HORACE’S ‘UT PICTURA POESIS’:THE ARGUMENT FOR STYLISTIC DECORUM

By WESLEY TRIMPI

Horace opens liis Ars poetica with several comparisons between the arts to illustrate the ‘structural’ decorum which all unified works must share. Later, he develops an extended analogy between painting and poetry, intro­duced by the phrase ut pictura poesis, to illustrate the nature of the ‘stylistic’ decorum necessary to please, and to continue to please, the critical reader. In an earlier essay entitled ‘The Meaning of Horace's Ut Pictura Poesis,’ I tried to show' how this analogy (361-5) concludes the preceding discussion of faults which may and may not be overlooked in a long work (317-60). In the present paper, in addition to collecting further evidence for this interpretation, I shall argue that the lines in question (361-5) form, at the same time, a tran­sitional introduction to the following analysis of the kind of pleasure ap­propriate to poetry and of how it may best be protected (366-90).1

In the lines preceding these sections, Horace has just discussed the more inclusive requirements, primarily with regard to subject matter, that a poem treat things which are iucunda and idonea vitae, dulce and utile (333-46). He now turns, with tamen, to the reader’s critical expectations in relation to stylistic decorum in order to define precisely the type of pleasure a skillfully w'ritten poem must continue to give (347-90).

sunt delicta tamen, quibus ignovisse velimus:nam neque chorda sonum reddit quem volt manus et mens,poscentique gravem persaepe remittit acutum,nec semper feriet quodeumque minabitur arcus.verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucisoffendar maculis, quas aut incuria fuditaut humana parum cavit natura, quid ergo est?ut scriptor si peccat idem librarius usque,quamvis est monitus, venia caret, et citharoedusridetur, chorda qui semper oberrat eadem,sic mihi, qui multum cessat, fit Choerilus ille,quem bis terve bonum cum risu miror; et idemindignor, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus; 1

1 The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973) 1-34 (hereafter cited as MHP). The passages already cited there which it has been necessary to mention again in a new context or to re-emphasize for purposes of presenting the additional materials are clearly indicated. Since the evidence presented in both essays supports a single interpretation, the reader is encouraged to examine these additions in connection with the passages assembled in the text and notes of MHP.

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verum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum.ut pictura poesis: erit quae, si propius stes [AJ,te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes (A2];haec amat obscurum [UJ, volet haec sub luce videri,iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen [#2];haec placuit semel JCJ, haec deciens repetita placebit [C2].2

(347- 65)

The last five lines make three comparisons based on degrees of distance, of light, and of the power to please on repeated occasions, which I have indicated by A, B, and C respectively. Each comparison consists of two terms; the first terms of each I have designated Av Blt and Cv and the second /12, Bit and C2. In my original interpretation 1 attempted to account for two dif­ficulties in understanding the literal meaning of the lines themselves. The first problem is the evaluative relation of the first to the second term in each of the three comparisons; the second is the nature of the picture (and the poem) which could be said to prefer inferior ‘lighting’ in the sense that it amat ob­scurum. Until a more probable explanation is presented than that deriving, unquestioned, from the scholiastic tradition, which recognizes neither problem, my suggestions offer, I believe, the most plausible solution to both.

In the commentaries the three ‘better’ terms refer to viewing the picture from close at hand, to seeing it in full light, and to enjoying it on repeated occasions. Alt therefore, falls logically parallel to Bz and C2, combining At with Bt and Ct, and thus disturbs the rhetorical parallelism of the syntax. If the commentaries are correct in their choice of the better term in the first comparison, which I have argued they are not, then the four terms of the first two comparisons fall in a ‘chiastic’ criss-cross pattern: better [AJ, worse [A2], worse [Bj], better [/ϊ2]. The terms of the third comparison then repeat the order of the second, thus producing the following pattern of the six terms taken

2 Q. Horati Flacci Opera, ed. F. Klingner (Leipzig 1959) 307. (The internal bracketed additions are mine.) [‘Yet faults there are which we can gladly pardon; for the string does not always yield the sound which hand and heart intend, but when you call for a flat often returns you a sharp; nor will the bow always hit whatever mark it threatens. But when the beauties in a poem are more in number, I shall not take offence at a few blots which a careless hand has let drop, or human frailty has failed to avert. What, then, is the truth? As a copying clerk is without excuse if, however much warned, he always makes the same mistake, and a harper is laughed at who always blunders on the same string: so the poet who often defaults, becomes, methinks, another Choerilus, whose one or two good lines cause laughter and surprise; and yet I also feel aggrieved, whenever good Homer “nods,“but when a work is long, a drowsy mood may well creep over it. A poem is like a picture: one strikes your fancy more, the nearer you stand [AJ: another, the farther away [A2). This courts the shade [B1);that will wish to be seen in the light, and dreads not the critic insight of the judge [B2). This pleased but once [C2[; that, though ten times called for, will always please [C21.' Trans. 11. Π. Falrclough, l.oeb Classical Library (hereafter LCL [London 1936] 479, 481). All future Latin citations of Horace will be from Klingner’s edition.

'u t p ic tu ra poesis ’ 31

together: better [Aj], worse (At], worse [Bx], better [B2], worse [C,], better [C#J. Since the terms of the third comparison do not have a correspondingly chiastic relation to those of the second, the order appears arbitrary in that a single chiasma disrupts, without warning or syntactical clarification, the six (rather than four) terms of a passage made up of three (rather than two) com­parisons. This arbitrariness, unclarified by such distinguishing pronouns as hie and ille, threatens these lines with an enigmatic abstruseness, antithetical to Horace’s avoidance of obscurity in the epistolary sermo (cf. Suetonius, Vila Horati), and encourages the reader to return to the simpler and more obvious rhetorical parallelism for their meaning. Such a parallelism demands, however, that the pictorial and literary style to be seen from a distance have, in contradiction to both ancient and modern commentators, a recognizable value, in some particular regard, which is not shared by the style to be scrutinized from close at hand. The explanation of this advantage must account, at the same time, for the type of style which could plausibly ‘love’ the obscurum.

In evaluating poems, I believe Horace is saying, allowances must be made for unintentional (minor) errors when excellences greatly outnumber faults and/or when the work is long. Since some flaws in detail, distracting to the closely scrutinizing reader, would have been ‘absorbed’ in oral presentation, the stylistic conventions of epic, which the responsible critic should take into consideration, permit a certain lack of finish, however much one might wish otherwise. To the extent that Augustan critical expectations may no longer have been comfortable with the abrupt transitions and dramatic repetition of the older epic — that is, to the extent that the critic might treat the Ho­meric poems, now read not heard, as if they had originally been composed to be read and become thereby a Zoilus carping at detail — Horace is, in the first place, reminding his reader of the stylistic price to be paid for the greatness of Homer’s achievement. But, more important, he may also be cautioning him to allow for the adaptation of certain oral effects to the written epic by poets like Virgil, and perhaps Varius, who were criticized for imitating Homer too closely.3 As an illustration, and only as an illustration, of how the ‘reading’ of poems in (or drawing upon) the oral tradition with the close scrutiny ap­propriate to written genres is to read them out of context, Horace borrows a pictorial analogy from the rhetorical tradition where analogies between the arts had been and still were common. Although the poet is to be regarded

3 For Virgil’s detractors, see Suetonius, Vita Vergili 43-6, and for his imitation of Homer, Macrobius, Saturnalia 5.2-13 — even his imitation of Homer’s faults, which, apparent to the diligens lector (5.14.8), was criticized by some out of ignorance (5.14.1). Virgil was criticized for making Homer νεωτεριχώτερος with fashionable modern colors, lor not suf­ficiently polishing his adaptations from Pindar, and for echoing the archaism of Ennius (A. Gellius, 13.27, 17.10, 12.2).

32 tr a d itio

no more as an orator than as a painter, we have to know that the analogy with the painter derives originally from this rhetorical context in order to understand the three comparisons with painting which follow.

The analogy between pictures and poems immediately qualifies Horace’s unusual leniency in allowing critical lapses even in a longer work (operi longo fas est obrepere somnum). In his first comparison the long poem might naturally correspond to the further picture, since it is likely that each would demand that one ‘step back’ from it in order to see it clearly as a whole.4 * Such a stepping back entails, metaphorically for the poem, certain stylistic con­sequences. 1 have argued that, in order to illustrate these consequences and to distinguish the criteria for judging the style of Homer’s longer oral, or Virgil’s written, epics from those for judging the more meticulously concen­trated styles of other poetic genres, Horace borrows an analogy between the arts which has its roots in the Aristotelian rhetorical tradition. After identi­fying the agonistic style of deliberative oratory with certain histrionic devices of asyndeton and repetition in Homer, Aristotle compares the style to a roughly drawn ‘skiagraphic’ picture to be seen in broad outline at a distance (Rhet. 3.12).6 * * In the bustle and noise of a large outdoor assembly the speaker will be too far off and his delivery too abrupt and dramatically aggressive to make use of refinements of style or argumentation requiring close leisurely attention in sheltered recitations or intricate private law suits to be appreciated. Once the

4 Aristotle implies that a suitable ‘distance9 is involved when he compares the proper length of a play, determined by what Uie memory can hold in unity, with the size of a living organism which the eye can take in at a glance. (He makes similar observations upon the length of a period: Rhet. 3.9.3, M09a35-9b6.) When O. Else comments (on 1450b32-51a6) that 4 in Aristotle's theory of vision the size of the thing seen and the time required to see it are interconnected,* he cites Physics 219vl0, 220b15, and 233a10 to show* how 'magnitude,motion, and time are strictly correlative’ (Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument [Cambridge 1963) 285 n. 10). If one adds to these correlatives the first two propositions, among others, of Euclid's Optica, the size of the object seen and time required to see it Involve as well Its remoteness from the observer.

6 For Lambinus* earlier suggestion of this parallel, see MHP n. 5. If one excepts the oc­currences of 4skiagraphia* discussed infra in this volume of Traditio, in my 'The EarlyMetaphorical Uses of Σκιαγραφία and Σκηνογραφία/ Aristotle's comparison between qualities of rhetorical and/or poetic style and a picture better seen at a distance seems to be unique before Horace. With the exception of Aristotle, Horace Is the only writer 1 have iound who refers to a kind of painting which is more striking (te capiat magis) if seen from farther away, let alone who compares such a picture to a literary work. I know, furthermore, of no statement that a picture which is more striking if seen from a distance is, by virtue of that fact, an in­ferior picture — excepting again the epistemological metaphors discussed in my paper in the Miscellany, infra — before the first scholia on Horace's lines. Such negative evidence does not demonstrate that Horace borrows the analogy from Aristotle or a peripatetic ben­eficiary, but given the congeniality of his other attitudes with those of the third book of theRhetoric, such evidence makes this source more plausible. See n. 6.

‘u t p ic tu ra poesis ’ 33

devices of the oral style and delivery are consciously evoked and transferred to the written epic, of course, the very artistry necessary for such evocation will profit from relatively private presentations like those of Virgil before Augustus (cf. Suetonius, Vita Vergili 31-4). Although in this case oral sim­plicities become written refinements, the original epic devices from which these refinements derive must be recognized, lest the critic look only for the sophis­ticated exactness of contemporary stylistic expectations. The Alexandrian intricacy of Virgil’s short poems is not to be expected at every turn of the Aeneid, which needs distance to appear as a whole rather than proximity to bring out its details. Similarly, by implication, a smaller picture of intricate design, with delicate colors and highlights, must be examined from a specifi­cally calculated (closer) distance, out of the glare of the sun, in a specially designed room, courtyard, or gallery (cf. Vitruvius 1.2.7).

I wish at this point to correct any impression my earlier essay may have given that Horace expresses a preference for the qualities of style appropriate to oral as opposed to written composition in the Ars poetica. Quite the contrary, throughout his work he stresses the necessity for the meticulous poetic crafts­manship of the written tradition. In terms of the skiagraphic metaphor, he is, himself, consistently a poet of the private and the near. It is, indeed, precisely because of his relentless insistence upon technical excellence and because he is re-emphasizing at the same time the longer genres of drama and epic in this epistle that he breaks in to caution the critical reader about allowing for stylistic conventions appropriate to these genres. It is possible, furthermore, that just because such necessary critical allowances might, simultaneously, encourage a self-indulgent negligence, particularly in beginning writers, Horace feels compelled to go on immediately in 366-90 to warn again against any failures in taste which his young correspondent might try to justify on the grounds of an overbalancing number of felicities or of his seizing the grand, spontaneous effect.® Such an interpretation plausibly accounts for the transi- 6

6 Similarly, M. Fuhrmann: 'die erste Halite spricht Zugestiindnisse aus, die zweile ver- wahrt sich gegen eine mogliche Missdeutung diescr ZugesUndnisse. “Gelegcntliche VerstOsse gegen die Gesetze der Kunst darf man einem in der Hauptsache trefflichen Werke nicht allzu sehr ankrelden; hiermit soil jedoch dem verbreiteten Dilcttantisinus kein Frelbrief ausgestcllt werden” — so etwa liesse sich die Quintessenz dcs 11. Abschnitts [= 347-90] wiedergeben. lloraz sucht wieder einmal die richtige Mitte durch den Hinweis auf zwei ungesunde Extreme zu bcstlmmen* (EinfUhrung in die antike Dichtungsthcorie[Darmstadt 1973] 116). Throughout his astute and comprehensive commentary (to which I am continually indebted), C. O. Brink attributes, among other tilings, Horace's subtle adjustments between various faulty extremes to his underlying debt to Aristotelian, in addition to later Hellenistic, poetic and rhetorical principles (Horace on Poetry: The ‘A n Poetica* [Cambridge 1971] 75-6, 80-5, 106 16, 132-4, 174-5, 418-9, 520 [hereafter cited as Brink]). See as well Brink's first volume, Horace on Poetry: Prolegomena to the Literary Epistles (Cambridge 1963) 96-9, 143-50, 166-8, 195, 214, 219-20 (hereafter cited as Brink, Prot.). Brink seems to see the Phones as

34 TRADITIO

tion from the first section on critical expectations (347-60) to the second (366- 90) on the type of pleasure appropriate to poetry, as well as for the meaning of the lines in question.

I

In the Augustan period Aristotle’s stylistic distinctions are adapted to the differences between the orator’s real controversies fought out in the noisy forum beneath the hot sun and the rhetor’s stylistically and structurally refined Iraclaliones in the shaded auditoria of the schools of declamation. Among other anecdotes, the elder Seneca relates how Votienus Montanus describes the rhetor Porcius Latro who, when asked to plead a real case, had the trial moved indoors for the security of walls and a roof. So protected and spoiled are the students of the schools, Montanus comments, that just as people coming out of a shady and darkened place are blinded by the splendor of the full light of day, those who come from the schools to the forum are troubled by all the unexpected things they see (velut ex umbroso et obscuro prodeuntes loco clarae lucis fulgor obcaecat, sic istos e scholis in forum transeuntes omnia tanquam nova et invisitata perturbant). Not least among such new challenges is the fact that instead of being able to count on the willing predisposition of the judge to listen, the student must now solicit his attention and good will.7

To this passage should be added Quintilian’s restatement of the anecdote (10.5.17-20). Young men, he advises, should not be kept too long with the false semblance and empty shadows of reality (in falsa rerum imagine detineri el inanibus simulacris) in the schools, for ‘owing to the seclusion in which they have almost grown old, they will shrink in terror from the real perils of public life, like men dazzled by the unfamiliar sunlight (ne ab ilia, in qua prope consenuerunt, umbra vera discrimina velut quendam solem reformident). ’ To the antithesis, common to both Seneca and Horace, between the setting darkened by shade and that in full daylight, Quintilian has added the governing verb ‘fear,’ as he had done earlier in the same context (1.2.18-19), to complete

vulnerable to the self-indulgence of wealthy dilettanti (509-10). The passages he associates with the ironic elevation of the word pango (416) would accord with Horace's cautioning the Pisones against Justifying faults on the grounds of ambitious aspirations (399-400). Pliny is still sensitive about being criticized for hiding his faults behind any attempt at elevation (Ep. 9.26.7). Longinus expressly rejects the justification of tumidity on the grounds that ‘ "failure in a great attempt is at least a noble error"’ (Longinus on the Sublime 3.3, trans. W. R. Roberts (Cambridge 1935J 49) — which perhaps suggests less emphasis might be placed on his ‘romantic admiration of "necessary faults”' (Brink 363). Horace criticizes the self-satisfied poet in Ep. 2.2.106-8 and AP 291-4, 442-4.

7 ControD. 9. pr. 1-5, quoted in MHP 9-10 from Sintque le Rhiteurt Controverses et Suci- soires, trans. H. Bornecque, 2 vols. (Paris 1932). Compare Philostratus, Lives 614.

‘u t pictu ra p o e s is ’ 35

the parallel between the Senecan anecdote and Horace’s lines: haec amat obscurum, volet haec sub luce oiderif / iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen. The first type of picture, that is, loves a darker setting; the second type, which does not fear the keen shrewdness of the critic or judge, will wish to be seen in full light. The first, I believe, prefers the shade because its refinements would be overcome, or ‘shaded out,’ by the glare of sunlight, and the alert observer would then see to what extent it had depended solely upon intricate artifice for its effect. The second has no fear of the sun or of the shrewdness of the critic-judge, not because it is finished in each detail (which it is not) and not because, under the circumstances, the judge might fail to recognize its maculae, but because it need not be fearful, i.e. be meticulosus, about whether he rec­ognizes them or not. For, it may assume, he will not be distracted by less es­sential matters however stringent he may be about the broader and more substantial issues of the presentation, which he, unlike the auditor in the schools, will not see neglected for stylistic ingenuities. Quintilian then il­lustrates his admonition with the anecdote of Latro, to whom the open air was so new* (caelum novum fuit) that he seemed to lose his rhetorical powers. In order that this not happen, students should become apprentices to real orators and should train with real weapons (as gladiators ought to do) rather than wTite, like Cestius, fictitious rebuttals to old speeches such as Cicero’s defense of Milo.8

8 The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, trans. Η. E. Butler, 4 vols. (LGL; London 1953). All references will be to this edition. Like the declamatory student, the pastoral poet will also 4fear* the forum: musa ilia rustica et pastoralis non forum modo, verum ipsam etiam ur­bem reformidat (10.1.55), and Ovid comments how reformidant insuetum lumina solem (Ep. ex. P. 3.4.49). The more 'public* style of the epic or the deliberative speech, on the other hand, need not fear the subtle concentration of the critic or Judge (iudicis argutum . . . acumen, 364) whose conscientious alertness would be more appropriately expended in judging the intricate arguments oi the courtroom than the power to please the many listeners of a large assembly. As Aristotle suggested that private cases were to be argued before fewer or even a single judge in an increasingly exact style (RheL 3.12.5), Cicero comments on the indecorum either of employing * general topics and the grand style when discussing cases of stillicide before a single referee (unum iudicem)’ or of speaking calmly and subtly (summisse et subtiliter) when discussing the majesty of the Roman people (Orat. 72). The intricate private case was called the obscurum genus causae (De inv. 1.20, Deorat. 2.100), the δυστζαραχολονθη- τον (Quint., 4.1.40). See Cope's commentary, which is the most helpfully detailed for Rhet. 3.12, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, edd. E. M. Cope and J. E. Sandys, III (London 1877) 152 4. For the relation of the spectator as ‘critic' (θεωρός) to ‘judge1 (κριτής), see Rhet. 2.18.1 and A. Hellwig's reconsideration of the terms in Untersuchungen zur Theorie der Rhetorik bet Platon und Aristoteles (Gottingen 1973) 129-36. What is addressed to the large audience, Cicero observes, lacks the subtlety of philosophical discourse (De fin. 2.17). A vehement eloquence can sweep to one side the critic's censures, while a closely reasoned argument must defend itself with difficulty (De nat. de. 2.20). Dionysius says that Lysias, who lacks emotional force (Lys. 19), 'is more capable of speaking well on small, unexpected or difficult matters

36 TRADITIO

Later in his treatise Quintilian describes in greater detail how men grown old in school (in schola) are dumbfounded by the novelty (stupe.nl novitate) which they meet when they come into court (in iudicia) and long again for their peaceful scholastic surroundings. For in a court, similar to the one Cicero describes as so upsetting to the Allici (Brut. 239-91, quoted below), ‘there sits the judge in silence, their opponent bellows at them, no rash ut­terance passes unnoticed and all assumptions must be proved, the clock cuts short the speech that has been laboriously pieced together (laboratam conges- lamque) at the cost of hours of study by both day and night, and there are certain cases which require simplicity of language and the abandonment of the perpetual bombast of the schools. ’ There are even those who think them­selves too eloquent to speak in court (12.6.5-6). Quintilian often reiterates the basic distinction between scholastic seclusion and the demands of the active life in various antitheses: oratorical debate and philosophical discussions, the forum and the lecturc-room (fori et auditorii), practical perils and theoretical precepts (10.1.35-6). One, again, must not spend too much time studying in the schools unchallenged by real conflicts (12.11.15-6), nor become dependent on such solitude for concentration (10.3.30). The vir civilis must avoid the otiosae disputationes and accept administrative duties from which the phi­losophers withdraw (11.1.35). For, unlike oratory, philosophy moves not ‘in the true sphere of action and in the broad daylight of the forum, but has retired first to porches and gymnasia and finally to the gatherings of the schools (studia sapientiae non iam in actu suo atque in hac fori luce versantur, sed in porticus et in gymnasia primum, mox in conventus scholarum recesserunt). * As a result, orators who imitate dialecticians in their ‘minute attention to detail (minute atque concise)' are like those persons wrho, showing ‘astonishing skill in philosophical debate, as soon as they quit the sphere of their quibbles (cavillatione), are as helpless in any case that demands more serious pleading as those small animals which, though nimble enough in a confined space, are easily captured in an open field’ (12.2.6-14). The voice, furthermore, must be trained by long marches, for like bodies only assueta gymnasii et oleo, if it is too nitida and curata, it will not stand up to exposure to soles atque ventos, and no reputable orator can refuse to plead a case just because he is forced to do so in sole aut ventoso, humido, calido die (11.3.26-7). Isocrates, in particular, lacks this power of delivery because he, being nitidus et comptus el palaestrae quam pugnae magis accommodatus and in compositione adeo diligens to a fault, is more prepared for auditoriis than iudiciis (10.1.79).· * I

than of speaking forcefully on weighty, important or straightforward subjects* (Lys. 16). Dionysius of Halicarnassus: The Critical Essays, trans. S. Usher, 2 vols. (LCL; London 1974)I 53.

9 Cicero says that Isocrates forensi luce caruit intraque parietes aluit eam gloriam (Unit. 32) and that he used blunt gladiatorial weapons in his oratory because he refrained from serious

‘u t p ic tu r a p o e s is ’ 37

These and the following passages add to the documentation in MHP of a type of style in prose and verse which must be scrutinized from close at hand and requires a private locus obscurus, out of the public glare of the sun, for its very existence. Comparable evidence for a type of painting with similar requirements, however, is more difficult to establish. Yet certain plausible assumptions about the effects of Mediterranean light upon the preservation and the perception of colours and about the effects of the temperature upon the comfort of the viewer may be derived from comparisons between literary and pictorial styles. As discussed in MHP (11-13), Longinus describes how lesser lumina (άμνδοά φέγγη) might be advantageously concealed under the more sublime illumination (φωτί) of a vehement splendor comparable to the sun’s. Likewise, sublimity of language may throw the intricate schemata of art (τέχνην) into the shade (άποσκιάζει) as light (φωτός) may overcome the finer shading ( σκιάς = the άμνδρά φέγγη or lesser lumina) in a painting (17.2-3). The artificially strained effects of the tumid style will suffer the same fate as conspicuous sophistry. After quoting five turgid lines, now' attributed to Aeschylus or Sophocles, Longinus comments:

Such things are not tragic but pseudo-tragic — ‘flame-WTcaths,’ and ‘belching to the sky,’ and Boreas represented as a ‘flute-player,’ and all the rest of it. They are turbid in expression and confused in imagery rather than the product of intensity, and each one of them, if examined in the light of day (πρός ανγάς άνασκοπής), sinks little by little from the terrible into the contemptible (3.1).* 10

forensic conflicts (De opt. gen. oral. 17). In addition to the references to Dionysius’ Isocrates In MHP n. 21, sections 1, 12, and 20 should be cited: the dramatic qualities (υποκριτικά) of Aristotle’s deliberative oratory (Αγωνιστική) are here replaced in the periods and figures of Isocrates by subtle affectation (κομψά), declamatory display (θεατρικά), and preciosity (χαριεντισμός), all of which are out of place in the forum (12). See also Dem. 18, 22 and Plutarch, Mor. 350b-51b . For the general distinction between spectators at a sophistic display and actual advisers of the state, see Thucydides 3.38, to which compare Dem. 44; for that between ludus campusque and pugna et acles with respect to the orator, see De orat. 2.84, Orat. 42, and Leg. 3.14. An interesting expansion of Cicero’s De orat. 1.157 (quoted MHP n. 15) occurs in Julius Victor’s Ars rhetorica 25 where one, described in the phrasing of Quintilian (12.5.2, 1.2.18), who studies too long in situ quodam secreti and in eiusmodi secretis, upon emerging caligat in sole et omnia nona offendit (C. Halm, Rhetores Latini Mi­nores [Leipzig 18631 445). Literary studies will increasingly seek contemplative secreta away from the active forum as Quintilian (2.18.4) and Tacitus (Dial. 9, 12) noted: the declamations of the ancient auditoria will become the debates of the medieval gardens (see my ‘The Quality of Fiction: the Rhetorical Transmission of Literary Theory,’ Traditio 30 [1974] 61-75, 81-97).

10 D. A. Russell, ‘Longinus' On the Sublime (Oxford 1970) 68, gives ‘and if you hold them up to the light to examine them’ for xdv ... πρός αΰχάς άνασκοηρ;, citing the Phaedrus 268a . Such an examination is certainly suggested, but the perceptual connotations, I believe, arc subservient to those of being brought out into the open before the public at large for unbiased judgment. Such a public may be either the intelligent consensus of the living or that of the great writers of the past whom we must imagine to be summoned as our judges

38 TKA.DITIO

The fire imagery will lose its apparent brilliance with the loss of darkness, and the fear it arouses will dwindle, like the fear of a ghost, with the daylight. The same thing will be true, Longinus implies, of immoderate emotion (παρόν- Ονρσον) arising from the speaker’s own private, laboriously displayed (Γδ<α όαν- τών καί σχολικά) psychological states (3.5). So, too, of puerility (μειρακκηδες) which consists of ‘a pedant’s thoughts (σχολαστική νόησις), which begin in learned trifling (ύπο περιεργασίας) and end in frigidity (εις ψυχρότητα).' Aim­ing at the unusual, the elaborate, and the seductive, it falls into tawdry af­fectation (3.4).

Either an artificially delicate refinement of rhetorical and pictorial colores or an artificially heightened excitement will desire an obscurum, lest it vanish altogether in the bright sun. So Quintilian compares the more precious (ex­quisitius) rhetorical effects to red dyes which fade out if not seen in the absence of the more excellent Tyrian purple (cilra purpuras), effects which ‘shine only in the absence of the sunlight (citra solem), just as certain tiny insects seem trans­formed in the darkness to little flames of fire’ (12.10.75-6). Like such pleasing dyes, delicate refinements of line and gradations of color in pictures, in danger as well of being lost in the full sun, might be more likely to survive ‘indoors’ in courtyards or covered galleries, such as Pliny describes in his Tuscan villa (Ep. 5.6). Such paintings, furthermore, would of necessity have to be seen from comparatively near both because of their detail and because they and their viewer are architecturally confined. It seems likely, finally, that the more distant picture would be the one seen in the open (sub caelo, sub divo, hypaelhrus) and hence sub luce in order for it to be publicly visible.11 *

(κριταΐς) and witnesses (μάητναιν) into a timeless tribunal (όικαστήριον), a theater (θέατρον) for the most severe ordeal (άγώνισμα). Only in this way shall we know if our work can survive being seen in the light of other periods and standards than our own (14). Only if it is repeatedly examined through and through (av ttJ τ<5 συνεχές έπισχοπ$ς) can we be sure of its enduring reception (7.3). To be πρός αύγάς (or νπ’ αύγάζ, Polybius, 10.3.1) in this sense is to be where such an examination can be made repeatedly by both the living and the dead. All imitation or emulation is, finally, a contest (άγών), ever)’ writer an άνταγωνιστής in an eternal rivalry with his predecessors. To lose to them brings no discredit (13.2 4; cf. Quin­tilian, 10.2.9-10). Quintilian warns (1.2.18-9) that the future orator must live in maxima celebritate el in media rei publicae luce, lest he fear (reformidare) society and grow pale in a solitaria et trelul umbratica oita. Left in the darkness without stimulating competition, cither he will become listless and precious or overweening and tumid — the two extremes noted by both Horace and Longinus — for he who has ‘no standard of comparison by which to judge his own powers will necessarily rate them too high.’ If he does not practice what he is learning in public, when he does leave his study, he will be blinded by the glare of the sun (caligat in sole). Again, too much modesty can cause bona ingenii studiique in lucem non prolata situ quodam secreti consumerentur (12.5.2). See below n. 21. For the perceptual connotations of πρός αύγάζ, see Hippocrates, Off. 3; of ύπ’ αύγάς, see Euripides, ltec. 1154.

11 I agree with Brink’s citation of Longinus’ προς αύγάς in relation to Horace’s sub luce if the Greek phrase is taken in the sense described in the preceding note (cf. Lewis and Short,

‘ut pictu ra po esis 39

Two examples from the elder Pliny and several from Philostratus Lemnius may illustrate types of pictorial preciosity requiring close scrutiny and protec­tion from the. sun. Among artists, according to Pliny, famous for their brush- work in minor genres (minores picturae), few, when depicting humble things with great exactitude, excelled Peiraikos in arte. Like his seventeenth-century counterparts, Van Laer and the bamboccianli, he painted pictures of barbers’ shops, cobblers’ stalls, animals, and produce, earning the name ‘rhyparo-

A Latin Dictionary [Oxford 1962] lax II A: ‘the sight of all men, the public view, the public, the world/ citing Isocrates forensi luce caruit from Brut. 32 and familiam abjectam el obscu­ram e tenebris in lucem vocare from Pro Rege Deiotaro 30). This is the sense in which Cicero, while stressing the approval of one's own conscience, says, nevertheless, that all things well done wish to be placed in the light of day so that all men may see them (omnia enim bene facta in luce se collocari volunt. Tuse. 2.64). The phrasing resembles Horace's volet hacc sub luce videri, and both, I believe, emphasize the necessity of public examination rather than the conditions of perception. Again, in distinguishing a private philosophical style from a public oratorical style, Cicero sa>s that he rewrote the Stoic paradoxes to see whether they might be brought ‘ into the light of common daily life (proferri in lucem, id est in forum) and expounded in a form to win acceptance, or whether learning has one style of discourse and ordinary life another (an alia quaedam esset erudita alia popularis oratio)9: Paradoxa Stoicorum 4, trans. H. Rackharn (LCL; London 1960). The erudita oratio would correspond to the style of a poem which amat obscurum and is seldom requested; the popularis oratio, which seeks to win acceptance in lucem id est in forum, to the more popular style of the Homeric epic which is called for again and again (dedens repetita). When perception is involved, Cicero uses a different phrase, and there is no doubt about his meaning: when Caesar combines his elegant Latinity with other embellishments of the oratorical style, he achieves the effect of placing a well-painted picture in good light (videtur tamquam tabulas bene pictas collocare in bono lumine, Brut. 261). Despite the fact that Horace is also referring to a picture, his sub luce is not equivalent to in bono lumine. Lewis and Short cite many meanings of luce which are more narrowly temporal (lux I 2 a and b) — in which sense they take Horace's sub luce (v, sub IB ) — but cite no passage with an optical or perceptual meaning equivalent to examining something in good light or from close up sub oculis or ad manum. Greek phrases using υπαίθριος and ύπαιθρος, meaning ‘in the light/ ‘in the public view/ or ‘in the field/ seem relevant. See Lucian, Apology 14: ‘how better could he employ himself t h a n . . . in full view under the open sky to let his loyalty. . . be put to the lest (καν τφ μέαφ υπαίθριος πείραν αυτόν διδονς),’ Lucian, trans. Κ. Kilbum (LCL; London 1959) VI 211. Pliny, un­fortunately, says very little about the qualities of pictures erected in foro or about how they were placed (.V// 35.25-9). While the text is uncertain, his passage on Apelles' black glaze is important for colors seen e longinquo (35.97). The glaze apparently reflected a luminosity (= splendor in 35.29?) which toned down those colors which otherwise would have appeared disproportionately bright at a distance and thus, according to Sellers, ‘ brought the colours into unison': ne claritas colorum aciem offenderet . . . et t longinquo eadem res nimis floridis coloribus austeritatem occulte daret (The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, trans. K. Jex-Blake and ed. E. Sellers (London 1896] 132 n. 6). In this case, the reflecting daylight, by making certain colors too pronounced (which the glaze could prevent from happening), would shade out others and thus destroy the delicate balance of the whole. For textual variants and an alternative translation, see J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient Viev of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology (New Haven 1974) 325-6.

40 TBADITIO

graphos,’ the ‘painter of odds and ends.’ These pictures gave exc|uisite pleasure and sold ‘for more than other artists received for their large pictures’ (NH 35.112). Similar to him is Sosus, whose floor mosaic of the ‘Unswept House’ represented in small tessellae, tinted in varios colores, scraps from the dinner table, making such sweepings appear as if they had been left there. ‘Among these mosaics is a marvelous dove drinking and casting the shadow of its head on the water (aquam umbra capitis infuscans),' while ‘other doves are pluming their feathers in the sun on the lip of a goblet’ (NH 36.184).12 It is easy to imagine how such subtly varied colores might shine more clearly in opaco (NH 10.22.43) and be lost at a distance or in intense light. Many of the pictures, likewise, described in Philostratus’ Imagines (if indeed they existed at all) must have revealed a meticulous subtlety which would have demanded careful scrutiny: see especially 2.8, 9, 12, 28, and the two ‘still- lifes’ called ‘xenias’ (1.31, 2.26). The painting ‘Looms’ (2.28) in Philostra- tus’ description appears to have been a tour de force of painstaking (γλίσ- χρα>ς) minutiae in the depiction of a spider, its web, and its flies in the throes of being eaten. The ‘xenias,’ which apparently were pictures to be sent to guests as invitations to dinner, represented, in the manner of Dutch culinary still- lifes, game, fruits, and other attractive comestibles with a high polish of precise detail.13

Despite Philostratus’ enthusiasm for ingenuity, there are among most ancient observers genuine misgivings about meticulous imitation of minute detail, especially when the total effect of the whole is endangered. So Horace criticizes the sculptor who excels in imitating the nails and the hair but cannot represent the whole figure (.4P 32-5); Seneca cautions against overly exact emulation of style and behavior (Ep. 84.5-10); and Plutarch compares sycophants who imitate the vices of those they flatter to poor painters, who, incapable of representing what is beautiful, ‘depend upon wrinkles, moles, and scars to

12 Op, cit., 145, 225. E. Pfulil, Malerei and Zeichnnng dcr Griechen (Munich 1923) 1 14-5, II 808, mentions the Dutch painters In relation to PeiraTkos. \ ’an Laer might he the best example, who, G. B. Passeri comments, ‘era singolare nel rapresentar la vcritA schletta, c pura ncll’esser suo, che Ii suoi quadri parevano una finestra aperta, per la quale si fussero veduti quelli suoi success! senza alcun divario, et alteratione, ’ quoted from F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters (New York 1971) 132 n. 1. In the late sixteenth century Cesare Cris- polti compares the difficult stylistic precision necessary in a small painting, where the slightest defect can be seen, to that in a sonnet, wdiile long poems (and, by implication, large pictures), though of only moderate value as a whole, contain many things whose compensating graces make up for what is less beautiful (B. Weinberg, A flistorij of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance [Chicago 1901] I 237).

13 The ‘xenia’ as a genre would be an inleresting counterpart to the invitational poem ■— such as those of Catullus 13; Horace, Ep. 1.5; Martial 5.78, 10.48, 1.52; Juvenal 11; and Ben Jonson, Epig. 101 — were not the poets often using the form to comment more ser­iously on social customs.

4UT PICTURA POESIS’ 41

bring out their resemblances’ (Mor. 53de).14 15 Demetrius reports that ‘the painter Nicias used to maintain that no small part of the artistic faculty was shown in the painter’s choosing at the outset a theme of some amplitude, instead of whittling down his art into small things, little birds (for example) or flowers. ’16

One must, futhermore, avoid a pedantic concern for rhythmical as well as descriptive detail. Cicero’s admonition against too much scrupulosity in avoiding hiatus incorporates many of the issues which make up the context I have been establishing. Great care (diligentiam), he says, must be taken that there be smooth compositional transitions but, equally important, that they not be too exactly observed (operose). Foolish industry (puerilis labor) will merit Lucilius’ criticism of Titus Albucius: ‘How charmingly he fait ses phrases, set in order like the lines / Of mosaic in a pavement, and his inlaid work he twines (ul tesserulae omnes / arte pavimento atque emblemate vermi­culato).' Let careful composition not be obtrusive in matters so small: nolo haec tam minuta constructio appareat (Orat. 149-50; cf. De orat. 3.171-2). Lucilius’ metaphor of a mosaic is particularly important because Cicero ap­plies it in the Brutus to the stylistic virtues peculiar to ‘Atticism’ (274). Though the mosaic purity here is to be praised, Calidius, nevertheless, while

14 Plutarch's Moralia, trans. F. C. Babbitt, 15 vols. (LCL; London 1900) I 289. Later (64a ) as a comparison for the flatterer's frenetic activity and strained appearance, Plutarch describes a painting which has characteristics similar to those of late sixteenth-century Mannerism: his behavior ‘is like an extravagantly wrought (περίεργον) picture, which by means of gaudy pigments, irregular folds in the garments (χεκλασμέναις στολίσι), wrinkles, and sharp angles, strives to produce an impression of vividness (ίναργείας φαντασίαν) / Περίεργος, meaning superfluous or overly elaborate ornament or fussiness (Quintilian, 8.3.55), is used frequently by Dionysius for literary styles (e.g., Lys. 6, 15; Isoc. 2, 3; Dem. 26, 35). Longinus (3.4) calls a puerile style (μειρακιώδες) pedantic triviality (σχολαστι­κή νόησις) which begins in learned trifles (περιεργασιας) and ends in frigidity. See Pliny, NH 35.101-2 and Sellers' citation of Strabo 14.652, as well as Vitruvius on decadence in fres­co painting (7.5.7-8). In Act. Apost. 19.19, τά περιέργα = curious arts.

15 The proper subjects are naval battles and cavalry engagements, which give the painter every opportunity to represent men and animals in action, for in painting, as in prose and poetry, ‘elevation results from the choice of a great subject' (On Stole 76, trans. W. R. Roberts (LCL; London 1953]). The passage reflects a combination of Hellenistic variety and Aristotelian unity reminiscent of lines 1-45 of the Ars poetica. Nicias, Pliny reports, did paintings which were out of doors (in foro; NH 35.27) and, by manipulating lumen el umbras, made his figures stand out against the background (ut eminerent c tabulis picturae). He was famous lor large, as well as smaller, pictures of heroic figures and scenes (35.131-3). For further comments on the neglect of the whole in favor of the part and the sacrifice of overall grace to diligent detail, see Lucian, Hist. Conscrib. 27, Pliny NH 34.92, and MHP 17-18.In the Renaissance, Roger Ascham compares the writer to he imitated to the painter who excels in portraiture as a whole rather than in just a single feature (The Schoolmaster, ed. L. V. Ryan [Ithaca 1967) 137). For Platonic anticipations of these strictures, see Rep. 420r.n, Phaedrus 264c, and Hip. Maf. 290bd .

42 TRADITIO

cultivating only the charms of lucidity and precision in speaking accurate et exquisite, has neither the force (vis) nor the intensity (contentio) to move his listeners (276-7). Cicero then proceeds to his indictment of Calvus and of the mannerisms resulting from the popular misconception about the true style (283-91). Calvus, to be sure, spoke in a discriminating and scholarly manner (scienter eleganterque):

Yet from excessive self-examination and fear of admitting error (nimium tamen inquirens in sc atque ipse sese observans rneluensque ne vitiosum col­ligeret) he lost true vitality. His language thus through over-scrupulousness (nimia religione) seemed attenuated, and wldle scholars and careful listeners recognized its quality, the multitude and the forum, for whom eloquence exists, missing its finer flavor gulped it down whole (a foro, cui nata elo­quentia est, devorabatur).

Calvus is meticulous in the sense of fearing (metuens) close critical examination (cf. Quintilian, 10.1.115), and Cicero goes on to describe various self-styled Attici including the imitators of Thucydides whose own style was excellent for writing history but out of place in the wrangling courtroom (cf. Orat. 30; Quintilian, 12.10.20-26). While Demosthenes drew' crowds to hear him, these men are deserted even by the friends of their client when they address a large public audience in its capacity as judge (cf. Tacitus, Dial. 23). When a true orator speaks, the judges’ tribunal is full, the presiding judge attentive, the crowd so responsive with its silence, applause, laughter or tears that a ‘ passer­by observing from a distance (procul), though quite ignorant of the case in question, will recognize that he is succeeding and that a Roscius is on the stage. ’ The scene is skiagraphic precisely in the sense that Aristotle describes the histrionic setting and delivery of a deliberative oration. And, like Aristotle on the epideictic style, Cicero goes on to admit that, for those who still choose an acutum prudens et idem sincerum et solidum el exsiccatum genus orationis, ‘in an art so comprehensive and so varied there is a place even for such small refinements of workmanship (minutae subtilitati). ’ Quintilian later repeats Cicero’s caution against those so minutely absorbed in weighing syllables with painful diligence (cura) that they neglect their ‘subject matter, despise true beauty of style and, as Lucilius says, will construct a lesselatcd pavement of phrases nicely dovetailed together in intricate patterns' (9.4.112-3).1·

w Cicero; lirutus, trans. G. L. Hendrickson, and Orator, trans. Η. M. Ilubbell (LCI.; London 1952). All references are to this edition. The Altic/Asian stylistic controversy does not correspond to Aristotle’s distinction between written (epideictic) and oral (deliberative) expression. Both Attic and Asian styles were written and both in their conservative forms cultivated refinements essentially antithetical to agonistic debate. Yet the ‘patina’ of archaic diction, abrupt simplicity, and rhythmical coarseness of self-conscious ‘Attic’ imi­tators of the Thucydidean ‘ austere ’ style, as well as the histrionic repetition, spontaneous copiousness, and elevated rapidity of ‘ Asian ’ orators, are all characteristics which, if isolated.

‘ut pic t u r a p o e s is ’ 43

The criticism of overly fastidious diligentia has a poetic as well as rhetorical and pictorial history'. In Terence’s defensive prologues, his speakers represent themselves as pleaders (orator, actor) for tolerance in a court of law where the spectators are the judges (iudicium, iudices), a pun on index as critic similar to Horace’s iudicis argutum . . . acumen (364). Lucius Lavinius and others have criticized Terence for combining two similar plots of Menander in his Andria. Terence asks whether this use of their critical faculty does not show' that they are no critics: faciunlne intellegendo ul nil intellegant? For, he continues, he is following the practice of Naevius, Plautus, and Ennius on whose authority he may rely and ‘whose freedom (neclegenliam) he is far more earnest to imitate than the murky accuracy (obscuram diligentiam) of his critics’ (Prol. 18-21). Terence testifies, then, to the existence of ‘dark diligence,’ diametrically op­posed to skiagraphic incompleteness, as an accepted term in literary criticism for the overly fastidious critic, here specifically of the longer dramatic genres. Horace, whose allowances for incuria (352) correspond to Terence’s for neclegen- tia, could borrow1 the term from a literary', as well as from a rhetorical, context to caution those who only approve of a work whose verisimilar intricacy, stylistic fastidiousness, or umbratical preciosity might make it prefer the obscurum. Terence, furthermore, returns repeatedly in his prologues to the theme which introduces that of the Andria: the sole (solum) business of the dramatic poeta is to see that his plays please the audience (populo ut placerent quas fecisset fabulas). As we shall see presently, it is to what constitutes this pleasure that Horace turns his attention in his second section on the critic (366--90).17

might be artistically used to evoke the excitement of oral composition and of the epic past. Meticulousness, on the other hand, be it within Attic or Asian conventions, will connote the umbratical leisure of the schools. Despite varying realignments of qualities across these two distinctions, however, Asian volubility more often tended to be associated with oral con­ventions as in the case of Hortensius (Hrut. 325) who, Quintilian notes, must have been more pleasing when heard than read (11.3.8). Longinus’ discussion of allowances to be made in excellent works for slighter errors of detail, which reflects Aristotle’s agonistic/graphlc distinction, is itself a response to an excessive admiration of Lysias’ ’Attic’ precision (32.8). For the practicing orator, if he cannot hit the ‘mean’ between brevity and volubility, the latter, Pliny says, though rougher (non limatioris), is preferable (Kp. 1.20.21). Quintilian (12.1.22), reporting that Cicero used the same metaphor (dormitare) to explain the lapses in Demosthenes as Horace did to explain those of Homer (10.1.24), associates these with lapses, unfairly criticized by Atticists, in Cicero’s own more Aslan style (cited MHP n. 27).

17 Terence, trans. J. Sargeaunt, 2 vols. (LCL; London 1904). Pertinent to Terence, and especially to Horace, is Pindar's justification of his taking liberties with the strict sequence of encomiastic topics in order to include an important digression (.V. 4.25-43). In contrast to his hypothetical critic, who busies himself to no purpose in the darkness (σχότφ) and enviously carps at his license, Pindar will ultimately appear a formidable opponent in the light of day (ίν φάει) as a result of having justifiably departed from the rules (I follow E. L. Bundy’s interpretation of this passage in his Studia Pindarica I [Berkeley 1962] 3 n. 11). Varro testifies to the Augustan association of obscurus with diligentia: haec diligentius

44 TRADITIO

The association of obscura diligenlia with excessive critical scrupulosity was preceded in the drama by that of excessive mcticulousness with the exact depiction of familiar, less important subject matter. In Aristophanes’ paragone of Aeschylus with Euripides in The Frogs (830-1533), Aeschylus, like Timaeus (cf. Critias 107, in MHP pp. 21-2) in his skiagraphic description of the cosmos, sketches the traditionally important themes of gods and heroes with the blunt, bold strokes of the elevated style. In accordance, as well, with Aristotle’s account of Homeric abruptness in deliberative oratory, Aeschylus’ vehement lines, broken by dramatic silences, heavy with polysyllables, asyndetic apos­trophes and repetitions, and elevated expressions, share the lack of definition and the incompleteness of skiagraphic representation. As a teacher of the most excellent human virtues in war and peace and of what men owe the gods, he follows Orpheus, Museus, Hesiod, and Homer, and from Homer he most often borrows phrasing and meter. If, in these regards, Aeschylean tragedy cor­responds stylistically to a work contemplated from a distance, Euripidean tragedy has the characteristics of a work scrutinized from close at hand.

Whereas Euripides charges Aeschylus with grandiloquence (cf. ΛΡ 279-80), Aeschylus criticizes Euripides for the fragmentary' chatter of his dialogue (840-42), and the chorus emphasizes his scholastic subtlety (904). Euripides, in turn, boasts of the fact that he has avoided the monsters of Median tapestry and reduced Aeschylean turgidity to a trim suppleness. He leaves nothing obscure but explains immediately his sources and action. Directly, all the characters, masters and servants, have their say and wittily speak, intrigue, make love, and busily take account of things. He brings on the stage the familiar ‘scenes of common life,’ w'hcre any inaccuracy will be immediately

quarn apertius dicta esse arbitror, sed non obscurius quam de re simili definitiones grammati­corum sunt (De ling, lat. 10.75). Cicero associates obscurus with what is difficilis and non necessarius which all too often attracts magnum studium multamque operam (De off. 1.19). Quintilian later criticizes grammarians who carry their diligence in explaining narrative sources and curiosities usque ad supervacuum laborem until the mind becomes too encumbered with detail to concentrate on the more important themes. If the texts are sufficiently obscure, they may even safely make up explanations whose fraud would easily be detected were the subject familiar to everybody (1.8.18-21). It is ditficult to improve on the comments of Robert Wolseley about the Karl of Rochester in 1085 as a gloss on Terence’s prologue, es­pecially in its relation to App. D of MI IP and the neoclassical comparisons of poetry to painting. ‘But as the loosest Negligence of a great Genius is infinitely preferable to that obscura diligentia of which Terence speaks, the obscure diligence and labour’d Ornaments of little Pretenders, and as the rudest Drawings of famous Hands have been always more esteem’d (especially among the knowing) than the most perfect Pieces of ordinary Painters, the Publishers of Valentinian cou'd not but believe the World wou’d thank ’em for any thing tiiat was of my Lord Rochester's manner, tho' it might want some of those nicer Beauties, those Grace-strokes and finishing Touches, which are so remarkable both in his former and latter Writings’ (Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, ed. J. E. Splngarn [Oxford 19G3) III 1-2).

‘u t pictu ra p o e s is ' 45

detected and criticized, rather than the blustering spectacle of legendary wars (938- 67).18 His characters eristicaily debate about commonplace household matters (971- 91), pursue their erotic entanglements without shame (1043- 56), and, though kings, do not hesitate to appear as beggars for sympathy (1058- 66). While Aeschylus lacks definition even in the enunciation of the facts (1122) and is tautological in his dramatic repetitiveness (1152- 76), Euripidean lines, when completed by a trivial reference to a ‘bottle of oil/ often suffer neither syntactical nor rhythmical disruption beyond a comic loss of decorum (1206-47). And, finally, Aeschylus burlesques a combination of preciously ornate diction and minute descriptive detail in his lyrics (for the spider, see 1313- 16) and concludes with a mock-ode on a poor spinning girl in the tragic style. If one allows for the comic distortion, the characteristics of style attributed to these dramatists by Aristophanes remain relatively consistent down to Dionysius (De imit. 1.2), Plutarch (Mor. 79b), Quintilian (10.1.66- 8), and Dio Chrysostom (52.11, 14- 6).19

The stylistic differences between Euripides and Aeschylus correspond to Aristotle’s distinctions between the style of written speeches which are άκριβής

18 Plato's Critias, in speaking after Timaeus, fears the same greater demand for exact representation of familiar subjects (107bd). Meeting this demand becomes increasingly a serious challenge to the writer of comedy, as Horace himself, perhaps echoing Aristophanes, observes: "Tis thought that Comedy, drawing its themes from daily life, calls for less labour; but in truth it carries a heavier burden, as the indulgence allowed is less (creditur, ex rnedio quia res accersit, habere / sudoris minimum, sed habet comoedia tanto / plus oneris, quanto veniae minus [Ep, 2.1.168-70, trans. H. R. Fairclough in LCL]).’ For similar reasons, Dio Chrysos­tom says that the eye is more difficult to convince than the ear (Oral. 12.71-9, quoted in MHP 23). Longinus, who comments that Euripides lacks a natural elevation (15.3), contrasts the Iliad with the Odyssey (9.11-5). The Iliad presents dramatic events (δραματικόν) full of con­tention (έναγώνιον) in language characteristic of political oratory (πολιτικόν), while the Odyssey offers descriptive narrative and depiction of character, indeed might be called in parts a ‘comedy of manners' (κωμωδία ... ήθολογουμένη). Like Longinus (36.3 — see MHP 18-9), Quintilian associates the diligent accuracy of Polyclcitus with human rather than divine subjects (12.10.7-8).

19 In The Clouds (1364-1405) by Aristophanes the comparison of Aeschylus with Euripides becomes part of the confrontation between old-fashioned social values expressed in a craggy (χρημνοποιόv), unpolished (άξνστατον), aggressively elevated (στύμφαχα) style and the fash­ionable interest in modern psychological subtleties (των νεωτέρων) expressed in sophistic argumentation and cultivated by ‘scholars' who should not be exposed too long to the open air (198-9). (Aristotle comments on Euripides’ cleverness in concealing his art in colloquial constructions [Rhef. 3.2.4 5).) This comparison anticipates the quarrel between ancient vetustas and modern operositas, between the antiquarios and the cacozelos, both of which Augustus avoided in his elegans et temperatum style. His dislike of both ‘Attic* archaism and ‘Asiatic’ volubility resembles Horace's fine balance between faulty extremes (Suetonius, Aug. 86; cf. Seneca, Ep. 114.13-4). The comparison of the passionately elevated austerity of Thucydides with the (deceptively) artless subtlety and charm of Lysias by Dionysius suggests the better forms of some of the qualities burlesqued by Aristophanes (Dem. 2).

4ϋ TRADITIO

and στενός (tenuis), highly finished and narrow in scope, and the 4 larger, freer, bolder tone required by the loftier and more comprehensive subjects' of de­liberative oratory.20 Euripidean tenuity (ιαχνανα, Frogs 941), subtle in ar­gument and realistic in the portrayal of familiar daily life, sharply articulated in contrast to the skiagraphic ‘obscurity’ of Aeschylus, puts the audience on its guard against the slightest inaccuracies in verisimilitude. Similarly, the judge in a private legal dispute must attend closely to intricate argumentative detail in cases often dealing with trivial issues where anything but a dry (ισχνός) banality of style would be out of place. It is against such eristically ‘elever’ (δεινός; cf. Aristophanes’ The Clouds 1034, Plato’s Apology 17) pleaders and their scholastically barren rhetoric that Isocrates upholds a type of orator who can represent important Hellenic matters in an artistic and varied manner of the poets — more elevated, original, figuratively striking, and enduring (Panath. 1, Paneg. 11, Antid. 46- 50).21 He is most offended when

20 E. M. Cope, The Rhetoric of Aristotle III 147. Aristotle cites Chacremon as an example ol logographic precision who, Cope reports from Athcnaius ( 15.679k), was known for his partiality for such minute details as the enumeration of flowers in a garland, as centuries later Dr. Johnson was to comment on the enumeration of streaks on a tulip (Rasselas 10).

21 In Antid. 46-50 (cited MHP n. 20) Isocrates says that while clever pleaders ‘owe to a capacity for intrigue their expertness' in debate and arc ‘tolerated only for the day when they are engaged in the trial/ more ambitious speakers are honored and held in esteem 'in every society and at all times' (Isocrates, trans. G. Norlin and L. Van Hook,3 vols.(LCL; London 1966-8]). Compare Thucydides, whose history is not to be a declamatory exercise (αγώνισμά) to be heard once (ίς τόπαραχρί/μα) but something for all time (1.22): see Dionysius, De comp. verb. 22 and Thucy. 7, 20; also Pliny, Ep. 5.8.11. These passages bear on Horace's haec placuit sernel, haec decicns repetita placebit (365) in the same way as Longinus' com­ments in 7.3-4 (cl. MHP 13 where Brink, who cites the same Longinian passage (p. 369], should have been mentioned). In adapting the accuracy and variety of the (written) epi- deictic style to the politically important issues of (oral) deliberative oratory, Isocrates de­velops an ideal of written discourse which subsequently overshadows Aristotle's agonistic/ graphic distinction. Quintilian reflects this overshadowing in 3.8.58-67 and 8.3.11-14 (cited MHP n. 8). Both he (12.10.49-57) and Pliny (Ep. 1.20), while recognizing Aristotle's distinction, feel that there should be little or no stylistic difference between writing well and speaking well. Whatever difference there is should be determined, according to Quin­tilian, by the sophistication of the audience: one need use an emotionally histrionic and argumentatively simplified style less in a speech to be delivered before cultivated men than in one before a random populace. Dionysius seems to share his view* (Dem. 15, 36- 8, 44-5; Thucy. 49-51; De comp. verb. 25), which, indeed, goes back at least to Plato (Phaedrus 277c). In general where Aristotle’s distinction persists, the public elevated style tends to be as­sociated with simplicity and forcefulness, while the Isocratean ideal seeks to combine eleva­tion with artistically elaborated composition and ornate refinement. For a good account of the complex overlapping of later terminology, see F. Quadlbauer, ‘Die genera dicendi bis Plinius d. J.,* Wiener Studien 71 (1958) 55-111 — who Is not entirely correct, perhaps, in saying that Aristotle is objectively neutral in evaluating the three kinds of oratory' (64). Deliberative oratory is clearly nobler (καλλίονος) and more worthy of a statesman (πολιτικω-

‘ut pic t u r a p o e s is ’ 47

certain ‘sophists’ (σοφιστών) claim that he is writing speeches for the court (περί δικογραφίαν). This effrontery is comparable to calling Pheidias, who sculpted the Athena of the Parthenon, a maker of figurines (κοροπλάΟος) or Zeuxis a painter of votive tablets (πινάκια). These stylistic banalities of the courtroom (Anlid. 2) are equally characteristic of the false eristic trifling in the degenerate forms of the written epideictic style (Helen 1-13). Novelties of paradox end in verbal ingenuities which attempt to prove things even more inconsequential than those in the private disputes. Seeking only the astounding (θαυματοποιίας, Hel. 7), the young rhetors, composing mock eulogies in which they need fear no competitor, take refuge, like Quintilian’s little animals of the hedgerows, ‘in such topics because of weakness.’ All of which, says Isocrates, is to ignore the fact that ‘ to be a little superior in important things is of greater worth than to be pre-eminent in petty things that are without value for the living’ (Hel. 5).22 23

In a broader philosophical context, the sophistic manipulator of lesser highlights against a shaded background in the petty skirmishes of the courtroom closely resembles the adroit competitor in the battle with shadows (σκιαμα- χουντών) of Plato’s cave (Rep. 520c).2i He, like Aristophanes’ Euripides (cf. The Clouds 1378) and the eristic rhetorician Tisias (Phaedrus 273b ), is ‘clever’ (σοφών): ‘How keen is the vision of the little soul, how quick it is to discern the things that interest it, a proof that it is not poor vision which it has, but one forcibly enlisted in the service of evil, so that the sharper its sight the more mischief it accomplishes’ (519a ; cf, Theaet. 17'2c - 77b , Laws 689c d ). The entire episode of the cave, in fact, is pertinent to the critical vocabulary of literary judgment (514a - 21c ). It offers a context for both the nature of the artificial lumina, which must be protected from the sun’s light (as in Longinus’ distinction between άμνδρά φέγγη and φως), and the nature of the ‘critic’

τέρας) than forensic (Rhet. 1.1.10, 1354b23- 7) — to say nothing of epideictic — oratory, as well as being less tricky ( 1354b29-31) and more difficult (3.17.10, 1418a 22).

22 However different their stylistic ideals, Isocrates' contrast of the statue of Athena with the small figurine — which Lucian later uses to characterize the literary affectations of his belletristic fop (Lexiphanes 22-5) — corresponds to Longinus* juxtaposition, discussed in MHP (18-19), of the grand Colossus against the verisimilar spearman (36.3) and the cor­respondingly 'exact' literary genres (33.1-5). Quintilian compares proficiency in writing fanciful declamations to that in performing feats of dexterity: however skillfully done, both are useless (2.20.3-5).

23 The scholastic associations of οκιαμαχέω with the declamatory halls are brought out well by H. Stephanus (Thesaurus Graecae Linguae [Paris 1831- 65)): ‘Scilicet οκιαμαχέω non tam significat Cum umbra pugno, quam In umbra, i.c. non in aperto campo, sed in schola, in gymnasio: quare etiam generatim signif. Exercitationis s. Ostentationis causa pugno, ut ap. Athen. 4.154\ ; Plato, 18d , 520c , 830c ; Plut. De plac. philos. 4(12); Lucian, Hermot. 33, Pise. 35. ' Translations from the Republic, Phaedo, and Sophist are by P. Shorcy (LCL), F. N. Fowler (LCL), and F. M. Cornford (in The Collected Dialogues of Plato [New York)).

48 TRADITIO

who takes these objects, which prefer the obscurum, to be clearer than those in the frightening brilliance above (51 5e ). The cave episode shows, as well, how the wise man, descending from divine contemplation in the true sunlight to the miserable dimness below, may well appear ‘ridiculous, if, while still blinking through the gloom, and before he has become sufficiently accustomed to the environing darkness, lie is compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice (περί των τον δικαίου σκιών) or the images (αγαλ­μάτων) that cast the shadows’ (517d ). The sensible observer, therefore, must remember

That there are two distinct disturbances of the eyes arising from two causes, according as the shift is from light to darkness or from darkness to light, and, believing that the same thing happens to the soul too, whenever he saw a soul perturbed and unable to discern something, he would not laugh unthinkingly, but would observe whether coming from a brighter life its vision was obscured by the unfamiliar darkness, or whether the passage from the deeper dark of ignorance into a more luminous world and the greater brightness had dazzled its vision (518a b ).

The shifting light of the nocturnal day (νυκτερινής τίνος ήμέρας) in the cave and the contrasting brilliance of true sunlight above (521c) account, then, for two corresponding types of darkness. The man descending again to the ‘puppet theater’ (511b) must ‘evaluate’ impressions which become ‘skenographic’ in so far as they now challenge his estimating faculty with conflicting perceptions of shapes against a background of relative refinements of highlight and shading (516c e ). The man emerging from the cave, on the other hand, since he looks at things against a background of brilliant light, can grasp all he sees only in ‘skiagraphic’ outline.

In Plato’s Sophist, the philosopher, furthermore, who observes the world from his position in the light above, will appear, in Milton’s phrase, ‘dark w'ith excessive bright’ and almost as hard to discern as a god (Sophist 216c). The difficulty of seeing him, therefore, will arise for a reason very different from that of seeing the sophist.

The Sophist takes refuge in the darkness of not-being, where he is at home and has the knack of feeling his way, and it is the darkness of the place that makes him so hard to perceive. . . . Whereas the philosopher, whose thoughts constantly dwell upon the nature of reality, is difficult to see because his region is so bright, for the eye of the vulgar soul cannot endure to keep its gaze fixed on the divine (254a b ).

The sophist would then feel secure in the shadowy courtroom of Plato’s sub­terranean theater. His soul will resemble that described in the Phaedo (81 bd), w’hich has ahvays preferred the refuge of bodily sensations and feared what is ‘shadowy and invisible to the eyes ( τοϊςδμμασι σκοτώδες καίάειδές) but is intelligible and tangible to philosophy.’ The ‘distant’ darkness which causes

UT PICTURA POESIS 49

this 'fear of the invisible and of the other world (φόβφ τονάειδονςτεκαί "Αιδον) ’ arises from the incomprehensibility of the most excellent things and will lead the timid soul to desire again the ‘closer’ darkness of the phenomenal world (cf. 79, 82e -83). Such distinctions suggest a philosophical context for discriminating between literary styles. The elevated subject matter of epic requires a style comparable to the less visually articulated, skiagraphic rep­resentation of Horace’s more distant picture to be seen in full light. The more familiar subjects of ordinary life require a style comparable to the more me­ticulously accurate lines and modulated colors of his picture to be examined close at hand which ‘loves’ the obscurum for its own protection.24

24 Aristotle observes that things too bright will appear as obscure as those too diin (De an. 422a20-2) and also that when one — as the philosopher would when descending from the light — turns from a brilliant object like the sun to relative darkness, the image of the brightness, remaining on the retina, temporarily impairs its vision (De somn. 459n9-19) — an observation repeated in later optical treatises (cf. John Pecham, Perspectiva communis 1.1). Plato's visual analogy of the two types of light and darkness (518a b ), particularly in the Phaedo, contributes more to the later mystical than to the optical tradition in philos­ophy and the arts (cf. Plutarch, Mor. 764e; Philo, De somn. 1.83-4; Pseudo-Dionysius, De caet. hier. 2.2-3; St. Augustine, Soliloquies: for the Renaissance and its beneficiaries, sec E. Wind, ‘The Concealed God/ Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New York 1968] 218-35, and E. H. Gombrich, ‘ Icones Symbollcae/ Symbolic Images [London 1972J 123-95). The literary history of the two kinds of light and darkness, as well as the types of 'wonder* they respectively aiouse, has not been treated except tangentially when such imagery occurs in famous treatises like Longinus'. With respect to Aeschylus, it is worth noting that Philos- tratus associates his style with the elevated speeches of the Brahmans who live in a purer daylight near to the gods (Life of Apol. 6.11). In the late Middle Ages Nicole Oresme com­ments on the ‘skiagraphic* nature of the proper prophetic style: ‘Hence it is not a charac- reristic of the prophetic style (stilus propheticus) to determine all things with particularity and in detail but rather to do so less distinctly (minus distincte), as has been said, although some who are not prophets go to the other extreme in an excessive way by inventing speeches with double meaning and obscure, equivocal, and ambiguous words, which can be applied to any occurrence (qui confingunt orationes amphibolicas et verba ambigua, flcxiloca, el obscurap que ad omnem eventum possunt applicari) / De configurationibus qualitatum et motuum 1.39, cd. and trans. M. ClagelL in Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Mo­tions (Madison 1968) 267. Those who cleverly elaborate enigmatic utterances, which may be bent to any occasion, resemble the ancient sophists of Plato and Isocrates who have a knack for feeling their way in the dark. In the Renaissance, George Chapman's distinction between the two kinds of 'darkness* (in dedicating his 'Ovids Banquet of Sence*) isbeguil- ingly ingenuous: ‘Obscuritie in affection of words, & indigested concets, is pedanticall and childish; but where it shroudeth it selfe in the hart of his subiect, vtterd with fitnes of figure, and expressiue Epethites; with that darknes wil J still labour to be shaddowed* (The Poems of George Chapman [London 1941) 19). For the ancient distinction between σκιαγραφία and σκηνογραφία see my study In the Miscellany section of this volume of Traditio.

50 TRADITIO

II

The last line preceding the pictorial analogy, verum operi longo fas esi obre­pere somnum (360), might be said to have raised tacit questions in the reader's mind: in just what way should the opus longum be appreciated and what is the nature and extent of the stylistic allowances to be made for it ? The qualifica­tions necessary to answer these questions are expressed as the three resem­blances between types of poems and types of paintings. The third resemblance, haec placuit semel, haec dedens repetita placebit (365), in its turn, emphasizes, by repetition, the importance of pleasing, and it is the need to qualify the proper kind of pleasure that immediately motivates the concluding lines.28 The elusivencss of Horace’s transitions within the entire discussion (347-90) is revealed by the way in which the lines in question (361-5) may serve not only as a conclusion to the opening section (347-60) but as an introduction to the closing section (366-90).

ut pictura poesis: erit quae, si propius stes, te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes; haec amat obscurum, volet haec sub luce videri, iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen; haec placuit semel, haec deciens repetita placebit, o maior iuvenum, quamvis et voce paterna fingeris ad rectum et per te sapis, hoc tibi dictum tolle memor, certis medium et tolerabile rebus recte concedi: consultus iuris et actor causarum mediocris abest virtute diserti Messallae nec scit quantum Cascellius Aulus, sed tamen in pretio est: mediocribus esse poetis non homines, non di, non concessere columnae, ut gratas inter menses symphonia discors et crassum unguentum et Sardo cum meile papaver 375offendunt, poterat duci quia cena sine istis: sic animis natum inventumque poema iuvandis, 25 *

25 This qualification is crucial to Horace’s argument. The type of pleasure required here is not to he confused with the delectare or dulce which Horace distinguishes for the sake of argument from prodesse or utile in 333-46 (cf. Brink 378). Neither the pragmatic benefits (fruges 341) nor diverting entertainment (voluptas 338) of the content alone are involved herebut rather the poem’s final expression in language which must satisfy the critic’s sensibilities. There is something reminiscent of Aristotle’s preference for the ’liberal’ arts as opposed to those arts which aim at pleasure (πρός ήδονήν) and/or at utility (πρός χρήσιν) in Horace’s discrimination of the ultimate satisfaction which poetry may give from both voluptas and fruges (Meta. l . t .14-16). With respect to the Augustan period, Horace may well be wishing to distinguish his placere clearly from the cruder hedonism of Erastosthenes (Strabo 1.15), from the exclusive concern with euphony criticized by Philodemus (Περί ποιημάτων, ed. C. Jensen (Berlin 1923]), or perhaps Iroin a more sophisticated hedonism which Philodemus himself may have argued for in the circle of the Pisos.

361

365

370

‘ut pictu ra p o e s is ’ 51

si paulum summo decessit, vergit ad imum.ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armisindoctusque pilae discive trochive quiescit,ne spissae risum tollant inpune coronae:qui nescit versus, tamen audet fingere, quidni?liber et ingenuus, praesertim census equestremsummam nummorum vitioque remotus ab omni.tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva:id tibi iudicium est, ea mens, siquid tamen olimscripseris, in Maeci descendat iudicis auriset patris et nostras nonumque prematur in annummembranis intus positis: delere licebit,quod non edideris, nescit vox missa reverti.26 * 28 390

380

385

The necessary qualification of placere (365) is achieved in 377-8, which lines, Brink says, ‘ contain the burden of the argument — a poem is either good or void’ (p. 378). It is clear that we are to take placere in the sense of iuvare, not only in its meaning of pleasing both the mind and the body (cf. Cicero on iuvare, De fin. 2.13—1) but of preserving and nourishing them (cf. alat formet- que poetam, 307, and Brink, pp. 336-7), for it is the total conscious being of the soul which is to be served (animis . . . iuvandis).

With his lines 361-5 now forming an introduction to 361-90, Horace, after complimenting the older son upon his training and his own good sense (per te sapis) in 366-7, continues by pointing out that arts with no explicit utilitarian purpose must be judged in accordance with how well and how long they please. He categorizes the types of pleasures, which different arts effect, with respect to the senses. In distinguishing the different kinds of pictures to be seen from

26 ‘A poem is like a picture: one strikes your fancy more, the nearer you stand; another,the farther away. This courts the shade, that will wish to be seen in the light, and dreads notthe critic insight of the judge. This pleased but once; that, though ten times called for, will always please. O you elder youth, though wise yourself and trained to right judgement by a father’s voice, take to heart and remember this saying, that only some tilings rightly brook the medium and the bearable. A lawyer and pleader of middling rank falls short of the merit of eloquent Messalla, and knows not as much as Aulus Cascellius, yet he has a value. But that poets be of middling rank, neither man nor gods nor booksellers ever brooked. As at pleasant banquets an orchestra out of tune, an unguent that is thick, and poppy-seeds served with Sardinian honey, give offence, because the feast might have gone on without them: so a poem, whose birth and creation are for the soul’s delight, if in aught it falls short of the top, sinks to the bottom. He who cannot play a game, shuns the weapons of the Campus, and, if unskilled in ball or quoit or hoop, remains aloof, lest the crowded circle break out in righteous laughter. Yet the man who knows not how dares to frame verses. Why not? He is free, even freeborn, nay, is rated at the fortune of a knight, and stands clear from every blemish. But you will say nothing and do nothing against Minerva’s will; such is your judgement, such your good sense. Yet if ever you do write anything, let it enter the ears of some critical Maecius, and your father’s, and my own; then put your parchment in the closet and keep it back till the ninth year. What you have not published you can destroy; the word once sent forth can never come back’ (trans. H. R. Fairclough in LCL).

52 TRADITIO

far and from near, etc., he has already used sight to introduce the stylistic sources of aesthetic pleasure. The pleasures of the other senses (with the excep­tion of touch) are now illustrated with reference to a dinner party: table music for the ear, perfume for the nose, and poppyseeds in honey for the palate. In each case the arts which inadequately please these senses fail, and fail completely because they have no other function than to please and could have been omitted (poterat duci quia cena sine islis). In a similar fashion the art of poetry, whose absence imposes no unpleasant practical consequences, will fail completely if it fails to please the soul.

Since its entire function, however, is to please the soul, poetry will ultimately be different in kind from the arts just mentioned which please only their respective senses. It must please the mind as well which will judge it by prudential criteria of decorum, which decide what is fitting for the occasion (quid deceul, quid non, 308), and by criteria of execution, applicable to both natural abilities and acquired skills, which measure how well the work achieves its intention.27 28 The aesthetic analogy of poetry with these other arts extends only to the fact that 1) these arts do not admit degrees of pleasure, and 2) the line between pleasing and displeasing is very thin: if one paulum summo decessit, he vergit ad imum. In the case of poetry, however, one may ‘know’ — as well as ‘sense’ — where this line exists in order to avoid overstepping it. This knowledge, both of what is fitting and of how to achieve and maintain that fitness in practice, is the responsibility of art.2* While the athlete who is indoctus knows enough not to compete, Horace laments that the poet who does not know how to write poems will, nevertheless, often dare to do so. He therefore urges the older youth by rhetorical compliments, both to write in accordance with his natural gifts, not invita . . . Minerva, and to exercise these gifts with an art befitting his knowledge and judgment (mens, iudicium), if he is to write something that will bring lasting satisfaction. With the help

27 Cf. Brink 337-8. Cicero's distinction is useful: ‘in every case while the ability to do what is appropriate is a matter of trained skill and of natural talent, the knowledge of what is appropriate to a particular occasion is a matter of practical sagacity (omnique in re posse quod deceat facere artis el naturae est, scire quid quandoque deceat prudentiae),’ Cicero: De oratore 3.212, trans. E. W. Sutton and II. Rackham, 2 vols. (LCL; London 1959). I agree with Brink's remarks on the relevance of Aristotle’s discussion of music in Potit. 8.3-5 (373, 377). What Aristotle says of the effects of music on the soul in 8.5.4-10 is close to what Horace is saying of those of poetry: it nourishes the soul in the very act of pleasing the senses and the intelligence.

28 Such artistic knowledge is analogous to that necessary to keep one who strives for a given stylistic effect from falling into its excessive form, its neighboring fault, si caret arte (31). See Brink for many rhetorical parallels (105-16). The question in lines 377-8 of the close proximity of aesthetic pleasure in general to disgust or satiety is what distinguishes the present passage (361-90) from such parallels and relates it to Cicero’s observations on pleasure discussed below.

‘u t pic t u r a p o e s is * 53

of experienced advice, he will not be tempted to publish his work before all necessary revisions can be made.

Horace’s observations in lines 361-90 on the general nature of the pleasure appropriate to the fine arts and on the artistic knowledge of decorum and technique necessary to achieve and to maintain it resemble in their order and content a description of style in Cicero’s De oratore (3.97-1 OO).20 Cicero is describing the purpose and nature of language in general with respect to ornamentation in diction (verba) and in thought (sententiae). While he speaks of both poetry and rhetoric, however, Horace emphasizes the greater difficulty and importance of giving aesthetic pleasure in a poem by distinguishing poetry from two activities of forensic oratory, pleading and jurisprudence.50 Beyond this heightening of emphasis, both men are concerned in these passages with how style may please not once but on repeated occasions: genus igitur dicendi est eligendum quod maxime teneat eos qui audiant et quod non solum delectet sed etiam sine satietate delectet (3.97). Whereas Horaee ascribes the displeasure in his examples to a failure in the general quality of what is to please, Cicero 29 30

29 For the general relationship between Cicero and Horace in AP 366-78, sec Brink 372-8 (similarly In AP 89-118, pp. 131-2). He cites Norden, Rostagni, and others who call at­tention to important passages in Cicero (csp. De oral. 1.118-9, 259; Brut. 193) which claim a kind of animi libera quaedam oblectatio for rhetoric parallel to Horace's conception of aesthetic pleasure. Rostagni goes so far as to say that Horace ‘ non solo attinga a fonti co­muni, ma rlsenta della diretta lcttura delle opere retoriche di Cicerone' (Arte poetica dt Orazio [Torino 1930] 107). Brink feels, on the other hand, that Horace is 'close to the original setting of the argument about poetry and the fine arts,' while Cicero is simply 'extending to rhetoric the quality of the finer arts, and is hoping to compromise at the same time' (because of the practical necessities to be faced in all utilitarian pursuits). In presenting the following similarities between Cicero and Horace, I am trying to clarify the argument of lines 361-90 rather than to claim a direct borrowing by the poet from the orator. If Horace's argument turns, like Cicero's, on the description of pleasure appropriate to language in rela­tion to that appropriate to the senses, Cicero's pictorial illustration becomes relevant to Horace's analogy with painting. G. C. Fiskc and M. A. Grant point out the specific similarity of Cicero's illustration (3.98) to Horace's analogy (361-5) without clarifying the context as a whole (Unioersity of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature 27 [1929] 37-8).

30 Cicero makes the same distinction but specifically directed to the greater rhythmical precision of poetry with respect to rhetoric. Using concedere, which Horace uses twice (369, 373), he says that the public will notice slips in oratory as it docs in versification, ‘but where­as it does not forgive (ignoscit) a poet, it makes allowances for us (nobis concedit)9 although all the audience . . . perceives that our remarks wrcre not neatly put or finished in style' (De oral. 3.198). Brink overstates slightly the difference between Horace and the rhetori­cians with regard to the ear (304-5, 309). Whatever natural capacities there may be for distinguishing prose rhythms sine arte (Orat. 203), Quintilian (12.10.73-6) and Cicero stress the cultivation of the ear by art (Orat. 161-2). Similarly, Horace feels that any innate re­ceptivity, any tacitus sensus (De orat. 3.195, Oral. 173) of all rhythm (cf. Aristotle, Polit. 8.5.4), must be cultivated by all the modern artistic resources and not allowed to relax In the rougher methods of the early Latin poets (AP 251-74).

54 TRADITIO

ascribes it more specifically to the failure resulting from the excessive use of what otherwise might delight us. He draws his examples from each of the senses in the same order as Horace does and with similar comparisons from painting, music, perfume, food. He begins with a pictorial analogy to illustrate what may please the sense of sight on continued inspection.

It is hard to say why exactly it is that the things which most strongly gratify our senses and excite them most vigorously at their first appearance, are the ones from which we are most speedily estranged by a feeling of disgust and satiety. How much more brilliant, as a rule, in beauty and variety of coloring are the contents of new pictures than those of old ones ! and nevertheless the new ones, though they captivated us at first sight, later on fail to give us pleasure — although it is also true that in the case of old pictures the actual roughness and old-fashioned style are an attraction (Quanto colorum pulchritudine et varietate floridiora sunt in picluris novis pleraque quam in veteribus! quae tamen, etiamsi primo aspectu nos ceperunt, diulius non delectant, cum eidem nos in antiquis tabulis illo ipso horrido ob sole toque teneamur).

Cicero’s nos ceperunt corresponds to Horace’s te capiat for what is striking in a painting. His appreciation of the rough and old-fashioned style in the ve­teribus and antiquis tabulis, in contrast to the overly florid colors in the picturis novis, suggests the way in which the skiagraphic qualities applicable to the epic style may subsequently have been interpreted in the Augustan period. In anticipation of still later periods, the skiagraphic representation may already have become associated with the simple, unsophisticated methods of early, even primitive, techniques of painting and with the abrupt, archaic force of ancient writers. Even with respect to subject matter, such a style would suit the remote in time as well as the distant in space, for neither could be known or seized in detail or refinement; both the remote and the distant must be sketched in outline.31 Though Cicero and Horace repeatedly criticized

31 Dionysius says that Pindar's lines are vigorous, dignified, austere, and, while harsh to the ear, not unpleasantly so. They exhibit no contemporary prettiness but rather the archaic beauty of a distant past (De comp. verb. 22). Aeschylus and Thucydides share these qualities: all have a 'patina of antiquity* (άρχαιον nlvov), a mellowing deposit (Dem. 5, 38-9, 44), an antiquitas impexa clearly distinct from the argutae sententiae of moderns (Tacitus, Dial. 20). The 'beautiful* and the 'austere* are associated with the 'archaic* and the older oral style (Dem. 36, 44-5). Like Dionysius, Cicero (see following note) and Quintillian (10.2.7) as­sociate the ancient writers with primitive or archaic art. Such art should be seen at a distance, perhaps, in the way James Boswell can still combine these traditional associations In de­scribing recollections from the past. 'Even harsh scenes acquire a softness by length of time; and some are like very loud sounds, which do not please, or at least do not please so much, till you arc removed to a certain distance. They may be compared to strong coarse pictures, which will not bear to be viewed near* (The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson LL.D., Tuesday, 19th October (London 1914) 323-4. I am indebted for this reference to Brigitte Fields).

‘u t pictu ra p o e s is ’ 55

such a style as a model for imitation, Cicero recognizes here the continuing pleasure of a ‘patina of antiquity* which might even expose, by juxtaposition, the ephemeral nature of exaggerated effects, however striking they may have appeared at first (cf. Quintilian, 1.8.8-9). Likewise, Horace, though critical of those affecting the rough movement and archaic diction of Ennius, might easily defend Virgil’s artistically moderate concessions to the archaism of ruder epic devices for connotative purposes as Quintilian later does (8.3.24-5).**

Cicero then moves on to the pleasure of the ear which will prefer, in the end, the singer’s firmly held notes to flourishes (flexiones) and falsetto voices (fal­sae voculae).** He next takes up scent and rejects the overly pungent unguen­tum for the simpler fragrance. Barely mentioning touch (which Horace omits entirely), he passes on to taste, to which sweetness in food and drink soon be­comes offensive.32 33 34 From these sensor}· examples Cicero draws a concluding

32 For Virgil's satiricai comment on archaism, see CaLal. 2 and Quintilian, 8.3.27-30. A. Gellius reports (12.2.10) that Seneca criticized Virgii for writing ‘some verses which are harsh (duros), irregular (enormes) and somewhat beyond the proper length, with no other motive than that those who were devoted to Ennius might find a flavour of antiquity in the new poem (ut Ennianus populus adgnoscerel in novo carmine aliquid antiquitatis)1: The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, trans. J. C. Holfe, 3 vols. (LCL; I.ondon 1961-8). Horaee would regard the Ennianus populus with as much irony as he does the critici who call Ennius an alter Homerus in his complaint to Augustus and the Pisos about conservative Homan literary tastes (Ep. 2.1.28-92, AP 258-74, 289-94). Yet old terms, spoken by the ancient Cato and Cethegus, may bring, when polished up, their picturesque associations to new contexts and be mixed with wrords newly sanctioned by custom (Ep. 2.2.115-25; cf. AP 46-72). Lucilius, for ail his roughness (S. 1.4.1-13, 1.10.1-71), provides energy and direction (S. 2.1.28-34, 62-78). Horace's view of the proper use of the Latin literary past is complex (sec Brink 301-9, 318 23). After allowing for Horace's greater stringency in speaking of prosody, compare Cicero's own attitudes toward ancient writers like Cato, Cethegus, Ennius, Livius Andronicus, with whom he compares the earliest painters and sculptors, and toward their imitators (Brut. 61-76). For Cicero, the ancients had dignity of thought and forceful originality, but those who imitate them in everything, especially in their abrupt rhythms and broken composition, are like critics who prefer the most archaic picture (antiquissima illa pictura), which uses only a few colors, to the developments of modern painting (Oral. 168-73). Perhaps Cicero's final, and harshest, judgment of early Roman oratory is that expressed by Atticus (Brut. 292-9). In his essay entitled ‘The Debate on Primitivism in Ancient Rhet­oric' (The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29 [1966) 24-38), E. II. Gombrich, citing a number of these passages, establishes a similar context, which, I believe, might now also include Horace's pictorial analogy (see especially 32-3).

33 Aristophanes associates the decadent new sophistry with ornate trills and quavering in music (The Clouds 966-72); compare Horace's lines on the decadence of the music accom­panying the chorus (AP 212-19). These lines, In turn, resemble Vitruvius' chapter on deca­dent fresco-painting, if ‘chromatic’ licence may include both musical and pictorial colores: flamboyant ‘tones' etsi non ab arte sunt posita, fulgentes oculorum reddunt visus (7.5.8).

34 Without giving any example, Cicero simply says that in touch there are degrees of softness (mollitudinis) and smoothness (levitatis). Although Horace may imply touch along with smell in crassus (which has a tactile connotation directly opposed to mollis and levis),

56 TOADITIO

inference which initiates the analogy leading to the main issue: the quality of language in poems and speeches. This inference, which Horace also draws figuratively in the line following his analogy of poetry with the sensuous arts, explains the reason why poetry resembles those arts.

Thus in all things the greatest pleasures arc only narrowly separated from disgust (sic omnibus in rebus voluptatibus maximis fastidium finitimum est); which makes thisless surprising in the case of language, in which we can judge from either the poets or the orators that a style which is symmetrical, decorated, ornate, and attractive, but which lacks relief (intermissione) or check (reprehensione) or variety (varietate), cannot continue to give pleasure for long (non posse in delectatione esse diuturna), however brilliantly colored the poem or speech may be (quamvis claris sit coloribus picta vel poesis oel oratio). And what makes the curls and rouge of the orator or poet jar upon us all the more quickly is, that whereas with the senses satiety in the case of excessive pleasure is an instinctive and not a deliberate reaction, in the case of writings and speeches faults of over-coloring are detected not only by the verdict of the ears but even more by that of the mind {atque eo citius in oratoris aut in poetae cincinnis ac fuco offenditur quod sensus in nimia voluptate natura non mente satiantur, in scriptis et in dictis non aurium solum sed animi iudicio etiam magis infucata vilia noscuntur).35

Cicero makes explicit what Horace implies both in his sic animis natum in­ventumque poema iuvandis (377) and in his hortatory compliment id tibi iudi- cium est, ea mens (386): for language to be pleasing, it must appeal to the mind (mente) not just to the senses; to the judgment of the soul (animi iudicio), not just of the ear. So narrowly are the greatest pleasures separated from

its exclusion more probably reflects the view that touch (and sometimes taste) was less 'pure ' (In the sense described below) and less appropriate to the more refined pleasures of the mind associated with the arts. Cf. Aristotle* JVic* Eth. 10.3.7,10.5.7; Eud. Eih. 3.2.6-14; Mag. Λ for. 1.21.2-4.

35 For the obligation of language to please the intelligence as well as the ear, see Oral. 162. Brink stresses Horace's insistence upon variety, if properly given unity by art, throughout his commentary. Cicero's use of offenditur here parallels Horace’s in 248, 352, 376, which Brink refers to aesthetic taste (293, 378) and compares to Cicero's use of the word in l)e oral. 1.259 (363). Dionysius comments that beautiful things cause satiety just as much as sweet things when they lack variety; diversity keeps them always new (De comp, verb, 19). More im­portant for Horace is the fact that Dionysius claims other forms of speech may easily hold a middle position between praise and blame, but in stylistic elaboration (κατασκευή) what­ever is not a complete success is an utter failure (Ep. ad P o m f2). This close parallel to si paulum summo decessit, vergit ad imum (378) suggests that Ilorace could have had stylistic embellishments specifically in mind which, if attempted, had to succeed, because the poem, like the dinner, could have done sine istis (376). Similarly, for Quintilian (8.3.56) aflectation in language, like virtues carried to excess, is inexcusable, since, while other faults are due to carelessness, this Is deliberately cultivated: nam cetera parum vitantur, hoc petitur (cf. AP 352-3 on careless, i.e. excusable, errors, quas aut incuria fudit / aut humana parum cavit natura, as opposed to habitual errors (354-8). So Seneca, Ep. 114.2.

‘u t pic t u r a p o e s is ’ 57

disgust, when the style of the poem or speech misses the excellence necessary to please, it, in Horace’s phrase, vergit ad imum.

By comparing poetry to the arts of sensory gratification and by separating the poet’s activity from those of the jurist and the pleader, Horace is not antic­ipating the aestheticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.36 Instead of segregating the utilitarian from the fine arts per se on the grounds of cultural privilege, he is elucidating criteria for judging aesthetic pleasure, which go back at least to Plato for their moral presuppositions. In the Gorgias Socrates attributes the three criteria which Horace later applies to poetry to all beautiful (or excellent) things (rd καλά πάντα). Beautiful ‘ bodies (σώματα) and colors and figures and sounds’ must be judged either with respect to their usefulness κατά την χρείαν) for some purpose (χρήσιμον), or with respect to the pleasure (κατά ήδονήν) which arises from the delight (χαίρειν) they bring to the be­holders (0£ωρονντας). All these things — among which are music, studies (μαθημάτων), even legislation (νόμους) and civic practices (επιτηδεύματα) — are called beautiful in so far as they offer either some pleasure or benefit or both ( rj διά ήδονήν τινα fj διά ώφελίαν r\ δι άμψότερα). The triple alternative (ή ωφέλιμα είναι i) ήδέα ή άμψότερα) — which is repeated four times, like a formula, in a short space (474e - 75a , 478b) — closely resembles Horace’s aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae / aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae (333-4) in his repetition of aut, his use of simul e t . . . et for ‘both (at once),’ and his emphasis upon ethical rather than intellectual profit.37 Horace

36 How far Horace is from wishing to isolate the aesthetic experience from contamination by any practical or theoretical activity becomes clear from his lines to Florus — seu linguam causis acuis seu civica iura / respondere paras seu condis amahile carmen / prima feres hederae victricis praemia (Ep. 1.3.23-5) — where he even extends to the pleader and jurist the ivy usually reserved for the poet (cf. C. 1.1.29-30). He draws the distinction between the ‘fine’ and ‘practical’ arts in the ΛΡ, not to praise the first at the expense of the second, but to emphasize the inescapable responsibility of the fine arts to please a properly discriminating audience. My following discussion traces the origins of this responsibility by elucidating further a philosophical tradition whose main lines of development have been admirably sketched by M. Pohlenz (‘ Τόπρέπον: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des grlechischen Geistes* (1933), Klelne Schriften, ed. H. Ddrrie [Hildcsheim 1965] I 200-39).

37 The terms of Plato’s formula, which take different grammatical forms in predicating the fairest things, perhaps share in the direct influence on Horace’s lines attributed to Neop­tolemus by Jensen and later scholars (see Brink 352-3 and Brink, Prol. 56). The influence of Neoptolemus is attractive because he adapts a version of the formula directly to poetry: ‘the perfect poet in order to fulfill his capacity must not only thrill his hearers but improve them and teach them a lesson’ (Brink's translation of χαιπηύςάρετήνΛεϊντψτελείφποιητβ μετά τής ψυχαγωγίας τοϋ τούς Ακούοντας ώφελεϊν καί χρησιμολογεΐν). Brink stresses the similarity of idonea dicere vitae to χρησιμολογεΐν and points out that delectare may render ψυχαγωγία citing Strabo 1.15. Dionysius uses the same word In adapting a similar varia­tion of Plato’s formula to rhetoric in a context reminiscent of Aristotle’s distinction between forensic and epidelctic audiences (Dem. 44); see n. 50.

58 TRADITIO

favors the third alternative (343-6) and then, setting aside for the moment a content balanced by instruction and diversion — its materials, Platonic and otherwise, having now been treated (309-22, 333-46) — he is ready to proceed to the stylistic criteria necessary for pleasing the sensitive critic. Since the broad moral distinctions of the Gorgias do not. extend beyond the benefits and delights of the subject matter, to elucidate further Horace’s context we must turn to the Philebus for further light on the nature of aesthetic pleasure as the product of an artistic, as opposed to a purely ethical, ‘prudence’ in the achievement of stylistic decorum.

In the Philebus Plato turns his attention directly to the question of whether pleasure or benefit or a mixture of both contributes most to the attainment of the greatest human good. The benefits here are explicitly those gained from a rational cultivation of the ethical and scientific disciplines. While, in the Gorgias, he juxtaposes benefit {ωφέλεια), defined as usefulness (χρεία) for some purpose (το χρήσιμον), against pleasure (ηδονή) and delight (χαίρειν), in the beginning of the Philebus (1 Ibc) he sets out to contrast a life devoted to both ήδονή and χαίρειν with one devoted to ‘wisdom (ro φρονείν) and thought (τό νοεϊν) and memory (rd μεμνήσΟαι) and their kindred, right opinion (δόξαν τε ορθήν) and true reasonings (άληθεΐς λογισμούς),’ each of these being among the most beneficial (ώφελιμώτατον) of all things. Φοόνησις, or the practical (prudential) intelligence, is the intellectual faculty most often contrasted with ήδονή throughout the dialogue, and hence it corresponds to χρεία and χρήσι­μον, used to clarify ώφέλεια, in the Gorgias. The conclusion of the Philebus concerning the good life, as of the Ars poetica, concerning good subject matter (343-6), is that both pleasure and prudence must play their part. Albeit that of the five categories of things enabling us to attain the Good, that of pleas­urable things comes last, it is still important for Plato and for the future development of aesthetic theory. A few details of his discussion will elucidate, I believe, an already emerging general context for Horace’s argument.38

Socrates sets out to demonstrate that knowledge, ethical moderation, and the arts — the products of reason and prudence — play a more important

38 Plata: The Statesman, Philebus, Ion, trans. Η. N. Fowler and W. Η. M. Lamb (LCL; London 1962). The artistic considerations in the Philebus, as in the Gorgias, are incidental, of course, to Plato’s ethical definition of the Good and to his assignment of the part that pleasure plays in Its attainment. In describing the 'purer' pleasures which accompany the aesthetic experience of color, shape, scent, and sound, he explicitly says he is not referring to Individually beautiful living things or to works of art like painting (51c). That the Greater Hippias (29S.\) directly contradicts this assertion by including works of art in the experience of the Beautiful is one of the main reasons, as Pohlenz points out (103-4), for questioning its authenticity. Yet the Philebus introduces distinctions which, however qualified by the intervening influences described by Pohlenz, help us to understand the aesthetic attitudes of the Augustan period.

‘ut pictu ra p o e s is ’ 59

part in attaining the greatest human good than pleasures produced by gratifying the senses. In order to measure the products of reason against those of sensory gratification, he isolates, first, those pleasures which may be considered the purest or best, and then isolates those arts and sciences which may be con­sidered the purest or most exact. With respect to pleasure, he argues that what most people regard as pleasure is really a mixture of pleasure and pain in so far that pleasure is conceived of as the absence or cessation of pain (cf. Rep. 583- 5). In criticizing this opinion, he says that there arc really two kinds of pleasure (51 e ), one mixed in this way and one ‘pure’ (καθαρός). Pure pleasures are those that arise ‘from what are called beautiful colors, or from forms, most of those that arise from odors and sounds, in short all those, the want (ένδειας) of which is unfelt and painless, whereas the satisfaction furnished by them is felt by the senses, pleasant, and unmixed with pain’ (51b ). Socrates separates such pleasures from utilitarian considerations of practical activities which, presumably, would ‘mix’ them with painful sensa­tions (cf. Aristotle, Polit. 8.2.5- 6). Pleasurable feelings, for instance, gained from having knowledge (μαθήματα) may be naturally (φύσει) pure provided that, in the case of forgetfulness, an admixture of pain does not occur from reflecting (έν τισι λογισμοϊς) upon the lack (χρείαν) of the knowledge pre­viously held (52a b ). Such ‘pure’ pleasures, and the arts which produce them, resemble those which Horace’s dinner party could not only quite literally have gone on without but also have suffered no corresponding pain in losing (cf. Laws 667d e ).

With respect to the arts and sciences, Socrates redefines the scale of ‘purity’ as the scale of exactitude. Were wre to neglect the most exact or metric dis­ciplines which offer the most reliable knowdedge,

All that would be left for us would be to conjecture (εικάζειν) and to drill the perceptions by practice and experience (αίσθήσεις καταμελετάν εμπει­ρία καί τινι τριβή), with the additional use of the powers of guessing, which are commonly called arts and acquire their efficacy by practice (μελέτη) and toil (πόνω). . . . Take music first; . . . it attains harmony by guesswork based on practice, not by measurement (μετρώ).

Therefore, we may ‘divide the arts, as they are called, into two kinds, those which resemble music, and have less accuracy (άκριβείας) in their works, and those which, like building, are more exact’ (55d - 56c ). Even among the metric arts there are degrees of purity: reckoning in carpentry will be less exact, for instance, than calculation in geometry (56d - 57a ).

Having established degrees of purity in knowledge corresponding to degrees of purity in pleasure (57a b ), Socrates goes on to ask whether or not either the purest pleasures or the most exact arts and sciences, by themselves or combined together, could ever achieve the greatest good. The answer is that neither pure pleasure nor exact knowledge could achieve the good by itself. Nor, indeed,

60 THADITIO

could a combination of the purest forms of each be more successful (60c.-61c), because, even though only the purest pleasures may be admitted, the less exact arts and sciences (such as music) are necessary for the good life (62a - 63c ). In addition, the constitution of the greatest good must include measure (το μέχρον) and proportion (τό σύμμετρον) as its most precious requirements, which can make ‘any mixture whatsoever either of the highest value or of none at all’ (?) παντός άξια γίγνεται ήχισονν ή χό παράπαν ονδενός, 64d e ). The responsibility of τό μέχρον, and later (66a) τό μέχριον and τό καίριον, to make something either everything or nothing anticipates the crucial im­portance of literary decorum, which, if it fails slightly, fails completely.39

Plato concludes by listing the five categories of things which ultimately constitute the Good as follows (66 ac): 1) measure, moderation, and fitness, 2) proportion, beauty, completeness, 3) mind and prudence, 1) activities belonging especially to the soul, such as sciences (έπιστήμας), arts (τέχνας), and true opinion (δόξας όρΟάς), and 5) ‘those pleasures which we separated and classed as painless, which wrc called pure pleasures of the soul itself, those which accompany knowledge (<έπιστήμαις) and, sometimes, perceptions (οhdtj- σεσιν).’ Those pure pleasures of the soul were earlier said to be of the same nature as reason and prudence (63f.) and, here, to be proper companions both of the more exact arts and sciences and of the less exact ‘conjectural’ arts, like music, which must be acquired primarily through practical experience. It is the double association of an unmixed pleasure (of Plato’s fifth category), which one might — without suffering — do without, with both the technical knowledge of a ‘purer’ art and with the trained sensibility of a less pure or

39 As long as the context is primarily ethical, a perfectly balanced ’mean’ remains an ideal which for the most part can be only approximated, and therefore degrees of proximity will represent degrees of value, as in any practical activity such as jurisprudence or pleading. Despite the fact that there is but one way to hit the target and an infinite number of ways to miss it (Nic. Eth. 2.G. 13 7) and the ‘mean’ is a consummation (άχ/ιότης), Aristotle clearly states that secondary courses of action have relative benefits when the ‘mean’ is missed (2.0.4). Horace may simply be distinguishing pleasure as an ‘absolute’ requirement in the ‘purer’ arts from a ‘relative’ advantage in ethics, or he may have a much more specific target in mind. One such target could be the curious adaptation by Ariston of Chios of Stoic ethical criteria to literary evaluation criticized by Philodemus. The Stoics divided all things into the categories of the good, the bad, and the indifferent with respect to their desirability for the wise man. When Ariston applies the third category to literature, poems with good technique and/or good composition but with questionable content, or vice versa, are neither good nor bad but in the middle. Similarly in the matter of technique (or composition) alone, since nothing in the world is perfect as a whole, even if poems have perfect sections, as complete works they are ‘mediocre.’ Much of the traditional poetic corpus falls into this third category. C. Jensen describes Ariston’s opinions without suggesting that Horace could have had some such views in ndnd when he objected to mediocribus . . . poetis (Philodemos iiber die Gedichte, fiinfles Huch [Berlin 1923] 128-45).

‘u t p ic tu r a p o e s is ’ 61

‘conjectural’ art (of his fourth category) which foreshadows Horace’s critical admonitions about poems which are to please the soul.40

If we may trust a report of Speusippus’ views on the arts given by Sextus Empiricus, we can see how easily a sophisticated conception of a rationally trained sensibility could be transferred from an ethical to an epistemological context and, most important for us, be illustrated by an analogy with artistic judgment in the Academy itself. Since this conception is significant for literary theory in general and for Horace’s discussion in particular, I shall quote the entire passage (Adv. Log. 1.145-6).

Speusippus declared that, since some things are sensible, others intelligible, the cognitive reason {επιστημονικόν λόγον) is the criterion of things in­telligible and the cognitive sense (έπιστη μονικήν αΐσθησιν) of things sen­sible. And cognitive sense he conceived as being that which shares in rational tru th (τής κατά τον λόγον άληθείας). For just as the fingers of the flute-player or harper possess an artistic activity (τεχνικήν ... ένέργειαν), which, however, is not primarily brought to perfection by the fingers them­selves but is fully developed as a result of joint practice under the guidance of reasoning (ix της προς τον λογισμόν συνασκήσεως), — and just as the sense of the musician possesses an activity capable of grasping the har­monious and the non-harmonious, this activity, however, not being self-pro­duced but an acquisition due to reasoning (ονκ αύτοφνή άλλ' έκ λογισ­μού),— so also the cognitive sense naturally derives from the reason the cog­nitive experience in which it shares, and which leads to unerring discrim­ination of subsisting objects.

Plato grants that the musician who trains his perceptions fully (τάς αίσθήσεις καταμελετάν) by practice and experience (εμπειρία καί τινι τριβή) can produce the kind of pleasure appropriate to the Good. It is just this kind of training, according to the illustration of Speusippus, which produces an ‘edu­cated sensation,’ an επιστημονικήν δε αΐσθησιν, which, by means of the reason, shares by nature in the experience of intellection (επιστημονικής μετα-

10 Aristotle’s psychological analysis of types of pleasure and of their ethical significance, extending and qualifying Plato's account in the Philebus (Nle. eth. 10.2.3-3.2), contributed distinctions, no doubt, of the greatest importance to subsequent aesthetic theories about the fine arts. ‘The feeling of pleasure,’ he says, ‘is an experience of the soul, and a thing gives a man pleasure in regard to which he is described as “fond of" so-and-so: for instance a horse gives pleasure to one fond of horses, a play to one fond of the theatre . . . ' (Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics 1.8.10, trans. H. Rackham [LCL; London 1956J). Plato's ‘pure’ pleasures become for Aristotle ‘absolute’ (άπλώς) or ‘natural’ (φύσει) pleasures, which are Independent ot the processes of bodily depletion and replenishment; they are enjoyed after the body has returned to the state of its natural equilibrium, the soul of its harmony (7.12.2-7). The pleasures derived from intellectual activities are the purest, the most unmixed with pain arising from excess and deficiency, and the most permanent. The sensory pleasures most similar to these are those derived from sight, hearing, and smell, which, like contemplation, involve no antecedent pain (10.7.1-9; Mag. Mor. 2.7.4-18).

62 TRADITIO

λαμβάνει τριβής), an experience which leads, in turn, to critical discrimina­tion (διάγνοχην)* Taken together, these passages recognize an ‘educated sensibility,’ half rational, half sensory, which has the power to discriminate among the purest ‘effects’ of the fine arts. Those who have developed this sensibility have the power, if they are artists, to produce such pleasures in others and, if they are critics, to point out both which are the most permanently rewarding of these pleasures and how they may best be sustained.41

Perhaps through transmission by Stoic theories of perception, such distinc­tions arc later applied directly to literary criticism by Horace’s contemporary, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Of an exceptionally fine passage in Thucydides, Dionysius says that the style will appeal to every ‘mind’ (πάσα ψνχή) ‘since it offends neither our irrational aesthetic faculty (τό άλογον τής διάνοιας κριτήριον), which is our natural instrument (πεφνκαμεν) for distinguishing the pleasant from the distasteful (ήδεων ή ανιαρών), nor our reason (to λογικόν), which enables us to judge individual technical excellence (τό ev έκάστη τέχνη καλόν)/ Neither the least experienced (ol μή πάνν . . . έμ­πειροι) nor the most expert (ot πάνν περιττοί), neither the layman (Ιδιώτης) nor the technical specialist (τεχνίτης), will be able to find fault with the Thu- cydidcan narrative. ‘Reason and instinct (λογικόν και τό άλογον) will com-

41 Sextus Empiricus, trans. H. G. Bury, 4 vols. (LCL; London 1967). For Aristotle, the sensory part of the soul, while essentially irrational like the nutritive part, shares, never­theless, in reason (Nic. eth. 1.13.9-19; De an. 3.9). The senses are, to sonic degree, 'cducat- able.' Each is itself a kind of ‘mean* between sensible extremes and, therefore, as a ‘mean’ has the power of making judgments ( t o γάρ μέσον κριτικόν) about intensities (De an. 2.11). Each keeps these sensory intensities in harmony, for all sensation is a proportion (ή d' αϊσθη- σις ό λόγος) which excessive intensity either hurts or destroys (3,2, 3.4). In so far as the imagination is sensation actively in motion, it, too, will share to some extent in the act of deliberation (3.3). Such psychological criteria will ultimately be congenial to the Stoic theories of perception which Pohlenz traces as a background for the ‘aesthetic response* to a literary work described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Without reference to the views of Speusippus, whose terms (quoted above) are identical, Pohlenz describes how the Stoic Diogenes of Babylonia separated ordinary sensory perception (αυτοφυής αίσθησις) of qualities like heat and cold from an ‘educated* sensory perception (έπιστημονική αιαΟησις) able to evaluate the fitness of things in relation to other things. Since the later Stoics, like Panaetius (as echoed by Cicero in De off. 1.14), considered man the only rational being, he alone could have an innate feeling for order and decorum, as well as for beauty and harmony. Human emotions, theretore, could increasingly become associated with both moral and aesthetic judgment. Since within the human psyche, such emotions — in comparison with its stricter reasoning faculties — were, Indeed, ‘arational, * the intuitive, non-deliberative — even in­stinctual — response both to an ethical challenge and to a work of art commanded increasing respect. This ‘sense of decorum,' which Cicero, reasserting the Stoic conflation of ethical and aesthetic criteria, assumes as a point of departure, becomes for Dionysius the je ne sais qitoi, the άλογος αϊσΟησις, of literary appreciation. Both, like Plato’s ‘pure* (intuitive) pleasure, must be developed by practice and experience rather than by precept and technical instruction (cf. Pohlenz 112, 123-7).

‘u t p ic tu ra poesis ’ 63

bine in one voice; and these are the two faculties with which we properly judge all works of a r t’ (Thucy. 27). As Plato says of arts like music, the in­tuitive άλογος αϊσθΐ]σις of Dionysius is developed by long experience (εμ­πειρία) and practice (τριβή)', the writer develops his sense of rhythm, the painter his eye, only by constant trial and error (Dem. 50). It is the * instinc­tive’ response of his aesthetic sensibility that the lay-critic particularly cul­tivates (Thucy. 4). For this capacity, present in the intuitive perceptions (ταΐς γάρ άλόγοις αΙσΟήσεσιν) of all readers, is able to ‘ decide in all cases what is distasteful and what is pleasant’ without technical instruction (διδαχής) or outside encouragement (Dem. 24). This is particularly true in judging writers like Lysias whose chief quality is charm (χάρις). The criterion for charm will be the same as that for judging the physical beauty of youth, rhythm and melody in songs, prosody and composition in verse: that is, any form of ‘time­liness’ (καιρός) which enables us to find the ‘mean’ (τό μέτρων). Whether Lysias’ charm is a result of natural talent (φνσεως) or application and art (πόνον και τέχνης) or a mixture of both, the critic who wishes to judge the nature of his gracefulness must train the senses by patient study over a long period in order to respond directly to his style without relying on technical knowledge for criteria (Lys. II).12

Poets whose stylistic powers to please are ‘in the middle’ (mediocribus . . . poetis), then, fail completely because of the very nature of the pleasure derived from works of art. The effects of their style must be judged first in the same way as other ‘pure’ pleasures which gratify the ‘knowledgeable’ senses must be — by a sensitivity, developed gradually from experience and practice, to what can please or displease. In addition, however, for Plato, the most exact knowledge allowed by the degree of ‘ purity ’ of any given art with respect to conventions and technical accuracy must be acquired by study as well as practice. This ‘artistic prudence’ will enable the writer to master not only the parts of a composition but, as Phaedrus says (268d ), their ‘ decorous com­bination’ (σνστασιν πρέπονσαν). Similarly for Horace throughout his epistle, a technical knowledge of poetic styles, meters, and conventions, with respect 42

42 On Dionysius’ ‘sense of decorum’ in relation to Lysias’ charm (κάρις), see K. Pohl {citing Pohlenz), Die Lehre von den drci Wortfdgungsarten: Vntersuchungen zu Dionysios von Halikarnass, De compositione verborum (Ilirschberg 1908) 42-4» Similar distinctions occur in De comp. Iterb. 12, where words are said to affect the ear as visible objects the eye, things tasted the palate, and other stimuli their respective senses. Good taste lends itself to no systematic treatment (ίντεχνορ) or science (έπιστήμη) but is apprehended by the personal judgement of those who have carefully trained themselves (γνμνάααντες). The un­trained are successful rarely, and then only by luck (άπό τύχης). Cf. AP 358. Horace as­sociates charm (aenus) with ordo (τάξις) directly in the embodiment of what is * timely' (καιρός) in the sense of decorum (debentia). As of Lysian charm, the aim of the Iloratian ordo is to be lucidus (AP 40-5).

64 TRADITIO

to decorum and execution, will be absolutely essential to a poem made for animis . . . iuvandis (1-37, 258-74, 289-308, and especially 408-18, 438-52). So also for Dionysius — who sees even Lysias’ artlessness as a product of the most disciplined control (Lys. 8) — if every soul (ψυχή) is to be content, a work must satisfy both the trained intuitive faculty, which distinguishes pleasure, and the educated reasoning faculty, which judges technical mastery with a knowledge of the art as a whole. The senses (particularly the aures), that is, require ‘artistic’ cultivation as much as the reason requires ‘artistic’ education in order to express in a poem that final adjustment of style to subject, that decorum, necessary to please the critical reader.43 44 As Horace insists that ingenium and ars must each coniurat amice (411) with the other, so poems must be both dulcia — to appeal to the cultivated senses and to move the emotions — and pulchra — to satisfy the educated demands of the intellect for a skillful re-embodiment of poetic conventions: non salis est pulchra esse poemata: dulcia sunto { et quocumque volent animum auditoris agunto (99-100). Since lines 361-90 have dealt with pleasing and continuing to please both the senses and the mind, the elder son, primarily with respect to the ear, must do nothing against his (given) nature (invita . . . Minerva); he is to be sure that what he writes in Maeci descendat iudicis auris / ei patris el nostras** With respect primarily to the mind, in order to give his critical judgment every possible opportunity to function, he must long keep back what he is to publish for continued correction, since, once published, it is gone for­ever. With these considerations in mind, let us return to the Ciceronian passage examined earlier.45

43 Cicero distinguishes these two faculties — both of which are involved in judging any form of discourse (Dc orat. 3.100) — with great care: ‘The decision (iudlcium) as to subject- matter and words to express it belongs to the intellect (prudentia), but in the choice of sounds and rhythms the car is the judge (aures sunt iudices); the former are dependent on the under­standing (intelliyenUam), the latter on pleasure (voluptatem); therefore reason (ratio) deter­mines the rules of art (artem) in the former case, and sensation (sensus) in the latter’ (Orat. 1G2).

44 Aristotle describes that ‘element in the soul, which, though irrational (άλογος), yet in a manner participates in rational principle’ (Nic. elh. 1.13.15), as being ‘amenable and obedient (κατήκοον = attentive, hearkening to, giving ear to)’ in the sense ‘in which we speak of “paying heed" to one’s father and friends’ (18). That the rational principle may, in turn, appeal to the irrational is shown by our use of admonishment and exhortation, as a father employs them toward his child (18-9; Eud. elh. 2.1.15). With respect to the materials in n. 41, the parental comparison is suggestive for Horace’s advice to the elder son to take his father’s and his friends’ criticism seriously about what pertains particularly to his natural (and hence, to some extent, fiAoyoj) powers of perception.

45 On pulchra vs. dulcia, see Brink 183-4. Dionysius' terms τό καλόν vs. τό ήδύ (Dem. 47) do not quite coincide with Horace’s, except insofar as the two qualities in each case should be combined (De comp. verb. 20). See K. Pol)I, 87-90, on Dionysius' distinction as it occurs, however, in De comp. verb. 10-11, where it shares more of the background I have been

‘u t p ic tu ra poesis ’ 65

Though brilliance is desirable, unrelenting colors and highlights in the picturis novis, or in an overly decorated literary style, at the very moment of their greatest effect may suddenly be spoiled — if prudence fails to intercede. To avoid appearing excessive, such highlights should be spaced at intervals within their artistic framework itself. Cicero, continuing his analysis of the most pleasing style (De oral. 3.101-3), illustrates this principle by citing as an example the actor Roscius, who separated his more exuberant dramatic moments by subdued ones (umbram aliquam el recessum) so that they might appear to stand out more prominently (quo magis id quod erit illuminatum exstare atque eminere videatur). Poets and composers recognized this necessity as early as actors did, and now orators must imitate them in order to achieve a charm which is ‘severe and substantial, not sweet and luscious (ut suavita­tem habeat austeram et solidam, non dulcem atque decoctam).'

Quintilian heightens Cicero’s metaphor in adapting it to sententiae which pedestrian writers use all the more strikingly because of the dreariness of their general style (2.12.7). These lumina flash more clearly because they are seen not against shade but against total darkness (non inter umbras . . . sed plane in tenebris). Such sententiae, he states later, in the spirit of our Ciceronian context, easily interfere with one another if crowded, like objects in a painting, too closely together (8.5.25-30). Their bright colors, furthermore, will lose all unity and consist only of many ‘variegated splashes (variis maculis)’ on a canvas. While a purple stripe (clavus) well-placed can bring lumen, many such distinguishing marks (notis) will appear on a dress like sparks in smoke which become invisible when a consistent splendor irradiates the language, as stars disappear in the light of day (quae ne apparent quidem, ubi tota lucet oratio, ut in sole sidera ipsa desinunt cerni). Where eloquence, Quintilian concludes, ‘seeks to secure elevation (se attollunt) by frequent small efforts, it merely produces an uneven (inaequalia) and broken (confragosa) surface which fails to win admiration (admirationem) due to outstanding objects (eminentium) and lacks the charm (gratiam) that may be found in a smooth surface. ’ Those who devote themselves solely to such sententiae will not avoid producing much that is leves, frigidas, and ineptas. The sententious style, that is, is in danger of losing both the splendid illumination of the sun appropriate

tracing in Horace. She relates Dionysius’ pictorial analogies to Cicero's in his discussion of delectatio sine satietate (De orat. 3.97-100). Dionysius’ austere style, which strives for rd καλόν, corresponds to Cicero's antiquis tabulist while the smooth style, which strives for τό ήδύ, Is characteristic of the novis picturis. See Dionysius’ detailed description of these styles in De comp. verb. 12-3, 22-3, and for their relation to Aristotle's oral/written distine* tion, see MHP n. 28 (to which add Demetrius, On Style 194).

66 TRADITIO

to topics which solicit admiration and the finely modulated lucidity capable of producing delight.46

While the striking novelty of the picturae novae and of rhetorical display might offer Horace a comparison for Alexandrian poetic forms and refinements, the ruder simplicities of old-fashioned paintings might illustrate the enduring energy, freshness, and elevation, as well as the stylistic flaws, of the older epics. Their greater length and more numerous themes possess that variety necessary to please as often as their best individual episodes are heard.47 Yet, albeit that the critic must (reluctantly) make allowances for stylistic lapses in Homer, the contemporary poet must not, out of an affectation of antiquity, negligently imitate the abrupt transitions, archaic diction, repetition, and too broadly sketched similitudes of the oral, or unfinished written, style, lie must avoid primitive archaism as much as sopisticated preciosity. If among the Greeks, furthermore, the oldest writings are indeed the best (si, quia Graiorum sunt antiquissima quaeque j scripta vel optimu), this is by no means true ol the older Latin poets (Ep. 2.1.28-33). For, while Homer rep­resented the culmination of the Greek poetic achievement w'hich subsequently could only decline, Livius Andronicus, Ennius, and Lucilius offer only begin­nings wrhich must be perfected. Whatever their deficiencies, however, they are not themselves bad poets like Choerilus. Quite the contrary', they are early explorers who, like Ennius and Lucilius, may still provide a point of departure, even a source of replenishment, for Virgil and Horace.48 Their imitators, on the other hand, who, out of bad taste or want of skill, adopt the repetitive disjointed ness which their undeveloped style shares with spoken oratory' but shares without the variety of oral presentation, will, as Aristotle said (Rhel.

46 This passage (cited MHP n. 18) should be taken with that (quoted above) in which such ornaments can only appear citra solcm (12.10.73-8). The eider Pliny's distinction between splendor and lumen atque umbras (NH 35.29) may be pertinent, for both as well as for Lon­ginus (17.2-3), although splendor may also have had a more technical meaning in painting (see J. J. Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art 440-1).

47 For Suetonius, the Aeneid is an argumentum varium ac multiplex et quasi amborum Homeri carminum instar ( Vita Vergili 21). In the Saturnalia, Macrobius will compare in detail Virgil’s effort to meet the demands of epic variety in imitating Homer's magnitudinem, simplicitatem, and tacitam majestatem (5.13.40-1). He will even see in the banality of bluntly colloquial lines an ‘heroic negligence’ (5.14.5). A style heroice incomptus corresponds to that of the older pictorial style which A. Gellius invokes to describe the words of Cato (10.3.15). They are incompta, brevia, non operosa with a certain native charm (nativa quadam suavitate), a shade, so to speak, and patina of a darkly remote antiquity (umbra et color quasi opacae vetustatis). Cicero himself compares these characteristics in painting — horrida, inculta, opaca — to the bluntness of Ennius' diction (Oral. 36, cited MHP n. 15).

48 Ennius, as Brink says, ‘is the great poet of the past’ (145), a sacred grove, according to Quintilian, 'whose huge and ancient trunks inspire us with religious awe rather than with admiration for their beauty' (10.1.88). Persius, as well as Horace, still derived inspiration from Lucilius (Suetonius, Vita Auli Persi Flacci).

‘u t p ic tu ra poesis ’ 67

3.12.2), appear stiff and awkward to an Augustan age of readers. For, even though he was more polished than many of the veteres poetae Latini, had Luci­lius been bora in Horace’s time, he would, himself, have smoothed and cut much of his verse and submitted to contemporary standards of artistic ex­cellence (S. 1.10.64-71). He might have striven to be, that is, like Horace, and so Ennius, perhaps, to be like Virgil. The contemporary epic poet of the written tradition, furthermore, will have a greater artistic burden than poets of the oral tradition. He must consciously achieve their effects of pace and magnitude by an art which the reader will indeed test again and again with his eye. Less easily excused than Homer, Virgil must exert greater diligentia in evoking that ‘patina’ of heroic antiquity appropriate to the dignity and achievement of Augustus which itself should be characterized by an apparent lack of meticulous artificiality. In Virgil at his best we shall be held in the illusion of an epic past by a style, like that of antiquae tabulae, which will neither tire the ear with too much piquancy nor, while concealing its art, disappoint the artistic expectations of the mind. If both failings can be avoided, the epic poem may be re-embodied in the written tradition and, like the more distant picture, continue to please indefinitely.49

I l l

Before turning to Horace’s own poems, it is interesting to see how his con­temporary, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, combines a number of metaphorical associations, traced here and in MHP, with the crucial distinction between the agonistic style of Demosthenes and the scholastic style of Plato. In my earlier essay I quoted a passage from the Phaedrus (239c d ) which associated the healthy vitality necessary in military and other crises with the sunlight and the artificial complexion of the non-lover’s beloved with a shaded, protected setting (n. 16). Almost as if he were combining such a passage with Aristotle’s distinction between a deliberative, oral style and an epideictic, written style, Dionysius extends these comparisons to Augustan literary conventions. ‘Every reader,’ he says, ‘even one with only a moderate appreciation of oratory,’ will recognize the fact that the style of Demosthenes is as different from that of Plato

49 Quintilian says that wliat Virgil lacks by way of the Immortal and superhuman genius (naturae caelesti atque immortali) of Homer he makes up for in his greater cure and dili­gentia (10.1.86). This diligentia, revealed as w'ell in Suetonius' account of his methods of composition ( Vita Verg. 22-5; cf. A. Gellius 17.10), might be particularly necessary in distinguishing that point at which Homer’s sublimity becomes extravagance. This dif­ficulty. especially acute when oral devices are to be transposed to a written style, still bothers Pliny, who ingenuously relates the problem to the elevation ol his own style (Ep. 9.26). On specific difficulties in Virgil’s literal imitation of Homer, see Gellius 9.9.

68 TRADITIO

as are the weapons of war from those used in ceremonial processions (πομ- πεντηρίοη·), real things from images, and bodies developed by hard work in the sunlight (έν ήλίφ) from those that pursue a life of ease in the shade {σκιάς και ραστώνας). . . . (Plato’s style] aims at nothing beyond formal beauty, and is consequently at its best when describing unreal situations {έν άναληθέσιν); . . . [Demosthenes’ style] concerns itself with nothing which docs not lead to a useful and practical {αληθινόν) end. I think one would not be far wrong to compare the style of Plato to a country spot full of flowers, which affords a congenial resting-place and passing delectation to the traveller; whereas that of Demosthenes is like a field or rich and fertile land, which yields freely both the necessities of life and the extra luxuries that men enjoy.

Among the ways in which Demosthenes’ style is superior to Plato’s is ‘as an instrument of practical oratory in actual contests {κατά τό αληθινόν και προς άγώνας),' and Dionysius assumes that all his ‘readers are equally aware of this and do not need to be told’ (Dem. 32). P̂ or Augustan Rome, such a stylistic observation was clearly a commonplace.60

It is in the context of such literary assumptions that I think Horace’s re­cusationis should be understood. However ironical the recusationes may be, he often explicitly confines himself, in estimating his own talents, to the perspective of the near, to the conscientiousness of artistic precision, to the certainty of controlled effects, and to the protection of a private and select audience. He is completely familiar with the common metaphorical antith­eses used to distinguish the forum from the auditoria, which form an Augustan context for Aristotle’s skiagraphic analogy. In commenting on his education (Ep. 2.2.41-8), he describes how' he had gone to Athens to seek the trutli in the groves of the Academy (inter silvas Academi quaerere verum), when troubled times forced him to leave that pleasant place {dura sed emovere loco me tempora 50

50 Even closer to Aristotle’s distinction is a later passage {Dem. 44). * I tliink that our orator initially learnt by natural taste (φύσει) and experience (πείρφ) that crowds which flock to festivals and schools (πανηγύρεις xal σχολάς) require different forms of address from those who attend the political assemblies and the law-courts (τά δικαστήρια xal τάς έκκλησίας). The former wish to be diverted and entertained (φνχαγωγίας), the latter to be given information and assistance (ώφελείας) In the matters with which they are concerned. He did not think either that the forensic speech should employ hypnotic or striking phonetic effects, or that the ceremonial (έπιδεικτιχόν) speech should be full of a dry and musty antiq­uity (Ttfvov).’ It is interesting that Dionysius attributes a sense of decorum in choosing among stylistic alternatives derived from Aristotle’s Rhetoric 3.12 to experience and natural ability. The same words for profit and delight occur here as in Philodemus’ account of Neoptolemus (see n. 37). On the comparison of ornamental vs. productive gardens to style, see Quintilian, 8.3-8-10. For the physical liabilities of living out of the sun in shaded decad­ence, see Euripides, Bacchae 455-9, Plutarch Mor. 764c, and the passages cited in Thesaurus Graecae Linguae under σκιατραφέω: in umbraculis nutriuntur et in sotem non prodeunt, quales delicati, qui a sole aduri timent.’ To Horace’s recusationes below, compare Pliny, Ep. 9.2.

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grato), and the heat of civil war thrust him, as a man unused to arms, into the service of a cause which could hope for little success against Augustus (<civilisque rudem belli tulit aestus in arma f Caesaris Augusti non responsura lacertis). In the same letter he laments the absence of privacy in Rome and describes two poets in a contest of mutual self-congratulation as two ineffectual gladiators in a comparison frequently applied to the declamatory schools. He himself refuses to recite before a large crowd in medio . . . foro (S. 1.4.71-7) or at public recitations in spissis . . . theatris, and, when charged with courting the ear of Jove alone, he treats such bickering humorously as if it were a gladiatorial wrestling match (Ep. 1.19.35-49). He can refer to the soldier as one who viiamque sub divo et trepidis agat j in rebus (C. 3.2.5-6) and comment on the infatuated Sybaris who, once bearing the dust and sun, now hates the glaring field (C. 1.8.3-4: apricum / oderit campum patiens pulveris atque solis). Who would not seek the Olympic games, he asks in another letter, if he could have the victory without dust: cui sit condicio dulcis sine pulvere palmae (Ep. 1.1.51)? So he signifies the increasing luxury by referring to the pleasure gardens’ encroaching on the open (producing) acres, which will end in the laurel thickets’ shutting out the sun’s hot rays (C. 2.15.9-10). Finally Horace has his slave caustically contrast the cultivated preference of his master, a subtilis veterum iudex et callidus (S. 2.7.95-101), for the refinements of Pausias with his owm pleasure in the rough vitality of gladiatorial portraits crudely sketched in action with red chalk or charcoal. Such portraits, mentioned by Pliny (NH 35.52, quoted in MHP n. 19), appear to have served as posters and to have appealed with a ‘primitive’ skiagraphic directness to the ordinary' populace from whom Horace consciously distinguishes himself. Not striking, perhaps, in themselves, these passages imply the traditional metaphorical associations of literary' attitudes toward style and genre with the moral attitudes toward the private and public life which become clear in the recusationes.

In the sixth ode of the first book, Horace tells Agrippa that it is the Homeric Varius who must celebrate his military achievements, an epic poet (cf. S. 1.10.43-4) capable of relating the deeds of the Greek heroes. Horace’s powers are too tenues to describe Meriones black with Trojan dust (pulvere Troico j nigrum). As in the great oratorical debates, it is the dust and heat which characterize the heroic exploits: duces / non indecoro pulvere sordidos (C 2.1.21- 2). Similarly, Horaee distinguishes himself from Pindar by insisting he is incapable of celebrating the achievements of Augustus (C. 4.2). Antonius, the maiore poeta plectro, must sing them, for Horace, in contrast to the swan-like Pindar, is more like a small laborious bee gathering local sweets for his pains­taking poems (per laborem / plurimum . . . operosa parvos / carmina fingo). His themes, indeed, are those for the leviore plectro (C. 2.1.40), and speak of the civil benefits of peace rather than proelia . . . victas et urbis (C. 4.15.1-2). When Trebatius asks him to recount the Caesaris invicti res, he responds that

70 TRADITIO

he is not up to it (vires / deficiunt), for not everyone can describe battle lines and Roman victories (5. 2.1.11-5).

The fullest expression of these attitudes occurs in the most significant pas­sage for the interpretation of the phrase ut pictura poesis (Ep. 2.1.219-70). Leaving aside the fact that poets often have nothing to blame but their foolish behavior if their labores and tenui deducta poemata filo do not impress their patrons, it is worthwhile to ask, Horace says, what kind of poet would be worthy of celebrating great achievements. Alexander, who had the nicest artistic judgment (iudicium subtile videndis artibus) in choosing Apelles and Lysippus to represent him, nevertheless chose Choerilus to describe his exploits. Virgil and Varius, on the other hand, do no discredit to Augustus’ iudicia or to his benefits to them in their depicting his virtues in poetry as admirably as the greatest artists might represent them. As Choerilus is contrasted with Homeric Varius here, so he is contrasted with Homer in the Ars poetica (357-60). Here his selection over Varius by Augustus would exemplify the same critical obtuseness as his selection over Homer would there. I Iere the critical obtuseness is brought out by contrasting the patron’s poor judgment in literature with his good judgement in art. There the contrast between Choerilus and Homer leads directly, in line 361, into the analog)7 between the arts, which is clearly composed of three comparisons indicating critical criteria for judging poems in relation to pictures. The lines 361-5, that is, clarify and conclude the preceding lines on critical allowances permitted by the decorum of the longer genres, where the contrast between Choerilus and Homer, as epic poets, parallels the contrast of Choerilus and Varius in the epistle to Augustus. In neither poem would Choerilus qualify for the leniency appropriate for the other poets.

Augustus’ good iudicia in the epistle correspond to the iudicis . . . argutum acumen —· encouraged as well in the elder son (386) — of the Ars poetica. Once any poet who can only be good by chance and not by art has been ex­cluded from consideration, the critic’s natural insight (acumen), sharpened by a knowledge of poetic conventions and techniques (argutum), is now called upon to distinguish the proper ‘mean’ degree of exactitude to be expected in the longer genres. The attainment of this ‘mean,’ the ‘appropriateness’ (το ηρέπον) of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (3.2-17) and Poetics (22), consists in the finest possible adjustment of style to subject, an adjustment, Cicero says, requiring the most experienced judgment (magni iudici) and the greatest natural talent (summae facultatis) which w-isdnm (sapientia) can bring together (Oral. 70-4; cf. De off. 1.97, 114). Accordingly, Horace continues in his epistle to Augustus by contrasting with Varius' epic his own sermones . . . repentis per humum.61 He would happily describe great exploits, distant lands and 51

51 For repentis per humum, see Brink 282 -3, 112-3, and for the flexibility of Horace’s conception of appropriateness, 463-4. Humilis sermo is characteristic of obscuras tabernas

'u t p ic tu ra poesis ’ 71

rivers, mountain fortresses, barbarie nations, and the Augustan hegemony, had he but the power. But neither Augustus’ dignity nor his own modesty permits him to undertake what his talents refuse to bear: sed neque parvom / carmen mates fas recipit tua nec meus audet / rem temptare pudor quam vires ferre recusent. As in all things, parvum parva decent (Ep. 1.7.44): a parvus poet (C. 4.2.31) should write a parvum carmen on appropriately delimited subjects. The topics he refuses to treat resemble those suitable for a skia- graphic sketch as Critias uses the comparison — earth, mountains, rivers, forests, heavens — and for the elevated style as Longinus associates them with the colossal statue, a statue which Strabo had compared to his great geographical survey (MI1P 17-21).

Horace’s insistence upon the meticulous selectivity of art in his own operosa carmina is in no sense inconsistent with the tolerance that he permits the critical reader to exercise in judging longer works. His emphasis upon diligence throughout the Ars poetica, in fact, may require his calling attention to the different stylistic expectations suitable to the more ambitious genres for two reasons. First, since subtle refinement can easily degenerate to preciosity and the final responsibility of art is to correct or conceal its own artificialities — which it cannot do si caret arte (31) — I lorace wTould be particularly sensitive to the pedantries of Alexandrian mannerism.52 If the critic becomes a Zoilus,

rather than nubes (AP 229 30), and the everyday subjects tt describes might be said to be more appropriate for, and hence prefer, the obscurum. Generally speaking, Horace prefers neither to be ‘on the ground’ nor ‘in the clouds' (AP 28). His low-flying bee works some­where between the cloudy paths of Pindar's swan and the earth itself (C. 4.2.25 32) — as in its amorous pursuits so charmingly preferred to real or legendary conquests and riches in C. 2.12 (cf. G. Davis, Philologus 119 [1975) 70-83, who adroitly resolves the inherited dif­ficulties of this ode by referring its conventions to the recusatio). In his Life of Apollonius (6.11), Flavius Philostratus contrasts the heroic subjects of Aeschylus with trivial themes which are ίηό τιύδα.

52 As ‘a striking parallel to the A rs/ Brink cites (366) Philodemus' disapproving comment about how it is commonly thought that Choerilus, Anaximenes, and other bad epic poets arc superior in technical skill (έμ ηο<η>τιχηι) to Homer and the best poets (άριστων) and are therefore, Philodemus implies, mistakenly preferred to them. If Philodemus has in mind an Alexandrian critical preciosity which prefers small felicities to the 'nobility' of an oc­casionally nodding Homer, this criticism would support the interpretation of Horace's view of decorum which I have presented. In a closely following fragment, apparently a part of the same context, Philodemus further observes that if technique were the only criterion involved in evaluating poets, there would be no real way to differentiate the better from the worse. Earlier (Poem., HV2, VI.147), apparently in opposition to an overly zealous critic, he comes to the defense of Homer’s repetitions and cites the famous Nireus passage {//. 2.671-3) which Aristotle had used to illustrate certain of the more skiagraphic characteristics of the deliberative and epic styles. The example was, then, perhaps as familiar to the Piso circle and to Horace as it was to later writers (cf. Demetrius, On Style 6If., and Quintilian, 3.8.63-7, both cited in MHP n. 8). I have used here the text and commentary of T. Gomperz,

72 TRADITIO

he will not appreciate the very stylistic virtues of the greater genres which might help to overcome the contemporary decadence in literary fashions. Second, however, since such differences should be taken into account, the young man whom he addresses directly again in line 366, in addition to avoiding the affectations of overly refined detail, must not go to the other extreme and seek the affected casualness of the grand effect. He must not, that Is, invoke the stylistic negligence permitted to an operi longo or to any work conspicuous for its over-balancing excellences (which he might possibly de­ceive himself into believing he had achieved) as an excuse for deficient taste, skill, or attention to detail. This double-edged admonition recognizes the existence (and possible abuse) of critical criteria for regaining the generic scope and seriousness of the literary past without, at the same time, sacrificing the technical sophistication of the present.53 * * * * * * * * * 63

Stanford University

' Philodem und die asthetischen Schriften der TIcrculanischcn Bibliothek,' Sb. Akad. Vienna 123(1891) 37-8, 19-20.

53 This is one more reflection of an Aristotelian 'mean* whose presence throughout theArs poetica Brink continually emphasizes. In commenting on carmen reprehendite (292) heremarks that ‘the very tone of his pronouncement puts laborious art in its place, whereas,in the sequel, heavy irony devalues ingenium beyond all recognition' (322). The sequelbegins with the famous lines ingenium misera quia fortunatius arte / credit el excludit sanosHelicone poetas / Democritus (295- 7). Brink suggests that * forlunatii s perhaps hints atGreek antitheses apart from τέχνη-φυσις. . . . I am thinking of τύχη—φύαις, τύχη-τέχνή’(ρ. 330). One might say, even furtner, that all three antitheses share something with themore general dichotomy of νόμος-φνσις, custom—law-art versus chancc-force-genius. The powers of 'artistic' control — μέθοδος, λόγος, εύβονλία — are brought into an Horatian balance with the 'given' — φύσις, εύτυχία, τό elxaiov— by Longinus, who defends art as a necessary means for analyzing and attaining the highest excellence. This attainment is rendered possible by the fact that, in Quintilian's words, naturae ipsi ars inerit (9.4.120).Longinus' opponent, Caecilius, in insisting that only an innate, unteachable gift can achieve this excellence — unattainable by art — corresponds to Horace's Democritus (On the Sub­lime 1-2; cf. MHP 20). The most important early discussion of these distinctions occurs in Plato's Laivs (888c - 90d ). Plato is defending the customary beliefs in the gods in op­position to those relativists who think of them simply as products of opinion rather than as principles of nature. This question raises a 'wondrous argument' (θαυμαστόν λόγον) among 'wise men' who believe all things come Into existence partly by nature (φύσει), partly by art (τέχνην), and partly owing to chance (τύχη). The greatest and most beautiful things are the work of nature and chance, they say, while art can produce only the pettier ones (σμικρότερα) which arc ‘artificial' (τεχνικά). The beautiful cosmos is brought into existence by the 'necessary' mechanical processes of natural elements which owe nothing to rational principles of order. It is only as a later product that art, ‘being mortal itself and of mortal birth, begets later ptaythings (πα ίδιάς) which share but little in truth, being images of a sort akin to the arts themselves — images such as painting begets, and music, and the arts which accompany these' (889cd ). Politics and laws are also only products ot art and

4UT PICTURA POESIS’ 73

convention (cf. Gorgias 482e - 84c , 488a - 92c), and therefore these ‘men of science' (Ανδρών σοφών) teach students to ignore the gods and to live ‘according to nature' which consists in ‘being master over the rest of reality, instead of being a slave to others according to legal conventions' (890a ). In order to oppose such men, who perhaps include Archelaus (cf. Diog. Laer. 2.16) and atomists like Leucippus and Democritus, Plato defends law and art ‘as things which exist by nature or by a cause not inferior to nature (φνσεως ούχ ήτταν i) since ac­cording to right reason they are the offspring of mind' (890d ). This, I believe, is the broader context within which Horace ironically disparages Democritus' poetic theory of natural in­spiration and reasserts the claims of misera . . . arte. This phrase, in relation to foriunatius, seems to be anticipated in Plato’s σμικρότερα χεγνιχά, and παιδιά. Plato: Laws, trans. R. G. Blry, 2 vols. (LCL; London 1967-8).