Institutio Oratoria

Ennius deserves our reverence, but only as those groves whose age has made them sacred, but whose huge and ancient trunks inspire us with religious awe rather than with admiration for their beauty. There are other poets who are nearer in point of time and more useful for our present purpose. Ovid has a lack of seriousness even when he writes epic and is unduly enamoured of his own gifts, but portions of his work merit our praise.

On the other hand, although Cornelius Severus [*]( Friend and contemporary of Ovid. A considerable fragment is preserved by Sen. Suas. vi. 26. The Sicilian War was the war with Sextus Pompeius (38–36) and perhaps formed a portion of a larger work on the Civil War. The surviving fragment deals with the death of Cicero. The priunus liber may therefore perhaps be the first book of this larger work. ) is a better versifier than poet, yet if, as has been said, he had written his poem on the Sicilian war in the same style throughout as his first book, he would have had a just claim to the second place. A premature death prevented the powers of Serranus [*](Nothing is known of this poet except the name.) from ripening to perfection, but his youthful works reveal the highest talent and a devotion to the true ideal of poetry, which is remarkable in one so young.

We have suffered serious loss in the recent death of Valerius Flaccus. Saleius Bassus [*]( Nothing is known of this poet save that he is highly praised by Tacitus in his Diblogues, and was patronized by Vespasian. The unfinished Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus survives. ) showed an ardent and genuinely poetic genius, but, like that of Serranus, it was not mellowed by years. Rabirius [*]( A contemporary of Ovid, believed to be the author of a fragment on the battle of Actium, found at Hereulaneum. ) and Pedo [*]( C. Albinovanns Pedo wrote a poem on the voyage of Germanicus to the north of Germany. A fragment is preserved by Sen. Suas. i. 14. ) deserve to be studied by those who have the time. Lucan is fiery and passionate and remarkable for the grandeur of his general reflexions, but, to be frank, I consider that he is more suitable for imitation by the orator than by the poet.

I have restricted my list of poets to these names, because Germanicus

Future ages shall tell of these things more fully; to-day his glory as a poet is dimmed by the splendour of his other virtues. But you will forgive us, Caesar, who worship at the shrine of literature, if we refuse to pass by your achievements in silence and insist on testifying at least that, as Virgil sings,

1. The ivy creeps amid your victor bays

Ecl. viii. 13.

We also challenge the supremacy of the Greeks in elegy. Of our elegiac poets Tibullus seems to me to be the most terse and elegant. There are, however, some who prefer Propertius. Ovid is more sportive than either, while Gallus [*]( Cornelius (Gallus, the friend of Virgil, and the first distinguished writer of elegy at Rome. ) is more severe. Satire, on the other hand, is all our own. The first of our poets to win renown in this connexion was Lucilius, some of whose devotees are so enthusiastic that they do not hesitate to prefer him not merely to all other satirists, but even to all other poets. I disagree with them as much as I do with Horace, [*](Sat. I. iv. 11. )

who holds that Lucilius' verse has a

muddy flow,

v10-12 p.55

and that there is always something in him that might well be dispensed with.

There is, however, another and even older type of satire which derives its variety not merely from verse, but from an admixture of prose as well. Such were the satires composed by Terentius Varro, [*]( His Menippean Satires, of which only fragments survive. Although ostensibly an imitation of the work of the Greek Menippus of Gadara, they can still be said to belong to the older type of satire, the medley or hotch-potch. ) the most learned of all Romans. He composed a vast number of erudite works, and possessed an extraordinary knowledge of the Latin language, of all antiquity and of the history of Greece and Rome. But he is an author likely to contribute more to the knowledge of the student than to his eloquence.

The iambic has not been popular with Roman poets as a separate form of composition, but is found mixed up with other forms of verse. [*]( The meaning is not clear. The words may mean (i that these writers did not confine themselves to the iambus, or (iii that the iambus alternates with other metres, cp. epodos below. ) It may be found in all its bitterness in Catullus, Bibaculus [*]( M. Furius Bibaculus, contemporary of Catullus, and writer of similar invective against the Caesareans. ) and Horace, although in the last-named the iambic is interrupted by the epode. [*](i. e. the short iambic line interposed between the trimeters. ) Of our lyric writers Horace is almost the sole poet worth reading: for he rises at times to a lofty grandeur and is full of sprightliness and charm, while there is great variety in his figures, and his boldness in the choice of words is only equalled by his felicity. If any other lyric poet is to be mentioned, it will be Caesius Bassus, who has but

Among writers of tragedy Accius and Pacuvius [*](Accius (170 90), Pacuvius (220–132).) are most remarkable for the force of their general reflexions, the weight of their words and the dignity of their characters. But they lack polish, and filed to put the finishing touches on their works, although the fault was perhaps rather that of the times in which they lived than of themselves. Accius is generally regarded as the most vigorous, while those who lay claim to learning regard Pacuvius as the more learned of the two.

The Thyestes of Varius [*]( L. Varius Rufus, friend of Virgil and Horace, editor of the Aeneid; wrote epic and a single tragedy. ) is a match for any Greek tragedy, and the Medea of Ovid shows, in my opinion, to what heights that poet might have risen if he had been ready to curb his talents instead of indulging them. Of the tragic writers whom I myself have seen, Pomponius Secundus [*]( Pomponius Secundus, died 60 A.D.; wrote a tragedy entitled Aeneas. ) is by far the best: his older critics thought him insufficiently tragic, but admitted his eminence as far as learning and polish were concerned.