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Rh much vivacity and dramatic picturesqueness, although the precepts are necessarily given in a terse and abrupt form. His sentences are as a rule co-ordinated, with but few connecting links; his diction contains many antiquated or unique words.

55. Sallust.—In Sallust, a younger contemporary of Cicero, we have the earliest complete specimen of historical narrative. It is probably due to his subject-matter, at least in part, that his style is marked by frequent archaisms; but something must be ascribed to intentional imitation of the earlier chroniclers, which led him to be called priscorum Catonisque verborum ineruditissimus fur. His archaisms consist partly of words and phrases used in a sense for which we have only early authorities, e.g. cum animo habere, &c., animos tollere, bene factum, consultor, prosapia, dolus, venenum, obsequela, inquies, sallere, occipere, collibeo, and the like, where we may notice especially the fondness for frequentatives, which he shares with the early comedy; partly in inflections which were growing obsolete, such as senati, solui, comperior (dep.), neglegisset, vis (acc. pl.) nequitur. In syntax his constructions are for the most part those of the contemporary writers.

56. Lucretius is largely archaic in his style. We find im for eum, endo for in, illae, ullae, unae and aliae as genitives, alid for aliud, rabies as a genitive by the side of genitives in -ai, ablatives in -i like colli, orbi, parti, nominatives in s for r, like colos, vapos, humos. In verbs there are scatit, fulgit, quaesit, confluxet = confluxisset, recesse = recessisse, induiacere for inicere; simple forms like fligere, lacere, cedere, stinguere for the more usual compounds, the infinitive passive in -ier, and archaic forms from esse like siet, escit, fuat. Sometimes he indulges in tmesis which reminds us of Ennius: inque pediri, disque supata, ordia prima. But this archaic tinge is adopted only for poetical purposes, and as a proof of his devotion to the earlier masters of his art; it does not affect the general substance of his style, which is of the freshest and most vigorous stamp. But the purity of his idiom is not gained by any slavish adherence to a recognized vocabulary: he coins words freely; Munro has noted more than a hundred, or words which he alone among good writers uses. Many of these are formed on familiar models, such as compounds and frequentatives; others are directly borrowed from the Greek apparently with a view to sweetness of rhythm (ii. 412, v. 334, 505); others again (forty or more in number) are compounds of a kind which the classical language refused to adopt, such as silvifragus, terriloquus, perterricrepus. He represents not so much a stage in the history of the language as a protest against the tendencies fashionable in his own time. But his influence was deep upon Virgil, and through him upon all subsequent Latin literature.

57. Catullus gives us the type of the language of the cultivated circles, lifted into poetry by the simple directness with which it is used to express emotion. In his heroic and elegiac poems he did not escape the influence of the Alexandrian school, and his genius is ill suited for long-continued flights; but in his lyrical poems his language is altogether perfect. As Macaulay says: “No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans.” The language of these poems comes nearest perhaps to that of Cicero’s more intimate letters. It is full of colloquial idioms and familiar language, of the diminutives of affection or of playfulness. Greek words are rare, especially in the lyrics, and those which are employed are only such as had come to be current coin. Archaisms are but sparingly introduced; but for metrical reasons he has four instances of the inf. pass., in -ier, and several contracted forms; we find also alis and alid, uni (gen.), and the antiquated tetuli and recepso. There are traces of the popular language in the shortened imperatives cavĕ and manĕ, in the analytic perfect paratam habes, and in the use of unus approaching that of the indefinite article.

58. Horace.—The poets of the Augustan age mark the opening of a new chapter in the history of the Latin language. The influence of Horace was less than that of his friend and contemporary Virgil; for Horace worked in a field of his own, and, although Statius imitated his lyrics, and Persius and Juvenal, especially the former, his satires, on the whole there are few traces of any deep marks left by him on the language of later writers. In his Satires and Epistles the diction is that of the contemporary urbanitas, differing hardly at all from that of Cicero in his epistles and dialogues. The occasional archaisms, such as the syncope in erepsemus, evasse, surrexe, the infinitives in -ier, and the genitives deum, divum, may be explained as still conversationally allowable, though ceasing to be current in literature; and a similar explanation may account for plebeian terms, e.g. balatro, blatero, giarrio, mutto, vappa, caldus, soldus, surpite, for the numerous diminutives, and for such pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions and turns of expression as were common in prose, but not found, or found but rarely, in elevated poetry. Greek words are used sparingly, not with the licence which he censures in Lucilius, and in his hexameters are framed according to Latin rules. In the Odes, on the other hand, the language is much more precisely limited. There are practically no archaisms (spargier in Carm. iv. 11. 8 is a doubtful exception), or plebeian expressions; Greek inflections are employed, but not with the licence of Catullus; there are no datives in ĭ or sĭn like Tethyĭ or Dryasin; Greek constructions are fairly numerous, e.g. the genitive with verbs like regnare, abstinere, desinere, and with adjectives, as integer vitae, the so-called Greek accusative, the dative with verbs of contest, like luctari, decertare, the transitive use of many intransitive verbs in the past participle, as regnatus, triumphatus; and finally there is a “prolative” use of the infinitive after verbs and adjectives, where prose would have employed other constructions, which, though not limited to Horace, is more common with him than with other poets. Compounds are very sparingly employed, and apparently only when sanctioned by authority. His own innovations in vocabulary are not numerous. About eighty have been noted. Like Virgil, he shows his exquisite skill in the use of language rather in the selection from already existing stores, than in the creation of new resources: tantum series iuncturaque pollet. But both his diction and his syntax left much less marked traces upon succeeding writers than did those of either Virgil or Ovid.

59. Virgil.—In Virgil the Latin language reached its full maturity. What Cicero was to the period, Virgil was to the hexameter; indeed the changes that he wrought were still more marked, inasmuch as the language of verse admits of greater subtlety and finish than even the most artistic prose. For the straightforward idiomatic simplicity of Lucretius and Catullus he substituted a most exact and felicitous diction, rich with the suggestion of the most varied sources of inspiration. Sometimes it is a phrase of Homer’s “conveyed” literally with happy boldness, sometimes it is a line of Ennius, or again some artistic Sophoclean combination. Virgil was equally familiar with the great Greek models of style and with the earlier Latin poets. This learning, guided by an unerring sense of fitness and harmony, enabled him to give to his diction a music which recalls at once the fullest tones of the Greek lyre and the lofty strains of the most genuinely national song. His love of antiquarianism in language has often been noticed, but it never passes into pedantry. His vocabulary and constructions are often such as would have conveyed to his contemporaries a grateful flavour of the past, but they would never have been unintelligible. Forms like iusso, olle or admittier can have delayed no one.

In the details of syntax it is difficult to notice any peculiarly Virgilian points, for the reason that his language, like that of Cicero, became the canon, departures from which were accounted irregularities. But we may notice as favourite constructions a free use of oblique cases in the place of the more definite construction with prepositions usual in prose, e.g. it clamor caelo, flet noctem, rivis currentia vina, bacchatam iugis Naxon, and many similar phrases; the employment of some substantives as adjectives, like venator canis, and vice versa, as plurimus volitans; a proleptic use of adjectives, as tristia torquebit; idioms involving ille, atque, deinde, haud, quin, vix, and the frequent occurrence of passive verbs in their earlier reflexive sense, as induor, velor, pascor.