Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/693

P E R S I U S 663 pupil he became on assuming the " toga virilis " at the age of sixteen. To the charm of this man s conversation and teaching Persius attributes his escape from the temptations to a life of pleasure, to which youths of good position and fortune were exposed at Rome. Besides his friendship with Cornutus, he enjoyed during ten years of his life the inti mate friendship of Thrasea Psetus, the noblest specimen of Stoicism which the Roman world produced in the first century of the empire. This intimacy was probably due, in the first place, to the relationship of Persius to the younger Arria, the wife of Thrasea. Though a much younger man, he gained so completely the affection of Thrasea that he often went with him as the companion of his travels. The knowledge that he was an intimate mem ber of the circle of Thrasea and Helvidius gives an addi tional interest to the opinions of Persius on literature and conduct, and also to the indications of his attitude towards the reigning power. He was introduced also to Seneca, but was not much attracted by his genius. The influence of Thrasea may have had something to do with this want of sympathy. The true Stoic, who "kept as holidays the birthdays of the two Brutuses and of Cassius," was not likely to have been among the admirers of the apologist for parricide. 1 He was also intimate with some of the younger poets of the time, especially with Caesius Bassus, to whom he addresses his sixth satire. He was acquainted with his younger and more famous contemporary, Lucan, who is said, with the generous impulses which seemed to have been mixed with the fatal weaknesses of his character, to have been carried away by great enthusiasm when he first heard Persius reciting some of his verses. His biographer tells us that the impulse to writing satire was derived from reading a book of Lucilius. He was evidently a diligent .student both of him and of Horace. He himself justifies his adoption of this mode of writing by his natural tendency to satiric criticism, " sum petulant! splene cachinno." But his satire shows as little of the humorous amusement in contemplating the comedy of life, which is one of the motives of the satire of Horace, as of the fierce indigna tion which the tragic spectacle of its crimes produced in Juvenal. We should rather be inclined to conclude that, as his Stoicism was a protest against the vices and tyranny of the time, so his adoption of that masculine national form of literature which took its subjects from the actual expe rience of Roman life was a protest against the effeminate style and exotic themes which were then fashionable with the social class to Avhich he belonged. There is no trace in his writings of any participation in the active interests of public or professional life. More than any other Roman writer, except perhaps Lucretius, he chose the " secretum iter et fallentis semita vitas " (the flowery path that winds by stealth). But his life, if appa rently much happier, was not enriched by the fulness of contemplative interest and of delight in nature which lightened up the gloom of the older poet. His latest satire, addressed to his friend Caesius Bassus, is written from the port of Luna on the Gulf of Genoa ; but, while celebrating the mildness of its winter climate, grateful to him as an invalid, he is silent about the charm of its natural beauty. He died at the age of twenty -eight, on one of his own estates on the Via Appia, Avithin eight miles of Rome. His satires were revised by Cornutus, and edited at his own request by Caesius Bassus. The former is said to have altered into a vague generality an expression re flecting on the poetical gifts of Nero, a subject as danger ous to deal with as his vices and tyranny. Dying in the 1 Cf. "Ergo non iam Nero, cuius immanitas omnium questus anteibat, sed Seneca adverse rumore erat, quod oratione tali confessionem scrip- sisset" (Tac., Ann., xiv. 11). year 62 A.D., Persius did not witness the worst crimes of that reign, and escaped the fate which awaited Seneca, Lucan, and Thrasea. His character is thus summed up by his biographer. "He was of a most gentle disposition, of maidenly modesty, handsome in person, and marked by exemplary affection towards his mother, sister, and aunt. He lived soberly and chastely." The characteristic of "virginalis pudicitia" it is natural to associate with the pure family atmosphere in which he lived ; and the existence of cultivated women who could exercise such an influence is a warning not to judge Roman society, even in its worst time, altogether from the representation of Juvenal. The letters of Pliny amply confirm the belief that the world was not all so bad as it appears in that representation. The tone of the biographer as well as his explicit statements attest the warm affection which Persius inspired in his lifetime. Mere asceticism unaccompanied by other graces of character cannot account for this sentiment of affection ; and the Roman world had a keen eye to detect insincere professions of austerity. But, while there are many signs of inexperi ence of life and much forced and artificial writing in Persius, there is in the expression of his deepest convictions an unmistakable ring of genuineness. He seems to love virtue without effort, because his nature finds in the love and practice of virtue the secret of happiness. There is also in the personal addresses to his friends, as in that to Macrinus, a tone of genial sympathy with the innocent enjoyments of life. In the expression of affection for those whom he loved no ancient writer is so cordial and single- minded, except one, as much separated from him by the licence of his life as by the force of his genius, who also died in early youth, the ardent true-hearted poet of Verona. Persius is said to have written slowly and seldom, and, though he seems to have composed, probably before he devoted himself to satire, a tragedy on a .Roman subject, an account in verse of some of his travels, and some lines on the elder Arria (none of which were ever given to the world), the only result of his literary activity is the short book of six satires which we now possess. The contrast between the small amount of his contributions to literature and the reputation which he enjoyed is noticed by two ancient writers, who indicate their appreciation of his value, Quintilian and Martial. The satires are not only fewer in number than those of Horace and Juvenal, but they are for the most part shorter. Only one of them, the first, fulfils the proper function of satire by representing any phase of the life of the time and pointing its moral. It exposes by personal sketches and representative imitations the fashionable taste in poetry, and marks its connexion with the luxury and effeminacy of the age. The satire was believed in ancient times to be aimed at the emperor ; and this is confirmed, not only by the tradition of the substitution by Cornutus of the vague generality " quis non " for the pointed "Mida rex," but also by the parody "Torva Mimal- loneis implerunt cornua bombis," &c. , which is in keeping with the account we have in Tacitus and other writers of the style of the emperor s compositions. In an age abounding in informers it would have been dangerous to have published or even to have read before a circle of friends a more direct comment ; but the attitude of Persius towards the absolute ruler of the day may be inferred from other references in the satires, as from the passage iii. 35, be ginning " Magne pater divum " ; and again at iv. 20, in the words, "Ast ego Dinomaches," we may suspect a protest against the de gradation of the Eoman world in submitting to be governed by the son of Agrippina. Even in the abstinence from one single word of compliment to the ruling power we enjoy an agreeable contrast to the time-serving of Seneca and the adulation of Lucan. While the first satire is, like most of those of Lucilius, Horace, and Juvenal, essentially representative, and has its motive in the desire to paint in satiric colours a prevailing fashion and some of the actual personages or types of character of the day, all the rest are essentially didactic and have their motive in the desire to enforce and illustrate some lesson of morality or tenet of Stoicism. The second is an admirable sermon on prayer, and illustrates by ex amples that union of worldliness and covetousness with religious faith and practice which has not been absolutely confined to Pagan ism. The third is aimed at the exposure and correction of the weakness of character which, in spite of good resolutions, succumbs to the attacks of sloth and pleasure. The fourth, suggested by the first Aldliculcs of Plato, though perhaps also written with covert reference to one whose "Greek levity" may have prompted him to