CHAPTER IX. WHY TRAGEDY DID NOT FLOURISH AT ROME-NATIONAL LEGENDS NOT INFLUENTIAL WITH THE PEOPLE-FABULÆ PRÆTEXTATÆE-ROMAN RELIGION NOT IDEAL ROMAN LOVE FOR SCENES OF REAL ACTION AND GORGEOUS SPECTACLE-TRAGEDY NOT PATRONIZED BY THE PEOPLE-PACUVIUS-HIS DULORESTES AND PAULUS. FROM what has been already said, it is sufficiently clear that the Italians, like all other Indo-European races, had some taste for the drama, but that this taste developed itself in a love for scenes of humorous satire. Whilst, therefore, Roman comedy originated in Italy, and was brought to perfection by the influence of Greek literature, Roman tragedy, on the other hand, was transplanted from Athens, and with the exception of a very few cases, was never anything more than translation or imitation. 1 In the century during which, together with comedy, it flourished and decayed, it boasted of five distinguished writersLivius, Nævius, Ennius, Pacuvius, and Attius. The only claim of Atilius to be considered as a tragic poet is his having been the translator of one Greek tragedy. But, in after ages, Rome did not produce one tragic poet unless Varius can be considered an exception. His tragedy, Thyestes, which enjoyed so high a reputation among the critics of the Augustan age, that Quintilian, whose judgment generally agrees with them, pronounces it as able to bear comparison with the productions of the Greek tragic poets. It was acted on one occasion, namely, after the return of Octavius from the battle of Actium, and the poet received for it 1,000,000 sesterces (about 8,0007.) The tragedies attributed to Seneca were never acted, and were only composed for reading and recitation. Some account has already been given of Livius, Nævius, and Ennius, because their poetical reputation rests rather on other grounds than on their talents for dramatic poetry. But, before proceeding with the lives and writings of Pacuvius and Attius, it will be necessary to examine the causes which prevented tragedy from flourishing at Rome. See on this subject Lange, Vind. Trag. Rom. Leips. 1823. 2 Hor. Serm. i. 9, 23; Ep. Pis. 55; Mart. Ep. viii. 18. WHY TRAGEDY DID NOT FLOURISH. 127 In endeavoring to account for this phenomenon, it is not sufficient to say, that in the national legends of the Hellenic race were imbodied subjects essentially of a dramatic character, and that epic poetry contained incidents, characters, sentiments, and even dramatic machinery, which only required to be put upon the stage. Doubtless the Greek epics and legends were an inexhaustible source of inspiration to the tragic poets. But it is also true that the Romans had national legends which formed the groundwork of their history, and were interwoven in their early literature. These legends, however, were private, not public property; they were preserved in the records and pedigrees of private families, and ministered to their glory, and were therefore more interesting to the members of these houses than to the people at large: they were not preserved as a national treasure by priestly families, like those of the Attic Eumolpidæ, nor did they twine themselves around the hearts of the Roman people, as the venerable traditions of Greece did around those of that nation. The Romans did not live in them-they were embalmed in their poets as curious records of antiquity or acknowledged fictionsthey did not furnish occasions for awakening national enthusiasm. Although, therefore, they existed, they were comparatively powerless over the popular mind as elements of dramatic effect. They were jealously preserved by illustrious houses, furnished materials in a dry and unadorned form to the annalists, and were embellished by the graphic power of the historian; but it is not probable that they ever constituted, in the same sense as the Greek legends, the folklore of the Roman people. In themselves, the lays of Horatius and of the lake Regillus were sufficiently stirring, and those of Lucretia, Coriolanus, and Virginia sufficiently moving, for tragedy, but they were not familiar to the masses of the people. A period at length arrived in which there was a still further reason why Roman national legends, however adapted for tragedy they might be abstractedly, had no power to move the affections of the Roman populace. It ceased to have a personal interest in them. The masses had undergone a complete change. The Roman people of the most flourishing literary eras were not the descendants of those who maintained the national glory in the legendary period. Not only were almost all the patrician families then extinct, but war and poverty had extinguished the middle classes, and miserably thinned the lower orders. The old veterans of pure Roman blood who survived were settled at a distance from Rome in the different military colonies. Into the vacancy thus caused had poured thousands of slaves, captives in the bloody wars of Gaul and Spain, and Greece and Africa. These and their descendants replaced the ancient people. Many of them received liberty and franchise, and some by their talents and energy arrived at wealth and station. But they could not possibly be Romans at heart, or consider the past glories of their adopted country as their own. They were bound by no ties of old associations to it. The ancient legends had no especial interest in their eyes. It mattered little whether the incidents and characters of the tragedy which they witnessed were Greek or Roman. It was to the rise of this new element of population, and the displacement or absorption of the old race, that the decline of patriotism was owing-the careless disregard of everything except daily sustenance and daily amusement, which paved the way for the empire, and marked the downfall of liberty. From this cause, also, resulted in some degree the non-influential position which national traditions occupied at Rome; and tragedy, though for a time popular, could not maintain its popularity. Thus it entirely disappeared; and, when it revived, it came forth, not as the favorite of the people, but under the patronage of select circles, and took its place, not like Athenian tragedy, as the leading literature of the age, but simply as one species of literary composition. A people made up of these elements held out no temptation to the poet to leave the beaten track of his predecessors, the imitations of Greek tragedy. They were step-sons of Rome, as Scipio Emilianus called the mob, who clamored at his saying that the death of Tiberius Gracchus was just : Mercedibus emptæ Et viles operæ quibus est mea Roma noverca. Petron. v. 164. The poet's real patrons had been educated on Greek principles; and hence Greek taste was completely triumphant over national legend, and the heroes of Roman tragedy were those who were celebrated in Hellenic story. The Roman historical plays (prætextata), which approached most nearly towards realizing the idea of a national tragedy, were graceful compliments to distinguished individuals. They were usually performed at public funerals; and as, in the procession, masks representing the features of the deceased were borne by persons of similar stature, so incidents in his life formed the subject of the drama which was exhibited on the occasion. The list of Fabulæ Prætextatæ, even if it were perfect, would 1 Juv. Sat. x. 80. ROMAN RELIGION NOT IDEAL. 129 occupy but narrow limits; nor had they sufficient merits to stand the test of time. They survive but in name, and the titles extant are but nine in number: The Paulus of Pacuvius, which represented an incident in the life of L. Æmilius Paulus.' The Brutus, Æneada, and Marcellus of Attius. Iter ad Lentulum, a passage in the life of Balbus.3 Domitius Nero, by Maternus, in the time of Vespasian. Octavian, by Seneca, in the reign of Trajan. Nor must it be forgotten, in comparing the influence which tragedy exercised upon the peoples of Athens and Rome, that with the former it was a part and parcel of the national religion. By it not only were the people taught to sympathize with their heroic ancestors, but their sympathies were hallowed. In Greece * the poet was held to be inspired; poetry was the voice of deified nature-the tongue in which the natural held communion with the supernatural, the visible with the invisible. With the Romans, poetry was nothing more than an amusement of the fancy; with the Greeks it was a divinely originating emotion of the soul. Hence, in Athens, the drama was, as it were, an act of worship -it formed an integral part of a joyous, yet serious, religious festival. The theatre was a temple; the altar of a deity was its central point; and a band of choristers moved in solemn march and song in honor of the god, and, in the didactic spirit which sanctified their office, taught men lessons of virtue. Not that the audience entered the precincts with their hearts imbued with holy feelings, or with the thoughts of worshippers; but this is always the case when religious ceremonials become sensuous. The real object of the worship is by the majority forgotten. But still the Greeks were habituated unconsciously to be affected by the drama, as by a development of religious sentiments. With the Romans, the theatre was merely a place of secular amusement. The thymele existed no longer as a memorial of the sacrifice to the god. The orchestra, formerly consecrated to the chorus, was to them nothing more than stalls occupied by the dignitaries of the state. Dramas were certainly exhibited at the great Megalensian games, but they were only accessories to the religious character of the festival. A holy season implies rest and relaxation—a holiday in the popular sense of the word—and theatrical representations were considered a fit and proper species of pastime; but as reli Liv. xxii. 49. 2 Cic. Att. xvi. 2, 5. 3 Cic. Fam. x. 32. gion itself did not exercise the same influence over the popular mind of the Romans which it did over that of the Greeks, so neither with the Romans did the drama stand in the place of the handmaid of religion. Again, their religion, though purer and chaster, was not ideal like that of the Greeks. Its freedom from human passions removed it out of the sphere of poetry, and therefore it was neither calculated to move terror nor pity. The moral attributes of the Deity were displayed in stern severity; but neither the belief nor the ceremonial sought to inflame the heart of the worshipper with enthusiasm. Rome had no priestly caste uniting in one and the same person the character of the bard and of the minister of religion. In after ages, she learned from the Greeks to call the poet sacred, but the holiness which she attributed to his character was not the earnest belief of the heart. The Roman priests were civil magistrates; religion, therefore, became a part of the civil administration, and a political engine. It mattered little what was believed as true. The old national faith of Italy, not being firmly rooted in the heart, soon became obsolete: it readily admitted the engrafting of foreign superstitions. The old deities assumed the names of the Greek mythology: they exchanged their attributes and histories for those of Greek legend, and a host of strange gods filled their Pantheon. They had, however, no hold either on the belief or the love of the people: they were mythological and unreal characters, fit only to furnish subjects and embellishments for poetry. Nor was the genius of the Roman people such as to sympathize with the legends of the past. The Romans lived in the present and the future, rather than in the past. The poet might call the age in which he lived degenerate, and look forward with mournful anticipations to a still lower degradation, whilst he looked back admiringly to bygone times. Through the vista of past years, Roman virtue and greatness seemed to his imagination magnified: he could lament, as Horace did, a gradual decay, which had not as yet reached its worst point : Ætas parentum pejor avis tulit Nos nequiores mox daturos Od. III. vi. 46. But the people did not sympathize with these feelings: they delighted in action, not in contemplation and reflection. They did not look back upon their national heroes as demigods, or dream over their glories: they were pressing forward and extending the frontiers of their empire, bringing under their yoke tribes and nations which their forefathers had not known. If |