Of the elegiac poets of this period whose works have come down to us, the most charming is ALBIUS TIBULLUS (54-19 B.C.). Adopting the form of Alexandrine elegy, he breathed into it a fresh spirit of Italian country life. In his love poems to Delia, whose true name was Plania, there is a certain tender melancholy which we do not find in the rest of classical literature. By his deft handling of the pentameter he made an important technical advance in the development of Latin Elegy. Along with his works and under his name were published after his death some poems, which were not by him, but by a certain Lygdamus (perhaps a fictitious name). Also included in the collection of his elegies are some which were written by Sulpicia, the niece of his patron Messalla.
The Umbrian poet SEXTUS PROPERTIU (probably born at Asisium, about 49-15 B.C.) did not emancipate himself like Tibullus from the influence of his Alexandrine models, Callimachus and Philetas. On the contrary he prides himself on his Alexandrinism, and calls himself the Roman Callimachus. He was very learned, and his elegies are full of obscure references to out of the way myths. Nevertheless no works of the age are so thoroughly impressed with the individuality of the writer as the passionate poems of Propertius. The passion which inspired his song, was his love for Hostia, a beautiful and accomplished courtezan, whom he disguised under the name of Cynthia, as Catullus had disguised Clodia under Lesbia, and Tibullus Plania under Delia. His first Book of Elegies brought him fame, and probably secured him an admission into the circle of Maecenas. The imagination of Propertius was eccentric, his nature melancholic. He looked at things on their gloomy side, and perhaps his special charm is his skillfulness in suggesting vague possibilities of pain or terror. He loved the vague, both in thought and in expression; in his metaphors, the image and the thing imaged often pass into each other, and the meaning becomes indistinct. He seems to have been a man of weak will, and this is reflected in his poetry. It has been noticed by those who have studied his language, that he prefers to express feelings as possible rather than as real; his thoughts naturally ran in the potential mood. His connection with Cynthia lasted for about five years, and after it was broken off, Propertius wrote little. It was Cynthia who had made him a poet.
The third of the great Roman elegiac poets, P. OVIDIUS NASO, of equestrian family, was born at Sulmo in the Paelignian territory, 43 B.C.. Trained in rhetoric and law, he entered upon an official career and by the favor of Augustus received the latus clavus, and held some of the lower equestrian posts, such as vigintivir and decemvir. But he gave his profession up for the sake of poetry. He has said himself, in a verse which probably suggested a familiar line of Pope, that verse-writing came to him by nature:
Quidquid temabam dicere versus erat.
He is the only one of the great Augustan poets whose literary career belongs entirely to the Augustan age. His works may be classified in three periods. (1) The extant works of the early period are all on amatory subjects and in elegiac verse. The Amores, in three Books, celebrate Corinna. The Ars Amatoria, likewise in three Books, gives advice to lovers of both sexes as to the conducting of their love affairs, while the Remedia Amoris prescribes cures for a troublesome passion. But the best work of this period is the Heroides, a collection of imaginary letters of legendary heroines, such as Penelope, Dido, Phaedra, to their lovers. Here Ovid has shown his poetic power at its best.
(2) The two works of the second period, the Metamorphoses and the Fasti, are the most ambitious of Ovid’s works. They deal respectively with Greek and Roman mythology. For the Metamorphoses or Transformations, composed in hexameter verse, Ovid obtained his material chiefly from the Alexandrine poets Nicander and Parthenius. The Fasti, a sort of commentary on the Roman calendar, in elegiac metre, should have consisted of twelve books, one for each month of the year, but only six (March to August) were completed.
The third period begins with Ovid’s banishment to Tomi in Scythia, in 9 A.D.. The cause of this banishment is one of those historical mysteries which can never be decided with certainty. The poet himself only ventures on dark hints. He mentions “a poem and an error” as the two charges which led to his fate. He also says that his eyes were to blame. The poem probably refers to his licentious Ars amatoria which was so opposed in spirit to the attempts at social reform made by the framer of the Julian Laws. But the true cause must have been the mysterious error. It has been conjectured, with considerable probability, that Ovid had witnessed some act of misconduct on the part of a member of the Emperor’s family, and was punished for not having prevented it. This may have been connected with the adultery of the younger Julia and D. Silanus. The poet perhaps was made the scapegoat. In his exile on the shores of the Euxine, he composed the letters ex Ponto (in four Books), and the Tristia (in five books), in which he laments his fate and implores to be forgiven; the Ibis, a bitter attack on some anonymous enemy, on the model of a poem which Callimachus wrote against Apollonius of Rhodes; and an unfinished poem on fishing (Halieutica). He also wrote a Getic poem in honor of Augustus. But neither Augustus nor his successor Tiberius revoked the sentence of the unhappy poet, and Ovid died at Tomi in 17 A.D.
In handling the elegiac metre, Ovid bound himself by stricter rules than his predecessors. He had wonderful facility in versification, but he was more of a rhetorician than a poet, and he is most successful where rhetoric tells, as in theHeroides. He lived in ease and luxury, and rejoiced that he lived in the age of Augustus, when life went smoothly. His love-poetry was distinguished by lubricity; and in this he contrasted unfavorably with Tibullus and Propertius. The tragedy of Medea, which he composed in his early period, is not extant; but it and the Thyestes of Varius were the two illustrious tragedies of the day. Two poems, Nux, an elegy, and the Consolatio A.D. Liviam, were falsely ascribed to Ovid, but were probably written by some contemporary of inferior talent.
Among the friends of Ovid, who were likewise poets, may be mentioned SABINUS who wrote answers to the Heroides; PONTICUS, author of a Thebaid; CORNELIUS SEVERUS, who treated the Sicilian war with Sextus Pompeius in verse. The “starry” ALBINOVANUS PEDO, wrote a Theseid, and also an epic on contemporary history.
The Georgics of Virgil and the Halieutics of Ovid belong to the kind of poetry known as didactic. Other works of this class are the Gynegetica of GRATTIUS, on the art of hunting; and the Astronomica of MANILIUS, in five Books. Of the author of this astronomical poem we know nothing, even his name is uncertain, but he possessed poetical facility of no mean order, and considerable originality.
Most of the short occasional pieces, of a light and humorous nature, which were collected under the title of Priapea, belong to the Augustan age, and many of them to the best poets.
SECT. II. — LATIN PROSE-WRITERS
The History of Rome by TITUS LIVIUS (59 B.C.-17 A.D..) stands out as the greatest prose work of the Augustan period. Livy was born at Patavium, and a certain Patavinity has been remarked in his diction. But most of his life was spent at Rome, where he studied rhetoric, wrote philosophical dialogues, and enjoyed the friendship of Augustus. He began his history (Ab urbe condita libriwas the title) soon after the foundation of the Empire, and carried it down as far as the death of Drusus (9 B.C.). The work consisted of 142 Books in all, originally distributed in decads and half-decads, which appeared separately, according as they were completed. But only 35 Books have been preserved to us, namely B. 1-10 and B. 21-45. We have, however, short epitomes of the contents of almost all the lost Books.
Livy was a mild and amiable man, who held no extreme views, liked compromise and conciliation, hated violence and turbulence, and could be indulgent to men of all parties. This fair and equable temper can be traced in his history; the one thing which is unpardonable in his eyes is harsh fanaticism. Ancient Rome is his ideal; and he regards his own age as degenerate, destitute of the virtues, simplicity, and piety which made the old time so great. His heroes are Cincinnatus, Camillas, Fabius the Delayer. This general view of the course of Roman history he states in strong language in the general preface to his work. He invites his readers to learn by what men and by what policy at home and abroad the empire of Rome was won and increased, then to follow the gradual decline of discipline and morals, then witness that decline becoming more and more marked, and ending in a headlong downward