He was nearly related to Arria, daughter of that "true wife" who taught her husband Paetus how to die (Mart. I. xiii.; Pliny _Epist._ i. 16). In the consistent life of Thrasea (the husband of Arria), who was a Cato in justice and more than a Cato in goodness, Persius had a n.o.ble example to follow. So during the short span of his life the poet lived and worked, a man of maidenly modesty, an excellent son, brother, and nephew, of frugal and moderate habits.
2. Works.
+Saturae+, six Satires in hexameter verse. The first, devoted to an attack upon the literary style of the day, is the only real Satire: the other five are declamations or dogmas of the Stoic system (e.g. Sat.
ii., on right and wrong prayers to the G.o.ds), interspersed with dramatic scenes. It was to Lucilius that Persius owed the impulse that made him a writer of Satire, but his obligations to Horace are paramount. "He was what would be called a plagiarist, but probably no writer ever borrowed so much and yet left on the mind so decided an impression of originality. Where he draws from his own experience, his portraits have an imaginative truth, minutely accurate yet highly ideal, which would ent.i.tle them to a distinguished place in any portrait gallery."
--Nettleship.
3. Style.
"The involved and obscure style of much of his work is the style which his taste leads him to a.s.sume for satiric purposes. He feels that a clear, straightforward, everyday manner of speech would not suit a subject over which the G.o.ds themselves might hesitate whether to laugh or weep. As the poet of Stoicism, using the very words of Vergil, he calls upon a benighted race to acquaint itself with the _causes_ of things: to an inquiry into the purpose of man"s being, the art of skilful driving in the chariot-race of life, and the ordained position of each individual in the social system." --Nettleship.
"Persius is the sole instance among Roman writers of a philosopher whose life was in accordance with the doctrines he professed." --Cruttwell.
_Multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro Persius meruit._ --Quint.
_Inst. Orat._ X. i. 94.
PETRONIUS ARBITER, obiit 66 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PETRONIUS.]
He is probably the Petronius of whose life and character Tacitus has given us a brilliant sketch in the _Annals_, xvi. 18. 19. "His days were pa.s.sed," says Tacitus, "in sleep, his nights in the duties or pleasures of life: where others toiled for fame he had lounged into it. Yet, as governor of Bithynia, and afterwards as consul, he showed himself a vigorous and capable administrator; then relapsing into the habit or a.s.suming the mask of vice, he was adopted as +Elegantiae Arbiter+ (_the authority on taste_) into the small circle of Nero"s intimate companions. No luxury was charming or refined till Petronius had given it his approval, and the jealousy of Tigellinus was roused against a rival and master in the science of pleasure." Petronius antic.i.p.ated his inevitable fate by committing suicide.
2. Works.
+Satirae+ (or +Satiricon+), a character-novel, often called, from its central and most entertaining incident, _The Supper of Trimalchio_.
"This is the description of a Christmas dinner-party given by a sort of Golden Dustman and his wife, people of low birth and little education, who had come into an enormous fortune. The dinner itself, and the conversation on literature and art that goes on at the dinner-table, are conceived in a spirit of the wildest humour." --Mackail.
The chief interest of the _Satiricon_ for us is the glimpse which it affords of everyday manners and conversation under the Empire among all orders of society, from the highest to the lowest.
PHAEDRUS (_temp._ Augustus to Nero).
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PHAEDRUS.]
The Latin Fabulist, of whom we know nothing except what may be gathered or inferred from his fables. He was originally a slave, and was born in Thrace, possibly in the district of Pieria. He was brought to Rome at an early age, and there became acquainted with Roman literature. His patron appears to have been Augustus, who gave him his freedom. After publishing two books of fables he incurred the resentment of Augustus and was imprisoned. This was due probably to the bold outspokenness of many of his fables. He survived the attacks made on him, and Book V was written in his old age.
2. Works.
+Fables+, in five Books, written in _iambic senarii_, like those of Terence and Publius Syrus. The full t.i.tle of his work is _Phaedri Augusti liberti fabularum Aesopiarum libri_. "Phaedrus constantly plumes himself on his superiority to his model Aesop, but his animals have not the lifelike reality of those of the latter. With Phaedrus the animals are mere lay-figures: the moral comes first, and then he attaches an animal to it." --Tyrrell.
"The chief interest of the Fables lies in the fact that they form the last survival of the _urba.n.u.s sermo_ (the speech of Terence) in Latin poetry." --Mackail.
"Phaedrus is the only important writer during the half-century of literary darkness between the Golden and the Silver Age." --Tyrrell.
T. MACCIUS PLAUTUS, circ. 254-184 B.C.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PLAUTUS.]
Plautus was born in the little Umbrian town of Sarsina, of free but poor parents. He came to Rome and made a small fortune as a stage-carpenter, but lost it by rash investment. He was then reduced to working for some years in a corn-mill, during which time he wrote plays, and continued to do so until his death.
2. Works.
+Comedies.+ About 130 plays were current under the name of Plautus, but only 21 (_Fabulae Varronianae_) were, as Varro tells us, universally admitted to be genuine. Of these, all except one are extant.
Though his comedies are mainly free versions of Greek originals--of Philemon, Diphilus and Menander, the writers of the New Comedy 320-250 B.C.--the characters in them act, speak, and joke like genuine Romans, and he thereby secured the sympatliy of his audience more completely than Terence could ever have done.
"In point of language his plays form one of the most important doc.u.ments for the history of the Latin language. In the freedom with which he uses, without vulgarising, popular modes of speech, he has no equal among Latin writers." --Sellar.
For Horace"s unfavourable judgment of Plautus see _Epist._ I. i.
170-176, and A. P. 270-272; Cicero"s criticism is more just: _Duplex omnino est iocandi genus: unum illiberale petulans flagitiosum obscenum (vulgar, spiteful, shameful, coa.r.s.e), alterum elegans urbanum ingeniosum facetum (in good taste, gracious, clever, witty). Quo genere non modo Plautus noster et Atticorum antiqua comoedia_ (i.e. of Aristophanes), _sed etiam philosophorum Socraticorum libri referti sunt_. --_De Off._ I. civ.
GAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS, 23-79 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PLINY THE ELDER.]
Born at Comum (_Como_) in the middle of the reign of Tiberius, Pliny pa.s.sed his life in high public employments, both military and civil, which took him successively over nearly all the provinces of the Empire.
He had always felt a strong interest in science, and he used his military position to secure information that otherwise might have been hard to obtain. Vespasian (70-78 A.D.), with whom he was on terms of close intimacy, made him admiral of the fleet stationed at Misenum. It was while here that news was brought him of the memorable eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. "In his zeal for scientific investigation he set sail for the spot in a man-of-war, and lingering too near the zone of the eruption was suffocated by the rain of hot ashes. The account of his death, given by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, in a letter to the historian Tacitus (_Ep._ vi. 16), is one of the best known pa.s.sages in the cla.s.sics." --Mackail.
2. Works.
A +Natural History+, in thirty-seven Books, is Pliny"s only extant work.
(For his numerous other writings see Pliny the Younger, _Ep._ iii. 5.) "It is a priceless storehouse of information on every branch of natural science as known to the ancient world." --Mackail.
His work has been called the first popular encyclopedia of natural science.
_Plinius Aetatis Suae Doctissimus._ --Gellius.
C. PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS, 62-113 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PLINY THE YOUNGER.]
Pliny the Younger was the son of C. Caecilius and of Plinia, the sister of the elder Pliny. He was born at Comum (_Como_), also the birthplace of his celebrated uncle. His father died when he was eight years old, and he was placed under the care of a guardian, Verginius Rufus, one of the most distinguished Romans of the day, since he had held the crown within his grasp and had declined to wear it, 68 A.D. Verginius was not much of a student, but Pliny learned from him high ideals of duty and n.o.ble thoughts about the Rome of earlier days, and never lost his unbounded admiration and respect for his guardian (_Ep._ ii. 1). Under his uncle"s watchful care he received the best education Rome could give, and studied rhetoric under the great Quintilian. His bachelor uncle on his death in 79 left him his heir, adopting him in his will.
Gifted with wealth, enthusiasm, taste for publicity, and a wide circle of influential friends, Pliny could not be content with the career of a simple _eques_. Accordingly he began the course of office that led to the Senate and the Consulship, and finally in 111 A.D. was appointed by Trajan governor of Bithynia, where he discharged his duties with skill and ability. His service seems to have been terminated only with his death.