A History of Roman Literature. Harold North Fowler
as much prominence as was their due, even inserting in his narrative the speeches he had delivered on various occasions. In the form of letters to his son, Cato composed treatises on agriculture, the care of health, eloquence, and the art of war. He also wrote a series of rules of conduct in verse, and made a collection of wise and witty sayings.
Of all his works the only one extant is a treatise On Agriculture. Born and brought up in the small town of Tusculum, and full of admiration for the simple virtues of the early Romans, Cato saw with deep disapproval the tendency of the men of his own day to give up agriculture for commercial and financial occupations. The treatise On Agriculture. “It would sometimes be better to seek gain by commerce, if it were not so dangerous; and likewise by money-lending, if it were so honorable. For our ancestors held this matter thus, and put it in the laws in this way, that a thief be punished by a double fine, a money-lender by a fourfold one. From this one can see how much worse citizen they considered a money-lender than a thief. And when they praised a good man, it was a good farmer, a good colonist. They thought that a man was most amply praised who was praised in this way. Now I think a merchant is energetic and diligent in seeking gain; but, as I said above, he is exposed to danger and ruin. But from farmers both the bravest men and most energetic soldiers arise, and the business they follow is most pious and surest, and least exposed to envy; and those who are occupied in that pursuit are least given to evil thoughts.”11 In other parts of the book Cato gives in short, simple sentences, practical rules to be followed by the farmer. “Be sure to do everything early. For this is the way with farming: if you do one thing late, you will do all the work late.” This style of short, sharp sentences, is characteristic of Cato. He despises all appearance of literary polish, as if he wished to show that the arts of elegance cultivated by most other Roman writers were unnecessary and undesirable.
Cato was one of the most famous orators of his time, but his competitors were many, among them some of the most noted men of Rome. Other orators. Most of these orators were men of natural ability, whose eloquence was trained in the school of public life and owed its effect in great measure to the weight of the speaker’s dignity or the glory of his deeds. Their speeches are lost, and the reputation they had survives only to remind us that during and after the second Punic war Roman eloquence was growing in power, preparing, as it were, for the brilliant oratory of the Gracchi in the second half of the second century BC, and the superb productions of Cicero in the century to follow. Among orators of Cato’s time should be mentioned Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, five times consul, censor, and dictator, the conqueror of Hannibal, then Quintus Cæcilius Metellus, consul in 206 BC, Marcus Cornelius Cethegus (died in 196 BC), Publius Licinius Crassus (died 183 BC), and Scipio Africanus the elder (died 183 BC).
In the field of jurisprudence there was considerable activity in the days of Cato. Jurists. Publius Ælius (consul 201, died 174 BC) and his brother Sextus (consul 198 BC) published the most systematic work on jurisprudence. This work was called Tripertita, and was for centuries regarded with reverence as the beginning from which grew the great system of Roman law. Scipio Nasica (consul 191 BC), Lucius Acilius, Quintus Fabius Labeo (consul 183 BC), and Cato’s son (born about 192, died in 152 BC) were all distinguished jurists whose interpretation of the Twelve Tables and whose wisdom in regard to legal matters are mentioned with praise by later writers. Their writings have perished, but the results of their studies were incorporated in the later works on Roman law.
The annalists who wrote in Greek, such as Fabius Pictor, were followed, soon after the middle of the second century BC, by several writers whose works differed from theirs chiefly by being written in Latin. Latin annalists. They derived their general views and methods, as well as some of their facts, from earlier Greek historians, such as Ephorus and Timæus. The first of these Latin annalists was Lucius Cassius Hemina, who wrote a history of Rome to his own time. Somewhat more important was Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, who was consul in 133 BC His annals covered the same ground as those of Hemina, and are said to have been written in an artless, somewhat rude style. A similar lack of elegance seems to have belonged to the works of the other annalists of this time. Evidently the Romans had not yet learned to write artistic prose. Yet this is the period when, under the guidance of Greek teachers, the Romans were paying more attention than ever before to grammar and rhetoric, purity of language, and nicety of expression.
The man about whom the best literary life of the city centred was Scipio Africanus the younger, who lived from 185 to 129 BC Scipio. He was the son of the distinguished Lucius Æmilius Paulus, whose victory at Pydna, in 168 BC, had destroyed the last foreign power capable of making serious resistance to the Roman legions, and he had been adopted by the son of the elder Scipio Africanus. He was himself a distinguished soldier, for as a simple officer (tribunus militum) he had saved the Roman army in Africa, after which he had been made consul and commander of the army which brought the third Punic war to a close by the capture and destruction of Carthage (146 BC). It might have been expected that he would take an active part in the government, especially as in his time the state needed the help of her best citizens. But Scipio seems to have felt that the internal troubles, which beset the state now that all external dangers were over, were too serious to be cured. He used his influence for good wherever he was able, but made no systematic attempt to correct the abuses of the government, which led at last to the revolutionary disorders of the days of the Gracchi (133–121 BC). Instead of being a party leader, he occupied a position somewhat apart from the aristocratic and the popular parties, lending his influence and his eloquence to the causes that seemed to him good, and in this way preserving a reputation for independence and good judgment. His patriotism was undoubted, and his influence as great as that of any man in Rome.
Scipio had been carefully educated, and employed his leisure in literary and intellectual pursuits. The Scipionic circle. He was not an author himself, except in so far as he published his speeches, which were much admired, but he loved to be surrounded by men of letters, to profit by their conversation, and lend them the support of his social position and influence. His somewhat older friend, Gaius Lælius, who was consul in 140 BC, shared his literary tastes, though he, too, refrained from publishing other works than speeches. From 167 to 150 BC a thousand Greeks of prominent position in their native country were kept as hostages in Italy. Among these was the historian Polybius, who was assigned a residence in Rome, and who became a member of the circle of literary friends who surrounded Scipio and Lælius. The Stoic philosopher Panætius, who afterward became the head of the Stoic school, was another Greek belonging to the Scipionic circle. The influence of Panætius upon Roman philosophy was great, as was that of Polybius upon the writing of Roman history. But Latin writers also gathered about Scipio. Among them were Terence (see page 24), the most polished writer of comedies; Hemina and Piso, the annalists; Gaius Fannius, a nephew of Lælius, who was consul in 122 BC, and achieved distinction as an orator, besides writing a history of Rome; Sempronius Asellio, whose history of his own times was continued at least to 91 BC; Lucius Furius Philus, consul in 136 BC, orator and jurist, and many others. Among them all, the most original genius was the father of Roman satire, Gaius Lucilius.
Lucilius was born, probably in 180 BC, at Suessa Aurunca, in Campania. Gaius Lucilius. He was a member of a wealthy equestrian family, and when he went to live at Rome he kept himself free from the cares of business as well as of politics, devoting himself to social life and to literature. He lived as a wealthy bachelor, not holding himself aloof from the pleasures of the capital, but not indulging in excesses. Most of his life was passed in the city, but in 134 BC he followed Scipio to the war in Spain, and in 126 BC, when all who were not Roman citizens were obliged to leave Rome, he made a journey to Sicily, from which he did not return until 124 BC He died at Naples in 103 BC
The name satire, (satura) may be derived from the lanx satura, a dish full of all sorts of fruits, and as applied to poems by Ennius (see p. 8), designates poems of mixed contents. Satire. Perhaps all the poems of Ennius, except his dramas and his great epic, may have been classed together as satires. At any rate, Lucilius is the first writer who gave to satire the definite character it has possessed ever since his time. He made his poems the vehicle for the expression of sharp and biting attacks upon persons, institutions, and customs of his day, for genial and humorous remarks about the failings of his neighbors,