334 LATIN LANGUAGE
It is needless to dwell upon the grammar or vocabulary of Cicero. His language is universally taken as the normal type of Latin; and, as hitherto the history of the language has been traced by marking differences from his usage, so the same method may be followed for what remains.
Varro.
M. Terentius Varro, "the most learned of the ancients," a friend and contemporary of Cicero, seems to have rejected the periodic rhythmical style of Cicero, and to have fallen back upon a more archaic structure. Mommsen says of one passage "the clauses of the sentence are arranged on the thread of the relative like thrushes on a string." But, in spite (some would say, because) of his old-fashioned tendencies, his language shows great vigour and spirit. In his Menippean satires he intentionally made free use of plebeian expressions, while rising at times to a real grace and showing often fresh humour. His treatise De Re Rustica, in the form of a dialogue, is the most agreeable of his works, and where the nature of his subject allows it there is much vivacity and dramatic picturesqueness, although the precepts are necessarily given in a terse and abrupt form. His sentences are as a rule co-ordinated, with but few connecting links; his diction contains many antiquated or unique words.
Sallust.
In Sallust, a younger contemporary of Cicero, we have the earliest complete specimen of historical narrative. It is probably due to his subject-matter, at least in part, that his style is marked by frequent archaisms; but something must be ascribed to intentional imitation of the earlier chroniclers, which led him to be called "priscorum Catonisque verborum ineruditissimus fur." His archaisms consist partly of words and phrases used in a sense for which we have only early authorities, e.g., cum animo habere, &c., animos tollere, bene factum, consultor, prosapia, dolus, venenum, obsequela, inquies, sallere, occipere, collibeo, and the like, where we may notice especially the fondness for frequentatives, which he shares with the early comedy; partly in inflexions which were growing obsolete, such as senati, solui, comperior (dep.), neglegisset, vis (acc. pl.), nequitur. In syntax his constructions are for the most part those of the contemporary writers.[1]
Lucretius.
In Lucretius and Catullus we have examples of the language of poetry of the same period. The former is undoubtedly largely archaic in his style. We find im for eum, endo for in, illae, ullae, unae, and aliae as genitives, alid for aliud, rabies as a genitive by the side of genitives in -ai, ablatives in -i like colli, orbi, parti, nominatives in s for r, like colos, vapos, hunnos. In verbs there are scatit, fulgit, quaesit, confluxet = confluxisset, recesse = recessisse, induiacere for inicere; simple forms like fligere, lacere, cedere, stinguere for the more usual compounds, the infinitive passive in -ier, and archaic forms from esse like siet, escit, fuat. Sometimes he indulges in tmesis which reminds us of Ennius: inque pediri, disque supata, ordia prima. But this archaic tinge is adopted only for poetical purposes, and as a practical proof of his devotion to the earlier masters of his art; it does not affect the general substance of his style, which is of the freshest and most vigorous stamp. But the purity of his idiom is not gained by any slavish adherence to a recognized vocabulary: he coins words freely; Mr Munro has noted more than a hundred (
Greek characters), or words which he alone among good writers uses. Many of these are formed on familiar models, such as compounds and frequentatives; others are directly borrowed from the Greek apparently with a view to sweetness of rhythm (ii. 412; v. 33 i, 505); others again (forty or more in number) are compounds of a kind which the classical language refused to adopt, such as silvifragus, terriloquus, perterricrepus. He represents not so much a stage in the history of the language as a protest against the tendencies fashionable in his own time. But his influence was deep upon Virgil, and through him upon all subsequent Latin literature.
Catullus.
In Catullus we have the type of the language of the cultivated circles, lifted into poetry
by the simple directness with which it is used to express emotion. In his heroic and elegiac poems he did not escape the influence of the Alexandrian school, and his genius is ill suited for long-continued flights; but in his lyrical poems his language is altogether perfect. As Macaulay says, "No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great Athenian models are all in Catullus, and in him alone of the Romans." The language of these poems comes nearest perhaps to that of Cicero's more intimate letters. It is full of colloquial idioms and familiar language, of the diminutives of affection or of playfulness. Greek words are rare, especially in the lyrics, and those which are employed are only such as had come to be current coin. Archaisms are but sparingly introduced; but for metrical reasons he has four instances of the inf. pass. in -ier, and several contracted forms; we find also alis and alid, uni (gen.), and the antiquated tetuli and recepso. There are traces of the popular language in the shortened imperatives cavĕ and manĕ, in the analytic perfect paratam habes, and perhaps in the use of unus approaching that of the indefinite article.
Horace.
The poets of the Augustan age mark the opening of a new chapter in the history of the Latin language. The influence of Horace was comparatively slight; he worked in a field of his own, and, although Statius imitated his lyrics, and Persius and Juvenal, especially the former, his satires, on the whole there are few traces of any deep marks left by him on the language of later writers. In his Satires and Epistles the diction is that of the contemporary urbanitas, differing hardly at all from that of Cicero in his epistles and dialogues. The occasional archaisms, such as the syncope in erepsemus, evasse, surrexe, the infinitives in -ier, and the genitives deum, divum, and nummum may be explained as still conversationally allowable, though ceasing to be current in literature; and a similar explanation may account for plebeian terms, e.g., balatro, blatero, garrio, mutto, vappa, caldus, soldus, surpite, for the numerous diminutives, and for such pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and turns of expression as were common in prose, but not found, or found but rarely, in elevated poetry. Greek words are used sparingly, not with the licence which he censures in Lucilius, and in his hexameters are inflected according to Latin rules. In the Odes, on the other hand, the language is much more precisely limited. There are practically no archaisms (spargier in Carm. iv. 11, 8 is a doubtful exception), or plebeian expressions; Greek inflexions are employed, but not with the licence of Catullus; there are no datives in ĭ or sĭn like Tethyĭ or Dryasin; Greek constructions are fairly numerous, e.g., the genitive with verbs like regnare, abstinere, desinere, and with adjectives, as integer vitae, the so-called Greek accusative, the dative with verbs of contest, like luctari, decertare, the transitive use of many intransitive verbs in the past participle, as regnatus, triumphatus; and finally there is a "prolative" use of the infinitive after verbs and adjectives, where prose would have employed other constructions, which, though not limited to Horace, is more common with him than with other poets. Compounds are very sparingly employed, and apparently only when sanctioned by autho-
- ↑ The character of archaism has been denied to his style by Dean Merivale; and it is true that in the matter of orthography the forms which Sallust adopts, as Corssen has shown, were at least as common in his time as those which became afterwards the rule; but, when we compare his diction with that of Cicero, there is quite enough difference to justify the usual view; and the fact that some of his expressions are found in later writers only goes to show that they imitated him in this respect.
