regarded as rude precursors of the didactic epistles that Horace devoted to literary criticism.
The only extant prose work which may be assigned to the end of this period is the treatise on rhetoric known by the title Ad Herennium (c. 84) a work indicative of the attention bestowed on prose style and rhetorical studies during the last century of the republic, and which may be regarded as a precursor of the oratorical treatises of Cicero and of the work of Quintilian. But the great literary product of this period was oratory, developed indeed with the aid of these rhetorical studies, but Oratory. itself the immediate outcome of the imperial interests, the legal conflicts, and the political passions of that time of agitation. The speakers and writers of a later age looked back on Scipio and Laelius, the Gracchi and their contemporaries, L. Crassus and M. Antonius, as masters of their art.
In history, regarded as a great branch of prose literature, it is not probable that much was accomplished, although, with the advance of oratory and grammatical studies, there must have been not only greater fluency of History. composition but the beginning of a richer and more ornate style. Yet Cicero denies to Rome the existence, before his own time, of any adequate historical literature. Nevertheless it was by the work of a number of Roman chroniclers during this period that the materials of early Roman history were systematized, and the record of the state, as it was finally given to the world in the artistic work of Livy, was extracted from the early annals, state documents and private memorials, combined into a coherent unity, and supplemented by invention and reflection. Amongst these chroniclers may be mentioned L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi (consul 133, censor 108), C. Sempronius Tuditanus (consul 129), Cn. Gellius, C. Fannius (consul 122), L. Coelius Antipater, who wrote a narrative of the second Punic war about 120, and Sempronius Asellio, who wrote a history of his own times, have a better claim to be considered historians. There were also special works on antiquities and contemporary memoirs, and autobiographies such as those of M. Aemilius Scaurus, the elder, Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul 102 B.C.), and P. Rutilius Rufus, which formed the sources of future historians. (See further Annales; and Rome: History, Ancient, § “Authorities.”)
Although the artistic product of the first period of Latin
literature which has reached us in a complete shape is limited
to the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the influence
of the lost literature in determining the spirit, form
Summary of
the period.
and style of the eras of more perfect accomplishment
which followed is unmistakable. While humour and
vivacity characterize the earlier, and urbanity of tone the later
development of comedy, the tendency of serious literature had
been in the main practical, ethical, commemorative and satirical.
The higher poetical imagination had appeared only in Ennius,
and had been called forth in him by sympathy with the grandeur
of the national life and the great personal qualities of its representative
men. Some of the chief motives of the later poetry,
e.g. the pleasures and sorrows of private life, had as yet found
scarcely any expression in Latin literature. The fittest metrical
vehicle for epic, didactic, and satiric poetry had been discovered,
but its movement was as yet rude and inharmonious. The
idiom of ordinary life and social intercourse and the more fervid
and elevated diction of oratorical prose had made great progress,
but the language of imagination and poetical feeling was, if
vivid and impressive in isolated expressions, still incapable of
being wrought into consecutive passages of artistic composition.
The influences of Greek literature to which Latin literature owed
its birth had not as yet spread beyond Rome and Latium. The
Sabellian races of central and eastern Italy and the Italo-Celtic
and Venetian races of the north, in whom the poetic susceptibility
of Italy was most manifest two generations later, were not, until
after the Social war, sufficiently in sympathy with Rome, and
were probably not as yet sufficiently educated to induce them
to contribute their share to the national literature. Hence the
end of the Social war, and of the Civil war, which arose out of it,
is most clearly a determining factor in Roman literature, and
may most appropriately be taken as marking the end of one
period and the beginning of another.
Second Period: from 80 to 42 B.C.
The last age of the republic coincides with the first half of the Golden age of Roman literature. It is generally known as the Ciceronian age from the name of its greatest literary representative, whose activity as a s and writer was unremitting during nearly the whole period. It is the age of purest excellence in prose, and of a new birth of poetry, characterized rather by great original force and artistic promise than by perfect accomplishment. The five chief representatives of this age who still hold their rank among the great classical writers are Cicero, Caesar and Sallust in prose, Lucretius and Catullus in verse. The works of other prose writers, Varro and Cornelius Nepos, have been partially preserved; but these writers have no claim to rank with those already mentioned as creators and masters of literary style. Although literature had not as yet become a trade or profession, an educated reading public already existed, and books and intellectual intercourse filled a large part of the leisure of men actively engaged in affairs. Even oratory was intended quite as much for readers as for the audiences to which it was immediately addressed; and some of the greatest speeches which have come down from that great age of orators were never delivered at all, but were published as manifestoes after the event with the view of influencing educated opinion, and as works of art with the view of giving pleasure to educated taste.
Thus the speeches of M. Tullius Cicero (106–43) belong to the domain of literature quite as much as to that of forensic or political oratory. And, although Demosthenes is a master of style unrivalled even by Cicero, the literary Cicero. interest of most of Cicero’s speeches is stronger than that of the great mass of Greek oratory. It is urged with justice that the greater part of Cicero’s Defence of Archias was irrelevant to the issue and would not have been listened to by a Greek court of justice or a modern jury. But it was fortunate for the interests of literature that a court of educated Romans could be influenced by the considerations there submitted to them. In this way a question of the most temporary interest, concerning an individual of no particular eminence or importance, has produced one of the most impressive vindications of literature ever spoken or written. Oratory at Rome assumed a new type from being cultivated as an art which endeavoured to produce persuasion not so much by intellectual conviction, as by appeal to general human sympathies. In oratory, as in every other intellectual province, the Greeks had a truer sense of the limits and conditions of their art. But command over form is only one element in the making of an orator or poet. The largeness and dignity of the matter with which he has to deal are at least as important. The Roman oratory of the law courts had to deal not with petty questions of disputed property, of fraud, or violence, but with great imperial questions, with matters affecting the well-being of large provinces and the honour and safety of the republic; and no man ever lived who, in these respects, was better fitted than Cicero to be the representative of the type of oratory demanded by the condition of the later republic. To his great artistic accomplishment, perfected by practice and elaborate study, to the power of his patriotic, his moral, and personal sympathies, and his passionate emotional nature, must be added his vivid imagination and the rich and copious stream of his language, in which he had no rival among Roman writers or speakers. It has been said that Roman poetry has produced few, if any, great types of character. But the Verres, Catiline, Antony of Cicero are living and permanent types. The story told in the Pro Cluentio may be true or false, but the picture of provincial crime which it presents is vividly dramatic. Had we only known Cicero in his speeches we should have ranked him with Demosthenes as one who had realized the highest literary ideal. We should think of him also as the creator and master of Latin style—and, moreover, not only as a great orator but as a just and appreciative critic of oratory. But to his services to Roman oratory we have to add his services not indeed
