Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 33

67. e.g. Sen. _Cont_. i. 7 'Liberi parentes alant aut vinciant: quidam alterum fratrem tyrannum occidit, alterum in adulterio deprehensum deprecante patre interfecit. A piratis captas scripsit patri de redemptione. Pater piratis epistolam scripsit, si praecidissent ma.n.u.s, duplam se daturum. Piratae illum dimiserunt: patrem egentem non alit.'

68. For a brilliant description of the evils of the Roman system of education see Tac. _Dial_. 30-5. See also p. 127 for the very similar criticism of Petronius.

69. ce. 28-30. Cp. also Quint, i. 2 1-8.

70. The schoolmaster was not infrequently, it is to be feared, of doubtful character. Cp. the case of the famous rhetorician Remmius Palaemon. Cp. also Quint, i. 3. 13.

71. c. 35.

72. Tac. _Dial_. 26.

73. The influence of rhetoric was of course large in the Augustan age.

Vergil and still more Ovid testify to this fact. But the tone of rhetoric was saner in the days of Vergil. Ovid, himself no inconsiderable influence on the poetry of the Silver Age, begins to show the effects of the new and meretricious type of rhetoric that flourished under the anti-Ciceronian reaction, when the healthy influence of the great orators of a saner age began to give way before the inroads of the brilliant but insincere epigrammatic style. This latter style was fostered largely by the importance a.s.signed to the _controversia_ and _suasoria_ as opposed to the more realistic methods of oratorical training during the last century of the republic.

74. See Mayor on Juv. iii. 9.

75. Cp. Juv. i. 1 sqq., iii. 9. For the enormous part played in social life by recitations cp. Plin. _Ep_. i. 13, ii. 19, iv. 5, 27, v. 12, vi.

2, 17, 21, viii. 21.

76. Cp. especially the speeches of Lucan.

77. For some very just criticism on this head cp. Quint, viii. 5. 25 sqq.

78. For amusing instances of rudeness on the part of members of the audience ep. Sen. _Ep._ cxxii. 11; Plin. _Ep._ vi. 15.

79. Petr. 83, 88-91, 115. Mart. iii. 44. 10 'et stanti legis et legis cacanti. in thermas fugio: sonas ad aurem. piscinam peto: non licet natare. ad cenam propero: tenes euntem. ad cenam venio: fugas sedentem. la.s.sus dormio: suscitas iacentem.' Cp. also 3, 50 and pa.s.sim. Plin. _Ep._ vi. 13; Juv. i. 1-21; iii. 6-9; vii. 39 sqq.

80. Plin. _Ep._ viii. 12.

81. Suet. _Dom._ 4.

82. Tac. _Dial_. 35

83. See ch. v.

84. There had always, it may be noted, existed an archaistic section of literary society. Seneca (_Ep._ cxiv. 13), Persius (i. 76), and Tacitus (_Dial._ 23) decide the imitators of the early poets of the republic.

But virtually no trace of p.r.o.nounced imitation of this kind is to be observed in the poetry that has survived. Novelty and what pa.s.sed for originality were naturally more popular than the resuscitation of the dead or dying past.

85. Boissier, _L'Opposition sous les Cesars_, p. 238.

86. Macrobius (_Sat._ 10. 3) speaks of a revival of the Atellan by a certain Mummius, but gives no indication of the date.

87. Juv. viii. 185.

888. Suet. _Calig._ 57; Joseph. _Ant._ xix. 1. 13; Juv. viii. 187.

89. Mart. _de Spect._ 7.

90. Plutarch, _de Sollert. Anim._ xix. 9.

91. Suet. _Tib_. 45.

92. ib. _Ner_. 39.

93. Ib. _Galb_. 13.

94. Ib. _Dom_. 10.

95. Ib. _Calig_. 27; _Nero_, I. c.; Tac. _Ann_. iv. 14.

96. _C. I. L_. ix. 1165.

97. _Ep_. vi. 21.

98. Suet. _Ner_. II.

999. Quint, xi. 3. 178.

100. Juv. iii. 93.

101. x. 1, 99.

102. Lucian, _de Salt_. 27.

103. Suet. _Ner_. 24.

104. Lucian, _de Salt_. 79.

105. Suet. _ap. Hieronym_. (Roth, p. 301, 25).

106. Plut. _Qu. Conv_. vii. 8. 3; Sen. _Contr_. 3. praef. 10.

107. Lucian, op. cit., 37-61.

108. Plut, _Qu. Conv_. iv. 15. 17; Libanius (Reiske) iii, p. 381.

109. Lucian, op. cit., 69 sqq.

110. e.g. Pasiphae, Cinyras and Myrrha, Jupiter and Leda. Lucian, 1. c.; Joseph. _Ant. Iud_. xix. 1. 13; Juv. vi. 63-6.

111. For the effect of such dancing cp. the interesting stories told by Lucian, op. cit., 63-6. Cp. also Liban., in, p. 373. For the importance attached to gesture in ancient times see Quint. xi. 3. 87 sqq.

112. Story of Turnus; Suet, _Ner_. 54. Dido; Macrob. Sat. v. 17. 15.

113. See p. 100.

114. Juv. vii. 92.