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CLEANTHES.

CLEANTHES, the Stoic philosopher, was born at Assos, in Asia Minor, about B.C. 300. In early life he was a pugilist, and as such went to Athens to exhibit his skill in the manly art. But, overcome by his new environment, the boxer was attracted to study philosophy, at first under Crates and afterwards under Zeno. Having now no visible means of support, he was summoned before the high court of Areopagus. There he explained that though his days were spent in philosophical pursuits, he worked at night in gardens. The judges, impressed by this industry and love of study, voted him ten minæ, but Zeno would not permit him to accept their bounty. Cleanthes succeeded Zeno as master of the Stoic school. At the age of eighty he is said to have died of voluntary starvation. His sublime "Hymn to Zeus" is the only relic of his composition. The following version is by Professor F. W. Newman.

Hymn to ZeEUS (JUPITER).

ALMIGHTY alway! many-named! most glorious of the deathless!
Zeus! primal spring of nature, who with Law directest all things.
Hail! for to bow salute to Thee, to every man is holy;
For we from Thee an offspring are, to whom, alone of mortals
That live and move along the Earth, the mimic voice is granted!
Therefore to Thee I hymns will sing and always chant thy great-

ness.

Subject to Thee is yonder sky, which 'round the earth forever
Majestic rolls at thy command, and gladly feels thy guidance.
So mighty is the weapon, clenched within thy hands unconquered.
The double-edged and fiery bolt of ever-living lightning.

For Nature through her every part beneath its impulse shudders,
Whereby the universal scheme Thou guidest
Which, through all things proceeding,

Intermingles, deep with greater light and smaller,
When Thou, so vast in essence, art a king supreme forever.

Nor upon Earth is any work done without Thee, O Spirit !
Nor at the Ether's utmost height divine, nor in the Ocean,

Save whatsoe'er the infatuate work out from hearts of evil.
But Thou by wisdom knowest well to render odd things even;
Thou orderest disorder, and th' unlovely lovely makest.
For so hast Thou in one combined the noble with the baser,
That of the whole a single scheme arises, everlasting,
Which men neglect and overlook, as many as are evil:
Unhappy! who good things to get are evermore designing,
While to the common law of God nor eyes nor ears they open;
Obedient to which they might good life enjoy with wisdom.
But they, in guise unseemly, rush this way and that, at random;
One part, in glory's chase engaged with its ill-contending passion,
Some searching every path of gain, of comeliness forgetful,
Others on soft indulgence bent and on the body's pleasure,
While things right contrary to these their proper action hastens,
But Zeus all bounteous! who, in clouds enwrapt, the lightning
wieldest;

Mayest Thou from baneful ignorance the race of men deliver!,
This, Father! scatter from the soul, and grant that we the wisdom
May reach, in confidence of which Thou justly guidest all things;
That we, by Thee in honor set, with honor may repay Thee,
Raising to all Thy works a hymn, as beseemeth

A mortal soul: since neither man nor god has higher glory,
Than rightfully to celebrate Eternal Law all-ruling.

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PERIOD IV.---CONTINUED.

F the Silver Age the principal writers have already been considered, * except the satirist Juvenal and the rhetorician Quintilian. Juvenal condemned the Romans of his time as degenerate almost beyond the possibility of reform, yet his protest was not altogether in vain. There was a social improvement under the Stoic emperors, which is less manifest in Latin literature, because the leaders in the movement cultivated the Greek language. In the same way the labors of Quintilian to purify the taste and style of orators were in some measure lost for a time, but the value of his instruction was felt when Latin became the universai language of the learned in Europe.

It is noteworthy that Seneca, Quintilian and other leading writers of the Silver Age were born in Spain, and a few, as for instance Apuleius, in Northern Africa. The Græco-Roman civilization, having thoroughly permeated these outlying provinces, aroused the dormant genius of their people, just when the enslaved and enervated citizens of the capital had lost all interest in public affairs and cared only for sensual enjoyment. Yet such was the force of training, that the new writers fell in with prevailing taste for shov y rhetoric and elegant trifling. They had no regard for the traditions of the Roman republic, but turned to personal and philosophical themes when they did not yield to the public demand for amusement.

* See Volume V., pp. 103-178.

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JUVENAL is not only the last great Roman satirist, but the last glowing ember of national life. The nature of his

subject and the method of treating it make him a type for the world. Roman society had reached the stage of utter decay. The popular religion had become a thing of contempt and scorn, and there was nothing to take its place. Government was conducted by a system of corruption and bribery. Iniquity was established by law and maintained by the example of the great and powerful. People in high places, and of both sexes, were guilty of crimes for which the code of laws could find no name. Emperors in their abandon did not disdain to play the roles of buffoons and pantomimists. Moralists and Stoics were a sham, "counterfeiting the Curii, but living like bacchanals." Women were unsexed, and aping the manners of men, were equally unnatural and profligate. Such was the mass of moral pollution revealed under the search-light of the Roman satirist. He looked, and what he saw made him a pessimist of the severest type. Righteous indignation drove him to declamatory verse. He became the scourger of gross and open vices, encouraged by the example of a hateful tyrant.

Of Decimus Junius Juvenalis little is known except his writings. He is said to have been the son or ward of a wealthy freedman of Aquinum, a town noted also as the birthplace of St. Thomas Aquinas. It was not until he was advanced in life that he assumed the roll of public satirist. Up to that time he had been an orator and rhetorician. Some verses written on Paris, a favorite actor of Domitian's, obtained for him a wider hearing. His first satire was written in Trajan's reign-about 100 A.D. After this he rose rapidly in public favor. At last he displeased the emperor by some lines reflecting on a new court favorite, and was assigned a military command in Upper Egypt. This was practically a sentence of banishment, and the bitterness of exile is said to have hastened his death.

The satires of Juvenal are sixteen in number, and exhibit all the vices of the age, whether in depraved literary tastes or moral obliquity. The author was a strict moralist, a social reformer, with a serious purpose, but without sympathy. He was stern, unyielding, and disposed to consign to perdition what he thought hopeless to recall. The nature of his subject gives terrible impulse to his natural eloquence, and drives him into the description of scenes and the use of language grossly offensive to modern taste. His style is vehement, lofty, impetuous, pitched in a high, rhetorical key. Tacitus lived in the same troublous times, when it was unsafe to publish the truth. When the danger was past, both wrote and condemned what was wrong, Tacitus giving the outside or public history, and Juvenal the inside or private view of Roman society. Thus the two great writers are mutually helpful and explanatory.

Dr. Samuel Johnson has given two noble imitations of Juvenal in his "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes." Our examples are taken from Gifford's more exact translations.

DOMITIAN AND THE TURBOT.

THE degradation of the Roman Senate under Domitian is shown by their being hastily summoned by the emperor to decide how a fish should be cooked.

It chanced that where the fane of Venus stands,
Reared on Ancona's coast by Grecian hands,
A turbot, wandering from the Illyrian main,
Filled the wide bosom of the bursting seine.
The mighty draught the astonished boatman eyes,
And to the pontiff's table dooms the prize:
For who would dare to sell it? who to buy?
When the coast swarmed with many a practised spy,

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