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The History of Roman Literature. Charles Thomas Cruttwell
Читать онлайн.Название The History of Roman Literature
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isbn 4064066230036
Автор произведения Charles Thomas Cruttwell
Жанр Документальная литература
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"Dabunt malum Metelli | Naevio poetae."
If, however, we look into the existing fragments of Naevius and Livius, and compare them with the Scipionic epitaphs, we shall find that there is no appreciable difference in the rhythm; that whatever theory grammarians might adopt to explain it, the measure of these poets is the genuine trochaic beat, so natural to a primitive people, [22] and only so far elaborated as to have in most cases a pause after the first half of the line. The idea that the metre had prosodiacal laws, which, nevertheless, its greatest masters habitually violated, [23] is one that would never have been maintained had not the desire to systematise all Latin prosody on a Greek basis prevailed almost universally. The true theory of early Latin scansion is established beyond a doubt by the labours of Ritschl in regard to Plautus. This great scholar shows that, whereas after Ennius classic poetry was based on quantity alone, before him accent had at least as important a place; and, indeed, that in the determination of quantity, the main results in many cases were produced by the influence of accent.
Accent (Gr. prosodia) implied that the pronunciation of the accented syllable was on a higher or lower note than the rest of the word. It was therefore a musical, not a quantitative symbol. The rules for its position are briefly as follows. No words but monosyllables or contracted forms have the accent on the last; dissyllables are therefore always accented on the first, and polysyllables on the first or second, according as the penultimate is short or long, Lúcius, cecídi. At the same time, old Latin was burdened with a vast number of suffixes with a long final vowel. The result of the non-accentuation of the last syllable was a continual tendency to slur over and so shorten these suffixes. And this tendency was carried in later times to such an extent as to make the quantity of all final vowels after a short syllable bearing the accent indifferent. There were therefore two opposing considerations which met the poet in his capacity of versifier. There was the desire to retain the accent of every- day life, and so make his language easy and natural, and the desire to conform to the true quantity, and so make it strictly correct. In the early poets this struggle of opposing principles is clearly seen. Many apparent anomalies in versification are due to the influence of accent over-riding quantity, and many again to the preservation of the original quantity in spite of the accent. Ennius harmonised with great skill the claims of both, doing little more violence to the natural accent in his elaborate system of quantity than was done by the Saturnian and comic poets with their fluctuating usage. [24]
To apply these results to the Saturnian verses extant, let us select a few examples:
"Gnaivód patré prognátus | fórtis vír sapiénsque."
patre or patred retains its length by position, i.e. its metrical accent, against the natural accent pátre. In the case of syllables on which the ictus does not fall the quantity and accent are indifferent. They are always counted as short, two syllables may stand instead of one—
per liquidum máre sudántes | dítem véxárant.
or the unaccented syllable may be altogether omitted, as in the second half of the line—
"dítem véxárant."
In a line of Naevius—
"Runcús atqué Purpúreus | fílií térras."
we have in Purpúreus an instance of accent dominating over quantity. But the first two words, in which the ictus is at variance with both accent and quantity, show the loose character of the metre. An interesting table is given by Corssen proving that the variance between natural and metrical accent is greater in the Saturnian verses than in any others, and in Plautus than in subsequent poets, and in iambics than in trochaics. [25] We should infer from these facts (1) that the trochaic metre was the one most naturally suited to the Latin language; (2) that the progress in uniting quantity and accent, which went on in spite of the great inferiority of the poets, proves that the early poets did not understand the conditions of the problem which they had set before them. To follow out this subject into detail would be out of place here. The main point that concerns our present purpose is, that the great want of skill displayed in the construction of the Saturnian verse [26] shows the Romans to have been mere novices in the art of poetical composition.
The Romans, as a people, possessed a peculiar talent for public speaking. Their active interest in political life, their youthful training and the necessity of managing their own affairs at an age which in most countries would be wholly engrossed with boyish sports, all combined to make readiness of speech an almost universal acquirement. The weighty earnestness (gravitas) peculiar to the national character was nowhere more conspicuously displayed than in the impassioned and yet strictly practical discussions of the senate. Taught as boys to follow at their father's side, whether in the forum, at the law courts, in the senate at a great debate, or at home among his agricultural duties, they gained at an early age an insight into public business and a patient aptitude for work, combined with a power of manly and natural eloquence, which nothing but such daily familiarity could have bestowed. In the earlier centuries of Rome the power of speaking was acquired solely by practice. Eloquence was not reduced to the rules of an art, far less studied through manuals of rhetoric. The celebrated speech of Appius Claudius when, blind, aged, and infirm, he was borne in a litter to the senate-house, and by his burning words shamed the wavering fathers into an attitude worthy of their country, was the greatest memorial of this unstudied native eloquence. When Greek letters were introduced, oratory, like everything else, was profoundly influenced by them; and although it never, during the republican period, lost its national character, yet too much of mere display was undoubtedly mixed up with it, and the severe self-restraint of the native school disappeared, or was caricatured by antiquarian imitators. The great nurse of Roman eloquence was Freedom; when that was lost, eloquence sank, and while that existed, the mere lack of technical dexterity cannot have greatly abated from the real power of the speakers.
The subject which the Romans wrought out for themselves with the least assistance from Greek thought, was Jurisprudence. In this they surpassed not only the Greeks, but all nations ancient and modern. From the early formulae, mostly of a religious character, which existed in the regal period, until the publication of the Decemviral code, conservatism and progress went hand in hand. [27] After that epoch elementary legal knowledge began to be diffused, though the interpretation of the Twelve Tables was exclusively in the hands of the Patricians. But the limitation of the judicial power by the establishment of a fixed code, and the obligation of the magistrate to decide according to the written letter, naturally encouraged a keen study of the sources which in later times expanded into the splendid developments of Roman legal science. The first institution of the table of legis actiones, attributed to Appius Claudius (304 B.C.), must be considered as the commencement of judicial knowledge proper. The responsa prudentium, at the giving of which younger men were present as listeners, must have contributed to form a legal habit of thought among the citizens, and prepared a vast mass of material for the labours of the philosophic jurists of a later age.
But inasmuch as neither speeches nor legal decisions were generally committed to writing, except in the bare form of registers, we do not find that there was any growth of regular prose composition. The rule that prose is posterior to poetry holds good in Rome, in spite of the essentially prosaic character of the people. It has been already said that religious, legal, and other formulae were arranged in rhythmical fashion, so as to be known by the name of carmina. And conformably to this we see that the earliest composers of history, who are in point of time the first prose writers of Rome, did not write in Latin at all, but in Greek. The history of Latin prose begins with Cato. He gave it that peculiar colouring which it never afterwards entirely lost. Having now completed our preliminary remarks, we shall proceed to a more detailed account of the earliest writers whose names or works have come down to us.
CHAPTER III.