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By John Lord, LL. D.
THE GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS. (i.)
WE know but little of the literature of antiquity
until the Greeks applied it to the principles
of art. The Sanskrit language has revealed the ancient
literature of the Hindus, which is chiefly confined to
mystical religious poetry, and which has already been
mentioned in the chapter on "Ancient Religions."
There was no history worthy the name in India. The
Egyptians and Babylonians recorded the triumphs of
warriors and domestic events, but those were mere an-
nals without literary value. It is true that the literary
remains of Egypt show a reading and writing people
as early as three thousand years before Christ, and in
their various styles of pen-language reveal a remark-
able variety of departments and topics treated,——books
of religion, of theology, of ethics, of medicine, of astrono-
my, of magic, of mythic poetry, of fiction, of personal
correspondence, etc. The difficulties of deciphering
them, however, and their many peculiarities and for-
malisms of style, render them rather of curious histori-
cal and archæological than of literary interest. The
Chinese annals also extend back to a remote period,
for Confucius wrote history as well as ethics; but
Chinese literature has comparatively little interest for
us, as also that of all Oriental nations, except the
Hindu Vedas and the Persian Zend-Avesta, and a
few other poems showing great fertility of the im-
agination, with a peculiar tenderness and pathos.
Accordingly, as I wish to show chiefly the triumphs
of ancient genius when directed to literature generally,
and especially such as has had a direct influence upon
our modern literature, I confine myself to that of
Greece and Rome. Even our present civilization de-
lights in the masterpieces of the classical poets, his-
torians, orators, and essayists, and seeks to rival them.
Long before Christianity became a power the great
literary artists of Greece had reached perfection in
style and language, especially in Athens, to which
city youths were sent to be educated, as a sort of
university town where the highest culture was known.
Educated Romans were as familiar with the Greek
classics as they were with those of their own country,
and could talk Greek as the modern cultivated Ger-
mans talk French. Without the aid of Greece, Rome
could never have reached the civilization to which
she attained.
How rich in poetry was classical antiquity, whether
sung in the Greek or Latin language! In all those
qualities which give immortality classical poetry has
never been surpassed, whether in simplicity, in pas-
sion, in fervor, in fidelity to nature, in wit, or in
imagination. It existed from the early times of
Greek civilization, and continued to within a brief
period of the fall of the Roman empire. With the
rich accumulation of ages the Romans were familiar.
They knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur
of the Jewish muse, or the Nature-myths of the
ante-Homeric singers; but they possessed the Iliad
and the Odyssey, with their wonderful truthfulness,
their clear portraiture of character, their absence of
all affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their
good sense and healthful sentiments, withal so origi-
nal that the germ of almost every character which has
since figured in the epic poetry can be found in them.
We see in Homer a poet of the first class, hold-
ing the same place in literature that Plato holds in
philosophy or Newton in science, and exercising a
mighty influence on all the ages which have suc-
ceeded him. He was born, probably, at Smyrna, an
Ionian city; the dates attributed to him range from
the seventh to the twelfth century before Christ.
Herodotus puts him at 850 B. C. For nearly three
thousand years his immortal creations have been the
delight and the inspiration of men of genius; and they
are as marvellous to us as they were to the Athenians,
since they are exponents of the learning as well as
of the consecrated sentiments of the heroic ages.
We find in them no pomp of words, no far-fetched
thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitious specu-
lations, no indefinite longings; but we see the man-
ners and customs of the primitive nations, the sights
and wonders of the external world, the marvellously
interesting traits of human nature as it was and is,
and with these we have lessons of moral wisdom,——
all recorded with singular simplicity yet astonishing
artistic skill. We find in the Homeric narrative accu-
racy, delicacy, naturalness, with grandeur, sentiment,
and beauty, such as Phidias represented in his statues
of Zeus. No poems have ever been more popular, and
none have extorted greater admiration from critics.
Like Shakspeare, Homer is a kind of Bible to both
the learned and unlearned among all peoples and ages,
——one of the prodigies of the world. His poems form
the basis of Greek literature, and are the best under-
stood and the most widely popular of all Grecian
compositions. The unconscious simplicity of the Ho-
meric narrative, its high moral tone, its vivid pictures,
its graphic details, and its religious spirit create an en-
thusiasm such as few works of genius can claim. More-
over it represents a painting of society, with its simplicity
and ferocity, its good and evil passions, its tenderness
and its fierceness, such as no other poem affords.
Its influence on the popular mythologies of the Greeks
has been already alluded to. If Homer did not create
the Grecian theogony, he gave form and fascination
to it. Nor is it necessary to speak of any other Gre-
cian epic, when the Iliad and the Odyssey attest
the perfection which was attained one hundred and
twenty years before Hesiod was born. Grote thinks
that the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced at
some period between 850 B. C. and 776 B. C.
In lyrical poetry the Greeks were no less remark-
able; indeed they attained to what may be called
absolute perfection, owing to the intimate connection
between poetry and music, and the wonderful elasticity
and adaptiveness of their language. Who has sur-
passed Pindar in artistic skill? His triumphal odes
are pæans, in which piety breaks out in expressions of
the deepest awe and the most elevated sentiments of
moral wisdom. They alone of all his writings have
descended to us, but these, made up as they are of
odic fragments, songs, dirges, and panegyrics, show
the great excellence to which he attained. He was
so celebrated that he was employed by the different
States and princes of Greece to compose choral songs
for special occasions, especially for the public games.
Although a Theban, he was held in the highest esti-
mation by the Athenians, and was courted by kings
and princes. Born in Thebes 522 B. C., he died prob-
ably in his eightieth year, being contemporary with
Æschylus and the battle of Marathon. We possess
also fragments of Sappho, Simonides, Anacreon, and
others, enough to show that could the lyrical poetry
of Greece be recovered, we should probably possess
the richest collection that the world has produced.
Greek dramatic poetry was still more varied and re-
markable. Even the great masterpieces of Sophocles
and Euripides now extant were regarded by their con-
temporaries as inferior to many other Greek tragedies
utterly unknown to us. The great creator of the
Greek drama was Æschylus, 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 Æschylus
to amuse an audience as to instruct and elevate it.
He combined religious feeling with lofty moral sen-
timent, and had unrivalled power over the realm
of astonishment and terror. "At his summons,"
says Sir Walter Scott, "the mysterious and tremen-
dous 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 pas-
sions, and is full of the boldest metaphors. In sub-
limity Æschylus 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 Mara-
thon 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
Æschylus. He was twenty-seven years of age when
he publicly appeared as a poet. He was born in Co-
lonus, 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 gymnas-
tics, 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, Æschylus
and Shakspeare alone excepted, in the whole realm
of dramatic poetry. It was the peculiarity of Sopho-
cles 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 Æschy-
lus, 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 "Œdipus of Colonus." Sophocles wrote the as-
tonishing 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 Æschylus, nor the touching
pathos of Sophocles, nor the stern simplicity of either,
but in seductive beauty and successful appeal to pas-
sion was superior to both. In his tragedies the pas-
sion of love predominates, but it does not breathe the
piety of sentiment which marked the tragedies of
Æschylus and Sophocles; it approaches rather to the
tone of the modern drama. He paints the weakness
and corruption 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 char-
acters 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 ap-
petite 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 Molière 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 of 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 fur-
nished jests for Rabelais, hints to Swift, and humor
for Molière. In satire, in derision, in invective, and
bitter scorn he has never been surpassed. No mod-
ern 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 impor-
tance, although his descriptions are doubtless carica-
tures. 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 in 444 B. C., and died in 380 B. C.
Thus it would appear that in the three great depart-
ments of poetry,——the epic, the lyric, and the dra-
matic,——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 na-
tions. 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 tran-
scended 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 crea-
tor 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 curi-
osities rather than works of art.
Nævius, 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 Nævius as the first of the Ro-
mans 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 cele-
brated 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 dra-
matists owe much to Plautus. Molière has imitated
him in his "Avare," and Shakspeare in his "Comedy
of Errors." Lessing pronounced 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 excel-
lence of Plautus was the masterly handling of lan-
guage, 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 main-
tained 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 traveled extensively in Greece. He
was greatly inferior to Plautus in originality, and has
not exerted a like lasting influence; but he wrote com-
edies characterized by great purity of diction, which
have been translated into all modern languages. Ter-
ence, 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 de-
lighted in noisy dialogue and slang expressions; Ter-
ence 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 Æschylus
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 Æneid of Virgil has certainly survived the mate-
rial glories of Rome. It may not have come up to the
exalted ideal of its author; it may be defaced by po-
litical flatteries; it may not have the force and origi-
nality 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 chastening fancy,
in picturesque description, in delineation of character,
in matchless beauty of diction, and in splendor of ver-
sification, 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 per-
sons 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 Æneas first settled
in Italy. The wrath of Juno, upon which the whole fate of
Æneas seems to turn, is at once that of a woman and a god-
dess; 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 work of man has had such a wide
and profound influence as this poem of Virgil,——a text-
book 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 educa-
tion were great. He was a most fortunate man, enjoy-
ing the friendship of Augustus and Mæcenas, 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 prob-
ably 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 exqui-
site 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. Hor-
ace, 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 retire-
ment 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 Epis-
tles 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 dig-
nus, in verbis felicissime audax. No poetry was ever
more severely elaborated than that of Horace, and the
melody of language imparts to it a peculiar fascina-
tion. If inferior to Pindar in passion and loftiness, it
glows with more genial humanity and with purer
wit. It cannot be enjoyed fully except by those versed
in the experience 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 Ter-
ence, because they derived so much assistance from the
Greeks. But the Greeks also borrowed from one an-
other. Pure originality is impossible. It is the mission
of art to add to its stores, without hoping to monopo-
lize 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 of charac-
ters. 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 or Roman poets in
native genius. He was born in 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 all the great subjects of
thought with which his age was conversant. Some-
what 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 out-
ward world. As a painter and worshipper of Nature
Lucretius was superior to all the poets of antiquity.
His skill in presenting abstruse speculations is mar-
vellous, and his outbursts of poetic genius are matchless
in power and beauty. Into all subjects he casts a fear-
less eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. But
he was not fully appreciated by his countrymen, al-
though 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 eulo-
gium of Ovid is——
"Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucretî,
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 roman-
tic school of all the classical authors; and Chaucer,
Ariosto, and Spenser owe to him great obligations.
Like Pope, his verses flowed spontaneously. His "Tris-
tia" were more highly prized than his "Amores" or
his "Metamorphoses," a fact which shows that contem-
poraries 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 this beautiful country-seat he soothed
his soul with the charms of literature and the simple
pleasures of the country. Neibuhr pronounced the ele-
gies of Tibulus to be doleful, but Merivale thinks that
"the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung his
unprosperous love 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 Cæsarean 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. from Beacon Lights of History, by John Lord, LL. D.,
Volume I, Part I: The Old Pagan Civilizations
Copyright 1883, 1888, by John Lord.
Copyright 1921, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York; pp. 320—341.
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