George Middleton

“ CHAPTER III THE AUGUSTAN AGE. VIRGIL. (1) LIFE.
Our chief authority for the life of Virgil, apart from his own writings and those of his contemporaries, is Donatus, whose work is probably based on Suetonius’ De Poetis. Donatus’ work, though not free from romance, is much more valuable than the Life by Probus [41] or the metrical account given by Phocas. [42] Some important details are given in the Life wrongly attributed to Servius, and in an account preserved in a Berne MS. of the tenth century.
The poet’s name is correctly given as P. Vergilius Maro in all the Lives. ”

“ As an aristocrat Tacitus is sometimes unjust to men of low birth, as in Ann. iv. 3, where he sneers at Seianus as ‘municipali adultero,’ and attaches great value to high birth (cf. vi. 27) . He is prejudiced against slaves and barbarians.
Tacitus theoretically prefers a republic (cf. Ann. vi. 42, ‘Populi imperium iuxta libertatem, paucorum dominatio regiae libidini propior est’) , but admits the impossibility of a restitution of the free state (H. ii. 37-8) and the necessity of empire. H. i. 1 (of Augustus) , ‘omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit.’
Cf. ”

“ The De Legibus succeeded the De Re Publica, as Plato’s Laws came after the Republic. The speakers in this dialogue are Atticus, Cicero, and his brother Quintus. Book i. expounds the Stoic position that the laws of the ideal state are made by the wise man in accordance with the mind of God; this position is worked out in Book ii. in the regulations for religion, and in iii. on the duties of magistrates. The treatise was never completed, and was perhaps a posthumous publication: it is not mentioned in the list in De Divinatione ii. ”

“ Both treat of literary criticism, and the first deals particularly with that of the drama. Iulius Florus, to whom Ep. ii. 2 is addressed, was the representative of the younger literary school at Rome. The Epistula ad Pisones or De Arte Poetica is an essay in verse on literary criticism, specially pointing out how necessary art is to composition. In it, according to Porphyrion, Horace ‘congessit praecepta Neoptolemi τοῦ Παριανοῦ [61] de arte poetica, non quidem omnia, sed eminentissima.’ Horace probably was also indebted to Aristotle’s Poetics. ”

“ Nepos’ slight regard for philosophy is shown by a letter to Cicero quoted by Lactant. inst. div. iii. 15, 10, ‘Tantum abest, ut ego magistram esse putem vitae philosophiam beataeque vitae perfectricem, ut nullis magis existimem opus esse magistris vivendi quam plerisque, qui in ea disputanda versantur.’
Cf. also Cic. ad Att. xvi. 5, 5, ‘Nepotis epistulam exspecto. Cupidus ille meorum? qui ea, quibus maxime γαυριῶ, legenda non putet.’
Philosophy, according to Nepos, ought to be practical. ”

“ Whether Caesar was concerned in the abortive attempt of Catiline at revolution in 65, is a moot point. He was now aedile, and acquired great popularity by the splendid shows which he gave to the people, and by his restoration of the statue and trophies of Marius. In 64, as president of the quaestio de sicariis, he condemned some of the most active agents in Sulla’s proscriptions. In 63 he supported the lex agraria of P. Servilius Rullus, and brought about the prosecution of C. Rabirius for the murder of the tribune Saturninus. ”

“ On the re-enactment of the Lex Domitia de sacerdotiis, Caesar was elected pontifex maximus. He was again suspected, probably with good ground, of complicity with Catiline’s designs; he certainly proposed in the Senate that the conspirators should be punished with imprisonment instead of death. Praetor in 62, he worked in Pompey’s cause by proposing that the charge of rebuilding the Capitoline temple should be transferred to him from the aristocratic champion Catulus, and by supporting the bill of the tribune Metellus Nepos for electing Pompey consul in absence. ”

“ Middleton that he should try to fill up this gap with a book, in which he should bring together all the information that a student should have ready to his hand in reading the more familiar classical authors, that he should keep down the size of his book by omitting all that the student does not want, and that he should set before his readers the evidence on which each fact rests, so that they might be led to form opinions and judgments of their own. Teuffel-Schwabe’s great work contains a vast deal that the ordinary student does not want ”

“ A version of the Phaenomena of Aratus is extant, the author of which is called in the MSS. ‘Claudius Caesar,’ or ‘Germanicus.’ He is generally identified with Germanicus, the adopted son of Tiberius (so Jerome and Lactantius) , though in modern times the poem has been ascribed to Domitian, who had the title of ‘Germanicus’ from A.D. 84. There are also fragments of Prognostica, which are independent of Aratus. ”

“ Politically, Pliny recognizes the necessity of the empire, but his heroes are old Romans such as Cincinnatus and Cato. His Roman and Italian feeling is intense: cf. xxxvii. 201, ‘In toto orbe ... pulcherrima omnium est in rebusque merito principatum naturae obtinet Italia, rectrix parensque mundi altera.’
His view of life is gloomy (N.H. ii. 25, ‘nec quidquam miserius homine’) , and through the Naturae Historiae there runs a monotonous strain of condemnation of the immorality of his day. ”

“ Pliny’s character.—Pliny, without being a great man, is a more favourable specimen of character, feeling, and gentlemanly tone, than almost any other Roman author. He avoided censorious writing, and most of the people he mentions are praised. The chief exception is Regulus (Ep. i. 5, etc.) , and possibly also Iavolenus Priscus (vi. 15) . When anybody is blamed, his name is omitted unless he is dead or has been banished.
Ep. vii. 28, i, ‘Ais quosdam apud te reprehendisse, tamquam amicos meos ex omni occasione ultra modum laudem. ”

“ CAECILIUS STATIUS. (1) LIFE.
Jerome yr. Abr. 1838 = B.C. 179, ‘Statius Caecilius comoediarum scriptor clarus habetur, natione Insuber Gallus et Ennii primum contubernalis. Quidam Mediolanensem ferunt. Mortuus est anno post mortem Ennii [iii.] et iuxta eum in Ianiculo sepultus.’
iii. is an addition by Ritschl, as we know Caecilius to have been alive in B.C. 166, when Terence’s Andria was performed. Some read iv. The date of his death will then be B.C. 166 or 165. Caecilius probably came to Rome among the Insubrian prisoners of war at some time between B.C. 200 and 194. ”

“ The deficiency is to some extent supplied by an abridgment (Excerpta) made in the fourth or fifth century A.D., which adds thirty-nine themes to the thirty-five contained in the surviving part of the original work. Each Book had a separate preface. Those to v., vi., and viii. are entirely wanting; for the prefaces to ii., iii., and iv. we are indebted to the abridgment.
The Controversiae were written when Seneca was an old man, and when his two elder sons were preparing for public life, probably about A.D. 20: x. praef. 1, ‘Sinite me ab istis iuvenilibus studiis ad senectutem meam reverti’ ”

“ The sting lies in the double entendre in the last two lines, which really mean ‘so much the worst poet of all poets, as you are the best advocate of all clients, good and bad.’ So Cicero is called in a good sense omnium patronus by Caecina in Cic. ad Fam. vi. 7, 4. The poem has special reference to B.C. 54, when Cicero defended Vatinius (whom he had reviled two years before in the speech Pro Sestio) , when prosecuted by Catullus’ friend, Calvus (cf. c. 14, 1-3) ; and thanks Cicero ironically for some criticism he had passed on his poems. Catullus attacks several contemporary poets ”

“ Livy often refers to authorities whom he does not name: ‘invenio apud quosdam,’ ‘satis constat’; and to tradition: ‘fama est,’ ‘dicitur,’ ‘fertur,’ ‘traditur.’ Tradition was the sole source for events prior to the sack of Rome by the Gauls, cf. vi. 12, 2 sqq.
There is no trace in Livy of any use of original documents.
He constantly resists the temptation to digress from his proper theme: e.g. xxxix. ”

“ The de rerum natura is an exposition of Epicureanism, especially on its physical side; i. 54,
‘Nam tibi de summa caeli ratione deumque
disserere incipiam et rerum primordia pandam,’ etc.
The title is taken from Epicurus’ περὶ φύσεως, which Lucretius followed closely, as is evident from the account of the Epicurean philosophy in Diogenes Laertius, x., and from the fragments of Epicurean writers discovered at Herculaneum in 1752. He probably used as his model Empedocles’ poem περὶ φύσεως.
The object of the poem is to deliver men from the fear of death and of the gods; iii. ”

“ The year 68 he spent as quaestor in Farther Spain, and on his return to Rome strenuously advocated the claims of the Transpadane Gauls to the Roman franchise. His first wife having died, he married Pompeia, daughter of Q. Pompeius Rufus, and granddaughter of Sulla, whom he divorced five years later on account of her alleged adultery with P. Clodius. In 67 and 66 the bills of Gabinius and Manilius, conferring extensive military powers upon Pompey, were supported by Caesar and the other leading democrats. ”

“ Secundo prima apud rhetorem elementa et quae de ipsa rhetorices substantia quaeruntur tractabimus. Quinque deinceps (iii.-vii.) inventioni, nam huic et dispositio subiungitur, quattuor (viii.-xi.) elocutioni, in cuius partem memoria ac pronuntiatio veniunt, dabuntur. Unus (xii.) accedet, in quo nobis orator ipse informandus est, ut qui mores eius, quae in suscipiendis, discendis, agendis causis ratio, quod eloquentiae genus, quis agendi debeat esse finis, quae post finem studia ... disseramus.’
The ordinary handbooks of rhetoric are attacked. ”