Part 5

"The living Latin for all the higher forms of composition, both prose and verse, was a far nobler language than the living Greek. During the long period of Grecian pre-eminence and literary glory, from Homer to Demosthenes, all the manifold forms of poetry and prose which were invented one after the other were brought to such exquisite perfection that their beauty of form and grace of language were never afterwards rivalled by Latin or any other people. But hardly had Demosthenes and Aristotle ceased to live when that Attic which had been gradually formed into such a noble instrument of thought in the hands of Aristophanes, Euripides, Plato and the orators, and had superseded for general use all the other dialects, became at the same time the language of the civilized world and was stricken with a mortal decay.... Epicurus, who was born in the same year as Menander, writes a harsh jargon that does not deserve to be called a style; and others of whose writings anything is left entire or in fragments, historians and philosophers alike, Polybius, Chrysippus, Philodemus, are little if any better. When Cicero deigns to translate any of their sentences, see what grace and life he instils into their clumsily expressed thoughts, how satisfying to the ear and taste are the periods of Livy when he is putting into Latin the heavy and uncouth clauses of Polybius! This may explain what Cicero means when at one time he gives to Greek the preference over Latin, at another to Latin over Greek; in reading Sophocles or Plato he could acknowledge their unrivalled excellence; in translating Panaetius or Philodemus he would feel his own immeasurable superiority."

The greater number of long syllables, combined with the paucity of diphthongs and the consequent monotony of vocalization, and the uniformity of the accent, lent a weight and dignity of movement to the language which well suited the national _gravitas_. The precision of grammatical rules and the entire absence of dialectic forms from the written literature contributed to maintain the character of unity which marked the Roman republic as compared with the multiplicity of Greek states. It was remarked by Francis Bacon that artistic and imaginative nations indulge freely in verbal compounds, practical nations in simple concrete terms. In this respect, too, Latin contrasts with Greek. The attempts made by some of the earlier poets to indulge in novel compounds was felt to be out of harmony with the genius of the language. Composition, though necessarily employed, was kept within narrow limits, and the words thus produced have a sharply defined meaning, wholly unlike the poetical vagueness of some of the Greek compounds. The vocabulary of the language, though receiving accessions from time to time in accordance with practical needs, was rarely enriched by the products of a spontaneous creativeness. In literature the taste of the educated town circles gave the law; and these, trained in the study of the Greek masters of style, required something which should reproduce for them the harmony of the Greek period. Happily the orators who gave form to Latin prose were able to meet the demand without departing from the spirit of their own language.[7]

53. _Cicero and Caesar._--To Cicero especially the Romans owed the realization of what was possible to their language in the way of artistic finish of style. He represents a protest at one and the same time against the inroads of the _plebeius sermo_, vulgarized by the constant influx of non-Italian provincials into Rome, and the "jargon of spurious and partial culture" in vogue among the Roman pupils of the Asiatic rhetoricians. His essential service was to have caught the tone and style of the true Roman _urbanitas_, and to have fixed it in extensive and widely read speeches and treatises as the final model of classical prose. The influence of Caesar was wholly in the same direction. His cardinal principle was that every new-fangled and affected expression, from whatever quarter it might come, should be avoided by the writer, as rocks by the mariner. His own style for straightforward simplicity and purity has never been surpassed; and it is not without full reason that Cicero and Caesar are regarded as the models of classical prose. But, while they fixed the type of the best Latin, they did not and could not alter its essential character. In subtlety, in suggestiveness, in many-sided grace and versatility, it remained far inferior to the Greek. But for dignity and force, for cadence and rhythm, for clearness and precision, the best Latin prose remains unrivalled.

It is needless to dwell upon the grammar or vocabulary of Cicero. His language is universally taken as the normal type of Latin; and, as hitherto the history of the language has been traced by marking differences from his usage, so the same method may be followed for what remains.

54. _Varro_, "the most learned of the ancients," a friend and contemporary of Cicero, seems to have rejected the periodic rhythmical style of Cicero, and to have fallen back upon a more archaic structure. Mommsen says of one passage "the clauses of the sentence are arranged on the thread of the relative like dead thrushes on a string." But, in spite (some would say, because) of his old-fashioned tendencies, his language shows great vigour and spirit. In his Menippean satires he intentionally made free use of plebeian expressions, while rising at times to a real grace and showing often fresh humour. His treatise _De Re Rustica_, in the form of a dialogue, is the most agreeable of his works, and where the nature of his subject allows it there is much vivacity and dramatic picturesqueness, although the precepts are necessarily given in a terse and abrupt form. His sentences are as a rule co-ordinated, with but few connecting links; his diction contains many antiquated or unique words.

55. _Sallust._--In Sallust, a younger contemporary of Cicero, we have the earliest complete specimen of historical narrative. It is probably due to his subject-matter, at least in part, that his style is marked by frequent archaisms; but something must be ascribed to intentional imitation of the earlier chroniclers, which led him to be called _priscorum Catonisque verborum ineruditissimus fur_. His archaisms consist partly of words and phrases used in a sense for which we have only early authorities, e.g. _cum animo habere_, &c., _animos tollere_, _bene factum_, _consultor_, _prosapia_, _dolus_, _venenum_, _obsequela_, _inquies_, _sallere_, _occipere_, _collibeo_, and the like, where we may notice especially the fondness for frequentatives, which he shares with the early comedy; partly in inflections which were growing obsolete, such as _senati_, _solui_, _comperior_ (dep.), _neglegisset_, _vis_ (acc. pl.) _nequitur_. In syntax his constructions are for the most part those of the contemporary writers.

56. _Lucretius_ is largely archaic in his style. We find _im_ for _eum_, _endo_ for _in_, _illae_, _ullae_, _unae_ and _aliae_ as genitives, _alid_ for _aliud_, _rabies_ as a genitive by the side of genitives in -_ai_, ablatives in -_i_ like _colli_, _orbi_, _parti_, nominatives in _s_ for _r_, like _colos_, _vapos_, _humos_. In verbs there are _scatit_, _fulgit_, _quaesit_, _confluxet_ = _confluxisset_, _recesse_ = _recessisse_, _induiacere_ for _inicere_; simple forms like _fligere_, _lacere_, _cedere_, _stinguere_ for the more usual compounds, the infinitive passive in -_ier_, and archaic forms from _esse_ like _siet_, _escit_, _fuat_. Sometimes he indulges in tmesis which reminds us of Ennius: _inque pediri_, _disque supata_, _ordia prima_. But this archaic tinge is adopted only for poetical purposes, and as a proof of his devotion to the earlier masters of his art; it does not affect the general substance of his style, which is of the freshest and most vigorous stamp. But the purity of his idiom is not gained by any slavish adherence to a recognized vocabulary: he coins words freely; Munro has noted more than a hundred [Greek: hapax legomena], or words which he alone among good writers uses. Many of these are formed on familiar models, such as compounds and frequentatives; others are directly borrowed from the Greek apparently with a view to sweetness of rhythm (ii. 412, v. 334, 505); others again (forty or more in number) are compounds of a kind which the classical language refused to adopt, such as _silvifragus_, _terriloquus_, _perterricrepus_. He represents not so much a stage in the history of the language as a protest against the tendencies fashionable in his own time. But his influence was deep upon Virgil, and through him upon all subsequent Latin literature.

57. _Catullus_ gives us the type of the language of the cultivated circles, lifted into poetry by the simple directness with which it is used to express emotion. In his heroic and elegiac poems he did not escape the influence of the Alexandrian school, and his genius is ill suited for long-continued flights; but in his lyrical poems his language is altogether perfect. As Macaulay says: "No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans." The language of these poems comes nearest perhaps to that of Cicero's more intimate letters. It is full of colloquial idioms and familiar language, of the diminutives of affection or of playfulness. Greek words are rare, especially in the lyrics, and those which are employed are only such as had come to be current coin. Archaisms are but sparingly introduced; but for metrical reasons he has four instances of the inf. pass., in -_ier_, and several contracted forms; we find also _alis_ and _alid_, _uni_ (gen.), and the antiquated _tetuli_ and _recepso_. There are traces of the popular language in the shortened imperatives _cave_ and _mane_, in the analytic perfect _paratam habes_, and in the use of _unus_ approaching that of the indefinite article.

58. _Horace._--The poets of the Augustan age mark the opening of a new

## chapter in the history of the Latin language. The influence of Horace

was less than that of his friend and contemporary Virgil; for Horace worked in a field of his own, and, although Statius imitated his lyrics, and Persius and Juvenal, especially the former, his satires, on the whole there are few traces of any deep marks left by him on the language of later writers. In his _Satires_ and _Epistles_ the diction is that of the contemporary _urbanitas_, differing hardly at all from that of Cicero in his epistles and dialogues. The occasional archaisms, such as the syncope in _erepsemus_, _evasse_, _surrexe_, the infinitives in -ier, and the genitives _deum_, _divum_, may be explained as still conversationally allowable, though ceasing to be current in literature; and a similar explanation may account for plebeian terms, e.g. _balatro_, _blatero_, _giarrio_, _mutto_, _vappa_, _caldus_, _soldus_, _surpite_, for the numerous diminutives, and for such pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions and turns of expression as were common in prose, but not found, or found but rarely, in elevated poetry. Greek words are used sparingly, not with the licence which he censures in Lucilius, and in his hexameters are framed according to Latin rules. In the _Odes_, on the other hand, the language is much more precisely limited. There are practically no archaisms (_spargier_ in Carm. iv. 11. 8 is a doubtful exception), or plebeian expressions; Greek inflections are employed, but not with the licence of Catullus; there are no datives in _i_ or _sin_ like _Tethyi_ or _Dryasin_; Greek constructions are fairly numerous, e.g. the genitive with verbs like _regnare_, _abstinere_, _desinere_, and with adjectives, as _integer vitae_, the so-called Greek accusative, the dative with verbs of contest, like _luctari_, _decertare_, the transitive use of many intransitive verbs in the past participle, as _regnatus_, _triumphatus_; and finally there is a "prolative" use of the infinitive after verbs and adjectives, where prose would have employed other constructions, which, though not limited to Horace, is more common with him than with other poets. Compounds are very sparingly employed, and apparently only when sanctioned by authority. His own innovations in vocabulary are not numerous. About eighty [Greek: hapax legomena] have been noted. Like Virgil, he shows his exquisite skill in the use of language rather in the selection from already existing stores, than in the creation of new resources: _tantum series iuncturaque pollet_. But both his diction and his syntax left much less marked traces upon succeeding writers than did those of either Virgil or Ovid.

59. _Virgil._--In Virgil the Latin language reached its full maturity. What Cicero was to the period, Virgil was to the hexameter; indeed the changes that he wrought were still more marked, inasmuch as the language of verse admits of greater subtlety and finish than even the most artistic prose. For the straightforward idiomatic simplicity of Lucretius and Catullus he substituted a most exact and felicitous diction, rich with the suggestion of the most varied sources of inspiration. Sometimes it is a phrase of Homer's "conveyed" literally with happy boldness, sometimes it is a line of Ennius, or again some artistic Sophoclean combination. Virgil was equally familiar with the great Greek models of style and with the earlier Latin poets. This learning, guided by an unerring sense of fitness and harmony, enabled him to give to his diction a music which recalls at once the fullest tones of the Greek lyre and the lofty strains of the most genuinely national song. His love of antiquarianism in language has often been noticed, but it never passes into pedantry. His vocabulary and constructions are often such as would have conveyed to his contemporaries a grateful flavour of the past, but they would never have been unintelligible. Forms like _iusso_, _olle_ or _admittier_ can have delayed no one.

In the details of syntax it is difficult to notice any peculiarly Virgilian points, for the reason that his language, like that of Cicero, became the canon, departures from which were accounted irregularities. But we may notice as favourite constructions a free use of oblique cases in the place of the more definite construction with prepositions usual in prose, e.g. _it clamor caelo_, _flet noctem_, _rivis currentia vina_, _bacchatam iugis Naxon_, and many similar phrases; the employment of some substantives as adjectives, like _venator canis_, and vice versa, as _plurimus volitans_; a proleptic use of adjectives, as _tristia torquebit_; idioms involving _ille_, _atque_, _deinde_, _haud_, _quin_, _vix_, and the frequent occurrence of passive verbs in their earlier reflexive sense, as _induor_, _velor_, _pascor_.

60. _Livy._--In the singularly varied and beautiful style of Livy we find Latin prose in rich maturity. To a training in the rhetorical schools, and perhaps professional experience as a teacher of rhetoric, he added a thorough familiarity with contemporary poetry and with the Greek language; and these attainments have all deeply coloured his language. It is probable that the variety of style naturally suggested by the wide range of his subject matter was increased by a half-unconscious adoption of the phrases and constructions of the different authorities whom he followed in different parts of his work; and the industry of German critics has gone far to demonstrate a conclusion likely enough in itself. Hence perhaps comes the fairly long list of archaisms, especially in formulae (cf. Kühnast, _Liv. Synt._ pp. 14-18). These are, however, purely isolated phenomena, which do not affect the general tone. It is different with the poetical constructions and Graecisms, which appear on every page. Of the latter we find numerous instances in the use of the cases, e.g. in genitives like _via praedae omissae_, _oppidum Antiochiae_, _aequum campi_; in datives like _quibusdam volentibus erat_; in accusatives like _iurare calumniam_, _certare multam_; an especially frequent use of transitive verbs absolutely; and the constant omission of the reflexive pronoun as the subject of an infinitive in reported speech. To the same source must be assigned the very frequent pregnant construction with prepositions, an attraction of relatives, and the great extension of the employment of relative adverbs of place instead of relative pronouns, e.g. _quo_ = _in quem_. Among his poetical characteristics we may place the extensive list of words which are found for the first time in his works and in those of Virgil or Ovid, and perhaps his common use of concrete words for collective, e.g. _eques_ for _equitatus_, of abstract terms such as _remigium_, _servitia_, _robora_, and of frequentative verbs, to say nothing of poetical phrases like _haec ubi dicta dedit, adversum montium_, &c. Indications of the extended use of the subjunctive, which he shares with contemporary writers, especially poets, are found in the construction of _ante quam_, _post quam_ with this mood, even when there is no underlying notion of anticipation, of _donec_, and of _cum_ meaning "whenever." On the other hand, _forsitan_ and _quamvis_, as in the poets, are used with the indicative in forgetfulness of their original force. Among his individual peculiarities may be noticed the large number of verbal nouns in -_tus_ (for which Cicero prefers forms in -_tio_) and in -_tor_, and the extensive use of the past passive

## participle to replace an abstract substantive, e.g. _ex dictatorio

imperio concusso_. In the arrangement of words Livy is much more free than any previous prose writer, aiming, like the poets, at the most effective order. His periods are constructed with less regularity than those of Cicero, but they gain at least as much in variety and energy as they lose in uniformity of rhythm and artistic finish. His style cannot be more fitly described than in the language of Quintilian, who speaks of his _mira iucunditas_ and _lactea ubertas_.

61. _Propertius._--The language of Propertius is too distinctly his own to call for detailed examination here. It cannot be taken as a specimen of the great current of the Latin language; it is rather a tributary springing from a source apart, tinging to some slight extent the stream into which it pours itself, but soon ceasing to affect it in any perceptible fashion. "His obscurity, his indirectness and his incoherence" (to adopt the words of J. P. Postgate) were too much out of harmony with the Latin taste for him to be regarded as in any sense representative; sometimes he seems to be hardly writing Latin at all.

## Partly from his own strikingly independent genius, partly from his

profound and not always judicious study of the Alexandrian writers, his poems abound in phrases and constructions which are without a parallel in Latin poetry. His archaisms and Graecisms, both in diction and in syntax, are very numerous; but frequently there is a freedom in the use of cases and prepositions which can only be due to bold and independent innovations. His style well deserves a careful study for its own sake (cf. J. P. Postgate's _Introduction_, pp. lvii.-cxxv.); but it is of comparatively little significance in the history of the language.

62. _Ovid._--The brief and few poems of Tibullus supply only what is given much more fully in the works of Ovid. In these we have the language recognized as that best fitted for poetry by the fashionable circles in the later years of Augustus. The style of Ovid bears many traces of the imitation of Virgil, Horace and Propertius, but it is not less deeply affected by the rhetoric of the schools. His never-failing fertility of fancy and command of diction often lead him into a diffuseness which mars the effect of his best works; according to Quintilian it was only in his (lost) tragedy of _Medea_ that he showed what real excellence he might have reached if he had chosen to control his natural powers. His influence on later poets was largely for evil; if he taught them smoothness of versification and polish of language, he also co-operated powerfully with the practice of recitation to lead them to aim at rhetorical point and striking turns of expression, instead of a firm grasp of a subject as a whole, and due subordination of the several parts to the general impression. Ovid's own influence on language was not great; he took the diction of poetry as he found it, formed by the labours of his predecessors; the conflict between the archaistic and the Graecizing schools was already settled in favour of the latter; and all that he did was to accept the generally accepted models as supplying the material in moulding which his luxuriant fancy could have free play. He has no deviations from classical syntax but those which were coming into fashion in his time (e.g. _forsitan_ and _quamvis_ with the indic., the dative of the agent with passive verbs, the ablative for the accusative of time, the infinitive after adjectives like _certus_, _aptus_, &c.), and but few peculiarities in his vocabulary. It is only in the letters from the Pontus that laxities of construction are detected, which show that the purity of his Latin was impaired by his residence away from Rome, and perhaps by increasing carelessness of composition.

63. _The Latin of Daily Life._--While the leading writers of the Ciceronian and Augustan eras enable us to trace the gradual development of the Latin language to its utmost finish as an instrument of literary expression, there are some less important authors who supply valuable evidence of the character of the _sermo plebeius_. Among them may be placed the authors of the _Bellum Africanum_ and the _Bellum Hispaniense_ appended to Caesar's Commentaries. These are not only far inferior to the exquisite _urbanitas_ of Caesar's own writings; they are much rougher in style even than the less polished _Bellum Alexandrinum_ and _De Bello Gallico Liber VIII._, which are now with justice ascribed to Hirtius. There is sufficient difference between the two to justify us in assuming two different authors; but both freely employ words and constructions which are at once antiquated and vulgar. The writer of the _Bellum Alexandrinum_ uses a larger number of diminutives within his short treatise than Caesar in nearly ten times the space; _postquam_ and _ubi_ are used with the pluperfect subjunctive; there are numerous forms unknown to the best Latin, like _tristimonia_, _exporrigere_, _cruciabiliter_ and _convulnero_; _potior_ is followed by the accusative, a simple relative by the subjunctive. There is also a very common use of the pluperfect for the imperfect, which seems a mark of this _plebeius sermo_ (Nipperdey, _Quaest. Caes._ pp. 13-30).

Another example of what we may call the Latin of business life is supplied by Vitruvius. Besides the obscurity of many of his technical expressions, there is a roughness and looseness in his language, far removed from a literary style; he shares the incorrect use of the pluperfect, and uses plebeian forms like _calefaciuntur_, _faciliter_, _expertiones_ and such careless phrases as _rogavit Archimedem uti in se sumeret sibi de eo cogitationem_. At a somewhat later stage we have, not merely plebeian, but also provincial Latin represented in the Satyricon of Petronius. The narrative and the poems which are introduced into it are written in a style distinguished only by the ordinary peculiarities of silver Latinity; but in the numerous conversations the distinctions of language appropriate to the various speakers are accurately preserved; and we have in the talk of the slaves and provincials a perfect storehouse of words and constructions of the greatest linguistic value. Among the unclassical forms and constructions may be noticed masculines like _fatus_, _vinus_, _balneus_, _fericulus_ and _lactem_ (for _lac_), _striga_ for _strix_, _gaudimonium_ and _tristimonium_, _sanguen_, _manducare_, _nutricare_, _molestare_, _nesapius_ (_sapius_ = Fr. _sage_), _rostrum_ (= _os_), _ipsimus_ (= master), _scordalias_, _baro_, and numerous diminutives like _camella_, _audaculus_, _potiuncula_, _savunculum_, _offla_, _peduclus_, _corcillum_, with constructions such as _maledicere_ and _persuadere_ with the accusative, and _adiutare_ with the dative, and the deponent forms _pudeatur_ and _ridetur_. Of especial interest for the Romance languages are _astrum_ (_désastre_), _berbex_ (_brébis_), _botellus_ (_boyau_), _improperare_, _muttus_, _naufragare_.