A History of Roman Literature

-Lygdamus, born 43 B. C.-Sulpicia-Sextus Propertius, about 50 to about 15 B. C.-Domitius Marsus, about 54 to about 4 B. C.-Albinovanus Pedo-Po

pure was an exception in the latter days of the republic. The condition of society. Nor were the women of the wealthier classes better than the men. The Roman matron, who was betrothed at twelve and married at fourteen years of age, naturally found herself in many instances united to a man with whom she had no sympathy, and whose distasteful society she gladly exchanged for that of a clandestine lover. Divorces were numerous, and were accompanied with little disgrace. When Augustus established his power, he brought about many reforms in the government of the city and the provinces and caused laws to be passed to ensure the sanctity of marriage and of fam

Juno, Minerva, or Venus, Antiope or Helen; the lover gazes upon his mistress as Argus gazed upon Io; faithful wives are compared with Penelope or Alcestis, faithless lovers with Ulysses who deserted Calypso, and Jason who left Medea for another wife. These and similar allusions are mingled with figures drawn from rustic life or from war. The god Amor and his mother Venus play important parts in the poems. Amor transfixes the poet's heart with his arrows, plants his foot upon the poet's neck, makes him his slave. The poet sings of the beauty of his mistress, designating her by a fictitious name, but one which has the same length of syllables as the real name of the woman to whom the poems are addressed. The poet is usually poor, but offers his songs as the most valuable of offerings, and is filled with indignation if his mistress seems to care for wealth or jewels. No adornments are necessary for the beautiful woman, and love of wealth is

fect of Egypt, but indulged in offensive remarks about Augustus, and showed his pride by setting up statues of himself in various places in Egypt, and having his name carved upon the pyramids. When he was recalled in disgrace by Augustus his creditors brought suits against him, he was condemned to exile, and his property was confiscated. Unable to bear his troubles, he committed suicide at the age of 43 years. His greatest claim to remembrance is his friendship for Virgil, who expressed his gratitude to him in the sixth and tenth Eclogues, and, perhaps, in the original ending of the Georgics.

arently it was restored to him by Messalla, of whom he speaks with great affection. He followed Messalla to the East soon after the battle of Actium, but was detained by illness at Corcyra. He also accompanied Messalla in his campaign in Aquitania. Nothing further is known of his life, except his love for Delia,

of the circle of Messalla, was born in 43 B. C., and was familiar with the poems of Tibullus, Horace, Propertius, and Ovid. These elegies are addressed to Ne?ra, who was probably the poet's cousin, and either married or betrothed to him. They are greatly inferior to those of Tibullus. They lack variety and imagination, and in technical execution they want the graceful charm for which the genuine poems of Tibullus are distinguished. The remaining poems ascribed to Tibullus are printed in most editions as Book IV, though in the manuscripts they form a part of Book III. The first of these is a Panegyric on Messalla, written in honor of his consulship, 31 B. C. This poem, which is written in hexameters, shows a lack of taste and a love of rhetorical exaggeration entirely foreign to Tibullus. Lygda

e not virile or powerful, but gentle and pensive. Tibullus loves the life of the country and hates war; he feels deeply the woes that oppress the lover; the thought of death weighs upon him; but love is ever in his heart.

salla, plough

indly deign t

e, Ph?acian s

ied, and oppre

eath, ah, spare

her's here to

ster, with a

dors on the p

oul's soft part

oose, and sorr

follows a list of the bad omens that warned Tibullus not to set out from Rome, then a prayer to Isis for

sters have pro

these upon my

rn'd a youthf

Delia and his

ov'd Messalla,

lowed over l

he qualities of expression which make Tibullus one of the greatest among the lesser Roman poets. It is only after repeated reading

him to Rome, where he studied law for a short time, but abandoned it for the pursuit of poetry. After the publication of the first book of his elegies, Propertius was introduced to M?cenas, to whom he afterward addressed two poems (II, i; and III, ix). He appears, however, to have been less intimate with him than were Horace and Virgil. Propertius nowhere mentions Horace, and if Horace refers to him at all it is without mentioni

thia is no longer the exclusive subject of his poems. In the fourth book (the fifth in many editions) there are four poems on Roman antiquities, in imitation of the Α?τια (Causes) of Callimachus. Love is, however, throughout the subject to which Propertius naturally turns. His poems are full of learned mythological allusions, and the situations described or depicted are doubtless for the most part imaginary, yet the passionate nature of the poet's love is manifest through all his learning and his invention. Even though he did not pass through all the hopes and fears, the changes of love and hate, the joy and sorrow, the jealousy and the reconciliations which the poems depict with such wealth of illustration and such beauty of language, he knew as few have known them the varying passions of the lover's hea

ike from coarseness and display of learni

ly my fancied

nscious Rome b

Po from Hypa

hat divides he

ndling arms she

her dulcet w

r; nor e'er co

tender and a

vied-hath so

magic herb th

aucasus, bewi

distance; I'm n

e has fleeted

estige of its

t the ling'rin

rs are startl

h who weeps, hi

h tears has m

corned, can change

of translated

er love; nor

and last, is mist

e a series of epigrams, entitled Cicuta (poisonous hemlock), which enjoyed considerable reputation, some elegies on Mel?nis, an epic poem on the Amazons, and a treatise De Urbanitate (on refinement of expression). Albinovanus Pedo was also an author of epigrams and an epic poet. One of his epics, the Theseis, narrated the deeds of Theseus, another gave an account of a voyage to the ocean, probably

s of twenty-five lines on the death of Cicero, and shows rhetorical rather than poetic ability. Ovid's friends, Ponticus and Macer, and several o

l comedy, differing from the fabula togata of Titinius and Atta (see page 29) in the rank of the persons represented, for the fabula togata had chosen its characters from the lower classes, while the fabula trabeata was a comedy of high life.

her uninteresting, but contains passages of great vigor, showing independence of thought and remarkable power of expression. The author has an easy mastery of hexameter verse, in which he is superior to Lucretius; but with all his skill in versification, his earnestness, his learning, and his originality, he can not entirely overcome the prosaic nature of his subject. The poem is uneven, at times prosaic, sometimes rhetorical, not often, if ever, rising to lofty heights of poetic fancy,

ve that masse

m particles wit

orld did blind

ave it us, let m

e perceive i

tions rise an

un through their

ning leave th

fsame stars ad

er, and the

ghts? And why

d its form and

ry of Perseus and Andromeda is told,77 shows, however, good descriptive ability and lively rhetoric. Manilius is not a great poet, but he treats, not without success, a

d to the god Priapus, or at least written with reference to him, belongs for the most part to this period. Statues of Priapus, the god of gardens and of fruitfulness of all sorts, were set up in public parks, in orchards,

eing killed by a poisonous serpent, when a gnat stung him, and, by arousing him to his danger, saved his life. As he awoke, the herdsman killed the gnat, whose soul afterward appears to him in a dream and reproaches him. Finally the herdsman erects a funeral mound in honor of the gnat. The poem is a mock epic, intended to be humorous, but is not very successful. In versification it s

ndred and twenty-four lines. It is a slight poem, idyllic in character, and admirably written. It describes how a poor peasant and his slave, a negress, make the moretum in the early morning. This poem is said to be an imitation of a Greek original by Parthenius. It is possible, though not probable, that it is by Virgil. Copa. The fourth poem is the Copa (barmaid), consisting of only thirty-eight lines of elegiac verse. It has to do with the barmaid of a wayside tavern, and is clever and interesting, but has none of the qualities of Virgil's poems. It belongs, however, without doubt, to the Augustan peri

mitations by writers of a slightly later time, and have little merit. The Nux is the complaint of a tree on account of the bad treatment it re