The Latin Spirit in Literature

THE LATIN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE CHARLES N. COCHRANE F ACED with the problem of depicting the spirit of Rome, the question may well be asked, to begin with: who were the Roman people? The mists that obscure the dawn of , Roman history rise to disclose the city of the Seven Hills. But is there any connection, apart from the name which they held in common, between the spear-bearing populace of the Servian city and the citizens of an empire 'which, nine centuries later, "comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilized portion of mankind"? And who, moreover" of all the names that appear in Roman history,. are to be taken as most typically Roman? Are they the Valerii, the Camilli, the Decii, those colourless heroes of the primitive commonwealth, rather than, fbr ex;ample, the Catos, the Scipios and the Gracchi of the second century B.C., or, again, . the Caesars and Pompeys of the last days of the republic? What connection, in turn, may be discerned between the senatorial aristocracy whose very names were extinguished in the agony of the republic , and that of imperial times when 'the provinces of Spain, Gaul and Africa gave not merely senators but emperors to Rome; or between these latter and men like Diocletian, Constantine and Theodosius? The long gallery of Roman statesmen contains figures of the most diverse origin and ch1racter. The same is true of the writers whose labours created Latin literature and indirectly, through it, the various literatures of modern Europe--Sallust, Cicero and Caesar, Lucretius and Vergil, Livy and Tacitus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Boethius-to name no more. THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY The list is far from exhaustive; but it will serve to recall a fact which no student can afford to neglect, viz., that provincials as well as Italians, and Christians no less than pagans, made their contribution to Latin letters. There are, indeed, good grounds for asserting that even Cicero and Vergil should not be regarded as final exponents and interpreters of the Roman spirit, their true role being rather that of pioneers, in precisely the same sense in which the Eternal City was but the prototype and model of the City of God. For it was the function, especially, of Latin Christianity to point out how and why the Empire of Rome fell short of that ideal of permanence and universality to which she aspired, while endeavouring, at the same time, to do justice to her solid and substantial achievements as the mother' of civilization in the west. And it is unjust to stop short of these last models of Latinity in any attempt to estimate the significance of Latin letters, whether from the standpoint of sincerity, originality and power, or from that of their influence upon the thought and imagination of posterity. Not that at any time, perhaps, did Roman literature afford the fullest and most adequate expression of the national genius. For nearly seven centuries, indeed, the Latin muse was dumb and, except for rustic farces, annalistic chronicles, and certain adaptations of Greek comedy made by Plautus and Terence, the Romans were practically illiterate. Even in the days of Sallust, a man felt that some apology was needed for putting pen to paper. Sallust's explanation of the backward state of Latin letters, that all the most intelligent people were engaged in business1 reveals the fact that literature was hardly less foreign to the contemporary society of 1 Cat. 8, 5 prudentissimus (J.uisque maxime negotiosus. 316 THE LATIN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE -statesmen, landlords and financiers than it had been to the nation of intelligent peasants which constituted the early commonwealth. Nevertheless, if Mommsen 1S to be trusted, it was in the century which preceded the outbreak of the First Punic War that the moral and political vitality of the Roman people reached its apogee; and, at least throughout republican and early imperial times, n· o one would deny them either boldness and originality in the conception, or resolution and endurance in the execution of their designs.· If these qualities are somewhat imperfectly reflected in Latin literature, the reasons-are partly inherent in the Roman temperament...