Pacuvius

“ Pacuvius Calavius, a contemporary of Hannibal, and a man of great popularity and influence, who, according to the Roman accounts, acquired his power by evil arts, and sacrificed everything to gratify his ambition and love of dominion. In b. c. 217, when Hannibal had gained his victory on lake Trasimenus, Pacuvius Calavius happened to be invested with the chief magistracy at Capua. He had good reasons for believing that the people of Capua, who were hostile towards the senate, intended on the approach of Hannibal to murder all the senators, and surrender the town to the Carthaginians. ”

“ From no one play of Pacuvius are there more than fifty lines preserved, and these are generally very much detached. The longest passages which we have in continuation are a fragment concerning Fortune, in the Hermione—the exclamations of Ulysses, while writhing under the agony of a recent wound, in the Niptra, and the following fine description of a sea-storm introduced in the Dulorestes:—
“Interea, prope jam occidente sole, inhorrescit mare ”

“ Those who were familiar with the Iliad, with Xenophon, and with Menander, could not be greatly impressed by the Roman Homer, and still less by the bad translations of the tragedies of Euripides which Ennius had furnished and Pacuvius continued to furnish. While patriotic considerations might set bounds to criticism in reference to the native chronicles, Lucilius at any rate directed very pointed shafts against "the dismal figures from the complicated expositions of Pacuvius" ”

“ These plays are all lost, and the existing fragments (about 400 lines) are unsatisfactory. Cicero considered Pacuvius the greatest Roman tragic writer, and Horace speaks of him as “learned.” Probably this epithet refers to his careful use of language as well as to his knowledge of the less popular legends of Greek mythology. The extant fragments show more ease and grace of style than do those of Ennius, and great richness of vocabulary. ”

“ Vale! Pacuvius was a great favourite with those who could make allowances for the faults, and appreciate the merits, of the great writers of antiquity, and his verses were popular in the time of J. Cæsar; [253] and that lover of the old Roman literature, Cicero, though not blind to his faults, is warm in his commendations. He was not without admirers in the Augustan age, and even his defects had zealous defenders in the time of Persius amongst those who could scarcely discover a fault in any work which savoured of antiquity. ”

“ Turpione Ambivio magis delectatur, qui in primâ caveâ spectat; delectatur tamen etiam qui in ultimâ.
[e] ACCIUS and PACUVIUS flourished at Rome about the middle of the sixth century from the foundation of the city. Accius, according to Horace, was held to be a poet of a sublime genius, and Pacuvius (who lived to be ninety years old) was respected for his age and profound learning.
Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior, aufert
PACUVIUS docti famam senis, ACCIUS alti. ”

“ During his stay he read to his host the tragedy of Atreus, which was one of his earliest productions. Pacuvius declared his verses to be high sounding and lofty, but he remarked that they were a little harsh, and wanted mellowness. Attius acknowledged the truth of the observation, which he said gave him much satisfaction; for that genius resembled apples, which when produced hard and sour, grow mellow in maturity, while those which are unseasonably soft do not become ripe, but rotten344. ”

“ The names are still preserved of about 20 tragedies of Pacuvius—Anchises, Antiope, Armorum Judicium, Atalanta, Chryses, Dulorestes, Hermione, Iliona, Medus, Medea, Niptra, Orestes et Pylades, Paulus, Peribœa, Tantalus, Teucer, Thyestes. Of these the Antiope was one of the most distinguished. It was regarded by Cicero as a great national tragedy, and an honour to the Roman name.—“Quis enim,” says he, “tam inimicus pene nomini Romano est, qui Ennii Medeam, aut Antiopam Pacuvii, spernat, aut rejiciat?” ”

“ Cic. Brut. 229, ‘Accius isdem aedilibus ait se et Pacuvium docuisse fabulam, cum ille octoginta, ipse triginta annos natus esset.’
As Accius was born B.C. 170, Cicero’s words imply that Pacuvius was born B.C. 220, and produced plays as late as B.C. 140, while from Jerome we may conclude that he died shortly before B.C. 130. That Pacuvius was taught by his uncle Ennius is shown by Varro, Sat. Menipp. 356 (Bücheler) ,
‘Pacvi [17] discipulus dicor, porro is fuit Enni,
Ennius Musarum: Pompilius clueor.’
He was a member of the literary circle of Laelius. ”

“ They indicate also a similar humanity of feeling. The moral nobleness of the situation, in which Pylades and Orestes contend which should sacrifice himself for the other, has already been noticed: 'stantes plaudebant in re ficta.' Again, in the Tusculan Disputations (ii. 21) , Cicero commends Pacuvius for deviating from Sophocles, who had represented Ulysses, in the Niptra, as utterly overcome by the power of his wound ”

“ He obtained some distinction as a painter [132] , and he is supposed to have written his tragedies late in life. Jerome records of him, 'picturam exercuit et fabulas vendidit.' Cicero represents Laelius as speaking of him as a friend, 'amici et hospitis mei.' A pleasing anecdote is told by Aulus Gellius [133] of his intercourse with his younger rival, L. Accius. 'When Pacuvius, at a great age, and suffering from disease of long standing, had retired from Rome to Tarentum, Accius, at that time a considerably younger man, on his journey to Asia, arrived at that town, and stayed with Pacuvius. ”

“ Art gains in sympathy and honour; but the enthusiasm has departed in life and in literature. The fearless self-confidence, which makes the poet a poet, and which is very decidedly apparent in Plautus especially, is found in none of those that follow; the Epigoni of the men that fought with Hannibal are correct, but feeble.
Tragedy
Pacuvius
Let us first glance at the Roman dramatic literature and the stage itself. Tragedy has now for the first time her specialists; the tragic poets of this epoch do not, like those of the preceding, cultivate comedy and epos side by side. ”

“ Nothing can be more hospitable than its shores; for on them are those noble harbours, Caieta, Misenus, and Baiae with its warm springs, as well as the lakes Lucrinus and Avernus, places of retirements as it were for the sea. [19] Here, too, are those vine-clad mountains, Gaurus, Falernus, Massicus, and Vesuvius the finest of all, the imitator of the fires of Aetna. On the sea are the cities Formiae, Cumae, Puteoli, Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and, the chief of all, Capua, which was formerly one of the three greatest cities in the world, Rome and Carthage being the others. ”

“ Pompeii
From Rome we go on to Naples, where to the east the regular volcanic cone of Vesuvius rears itself like a fire-breathing dragon over the bay, and where towns, villages, and white villas stand as thick on the shore as beads on a rosary. Our time is short; we drive rapidly through the lava-paved streets of Naples, and cannot feast our eyes long enough with the sight of these fine dark men in their motley dirty garments, and cannot hear enough of their melodious songs in honour of delightful Naples. ”

“ The ashes that had covered Pompeii changed to rich soil. Green vines and shrubs and trees sprang up and covered it, and flowers made it gay. Therefore people said to themselves:
"After all, she is a good old mountain. There will never be another eruption while we are alive."
So villages grew up around her feet. Farmers came and built little houses and planted crops and were happy working the fertile soil. They did not dream that they were living above a buried city, that the roots of their vines sucked water from an old Roman house, that buried statues lay gazing up toward them as they worked. ”

“ When one wanders thro' the streets of this singularly interesting city, one is tempted to think that the inhabitants have just walked out. What a dreadful lingering death must have befallen these inhabitants who could not escape from Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius which covered it with ashes. The air could only be exhausted by degrees, so that a prolonged suffocation or a death by hunger must have been their lot. ”

“ As one mounts, the city drops away, and the long semicircle of hills behind it rises into sight, green rounded hills, bearing on their summits palms which stand out sharp and dark against the sky. With every convolution of the stairs one sees more and more of the great plain out of which Vesuvius rises,—the Campagna Felice, a purple flat, stretching from the base of the 19 volcano as far as that mountain chain which marks the limit of its power. Out of the mountains comes a fresh cool wind, and all the city sparkles in the sun. ”

“ The inhabitants of this city were asleep, when suddenly an impetuous wind arose, and, detaching a portion of the cinders which covered the summit of Vesuvius, hurried them in whirlwinds through the air over Pompeii, and within a quarter of an hour entirely overwhelmed it, together with Herculaneum, Sorento, a multitude of towns and villages, thousands of men and women, and the elder Pliny. What a dreadful awakening for the inhabitants? Imprudent men! Why did you build Pompeii at the foot of Vesuvius, on its lava, and on its ashes? ”

“ Those who have seen Rome know how important the ancients considered the water that they brought from a distance by means of the enormous aqueducts, the ruins of which still mark all the old territories of the empire. Water, abundant and limpid, ran everywhere, and was never deficient in the Roman cities. Still it has not been discovered how the supply was obtained for Pompeii, destitute of springs as that city was, and, at the same time, elevated above the river, and receiving nothing in its cisterns but the rain-water so scantily shed beneath the relentless serenity of that southern sky. ”

“ Among those 233 remnants of what was, the walls of Capua, the arx of Capua, are not to be found; at all events they do not strike the traveller on his first or his second visit. For something faintly answering to a Capuan arx, he takes himself to the neighbouring mountains. There, on their lowest slopes, looking out on Vesuvius and Ischia, looking down on the Campanian plain, with its river, with its older and its newer Capua, we come to a spot where a famous temple of the older faith has given way to a less famous one of the new. ”

“ The material lies there for thousands of years and is hard packed into a soft fine grained rock, called tufa. The city of Naples to-day is built of such stone that once lay under the sea. An earthquake long ago lifted the ocean bottom and turned it into dry land. Now men live upon it and cut streets in it and grow crops on it.
So for many miles about, Vesuvius has been making earth. Her ashes lie hundreds of feet deep. Men dig wells and still find only material that has been thrown out of the volcano. When this matter grows old and lies under the sun and rain it turns to good soil. ”

“ The two craters of Vesuvius were formed by the eruption which overwhelmed Pompeii. Fertility and fire everywhere! A few steps from where the sulphureous fumes of Solfatara force their way up into the air through the crumbling lava, lie fields, some one mass of bright-red poppies, others full of great blue flowers, of powerfully scented downy mints and other herbs growing waist-high in such thronging profusion, such fruitfulness and luxuriance, that one feels as if all this billowing fulness would shoot up again in a single night, were it all cut down. ”

“ Every one who visits Italy comes to Vesuvius and Pompeii—Vesuvius the mountain, and Pompeii the city that once waked and slept at the foot of the mountain. One day the sky grew dark, completely hidden by the volumes of smoke that rose like a huge pine tree from Vesuvius. The stones, lava and ashes entirely buried the city and the people, and now when men dig in the ruins they find—"
"I'm well, Marta! I'm well, Pappina! Praise the Santa Maria del Rosario! Come."
It was Guiseppe who was hurrying toward them. He led the way to a spot a short distance from the church. He set up the Punchinellos ”

“ For you the Campanian field shall be ploughed; for you the city of Capua shall be made populous; you shall be to us in the light of founders, parents, ay, even immortal gods. There shall be no colony of your own which shall surpass us in attachment and loyalty to you. Grant to the Campanians, conscript fathers, your nod, and your irresistible favour, and bid us hope that Capua will be safe. With what crowds of persons of all classes attending us do you suppose that we set out from thence—how, think you, did we leave every place full of vows and tears? ”

“ The genius of the climate is mild in winter, from the shelter of a mountain which intercepts the rigour of the winds: its summers are refreshed by gales from the west; and the sea open all round it, makes a delightful view: from thence too was beheld a most lovely landscape, before the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius had changed the face of the prospect. It is the tradition of fame that the Greeks occupied the opposite region, and that Capreae was particularly inhabited by the Teleboi. ”

“ The subterranean fires of Vesuvius pressed upward to find an outlet. The accumulations of volcanic dust and pumice stone that had been heaped up on the mountain by former eruptions were again hurled to a great height, and came down upon the surrounding country. On the west side of Vesuvius they mingled with torrents of rain, and flowed as a vast stream of mud down over Herculaneum. On the south side, driven by a northwest wind as they descended from the upper air, they spread out into a thick cloud, which covered Pompeii and the plain of the Sarno. ”