upset all Napoleon's not too precise calculations. He was not alone in thinking that the struggle between the two German Powers would be protracted and probably indecisive. Then he would come in as a mediator and his friendly offices would be rewarded with a substantial honorarium-perhaps a Rhine Province, or Luxembourg, or even Belgium. Bismarck had dropped vague but flattering suggestions into Napoleon's receptive ear at Biarritz. After Sadowa, Napoleon found himself not a mediator, but a humble suitor to his grim rival for some unconsidered trifle with which to assuage the rising disappointment of France. But Bismarck was in a different mood. Bismarck's only response to Benedetti's solicitous enquiries was to send on to Bavaria Napoleon's request for the Rhenish Palatinate, and to keep by him for future publication (in the Times) Benedetti's incautious memorandum (if Benedetti's it was) in regard to the acquisition of Belgium. The latter suggestion would be not less useful in alienating English sympathy from France than was the former in bringing Bavaria over to the side of Prussia.

Into these matters, however, we have no space to enter; still less into the details of the final act in a great tragedy. The Emperor's rapidly failing health; the profound and not unnatural anxiety of the Empress Eugénie in regard to the prospects of her son; the angry feelings aroused among the French clericals by Victor Emmanuel's gradual approach to Rome; the increasing financial embarrassment of the Second Empire; Ollivier's frantic efforts to liberalise it on its death-bed; Napoleon's failure to detach Russia from Prussia or to secure an alliance with Austria or with the South German States, or even with the Italy for which he had done so much; the Hohenzollern candidature for the crown of Spain; the bungling diplomacy of Benedetti; the skilful but unscrupulous use made by Bismarck of his King's telegram from Ems; the glee of Roon and Moltke at the result; the collapse of the military power of the Empire and of the Empire itself-all these it is to be hoped will some day be written, at large, in the book of the Simpsonian chronicles.

J. A. R. MARRIOTT

VOL. 237. NO. 484

I.

PHILODEMUS THE EPICUREAN

The Greek Anthology. By W. R. PATON. Loeb Library. Heinemann. 1919.

2. Philodem und die Aesthetischen Schriften der Herculanischen Bibliothek. By TH. GOMPERZ. Vienna. 1891.

3. Philodemi Gadarensis Epigrammata. By G. KAIBEL. Greifswald. 1885.

F all the minor figures of Greek literature there is no one more interesting, no one who has been more favoured by the accidents of place and time than Philodemus of Gadara. To be mentioned by name and to be quoted twice by Horace in the Satires is in itself a piece of signal good fortune; for although Roman poets depended so largely on the Greeks for ideas they are curiously chary of acknowledging their obligations. But Cicero goes further. In the De Rerum Natura' he borrows largely from Philodemus, and in the 'De Finibus' he couples him with Siro, Virgil's beloved master, as 'the best and most 'learned of men.' Finally in the speech against Piso he gives us a full length portrait of the Greek philosopher-known from other sources to be Philodemus-who was then attached to the household of the Roman noble.

This Greek (he says) is a man of wit and learning-I know him well myself and when he is away from Piso he is of the most refined taste. Not merely is he well versed in philosophy, but he possesses those other literary accomplishments which the Epicureans are said usually to despise. The verses he writes are so humourous, so graceful, so elegant that nothing more effective can be imagined. You may censure his morals, if you please, but a mild censure is sufficient. He may be a Greekling, a flatterer, a poet; but he is not an obscene and reckless scoundrel. Well, this Greek stranger came across Piso, or rather he fell into his trap, deceived by that grave severity which has misled so many of our wise men. When once he was in the toils he could not recover himself, and moreover he feared the charge of fickleness. At Piso's earnest request a request that was practically compulsion-he has written a long poem about his patron, and has drawn in wanton verse a picture of his amours and debaucheries, his illicit intrigues, his banquets and entertainments. The piece might serve, indeed, as a mirror of Piso's life. Much of it is already common property, and I would read it to you now, gentlemen, if I were not afraid that topics of this kind were out of harmony with the character of this court. Moreover, I do not wish to damage the writer's reputation. If he had been more fortunate in his disciple he might perhaps himself have been more sober and sedate.'

The passage is interesting both as a portrait of Philodemus and as a revelation of Cicero's own character. His admiration for the Greek's literary skill evidently struggles with the regard for propriety which he, like most Romans, felt it his duty to profess. The result is, as usual, a certain half-heartedness both in praise and blame. As for the Mirror of Life' itself-if indeed it was one long poem and not a series of epigrams-we are not able to form an independent judgment, since it has unfortunately perished. But its influence on the lighter forms of Latin verse was certainly considerable; for there is still another Roman writer who, though he never mentions Philodemus, is even more deeply indebted to him than are Horace and Cicero. Great as were Ovid's natural talents there can be no doubt that in his first period, the period of the Amores and the Ars Amatoria, he follows Philodemus closely as his model and on that model forms his own style. Philodemus is for Ovid what Meleager was to Propertius; in more than one of his early poems we can still trace the Greek original under an accumulated mass of realistic detail.

So much then for Philodemus and his influence on Latin literature. As a poet at least he was fortunate in his disciples. And he was still more fortunate in the almost unexampled series of happy chances by which his prose works have been preserved. That a young Syrian born during the first century B.C. in a remote Eastern town and ambitious of worldly prosperity should gravitate to Rome was only to be expected. The starveling Greek was already a familiar figure in the streets of the great capital, and for many years the Syrian Orontes had been mingling its sewerage with the waters of the Italian Tiber. Again, that a scholar, well versed in Greek literature and philosophy should become the client of a Roman noble, and should as a member of his household be given the opportunity of literary composition, was part of the usual relationship between conquering and conquered nations. Thus far Philodemus shares in the general fortune of his people; the rest of the chain of accidents is peculiar to himself.

The Piso's were among the few Romans who maintained a continuous tradition of literary culture. It was to two younger scions of the house that Horace dedicated his epistles on style, and readers of Catullus will remember the ' verpus Priapus' who

patronised the degenerate foreigner Socration and left honest Veranius in the cold to find his own dinner. The Piso's were especially enamoured of Greek poetry and Greek philosophy. Antipater of Sidon, who probably gave Philodemus his first introduction to Roman society, and Antipater of Thessalonica were in the reign of Augustus both clients of the great Calpurnian family. So it is not surprising to find that at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius (A.D. 79) their country house at Herculaneum was inhabited by a student of philosophy who had with him in his library there copies of the treatises on the Epicurean system which Philodemus had composed some hundred years before. But the papyrus rolls on which those treatises were written cannot withstand the influence of time and damp, and if that library had been anywhere in Italy except Herculaneum they would long before this have disappeared. Herculaneum, destroyed by the great eruption that overwhelmed Pompeii, was covered not under a comparatively shallow layer of ashes but by a river of liquid mud which hardened to a depth of nearly eighty feet and preserved, as though under seal, all that lay buried beneath. And even here the fortune of Philodemus is unique. The villa of the Piso's is the one part of ancient Herculaneum that at present has been thoroughly excavated.

There may be other libraries lying there intact, but the eight hundred rolls discovered in that one house in the year 1752 still represent for us the buried treasures of the town. At first the rolls were mistaken for lumps of charcoal, and many of them were destroyed in ignorance before it was discovered that they contained writing. Then it seemed almost impossible to open and decipher them, for the outer portion was hardened and caked together, so that no better course suggested itself than to split them down longitudinally into two or more pieces. Finally a method of treatment was invented by a monk named Piaggio, the first result of which was the recovery of a large portion of a treatise of Philodemus ' On Music' which was unrolled in 1754 and published by the Neapolitan Government in 1793. Our own Prince Regent then sent the Rev. John Hayter to direct the work, and in four years he opened and deciphered nearly two hundred rolls, bringing back with him pencil copies, which are now in the Bodleian Library. On his departure the Naples editors again took charge and published the eleven volumes of the First

Collection with great deliberation in the course of sixty-two years, the eleven volumes of the Second Collection appearing between 1862 and 1876.

Of the twenty-two volumes of 'Herculanensia' a very large proportion is concerned with the fragments of the prose writings of Philodemus. Many of them have been edited, some by a brilliant scholar, the late Professor Gomperz of Vienna. But it would be idle to pretend that they are in themselves of any great value. The lightness and grace which distinguish Philodemus as a poet desert him altogether in these treatises, and their style is tediously dull and commonplace. They seem to be based largely on notes taken at the lectures of the Epicurean Zeno, and their subjects bring them into a competition with masterpieces which they are quite unable to sustain. The treatise on music cannot be compared for a moment with Aristoxenus, nor the treatises on poetry, rhetoric and logic with Aristotle. The moral essaysOn Piety,' 'On Anger,' 'On Gratitude,' etc.-parts apparently of a larger work' On Vices and their corresponding 'Virtues '—are a little more successful, but are much inferior to Cicero and Seneca. There are fragments of a life of Epicurus, and a catalogue with brief biographies of the chief teachers of the academic school; but in so far as we can judge them they are even more jejune than Diogenes Laërtius. Perhaps the most interesting of the series is the treatise Concerning the Life of the 'Gods'; for most of the questions that Philodemus raises and attempts, not very convincingly, to answer, are still disturbing spiritualists to-day. 'Do the gods sleep? ' for example. Answer: 'No; or perhaps they have a sort of repose analogous to sleep.' 'Do the gods need furniture?' Answer: 'Doubtful; probably 'no.' 'Do the gods speak?' Answer: Yes; they talk Greek, or something like it.'

But if the Herculaneum papyri were all that we possessed of the writings of Philodemus, we should form a very imperfect idea of the man. From them we should picture him as a mere learned bookworm, spending his days in a library and chewing up again the crambe repetita of Epicurean doctrine for the benefit of a Roman audience. Fortunately, however, we have thirty-five epigrams attributed to him in the Greek Anthology, and although eight of these are almost certainly not by his hand, the remaining twenty-seven are probably authentic and cast a very different light