90 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



eluded any breaking away from the tastes of the day, and compelled 

 the author, although he needed no compulsion, to follow without 

 deviation the orthodox lines. So decisive, really, was the opinion 

 of an audience that Pliny used his hearers as a sort of combined 

 testing and corrective apparatus, noting carefully the effect of every 

 expression. While there was such supreme regard for one's auditors, 

 the average writer could be confidently trusted not to hazard anything 

 by being so culpably original or individualistic as to rise above the 

 dead level of mediocrity. Pliny, 1 as is his wont, sees the tendency but 

 optimistically misinterprets it. In speaking of the favorable reception 

 of his Panegyric, he says: 



And just as formerly the theatres taught the musicians to sing badly, so now I am led 

 to hope for the possibility of these same theatres teaching the musicians to sing well. 

 For all, to write for the purpose of pleasing, will write what they see does please. 



Accordingly, we find developed a striving after effect that is more 

 noteworthy for being so palpably conscious. What Afer says of the 

 orator may with equal aptitude be applied to the writer: 2 



I would have our orator like a wealthy and elegant head of a household, covered not 

 merely by such a roof as will keep off wind and rain, but by one that will also delight 

 the eye. The house itself should not merely be supplied with the furniture requisite for 

 daily life, but should include in its plenishings gold and gems, so that to look at and 

 handle these may often afford pleasure. 



The effect of the beautiful roof and rich trappings was sought in 

 many ways — rhetorical gilding, far-fetched and purely ornamental 

 allusions, rare mouldings of vocabulary, epigrammatic points, and 

 wire-drawn refinings in both prose and poetry; and poetical coloring 

 in prose. A reference to the pages of Juvenal, Martial and Statius, or 

 Tacitus will furnish abundant illustration. 



Under such favoring circumstances grew the multitude of mediocres 

 ecrits. Of the spirit in which they were composed and, consequently, 

 of their character we could have no better description than is to be found 

 in an epigram addressed to Atticus, 3 a type of the jeunesse doree: 



Prettily you declaim, my Atticus, and prettily plead in court, pretty the histories you 

 write, pretty the songs you compose, prettily you philologize, and prettily astrologize. 

 Prettily you sing, and prettily dance, prettily tune the lyre, and prettily ply the racquet. 

 Although you do nothing well, you do everything prettily. 



> Ep., Ill, i8, 9; VII, 17, 13- ' Tac, Dial., 22. * Mart., II, 7. 



