INSCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS. 85 



When, finally, at the close of the fourth century, the art 

 of poetry, in its grander and nobler forms, faded, away, as if 

 exhausted, poetic emanations, stripped of the charms of cre- 

 ative fancy, turned aside to the barren realities of science and 

 of description. A certain oratorical polish of style could not 

 compensate for the diminished susceptibility for nature and an 

 idealizing inspiration. As a production of this unfruitful age, 

 in which the poetic element only appeared as an incidental 

 external adornment of thought, we may instance a poern on 

 the Moselle by Ausonius. As a native of Aquitanian Gaul, 

 the poet had accompanied Valentinian in his campaign against 

 the Allemanni. The Moselia, which was composed in ancient 

 Treves,* describes in some parts, and riot ungracefully, the 

 already vine-clad hills of one of the loveliest of our rivers, but 

 the barren topography of the country, the enumeration of the 

 streams falling into the Moselle, and the characteristic form, 

 color, and habits of some of the different species of fish that 

 are found in these waters, constitute the main features of this 

 wholly didactic composition. 



In the works of the Roman prose writers, among which we 

 have already cited some remarkable passages by Cicero, de- 

 scriptions of natural scenery are as rare as in those of Greek 

 authors. It is only in the writings of the great historians, 

 Julius Cajsar, Livy, and Tacitus, that we meet with some 

 examples of the contrary, where they are compelled to de- 



VVernsdorf to Cornelius Severus. The passages especially worthy of 

 attention are the praises of general knowledge considered as " the fruits 

 of the mind," v. 270-280; the lava currents, v. 360-370 and 474-515; 

 the eruptions of water at the foot of the volcano (?), v. 395 ; the forma- 

 tion of pumice, v. 425 (p. xvi.-xx., 32, 42, 46, 50, 55, ed. Jacob, 1826). 

 * Decii Magni Ausonii Mostlla, v. 189-199, p. 15, 44, Booking. See, 

 also, the notice of the fish of the Moselle, which is not unimportant 

 with reference to natural history, and has been ingeniously applied by 

 Valenciennes, v. 85-150, p. 9-12, and contrast it with Oppiaii (Bern- 

 hardy. Gricch. LitL, th. ii., s. 1049). The Orthinogonia and .Thcriaca 

 of ^Emilius Macer of Verona (imitations of the works of Nicauder of* 

 Colophon), "which have not come to us, belonged to the same dry, di- 

 dactic style of poetry which treated of the products of nature. A nat- 

 ural description of the southern coast of Gaul, which is to be found in 

 a poetical narrative of a journey by Claudius Rutilius Numatianus, a 

 statesman under Honorius, is more attractive than the Mosella of Auso- 

 nius. Rutilius, who was -driven from Rome by the irruption of the 

 Gauls, is returning to his estates in Gaul. We unfortunately possess 

 only a fragment of the second book of this poem, and this does not take 

 us beyond the quarries of Ca/rara. See Rulilii Claudii Numatiani de 

 Reditu suo (e Roma in Oalliam Narbonensem) libri duo, rec. A. W. 

 Zmnpt, 1840, p. xv., 31-219 (with a fine map by Kiepert). Werns- 

 dorf, Poetee Lat Min., t. v., pt. i., p. 125. 



