A History of Roman Literature | Page 6

grammatical construction was
thoroughly understood, and its peculiar genius wisely adapted to those
forms of composition in which it was naturally capable of excelling.
The perfection of poetry was not attained until the time of Augustus.
Two poets of the highest renown had indeed flourished in the
republican period; but though endowed with lofty genius they are
greatly inferior to their successors in sustained art, _e.g._ the
constructions of prose still dominate unduly in the domain of verse, and
the intricacies of rhythm are not fully mastered. On the other hand,
prose has, in the Augustan age, lost somewhat of its breadth and vigour.
Even the beautiful style of Livy shows traces of that intrusion of the
poetic element which made such destructive inroads into the manner of
the later prose writers. In this period the writers as a rule are not public
men, but belong to what we should call the literary class. They wrote
not for the public but for the select circle of educated men whose ranks
were gradually narrowing their limits to the great injury of literature. If

we ask which of the two sections of this period marks the most strictly
national development, the answer must be--the Ciceronian; for while
the advancement of any literature is more accurately tested by its prose
writers than by its poets, this is specially the case with the Romans,
whose genius was essentially prosaic. Attention now began to be
bestowed on physical science, and the applied sciences also received
systematic treatment. The rhetorical element, which had hitherto been
overpowered by the oratorical, comes prominently forward; but it does
not as yet predominate to a prejudicial extent.
The Third Period, though of long duration, has its chief characteristics
clearly defined from the beginning. The foremost of these is unreality,
arising from the extinction of freedom and consequent loss of interest
in public life. At the same time, the Romans, being made for political
activity, did not readily content themselves with the less exciting
successes of literary life. The applause of the lecture-room was a poor
substitute for the thunders of the assembly. Hence arose a declamatory
tone, which strove by frigid and almost hysterical exaggeration to make
up for the healthy stimulus afforded by daily contact with affairs. The
vein of artificial rhetoric, antithesis, and epigram, which prevails from
Lucan to Fronto, owes its origin to this forced contentment with an
uncongenial sphere. With the decay of freedom, taste sank, and that so
rapidly that Seneca and Lucan transgress nearly as much against its
canons as writers two generations later. The flowers which had
bloomed so delicately in the wreath of the Augustan poets, short-lived
as fragrant, scatter their sweetness no more in the rank weed-grown
garden of their successors.
The character of this and of each epoch will be dwelt on more at length
as it comes before us for special consideration, as well as the social or
religious phenomena which influenced the modes of thought or
expression. The great mingling of nationalities in Rome during the
Empire necessarily produced a corresponding divergence in style, if not
in ideas. Nevertheless, although we can trace the national traits of a
Lucan or a Martial underneath their Roman culture, the fusion of
separate elements in the vast capital was so complete, or her influence
so overpowering, that the general resemblance far outweighs the
differences, and it is easy to discern the common features which
signalise unmistakeably the writers of the Silver Age.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.
ON THE EARLIEST REMAINS OF THE LATIN LANGUAGE.
The question, Who were the earliest inhabitants of Italy? is one that
cannot certainly be answered. That some lower race, analogous to those
displaced in other parts of Europe [1] by the Celts and Teutons, existed
in Italy at a remote period is indeed highly probable; but it has not been
clearly demonstrated. At the dawn of the historic period, we find the
Messapian and Iapygian races inhabiting the extreme south and
south-west of Italy; and assuming, as we must, that their migrations had
proceeded by land across the Apennines, we shall draw the inference
that they had been gradually pushed by stronger immigrants into the
furthest corner of the Peninsula. Thus we conclude with Mommsen that
they are to be regarded as the historical aborigines of Italy. They form
no part, however, of the Italian race. Weak and easily acted upon, they
soon ceased to have any influence on the immigrant tribes, and within a
few centuries they had all but disappeared as a separate nation. The
Italian races, properly so called, who possessed the country at the time
of the origin of Rome, are referable to two main groups, the Latin and
the Umbrian. Of these, the Latin was numerically by far the smaller,
and was