OTHER POETS OF THIS PERIOD. For this, then, I from instant death did cover What though thy royal father's stern command Ah, vain appeal! upon the winds conveyed, No words his ear can reach or penetrate his breast! 235 The writers of the Augustan age and their successors paid Catullus what they considered the highest compliment, when they called him learned. Criticism referred everything to the Greek standard. The qualities which they recognised by this epithet were those which they deemed most valuable-more so even than originality and invention-an extensive acquaintance with the materials of Greek story, an elaborate study of the poets taken as models, a scientific appreciation of the cadences and harmonies of Greek versification. They were grateful for the blessings which they were conscious of having derived from mental cultivation; and the highest praise which they could bestow was to confer upon a poet the title of a learned and accomplished man. This period, at which prose reached its zenith, could boast of other poets, also, besides Lucretius and Catullus, whose merits were considerable although they did not satisfy the fastidious taste of the Augustan age. There flourished C. Licinius Calvus,1 C. Helvius Cinna, Valerius Cato, Valgius, Ticida, Furius Bibaculus, and Varro Aticinus. Cic. Brut. 82; ad Fam. xv. 21; Dial. de Or. 18; Quint. xi. 115. The first of these was a lively little man,1 an orator as well as a poet. His speeches were elaborately modelled after those of the Attic orators; and had his poems displayed the same polish, they might have satisfied Horace2 and his contemporaries, and thus have been preserved. As it is, the fragments which remain are so brief, that it is impossible to say whether his merits were such as to justify Niebuhr in placing him amongst the three greatest poets of his age. His poetry resembled that of Catullus in spirit and morality. It was the fashionable poetry of the day, and consisted of tender elegy, playful and sentimental epigram, licentious love-songs, and bitter personality. Cinna, besides smaller poems, was the author of an epic, entitled Smyrna; the subject is unknown: but Catullus, who was his intimate friend, praises it highly, and Virgil modestly declares that, as compared with Varius and Cinna, he himself appears a goose amongst swans. Valerius Cato was a grammarian as well as a poet. His two principal poems were entitled Lydia and Diana; and a fragmentary poem, to which the title Diræ or Curses has been given, has been generally attributed to him on the grounds that the author pours forth his woes to a mistress named Lydia. The argument of the piece is as follows:-The estate of Cato, like that of Virgil, was confiscated and made a military colony; and smarting under a sense of wrong, he imprecates curses on his lost home. Then the theme changes: his heart softens; and in sad accents he bewails his separation from his mistress, and from all his rural pleasures. This poem was formerly believed to be the work of Virgil, but neither the language nor the poetry can be compared to those of the Mantuan bard; nor do the sentiments resemble the calmness and resignation with which he bears his misfortunes. J. Scaliger, impressed with these considerations, transferred the authorship from Virgil to Cato. But there are no sufficient grounds for determining the question. Respecting C. Valgius Rufus all is doubt and obscurity. The 1 Cat. liv. 2 Sat. I. x. 16. 4 Ecl. 9. 5 Suet. de Ill. Gram. 2-9. 3 Cat. Carm. X. xcv. P. TERENTIUS VARRO ATACINUS. 237 grammarians quote from him; Pliny1 speaks of his learning; Horace refers to him as an elegiac poet, and expresses the greatest confidence in his critical taste and judgment. Ticida is mentioned by Suetonius as bearing testimony to the merits of Valerius Cato. Bibaculus was a bitter satirist, who spared not the feelings of his friend Cato when reduced from affluence to poverty;3 who himself had the vanity to attempt an epic poem, and by his vulgar taste provoked the severe criticism of Horace.1 6 P. Terentius Varro Atacinus was a contemporary of Varro Reatinus; and for this reason his works have often been confounded with those of the latter. He was born B. c. 82,5 near the river Atax in Gaul, and hence he was surnamed Atacinus, in order to distinguish him from his learned namesake, who derived his appellation from property which he possessed at Reati Very few fragments of his works are extant, although his poetry was of such a character that Virgil deemed some of his lines worthy of plagiarizing. His principal work, which is not spoken of in very high terms by Quintilian, is a translation of the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius. Besides this, he wrote two geographical poems, namely, the Chorographia and Libri Navales, a heroic poem entitled Bellum Sequanicum, on one of the Gallic campaigns of J. Cæsar, and also some elegies, epigrams, and saturæ.9 8 A fragment of the Chorographia is preserved by Meyer,1o the concluding lines of which were evidently imitated by Virgil, and also the following severe epigram on Licinius:— Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato nullo, Pompeius parvo; Quis putet esse Deos? Saxa premunt Licinum, levat altum fama Catonem, CHAPTER III. AGE OF VIRGIL FAVOURABLE TO POETRY-HIS BIRTH, EDUCATION, HABITS, ILLNESS, AND DEATH-HIS POPULARITY AND CHARACTER-HIS MINOR POEMS, THE CULEX CIRIS MORETUM COPA AND CATALECTA-HIS BUCOLICS-ITALIAN MANNERS NOT SUITED TO PASTORAL POETRY-IDYLLS OF THEOCRITUS-CLASSIFICATION OF THE BUCOLICS-SUBJECT OF THE POLIO-HEYNE'S THEORY RESPECTING IT. P. VIRGILIUS MARO (BORN B. c. 70.) THE period at which Virgil flourished was singularly favourable both to the development and appreciation of poetical talent of the most polished and cultivated kind. The indulgent liberality of the imperial court cherished and fostered genius: the ruin of republican liberty left the intellect of the age without any other object except refinement; imagination was not harassed by the cares and realities of life. The same causes contributed to limit the range of prose composition,1 and therefore the field was left undisputed to Virgil and Horace and their friends; and as the age of Cicero was essentially one in which prose literature flourished, so that of Augustus was the golden age of poetry. Of this age, Virgil stands forth pre-eminent amongst his contemporaries, as the representative. He exhibited all its characteristics, polish, ingenuity, and skill, and to these he superadded dignity and sublimity. The life of Virgil, commonly prefixed to his works, professes to be written by Tiberius Claudius Donatus, who lived in the fifth century. If, as Heyne thought, the groundwork is by him, it has been overlaid with fables similar to those found in the Gesta Romanorum, and owing their origin to the inventions of the dark ages. From this biography, stripped of those portions which are clearly fabulous, and from other sources, the following particulars respecting him may be derived: 1 See, on this subject, Niebuhr's Lectures on Roman History, cvi. -P. Virgilius Maro was born on the ides (the 15th) of October,1 B. C. 70, on a small estate belonging to his father, at Andes (Pietola,) a village of Cisalpine Gaul, situated about three Roman miles from Mantua. It has been disputed whether his name was Virgilius or Vergilius. Most probably both orthographies are correct, as Diana, Minerva, liber, and other Latin words, were frequently written Deana, Menerva, leber, &c.2 Virgil was by birth a citizen of Mantua,3 but not of Rome, for the full franchise was not extended to the Transpadani until B. C. 49, although they enjoyed the Jus Latii as early as B. c. 89. The varied stores of learning contained in the Georgics and Æneid, abundantly prove that Virgil received a liberal education. It is said that he acquired the rudiments of literature at Cremona, where he remained until he had assumed the toga virilis. This event, if the anonymous life is to be depended upon, took place unusually early; for it is there assigned to the consulships of Pompey the Great and Licinius Crassus," in the first consulship of whom he was born. From Cremona he went to Milan, and thence to Naples, where he studied Greek literature and philosophy under the direction of Parthenius, a native of Bithynia. Muretus asserts that he diligently read the history of Thucydides; but his favourite studies were medicine and mathematics -an unusual discipline to engage the attention of the future poet, but one which, by its exactness, tended to foster and mature that judgment which distinguishes his poetry. The philosophical sect to which he devoted himself was the Epicurean; and the unfortunate general, P. Quintilius Varus, to whom he addresses his sixth Eclogue, studied this system together with him under Syron. After this, it is probable that he came to Rome, but soon exchanged the bustle of the capital, for which his bashful disposition and delicate health unfitted him, for the quiet retirement of his hereditary estate. Of this he was deprived in B. C. 42, with circumstances of great hardship, when the whole neighbouring district was divided, after the battle of Philippi, amongst the |