Later on, it was supplemented and continued by Sex. Aelius, who alias actiones composuit et librum populo dedit, qui appellatur ius Aelianum; cf. § 125, 2. MVOIGT (see § 49, 5) p. 328. Query whether there are extracts from the ius Flavianum in Probus de notis? MOMMSEN, Lpz. Ber. 1853, 133.

89. When the sources of the law had thus all become accessible, legal knowledge ceased to belong exclusively to the Patricians: among the earliest jurists we have, besides several Patricians, as the most eminent the Plebeians P. Sempronius Sophus and Tiberius Coruncanius, the first teacher of law.

1. POMPON. dig. 1, 2, 2. § 37 fuit maximae scientiae Sempronius, quem populus rom. copor appellavit (cos. 450/304, one of the first Plebeian pontifices 454/300, censor 455; PRE. 6, 974); C. Scipio Nasica, qui Optimus a senatu appellatus est (this must be an error, as the one who received, a. 550/204, the surname of Optimus, is in all other passages called Publ. and was consul 563/191; PRE. 2, 666), cui etiam publice domus in sacra via data est, quo facilius consuli posset. deinde Q. Mucius [? Bynkershoek conjectures Maximus] . . . § 38: post hos fuit Ti. Coruncanius, qui, ut dixi (§ 35), primus profiteri coepit. cuius tamen scriptum nullum extat, sed responsa complura et memorabilia eius fuerunt (feruntur Muretus). He was consul a. 474/280 and the first Plebeian pontifex maximus. PRE. 2, 722. ESCHRADER, Civilist. Magazin 5, 187.

...

2. It remains doubtful whether Sophus and Coruncanius owed their sacerdotal dignity to their legal knowledge or vice versâ; MOMMSEN, RG. 18, 469.

90. The most prominent figure of this period, in fact a man a century in advance of his own time, was Appius Claudius Caecus (censor 442/312, cos. 447/307 and 458/296), the great Patrician who abolished in the state the limitation of the full right of citizenship to landed proprietors, who broke through the old financial administration, from whom the Roman aqueducts and streets, the Roman jurisprudence, oratory and grammar date their beginning, and with whom begins also the first attempt at Latin prose-composition and at art-poetry.

1. His elogium: CIL. 1, p. 287 nr. 28 OR. 539 WILM. 628. PLIN. NH. 35, 12 posuit in Bellonae templo (founded by him a. 458/296) maiores suos placuitque in excelso spectari et titulos honorum legi. FRONTIN. aq. 1, 5 Ap. Claudio Crasso censore cui postea Caeco fuit cognomen. OHIRSCHFELD, Herm. 8, 476.—Generally MоммSEN, RG. 16, 454; Röm. Forsch. 1, 301.

2. POMPON. dig. 1, 2, 2, 36 App. Claudius. . . maximam scientiam habuit. hic Centemmanus appellatus est. Appiam viam stravit et aquam Claudiam induxit, et de Pyrrho in urbem non recipiendo sententiam tulit (the famous speech of a. 474/280, preserved long afterwards, see Cic. Brut. 55. 61. Cato m. 16. SEN. ep. 114, 13 TAC. dial. 18. 21. QUINT. 2, 16, 7). hunc etiam actiones scripsisse traditum est (he rather suggested the legis actiones of Flavius; Mommsen considers actiones to be an interpolation), primum de usurpationibus, qui liber non exstat. idem . . . R literam invenit (i.e. distinguished the two sounds r and s in writing, cf. MOMMSEN, RG. 1o, 470), ut pro Valesiis Valerii essent et pro Fusiis Furii. See, however, on this trans

ition HJORDAN, krit. Beitr. z. Gesch. d. lat. Spr. (Berl. 1879) 104. The removal of z from the alphabet is also ascribed to him (MARTIAN. CAP. 3, 261). HJORDAN 1.1. 155. LHAVET, rev. de philol. 2, 15. GMEYER, ZföG. 31, 122. Cf. § 93, 6.

3. Sollers iuris atque eloquentiae consultus, Liv. 10, 22; cf. 19. He was the first author who wrote down and published any prose work (see § 35, 1).

4. Cic. Tusc. 4, 4 mihi Appii Caeci carmen, quod valde Panaetius laudat epistola quadam quae est ad Q. Tuberonem, Pythagoricum videtur. Cf. FEST. 317 in Appii sententiis. Ps.-SALL. ad Caes. de rep. 1, 1, 2 quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae. Thus perhaps faber suae fortunae unusquisquest ipsus. PRISCIAN GL. 2, 384 Appius Caecus: amicum cum vides, obl(iv)iscere miserias etc. (a saturnian). FPR. 36.

II.

HISTORY OF ROMAN LITERATURE.

PART I.

THE TIME OF THE REPUBLIC AND OF AUGUSTUS.

First period: from Andronicus to the time of Sulla.
A. 514/240-670/84.

91. The centuries during which Rome possessed no literature are those of her real greatness. Her literature arose through the demands of school and stage, when the instruction gained by youths from accompanying their fathers to the market-place and into the Senate appeared no longer sufficient, and when the stage was expected to give continuous and more artistic exhibitions besides the customary uncouth farces and dances.

The Roman literature was from its very beginning under the influence of the Greek. The tentative beginnings of early Roman literary exertion could not develope and assert themselves, in contact with the externally isolated and internally perfect Greek literature which was penetrating into Rome. They were stunted and overpowered by the foreign influence even more than was the Roman faith under the pressure of the Greek. A Roman literature was first wakened into life by the Greek literature, and so developed itself at the expense of the genuine old Roman character.) But what Roman authorship lost through this involuntary surrender, its foreign teacher amply repaid by severe training, by guarding it against countless errors, and by

1) MOMMSEN RG. 1o, 876.

directing it to the highest examples. The Romans however showed in literature their characteristic strength and genius for assimilation, and made the foreign forms entirely their own.

The acquaintance with the Greek language and customs is of high antiquity in Italy and Rome. The Latin alphabet is of Greek origin (see below), and likewise the Roman system of weights and measures. We find Greek influence powerful from the time of the Tarquins, and it is proved even by the constitution of Servius and the character of the ludi romani); in religion it was fostered by the Sibylline books. Such names, too, as Cocles (Kúkλwy), Catamitus (Ganymedes) indicate an early connection. At the beginning of the 4th century u.c. the Roman legislation was improved by using that of Solon, and in the course of that century a separate place for the Greeks (Graecostasis) was made in the Roman forum. After the conquest of Campania, at the beginning of the 5th century u.c., this influence increased considerably such surnames as Philippus, Philo, Sophus, Agelastus, were no longer strange, the customs of reclining at dinner, of erecting monuments and epitaphs in memory of the departed, etc., were then adopted from the Greeks3); and when, at the close of that century, the contact with the Greek parts of the south of Italy became more frequent, the Roman nobles were already able to use the Greek language in their missions, the Roman sailors and traders having understood it even before. Through the numbers of Greek slaves and freedmen even the lower classes at Rome became acquainted with Greek.

Accordingly the effects were the more rapid and deep, when the first Punic war brought the manhood of Rome into close and lasting contact with Greek culture in Sicily. Thence a taste for refined enjoyments was imported, and it was probably no mere accident that, in the year after the close of the first Punic war (490/264-513/241), Andronicus was enabled to set up the drama at Rome, since which time performances were maintained continually. Even during the war with Hannibal (536/218–553/201) they went on uninterruptedly, inasmuch as most of Naevius' works and one half of Plautus' literary exertions (though perhaps the less fertile half) fall into the time of this war, in which the peculiar virtues of the Roman nation appeared once more in their most brilliant lustre. But when the fearful tension of all

2) MOмMSEN 16, 95. 228.

8) MOMMSEN 16, 452. Cf. § 83, 7,

powers which was necessitated by it had relaxed, when the feeling of having escaped an immense danger and the exultation at a final victory increased the relish of all the enjoyments of life1), literature also struck deeper roots at Rome, especially as its respectability had been secured by the grant of corporate rights to the poetae as early as 548/206. It also chanced a. 550/204 that M. Cato brought Ennius to Rome: the future chief of the old Roman party brought him who was destined soon to be the champion of the partisans of Greek literature. Thenceforth Porcius Licinus' words (in Gellius 17, 21) were daily more fully realised:

Poenico bello secundo Musa pinnato gradu

Intulit se bellicosam in Romuli gentem feram.5)

Patriotic men were grieved to witness the desertion of national customs and the increasing influence of the foreign element.")

The ambition of the aristocracy, increasing equally with their wealth, met the popular eagerness for sights half way; together with other popular amusements the dramatic performances were, therefore, eagerly attended; writing plays for them became a tolerably remunerative occupation, and thus besides and after Plautus we find Ennius, Pacuvius, Statius Caecilius, and Terence busily pursuing it. The wars with Philip III. of Macedonia (554/200-557/197) and still more the war with Antiochus (a. 563/191 sq.) contributed greatly to the downfall of the old Roman manners, though they also enlarged the intellectual horizon and put the conception of a universal Empire within nearer reach, increasing also the necessity of exchanging the original Roman character for Grecian civilisation and its cosmopolitan and refining tendencies. This, indeed, could not be done without mistakes. Unfortunately most Romans lacked the faculty of discriminating in the foreign element between the valuable or necessary and the inappropriate or harmful; without reserve or selection they threw themselves into the arms of Grecian civilisation, and were so dazzled by its brilliant lights that they overlooked its deep shadows. At first it was exclusively the

4) The Oscan Atellanae seem also to have come to Rome about this time;

nobles who adopted the new fashion; above all the circle of the Scipios esteemed and propagated Grecian culture, and also kept tolerably free from its exaggerations.7) Africanus the Elder manifested his desertion of the old Roman mode of thought especially by his familiar saying: numquam se minus esse otiosum quam cum otiosus esset;") and the occupation of his leisure becomes manifest from the charge of his adversaries, esp. Q: Fabius, a. 550/204, that he spent his time over old books and in gymnastics.") Another very respectable advocate of the Grecian tendency was L. Aemilius Paulus (c. 527/227-594/160). They both wrote and spoke Greek fluently, as did also T. Quinctius Flamininus (cos. 556/198), Ti. Gracchus (cos. 577/177. 591/163), C. Sulpicius Gallus (cos. 588/166), Cn. Octavius and in general all the annalists of the war with Hannibal (Fabius Pictor, Cincius, Acilius). Q. Labeo (cos. 571/183) and M. Laenas (cos. 581/173)

wrote verses.

Even Cato showed at least in Latin prose an eager literary activity, and he who had asserted that the Romans would forget how to act, under the influence of Greek literature, 10) was in his old age obliged to learn Greek himself. But already were the symptoms of the decay of the old Roman severity becoming more frequent,11) so much so that a man of the old stamp, like T. Manlius Torquatus, felt strange and solitary in his native town.12) With each generation, nay almost every year, these symptoms become more serious, in the breaking-up of family life, the contempt of law and order, and even of the national gods. The opposition of the adherents of the old system grew indeed in the same proportion; Cato the Elder especially waged fierce war against these tendencies in his censorship (a. 570/184).

But it was impossible to stop a process resulting from a

7) See NAEVIUS ap. Gell. NA. 7 (6) 8, 5. VAL. MAX. 6, 7, 1.

8) Cic. off. 3, 1. Cf. ABALDI, die Freunde und Förderer der griech. Bildung in Rom, Würzb. 1875; d. Gegner der griech. Bildung in Rom, Burghausen 1876. ADUPUY, de Graecis Romanorum amicis aut praeceptoribus, Brest 1879.

9) Liv. 29, 19 ad fin.

10) Cf. § 2, 1 and in PLIN. NH. 29, 14 quandoque ista gens suas literas dabit omnia corrumpet.

11) Liv. 26, 2, 15 (a. 543/211) eum (Cn. Fulvius) in ganea lustrisque, ubi iuventutem egerit, senectutem acturum.

12) Liv. 26, 22, 9 (a. 543/211) neque ego vestros mores consul ferre potero neque vos imperium meum. Cf. the frequent complaints of Plautus about the growing mores mali, e.g. Trin. 30. 531. 1028.