2. Works.
+Epistulae+, Letters in nine Books, to which is added Pliny"s correspondence with Trajan during his governorship of Bithynia. These and his +Panegyricus+, in praise of Trajan, are his only extant works.
It is on his Letters that Pliny"s fame now rests, and both in tone and style they are a monument that does him honour. In many cases they were written for publication, and thus can never have the unique and surpa.s.sing interest that belongs to those of Cicero, but they give a varied and interesting picture of the time. "In the Letters the character of the writer, its virtues and its weakness, is throughout unmistakeable. Pliny, the patriotic citizen,--Pliny, the munificent patron,--Pliny, the eminent man of letters,--Pliny, the affectionate husband and humane master,--Pliny, the man of principle, is in his various phases the real subject of the whole collection." --Mackail.
"Pliny is an almost perfect type of a refined pagan gentleman."
--Cruttwell.
s.e.xTUS PROPERTIUS, circ. 50-15 B.C.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PROPERTIUS.]
Of his life little or nothing is known, except what is recorded by himself. He was an Umbrian by birth, and probably a native of Asisium (_a.s.sisi_), a town on the W. slope of the Apennines, not far from Perusia. Like Vergil and Tibullus, he lost his family property in the confiscation of lands by the Triumvirs in 42 B.C.; but his mother"s efforts secured for him a good education, to complete which she brought him to Rome. He entered on a course of training for the Bar, but abandoned it in favour of poetry (IV. i. 131-4).
_Mox ubi bulla rudi dimissa est aurea collo, Matris et ante deos libera sumpta toga, Tum tibi pauca suo de carmine dictat Apollo Et vetat insano verba tonare foro._
His earliest poems (Book I, _Cynthia_), published at the age of about twenty, brought him into notice and gained him admission to the literary circle of Maecenas. He lived in close intimacy with Vergil, Ovid, and most of his other literary contemporaries, with the remarkable exception of Horace, to whom the sensitive vanity and pa.s.sionate manner of the young elegiac poet were alike distasteful. He died young, before he was thirty-five, about 15 B.C.
2. Works.
+Elegies+, in four Books. (Some editors divide Book II into two Books, El. 1-9 Book II, and El. 10-34 Book III, so that III and IV of the MSS.
and of Postgate become IV and V.)
Books I and II are nearly all poems on Cynthia.
Book III contains, besides poems on Cynthia, themes dealing with friendship (El. 7. 12. 22) and events of national interest (El. 4. 11.
18). The poet struggles to emanc.i.p.ate himself from the thraldom of Cynthia and to accomplish work more worthy of his genius.
Book IV contains poems on Roman antiquities (El. 2. 4. 9. 10), written at the suggestion of Maecenas, the paean on the great victory at Actium (El. 6), and the n.o.blest of his elegiacs, the Elegy on Cornelia (El. 11).
3. Style.
The aim of Propertius was to be the Roman Callimachus: +Umbria Romani patria Callimachi+ (IV. i. 64).
The flexibility and elasticity of rhythm of the finest Greek elegiacs he made his own. The pentameter, instead of being a weaker echo of the hexameter, is the stronger line of the two, and has a weightier movement. In Book I he ends the pentameter freely with words of three, four, and five syllables, and we find long continuous pa.s.sages in which there is scarcely any pause: e.g. in I. xx. 33-37:
_Hic erat Arganthi Pege sub vertice montis Grata domus Nymphis umida Thyniasin, Quam supra nullae pendebant debita curae Roscida desertis poma sub arboribus, Et circ.u.m irriguo surgebant lilia prato Candida purpureis mixta papaveribus._
"In some respects both Tibullus and Ovid may claim the advantage over Propertius: Tibullus for refined simplicity, for natural grace and exquisiteness of touch; Ovid for the technical merits of execution, for transparency of construction, for smoothness and polish of expression.
But in all the higher qualities of a poet Propertius is as much their superior." --Postgate.
AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS, 348-circ. 410 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: PRUDENTIUS.]
Prudentius (as he tells us in the brief metrical autobiography prefixed to his poems) was born in the N. of Spain, and, like so many of the Roman poets, began his public life as an advocate. He was afterwards appointed by Theodosius (379-395 A.D.) judge over a district in Spain.
His active and successful discharge of this office induced Theodosius (or Honorius, 395-423 A.D.) to promote him to some post of honour about the Emperor"s person. His later years he devoted to the composition of sacred poetry, and published his collected works 405 A.D., after which date we know no more of his history.
2. Works.
His best known works are his +Cathemerina+, a series of poems on the Christian"s day and life, of which the most graceful and pathetic is the _Funeral Hymn_, e.g.
_Iam maesta quiesce querella, Lacrimas suspendite matres, Nullus sua pignora plangat, Mors haec reparatio vitae est_,
and his +Peristephanon+ (pe?? stef???? _liber_) in praise of Christian martyrs. "These represent the most substantial addition to Latin lyrical poetry since Horace." --Mackail. We also have his +Contra Symmachum+ in two Books of indifferent hexameter verse, in which he combats Symmachus (Consul 391 A.D.), the last champion of the old faith, and claims the victories of the Christian Stilicho as triumphs alike of Rome and of the Cross.
"Prudentius has his distinct place and office in the field of Latin literature, as the chief author who bridged the gulf between pagan poetry and Christian hymnology." --North Pinder.
MARCUS FABIUS QUINTILIa.n.u.s, circ. 35-95 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: QUINTILIAN.]
Quintilian is the last and perhaps the most distinguished of that school of Spanish writers (Martial, the two Senecas, and Lucan) which played so important a part in the literary history of the first century. Born at Calagurris, a small town on the Upper Ebro, he was educated at Rome, and afterwards returned to his native town as a teacher of rhetoric. There he made the acquaintance of the proconsul Galba (68-9), and was brought back by him to Rome in 68 A.D., where for twenty years he enjoyed the highest reputation as a teacher of eloquence. Among his pupils were numbered Pliny the Younger and the two sons of Flavius Clemens, grand-nephews of Domitian, destined for his successors. In 79 A.D. he was appointed by Vespasian professor of rhetoric, the first teacher who received a regular salary from the imperial exchequer. Domitian (81-96 A.D.) conferred upon him an honorary consulship, and the last ten years of his life were spent in an honoured retirement, which he devoted to recording for the benefit of posterity his unrivalled experience as a teacher of rhetoric.
2. Works.
+Inst.i.tutio Oratoria+, the _Training of an Orator_, in twelve Books.
This great work sums up the teaching and criticism of his life, and gives us the complete training of an orator, starting with him in childhood and leading him on to perfection.
Thus:--
Book I gives a sketch of the elementary training of the child from the time he leaves the nursery. Quintilian rightly attaches the greatest importance to early impressions.
Book II deals with the general principles and scope of the art of oratory, and continues the discussion of the aims and methods of education in its later stages.
Books III-VII are occupied with an exhaustive treatment of the _matter_ of oratory, and are highly technical. "Now that the formal study of the art of rhetoric has ceased to be a part of the higher education these Books have lost their general interest." --Mackail.
Books VIII-XI treat of the _manner_ (style) of oratory. In Book X, cap.
i, in the course of an enumeration of the Greek and Latin authors likely to be most useful to an orator, Quintilian gives us a masterly sketch of Latin literature, "in language so careful and so choice that many of his brief phrases have remained the final words on the authors, both in prose and verse, whom he mentions in his rapid survey." --Mackail.
Book XII treats of the moral qualifications of a great speaker. The good orator must be a good man.
"Quintilian with admirable clearness insists on the great truth that bad education is responsible for bad life, and expresses with equal plainness the complementary truth that education, from the cradle upwards, is something which acts on the whole intellectual and moral nature, and that its object is the production of the _good man_."
--Mackail.
3. Style.
The style of Quintilian is modelled on that of Cicero, whom he is never tired of praising, and is intended to be a return to the usages of the best period. In spite of some faults characteristic of the Silver Age (e.g. his excessive use of ant.i.thesis) "for ordinary use it would be difficult to name a manner that combines so well the Ciceronian dignity with the rich colour and high finish added to Latin prose by the writers of the earlier empire." --Mackail.
For the death of his son, aged ten, a boy of great promise, for whose instruction he wrote the work, see Preface to Book VI.