Regia monstra parant. Ut vidit cominus enses Now in the boat defenceless Pompey sate, No sigus, no groans, his dignity profaned, No tear his still unsullied glory stained. Unmoved and firm he fixed him on his seat, And died, as when he lived and conquered-great. 2 C. SILIUS ITALICUS. C. Silius Italicus was born in the reign of Tiberius, A. D. 25. The place of his birth is unknown. His surname, Italicus, has led some to suppose that he was a native of Italica, in Spain. But it is not probable that, if this were the case, his friend and fellow-courtier Martial, when he compared his eloquence to that of Cicero, and his poetry to that of Virgil,' called him the glory of the Castalian sisters, and felicitated him on his political honors, would have forgotten to claim him as a countryman. Others, with somewhat more show of reason, have imagined that his birthplace was the city of Corfinium, in Pelignia, which was called Italica, because it was the head-quarters of the confederates in the Social war; while Stephens mentions a little town in Sicily, of the same name, which might have been his native place.* Silius was celebrated as an advocate; but in that age of affected and rhetorical display, a high reputation does not prove that his eloquence, although it might have displayed a similar elegance of language, was more lively and stirring than his poetry. He was consul A. D. 68; an office which was also filled by his son,3 and by another member of his family. He was afterwards proconsul of Asia; the duties of which lucrative office he appears to have performed with credit to himself. He was very wealthy; and, as he grew old, retired from the perils of public life to enjoy his affluence, and the retirement of literary ease in his numerous 'Lib. ii. 63. 3 Strabo, Geog. v. 167. Mart. Ep. viii. 66. ? See also iv. 14; vi. 64; viii. 66; ix. 86; xi. 49–51. 4 See notes to Plin. Ep. ed. Var. 6 Suet. v. Octav. 101. 3 CHARACTER BY PLINY. 377 villas. One cannot be surprised that an orator and a poet especially delighted in the house of Virgil, near Naples, and the Academy of Cicero, of both which he was the fortunate possessor. He lived to the age of seventy-five, and then starved himself to death, because he could not bear the pain of disease. "I have just been informed," writes Pliny the Younger, to his friend Caninius, "that Silius Italicus has put an end to his existence by starvation, at his Neapolitan villa. He had an incurable carbuncle, from the annoyance of which he took refuge in death, with a firm and irrevocable constancy. He enjoyed happiness and prosperity to his dying day, if we except the loss of the younger of his two sons; but the elder and superior one survived him in the enjoyment of prosperity, and even of consular rank. The belief that he had voluntarily come forward as a public accuser injured his reputation in the reign of Nero; but, as a friend of Vitellius,] his conduct was wise and his behavior courteous. His career in the proconsulate of Asia was an honorable one, for he washed out the stain of his former activity by a praiseworthy abstinence from public affairs. He had no influence with the great; but then he was safe from envy. All courted him, and were assiduous in paying their respects to him; and as ill health confined him to his bed, his chamber was thronged with visitors, beyond what might have been expected from his rank and station. Whenever he could spare time for writing, he passed it in learned conversation. His poems display elaborate care rather than genius: sometimes he invited criticism by recitations. Yielding to the sug gestion of advancing years, he at length retired from Rome, and resided in Campania; nor had the accession of a new emperor (Trajan) power to entice him from his retirement. High praise to the monarch under whose rule he was free to act so!-high praise to him who had courage to use that freedom! His love of virtù caused in him a reprehensible passion for buying: he was the possessor of more than one villa in the same localities; and he so delighted in the newest purchase as to neglect that which he inhabited before. He had a vast collection of books, besides statues and busts, which he not only possessed, but almost worshipped. He kept Virgil's birthday more religiously than his own, and had more busts of him than any one else, especially at Naples, where he was in the habit of visiting his tomb, as if it were a temple. In this tranquil retirement he exceeded his seventy-fifth year, his constitution being delicate rather than weakly. As he was the last consul made by Nero, so he died the 1 Ep. iii. 7. last of those whom he had made. It is also worthy of remark that the consul, in whose year of office Nero died, died the last of Nero's consuls. When I call this to mind, I feel compassion for human frailty: for what is so brief as the longest span of human life!" Little interest attaches to the biography of one who owed a life of uninterrupted prosperity to his being the favorite and intimate of two emperors; the one, a bloodthirsty tyrant-the other, a gross sensualist. His ponderous work survives-the dullest and most tedious poem in the Latin language. Its title is "Punica:" it consists of seventeen books, and contains a history in heroic verse of the second Punic war. The Eneid of Virgil was his model, and the narrative of Livy furnished his materials. Niebuhr states that he read through the whole of his works with great care, and that he was quite convinced that he had taken everything from Livy, of whose work his is only a paraphrase. The criticism of Pliny the Younger is, upon the whole, just: "Scribebat carmina majori cura quam ingenio;" for, although it is impossible to read his poem with pleasure as a whole, his versifi-, cation is harmonious, and will often, in point of smoothness, bear comparison with that of Virgil. The following passage is quoted by C. Barthius as one of the most favorable specimens of his sentiments and style; and Cellarius, whose praise is extravagantly fulsome, gives it the epithet of "Aurea:" Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces; Some of his episodes, if considered as separate pieces, will repay the trouble of perusal; and the following passage, which Addison thought worthy of translation, may be taken as a fair specimen of his descriptive powers: THE ALPS. Cuncta gelu canâque æternum grandine tecta, Nero and Vitellius. 2 Introd. Lect. on R. H. viii. DESCRIPTION OF THE ALPS. Nam cuncti flatus ventique furentia regna Stiff with eternal ice, and hid in snow, From the bright regions of the cheerful sky, 379 Addison. CHAPTER V. C. VALERIUS FLACCUS-FAULTS OF THE ARGONAUTICA-PAPINIUS STATIUS-BEAUTY OF HIS MINOR POEMS-INCAPABLE OF EPIC POETRY-DOMITIAN-EPIGRAM-MARTIALHIS BIOGRAPHY-PROFLIGACY OF THE AGE IN WHICH HE LIVED-IMPURITY OF HIS WRITINGS-FAVORABLE SPECIMENS OF HIS POETRY. C. VALERIUS FLACCUS. C. VALERIUS FLACCUS flourished in the reign of Vespasian; and, according to an epigram of Martial, in which the poet advises his friend to leave the Muses for the drier but more profitable profession of a pleader, he was born at Patavium' (Padua). The frequent addition of the surnames Setinus Balbus, have caused it to be supposed that he was a native of Setia, in Campania (Sezzo); but it is impossible to form any satisfactory conjecture as to their signification, and the statement of Martial is too definite to admit of a doubt. Quintilian2 asserts that, when he wrote, V. Flaccus had lately died: he was, therefore, probably cut off prematurely, about A. D. 88. His only poem which is extant is entitled Argonautica, and is an imitation, and, in some parts, a translation, of the Greek poem of Apollonius Rhodius on the same subject. It is addressed to the Emperor, and in the proëmium he pays a compliment to Domitian on his poetry, and to Titus on his victories over the Jews. He evidently did not live to complete his original design; even the eighth book is unfinished; and from the events still remaining to be related, he probably planned an epic poem of the same length as that of Virgil, whose style and versification he endeavored to imitate. An Italian poet, John Baptista Pius, continued the subject, by an addition to the eighth book, and by subjoining two more, the incidents of which were partly borrowed from Apollonius. Of his merits Quintilian speaks favorably, in the passage already alluded to, and says, that in him literature had sustained a severe loss. The severer criticism of Scaliger is more precise and more 1 Lib. i. 62, 77. 2 Inst. Orat. x. i. 90. |