expression is no proof that in his leisured youth he had only pretended a zeal for letters and fine arts. Even during his reign, although in a mistaken way, he attempted to encourage literature merely from political shrewdness. But his actual influence was that of a strange disorder, which, while favoring the growth of much foliage, precluded the maturing of healthy fruit. The writer would find security for a harmless and insipid muse, and ready rewards for a prostituted muse; but for the muse that struggled to be chaste, or aspired to soar, there was either lack of encouragement or even active repression. Accordingly, the writings of his reign are for the most part placidly mediocre, or marred by the most cringing flattery. Servility and truckling could go no farther, and it was fortunate that Domitian was followed by a ruler great enough to be contented with temperate praise, and good enough to be praised without conscious blushing on the part of the eulogist.

The reigns of Nerva and Trajan were marked by a genuine revival in the spirit of literature. There were of course many things in common with the preceding reign, the same endless list of scribblers, and nearly the same general characteristics of style and language; but the tone was changed. Even upon the adulation of Martial the new rule exercised a beneficial influence. He loses some of the hypocrisy-not less repulsive for being so naïvely confessed--that had marked his previous work. In one of his epigrams, worth nothing in itself as evidence, he gives a very good summary of the way the change was probably received by contemporaries.

I

In vain, nymphs of flattery, wretched and with worn lips, do you come to me. "Master" and "lord" (or even, "lord" and "god") will I not say. There is no longer place for you in this city of ours. Get you gone to the bonneted Parthians, and as base cringing suppliants kiss the feet of embroidered tyrants. We have no lord, but an emperor, a senator the most righteous of all, one by whose hands rustic Truth with uncared-for tresses has been brought back from the Stygian abode. Under this prince, O Rome, if thou art wise, look to it lest thou use the words erstwhile in vogue.

Pliny in his Panegyric harps almost with suspicious insistence on the new order of things as contrasted with the old, and his letters are almost equally laudatory. But Pliny, I take it, with his academic quietism,

despite his protests of the dangers he had undergone during the tyranny, could have written just as well under Domitian as under Trajan. The Satires of Juvenal, however, and the Annals of Tacitus mark the near approach to the ideal time "when a man might think what he wished and say what he thought." There is a strength and virility about Juvenal, and a greatness and depth about Tacitus that imply freedom of expression, although we trace, at the same time, a previous development under repression and lack of freedom, such as characterize the reign of Domitian.

The poetical contests supported by the emperors apparently failed during our period to develop in the aspirants anything except servility and mediocrity. That competition and avowed rivalry might have a healthy influence on literature, when other circumstances co-operated, is shown most clearly by the abiding greatness of the Periclean drama. But the festival at Athens had been the occasion for the expression of all that was highest and best in the national life with its freedom and vigor. Here, if anywhere, the divine afflatus might be strengthened by human encouragement. The games at Rome in the time of Domitian, however, were under the immediate control of the tyrant himself, and there could be little voicing of the soul of a poet, when the prize must fall to polished and sounding verse lauding and magnifying the friend of Pallas and the Muses who presided, a present deity, at his own glorious festival.

Another feature making for flattery of the reigning power was the number, prominence and even predominance of writers from the provinces. To these the empire could but appear in another light than to the residents of the capital. The provinces had felt the benefits of imperial rule, and as yet very few of its evils. Their condition was, in truth, much better than it had been in the old days of the Republic when they had been plundered by the arbitrary greed of the successive officials much more oppressively than they were by the systematic exaction of a strong central government. To the provincials the emperor might, and often did, seem the embodiment of beneficent sovereignty, a being that they must respect and might even adore. The

Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet. TAC., Hist., I, 1.

writers, then, who like Quintilian and Martial came from the outlying parts of the empire, cherishing no fond traditions of the old order of things, might find it much easier than their urban contemporaries to acquire the habit of adulation.

The education of the day, with its narratio poetarum and declamation, has a very perceptible connection with the character of the literature. Facility of production was acquired from the school even in early years, and it would not be hard to predict the sort of product. As a rule the poetry thus inspired would have just as much life and meaning as the prescribed Greek and Latin verse of later days. Given a subject, an educated young Roman would turn off any required number of lines with neatness and despatch. Thus Statius', whose pride is in his studied and barren epic, insists on the public's knowing that his Silvae are dashed off at about so many lines per hour as occasional productions. And, indeed, the composition of Latin and Greek verse was considered a proper and enjoyable recreation for a gentleman. It is scarcely remarkable that many of these scribblings, when the author with fond partiality ambitiously endeavored to give them vogue, either fell flat at their recitation, or, if published, came to serve as wrappers in the corner groceries.

The declamations could have an influence only for evil. To begin with, they fostered a spirit of conscious effort to gain approval, thereby developing a peculiar sort of vanity. They emphasized the sense of form and brought the subject-matter to be regarded merely as an excuse for the exhibition of stylistic skill. They developed an extravagance of imagination that helped to remove literature even farther than it was already straying from its proper field in human deed and thought; and this extravagance operating in another direction assisted in that cumbering of literature with what it was pleased to consider ornaments.

The fashion of recitation had one influence in common with declamations: it increased the striving after popular praise. The author at the reading of his poem or speech stretched his neck for every token of approval from his auditors, whose opinion was of more import than that of their modern representative, the book reviewer. This pre

Silv., I, Praef.

cluded any breaking away from the tastes of the day, and compelled the author, although he needed no compulsion, to follow without deviation the orthodox lines. So decisive, really, was the opinion of an audience that Pliny used his hearers as a sort of combined testing and corrective apparatus, noting carefully the effect of every expression. While there was such supreme regard for one's auditors, the average writer could be confidently trusted not to hazard anything by being so culpably original or individualistic as to rise above the dead level of mediocrity. Pliny,' as is his wont, sees the tendency but optimistically misinterprets it. In speaking of the favorable reception of his Panegyric, he says:

And just as formerly the theatres taught the musicians to sing badly, so now I am led to hope for the possibility of these same theatres teaching the musicians to sing well. For all, to write for the purpose of pleasing, will write what they see does please.

Accordingly, we find developed a striving after effect that is more noteworthy for being so palpably conscious. What Afer says of the orator may with equal aptitude be applied to the writer:2

I would have our orator like a wealthy and elegant head of a household, covered not merely by such a roof as will keep off wind and rain, but by one that will also delight the eye. The house itself should not merely be supplied with the furniture requisite for daily life, but should include in its plenishings gold and gems, so that to look at and handle these may often afford pleasure.

The effect of the beautiful roof and rich trappings was sought in many ways-rhetorical gilding, far-fetched and purely ornamental allusions, rare mouldings of vocabulary, epigrammatic points, and wire-drawn refinings in both prose and poetry; and poetical coloring in prose. A reference to the pages of Juvenal, Martial and Statius, or Tacitus will furnish abundant illustration.

Under such favoring circumstances grew the multitude of médiocres écrits. Of the spirit in which they were composed and, consequently, of their character we could have no better description than is to be found in an epigram addressed to Atticus,3 a type of the jeunesse dorée:

Prettily you declaim, my Atticus, and prettily plead in court, pretty the histories you write, pretty the songs you compose, prettily you philologize, and prettily astrologize. Prettily you sing, and prettily dance, prettily tune the lyre, and prettily ply the racquet. Although you do nothing well, you do everything prettily.

Fault

And so it was with the majority of the composers of verse. lessness of form it was quite possible to attain, but the very perfection of the exterior would only serve to emphasize the worthlessness of the contents. One could not wish a better subject for Goethe's

Wir waschen und blank sind wir gans und gar,

Aber auch ewig, unfruchtbar.

In conclusion it may be said that, despite all the weakness we have been criticizing, a literature including the works of Martial, Juvenal, and Tacitus can never be without strong claims to greatness. Martial, though he may be proved thoroughly contemptible on so many counts, stands unchallenged as the greatest epigrammatist in all literature. But it is Juvenal and Tacitus that bring to the age its glory. These two men saw with bitterness of spirit that the evil day was hard upon the country that ruled the world. In the blinding splendor of imperial sway over ever-broadening dominions their eyes did not fail to perceive evidences of the storms that were gathering to darken the scene and overwhelm theatre and actors together. It may be argued that it was by prejudice that their words were given to their pens, and that for the evils they decried they offered no remedy; but when men have frankly confronted the problem of their age, it is unsafe to assert that they have been influenced by the sinister aid of prejudice rather than by the sane help of genius. That they suggested no tangible remedy may be true; but it is possible there was no remedy to suggest other than the different social life they implicitly advocate throughout their works. At any rate they saw existing evils and cried out against them with no uncertain voice; they caught visions of impending ruin and can hardly be blamed for not proposing means to avoid what had become inevitable.