A new direction and a new motive were thus given to narrative poetry-a direction and motive which had no inconsiderable influence in determining Virgil to the choice of the subject of the Aeneid.

Another characteristic of the race was likely to impress itself on the form and execution of their narrative poetry, viz. their love of works of large compass and massive structure. Vastness of design and solid workmanship are as distinctive properties of Roman art, as harmony of proportion and beauty of form are of the works of Greek imagination. To compose a literary work which should be representative of the genius of Rome, it was necessary that the author should be not only imbued with Roman sentiment and ideas, but also endowed with the Roman capacity for patient and persevering industry. Concentration of purpose on works conceived and executed on a great scale, with a view both to immediate and permanent results, was an essentially Roman quality. The Romans built their aqueducts and baths for the commonest needs of life, and constructed their roads and encampments, in such a way as to astonish the world after the lapse of nearly two thousand years. With similar energy and persistence of purpose they built up their greatest literary works. This characteristic favoured the growth among them of a type of epic poetry as distinct from that of Greece as the Colosseum was from the Parthenon.

If Roman epic poetry was not to be a mere imitation of the Greek epic, we should accordingly expect that it should exhibit some or all of these characteristics, that it should seek that source of interest which secures permanent attention to a long narrative poem in national sentiment; that it should strive to restore the memory of the past history and traditions of the State and at the same time to give expression to the ideas of the present time; that it should magnify the greatness of eminent living men or of those who had served their country before them; and that it should be conceived on a large scale, and be executed perhaps with rude, but certainly with strong and massive workmanship.

The first original narrative poem in Latin literature—the Punic War of Naevius-treated of a subject of living interest, and at the same time glorified the mythical past of Rome; and, while rude in design and execution, it was conceived and executed on a scale of large dimensions. The example was thus given of a Roman epic based on a legendary foundation, but mainly built out of the materials of contemporary history. We can imagine that, at the time when this poem was composed, a more vivid interest would be felt in the fictitious connexion between Rome and Troy from the fact that it was in the First Punic War that this connexion appears first to have been generally recognised. The legend had not as in Virgil's time the prestige of two centuries, but it had the force of novelty to recommend it for poetic purposes. At the same time the great struggle between Rome and Carthage, on which the attention of the world was fixed at the time when Naevius wrote, must have given a peculiar meaning to the early relations between the two imperial States, as they were first represented in his poem.

The poem of Naevius gave the germinative idea and some of the materials to the first and fourth Books of the Aeneid; it established also the principle of combining in one work a remote mythical past with a subject of strong contemporary interest. At the same time it gave the example, followed by the Roman national epic, before the time of Virgil, of taking the main subject of the poem from the sphere of actual history. This confusion between the provinces of poetry and prose had been avoided by the instinct of Greek taste. Among the large number of Greek epic writers from the age of Homer to that of Nonnus, we hear of only one or two who treated of actual historical events. The general neglect of those poems which in ancient and modern times have treated of historical events and characters in the forms of epic poetry shows that the Greek instinct in this, as in all other questions of art, was unerringly right. The choice and treatment of such a subject are equally fatal to the truth and completeness

of historical representation and to the ideality and unity of a work of art. Though the objection does not equally apply to dramatic art, yet the modern instinct, which selects for that mode of representation subjects remote from our own times, confirms the judgment in accordance with which the Athenians fined their tragic poet for reminding them of too recent a sorrow.

The Roman writers recognised the analogy between epic and historic narrative,—and the way in which they apprehended the alliance between them was as injurious to the truthfulness of their history as to the symmetry of their early poetry,-but they did not before the time of Virgil recognise the artistic distinction between them. The Roman epic and Roman history originated in the same feeling and impulse-the sentiment of national glory, the desire to perpetuate the great actions and the career of conquest, which were the constituent elements of that glory. The impulse both of poets and historians was to build up a great commemorative monument; not, as among the Greeks, to present the spectacle of human life in its most animated, varied, and noble movements. Το a Roman historian and to a Roman poet the character and the fate of individuals derived their chief interest from their bearing on the glory and fortune of the State. In the Greek epic, on the other hand, the interest in Achilles and Hector is much more vivid than that felt in the success of

the Greek or Trojan cause. In Herodotus the interest felt in the most important historical crisis through which the world has ever passed is inseparably blended with that felt in a great number of individual men, among the enemies of Greece, no less than among Greeks themselves. In the History of Livy we do not expect to find truthful delineation or sagacious analysis of the characters of the leading men of Rome; still less do we expect to find impartial and sympathetic delineation of the enemies of Rome; but we seek in his pages the image of the nation's life in its onward career of conquest and internal change, as pride and affection shaped it on the tables of the

national memory. The idea of Rome, as the one object of supreme interest to gods and men, in the past, present, and future, imparts the unity of sentiment, tone, and purpose which is characteristic of the type of Roman epic poetry and of Roman history.

Naevius in selecting for his epic poem the subject of the First Punic War, and in connecting that war with the events which were supposed to connect the Roman State immediately with a divine origin and destiny, was the first Roman who was moved to write by this powerful impulse. But the man who first gave full expression to the national idea and feeling, who first made Rome fully conscious of herself, and who was the true founder of her literature, was Ennius. The title which he gave to his epic-Annales— perhaps the most prosaic title ever given to a work of genius, indicates the character of his work and his mode of treatment. The inspiration under which it was written is more truly indicated by the other name-Romais-by which, according to the testimony of an ancient grammarian1, it was sometimes known. He took for his subject the whole career of Rome, from its mythical beginning in the events which followed the Trojan war onward to the latest events in his own day. The work was recognised as a great epic poem, and at the same time it fulfilled the part of a contemporary chronicle. It was a true instinct of genius to feel that the only material suitable for a Roman epic was to be sought in the idea of the whole national life. That alone could supply the essential source of epic inspiration, the sympathy between the poet and those to whom his poem is addressed, by which the epic poet receives from, as well as gives back to, his audience. But on the other hand, while he has the true poetic impulse, the 'vivida vis' and the strong conceptions of a poet, he came too soon to acquire the tact and delicacy of conception and execution equally essential to the creation of works destined for immortality. The subject was too vast to be treated within the compass of a poem, which Diomedes, quoted by Teuffel.

demands to be read as a whole, and to be contemplated as one continuous mental creation. The treatment of a long series of actions in chronological order is incompatible with artistic effect; the treatment of contemporary history is incompatible with the ideality of imaginative representation. The workmanship of the poem, as exhibited in many fragments, is powerful, but at the same time rude and unequal. Yet Ennius was a true representative writer. He appealed powerfully to the national sentiment; he revived the mythical and historic fame of the past; he perpetuated the memory and interpreted the meaning of his own time; he enhanced the glory of the great men and the great families of Rome; and he produced a work of colossal proportions and massive execution. Till his place was taken by a successor who united the fervour of a national poet to the perfect workmanship of an artist, he was justly regarded as the truest representative in literature of Roman character, sentiment, and ideas.

Other narrative and historical poems were known by the name of 'Annales;' one in three Books, written by Attius, the tragic poet; another written by A. Furius of Antium, which extended to a greater length, as Macrobius (ii. 1. 341) quotes from the tenth and the eleventh Books lines appropriated by Virgil,—one of many proofs of the manner in which the genius of Virgil, acting upon great reading, absorbed the thoughts and diction of his predecessors. The most important of the historical poems which continued the mistake of treating recent history in the form of a metrical chronicle appears to have been the Istrian

1

Rumoresque serit varios ac talia fatur. Aen. xii. 228.

Furius in decimo:

Rumoresque serunt varios et multa requirunt.

Nomine quemque vocans reficitque ad proelia pulsos. Aen. xi. 731. Furius in undecimo:

Nomine quemque ciet; dictorum tempus adesse

Commemorat.

Deinde infra:

Confirmat dictis simul atque exuscitat acres

Ad bellandum animos reficitque ad proelia mentes.