Appendix J: The Moral Theory of Cultural Decline

As we have already seen, imperial writers came increasingly to couch criticism of the emperors and the imperium in moral terms; such language, which emperors such as Augustus and Tiberius early favored for themselves, enabled the writers to appear sympathetic to their im­ perial masters. Typical code-words were luxus, luxuria, cupiditas, avaritia. In the earlier writers, such as Seneca the Elder, we cannot tell which was considered the cause of the other, but later authors are clearer. For any given author of the first century ce, it will be necessary to ascertain—if possible—whether he attacks luxury as a cause of oratorical and cultural decline or whether luxury serves as a code-word for political repressiveness.

Between the earliest writers (e.g., Seneca the Elder) and the latest (e.g., Tacitus and Quintilian) who treat the topos of cultural decline at any length intervenes a span of 50 years. Within that span, writers who treat the topos do so in terms of luxuria and its synonyms; the three who deal most extensively with the topos are Petronius, Seneca the Younger, and Pliny the Elder. We may begin with Pettonius, who comes the closest to Longinus in treating the topos subtly and searchingly, although we must make due allowance for the genre employed, the novel.

Resemblances between Petronius and Longinus are striking: both deal generically with cultural decline, for which they make oratorical decline the exemplar. Both attack excess Asianism and in the same termso Where Longinus, however, concentrates on fantastic imagery (15.8) and distinguishes political from moral decay (ch. XLIV), Petronius has his speaker combine his attack on declamatory conceits and political repres­ siveness (see Appendix I). Petronius’ speaker then traces the specific cause of oratorical decline to bad teachers, whom he specifies as “Asian.” By the mid-century, “Asian” came to signify not only an oratorical style but also a decadent way of life. Extending Pliny the Elder’s lament for the most beautiful art, Petronius makes “arts” plural and specifically includes the plastic arts. Like Juvenal, he prays for moral regeneration, for bonam mentem et bonam valitudinem (Satyricon 88). Having traced the origin of the decay, he returns to the state of the empire, to attack “the senate itself, the preceptor of all that is right and good,” which has now succumbed to the same universal and base desire for money (concupiscere pecuniam: Satyricon 88). In the repeated phrase pecuniae cupiditas, we see clearly exemplified the political adaptation made of moral terms.

Seneca the Younger is our best evidence for the peculiar blend of internal and external decay. From Tiberius to the d0wnfall of Nero, one can trace a corresponding increase between the increasing immorality of imperial lives and the growth of unconstitutional and personal cruelty. As the emperors grew corrupt, the public followed. The most conspicuous overt sign of this corruption was the vice of gluttony, luxus mensaeque (Tacitus, Annals 3.55), a vice whose internal and external deterioration Seneca traces in Epistle 114. There he ties together the growth in gluttony and the decay in oratorical style. Although sometimes the cor­ ruption is individual, as in Maecenas, at other times it is character­ istic of the age (tempora: 9). The sequence is as follows: once wealth is spread thick and wide, the first sign of “cultivation” is the body; then furniture; then houses; and then finical taste (lautitia: 9), especially in the form of eating (cena: 9). The most stunning parts of Petronius’ novel are devoted to elaborate meals, and the most famous single part is called, simply, Cena. Both men agree on the intimate connection between gluttony and the corruption of language; both men are writing under Nero. The historical evidence from Tacitus confirms this interpretation (Annals 3.52); it would appear to have been connected with the hereditary character of the Julio-Claudian line, for Tacitus marks very carefully the downward period of Roman corrupti0n from “the end of the battle of Actihm until the accession of Galba” (i.e., the downfall of Nero: Annals 3.55). That century-long corruption Tacitus characterizes by the phrase luxus mensaeque, at once a hendiadys and a metonymy for gluttony, that is, for conspicuous consumption in the form of eating. His view is supported by Suetonius, who records carefully of each member of the Julio-Claudian line that he was “cruel by nature” (Tiberius 57; Caligula 11; Claudius 34; Nero 26); of Vespasian and his successors, Suetonius carefully records that each was 11not cruel by nature” (Vespasian 13, 14, 15; Titus 8.1; D0mitian 3.2). The view of Suetonius is supported by Dio Cassius (57.13.6 on Tiberius; 59.4.1 on Caligula).

Both Petronius and Pliny the Elder see cultural decline as affect­ ing all the arts, both verbal and plastic, although Pliny never develops as subtly as Petronius the relationship to be found between internal and external causes of decay. For Pliny, the source of decay lies in the causas publicas mundi (Natural History 15.1 ff,); only the artes avaritiae are cultivated. His explanation is historical (see section II.B.5.b): imperial expansion brought wealth; wealth brought corrup­ tion.

We may now consider the two major authors who treat the topos during the last half of the century, Tacitus and Quintilian. In treat­ ing Tacitus’ Dialogus, we must exert the same kind of literary caution and skill which we applied to Petronius. Speaking in his own person, Tacitus states the problem, adding that it was one which came up often (Dialogus 1):

Why, when earlier centuries flourished with the genius and glory of so many eminent orators, does our own age, barren and deprived of distinction in eloquence, scarcely even keep alive the word “orator”?

He offers two explanations: (1) if we cannot match the past, our natures must be deficient; (2) if we do not wish to match the past, our judgments must be deficient. The dialogue proper then begins; its mis-en-scene is, fortunately, more important for dating Longinus than its date of composition: the conversation is set in the mid-seventies, when Vespasian had been emperor for about five years. Confidence in a new imperial tolerance was now firm, for Vespasian was notoriously tolerant of what people said of him and his principate (Suetonius, Vespasian 12-13). The discussion could, then, be freer and franker than earlier treatments of the topos.

Aper defends contemporary oratory (16-23): poetic panache and epigrammatic crispness abound and in no way diminish competence of argu­ mentation, so that audiences get the advantage of both Messala (26) censures what Aper approves: histrionic rhythms, irreverent diction, frivolous sentiments, unconventional synthesis—in short, an attack on Asianismo He then traces the decline of oratory—and in all the arts-­ to four causes: (1) indolence of the young; (2) negligence of parents; (3) ignorance of teachers; (4) forgetfulness of old-time morality. The four causes are connected, he says; in fact, as he adds in 32, they are really only subdivisions of the first major cause, since all four are forms of education. In 33, he begins to go further, but a lacuna in the ms. prevents us from knowing exactly what his other major causes were. It would appear, however, that what he said was similar to the view advanced by the philosopher in ch. LXIV of Longinus, i.e., that democracy is a nurse of oratory.

Maternus then develops at length an argument passed over in one sentence by Longinus: peace is the cause of oratorical decline, since oratory flourishes in times of trial and crisis. The nature of genius remains constant, he says, but social circumstances channel that genius in different directions. There is no need for a Cicero in peacetime.

The dialogue ends here, without—apparently—taking up the main argument advanced by Longinus in ch. XLIV. Tacitus elaborates each theory of oratorical decline offered by earlier writers except for two: the theory of cyclic decay and the theory of internal moral corruption. The second theory was favored by the great artists of the century-­ Petronius and Juvenal—and is used by Longinus in the most dramatic and artistic of his own chapters. Tacitus’ conclusion, voiced through Maternus, is subtle and looks back to views expressed by Cassius Severus.^[1] Insofar as Tacitus sees new modes of success for a human nature that is constant, he adumbrates the views of both Quintilian and Pliny the Younger, each of whom, although subscribing to a theory of oratorical decline, sees both in the theory and in history an actual cultural revival. Since none of the three seems to have adopted a moral theory of cultural and oratorical decline, their explanations for the revival might properly be classified under political. Since, however, the improvement in political freedom was accompanied by an improvement in imperial and public virtue from Vespasian on, the political and moral blend, and so the matter is treated in the section which deals with moral revival (section II.B.6.b). Tacitus remarks that Nerva succeeded in combining two things hitherto incompatible: liberty and the prin­ cipate. In the new atmosphere, genius could flourish, as Quintilian and Pliny the Younger believed it actually did.

Quintilian sees that each age has a set of artistic standards appropriate to that age; the notion is an elaboration of Maternus’ view expressed at the end of the Dialogus. Quintilian, in tracing his theory from Cicero down to his own day, applies it particularly to oratory, although he adds that it holds true of both the plastic and rhetorical arts. He lists the great authors of the first century B.C., and then those of the first century A.D.; the peculiar and outstanding feature of each is isolated. A tabular presentation will make his point im­ mediately clear:

Only one trait appears on both lists, that of vis, for Caesar and Afri­ canus; otherwise, the first century A.D. carved out its own kinds of greatness. The implication is that, as the first century B.C. did not exhaust the kinds of greatness, neither has the first century A.D.; and hence Quintilian’s pupils, and the second century A.D., can look forward to another original flowering.

In Pliny, whose chief genre was the epistle, we can look most deeply into the ambivalence of the age. On the one hand, he provides some of our clearest evidence of continued oratorical decline, despite the improvement in political freedom of speech and in public virtue. On the other hand, he is often ecstatic in his hopes for a new renais­ sance in oratory. As he studied both with the sober Quintilian and the Asianist Nicetes, we may perhaps attribute his ambivalence to the influ­ ence of his teachers.

Pliny, as we noted in Appendix F, offers a new date for the com­ mencement of oratorical decline: 59 ce, under Nero. According to his analysis, Asianism was thriving under Nero; it required an audience, for its aim was to produce a sensational effect; in order to produce that effect, its practitioners were willing to resort to unscrupulous means. From this date the corruption began, he says, until it has become almost total in our own day (nunc vero prope funditus exstinctum et eversum est: Epp. 2.14.9 ff). He details the extravagant features of Asianism in al­ most exactly the same terms listed by Seneca the Elder at the beginning of the century. When afflicted by such moods of pessimism, Pliny the Younger looks back to the good old days, under Claudius and early Nero, when emperors still attended sessions of the Senate and kept up standards by both their presence and intervention.