No More Learning

And hence a
different species of poetry, known to us chiefly in connexion with the
harvest-home and with marriage ceremonial--the so-called Fescennine
poetry. This poetry is dictated by much the same needs as that of the
priests. It is a charm against _fascinum_, 'the evil eye': and hence the
name Fescennine. The principal constituent element in this Fescennine
poetry was obscene mockery. This obscenity was magical. But just as it
takes two to make a quarrel, so the obscene mockery of the Fescennine
verses required two principals. And here, in the improvisations of the
harvest-home, we must seek the origins of two important species of Latin
poetry--drama and satire.

There was magic in the house as well as in the fields. Disease and Death
demanded, in every household, incantations. We still possess fragments
of Saturnian verse which were employed as charms against disease. Magic
dirges (_neniae_) were chanted before the house where a dead man lay.
They were chanted by a _praefica_, a professional 'wise woman', who
placated the dead man by reiterated praise of him. These chants probably
mingled traditional formulae with improvisation appropriate to
particular circumstances. The office of the _praefica_ survived into a
late period. But with the growth of Rationalism it very early came into
disrepute and contempt.
Shorter lived but more in honour was an
institution known to us only from casually preserved references to it in
Cato and Varro. This was the _Song in Praise of Famous Men_ which was
sung at banquets. Originally it was sung by a choir of carefully
selected boys (_pueri modesti_), and no doubt its purpose was to
propitiate the shades of the dead. At a later period the boy choristers
disappear, and the _Song_ is sung by individual banqueters. The ceremony
becomes less religious in character, and exists to minister to the
vanity of great families and to foster patriotism. In Cato's time the
tradition of it survived only as a memory from a very distant past. Its
early extinction must be explained by the wider use among the Romans of
written memorials. Of these literary records nothing has survived to us:
even of epitaphs preserved to us in inscriptions none is earlier than
the age of Cato. So far as our knowledge of Latin literature extends we
pass at a leap from what may be called the poetry of primitive magic[3]
to Livius Andronicus' translation of the _Odyssey_. Yet between the
work of Livius and this magical poetry there must lie a considerable
literary development of which we know nothing. Two circumstances may
serve to bring this home to us. The first is that stage plays are known
to have been performed in Rome as early as the middle of the fourth
century. The second is that there existed in Rome in the time of Livius
a school of poets and actors who were sufficiently numerous and
important to be permitted to form a Guild or College.

The position of Livius is not always clearly understood. We can be sure
that he was not the first Roman poet. Nor is it credible that he was the
first Greek teacher to find his way to Rome from Southern Italy.