Chapter 86
These letters are of supreme importance for the history of Cicero's time. 'The quality which makes them most valuable is that they were not (like the letters of Pliny, and Seneca, and Madame de Sevigne) written to be published. We see in them Cicero as he was. We behold him in his strength and in his weakness--the bold advocate, and yet timid and vacillating statesman, the fond husband, the affectionate father, the kind master, the warm-hearted friend.' --Tyrrell.
The style of the Letters is colloquial but thoroughly accurate. 'The art of letter-writing suddenly rose in Cicero's hands to its full perfection.' --Mackail.
(5) +Poems.+--The fragments we possess show that verse-writing came easily to him, but he never could have been a great poet, for he had not the _divinus afflatus_, so finely expressed by Ovid in the line _Est Deus in n.o.bis, agitante calescimus illo_.
'Cicero stands in prose like Vergil in poetry, as the bridge between the ancient and the modern world. Before his time Latin prose was, from a wide point of view, but one among many local ancient dialects. As it left his hands it had become a universal language, one which had definitely superseded all others, Greek included, as the type of civilised expression.' --Mackail.
CLAUDIUS CLAUDIa.n.u.s, flor. 400 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: CLAUDIAN.]
Born probably at Alexandria, where he lived until, in the year of the death of Theodosius 395 A.D., he acquired the patronage of Stilicho, the great Vandal general, who, as guardian of the young Emperor Honorius, was practically ruler of the Western Empire. He remained attached to the Court at Milan, Rome and Ravenna, and died soon after the downfall of his patron Stilicho, 408 A.D.
2. Works.
In his historical epics he derived his subjects from his own age, praising his patrons Stilicho (_On the Consulate of Stilicho_) and Honorius (_on the Consulate of Honorius_), and inveighing against Rufinus and Eutropius, the rivals of Stilicho. Of poems on other subjects, 'his three books of the unfinished Rape of Proserpine are among the finest examples of the purely literary epic.' --Mackail.
'Claudian is the last of the Latin poets, forming the transitional link between the Cla.s.sic and the Gothic mode of thought.' --Coleridge.
3. Style.
'His faults belong almost as much to the age as to the writer. In description he is too copious and detailed: his poems abound with long speeches: his parade of varied learning, his partiality for abstruse mythology, are just the natural defects of a lettered but uninspired epoch.' --North Pinder.
QUINTUS ENNIUS, 239-169 B.C.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: ENNIUS.]
He was born at Rudiae in Calabria (about 19 miles
His son obtained for Ennius the Roman citizens.h.i.+p (184 B.C.) by giving him a grant of land at Potentia in Picenum. _Nos sumus Romani, qui fuimus ante Rudini._ The rest of his life was spent mainly at Rome in cheerful simplicity and active literary work.
2. Works.
The chief are:--
(1) +Tragedies.+--Mainly translations, especially from Euripides. A few fragments only remain. 'It was certainly due to Ennius that Roman Tragedy was first raised to that pitch of popular favour which it enjoyed till the age of Cicero.' --Sellar.
(2) +Annales.+--An Epic Hexameter poem, in 18 books, which dealt with the History of Rome from the landing of Aeneas in Italy down to the Third Macedonian War (Pydna, 168 B.C.). About 600 lines are extant.
'In his Annals he unfolds a long gallery of national portraits. His heroes are men of one common aim--the advancement of Rome; animated with one sentiment, devotion to the State. All that was purely personal in them seems merged in the traditional pictures which express only the fort.i.tude, dignity and sagacity of the Republic.' --Sellar.
3. Style.
For the first time Ennius succeeded in moulding the Latin language to the movement of the Greek hexameter. In spite of imperfections and roughness, his _Annals_ remained the foremost and representative Roman poem till Vergil wrote the _Aeneid_. Lucretius, whom he influenced, and to whom Vergil owes so much, says of him:
_Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam, Per gentes Italas honinum quae clara clueret;_
'As sang our Ennius, the first who brought down from pleasant Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame of which should ring out clear through the nations of Italy.'
And later, Quintilian, X. i. 88: 'Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem: Let us venerate Ennius like the groves, sacred from their antiquity, in which the great and ancient oak-trees are invested, not so much with beauty, as with sacred a.s.sociations.'
--Sellar.
FLAVIUS EUTROPIUS, fl. 375 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: EUTROPIUS.]
Very little is known of his life. He is said to have held the office of a secretary under Contanstine the Great (_ob._ 337 A.D.), and to have served under the Emperor Julian in his ill-fated expedition against the Persians, 363 A.D.
2. Works.
His only extant work is his
+Breviarium Historiae Romanae.+--A brief compendium of Roman History in ten books from the foundation of the city to the accession of Valens, 364 A.D., to whom it is inscribed.
3. Style.
His work is a compilation made from the best authorities, with good judgment and impartiality, and in a simple style. Its brevity and practical arrangement made it very popular.
FLORUS, circ. 120 (or 140?) A.D. (temp. Hadrian).
1. Life.
[Sidenote: FLORUS.]
L. Julius (or Annaeus) Florus lived at Rome in the time of Trajan or Hadrian. Little else is known of his life.
2. Works.
An Epitome of the Wars of Livy, in two Books:--
Book I. treats of the good time of Rome, 753-133 B.C. (the Gracchi).
II. treats of the decline of Rome, 133-29 B.C. (Temple of Ja.n.u.s closed).
3. Style.
A pretentious and smartly written work abounding in mistakes, contradictions, and misrepresentations of historical truth. It was, however, popular in the Middle Ages on account of its brevity and its rhetorical style. Florus is useful in giving us a short account of events in periods where we have no books of Livy to guide us.