'-"■^^Ir ^Ui X VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES LX)MENICO COMPARETTI l'ro/es:or at the Unhersity of Florence Translated by E. F. M. Benecke With an Introduction by Robinson Ellis, M.A. Corpui Professor of Latin in the University of Ojcfonl Xon&on SWAN SONNKNSCHEIN & CO NEW YORK : MACMILLAN & CO 1895 HUTLER & TanNUR, TiiK Selwood Pkinting Yr'OK!:i Fkomk, and Lomkjn. SRLF URL PA i I,' I INTRODUCTION When, some years ago, Professor Comparetti was intro- U Virijile. Paris, 1883. '* Niebchr is greatly mistaken when he maintains {I'lom. Gcsch., i. 206 10 YERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES entirely of the Homeric kind, this subject would have proved sufficiently iinsuitable by reason of the heterogeneous nature of the incidents and characters which it introduced ; but the purpose of the Vergilian epic was so entirely different that these defects in its subject, even if noticeable, are far less pronounced than would otherwise have been the case. Homer moves constantly in an atmosphere of idealism ; he can take no account of history, for history did not begin till centuries after him ; the limits and the proportions of actual humanity are so far fi-om his thoughts, that it is but rarely, and then merely as a term of comparison, that he takes note of the weakness of man as he is (otot vvv fSporot elaiv) ; the child of an age without history, he is the interpreter of a national idealism which is of itself already eminently poetical. The Latin poet, on the other hand, living at a period when his nation had reached its highest historical development, was compelled, while keeping just so much idealism as the nature of an epic required, to fix his eyes on history, for history Avas the basis of that universal national feeling which had just then reached its highest pitch of intensity, and was more than ever seqq.) that Vergil condemned his Aeneid to the flames because he did not consider it national enough. Such an idea would never have entered his head, and the absurdity of it is shown by the immense success that the Aeneid immediately gained, owing to its being so in sympathy with con- temporary feeling. The history of Livy, which is so thoroughly national, begins with the story of Aeneas, and Livy has explained his reasons for so doing in unmistakably plain language in his preface: " Et si cui populo licere oportet consecrare origines suas et ad deos referre auctores, ea belli gloria est populo Eomano, etc." How perfectly the legend of Aeneas was in harmony with the rest of Roman tradition may be seen from the words which Horace {Od., iv. 4. 53) puts into the mouth of Hannibal : — " Gens quae cremato fortis ab Ilio, iactata Tuscis aequoribus, sacra natosque maturosque patres pertnlit Ausonias ad urbes, duris ut ilex," etc. \Tiien this was written the Aeneid had only just appeared (the 4th Book of the Odes is generally supposed to have come out in 18 b.c. ). The Emper- or's partiality for Troy as the sacred city of Eome and the Gens lulia is clearly shown by the well-known passage in Od., iii. 3, which is certainly earlier than the Aeneid. To describe these and similar passages as merely so much rhetoric and flattery, and to ignore the existence of a real and intense national feeling on the subject is wilfully to sacrifice fact to theory. THE VERGIL OF LITER AEY TRADITION 11 in need of adequate expression. ^'^ Conscious, therefore, of his office, and aided in fulfilling it bv a power of sympathy all his own,^'^ he brought his poem, both in subject and treatment, into such close connection with Roman history that it might almost be described as an introduction to it, while at the same time it is a poetical summing-up of the impression that that history made on the minds of all those who contemplated it.^^ And so, as is always the case when the long-sought formula which expresses some universal feeling is at length found, the Aeueid was received with a burst of enthusiasm tlu'oughout the Roman world. It is wonderful to watch the interest with which the cul- tured classes of the time kept themselves informed as to the progress of this great work, and how powerful and marked was its influence on Latin literature from the very first. While it was being composed, Augustus, ^Maecenas, and the whole crowd of friends, courtiers, dilettanti, poets and orators who surrounded them, were all more or less well posted in the development of the work, various passages from which were every now and then recited by the poet in this private circle. At the time of Vergil's death, this was all the publicity which the poem had had, nor was any part of it, in the opinion of its '® The ongiiial title of the poem was, according to some, not the Aeneis, but the Ge^ta poptdi Ilomani : •' unde etiam in autiquis iuveniums opus hoo appellatum esse uod Aeneidem sed Gesta populi Komani ; quod ideo muta- tuni est, quod nonieu uon a parte sed a toto debet dari. " Sekv. , ad Aen., vi. 752. '" Notiiing can bo stranger than the theory advanced by some modern critics [e.g. Teukfkl, Gesch. d. r'mn. Lit., \). 891) that the " soft and gentle" disposition of Yergil rendered him unfit fur epic poetry. Which of all the various epic poets has had the proper disposition for epic poetry? Was it the platonic Tasso, or the pious Milton, or the mystical Klopstock? And how is it that the " gentle " Vergil has succeeded better than them all, while the Titanic Goethe could produce nothing iu this category but the Achilleis? 1^ " Qui bene considerat iuveniet omnera Romanum historiam ab Aeneae adventu usque ad sua tempora summatini celebrasse Vergilium, quod ideo hitet quia confusus est ordo ; nam iuversio Ilii et Aeneas errores adventus bellumque manifesta sunt ; Albanos autem reges, Romanos etiaiu consules, Brutos, Catonem, Caesarem Augustuni et multa ad historiam Romanam pertinentia hie indicat locus, caetera quae hie intermissa sunt in dcTTriSoTroag commemorat." Serv. ad Aen., vi. 752. Cp. too PiioBcs, ad Georg., iii. IG, p. 5S seq., ed. Keh.. 12 VEEGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES anthor, thoroughly complete ; yet a vast public was aware of its existence, and the effect produced by such passages of it as had been privately recited raised expectation to the highest pitch. Its actual publication was undertaken by Vergil's two friends and literary executors, Varius and Tucca, who had been appointed by Augustus to see to this delicate business. How long they took in accomplishing it we do not know, but very long it cannot have been.^^ The impression produced was profound and universal. In this work, which from that time onward became its author's chief claim to distinction, all recognised the greatest achievement of Latin poetry,^^ and by virtue of it Vergil became to the Romans the " prince of song." ^^ Traces of the study of Vergil and his phraseology can be recognised in his great contemporary, Livy, in whose work evident reminiscences of the Aeneid are to be found. ^'^ Especially rich again in such reminiscences is Ovid,^"' who was twenty-four years old when Vergil died, and had only known him by sight. ^^ And it is worthy of note that in the cases of Livy and Ovid this cannot have come about, as it did with so many other Latin writers, through the use of Vergil in the schools. From the memoirs, too, of Seneca the Elder ^^ we see 1^ According to Boissiek (La publication de VEneide in the Bevue de PJiilologie, 1884, pp. 1-4), it was already published when Houace wrote his Carmen Saeculare, in 737 (17), i.e. within two years of the poet's death. *•* The first passage in which this is definitely stated is in Ovid : " et profugum Aeneam, altaeque primordia Romae, quo nullum Latio clarior exstat opus." Ars Amat,, iii. 387. " tantum se nobis elegi debere fatentur, quantum Vergilio nobile debet epos." Mem. Am., 895. The Ars Amatoria appeared in 2-1 B.C. ; the Remedia Amoris in 1-2 a.d. '^^ " Inter quae (iugenia) maxima nostri aevi eminent princeps carminum Vergilius, Kabirius," etc. Yell. Paterc, ii. 37. 2^ Cp. WoLFFLiN in the Philologus, xxvi. p. 130. 2* Vide the numerous instances in Zingekle's Ovidius mid sein Verhlilt- 7ilss zu den Vorgdngcrn und gleichzeitigen romisclien Dichtern. (Innsbriick, 18G9-71), ii. pp. 48-113. For TibuUus, Propertius, Horace and Livy, vide Sabbadini, Studi critici sulV Eneide. Lonigo, 1889, pp. 134-173. 24 .1 Vei-giiiuna vidi tantum," Trist., iv. 10, 15. 25 These memoirs, which go back to the orators of the reign of Augustus, give the earliest known instances of quotations from Vergil. The following are the chief passages : — " Sed ut Bciatis sensum bene dictum dici tamen THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 13 clearly that the Aeneid was well known and that lines from it were commonly quoted during the first decade after the poet's death. The pathetic story of Dido,^''' which in later times moved even St. Augustine to tears, *^ had particular attractions for a certain class of readers, and was throughout the follow- ing centuries one of the parts of the poem most greatly admired. A prejudiced and paradoxical school of criticism may say what it pleases of this great poet, as of so many other great Latin writers. If it is mistaken, the loss is all its own. Science will find it hard to pardon the excesses of an intel- lectual reaction, however powerful such a reaction may be for progress. The work of Vergil considered, as it should be, in its proper historical place, is, and will always remain, a work without equal, and the fascination which it has exercised for so many centuries on all cultux"ed minds, from the least to the greatest, is entirely legitimate. Yergil appears as imitator merely in his accessories, and even there he is great ; he is an imitator because he was compelled to be so, because no genius, however powei'ful, could at that period have been othex^wise. A complete revolt from the rules of art, as laid down in the still living literature of Greece, was a thing that no one de- posse melius, notate prae caeteris quauto deeentius Yirgilius dixerit hoc, quod valde erat celebre, "belli mora coucidit Hector"; " Quidquid apud durae," etc. {Aen., xi. 288). Messala (ob. 8 b.c.) aiebat liic Vergilium debuisse desinere, quod sequitur " et in decimum," etc., explementum esse. Maecenas hoc etiam priori comparabat," Suasur, 2. "Summis clamoribus dixit (Arellius Fuscus) ilium Vergili versum "Scilicet is snperis," etc. {Aen., iv. 379). Auditor Fusci quidam, cuius pudori parco, cum banc suasoriam de Alexandro ante Fuscum diceret, putavit aequo belle jioni eundem ver- sum ; dixit, Sciliccit is superis," etc. Fuscus illi ait: si hoc dixisses audi- ente Alexandro, scires apud Vergilium et ilium versum esse "... capulo tenus abdidit ensem " {Ami., ii. 55i5), Siiasor, 4. " Montanus Inlius qui comis fuit qniquo egrcgins poeta, aiebat illnm (Cestium) imitari voluisse Vergili descriptionfim " Nox erat et terras," etc. {Aen., vii. 21')), Controv., 16 (Ccstins came to Home shortly after Vergil's death, cp, Meyer, Unit. rom. fra(ji)iehta, p. 537). Vide, too, Sitasor., 1. 28 " et tameii ille tnae felix Aeneidos auctor contulit in Tyrios arma virumque toros, nee legitur pars uUa magis de corpora toto, quam non legitimo foedere iunctus amor." OviD, Trist., ii. 533. 2' Confcssioncs, lib. i. ; op. i. CG. 14 VEEGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES sired, and it would liaye been received with indignation as a monstrous and Tinintelligible enormitj. There are conditions of the human intellect in which genius cannot be entirely free. But none the less is this genius real and apparent to all who are not wilfully blind ; nor must it be discounted by treating it, as has been done in the case of Vergil, as if it were mere technical skill. The work of Vergil belongs to an entirely different sphere from that of Homer and the Greek epic- writers generally,^^ and must, consequently, be regarded as to all intents and purposes an original creation. A tincture of Hellenism there was in the mind of the poet, as there was in all Roman thought, and he would not have been true to himself had he failed to give utterance to it ; but the first and most profound characteristic of Vergil is that he was, as Petronius with true critical insight calls him, a Roman. ^'-^ 28 Even TEUFFEji allows that " Ton und Geist cler Aeneis steht freilich 7,u Homer in diametralem Gegeusatze." Gesch, d. rom. Lit., p. 400. The point is treated more fully by Pl'jss in his Vergil und die ejnsche Kximt, (Leipz., 1884), p. 339 seqq. 29 " Homerus testis et lyrici, Romanusque Vergilius et Horati curiosa felicitas." Petkon., Sat., 118. THE VEEGIL OF LITEEARY TKADITIO^ 15 CHAPTER II But such results could not be obtained by simple natural genius ; genius alone was not sufficient in the conditions then prevailing ; it is never sufficient to produce great works of art in times of great culture. Both by reason of its own nature and origin, and also owing to the influence of contemporary Greek writers, the poetry of the Augustan age, like most Roman poetry, was essentially of a learned character. Much erudite philological study was necessary before a poet could produce work in harmony with the surrounding conditions of culture. The direction of contemporary Greek poetry, domi- nated by the Alexandrians, was so essentially learned, that neither was the language of poetry an actual living language, nor was the poetry itself intended for any but a learned audience. If there is any one fact which brings into special relief the peculiar genius of Roman poetry as compared with Greek, it is the use which the former made of its ancient models. The decay of Greek poetry after the time of Alex- ander is such that students of its history are compelled, if they wish to fill up the great gaps that occur in it, to have recourse to the Romans, for it is in these latter alone that a continuation of its aims and activity is to be found. But for all their pedantic study, not merely of Greek works, but also of the works of the earlier native Avriters, the best of the Roman poets were able to infuse into their poetry a national character which is entirely wanting in the Alexan- drians. Unlike these, they did not write for a narrow circle of learned critics, but for a vast public, whose education was such that it required of its poet that he should be at the same time rhetorician, grammarian, and antiquary. And in these latter 16 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES qualities, essential in a Roman poet, no one could equal Vergil, who, in addition to many other artistic studies, had bestowed particular attention to the Latin language, both as it then existed and also in its earlier forms, with a view to bringing it to the greatest possible perfection, and making it an adequate vehicle of expression for his artistic conceptions, and had also, both in his library and on his journeys, made a special study of all local myths, usages, and the like, which were in any way connected with his work.^ He knew moreover the secret of concealing this great learning of his, never ostentatiously dis- playing it in such a way as to make the poetry subordinate to it — a virtue which his ancient critics already thoroughly appre- ciated ; 2 and he was thus able to satisfy two entirely different classes, the learned few and the general public. The wonderful genius of Vergil in his use and creation of poetical diction and in his treatment of metre, and the minuteness of his antiquarian researches, made with a view to giving his work the most correct local colouring, are such self-evident facts that even the most severe and prejudiced of modern critics have been 1 To Augustus, who, while engaged in his war with the Cantabri, had asked how the Aeneid was getting on, he answ-ered : " De Aenea quidem meo, si me hercle iam dignum auribus haberem tuis, Hbeuter mitterem ; sed tanta inchoata res est, ut paene vitio mentis tantum opus ingressus mihi videar, cum praesertim, ut scis, aha quoquo studia ad id opus multoque potiora impertiar." Maceob., Sat., i. 24, 11. In a task of such difficulty and delicacy it is not surprising that, as his biography states (p. 59), "traditur cotidie meditatos mano plurimos versus dictare solitus, ac per totum diem retractaiido ad paucissimos redigere, non absurde carmen se informe more ursae parere dicens et lambendo demum effingere. Aeneida prosa primum oratione formatam digestamque in xii. libros particulatim componere iustituit, prout liberet quidquid, et nihil in ordinem arripiens, ut ne quid impetum moraretur, quaedam imperfecta trausmisit, alia levissimis verbis veluti fulsit, quae per locum pro tibicinibus interponi aiebat, ad sustinendum opus, donee solidao columnae advenirent." The Aeneid as we have it took eleven years to compose, and Vergil had intended to devote three more to polishing it. It was with this object that he undertook the journey to Greece which proved fatal to him. Donat., p. 62. 2 >i Vergilium multae antiquitatis hominem sine ostentationis odio per- itum." Gell., v. 12, 13. Qcintilian too notices this when comparing Yergil with Homer: " et hercle ut illi naturae caelesti atque immortali cesserimus ; ita curae et diligentiae vel ideo in hoc plus est, quod fuit ei magis laborandum et quantum eminentibus vincimur fortasse aequalitate pensamus." Inst., x. 1, 86. THE VERGIL OF LITEBAEY TRADITION 17 compelled, in these points, to join in the eulogies of the ancients.^ The needs and the nature of Roman thought were such, that the impression produced by those characteristics of the poem which were the most exti-insic and mechanical was the most profound. Throughout the vicissitudes which the conception ot the poet underwent, this impression survived and remained, however much it may have been distorted and debased, most vivid in all the literary tradition of the Latin middle ages. Perfection of language was to the Romans such an essential in a work of art, that it may be said to have been the chief point to which they looked in forming a judgment ; in their opinion perfection of language would atone for the absence of many other merits. And, in fact, the Latin writers were in this respect in an entix'ely different position to the Greeks. Among the latter, the forms of art, having their birth in natural and spontaneous movements of national thought, were seconded by a simultaneous and equally spontaneous develop- ment of the language, which enabled the poets to apply it to their needs without any special grammatical or philological study. The development of Roman literature, on the other hand, was a far less natural one. To reduce a rough and barbarous language into a form in which it could be the vehicle of a literature, not national in its origin, but imported, as it were, suddenly from abroad, was a matter of the gi'eatest dithculty ; it was with tliis that the earliest Latin writers liad to contend, and it was on this that their attention was mainly concentrated.^ From this point of view one may describe the 2 Cp. Bernhardy, p. 437 ; Teuffel, p. 397 ; Baeor, p. 371 ; Hertzberg {Uebers. d. Aeiieis), p. xi. seqq. ; Hekiiann, Elem. doctr. metr., 357 ; MCller, l>e re metr., p. 140 seq., 183, I'JO secj. ; Niebuhr, Iu'dh. Gescli., i. p. 112 (Sril ed.). For the legend of Aeneas and the nse made of it by Vergil vide Klausen, Aeneaii nnd die Peuaten, ii. p. 1249 seq. ; Rubino, Beitriiije zur Vorjcschichte Italicns, p. G8 seqq., 156 seqq., 178, and particularly pp. 121-8, where the learning and accuracy of the poet are deservedly praised. Wkidkeb in the preface to his Cummentar zu VtrgiVs Acneis, Buc.lt I., II. (Lelps., 1869J has summed up Vergil's merits in a maimer which, if somewhat superficial, is yet not without discernment. Stronger arguments a^'aiust the prevailing German views are to be found in Pluss, Vfr). ^' "Asconius Pedianus dieit se Vergilium dicentem audisse, in hoc loco se granimaticis crucem fix'sse, volens experiri quis eorum studiosior invenir- etur." Serv. ad Eel,, iii. 105. Cp. PHUiAEOYii., and ScnoL. Been., ibid. Probably Asconius was citing the authority of some one else, for he can hardly have been born when Vergil died. Cp. Ribdeck, Prolcgg., p. 97 seq. We find this idea again in the middle ages, whore it is spoken of as a regular habit of ancient authors, not confined to Vergil, e.g., in the Prologue of Maria de France, who states it on the authority of llisciau. THE VERGIL OF LITERAEY TRADITION 23 not sufScient to give it an insight into the true nature of the epic. We have already noticed how this habit of mind, which occupied itself merely with externals, tended not a little to prevent a just estimate of the eloquence of Cicero, notwith- standing the fact that orator}- was a subject on which Romans were especially qualified to decide, and the further fact that a parallel between Cicero and Demosthenes was a far truer one than any between Vergil and Homer could be. In the case of Vergil, this same method of criticism resulted in confining his merits as poet to a field far too narrow for the nature and universality of the enthusiasm he had evoked. Hence liis poetical and national qualities, which, while generally felt, could not be truly judged within the restricted limits of con- temporary appreciation, acted like leaven on those qualities of scholar and grammarian which could be understood and denned, and served to expand them to undue proportions. The idea of Vergil's universal knowledge does not, it is true, as yet appear; but there does already appear an idea of his universal authority, whether in poetry or pi'ose, grammar or rhetoric — that is to say, in all the first elements of the culture of the time. Every one who speaks of him is prone to exaggerate more or less the nature and the variety of his powers, and Martial is certainly not giving utterance to an idea exclusively his own when he says that, had Vergil chosen to devote him- self to lyric poetry or the drama, he could easily have surpassed the highest masters in either of those branches of literature. ^*^ From the very beginning therefore of the history of Vergil's fame there are traces to be found of those aberrations of judg- ment which attained subsequently to such striking proportions. *^ " Sic Maro nee Calabri teatavit carminn Flacci, I'inJiiricos nosset cum superare moJos ; et Vario cessit liomaui laude cothurni, cum posaet tragico fortius ore loqui." Mart., viii. 18. It is worthy of note that, though Virgil exercised a great influence on Latin prose, lie bad no great reputation liiniHelf as a prose writer. " Vergilium ilia felicitas iogeui in oratione soluta reliquit." Skneca, Co:itrov. ,iii. p. 2G1 (ed. BuBbiAx) ; cp. Don.'^t., Vit, Ver(j., p. oS. 24 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES CHAPTER III Vergil belongs to that small class of poets who have been altogether fortunate. Admired not only for his rare genius, but also for his- rare character, which made him one of the most sympathetic men of his age,^ he was spoken of w^ith enthusiasm by all his fellow-poets, the best of whom wei'o ready, as we may learn from their works, freely to acknow- ledge his superiority. He had enemies — genius always has — but he could well afford to forget them in the esteem with which he was regarded by great men of every kind and by the ■whole Roman people, which, on hearing his verses recited in the theatre, rose as one man and saluted the poet, who happened to be present, with the acclamations usually reserved for Augustus.^ He certainly, from what he saw in his life- time, had every reason to anticipate the immortality of his fame in future ages. Signs of the poet's popularity are apparent in every sphere. In the upper classes, among whom it was the fashion to take an interest in literature, the learned lady described by Juvenal, ^ " Cetera sane vitae et ore et animo tam probum constat ut NeapoU Parthenias vulgo appellatus sit." Donat., Vit. Vcrg., p. 57. *' Anima Candida." Hon., Sat., i. 5, 41. An ancient commentator thought that Vergil was meant in Horace's well-known lines, " Iracundior est paulo," etc. Sat., i. 3, 29 seqq. 2 " Malo securum et secretum Vergili recessum, in quo tamen neque apud divum Augustum gratia caruit, neque apud populum Eomanum notitia. Testes Augusti epistulae, testis ipse populus, qui, auditis in theatro Vergili versibus, surrexit universus, et forte praesentem spectantemque Vergilium veneratns est sic quasi Augustum." Dial, de Oratt., 13. How great was this " notitia apud populum Eomanum " is clear too from his biography, " ut . . . si quando Komae, quo rarissime commeabat, viseretur in publico, Rectantes demonstrantesque se suffugeret in proximum tectum." DoNAT., Vit. Verg., p. 57. THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 25 (according to the scholiast Statilia Messalina, the wife of Xero,) who appears surrounded by grammarians and rhetoricians, dealing earnestly and voluminously with the literary questions of the day, discusses the character of Dido, and considers the relative merits of Vergil and Homer. '^ Polybius, the freedman of Claudius, a courtier of much influence and a dilettante in literature, probably very much of the same calibre as his im- perial mastei", undertook a Latin paraphrase of Homer and a Greek one of Vergil, and on these Seneca, in his work addressed to him, pours forth eulogies,* which are probably as sincere as those he at the same time bestowed on the future hero of the Apocolocyntosis. In the theatre too Vergil's popularity was no less striking; not only were his poems recited there ^ for many centuries after his death, but special dramatic repre- sentations of them were given. Thus Xero, towards the end of his life, when threatened from every side, made a vow that if he escaped he would himself perform a pantomime entitled Turnus, taken from the iEaeid.*' It was further the fashion at sumptuous entertainments to have, among other forms of diversion, recitations from H.jmer and Vergil. Thus at the table of the parvenu Trimalchio, the Homeristae duly appear, and a passage from the fifth book of the iEneid is cruelly ' " Ilia tenien gravior, quae cum discumbere coepit laudat Vergilium, periturae ignoscit Elissae, committit vates, et comparat; inde Marouera, atque alia parte in trutina suspendit Homerura." Sat., vi. 43i seqq. * " Homerus ct Vergilius tam beue de humano gencre meriti quam tu et de omnibus et de illis meruisti, quos pluribus notos esse voluisti quaiu scripscraut, multum tecum morentur." Dial., xi. {Ad PoUjb. de Cmnol.) 8. 2. " Agedum ilia quae multo ingeni tuo labore oelebrata sunt, in manua Bume, utriuslibet auctoris carmina, quae tu ita resolvisti ut quamvis struc- tura illorum recesserit, permaueat tamen gratia. Sic enim ilia ex alia lingua in aliam transtulisti, ut, quod difficillimum erat, omnes virtutes in alienam te orationera secutae suut." Iliid., 11. -5. * " Auditis in theatro Vergili versibus," Dial, de Oratt., 1. c. ; " bucolica eo Buccessu edidit ut iu sceua quoque per cantorea crebro recitareutur." Don AT., Vit. Verg., p. GO. * " Sub exitu quidem vitae palain voverat, si sibi incolumia status per- mansisset, prodituram se partae victoriao ludis etiam hydraulam et chorau- 1am et utricularium, ac novissimo die histrionem, saltaturumque Vergili Turnum." Sdeton., vi. 54. Cp. Jahn, in Hermes, ii. p. 421 ; Fbiedlandeb, Sittengeschichte, etc., ii. 274, 26 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES murdered.'' Among the presents too, (Xenia,) which it was customary to give on certain occasions, books which happened to be in fashion would often figure. Such a book would contain some short poem of Homer or Virgil, or sometimes even their complete works, written elegantly on a small scroll, and occasionally further ornamented with the author's por- trait.^ Nor did the fame of Vergil and his contemporaries of the " new school " remain confined to Rome ; it spread rapidly throughout the provinces. Among the various graffiti still visible on the walls of Pompeii occur several verses of Vergil.^ One of these is the twentieth line of the eighth Eclogue : — CARMINIBVS CIRCE SOCIOS MVTAVIT VLIXIS ; another, — EVSTICVS EST CORYDOX ; ^^ ' " Ecce alius ludus. Servus qui ad pedes Habinnae sedebat, iussus, credo, a domino suo, proclamavit subito canora voce : — ' Interea medium Aeneas iam classe tenebat.' Kullus sonus unquam acidior percussit aures meas ; nam praeter recitantis barbarie aut adiectum aiit deminutum clamorem, miscebat Atellanicos ver- sus, ut tunc primum me Vergilius offenderit." Petkos., Sat., 68. ^ " Accipe facundi Culiccm, studiose, Maronis, ne uugis positis Arma virumque canas." Maet., xvi. 185. " Qiiam brevis immensum cepit membrana Maronem, ipsius Yultus prima tabella gerit." Id., xiv. 186. Besides Homer and Vergil, there occur also in Martial's Xenia Menander, Cicero, Propertius, Livy, Sallust, Ovid, TibuUus, Lnean, and Catullus. * Cp. BucHELER, Die pompejanische Wandinschriften, in the Rhciii. Museum, N.F., xii. p. 250 seqq. Gaekucci, Graffiti, tab. vi. 5 (Ae?}., ii. 148). As the excavations are extended the number of Vergilian lines discovered increases daily. lu the collection of Zangemeister, Inscriptioves parietariae Fom- pcinae, Ilerculanenses, Stahianae (vol. iv. of the Corpus Inscrr. Lat.), Berlin, 1871, the following numbers are lines or parts of lines of Vergil : 1237 [Aen., T. 110), 1282 {Acn.,\. 1), 152-1 {Ed., ii. 56), 1527 {Id.), 1072 (Aen.,i. 1), 1841 {Aen., ii. 148), 2218 {Aen., ii 1), 2361 {Acn, i. 1). 3151 {Aen., ii. 1), 3198 {Aen., i. 1). To these may be added two others published recently in the Giorriale deijli Scatn di Fompei, ser. ii. vol. i. p. 281 {Aen., i. 234), vol. ii. p. 35 {Aeii., i. 1). A lioman wall-inscription has the words, " colo calathisque Minervae " {Aen., vii. 805) ; r^ide Fea, Varieta di notizie, p. xxvii. ; Joedan in Fiirsian^s JalireKhericht, i. 784. '" The common reading is, " Eusficnx es Corydon," but tbe Codex Eovianits has " est,'' like the Pompeiun inscription. THE VEEQIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 27 another, which sounds sadlj in the deserted city,— CONTICVERE Om[nK8]. These inscriptions are probably the work of schoolboys, like the alphabets, or parts of alphabets, Avhich occur in various parts of Pompeii. ^^ The date of the Pompeian catastrophe was 79 A.D., when Vergil had already been dead ninety-eight years ; but though doubtless the great mass of the Pompeian graffiti were written between that date and the eruption of sixteen years previously, yet many are clearly much earlier. One belongs certainly to the year 79 B.C., and one of the alphabets also seems to belong to the time of the Piepublic.^''^ The fame of Vergil in Campania, where he spent most of his time, was very great even daring his life, and his grave at Naples moreover gave him a particular connection with that neighbourhood. Hence there is no real reason why these Vergilian verses should not have been written on the walls of Pompeii at a period much nearer the poet's lifetime, or even during his lifetime itself. The two passages, ' Rusticus est Corydon,' and ' Conticuere omnes,' are at the present day still two of the most familiar passages in Vergil. Nor are these graffiti the only proof of his popularity at Pompeii ; verses of his occur also, in epigraphs properly so-called, on a singular variety of objects, on a silver spoon, on a tile, on a bas- relief representing a woman selling game, and on tombstones. ^-^ " Cp. Garrucci, Grfijf:ti, tab. i. Elementary Kclioolmasters, as is wt-U known, used to hold their claKsses in the open air, in the streets or the squares. Cp. Ussino, Barstdlunr) der Erzichumjs- und Unterrichtswesen hn den Griechen und lioincrn (transl. by Frikpp.ichsen, Altona, 1870), p. 100 scqq. For the Pompeian wall-paintiiiKS that liave reference to the schools, see Jahn, Uehrr Daistclhnuien e ferlis Alsiensibns, 3, p. 224 (ed. Du Riec). The opposite school, to which Quinliliari and the author of the De Oratorihua belouged, read Vergil, Horace and Lucan. Cp. Dial, de Oratt., 20. ** Most of the writers who admire Fronto come from Gaul ; such are Ausonius, Claudius Mamertus, Eumenius, and Sidonius. The grammarian Couseutius, who cites Frouto (Keil, v. 333), also comes from Gaul. Leo, the counsellor of Eurich, King of the Goths, boasted of his descent from Fronto. To him wrote his friend Sidonius, " Suspendo peroraudi illud qnoque celo- berrimum flumen quod non solum gentilitium sed domesticum tibi, quodque in tuum pectus jier succiduas aetates ab atavo Frontone transfuuditur." (StnoN., Ej>., viii. 8). Fronto was also admired by his fellow-countrymen in Africa, as we learn from Minucius Felix and Marcianus Capella, but his chief eulogist, after his contemporary Gellius, is Sidonius, who admires principally his " gravitas." ^■' DoNAT., Vit. Verg., p. 63. The last of the three distichs is noteworthy for its emphasis ; — THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 41 Anyhow, it is quite clear that the movement originated by Fronto had only a limited influence, and that in purely literary circles, and did not in any way affect the common schools, which were under the Empire the main educational institutions. In these the authority of Vergil remained unimpaired and ran no risk of being supplanted by that of Ennius, Lucilius or Lucretius, however much the influence of Fronto might be exercised on their behalf. As a matter of fact, this reaction in favour of the ancients was not confined to Fronto and his school, and Fronto's excesses in this direction appeared rather in his method of teaching and his choice of examples than in his literary style, for others, who were less well-known, carried this afl^octation to much greater lengths. But in his methods Fronto went far beyond even those who on the whole shared his tastes ; for before him the most ardent admirers of the ancient literature had not dreamt of daring to dethrone Yergil. A work which throws much light on the literary ideas of this period and on the tendencies of contemporary studies is the Avork of Aulus Gellius. Gellius was not a disciple of Fronto ; as a grammarian he can hardly be said to have belonged to one school more than to another.-^ He seems to have been just an erudite dilettante, who made a collection, both from books and from various learned circles that he frequented, of vicAvs on all manner of subjects ; his chief researches, however, are con- cerned with the histoi-y of the language, and everything which had to do Avitli the meaning and usage of words seems to have had a special interest for him.^^ He is a sort of philological antiquarian, and hence his extreme veneration for the old " Iiifelix gcmino ceculit prope Pevgamon igiii, et jiaene est alio Troia cremata rogo. " The Periocliae attributed, in all probability rightly, to Sulpicius are iu the Aiith. Lat., No. G.j3 (ocL Eiese). Sulpicius also discussed Vergil in bis letters (cp. Gell , ii. 16. 8 seqq.). For his relations with Fronto, vide Gell., six. 13. 1. ** I cannot bring myself to accept the contrary view maintained by Hertz and accepted by KaEisciiiiEU iu his De auctoribus Aid. GeUil ijrainmaticis, p. 3 seq. -* " Ei libro (Aeli Molissi) titulus est ingentis cuiusdam illecebrae ad legondum ; scriptus quippe est, De loqii.endi proprietate." xviii. C. 8. '42 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES writers of tlie republic, and liis contempt for the grammarians of the EmpirCj^*" not excepting the famous Verrins Flaccus.^'^ He does not so much as mention Tacitus or Quintilian, and, like Fronto, he savagely attacks Seneca,^^ not merely for his mistakes in style and language, but also because he speaks mockingly of those searchers after archaisms who made a study of the early poets. Hence Gellius moves in the same atmo- sphere as Fronto, of whom he speaks with enthusiasm, and has much in common with him ; but yet, though his style and language show evident traces of his antiquarian tendencies, he is much too independent of Fronto to be called an actual follower of his.^*^ While on this subject, it is worth noticing a chapter in which Gellius refers without disapproval to certain sayings of Favorinus in which the latter deprecates the use of archaisms. ^0 But the most important point for us in this work, which is such a precious document for the literary life of the epoch, is the regular use which is made of Vergil. In the work of Gellius, Vergil appeai^s as an authority of great weight in all questions of language, of usage and of elegance ; ^^ and in these matters, which are Gellius' proper sphere, Vergil is not only cited as an authority, but is also defended against the attacks of certain grammarians of the previous century, ^^ g^ch as Hyginus and Annaeus Cornutus, who are censured in no measui-ed terms. ^^ Only rarely is it 2^ " Isti novicii semidocti," xvi. 7. 13; " turba grammaticorum novicia," xi. 1. 5. Cp. too xTii. 2. 15. ^' " Cum pace cumqne venia istorum, si qui sunt, qui Verri Flacoi auctor- itate capiuntur," xvii. 6, 5. 28 He even calls him " ineptus atque insubidus homo," xii. 2. 11. 29 I cannot agree here with Beknhaudy (p. 872). Fronto is an orator and his school is strictly an oratorical one, and one cannot expect to iind Frontoniani except among orators. One need not think of Fronto to explain certain peculiarities in the style of Gellius. 30 u Yjy(, nioribus praeteritis, loquere verbis praesentibus," i. 250 seq. 3* " Pocta verborum dihgentissimus," ii. 26. 11 ; " elegantissimus poeta," XX. 1. 54 ; " multae antiquitatis hominem sine ostentatiouis odio peritum," V. 12, 13. 32 II Grammatici aetatis superioris baud sane indocti ueque ignobiles," ii. 6. 1. 33 " Insulsa et odiosa scrutatio," (he is speaking of a quibbling criticism of Annaeus Cornutus) ix. 10. 5 ; "sed Hyginus nimis herclo ineptus fuit cum, etc.," vii. 6, 5. THE VEEGIL OF LITEEAEY TEADITION 43 admitted that a word has been improperly or infelicitously used by Vergil. 3* Certain criticisms dealing with questions of fact, or with contradictions and inconsequences in the story, are repeated, and various explanations quoted for what they are worth ; but all tliis is confined to minutife, and even when such a subject as Vergil's art is discussed, the question is never regarded from a broad point of view. The discussion is re- stricted to certain parallels between Vergil and various Greek poets, and even so only in the matter of individual passages. In some cases Vergil's imitation is regarded as felicitous, in others as the reverse ; passages are quoted in which he is inferior to Homer; Favorinus compares Vergil's description of Etna with that of Pindar (Pyth. I.), and finds it much less perfect, ^^ in which he is doubtless right. But the reasons he adduces are of little weight ; he merely compares expression with expression without going at all below the surface or considering the different requirements of two such different branches of poetry as the epic and the lyric. The criticism of the age was not capable of this ; and if at times it shows itself sufficiently independent to find fault with a writer of author- ity, its strictures are confined to externals and to that foi-mal part of literature which was all that the literary mind of the period was able to appreciate. It was the fashion at this time for grammarians to give seances at which they displayed their learning, and there was always a public eager to listen to them. When Gellius was at Brundisium, one of these grammarians was giving a specimen of his accomplishments by reading the Seventh Book of the Aeneid and offering to answer any questions on it. His read- ing was barbarous and he gave a ridiculous answer to a ques- tion which Gellius put.^^ Such charlatans are often mentioned in the Nodes Atticae. One thing however is clear from this, ^* Once the charge is iutroduced by " existimatur" (x. 29. 4) ; in another place however it is distinctly admitted (i. 22. 12). 2^ " Ut Pindaro quoque, qui nimis opiiua piugiiiqae esse facundia existim- atus est, insolentior hoc quidein in loco tumidiorquc sit . . . Audito nunc Vergili versus, quos inchoasse eum veiius dixerim quam fecisse, etc' xvii. 10. 8 seqq. 36 " Oves bideutes dictae quod duos tantum denies liabeant," xvi. 6. 9. 44 YERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES and that is tlie frequent use made of Vergil by grammarians, from the highest to the lowest. There were some, it is true, who preferred Lucilins to Horace, and Ennius or Lucretius to Vergil, but they were exceptions.^^ One of the chief of these latter was the Emperor Hadrian ; ^^ but his admiration for Ennius did not prevent his consulting the Sortes Vergilianae, and frequently quoting lines from Vergil. ^^ The way in which Gellins speaks of a would-be Ennianistes, who read Ennius in the amphitheatre at Puteoli, shows clearly that the practice was an unusual one. Martial too, who belonged to no special literary clique and may be taken as a representative of common contemporaiy feeling on questions of literature, was sure of the approbation of the majority when he blamed the Romans for continuing to read Ennius after they had Vergil, or when, in a pungent epigram, he satirised one of those pedants who neglected Vergil for the unintelligible Helvius Cinna.^*^ In fact, the grammarians as a whole deplore the small amount of study bestowed on the ancient writers.'*^ Vergil moreover, of all the Augustan poets, was the one ^^ " Illi qui Lucilium pro Horatio et Lucretium pro Yergllio legunt . . . quos more prisco apud iudicem fabulautes non auditores sequuntur, non populus audit, vix denique litigator perpetitur." Dial, de Oratt., 23. 3® "Ciceroni Catonem, Vergilio Ennium, Sallustio Coelium praetulit, eademque iactationo de Homero ac Platone iudicavit." Spaktian., Hadrian., 16. 39 Spartian., Hadrian., 2: "quos versus {Aen., vi. 8G9 seqq.) cum aliquando in horto spatians cantitaret." Spaetian., L. Vcr., 4. L. Yerus, who used to admire Ovid and Apicius to the extent of taking tbeiii to bed with him, could find no better way of expressing his appreciation of Martial than that of calling him his Vergil. Spaiitias., L. Ver., 5. ^° " Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi, Eoma, Marone." Mart., v. 10. 7. " Scribere te, quae vix intelligat ipse Modestus et vix Claranus, quid, rogo, Sexte, iuvat ? non lectoro tuis o]Dus est, sed Apolline, libris ; iudice te, maior Cinna Marone fuit. sic tua laudentur ; sane mea carmina, Sexte, grammaticis placeant et sine grammaticis." Id., X. 21. ■*' "Legcrat (Probus) in provincia quosdam veteres libcUos apud gram- matistam durante adhuc ibi antiquorum memoria, necdum omnino abolita sicut Eomae ; . . . quamvis omnes contemni magisque opprobrio legentibus quam glcriae et fructui esse animadverteret." Suet., De Gramm. et niiett., 24. THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 45 •whom the lovers of antiquity found most to their taste. In the Nodes Atticae the authors most frequently cited are Ennius, Laberius, Plautus, Caesar, Cicero, Lucilins, Nigidius Figulas, Cato, Sallust, Varro, and Vergil. ^^ Thus the authority of Vergil iu matters of grammar and philology is put on a level "with that of the writers of the republic. Of the other Augustan poets, Horace alone is quoted more than once. A similar tendency is apparent in the already-mentioned work of Nonius ; here the chief authority is Vergil, then, after a long interval, comes Cicero, then Plautus, then Varro, and then in succession Lucilius, Terence, Accius, Afranius, Ennius and Lucretius, Sallust, Pacuvius, Pomponius, Caecilius, Naevius, Novius, Tur- pilius, Titinius, Laberius, Livius Andronicus, etc. Quotations from any Augustan poet, or indeed from any writer of the Empire, except Vergil, are very rare in Nonius. In addition however to the other causes which led Vergil to be regarded as a supreme authority in matters of grammar, there was a special reason for this association of him with the writers of an epoch from which his art was in reality quite distinct. Vergil was the only one of the Augustan poets who understood how to use antiquated w^ords without seeming affected ; without any contingent loss, his poetry gave evident signs of a careful study of the early Latin writers. Hence he was able to satisfy two opposite tastes, not only that of men of the modern school, like Seneca, who were the very opposites of Fronto and Gellius, but also that of the philological antiquaries, who were ready to give him, on account of his archaisms, a high place among those " hircosi " from whom his art was really so very far separated. Qointilian, when commenting on the difficulty of using anti- quated words with effect, makes special mention of Vergil's success in this respect, and says that he was the only man who ever knew how to do it."^^ Seneca believed that he introduced ** In a discussion with a second-rate grammarian, the authorities cited are Tlautus, Sallust, Ennius and Vergil (vi. 17). Iu another place a quack- grammarian says to Gellius, " Si quid ox Vergilio, Plauto, Ennio quaerere babes, quaeras licet." (xx. 10. 2.) ••^ "Eoque ornamento acerrimi iudicii P. Vergilius unice est usus," viii. B. 24 ; " Vetustatis, cuius amator unice Vergilius fuit," ix. 3. 14 ; " Vergilius amantissimus vetustatis," i. 7. 10. 46 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES this archaic element into his poetry to please the ' populus Ennianus ' ; ^'^ but such a judgment could hardly be true of a writer of Vergil's exquisite taste, and was probably generated by Seneca's admiration for the Augustan writer coupled with his contempt for the early literature. For Vergil himself still belonged to this 'populus Ennianus,' only he was artist enough to know to what extent he ought to make use of Ennius and the other ancient writers ; and he knew it better than Horace, who was more capable in this respect of formulating the rules which a writer should follow ^^ than of following them himself. In fact, Vergil's reputation did not suffer in the least from that reaction which took place in a certain department of literature, however little he naight enjoy the sympathy of Fronto. The vitality of his fame was too great to be injured by any temporaiy indiscretion, however important. In the century which admired Apuleius, a man of great talent, no doubt, but one who makes himself ridiculous and impossible as a writer by the affectation and barbarity of his diction, in the century which set up a statue to him and listened with admir- ation to this new Latin produced by a set of Africans, it might well have been expected that the language of Vergil would appear weak, enervated, and insipid. Yet so great was his reputation and so great the authority which, thanks to the famous scholars of the preceding generation, he had acquired, that, in the midst of this triumph of degraded taste, his irresis- tible prestige and his inseparable connection with general edu- cation preserved his fame undiminished. In the schools of the grammarians and rhetoricians, and among all classes, whatever their various degrees of culture, he continued to be an object of veneration, and we see him growing constantly greater and greater throughout that decay of Latin literature which be- came more and more rapid from the reign of Marcus Aurelius onwards. 4t " Vergilius quoque noster non ex alia causa duros qnosdam versus et enormes et aliquid supra mensnram tralientes interposuit, quam ut Ennianus populus agnosceret in novo carmine aliquid antiquitatis." In Gellics, xii. 2. 45 Epiit., ii. 1. 61 seqq. THE VEKGIL OF LITEEAEY TRADITION 47 But though his fame did not diminish, and though he kept his original place among the great names of antiquity, it was inevitable that, in the altered conditions of the intellectual environment through which he passed, the nature of his repu- tation should undergo a certain degree of change. True poetical creations were as entirely wanting in this epoch of Latin liter- ature as they were in the epochs which followed. Rhetoric had taken the place of poetry, and this was kept alive merely by virtue of its imitation of the older models, among whom Vergil occupied the highest place. And here may be noticed an essential difference in the respective influences of Vergil and Homer. Homer exercised an influence over the living develop- ment of Greek poetry and art, of which he was merely the first representative, with whom all successive productions were naturally connected by the most intimate organic ties ; the influence, on the other hand, of Vergil on the moribund Latin poetry of the ages subsequent to him was a purely formal and external one, for that poetry was a poetry of form rather than of substance. But however careful might be the study of the poet, and however close the imitation of his language and style, it could not serve to bridge over the immense gulf that existed between the Augustan writers and their successors in their appi'eciation of poetry; and yet the public of their time listened to these later poets with enthusiasm. So far was this the case that it seems hard to believe that the audiences that applauded Statins '^^ can have had any true understanding of Vergil, and did not rather read into the works of the Augustan writer that false and degraded taste which led them to admire his pompous and bombastic imitator. Without doubt the fame of Vergil was far beyond tlie com- prehension of this latei- age, and liis traditional greatness was so far misunderstood as to lead to his being regarded Avitli a well- nigh superstitious venei'ation. Already under the Antonines we ••^ " Curritur ad vocem iucundam et carmen aruicae Thebaidos, laetam cum fecit Statius lubem, promisitque diem ; tanta dulcedine captos afficit illc animos tantaque libidine vulj^'i auditur." luVENAL, vii. 82 seqq. 48 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES find the custom, practised even lay the empei'or, of enquiring the future by opening at random a volume of Vergil ; these so- called ' sortes Vergilianae ' were consulted bj Hadrian no less than bj many of his successors, and continued popular through- out the middle ages. This practice shows not only the im- mense popularity of Vergil, but also the veneration with which he was regarded ; for such powers of prophecy were only ascribed to books which were venerated because of their sacred character or on account of the extraordinary wisdom they were supposed to contain, such as Homer, the Sibylline books, and, at a later period, the Bible. ^^ If at one time the madman Cali- gula, to show his contempt for everyone, proposed to remove from the libraries the works and the busts of Vergil, ^^ two centuries later Alexander Severus called Vergil the Plato of poets, and put his bust in a special ' lararium ' with those of Achilles and certain other heroes and wiiters.^^ But long before this the enthusiasm of certain poets had well-nigh dei- fied Vergil. Silius Italicus used to celebrate his birthday every year, visiting his tomb as if it were a temple ; ^*^ as a temple the Neapolitan Statins too used to regard it.'*^ Martial 47 Cp. Hist. lit. de la France, iii. p. 11 seqq., and the curious passage in Eabelais, iii. 10 seqq. *8 " Sed et Vergili ac Titi Livi seripta et imagines paulum abfuit quia ex omnibus bibliothecis amoveret, quorum alteram ut nuUius ingeni mini- maeque doctriuae, alterum ut verbosum in historia negligentemque carp- ebat." Suet., iv. 34. 49 II Vergilium autem Platonem poetarum vocabat, eiusque imaginem cum Ciceronis simulacro in secundo larario habuit, ubi et Acliillis et magnorum virorum." Lampbid., Alex, Sev., 30. '<' " Quas (imagines) non habebat modo, verum etiam venerabatar, Vergili ante omnes, cuius natalem religiosius quam suum celebrabat, Neapoli maxime, ubi monimentum eius adire ut templum solebat." Plin,, Epist., iii. 7. 8. This veneration for Vergil, which seems to have been almost a monomania with Silius Italicus, is confirmed too by several epigrams of Martial (vii. 63 ; xi. 48, 49). Cornutus dedicated a work of his on Vergil to Silius : " Annaeus Cornutus ad Italicum de Vergilio." Charis., p. 100, cp. p. 102 (ed. Keil). *' " Maroneique sedens in margine templi sumo animum et magni tumulis accanto magistri." Stat., Silv., iv. 4. 54. " nee tu divinam Aeneida tenta Bed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora." Id., Theb., xii. 816. THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITTON 49 speaks of the Ides of October as sacred to Vergil, just as those of August -vrere sacred to Hecate or those of May to Mercury. ^2 Vergil was then already the saint of poets; and, of all the apotheoses of the Roman empire, this deification of Vergil, though ill-defined in its origin and exaggerated in its effects, was, without doubt, the only one inspired by a really generous sentiment. '2 " Maiae Mercurium creastis Idus, Angustis redit Idibus Diana, Octobres Maro consecravit Idus. Idus saepe colas et has et illas qui magni celebras Marouis Idus." Mart., xii. 67. Martial is full of enthusiasm for Vergil, whom he calls magnum (iv. 14). summum (xii. 4), immeusum (xiv. 18G), aeternum (xi. 52). The idea as to the Ides of October occurs again in Ausoaius (Idyll, v. 26). " Sextiles Hecate Latonia vindicat Idus, Mercurius Maias superorum adiunctus honori, Octobres olim genitus Maro dedicat Idus." 60 VEEGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES CHAPTER V TiTE vieissitades which Latin literature underwent daring the 3rd and 4fch centuries are known to all. With a court and public entirely dominated by the military element, where any slave or barbarian who had influence with the ignorant soldiery could ascend the throne of the Caesars, literature could hardly be in a flourishing condition. Under such circumstances too it was inevitable that literature should grow less and less in touch with the general public, and become confined to a class of persons whose sole inspiration, as well as their sole audience, was in the schools. One result of this divorce between litera- ture and general contemporary thought was that the difference between the written and spoken language became steadily more sensible, and thus the Latin of the common people came more and raore to the front; hence tlie position of the grammarian grew to be a far less exalted one, and it soon sufficed if he could teach his pupils to write simply correctly. N^or was the productive power of the grammai'ians of these centuries of decadence out of proportion to the quality of their pupils' requirements ; for, while rich enough in quantity, it was ex- tremely poor in originality. In the field of grammatical studies, as in every other, there is apparent a quite extra- ordinary poverty of ideas ; no one dares to move a step without supporting himself on some earlier authority. Just as every work of art during this period is a mere unintelligent imita- tion, so every learned or scientific work is a mere unintelligent compilation or compendium. Culture, being forced to live an arliiicial and restricted life, was already beginning to abandon everything that seemed superfluous, and was looking out for short cuts and showing a great desire for reducing everything THE VERGIL OP LITERARY TRADITION 51 to the smallest possible compass. In such compendia and com- pilations, intended to spare the reader the trouble of studying a number of authors, this age of the decadence is remarkably rich, and b}^ far the greater part of the grammatical works which have been preserved belong to this class. As was only to be expected, under this process of compilation many of the eai'lier works were lost for ever. The emperors still sometimes patronised gi-ammarians, as they did philosophers and rhe- toricians, but it was merely as a luxury or from caprice, or sometimes even from cowardice, out of fear of what they might write, as was said to be the case with Alexander Severus.^ The imperial taste moreover, when it was literary, was gene- rally more in sympathy with Greek, and was not of a kind to exercise a beneficent influence; on the contrary, it tended rather to encourage what was futile and vain. Thus Get'i, who wished to appear a patron of the alphabet by ordering dinners all the dishes of which began with a certain letter, used also to amuse himself now and then by inviting gram- marians to submit to him lists of words expressive of the cries of various animals.^ After the time of Alexander Severus, who, in spite of his Greek proclivities, yet venerated Vergil (though perhaps rather as philosopher than poet) in the way we have seen, the study of letters became almost entirely foreign to the palace of the Caesars. The old imperial tradition was completely destroyed, and among the various usurper's who held or fought for the chief power, such a man as Gordian the Elder -^ was quite an exception. From this time onwai-d we find the soldier, as such, directly contrasted with the man of letters, Avhich had never been the case formerly ; and this fact could not fail to make literary studies unpopular, even with those who had received a certain amount of education. The writers of the ' Ilistoi'ia Augusta,' who describe the events of their time just as they ' " Amavit littcratos homines, vehementer eos etiam reformiJans ue quid de BO asperum scriberont." Lampkid., Alex. Sec, 8. ^ Spautian., Antonin. Geta, 5. ' " Hie eniiu vita venorabilis, cum Watone semper, cum Aristotele, cum Tullio, cum Vergilio ceterisque vetcribus agcas, etc." Catitoli-n, Gordian, 7. 52 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES actually were, without any attempt at embellisliment, give ns a good idea of the general intellectual level of the time, especially in political and military circles. Thus Vopiscus wonders that his grandfather, in describing the assassination of Aper, should have attributed to the murdei-er Diocletian the words, ' gloriare Aper Aeneae magni dextra cadis ' ; ' for this,' he says, ' in a soldier, seems to me raarvellous, though I know that many people are accustomed to cite passages from the comedians and the other poets, both Greek and Latin.' * At the end of the second century Clodius Albinus, though by no means fond of learning, had studied Yergil at school as a boy, though his study of the poet had only given him an oppor- tunity of displaying his military instincts.^ But in spite of everything Vergilian reminiscences are common, even among these classes ; for a large number of Ver-gilian lines had come to be regai'ded almost as proverbs, and, thanks to the school and the theatre, well-nigh every one had some knowledge of the Aeneid. Thus quotations from Vergil, made a propos of political events, are not only met with in the case of Gordian the Elder, who was a man of culture,^ but they occur in a letter of Dia- dumenus to his father Macrinus,''' and in one of Tetricus the Elder to Aurelian.^ Under Alexander Severus, lulius Crispus, tribune of the Praetorians, expressed his displeasure in a Ver- gilian quotation which proved fatal to him.® A pun in praise of Diadumenus and at the expense of Macrinus, which went the round of the circus, consisted of two half-lines of Vergil ; ^^ * Vopisc, Numerian., 13. ^ " Omuem pueritiara in Africa transegit, eruditus lltteris Graecis et Latinis mediocriter, quod esset animi iam inde militaris et superbi. Fertnr in scholia saepissime cantasse inter pnerulos, ' Anna aniens capio nee sat rationis in armis.' " {Aen., ii. 314.) C.\pitolin., (Jlod. Alb., 5. * " Cantabat praeterea versus senex, cum Gordianum filium vidisset, bos saepis.sime, ' Ostendent terris huuc tantum fata, etc.'" (Aen., vi. 870.) Gapitoi.in., Gord. inn., 20. ^ " Si te nulla movent, etc." (Aen., iv. 272). LAMrnin., A7it. Diadum., 8. 8 " Versus denique illius fertur, quern statim ad Aurelianum scripserat : 'Eripeme bis, invicte, malis' " (Aen.,Yi. 865). Tkeb. Poll., Trig, tyrann., 24. ® " hvo dvdpas tQv iirKpavCiv dv^Kreivev, lovXiov V^pLcirov x'-^'-^-PX^^'^t'^ ''"'»''' 5opv(f>op(jiv, 6ti ax^ecrdeh ry rod 7ro\iiu.ov KaKwcrei ?7roj ri rod Mdpwvos rod ■KoiriTov Trapecpd^y^aro, iv (^ K.r.X." (Aen.,xi. 371). Dion Cass., 75. 10. i<^ "Egregius forma iuvenis, dignus cui pater baud Maxentius esset" (Aen., vi. 862 ; vii. 653). Capitolin., Ojiil. Macrin., 12. THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 53 and similarly, a Vergilian hemistich was included in the accla- mations with which the Senate proclaimed the already elderly Tacitus emperor.^^ But if among the orgies and crimes of the imperial palace an echo, as it were, of Vergilian verse might still sometimes be heard, that was no proof of the existence of any real poetical feeling ; it only showed that the fame of the poet was so universal that it was able to survive even under the most unfavourable circumstances. His chief office now was to teach children in the schools and so give them the means of empha- sising their childishness when they grew up. In fact, he was so thoroughly studied at school that to know his works by heart from one end to the other was no uncommon feat. This great familiarity with his writings, coupled with the general poverty of ideas of the period, led to the production of the ' Centos,' ^2 in which, by the adroit combination of isolated lines and hemistichs, Vergil was made to say the most unex- pected things. The idea of such ' Centos ' could only have arisen among people who had learnt Vergil mechanically and did not know of any better use to which to put all these verses with which they had loaded their brains. And moreover, the use which had already been made of Vergil by so many poets was related closely enough to the work of the cento-makers, and led naturally up to it.^^ Xor is this a case of the caprice '* " Et tu legisti, ' incanaque menta regis Eomani ' {Aen., ri. 810), dixe- runt decies." Vopisc, Tacit., 5. '2 The earliest collection of Vergilian centos is in the famous Codex Salmasianus, which forms the nucleus of the Anthologia Latiua and goes back to the 8th century at least. This MS. contains twelve by varicus authors and of various periods, including the Medea of Hosidids (jeta. Only one of these is Christian ; this last was not published by either Burmann or Meyer in their Anthologia Latina ; it was first published by Sorinqar {De ecclesia, anonymi cento Verf/ilianus ineditus. Traicct. ad Eh., 1867), and it is in the Anthologia Latina of Hiese (Leip., 18G9, i. p. 44). On the subject of centos in general, and those of Vergil in particular, see Haselderg, Conimevtat. de centoiiihus, Puttbus, 1846 ; Borcjen, Decentonibns llomericis et Vergilianis, Ilavuiae, 182G ; Revue analytiqne des ouvrarjes Merits en centons depiiin les temps ancient jusqu'au XIX. siecle (Delepierrk, London, Triibner, 1868) ; Tableau de la Utterature du centon chez les anciens et les modernes (Id., Lond., 187-5) ; MfLi.KR, De re metr., p. 465 seq. ; Mil- BKRO, Memorahilia Vergiliana, pp. 5-12. " Noteworthy in this connection is the Cirh, attributed to Vergil, which is so full of Vergilian phrases and turns of expression as to be well-nigh a cento. 64 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES of one or two individuals ; it is a regular form of literary composition, which began early and lasted long. Already in the time of Tertullian, a certain Hosidius Geta had composed out of Vergilian lines a tragedy entitled ' Medea,' which is still in existence; another writer had put together in a similar manner a translation of the Tabula of Cebes. Then there were Christians too, who wished Vergil to bear witness to their faith, such as Proba Faltonia,^'* who told the story of the Old Testament in Vergilian verses ; Pompouius, who pro- duced a work of the kind in honour of Christ, entitled ' Tityrus ' ; ^^ Marcus Victorinus (4th century), who composed in this way a Hymn on the Passion ; Sedulius (5th century), author of a poem on the Incarnation, etc.^'' The Emperor Valentinian, as if jealous of Vergil's fame as a pure Avriter, even composed an obscene poem out of verses of his, and com- pelled Ansonius to compete with him in this field; this is the origin of the famous Cento Nuptialis, which is without doubt the best of the various centos that have been pre- served. Now-a-days such work would be looked npon as childish, but then it was regarded as showing respect for the poet, and the memory and skill of these writers were very generally admired.^''' Vergil must be treated in every way like Homer, and, as there had been Homeric centos, so there must be Vergilian ones also. In the case of either poet there were certain men who achieved a special reputation for this class of performance, and who used to style themselves Homeric or Vergilian poets. ^^ Put the highest degree of absurdity was '* Cp. AscHBAciT, Die Anicier mid die romische Dichtcrin Proba (Vienna, 1870), p. 57 seqq. '* Published by Bursian in the Sitzungsher. d. Miinch. Akad., 1878, 2. 29. '® So much were these Christian centos the fashion that Pope Gelasius, in his note on the canon, thought it necessary to declare them apocryphal : " Centimetrum do Christo, Vergilianis compaginatum versibus, apocry- phum." JDccret. Gelas. Pap. (ann. 494), ap. Labbk, iv. 1264. ^^ Ausonius excuses himself in the dedicatory letter to his friend Paulus : " Piget Yergiliani carminis dignitatem tarn ioculari dehonestasse materia sed quid facerem ? insHum erat; quodque est potentissimura imperand^ genus, rogabat qui iubore poterat, S. imperator Valentiuianus, vir meo iudicio eruditus." ** An ancient lioman inscription runs: " Sllvano coelesti Q. Glitius Felix THE VERGIL OF LITEEARY TRADITION 55 reached by one Mavortius, author of a cento on the Judgment of Paris, who got at last to improvising Yergilian centos ; and one of these improvisations, in which he modestly declines the title of the ' modern Vergil,' is still extant. ^^ The manner in which Vergil was regarded could not fail to be greatly influenced by the various commentaries with which hn was illustrated in the schools ; for here, as we have seen, his works continued to serve as the basis of education. A critical history of the various commentators on Vergil, thougii attempted by Suringar,^^ remains still to be written, and this cannot be satisfactorily done until numerous special researches have been made in this most intricate subject. The commen- taries on Vergil, which kept being produced down to the end of the middle ages, were, owing to the use made of them for educational purposes, subject to perpetual alterations. No master ever scrupled to condense or modify or gloss them in any way he might think best. One would compile from a number of earlier authorities and then give the compilation his own name, another would insert glosses from various quarters and remain anonymous, another would embellish or interpolate the regular commentaries according to his taste and pass off the result as the work of the original author. The mass of commentaries which has come down to us is like a swollen torrent, fed by tributaries of every sort and origin. All have been condensed or rearranged or interpolated from various Vergilianns poeta d. d." Orelli-Hekzen, No. 1179. In a Greek inscrip- tion from Egypt appears an Homeric cento by an author who calls himself an " Homeric poet." Vide Letrokne, Inscr. de VEyypt, ii. p. 397. *^ It too is found in the Codex Salm., and was first published by Qri- CHERAT in the Bibl. de Vecole des chartes, ii. p. 182. Sckingab republished it, without knowing of the first edition, after the De ecclesia (p. 15), but did not discover either the name of its author or its subject. In this respect KiESE, who has been the first to include it iu the Anthologia Latina (i. p. 48), was more successful. *" Historia critica acholiastarum Lntinorum (Lugd. Bat., 1831), vol. ii. Special treatises on several of the Vergilian commentators have been written by Wagner, Tecber, Bif.se, and others. There are valuable critical materials in the Prolegomena of Hibbeck (pp. IH-lOri), to which must be added tlie important work of Haqek, Scholia Bernemia ad VergiliBucolica et Georgica, Lips., 1867, p. 696 seqq. 56 VEEGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES sources ; none has remained in its original form. Those which bear the names of Probus and Asper may serve to show to Avhat an extent the later grammarians corrupted the work of their more capable predecessors. The principal compilations of Yergilian epexegesis, like the principal grammatical com- pilations, belong to this period of decadence, and here two names stand out conspicuously, Donatus and Servius. For a judgment of the commentary of Donatus,^^ now lost, but mentioned by his pupil Jerome among those that were in regular use in the schools,^^ a consideration of the parts of it preserved by Servius will be sufficient. ^^ Donatus wished to pose as a critic, and consequently judges very freely of the poet, finding fault with many passages ; but not only are his strictures unjust, but they often show a surprising ignorance, even of the elementary rules of prosody. This critical attitude did not prevent him from admiring Vergil, but his admiration was of such a kind as to lead him to present the poet to his pupils in an altogether false light, attributing to him, as certain philosophical schools had already done to Homer, an extra- ordinary degree of wisdom, and searching in his lines for hidden philosophical meanings which had certainly never so much as entered his head. He explained the order of the Vergilian poems as follows : — ' One must know,' he said, 'that Vergil, in composing his works, followed an order correspond- ing to the life of man. The first condition of man was pastoral, and so Vergil wrote first of all the Bucolics ; afterwards it was agricultural, and so he wrote next the Georgics. Then, as the number of the race increased, there grew up therewith the love of war ; hence his final work is the JEjneid, which is full of 2* RiBBECK states {Prolegg., p. 179) that nothing is known of a commen- tary by Aelius Donatus on the Bucolics. But he is mistaken. The Bio- graphy of Vergil, which bears the name of Donatus, was originally prefixed io a commentary on the Bucolics, and concludes with general remarks on these which have been preserved. Cp. Haoen, Schol. Bern., p. 740 seqq. 22 " Puto quod puer legeris Aspri in Vergilium et Sallustium commen- taries, Vulcati in orationcs Ciceronis, Victorini in dialogoseius et in Terenti comoedias praeceptoris mei Donati, aeque in Vergilium." Hieeonym., Apol. adv. Bxifin., i. p. 367. 23 Vide the passages in Servius referring to Donatus collected by Sdr- iNGAR, op. cit,, p. 37 seqq. ; and Bibbeck, Prolegg., p. 178 seqq. THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 67 wars.' 2* We shall see further on to what an extent this alle- gorical method of interpreting Vergil was developed. But the most popular of all the commentaries on Vergil, and the only one which has come down to us complete, if not intact, is that of Servius, a work which was in regular use in the schools of the middle ages, and is of the greatest im- portance still, not so much for its elucidation of Vergil as for the numerous valuable notices of every kind that it has pre- served. To estimate fairly the work of Servius by what we possess now, is a difficult matter ; ^^ for while on the one hand it is clear that he compiled it from earlier commentators and grammarians, on the other it is equally clear that, owing to the constant use made of it, it has undergone various altera- tions, and has been steadily interpolated throughout the course of the middle ages, sometimes with such stupidity as to make Servius cite himself as an authority .^^ It is clear however that Servius was, for the time in which he lived, an eminent grammarian, and superior to Donatus, whose errors he often corrects with much taste and sense. But this was not enough to enable him to overcome the defects of the scholarship of his age. There was something stereotyped about the whole gram- matical tradition of the period, which lasted throughout the middle ages, and did not fail to make itself apparent in that practical part of instruction which was concerned with the exposition of authors. Thus not a few of the views which appear crystallised in Servius are due to a certain mistaken tendency noticeable already at an earlier date. Those un- answerable questions which the Alexandrians were so fond of asking about Homer,^''' and which interested Tiberius so greatly,^^ were also put forward about Vergil, and may often ** Serv., Prooem. Eclog., p. 97. Cp. too a Latin MS. published by QoicHEiuT in the Bihl. de I'ecole des chartes, ii,, p. 128. '■^^ Very valuable in this connection is the critical edition of Servius and other Vergilian commentators, undertaken by Thilo and Hagen (Leipz., 1878 seqq.). Cp. Georgii, Die alte Aeneiskritik (Stuttg., 1891), p. 9 seqq. 26 " Ut Servius dicit." Ad Eel, i. 12 ; iii. 20 ; ix. 1. ^< Cp. Lauer, Gesch. der homer. Poesie, p. 6 seq. ; Grafenhan, Gesch. d. class. Philologie im Alterth., ii. p. 11 seq. For the ivaraTiKol and the XvktikoL vide also Lehrs, De Aristarchi studiis homericis, pp. 199-224. *^ Suet., Tiber., 70. Cp. Gell., xiv. 6; Lauer, op. cit., p. 11. 58 VERGIL IN THE MIDDLE AGES be recognised by their regular formula in Scrvius.^'' Con- scientious criticism and sound scholarship were by no means indispensable to satisfy the demands of fashion in this branch of learning, where the grammai-ian was too often little more than a charlatan,^^ and where it was requii^ed of his answers that they should be subtle, brilliant, and specious rather than that they should be useful, just, or true. A curious instance of this is aiforded by the twelve or thirteen passages of Vergil which were supposed to present insuperable difficulties.^'^ This insuperable difficulty had come to be well-nigh an article of faith, and the commentator simply left these passages alone, saying, ' This is one of the Twelve.' And yet several of the lines which Servius includes in his list do not in reality present any special difficulty. However much one may claim that the work of Servius has been tampered with, yet it cannot be denied that certain al- legorical interpretations — as, for instance, that of the golden branch with which Aeneas descends into Hades ^^ — are too much 29 " Cur " or "quomodo dixit . . .? Solvitur sic . . ." Ad Aen., iii. 203, 276, 341, 379 ; iv. 399, 545, etc. 30 " . . . ut forte rogatus, dum petit aut thcrmas aut Plioebi balnea, dicat nutricem Anchisae, nonien patriamque novercae Anchemoli, dicat quot Acestes vixerit annos, quot Siculi Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas." luvENAL, vii. 232. 31 " Sciendum est locum liunc esse unum de xii. (al. xiii.) Vergili sive per naturam obscuris, sive insolubilibus, sive emendandis, sive sic rclictia ut a nobis per liistoriae antiquae ignorantiam liquide nou intellegantur." Hehv., ad Aen., ix. 363. " Sciendum tamen et locum hunc esse unum de his, quos insolubiles diximus supra." Id., ad ix. 412. Cp. too ad v. 622 ; xii. 74 ; Lehrs, De Ariatarchi stud, honi., p. 219 seq. ; Kibbeck, Prolegg., p. 109 seqq. To this category belong also the antapodoses (quibus locis commemorautur quae non sunt ante praedicta), of which one is noticed by Sekvius, ad Aen., ix. 453, as the tenth. Cp. Kibbeck, Prolegg., p. 108 seq. 32 II Ergo per ramum virtutes dicit esse sectandas, qui est Y litterae imi- tatio, quern ideo in silvis dicit latere, quia re vera in huius vitae confusions ot maiore parte vitiorum virtutis integritaa latet." Serv., ad Aen., vi. 186. For this reason, in the earlier editions of Vergil, there often appear attributed to him the lines of Maximinus on the symbolical meaning of the letter Y {Anthol. Lat., No. 632, ed. Eiese) : " littera Pythagorae, discrimine secta bicorni, humanae vitae specimen praeferre videtur, etc." THE VERGIL OF LITERARY TRADITION 59 in accorJ -vvitli tlie ideas of Servins' own time to be due to any- one but liim. But if liere and there Servins gives to certain lines or certain parts of the narrative a philosophical meaning', there is no sign of any general and systematic theory of alle- gorical interpretation which would make all the incidents of the work tend in this one direction. Of such an interpretation we shall have occasion to speak shortly, and we shall then have an opportunity of regarding this question at closer quarters. Vergil had in fact made use of allegorj^, as every one knows, in the Bucolics, but here it was when dealing with facts rather than with ideas. An ancient tradition, going back to Asconius Pedianus and even to the times of the poet him- self, as to the authenticity of which there can be no reasonable doubt, stated that Vergil had in the Bucolics alluded to the incidents of his own life and to the events of the day. But this vague and general statement left it indefinite as to what wei'c the actual passages in which Vergil had made use of allegory, and thus from the very earliest times we find the commentators divided in opinion as to the meaning of various lines, which some understood literally, or, as Servins has it, ' simpliciter,' while others interpreted them 'per allegoriam,' and spent their time in hunting up events to which they might refer. Servins, in judging between the two schools, shows a very reasonable tendency to limit the range of alle- gory,^^ and often pronounces for the literal interpretation on the ground that the allegorical is ' nou necessaria.' But he is not always consistent in this, and at times he accepts or passes as possible allegorical interpretations which are quite without foundation, ^^ — for to ascribe all such errors of judgment to interpolators would be to exaggerate his merits and to fail to recognise the nature of the period in which he lived. To what lengths the mania for allegorical interpretations could go is shown at once at the beginning of the first Eclogue. Dii-ectly after saying that Tityrus stands for Vergil, ' not indeed every- ^' " Eefutandae cnini sunt allegoriae in bucolico carmine, nisi cum ex aliqua agronim perditorum necessitate descendunt." Ad Eel., iii. 20. *■* Cp. ScuArEU, Ueber die Entstehunc/itzeit der Virgilischen Eclogen, in the Jahrbb.J. Fhilolog. u. Faedagoi/., vol.