216 ROLFE— SUETONIUS AND HIS BIOGRAPHIES. [April n, 



though of somewhat later origin, we have the so-cahed "gram- 

 matical " type of the Peripatetics, originally designed as introduc- 

 tions to works of literature and drawing their material in a great 

 measure from those works themselves, but afterwards extended to 

 men eminent in other fields.*' These are of the same general char- 

 acter as those of Suetonius, and undoubtedly influenced the form of 

 his " Lives of Illustrious Men " and of his " Caesars." 



In considering the indebtedness of works of Roman literature to 

 Greek models we must make a distinction between form and con- 

 tents. It is well known that the Romans had made beginnings in 

 various lines of literary endeavor before their introduction to the 

 masterpieces of the Greeks, which would have resulted in the devel- 

 opment of a native literature quite different from that which we may 

 properly call Grseco-Roman. Although this development was checked, 

 it is equally well known that from the outset the Roman writers 

 showed originality in the use of their models, for example, in the 

 " contamination " of Greek plays and in the early invention of the 

 fabula pratcxta and fabula togata. But the influence of the form 

 of the Greek writings was powerful from the beginning, and as time 

 went on, regular rules for the various classes of literary composition 

 were formulated, from which a rhetorically trained writer seldom 

 ventured to deviate. This, however, is not necessarily attended with 

 a lack of originality in the subject matter and its treatment. Horace 

 for instance in his " Odes " followed the general principles and 

 metrical schemes of Alcaeus and Sappho, as he freely admits,*^ but 

 as Professor Gildersleeve has graphically expressed it:** " if Alkaios 

 and the rest of the nine lyric poets were to rise from the dead, 

 Horace would still be Horace." Similarly it does not detract in the 

 least from the merits of the " Agricola " as a masterpiece of litera- 

 ture that its author followed the traditional rules for the compo- 



*" While it was maintained by Leo that these were composed on a gener- 

 ally uniform plan, the newly discovered "Life of Euripides" by Satyros 

 shows a departure from the norm in being cast in the form of a dialogue, 

 with one principal and two minor interlocutors. 



■""Odes," III., 30, 10: Dicar . . . Princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos 

 Deduxisse modos. 



**Amer. Jour, of Phil, XXXIII., p. 360. 



