Chapter 88
DECIMUS JUNIUS JUVENALIS, 55-138 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: JUVENAL.]
Of Juvenal's life very little is certainly known. Thirteen lives of him exist, which are confused and contradictory in detail. From the evidences of the Satires we learn that he lived from early youth at Rome, but went for holidays to Aquinum, a town of the Volscians (where perhaps he was born in the reign of Nero); that he had a small farm at Tibur, and a house in Rome, where he entertained his friends in a modest way; that he had been in Egypt; that he wrote Satires late in life; that he reached his eightieth year, and lived into the reign of Antoninus Pius. He complains frequently and bitterly of his poverty and of the hards.h.i.+ps of a dependent's life. In short, the circ.u.mstances of his life were very similar to those of Martial, who speaks of Juvenal as a very intimate friend.
The famous inscription at Aquinum--which Duff considers does not refer to the poet but to a wealthy kinsman of his--indicates that he had served in the army as commander of a Dalmatian cohort, and, as one of the chief men of the town, was superintendent of the civic wors.h.i.+p paid to Vespasian after his deification.
All the Lives a.s.sert that Juvenal was banished to Egypt--Juvenal himself never alludes to this--for offence given to an actor who was high in favour with the reigning Emperor (Hadrian according to Prof. Hardy), and that he died in exile.
2. Works.
+Saturae+, sixteen, grouped in five Books.
Books I-III (Satires 1-9) are sharply divided both in form and substance from Books IV-V (Satires 10-16), which are not satires at all, but moral essays, in the form of letters. The first nine satires present a wonderfully vivid picture of the seamy side of life at Rome at the end of the first century. We must, however, read side by side with them the contemporary Letters of Pliny, in which we find ourselves in a different world from that scourged by the satirist.
'His chief literary qualities are his power of painting lifelike scenes, and his command of brilliant epigrammatic phrase.' --Duff. Nothing, for instance, could surpa.s.s his picture of the fall of Seja.n.u.s (Sat. x.
56-97). His power of coining phrases is seen in these _sententiae_: _nemo repente fuit turp.i.s.simus--expende Hannibalem_: _quot libras in duce summo | invenies_: _maxima debetur puero reverentia_: _mens sana in corpora sano_--which are familiar proverbs among educated men.
Juvenal tells us that he takes all life, all the world, for his text:
_Quidquid agunt homines, Votum, Timor, Ira, Voluptas, Gaudia, Discursus, nostri est farrago libelli_ (the motley subject of my page).--_Sat._ i. 85-6.
t.i.tUS LIVIUS PATAVINUS, circ. 59 B.C.-17 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: LIVY.]
Livy was born at Patavium (_Padua_) between the years 59 and 57 B.C.
Little is known of his life, but his aristocratic sympathies, as seen in his writings, seem to suggest that he was of good family. Padua was a populous and busy place, where opportunities for public speaking were abundant and the public life vigorous; thus Livy was early trained in eloquence, and lived amid scenes of human activity. About 30 B.C. he settled at Rome, where his literary talents secured the patronage and friends.h.i.+p of Augustus. But though a courtier he was no flatterer.
't.i.tus Livius,' says Tacitus (_Ann._ iv. 34), 'pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cn. Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeia.n.u.s, and yet this was no obstacle to their friends.h.i.+p.' He returned to his native town before his death, 17 A.D., at the age of about 75.
2. Works.
+History of Rome+ (_Ab urbe condita Libri_), a comprehensive account in 142 Books of the whole History of Rome from the foundation of the City to the death of Drusus,
Books I-X, 754-293 B.C., to nearly the close of the Third Samnite War.
Books XXI-x.x.x, 219-201 B.C., the narrative of the Second Punic War.
Books x.x.xI-XLV, 201-167 B.C., describe the Wars in Greece and Macedonia, and end with the triumph of Aemilius Paulus after Pydna, 168 B.C.
3. Style.
His style is characterised by variety, liveliness, and picturesqueness.
'As a master of style Livy is in the first rank of historians. He marks the highest point which the enlarged and enriched prose of the Augustan age reached just before it began to fall into decadence.... The periodic structure of Latin prose, which had been developed by Cicero, is carried by him to an even greater complexity and used with a greater daring and freedom.... His imagination never fails to kindle at great actions; it is he, more than any other author, who has impressed the great soldiers and statesmen of the Republic on the imagination of the world.' --Mackail.
4. The Speeches.
'The spirit in which he writes History is well ill.u.s.trated by the Speeches. These, in a way, set the tone of the whole work. He does not affect in them to reproduce the substance of words actually spoken, or even to imitate the colour of the time in which the speech is laid. He uses them rather as a vivid and dramatic method of portraying character and motive.' --Mackail. 'Everything,' says Quintilian (X. i. 101), 'is perfectly adapted both to the circ.u.mstances and personages introduced.'
5. The Purpose of his History.
The first ten books of Livy were being written about the same time as the _Aeneid_; both Vergil and Livy had the same patriotic purpose, 'to celebrate the growth, in accordance with a divine dispensation, of the Roman Empire and Roman civilisation.' --Nettles.h.i.+p. Livy, however, brought into greater prominence the moral causes which contributed to the growth of the Empire. In his preface to Book I, -- 9, he asks his readers to consider _what have been the life and habits of the Romans, by aid of what men and by what talents at home and in the field their Empire has been gained and extended_. Only by virtue and manliness, justice and piety, was the dominion of the world achieved.
'In ancient Rome he sees his ideal realised, and _roma.n.u.s_ hence signifies in his language all that is n.o.ble. He thus involuntarily appears partial to Rome, and unjust to her enemies, notably to the Samnites and Hannibal.' --Teuffel.
'As the t.i.tle of _Gesta Populi Romani_ was given to the _Aeneid_ on its appearance, so the _Historiae ab Urbe Condita_ might be called, with no less truth, a funeral eulogy--_consummatio totius vitae et quasi funebris laudatio_ (Sen. _Suas._ VI. 21)--delivered, by the most loving and most eloquent of her sons, over the grave of the great Republic.'
--Mackail.
M. ANNAEUS LUCa.n.u.s, 39-65 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: LUCAN.]
+Important Events in the Life of Lucan.+
A.D. 39. Born at Corduba (_Cordova_) on the R. Baetis (_Guadalquivir_).
40. His father migrates with his family to Rome.
54-68. Nero Emperor.
55. Lucan under Cornutus, the tutor also of Persius.
57-9. At the University of Athens.
60. Wins the favour of Nero, who begins to hate Seneca.
61. Lucan quaestor: famous as a reciter and pleader.
62. Disgrace of Seneca. +Pharsalia I.-III.+ published. Death of Persius.
63. Marries Polla Argentaria, a marriage of affection.
64. Nero, from jealousy, forbids Lucan to publish poems or to recite them.
65. Pisonian conspiracy discovered. Lucan compelled to die.
Lucan was a nephew of M. Annaeus Novatus (the Gallio of Acts xviii.
12-17), and of Seneca, the philosopher and tutor of Nero. 'Rhetoric and Stoic dogma were the staple of his mental training. For a much-petted, quick-witted youth, plunged into such a society as that of Rome in the first century A.D., hardly any training could be more mischievous.
Puffed up with presumed merits and the applause of the lecture-room and the _salon_, he became a shallow rhetorician, devoted to phrase-making and tinsel ornament, and ready to write and declaim on any subject in verse or prose at the shortest notice.' --Heitland. Silenced by Nero, in an enforced retirement--probably in the stately gardens spoken of by Juvenal vii. 79-80 _contentus fama iaceat Luca.n.u.s in hortis Marmoreis--Lucan may repose in his park adorned with statues and find fame enough_--he brooded over his wrongs, and despairing of any other way of restoration to public life, joined the ill-fated conspiracy of Piso.
2. Works.
The +Pharsalia+ (or _De Bello Civili_), an epic poem in ten Books, from the beginning of the Civil War down to the point where Caesar is besieged in Alexandria, 49-48 B.C. His narrative thus runs parallel to Caesar's De _Bello Civili_, but it contains some valuable additional matter and gives a faithful picture of the feeling general among the n.o.bility of the day.
3. Style.
'To Lucan's rhetorical instincts and training, and the influence of the recitations which Juvenal _Sat._ iii. tells us were so customary and such a nuisance in his day, are due the great defects of the _Pharsalia_. We see the sacrifice of the whole to the parts, neglect of the matter in an over-studious regard for the manner, a self-conscious tone appealing rather to an audience than to a reader, venting itself in apostrophes, digressions, hyperbole (over-drawn description), episodes and epigrams, an unhappy laboriousness that strains itself to be first-rate for a moment, but leaves the poem second-rate for ever.'
--Heitland.
The general effect of Lucan's verse is one of steady monotony, due to a want of variety in the pauses and in the ending of lines, and a too sparing use of elision, by which Vergil was able to regulate the movement of lines and make sound and sense agree.