pensers of these blessings was a corrupt and degenerate one. They could not separate the causes and the effects; they did not see that Rome was intellectually advanced by Greek literature, but that unfortunately it was degraded at the same time by Greek profligacy.

For centuries the Roman mind was imbued with Etruscan literature; and Livy1 asserts that, just as Greek was in his own day, it continued to be the instrument of Roman education during five centuries after the foundation of the city.

The tendency of the Roman mind was essentially utilitarian. Even Cicero, with all his varied accomplishments, will recognise but one end and object of all study, namely, those sciences which will render a man useful to his country:-"Quid esse igitur censes discendum nobis? Eas artes quæ efficiunt ut usui civitati simus; id enim esse præclarissimum sapientiæ munus maximumque virtutis vel documentum vel officium puto." We must, therefore, expect to find the law of literary development modified in accordance with this ruling principle. From the very beginning, the final cause of Roman literature will be found to have been a view to utility, and not the satisfaction of an impulsive feeling.

In other nations poetry has been the first spontaneous production. With the Romans the first literary effort was history. But their early history consisted simply of annals and memorials -records of facts, not of ideas or sentiments. It was calculated to form a storehouse of valuable materials for future ages, but it had no impress of genius or thought; its merits were truth and accuracy; its very facts were often frivolous and unimportant, neither rendered interesting as narratives, nor illustrated by reflections. These original documents were elements of literature rather than deserving the name of literature itself-antiquarian rather than historical. The earliest records of this kind were the Libri Lintei-manuscripts written on rolls of linen cloth, to which Livy refers as containing the first treaty between Rome and Carthage, and the truce made with Ardea and Gabii.3 To these may be added the Annales Maximi, or Commentarii 2 De Rep. i. 20. 3 Lib. iv. 7, 13, 20.

1 Lib. ix. 36.

Pontificum, of the minute accuracy of which, the following account is given by Servius.' "Every year the chief pontiff inscribed on a white tablet, at the head of which were the names of the consuls and other magistrates, a daily record of all memorable events both at home and abroad. These commentaries or registers were afterwards collected into eighty books, which were entitled by their authors Annales Maximi."

Similar notes of the year were kept regularly from the earliest periods by the civil magistrates, and are spoken of by Latin authors under the titles of Commentarii Consulares, Libri Prætorum, and Tabulæ Censoriæ. All these records, however, which were anterior to the capture of Rome by the Gauls, perished in the conflagration of the city.

Each patrician house, also, had its private family history, and the laudatory orations said to have been recited at the funerals of illustrious members, were carefully preserved, as adorning and illustrating their nobility; but this heraldic literature obscured instead of throwing a light upon history: it was filled with false triumphs, imaginary consulships, and forged genealogies.2 The earliest attempt at poetry, or rather versification, for it was simply the outward form and not the inward spirit which the rude inhabitants of Latium attained, was satire in somewhat of a dramatic form. The Fescennine songs were metrical, for the accompaniments of music and dancing necessarily subjected their extemporaneous effusions to the restrictions of a rude.

measure.

Like the first theatrical exhibitions of the Greeks, they had their origin, not in towns, but amongst the rural population. They were not, like Greek tragedy, performed in honour of a deity, nor did they form a portion of a religious ceremonial. Still, however, they were the accompaniment of it, the pastime of the village festival. Religion was the excuse for the holiday sport, and amusement its natural occupation. At first they were innocent and gay, their mirth overflowed in boisterous but goodhumoured repartee; but liberty at length degenerated into license, and gave birth to malicious and libellous attacks on per

'In Virg. Æn. i. 372. See also Cic. Or. ii. 12; and Quinct, Ins. Or. x. 2, 7. 2 Cic. Brut. 16.

sons of irreproachable character. As the licentiousness of Greek comedy provoked the interference of the legislature, so the laws of the Twelve Tables forbade the personalities of the Fescennine

verses.

This infancy of song illustrates the character of the Romans in its rudest and coarsest form. They loved strife, both bodily and mental: with them the highest exercise of the intellect was in legal conflict and political debate; and, on the same principle, the pleasure which the spectators in the rural theatre derived from this species of attack and defence, approached somewhat nearly to the enthusiasm with which they would have witnessed an exhibition of gladiatorial skill. The rustic delighted in the strife of words as he would in the wrestling matches which also formed a portion of his day's sports, and thus early displayed that taste, which, in more polished ages, and in the hands of cultivated poets, was developed in the sharp cutting wit, the lively but piercing points of Roman satire.

The Fescennine verses show that the Romans possessed a natural aptitude for satire. The pleasure derived from this species of writing, as well as the moral influence exercised by it, depends not upon an æsthetic appreciation of the beautiful, but on a high sense of moral duty; and such a sense displays itself in a stern and indignant abhorrence of vice rather than a disposition to be attracted by the charms and loveliness of virtue. The Romans were a stern, not an æsthetic people, consequently satire is the most original of all Roman literature, and the perfect and polished form which it afterwards assumed was entirely their own. They did, indeed, afterwards acutely observe and readily seize upon those parts of Greek literature which were subservient to this end, and hence Lucilius, the founder of Roman satire, eagerly adopted the models and materials which Greek comedy placed at his disposal, and thus became, as Horace2 writes, a disciple of Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes.

So permanent was the popularity of these entertainments that they even survived the introduction of Greek letters, and received a polish and refinement from the change which then took place 2 Sermon. i. 4, 6.

'Hor. Ep. II. i. 139, &c.

in the spirit of the national poetry. It has been said, that in these rude elements of the drama, Etruria was the first teacher of Latium, and that the epithet, Fescennine, perpetuates the name of an Etrurian village, Fescennia, from which the amusement derived its origin; but Niebuhr has shown that Fescennia was not an Etruscan village, and, therefore, that this etymology is untenable.

The most probable etymology of the word Fescennine is one given by Festus.2 Fascinium was the Greek Phallus, the emblem of fertility; and as the origin of Greek comedy was derived from the rustic Phallic songs, so he considers that the same ceremonial may be, in some way, connected with the Fescennine verses. If this be the true account, the Etruscans furnished the spectacle-all that which addresses itself to the eye, whilst the habits of Italian rural life supplied the sarcastic humour and ready extemporaneous gibe, which are the essence of the true comic; and these combined elements having migrated from the country to the capital, and being enthusiastically adopted by young men of more refined taste and more liberal education, afterwards paved the way for the introduction and adaptation of Greek comedy.

If in these improvisatory dialogues may be discerned the germ of the Roman Comic Drama, the next advance in point of art must be attributed to the Oscans. Their quasi-dramatic entertainments were most popular amongst the Italian nations. They represented in broad caricature national peculiarities: the language of the dialogue was, of course, originally Oscan, the characters of the drama were Oscan likewise. The principal one was called Macchus, whose part was that of the Clown in the modern pantomime. Another was termed Bucco, who was a kind of Pantaloon, or charlatan. Much of the wit consisted in practical jokes like that of the Italian Polichinello. These entertainments were sometimes called Ludi Osci, but they are more

1 Virg. Georg. II. 385; Tibull. II. i. 55; Catull. 61, 27.

2 Sub voc.

3 Bernhardy's Grundriss, 379; Diomedes, Gr. iii. 487; Val. Max. ii. 4; Festus v. person. fab.

commonly known by the title of Fabulæ Atellanæ, from Aderla,1 or, as the Romans pronounced it, Atella, a town in Campania, where. they were very popular, or perhaps first performed. After their introduction at Rome they underwent great modifications and received important improvements. They lost their native rusticity; their satire was good natured; their jests were seemly, and kept in check by the laws of good taste, and were free from scurrility or obscenity. They seem in later times to have been divided, like comedies, into five acts, with exodia,3 i. e. farcical interludes in verse, interspersed between them. Nor were they acted by the common professional performers. The Atellan actors formed a peculiar class; they were not considered infamous, nor were they excluded from the tribes, but enjoyed the privilege of immunity from military service. Even a private Roman citizen might take a part in them without disgrace or disfranchisement, although these were the social penalties imposed upon the regular histrio. The Fabulæ Atellanæ introduced thus early remained in favour for centuries. The dictator Sylla is said to have amused his leisure hours in writing them; and Suetonius bears testimony to their having been a popular amusement under the empire.

As early, however, as the close of the fourth century, the drama took a more artificial form. In the consulship of C. Sulpicius Peticus and C. Dicinius Stolo, a pestilence devastated Rome. In order to deprecate the anger of the gods, a solemn lectisternium was proclaimed; couches of marble were prepared, with cushions and coverlets of tapestry, on which were placed the statues of the deities in a reclining posture. Before them were placed well-spread tables, as though they were able to partake of the feast. On this occasion a company of stage-players (histriones) were sent for from Etruria, as a means, according to Livy of propitiating the favour of Heaven; but probably also for the wiser purpose of diverting the popular mind from the contemplation of their own suffering. These entertainments were a novelty to a people whose only recognised public sports, up to

1 Now St. Arpino.

3 Juv. Sat. iii. 172.

5

B. C. 364; A. U. c. 390.

2 Cic. Ep. ad Pap.

4 V. Schlegel, lect. viii.

6 Livy, vii. 2.