CHAPTER I THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF IMITATION In the life of Horace prefixed to Porphyrio's commentary we read: sermonum duos <libros> Lucilium secutus antiquissimum scriptorem. Here clearly the verb sequor implies imitation, but how did the ancient literary critic and the creative artist interpret such imitation? In what sense and under what limitations of personal temperament and contemporary taste did Horace "follow" his great predecessor Lucilius? The philological and aesthetic interpretation of the two words Lucilium secutus is the purpose of this book on Lucilius and Horace. To answer this question it is necessary, (1) to study the rhetorical theory of imitation and of literary composition current in the Scipionic period and the Augustan age, which, as we can see from the critical writings of Horace himself underlay all that he wrote. (2) It is necessary also by a searching examination of the fragments of Lucilius, and a close comparison of their themes, form, and language with the satires and epistles of Horace to determine the precise relation of Horatian to Lucilian satire. The first of these two questions I shall consider in my first three chapters, the second in the three succeeding chapters of this book. In these latter chapters I shall analyze the form and content. of the first and second books of Horace's satires and of the two books of his epistles. Such a division of the subject is justified not only by reason of the separate publication of the first book of the satires in 35 B.C., the second book in 30 B.C., and the epistles from 20 to 14 B.C., but by the fact that these three works represent three distinct stages in the aesthetic and creative development of Horace. In the first book of the satires Horace is trying his prentice hand. Here his dependence on Lucilius is most clearly discernible in theme, thought, tone, and at times even in language. In the second book while relations to Lucilius (sometimes quite as close) can still be clearly traced, there is visible a greater firmness of structure, a marked restraint in the employment of invective, and a growing tendency to the popular treatment of philosophical themes of Cynic and Stoic origin. The second book of the satires thus paves the way for the epistles, in which Horace moves for the most part quite unconsciously in the field which he has won for himself, casting only an occasional glance backward to his former master Lucilius.1 In this introductory chapter it will be necessary to examine certain problems of literary imitation among the Greeks and Romans, and in particular to consider the conscious formulation of certain theories of imitation by the Greek and Roman rhetoricians and literary critics.2 I shall try to show how far such aesthetic and rhetorical theories of imitation influenced literary composition. But since ancient rhetorical theory was firmly rooted in the study of the great masters in every genre, it is needless for my present purpose to give separate treatment to the work of the rhetorician and the literary artist. And in point of fact their functions were not mutually exclusive in antiquity. Both hold a large field in common, and both work with a common end in view, the perfection of the literary masterpiece. It will be possible to draw many illustrations of the principles underlying rhetorical imitation from the satires of Lucilius and Horace; but such conceptions circulate through and animate all the literary genres of the ancients: epic, tragedy, comedy, elegy, the pastoral, the philosophic dialogue, the scientific treatise. They do not confine the human spirit in a straitjacket, as would at first seem to be the case to us moderns, with our romantic theories of "expression," "originality,' "spontaneity." We may rather compare their effect to such physical systems as the circulation of the blood or the nervous system, which condition and animate the most varied types of physical activity. So these aesthetic systems suffuse and animate the human spirit in its task of expressing in enduring forms the ideals of truth and beauty. Now the aesthetic theories of the Greeks and Romans, as we shall see, never condemned imitation per se, provided the result was a work of art. Rather the general trend of ancient literary tradition, reenforced by the teaching of the rhetorical schools, and formulated by the treatises on literary criticism and rhetoric, was to regard the subject matter of an earlier master in any given genre as the common property of posterity. Hence the duty and privilege of the heir to such a noble heritage is, working in the spirit of generous rivalry, to follow in the steps of his master, to preserve unimpaired the essentials of the great tradition, to perpetuate that ordered freedom which conditioned the growth in Greece and the continuation in Rome of all the literary genres. While artistic imitation was thus recognized and approved by ancient critical opinion plagiarism was condemned. The ancients understood by plagiarism close verbal imitation or even free paraphrase, especially if the imitator made no direct acknowledgment of his sources, or even deliberately concealed them. Thus the classic example of plagiarism is found in Martial 1, 53 and 1, 66. Fidentius gave a reading of certain unpublished poems of Martial as if they were his own compositions, subsequently publishing them in his own name. Hence Martial calls him both thief (fur) and plagiarius (1,52,9). That is, as poet, he is the dominus of his works as a master is of his slaves. He manumits them as it were by publication. He therefore humorously appeals to the lex de plagiariis of the consul Q. Fabius Verrucosus 209 B.C. against the plagiator who laid claim to them as his own, and calls upon Quintianus, a rich patron, to appear in his behalf as the assertor libertatis, thus protecting the poet's right to his property. Similarly in epistles 1, 3, 15-20, Horace speaks of frequent warnings given to Celsus against excessive dependence upon the works in the new library of Apollo on the Palatine, advises him to depend on his own resources, and not to strut like the crow in borrowed plumage.3 The successor to a great tradition in any genre must clearly avoid plagiarism. Nevertheless, according to the ancient point of view ample scope was provided for his originality by the high privilege of retelling the ancient message with such additions, omissions, and transformations in the subject matter, and above all, with such stylistic perfection as would inevitably result in a work of art. According to this conception, a work of literary art expresses the result of ages of discrimination devoted to the attainment of a free and harmonious union of form and thought. At the same time it satisfies the sensuous, ethical, and aesthetic ideals of contemporary life and is redolent of that life. This conception of the function of the creative artist, which we may call the Classical Tradition, is closely bound up with imitation in the sense in which I have just defined that term. Its eternal antinomy is the Romantic Tradition, according to which, like Minerva the work of art springs fully armed from the head of each creative Jove. Thus in the body of this study I shall try to show that Horace in keeping with these general aesthetic and critical laws of composition and he has himself constantly given utterance to them in his critical works-found the themes of many of his satires in Lucilius, just as Lucilius, in his turn, had found certain of his themes in the popular dialogues of the Cynics and Stoics with their frank criticism of contemporary Hellenistic life. Our judgment of Horace as a satirist, therefore, should be based on that of antiquity, or at least should take antiquity's judgment as a point of departure. We should regard Horace as an author, who gathered the themes of many of his satires as Shakespeare did the plots of his plays, who then following the broad outlines of his Lucilian themes, transmitted them and contemporized them with such perfection of literary art as to mirror in his satires and epistles both the everyday life and the higher aesthetic and social ideals of the Augustan age. Like his great successor Juvenal he knew that the true subject of satire is the struggle, ever won-yet ever lost-between the activities of man, the outward expression of his seething emotions, and the ever changing stream of life down which he is swept: quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Horace, indeed, as we may see from his own words, regarded himself, except in style, as the follower of Lucilius. Thus in sat. 1, 10, 46 ff. he tells us that after the unsuccessful experiments of Varro Atacinus he felt that he could attain a |