Latm Literature

PR EFA CE . A HISTORY of Latin Literature was to have been written for this series of Manuals by the late Professor William S . A I ellar fter his death was asked, as one of his old h pupils, to carry out the work which e had undertaken ; and this book is now offered as a last tribute to the memory of my dear friend and master. M. J . W. CO NT ENT S . Andronicus and Naevius Ennius Pacuvius Dec ay ‘ The Ear ly j ur ists Cato The Sc ipionic Circ l e r Lru Cinna and Cal vus Cle f-mo PAGE ’ ‘ PRO ERTI US AND THE ELEGI SI S . III . P - T bu us Augustan Trage dy Callus Prope rtius i ll m I V. Ov . Juli a and Sulpic ia Ovid VY V . LI TANs. VI . THE LESSER AuGUS —Tro Minor Aug ustan Poetry Manilius Phae dr us gus and Pate rculus Ce lsus The Elder Se ne ca THE EMPI RE. LUCA PET RONI Us . THE ROME OF NERO : SENECA, N , Se neca Lucan Pe rsius Col um e lla Pe tronius VE GE S US THE ELDER P Y MAR THE SI L R A : TATI , LIN , U . TIAL, Q INTILIAN — — — Stati us Silius I talic us Martial The Elde r Pliny —~ Qui ntilian TACI TUs III . ’ UVENAL TH E YOUNGER P Y SUEI‘O NI US : DECA or I V. J , LIN , Y CLASSI CAL L ATIN . — Juve nal The Younge r Pliny Sue tonius Aul us C e llins “ ” THE ELOCUTI O NOVELLA. Fronto Apul e ius Th e Pe r vigili um Ve neris EARL L CH R S Y : MI NUCI US E I Y ATIN I TIANIT F L X, TER U LACTANTI U T LLIAN , S . Minuc ius Fe lix Te rtullian Cyprian and Lactantius — — Comm odianus The Empire and the Church THE OURT CENTUR : AUSO US AND C UD F H Y NI LA IAN . Papini an and Ulpi an : Sarnonic us - Til)erianus : the Augustan History Auso ni us Cl audian Prud e n ti us Ammi anus Marce lli nus HE BEGI I GS OF DD E VIII . T NN N MI L — The End of the Ancient World First Period Se c ond and Third Periods Fourth Pe riod - The Wor ld after R ome I NDEX OF AUTHORS ORIGINS OF LATIN LITERATURE : EARLY EPI C AND TRA ED G Y . TO the Romans themselves, as they looked back two hundred years later, the beginnings of a real literature seemed definitely fixed in the generation which passed s between the fir t and second Punic wars . The peace of B . 2 1 h h the C . 4 closed an epoc throug out which Roman Republic had been fighting for an ' assured place in the group of powers which controlled the Mediterranean world . This was now gained ; and the pressure of Carthage thus removed, Rome was left free to follow the natural ex pansion of her colonies and her commerce . Wealth and peace are comparative terms ; it was in such wealth and peace as the cessation Of the long and exhausting war with a Carthage brought, that a leisured class beg n to form itself at Rome , which not only could take a certain interest in Greek literature , but felt in an indistinct way that it was i the their duty, as represent ng one of great civilised powers, a -w e r to have a substantial nation l h e of their own . That this new Latin literature must be based on that n of Greece, went without sayi g ; it was almost equally inevitable that its earliest forms should be in the shape of Of translations from that body Greek poetry, epic and n all dramatic, which had for lo g established itself through - the Greek speaking world as a common basis of culture . 3 4 L atin L ite ra ture . U f Latin literature, though arti icial in a fuller sense than that of some other nations, did not escape the general law of f all literatures, that they must begin by verse be ore they can go on to prose . i L on Up to this date, nat ve atin poetry had been c fined, h so far as we can judge, to ymns and ballads, both of a A rude nature . longside of these were the p opular festival rfor c es m . p e man , containing the germs of a dra a If the words O f these performances were ever written down (which is rather more than doubtful), they would help to make the notion Of translating a regular Greek play come more L was easily . But the first certain atin translation a piece of work which showed a much greater audacity, and which in fact, though this did not appear till long afterwards, was - much more far reaching in its consequences . This was a translation of the Ody ssey into Satum ian verse by one A Of from ndronicus, a Greek prisoner war Tarentum,who lived at Rome as a tutor to children of the governing class r At du ing the first Punic War . the capture of his city, he had become the slave O f one Of the distinguished family Livii f w of the , and a ter his manumission was kno n, accord ing to Roman custom, under the name Of Lu cius Livius A ndronicus . The few fragments of his Ody ssey which survive do not Show any high level of attainment ; and it is interesting to note that this first attempt to create a mould for Latin poetry went on wrong, or, perhaps it would be truer to say, on premature lines . From this time henceforth the whole serious production of Latin poetry for centuries was a continuous effort to master and adapt Greek structu re and ve rsific ation Od sse L s 3 the y y of ivius was the fir t and, with one notable exception, almost the last sustained attempt to use the native forms of Italian rhythm towards any d large achievement this current thereafter sets undergroun , and only emerges again at the end of the classical pe riod . S / It is a curious and ignificant fact that the attempt, su ' Andr om cas a nd Na e v iu s . 5 m nOt as it was, was ade by a native, but by a naturalised foreigner . The heroic hexameter was, of course , a metre much harder to reproduce in Latin than the trochaic and iambic Gr e metres of the e k drama, the former of which especially f accommodated itself without di ficulty to Italian speech . In his dramatic pieces, which included both tragedies and A comedies, ndronicus seems to have kept to the Greek b measures, and in this he was followed y his successors . Throughout the next two generations the production of m dra atic literature was steady and continuous . Gnaeus Naevius L , the first native atin poet of consequence, beginning to produce plays a few years later than Andro nic us , continued to write busily till after the end of the La second Punic War, and left the tin drama thoroughly established. Only inconsiderable fragments of his writings survive but it is certain that he was a figure of really great n . Of a disti ction Though not a man birth himself, he h d the skill and courage to match himself against the great M e t lli Me telli. e house of the The , it is true , won the u - x battle ; Naevi s was imprisoned, and finally died in e ile ; but he had established literature as a real force in Rome . Aulus G ellius has preserved the splendid and haughty verses which he wrote to be engraved on his own tomb ' I mmor tales mor tales sz for etfas fler e ’ ' ’ F/er ent at rj ae Camend e Naema m poeta m ' l tague p ostgu am est Or t z tr aditus thesa u r o ' ' ' ' ' n a a Oblztz sa nt R amaz Iogmer lz g L a tina . The Latin Muses were, indeed, then in the full pride and hope of a vigorous and daring youth . The greater part of i ’ Naev us plays, both in tragedy and comedy, were, it is true, translated or adapted from Greek originals ; but ’ — Da nae [ izz rem the A nam alongside of these, the , the p g a mac/w, which even his masculine genius can hardly have ' — made more than pale re fle xe s Of Euripides were new L ati i I f n L te r a tu r e . [ be creations, plays of the purple stripe, as they came to a c lled, where he wakened a tragic note from the legendary ’ ' i Of Hi Alimoma m or actual history the Roman race . s E é R omuli et R emi i , though it may have borrowed much from d G the kin red reek legends of Danae or Melanippe, was one of the foundation-stones Of a new national literature ; ’ ’ Of Clastzaiu m w in the tragedy , the scene as laid in his own i r r days, and the act on tu ned on one of the great victo ies Me te lli m won by those very who , in a single stinging line, he afterwards held up to the ridicule of the nation . Na vius In his advanced years, e took a step of even greater consequence . Turning from tragedy to epic, he A f did not now, like ndronicus, translate rom the Greek, but launched out on the new ventu re of a Roman epic .

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