upon sound, as where Demipho remarks that if he had such a good-looking girl as Pasicompsa for a servant, all the people would be "staring, gazing, nodding, winking, hissing, twitching, crying, annoying, and serenading."
The failings of the fair seems always to have been a favourite subject for men's attack, but reflections of this kind have decreased in number and acerbity since the days of Aristophanes. We find, however, some in Plautus, such as the following:—
"Love is a fawning flatterer. For he that is in love, soon as ever he has been smitten with the kisses of the object he loves, forthwith his substance vanishes out of doors, and melts away. 'Give me this, my honey, if you love me.' And then Gudgeon says, 'Oh apple of my eye, both that and still more, if you wish.' He who plunges into love perishes more dreadfully than if he leapt from a rock. Away with you, Love, if you please."
He is fully alive to the power of this destructive passion. In one place Philolaches half mad with love and jealousy sees his mistress looking into a mirror. "Ah, wretched me," he exclaims passionately, "she gave the mirror a kiss. I wish I had a stone to break the head of that mirror."[20]
The love of money has always been a stock subject with humorists. This common weakness of human nature can be played upon even by those who can produce no other wit, and many worse jokes have been made on it than the following—
Calidorus asks his servant, Pseudolus, to lend him a drachma.
P. What for?
C. To buy a rope to hang myself.
P. Who then will pay me back? Do you wish to hang yourself to cheat me out of my drachma?
The "Concealed Treasure" turns on an old man having found a pot of gold. He conceals it, and his nervousness lest some one should discover it is brought out with excellent humour. He drives the cooks out of the place with his stick. He has a battle-royal with a dunghill cock, who, he imagines is trying to scratch for it, then thinks Strobilus has stolen it, and calls on him to show one hand, and the other, and then the third.
We are the more inclined to lament the utter destruction of ancient African literature on finding that the most refined Roman dramas were placed upon the stage by a Carthaginian, when Plautus, whose enterprize and perseverance had given the great impetus to Latin comedy, was approaching the end of his long life. Terence was born the last, and as some think the greatest master in this branch of Art. He was at one time a slave, but his literary talent was so remarkable that his master set him free, and he became the friend of distinguished men, especially of Scipio the younger. It must seem strange that this brilliancy should have flashed up for a moment, and then been for ever quenched, but it was derived from Greece and not in its nature enduring. The genius of Menander fed the flame of Terence, as that of Diphilus and others gave power to Plautus, and it may well be supposed that men of their talent appropriated all that was most excellent, and left their successors to draw from inferior sources. It may, moreover, be doubted, whether the regular drama was ever popular among the lower classes in Rome, who preferred the more exciting scenes of the circus. Such plays as were intended for them were coarser and more sensational.
Terence has not the rough power and drollery of Plautus; his whole attraction lies in the subtlety of his amorous intrigues. Steele, speaking of one of the plays, "The Self-Tormentor," observes, "It is from the beginning to the end a perfect picture of human life, but I did not observe in the whole one passage that could possibly raise a laugh." It was for this reason, no doubt, that Cæsar spoke of him as only "half a Menander," and as deficient in comic force. Ingenious complexity is so exclusively his aim, that we have neither the coarseness nor the sparkle of earlier writers. He was the first to introduce Comedies, which were not comic, and whatever humour he introduces is that of situation.
We now come to consider a kind of humour of which the Romans claim to have been the originators, and which they certainly developed into a branch of literature. Satire first signified a basket of first fruits offered to Ceres; then a hotchpot or olla podrida, then a medley; and so the name was given to poems written without any definite design. We might therefore conclude that they possessed no uniform character, but merely contained a mixture of miscellaneous matter. But we find in them no allusions to politics or war, and but few to the literature and philosophy of the day—their variety being due to their social complexion. One feeling and character pervades them all—they were called forth by a scornful indignation at the degeneracy of the age as represented by the rich and powerful, or even by certain leading individuals. The appearance of such a kind of literature denoted greater activity in society, an increase of profligacy among some, and of moral sensibility among others. Satire was a social scourge. It was not a philosophical investigation into the nature and origin of vice, but a denunciation of it as inimical to the interests of society. It was practical not theoretical—and sought to bring vice into contempt, by making it both odious and ridiculous. In the latter attempt, the satirists may have had more success than we credit them with, for in our day such virulent attacks would be distasteful, immorality being regarded as essentially a matter for grave and serious condemnation. Satire differs from abuse, not only in being declamatory, but in being deserved. The amusement in it mostly depends upon the deformity of the sensual, the failures of the wicked, and the exposure of guilt in a kind of moral pillory. It did not aim at mere accidental losses or imperfections, and made no fanciful accusations merely to amuse, but it was often lightened by metaphor, by coined words, and especially by exaggeration.
The satire of Rome, though in a certain sense new, seems to have been somewhat derived from Greece. Ennius, who commenced it, a man younger than Plautus and older than Terence, was himself half a Greek. He wrote epic poems and comedies, and also introduced this comic literature for private reading. Lucilius, who was the first eminent Roman satirist, is said to have imitated the old Greek comedies. His attacks are very severe and personal, reminding us a little of Archilochus, though apparently not written to gratify any private spleen. The tendency to personalities marked a time when the range of society and the tone of thought were equally narrow. Moral depravity was considered to be centred in a few individuals, and in the broken fragments of Lucilius' rage, which have descended to us, we find a man stigmatised as an "ulcer," "gangrene," a "poison," "jibber," "shuffler," "a hard-mouthed obstinate brute." Sometimes he ridicules the bodily infirmities of the depraved; but Lucilius' attacks seem less ill-natured and more justly humorous from being always directed against the vicious and demoralised. Occasionally he indulges in such uncomplimentary expressions as "There is no flummery-maker equal to you," while some are hailed with "Long life to you, glutton, gormandizer, and belly-god." He might truly say in his metaphorical language, "I seize his beak and smash his lips, Zopyrus' fashion, and knock out all his front teeth."
The satire of Horace was exceptionally mild; with him its social character was much more marked than its acerbity. In many places he shows Greek reflections, for he had received a liberal education, duly completed at Athens. But his philosophy did not consist of dreamy theories and arbitrary rules—it was directed to practical ends, to the harmonizing of the feelings, and the elevation of society. As a man of the world, he was not carried away by fancies, nor given to exaggerated views; and as a companion of the great, he was not inclined to inveigh bitterly against the degeneracy of the times. On the contrary, so kindly were his feelings, that he tells us that we should overlook the vices of our friends. His teaching, both in spirit and range, was broader than that of his predecessors; his shafts were directed against classes rather than individuals, and wherever he is more pointed, his object is not to gratify personal spite, but to make his warning more forcible by illustration. Moreover, his names are generally unreal. In this way he attacks Nasidienus on the excessive luxury of the table, and his advice was applicable not only to the rich and great, but to more ordinary men. Thus, he shows the bad tendencies of avarice and love-intrigues, and the meanness of sycophantism and legacy-hunting. Many of the faults he condemns are rather errors in taste than serious moral delinquencies. Sometimes he criticises merely trivial matters, such as a costume
