to live a slave Is better, or to fill a soldier's grave? What life is worth drawn to its utmost span, And whether length of days brings bliss to man? Whether tyrannic force can hurt the good, Or the brave heart need quail at Fortune's mood? Whether the pure intent makes righteousness, Or virtue needs the warrant of success? All this I know: not Ammon can impart Force to the truth engraven on my heart. All men alike, though voiceless be the shrine, Abide in God and act by will divine. No revelation Deity requires, But at our birth, all men may know, inspires. Nor is truth buried in this desert sand And doled to few, but speaks in every land. What temple but the earth, the sea, the sky, And heaven and virtuous hearts, hath deity? As far as eye can range or feet can rove Jove is in all things, all things are in Jove. Let wavering souls to oracles attend, The brave man's course is clear, since sure his end. The valiant and the coward both must fall This when Jove tells me, he has told me all. PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH.

One Cato will not lend life to an epic, and history, to the great loss of art, forbids him to play a sufficiently important role. It is unnecessary to comment on the lesser personages of the epic; if the leading characters lack life, the minor characters lack individuality as well.[281] Lucan has nothing of the dramatic vitalising power that is so necessary for epic.

He is equally defective in narrative power. He can give us brilliant pictures as in the lines describing the vision of Caesar at the Rubicon[282] or Pompey's last sight of Italy.[283] But such passages are few and far between. Of longer passages there are not perhaps more than three in the whole work where we get any sustained beauty of narrative-the parting of Pompey and his wife,[284] Pompey's dream before Pharsalus,[285] and a description of a Druid grove in Southern Gaul.[286] The first of these is noticeable as being one of the few occasions on which Lucan shows any command of simple pathos unmarred by tricks of tawdry rhetoric. The whole episode is admirably treated. The speeches of both husband and wife are commendably and unusually simple and direct, but the climax comes after Cornelia's speech, where the poet describes the moment before they part. With the simplest words and the most severe economy of diction, he produces an effect such as Vergil rarely surpassed, and such as was never excelled or equalled again in the poetry of Southern Europe till Dante told the story of Paolo and Francesca (v. 790):

sic fata relictis exsiluit stratis amens tormentaque nulla vult differre mora. non maesti pectora Magni sustinet amplexu dulci, non colla tenere, extremusque perit tam longi fructus amoris, praecipitantque sues luctus, neuterque recedens sustinuit dixisse 'vale', vitamque per omnem nulla fuit tarn maesta dies; nam cetera damna durata iam mente malis firmaque tulerunt.

So spake she, and leaped frenzied from the couch, loth to put off the pangs of parting by the least delay. She cannot bear to cast her arms about sad Magnus' bosom, or clasp his neck in a last sweet embrace; and thus the last delight, such long love as theirs might know, is cast away: they hasten their own agony; neither as they parted had the heart to say farewell; and while they lived they knew no sadder day than this. All other losses they bore with hearts hardened and steeled by misery.

It is faulty and monotonous in rhythm, but one would gladly have more from Lucan of the same poetic quality, even at the expense of the same blemishes. The dream of Pompey is scarcely inferior (vii. 7):

at nox, felicis Magno pars ultima vitae, sollicitos vana decepit imagine somnos. nam Pompeiani visus sibi sede theatri innumeram effigiem Romanae cernere plebis attollique suum laetis ad sidera nomen vocibus et plausu cuneos certare sonantes; qualis erat populi facies clamorque faventis, olim cum iuvenis primique aetate triumphi * * * * * sedit adhuc Romanus eques; seu fine bonorum anxia venturis ad tempera laeta refugit, sive per ambages solitas contraria visis vaticinata quies magni tulit omina planctus. seu vetito patrias ultra tibi cernere sedes sic Romam fortuna dedit. ne rumpite somnos, castrorum vigiles, nullas tuba verberet aures. crastina dira quies et imagine maesta diurna undique funestas acies feret, undique bellum.

But night, the last glad hours that Magnus' life should know, beguiled his anxious slumbers with vain images of joy. He seemed to sit in the theatre himself had built, and to behold the semblance of the countless Roman multitude, and hear his name uplifted to the stars by joyous voices, and all the roaring benches vying in their applause. Even so he saw the people and heard their cheers in the days of old, when still a youth, in the hour of his first triumph ... he sat no more as yet than a knight of Rome; whether it was that at thy fortune's close thy sleep, tormented with the fears of what should be, fled back to happier days, or riddling as 'tis wont, foretold the contrary of thy dreams and brought thee omens of mighty woe; or whether, since ne'er again thou mightest see thy father's home, thus even in dreams fortune gave it to thy sight. Break not his slumbers, guardians of the camp; let not the trumpet strike his ears at all. Dread shall to-morrow's slumbers be, and, haunted by the sad image of the disastrous day, shall bring before his eyes naught save war and armies doomed to die.

The scene is well and naturally conceived; there is no rant or false pathos; it is an oasis in a book which, though in many ways the finest in the Pharsalia, yet owes its impressiveness to a rhetoric which, for all its brilliance and power, will not always bear more than superficial examination. The last passage, with its description of the Druid's grove near Massilia,[287] is on a different plane. It gives less scope to the higher poetical imagination; it describes a scene such as the Silver Age delighted in,[288] a dark wood, whereto the sunlight scarce can penetrate; altars stand there stained with dark rites of human sacrifice; no bird or beast will approach it; no wind ever stirs its leaves; if they rustle, it is with a strange mysterious rustling all their own: there are dark pools and ancient trees, their trunks encircled by coiling snakes; strange sounds and sights are there, and when the sun rides high at noon, not even the priest will approach the sanctuary for fear lest unawares he come upon his lord and master. While similar descriptions may be found in other poets of the age, there is a strength and simplicity about this passage that rivets the attention, whereas others leave us cold and indifferent. But Lucan does not always exercise such restraint, and such passages are as rare as they are welcome. The reason for this is obvious: the narrative must necessarily consist in the main of military movements. In the words of Petronius,[289] that is better done by the historians. The adventures on the march are not likely as a rule to be peculiarly interesting; there are no heroic single combats to vary and glorify the fighting. Conscious of this inevitable difficulty, and with all the rhetorician's morbid fear of being commonplace, Lucan betakes himself to desperate remedies, hyperbole and padding. If he describes a battle, he must invent new and incredible horrors to enthral us; his sea-fight at Massilia is a notable instance;[290] death ceases to inspire horror and becomes grotesque. If a storm arises he must outdo all earlier epic storms. Vergil had attempted to outdo the storms of the Odyssey. Lucan must outdo Vergil. Consequently, in the storm that besets Caesar on his legendary voyage to Italy in the fisherman's boat[291] that 'carried Caesar and his fortunes', strange things happen. The boat rocks helplessly in mid-sea—

Its sails in clouds, its keel upon the ground, For all the sea was piled into the waves And drawn from depths between laid bare the sand.[292]

In the same tempest—

The sea had risen to the clouds In mighty mass, had not Olympus' chief Pressed down its waves with clouds,[293]

If he is concerned with a march through the African desert, he must introduce the reader to a whole host of apocryphal serpents, with details as to the nature of their bites.[294] So terrible are these reptiles that it is a positive relief to the army to enter the region of lions.[295] Before such specimens as this the hyperbole of Seneca seems tame and insignificant.

The introduction of irrelevant episodes would be less reprehensible were it not that such episodes are for the most part either dull or a fresh excuse for bombast or (worse still) a display of erudition.[296] He devotes no less than 170 lines in the first book to a description of the prodigies that took place at Rome on the outbreak of the Civil War, and of the rites performed to avert their omens.[297]

In the next book a hundred and sixty-six lines are given to a lurid picture of the Marian and Sullan proscriptions,[298] and forty-six to a compressed geography of Italy.[299] In the fifth book we are given the tedious story of how a certain obscure Appius consulted the Delphian oracle[300] and how he fared, merely, we suspect, that Lucan may have an opportunity for depicting the frenzies of the Pythian prophetess. Similarly, at the close of the sixth book, Pompey's son consults a necromancer as to the result of the war.[301] The scene is described with not a little skill and ingenuity, but it has little raison d'etre save the gratification of the taste for witchcraft which Lucan shared with his audience and his fellow poets.

Apart from these weaknesses of method and execution, Lucan's style is unsuited to epic whether historical or legendary. He has not sufficient command of a definitely poetical vocabulary to enable him to captivate the reader by pure sensuous charm. He is, as Quintilian says, 'magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus.' He cannot shake himself free from the influence of his rhetorical training. It is a severe condemnation of an epic poet to deny him, as we have denied, the gifts of narrative and dramatic power. Yet much of Lucan is more than readable, to some it is even fascinating. He has other methods of meeting the difficulties presented by historical epic. The work is full of speeches, moralising, and apostrophes. He will not let the story tell itself; he is always harping on its moral and political significance. As a result, we get long passages that belong to the region of elevated political satire. They are not epic, but they are often magnificent. It is in them that Lucan's political feeling appears at its truest and strongest.[302] The actual fortunes of the republican armies, as recounted by Lucan, must fail to rouse the emotions of the most ardent anti-Caesarian, and it is doubtful whether they would have responded to more skilful treatment. But in the apostrophes grief and indignation can find a voice and stir the heart. They may reveal a monstrous lack of the sense of historical proportion. To attribute the depopulation of the rural districts of Italy to the slaughter at Pharsalus is absurd. That Lucan does this is undeniable, but his words have a deeper significance. It was at Pharsalus, above all other battles, that the republic fell to ruin, and the poet is justified in making it the symbol of that fall.[303] And even where the sentiment is at bottom false, there is such an impetuosity and vigour in the lines, and such a depth of scorn in each epigram, that the reader is swept off his balance and convinced against his will. We hardly pause to think whether Pharsalus, or even the whole series of civil wars, really prevented the frontiers of Rome being conterminous with the limits of the inhabited globe, when we read such lines as (vii. 419)—

quo latius orbem possedit, citius per prospera fata cucurrit. omne tibi bellum gentes dedit omnibus annis: te geminum Titan procedere vidit in axem; haud multum terrae spatium restabat Eoae, ut tibi nox, tibi tota dies, tibi curreret aether, omniaque errantes stellae Romana viderent. sed retro tua fata tulit par omnibus annis Emathiae funesta dies, hac luce cruenta effectum, ut Latios non horreat India fasces, nec vetitos errare Dahas in moenia ducat Sarmaticumque premat succinctus consul aratrum, quod semper saevas debet tibi Parthia poenas, quod fugiens civile nefas redituraque numquam libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit ac totiens nobis iugulo quaesita vagatur, Germanum Scythicumque bonum, nec respicit ultra Ausoniam.

The wider she lorded it o'er the world, the swifter did she run through her fair fortunes. Each war, each year, gave thee new peoples to rule thee did the sun behold advancing towards either pole; little remained to conquer of the Eastern world; so that for thee, and thee alone, night and day and heaven should revolve, and the planets gaze on naught that was not Rome's. But Emathia's fatal day, a match for all the bygone years, has swept thy destiny backward. This day of slaughter was the cause that India trembles not before the lictor-rods of Rome, and that no consul, with toga girded high, leads the Dahae within some city's wall, forbidden to wander more, and in Sarmatia drives the founder's plough. This day was the cause that Parthia still owes thee a fierce revenge, that freedom flying from the crimes of citizens has withdrawn behind Tigris and the Rhine, ne'er to return, and, sought so oft by us with our life's blood, wanders the prize of German and of Scyth, and hath no further care for Ausonia.

But this famous apostrophe closes on a truer note with six lines of unsurpassed satire (454)—

mortalia nulli sunt curata deo. cladis tamen huius habemus vindictam, quantam terris dare numina fas est: bella pares superis facient civilia divos; fulminibus manes radiisque ornabit et astris, inque deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras.

No god has a thought for the doings of mortal men: yet for this overthrow this vengeance is ours, so far as gods may give satisfaction to the earth: civil wars shall raise dead Caesars to the level of the gods above; and Rome shall deck the spirits of the dead with rays and thunderbolts and stars, and in the temples of the gods shall swear by the name of shades.

Noblest of all are the lines that close another apostrophe on the same subject a little later in the same book (638)—

maius ab hac acie quam quod sua saecula ferrent volnus habent populi; plus est quam vita salusque quod perit; in totum mundi prosternimur aevum, vincitur his gladiis omnis quae serviet aetas. proxima quid suboles aut quid meruere nepotes in regnum nasci? pavide num gessimus arma teximus aut iugulos? alieni poena timoris in nostra cervice sedet. post proelia natis si dominum, Fortuna, dabas, et bella dedisses.

A deeper wound than their own age might bear was dealt the peoples of this earth in this battle: 'tis more than life and safety that is lost: for all future ages of the world are we laid low: these swords have vanquished generations yet unborn, and doomed them to eternal slavery. What had the sons and grandsons of those who fought that day deserved that they should be born into slavery? Did we bear our arms like cowards, or screen our throats from death? Upon our necks is riveted the doom that we should live in fear of another. Nay, Fortune, since thou gavest a tyrant to those born since the war, thou shouldst have given them also the chance to fight for freedom.

These are the finest of not a few[304] remarkable expressions of Lucan's hatred for the growing autocracy of the principate: it is noteworthy that almost all occur in the last seven books. They can hardly be regarded as mere abstract meditations; they have a force and bitterness which justify us in regarding them as evidence of his changed attitude towards Nero. The first three books were published while he yet basked in the sunshine of court favours. Then came the breach between himself and Nero. His wounded vanity assisted his principles to come to the surface.[305]

The speeches, with very few exceptions,[306] scarcely rank with the apostrophes. Like the speeches in the plays of Seneca, they are little more than glorified suasoriae. They are, for the most part, such speeches as—after making the most liberal allowance for rhetorical licence—no human being outside a school of rhetoric could have uttered. Caesar's soldiery would have stared aghast had they been addressed by their general in such language as Lucan makes him use to inspire them with courage before Pharsalus. They would have understood little, and cared less, had Caesar said (vii. 274)—

civilia paucae bella manus facient; pugnae pars magna levabit his orbem populis Romanumque obteret hostem;

Not in civil strife Your blows shall fall—the battle of to-day Sweeps from the earth the enemies of Rome. SIR E. RIDLEY.

or (279)—

sitque palam, quas tot duxit Pompeius in urbem curribus, unius gentes non esse triumphi.

Make plain to all men that the crowds who decked Pompeius' hundred pageants scarce were fit For one poor triumph. SIR E. RIDLEY.

They would have laughed at exaggerations such as (287)—

cuius non militis ensem agnoscam? caelumque tremens cum lancea transit, dicere non fallar quo sit vibrata lacerto.

Of each of you shall strike, I know the hand: The javelin's flight to me betrays the arm That launched it hurtling. SIR E. RIDLEY.

And yet beneath all this fustian there is much that stirs the blood. Lines such as (261)—

si pro me patriam ferro flammisque petistis, nunc pugnate truces gladiosque exsolvite culpa. nulla manus belli mutato iudice pura est. non mihi res agitur, sed vos ut libera sitis turba precor, gentes ut ius habeatis in omnes. ipse ego privatae cupidus me reddere vitae plebeiaque toga modicum compomere civem, omnia dum vobis liceant, nihil esse recuso. invidia regnate mea;

If for my sake you sought your fatherland with fire and sword, fight fierce to-day, and by victory clear your swords from guilt. No hand is guiltless judged by a new arbiter of war. The struggle of to-day does naught for me; but for you, so runs my prayer, it shall bring freedom and dominion o'er the world. Myself, I long to return to private life, and, even though my garb were that of the common people, to be a peaceful citizen once more. So be it all be made lawful for you, there is naught I would refuse to be: for me the hatred, so be yours the power.

or (290)—

quod si signa ducem numquam fallentia vestrum conspicio faciesque truces oculosque minaces, vicistis,

Nay, if I behold those signs that ne'er deceived your leader, fierce faces and threatening eyes, you are already conquerors.

though they are not the words of the historical Caesar, have a stirring sincerity and force. But the speeches fail because all speak the same artificial language. A mutineer can say of Caesar (v. 289)—

Rheni mihi Caesar in undis dux erat, hic socius. facinus quos inquinat aequat;

Caesar was my leader by the waves of Rhine, here he is my comrade. The stain of crime makes all men equal.

or threaten with the words (292)—

quidquid gerimus fortuna vocatur. nos fatum sciat esse suum.

As fortune's gift He takes the victory which our arms have won: But we his fortunes are, his fates are ours To fashion as we will. SIR E. RIDLEY.

The lines are brilliant and worthy of life: in their immediate context they are ridiculous. Epigrams have their value, however, even when they suit their context ill, and neither Juvenal nor Tacitus has surpassed Lucan in this respect, or been more often quoted. He is, says Quintilian, sententiis clarissimus. Nothing can surpass (iv. 519)—

victurosque dei celant, ut vivere durent, felix esse mori.

And the gods conceal from those who are doomed to live how happy it is to die. Thus only may they endure to live.

or (viii. 631-2)—

mutantur prospera vitae, non fit morte miser;

Life may bring defeat, But death no misery. SIR E. RIDLEY.

or (i. 32)—

alta sedent civilis volnera dextrae;

Deep lie the wounds that civil war hath made.

or (ix. 211)—

scire mori sors prima viris, sed proxima cogi.

Best gift of all The knowledge how to die: next, death compelled. SIR E. RIDLEY.

Lines such as (i. 281)—

semper nocuit differre paratis,

To pause when ready is to court defeat. SIR E. RIDLEY.

or (v. 260)—

quidquid multis peccatur, inultum est

The crime is free where thousands bear the guilt. SIR E. RIDLEY.

are commonplace enough in thought but perfect in expression. Of a different character, but equally noteworthy, are sayings such as iv. 819—

momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum;

The change of Curio turned the scale of history.

or (iv. 185)—

usque adeone times, quem tu facis ipse timendum?

Dost fear him so Who takes his title to be feared from thee? SIR E. RIDLEY, slightly altered.

Lucan's gift for epigram is further enhanced by the nature of his metre. Ponderous in the extreme, it is ill-suited for epic, though in isolated lines its very weight gives added force. But he had a poor ear for rhythm: his hexameter is monotonous as the iambics of Seneca. There is a want of variety in pauses; he will not accommodate his rhythm to circumstances; line follows line with but the slightest rhythmical variation, and there is far too[307] sparing a use of elision. This failing is in part due to his desire to steer clear of the influence of Vergil and strike out on a line of his own. Faint echoes of Vergil, it is true, occur frequently throughout the poem, but to the untrained eye Lucan is emphatically un-Vergilian. His affinity to Ovid is greater. Both are rhetorical, and Lucan is indebted to Ovid for much mythological detail. And it is probable that he owes his smoothness and monotony of metre largely to the influence of the Metamorphoses. His ponderosity is all his own.[308]

Lucan is the child of his age, but he is almost an isolated figure in literature. He has almost every conceivable defect in every conceivable degree, from the smallest detail to the general conception of his poem. And yet he triumphs over himself. It is a hateful task to read the Pharsalia from cover to cover, and yet when it is done and the lapse of time has allowed the feeling of immediate repulsion to evaporate, the reader can still feel that Lucan is a great writer. The absurdities slip from the memory, the dreariness of the narrative is forgotten, and the great passages of lofty rhetoric, with their pungent epigram and their high political enthusiasm, remain deeply engraven on the mind. It is they that have given Lucan the immortality which he promised himself. The Pharsalia is dead, but Lucan lives.

It is useless to conjecture what might have been the fate of such remarkable gifts in a less corrupt age. This much, however, may be said, Lucan never had a fair chance. The circle in which he moved, the education which he received, suffered only his rhetorical talent to develop, and to this were sacrificed all his other gifts, his clearness of vision, his sense of proportion, his poetical imagination. He was spoilt by admiration and his own facility. Moreover, Seneca was his uncle: a comparison shows how profoundly the elder poet influenced the younger. There is the same self-conscious arrogance begotten of Stoicism, the same brilliance of wit and absence of humour. Their defects and merits alike reveal them as kindred, though Lucan stands worlds apart as a poet from Seneca, the ranting tragedian. He was but twenty-five when he died. Age might have brought a maturity and dignity of spirit which would have made rhetoric his servant and not his master, and refined away the baser alloys of his character. Even as it was he left much that, without being pure gold, yet possessed many elements and much of the brilliance of the true metal. Dante's judgement was true when he set him among the little company of true poets, of which Dante himself was proud to be made one.



CHAPTER V

PETRONIUS

The most curious and in some respects the most remarkable work that the Silver Age has bequeathed to us is a fragment of a novel, the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, Its author is generally identified with Titus Petronius, the friend and victim of Nero. Tacitus has described him in a passage, remarkable even among Tacitean portraits for its extraordinary brilliance. 'His days he passed in sleep, his nights in the business and pleasures of life. Indolence had raised him to fame, as energy raises others, and he was reckoned not a debauchee and spendthrift, like most of those who squander their substance, but a man of refined luxury. And indeed his talk and his doings, the freer they were, and the more show of carelessness they exhibited, were the better liked for their look of a natural simplicity. Yet as proconsul of Bithynia and soon afterwards as consul, he showed himself a man of vigour and equal to business. Then, falling back into vice or affecting vice, he was chosen by Nero to be one of his few intimate associates, as a critic in matters of taste (elegantiae arbiter). The emperor thought nothing charming or elegant in luxury unless Petronius had expressed his approval. Hence jealousy on the part of Tigellinus, who looked on him as a rival, and even his superior, in the science of pleasure. And so he worked on the prince's cruelty, which dominated every other passion: charging Petronius with having been the friend of Scaevinus, bribing a slave to turn informer, robbing him of the means of defence, and hurrying into prison the greater part of his domestics. It happened at the time that the emperor was on his way to Campania, and that Petronius, after going as far as Cumae, was there detained. He bore no longer the suspense of fear or of hope. Yet he did not fling away life with precipitate haste, but having made an incision in his veins and then according to his humour bound them up, he again opened them, while he conversed with his friends, not in a serious strain or on topics that might win him the glory of courage. He listened to them as they repeated, not thoughts on the immortality of the soul or on the theories of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves he gave liberal presents, to others a flogging. He dined, indulged himself in sleep, that death, even though forced, might have a natural appearance. Even in his will he did not, as did many in their last moments, flatter Nero or Tigellinus, or any other of the men in power. On the contrary, he described fully the prince's shameful excesses, with the names of his male and female companions and their novelties in debauchery, and sent the account under seal to Nero. Then he broke his signet-ring, that it might not be available to bring others into peril.'[309]

There is nothing definitely to bring this ingenious and brilliant debauchee into connexion with the Petronius Arbiter of the Satyricon. But the character of Titus Petronius is exactly in keeping with the tone of the novel; the novelist's cognomen Arbiter, though in itself by no means extraordinary, may well have sprung from or given rise to the title elegantiae arbiter; and finally the few indications of date in the novel all point to a period not far from the reign of Nero. There is the criticism of Lucan,[310] which certainly loses point if not written during Lucan's lifetime; there is the criticism of the rhetorical training of the day,[311] which finds a remarkable echo in the criticism of Vipstanus Messala in the Dialogus of Tacitus, a work which, whatever the date of its actual composition, certainly refers to a period less than ten years after the death of T. Petronius; there is the style of the work itself; wherever the writer abandons the colloquial Latin, in which so much of the work is written, we find a finished diction, whether in prose or verse, which no unprejudiced judge could place later than the accession of Trajan, and which has nothing in it to prevent its attribution to the reign of Nero. In that reign there is but one Petronius to whom we can assign the Satyricon, the Petronius immortalized by Tacitus.[312]

Of the work as a whole this is no place to speak. The fragments which survive are in the main in prose. But the work is modelled on the Menippean satires of Varro, and belongs to the same class of writing as the Apocolocyntosis of Seneca. In the form of a loosely-strung and rambling novel we have a satirical commentary on human life; the satire is cynical and pungent, rather than mordant, makes no pretence of logic, and proceeds not from a moral sense but from a sense of humour. Wild and indecent as Petronius' laughter often is, it springs from one who is a real artist, possessing a sense of proportion as well as the sense of contrast that is the source and fount of humour. This is most strongly evident in that portion of his satire which concerns us here, inasmuch as it is directed against contemporary literary tendencies. We must beware of fastening on the words of the characters in the novel as necessarily expressing the thoughts of its author. But it is noteworthy that all his literary criticism points in the same direction; it is above all conservative. Through the mouths of Encolpius, the dissolute hero of the story, and the rhetorician Agamemnon[313] he denounces the flamboyant rhetoric of the day, its remoteness from reality, the lack of sanity and industry on the part both of pupil and instructor. 'As boys they pass their time at school at what is no better than play, as youths they make themselves ridiculous in the forum, and, worst of all, when they grow old they refuse to acknowledge the faults acquired by their education.' Study is necessary, and above all the study of good models. Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, the great lyricists, Plato, Demosthenes, Thucydides, Hyperides, all the great classics, these are the true models for the young orator. Agamemnon cannot restrain himself and even bursts into verse in the course of this disquisition on the decadence of oratory:

artis severae si quis ambit effectus mentemque magnis applicat, prius mores frugalitatis lege poliat exacta. nec curet alto regiam trucem vultu cliensve cenas impotentium captet nec perditis addictus obruat vino mentis calorem, neve plausor in scaenam sedeat redemptus histrionis ad rictus. sed sive armigerae rident Tritonidis arces, seu Lacedaemonio tellus habitata colono Sirenumve domus, det primos versibus annos Maeoniumque bibat felici pectore fontem. mox et Socratico plenus grege mittat habenas liber et ingentis quatiat Demosthenis arma. hinc Romana manus circumfluat et modo Graio exonerata sono mutet suffusa saporem. interdum subducta foro det pagina cursum et cortina[314] sonet celeri distincta meatu; dein[315] epulas et bella truci memorata canore grandiaque indomiti Ciceronis verba minetur. his animum succinge bonis: sic flumine largo plenus Pierio defundes pectore verba.

If any man court success in the lofty art of letters and apply his mind to great things, he must first perfect his character by simplicity's stern law; he must care naught for the haughty frown of the fierce tyrant that lords it in his palace, nor seek client-like for invitations to the board of the profligate, nor deliver himself over to the company of debauchees and drown the fire of his understanding in wine, nor sit in the theatre the hired applauder of the mouthing actor. But whether the citadel of panoplied Minerva allure him with its smile, or the land where the Spartan exile came to dwell, or the Sirens' home, let him devote his early years to poesy, and let his spirit drink in with happy omen a draught from the Maeonian fount. Thereafter, when his soul is full of the lore of the Socratic school, let him give himself free rein and brandish the weapons of great Demosthenes. Next let the band of Roman authors throng him round, and, but newly freed from the music of Greece, suffuse his soul and change its tone. Meanwhile, let his pen run its course withdrawn from the forum, and let Apollo's tripod send forth a voice rhythmic and swift: next let him roll forth in lordly speech the tale of heroes' feasting and wars, set forth in fierce strain and lofty language, such as fell from the lips of dauntless Cicero. Prepare thy soul for joys such as these; and, steeped in the plenteous stream of letters, thou shalt give utterance to the thoughts of thy Pierian soul.

This is not inspired poetry; but its advice is sound, and its point of view just. Nor is this criticism a mere jeu d'esprit; it is hard to resist the conclusion that the author is putting his own views into the mouths of his more than shady characters. For, mutatis mutandis, the same attitude towards literary art is revealed in the utterances of the poet Eumolpus.[316] It is a curious fact that while none of the characters in Petronius are to be taken seriously, their speech at times soars from the reeking atmosphere of the brothel and the clamour of the streets to clearer and loftier regions of thought, if not of action. The first appearance of Eumolpus is conceived in a broadly comic vein. 'While I was thus engaged a grey-haired old man entered the picture gallery. He had a troubled countenance, which seemed to promise some momentous utterance. His dress was lamentable, and showed that he was clearly one of those literary gentlemen so unpopular with the rich. He took his stand by my side. "I am a poet," he said, "and no mean one, if any trust is to be placed in wreaths of honour, which are so often bestowed even on those who least deserve them." "Why, then, are you so ill-clad?" I asked. "Just for that very reason. Devotion to art never brought any one wealth"—

qui pelago credit magno se faenore tollit; qui pugnas et castra petit, praecingitur auro; vilis adulator picto iacet ebrius ostro, et qui sollicitat nuptas, ad praemia peccat: sola pruinosis horret facundia pannis atque inopi lingua desertas invocat artes.[317]

He who entrusts his fortunes to the sea, wins a mighty harvest; he who seeks the camp and the field of war, may gird him with gold: the vile flatterer lies drunken on embroidered purple; the gallant who courts the favours of wedded wives, wins wealth by his sin: eloquence alone shivers in frosty rags and invokes the neglected arts with pauper tongue.

'There's no doubt as to the truth of it. If a man has a detestation of vice and chooses the paths of virtue, he is hated on the ground that his morals are eccentric. No one approves of ways of life other than his own. Then there are those whose sole care is the acquisition of wealth; they are unwilling that anything should be thought to be a superior good to that which they themselves possess. And so they persecute lovers of literature with all their might.' This vitiorum omnium inimicus then proceeds to tell a story which casts a startling light upon his 'eccentric morality'. Its undoubted humour can hardly be said to redeem its amazing grossness. He has scarcely finished the narration of his own shame when he is back again in another world—the world of letters. He laments the decay of art and philosophy. 'The passion for money-making has brought ruin in its train. While virtue went bare and was a welcome guest, the noble arts flourished, and men vied with one another in the effort to discover anything that might be of service to mankind.' He quotes the examples of Democritus, Eudoxus, Chrysippus in the world of science, of Myron in art. 'We have given ourselves up to wine and women, and take no pains to become acquainted even with the arts already discovered. We traduce antiquity by teaching and learning its vices only. Where is dialectic? Where is astronomy? Where is philosophy?' He sees that Encolpius is not listening, but is absorbed in the contemplation of a picture representing the sack of Troy, and seizes the opportunity of reciting a poem of his own upon the subject. The lines are for the most part neither original nor striking; they form a kind of abstract in iambics of the second Aeneid, from the appearance of Sinon to the emergence of the Greeks from the Trojan horse. But the work is finished and elegant,[318] and the simile which describes the arrival of the serpents that were to slay Laocoon is not unworthy of a more successful poet than Eumolpus is represented to have been:

ecce alia monstra; celsa qua Tenedos mare dorso replevit, tumida consurgunt freta undaque resultat scissa tranquillo minans[319] qualis silenti nocte remorum sonus longe refertur, cum premunt classes mare pulsumque marmor abiete imposita gemit. respicimus; angues orbibus geminis ferunt ad saxa fluctus, tumida quorum pectora rates ut altae lateribus spumas agunt.

Lo! a fresh portent; where the ridge of lofty Tenedos filled the sea, there breaks a swelling surge, and the broken waves rebound and threaten the calm: as when in the silent night the sound of oars is borne afar, when navies burden the main and the smitten deep groans beneath its freight of pine. We looked round: the waves bear towards the rocks two coiling snakes, whose swelling breasts, like tall ships, drive the water in foam along their sides.

The picture is at once vivid and beautiful, and we feel almost regretful at the fate which his recitation brought on the unhappy poet. 'Those who were walking in the colonnade began to throw stones at Eumolpus as he recited. He recognized this method of applauding his wit, covered his head with his cloak and fled from the temple. I was afraid that he would denounce me as a poet. And so I followed him till I came to the sea-shore and was out of range. "What do you mean," I said, "by inflicting this disease of yours upon us? You have been less than two hours in my company, and you have more often spoken like a poet than a man. I'm not surprised that people throw stones at you. I'm going to fill my own pockets with stones, and the moment you begin to unburden yourself, I'm going to break your head." His face revealed a painful emotion. "My good youth," said he, "to-day is not the first occasion on which I have suffered this fate. Nay, I have never entered a theatre to recite, without attracting this kind of welcome. But as I don't want to quarrel with you, I will abstain from my daily food for the whole day."' Eumolpus did not keep this promise; but the poem with which he broke it is of small importance and need not detain us.[320] It is a little disquisition on the refinements of luxury now prevalent, and has but one notable line—the last—

quidquid quaeritur optimum videtur.

Whatever must be sought for, that seems best.

But later he has another outbreak. Encolpius and his friends have been shipwrecked near Croton. On their way to the town Eumolpus beguiles the tedium of the climb by the criticism of Lucan and the attempt to improve on the Pharsalia, which have been discussed in the chapter on Lucan. If neither his poetry nor his criticism as a whole are sound, they are at least meant seriously. Here, again, we have a plea for earnest study, and for the avoidance of mere tricks of rhetoric. As for the rhetorician Agamemnon, so for Eumolpus, the great poets of the past are Homer and the lyric poets; and nearer home are the 'Roman Vergil' and Horace. If there was nothing else in this passage than the immortal phrase 'Horatii curiosa felicitas', it would redeem it from the commonplace. Petronius is a 'classicist'; the friend of Nero, he protests against the flamboyance of the age as typified in the rhetorical style of Seneca and Lucan. If the work was written at the time when Seneca and Lucan first fell from the Imperial favour, such criticism may well have found favour at court. If, with the brilliant whimsicality that characterizes all his work, Petronius has placed these utterances in the mouth of disreputable and broadly comic figures, that does not impair the value or sincerity of the criticism. Eumolpus' complaint of the decline of the arts and the baneful effect of the struggle for wealth is no doubt primarily inspired by the fact that he is poor and can find no patron nor praise for his verse, but must put up with execrations and showers of stones. But that does not affect the truth of much that he says, nor throw doubt upon the sincerity of Petronius himself.

The same whimsicality is shown elsewhere in the course of the novel. It contains not a few poems which, detached from their context, are full of grace and charm, though their application is often disgusting in the extreme. Such are the hexameters towards the close of the work in which Encolpius describes the scene of his unhappy love affair with a certain Circe:

Idaeo quales fudit de vertice flores terra parens, cum se concesso iunxit amori Iuppiter et toto concepit pectore flammas: emicuere rosae violaeque et molle cyperon, albaque de viridi riserunt lilia prato: talis humus Venerem molles clamavit in herbas, candidiorque dies secreto favit amori (127);

As the flowers poured forth by mother earth from Ida's peak, when she yielded to Jove's embrace and the god's soul was filled with passionate flame; the rose, the violet, and the soft iris flashed forth, and white lilies gleamed from the green meadow; so shone the earth when it called our love to rest upon the soft grass, and the day, brighter than its wont, smiled on our secret passion.

nobilis aestivas platanus diffuderat umbras et bacis redimita Daphne tremulaeque cupressus et circum tonsae trepidanti vertice pinus. has inter ludebat aquis errantibus amnis spumeus et querulo vexabat rore lapillos. dignus amore locus: testis silvestris aedon atque urbana Procne, quae circum gramina fusae ac molles violas cantu sua furta colebant (131).

A noble plane tree and the bay tree with its garland of berries, and the quivering cypress and the trim pine with its tremulous top, spread a sweet summer shade abroad. Amid them a foaming river sported with wandering waters and lashed the pebbles with its peevish spray. Meet was the place for love, with the woodland nightingale and the town-haunting swallow for witness, that, flitting all about the grass and the soft violets, told of their loves in song.

The unpleasing nature of the context cannot obscure the fact that here we have genuine poetry of great delicacy and beauty.[321]

Of the satirical epigrams contained in the novel little need be said. They are not in any way pointless or feeble, but they lack the ease and grace, and, it may be added, the sting, of the best work of Martial. The themes are hackneyed and suffer from the absence of the personal note. But it is at least refreshing to find that Petronius does not attempt, like Martial and others, to excuse his obscenity on the ground that his actual life is chaste. He speaks out frankly. 'Why hide what all men know?'

quid me constricta spectatis fronte Catones damnatisque novae simplicitatis opus? sermonis puri non tristis gratia ridet, quodque facit populus, Candida lingua refert (132).

Why gaze at me, ye Catos, with frowning brow, and damn the fresh frankness of my work? my speech is Latin undefiled, and has grace unmarred by gloom, and my candid tongue tells of what all Rome's people do.

A more interesting collection of poems, probably Petronian, remains to be discussed. In addition to the numerous fragments of poetry included in the surviving excerpts from the Satyricon, a considerable number of epigrams, attributed with more or less certainty to Petronius, are preserved in the fragments of the Anthologia Latina.[322] Immediately following on the epigrams assigned to the authorship of Seneca, the Codex Vossianus Q. 86 gives sixteen epigrams,[323] each headed by the word item. Of these two are quoted by Fulgentius as the work of Petronius.[324] There is, therefore, especially in view of the fact that they all bear a marked family resemblance to one another, a strong presumption that all are by the author of the Satyricon. Further, there are eleven epigrams[325] published by Binet in his edition of Petronius[326] from a MS. originally in the cathedral library of Beauvais, but now unfortunately lost. The first of the series is quoted by Fulgentius[327] as being by Petronius, and there is no reason for doubting the accuracy of Binet or his MS.[328] as to the rest. These poems are followed by eight more epigrams,[329] the first two of which Binet attributes to Petronius on stylistic grounds, but without any MS. authority.[330] Lastly, four epigrams are preserved by a third MS. (Cod. Voss. F. III) under the title Petronii[331]. Of these the first two are found in the extant portions of the Satyricon. The evidence for the Petronian authorship of these thirty-seven poems is not conclusive. Arguments based on resemblance or divergence in points of style are somewhat precarious in the case of an author like Petronius, writing with great variety of style on a variety of subjects. But there are some very marked resemblances between certain of these poems and verses surviving in the excerpts from the Satyricon[332], and the evidence against the Petronian authorship is of the slightest. A possible exception may be made in the case of the last eight epigrams preserved by Binet, though even here Binet is just enough in pointing out the resemblance of the first two of these to what is admittedly the work of Petronius. But with regard to the rest we shall run small risk in regarding them as selected from the lost books of the Satyricon.

These poems are very varied in character and as a whole reach a higher poetical level than most of those preserved in the existing fragments of the Satyricon.[1] The most notable features are simplicity and unaffected grace of diction coupled with a delicate appreciation of the beauties of nature. There is nothing that is out of keeping with the classicism on which we have insisted as a characteristic of Petronius, there is much that is worthy of the best writers of the Augustan age. The five lines in which he describes the coming of autumn have much in common with the descriptions of nature already quoted from the Satyricon. The last line in particular has at once a conciseness and a wealth of suggestion that is rare in any post-Ovidian poet:

iam nunc algentes autumnus fecerat umbras atque hiemem tepidis spectabat Phoebus habenis, iam platanus iactare comas, iam coeperat uvas adnumerare suas defecto palmite vitis: ante oculos stabat, quidquid promiserat annus.[333]

Now autumn had brought its cool shades, Phoebus' reins glowed less hot and he was looking winterward. The plane was beginning to shed her leaves, the vine to count its clusters, and its fresh shoots were withered. Before our eyes stood all the promise of the year.

Equally charming and sincere in tone is the description of the delights of the simple life:

parvula securo tegitur mihi culmine sedes uvaque plena mero fecunda pendet ab ulmo. dant rami cerasos, dant mala rubentia silvae Palladiumque nemus pingui se vertice frangit. iam qua diductos potat levis area fontes, Corycium mihi surgit olus malvaeque supinae et non sollicitos missura papavera somnos. praeterea sive alitibus contexere fraudem seu magis inbelles libuit circumdare cervos aut tereti lino pavidum subducere piscem, hos tantum novere dolos mea sordida rura. i nunc et vitae fugientis tempora vende divitibus cenis! me qui manet exitus olim, hic precor inveniat consumptaque tempora poscat.[334]

My cottage is sheltered by a roof that fears no ill; the grape, bursting with wine, hangs from the fertile elm; cherries hang by the bough and my orchard yields its rosy apples, and the tree that Pallas loves breaks beneath the rich burden of its branches. And now, where the garden bed's light soil drinks in the runnels of water, rises for me Corycian kale and low-growing mallow, and the poppy that grants easy slumber. Moreover, whether 'tis my pleasure to set snares for birds or hem in the timid deer, or on fine-meshed net to draw up the affrighted fish, this is all the guile known to my humble lands. Go to, now, and waste the flying hours of life on sumptuous feasts! I pray, that my destined end may find me here, and here demand an account of the days I have lived.

These lines may be no more than an academic exercise on a commonplace theme, but there can be no doubt of their artistic success. We find the same simplicity in Columella, but not the same art. Compare them with the work of Petronius' contemporary, Calpurnius Siculus, and there is all the difference between true poetry and mere poetising. More passionate and more convincing is the elegiac poem celebrating the poet's return to the scene of former happiness:

o litus vita mihi dulcius, o mare! felix, cui licet ad terras ire subinde tuas! o formosa dies! hoc quondam rure solebam naidas alterna[335] sollicitare manu. hic fontis lacus est, illic sinus egerit algas: haec statio est tacitis fida cupidinibus. pervixi; neque enim fortuna malignior umquam eripiet nobis, quod prior aura dedit.[336]

O shore, O sea, that I love more than life! Happy is he that may straightway visit the lands ye border. O fairest day! 'Twas here that once I was wont to swim and vex the sea-nymphs with my hands' alternate strokes. Here is a stream's deep pool, there the bay casts up its seaweed: here is a spot that can faithfully guard the secret of one's love. I have lived my life to the full; nor can grudging fortune ever rob me of that which her favouring breeze once gave me.

But Petronius can attain to equal success in other veins. Now we have a fragment in the epic style containing a simile at once original and beautiful:

haec ait et tremulo deduxit vertice canos consecuitque genas; oculis nec defuit imber, sed qualis rapitur per vallis improbus amnis, cum gelidae periere nives et languidus auster non patitur glaciem resoluta vivere terra, gurgite sic pleno facies manavit et alto insonuit gemitu turbato murmure pectus.[337]

He spake, and rent the white hair on his trembling head and tore his cheeks, and his eyes streamed with a flood of tears. As when a resistless river sweeps down the valley when the chill snows have melted and the languid south wind thaws the earth and suffers not the ice to remain, even so his face streamed with a torrent of weeping and his breast groaned loud with a confused murmur of sorrow.

Elsewhere we find him writing in satirical vein of the origin of religion,[338] on the decay of virtue,[339] on the hardship of the married state[340]:

'uxor legis onus, debet quasi census amari.' nec censum vellem semper amare meum.

'One should love one's wife as one loves one's fortune.' Nay, I desire not always to love even my fortune.

But it is in a love-poem that he reaches his highest achievement:

lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis carpebam et somno lumina victa dabam: cum me saevus Amor prensat sursumque capillis excitat et lacerum pervigilare iubet. 'tu famulus meus,' inquit, 'ames cum mille puellas, solus, io, solus, dure, iacere potes?' exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta omne iter incipio, nullum iter expedio. nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire paenitet et pudor est stare via media. ecce tacent voces hominum strepitusque viarum et volucrum cantus turbaque fida canum: solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum.[341]

I lay on my bed and began to enjoy the silence of the night scarce yet begun, and was yielding my wearied eyes to sleep, when fierce Love laid hold of me, and, seizing me by the hair, aroused me, tore me, and bade me wake. 'Canst thou, my servant,' he cried, 'the lover of a thousand girls, lie thus alone, alone, hard-hearted?' I leapt from my couch, and barefoot, with dishevelled robe, started on my errand, yet never accomplished it. Now I hurry forward, now am loth to go; now repent me that I have returned, and feel shame to stand thus aimless in mid-street. So the voices of men, the murmur of the streets, the song of birds, and the trusty watchdogs all are silent; and I alone dread the slumbers of my couch and follow thy behest, great god of love.

If this is not great poetry, it is at least one of the most perfect specimens of conventional erotic verse in all ancient literature. If we except a very few of the best poems of Propertius, Latin Elegiacs have nothing to show that combines such perfection of form with such exquisite sensuous charm. It breathes the fragrance of the Greek anthology.

The general impression left by the poetical work of Petronius is curiously unlike that left by any Latin poet. Sometimes dull, he is never eccentric; without the originality of the greatest artists, he has all the artist's sensibility for form. He writes not as one inspired, but as one steeped in the best literature. Many were greater stylists, but few were endowed with such an exquisite sense of style. As a poet he is a dilettante, and his claim to greatness lies in the brilliant and audacious humour of his 'picaresque novel'. But his verse at its best has a charm and fragrance of its own that is almost unique in Latin, and reveals a combination of grace and facility, to find a parallel for which among writers of the post-Augustan age we must turn to the pages of Martial.



CHAPTER VI

MINOR POETRY, 14-70 A.D.

I

DIDACTIC POETRY

Only two didactic poems of this period have survived, the poem of Columella on gardening, and the anonymous work on Mount Etna, setting forth a theory of volcanic action.

i

THE 'AETNA'

The Aetna is a hexameter poem, 646 lines in length. The author laments the indifference shown by poets to the natural phenomena of his day. They waste their time on the description of the marvels of art, the spectacular side of human civilization, and the surface-beauties of Nature.[342] They write trivial epics on the voyage of Argo, the sack of Troy, Niobe, Thyestes, Cadmus, Ariadne, the Battle of the Giants[343]. They tell of the terrors of the underworld[344], and the loves of the gods[345]: they seek the false rather than the true, they neglect the genuine wonders of Nature, the laws that govern heavenly and terrestrial phenomena.

He will be wiser. But there is no need to travel far. He will not soar skyward to treat of the stars in their courses, of the seasons and signs of the weather, to the neglect of the marvels of mother earth.[346] The greatest of miracles is close at hand, Etna, the home of eternal fire. Deep in the heart of earth dwell two irresistible forces, wind and fire.[347] It is their conflict that causes the outbursts of flame and molten rock that devastate the slopes of Etna. It is no smithy of the gods, no Titan's prison. The causes are natural, water and wind and fire. He has seen Etna; he describes the crater,[348] the volcanic rock that can imprison fire,[349] the clouds that continually veil the mountain's crest,[350] the flames that burst from its summit, the subterranean rumblings,[351] the terrors of the lava stream. He concludes with the touching story of the Catanian brothers who, neglecting all else, sought only to save their aged parents from the flames. Their piety had its reward; they, and they alone, escaped from the lava; their neighbours, who sought to save their chattels and their wealth, perished in the stream, encumbered by their belongings.

Of the poet's theory of volcanic action we need not speak; it was the current scientific theory of the day, and has no value for us; nor has the author any claim to originality. As to the style and composition of the work, brief comment will suffice. We may give the author credit for a real enthusiasm, and for a just contempt of the prevailing themes that engaged the attention of the minor poets of the day. But he has no gifts for poetry. His theme, although it gave considerable opportunities for episodic display, was one of great difficulty. Much dry scientific detail was necessarily required. If Lucretius is sometimes tedious and prosaic in spite of the vastness of his theme, the magnificence of his moral background, and his inspired enthusiasm, what can be expected of a poem on a minor scientific theme such as Etna? Volcanoes can hardly compete with the universe as a theme for poetry. The subject is one that might have fascinated an Alexandrian poet and found skilful treatment at his hands. But the author of the Aetna had not the stylistic gifts of the Alexandrian. The actual arrangement of his matter is good, but, even when due allowance is made for the corruption of our text, his obscurity is intolerable, his imagery confused, his language cumbrous and wooden. He has, moreover, no poetic imagination. Aetna, not the poet, provides the fire. Even the beautiful story of the Catanian brothers, which forms by far the best portion of the poem, never rises to the level of pure poetry. It is illumined neither by the fire of rhetoric nor by the lambent light of sensuous diction and rich imagination. A few lines may be quoted to show its general character (605):

Nam quondam ruptis excanduit Aetna cavernis, et velut eversis penitus fornacibus ingens evecta in longum est rapidis fervoribus unda. * * * * * ardebant agris segetes et mollia cultu iugera cum dominis, silvae collesque rubebant. * * * * * tum vero ut cuique est animus viresque rapinae tutari conantur opes, gemit ille sub auro, colligit ille arma et stulta cervice reponit, defectum raptis illum sua carmina tardant, hic velox minimo properat sub pondere pauper. * * * * * ... haec nullis parsura incendia pascunt, vel solis parsura piis. namque optima proles Amphinomus fraterque pari sub munere fortes, cum iam vicinis streperent incendia tectis, aspiciunt pigrumque patrem matremque senecta eheu defessos posuisse in limine membra, parcite, avara manus, dulces attollere praedas: illis divitiae solae materque paterque: hanc rapient praedam. mediumque exire per ignem ipso dante fidem properant. o maxima rerum et merito pietas homini tutissima virtus! erubuere pios iuvenes attingere flammae et, quacumque ferunt illi vestigia, cedunt felix illa dies, illa est innoxia terra. dextra saeva tenent, laevaque incendia fervent; ille per obliquos ignes fraterque triumphant tutus uterque pio sub pondere: suffugit illa et circa geminos avidus sibi temperat ignis, incolumes abeunt tandem et sua numina secum salva ferunt. illos mirantur carmina vatum, illos seposuit claro sub nomine Ditis nec sanctos iuvenes attingunt sordida fata, securas cessere domus et iura piorum.

For once Etna burst its caves and, glowing with fire, cast forth all that its furnaces contained; a vast wave, swift and hot with fire, streamed forth afar.... Crops blazed along the fields, rich acres with their masters were consumed, forest and hill glowed rosy red.... Then each man, as he had courage and strength to bear away his goods, strove to protect his wealth. One groans beneath a weight of gold, another collects his weapons and slings them on his foolish neck. Another, unable to carry away what he has snatched up, wastes time in repeating charms, while there the poor man moves swift beneath his slender burden.... The fire feeds on all it meets: nought will it spare, or, if aught it spares, only the pious. For Amphinomus and his brother, the best of sons, brave in the toil they shared, when the fires roared loud and were already nigh their home, behold their father and their mother fall fainting on the threshold fordone with years. Cease, greedy folk, to shoulder the spoil of your fortunes that are so dear to you: for these men father and mother are their sole wealth; this only is the spoil that they would save. They hasten to escape through the midst of the fire, which itself gave them confidence. O piety, greatest of all that man may possess, of all virtues that which most saves the righteous. The flames blushed to touch the pious youths, and yield a path wherever they turn their steps. Blest was that day; the ground they trod was unharmed. The fierce burning holds all things on their right and blazes on their left. The brethren move triumphant on their path aslant the flame, each saved by his pious burden: the fire shuns their path and restrains its greedy hunger where pass the twain; scatheless they escape at length and bear those whom they worship to a place of safety. The songs of poets hymn their praise and the underworld gives them a glorious resting-place apart, nor does any unworthy fate befall these youths that lived so holy. They have passed away to dwell among the blessed, and sorrow cometh not nigh their dwelling-place.

The narrative is clear, and the story delightful. But the telling of it, though free from affectation, is dull, prosaic, and uninspired. And it must be remembered that this passage shows the author in his most favourable aspect. In his more technical passages the clearness and simplicity is absent, the prosiness and lack of imagination remain, nakedly hideous.

The author of the poem is unknown, the very date is uncertain. The conception of the work is Lucretian, but in point of style, while full of reminiscences of Lucretius, the poem owes most to Vergil, whose hexameter has undoubtedly been taken for a model, though it has lost all its music. Except in the avoidance of elision there is no trace of the influence of Ovid. The poem might easily have been written in the latter half of the reign of Augustus.[352] The obscurity is due to the lack, not the excess of art, and the poem has no special affinity with the Silver Age. Servius and Donatus, indeed, both seem to ascribe the poem to Vergil,[353] while it is found in the MSS. which give us the Appendix Vergiliana. But there are considerations which have inclined editors to place it later, in the reign of Nero, or in the opening years of the principate of Vespasian. In one of his letters (Sen. 79) Seneca, writing to his friend Lucilius Junior, urges him to 'describe Etna in his poem, and by so doing treat a topic common to all poets'. The fact that Vergil had already treated it was no obstacle to Ovid's essaying the task, nor was Cornelius Severus deterred by the fact that both Vergil and Ovid had handled the theme. Later he adds, 'If I know you aright, the subject of Aetna will make your mouth water.' Lucilius was procurator in Sicily, and had sung the story of the Syracusan nymph Arethusa.[354] It has been suggested that he[355] wrote the Aetna. But Lucilius was an imitator of Ovid,[356] and Seneca advises him not to write a didactic poem on Etna, but to treat it episodically (in suo carmine), as Vergil and Ovid[357] had done. It is conceivable that he may have written a didactic poem on the subject, but Seneca's remarks yield absolutely no evidence for the fact.

Others have made Cornelius Severus the author,[358] though it is practically certain that his description of the volcano must have occurred in his poem On the Sicilian War.[359] But the fact that Seneca makes no reference to the existence of any learned didactic poem on the subject carries a little more weight, and there are marked parallels between Seneca's 'quaestiones Naturales' and passages in the Aetna.[360] Further, the very badness of the poem makes us hesitate to place it in the Augustan period. That age, no doubt, produced much bad work as well as good, but a poem so obscure and inartistically prosaic as the Aetna was more likely to be produced and more likely to survive in an imitative and uninspired age such as that which followed on the death of Augustus. But for the evidence of Seneca we should place the poem in the prosaic reign of Tiberius; the considerations adduced from Seneca lead us, though with the utmost hesitation, to place it somewhere between 57 and 79 A.D.[361] Of the lower limit there can be no doubt. The fires of the Phlegraean plains are extinct,[362] therefore the poem was composed before the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.[363] The question of the authorship of the Aetna has necessarily been treated at greater length than the merits of the poem deserve. It is a work of small importance; its chief value is to show how low it was possible for Roman didactic poetry to sink. In the Aetna it sinks lower than epic in the Punica of Silius Italicus. That poem, for all its portentous dullness, shows a certain ponderous technical skill and literary facility. The author of the Aetna, though clearly a man of culture, is never at his ease, the verse is laboured and lacking flexibility, and there is no technical dexterity to compensate for a total absence of genius. The terror and beauty of the mountain crowned with snow and fire find no adequate expression in these monotonous lines. There remains a conglomerate of unoriginal and unsound physical speculation.

ii

COLUMELLA

The Aetna is a Lucretian poem decked out in a Vergilian dress. In the tenth book of Columella we have a didactic poem modelled on the Georgics of Vergil. The author was of Spanish origin, a native of Gades,[364] and the contemporary of his great compatriot the younger Seneca.[365] He had served in a military capacity in Syria,[366] but his real passion was agriculture. His ambition was to write a really practical farmers' manual.[367] He had written nine books in prose, covering the whole range of farming, from the tillage of the soil to the breeding of poultry and cattle, and concluding with a disquisition on wild animals and bee-keeping. But in the tenth book, yielding to the solicitation of his friend Publius Silvinus,[368] he set himself a more exalted task, no less than the writing of a fifth Georgic on gardening. Vergil, in his fourth Georgic (148), had left the theme of gardens for another's singing. Columella takes him at his word. The tenth book is manifestly intended as the crown and conclusion of his work. But later he changed his plan. Another friend, Claudius Augustalis,[369] demanded a paraphrase, or rather an amplification in prose. This resulted in an eleventh book, in which the care of the garden and the duties of the villicus are described, while the work was finally concluded in a twelfth book setting forth the duties of the villica.[370]

It may be doubted whether Columella was well advised when he yielded to the entreaties of his friend Silvinus and wrote his tenth book in verse. He had no great poetic talent, nor did he possess the sleight of hand of Calpurnius, the imitator of the Eclogues. But he possesses qualities which render his work far more attractive than that of Calpurnius. He is a genuine enthusiast, with a real love of the countryside and a charming affection for flowers. And as a stylist he is modest. He makes no attempt at display, no contorted striving after originality. His verse is clear and simple as his tastes. He is content to follow humbly in the footsteps of his great master, the 'starry' Vergil.[371] He imitates and even plagiarizes[372] because he loves, not because it is the fashion. He shows no appreciation of the more intimate harmonies of the Vergilian hexameter; like so many contemporaries, he realizes neither the value of judicious elision nor varied pauses; but his verse, in spite of its monotony and lack of life and movement, is not unmelodious. The poem is a sober work, uninspired in tone, straightforward and simple in plan. It need not be described in detail; its advice is obvious, setting forth the times and seasons to be observed by the gardener, the methods of preparing the soil, the choice of flowers, with all the customary mythological allusions.[373] At its worst, with its tedious lists of the names of flowers, it reads like a seedsman's catalogue,[374] at its best it is lit up with a quaint humour, a love of colour, and a homely yet vivid imagination. Mother earth—'sweet earth' he calls her—is highly personified; that she may be adorned anew, her green locks must be torn from their tangle by the plough, her old raiment stripped from her, her thirst quenched by irrigation, her hunger satisfied with fertilizing manure.[375] The garden is to be no rich man's park for the display of statues and fountains. Its one statue shall be the image of the garden god, its patron and its protector.[376] Its splendour shall be the varied hue of its flower-beds and its wealth in herbs that serve the use of man:

verum ubi iam puro discrimine pectita tellus deposito squalore nitens sua semina poscet, pingite tunc varios, terrestria sidera, flores, candida leucoia et flaventia lumina caltae narcissique comas et hiantis saeva leonis ora feri calathisque virentia lilia canis, nec non vel niveos vel caeruleos hyacinthos, tum quae pallet humi, quae frondens purpurat auro, ponatur viola et nimium rosa plena pudoris (94).

But when earth, with parted locks combed clear, gleams, all soilure cast aside, and demands the seeds that are her due, call forth the varied hues of flowers, earth's constellations, the white snowflake and the marigold's golden eyes, the narcissus-petals and the blossom that apes the fierce lion's gaping maw; the lily, too, with calix shining white amid its green leaves, the hyacinths white and blue; plant also the violet lying pale upon the ground or purple shot with gold among its leafage, and the rose with its deep shamefaced blush.

He loves the return of spring with as deep a love as Vergil's, though he must borrow Vergil's language to describe its coming and its power.[377] But his painting of its harvest of colour is his own:

quin et odoratis messis iam floribus instat: iam ver purpureum, iam versicoloribus anni fetibus alma parens pingi sua tempora gaudet. iam Phrygiae loti gemmantia lumina promunt et coniventis oculos violaria solvunt (255).

Nay, more, the harvest-time draws near for sweet-scented flowers. The purple spring has come, and kindly mother earth rejoices that her brows are painted bright with all the many-coloured offspring of the year. Now the Phrygian lotus puts forth its jewelled orbs and the violet beds open their winking eyes.

All the glories of an Italian spring are in the lines in which a little later he describes the joy of living when the year is young, and the wasting heat of summer is still far off, when it is sweet to be in the sun and watch the garden with its rainbow colours:

nunc ver egelidum, nunc est mollissimus annus, dum Phoebus tener ac tenera decumbere in herba suadet et arguto fugientes gramine fontes nec rigidos potare iuvat nec sole tepentes, iamque Dionaeis redimitur floribus hortus, iam rosa mitescit Sarrano clarior ostro. nec tam nubifugo Borea Latonia Phoebe purpureo radiat vultu, nec Sirius ardor sic micat aut rutilus Pyrois aut ore corusco Hesperus, Eoo remeat cum Lucifer ortu, nec tam sidereo fulget Thaumantias arcu quam nitidis hilares conlucent fetibus horti (282).

Now cool spring is come, the gentlest season of the year, while Phoebus yet is young and bids us recline in the young herbage, and 'tis sweet to drink the rill that flows among the murmuring grass, with waters neither icy cold nor warm with the sun's heat. Now, too, the garden is crowned with the flowers Dione loves, and the rose ripens brighter than Tyrian purple. Not so brightly does Phoebe, Leto's daughter, shine with radiant face when Boreas has dispersed the clouds, nor glows hot Sirius so, nor ruddy Pyrois, nor Hesperus with shining countenance when he returns as the daystar at the break of dawn, not so fair gleams Iris with her starry bow, as shines the joyous garden with its bright offspring.

These are the words of an enthusiast and a poet, and these few outbursts of song redeem the poem from dullness. There is wafted from his pages the perfume of the countryside, and the fresh air breathes welcome amid the hothouse cultures of contemporary poets. And he is almost the only poet of the age that can be read without a wince of pain. He is at least as good a laureate of the garden as Thomson of the seasons, and he has all the grace of humility. Even when the artist fails us, we love the man.

II

CALPURNIUS SICULUS. THE EINSIEDELN FRAGMENTS AND THE 'PANEGYRICUS IN PISONEM'

It may be said of pastoral poetry, without undue disrespect, that it is the most artificial and the least in touch with reality of all the more important forms of poetic art. Even in the hands of a master like Theocritus, invested as it is with an incomparable charm, and distinguished in many respects by an astonishing truth and fidelity, it is never other than highly artificial. For its birth an age was required in which the class whence the majority of poets and their audience are drawn had largely lost touch with country life, or had at any rate developed ideals that can only spring up in town society. This does not imply that men have ceased altogether to appreciate the value of the country life or the beauty of country surroundings, only that they have lost much of their understanding of them; and so their appreciation takes new forms. They love the country as a half-forgotten paradise, they fly back to it as a refuge from the artificiality of town life, but they take much of that artificiality with them. From the time of Theocritus pastoral poetry pure and simple has steadily declined. Great poems have been written with exquisite pastoral elements or even cast in pastoral form. But they have never owed their greatness entirely, or even chiefly, to the pastoral element. That element has merely provided a charming setting for scenes or thoughts that have nothing genuinely pastoral about them.

Of the small amount of pastoral poetry extant in Latin it need hardly be said that the Bucolica of Vergil stand in a class by themselves. And yet for all their beauty they are unsatisfactory to those who know and love Theocritus. Their charm is undeniable, but they are immature and too obviously imitative. But Vergil was at least country-born and had a deep sympathy for country life. When we come to the scanty relics of his successors and imitators we are conscious of a lamentable falling away. If Vergil's imitations of Theocritus fail to ring as true as their original, what shall be said of the imitators of Vergil's imitations? Even if they had been true poets, their verse must have rung false. But the poets with whom we have to deal, Calpurnius Siculus and the anonymous author of two poems known as the Einsiedeln fragments, were not genuine poets. They had little of the intimacy with nature and unsophisticated man that was demanded by their self-chosen task. That they possessed some real affection for the country is doubtless true, but it was not the prime inspiration of their verse. They had the ambition to write poetry rather than the call; a slight bent towards the country, heightened by a vague dissatisfaction and weariness with the artificial luxury of Rome, led them to choose pastoral poetry. They make up for depth of observation by a shallow minuteness. In the seven eclogues of Calpurnius may be found a larger assortment of vegetables, of agricultural implements and operations, than in the Bucolics of Vergil, but there is little poetry, pastoral or otherwise. The 'grace of all the Muses' and the breath of the country are fled for ever; the dexterous phrasing of a laborious copyist reigns in their stead.

Of the life of Calpurnius Siculus nothing is known and but little can be conjectured. Of his date there can be little doubt. We learn from the evidence of the poems themselves that they were written in the principate of a youthful Caesar (i. 44; iv. 85, 137; vii. 6), beautiful to look upon (vii. 84), the giver of splendid games (vii. 44), the inaugurator of an age of peace, liberty and plenty (i. 42-88; iv passim). This points strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (quinquennium Neronis) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., while the line

maternis causam qui vicit Iulis (i. 45)

seems clearly to refer to the speech delivered by the young Nero for the people of Ilium,[378] from whom the Iuli, Nero's ancestors on the mother's side, claimed to trace their descent. It may therefore safely be assumed that the poems were written early in the reign of Nero. A most ingenious attempt has been made to throw some light on the identity of their author.[379] He speaks of himself as Corydon, and he has a patron whom he styles Meliboeus. He prays that Meliboeus may bring him before Caesar's notice as Pollio brought Vergil (iv. 157 sqq.; also i. 94). It has been suggested with some plausibility that Meliboeus is no other than C. Calpurnius Piso, the distinguished noble round whom in 65 A.D. centred the great conspiracy against Nero. The evidence rests on the existence of a poem entitled panegyricus in Pisonem,[380] in which a nameless poet seeks by his laudations to win Piso for a patron. The style of the poem has a marked resemblance to that of Calpurnius. If, as is possible, it should be assigned to his authorship, it becomes fairly certain that he was a dependent of Piso, and the name Calpurnius would suggest that he may have been the son of one of his freedmen.

The eclogues of Calpurnius are seven in number.[381] The first is in praise of the Golden Age, with special reference to the advent of the young princeps. Though given a different setting it is clearly modelled on the fourth eclogue of Vergil. The second, describing a contest of song between two shepherds before a third as judge, follows Vergil even more closely.[382] Parallels might be further elaborated, but it is sufficient to say here that only two of the poems show any originality, namely, the fifth and the seventh. In the former we have the advice given by an aged farmer to his son, to whom he is handing over his farm. It is inclined to be prosy, but is simple and pleasing in tone, and the old countryman may be forgiven if he sometimes seems to be quoting the Georgics. The seventh is a more ambitious effort. A rustic describes the great games that he has seen given in the amphitheatre at Rome. The language, though characteristically decadent in its elaboration, shows considerable originality. The amphitheatre is, for instance, thus described (vii. 30):

qualiter haec patulum concedit vallis in orbem et sinuata latus resupinis undique silvis inter continuos curvatur concava montes, sic ibi planitiem curvae sinus ambit arenae et geminis medium se molibus alligat ovum. * * * * * balteus en gemmis, en illita porticus auro certatim radiant; nec non, ubi finis arenae proxima marmoreo praebet spectacula muro, sternitur adiunctis ebur admirabile truncis et coit in rotulum, tereti qui lubricus axe impositos subita vertigine falleret ungues excuteretque feras. auro quoque torta refulgent retia, quae totis in arenam dentibus extant, dentibus aequatis: et erat (mihi crede, Lycota, si qua fides) nostro dens longior omnis aratro.

Even as this vale rounds to a wide circle, and with bending sides and slanting woods on every side makes a curved hollow amid the unbroken hills, so there the circle of the curving arena surrounds its level plain and locks either side of its towering structure into an oval about itself.... See how the gangway's parapet studded with gems and the colonnade plated with gold vie with each other's brightness; nay more, where the arena's bound sets forth its shows close to the marble wall, ivory is overlaid in wondrous wise on jointed beams and is bent into a cylinder, which, turning nimbly on its trim axle, may cheat with sudden whirl the wild beast's claws and cast them from it. Nets, too, of twisted gold gleam forth, hung out into the arena on tusks in all their length and of equal size, and—believe me, Lycotas, if you can—each tusk was longer than our ploughshare.