History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume II Part 14

Such was the state of the controversy, as it stood between Tunstall and Middleton. In 1745, the year after Middleton had published his translation of the epistles, Markland engaged in this literary contest, and came forward in opposition to the authenticity of the letters, by publis.h.i.+ng his "Remarks on the Epistles of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero, in a Letter to a Friend." The arguments of Tunstall had chiefly turned on historical inconsistencies-those of Markland princ.i.p.ally hinge on phrases to be found in the letters, which are not Ciceronian, or even of pure Latinity.

I must here close this long account of the writings of Cicero-of Cicero, distinguished as the Consul of the republic-as the father and saviour of his country-but not less distinguished as the orator, philosopher, and moralist of Rome.-"Salve primus omnium Parens Patriae appellate,-primus in toga triumphum linguaeque lauream merite, et facundiae, Latiarumque Literarum parens: atque (ut Dictator Caesar, hostis quondam tuus, de te scripsit,) omnium triumphorum lauream adopte majorem; quanto plus est, ingenii Romani terminos in tantum promovisse, quam imperii(491)."

In the former volume of this work, I had traced the progress of the language of the Romans, and treated of the different poets by whom it was adorned till the era of Augustus. I had chiefly occasion, in the course of that part of my inquiry, to compare the poetical productions of Rome with those of Greece, and to show that the Latin poetry of this early age, being modelled on that of Athens or Alexandria, had acquired an air of preparation and authors.h.i.+p, and appeared to have been written to obtain the cold approbation of the public, or smiles of a Patrician patron, while the native lines of the Grecian bards seem to be poured fourth like the Delphic oracles, because the G.o.d which inspired them was too great to be contained within the bosom. In the prose compositions of the Romans, which have been considered in the present volume, though the _exemplaria Graeca_ were still the models of style, we have not observed the same servility of imitation. The agricultural writers of Latium treated of a subject in a great measure foreign to the maritime feelings and commercial occupations of the Greeks; while, in the Latin historians, orators, and philosophers, we listen to a tone of practical utility, derived from the familiar acquaintance which their authors exercised with the affairs of life. The old Latin historians were for the most part themselves engaged in the affairs they related, and almost every oration of Cicero was actually delivered in the Senate or Forum. Among the Romans, philosophy was not, as it had been with many of the Greeks, an academic dream or speculation, which was subst.i.tuted for the realities of life. In Rome, philosophic inquiries were chiefly prosecuted as supplying arguments and ill.u.s.trations to the patron for his conflicts in the Forum, and as guiding the citizen in the discharge of his duties to the commonwealth. Those studies, in short, alone were valued, which, as it is beautifully expressed by Cicero, in the person of Laelius-"Efficiant ut usui civitati simus: id enim esse praeclarissimum sapientiae munus, maximumque virtutis doc.u.mentum puto."

APPENDIX.

"Some felt the silent stroke of mouldering age, Some hostile fury, some religious rage: Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire, And Papal piety, and Gothic fire."

POPE'S _Epistle to Addison_.

APPENDIX.

In order to be satisfied as to the authenticity of the works commonly called Cla.s.sical, it is important to ascertain in what manner they were given to the public by their respective authors-to trace how they were preserved during the long night of the dark ages-and to point out by whom their peris.h.i.+ng remains were first discovered at the return of light. Nor will it be uninteresting to follow up this sketch by an enumeration of the princ.i.p.al Editions of the Cla.s.sics mentioned in the preceding pages, and of the best Translations of them which, from time to time, have appeared in the Italian, French, and English languages.

The ma.n.u.scripts of the Latin Cla.s.sics, during the existence of the Roman republic and empire, may be divided into what have been called _notata_ and _perscripta_. The former were those written by the author himself, or his learned slaves, in contractions or signs which stood for syllables and words; the latter, those which were fully transcribed in the ordinary characters by the _librarius_, who was employed by the _bibliopolae_, or booksellers, to prepare the productions of an author for public sale.

The books written in the hand of the authors were probably not very legible, at least if we may judge of others by Cicero. His brother Quintus had complained that he could not read his letters, and Cicero says in reply: "Scribis te meas literas superiores vix legere potuisse; hoc facio semper ut quic.u.mque calamus in ma.n.u.s meas venerit, eo sic utar tamquam bono(492)."

But the works,-at least the prose works,-of the Romans were seldom written out in the hand of the author, and were generally dictated by him to some slave or freedman instructed in penmans.h.i.+p. It is well known that many of the orations of Cicero, Cato, and their great rhetorical contemporaries, were taken down by short-hand writers stationed in the Senate or Forum.

But even the works most carefully prepared in the closet were _notata_, in a similar manner, by slaves and freedmen. There was no part of his learned compositions on which Cicero took more pains, or about which his thoughts were more occupied(493), than the dedication of the _Academica_ to Varro, and even this he _dictated_ to his slave Spintharus, though he did so slowly, word by word, and not in whole sentences to Tiro, as was his practice in his other productions. "Male mihi sit," says he in a letter to Atticus, "si umquam quidquam tam enitar. Ergo ne Tironi quidem dictavi, qui totas _periochas_ persequi solet, sed Spintharo syllabatim(494)."

This practice of authors dictating their works created a necessity, or at least a conveniency, of writing with rapidity, and of employing contractions, or conventional marks, in almost every word.

Accordingly, from the earliest periods of Roman literature, words were contracted, or were signified by notes, which sometimes stood for more than one letter, sometimes for syllables, and at other times for whole words. Funccius, who maintains that Adam was the first short-hand writer(495), has a.s.serted, with more truth, that the Romans contracted their words from the remotest ages of the republic, and to a greater degree than any other ancient nation. Sometimes the abbreviations consisted merely in writing the initial letter instead of the whole word.

Thus P. C. stood for Patres Conscripti; C. R., for Civis Roma.n.u.s; S. N.

L., for Socii Nominis Latini. This sort of contraction being employed in words frequently recurring, and which in one sense might be termed public, and being also universally recognized, would rarely produce any misapprehension or mistake. But frequently the abbreviations were much more complex, and the leading letters of words in less common use being _notata_, the contractions became of much more difficult and dubious interpretation. For example, _Meit._ expressed meminit; _Acus._, Acerbus; _Quit._, quaerit; _Ror._, Rhetor.

For the sake, however, of yet greater expedition in writing, and perhaps, in some few instances for the purpose of secrecy, signs or marks, which could be currently made with one dash or scratch with the _stylus_, and without lifting or turning it, came to be employed, instead of those letters which were themselves the abbreviations of words. Some writers have supposed that these signs were entirely arbitrary(496), whilst others have, with more probability, maintained that their forms can be resolved or a.n.a.lysed into the figures, or parts of the figures, of the letters themselves which they were intended to represent, though they have often departed far from the shape of the original characters(497). Ennius is said to have invented 1100 of these signs(498), which he no doubt employed in his multifarious compositions. Others came into gradual use in the manual operation of writing with rapidity to dictation. Tiro, the favourite freedman of Cicero, greatly increased the number, and brought this sort of tachygraphy to its greatest perfection among the Romans. In consequence of this fas.h.i.+on of authors dictating their works, expedition came to be considered of the utmost importance; it was regarded as the chief accomplishment of an amanuensis; and he alone was considered as perfect in his art, whose pen could equal the rapidity of utterance:

Hic et scriptor erit felix, cui litera verb.u.m est, Quique notis linguam superet, cursumque loquentis, Excipiens longas per nova compendia voces(499).

These lines were written by a poet of the age of Augustus, and it appears from Martial(500), Ausonius(501), and Prudentius, that this system of dictation by the author, and rapid notation by his amanuensis, continued in practice during the later ages of the empire.

Such was the mode in which most of the writings of the ancients came originally from their authors, and were delivered to those friends who were desirous to possess copies, or to the booksellers to be _perscripta_, or transcribed, for publication.

There exists sufficient proof of the high estimation in which accurate transcriptions of the works of their own writers were held by the Romans.

The correctness of printing, however, could not be expected. In the original notation, some mistakes might probably be made from carelessness of p.r.o.nunciation in the author who dictated, and haste in his amanuensis; but the great source of errors in MSS. was the blunders made by the _librarius_ in copying out from the noted exemplar. There was the greatest ambiguity and doubt in the interpretation, both of words contracted in the ordinary character and in the artificial signs. Sometimes the same word was expressed by different letters; thus MR. MT. MTR. all expressed _Mater_. Sometimes, on the other hand, the same set of letters expressed different words; for instance, ACT. signified _Actor_, _Auctoritas_, and _Hactenus_. The collocation of the letters was often inverted from the order in which they stood in the word when fully expressed; and frequently one letter had not merely its own power, but that of several others. Thus AMO. signified _animo_, because M had there not only its own force, but, as its shape in some measure announces, the power of _ni_ also. Matters were still worse, when not only abbreviations, but signs had been resorted to. These were variously employed by different writers, and were also differently interpreted by transcribers. Some of these signs were extremely similar in form: it was scarcely possible to discriminate the sign which denoted the syllable _ab_ from that which expressed the syllable _um_; and the signs of the syllables _is_ and _it_ were nearly undistinguishable; while _ad_ and _at_ were precisely the same. The mark which expressed the word _talis_, being a little more sloped or inclined, expressed _qualis_; and the difference in the Tironian signs which stood for the complete words _Ager_ and _Amicus_, was scarcely perceptible(502).

The ancient Latin writers also employed a number of marks to denote the accents of words, and the quant.i.ties of syllables. The oldest writers, as Livius Andronicus and Naevius, always placed two vowels when a syllable was to be p.r.o.nounced long(503). Attius, the great tragic author, was the first to relinquish this usage; and after his time, in conformity to the new practice which he had adopted, a certain mark was placed over the long vowels. When this custom also (which is stigmatised by Quintilian as _ineptissimus_(504)) fell into disuse, the mark was frequently misunderstood, and Funccius has given several examples of corruptions and false readings from the mistake of transcribers, who supposed that it was intended to express an _m_, an _n_, or other letters(505).

In addition to all this, little attention was paid to the separation of words and sentences, and the art of punctuation was but imperfectly understood.

Finally, and above all, the orthography of Latin was extremely fluctuating and uncertain. We have seen, in an early part of this work, how it varied in the time of the republic, and it, in fact, never became fixed. Mai talks repeatedly, in his preface, of the strange inconsistencies of spelling in the Codex, which contained Cicero's work _De Republica_; and Ca.s.siodorus, who of all his contemporaries chiefly cultivated literature during the reign of the barbarians in Italy, often regrets that the ancient Romans had left their orthography enc.u.mbered with the utmost difficulties. "Orthographia," says he, "apud Graecos plerumque sine ambiguitate probatur expressa; inter Latinos vero sub ardua difficultate relicta monstratur; unde etiam modo studium magnum lectoris inquiret."

In consequence of this dictation to short-hand, and this uncertain orthography, we find that the corruption of the cla.s.sics had begun at a very early period. The ninth Satire of Lucilius was directed against the ridiculous blunders of transcribers, and contained rules for greater correctness. Cicero, in his letters to his brother Quintus, bitterly complains of the errors of copyists,-"De Latinis vero, quo me vertam, nescio; ita mendose et scribuntur, et veneunt(506)." Strabo says, that in his time booksellers employed ignorant transcribers, who neglected to compare what they wrote with the exemplar; which, he adds, has occurred in many works, copied for the purpose of being sold, both at Rome and Alexandria(507). Martial, too, thus cautions his reader against the mistakes occasioned by the inaccuracy and haste of the venders of books, and the transcribers whom they employed:

"Si qua videbuntur chartis tibi, lector, in istis, Sive obscura nimis, sive Latina parum; Non meus est error: nocuit Librarius illis, Dum properat versus annumerare tibi(508)."

Aulus Gellius repeatedly complains of the inaccuracy of copies in his time: We learn from him, that the writings of the greatest Cla.s.sics were already corrupted and falsified, not only by the casual errors of copyists, but by the deliberate perversions of critics, who boldly altered everything that was too elegant or poetical for their own taste and understanding(509). To the numerous corruptions in the text of Sall.u.s.t he particularly refers(510).

The practice, too, of abridging larger works, particularly histories, and extracting from them, was injurious to the preservation of MSS. This practice, occasioned by the scarcity of paper, began as early as the time of Brutus, who extracted even from the meagre annals of his country. These excerpts seldom compensated for the originals, but made them be neglected, and in consequence they were lost.

It seems also probable, that the destruction of the treasures of cla.s.sical literature commenced at a very early period. Varro's library, which was the most extensive private collection of books in Italy, was ruined and dispersed when his villa was occupied by Antony(511); and some of his own treatises, as that addressed to Pompey on the duties of the Consuls.h.i.+p, were irretrievably lost. Previous to the art of printing, books, in consequence of their great scarcity and value, were chiefly heaped up in public libraries. Several of these were consumed in the fire, by which so many temples were burned to the ground in the reign of Nero(512), particularly the library in the temple of Apollo, on the Palatine Hill, which was founded by Augustus, and contained all the Roman poets and historians previous to his age. This literary establishment having been restored as far as was possible by Domitian, suffered a second time by the flames; and the extensive library of the Capitol perished in a fire during the reign of Commodus(513). When it is considered, that at these periods the copies of Latin works were few, and chiefly confined within the walls of Rome, some notion may be formed of the extent of the loss sustained by these successive conflagrations.

From the portentous aera of the death of Pertinax, the brief reign of each succeeding emperor ended in a.s.sa.s.sination, civil war, and revolution. The imperial throne was filled by soldiers of fortune, who came like shadows, and like shadows departed. Rome at length ceased to be the fixed and habitual residence of her sovereigns, who were now generally employed at a distance in the field, in repelling foreign enemies, or repressing usurpers. While it is certain, that during this period many of the finest monuments of the arts were destroyed, and some of the most splendid works of architecture defaced, it can hardly be supposed that the frail texture of the parchment, or papyrus, should have resisted the stroke of sudden ruin, or the gradual mouldering of neglect.

But the chief destruction took place after the removal of the seat of empire by Constantine. The loss of so many cla.s.sical works subsequently to that aera, has been attributed chiefly to the irruption of the northern barbarians; but it was fully as much owing to the blind zeal of the early Christians. Many of the public libraries were placed in temples, and hence were the more exposed to the fury of the proselytes to the new faith. This devastation began in Italy in the fourth century, before the barbarians had penetrated to the heart of the empire; and, in the same century, if Sulpicius Severus may be credited, Bishop Martin undertook a crusade against the temples of the Gauls(514). St Augustine, St Jerome, and Lactantius, indeed, knew the cla.s.sics well; but they considered them as a sort of forbidden fruit: and St Jerome, as he himself informs us, was whipped by an angel for perusing Plautus and Cicero(515). The following or fifth century, was distinguished by the first capture of Rome, and its successive devastations by Alaric, Genseric, and Attila. In the latter part of the century, Milan, too, was plundered; which, next to Rome, was the chief repository of books in Italy.

Monachism, which, in its first inst.i.tution, particularly in the east, had been so destructive of literary works, became, when more advanced in its progress, a chief cause of their preservation. When the monks were at length united, in a species of civil union, under the fixed rules of St Benedict, in the beginning of the sixth century, the inst.i.tution contributed, if not to the diffusion of literature, at least to the preservation of literary works. There was no prohibition in the ordinances of St Benedict against the reading of cla.s.sical writings, as in those of St Isidore: and the consequence was, that wherever any abbot, or even monk, had a taste for letters, books were introduced into the convent. We have a remarkable example of this in the instance of Ca.s.siodorus, whose genius, learning, and virtue, shed a l.u.s.tre on one of the darkest periods of Italian history. After his pre-eminent services as minister of state during the reign of Theodoric, and regency of Amalasuntha, he retired, in the year 540, when he had reached the age of seventy, to the monastery of Monte Casino, situated in a most delightful spot, near the place of his birth, in Calabria. There he became as serviceable to literature as he had formerly been to the state; and the convent to which he betook himself deserves to be first mentioned in any future history of the preservation of the Cla.s.sics. Before his entrance into it, he possessed an extensive library, with which he enriched the cloister(516); and subsequently enlarged it by a collection of MSS., which he caused to be brought to him from various quarters of Italy. There is still extant his order to a monk to procure for him Albinus' treatise on Music; which shows, that his collection was not entirely confined to theological treatises: while his work _De Artibus ac Disciplinis liberalium Literarum_, is an ample testimony of his cla.s.sical learning, and of the value which he attached to it. His library contained, at least, Ennius, Terence, Lucretius, Varro, Cicero, and Sall.u.s.t(517). The monks of his convent were excited by him to the transcription of MSS.; and, in his work _De Orthographia_, he did not disdain to give minute directions for copying with facility and correctness.

Thus, in collecting an ample library-in diffusing copies of ancient MSS.-in verbal instructions, written lectures, and the composition of voluminous works-he closed, in the service of religion and learning, a long and meritorious life.

The example of Ca.s.siodorus was followed in other convents. About half a century after his death, Columba.n.u.s founded a monastery of Benedictines at Bobbio, a town situated among the northern Apennines. This religious society, as Tiraboschi informs us, was remarkable, not only for the sanct.i.ty of its manners, but the cultivation of literature. It was fortunate that receptacles for books had now been thus provided, as otherwise the treasures of cla.s.sical literature in Italy would, in all likelihood, have perished during the wars of Belisarius, and Na.r.s.es, and the invasion of Totila. It is in the age of Ca.s.siodorus,-that is, the beginning and middle of the sixth century,-that Tiraboschi places the serious and systematic commencement of the transcription of the cla.s.sics(518). He mentions the names of some of the most eminent copyists; but a fuller list had been previously furnished by Fabricius(519).

In Gregory the Great, who was Pope at the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century, literature, according to popular belief, found an enemy in the west, as fatal to its interests as the Caliph Omar had been in the east. This pontiff was accused of burning a cla.s.sical library, and also some valuable works, which had replaced those formerly consumed in the Palatine library. John of Salisbury is the sole authority for this charge; and even he, who lived six centuries after the age of Gregory, only mentions it as a tradition and report: "Fertur Beatus Gregorius bibliothecam combussisse gentilem, quo divinae paginae gratior esset locus, et major auctoritas, et diligentia studiosior(520);" and again, "Ut traditur a majoribus, incendio dedit probatae lectionis scripta, Palatinus quaecunque tenebat Apollo(521)." Cardan informs us, that Gregory also caused the plays of Naevius, Ennius, and Afranius, to be burned. That he suppressed the works of Cicero, rests on the authority of a pa.s.sage in an edict published by Louis XI., dated 1473, and quoted by Lyron in his _Singularitez Historiques_(522). St Antonius, who was Archbishop of Florence in the middle of the fifteenth century, is cited by Vossius as the most ancient author who has a.s.serted that he burned the decades of Livy(523). These charges have been strenuously supported by Brucker(524), while Tiraboschi, on the other hand, has endeavoured to vindicate the memory of the pontiff from all such aspersions(525). Bayle has adopted a prudent neutrality(526). Dendina(527) and Ginguene(528), the most recent authors who have touched on the subject, seem to consider the question, after all that has been written on it, as still doubtful, and not likely to receive any farther elucidation. It appears certain, that Gregory disliked cla.s.sical, or profane literature, on account of the oracles, idolatry, and rites, with which it is a.s.sociated, and that he prohibited its study by the clergy(529);-whence may, perhaps, have originated the reports of his wilfully destroying the then surviving libraries and books of Rome.

During the course of the two centuries which followed the death of Gregory, Italy was divided between the Greeks and Lombards, and was torn by spiritual dissensions. The most numerous and barbarous swarm which had yet crossed the Alps was the Lombards, who descended on Italy, under their king, Alboinus, in 568, immediately after the death of Na.r.s.es. It was no longer a tribe or army by which Italy was invaded; but a whole nation of old men, women, and children, covered its plains. This ignorant and ferocious race spread themselves from the Alps to Rome during the seventh and eighth centuries. And although Rome itself escaped the Lombard dominion, the horrors of a perpetual siege can alone convey an adequate idea of its distressed situation. The feuds of the Lombard chiefs, their wars with the Greeks, who still remained masters of Rome, and at length with the Franks, (all which contests were marked with fire and ma.s.sacre,) made a desert of the Peninsular garden(530). Hitherto the superst.i.tious feelings of the northern hordes had inspired them with some degree of respect for the sacerdotal order which they found established in Italy.

Reverence for the person of the priest had extended itself to the security of his property, and while the palace and castle were wrapt in flames, the convent escaped sacrilege. But the Lombards extended their fury to objects which their rude predecessors had generally respected; and learning was now attacked in her most vulnerable part. Amid the general destruction, the monasteries and their libraries were no longer spared; and with others, that of Monte Casino, one of the most valuable and extensive in Italy, was plundered by the Lombards(531). Some books preserved in the sack of the libraries were carried back by these invaders to their native country, and a few were saved by monks, who sought refuge in other kingdoms, which accounts for the number of cla.s.sical MSS. subsequently discovered in France and Germany(532).

Amid the ruin of taste and letters in these ages, it is probable that but few new copies were made from the MSS. then extant. Some of the cla.s.sics, however, were still spared, and remained in the monastic libraries.

Anspert, who was Abbot of Beneventum, in the eighth century, declares that he had never studied Homer, Cicero, or Virgil, which implies, that they were still preserved, and accessible to his perusal(533).

The division of Italy between the Lombards and Greeks continued till the end of the eighth century, when Charlemagne put an end to the kingdom of the former, and founded his empire. Whether this monarch himself had any pretensions to the character of a scholar, is more than doubtful; but whether he possessed learning or not, he was a generous patron of those who did. He a.s.sembled round his court such persons as were most distinguished for talents and erudition; he established schools and pensioned scholars; and he founded also a species of Academy, of which Alcuin was the head, and in which every one adopted a scriptural or cla.s.sic appellation. This tended to multiply the MSS. of the cla.s.sics, and many of them found a place in the imperial library mentioned by Eginhard.

Charlemagne also established the monastery of Fulda, and, in consequence, copies of these MSS. found their way to Germany in the beginning of the ninth century(534). The more recent Latin writers, as Boethius, Macrobius, and Capella, were chiefly popular in his age; but Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, were not unknown. Alcuin's poetical account of the library at York, founded by Archbishop Egbert, and of which he had been the first librarian, affords us some notion of the usual contents of the libraries at that time.-

"Illic invenies veterum vestigia patrum; Quicquid habet pro se Latio Roma.n.u.s in orbe, Graecia vel quicquid transmisit clara Latinis."

Then, after enumerating the works of all the Fathers which had a place in the library, he proceeds with his catalogue.-

"Historici veteres, Pompeius, Plinius, ipse Acer Aristoteles rhetor, atque Tullius ingens; Quid quoque Sedulius, vel quid canit ipse Juvencus, Alcuinus, et Clemens Prosper, Paulinus orator; Quid Fortunatus vel quid Lactantius edunt.

Quae Maro Virgilius, Statius, Luca.n.u.s et auctor, Artis grammaticae vel quid scripsere magistri."

But though there were libraries in other countries, Italy always contained the greatest number of cla.s.sical MSS. In the ninth century, Lupus, who was educated at Fulda, and afterwards became Abbot of Ferrieres, a monastery in the Orleanois, requested Pope Benedict III. to send him Cicero _de Oratore_ and Quintilian, of both of which he possessed parts, but had neither of them complete(535); and in another letter he begs from Italy a copy of Suetonius(536). The series of his letters gives us a favourable impression of the state of profane literature in his time. In his very first letter to Einhart, who had been his preceptor, he quotes Horace and the Tusculan Questions. Virgil is repeatedly cited in the course of his epistles, and the lines of Catullus are familiarly referred to as authorities for the proper quant.i.ties of syllables. Lupus did not confine his care to the mere transcription of MSS. He bestowed much pains on the rectification of the texts, as is evinced by his letter to Ansbald, Abbot of Prum, where he acknowledges having received from him a copy of the epistles of Cicero, which would enable him to correct the MSS. of them which he himself possessed(537).

It was a rule in convents, that those who embraced the monasteric life should employ some hours each day in manual labour; but as all were not fit for those occupations which require much corporeal exertion, many of the monks fulfilled their tasks by copying MSS. Transcription thus became a favourite exercise in the ninth century, and was much encouraged by the Abbots(538). In every great convent there was an apartment called the _Scriptorium_, in which writers were employed in transcribing such books as were deemed proper for the library. The heads of monasteries borrowed their cla.s.sics from each other, and, having copied, returned them(539).-By this means, books were wonderfully multiplied. Libraries became the constant appendages of cloisters, and in Italy existed nowhere else. We do not hear, during this period, of either royal or private libraries. There was little information among the priests or parochial clergy, and almost every man of learning was a member of a convent.