Mutavit mentem populus levis, et calet uno Scribendi studio: pueri patresque severi Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carmina dictant.--Epist. ii. 1. * * * * * *
Now the light people bend to other aims; A lust of scribbling every breast inflames; Our youth, our senators, with bays are crowned, And rhymes eternal as our feasts go round.
(190) Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim.--Hor. Epeat. ii. 1.
But every desperate blockhead dares to write, Verse is the trade of every living wight.--Francis.
The thirst of fame above mentioned, was a powerful incentive, and is avowed both by Virgil and Horace. The former, in the third book of his Georgics, announces a resolution of rendering himself celebrated, if possible.
--------tentanda via est qua me quoque possim Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora.
I, too, will strive o’er earth my flight to raise, And wing’d by victory, catch the gale of praise.--Sotheby.
And Horace, in the conclusion of his first Ode, expresses himself in terms which indicate a similar purpose.
Quad si me lyricis vatibis inseres, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.
But if you rank me with the choir, Who tuned with art the Grecian lyre; Swift to the noblest heights of fame, Shall rise thy poet’s deathless name.--Francis.
Even Sallust, a historian, in his introduction to Catiline’s Conspiracy, scruples not to insinuate the same kind of ambition. Quo mihi rectius videtur ingenii quam virium opibus gloriam quaerere; et quoniam vita ipsa, qua fruimur, brevis est, memoriam nostri quam maxume longam efficere. [283]
Another circumstance of great importance, towards the production of such poetry as might live through every age, was the extreme attention which the great poets of this period displayed, both in the composition, and the polishing of their works. Virgil, when employed upon the Georgics, usually wrote in the morning, and applied much of the subsequent part of the day to correction and improvement. He compared himself to a bear, that licks her cub into form. If this was his regular practice in the Georgics, we may justly suppose that it was the same in the Aeneid. Yet, after all this labour, he intended to devote three years entirely to its farther amendment. Horace has gone so far in recommending careful correction, that he figuratively mentions nine years as an adequate period for that purpose. But whatever may be the time, there is no precept which he urges either oftener or more forcibly, than a due attention to this important subject.
(191) Saepe stylum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint Scripturus.--Sat. i. x.
Would you a reader’s just esteem engage? Correct with frequent care the blotted page.--Francis.
--------Vos, O Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque Perfectum decies non castigavit ad uuguem. De. Art. Poet.
Sons of Pompilius, with contempt receive, Nor let the hardy poem hope to live, Where time and full correction don’t refine The finished work, and polish every line.--Francis.
To the several causes above enumerated, as concurring to form the great superiority of the Augustan age, as respects the productions of literature, one more is to be subjoined, of a nature the most essential: the liberal and unparalleled encouragement given to distinguished talents by the emperor and his minister. This was a principle of the most powerful energy: it fanned the flame of genius, invigorated every exertion; and the poets who basked in the rays of imperial favour, and the animating patronage of Mecaenas, experienced a poetic enthusiasm which approached to real inspiration.
Having now finished the proposed explanation, relative to the celebrity of the Augustan age, we shall conclude with recapitulating in a few words the causes of this extraordinary occurrence.
The models, then, which the Romans derived from Grecian poetry, were the finest productions of human genius; their incentives to emulation were the strongest that could actuate the heart. With ardour, therefore, and industry in composing, and with unwearied patience in polishing their compositions, they attained to that glorious distinction in literature, which no succeeding age has ever rivalled.
TIBERIUS NERO CAESAR.
(192)
I. The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a plebeian family of the same name, no way inferior to the other either in power or dignity) came originally from Regilli, a town of the Sabines. They removed thence to Rome soon after the building of the city, with a great body of their dependants, under Titus Tatius, who reigned jointly with Romulus in the kingdom; or, perhaps, what is related upon better authority, under Atta Claudius, the head of the family, who was admitted by the senate into the patrician order six years after the expulsion of the Tarquins. They likewise received from the state, lands beyond the Anio for their followers, and a burying-place for themselves near the capitol [284]. After this period, in process of time, the family had the honour of twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, seven triumphs, and two ovations. Their descendants were distinguished by various praenomina and cognomina [285], but rejected by common consent the praenomen of (193) Lucius, when, of the two races who bore it, one individual had been convicted of robbery, and another of murder. Amongst other cognomina, they assumed that of Nero, which in the Sabine language signifies strong and valiant.
II. It appears from record, that many of the Claudii have performed signal services to the state, as well as committed acts of delinquency. To mention the most remarkable only, Appius Caecus dissuaded the senate from agreeing to an alliance with Pyrrhus, as prejudicial to the republic [286]. Claudius Candex first passed the straits of Sicily with a fleet, and drove the Carthaginians out of the island [287]. Claudius Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a vast army upon his arrival in Italy from Spain, before he could form a junction with his brother Hannibal [288]. On the other hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decemvirs, made a violent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom he was enamoured, adjudged a slave; which caused the people to secede a second time from the senate [289]. Claudius Drusus erected a statue of himself wearing a crown at Appii Forum [290], and endeavoured, by means of his dependants, to make himself master of Italy. Claudius Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily [291], the pullets used for taking augury would not eat, in contempt of the omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if they would not eat; and then engaging the enemy, was routed. After his defeat, when he (194) was ordered by the senate to name a dictator, making a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named Glycias, his apparitor.
The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters equally opposed to each other. For both the Claudias belonged to it; she, who, when the ship freighted with things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the Gods [292], stuck fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by praying to the Goddess with a loud voice, “Follow me, if I am chaste;” and she also, who, contrary to the usual practice in the case of women, was brought to trial by the people for treason; because, when her litter was stopped by a great crowd in the streets, she openly exclaimed, “I wish my brother Pulcher was alive now, to lose another fleet, that Rome might be less thronged.” Besides, it is well known, that all the Claudii, except Publius Claudius, who, to effect the banishment of Cicero, procured himself to be adopted by a plebeian [293], and one younger than himself, were always of the patrician party, as well as great sticklers for the honour and power of that order; and so violent and obstinate in their opposition to the plebeians, that not one of them, even in the case of a trial for life by the people, would ever condescend to put on mourning, according to custom, or make any supplication to them for favour; and some of them in their contests, have even proceeded to lay hands on the tribunes of the people. A Vestal Virgin likewise of the family, when her brother was resolved to have the honour of a triumph contrary to the will of the people, mounted the chariot with him, and attended him into the Capitol, that it might not be lawful for any of the tribunes to interfere and forbid it. [294]
III. From this family Tiberius Caesar is descended; indeed both by the father and mother’s side; by the former from Tiberius Nero, and by the latter from Appius Pulcher, who were both sons of Appius Caecus. He likewise belonged to the family of the Livii, by the adoption of his mother’s grandfather into it; which family, although plebeian, made a (195) distinguished figure, having had the honour of eight consulships, two censorships, three triumphs, one dictatorship, and the office of master of the horse; and was famous for eminent men, particularly, Salinator and the Drusi. Salinator, in his censorship [295], branded all the tribes, for their inconstancy in having made him consul a second time, as well as censor, although they had condemned him to a heavy fine after his first consulship. Drusus procured for himself and his posterity a new surname, by killing in single combat Drausus, the enemy’s chief. He is likewise said to have recovered, when pro-praetor in the province of Gaul, the gold which was formerly given to the Senones, at the siege of the Capitol, and had not, as is reported, been forced from them by Camillus. His great-great-grandson, who, for his extraordinary services against the Gracchi, was styled the “Patron of the Senate,” left a son, who, while plotting in a sedition of the same description, was treacherously murdered by the opposite party. [296]