THE RECOVERY OF A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY A STUDY IN HONOR OF BERNADOTTE PERRIN BY HENRY B. WRIGHT THE RECOVERY OF A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY BERNADOTTE PERRIN, Ph.D., LL.D. THE RECOVERY OF A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY A STUDY IN HONOR OF BERNADOTTE PERRIN, PH.D., LL.D., PROFESSOR IN YALE UNIVERSITY 1893-1909 BY HENRY B. WRIGHT YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW HAVEN. CONN. 1910 Copyright, 1910 BY YALE UNIVEBSITT PRESS The Plimpton Preit Norwood Matt. U.S.A. INTRODUCTION Somewhat more than a year ago, on a morning in the late spring, the fondest dream of a stu- dent's life came true. Across the blue waters of the ^Egean Sea, in the first pink flush of a fault- less Eastern dawn, there rose to meet his eager gaze a city which he had never seen, but which he yet seemed to know as if it had been his own. A few hours later, after the steamer had made its way through the remaining stretch of the Saronic Gulf, and had dropped anchor in the quiet of the Piraeus, he found himself for the first time within the precincts of Attica, on the soil of Hellas. Few, indeed, were the hours which circumstance had allotted to that first spring-time sojourn on ground so new and yet so strangely familiar; so few, that many times before the pilgrim had embarked upon his trip he had even questioned the wisdom of attempting it at all. In three short weeks his pilgrimage was at an end and he had set face toward the West. But then neither misgivings nor regrets were in his heart. He was returning from the richest experience of his life. For him, in every place and at every hour on that enchanted soil, the curtains of time which screen the past [1] 2023869 THE RECOVERY OF seemed in a wondrous way to have parted. The din of the centuries which drowns the voices of old had somehow been mysteriously stilled. The battle-fields of Greece had filled again with war- ring Eastern hordes and tiny armies of undaunted patriots. Her shrines, dimly discerned at first as lonely broken columns, had built themselves up, stone upon stone, to the semblance of their ancient beauty. Her agoras and streets had been filled once more with men and women of the Greece that was. And ever and anon, amidst the moving throngs of peace and war, the pilgrim had seemed to hear so clearly that he could not doubt their identity familiar voices of sweet cadence or of stern command, the voices which, once heard, remain, the undying voices of the masters of the past. But how, one asks, had all this come to be. At first the pilgrim too was mystified. He could not say. But one day, in the sweet quiet of a lonely shrine, another well-known voice fell softly on his ears, and straightway then he knew. It was a voice as of one who, from some hiding place as he supposes, looks down upon another, utterly unaware that his own musings to himself are in turn by that one overheard. It spoke in quiet tones of kindly satisfaction, as if some truth which it had long tried to teach was now being demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt to the certain advantage of those for whom it had [2] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY originally been uttered. These were the words which at that hour on Attic soil the pilgrim heard : "The academic student of the present day may not be so impressed and dominated by the immediate personality of his teacher as his predecessors were; but he may be, and is, more than ever before, brought by the narrower specialist who now teaches him into the immediate presence of the great personalities of the ages, in all lines of human thought and achievement; in closer touch, for example, with Plato, Aristotle, and St. Paul, whose personalities are more powerfully transmitted through the self-effacing medium of the specialist than they were through that of the older teachers in more and larger fields. The modern university student is brought face to face rather with the very processes of history and nature than with special interpre- tations and attractive demonstrations of them." Then the voice ceased, nor was it heard again on Attic soil. The voices of the masters of the past broke forth anew, clearer and more insistent to be heard and understood. But the pilgrim's heart was full, with a gratitude which he could not express. For now he knew whose secret musings he had overheard. It was the voice of his old guide, his guide to the heart of Greece. Thrice blessed they for whom this faithful in- terpreter and masterly choregus has drawn the heavy curtains of time from before the matchless drama of the past. Narrower specialist? Self- effacing medium? Yes, in a certain sense he may be so; because in our time to some extent every teacher must so be. But when the play is through [3] THE RECOVERY OF and the actors have bowed their prettiest, we who realize the unseen and too often unrecognized effort behind the scenes which has alone made possible our apprehension of those portrayals of life that have laid hold upon and thrilled our hearts, will never leave our seats until he too, the choregus, has come forth before the curtain, to greet old friends who bring their tokens of respect and love, and at the same time, it must be, to make many new ones. And that is why this little book is written. [4] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY BERNADOTTE PERRIN CAREER AS STUDENT AND TEACHER Prepared for college at the Goshen Academy, the New Britain, and Hartford High Schools; at the latter institu- tion under the instruction of Samuel M. Capron. B.A., Yale, 1869, with Philosophical Oration appoint- ment. Instructor in the Hartford High School, 1869-70. Student in the Yale Theological School, 1870-71, under Timothy Dwight, George P. Fisher, and Samuel Harris. Student in the Yale Graduate School, 1871-73, under William D. Whitney, Lewis R. Packard, and James Hadley. Assistant in Greek at Yale, 1871-72, during the illness of Professor Hadley. Ph.D., Yale, 1873, "A Comparison of the Electra Trag- edies in Greek Literature." Tutor in Greek at Yale, 1873-74. Assistant Principal of the Hartford High School, 1874-76. Pursued advanced studies abroad, 1876-78: at Tubingen, under Roth; at Leipzig, under Georg Curtius, Ribbeck, and Lipsius; at Berlin, under Vahlen and Kirchhoff. Tutor in Greek at Yale, 1878-79. Assistant Principal of the Hartford High School, 1879-80. Professor of Greek at Western Reserve University, 1880- 1893: Special Student of Archaeology at the Berlin Museum, summer of 1887; Special Student of Archaeology in Greece, 1890. LL.D., Western Reserve, 1893. Professor of the Greek Language and Literature at Yale University, 1893-1901: Lecturer on Greek History and [5] THE RECOVERY OF Literature, University Summer Extension Meeting, Phila- delphia, 1895; President of the American Philological Asso- ciation, 1897; Member of the Committee of Ten of the New England History Teachers' Association, 1901. Public Orator of Yale University, 1898-1908. Lampson Professor of Greek, Yale University, 1901-09 (of Greek Language and Literature, 1901-02; of Greek Literature and History, 1902-09) ; Special Student of Greek History in Sicily and Greece and Lecturer at the Ameri- can School at Athens, 1904-05. SURVEY OF COURSES TAUGHT AT YALE, 1893-1909 (a) UNDERGRADUATE THE ATHENIAN DRAMA (Sophomores). 1893-1903, in- clusive (the three tragedies varying each year). The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus, the Antigone of Sophocles, the Medea of Euripides, and the Frogs of Aris- tophanes will be read in class, and possibly other plays assigned for private reading. A course of ten or twelve lectures will be given on the Greek Theater, on the origin, evolution and history of the Greek Drama, and its influence on subsequent dramatic literature. In reading these plays special emphasis will be laid on their analysis as works of literary art, on the myths which they pre-suppose and de- velop, on poetic words, forms, dictions, rhythms, and con- structions. Grammatical questions will be discussed only when they are important for the interpretation and illus- tration of the thought. ARISTOPHANES. The Testimony of Old Athenian Comedy to the Political and Social Life of its Time (Juniors and Seniors). 1895-6, 1897-8. The Acharnians, Knights, Wasps, Birds, and Plutus will [6] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY be read entire, together with extracts from the other plays and some of the more notable fragments. . . . The plays will be analyzed as artistic literary creations, and their testimony to the history of the period collected and weighed. GREEK SOCIAL AND PRIVATE LIFE (Juniors and Seniors). 1895-6, 1897-8. In close, though not necessary connection with the above course in Aristophanes, a weekly quiz, conference or lecture will be held on the social and private life, the customs, man- ners, and most prevalent beliefs of the ancient Greeks, particularly the Athenians. THE TESTIMONIES OF ARISTOPHANES, THUCYDIDES, AND PLUTARCH, TO THE CAREER OF NICIAS, 1899-1900 [Nicias and Cleon, 1901-02, 1905-06; Pericles, 1903-04, 1906-07; Alcibiades, 1907-08]. (Juniors and Seniors.) A study of literary forms (Old Athenian Comedy, His- tory, Biography), and historical tradition. Reading of one comedy of Aristophanes with investigation of the other comedies; analysis of the history of Thucydides, and read- ing of all passages bearing on the special subject; reading and analysis of a biography of Plutarch. OUTLINE SURVEY OF ANCIENT HISTORY (Juniors and Seniors). 1899-1904, 1906-O9. Lectures, following manual study, outlining such general features of ancient history, from the earliest civilization of the Euphrates to the Empire of Charlemagne, as are most helpful to the study of medieval history. Oriental history is presented only as a background and source for Greek and Roman History. HISTORY OF GREECE TO THE ROMAN CONQUEST (Juniors and Seniors), 1905-06, 1907-08. [7] THE RECOVERY OF A detailed and systematic study of the political, intel- lectual, and artistic history of the ancient Hellenes, with suitable illustrations from their literature and monuments. Lectures, conferences, and recitations. HOMER, HERODOTUS, AND PLATO (Freshmen). 1906-08. Selections from the Odyssey, XIII-XXIV, in the Greek, and reading of the entire Odyssey in a standard literary translation; Herodotus, VI and VII, in the Greek, and read- ing of the entire history in a standard translation; Plato's Apology and parts of the Crito and Phaedo in the Greek, and reading of the Euthyphro, Crito and Phaedo, together with Xenophon's Memorabilia, in standard translations. The object of the course is to give the student an acquaintance at first and second hand with the entire Odyssey, the entire history of Herodotus, and the personality and teaching of Socrates as depicted by two of his disciples. (6) GRADUATE CLASSICAL SEMINARY. Herodotus IV -IX, and the Tra- dition of the History of the Persian Wars through Herodotus and Thucydides to Plutarch. 1893-94, 1896-97, 1900-01, 1903-04. Studies in historical source-criticism. Apparatus re- quired: (1) Standard texts of Herodotus, Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus, and Plutarch; (2) Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, Bd. II, Gotha, 1895; (3) Hauvette, Herodote, Paris, 1894; (4) Wachsmuth, Einleitung in das Studium der alien Geschichte, Leipzig, 1895; (5) Bauer, Plutarch's The- mistokles, Leipzig, 1884, and Themistokles, Merseburg, 1881. All other apparatus is supplied by the University and De- partment libraries, such as the fragments of the Greek historians and the pertinent Greek inscriptions. Students admitted to this course are expected to read French and German freely, and it is for their advantage to have read [8] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY beforehand Herodotus, and Plutarch's Aristides and The- mistocles. THE TRADITION OF THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER. 1894- 95. Lectures and Seminary exercises. A critical study of the sources of the history of Alexander, from the letters of Alexander himself and the Journals, through the Anabasis of Arrian and the Alexander of Plutarch. The treatment of their authorities in the histories of Alexander by Thirlwall, Grote, Droysen, and Holm is compared. A reading acquaintance with German is indispensable for the successful prosecution of this course. PAUSANIAS. 1894-95, 1895-96, 1897-98. Lectures and Seminary Exercises. A practical intro- duction to Pausanias, and a critical reading of his descrip- tion of Olympia, with illustrations from the excavations of 1876-81. The complete Teubner text of Pausanias will be the only text-book required. THUCYDIDES AND THE HISTORICAL TRADITION OF THE PENTECONTAETIA. 1898-99, 1902-03. (a) A course of lectures will be given on the History of Thucydides, its genesis, sources, composition, and termina- tion; and on the design, spirit, and methods of the writer. (6) The l Pentecontaetia (I, 89-117) will be critically read in class (the rest of the work being assigned for private read- ing), other principal testimonies to the history of this period collected and weighed, and the literary tradition of the his- tory of the period from Thucydides to Plutarch examined. Plutarch's Cimon and Pericles will be read with special reference to their sources. The apparatus required in the hands of each student taking the course will be: Hude, Thucydidis Historiae, Leipzig, Teubner, Vol. I, 1898, Vol. II, [9] THE RECOVERY OF 1902; Hill, Sources for Greek History between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1897; Busolt, Griechische Geschichte, Band III, Teil I, Gotha, Perthes, 1897; and the Teubner (Sintenis) text of the Cimon and Pericles of Plutarch. THE WASPS OF ARISTOPHANES. 1901-02. Introduction to the critical and historical study of Aris- tophanes. Establishment of the text of the Wasps and exhaustive interpretation of the same; elements and forms of old Athenian Comedy; reflections and survivals of Aris- tophanic comedy in Roman and modern comedy. THUCYDIDES. 1905-06, 1907-08. Practical exercises in the critical study of the text of Thucydides, following lectures on the manuscript and bib- liography of this author. An introduction to the work of the Classical Seminary. CLASSICAL SEMINARY. Greek History. 1906-07. Exhaustive critical discussion, from all available sources, of disputed points on Greek History, where the primary authorities are Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, or Arrian. OUTLINE SURVEY OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 1908-09, An expansion of the undergraduate course, with special attention to bibliography. CLASSICAL SEMINARY. Theocritus. 1908-09. Critical, exegetical, and historical studies in selected Idylls of Theocritus. 10] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY BIBLIOGRAPHY Caesar's Civil War. University Publishing Co., New York. 1882. Lucan as Historical Source for Appian, Am. Jour, of Phil. V (1884) pp. 325-30. The Crastinus Episode at Palsepharsalus, Trans. Am. Phil. Asso. XV (1884) pp. 46-57. Pharsalia, Pharsalus, Paleepharsalus, Am. Jour, of Phil. VI (1885) pp. 170-189. Equestrianism in the Doloneia, Trans. Am. Phil. Asso. XVI (1885) pp. 104-15. The Odyssey under Historical Source Criticism, Am. Jour, of Phil. VIII (1887) pp. 415-32. Homer's Odyssey, Books 1-IV (College Series of Greek Authors), Ginn & Co., Boston, 1889. Homer's Odyssey, Books V-VI1I (College Series of Greek Authors), Ginn & Co., Boston, 1894. Genesis and Growth of an Alexander Myth, Trans. Am. Phil. Asso. XXVI (1895) pp. 56-68. Notes on the NEKUIA of Peisandros, Proceedings Am. Phil. Asso. XXVII (1896) pp. XXXIV-XXXV. School Odyssey, Eight Books and Vocabulary (with Professor Seymour), Ginn & Co., Boston, 1897. Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Editor), Vol. VI, 1890-7. The Ethics and Amenities of Greek Historiography, Am. Jour, of Phil. XVIII (1897) pp. 255-74. Plutarch's Themistacles and Aristides (Yale Bicentennial Publications), Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1901. Yale's Fourth Jubilee. Atlantic Monthly, October, 1901, pp. 449-459. Joint Editor, A History Syllabus for Secondary Schools, Outline of Ancient History, D. C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1901 and 1904. The IEREIAI of Hellanicus and the Burning of the Argive Heraeum, Am. Jour, of Phil. XXII (1901) pp. 39-43. Editor with John H. Wright of Harvard and Andrew F. West of Princeton of Twentieth Century Text Books, Classical Section (D. Appleton & Co.), 1901-1904. [11] THE RECOVERY OF The Nikias of Pasiphon and Plutarch. Trans. Am. Phil. Asso. XXXIII (1902) pp. 139-149. The Fiscal Joke of Pericles, Proceedings Am. Phil. Asso. XXXIV (1903) p. XX. The Rehabilitation of Theramenes, Amer. Hist. Rev. IX (1904) pp. 649- 669. Mr. Rhodes's History of the United States, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1907, pp. 859-867. The Death of Alcibiades, Trans. Am. Phil. Asso. XXXVII (1906) pp. 25-37. The Hunters of Euboea, translated from the Greek of Dio Chrysostomos, published by the Kit Kat Club of Yale University, New Haven, 1908. The Austere Consistency of Pericles (Plut. Per. IX-XV), Leipziger Fest- schrift, Trans. Conn. Acad. of Arts and Sci. July, 1909, pp. 219-224. Recognition Scenes in Greek literature, Am. Jour, of Phil. XXX (1909) pp. 371-404. 12] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY I remember well the first time that I met him my guide to the heart of Greece. It was in the autumn of 1895. He had but recently come to Yale from Western Reserve College, to take up his work as Professor of the Greek language and liter- ature. I had elected the Sophomore Greek course in the Athenian Drama, as ignorant of the treas- ures which lay in store for me as I was then uncon- scious of the poverty of my Greek equipment a few books of Xenophon and Homer and some scraps of Attic prose. I have never forgotten that first fall term, and the hush which used to fall over the lecture room when, now and then, to quicken and inspire our earnest but faltering efforts, Pro- fessor Perrin would gather up the results of the hour's work with his own translation, which was in itself an adequate interpretation. First there would come a reverent dignified pause, and then, as we sat enraptured, the lines of the Prometheus Bound would fall upon our ears with a pathos in their majestic beauty and a manliness in their scorn- ful defiance which only he could have interpreted to us who was himself warrior and poet of the truth. It was by that course in the Attic Drama, with its four plays by the four great playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes [13] THE RECOVERY OF moral sublimity, artistic perfection, human sym- pathy, matchless wit following one another in their historical sequence, that Professor Perrin will be longest remembered by the majority of the recent graduates of Yale. For eleven successive years he poured forth out of his abundance into the vacuity of his successive Sophomore divisions, until each year the great thoughts that were his became in some measure theirs also, and they began to love Greece and to long to know more about her. Neither the greater familiarity with the subject matter which the repetition of the same course year after year (the three tragedies only varying) brought to him, nor the many calls of committee work upon his time and strength, ever led him to give to a succeeding class anything short of his best. And when each recitation was fin- ished with the stamp of completeness upon it, we all instinctively knew that we had been in the presence of one who had not begrudged us the personal sacrifice of letting power go forth from him, and who recognized as fundamental in his creed that the cost of all real teaching is life. A peculiarly fortunate combination of circum- stances had fitted Professor Perrin for this rare service as interpreter of the spirit of Greek cul- ture to three successive college generations of Yale men. He was himself a son of Yale. In his undergraduate days he had given her of his best efforts and had received from her in turn her rich- [14] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY est rewards. His early teaching had included both high school and college work, and he therefore un- derstood the problems of the boy as well as those of the man. When called to the Professorship of Greek at Western Reserve in 1880, he had found himself entrusted with the entire instruction in Greek in the college. He had thus been saved from that premature narrowing of range of inter- est in a given comprehensive field which often falls to the lot of those who early become connected with departments where large portions of the field are already preempted by trained specialists. During the thirteen years of his teaching at West- ern Reserve, Professor Perrin, with scholarly thoroughness, introduced his students to most of the wise and great men of Greece to Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and the Lyric Poets; to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; to Herod- otus, Thucydides, and the Orators; to Plato and Aristotle; to Theocritus and Lucian. And when he came to us at Yale, they seemed to be, all of them, his old and treasured friends. There was a second circumstance which played an important part in awakening in Professor Perrin those remarkable evangelistic gifts in the diffusion of the Greek spirit and culture which have marked all his work at Yale. Two years after he became connected with the faculty of Western Reserve, the college moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where up to that time there had been no [15] THE RECOVERY OF institution of higher learning. To him fell the stimulating pioneer's task of creating, in a grow- ing, wide-awake Western city, an atmosphere for classical culture and art, and of winning friends for the Classics. Public readings from Homer and Euripides during the winter months were the be- ginnings of an informal College Extension work which received added impetus at the time of the archaeological movement of the late eighties. Professor Perrin went to Berlin in the summer of 1887 to study the treasures of ancient art in the Berlin Museum. In the spring of 1890 he was in Greece with Db'rpfeld and Von Wilamowitz. The rich fruits of these two foreign trips were embodied in a series of illustrated lectures on the excavations at Delphi, Olympia, and Pergamon. Their influ- ence in the city of Cleveland was permanent and far reaching. We at Yale felt the afterglow of these earlier conquests many years later when, on two separate occasions, he offered to upper class- men a course in Greek social life. On his return from a third trip abroad in 1905, fresh from the three new conquests of Attica, Sicily, and Dante, his same unswerving faith in the indispensability and evangelistic power of the gospel of Greek cul- ture which he was called to preach, again asserted itself. At the very moment when the future of Greek studies at Yale was seriously threatened, he set himself to remodel the Freshman Greek course in the interests of attractiveness, with a [16] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY final result that, without sacrificing exact and care- ful work in syntax at each recitation, and the actual reading of considerable portions of the Greek text, the student at the same time was able to cover in a single year, by means of standard literary translations used in connection with the text, the whole of Homer's Odyssey, the entire History of Herodotus, and those dialogues and writings of Plato and Xenophon which deal with the trial and death of Socrates. It was in the above-mentioned capacity of teacher and evangelist of Greek culture that the majority of Yale students first made acquaintance with Professor Perrin. Some six years after my first recitation with him in the course in Attic Drama, and during the period of my graduate study, I came under the influence of the scholar and the awakener of the scholar's spirit in others. Trained in his preparatory studies to thorough- ness and accuracy by Samuel M. Capron, gradu- ated from Yale with highest honors in all studies, but showing special proficiency in English com- position, Professor Perrin had early given evidence of that gift for forceful epigrammatic statement which has made him the recognized public orator of the University and has given to all his lectures and papers their peculiar and abiding charm. He completed his graduate study for the doctor's degree at Yale under Whitney, Fisher, Hadley, and Packard, and then went abroad for several [17] THE RECOVERY OF years of further study. His foreign teachers in method were men of the stamp of Roth, Georg Curtius, Lipsius, Ribbeck, Vahlen, and Kirchhoff; his fellow students and intimate friends then and since, such scholars as Geltner, Garbe, Schroder, and Von Bradke, who were later to occupy pro- fessor's chairs at Berlin, Tubingen, Vienna, and Marburg. After his return to America, during the period of his teaching at Western Reserve, his advanced studies and published writings centered mainly about Caesar's Civil War and Homer's Odyssey; but his work in these two fields had already attracted such attention that before he left Western Reserve to come to Yale, a propo- sition had been submitted to him to take the leadership in the founding of a graduate school at Cleveland. An unusual situation in the Greek department confronted Professor Perrin when he prepared to take up his new work at Yale in 1893. The majority of the special fields to which his tastes would have inclined him were already preempted by the men who composed the unusually large permanent teaching staff in Greek. As a result he was led to venture upon an entirely new field, for which his powers proved to be admirably fitted, and in which he was to be the pioneer in American scholarship. This was the application of modern historical seminary methods to the field of classi- cal history. Macan in England, and Eduard [18] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY Meyer in Germany, by their publications, brought to the attention of the world of scholarship many points of method and many conclusions in source- criticism which he had himself also reached independently and taught for many years in his seminaries, but which press of undergraduate class- room work and administrative duties had not allowed him to revise for the press. The classical seminary on "Herodotus and the Tradition of the Persian Wars," conducted by Professor Perrin in the fall and winter of 1900- 1901, was the decisive factor in the making of my own life plans. "The whole art of education," says Lankester, "consists in exciting the desire to know. By showing something wonderful, mysteri- ous, astounding, and marvelous, dug from the earth beneath our feet, we may awaken the desire to understand and learn more about that thing." In the first session of that seminary, with the skilled hand of the trained excavator, Professor Perrin, in a few deft strokes, laid bare the rich source deposits of Herodotus, revealing to our astonished gaze many a trace of what we had supposed to be a vanished and irrecoverable past, hidden behind a nebulous plural, or a gentile adjective, or the de- ceptive parade of an oral source. And when his mining was done, and many gaps in evidence had been securely bridged, he caused to rise before us some semblance at least of the supposedly lost witnesses to the past, of men whose voices, harsh [19] THE RECOVERY OF and quaint as they were, yet gave forth notes of truth which we had not heard before. Ranging these witnesses before us, he prepared to interro- gate them one after the other in order, in that most fascinating of all researches, the quest for historic truth. Then came the searching cross- examination the detection of the needle of truth in the haymow of rhetoric; the nursing back to some semblance of its former self of a state- ment which perchance had been stretched and twisted on the Procrustean bed of a literary form. Finally, when gossip and malice and rhetoric had been disconcerted and silenced, the long row of witnesses would be dismissed from our sight, and there would pass before us, issuing from the day's gleaning of historic fact, not that motley array of harlequins, and prodigies, and impossible beings whom tradition had taught us to believe had played parts in the drama of Ancient History, but a dignified and stately procession of men with like passions to our own, each one filling his peculiar function in the divine and reasonable plan of the onward march of civilization. Professor Perrin began his advanced teaching of Greek History where all true scholarship instinc- tively begins, not with a presentation of results achieved by others, but with the critical interpre- tation of his original sources. He insisted that the professor of Ancient History must be student and teacher of both literature and history if the search [20] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY for truth in first hand documents were not to be slighted for the mere collating of results. His courses in source-criticism being thus historico- literary in character, were always offered in the department of classical literature, where a given fact could be approached through a historical study of the various literary forms in which it had successively found lodgment. The method is well set forth in the prospectus of lectures which he, with other prominent American Hellenists, de- livered on "Greek Life and Thought," at the University Extension Summer Meeting at the University of Pennsylvania in 1895. The purpose of his lectures on "A Biographical Survey of Greek History" was stated to be, "to compare the latest literary form of the ancient historical tradition with the earliest attainable literary form of the same tradition, and to show what changes have occurred." A glance at the list of courses offered by Professor Perrin in the Yale graduate school for the past sixteen years will show how exhaustively he had covered the field of source-criticism in Greek History, although in the guise of a teacher of Greek Literature, and how well fitted he was to be the organizer of a department of Ancient History at Yale. His first distinct course in the History Department the Outline Survey of Ancient History was offered in 1899-1900. In recognition of his conviction as to the double function of the Ancient Historian, the title of his chair at Yale [21] THE RECOVERY OF was changed in 1901 to the Lampson Professorship of Greek Literature and History. There remains to be added a word regarding Professor Perrin's published works. His match- less English translation of Plutarch's Themistocles and Aristides, with historical and literary notes, which was his contribution to Yale's Bicentennial, is too well and favorably known to need comment here. Conspicuous as illustrative of his method, among the dozen or more occasional papers which he has published since coming to Yale, are the three dealing with the genesis and growth of historical myths, the essay on "The Rehabilitation of Theramenes," and that on "The lereiai of Hel- lanicus and the Burning of the Argive Heraeum." His address as President of the American Philo- logical Association on "The Ethics and Amenities of Greek Historiography" is as remarkable for its originality and relentless keenness in the detec- tion of processes of perversion, as in its careful appreciation of extenuating circumstances in the procedure of those authors who are exposed and sentenced before the bar of truth. [22] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY Unskilful as have been, I fear, my efforts in this little introduction, I yet rejoice, my honored guide* that they have made it impossible for you, this day at least, to shun with wonted modesty the plaudits now that the play is over. You are to leave our stage at Yale where, for four college generations, what was at first a careless crowd of youth filling your auditorium, has always sobered and grown reverent and thoughtful under the spell of your "Odysseus," your "Antigone," your "Socrates." In those matchless interpretations of the past which once were ours alone, a larger public now demands its right to share; and having seen your " Themistocles and Aristides," urges, with an insistence which you cannot well ignore, its claim to your services as choregus for a " Cimon and Pericles," a "Nicias and Alcibiades," and a "Demosthenes and Alexander." God bless you richly in this larger sphere ! When, at your bidding, fresh portrayals of the rich life of the past shall appear, we too shall mingle in the larger audience who rejoice and profit in them, perhaps lost to your sight in the greater sea of faces; with voices undistinguishable amidst its greater applause. But of one thing, we trust, you will still be sure. The greater auditorium may ring with louder plaudits [23] THE RECOVERY OF than did the small theater of the olden days; but none can ever love you more than we. A little token of respect and love we bring to you the first fruits of a tiro's independent exca- vations in a much worked field. If wise men shall decide that there is truth in what it strives to show, it may perhaps be thought a worthy gift, for it would seem to fix the structure of a lost literary form regarding which men have hitherto been much in the dark. If wise men shall decide that there is error, it may yet serve a useful pur- pose in warning of the dangers in the application of a method, sound enough in itself, to a field where absence of evidence makes it impossible to either establish or overthrow the majority of con- clusions. It will then be but another example of what you yourself have often termed "that fas- cinating, but for the most part fruitless search for ultimate sources." But forget not, even if the latter be the case that the prompting to the task, if not the method and result, was the master's work; and that the tiro, once convinced of error, grateful for its dis- covery, will yet continue in the quest for truth in that life passion which the master inspired. And like one of old, that he may in future be kept truer to the more scholarly ideals and sounder methods of that master, a single prayer will be ever upon his lips till it be accomplished "Let the eldest son's portion of thy spirit rest upon me." [24] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY THE RECOVERY OF A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY In a recent study of the sources of early Roman history, 1 Wilhelm Soltau has presented a convin- cing array of evidence in support of a suggestion made by him in an earlier and now well known monograph. 2 As against the theories of Niebuhr, of Pais, and of still a third school who would see in Livy a gifted Roman Herodotus, he seeks to prove that the traditions of early Roman History as we now know them, owe their form and in large degree also their substance, not to a body of lost native folk-lays, nor to a blend of primitive Greek and Roman myths, not yet to the dramatic and narrative powers of a romantic historian, but to the clothing of gaunt and meager Roman family traditions with borrowings from the whole cloth of Greek drama and history by Roman dramatists of the third and second centuries B.C. In Soltau's estimation the most fruitful single source for the writing of that portion of the history of Rome which extends from the earliest times to the first Punic War was the Roman National Drama of Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius. 1 Soltau, Die Anfange der romischen Geschichtschreibung (Leipzig, 1909). 1 Soltau, Livius' Geschichtswerk (Leipzig, 1897). [25] THE RECOVERY OF Of the one hundred or more Roman tragedies of the period of the republic known to us by name, not one has survived entire. Only eight can be surely recognized from external evidence as Fabulae Praetextae or National Dramas; 1 and of these eight we have scarcely over thirty fragments of a few words each. That, however, the remains of many more must be hidden beneath the surface of such repositories of earlier testimony as Livy, Dionysius, Plutarch, and Ovid, has long been recognized. As early as 1859, Otto Jahn suggested that the story of the death of Sophoniba (Livy, XXX, 12-16), which is depicted also on the famous Pompeian wall painting, owes many of its dramatic features to such a source. 2 Reiffer- scheid's review of Ribbeck 3 in 1880 urged that Livy in several of the most vivid scenes was directly under the influence of the Praetextae. Ribbeck in 1881 called attention to the strong internal evidence in favor of such a source for Livy's account of the siege of Veii (V, 21: 8 ff.), 4 which is confirmed by the explicit statement of the writer himself. 5 It was not till 1887, however, 1 It is impossible to draw any hard and fast line between a tragedy and a historical drama from the point of view of the ancients. To the Greek mind, for example, the characters in the Agamemnon of Aeschylus were as truly historical as those in the Persians. *Jahn, Der Tod der Sophoniba auf einem Wandgemalde (Bonn, 1859), p. 12. * Bursian's Jahresbericht, XXIII (1880), p. 265. Rhein. Mus., XXXVI (1881), p. 321. 5 haec ad ostentationem scenae gaudentis miraculis aptiora quam ad finem(V,21:9). [26] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY that Meiser made the first serious attempt to designate which these scenes were, with the ex- tent of the influence of the Praetextae upon them, and to formulate the general principles for the detection of a hidden Fabula Praetexta. 1 His dis- cussion was followed, in the year 1893, by the two of Boissier 2 and Schone. 3 Meiser took as his starting point for restoring the probable structure of the Republican National Drama, the Octavia of the imperial period, com- monly ascribed to Seneca, the authorship and date of which is, however, much in doubt. With the aid of the suggestions which this model offered as to both frame-work and treatment, he thought that he detected the influence of lost Fabulae Praetextae in Livy's account of the events at Capua after Cannae (XXIII, 1-10), in his story of Perseus and Demetrius (XL, 2-16, 20-24, 54-56), and in certain chapters of Plutarch's life of Caius Gracchus. Boissier, writing six years later, was led to lay very much less stress on the influence of these dramas in the writing of history, from the fact that so few are known by name or fragments. This he argued was a proof of their mediocre success. He based his conception of structure and treat- ment on the Iter ad Lentulum, which Pollio ascribes 1 Meiser, t)ber historische Dramen der R8mer (MUnchen, 1887). 2 Boissier, Les Fabulae Praetextae, Revue de Phil., April, 1893. 1 Schone, Das historische Nationaldrama der Rttmer (Kiel, 1898). [27] THE RECOVERY OF (Cicero, Ep. ad Fam., X, 32) to a certain Balbus, and briefly describes. Boissier thought that he found traces of a drama agreeing with such a model in Ovid's story of the vestal Claudia (Fasti, IV, 305 ff.). As in Ribbeck's case, external evidence seemed also to confirm his view. 1 Schone, on the contrary, in a much more ex- tensive study, published the same year, cham- pioned the old view that both the material and the motive of many Fabidae Praetextae had passed over into Roman History. He, however, showed commendable caution in his criteria for then* detec- tion, insisting that both external and internal evi- dence must be forthcoming before any hypothesis could be accepted as demonstrated, else "the study is liable to become a mere idle game with possi- bilities and probabilities." Although intimating that the stories of Tarpeia, of Cloelia, of the mur- der of Servius Tullius, of the punishment of the sons of Brutus, and of Coriolanus, owe their pres- ent form to dramatic influence, he did not venture to assert this, and limited his claims for dramatic origin to the two stories in Dionysius of Halicarnas- sus, of the Horatii and Curiatii (III, 18), and of the sacrifice of the three hundred and six Fabii (IX, 22). In each instance, hi addition to the dra- matic features within the story itself, Dionysius betrays in his introduction of it, by the word , the dramatic source. 1 scaena testificata loquar. Fasti, IV, 326. [28] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY Soltau, in the recent study to which reference was made at the beginning of the present discussion, reviews the whole subject to date with the same exhaustiveness and balance which distinguishes his work on Livy's sources. He calls attention to the possible influence of the Annals of Ennius in some places where dramatic source had before been postulated. He also suggests two new criteria for the detection of a Fahula Praetexta: first, the presence of structure, plot, or incident which is plainly borrowed outright from Greek myth; l and second, what we might call the test of the temper of the times. 2 Applying these tests, with the ones already mentioned, to the theories of his prede- cessors and also to new material garnered from independent reading of the ancient tradition, he revises the list of what he calls demonstrable Fabulae Praetextae so that it includes twenty in all, which treat subjects ranging in time from Romulus to the embassy of Fabricius to Pyrrhus. These he assigns, after weighing all the evidence, to either Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius, or Accius. In every one of these twenty dramas, then, either actual classifiable fragments, or the com- bination, in a suspected passage from a later his- torian, of involuntary clue, dramatic structure and 1 Cf . incidents in the story of the Sabine women with similar ones in the "Trojan Women" of Euripides. 2 For example: the officials at Rome hi the tunes of the late Republic would never have permitted the presentation or publication of a drama dealing with the revolutionary story of the Gracchi as related by Plutarch. [29] THE RECOVERY OF incident, patent borrowing from Greek drama, and compatibility with the temper of the times, re- veal the traces of a lost play. But neither from any one of these twenty collections of remains, nor from a selection out of the entire collection in an attempt to supplement parts lacking in one specimen by those preserved in another, can the articulated structure of the Roman National Drama be made out. We have discovered certain fossil bones, and can assert positively that a cer- tain form of dramatic life once existed. We can- not, however, like Professor Owen, 1 build up the whole structure of the lost fossil from one tiny fragment, for we have no assurance that either of our possible models, classical Greek Tragedy, or the Octavia ascribed to Seneca, belonged to the same species. At the present time, the further study of the structure of Roman National Drama would seem to be blocked by the ignorance of investigators as to the structural anatomy of par- ticular species. That this structure so long sought after is to be found in a hitherto undiscovered Fabula Praetexta which lies imbedded practically intact in a chap- ter of the first book of Livy; and that this fossil deposit, in addition to meeting the demands of all the criteria for detection of lost plays of exter- nal involuntary clue, of dramatic incident, of patent borrowing from Greek sources, and of com- 1 Lankester, Extinct Animals, pp. 67-70. [30] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY patibility with the temper of the times, can, in addition, be brought into relation with two hitherto unclassified fragments of a Roman dramatist, the present discussion strives to demonstrate. "The tradition that Servius Tullius had had both a mild and a violent daughter," says Soltau, 1 in discussing the debt of Roman historical tradition to Greek History, "and that the latter of these married the mild Arnins, while the former was united to the savage Tarquinius Superbus whereupon the violent Tullia sought to wed Tarquinius and even at- tained this end after the murder of her own husband is nothing but a Greek story. Thus the impious daughters of Danaus were wedded to husbands of mild disposition of whom they sought to rid themselves." "Nothing but a Greek story" may be too strong, but there are several unusual things about sections 4-9 of the forty-sixth chapter of the first book of Livy, in which the above-mentioned story is related in detail. The first is brought to our attention by the tense of the verb habuerat in section 4. It is a pluperfect. We have here, then, not a continuation of the narrative interrupted by section 3, but a parenthetical insertion extending to the end of the ninth section, the time of action of which goes back to a period preceding that of the story just narrated. In sections 1-3, Arruns Tarquinius is already dead. Lucius is married to the fierce Tullia, his murdered brother's wife. Suddenly the narrative stops. The reader might 1 Die An&nge d. r8m. Geschichtsch., p. 88. [31] THE RECOVERY OF wish to know how he came to marry her. It is one of those instances characteristic of Livy which Soltau notes, where the author or his source who has been transcribing as he read, following chiefly one authority, introduces an insertion from a variant to relieve monotony. In a modern his- tory, sections 4-9, which are a complete story in themselves, would most certainly have been a footnote. A second point in these sections worthy of note is the solicitude of the historian because his new source does not agree with the common tradition. "Whether he [Lucius Tarquinius] was the son or grandson of Tarquinius Priscus is not clear; but in accordance with the greater number of author- ities, I would regard him as son." What else is this than the annalist from whom Livy borrowed trying to reconcile material created by the drama- tist for artistic purposes, with the more prosaic story which lay before him? Note in the third place the highly symmetrical and dramatic structure of the story itself: two pairs of characters within each group, one the exact antithesis of the other; two brothers, Lucius and Arruns, the one fiery and wicked, the other mild and good; two sisters, Tullia Ferox and Tullia Mitis, the latter mild and good, the former fiery and wicked. 1 By the kindly dispensation of fate, 1 The duplication of characters was a peculiarity of Roman Drama. Cf. the Phormio of Terence. [32] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY as if deferring the awful crimes to come, good is at first joined to bad as checkmate, within each group. Soon follows the inevitable attraction of bad for bad, the clandestine meeting, the double mur- der plotted, and then the close of the tragedy after this murder has been accomplished, where the aged and helpless Servius, who is to be the next victim of Tullia's bloody rage, protests forebodingly, unable to stay the course of crime. Note in the fourth place that in the narrative, although the fierce Tullia and the mild Arruns meet, and although the fierce Tullia and the fierce Lucius meet, neither the two brothers nor the two sisters ever meet each other. On the supposition of dramatic origin the reason for this is not far to seek. There may have been but two actors. One actor may have played the part of the two brothers, and the other the part of the two sisters, an excellent illustration of actors in ancient tragedy playing parts absolutely opposed, villain and hero. Note in the fifth place a fact brought into promi- nence by the simple word funeribus. There is absolutely no detailed account of the actual murders. If the word be translated "funeral," "through a series of funerals" and this is its usual meaning in Livy (cf. II, 7:4, 16:7, 33:11), this absence of detail is more striking. But even if we translate it "violent death," why the absence of detail? We are told that in the clandestine [33] THE RECOVERY OF interview, the fierce Tullia quickly inspired Lucius Tarquin with her own boldness. In the next sentence she and the fierce youth are being married. Is not the annalist here plainly following unconsciously, almost slavishly, the drama before him, in which, as in all Greek tragedy, for artistic reasons, the actual murders were committed off the stage? Note in the sixth place, that one of the few prov- erbs in the first book of Livy occurs in the sections which we are considering : Ut fere fit, malum malo aptissimum, "As generally happens, wickedness is most congenial to wickedness." Now this cannot be the commonplace remark of the annalist, for he would almost certainly have used the ordinary form of the proverb, pares cum paribus facillime congregantur, which Cicero (Cato Major, 7) calls the veins proverbium, and which is merely a translation for the Greek given by Plato. 1 Why does Livy's narrative have the qualifying phrase ut fere fit, "as often happens," and why is the author not con- tent to make use of the general proverb, "Birds of a feather flock together"? Why too does this proverb come just before the climax of the story? When I first suspected that we might have the skeleton of a drama imbedded in these sections of Livy, I at once set about the task of discovering what had become of the choral odes. Had there been choruses, for example, in Shakespere, how i 6/M-iov bfjjolt- tel ireXdfei, Symposium, XVIII. [34] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY would they have appeared, what traces would they have left, in abstract, in the Tales from Shakespere by Charles Lamb? I suspected at the start that they would have left a trace in a proverb or moralization; for on the analogy of the sermon, which is the nearest modern parallel to the choral ode of tragedy, it may be said that the chorus starts from, and returns to, a single proverb as its text. I tried in vain to find the Charles Lamb of ancient Greek tragedy. I sought for him among the writers of the Hypotheses and in Dion, whose discussion of the three Philoctetes plays I had hoped might yield some result. But the search was fruitless. My attention was finally directed to Alfred Church's "Stories from the Greek Dramatists." Mr. Church's attempt is to give to English readers in story form, following the original as closely as possible, but avoiding all suggestion of dramatic structure, the contents of the ancient dramas. No better illustration is needed of what becomes of the chorus in abstracting, than Mr. Church's treat- ment of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes. Lines 677-719, the exchange of dialogue between the chorus and Eteocles, before the latter goes forth to do battle with his brother, Mr. Church thus summarizes: "And though the maidens entreated with many words that he would not do this thing, but leave the place to some other of the chiefs, saying there was no healing or remedy for a [35] THE RECOVERY OF brother's blood shed in such fashion, he would not hearken, but armed himself and went forth to battle." What is Mr. Church's summary of the great choral ode which follows in lines 720- 791? A single sentence at the end of the para- graph just quoted an apparently isolated prov- erb: "Thus ever doth the madness of men work out to the full the curses of the Gods." In abstracting, then, the choral ode is apt to become the proverb. The sole remains of the illustrations from history and life, which in the tragic chorus are used to fortify and establish the general obser- vation, are to be found in Mr. Church's introduc- tory phrase "thus ever;" in Livy's ut fere fit. The structure of a didactic or ethical choral ode is clear from an analysis of the main choral ode of the Octavia. First the maxim or proverb "popularity leads to destruction"; then, the illustration from practical life the ship carried by the favoring wind into the raging sea; finally, the illustration from Roman Scripture the Gracchi and Drusus. Had a Roman Charles Lamb given us an abstract of the Octavia, I venture to suggest that the trans- scriber would have written as the equivalent of this choral ode, simply ut fere fit multis dims favor. Ut fere fit (i.e., as in the case of the ship, and of the Gracchi, and of Drusus) multis dims favor (popularity is the ruin of many men). The proverb, then, in the section of Livy under consideration probably represents the main chorus [36] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY of our tragedy, the burden of which was that evil seeks evil, and this was doubtless illustrated ut fere fit by the customary range of examples from nature and history. To turn again to the dramatic features of the paragraph, it might be asked in the seventh place whether the creative and rhetorical genius of Livy himself is not responsible for the dramatic struc- ture. A comparison of the account in Livy with that in Dionysius proves at once and conclusively that Livy, far from being the inventor, is not even the transcriber of the Praetexta, but that we must refer the paraphrase to his immediate source, which Dionysius also followed. The two accounts, except for one or two additional facts in Dionysius there are absolutely no contradictions, are start- lingly identical. The story is a parenthesis or footnote in Dionysius, just as it had been in Livy. At the point where Livy stopped to explain how Lucius Tarquinius happened to be married to Tullia Ferox, Dionysius stops with these words (IV, 27, end): "When now, he was advanced in years, and not far from the limits of a natural life, he died at the hands of his son-in-law Tarquinius and of his own daughter. I shall describe the man- ner of the plot after I have related some events which took place before." Dionysius also shows exactly the same solicitude which Livy did because his new romantic source does not agree with the older authority, Fabius Pictor (IV, 30), whom he dis- [37] THE RECOVERY OF regards as illogical. Dionysius does not, it is true, give us the proverb, but at the precise point in the action where Livy introduces it, he has Tullia Ferox send away the body of male palace attendants (TOVS evSov, IV, 29), in order that she may hold secret converse with her sister's husband. What better time for the moral reflection of the chorus that evil seeks evil, than when the chorus is sent away from the stage to allow Tarquin to enter upon the secret plot of murder. In Diony- sius' account, too, there is the same absence of detail regarding the actual murder, but the single phrase which refers to it betrays the dramatic introduction of the two bodies, side by side, on the e/cKv/cA^a the final instance of the "pairing" which has been characteristic of the play, "shortly thereafter they died of one and the same death." 1 There are three additions in Dionysius to the account in Livy: (1) a scene in which the good Tullia tries to convert the bad Tarquin; (2) monologue scenes by the two Tulliae; (3) the words of the actual appeal of the bad Tullia to the bad Tarquin, 2 given in direct discourse at great 1 This sentence is the sole trace to be found in the paraphrase of a possible messenger's narrative explaining the details of the double murder. 1 "Dionysius was not accustomed to make his speeches out of whole cloth. He inserted them where his sources mentioned such. 'The chief thoughts in his speeches, the essential facts in them, he took from his source, but worked them over in detail.'" Soltau, Livius' Geschichtswerk, p. 184. [38] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY length, 1 the same scene which is summarized by Livy 2 in the simple phrase celeriter adulescentem suae temeritatis implet. This is of course the climax of the play, and Dionysius has fortunately preserved for us in his transcript the very evi- dent clue of its dramatic origin, the address to Tarquin as "Child of Heracles." But finally, and most conclusive of all, if we turn back to the sentence which precedes this parenthetical paragraph of the forty -sixth chapter, so artistically and dramatically complete, we find that it is introduced by the very external indirect clue of a hidden drama which Scheme demanded "For the Roman palace also afforded an instance of guilt fit for a tragedy (tragici)," (Livy, I, 46:3). 3 1 "The fact deserves to be especially emphasized that the sources which Dionysius follows for the older Roman history up to the Decemvirate, are especially full, and depict details with great clearness for precisely those portions where the Roman National Drama had suggested material to the phantasy and heart of the Romans." Sdtau, Die Anfange d. rom. Ges., p. 128, n. 1. 2 The absence of the speech at this point in Livy would be, in itself, fairly good evidence of its existence in the original from which he and Dionysius drew. Livy's custom is to invent speeches outright at points where they have not been suggested before, and not to reproduce or even work over in the same setting those existing already. Thus in his account of Cannae he ignores the speeches of Paulus and Hannibal to their troops before the battle, which were worked out by an earlier source, Polybius, but inserts some of his own invention at other unexpected points. 1 This phrase evidently escaped Schone, for he says, commenting on Livy's admission of a dramatic source for the siege of Veil, "Zwar bei Livius selbst ist mir eine zweite ahnliche Ausserung nicht erinnerlich" (Schone, ibid., p. 13). [391 THE RECOVERY OF We are now in a position to give an outline of our so-called Tullia, following step by step the narrative of Livy, which is confirmed throughout by Dionysius, and is in three instances supple- mented by him. The Praetexta need not have had but two actors, one of whom played the part of the two Tarquins and Servius; the other that of the two Tullias (and perhaps also their mother, cf. Diony., IV, 30:4). The chorus consisted of male attendants in the palace (TOU? evSov, Diony., IV, 29:1). The scene is laid in the palace of Servius (Ro- mana regia, Livy, I, 46:3). The play opens with a prologos, spoken probably by the despairing old king, thoroughly Euripidean in its expository purpose, telling the earlier facts about the ill-mated pairs (Hie L. Tarquinius . . . fratrem habuerat Arruntem Tarquinium mitis ingenii juvenem. His duobus . . . duae Tulliae regis filiae nupserant, et ipsae longe dispares moribus, Livy, I, 46:4-5). Then follows the parodos, in which the chorus of palace attendants renders thanks to the Gods that the Fates have kept the two bad characters apart so long, and prays that the rule of Servius may continue and the morals of the state have time to be established (Forte ita indderat ne duo violenta ingenia matrimoniojungerentur,fortuna credo populi Romani, quo diuturnius Servi regnum esset consti- tuique civitatis mores possent, Livy, I, 46:5).* [40] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY Next comes the first epeisodion, related only in Dionysius, between the good Tullia and the bad Tarquin the fruitless attempt of a good woman to convert a bad man (6 /w,eV ye Trovrjpos /c/3aXu> TTJS /SacrtXetag TOV /ojSeoTrp TrpoOvfJiOvpevo^ /cat TTOLVTO. fjLr)-%CLV(ofjivos els TOVTO VTTO rrjs -yvz/at/co? pereirtidero avTij3o\ovo-r)<; re /cat oSv/aeyteVrj?, Diony., I, 28:3). Then follows the second epeisodion, narrated by both Livy and Dionysius, between the bad Tullia and her good husband, the equally fruitless at- tempt of a bad woman to corrupt a good man. "Tullia, being a violent woman, was chagrined that there was no stuff in her husband either for ambition or bold daring. Attracted wholly toward the other Tarquin, she said that he was a man, one truly descended from royal blood; she expressed contempt for her sister because having got a real husband she was deficient in the spirit becoming a woman (Angebatur ferox Tullia nihil materiae in viro neque ad cupiditatem neque ad audaciam esse; iota in alterum aversa Tarquinium eum mirari, eum virum dicere ac regio sanguine ortum; spernere sororem quod virum nacta muliebri cessaret audacia,i,ivy 1, 46 : 6. 6 8' eVtet/c^s ov8ei> oto/ic- vos 8eu> c^anaprdveiv ts TOV TrevQepov, dXXa Trcyot/xej/eu/, ecus rj v(Ti<; avrbv IK TOV ^rjv e^ayay^, /cat TOV aoe\- v irpaTTtw TO. fir) 8t/caia, VTTO T^S aVocrtas ywat/cos CTTI Tavavria /acT^yero i/oufleTOvcrqs re /cat /cat TYJV avavSpiav /ca/ct^ovcrr^s, Diony., [41] THE RECOVERY OF IV, 28:3). "But," adds Dionysius, "she was unable to incite her husband to commit a crime." Dionysius then gives us the germs of two mono- logue scenes, in the first of which the good Tullia resigns herself to her lot with lamentation (177 /xev o&vpecrOai re /ecu peu> TOV tavTrjs Saifjiova Trcpirji/, IV, 28:4), and in the second the bad Tullia raves and seeks to be freed from her husband (rf) Se TravToX^toj ^a\Tra.iveiv /ecu aTraXXay^^at fyrtiv CITTO rov crwoi/cowTOs, IV, 28:4). Now the crisis comes. The bad woman de- cides to send for the bad man. At this point we have the choral ode, the burden of which is that evil seeks evil (Ut fere fit malum malo aptissimum, Livy , I, 46:7). Calamity has begun. The fates can no longer keep two violent natures apart. As the chorus of palace attendants leaves the stage at the orders of their mistress, chanting this theme, 1 Lucius Tarquin enters, having been secretly sum- moned by the woman (initium turbandi omnia femina ortum est, Livy, I, 46:7). The epeisodion which follows the clandestine plot scene which is the climax of the tragedy, given in outline in Livy (Ea secretis . . . videat, I, 46:7, 8), 2 is presented in full in Dionysius as follows: l Tbis exit during the play was permissible for the Roman Chorus. Cf. Hermes, II, p. 228. * Livy uses some of the dialogue of this scene in an entirely different connection, in the attempt of Tullia, after this murder, to incite Lucius to kill Servius. This is of course positive proof of its existence in the origi- nal from which both Livy and Dionysius drew. See p. 39, n. 2. [42] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY "When he (Lucius) had come thither, having bidden the attendants to depart that she and Lucius might con- verse with one another in strict private, she thus began: 'O Tarquin, may I say to thee freely and without fear what I feel concerns the common advantage of us two? And wilt thou keep silent regarding what thou mayest chance to hear? Or were it better that I spoke not at all nor revealed the secret thoughts of my heart?' But when Tarquin bade her say what she would, and promised with an oath that he would not reveal any word which she might choose to tell, then laying aside all modesty she addressed him. 'How long, O Tarquin, dost thou propose to suffer thyself to be deprived of thy kingdom? Is it that thou art sprung from lowly and obscure forefathers, and for this reason, darest not have lofty thoughts for thine own best interests? Nay, all men know that thy ancestors of yore were Greeks and sprung from great Hercules himself. For many generations, as I hear, at Corinth they held sway. Thy grandfather Tarquin coming hither from Etruria ruled this city through his might. Thou art the heir not alone to his wealth, but also to his rulership, as elder grandson. Is it that thou hast a body so weak and deformed that it sufficeth thee not to do what kings must perform? Nay thou hast strength such as have those of perfect powers, and in form thou art like a king. Perhaps it is neither of these things. Dost thou then think thyself too young and immature for states- manship, thou, who art not far from fifty years of age? Truly at precisely such a time of life men reason best. Come now, tell me. Is it the princely retinue of the present king and his popularity with the best of the citizens which makes thee check thyself? If thou would'st know the truth, both parties hold him in contempt, nor is he himself unaware of it. Boldness and scorn of danger, which he who would be king must have, are thine own traits. Money, and friends in plenty, and other helps for such an undertaking, [43] THE RECOVERY OF are at thy command in rich abundance. Why then dost thou still delay, and wait for an opportunity to come of its own accord which shall present the kingdom to thee who hast done nothing for it, after the death of Tullius perhaps? Just as if Fate waited upon human dilatoriness, and nature postponed death to old age, and as if everything human were not at the mercy of the unfathomable and unexpected ! But I will tell thee freely, call me bold woman though thou mayest, why thou really strivest not either for honor or for rank. Thou hast a wife, in way of thought unlike thyself. Thee, with her caresses and her flattery, she has made a weakling, and through her thou wilt become though thou mayest not even be aware of it a mere nothing in place of a man. So I too have a mate, a cringing man, with no man in him, who holds me back, me worthy of greater things, and, fair of body though I be, causes me to wither away. Had it but been granted to thee to take me to wife, and to me to secure thee as my husband, we had not lived so long a time obscure and unknown. Why should we not by exchange of marriage rectify the errors of Fate? Make thou an end of thy wife's life! I will do the same with my husband. These hindrances once removed, let us be united. Then freed from these sorry obstacles we may with safety plan yet more. For though in other things one fears to commit wrong, when kingdoms are the stakes, one dares to venture all' (Diony., IV, 29). "When Tullia had thus spoken," concludes Dionysius, "Tarquin gladly undertook the affair and straightway gave her pledges, and receiving hers in turn, departed." Then comes the obvious and ominous break in the story in both Livy and Dionysius, when the murder was committed behind the scenes, for which naturally no equivalent exists in the abstract. [44] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY The concluding scene of the tragedy is given in both Livy and Dionysius (Livy, 1,46:9; Diony., IV, 30:1, 4). From behind the scene the two bodies of Arrims and Tullia Mitis are borne in with funeral pomp, and Lucius Tarquin and Tullia Ferox depart to be joined in unholy wedlock. After this the aged father and mother mourn over the dead bodies of daughter and son-in-law, daring not to hinder triumphant crime, and filled with ominous fore- boding of the more terrible crime still to come. Who was the author of this tragedy? From the time of Niebuhr * it has been held that the events in early Roman history centering about the Tar quins and Brutus constitute an epic whole. But that within this larger cycle there existed, to the minds of the Romans at least, another artis- tically complete division which we may term a dramatic whole, is evidenced from several sources. In a chorus of the Octavia we find this reference: "Tullia and her husband Tarquin paid The penalty for sins unspeakable. Over her murdered father's form she drove Her cruel chariot, and the furious child Refused her murdered father's corpse a grave." l 1 Niebuhr, History of Rome, Vol. I (Philadelphia, 1844), p. 137. 2 Seneca, Octavia, lines 304-309 (Miss Harris' translation). [45] THE RECOVERY OF Livy himself also, or his source, without ques- tion, regarded the history of Tarquin the Proud, from the time of the double murder of his wife and brother to his expulsion by Brutus, as a dramatic whole. In introducing the passage on which our present study is based he designates precisely the above limits as a theme "fit for tragedy." 1 The passage divides naturally into three parts, the Crime of Tullia, the Murder of Servius, and the Revenge of Brutus. Now this latter subject, Brutus, we know to have been the theme of the most famous of the national dramas of Accius. Are we to suppose that this Brutus, the burden of which was "crime avenged," did not have connected with it either organically, as parts of a trilogy, or inorganically through in- dependent but theme-related plays, two other tragedies, "crime in its inception" and "crime at its height" in other words a Tullia and a Servius? "The Roman palace also," says Livy, "afforded an instance of guilt fit for a tragedy." Why "also," if the writer is not thinking of that other great instance at Mycenae, portrayed in the Orestean trilogy of Aeschylus, on which this Roman trilogy which he outlines was modeled? Were further evidence needed to prove a close connection between the Agamemnon story and 1 Tulit enim et Romano, regia sceleris tragici exemplum, ut taedio regum maturior veniret libertas, ultimumque regnum esset quod scelere partum foret (1,46:3). [46] A LOST ROMAN TRAGEDY the Tarquin-Brutus tale, it could be found in the characters themselves. What is Tullia Ferox but a Romanized Clytemnestra, Arruns Tarquinius but an unsuspecting Agamemnon, Lucius Tar- quinius but a remodeled Aegisthus, and Brutus but an adapted Orestes? That Lucius Accius was the author of the Tuttia which Livy and Dionysius have preserved for us with structure almost intact, is extremely probable. He had himself written a trilogy, the theme of which was the Clytemnestra story. 1 But most conclusive of all are two hitherto unclassified frag- ments ascribed to him by Cicero, which would seem almost certainly to belong to the story of the double murder: "Mulier una duom virum" "Video sepulchra duo duorum corporum." 2 1 Aegisthus, Clytemnestra, Agamemnonidae or Erigona. Ribbeck, Scaen. Rom. Pos. Prag., pp. 160-165. 1 Ribbeck. ibicL, pp. 25, 256. [47]