Greek dramatic poetry was still more varied and remarkable. Even the
great masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides now extant were regarded
by their contemporaries as inferior to many other Greek tragedies
utterly unknown to us. The great creator of the Greek drama was
Aeschylus, born at Eleusis 525 B.C. It was not till the age of forty-one
that he gained his first prize. Sixteen years afterward, defeated by
Sophocles, he quitted Athens in disgust and went to the court of Hiero,
king of Syracuse. But he was always held, even at Athens, in the highest
honor, and his pieces were frequently reproduced upon the stage. It was
not so much the object of Aeschylus to amuse an audience as to instruct
and elevate it. He combined religious feeling with lofty moral
sentiment, and had unrivalled power over the realm of astonishment and
terror. "At his summons," says Sir Walter Scott, "the mysterious and
tremendous volume of destiny, in which is inscribed the doom of gods
and men, seemed to display its leaves of iron before the appalled
spectators; the more than mortal voices of Deities, Titans, and departed
heroes were heard in awful conference; heaven bowed, and its divinities
descended; earth yawned, and gave up the pale spectres of the dead and
yet more undefined and ghastly forms of those infernal deities who
struck horror into the gods themselves." His imagination dwells in the
loftiest regions of the old mythology of Greece; his tone is always pure
and moral, though stern and harsh; he appeals to the most violent
passions, and is full of the boldest metaphors. In sublimity Aeschylus
has never been surpassed. He was in poetry what Phidias and Michael
Angelo were in art. The critics say that his sublimity of diction is
sometimes carried to an extreme, so that his language becomes inflated.
His characters, like his sentiments, were sublime,--they were gods and
heroes of colossal magnitude. His religious views were Homeric, and he
sought to animate his countrymen to deeds of glory, as it became one of
the generals who fought at Marathon to do. He was an unconscious genius,
and worked like Homer without a knowledge of artistic laws. He was proud
and impatient, and his poetry was religious rather than moral. He wrote
seventy plays, of which only seven are extant; but these are immortal,
among the greatest creations of human genius, like the dramas of
Shakspeare. He died in Sicily, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
The fame of Sophocles is scarcely less than that of Aeschylus. He was
twenty-seven years of age when he publicly appeared as a poet. He was
born in Colonus, in the suburbs of Athens, 495 B.C., and was the
contemporary of Herodotus, of Pericles, of Pindar, of Phidias, of
Socrates, of Cimon, of Euripides,--the era of great men, the period of
the Peloponnesian War, when everything that was elegant and intellectual
culminated at Athens. Sophocles had every element of character and
person to fascinate the Greeks,--beauty of face, symmetry of form,
skill in gymnastics, calmness and dignity of manner, a cheerful and
amiable temper, a ready wit, a meditative piety, a spontaneity of
genius, an affectionate admiration for talent, and patriotic devotion to
his country. His tragedies, by the universal consent of the best
critics, are the perfection of the Greek drama; and they moreover
maintain that he has no rival, Aeschylus and Shakspeare alone excepted,
in the whole realm of dramatic poetry. It was the peculiarity of
Sophocles to excite emotions of sorrow and compassion. He loved to paint
forlorn heroes. He was human in all his sympathies, perhaps not so
religious as Aeschylus, but as severely ethical; not so sublime, but
more perfect in art. His sufferers are not the victims of an inexorable
destiny, but of their own follies. Nor does he even excite emotion apart
from a moral end. He lived to be ninety years old, and produced the most
beautiful of his tragedies in his eightieth year, the "Oedipus at
Colonus." Sophocles wrote the astonishing number of one hundred and
thirty plays, and carried off the first prize twenty-four times. His
"Antigone" was written when he was forty-five, and when Euripides had
already gained a prize. Only seven of his tragedies have survived, but
these are priceless treasures.
Euripides, the last of the great triumvirate of the Greek tragic poets,
was born at Athens, 485 B.C. He had not the sublimity of Aeschylus, nor
the touching pathos of Sophocles, nor the stern simplicity of either,
but in seductive beauty and successful appeal to passion was superior to
both. In his tragedies the passion of love predominates, but it does not
breathe the purity of sentiment which marked the tragedies of Aeschylus
and Sophocles; it approaches rather to the tone of the modern drama. He
paints the weakness and corruptions of society, and brings his subjects
to the level of common life. He was the pet of the Sophists, and was
pantheistic in his views. He does not attempt to show ideal excellence,
and his characters represent men not as they ought to be, but as they
are, especially in corrupt states of society. Euripides wrote
ninety-five plays, of which eighteen are extant. Whatever objection may
be urged to his dramas on the score of morality, nobody can question
their transcendent art or their great originality.
With the exception of Shakspeare, all succeeding dramatists have copied
the three great Greek tragic poets whom we have just named,--especially
Racine, who took Sophocles for his model,--even as the great epic poets
of all ages have been indebted to Homer.
The Greeks were no less distinguished for comedy than for tragedy. Both
tragedy and comedy sprang from feasts in honor of Bacchus; and as the
jests and frolics were found misplaced when introduced into grave
scenes, a separate province of the drama was formed, and comedy arose.
At first it did not derogate from the religious purposes which were at
the foundation of the Greek drama; it turned upon parodies in which the
adventures of the gods were introduced by way of sport,--as in
describing the appetite of Hercules or the cowardice of Bacchus. The
comic authors entertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays, by
the exhibition of buffoonery and pantomime. But the taste of the
Athenians was too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedy
passed into ridicule of public men and measures and the fashions of the
day. The people loved to see their great men brought down to their own
level. Comedy, however, did not flourish until the morals of society
were degenerated, and ridicule had become the most effective weapon
wherewith to assail prevailing follies. In modern times, comedy reached
its culminating point when society was both the most corrupt and the
most intellectual,--as in France, when Moliere pointed his envenomed
shafts against popular vices. In Greece it flourished in the age of
Socrates and the Sophists, when there was great bitterness in political
parties and an irrepressible desire for novelties. Comedy first made
itself felt as a great power in Cratinus, who espoused the side of Cimon
against Pericles with great bitterness and vehemence.
Many were the comic writers of that age of wickedness and genius, but
all yielded precedence to Aristophanes, of whose writings only his plays
have reached us. Never were libels on persons of authority and influence
uttered with such terrible license. He attacked the gods, the
politicians, the philosophers, and the poets of Athens; even private
citizens did not escape from his shafts, and women were the subjects of
his irony. Socrates was made the butt of his ridicule when most revered,
Cleon in the height of his power, and Euripides when he had gained the
highest prizes. Aristophanes has furnished jests for Rabelais, hints to
Swift, and humor for Moliere. In satire, in derision, in invective, and
bitter scorn he has never been surpassed. No modern capital would
tolerate such unbounded license; yet no plays in their day were ever
more popular, or more fully exposed follies which could not otherwise be
reached. Aristophanes is called the Father of Comedy, and his comedies
are of great historical importance, although his descriptions are
doubtless caricatures. He was patriotic in his intentions, even setting
up as a reformer. His peculiar genius shines out in his "Clouds," the
greatest of his pieces, in which he attacks the Sophists. He wrote
fifty-four plays. He was born 444 B.C., and died 380 B.C.
Thus it would appear that in the three great departments of poetry,--the
epic, the lyric, and the dramatic,--the old Greeks were great masters,
and have been the teachers of all subsequent nations and ages.
The Romans in these departments were not the equals of the Greeks, but
they were very successful copyists, and will bear comparison with modern
nations. If the Romans did not produce a Homer, they can boast of a
Virgil; if they had no Pindar, they furnished a Horace; and in satire
they transcended the Greeks.
The Romans produced no poetry worthy of notice until the Greek language
and literature were introduced among them. It was not till the fall of
Tarentum that we read of a Roman poet. Livius Andronicus, a Greek
slave, 240 B.C., rudely translated the Odyssey into Latin, and was the
author of various plays, all of which have perished, and none of which,
according to Cicero, were worth a second perusal. Still, Andronicus was
the first to substitute the Greek drama for the old lyrical stage
poetry. One year after the first Punic War, he exhibited the first Roman
play. As the creator of the drama he deserves historical notice, though
he has no claim to originality, but, like a schoolmaster as he was,
pedantically labored to imitate the culture of the Greeks. His plays
formed the commencement of Roman translation-literature, and naturalized
the Greek metres in Latium, even though they were curiosities rather
than works of art.
Naevius, 235 B.C., produced a play at Rome, and wrote both epic and
dramatic poetry, but so little has survived that no judgment can be
formed of his merits. He was banished for his invectives against the
aristocracy, who did not relish severity of comedy. Mommsen regards
Naevius as the first of the Romans who deserves to be ranked among the
poets. His language was free from stiffness and affectation, and his
verses had a graceful flow. In metres he closely adhered to Andronicus.
Plautus was perhaps the first great dramatic poet whom the Romans
produced, and his comedies are still admired by critics as both original
and fresh. He was born in Umbria, 257 B.C., and was contemporaneous
with Publius and Cneius Scipio. He died 184 B.C. The first development
of Roman genius in the field of poetry seems to have been the dramatic,
in which still the Greek authors were copied. Plautus might be mistaken
for a Greek, were it not for the painting of Roman manners, for his garb
is essentially Greek. Plautus wrote one hundred and thirty plays, not
always for the stage, but for the reading public. He lived about the
time of the second Punic War, before the theatre was fairly established
at Rome. His characters, although founded on Greek models, act, speak,
and joke like Romans. He enjoyed great popularity down to the latest
times of the empire, while the purity of his language, as well as the
felicity of his wit, was celebrated by the ancient critics. Cicero
places his wit on a par with the old Attic comedy; while Jerome spent
much time in reading his comedies, even though they afterward cost him
tears of bitter regret. Modern dramatists owe much to Plautus. Moliere
has imitated him in his "Avare," and Shakspeare in his "Comedy of
Errors." Lessing pronounces the "Captivi" to be the finest comedy ever
brought upon the stage; he translated this play into German, and it has
also been admirably translated into English. The great excellence of
Plautus was the masterly handling of language, and the adjusting the
parts for dramatic effect. His humor, broad and fresh, produced
irresistible comic effects. No one ever surpassed him in his vocabulary
of nicknames and his happy jokes. Hence he maintained his popularity in
spite of his vulgarity.
Terence shares with Plautus the throne of Roman comedy. He was a
Carthaginian slave, born 185 B.C., but was educated by a wealthy Roman
into whose hands he fell, and ever after associated with the best
society and travelled extensively in Greece. He was greatly inferior to
Plautus in originality, and has not exerted a like lasting influence;
but he wrote comedies characterized by great purity of diction, which
have been translated into all modern languages. Terence, whom Mommsen
regards as the most polished, elegant, and chaste of all the poets of
the newer comedy, closely copied the Greek Menander. Unlike Plautus, he
drew his characters from good society, and his comedies, if not moral,
were decent. Plautus wrote for the multitude, Terence for the few;
Plautus delighted in noisy dialogue and slang expressions; Terence
confined himself to quiet conversation and elegant expressions, for
which he was admired by Cicero and Quintilian and other great critics.
He aspired to the approval of the cultivated, rather than the applause
of the vulgar; and it is a remarkable fact that his comedies supplanted
the more original productions of Plautus in the later years of the
republic, showing that the literature of the aristocracy was more
prized than that of the people, even in a degenerate age.
The "Thyestes" of Varius was regarded in its day as equal to Greek
tragedies. Ennius composed tragedies in a vigorous style, and was
regarded by the Romans as the parent of their literature, although most
of his works have perished. Virgil borrowed many of his thoughts, and
was regarded as the prince of Roman song in the time of Cicero. The
Latin language is greatly indebted to him. Pacuvius imitated Aeschylus
in the loftiness of his style. From the times before the Augustan age no
tragic production has reached us, although Quintilian speaks highly of
Accius, especially of the vigor of his style; but he merely imitated the
Greeks. The only tragedy of the Romans which has reached us was written
by Seneca the philosopher.
In epic poetry the Romans accomplished more, though even here they are
still inferior to the Greeks. The Aeneid of Virgil has certainly
survived the material glories of Rome. It may not have come up to the
exalted ideal of its author; it may be defaced by political flatteries;
it may not have the force and originality of the Iliad,--but it is
superior in art, and delineates the passion of love with more delicacy
than can be found in any Greek author. In soundness of judgment, in
tenderness of feeling, in chastened fancy, in picturesque description,
in delineation of character, in matchless beauty of diction, and in
splendor of versification, it has never been surpassed by any poem in
any language, and proudly takes its place among the imperishable works
of genius. Henry Thompson, in his "History of Roman Literature," says:--
"Availing himself of the pride and superstition of the Roman people, the
poet traces the origin and establishment of the 'Eternal City' to those
heroes and actions which had enough in them of what was human and
ordinary to excite the sympathies of his countrymen, intermingled with
persons and circumstances of an extraordinary and superhuman character
to awaken their admiration and awe. No subject could have been more
happily chosen. It has been admired also for its perfect unity of
action; for while the episodes command the richest variety of
description, they are always subordinate to the main object of the poem,
which is to impress the divine authority under which Aeneas first
settled in Italy. The wrath of Juno, upon which the whole fate of Aeneas
seems to turn, is at once that of a woman and a goddess; the passion of
Dido and her general character bring us nearer to the present
world,--but the poet is continually introducing higher and more
effectual influences, until, by the intervention of gods and men, the
Trojan name is to be continued in the Roman, and thus heaven and earth
are appeased."
Probably no one work of man has had such a wide and profound influence
as this poem of Virgil,--a textbook in all schools since the revival of
learning, the model of the Carlovingian poets, the guide of Dante, the
oracle of Tasso. Virgil was born seventy years before Christ, and was
seven years older than Augustus. His parentage was humble, but his
facilities of education were great. He was a most fortunate man,
enjoying the friendship of Augustus and Maecenas, fame in his own
lifetime, leisure to prosecute his studies, and ample rewards for his
labors. He died at Brundusium at the age of fifty.
In lyrical poetry, the Romans can boast of one of the greatest masters
of any age or nation. The Odes of Horace have never been transcended,
and will probably remain through all ages the delight of scholars. They
may not have the deep religious sentiment and unity of imagination and
passion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but as works of art, of
exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they are
unrivalled. Even in the time of Juvenal his poems were the common
school-books of Roman youth. Horace, born 65 B.C., like Virgil was also
a favored man, enjoying the friendship of the great, and possessing
ease, fame, and fortune; but his longings for retirement and his disgust
at the frivolities around him are a sad commentary on satisfied desires.
His Odes composed but a small part of his writings. His Epistles are the
most perfect of his productions, and rank with the "Georgics" of Virgil
and the "Satires" of Juvenal as the most perfect form of Roman verse.
His satires are also admirable, but without the fierce vehemence and
lofty indignation that characterized those of Juvenal. It is the folly
rather than the wickedness of vice which Horace describes with such
playful skill and such keenness of observation. He was the first to
mould the Latin tongue to the Greek lyric measures. Quintilian's
criticism is indorsed by all scholars,--_Lyricorum Horatius fere solus
legi dignus, in verbis felicissime audax_. No poetry was ever more
severely elaborated than that of Horace, and the melody of the language
imparts to it a peculiar fascination. If inferior to Pindar in passion
and loftiness, it glows with a more genial humanity and with purer wit.
It cannot be enjoyed fully except by those versed in the experiences of
life, who perceive in it a calm wisdom, a penetrating sagacity, a sober
enthusiasm, and a refined taste, which are unusual even among the
masters of human thought.
It is the fashion to depreciate the original merits of this poet, as
well as those of Virgil, Plautus, and Terence, because they derived so
much assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks also borrowed from one
another. Pure originality is impossible. It is the mission of art to add
to its stores, without hoping to monopolize the whole realm. Even
Shakspeare, the most original of modern poets, was vastly indebted to
those who went before him, and he has not escaped the hypercriticism of
minute observers.
In this mention of lyrical poetry I have not spoken of Catullus,
unrivalled in tender lyric, the greatest poet before the Augustan era.
He was born 87 B.C., and enjoyed the friendship of the most celebrated
characters. One hundred and sixteen of his poems have come down to us,
most of which are short, and many of them defiled by great coarseness
and sensuality. Critics say, however, that whatever he touched he
adorned; that his vigorous simplicity, pungent wit, startling invective,
and felicity of expression make him one of the great poets of the
Latin language.
In didactic poetry Lucretius was pre-eminent, and is regarded by
Schlegel as the first of Roman poets in native genius. He was born 95
B.C., and died at the age of forty-two by his own hand. His principal
poem "De Rerum Natura" is a delineation of the Epicurean philosophy, and
treats of all the great subjects of thought with which his age was
conversant. Somewhat resembling Pope's "Essay on Man" in style and
subject, it is immeasurably superior in poetical genius. It is a
lengthened disquisition, in seven thousand four hundred lines, upon the
great phenomena of the outward world. As a painter and worshipper of
Nature, Lucretius was superior to all the poets of antiquity. His skill
in presenting abstruse speculations is marvellous, and his outbursts of
poetic genius are matchless in power and beauty. Into all subjects he
casts a fearless eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. But he was
not fully appreciated by his countrymen, although no other poet has so
fully brought out the power of the Latin language. Professor Ramsay,
while alluding to the melancholy tenderness of Tibullus, the exquisite
ingenuity of Ovid, the inimitable felicity and taste of Horace, the
gentleness and splendor of Virgil, and the vehement declamation of
Juvenal, thinks that had the verse of Lucretius perished we should never
have known that the Latin could give utterance to the grandest
conceptions, with all that self-sustained majesty and harmonious swell
in which the Grecian muse rolls forth her loftiest outpourings. The
eulogium of Ovid is--
"Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti,
Exitio terras quum dabit una dies."
Elegiac poetry has an honorable place in Roman literature. To this
school belongs Ovid, born 43 B.C., died 18 A.D., whose "Tristia," a
doleful description of the evils of exile, were much admired by the
Romans. His most famous work was his "Metamorphoses," mythologic legends
involving transformations,--a most poetical and imaginative production.
He, with that self-conscious genius common to poets, declares that his
poem would be proof against sword, fire, thunder, and time,--a
prediction, says Bayle, which has not yet proved false. Niebuhr thinks
that Ovid next to Catullus was the most poetical of his countrymen.
Milton thinks he might have surpassed Virgil, had he attempted epic
poetry. He was nearest to the romantic school of all the classical
authors; and Chaucer, Ariosto, and Spenser owe to him great obligations.
Like Pope, his verses flowed spontaneously. His "Tristia" were more
highly praised than his "Amores" or his "Metamorphoses," a fact which
shows that contemporaries are not always the best judges of real merit.
His poems, great as was their genius, are deficient in the severe taste
which marked the Greeks, and are immoral in their tendency. He had great
advantages, but was banished by Augustus for his description of
licentious love. Nor did he support exile with dignity; he languished
like Cicero when doomed to a similar fate, and died of a broken heart.
But few intellectual men have ever been able to live at a distance from
the scene of their glories, and without the stimulus of high society.
Chrysostom is one of the few exceptions. Ovid, as an immoral writer, was
justly punished.
Tibullus, also a famous elegiac poet, was born the same year as Ovid,
and was the friend of the poet Horace. He lived in retirement, and was
both gentle and amiable. At his beautiful country-seat he soothed his
soul with the charms of literature and the simple pleasures of the
country. Niebuhr pronounces the elegies of Tibullus to be doleful, but
Merivale thinks that "the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung his
unprosperous loves had a deeper and purer source than the caprices of
three inconstant paramours.... His spirit is eminently religious, though
it bids him fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope.
He alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by the
glitter of the Caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailing
despondency while beholding the subjugation of his country."
Propertius, the contemporary of Tibullus, born 51 B.C., was on the
contrary the most eager of all the flatterers of Augustus,--a man of wit
and pleasure, whose object of idolatry was Cynthia, a poetess and a
courtesan. He was an imitator of the Greeks, but had a great
contemporary fame. He showed much warmth of passion, but never soared
into the sublime heights of poetry, like his rival.
Such were among the great elegiac poets of Rome, who were generally
devoted to the delineation of the passion of love. The older English
poets resembled them in this respect, but none of them have risen to
such lofty heights as the later ones,--for instance, Wordsworth and
Tennyson. It is in lyric poetry that the moderns have chiefly excelled
the ancients, in variety, in elevation of sentiment, and in
imagination. The grandeur and originality of the ancients were displayed
rather in epic and dramatic poetry.
In satire the Romans transcended both the Greeks and the moderns. Satire
arose with Lucilius, 148 B.C., in the time of Marius, an age when
freedom of speech was tolerated. Horace was the first to gain
immortality in this department. Next Persius comes, born 34 A.D., the
friend of Lucian and Seneca in the time of Nero, who painted the vices
of his age as it was passing to that degradation which marked the reign
of Domitian, when Juvenal appeared. The latter, disdaining fear, boldly
set forth the abominations of the times, and struck without distinction
all who departed from duty and conscience. There is nothing in any
language which equals the fire, the intensity, and the bitterness of
Juvenal, not even the invectives of Swift and Pope. But he flourished
during the decline of literature, and had neither the taste nor the
elegance of the Augustan writers. He was born 60 A.D., the son of a
freedman, and was the contemporary of Martial. He was banished by
Domitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but under
the reign of Nerva he returned to Rome, and the imperial tyranny was the
subject of his bitterest denunciation next to the degradation of public
morals. His great rival in satire was Horace, who laughed at follies;
but Juvenal, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them. His sarcasms
on women have never been equalled in severity, and we cannot but hope
that they were unjust. From an historical point of view, as a
delineation of the manners of his age, his satires are priceless, even
like the epigrams of Martial. This uncompromising poet, not pliant and
easy like Horace, animadverted like an incorruptible censor on the vices
which were undermining the moral health and preparing the way for
violence; on the hypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants;
on the frivolity of women and the debauchery of men. He discoursed on
the vanity of human wishes with the moral wisdom of Dr. Johnson, and
urged self-improvement like Socrates and Epictetus.
I might speak of other celebrated poets,--of Lucan, of Martial, of
Petronius; but I only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity,
both Greek and Roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, and
in art, and that few were ever more honored in their lifetime by
appreciating admirers,--showing the advanced state of civilization which
was reached in those classic countries in everything pertaining to the
realm of thought and art.
The genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition as well as
in poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained. The poets were
the great creators of the languages of antiquity. It was not until they
had produced their immortal works that the languages were sufficiently
softened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose. But prose
requires art as well as poetry. There is an artistic rhythm in the
writings of the classical authors--like those of Cicero, Herodotus, and
Thucydides--as marked as in the beautiful measure of Homer and Virgil.
Plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as "musical as Apollo's
lyre." Burke and Macaulay are as great artists in style as Tennyson
himself. And it is seldom that men, either in ancient or modern times,
have been distinguished for both kinds of composition, although
Voltaire, Schiller, Milton, Swift, and Scott are among the exceptions.
Cicero, the greatest prose writer of antiquity, produced in poetry only
a single inferior work, which was laughed at by his contemporaries.
Bacon, with all his affluence of thought, vigor of imagination, and
command of language, could not write poetry any easier than Pope could
write prose,--although it is asserted by some modern writers, of no
great reputation, that Bacon wrote Shakspeare's plays.
All sorts of prose compositions were carried to perfection by both
Greeks and Romans, in history, in criticism, in philosophy, in oratory,
in epistles.
The earliest great prose writer among the Greeks was Herodotus, 484
B.C., from which we may infer that History was the first form of prose
composition to attain development. But Herodotus was not born until
Aeschylus had gained a prize for tragedy, nor for more than two hundred
years after Simonides the lyric poet nourished, and probably five or six
hundred years after Homer sang his immortal epics; yet though two
thousand years and more have passed since he wrote, the style of this
great "Father of History" is admired by every critic, while his history
as a work of art is still a study and a marvel. It is difficult to
understand why no work in prose anterior to Herodotus is worthy of note,
since the Greeks had attained a high civilization two hundred years
before he appeared, and the language had reached a high point of
development under Homer for more than five hundred years. The History of
Herodotus was probably written in the decline of life, when his mind was
enriched with great attainments in all the varied learning of his age,
and when he had conversed with most of the celebrated men of the various
countries he had visited. It pertains chiefly to the wars of the Greeks
with the Persians; but in his frequent episodes, which do not impair the
unity of the work, he is led to speak of the manners and customs of the
Oriental nations. It was once the fashion to speak of Herodotus as a
credulous man, who embodied the most improbable though interesting
stories. But now it is believed that no historian was ever more
profound, conscientious, and careful; and all modern investigations
confirm his sagacity and impartiality. He was one of the most
accomplished men of antiquity, or of any age,--an enlightened and
curious traveller, a profound thinker; a man of universal knowledge,
familiar with the whole range of literature, art, and science in his
day; acquainted with all the great men of Greece and at the courts of
Asiatic princes; the friend of Sophocles, of Pericles, of Thucydides, of
Aspasia, of Socrates, of Damon, of Zeno, of Phidias, of Protagoras, of
Euripides, of Polygnotus, of Anaxagoras, of Xenophon, of Alcibiades, of
Lysias, of Aristophanes,--the most brilliant constellation of men of
genius who were ever found together within the walls of a Grecian
city,--respected and admired by these great lights, all of whom were
inferior to him in knowledge. Thus was he fitted for his task by travel,
by study, and by intercourse with the great, to say nothing of his
original genius. The greatest prose work which had yet appeared in
Greece was produced by Herodotus,--a prose epic, severe in taste,
perfect in unity, rich in moral wisdom, charming in style, religious in
spirit, grand in subject, without a coarse passage; simple, unaffected,
and beautiful, like the narratives of the Bible, amusing yet
instructive, easy to understand, yet extending to the utmost boundaries
of human research,--a model for all subsequent historians. So highly was
this historic composition valued by the Athenians when their city was at
the height of its splendor that they decreed to its author ten talents
(about twelve thousand dollars) for reciting it. He even went from city
to city, a sort of prose rhapsodist, or like a modern lecturer, reciting
his history,--an honored and extraordinary man, a sort of Humboldt,
having mastered everything. And he wrote, not for fame, but to
communicate the results of inquiries made to satisfy his craving for
knowledge, which he obtained by personal investigation at Dodona, at
Delphi, at Samos, at Athens, at Corinth, at Thebes, at Tyre; he even
travelled into Egypt, Scythia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Babylonia, Italy,
and the islands of the sea. His episode on Egypt is worth more, from an
historical point of view, than all things combined which have descended
to us from antiquity. Herodotus was the first to give dignity to
history; nor in truthfulness, candor, and impartiality has he ever been
surpassed. His very simplicity of style is a proof of his transcendent
art, even as it is the evidence of his severity of taste. The
translation of this great history by Rawlinson, with notes, is
invaluable.
To Thucydides, as an historian, the modern world also assigns a proud
pre-eminence. He was born 471 B.C., and lived twenty years in exile on
account of a military failure. He treated only of a short period, during
the Peloponnesian War; but the various facts connected with that great
event could be known only by the most minute and careful inquiries. He
devoted twenty-seven years to the composition of his narrative, and
weighed his evidence with the most scrupulous care. His style has not
the fascination of Herodotus, but it is more concise. In a single volume
Thucydides relates what could scarcely be compressed into eight volumes
of a modern history. As a work of art, of its kind it is unrivalled. In
his description of the plague of Athens this writer is as minute as he
is simple. He abounds with rich moral reflections, and has a keen
perception of human character. His pictures are striking and tragic. He
is vigorous and intense, and every word he uses has a meaning, but some
of his sentences are not always easily understood. One of the greatest
tributes which can be paid to him is the estimate of an able critic,
George Long, that we have a more exact history of a protracted and
eventful period by Thucydides than we have of any period in modern
history equally extended and eventful; and all this is compressed into
a volume.
Xenophon is the last of the trio of the Greek historians whose writings
are classic and inimitable. He was born probably about 444 B.C. He is
characterized by great simplicity and absence of affectation. His
"Anabasis," in which he describes the expedition of the younger Cyrus
and the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, is his most famous book. But
his "Cyropaedia," in which the history of Cyrus is the subject, although
still used as a classic in colleges for the beauty of its style, has no
value as a history, since the author merely adopted the current stories
of his hero without sufficient investigation. Xenophon wrote a variety
of treatises and dialogues, but his "Memorabilia" of Socrates is the
most valuable. All antiquity and all modern writers unite in ascribing
to Xenophon great merit as a writer and great moral elevation as a man.
If we pass from the Greek to the Latin historians,--to those who were as
famous as the Greek, and whose merit has scarcely been transcended in
our modern times, if indeed it has been equalled,--the great names of
Sallust, of Caesar, of Livy, of Tacitus rise up before us, together with
a host of other names we have not room or disposition to present, since
we only aim to show that the ancients were at least our equals in this
great department of prose composition. The first great masters of the
Greek language in prose were the historians, so far as we can judge by
the writings that have descended to us, although it is probable that
the orators may have shaped the language before them, and given it
flexibility and refinement The first great prose writers of Rome were
the orators; nor was the Latin language fully developed and polished
until Cicero appeared. But we do not here write a history of the
language; we speak only of those who wrote immortal works in the various
departments of learning.
As Herodotus did not arise until the Greek language had been already
formed by the poets, so no great prose writer appeared among the Romans
for a considerable time after Plautus, Terence, Ennius, and Lucretius
flourished. The first great historian was Sallust, the contemporary of
Cicero, born 86 B.C., the year that Marius died. Q. Fabius Pictor, M.
Portius Cato, and L. Cal. Piso had already written works which are
mentioned with respect by Latin authors, but they were mere annalists or
antiquarians, like the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and had no claim
as artists. Sallust made Thucydides his model, but fell below him in
genius and elevated sentiment. He was born a plebeian, and rose to
distinction by his talents, but was ejected from the senate for his
profligacy. Afterward he made a great fortune as praetor and governor of
Numidia, and lived in magnificence on the Quirinal,--one of the most
profligate of the literary men of antiquity. We possess but a small
portion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us show
peculiar merit. He sought to penetrate the human heart, and to reveal
the secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. The style of
Sallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear and
lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who inaugurated modern history,
Sallust thought more of style than of accuracy as to facts. He was a
party man, and never soared beyond his party. He aped the moralist, but
exalted egoism and love of pleasure into proper springs of action, and
honored talent disconnected with virtue. Like Carlyle, Sallust exalted
_strong_ men, and _because_ they were strong. He was not comprehensive
like Cicero, or philosophical like Thucydides, although he affected
philosophy as he did morality. He was the first who deviated from the
strict narratives of events, and also introduced much rhetorical
declamation, which he puts into the mouths of his heroes. He wrote
for _eclat_.
Julius Caesar, born 100 or 102 B.C., as an historian ranks higher than
Sallust, and no Roman ever wrote purer Latin. Yet his historical works,
however great their merit, but feebly represent the transcendent genius
of the most august name of antiquity. He was mathematician, architect,
poet, philologist, orator, jurist, general, statesman, and imperator. In
eloquence he was second only to Cicero. The great value of Caesar's
history is in the sketches of the productions, the manners, the
customs, and the political conditions of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. His
observations on military science, on the operation of sieges and the
construction of bridges and military engines are valuable; but the
description of his military career is only a studied apology for his
crimes,--even as the bulletins of Napoleon were set forth to show his
victories in the most favorable light. Caesar's fame rests on his
victories and successes as a statesman rather than on his merits as an
historian,--even as Louis Napoleon will live in history for his deeds
rather than as the apologist of his great usurping prototype. Caesar's
"Commentaries" resemble the history of Herodotus more than any other
Latin production, at least in style; they are simple and unaffected,
precise and elegant, plain and without pretension.
The Augustan age which followed, though it produced a constellation of
poets who shed glory upon the throne before which they prostrated
themselves in abject homage, like the courtiers of Louis XIV., still was
unfavorable to prose composition,--to history as well as eloquence. Of
the historians of that age, Livy, born 59 B.C., is the only one whose
writings are known to us, in the shape of some fragments of his history.
He was a man of distinction at court, and had a great literary
reputation,--so great that a Spaniard travelled from Cadiz on purpose to
see him. Most of the great historians of the world have occupied places
of honor and rank, which were given to them not as prizes for literary
successes, but for the experience, knowledge, and culture which high
social position and ample means secure. Herodotus lived in courts;
Thucydides was a great general, as also was Xenophon; Caesar was the
first man of his times; Sallust was praetor and governor; Livy was tutor
to Claudius; Tacitus was praetor and consul; Eusebius was bishop and
favorite of Constantine; Ammianus was the friend of the Emperor Julian;
Gregory of Tours was one of the leading prelates of the West; Froissart
attended in person, as a man of rank, the military expeditions of his
day; Clarendon was Lord Chancellor; Burnet was a bishop and favorite of
William III.; Thiers and Guizot both were prime ministers; while Gibbon,
Hume, Robertson, Macaulay, Grote, Milman, Froude, Neander, Niebuhr,
Muller, Dahlman, Buckle, Prescott, Irving, Bancroft, Motley, have all
been men of wealth or position. Nor do I remember a single illustrious
historian who has been poor and neglected.
The ancients regarded Livy as the greatest of historians,--an opinion
not indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies. But his
narrative is always interesting, and his language pure. He did not sift
evidence like Grote, nor generalize like Gibbon; but like Voltaire and
Macaulay, he was an artist in style, and possessed undoubted genius. His
Annals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books, extending from
the foundation of the city to the death of Drusus, 9 B.C., of which only
thirty-five have come down to us,--an impressive commentary on the
vandalism of the Middle Ages and the ignorance of the monks who could
not preserve so great a treasure. "His story flows in a calm, clear,
sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity and ease can give."
He delineates character with great clearness and power; his speeches are
noble rhetorical compositions; his sentences are rhythmical cadences.
Livy was not a critical historian like Herodotus, for he took his
materials second-hand, and was ignorant of geography, nor did he write
with the exalted ideal of Thucydides; but as a painter of beautiful
forms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he is unrivalled in
the history of literature. Moreover, he was honest and sound in heart,
and was just and impartial in reference to those facts with which he was
conversant.
In the estimation of modern critics the highest rank as an historian is
assigned to Tacitus, and it would indeed be difficult to find his
superior in any age or country. He was born 57 A.D., about forty-three
years after the death of Augustus. He belonged to the equestrian rank,
and was a man of consular dignity. He had every facility for literary
labors that leisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give,
and lived under a reign when truth might be told. The extant works of
this great writer are the "Life of Agricola," his father-in-law; his
"Annales," which begin with the death of Augustus, 14 A.D., and close
with the death of Nero, 68 A.D.; the "Historiae," which comprise the
period from the second consulate of Galba, 68 A.D., to the death of
Domitian; and a treatise on the Germans. His histories describe Rome in
the fulness of imperial glory, when the will of one man was the supreme
law of the empire. He also wrote of events that occurred when liberty
had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly insupportable. He
describes a period of great moral degradation, nor does he hesitate to
lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had wrapped itself.
He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities of the early
emperors, and writes with judicial impartiality respecting all the great
characters he describes. No ancient writer shows greater moral dignity
and integrity of purpose than Tacitus. In point of artistic unity he is
superior to Livy and equal to Thucydides, whom he resembles in
conciseness of style. His distinguishing excellence as an historian is
his sagacity and impartiality. Nothing escapes his penetrating eye; and
he inflicts merited chastisement on the tyrants who revelled in the
prostrated liberties of his country, while he immortalizes those few who
were faithful to duty and conscience in a degenerate age. But the
writings of Tacitus were not so popular as those of Livy, since neither
princes nor people relished his intellectual independence and moral
elevation. He does not satisfy Dr. Arnold, who thinks he ought to have
been better versed in the history of the Jews, and who dislikes his
speeches because they were fictitious.
Neither the Latin nor Greek historians are admired by those dry critics
who seek to give to rare antiquarian matter a disproportionate
importance, and to make this matter as fixed and certain as the truths
of natural science. History can never be other than an approximation to
the truth, even when it relates to the events and characters of its own
age. History does not give positive, indisputable knowledge. We know
that Caesar was ambitious; but we do not know whether he was more or
less so than Pompey, nor do we know how far he was justified in his
usurpation. A great history must have other merits besides accuracy,
antiquarian research, and presentation of authorities and notes. It must
be a work of art; and art has reference to style and language, to
grouping of details and richness of illustration, to eloquence and
poetry and beauty. A dry history, however learned, will never be read;
it will only be consulted, like a law-book, or Mosheim's "Commentaries."
We require _life_ in history, and it is for their vividness that the
writings of Livy and Tacitus will be perpetuated. Voltaire and Schiller
have no great merit as historians in a technical sense, but the "Life of
Charles XII." and the "Thirty Years' War" are still classics. Neander
has written one of the most searching and recondite histories of modern
times; but it is too dry, too deficient in art, to be cherished, and may
pass away like the voluminous writings of Varro, the most learned of the
Romans. It is the _art_ which is immortal in a book,--not the knowledge,
nor even the thoughts. What keeps alive the "Provincial Letters" of
Pascal? It is the style, the irony, the elegance that characterize them.
The exquisite delineation of character, the moral wisdom, the purity and
force of language, the artistic arrangement, and the lively and
interesting narrative appealing to all minds, like the "Arabian Nights"
or Froissart's "Chronicles," are the elements which give immortality to
the classic authors. We will not let them perish, because they amuse and
interest and inspire us.
A remarkable example is that of Plutarch, who, although born a Greek and
writing in the Greek language, was a contemporary of Tacitus, lived long
in Rome, and was one of the "immortals" of the imperial age. A teacher
of philosophy during his early manhood, he spent his last years as
archon and priest of Apollo in his native town. His most famous work is
his "Parallel Lives" of forty-six historic Greeks and Romans, arranged
in pairs, depicted with marvellous art and all the fascination of
anecdote and social wit, while presenting such clear conceptions of
characters and careers, and the whole so restrained within the bounds of
good taste and harmonious proportion, as to have been even to this day
regarded as forming a model for the ideal biography.
But it is taking a narrow view of history to make all writers after the
same pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make all Christians belong
to the same sect. Some will be remarkable for style, others for
learning, and others again for moral and philosophical wisdom; some will
be minute, and others generalizing; some will dig out a multiplicity of
facts without apparent object, and others induce from those facts; some
will make essays, and others chronicles. We have need of all styles and
all kinds of excellence. A great and original thinker may not have the
time or opportunity or taste for a minute and searching criticism of
original authorities; but he may be able to generalize previously
established facts so as to draw most valuable moral instruction from
them for the benefit of his readers. History is a boundless field of
inquiry; no man can master it in all its departments and periods. It
will not do to lay great emphasis on minute details, and neglect the art
of generalization. If an historian attempts to embody too much learning,
he is likely to be deficient in originality; if he would say everything,
he is apt to be dry; if he elaborates too much, he loses animation.
Moreover, different classes of readers require different kinds and
styles of histories; there must be histories for students, histories for
old men, histories for young men, histories to amuse, and histories to
instruct. If all men were to write history according to Dr. Arnold's
views, we should have histories of interest only to classical scholars.
The ancient historians never quoted their sources of knowledge, but were
valued for their richness of thoughts and artistic beauty of style. The
ages in which they flourished attached no value to pedantic displays of
learning paraded in foot-notes.
Thus the great historians whom I have mentioned, both Greek and Latin,
have few equals and no superiors in our own times in those things that
are most to be admired. They were not pedants, but men of immense genius
and genuine learning, who blended the profoundest principles of moral
wisdom with the most fascinating narrative,--men universally popular
among learned and unlearned, great artists in style, and masters of the
language in which they wrote.
Rome can boast of no great historian after Tacitus, who should have
belonged to the Ciceronian epoch. Suetonius, born about the year 70
A.D., shortly after Nero's death, was rather a biographer than an
historian; nor as a biographer does he take a high rank. His "Lives of
the Caesars," like Diogenes Laertius's "Lives of the Philosophers," are
rather anecdotical than historical. L. Anneus Florus, who flourished
during the reign of Trajan, has left a series of sketches of the
different wars from the days of Romulus to those of Augustus. Frontinus
epitomized the large histories of Pompeius. Ammianus Marcellinus wrote a
history from Nerva to Valens, and is often quoted by Gibbon. But none
wrote who should be adduced as examples of the triumph of genius, except
Sallust, Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus.
* * * * *
There is another field of prose composition in which the Greeks and
Romans gained great distinction, and proved themselves equal to any
nation of modern times,--that of eloquence. It is true, we have not a
rich collection of ancient speeches; but we have every reason to believe
that both Greeks and Romans were most severely trained in the art of
public speaking, and that forensic eloquence was highly prized and
munificently rewarded. It began with democratic institutions, and
flourished as long as the People were a great power in the State; it
declined whenever and wherever tyrants bore rule. Eloquence and liberty
flourish together; nor can there be eloquence where there is not freedom
of debate. In the fifth century before Christ--the first century of
democracy--great orators arose, for without the power and the
opportunity of defending himself against accusation no man could hold an
ascendent position. Socrates insisted upon the gift of oratory for a
general in the army as well as for a leader in political life. In Athens
the courts of justice were numerous, and those who could not defend
themselves were obliged to secure the services of those who were trained
in the use of public speaking. Thus arose the lawyers, among whom
eloquence was more in demand and more richly paid than in any other
class. Rhetoric became connected with dialectics, and in Greece, Sicily,
and Italy both were extensively cultivated. Empedocles was distinguished
as much for rhetoric as for philosophy. It was not, however, in the
courts of law that eloquence displayed the greatest fire and passion,
but in political assemblies. These could only coexist with liberty; for
a democracy is more favorable than an aristocracy to large assemblies of
citizens. In the Grecian republics eloquence as an art may be said to
have been born. It was nursed and fed by political agitation, by the
strife of parties. It arose from appeals to the people as a source of
power: when the people were not cultivated, it addressed chiefly
popular passions and prejudices; when they were enlightened, it addressed interests. |
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