nia
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 * SAN DIEGO j
 
 ANCIENT CLASSICS 
 
 FOR 
 
 ENGLISH READERS 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 JUVENAL 
 
 BY EDWARD WALFOKD, M.A. 
 
 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE 
 
 BY REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON
 
 The subjects in this Series may be had separately, in cloth, price 
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 sides and edges, arranged as follows : 
 
 THE ILIAD AND 
 ODYSSEY. 
 
 HERODOTUS. 
 XENOPHON. 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 ARISTOPHANES. 
 
 PLATO. 
 LUCIAN. 
 
 ,ESCHYLUS. 
 SOPHOCLES. 
 
 HESIOD AND THEOGNIS. 
 ANTHOLOGY. 
 
 VIRGIL. 
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 JUVENAL. 
 
 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 
 
 C/ESAR. 
 TACITUS. 
 
 CICERO. 
 PLINY.
 
 JUVENAL 
 
 EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. 
 
 LATlfSGHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLL., OXFORD; AUTHOR OP 
 'THE HANDBOOK OF THE GREEK DKAMA,' ETC. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXII
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAP. I. LIFE OF JUVENAL, 1 
 
 ii II. SATIRES AND SATIRISTS 17 
 
 it III. HORACE AND JUVENAL, .... 41 
 
 n IV. MORALS AT ROME 65 
 
 ii V. PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME, . 79 
 
 n VI. LITERATURE AT ROME, .... 95 
 
 VII. WOMEN AT ROME, 108 
 
 n VIII. TOWN-LIFE AT ROME, 132 
 
 tt IX. JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS, . 150
 
 JUVENAL. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 LIFE OP JUVENAL. 
 
 IF the saying be true, that the greater the poet is, the 
 less are we likely to know of him from his own writ- 
 ings, Juvenal ought certainly to occupy a very high 
 place among the poets of Rome. In this respect he offers 
 a most complete contrast to Horace, who has left us 
 in his various poems an account of himself his char- 
 acter, habits, and pursuits, his successes and his fail- 
 ures almost as complete as, and far more instructive 
 than, many a professed biography. Juvenal, on the 
 other hand, never allows the personality of the poet 
 to obtrude itself in any way on the reader's notice. 
 In reading Horace, we can never lose sight of the 
 cultivated, genial man of the world, who indeed makes 
 his puppets play before us, but allows them to speak 
 only with his own voice, to utter his own words. In 
 Juvenal, the subject entirely overshadows the iden- 
 A. c. vol. xiii. A
 
 2 JUVENAL. 
 
 tity of the poet ; we read him, hut we no more think 
 of the writer as we read, than we should allow a 
 rision of the "blind old hard to roam on the plain of 
 the Scamander, and preside at the death of Hector or 
 at the games around the tomh of Patroclus. 
 
 All that we know of Juvenal, heyond those allusions 
 to himself, or to contemporary history, which may be 
 found scattered up and down throughout his writings, 
 is contained in the volume of memoirs attributed to 
 Suetonius. The sum and substance of what we read 
 in his pages is as follows : 
 
 " Junius Juvenalis, the son or the alumnus (it is 
 uncertain which) of a rich freedman, practised de- 
 clamation till near middle life, more for amusement 
 than by way of preparing himself for school or forum. 
 Afterwards, having written a clever Satire of a few 
 verses on Paris the pantomime, and a poet of his time, 
 who was puffed up with his paltry six months' 
 military rank, he took pains to perfect himself in this 
 kind of writing. And yet for a very long time he did 
 not venture to trust anything even to a small audi- 
 ence. But after a while he was heard by great crowds, 
 and with great success, several times ; so that he was 
 led to insert in his first writings those verses which he 
 had written first : 
 
 'What ! will you still on Camerinus wait, 
 And Bareas ? will you still frequent the great ? 
 Ah ! rather to the player your labours take, 
 And at one lucky stroke your fortunes make ! ' 
 
 Sat. vii. 90. 
 
 " The player was at that time one of the favourites
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 3 
 
 at court, and many of his supporters were daily pro- 
 moted. Juvenal, therefore, fell under suspicion as one 
 who had covertly censured the times ; and forthwith, 
 under colour of military promotion, though he was 
 eighty years of age, he was removed from the city, 
 and sent to take command of a cohort which was 
 stationed in the furthest part of Egypt. That sort of 
 punishment was determined upon as being suited to a 
 light and jocular offence. "Within a very short time 
 he died of vexation and disgust." 
 
 This notice, meagre as it is, and probably not 
 original, is yet more authentic and fuller than any 
 other account we can find in the literature of the 
 period. The facts which can be gleaned and the in- 
 ferences which can be drawn from Juvenal's writings 
 with regard to his personal career, are if possible more 
 scanty and less to be depended upon. To such an 
 extent is this the case, that even such questions as 
 whether the poet ever visited Egypt, and if so, at 
 what period of his lifetime, and in what capacity, are 
 left in complete uncertainty. The dates of his birth 
 and of his death are alike disputed ; events to which 
 he is supposed to allude are ascribed by different 
 authorities to the reigns of the different Emperors from 
 Nero to Trajan ; and the very text of the author has 
 been interpolated and revised to suit one or other of 
 the views from time to time in vogue to such an ex- 
 tent, that the authenticity of well-nigh half the work 
 has been disputed by some one commentator or more. 
 
 The upshot of all this is, that the only facts with 
 regard to Juvenal on which we can implicitly rely are,
 
 4 JUVENAL, 
 
 that he flourished towards the close of the first cen- 
 tury ; that Aquinum, if not the place of his nativity, 
 was at least his chosen residence ; and that he is in all 
 probability the friend whom Martial addresses in three 
 epigrams. 
 
 There is, however, a far more interesting question, to 
 which we may yet be enabled to give an answer by a 
 careful study of the Satires of Juvenal, and that con- 
 sists in the consideration of the gradual development 
 of the high moral qualities with which our poet was 
 endowed. We have elsewhere endeavoured to point out 
 how we may trace the fierce and almost truculent satire 
 of his youth gradually softening down to the gentler 
 temper of his mature years. In these he is not indeed 
 blind to the vices of mankind; but, taking a larger 
 and more philosophic view of human life, he is more 
 anxious to point out how those vices may be re- 
 medied, by an earnest pursuit after virtue ; and how 
 God seldom fails in the end to reward the good for 
 their righteous dealings, and to punish the wicked for 
 their sins. 
 
 " Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind 
 
 exceeding small ; 
 Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness 
 
 grinds He all." 
 
 We can also see how his whole life was one con- 
 tinued protest against the encroachments of foreign 
 and especially of Grecian customs ; against the influx 
 of those wealthy but low-born, low-bred foreigners 
 who, by dint of their huge fortunes, and supported by
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 5 
 
 court favour, were successfully disputing with the 
 ancient Eomaii families the few privileges which were 
 still left them. " Must I," he exclaims with indignant 
 scorn, 
 
 " Let him seat first, and on the chief couch lie 
 At feasts, whom to our Rome the same wind brought 
 That brought us figs and prunes ? goes it for nought 
 That we Aventine air first breathed, and, bred 
 In Eome, were with the Sabine olive fed ? 
 
 Sat. iii. 81. 
 
 Yet even in this respect there is a material change 
 in the tone which he adopts in his more advanced 
 age. The diatribes against foreigners are less frequent, 
 and their place is taken by earnest and lofty moral 
 precepts, weighty alike with the experience of a long 
 life, and with the disinterested zeal of a philanthropist 
 and philosopher. Of his aesthetic tastes, though little 
 disposed to speak much of himself, Juvenal has 
 allowed pretty frequent traces to appear in his writ- 
 ings. From these we may gather that he had, in 
 greater measure than most Romans, a love of the 
 country, a " romantic " sympathy with and longing for 
 nature and the picturesque, which we may add to the 
 other hints we find in his works of tastes and feelings 
 that are generally considered to be distinctive marks 
 of a modern as opposed to a classical tone of thought : 
 traces of a love of country scenery and quietude for 
 its own sake, and not only as a refuge from the turmoil 
 and vices of an overgrown capital. It is with heart- 
 felt joy, then, that Juvenal shakes the dust of Rome 
 from off his feet, and escapes from the profligacy and
 
 6 JUVENAL. 
 
 hollowness of the imperial city, in which, even the 
 face of nature cannot avoid the sophisticating touch of 
 an artificial sestheticism. A notable example of this 
 fact we have at the very gates of Rome : 
 
 " Here we view 
 
 The Egerian grots ah, how unlike the true ! 
 Nymph of the spring, more honoured hadst thou been 
 If, free from art, an edge of living green 
 Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone, 
 And marble ne'er profaned the native stone." 
 
 Ibid., 17. 
 
 Far better than all this parade, in the poet's eyes, is 
 the beauty of simple Gabii : 
 
 " Bleak Praeneste's seat, 
 
 Volsinium's craggy heights, embowered in wood, 
 Or Tibur, beetling o'er prone Anio's flood ! " 
 
 Ibid., 191. 
 
 There the true farmer's life may yet be enjoyed by the 
 husbandman ; blessed, indeed, if he only had eyes to 
 see the real happiness of his lot ! 
 
 " There wells by nature formed, which need no rope, 
 No labouring arm, to crane their waters up, 
 Around your lawn their facile streams shall shower, 
 And cheer the springing plant and opening flower. 
 There live delighted with the rustic's lot, 
 And till with your own hands the little spot 
 The little spot which yields you large amends, 
 And glad with many a feast your Samian friends." 
 
 Ibid., 226. 
 
 To such a quiet home as this Juvenal would gladly 
 retire with a friend of congenial tastes, and recall for a 
 short space the mode of life that once was led by all
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 7 
 
 the citizens of Eome. Let us then accompany Persicus 
 as he goes to accept the poet's invitation, and with him 
 make our way from the din of the Suburra to the quiet 
 country homestead, hidden behind the oak-clad hills of 
 Latium. The bridges over the Tiber, with their throng 
 of beggars, seated each on his woven mat of rushes, is 
 left behind ; the roar of the street traffic, the hoarse 
 voices of the drovers and waggoners, the hum of the 
 circus and of the crowded theatre, grow indistinct; and 
 we no longer hear the prancing of the train of the rich 
 man's mules, or the ringing of their iron hoofs in his 
 paved and shady portico. We pass together through 
 the Capene gate, dripping with the waters of the 
 conduit that passes overhead, bringing a supply of 
 water from the distant hills into the imperial city. 
 
 " Here Numa erst his nightly visits paid, 
 And held high converse with the Egerian maid : 
 Now the once-hallowed fountain, grove, and fane, 
 Are let to Jews, a wretched, wandering train, 
 Whose furniture's a basket filled with hay, 
 For every tree is forced a tax to pay ; 
 And while the heaven-born Nine in exile rove, 
 The beggar rents their consecrated grove." 
 
 Ibid., 12. 
 
 Passing beneath this vaulted gate, the road led 
 down the world - renowned Appian Way, the well- 
 known burying-place of the mighty dead at Eome. 
 For many miles the broad straight road was lined on 
 the right hand and on the left by huge marble monu- 
 ments, stretching away in an unbroken series till they 
 grew smaller and smaller, and at length vanished in
 
 8 JUVENAL. 
 
 the distance. Yet even here in this place, of all 
 others, most sacred to the memories of a departed great- 
 ness modern depravity was not ashamed to obtrude 
 its brazen face of extravagance and vice : 
 
 " See, by his great progenitors' remains 
 Fat Damasippus sweeps, with loosened reins : 
 Good consul ! he no pride of office feels, 
 But stoops, himself, to clog his headlong wheels. 
 ' But this is all by night,' the hero cries : 
 Yet the moon sees ! yet the stars stretch their eyes 
 Full on your shame ! A few short moments wait, 
 And Damasippus quits the pomp of state : 
 Then mounts his chariot in the face of day, 
 
 Whirls with bold front his grave associate by, 
 And jerks his whip to catch the senior's eye." 
 
 Sat. viii. 146. 
 
 It will hardly be necessary to remark here, that this 
 driving in public was looked on as a gross offence 
 against morality and common decency ; indeed, as an 
 act scarcely less disgraceful than to engage in the fights 
 of the amphitheatre, or to play a low part on the stage. 
 And thus the satirist lashes on the same page the de- 
 bauchee Matho, or the renegade patrician, and the man 
 
 " Who spent on horses all his father's land, 
 While, proud the experienced driver to display, 
 His glowing wheel smoked o'er the Appian way." 
 
 Meanwhile we follow along the road, and reach Aricia's 
 hill, and its proverbial throng of beggars. These, then 
 no less than in the present day, took advantage of the 
 steep incline to crowd round the passing carriage, and
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 9 
 
 demand, even with threatening words and gestures, the 
 alms that they seemed to consider due to them. At 
 this point we leave the broad Campagna Roniana which 
 we have hitherto been traversing, to climb with 
 Juvenal's friend the range of hills among which his 
 secluded farm was situated, shunning the glare and 
 heat of the plain no less than the feverish jealousies 
 and intrigues of the city. But what were the scenes 
 that might there be seen, and what the poet's frugal 
 way of life, he shall himself set forth in his letter of 
 invitation to this rural retreat. 
 
 The eleventh satire is written in the form of a letter 
 to a friend, Persicus, inviting him to supper at the 
 poet's farm. The introductory lines are occupied with 
 an attack on the extravagance and luxury of the 
 Eomans, and the numerous shameful bankruptcies that 
 were attributable to indulgence of the palate. He then 
 seizes the occasion, and shows the superiority of the 
 good old times, when every man measured his appetite 
 by the simple requirements of nature, nor ever thought 
 to spend more than a small part of his moderate income 
 on the pleasures of the table : 
 
 " Enough : to-day my Persicus shall see 
 Whether my precepts with my life agree ; 
 Whether, with feigned austerity, I prize 
 The spare repast, a glutton in disguise, 
 Bawl for coarse pottage, that my friends may hear, 
 But whisper 'sweetmeats !' in my servant's ear. 
 For since, by promise, you are now my guest, 
 Know, I invite you to no sumptuous feast, 
 But to such simple fare, as long, long since, 
 The good Evander bade the Trojan prince.
 
 10 JUVENAL. 
 
 Come then, my friend, you will not, sure, despise 
 The food that pleased the offspring of the skies ; 
 Come, and while fancy brings past times to view, 
 I'll think myself the king, the hero you. 
 
 Take now your bill of fare ; my simple board 
 Is with no dainties from the market stored, 
 But dishes all my own. From Tibur's stock 
 A kid shall come, the fattest of the flock, 
 The tenderest too, and yet too young to browse 
 The thistle's shoots, the willow's watery boughs, 
 With more of milk than blood ; and pullets drest 
 With new-laid eggs, yet tepid from the nest, 
 And 'sparage wild, which, from the mountain's side. 
 My housemaid left her spindle to provide ; 
 And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair, 
 And the rich Signian and the Syrian pear ; 
 And apples, that in flavour and in smell 
 The boasted Picene equal, or excel : 
 Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use, 
 For age has mellowed and improved their juice. 
 
 How homely this ! and yet this homely fare 
 A senator would, once, have counted rare ; 
 When the good Curius thought it no disgrace 
 O'er a few sticks a little pot to place, 
 With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied 
 Food, which the squalid wretch would now deride, 
 Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret, 
 The tavern's savoury dish remembers yet !' 
 
 Time was when on the rack a man would lay 
 The seasoned flitch against a solemn day ; 
 And think the friends who met with decent mirth 
 To celebrate the hour which gave him birth, 
 On this, and what of fresh the altars spared
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 11 
 
 (For altars then were honoured), nobly fared. 
 
 Some kinsman, who had camps and senates swayed, 
 
 Had thrice been consul, once dictator made, 
 
 From public cares retired, would gaily haste, 
 
 Before the wonted hour, to such repast, 
 
 Shouldering the spade, that, with no common toil, 
 
 Had tamed the genius of the mountain soil. 
 
 Yes, when the world was filled with Rome's just fame, 
 
 And Romans trembled at the Fabian name, 
 
 The Scauran, and Fabrician ; when they saw 
 
 A censor's rigour e'en a censor awe, 
 
 No son of Troy e'er thought it his concern, 
 
 Or worth a moment's serious care to learn, 
 
 What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred, 
 
 "Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed. 
 
 His bed was small, and did no signs impart 
 
 Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art, 
 
 Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass, 
 
 Showed the rude features of a vine-crowned ass ; * 
 
 An uncouth brute, round which his children played, 
 
 And laughed and jested at the face it made ! 
 
 Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food, 
 
 Were uniformly plain, and simply good. 
 
 Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece 
 To hang, enraptured, o'er a finished piece, 
 If haply, 'mid the congregated spoils 
 (Proofs of his power, and guerdon of his toils), 
 Some antique vase of master-hands were found, 
 Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground ; 
 That in new forms the molten fragments drest 
 Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest, 
 Or, flashing from his burnished helmet, show 
 (A dreadful omen to the trembling foe) 
 
 * The head was crowned with vine leaves, the ass being sacred 
 to Bacchus.
 
 12 JUVENAL. 
 
 The mighty sire, with glittering shield and spear, 
 Hovering, enamoured, o'er the sleeping fair, 
 The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild, 
 And, playful at her side, each wondrous child. 
 
 Thus, all the wealth those simple times could boast, 
 Small wealth ! their horses and their arms engrossed ; 
 The rest was homely, and their frugal fare, 
 Cooked without art, was served in earthenware : 
 Yet worthy all our envy, were the breast 
 But with one spark of noble spleen possest. 
 THEN shone the fanes with majesty divine, 
 A present god was felt at every shrine ! 
 And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls, 
 At midnight's solemn hour, announced the Gauls, 
 Now rushing from the main ; while, prompt to save, 
 Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave ! 
 Yet, when he thus revealed the will of fate, 
 And watched attentive o'er the Latian state, 
 His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mould, 
 Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold. 
 
 Those good old times no foreign tables sought ; 
 From their own woods the walnut-tree was brought, 
 When withering limbs declared its pith unsound, 
 Or winds uptore and stretched it on the ground. 
 But now, such strange caprice has seized the great, 
 They find no pleasure in the costliest treat, 
 Suspect the flowers a sickly scent exhale, 
 And think the ven'son rank, the turbot stale. 
 Unless wide-yawning panthers, towering high 
 Enormous pedestals of ivory, 
 Formed of the teeth which Elephantis sends, 
 "Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian, vends, 
 Or those which, now, too heavy for the head, 
 The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 13 
 
 The spacious ORBS support : then they can feed, 
 And every dish is delicate indeed ! 
 For silver feet are viewed with equal scorn, 
 As iron rings upon the finger worn. 
 
 To me, for ever be the guest unknown, 
 Who, measuring my expenses by his own, 
 Kemarks the difference with a scornful leer, 
 And slights my humble house and homely cheer. 
 Look not to me for ivory ; I have none : 
 My chess-board and my men are all of bone ; 
 Nay, my knife-handles ; yet, my friend, for this, 
 My piillets neither cut nor taste amiss. 
 
 I boast no artist, tutored in the school 
 Of learned Trypherus,* to carve by rule ; 
 Where large sow-paps of elm, and boar, and hare, 
 And phoenicopter, and pygargus rare, 
 Getulian oryx, Scythian pheasants, point 
 The nice anatomy of every joint ; 
 And dull blunt tools, severing the wooden treat, 
 Clatter around, and deafen all the street. 
 My simple lad, whose highest efforts rise 
 To broil a steak in the plain country guise, 
 Knows no such art ; humbly content to serve, 
 And bring the dishes which he cannot kerve. 
 Another lad (for I have two to-day), 
 Clad, like the first, in homespun russet grey, 
 Shall fill our earthen bowls : no Phrygian he, 
 No pampered attribute of luxury, 
 But a rude rustic : when you want him, speak, 
 And speak in Latin, for he knows not Greek. 
 
 * "Trypherus, and the professors of the art of carving, em- 
 ployed wooden models of the dishes to be carved. The parts 
 of these were slightly fastened together, so that the pupil could 
 separate them with a blunt knife." J. E. B. Mayor.
 
 JUVENAL. 
 
 Both go alike, with close-cropt hair, undrest, 
 But spruced to-day in honour of my guest ; 
 And both were born on my estate, and one 
 Is my rough shepherd's, one my neatherd's son. 
 Poor youth ! he mourns, with many an artless tear, 
 His long, long absence from his mother dear ; 
 Sighs for his little cottage, and would fain 
 Meet his old playfellows, the goats, again. 
 Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace 
 Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face ; 
 Charming suffusion ! that would well become 
 The youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome. 
 He, Persicus, shall fill us wine which grew 
 Where first the breath of life the stripling drew, 
 On Tibur's hills ; dear hills, that many a day 
 Witnessed the transports of his infant play. 
 
 But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throng 
 Of Gaditanian girls, with dance and song, 
 To kindle loose desire ; girls, that now bound 
 Aloft with active grace, now, on the ground, 
 Quivering, alight, while peals of praise go round. 
 
 My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford : 
 Hushed as we sit around the frugal board, 
 Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll, 
 And mighty Maro elevate the soul ; 
 Maro, who, warmed with all the poet's fire, 
 Disputes the palm of victory with his sire : 
 Nor fear my rustic clerks ; read as they will, 
 The bard, the bard, shall rise superior still ! 
 
 Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare, 
 And quit awhile your business and your care ; 
 The day is all our own : come, and forget
 
 LIFE OF JUVENAL. 15 
 
 Bonds, interest, all ; the credit and the debt ; 
 Nay, e'en your wife : 
 
 Yet, at my threshold, tranquillise your breast ; 
 There leave the thoughts of home, and what the haste 
 Of heedless slaves may in your absence waste ; 
 And, what the generous spirit most offends, 
 Oh, more than all, leave there, UNGRATEFUL FRIENDS. 
 
 But see ! the napkin, waved aloft, proclaims 
 The glad commencement of th' Idsean games, 
 And the proud praetor, in triumphal state, 
 Ascends his car, the arbiter of fate ! 
 Ere this, all Rome (if 'tis, for once, allowed, 
 To say all Rome, of so immense a crowd) 
 The Circus throngs, and Hark ! loud shouts arise 
 From these I guess the GREEN has won the prize ; * 
 
 * The race in its first institution was a simple contest of two 
 chariots, whose drivers were distinguished by white and red live- 
 ries : two additional colours, a light green and cerulean blue, 
 were afterwards introduced ; and as the races were repeated 
 twenty-five times, one hundred chariots contributed every day to 
 the pomp of the Circus. The four factions soon acquired a legal 
 establishment and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours 
 were derived from the various appearances of nature in the four 
 seasons of the year ; the red Dog-star of summer, the snows of 
 winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of 
 the spring. Another interpretation preferred the elements to 
 the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue was sup- 
 posed to represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their 
 respective victories announced either a plentiful harvest or a 
 prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen, 
 and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardour 
 of the Roman people who devoted their lives and fortunes to 
 the colour which they had espoused. Such folly was disdained 
 and indulged by the wisest princes ; but the names of Caligula, 
 Nero, Vitellius, Verus, Commodus, Caracalla, and Elagabalus,
 
 16 JUVENAL. 
 
 For had it lost, all joy had been supprest, 
 And grief and horror seized the public breast ; 
 As when dire Carthage forced our arms to yield, 
 And poured our noblest blood on Cannae's field. 
 Thither let youth, whom it befits, repair, 
 And seat themselves beside some favourite fair, 
 Wrangle, and urge the desperate bet aloud ; 
 While we, retired from business and the crowd, 
 Stretch our shrunk limbs by sunny bank or stream, 
 And drink at every pore the vernal beam. 
 Haste, then : for we may use our freedom now, 
 And bathe, an hour ere noon, with fearless brow 
 Indulge for once : Yet such delights as these, 
 In five short morns, would lose the power to please ; 
 For still, the sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, 
 And its best flavour temperance gives to joy. 
 
 Sat. xi. 56, sqq. 
 
 were enrolled in the blue or green factions of the Circus : they fre- 
 quented their stables, applauded their favourites, chastised their 
 antagonists, and deserved the esteem of the populace, by the 
 natural or affected irritation of their manners. . The bloody and 
 tumultuous contest continued to disturb the public festivity till 
 the last age of the spectacles of Rome ; and Theodoric, from a 
 motive of justice or affection, interposed his authority to pro- 
 tect the greens against the violence of a consul and patrician, 
 who were passionately addicted to the blue faction of the Circus. 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. xi.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 
 
 " THE true end of satire," says Dry den, " is the amend- 
 ment of vices "by correction." This definition of satire 
 is no doubt too narrow, and by taking up too lofty a 
 stand-point would altogether exclude those writings 
 whose highest aim it is to "shoot folly as it flies," 
 seeking less to expose the crimes or to reform the 
 manners of the age, than to provide amusement for 
 the idle reader, and, while so doing, endeavouring to set 
 up a standard of taste and criticism to be developed 
 by instances of failure where such failure can but 
 provoke a smile, and by more or less cynical epi- 
 grams on the gaucheries of our less cultivated neigh- 
 bours. Nevertheless, the words which we have just 
 quoted, considered from another point of view, draw 
 an excellent distinction between true satire and that 
 spurious branch of satirical writing whose object it is 
 rather to gratify personal pique or lust for revenge by 
 the ridicule or defamation of a private enemy, than to 
 check public foibles by wit and sarcasm. Addison 
 points out with admirable clearness the contrast be- 
 A. c. vol. xiii. B
 
 18 JUVENAL. 
 
 tween the true satirist and the mere writer of lam- 
 poons, while explaining the difference between the 
 mode of criticism which he intended to pursue in the 
 ' Spectator,' and that which was only too prevalent 
 among authors of every rank in his time. " If I attack 
 the vicious, I shall only set upon them in a body, and 
 will not be provoked by the worst usage I can receive 
 from others to make an example of any particular 
 criminal. It is not Lais or Silenus but the harlot or 
 the drunkard whom I shall endeavour to expose, and 
 shall consider the crime as it appears in the species, 
 not as it is circumstanced in the individual" In these 
 words we may discover a test that shall enable us to 
 distinguish between the mere scurrilous productions 
 of Grub Street and writings animated by the true fire of 
 genius. The difference is obvious. Yet we frequently 
 find that the satirist is confounded in popular esteem 
 with the common libeller ; many people, even among 
 those whose culture might lead one to expect from 
 them a more liberal judgment, being apparently un- 
 able to discriminate between the malice of the literary 
 vitriol-thrower and the sarcasm of the poet who seeks 
 to strike a good blow in the war of virtue against vice, 
 of wit against folly, without the slightest wish to hurt 
 the self-esteem or wound the vanity even of those 
 whose many failings lay them most open to the shafts 
 of ridicule. If we were asked what is in our opinion 
 the most distinctive mark by which satire may be 
 separated from lampoon, we should point to the strain 
 of good-natured pleasantry that is never long absent 
 from the best satire a quality that, by enabling a
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 19 
 
 man to assume a position of superiority similar to that 
 which, the physician is enabled to hold towards his 
 patient, gives the satirist an immense advantage over 
 his less even-tempered antagonist, and, whether in 
 attack or defence, may be counted one of the most 
 effective weapons in his armoury. Such an one, by 
 preserving a certain impartiality and frankness in his 
 opinions and conversation, is able far more readily 
 to command the respect and attention of his hearers. 
 In illustration of this we may repeat the old anecdote 
 told by Steele of a humorous fellow at Oxford. When 
 he heard that any one had spoken ill of him, he used 
 to say, " I will not take my revenge of him till I have 
 forgiven him." What he meant was this : that he 
 would not enter the lists until his temper was so 
 thoroughly under his control that there would be no 
 clanger of his laying himself open to repartee, by allow- 
 ing his anger to outrun his judgment. Dryden him- 
 self was fully aware of the necessity of keeping all 
 violence in check, and of subjecting all outbursts of 
 pique and animosity to the strictest rule of moderation 
 and good taste. True, he did not always act upon this 
 rule, and sometimes he seems to think that savage undis- 
 criminating invective is the highest aim of the satirist. 
 It is not, however, in such passages that he has been 
 counted most successful, but rather in those in which, 
 with the greatest delicacy of touch, he mocks -at the 
 ridiculous pretensions of vanity, or rallies the eccentri- 
 cities of genius. One of the most exquisite examples 
 of this method is the character of Buckingham in his 
 " Absalom and AchitopheL" Dryden himself, in his
 
 20 JUVENAL. 
 
 "Discourse on Satire," selected this as one of the 
 brightest gems of his poems ; and he there supports 
 his judgment by the following arguments : " The 
 character of Zimri, in my Absalom, is, in my opinion, 
 worth, the whole poem; it is not bloody, but it is 
 ridiculous enough. ; and he for whom it was intended 
 was too witty to resent it as an injury. If I had railed, 
 I might have suffered for it justly ; but I managed my 
 own work more happily, perhaps more dexterously. I 
 avoided the mention of great crimes, and applied my- 
 self to the representing of blind sides and little extra- 
 vagances, to which, the wittier a man is, he is gener- 
 ally the more obnoxious." We can only regret that 
 Dryden, as well as many other satirists, both ancient 
 and modern, did not more faithfully adhere to the ex- 
 cellent maxims which he here inculcates. It is a 
 failure in this respect that has doomed so much of the 
 satire of the contemporaries of Juvenal, no less than 
 of those of Dryden, to the oblivion it so well deserved. 
 Epigram and sarcasm, however witty, if guided by mere 
 personal spite or party feeling, must of necessity lose 
 their interest when the object against whom they were 
 directed has perished. 
 
 It would of course be wholly unfair to reproach any 
 writer who lived in the time of the Roman Empire 
 for not reaching the standard of unprejudiced and 
 goodnatured criticism that is to-day aimed at by the 
 satirist of men and manners a style with which we 
 are all well acquainted in the writings of Thackeray, 
 an author who, of all others, acted up to his own dic- 
 tum, that " if fun is good, truth is better, and love is
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 21 
 
 best of all." Other times, they say, other manners. 
 The society of Rome under Domitian was not one to 
 be curbed by a silken thread, and the thicker-skinned 
 Romans could hear without flinching attacks on their 
 lives and conduct that would be unendurable to a man 
 living in these later days. Nor should we forget 
 that in ancient Italy life was very much more public 
 than it is under our own customs, and that thus much 
 which we should now consider an unpardonable breach 
 of confidence and of good manners would hardly be 
 open to objection where every man lived constantly 
 under the eyes of his neighbour, and the privacy 
 necessitated by modern ideas of self-respect and deco- 
 rum was quite unknown. Juvenal was thus by no 
 means under the same obligation as would now be 
 universally acknowledged and enforced among our- 
 selves, to abstain from criticising the vulgar display 
 that offended him at the dinner-table of Vino, or the 
 unwieldy gait of Matho ; the gluttony of Crispinus, 
 or the prosaic epics of Codrus. Where the whole 
 body of citizens divided their day between the bath, 
 the forum, and the circus, the poet could not tear 
 away the curtain that protects family life from the 
 vulgar gaze, for the simple reason, that what we now 
 mean when we speak of family life had really no 
 existence. 
 
 Again, we must remember that, under the repressive 
 system pursued by the imperial government, political 
 satire, as such, was impossible. The actions of the 
 divine descendant of the Julian line might either be 
 accepted in silence or greeted with gratitude and
 
 22 JUVENAL. 
 
 applause ; but criticism that is to say, adverse criti- 
 cism on the political topics of the day was altogether 
 forbidden. Where such criticism is found, it is always 
 directed against the dead, while the present occupant 
 of the purple is never mentioned except to be praised. 
 The laws of treason, that served to punish or prevent 
 all attempts to break down the hedge of majesty that 
 encircled the throne, were strained to the utmost ; 
 whilst those laws which protected the reputation of 
 the private citizen were, on the principle of compensa- 
 tion, not so strictly enforced. 
 
 Nevertheless, though we may regret that Juvenal 
 did not more entirely refrain from singling out as the 
 objects of his satire individuals of obscure station in 
 the rank and file of society, we must yet grant this 
 much to his memory, that, so far as we can see, he 
 was seldom guided in his selection of victims by per- 
 sonal considerations. It is not his private enemies 
 that he has honoured with an unenviable immortality; 
 nor does he seem to have dragged forward any man 
 into the fire of general ridicule or odium except as an 
 example of the evil consequences of some particular 
 vice or folly. 
 
 His method was, in fact, in this respect, similar to 
 that pursued by Horace's father and eulogised by his 
 son, who has left us the following example of his 
 father's teaching : 
 
 " ' Look, boy ! ' he'd say, ' at Albius' son, observe his sorry 
 
 plight ; 
 And Barrus, that poor beggar there ! say are not these a 
 
 sistht
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 23 
 
 To warn a man from squandering his patrimonial means ? ' 
 
 When counselling me to keep from vile amours with com- 
 mon queans 
 
 ' Sectanus, ape him not ! ' he'd say ; or, urging to for- 
 swear 
 
 Intrigue with matrons when I might taste lawful joys 
 elsewhere 
 
 ' Trebonius' fame is blurred since he was in the manner 
 caught.' " 
 
 It is, moreover, quite unnecessary to agree with the 
 crowd of learned commentators, and maintain that every 
 proper name introduced by Juvenal must needs refer to 
 some real personage, though many no doubt did so 
 refer. But the acumen that seeks to discover an actual 
 owner for the term Bubulco Judice, or, as we should 
 say in English, " Judge Bumpkin," is apt to overshoot 
 the mark ; and we shall probably be nearer the truth 
 if we look on Matho, Msevia, or Crispinus, and many 
 of the other names that figure in these pages, as being 
 just as historical as the Marquis of Steyne or Mrs 
 Eawdon Crawley. 
 
 With regard to Juvenal's true rank as a poet, opinions 
 have differed as widely as have the judgments passed on 
 any other writer. "While one class of critics, among 
 whom we may mention the historian Gibbon, cannot 
 find words to express their admiration for a style so 
 perfect that not a single word could be added or re- 
 moved without loss, a style matched only by the noble 
 sentiments of patriotism and religion that it teaches, 
 and the lofty moral strain in which it is pitched, 
 others look on his writings as among the most corrupt 
 productions of a vicious age, overloaded by a spurious
 
 24 JUVENAL. 
 
 loftiness of manner, the result of a pedantic and inflated 
 mode of thought acquired in the schools of rhetorical 
 declamation. In the judgment of this class of critics, 
 the naturally vicious disposition of the author may be 
 traced in his forced and artificial praise of virtue, no 
 less than in his choice of subjects. The candid and 
 impartial critic will, as usually is the case, find that 
 the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. 
 While it cannot be denied that the effect of an early 
 training in the rhetorical schools may often be traced 
 in a somewhat turgid and exaggerated diction, in a 
 too free use of ornament, by which the sense is occa- 
 sionally rather overloaded than illustrated though 
 there are passages where a declamatory style is carried 
 beyond the limits that a cultivated taste would have 
 assigned, we shall yet not be going beyond the bounds 
 of strict truth when we assert that, for impassioned 
 eloquence of the highest order, for the power by which 
 the orator is able to enlist all the sympathies of his 
 hearers, Juvenal has seldom been equalled. True, 
 this " rapid and resistless sway of torrent genius " does 
 not necessarily imply poetic faculties of the highest 
 order, and is perhaps the mark rather of the orator 
 than of the poet. However that may be, superlative 
 excellence in qualities that exercise so strong a sway 
 over the judgment and passions of men will never fail to 
 deserve and to obtain general applause for their posses- 
 sor. Such excellences as these, where no small portion 
 of the effect is gained by the choice of expressions, or 
 even by the collocations of the words, it is of course 
 more than usually difficult to reproduce in a transla-
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 25 
 
 tion ; and it is with some hesitation that we give the 
 following passage as an example of Juvenal's style, 
 when appealing to the deepest feelings of his audience. 
 The subject of the passage is the punishment which a 
 guilty conscience brings on its possessor : 
 
 " At night, should sleep his harassed limbs compose, 
 And steal him one short moment from his woes, 
 Then dreams invade ; sudden before his eyes 
 The violated fane and altar rise ; 
 And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade 
 In more than mortal majesty arrayed, 
 Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest, 
 And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast. 
 These, these are they, who tremble and turn pale 
 At the first mutterings of the hollow gale ; 
 "Who sink with terror at the transient glare 
 Of meteors, glancing through the turbid air. 
 Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry ; this hideous crash 
 Is not the war of winds, nor the dread flash 
 The encounter of dark clouds, but blasting fire 
 Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire J 
 That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away ; 
 Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay, 
 As if the short reprieve were only sent 
 To add new horrors to their punishment." 
 
 Sat. xiii. 217. 
 
 Nor is Juvenal less a master of the humorous style, 
 when, touching on a lighter theme, he adopts the mock- 
 heroic vein, and laughs at the state council of Domi- 
 tian and the Fathers of Eome, met to consider what 
 shall be done with a mighty turbot a present to the 
 Emperor.
 
 26 JUVENAL. 
 
 The fish was of unparalleled size, and the difficulty to 
 be solved was this : in all the palace 
 
 " No pot was found 
 Capacious of the turbot's ample round." 
 
 Sat. iv. 72. 
 
 The council is therefore summoned in all haste to the 
 Emperor's presence, where the fish lay. Pegasus was 
 there, and Crispus 
 
 " Of gentle manners and persuasive tongue ;", 
 Acilius, and Rubrius, and Montanus ; 
 
 " Crispinus followed, daubed with more perfume 
 Thus early ! than two funerals consume !" 
 
 then Pompey and Fuscus, Viento and Catullus 
 
 " A base, blind parasite, a murderous lord, 
 From the bridge-end raised to the council-board ; 
 Yet fitter still to dog the traveller's heels, 
 And whine for alms at the descending wheels. 
 None dwelt so largely on the turbot's size, 
 Or raised with such applause his wondering eyes ; 
 But to the left (oh, treacherous want of sight !) 
 He poured his praise the fish was on the right ! " 
 
 Ibid., sqq. 
 
 After a little preliminary conversation, in which each 
 noble senator strives to outdo his neighbour in abject 
 flattery of their common lord and master, the im- 
 portant matter is brought forward for decision : 
 
 " The Emperor now the important question put 
 ' How say ye, Fathers, shall the fish be cut 1 ' 
 ' Oh, far be that disgrace ! ' Montanus cries : 
 ' No ; let a pot be formed of amplest size, 
 Within whose slender sides the fish, dread sire !
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 27 
 
 May spread his vast circumference entire. 
 Bring, bring the tempered clay, and let it feel 
 The quick gyrations of the plastic wheel.' 
 But Caesar, thus forewarned, ' Make no campaign 
 Unless your potters follow in your train !'" 
 
 Ibid., sqq. 
 
 The very luxury of servile obsequiousness could go 
 no further; and all having approved the plan, the 
 council is dismissed, and the anxious citizens are reas- 
 sured that it was no threatened invasion of barbarians 
 that had caused all this amount of trepidation in the 
 imperial cabinet. 
 
 Another talent with which Juvenal is pre-eminently 
 endowed, is that of bringing up before the reader's 
 eyes a graphic picture of the scene which he describes. 
 Whether he tells of Codrus living in his garret among 
 his dovecots, with but one bed, and that too short for 
 his short wife, and six pipkins on a cupboard for all 
 his stock of furniture ; or of the pomp of triumph, with 
 its crushed helms and battered shields, and streamers 
 borne from vanquished fleets; whether he describes 
 the wrinkled old man, toothless and blear-eyed with 
 age ; or the scene on a ship's deck when tossed by the 
 angry sea, and shrouded in a black storm-cloud ; a feast 
 in a palace, or a drunken brawl in the streets, we al- 
 ways have the same power manifested ; a power by 
 which we are made conscious of seeing and feeling 
 that which the poet would have us see and feel. What 
 could be finer or more powerfully expressed than the 
 following passage, in which the mingled joy and fear of 
 Rome at the disgrace and death of Sejanus, the hated
 
 28 JUVENAL. 
 
 minister of Tiberius, is photographed to the very life 
 for all future ages 1 
 
 " The statues tumbled down 
 
 Are dragged by hooting thousands through the town ; 
 The brazen cars torn rudely from the yoke, 
 And, with the blameless steeds, to shivers broke. 
 Then roar the fires ! the sooty artist blows, 
 And all Sejanus in the furnace glows ; 
 Sejanus, once so honoured, so adored, 
 And only second to the world's great lord, 
 Runs glittering from the mould in cups and cans, 
 Basons and ejvers, plates, pitchers, pots, and pans. 
 * Crown all your doors with bay triumphant bay ! 
 Sacred to Jove the milk-white victim slay ; 
 For, lo ! where great Sejanus by the throng 
 A joyful spectacle ! is dragged along. 
 What lips ! what cheeks ! Ah, traitor ! for my part, 
 I never loved the fellow in my heart.' 
 'But tell me, why was he adjudged to bleed ? 
 And who discovered, and who proved the deed ? ' 
 ' Proved ! A huge wordy letter came to-day 
 FromCaprese.' 'Good! What think the people?' 'They! 
 They follow fortune, as of old, and hate 
 With their whole soul the victim of the state. 
 Yet would the herd, thus zealous, thus on fire, 
 Had Nurscia met the Tuscan's fond desire, 
 And crushed the unwary prince, have all combined, 
 And hailed Sejanus master of mankind ! 
 
 ' But there are more to suffer.' ' So I find ; 
 
 A fire so fierce was ne'er for one designed. 
 
 I met my friend Brutidius ; and I fear, 
 
 From his pale looks, he thinks there's danger near. 
 
 What if this Ajax, in his frenzy, strike, 
 
 Suspicious of our zeal, at all alike ?'
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 29 
 
 ' True. Fly we, then, our loyalty to show, 
 And trample on the carcass of his foe, 
 While yet exposed on Tiber's banks it lies.' 
 ' But let our slaves be there,' another cries. 
 ' Yes, let them (lest our ardour they forswear, 
 And drag us pinioned to the bar) be there.' " 
 
 Sat. x. 58. 
 
 "With regard to the charge of immorality, already 
 alluded to, if it were not for the high, characters that 
 many of the detractors from the poet's fame have 
 borne, both for critical acumen and integrity of cha- 
 racter, we should be tempted to say with. GifFord, 
 "that there is something of pique in the singular 
 severity with, which he is censured " that, feeling his 
 high morality as a censure on themselves, " they seek 
 to indemnify themselves by questioning the sanctity 
 which, they cannot but respect, and find a secret 
 pleasure in persuading one another that this dreadful 
 satirist was at heart no inveterate enemy to the licen- 
 tiousness which he so vehemently reprehends." The 
 coarseness which does undoubtedly deface his pages in 
 more than one instance must not be confounded with 
 immorality, or even with indecency. It is the result 
 of the times far more than of the individual tempera- 
 ment of the writer ; and the same coarseness will be 
 found not only in the pages of Horace and Persius, 
 but also of philosophers like Seneca and Pliny, to say 
 nothing of such writers as Martial and Petronius. 
 If, however, it is complained that the fault lies not 
 so much in the subjects, or even in the expressions, 
 as in the undercurrent of thought, in hints and innuen-
 
 30 JUVENAL. 
 
 does, we can only reply, that the volume is read 
 by many Avho see no such moral defects, and that 
 there are few writers on moral subjects against whom 
 the same insinuations might not be made with equal 
 justice. 
 
 As to the subjects that are treated by Juvenal, their 
 name in truth is legion. Of some of the more pro- 
 minent among these Ave have already spoken, and we 
 shall illustrate them in other chapters. For the rest, 
 the general scope and mode of treatment, the way in 
 which one subject is made to lead on to another, and 
 how allusions to social life and the events of contem- 
 porary history and politics are introduced, may be 
 gathered from the First Satire. 
 
 In it the poet gives his reasons for writing satire, 
 and lays down a kind of outline that is subsequently 
 filled up. Of part of this satire we here give a trans- 
 lation, both because it enumerates the subjects that are 
 treated of at greater length elsewhere, and as giving an 
 example of the general spirit of the poet, and setting 
 forth in emphatic language many of his peculiar likes 
 and dislikes. We may however, perhaps, be allowed 
 to repeat here what we have elsewhere laid down 
 with regard to the continual development visible in 
 Juvenal's moral life, that it is in the later, and not 
 in the earlier, satires that his philosophy may best be 
 traced. It is not till his later years that he shows a 
 readiness to see what there is of good in all that sur- 
 rounds him ; that he lays aside the destroying club of 
 Hercules, in order to build up on the ground that has 
 thus been cleared an ethical system that has been
 
 SATIRJES AND SATIRISTS. 31 
 
 declared by some authorities to equal, as far as might 
 be without the aid of revelation, the more complete 
 code of morality which we owe to Christianity. 
 
 After a few lines by way of introduction, in which 
 he playfully describes his dread of the whole herd of 
 reciters of poetry, and his resolve to be revenged upon 
 them in kind, Juvenal proceeds to give the reasons 
 that determined him to write satire rather than any 
 other kind of poetry : 
 
 " But why I choose, adventurous, to retrace 
 The Auruncan's route, and, in the arduous race, 
 Follow his burning wheels, attentive hear, 
 If leisure serve, and truth be worth your ear. 
 
 When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair 
 Tilts at the Tuscan boar, Avith bosom bare ; 
 When one that oft, since manhood first appeared, 
 Has trimmed the exuberance of this sounding beard. 
 In wealth outvies the senate ; when a vile, 
 A slave-born, slave-bred vagabond of Nile, 
 Crispinus, while he gathers now, now flings 
 His purple open, fans his summer rings ; 
 And, as his fingers sweat beneath the freight, 
 Cries, ' Save me from a gem of greater weight : ' 
 'Tis hard a less adventurous course to choose, 
 While folly plagues, and vice inflames the Muse. 
 For who so slow of heart, so dull of brain, 
 So patient of the town, as to contain 
 His bursting spleen, when, full before his eye, 
 Swings the new chair of lawyer Matho by, 
 Crammed with himself ! then, with no less parade, 
 That caitiff's, who his noble friend betrayed, 
 Who now, in fancy, prostrate greatness tears, 
 And preys on what the imperial vulture spares !
 
 32 JUVENAL. 
 
 Whom Massa dreads, Latinus, trembling, plies 
 With a fair wife, and anxious Cams buys. 
 
 Ye gods ! what rage, what frenzy fires my brain, 
 When that false guardian, with his splendid train, 
 Crowds the long street, and leaves his orphan charge 
 To prostitution, and the world at large ! 
 When, by a juggling sentence damned in vain 
 For who, that holds the plunder, heeds the pain ?) 
 Marius to wine devotes his morning hours, 
 And laughs in exile at the offended Powers : 
 While, sighing o'er the victory she won, 
 The Province finds herself but more undone ! 
 
 And shall I feel that crimes like these require 
 The avenging strains of the Venusian lyre,* 
 And not pursue them ? shall I still repeat 
 The legendary tales of Troy and Crete ; 
 The toils of Hercules, the horses fed 
 On human flesh by savage Dioined, 
 The lowing labyrinth, the builder's flight, 
 And the rash boy, hurled from his airy height ? 
 When what the law forbids the wife to heir, 
 The adulterer's Will may to the wittol bear, 
 Who gave, with wand'ring eye and vacant face, 
 A tacit sanction to his own disgrace ; 
 And, while at every turn a look he stole, 
 Snored, unsuspected, o'er the treacherous bowl ! 
 
 When he presumes to ask a troop's command 
 Who spent on horses all his father's land, 
 While, proud the experienced driver to display, 
 His glowing wheels smoked o'er the Appian Way : 
 For there our young Automedon first tried 
 His powers, there loved the rapid car to guide. 
 
 * The allusion is to Horace, who was born at Venusium.
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 33 
 
 "Who would not, reckless of the swarm he meets, 
 Fill his wide tablets, in the public streets, 
 With angry verse ? when, through the mid-day glare, 
 Borne by six slaves, and in an open chair, 
 The forger comes, who owes this blaze of state 
 To a wet seal and a fictitious date ; 
 Comes, like the soft Maecenas, lolling by, 
 And impudently braves the public eye ! 
 Or the rich dame, who stanched her husband's thirst 
 With generous wine, but drugged it deeply first ! 
 And now, more dext'rous than Locusta, shows 
 Her country friends the beverage to compose, 
 And, 'midst the curses of the indignant throng, 
 Bears, in broad day, the spotted corpse along. 
 
 Dare nobly, man ! if greatness be thy aim, 
 And practise what may chains and exile claim : 
 On Guilt's broad base thy towering fortunes raise, 
 For Virtue starves on universal praise ! 
 While crimes, in scorn of niggard fate, afford 
 The ivory couches, and the citron board, 
 The goblet high-embossed, the antique plate, 
 The lordly mansion, and the fair estate ! 
 
 Oh, who can rest who taste the sweets of life, 
 When sires debauch the son's too greedy wife ! 
 
 No : INDIGNATION, kindling as she views, 
 Shall in each breast a generous warmth infuse, 
 And pour, in Nature and the Nine's despite, 
 Such strains as I, or Cluvienus,* write ! 
 
 E'er since Deucalion,f while, on every side, 
 The bursting clouds upraised the whelming tide, 
 
 * Cluvienus was a contemporary poet, or rather poetaster, of 
 whom nothing more is known than his name, here immortalised 
 by Juvenal. 
 
 t According to Ovid (Metamorph., Book I.), Deucalion and 
 A. c. vol. xiii. C
 
 34 JUVENAL. 
 
 Reached, in his little skiff, the forked hill, 
 
 And sought, at Themis' shrine, the Immortals' will ; 
 
 When softening stones grew warm with gradual life, 
 
 And Pyrrha brought each male a virgin wife ; 
 
 Whatever passions have the soul possest, 
 
 Whatever wild desires inflamed the breast, 
 
 Joy, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hatred, Transport, Rage, 
 
 Shall form the motley subject of my page. 
 
 And when could Satire boast so fair a field ? 
 Say, when did Vice a richer harvest yield ? 
 When did fell Avarice so engross the mind ? 
 Or when the lust of play so curse mankind ? 
 No longer, now, the pocket's stores supply 
 The boundless charges of the desperate die : 
 The chest is staked ! muttering the steward stands, 
 And scarce resigns it, at his lord's commands. 
 Is it a SIMPLE MADNESS, I would know, 
 To venture countless thousands on a throw, 
 Yet want the soul, a single piece to spare 
 To clothe the slave, that shivering stands and bare ! 
 
 Who called, of old, so many seats his own, 
 Or on seven sumptuous dishes supped alone ? 
 Then plain and open was the cheerful feast, 
 And every client was a bidden guest ; 
 Now, at the gate, a paltry largess lies, 
 And eager hands and tongues dispute the prize. 
 But first (lest some false claimant should be found) 
 The wary steward takes his anxious round, 
 And pries in every face, then calls aloud, 
 ' Come forth, ye great Dardanians, from the crowd ! ' 
 
 Pyrrha were the progenitors of the human race after the flood. 
 The story is, that they took up stones and threw them over 
 their heads ; and that these stones became the first men and 
 women of the new creation.
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 35 
 
 For, mixed with us, e'en these besiege the door, 
 
 And scramble for the pittance of the poor ! 
 
 ' Despatch the Praetor first,' the master cries, 
 
 ' And next the Tribune.' ' No, not so,' replies 
 
 The Freedman, bustling through ; ' first come is still 
 
 First served ; and I may claim my right, and will ! 
 
 Though born a slave ('tis bootless to deny 
 
 What these bored ears betray to every eye), 
 
 On my own rents, in splendour, now \ live, 
 
 On five fair freeholds ! Can the PURPLE give 
 
 Their Honours more ? when, to Laurentum sped, 
 
 NOBLE Corvinus tends a flock for bread ! 
 
 Pallas and the Licinii, in estate, 
 
 Must yield to me : let, then, the Tribunes wait.' 
 
 Yes, let them wait ! thine, Riches, be the field ! 
 
 It is not meet, that he to HONOUR yield, 
 
 To SACRED HONOUR, who, with whitened feet, 
 
 Was hawked for sale, so lately, through the street. 
 
 O gold ! though Rome beholds no altars flame, 
 
 No temples rise to thy pernicious name, ' 
 
 Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared, 
 
 And Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard, 
 
 Yet is thy full divinity confest, 
 
 Thy shrine established here, in every breast. 
 
 But while, with anxious eyes, the great explore 
 How much the dole augments their annual store, 
 What misery must the poor dependant dread, 
 Whom this small pittance clothed, and lodged, and fed ? 
 Wedged in thick ranks before the donor's gates, 
 A phalanx firm, of chairs and litters, waits : 
 Thither one husband, at the risk of life, 
 Hurries his teeming, or his bedrid wife ; 
 Another, practised in the gainful art, 
 With deeper cunning tops the beggar's part ; 
 Plants at his side a close and empty chair : 
 ' My Galla, master ; give me Galla's share.'
 
 36 JUVENAL. 
 
 1 Galla ! ' the porter cries ; ' let her look out. 1 
 
 ' Sir, she's asleep. Nay, give me ; can you doubt ?' 
 
 What rare pursuits employ the client's day ! 
 First to the patron's door their court to pay, 
 Next to the forum, to support his cause, 
 Thence to Apollo, learned in the laws, 
 And the triumphal statues. 
 
 Returning home, he drops them at the gate : 
 And now the weary clients, wise too late, 
 Resign their hopes, and supperless retire, 
 To spend the paltry dole in herbs and fire. 
 
 Meanwhile their patron sees his palace stored 
 With every dainty earth and sea afford ! 
 Stretched on the unsocial couch, he rolls his eyes 
 O'er many an orb of matchless form and size, 
 Selects the fairest to receive his plate, 
 And, at one meal, devours a whole estate ! 
 But who (for not a parasite is there) 
 The selfishness of luxury can bear ? 
 See ! the lone glutton craves whole boars ! a beast 
 Designed by nature for the social feast ! 
 But speedy wrath o'ertakes him : gorged with food, 
 And swollen and fretted by the peacock crude, 
 He seeks the bath, his feverish pulse to still, 
 Hence sudden death, and age without a Will ! 
 Swift flies the tale, by witty spleen increast, 
 And furnishes a laugh at every feast ; 
 The laugh, his friends not undelighted hear, 
 And, fallen from all their hopes, insult his bier. 
 
 NOTHING is left, NOTHING for future times 
 To add to the full catalogue of crimes ; 
 The baifled sons must feel the same desires, 
 And act the same mad follies, as their sires.
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 37 
 
 VICE HAS ATTAINED ITS ZENITH : Then set sail, 
 Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale. 
 
 But where the powers so vast a theme requires ? 
 Where the plain times, the simple, when our sires 
 Enjoyed a freedom which I dare not name, 
 And gave the public sin to public shame, 
 Heedless who smiled or frowned ? Now, let a line 
 But glance at Tigellinus, and you shine, 
 Chained to a stake, in pitchy robes, and light, 
 Lugubrious torch, the deepening shades of night ; 
 Or, writhing on a hook, are dragged around, 
 And with your mangled members plough the ground. 
 
 What ! shall the wretch of hard, unpitying soul, 
 Who for THREE uncles mixed the deadly bowl, 
 Propped on his plumy couch, that all may see, 
 Tower by triumphant, and look down on me ? 
 
 Yes ; let him look. He comes ! avoid his way, 
 And on your lip your cautious finger lay ; 
 Crowds of informers linger in his rear, 
 And, if a whisper pass, will overhear." 
 
 Sat. i. 19. 
 
 The practice of delation here alluded to was a topic 
 which could hardly have been avoided by any satirist 
 who took the reign of Doinitian for his theme. This 
 odious custom one of the most intolerable evils of the 
 Roman Empire had its rise in a trait of character 
 which was in itself innocent, if not praiseworthy. Even 
 in the days of the Republic, it had not been unusual 
 for young men who wished to take a place among the 
 leading politicians of the day to commence their public 
 career by impeaching before the people of Rome any 
 among her more powerful citizens who, during their 
 tenure of office, had transgressed the laws or had harshly
 
 38 JUVENAL. 
 
 ruled over their province. Such conduct was con- 
 sidered no less honourable to the accuser than service- 
 able to the state ; and it was by such means that men 
 like Crassus, Cicero, and Caesar first earned the applause 
 of their fellow-citizens. It is, however, clear that such 
 a mode of procedure was eminently liable to abuse, as 
 indeed the event but too soon proved. 
 
 The fact is, that as early as the days of Augustus, 
 many men of honourable birth, forgetful of what 
 was due to their own. reputation and the glorious tra- 
 ditions of their family, had not been ashamed to pro- 
 stitute their intellect by a persecution, thinly veiled 
 by an observance of legal forms, of any private 
 enemies of the emperor. Under the successors of 
 Augustus, the practice, though sometimes discounte- 
 nanced, spread on the whole with fearful rapidity, till, 
 in the time of Domitian, the Terror reigned throughout 
 the Empire. "The best and noblest of the citizens 
 were still marked out as the prey of delators, whose 
 patrons connived at enormities which bound their agents 
 more closely to themselves, and made his protection 
 more necessary to them. The haughty nobles quailed 
 in silence under a system in which every act, every 
 word, every sigh was noted against them, and disgrace, 
 exile, and death followed upon secret whispers." 
 
 This system it is against which Juvenal has in- 
 veighed in his most telling manner. At one time, in 
 his more humorous vein, he mocks at the way in which 
 this self-appointed police swarmed even in places 
 where they might have been least expected ; at the 
 paltry annoyance of the inquisitor, almost too ridicu-
 
 SATIRES AND SATIRISTS. 39 
 
 lous to be hated, which thought no matter too unim- 
 portant for his attention. A fisherman near Ancona 
 has caught an enormous turbot the same which figured 
 at Domitian's supper-party, already mentioned * but 
 can hardly be congratulated on his luck. And the 
 reason is soon made obvious : 
 
 " The mighty draught the astonished boatman eyes, 
 And to the Pontiff's f table dooms the prize : 
 For who would dare to sell it ? who to buy 1 
 When the coast swarmed with many a practised spy, 
 Mud-rakers, prompt to swear the fish had fled 
 From Caesar's ponds, ingrate ! where long it fed, 
 And tlms, recaptured, claimed to be restored 
 To the dominion of its ancient lord ! 
 Nay, if Palphurius may our credit gain, 
 Whatever rare or precious swims the main 
 Is forfeit to the crown, and you may seize 
 The obnoxious dainty when and where you please. 
 This point allowed, our wary boatman chose 
 To give what else he had not failed to lose." 
 
 Sat. iv. 45. 
 
 Elsewhere Juvenal pours out his indignation more 
 openly on such men as 
 
 " Pompey, practised to betray, 
 And hesitate the noblest lives away ; " Ibid., 110. 
 
 men who, under the guise of friendship, would worm out 
 the secret thoughts of their neighbour, and then betray 
 him who had put confidence in their loyalty. Such 
 men were Carus, Massa, Messalinus, and, above all, Reg- 
 
 * See above, page 25. 
 
 t Among the various titles assumed by the early Roman 
 emperors was that of Pontifex Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff.
 
 40 JUVENAL. 
 
 ulus, whose infamous reputation earned for him the title 
 of " prince of informers." 
 
 In the remaining lines of this first satire Juvenal 
 contrasts the satirical with other kinds of poetry, and 
 comes to the conclusion, after an argument with a 
 supposed interlocutor, that the former, if the more 
 dangerous, is also the more honourable to the poet. 
 
 " Bring, if you please, ^Eneas on the stage, 
 Fierce war with the Rutulian prince * to wage ; 
 Subdue the stern Achilles ; and once more 
 With ' Hylas .' ' ' Hylas ! ' fill the echoing shore ; 
 Harmless, nay, pleasant, shall the tale be found 
 It bares no ulcer, and it probes no wound. 
 But when Lucilius, fired with virtuous rage, 
 Waves his keen falchion o'er a guilty age, 
 The conscious villain shudders at his sin, 
 And burning blushes speak the pangs within ; 
 Cold drops of sweat from every member roll, 
 And growing terrors harrow up his soul : 
 Then tears of shame, and dire revenge succeed 
 Say, have you pondered well the advent'rous deed ? 
 Now, ere the trumpet sounds, your strength debate 
 The soldier, once engaged, repents too late. 
 
 Yet I MUST write : and since these iron times, 
 From living knaves preclude my angry rhymes, 
 I point my pen against the guilty dead, 
 And pour its gall on each obnoxious head." 
 
 Sat. i. 162. 
 
 * Turnus. See Virgil's JSneid, passim.
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 HOKACE AND JUVENAL. 
 
 THE characters of Horace and Juvenal, the two prin- 
 cipal Roman satirists the only two whose writings, 
 as they have come down to us, are in themselves 
 worthy of much study appear to invite, while at the 
 same tune they defy, comparison. 
 
 The themes on which they wrote were also to a 
 great extent the same, yet treated from so different a 
 point of view that it is difficult to find any sentiment 
 repeated in the two. 
 
 Horace affords by no means an exception to the rule, 
 that the men of the truest wit are always of amelancholy, 
 not to say an unhappy, temperament. Throughout his 
 works there is always a tinge of a pessimist feeling, a 
 tendency to take a despondent view of his own career, 
 and of the state of society in which he moved, which, 
 though often disguised, is constantly cropping up under 
 various guises, and in passages where one would hardly 
 expect to meet it. His farm is charming, yet he can- 
 not hear to live at a distance from Eome ; in Eome he 
 pines for the air and scenery of the country. Eestless
 
 42 JUVENAL. 
 
 when at home, and deriving nothing but discomfort 
 from his travels, he harps on his failing health, on the 
 sickness and death of his friends, on the inconstancy 
 of one or other of his mistresses. In spite of all 
 this, he does not feel what it is that is really want- 
 ing to him. Throughout his life his great object was 
 to 
 
 " Snatch gaily the joys which the moment shall bring, 
 And away every care and perplexity fling." 
 
 The one thing needful to make his life a truly 
 happy life the conscious striving after some great 
 ideal, or the pursuit of some worthy end was a quality 
 of whose absence he seems never to have been aware ; 
 and thus his life a life that, worthily guided, might 
 have accomplished great things was idly frittered 
 away. Whether he appears as the love-sick poet, or 
 as the favoured friend of the emperor's favourite ; as 
 the amateur farmer, or as the neophyte in philosophy ; 
 as the scoffer at superstition, or as the repentant 
 religionist, there is always an oppressive conscious- 
 ness of something wrong, a shrinking anxiety as to the 
 future, and a despondency with regard to the present, 
 which is scarcely less apparent in the lines in which 
 he tries to shake off the feeling than in those in which 
 he yields to it. Most of all we may notice it in his 
 latest poems. In these he yields more than elsewhere 
 to the depressing effects of failing health, and the loss 
 of the friends and companions of his childhood. To 
 multiply instances of this fact were idle ; indeed the 
 greater part of his writings might be cited as examples
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 43 
 
 of this trait in Horace's literary character. One or two 
 passages from his works shall suffice here as instances : 
 
 " Both thou and I 
 Must quickly die, 
 
 Content thee, then, nor madly hope 
 To wrest a false assurance from Chaldsean horoscope. 
 
 Use all life's powers : 
 The envious hours 
 Fly as we talk ; then live to-day, 
 
 Nor fondly to to-morrow trust more than you must or may." 
 
 I. Od. xi. 
 
 Again, in addressing a friend, Dellius : 
 
 " It recks not whether thou 
 
 Be opulent, and trace 
 Thy birth from kings, or bear upon thy brow 
 
 Stamp of a beggar's race ; 
 Be what thou wilt, full surely must thou fall, 
 For Orcus, ruthless king, swoops equally on all. 
 Yes, all are hurrying fast 
 
 To the one common bourne ; 
 Sooner or later will the lot at last 
 
 Drop from the fatal urn 
 
 "Which sends thee hence in the grim Stygian bark, 
 To dwell for evermore in cheerless realms and dark." 
 
 II. Od. iii 
 
 In very similar language he addresses Posthunms : 
 
 " Land, home, and winsome wife must all be left ; 
 And cypresses abhorred 
 Alone of all the trees 
 That now your fancy please 
 
 Shall shade his dust, who was a little while their lord." 
 
 Ibid.
 
 44 JUVENAL. 
 
 It was, perhaps, a result of the general feeling of his 
 times, rather than of his own temper, that he dwelt so 
 frequently on the certain deterioration of the human 
 race: 
 
 " How time doth in its flight debase 
 Whate'er it finds ? " 
 
 Yet it is fully in accord with the general undercurrent 
 of the poet's own feelings, whether he is looking for- 
 ward to his own death, or reminding a friend of the 
 uncertainty of life and the helplessness of man against 
 the powers of Fate, or deploring the death of Virgil. 
 If he speaks of the spring, it is to tell us how short- 
 lived it is; if of its flowers, to show how soon they fade 
 away. 
 
 Juvenal, on the other hand, if we may be allowed 
 to judge of him from such evidence as is afforded by 
 his writings, was animated by feelings of a wholly 
 different nature. In his earliest satires we may 
 notice a fierceness which almost degenerates into 
 savage, cynical onslaught on the whole social system 
 of the day. In the seventh satire, while there is less 
 of this fierce ungovernable temper, there are more de- 
 cided traces of melancholy and despondency than we 
 shall find in his other writings. But this defect is 
 shaken off as the poet advances in years, and in the 
 latest poems there is less of the satirist and more of 
 the philosopher. No longer content with a dishear- 
 tened criticism on the failings and shortcomings of 
 human life, on the vanity of all around him, Juvenal 
 now aims at holding up before our eyes the charms of
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 45 
 
 virtue, and the true dignity and happiness of the good 
 man's life. In these his later writings the poet shows 
 how high lineage may be worthily adorned by a true 
 and honourable career. 
 
 " Oh, give me inborn worth ! dare to be just, 
 Firm to your word and faithful to your trust, 
 These praises hear, at least deserve to hear ; 
 I grant your claim, and recognise the peer. 
 Hail ! from whatever stock you draw your birth, 
 The son of Cossus or the son of Earth, 
 All hail ! in you exulting Konie espies 
 Her guardian Power, her great Palladium rise ; 
 And shouts like Egypt when her priests have found 
 A new Osiris for the old one drowned ! " 
 
 Sat. viii. 25. 
 
 He now dwells on the pleasures of simple tales and 
 of a country life, pointing out how " its best flavour 
 temperance gives to joy." He teaches how a man 
 should live, and how he should train up his children 
 in the way in which they should go. He reminds the 
 parent that " reverence to children as to heaven is 
 due ; " shows how it is from a sound education that 
 all honourable conduct must arise, and that luxury is 
 by no means necessary for a contented spirit. 
 
 " What call I then enough ? What will afford 
 A decent habit and a frugal board ; 
 What Epicurus' little garden bore, 
 And Socrates sufficient thought before. 
 These squared by nature's rule their harmless life 
 Nature and wisdom never are at strife." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 315. 
 
 Holding in view this growth in Juvenal's moral
 
 46 JUVENAL. 
 
 life, it has well "been said that "the satirist whose 
 aim is merely negative and destructive who only 
 pulls down the generous ideas of virtue with which 
 youth embarks on its careers is simply an instrument 
 of evil; and if his pictures of vice are too glowing, 
 too true, the evil is so much the greater ; but if he 
 pauses in his course to reconstruct, to raise again our 
 hopes of virtue and point our steps toward the goal of 
 religion and morality, he may redeem the evil tenfold. 
 Thus the later satires of Juvenal more than compen- 
 sate for the earlier ; and for the service which he has 
 in them done to mankind our reverential gratitude is 
 due."* 
 
 Besides all the effects of these differences of character, 
 there are in the writings of Juvenal and Horace many 
 instances of a different mode of treating their subject- 
 matter, which we must attribute far more to the effects 
 of the changed political and social conditions under 
 which they lived and worked, than to any traits in 
 their individual mode of thought. In that age which 
 we are accustomed to call Augustan (an age, be it said, 
 whose weakness and crime was but scantily veiled by 
 the flimsy tinsel of a spurious refinement), the effects 
 of that social revolution and anarchy through which 
 the world had but lately passed, and in which it was, 
 indeed, to a certain extent still involved, may be but 
 too readily traced in the customs and modes of thought 
 of the people of the day, as depicted in the writings of 
 contemporary authors that still survive. For half a 
 century before the battle of Actium, the Eoman world 
 * Merivale's Roman Empire.
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 47 
 
 had been torn to pieces by civil strife, and harassed by 
 repeated proscriptions, while its fairest provinces had 
 been depopulated by the clash of opposing armies, by 
 the hateful strife of brother with brother, in which 
 
 " Roman against Roman bared his blade, 
 Which the fierce Parthian fitter low had laid." 
 
 And though, in spite of all this, the armies of the great 
 Republic had still marched victoriously in all directions; 
 though the frontiers of the Roman commonwealth had 
 still been continually thrust out further and further 
 from the vast metropolis ; though the pomp of the 
 stately triumph might year after year be seen winding 
 its length up the sacred way to celebrate an ever- 
 lengthening list of victories over distant nations, whose 
 very name and habitation were scarcely known to the 
 sovereign people under whose sway they were now to 
 live ; though Fortune still seemed to wait patiently the 
 order of her most highly favoured state, the day had 
 gone for ever in which the Eoman could burn with 
 pride and pleasure as he contemplated the successes 
 of the Republic, of which it was each man's greatest 
 boast to be a citizen. Even before the rise of Augustus, 
 few thinking Romans, however patriotic, could conceal 
 from themselves the fact, that Roman virtue and 
 Roman success had found a common grave in vice and 
 luxury. The days of high aspirations and of noble 
 deeds of patriotism had now gone by. Men who, 
 under more happy auspices, might have been capable 
 of great actions, sank into a life of idle, empty frivolity, 
 of mere dilettanteism in religion as in art, in morality
 
 48 JUVENAL. 
 
 as in politics. These melancholy features of decay 
 may easily be traced in all the authors of the age, 
 scarcely veiled by a superficial appearance of pride in 
 the great events of their day, and of exultation in the 
 fortune and the destiny of Eome. Men felt that the old 
 order of things had passed away, and felt it without 
 regret. Like the lotos-eaters of Tennyson, they were 
 content to live on without honour, so they might exist 
 in luxury and sluggish peace ; they said in their lives, 
 though possibly not in their words, 
 
 " Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 
 In the hollow Lotos-land to live, and lie reclined 
 On the hills, like gods, together, careless of mankind." 
 
 The day for action for doing and daring had 
 gone by ; and now the dead calm of the Pax Romano, 
 was spread over the face of the earth. Already in 
 its moral and intellectual bearing the condemnation 
 passed by Tacitus on his fellow-countrymen of a later 
 age was justified. " They make a desert and they call 
 it Peace." Hence, feeling the emptiness of their own 
 times, the total absence of any field in which a spirit 
 cast in the old heroic mould could find a Avorthy sphere 
 of action, it was impossible that the writers of the 
 age should find scope for any thoughts of really noble 
 import. Most assuredly is it true that the literature 
 of any period can have no life except that which it 
 may have as the echo of the active existence of the 
 nation. In such nations, then, as are destitute of 
 political life, no literature of any noble kind can exist, 
 unless the poet is borne back in his imagination to
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 49 
 
 times when decay had not yet tainted the national 
 growth. And this is the only kind of inspiration which 
 we can find in the writers of the age of Augustus. 
 The burden of Horace, Virgil, and Livy is all the 
 same. " Who shall restore us the years that are past 1 " 
 By no author was this sentiment more distinctly enun- 
 ciated than by Livy, when in the preface to his ' His- 
 tory ' he sets forth his reasons for recounting the past 
 glories of Eome, and for telling the tale of the founda- 
 tion and spread of her rule. " One reward of this 
 my toil," he says, " will be that, for a time at all events, 
 I shall be enabled to forget the desolation which has 
 come upon our nation our nation that has now 
 reached a pitch of iniquity at which it can bear neither 
 its vices nor yet the remedies for them." In Virgil, 
 though we shall not be able to find in his poems any so 
 distinct assertion of the effeteness of the age in which 
 he lived, we may yet distinctly trace the effects of the 
 same despairing acquiescence in the state of his country- 
 men, the same hopelessness of their political future. 
 It is always to the Past that Virgil points back when 
 he would arouse the enthusiasm of his hearers for the 
 theme he lays before them. The age of the seven 
 ancient kings, of the mighty Fabii, of the Fabricii, of 
 the Decii, and Gracchi, that was the age on which the 
 Poet might look back with mingled pride and rever- 
 ence ; but with the death of Cato a veil of separation 
 must be drawn between themes that inspire hope, and 
 joy, and the poet's sacred song, and themes which may 
 not be touched. The present generation might indeed 
 be conscious of having hurled back the threatened in- 
 A. c. vol. xiii. D
 
 50 JUVENAL. 
 
 vasion of the swarthy Egyptian queen, of having 
 crushed Antonius, and dashed the pirate Sextus to the 
 ground. But were not the latter brothers ? and was 
 it not a disgrace, worse than any victory could blot out, 
 that the great Some of Mars and Romulus should have 
 trembled before a woman's threats ? should have heard 
 with panic fear the barking of Anubis, and the shak- 
 ing of the rattle of the Nile ? 
 
 And now the victory had come, but it had been 
 followed by a universal peace, containing within 
 itself the seeds of a listless disease a disease that was 
 already chilling the whole body politic into a lethargy, 
 where no lofty resolve could be developed, no patriotic 
 aspirations had any room. It is in the Georgics only, 
 in which, as the apostle of the country, he inculcates 
 the homely virtues of a farmer's life, that Virgil is 
 able to emancipate himself from the melancholy with 
 which he is elsewhere weighed down, and holds out to 
 the Eomans of his own day the hope of emulating, to 
 some extent at least, the noble characteristics of their 
 forefathers. 
 
 The effect of the same political phenomena was 
 somewhat different on Horace, even as his character 
 differed from that of Virgil. In him there was none 
 of that enthusiasm which might have led Virgil, had 
 he lived in the twelfth century, to found an order of 
 monks or of knighthood. In Horace sound common- 
 sense took the place of high-flown romance. Himself 
 in his philosophy a professed Epicurean, he could, 
 under no circumstances, have inspired any real love or 
 admiration for the good and holy. But besides all
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 51 
 
 this, his moral and physical surroundings were such as 
 would have kept back a man of far purer and more 
 intense feelings from any stirring exhortation to 
 patriotism, or stinging rebuke of frivolity and vice. 
 And so, in a court which, beyond all other courts, was 
 given up wholly and entirely to the pursuit of the fleet- 
 ing follies of the hour ; in which all attempts to 
 shake off the golden chains of pleasure were met with 
 open ridicule or half-contemptuous praise ; in which 
 the main object of each man's life was to float pleasantly, 
 if listlessly, with the current ; where each day that had 
 witnessed the discovery of some new path of pleasure 
 was accounted well spent, a court poet and a courtier 
 such, as Horace had not the energy to strike out manfully 
 against the stream. One of the main aims of Augustus 
 was to hide the fetters in which he had bound the 
 nobles of the land, to mould the Eomans by persua- 
 sion and example, rather than to force their wills by 
 direct command. No ruler than he ever knew better 
 how seldom it is that men will fight to retain the sub- 
 stance, if only they are allowed to enjoy the form and 
 shadow of that which they profess to admire and to 
 love ; how much easier it always is to govern men by 
 the dictates of fashion and custom, than to establish 
 a custom by law and ordinance. In this endeavour 
 to lead these whom a less shrewd politician might 
 have attempted to coerce, he found a most valuable 
 coadjutor in Horace. Contented by disposition, by 
 education a man of the world rather than a philo- 
 sopher ; a man with few pretensions to profound 
 learning or any great insight into the tenets of even
 
 52 JUVENAL. 
 
 the Epicurean philosophy, of which he was a professed 
 adherent, Horace was yet sufficiently versed in the 
 commonplaces of the sect to be able to clothe in 
 quasi philosophical language his disparagement of 
 political ambition, or his sneers at any indecorous vice 
 or folly, while inculcating the precepts of the gardens, 
 and setting forth the advantages of an unambitious life, 
 undisturbed by any outbursts of temper or of mis- 
 placed zeal, a pursuit of pleasure chastened by temper, 
 and bounded by the dictates of moderation. He 
 was thus peculiarly fitted to be the preacher of this 
 new life of Rome, of this golden age of tinsel and 
 mediocrity. He was ever ready at the earliest hint of 
 Maecenas to divert, by a pleasant laugh, any threatened 
 outburst of political ambition or republicanism that 
 might yet linger about the court of his patron, or to 
 scoff down any offensive and unbecoming display of old- 
 fashioned boorishness, or of vulgar ostentation. Did 
 Iccius prepare an expedition to the golden East to in- 
 crease the store in his overflowing treasury, he was 
 pleasantly reminded how much more choiceworthy was 
 the study of Socrates than any pomp of barbaric splen- 
 dour ; did Hirpinus or Grosphus yearn to play a more 
 active part in the politics of the day, or seem to grow 
 restless under his golden chain, the poet was ready to 
 contrast the quiet happiness of a voluptuary's life with 
 the uncertainty and toil of that of the warrior or poli- 
 tician, filled as they were with anxieties and cares 
 which the divine race of lulus was alone fitted to sup- 
 port. Nor was Horace less ready to crush with a sar-
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 53 
 
 casm bordering on the licence of pasquinade the folly 
 of Kufillus, or the senseless extravagance of the par- 
 venu Nasidienus. Even when, taking a more serious 
 view of life, he wrote as a moralist, or even as a reli- 
 gious reformer, it is difficult to believe that he is not 
 acting a part. When we read in one page " that the 
 gods live a life careless of mankind, and that if nature 
 works any wondrous woe on earth, it is not they who 
 send it down from heaven in their wrath," there is a 
 hollow ring in the words, 
 
 " Ye Eomans, ye, though guiltless, shall 
 Dread expiation make for all 
 
 The laws your sires have broke, 
 Till ye repair with loving pains 
 The gods' dilapidated fanes, 
 
 Their statues grimed with smoke ! 
 
 Ye rule the world because that ye 
 Confess the gods' supremacy ; 
 
 Hence all your grandeur grows ! 
 The gods, in vengeance for neglect, 
 Hesperia's wretched land have wrecked 
 
 Beneath unnumbered woes." 
 
 III. Od. vi. (T. Martin.) 
 
 The rhythm, indeed, may be perfect, and the expres- 
 sions such as to leave nothing to be desired ; but we 
 miss that impressiveness which nothing but the writer's 
 faith in what he says can give, however grandly and 
 sonorously his verses may roll in our ears. While 
 Horace is thus always a trifler on the surface of 
 life, opening up no deep questions, seldom really in
 
 54 JD VENAL. 
 
 earnest either in praise or blame, Juvenal goes far 
 deeper, and is infinitely more vigorous and manly, 
 both in his thoughts and in his language. NOT is the 
 cause of this far to seek. In the days of Horace, des- 
 potism, tempered by the exquisite skill of Augustus, 
 seldom if ever wounded the susceptibilities of the most 
 jealous ; the forms of republicanism were carefully kept 
 up ; and it was ostensibly as the servant of the people 
 and of the senate that the emperor guided the wheels 
 of the state. And yet in that earlier day, even had 
 the real facts of personal rule been more openly dis- 
 played, people would still have acquiesced in them with 
 scarcely a murmur. Wearied out with the endless 
 and bloody disputes of half a century, there were few 
 Romans who were not ready to purchase rest and free- 
 dom from the chances of revolution at any cost which 
 did not bring with it a direct loss of personal dignity 
 or comfort. As long as he was allowed to give an 
 ostensibly independent vote in the divisions of the 
 senate, to force his advice on the ears of the emperor, 
 and even to make a show of calling him to account for 
 his action, the descendant of the Fabii or Cornelii was 
 satisfied to wear in silence the badge of political 
 slavery. Even the dregs of the city population were 
 gratified when their consent was asked (as Augustus 
 took care that it always should be asked) before the 
 consul was finally invested with the insignia of office, 
 albeit they knew too well that that consent could not 
 be refused. Rest was the cry of the nobles and of the 
 people, and rest it was that Augustus was able and 
 willing to provide.
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL, 55 
 
 " For ease he doth the gods implore 
 
 Who, tossing on the wide 
 
 JSgean billows, sees the black clouds hide 
 The moon, and the sure stars appear no more 
 
 The shipman's course to guide. 
 For ease the sons of Thracia cry, 
 
 In battle uncontrolled ; 
 
 For ease the graceful-quivered Median bold, 
 That ease which purple, Grosphus, cannot buy, 
 
 Nor wealth of gems or gold. 
 
 For hoarded treasure cannot keep 
 
 Disquietudes at bay, 
 
 . Nor can the consul's lictor drive away 
 The brood of dark solicitudes that sweep 
 
 Kound gilded ceilings gay." II. Od. vi. 
 
 But if the great Augustus once take his stand on the 
 Capitol, and look forth with benignant aspect on the 
 expectant world, all shall at once be changed, and the 
 desire of every heart shall "be satisfied to the full. 
 
 " While Caesar rules, no civil jar 
 Nor violence our ease shall mar, 
 Nor rage, which sword for carnage whets, 
 And feuds 'twixt hapless towns begets. 
 
 And we, on working days and all 
 
 Our days of feast and festival, 
 
 Shall with our wives and children there, 
 
 Approaching first the gods in prayer, 
 
 Whilst jovial Bacchus' gifts we pour, 
 
 Sing, as our fathers sang of yore, 
 
 To Lybian flutes, which answer round 
 
 Of chiefs for mighty worth renowned 
 
 Of Troy, Anchises, and the line 
 
 Of Venus, evermore divine." IV. Od. xiv.
 
 56 JUVENAL. 
 
 But this repose could only be purchased at the cost 
 of a neglect of the most important events of the day a 
 price which was indeed willingly paid. And while 
 bestowing on them a careless approval or a mere senti- 
 mental condemnation, the writers of the time were sat- 
 isfied if they could rouse themselves into a forced and 
 but half-real enthusiasm for the history of the glorious 
 past. Their chains, wreathed with flowers, were not 
 felt ; they had hearkened to the voice of the charmer, 
 and the whole soul of Rome was lulled into a repose 
 fatal to any greatness of aim or steadiness of purpose. 
 
 In the years that elapsed between the time of 
 Horace and that of Juvenal, a great change had come 
 over the political horizon. The cruelty and treachery 
 of Tiberius had succeeded to the frankness and affa- 
 bility with which Augustus had always made it his 
 aim to amuse his subjects, or rather his equals, as he 
 delighted to call the patricians of Rome. But the 
 cruelty and treachery of Tiberius might be borne, 
 as being the manifestation of a character which, how- 
 ever misdirected and depraved, was yet strong, and had 
 a foundation of qualities that might command respect. 
 It was less easy to bear with the caprices of Caligula 
 and his herd of actors, gladiators, and prostitutes. 
 Claudius, though less depraved than either of his pre- 
 decessors, could neither engage the affections nor 
 deserve the esteem of his people, and died unlamented 
 and unavenged when his wife sent him 
 
 " A palsied, bedrid sot, with gummy eyes 
 And slavering lips, heels foremost to the skies." 
 
 Sat. vi. 622.
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 57 
 
 Even the caprice and tyranny of Nero were less insup- 
 portable than the senseless folly of a prince who could 
 "be so lost to all sense of dignity, and of that decorum 
 which was in a Roman's eyes so indispensable to the 
 good name of any public character, as to sing openly 
 on the stage amid troops of hired actors and pub- 
 lic slaves, and compete with the lowest foreigners 
 for the applause of the mob of Athens or of Rome. 
 How could even that majesty which surrounds a throne 
 protect an emperor, if his every action proclaimed him 
 fit only for a position that the very meanest of his 
 subjects might hardly count an honourable way of 
 life? 
 
 " Lo ! these the arts, the studies that engage 
 The world's great master ! on a foreign stage 
 To prostitute his voice for base renown, 
 And ravish from the Greeks a parsley crown." 
 
 Sat. vii. 224. 
 
 The disgraceful scenes which followed thickly on 
 each other during the brief reigns of Galba, Otho, and 
 Vitellius, could not but open the eyes of the blindest 
 and most self-complacent to the real facts of the case. 
 No man could now even endeavour to persuade him- 
 self that he, as a Roman, was in any way less a slave 
 to the emperor than the meanest sycophant of Greece 
 or the most uncultured Mauritanian boor. Hence 
 many who would have been satisfied with any salve to 
 their dignity, however vain with any veil to cover the 
 iron hand that ruled them, however transparent that 
 veil might be felt themselves compelled, now that the 
 last shred of disguise that had served to conceal their
 
 58 JUVENAL. 
 
 real state had been rudely torn away, to vindicate their 
 honour by denunciations of tyranny, if not by plots 
 against the tyrant. The gilding which had decked 
 the bars of the cage had been worn away, and the 
 prisoner, though not more closely confined than before, 
 beat his wings against prison walls whose undisguised 
 restraint now first allowed its pressure to be felt. It 
 was this changed feeling that in part brought about 
 the change in the views on politics taken by Juvenal 
 as contrasted with Horace. Horace, as par excellence 
 the court poet, conspired with the head of the court to 
 make everything run pleasantly, to smooth down all 
 asperities. To expatiate on what was pleasant was his 
 cue, and to dwell rather on the minor follies of his 
 neighbours than on those vices which might bring real 
 discredit on the time and on the government. Juvenal, 
 though he lived at a time in many respects more de- 
 graded and less refined than that of Horace, had yet this 
 advantage, that he plainly saw the vices under which 
 men laboured, and did not shrink from naming them 
 openly, and from exhibiting them in their undisguised 
 hideousness the first distressing but necessary step 
 towards compelling men to apply the suitable reme- 
 dies. This seems to be the reason why Juvenal has 
 frequently been stigmatised as an immoral poet, and 
 unfavourably contrasted in this respect with Horace 
 most unjustly, in our opinion. The truth is more 
 nearly this, that Juvenal, from his very hatred of vice, 
 is more frequently led into coarseness of expression 
 than Horace ; while the latter seems sometimes almost 
 to sympathise with vice while he stigmatises it, or at
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 59 
 
 all events to satirise more severely what was repulsive 
 or indecorous in the clownish folly of the boor, than 
 the refined but not less mischievous gallantry of the 
 man of fashion. In short, he would doubtless have ad- 
 hered to that most unfortunate dictum of Burke, when 
 he assigned as a reason for regretting the departure of 
 the age of chivalry the fact, that in those days " vice 
 itself had lost half its evil by losing all its grossness." 
 But we should be very wrong in attributing this 
 outward faultiness of expression to any inferiority in 
 his moral sense ; rather let us say that, while Horace 
 was not wholly unwilling to strip vice of all its gross- 
 ness, though to do so was to present it in a more baneful 
 if less repulsive form, his rival, with truer purpose and 
 more honest judgment, chose rather in his portraiture of 
 it to add to than to detract from the loathsome disease 
 that had aroused his indignation. The same action 
 might thus be represented under two wholly different 
 aspects. For while Horace, by the glamour of his un- 
 rivalled art, would present to his hearers a pleasant and 
 not ungraceful peccadillo, Juvenal would dash on a 
 few touches with a master-hand, which would startle 
 by the hideousness of crime where we had before seen 
 only a venial offence. Perhaps some one or two 
 instances, culled at random, will make our meaning 
 plainer. For example, when Horace would lay claim 
 to religious feeling, and takes upon himself to censure 
 the irreligion of the age, it is difficult to persuade one- 
 self that he is not writing to order ; and even where he 
 proclaims the sovereignty of heaven, and rebukes the 
 godlessness of the times as the source of all the woes
 
 60 JUVENAL. 
 
 of Rome, lie does not conceal his belief in a blind 
 fate superior to Jove himself, driving him on, and 
 mocking the desires of men ; nor can he entirely divest 
 himself of a certain sympathy with those who would 
 palliate their sins by accusing the injustice of heaven. 
 Juvenal, on the other hand, earnestly proclaims the 
 guidance of an omniscient and benevolent deity or 
 deities. To them let man trust his fortunes : 
 
 " Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just, 
 What best may profit or delight they know, 
 And real good for fancied bliss bestow : 
 With eyes of pity they our frailties scan ; 
 More dear to them than to himself is man." 
 
 Sat. x. 347. 
 
 Again, Horace would laugh at conjugal infidelity, and 
 dissuade from it as often dangerous in its results ; yet 
 he appeals to no high moral law, but rather aims his 
 shafts at the inconvenience of detection than at the 
 sin of success. How different the feeling which 
 prompted the line, 
 
 " Trebonius caught must lose both fame and name," 
 from that which moved Juvenal when he wrote, 
 
 u Grant me a soul 
 
 That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear 
 Existence nobly with its weight of care ; 
 That anger and desire alike restrains, 
 And counts Alcides' toils and cruel pains 
 Superior far to banquets, cruel nights, 
 And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights." 
 
 In the former passage we have indeed sound advice,
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 61 
 
 as far as it goes, but the motive merely such as might 
 be supplied by the most heartless man of the world 
 such as Major Pendennis might have preached to his 
 nephew in Pall Mall ; while in the latter we find pre- 
 cepts of morality set forth as high and disinterested as 
 those which guided the life of Zeno or Parmenides, of 
 Socrates or Plato. 
 
 When we come to compare these two writers as poets, 
 it will be no easy matter to light upon a common stan- 
 dard by which to measure their respective merits. No 
 two men could well be found whose genius is so com- 
 pletely different. Juvenal is a poet by virtue of his 
 fierce passions ; of a loathing for vice which bears him, 
 as it were, beyond himself, and drives him, fit or unfit, 
 to pour forth his soul in a torrent of eloquent invective, 
 which cannot but bear the most phlegmatic hearer 
 along with it. 
 
 " If nature will not verse command, 
 Still Indignation shall at least indite, 
 Such lines as I or Cluvienus write." 
 
 Sat. i. 80. 
 
 Juvenal, in short, is a poet far more of the heart than 
 of the brain. Surrounded on all sides by openly tri- 
 umphant vice, while he saw the righteous man every- 
 where begging his bread ; writing amid scenes which 
 could not but make his heart bleed for his country, 
 amid tragedies, at the hearing of which a man's ears 
 might well tingle, Juvenal had neither the time nor 
 the inclination to bestow such care on his writings as is 
 necessary to all poetry before it can really claim the ad- 
 miration due to perfect execution. Horace might well
 
 62 JUVENAL. 
 
 turn and turn again each metaphor, and polish to the 
 utmost those sweet love-songs which he alone could 
 write ; and pause and pause again till he had expressed 
 each trite observation on human life, each panegyric on 
 the old Eepublic, in language that can never be sur- 
 passed. Fabius, Fabricius, and Hannibal, Alcides and 
 Komulus, were no eager claimants for praise or blame ; 
 the fount of Bandusium, or the golden locks of Pyrrha's 
 hair, were not the less bright because the odes in their 
 honour lay year after year in the poet's desk. But 
 how could one whose soul had indited the indignant 
 patriotism of the third satire, or the lofty sarcasm of 
 the sixth, while he, day after day, looked on the flag- 
 rant immorality of Roman society, bear to suppress the 
 lines in which he scathes 
 
 " The slave-born slave-bred vagabond of Nile, 
 Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile, 
 Pacing in pomp with cloak of Tyrian dye, 
 Changed oft a day for needless luxury." 
 
 Sat. i. 26. 
 Or again, 
 
 " The rich dame, who stanched her husband's thirst 
 With generous wine, but drugged it deeply first ! 
 And now, more dext'rous than Locusta, shows 
 Her country friends the beverage to compose, 
 And, 'midst the curses of the indignant throng, 
 Bears, in broad day, the spotted corpse along." 
 
 Sat. L 69. 
 
 "We should thus be looking in his writings for what 
 Juvenal never professed to give us, if we expected to 
 find in them anything that could be compared to the
 
 HORACE AND JUVENAL. 63 
 
 consummate art of the Odes of his predecessor. It was 
 not such minstrelsy that Juvenal had either the wish 
 or the power to imitate ; it was only as a satirist that 
 he took Horace as his model : 
 
 " And shall I feel that crimes like these require 
 The avenging strains of the Venusian lyre, 
 And not pursue them ? " 
 
 Sat. i. 52. 
 
 Yet even here it is not easy to compare the two 
 authors. Their aims and method were wholly differ- 
 ent. Indeed, as far as we can judge from the descrip- 
 tion we have of Lucilius's manner, and from the frag- 
 ments of his writings that remain, it is to him far 
 more than to Horace that we should compare Juvenal. 
 
 Their respective methods have thus been well de- 
 scribed and contrasted by Persius : 
 
 " Yet old Lucilius never feared the times, 
 But lashed the city and dissected crimes ; 
 On Lupus, Mutius, poured his rage by name, 
 And broke his grinders on their bleeding fame. 
 And yet arch Horace, when he strove to mend, 
 Probed all the foibles of his smiling friend ; 
 Played lightly round and round the peccant part, 
 And won, unfelt, an entrance to his heart ; 
 Well skilled the follies of the crowd to trace, 
 And sneer with gay good-humour in his face." 
 
 Sat. i. 115. 
 
 With few exceptions, the Satires of Horace can 
 hardly be said to deserve the title that is given them. 
 They are rather witty discourses on the manners of the 
 day, or on the topics current in the town, written with
 
 64 JUVENAL. 
 
 no definiteness of aim, but passing on from point to 
 point as fancy led. Thus in one page Horace gives an 
 amusing account of Ms education, in the next he in- 
 dulges in a good-natured laugh at the philosophers of 
 the time ; again returning to himself, he tickles our 
 fancy with an account of his journey to Brundusium, 
 or of his adventure with a bore in the Sacred "Way. 
 But nowhere does he aim at being more than a good- 
 natured if slightly cynical critic ; and he laughed at 
 vice as being vulgar and ungentlemanly, not as a foul 
 stain on human nature. To Juvenal, on the other 
 hand, we can most aptly apply his own description of 
 Lucilius, and indeed it would be difficult to find one 
 more appropriate to these poems : 
 
 " But when Lucilius, fired with virtuous rage, 
 Waves his keen falchion o'er a guilty age, 
 The conscious villain shudders at his sin, 
 And burning blushes speak the pangs within ; 
 Cold drops of sweat from every member roll, 
 And growing terrors harrow up his soul." 
 
 Sat. i. 165.
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 MORALS AT BOMB. 
 
 THE avarice and venality everywhere rampant at Some 
 the influx of new customs and of new religions the 
 deterioration of the old Roman type of character, and 
 the substitution for it of an insidious compound of re- 
 finement and hypocrisy, of mental culture combined 
 with moral degradation the sudden rise of low-born 
 foreigners to the highest places in the Empire through 
 a vile pandering to the appetites of their rulers the 
 growth of a spurious philosophy, which, under a spe- 
 cious show of morality, tended to obliterate the eternal 
 distinctions between right and wrong, such are some 
 of the main faults of his age which it was Juvenal's self- 
 appointed task to lash with no sparing hand. Of all 
 the sights which met his gaze at Rome, there is not one 
 that seems to have jarred more sharply on his whole 
 nature than the high and utterly undeserved posi- 
 tion reached by more than one foreigner, either him- 
 self an emancipated slave, or if not this, at least the 
 son of one who had held such a condition, by the 
 most ignoble of all roads. Conservative to the back- 
 A. C. voL xiii. E
 
 66 JUVENAL. 
 
 bone, and a true Roman in sentiment and by birth, it 
 is clear that Juvenal is speaking straight from his heart 
 when he denounces the affected manners and insolent 
 assurance of Crispinus " the slave-born slave-bred 
 vagabond of Nile" or the ostentatious display of his 
 newly-acquired riches by one 
 
 " That oft since manhood first appeared 
 Has trimmed th' exuberance of his sounding beard ; " 
 
 Sat. i. 25. 
 
 winning their way upwards to wealth and power, not 
 by force of statesmanship or a fine sense of honour 
 by the judge's discrimination or the soldier's courage 
 but by pleasing manners, and by their insight into 
 the mysteries of the kitchen and of the cellar, of 
 the theatre and of the circus. These foreign courtiers 
 pointed out a road to affluence and dignity which their 
 Roman competitors were not slow to follow. Besides, 
 this was the only course by which a Roman of noble 
 birth might hope to be permitted to live on in safety, 
 and preserve his family from destruction. Honest ad- 
 vice the outspoken opinion of a friendly censor was 
 fatal at Caesar's court. So Crispus knew. He, wise in 
 time, dragged out a life of comfort, if without honour 
 or self-esteem : Crispus, 
 
 " Of gentle manners and persuasive tongue : 
 None fitter to advise the lord of all, 
 Had that pernicious pest, whom thus we call, 
 Allowed a friend to soothe his savage mood, 
 And give him counsel wise at once and good. 
 But who shall dare this liberty to take, 
 When, every word you hazard, life's at stake ?
 
 MORALS AT ROME. 67 
 
 Though but of stormy summers, showery springs 
 For tyrants' ears, alas ! are ticklish things. 
 So did the good old man his tongue restrain ; 
 Nor strove to stem the torrent's force in vain. 
 Not one of those who by no fears deterred, 
 Spoke the free soul, and truth to life preferred. 
 He temporised thus fourscore summers fled, 
 Even in that court, securely o'er his head." 
 
 Sat. iv. 80. 
 
 Yet even such, self-debasement was not always rewarded 
 by success. The emperor of that vicious court was 
 quick to suspect a superior ; a suspicion to be followed 
 by jealousy, a jealousy soon fatal to its object. Too 
 common, alas ! must have been the fate of the noble yet 
 timorous citizen, who, in spite of all disguises, was, like 
 Acilius, detected, and who 
 
 " Unjustly fell, in early years, 
 A victim to the tyrant's jealous fears : 
 But long ere this were hoary hairs become 
 A prodigy among the great at Rome ; 
 Hence had I rather own my humble birth, 
 Frail brother of the giant brood, to Earth. 
 Poor youth ! in vain the ancient sleight you try ; 
 In vain, with frantic air and ardent eye, 
 Fling every robe aside, and battle wage 
 With Hears and lions on the Alban stage. 
 All see the trick ; and, spite of Brutus' skill, 
 There are who count him but a driveller still ; 
 Since, in his days, it cost no mighty pains 
 To outwit a prince, with much more beard than brains." 
 
 Sat. iv. 95. 
 
 Yet even more unendurable than the insolent airs of a 
 Crispinus or the ostentatious wealth of Matho, or the
 
 68 JUVENAL. 
 
 many other parasites and voluptuaries who plume 
 themselves on outshining the ancient families of the 
 Palatine, is the outrageous conduct of Marius. He, 
 though found guilty of extortion in the government of 
 his province, escaped all real punishment by his shame- 
 less bribery of the court ; and now, setting infamy at 
 defiance, revels in luxury in his easy exile, while his 
 late subjects and prosecutors bemoan them over their 
 dearly-bought victory of the judgment -hall. With 
 him we may well class those perjured guardians 
 
 " Who, proud with impious gains, 
 Choke up the streets, too narrow for their trains ; 
 "Whose wards by want betrayed to crimes are led, 
 Too vile to name, too fulsome to be read." 
 
 Sat. i. 45. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all, they are able, by the connivance of 
 venal and avaricious judges, to brave it openly in the 
 sight of Rome and of the world : 
 
 " Wouldst thou to honour and preferments climb ? 
 Be bold in mischief, dare some mighty crime. 
 On guilt's broad base thy towering fortunes raise, 
 For virtue starves on universal praise." 
 
 Sat. i. 72. 
 
 
 
 It is this same avarice that has led to the present reck- 
 less extravagance of the gambling-table : gambling, 
 which, though checked by the strictest laws, is now so 
 prevalent that men go forth accompanied by their 
 stewards and treasurers, prepared to stake their whole 
 livelihood all their family estates and ancient heir- 
 looms on the fall of the dice, though they grudge the
 
 MORALS AT ROME. 69 
 
 cost of a cloak for their slave who is shivering in the 
 cold. Even the ostentation so dear to the heart of 
 the parvenu is checked by avarice. But who shall 
 wonder at this, seeing that it is now according to their 
 wealth that men take their social position in the state, 
 not according to their lineage or their noble qualities ? 
 nay more, even in the courts of law it is the same. 
 There, if anywhere, -one would think that moral quali- 
 ties Avould rank first ; but no ! 
 
 " Produce at Rome your witness : let him boast 
 The sanctity of Berecynthia's host,* 
 Of Numa, or of him,f whose zeal divine 
 Snatched pale Minerva from her blazing shrine. 
 To search his rent-roll first the bench prepares, 
 His honesty employs their latest cares : 
 What table does he keep, what slaves maintain, 
 And what, they ask, and where is his domain 1 
 These weighty matters known, his faith they rate, 
 And square his probity to his estate." 
 
 Sat. iii. 137. 
 
 Yet worse than this, children, taught by their parents 
 to shun every other vice, are actually brought up to 
 pursue this fault of avarice as though it were a praise- 
 worthy quality : 
 
 " For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise, 
 Seems Virtue's self to undiscerning eyes. 
 
 * " Berecynthia's host : " P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, who, 
 for his great merits, and the exemplary conduct of his life, was 
 chosen by the senate to escort the image of Cybele when it was 
 brought from Pessinus to Rome. Cybele is here called Bere- 
 cynthia, from the name of a mountain in Phrygia where she was 
 worshipped. 
 
 t jEneas, who rescued the Palladium from the flames of Troy.
 
 70 JUVENAL. 
 
 The miser hence a frugal man they name ; 
 And hence they follow with their whole acclaim 
 The griping wretch who strictlier guards his store, 
 Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door. 
 Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold, 
 The worthy in the wealthy man behold ; 
 And reasoning from the fortune he has made, 
 Hail him a perfect master in his trade." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 109. 
 
 It was to the influx of Greeks and other foreigners 
 that this was to a great extent due. These conquered 
 countries no doubt had brought in a culture and refine- 
 ment of manners quite new to their victors ; but along 
 with this culture were introduced a train of those vices 
 that are almost invariably found among vanquished 
 races mean, low, sneaking vices, very different to those 
 prevalent among a harder and more warlike race, such as 
 were their Roman masters. And yet, by virtue perhaps 
 of this very weakness, they have a strong, not to say 
 irresistible, tendency to lead their captors captive, and 
 stupefy their minds with the insinuating enervating 
 poison which is their essential character. This process 
 may be traced recurring again and again in the history 
 of central Asia, from the earliest times to the present 
 day. There one horde after another descends from the 
 hill-country, conquering the enervated inhabitants of 
 the plains, only in their own turn to form part of the 
 same cycle of deterioration, decay, and subjugation, 
 being ensnared by the luxurious and effeminate cus- 
 toms of those whom they had vanquished. 
 
 So now in Eome the ancient virtues of the simple 
 countrymen of Mars, choked by the overgrowth of
 
 MORALS AT ROME. 71 
 
 foreign habits and of foreign morals, served but as a 
 foundation on which these new-fangled importations 
 might take a firmer growth, as a substratum of 
 intensity to the pernicious whole : 
 
 " Whence shall those prodigies of vice be traced ? 
 From wealth, my friend," 
 
 from that eager, restless making haste to be rich which 
 is the peculiar curse of our day, a passion which, 
 strong by nature and sucked in by children with their 
 very mother's milk, is yet further fostered by the teach- 
 ing of the tutor, by the precept as by the example of 
 the parent, as witness the advice here enforced on a 
 son by his own father : 
 
 " Hides, unguents, mark me, boy, are equal things, 
 And gain smells sweet from whatsoe'er it springs. 
 This golden sentence, which the powers of heaven, 
 Which Jove himself might glory to have given, 
 Will never, never, from your thoughts, I trust, 
 ' None question whence it comes, but come it must.' 
 This, when the lisping race a farthing ask, 
 Old women set them as a previous task ; 
 The wondrous apophthegm all run to get, 
 And learn it sooner than their alphabet." 
 
 What wonder, then, if the old simplicity of life, 
 that helped to develop the virtues of honesty, gener- 
 osity, courage, and steadfastness of purpose, the an- 
 cient crown and glory of the conquering race of 
 Romulus, are rapidly vanishing from among us 1 How 
 can we expect such qualities to be cherished, now that 
 a man takes rank not by his own intrinsic worth, but
 
 72 JUVENAL. 
 
 by the amount of his account with his banker, by 
 the number of acres that he owns 1 Every day you 
 may see your slaveling lord take precedence of the 
 scion of some princely house, simply because " more 
 ground to him alone pertains than Home possessed in 
 JS"uma's pious reign ! " 
 
 " Since then the veteran, whose brave breast was gored 
 By the fierce Pyrrhic or Molossian sword, 
 Hardly received, for all his service past, 
 And all his wounds, two acres at the last, 
 The meed of toil and blood ! yet never thought 
 His country thankless or his pains ill bought. 
 For then his little glebe, improved with care, 
 Largely supplied, with vegetable fare, 
 The good old man, the wife in childbed laid, 
 And four hale boys that round the cottage played, 
 Three free-born, one a slave ; while on the board 
 Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored, 
 Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now, 
 Hungry and tired, expected from the plough. 
 Two acres will not now, so changed our times, 
 Afford a garden-plot ; and hence our crimes ! 
 For not a vice that taints the human soul 
 More frequent points the sword or drugs the bowl 
 Than the dire lust of an ' untamed estate.' 
 Since he who covets wealth disdains to wait : 
 Law threatens, conscience calls, yet on he hies, 
 And this he silences, and that defies ; 
 Fear, shame, he bears down all, and with loose rein 
 Sweeps headlong o'er the alluring paths of gain ! " 
 
 Sat. xiv. 161. 
 
 And how could this be a subject of wonder, how- 
 ever much it might alarm and distress the lover of his 
 country, when the possession of a huge estate was the
 
 MORALS AT ROME. 73 
 
 one thing indispensable to any man who aimed at 
 making himself a name, when every avenue by which 
 a man might hope to rise to eminence, or even to retain 
 a position of mediocrity, was closed to him who refused 
 to burn his incense as a devotee to the vile money- 
 worship of the day 1 ? Flattery, meanness, hypocrisy, 
 sycophancy, cruelty, rapacity, low cunning, and a 
 tongue speaking false things, such were the qualities 
 which would fix a man's footsteps firmly on the rounds 
 of the ladder leading to wealth and social position. 
 The vision which the fancy of Maud's lover pictured 
 to his heated imagination was then realised, and more 
 than realised, in Rome : 
 
 " Those were the days to advance the works of the men of 
 
 the mind, 
 When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's 
 
 ware or his word ? 
 
 Sooner or later I, too, may passively take the print 
 
 Of the golden age why not ? I have neither hope nor 
 
 trust ; 
 
 May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint, 
 Cheat and be cheated, and die who knows ? we are ashes 
 
 and dust." 
 
 For these are days 
 
 " When only the ledger lives, and only not all men lie." 
 
 " What's Eome to me ? " exclaims the poet's friend ; 
 " what business have I there, 
 
 " I who can neither lie nor falsely swear, 
 Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes,
 
 74 JUVENAL. 
 
 Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times ? 
 I neither will nor can prognosticate 
 To the young gaping heir his father's fate. 
 Others may aid the adulterer's vile design, 
 And bear the insidious gift and melting line. 
 For want of these town virtues, thus alone 
 I go, conducted on my way by none." 
 
 Sat. iii. 41. 
 
 But though strangers poured into Rome from every 
 nation, as to a common mart, for their hateful wares, 
 though 
 
 " Sicyon, and Amydos, and Alaband, 
 Tralles, and Samos, and a thousand more 
 Thrive on his indolence, and daily pour 
 Their starving myriads forth ; " 
 
 Sat. iii. 69. 
 
 yet it is from Greece that the great high priests of 
 lust and iniquity of every kind come most fully 
 equipped for their task, most thoroughly initiated in 
 all the ways which lead men insensibly to glide in 
 flower-dressed barks down that stream whose end is 
 the blackness of death, though its banks are gay and 
 its waters sweet. Yes, the home of Socrates and 
 of Demosthenes has now fallen so low that even the 
 coarsest Roman may well cast his stone at her, as at 
 the great nurse and producer of all that is most vile on 
 earth. A consummate master in all the arts which 
 may pander to this luxurious age, the Greek knows 
 but too well how to make himself acceptable, or even 
 necessary, to his patron : 
 
 " A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race, 
 Of torrent tongue and never-blushing face,
 
 MORALS AT ROME. 75 
 
 A Protean tribe one knows not what to call, 
 Which, shifts to every form, and shines in all, 
 Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, 
 Eope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician ; 
 All trades his own your hungry Greekling counts, 
 And bid him mount the sky, the sky he mounts." * 
 
 Sat. iii. 75. 
 
 The drift of this passage will be familiar to many of 
 our readers, from Dryden's character of the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury in bis " Absalom and AchitopheL" to 
 which it bears a strange similarity. Indeed, we can 
 hardly doubt that those lines were written by him 
 with Juvenal's description of the Greek ringing in 
 his ears : 
 
 " Some of their chiefs were princes of the land ; 
 In the first rank of these did Zimri stand ; 
 A man so various, that he seemed to be 
 Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
 Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong ; 
 Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
 But, in the course of one revolving moon, 
 Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon." 
 
 NOT did it now avail the Roman client that he was 
 ready to humble himself in the very dust, to accept 
 any office however menial, to be the mouthpiece of 
 any flattery however fulsome. He might indeed cringe 
 as low as his Greek rival, but he had not the graceful 
 manners and the ready wit that could alone make this 
 debasement of himself acceptable : 
 
 * A less complimentary version of the line will occur to many 
 of our readers : 
 
 " And bid him ' go to hell' to hell he goes."
 
 76 JUVENAL. 
 
 " We too can cringe as low and praise as warm, 
 But flattery from the Greek alone has charm ; " 
 
 Sat. iiL 92. 
 
 for " Greece is a theatre where all are players," and 
 not one of its children but could easily supplant, by 
 the plausibility of his manners and his natural apti- 
 tude for deceit, the most experienced Roman parasite. 
 As in the time of Pericles, so now, the Greeks, but 
 especially the Athenians, surpassed all men in the ver- 
 satility of their genius, and their power of adapting 
 themselves to each circumstance as it might arise. 
 Thus the same qualities which, in their more glorious 
 days, had guided them to the highest place in political 
 life and in the arts, could now but lead them to ex- 
 plore the lowest depths of servility and moral degra- 
 dation. 
 
 Perhaps even worse than these other innovations 
 were those that had been introduced into the religious 
 sphere of Eoman life. The national religion of Eome, 
 in its proper form, differed from that of the Greek in 
 being of a far more abstract and ideal nature, not 
 appealing to men's minds by a concrete personification 
 of that which they worshipped, still less by a corporeal 
 representation of the deity, but binding the soul of the 
 worshipper to an adoration of that which was spiritual 
 and universal in nature. Without any real sympathy 
 for the allegorical mythology which was nevertheless 
 soon grafted on it from the more artistic worship of 
 Greece, this purer form of religion lost all hold on its 
 followers as soon as that earnest belief which was indis- 
 pensable to its continuance began to be called in ques-
 
 MORALS AT ROME. 77 
 
 tion by the growing scepticism of the times. When its 
 binding force had thus been weakened, it no longer had 
 any power to resist the influx of all the foreign forms 
 of worship which poured into Italy from the surround- 
 ing nations. Among these, those which struck most deep 
 root into the heart of Rome were the element-worship 
 of the Syrian and the mysterious cult of the deities of 
 the Nile. The pure Religion of the Jews seems also 
 to have had powerful attractions for the imagination 
 of the Romans ; and though it was seldom, if ever, 
 rightly understood by them though its followers seem 
 sometimes even to have been involved with the Egyptian 
 priesthood in the punishment of a common proscrip- 
 tion, as being disturbers of the peace of the city and 
 as relaxing the purity of female manners it frequently 
 met with an amount of consideration at the hands of 
 the government which was but seldom granted to foreign 
 creeds. In the age of Juvenal, however, it was from the 
 Nile and from the Orontes, above all other places, 
 that issued forth the superstitions which were the most 
 fatal to purity in manners and to faith in religion. 
 Along with these came in troops of fortune-tellers from 
 Armenia or from Commagene, of Chaldsean astrologers 
 and of Syrian seers, who, at one fell sweep, took a firm 
 hold on the whole Roman people, but especially on the 
 women. The descendants of the ancient matrons of 
 Rome, types of modesty and matronly decorum, claim- 
 ing even in the days of Caesar to be not only free from 
 all guilt but also above all suspicion, now gladly em- 
 braced these foreign superstitions as an easy means of 
 indulging their every passion. Guided by some Ara-
 
 78 JUVENAL. 
 
 barces, the wife would roam the streets by night, in open 
 contempt of common decency and of her husband's 
 orders. A slave to superstition, she would shrink at 
 nothing which the object of her prayers might com- 
 mand : 
 
 " Should milk-white lo bid, from Meroe's isle 
 She'd fetch the sunburnt waters of the Nile 
 To sprinkle in her fane ; for she, it seems, 
 Has heavenly visitations in her dreams. 
 Mark the pure soul with whom the gods delight 
 To hold high converse at the noon of night ! 
 For this she cherishes above the rest, 
 Her lo's favourite priest, a knave professed, 
 A holy hypocrite, who strolls abroad 
 With his Anubis, his dog-headed god." 
 
 Sat. vi. 526. 
 
 The same account might stand for the wild votaries 
 of Bellona or of Anubis, of Osiris or of Cybele. All 
 these had the one common quality of reckless disregard 
 of that which was by others deemed most binding, an 
 intolerance of any restraint which might be placed on 
 the whim of the hour. Closely connected with this 
 degeneracy in religion was that further progress in ini- 
 quity on which we have elsewhere dwelt, the whole- 
 sale poisoning of husbands by their wives, and of 
 fathers by their children.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 
 
 THE same practical cast of intellect which has made the 
 Eomans the great lawgivers of all ages, which has 
 spread their code throughout the civilised world, has 
 had other not less marked if less important effects on 
 their social history. 
 
 It is to this prevailing mode of thought that we 
 must attribute the fact, that no original philosopher of 
 any mark ever rose among the Romans. Their writers 
 had indeed remarkable clearness of perception, and the 
 power of setting forth with great force and accuracy 
 any idea that they had once fully grasped in their own 
 minds ; but beyond this the Eoman did not go. He 
 had neither the wish nor the ability to solve the many 
 metaphysical problems which lay in his way to resolve 
 into their ultimate elements the many complex psycho- 
 logical phenomena with which it was necessary to 
 grapple before the superstructure of Ethics could be 
 based on a firm foundation. Such questions were 
 attractive to the Greeks, and to them he left them, 
 content to draw his axioms at second-hand from the
 
 80 JUVENAL. 
 
 vast repertory which had been amassed since the days 
 of Socrates, and to build them, without question into 
 his own edifice. 
 
 Such a philosopher is Juvenal : or, if we may take 
 his own account of his philosophical lore as accurate, 
 he was even less instructed than most Roman writers on 
 the subject in the tenets and opinions of the various 
 schools of philosophy. Hear him as he prepares to 
 give advice and consolation to a repining friend : 
 
 " Hear in turn what I propose, 
 To mitigate, if not to heal your woes ; 
 I, who no knowledge of the schools possess, 
 Cynic, or Stoic, differing but in dress. 
 Or thine, calm Epicurus, whose pure mind 
 To one small garden every wish confined. 
 In desperate cases able doctors fee, 
 But trust your pulse to Philip's boy or me." 
 
 Sat. xiiL 120. 
 
 Juvenal then goes on to point to the everyday life that 
 surrounded them, to ask in what way his friend thought 
 himself worse off than many of his neighbours, on what 
 grounds he claimed exemption from such misfortunes 
 as are part of the common lot of mankind. No high 
 nights of philosophy do we see here, but plain common- 
 sense ; the advice of a shrewd and kindly man, such as 
 Horace's Ofella might have given. 
 
 One thing that we may notice in the passage quoted 
 above, is a pretty obvious disparagement of the teach- 
 ings of professed philosophers. Juvenal seems, in fact, 
 to have looked with considerable suspicion on the 
 professors of the various schools, as being mere hypo-
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 81 
 
 crites, who hoped to be able to accomplish their vile 
 purposes behind the shield of a sanctified life unde- 
 tected, or at all events with comparative impunity : 
 
 " Turn to their schools : yon grey professor see, 
 Smeared with the sanguine stains of perfidy ! 
 That tutor most accursed his pupil sold ! 
 That Stoic sacrificed his friend to gold { 
 A true-born Grecian ! littered on the coast, 
 Where the Gorgonian hack* a pinion lost." 
 
 Sat. iii. 114. 
 
 Though he thus declined to enroll himself under any 
 
 " To swear obedience to a guide's behests," 
 
 the bias of Juvenal's mind had yet an obvious prepos- 
 session towards the doctrines and tenets of the Stoics. 
 This was the only school of philosophy \vhich ever took 
 a firm hold on Eoman society. There is indeed an 
 apparent exception to this statement in the history of 
 the closing years of the Republic, and of those which 
 witnessed the foundation of the Empire. But the 
 Epicurism which then spread so rapidly through Italy 
 had no real foundation did not call forth to itself the 
 deeper sympathies even of its professed adherents. 
 The movement was rather political than philosophical, 
 and had its rise in the desire of men to find a plausible 
 reasoning with which to delude both themselves and 
 others into the belief that the reason why they thus 
 abandoned all interest in political life was not their 
 
 * " Gorgonius caballus ; " a periphrasis for " Pegasus," who is 
 said to have alighted on Mount Helicon. 
 
 A. c. vol. xiii. p
 
 82 JUVENAL. 
 
 own subjection to a master who would brook no rivalry 
 and no equals, but the advice of a calm and chastened 
 judgment bidding them abandon all such cares and 
 anxieties, as things which brought but trouble and 
 weariness of spirit, and interfered with man's true end, 
 an intelligent pursuit of happiness. 
 
 Stoicism, on the contrary, was in perfect harmony 
 with the real instinct of every true Roman, the desire 
 to be up and doing. For though, theoretically, this 
 sect set before men an aim of immaculate perfection, the 
 attainment of which alone was in any way praise- 
 worthy, while that which fell below this perfection by 
 however small a degree was utterly and entirely bad, 
 yet its actual working, as modified by the practical 
 genius of the Roman, was to recognise each step to- 
 wards a good life as a distinct and tangible gain ; while 
 it asserted boldly that virtue was its own reward, that 
 no wicked man could be happy, however successful in 
 his wickedness : 
 
 " Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin, 
 Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within 
 'Tis the first vengeance : conscience tries the cause, 
 And vindicates the violated laws ; 
 Though the bribed Praetor at their sentence spurn. 
 And falsify the verdict of the Urn." * 
 
 Sat. xiii. 1. 
 
 Juvenal is never wearied of dwelling on this great 
 
 * The Urn, that is, into which the votes of acquittal or con- 
 demnation were put by fhejudicea, or jury, at a criminal trial, 
 and which was afterwards inspected by the praetor or magis- 
 trate.
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 83 
 
 doctrine, and of repeating it again and again in slightly 
 different forms : 
 
 " Virtue alone is true nobility. 
 
 Oh, give me inborn worth ! dare to be just, 
 Firm to your word and faithful to your trust ; 
 These praises hear, at least deserve to hear, 
 I grant your claim, and recognise the peer." 
 
 Sat. viii. 24. 
 
 Hence there is something above and beyond the mere 
 fruition of life, and this it is which we must treasure 
 up beyond all else : 
 
 " Be brave, be just ; and when your country's laws 
 Call you to witness in a dubious cause, 
 Though Phalaris plant his bull before your eye, 
 And, frowning, dictate to your lips the lie, 
 Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface, 
 To purchase safety with compliance base ; 
 At honour's cost a feverish span extend, 
 And sacrifice for life life's only end. 
 Life ! 'tis not life : who merits death is dead, 
 Though Gauran oysters for his feasts be spread, 
 Though his limbs drip with exquisite perfume, 
 And the late rose around his temples bloom ! " 
 
 Sat. viii 80. 
 
 A corollary to this doctrine is clearly the following. 
 No mere misfortune can ever call for exceeding bitter 
 sorrow. As long as the man preserves himself from 
 contamination of that which is foul, he cannot reach 
 any very low depth of woe. By his own act, by his 
 own voluntary desertion of the true aim of life, and by 
 that alone, is it possible that a man should drink his 
 cup of misery to the dregs. 

 
 84 JUVENAL. 
 
 The want of happiness, so prevalent, is thus the natu- 
 ral consequence of the inherent blindness of men. By 
 it they are led to pursue eagerly the unreal phantoms of 
 wealth, rank, power, and so forth, while neglecting that 
 which alone can satisfy the wants of the soul, man's 
 godlike part. If men could hut see what is really their 
 chief good, we should no longer hear on every side 
 prayers offered up for all those idle accoutrements of 
 the body which may indeed be enjoyed, but often bring 
 only dissatisfaction to their owners, and can at all 
 events be dispensed with without inconvenience, while 
 the man himself he for whom all these are desired 
 is passed over as though he were merely a lay figure 
 on which these paraphernalia might be set off to the 
 greatest advantage. Yet who shall wonder at the sense- 
 less folly of mankind if he do but consider their educa- 
 tion ? From his earliest youth the one precept dinned 
 most assiduously into the ears of the Roman child is 
 get unto thyself wealth, and all other things shall 
 follow : 
 
 " None question whence it come, but come it must." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 117. 
 
 Later on, when the child has grown into the boy, he 
 goes to school, but still the teaching is equally faulty. 
 What shall it profit a man to know 
 
 " Who nursed Anchises ; from what country came 
 The step-dame of Archemorus, what her name ; 
 How long Acestes flourished, and what store 
 Of generous wine the Phrygians from him bore ? " 
 
 Sat vii. 234
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 85 
 
 Or to be able with all the subtleness of a master in the 
 schools to balance, point by point, the conduct of Han- 
 nibal's affairs, and to be able to decide 
 
 " Whether 'twere right 
 To take advantage of the general fright, 
 And inarch to Rome ; or by the storm alarmed, 
 And all the elements against him armed, 
 The dangerous expedition to delay, 
 And lead his harassed troops some other way." 
 
 Sat. vii. 161. 
 
 "With the natural tendency of all men to be hurried 
 into that vice opposite to the one which they wish to 
 shun, Juvenal carried his disregard of physical science 
 into a truly Socratic extreme. Seeing the excessive 
 weight given to questions, interesting, indeed, but not 
 indispensable to the conduct of a good and honest life, 
 he would entirely neglect every science except that of 
 Ethics : 
 
 " Whip me the fool who marks how Atlas soars 
 O'er every hill on Mauritania's shores, 
 Yet sees no difference 'twixt the coffer's hoards 
 And the poor pittance a small purse affords ! " 
 
 Sat. xi. 23. 
 
 In this condemnation of useless knowledge Juvenal 
 would seem to include all mythological lore, whether 
 imported from Greece or of native growth. Though 
 he does not speak of them in the same tone of con- 
 temptuous hatred which he uses with regard to the 
 gods of Syria or of Egypt, we may yet trace in his 
 manner a good-natured and patronising tone when he
 
 86 JUVENAL. 
 
 speaks of Jupiter or Mars, of Juno or Venus, very 
 different to that which a true believer would deem fit 
 to use : very different to that which he himself uses 
 when speaking of the unknown and beneficent god who 
 guides the affairs of mortals : 
 
 "Whate'er they [Chaldeans] say, with reverence she 
 
 receives, 
 
 As if from Hammon's secret forth it came ; 
 Since Delphi now, if we may credit fame, 
 Gives no responses, and a long dark night 
 Conceals the future hour from mortal sight." 
 
 Sat vi 553. 
 
 Or again, speaking of the golden age : 
 
 " There was indeed a time 
 When the rude natives of this happy clime 
 Cherished such dreams : 'twas ere the king of heaven 
 To change his sceptre for a scythe was driven ; 
 Ere Juno yet the sweets of love had tried, 
 Or Jove advanced beyond the cares of Ide. 
 'Twas when no gods indulged in sumptuous feasts, 
 No Ganymede, no Hebe served the guests j 
 No Vulcan, with his sooty labours foul, 
 Limped round, officious, with the nectared bowl ; 
 But each in private dined : 'twas when the throng 
 Of godlings now beyond the scope of song, 
 The courts of heaven in spacious ease possest, 
 And with a lighter load poor Atlas prest. 
 Ere Neptune's lot the watery world obtained, 
 Or Dis and his Sicilian consort reigned ; 
 Ere Tityus and his ravening bird were known, 
 Ixion's wheel, or Sisyphus's stone : 
 While yet the Shades confessed no tyrant's power, 
 And all below was one Elysian bower ! " 
 
 Sat. xiii. 38.
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 87 
 
 As a moral teacher Juvenal takes up a high stand- 
 point. Virtue alone is true happiness, is alone worthy 
 of our earnest pursuit. But this virtue, in what does 
 it consist ; how are we to attain to it 1 Briefly, by doing 
 unto others as we would that others should do unto us. 
 Such conduct may indeed fail to meet with its due re- 
 ward, yet in the long-run it will usually deserve and 
 obtain the esteem and kindly offices of your fellow-men. 
 But even if this be not the case, that inward peace of 
 mind which no man can take away is sure to follow 
 an honest endeavour after that which is right, even as 
 the contrary course will most surely be punished by. 
 the tortures of a violated conscience. We have a me- 
 morable example of the soothing power of conscious 
 uprightness in the death of Socrates, cheerful under 
 the most grievous wrongs : 
 
 " That old man by sweet Hymettus' hill, 
 Who drank the poison with unruffled soul, 
 And dying, from his foes withheld the bowl." 
 
 Sat. xiii. 185. 
 
 Do not then, man, if thou hast suffered any wrong 
 at the hand of a false friend, consider it as anything 
 very strange pr grievous ; still less allow thyself to be 
 carried away by a spirit of anger or revenge, and so 
 lose thine own peace of mind. Rather give him over 
 to his own conscience ; his punishment will be greater 
 than any thou couldst have called down on him : 
 " Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign . 
 Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain, 
 He feels, who, night and day devoid of rest, 
 Carries his own accuser in his breast." 
 
 Sat. xiii. 196.
 
 88 JUVENAL. 
 
 Nay more, 
 
 " In the eye of heaven a wicked deed 
 Devised, is done ;" 
 
 Sat. xiii. 209. 
 
 and even the intended, though unperpetrated, wicked- 
 ness shall have its own reward. While for him. who 
 goes beyond the desire, and brings his purpose to actual 
 accomplishment, retributive justice will surely lie in 
 wait : 
 
 " This thou shalt see ; and while thy voice applauds 
 The dreadful justice of the offended gods, 
 Eeform thy creed, and, with an humble mind, 
 Confess that heaven is neither deaf nor blind." 
 
 Sat. xiii. 247. 
 
 But how is this justice to be reached ? How shall 
 our children learn to eschew the evil and to choose the 
 good? By example, answers the poet by the reform 
 of your own sinful practices, of your own wicked lives, 
 ye that are fathers and mothers in Eome ! How can 
 ye hope for a chaste and noble offspring, when on 
 every side your children look on sights too foul for 
 words to tell ? 
 
 " Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus, dwell, 
 Immodest sights, immodest sounds expel ; 
 The place is sacred ; far, far, hence remove, 
 Ye venal votaries of illicit love ! 
 Ye dangerous knaves who pander to be fed, 
 
 . And sell yourselves to infamy for bread ! 
 Keverence to children as to heaven is due : 
 "When you would then some darling sin pursue, 
 Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed, 
 And let the thought abate your guilty speed ;
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 89 
 
 Back from the headlong steep your steps entice, 
 And check you tottering on the verge of vice." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 44. 
 
 An evil habit, when once formed, is with difficulty 
 broken off; and the child will most certainly rather 
 follow the example of the parent if he sees him indulg- 
 ing in luxury, than his precept when he bids him choose 
 the narrow and difficult path that leads to virtue. If 
 the father gambles or spends his fortune on the luxu- 
 ries of the table, will not his son be a dicer and a 
 glutton? If he sees his father cruelly maltreat his 
 slaves, of what avail will be all precepts to gentleness 
 and humanity ? Or how can the daughter of a Keen- < 
 tious mother become a chaste and faithful wife 1 
 
 " One youth, perhaps, formed of superior clay, 
 And warmed by Titan with a purer ray, 
 May dare to slight proximity of blood, 
 And, in despite of nature, to be good : 
 One youth, the rest the beaten pathway tread, 
 And blindly follow where their fathers led." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 33. 
 
 We may trace a progressive change in Juvenal's 
 moral being, and a sustained advance from his earlier 
 to his later writings. At first he can see nothing but 
 what is eviL Like David before him, he thinks that 
 " there is none that doeth good, no, not one." The very 
 philosophers who aspire to lead mankind are murderers 
 and perjured witnesses ; nay, they add this to their other 
 faults, that they are hypocrites as well as debauchees. 
 The present days are wholly corrupt, and it is only in 
 the far-distant past that we can see traces of a purity
 
 90 JUVENAL. 
 
 and virtue now long forgotten. JSTow, alas ! it is neither 
 by noble birth or noble conduct, by genius or by vir- 
 tue, that men rise. The caprice of a blind fate drives 
 us hither and thither, and determines our position in 
 life: 
 
 " Oh, there's a difference, friend, beneath what sign 
 We spring to light, or friendly or malign ! 
 Fortune is all : she, as the fancy springs, 
 Makes kings of pedants and of pedants kings. 
 For what were Tullius and Ventidius,* say, 
 But great examples of the wondrous sway 
 Of stars, whose mystic influence alone 
 Bestows on captives triumphs, slaves a throne ? " 
 
 Sat. vii. 194. 
 
 Soon, however, this pessimist view of the affairs of 
 men is modified. Strive, cries the poet, to make your- 
 self a name ; rise from the lowly station in which your 
 fortune may have placed you ! "What though you 
 have no ancient blood in your veins ? you may well 
 build yourself an honourable reputation : 
 
 " Virtue alone is true nobility." 
 
 See then that you aim at this alone, and value not your 
 life above that which alone can give to your life any 
 real value. Men, indeed, may sometimes be ruined 
 by the will of God, but such ruin will never come 
 undeservedly. It is because men so often aim, not at 
 virtue, .but only at the reputation which it brings, 
 
 * Servius Tullius, who rose from a servile position to be king 
 of Rome ; and P. Ventidius Bassus, who, starting in life as a 
 hirer of mules, was taken up by Julius Caesar, and became suc- 
 cessively tribune and praetor, pontifex and consul.
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 91 
 
 that we see them fail so miserably. God loves men, 
 and would always, did their vices or their folly permit 
 it, bring them to happiness and honour. Be brave, 
 then, be honest and diligent ; then shall victory most 
 assuredly crown your efforts. Nor need we look far 
 for examples of the truth of what I here lay down. 
 How often in the history of Rome have men of humble 
 birth come forth iu time of danger, and, nobly risking 
 all, even to the death, or disgrace worse than death 
 itself, stood between their country and defeat, and built 
 themselves a glorious name ! Nor, alas ! is the oppo- 
 site case to this unknown. Some of Rome's proudest 
 sons have ere now by their own acts sunk themselves 
 into such a depth of infamy as to be ready to bear the 
 naming torch of rapine into their country's breast : 
 
 " Cethegus, Catiline ! whose ancestors 
 Were nobler born, were higher ranked, than yours ' 
 Yet ye conspired, with more than Gallic hate, 
 To wrap in midnight flames this helpless state, 
 On men and gods your barbarous rage to pour, 
 And deluge Rome with her own children's gore, 
 Horrors which called indeed for vengeance dire, 
 For the pitched coat and stake and mouldering fire ! 
 But Tully watched, your league in silence broke, 
 And crushed your impious arms, without a stroke. 
 Yes, he, poor Arpine, of no name at home, 
 And scarcely ranked among the knights at Rome, 
 Secured the trembling town, placed a firm guard 
 In every street, and toiled in every ward : 
 And thus, within the walls, the gown obtained 
 More fame for Tully than Octavius gained 
 At Actium and Philippi, from a sword 
 Drenched m the eternal stream by patriots poured :
 
 92 JUVENAL. 
 
 For Rome,' free Rome, hailed him with loud acclaim 
 
 The ' Father of his Country,' glorious name ! 
 
 Another Arpine, trained the ground to till, 
 
 Tired of the plough, forsook his native hill, 
 
 And joined the camp, where, if his adze were slow, 
 
 The vine-twig whelked his back with many a blow ; 
 
 And yet, when the fierce Cimbri threatened Rome 
 
 With swift and scarcely evitable doom, 
 
 This man, in the dread hour, to save her rose, 
 
 And turned the impending ruin on her foes ! 
 
 The Decii were plebeians ! mean their name, 
 And mean the parent stock from which they came ; 
 Yet they devoted, in the trying hour, 
 Their heads to earth and each infernal power, 
 And by that solemn act redeemed from fate 
 Auxiliars, legions, all the Latian state, 
 More prized than those they saved, in Heaven's just esti- 
 mate ! 
 
 And him who graced the purple that he wore 
 (The last good king of Rome), a bondmaid bore ! " 
 
 Sat. viii. 230. 
 
 Men talk of Fortune as though she barred the way. 
 But what is Fortune ? a mere idle name, to him who 
 has the courage to meet and wrestle with her : 
 
 " The path to peace is virtue. We should see, 
 If wise, O Fortune, nought divine in thee : 
 But we have deified a name alone, 
 And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne." 
 
 Sat. x. 263. 
 
 In his succeeding Satires we can see how Juvenal lays 
 down what we might almost call a complete ethical sys- 
 tem. He shows what virtue is, and how by habit the
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION AT ROME. 93 
 
 practice of it gradually becomes easy and natural to 
 man. Especially we may notice how he forbids 
 cruelty to slaves, grasping fully the Stoical doctrine of 
 the equality of all men. " I am a man," he says with 
 Terence, " and think that there is nothing human hut 
 claims my sympathies." Hence, how detestable an 
 example the father sets before his son when he pun- 
 ishes the slightest offence of his attendant with savage 
 severity ! 
 
 " Does Eutilus inspire a generous mind, 
 Prone to forgive, and to slight errors blind, 
 Instil the liberal thought that slaves have powers, 
 Sense, feeling, all as exquisite as ours, 
 Or fury ? He, who hears the sounding thong 
 With far more pleasure than the syren's song." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 15. 
 
 It is one of the principal merits of the Stoic philo- 
 sophy, that by dwelling so emphatically on the real 
 equality of all men in the eye of nature, it did much 
 towards making the lot of Roman slaves more toler- 
 able. This doctrine Epictetus enforces in a practical if 
 homely discourse : " ' When you call for hot water, 
 and your slave does not answer, or brings it lukewarm, 
 or is not to be found in the house, if you pass the 
 matter over, is not this well-pleasing to the gods'?' 
 'How then can I bring myself to pass it over 1 ?' 
 ' Slave, will you not bear with your own brother, who 
 has Zeus for his ancestor, who is born as a son from 
 the same seed and from the same heavenly stock ? . . . 
 Bear in mind who you are, and whom you rule, your 
 kinsmen, your brothers, the offspring of Zeus.' "
 
 94 JUVENAL. 
 
 It is this bond of sympathy, this feeling of a com- 
 mon fate and of common hopes, says Juvenal, that is 
 the most distinguishing mark of man : 
 
 " Nature, who gave us tears, by that alone 
 Proclaims she made the feeling heart our own ; 
 And 'tis her noblest boon. . . ' . 
 
 This marks our birth 
 
 The great distinction from the beasts of earth ! 
 And therefore gifted with superior powers, 
 And capable of things divine 'tis ours 
 To learn and practise every useful art, 
 And from high heaven deduce that better part, 
 That moral sense, denied to creatures prone 
 And downward bent, and found in man alone ! 
 For He who gave this vast machine to roll, 
 Breathed life in them, in us a reasoning soul, 
 That kindred feelings might our state improve, 
 And mutual wants conduct to mutual love." 
 
 - Sat. xv. 131.
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 LITERATURE AT ROME. 
 
 LITERARY men in the days of Juvenal held a somewhat 
 anomalous position, very different to that which is at 
 present occupied by authors ; and it is necessary, un- 
 less we would allow many of the allusions that are 
 found in Juvenal to remain unintelligible, to make the 
 effort necessary to realise the hopes and prospects, the 
 difficulties and disappointments, which lay before the 
 aspirant to literary fame in the reign of Claudius or of 
 Domitian. We all, of course, know the many avenues 
 by which the young writer can now lay his work 
 before the public ; the numerous magazines, the daily 
 prints, the circulating library, and the advertising 
 publisher, will occur to every one's mind. In ancient 
 Rome there were none of these resources ; in fact, the 
 reading public, as we now understand the term the 
 public to which the writer looks for the reward of his 
 labour had no existence. 
 
 The absence of printing, and the restricted sphere to 
 which education was limited, would be sufficient to 
 account for this ; stiD, the difference in the conduct of
 
 96 JUVENAL. 
 
 everyday life that was thus brought about was so vast, 
 that it is by no means easy to appreciate it sufficiently. 
 We shall, however, receive considerable assistance in 
 the endeavour to bring before our eyes the life of the 
 Roman author of the first century A.D. if we contem- 
 plate the position of his representative in the modern 
 London, during the epoch of the Stuarts or the early 
 part of the Hanoverian dynasty. Differences there 
 still will be, and important differences; yet many of 
 the main features of the pictures will bear a pretty 
 close resemblance to each other. 
 
 In the time of Domitian, as in the time of Charles, 
 education, as we now understand the word, was limited 
 to a very narrow class. In both these ages the circula- 
 tion of books was, as compared with what we are now 
 accustomed to, insignificant in the extreme. Few men, 
 even among those that made some pretensions to a 
 literary reputation, owned a larger library than may 
 now be found in the parlour of a country inn. In 
 part this change may, of course, be attributed to the 
 invention of printing, and its effect on the facilities of 
 circulation, but still more is it a secondary result 
 brought about by the spread of education among the 
 masses. In fact, these two results of printing, or even 
 more perhaps of cheap and abundant paper, have acted 
 and reacted on each other, cheap literature spreading 
 education ever more generally among the people, and 
 this more general education causing a greater and 
 greater demand for literature, and so tending to facili- 
 tate the production of it and lessen the cost. Never- 
 theless, the difficulties and expense of bringing out a
 
 LITERATURE AT ROME. 97 
 
 small edition of a new work in ancient Rome will pro- 
 bably be much overrated by the superficial observer. 
 With the cheap and abundant slave-labour that was 
 then at command, labour too, we must remember, of 
 considerable skill, and well adapted by practice and 
 education for this description of Avork, it is pretty 
 clear that an edition such as we have mentioned could 
 be sent out by the bookseller of the " Forum " quite as 
 rapidly and at as cheap a rate as could have been 
 accomplished by the publisher of Dryden or of Pope. 
 Let us then 'consider how the work would be set 
 about. Imagine an extensive room furnished with 
 desks and writing materials sufficient to accommodate 
 from fifty to a hundred writers ; at each desk a slave 
 is seated, many if not all of them highly educated, as 
 education went in those days. "When all is ready, a 
 reader chosen for his loud voice and distinct articula- 
 tion proceeds to read forth, it may be, a collection of 
 Martial's Epigrams, newly sent in from Spain, or a 
 fresh edition of the'Odes of Horace that the general 
 public has been calling for. 
 
 Quickly and neatly the hands of the writers run 
 down the smooth papyrus, keeping pace with the 
 measured intonations of the reader. When the roll 
 had been filled up, it would be coiled round a stick or 
 reed of the appropriate length, and finally, after being 
 neatly cut, so as to reduce all the folds to an even 
 surface, it would be smoothed down with pumice-stone 
 and the base dyed black. It was then ready to be 
 placed in its envelope of parchment that served to pre- 
 serve it from injury, and also to receive the title that 
 
 A. c. vol. xiii. G
 
 98 JUVENAL. 
 
 was usually attached to it in the shape of a small strip 
 of papyrus, with the name of the book written on it in 
 deep red characters. Then the work might either be 
 sent at once to those' who had ordered it, or be exposed 
 for sale on the stall of the Sosii the great booksellers 
 of the day at Rome. We might expect that such a 
 work, by the aid of abundant slave-labour, would be 
 produced at a reasonable rate. And the conclusion 
 that we might have arrived at by a priori reasoning is 
 supported by direct contemporary evidence. "VVe read in 
 Martial, that a small volume of poems neatly finished and 
 enclosed in a parchment case might be sold at a price 
 corresponding to a few pence of our present currency, 
 in fact much the same as would now be asked for a 
 volume of the same size. Publication such as this, 
 seems, however, seldom to have been adopted, except 
 by an author whose reputation was already such as to 
 secure a rapid sale of the whole edition, or one whose 
 private means were sufficient to defray the expense in 
 case of failure. It was an avenue to fame closed to the 
 unknown or poor author. Such a one might, however, 
 hope to earn protection, and open the purse of some 
 more wealthy citizen, some aspirant to the reputation of 
 Maecenas, by a fulsome dedication of his work to the 
 man whose assistance he desired. Such dedications 
 were highly prized by those to whom they were 
 offered, and frequently an author of repute would look 
 for pecuniary gain more to the present he received as 
 a reward for the preface of his book than to the price of 
 the copyright of the entire work. Yet this was not 
 always the case. Often the Roman poet would be as
 
 LITERATI RE AT ROME. 99 
 
 much disappointed in his patron as Johnson was in 
 the expectations which he grounded on the countenance 
 of Lord Chesterfield. The end of these expectations is 
 described by that author himself in most touching lan- 
 guage, which has been often quoted before, but will 
 bear repetition here : 
 
 " Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited 
 in your outer room, or was repulsed from your door ; dur- 
 ing which time I have been pushing on my work through 
 difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have 
 brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one 
 act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile 
 of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never 
 had a patron before. . . . 
 
 "Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with uncon- 
 cern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when 
 he has reached ground, encumbers him with his help ? 
 The notice which you have been pleased to take of my 
 labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has 
 been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it ; 
 till I am solitary and cannot impart it ; till I am known 
 and do not want it.". 
 
 Very similar in the thought that underlies it is the fol- 
 lowing passage from Juvenal. Indeed, if we did not 
 know that Juvenal was himself a man of fair fortune, 
 and thus independent of such assistance, we might 
 think that, like the letter of Johnson, his lines too 
 had been prompted by the bitterness of a personal 
 rebuff. He has just been deploring the unhappy 
 position of authors in an age in which Ca3sar alone 
 " the drooping Nine regards ; " in which, but for his 
 munificence, the poet would do better to turn cobbler or
 
 100 JUVENAL. 
 
 crier, or learn some other similar handicraft, than con- 
 tinue to work at his' unappreciated art : 
 
 " But if for other patronage you look, 
 And therefore write, and therefore swell your book, 
 Quick, call for wood, and let the flames devour 
 The hapless produce of the studious hour ; 
 Or lock it up, to moths and worms a prey, 
 And hreak your pens, and fling your ink away: 
 Or pour it rather o'er your epic flights, 
 Your battles, sieges (fruit of sleepless nights) 
 Pour it, mistaken man, who rack your brains 
 In dungeons, cock-lofts, for heroic strains ; 
 Who toil and sweat to purchase mere renown, 
 A meagre statue and an ivory crown ! 
 Here bound your expectations : for the great, 
 Grown wisely covetous, have learned of late 
 To praise, and only praise, the high-wrought strain, 
 As boys the bird of Juno's glittering train." 
 
 Sat. vii. 22. 
 
 There is another feature of the literary history of this 
 period repeated in modern history. Just as Dryden 
 found that fame, and nothing more, was likely to be his 
 reward for such poems as " Absalom and Achitophel," 
 or his Tales and Fables, and therefore turned to writ- 
 ing for the stage as a more lucrative branch of litera- 
 ture, unfitted though he was, and knew himself to be, 
 for dramatic composition, both by education and the 
 natural bent of his genius, so Statins earned his liveli- 
 hood, not by his epic poems, though it is to them that 
 he owes his reputation, but by the sale of tragedies, 
 whose very names are to us unknown. His " Thebaid " 
 he recited amidst universal applause, and the judgment
 
 LITERATURE AT ROME. 101 
 
 of posterity has fully ratified the enthusiasm of his own 
 days : 
 
 /' Yet, while the seats rung with a general peal 
 Of boisterous praise, the bard had lacked a meal, 
 Unless with Paris * he had better sped, 
 And trucked a virgin tragedy for bread. 
 Mirror of men ! he showers with liberal hands 
 On needy poets honours and commands : 
 An actor's patronage a peer's outgoes, 
 And what the last withholds, the first bestows ! " 
 
 Sat. vii. 85. 
 
 This is indeed very much what one would have ex- 
 pected from an a priori consideration of the circum- 
 stances under which these poets lived. The many- 
 headed multitude did not yet call in sufficient numbers 
 for a supply of literary food to enable writers to rely 
 on a widespread popularity as a reward of their la- 
 bours. The author still looked for his fortune nay, 
 it might be for the very necessaries of life not to the 
 subsidies of the publisher, but to the open-handed 
 largesses of the emperor, or of some Maecenas of the 
 day. 
 
 It was in order to gain the degree of notoriety 
 that was necessary to insure the countenance of his 
 patron that the custom of the author reciting in 
 public his own works came into vogue. This was in- 
 deed the only way in which, in days destitute alike of 
 the circulating library and of the critical review, an 
 unknown author could bring his works forward to be 
 
 * A Roman actor of the day, and an especial favourite of the 
 emperor.
 
 102 JUVENAL. 
 
 tried at the bar of taste and criticism. This custom 
 had even in the days of Horace taken deep root in 
 literary circles. In the succeeding century, however, 
 it had spread far and wide, and the risk of being at 
 any time compelled to listen to the second-rate effu- 
 sions of some would-be poet of your acquaintance 
 seems to have been recognised as one of the draw- 
 backs on town -life. Thus Juvenal, though in a 
 but half-serious passage, sets this grievance down as 
 the climax of the annoyances heaped on the Roman 
 citizen : 
 
 " What desert land, 
 
 What wild uncultured spot can more affright, 
 Than fires wide blazing through the gloom of night, 
 Houses with ceaseless ruin thundering down, 
 And all the horrors of this hateful town, 
 Where poets, while the dog-star glows, rehearse 
 To gaping multitudes their barbarous verse ! " 
 
 Sat. iii 6. 
 
 Pliny indeed spoke of the practice as not devoid of 
 its own advantages, and regretted that his countrymen 
 did not show themselves more ready to become ac- 
 quainted in this manner with the literature of their 
 own day.* Juvenal, like a true member of the irritable 
 tribe, spoke with far less indulgence of the customs of 
 his brothers of the pen. He had indeed formed a high 
 ideal for himself of what a real poet should be, and 
 confessed that in his days there was none such to be 
 found. Virgil and Horace had left behind no succes- 
 
 * See, on tins subject, ' Pliny's Letters,' vol. xi. of this 
 Series, Ch. 7, " Public Readings."
 
 LITERATURE AT ROME. 103 
 
 sors on whom their mantle might fitly fall, though but 
 too many competitors would fain have grasped the 
 magic wand : 
 
 " The insatiate itch of scribbling, hateful pest, 
 Creeps, like a tetter, through the human breast, 
 Nor knows, nor hopes a cure ; since years which chill 
 All other passions but inflame the ill ! 
 But He, the bard of every race and clime, 
 Of genius, fruitful, ardent, and sublime, 
 "Who from the glowing mint of fancy pours 
 No spurious metal, fused from common ores, 
 But gold to matchless purity refined, 
 And stamped with all the godhead in his mind ; 
 He whom I feel, but want the power to paint, 
 Springs from a soul impatient of restraint, 
 And free from every care ; a soul that loves 
 The Muses' haunts, clear founts and shady groves." 
 
 Sat. vii. 51. 
 
 With such a lofty standard before him, we can 
 hardly be surprised if Juvenal vented his spleen on the 
 crowd of mediocre poets that lived and wrote around 
 him : especially when they insisted not only on writing 
 an innocent amusement enough but on compel- 
 ling their friends to listen while they read their prosy 
 epics, or the comedy that would raise far less hearty 
 a laugh than the bathos of the tragedy. Like Martin 
 Scribblerus, the poetasters of the day were in no diffi- 
 culty with regard to a plot. The old fables, though 
 worn threadbare, might surely serve yet once again 
 as pegs on which to hang some fresh turn of fancy, 
 some newly-framed conceit. So on the game went, 
 till at last it might be said with truth,
 
 104 JUVENAL. 
 
 " None knows his home so well 
 As I the grove of Mars, and Vulcan's cell 
 Fast by the ^Eolian rocks ! How the winds roar ; 
 How ghosts are tortured on the Stygian shore ; 
 How Jason stole the golden fleece, and how 
 The Centaurs fought on Othrys' shaggy brow." 
 
 Sat. i. 8. 
 
 But while thus holding up to ridicule the folly of 
 the tribe, and endeavouring to divert the writers of the 
 day from barren themes on which even true genius 
 might have toiled in vain from ploughing the light 
 sand, and sowing seed where none could ever grow 
 Juvenal was not less ready to set forth their wrongs, 
 and protest in indignant verse against the injustice with 
 which the poet was treated, the undeserved contumely 
 that was heaped upon him. True, the man who had 
 to earn his own bread showed but scant wisdom when 
 he essayed to mount the hill of Helicon, or wandered 
 by the rills of Aganippe. This, however, was no excuse 
 to the wealthy parvenu, the would-be literary dictator. 
 What right had he to entice the man of letters to pay 
 his court to him, and to increase by his homage the 
 reputation of his train, and then refuse to pay him his 
 reward 1 
 
 " Hear now what sneaking ways your patrons find 
 To save their darling gold ; they pay in kind ! 
 Verses composed in every muse's spite, 
 To the starved bard they in their turn recite ; 
 And if they yield to Homer, let him know 
 'Tis that he lived a thousand years ago." 
 
 Sat. vii. 36. 
 
 Such conduct, however, we can only deplore, no
 
 LITERATURE AT ROME. 105 
 
 judge can interfere ; and the poet indeed to a certain 
 extent brought it on himself by his foolish credulity, 
 and he must bear a double penalty, for how is it pos- 
 sible for him to indite any lofty strain while half 
 starved, and harassed by anxiety as to how he shall 
 procure his next day's meal ? 
 
 " No ; the wine circled briskly through his veins, 
 When Horace poured his dithyrambic strains." 
 
 Sat. vii. 62. 
 
 And even Virgil would have had no readers, had he 
 been continually distressed with household cares. The 
 snakes which he wreathes round his fierce Fury would 
 in that case 
 
 " Have dropt in listless length upon the ground, 
 And the still slumbering trump groaned with no mortal 
 sound," 
 
 Sat. vii. 70. 
 
 Unenviable as the poet's lot is shown to be, that of 
 the historian is even more worthy of our pity. He 
 gets no greater recompense for his work. And as for 
 his labours, 
 
 " More time, more study they require, and pile 
 Page upon page, heedless of bulk the while ; " 
 
 Sat. vii. 99. 
 
 though all this extra material, and the necessary 
 books of reference, demand an outlay that his slender 
 purse can ill afford. So with the rest of the learned 
 walks of life. Take the lawyer. If, after endless toil, 
 he win a cause, he is rewarded by an empty crown of 
 bays, or perhaps
 
 106 JUVENAL. 
 
 " A rope of shrivelled onions from the Nile, 
 A rusty ham, a jar of broken sprats, 
 And wine, the refuse of the country vats." * 
 
 Sat. vii. 119. 
 
 That is to say, if he is a poor man ; for the wealthy 
 lawyer is another example of the fact, that unto him 
 that hath shall he given. 
 
 And here, it may be remarked, we have another 
 of those parallels "between life in the present day and 
 life at Rome under the Caesars. Just as, in London, a 
 doctor is said frequently to drive himself into a prac- 
 tice by setting up a brougham and making a show of 
 a vast connection on nothing a-year, so the Roman 
 lawyer who wished to thrive had learned to simulate 
 an unreal success, as knowing that men are ever ready 
 to encumber with their help those who have made 
 it clear that they stand in no need of it. It was no 
 uncommon plan for the young jurisconsult to go about 
 followed by a hired train of slaves, and, though penni- 
 less, to make a show of buying all the luxuries and 
 superfluities of life : 
 
 " And some, indeed, have thriven by tricks like these ; 
 
 Purple and violet swell a lawyer's fees ; 
 
 Bustle and show above his means conduce 
 
 To business, and profusion proves of use. 
 
 Could our old pleaders visit earth again, 
 
 Tully himself could scarce a brief obtain, 
 
 Unless his robe were purple, and a stone, 
 
 Diamond or ruby, on his finger shone." 
 
 Sat. vii. 135. 
 
 * It would seem that in Juvenal's time it was not unusual 
 to give a lawyer at Rome a reward in kind in the place of any 
 money fee.
 
 LITERATURE AT ROME. 107 
 
 The rhetorician's case is yet more desperate than the 
 rest. Worse paid than his compeers, his work is of a 
 dismal sort, such as would drive the meanest soul to 
 rehel. Week after week he listens to the same class 
 droning out their prosy declamations, till in despair he 
 throws up the task, and, giving up all claim to pay- 
 ment, declines to continue the thankless trade. 
 
 In the account of the grammarian's woes we meet 
 hy the way with an interesting allusion to Virgil and 
 Horace, showing that they had already hecome stan- 
 dard books for school use, had already come to be 
 dog's-eared by the schoolboy's thumb, a fate that 
 has been theirs for an unbroken period of eighteen 
 centuries. 
 
 It is, then, part of the grammarian's or schoolmas- 
 ter's task to guide his scholars through the pages of 
 the ' ^Eneid ' or the ' Odes,' rising up early and lying 
 down late to rest; and as payment for all this toil, 
 besides being ready on all occasions with every branch 
 of possible and impossible knowledge, he shall be 
 rewarded at the year's end with as much as a fencer 
 gains in a single hour. Such, at all events, was the 
 case at Eome in the days of the Emperor Nero.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 
 
 THE social position of women in the days of Juvenal, 
 and the relation of the sexes to each other, are sub- 
 jects which could not but force themselves on any 
 thinking mind, could not but be a cause for tho 
 deepest anxiety to every patriotic Roman citizen. 
 From the earliest days of Roman history, women had 
 held a much higher place in the family than has 
 usually fallen to their lot among a but partially civil- 
 ised people. Though, of course, subordinate to the 
 man with regard to her position in the state, and, 
 according to strict law, subject absolutely to the will 
 of her husband, the wife was not looked on habitually 
 as by any means his slave, but rather as a friend and 
 an equal, as one who should be treated with affec- 
 tionate respect and esteem. And, indeed, in her own 
 province, the management of the interior economy of 
 the household, the Roman wife was permitted to 
 exercise full authority over all the inferior members 
 of the family. 
 
 Precluded by custom from any prominent appear-
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 109 
 
 ance in public, the matron at Rome was yet by no 
 means confined to her own apartments, as was usually 
 the case in Greece. On the contrary, as long as she 
 conducted herself with decorum and propriety, she 
 was permitted to take her place among men at public 
 banquets and on other festive occasions, or, accom- 
 panied by her children, to be a spectator of the dra- 
 matic performances of the theatre, a custom which 
 Juvenal mentions as one of the remnants of the good 
 old days that was still in his time kept up in the 
 country : 
 
 " Ther^e, when the toil foregone and annual play 
 Mark, from the rest, some high and solemn day, 
 To theatres of turf the rustics throng, 
 Charmed with the farce that charmed their sires so long ; 
 While the pale infant, of the mask in dread, 
 Hides in his mother's breast his little head." 
 
 Sat. iii. 172. 
 
 Thus the Eoman wife, though by law as much given 
 up to her husband's control as were his children or 
 even his slaves, yet by custom enjoyed a position of 
 comparative independence and equality. For, irrespec- 
 tive of that personal influence which a woman cannot 
 fail to acquire over any man with whom she spends so 
 large a portion of her life, and of whose children she is 
 the mother, public opinion would not fail to express a 
 very decided censure on any husband who should have 
 exercised the power given him by law over his wife 
 with any harshness or disregard of justice. 
 
 But in the days of Juvenal there were other causes 
 which had conspired to place women in a position of
 
 110 JUVENAL. 
 
 far greater independence as regarded their husbands. 
 During the later times of the Republic, the ancient 
 and solemn form of religious marriage, by which the 
 wife passed as it were into her husband's family, and 
 became subject to him, even as a child was subject to 
 his father, had fallen into desuetude. The ceremony 
 was long and inconvenient, and the increasing levity 
 of women would not brook so complete a loss of inde- 
 pendence. So entirely had this ceremony gone out 
 of fashion in the time of Tiberius, that, according to 
 the testimony of Tacitus, considerable difficulty was on 
 one occasion experienced during that reign before a 
 chief priest could be found whose parents had, as the 
 religious canon required, been joined together accord- 
 ing to the forms of this most ancient and binding rite. 
 In the place of this old covenant of marriage, a new 
 custom gradually arose by which the woman did not 
 cease to be a member of her father's household, but 
 was, in technical language, merely intrusted as a tempo- 
 rary deposit to her husband. As a consequence of this, 
 the position of women tended to become one of great 
 practical independence ; for while the husband had no 
 legal authority with which to back his wishes or his 
 commands, the head of the family to which his wife 
 belonged by birth would naturally hesitate to interfere 
 with the conduct of one who had to all intents and 
 purposes become a member of a different family. The 
 very fact of this independent position of the weaker 
 sex would in itself have gone far to shock the feelings 
 of Juvenal, who of all Roman writers with whom we 
 are acquainted was the most conservative, and clung
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. HI 
 
 most fondly to the manners and customs of his fathers, 
 under which Rome had learned to rule the nations of 
 the earth. But matters did not end here. The prac- 
 tical change in the conduct of women was even greater 
 than the change that had developed itself in their legal 
 position. Many causes had heen at work to hring this 
 change about. 
 
 The education which the Roman considered proper 
 and decorous for his daughters was the same now as it 
 had been in the early days of the Republic, when, amid 
 a tribe of herdsmen and shepherds, the highest praise 
 that could be placed as an epitaph on the tomb of a 
 deceased matron, was the statement that she who lay 
 beneath had led a sober and a pious life, had regulated 
 her household with diligence, and had presided ably 
 at the spinning-wheel, untouched by foreign manners, 
 careless of what occurred abroad ; and, finally, that she 
 had been the wife of only one lord and master, and 
 had never sought a second matrimonial alliance. 
 
 Innocence such as this, grounded on simple habits, 
 and preserved by ignorance, might indeed be main- 
 tained among the rude farmers of Latium among the 
 citizens of what was then merely the capital of an 
 Italian tribe. But when once the highly cultivated 
 nations of the East began to pour their treasures into 
 the open bosom of the queen of the Mediterranean, 
 such innocence and such ignorance could no longer be 
 of any avail, even had men been in earnest in their 
 endeavours to preserve them. " Conquered Greece led 
 her conquerors captive " in morals no less than in phi- 
 losophy and in art ; and now the softer manners and
 
 112 JUVENAL. 
 
 the looser morals of the ^Egean -were transferred to 
 the hills among which Curius had tilled his farm, and 
 Camillas driven his oxen : 
 
 " Our matrons then were chaste, 
 When days of labour, nights of short repose, 
 Hands still employed the Tuscan wool to toss ; 
 Their husbands armed, and anxious for the State, 
 And Carthage hovering near the Colline gate, 
 Conspired to keep all thoughts of ill aloof, 
 And banished vice far from their lowly roof. 
 Now all the evils of long peace are ours ; 
 Luxury, more terrible than hostile powers, 
 Her baleful influence wide around has hurled, 
 And well avenged the subjugated world ! 
 Since poverty, our better genius, fled, 
 Vice like a deluge o'er the State has spread. 
 Now, shame to Rome ! in every street are found 
 The essenced Sybarite with roses crowned, 
 The gay Miletan and the Tarentine, 
 Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine ! 
 Wealth first, the ready pander to all sin, 
 Brought foreign manners, foreign vices in ; 
 Enervate wealth, and with seductive art, 
 Sapped every home-bred virtue of the heart." 
 
 Sat. vi. 287. 
 
 When the Roman magistrate returned to his native 
 city from his temporary command in Asia or in Greece, 
 he returned with his morals as much debased as his 
 taste was raised by the mode of life practised among 
 the luxurious and effeminate citizens of Athens and of 
 Miletus. It was from these towns, or from such towns 
 as these, that the whole apparatus of life at Rome was 
 borrowed ; from them that the whole tribe of slaves
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 113 
 
 was drawn, whose business it was to flatter the pride 
 or gratify the idle appetites of their lords and masters. 
 To such a depth had fallen the descendants of Miltiades, 
 of Leonidas, of Demosthenes, and of Pericles, that, to 
 use words which we have already quoted in a previous 
 chapter, the Eoman satirist could deservedly style 
 them 
 
 " A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race, 
 Of torrent tongue and never- blushing face ; 
 A Protean tribe one knows not what to call, 
 Which shifts to every form, and shines in all." 
 
 Sat. iii. 73. 
 
 Among the other productions of Greece which thus 
 bore down the old Eoman simplicity, among the most 
 noteworthy were the Hetajrse. One of the worst re- 
 sults of the very slender education, if education it 
 might indeed be called, to which the honourable 
 daughter of Eome might aspire, was to force on all 
 Eoman citizens, whom the call of duty or of pleasure 
 had introduced to foreign and more refined customs, a 
 comparison between his own uncultivated wife and 
 the accomplished women with whom he associated in 
 his Grecian or Asiatic home. This class, called into 
 greater prominence through the whole of Greece, but 
 especially so in Athens and in Corinth, owing to the 
 very subordinate position that the legitimate wife of 
 the Greek citizen was allowed to occupy, cannot with 
 justice be compared to any similar class in our present 
 state of society. Though bound by no legal or formal 
 tie to their protector, yet, as we may gather from the 
 accounts that have come down to us of the intercourse 
 
 A. c. vol. xiii. H
 
 114 JUVENAL. 
 
 of Pericles and Aspasia, as well as from other sources, 
 the connections thus formed were no mere temporary 
 liaisons, but were observed with fidelity on one side, 
 and were rewarded by unremitting, often by unselfish, 
 affection on the other. We may take Aspasia as a type, 
 though an unusually noble type, of her class ; a class 
 which, combining rare personal charms with intellectual 
 attractions of the highest order, usurped, and not with- 
 out reason, the place reserved, under happier auspices, 
 for the legitimate wife. It was in their endeavour to 
 outrival the influence of these courtesans, without, 
 however, aiming at that higher culture to which this 
 influence was in a great measure due, that the Roman 
 matrons were hurried into those excesses which Juvenal 
 has immortalised ; and to the description of them he 
 has devoted the whole of his longest and most carefully 
 elaborated poem. 
 
 Another cause of the anomalous relations of the 
 sexes during the second century A.D. may be found in 
 the widely-spread and growing disinclination to mar- 
 riage. This was to the moralist one of the worst fea- 
 tures of the times. As early as the year 400 B.C. we 
 hear of fines being levied by the censors on many 
 Eoman citizens, if they had not taken to themselves a 
 wife before reaching a reasonable age ; shortly after 
 this, official speeches are recorded, as spoken by men 
 of rank who bewailed the necessity of marriage, while 
 calling on the citizens to take up manfully that burden 
 so grievous, and yet so necessary, for the good of the 
 State. 
 
 During the civil wars, and the general deterioration
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 115 
 
 of manners consequent on them, the evil here alluded 
 to increased to ail alarming extent so much so, in- 
 deed, that one of the principal aims of the legislation 
 of Augustus was to diminish the untoward proportion 
 of unmarried men, to check the disinclination to mar- 
 riage which, according to a statement in one of the 
 authors of the period, threatened to extinguish the 
 entire stock of the old Roman families. But the legis- 
 lation of the emperor was scarcely of more avail than 
 were the songs of Horace and of other court poets, who 
 at the bidding of their prince hymned the praises of a 
 married state, albeit they showed but little inclination 
 to put their teaching into practice in their own cases. 
 This distaste for marriage itself was yet further in- 
 creased, if not justified, by the extraordinary demands 
 made by any wife who happened to bring with her as 
 dowry a large addition to her husband's property. 
 Such a one would not only arrogate to herself absolute 
 control of her own estate, and an unbridled licence of 
 action in things both small and great, a freedom to 
 violate all customs, and cast aside the last shred of 
 womanly modesty, but would even claim to dictate to 
 her husband his conduct and his mode of life. Well 
 indeed might the poet exclaim in his wrath : 
 
 " Sure of all ills with which mankind are curst, 
 A wife who brings you money is the worst." 
 
 Sat. vi. 139. 
 
 In this as in other paths of vice, it was in the 
 lost lofty rank that virtue was most openly outraged 
 ay women. It was not necessary at Rome, under
 
 116 JUVENAL. 
 
 Xero or Domitian, for amorous -widow-hunters of the 
 type of "Colonel Chartres" or the "Duke of Eoussillon" 
 to lay their toils with craft and skill in order to catch 
 their victims. The matrons themselves would save 
 them all that trouble, for at all events in that day it 
 was quite as true as in the age of Pope or of ourselves, 
 that 
 
 " Every woman is at heart a rake." 
 
 Of all the tragedies which have been recorded in the 
 annals of the earlier years of the Roman Empire, there 
 is none, perhaps, so striking as the intrigue of Messa- 
 lina and Silius, none which shows in plainer colours 
 how utterly dissolute the society must have been in 
 which such horrors could be perpetrated, not indeed 
 with impunity, but apparently without exciting any 
 strong feeling of disgust. The tale of this the last of 
 the amours by which Messalina dishonoured her hus- 
 band, and led the way on to the very extravagance of 
 vice, is related by the historian Tacitus in almost the 
 same words as Juvenal has employed : 
 
 " But Silius comes. Now be thy judgment tried, 
 Shall he accept, or not, the proffered bride, 
 And marry Caesar's wife ? Hard point, in truth : 
 Lo, this most noble and most beauteous youth 
 Is hurried off, a helpless sacrifice 
 To the lewd glance of Messalina's eyes ! 
 Haste, bring the victim : in the nuptial vest 
 Already see the impatient Empress drest, 
 The genial* couch prepared, the accustomed sum 
 Told out, the augurs and the notaries come. 
 
 * " Lectus genialis." It has been supposed that a figure of
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 117 
 
 ' But why all these 1 ' You think, perhaps, the rite 
 
 Were better known to few, and kept from sight 
 
 Not so the lady : she abhors a flaw, 
 
 And wisely calls for every form of law. 
 
 But what shall Silius do ! refuse to wed ? 
 
 A moment sees him numbered with the dead. 
 
 Consent, and gratify the eager dame 1 
 
 He gains a respite till the tale of shame 
 
 Through town and country reach the Emperor's ear, 
 
 Still sure the last his own disgrace to hear. 
 
 Then let him, if a day's precarious life 
 
 Be worth his study, make the fair his wife ; 
 
 For wed or not, poor youth, 'tis still the same, 
 
 And still the axe must mangle that fine frame ! " 
 
 Sat. x. 329, 
 
 It is against such, deeds as these, and to hold up to 
 infamy women who took such enormities as their 
 model, that Juvenal pours forth the invective of the 
 satire we are now considering. The poem is itself 
 addressed to one Ursidius, a friend to Juvenal, on the 
 occasion of his intended marriage. After a brief 
 proem, in which the poet, "by way of introduction, 
 bewails the lost simplicity of the golden age 
 
 " When the race that broke 
 Unfathered from the soil and opening oak 
 Lived most unlike the men of later times, 
 The puling brood of follies and of crimes ; " 
 
 Sat. vi. 11. 
 
 he plunges at once " in medias res" according to the 
 Horatian maxim, apostrophising his friend on the 
 folly he is about to commit : 
 
 the man's " Genius " or guardian spirit was carved on his mar- 
 riage-bed.
 
 118 JUVENAL. 
 
 11 Even now the ring is bought, 
 Even now thou once, Ursidius, hadst thy wits, 
 And now to talk of wiving ! O these fits ! 
 What more than madness has thy soul possest ? 
 What snakes, what furies, agitate thy breast ? 
 Heavens ! wilt thou tamely drag the galling chain, 
 While hemp is to be bought, while knives remain ! " 
 
 Sat. vi. 27. 
 
 After this tirade, Juvenal proceeds to justify at 
 length, his advice by an enumeration of the social 
 disadvantages of the married state, and of all the 
 many faults of women which the intending husband 
 risked experiencing in the person of his wife. In the 
 first place, the married man would not fail to lose the 
 turtle and the turbot, 
 
 " And all the dainties which the flatterer still 
 Heaps on the childless to secure his will." 
 
 Sat. vi. 39. 
 
 This same legacy - hunting was one of the chief 
 banes of Eoman life under the Empire, and it went 
 far towards making true friendships impossible, by 
 raising suspicions against every man who seemed to 
 desire the society of any one who had property to 
 leave in his will. And there was a double incentive 
 to this eager seeking after legacies. Not only was the 
 money itself a prize, but it was considered to be in 
 some sort a stigma on a man's character if he were 
 passed over unmentioned in the will of an acquaint- 
 ance. Hence the wealthy and childless old man was 
 surrounded, from rise of morn till set of sun, by crowds 
 of parasites ready to perform for him the most menial
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 119 
 
 services, while even his affluent friends poured in pre- 
 sents of delicate fish and other dainties, in hopes of 
 being remembered in the rich man's testament pre- 
 sents and attentions which neither the poor man nor 
 yet the father of a family could hope to receive. Hear 
 in what manner the poet seeks to set at rest the ques- 
 tion of his own disinterestedness, on the occasion of 
 his entertaining a friend at a feast in his country 
 villa : 
 
 " Nor think, Corvinus, interest fires my breast : 
 Catullus, for whose sake my house is drest, 
 Has three sweet boys, who all such hopes destroy ; 
 And nobler views excite my boundless joy. 
 Yet who besides on such a barren friend 
 Would waste a sickly pullet ? who would spend 
 So vast a treasure where no hopes prevail, 
 Or for & father sacrifice a quail ? " 
 
 Sat xii. 93. 
 
 Juvenal next goes on to consider the infatuated par- 
 tiality of many a noble dame for actors, gladiators, and 
 other public performers a partiality often proved by 
 the truest of all praise, imitation. For some women, 
 says the poet, 
 
 " Sicken for action, and assume the airs, 
 The mask, and thyrsus of their favourite players ; " 
 
 Sat. vi. 69. 
 
 nay, even descend as combatants into the arena, 
 
 " Where the bold fair 
 Tilts at the Tuscan boar with bosom bare." 
 
 Sat. i."22. 
 
 Many women, too, who did not so outrageously unsex
 
 120 JUVENAL. 
 
 themselves, were yet ready to abandon all that they 
 should have held most dear, and sacrifice their name 
 and fame for the sake of some outcast player or 
 gladiator : 
 
 " Hippia, who shared a rich patrician's bed, 
 To Egypt with a gladiator fled, 
 While rank Canopus eyed with strong disgust 
 This ranker specimen of Roman lust. 
 "Without one pang the profligate resigned 
 Her husband, sister, sire ; gave to the wind 
 Her children's tears ; yea, tore herself away 
 (To strike you more) from Paris * and the Play." 
 
 Sat. vi. 82. 
 
 Then look at the reckless extravagance, so prevalent 
 as to be almost universal, that prompts the sex to 
 squander their husbands' fortunes on useless trifles. 
 See Ogulnia, the woman of fashion, as she leaves her 
 house ; contemplate her actions through the day, her 
 costly dress, her numerous attendants, her worthless 
 and ruinously expensive bargains, and then answer 
 whether any fortune can support such a heavy and so 
 constant a drain upon it. But, like the insatiable 
 leech, the woman will never lose her hold so long as a 
 single farthing can be extracted from the funds of her 
 much-enduring husband : 
 
 " Whene'er Ogulnia to the circus goes, 
 To emulate the rich she hires her clothes ; 
 Hires followers, friends, and cushions ; hires a chair, 
 A nurse, and a trim girl with golden hair, 
 To slip her billets : prodigal and poor, 
 She wastes the wreck of her paternal store 
 
 * See note above, p. 101.
 
 WOMEN AT ROME, 121 
 
 On smooth-faced wrestlers, wastes her little all, 
 And strips her shivering mansion to the wall ! " 
 
 Sat. vi. 352. 
 
 
 
 Men may indeed be led into extravagant profusion, 
 but usually they have more or less thought for the 
 morrow ; while the fair sex, if once they enter on the 
 headlong course, without a pause and without delay 
 plunge on and on, as though no power could reduce the 
 heap of gold from which they draw. In other cases 
 the same peculiarity may be traced, the same inability 
 to preserve the bounds of moderation, though these 
 bounds alone can preserve even the ornaments and 
 little elegances of everyday life from degenerating 
 into flaws, if not into more serious faults. As an 
 example of this, we may take the affectation of mixing 
 up Greek words with Latin, a custom carried to such 
 a length that no lady with any pretension to taste will 
 allow herself to use anything but this nondescript 
 jargon, much as some people in our own day inter- 
 lard their English with French names and phrases : 
 
 " 'Tis now the nauseous cant that none is fair 
 
 Unless her thoughts in Attic terms she dress ; 
 
 A mere Cecropian of a Sulmoness ! * 
 
 All now is Greek ; in Greek their souls they pour, 
 
 In Greek their fears, hopes, joys, what would you more ? 
 
 In Greek they clasp their lovers." 
 
 Sat. vi. 185. 
 
 * Sulmo, a town of the Peligni, in which the poet Ovid was 
 "born, is here taken for any provincial place. The women of 
 Sulmo, in spite of their country breeding and their coarse country 
 accent, gave themselves the airs of thoroughbred Athenians, 
 who are here, as elsewhere, styled Cecropians, from Cecrops, an 
 early king of Attica.
 
 122 JUVENAL. 
 
 The same ignorance of what bounds should be 
 observed allows women to become the very caricature 
 of themselves when they engage in public life, and 
 enter into competition with men in masculine profes- 
 sions and pursuits. Thus many women are eager to 
 refine upon 
 
 " The finest subtleties of law, 
 And raise litigious questions for a straw. 
 They meet in private, and prepare the bill, 
 Draw up the instructions with a lawyer's skill, 
 Suggest to Celsus where the merits lie, 
 And dictate points for statement or reply. 
 Nay more, they fence ! Who has not marked their oil, 
 Their purple rugs, for this preposterous toil ? 
 Eoom for the lady ! lo ! she seeks the list, 
 And fiercely tilts at her antagonist, 
 A post ! which with her buckler she provokes, 
 And bores and batters with repeated strokes, 
 Till all the fencer's art can do she shows, 
 And the glad master interrupts her blows." 
 
 Sat. vi. 242. ' 
 
 Nor is the wife a less skilful combatant when, cast- 
 ing aside those weapons which she but now usurped, 
 she takes up her true part, and, in the curtain lecture, 
 with ready wit baffles all the complaints her husband 
 may make, or turns the tables upon him by fierce re- 
 joinder against his own unfaithfulness, or by tears of 
 well-feigned rage at his neglect : 
 
 " 'Tis night ; yet hope no slumbers with your wife ; 
 The nuptial bed is still the scene of strife : 
 There lives the keen debate, the clamorous brawl, 
 And quiet ' never comes that comes to all.'
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 123 
 
 Fierce as a tigress plundered of her young, 
 Rage fires her breast and loosens all her tongue ; 
 When, conscious of her guilt, she feigns to groan, 
 And chides your loose amours to hide her own ; 
 Storms at the scandal of your baser flames, 
 And weeps her injuries from imagined names, 
 With tears that marshalled at their station stand, 
 And flow impassioned as she gives command. 
 You think those showers her true affection prove, 
 And deem yourself so happy in her love ! 
 With fond caresses strive her heart to cheer, 
 And from her eyelids kiss the starting tear : 
 But could you now search through the secretaire 
 Of this most loving, this most jealous fair, 
 What amorous lays, what letters would you see 
 Proofs, damning proofs of her sincerity ! " 
 
 Sat. vi. 286. 
 
 Truly " Mrs Caudle " was flourishing even in the days 
 of Juvenal ! So was also she who is now called blue- 
 stocking. Though no title had then been given her, 
 the marks by which she may be known are most 
 graphically set forth in this poem. Here we may un- 
 mistakably trace the features of one who would in the 
 present day have gone in for competitive examinations, 
 and essayed to mount the lecturer's desk or the profes- 
 sor's chair ; nor, indeed, does she seem to have been 
 more of a favourite a thousand years ago than now : 
 
 " But she is more intolerable yet, 
 Who plays the critic when at table set ; 
 Calls Virgil charming, and attempts to prove 
 Poor Dido right in venturing all for love. 
 From Maro and MaBonides she quotes 
 The striking passages, and, while she notes
 
 124 JUVENAL. 
 
 Their beauties and defects, adjusts her scales, 
 And accurately weighs which bard prevails. 
 The astonished guests sit mute : Grammarians yield ; 
 Loud Khetoricians, baffled, quit the field. 
 
 Oh never may the partner of my bed 
 "With subtleties of logic stuff her head, 
 Nor whirl her rapid syllogisms round, 
 Nor with imperfect enthymemes confound ! 
 Enough for me, if common things she know, 
 And boast the little learning schools bestow. 
 I hate the female pedagogue, who pores 
 O'er her Palsemon* hourly ; who explores 
 All modes of speech, regardless of the sense, 
 But tremblingly alive to mood and tense ; 
 Who puzzles me with many an uncouth phrase 
 Of some old canticle of Numa's days, 
 Corrects her country friends, and cannot hear 
 Her husband solecise without a sneer." 
 
 Sat. vl 434. 
 
 Another parallel between our own days and those of 
 Juvenal may be found in the matter of women's dress, 
 and more particularly in the elaborate head-gear, which, 
 would seem to have varied but little in the intervening 
 centuries. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that 
 the fashion, after going through a cycle, has now re- 
 turned to the point whence it set out. Listen then to 
 the description of a belle of the first century A.D., pre- 
 paring for engagement. Her handmaids stand around 
 her, and, under the guidance of an old nurse of experi- 
 ence and judgment, who by virtue of her age is pre- 
 
 * Palsemon the grammarian, and teacher of no less a pupil 
 than Quintilian.
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 125 
 
 sident of the council, toil to complete the work of 
 decoration : 
 
 " So warm they grow, and so much pains they take, 
 You'd think her honour or her life at stake ! 
 So high they build her head, such tiers on tiers, 
 With wary hands they pile, that she appears 
 Andromache before : and what behind ? 
 A dwarf, a creature of a different kind." 
 
 Sat. vi. 500. 
 
 Hitherto, however, the charges brought forward have 
 "been only of a comparatively venial nature offences 
 against taste and good breeding : now we are introduced 
 to faults of a darker hue; to vices which have stamped 
 that era, to all time, as one pre-eminent above all other 
 epochs in recklessness and superfluity of naughtiness. 
 Here, as the poet heaps on charge after charge, we 
 stand aghast at the disclosures of avarice, superstition, 
 cruelty, and murder of crimes which argue a heart 
 saturated to the core in vice, a heart dyed deep in 
 iniquity. 
 
 The charge for cruelty is easily made good. It 
 needs but to consider the conduct of the Eoman 
 lady towards her unfortunate household. The idlest 
 caprice of the mistress is often gratified by the most 
 wanton torture of one or other of her dependants : 
 
 " There are who hire a beadle by the year 
 To lash their servants round ; who, pleased to hear 
 The eternal thong, bid him lay on, while they 
 At perfect ease the silk-man's stores survey, 
 Chat with their female gossips, or replace 
 The cracked enamel on their treacherous face.
 
 126 JUVENAL. 
 
 The wretched Psecas, for the whip prepared, 
 
 With locks dishevelled and with shoulders bared, 
 
 Attempts her hair ; fire flashes from her eyes, 
 
 And ' strumpet ! why this curl so high ? ' she cries ; 
 
 Instant the lash without remorse is plied, 
 
 And the blood stains her bosom, back, and side." 
 
 Sat vi. 480. 
 
 The same woman, goaded by superstition, and unmind- 
 ful of all decency and of her country's religion, will 
 hurry to the vile and unhallowed worship of Cybele or 
 lo, of Osiris or Anubis, and squander the remains 
 of her fortune in bribes and presents to their foul 
 effeminate priests, or to the scarcely less hateful Jewish 
 fortune-tellers. For, 
 
 " Though Delphi now, if we may credit fame, 
 ' Gives no responses, and a long dark night 
 Conceals the future hour from human sight ; " 
 
 Sat. vi. 555. 
 
 yet Syrian sages and Chaldaean priests can still be 
 bribed to foretell that which shall, or shall not, come 
 to pass. The more thoroughly these men have trans- 
 gressed all laws human as well as divine, the more 
 eagerly will they be sought after by the chaste and 
 honourable Roman matron: 
 
 " No juggler must for fame or credit hope 
 Who has not narrowly escaped the rope, 
 Begged hard for exile, and by special grace 
 Obtained confinement in some desert place 
 To him your Tanaquil applies in doubt 
 How long her jaundiced mother will hold out, 
 But first, how long her husband ? ". 
 
 Sat. vi. 562.
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 127 
 
 Perchance you think this is the lowest depth that can 
 be reached. Not so. Behold the wretch who is her- 
 self a proficient in the black science. She will never 
 do anything, great or small, without first consulting the 
 manual of astrology that hangs ever at her side : 
 
 " She, deep in science, now allows her mate 
 To go or stay ; but will not share his fate, 
 Withheld by trines and sextiles ; she will look, 
 Before her chair be ordered, in the book 
 For the fit hour." 
 
 Sat. vi. 573. 
 
 Even the poor rival their betters. Though unable to 
 employ a prophet of their own, they have recourse to 
 the wandering priest, the strolling quack seer. And by 
 him they are guided in all the decisions of life. 
 
 "Tis, however, but a single step further to call in 
 the philtre- monger, and by the aid of some Thessalian 
 witch 
 
 " To subdue the will 
 
 Of an uxorious spouse, and make him bear 
 Blows, insults, all a saucy wife can dare." 
 
 Sat. vi. 610. 
 
 And what remains after this 1 "What further crime is 
 yet untried 1 Murder ! And why not that ? Has not 
 Agrippina showed how an obnoxious husband may be 
 despatched 1 And is not Locusta ready, with her slow 
 and secret poisons, to remove any too long-lived hus- 
 band or parent from the path of love or of avarice ? 
 Eut why call for the help of Locusta ? now that the 
 art of the most skilled professional poisoner has been 
 outdone by many a Roman matron who
 
 128 JUVENAL. 
 
 "More dext'rous than Locusta, shows 
 Her country friends the beverage to compose, 
 And, 'midst the curses of the indignant throng, 
 Bears in broad day the spotted corpse along." 
 
 Sat. i. 71. 
 
 !N"or is this mere fiction, or even exaggeration the real 
 facts are as bad, if not worse ; and the guilty wretch, 
 far from being shamed into secrecy, openly avows and 
 glories in the crime : 
 
 " Lo ! Pontia cries aloud 
 ' No, I performed it. See the facts avowed 
 I mingled poison for my children, I ! 
 'Twas found upon me ; wherefore then deny ? ' 
 ' What ! two at once, most barbarous viper, two ? ' 
 ' Nay, seven, had seven been mine : believe it true.' " 
 
 Sat. vi.638. 
 
 Thus, exclaims the poet, all the horrors which were 
 invented of old by the tragic poets are actually per- 
 formed before our eyes : 
 
 " Abroad, at home, the Belides* you meet, 
 And Clytemnestras t swarm in every street ; 
 But here the difference lies ; those bungling wives 
 With a blunt axe hacked out their husbands' lives, 
 While now the deed is done with dexterous art, 
 And a drugged bowl performs the axe's part. 
 Yet if the husband, prescient of his fate, 
 Have fortified his breast with mithridate, 
 
 * The fifty daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, who all, 
 except one, killed their husbands in a single night. 
 
 f Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, is said to have killed 
 her husband on his return from the siege and capture of Troy.
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 129 
 
 In such a case, reserved for such a need, 
 Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed." 
 
 Sat. vi. 655. 
 
 "We have dwelt rather at length on this Satire, and 
 given a rather long resume of its matter, for several 
 reasons. Not only is it the longest poem that Juvenal 
 wrote, and composed with more than ordinary care, 
 and as such worthy of attention if only from a literary 
 point of view ; but it also bears on one of the most 
 important questions of the times on one that in great 
 measure lay at the root of that disintegration of society 
 which, growing from year to year, finally led to the 
 disruption of the Eoman Empire, and with it of the 
 whole structure of "Western civilisation, as so well 
 expressed in the words of Horace : 
 
 " Our times, in sin prolific, first 
 The marriage-bed with taint have cursed 
 
 And family and home ; 
 This is the fountain-head of all 
 The sorrows and the ills that fall 
 
 On Romans and on Rome." 
 
 The greater portion of the poem will, however, call 
 neither for explanation nor for comment. The super- 
 stitions of women, their faithlessness, their lavish use 
 of cosmetics, and all the apparatus of the perfum- 
 er's art, their craving after novelty, and their subser- 
 vience to the dictates of fashion, have always formed a 
 part of the commonplace of the Satirist, among all 
 societies in which the sex has played a prominent part. 
 These, thougli now and again (as, for instance, in the 
 reigns of Nero, Claudius, or Domitian) attracting a 
 A. c. vol. xiii. i
 
 130 JUVENAL. 
 
 larger share of attention, are in all essential points 
 invariable, and admit of no very great variety in the 
 way of treatment. With regard to the crimes of poison- 
 ing and witchcraft, and especially the use of philtres, 
 the parallel cases of the Countess of Somerset and the 
 Duchess of Brinvilliers will occur to every one. 
 
 The one branch of the Satire to which no parallel 
 can be quoted in the history of any civilised nation is 
 the custom of fighting in the public arena. This, the 
 latest and most extraordinary fantasy of the sex, is, as 
 we have seen, more than once alluded to by Juvenal ; 
 and incredible as the charge might otherwise be held, 
 the most sensational accusation of the Satirist is fully 
 supported by the independent evidence of more than 
 one historian of the time. Tacitus, in his history of 
 the reign of Nero, writes : " In the same year were ex- 
 hibited gladiatorial shows on a scale no less magnifi- 
 cent than those of previous years ; but many women of 
 noble birth, and many senators, disgraced themselves 
 by appearing in the arena." Suetonius also expressly 
 asserts that women took part as combatants on the oc- 
 casion of some shows being celebrated in the reign of 
 Domitian. The practice was not put down till the reign 
 of Septimus Severus, when a decree was passed making 
 such indecent exhibitions for the future illegal. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how such a state of things 
 could ever have been tolerated by any Roman govern- 
 ment ; and scarcely less difficult to realise the state of 
 society in which any woman above all, any woman of 
 rank could voluntarily engage in such encounters, and 
 not forfeit, to say nothing of her own self-respect, not
 
 WOMEN AT ROME. 131 
 
 only her position in society, but even every claim to 
 be looked on as a woman at all. We shall perhaps 
 not be wrong if we attribute the phenomenon, in part 
 at least, to the reaction consequent on the relaxation 
 of a strictly enforced code of propriety, followed, as in 
 our own history at the time of the Restoration, by a 
 general growth of extravagance and immorality, such 
 that any outrage on common decency could hardly fail 
 to meet with pardon and applause, as being a virtual 
 protest against the puritanical notions of a detested re- 
 gime. As to the apparent indifference of the govern- 
 ment on the subject, it may be explained as being 
 but a part of the hereditary policy of the Empire. 
 From the days of Augustus it seems to have been 
 a maxim with the government to allow great latitude 
 to the people both in the discussion of religious ques- 
 tions, and also in social matters generally, in the 
 hope that these might act as safety-valves, and give 
 a vent to the more active spirits of the day, and so 
 postpone the clash between the government and the 
 governed. Moreover, the general prevalence of suicide, 
 which about this time came to be almost a fashion, 
 made it well-nigh impossible for the emperor to 
 keep a firm rein on any determined spirit. When 
 a man or woman has once so ceased to cling to life as 
 to be ready to summon death as a happy release from 
 any momentary trouble or annoyance, how shall any 
 power restrain them from doing that which seems right 
 in their own eyes, except by a system of universal 
 coercion, which it would of necessity be wholly impos- 
 sible to maintain 1
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 
 
 IT may be remembered by some of our readers that 
 Martial, the contemporary and the friend of Juvenal, 
 in addressing to him one of his Epigrams, condoles 
 with the poet on his mode of life in Rome, as com- 
 pared with the ease and comfort of a Spanish farmer's 
 existence. From many passages in his poems there 
 can be no doubt that Juvenal fully felt all the discom- 
 forts of a life in the capital, though, perhaps, like our 
 own Johnson, he would not have been willing to part 
 with those discomforts on the condition of having to 
 submit to a long absence from the great focus of all 
 social and political life. In the time of Juvenal, Rome 
 had long ceased to be the mere capital of an Italian 
 state : it was the great metropolis of the world, the 
 centre to which flocked all needy adventurers, all men 
 who hoped to raise their fortunes or to escape from the 
 hands of justice. 
 
 " Long since the stream that wanton Syria laves 
 Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves,
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 133 
 
 Its language, arts ; o'erwhelmed us with the scum 
 
 Of Antioch's streets, its minstrel, harp, and drum. 
 
 Hie to the circus ! ye who want to prove 
 
 A barbarous mistress, an outlandish love ; 
 
 Hie to the circus ! There in crowds they stand, 
 
 Tires on their head, and timbrels in their hand." 
 
 Sat. iii. 62. 
 
 There was, however, one striking peculiarity that 
 calls for notice as regards the constitution of that 
 population. There was in Eome no middle class. 
 The upper layer of society consisted partly of old 
 Roman families, who clung to the ancient cradle of 
 their race with a patriotic fondness, and were besides, 
 for the most part, connected with the carrying on of 
 the government ; partly of the retinue of the court, the 
 favourites of the emperor, and his wealthy freed- 
 men. In the lower part was to be found the 
 " Plebs Romana." The name was still retained, but 
 it was now by no means the same honourable title 
 which it had been in former times. The Roman citi- 
 zens had long since ceased to have any political 
 honour or responsibility, and now even their influ- 
 ence in the world of politics was gone. Their ap- 
 proval, when it was thought worth asking, might be 
 had at the price of a gratuitous admission to the 
 amusements of the circus or of an extra gladiatorial 
 show : 
 
 " For since their votes have been no longer bought, 
 All public care has vanished from their thought ; 
 And those who once, with unresisting sway, 
 Gave armies, empire, everything away,
 
 134: JUVENAL. 
 
 For two poor claims have long renounced the whole, 
 And only ask the Circus and the Dole." * 
 
 Sat. x. 77. 
 Besides these, the lower part of the city swarmed with 
 
 needy foreigners from every part of the Mediterranean 
 coasts, who had come to Eome to live by their wits, 
 and attracted also, in many cases, by the dole of corn, 
 and the free admission to the circus, the theatres, and 
 the baths the "Panis et Circenses" of the Roman 
 rabble. It was from among this class that were drawn 
 the clients of the great houses, who thronged the court- 
 yard of the patron under whom they had enrolled them- 
 selves from the very earliest hour possible. Juvenal, 
 indeed, would seem to imply that among this crowd of 
 needy suppliants might often be found men of consular 
 family, who in rank and lineage far surpassed their 
 protectors : 
 
 " ' Come forth, ye great Dardanians, from the crowd ! ' 
 For mixed with us e'en these besiege the door, 
 And scramble for the pittance of the poor ! 
 ' Despatch the Praetor first,' the master cries, 
 ' And next the Tribune ! ; " 
 
 Sat. i. 100. 
 
 But in this we can hardly look on him as a trust- 
 worthy witness, for we know from other sources that 
 the emperors were most unwilling to permit any of the 
 ancient families to fall into utter decay, and were 
 ready to prevent such a calamity by large presents 
 from their own private treasuries. 
 
 * For a description of the "sportula "or " dole," the reader 
 is referred to p. 136.
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 135 
 
 These two sections of society occupied, as a rule, 
 utterly distinct parts of the town. The poorer classes 
 were huddled together in the lower parts of the city 
 in the valleys, that is, which occupied the low lands 
 on the south side of the Tiber, and separated the seven 
 hills of Eome one from the other. The houses in 
 these parts were built to a great height, frequently 
 beyond what was by any means safe : 
 
 " Half the city here by shores is staid, 
 And feeble cramps that lend a treacherous aid ; 
 For thus the stewards patch the riven wall, 
 Thus prop the mansion tottering to its fall : 
 Then bid the tenant court secure repose, 
 "While the pile nods to every blast that blows." 
 
 Sat. iii. 193. 
 
 But lofty as were the houses, they supplied but scanty 
 accommodation for the vast population which desired 
 to find accommodation within them. The result was 
 that, as in the poorer districts of the large towns of 
 our own day, whole families were forced to be con- 
 tented with a single room to serve every purpose. 
 True, this was of less consequence in a southern 
 climate, Avhere during the greater portion of the year 
 an outdoor life was the most healthy as well as the 
 most pleasant ; nevertheless the hardship was felt, and 
 at times felt severely. It is not, however, on the in- 
 habitants of these tenements that Juvenal pours out 
 his fiercest satire. He does indeed blame them, but 
 the blame is for the most part mixed with pity, as for 
 men who were rather what the circumstances of their 
 lives made them, than those who had established their
 
 136 JUVENAL. 
 
 own position and were responsible for it. Xo, it was 
 on the upper classes on the self-styled " lords of the 
 earth" that he pours out the vials of his wrath. 
 These, when they lived at home, occupied mansions of 
 a very different description, not built alongside of the 
 narrow and crooked city lanes, but situated within 
 their own grounds, on the slope or summit of some 
 one of the hills of Rome sumptuous palaces, where 
 the haughty occupants lived undisturbed by the tur- 
 moil of the city, except when, in the early morning, 
 their own peculiar clients attended at a sort of levee, 
 to which the first two hours of the day were devoted, 
 there to receive the " sportula," or daily dole, which it 
 was customary for the wealthy " patronus " to deal out 
 to any client who chose to apply for it. This " dole " 
 had originally been a light meal, which was provided by 
 the " patronus " in the mam hall of his mansion ; but 
 in time, as motives of ostentation took the place of real 
 hospitality, instead of the meal a portion of food was 
 given to each man. This was carried away in baskets 
 ("sportulse"), either at the time of the morning levee 
 or in the afternoon, according to the convenience of the 
 recipient It was, however, not unusual to substitute 
 for this dole of food a small sum of money some- 
 what less than a shilling. Thus only the chosen few 
 had the honour of taking their meal with the master 
 of the house, and that only by special invitation. 
 This shabby avarice of the wealthy is one of the 
 first quarrels which Juvenal has with them. How 
 different, he exclaims, is their conduct from that of 
 former days !
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 137 
 
 " Then plain and open was the cheerful feast, 
 And every client was a bidden guest ; 
 Now at the gate a paltry largess lies, 
 And eager hands and tongues dispute the prize. 
 But first (lest some false claimant should be found) 
 The weary steward takes his anxious round, 
 And pries in every face." 
 
 Sat. i. 95. 
 
 After the first two hours of the day had been thus 
 spent, the noble Roman would go forth, if a senator, 
 to the senate-house, or else to the forum, and there 
 transact either his own business or that of the State, 
 and would there be ready to plead the cause of any 
 client who might be engaged in a lawsuit. 
 
 Thus, till eleven o'clock, the day Avas devoted by 
 all Romans, who had any pretensions to an active life, 
 to their more serious pursuits. At eleven our citizen 
 would return home, attended by many a client who 
 had followed him in hopes of an invitation to the 
 evening meal. Vain hope, at all events in most 
 
 CclScS "**" 
 
 " Returning home, he drops them at the gate ; 
 And now the weary clients, wise too late, 
 Resign their hopes, and supperless retire 
 To spend their paltry dole on herbs and fire."" 
 
 Sat. i. 32. 
 
 The next hour was sacred to the mid-day siesta; 
 and from eleven till twelve the whole town was 
 wrapped in unbroken silence. The siesta over, Eome 
 woke up again to pleasure and idleness, except in the 
 few cases where arrears of the morning's work had to
 
 138 JUVENAL. 
 
 be made up. uSTow, if you wished, you might go and 
 hear Codrus bawl out his " Theseid " to an unwilling 
 audience, or more pleasantly spend an hour listening 
 to the sweet modulations of Statius's voice, as he read 
 out parts of his unfinished " Thebaid " to a delighted 
 crowd. This was the time when poets and historians 
 would, if they could by any means assemble an audi- 
 ence, declaim their works in public in hopes of found- 
 ing a reputation ; while others, whom frequent failure 
 had made desperate, waited till the bathing-hour, and 
 would then assault the ears of the disgusted but help- 
 less bathers. Or, if you wished, you might now 
 repair to the circus, and, under the guidance of the 
 great censor of manners, watch with indignation 
 
 " Msevia, with naked breast, transfix a Tuscan boar." * 
 
 Sat. i. 22. 
 
 Or the high-born Gracchus, or some other noble, step 
 forth : 
 
 " No sword his thigh invests, 
 No helmet, shield such armour he detests, 
 Detests and spurns, and impudently stands 
 With a poised net and trident in his hands. 
 The foe advances. Lo ! a cast he tries, 
 But misses, and in frantic terror flies 
 Bound the thronged cirque ; and, anxious to be known, 
 Lifts his bare face, with many a piteous moan." 
 
 Sat viii. 200. 
 
 Else you might go to the theatre, and there see 
 
 * For an account of the active part taken by the Roman 
 women in the games of the Amphitheatre, the reader is referred 
 to p. 130.
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 139 
 
 " The hired Patrician's low buffoonery ; 
 Laugh at the Fabii's tricks, and grin to hear 
 The cuffs resound from the Mamerci's ear ! " 
 
 Sat viil 190. 
 
 It was, however, seldom that a patrician would "be 
 seen on the stage ; even the most reckless would hesi- 
 tate before breaking with the prejudice dearest to the 
 Romans in so open a manner. It was bad enough 
 that any free-born citizen should disgrace himself by 
 public acting a profession which Roman usage had 
 always limited to slaves and foreigners ; but that one 
 of patrician race should do so was in a manner an 
 insult to the entire nation. Not even the example of 
 Nero, who, when emperor, sang and played on the 
 public stage, could reconcile the Romans to such a 
 breach of ancient custom ; and, in truth, it was this 
 very singing and acting of his that more than aught 
 else led to Xero's unpopularity and downfall. 
 
 " Who, Nero, so depraved, if choice were free, 
 To hesitate 'twixt Seneca and thee ? 
 Whose crimes, so much have they all crimes outgone, 
 Deserve more serpents, apes, and sacks than one.* 
 Not so, thou say'st ; there are, whom I could name, 
 As deep in guilt, and as accursed in fame ; 
 Orestes slew his mother. True, but know, 
 The same effect from different causes flow : 
 A father murdered at the social board, 
 And Heaven's command, unsheathed his righteous sword. 
 
 * The old Roman law commanded that the convicted parri- 
 cide should be sewn up in a sack with a viper, an ape, a dog, 
 and a cock, and then cast into the sea.
 
 140 JUVENAL. 
 
 Besides, Orestes, in his wildest mood, 
 
 Poisoned no cousin, shed no consort's blood, 
 
 Buried no poniard in a sister's throat, 
 
 Sung on no public stage, no Troicks wrote. 
 
 This topped his frantic crimes this roused mankind ; 
 
 For what could Galba, what Virginius find 
 
 In the dire annals of that dismal reign 
 
 Which called for vengeance in a louder strain ? 
 
 Lo, here the arts, the studies that engage 
 
 The world's great master, on a foreign stage 
 
 To prostitute his voice for base renown, 
 
 And ravish from the Greeks a parsley crown ! " 
 
 Sat. viii. 212. 
 
 As a rule, therefore, the parts in a play would all be 
 taken by Greeks, who were, by the natural bent of 
 their nation, exquisitely adapted for the stage. 
 
 From the public spectacle the citizen would make 
 for the baths of Agrippa. Entering them, he would 
 be provided at the State expense with spacious bath- 
 rooms, supplied with, hot or cold water, and attendants 
 ready to his call. Outside these lay enclosed spaces, 
 where he might join in a game of ball, or take more 
 violent exercise in the gymnasium or palestra, as a 
 preparation for the bath. Here an hour or more 
 would be spent, partly in the water, partly iu the 
 marble-paved halls, watching the other bathers, or 
 listening to some poet who mouthed out his last work 
 till the columns echoed again, hoping for a more 
 lenient audience among men exhilarated by the fresh- 
 ness of the air and water, and who were conscious of 
 having ended the work of the day. Here, too, might also 
 be heard the latest extravagance of the philosophy of
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 141 
 
 the day, the last ingenious turn given to the tenets of 
 Epicurus or to the arguments of Zeno. The bearded 
 Stoic, in his long mantle, followed by a small knot of 
 admirers, would pace around, and prove that the Stoic 
 was alone happy, and, by virtue of his philosophy, 
 alone fit ruler over his fellow-men ; while the more 
 practical Epicurean laid down precepts for the pursuit 
 of happiness, professing only to teach men how to 
 pluck the blossom of the fleeting hours. From the 
 bath our client, if he were fortunate enough to have 
 obtained in the morning an invitation to sup with his 
 patron, would make the best of his way to his man- 
 cion upon the Esquiline hill. To reach it he would 
 have to thread the maze of the narroAV and tortuous 
 lanes of the Suburra, past many brawling taverns, 
 where a few drinkers had already assembled for their 
 evening bout ; in between the rumbling carts and the 
 shouting drovers, who would chafe at each delay in 
 the route in no gentle language. He might cast a 
 glance in passing at the troop of professional beggars, 
 seated each on his square of matting, trying to impose 
 on the passer-by with their various tricks and unblush- 
 ing effrontery ; or a fresh proof that there is nothing 
 new under the sun 
 
 " The ingenious sailor, 
 
 Who shows, where tears, where supplications fail, 
 A daubing of his melancholy tale." 
 
 Sat. xiv. 300. 
 
 And now he would be violently jostled on one side by 
 the surging crowd, as it parted in haste to make way
 
 142 JUVENAL. 
 
 for the litter of some wealthy patrician, and to avoid 
 the Hows of his tall Liburnian slaves as they laid 
 about them right and left to open a lane for their 
 master, or trampled down those who were too weak to 
 resist, or too slow to avoid them. Meanwhile the 
 client, 
 
 " By the throng 
 
 Elbowed and jostled, scarce can creep along, 
 Sharp strokes from poles, tubs, rafters, doomed to feel, 
 And plastered o'er with mud from head to heel." 
 
 Sat. iii. 244. 
 
 Nor was the progress through these narrow lanes un- 
 attended with danger to life or limb. Drivers of carts 
 and vans seem to have been as reckless then as they 
 now are : 
 
 " Hark ! groaning on, the unwieldy waggon spreads 
 Its cumbrous load, tremendous ! O'er our heads 
 Projecting elm or pine, that nods on high, 
 And threatens death to every passer by. 
 Heavens ! should the axle crack, which bears a weight 
 Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight 
 On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain, 
 What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain 1 
 
 Meanwhile, unconscious of their fellows' fate 
 At home, they heat the water, scour the plate, 
 Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil, 
 And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil ; 
 For he who bore the dole, poor mangled ghost, 
 Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast, 
 Scared at the horrors of the novel scene, 
 At Charon's threatening voice and scowling mien,
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 143 
 
 Nor hopes a passage, thus abruptly hurled, 
 Without his farthing, to the nether world." 
 
 Sat. iii. 254. 
 
 Approaching nearer to his patron's house, our friend 
 Trebius meets a string of clients less fortunate than 
 himself, bearing away the dole which was given in the 
 morning. The viands themselves are kept hot in a 
 portable kitchen, and the whole apparatus 
 
 " With steady neck a puny slave must hear, 
 And lest amid the way the flames expire, 
 Glide nimbly on, and gliding fan the fire." 
 
 And now Trebixis has at length reached his goal, to 
 find, however, only too soon, that it is but little plea- 
 sure he may expect from this banquet ; and yet it must 
 stand for payment in full of many a menial service, of 
 much slavish flattery. 
 
 In the first place it is clear that he has been asked, 
 at the last moment, merely to fill up a place which a 
 late excuse had left empty, and to make sport for the 
 more favoured guests. The very servants know the 
 difference between the needy client and the wealthy 
 friend, and make Trebius feel his position at every op- 
 portunity. The guests having taken their places, and 
 their hands and feet having been washed by the at- 
 tendants, wine is handed round to whet the appetite. 
 And what wine it is ! rank, heady, ropy, served in a 
 cracked and worthless cup, while Virro himself quaffs 
 from a chased and jewelled goblet a choice vintage iced 
 with snow from the top of Mount Soracte. Course
 
 144 JUVENAL. 
 
 after course follows, and in all the same contrast io 
 observed : 
 
 " A lobster introduced in state 
 Stretches enormous o'er the bending plate ! 
 Proud of a length of tail, he seems to eye 
 The humbler guests with scorn, as, towering by, 
 He takes the place of honour at the board, 
 And crowned with costly pickles greets the lord." 
 
 Sat. v. 80. 
 
 "While the poor client has but a mangy crab to eat with 
 his coarse and gritty bread 
 
 " Black mouldy fragments which defy the saw, 
 The mere despair of every aching jaw, 
 While manchets, of the finest flour, are set 
 Before your lord." 
 
 Sat. v. 68. 
 
 Then a red mullet is carried in, but not for Trebius ; 
 for him a half-starved pike and rancid oil must suffice. 
 Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, your sour and ill- 
 cooled wine is poured out by a hideous raw-boned 
 Moor, 
 
 " Whose hideous form the stoutest would affray, 
 If met by moonlight near the Latian way." 
 
 Sat. v. 52. 
 
 A contrast indeed to the fair youth who waits on liis 
 patron a youth 
 
 " So dearly purchased that the joint estates 
 Of Tullus, Ancus would not yield the sum, 
 Nor all the wealth of all the kings of Rome. 
 A page who costs so much will ne'er, be sure, 
 Come at your beck ; he heeds not, he, the poor,
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 145 
 
 But of his youth and beauty justly vain, 
 Trips by them with indifference and disdain." 
 
 Sat. v. 56. 
 
 The custom of having these beautiful slaves as per- 
 sonal attendants was introduced to Rome from the 
 luxurious courts of the conquered East ; and the en- 
 ormous price paid for such youths is a frequent topic 
 in the writings of the time. Nor Avas the extravagance 
 indulged in, to gratify the ruling fashion of the dining- 
 table, less prodigious. Not only was every sea swept to 
 produce fish of a more delicate flavour than those sup- 
 plied by the North Mediterranean, but even the very 
 expense of a dish was an irresistible recommendation 
 to the rich parvenus who now occupied the chief places 
 at Rome. For instance, we are told of a small fortune 
 being paid down for a mullet of six pounds weight, 
 though, except for the rarity of its size, it was no more 
 worthy of the price than any other fish. Such osten- 
 tation, however, was one of the weakest points in the 
 Roman character, aptly satirised by Cleopatra, when, at 
 her famous banquet, she dissolved a priceless pearl in 
 vinegar, and quaffed an emperor's ransom at a draught. 
 
 The banquet, however, proceeds through a long suc- 
 cession of dishes ; a fresh relay of fish comes on a 
 lamprey from the Sicilian straits balanced by skinny 
 eels, a goose's liver, a capon, a wild boar, huge mush- 
 rooms from the plains of Africa, haunches of venison, 
 hares and pullets, apples bright of hue 
 
 " As those which in Alcinous' garden grew," 
 
 Sat. v. 151. 
 A. C. vcl. xiii. K
 
 146 JUVENAL. 
 
 come on the table ; but none will ever reach Trebius. 
 At a side table, 
 
 " To put your patience to the test, 
 Lo ! the spruce carver, to his task addrest, 
 Skips like a harlequin from place to place, 
 And waves his knife with pantomimic grace, 
 Till every dish "be ranged, and every joint 
 Severed, by nicest rules, from point to point. 
 You think this folly 'tis a simple thought. 
 To such perfection now is carving brought, 
 That different gestures by our curious men 
 Are used for different dishes hare and hen." 
 
 Sat. v. 120. 
 
 At last, mortified and insulted in every way, lie must 
 retire, his hunger but half satisfied, from the board, 
 while the rest of the company go to another chamber, 
 and close the evening with deep potations, and gam- 
 bling deeper still. 
 
 We will, however, leave them crowned Avith roses or 
 parsley to elect the king of the drinking-bout, and 
 cool their palates with the iced vintages of Greece and 
 Asia, and follow Trebius on his homeward journey to 
 his solitary room in the Suburra a journey not with- 
 out its own peculiar dangers. As in modern Edin- 
 burgh, so in ancient Rome, night was the time chosen 
 by the careful housewife for throwing her slops from 
 the upper windows into the open drain that ran through 
 the street beneath. And not only slops, but other 
 harder if more cleanly debris, descended from the niany- 
 storied pile 
 
 " "Whence heedless garrettiers their potsherds throw, 
 And crush the unwary wretch that walks below !
 
 TOViN-LIFE AT ROME. H7 
 
 Clattering, the storm dessends from heights unknown, 
 Ploughs up the street, and wounds the flinty stone. 
 Pray then, and count your humble prayer well sped, 
 If pots be only emptied on your head." 
 
 Sat. iii. 274. 
 
 This danger escaped, there was another which he 
 who traversed the city by night had to encounter. 
 The streets of imperial Rome swarmed with a race 
 of bloods similar to the Mohawks and Hectors who, 
 towards the close of the last century, wandered forth 
 <; flown with insolence and wine," breaking windows, 
 upsetting sedans, beating quiet men, and offering rude 
 caresses to pretty women. The encounter of one of 
 these with, our poor client, as lie treads his way home- 
 ward, husbanding the last glimmer of the modest 
 lantern that guides his steps, is described with great 
 humour by Juvenal. 
 
 First, there is a graphic sketch of the bully as he 
 struts along the street looking for his prey, but care- 
 fully avoiding the patrician and his well-armed flam- 
 beaux-bearers' train. When the solitary plebeian 
 comes on the stage, " Stand ! " cries his antagonist ; 
 and then follows a scene somewhat like that of the 
 wolf and lamb in the fable. The client tries to 
 avoid the unequal contest by slavish obsequiousness 
 in vain : 
 
 " ' Whence come you, rogue ? ' he cries. ' Whose beans 
 
 to-night 
 
 Have stuffed you thus ? What cobbler clubbed his mite 
 For leeks or sheep's-head porridge ? Dumb, quite dumb ! 
 Speak, or be kicked ! Yet once again, your home,
 
 US JUVENAL. 
 
 Where shall I find you ? At what beggar's stand, 
 
 Temple, or bridge, whimpering with outstretched hand ? ' 
 
 Answer or answer not, 'tis all the same, 
 
 He lays me on, and makes me bear the blame. 
 
 Before the bar for beating him you come ; 
 
 This is the poor man's liberty at Rome. 
 
 You beg his pardon, happy to retreat 
 
 With some remaining teeth to chew your meat." 
 
 Sat. iii. 292. 
 
 Suppose all these dangers past, there is still the un- 
 happy chance of a fire in his poor home, which may 
 burn liis little all, and leave him to beg his livelihood 
 in cold and hunger through the street, happy to have 
 escaped with his bare life. Of course in such narrow 
 streets, flanked by such lofty houses, a fire would 
 spread with fearful rapidity, and the difficulty of 
 escape would be great indeed; and, in*fact, we are 
 often told of widespread conflagrations at Rome in 
 which the loss of life was enormous, even greater than 
 that of property ; the means of quenching a fire being 
 miserably insufficient, and amounting to little more 
 than a few buckets of water flung on by the hands of 
 the neighbours or of the night-watch, except in those 
 desperate cases where the fire was kept within bounds 
 by cutting off, as a last resource, the supply of food, 
 and the neighbouring houses fell a prey to the hand 
 of man instead of the fire. 
 
 Finally, nocturnal marauders and highwaymen 
 swarmed in the streets of Rome, ready to set the 
 police at defiance in the most open way, and to spread 
 terror throughout whole districts of the city :
 
 TOWN-LIFE AT ROME. 149 
 
 " The hardened in each ill, 
 To save complaints and prosecution, kill. 
 Chased from their woods and hogs, the Paddies come 
 To this vast city as their native home, 
 To live at ease, and safely skulk in Rome." 
 
 Sat. iii. 305. 
 
 Well indeed might Juvenal exclaim that he pre- 
 ferred even the desert crags of Prochyta to Rome, 
 where honesty and noble birth, justice and religion, 
 were alike crushed and laughed to scorn by the 
 treachery of the venal Greek by the adulation of the 
 slavish parasite !
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 
 
 OF all English, writers who have either imitated or 
 translated the Satires of Juvenal, Johnson is undoubt- 
 edly the one to whom must be assigned the highest 
 rank. Whether we weigh these imitations on their 
 own intrinsic merits, or as reproductions of the spirit 
 of the original, no competent judge can deny them a 
 high place in the roll of literary fame. Johnson has 
 left imitations of two of the Satires of Juvenal the 
 second and the tenth under the respective titles of 
 " London," and " The Vanity of Human Wishes." Of 
 these Ms " London " is in every way the less worthy 
 of notice. It is pitched in a decidedly lower tone 
 than the imitation of the tenth satire ; and though a 
 fine poem, it contains few passages of any remarkable 
 merit. It will always be read with pleasure, but it 
 will hardly rouse the enthusiasm of the reader, who 
 will not consider that the touches of humour and 
 pathos which the poem certainly contains, compen- 
 sate for a certain want of natural flow, a tendency to 
 adopt artificial and unreal sentiments, that is far more
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 151 
 
 apparent here than in the original. The praise of a 
 country life was not by any means a theme on which 
 Johnson could be expected to write in his best style. 
 He had not studied human nature except as developed 
 in the town. He knew little of the country, and that 
 little did not encourage him to seek for more know- 
 ledge. Fleet Street was to him far more attractive 
 than any rural solitude, and the view from Temple 
 Bar more beautiful than the loveliest scenery of "Wales 
 or Scotland. This fact is sufficient to account for the 
 weakness of the lines in which Johnson glorifies the 
 country at the expense of the town : lines that re- 
 mind us of Claude's pictures, where rural simplicity is 
 exemplified by nymph-like shepherdesses, courted by 
 musical and perfumed swains. Here, for instance, is a 
 sketch of the life that the poet's friend is made to 
 propose to the man who, weary of the crimes and 
 fbllies of the metropolis, should seek for quiet and 
 repose in the seclusion of some country retreat as yet 
 unpolluted by the vices of civilisation 
 
 " There prune thy walks, support thy drooping flowers, 
 Direct thy rivulets, and twine thy bowers ; 
 And, while thy grounds a cheap repast afford, 
 Despise the dainties of a venal lord : 
 There every bush with Nature's music rings, 
 There every breeze bears health upon its wings ; 
 On all thy hours security shall smile, 
 And bless thine evening walk and morning toil." 
 
 It is not easy to say what sort and manner of men 
 Johnson here has before his eyes. Certainly the 
 description is not like anything that he would have
 
 152 JUVENAL. 
 
 met with in any Welsh county, or indeed in any 
 part of England. 
 
 " London," as is well known, was written by John- 
 son during a short stay that he made in Hampstead 
 for the benefit of his health in the year 1738 ; and in 
 that quiet suburban village he may have persuaded 
 himself that he really was sated with the pleasures 
 and pursuits of London, and weary of its ceaseless tur- 
 moil. Soon, however, very far from abjuring the 
 metropolis, which was to him a centre of attraction, 
 he returned to his old love, clinging to her allurements 
 more closely than ever. Few will now be found to 
 doubt that this poem, though it contains many sonor- 
 ous lines, and shows a very considerable command of 
 language, was very much overrated at the time of its 
 first publication. 
 
 The plot of the satire is briefly as follows : The poet, 
 upon the occasion of the departure of an imaginary 
 friend from the din of the city to some distant country 
 solitude, praises his resolution while regretting the loss 
 of his companion; the friend rejoins, justifying his 
 design and setting forth the advantages which he will 
 derive from his choice. The statement of these rea- 
 sons forms the bulk of the poem. The friend whom 
 Johnson introduces has been pretty generally identi- 
 fied with that unfortunate man Savage, who, about 
 this date, left London for "Wales, there to live on the 
 charity of his friends. The design was indeed well 
 carried out by Johnson, but it would be probably 
 quite impossible to attain to excellence in the task 
 which he here set himself to accomplish. His genius
 
 JUVENAL A2fD HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 153 
 
 was fettered by the conditions that he had imposed 
 upon it, and by trying to observe too close a similarity 
 between his own poem and the model on which he 
 worked, he Avas forced to sacrifice much plausibility in 
 the plot and propriety of illustration in a vain attempt 
 to grasp at once two aims which were wholly incom- 
 patible. He might have produced an excellent trans- 
 lation of Juvenal's satire. He might have taken that 
 satire as his text and written a poem really his own, 
 which, while the general scope might have been bor- 
 rowed, would yet have been cast in a fresh mould, and 
 illustrated with scenes and characters more appropriate 
 to the times in which the plot was laid. "What he 
 actually did write has neither the merits of a transla- 
 tion nor the piquancy and spontaneity of an original 
 poem. 
 
 In reading Juvenal we cannot fail to see that 
 the poet, though perhaps hardly sincere in the con- 
 tempt which he pours on the active life of Rome, is 
 yet writing out of the fulness of his heart, as he criti- 
 cises with an impetuous flow of sarcasm things that he 
 has seen with his own eyes and heard with his own 
 ears. When we read Johnson's version we cannot get 
 rid of the feeling that many of his ideas are not really 
 called for by the exigencies of the poem, and would 
 never have found a place there had it not been for the 
 desire not to omit any stroke of satire or political allu- 
 sion that had been made a point of in the original. 
 We may especially notice as an example of this unfor- 
 tunate mode of treatment the description of Greenwich 
 at the opening of the poem. This would seem to be
 
 154 JUVENAL. 
 
 introduced simply in order to match the account of 
 the grove and fountain of Egeria, and in order that an 
 indirect sort of parallel may be hinted at between the 
 inspired Nymph of Numa and the Virgin Queen. So, 
 again, the burning of the house of Arturius, and the 
 humorous assertion that the many contributions he 
 received from his friends, as marks of sympathy for his 
 loss, made him even more wealthy than before, though 
 quite in accord with Roman manners, will hardly 
 justify to the English reader the introduction of 
 Orgilio's similar misfortune and good luck. Many 
 parts of Johnson's poem are, however, quite free from 
 this blemish; especially those passages where the 
 thought is one that is, from its nature, equally appli- 
 cable to all times. Looking at his own life, at his own 
 disappointed hopes and blighted career, Johnson 
 might well exclaim that, in his time, just as in that of 
 Juvenal, 
 
 " This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, 
 Slow rises worth by poverty depressed." 
 
 From his own experience he could furnish many 
 examples of the keen sting left behind by the sarcasm 
 of a rich fool which the hungry author did not dare 
 resent. Often must he have felt in his own person, 
 that 
 
 " Of all the griefs that harass the distressed 
 Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest ; 
 Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, 
 Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart." 
 
 The most successful parts of the satire are, however,
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 155 
 
 unquestionably those in which Johnson pours out his 
 indignation upon the French, in imitation of Juvenal's 
 invective against the Greeks ; or where he describes 
 the unseemly brawls or the murderous encounters that 
 might have been seen almost nightly by any man 
 whom business or pleasure detained till late in. the ill- 
 lighted streets of London. Such scenes he must often 
 have himself witnessed in his midnight rambles ; and 
 the lines in which he satirises the Mohawk of the 
 Strand, are little if at all inferior to Juvenal's ren- 
 contre between the poor plebeian and the Datrician 
 fire-eater : 
 
 " Some fiery fop, with new commission vain, 
 Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man ; 
 Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast, 
 Provokes a broil, and stabs you for a jest. 
 Yet ev'n these heroes, mischievously gay, 
 Lords of the street, and terrors of the way ; 
 Flushed as they are with folly, youth, and wine, 
 Their prudent insults to the poor confine ; 
 Afar they mark the flambeau's bright approach, 
 And shun the shining train, and golden coach," 
 
 The imitation of the tenth satire is a poem in every 
 way superior to " London." In the ten years that 
 intervened between the production of these two satires, 
 Johnson's powers as a writer had made decided pro- 
 gress, and " The Vanity of Human Wishes " was a sub- 
 ject on which he always wrote with vigour and elegance. 
 In this poem, too, Johnson shows himself a far less 
 close imitator, and is thus able to give his genius a 
 wider range. The lines no longer seem to labour under 
 the cramping demands of a translation ; and Johnson
 
 156 JUVENAL. 
 
 is here able to show that he was endowed with a fair 
 share of the poet's divine breath. Like Juvenal, ho 
 introduces his subject by a few lines deploring the 
 unhappy fate of man, who, deluded by hope and fear, 
 by desire and hate, 
 
 " Shuns fancied ills, and chooses airy good ;" 
 
 who is so little able to guide his own life that those 
 things which he longs for most eagerly will often, 
 when attained, bring nothing but misery and ruin in 
 their train. This is the general theme of the satire ; 
 and in proof of its truth are adduced many examples 
 of men whose ambition has been baffled by that which 
 seemed to be their chiefest boast, whose pride has been 
 brought down to the very dust through the qualities 
 in which they had most gloried themselves. 
 
 First, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey is given as a paral- 
 lel to that of Sejanus in Juvenal. Here the palm of 
 superior merit must undoubtedly be awarded to Ju- 
 venal. His graphic and impassioned account of the 
 tumultuous scenes in the streets of Eome immediately 
 after the condemnation and death of the hated favourite, 
 is incomparably grand. We seem to see the houses 
 all decked with laurel branches as for a victory ; to 
 hear the anxious hum of the crowds of citizens, as they 
 collect half in joy, half in terror, at the awful rapidity 
 of the blow, and swell into a universal roar of execration 
 as the hated features of Sejanus are recognised. Every- 
 where are his statues hurled from their pedestals and 
 rolled into the bonfires roaring ready for their prey ; 
 while his lifeless and mutilated corpse is itself dragged
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 157 
 
 amid ignominy and derision through the streets, ex- 
 posed to the mean insults of the cowardly populace, 
 that was but one short day before ready to shout " long 
 life and prosperity to Emperor Sejanus." 
 
 Johnson has here failed to reach the high excellence 
 of his model, yet his failure is not ignominious. The 
 description of the great prelate as he stood forth in all 
 the haughtiness of power, rivalling the king himself in 
 the magnificence of his retinue and the authority of his 
 command, is with considerable skill made to lead up to 
 the sudden catastrophe by which the whole edifice of 
 dignity and wealth is in a moment swept away. 
 
 " In full-blown dignity, see Wolsey stand, 
 Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand : 
 To him the Church, the realm, their powers consign, 
 Through him the rays of regal bounty shine, 
 Turned by his nod the stream of honour flows, 
 His smile alone security bestows : 
 Still to new heights his restless wishes tower, 
 Claim leads to claim, and power advances power ; 
 Till conquest unresisted ceased to please, 
 And rights submitted left him none to seize." 
 
 The blindness of man is next exemplified by the 
 miserable portion that awaits the aspirant to literary 
 fame. Here Johnson's pathetic enumeration of mis- 
 fortunes and rebuffs that the author must expect of 
 his hunger and nakedness of his shifts to satisfy the 
 bare demands of nature of the patron's cruel coldness, 
 raid the yet more cruel neglect of the learned of the 
 emptiness of success that comes only when success has 
 lost its charms, and has no longer any value for one
 
 158 JUVEXAL. 
 
 who has outlived the enthusiasm of youth, and in the 
 desolateness of old age has none to whom he might 
 impart the pleasure of gratified ambition is full of 
 the truest and most touching pathos. Very far superior 
 in execution, it must be owned, is the whole passage 
 to Juvenal's somewhat frigid lamentation over the fate 
 of Demosthenes and Cicero. 
 
 " When first the college rolls receive his name, 
 The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame ; 
 Resistless burns the fever of renown, 
 Caught from the strong contagion of the gown : 
 O'er Bodley's dome his future labours spread, 
 And Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head. 
 Are these thy views ? Proceed, illustrious youth, 
 And Virtue guard thee to the throne of Truth ! 
 Yet, should thy soul indulge the gen'rous heat 
 Till captive Science yields her last retreat ; 
 Should Reason guide thee with her brightest ray, 
 And pour on misty Doubt resistless day; 
 Should no false kindness lure to loose delight, 
 Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright ; 
 Should tempting Novelty thy cell refrain, 
 And Sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain ; 
 Should Beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart, 
 Nor claim the triumph of a lettered heart ; 
 Should no disease thy torpid veins invade, 
 Nor Melancholy's phantoms haunt thy shade ; 
 Yet hope nor life from grief or danger free, 
 Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee ; 
 Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, 
 And pause awhile from Letters, to be wise ; 
 There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, 
 Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol. 
 See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, 
 To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
 
 JUVENAL AND IIIS MODERN IMITATORS. 159 
 
 If dreams yet flatter, once again attend, 
 Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end." 
 
 "We can hardly resist the impression that it is to him- 
 self that Johnson is here alluding, especially in the 
 lines "beginning with " Should no disease," lines that 
 feelingly tell of his own ill-health and many privations, 
 of the despondency that continually checked his re- 
 liance on himself, and the melancholy fear of death 
 against which he so often and so earnestly strove in 
 vain. In any case he has here this advantage over 
 Juvenal, that he describes scenes and events that came 
 under his own observation. He does not, like the 
 Eoman, write on themes that had long since become 
 the commonplace of every ambitious poetaster, a sub- 
 ject of declamation in all the schools of Home. The 
 same advantage in the choice of his examples still 
 stands Johnson in good stead when he illustrates the 
 vanity of military success and of the warrior's fame by 
 the ruin and death of Charles of Sweden. That prince, 
 to whose marvellous victories and still more portentous 
 ruin Europe still paid the tribute of terror or of 
 admiration, was as yet a name of power to evoke the 
 wonder and the sympathy of men. "When Juvenal 
 wrote, three hundred years of eventful history had 
 elapsed since the battle of Zama, and the memory of 
 the day when Koine had trembled before the armies of 
 Hannibal was now scarcely sufficiently distinct to 
 thrill with real emotion the heart of any citizen of the 
 Empire. Juvenal has also here this additional diffi- 
 culty to overcome : patriotism would not allow him 
 to dwell on the great victories of Hannibal over the
 
 160 JUVENAL. 
 
 Romans, though the contrast that he might have thus 
 brought out would have added much in dramatic in- 
 terest to the tale of his defeat and inglorious death. 
 Johnson was hampered by no such scruples; and for 
 loftiness of thought and majesty of diction, the lines 
 in which he describes the brief though brilliant career 
 of the ill-starred monarch, have seldom been surpassed. 
 The whole passage is well worth quoting. 
 
 " On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 
 How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide ; 
 A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, 
 No dangers fright him, and no labours tire ; 
 O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 
 Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain ; 
 No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, 
 \Var sounds the trump, he rushes to the field ; 
 Behold surrounding kings their powers combine, 
 And one capitulate, and one resign ; 
 Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain ; 
 * Think nothing gained,' he cries, ' till nought remain, 
 On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, 
 And all be mine beneath the polar sky.' 
 The march begins in military state, 
 And nations on his eye suspended wait ; 
 Stern Famine guards the solitary coast, 
 And winter barricades the realms of Frost ; 
 He conies, nor want nor cold his course delay; 
 Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day : 
 The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands, 
 And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 
 Condemned, a needy supplicant to wait, 
 While ladies interpose and slaves debate. 
 But did not Chance at length her error mend ? 
 Did no subverted empire mark his end ?
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 161 
 
 Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? 
 Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 
 His fall was destined to a barren strand, 
 A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 
 He left a name, at which the world grew pale, 
 To point a moral or adorn a tale." 
 
 In the remainder of the poem there is a distinct 
 falling off from the high standard that Johnson has 
 here reached ; and Juvenal has everywhere the advan- 
 tage over his imitator, in the general train of thought 
 and the vividness of his illustrations, no less than in 
 the grace and dignity of his language. The picture of 
 the helpless and imbecile grey-beard, in which he 
 would show how vain and foolish is the oft-repeated 
 prayer for length of days, has never been surpassed 
 for graphic power. No less vivid and life-like is the 
 description of the ill-omened marriage of Silius to 
 Messalina a warning to mothers, terrific in its awful 
 catastrophe, that a prayer granted to the full is but 
 too often a cruel curse. Once at least had that beauty 
 that is so earnestly desired for every child hurried its 
 unfortunate possessor to a shameful and untimely end. 
 Yet his death, though early, came too late to save a 
 noble name from the stain of guilt. Himself married, 
 he did not shrink to marry Caesar's wife in the face of 
 Rome and of the sun, and to become an actor in a 
 crime that was before unknown even in the guilty 
 Court of Rome. We have elsewhere given Juvenal's 
 description of this scene. In the place of this thrilling 
 episode, Johnson can offer us only a collection of trite 
 
 A. c. vol. xiii. L
 
 162 JUVENAL. 
 
 commonplaces on the lonesomeness of old age and 
 the instability of female virtue. Yet more; in ths 
 concluding lines of the poem, where Johnson again 
 imitates Juvenal more closely, and his subject is the 
 efficacy of prayer, and the trust that we should repose 
 in a kind and omniscient Deity, Johnson has failed 
 to approach the lofty precepts and the truly religious 
 tone of the heathen moralist. The one couplet of 
 the entire passage that is most adequate to the sub- 
 ject is an almost literal translation of two lines of 
 Juvenal ; and we seek in vain for any traces of that 
 superiority in this respect which we would naturally 
 have been led to expect from one who wrote from the 
 vantage-ground insured to him by a knowledge of the 
 teaching and examples of Christianity. On the whole, 
 however, in spite of occasional flaws, we may safely 
 assert that these two imitations have reached a degree 
 of excellence rarely attained in works of this descrip- 
 tion. Johnson seldom falls very far behind his model. 
 He never allows himself to become insipid or prolix, 
 while sometimes the copy is decidedly superior to the 
 original itself. There is, indeed, one failing common to 
 both the Latin and the English poet that tends much 
 to obscure and even to invalidate the argument as a 
 whole. As Gibbon has clearly pointed out, Juvenal 
 altogether failed to draw the obvious distinction be- 
 tween those apparent goods, such as warlike fame and 
 absolute command, which cannot fail to bring discon- 
 tent and unhappiness in their train, and those which, 
 like length of days or personal beauty, may well prove
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 163 
 
 a real blessing to those to whose portion they fall, and 
 who use them aright. 
 
 Of translators, properly so called, there are not many 
 that will call for notice. The Satires of Juvenal do not 
 seem to have attracted, at any rate not in England, the 
 same attention that has been bestowed on the writings 
 of Horace. "Whatever the reason may be, it was not 
 till the middle of the seventeenth century that the two 
 versions edited . by Barten Holyday and Sir Robert 
 Stapylton appeared almost contemporaneously. Of 
 the latter it is not necessary to say much. He was 
 little qualified, either as a scholar or as a poet, to 
 do justice to the task he had undertaken ; and his 
 volumes are now seldom read, never admired. The 
 translation of his literary rival has had a longer term 
 of existence, though it can hardly be said that even 
 it was ever really popular. Holyday was indeed 
 deficient in some of the qualifications necessary to the 
 translator. What Dryden said of him is true, that 
 the poetry of Juvenal has always escaped his grasp, 
 and that his version is often more difficult to under- 
 stand than the original itself. His learning and in- 
 dustry were considerable, but the object he aims at is 
 one which, from its very conditions, it is impossible 
 to reach ; and his attempt to give a word-for-word 
 translation in rhyme has met with the failure that 
 might have been foreseen to be its inevitable result. 
 As an example of the style in which he wrote, we here 
 give a few lines from the 10th Satire describing the 
 fall of Sejanus. These may be compared with Gifford's
 
 164 JUVENAL. 
 
 rendering of the same passage that we have quoted 
 elsewhere : 
 
 " Hark, the fires snap ! the rout's adored head lacks 
 Nor blast nor furnace : huge Sejanus cracks ! 
 Of the world's second face are formed strange matters, 
 Water-pots, basins, frying-pans, and platters ! 
 Crowned be the doors with bays ! a bull, chalk-white 
 And large, led to Jove's Capitol ! O sight ! 
 Sejanus dragged ! joy ! his lips, his wan 
 Face saw y' ? Belie ve't, I never loved the man." 
 
 And this is neither better nor worse than his aver- 
 age manner throughout the volume. Of his Notes and 
 Illustrations we must speak far more highly ; and at 
 the period when they were published they were looked 
 on as a contribution of considerable importance to- 
 wards the elucidation of the Latin poets. Yet even 
 here, it is the matter far more than the manner in 
 which it is expressed that calls for admiration ; and 
 the same absence of taste, and of ear for harmony of 
 sound, is everywhere conspicuous. It is amusing to 
 turn from his forced rhymes and halting prose to his 
 preface, where he excuses at some length, though not 
 apparently without a certain amount of complacency, 
 his own flirtation with the Muses. " As for publish- 
 ing poetry," he writes, "it needs no defence, there 
 being a divine rapture in it, if my Lord Verulam's 
 judgment shall be admitted." In spite, however, of 
 the claim that Holyday thus urges for the indulgence 
 that is granted to the poet, it is clear that he wrote 
 rather for the convenience of the scholar than for the
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 165 
 
 entertainment of the general reader, who indeed very 
 soon turns with disgust from the inartistic rhymes 
 and ill-constructed sentences in which are united all 
 the disadvantages of rugged prose and of still more 
 rugged verse. In spite, then, of the learning and 
 industry displayed by the accomplished archdeacon, a 
 new version of Juvenal was before long demanded, or 
 at all events welcomed, by the public. 
 
 Towards the close of the seventeenth century Dryden 
 was absolute dictator of the literary world, and a new 
 translation was published under his auspices. This 
 work, supported by his authority and the reputation 
 that he then enjoyed, met with a considerable share of 
 popularity. Dryden himself translated the 1st, the 3d, 
 the 6th, and the 10th Satires, besides an introductory 
 essay of some considerable length, written in the 
 form of a dedication to the Earl of Dorset of his 
 day, in which he takes occasion to review the history 
 and the scope of satire. In spite, however, of the 
 conspicuous position which Dryden then held, and of 
 his high character as a poet, the merits of the volume 
 were not great. The lines, indeed, are often power- 
 ful and sonorous, and almost always correct, while the 
 finer passages seldojn fail to leave a distinct impression 
 on the mind. The general style, though by no means 
 equal either in force or elegance to that of Dryden's 
 original poetry, is terse and vigorous ; and if the 
 expressions are sometimes familiar, or even coarse, the 
 interest is never allowed to flag, and every page is 
 enlivened by the play of wit and the ornament of
 
 166 JUVENAL. 
 
 epigram or antithesis. Nevertheless, no one who 
 reads these satires but will feel that they in some sort 
 fail to satisfy the expectations that he might justly 
 have indulged. When the greatest master of English 
 satire set himself the task of translating into his own 
 language the works of the first satirist of Rome, we 
 should have grounds for expecting that the result 
 would be a volume of no slight merit ; that it would 
 take a high, if not the highest, place among works of 
 that description, especially when we remember that 
 Dryden excelled far more in command of language 
 and delicacy of judgment than in any peculiar gift of 
 imagination or fancy. Who, one is tempted to ask, 
 more fit than the founder of the English critical school 
 of poetry to excel in a task in which perfection must 
 be attained far more by practised skill in versification, 
 and a nice discrimination in the choice of expressions, 
 than by any of the rarer and more precious gifts of 
 the inspired poet ? A luxuriant imagination might 
 indeed make a translator impatient of the trammels 
 cast on him by the necessity of following closely his 
 original, and thus render him pro tanto a less com- 
 petent workman than one far inferior to him in poetic 
 genius. 
 
 And yet, in spite of these great and obvious 
 qualifications, both positive and negative, Dryden has 
 not even attained that degree of success which would 
 seem to be within the reach of many men of but slight 
 literary capacity. This failure is due in part, at least, 
 to an inadequate conception of the end that a trans-
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 167 
 
 lator ought to propose to himself. Until the time of 
 Dryden, there had scarcely been any English render- 
 ings of the poets of Greece and Rome that would in 
 the present day meet with the slightest degree of 
 applause. Some writers, like Holyday, had rendered 
 success impossible for themselves by attempting an 
 exactly literal translation into rhyming verse. Others, 
 such as Cowley, mistook licence for liberty, and barely 
 imitated the poems which they professed to translate. 
 Dryden himself was in some danger of falling into this 
 latter error. He saw clearly the faultiness of Holy- 
 day's version, and was himself, as he distinctly tells 
 us, ready to sacrifice the scholar to the poet whenever 
 it should seem to him impossible to seize at once both 
 the exact meaning and the poetry of his author. 
 " The common way we have taken," he says, speaking 
 of himself and his colleagues in the undertaking, " is 
 not a literal translation, but a kind of paraphrase ; or 
 somewhat, which is more loose, between a paraphrase 
 and an imitation." 
 
 The least pleasing form of all in which this licence 
 shows itself is the laxity into which Dryden has only 
 too often permitted himself to fall, of using terms 
 that must necessarily, by their meaning and their 
 associations, call up a train of modern ideas quite alien 
 to any that could have presented themselves to 
 Juvenal's mind. For example, such lines as 
 
 " When he dares hope a colonel's command;" 
 or 
 
 " Board-wages and a footman's livery;"
 
 168 JUVENAL. 
 
 or again 
 
 " A hundred hungry slaves with their Dutch-kitchens 
 
 wait ; " 
 or 
 
 " A third is charmed with the new opera notes ; " 
 or 
 
 " The ghostly sire forgives the wife's delights," 
 
 can hardly be accepted as representing any form of 
 Roman thought. So, again, to translate Porticus by 
 the Mall, or Seres by France, is to hurry the reader 
 over twenty centuries of time, from the Rome of 
 Domitian to the London of the Restoration. In 
 spite of these failings, however, Dryden's version is in 
 some ways the best that we have in the English 
 language ; at all events, it has the merit of having 
 been written by a true poet. The more modern 
 translations of Gifford and Hodgson have this merit, 
 that they follow the Latin text more faithfully than 
 any previous attempts. Both of them bear the traces 
 of careful and accurate study, and the scholarship of 
 both is thoroughly sound ; while the versification, if 
 not always of the highest class, is always elaborated 
 with diligence, and seldom sins against the maxims of 
 good taste. They may be read and appreciated both 
 by the scholar and by those who can hope for no 
 closer acquaintance with the writings of Juvenal. 
 Still, neither the one nor the other has reached 
 that high standard of excellence which we have now 
 been taught to expect. No one has yet done for 
 Juvenal what the late Professor Conington did for 
 Virgil, or Lord Derby for the Iliad of Homer. Till
 
 JUVENAL AND HIS MODERN IMITATORS. 169 
 
 such a translation shall appear, the English reader 
 must perforce be contented with an imperfect 
 acquaintance with him, whose verse to use words 
 applied to Cowper and Johnson 
 
 " May claim grave, masculine, and strong 
 Superior praise to the mere poet's song." 
 
 END OF JUVEXAL. 
 
 KD BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AMD SONS, EDINBURGH.
 
 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. /W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 ' ETONIANA," ' THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS,' ETC. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXIII
 
 NOTE, 
 
 THESE pages are much indebted to M. Guizot's volume 
 entitled ' Menandre ; Etude Historique, &c. : ' also to 
 Mr Dunlop's ' History of Eoman Literature.' 
 
 No attempt has been made to avoid roughness in 
 the metre of the translations from Plautus and Ter- 
 ence ; they can hardly be, in this respect, more 
 irregular than the originals. 
 
 W. L. C.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA, . 1 
 
 II. MENANDER 6 
 
 in. PLAXTTUS 30 
 
 IT. THE COMEDIES OF PLATJTUS : .... 35 
 
 THE THREE SILVER PIECES THE BRAGGADOCIO 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE THE SHIPWRECK THE CAP- 
 TIVESTHE TWO MEN.3SCHMI AMPHITRYON THE 
 POT OF GOLD THE TRICKSTER THE TOUNQ CAR- 
 THAGINIAN STICHUS, ETC. 
 
 V. TERENCE 95 
 
 VI. THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE : . . . .100 
 THE MAID OP ANDROS THE MOTHER-IN-LAW THE 
 SELF-TORMENTOR THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE PHOB- 
 MIO THE BROTHERS.
 
 PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 THE Comedies of Plautus and Terence are all that 
 remains to us of the Eoman Comic Drama. It is 
 impossible to deal with the works of these writers, 
 even in so slight a sketch as is contemplated in 
 this volume, without some previous reference to the 
 Greek originals from which they drew. For the 
 Roman drama was, more than any other branch of 
 Eoman literature, an inheritance from Greece; one of 
 those notes of intellectual sovereignty which that mar- 
 vellous people impressed upon their conquerors. The 
 plays which, during five hundred years, from the days 
 of the Scipios to those of Diocletian, amused a Eoman 
 audience, had as little claim to be regarded as national 
 productions as the last happy " adaptation " from the 
 French which enjoys its brief run at an English 
 theatre. 
 
 But when we speak of Greek Comedy in its relation 
 to the Eoman Drama, we must not form our idea of 
 
 A. c. vol. xvi. A
 
 2 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 Comedy from the plays of Aristophanes. It so happens 
 that he stands before us moderns as the sole surviving 
 representative, in anything like discernible shape, of 
 the comic drama at Athens. But his brilliant bur- 
 lesques, with their keen political satire, their wealth of 
 allusion, their mad extravagance of wit pushed even to 
 buffoonery, have not much more in common with the 
 plays of Plautus and Terence than with our modern 
 parlour comedy as we have it" from Mr Robertson or 
 Mr Byron. 
 
 It has been said, w*hen we parted from Aristophanes 
 in a former volume of this series, that the glories of 
 the old Athenian comedy had departed even before the 
 great master in that school had put his last piece upon 
 the stage. The long War was over. The great game 
 of political life no longer presented the same intense 
 excitement for the players. Men's lives and thoughts 
 had begun to run in a narrower channel. As a poli- 
 tical engine, there was no longer scope or occasion for 
 the comic drama. And again, it was no longer easy 
 to provide that costly and elaborate spectacle, the 
 numerous Chorus, highly trained and magnificently 
 costumed, the machinery, the decorations, and the 
 music, which had delighted the eyes of Athenian 
 playgoers none the less because their intellect was keen 
 enough to appreciate every witticism of the dialogue. 
 It must be remembered that the expense of mounting 
 a new play and this must always have been consider- 
 able where the theatres were on such a vast scale was 
 not a matter of speculation for author or manager, as 
 with us, but a public charge undertaken in turn by 
 the richer citizens ; and in which those who sought
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 - -*. j^ 
 
 popularity, in order to advance their own political 
 claims, vied with each other in the liberality of their 
 expenditure. But at the close of the Peloponnesian 
 War, many a noble family found itself impoverished 
 by the long and terrible struggle, and the competition for 
 public office had probably lost much of its charm. The 
 stage followed the temper of the nation : it became less 
 violently political, less extravagant and more sedate. 
 Shall one venture to say that, like the nation, it lost 
 something of its spirit 1 There was method, we must 
 remember, in the mad licence of Aristophanes. Bitter 
 as he was against his political opponents, it was an 
 honest bitterness, and Cleon was his enemy because he 
 believed him to be the enemy of the state. Socrates 
 and Euripides were caricatured in the most unsparing 
 fashion, for the amusement of the audience, and it was 
 convenient for a professional jester to have two such 
 well-known characters for his subject ; but he had 
 always the apology that he really believed the teaching 
 both of the philosopher and of the tragedian to have an 
 evil influence upon public morality. There was a certain 
 earnestness of purpose which gave respectability to the 
 Aristophanic comedy in spite of its notorious offences 
 against decency and good manners. 
 
 The new style of Comedy, which was the original of 
 that of Plautus and Terence, and which developed in 
 later times into what we call Comedy now, did not per- 
 haps fully establish itself at Athens until nearly half a 
 century after the death of Aristophanes. But the germ 
 of it may be found in the later tragedies of Euripides. 
 His heroes, and even his gods, are as unlike as possible 
 to the stately figures who move in the dramas of
 
 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 . He may call them by 'what names he 
 pleases, but they are the personages of ordinary life. 
 His drunken Hercules, in his beautiful drama (tragedy 
 it can hardly be called) ' Alcestis,' is as really comic as 
 any character in Menander's plays. His unsparing 
 satirist Aristophanes, in his ' Frogs,' when he intro- 
 duces ^Eschylus and Euripides pleading before Bacchus 
 their respective claims to the chair of tragedy, makes 
 it one of the charges against the latter that he had low- 
 ered the whole tone of tragedy : that whereas ^schyltis 
 had left the ideal men of the drama " grand figures, 
 four cubits high," his rival had reduced them to the 
 petty level of everyday life poor mean gossips of the 
 market-place.* He allows Euripides indeed to plead 
 in his defence that while the elder tragedian had given 
 the audience nothing but high-flown sentiment and 
 pompous language which was quite above their compre- 
 hension, he had brought before them subjects of common 
 household interest which all could understand and 
 sympathise with. Both accusation and defence were 
 true. Euripides had violated the severe simplicity of 
 classic tragedy : but he had founded the domestic 
 drama. 
 
 The oligarchy of Rome would scarcely have permitted 
 to the writers for the stage the licence of personal satire 
 which the Athenian democracy not only bore with, 
 but encouraged and delighted in. The risk which 
 Aristophanes ran from the political partisans of Cleon 
 would have been as nothing, compared with the perils 
 of the comic dramatist who should have presumed to 
 
 * Frogs, 953, 910.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 take the same liberty with any members of the " old 
 great houses " of Rome. There had been at least one 
 example of this in the fate of the poet Naevius. "We 
 know very little, unfortunately, of what his dramas 
 may have been like, for in his case we have remain- 
 ing to us only the merest fragments. But he seems to 
 have made an attempt to naturalise at Eome the old 
 Aristophanic style of comedy. A plebeian by birth, 
 and probably a democratic reformer in politics, he had 
 ventured upon some caricature of, or satire upon, the 
 members of the great family who bore the name of 
 Metellus, and who, as he complained, were always 
 holding high office, fit or unfit. " It is fatality, not 
 merit," he said, in a verse which has been preserved, 
 " that has made the Metelli always consuls of Eome." 
 The family or their friends retorted in a song which 
 they chanted in the streets, the burden of which was, 
 in effect, that " Nsevius would find the Metelli a fatality 
 to him." They very soon got him imprisoned, under 
 the stringent libel laws of Rome : and, since that was 
 not enough to break his spirit for he is said, after his 
 release, to have written comedies which were equally 
 distasteful in high quarters, they succeeded at last in 
 driving him into banishment. We hear of no more 
 ambition on the part of Roman dramatists to assume 
 the mantle of Aristophanes. They were content to be 
 disciples in the later school of Menander, and to take 
 as the subject of comedy those general types of human 
 nature under which no individual, high or low, was 
 obliged to think that his own private weaknesses were 
 attacked.
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 MENANDER. 
 
 MENANDER was born at Athens, B.C. 342, of a family 
 in which dramatic talent was in some degree heredi- 
 tary, for his uncle Alexis had written comedies of 
 some repute. It would appear that the faculties which 
 make the successful comic writer commonly develop 
 themselves at an early age ; for Menander, like his 
 predecessor Aristophanes, won his first prize for comedy 
 when he had barely reached manhood : and the same 
 may be remarked as to the early and rapid success of 
 some of our modern humorists.* But this youthful 
 triumph was not followed, as might have been ex- 
 
 * Of course he did not escape the charge of presumption 
 and precocity from older candidates. He had to defend him- 
 self on this occasion, like Pitt, from "the atrocious crime of 
 being a young man. " His defence, if we may trust the anec- 
 dotist, was by a parable. He brought upon the stage some 
 new-born puppies, and had them thrown into a vessel of water. 
 Blind and weak as they were, they instinctively tried to swim. 
 "Athenians," said the young author, "you ask how, at my 
 years, I can have the knowledge of life which is required in the 
 dramatist : I ask you, under what master and in what school 
 did these creatures learn to swim ? "
 
 MENANDER. 7 
 
 pected, by many such victories. He wrote more than a 
 hundred comedies, and he only won the crown eight 
 times. He was beaten in the contest, again and again, 
 by his elder rival Philemon. Of this writer's plays 
 nothing but the merest fragments remain to us, and we 
 are thus unable to form any opinion as to the justice of 
 the popular verdict. But critics who probably had the 
 means of comparing the performances of both authors, 
 do not hesitate to impute this preference of Philemon 
 to Menander by the contemporary public to other 
 causes than the comparative merits of the rivals. Quin- 
 tilian goes so far as to say that the wonderful genius 
 of Menander robbed all his contemporary dramatists 
 of what might have been their reputation, and that 
 " the blaze of his glory threw their merits into the 
 shade." 
 
 The honours which were refused to the poet by his 
 fellow-citizens were liberally offered him by powerful 
 patrons elsewhere. Demetrius " Poliorcetes " both pro- 
 tected him when he occupied Athens and invited him 
 to his court when he had seated himself upon the 
 throne of Macedonia : and Ptolemy Lagus, when he 
 founded his celebrated library at Alexandria, would 
 gladly have imported the living dramatist as well as 
 the manuscripts of his predecessors' works. Menander 
 refused the invitation, though the king offered him 
 " all the money in the world ; " but whether it was, 
 as he declared, because he could not tear himself 
 from a certain fair lady at Athens, or because he found 
 that the invitation had been extended to his rival 
 Philemon, may not be so certain. 
 
 But it is said that the injustice of his fellow-citizens
 
 8 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 broke the poet's heart. In his bitter mortification 
 at one undeserved defeat (so goes the story) he threw 
 himself into the sea off the wall at the Piraeus, and was 
 drowned, while yet in the fulness of his powers not 
 much over fifty years of age. The authority is sus- 
 picious, and the act is very little in accordance with 
 the philosophy of Menander, as we gather it from the 
 remains of his plays. A contemporary and probably a 
 personal friend of Epicurus (they were born in the 
 same year), he seems to have adopted heartily the easy- 
 going optimism of that much-abused teacher. To take 
 human life as it was ; to enjoy its pleasures, and to 
 bear its evils cheerfully, as unavoidable : not to expect 
 too much from others, as knowing one's own infir- 
 mities ; to remember that life is short, and therefore 
 to make the most of it and the best of it, not to 
 waste it in vain regrets ; this is the philosophy of 
 Menander's comedies, which on these points are oc- 
 casionally only too didactic. The whole secret of it lies, 
 he says, in three words " Thou art man." 
 
 " The sum of all philosophy is this 
 Thou art a man ; than whom there breathes no creature 
 More liable to sudden rise and fall." * 
 
 This is the principle on which, by the mouth of his 
 various characters, he is continually excusing human 
 weaknesses, and protesting against the unreasonable- 
 ness of mortal regrets and expectations : 
 
 " Being a mortal, ask not of the gods 
 Escape from suffering ; ask but to endure ; 
 For if thou seekest to be ever free 
 
 * Meineke, Menandri Eeliq., 188.
 
 MEN A NDER. 9 
 
 From pain and evil, then thou seekest this, 
 To be a god, or die." * 
 
 One does not wonder that Horace, when he shut him- 
 self up in his country villa in December, to escape 
 from the noisy riot of the Saturnalia at Rome, took 
 with him into his retirement a copy of Menander as 
 well as of Plato. No doubt he read and appreciated 
 the philosopher ; and the manuscript looked well upon 
 his table when his friends called. But we may be 
 sure that the dramatist was his favourite companion. 
 In him Horace found a thoroughly congenial spirit ; 
 and we shall probably never know how far he was 
 indebted to him for his turn of thought. 
 
 Menander's private habits seem to have been too much 
 those of an Epicurean in the lower sense of the term; 
 and if Phaedrus is to be trusted in the sketch which he 
 gives of him in a couple of lines, he had a good deal 
 of the foppishness not uncommon to popular authors. 
 Phaedrus describes him as " scented with delicate per- 
 fumes, wearing the fashionable flowing dress, and 
 walking with an air of languor and affectation." t 
 
 It is possible, indeed, that the philosophic and didac- 
 tic character of Menander's comedies may have been 
 one reason why they failed so often to win popular 
 applause. Horace himself must have been the poet of 
 the court, and of what we call " Society," rather than 
 of the million. The comedy of manners, which deals 
 with the problems of domestic life and such is the 
 comedy of Menander had not so strong an attraction 
 
 * M<-ineke, Menand. Eel., 203. ' + Fabul., v. 1."
 
 10 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 for the multitude as the uproarious farce which formed 
 so large an ingredient of the Old Comedy. So far as we 
 can judge from the mere disjointed fragments which 
 alone have survived, there was very little of broad fun or 
 of comic situations in the plays of Menander. It was 
 in the finer delineation of character, as is admitted by 
 all his critics, that he most excelled. He had studied 
 carefully, and reproduced successfully, the various 
 phases of that human nature which was the Alpha and 
 Omega in his philosophy. The saying of the wise 
 man of old " Know thyself" was a very insufficient 
 lesson, he considered, for the dramatist. 
 
 " It was not, after all, so wisely said, 
 That precept ' Know thyself ; ' I reckon it 
 Of more advantage to know other men." * 
 
 How real the characters in his dramas appeared to those 
 who had the best means of judging may be gathered 
 from the terse epigram ascribed to the grammarian 
 Aristophanes, the librarian of Alexandria, who lived 
 about a century after him : 
 
 " Life, and O Menander ! speak, and say 
 Which copied which ? or nature, or the play ? " 
 
 There certainly does not seem to have been that variety 
 in the characters introduced which we expect and find 
 in the modern drama. But life itself had not then the 
 variety of interest which it has now : and the sameness 
 of type which we observe in the persons of the drama 
 probably existed also in society. It must be re- 
 
 * Meineke, Menand. Eel., 83.
 
 MENANDER. 11 
 
 membered also that, owing to the immense size of 
 the theatres, every performer wore a mask in which 
 the features were exaggerated, just as he wore buskins 
 which increased his stature, in order to make his face 
 and figure distinctly visible to the distant rows of the 
 audience. These masks necessarily presented one fixed 
 expression of features; they could not possibly be 
 made to display the variable shades of emotion which 
 a real comedian knows how to throw into his face ; 
 nor could the actor, if he was to preserve his identity for 
 the audience, change his mask together with his mood 
 from scene to scene. This difficulty would naturally limit 
 the dramatic author's sphere of invention : he would feel 
 that he had to confine himself to certain recognised 
 generalities of character, such as the mask-moulder could 
 contrive more or less to represent, and that the finer 
 shades of distinction which, in spite of so much that is 
 identical, distinguish man from man, must be left for 
 the descriptive poet, and were outside of the province 
 .of the author who worked for the stage. The 
 cold severity of Greek tragedy did not suffer much 
 from this limitation of the actor's resources : the level 
 and stately declamation of the text might be accom- 
 plished perhaps as well with a mask (which was even 
 said to increase the volume of sound) as without it. 
 So also, in the Old Comedy of Aristophanes and his 
 contemporaries, the exaggerated style of their humour 
 found apt expression in the broad grotesque which the 
 mask-maker and property-man supplied, just as they 
 do now in our burlesques and extravaganzas. The 
 delicate play of features and expression which are 
 so essential to the due impersonation of some of the
 
 12 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 most original characters in our modern drama was 
 plainly impossible to an actor who wore a mask : one 
 might as reasonably look for it from a company of 
 Marionettes. The manufacturer of masks for the 
 ancient comic drama worked according to fixed rules, 
 which were perfectly well understood both by the 
 performers and by the audience. There was a tolerably 
 large repertory of these contrivances always at the 
 disposal of the stage-manager : but each mask had its 
 own specific character ; its features were so moulded as 
 to be typical of a class. We are told with great par- 
 ticularity that about the period during which these 
 comedies were placed upon the stage, there were nine 
 different characters of masks representing old men, ten 
 for younger characters, and seven for slaves. For the 
 women, three varieties were considered enough for the 
 older personages, the matrons and nurses of the scene. 
 The young ladies, as was their due, were better pro- 
 vided for ; no less than fourteen varieties of face were 
 kept in stock for them. And the mask, in their case 
 unlike some masks which are still worn on the stage 
 of real life was made not to conceal but to indicate 
 the character of the wearer, and even her age. There 
 was to be found, in the theatrical wardrobe, the face 
 and head-dress, all in one, which denoted " the 
 talkative young woman," and the "modest young 
 woman ; " the one who was still fairly on her promotion, 
 and the one who was past her prime ; there was a 
 special mask for the young lady " with the hair," and 
 one still more peculiar, the " lamp " head-dress, as it 
 was called, for the young lady whose hair stood up- 
 right like a lamp. There was the head-dress " with
 
 MENANDER. 13 
 
 the gold band," and that with " the band of many 
 colours ; " and, if we did not know that in the classical 
 comedy, as on our own stage in former times, even the 
 female parts were taken by men, we might have 
 fancied that there was some jealous rivalry as to the 
 right to wear these latter distinguished costumes. 
 The advantage of the system, if any, was this : that 
 the moment the performer appeared upon the scene, 
 the audience had the key to the character.* 
 
 The range of characters which were available for the 
 purposes of the dramatist was limited again by the 
 nature of the scenic arrangements. By long theatrical 
 tradition, intelligible enough amongst a people who 
 led essentially an outdoor life, and where the theatre 
 itself was, up to a comparatively late period, open to 
 the sky, all the action of these dramas was supposed 
 to take place in the open air. In the comedies which 
 we are now considering, the scene is commonly a pub- 
 lic street, or rather, probably, a sort of " place " or 
 square in which three or four streets met, so that there 
 was (as has been more than once attempted on the mo- 
 dern stage) a virtual separation of it into distinct parts, 
 very convenient in many ways for carrying on the action 
 
 * Should any English reader be inclined to smile, with 
 some degree of superciliousness, at these simple contrivances 
 of the earlier drama, let him remember there was a time when a 
 provincial actor in an English strolling company would bor- 
 row of some good-natured squire a full-bottomed wig and lace 
 ruffles in which to perform the part of Cato ; without which 
 conventional costume it was thought no audience could recog- 
 nise the "noble Koman." George Harding tells us an 
 amusing story of the Eton amateurs of his day impressing a 
 cast-off wig of the Vice-Provost's for the purpose.
 
 14 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 of the piece. A party coming down one street towards 
 the centre of the stage could hold a separate conversa- 
 tion, and be quite out of the sight of another party in 
 the other street, while both were equally visible and 
 audible to the spectators. This will help to explain 
 the stage directions in more than one scene in the 
 comedies of Plautus and Terence. But this limitation 
 of the locality of the scene limited also the range of 
 characters. These were usually supposed to be resi- 
 dents in the neighbourhood, and occupants of some of 
 the houses in the street. Practically, they will be 
 very often found to be members of two neighbouring 
 families, more or less closely connected, whose houses 
 occupied what we should now call the right and left 
 wings of the stage. Occasionally (as in the ' Aulularia ' 
 and ' Mostellaria ' of Plautus) the scene changes to the 
 inside of one of the houses, or a temple which stands 
 close by ; but such scenes are quite exceptional, and 
 in those cases some kind of stage chamber appears to 
 have been swung round by machinery to the front. 
 
 For these reasons, perhaps, as well as for others, 
 the principal characters in the repertory of the 
 " New " Comedy are few, and broadly marked. They 
 seem to have occurred over and over again with but 
 little variation in almost every piece. There are 
 the fathers, heads of families, well-to-do burghers, 
 occupying their house in the city, and commonly 
 having a farm in the adjacent country besides, but 
 seldom appearing to have any other particular occu- 
 pation. Their character is almost always one of two 
 recognised types, either stern and niggardly, in which 
 case they are duly cheated and baffled by their spend-
 
 MENANDER. 15 
 
 thrift sons and their accomplices : or mild and easy, 
 when they go through the process of having their 
 purses squeezed with less resistance and less suffering. 
 There is the respectable mother of the family, who is 
 sometimes the terror of her husband and sometimes 
 tyrannised over by him. One or two sons, and some- 
 times a daughter to which number the household of 
 comedy seems limited make up the family group. 
 The sons are young men about town, having apparently 
 nothing to do but to amuse themselves, a pursuit 
 which they do not always follow after the most re- 
 putable fashion. Then there are the slaves, on whom 
 depends in very great measure the action of the piece. 
 It is very remarkable how in Greek comedy, and in 
 the Roman adaptations from it, this class supplies 
 ,not only the broadly comic element, but the wit 
 of the dialogue, and the fertility of expedient which 
 makes the interest of the drama. They are not 
 brought upon the stage merely to amuse us by their 
 successful roguery, or by its detection and consequent 
 punishment, by their propensity to gormandise and 
 their drunken antics, this kind of "low comedy 
 business " is what we might naturally expect of them. 
 But in witty repartee, and often in practical wisdom, 
 they are represented as far superior to their masters. 
 And this ability of character is quite recognised by the 
 masters themselves. They are intrusted, like Panneno 
 in the ' Eunuchus' of Terence, with the care of the sons 
 of the house, even at that difficult age when they are 
 growing up to manhood, during the father's absence 
 abroad : or like his namesake in the ' Plocium ' of 
 Menander, and Geta in the ' Two Brothers ' of Terence,
 
 16 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 they are the trusted friend and mainstay of a struggling 
 family. It is by no means easy to explain satisfac- 
 torily this anomalous position. The slave no doubt 
 in many cases, owing the loss of his personal liberty 
 to the fortunes of war, being either a captive or a 
 captive's child, might, although a foreigner, be of 
 as good birth and hereditary intellect as his master. 
 In many households he would go to the same 
 school, and enjoy the same training in many 
 ways as the young heir of the family : he would 
 be taught many accomplishments, because the more 
 accomplished he was, the more valuable a chattel he 
 became. But was it also that these Athenian citizens, 
 from whom Menander drew, held themselves some- 
 what above the common practical business of life in 
 short, like the Easterns in the matter of dancing, 
 considered that they " paid some one else to do their 
 thinking for them " in such matters ? The witty slave 
 occupied a position in those households somewhat akin 
 to the king's jester in late times allowed to use a free- 
 dom which would not have been suffered from those of 
 higher rank, but limited always by the risk of condign 
 personal chastisement if he ventured too far. The 
 household slave was certainly admitted to most of his 
 master's secrets ; admitted, it must be remembered, 
 almost of necessity, as many of our own modern servants 
 are a condition of things which we are all too apt to 
 forget. He might at any moment by his ability and 
 fidelity win, as so many did, his personal freedom, and 
 became from that moment his master's friend ; not, in- 
 deed, upon terms of perfect equality, but on a much 
 nearer level than we in these days should be willing
 
 MENANDER. 17 
 
 to allow. Xo stronger instance of this need be sought 
 than that of Cicero's freedman Tiro, between whom and 
 his master we find existing an affection almost fraternal. 
 The slave who had gained his freedom might rise for 
 it was Terence's own case to be a successful dramatist 
 himself, and to sit down at table with such men as 
 Scipio and Laelius. The anomaly is that a man 
 who stood in such confidential relations to his master, 
 and with such possibilities in his future, should feel 
 himself every moment liable, at that master's slightest 
 caprice, to the stocks and the whip. But it is an 
 anomaly inherent to the institution of slavery itself ; 
 and no worse examples of it need be sought than are 
 to be found in the annals of modern slave plantations. 
 In the few fragments of Menander which remain 
 to us we find the poet adopting, as to the slave's 
 position, a much higher tone than we might have ex- 
 pected, and which is very remarkable in a writer who 
 would certainly never have dreamed of the abolition 
 of a system which must have appeared to him a neces- 
 sity of civilisation. It is a tone, be it said, which we 
 do not find in his Eoman imitators, Plautus or Terence. 
 He plainly feels slavery to be an evil a degradation 
 to the nature of man. His remedy is a lofty one 
 freedom of soul : 
 
 " Live as a free man and it makes thee free." * 
 
 The young men are, as has been said, usually very 
 much of the same type, and that not a very high 
 one : hot-blooded and impulsive, with plenty of self- 
 ish good-nature, and in some cases a capacity for 
 
 *Meineke, Menand. Rel., 269. 
 A. c. vol. xvi. B
 
 18 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 strong and disinterested friendship. We have too 
 little opportunity of judging what Menander made of 
 them ; but in Terence they have commonly the re- 
 deeming point of a strong affection for their parents 
 underlying all their faults, though it does not prevent 
 them from intriguing with their slaves to cheat them 
 in order to the gratification of their own passions or 
 extravagance. Yet their genuine repentance when de- 
 tected, and the docility with which they usually accept 
 their father's arrangements for them in the matter of 
 a wife, are a remarkable proof of the strength of the 
 paternal influence. The daughter of the family may be 
 said (in quite a literal sense) to have no character at 
 all. She is brought up in something stricter than even 
 what Dryden calls " the old Elizabeth way, which was 
 for maids to be seen and not heard ; " for she is never 
 seen or heard, though we are always led to believe that 
 she is an irreproachable young lady, possessing a due 
 amount of personal charms, and with a comfortable 
 dowry ; which combined attractions are quite sufficient 
 to make one of the young gentlemen happy some- 
 times at very short notice in the last scene of the 
 play. But it was not etiquette for an unmarried 
 woman at Athens to make her appearance in the public 
 streets and in the streets, for the reasons already 
 given, the action of .the piece invariably takes place. 
 Of some of the ladies who do appear on the stage the 
 same remark as to character (in a different sense) might 
 be made ; and if something less were seen and heard 
 of them, it might be better. 
 
 This entire absence of what we should call love- 
 scenes, places these dramas at an enormous disadvantage
 
 MENANDER. 19 
 
 before the modern reader. Yet in one direction, a great 
 approach to modern ways of thought had been made 
 in this New Athenian Comedy. Love, with the 
 dramatists of this school, is no longer the mere animal 
 passion of some of the older poets, nor yet that fatal and 
 irresistible influence which we see overpowering mind 
 and j- reason in the Medea of Euripides, or in the 
 Dido of Virgil. It has become, in Menander and his 
 followers, much more like the love of modern romance. 
 It is a genuine mutual affection between the sexes, 
 not always well regulated, but often full of tender- 
 ness, and capable of great constancy. Still, the mo- 
 dern romance is not there. It was very well for ancient 
 critics to say that Menander was emphatically a writer 
 of love-dramas that there was no play of his which 
 had not a love-story in the plot : and it is true, if we 
 may judge from the Latin adaptations, that his come- 
 dies usually ended in marriage. But a marriage with 
 a bride whom the audience have never been allowed 
 to see, and for whose charms they must take the bride- 
 groom's word, has not a very vivid interest for them. 
 The contrivances by which, in order to suit what were 
 then considered the proprieties, the fair object is kept 
 carefully out of sight while the interest in her fortunes 
 is still kept up, will seem to an English reader a 
 striking instance of misplaced ingenuity. 
 
 If, however, in these comedies of ancient domestic 
 life we miss that romance of feeling which forms so 
 important an element if it may not rather be said to 
 be of the very essence of the modern drama, we escape 
 altogether from one style of plot which was not only the 
 reproach of our old English comedy-writers, but is still
 
 20 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 too common a resource with modern writers of fiction, 
 romantic or dramatic. The sanctities of married life 
 are not tampered with to create a morbid interest for 
 audience or reader. The husband may sometimes be a 
 domestic tyrant, or his wife a scold, and their matri- 
 monial wrangles are not unfrequently produced for the 
 amusement of the audience ; but there is little hint of 
 any business for the divorce court. The morality of 
 these comedies is lax in many respects, chiefly because 
 the whole law of morality was lower on those points 
 (at least in theory) in the pagan world than it is in the 
 Christian : but the tie of fidelity between husband and 
 wife is fully recognised and regarded. In this respect 
 some advance had been made, at least so far as popular 
 comedy was concerned, since the time of Aristophanes. 
 His whole tone on such points is cynical and sneering ; 
 and when he lashes as he does with such out-spoken 
 severity the vices of the sex, it seems to be without any 
 consciousness of their bearing upon domestic happi- 
 ness. The wife, in his days at least, was not the 
 companion of her husband, but a property to be kept 
 as safe as might be, and their real lives lay apart. 
 Some considerable change must have taken place in 
 these relations at the time when Menander wrote, if 
 we may judge from scattered expressions in his lost 
 comedies. He is not, upon the whole, complimentary 
 to marriage, and he makes capital enough out of its 
 risks and annoyances ; he does not think (or perhaps 
 professes not to think) that good wives are common. 
 " Needs must that in a wife we gain an evil, 
 Happy is he who therein gains the least."* 
 * Meineke, Menand. Rel., 190.
 
 MENANDER. 21 
 
 But, if a really good wife can be found, he admits 
 with the wise Hebrew king that " her price is above 
 rubies." Verses like the following, salvage from the 
 wreck of his plays, passed into proverbs : 
 
 " A virtuous woman is a man's salvation." 
 " A good wife is the rudder of the house." 
 
 He is honest enough, too, to lay the fault of ill-assorted 
 marriages at the door of those who have to choose in 
 such a matter, as much as of those who are chosen \ in 
 this, as in other things, he recognises a certain law of 
 supply and demand. 
 
 " What boots it to be curious as to lineage 
 Who was her grandfather, and her mother's mother 
 Which matters nought ? while, for the bride herself, 
 Her whom we have to live with, what she is, 
 In mind and temper, this we never ask. 
 They bring the dowry out, and count it down, 
 Look if the gold be good, of right assay, 
 The gold, which some few months shall see the end of ; 
 While she who at our hearth must sit through life, 
 We make no trial of, put to no proof, 
 Before we take her, but trust all to chance."* 
 
 The gibes which he launches against women seem 
 to have been not more than half in earnest. He pro- 
 bably borrowed the tone from Euripides, of whom he 
 was a great admirer, and whose influence may be 
 pretty clearly traced in the style and sentiment of his 
 comedies. 
 
 We usually find, then, the chief parts in the comedy 
 filled by the members of one or two neighbouring 
 
 *Meineke, Menand. Rel., 189.
 
 22 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 families. Of the other characters who are introduced, 
 two of the most common, and therefore, we must sup- 
 pose,, the most popular, are the Braggadocio and the 
 Parasite. The former is usually a soldier of fortune 
 who has served in the partisan wars in Asia, under 
 some of those who were disputing for the fragments of 
 Alexander's empire ; who has made money there, and 
 come to Athens as a modern successful adventurer 
 might go to Paris to spend it. He has long stories to 
 tell of his remarkable exploits abroad, which no one 
 is very well able to contradict, and to which those 
 who accept his dinners are obliged to listen with such 
 patience as they may. His bravery consists much 
 more in words than deeds : he thinks that his repu- 
 tation will win him great favour from the ladies, but 
 on this point he commonly finds himself very much 
 mistaken. How far such a character was common at 
 Athens in Menander's time, we cannot say: he appears, 
 with variations, in at least five of his comedies of which 
 fragments have reached us, and in no less than eight 
 out of the twenty which remain to us of Plautus. He 
 would evidently present salient points for the farce- 
 writer, and it is not surprising to find him repro- 
 duced, no doubt an adaptation from these earlier 
 sketches, as the " Spanish Captain" of Italian comedy, 
 or the " Derby Captain " of our own. He is the Don 
 Gaspard of Scarron's ' Jodelet Duelliste,' Le Capitaine 
 Matamore of Corneille's ' L'Hlusion Comique,' and the 
 Bobadil of Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour.' In 
 Spain or Italy he is perhaps more in his natural place 
 for these military adventurers were not uncommon in 
 the Continental wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
 
 MENANDER. 23 
 
 turies than lie is in the plays of Plautus or of Terence, 
 who transferred him bodily from their Greek original : 
 for the Eomans themselves were not likely to furnish 
 examples of him, and no hired mercenary would have 
 ventured to swagger in those days at Rome. To a 
 Roman audience this could only have been one of those 
 conventional characters, made to be laughed at, which 
 an easy public is very often willing to accept from an 
 author's hands. He is sometimes accompanied by the 
 Parasite, who is content to eat his dinners on condition 
 of listening to his military reminiscences, and occasion- 
 ally drawing them out for the benefit of others, act- 
 ing, in short, generally as his humble foil and toady. 
 This is a character almost peculiar to the comedy of 
 this school, and which has not found its way much 
 into the modern drama. In the Athens of Menander, 
 and in the Rome of Plautus and Terence, when life 
 was altogether more in public, and when men of any 
 moderate position seldom dined alone, the character, 
 though not in the exaggerated form which suited the 
 purpose of the comic dramatist, appears to have been 
 sufficiently common. Athenaeus, from whose curious 
 ' Table-Talk ' we learn so much about the social life of 
 those times, notes three distinct classes of the Para- 
 site. There was the professed talker the narrator of 
 anecdotes and sayer of good things who was in- 
 vited to " make sport " for the guests who might be too 
 grand or too dull to amuse each other ; and this useful 
 class of " diner-out " is not altogether unknown in 
 modern society. This variety of the character seems 
 to have not unfrequently " read up " carefully in pre- 
 paration for the display of the evening, as modern
 
 24 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 professors of the art of conversation have been reported 
 to do. " I will go in and have a look at my common- 
 place-books, and learn up some better jokes," says 
 Gelasimus in the 'Stichus' of Plautus, when he is 
 afraid of being superseded by some new pretenders. 
 There was, again, the mere toady and flatterer, of 
 whom we shall see a specimen presently in one of the 
 fragments of Menander, as well as in the comedies of 
 Plautus ; * and of whom we have some historical ex- 
 amples fully as ludicrous as any inventions of the stage, 
 if the biographers of Philip and Alexander of Macedon 
 are to be trusted. "We are told, that whenever King 
 Philip ate anything sour or acid, and made wry 
 faces at it, his flatterer Cleisophos went through exactly 
 the same grimaces ; when the king hurt his leg, 
 Cleisophos immediately put on a limp ; and when the 
 king lost his right eye by the arrow at Methone, the 
 courtier appeared next morning with the same eye 
 bandaged up. It is also said that to wear the head a 
 little on one side became quite the fashion in the court 
 of Alexander, because he himself had a slight deformity 
 of the kind. Another variety of the parasite was the 
 still meaner humble companion, who carried messages 
 and did little services of all kinds, sometimes worse 
 than menial, for his richer patron. 
 
 An amusing soliloquy of one of these hungry guests 
 who is waiting for his dinner (having possibly found 
 no entertainer, and therefore no dinner at all, the day 
 before) has been preserved for us by Aulus Gellius out 
 of a lost comedy which he attributes to Plautus, 
 
 * See p. 44.
 
 MENANDER. 25 
 
 ' The Boeotian,' founded upon one of the same name 
 by Menander : 
 
 " The gods confound the man who first invented 
 This measuring time by hours ! Confound him, too, 
 Who first set up a sun-dial chopping up 
 My day into these miserable slices ! 
 When I was young, I had no dial but appetite, 
 The very best and truest of all timepieces ; 
 When that said ' Eat,' I ate if I could get it. 
 But now, even when I've the chance to eat, I must not, 
 Unless the sun be willing ! for the town 
 Is grown so full of those same cursed dials, 
 That more than half the population starve." * 
 
 These persons are represented, of course, as having 
 not only the habit of living as far as possible at other 
 men's expense, but as bringing an insatiable appetite 
 with them to their entertainers' tables 
 
 " 'Tis not to gather strength he eats, but wishes 
 To gather strength that he may eat the more." f 
 
 Neither host nor servants are sparing in their gibes' 
 as to the gormandising propensities of this class of self- 
 invited guests. The cook in ' The Menaechmi ' of 
 Plautus is ordered to provide breakfast for three : 
 
 Cook. What sort of three ? 
 
 *" Erotium. Myself, Meneechmus, and his Parasite. 
 
 Cook. Then that makes ten. I count the parasite 
 As good as any eight. 
 
 Although the character of the Parasite is a direct 
 importation from the Greek stage, it was likely to be a 
 very common one also in Roman society. The rela- 
 
 * AuL Cell., iii. 3. t Fragment of Plautus.
 
 26 THE ANCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 tion of patron and client, which meets us everywhere 
 in the Eoman city life of those days when the great 
 man was surrounded with his crowds of hangers-on, all 
 more or less dependent upon and obsequious to him, 
 and often eating at his table was sure to breed in 
 plenty that kind of human fungus. 
 
 Among the remaining characters common to this 
 Menandrian Comedy we meet with the waiting-maid, 
 more or less pert and forward who, although a slave, 
 seems to have had considerable liberty of tongue, and 
 who maintains her ground upon the modern stage 
 with little more change in the type than has followed 
 necessarily with the changes of society. There is, again, 
 the family nurse, garrulous but faithful ; and some- 
 times we have another of the household in the person 
 of the family cook. Lastly, there is the hateful slave- 
 merchant, the most repulsive character in the Greek 
 and Roman drama, and upon whose ways and doings 
 there is no need for us here to dwell. 
 
 The philosophy of Menander has been spoken of as 
 distinctly of an Epicurean character, and his morality 
 is certainly no whit higher than that of his age and 
 times. Yet fragments of his have escaped the general 
 wreck, which have in them a grave melancholy not 
 usually associated in our ideas Avith the teaching of 
 that school, and which have led a modern scholar, than 
 whom no one understood more thoroughly the spirit of 
 Greek literature, to remark that Menander after all 
 seems to have been "more adapted to instruct than 
 to entertain." * Such a fragment is the following : 
 
 * "Walter Savage Landor.
 
 MENANDER. 27 
 
 " If thou wouldst know thyself, and what thou art, 
 Look on the sepulchres as thou dost pass ; 
 There lie within the bones and little dust 
 Of mighty kings and wisest men of old ; 
 They who once prided them on birth or wealth, 
 Or glory of great deeds, or beauteous form ; 
 Yet nought of these might stay the hand of Time. 
 Look, and bethink thee thou art even as they."* 
 
 We find also passages quoted as his, though their 
 genuineness is somewhat doubtful, which breathe a 
 higher tone still. The sentiment expressed in the fol- 
 lowing lines, attributed to the poet by Clement of 
 Alexandria, is almost identical with that of the grand 
 passage with which Persius concludes his second 
 Satire : 
 
 " Trust me, my Pamphilus, if any think 
 By offering hecatombs of bulls or goats, 
 Or any other creature, or with vests 
 Of cloth of gold or purple making brave 
 Their images, or with sheen of ivory, 
 Or graven jewels wrought with cunning hand, 
 So to make Heaven well-pleased with him, he errs, 
 And hath a foolish heart. The gods have need 
 That man be good unto his fellow-men, 
 No unclean liver or adulterer, 
 Nor thief nor murderer from the lust of gain, 
 Nay, covet not so much as a needle's thread, 
 For One stands by, who sees and watches all." t 
 
 The same writer has quoted another line as from the 
 Greek dramatist, referring to the purification required 
 
 * Menand. Eel., 196. t Clem. Alex. Strom., v. c. 14.
 
 28 THE AXCIENT COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 of the worshipper of the gods, which is a close parallel 
 to the Christian teaching : 
 
 " He is well cleansed that hath his conscience clean." 
 
 Another father of the Church has cited a terse 
 apophthegm, which he attributes to Menander, as an 
 argument to show the folly of idolatry : 
 
 " The workman still is greater than his work." * 
 
 We owe the loss of Menander's plays most probably 
 to the fierce crusade made by the authorities of the 
 early Church against this kind of heathen literature. 
 Yet it is plain that this feeling was not shared by the 
 ecclesiastical writers who have been quoted ; and it is 
 singular that we have one sentence of his embalmed 
 in the writings of a still higher authority St Paul : 
 
 " Evil communications corrupt good manners." 
 
 A manuscript of some at least of these comedies was 
 said to have been long preserved in the library of the 
 Patriarch at Constantinople, but it seems to have 
 escaped the search of modern scholars, and has pro- 
 bably in some way disappeared.t 
 
 How great the loss has been to the literary world 
 cannot be measured, though something may be guessed. 
 It may be said of him as was said of our own Jeremy 
 Taylor "His very dust is gold." The number of 
 single verses and distiches caught up from his plays 
 which passed into household proverbs show how 
 widely his writings must have leavened the literary 
 
 * Justin Mart., Apol. i. 20. t See Journ. of Educ., i. 138.
 
 AIENANDER. 29 
 
 taste both of Athenians and Eomans. The estima- 
 tion in which he was held by those who had access 
 to his works in their integrity is fully justified by 
 what we can trace of his remains. " To judge of 
 Menander from Terence and Plautus is easy but 
 dangerous," says M. Guizot ; dangerous, because we 
 cannot tell how much he may have lost in the process 
 of adaptation to the Roman stage. Caesar has been 
 thought to have spoken slightingly of Terence when 
 he called him " a half-Menander :" but the Roman poet 
 in all likelihood bore no such proportion to his great 
 original.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PLAUTUS. 
 
 ALL the writers of Comedy for the Roman stage, of 
 whose works we have any knowledge, were direct imi- 
 tators of Menander and his school. Plautus, however, 
 was probably less indebted to him than were his succes- 
 sors, Csecilius, Lavinius, and Terence. Of the two inter- 
 mediate authors we know very little ; but Plautus and 
 Terence have been more fortunate in securing for them- 
 selves a modern audience. Their comedies may not have 
 been really better worth possessing than those of other 
 writers who had their day of popularity : but theirs 
 alone have been preserved, and it is from them that 
 we have to form our judgment of the Comedy of Re- 
 publican Rome. 
 
 Titus Maccius Plautus the second would be what 
 we should call his surname, and the last simply means 
 " flat-foot " * in the dialect of Umbria, the district in 
 
 * Literary tradition in some quarters asserted that in one of 
 his comedies he introduced a sketch certainly not too flattering 
 of his own personal appearance : 
 
 " A red-haired man, with round protuberant belly, 
 Legs with stout calves, and of a swart complexion : 
 Large head, keen eyes, red face, and monstrous feet." 
 Pseudolus, act iv. sc. 7.
 
 PLAUTUS. 31 
 
 which he was born, was a man of humble origin, the 
 son, according to some authorities, of a slave. But little 
 is known with any certainty on these points. He is said 
 to have made money in trade, and to have lost it again ; 
 to have then worked as a stage carpenter or machinist, 
 and so perhaps to have acquired his theatrical taste. 
 These early associations are taken also, by some critics, 
 as an explanation of some rudeness and coarseness in his 
 plays ; for which, however, the popular taste is quite 
 as likely to have been accountable as any peculiar 
 tendencies of the writer. Like that marvel of dra- 
 matic prolificness, Lope de Vega, who quotes him as 
 an apology, Plautus wrote for the people, and might 
 have pleaded, as the Spaniard did, that " it was only 
 fair that the customers should be served with what 
 suited their taste." The masses who thronged 
 the Eoman theatres had not the fine intellect of the 
 Commons of Athens. Aristophanes could never have 
 depended upon them for due appreciation of his double- 
 edged jests, or appealed to them as critical judges of 
 humour. The less keen but more polished dialogue and 
 didactic moralising of Menander would have been still 
 less attractive to such an audience as that to which 
 Plautus had to look for favour. The games of the circus 
 the wild-beast fight and the gladiators, the rope-dan- 
 cers, the merry-andrews, and the posture-masters, were 
 more to their taste than clever intrigue and brilliant 
 dialogue. 
 
 Plautus we know him now only by his sobriquet 
 began his career as a dramatist B.C. 224. He continued 
 to write for the stage, almost without a rival in popu- 
 larity, until his death, forty years later. How many
 
 32 THE ROMAN COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 comedies he produced during this long service of the 
 public we do not know : twenty remain bearing his 
 name, all which are considered to be genuine. All, 
 with the exception probably of 'Amphitryon,' are 
 taken from Greek originals. It is not necessary here 
 to give a list of their titles ; the most interesting of 
 them will be noticed in their order. With Greek 
 characters, Greek names, and Greek scenery, he gives 
 us undoubtedly the Eoman manners of his day, which 
 are illustrated more fully in his pages than in those of 
 the more refined Terence. Let the scene of the drama 
 lie where it will, we are in the streets of Rome all the 
 while. Athenians, Thebans, or Ephesians, his dramatic 
 'personce are all of one country, just as they speak one 
 language; they are no more real Greeks than Shak- 
 speare's Othello is a Moor, or his Proteus a " gentle- 
 man of Verona" except in the bill of the play. So 
 little attempt does he make to keep up anything like 
 an illusion on this point, that he even speaks of "tri- 
 umvirs " at Thebes, builds a " Capitol " at Epidaurus, 
 and makes his characters talk about " living like those 
 Greeks," and " drinking like Greeks," utterly careless 
 of the fact that they are supposed to be Greeks them- 
 selves. He is as independent of such historical and 
 geographical trifles as our own great dramatist when 
 he makes Hector quote Aristotle, or gives a sea-coast 
 to Bohemia. But he has the justification which all 
 great dramatists would fairly plead; that his characters, 
 though distinctly national in colour, are in a wider 
 sense citizens of the world ; they speak, in whatever 
 language, the sentiments of civilised mankind. 
 
 However coarse in many respects the matter and
 
 PLAUTUS, 33 
 
 style of Plautus may appear to us, it is certain that 
 good judges amongst those who were more nearly his 
 contemporaries thought very highly of his diction. It 
 was said of him by ^Elius Stolo that " if the Muses 
 ever spoke Latin, it would be the Latin of Plautus." 
 Perhaps he was the first who raised conversational Latin 
 to the dignity of a literary style. 
 
 His plays are in most cases introduced by a prologue, 
 spoken sometimes by one of the characters in the play, 
 and sometimes by a mythological personage, such as 
 Silenus or Arcturus. The prologue generally gives an 
 outline of the plot, and this has been objected to by 
 some critics as destroying the interest of the action 
 which is to follow. But a similar practice has been 
 adopted of late years in our own theatres, of giving 
 the audience, in the play-bill, a sketch of the leading 
 scenes and incidents; and this is generally found to in- 
 crease the intelligent enjoyment of the play itself. The 
 prologues of Plautus frequently also contain familiar ap- 
 peals on the part of the manager to the audience, and 
 give us a good deal of information as to the materials of 
 which the audience was composed. The mothers are 
 requested to leave their babies at home, for the babies' 
 sakes as well as for the sake of other people ; and the 
 children who are in the theatre are begged not to make 
 a noise. The slaves are desired not to occupy the seats, 
 which are not intended for them, but to be content 
 with standing-room ; protests are made against the 
 system of claqueurs, friends of some favourite actor, 
 who gave their applause unfairly, to the discredit of 
 others : and the wives are requested not to interrupt 
 the performance with their chatter, and so annoy their 
 
 A. c. vol. xvi. c
 
 34 THE ROMAN COMIC DRAMA. 
 
 husbands who are come to see the play. Remarks of 
 this kind, addressed to the " house," are not confined, 
 however, to the prologue, but occur here and there in 
 the scene itself; these last are evident relics of the 
 earlier days of comedy, for we find no such in the plays 
 of Terence.
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 THE COMEDIES OP PLAUTUS. 
 I. THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 
 
 THE plot of this little comedy, which is confessedly 
 borrowed from the Greek of Philemon, and is called in 
 the original with perhaps more propriety " The Buried 
 Treasure," is simple enough. Charmides, a rich citizen 
 of Athens, has been half ruined by an extravagant son. 
 He goes abroad, leaving this son and a daughter in 
 charge of his old friend Callicles, begging him to do 
 what he can to keep young Lesbonicus from squander- 
 ing the little that is left of the family property. At the 
 same time, he intrusts his friend with a secret. He has 
 buried under his house a treasure three thousand gold 
 Philips.* This, even if things come to the worst, will 
 serve to provide a marriage portion for his daughter, 
 in the* event of his not living to return to Athens. 
 Callicles has striven in vain to persuade the young man 
 to mend his ways ; Lesbonicus has gone on in the same 
 course of extravagance, until he has nothing left but a 
 
 * Gold coins struck by the Macedonian kings, and worth about 
 two guineas apiece.
 
 36 fHE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 small farm outside the city, and the house in which he 
 lives and where the treasure is buried. This house 
 at last he offers for sale : and Callicles is only just in 
 time to buy it in for himself, and so to preserve for 
 his absent friend the precious deposit. 
 
 The action of the piece is introduced by a short 
 allegorical ' Prologue,' in which Luxury introduces her 
 daughter Poverty into the house of the prodigal, and 
 bids her take possession : a very direct mode of en- 
 forcing its moral upon the audience. This moral, how- 
 ever, is by no means carried out with the same distinct- 
 ness in the catastrophe. 
 
 So much of the story is told at the opening of the 
 play by Callicles to a friend, who seems to have called 
 purposely to tell him some disagreeable truths as is 
 the recognised duty of a friend. People are talking 
 unpleasantly about his conduct : they say that he has 
 been winking at the young man's extravagance, and 
 has now made a good thing of it by buying at a low 
 price the house which he is obliged to sell. Callicles 
 listens with some annoyance, but at first with an 
 obstinate philosophy. Can he do nothing, his friend 
 asks, to put a stop to these evil rumours ? 
 
 I can, and I can not ; 'tis even so ; 
 
 As to their saying it, that I cannot help ; 
 
 I can take care they have no cause to say it. 
 
 But, on his old friend pressing him, he yields so far as 
 to intrust him with the whole secret. 
 
 A suitor now appears for the hand of the young 
 daughter of the absent Charmides. It is Lysiteles, a 
 young man of great wealth and noble character, the
 
 THE THREE SILVER PIECES: 37 
 
 darling of an indulgent father, who consents, though 
 with some natural unwillingness, not only to accept 
 her as a daughter-in-law without a portion, but even to 
 go in person and request the consent of her brother 
 Lesbonicus, who is known to be as proud as he is now 
 poor, and who is very likely to make his own poverty 
 an objection to his sister's marrying into a rich family, 
 though the lover is his personal friend. The father 
 has an interview with him, but can only obtain his 
 consent to such a marriage on condition that his friend 
 will accept with her such dowry as he can give the 
 single farm which he has retained in his own possession 
 out of all the family estate, and from which his faith- 
 ful slave Stasimus the classical prototype of Scott's 
 Caleb Balderstone is contriving to extract a living for 
 his young master and himself. This honest fellow is 
 present during part of the interview, and is horrified 
 to hear the prodigal generosity with which the ruined 
 heir insists, in spite of all the other's attempts to 
 decline it, upon dowering his sister with the last re- 
 mains of his estate. At last he draws Philto the 
 suitor's father aside on some pretence, and the follow- 
 ing dialogue ensues : 
 
 Stasimus. I have a secret for your ear, sir only you ; 
 Don't let him know I told you. 
 Philto. You may trust me. 
 
 Stas. By all that's good in heaven and earth, I warn 
 
 you, 
 
 Don't take that land don't let your son set foot on it 
 Til tell you why. 
 
 Phil. Well, I should like to hear.
 
 38 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 Stas. Well, to begin with (confidentially) the oxen, 
 
 when we plough it, 
 
 Invariably drop down dead in the fifth furrow. 
 Phil, (laughing). Stuff ! nonsense ! 
 Stas. (getting more emphatic). People say there's devils 
 
 in it ! 
 
 The grapes turn rotten there before they're ripe. 
 , Lesbonicus (watching their conversation, and speaking 
 to himself}. He's humbugging our friend 
 there, I'll be bound ! 
 'Tis a good rascal, though he's stanch to me. 
 
 Stas. Listen again in the very best harvest seasons, 
 You get from it three times less than what you've sown. 
 
 Phil. An excellent spot to sow bad habits in ! 
 For there you're sure they won't spring up again. 
 
 Stas. There never was yet a man who had that land, 
 But something horrible always happened to him ; 
 Some were transported some died prematurely 
 Some hung themselves ! (pauses to watch the effect.) And 
 look at him, now, there (motioning towards 
 his master). The present owner what is he ? 
 a bankrupt. 
 Phil, (pretending to believe him). Well, heaven deliver 
 
 me from such a bargain ! 
 Stas. Amen to that ! Ah ! you might say ' deliver 
 
 me,' 
 
 If you knew all. Why, every other tree 
 Is blasted there by lightning ; all the hogs 
 Die of pneumonia : all the sheep are scabbed ; 
 Lose all their wool, they do, till they're as bare 
 As the back of my hand is. Why, there's not a nigger 
 (And tlwy'll stand anything) could stand the climate ; 
 Die in six months, they all do, of autumn fever. 
 
 Phil, (coolly). Ah ! I daresay. But our Campanian 
 
 fellows 
 Are much more hardy than the niggers. Still,
 
 THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 39 
 
 This land, if it's at all what you describe it, 
 Would be a fine place for a penal settlement, 
 To banish rascals to, for the public good. 
 
 Stas. 'Tis just a nest of horrors, as it is ; 
 If you want anything bad, there you may find it. 
 
 Phil. No doubt ; and so you may in other places. 
 
 Stas. Now please don't let him know I've told you 
 this! 
 
 Phil. Oh honour bright ! I hold it confidential. 
 
 Stas. Because, in fact, you see, he's very anxious 
 To be well rid of it, if he can find a man 
 That's fool enough to take it. You perceive ? 
 
 Phil. I do : I promise you, it shan't be me. 
 
 Philto is unwilling either to accept the farm, or to hurt 
 the feelings of Lesbonicus by the refusal he will leave 
 the two young friends, he says, to settle that matter 
 between them. And poor old Stasimus is quite satis- 
 fied that his pious falsehood has saved this remnant 
 of the family property. 
 
 Young Lysiteles is as reluctant to accept the offered 
 marriage portion as his friend is determined, for his 
 honour's sake, to give it : and the struggle between the 
 two young men, which almost leads to a quarrel, gives 
 occasion to a fine scene, though perhaps somewhat too 
 wordy for our English taste. Lysiteles is the more hurt 
 at his friend's obstinacy, because he has discovered his 
 intention of quitting Athens, now that his patrimony 
 is all gone, and taking service under some potentate 
 in the East, the great field which was then open to 
 young men of spirit and enterprise. Stasimus' despair, 
 when he too learns this last resolution on the part of 
 his young master, is highly comic : he will not desert 
 him, even if he could, but he has no taste for a mili-
 
 40 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 tary life wearing clumsy boots, and carrying a heavy 
 buckler, and a pack on his shoulders. 
 
 But Callicles has heard of the proposed marriage, 
 and will by no means allow his absent friend's daugh- 
 ter to go to her bridegroom dowerless, when there is 
 money stored away specially for that object. But how 
 is it to be done without discovering to the public the 
 secret of the buried treasure, which is sure to confirm 
 the suspicion of his underhand dealings ? and which 
 treasure if the young spendthrift once comes to know 
 of, the rest of it will very soon follow the estate. If 
 Callicles gives the money as out of his own pocket, 
 people will only say that he was now doling out a part 
 of some larger fund, left in his hands in trust, and 
 which the girl and her brother ought to have had long 
 ago. He adopts the scheme of hiring one of those un- 
 scrupulous characters who hung about the law courts 
 at Athens, as they do about our own, ready to under- 
 take any business however questionable, and to give 
 evidence to any effect required " for a consideration." 
 This man shall pretend to have just landed from foreign 
 parts, and to have brought money from Charmides 
 expressly for his daughter's marriage portion. The 
 required agent is soon found, and his services engaged 
 by Callicles for the " Three Silver Pieces," which gives 
 the name to the play. He is equipped in some out- 
 landish-looking costume, hired from a theatrical ward- 
 robe, and knocks at the door of Charmides' house (a 
 small apartment in which is still occupied by his son) 
 as though just arrived from sea. But at the door he 
 meets no less a person than Charmides himself, who 
 has just returned from his long absence, has noticed
 
 THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 41 
 
 this strange-looking personage on his way from the 
 harbour, and is much astonished to find him knocking 
 at his own door. Still more surprised is he to hear 
 that he is inquiring for his son Lesbonicus, and that 
 he is bringing him a letter from his father. The scene 
 between the pretended messenger and the returned 
 traveller whose agent he professes to be, the man's 
 astonishment and embarrassment when he finds that he 
 is talking to Charmides himself, and the consummate 
 effrontery with which he faces the situation to the very 
 last, long after he knows he is detected, is one of the 
 most amusing scenes in Plautus, though unfortunately 
 too long for insertion here. The impostor has not been 
 prepared for any kind of cross-examination, and has even 
 forgotten the name of Lesbonicus' father, from whom he 
 asserts that he brings the money. His efforts to recover 
 this name which he says he has unfortunately " swal- 
 lowed" in his hurry; his imaginary description of Char- 
 mides, who stands before him in person ; the account he 
 gives of his travels in countries he has never seen, are 
 all highly farcical. One argument in proof of the reality 
 of his mission he advances triumphantly the thou- 
 sand gold pieces which he carries with him ; if he did 
 not know Charmides personally, would he ever have 
 intrusted him with the money ? At last his inquisitor 
 announces himself " I am Charmides so hand me 
 over my money." The other is staggered for the 
 moment : " Bless my life ! " he says to himself " why, 
 here's a greater impostor than I am ! " But he soon 
 recovers his coolness. "That's all very well," he replies ; 
 " but you never said a word about your being Char- 
 mides until I told you I had the gold. You are only
 
 42 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 Charmides for a particular purpose and that won't do." 
 "Well, but if I am not Charmides," says the father 
 not very cleverly "who am II" " N"ay," says his op- 
 ponent " that's your business ; so long as you are not 
 the person I don't intend you to be, you may be anything 
 you please." As he is shrewd enough, however, to dis- 
 cover that Charmides is the person whom he claims to 
 be, and as the latter threatens to have him cudgelled 
 if he does not leave his door, he makes his exit at last 
 not in the least crestfallen, and congratulating him- 
 self that, come what will, he has safely pocketed the 
 Three Silver Pieces : he has done his best, he declares 
 (as indeed he has), to earn them fairly, and can only go 
 back to his employers and tell them that his mission 
 has failed. 
 
 The first person who meets Charmides on his return 
 home is Stasimus. He has been drowning his dread 
 of a military life in the wine-flagon, and has reached 
 the sentimental stage of intoxication. His maundering 
 moralities upon the wickedness and degeneracy of the 
 present age, and the wickedness of the world in general, 
 and his sudden recollection that while he is thus gene- 
 ralising upon questions of public interest his own 
 particular back is in great danger, for having loitered at 
 the wine-shop, are admirably given. His old master is 
 all the while standing in the background, listening with 
 much amusement to his soliloquy, and throwing in an 
 occasional remark aside, by way of chorus. When at 
 length he discovers himself, the joy of the faithful old 
 tippler sobers him at once, and he proceeds to tell his 
 master how affairs have been going on in his absence. 
 Charmides is shocked to hear of the continued extrava-
 
 THE THREE SILVER PIECES. 43 
 
 gance of his son, of his sale of the house, and the 
 consequent loss of the "buried treasure on which he had 
 depended, and still more at the faithlessness of his 
 friend, who has not only taken no care to prevent 
 this catastrophe, but has employed his knowledge of 
 the secret to his own advantage in the most shameless 
 manner, "by becoming the purchaser of the house. 
 
 Of course such misunderstanding is soon cleared up. 
 The father hears with joy of his daughter's approach- 
 ing marriage, and thanks young Lysiteles warmly for 
 his generous conduct, though he will not allow him 
 especially as he has made money during his absence 
 abroad to take into his house a portionless bride. 
 But the young man has a favour to ask of much more 
 importance : it is that Charmides will overlook and 
 forgive the extravagance of his dear friend, his son, 
 who will, he assures him, do better in future. Some- 
 what reluctantly the father consents he can refuse 
 nothing at such a moment, and to so generous a 
 petitioner. His judgment upon the offender forms a 
 characteristic ending 1f> the piece. 
 
 Charm. If you'll reform, my old friend Charicles 
 Here offers you his daughter a good girl ; 
 Say, will you marry her 1 
 
 Lesbon. (eagerly}. I will, dear father ! 
 
 I will and any one else besides, to please you. 
 
 Charm. Nay one's enough : though I am angry with ye, 
 I'll not inflict a double chastisement ; 
 That were too hard. 
 
 Collides (laughing). Nay, scarcely, for his sins 
 A hundred wives at once would serve him right.* 
 
 * This is the only comedy of Plautus which has been presented 
 by Westminster scholars of late years. When it was acted in
 
 44 THE COMEDIES OF PLAVTVS. 
 
 II. THE BRAGGADOCIO. 
 
 The hero if lie can be so called who is the very 
 opposite of a hero in this comedy is one of those 
 swaggering soldiers of fortune who have already been 
 briefly described. His name, which is a swagger in 
 itself, is Pyrgopolinices " Tower of Victory." He is 
 in the pay of Seleucus, for whom he is at present re- 
 cruiting ; but he has also served, by his own account 
 
 " On the far-famed Gorgonidonian plains, 
 "Where the great Bumbomachides commanded 
 Clytomestoridysarchides's son." * 
 
 He is attended by his obsequious toady Artotrogus 
 " Bread-devourer " who flatters his vanity and swears 
 
 1860, the humorous modern Latin Epilogue which now always 
 follows the play (and which is really a short farce in itself) took 
 an especially happy turn. A project was then on foot for remov- 
 ing the School to a different site, and Lesbonicus is introduced 
 in this epilogue as offering to sell the old College premises ; 
 while "College John," as the scholars' official is always called, in 
 the character of the slave Stasimus, endeavours to prevent the 
 sale by enlarging upon the horrors of the Thames water and the 
 squalor of Tothill Fields. The negotiation is stopped by the 
 entrance of the Ghost of Dr Busby, who informs them of a 
 treasure which he had buried under the old foundations. They 
 proceed eagerly to dig, and the treasure proves to be a gigantic 
 EOD ! which is exhumed and displayed in triumph to the audi- 
 ence. This is, the old Master declares, the real key to honours 
 the "golden bough" of classic fable 
 
 " Aurea virga tibi est, portas quae pandit honorum." 
 * "We need not go far to seek the original of the opening lines 
 of ' Bombastes Furioso,' where the hero asks 
 " Aldibarontiphoskifornio, 
 How left you Chrononhotonthologos ? "
 
 THE BRAGGADOCIO. 45 
 
 to the truth, of all his bragging stories " maintaining 
 his teeth," as he says, " at the expense of his ears." 
 The Captain's stories are of such an outrageously lying 
 description as to he somewhat too improbable for the 
 subject of legitimate comedy, and we can only suppose 
 that in this kind of fun the taste of a Roman au- 
 dience preferred a strong flavour. He affects to believe 
 that not only do all the men dread his prowess, but 
 that all the women are charmed with his person : and 
 his companion and flatterer does his best to persuade 
 him that it is so. 
 
 Artotrogus. You saw those girls that stopped me yester- 
 day ? 
 
 PyrgopoUnices. What did they say ? 
 
 Art. Why, when you passed, they asked me 
 
 " What, is the great Achilles here ? " I answered, 
 u No it's his brother." Then says t'other one 
 " Troth, he is handsome ! What a noble man ! 
 What splendid hair ! " 
 
 Pyrg. Now, did they really say so ? 
 
 Art. They did indeed, and begged me, both of them, 
 To make you take a walk again to-day, 
 That they might get another sight of you. 
 
 Pyrg. (sighing complacently). 'Tis a great nuisance being 
 so -very handsome ! * 
 
 This hero gentleman has just carried off from 
 Athens by force, however, and not by the influence 
 of his personal attractions a young lady who is an 
 object of tender interest to a gentleman of that city, 
 
 * So Le Capitan Matamore, in Corneille's ' L'lllusion 
 Comique ' 
 
 " Ciel qui sais comme quoi j'en suis persecute ! 
 Uivpeu plus de repos avec'moins de beaute."
 
 46 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 who is at the time gone upon a voyage to Naupactus. 
 His faithful slave Palestrio takes ship to follow him 
 thither, but on his way falls into the hands of pirates, 
 by whom he is sold, and, as it happens, taken to 
 Ephesus and there purchased by Pyrgopolinices. He 
 finds the lady shut up in half-willing durance in the 
 Captain's house, and at once writes information of the 
 fact to her Athenian lover, his master Pleusicles, who 
 sails at once for Ephesus. On his arrival, he finds 
 that an old friend of the family occupies the adjoining 
 house : a jolly old bachelor, of thorough Epicurean 
 tastes and habits, and quite ready to forward a lover's 
 stratagem. By his good-natured connivance a door is 
 broken through his house into the women's side of his 
 neighbour's mansion, by which Pleusicles is enabled to 
 hold communication with the object of his affections. 
 But a servant of the Captain's, who has been specially 
 charged to keep an eye upon the lady, happens to be 
 running over the roof of the two houses in the pursuit 
 of an escaped monkey, looks down through a skylight 
 with the curiosity of his class, and is a witness of one 
 of these stolen interviews between the lovers. How 
 Philocomasium (for that is the lady's long Greek name*) 
 has found her way into the house next door is what 
 he does not understand; but there she is, and he is 
 determined to tell the Captain. First, however, he 
 
 * These Greek female names are anything but euphonious to 
 English ears. But we must remember that what seems to us a 
 harsh termination was softened away in the Latin pronuncia- 
 tion, and that in its Greek form it was a diminutive ; so that 
 names ending in " ion " conveyed to their ear a pet sound, as in 
 our Nellie, Bessie, &c.
 
 THE BRAGGADOCIO. 47 
 
 takes into his counsels his new fellow-servant, Palestrio, 
 and confides to him his discovery. Palestrio tries to 
 persuade him that his eyes have deceived him, but 
 finding him obstinately convinced of their accuracy, 
 invents a story of a twin-sister, who by a curious 
 coincidence has just come to Ephesus and taken the 
 house next door, where she allows a lover of her own 
 to visit her. The nhief fun of the piece, which is 
 somewhat of a childish character, consists in the in- 
 genuity with which Philocomasium, with the aid of 
 Palestrio, contrives by a change of costume to play 
 the double part of herself and the imaginary twin- 
 sister; much to the bewilderment of the Captain's 
 watchful and suspicious retainer, who is ignorant of 
 the existence of the secret passage by which at her 
 pleasure she flits from house to house. 
 
 The catastrophe is brought about by the absorbing 
 vanity of the military hero. He is persuaded by 
 the ready Palestrio that a lady in the neighbourhood, 
 of great charms and accomplishments, has fallen vio- 
 lently in love with him, and that if only out of charity 
 it behoves him to have compassion on her. She has a 
 jealous husband, and dare not invite him to her house, 
 but asks to be allowed to call upon him at his own. 
 In order to have the coast quite clear, he sends off 
 Philocomasium for a while, in charge of the trusty 
 Palestrio, who willingly undertakes to escort her 
 with her mother and the twin-sister, as he thinks 
 really with her lover Pleusicles, who, in the guise of a 
 shipowner, carries her off to Athens. The fate of 
 the Captain is that of Falstaff, in the * Merry Wives 
 of Windsor.' As soon as the love-stricken lady who is
 
 48 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 only a lady's-maid employed for the occasion is ascer- 
 tained to be paying her expected visit to this pro- 
 fessional Adonis, his bachelor neighbour, from next 
 door, enters in the character of the jealous husband, 
 with a band of stout slaves, and beats him to a jelly. 
 
 III. THE HAUNTED HOUSE (MOSTELLARIA). 
 
 The Latin name of this play means something like 
 " The Goblin ; " but perhaps the English title here 
 given to it will better express the nature of the plot. 
 A worthy citizen of Athens has been away for three 
 years on a trading voyage to Egypt, and during his 
 absence his son Philolaches, though a young man of 
 amiable disposition, has gone altogether wrong, kept 
 very dissolute and extravagant company, and spent the 
 greatest part of his father's money. In this he has been 
 aided and abetted by Tranio, his valet and factotum, 
 one of those amusing rascals who seem to take delight 
 in encouraging their young masters in such things, 
 though they feel it is at the risk of their own backs. 
 
 The youth is just sitting down to supper with some 
 of his friends (one of whom has come to the party 
 already drunk), when Tranio, who has been down to 
 the harbour to buy fish, comes in with the startling in- 
 telligence of the father's return from sea ; he has just 
 got a glimpse of him as he landed. Philolaches feels 
 that the evil day has come upon him at last. His fust 
 idea naturally is to get rid of his friends, have the 
 supper-table cleared away, and make things look at 
 least as quiet and respectable as possible. But his 
 friend Callidamates is by this time so very drunk and
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 49 
 
 incapable that it is impossible to hope to get him safely 
 off the premises in time ; especially as, in his drunken 
 independence, the only notice he takes of the news is 
 first to " hope the old gentleman's very well ; " secondly, 
 to advise his son, if he doesn't want him, to " send 
 him back again ; " and, lastly, to offer to fight him, then 
 and there. 
 
 Philolaches. Who's that asleep there ? Wake him up, 
 
 do, Delphium ! 
 Delphium. Callidamates ! Callidamates wake ! (shaking 
 
 him.) 
 Call, (looking up drowsily). I am awake all right. 
 
 Pass us the bottle. 
 
 Delph. Oh, do awake, pray do ! His father's come 
 From abroad, you know ! (Shakes him again) 
 
 Call, (just opening his eyes). All right hope 's pretty 
 
 well. 
 Phil, (angrily) . He's well enough, you ass ! I'm very 
 
 bad. 
 
 Call. Bad ! why, what 's 'matter 1 
 Phil. Do get up, I say, 
 
 And go my father's come. 
 
 Call, (drowsily). Father's come, is he ? 
 
 Tell him go back again. What the deuce 's want 
 
 here ? 
 Phil, (in despair). What shall I do ? Zounds ! he'll be 
 
 here in a minute, 
 
 And find this drunken ass here in my company, 
 And all the rest of ye. And I've no time 
 Beginning to dig a well when you're dying of thirst, 
 That's what I'm doing ; just beginning to think 
 What I'm to do, and here's my father come ! 
 
 Tranio (looking at Call.) He's put his head down and 
 
 gone to sleep again ! 
 A. c. vol. xvi. D
 
 50 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 Phil. Will you get up 1 (shaking him.} I say, my father's 
 
 here ! 
 Call, (jumping up). Father here ? where ? Give me my 
 
 slippers, somebody ! 
 
 My sword, there ! polish the old gentleman off in no time 
 
 Act ii. sc. 2. 
 
 But Tranio proves equal to the occasion. He desires 
 them all to keep quiet where they are, to let him lock 
 the house up and take the key of the street-door, and 
 go to meet his elder master with a story which he has 
 ready for him. The good citizen makes his appearance 
 in the next scene, congratulating himself heartily on 
 having escaped the perils of this his first and, as he 
 is determined it shall be, his last sea voyage. 
 
 Enter THEUROPIDES slaves following with his luggage. 
 TRANIO looking round a corner, and listening. 
 
 Theu. I do return you hearty thanks, good Neptune, 
 For letting me out of your clutches safe and sound, 
 Though scarce alive ; but if from this time forward 
 You catch me setting foot in your dominions, 
 I give you leave free leave that very instant, 
 To do with me what you've just tried to do. 
 Avaunt ! Anathema ! I do abjure ye 
 From this same day ! (looking back towards the harbour, 
 and shaking hisjist). I've trusted to ye once, 
 But never will I run such risk again. 
 
 Tran. (aside). Zounds, Neptune, you've just made a 
 
 great mistake 
 Lost such a charming opportunity ! 
 
 Theu. Three years I've been in Egypt : here I am, 
 Come home at last ! How glad they'll be to see me ! 
 
 Tran. (aside). There's only one we had been more glad 
 
 to see 
 The man who brought us word that you were drowned.
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 51 
 
 [THEUROPIDES advances to his own door, at which he 
 knocks, and looks up at the closed windows. Tranio 
 comes forward. 
 
 Tran. Who's this ? who ventures near this house of ours ? 
 
 Then. Why, this is my man Tranio ! 
 
 Tran. 0, dear master, 
 
 0, welcome home ! I am so glad to see you 
 Are you quite well 1 
 
 Then. Quite, as you see (knocks again). 
 
 Fran. Thank heavens ! 
 
 Then. But you, are ye all mad ? 
 
 Tran. Why so ? 
 
 Theu. Because 
 
 Here you are walking about, and nobody in. 
 (Knocks and kicks at the door.} Not a soul seems to hear. 
 
 Will nobody open ? (Kicks again.} 
 I shall kick the door down presently. 
 
 Tran. (shuddering and shrieking). O Oh ! 
 Don't ye do that, dear master don't ye, don't ye ! 
 
 Act ii. sc. 2. 
 
 Then Tranio begins his story. The house is haunted. 
 There is a ghost there, of a man who was murdered 
 in it by the last owner for the sake of his gold, and 
 buried under the floor. This ghost had come to 
 young Philolaches in his sleep, nearly frightened him 
 out of his senses, and warned him to quit his pre- 
 mises at once. Pluto would not admit him into the 
 Shades, he said, because he had not been properly 
 buried, and so he was obliged to live in this house, and 
 he wanted it all to himself. So they had shut it up, 
 Tranio tells the father, and left the ghost in possession ; 
 and, for the present, his son is gone into the country. 
 Just in the agony of the tale, a noise is heard inside
 
 52 THE COMEDIES OF PLAtfTUS. 
 
 the party there are not keeping so quiet as they 
 ought. 
 
 Tran. (pretending to be frightened, and catching his 
 
 master by tfie arm.) 
 Hush-sh ! (Listening.) 
 Then, (trembling). Eh ! what was it ? 
 Tran. (looking aghast at Then.) Was it him, d'ye 
 
 think? 
 (Listening at the key-Jiole.) I heard a knocking. 
 
 Theu. Eh ! my blood runs cold ! 
 
 Are the dead men coming from Acheron to fetch me 1 
 Tran. (aside). Those fools will spoil it all, if they're 
 
 not quiet. 
 
 Theu. What are you saying to yourself, sir eh ? 
 Tran. Go from the door, sir, pray run, do, I beg 
 
 you ! 
 
 Theu. (looking round in terror). Where shall I run to ? 
 
 why don't you run yourself I 
 Tran. (solemnly). Well I've no fear I keep an honest 
 
 conscience. 
 Callidamates (inside). Hallo there, Tranio ! (Theuro- 
 
 pides runs off.} 
 Tran. (going close to the door, and whispering). Don't 
 
 call me, you fool ! 
 (Aloud, as to the ghost.) Don't threaten me it wasn't / 
 
 kicked the door. 
 Theu. (putting his head round the corner). dear ! 
 
 what is it ? why do you shake so, Tranio ? 
 Tran. (looking round). Was it you called me ? Well, 
 
 so help us heaven, 
 
 I thought it was the dead man scolding me 
 For making all that rapping at his door. 
 But why do you stand there ? why don't you do 
 What I just told you ? 
 
 Theu. (clasping his hands). dear ! what was that ?
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 53 
 
 Tran. Run, run ! don't look behind you and cover your 
 
 head up ! 
 
 [THEUROPIDKS rims off with his cloak over his head. 
 
 Act ii. sc. 2. 
 
 There may not be very much wit in the scene, but 
 it is a fair specimen of the style in which Plautus 
 seems to have excelled. It is full of bustle and spirit, 
 and would act, as is the case with so many of his 
 scenes, far better than it reads. If any reader will im- 
 agine the two characters in the hands of say Mr Keeley 
 and Mr Buckstone, he will perhaps admit that it would 
 be sufficiently laughable even if it were put exactly as 
 it is upon the stage of a modern minor theatre. 
 
 The " Ghost " is left, for the present, in undisturbed 
 possession. But Tranio's plan is nearly frustrated at 
 the outset ; for, as he is following his master down the 
 street, they meet a money-lender to whom the son is 
 indebted, and who is come to demand his interest. 
 The old gentleman overhears the conversation between 
 the creditor and Tranio, who vainly tries to prevent 
 him from bawling out his complaints of non-payment. 
 He succeeds, however, in persuading the father that 
 his son has only been borrowing in order to pay the 
 deposit-money upon the purchase of a house (which 
 he has been driven to buy in consequence of the 
 Ghost's occupation of the old one), and which is, as he 
 assures him, a most excellent bargain. Theuropides 
 is naturally anxious to see the new house at once ; 
 and Tranio, almost in despair, declares that it is that of 
 their next-door neighbour, Simo, whom he sees just 
 coming out of his door on his way to the Forum. 
 Tranio goes up to this person and requests permission
 
 54 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 for his master to look over the house, which he wishes 
 to copy, as a model of admirable contrivance, in some 
 new buildings which he is about to make on his own 
 ground. The owner, much flattered, begs them to 
 walk over it "just as though it were their own ;" an 
 expression which rather amuses Theuropides, as he is 
 about to make it his own in reality by paying the rest 
 of the purchase-money. Tranio adroitly whispers to 
 him not to say a word about the sale, " from motives of 
 delicacy :" poor Simo, he assures him, has been obliged 
 to part with his family property owing to reduced cir- 
 cumstances, and the whole transaction is naturally a 
 sore subject to him. Theuropides takes the hint at 
 once, praising his servant at the same time for his 
 thoughtfulness and good feeling. He is charmed with 
 the house, with the terms of the purchase, and with 
 the business-like habits of his excellent son. 
 
 But the father's dream is speedily dispelled. He 
 meets in the street, near his own door, a slave of the 
 young gentleman who is at this moment sleeping off 
 his debauch in his son's apartments, and who has come, 
 in obedience to the prudent orders issued beforehand 
 upon such occasions, to convey his master home. 
 Theuropides would fain persuade him that there is some 
 mistake ; he must have come to the wrong house ; this 
 has been shut up and unoccupied for some time ; and 
 his son Philolaches is quite unlikely to keep the kind 
 of company to which this roysterer belongs. But the 
 slave knows his business better, and in defence of his 
 own assertions tears the veil somewhat rudely from 
 the old gentleman's eyes. If he could be supposed to 
 have any doubts remaining, they are removed by a
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 55 
 
 second interview with his neighbour Simo, who laughs 
 at the notion of his house having been sold without 
 himself being aware of it. It only remains for the 
 deluded father to take vengeance on Tranio, and this 
 he will set about at once. One favour he will ask of 
 Simo " Lend me a couple of stout slaves, and a good 
 whip or two ;" and, thus provided, he goes in quest of 
 the culprit. 
 
 Tranio discovers that all is lost except his spirit. 
 That still keeps up : and he appears to have propped 
 it with an extra cup or two. His soliloquy, in the 
 hands of a good actor, would no doubt be effective. 
 He has succeeded in getting the revellers out of the 
 house before the angry father comes into it ; but they 
 have now lost all faith in him as an adviser, and what 
 step he is to take next is by no means clear even to 
 himself. 
 
 TRANIO (solus). 
 
 The man who loses heart when things go crooked, 
 
 In my opinion, he's not worth a rap 
 
 What a " rap " means, now, blest if I can tell ! 
 
 Well when the master bid me fetch the young one 
 
 Out of the country (laugfis to himself), ha, ha ! Well, I 
 
 went 
 
 Not into the country to the garden-gate ; 
 And brought out the whole lot of 'em male and female. 
 When I had thus safely withdrawn my troops 
 Out of their state of siege, I called a council 
 A council of war, you know of my fellow-rascals; 
 And their very first vote was to turn me out of it. 
 So I called another council of myself; 
 And I am doing what I understand
 
 56 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 Most people do in awkward circumstances 
 Make 'em as much more awkward as they can. 
 
 Act v. sc. 1. 
 
 His master comes to look for him, followed by 
 two slaves carrying whips and fetters, whom he keeps 
 in hiding for the present in the background ; but 
 Tranio, quite aware of what is in store for him, takes 
 refuge at the family altar, and will listen to no per- 
 suasions to come away. From this vantage-ground 
 he holds an argument with his master ; persuades 
 him that his prodigal son has done nothing out of 
 the way only what other young men of spirit do ; 
 and when Theuropides vents his wrath against such a 
 shameful piece of deception in a slave, gravely advises 
 him to hold his tongue at all events on that point. 
 "With his grey hairs, he surely ought to have been 
 wiser; if people once come to know how he has 
 allowed himself to be duped, they will infallibly work 
 him into a plot for the next new comedy. 
 
 Tranio gets off at last, by the intercession of Callida- 
 mates, who has sobered himself sufficiently to come for- 
 ward and express repentance on the part of his young 
 friend, and to entreat that all may be forgotten and 
 forgiven ; offering, handsomely enough, to pay off out 
 of his own pocket the little debt to the money-lender. 
 Tranio assures his master that he will not lose much 
 by forgiving him this time the whipping which he is 
 longing to give now need only be a pleasure deferred, 
 inasmuch as he is quite certain to do something to 
 deserve one to-morrow. Which very characteristic 
 witticism brings down the curtain. 
 
 Upon this comedy Regnard, who perhaps ranks next
 
 \THESHIPWRECK. 57 
 
 to Moliere of the French comic dramatists, founded 
 his play, in one act, of ' Le Retour ImpreVu ; ' and 
 Fielding's ' Intriguing Chambermaid ' is little more 
 than a translation of it. But Dunlop remarks that 
 neither the French nor the English adapters have 
 availed themselves of the hint which Plautus left for 
 them, of a telling scene in which the previous occupant 
 of the " Haunted House " might be charged by the 
 excited father with the murder of his imaginary guest. 
 
 IV. THE SHIPWRECK (RUDENS). 
 
 This is a play of a different character in many re- 
 spects, and comes nearer to what we should call a melo- 
 dramatic spectacle than anything else. The Latin title 
 is simply " The Rope " given to it because the rope 
 of a fisherman's net is an important instrument in the 
 denouement. But the whole action turns upon a ship- 
 wreck, and this is the title preferred by some English 
 authorities. 
 
 The prologue, which is in a higher strain than Plau- 
 tus commonly aspires to, is spoken in the character of 
 Arcturus, the constellation whose rising and setting 
 was supposed to have very much to do with storms. 
 The costume in which he appears is evidently brilliant 
 and characteristic. 
 
 Of his high realm, who rules the earth and sea 
 
 And all mankind, a citizen am I. 
 
 Lo, as you see, a bright and shining star, 
 
 Eevolving ever in unfailing course 
 
 Here and in heaven : Arcturus am I hight. 
 
 By night I shine in heaven, amidst the gods ;
 
 58 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 I walk unseen with men on earth by day. 
 So, too, do other stars step from their spheres, 
 Down to this lower world ; so willeth Jove, 
 Ruler of gods and men ; he sends us forth 
 Each on our several paths throughout all lands. 
 To note the ways of men, and all they do ; * 
 If they be just and pious ; if their wealth 
 Be well employed, or squandered harmfully ; : 
 Who in a false suit use false witnesses ; 
 Who by a perjured oath forswear their debts ; 
 Their names do we record and bear to Jove. 
 So learns He day by day what ill is wrought 
 By men below ; who seek to gain their cause 
 By perjury, who wrest the law to wrong ; 
 Jove's court of high appeal rehears the plaint, 
 And mulcts them tenfold for the unjust decree. 
 In separate tablets doth he note the good. 
 And though the wicked in their hearts have said, 
 He can be soothed with gifts and sacrifice, 
 They lose their pains and cost, for that the god 
 Accepts no offering from a perjured hand. 
 
 After this fine exordium, so unlike the ordinary tone 
 of the writer that we may be sure he is here translat- 
 ing from a great original, the prologue goes 011 to set 
 forth the story of the piece. The speaker gives the 
 audience some description of the opening scene, and a 
 key to the characters. It is the tradition of the com- 
 
 * The same idea occurs in a well-known passage in Homer : 
 " Gods in the garb of strangers to and fro 
 Wander the cities, and men's ways discern ; 
 Yea, through the wide earth in all shapes they go, 
 Changed, yet the same, and with their own eyes learc 
 How live the sacred laws, who hold them, and who spurn." 
 
 Odyss. xvii. 485 (Worsley's Transl.)
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 59 
 
 mentators, and the wording of the prologue corroborates 
 it, that the mounting of this piece, both in scenery and 
 machinery, was very costly and elaborate. It opens, 
 like Shakspeare's ' Tempest,' with a storm or rather 
 on the morning after.* The sea forms the background; 
 on one side is the city of Gyrene in the distance, on the 
 other, a temple of Venus, with a cottage near. This 
 cottage is the residence of Dsemones, once a citizen of 
 Athens, but who, having lost his property and met 
 with other troubles, has left his native country and 
 settled down here in retirement. He and his slaves 
 are come out to look to the repairs of their cottage, 
 which has suffered by the storm. A boat appears 
 struggling through the waves in the distance, which, 
 as it gets nearer, is seen to contain two girls, who after 
 great danger (described by one of the slaves, who is 
 Avatching, in a passage which a good actor would no 
 doubt make sufficiently effective) make good their land- 
 ing among the rocks, and meet at last upon the stage, 
 each having thought the other lost. One of them is 
 Palaestra : a free-born girl of Athens, but stolen and 
 sold, as she tells us, in her infancy. Pleusidippus, a 
 young Athenian, had seen her at Gyrene, fallen violent- 
 ly in love with her, and made proposals to the slave- 
 merchant for her ransom. But that worthy individual, 
 thinking that he could make a better bargain for such 
 wares in Sicily, had just set sail for that island, carry- 
 ing Palsestra and her fellow-captives with him, when 
 the whole party are wrecked here on the coast, just 
 going out of harbour. 
 
 * Possibly the storm was represented on the stage during the 
 delivery of the prologue, before the action of the piece began.
 
 60 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 The two girls, drenched as they are, take refuge in 
 the Temple of Venus, where they ask the protection 
 of the Priestess. That good lady is the very model of 
 an ecclesiastical red-tapist. Though they tell their sad 
 story, she objects that they ought. to have come in the 
 proper garb of supplicants in a white robe, and 
 bringing with them a victim ; and is hardly satis fied 
 with poor Palaestra's explanation of the great difficulty 
 which a young woman who had narrowly escaped 
 drowning herself would find in carrying a white dress 
 and a fat lamb with her. 
 
 Labrax, the slave-dealer, whom every one hoped had 
 been drowned according to his deserts, has also escaped 
 from the wreck and got ashore. "Sot without the loss, 
 however, of all his money, which has gone to the 
 bottom, and with it a small case of jewellery, family 
 tokens belonging to Palaestra, of which he had obtained 
 possession. He hears that the two girls who are his 
 property are hidden in the temple, and proceeds to drag 
 them thence by force. He is met there, however, by a 
 servant of young Pleusidippus, who is in search of his 
 master, and who runs to Dsemones's cottage for help. 
 The owner comes out with two stout slaves, rescues 
 Palaestra and her companion, and leaves Labrax in 
 custody, the slaves standing over him with cudgels, 
 until the case can be investigated. Pleusidippus soon 
 arrives upon the scene, his servant having hurried to 
 inform him of the state of affairs that his dear 
 Palaestra has escaped from the wreck, and taken 
 refuge in the temple, from which Labrax would have 
 dragged her but for the timely interference of a very 
 worthy old gentleman. The young man hauls the
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 61 
 
 slave-dealer off, with very little ceremony, before the 
 nearest magistrate, to answer both for his breach of con- 
 tract and his attempt at sacrilege. And with this 
 scene ends the third act of the drama. 
 
 Then there is an interval of time before the com- 
 mencement of the fourth act. Gripus, one of Dsemones's 
 slaves, has been out fishing. He has taken no fish ; 
 but has had a haul which will prove, he hopes, to be of 
 more importance. He has brought up in his net a 
 heavy wallet, and feels certain that it contains gold ; 
 enough, no doubt, to purchase his freedom, and to 
 make him a rich man for the rest of his life besides. 
 His soliloquy, as to what he will do with all his riches, 
 reminds us not a little of the dream of Alnaschar. 
 
 Now, this shall be my plan I'm quite determined : 
 I'll do it cunningly ; I'll go to my master, 
 With just a little money from time to time, 
 To buy my freedom : then, when I am free, 
 I'll buy a farm I'll build a house I'll have 
 A great many slaves. Then I shall make a fortune 
 By my big merchant-ships. I shall be a prince, 
 And talk to princes. Then I'll build a yacht, 
 Just for a fancy, and like Stratonicus 
 Sail round the seaport towns.* When my renown 
 Spreads far and wide, then then, I'll found a city ; 
 I'll call it " Gripe," in memory of my name 
 And noble acts ; I'll found an empire there. 
 I do resolve great things within this breast (striking his 
 chest) ; 
 
 * Stratonicus was treasurer to Philip and Alexander, and 
 probably thought himself a greater man than either of his 
 masters. The allusion to Alexandria in "Gripe " is obvious.
 
 62 THE COMEDIES OF PLAVTUS. 
 
 But for the present, I must hide my windfall. 
 
 (Takes his breakfast out of his scrip, and looks at it.) 
 But more's the pity that so great a man 
 Must for to-day have such a sorry breakfast ! 
 
 Act iv. sc. 2. 
 
 Before he has time to hide his booty, Trachalio, the 
 slave of Pleusidippus, who has been watching all 
 Gripus's proceedings, comes up, and wants to claim 
 half-shares in the contents. The dialogue between the 
 two has some amusing points, though it is rather too 
 much spun out for modern taste. Trachalio declares 
 that he knows the person to whom the wallet formerly 
 belonged ; Gripus replies that he knows to whom it 
 belongs now, which is of much more importance it 
 belongs to him. All that he catches belongs to him, 
 clearly ; nobody ever disputed it before. Trachalio argues 
 that this is not a fish. It is a fish, declares Gripus ; 
 "all's fish that conies to the net" using our pro- 
 verb in almost so many words. This sort of fish 
 doesn't grow in the sea, says the other. Gripus de- 
 clares that it does only the species, he is sorry to say, 
 is very seldom caught. He is a fisherman, and knows 
 a good deal more about fish, he should hope, than a 
 landsman. Trachalio protests it is with him a matter 
 of conscience : since he has seen the vvullet fished up, 
 unless he goes and tells the owner, he shall be as great 
 a thief as Gripus ; but he is willing to share that re- 
 sponsibility, provided he shares the prize. They very 
 nearly come to blows about it ; but at last Trachalio 
 proposes to submit the dispute to arbitration ; and as 
 the cottage of Dsemones is close at hand, they agree that 
 he shall decide as to the disposal of the property
 
 THE SHIPWRECK. 63 
 
 Trachalio not being aware of Gripus's connection with 
 the old gentleman, and Gripus hoping that his master 
 will surely give an award in his favour. 
 
 When the wallet is opened, it is found to contain, 
 besides valuable property belonging to Labrax, the 
 precious casket containing Palaestra's family relics : and, 
 by desire of Daemones, she describes the articles which 
 ought to be in it, in order to prove her claim to its 
 ownership. To his joy and surprise, one of these 
 relics, a small toy implement, bears his own name, and 
 another that of his wife. Palaestra is their long-lost 
 daughter, stolen in her childhood, and thus restored. 
 Of course she is handed over to her lover Pleusidippus, 
 a free woman. 
 
 The disposal of the claims to the rest of the wallet's 
 contents hardly meets our notions of dramatic justice. 
 Daemones retains in his possession the prize which 
 poor Gripus has fished up, in order to restore it to its 
 owner ; not only without any hint of salvage-money, 
 but with the addition of a long moral lecture to his 
 slave upon honesty. This is all very well ; but the 
 subsequent proceedings serve to show that if it was 
 a characteristic of the slave to be always ready to cheat 
 his master, the master had also his peculiar idea of 
 honesty as between himself and his slave. Gripus 
 meets Labrax lamenting for his lost wallet, and as 
 a last hope of making something out of his good luck, 
 agrees to inform him of the whereabouts of the missing 
 treasure for the consideration of a talent of good money 
 paid down. Daemones, when he comes to hear of the 
 arrangement, ratifies it so far as this : Gripus is his 
 property ; therefore, what is Gripus's is his. Labrax
 
 64 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 has to pay the talent into the hands of Daemones, who 
 applies half to the ransom of his daughter's friend and 
 companion in misfortune, and allows the other half as 
 the price of Gripus's freedom. The reply which that 
 personage makes previously to his master's lecture on 
 morality seems to show that he took it for about as 
 much as it was worth. 
 
 Ah ! so I've heard the players on the stage 
 
 Rehearse the very finest moral sentiments, 
 
 And with immense applause ; showing quite clearly 
 
 All that a wise man ought to do : and then 
 
 The audience would go home, and not a soul of 'em 
 
 Would follow that grand preaching in their practice.* 
 
 The play called CISTELLARIA " The Casket " 
 turns upon the same incidents the loss of a daughter 
 when young, and her discovery by her parents by means 
 of a casket of trinkets which had been attached to her 
 person, t The copies of this play are very imperfect, and 
 there is a want of interest in the scenes. One passage, 
 in which Halisca, the slave who has dropped the casket 
 in the street and returns to look for it, appeals path- 
 
 * A portion of this comedy appears to have been performed 
 as an afterpiece in the Dormitory at Westminster in 1798, when 
 a very clever "Fisherman's Chorus," written in rhyming Latin, 
 by the well-known " Jemmy Dodd, " then Usher, was introduced. 
 See Lusus Alt. Westm., i. 177. 
 
 t Parents had no hesitation in "exposing" a child whose 
 birth was for any reason inconvenient ; leaving it to die, or be 
 picked up by some charitable stranger, as might be. But it was 
 held a Sin to do this without leaving something valuable on the 
 child's person : and jewels, or other articles by which it might 
 possibly be recognised afterwards, were often fastened to its 
 clothes.
 
 THE CAPTIVES. 65 
 
 etically to the audience, to know whether any of them, 
 have picked it up, and will restore it, and so save her 
 from a whipping, may remind a modern reader of Mo- 
 liere's Harpagon looking among the audience for the 
 thief of his money. The despairing taunt with which 
 she turns away, after pausing for some reply 
 
 " 'Tis no use asking there's not one among ye 
 Does aught but laugh at a poor woman's troubles " 
 
 is strong presumptive evidence that the spectators at a 
 Roman comedy were almost exclusively men. 
 
 V. THE CAPTIVES. 
 
 This pretty little drama is quite of a different com- 
 plexion from the rest. The author tells us, in his 
 prologue, that we are not to expect to find here any of 
 the old stock characters of comedy, who, as he is free 
 to confess, are not always of the most reputable kind. 
 The interest is, in fact, rather pathetic than comic, and 
 the plot is of the simplest kind. Almost the only 
 comic element is supplied by the speaker of the pro- 
 logue, who has a joke or two for the audience, of a 
 very mild and harmless kind. The principal characters 
 in the play appear to have been grouped in a kind of 
 tableau on the stage while the prologue was delivered, 
 in this as in some other plays. The prologist informs 
 the audience that the two captives who stand in chains 
 on his right and left, are Philocrates, a young noble of 
 Elis, and his slave Tyndarus. There is war between 
 Elis and the ^Etolians ; and these two prisoners, re- 
 cently taken in battle, have been purchased amongst 
 others by Hegio, a wealthy citizen of ^Etolia, whose 
 
 A. c. vol. xvi. E
 
 66 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 own son is now, by the fortune of war, a prisoner in 
 Elis. The father is sparing no cost in purchasing such 
 captives of rank and birth as are brought to ^tolia and 
 sold as slaves, in the hope of being able thus to effect 
 an exchange for his son. He feels the loss of this son 
 all the more, because his younger brother was carried 
 off in his infancy by a revengeful slave, and he has 
 never seen him since. " Do you understand, now 1 " 
 says the speaker to the audience " I hear a gentleman 
 standing up at the back of the gallery say ' no.' Then 
 come a little nearer, sir, if you please ; I'm not going 
 to crack my voice in bawling to you at that distance. 
 And if you've not money enough to pay for a seat, 
 you've money enough to walk out, which I recommend 
 you to do. And now you gentlemen that can afford 
 to pay for your seats, have the goodness to Listen, 
 while I continue my story." He goes on, after the 
 fashion which has been noticed as common in such 
 prologues, to sketch in brief the whole plot. He begs, 
 however, to assure the audience, confidentially, that 
 they need not be alarmed because there is a war 
 going on" in this play between Elis and ^Etolia. He 
 promises them quite in the spirit of Bottom and his 
 company of players that they " will leave the killing 
 out ; " all the battles shall be fought behind the scenes. 
 It would never do for them, he says, a company of 
 poor comedians, to encroach upon the domain of tragedy. 
 If any gentleman present wants a fight, he must get 
 one up on his own account and it shall go hard but 
 that the present speaker will find a match for him, if 
 he be so inclined. He concludes by asking their favour- 
 able verdict in the dramatic contest :
 
 THE CAPTIVES. 67 
 
 And so I make my bow. Sirs, fare ye well ; 
 
 Be gentle judges of our comedy, 
 
 As ye are doubtless valorous hearts in war. 
 
 The interest of the drama lies in the generous devotion 
 of the slave Tyndarus to his young master. Hegio 
 has ascertained that his captive Philocrates is the 
 only son of a man of great wealth, and hopes that by 
 sending a message to the father he may enlist his 
 interest at Elis in making search for his own son 
 among the ^Etolian prisoners there, and sending him 
 home in exchange for Philocrates. But this latter has, 
 at the suggestion of Tyndarus, exchanged clothes with 
 him, and the slave, who is nearly of the same age, and 
 of noble presence, personates the master. Under this 
 mistake Hegio sends the slave (as he thinks) to Elis to 
 negotiate there with the father of Philocrates the re- 
 lease of his son. But it is really the young noble who 
 is sent, and Tyndarus who personates him remains a 
 prisoner in his place. There is a fine passage in which 
 the disguised slave appeals to Hegio for generous treat- 
 ment during his captivity. 
 
 As free a man as was your son, till now, 
 
 Was I ; like him, the hapless chance of war 
 
 Robbed me of liberty ; he stands a slave 
 
 Among my people, even as here I stand 
 
 Fettered before you. There is One in heaven, 
 
 Be sure of it, who sees and knows all things 
 
 That all men do. As you shall deal with me, 
 
 So will He deal with him. He will show grace 
 
 To him who showeth grace ; He will repay 
 
 Evil for evil. (Hegio appears moved.) Weep you for 
 
 your son ? 
 So in my home my father weeps for me.
 
 68 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 The parting between Tyndarus and his master gives 
 rise to another scene which would be highly effective 
 in the hands of good actors. The two young men had 
 been brought up together, it must be remembered, from 
 childhood, had played the same games, gone to the 
 same school, and served in the same campaign. There 
 is an equality of feeling between them, which even the 
 miserable conditions of slavery have not been able 
 to prevent. Philocrates, speaking as Tyndarus, asks 
 the latter if he has any message to send home to his 
 father. 
 
 Tyndarus (as Philocrates). Say I am well ; and tell him 
 
 this, good Tyndarus, 
 We two have lived in sweetest harmony, 
 Of one accord in all things ; never yet 
 Have you been faithless, never I unkind. 
 And still, in this our strait, you have been true 
 And loyal to the last, through woe and want, 
 Have never failed me, nor in will nor deed. 
 This when your father hears, for such good service 
 To him and to his son, he cannot choose 
 But give you liberty. I will insure it, 
 If I go free from hence. 'Tis you alone, 
 Your help, your kindness, your devoted service 
 Shall give me to my parents' arms again. 
 
 Philocrates (as Tyndarus). I have done this : I'm glad 
 
 you should remember ; 
 
 And you have well deserved it : (emphatically) for if I 
 Were in my turn to count up all the kindness 
 That you have shown to me, day would grow night 
 Before the tale were told. Were you my slave, 
 You could have shown no greater zeal to serve me. 
 
 Act ii. sc. 3.
 
 THE CAPTIVES. 69 
 
 Hegio is touched by the affection shown by the young 
 pair ; and Tyndarus is treated as liberally as a prisoner 
 can be. But there is another prisoner of war of whom 
 Hegio has heard, who knows this young man Philo- 
 crates and his family, and is anxious to have an inter- 
 view with him, which Hegio good-naturedly allows. 
 This man at once detects the imposture ; and though 
 Tyndarus attempts for a time (in a scene which must be 
 confessed to be somewhat tedious) to maintain his 
 assumed character in spite of the other's positive asser- 
 tions, he is convicted of the deception, and ordered by 
 the indignant Hegio to be loaded with heavy chains, 
 and taken to work in the stone-quarries ; which would 
 seem to have been as terrible a place of punishment in 
 Greece as we know they were in Sicily. In vain does 
 Tyndarus plead his duty to his master : in vain does 
 he appeal to Hegio's feelings as a father 
 
 Tyn. Think, now if any slave who called you master 
 Had done this for your son, how you had thanked him ! 
 Would you have grudged him liberty, or no ? 
 Would you have loved him above all the rest ? 
 Nay answer me. 
 
 He. I grant it. 
 
 Tyn. Oh, why then 
 
 Are you thus wroth with me for doing likewise ? 
 
 He. Your faith to him was treachery to me. 
 
 Tyn. What ! would you ask that one brief night and day 
 Should give you claim on a poor captive's service 
 Just fallen within your power, to cancel his , 
 
 With whom I lived and whom I loved from childhood ? 
 
 Heg. Then seek your thanks from him. Lead him 
 away. 
 
 In vain does his fellow-captive, whose evidence has
 
 70 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 "brought down Hegio's wrath upon him, plead on his 
 behalf. Tyndarus is dragged off to the quarries, pre- 
 serving his calmness of demeanour to the last. 
 
 Well death will come thy threats can reach no further ; 
 
 And though I linger to a long old age, 
 
 Life's span of suffering is hut brief. Farewell ! 
 
 I might find plea to curse thee but farewell ! 
 
 Act iii. sc. 5. 
 
 The denouement comes rapidly. There is a long sup- 
 posed interval between the third and the two last 
 brief acts of the drama, which in a modern play 
 would be rather termed scenes. Philocrates returns 
 from Elis, and brings with him Hegio's son Philopole- 
 mus, whom he has ransomed from captivity. But he has 
 not forgotten his faithful Tyndarus, and has come in 
 person to insure his liberation. But this is not all. He 
 has also met with the runaway slave who, twenty years 
 ago, had stolen from his home the younger son of 
 Hegio. When this man is now cross-examined by his 
 old master, it is discovered that he had fled to Elis, and 
 there sold the child to the father of Philocrates, who 
 had made a present of him to his own boy, as was not un- 
 usual, to be a kind of live toy and humble playfellow. 
 It is this very Tyndarus, who now stands before his 
 father loaded with chains and haggard with suffering 
 of that father's infliction. The noble nature displayed 
 by the captive is explained by his noble blood. 
 
 No one will deny that it is a pretty little drama, 
 with a good deal of quiet pathos in it. But (if we have 
 the piece complete, which may be doubtful) whatever 
 pathos a modern audience would find in these last
 
 THE TWO MENJECHMI. 71 
 
 scenes would be due to such force of expression and 
 by-play as could be thrown into them by clever actors ; 
 they are very bald indeed *in the reading. The claim 
 which the speaker of the brief epilogue makes for the 
 play, that its morality is of the purest and simplest, is 
 well deserved. It contains, strange to say, no female 
 character whatever. For these and other reasons ' The 
 Captives,' in spite of the lack of comic element, used to 
 be a very favourite selection with English schoolmasters, 
 in the days when the performance of a Latin comedy 
 by the elder scholars seems to have formed part of the 
 annual routine in most of our large schools. Yet, strange 
 to say, there is no record of it having ever been per- 
 formed at "Westminster. Perhaps the absence of those 
 distinctly comic characters and situations which are 
 made so telling in the annual performance by the 
 
 Queen's Scholars has been the reason of its neglect. 
 
 
 
 VI. THE TWO MEN^CHMI. 
 
 This comedy deserves notice not so much for its 
 own merits for whatever they might have appeared 
 to a Roman audience, they are not highly appreciable by 
 our taste but because upon it Shakspeare founded 
 his ' Comedy of Errors.' It appears to have been the 
 only work of Plautus which had at that time been 
 translated into English, which may account for its being 
 the only one from which Shakspeare seems to have 
 borrowed. The plot is improbable in the highest 
 degree, though admitting some farcical situations. 
 It all turns upon the supposed resemblance between 
 two twin-brothers so strong as to deceive their
 
 72 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 servants, their nearest friends, and even their wives. 
 Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse 
 are but reproductions of Menaechmus of Epidamnus 
 and Menaechmus Sosicles the twins of Plautus's 
 comedy, who were separated in their youth, and 
 whose marvellous likeness, which makes it impossible 
 to distinguish between them, leads to the series of 
 ludicrous mistakes and entanglements which are at 
 last set right by their personal meeting on the stage. 
 Shakspeare has added the pair of Dromios, who, like 
 their masters, are duplicates of each other : thereby 
 increasing the broad fun of the piece, such as it is, 
 and not materially increasing the improbability. The 
 use of masks upon the Roman stage made the pre- 
 sentation of the likeness comparatively easy ; whereas 
 in the English play all has to depend upon exact 
 similarity of costume and the making up of the faces 
 of the two actors, which is not always satisfactory. 
 The incidents in the Latin play are not so amusing as 
 in Shakspeare's version of it, and the morals much 
 more objectionable. 
 
 VII. AMPHITRYON. 
 
 ' Amphitryon ' is also founded on a famous case of 
 mistaken identity. It is termed by Plautus a " tragi- 
 comedy; " which does not mean that there is anything 
 in it to which we should apply the word " tragic," 
 but merely that the introduction of gods amongst the 
 characters gives it some of the features of classic 
 tragedy. In saying that it is a dramatic version 
 of the myth of Jupiter and Alcmena, enough has 
 been said to indicate that the morality in this case
 
 AMPHITRYON. 73 
 
 is that common to pagan mythology. This did not 
 prevent it from being acted at Westminster so late 
 as 1792. There are well-known French and English 
 imitations of it : the ' Amphitryon ' of Moliere and 
 ' The Two Sosias ' of Dryden. It must be said, at 
 least, in favour of the great French dramatist, that the 
 morality in his play is higher than that of the original. 
 ' Amphitryon,' however, has some wit, which is more 
 than can be well said for the ' Menaechmi.' Here, too, 
 it is possible that we have the original of the two 
 Dromios in Shakspeare's comedy. For, as Jupiter has 
 assumed the character and likeness of Amphitryon, so 
 he has directed Mercury to put on the resemblance of 
 Sosia, Amphitryon's body-slave. The scene in which 
 poor Sosia, sent by his master (who has just returned 
 from his campaign) to announce his arrival to his wife 
 Alcmena, is met at the door by his double in the 
 person of Mercury, is very comically drawn. It has 
 the defect of being, at least to our modern taste, some- 
 what too prolonged, and only a portion of it can be 
 given here. Mercury insists upon it that he is the 
 true and original Sosia, gives the other a drubbing as 
 an impudent impostor, and threatens to give him a 
 worse if he does not at once take himself off. Sosia 
 becomes extremely puzzled as to his own identity when 
 his rival, in reply to his questions, shows an intimate 
 knowledge of all his master's movements during the 
 late campaign, and especially in the matter of a gold 
 cup presented to him out of the spoils, which is 
 secured in a casket under Amphitryon's own seal 
 which seal, however, this duplicate Sosia can describe 
 perfectly.
 
 74 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 Sosia (aside). He beats me there. I must look out, it 
 
 seems, 
 
 For a new name. Now where on earth could this fellow 
 Have been, to see all that ? I'll have him yet ; 
 Things that I did by myself, with no one near 
 What I did in the tent it can't be possible 
 He'll tell me that. (Aloud.) Now look if you be Sosia, 
 What was I doing in my master's tent, 
 That day they'd such hard fighting in the front ? 
 Come tell me that, my friend and I'll give in. 
 
 Mercury (slily). There was a cask of wine : I filled a 
 
 pitcher 
 
 Sos. (to himself). He's not far out. 
 
 Mer. Filled it with good red wine 
 
 As honest stuff as ever grew in grape. 
 
 Sos. Marvellous ! unless this chap was in the cask ! 
 Fact I did fill the pitcher and drank it too. 
 
 Mer. How now ? have I convinced you I am Sosia ? 
 Sos. (puzzled). D'ye say I'm not ? 
 Mer. How can you be, if I am ? 
 
 Sos. (half crying). I swear by Jove I am Sosia if s no lie. 
 Mer. I swear by Mercury it is : Jove won't believe you ; 
 He'd trust my word far sooner than your oath. 
 Sos. Who am I then, I ask you, if not Sosia ? 
 Mer. That I can't tell you but you can't be Sosia, 
 So long as I am : when I've done with the name, 
 Then you may take it. Now be off with you, 
 Name or no name, unless you want a thrashing. 
 
 Sos. Upon my life, now that I look at him, 
 And recollect myself (I take a peep 
 Into my master's glass occasionally) 
 
 It strikes me that there is an uncommon likeness. (Ex- 
 amines Mercury furtively.) 
 
 The broad-brimmed hat and surcoat just the same ; 
 He looks as like me as I do myself ! 
 Legs feet proportions short-cropped hair bull-neck
 
 AMPHITRYON. 75 
 
 Eyes nose lips cheeks the very chin and beard 
 
 The whole of him is me ! the very ditto ! 
 
 I wonder whether he's got whip-marks on his back 
 
 Tf so, the copy's perfect.* (Cogitating.) Still it seems, 
 
 When I consider on't, I must be I : 
 
 I'm the same man I was ; I know my master 
 
 I know his house, there 'tis. I've got my senses ; 
 
 (Pinching himself.) And I can feel. No ; I will not 
 
 believe 
 A word this fellow says. I'll knock again. (Goes up to 
 
 the door.) 
 
 Mer. (rushing up). Hallo ! where now ? 
 Sos. Home, to be sure. 
 
 Mer. Be off 
 
 Be off like lightning, if you'd keep whole bones ! 
 Sos. Mayn't I give master's message to his lady ? 
 Mer. To his by all means ; only not to ours : 
 If you provoke me more, I'll break your head. 
 Sos. (running away). No no ! I'll go! Poor devil that 
 
 I am! 
 
 Where did I lose myself ? when was I changed ? 
 How did I lose my corporal capacity 1 
 Did I forget myself, when I went abroad, 
 And leave myself at home here, by mistake ? 
 For he's got what was me, there's no doubt of it ; 
 All the outside, I mean, that I used to have. 
 
 * Moliere has improved upon this passage, in the scene in 
 which Sosia tells his master of the beating which he has just re- 
 ceived from his own double, and how he was at last convinced- 
 that this latter was the real man : 
 
 "Longtemps d'imposteur j'ai traite" ce moi-meme ; 
 Mais a. me reconnaltre enfin il m'a force* : 
 J'ai vii que c'e'tait moi, sans aucune stratagems ; 
 Des pieds jusq'& la tete il est comme moi fait, 
 Beau, 1'air noble, bien pris, les manures charmantes ! " 
 Amphit., act ii. sc. 1.
 
 76 THE COMEDIES OF PLUATUS. 
 
 Well m go "back again and tell my master : 
 Perhaps he won't own me ! The gods grant he don't ! 
 I shall be free then, even if I'm nobody. 
 
 Act i. sc. 1. 
 
 The scene in which the pilot of the ship is unable 
 to decide between the false Amphitryon and the true, 
 when at last they are brought upon the stage together, 
 is probably only a " restoration " of the mutilated work 
 of Plautus. Moliere has substituted Sosia for the 
 pilot, and makes him. decide in favour of the false pre- 
 tender. The convincing argument which confirms him 
 in this decision has passed into a proverb, better 
 known perhaps in itself than in its context. Jupiter, 
 in his assumed character of Amphitryon, is made to 
 reserve the disputed identity for the verdict of the 
 Thebans in full assembly : meanwhile he invites all 
 the company present to dinner : 
 
 " Sosia. Je ne me trompais, Messieurs, ce mot termine ' 
 Toute 1'irresolution; 
 Le veritable Amphitryon 
 Est 1' Amphitryon ou. 1'on dine." * 
 
 VIII. THE POT OF GOLD (AULULAR1A). 
 
 The prologue to this comedy is spoken in the char- 
 acter of the " Lar Familiaris," as the Romans called him 
 a sort of familiar spirit supposed to be attached to 
 every Roman household, who had his own little altar 
 
 * Dunlop shows, however, that this is really borrowed from 
 an older comedy on the same subject by Rotrou ' Les Deux 
 Sosies ' which the later author has laid under contribution 
 in other scenes. Sosia's words in Rotrou's play are "Point, 
 point d' Amphitryon ou Von ne dine point."
 
 THE POT OF GOLD. 77 
 
 near the family hearth, and whose business it was, if 
 duly cultivated, to look after the family fortunes, a 
 private " Robin Goodfellow." He informs the audience 
 that the owners of the establishment over which he 
 presides at present have 'been a generation of misers. 
 The grandfather had buried under the hearth a " Pot 
 of Gold," intrusting the secret only to him, the Lar, 
 and praying him to see to its safe keeping ; and too 
 covetous, even at his death, to disclose this secret to 
 his son. The son was rather worse than his father, 
 grudging the Lar his sacrifices even more than the old 
 man had ; and therefore, the Lar saw no good reason 
 for discovering the treasure to him. And now the 
 grandson, Euclio, is as bad as either father or grand- 
 father. But he has a daughter ; rather a nice young 
 woman, the Lar considers : she is constantly paying 
 him little attentions, bringing incense, and wine, and 
 garlands, and f suchlike, to dress his altar : and as the 
 Lar must have seen a good deal of her, and the audi- 
 ence is never allowed to see her at all, they have to take 
 his word for her attractions. She will be expecting a 
 husband soon : and the family guardian has fixed upon 
 one for her Lyconides, nephew to one of their next- 
 door neighbours, Megadorus. But as he has some 
 reason to know that the young man would not be ac- 
 ceptable to her father, he will contrive that the uncle 
 shall ask the girl in marriage for himself, and after- 
 wards resign in his nephew's favour. And he has 
 made known to Euclio the secret of the buried treasure, 
 in the hope that out of it he will provide a liberal 
 dowry for the young lady who is so zealous in her 
 household devotions.
 
 78 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 But Euclio has no intention of using the gold in that 
 or in any other fashion. It becomes his one delight, 
 and his perpetual torment. He leaves it buried in its 
 hiding-place : but he is in continual terror lest it should 
 be discovered. He scarcely dares move from home, 
 lest when he returns he should find it gone. Every 
 noise that he hears, he fancies proceeds from some at- 
 tempt to carry off his treasure. He leads his poor old 
 housekeeper, his one slave Staphyla, a wretched life, 
 from his perpetual worrying. When his neighbour 
 Megadorus comes to ask the hand of his daughter in 
 marriage, he is sure that it is because he has heard in 
 some way of the gold. His continual protest is that 
 he is miserably poor. One of the most ludicrous situa- 
 tions is the dilemma in which he finds himself placed, 
 when upon some occasion a dole of public money is 
 announced for the poorer citizens. If he does not at- 
 tend and claim his share, his neighbours will think he is 
 a rich man, and be sure to try to hunt out his money : if 
 he goes to the ward-mote to receive it, and has to wait 
 perhaps some time for the distribution, what may not 
 have become of his darling " Pot " during his absence ? 
 Acute critics have said, apparently with truth, that in 
 Euclio we have the pure miser ; who has no desire to 
 increase his store, no actual pleasure in the possession, 
 no sense of latent power in the gold which he treasures, 
 but who is a very slave to it in the terror of losing it. 
 
 Euclio, though much alarmed at first as to the pro- 
 bable motives of Megadorus's request, consents to give 
 him his daughter ; still, however, under protest that 
 he is a very poor man, which the other fully believes. 
 He can give no dowry with her : but Megadorus is
 
 THE POT OF GOLD. 79 
 
 prepared to take her without; he will even provide 
 out of his own purse all the expenses of the wedding- 
 feast, and will send in to Euclio's house both the pro- 
 visions and the cooks required for the occasion. 
 
 But the cooks, when they come, and begin to busy 
 themselves in the house, are a source of continual 
 agony to the miser. He hears one of them call for a 
 " larger pot : " and he rushes at once to the protection 
 of his gold. He finds his own dunghill-cock scratching 
 about the house ; and he is sure that these new-comers 
 have trained him to discover the buried treasure, and 
 knocks the poor bird's head off in his fury. In the 
 end he drives them all off the premises under a shower 
 of blows, and only when he has in their absence dug up 
 the precious pot, and got it safe under his cloak, will 
 he allow them to come back again. When the bride- 
 groom expectant, in the joy of his heart, invites him to 
 drink with him, he feels satisfied that his intention is 
 to make him drunk, and so to wring from him his 
 secret. 
 
 The miser carries off the pot, and proceeds to bury 
 it afresh in the temple of Faith, placing it under that 
 goddess's protection. He finds that this proceeding has 
 been watched by a slave belonging to Megadorus, and 
 carries the gold off again to the sacred grove of Syl- 
 vanus, where he buries it once more. This time, however, 
 the slave takes his measures successfully, by getting up 
 into a tree ; and when Euclio is gone, he unearths the 
 pot, and carries it off rejoicing. The discovery of his 
 loss almost drives the miser frantic : and the scene is 
 worth extracting, if only because Moliere has borrowed 
 it almost entire in the well-known soliloquy of Harpa-
 
 80 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTD&. 
 
 gon in ' L'Avare.' It shall be given in as literal a prose 
 version as it will bear, in order to its more ready com- 
 parison with the French imitation. 
 
 EUCLIO (solus, rushing on the stage). 
 
 I'm ruined ! dead ! murdered ! where shall I run ] 
 Where shall I not run to ? Stop him there, stop him ! 
 Stop whom ! Who's to stop him 1 (Striking his forehead 
 in despair.} I can't tell I can see nothing I'm going 
 blind. Where I'm going, or where I am, or who I am, I 
 cannot for my life be sure of ! ( Wringing his hands, and 
 appealing to the audience?) Oh pray I beseech you, help 
 me ! I implore you, do ! Show me the man that stole 
 it ! Ah ! people put on respectable clothes, and sit there 
 as if they were all honest ! (Addressing a spectator in the 
 front seats.} What did you say, sir ? I can believe you, 
 I'm sure I can see from your looks you're an honest man. 
 (Looking round on tJtem all.) What is it ? Why do you 
 all laugh ? Ah, I know you all ! There are thieves here, 
 I know, in plenty ! Eh ! have none of them got it ? I'm 
 a dead man ! Tell me then, who's got it ? You don't 
 know ? Oh, wretch, wretch that I am ! utterly lost and 
 ruined ! Never was man in such miserable plight. Oh, 
 what groans, what horrible anguish this day has brought 
 me ! Poverty and hunger ! I'm the most unhappy man 
 on earth. For what use is life to me, when I have lost all 
 my gold ? And I kept it so carefully ! Pinched myself, 
 starved myself, denied myself in everything ! And now 
 others are making merry over it, mocking at my loss and 
 my misery ! I cannot bear it ! 
 
 Act v. sc. 2.* 
 
 The scene which follows between the miser and the 
 * Compare Moliere's 'L'Avare,' act iv. sc. 7.
 
 THE POT OF GOLD. 81 
 
 young man Lyconides, who has anticipated his uncle 
 in the love of the miser's daughter, has also been bor- 
 rowed by Moliere. Lyconides comes to confess that 
 he has stolen the young lady's affections ; but Euclio is 
 so full of his one great loss, that he persists in interpret- 
 ing all Lyconides's somewhat incoherent language tc 
 imply that he is the thief of the gold. The play upon 
 the Latin word olla, which means " pot," and is also 
 the old form of ilia, " she," helps the equivoque materi- 
 ally. But the French version is far more amusing ; and 
 the words of Harpagon, when, in reply to Valere's talk 
 about " la passion que ses beaux yeux m'ont inspiree, 
 he exclaims in bewilderment, " Les beaux yeux de ma 
 cassette !" * has passed, like so many of Moliere's lines, 
 into a favourite proverb. 
 
 This play is imperfect, and we only know what the 
 catastrophe was from the brief sketch in the metrical 
 prologue, which Priscian the grammarian is said to 
 have affixed to each of these comedies. The lover 
 recovers the pot of gold for its owner ; and by some 
 miraculous change in the miser's nature is presented 
 with it as a dowry for the daughter. The later scenes 
 have indeed been supplied by more than one ingenious 
 " restorer ; " but such restorations are unsatisfactory at 
 the best. 
 
 Besides the admirable adaptation of this comedy in 
 the French, no less than three English dramatists, 
 Fielding, Shadwell, and Wycherley, have each a 
 comedy called ' The Miser,' the plot and materials of 
 all which are borrowed more or less from Plautus. 
 
 ',* ' L'Avare,' act v. sc. 1. 
 A. c. vol. xvi. F
 
 82 THE COMEDIES Of PLAUTUS. 
 
 IX. THE TRICKSTER (PSEUDOLUS). 
 
 This comedy would deserve special notice, if only 
 because it was, if we may trust Cicero, the " darling " 
 of Plautus. An author, however, is not an infallible 
 judge of his own works ; and though the action of the 
 piece is very busy and lively, and the tricks of Pseu- 
 dolus fairly amusing, few modern readers would be 
 likely to select it as their favourite. Probably it might 
 act better than it reads. Its plot is the old story of 
 money which has to be raised in some way for the 
 ransom of a slave-girl out of the hands of the dealer, 
 and the humour consists entirely in the devices of 
 Pseudolus to procure it for his young master. But 
 one of the early scenes contains such a graphic picture 
 of one of these hateful traffickers in human flesh and 
 blood, that portions of it may be worth presenting to 
 the reader. 
 
 Enter BALLIO, the slave-dealer, and four flogging-slaves, 
 all armed with whips : other slaves following. 
 
 Come out, here ! move ! stir about, ye idle rascals ! 
 
 The very worst bargain that man ever made, 
 
 Not worth your keep ! There's ne'er a one of ye 
 
 That has thought of doing honest work. 
 
 I shall never get money's worth out of your hides, 
 
 Unless it be in this sort (lays, about them with the whip). 
 
 Such tough hides too ! 
 
 Their ribs have no more feeling than an ass's 
 You'll hurt yourself long before you'll hurt them. 
 And this is all their plan these whipping-posts 
 The moment they've a chance, it's pilfer, plunder, 
 Rob, cheat, eat, drink, and run away's the word.
 
 THE TRICKSTER. . 83 
 
 That's all they'll do. You'd better leave a wolf 
 
 To keep the sheep, than trust a house to them. 
 
 Yet, now, to look at 'em, they're not amiss ; 
 
 They're all so cursedly deceitful. Now look here ; 
 
 Mind what I say, the lot of ye ; unless 
 
 You all get rid of these curst sleepy ways, 
 
 Dawdling and maundering there, I'll mark your backs 
 
 In a very particular and curious pattern 
 
 With as many stripes as a Campanian quilt, 
 
 And as many colours as an Egyptian carpet. 
 
 I warned you yesterday ; you'd each your work ; 
 
 But you're such a cursed, idle, mischievous crew (gives 
 one of them a cut at each word) 
 
 That I'm obliged to let you have this as a memorandum. 
 
 Oh ! that's your game, then, is it ? So you think 
 
 Your ribs are as hard as this is ? (Shows his whip.) Now, 
 just look ! 
 
 (Turning to his whipping-slaves). They're minding some- 
 thing else ! Attend to this, 
 
 (Striking one of the others.) Mind this, now, will you ? 
 Listen, while I speak, 
 
 You generation that were born for flogging ; 
 
 D'ye think your backs are tougher than this cow-hide ? 
 
 (Lays about him with it.) Why, what's the matter ? Does 
 it hurt ? dear ! 
 
 That's what slaves get when they won't mind their masters. 
 
 Act i. sc. 2. 
 
 There was a highly comic element in this, we may be 
 sure, to an audience of Roman freemen. Even if there 
 were, as it is certain there must have been, present in 
 the theatre, many who had been slaves themselves, and 
 whose fathers had been in slavery, and many who were 
 slaves still, we may feel only too sure that their laugh 
 was amongst the loudest. Among the curses of modern
 
 84 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 slavery has been the selfish disregard of human suffer- 
 ing which it encouraged not only amongst the masters 
 but amongst the slaves themselves ; and it is well 
 known that a negro overseer has often shown far more 
 cruelty towards those of his own colour than the 
 white owner of the plantation. 
 
 The slave Pseudolus, who is the hero of this piece, 
 and from whom Moliere seems to have borrowed in 
 some degree his character of Mascarille in 'L'Etourdi,' 
 is somewhat of a more intellectual rascal than others 
 of his type who appear in these comedies. He looks 
 upon successful roguery as a highly intellectual ac- 
 complishment. 
 
 Just as the poet, when he takes his pen, 
 
 Seeks things which upon earth have no existence, 
 
 And straightway finds them, and makes that like truth 
 
 Which is but very falsehood ; thus will I 
 
 In my way be a poet ; these gold pieces 
 
 Which are not, shall be ; genius shall create them. 
 
 The scene in which he meets his master Simo, who is 
 looking for him in order to make some inquiries as to 
 the late discreditable goings-on of his son, in which he 
 thinks with some justice that Pseudolus has been aiding 
 and abetting, is a good specimen of cool effrontery. 
 Simo is accompanied by his friend Callipho, and Pseu- 
 dolus sees them coming. 
 
 Pseudolus (to himself}. A bold behaviour in a doubtful 
 
 cause 
 
 Is half the victory. (Bowing profoundly to Simo.) Sir, 
 my best respects
 
 THE TRICKSTER. 85 
 
 They are my master's due. (Boiving to Callipho.) My 
 
 second best, 
 Such as are left me, sir, I offer you. 
 
 Simo (gruffly). Good morning. Where may you "be 
 
 going, eh ? 
 Pseud. I'm standing still, sir, as you might observe 
 
 (striking an attitude). 
 Si. Look at the fellow's posture, Callipho ! 
 Stands like a lord there ! 
 
 Callipho. Well, he's not afraid ; 
 
 That's a good sign. 
 
 Pseud. I hold, sir, that the slave 
 
 Who has an honest conscience (lays his hand on his heart) 
 
 should feel proud, 
 Especially in the presence of his master. 
 
 Si. Hark to him ! Now he'll so philosophise, 
 A.nd choke you with a flood of clever words, 
 You'd think he was not Pseudolus, but Socrates.* 
 
 Pseud. You hold me in contempt, sir that I know ; 
 You do not trust me ; ah ! you'd have me be 
 A rascal ; no, sir I'll be honest still. 
 
 Act i. sc. 5. 
 
 His master asks him "whether he can answer honest- 
 ly a few questions about his son : and Pseudolus assures 
 him that his replies shall be " as the oracles of Delphi." 
 His son has got into trouble ? Yes. Owes money ? 
 Yes. He, Pseudolus, is trying to procure it for him ? 
 Yes. Probably intending, by some tricks or cajolery, 
 to extract it out of his the father's pocket? Pseudo- 
 lus confesses that he had such intention. And, after 
 
 *This reputation for "sophistry" seems to have followed 
 Socrates from the pages of Aristophanes to those of his brother 
 dramatist.
 
 86 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 some satirical compliment from Simo upon his candour, 
 and thanks for having thus put him on his guard, he 
 coolly assures his master that he retains this intention 
 still, and is confident of succeeding in it. Nay, more 
 when Simo challenges him to try, he will undertake 
 not only to get from him the money required for the 
 ransom of the young person upon whom his son has set 
 his heart, but to get her away from her present owner 
 without any ransom at all. It ends in a promise from 
 Simo to make him a present of the sum required, if he 
 succeeds in his design upon Ballio the slave-dealer. The 
 old gentleman, however, gets so uneasy on the subject, 
 that he succeeds in " hedging " his own stake in the 
 matter by telling Ballio of the plot which is laid for 
 him, and making a wager with him to the same amount 
 that Pseudolus will beat him in spite of all precautions. 
 He does ; and his master who is evidently as proud 
 of possessing such a clever slave as some people are of 
 a specially mischievous child hands him over the 
 money ; with the less reluctance, because he gets re- 
 couped at the expense of the wretched Ballio, who 
 loses both his slave and his wager. Pseudolus liber- 
 ally offers to return his master half, if he will join him 
 at a supper which he has ordered in celebration of his 
 double triumph ; and Simo, in accordance with that 
 curious combination of familiarity and despotism which 
 has been remarked as pervading all the relations be- 
 tween master and slave, accepts the invitation at once, 
 although Pseudolus is very far from sober when he gives 
 it. Simo suggests that he should also invite the audi- 
 ence ; but Pseudolus replies that none of them have 
 ever yet invited him. If, however, they will now sig-
 
 THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN. 87 
 
 nify their approval of the comedy, he will give them 
 an invitation to-morrow. 
 
 The plays named 'Epmicus' and 'BACCHIDES' hoth 
 turn upon incidents very similar to the preceding, the 
 clever and unscrupulous slave being the leading charac- 
 ter in both. They call for no particular notice here ; 
 unless it be to mention that the ' Epidicus ' must have- 
 been, like the play just noticed, a special favourite with 
 its author, since he makes one of the characters in his 
 ' Bacchides ' say that he "loves it as well as his own 
 life ; " * and that this latter play, like the ' Pseudolus,' 
 appears to have suggested to Moliere some points in his 
 ' L'Etourdi.' One of its scenes t has also (as Thornton 
 thinks) been imitated by him in ' Les Fourberies de 
 Scapin.' 
 
 X. THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN (PCENULUS). 
 
 This play has an interest apart from any literary 
 merit, because, written as it was during the Second 
 Punic War, it has some Carthaginians introduced into 
 it. We may conclude that the sketches were such as 
 Plautus judged likely to meet the popular taste; and 
 if so, they are creditable to the Eoman contemporary 
 estimate of their powerful enemies. With the excep- 
 tion of a joke or two about long trailing foreign dresses, 
 and their being "pulse-eaters," just aswe used to affect 
 to believe that Frenchmen lived upon frogs, and a 
 hit in the prologue at the proverbial " Punic faith," 
 which on a Eoman's tongue meant Punic faithlessness, 
 there is nothing derogatory to their national character 
 * Bacch., act ii. sc. 2. t Act iii. sc. 3.
 
 88 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 in this impersonation of the Carthaginians by the Roman 
 dramatist. The elder of the two, who is introduced 
 under a very historical name Hanno is a highly 
 straightforward and unselfish character, who at once 
 gives up to his cousin, Agorastocles, the " young Cartha- 
 ginian," as soon as he discovers their relationship, the 
 property which had been left to himself by the young 
 man's father, in the belief of his son's death. Agoras- 
 tocles himself is neither better nor worse than the Athe- 
 nian (or, as they really are, Roman) youths who figure 
 in the comedies. And as for Adelphasium Hanno's 
 lost daughter, with whom the hero of the piece has 
 fallen passionately in love in her position as a slave 
 there is more character in her than in any one of the 
 heroines (the word must be used because there is no 
 other to be found) of Plautus or of Terence. It is diffi- 
 cult to separate her from the very disagreeable interlo- 
 cutors in the dialogues in which she takes a part : but 
 the quiet way in which she treats her sister's love of 
 finery, and her half-affected indifference to the flat- 
 teries of her lover, and disregard of all his raptures so 
 long as he fails in his promise of obtaining her freedom, 
 mark her out very distinctly from most of the female 
 characters in Plautus. There is an amusing scene in 
 which her lover, finding that she will not listen to him, 
 begs his servant Milphio, in whose rhetorical powers 
 he feels more confidence, to plead his cause with her. 
 Milphio consents to do it warning his master, at the 
 same time, that he may possibly think his ambassador 
 too energetic. So the young man listens in the back- 
 ground, while Milphio, speaking on his behalf, entreats 
 Adelphasium, in the most approved style of lovers'
 
 THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN. 89 
 
 language, to have some pity upon his unfortunate 
 master. He throws himself so heartily into his com- 
 mission, that the Carthaginian listens to his rapturous 
 expressions with dismay, and at last can endure it no 
 longer. He rushes forward, and seizes his amhassador 
 by the collar, wholly regardless of the presence of the 
 lady and her sister, who look on with much amusement. 
 
 Agorastocles. Now am I not worth purchase at three 
 
 farthings, 
 If I don't break that scoundrel's head. Come here, sir ! 
 
 (seizes Milphio.} 
 There's for your " sweets," and " dears," and " pretty 
 
 darlings " (beats him at each word). 
 Here's " heart's delight " and " lovely charmer " for you ! 
 
 (beats him again.} 
 
 Milphio. Oh, master, master ! it's rank sacrilege ! 
 You're beating an ambassador ! 
 
 Agor. I'll beat him 
 
 More yet. " Kiss her all day," sir, could you ? 
 I daresay ! (striking him again.} " Nestling of your 
 
 bosom," is she ? 
 Mil. (roaring and rubbing his sJioulders). Oh ! that's 
 
 enough ! 
 
 Agor. Was that the fashion, sirrah, 
 
 In which I meant you to address the lady 1 
 Mil. Why, what was I to say, then ? 
 Agor. Say, you rascal ? 
 
 Why, this "Light of my master's eyes queen of his 
 
 soul 
 
 Breath of his life joy of his heart," and so on : 
 Instead of that, sir, in your cursed impudence, 
 You've been calling her your darling all the time ! 
 Mil. Oh ! now I see ! (goes up to Adelphasium, and 
 begins again.)
 
 90 THE COMEDIES OF PL A UTUS. 
 
 I implore you, gracious madam, 
 Joy of his heart but my abomination 
 Queen of his soul but enemy of my ribs 
 His pet, my pest his angel, but my devil 
 Light of his eyes but black as night to me 
 Don't be so very cross to him, if you can help it. 
 
 Adelphasium (laughing and turning away). Go hang 
 yourself ! you and your master too ! 
 
 Mil. I shall lead a precious life of it, I see, through you ; 
 I've got a back already in your service 
 Whealed like an oyster-shell. 
 
 Adel. It's your own back 
 
 That you think most of, I suspect ; not him, 
 Or how he cheats me with deceitful promises. 
 
 When Hanno has discovered that these two sisters are 
 the long-lost daughters in search of whom he has 
 journeyed to Calydon, he determines to play upon their 
 feelings for a while in the most unnecessary and un- 
 likely fashion by pretending to them that he merely 
 comes to claim them as his slaves. And here, again, 
 there are little touches on the part of Adelphasium 
 which almost redeem the scene from tediousness. 
 Hanno pretends to summon the girls before the magis- 
 trate, in order to prove his claim ; and the lover, who 
 is present, and helps (though with evident impatience) 
 to humour the father's jest, asks him if he shall at once 
 make Adelphasium his prisoner. She has heard him 
 address the stranger as his " cousin ; " and the fine 
 scorn with which, as she draws back from his eager 
 arm, she exclaims 
 
 " Said you this person was your kinsman, sir ? " 
 could not fail to be effective from the lips of a clever
 
 THE YOUNG CARTHAGINIAN. 91 
 
 actress. So, too, when she requests to know the nature 
 of Hanno's claim to her, and the lover, eager to put an 
 end to the equivoque, says that all shall be told if 
 she will but accompany the stranger, she scornfully 
 replies 
 
 " What ! does my own dog bark at me ? " 
 
 it is not difficult to sympathise with the young Cartha- 
 ginian's intense admiration of her as she stands there 
 defying him. He vows that for her sake Jupiter would 
 soon " send Juno packing;" and when at last she throws 
 her arms round her father's neck, he laments that Apel- 
 les and Zeuxis died too soon they had never such a 
 subject for their pencil. These are by far the most 
 life-like pair of lovers in any comedy of either 
 Plautus or Terence. Granted that he is a little 
 foolish, and she something of a coquette, that does 
 not make the characters either less natural or less 
 entertaining. 
 
 Nevertheless, all this absurd mystification on the 
 part of the father does make this scene tedious, as are 
 some others in the play. Hanno carries on his heavy 
 joke so long, that at last his young cousin, who is im- 
 patient for the recognition of his dear Adelphasium, 
 appeals to him by pointing to the audience : 
 
 " Sir, cut it short these gentlemen are thirsty." 
 
 There is no symptom of relenting disclosed on the 
 part of Adelphasium towards her suitor, even after her 
 true position as a free-woman has been secured ; but, 
 as Hanno unhesitatingly promises her hand in marriage 
 to her new-found cousin, and daughters in the comic
 
 92 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 drama are very dutiful on such points, we are left to 
 conclude that his constancy is rewarded. Mr Dunlop 
 whose critical judgment is entitled to so much re- 
 spect has pronounced this to be the dullest of all the 
 author's productions. Plot there certainly is none ; 
 and the heavy badinage of the excellent Hanno is 
 enough to put any critic out of temper. But there 
 is certainly more point in the dialogue than in most of 
 the comedies of Plautus. 
 
 The play has a special interest for scholars, indepen- 
 dently of any literary merit. It is supposed to contain 
 the only existing specimen of the Carthaginian language, 
 in which Hanno is made to speak when first he appears 
 upon the stage.* There are eighteen lines of it (some 
 of them, however, containing a mixture of Latin 
 words), besides a few scattered phrases. This philo- 
 logical curiosity has naturally much exercised the in- 
 genuity of the learned. Scaliger, Petit, and others, 
 consider the language to be merely a variation of He- 
 brew, and in Pareus's edition of Plautus the lines are 
 printed in Hebrew characters. Others have sought to 
 identify it with Chinese, Persian, or Coptic. Some 
 modern philologers incline to consider it a mere un- 
 meaning jargon, invented by Plautus for the occasion ; 
 and the frequent admixture of Latin words and ter- 
 minations in the last lines of the passage (as though 
 the writer were tired of keeping up the farce) certainly 
 lends some countenance to this view. The vocalisation 
 of some of the words bears no slight resemblance to 
 
 * Act v. sc. 1.
 
 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTVS. 93 
 
 Welsh. But the question of the affinities of language 
 is not one to be discussed here. 
 
 The remaining Comedies may be dismissed with brief 
 notice. The stock characters the parasite, the mili- 
 tary swaggerer, and the cunning slave reappear upon 
 the stage in very similar combinations, and in less 
 respectable company. ' Stichus,' which is in other 
 respects deficient in interest, having no plot whatever, 
 and which some authorities do not consider to have 
 been written by Plautus, deserves notice as containing 
 the pretty female character of Pamphila (or Pinacium, 
 as she is called in some copies), the exemplary young 
 wife who maintains her fidelity to her absent husband 
 in spite of the strong probabilities of his death or deser- 
 tion. In vain has her father urged upon her and his 
 other daughter, in accordance, no doubt, with the feeling 
 of society on such points, the propriety of unprotected 
 young women in their circumstances marrying again. 
 Their husbands have now been absent, ostensibly on a 
 trading voyage, for above three years, and have sent no 
 word home. But Pamphila will listen to no snch 
 suggestion, and encourages her sister in steady resist- 
 ance to all temptations to such breach of their first 
 vows. Of course both husbands return home in due 
 time, enriched by the profits made in their foreign 
 voyages ; and such is the whole story of this brief and 
 inartistic drama, remarkable only for its pleasant com- 
 panion pictures of the two young wives. Six more plays 
 make up the list of Plautus's surviving comedies, and if
 
 94 THE COMEDIES OF PLAUTUS. 
 
 these had not survived, we should certainly have had 
 no loss. Their names are ' Casina ' which seems to 
 have furnished Beaumarchais with part of the plot of 
 his ' Mariage de Figaro ' ' Curculio,' ' The Ass-dealer ' 
 (Asinaria), ' The Churl ' (Truculentus), 'The Merchant,' 
 and 'The Persian.' The morality of all these is of 
 the very lowest, and the three last are stupid besides.
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 TERENCE. 
 
 A DRAMATIC generation elapsed between Plautus and 
 Terence ; for the latter was only ten years old at the 
 date of Plautus's death. The great name which filled 
 the interval in the annals of Eoman comedy was that of 
 Caecilius ; but of his works nothing remains except a 
 few disjointed passages to be found here and there in the 
 works of other authors. Horace mentions him with ap- 
 proval, while Cicero accuses him of bad Latin. Caecilius, 
 too, was a copyist from Menander, and a very indifferent 
 copyist in the opinion of Aulus Gellius, who gives us 
 an additional testimony to the genius of the Greek 
 dramatist, when, in comparing a passage from one of 
 his lost comedies with the imitation of it by Csecilius, 
 he says that the difference in brilliancy is that of the 
 golden armour of Glaucus compared with the bronze of 
 Diomed. 
 
 Such biographical record as we have of Ter- 
 ence is mainly derived from a source which is very 
 apocryphal. There is a " Life " of him, ascribed to 
 Suetonius, but more probably written by the gram- 
 marian Donatus : we do not know what authority the
 
 96 TERENCE. 
 
 writer had for his details, and the anecdotes which it 
 contains have a suspicious colouring. 
 
 Though the name by which he is known Publius 
 Terentius is Roman, we are told that he was by 
 birth a Carthaginian, whence came his sobriquet 
 of "Afer" (the African), and that he was either 
 born in slavery or had become a prisoner of war. 
 He was brought up in the household of a Roman 
 senator named Terentius, and, as was not uncommon 
 among slaves when they obtained their freedom, took 
 the name of his patron. That under these circumstances 
 he should have had a liberal education need not 
 discredit the story ; for in many Roman families we 
 know that such young slaves as showed ability were 
 allowed ample opportunities of instruction. But 
 other opportunities are said to have fallen to the lot 
 of Terence such as few in his position could have 
 hoped for. He was admitted, while yet a young 
 man, to an intimate association with Scipio and 
 Laelius ; and this pair of accomplished friends were 
 even said to have had a large share in the composition 
 of the dramas which were brought out in the name of 
 their humbler associate. There is a story that Lselius, 
 being one evening busy in his library, and slow to 
 obey his wife's summons to dinner, excused himself by 
 saying he had never been in a happier mood for com- 
 position : and forthwith recited, as part of the result, 
 a passage from what was afterwards known as 'The 
 Self-Tormentor ' of Terence. The dramatist himself, 
 perhaps very naturally, seems partly to have encouraged 
 the popular notion that he enjoyed such distinguished 
 help ; for though in his prologue to the comedy which
 
 TERENCE. 97 
 
 was said to have been really the work of his aristocratic 
 friend he speaks of this report as " a weak invention of 
 the enemy," yet in the prologue to a subsequent drama, 
 'The Brothers,' he evidently treats it as a compli- 
 ment, and does not care altogether to refute so flattering 
 an accusation. 
 
 For as to that which carping tongues report, 
 That certain noble friends have lent their hand 
 To this his work, and shared the poet's toil, 
 What they would fling at him as a reproach 
 He counts an honour, to be thus approved 
 By those whom universal Rome approves.* 
 
 Cicero thought it probable. that his illustrious friends 
 did help him, though it might have been only by 
 judicious hints and corrections. It is also more than 
 possible that the dramatist may have been indebted 
 for much of the refinement of his dialogue, directly or 
 indirectly, to the accomplished women whose society 
 he enjoyed in the household of Lselius. The ladies of 
 that family were all charming talkers ; and Lselia, the 
 eldest daughter of Scipio's friend, is mentioned by her 
 son-in-law Crassus, the famous orator, as reminding 
 him, in the elegance of her language, of the dialogues 
 of Naevius and Plautus. 
 
 It is said that when he offered his first play to the 
 ^Ediles, who as the regulators of the public games had 
 to choose the pieces which were to enjoy the honour of 
 public representation, he found the officer to whom he 
 brought it to read seated at table. The young author 
 was desired to take a stool at a distance, and begin : 
 but he had scarcely got through the opening passage 
 * Prologue to the AdelpM, 15. 
 
 A. C. vol. xvi. G
 
 98 TERENCE. 
 
 of ' The Maid of Andros ' when the ^Edile motioned 
 him to a seat by his own side, and there the reading 
 was completed. 
 
 The six comedies which follow are probably all that 
 their author ever put upon the stage. In the midst of his 
 dramatic career, he left Home in order to travel in 
 Greece, and is said during his tour to have employed 
 himself in the translation of upwards of a hundred 
 of Menander's comedies. He seems never to have 
 returned, and tradition says that he was lost at sea on 
 his voyage homeward, and that his precious manu- 
 scripts perished with him. Another story is that he 
 himself escaped from the wreck, but died of grief for 
 the loss of his literary treasures. 
 
 His plays have far more elegance, but less action, 
 than those of Plautus. He is perhaps more adapted 
 for the library, and Plautus for the stage. Very much 
 of the fun of the latter is broad farce, while Terence 
 seldom descends below parlour comedy. But the two 
 writers had moved in very different circles : Plautus 
 had been familiar with life in the Suburra the St 
 Giles's of Rome while Terence had mixed in the 
 society of the Palatine. Their tastes had thus been 
 formed in very different schools. It is probable that 
 Terence gives us a better notion of what Menander was 
 than either Plautus or Caecilius. A criticism of Caesar 
 has been already quoted, in which he calls Terence a 
 " half-Menander." In the same lines he speaks of his 
 " pure diction " and " smoothness," and regrets his de- 
 ficiency in that lively humour (" vis comica") which 
 Menander seems to have succeeded in combining with
 
 TERENCE. 99 
 
 the Attic elegance of his style. There seems much 
 justice in this criticism. 
 
 The brief prologues with which Terence introduces 
 his plays, unlike those of Plautus, contain no kind ofi 
 explanation of the plot. They are personal appeals 
 of the poet to his audience, informing them honestly 
 of the sources from which he has borrowed his piece 
 (for to the honours of original invention no Roman 
 dramatist of those days seems to have thought of 
 aspiring), or defending himself against some charge of 
 unfair dealing brought against him by his rivals. In 
 this respect they bear a strong resemblance to the 
 " parabasis," as it was called, introduced here and there 
 between what we should call the acts, in the old Attic 
 Comedy of Aristophanes and Cratinus.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 I. THE MAID OF ANDROS. 
 
 ' THE Maid of Andros ' the earliest in date of 
 Terence's comedies with which we are acquainted 
 is confessedly founded upon two plays of Menander, 
 his ' Andria' and 'Perinthia ;' and the Eoman dramatist 
 tells us, in his prologue, how certain critics complained 
 that in this adaptation he had spoilt two good pieces 
 to make a single indifferent one. How much truth there 
 maybe in the accusation we cannot even guess. But there 
 seems to have been generally a lack of incident in the 
 comedies of his great original, which, supposing such 
 adaptation to be permissible at all, would quite justify 
 a writer who had to make his own work effective in 
 supplying himself with sufficient material from as 
 many separate pieces as he thought proper. Even as we 
 have the play, the incidents are so few and simple, that 
 its defect, if acted before a modern audience, would be 
 the want of sufficient interest in the plot. A lady 
 named Chrysis has come from the island of Andros to 
 Athens, and there, from lack of money or friends, after
 
 THE MAID OF ANDROS. 101 
 
 a hard struggle to make an honest livelihood, has been 
 driven to make a market of her beauty. Amongst the 
 visitors to her house, one of the most constant has 
 been the young Pamphilus, who may be considered the 
 hero of the piece. But, whatever the lady's reputation, 
 the relations between her and Pamphilus have been of 
 the most innocent kind : and of this fact none are 
 better convinced than his father Sirno, and the freed- 
 man Sosia who is, in spite of his humble position in 
 the household, the confidential friend and adviser of 
 both father and son. The scene between Sosia and his 
 master gives us, as most of these comedies do, a very 
 pleasant idea of the kindly relations which in a well- 
 regulated Roman household might subsist between the 
 head of the family and his dependants, even under the 
 hateful conditions of slavery. For we must still re- 
 member that, though the scene is laid in Athens, the 
 words, and in a great degree the manners also, are 
 Roman ; though Terence is more careful on this point 
 than Plautus. Simo tells his freedman that he wants 
 his services in a matter which involves trust and secrecy 
 qualities in which he has not hitherto found him 
 wanting. 
 
 Simo. You know that, since I bought you when a boy, 
 You found me as a master just and kind ; 
 Then from a slave I made you free ; and this 
 Because you had served me with a free goodwill; 
 The greatest boon I had to give, I gave you. 
 
 Sosia. I don't forget it. 
 
 Si. Nor do I repent it. 
 
 So. If aught that I have done, or can do, pleases you, 
 It is my pleasure : if you thank me for it,
 
 102 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 I thank you for the thanks. But that you name it 
 Troubles me somewhat ; thus reminding me 
 Seems half to charge me with ingratitude ; 
 Sir, in one word, what would you have me do ? 
 
 Simo will tell him. It was true, there was nothing 
 between his son and Chrysis ; his visits were really 
 not to her. But Chrysis died a short time ago ; and 
 Pamphilus, as a mark of respect to an old acquaintance, 
 had followed amongst the mourners at her funeral. 
 Simo one of the many idle old gentlemen who were 
 wont to be spectators on such occasions had seen his 
 son actually wipe away a tear. He was charmed, he 
 tells Sosia, at such a mark of true sensibility. " If he 
 weeps, said I to tayself, for a person who was a mere 
 common acquaintance, what would he not do for me 
 his father ! " Suddenly a young woman, hitherto un- 
 known, attracted his attention : of such a ravishing 
 beauty that the staid father of the family grows posi- 
 tively enthusiastic rather to the surprise of the discreet 
 Sosia in his description. When the corpse is laid, ac- 
 cording to Athenian custom, on the funeral pile, this 
 interesting young stranger, in the agony of her grief, 
 crept so close to it as to be almost caught by the flames ; 
 when a young man rushed forward, clasped her in his 
 arms with the tenderest expressions of affection, calling 
 her his " darling Glycerium," and led her off sobbing 
 very familiarly on his shoulder quite as if she was used 
 to the situation. And this young man was Pamphilus 
 and his father looking on with his own eyes ! He had 
 gone home, as he tells Sosia, in such mood as might be 
 imagined after witnessing this outrageous conduct in
 
 THE MAID OF ANDROS. 103 
 
 the promised bridegroom of his old friend's daughter. 
 Yet, after all, he continues 
 
 I had scarce ground enough, methinks, to chide him ; 
 He might reply " Have I deserved this, father ? 
 What have I done ? Wherein have I offended ? 
 She would have thrown herself into the flames ; 
 I hindered it I saved her life ! " Such plea 
 Sounds fair and honest. 
 
 So. Marry, so it does ; 
 
 For if you chide him that would save a life, 
 What will you say to him that seeks to take it ? 
 
 However, the father is in great tribulation. His friend 
 Chremes has heard of the matter, and is told that 
 Pamphilus is privately married to this young foreigner ; 
 and very naturally declines any longer to look upon him 
 as a future son-in-law. But Simo is determined to find 
 out the truth, and to be satisfied whether his son has 
 really got into this disreputable entanglement. He 
 means to pretend to him that the marriage with Chre- 
 mes's daughter, so long meditated, is at last finally settled, 
 and is to come oif at once, this very evening, the day 
 originally named. Young men in Athenian society 
 must have been usually very obedient to their fathers 
 in such matters : for Simo has no doubt of his son's 
 compliance, unless he can show good and reasonable 
 cause to the contrary. If this Andrian girl really 
 stands in the way, Pamphilus will make decided objec- 
 tions to the being disposed of in marriage, and then 
 then, this indulgent father, who evidently dreads noth- 
 ing s.o much as having to find fault with his son at 
 all, will know how to deal with him. So Sosia is
 
 104 ; THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 charged to keep up the deception, and to assure every 
 one that his young master is to be married this very 
 evening. 
 
 But, if Sosia justly enjoys the confidence of his 
 master, the young heir of the house has his confidant 
 too. This is a slave named Davus the best-known 
 representative in classical comedy of the familiar char- 
 acter who has been described in a previous chapter.* 
 He has considerably more cleverness than Sosia, but 
 nothing of his honesty : except, indeed, a kind of span- 
 iel-like fidelity to his young master's private interests, 
 partly attributable to the mischievous pleasure which 
 he finds in thereby thwarting the plans and wishes of 
 the elder one. Davus has heard of this sudden re- 
 newal of the marriage-contract, and comes upon the 
 stage soliloquising as to how this complication is to be 
 dealt with. His master enters at the same time on 
 the other side, listening. 
 
 Davus. Ah ! I was wondering where all this would end ! 
 The master was so quiet, I suspected 
 He must mean mischief. When he heard that Chremes 
 Downright refused his girl, he never spoke 
 An angry word, nor stormed at any of us. 
 
 Simo. (aside at the wing, shaking his stick at Davus}. 
 He will speak soon, and to your cost, you rascal ! 
 
 Da. (still aside). So, so! he thought to take us unprepared, 
 Lapping us up in this fools' Paradise, 
 To swoop upon us at the last, too late 
 To give us time to think, or opportunity 
 To hinder this curst wedding. (Ironically.) Clever man ! 
 Si. (trying to listen). What is he muttering ? 
 
 * See p. 15.
 
 THE MAW OF ANDROS. 105 
 
 Da. (discovering Simo). Ha ! my master there ! 
 
 I had not seen him. 
 
 Si. (coming forward}. Davus ! 
 
 Da. (pretending not to have seen him before). Hey ? 
 what is it ? 
 
 Si. Here, sirrah, come this way ! 
 
 Da. (aside). What can he want 1 
 
 Si. What say you ? 
 
 Da. What about ? 
 
 Si. D'ye ask me, sirrah ? 
 
 They say my son has a love affair ? 
 
 Da. Good lack ! 
 
 How folks will talk ! 
 
 Si, D'ye mind me, sir, or no ? 
 
 Da. I'm all attention. 
 
 Si. Well to inquire too closely 
 
 Into the past were harsh' let bygones rest. 
 But now he must begin a different life ; 
 New duties lie before him from this day : 
 And you I charge you (changing his tone) nay, indeed, 
 
 good Davus, 
 
 I rather would intreat you, if I may, 
 Pray help to keep him straight. 
 
 Da. (affecting suprise.) Why what's all this ? 
 
 Si. Young men, you know, with such whims, do not care 
 To have a wife assigned them. 
 
 Da. (carelessly). So they say. 
 
 Si, Then if a young man have a knavish tutor 
 Who trains him in such courses, why, the evil 
 Will grow from bad to worse. 
 
 Da. (looking stolid). Hercules help me ! 
 
 I can't tell what you mean. 
 
 Si, (ironically). No really ? 
 
 Da. No ; 
 
 I'm only Davus I'm no (Edipus. 
 
 Si. You'd have me speak more plainly is it so ?
 
 106 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 Da. Indeed I would. 
 
 Si- Then, if I catch you scheming 
 
 To disappoint this match of ours to-day, 
 By way of showing your own curst cleverness, 
 I'll have you flogged within an inch of life, 
 And sent to the mill on this condition, look you 
 When I let you out, I'll go and grind myself. 
 Now, sir, d'ye understand me 1 Is that plain ? 
 
 Da. Oh, perfectly ! (bowing). You state the case so 
 
 clearly, 
 
 With such entire correctness of expression, 
 So free from ambiguity it's quite charming ! 
 
 But Davus is riot deterred by these threats. He 
 meets Chrem.es going about with a very gloomy face, 
 not at all like a happy father-in-law : he meets his foot- 
 boy coming home from market with a penny bundle 
 of pot-herbs and a dish of sprats very unlike pro- 
 visions for a wedding-supper. He peeps into their 
 kitchen ; no culinary preparations whatever. More- 
 over, there is no music, as there should be, before the 
 door of the bride's house. He is satisfied that his 
 suspicions are correct ; that there is really no wedding 
 on foot, at least for the present ; that Chremes still 
 firmly refuses to allow his daughter to marry a young 
 man whom he believes to be married already ; and that 
 Simo is only using this pretended renewal of the en- 
 gagement as a test for ascertaining how matters really 
 stand between his son and the fair Andrian. He 
 goes in search of his young master to acquaint him 
 with this discovery, and to advise him to checkmate 
 his father by consenting at once to the proposed 
 marriage ; which, as there is no bride forthcoming, will
 
 THE MAID OF ANDROS. 107 
 
 evidently pose the old gentleman considerably, besides 
 convincing him that his son is free from the entangle- 
 ment which he suspects. There will be a respite 
 gained, at any rate : and in the meanwhile, Davus 
 hopes, " something will turn up." 
 
 He finds Pamphilus in a state of great perplexity, 
 and very indignant against his father for proposing 
 to marry him off-hand at such very short notice; 
 the perplexity not being lessened by his Glycerium pre- 
 senting him with a baby on this his wedding-day that 
 is to be with another lady. Simo has heard a report 
 of this little stranger's arrival : but he believes it to 
 be a mere plot to impose upon him and Cliremes, and 
 to confirm his friend in his resolution to refuse his 
 daughter. 
 
 Acting upon the advice of Davus, Pamphilus assures 
 his father at their next interview that he is quite ready 
 to take the wife suggested to him. But Davus has 
 been too clever by half. Simo goes straight to his 
 friend, assures him that all is over between Pam- 
 philus and Glycerium, that his son will gladly fulfil 
 the contract already made for him, and begs of him, 
 by their long friendship, not to refuse any longer a 
 connection which will be for his son's advantage and 
 for the happiness of all. Chremes with some reluc- 
 tance consents : and in the joy of his heart Simo calls 
 Davus, to whose good offices he thinks he is chiefly 
 indebted for his son's compliance. 
 
 Simo. Davus, I do confess, I doubted you : 
 I had my fears ; slaves common slaves, I mean 
 Will do such things, that you were cheating me, 
 As to this matter of my son's.
 
 108 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 Davus. (with an air of injured innocence). I, master ! 
 could you think it ? cheat ? Oh dear ! 
 
 Si. (soothingly). Well, well I fancied so : and with 
 
 that thought 
 I kept the secret which I tell you now. 
 
 Da. What's that ? 
 
 Si. Well, you shall hear : for now at last 
 
 I almost think that I may trust you may I ? 
 
 Da. At last, sir, it seems, sir, you appreciate me. 
 
 Si. This wedding was a mere pretence. 
 
 Da. (with feigned surprise). No ! really ? 
 
 Si. A scheme of mine, to test my son and you. 
 
 Da. Indeed ! 
 
 Si. Yes, really. 
 
 Da. Look ye ! what a wit 
 
 Our master has ! I never could have guessed it. 
 
 Si. Listen ; when I dismissed you, I met Chremes 
 
 Da. (aside.) We're lost I know it. 
 
 Si. Listen ; straight 1 told him 
 
 What you told me, that Pamphilus was ready. 
 I begged and prayed that he would give his daughter ; 
 At last I moved him. 
 
 Da. (aside). Then I'm done for. 
 
 Si. Hey ! did you speak ? 
 
 Da. I only said " well done," sir. 
 
 Si. And I beseech you, Davus, as you love me, 
 Since you alone have brought about this wedding 
 
 Da. 1 1 oh dear, no ! pray 
 
 Si. For my son I ask you, 
 
 Still do your best to regulate his morals. 
 
 Da. I will, I will, sir trust me. [Exit Chremes. 
 
 (Throws himself on the ground and tears his hair.) 
 
 h ! h ! 
 
 I'm gone a thing of nought. Why don't I go 
 Straight to the mill-prison of myself ? Forgiveness ? 
 No hope of that, from any one. I've played
 
 THE MAID OF ANDROS, 109 
 
 The very mischief with the total household ; 
 
 Cheated the master got the son a wife 
 
 This very night, much to the old gentleman's 
 
 Astonishment, and his son's disgust. Ah ! well ! 
 
 This comes of cleverness. Had I held my tongue, 
 
 No harm had happened. Hist ! here comes young master ; 
 
 (Looking about.) Is there any place here high enough, I 
 
 wonder, 
 For a man to break his neck from ? 
 
 There is another lover in the plot, which is perhaps 
 to our modern notions more complicated than interesting. 
 This daughter of Chremes, to whom Pamphilus has 
 been contracted by his father, has a favoured admirer in 
 his friend Charinus. Pamphilus has assured him that he 
 himself has no aspirations whatever in that quarter, in 
 spite of the arrangement' between the two fathers : and 
 the young lover is naturally indignant when he dis- 
 covers, as he thinks, the treacherous part which his 
 friend has played in the matter, in now coming forward 
 to fulfil an engagement which he had always professed 
 to repudiate. There is a spirited scene between the 
 two young men, in which Pamphilus at last succeeds in 
 convincing his friend of his own unchanged views in 
 the matter he will never marry the girl of his own 
 free-will. Poor Davus narrowly escapes a thrashing from 
 both, for his unlucky interference. He undertakes, 
 however, if they will but have patience with him, to 
 set matters right yet : and his next step is to persuade 
 the nurse to allow him to lay Glycerium's baby down 
 at his master's door a silent claim upon his grand- 
 fatherjust as Chremes, full of his daughter's marriage, 
 is coming to call on his old friend. Chremes finds out
 
 110 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 as Davus intends that he should whose child it is, 
 and is more than ever indignant at the deception which 
 is being repeated upon himself and his daughter. He 
 goes straight to Simo and once more recalls his consent. 
 But meanwhile a stranger has arrived at Athens, 
 who announces that this Andrian girl was really no 
 sister of Chrysis, but a free-born daughter of Athenian 
 parents, and that therefore Pamphilus will be bound 
 by Athenian law to marry her if they are not married 
 already. When Davus comes to announce this news 
 to Simo, the old gentleman's indignation at this new 
 ruse on behalf of the conspirators as he thinks it 
 knows no bounds ; and poor Davus, who is now speak- 
 ing the truth for the first time in the whole business, 
 is for his reward tied neck and heels by order of his 
 irate master, and carried off to prison. But the tale 
 is true. An Athenian citizen had been shipwrecked 
 upon the island with a little child ; had died there, 
 and left the infant to be brought up by Chrysis. 
 This shipwrecked stranger turns out to have been 
 Chremes's own brother, to whose charge he had com- 
 mitted his little daughter this Glycerium, long 
 supposed to be drowned, and now restored to her 
 father. All difficulties are over ; Pamphilus shall yet 
 be son-in-law to Chremes only the bride is Glycerium, 
 not Philumena. The latter young lady, who never 
 makes her appearance, and whose charms, like those of 
 Glycerium, must be taken on report by the audience, is 
 with dramatic justice handed over to her lover Charinus. 
 Davus is released ; he comes in rubbing his neck and 
 legs, which are still suffering from the very uncomfort- 
 able kind of stocks a veritable " little-ease " which
 
 THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. HI 
 
 the Romans used to punish their slaves, but too good- 
 humoured and light-hearted not to rejoice in the re- 
 stored harmony of the family. He concludes the piece 
 by begging the audience not to expect an invitation 
 to the weddings, which Avill take place, he assures them, 
 quite privately.* 
 
 II. THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 
 
 The plot of 'The Mother-in-law,' though it is an 
 extremely pretty play, and its moral excellent, turns 
 upon incidents which Avould justly offend the reticence 
 of modern manners. Here it can only be sketched 
 generally. A young wife, but a few months married and 
 of really irreproachable character, fancies that she has 
 so fatally compromised herself with her husband under 
 circumstances in which she was really not to blame, 
 that in his absence she leaves the roof of his 
 father and mother, Avith whom she has been living 
 since her marriage, and takes refuge with her own 
 parents. Laches, her father-in-law, a choleric and 
 despotic personage, fancies that his wife Sostrata, the 
 "mother-in-law," must necessarily be the cause; al- 
 though that gentle and kindly woman has really a 
 sincere affection for the runaway, to whom she has 
 always shown every kindness. The scolding which 
 Laches inflicts upon his wife in one of the early scenes 
 of the play, will serve to show how little originality 
 
 * Upon this play Michel Baron, the French dramatist, founded 
 his comedy of ' L'Andrienne,' the two first acts being little more 
 than a translation. Steele's 'Conscious Lovers' is also bor- 
 rowed from it.
 
 112 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 there is in those conjugal dialogues which, have always 
 been so popular an ingredient in modern farce. If 
 humour of this kind cannot be said to be in the very 
 best taste, it may at least claim a high classical an- 
 tiquity. 
 
 Laches. Good heavens ! what a strange race these women 
 
 are ! 
 
 They're all in a conspiracy ! all just alike, 
 In what they will and what they won't ; not one of 'em 
 But sings to the same note ; with one consent 
 Each stepmother detests her daughter-in-law, 
 Each wife is bound to contradict her husband ; 
 There must be some school where they all learn wicked- 
 ness ; 
 And my own wife must be head-mistress in it. 
 
 Sostrata. Poor me, poor me ! I don't know what I 
 am charged with ! 
 
 La. (sneering}. Oh ! you don't, don't you ? 
 
 Sos. On my life, dear Laches, 
 
 No as I hope to live and die with you ! 
 
 La. The gods deliver me from such a prospect ! 
 
 Sos. (sobbing). Well, when I'm gone, you'll know how 
 cruel you've been. 
 
 La. Cruel, forsooth ! what words are strong enough 
 For your base conduct, madam 1 You've disgraced 
 Me, and yourself, and all the family ; 
 You've ruined your son's happiness made enemies 
 Of our best friends, who gave their daughter to us. 
 'Tis you, and only you, have done it all. 
 
 Sos. I ! 
 
 La. Yes, you, madam ! What ! am I a stone ? 
 
 Have I no feelings, think you ? Do you fancy 
 Because I am in the country, I don't know 
 How you all go on here while I am away ? 
 Ay ! better than I know what goes on there.
 
 THE MOTHER-IN-LAW. 113 
 
 Your conduct, madam, makes me common talk. 
 I knew my son's wife hated you yes, long ago ; 
 No wonder 'twould be a wonder if she didn't. 
 But that for your sake she had taken a hatred 
 To the whole family, this I did not know. 
 Had I only known it, I'd have packed you off, 
 And made her stay I would indeed, my lady ! 
 Look how ungrateful, too, is this behaviour ; 
 All to please you, I take a place in the country ; 
 I work like a horse there more than at my years 
 I ought to do to keep you here in idleness, 
 Spending my money ; 'twas the very least 
 You might have done, to keep a quiet house. 
 
 Sos. 'Twas not my fault, indeed, indeed, dear Laches ! 
 
 La. I say it was your fault, and no one else's ; 
 You'd nought to do but make things pleasant here ; 
 I took all other burdens off your hands. 
 Shame ! an old woman like you to go and quarrel 
 With a poor girl ! You'll tell me now, 'twas her fault ? 
 
 Sos. No, no ! dear Laches, I have never said so. 
 
 La. Well, I am glad, for my son's sake, you've the grace 
 To confess that. You don't much harm yourself 
 By the confession ; in your precious character 
 A fault or two the more don't make much odds. 
 
 You mothers never rest until your sons 
 
 Get them a wife ; and then your whole delight 
 
 Is to make mischief between wife and husband. 
 
 Some of the scenes in this play are the most 
 dramatic of any which have come down to us from 
 the author's hands. The grief of the young husband 
 when, on his return from a voyage on business, he 
 finds that his wife has left his father's roof and gone 
 home to her own parents, and when she refuses him an 
 
 . A. C. Vol. XVI. H
 
 114 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 interview on the plea of illness ; when he believes 
 that there is some cause of quarrel which is concealed 
 from him between her and his mother, whom he dearly 
 loves ; and the struggle between his love for his wife, 
 and his sense of what is due to his own honour, when 
 he learns the real cause of her withdrawal, are all very 
 finely drawn. So are the little passages in which poor 
 Sostrata, still believing that the cause of Philumena's 
 estrangement is some unaccountable dislike which she 
 has taken to herself, though conscious that she has 
 done her best to make her a happy home, proposes to 
 give up her pleasant town-house and retire into the 
 country, and so leave the young pair to themselves. 
 Laches himself is touched at last by her simple and 
 unselfish goodness ; and though the indications of this 
 are slight in the Eoman play, compared with the fuller 
 and more gradual development which would be 
 thought necessary in a modern comedy, there is in the 
 short scene between them a simple pathos which, when 
 the characters were played by good actors, no doubt 
 touched the feelings of the audience as it was meant 
 to do. 
 
 La. Well, well ; we'll go into the country ; there 
 You'll have to bear with me, and I with you. 
 
 Sos. (throwing her arms round, far husband and sobbing}. 
 
 Husband, I hope we may ! 
 La. (disengaging himself awkwardly, and trying to hide 
 
 his emotion). There, there ! go in ; 
 (Jet ready all you want I've said the word. 
 
 Sos. I'll do your bidding aye, and gladly. 
 
 Pamphilus (tvho IMS entered unperceived). Father ! 
 
 La. Well, Pamphilus, what is it ?
 
 THE MOTHER-IN-LA W. 1 1 5 
 
 Pam. What means this ? 
 
 My mother leave her home ? It must not be. 
 
 La. Why not ? 
 
 Pam. Because I am not yet resolved 
 
 As to my wife. 
 
 La. You bring her back, of course. 
 
 Pam. I wish it it is hard to give her up ; 
 But I must do that which I feel is best. 
 She and my mother will be friends apart. 
 
 La. You can't tell that. Besides, what matters it ? 
 Your mother will be gone. (Turns away from his son, 
 
 who tries to interrupt him.} We're getting old 
 We're only troublesome to younger folk ; 
 We'd best be moving on. (Turning again to Pamphilus 
 
 with a smile.} In short, my boy, 
 We're only " the old man and woman," now. 
 
 But everything is made right in the end. Philu- 
 mena goes back to her husband a wife without 
 reproach, and we are allowed to hope that Laches did 
 not wait for Sostrata's death to repent of his injustice 
 to her character. The dramatist had not altogether lost 
 his pains, if he had done something to qualify the 
 vulgar notion of a " mother-in-law." The play appears 
 to have met with no success when first brought out, 
 for it has come down to us with a " second prologue," 
 written for what seems to have been its third repre- 
 sentation, in which the author takes the opportunity 
 to remark on its previous failures. He attributes these 
 in both cases to the more powerful attractions of the 
 rope-dancers and the gladiators. On the second oc- 
 casion the audience were so impatient for the appear- 
 ance of these latter, that they would not even sit out 
 the comedy.
 
 116 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 III. THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 
 
 The comedy of 'The Self -Tormentor' is in great 
 measure borrowed, as well as its Greek name of ' Heau- 
 ton-timorumenos,' from a lost comedy of Menander, of 
 which we have tut some ten lines. It has very much 
 the same kind of dramatis persona? as the preceding 
 play. Two fathers and two sons, a young lady for 
 each, and a scheming slave, devoted to the interests of 
 his young master make up the leading characters. 
 Chremes and Menedemus, the fathers, have for the last 
 few months been neighbours in the country ; engaged, 
 as Roman gentlemen who preferred a country life com- 
 monly were, in farming ; an occupation in which it 
 must be confessed they were generally much more suc- 
 cessful than the average English squire. Chremes has 
 noticed that since Menedemus bought his present farm, 
 he has worked upon it himself from morning till night, 
 as hard as though he were a slave instead of a master ; 
 in fact, that he does more work than any of his slaves, 
 and that the time which he spends himself in manual 
 labour might, so far as the interests of the farm are con- 
 cerned, be much more profitably employed in looking 
 after them. He has no reason to suppose that his 
 neighbour is poor ; and he has a curiosity to learn the 
 secret of this " self-tormenting." He succeeds in doing 
 so in the opening scene, though not without some diffi- 
 culty. Menedemus gruffly expresses his surprise that 
 his neighbour should have so much leisure from his 
 own affairs as to concern himself about those of others.
 
 THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 117 
 
 Chremes makes answer in those famous words, which 
 can only be inadequately given in any English trans- 
 lation ; words at which, as St Augustine tells us, the 
 whole audience, though many of them rude and ignor- 
 ant, broke out into thunders of applause : 
 
 " I am a man ; nothing in human life 
 Can fail to have its interest for me." * 
 
 Menedemus then tells him that he had once (he almost 
 fears he can no longer say he has) an only son, who 
 had fallen in love with a young Corinthian stranger 
 of humble fortunes, who had come to Athens (the 
 " Maid of Andros," in fact, under another title), and 
 had wished to marry her. The father's pride had re- 
 fused to consent ; almost any marriage with a foreigner 
 was held, it must be remembered, to be a mesalliance 
 for a citizen of Athens. He had spoken harshly to his 
 son ; and the young man, not choosing to be so dealt 
 with, had entered upon that field of adventure which 
 was open in those times to all young men of spirit : 
 he had taken service with a body of mercenaries, 
 and gone to seek his fortunes in the East. Distracted 
 at the consequences of his own severity, and the loss 
 of a son whom he deeply loved, Menedemus had sold 
 his house in Athens, and retired into the country, de- 
 termined to punish himself for what he considers his 
 unnatural harshness by a life of rigid asceticism. He 
 will live no life of ease after driving his son into exile 
 and poverty ; whatever he can save by self-denial shall 
 
 * " Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto."
 
 118 THE COMEDIES Of TERENCE. 
 
 be saved for him at his return if ever that happy day 
 should come. 
 
 It comes with the very next scene. Young Clinia 
 has returned from the wars, and has just heen received 
 into the house of Chremes introduced there by his 
 son, Clitipho, who had been an intimate friend of the 
 wanderer, though the father does not seem to have been 
 aware of it. Clinia has begged his friend to send at 
 once to his dear Antiphila, and, if she has been as 
 faithful to him in his absence as he hopes, to entreat 
 her to pay him a visit in his temporary domicile. And 
 now the complication begins. Syrus, the slave to 
 whom young Clitipho intrusts his friend's errand, his 
 confidant in all business, lawful or unlawful deter- 
 mines to take the opportunity of doing his young 
 master a special kindness. Clitipho has also, as 
 Syrus is well aware, a love affair of his own upon his 
 hands, with a very dashing and extravagant lady in- 
 deed, to gratify whose expensive tastes in the way of 
 presents he has already taxed his father's good-nature 
 to the uttermost. Syrus has hit upon the brilliant 
 idea of introducing this lady into his master's house- 
 hold as a visitor, instead of the modest and quiet 
 Antiphila, as the object of Qftnia's affections ; that 
 Clitipho may thus enjoy the pleasure of a few days in 
 her society. Antiphila meanwhile is sent into the 
 ladies' apartments which were quite distinct from 
 the other rooms in the house there to be entertained 
 by Sostrata, Chremes's wife. How Clinia is brought 
 to consent to an arrangement which would give 
 him very little opportunity for interviews with his 
 dear Antiphila or how husband and wife, in such a
 
 THE SELF- TORMENTOR. 119 
 
 modest establishment as this seems to have been, could 
 each have entertained a young lady guest for some 
 days (as seems to have been contemplated by Syrus) 
 without each other's knowledge, is not so clear as it might 
 be. But even on our modern stage we are continually 
 obliged, if we go to be amused, to swallow glaring 
 improbabilities ; and to expect to criticise the Athenian' 
 or the Roman stage by the light of our modern ignor- 
 ance, is an occupation, perhaps, more tempting than 
 profitable. 
 
 The hospitable Chremes is somewhat astonished at 
 the ways of the dashing lady to whom all to oblige 
 his son's friend he has given shelter. He meets 
 Menedemus the next morning, and warns him in a 
 friendly way that Clinia's wife that is to be see.iflsifei 
 extremely fast young person. 
 
 Chr. First, she's brought with her half a score of maids, 
 Tricked out, the jades, with gold and jewellery ; 
 Why, if her lover were an Eastern prince, 
 He couldn't stand it how on earth can you ? 
 
 Men. (mildly). Oh ! is she here, too ? 
 
 Chr. Is she here, do you ask ? 
 
 (Ironically}. Oh yes ! she's here. There's no doubt as 
 
 to that. 
 
 I know it to my cost. They've had one dinner, 
 She and her party. If I give another 
 Such as last night, why I'm a ruined man. 
 She's very curious, mind you, as to her wines ; 
 Knows the best brands, and drinks them. "Ha !" 
 
 she'd say, 
 
 " This wine's not dry enough, old gentleman 
 " Get us some better, there's a dear old soul ! " 
 I had to tap my oldest casks. My servants
 
 120 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 Are driven almost wild. And this, remember, 
 Was but one evening. What's your son to do, 
 And you, my friend, that will have to keep her always ? 
 
 Men. Let him do what he will : let him take all, 
 Spend, squander it upon her ; I'm content, 
 So I may keep my son. 
 
 Chremes sees that it is impossible to argue with the 
 remorseful father in these first moments of his son's 
 return. But it will be a very dangerous thing for 
 young Clinia to know that his father is thus offering 
 him carte blanche for all his own and his mistress's ex- 
 travagances. He therefore begs his friend, instead of 
 openly supplying the money, to allow himself to be 
 made the victim of a kind of pious fraud. The amount 
 of expenditure for the present may not be of so much 
 importance, provided the son is not led to believe that 
 he has unlimited command of his father's purse. 
 Chremes will manage that the supplies required for 
 the lady's demands shall be drawn from Menede- 
 mus on some specious pretext. He has evidently a 
 great fancy for transacting other people's business ; for 
 though he has an arbitration case which he ought to 
 attend to-day, he will go and have it put off, that he 
 may have time to arrange this matter for his friend. 
 The happy father willingly consents, and is all impa- 
 tience to be cheated. 
 
 Syrus meanwhile is racking his wits to know how 
 he is to get money for his young master to lavish upon 
 the extravagant Bacchis. In this mood his elder 
 master meets him and knowing him to possess the 
 talent for intrigue and deception which is common to 
 his class, asks his help to impose some tale upon
 
 THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 121 
 
 Menedemus whom he affects to abuse as " a covetous 
 old wretch " in order to make him a little more 
 liberal to his unfortunate son, whom he has once 
 already driven from home by his harshness. " That poor 
 young man ought to have had some clever servant," 
 says Chremes, "who would have managed the old 
 gentleman for him." Syrus is astonished, as he may 
 well be, at such a proposal from such a quarter ; but 
 it suits his own purpose exactly. 
 
 Syr. Oh ! I can do it, sir, if you insist 
 I have, methinks, some modest gifts that way. 
 
 Chr. Egad ! so much the better. 
 
 Syr. I'm not used 
 
 To so much lying but 
 
 Chr. Do it you'll oblige me. 
 
 Syr. But hark ye, sir, remember this, I pray you ; 
 In case I say in case men are but men 
 Your son should get in some such scrape hereafter. 
 
 Chr. That case won't happen, I trust. 
 
 Syr. Nay, heavens forefend ! 
 
 I trust so too. Don't think, because I mention it, 
 That I have any suspicion not the slightest ; 
 But still he's young, you see such things will happen ; 
 And if they should (boiving}, I shall know how to act, 
 By following your excellent instructions. 
 
 Chr. (laughing). Well, well ; we'll see to that, my 
 
 worthy Syrus, 
 When the day comes ; now go about this business. 
 
 [Exit Chremes. 
 
 Syr. I vow I never heard my master talk 
 More to the purpose never had I before 
 Free leave and licence given to be a rascal ! 
 
 The behaviour of his young guests is somewhat
 
 122 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 puzzling to Chremes, though, he is quite unsuspicious 
 as to the real state of affairs. Clinia and the supposed 
 object of his affections conduct their love-passages in 
 the most calm and decorous fashion ; hut young 
 Clitipho, to the great annoyance of his father, who 
 understands what is right and proper under such cir- 
 cumstances, insists upon thrusting his company upon 
 them on all occasions. He naturally grudges his 
 friend all the tete-a-tetes with his own beloved Bacchis, 
 which his good-natured father is so anxious to secure 
 for them. Clinia does not seem to mind these inter- 
 ruptions on the part of his friend ; hut Chremes is 
 indignant at his son's want of ordinary tact and good 
 manners, especially as -he has detected little acts of 
 glaring flirtation between him and Bacchis, which 
 seem to imply gross disloyalty to his friend. He 
 taxes him with this in an amusing scene, in the 
 presence of Syrus, Avho is much alarmed lest his young 
 master's want of self-command should lead to the detec- 
 tion of the imposture ; for he, too, has seen him very 
 distinctly toying with Bacchis's hand. Both of them 
 beg him to go and leave the young couple to themselves. 
 
 Clitipho (helplessly}. Where shall I go, sir ? 
 
 Syrus. Go ? why, bless my life, 
 
 Go anywhere only leave them go for a walk. 
 
 Clit. Where shall I walk to ? 
 
 Syr. Zounds ! why, anywhere 
 
 There's plenty of walks go this way that way any 
 way. 
 
 Chremes. The man's quite right, sir, go. 
 
 Clit. (moving off gloomily). Well, then I'm going. 
 (Shaking his fist at Syrus as he goes.)
 
 THE SELF-TORMENTOR. 123 
 
 Devil take you, rascal, for your interference ! 
 Syr. (aside to him). You keep your hands to yourself, 
 young man, hereafter. ( Watching him as he goes 
 off with apparent interest, and turning to Chremes.) 
 Indeed, sir, he's too bad. What will he come to ? 
 You had best give him very serious warning, 
 And keep him tight in hand. 
 
 Chr. I will, I will. 
 
 Syr. Before it is too late. 
 Chr. I will, I say. 
 
 Syr. I hope you will, sir. As for my advice, 
 (Shrugging his shoulders.) He minds it less and less, I 
 grieve to say. 
 
 Chremes's wife lias meanwhile made the discovery, 
 by the common test of a family ring, that the girl 
 Antiphila is a long-lost daughter whom she had sent 
 away immediately after her birth, in obedience to her 
 husband's threats that, in case one should be born 
 to him, he would never bring up such a troublesome 
 addition to his family. This, of course, makes every- 
 thing clear for Clinia's marriage with her ; and that 
 young gentleman is accordingly made happy, by the 
 consent of all parties. But not before the busy Chremes 
 has been hoisted with his own petard, by Syrus's 
 contrivance. Acting very much upon the principle 
 recommended to him by his master himself, the cunning 
 rascal has extracted from him fifty pounds as an im- 
 aginary ransom for his own daughter Antiphila, whom 
 he declares to have been purchased in her infancy by 
 Bacchis : and the gold is actually sent to that lady by 
 the hands of his own son. There is some complication 
 in this part of the plot, fairly amusing as worked out
 
 124 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 in detail in the original, but not worth analysis. It 
 is very long before Chremes can be brought to believe 
 that it is his own son, and not Clinia, who is the real 
 lov.er of the dashing young lady whom he has been 
 entertaining out of complaisance, as he considered, 
 to his son's friend. Menedemus, no longer a "self- 
 tormentor," is equally gratified to find that, after all, 
 he is to have such a modest and highly respectable 
 daughter-in-law, and amused at the collapse of his 
 scheming friend. 
 
 MENEDEMUS (solus, laughing to himself}. 
 
 I don't profess myself to be a genius 
 I'm not so sharp as some folk that I know : 
 But this same Chremes this my monitor, 
 My would-be guide, philosopher, and friend, 
 He beats me hollow. Blockhead, donkey, dolt, 
 Fool, leaden-brains, and all those pretty names 
 They might suit me ; to him they don't apply : 
 His monstrous folly wants a name to itself. 
 
 Poor Chremes grows very crestfallen in the closing 
 scenes, when he looks forward to the ruin which his 
 son's extravagant tastes, with the fair Bacchis's assist- 
 ance, will bring upon him. Menedemus retorts upon 
 him his own advice, not to be too hard upon his 
 son young men will be young men: but Chremes 
 fails to take the same philosophical view of his own 
 case as he had done of his friend's. He vows at first 
 that he will disinherit his young prodigal, and settle 
 all his property upon his new-found daughter and her 
 husband ; but he is persuaded at last to alter this 
 determination.
 
 THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. '. 125 
 
 Clitipho promises on his part to give up Bacchis 
 altogether, and take to wife at once a neighbour's 
 daughter, a most unobjectionable young lady upon 
 whom, with the facile affections of such young gentle- 
 men, he seems to have had an eye already. 
 
 IV. THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 
 
 . The comedy of ' The Ethiopian Slave,' which is 
 partly taken, as the author tells us in his prologue, 
 from Menander, introduces to us once more, under 
 another name, our old friend Pyrgopolinices of Plau- 
 tus. Captain Thraso, who has fought or who says he 
 has fought under Seleucus in the East, and his toady 
 Gnatho, are the most amusing characters in the play. 
 The plot is more simple and well-defined than is usual 
 in these comedies ; and though it must be modified 
 a little to suit either these pages or an English stage, 
 it will not suffer much from such treatment. This 
 Thraso, a rich braggart, who takes Gnatho about with 
 him everywhere to act as a kind of echo to his senti- 
 ments and to flatter his vanity, is one of the suitors 
 of a lady named Thais, who prefers a young gentle- 
 man named Phaedria, though she does not care to 
 discard altogether her rich lover. Poor Phsedria is in 
 despair, when the play opens, at having been refused 
 admittance when he called on the lady the day before, 
 because, as he understood, " the Captain " was with 
 her. His slave Parmeno, who is much more of a 
 philosopher than his master, gives him the very sensi- 
 ble advice to keep away altogether for a little while, 
 when, if Thais really cares for him, she will soon call
 
 126 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 him back. It is advice which he is not very willing to 
 follow, until Thais herself entreats him to do some- 
 thing of the same kind. She has particular reasons 
 at this moment for not wishing to offend the Captain. 
 He has just made her a very handsome present, a 
 slave-girl of exceeding beauty. But this is not her 
 value in her new owner's eyes. Thais discovers that 
 this poor girl, whom the Captain has bought in Caria, 
 and brought home with him, was a child whom her 
 mother had brought up, and who had been to herself 
 as a younger sister. The story was, however, that she 
 had been originally stolen by pirates from the coast of 
 Attica. Upon her mother's recent death, the brother 
 of Thais, intent only upon gain, had sold this girl 
 well-educated and very beautiful once more into 
 slavery ; and so she had come into the hands of Thraso. 
 Thais who, though a heartless flirt of the worst de- 
 scription, still has her good points is anxious to rescue 
 her old companion, and, if possible, to restore her to 
 her friends, to whom she hopes she has already found 
 some clue. She fears that if her military lover believes 
 her to prefer Phsedria as she assures that young gen- 
 tleman she really does he will break his promise, 
 and not give her this girl. Phaedria, who has him- 
 self just sent her a present of a pair of Ethiopian 
 slaves, consents, under many protests : he will not call 
 again " for two whole days : " he will go into the 
 country : but Parmeno tells him that he fully believes 
 he " will walk back to town in his sleep." The im- 
 passioned words in which the lover takes his unwilling 
 leave, begging Thais not to forget him when in the 
 company of his rival, have always been greatly admired,
 
 THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 127 
 
 and often, consciously or unconsciously, imitated. 
 Addison, in the ' Spectator,' calls them " inimitably 
 beautiful : " 
 
 Be, in his presence, as though absent still ; 
 Still love me day and night ; still long for me ; 
 Dream of me, miss me, think of me alone ; 
 Hope for me, dote on me, be wholly mine, 
 My very heart and life, as I am thine. 
 
 Act i. sc. 2. 
 
 Gnatho is deputed by his magnificent friend to con- 
 duct the young slave girl to Thais's house. On the way 
 he is met by Parmeno : and even that unimpressible old 
 servitor is struck by the girl's wondrous beauty. The 
 scene between the two officials of the rival powers is 
 very good. 
 
 Gnatho (to himself as Parmeno comes up}. I'll have a 
 
 little sport, now, with this knave. 
 (Aloud, making a low bow.) My excellent Parmeno, is it 
 
 you? 
 
 Your most obedient. How d'ye find yourself ? 
 Parmeno (coolly). I hadn't lost myself. 
 Gna. You never do.* 
 
 Nothing unpleasant in this quarter eh ? 
 
 (Pointing over his shoulder to Tliais's liouse.) 
 Par. There's you. 
 Gna. That I can fancy. Nothing else ? 
 
 * This is not the literal joke in the original, but may serve 
 to express it. Colman quotes an illustration of the same kind of 
 humour from ' The Merry Wives of Windsor : ' 
 
 " Fahtaff. My honest lads, I'll tell you what I am about. 
 Pistol. Two yards, or more."
 
 128 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 Par. What makes you ask 1 
 
 Gna. You look so glum. 
 
 Par. (sulkily). Not I. 
 
 Gfna. Don't I can't bear to see it. But this girl, 
 (Whispering.) The Captain's present, what d'ye think 
 of her? 
 
 Par. (affecting to eye her carelessly). Oh ! she's not bad. 
 
 Gna. (aside). I've hit my friend on the raw. 
 
 Par. (overhearing him). Oh no, you haven't ! 
 
 Gna. But you must surely think 
 
 That Thais will be pleased with our new offering ? 
 
 Par. You've cut us out, you mean ? Well wait a while; 
 Your turn to-day it may be ours to-morrow. 
 
 Gna. For some six months, I promise you, Parmeno, 
 You shall have rest no running to and fro 
 With notes and messages ; no sitting up 
 Till late at night to wait for your young master ; 
 Isn't that a comfort 1 Don't you feel obliged to me ? 
 
 Par. Oh, vastly ! 
 
 Gna. Well I like to oblige my friends. 
 
 Par. Quite right. 
 
 Gna. But I detain you perhaps you've business ? 
 
 Par. Oh, not at all ! 
 
 Gna. Be so good then, if you please, 
 
 To introduce me here you know the party. 
 
 Par. Oh ! such fine presents introduce themselves 
 They're your credentials. 
 
 Gna. (as tJie door opens). Could I take a message 1 
 
 [Parmeno makes no reply, and Gnatho goes in, with 
 the slave-girl. 
 
 Par. (shaking his fist after him). 
 Let me but see two days go by, my friend 
 But two short days, I say and this same door, 
 That opens now to your lightest finger-tap, 
 You may kick at all day, till you kick your legs off. 
 
 Act ii. so. 2.
 
 THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 129 
 
 As he goes homewards, Parmeno meets the younger 
 son of his master's family, Chserea, an officer in the 
 City Guard. He is in a great state of excitement, 
 raving to himself about some young beauty whom he 
 had seen in the street on his way from guard, and fol- 
 lowed for some time, but has suddenly lost sight of. 
 The family servant is in despair, for he knows the tem- 
 perament of the young soldier. Phsedria, the elder 
 brother, is inflammable enough in such matters ; but his 
 is mere milk-and-water passion compared with Chserea's. 
 It is love at first sight, in his case, with a vengeance. 
 He confides his whole story a very short one to Par- 
 meno ; reminds him of all the tricks they played 
 together when he was a boy; how he used to rob the 
 housekeeper's room to bring his friend in the servants' 
 hall good things for supper: and how Parmeno had 
 promised what he would do for him when he grew up to 
 be a man. Parmeno, with the usual inclination of his 
 class to oblige his young master in such matters, asks 
 him some questions about this interesting stranger : and 
 from Chserea's description of her companions Gnatho, 
 and a maid-servant and the fact of her having disap- 
 peared somewhere in this little by-street, he comes to 
 the conclusion that she can be no other than the beauti- 
 ful slave-girl whom he has just seen pass into the house 
 of Thais. He begs Chserea to discontinue his pursuit: 
 the object is unworthy of him. But when the young 
 officer learns that Parmeno knows who she is, and 
 where she is to be found, he becomes still more eager 
 in his quest. At last Parmeno suggests a possible 
 mode of introduction if Chserea likes to black his 
 face, and change clothes with the Ethiopian whom his 
 A. c. vol. xvi. I
 
 130 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 brother is going to send as a present to Thais, he, 
 Parmeno, who has instructions to convey the pair to 
 her house on this very day, will venture to introduce 
 Chserea in this disguise. He makes the proposal, as he 
 declares, more in jest than earnest: but the young 
 man, as may be supposed, catches at it eagerly, and in- 
 sists upon it being carried at once into execution. 
 
 The next act of the play opens with a highly 
 amusing scene between the Captain and his obsequious 
 friend. Thraso wishes to know how the lady has 
 received his present. 
 
 Thraso. I say was Thais very much obliged ? 
 
 Gnatho. Immensely. 
 
 Thra. She was really pleased, you think ? 
 
 Gna. Not with the gift so much as that you gave it ; 
 "Pis that she's proud of. 
 
 Thra. I've a happy way 
 
 I don't know how but everything I do 
 Is well received. 
 
 Gna. I've noticed it myself. 
 
 Thra. Yes. Even the King himself, after an action, 
 Would always thank me in person. 'Twas a thing 
 He never did to others. 
 
 Gna. Well, with gifts like your?, 
 
 A man gets double credit, while poor souls 
 Like us work hard, with nobody to thank us. 
 
 Thra. Egad, you have it ! 
 
 Gra. Ah ! no doubt his Majesty 
 
 Had his eye on you, always. 
 
 Thra. Well, he had. 
 
 I may tell you I was in all his secrets 
 Had the whole army under me, in fact. 
 
 Gna. (with deep interest). No really !
 
 THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 131 
 
 Thra. Yes. And then, when he was tired 
 
 Of seeing people, or grew sick of business, 
 And wanted to unbend him, as it were, 
 Yon understand ? 
 
 Gra. I know something, you mean, 
 
 In what we call the free-and-easy line 1 
 
 Thra, Just so he'd ask me to a quiet dinner. 
 
 Gna. Indeed! his Majesty showed fine discernment. 
 
 Thra. That's just the man he is one in a thousand 
 There are few like him. 
 
 Gna. (aside). Very few, I fancy, 
 If he could stand your company.* 
 
 Thraso goes on to relate to his friend some of the 
 excellent jokes which he made during the time he en- 
 joyed this intimacy with royalty ; jokes at which the 
 parasite (who was paid for it in good dinners) laughs 
 more perhaps than the reader would. Here is a speci- 
 men. 
 
 Thraso. Did I ever tell you 
 
 How I touched up the Rhodian once at dinner ? 
 
 Gna. Never ! pray tell me (aside) for the hundredth 
 
 time. 
 Thra. This youth was dining with us ; as it chanced, 
 
 * A fragment preserved by Athenseus from a lost comedy 
 of Menander ' The Flatterer ' from which this play is partly 
 taken, has the following passage. [Bias is the original of 
 Thraso, and Strouthias is his "flatterer."] 
 
 Bins. I have drunk off, in Cappadocia, Strouthias, 
 A golden goblet that held fall ten quarts 
 And three times filled. 
 
 Strouthias. Why, sir, you must have drunk 
 
 More than the great King Alexander could ! 
 
 Bias. Well perhaps not less by Pallas, no ! 
 
 Str. Prodigious !
 
 132 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 There was a lady there, a friend of mine ; 
 
 He made some joke about it; "What," said I 
 
 "What, you young puppy, have you learnt to bark?" 
 
 Gna. (laughing}. Ha, ha, ho, ho ! dear ! 
 
 Thra. You seem amused. 
 
 Gna. (roaring still louder}. Oh ! good indeed ! delicious ! 
 
 excellent ! 
 
 Nothing can beat it ! Tell me now, though, really 
 Was that your own ? I thought it had been older ? 
 
 Thra. (somewhat disconcerted). What? had you heard 
 it? 
 
 Gna. Often ; why, it's reckoned 
 
 The best thing out. 
 
 Thra. (complacently}. It's mine. 
 
 Act iii. sc. 1. 
 
 The new Ethiopian slave, Phaedria's gift, is intro- 
 duced by Parmeno, and even Thraso, who is present, is 
 obliged to confess that, black man as he is, he is a very 
 good-looking young fellow. Parmeno assures them 
 that his person is his least recommendation ; let them 
 test his accomplishments in literature, in music, in 
 fencing they will find them such as will make him a 
 most valuable addition to a lady's retinue.* And Par- 
 meno hopes that Thais will show a little kindness to 
 his young master in return for his well-chosen present ; 
 which, however, in the Captain's presence, she will by 
 no means profess herself inclined to do. 
 
 But this new servitor soon causes a terrible scandal in 
 
 * " Viola. I'll serve this duke ; 
 Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him : 
 It may be worth thy pains ; for I can sing, 
 And speak to him in many sorts of music. " 
 
 Twelfth Night, act i. sc. 2.
 
 THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. 133 
 
 the household. Before morning it is discovered that 
 the fair slave whom Thraso had so recently presented 
 to Thais has eloped with the Ethiopian. The virtuous 
 indignation of every waiting-gentlewoman in the estab- 
 lishment is roused by such an outrageous breach of all 
 the proprieties, and they rush on the stage with 
 voluble outcries " Eloped ! and with a black man ! " 
 A friend of Chaerea's has been considerably astonished 
 at meeting him hurrying along the street in a strange 
 costume and with his face blacked; but the young 
 man makes him his confidant, and obtains from him 
 a change of clothes. Phsedria, who, as his slave 
 Parmeno had foretold, has found it impossible to re- 
 main even two days in the country away from the 
 object of his affections, and who has returned to the 
 city and is lingering about Thais's door,- hears the 
 story, and goes off to his own house to see if anything 
 has been heard there of the fugitives. He finds the 
 real Ethiopian hidden there in Chaerea's clothes, and 
 hauls him off, under a shower of blows, to be cross- 
 examined by Thais and her domestics. But they all 
 agree that this is not at all like their Ethiopian, who 
 was a much better-looking fellow : and Phaedria extracts 
 at last from the terrified man that this is some trick, 
 which promises to have serious consequences, of his 
 madcap brother's. 
 
 The Captain meanwhile has quarrelled with Thais, 
 believing that after all she prefers Phasdria to himself ; 
 and not altogether satisfied with the private interviews 
 which she has lately been holding with a young gentle- 
 man from the country a somewhat rustic sort of per- 
 sonage, but whom Thais seems for some reason to treat
 
 134 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 with very marked attention. As niggardly as he is 
 jealous, Thraso comes to demand back again from his 
 lady-love the expensive present he has made to her, 
 this young slave, whom it is not agreeable or convenient, 
 for more reasons than one, for Thais to give up. She 
 flatly refuses ; and Thraso determines to take her from 
 the house by force. The " young man from the country," 
 who is at this moment paying a visit to Thais, is really 
 the brother of this girl, who has been stolen in her in- 
 fancy; and Thais now calls upon him to stand by her 
 in defence of his sister. He would much prefer to go 
 and fetch the police ; but there is little time for that, 
 for Thraso is seen approaching with a party of followers, 
 and Thais, who with all her faults has plenty of spirit, 
 barricades her door and defies him. 
 
 The scene must have been sufficiently effective, 
 especially if artistically arranged, upon so wide a stage, 
 when the gallant Captain leads his forces to the attack. 
 
 Enter THRASO, with his sword drawn, at the head of a 
 motley retinue of hangers-on and household slaves. 
 
 Thra. You, Donax, with the crow-bar, lead the centre ; 
 Simalio, you command on the left wing ; 
 Syriscus, you the right. Bring up the reserve ! 
 Where's our lieutenant, Sanga, and his rascals ? 
 They can steal anything from a loaf to a woman. 
 
 Sanga. Here, Captain, here am I ! 
 
 Thra. Why, zounds ! you dolt, 
 
 Have you come out to battle with a dish- clout ? 
 
 San. Brave sir, I knew the mettle of my Captain 
 I knew his gallant men ; this fight, quoth I, 
 May not be without blood I'll stanch the wounds. 
 
 Thra. (looking round doubtfully on his troops}. 
 Where are the rest of ye ?
 
 THE ETHIOPIAN SLAVE. ; 135 
 
 San. Rest ? we're all here 
 
 We've only left the scullion to keep house. 
 
 Thra. (to Gnatho}. Form them in line ; my post is in 
 
 the rear ; 
 Thence will I give command, and rule the fight. 
 
 Gna. (half-aside to the others). Most admirable tactics ! 
 
 we to the front ; 
 He takes the rear-guard to secure retreat. 
 
 Thra. It was the plan great Pyrrhus always practised. 
 
 Act iv. sc. 7. 
 
 Thais soon discovers, as she says, that the champion 
 whom she has called in as her protector has more need of 
 a protector himself for he is a fair match for Thraso in 
 cowardice. However, he plucks up spirit enough to 
 threaten that gallant officer, from the safe vantage of 
 an upper window, with all the terrors of Athenian 
 law, if he ventures to lay a hand upon his sister Pam- 
 phila a free-born woman of Athens, as he openly 
 asserts her to be ; and since Thraso, somewhat daunted 
 by this double peril, confines his hostile operations to 
 a battle of words, the lady and her party very naturally 
 get the best of it. By the advice of Gnatho who 
 has also more appetite for dinners than for fighting 
 the Captain determines to await the surrender of his 
 enemy, which Gnatho assures him will follow next day, 
 and withdraws his army ; reminding his lieutenant, 
 the cook, that for him, as for all good soldiers, as there 
 is a time to fight, so also 
 
 " There is a tune to think of hearth and home ; " 
 a sentiment which Sanga fully reciprocates 
 
 " My heart has been in the stew-pan long ago ; "
 
 136 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 and which, appealing to their business and their "bosoms, 
 the whole body cheer vociferously as they move off. 
 
 There is not much worth notice in the comedy after 
 this scene. If this girl Pamphila, whom Chserea 
 has carried off, is really an Athenian citizen, as she 
 is soon proved to be, there is no difficulty as to his 
 marrying her, and he does so with his father's full 
 consent. Indeed we are allowed to suppose that the 
 quiet- old gentleman, as well as the trusty Parmeno, 
 must have been glad to see such a scapegrace respect- 
 ably settled in any way. Phaedria and the Captain are 
 left rivals for the good graces of Thais as before, but 
 Gnatho contrives to patch up the quarrel between them 
 for the present ; doing this good office, as he assures 
 them, from the most unimpeachable motives his own 
 personal interest, inasmuch as he hopes to get many a 
 dinner from both of them. 
 
 This is said to have been the most popular of all 
 the author's productions ; he received for it from the 
 ^Ediles (who had to provide the dramatic entertain- 
 ments for the people) something like sixty pounds. 
 Not a large sum, but more, it is said, than had been 
 paid for any comedy before. It must be remembered 
 that the ancient theatres were open only at festivals, 
 for a few days at a time, and therefore no piece could 
 have a long "run," as on the modern stage.* 
 
 * Upon this comedy were founded ' Le Muet ' of Brueys, 
 ' L'Eunuque ' of Fontaine, and Sir Charles Sedley's ' Bellamira.' 
 It has furnished Shakspeare with a quotation which he puts into 
 the mouth of Tranio, in the ' Taming of the Shrew,' act i. sc. 1, 
 " Redime te captum quam queas minimo." Johnson, however, 
 thinks that he went no farther for it than Lilly's Grammar.
 
 PHORMIO. 137 
 
 V. PHORMIO. 
 
 The play called 'Phormio' is taken also from a 
 Greek original, not, however, by Menander, but by 
 Apollodorus, a prolific writer of the same school. 
 Here the principal character is the parasite Phormio ; 
 a fellow with an enormous appetite, consummate im- 
 pudence, a keen eye to his own interest, and a not 
 over -scrupulous conscience, but by no means a bad 
 heart. He and the slave Geta have between them 
 all the brains which carry on the plot ; for these gilded 
 youth of Athens, who are the lovers in these comedies, 
 are not, it will be observed, more largely furnished in 
 this particular than their modern successors, and the 
 fathers are commonly the easy prey of the adroit and 
 unscrupulous slave who from pure love of mischief, 
 it would seem, and often at the risk of his skin as- 
 sists the young heir in his attack upon the paternal 
 purse. The respectable victims in this play are two 
 brothers Chremes and Demipho who have both 
 gone abroad on business, and left their sons under the 
 guardianship of Geta, the confidential slave of the 
 younger brother. Their confidence is not very well 
 repaid. The youths give the old man so much trouble, 
 that he soon grows tired of asserting an authority 
 which in his position he has no means of enforcing ; 
 in fact, as he complains in the opening scene, his wards 
 lay the whip about his back whenever he interferes. 
 He finds it more to his interest to humour them in 
 everything to the top of their bent. And it has 
 come to this ; that Phsedria, the son of Chremes, has 
 taken a fancy to a little music-girl whom he insists on
 
 138 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 ransoming from her rascally master, who of course 
 raises his price to an exorbitant figure as soon as he 
 finds out the young gentleman's infatuation. Antipho, 
 his cousin, had for a long time given promise of great 
 steadiness : but these still waters run deep, and he 
 plunges all at once into a romantic passion for a beauti- 
 ful Cinderella, whom he discovers with bare feet and 
 in a shabby dress, mourning over a dead mother who 
 has left her a portionless orphan. And, finding that 
 she is of free birth, he actually marries her. His 
 acquaintance Phormio whose friendship is at any 
 young man's service who can give a good dinner has 
 suggested to him a plan by which he may in some 
 degree escape his father's anger at this very imprudent 
 match. There is a law at Athens which, like the old 
 Levitical law, obliges the next of kin who is available 
 to marry an orphan of the family. Phormio under- 
 takes to appear before the proper court on behalf of 
 the girl, and to bring evidence that Antipho is her 
 nearest unmarried male relative : and, since the young 
 lover of course makes no attempt to disprove it, the 
 court gives judgment that he is to make her his wife, 
 which he does forthwith. 
 
 All this has taken place before the action of the 
 piece begins. And now a letter has arrived from 
 Demipho to say that he is coming home, and both the 
 son and Geta are in great alarm as to how he will take 
 the news which awaits him. Antipho, like others who 
 have married in haste, is beginning to feel something 
 very like repentance at leisure ; he feels, he says, in 
 the position of the man. in the proverb who has "got 
 a wolf by the ears he can neither hold her nor let
 
 PHORMIO. 139 
 
 her go." Geta is conscious that he has no very satis- 
 factory account to render of his stewardship, and has 
 prophetic visions of the stocks and the mill-prison. 
 The son has made up his mind, by Geta's advice, to 
 meet his father with something very much like bluster ; 
 but the moment the old gentleman makes his actual 
 appearance, his courage evaporates, and he makes off, 
 leaving his cousin Phaedria, with Geta's assistance, to 
 make such apologies on his behalf as they can. 
 
 The father's indignation, though it does not spare 
 either Geta or Antipho, is chiefly directed against the 
 parasite Phormio, this disreputable Mentor of youth, 
 who has trumped up such an imposture. But Phormio 
 is equal to the occasion ; indeed, his nature is rather 
 to rejoice in these kind of encounters with his angry 
 dupes, in which he feels confident his natural audacity 
 and shrewdness will carry him through. "It is a 
 tough morsel," he says drawing his metaphor from 
 his familiar sphere of the dinner-table " but I'll 
 make a shift to bolt it." Geta, who regards him with 
 a kind of respectful envy, as a knave of higher mark 
 than himself, wonders how, considering all the more 
 than doubtful transactions he has been engaged in, he 
 has hitherto escaped the meshes of the law. 
 
 Phormio. Because, my friend, no fowler spreads his net 
 For hawk or kite, or such-like birds of prey ; 
 'Tia for the innocent flock, who do no harm ; 
 They are fat morsels, full of juice and flavour, 
 Well worth the catching. Men who've aught to lose, 
 Such are in danger from the law ; for me 
 They know I've nothing. "Nay, but then," you'll say, 
 " They'll clap you up in jail." Oh ! will they 1 Ah !
 
 140 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE, 
 
 (Laughing and patting himself.} They'd have to keep me 
 
 and they know my appetite.* 
 No they're too wise, and not so self-denying, 
 As to return me so much good for evil. 
 
 The father has taken the precaution to provide him- 
 self with no less than three lawyers to hack him in his 
 interview with Phormio. It must be remembered that 
 all interviews, even of the most private character, 
 according to the conventionalities of the classic stage, 
 take place in the public street. Should this seem to 
 shock our notions of the fitness of things, we have only 
 to remember the absurd anomalies of our own attempts 
 at realistic scenery, where the romantic forest which 
 forms the " set " at the back has a boarded floor and a 
 row of footlights in the front. Phormio and Geta see 
 their adversaries coming round the corner of the street, 
 and at once engage in a spirited controversy between 
 themselves, purposely intended for the other party to 
 overhear. Phormio professes to be shocked at the want 
 of common honesty on the part of his friend's father. 
 What! will he really repudiate the connection ? disown 
 his excellent relative Stilpho (which is the name of the 
 pretty Phanium's father), merely because he died poor 1 
 Well ! what will not avarice lead to ! Geta, like a 
 faithful servant, defends the character of his absent 
 master: and the pair appear to be coming to actual 
 blows on the question, when Demipho steps forward 
 and interrupts thenl. Phormio meets the old gentle- 
 
 * The creditor, both at Athens and at Rome, though he had 
 the right to imprison a debtor who failed to pay, was bound to 
 maintain him while in confinement.
 
 PHORMIO. 141 
 
 man's remonstrances with perfect coolness. It is no 
 use to tell him, that a man does not remember his first 
 cousin ; Demipho has evidently a convenient memory. 
 If poor old Stilpho had left a large fortune "behind 
 him, he would have routed out the whole family pedi- 
 gree. If he is not satisfied with the award of the 
 court, he can appeal, and have the cause tried over 
 again. But law, he must remember, is an expensive 
 luxury; his own advice would be, that Demipho 
 should try to make himself comfortable with his new 
 daughter-in-law who is really a very nice young per- 
 son. If he turns her out of his house, he, Phormio, 
 as her father's friend, will feel it to be his duty to 
 bring an action against him. And so he wishes him a 
 very good-morning. 
 
 "When Demipho turns to his legal friends for advice, 
 he scarcely finds wisdom in the multitude of coun- 
 sellors. For these counsellors by no means agree. The 
 first delivers it as his opinion that what the son did in 
 such a matter, in the absence of the head of the family, 
 is void in law. The second holds that the judgment of 
 the court cannot now be overruled, and that it would 
 not be for Demipho's credit to attempt it. The third, 
 the oldest, and as cautious as the most doubting of 
 English Lord Chancellors, wishes to take time to con- 
 sider. So the client dismisses them, each with their 
 fee, declaring that their valuable advice has left him 
 more bewildered than ever.* 
 
 * This scene, with the three lawyers seems to have given 
 Moliere the hint for several scenes in which he has introduced 
 legal consultations, e.g., in 'Le Mariage Forc,' sc. ix., 
 where he makes Sganarelle say, " L'on est aussi savant a la
 
 142 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 Young Phsedria adds to Geta's troubles by coming 
 to beg him to extract from bis uncle Demipho, by some 
 contrivance or other, the sum needful for the purchase 
 of his dear music-girl from her master only a poor hun- 
 dred guineas. " She's a very dear bargain," remarks 
 the old servitor. Phaedria insists, of course, that she is 
 cheap at any price ; and Geta promises to do his best 
 to get the money. 
 
 The return of Phsedria's father Chremes, the elder 
 of the two brothers from the island of Lemnos, 
 threatens to complicate matters : but it turns out that 
 he brings with him the key to at least the great diffi- 
 culty. He has been to the island on some private 
 business, the nature of which is known to his brother 
 Demipho, but which is kept a strict secret from his 
 wife Nausistrata, of whom he stands in considerable 
 awe. The secret is partly disclosed in the scene be- 
 tween the two brothers on his return. Chremes had 
 contracted, in his younger and more imprudent days, 
 while visiting Lemnos, a private marriage (under 
 another name) with a person in that island, the issue 
 of which was a daughter. He had broken oif this 
 connection for some years ; but the object of this last 
 voyage had been to make some inquiries about this 
 duplicate family. He has formed a plan, with his 
 brother's approval, to marry this unacknowledged 
 daughter, now grown up to womanhood, to her cousin 
 Antipho ; and is therefore as anxious as his brother 
 to get this present unfortunate marriage, which they 
 both look upon as contracted under false pretences, 
 
 fin qu'au commencement ; " and in ' M. de Pourceaugnac, 
 act ii. sc. 13, where the " Deux Avocats " chant their opinions.
 
 PHORMIO. 143 
 
 annulled if possible. So when Phormio comes and 
 offers to take the young lady off everybody's hands 
 and marry her himself, if Demipho will give her a 
 dowry of a hundred guineas, Chremes persuades his 
 brother to close with the offer, and even advances 
 great part of the sum : which Phormio hands over 
 to his young friend Phredria for the ransom of his 
 mistress. 
 
 Chremes has learned that, while he was on his voyage 
 to Lemnos, his deserted wife has meanwhile come over 
 to Athens in search of him, and brought the daughter 
 with her. He is soon further enlightened upon this 
 subject. As he is crossing the street from his own 
 house to his brother's, he sees a woman coming from it. 
 It is Sophrona, the old nurse of this foreign girl whom 
 his nephew has married, and who is now stowed aAvay 
 somewhere in her unwilling father-in-law's house. The 
 nurse has been there to try to discover what turn 
 affairs are likely to take, now that the old gentleman 
 has come home. 
 
 Chremes (looking at her stealthily). Eh ! bless me ! 
 
 Yes or do my eyes deceive me ? 
 Yes this is certainly my daughter's nurse ! 
 
 Sophrona (to herself, not seeing Chremes). And then, 
 
 to think the father can't be found ! 
 Chr. What shall I do ? Shall I speak first, or wait 
 Till I hear more ? 
 
 Soph. Oh ! if we could biit find him, 
 
 All might go well ! 
 
 Chr. (coming forward). Tis she, no doubt ; I'll 
 
 speak. 
 
 Soph, (hearing his voice). Who's that ? I heard a voice 
 there !
 
 144 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 Chr. Sophrona ! 
 
 Soph. He knows my name ! 
 
 Chr. Look at me, Sophrona. 
 
 Soph, (looking close at him). Oh ! gracious heavens ! 
 What ! are you Stilpho ? 
 
 Chr. (making signs to her to be silent). No. 
 
 Soph. Can you deny it ? 
 
 Chr. Hush-sh ! come further off ! 
 
 A little further from the door, good Sophrona 
 And never call me by that name again ! 
 
 Soph. Why, by that name we always knew you ! 
 
 Chr. (pointing to the door opposite). Sh ! 
 
 Soph. What makes you afraid of that door ? 
 
 Chr. (coming near her, in a half-whisper). Why, because 
 It's got my wife inside an awful woman ! 
 That's why I took another name, you see. 
 For fear lest you might blab my real one, 
 And she (pointing to the door) should hear it. 
 
 Soph. 'Twas no wonder, then, 
 
 We could hear nothing of you here in Athens. 
 
 Act v. sc. 1. 
 
 He learns from the old nurse that his Lemnian wife 
 is dead, and that his daughter is just married to his 
 nephew Antipho. In the bewilderment of the moment 
 he fails to identify the fair subject of the lawsuit with 
 his own daughter : and perhaps only those who have 
 seen this play acted by Westminster scholars can 
 appreciate the comic earnestness with which the uncle, 
 with his own double relations strong in his mind, and 
 fancying that his young nephew is in the same predica- 
 ment, asks of Sophrona 
 
 " What has he two wives ? " 
 When he finds out that the two wives are one and the
 
 PHORMIO. 145 
 
 same, and that his Lemnian daughter is really married, 
 by a happy accident, to the very husband he had designed 
 for her, he blesses the gods for his good fortune, and it 
 is plain that all Antipho's difficulties are over. 
 
 But Chremes, unluckily, joins his brother in an 
 attempt to recover from Phormio the gold pieces which 
 he has got from them under pretence of dowry. They 
 don't want him to marry Phanium now, of course ; and 
 they see no reason for his not returning the money. 
 But Phormio, with his usual cleverness, has made 
 himself master of the whole story. He declares his 
 willingness to complete at once his part of the bargain, 
 and protests, with considerable show of justice, that he 
 will not be cheated out of wife and dowry too. He 
 threatens Chremes that unless he holds his tongue 
 about the money, he will tell his wife Nausistrata all 
 about that little establishment at Lemnos. This impu- 
 dence is more than Demipho can stand, and he calls his 
 slaves to carry off the parasite to jail. The noise he 
 makes brings in Nausistrata, and though both the 
 brothers try to stop his mouth, he carries his threat 
 into execution. Nausistrata, of course, is in a con- 
 siderable fury at first : but as her rival is dead, and this 
 unnecessary daughter safely disposed of, she is satisfied 
 with the rod which Phormio has put into her hands to 
 be wielded over her husband in any future connubial 
 disagreement; and, partly out of gratitude for this 
 acquisition of power, and partly to annoy her husband, 
 invites him at once to supper. The parasite foresees 
 that there will always be a knife and fork ready for 
 him at her table as well as at Phanium's. 
 
 A. c. vol. xvi. K
 
 146 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 VI. THE BROTHERS. 
 
 This comedy, like 'Phormio,' has always been a 
 favourite with the Westminster actors. It is taken 
 partly from a play of Menander, and partly from one 
 by another Greek dramatist, Diphilus. It was acted 
 lately at Westminster with great success, and it may 
 be permissible to borrow, as a familiar rendering of the 
 early portion of the story, a few verses from the clever 
 sketch of the " Plot " which was handed round on that 
 occasion for the enlightenment of the less classical 
 among the audience : 
 
 " Two brothers once in Athens dwelt of old, 
 
 Though widely did their dispositions differ ; 
 One loved the country, was a churl and scold, 
 The other bland and gentle as a zephyr. 
 
 Demea, the churl, had once a wife, since dead, 
 And, as it seems, he did not much regret her ; 
 
 Micio, the bland, had not been so miss-led, 
 And never took a wife, for worse or better. 
 
 Now Demea had two sons ; but he did predicate 
 That one was quite enough ; and gave the other 
 
 The elder of the two to rear and educate, 
 In short, to be adopted, by his brother. 
 
 The youngest, Ctesipho, at home was taught, 
 Was duly lectured, disciplined, and scolded ; 
 
 Rose early read walked and, as Demea thought, 
 Into a rural innocent was moulded.
 
 THE BROTHERS. 147 
 
 But Micio loved the city, and, forsooth ! 
 
 Ne'er thought of looking after his adopted ; 
 But if he told the truth, and all the truth, 
 
 Whatever prank was played, he never stopped it." 
 
 Demea has protested from time to time against his 
 brother's very lax system of discipline ; and when he 
 finds that young ^Eschinus's not very steady course has 
 just culminated in a tremendous and notorious row 
 that he has broken open the house of a slave-dealer, 
 beaten the master, and carried off a young woman 
 he lectures his brother severely on the results of his 
 ill-judged indulgence. 
 
 But Ctesipho, who has been kept in stricter leading- 
 strings by the father, is not quite the pattern youth 
 that the old gentleman thinks him. He is really 
 the person most concerned in the brawl which caused 
 so much scandal; for the girl who has been thus 
 forcibly carried off from her owner is a young music-girl 
 with whom he has fallen in love who claims, however, 
 as usual, to be free-born and entitled to all the rights 
 of citizenship. ^Eschinus, not standing so much in 
 fear of his good-natured guardian as the other does of 
 his father, and having, besides, no great reputation to 
 lose, is content to take upon himself all the blame 
 of the late burglary and abduction ; though Ctesipho 
 has been really the principal in the affair, in which 
 his brother has only aided and abetted out of pure 
 fraternal affection. There is the usual intriguing 
 slave, Syrus, who is of course in the secret ; and who 
 persuades the father that Ctesipho is gone down 
 to the country grange, whither Demea follows him, 
 quite persuaded that he shall find his exemplary son
 
 148 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 deep in farming operations. He is, in fact, at this mo- 
 ment taking care of his prize in .^Eschinus's apartments 
 in his uncle's house, whither she has been conducted. 
 
 Syrus, delighted to have such an opportunity of 
 exercising his wit upon Demea, whose principles of 
 education he altogether dislikes, compliments him 
 highly upon his son Ctesipho's irreproachable conduct. 
 He declares that the good youth has been quite shocked 
 at his elder brother's iniquity, and has reproached him. 
 with the discredit he was bringing on the family. 
 
 Syrus. Jschinus, quoth he, I am ashamed of you 
 You waste not money only, but your life. 
 
 Demea. Heaven bless him ! he'll be worthy of his fore- 
 fathers. 
 
 Syr. I'm sure he will. 
 
 Dem. Syrus, he's had good teaching. 
 
 Syr. Ah ! he had those at home who understood it. 
 
 Dem. I do take pains ; I omit no single item : 
 I train him well ; in fact, I bid him study, 
 As in a mirror, all the characters 
 He sees around him, and draw from them lessons 
 For his own guidance : copy this, I say 
 
 Syr. Ah ! capital ! 
 
 Dem. This, again, avoid 
 
 Syr. Just so. 
 
 Dem. This act, I say, is praiseworthy 
 
 Syr. Quite right. 
 
 Dem. That was a fault 
 
 Syr. I see. 
 
 Dem. And then, besides 
 
 Syr. I beg your pardon I could listen all day 
 But I'm so busy : there's some splendid fish 
 I must not let them spoil : for this, you see, 
 In my vocation, sir, would be a sin,
 
 THE BROTHERS. 149 
 
 Just as, with gentlefolks, neglect of morals : 
 
 Indeed, in my poor sphere, I train my knaves 
 
 Exactly on your worship's principle. Look here, 
 
 I say, that dish 's too salt ; this roast is burned 
 
 That's not washed clean ; that fricassee is good 
 
 Just the right thing be sure the next is like it. 
 
 The best advice that my poor wit affords 
 
 I strive to give (looking gravely at Demea, and copying 
 
 his manner). In short, I bid them study 
 As in a mirror, every dish I make, 
 Thus to draw lessons for their own instruction. 
 'Tis but a humble school, I feel, I train them in ; 
 But we must do our best man can't do more. 
 {Bowing demurely). Can I oblige you, sir, in any way ? 
 Dem. (angrily). Yes mend your manners.* 
 
 Act iii. sc. 3. 
 
 The elder of the young men has in truth perplexities 
 enough of his own to have justified him, if he had been 
 less good-natured, in declining to involve himself in 
 those of his brother. He has an unacknowledged wife, 
 and just at this time the not very welcome addition 
 of a baby. The news of his having been engaged in 
 this brawl, and having carried off the singing-girl to 
 his uncle's house, soon reaches the ears of Sostrata, 
 his very respectable mother-in-law : who comes to the 
 natural conclusion that ^Eschinus is faithless to his 
 poor wife at this interesting crisis, and intends to re- 
 pudiate her altogether, instead of presenting her to 
 his uncle, as he had promised, and obtaining his sanc- 
 tion to their public union. By the advice of Geta, an 
 old and trusty servant, who has remained with them 
 in their reduced fortunes (for .there are faithful slaves, 
 
 * Horace had probably this dialogue in his mind, Sat. I. iv. 103.
 
 150 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 in these comedies, as well as the more common type 
 of dishonest ones), they lay the case before an old 
 friend of the family, the excellent Hegio, who under- 
 takes to represent to Micio the great wrong which is 
 being done by his ward to his unfortunate young rel- 
 ative. On his way to Micio's house he falls in with 
 Bemea, who is an old acquaintance, and informs him of 
 this new enormity on the part of young .ZEschinus, at 
 which the father can only lift up his hands and eyes, 
 and lament over this still more convincing proof of the 
 sad results of such a training as the youth has had 
 from his uncle. 
 
 But on his way to his country-house he meets a 
 workman who tells him that his own dear Ctesipho 
 has not been seen there since he left. So he goes back 
 to make inquiry about him at his brother's, inquiry 
 which, under present circumstances, is somewhat awk- 
 ward to meet. Yes, he has been there, Syrus tells 
 him, and points to his own bandaged head as evidence. 
 The good youth was so indignant at his brother's con- 
 duct that he took him to task roundly, and ended by 
 beating the music-wench, and breaking poor Syrus's 
 head. "He ought to be ashamed of himself," says 
 the latter whimpering, " a poor old man like me, that 
 nursed him ! " " Not at all," replies the unsympathetic 
 Demea ; " 'tis you ought to be ashamed of yourself 
 you nursed his brother in wickedness ! " He next in- 
 quires of the slave where his brother Micio is ; for he 
 wants to expostulate with him about this unfortunate 
 business. He is not at home, Syrus assures him ; but 
 Tie will give him full directions where to find him. 
 He must go through the portico behind the shambles,
 
 THE BROTHERS. 151 
 
 down the next street, then to the right, then up the 
 next, then to the left, past the chapel, through the 
 narrow lane where the wild fig-tree stands, straight on 
 to Diana's temple, then to the right ; then he will see 
 a mill, with a joiner's shop opposite, where his brother 
 is gone to order an oak table : and with these very 
 particular directions, which will give the old gentle- 
 man a good long afternoon's walk through the suburbs, 
 he gets rid of him for the present. The two young 
 men are in the house all the time, having a little 
 dinner in celebration of the successful rescue of Ctesi- 
 pho's fair friend ; and Syrus, having got rid, for some 
 hours at least, of this inconvenient visitor, will take 
 the opportunity of this festive occasion to get royally 
 drunk. 
 
 jEschinus soon learns the misconstruction which has 
 been put upon his conduct ; for when he next goes to 
 his lodgings to visit his young wife, he is refused ad- 
 mittance. Neither she nor her* mother will have any- 
 thing more to do with such a villain. But in the crisis 
 of his distress he is encountered by his good-natured 
 guardian, to whom Hegio has told the whole story, and 
 who has gone at once to see for himself what kind of 
 people these new connections are : and he after playing 
 for a little while with the young man's anxiety throws 
 him at last into ecstasies of joy and gratitude by magna- 
 nimously promising to recognise his wife, and desiring 
 him to bring her home to his house as soon as he thinks 
 proper. 
 
 Demea returns from his long walk in search of his 
 brother, very hot and very angry. He has not been 
 able to find the "joiner's shop/' and half suspects
 
 152 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 that Syrus has been fooling him : for he meets Micio 
 just coming out of his own house. He attacks him 
 with the story of this new escapade of his precious 
 ward ^Eschinus ; but his brother listens with a compo- 
 sure which is exceedingly irritating. 
 
 Demea. He's got a wife ! 
 
 Micio. Well better he than I, 
 
 Dem. She's got a baby ! 
 
 M ic. Doing well, I hope ? 
 
 Dem. The jade's an absolute beggar ! 
 
 Mic. So I hear. 
 
 Dem. You mean you'll take her in without a sixpence I 
 
 Mic. I do. 
 
 Dem. What's to become of them t 
 
 Mic. Of course 
 
 They must come here. 
 
 Dem. (ironically). Why, you seem quite delighted ! 
 
 Mic. No not if I could alter it. Look ye, brother, 
 Man's life is as it were a game of tables ; 
 If that the throw we want will not turn up, 
 Skill must correct such luck as fortune gives us. 
 
 Act iv. sc. 7. 
 
 It ' is the better side of the Epicurean philosophy, 
 put into few and terse words ; and we shall probably 
 not be wrong in assuming the lines to be pretty 
 closely translated from Menander, who may not impro- 
 bably have had the idea from Epicurus himself. 
 
 Another precious example of his brother's domestic 
 discipline meets Demea as he comes away from this 
 unsatisfactory interview. It is Syrus, so drunk as to 
 have lost even the semblance of respectful demeanour. 
 
 Syr. (staggering up against Demea). Oho ! you're back 
 again, are you, Mr Wisdom ?
 
 THE BROTHERS. 153 
 
 Dem. (pushing htm away). If you were my slave, 
 sirrah 
 
 Syr. You'd be lucky 
 
 You'd have a (hiccup} treasure save you half your income. 
 
 Dem. (shaking his stick at him). I'd make an example 
 of ye ! 
 
 (Enter Dromo, another slave, running from the house.) 
 
 Dro. Hallo Syrus ! 
 
 Ctesipho wants ye ! 
 
 Syr. (aside to him). Hush-sh ! away, you fool ! 
 
 Dem. Ctesipho ! here ? 
 
 Syr. N-no, n-no, sir ! it's not him, 
 
 It's it's another young man a little parasite 
 Of the same name. You know him, don't you, sir ? 
 
 Dem. I very soon will, at any rate (making for the 
 _ house). 
 
 Syr. (trying to hold him back). Stop, sir, stop ! 
 
 But the father has heard enough to open his eyes. 
 He rushes in, spite of Syrus's drunken efforts to stop 
 him, and makes at last full discovery of how he has 
 been deceived. Micio succeeds in soothing him in 
 some degree, by assuring him that his own fortune is 
 ample enough to supply both the young men's wants ; 
 "that he will give a dowry also to Ctesipho with his 
 beloved, and see him married respectably. 
 
 The failure of his own system, and the placid 
 triumph of his easy brother, work an odd transforma- 
 tion in Demea's behaviour. He meets this " irony of 
 events " by a curious irony of his own. Since easy 
 temper is the mode, he will at once adopt it. He 
 begins by shaking hands with Syrus, and thanking 
 him for his admirable conduct he will certainly do 
 something for him. Then he meets Geta, and shakes
 
 154 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. 
 
 hands with him (who certainly deserves it better) ; he 
 will do something for him too. He persuades his 
 brother to give Syrus his freedom, with a sum of 
 money to set him up in life, " by way of encourage- 
 ment to honest servants," as he ironically puts it. He 
 will have him make a deed of gift of a snug farm to 
 Hegio, who has acted the part of a good relation so 
 manfully ; and he ends by persuading the old bachelor 
 himself to marry the excellent Sostrata, his ward's 
 mother-in-law a lone woman, much in want of a pro- 
 tector. The good-natured Micio does make some wry 
 faces at this last item in the arrangements, but his 
 brother's arguments as to the great duty of pleasing 
 everybody are too strong for him. If complaisance 
 with other people's fancies, and reckless liberality, are 
 the right thing, Demea is determined to give his 
 brother full opportunity to put in practice this new- 
 fangled virtue. 
 
 In obedience to an ordinance contained in the 
 Charter of Queen Elizabeth, the Westminster Scholars 
 present every year, on three nights just before Christ- 
 mas, a Latin play. The performance, which takes 
 place in the Dormitory of the College, with appro- 
 priate scenery and costume, is perfectly unique of its 
 kind, and is the only relic of an ancient custom once 
 common to all our great schools. Although, as has al- 
 ready been noticed, a comedy of Plautus has occasion- 
 ally been selected, Terence has always been the favourite. 
 Four of his comedies 'The Maid of Andros,' 'The 
 Ethiopian Slave,' ' Phormio,' and ' The Brothers '-
 
 THE COMEDIES OF TERENCE. > 155 
 
 are usually taken in rotation ; and a Queen's Scholar 
 Avho shows any dramatic talent is not unfrequently an 
 actor in two or three of these plays successively. The 
 performance is preceded by a Latin prologue, in which 
 such events of the year as have aifected the school are 
 briefly touched upon : and followed by an epilogue in 
 elegiac verse, which of late years has assumed almost 
 the dimensions of a farce, in which the current topics 
 or follies of the day are satirised under an amusing 
 disguise of classical names and associations. 
 
 EXD OF PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 
 
 PKIXTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
 En 
 
 "nglish Language. 
 
 AN ETYMOLOGICAL AND PRONOUNCING 
 
 DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Includ- 
 ing a very copious selection of Scientific, Technical, and other 
 Terms and Phrases. Designed for use in Schools and Colleges, 
 and as a Handy Book for General Reference. By the Rev. JAMES 
 STOR MONTH, and the Rev. P. H. PHELP, M.A. Crown 8vo, pp. 
 760, 73. 6d. 
 
 THE SCHOOL ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY 
 
 AND WORD-BOOK. Combining the advantages of an ordinary 
 Pronouncing School Dictionary and an Etymological Spelling- Book. 
 By the Rev. JAMES STORMONTH. Fcap. 8vo, pp. 254, as. 
 
 THE HANDY SCHOOL DICTIONARY, PRO- 
 NOUNCING AND EXPLANATORY. Also containing Lists of Pre- 
 fixes and Postfixes ; Rules for Spelling correctly ; Words same in 
 Sound but different in Spelling and Meaning ; Common Abbrevia- 
 tions ; and Common Quotations from the Latin, French, &c. For 
 Use in Elementary Schools. By the Rev. JAMES STORMONTH. 
 i6mo, pp. 268. gd. 
 
 A MANUAL OF ENGLISH PROSE LITERA- 
 
 TURE, Biographical and Critical : designed mainly to show char- 
 acteristics of style. By W. MINTO, M.A. Crown 8vo, los. 6d. 
 
 " Is a work which all who desire to make a close study of style in English 
 prose will do well to use attentively." Standard. 
 
 "Here we do not find the crambe repetita of old critical formulse, the simple 
 echoes of superannuated rhetorical dicta, but a close and careful analysis of the 
 main attributes of style, as developed in the work of its greatest masters, 
 stated with remarkable clearness of expression, and arranged upon a plan of 
 most exact method. Nothing can be well conceived more consummate as a 
 matter of skill than the analytical processes of the writer as he lays bare to our 
 view the whole anatomy even every joint and sinew and artery in the framework 
 of the sentence he dissects, and as he points out their reciprocal relations, 
 their minute interdependencies." School Board Chronicle. 
 
 "An admirable book, well selected and well put together." Westminster 
 Review. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH POETS, 
 
 FROM CHAUCER TO SHIRLEY. By WM. MINTO, M.A., Author 
 of ' A Manual of English Prose Literature." One vol. crown 8vo. 
 gs. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE AND CLASSIFIED SPELLING- 
 BOOK. By HANNAH R. LOCKWOOD, Authoress of ' Little 
 Mary's Mythology.' Fcap. 8vo, is. 6d.
 
 2 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS* 
 
 ENGLISH PROSE COMPOSITION : A PRACTICAL 
 
 MANUAL FOR USE IN SCHOOLS. By. JAMES CURRIE, M.A., 
 Principal of the Church of Scotland Training College, Edinburgh. 
 Tenth Edition, is. 6d. 
 
 " We do not remember having seen a work so completely to our mind as this, 
 which combines sound theory with judicious practice. Proceeding step by step, 
 t advances from the formation of the shortest sentences to the composition of 
 complete essays, the pupil being everywhere furnished with all needful assist- 
 ance in the way of models and hints. Nobody can work through such a book 
 as this without thoroughly understanding the structnre of sentences, and 
 acquiring facility in arranging and expressing his thoughts appropriately. It 
 ought to be extensively used." Athenaeum,. 
 
 Geography. 
 
 NEW AND GREATLY IMPROVED EDITION. 
 
 A MANUAL OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY, MATHE- 
 MATICAL, PHYSICAL, AND POLITICAL. By the Rev. ALEXANDER 
 MACKAY, LL.D., F.R.G.S. Crown 8vo, pp. 676. 75. 6d. 
 This volume the result of many years' unremitting application is 
 specially adapted for the use of Teachers, Advanced Classes, Candi- 
 dates for the Civil Service, and proficients in geography generally. 
 
 THIRTIETH THOUSAND. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY. By 
 
 the Same. Thirteenth Edition, revised to the present time. Crown 
 8vo, pp. 300. 33. 
 
 The 'Elements' form a careful condensation of the 'Manual,' the 
 order of arrangement being the same, the river-systems of the globe 
 playing the same conspicuous part, the pronunciation being given, and 
 the results of the latest census being uniformly exhibited. This volume 
 is now extensively introduced into many of the best schools in the 
 kingdom. 
 
 This day is Published, 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE GEOGRAPHY. Intended 
 as an Intermediate Book between the Author's 'Outlines of 
 Geography' and 'Elements of Geography.' By the Same. 
 Crown 8vo, pp. 208, price 2s. 
 
 SIXTY-NINTH THOUSAND. 
 
 OUTLINES OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY: SIX- 
 TEENTH EDITION, REVISED TO THE PRESENT TIME. By the Same. 
 i8mo, pp. 112. is. 
 
 These ' Outlines' in many respects an epitome of the ' Elements ' 
 are carefully prepared to meet the wants of beginners. The arrange- 
 ment is the same as in the Author's larger works. Minute details are 
 avoided, the broad outlines are graphically presented, the accentua- 
 tion marked, and the most recent changes in political geography ex- 
 hibited. 
 
 FORTY-EIGHTH THOUSAND, REVISED TO THE PRESENT TIME. " 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GEOGRAPHY. By the Same. 
 
 i8mo, pp. 56. Sewed, 4d. In cloth, 6d. 
 
 GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 
 
 From ' First Steps in Geography.' By the Same. 3d.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 
 Geographical Class-Books. 
 
 OPINIONS OP DR MACKAY'S SEEIES. 
 MANUAL. 
 
 Annual Address of the President of the Royal Geographical Society 
 (Sir Roderick I. Murchison). We must admire the ability and persevering 
 research with which he has succeeded in imparting to his 'Manual' so much 
 freshness and originality. In no respect is this character more apparent than 
 in the plan of arrangement, by which the author commences his description of 
 the physical geography of each tract by a sketch of its true basis or geological 
 structure. The work is largely sold in Scotland, but has not been sufficiently 
 spoken of in England. It is, indeed, a most useful school-book in opening out 
 geographical knowledge. 
 
 Saturday Review. It contains a prodigious array of geographical facts, 
 and will be found useful for reference. 
 
 English Journal of Education. Of all the Manuals on Geography that 
 have come under our notice, we place the one whose title is given above in the 
 first rank. For fulness of information, for knowledge of method in arrange- 
 ment, for the manner in which the details are handled, we know of no work 
 that can, in these respects, compete with Mr Mackay's Manual. 
 
 ELEMENTS. 
 
 A. KEITH JOHNSTON, LL.D., F.R.S.E., F.R.G.S., H.M. Geographer 
 for Scotland, Author of the ' Physical Atlas,' &c. &c. There is no work 
 of the kind in this or any other language, known to me, which comes so near 
 my ideal of perfection in a school-book, on the important subject of which it 
 treats. In arrangement, style, selection of matter, clearness, and thorough 
 accuracy of statement, it is without a rival ; and knowing, as I do, the vast- 
 amount of labour and research you bestowed on its production, I trust it will 
 be so appreciated as to insure, by an extensive sale, a well-merited reward. 
 
 G. BICKERTON, Esq., Edinburgh Institution. I have been led to form 
 a very high opinion of Mackay's 'Manual of Geography' and 'Elements of Geo- 
 graphy,' partly from a careful examination of them, and partly from my expe- 
 rience of the latter as a text-book in the EDINBURGH INSTITOTION. One of 
 their most valuable features is the elaborate Table of River-Basins and Towns, 
 which is given in addition to the ordinary Province or County list, so that a 
 good idea may be obtained by the pupil of the natural as well as the political 
 relationship of the towns in each country. On all matters connected with 
 Physical Geography, Ethnography, Government, &c., the information is full, 
 accurate, and well digested. They are books that can be strongly recommended 
 to the student of geography. 
 
 RICHARD D. GRAHAM, English Master, College for Daughters of 
 Ministers of the Church of Scotland and of Professors in the Scottish 
 Universities. No work with which I am acquainted so amply fulfils the con- 
 ditions of a perfect text-book on the important siibject of which it treats, as Dr 
 Mackay's ' Elements of Modern Geography.' In fulness and accuracy of de- 
 tails, in the scientific grouping of facts, combined with clearness and.simplicity 
 of statement, it sta'nds alone, and leaves almost nothing to be desired hi the 
 way of improvement. Eminently fitted, by reason of this exceptional variety 
 and thoroughness, to meet all the requirements of higher education, it is never 
 without a living interest, which adapts it to the intelligence of ordinary pupils. 
 It is not the least of its merits that its information is abreast of all the latest 
 developments in geographical science, accurately exhibiting both the recent 
 political and territorial changes in Europe, and the many important results of 
 modern travel and research. 
 
 Spectator. The best Geography we have ever met with.
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 .-.' 
 
 Geology. 
 
 " Few of our handbooks of popular science can be said to have greater or 
 more decisive merit than those of Mr Page on Geology and Palceontotogy. 
 They are clear and vigorous in style, they never oppress the reader with a 
 pedantic display of learning, nor overwhelm him with a pompous and super- 
 fluous terminology; and they have the happy art of taking him straightway 
 to the face of nature herself, instead of leading him by the tortuous and bewild- 
 ering paths of technical system and artificial classification." Saturday Re- 
 view. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TEXT-BOOK OF GEOLOGY. 
 
 By DAVID PAGE, LL.D., Professor of Geology in the Durham 
 University of Physical Science, Newcastle. With Engravings on 
 Wood and Glossarial Index. Tenth Edition. 25. 6d. 
 
 " It has not been our good fortune to examine a text-book on science of 
 which we could express an opinion so entirely favourable as we are enabled to 
 do of Mr Page's little work." Athen&um. 
 
 ADVANCED TEXT-BOOK OF GEOLOGY, DE- 
 SCRIPTIVE AND INDUSTRIAL. By the Same. With Engravings, 
 and Glossary of Scientific Terms. Fifth Edition, revised and 
 enlarged. 73. 6d. 
 
 " We have carefully read this truly satisfactory book, and do not hesitate to 
 say that it is an excellent compendium of the great facts of Geology, and writ- 
 ten in a truthful and philosophic spirit." Edinburgh Philosophical Journal. 
 
 " As a school-book nothing can match the Advanced Text-Book of Geology 
 by Professor Page of Newcastle." Mechanics' Magazine. 
 
 " We know of no introduction containing a larger amount of information in 
 the same space, and which we could more cordially recommend to the geologi- 
 cal student." Athenaeum. 
 
 THE GEOLOGICAL EXAMINATOR. A Progres- 
 
 sive Series of Questions, adapted to the Introductory and Advanced 
 Text-Books of Geology. Prepared to assist Teachers in framing 
 their Examinations, and Students in testing their own Progress and 
 Proficiency. By the Same. Fifth Edition, gd. 
 
 SYNOPSES OF SUBJECTS TAUGHT IN THE GEO- 
 LOGICAL CLASS, College of Physical Science, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 University of Durham. By the Same. Fcap., cloth, 23. 6d. 
 
 THE CRUST OF THE EARTH : A HANDY OUT- 
 LINE OF GEOLOGY. By the Same. Sixth Edition, is. 
 
 " An eminently satisfactory work, giving, in less than 100 pages, an admir- 
 able outline sketch of Geology, . . . forming, if not a royal road, at least 
 one of the smoothest we possess to an intelligent acquaintance with geolo- 
 gical phenomena." Scotsman. 
 
 " Of singular merit for its clearness and trustworthy character." Standard. 
 
 GEOLOGY FOR GENERAL READERS. A Series 
 
 of Popular Sketches in Geology and Palaeontology. By the Same. 
 Third Edition, enlarged. 6s. 
 
 " This is one of the best of Mr Page's many good books. It is written in a 
 flowing popular style. Without illustration or any extraneous aid. the narra- 
 tive must prove attractive to any intelligent reader." Geological 31 ay azine.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 
 HANDBOOK OF GEOLOGICAL TERMS, GEO- 
 LOGY, AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. By the Same. 
 Second Edition, enlarged. 75. 6d. 
 
 " The only dictionary of Geology in the English language modern in date, 
 and exhaustive in treatment." Review. 
 
 CHIPS AND CHAPTERS. A Book for Amateurs 
 
 and Young Geologists. By the Same. 53. 
 
 THE PAST AND PRESENT LIFE OF THE 
 
 GLOBE. With numerous Illustrations. By the Same. Crown 
 8vo. 6s. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF GEOLOGY. A Brief Re- 
 
 view of the Aim, Scope, and Character of Geological Inquiry. 
 
 By the Same. Fcap. 8vo. 35. 6d. 
 
 "The great value of Mr Page's volume is its suggestive character. The 
 problems he discusses are the highest and most interesting in the science 
 those on which it most becomes the thinkers and the leaders of the age to 
 make up their minds. The time is now past for geologists to observe silence 
 on these matters, and in this way to depreciate at once the interest and im- 
 portance of their investigations. It is well to know that, however they may 
 decide, questions of high philosophy are at stake, and therefore we give a 
 hearty welcome to every book which, like Mr Page's, discusses these questions 
 in a fair and liberal spirit." Scotsman. 
 
 Physical Geography. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TEXT-BOOK OF PHYSICAL 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. With Sketch-Maps and Illustrations. By DAVID 
 PAGE, LL.D., Professor of Geology in the Durham Univer- 
 sity of Physical Science, Newcastle. Seventh Editioji. 23. 6d. 
 " The divisions of the subject are so clearly denned, the explanations are so 
 lucid, the relations of one portion of the subject to another are so satisfactorily 
 shown, and, above all, the bearings of the allied sciences to Physical Geography 
 are brought out with so much precision, that every reader will feel that diffi- 
 culties have been removed, and the path of study smoothed before him." 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 "Whether as a school-book or a manual for the private student, this work 
 has no equal in our Educational literature." Iron. 
 
 ADVANCED TEXT-BOOK OF PHYSICAL GEO- 
 GRAPHY. By the Same. With Engravings. Second Edition. 
 Ss. 
 
 " A. thoroughly good Text- Book of Physical Geography." Saturday Review. 
 " It is not often our good fortune to meet with scientific manuals so cheap 
 and so excellent in matter, and so useful for the practical purposes of educa- 
 tion, as this admirable work, which is beyond all question the best of its kind." 
 Evening Standard. 
 
 EXAMINATIONS ON PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 A Progressive Series of Questions, adapted to the Introductory and 
 Advanced Text- Books of Physical Geography. By the Same. 
 Second Edition, gd. 
 
 COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY. By CARL RITTER. 
 Translated by W. L. GAGE. Fcap., 33. 6d.
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 Zoology. 
 
 OUTLINES OF NATURAL HISTORY, for Be- 
 
 ginners ; being Descriptions of a Progressive Series of Zoological 
 Types. By HENRY ALLEYNE NICHOLSON, M.D., F.R.S.E., 
 F.G.S. ,&c., Professor of Biology and Physiology, Durham Uni- 
 versity College of Medicine and Physical Science, Newcastle. 52 
 Engravings, is. 6d. 
 
 " There has been no book since Patterson's well known ' Zoology for 
 Schools ' that has so completely provided for the class to which it is addressed 
 as the capital little volume by Dr Nicholson." Popular Science Review. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TEXT-BOOK OF ZOOLOGY, 
 
 FOR THE USE OF JUNIOR CLASSES. With 127 Engravings. A 
 New Edition, 25. 6d. 
 
 "Very suitable for junior classes in schools. There is no reason why any one 
 should not become acquainted with the principles of the science, and the facts 
 on which they are based, as set forth in this volume." Lancet. 
 
 " Nothing can be better adapted to its object than this cheap and well- 
 written Introduction." London Quarterly Review. 
 
 TEXT-BOOK OF ZOOLOGY, FOR THE USE OF 
 
 SCHOOLS. Second Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo, with 188 En- 
 gravings on Wood, 6s. 
 
 " This capital introduction to natural history is illustrated and well got up 
 in every way. We should be glad to see it generally used in schools." Medi- 
 cal Press and Circular. 
 
 A MANUAL OF ZOOLOGY, FOR THE USE OF 
 
 STUDENTS. With a General Introduction on the Principles of 
 Zoology. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, pp. 706, with 280 Engrav- 
 ings on Wood, I2S. 6d. 
 
 " It is the best manual of zoology yet published, not merely in England, but 
 in Europe." Pall Mall Gazette, July 20, 1871. 
 
 " The best treatise on Zoology in moderate compass that we possess." 
 Lancet, May 18, 1872. 
 
 A MANUAL OF PALAEONTOLOGY, FOR THE USE 
 
 OF STUDENTS. With a General Introduction on the Principles of 
 Palaeontology. Crown 8vo, with upwards of 400 Engravings, 155. 
 
 " This book will be found to be one of the best of guides to the principles of 
 Palaeontology and the study of organic remains." Athenaeum. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BIO- 
 LOGY. Crown 8vo, with numerous Engravings, 55. 
 
 EXAMINATIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY; being 
 
 a Progressive Series of Questions adapted to the Author's Introduc- 
 tory and Advanced Text-Books and the Student's Manual of 
 Zoology, is.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 
 History. 
 
 EPITOME OF ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE, 
 
 FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. Sixteenth Edition. Post 8vo, pp. 
 604. ys. 6d. bound in leather. 
 
 ATLAS TO EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 ELEVEN COLOURED MAPS. By A. KEITH JOHNSTON, LL.D., 
 F.R.S.E. In4to, 73. 
 
 THE EIGHTEEN CHRISTIAN CENTURIES. By 
 
 the Rev. JAMES WHITE, Author of 'The History of France.' 
 Seventh Edition, post 8vo, with Index, 6s. 
 
 " He goes to work upon the only true principle, and produces a picture that 
 at once satisfies truth, arrests the memory, and fills the imagination. It will 
 be difficult to lay hands on any book of the kind more useful and more enter- 
 taining. " Times. 
 
 HISTORY OF FRANCE, FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. 
 
 By the Rev. JAMES WHITE, Author of ' The Eighteen Christian 
 Centuries.' Fifth Edition, post 8vo, with Index, 6s. 
 
 " An excellent and comprehensive compendium of French history." 
 National Review. 
 
 FACTS AND DATES; or, The Leading Events in 
 
 Sacred and Profane History, and the Principal Facts in the Various 
 Physical Sciences : the Memory being aided throughout by a Sim- 
 ple and Natural Method. For Schools and Private Reference. By 
 the Rev. ALEX. MACKAY, LL.D., F.R.G.S., Author of 'A Manual 
 of Modern Geography,' &c. Second Edition, crown 8vo, pp. 336. 
 43. 
 
 THE LIFE AND LABOURS OF THE APOSTLE 
 
 PAUL. A continuous Narrative for Schools and Bible Classes. 
 By CHARLES MICHIE, M.A. Second Edition, Revised and En- 
 larged. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, is. 
 
 " The details are carefully collected and skilfully put together, and the out- 
 come is a succinct, yet clear and comprehensive, view of the life and labours 
 of the great Apostle. The story of Paul's life, so replete with spirit-stirring 
 incidents, is told in a manner extremely well fitted to arrest the attention of 
 advanced pupils, and we can with confidence commend this little work as an 
 admirable text-book for Bible-classes. The narrative is enriched by foot- 
 notes, from which it is apparent that Mr Michie is well posted up in the litera- 
 ture of the subject. These are subjoined without any pretence or parade of 
 learning, and only when required to elucidate or illustrate the text. The map 
 at the close will enabl$ the reader to trace the course of the Apostle in his 
 various missionary tours. We give this handbook our warm commendation : 
 it certainly deserves a wide circulation." National Education Gazette. 
 
 A COURSE OF HISTORICAL STUDY, FOR THE 
 
 USE OF SCHOOLS AND FOR PRIVATE READING. In Three Parts, 
 comprising Ancient History, Middle Ages, Modern History. By 
 MADEMOISELLE REYNAUD. [In the Press.
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 IMPEOVED EDITIONS. 
 
 School Atlases. 
 
 BY A. KEITH JOHNSTON, LL.D., &c. 
 
 Author of the Royal and the Physical Atlases, &c. 
 
 ATLAS OF GENERAL AND DESCRIPTIVE GEO- 
 GRAPHY. A New and Enlarged Edition, suited to the best Text- 
 Books ; with Geographical information brought up to the time of 
 publication. 26 Maps, clearly and uniformly printed in colours, 
 with Index. Imp. 8vo. Half-bound, 123. 6d. 
 
 ATLAS OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, illustrating, 
 
 in a Series of Original Designs, the Elementary Facts of GEOLOGY, 
 HYDROGRAPHY, METEOROLOGY, and NATURAL HISTORY. A 
 New and Enlarged Edition, containing 4 new Maps and Letter- 
 press. 20 Coloured Maps. Imp. 8vo. Half-bound, 123. 6d. 
 
 ATLAS OF ASTRONOMY. A New and Enlarged 
 
 Edition, 21 Coloured Plates. With an Elementary Survey of the 
 Heavens, designed as an accompaniment to this Atlas, by ROBERT 
 GRANT, LL.D., &c., Professor of Astronomy and Director of the 
 Observatory in the University of Glasgow. Imp. 8vo. Half-bound, 
 I2S. 6d. 
 
 ATLAS OF CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY. A New 
 
 and Enlarged Edition. Constructed from the best materials, and 
 embodying the results of the most recent investigations, accom- 
 panied by a complete INDEX OF PLACES, in which the proper 
 quantities are given by T. HARVEY and E. WORSLEY, MM.A. 
 Oxon. 21 Coloured Maps. Imp. 8vo. Half-bound, 123. 6d. 
 " This Edition is so much enlarged and improved as to be virtually a new 
 
 work, surpassing everything else of the kind extant, both in utility and beauty. " 
 
 Athenceum. 
 
 ELEMENTARY ATLAS OF GENERAL AND 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY, for the Use of Junior Classes ; 
 including a MAP OF CANAAN and PALESTINE, with GENERAL 
 INDEX. 8vo, half-bound, 55. 
 
 NEW ATLAS FOR PUPIL-TEACHERS. 
 
 THE HANDY ROYAL ATLAS. 46 Maps clearly 
 printed and carefully coloured, with GENERAL INDEX. Imp. 410, 
 2, las. 6d., half-bound morocco. A New Edition, brought up to 
 the present time. 
 
 This work has been constructed for the purpose of placing in the 
 hands of the public a useful and thoroughly accurate ATLAS of Maps 
 of Modern Geography, in a convenient form, and at a moderate price. 
 It is based on the ' ROYAL ATLAS,' by the same Author ; and, in so 
 far as the scale permits, it comprises many of the excellences which its 
 prototype is acknowledged to possess. The aim has been to make the 
 book strictly what its name implies, a HANDY ATLAS a valuable sub- 
 stitute for the ' Royal,' where that is too bulky or too expensive to find 
 a place, a needful auxiliary to the junior branches of families, and a 
 vade mecum to the tutor and the pupil-teacher.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 
 Keith Johnston's Atlases. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 SCHOOL ATLASES. 
 
 " They are as superior to all School Atlases within our knowledge, as were the 
 larger works of the same Author in advance of those that preceded them." 
 Educational Times. 
 
 " Decidedly the best School Atlases we have ever seen." English Journal of 
 Education. 
 
 M . . . The 'Physical Atlas' seems to us particularly well executed. 
 . . . The last generation had no such help to learning as is afforded in 
 these excellent elementary Maps. The ' Classical Atlas ' is a great improve- 
 ment on what has usually gone by that name ; not only is it fuller, but in 
 some cases it gives the same country more than once in different periods of 
 time. Thus it approaches the special value of a historical atlas. The ' General 
 Atlas ' is wonderfully full and accurate for its scale. . . . Finally, the 
 ' Astronomical Atlas,' in which Mr Hind is responsible for the scientific ac- 
 curacy of the maps, supplies an admitted educational want. No better com- 
 panion to an elementary astronomical treatise could be found than this cheap 
 and convenient collection of maps." Saturday Review. 
 
 "The plan of these Atlases is admirable, and the excellence of the plan is 
 rivalled by the beauty of the execution. . . . The best security for the 
 accuracy and substantial value of a School Atlas is to have it from the hands 
 of a man like our Author, who has perfected his skill by the execution of much 
 larger works, and gained a character which he will be careful not to jeopardise 
 by attaching his name to anything that is crude, slovenly, or superficial." 
 Scotsman. 
 
 "This Edition of the 'Classical Atlas' is so much enlarged and improved as 
 to be virtually a new work, surpassing everything else of the kind extant, both 
 in utility and beauty." Athenaeum. 
 
 THE HANDY ROYAL ATLAS. 
 
 " Is probably the best work of the kind now published." Times. 
 
 "Not only are the present territorial adjustments duly registered In all 
 these Maps, but the latest discoveries in Central Asia, in Africa, and America, 
 have been delineated with laborious fidelity. Indeed the ample illustration of 
 recent discovery, and of the great groups of dependencies on the British 
 Crown, renders Dr Johnston's the best of all Atlases for English use." Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 ordinary households." Spectator. 
 
 " The ' Handy Atlas ' is thoroughly deserving of its name. Not only does it 
 contain the latest information, but its size and arrangement render it perfect 
 as a book of reference." Standard.
 
 10 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS* 
 
 Arithmetic. 
 
 THE THEORY OF ARITHMETIC. By DAVID 
 
 MUNN, F.R.S.E., Mathematical Master, Royal High School of 
 Edinburgh. Crown 8vo, pp. 294. 53. 
 
 " We want books of this kind very much books which aim at developing 
 the educational value of Arithmetic by showing how admirably it is calculated 
 to exercise the thinking powers of the young. Your book is, I think, excellent 
 brief, but clear ; and I look forward to the good effects which it shall produce, 
 in awaking the minds of many who regard Arithmetic as a mere mechanical 
 process." Professor Kelland. 
 
 ELEMENTARY ARITHMETIC. By EDWARD SANG, 
 
 F.R.S.E. This Treatise is intended to supply the great desider- 
 atum of an intellectual instead of a routine course of instruction in 
 Arithmetic. Post 8vo, 55. 
 
 THE HIGHER ARITHMETIC. By the same 
 
 Author. Being a Sequel to ' Elementary Arithmetic.' Crown 8vo, 
 5S. 
 
 FIVE -PLACE LOGARITHMS. Arranged by E. 
 SANG, F.R.S.E. Sixpence. For the Waistcoat- Pocket. 
 
 TREATISE ON ARITHMETIC, with numerous Ex- 
 
 ercises for Teaching in Classes. By JAMES WATSON, one of the 
 Masters of Heriot's Hospital. Foolscap, is. 
 
 Botany. 
 
 A MANUAL OF BOTANY, ANATOMICAL AND PHYS- 
 IOLOGICAL. For the Use of Students. By ROBERT BROWN, 
 M.A., PH.D., F. R.G.S., Lecturer on Botany under the Science 
 and Art Department of the Committee of the Privy Council on 
 Education. Crown 8vo, with numerous Illustrations, 123. 6d. 
 
 Agriculture. 
 
 CATECHISM OF PRACTICAL AGRICULTURE. 
 
 By HENRY STEPHENS, F.R.S.E., Author of the 'Book of the 
 Farm.' A New Edition. With Engravings, is. 
 
 PROFESSOR JOHNSTON'S CATECHISM OF 
 
 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY. A New Edition, edited by 
 Professor VOELCKER. With Engravings, is. 
 
 PROFESSOR JOHNSTON'S ELEMENTS OF 
 
 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. A New 
 Edition, revised and brought down to the present time, by G. T. 
 ATKINSON, B.A., F.C.S., Clifton College. Foolscap, 6s. 6d.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 11 
 
 M iscellaneous. 
 
 A TREASURY OF THE ENGLISH AND GER- 
 MAN LANGUAGES. Compiled from the best Authors and 
 Lexicographers in both Languages. Adapted to the Use of Schools, 
 Students, Travellers, and Men of Business ; and forming a Com- 
 panion to all German-English Dictionaries. By JOSEPH CAUVIN, 
 LL.D. & PH.D., of the University of Gottingen, &c. Crown 8vo 
 73. 6d., bound in cloth. 
 
 " An excellent English-German Dictionary, which supplies a real want." 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 " The difficulty of translating English into German may be greatly alleviated 
 by the use of this copious and excellent English-German Dictionary, which 
 specifies the different senses of each English word, and gives suitable German 
 equivalents. It also supplies an abundance of idiomatic phraseology, with 
 many passages from Shakespeare and other authors aptly rendered in German. 
 Compared with other dictionaries, it has decidedly the advantage." Athenaeum. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY TEXT-BOOK OF METEOR- 
 OLOGY. By ALEXANDER BUCHAN. M.A., F.R.S.E., Secretary 
 of the Scottish Meteorological Society, Author of ' Handy Book of 
 Meteorology, ' &c. Crown 8vo, with 8 Coloured Charts and other 
 Engravings, pp. 218. 43. 6d. 
 
 " A handy compendium of Meteorology by one of the most competent autho- 
 rities on this branch of science." Petermann's Geographische Mittheilungen. 
 
 "We can recommend it as a handy, clear, and scientific introduction to the 
 theory of Meteorology, written by a man who has evidently mastered his sub- 
 ject." Lancet. 
 
 "An exceedingly useful volume." Athenceum. 
 
 A GLOSSARY OF NAVIGATION. Containing the 
 
 Definitions and Propositions of the Science, Explanation of Terms, 
 and Description of Instruments. By the Rev. J. B. HARBORD, 
 M.A., Assistant Director of Education, Admiralty. Crown 8vo, 
 Illustrated with Diagrams, 6s. 
 
 DEFINITIONS AND DIAGRAMS IN ASTRO- 
 NOMY AND NAVIGATION. By the Same. is. 6d. 
 
 ELEMENTARY HANDBOOK OF PHYSICS. With 
 
 210 Diagrams. By WILLIAM ROSSITER, F. R.A.S., &c. Crown 
 8vo, pp. 390. 55. 
 
 " A singularly interesting Treatise on Physics, founded on facts and pheno- 
 mena gained at first hand by the Author, and expounded in a style which is a 
 model of that simplicity and ease in writing which betokens mastery of the 
 subject. To those who require anon-mathematical exposition of the principles 
 of Physics a better book cannot be recommended," Pall Mall Gazette.
 
 12 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS* 
 
 Crown 8vo, pp. 760, 73. 6d., 
 AN ETYMOLOGICAL AND PRONOUNCING 
 
 DICTIONARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 INCLUDING A VERY COPIOUS SELECTION OF 
 
 SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL, AND OTHER TERMS AND PHRASES. 
 DESIGNED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, 
 
 AND AS , 
 
 A HANDY BOOK FOR GENERAL REFERENCE. 
 BY THE REV. JAMES STORMONTH, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 REV. P. H. PHELP, M.A. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " This will be found, a most admirable and useful Dictionary by the student, 
 the man of business, or the general inquirer. Its design is to supply a full and 
 complete pronouncing, etymological, and explanatory Dictionary of the English 
 language ; and, as far as we can judge, in that design it most completely suc- 
 ceeds. It contains an unusual number of scientific names and terms, English 
 phrases, and familiar colloquialisms ; this will considerably enhance its value to 
 the general searcher after information. The author seems to us to have planned 
 the Dictionary exceedingly well. The Dictionary words are printed in bold 
 black type, and in single letters, that being the form in which words are usually 
 presented to the reader. Capital letters begin such words only in proper 
 names, and others which are always so printed. They are grouped under a 
 leading word, from which they may be presumed naturally to fall or be formed, 
 or singly follow in alphabetical order only so, however, when they are derived 
 from the same leading root, and when the alphabetical order may not be mate- 
 rially disturbed. The roots are enclosed within brackets, and for them the 
 works of the best and most recent authorities seem to have been consulted. 
 The meanings are those usually given, but they have been simplified as much 
 as possible. Nothing unnecessary is given ; but, in the way of definition, there 
 will be found a vast quantity of new matter. The phonetic spelling of the 
 words has been carefully revised by a Cambridge graduate Mr Phelp ; and Dr 
 Page, the well-known geologist, has attended to the correctness of the various 
 scientific terms in the book. The Dictionary altogether is very complete." 
 Greenock Advertiser. 
 
 " This Dictionary is admirable. The etymological part especially is good and 
 sound. We have turned to ' calamity,' ' forest,' ' poltroon,' and a number of 
 other crucial words, and find them all derived according to the newest lights. 
 There is nothing about 'calamus,' and foris,' and 'pollice tnmcus,' such as we 
 used in the etymological dictionaries of the old type. The work deserves a 
 place in every English School, whether boys' or girls'." Westminster Review.
 
 EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 13 
 
 OPINIONS continued. 
 
 "That which is now before us is evidently a work on which enormous pains 
 have been bestowed. The compilation and arrangement give evidence of labo- 
 rious research and very extensive scholarship. Special care seems to have been 
 bestowed on the pronunciation and etymological derivation, and the 'root- 
 words ' which are given are most valuable in helping to a knowledge of primary 
 significations. All through the book are evidences of elaborate and conscien- 
 tious work, and any one who masters the varied contents of this Dictionary 
 will not be far off the attainment of the complete art of ' writing the English 
 language with propriety,' in the matter of orthography at any rate." Belfast 
 Northern Whig. 
 
 " This strikes us as likely to prove a useful and valuable work. . . . The 
 number of scientific terms given is far beyond what we have noticed in previous 
 works of this kind, and will in great measure render other special dictionaries 
 superfluous. Great care seems also to have been exercised in giving the correct 
 etymology and pronunciation of words. We trust the work may meet with the 
 success it deserves." Graphic. 
 
 " On the whole, we may characterise Mr Stormonth's as a really good and 
 valuable Dictionary ; and with the typical exceptions we have pointed out, we 
 frankly allow his claim to have laboured earnestly and conscientiously in the 
 production of it." Journal of Education. 
 
 " I have examined Stormonth's Dictionary minutely, and again and again with 
 satisfaction on points where other Dictionaries left me hopeless. It is an ela- 
 borate and splendid work, and with its great fulness, its grouping of words, and 
 its meanings of phrases, should be the vade mecum of every student. It is a 
 book I would like very much to see in the hands of all my advanced pupils." 
 David Campbell, Esq., The Academy, Montrose. 
 
 "I am happy to be able to express and that in the strongest terms of com- 
 mendation my opinion of the merits of this Dictionary. Considering the ex- 
 tensive field which it covers, it seems to me a marvel of painstaking labour and 
 general accuracy. With regard to the scientific and technical words so exten- 
 sively introduced into it, I must say, that in this respect I know no Dictionary 
 that so satisfactorily meets a real and widely felt want in our literature of re- 
 ference. I have compared it with the large and costly works of Latham, 
 Wedgwood, and others, and find that in the fulness of its details, and the 
 clearness of its definitions, it holds its own even against them. The etymology 
 has been treated throughout with much intelligence, the most distinguished 
 authorities, and the most recent discoveries in philological science having been 
 laid under careful contribution." Richard D. Graham, Esq., English Master, 
 College for Daughters of Ministers of the Church of Scotland and of Professors in 
 the Scottish Universities. 
 
 "For clearness of printing, neatness of arrangement, and amount of informa- 
 tion, this Dictionary leaves nothing to be desired ; while its correctness and con- 
 densed form giving all that is necessary with no redundance, will prove of great 
 service to all who want a work of complete and easy reference, without having 
 recourse to a Cyclopedia. In all cases where I have referred to the etymology, 
 I have found it most satisfactory ; once or twice after being unable to find a 
 word in another Dictionary, I have met what I wanted in-this one." John 
 Wingfleld, Esq., M.A.
 
 14 W. BLACKWOOD AXD SONS* EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 
 THE SCHOOL ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY 
 
 AND WORD-BOOK. Combining the advantages of an ordinary 
 Pronouncing School Dictionary and an Etymological Spelling- Book. 
 By the Rev. JAMES STORMONTH. Fcap. 8vo, pp. 254, as. 
 
 " This is mainly an abridgment of Mr Stormonth's larger Etymologi- 
 cal Dictionary, which has already been favourably criticised in ' The 
 Schoolmaster.' The Dictionary, which contains every word in ordinary 
 use, is followed up by a carefully prepared list of prefixes and postfixes, 
 with illustrative examples, and a vocabulary of Latin, Greek, and other 
 root-words, followed by derived English words. It will be obvious to 
 every experienced teacher, that these lists may be made available in 
 many ways for imparting a sound knowledge of the English language, 
 and for helping unfortunate pupils over the terrible difficulties of our 
 unsystematic and stubborn orthography. We think this volume will 
 be a valuable addition to the pupil's store of books, and, if rightly used, 
 will prove a safe and suggestive guide to a sound and thorough know- 
 ledge of his native tongue." The Schoolmaster. 
 
 "For these reasons we always advocate the good old practice of 
 teaching children English to a large extent by means of lists of spell- 
 ings, all but the most elementary classes learning spellings with ' mean- 
 ings.' Mr Stormonth, in this admirable word-book, has provided the 
 means of carrying out our principle in the higher classes, and of correct- 
 ing all the inexactness and want of completeness to which the English 
 student of English is liable. His book is an etymological dictionary 
 curtailed and condensed. ... As a dictionary the book is very 
 carefully compiled, and much labpur has been expended on the task 
 of economising words and space with as little actual loss to the student 
 as possible. The pronunciation is indicated by a neat system of 
 symbols, easily mastered at the outset, and indeed pretty nearly speak- 
 ing for themselves." School Board Chronicle. 
 
 "A concise handy-book of this kind was much wanted in schools, for 
 most pocket-dictionaries are by no means reliable guides. Besides the 
 word and its meaning, the pronunciation is given in each case, together 
 with the kindred or root words in other languages. The work seems 
 very complete." Educational Times. 
 
 "The derivations are particularly good." Westminster Review. 
 
 ' ' This cheap and careful abridgment of Mr Stormonth's larger Dic- 
 tionary, which has met with so cordial a welcome in all quarters, will 
 be received as a boon by all interested in the education of the young. 
 . . . We heartily endorse its claim to be 'a thoroughly practical 
 school-book, and fitted for daily use by the pupil in and out of the 
 school-room, in the preparation of the English lessons.' " Aberdeen 
 Herald. 
 
 " The work is admirably adapted for teaching the meanings of words, 
 since after the meanings of the various postfixes have been learnt, the 
 pupil will obtain excellent exercise in the formation of words derived 
 from those given in the Dictionary." Mechanics' Magazine.
 
 NOW COMPLETE. 
 
 ANCIENT CLASSICS 
 
 FOR 
 
 ENGLISH READERS 
 
 BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 Author of ' Etoniana,' ' The Public Schools," &c. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "We gladly avail ourselves of this opportunity to recommend the 
 other volumes of this useful series, most of which are executed with dis- 
 crimination and ability." Quarterly Review. 
 
 " These Ancient Classics have, without an exception, a twofold value. 
 They are rich in literary interest, and they are rich in social and histori- 
 cal interest. We not only have a faithful presentation of the stamp and 
 quality of the literature which the master-minds of the classical world 
 have bequeathed to the modern world, but we have a series of admir- 
 ably vivid and graphic pictures of what life at Athens and Rome svas. 
 We are not merely taken back over a space of twenty centuries, and 
 placed immediately under the shadow of the Acropolis, or in the very 
 heart of the Forum, but we are at once brought behind the scenes of the 
 old Roman and Athenian existence. As we see how the heroes of this 
 ' new world which is the old ' plotted, intrigued, and planned ; how 
 private ambition and political partisanship were dominant and active 
 motives then as they are now ; hoV the passions and the prejudices 
 which reign supreme now reigned supreme then ; above all, as we dis- 
 cover how completely many of what we may have been accustomed to 
 consider our most essentially modern thoughts and sayings have been 
 anticipated by the poets and orators, the philosophers and historians, 
 who drank their inspiration by the banks of Ilissus or on the plains of 
 Tiber, we are prompted to ask whether the advance of some twenty cen- 
 turies has worked any great change in humanity, and whether, substi- 
 tuting the coat for the toga, the park for the Campus Martius, the 
 Houses of Parliament for the Forum, Cicero might not have been a 
 public man in London as well as an orator in Rome?" Morning 
 Advertiser. 
 
 " It is difficult to estimate too highly the value of such a series as this 
 in giving ' English readers ' an insight, exact as far as it goes, into those 
 olden times which are so remote and yet to many of us so close. It is 
 in no wise to be looked upon as a rival to the translations which have 
 at no time been brought forth in greater abundance or in greater excel- 
 lence than in our own day. On the contrary, we should hope that 
 these little volumes would be in many cases but a kind of stepping-stone 
 to the larger works, and would lead many who otherwise would have 
 remained in ignorance of them to turn to the versions of Conington, 
 Worsley, Derby, or Lytton. In any case a reader would come with 
 far greater knowledge, and therefore with far greater enjoyment, to the 
 complete translation, who had first had the ground broken for him by 
 one of these volumes. " Saturday Review, Jan. 18.
 
 16 W. BLACKWOOD AND SONS* EDUCATIONAL WORKS. 
 Now complete, in 20 vols. , fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. each, 
 
 Ancient Classics for English Readers. 
 
 i. HOMER : THE ILIAD. By THE EDITOR. 
 
 2. HOMER : THE ODYSSEY. By THE EDITOR. 
 
 3. HERODOTUS. By GEORGE C. SwAYNE, M.A. 
 
 4. THE COMMENTARIES OF CESAR. By ANTHONY TROL- 
 
 LOPE. 
 
 5. VIRGIL. By THE EDITOR. 
 
 6. HORACE. By THEODORE MARTIN. 
 
 7. AESCHYLUS. By REGINALD S. COPLESTON, B.A. 
 
 8. XENOPHON. By SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, Bart., Principal of 
 the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 9. CICERO. By THE EDITOR. 
 io. SOPHOCLES. By CLIFTON W. COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 ii. PLINY'S LETTERS. By the Rev. ALFRED CHURCH, M.A., 
 and the Rev. W. J. BRODRIBB, M.A. 
 
 12. EURIPIDES. ByW. B.DONNE. 
 
 13. JUVENAL. By EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. 
 
 14. ARISTOPHANES. By THE EDITOR. 
 
 15. HESIOD AND THEOGNIS. By the Rev. J. DAVIS, M.A. 
 
 16. PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. By THE EDITOR. 
 
 17. TACITUS. By W. B. DONNE. 
 
 18. LUCIAN. By THE EDITOR. 
 
 19. PLATO. By CLIFTON W. COLLINS, M.A. 
 
 20. THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY. By LORD NEAVES. 
 
 45 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH ; 37 PATERNOSTER Row, LONDON.
 
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