mentum Ancyranum in Augustus by E. S. Shuckburgh; The Macmillan Company, New York, for the translation from Cato in Roman Farm Management by Fairfax Harrison; Parke Austin & Lipscomb, New York, for the translation of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations by W. H. Main in The Greek and Latin Classics; The University of Chicago Press and Professor F. J. Miller for his translation of Octavia in The Tragedies of Seneca; Professor Paul Nixon for his translations from Martial in A Roman Wit; Miss Georgiana W. Sargent for translations from Horace in Horatian Echoes by J. O. Sargent.

ROMAN LITERATURE

IN TRANSLATION

ROMAN PURITANISM AND GREEK CULTURE

THIRD AND SECOND CENTURIES B.C.

THE Roman people had already won an important place in the progress of civilization before their literature reached a stage worthy of consideration. Not until they came in contact with the Greek life in southern Italy and in Sicily did they lend themselves seriously to the cultivation of the fine arts. Before that time they had been busy making a state, fighting for a place in the sun, organizing, building. There are evidences of the beginnings of a native literature before the Greek contact-such as ballad songs of heroes, hymns to the gods, treaties, calendar records, etc.-but these were fostered more as necessary accompaniments of the business of life than as artistic expression, and were no doubt exceedingly crude. What direction the further development of these beginnings would have assumed, what progress would have been made, are matters of pure speculation. The determining factor for Roman literature, as well as for the other fine arts, was the Greek influence. The Greek achievements had reached and passed their zenith and stood at the disposal of all who were to follow. Not until Rome had made herself mistress of all southern Italy in the middle of the third century B.C., indeed not until the pressure of Carthage had been removed half a century later, did she find time to turn her attention to this great heritage. When she did, she found the forms_ready-made, the methods and principles thoroughly established, the values fixed. The practical Roman began by translating, then passed on to adaptation to his own life, and came only gradually to the full appreciation of the possibilities of self-expression.

This transplanting of a foreign culture brought problems in its wake. Greek life was not Roman life, Greek standards differed from Roman standards, Greek aims and ambitions and enterprises did not satisfy Roman aspirations. There developed counter-currents in art, some running freely with the stream of Greek culture, some fighting against it. In general this struggle was a wholesome thing, for it enabled the Roman artist to take the benefit of the foreign culture without at the same time sacrificing his own ideas and needs. Roman literature is at all times imitative of Greek in one respect or another, but it is also a very different thing from the Greek.

I. THE TRANSPLANTING OF GREEK CULTURE