2. FABLE.--In fable, as in other fields of literature, Rome was an imitator of Greece, but nevertheless Phaedrus struck out a new line for himself, and, through his fables, became not only a moral instructor, but a political satirist. Phaedrus (fl. 16 A.D.), the originator and only author of Roman fable, though born in the reign of Augustus, wrote when the Augustan age had passed away. His works are, as it were, isolated; he had no contemporaries. Nevertheless, his solitary voice was lifted up when those of the poet, the historian, and the philosopher were silenced. The moral and political lessons conveyed in his fables were suggested by the evils of the times in which he lived. Some of them illustrate the danger of riches and the comparative safety of obscurity and poverty, in an age when the rich were marked for destruction, in order that the confiscation of their property might glut the avarice of the emperor and of his servants; others were suggested by historical events, being nevertheless satirical strictures on individuals. The style of Phaedrus is pure and classical, and combines the simple neatness and graceful elegance of the golden age with the vigor and terseness of the silver one. He has the facility of Ovid and the brevity of Tacitus. In the construction of his fables, he displays observation and ingenuity; but he is deficient in imagination. He makes his animals the vehicles of his wisdom, but he does not throw himself into them, or identify himself with them; while they look and act like animals, they talk like human beings. In this consists the great superiority of Aesop to his Roman imitator; his brutes are a superior race, but they are still brutes, and it would seem that the fabulist had lived among them as one of themselves, had adopted their mode of life, and conversed with them in their own language. In Phaedrus we have human sentiments translated into the language of beasts, while in Aesop we have beasts giving utterance to such sentiments as would be naturally theirs if they were placed in the position of men.
3. SATIRE AND EPIGRAM.--Roman satire, subsequently to Horace, is represented by Persius and Juvenal. Persius (34-62 A.D.) early attached himself to the Stoic philosophy. He was pure in mind, and free from the corrupt taint of an immoral age. Although Lucilius was, to a certain extent, his model, he does not attack vice with the biting severity of the old satirist, nor do we find in his writings the enthusiastic indignation which burns in the verses of Juvenal. His purity of mind and kindliness of heart disinclined him to portray vice in its hideous and loathsome forms, and to indulge in that bitterness of invective which the prevalent enormities of his times deserved. His uprightness and love of virtue are shown by the uncompromising severity with which he rebukes sins of not so deep a dye; and the heart which was capable of being moulded by his example, and influenced by his purity, would have shrunk from the fearful crimes which deform the pages of Juvenal. The greatest defect in Persius, as a satirist, is that the Stoic philosophy in which he was educated rendered him indifferent to the affairs of the world. His contemplative habits led him to criticise, as his favorite subjects, false taste in poetry and empty pretensions to philosophy. Horace mingled in the society of the profligate and considering them as fools, laughed their folly to scorn. Juvenal looked down upon the corruption of the age from the eminence of his virtue, and punished it like an avenging deity. Persius, pure in heart and passionless by education, while he lashes wickedness in the abstract, almost ignores its existence, and shrinks from probing to the bottom the vileness of the human heart. His works comprise six satires, all of which breathe the natural amiability and placid cheerfulness of his temper.