Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookow I was the first that taught our Roman matrons to rival the Greeks, and to diversify their subject with wit untried before, consistently[1560] with my purpose, I pass by; and thee I invoke, in those points in which thou art chief of all, and, supreme in eloquence, art best skilled. Descend[1561] at thy votary's prayer and hear! Tell me, O Calliope, what is it the great[1562] father of the gods purposes to do? Does he revert to earth, and his father's age; and wrest from us in death the arts that once he gave; and bid us, in silence, nay, bereft of reason, too, just as when we arose in the primæval age,[1563] stoop again[1564] to acorns,[1565] and the pure stream? Or does he guard with friendly care all other lands and cities, but thrusts away[1566] the race of Ausonia, and the nurslings of Remus?[1567] For, what must we suppose? There are two ways by which Rome reared aloft her mighty head. Valor in war, and wisdom in peace. But valor, practiced[1568] at home and by civil warfare, passed over to the seas of Sicily and the citadels of Carthage, and swept away also all other empires and the whole world. Then, as the victor, who, left alone in the Grecian stadium, droops, and though with valor undaunted, feels his heart sink within him--just so the Roman race, when it had ceased from its struggles, and had bridled peace in lasting trammels; then, revising at home the laws and discoveries of the Greeks,[1569] ruled with policy and gentle influence[1570] all that had been won by sea and land as the prizes of war. By this Rome stood--nor could she indeed have maintained her ground without these. Else with vain words[1571] and lying lips would Jupiter[1572] have been proved to have said to his queen, "I have given them empire[1573] without limit!" Therefore, now, he who sways the Roman state[1574] has commanded all studies, and the philosophic name and race of men to depart out of doors and quit the city. What are we to do? We left the Greeks and the cities of men,[1575] that the Roman youth might be better instructed in these. Now, just as the Gauls,[1576] abandoning their swords and scales, fled when Capitoline Camillus thrust them forth; so our aged men are said to be wandering forth,[1577] and like some deadly burden, themselves eradicating their own books. Therefore the hero of Numantia and of Libya, Scipio, erred in that point, who grew wise under the training of his Rhodian[1578] master; and that other band, fruitful in talent, in the second war;[1579] among whom the divine apophthegm[1580] of Priscus[1581] Cato[1582] held it of such deep import to determine whether the Roman stock would better be upheld[1583] by prosperity or adversity. By adversity, doubtless; for when the love of country urges them to defend[1584] themselves by arms, and their wife held prisoner together with their household gods, they combine[1585] just like wasps (a bristling band, with weapons all unsheathed along their yellow bodies), when their home and citadel is assailed. But when care-dispelling peace has returned, forgetful of labor, commons and fathers together lie buried in lethargic sleep. A long-protracted and destructive peace[1586] has therefore been the ruin of the sons of Romulus.[1587] Thus our tale comes to a close. Henceforth, kind Muse, without whom life is no pleasure to me, I pray thee warn them that, like the Lydian of yore, when Smyrna fell,[1588] so now also they may be ready to emigrate; or else, in line, whatever thou wishest. This only I beseech thee, goddess! Present not in a pleasing light to Calenus[1589] the walls of Rome and the Sabines. Thus much I spake. Then the goddess deigns to reply in few words, and begins: "Lay aside thy just fears, my votary. See, the extremity of hate is menacing him, and by our mouth shall he perish! For we haunt the laurel groves of Numa,[1590] and the self-same springs, and, with Egeria for our companion,[1591] deride all vain essays. Live on! Farewell! Its destined fame awaits the grief that does thee honor. Such is the promise of the Muses' choir, and of Apollo[1592] that presides over Rome." FOOTNOTES: [1553] _Musa._ Although about to indite a Satire, Sulpicia declares her intention of not imitating the Hendecasyllabics of Phalæcus, the Iambics of Archilochus, or the Scazontics of Hipponax, but of writing in the good old Heroic metre. She therefore invokes the aid of Calliope. [1554] _Frequentas._ "Celebrare" is often used in the sense of "crowding in large numbers to a place;" so here, conversely, frequentare is used in the sense of "frequently celebrating." [1555] _Detexere_ is properly to "finish off one's weaving." Vid. Hyg., Fab., 126, "Cum telam detexuero nubam." Plaut., Ps. I., iv., 7, "Neque ad detexundam telam certos terminos habes." [1556] _Penetrale_ is applied to the inmost and most sacred recesses; hence the "Penetrales Dii." Cic., Nat. D., ii., 27. Senec., Œdip., 265. So "penetrale sacrificium."--_Retractans_, in the sense of going over again with a view to corrections and additions. So Plin., v. Ep., 8, "Egi graves causas; has destino retractare." Senec., Ep., 46, "De libro tuo plura scribam cum illum retractavero." [1557] _Phalæco._ Phalæcus is said by Diomedes (iii., 509) and Terentianus (p. 2440) to have been the inventor of the Hendecasyllabic metre, which consists of five feet; the first a Spondee or Iamb., the second a Dactyl, and the three last Trochees. Many of Catullus's pieces are in this metre. E. g. "Lugete O Veneres, Cupidinesque." Vid. Hermann, Elem. Doctr. Metr., p. 264. [1558] _Iambo._ The Iambic metre was peculiarly adapted to Satire. Hence its probable etymology from ἰάπτω, jacio; and hence the epithet _criminosi_ applied to these verses by Horace (i., Od. xvi., 2), and _truces_ by Catullus (xxxvi., 5). Archilochus, the Parian, who flourished in the eighth century B.C. (Cic., Tusc. Q., i., 1; Bähr, ad Herod., i., 12), is said to have been the inventor of the metre, and to have employed it against Lycambes, who had promised him his daughter Neobule, but afterward retracted. Cf. Hor., A. P., 79, "Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo." i., Ep. xix., 23, "Parios ego primus Iambos Ostendi Latio numeros animosque secutus Archilochi non res et agentia verba Lycamben." The allusion in the next line is to Hipponax, who flourished cir. B.C. 540; Ol. lx. He was a native of Ephesus; but being expelled from his native country by the tyrant Athenagoras, he settled at Clazomenæ, now the Isle of St. John. The common story is, that he was so hideously ugly, that the sculptors Bupalus and Athenis caricatured him. And to avenge this insult, Hipponax altered the Iambic of Archilochus into a more bitter form by making the last foot a spondee, which gave the verse a kind of halting rhythm, and was hence called Scazontic, from σκάζω· or Choliambic, from χῶλος, "lame." Diomed., iii., 503. «A specimen may be seen in Martial's bitter epigram against Cato. i., Ep. I, "Cur in The |