Post-Augustan Poetry | Page 8

poetical training was twofold. It caused an undue demand for poetical colour in prose, and produced a horrible precocity and cacoethes scribendi[60] in verse, together with an abnormal tendency to imitation of the great writers of previous generations.[61]
But the rhetorical training which succeeded was responsible for far worse evils. The importance of rhetoric in ancient education is easily explained. The Greek or Roman gentleman was destined to play a part in the public life of the city state. For this purpose the art of speaking was of enormous value alike in politics and in the law courts. Hence the universal predominance of rhetoric in higher education both in Rome and Greece.[62] The main instrument of instruction was the writing of themes for declamation. These exercises were divided into suasoriae-- deliberative speeches in which some course of action was discussed-- and controversiae--where some proposition was maintained or denied. Pupils began with suasoriae_ and went on to _controversiae. Regarded as a mental gymnastic, these themes may have possessed some value. But they were hackneyed and absurdly remote from real life, as can be judged from the examples collected by the elder Seneca. Typical subjects of the suasoria are--'Agamemnon deliberates whether to slay Iphigenia';[63] 'Cicero deliberates whether to burn his writings, Antony having promised to spare him on that condition';[64] 'Three hundred Spartans sent against Xerxes after the flight of troops sent from the rest of Greece deliberate whether to stand or fly.'[65]
The controversia requires further explanation. A general law is stated, e.g. incesta saxo deiciatur. A special case follows, e.g. incesti damnata antequam deiceretur invocavit Vestam: deiecta vixit. The special case had to be brought under the general rule; _repetitur ad poenam_.[66] Other examples are equally absurd:[67] one and all are ridiculously remote from real life. It was bad enough that boys' time should be wasted thus, but the evil was further emphasized by the practice of recitation. These exercises, duly corrected and elaborated, were often recited by their youthful authors to an audience of complaisant friends and relations. Of such training there could be but one possible result. 'Less and less attention was paid to the substance of the speech, more and more to the language; justness and?appropriateness of thought came to be less esteemed than brilliance and novelty of expression.'[68]
These formal defects of education were accompanied by a widespread neglect of the true educational spirit. The development on healthy lines of the morale, and intellect of the young became in too many instances a matter of indifference. Throughout the great work of Quintilian we have continued evidence of the lack of moral and intellectual enthusiasm that characterized the schools of his day. Even more passionate are the denunciations levelled against contemporary education by Messala in the Dialogus of Tacitus.[69] Parents neglect their children from their earliest years: they place them in the charge of foreign slaves, often of the most degraded character; or if they do pay any personal attention to their upbringing, it is to teach them not honesty, purity, and respect for themselves and their elders, but pertness, luxurious habits, and neglect alike of themselves and of others. The schools moreover, apart from their faulty methods and ideals of instruction, encourage other faults. The boys' interests lie not in their work, but in the theatres, the gladiatorial games, the races in the circus--those ancient equivalents of twentieth-century athleticism. Their minds are utterly absorbed by these pursuits, and there is little room left for nobler studies. 'How few boys will talk of anything else at home? What topic of conversation is so frequent in the lecture-room; what other subject so frequently on the lips of the masters, who collect pupils not by the thoroughness of their teaching or by giving proof of their powers of instruction, but by interested visits and all the tricks of toadyism?'[70] Messala goes on[71] to denounce the unreality of the exercises in the schools, whose deleterious effect is aggravated by the low standard exacted. 'Boys and young men are the speakers, boys and young men the audience, and their efforts are received with undiscriminating praise.'
The same faults that were generated in the schools were intensified in after-life. In the law courts the same smart epigrams, the same meretricious style were required. No true method had been taught, with the result that 'frivolity of style, shallow thoughts, and disorderly structure' prevailed; orators imitated the rhythms of the stage and actually made it their boast that their speeches would form fitting accompaniments to song and dance. It became a common saying that 'our orators speak voluptuously, while our actors dance eloquently'.[72] Poetical colour was demanded of the orator, rhetorical colour of the poet. The literary and rhetorical stages of education reacted on one another.[73]
Further, just as the young poet had to his great detriment been encouraged