_Quintiliane, vagae moderator summe iuventae, Gloria Romanae, Quintiliane, togae._
Mart. II. xc. 1-2.
_Nihil in studiis parvum est._ _Cito scribendo non fit ut bene scribatur, bene scribendo fit ut cito._
--Quintilian.
GAIUS SALl.u.s.tIUS CRISPUS, 86-35 B.C.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: SALl.u.s.t.]
A member of a plebeian family, Sall.u.s.t was born 86 B.C. at Amiternum, in the country of the Sabines. As tribune of the people in 52 B.C. he took an active part in opposing Milo (Cicero"s client) and the Pompeian party in general. In 48 B.C. he commanded a legion in Illyria without distinction, and next year Caesar sent him to treat with the mutinous legions in Campania, where he narrowly escaped a.s.sa.s.sination. He afterwards followed Caesar to Africa, and apparently did good service there, for he was appointed in 46 the first governor of the newly formed province of Numidia. In 45 he returned to Rome a very rich man, and built himself a magnificent palace, surrounded by pleasure grounds (the famous Gardens of Sall.u.s.t, in the valley between the Quirinal and the Pincius), which in after years emperors preferred to the palace of the Caesars. After Caesar"s death Sall.u.s.t retired from public life, and it is to the leisure and study of these ten years that we owe the works that have made him famous.
2. Works.
(1) +De Catilinae Coniuratione+ (or _Bellum Catilinae_), a monograph on the famous conspiracy, in which Sall.u.s.t writes very largely from direct personal knowledge of men and events.
(2) +Bellum Iugurthinum+ (111-106 B.C.) The writing of this monograph involved wide inquiry and much preparation.
(3) +Historiae+, in five books, dealing with the events from 78 B.C.
(death of Sulla) to 67 B.C., of which only a few fragments are extant.
3. Style.
"Sall.u.s.t aimed at making historical writing a branch of literature. He felt that nothing had yet been done by any Roman writer which would stand beside Thucydides. It was his ambition to supply the want. That could only be done by offering as complete a contrast to the tedious annalist as possible, and Sall.u.s.t neglected no means of giving variety to his work. From Thucydides he probably borrowed the idea of his introductions, the imaginary speeches and the character portraits; from Cato the picturesque descriptions of the scenes of historical events and the ethnographical digressions." --Cook.
"The style of Sall.u.s.t is characterised by the use of old words and forms (especially in the speeches). He makes use of alliteration, extensively employs the Historic Infinitive, and shows a partiality for conversational expressions which from a literary point of view are archaic. His abrupt unperiodic style of writing (rough periods without particles of connexion) has won for Sall.u.s.t his reputation for brevity.
His style is, however, the expression of the writer"s character, direct, incisive, emphatic, and outspoken; to have been a model for Tacitus is no slight merit." --Cook.
_Nec minus noto Sall.u.s.tius epigrammate incessitur:_ "Et verba antiqui multum furate Catonis, Crispe, Iugurthinae conditor historiae."
Quint. VIII. iii. 29.
"The last of the Ciceronians, Sall.u.s.t is also in a sense the first of the imperial prose-writers." --Mackail.
_Primus Romana Crispus in Historia_ (Mart. XIV. cxci.)
L. ANNAEUS SENECA THE YOUNGER, circ. 4 B.C.-65 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: SENECA.]
The son of Seneca the Elder, the famous rhetorician, was born at Corduba (_Cordova_), in Spain, and brought to Rome by his parents at an early age. His life was one of singularly dramatic contrasts and vicissitudes.
Under his mother Helvia"s watchful care he received the best education Rome could give. Through the influence of his mother"s family he pa.s.sed into the Senate through the quaestorship, and his successes at the bar awakened the jealousy of Caligula (37-41 A.D.) By his father"s advice he retired for a time and spent his days in philosophy. On the accession of Claudius (41-54 A.D.) he was banished to Corsica at the instance of the Empress Messalina, probably because he was suspected of belonging to the faction of Agrippina, the mother of Nero. After eight years he was recalled (49 A.D.) by the influence of Agrippina (now the wife of Claudius), and appointed tutor to her son Nero, then a boy of ten. When Nero became emperor, at the age of seventeen (54 A.D.), Seneca, in conjunction with his friend Burrus, the prefect of the praetorian guards, became practically the administrator of the Empire. "The mild and enlightened administration of the earlier years of the new reign, the famous _quinquennium Neronis_, may indeed be largely ascribed to Seneca"s influence; but this influence was based on an excessive indulgence of Nero"s caprices, which soon worked out its own punishment." --Mackail. His connivance at the murder of Agrippina (59 A.D.) was the death-blow to his influence for good, and the death of Burrus (63 A.D.) was, as Tacitus says (_Ann._ xiv. 52), "a blow to Seneca"s power, for virtue had not the same strength when one of its champions, so to speak, was removed, and Nero began to lean on worse advisers." Seneca resolved to retire, and entreated Nero to receive back the wealth he had so lavishly bestowed. The Emperor, bent on vengeance, refused the proffered gift, and Seneca knew that his doom was sealed. In the year 65, on the pretext of complicity in the conspiracy of Piso, he was commanded to commit suicide, and Tacitus (_Ann._ xv. 61-63) has shown his love for Seneca, in spite of all his faults, by the tribute he pays to the constancy of his death.
2. Works.
His chief works are:--
(1) +Dialogorum Libri XII+, of which the most important are the +De Ira+ and the +Consolatio+ to his mother Helvia, whom he tenderly loved.
(2) +De Clementia+, in three Books, addressed to Nero, written in 55-6 A.D., to show the public what sort of instruction Seneca had given his pupil, and what sort of Emperor they had to expect.
(3) +De Beneficiis+, in seven Books. Seneca proves that a tyrant"s benefits are not kindnesses, and sets forth his views on the giving and receiving of benefits.
(4) +Epistulae morales ad Lucilium.+ 124 letters are extant, and form the most important and most pleasing of his works.
(5) +Tragedies.+ Nine are extant, derived from plays by Sophocles and Euripides. The only extant Latin tragedies.
"As a moral writer Seneca stands deservedly high. Though infected with the rhetorical vices of the age his treatises are full of striking and often gorgeous eloquence, and in their combination of high thought with deep feeling have rarely, if at all, been surpa.s.sed." --Mackail.
"Seneca is a lamentable instance of variance between precept and example." --Cruttwell.
SILIUS ITALICUS, circ. 25-100 A.D.
1. Life.
[Sidenote: SILIUS.]
A letter of Pliny (iii. 7) is the chief source of our knowledge of the life of Silius. Pliny tells us that Silius had risen by acting as a _delator_ (informer) under Nero, who made him consul 68 A.D. He goes on to say "He had gained much credit by his proconsulship in Asia (under Vespasian, _circ._ 77 A.D.), and had since by an honourable leisure wiped out the blot which stained the activity of his former years."
Martial also, who has the effrontery to speak of him as a combined Vergil and Cicero, tells us of his luxurious and learned retirement in Campania, and of his reverence for his master Vergil, "whose birthday he kept more religiously than his own." According to Martial (xi. 49) the tomb of Vergil had been practically forgotten, and was in the possession of some poor man when Silius bought the plot of ground on which it stood:
_Iam prope desertos cineres et sancta Maronis Nomina qui coleret, pauper et unus erat.
Silius optatae succurrere censuit umbrae, Silius et vatem, non minor ipse, colit._
2. Works.
The +Punica+, an Epic poem in seventeen Books, on the Second Punic War, closes with Scipio"s triumph, after the Battle of Zama, 202 B.C.
Silius closely followed the history as told by Livy, and without any inventive or constructive power of his own copies, with tasteless pedantry, Homer and Vergil. "He cannot perceive that the divine interventions which are admissible in the quarrel of Aeneas and Turnus are ludicrous when imported into the struggle between Scipio and Hannibal. Who can help resenting the unreality when at Saguntum Jupiter guides an arrow into Hannibal"s body, which Juno immediately withdraws, or when, at Cannae, Aeolus yields to the prayer of Juno and blinds the Romans by a whirlwind of dust?"--Cruttwell.
The _Punica_ is valuable for its historical accuracy, but it is one of the longest and one of the worst Epic poems ever written.
_Scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio._
Pliny, _Epist._ iii. 7.
P. PAPINIUS STATIUS, circ. 60-100 A.D.
1. Life.