Omnia certo tramite vadunt It cuique ratus, prece non ulla We are led by destiny-yield then to its power. Edip. 980. Anxious care can. not change the thread spun by the distaff of the Fates. Even the philosophical inconsistencies1 traceable in the prose treatises are repeated in the tragedies. In one letter2 he affirms his belief that the soul of Scipio Africanus has ascended into heaven as a reward of his virtue and piety; in another he asserts the gloomy doctrine that death is annihilation: "Mors est non esse." In like manner in the "Troades" the Chorus declares that the happy Priam wanders amongst pious souls in the safe Elysian shades;" and yet, with an inconsistency which the Letters of the philosopher alone account for, another passage in the same tragedy declares that the spirit vanishes like smoke, that after death is nothingness, and death itself is nothing." On such internal evidence as this rests the probability, amounting to certainty, that Seneca the philosopher, and the author of the ten tragedies, are one and the same." almost Notwithstanding their false rhetorical taste, and the absence of all ideal and creative genius, the tragedies of Seneca found 6 of the closeness with which Seneca imitated the Greek tragic poets, the two following passages will serve as specimens: Animam senilem mollis exsolvit sopor. Σμικρὰ παλαιὰ σώματ' εὐνάζει ῥοπή. Quis eluet me Tanais. Οίμαι γαρ οὔτ ̓ ἂν Ἴστρον, οὔτε Φασιν ἂν νίψαι καθαρμῷ . Edip. 788. Hippolyt. 715. Ed. Tyr. 1227. FRENCH SCHOOL OF TRAGEDY. 411 many admirers and imitators in modern times. The French school of tragic poets took them for their model: Corneille evidently considered them the ideal of tragedy, and Racine servilely imitated them. Their philosophy captivated an age which thought that nothing was so sublime as heathen philosophy; and yet that same age derived its notions of ancient philosophy from the Romans instead of from the original Greek sources; and its poetical taste, as far as it was classical, was formed on a study of Roman dramatic literature, before the excellence of the Attic drama was sufficiently known to be appreciated. CHAPTER III. BIOGRAPHY OF PERSIUS-HIS SCHOOLBOY DAYS-HIS FRIENDS-HIS PURITY AND MODESTY-HIS DEFECTS AS A SATIRIST-SUBJECTS OF HIS SATIRES-OBSCURITY OF HIS STYLE-COMPARED WITH HORACE-BIOGRAPHY OF JUVENAL-CORRUPTION OF ROMAN MORALS-CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE SATIRES-THEIR HISTORICAL VALUE-STYLE OF JUVENAL-HE WAS THE LAST OF ROMAN SATIRISTS. AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS (BORN A. D. 34.) ROMAN satire subsequently to Horace is represented by Aulus Persius Flaccus and Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Persius was a member of an equestrian family, and was born, according to the Eusebian Chronicle, A. D. 34, at Volaterræ in Etruria. He was related to the best families in Italy, and numbered amongst his kindred Arria, the noble-minded wife of Pætus. His father died when he was six years old, and his mother, Fulvia Sisenna, married a second time a Roman knight named Fusius. In a few years she was again a widow. Persius received his elementary education at his native town; but at twelve years of age he was brought to Rome, and went through the usual course of grammar and rhetoric, under Remmius Palæmon1 and Virginius Flavus.2 The former of these was, like so many men of letters, a freedman, and the son of a slave. He was, according to Suetonius,3 a man of profligate morals, but gifted with great fluency of speech, and a prodigious memory. He was rather a versifier than a poet, and, like so many modern Italians, possessed the talent of improvising. He was prosperous as a schoolmaster, considering the very small pittance which the members of that profession usually earned, for his school brought him in forty sestertia per annum (about 3257.) Virginius Flavus is only known as the author of a treatise on Rhetoric. Juv. vi. 451; vii. 219. 3 De Illust. Gram. 23. 2 Suet. Pers. Vit. SCHOOL DAYS OF PERSIUS. 413 Persius himself gives1 an amusing picture of his schoolboy idleness, his love of play, and his tricks to escape the hated declamation which, in Roman schools, formed a weekly exercise:2 Sæpe oculos, memini, tangebam parvus olivo, Oft, I remember yet, my sight to spoil, For then, alas! 'twas my supreme delight Anxious no rival candidate for fame Should hit the long-necked jar with nicer aim; Gifford. At sixteen, Persius attached himself to the Stoic philosopher Annæus Cornutus, by whom he was imbued with the stern philosophical principles which occupy so prominent a place in his Satires. The friendship which he formed thus early in life continued until the day of his death. The young Lucan was also one of his intimate associates, whose philosophical and poetical tastes were similar to his own, and who had a profound admiration for his writings. He was acquainted with Seneca, but had no very great regard either for him or his works. Cæsius Bassus, to whom he addressed his sixth Satire, was also one of his 1 Sat. iii. 44. 2 Quint. I. O. ii. 7; x. 5. intimates.1 It redounds greatly to his honour that he enjoyed the friendship of Pætus Thrasea, one of the noblest examples of Roman virtue. Persius died prematurely of a disease in the stomach, at the age of twenty-eight. He left a large fortune to his mother and sister; and his library, consisting of seven hundred volumes, together with a considerable pecuniary legacy, to his beloved tutor, Cornutus. The philosopher, however, disinterestedly gave up the money to the sister of his deceased friend. Pure in mind and chaste in life, Persius was free from the corrupt taint of an immoral age. He exhibited all the self-denial, the control of the passions, and the stern uncompromising principles of the philosophy which he admired, but not its hypocrisy. Stoicism was not, in his case, as in that of so many others, a cloak for vice and profligacy. Although Lucretius was, to a certain extent, his model, he does not attack vice with the biting severity of the old satirist. He rather adopts the caustic irony of the old Greek comedy, as more in accordance with that style of attack which he himself terms— petulanti splene cachinno." Nor do we find in his writings the fiery ardour, the enthusiastic indignation, which burn in the verses of Juvenal; but this resulted from the tenderness of his heart and the gentleness of his disposition, and not from any disqualification for the duties of a moral instructor, such as weak moral principle, or irresolute timidity. Although he must have been conscious that the dangerous times during which his short life was passed rendered caution necessary, still it is far more probable that his purity of mind and kindliness of heart disinclined him to portray vice in its hideous and loathsome forms, and to indulge in bitterness of invective which prevalent enormities of his times deserved. It may be questioned whether obscenities like those of Juvenal, notwithstanding purity 1 Quintilian (I. O. x. 96) pronounces the lyric poetry of Bassus inferior only to that of Horace; but only two lines of his poems are extant. He was destroyed by the same eruption in which Pliny the elder perished. 2 Tac. Am. xvi. 21. 3 Sat. i. 12. |