History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. IDunlop, John Colin
History
History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. I
Dunlop, John Colin
Latin literature -- History and criticism
“Nec si Carneadem ipsum ad nos Orcus remittat.”
The only result of the solemn deliberations of this assembly is a decree,
that each god should receive from mortals the title of father—
“Ut nemo sit nostrûm, quin pater optumus divûm;
Ut Neptunus pater, Liber, Saturnu’ pater, Mars,
Janu’ Quirinu’ pater, nomen dicatur ad unum.”
The third book contains an account of the inconveniences and amusements of
a journey, performed by Lucilius, along the rich coast of Campania, to
Capua and Naples, and thence all the way to Rhegium and the Straits of
Messina. He appears particularly to have described a combat of gladiators,
and the manifold distresses he experienced from the badness of the roads—
“Præterea omne iter hoc est labosum atque lutosum.”
Horace, in the fifth satire of his first book, has, in imitation of
Lucilius, comically described a journey from Rome to Brundusium, and like
him has introduced a gladiatorial combat. The fourth satire of Lucilius
stigmatizes the luxury and vices of the rich, and has been imitated by
Persius in his third book. Aulus Gellius informs us, that in part of his
fifth satire he exposed, with great wit and power of ridicule, those
literary affectations of using such words in one sentence as terminate
with a similar jingle, or consist of an equal number of syllables. He has
shown how childish such affectations are, in that passage wherein he
complains to a friend that he had neglected to visit him while sick. In
the ninth satire he ridicules the blunders in orthography, committed by
the transcribers of MSS., and gives rules for greater accuracy. Of the
tenth book little remains; but it is said to have been the perusal of it
which first inflamed Persius with the rage of writing satires. The
eleventh seems to have consisted chiefly of personal invectives against
Quintus Opimius, Lucius Cotta, and others of his contemporaries, whose
vices, or rivalship with his patron Scipio, exposed them to his enmity and
vengeance. The sixteenth was entitled _Collyra_, having been chiefly
devoted to the celebration of the praises of Collyra, the poet’s
mistress(420). Of many of the other books, as the 12th, 13th, 18th, 21st,
and four following, so small fragments remain, that it is impossible to
conjecture the subject; for although we may see the scope of insulated
lines, their matter may have been some incidental illustration, and not
the principal subject of the satire. Even in those books, of which there
are a greater number of fragments extant, they are so disjoined that it is
as difficult to put them legibly together as the scattered leaves of the
Sibyl; and the labour of Douza, who has been the most successful in
arranging the broken lines, so as to make a connected sense, is by many
considered as but a conjectural and philological sport. Those few
passages, however, which are in any degree entire, show great force of
satire; as for example, the following account of the life led by the
Romans:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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