CHAPTER IV.

PAGAN CULTURE.

Up to the end of this period the grammatical schools and the aristocracy of Rome kept up the traditions of the old pagan culture.

FIRMICUS MATERNUS.

One of its most curious expressions was a work begun in the reign of Constantine, and completed some twenty years. later under Constantius, by Firmicus Maternus, a Sicilian of rank, who addressed himself to Sollianus, a provincial governor of high reputation who had received the consular insignia. Maternus himself was a retired advocate, who had magnanimously renounced the gains of a profession in which he had personally found quarrels more plentiful than pay, in order to devote himself to astrology, on which he wrote eight books, which have reached us in a tolerably complete condition, though the mention of Alchimia (iii. 15) proves that it must have been interpolated after science, and what passed for science, had passed into the hands of the Arabs.

He seems to know nothing of Manilius; for he boasts in winding up the seven books which contain the exposition of his doctrine-the first is occupied with a defence of his science that he had "delivered to men of Rome the method of a new subject." His sources are, for the most part, suspicious enough, the "revelations of Mercurius and Euichnus to Æsculapius," with "the explanations of Petosiris and Necepso, and the lessons of Abraham, Orpheus, and Critodemus." Necepso, it seems, was in virtue of his science one of the most righteous emperors of Egypt; but he did not know the secrets of the "barbarian sphere," which Maternus himself is able to expound. In other words, the later apocryphal literature was

fuller than the earlier. His work has been little read in modern times, and has not been edited since the middle of the sixteenth century, and then the editor was an astrologer. His style, he tells us, is not his strong point, and apparently he had not the mathematical knowledge to make a great calculator. His results are, of course, of little interest. His temper is curious and not unedifying. He feels much more strongly the solemnizing effect of the thought that our earthly life and all its actions are wrought out by the influence of the bright, pure spheres of heaven than the temptation to throw the blame of our misdoing on the stars: the knowledge that we are in the hands of heaven ought to make us study to conform ourselves to heaven. His science, which he calls divina mathesis, "divine learning," is neither Antinomian nor irreligious; there had been a time when, instead of propitiating the gods, men had sought to learn their fate from the stars; but to Maternus the starry influences only give reality and substance to the traditional worship: like modern writers, he maintains that piety is strengthened by accepting the results of science. And the priesthood of science are to lead a stricter life than the priesthood of the old official worship. They are above all things to beware of making a gain of their profession or handing their knowledge on to unsuitable recipients. Especially must they be careful to avoid private consultations, which might be on matters on which it was criminal to speculate, as public business or the personal destiny of the emperor, though every well-instructed astrologer ought to know and teach that the emperor is not subject to the stars they in heaven, he on earth, are set to rule the world by the principal divinity; they and he are gods alike.

FIRMICUS MATERNUS.

Another Firmicus Maternus, also a Sicilian, wrote, probably after Sapor's unsuccessful siege of Nisibis, A.D. 346 (the only Persian defeat which fell in Constantius's reign), an impassioned appeal to the emperors to suppress idolatry, and to his heathen contemporaries to forsake "the error of their profane religions." His work is only interesting for its vehemence,

and for the numerous indications it contains of the point which the Eleusinian and other mysteries had reached in the middle of the fourth century.

JULIUS OBSEQUENS.

A little earlier or later, Julius Obsequens compiled from Livy all the prodigies recorded between 249 and 12 B.C., obviously intending to select wonders in support of the old faith which had occurred in the full daylight of history.

DICTYS AND DARES.

The same feeling found a fantastical expression in the translation of the apocryphal histories of the Trojan war by Dictys the Cretan, the official historian of Idomeneus, and Dares the Phrygian. Dares was selected to give the Trojan side of the story because he is mentioned both in the Iliad and the Eneid, where he figures as a braggart, and Dictys the Cretan is the contemporary Greek, selected because the Cretans were liars. Neither of these motives at all affects the translators, who take their originals quite seriously, especially the translator and abbreviator of Dares, who assumes the person of Cornelius Nepos, and explains, in a prefatory letter to Sallust, the stir the discovery of the work has made at Athens, where Homer is finally discredited, having always been regarded with suspicion because he described the gods as engaging in single combat with men. It is only Dares who competes directly with Homer, for Dictys confines himself to supplementing the Iliad. The translation of Dictys is rather in the style of Sallust; the translator is one Septimius, who dedicates his translation to Q. Aradius Rufinus; two statesmen of the name were in high office, one in A.D. 304-312, the other succeeded to his uncle's position under Julian in A.D. 363. The original was, according to the preface, discovered in the tomb of Dictys, in Phoenician characters, in consequence of an earthquake in the reign of Nero, who immediately ordered a translation into Greek. Dares was quoted by Ælian; the translator, having no style in particular, gives no clue to his date; he has carefully preserved all the

personal portraits of the heroes and heroines. He professes to have translated literally, following the simple style of the original, and, allowing for omissions, this may be tolerably true.

VICTORINUS.

A Platonic philosopher of this period has a reputation rather in excess of his intrinsic importance, because he once made a great impression upon St. Augustin, who heard, just before the final crisis of his own conversion, how the celebrated philosopher and rhetorician had publicly acknowledged Christ in his old age, and renounced his profession when Julian forbade Christians to teach the liberal sciences. His translations of Platonic writers have disappeared: they are a sign that the transfer of the capital had diminished the number of Romans who as a matter of course knew Greek. His translation of Porphyry's "Introduction to Aristotle's Categories" was still in the hands of Isidore of Seville; but apparently his reputation was that of a grammarian and rhetorician. He was rewarded for his success as a teacher with a statue in Trajan's forum, where celebrities of a certain magnitude found their way at this period with suspicious regularity. Several grammatical works have reached us with his name, of which four books on metre may possibly be genuine: it is a mere compilation, and is said to be founded on Juba, a writer of Diocletian's day. As the MS. ends with an inscription to Ælius Festus Apollonius, it has been observed that Victorinus may have done nothing more than abridge. After his conversion he wrote against the Arians, and on the epistles of St. Paul. St. Jerome speaks slightingly of both works, because the writer knew the classics better than the Bible and ecclesiastical writers. The work against the Arians has reached us, with two treatises, one a reply to an individual Arian, Candidus, the other on "the reality of the Incarnation," addressed to Justin, a Manichee. A little tract on "The evening and the morning were one day" is interesting as anticipating an idea of St. Augustin's, that the evening figures the perception of the creature in itself, the morning figures the perception of the creature in God.

DONATUS.

Donatus, a contemporary of Victorinus, confined himself to grammar: he had the honor of being the master of St. Jerome, who in his chronicle puts the heights of his reputation AD. 356. His grammar has reached us in two forms, a shorter which only treats of the eight parts of speech, and a longer in three books, which formed the foundation of the mediæval study of grammar: he also wrote a commentary on Terence. We still have an essay on comedy and tragedy, and a commentary on the Heautontimorumenos, which embodies a good deal of material from him, the principal source of the rest being Euanthius, a contemporary grammarian of Constantinople. He also copied Suetonius's Life of Terence, with some short additions. He commented on Vergil in a comprehensive spirit, though Ribbeck thinks that the extracts of Servius and Priscian suggest a very unfavorable view of the results.

CHARISIUS AND DIOMEDES.

As there was little room for more than one or two celebrated grammarians at a time in Rome, it is generally supposed that Charisius and Diomedes, who by their quotations cannot have flourished earlier, belonged to a later generation. In substance they, especially Diomedes, agree with Donatus, who no doubt followed substantially the same authorities, though he quotes less than Diomedes and much less than Charisius, whose five books are valued as containing the best record now available of the activity of Latin grammarians as far back as Palæmon in the days of Tiberius. He has been identified, by a not improbable emendation of St. Jerome's chronicle, with an African who was sent for to succeed Euanthius at Constantinople in 361. His work is addressed to his son, who is not a Roman, and is intended to make him one in heart and speech, if not in race. There is a good deal of confusion in his work, of which the beginning of the first book, the end of the fourth, and most of the fifth is lost, because he cannot combine the old grammatical treatises on

1 Charisius for Charistus.

1