LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.—Language.—The Latin language is a mem ber of the great family commonly called Indo-Germanic, Indo-European, or Aryan. It is, therefore, closely allied to the Greek, Persian, German, Celtic, English, and many other tongues 'and dialects of Europe, and to all these its kindred is more or less clearly shown by identity of stems and similarity of structure. It was primarily developed among the people who inhabited that part of western Italy which lies between the rivers. Tiber and Liris; and though the city of Rome stamped her name on the political institu tions of the empire, yet the standard tongue of Italy still continued to be called the Latin lammage, not the Roman. As the Roman conquests extended, Latin spread with. equal strides over the conquered countries, and was generally used by the educated_ classes in the greater part of Italy, in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and other Roman provinces. But even in Italy itself, and in Latium, there seem to have been twe* forms of the language, differing very considerably from each other—a polished dialect and a rustic one—a language of books and of the higher classes, and a language of con versation and everyday life among the vulgar. It was in the last years of the republic and the first of the empire that the polished language reached its highest point of perfec tion in the writings of Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and others. But by the influx of strangers, by the gradual decline of Roman feelings and Roman spirit, and by the intermixture of 'the classic forms with the dialects of the provinces, it became corrupted, the process of -deterioration going on with double rapidity after the dismemberment of the Roman -empire in the 5th century. Thus were formed the modern French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. The English language also owes much to Latin, both directly by derivation from the classical forms:and at second-hand through the Norman-French. Latin continued to be the diplomatic language of Europe till a comparatively'recent period. It is still the medium of communication among the learned of the world, and is now, as it has always been, the official language of the Roman Catholic church. For a discussion as to the origin and sources of the Latin language, see Doualdson's Vtrr ronianus.
The grammar of the Latin language has been studied and illustrated by many cele brated scholars from Varro (116-28 n.c.) down to Zumpt, Grbtefend, Kuliner, and Mad vig, through a long list of names, such as Donatus, Priscian, Laureutius Valla, Mann this, Melanchthon, Scaliger, Perizonius, Schneider, Linacre, Ruddiman, Alvarez, and many more. In lexicography, Perotti, Stephanus, Faber, Gesuer, Forcellini, Scheller, Freund, Georges, and others of less note, have done valuable service.
Literature.—The Roman republic had well-nigh run its course ere it possessed a writer or a literature worthy of the name. A kind of rude poetry was cultivated from the earliest times, and was employed in such compositions as the Hymn of the Fratres Arvales (dug up at Rome in 1778, and in the first burst of enthusiasm excited by its di• eovery, assigned to the age of Romulus), in the sacred songs to particular deities, and in triumphal poems and ballads, in the Fescennine Carols, and. other rude attempts to
amuse or dupe an illiterate and vulgar populace. And even when, in later years, the Romans did begin to foster a literary taste, the rage for Greek models hindered every effort at original thought. It was considered highly meritorious to imitate or translate a Greek writer; while, on the other hand. it was deemed dishonorable to follow a Latin author. Such was the feeling even in the (lays of Horace and Virgil, both of whom are largely indebted to their Greek models. The. first period of Roman literature may be said to extend from 240 B.C. to the death of Sulla (78 tic.); the second, or golden age, from the death of Sulla to the death of the emperor Augustus (14 A.D.); the third, or silver age, from the death of Augustus to the death of Adrian (138 A.D.), and the fourth from the death of Adrian to the overthrow of the western empire in 476 A.D. In the first period the most distinguished names are those of Livius Andronicus, a writer of dramas adapted from the Greek, whose first play was brought out in 240 B.C.; Ennius, whose chief work was an epic poem on the history of Rome, and who also wrote dramas and satires; with Ntavius, Plautus, and Terence, the comedians. The second period is .adorned by Varro, who wrote on agriculture, grammar, antiquities, etc.; by Lucretius, a writer of the didactic epic; by Virgil, who, to his great epic, the .Eneid, added pas toral and agricultural poetry in the Eclogues and Georgia; by Horace, in lyric verse and in satire; Uy Catullus, in lyric; by Tibullus and Propertius, in elegy; by Livy, Cmsar, Sallust, and Nepos, in history and biography; by Cicero, in philosophy, rhetoric, and oratory; and by Ovid, in elegiac and didactic poetry. The third period boasts of Taci tus, the historian and biographer; of the elder Pliny, the naturalist; of Persius and Juvenal, the satirists; of Martial, the epigrammatist; of Columella and Lucan, the didactic and epic poets; of Statius, Silius Italicus, and the younger Pliny, with many .others of lesser note. The fourth period produced few men of name; but among those who are best known may be mentioned the emperor INL Aurelius, Ammianus Marcel linus, Gellius, Justin, Appuleius, Lactantius, Eutropius, Macrobius, Calpurnius, Boe t hi u s, Paullinus, and Claudianus, the last of the Roman classic poets.
The spread of Christianity gave rise to the ecclesiastical poetry of the middle ages, which departed from the classic models, and struck out for itself a new type. It disre garded the restrictions of quantity and meter, and substituted accent and rhyme as the regulating principles of its form. The most famous name in the earlier period is that of Prudentius—to whom we may add Sedulius, St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, and St. Greg ory the great; and in the later period, Fortunatus; the emperor Charlemagne, author of Veni Creator; Bede (the venerable); Bernard de Morley; Adam of St. Victor; Thomas of Celano, author of the famous Dies Ira; James de Benedictis, author-of the equally famous Stabat Mater; and St. Thomas Aquinas.—See the histories of Latin literature by Bernhardy, Munk (2c1 ed. 1877). and Teuffel.