Page:Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett - Comparative Literature (1886).djvu/216

 of the barest kind conceivable, and laws, apparently without note or comment, seem as yet to have been the only types of Latin prose. Dionysius, indeed, speaks of as still sung in his own time by Romans; and Cicero twice refers to a passage in Cato's Origines which speaks of old Roman songs sung at banquets to the accompaniment of a tibia in praise of great men. But, in spite of Niebuhr's and Macaulay's inferences from these authorities, it cannot be seriously maintained that Rome ever possessed a popular ballad-poetry. For, in the first place, Rome possessed no background of myth which such early poetry might have used as its wonderland. This absence of myth has been attributed to the nature of Rome's early religion; and it must be admitted that such transparent names as Saturnus (Sowing), Fides, Terminus, were not likely to aid the creation of poetic mythology. But deeper reasons for the absence of heroic mythology in early Rome are discoverable in her ancient social life. Whatever germs of epic poetry may have existed in the private hymns or songs of patricians, they had no opportunity to ripen into a genuine epic among the constant conflicts of clansmen, who had "Fathers" to celebrate, with the clanless plebs. The traditional stories of Roman gentes were too closely interwoven with political associations to be quietly gathered into the beautiful poetic forms of the Greek myths, which might never have reached their æsthetic perfection had they been so closely bound with things of daily life. Niebuhr's conception of a Roman ballad-poetry overlooks the fact that the true home of the ballad, out of which the epos may grow, is not the life of a city, nor that of clans seeking to keep up their exclusiveness in the presence of city life, but the halls}} as still sung in his own time by Romans; and Cicero twice refers to a passage in Cato's Origines which speaks of old Roman songs sung at banquets to the accompaniment of a tibia in praise of great men. But, in spite of Niebuhr's and Macaulay's inferences from these authorities, it cannot be seriously maintained that Rome ever possessed a popular ballad-poetry. For, in the first place, Rome possessed no background of myth which such early poetry might have used as its wonderland. This absence of myth has been attributed to the nature of Rome's early religion; and it must be admitted that such transparent names as Saturnus (Sowing), Fides, Terminus, were not likely to aid the creation of poetic mythology. But deeper reasons for the absence of heroic mythology in early Rome are discoverable in her ancient social life. Whatever germs of epic poetry may have existed in the private hymns or songs of patricians, they had no opportunity to ripen into a genuine epic among the constant conflicts of clansmen, who had "Fathers" to celebrate, with the clanless plebs. The traditional stories of Roman gentes were too closely interwoven with political associations to be quietly gathered into the beautiful poetic forms of the Greek myths, which might never have reached their æsthetic perfection had they been so closely bound with things of daily life. Niebuhr's conception of a Roman ballad-poetry overlooks the fact that the true home of the ballad, out of which the epos may grow, is not the life of a city, nor that of clans seeking to keep up their exclusiveness in the presence of city life, but the halls