Claudian

“ Among the train of dependants whose wealth and dignity attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is excited by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the favor of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron. The titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the Imperial court: he was indebted to the powerful intercession of Serena for his marriage with a very rich heiress of the province of Africa; and the statute of Claudian, erected in the forum of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of the Roman senate. ”

“ The poem of Claudian on the Rape of Proserpine, the longest extant work connected with the story of Demeter, yet itself unfinished, closes the world of classical poetry. Writing in the fourth century of the Christian era, Claudian has his subject before him in the whole extent of its various development, and also profits by those many pictorial representations of it, which, from the famous picture of Polygnotus downwards, delighted the ancient world. ”

“ In his historical and miscellaneous poems also Claudian exhibits much Alexandrian learning, and at the same time shows an intimate acquaintance with the earlier Roman poets, which is somewhat surprising in one who was educated in the Greek-speaking provinces of the east. It is equally surprising that Claudian uses the Latin language with an ease and grace not attained by any of his contemporaries. His verse is correct, dignified, and harmonious, his diction pure and classical. ”

“ The position of Claudian—the last of the Roman poets—is unique in literature. It is sufficiently remarkable that, after nearly three centuries of torpor, the Latin muse should have experienced any revival in the age of Honorius, nothing less than amazing that this revival should have been the work of a foreigner, most surprising of all that a just and enduring celebrity should have been gained by official panegyrics on the generally uninteresting transactions of an inglorious epoch. ”

“ Claudian’s verses have been thus familiarly Englished:—“The tender boughs live together in love, and the happy trees pass their time entirely in mutual embraces. Palms by consent salute and nod to each other; the poplar, smitten with the poplar, sighs; whilst planes and alders express their affection in the melody of whispers.” This allusion to the “Loves of the Plants” was not a mere imagination of the old poet: their sexual difference was known to the old philosophers. “Naturalists,” says Pliny, “admit the distinction of sex not only in trees, but in herbs, and in all plants.” ”

“ We should vainly seek, in the poems of Claudian, the happy invention, and artificial conduct, of an interesting fable; or the just and lively representation of the characters and situations of real life. For the service of his patron, he published occasional panegyrics and invectives: and the design of these slavish compositions encouraged his propensity to exceed the limits of truth and nature. These imperfections, however, are compensated in some degree by the poetical virtues of Claudian. ”

“ Materiam superabat opus might be said with equal truth of much of the work of his predecessors. But a new spirit had by this time penetrated literature, and any poetry wholly divorced from it must be not only artificial—for that alone would prove nothing against it—but unnatural. Claudian is a precursor of the Renaissance in its narrower aspect; the last of the classics, he is at the same time the earliest, and one of the most distinguished, of the classicists. ”

“ Claudian seemed indeed to have all the false notions of the generality of our young traders; and too many in this city are ruined daily by the same, yet that they are still propagated among numbers as the secrets of trading, is a truth as certain as the gospel.
Claudian’s affairs began now to run greatly behind-hand, without his knowing it; out that which others plan out as a last relief when they find themselves just going, was now likely to prove so to our young gentleman trader, without his knowing it. ”

“ Claudian’s panegyric, however lavish and regardless of veracity, is in general far less offensive than usual in his age, a circumstance attributable partly to his more refined taste and partly to the genuine merit of his patron Stilicho. He is a valuable authority for the history of his times, and is rarely to be convicted of serious inaccuracy in his facts, whatever may be thought of the colouring he chooses to impart to them. ”

“ Claudian had imagined a monster of iniquity commissioned by the Furies to desolate the earth; the author of ‘Anticlaudianus,’ on the other hand, supposes a hero formed by the Virtues to be the vehicle of blessings to mankind.
In the dearth of biographical particulars, it is natural that fables should cluster about the name of a man of the character and the epoch of Alain. ”

“ The inevitable monotony of the panegyrics on Honorius is relieved by just and brilliant expatiation on the duties of a sovereign. In his celebration of Stilicho’s victories Claudian found a subject more worthy of his powers, and some passages, such as the description of the flight of Alaric, and of Stilicho’s arrival at Rome, and the felicitous parallel between his triumphs and those of Marius, rank among the brightest ornaments of Latin poetry. ”

“ It is part of Claudian's character of his rustick, that he computes his time not by the succession of consuls, but of harvests. Those who pass their days in retreats distant [185] from the theatres of business, are always least likely to hurry their imagination with publick affairs. ”

“ A little better is his contemporary, Rufius Festus Avienus, who made some free translations of astronomical and geographical poems in Greek. A generation later, in what might be called the expiring effort of Latin poetry, appeared two writers of much greater merit. The first is Claudius Claudianus (c. 400) , a native of Alexandria and the court poet of the emperor Honorius and his minister Stilicho. Claudian Claudian. may be properly styled the last of the poets of Rome. He breathes the old national spirit, and his mastery of classical idiom and versification is for his age extraordinary. ”

“ Claudian; Claudius Claudianus, at the close of the fourth century, wrote an epic poem in three books De raptu Proserpinae, which he left unfinished, besides several other works. He is mentioned again in the Ho. of Fame, 449, 1509. The story of Proserpine is also in Ovid, Fasti, iv. 427; and in Gower, C. A., ii. 170.
2240. The line is plainly imperfect, both in sense and rhythm, yet is the same in all seven MSS. and in ed. 1550. They agree in reading:—
Ten hundred thousand telle (n) I can.
Tyrwhitt reads:—
Ten hundred thousand stories tell I can. ”

“ Upon his steeds—her steers—their brightness to produce.
Now o'er the earth, by weary mortals hail'd,
Deep night and silence in their turn prevail'd.
Prepared her toilsome journey to commence,
Her breast she rends, and cries, departing thence,
"Not these the torches, daughter ever dear,
My mother's heart had hoped for thee to rear;
But such as gleam mid festive pomp and song,
When echoing heavens the nuptial strain prolong.
No, none amongst us, though of race divine,
Can 'scape the meshes which the Fates entwine. ”

“ In its vast and formless luxuriance, its beautiful but artificial versification, its delineation of action and passion to the entire neglect of character, the poem resembles the epics of India. Like his countryman Claudian, Nonnus is a writer of copious learning and still more copious fancy, whose faults are those of the age in which he lived. ”

“ In these respects, as well as in wealth of imagery, brilliancy of narrative, and skill in composition, he is unequalled by any Roman poet after Statius. His historical poems must be used with caution by historians, for, although facts are not invented, they are presented in a strong light, or left in obscurity, according to the effect they might have upon the reputation of the poet’s friends or enemies. In the exuberance of his praise, Claudian equals the contemporary prose panegyrists, and surpasses the early Alexandrian and most of the later Roman poets. ”

“ O! blest their lot, to whom their captors give
Freedom at least in sight of heaven to live:
But I the bitter loss at once abide
Of cheerful daylight, and my maiden pride,
The Stygian tyrant's slave—miscall'd a bride!
O! flowers too well beloved! O! Mother wise,
Whose counsels Venus taught me to despise—
1 call thee, Mother! where in Ida's vales
Resound the Lydian pipe's discordant wails;
Where in thine ears the blood-stain'd Galli scream,
Where in thine eyes the Curete falchions gleam—
O! haste thee thence—restrain the robber's might,
Stay the dread car, and give me back to light! ”

“ Whose lack of offspring Proserpine supplied.
Her, fondling still, she follows everywhere:
Not more the calf its lowering parent's care,
Ere wide its feet begin the earth to throw,
Ere curves the crescent on its budding brow.
But now the days of maidenhood bring on
Age not unmeet for nuptial benison;
And tenderer thoughts in that pure mind are bred,
And innocent wishes strive with bashful dread.
And soon loud suitors seek the maiden's home;
Shield-bearing Mars, and archer Phœbus come:
Mars proffers Rhodope—the bride to gain—
Amyclæ, Delos, and his Clarian fane
Are Phœbus' gift ”

“ Or pale and wretched, as, in vision dread,
Thou stood'st at midnight o'er my slumbering head?"
Her footsteps now primeval Etna leave;
She hates the flowers that bloom'd but to deceive,
The place accursed for so foul a deed.
She marks the devious tracks; where'er they lead
Bends low her brands, their searching light lets fall;
But streaming tears obliterate them all.
Next, as through air she sails, their lustre, thrown
On some faint path, is noticed with a groan. ”

“ For a moment she was thoughtful, and Claudia said nothing to break the silence. “But I suppose you’re right, Claudia,” she said at last. “If I have any god at all, he’s the two-headed god of power and money. And if the Tetrarch were your Longinus, well, my god would have a third head, pleasure. I envy you, Claudia! By the way,” she added, as she poured wine for her guest and herself, “may I be so bold, my dear, as to inquire how things between you and the centurion stand just now?”
“That’s why I came to see you, Herodias. ”

“ The steeds of darkness, and the robber King,
My labouring spirit bids me dare to sing;
The car, whose sickening blight the pale stars fled,
And subterranean Juno's gloomy bed.
Hence, ye profane! all earth-born thoughts are gone,
And Phœbus reigns within my breast, alone. ”

“ In the reign of the emperor Claudius also another kind was introduced and entitled Claudia. It had been found by experience that the charta Augusta was, from its fineness and porous nature, ill suited for literary use; it was accordingly reserved for correspondence only, and for other purposes was replaced by the new paper. The charta Claudia was made from a composition of the first and second qualities, the Augusta and the Livia, a layer of the former being backed with one of the latter; and the sheet was increased to nearly a foot in width. ”

“ The whole family eat their meal in conscious silence: Quintus and Cornelia remained as guests. Claudia begged to be excused; she would join them later, in the sitting-room.
When they rose from table, Lucilia, Octavia, and the betrothed couple went to walk up and down the peristyle, and Titus Claudius went to his daughter’s room. It was not without an uneasy feeling about his heart, that he desired the slave-girl who sat outside the door to raise the curtain, and he felt sad enough as he entered the room, which was one of the prettiest and pleasantest in the house. ”

“ Claudius in the city of Antioch, for Saint Claudius spake to him boldly and fearlessly and reviled him. And Romanus advised Diocletian to send Saint Claudius to the country of Egypt, and to kill him there, [saying,] “He is a heretic like my son Victor.” And the emperor wrote a letter to the governor of Antinoe, saying, “Claudius will accept [nothing] from us, and he will neither hearken to our words nor obey them. Do thou persuade him with all thy power to return to his allegiance to us, and if he will not do so cut off his head with the sword.” ”

“ The family of the Claudii already boasted two illustrious vestals,—the Claudia whose chastity the goddess herself had deigned to vindicate, and her whose filial piety had insured her father’s triumph;—and Lucia Claudia, the third vestal of her line, sustained the same lofty reputation, and enjoyed the same privileges, as her predecessors had done. The universal honours paid her, the power she sometimes exerted in favour of the unhappy, the veneration of the people, endeared a faith hallowed by the early recollections and prejudices of infancy. ”

“ Where other heavens o'er-arch another earth;
Whence forth he springs his wand'ring course to run,
Where Æthiop kingdoms blacken in the sun;
O'er the parch'd lands his cooling dews bestows,
And slakes the thirst of nations as he flows. ”

“ He has his own reasons for whatever he decides on.”
“You are only making believe,” said Lucilia. “You know you like him no better than I do, and you, too, grieve over the odious fancy....”
“Lucilia!”
“Well ... is one to bite one’s tongue out simply from respect of persons? My father often has fancies. What should Claudia have to do with that wooden simpleton? And he is as cowardly as a whimpering woman! Cornelia told me so—she heard it from her uncle.”
“It is not every one, that has the headstrong spirit of Cinna.” ”