The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization Part 19

[Sidenote: Richness of Greek Poetry.]

[Sidenote: The Homeric poems.]

Now how rich in poetry was cla.s.sical antiquity, whether sung in the Greek or Latin languages. In all those qualities which give immortality, it has never been surpa.s.sed, whether in simplicity, in pa.s.sion, in fervor, in fidelity to nature, in wit, or in imagination. It existed from the early ages, and continued to within a brief period of the fall of the empire. With the rich acc.u.mulation of ages, the Romans were familiar. They knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur of the Jewish muse, or the mythological myths of the Ante-Homeric songsters; but they possessed the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their wonderful truthfulness, and clear portraiture of character, their absence of all affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their good sense and healthful sentiments, yet so original that the germ of almost every character which has since figured in epic poetry can be found in them.

We see in Homer [Footnote: Born probably at Smyrna, an Ionian city, about one hundred and fifty years after the Trojan War.] a poet of the first cla.s.s, holding the same place in literature that Plato does in philosophy, or Newton in science, and exercising a mighty influence on all the ages which have succeeded him. For nearly three thousand years his immortal creations have been the delight and the inspiration of men of genius, and they are as marvelous 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 see no pomp of words, no far-fetched thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitious speculations, no indefinite longings; but we read the manners and customs of the primitive nations, and lessons of moral wisdom and human nature as it is, and the sights and wonders of the external world, all narrated with singular simplicity, yet marvelous artistic skill. We find accuracy, delicacy, naturalness, yet grandeur, sentiment, and beauty, such as Pheidias represented in his statues of Jupiter. No poems have ever been more popular, and none have extorted greater admiration from critics. Like Shakespeare, Homer is a kind of Bible to both the learned and unlearned among all people and ages--one of the prodigies of this world. His poems form the basis of Greek literature, and are the best understood and the most widely popular of all Grecian composition. The unconscious simplicity of the Homeric narrative, its vivid pictures, its graphic details and religious spirit, create an enthusiasm such as few works of genius can claim. Moreover, it presents a painting of society, with its simplicity and ferocity, its good and evil pa.s.sions, its compa.s.sion and its fierceness, such as no other poem affords. [Footnote: The Homeric poems have been translated into nearly all the European languages, and several times into English. The last translation is by the Earl of Derby--a most remarkable work. Guizot, _Cours d'Hist.

Mod_., Lecon 7me; Grote, vol. ii. p. 277; _Studies in Homer_, by Hon. W. E. Gladstone; Mure, _Critical Hist. of Lang. and Lit. of Greece_; Muller, _Hist, of the Lit. of Ancient Greece_, translated by Donaldson.] Nor is it necessary to speak of any other Grecian 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.

[Sidenote: Pindar.]

In lyrical poetry the Greeks were no less remarkable, and indeed they attained to absolute perfection, owing to the intimate connection between poetry and music. Who has surpa.s.sed Pindar in artistic skill?

His _triumphal odes_ are paeans, 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 all possess fragments of odes, songs, dirges, and panegyrics, which 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 the public games.

Although a Theban, he was held in the highest estimation by the Athenians, and was courted by kings and princes. [Footnote: Born in Thebes 522 B.C., and died probably in his eightieth year, and was contemporary with Aeschylus 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.

[Sidenote: Greek dramatic poetry.]

But dramatic poetry was still more varied and remarkable. Even the great masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides, were regarded by contemporaries as inferior to many tragedies utterly unknown to us.

[Sidenote: Aeschylus.]

The great creator of the Greek drama was Aeschylus, born at Eleusis, 525 B.C. It was not till the age of forty-one that he gained his first prize. Sixteen years afterwards, 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 his object to amuse an audience, as to instruct and elevate it. He combined religious feeling with lofty moral sentiment. And he had unrivaled power over the realm of astonishment and terror. "At his summons," says Sir Walter Scott, "the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in which is inscribed the doom of G.o.ds and men, seemed to display its leaves of iron before the appalled spectators; the more than mortal voices of Deities, t.i.tans, 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sions, and he is full of the boldest metaphors. In sublimity he has never been surpa.s.sed. He was in poetry, what Pheidias 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 are sublime, like his sentiments; they were G.o.ds 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 Marathon to do. He was an unconscious genius, and worked, like Homer, without a knowledge of artistical 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 Shakespeare. He died in Sicily in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The princ.i.p.al English translation of his plays are by Potter, Harford, and Medwin. [Footnote: See Muller and Bode, histories of Greek Literature.]

[Sidenote: Sophocles.]

The fame of Sophocles is scarcely less than that of Aeschylus. He was twenty-seven years of age when he appeared as a rival. He was born in Colonus, in the suburbs of Athens, 495 B.C., and was the contemporary of Herodotus, of Pericles, of Pindar, of Pheidias, of Socrates, of Cimon, of Euripides--the era of great men; the period of the Peloponnesian War, when every thing that was elegant and intellectual culminated at Athens.

Sophocles had every element of character and person which fascinated the Greeks: beauty of person, symmetry of form, skill in gymnastics, 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 Grecian drama, and they, moreover, maintain that he has no rival, Shakespeare alone excepted, in the whole realm of dramatic poetry, unless it be Aeschylus himself, to whom he bears the same relation in poetry that Raphael does to Michael Angelo in the world of art. It was his peculiarity to excite emotions of sorrow and compa.s.sion.

He loved to paint forlorn heroes. He was human in all his sympathies, not so religious as his great rival, 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 "Oedipus at Colonus." He wrote the astonis.h.i.+ng 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. The fertility of his genius was only equaled by his artistic skill. [Footnote: Schlegel, _Lectures on Dramatic Art_; Muller, _Hist. Lit._; Donaldson's _Antigone_; Lessing, _Leben des Sophokles_; Philip Smith, article in Smith's _Dict._.]

[Sidenote: Euripides.]

Euripides, the last of the great triumvirate of the Greek tragic poets, was born at Athens, B.C. 485. He had not the sublimity of Aeschylus, nor the touching pathos of Sophocles, but, in seductive beauty and successful appeal to pa.s.sion, was superior to both. Nor had he their stern simplicity. In his tragedies the pa.s.sion of love predominates, nor does it breathe the purity of sentiment. It approaches rather to the tone of the modern drama. He paints the weakness and corruptions 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 paint ideal excellence, and his characters are not as men ought to be, but as they are, especially in corrupt states of society. He wrote ninety-five plays, of which eighteen are extant. Whatever objection may be urged in reference to his dramas on the score of morality, n.o.body can question their transcendent art, or his great originality. With the exception of Shakespeare, all succeeding dramatists have copied these three great poets, especially Racine, who took Sophocles for his model. [Footnote: Muller, Schlegel. Sir Walter Scott on the Drama; Gote, vol. viii. p.

442, Thorne, _Mag. Via. Eurip._ Potter has made a translation of all his plays.]

[Sidenote: Greek comedy.]

[Sidenote: Aristophanes.]

The Greeks were no less distinguished for comedy. Both tragedy and comedy sprung 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 G.o.ds are introduced by way of sport, like the appet.i.te of Hercules, or the cowardice of Bacchus. Then the comic authors entertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays; by the exhibition of buffoons and pantomimes. But the taste of the Athenians was too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedy pa.s.sed into ridicule of public men and measures, and of the fas.h.i.+ons of the day. The people loved to see their great men brought down to their own level. Nor did comedy flourish until the morals of society were degenerated, and ridicule had become the most effective weapon to a.s.sail prevailing follies. Comedy reached its culminating point when society was both the most corrupt and the most intellectual, as in France, when Moliere pointed his envenomed shafts against popular vices. It pertained to the age of Socrates and the Sophists, when there was great bitterness in political parties, and an irrepressible desire for novelties. In Cratinus, comedy first made herself felt as a great power, 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, whose plays only have reached us. Never were libels on persons of authority and influence uttered with such terrible license. He attacked the G.o.ds, the politicians, the philosophers, and the poets of Athens; even private citizens did not escape from his shafts, and women were subjects of his irony. Socrates was made the b.u.t.t of his ridicule, when most revered, and Cleon in the height of his power, and Euripides when he had gained the highest prizes. He has furnished jests for Rabelais, and hints to Swift, and humor for MoliEre. In satire, in derision, in invective, and bitter scorn, he has never been surpa.s.sed. No modern capital would tolerate such unbounded license. Yet no plays were ever more popular, or more fully exposed follies which could not otherwise be reached. He is called the Father of Comedy, and his comedies are of great historical importance, although his descriptions are doubtless caricatures. He was patriotic in his intentions, and set up for a reformer. His peculiar genius s.h.i.+nes out in his "Clouds," the greatest of his pieces, in which he attacks the Sophists. He wrote fifty-four plays. He was born B.C.

444, and died B.C. 380. His best comedies are translated by Mitch.e.l.l.

Thus it would appear that in the three great departments of poetry,--the epic, the lyric, and the dramatic,--the old Greeks were great masters, and have been the teachers of all subsequent nations and ages.

The Romans, in these departments, were not their equals, but they were very successful copyists, and will bear compet.i.tion with modern nations.

If the Romans did not produce a Homer, they can boast of a Virgil; if they had no Pindar, they furnished a Horace, while in satire they transcended the Greeks.

[Sidenote: Naevius.]

The Romans, however, produced no poetry worthy of notice until the Greek language and literature were introduced. It was not till the fall of Tarentum that we read of a Roman poet. Livius Andronicus, a Greek slave, B.C. 240, 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 he was the first to subst.i.tute the Greek drama for the old lyrical stage poetry. One year after the first Punic War, he exhibited the first Roman play. As the creator of the drama, he deserves historical notice, though he has no claim to originality, and like a schoolmaster as he was, pedantically labored to imitate the culture of the Greeks. And his plays formed the commencement of Roman translation-literature, and naturalized the Greek metres in Latium, even though they were curiosities rather than works of art. [Footnote: Mommsen, vol. ii. b. ii. ch. xiv.] Naevius, B.C. 235, 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. [Footnote: Horace, _Ep_. ii. 11, 53.]

Mommsen regards Naevius as the first among the Romans who deserves to be ranked among the poets. He flourished about the year 550, and closely adhered to Andronicus in metres. His language is free from stiffness and affectation, and his verses have a graceful flow. Plautus was perhaps the first great poet whom the Romans produced, and his comedies are still admired by critics, as both original and fresh. He was born in Umbria, B.C. 257, and was contemporaneous with Publius and Cneius Scipio. He died B.C. 184.

[Sidenote: Plautus.]

The first development of Roman genius in the field of poetry, seems to have been the dramatic, in which the Greek authors were copied. Plautus might be mistaken for a Greek, were it not for the painting of Roman manners. His garb is essentially Greek. He 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 celebrated by the ancient critics.

[Footnote: Quint., x. i. Section 99.] Cicero places his wit on a par with the old Attic comedy, [Footnote: Cicero, _De Off_., i. 29.]

while Jerome spent much time in reading his comedies, even though they afterward cost him tears of bitter regret. Modern dramatists owe much to him. Moliere has imitated him in his "_Avare_," and Shakespeare in his "Comedy of Errors." Lessing p.r.o.nounces the "_Captivi_" to be the finest comedy ever brought upon the stage. [Footnote: Smith, _Dict.

of Ant._ art. _Plaut_.] He has translated this play into German.

It has also been admirably translated into English. The great excellence of Plautus was the masterly handling of the language, and the adjusting the parts for dramatic effect. His humor, broad and fresh, produced irresistible comic effects. No one ever surpa.s.sed him in his vocabulary of nicknames, and his happy jokes. Hence he maintained his popularity in spite of his vulgarity. [Footnote: Mommsen, vol. ii. b. iii. ch. xiv.]

[Sidenote: Terence.]

Terence shares with Plautus the throne of Roman comedy. He was a Carthaginian slave, and was born B.C. 160, but was educated by a wealthy Roman, into whose hands he fell, and ever after a.s.sociated with the best society, and traveled extensively into Greece. He was greatly inferior to Plautus in originality, nor has he exerted a lasting influence like him; but he wrote comedies characterized by great purity of diction, and which have been translated into all modern languages. [Footnote: Coleman's _Terence_; Dryden, _On Dram. Poet._; Mommsen, vol.

iii. b. v. ch. xiii.] Anterior to the Augustan age, no tragic production has reached us, although Quintilian speaks highly of Accius, [Footnote: Quint., x. 1. Section 97.] especially of the vigor of his style. But he merely imitated the Greeks. Terence closely copied Menander, whom Mommsen regards as the most polished, elegant, and chaste of all the poets of the newer comedy. Unlike Plautus, he draws his characters from good society, and his comedies, if not moral, were decent. Plautus wrote for the mult.i.tude; Terence for the few. Plautus delighted in a noisy dialogue and slang expressions; Terence confines 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 good, 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 latter 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_" [Footnote: Hor., _Sat_. I 9; Martial, viii. 18.] 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. [Footnote: Born B.C. 239.] Virgil borrowed many of his thoughts, and he was regarded as the prince of Roman song in the time of Cicero. The Latin language is greatly indebted to him.

Pacuvius imitated Aeschylus in the loftiness of his style. [Footnote: Born B.C. 170] The only tragedy of the Romans which has reached us was written by Seneca the philosopher.

[Sidenote: The Aeneid.]

[Sidenote: Virgil.]

In epic poetry the Romans accomplished more, though still inferior to the Greeks. The "Aeneid" has certainly survived the material glories of Rome. It may not have come up to the exalted ideal of its author; it may be defaced by political flatteries; it may not have the force and originality of the "Iliad," but it is superior in art, and delineates the pa.s.sion of love with more delicacy than can be found in any Greek author. In soundness of judgment, in tenderness of feeling, in chastened fancy, in picturesque description, in delineation of character, in matchless beauty of diction, and in splendor of versification, it has never been surpa.s.sed by any poem in any language, and proudly takes its place among the imperishable works of genius. "Availing himself of the pride and superst.i.tion 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 persons and circ.u.mstances 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 Aeneas first settled in Italy. The wrath of Juno, upon which the whole fate of Aeneas seems to turn, is at once that of a woman and a G.o.ddess; the pa.s.sion 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 G.o.ds and men, the Trojan name is to be continued in the Roman, and thus heaven and earth are appeased." [Footnote: Thompson, _Hist. Rom. Lit._, p. 92.] No one work of man has probably 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 Ta.s.so. [Footnote: Virgil was born seventy years before Christ, and was seven years older than Augustus. His parentage was humble, but his facilities of education were great. He was a most fortunate man, enjoying the friends.h.i.+p of Augustus and Maecenas, 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.]

[Sidenote: Horace.]

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 probably remain through all the ages, the delight of scholars.

They may not have the deep religious sentiment, and the unity of imagination and pa.s.sion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but as works of art, of exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they are unrivaled. Even in the time of Juvenal, his poems were the common school books of Roman youth. Horace, like Virgil, was a favored man, enjoying the friends.h.i.+p of the great with ease, fame, and fortune.

But his longings for retirement, and his disgust at the frivolities around him, are a sad commentary on satisfied desires. [Footnote: Born B.C. 65. The best translation of his works is by Francis; but Horace is untranslatable.] His odes compose but a small part of his writings. His epistles 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 Juvenal. It is the folly rather than the wickedness of vice which he 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 dignus, in verbis felicissime audax_." No poetry was ever more severely elaborated than that of Horace, and the melody of the language imparts to it a peculiar fascination. If inferior to Pindar in pa.s.sion and loftiness, it glows with a more genial humanity, and with purer wit.

It cannot be enjoyed fully, except by those versed in the experiences of life. Such perceive 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 fas.h.i.+on to depreciate the original merits of this poet, as well as those of Virgil and Plautus and Terence, because they derived so much a.s.sistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks borrowed from each other. Pure originality is impossible. It is the mission of art to add to its stores, without hoping to monopolize the whole realm. Even Shakespeare, the most original of modern poets, was vastly indebted to those who went before him, and even he has not escaped the hypercriticism of minute observers.

[Sidenote: Catullus.]

In this allusion to lyrical poetry, I have not spoken of Catullus, unrivaled in tender lyric, and the greatest poet before the Augustan era. He was born B.C. 87, and enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p of the most celebrated characters. One hundred and sixteen of his poems have come down to us, most of which are short, and many of them defiled by great coa.r.s.eness 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.

[Sidenote: Lucretius.]

In didactic poetry, Lucretius was preeminent, and is regarded by Schlegel as the first of Roman poets in native genius. [Footnote: Born B.C. 95, died B.C. 52. Smith's _Dict._] He lived before the Augustan era, and died at the age of forty-two by his own hand. His great poem "De Rerum Natura," is a delineation of the epicurean philosophy, and treats of all the great subjects of thought with which his age is conversant. It somewhat resembles Pope's "Essay on Man," in style and subject, but immeasurably superior in poetical genius. It is a lengthened disquisition, in seven thousand four hundred lines, of the great phenomena of the outward world. As a painter and wors.h.i.+per of nature, he was superior to all the poets of antiquity. His skill in presenting abstruse speculations is marvelous, and his outbursts of poetic genius are matchless in power and beauty. Into all subjects he casts a fearless eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. But he was not fully appreciated by his countrymen, although no other poet has so fully brought out the power of the Latin language. Professor Ramsay, [Footnote: The translation of Lucretius into English was made by I. M.

Goode, Evelyn, and Drummond.] 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 verses of Lucretius perished, we should never have known that it 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 eulogium of Ovid is--

"Carmina sublimis tune sunt peritura Lucreti, Exitio terras quum dabit una dies."

[Sidenote: Ovid.]

Elegiac poetry has an honorable place in Roman literature. To this school belongs Ovid, [Footnote: Born B.C. 43. Died A.D. 18.] whose "Metamorphoses" will always retain their interest. 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, [Footnote: Bayle, _Dict._] which has not yet proved false. Niebuhr [Footnote: _Lect._, vol. ii. p. 166.] thinks that, next to Catullus, he was the most poetical of his countrymen. Milton thinks he could have surpa.s.sed Virgil had he attempted epic poetry. He was nearest to the romantic school of all the cla.s.sical authors, and Chaucer, Ariosto, and Spenser owe to him great obligations. Like Pope, his verses flowed spontaneously. His "Tristia" were more admired by the Romans than his "Amores" or "Metamorphoses,"--probably from the doleful description of his exile,--a fact which shows that contemporaries 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, "Carmina per libidinosa." Nor did he support exile with dignity. He died of a broken heart, and languished, like Cicero, when doomed to a similar fate. 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 man, was justly punished.

[Sidenote: Tibullus.]

Tibullus was also a famous elegiac poet, and was born the same year as Ovid, and was the friend of Horace. He lived in retirement, and was both gentle and amiable. At his beautiful country seat he soothed his soul with the charms of literature and the simple pleasures of the country.

Niebuhr p.r.o.nounces his elegies doleful, [Footnote: _Lect._, vol.

iii. p. 143.] but Merivale [Footnote: _Hist_, vol. iv. p. 602.]

thinks that "the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung his unprosperous loves 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.