The Roman Poets of the Republic, 3rd editionSellar, W. Y. (William Young)
History
The Roman Poets of the Republic, 3rd edition
Sellar, W. Y. (William Young)
Latin poetry -- History and criticism
Milia dum centum frumenti tolli medimnum,
Vini mille cadum.--
Denique uti stulto nihil est satis, omnia cum sint.--
Rugosi passique senes eadem omnia quaerunt.--
Mordicus petere aurum e flamma expediat, e caeno cibum.--
Aquam te in animo habere intercutem[34].
The following description of a miser seems to have suggested the
beginning of one of Catullus' lampoons[35]:--
Cui neque iumentumst nec servos nec comes ullus,
Bulgam et quidquid habet nummum secum habet ipse,
Cum bulga cenat, dormit, lavit; omnis in unast
Spes homini bulga. Bulga haec devincta lacertost[36].
In other passages he inculcates the lessons of good sense and
moderation in the use of money, or urges, in the person of an
objector, that a man is regarded in proportion to the estimate of his
means. In his enumeration of the various constituents of virtue, one
on which he dwells with emphasis, is the right estimation of the value
of money. In all his thoughts and expressions on this subject it is
easy to see how closely Horace follows on his traces.
The extravagance, airs, and vices of women, are another theme of
his satire. But he deals with these topics rather in the spirit of
raillery adopted by Plautus, than in that of Juvenal. In one fragment
he compares, in terms neither delicate nor complimentary, the
pretensions to beauty of the Roman ladies of his time with those of
the Homeric heroines. In another he contrasts the care which they take
in adorning themselves when expecting the visits of strangers with
their indifference as to their appearance when alone with their
husbands,--
Cum tecum'st, quidvis satis est: visuri alieni
Sint homines, spiras, pallam, redimicula promit[37].
Another fragment--
Homines ipsi hanc sibi molestiam ultro atque aerumnam offerunt,
Ducunt uxores, producunt quibus haec faciant liberos,--
indicates the same repugnance to marriage, which is expressed in a
fragment of contemporary oratory, quoted by A. Gellius: 'If, Quirites,
we could get on at all without wives, we should all keep clear of
that nuisance; but since, in the way of nature, life cannot go on
comfortably with them, nor at all without them, we ought rather
to provide for the continued well-being of the world than for our
temporary comfort.' The dislike to incur the responsibilities of
family life, which appears so conspicuously among the cultivated
classes in the later times of the Republic, was probably, if we are to
judge from the testimony and examples of Lucilius and Horace, as much
the result of the license allowed to men, as of the extravagant habits
or jealous imperiousness of women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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