CHAPTER V

THE SATIRES OF BOOK II

Horace published the second book of satires in the year 30 B.C. During the interval of five years since the publication of the first book the passions aroused by the controversy as to the merits of Lucilian satire had cooled. The publication of the first book of the satires had at least settled the question that a revival of the Lucilian genre in the sense apparently advocated by Valerius Cato and his followers among the novi poetae and professional Grecizing critics1 was no longer possible. Satire must be modified in diction, style, and tone to make it acceptable to the more urbane Augustan age. In these essential points Horace, not his opponents, had carried the day. And yet Horace himself had probably come to feel that the strictures of these opponents that his work was nimis acer2 were in some measure justified. No longer could he regard as truly Augustan such direct Lucilian studies as the second satire or such bitterly waged literary controversies as that contained in the tenth satire. His position in the circle of Maecenas was now assured. The time was now ripe, therefore, for a more dispassionate statement of Horace's views upon Lucilius and his work, for a judgment matured by a larger experience with life, and moulded by contemporary criticism. It was especially necessary in publishing a second collection of satires in the Lucilian form to emphasize again the fact that his previous criticism had in the main been based on aesthetic rather than on ethical grounds. Again, the consciousness that the public had recognized Horace's mastery of the satiric form made it unnecessary to repeat for a third time his unchanging belief that brevity and discrimination of phrase, carefulness of finish, variety of movement, and urbane restraint were aesthetic elements essential to satire.

On the other hand, Horace now found himself in complete sympathy with two essential characteristics of Lucilian satire. In the first place, Lucilius had learned from his studies in the Old Comedy and in the loose satiric forms of the popular Cynic

and Stoic philosophers to imitate the rappηoia of his older masters and the didactic frankness of these later masters. This appears in his outspoken attack upon Accius, Afranius, and other literary opponents, in the virulence of such political satires as those against Lupus and Metellus, and in his strictures upon the political incapacity of the nobility and the populace.5 On the other hand, like the literary and moral censors of every age, he tolerated no attack upon himself. This we may see from the libel suit brought before the court of Caelius against a comic poet who had assailed him by name."

In the first satire of the second book, then, Horace asserts the satirist's right to freedom of speech. He makes this right essential to the very existence of satire. Stylistically, however, he finds it necessary to reemphasize the fundamental difference between the grand style of epic and the studied informality of the conversational satire or sermo written in the plain style. In line 12 he too makes the acknowledgment which had become a literary convention in the Augustan age that his powers are inadequate for epic:

deficiunt.

cupidum, pater optime, vires

In frank assertion and in disclaimer Horace can be shown to be following a traditional treatment of this scheme found in a satire in Lucilius, book 26.7

But the legal conditions under which satire could be produced in the Augustan age formed a very real restriction upon the freedom of speech traditional in satire. We are upon the eve of the stricter interpretation and application of the laws for libel and maiestas. There is a touch of serious anxiety beneath the jest upon the mala and bona carmina with which the satire closes.8

In the second place Lucilius made his satire a medium of personal confession. He frankly reveals his personal habits and life, his views upon contemporary men and manners. This characteristic sprang from the utter sincerity of the man. It is, however, probably not fanciful to regard it as influenced by Lucilius' acquaintance with the Greek Tоμvýμara, as developed in the popular philosophic literature of Cynics and Stoics. Horace also found himself in perfect accord with this more

amiable characteristic of Lucilian satire. He thus established the note of personal confession as a part of the tradition of the satiric genre. His dependence upon Lucilius in this respect is frankly recognized in this satire in lines 28-34.

In frankness of speech and fullness of self-revelation, therefore, Horace asserts that he is the spiritual heir of Lucilius. In coupling these two points together Horace seems to be following no direct Lucilian model, though he draws freely from material found in Lucilius, books 26 and 30.10 Thus Lucilius also seems to have defended his right to the fullest and freest criticism of contemporary life, advancing the plea that everything that he wrote was an inevitable expression of his nature. In this general sense we may consider that certain portions of these satires have influenced this satire of Horace," to which I now turn.

I begin with a consideration of two points related rather to the general atmosphere and setting of the satire than to any question of direct verbal imitation. These are (1) the origin of the legal setting of the Horatian satire, and (2) the origin of the passages in which Horace expresses his creed that satiric freedom of utterance must be maintained because it is an assertion of the right of freedom of thought and of sincerity.

In the fifth satire, book 30, lines 1078-1098, we have a number of fragments dealing with political and legal questions, which may have suggested the legal setting of Horace's satire. These fragments 1089, 1088, 1093, 1098, 1078, have been brilliantly and convincingly interpreted by Cichorius,12 as referring to the political events between the years 129 and 123 B.C. Thus 1089 refers to the undue severity meted out to the revolting allies by the destruction of Fregellae. 1088 refers to the passage of the Lex Iunia Penni in 126 B.C., by which the Italian allies resident at Rome lost legal status, and were ordered to be deported. 1093 and 1098 refer to the death of Scipio, and to the unfair charges of tyranny made against him in his lifetime. 1078 refers to his services in the cavalry, equo publico.

Now it is obvious that the prevalence at Rome of such an embittered public opinion against Italians would be most unfavorable to Lucilius, and especially would tend to restrict his freedom as a satirist. Marx,13 indeed, believes that Lucilius was

an Italian, not a Roman citizen, in which case his position since the death of Scipio would be especially precarious. Cichorius,14 however, asserts that Lucilius was a Roman citizen. Whichever may be the correct view, it is certain that Lucilius was silent from 123 B.C., the period just after the passage of the Lex Iunia Penni until 119 B.C., when the second book of the satires appeared. It therefore seems probable to me that this fifth satire of book 30, written between 129 and 123, connected these references to political conditions at Rome, so inimical to bold political criticism, with the idea that in this period of enforced silence, so clearly approaching, Lucilius should write a personal epic to celebrate the exploits of Sempronius Tuditanus in the Istrian war.15 Lucilius, while courteously rejecting such an idea (1086), apparently reasserted passionately his intention to continue as the guardian of political and social morality. We should then have a legal and literary situation of some general similarity to that which Horace in conscious recollection of his great predecessor seeks to paraphrase at the beginning of the second book.

From this point of view Lejay's summary of the libel laws of Rome gains new point. Later in the reign of Augustus, Cassius Severus16 was actually banished for defamatory writings and the lex maiestatis revived. Even before that period there must have been an influential body of public opinion inimical to freedom of speech. As Lejay says:17 Le satire des moeurs privées exposait à des risques definis. Si l'on nommait des personnes vivantes, comme faisait Horace, on pouvait toujours être conduit devant le préteur. C'est sur ce point que le poete veut consulter Trebatius. That Horace felt this danger is shown by the limited extent to which he indulged in the satire des moeurs privées in the second book, as tested by the investigation of Filbey.18 Again Seneca de beneficiis 3, 27, 1 tells us that: sub divo Augusto nondum hominibus verba sua periculosa erant, iam molesta. The immediate cause of Horace's first satire, then, was perhaps a desire to make the traditional satiric plea for freedom of speech in the form of a humorous sally against undue sensitiveness to the application of the laws on mala carmina. Trebatius Testa, equally famous as a learned iuris consultus and as a humorist, was a happy foil for the figure

of the anxious satirist.

No one could better suggest to Roman readers the attitude which Horace believed the law should take. Perhaps it was still early enough to laugh away repressive tendencies which might later become dangerous to the state and the individual.19 At any rate, in dedicating the second book of his satires, Horace could define his own position on the great question of satiric freedom of speech in a satire which would recall to all the attitude taken by Lucilius in one of his boldest satires, written at a critical period for himself and the state.

But free speech is endurable only upon the assumption of complete sincerity of motive, and upon complete revelation of the speaker's most intimate ideals in regard to the social and ethical problems of his day. This is the atmosphere which pervades both the satires in book 26 and in book 30 of Lucilius and this satire of Horace.

In two passages in the first satire of book 26, Lucilius asserted that his message was sincere for it came from the heart and must therefore be delivered and heard, whatever its literary form might be. These fragments are 590 and 633. 590 is as follows:20

ecfero versum.

ego ubi quem ex praecordiis

In 633 we find expressed the same moral compulsion to satiric composition coupled with the conventional satiric indifference to artistic expression:

-evadet saltem aliquid aliqua, quod conatus sum.

Similarly, Horace, though with ironic reserve, asserts in three passages that he will follow Lucilius in the faithful transcription of life as he sees it. Thus in line 6 when Trebatius Testa categorically advises him not to write satire he answers: peream male, si non

optimum erat: verum nequeo dormire.

In lines 24 to 34 he shows that all men are allowed to follow their bent. Why then should he who has a knack for simple metrical composition after the style of Lucilius be checked?

With this Horatian context we may compare21 Lucilius 628 and 629 where Lucilius similarly invokes the argument of