Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/895

* LATIN LITEBATURE. 811 LATIN LITERATURE. devoted adherent of the new order of things and the logical exponent of the new national glory. The ten Eclogues of 'ergil are all preserved. He next turned his attention to didactic poetry, and wrote four hooks of Vcorgics at the request of Alxccnas, the minister of Octavianus and great patron of literature and learning. One of the most charming of the longer Latin poems, the Georgics, treats in an ideal way. and with inti- mate personal knowledge, of agriculture, arbori- culture, domestic animals, and bee-keeping. Ver- gil had now taken up his residence at Rome, with frequent sojourns in Campania, and was an esteemed member of the higher literary and cul- tured circle of the capital, and a friend of Augustus. The last years of his liic (B.C. 29- 19) were devoted to the writing of the JEneid, the great national epic, glorifying at the same time Rome and the .Julian house, and forming the connecting link between the Republic and the Empire. It is an hexameter poem of twelve books, the first six modeled on the Odyssey, the last six upon the Iliad; and the whole describes the adventures of .Eneas and his companions from the destruction of Troy to the settlement in Italy leading to the founding of Rome. It wa^ left unfinished at the poet's death in B.C. 19. Indeed. Vergil had made up his mind to destroy the .I^ncid, for failing health foretold him that he could never perfect it, but he was persuaded bj' the Emperor and by his friends to save the manuscript, and the work was published by Variiis and Plotius Tucca after his death. Be- sides the greater poetry of Vergil, a number of smaller poems have passed wider his name: Culex ('Gnat'), Ciris, Morctum ('Salad'). Copa ('Mine Hostess'), and Caialepton (a collection of fourteen poetic miscellanies). The Moretum, Copa, and part of the Cataleptan may really be the work of Vergil. Closely associated with Vergil, though differ- ing widel.v from him as a poet, was Q. Horatius Flaecus (B.C. G.5-8), who also belonged to the coterie of authors that gathered about Augustus and his minister Maecenas. A native of Vcnusia in Apulia, the son of a freedman who had given him every possible educational advantage, a par- tisan of Brutus, for whom he fought at the bat- tle of rhilippi. then a clerk in the queestor's office at Rome, Horace gained access to the literary world by his genius, his wit and his admirable disposition. Vergil introduced him to Mifcenas, and thus assured him fame and a competency, for Horace was extremely fond of the quiet country life, and passed happy years on the Sabine farm presented to him by his patron. His earliest poems were the Satires, in hexameter verse, in two books, completed respectively in B.C. S.'j and 30. and the Kpodcs. completed also in n.c. .30. The Satires, written in a familiar and colloquial style for the delectation of his friends, are mod- eled upon I.ucilius (see above), and are either humorous narratives or mild rebukes of particu- lar moral obliquities and weaknesses. The Epodes, which are related to the flalires in sub- ject matter, have more of the character of per- sonal invective. The first three books of the Odes were published together, with a dedication to Mipcenas. in n.c. 2.'?. and were followed, after an interval, by the fourth book of Ode.s. written by request, and published in n.c. I.'?. They rep- resent the highest perfection of Latin lyric poetry. It was only by long and patient effort. however, that Horace acquired a mastery over the lyric metres. His verse is no irresistible out- burst of genius, but the result of ripe study and a matured power of expression. But despite the actual labor in the execution, the language of the Odes' has all the effect of ea.se; it is brief without being abrupt, subtle without being ob- scure, and possesses a liveliness which sustains the interest of the reader. The Epistles^ of which the first book was published in B.C. 20, are full of a genial criticism of life, and with the Satires furnish the most complete and vivid picture that we have of the condition of Roman society in the Augustan Age. The Carmen Swculare was written to be sung at the great Secular Games of B.C. 17. The last work of Horace's life was his poem in literary criticism, De Arte Poetica, in reality an epistle addressed to the Pisos, in which he treats lightly but acutely the problems of literary history and the principles of style. Of the friends and companions of Vergil and Horace, almost all were writers, but few of their works have survived. Augustus himself (B.C. G3-A.D. 14) wrote both verse and prose. Macenas too (B.C. 69-8) indulged in poetic trifies, of which one or two are preserved. Asinius Pollio (B.C. 76-A.D. 5) was the author of tragedies and a his- tory of the Civil Wars. Varius Rufus (B.C. 74- 14), one of the editors of the .Eneid, was an epic poet of great reputation among his contempo- raries. .Emilius ilacer (died B.C. 10) wrote di- dactic poems on himting. etc., while Cornelius Gallus (B.C. 70-27) devoted himself to the love- epigram. Three of the younger poets of the Augustan pe- riod are so similar in temperament and in the subjects on which they wrote, as well as in the choice of the elegiac metre. wlii<h they brought to its highest perfection, that they should be classed together here — Tibullus, I'rojiertius, and Ovid. The first two have many points of re- semblance with their far greater predecessor Catullus. Like him. they both wrote love-poetry, veiling their sweethearts under fictitious names; like him, too, they died in the very flower of their youth. But the love poems of Catullus are sincere and spontaneous, theirs are self-conscious and more artificial. He wrote from the heart, they from the head. Propertius. with his wealth of imagery and mythic lore, fiums the link be- tween the thoroughly self-centred Tibullus and Ovid, whose best work is wholly free from the personal element. The eldest of the three poets of this group, Albius Tibullus (e..54-19 B.C.), was one of a younger group of literary men that gathered aroimd Valerius Messalla. as Vergil and Horace and their friends formed the circle of Miecenas. and some of the elegies of Tibvdlus are dedicated to ilessalla as patron and friend. The first book, as a whole, treats of his love for 'Delia,' the second of his passion for 'Xemesis.' The language is pure and natural ; the versifi- cation, careful and polished: and though the themes are but few — ideal love as contrasted with the reality, the charms of country life, the horrors of war — yet they are very often relieved by delightful touches of realism, as in the pic- ture of Messalla. returned from the wars, sitting with his cup of wine in the poet's house in the country, and describing his campaigns by mark- ing out camps and battlefields on the table with the tip of his finger dipped in wine. Tibullus did not live to publish his poems: to the two