Part 6
Suetonius (_Aug._ c. 87) gives an interesting selection of plebeian words employed in conversation by Augustus, who for the rest was something of a purist in his written utterances: _ponit assidue et pro stulto baceolum, et pro pullo pulleiaceum, et pro cerrito vacerrosum, et vapide se habere pro male, et betizare pro languere, quod vulgo lachanizare dicitur_.
The inscriptions, especially those of Pompeii, supply abundant evidence of the corruptions both of forms and of pronunciation common among the vulgar. It is not easy always to determine whether a mutilated form is evidence of a letter omitted in pronunciation, or only in writing; but it is clear that the ordinary man habitually dropped final _m_, _s_, and _t_, omitted _n_ before _s_, and pronounced _i_ like _e_. There are already signs of the decay of _ae_ to _e_, which later on became almost universal. The additions to our vocabulary are slight and unimportant (cf. _Corpus Inscr._ Lat. iv., with Zangemeister's _Indices_).
64. To turn to the language of literature. In the dark days of Tiberius and the two succeeding emperors a paralysis seemed to have come upon prose and poetry alike. With the one exception of oratory, literature had long been the utterance of a narrow circle, not the expression of the energies of national life; and now, while all free speech in the popular assemblies was silenced, the nobles were living under a suspicious despotism, which, whatever the advantage which it brought to the poorer classes and to the provincials, was to them a reign of terror. It is no wonder that the fifty years after the accession of Tiberius are a blank as regards all higher literature. Velleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, Celsus and Phaedrus give specimens of the Latin of the time, but the style of no one of these, classical for the most part in vocabulary, but occasionally approaching the later usages in syntax, calls for special analysis. The elder Seneca in his collection of _suasoriae_ and _controversiae_ supplies examples of the barren quibblings by which the young Romans were trained in the rhetorical schools. A course of instruction, which may have been of service when its end was efficiency in active public life, though even then not without its serious drawbacks, as is shown by Cicero in his treatise _De Oratore_, became seriously injurious when its object was merely idle display. Prose came to be overloaded with ornament, and borrowed too often the language, though not the genius, of poetry; while poetry in its turn, partly owing to the fashion of recitation, became a string of rhetorical points.
65. _Seneca, Persius and Lucan._--In the writers of Nero's age there are already plain indications of the evil effects of the rhetorical schools upon language as well as literature. The leading man of letters was undoubtedly Seneca the younger, "the Ovid of prose"; and his style set the model which it became the fashion to imitate. But it could not commend itself to the judgment of sound critics like Quintilian, who held firmly to the great masters of an earlier time. He admits its brilliance, and the fertility of its pointed reflections, but charges the author justly with want of self-restraint, jerkiness, frequent repetitions and tawdry tricks of rhetoric. Seneca was the worst of models, and pleased by his very faults. In his tragedies the rhetorical elaboration of the style only serves to bring into prominence the frigidity and frequent bad taste of the matter. But his diction is on the whole fairly classical; he is, in the words of Muretus, _vetusti sermonis diligentior quam quidam inepte fastidiosi suspicantur_. In Persius there is a constant straining after rhetorical effect, which fills his verses with harsh and obscure expressions. The careful choice of diction by which his master Horace makes every word tell is exaggerated into an endeavour to gain force and freshness by the most contorted phrases. The sin of allusiveness is fostered by the fashion of the day for epigram, till his lines are barely intelligible after repeated reading. Conington happily suggested that this style was assumed only for satiric purposes, and pointed out that when not writing satire Persius was as simple and unaffected as Horace himself. This view, while it relieves Persius of much of the censure which has been directed against his want of judgment, makes him all the more typical a representative of this stage of silver Latinity. In his contemporary Lucan we have another example of the faults of a style especially attractive to the young, handled by a youth of brilliant but ill-disciplined powers. The _Pharsalia_ abounds in spirited rhetoric, in striking epigram, in high sounding declamation; but there are no flights of sustained imagination, no ripe wisdom, no self-control in avoiding the exaggerated or the repulsive, no mature philosophy of life or human destiny. Of all the Latin poets he is the least Virgilian. It has been said of him that he corrupted the style of poetry, not less than Seneca that of prose.
66. _Pliny_, _Quintilian_, _Frontinus._--In the elder Pliny the same tendencies are seen occasionally breaking out in the midst of the prosaic and inartistic form in which he gives out the stores of his cumbrous erudition. Wherever he attempts a loftier tone than that of the mere compiler, he falls into the tricks of Seneca. The nature of his encyclopaedic subject matter naturally makes his vocabulary very extensive; but in syntax and general tone of language he does not differ materially from contemporary writers. Quintilian is of interest especially for the sound judgment which led him to a true appreciation of the writers of Rome's golden age. He set himself strenuously to resist the tawdry rhetoric fashionable in his own time, and to hold up before his pupils purer and loftier models. His own criticisms are marked by excellent taste, and often by great happiness of expression, which is pointed without being unduly epigrammatic. But his own style did not escape, as indeed it hardly could, the influences of his time; and in many small points his language falls short of classical purity. There is more approach to the simplicity of the best models in Frontinus, who furnishes a striking proof that it was rather the corruption of literary taste than any serious change in the language of ordinary cultivated men to which the prevalent style was due. Writing on practical matters--the art of war and the water-supply of Rome--he goes straight to the point without rhetorical flourishes; and the ornaments of style which he occasionally introduces serve to embellish but not to distort his thought.
67. _The Flavian Age._--The epic poets of the Flavian age present a striking contrast to the writers of the Claudian period. As a strained originality was the cardinal fault of the one school, so a tame and slavish following of authority is the mark of the other. The general _correctness_ of this period may perhaps be ascribed (with Merivale)
## partly to the political conditions, partly to the establishment of
professional schools. Teachers like Quintilian must have done much to repress extravagance of thought and language; but they could not kindle the spark of genius. Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus and Papinius Statius are all correct in diction and in rhythm, and abound in learning; but their inspiration is drawn from books and not from nature or the heart; details are elaborated to the injury of the impression of the whole; every line is laboured, and overcharged with epigrammatic rhetoric. Statius shows by far the greatest natural ability and freshness; but he attempts to fill a broad canvas with drawing and colouring suited only to a miniature. Juvenal exemplifies the tendencies of the language of his time, as moulded by a singularly powerful mind. A careful study of the earlier poets, especially Virgil and Lucan, has kept his language up to a high standard of purity. His style is eminently rhetorical; but it is rhetoric of real power. The concise brevity by which it is marked seems to have been the result of a deliberate attempt to mould his natural diffuseness into the form recognized as most appropriate for satire. In his verses we notice a few metrical peculiarities which represent the pronunciation of his age, especially the shortening of the final -_o_ in verbs, but as a rule they conform to the Virgilian standard. In Martial the tendency of this period to witty epigram finds its most perfect embodiment, combined with finished versification.
68. _Pliny the Younger and Tacitus._--The typical prose-writers of this time are Pliny the younger and Tacitus. Some features of the style of Tacitus are peculiar to himself; but on the whole the following statement represents the tendencies shared in greater or less degree by all the writers of this period. The gains lie mainly in the direction of a more varied and occasionally more effective syntax; its most striking defect is a lack of harmony in the periods, of arrangements in words, of variety in particles arising from the loose connexion of sentences. The vocabulary is extended, but there are losses as well as gains. Quintilian's remarks are fully borne out by the evidence of extant authorities: on the one hand, _quid quod nihil iam proprium placet, dum parum creditur disertum, quod et alius dixisset_ (viii. _prooem._ 24); _a corruptissimo quoque poetarum figuras seu translationes mutuamur; tum demum ingeniosi scilicet, si ad intelligendos nos opus sit ingenio_ (ib. 25); _sordet omne quod natura dictavit_ (ib. 26); on the other hand, _nunc utique, cum haec exercitatio procul a veritate seiuncta laboret incredibili verborum fastidio, ac sibi magnam partem sermonis absciderit_ (viii. 3, 23), _multa cotidie ab antiquis ficta moriuntur_ (ib. 6, 32). A writer like Suetonius therefore did good service in introducing into his writings terms and phrases borrowed, not from the rhetoricians, but from the usage of daily life.
69. In the vocabulary of Tacitus there are to be noted:--
1. Words borrowed (consciously or unconsciously) from the classical poets, especially Virgil, occurring for the most part also in contemporary prose. Of these Dräger gives a list of ninety-five (_Syntax und Stil des Tacitus_, p. 96).
2. Words occurring only, or for the first time, in Tacitus. These are for the most part new formations or compounds from stems already in use, especially verbal substantives in -_tor_ and -_sor_, -_tus_ and -_sus_, -_tura_ and -_mentum_, with new frequentatives.
3. Words used with a meaning (a) not found in earlier prose, but sometimes borrowed from the poets, e.g. _componere_, "to bury"; _scriptura_, "a writing"; _ferratus_ "armed with a sword"; (b) peculiar to later writers, e.g. _numerosus_, "numerous"; _famosus_, "famous"; _decollare_, "to behead"; _imputare_, "to take credit for," &c.; (c) restricted to Tacitus himself, e.g. _dispergere_ = _divolgare_.
Generally speaking, Tacitus likes to use a simple verb instead of a compound one, after the fashion of the poets, employs a pluperfect for a perfect, and (like Livy and sometimes Caesar) aims at vividness and variety by retaining the present and perfect subjunctive in indirect speech even after historical tenses. Collective words are followed by a plural far more commonly than in Cicero. The ellipse of a verb is more frequent. The use of the cases approximates to that of the poets, and is even more free. The accusative of limitation is common in Tacitus, though never found in Quintilian. Compound verbs are frequently followed by the accusative where the dative might have been expected; and the Virgilian construction of an accusative with middle and passive verbs is not unusual. The dative of purpose and the dative with a substantive in place of a genitive are more common with Tacitus than with any writer. The ablative of separation is used without a preposition, even with names of countries and with common nouns; the ablative of place is employed similarly without a preposition; the ablative of time has sometimes the force of duration; the instrumental ablative is employed even of persons. A large extension is given to the use of the quantitative genitive after neuter adjectives and pronouns, and even adverbs, and to the genitive with active
## participles; and the genitive of relation after adjectives is
(probably by a Graecism) very freely employed. In regard to prepositions, there are special uses of _citra_, _erga_, _iuxta_ and _tenus_ to be noted, and a frequent tendency to interchange the use of a preposition with that of a simple case in corresponding clauses. In subordinate sentences _quod_ is used for "the fact that," and sometimes approaches the later use of "that"; the infinitive follows many verbs and adjectives that do not admit of this construction in classical prose; the accusative and infinitive are used after negative expressions of doubt, and even in modal and hypothetical clauses.
Like Livy, the writers of this time freely employ the subjunctive of repeated action with a relative, and extend its use to relative conjunctions, which he does not. In clauses of comparison and proportion there is frequently an ellipse of a verb (with _nihil aliud quam_, _ut_, _tanquam_); _tanquam_, _quasi_ and _velut_ are used to imply not comparison but alleged reason; _quin_ and _quominus_ are interchanged at pleasure. _Quamquam_ and _quamvis_ are commonly followed by the subjunctive, even when denoting facts. The free use of the genitive and dative of the gerundive to denote purpose is common in Tacitus, the former being almost limited to him. Livy's practice in the use of participles is extended even beyond the limits to which he restricts it. It has been calculated that where Caesar uses five
## participial clauses, Livy has sixteen, Tacitus twenty-four.
In his compressed brevity Tacitus may be said to be individual; but in the poetical colouring of his diction, in the rhetorical cast of his sentences, and in his love for picturesqueness and variety he is a true representative of his time.
70. _Suetonius._--The language of Suetonius is of interest as giving a specimen of silver Latinity almost entirely free from personal idiosyncrasies; his expressions are regular and straightforward, clear and business-like; and, while in grammar he does not attain to classical purity, he is comparatively free from rhetorical affectations.
71. _The African Latinity._--A new era commences with the accession of Hadrian (117). As the preceding half century had been marked by the influence of Spanish Latinity (the Senecas, Lucan, Martial, Quintilian), so in this the African style was paramount. This is the period of affected archaisms and pedantic learning, combined at times with a reckless love of innovation and experiment, resulting in the creation of a large number of new formations and in the adoption of much of the plebeian dialect. Fronto and Apuleius mark a strong reaction against the culture of the preceding century, and for evil far more than for good the chain of literary tradition was broken. The language which had been unduly refined and elaborated now relapsed into a tasteless and confused patch-work, without either harmony or brilliance of colouring. In the case of the former the subject matter is no set-off against the inferiority of the style. He deliberately attempts to go back to the obsolete diction of writers like Cato and Ennius. We find compounds like _altipendulus_, _nudiustertianus_, _tolutiloquentia_, diminutives such as _matercella_, _anulla_, _passercula_, _studiolum_, forms like _congarrire_, _disconcinnus_, _pedetemptius_, _desiderantissimus_ (passive), _conticinium_; _gaudeo_, _oboedio_ and _perfungor_ are used with an accusative, _modestus_ with a genitive. On the other hand he actually attempts to revive the form _asa_ for _ara_. In Apuleius the archaic element is only one element in the queer mixture which constitutes his style, and it probably was not intended to give the tone to the whole. Poetical and prosaic phrases, Graecisms, solecisms, jingling assonances, quotations and coinages apparently on the spur of the moment, all appear in this wonderful medley. There are found such extraordinary genitives as _sitire beatitudinis_, _cenae pignerarer_, _incoram omnium_, _foras corporis_, sometimes heaped one upon another as _fluxos vestium Arsacidas et frugum pauperes Ityraeos et odorum divites Arabas_. Diminutives are coined with reckless freedom, e.g. _diutule_, _longule_, _mundule amicta el altiuscule sub ipsas papillas succinctula_. He confesses himself that he is writing in a language not familiar to him: _In urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore, nullo magistro praeeunte, aggressus excolui_; and the general impression of his style fully bears out his confession. Melanchthon is hardly too severe when he says that Apuleius brays like his own ass. The language of Aulus Gellius is much superior in purity; but still it abounds in rare and archaic words, e.g. _edulcare_, _recentari_, _aeruscator_, and in meaningless frequentatives like _solitavisse_. He has some admirable remarks on the pedantry of those who delighted in obsolete expressions (xi. 7) such as _apluda_, _flocus_ and _bovinator_; but his practice falls far short of his theory.
72. _The Lawyers._--The style of the eminent lawyers of this period, foremost among whom is Gaius, deserves especial notice as showing well one of the characteristic excellences of the Latin language. It is for the most part dry and unadorned, and in syntax departs occasionally from classical usages, but it is clear, terse and exact. Technical terms may cause difficulty to the ordinary reader, but their meaning is always precisely defined; new compounds are employed whenever the subject requires them, but the capacities of the language rise to the demands made upon it; and the conceptions of jurisprudence have never been more adequately expressed than by the great Romanist jurists. (A. S. W.; R. S. C.)
For the subsequent history of the language see ROMANCE LANGUAGES.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The grounds for this pronunciation will be found best stated in Postgate, _How to pronounce Latin_ (1907), Arnold and Conway, _The Restored Pronunciation of Greek and Latin_ (4th ed., Cambridge, 1908); and in the grammars enumerated in § 28 above, especially the preface to vol. i. of _Roby's Grammar_. The chief points about _c_ may be briefly given as a specimen of the kind of evidence. (1) In some words the letter following c varies in a manner which makes it impossible to believe that the pronunciation of the _c_ depended upon this, e.g. _decumus_ and _decimus_, _dic_ from Plaut. _dice_; (2) if _c_ was pronounced before _e_ and _i_ otherwise than before _a_, _o_ and _u_, it is hard to see why _k_ should not have been retained for the latter use; (3) no ancient writer gives any hint of a varying pronunciation of _c_; (4) a Greek [kappa] is always transliterated by _c_, and _c_ by [kappa]; (5) Latin words containing _c_ borrowed by Gothic and early High German are always spelt with _k_; (6) the varying pronunciations of _ce_, _ci_ in the Romance languages are inexplicable except as derived independently from an original _ke_, _ki_.
[2] The inscription was first published by Helbig and Dümmler in _Mittheilungen des deutschen archaol. Inst. Rom._ ii. 40; since in _C.I.L._ xiv. 4123 and Conway, _Italic Dial._ 280, where other references will be found.
[3] This inscription was first published by Dressel, _Annali dell' Inst. Archeol. Romano_ (1880), p. 158, and since then by a multitude of commentators. The view of the inscription as a curse, translating a Greek cursing-formula, which has been generally adopted, was first put forward by R. S. Conway in the _American Journal of Philology_, x. (1889), 453; see further his commentary _Italic Dialects_, p. 329, and since then G. Hempl, _Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc._ xxxiii. (1902), 150, whose interpretation of _iouesat = iurat_ and _Opetoi Tesiai_ has been here adopted, and who gives other references.
[4] The most important writings upon it are those of Domenico Comparetti, _Iscriz. arcaica del Foro Romano_ (Florence-Rome, 1900); Hülsen, _Berl. philolog. Wochenschrift_ (1899), No. 40; and Thurneysen, _Rheinisches Museum_ (Neue Folge), iii. 2. Prof. G. Tropea gives a _Cronaca della discussione_ in a series of very useful articles in the _Rivista di storia antica_ (Messina, 1900 and 1901). Skutsch's article already cited puts the trustworthy results in an exceedingly brief compass.
[5] For further information see special articles on these authors, and LATIN LITERATURE.
[6] Cicero also refers to certain _scripta dulcissima_ of the son of Scipio Africanus Maior, which must have possessed some merits of style.
[7] The study of the rhythm of the _Clausulae_, i.e. of the last dozen (or half-dozen) syllables of a period in different Latin authors, has been remarkably developed in the last three years, and is of the highest importance for the criticism of Latin prose. It is only possible to refer to Th. Zielinski's _Das Clauselgesetz in Cicero's Reden_ (St. Petersburg, 1904), reviewed by A. C. Clark in _Classical Review_, 1905, p. 164, and to F. Skutsch's important comments in Vollmöller's _Jahresberichten über die Fortschritte der romanischen Philologie_ (1905) and _Glotta_ (i. 1908, esp. p. 413), also to A. C. Clark's _Fontes Prosae Numerosae_ (Oxford, 1909), _The Cursus in Mediaeval and Vulgar Latin_ (ibid. 1910), and article CICERO.
LATIN LITERATURE. The germs of an indigenous literature had existed at an early period in Rome and in the country districts of Italy, and they have an importance as indicating natural wants in the Italian race, which were ultimately satisfied by regular literary forms. The art of writing was first employed in the service of the state and of religion for books of ritual, treaties with other states, the laws of the Twelve Tables and the like. An approach to literature was made in the _Annales Maximi_, records of private families, funeral orations and inscriptions on busts and tombs such as those of the Scipios in the Appian Way. In the satisfaction they afforded to the commemorative and patriotic instincts they anticipated an office afterwards performed by the national epics and the works of regular historians. A still nearer approach to literature was probably made in oratory, as we learn from Cicero that the famous speech delivered by Appius Claudius Caecus against concluding peace with Pyrrhus (280 B.C.) was extant in his time. Appius also published a collection of moral maxims and reflections in verse. No other name associated with any form of literature belonging to the pre-literary age has been preserved by tradition.