Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/898

* LATIN LITERATURE. 814 LATIN LITERATURE. supply, and SIrateyemator Libri 111., a practical liiaiiuiil of military art. (c) But it was in the reigns of Nerva and Trajan (.v.D. 90-117) that the literary talent of the Empire ])ut forth its noblest eliorts. The long ri-.traiiit to which lil>eral-minded and inde- pendent men had been forced to sulmiit under the I)receding reigns was finally broken, and now at last, as under the Repidilic, they were able freely to express their real feelings. They were nat- urally embittered by the long enforced silence and by the vivid memory of hateful conditiims; bit nothing could be nobler than the grim moral- izing of a Juvenal and a Tacitus. They do, in- deed, ilraw a sad jiicturc of a corrupt society and an incredibly awful state of public affairs ; but allowance uiade for their bias, they amply show that integrity and virtue could flourish under the most degrading conditions. Cornelius Tacitus (c. 5,5-120 ..D.) occupies a wholly unique place in Roman literature. A keen critic of men and things, he is also an able word-artist, and the creator of a trenchant style of Latin that no writer ever succeeded in imitating. We are in- debted to his Annnles and llistoricc for our best information of the events of the principal reigns of the first century. Ilis earlier works, the (Icrmania, an account of that then little-known country, and the .It/ricola, a channing and sym- jiathetic biography of his father-in-law, show alike the development of his literary genius and his own rare qualities of heart and head. The Didlofiiis dc Oriiliirihux was his earliest work, written while he was still under the infliienee of Ciceronian studies. The .S'o/irc.s of his con- temporary D. .Junius .Tuvenalis (c. 00-140 a.d.) present in a strong light the moral degradation of Roman society and the righteous indignation of the better-minded men. .Juvenal is a true satirist, though lacking in the higher qualities that make a poet. Pliny the Younger, C. Plinius CiPciliu.s Secundus (..f). 02-C.113), nephew of Pliny the Elder, has left a collection of delightful Lcltcm, which modify for us the liarsli i)icture of society drawn by .luvenal and Tacitus. Those addressed to Trajan, with the Kniperor's replies, are espe- cially interesting as showing the feeling in re- gard to the growing sect of the Christians. V. The Middle Empire (Second Century; African Latinitv; Karlv Christian Writers: A.n. 117-211). With Tacitus, Juvenal and Pliny, Roman literature as an expression of lofty and original genius may be said to have come to an end. Men of ability and learning continued to vrite, but in general their interest to us is not a purely literary (me: it is due to the subjects of which they wrote and the times in which they lived. .As the Spanish writers played a prominent part in the literary histoiy of the last period, so in this we find that many of the greatest names are those of .Africans (as Fronto, .puleius, Ter- tullian) : hence it is often designated as the perioil of .African Latinitv. Under Hadrian (A.n. 117-1.38) flourished C. Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 7.5-160), author of the I,irc!^ of the Crrsnrs. full of interesting bits of information and gossip, with a strong preponder- ance of scandal: and of a collection of slight biographies of illustrious men. of which we have many valuable fragments. To this period, too. belongs the abridged liistory of Flnnis, a work of very suliordinate importance. The greatest names of the reign of .Antoninus Pius (A.n. l.SS- 101) are M. Cornelius Fronto (e.100-175 a.d.), whose correspondence with his imperial pupil Marcus .Aurelius is interesting, if monotonous and pedantic; and (laius, the jurist (e.l 10-180 A.D.), whose Inslitulioiuf, a manual of Roman law, is in great part exUmt. More interesting are the writers of .. .Aurelius's reign ( a.u. 101- ISO). .Aulus Ccdlius laboriously collected all kinds of literary, philological and antiijuarian information, which he |)Ublished uithoul order or system under the title Xoctes Atticcc. To us, of course, the work is a store-house of curious facts and theories. The best representative of the .African-Roman is L. Apuleius (born c.125 .v.D. ), the most original writer since Tacitus. He studied at Carthage, traveled extensively in (ireece, iiracticed law at Rome, and then returned to .frica where lie didivered ])ublic le<-tures on rhetoric ami phiIoso|iliy. His chief work was .a long romance entitled Milniiwriihoscs, with a fantastic plot derived from the Am /.vof ij 'Oi»w; of Lucian. It narrates the strange adventures of a certain Lucius, who was transformed into a don- key. The hand of the rhetorician is visible all through the book. The best known portion is the well-written story of Cujiid and- Psyche. The other extant works of Ajuileius are of less in- terest; Apolonia, his defense on a charge of witchiraft: Florida, selections from his public lectures; and a number of philosophical essays. To this period we owe the earliest literary work of Latin Christianity, the Octtiriun of M. Minu- cius Felix, a well- written exposition, in dialogue form, of the current arguments against the Christian faith, with a well-sustained refutation. I'ndcr the rule of Commodus (180102) and Severus ( l!i;i-211 ) we have only one writer of im- jjortance. HMtullian, of Carthage ( c.ir)0-230 A.D.), the fiery defender of Christianity, whose sharp attacks on the [)agan life and worship must have brought many into the Christian fold. The Bible was already translated into Latin; the oldest ver- sions, rough and literal, are known as Itnla. In Rome, the celel)rated jurist Papinian was writing extensively on his own special topic, law: and -Aero was preparing commentaries on Terence and on Horace. V"L Period of .Actual Decline (Third to Sixth centuries). The writers of the third cen- tury are neither numerous nor important from a literary jioint of view. In the field of law, Domi- tius I'lpianus put forth numerous works xuider Caracalla (A.n. 211-217), which form the liasis of the great DUirat of Roman Law jircpared later by order of the Byzantine emperor .lust inian. The grammatical works of Censorinus belong to the same period. Only his Ur Die Xdtnli has survived, a compilation largely from Suetonius, containing some curious information of value to us. The literary activity of Saint Cvprian, Bishop of Carthage (e.20b-258 A.D.), falls under later reigns. He was a volimiinous writer, thoroughly orthodox in his faith, and we gain from his works, especially from his EpiKlulir, no little insight into the condition of the various churches of the time. The Christian poet Commodianiis occupies a curious place in the story of Latin versification. He is the precursor of the purely accentual verse of the early Latin hymns. He writes in hexam- eters; but the sense of quantity is largely lost, and the lines must be read partly quantitatively, partly by the prose accent. C. .Tulins Solinus, a compiler of learned information, but without critical judgment or taste, wrote his Collectanea Rrrum Slemorahilium shortlj' after the middle of