_THE UNITED AMATEUR_
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE UNITED AMATEUR PRESS ASSOCIATION
VOLUME XVIII ATHOL, MASS., NOVEMBER, 1918 NUMBER 2
DEPARTMENT _of_ LITERATURE
The Literature of Rome
H. P. Lovecraft
_The centre of our studies, the goal of our thoughts, the point to which all paths lead and the point from which all paths start again, is to be found in Rome and her abiding power._--Freeman.
Few students of mankind, if truly impartial, can fail to select as thegreatest of human institutions that mighty and enduring civilisationwhich, first appearing on the banks of the Tiber, spread throughout theknown world and became the direct parent of our own. If to Greece is duethe existence of all modern thought, so to Rome is due its survival andour possession of it; for it was the majesty of the Eternal City which,reducing all Western Europe to a single government, made possible thewide and uniform diffusion of the high culture borrowed from Greece, andthereby laid the foundation of European enlightenment. To this day theremnants of the Roman world exhibit a superiority over those parts whichnever came beneath the sway of the Imperial Mother; a superioritystrikingly manifest when we contemplate the savage code and ideals ofthe Germans, aliens to the priceless heritage of Latin justice,humanity, and philosophy. The study of Roman literature, then, needs noplea to recommend it. It is ours by intellectual descent; our bridge toall antiquity and to those Grecian stores of art and thought which arethe fountain head of existing culture.
In considering Rome and her artistic history, we are conscious of asubjectivity impossible in the case of Greece or any other ancientnation. Whilst the Hellenes, with their strange beauty-worship anddefective moral ideals, are to be admired and pitied at once, asluminous but remote phantoms; the Romans, with their greater practicalsense, ancient virtue, and love of law and order, seem like our ownpeople. It is with personal pride that we read of the valour andconquests of this mighty race, who used the alphabet we use, spoke andwrote with but little difference many of the words we speak and write,and with divine creative power evolved virtually all the forms of lawwhich govern us today. To the Greek, art and literature wereinextricably involved in daily life and thought; to the Roman, as to us,they were a separate unit in a many-sided civilisation. Undoubtedly thiscircumstance proves the inferiority of the Roman culture to the Greek;but it is an inferiority shared by our own culture, and therefore a bondof sympathy.
The race whose genius gave rise to the glories of Rome is, unhappily,not now in existence. Centuries of devastating wars, and foreignimmigration into Italy, left but few real Latins after the earlyImperial aera. The original Romans were a blend of closely relateddolichocephalic Mediterranean tribes, whose racial affinities with theGreeks could not have been very remote, plus a slight Etruscan elementof doubtful classification. The latter stock is an object of muchmystery to ethnologists, being at present described by most authoritiesas of the brachycephalic Alpine variety. Many Roman customs and habitsof thought are traceable to this problematical people.
It is a singular circumstance, that classic Latin literature is, save inthe case of satire, almost wholly unrelated to the crude effusions ofthe primitive Latins; being borrowed as to form and subject from theGreeks, at a comparatively late date in Rome's political history. Thatthis borrowing assisted greatly in Latin cultural advancement, none maydeny; but it is also true that the new Hellenised literature exerted amalign influence on the nation's ancient austerity, introducing laxGrecian notions which contributed to moral and material decadence. Thecounter-currents, however, were strong; and the virile Roman spiritshone nobly through the Athenian dress in almost every instance,imparting to the literature a distinctively national cast, anddisplaying the peculiar characteristics of the Italian mind. On thewhole, Roman life moulded Roman literature more than the literaturemoulded the life.
The earliest writings of the Latins are, save for a fragment or two,lost to posterity; though a few of their qualities are known. They werefor the most part crude ballads in an odd "Saturnian" metre copied fromthe Etruscans, primitive religious chants and dirges, rough medleys ofcomic verse forming the prototype of satire, and awkward "Fescennine"dialogues or dramatic farces enacted by the lively peasantry. Alldoubtless reflected the simple, happy and virtuous, if stern, life ofthe home-loving agricultural race which was destined later to conquerthe world. In B. C. 364 the medleys or "Saturae" were enacted upon theRoman stage, the words supplemented by the pantomime and dancing ofEtruscan performers who spoke no Latin. Another early form of dramaticart was the "fabula Atellana," which was adapted from the neighbouringtribe of Oscans, and which possessed a simple plot and stock characters.While this early literature embodied Oscan and Etruscan as well as Latinelements, it was truly Roman; for the Roman was himself formed of justsuch a mixture. All Italy contributed to the Latin stream, but at notime did any non-Roman dialect rise to the distinction of a realliterature. We have here no parallel for the AEolic, Ionic, and Doricphases of Greek literature.
Classical Latin literature dates from the beginning of Rome's freeintercourse with Greece, a thing brought about by the conquest of theHellenic colonies in Southern Italy. When Tarentum fell to the Romans inB. C. 272, there was brought to Rome as a captive and slave a young manof great attainments, by name Andronicus. His master, M. LiviusSalinator, was quick to perceive his genius, and soon gave him hisliberty, investing him according to custom with his own nomen of Livius,so that the freedman was afterward known as Livius Andronicus. Theerstwhile slave, having established a school, commenced his literarycareer by translating the Odyssey into Latin Saturnian verse for the useof his pupils. This feat was followed by the translation of a Greekdrama, which was enacted in B. C. 240, and formed the first genuinelyclassic piece beheld by the Roman public. The success of LiviusAndronicus was very considerable, and he wrote many more plays, in whichhe himself acted, besides attempting lyric and religious poetry. Hiswork, of which but 41 lines remain in existence, was pronounced inferiorby Cicero; yet must ever be accorded respect as the very commencement ofa great literature.
Latin verse continued to depend largely on Greek models, but in prosethe Romans were more original, and the first celebrated prose writer wasthat stern old Greek hater, M. Porcius Cato (234-149 B. C.), whoprepared orations and wrote on history, agriculture, and other subjects.His style was clear, though by no means perfect, and it is a source ofregret that his historical work, the "Origines," is lost. Other prosewriters, all orators, extending from Cato's time down to the polishedperiod, are Laelius, Scipio, the Gracchi, Antonius, Crassus, and thecelebrated Q. Hortensius, early opponent of Cicero.
Satire, that one absolutely native product of Italy, first foundindependent expression in C. Lucilius (180-103 B. C.), though the greatRoman inclination toward that form of expression had already found anoutlet in satirical passages in other sorts of writing. There is perhapsno better weapon for the scourging of vice and folly than this potentliterary embodiment of wit and irony, and certainly no author everwielded that weapon more nobly than Lucilius. His aera was characterisedby great degeneracy, due to Greek influences, and the manner in which heupheld failing Virtue won him the unmeasured regard of hiscontemporaries and successors. Horace, Persius, and Juvenal all owe muchto him, and it is melancholy to reflect that all his work, save afragment or two, is lost to the world. Lucilius, sometimes called "TheFather of Satire," was a man of equestrian rank, and fought with Scipioat Numantia.
With the age of M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 B. C.)--the Golden Age--opensthe period of highest perfection in Roman literature. It is hardlynecessary to describe Cicero himself--his luminous talents have made himsynonymous with the height of Attic elegance in wit, forensic art, andprose composition. Born of equestrian rank, he was educated with care,and embarked on his career at the age of twenty-five. His orationsagainst L. Sergius Catilina during his consulship broke up one of themost dastardly plots in history, and
gained for him the title of "Fatherof His Country." Philosophy claimed much of his time, and his delightfultreatises "De Amicitia" and "De Senectute" will be read as long asfriendship endures on earth, or men grow old. Near the end of his lifeCicero, opposing the usurpations of M. Antonius, delivered hismasterpieces of oratory, the "Philippics," modelled after the similarorations of the Greek Demosthenes against Philip of Macedonia. Hismurder, demanded by the vengeful Antonius in the proscription of thesecond triumvirate, was the direct result of these Philippics.Contemporary with Cicero was M. Terentius Varro, styled "most learned ofthe Romans," though ungraceful in style. Of his works, embracing manydiverse subjects, only one agricultural treatise survives.
In this survey we need allot but little space to Caius Julius Caesar,probably the greatest human being so far to appear on this globe. HisCommentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars are models of pure andperspicuous prose, and his other work, voluminous but now lost, wasdoubtless of equal merit. At the present time, passages of Caesar'sGallic War are of especial interest on account of their allusions tobattles against those perpetual enemies of civilisation, the Germans.How familiar, for instance, do we find the following passage from BookSix, describing German notions of honour:
"Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam, quae extra fines cujusque civitatisfiunt, atque ea juventutis exercendae ac desidiae minuendae causa fieripraedicant!"
The next generation of authors fall within what has been termed the"Augustan Age," the period during which Octavianus, having becomeEmperor, encouraged letters to a degree hitherto unknown; not onlypersonally, but through his famous minister Maecenas (73-8 B. C.). Theliterature of this period is immortal through the genius of Virgil,Horace, and Ovid, and has made the name "Augustan" an universal synonymefor classic elegance and urbanity. Thus in our own literary history,Queen Anne's reign is known as the "Augustan Age" on account of thebrilliant wits and poets then at their zenith. Maecenas, whose name mustever typify the ideal of munificent literary patronage, was himself ascholar and poet, as was indeed Augustus. Both, however, areovershadowed by the titanic geniuses who gathered around them.
Succeeding the Golden Age, and extending down to the time of theAntonines, is the so-called "Silver Age" of Latin literature, in whichare included several writers of the highest genius, despite a generaldecadence and artificiality of style. In the reign of Tiberius we notethe annalists C. Velleius Paterculus and Valerius Maximus, the medicalwriter, A. Cornelius Celsus, and the fabulist Phaedrus, the latter afreedman from Thrace who imitated his more celebrated predecessor AEsop.
The satirist, A. Persius Flaccus (34-62 A. D.), is the first eminentpoet to appear after the death of Ovid. Born at Volaterrae of anequestrian family, carefully reared by his gifted mother, and educatedat Rome by the Stoic philosopher Cornutus, he became famous not only asa moralist of the greatest power and urbanity, but as one whose lifeaccorded perfectly with his precepts; a character of unblemished virtueand delicacy in an age of unprecedented evil. His work, which attackedonly the less repulsive follies of the day, contains passages of thehighest nobility. His early death terminated a career of infinitepromise.
In the person of D. Junius Juvenalis (57-128 A. D.), commonly calledJuvenal, we behold the foremost satirist in literary history. Born atAquinum of humble but comfortably situated parents, he came to Rome as arhetorician; though upon discovering his natural bent, turned topoetical satire. With a fierceness and moral seriousness unprecedentedin literature, Juvenal attacked the darkest vices of his age; writing asa relentless enemy rather than as a man of the world like Horace, or asa detached spectator like Persius. The oft repeated accusation that hisminute descriptions of vice shew a morbid interest therein, may fairlybe refuted when one considers the almost unthinkable depths to which therepublic had fallen. Only a tolerant or a secluded observer could avoidattacking openly and bitterly the evil conditions which obtrudedthemselves on every hand; and Juvenal, a genuine Roman of the active andvirtuous old school, was neither tolerant nor secluded. Juvenal wrotesixteen satires in all, the most famous of which are the third andtenth, both imitated in modern times with great success by Dr. Johnson.Contemporary with Juvenal was the Spaniard, M. Valerius Martialis(43-117 A. D.), commonly called Martial, master of the classic epigram.Unsurpassed in compact, scintillant wit, his works present a subjectiveand familiar picture of that society which Juvenal so bitterly attackedfrom without.
We come now upon one of the most distressing spectacles of humanhistory. The mighty empire of Rome; its morals corrupted through Easterninfluences, its spirit depressed through despotic government, and itspeople reduced to mongrel degeneracy through unrestrained immigrationand foreign admixture; suddenly ceases to be an abode of creativethought, and sinks into a mental lethargy which dries up the veryfountains of art and literature. The Emperor Constantinus, desirous ofembellishing his new capital with the most magnificent decorations, canfind no artist capable of fashioning them; and is obliged to stripancient Greece of her choicest sculptures to fulfil his needs. Plainly,the days of Roman glory are over; and only a few and mainly mediocregeniuses are to be expected in the years preceding the actual downfallof Latin civilisation.
It is interesting, in a melancholy way, to trace the course of Romanpoetry down to its very close, when it is lost amidst the darkness ofthe Middle Ages. Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, who flourished in the 5thcentury, was a Gaul, and wrote a very fair piece culled the"Itinerarium," describing a voyage from Rome to his native province.Though inferior to his contemporary, Claudian, in genius, Rutiliusexcels him in purity of diction and refinement of taste. At this period,pure Latin was probably confined to the highest circles, the massesalready using that =eloquium vulgare= which later on formed the severalmodern Romance Languages; hence Rutilius must have been in a sense aclassical antiquarian.
The end draws near. Compilers, grammarians, critics, commentators, andencyclopaedists; summarising the past and quibbling over technicalminutiae; are the last survivors of a dying literature from whenceinspiration has already fled. Macrobius, a critic and grammarian ofcelebrity, flourished in the fourth or fifth century, and interests usas being one through knowledge of whose works Samuel Johnson firstattracted notice at Oxford. Priscian, conceded to be one of theprincipal grammatical authorities of the Roman world, flourished aboutthe year 500. Isidorus Hispalensis, Bishop of Seville, grammarian,historian and theologian, was the most celebrated and influentialliterary character of the crumbling Roman fabric, save the philosopherBoetius and the historian Cassiodorus, and was highly esteemed duringthe Middle Ages, of which, indeed, he was as much a part, as he was apart of expiring classicism.
Now falls the curtain. =Roma fuit.= At the time of Isidorus' death inA. D. 636, the beginnings of mediaevalism were fully under way.Authorship had disappeared in the broader sense; learning, such as itwas, had retired into the monasteries; whilst the populace of theerstwhile Empire, living side by side with the invading barbarians, nolonger spoke a language justly to be called classical Latin. With therevival of letters we shall see more Latin writings, but they will notbe Roman; for their authors will have new and strange idioms for theirmother-tongues, and will view life in a somewhat different manner. Thelink of continuity will have been irreparably broken, and these reviverswill be Romans only in an artificial and antiquarian sense. He who callshimself "Pomponius Laetus" will be found to have been baptised PomponioLeto. Classical antiquity, with its simple magnificence, can neverreturn.
In glancing back over the literature we have examined, we are impressedby its distinctiveness, despite its Greek form. It is trulycharacteristic of the Roman people, and expresses Rome's majestic mindin a multitude of ways. Law, order, justice, and supremacy; "thesethings, O Roman, shall to you be arts!" All through the works of Latinauthors runs this love of fame, power, order, and permanence. Art is nota prime phase of life or entirely an intrinsic pleasure, but a means ofpersonal or national glorification; the true Roman poet writes his ownepitaph for posterity, and exults in the lasting celebrity
his memorywill receive. Despite his debt to Hellas, he detests the foreigninfluence, and can find no term of satirical opprobrium more biting than"Graeculus." The sense of rigid virtue, so deficient in the Greek,blossoms forth nobly in the Roman; making moral satire the greatest ofnative growths. Naturally, the Roman mind is most perfectly expressed inthose voluminous works of law, extending all the way down to theByzantine age of Justinianus, which have given the modern world itsentire foundation of jurisprudence; but of these, lack of space forbidsus to treat. They are not, strictly speaking, a part of literatureproper.
The influence of the Latin classics upon modern literature has beentremendous. They are today, and will ever be, vital sources ofinspiration and guidance. Our own most correct age, that of Queen Anneand the first three Georges, was saturated with their spirit; and thereis scarce a writer of note who does not visibly reflect their immediateinfluence. Each classic English author has, after a fashion, his Latincounterpart. Mr. Pope was a Horace; Dr. Johnson a Juvenal. The earlyElizabethan tragedy was a reincarnation of Seneca, as comedy was ofPlautus. English literature teems with Latin quotations and allusions tosuch a degree that no reader can extract full benefit if he have not atleast a superficial knowledge of Roman letters.
Wherefore it is enjoined upon the reader not to neglect cultivation ofthis rich field; a field which offers as much of pure interest andenjoyment of necessary cultural training and wholesome intellectualdiscipline.
To Alan Seeger:
Howard Phillips Lovecraft
(In =National Enquirer=)
SEEGER, whose soul, with animated lyre Wak'd the dull dreamer to a manlier fire; Whose martial voice, by martial deeds sustain'd, Denounc'd the age when shameful peace remain'd; Let thy brave spirit yet among us dwell, And linger where thy form in valour fell: Proudly before th' invader's fury mass'd, Behold thy country's cohorts, rous'd at last! It was not for thy mortal eye to see Columbia arm'd for right and liberty; Thine was the finer heart, that could not stay To wait for laggards in the vital fray, And ere the millions felt thy sacred heat, Thou hadst thy gift to Freedom made complete. But while thou sleepest in an honour'd grave Beneath the Gallic sod thou bledst to save, May thy soul's vision scan the ravag'd plain, And tell thee that thou didst not fall in vain: Here, as though pray'dst, a million men advance, To prove Columbia one with flaming France, And heeding now the long-forgotten debt, Pay with their blood the gen'rous LAFAYETTE! Thy ringing odes to prophecies are turn'd, Whilst legions feel the blaze that in thee burn'd. Not as a lonely stranger dost thou lie, Thy form forsaken 'neath a foreign sky, On Gallic tongues thy name forever lives, First of the mighty host thy country gives: All that thou dreamt'st in life shall come to be, And proud Columbia find her voice in thee!
(Alan Seeger fell in the Cause of Civilisation at Belloy-en-Santerre,July 4, 1916.)