NOTES. BOOK I. HE poets who flourished during the period of two centuries embraced by this Book fall naturally under one of two heads, according as they either adopted a popular style, and aimed at satisfying the multitude, or appealed more and more to the taste of the educated few, in proportion to the greater development of poetic genius among the Romans. Deficient as the writers of the former class are, when compared with the Augustan age, in refinement and in culture, they invariably exhibit traces of the strength and dignity of character denoted by the almost untranslatable term gravitas; their remains are stamped by the expression of patriotism and the great characteristic qualities of their race. The writers who constitute the second class are far more artistic. Terence, by his pure Latinity and his elegant humour, strove to train and educate rather than follow the taste of his countrymen ; Lucretius, who seems to withdraw himself from the din of cities to the calmer scenes of natural beauty, excels in his stateliness of thought, and the peculiar power he possesses of describing his object frequently by a single word; while Catullus is unequalled in the expression of emotion, and in A A the marvellous clearness and simplicity of his language. In spite of the fact that the older writers exhibit strength of intellect rather than verbal elegance, it seemed well to embody in this collection some specimens of their remains, that the life of Latin poetry might be traced as it were from its cradle to its maturity and its decline. Some may form a lower estimate of this class of poetry, and the wit of Plautus no doubt falls short of the Horatian standard. But be this as it may, the period cannot justly be termed a barren one, which produced so many different branches of literature. On tragedy, on comedy and epic poetry, no slight efforts were expended. It is to the same source that the beginnings of satire,* the peculiar product of Italy, are to be traced. There is something stirring and vigorous and practical about the whole of these two centuries. The rugged Saturnian measure gave place under Ennius to the Hexameter, and to the imitation of Greek models, a reform, however, which had to be carried in the face of a strong opposition, that recalls the controversy between the t 'Trojans' and Greeks' in the days of our own Henry VII. The poets of this period were not undistinguished in public affairs, peaceful or military. Naevius himself served in the First Punic War which he celebrated, as did Lucilius in the Numantine War. Ennius was an eye-witness of the Siege of Ambracia, the subject of one of his plays, and described in the xvth book of his Annals dedicated to M. Fulvius Nobilior, whom he accompanied in his Aetolian eampaign, B.C. 189. It was to such men that Rome owed, in great measure, the rude and unpolished beginnings of her * Satira quidem tota nostra est. Quintilian, x. 1. 93. . + Parry's Terence, Introduction, p. xvii. see Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 468. Livy xxxviii. c. 3-11 But a few scanty fragments remain of the Ambracia, and of this portion of the Annales. literature, and there is no need to prove how much * Virgil was indebted to the national epics of Naevius and Ennius, and how he had stored in his memory the diction of Lucretius and Catullus. Wordsworth's arrangement of this epitaph is followed. He gives the full scheme of the Saturnian metre thus: 1. L Accordingly itáque, in the third line, has the a long (as it is in ita in Plautus, Capt. 499). Ita, this-wise, an ablative from the stem ta or to. Cf. aliu-ta, otherwise.- Papillon, Comp. Phil. ch. vii. The name of the metre connects it with Saturnus or Saeturnus (sata), the patron of sowing. Of its irregularity an idea may be formed, by the statement that in the whole of Naevius' Epic no single line could be found as a normal specimen of its structure. This epitaph is characterized by Aulus Gellius as 'plenum superbiae Campanae,' whence Naevius is held to have been by birth a Campanian, though of Latin extraction. Besides his Punica (in the Saturnian measure), Naevius wrote Dramas. I. (a) Tragedies on Greek subjects (Crepidatae), of which we have some scanty fragments-between sixty and seventy lines in which two expressions have become proverbial, 'laudari a laudato viro,' and 'male parta male dilabuntur;' (b) Tragedies on purely national subjects (Praetextae). No See some good remarks on this subject in Cruttwell's History of Roman Literature, page 273. For a full account of the Early Roman Poets, consult Dunlop, History of Roman Literature, vol. 1. Mommsen, Hist. Rom. vol. II. ch. xiv. ; vol. 1. ch. xiii. Merivale, Hist. Rom. vol. II. ch. xxii. sub fin. Sellar, The Roman Poets of the Republic. Keble's Praelections, xxxii.-xxxv. Browne, History of Roman Classical Literature, bk. ii. ch. v.-ix. Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome, Preface. Lucretius, Munro, Introduction to Notes, II. Teuffel and Cruttwell, Histories of Latin Literature. Wordsworth, Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin. 1. I. thing but the titles of two of these remain-Alimonium Romuli et Remi, and Clastidium. II. Comedies (Palliatae) plays, i.e. of which, though the titles are in some cases Latin, the surroundings and costumes are purely Greek. To this class belong all the plays we have of Plautus and Terence. Of the remaining class, the national comedy (Togatae), of which Titinius and Afranius were the chief representatives, we have nothing left but fragments. Naevius died at Utica in exile, about 194 B. C. As Ennius did not come to Rome till 204, the year in which he went into exile, the complaint in the last line of this epitaph can scarcely have been aimed at him, though Merivale's remarks on it hold good, where he compares it with the epitaph of Ennius on himself (No. xiv. of this Anthology, p. 15). It would appear that Naevius was the champion of the old Roman literature . . . he contended for the rude purity of the old language assailed in form and substance by innovation on all sides, and he felt that with himself that purity would perish. It was with this feeling, assuredly, that he composed for himself an epitaph, filled with a mournful presentiment of this impending change. The melancholy strain of Naevius is strikingly contrasted with the tone of exultation in which his victorious rival speaks also from his tomb.'- Ch. xxii L. 3. Orci thesauro. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet lxv., Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid ?' The god Orcus, according to Wordsworth, is perhaps to be considered as a reaper, and the treasure-house is that in which he stores his harvest. Cf. Longfellow, 'There is a reaper, whose name is Death.' The Aulularia takes its name from the money-pot (aulula, diminutive of aula: = olla. Cf. ausculor for osculor in Plautus, plaudo explodo, caudex codex), discovered by the miser Euclio. Molière borrowed the plot of L'Avare, and many strokes of humour in it, from this play. In this passage Strobilus, the slave of Lyconides, the lover of Euclio's daughter, describes how he found the treasure. The conclusion of the play is lost, and it is conjectured that his master gets possession of it, and restores it on condition of obtaining his daughter in marriage. L. 5. Pici qui colunt ego supero. For the attraction, cf. Ter. Eun, iv. 3. 11. Eunuchum quem dedisti nobis, quas turbas dedit. Colunt, inhabit,'' hanc domum colo,' says the Lar Familiaris in the prologue of this play. Pici, Wagner thinks that Plautus mixed up the Greek stories of the gryphes with the beliefs current among his countrymen about the woodpecker. L. 7. hominum mendicabula, beggarly fellows.' L. 1. Philippus, the type of a wealthy king. His bribery was proverbial. Cf. ἀργυρέαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα κρατήσεις. The chief source of his wealth was the Thracian silver mines, one of which had once produced a talent a day to one of his ancestors. L. 8. declinavi med. The d is probably the ablatival d incorrectly transferred to the accusative. L. 9. atat, 'But look!' an interjection here of surprise and fear. Cf. ἀτταται. L. 10. Perii, etc. This scene should be compared with Molière, L'Avare, act iv. sc. 7. L. 11. quem quis, i. e. tenebit? L. 16. vestitu et creta, vestitu cretato, the gown rubbed with chalk to make it white. The candidati are alluded to. Cf. Persius, Sat. v. 177. Cretata ambitio-sedent, pointing to those of some rank, as the ordinary spectators stood. L. 18. Em. Just so, or That's it.' Hem and En are other forms of this ex- L. 20. pessumè ornatus, ' in a sorry plight.'-Hildyard. |