Roman traders in their country, and then crossing the Rhine ravaged Gaul and the Germanies. M. Lollius the legate led his troops to engage them; but they laid an ambush for the cavalry, which was in advance, and routed it. In the pursuit they came unexpectedly on Lollius himself, and defeated him, taking the eagle of the fifth legion. The intelligence of this disgrace caused, as we have seen, Augustus to set out for Gaul; but the Germans did not wait for his arrival, and when he came they obtained a truce on giving hostages. Augustus remained nearly three years in Gaul. When leaving it (741) he committed the defence of the German frontier to his stepson Drusus. His departure emboldened the Sicambrians and their allies to resume hostilities, and as disaffection appeared likely to spread among the Gauls, Drusus took care to secure their leading men by inviting them to Lugdunum (Lyons) under pretext of the festival which was to be celebrated at the altar raised there in honour of Augustus: then watching the Germans when they passed the Rhine, he fell on and cut them to pieces, and crossing that river himself, he entered the country of the Usipetans, and thence advanced into that of the Sicambrians, laying both waste (742). He embarked his troops on the Rhine and entered the ocean, and sailing along the coast formed an alliance with the Frisians who inhabited it. His slight vessels, however, being stranded by the ebb of the tide on the coast of the Chaucans, he was indebted for safety to his Frisian allies. He then led his troops back, and put them into winter-quarters. In the spring (743) he again crossed the Rhine, and completed the subjection of the Usipetans; and taking advantage of the absence of the Sicambrian warriors, who had marched against the Cattans on account of their refusal to join their league, he threw a bridge over the Lippe (Lupia), and marching rapidly through the Sicambrian country and entering that of the Cheruscans, advanced as far as the Weser (Visurgis). Want of supplies, however, forced the Romans to return without passing that river. In their retreat they were harassed by the Germans, and on one occasion they fell into an ambush, where they were only saved from destruction by the excessive confidence of the enemy, who, regarding them as already conquered, attacked them in disorder, and were therefore easily repelled by the disciplined legionaries. Drusus built a fort at the confluence of the Elison and the Lippe, and another in the Cattan country on the Rhine, and then returned to Gaul for the winter. The following year (744), Augustus, on account of the German war, went and took up his abode at Lugdunum, while Drusus again crossed the Rhine, and carried on the war against the Sicambrian league, which had now been joined by the Cattans, who became in consequence the principal sufferers. At the end of the campaign Augustus and his stepsons returned to Rome. The next year (745) Drusus passed the Rhine for the fourth time. He laid waste the Cattan territory, whence he advanced into Suevia, which he treated in a similar manner, routing all that resisted him; then entering the Cheruscan country, he crossed the Weser, and advanced till he reached the Elbe (Albis), wasting all on his way. Having made a fruitless effort to pass this river, he led back his troops to the Rhine; but his horse having fallen with him on the way, he received so much injury by the fall, that he died before he reached the banks of that stream*. His body was conveyed to Rome, where the funeral orations were pronounced by Augustus and Tiberius, and his ashes were deposited in the Julian monument. The title of Germanicus was decreed to him and his children, and among other honours a cenotaph was raised by the army on the bank of the Rhine. Drusus was only in his thirtieth year when he thus met with his untimely fate. He was married to the younger daughter of Octavia by M. Antonius the triumvir, by whom he had several children; but only three, Germanicus, Claudius and Livilla, survived their father. The character of Drusus stood high both as a soldier and a citizen; and it was generally believed that he intended to restore the republic, if ever he should possess the requisite powert. It is even said that at one time he wrote to his brother proposing to compel Augustus to re-establish the popular freedom, but that Tiberius showed the letter to his stepfather. Some even, in the usual spirit of calumniating Augustus, went so far as to hint that he caused Drusus to be taken off by poison when he neglected to give instant obedience to his mandate of recall, issued in consequence of that information §. Death had already (743) deprived Augustus of his sister Octavia, and within two years after the loss of Drusus he had *Livy, Epit. 140. Strab. vii. p. 447. ↑ Suet. Claud. 1. Suet. Tih. 50. § Suet. Claud. 1. Tac. Ann. i. 33. to lament that of Mæcenas, his early friend, adviser, and minister, who died toward the end of the year 746, leaving him his heir, notwithstanding the affair of Terentia. Mæcenas was a man in whom were united the apparently opposite characters of the refined voluptuary and the able and judicious statesman. When called on to exert himself in public affairs, no man displayed more foresight, vigour, and activity; but the moment he could withdraw from them, he hastened to relax into an ease and luxury almost more than feminine. Satisfied with the abundance of wealth which he derived from the bounty of Augustus, and content with having the power to bestow honours and offices on others, he sought them not for himself, and to the end of his life he remained a simple member of the equestrian order in which he had been born. It does not appear, that like Agrippa, he devoted his wealth to the improvement or ornament of the city; but he was the patron, and in some cases the benefactor, of men of letters; and while the poetry of Virgil and Horace shall be read (and when shall it not?), the name of Mæcenas will be pronounced with honour by thousands to whom that of the nobler Agrippa will be comparatively unknown. Such is the power of literature to confer everlasting renown! This was in effect the most splendid period of Rome's literary history. Though we cannot concede that literary genius is the creation of political circumstances, yet we may observe that it usually appears synchronously with great political events. It was during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, that the everlasting monuments of the Grecian muse were produced; and it was while the fierce wars excited by religion agitated modern Europe, that the most noble works of poetic genius appeared in Italy, Spain, and England. So also the first band of Roman poets was coexistent with the Punic wars, and the second and more glorious, though perhaps less vigorous, display of Italian genius rose amid the calamities of the civil wars. The first of these poets in name, and as is generally thought in genius, is P. Virgilius Maro, who was born at Andes a village near Mantua, in 684, and died at Brundisium in 735. Residing in the country, and fond of rural life, his first poetic essays were pastorals in the manner of Theocritus. In this attempt however his success was not eminent; for though his verse is sweet and harmonious, and his descriptions are lovely, he attains not to the nature and simplicity of his Grecian master. He next wrote his Georgics, a didactic poem on agriculture; and here his success was beyond doubt; for it is perhaps the most perfect piece of didactic poetry that the world possesses. He then made the daring attempt of competing with Homer in the fields of epic poetry; and though the Aneis is inferior in fire and spirit to the Ilias, and possesses not the romance and the domestic charms of the Odyssey, and as an epic must even yield to the Jerusalem Delivered of modern Italy, it is a poem of a very high order, and one which will never cease to yield delight to the cultivated mind. In thus selecting Roman subjects, Virgil proved his superior judgement; and he assumed the place which had been occupied by Ennius, becoming the national poet. Q. Horatius Flaccus, born at Venusia in Apulia in 689, is distinguished for the graceful ease, mild philosophic spirit, and knowledge of men and the world *, displayed in his satires and epistles. He had also the merit of transferring the lyric measures of Alcæus, Sappho, and other Grecian poets to the Latin language. His odes of a gay and lively or of a bland philosophic tone are inimitable; in those of a higher flight he has less success, and the appearance of effort may at times be discerned. Horace died in 746 in the same year with his friend and patron Mæcenas. Albius Tibullus and Sex. Aurelius Propertius wrote loveelegies addressed to their courtesan-mistresses under feigned names, such as Delia and Cynthia. The former approaches nearer than any of the ancient poets to modern sentimentality; the latter shows extensive mythologic learning, correct taste, and a degree of delicacy hardly to be expected from an amatory poet of that age. L. Varius, C. Cornelius Gallus, P. Varro Atacinus, and a number of other poets wrote at this period. They are praised by their surviving contemporaries, but their works have perished, a proof perhaps that their merit was not considerable. They were all imitators of the Greeks. P. Ovidius Naso belongs to the second period of the reign of Augustus, whom he survived. He was born in 711 at Sulmo in the Pelignian country, and died in 771 in exile at Tomi on the Euxine. Ovid was a poet of original genius, * Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico which he tried on a variety of subjects. He wrote Heroic Epistles in the names and characters of the heroines of Grecian antiquity; Love-elegies; a didactic poem called the Art of Love, Metamorphoses, and a poem on the Roman Fasti. He also composed a tragedy, named Medea, which was much praised by the ancient critics. Grace, ease and gaiety prevail throughout the compositions of this poet; but he was perhaps deficient in vigour, and somewhat too prone to trifle on serious subjects; in his amatory poetry he was very far from imitating the delicacy of Tibullus and Propertius. Yet with all his defects he is a delightful poet. The origin of his exile to Tomi in 762 is a mystery which can never be unveiled. He ascribes it himself to two causes, his Art of Love, and his having seen something which he should not have seen. The epistles written after his exile evince a spirit quite broken, and exhibit little trace of the poet's former vivacity and animation, but they are in many respects highly interesting and valuable. The reign of Augustus was also the period of the appearance of the eloquent and picturesque history of the Roman republic by T. Livius. This great historian was born at Padua (Patavium) in 695, and he died in 771, the same year with Ovid. His history (of which the larger and more valuable part is lost) extended from the landing of Æneas to the death of Drusus in 745. CHAPTER II.* AUGUSTUS [CONTINUED]. B.C. 8-A.D. 14. Tiberius.-Banishment of Julia.-German wars of Tiberius.-Defeat of Varus.-Death and character of Augustus.-Form and condition of the Roman Empire. TWENTY-ONE years had now elapsed since the return of Augustus victorious over Antonius and his assumption of the sole supreme authority in the state. In that period death had deprived him of his nephew, his nobler stepson, and his two ablest and most attached friends. His hopes now rested on his two grandsons and adopted sons Caius and Lucius, and their posthumous brother named Agrippa after their father; on Tiberius, and on the children of Drusus. * Authorities: same as for the preceding chapter. |