begged her not to suffer him to be disturbed, as he had gone t bed late, having been engaged in writing with more than usua success. On her asking him to tell her what he had been writing, he repeated the verses which are found in the Heautontimoroumenos: Satis pol proterve me Syri promessa-Heauton. IV. iv. 1. 4 Santra' is of opinion that if Terence required any assistance in his compositions,' he would not have had recourse to Scipio and Lælius, who were then very young men, but rather to Sulpicius Gallus,3 an accomplished scholar, who had been the first to introduce his plays at the games given by the consuls; or to Q. Fabius Labeo, or Marcus Popilius, both men of consular rank, as well as poets. It was for this reason that, in alluding to the assistance he had received, he did not speak of his coadjutors as very young men, but as persons of whose services the people had full experience in peace, in war, and in the administration of affairs. After he had given his comedies to the world, at a time when he had not passed his thirty-fifth year, in order to avoid suspicion, as he found others publishing their works under his name, or else to make himself acquainted with the modes of life and habits of the Greeks, for the purpose of exhibiting them in his plays, he withdrew from Rome, to which he never returned. Volcatius gives this account of his death: Sed ut Afer sei populo dedit comædias, Iter hic in Asiam fecit. Navem cum semel Conscendit, visus nunquam est. Sic vita vacat. 'Santra, who wrote biographies of celebrated characters, is mentioned as "a man of learning," by St. Jerom, in his preface to the book on the Ecclesiastical Writers. 2 The idea seems to have prevailed that Terence, originally an African slave, could not have attained that purity of style in Latin composition which is found in his plays, without some assistance. The style of Phædrus, however, who was a slave from Thrace, and lived in the reign of Tiberius, is equally pure, although no such suspicion attaches to his work. 3 Cicero (de Clar. Orat. c. 207) gives Sulpicius Gallus a high character as a finished orator and elegant scholar. He was consul when the Andria was first produced. 4 Labeo and Popilius are also spoken of by Cicero in high terms, Ib. cc. 21 and 24. Q. Fabius Labeo was consul with M. Claudius Marcellus. A.. 570 and Popilius with L. Postumius Albinus, a.u.c. 580. When Afer had produced six plays for the entertainment of the people, Q. Consentius reports that he perished at sea on his voyage back from Greece, and that one hundred and eight plays, of which he had made a version from Menander,' were lost with him. Others say that he died at Stymphalos, in Arcadia, or in Leucadia, during the consulship of Cn. Cornelius Dolabella and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior, worn out with a severe illness, and with grief and regret for the loss of his baggage, which he had sent forward in a ship that was wrecked, and contained the last new plays he had written. In person, Terence is reported to have been rather short and slender, with a dark complexion. He had an only daughter, who was afterwards married to a Roman knight; and he left also twenty acres of garden ground, on the Appian Way, at the Villa of Mars. I, therefore, wonder the more how Porcius could have written the verses, nihil Publius Tres per idem tempus qui agitabant nobiles facillime. Afranius places him at the head of all the comic writers, declaring, in his Compitalia, Terentio non similem dices quempiam. Terence's equal cannot soon be found. On the other hand, Volcatius reckons him inferior not only 1 The story of Terence's having converted into Latin plays this large number of Menander's Greek comedies, beyond all probability, considering the age at which he died, and other circumstances. Indeed, Menander never wrote so many as are here stated. 2 They were consuls A.U.C. 594. Terence was, therefore, thirty-four years old at the time of his death. 3 Hortulorum, in the plural number. This term, often found in Roman authors, not inaptly describes the vast number of little inclosures, consisting of vineyards, orchards of fig-trees, peaches, &c., with patches of tillage, in which maize, legumes, melons, pumpkins, and other vegetables are cultivated for sale, still found on small properties, in the south of Europe, particularly in the neighbourhood of towns. Suetonius has quoted these lines in the earlier part of his Life of Terence. See before, p. 532, where they are translated. to Nævius, Plautus, and Cæcilius, but also to Licinius. Cicero pays him this high compliment, in his Limo Tu quoque, qui solus lecto sermone, Terenti, Quidquid come loquens, ac omnia dulcia dicens. "You, only, Terence, translated into Latin, and clothed in choice language the plays of Menander, and brought them before the public, who, in crowded audiences, hung upon hushed applause Grace marked each line, and every period charmed.” So also Caius Cæsar: Tu quoque tu in summis, O dimidiate Menander, Cum Græcis, neque in hoc despectus parte jaceres ! "You, too, who divide your honours with Menander, will take your place among poets of the highest order, and justly too, such is the purity of your style. Would only that to your graceful diction was added more comic force, that your works might equal in merit the Greek masterpieces, and your inferiority in this particular should not expose you to censure. This is my only regret; in this, Terence, I grieve to say you are wanting." THE LIFE OF JUVENAL. 2 D. JUNIUS JUVENALIS, who was either the son' of a wealthy freedman, or brought up by him, it is not known which, declaimed till the middle of life, more from the bent of his inclination, than from any desire to prepare himself either for the schools or the forum. But having composed a short satire,' which was clever enough, on Paris, the actor of pantomimes, 1 Juvenal was born at Aquinum, a town of the Volscians, as appears by an ancient MS., and is intimated by himself. Sat. iii. 319. 2 He must have been therefore nearly forty years old at this time, as he lived to be eighty. 3 The seventh of Juvenal's Satires. 4 This Paris does not appear to have been the favourite of Nero, who was put to death by that prince [see NERO, c. liv.], but another person of and also on the poet of Claudius Nero, who was puffed up by having held some inferior military rank for six months only: he afterwards devoted himself with much zeal to that style of writing. For a while indeed, he had not the courage to read them even to a small circle of auditors, but it was not long before he recited his satires to crowded audiences, and with entire success; and this he did twice or thrice, inserting new lines among those which he had originally composed. Quod non dant proceres, dabit histrio, tu Camerinos, Et Bareas, tu nobilium magna atria curas. Præfectos Pelopea facit, Philomela tribunos. A surer means of rising than a lord's! When tribunes Pelopea can create And Philomela præfects, who shall rule the state?? At that time the player was in high favour at court, and many of those who fawned upon him were daily raised to posts of honour. Juvenal therefore incurred the suspicion of having covertly satirized occurrences which were then passing, and, although eighty years old at that time, he was immediately removed from the city, being sent into honourable banishment as præfect of a cohort, which was under orders to proceed to a station at the extreme frontier of Egypt. That the same name, who was patronised by the emperor Domitian. The name of the poet joined with him is not known. Salmatius thinks it was Statius Pompilius, who sold to Paris, the actor, the play of Agave; Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendat Agaven.-Juv. Sat. vii. 87. 1 Sulpicius Camerinus had been proconsul in Africa; Bareas Soranus in Asia. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 52; xvi. 23. Both of them are said to have been corrupt in their administration; and the satirist introduces their names as examples of the rich and noble, whose influence was less than that of favourite actors, or whose avarice prevented them from becoming the patrons of poets. 2 The "Pelopea," was a tragedy founded on the story of the daughter of Thyestes; the " Philomela," a tragedy on the fate of Itys, whose remains were served to his father at a banquet by Philomela and her sister Progne. 3 This was in the time of Adrian. Juvena., who wrote first in the reigns of Domitian and Trajan, composed his last Satire but one in the third year of Adrian, A.U.c. 872. Syene is meant, the frontier station of the imperial troops in that quarter of the world. sort of punishment was selected, as it appeared severe enough for an offence which was venial, and a mere piece of drollery. However, he died very soon afterwards, worn down by grief, and weary of his life. THE LIFE OF PERSIUS. AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS was born the day before the Nones of December [4th Dec.],' in the consulship of Fabius Persicus and L. Vitellius. He died on the eighth of the calends of December [24th Nov.], in the consulship of Rubrius Marius and Asinius Gallus. Though born at Volterra, in Etruria, he was a Roman knight, allied both by blood and marriage to persons of the highest rank. He ended his days at an estate he had at the eighth milestone on the Appian Way. His father, Flaccus, who died when he was barely six years old, left him under the care of guardians, and his mother, Fulvia Silenna, who afterwards married Fusius, a Roman knight, buried him also in a very few years. Persius Flaccus pursued his studies at Volterra till he was twelve years old, and then continued them at Rome, under Remmius Palæmon, the grammarian, and Verginius Flaccus, the rhetorician. Arriving at the age of twenty-one, he formed a friendship with Annæus Cornutus, which lasted through life; and from him he learned the rudiments of philosophy. Among his earliest friends were Cæsius Bassus, and Calpurnius Statura; the latter of whom died while Persius himself was yet in his youth. Servilius 1 A.U.C. 786. A.D. 34. 4 2 A.U.C. 814. A.D. 62. 3 Persius was one of the few men of rank and affluence among the Romans, who acquired distinction as writers; the greater part of them having been freedmen, as appears not only from these lives of the poets, but from our author's notices of the grammarians and rhetoricians. A Caius Persius is mentioned with distinction by Livy in the second Punic war, Hist. xxvi. 39; and another of the same name by Cicero, de Orat. ii. 6, and by Pliny; but whether the poet was descended from either of them, we have no means of ascertaining. 4 Persius addressed his fifth satire to Annæus Cornutus. He was a native of Leptis, in Africa, and lived at Rome in the time of Nero, by whom he was banished. 5 Cæsius Bassus, a lyric poet, flourished during the reigns of Nero and alba. Persius dedicated his sixth Satire to him. |