i^ESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE ROMANS 85 



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

 3f 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 poem on 

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

 the poet had accompanied Valentinian in his campaign against 

 the Allemanni. The Mosella, which was composed in ancient 

 Treves,* describes in some parts, and not 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 Csesar, Livy, and Tacitus, that we meet with some 

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



Wernsdorf to Carnelius Severus. The passages especially worthy of 

 attention are the praises of general knowledge considered as " the ft-uits 

 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 Mosella, v. 189-199, p. 15, 44, Bocking. 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 Oppian (Bern- 

 hardy, Griech. Lilt., th. ii., s. 1049). The Orthinogonia and Thcriaca 

 of iEmilius Macer of Verona (imitations of the works of Nicander 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 iu 

 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 Carrara. See Rutilii Claudii Numatiani de 

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

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

 dorf, Poeta Lot Min.. t. v.. pt. i., p. 125. 



