Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

e-novel and the newspaper editorial to our own day, satire was to the Roman o

y origin in the worship of the gods; and the presence of the altar as the center of the strophic movements of the chorus was a constant reminder that the drama was dealing with the highest problems of human life. Added to the general religious atmosphere of tragedy were the direct moral teachings, the highest sentiments of ancient culture, which constantly sounded through the play. Greek comedy, especially of the old and middle type, also served a distinct

His eyes were open to abuses of every kind-in educational, charitable, legal, and criminal institutions; and he used every weapon known to literary art to right these wrongs. In this task he was ably assisted by men like Thackeray, Reade, Kingsley, and others. And there can be little doubt that the improved conditions in the England o

te of agriculture, had a Greek prototype in Hesiod, who in his Works and Days had treated of the same theme; Lucretius was the professed disciple and imitator of Epicurus; Cicero, in oratory, had ever before his eyes his Demosthenes, and in philosophy his Plato and Aristotle; Vergil had his Homer in epic and his Theocritus in pastoral; Horace, in his lyrics, is Greek through and through, both in form

ld assault upon the evils of government, of society, of individuals. But still satire, as a form of literature, is the Roman's own; and beginning with Lucilius, the father of sat

into the recesses of an ancient Italian literature, long since vanished, of which we can gain only the faintest hints. These hints as to the character of that ancient forerunner of the Lucilian sat

g words and phrases of other languages, and treating of a great variety of subjects. This literary medley or jumble probably had its origin in the farm or vineyard, where, in celebrat

-loving race which produced them. The olive orchards still wave gray-green upon the sunny slopes, the vineyards still cling to every hillside and nestle in every valley; but the ancient peasantry who once called this land their

t two hundred years before Christ. The story of his life is outlined elsewhere in this book. His satires seem to have b

y be said, however, that they were in a sense the connecting link between the early satire and the literary satire of the modern type. As has been said above, they were a literary miscellany or medley, and as such contain s

harmus describes the nature of the gods

om we call Jove,

one person is the win

ng hail; and once

s are Jove considered

lements do men a

things e

also introduced the fables of ?sop into his writings. The following is the moral which he deduces from the story of the lark and the far

s warning, give

ing for plea

ur neighbors to h

o and do i

ained from his Ennius, as well as

h a thing

self, you must not

epigrams, but it may properly be considered in connection with the medley of his satires. In it he claims that unsubstan

nds, old Enniu

father's deeds

deck my fun

rtal lives o

(the dactylic hexameter in which he wrote twenty of the thirty books of his satire) had already been naturalized in Roman literature by Ennius in his great e

sms on art; observations upon the Stoic philosophy; the poet's own political experiences and expectations, also other anecdotes and incidents gathered from his own experience; an interesting account of a jo

tory-the third Macedonian War; the Third Punic War; the Numantian War, in which he himself served as a knight under Scipio Africanus in 133 B. C.; the troubled times of the two Gracchi; the Jugurthine War, and the rise of Caius Marius. He was of equestrian rank, and lived on terms

s, the "father of satire," who has well-nigh preempted the field, to follow whom requires elaborate explanation and apology on the part of the would-be satirist. He is to Cicero perurbanus, pre?minently endowed with that subtle something in spirit and expression which marks at once the polished man of the world. He is to Fronto remarkable for his gracilitas, that plainness, directness, and simplicity of style which, joined with the "harshness" and "roughness" of his "ea

from him, usually in illustration of the meaning of some word which they may be discussing. A comparatively small number of the fragments have come down to us through quotations on account of their s

e unworthy struggle of life as he saw it in the Rome of his own time. Lactantius, however, whose quotation of the fragment has saved it, thinks that the poet

the forum and never depart. To one and the same pursuit and practice have they all devoted themselves: to cheat as guardedly as possibl

language of that country. Such running after foreign customs and speech has not yet wholly disappeared. This weakness is the object of th

ous men, and first-rate standard-bearers. And so, as pr?tor at Athens, when I meet you, I salute you in the foreign style which you are so fond

Ha

f the rich. The following passage might well have been the opening lines of this satire

ow praisewor

ttle art thou

e wise used to cry out, chiding o

d spendthrift by name is shown by this fragment, wh

tched fellow. Never in all thy life hast thou dined well, though

extant fragment. The passage is a somewhat elaborate definition of vi

le for him; what things are good, what bad, what is unprofitable, base, dishonorable; to know the due limit and measure in making money; to give its proper worth to wealth; to assign what is really due to office; to be a foe and enemy of