To the Roman belongs the second place in the classic literature
of antiquity. The original tribes that inhabited Italy, the
Etruscans, the Sabines, the Umbrians and the Vituli had no
literature, and it was not until the conquest of Tarentum in 272
B.C. that the Greeks began to exercise a strong influence on the
Roman mind and taste; but Rome had, properly speaking, no
literature until the conclusion of the first Punic war in 241
B.C.
This tendency to imitate the Greek was somewhat modified by Roman
national pride. We catch sight of this spirit in Virgil and
Horace, in Cicero and Caesar. The graceful softening of language
and art among the imaginative Greeks, becomes in the Romans
austere power and majesty, with a tendency to express greatness
by size. These early indications of race characteristics never
died out, as we may see by the contrast between the Apollo
Belvidere of the Greeks, and the Moses of Michelangelo. The
oldest existing example of Latin or Roman literature is the
sacred chant of the Frates Arvales. These latter composed a
college of Priests whose prescribed duty was to offer prayers for
abundant harvests. This took place in the spring, in solemn
dances and processions, not unlike the Bacchic festivals of the
Greeks, although the Roman dances took place in the temple with
closed doors. The dance was called the tripudium from its having
three rhythmical beats. The inscription of this litany of the
Frates was discovered in Rome in 1778, and experts have agreed
that the monument belongs to the reign of Heliogabalus, 218 A.D.
It is said to contain the very words used by the priests in the
earliest times.
"Most of the old literary monuments in Rome," says a modern
writer, "were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used
by the Latin poets. It was probably derived from the Etruscans,
and until Ennius introduced the heroic hexameter the strains of
the Italian bards flowed in this metre. The structure of the
Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found
in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay adduces as an
example of this measure, the following line from the well-known
nursery song:
'The queen was in her parlor,
Eating bread and honey.'
From this species of verse, which probably prevailed among the
natives of Provence (the Roman Provencia) and into which at a
later period, rhyme was introduced as an embellishment, the
Troubadours derived the metre of their ballad poetry, and thence
introduced it into the rest of Europe."
Literature with the Romans was not of spontaneous growth; it was
chiefly due to the influence of the Etruscans, who were their
early teachers, they lacked that delicate fancy and imagination
that made the Greeks, even before they emerged from a state of
barbarism, a poetical people. The first written literature of the
Romans was in the form of history, in which they excelled. Like
other nations, they had oral compositions in verse long before
they possessed any written literature. The exploits of heroes
were recited and celebrated by the bards of Rome as they were
among the Northern nations. Yet these lays were so despised by
the Romans that we can scarcely see any trace of their existence
except in certain relics which have been borrowed from true
poetry and converted into the half fabulous history of the infant
ages of Rome. That the Romans, as a people, had no great national
drama, and that their poems never became the groundwork of a
later polished literature was due to the incorporation of
foreigners into their nation who took little interest in the
traditions of their earlier achievements. Father Ennius (239-169
B.C.), as Horace calls him, was the true founder of Latin poetry.
He enriched the Latin language, gave it new scope and power; and
paid particular attention to its grammatical form. What he has
done was so well done, that it has never been undone, although
later ages added new improvements to the language. In fable Rome
was an imitator of Greece; but nevertheless Phaedrus (16 A.D.)
struck out a new line for himself, and became both a moral
instructor and a political satirist. Celsus, who lived in the
reign of Tiberius, was the author of a work on medicine which is
used as a textbook even in the present advanced state of medical
science.
The Greek belief in destiny becomes in the Romans stoicism. This
doctrine, found in the writings of Seneca, and in the tragedies
attributed to him, led to the probability that he was their
author. Seneca has had many admirers and imitators in modern
times. The French school of tragic poets took him for their
model.
Corneille and Racine seem to consider his works real tragedy.
Cicero's philosophical writings are invaluable in order to
understand the minds of those who came after him. Not only all
Roman philosophy of the time; but a great part of that of the
Middle Ages was Greek philosophy filtered through Latin, and
mostly founded on that of Cicero. But of all the Roman creations,
the most original was jurisprudence. The framework they took from
Athens; but the complete fabric was the work of their own hands.
It was first developed between the consulate of Cicero and the
death of Trajan (180 years), and finally carried to completion
under Hadrian. This system was of such a high order that the
Romans have handed it down to the whole of modern Europe, and
traces of Roman law can be found in the legal formulas of the
entire civilized world.
After the fall of the Western Empire these laws had little force
until the twelfth century, when Irnerius, a German lawyer, who
had lived in Constantinople, opened a school at Bologna, and thus
brought about a revival in the West of Roman civil law. Students
came to this school from all parts of Europe, and through them
Roman jurisprudence was carried into, and took root in foreign
countries. By common consent the invention of satire is
attributed to the Romans. The originator of the name was Ennius;
but the true exponent of Roman satire was Lucilius, who lived
148-102 B.C. His writings mark a distinct era in Roman literature
and filled no less than thirty volumes, some fragments of which
remain. After his death there was a decline in satire until fifty
years later, when Horace and Juvenal gave it a new impetus,
although their style was different from that of Lucilius. Doctor
Johnson was such an admirer of the two finest of Juvenal's
satires that he took pains to imitate them.
Boethius, the last of the Roman philosophers, left a work "on the
Consolations of Philosophy," which is known in all modern
languages. A translation was made into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred
in 900 A.D. Virgil (70-19 B.C.) has taken Homer as his model in
his great national poem of the Aeneid. In many passages it is an
imitation of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In his didactic poems,
known as the Bucolics, Virgil has made use of Theocritus, while
in the Georgics he has chosen Hesiod as his model. The later
didactic poets of all ages have imitated Virgil, particularly in
England, where Thomson's Seasons is a thoroughly Virgilian poem.
It is easy to see in Virgil where borrowed methods end and native
strength begins; for, in spite of being close imitators of the
Greek, there is a character peculiar to the writers of Rome by
means of which they have acquired an appearance of dignity and
worthiness all their own.
Authors
Lucius Apuleius
Gaius Valerius Catullus
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(Father) Quintus Ennius
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
Decimus Junius Juvenalis
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (Lucan)
Gaius Lucilius
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid)
Phaedrus
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)
