days of the Roman year, their origin, significance, the legends connected with them, etc. Except for the few stories it contains, the interest of the Fasti for a modern reader is largely archæological. The last six of the original twelve books have disappeared.

The poems of Ovid's exile, in so far as they still survive, must be briefly dismissed. The Ibis is a cursing poem of 650 lines, doubtless modelled on the famous Ibis of Callimachus, now lost. It is of more interest to the student of folk lore and of literary types than to the general reader. We also have the fragment of a Halieutica, a poem describing different kinds of fishes. It is probably no worse than others of the same sort. He had also written another quasiscientific poem in his youth of which a fragment still remains, a curious symptom of the prominence of woman in the Augustan Age and of Ovid's interest in everything concerning her. This is the De Medicamine Faciei, 'On the Care of the Complexion.' The principal productions of the Exile, the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto, have already been mentioned. Some pathetic signs of failing power are occasionally visible. Among the works that have not survived the most deplorable loss is the tragedy of Medea, which the best critics of antiquity called his masterpiece.

Ovid has often been called the "Bard of Love." But as we ponder upon his work, nothing becomes more evident than the fact that from the beginning to the end of his career, Ovid was always the poet who wrote about love, never the lover who wrote in poetry. To all appearance, Tibullus spent his short life loving one woman after another, and writing of each. Propertius never loved but one, and spent a lifetime exploring every nook and corner of her soul. Ovid was like neither of these men. Ovid was never a lover of women, he was always a lover of woman. He observed her ways and her methods, he studied her character and her emotions, and few have ever understood her better. This is one of several reasons why he was also one of the great story-tellers of the world's literature.

As a metrical artist he also takes his place among the great poets of the world. In this respect he did for Roman poetry what Cicero had already done for Roman prose. He found it more or less local and left it capable of universal use for an indefinite period. With the exception of the Metamorphoses, the bulk of his work is in the Elegiac Distich. He developed this famous verse in his own way, used it with dazzling effect and portentous dexterity; and as he

left it, so it has ever since remained. So too the hexameter, in which he wrote the Metamorphoses, was a special development of his own-light, graceful, nimble, a carrier of narrative, in other words, a story-teller's verse, not a poet's verse like Vergil's. It was often imitated, but it was never equalled again.

The general effect of his work was in one way not less important than its form. As Mr. Mackail well says, "he fixed a certain ideal of civilized manners for the Latin Empire and for Modern Europe." And it is not alone the afternoon of that long Augustan day of which he was himself the one great representative poet, but also that realm peopled by the Græco-Roman fancy with so many exquisite forms of youth and love and beauty that live for us now as then in the brilliant pages of Ovid.

In considering the work of Ovid as a whole, it is curious as well as significant to observe that the base upon which it stands, the trunk from which it all spreads like so many branches of a great tree, is the Amores. Not only the germ, the idea, of what he afterwards did in the matter of literary forms is traceable in the Amores, but most of the ideas and a large proportion of the situations reappear with variations, sometimes again and again, in his later productions. One of the most notable characteristics of Ovid is his inveterate habit, especially in his later work, of imitating himself. This is one of the reasons why, except when he is telling a story, Ovid, like Heine, should not be taken in too large doses.

How and why the branches of Ovid's work grew from the main trunk of the Amores is practically explained if we bear in mind that he was first, last, and always, a rhetorician; and in addition to this that he had certain strongly marked tastes in the field of rhetoric itself. The elder Seneca, who knew him personally, says that Ovid hated argument, and therefore that he never declaimed controversiae in the school, unless they were ethicae, i. e., questions of conduct. It is added, however, that he was especially fond of suasoriae. Now we have already seen that some of the most notable pieces in the Amores are really suasoriae, that the Heroides are nothing more nor less than so many suasoriae in epistolary form, that the Ars Amatoria is one long lesson in the art of suasion. I may add that in the Metamorphoses many of the finest passages are suasorial, and that all those passages painting the conflict of warring impulses in the human breast, and here Ovid is excelled by none, are really so many adaptations of the controversia ethica.

I need not mention the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto. They are all suasoriae.

But irrespective of his tendency to repeat himself, there is also another reason why, except when he is telling a story, Ovid becomes tiresome, if we take him in too long stretches. This is the fact that he is prone, especially in his earlier poems, to throw up too many fireworks, to give too many examples, to dally with his thought. In a word, he is too diffuse. And at times, we are irritated by the conviction that fine as he is, he could have been much finer if he had chosen to be. That this was actually true we learn from Seneca's famous story of the three verses, which is evidently the foundation of Quintilian's well-known criticism that Ovid was Nimium amator ingenii sui. Further down Quintilian adds, ‘In my opinion, the Medea shows how eminent Ovid might have been if he had chosen to discipline his genius instead of indulging it.'

But despite his faults-and, after all they are a small matter as compared with his virtues-Ovid not only commands our admiration as one of the world's great poets, but also wins and holds our affections as a man. His personality is peculiarly winning. His very whimsicality and his humor appeal to us. Of all Romans Ovid is the most distinctly humorous. And when we consider his kindliness, his generous appreciation of other people's work, his frankness and utter freedom from meaner motives, we are ready to insist that he was in every respect far better than the circle in which he lived. Right or wrong, we resent the sentence that broke his heart and brought him down to death, a stranger in a strange land, disgraced, despoiled and deserted.

How much it would have meant to him in those last dark hours if he had been vouchsafed a vision of the far future. It would have shown him that all was not to be lost, it would have shown him an unique and wonderful literary tradition in which he was the central figure. Strangest of all, indeed one wonders whether he himself would have been able to believe it, it would have shown him that long after the great empire which crushed him had ceased to be, it would be the children's children of those same barbarians "who wore trousers and rode their horses through the streets" that would vie with his own people in studying his works, cherishing his memory, and continuing his fame.

Johns Hopkins University.

SENATORIAL SPEECHES AND LETTERS IN TACITUS'

ANNALS

BY G. A. HARRER

PART I

It is the purpose of this study to examine the methods of Tacitus in the composition of the speeches and letters which are included in his reports of meetings of the senate, in the hope of determining their value as history.

All ancient historians, Greek and Roman, embellished their works with many and long speeches, put in the mouths of persons of the period concerned, but having often little or nothing in common with the speeches actually delivered. More than this, the historians often composed speeches for occasions on which none were in fact delivered. Many inserted such speeches to break the monotony of the narrative, to present to the reader an interesting piece of rhetoric, in other words, for the sake of the style, not the historical accuracy. Thucydides among the Greek historians took a higher standard. And he alone has stated his method of procedure: "As to the speeches which were made either before or during the war, it was hard for me, and for others who reported them to me, to recollect the exact words. I have, therefore, put into the mouth of each speaker the sentiments proper to the occasion, expressed as I thought he would be likely to express them, while at the same time I endeavored, as nearly as I could, to give the general purport of what was actually said." 1

The difficulty of obtaining accurate reports of speeches was often undoubtedly very great; but even when such were to be had the ancient historian would rarely insert the actual speech, but, if he took the trouble to consult it at all, would condense it and rewrite it in his own words, partly for brevity's sake, partly for the sake of the rhetorical principle, unity of style. Among the Romans Livy sometimes followed this method, but with such extreme lack of regard for the substance of his model that the most of his speeches have very slight historical value."

1 Thucydides, 1, 22, Jowett's translation.

'W. Soltau, Livius' Geschichtswerk, pp. 3, and 15-16.

There were available, as sources for the senatorial speeches in Tacitus, materials of the first order. The proceedings of the senate, Acta Senatus, included the speeches of the senators and of the emperors in full. The Acta was accessible, for we know that Tacitus consulted them in the composition of the Annals, though to what extent is disputed. Another authentic source accessible, and actually referred to by Tacitus, was Tiberius' speeches." Other collections of speeches may well have been used. Tacitus certainly knew the speeches of the senator Q. Haterius. It is possible that at least the purport of many speeches delivered in the senate was to be had in the memoirs of prominent people, such as the Commentarii of Agrippina, and of Tiberius." Collections of the letters of prominent men would have been of value, since they would often cast side lights on the circumstances under which speeches were delivered, as well as give the substance of speeches. This kind of material is very nicely illustrated in the collected correspondence of Cicero, and of Pliny. Sessions of the senate are outlined, the purpose of the speakers is mentioned, their bearing and the attitude of their hearers are described. Speeches are not, of course, given in full, but in substance, sometimes with quotation of significant remarks. No such collection of letters is, however, referred to by Tacitus, though he certainly made use at first or second hand of the letters of Tiberius. Fabia believes that these

Peter, Die Geschichtliche Litteratur Über Die Römische Kaiserzeit, vol. I, pp. 207-208, and particularly the reference to G. Haenel, Codices Gregorianus, Hermogenianus, Theodosianus, Gesta in senatu urbis Romae de recipiendo codice Theodosiano, pp. 82-88. Cf. Mommsen-Meyer, Coder Theodosianus, pp. 1-4.

See Fabia, Les Sources de Tacite, pp. 315-316. Tacitus, A., xv, 74: Reperio in commentariis senatus.

5

Tacitus, A., I, 81: diversa non modo apud auctores, sed in ipsius (Tiberii) orationibus reperiuntur. A., п, 63: extat oratio, qua magnitudinem viri . . . extulit (Tiberius). Suetonius also very probably used them, see Tiberius, 28; 67, 3. The speeches of Tiberius were probably collected and published, and his letters possibly included. See Fabia, p. 327 ff. It is of course possible that the speeches were consulted by Tacitus and Suetonius not in a collection, but in the Acta.

6 A., IV, 61.

'A., IV, 53: Id ego, a scriptoribus annalium non traditum, repperi in commentariis Agrippinae filiae. See also Suetonius, Tiberius 61, 1.

'Cicero, Ad. Att., 1, 16, 9-10; iv, 1, 7; Ad Quintum Fr., II, 3. Pliny, ¤, 11; VI, 5, IX, 13, 7 ff.