Classical Latin in simplest terms is the sociolinguistic register In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. For example, an English speaker may adhere more closely to prescribed grammar, pronounce words ending in -ing with a velar nasal instead of an alveolar nasal , choose more formal words (e.g. train vs. choo-choo, sodium chloride vs of the Latin Latin or sometimes Roman is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Although often considered a dead language, in view of the fact that it has no native, fluent speakers, Latin continues to be taught in schools and has been, and currently is, used in the process of new word production in modern languages from many language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterised by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c. 509 BC, and lasted 482 years until its subversion, through a series of civil wars, into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period and the Roman empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it. Any unabridged Latin dictionary informs moderns that Marcus Tullius Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He was member of a wealthy family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists and his contemporaries of the late republic while using lingua Latina and sermo Latinus to mean the Latin language as opposed to the Greek or other languages, and sermo vulgaris or sermo vulgi to refer to the vernacular of the uneducated masses Vulgar Latin was the nonstandard form of the Latin language; because of its nonstandard nature, it had no official orthography, and only Classical Latin was used in writing. It is sometimes called colloquial Latin, regarded the speech they valued most and in which they wrote as Latinitas, "Latinity", with the implication of good. Sometimes it is called sermo familiaris, "speech of the good families", sermo urbanus, "speech of the city" or rarely sermo nobilis, "noble speech", but mainly besides Latinitas it was latine (adverb), "in good Latin", or latinius (comparative degree of adjective), "good Latin."

Latinitas was spoken as well as written. Moreover, it was the language taught by the schools. Prescriptive In linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language ought to be used. These rules can cover such topics as standards for spelling and grammar or syntax, or rules for what is deemed socially or politically correct. It includes the mechanisms for establishing and maintaining an rules therefore applied to it, and where a special subject was concerned, such as poetry or rhetoric, additional rules applied as well. Now that the spoken Latinitas has become extinct (in favor of various other registers later in date) the rules of the, for the most part, polished (politus) texts may give the appearance of an artificial language, but Latinitas was a form of sermo, or spoken language and as such retains a spontaneity. No authors are noted for the type of rigidity evidenced by stylized art, except possibly the repetitious abbreviations and stock phrases of inscriptions.

Contents

Philological constructs

The classical

Good Latin in philology Philology is the humanistic study of historical linguistics, considering both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies is "classical" Latin literature Latin literature, the body of written works in the Latin language, remains an enduring legacy of the culture of ancient Rome. The Romans produced many works of poetry, comedy, tragedy, satire, history, and rhetoric, drawing on Italic traditions and particularly on the literary culture of Greece, which was regarded by the Romans themselves as. The term refers to the canonicity of works of literature written in Latin in the late Roman republic The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterised by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c. 509 BC, and lasted 482 years until its subversion, through a series of civil wars, into the Principate form of government and the Imperial period and the early to middle Roman empire The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor, Augustus: "that is to say, that of belonging to an exclusive group of authors (or works) that were considered to be emblematic of a certain genre."[1] The term classicus (masculine plural classici) was devised by the Romans themselves to translate Greek ἐγκριθέντες (enkrithentes), "select", referring to authors who wrote in Greek that was considered model. Prior to then classis, in addition to being a naval fleet, was a social class in one of the diachronic divisions of Roman society according to property ownership by the Roman constitution.[2] The word is a transliteration into the Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was borrowed and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome, whose alphabet was then adapted and further modified by the ancient of Greek κλῆσις (klēsis), a "calling" of draftees for the army by property: first class, second class, etc., down to fifth class.

Classicus is anything primae classis, "first class", such as the authors of the polished works of Latinitas, or sermo urbanus. It had nuances of the certified and the authentic: testis classicus, "reliable witness." It was in this sense that Marcus Cornelius Fronto (an African-Roman lawyer and language teacher) in the 2nd century AD used scriptores classici, "first-class" or "reliable authors" whose works could be relied upon as model of good Latin.[3] This is the first known reference, possibly innovated at this time, to classical applied to authors by virtue of the authentic language of their works.[4]

The canonical

Ruhnken

In imitation of the Greek grammarians, the Roman ones, such as Quintilian Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilian, although the alternate spellings of Quintillian and Quinctilian are occasionally seen, the latter in older texts, drew up lists termed indices or ordines on the model of the Greek lists, termed pinakes, considered classical: the recepti scriptores, "select writers." Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius , was a Latin author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up at Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office. He is famous for his Attic Nights, a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism and other subjects, includes many authors, such as Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus. The word Plautine (pronounced /ˈplɔːtaɪn/) is used to refer to, who are currently considered writers of Old Latin Old Latin refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC. The term prisca Latinitas distinguishes it in New Latin and Contemporary Latin from vetus Latina, in which "old" has another meaning and not strictly in the period of classical Latin. The classical Romans distinguished Old Latin as prisca Latinitas and not sermo vulgaris. Each author (and work) in the Roman lists was considered equivalent to one in the Greek; for example Ennius Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent. Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant was the Latin Homer Homer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was an historical individual, but most scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves, the Aeneid The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC (29–19 BC) that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings was a new Iliad The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the, and so on. The lists of classical authors were as far as the Roman grammarians went in developing a philology Philology is the humanistic study of historical linguistics, considering both form and meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies. The topic remained at that point while interest in the classici scriptores declined in the medieval period as the best Latin yielded to medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors, medieval Latin should not be confused with, somewhat less than the best by classical standards.

The Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the brought a revival of interest in restoring as much of Roman culture as could be restored and with it the return of the concept of classic, "the best." Thomas Sebillet in 1548 (Art Poétique) referred to "les bons et classiques poètes françois", meaning Jean de Meun and Alain Chartier, which was the first modern application of the word.[5] According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the term classical, from classicus, entered modern English in 1599, some 50 years after its re-introduction on the continent. Governor William Bradford in 1648 referred to synods A synod is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. An ecumenical council is so named because it is a synod of the whole church of a separatist Separatism refers to the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group, often with demands for greater political autonomy and even for full political secession and the formation of a new state. Depending on their political situation and views, groups may refer to their church as "classical meetings" in his Dialogue, a report of a meeting between New-England-born "young men" and "ancient men" from Holland and England.[6] In 1715 Laurence Echard's Classical Geographical Dictionary was published.[7] In 1736 Robert Ainsworth's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendarius turned English words and expressions into "proper and classical Latin."[8] In 1768 David Ruhnken (Critical History of the Greek Orators) recast the mold of the view of the classical by applying the word canon to the pinakes of orators, after the Biblical canon A Biblical canon or canon of scripture is a list or set of Biblical books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community, generally in Judaism or Christianity. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example: or list of authentic books of the Bible. Ruhnken had a kind of secular catechism A catechism (pronounced /ˈkætəkɪzəm/; Ancient Greek: κατηχισμός from kata = "down" + echein = "to sound", literally "to sound down" , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present. Catechisms are in mind.[9]

The ages of Latin

Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel

In 1870 Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel in Geschichte der Römischen Literatur (A History of Roman Literature) innovated the definitive philological classification of classical Latin based on the metaphoric uses of the ancient myth of the Ages of Man The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Greek mythology. Two classical authors in particular offer accounts of the successive ages of mankind, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age of the writer, in which humans are beset by, a practice then universally current: a Golden Age and a Silver Age of classical Latin were to be presumed. The practice and Teuffel's classification, with modifications, are still in use. His work was translated into English as soon as published in German by Wilhelm Wagner, who corresponded with Teuffel. Wagner published the English translation in 1873. Teuffel divides the chronology of classical Latin authors into several periods according to political events, rather than by style. Regarding the style of the literary Latin of those periods he had but few comments.

Teuffel was to go on with other editions of his history, but meanwhile it had come out in English almost as soon as it did in German and found immediate favorable reception. In 1877 Charles Thomas Cruttwell produced the first English work along the same lines. In his Preface he refers to "Teuffel's admirable history, without which many chapters in the present work could not have attained completeness" and also gives credit to Wagner.

Cruttwell adopts the same periods with minor differences; however, where Teuffel's work is mainly historical, Cruttwell's work contains detailed analyses of style. Nevertheless like Teuffel he encounters the same problem of trying to summarize the voluminous detail in a way that captures in brief the gist of a few phases of writing styles. Like Teuffel, he has trouble finding a name for the first of the three periods (the current Old Latin Old Latin refers to the Latin language in the period before the age of Classical Latin; that is, all Latin before 75 BC. The term prisca Latinitas distinguishes it in New Latin and Contemporary Latin from vetus Latina, in which "old" has another meaning phase), calling it mainly "from Livius to Sulla." The language, he says, is ..."marked by immaturity of art and language, by a vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek poetical models, and in prose by a dry sententiousness of style, gradually giving way to a clear and fluent strength...." These abstracts have little meaning to those not well-versed in Latin literature. In fact, Cruttwell admits "The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent. Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us."

Some of Cruttwell's ideas have become stock in Latin philology for better or for worse. While praising the application of rules to classical Latin, most intensely in the Golden Age, he says "In gaining accuracy, however, classical Latin suffered a grievous loss. It became cultivated as distinct from a natural language .... Spontaneity, therefore, became impossible and soon invention also ceased.... In a certain sense, therefore, Latin was studied as a dead language, while it was still a living."[10] These views are certainly debatable; one might ask how the upper classes of late 16th century Britain, who shared the Renaissance zealousness for the classics, managed to speak spontaneous Latin to each other officially and unofficially after being taught classical Latin by tutors hired for the purpose. Latinitas in the Golden Age was in fact sermo familiaris, the spoken Latin of the Roman upper classes, who sent their children to school to learn it. The debate continues.

A second problem is the appropriateness of Teuffel's scheme to the concept of classical Latin, which Teuffel does not discuss. Cruttwell addresses the problem, however, altering the concept of the classical. As the best Latin is defined as golden Latin, the second of the three periods, the other two periods considered classical are left hanging. While on the one hand assigning to Old Latin the term pre-classical and by implication the term post-classical (or post-Augustan) to silver Latin Cruttwell realizes that this construct is not according to ancient usage and asserts "... the epithet classical is by many restricted to the authors who wrote in it [golden Latin]. It is best, however, not to narrow unnecessarily the sphere of classicity; to exclude Terence Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC, and he died young, probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by on the one hand or Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire and Pliny Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an on the other, would savour of artificial restriction rather than that of a natural classification." (This from a scholar who had just been complaining that golden Latin was not a natural language.) The contradiction remains; Terence is and is not a classical author depending on context.[11]

Authors of the Golden Age

At Maecenas' Reception, oil, Stepan Bakalovich, 1890. An artist's view of the classical. Maecenas knew and entertained everyone literary in the Golden Age, especially Augustus.

After defining a "First Period" of inscriptional Latin and the literature of the earliest known authors and fragments, to which he assigns no definitive name (he does use the term "Old Roman" at one point), Teuffel presents "the second period", his major, "das goldene Zeitalter der römischen Literatur", the Golden Age of Roman Literature, dated 671 — 711 AUC Ab urbe condita is Latin for "from the founding of the City (Rome)", traditionally set in 753 BC. AUC is a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years. Renaissance editors sometimes added AUC to Roman manuscripts they published, giving the false impression that the Romans usually or 83 BC — 14 AD according to his time reckoning, between the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (c. 138 BC – 78 BC), or simply Sulla, was a Roman general and politician, holding the office of consul twice as well as the dictatorship and the death of the emperor Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the sole ruler of the Roman Empire from January 27 BC until his death in AD 14.[note 1] Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC, and between then and 31 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific.[12] Of it Wagner translating Teuffel writes

The golden age of the Roman literature is that period in which the climax was reached in the perfection of form, and in most respects also in the methodical treatment of the subject-matters. It may be subdivided between the generations, in the first of which (the Ciceronian Age) prose culminated, while poetry was principally developed in the Augustan Age.

The Ciceronian Age was dated 671 — 711 AUC (83 BC — 43 BC), ending just after the assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar, and the Augustan 711 — 767 AUC (43 BC - 14 AD), ending with the death of Augustus. The Ciceronian Age is further divided by the consulship of Cicero in 691 AUC or 63 BC into a first and second half. Authors are assigned to these periods by years of principal achievements.

The Golden Age had already made an appearance in German philology but in a less systematic way. In Bielfeld's 1770 Elements of universal erudition the author says (in translation): "The Second Age of Latin began about the time of Caesar [his ages are different from Teuffel's], and ended with Tiberius. This is what is called the Augustan Age, which was perhaps of all others the most brilliant, a period at which it should seem as if the greatest men, and the immortal authors, had met together upon the earth, in order to write the Latin languge in its utmost purity and perfection."[13] and of Tacitus "... his conceits and sententious style is not that of the golden age ...."[14]. Teuffel evidently received the ideas of a golden and silver Latin from an existing tradition and embedded them in a new system, transforming them as he thought best.

In Cruttwell's introduction, the Golden Age is dated 80 BC — 14 AD ("from Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists to Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria. He is also well known for the Metamorphoses, a mythological hexameter poem, the Fasti, about the Roman calendar, and the Tristia and Epistulae ex"), which is about the same as Teuffel's. Of this "Second Period" Cruttwell says that it "represents the highest excellence in prose and poetry," paraphrasing Teuffel. The Ciceronian Age is now "the Republican Period" and is dated 80 BC — 42 BC through the Battle of Philippi The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Wars of the Second Triumvirate between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian against the forces of Julius Caesar's assassins Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus in 42 BC, at Philippi in Macedonia. The Second Triumvirate declared this civil war to avenge Julius Caesar's murder. Later in the book Cruttwell omits Teuffel's first half of the Ciceronian and starts the Golden Age at Cicero's consulship of 63 BC, an error perpetuated into Cruttwell's second edition as well. He must mean 80 BC as he includes Varro in Golden Latin. Teuffel's Augustan Age is Cruttwell's Augustan Epoch, 42 BC — 14 AD.

Republican

Marcus Tullius Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He was member of a wealthy family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists, after whom Teuffel named his Ciceronian period of the Golden Age. The bust is probably a life-like representation. Julius Caesar, again a life-like bust.

The literary histories list all authors canonical to the Ciceronian Age even though their works may be fragmentary or may not have survived at all. With the exception of a few major writers, such as Cicero, Caesar, Lucretius and Catullus, ancient accounts of Republican literature are glowing accounts of jurists and orators who wrote prolifically but who now can't be read because their works have been lost, or analyses of language and style that appear insightful but can't be verified because there are no surviving instances. In that sense the pages of literary history are peopled with shadows: Aquilius Gallus, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, Lucius Licinius Lucullus and many others who left a reputation but no readable works; they are to be presumed in the Golden Age by their associations. A list of some canonical authors of the period, whose works have survived in whole or in part (typically in part, some only short fragments) is as follows.

Augustan

The Golden Age is divided by the assassination of Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Cæsar/Caesar was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. In the wars that followed the Republican generation of literary men was lost, as most of them had taken the losing side; Marcus Tullius Cicero was beheaded in the street as he enquired from his litter what the disturbance was. They were replaced by a new generation that had grown up and been educated under the old and were now to make their mark under the watchful eye of the new emperor. As the demand for great orators was more or less over,[15] the talent shifted emphasis to poetry. Some of the best history was also written, but by men who had connections to the emperor, such as Livy. Augustus evidenced some toleration to republican sympathizers (see under Livy) but this tolerance ended with the second of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, who tried men who wrote the wrong thing for treason, with typically fatal consequences.

Virgil's bust, on his tomb in Naples.

Some canonical authors are as follows.

Authors of the Silver Age

The frowning second emperor, Tiberius, thought it safest to proscribe free speech, precipitating the rise of Silver Latin, with its emphasis on mannerism rather than on solid content, according to Teuffel's model.

In his second volume, on the Imperial Period, Teuffel initiated a slight alteration in approach, making it clearer that his terms applied to the Latin and not just to the age, and also changing his dating scheme from years AUC to modern. Although he introduces das silberne Zeitalter der römischen Literatur, "the Silver Age of Roman Literature", 14 AD — 117 AD,[16] from the death of Augustus to the death of Trajan, he also mentions regarding a section of a work by Seneca the Elder a wenig Einfluss der silbernen Latinität, a "slight influence of silver Latin." It is clear that he had shifted in thought from golden and silver ages to golden and silver Latin, and not just Latin, but Latinitas, which must at this point be interpreted as classical Latin. He may have been influenced in that regard by one of his sources, E. Opitz, who in 1852 had published a title specimen lexilogiae argenteae latinitatis, mentioning silver Latinity.[17]

Although Teuffel's First Period was equivalent to Old Latin and his Second Period was equal to the Golden Age, his Third Period, die römische Kaiserheit, encompasses both the Silver Age and the centuries now termed Late Latin, in which the forms seemed to break loose from their foundation and float freely; that is, literary men appeared uncertain as to what "good Latin" should mean. The last of the Classical Latin is the Silver Latin. The Silver Age is the first of the Imperial Period and is divided into die Zeit der julischen Dynastie, 14 — 68; die Zeit der flavischen Dynastie, 69 — 96; and die Zeit des Nerva und Trajan, 96 — 117. Subsequently Teuffel goes over to a century scheme: 2nd, 3rd, etc., through 6th. His later editions (which came out in the rest of the late 19th century) divide the Imperial Age into parts: the 1st Century (Silver Age), the 2nd Century: Hadrian and the Antonines and the 3rd through the 6th Centuries. Of the Silver Age proper, pointing out that anything like freedom of speech had vanished with Tiberius, Teuffel says[18]

...the continual apprehension in which men lived caused a restless versatility .... Simple or natural composition was considered insipid; the aim of language was to be brilliant .... Hence it was dressed up with abundant tinsel of epigrams, rhetorical figures and poetical terms .... Mannerism supplanted style, and bombastic pathos took the place of quiet power.

The content of new literary works was continually proscribed by the emperor (by executing or exiling the author), who also played the role of literary man (typically badly). The talent therefore went into a repertory of new and dazzling mannerisms, which Teuffel calls "utter unreality." Crutwell picks up this theme:[19]

The foremost of these [characteristics] is unreality, arising from the extinction of freedom .... Hence arose a declamatory tone, which strove by frigid and almost hyterical exaggeration to make up for the healthy stimulus afforded by daily contact with affairs. The vein of artificial rhetoric, anthithesis and epigram ... owes its origin to this forced contentment with an uncongenial sphere. With the decay of freedom, taste sank ....

Marcus Aurelius, emperor over the last generation of classicists and himself a classicist.

In Crutwell's view (which had not been expressed by Teuffel), Silver Latin was a "rank, weed-grown garden", a "decline."[20] Cruttwell had already decried what he saw as a loss of spontaneity in Golden Latin. That Teuffel should regard the Silver Age as a loss of natural language and therefore of spontaneity, implying that the Golden Age had it, is passed without comment. Instead, Tiberius brought about a "sudden collapse of letters." The idea of a decline had been dominant in English society since Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Once again, Cruttwell evidences some unease with his stock pronouncements: "The Natural History of Pliny shows how much remained to be done in fields of great interest." The idea of Pliny as a model is not consistent with any sort of decline; moreover, Pliny did his best work under emperors at least as tolerant as Augustus had been. To include some of the best writings of the Silver Age, Cruttwell found he had to extend the period through the death of Marcus Aurelius, 180 AD. The philosophic prose of that good emperor was in no way compatible with either Teuffel's view of unnatural language or Cruttwell's depiction of a decline. Having created these constructs, the two philologists found they could not entirely justify them; apparently, in the worst implications of their views, there was no classical Latin by the ancient definition at all and some of the very best writing of any period in world history was a stilted and degenerate unnatural language.

The Silver Age also furnishes the only two extant Latin novels: Apuleius's The Golden Ass and Petronius's Satyricon.

Writers of the Silver Age include the following.

Through the death of Trajan, 114 AD

Germanicus Caesar Ancient bust of Seneca, part of a double herm (Antikensammlung Berlin) Sketch of Apuleius

Through the death of Marcus Aurelius, 180 AD

Of the additional century granted by Cruttwell and others of his point of view to Silver Latin but not by Teuffel the latter says "The second century was a happy period for the Roman State, the happiest indeed during the whole Empire .... But in the world of letters the lassitude and enervation, which told of Rome's decline, became unmistakeable ... its forte is in imitation."[21] Teuffel, however, excepts the jurists; others find other "exceptions,", recasting Teuffels's view.

Stylistic shifts

The style of language refers to repeatable features of speech that are somewhat less general than the fundamental characteristics of the language. The latter give it a unity allowing it to be referenced under a single name. Thus Old Latin, Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin, etc., are not considered different languages, but are all referenced under the name of Latin. This is an ancient practice continued by moderns rather than a philological innovation of recent times. That Latin had case endings is a fundamental feature of the language. Whether a given form of speech prefers to use prepositions such as ad, ex, de for "to", "from" and "of" rather than simple case endings is a matter of style. Latin has a large number of styles. Each and every author has a style, which typically allows his prose or poetry to be identified by experienced Latinists. The problem of comparative literature has been to group styles finding similarites by period, in which case one may speak of Old Latin, Silver Latin, Late Latin as styles or a phase of styles.

The ancient authors themselves first defined style by recognizing different kinds of sermo, or "speech." In making the value judgement that classical Latin was "first class" and that it was better to write with Latinitas they were themselves selecting the literary and upper-class language of the city as a standard style and all sermo that differed from it was a different style; thus in rhetoric Cicero was able to define sublime, intermediate and low styles (within classical Latin) and St. Augustine to recommend the low style for sermons (from sermo).[22] Style therefore is to be defined by differences in speech from a standard. Teuffel defined that standard as Golden Latin.

John Edwin Sandys, for many decades an authority on Latin style, summarizes the differences between Golden and Silver Latin as follows.[23] Silver Latin is to be distinguished by

Notes

  1. ^ Citroni (2006), p.204.
  2. ^ Citroni (2006), p.205.
  3. ^ Citroni (2006), p. 206, reported in Aulus Gellius, 9.8.15.
  4. ^ Citroni (2006), p.207.
  5. ^ Settis (2006), pp. 60-61.
  6. ^ Bradford, William (1855) [1648]. "Gov. Bradford's Dialogue". in Morton, Nathaniel. New England's Memorial. Boston: Congregational Board of Publication. p. 330.
  7. ^ Littlefield (1904), p. 301.
  8. ^ Ainsworth, Robert (January 1736). "Article XXX: Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendarius". The Present State of the Republic of Letters (London: W. Innys and R. Manby) XVII.
  9. ^ Gorak, Jan (1991). The making of the modern canon: genesis and crisis of a literary idea. London: Athlone. p. 51.
  10. ^ Cruttwell (1877), p.3.
  11. ^ Cruttwell (1877), p. 142.
  12. ^ Teuffel (1870), p. 216; Teuffel & Wagner (1873), p. 226.
  13. ^ Bielfeld & Hooper (1770), p. 244.
  14. ^ Bielfeld & Hooper (1770), p.345.
  15. ^ Teuffel/Wagner (1873), p.385, "Public life became extinct, all political business passed into the hands of the monarch ...."
  16. ^ Teuffel (1870) p. 526.
  17. ^ Teuffel (1870), p. 530.
  18. ^ Teuffel & Schwabe (1892), pp. 4-5.
  19. ^ Cruttwell (1877), p. 6.
  20. ^ Cruttwell (1877), p. 341.
  21. ^ Teuffel & Schwabe (1892), p. 192.
  22. ^ Auerbach, Erich; Mannheim, Ralph (Translator) (1965) [1958]. Literary Language and its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Bollingen Series LXXIV. Pantheon Books. p. 33.
  23. ^ Sandys, John Edwin (1921). A Companion to Latin Studies Edited for the Syndics of the University Press (3rd ed.). Cambridge: University Press. pp. 824–826.
  24. ^ Suetonius, Claudius, 24.1.

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