Satĭra
(earlier form
satura, from
satur). A name which
the Romans applied to a species of literature which they believed peculiarly their own (
“
Graecis intacti carminis,”
Hor. S. i. 10.66
;
“
satura quidem tota nostra est,”
Quint.x. 1.93
). The names of all other kinds of poetry indicate their Greek origin. It is probable
that
satura originally expressed the idea of fulness, abundance, which by
special application was extended to mean variety, miscellany, promiscuity, without order. This
secondary meaning occurs occasionally in all periods of the literature in the phrase
per saturam or
in saturam: Sei quid in saturam feretur
（
Lex Repetund. 72,
C. I. L. i. p. 62);
per saturam aedilem factum (
Lucil. 1, 18M);
non secundum edicti perpetui ordinationem, sed passim et
quasi per saturam collectum, et utile cum inutilibus mixtum (Justin. Praef. Dig. p.
xv.). The term
satura was applied to a statute with separate provisions,
a bill with “riders” (
Fest. 314M; Gloss.
Philox. ); to a kind of poetry treating of various subjects (Paulus,
Excerpt.
315 M); to an intermingling of prose and verse (
Quint.x. 1, 95); to a mixture of dried grapes, pearled barley and nuts,
sprinkled with a preparation of wine (
mulsum); to a kind of sausage
(Varro
ap. Diom. p. 486 K); and to a dish of various kinds of fruit
offered to Ceres (Acro, on
Hor. S. 1.1). It is
also mentioned by the grammarians as coming from
satyri (
Diom. 485K). The idea of medley pervades the entire use of the word in
the literature, and fittingly describes one of the chief characteristics of the satura in the
various stages of development.
Keller and others ignore this, and meet with many difficulties in attempting to connect the
dramatic satura with
σάτυροι, satyrs, and the literary satura
with
σάτυροι, the works of a certain Timon of Phlius. Mommsen
and Ribbeck would derive
satura from
satur, but
explain the latter as coming from
σάτυροι in a very
roundabout way.
According to Livy 's condensed and somewhat confused account of the old dramatic satura
(vii. 2), it would seem that the Romans were indebted to Etruria for certain of its elements.
At the celebration of the harvest-home and other rural festivals, the light-hearted, merry
people of Latium had long been accustomed to the jovial banter of the Fescennine verses, an
entertainment consisting of dialogues of coarse jokes and personal abuse in metrical form,
perhaps enlivened by the exhilarating tones of the pipe, or by the beating of time with the
feet. In B.C. 364 the magistrates invited a band of Etrurian actors to Rome in the hope of
staying the ravages of a terrible pestilence. These actors danced a sort of pantomime to the
accompaniment of regularly composed music, and so pleased the people with their performance
that the Roman youths—the same ones, no doubt, whose quick wit and dramatic power
had made them the leaders in the merriment of their native entertainments—began to
imitate the Etruscan actors and to combine the elements of the musical pantomime with the
metrical dialogues of the Fescennine raillery, to which they applied the name
satura, “medley,” from its composite nature. (Cf. Ital.
farsa, Fr.
farce, Arabic
Quassîde as applied to poetry, and Juvenal's term
farrago for his Satires.) As the
satura developed under the
control of the Roman youths and the acting became more and more an art, it finally passed into
the hands of professional actors, and the young Romans contented themselves with the less
exacting performances of afterplays (
exodia), to which the Atellanae also
were reduced after the introduction of the regular drama. Livy 's account covers a wide sweep
in the development of the native drama.
If, as Mommsen and Wilamowitz (
Hermes, ix. 331) maintain, the
fabula
Atellana, with its stock characters and rudimentary plot, developed in Latium long
before the introduction of the regular drama under Greek influence, then the old dramatic
satura was the intermediate step in the growth of the native Italian drama. As the
Versus Fescennini were superseded by the satura as a dramatic entertainment,
but lived on in the scurrilous verses of the marriage celebration and triumphal songs; so the
satura, supplanted by the
fabula Atellana and the regular drama, passed into
that branch of poetry known as the literary satire.
Not a few recent scholars have questioned the very existence of an early dramatic satura,
and, with Leo and Hendrickson, have regarded it a mere fiction of Livy in his attempt to
construct for Roman literature what he learned from Aristotle (
Poet. 4-5) to have existed in Greece. Leo attempts to prove it a
fictitious parallel to the Greek satyr-drama, and Hendrickson to the old Attic comedy. To
agree with them, one must believe that the Roman genius was unequal to the task of perfecting
the native drama beyond the stage of the rude Fescennine verses, though we know that it sprang
up and thrived independently in various parts of Greece and under various conditions. The
chief reason for questioning the account of Livy —repeated with slight
additions by Valerius Maximus (xi. 4, 4)—is the resemblance to Aristotle's
description of the origin of comedy. The obscure reference in Euanthius,
De
Com. (ante med.) to satire as
aliud genus fabulae and
quod genus comoediae shows that the dramatic satura was in his time a mere
name, and its place in the growth of literature forgotten.
It is a fair inference from Livy (
vii. 2, 8), that Andronicus,
qui ab saturis ausus est primus argumento fabulum serere, had been in
the habit of writing saturae before he turned to the regular drama; and in all probability the
satura of Naevius, mentioned by Festus, 257 (M), is one of the last examples of the old
dramatic satura rather than the beginning of the new literary satire. The conservative spirit
of Naevius, his plebeian sympathies, and his adherence to the old Saturnian verse, in which
the early saturae were probably written (the verse from Naevius's satura is apparently
Saturnian), render this all the more probable.
With Ennius, an originator in so many lines, satura took on a new form. The success of the
new drama with regular plot killed the demand for the old dramatic medley. The new plays,
however, were moulded on the type of the New Attic Comedy, the comedy of manners, and gave
little opportunity for the display of satire and ridicule which were so characteristic a part
of the Roman genius, and which formerly found free play in the old-time burlesques. Ennius,
therefore, remodelled the old satura, retaining the name, the spirit, and the essential
features. The whole body of literary satire exhibits in varying degrees certain definite
characteristics. The language does not rise to the height of the other styles of poetry;
Horace speaks of his Satires as
sermones,
“conversations,” and his muse as
pedestris. It
exhibits everywhere the peculiarities of the
sermo familiaris. There is a
strong tendency to dramatic form. Dialogue is an important feature in all satura down to
Juvenal, and traces occur even in his bold declamatory style. Unusual laxity in structural
arrangement, easy change of topic, and variety of metres are noticeable in the early writers.
In some authors—e. g. Varro, Petronius, and Seneca— a mixture of prose and
verse appears; and in all there is a great deal of obscenity, characteristic of its peculiar
origin. The satirical spirit, in the modern sense of the word, varies in different authors
according to their natural disposition, and to their political, social, and moral environment.
The Romans recognized two kinds of satire:
Satira dicitur carmen apud
Romanos nunc quidem maledictum et ad carpenda hominum vitia archeae comoediae charactere
compositum, quale scripserunt Lucilius et Horatius et Persius, et olim carmen quod ex variis
poematibus constabat satira vocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius, Diom.
(Suet.), i. 485 (K). This classification has been accepted too literally by modern scholars.
Ennius was preëminently an epic poet, tragedian, and scholar, but the subjects of
some of his saturae, the Greek writers who influenced him (the Sillographi, etc.), and his own
known rationalistic tendencies, assure us that there was at least subtle satire lurking in
many of his poems, if there were not also open ridicule. He was more influential perhaps than
any other writer in moulding Roman thought on Greek lines, in introducing Greek culture, in
awakening scepticism in religion, and in dispelling superstition. It is
more than probable that this was accomplished somewhat by the spirit of satire and ridicule in
his poem
Epicharmus, which apparently reduced the gods of mythology to the
elements of nature, and in the rationalistic poem,
Euhemerus, or
Sacra
Historia. The indecencies of Sotades were, no doubt, ridiculed in the
Sota; and the only reason for supposing that the
Heduphagetica
was not a parody of epic grandeur on the subject of high living was that Ennius is said to
have died of the gout. The
Scipio can be shown to be a part of his saturae, and
it is probable that the
Ambracia celebrated the deeds of his patron Fulvius
Nobilior in the east, as the Scipio did those of Africanus in Africa. All the minor poems were
perhaps collected under the title
Saturae, and formed four and perhaps six or
more books. See
Ennius.
Lucilius, a Roman knight of influence, living at a time of great social and political
unrest, that of the Gracchi, narrowed the scope of satire and stamped it so deeply with the
spirit of invective that he was sometimes spoken of as its very founder (
Hor. S. i. 10.40). His criticism of men and
affairs, instead of being vindictive and personal, like the lampoons of the Greek iambic
writers, was ethical and partisan in tone, and animated by the spirit of the Old Attic Comedy
(
Hor. S. i. 4.6), or of the editorial page of
the modern newspaper. His “Miscellanies” included the greatest variety of
subjects: avarice, gluttony, literature, grammar, friendship, philosophy, religion,
superstition, public men, a journey to Sicily, a country dinner, his mistress, contentment
with his own lot, his fame, etc., and gave, no doubt, a faithful picture of his times. He
employed fables, tales, and dialogue, as did Ennius before him, and spoke either in his own
person or in the words of another, as best suited his purpose. We have but fragments of his
thirty books, some 1100 in number, too brief to discover the “keen wit and great
versatility,” the “wonderful learning and freedom” attributed to
him by ancient critics. He began writing in trochaic septenarii, essayed other metres, and
finally decided upon hexameters, which comprised twenty-one out of the thirty books, and
became the usual form for later satire. See
Lucilius.
The next important writer of saturae was Marcus Terentius Varro, a man of good social
standing, prominent in affairs of state, a prolific writer, and the greatest of Roman scholars
(Quintil. x. 1, 95). He wrote 150 books of satire like those of Ennius in form, except that
prose was intermingled with a great variety of metres—more than twenty different
kinds of verse occur in the 591 fragments. He was an old-fashioned man, with a strong sense of
humour and real poetic genius. Thoroughly familiar with the spirit of the good old times and
conscious of the rapid degeneration about him, he attempted to attract and instruct the young
and unlearned with his mass of wise and good-humoured sketches, which treat of almost every
conceivable subject, from philosophy down to the common-places of daily life
(
Acad. i. 2, 8). He imitated Menippus, the Cynic philosopher and satirist,
whose style and manner may be seen in the works of Lucian; and no doubt the same gentle irony
and mild satire pervaded the
Saturae Menippeae. See
Varro.
Horace admired the rough vigour and caustic wit of Lucilius's satires, and made them the
models of his own; but his humble social position and his former republican alliance
prevented him from attacking, in a direct personal way, the evils of society and the State.
The less personal subjects of Lucilius's verse—avarice, luxury, philosophy,
superstition, the follies of men, etc.—he reviewed in a spirit of gentle irony or
mild satire. It would appear from some of his satires—so close is the resemblance,
even in details—that the only merit he claimed in his earlier poems was to reproduce
his master's thoughts in a more polished and refined style. See
Horatius.
Persius, a young Stoic of noble birth and high ideals, wrote six satires in strained and
obscure language. On every page there are reminiscences of Horace, though there was little in
common between the circumspect man of society and the callow, unsophisticated philosopher. In
form and spirit his satires conform to the standard type. See
Persius.
The
Satira of Petronius resembles Varro's in the medley of prose and various
kinds of verse, but it is in reality a sort of satirical romance written in a masterly manner.
Only about 100 pages from the fifteenth and sixteenth books remain, full of realistic pictures
of society, literary criticism, ghost stories, anecdotes, adventures, all rich in wit and
humour, but exceedingly obscene. The fine biographical details are, of course, all fiction.
See
Petronius.
Juvenal is the last of the well-known satirists whose works are extant, and his writings
exhibit in a more limited degree than any others the characteristic features of the literary
satire. Dialogue has almost vanished; the dramatic element is nearly supplanted by the
rhetorical; fables, tales, and anecdotes are lacking; the personal, autobiographical feature
is not to be found; the peculiarities of the
sermo familiaris are chiefly
limited to the choice of words; the thought often rises to the heights of true poetry; the
structure of the individual satires shows an advance in the more artistic relation of unity
and variety; hexameter is the only metre. On the other hand, the remaining characteristics are
unusually intensified. The spirit of raillery and mild satire of the preceding poets has
become bitter invective. The inordinate amount of obscenity is somewhat mitigated in effect by
the tone of denunciation, but he so parades this in some satires that we question whether he
was not really infatuated by it. His pictures of later Rome are drawn in the terribly
realistic manner of Hogarth. See
Iuvenalis.
The history of satire presents a regular and organic structural development, while the
spirit varies with the character of the author and his environment. Its scope is narrowed in
its descent from writer to writer, but broadened when its growth is considered by periods. At
all times it was one of the most effective instruments of reform; and our knowledge of Roman
civilization would be vastly enriched if we had the works of all the twenty-eight or thirty
writers who we know cultivated this branch of literature.
Some of the more important articles on the general subject of satire are: Casaubon,
De Satyr. Graec. Poesi et Rom. Sat. (Paris, 1605, and Halle,
1774); Scheibe,
De Sat. Rom. Orig. et Progressu (Zittau,
1849); O. Jahn,
Satura, in
Hermes, 2, p. 225; Nettleship,
The Roman Satura (Oxford, 1878, reprinted in his
Lectures and
Essays, ii.); Grubel,
De Sat. Rom. Orig. et Progressu (Posen,
1883); Keller,
Ueber d. Wort Satura, in
Philol. 45, p. 389; Funck,
Satur u. die davon abgeleiteten Wörter (Kiel, 1888);
ibid., Wölfflin's
Archiv, v. p. 32; Leo,
Varro und die
Satira, in
Hermes, 24, p. 67; Hendrickson,
The Dramatic Satura
and the Old Comedy at Rome, in the
American Journal of Philology, xv.
1, p. 1.
