LATIN LITERATURE: REPUBLICAN PERIOD

Overview of the most important authors of the Latin world, from the origin of Latin literature to the end of the Republic.

Livius Andronicus

Life of Livius Andronicus:

• Commonly regarded as founder to both Roman epic poetry and drama, due to his highly influential and important work

• Dates of birth and death are unknown to us, however sources on Livius have managed to preserve and transmit the date of his coming to Rome: 272 BC is the year in which Andronicus, a freedman of Greek origin, came from Tarentum under the entourage of his patron, a member of the Livian family, and settled in Rome.

• Engaged in Rome in the activities of both the Grammaticus, so a teacher of Greek and Latin to the Roman youth, as well as playwright and author of tragedies and comedies that he adapted from Greek plays, usually those of the three main Attic tragedians

• Even more credible and believable than the date of his arrival to Rome, which is regarded as controversial due to the existing contradictory information, are the years that two of his works were staged before the Roman public:

  1. In 240 BC, Livius composed a work, most likely a translation of a tragedy, which became the first dramatic performance staged in Rome, namely for the occasion of the Ludi Romani, the games held in honour of Jupiter

  2. In 207 BC, Livius composed a parthenion, or ‘‘maidens’ song’’, performed in honour of Juno, for which he would later receive public honours, including his professional association being installed in a public building, the temple of Aventine Minerva

Livius Andronicus’ Odusia:

• Translation of the Greek epic poem, the Odyssey, into Latin, using the typically Italic Saturnian verses

• Regarded as the first major poem in Latin and the first artistic translation into the language, earning Livius his status as originator of Latin literature

• Enterprise motivated by both literary and cultural reasons:

1. As a schoolmaster himself, Livius aimed at making accessible to the Romans a fundamental text of Greek culture and introducing the youth to the Hellenistic world and culture

2. Livius conceived of translation as an artistic process, involving the creation of a text that could stand besides the original in literary quality and expression, able to be enjoyed autonomously yet also preserve and enhance the artistic quality of its model

• Difficulty in translation was inherent as a result of both the limits of the linguistic medium as well as the cultural differences between the Hellenistic and Roman audiences, resulting in several translation choices by Livius that would be highly influential in Latin literature

1. Construed his own highly affected, solemn response to the artificial and literary Kunstsprache of Homer by making use of deliberately archaic forms and terms borrowed from the religious tradition, such as the substitution of the Muse with Carmena

2. Heightened pathos and dramatic tension of the text in accordance to the tastes of the time as well as made several changes to better adapt to the Roman mentality, such as the choice to make Odysseus ‘‘summus adprimus’’ instead of ‘‘equal to the gods’’

Naevius

Life of Gnaeus Naevius:

• Roman citizen of Campanian origin and a plebeian by birth, a very unusual background for those engaged in literary activities, a peculiarity that is especially compounded when taking into account the traces of polemic against nobility, such as the family of Metelli, as well as the lack of a noble patron

  • Enmity to persons of much higher status might have led to him being persecuted and imprisoned, as is suggested by some on account of possible allusions in his works

• Fought in the First Punic War, most likely during the last years of the conflict and was generally, quite engaged in the political life of the time, making him the first Latin and Roman writer caught up in the contemporary affairs and political disputes of the day

• Died in exile in Africa, yet not without fostering a significant literary reputation, as he wrote many tragedies and comic works:

  1. Praetextae, or tragedies with a Roman plot such as Romulus, which deals with the dramatic story of Rome’s founding as well as Clastidium, a celebration of the victory won at the town with the very same name

  2. Mythological tragedies, modelled after the works of the three great Attic tragedians and connected to the Trojan cycle, such as Danae and Iphigenia

  3. Comic works, with titles in both Greek and Latin such as Tarantella and Colax, based on Greek originals but within a Roman setting, thus serving as a predecessor to Plautus and Terence

Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum:

• Considered the first Latin epic with a Roman theme,

• Written in around 4 to 5 thousand Saturnian verses, with only 60 remaining in our times

• Originally had no book divisions but was later arranged in 7 books by a contemporary of Accius

• Narrated and intertwined two different stories, that of Aeneas, his journey from Troy and arrival in Latium as well as the story of the First Punic War

  • A work of great contemporary significance due to its date of composition and subject matter, towards which Naevius took an ‘‘archaeological’’ approach, as he dissected the mythological causes his narrative provided to the enmity between the Carthaginians and the Romans

• Remarkable for its considerable innovation, which is not limited to the subject choice but also extends to:

  1. The use of a bold leap time to transport the reader in Rome’s prehistory and the legend of Aeneas, thus creating a Homeric, mythological stratum

  2. The creation of an additional layer, that of the historical stratum that constituted the account of the war against Carthage

  3. The integration of the idea of divine intervention as foundational to the rise of Rome and its people, thus placing the event within a cosmic perspective

  4. The intrinsic relationship to Greek poetry that was informed by Naevius’ own origin from Campania, evident in the presupposition of the Bellum Poenicum of the celebratory historical poem, the crossing of the Iliad and the Odyssey into a story of both war and voyage as well as certain grammatical features

Plautus

Life of Plautus:

• Full name is Titus Maccius Plautus, with Plautus being the Romanised form of an Umbrian cognomen and Maccius a pseudonym referring to the world of the comic stage, thus forming the regular ‘‘tria nomina’’

• Native to an Apennine city of Umbria and a free citizen, not raised in a Hellenistic environment like Andronicus or Naevius

• Period of literary production is that duration in-between the Second Punic War and the poet’s last years, a period during which he yielded many comedies

Works of Plautus:

• Attributed around 130 different comedies, a vast and erroneous number that prompted the editorial activity of figures such as Varro, who definitively selected the 21 comedies that have reached us as genuine, among which we count Amphitruo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Captivi, Curculio, Casina, Cistellaria, Epidicus, Baachides, Mostellaria, Miles Glorious, Poenulus, Mercator, Pseudos, Persa, Stichus, Truculentus, Vidularia and so on

  • There remained many other comedies which Varro himself regarded as genuine yet did not add due to uncertain judgment, from which remain only titles and brief fragments as they were lost in the Late Antiquity

• Modelled after Attic comedy, specifically New Attic comedy and Menander’s plots yet without marked preference or even direct acknowledgment, as Plautus does not presuppose an audience well-learned enough to recognise and enjoy references to the originals

  • Distinguished for his originality, evident in both structural choices, such as the metrical rearrangement, the abolition of act division as well as linguistic choices, such as the plays on words, the double entendres, the jesting allusions to Roman reality and the use of numerous verses

• Fundamental to his plots and character types was the quality of marked predictability, an intentional choice that allowed Plautus to direct the audience towards the comic quality of his works

  • Nearly all plots can be reduced to a contest between antagonists over the possession of a property, usually a woman or the sum of money needed to secure her, with the victory of one party over the other corresponding to the social norms of the audience

  • Character types can be reduced to a few limited archetypes, such as the clever slave, the old man, the young lover, the pimp, the parasite, the braggart soldier and so

  • Predictability enhanced by the tendency to provide expository prologues, which additionally revealed the typological terms of the characters rather than their names

• Preferred plot type was that of the slave comedy, wherein the task of winning the property at stake is delegated by the young man to an ingenious and amoral slave, who, by virtue of being at the centre of all action, constructs the narrative much like the poet stages the events

  • The slave is a typical figure in that he is not individualised in psychological terms and moreover, is disadvantaged societally yet at the same time, he is exceptional due to his centrality: he supervises, influences and directs the development of the plot, commenting on it much like the poet would and thus staging a form of ‘‘meta-theatre’’

• The slave comedy often intersected with two other comedy plot:

1. Comedy of recognition, which hinges on the ideas of mistaken identities and a long period of errors and confusions, resolved by the happy surprise of the concluding recognition

   • The slave serves to falsify, confound and alter appearances

2. Comedy of Fortune, wherein the omnipresent force of Fortuna and Tyche completes the schematic plot by opposing the slave’s machinations as well as providing an irrational and unpredictable element

• Conflicts hinge on a clash between legitimate social values and expectations, such as the son plotting against paternal authority, the father using his power for immoral purposes, married men court women and not bachelors, gods and mortals are confused with one-another

  • The threat posed by this subversion is promptly diffused as a result of:

  1. Plautus dealing with these conflicts on the comic plane of the plot, without becoming a critical reflection or revision of the traditional ways but instead using them as vehicles of humour

  2. Plautus choosing a return to the status quo as solution to the conflict, which allows the audience to find catharsis in the journey from disorder to order and reinforces social order and behavioural norms

  3. Plautus choosing a foreign setting, which negates the experiences familiar to the Roman audience by inserting exotic details such as the names of characters and places, certain legalities, political institutions or historical allusions that ensure distance

Caecilius Statius

Life of Caecilius Statius

• Freedman of foreign origin, more specifically, an Insubrian Gaul who came from Milan and was likely brought to Rome after the Battle of Clastidium in 222 BC as a contemporary of both Plautus and Ennius

• Born most likely between 230 BC and 220 BC

Work of Caecilius Statius:

• Forty extant titles, all of which are palliatae, with the best-known comedy being the Plocium, meaning Necklace, adapted from the Plokion of Menander

  • Used to be the only opportunity to compare a substantial passage of a palliata with its Greek original, with the comparison showing that Caecilius reimagined the stories of the original in accordance to the newly established Roman theatre, thus showcasing a flexible understanding of translation

• Assumed an intermediary position between Plautus and Terence:

1. A large number of extant fragments echo Plautine drama in the great variety of meter, lively comic imagination and taste for the farcical

2. The interest in Menander’s comedies, with over half of the titles having a possible Menandrian origin, as well as the closer adherence to the Greek models of Attic New Comedy suggest a similarity to Terence

Ennius

Life of Ennius:

• Born in 239 BC, at Rudiae, the region the Romans referred to as Calabria and is in fact today’s Apulia, south of Tarentum, thoroughly steeped in Greek culture

• Likely to have been educated in the cultivated ambience of Tarentum, the closest economic and cultural centre to Rudiae and arrived at Rome at a mature age, brought over by Cato the Censor

• Engaged in teaching but had gained renown as a playwright by 190 BC, gaining the patronage of the Scipios and the Nobiliors

• Died in 169 BC, during the Ludi Apollinares, unable to finish his magnum opus, the Annals

• Sources are various. due to his esteemed and famous position in the canon of Latin literature, including even his own works, in which his personal voice can be discerned

Works of Ennius:

• Extant only in indirectly transmitted fragments, with Ennius being the archaic writer from whom we have the largest amount of quotations

• Last Latin poet to cultivate both tragedy and comedy, writing in a plurality of verses and genres

  1. Very successful tragedies, with twenty titles of cothurnatae preserved by Cicero alone

     • Preference for Euripides as a model, the most modern of the great 5th century Attic tragedians and the most open to situations of heightened pathos

     • Preference for tragedies of the Trojan Cycle such as Alexander, Iphigenia, Andromache, Hecuba and so on

  2. Two praetextae, the Ambracia and the Sabine, one of a contemporary subject and the other related to the rape of the Sabine women

  3. Two comedies, with fairly certain titles, the Inkeeper’s Wife and the Wrestler

  4. The Annales, considered his masterpiece as an epic poem written in hexameters that narrated the story of Rome in eighteen books

  5. Large variety of minor works, including the Hedyphagetica, a didactic work on gastronomy, the Sota, a literary curiosity, books of satires, a work in the honour of Scipio Africanus as well as epigrams in elegiac couplets that celebrated the former as well as Ennius himself

  6. Quasi-philosophical texts such as the Euhemerus, written in prose and meant to popularise the thought of the eponymous philosopher, the Epicharmus, referring to the poet by the same name who was also a famous thinker and the Protrepticus, whose title suggests a collection of moral precepts

• Works were distinguished for their celebratory function, introducing the model of the Hellenistic court poet to Rome as he accompanied Nobilior’s campaign as a poet for his entourage

  • Innovation that served as an act of political propaganda on behalf of the patron, indicating the close link between political and literary power and provoking outrage from figures such as Cato

  • Celebratory styling was fundamental in all of his writings, not only the Scipio, his epigrams or the praetextae but also the Annals, as Ennius aimed at celebrating all of Roman history in one single epic poem, thus uniting both the scale of the Homeric epic and the function of the new Hellenistic epic

  • Closely connected to Roman imperialism, as the perspective that Ennius conveys in the Annals is that of an aristocratic ideology that finds its triumph in Ennius, in the celebratory poem of the virtues of the noble class and the achievements of its individual members, thus rejecting the anonymous and collective celebrations of Naevius and Cato the Censor

Ennius’ the Annals:

• Most famous Roman epic up to the age of Augustus, formed of eighteen books, with thousands of hexameters

  • Differed from the Bellum Poenicum in two very important structural elements:

    1. Continuous narrative, with no breaks and in a chronological order

    2. Articulation of the account into books, each one conceived as a narrative unit within the overall structure in accordance to the structure of the Alexandrian epic

• Models of the Annals were both historical as well as poetic:

  1. Title was most likely referring to the Annales Maxima, the public records of events that were organised year by year, just as Ennius’ work was done in chronological order

  2. Historiographical sources were extensively employed, with the details progressively increasing with the approach to the contemporary period

  3. Poetic sources were Homer, whom Ennius wished to equal, the Alexandrian epic and Hellenistic poetry as well as Naevius, who is both predecessor and object of criticism

• Personal voice of the poet is noticeable in the two great proems, one to book 1 and the other to book 7, which stand out in the architecture of the story, revealing the inspiration and motivation of the poet:

  1. In the first proem, Ennius tells of a dream of his where the shade of Homer appeared to grant revelations to Ennius and promise his reincarnation into the other, with the motif of inspiration thus being borrowed from Hesiod and Callimachus and their own encounters with the Muses

  2. In the second proem, Ennius encounters the Muses and through this encounter, appropriates them for the Roman environment, distinguishing them from Andronicus’ Camera and the country divinities of Naevius

     • Represents himself as the first poet who is ‘‘dictionary studious’’, the first learned and refined poet-philologist of the Romans, on the same caliber as the Alexandrian poet-scholars

• Highly experimental in regards to language, style and meter, although that impression may be mistakenly fostered due to the fragments that have been chosen by philologists for study and were therefore, preserved precisely due to their peculiarities

  1. Allowed for the use of Grecisms in the text, in the form of not only Greek words or constructions but also endings

  2. Used the dactylic hexameter that was typical to Greek epic, an historic achievement which included adapting the Latin language to the metre and vice-versa

     • Worked out precise rules for the placement of words and caesuras that would facilitate the creation of a long hexameter tradition in Latin literature

  3. Abounded in the use of sound figures, meant to emphasise pathos and emotional intensity, thus creating completely alliterating verses and onomatopoeic words such as taratantara for the sound of a bugle

Cato the Censor

Life of Cato:

• Born in 234 BC, at Tusculum, to a plebeian family of prosperous farmers

• Had a long military and political career, from military tribune in Sicily to censor

  • Becomes famous for his moral rigour in the polemic he engages against the extravagance of private citizens:

    1. Presents himself as champion of the ancient Roman virtues against moral degeneration and the spreading tendency towards individualism, influenced in part by Hellenism

    2. Glorifies the wealth and power of the state over that of the private interests, promoting a vast program of public works

• Any and all works are therefore indubitably linked to his political and economic philosophy and beliefs:

  1. A number of 150 different speeches attested by Cicero, with the titles and circumstances of 80 of them being known to us, mainly coming from his political career and the necessity of public speaking in cases such as: the lex Orchia, a sumptuary law whose annulment he opposed, the war against Rhodes, whose undertaking he opposed or the expulsion of the philosophers Athens had sent as diplomats

     • Lively style, full of movement and characterised by its refusal of Greek oratorical techniques

  2. The Origines, a historical work of 7 books

  3. De Agri Cultura, a preserved treatise and the earliest Latin prose text that has come down to us in its entirety

  4. Carmen de Moribus, most likely a work in rhythmic prose

  5. Apophthegmata, a collection of memorable sayings or anecdotes that went under Cato’s name, some of which were cited by authors such as Cicero or Plutarch

Cato’s The Origines:

• Begins the tradition of historiography in Latin, as an act of opposition towards the Roman annals in Greek

  • A unique case in Roman culture, as a politician of the first rank who wrote history, different from the autobiographical commentarii

• Only the first three books are accurately represented by the title, as the other four deal with the contemporary period, starting with the Punic War with the proportions of each individual book growing as the work approached the present

• Served as a vehicle for his personal agenda:

  1. Space is afforded to his political polemics, in the form of his concerns over the rampant moral corruption and his personal battles against the emergence of notable figures with tendencies towards individualism and the cult of personality, especially the Scipionic circle

     • Partially a work of self-celebration, as he reports his own speeches and promotes his political engagement

  2. The conception of Roman history emphasises the gradual formation of the state and its institutions over the generations, positing this creation as the collective work of the Roman people and declining to highlight the feats of individuals

     • Informed by his background as a homo novus, who aims to dimming the renown of the ‘‘gentes’’ in the favour of the res Public and its lesser known heroes who could be symbols of the collective

  3. Emphasises the contributions of the Italic people to Rome and the creation of the traditional ethics

  4. Shows almost ethnographic interest in foreign peoples, with the particulars he supplies probably being a result of direct observation and contact

Cato’s De Agri Cultura:

• Series of precepts laid down in a dry and schematic fashion, meant to illustrate how the landowner, simultaneously the paterfamilias, should behave

• Spare and concise style, enlivened only by bits of rustic wisdom in the form of proverbs

• Illustrative of Cato’s ethics, which for the Late Republic would be interchangeable with the mos maiorum: the consideration for virtues, disdain for riches and resistance to otium are simply the ideological implication of the practical requirement that is deriving economic advantage via farming and slave labor

• Describes the birth of the Latifundium, with the small family holding evolving to a much vaster estate through the concentrated and intense exploitation of slaves that had become available to the Romans through overseas conquests

Terence

Life of Terence:

• Native of Carthage, probably born in 185 or 184 BC and said to have to Rome as a slave to a certain Terentius Lucanus in unknown circumstances

• Engaged in writing under the patronship of Scipio Aemilianus and Laelius, making several references in his comedies to the both of them

  • Becomes a central figure in the Age of Scipios, a period that refers to the role that the house of Scipio and all associates played in Hellenizing culture at the highest levels of society

• Said to have died in 159 BC, in any case before the Third Punic War, in the course of a voyage to Greece for cultural purposes

Works of Terence:

• Six comedies of his have been transmitted to us n their entirety: Andria, Hecyra, the Self-Punisher, Eunuchus, Phormio and Adelphoe, with 6000 verses altogether

• Modelled after Attic New Comedy, as Terence himself declared in his prologues, specifically on Menander, Diphilus and the lesser known Apollodorus

  • The explicit appropriation of the Greek world was prompted by the mass hellenisation of Roman society and culture that came with expansion and domination East

• Conventional and repetitious framework of plots, with no efforts made towards originality, verbal innovation or comic quality but with vested interest in the human element, the psychological understanding of the characters

  • Attempts to use a popular genre to convey the sensibilities and interests of the elite, thus causing difficulties in audience reception, evidencing the growing divide in the taste of the mass audience and that of the educated and Hellenised elite

• Nonconformist character typing, with focus on psychological portrayal that opposes conventional tropes

• Uniform language, one that is censored, carefully selected and serves a calm and intermediate style with restricted metrical variety

• Rejection of the meta-theatre of Plautus, where the stage ends up mirroring reality, instead choosing to preserve the dramatic illusion

• Rejection of the traditional usage of the prologue as a space for exposition, instead declaring his own personal stance, such as the relation to the Greek originals and response to criticism, thus presupposing a more refined and tasteful audience

  • Usage of the prologue to this end means the creation of a moment for critical and poetic reflection, akin to Ennius and the Alexandrian ideal

Pacuvius and Accius

Life and works of Pacuvius:

• Born in 220 BC in a Greco-Oscan cultural area, as a nephew of Ennius

• Lived a long life of social respectability, on account of his free birth and relation to Rome’s most illustrious poet

• Known as a painter as well as author of a few exclusively tragic works, with 12 certain titles of cothurnae such as Antiopes, Hermione, Teucer and so on yet acclaimed by Cicero as the greatest of the Latin tragic poets

• In close contact with the Scipionic circle until his death in 130 BC

Life and works of Accius:

• Born in 170 BC, in Pisaurum, to freedmen parents and died in 90 BC

• Makes his mark as a tragic author in 140 BC, thus coming into direct competition with the aged Pacuvius

  • Eventually, becomes an eminent figure in the ‘‘collegium poetarum’’, enjoying great acclaim yet suffering criticism at the same time at the hands of his contemporary Lucilius

• Distinguished as the most prolific Latin writer of tragedies, characterised by rhetoric, pathos and linguistic experimentation:

  1. More than 40 titles of cothurnatae, such as Armorum Iudicium, Astyanax, Medea, Atreus, Hecuba and so on

  2. Two praetextae, with the titles of Brutus and Decius, both with a historical thematic

• Carried on with philological activity, which had considerable influence on Varro himself: evident in words such as the Didascalica, that was written in a mixture of prose and verse and proposed a series of spelling reforms and other works besides

Lucilius

Life of Lucilius:

• Unknown date of birth, with the date of his death being 102 BC

• Belonged to a distinguished and prosperous family, originally from Campania and was the first man of letters of a good family to lead the life of a writer while being deliberately removed from public offices or public life

  • Possibly served his military career under Scipio Aemilianus, thus explaining his early youth connection to the Scipionic circle

Works of Lucilius:

• Thirty books of satire, from which we possess only fragments that amount to thirteen hundred verses from the original material:

  1. Books 1 to 21: dactylic hexameter

  2. Books 22 to 25: elegiac couplet

  3. Books 26 to 30: iambic and trochaic meters, that were common to Latin comedy as well as hexameters, which would become the standard meter for Latin satire

• Originally named by Lucilius as sermons, referring to the ‘‘ludus ac sermons’’ or joking chats that were characterised by their variety, personal voice and realism

  • The term ‘‘satire’’, with its ambiguous etymology, would later be coined Quintilian to designate Lucilius’ poetry,

  • Satire designated something wholly original and detached from Greek influence, that resulted as a response for the search of a genre that could convey the author’s personal voice and direct expression, a mixture of literary genres similar to Alexandrian experimentation

• Resulted as the literary activity of the cultivated and prosperous eques who:

  1. Enjoys the patronage provided to him and other satiric poets by the Scipionic setting and its figures

  2. Is a member of the rich provincial aristocracy and does not make a living from his own work, thus allowing him independence of judgment and the freedom to attack some of the most distinguished men of Rome

  3. Sees the potential in a new audience, interested in written poetry and eager for literature that deals with the reality, neither too learned, nor too little

• Varied subjects, with a wide range:

  1. Based on the epic genre, such as banquets and divine councils

     • Utilises the parody of divine councils in the Concilium Deorum to attack an enemy of the Scipios, whom the gods decide to have die of indigestion

  2. Based on the reality of daily life, such as journeys, debates, sentiments of love, gastronomy and other daily activities which the poet criticises, using philosophy to his own aims

     • The third book contains the lively narrative of a journey to Sicily

     • In more than one satire, culinary advice or descriptions of food are offered, connected to the theme of luxury and extravagance

  3. Based on notions of literary criticism, as Lucilius deliberates on literary problems and recalls the rhetorical-grammatical culture of Accius, while simultaneously mocking the former and Pacuvius for their emphatic style

• Style is deliberately disharmonious, in order to better reflect reality and blend together life and art through the mixture of the elevated language of the parodised epic, the specialised vocabularies and forms of everyday language from different social strata

Catullus

Life of Catullus:

• Born to a wealthy family in Verona, in the Cisalpine Gaul, probably around 84 BC

• Unknown date of arrival in Rome, where he knew and associated with people eminent in politics and literature

  • Especially important is his relationship with Lesbia, identified by Suetonius as Clodia, muse of Catullus’ poems and half-sister of the tribune Publius Clodius Puncher

• Died young, yet not before 55 BC, as he refers to the events of that year in his poems

Works of Catullus:

• 116 poems, with a total of nearly 2300 verses that have been collected in a liber, customarily divided on the basis of meter in three sections:

  1. The Nugae, or ‘‘the diversions’’ (1-60): brief poems of a light nature and polymetric verses

  2. The Carmina Docta, or ‘‘the learned poems’’ (61-68): heterogeneous and limited in number, but with a greater extent and stylistic efforts

     • A result of the influence of Alexandrian poetry, especially Callimachean, as is revealed explicitly by the poet himself

     • Characterised by brevity, elegance and learning as principles of taste

     • Development of the epyllion, a brief poem of a few hundred verses, whose scale encourages refinement and displays of learning

  3. The Epigrams (69-116): generally short poems in elegiac couplets

• Traditionally associated with the neoteric revolution, with his works being the most important documents in evidence of the transformation in both literary taste and ethics

  • Context to the neoteric revolution: the period of crisis in the Republic meant that the old mos maiorum was degrading and leaving space for a new way of life that prioritised personal otium, with literature reflecting this shift in its preference for lyric and personal poetry, more introverted and suitable for the small minutiae of life

  • Background and audience of Catullus’ poetry: the fashionable and literary milieu of the capital, partially formed by his circle of companions, who were united in their principles of taste and language

  • Basis of the neoteric ethical and aesthetic code: lepos, meaning grace + venustas, meaning charm + urbanitas, meaning urbanity

• Neoteric style of Catullus is most evident in the short poems, the polymetrics and the epigrams, which are characterised by a combination of:

  1. Modesty of content, as they depict situations and events of daily life in an elevated style

  2. Perfection of style, which masterfully produces the impression of immediacy and a reflection of life, an appearance that is carefully cultivated through extensive learning

• Composite and lively style, with wide range of expression from mocking and invective, to loving tenderness to melancholy, as a result of:

  1. Influence of Alexandrian literature and its cultivated elegance as well as Archaic Greek melic poetry, with the affectivity of Archilochus and Sappho

  2. Novel combination of literary language with every-day speech, as the vocabulary and movements of the spoken language are absorbed and filtered by the aristocratic taste

• Protagonist role of Lesbia in Catullus’ poetry, as the incarnation of eros and the neoteric principles, a poetic inspiration to Catullus as her pseudonym, meant to recall Sappho, evidences

  • Love affair between Catullus and Lesbia is characterised by joy, suffering, betrayal, abandonment, regret, hopes and disillusionment, making it a principal experience of Catullus’ life, the centre of existence and primary value that compensates for the fleetingness of life

  • Love intersects with otium, as it becomes the only aim worth pursuing, especially against the backdrop of the power conflicts and intrigues of the time

  • Relation with Lesbia may have began as adultery yet it transforms into a powerful and quasi-matrimonial bond for Catullus, with the theme of conjugal fidelity and marriage being recurrent as he likens their love to a foetus, characterised by fides and pietas and likewise, suffers from the violations of this bond by Lesbia

Lucretius

Life of Lucretius:

• Most likely Campanian, judging from the popularity of Epicureanism in Naples, or otherwise born in Rome, from a social class that is similarly difficult to ascertain

• Date of birth and death are uncertain, yet the likelier suggestions are for 98 and 55 BC respectively

• An ancient notice alleged he went mad and consequently, put an end to his life, however, much like the accounts that corroborate the existence of close relations between Lucretius and figures like Cicero, this notice is also probably fake

• Principal work was De Rerum Natura, six books written in hexameter and most likely unfinished, at the very least lacking its final revision and dedicated to the aristocrat Memmius

Work of Lucretius:

• An epic-didactic poem, constituting the fullest account of Epicurean physics, alluding in addition to the philosopher’s ethical and logical doctrines

  • Form was chosen by Lucretius, despite the vehemence Epicurus himself held towards poetry, precisely in order to:

  1. Better disseminate and popularise Epicurean doctrine among the upper levels of society

  2. Emulate the epic-didactic tradition and its models, in which a revival of interest was being experienced

• Title is a direct translation of Epicurus’ most important work, Peri Physeos, or On Nature

• Employed the typical meter of Hellenistic literature for didactic works, the hexameter

  • Surpassed Hellenistic didactic, as he did not limit his work to a description of phenomena but rather took to investigating the causes in order to better convince the reader of the existence of a rational system

• Articulated in three dyads, or groups of two books apiece:

  1. Opening overture is a hymn dedicated to Venus, as the personification of Nature’s generative force

     • Ending was left unfinished yet is hypothesised as either a description of the blessed abode of the gods, to complement the joyous hymn to Venus or the existing description with the plague, as an intentional contrast between the triumphs of life and death

  2. First dyad deals with the principles of Epicurean physics, such as atoms and their function as well as the theory of swerve

  3. Second dyad deals with Epicurean anthropology, the faculties of body, soul and mind and how they relate to the theory of atoms

  4. Third dyad deals with cosmology, thus explaining various natural phenomenon and refuting any and all divine explanations

• Besides explaining and illustrating in concise terms and images Epicurean physics, Lucretius makes certain to totally refute the theories of other philosophers such as Heraclitus, the philosophy of the Stoics and any notions of religious superstition

• Engages in a direct and active relationship with the reader, convincing him to follow the course of logic and instruction laid out so as to incite a reaction and become conscious of his own intellectual capacity, thus arriving at the quality of the sublime

• Elevated language, which manages to render Epicurean prose in hexameters at a time when Latin was bereft of technical and philosophical terminology through the use of neologisms, borrowed terms from everyday speech, archaisms and a wide range of explanatory images and examples

• Expression directly influenced by the archaic tradition, specifically Ennius, whom he emulates in his use of assonance, alliteration, archaic constructions and expressive-pathetic figures

Cicero

Caesar

Life of Caesar:

• Born in 13 July 100 BC: born in Rome to a patrician family of ancient nobility

• Returns to Rome in 78 BC from his term of serving in the army to begin his political and forensic career, consequently rising quickly through the cursus honorum until he reaches the consulship in 59 BC

• Extended to a proconsulship of Illyria and Romanised Gaul, using as pretext alleged provocations in the border in order to undertake a very profitable conquest of the entire Celtic world which he conducts through a seven-year period

• Invades Italy in 49 BC, after he is blocked from acquiring a second consulship after his proconsulship of Gaul, thus starting a civil war that leads to him gaining both the consulship and dictatorship after the Battle of Pharsalus

• Is assassinated in 44 BC during the Ides of March, by a group of Republican aristocrats who could not tolerate his autocratic tendencies

Works of Caesar:

• Wrote various speeches, treatises on language and style, poems and youthful verses that are lost to us

• Among his preserved works, the most important are the Commentarii, with seven written on the Gaelic War and another three on the Civil War

  • Described by Cicero as ‘‘nudi, recti et venisti’’ for their simplistic, plain yet carefully chosen language, in line with their intended function as political propaganda

  • Seemingly written as ‘‘raw’’ material to offer other historians the material with which to construct their own narrative yet were in fact already carefully edited, as evidenced by:

    1. The dramatisation of certain scenes as well as omissions of greater or lesser importance

    2. The avoidance of gross, vulgar effects or clumsy rhetorical additions, which culminated in an unadorned style that emulated true and unbiased historia

    3. The use of third person, to detach the protagonist from the emotionality of the ego

Caesar’s De Bello Gallico:

• Disagreement among scholars on the date of composition, with some suggesting they were written directly after the winter of 51 BC and other believing it was a year-by-year composition during the winter retreats, a suggestion reinforced by the existence of seeming contradictions within the text

• Seven books, which cover the period from 58 BC to 52 BC, during which Caesar directed his systematic subjugation of Gaul through an alteration of successes and serious setbacks

• Evidences stylistic evolution, form the bare and unadorned style of the true commentarii to a style that increasingly allowed the typical ornaments of history, such as direct discourse and a greater variety of synonyms

• Narrative is based not on the glorification of conquest, but is in fact consistent with the Roman imperialist tendency of presenting wars of expansion as ‘‘bellum iustum’’, stressing the defensive needs that prompted the war, the falsity of Gaelic independence, which Caesar portrays as lawless ambition of those aspiring to tyranny as well as his actions remaining within the purview of the laws

• Does not leave recourse to the power of either personal charisma, notably downplayed when compared to unwritten forms of propaganda, as well as fortune, which he declines to present as divine protection but rather irrational and sudden changes in events

Caesar’s Bello Civili:

• Three books, the first two of which narrate the events of 49 BC and the third narrates the events of 48 BC with an uncertain time of composition and publication

• Shows several significant political tendencies, such as:

  1. Representation of his adversaries, the old ruling class, as a clique of corrupt men, using sober satire to unmask their base ambitions and desire

  2. Reassurance of the traditionalists, aiming towards dissolving the image of Caesar as revolutionary that was constructed by the aristocratic propaganda, thus appealing to the landowning classes and the moderate stratum of Roman and Italic public opinion

  3. Insistence on his own desire for ‘‘pax et clementia’’, claiming blamelessness on the outbreak of war and instead ascribing to the Pompean camp both cruelty and ambitions of new proscriptions

  4. Glorification of the soldiers, whose loyalty, bravery and attachment he responds to with sincere affection

Sallust

Life of Sallust:

• Born on 86 BC, in Sabine territory, to a wealthy family with no magistracies in their line, thus making him a homo novus

• Completed his studies at Rome, where his interests began to gravitate towards politics, thus starting a long and indubitably very corrupt career, first as tribune of the plebs then governor of Africa Nova

• Bad administration and charges of embezzlement forced his withdrawal into private life at Caesar’s advice, after which Sallust devoted his time to historical writing, penning:

1. Two historical monographs, the Bellum Catilinae and the Bellum Iugurthae

   • Attributes a lesser value to historiography than to politics, presenting historiographical efforts as necessary for the training of the politician, and for Sallust himself, a necessary refuge from the corruption of contemporary politics

   • Conducts an investigation into the crisis of the Republic, using the monograph form in order to delimit and focus upon a single historical problem or episode that illustrates the idea of this crisis of institutions and society

2. A work on a larger scale, the Histories, which covered the period from Sulla’s death to Pompey’s campaign against the pirates

3. Spurious works, such as epistles on Caesar and an invective against Cicero

• Created a new historical style, characterised by its innovative archaisms, asyndetic accumulation of redundant words, frequent alliteration, asymmetric and antithetic images as well as the narrative technique of ‘‘tragic sobriety’’, wherein controlled and less effuse writing creates a more intense dramatic quality and tragic sensation

Sallust’s the Bellum Catilinae:

• An account of the Catilinarian Conspiracy of 63 BC, which sees the noble Catilina attempt to create a social bloc opposed to the senatorial government, one made up of the urban proletariat, the poor Italic classes, the debt-laden members of the aristocracy and the large masses of slaves

• Narrative of 61 chapters, interrupted twice by Sallust in order to:

  1. Conduct an examination of the historical causes, inspired by Thucydides, during which he highlights Roman hegemony, lack of fear towards the enemy and the example of Sulla as the turning point for Roman mos maiorum

  2. Denounce the degeneration in Roman political life, present among both the populares and the optimates

• Partial distortion in regards to the role of Caesar, in order to relieve him of any association with the conspiracists, emphasising on his role as ensurer of legality, reconciling him with the portrait of Cato as paragons of completing virtues and portraying him as saviour of the Republic

  • In the process, devalues Cicero and his role as consul in charge of the suppression of the Conspiracy

• Drive towards moralisation evident especially in regards to Catiline’s character, as Sallust’s politically moderate stance means he locates the causes of the conspiracy in moral degeneration of society, which Catilina is made to represent, rather than the actual socio-political crisis

Sallust’s Bellum Iugurthae:

• Account of the war against Jugurtha, which took place from 111 to 105 BC, focusing on the responsibility of the aristocratic governing class in the crisis of the Roman state

  • War against the Numidian usurper is important precisely as a symptom of the degeneration of Roman political life and the division of political parties

  • Transforms both the tribute Memmius, who protests against the inconclusiveness of the Senate, as well as Marius, as mouthpieces for this propaganda of the populares policy

• Ambivalent depiction of Marius, as he expresses admiration that is necessarily moderated by his awareness of Marius’ responsibility for the civil wars

• Similar portrayal of Jugurtha as that of Catilina, expressing perplexed awe at his indomitable energy while simultaneously, depicting his personality as evolving in its corruption, which was influenced by the Roman nobles

Sallust’s the Histories:

• Greatest historical work, left unfinished on account of his death and thus, only covering events to 67 BC, which he depicts through the annalistic form

• Overwhelming pessimistic tone, as Sallust covers the corruption of morals and the degeneration of the political scene

  • Even more pronounced in later fragments, most likely due to the effect that contemporary events such as the murder of Caesar had on the writer himself