The History of Rome, Book III

199

III. XIII. Increase of Amusements

200

For this reason we can hardly be too cautious in assuming allusions on the part of Plautus to the events of the times. Recent investigation has set aside many instances of mistaken acuteness of this sort; but might not even the reference to the Bacchanalia, which is found in Cas. v. 4, 11 (Ritschl, Parerg. 1. 192), have been expected to incur censure? We might even reverse the case and infer from the notices of the festival of Bacchus in the -Casina-, and some other pieces (Amph. 703; Aul. iii. i, 3; Bacch. 53, 371; Mil. Glor. 1016; and especially Men. 836), that these were written at a time when it was not yet dangerous to speak of the Bacchanalia.

201

The remarkable passage in the -Tarentilla- can have no other meaning:—

-Quae ego in theatro hic meis probavi plausibus,Ea non audere quemquam regem rumpere:Quanto libertatem hanc hic superat servitus!-

202

The ideas of the modern Hellas on the point of slavery are illustrated by the passage in Euripides (Ion, 854; comp. Helena, 728):—

—En gar ti tois douloisin alochunen pherei,Tounoma ta d' alla panta ton eleutheronOudeis kakion doulos, ostis esthlos e.—

203

For instance, in the otherwise very graceful examination which in the -Stichus- of Plautus the father and his daughters institute into the qualities of a good wife, the irrelevant question—whether it is better to marry a virgin or a widow—is inserted, merely in order that it may be answered by a no less irrelevant and, in the mouth of the interlocutrix, altogether absurd commonplace against women. But that is a trifle compared with the following specimen. In Menander's -Plocium- a husband bewails his troubles to his friend:—

—Echo d' epikleron Lamian ouk eireka soiTout'; eit' ap' ouchi; kurian tes oikiasKai ton agron kai panton ant' ekeinesEchoumen, Apollon, os chalepon chalepotatonApasi d' argalea 'stin, ouk emoi mono,Tio polu mallon thugatri.—pragm' amachon legeis'Eu oida—

In the Latin edition of Caecilius, this conversation, so elegant in its simplicity, is converted into the following uncouth dialogue:—

-Sed tua morosane uxor quaeso est?—Ua! rogas?—Qui tandem?—Taedet rientionis, quae mihiUbi domum adveni ac sedi, extemplo saviumDat jejuna anima.—Nil peccat de savio:Ut devomas volt, quod foris polaveris.-

204

Even when the Romans built stone theatres, these had not the sounding-apparatus by which the Greek architects supported the efforts of the actors (Vitruv. v. 5, 8).

205

III. XIII. Increase of Amusements

206

The personal notices of Naevius are sadly confused. Seeing that he fought in the first Punic war, he cannot have been born later than 495. Dramas, probably the first, were exhibited by him in 519 (Gell. xii. 21. 45). That he had died as early as 550, as is usually stated, was doubted by Varro (ap. Cic. Brut. 15, 60), and certainly with reason; if it were true, he must have made his escape during the Hannibalic war to the soil of the enemy. The sarcastic verses on Scipio (p. 150) cannot have been written before the battle of Zama. We may place his life between 490 and 560, so that he was a contemporary of the two Scipios who fell in 543 (Cic. de Rep. iv. 10), ten years younger than Andronicus, and perhaps ten years older than Plautus. His Campanian origin is indicated by Gellius, and his Latin nationality, if proof of it were needed, by himself in his epitaph. The hypothesis that he was not a Roman citizen, but possibly a burgess of Cales or of some other Latin town in Campania, renders the fact that the Roman police treated him so unscrupulously the more easy of explanation. At any rate he was not an actor, for he served in the army.

207

Compare, e. g., with the verse of Livius the fragment from Naevius' tragedy of -Lycurgus- :—

-Vos, qui regalis cordons custodiasAgitatis, ite actutum in frundiferos locos,Ingenio arbusta ubi nata sunt, non obsita-;

Or the famous words, which in the -Hector Profisciscens- Hector addresses to Priam:

-Laetus sum laudari me abs te, pater, a laudato viro;-and the charming verse from the -Tarentilla-; —-Alii adnutat, alii adnictat; alium amat, alium tenet.-

208

III. XIV. Political Neutrality

209

III. XIV. Political Neutrality

210

This hypothesis appears necessary, because otherwise the ancients could not have hesitated in the way they did as to the genuineness or spuriousness of the pieces of Plautus: in the case of no author, properly so called, of Roman antiquity, do we find anything like a similar uncertainty as to his literary property. In this respect, as in so many other external points, there exists the most remarkable analogy between Plautus and Shakespeare.

211

III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome, III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigration of the Trans-Alpine Gauls

212

III. XIV. Roman Barbarism

213

-Togatus- denotes, in juristic and generally in technical language, the Italian in contradistinction not merely to the foreigner, but also to the Roman burgess. Thus especially -formula togatorum- (Corp. Inscr. Lat., I. n. 200, v. 21, 50) is the list of those Italians bound to render military serviee, who do not serve in the legions. The designation also of Cisalpine Gaul as -Gallia togata-, which first occurs in Hirtius and not long after disappears again from the ordinary -usus loquendi-, describes this region presumably according to its legal position, in so far as in the epoch from 665 to 705 the great majority of its communities possessed Latin rights. Virgil appears likewise in the -gens togata-, which he mentions along with the Romans (Aen. i. 282), to have thought of the Latin nation.

According to this view we shall have to recognize in the -fabula togata-the comedy which laid its plot in Latium, as the -fabula palliata- had its plot in Greece; the transference of the scene of action to a foreign land is common to both, and the comic writer is wholly forbidden to bring on the stage the city or the burgesses of Rome. That in reality the -togata- could only have its plot laid in the towns of Latin rights, is shown by the fact that all the towns in which, to our knowledge, pieces of Titinius and Afranius had their scene—Setia, Ferentinum, Velitrae, Brundisium,—demonstrably had Latin or, at any rate, allied rights down to the Social war. By the extension of the franchise to all Italy the writers of comedy lost this Latin localisation for their pieces, for Cisalpine Gaul, which -de jure- took the place of the Latin communities, lay too far off for the dramatists of the capital, and so the -fabula togata- seems in fact to have disappeared. But the -de jure- suppressed communities of Italy, such as Capua and Atella, stepped into this gap (ii. 366, iii. 148), and so far the -fabula Atellana- was in some measure the continuation of the -togata-.

214

Respecting Titinius there is an utter want of literary information; except that, to judge from a fragment of Varro, he seems to have been older than Terence (558-595, Ritschl, Parerg. i. 194) for more indeed, cannot he inferred from that passage, and though, of the two groups there compared the second (Trabea, Atilius, Caecilius) is on the whole older than the first (Titinius, Terentius, Atta), it does not exactly follow that the oldest of the junior group is to be deemed younger than the youngest of the elder.

215

II. VII. First Steps toward the Latinizing of Italy

216

Of the fifteen comedies of Titinius, with which we are acquainted, six are named after male characters (-baratus-? -coecus-, -fullones-, -Hortensius-, -Quintus-, -varus-), and nine after female (-Gemina-, -iurisperita-, -prilia-? -privigna-, -psaltria- or -Ferentinatis-, -Setina-, -tibicina-, -Veliterna-, -Ulubrana?), two of which, the -iurisperita- and the -tibicina-, are evidently parodies of men's occupations. The feminine world preponderates also in the fragments.

217

III. XIV. Livius Andronicus

218

III. XIV. Audience

219

We subjoin, for comparison, the opening lines of the -Medea- in the original of Euripides and in the version of Ennius:—

—Eith' ophel' 'Apgous me diaptasthai skaphosKolchon es aian kuaneas sumplegadasMed' en napaisi Pelion pesein poteTmetheisa peuke, med' epetmosai cherasAndron arioton, oi to pagchruson derosPelia metelthon ou gar an despoinMedeia purgous ges epleus Iolkias'Eroti thumon ekplageis' 'Iasonos.—-Utinam ne in nemore Pelio securibusCaesa accidisset abiegna ad terram trabes,Neve inde navis inchoandae exordiumCoepisset, quae nunc nominatur nomineArgo, quia Argivi in ea dilecti viriVecti petebant pellem inauratam arietisColchis, imperio regis Peliae, per dolum.Nam nunquam era errans mea domo efferret pedemMedea, animo aegra, amort saevo saucia.-

The variations of the translation from the original are instructive —not only its tautologies and periphrases, but also the omission or explanation of the less familiar mythological names, e. g. the Symplegades, the Iolcian land, the Argo. But the instances in which Ennius has really misunderstood the original are rare.

220

III. XI. Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

221

Beyond doubt the ancients were right in recognizing a sketch of the poet's own character in the passage in the seventh book of the Annals, where the consul calls to his side the confidant,

-quocum bene saepe libenterMensam sermonesque suos rerumque suarumCongeriem partit, magnam cum lassus dieiPartem fuisset de summis rebus regundisConsilio indu foro lato sanctoque senatu:Cui res audacter magnas parvasque iocumqueEloqueretur, cuncta simul malaque et bona dictuEvomeret, si qui vellet, tutoque locaret.Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque,Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadetUt faceret facinus lenis aut malus, doctus fidelisSuavis homo facundus suo contentus beatusScitus secunda loquens in tempore commodus verbumPaucum, multa tenens antiqua sepulta, vetustasQuem fecit mores veteresque novosque tenentem,Multorum veterum leges divumque hominumque,Prudenter qui dicta loquive tacereve possit.-

In the line before the last we should probably read -multarum leges divumque hominumque.-

222

Euripides (Iph. in Aul. 956) defines the soothsayer as a man,

—Os olig' alethe, polla de pseuon legeiTuchon, otan de me, tuche oioichetai—

This is turned by the Latin translator into the following diatribe against the casters of horoscopes:—

-Astrologorum signa in caelo quaesit, observat,IovisCum capra aut nepa aut exoritur lumen aliquod beluae.Quod est ante pedes, nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas.-

223

III. XII. Irreligious Spirit

224

In the -Telephus- we find him saying—

-Palam mutire plebeio piaculum est.-

225

III. XIII. Luxury

226

The following verses, excellent in matter and form, belong to the adaptation of the -Phoenix- of Euripides:—

-Sed virum virtute vera vivere animatum addecet,Fortiterque innoxium vocare adversum adversarios.Ea libertas est, qui pectus purum et firmum gestitat:Aliae res obnoxiosae nocte in obscura latent.-

In the -Scipio-, which was probably incorporated in the collection of miscellaneous poems, the graphic lines occurred:—

– — -mundus caeli vastus constitit silentio,Et Neptunus saevus undis asperis pausam dedit.Sol equis iter repressit ungulis volantibus;Constitere amnes perennes, arbores vento vacant.-

This last passage affords us a glimpse of the way in which the poet worked up his original poems. It is simply an expansion of the words which occur in the tragedy -Hectoris Lustra- (the original of which was probably by Sophocles) as spoken by a spectator of the combat between Hephaestus and the Scamander:—

-Constitit credo Scamander, arbores vento vacant,-

and the incident is derived from the Iliad (xxi. 381).

227

Thus in the Phoenix we find the line:—

– — -stultust, qui cupita cupiens cupienter cupit,-

and this is not the most absurd specimen of such recurring assonances. He also indulged in acrostic verses (Cic. de Div. ii. 54, iii).

228

Thus in the Phoenix we find the line:—

– — -stultust, qui cupita cupiens cupienter cupit,-

and this is not the most absurd specimen of such recurring assonances. He also indulged in acrostic verses (Cic. de Div. ii. 54, iii).

229

III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome

230

III. IX. Conflicts and Peace with the Aetolians

231

Besides Cato, we find the names of two "consulars and poets" belonging to this period (Sueton. Vita Terent. 4)—Quintus Labeo, consul in 571, and Marcus Popillius, consul in 581. But it remains uncertain whether they published their poems. Even in the case of Cato this may be doubted.

232

II. IX. Roman Historical Composition

233

III. XII. Irreligious Spirit

234

III. XII. Irreligious Spirit

235

The following fragments will give some idea of its tone. Of Dido he says:

-Blande et docte percontat—Aeneas quo pactoTroiam urbem liquerit.-

Again of Amulius:

-Manusque susum ad caelum—sustulit suas rexAmulius; gratulatur—divis-.

Part of a speech where the indirect construction is remarkable:

-Sin illos deserant for—tissumos virorumMagnum stuprum populo—fieri per gentis-.

With reference to the landing at Malta in 498:

-Transit Melitam Romanus—insuiam integramUrit populatur vastat—rem hostium concinnat.-

Lastly, as to the peace which terminated the war concerning Sicily:

-Id quoque paciscunt moenia—sint Lutatium quaeReconcilient; captivos—plurimos idemSicilienses paciscit—obsides ut reddant.-

236

That this oldest prose work on the history of Rome was composed in Greek, is established beyond a doubt by Dionys. i. 6, and Cicero, de Div. i. 21, 43. The Latin Annals quoted under the same name by Quintilian and later grammarians remain involved in mystery, and the difficulty is increased by the circumstance, that there is also quoted under the same name a very detailed exposition of the pontifical law in the Latin language. But the latter treatise will not be attributed by any one, who has traced the development of Roman literature in its connection, to an author of the age of the Hannibalic war; and even Latin annals from that age appear problematical, although it must remain a moot question whether there has been a confusion of the earlier with a later annalist, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul in 612), or whether there existed an old Latin edition of the Greek Annals of Fabius as well as of those of Acilius and Albinus, or whether there were two annalists of the name of Fabius Pictor.

The historical work likewise written in Greek, ascribed to Lucius Cincius Alimentus a contemporary of Fabius, seems spurious and a compilation of the Augustan age.

237

Cato's whole literary activity belonged to the period of his old age (Cicero, Cat. ii, 38; Nepos, Cato, 3); the composition even of the earlier books of the "Origines" falls not before, and yet probably not long subsequent to, 586 (Plin. H. N. iii. 14, 114).

238

It is evidently by way of contrast with Fabius that Polybius (xl. 6, 4) calls attention to the fact, that Albinus, madly fond of everything Greek, had given himself the trouble of writing history systematically [—pragmatiken iotorian—].

239

II. IX. Roman Early History of Rome

240

III. XIV. Knowledge of Languages

241

For instance the history of the siege of Gabii is compiled from the anecdotes in Herodotus as to Zopyrus and the tyrant Thrasybulus, and one version of the story of the exposure of Romulus is framed on the model of the history of the youth of Cyrus as Herodotus relates it.

242

III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigration of the Transalpine Gauls

243

II. IX. Roman Early History of Rome

244

II. IX. Registers of Magistrates

245

Plautus (Mostell. 126) says of parents, that they teach their children -litteras-, -iura-, -leges-; and Plutarch (Cato Mai. 20) testifies to the same effect.

246

II. IX. Philology

247

Thus in his Epicharmian poems Jupiter is so called, -quod iuvat-; and Ceres, -quod gerit fruges.-

248

-Rem tene, verba sequentur.-

249

II. IX. Language

250

See the lines already quoted at III. II. The War on the Coasts of Sicily and Sardinia.

The formation of the name -poeta- from the vulgar Greek —poetes— instead of —poietes— —as —epoesen— was in use among the Attic potters—is characteristic. We may add that -poeta- technically denotes only the author of epic or recitative poems, not the composer for the stage, who at this time was styled -scriba- (III. XIV. Audience; Festus, s. v., p. 333 M.).

251

Even subordinate figures from the legends of Troy and of Herakles niake their appearance, e. g. Talthybius (Stich. 305), Autolycus (Bacch. 275), Parthaon (Men. 745). Moreover the most general outlines must have been known in the case of the Theban and the Argonautic legends, and of the stories of Bellerophon (Bacch. 810), Pentheus (Merc. 467), Procne and Philomela (Rud. 604). Sappho and Phaon (Mil. 1247).

252

"As to these Greeks," he says to his son Marcus, "I shall tell at the proper place, what I came to learn regarding them at Athens; and shall show that it is useful to look into their writings, but not to study them thoroughly. They are an utterly corrupt and ungovernable race—believe me, this is true as an oracle; if that people bring hither its culture, it will ruin everything, and most especially if it send hither its physicians. They have conspired to despatch all barbarians by their physicking, but they get themselves paid for it, that people may trust them and that they may the more easily bring us to ruin. They call us also barbarians, and indeed revile us by the still more vulgar name of Opicans. I interdict thee, therefore, from all dealings with the practitioners of the healing art."

Cato in his zeal was not aware that the name of Opicans, which had in Latin an obnoxious meaning, was in Greek quite unobjectionable, and that the Greeks had in the most innocent way come to designate the Italians by that term (I. X. Time of the Greek Immigration).

253

II. IX. Censure of Art

254

III. II. War between the Romans and Carthaginians and Syracusans

255

A. U. C. – Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City of Rome)