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diff --git a/old/10960-8.txt b/old/10960-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee464ec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10960-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5109 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vergil, by Tenney Frank + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vergil + A Biography + +Author: Tenney Frank + +Release Date: February 6, 2004 [EBook #10960] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERGIL *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Bradley Norton and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +VERGIL + +_A Biography_ + +By + +TENNEY FRANK + +_Professor of Latin +in the +Johns Hopkins University_ + + + +1922 + + +_TO_ + +THE MEMORY OF + +W. WARDE FOWLER + + + + + + +PREFACE + + +Modern literary criticism has accustomed us to interpret our masterpieces +in the light of the author's daily experiences and the conditions of the +society in which he lived. The personalities of very few ancient poets, +however, can be realized, and this is perhaps the chief reason why their +works seem to the average man so cold and remote. Vergil's age, with its +terribly intense struggles, lies hidden behind the opaque mists of twenty +centuries: by his very theory of art the poet has conscientiously drawn a +veil between himself and his reader, and the scraps of information about +him given us by the fourth century grammarian, Donatus, are inconsistent, +at best unauthenticated, and generally irrelevant. + +Indeed criticism has dealt hard with Donatus' life of Vergil. It has +shown that the meager _Vita_ is a conglomeration of a few chance facts +set into a mass of later conjecture derived from a literal-minded +interpretation of the _Eclogues_, to which there gathered during the +credulous and neurotic decades of the second and third centuries an +accretion of irresponsible gossip. + +However, though we have had to reject many of the statements of Donatus, +criticism has procured for us more than a fair compensation from another +source. A series of detailed studies of the numerous minor poems +attributed to Vergil by ancient authors and mediaeval manuscripts--till +recently pronounced unauthentic by modern scholars--has compelled most +of us to accept the _Appendix Vergiliana_ at face value. These poems, +written in Vergil's formative years before he had adopted the reserved +manner of the classical style, are full of personal reminiscences. They +reveal many important facts about his daily life, his occupations, his +ambitions and his ideals, and best of all they disclose the processes by +which the poet during an apprenticeship of ten years developed the mature +art of the _Georgics_ and the _Aeneid_. They have made it possible for us +to visualize him with a vividness that is granted us in the case of no +other Latin poet. + +The reason for attempting a new biography of Vergil at the present time +is therefore obvious. This essay, conceived with the purpose of centering +attention upon the poet's actual life, has eschewed the larger task of +literary criticism and has also avoided the subject of Vergil's literary +sources--a theme to which scholars have generally devoted too much +acumen. The book is therefore of brief compass, but it has been kept +to its single theme in the conviction that the reader who will study +Vergil's works as in some measure an outgrowth of the poet's own +experiences will find a new meaning in not a few of their lines. + +T.F. + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + +I MANTUA DIVES AVIS + +II SCHOOL AND WAR + +III THE CULEX + +IV THE CIRIS + +V A STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY + +VI EPIGRAM AND EPIC + +VII EPICUREAN POLITICS + +VIII LAST DAYS AT THE GARDEN + +IX MATERIALISM IN THE SERVICE OF POETRY + +X RECUBANS SUB TEGMINE FAGI + +XI THE EVICTIONS + +XII POLLIO + +XIII THE CIRCLE OF MAECENAS + +XIV THE GEORGICS + +XV THE AENEID + + + + +VERGIL + + + + + + +I + +MANTUA DIVES AVIS + + +Among biographical commonplaces one frequently finds the generalization +that it is the provincial who acquires the perspective requisite for +a true estimate of a nation, and that it is the country-boy reared in +lonely communion with himself who attains the deepest knowledge of human +nature. If there be some degree of truth in this reflection, Publius +Vergilius Maro, the farmer's boy from the Mantuan plain, was in so far +favored at birth. It is the fifteenth of October, 70 B.C., that the +Mantuans still hold in pious memory: in 1930 they will doubtless invite +Italy and the devout of all nations to celebrate the twentieth centenary +of the poet's birth. + +Ancient biographers, little concerned with Mendelian speculation, have +not reported from what stock his family sprang. Scientific curiosity +and nationalistic egotism have compelled modern biographers to become +anthropologists. Vergil has accordingly been referred, by some critic +or other, to each of the several peoples that settled the Po Valley in +ancient times: the Umbrians, the Etruscans, the Celts, the Latins. The +evidence cannot be mustered into a compelling conclusion, but it may be +worth while to reject the improbable suppositions. + +The name tells little. _Vergilius_ is a good Italic _nomen_ found in all +parts of the peninsula,[1] but Latin names came as a matter of course +with the gift of citizenship or of the Latin status, and Mantua with +the rest of Cisalpine Gaul had received the Latin status nineteen years +before Vergil's birth. The cognomen _Maro_ is in origin a magistrate's +title used by Etruscans and Umbrians, but _cognomina_ were a recent +fashion in the first century B.C. and were selected by parents of the +middle classes largely by accident. + +[Footnote 1: Braunholz, _The Nationality of Vergil_, _Classical Review_, +1915, 104 ff.] + +Vergil himself, a good antiquarian, assures us that in the _heroic_ +age Mantua was chiefly Etruscan with enclaves of two other peoples +(presumably Umbrians and Venetians). In this he is doubtless following a +fairly reliable tradition, accepted all the more willingly because of his +intimacy with Maecenas, who was of course Etruscan:[2] + + Mantua dives avis, sed non genus omnibus unum, + Gens illis triplex, populi sub gente quaterni, + Ipsa caput populis; Tusco de sanguine vires. + +[Footnote 2: Aeneid, X, 201-3.] + +Pliny seems to have supposed this passage a description of Mantua in +Vergil's own day: Mantua Tuscorum trans Padum sola reliqua (III. 130). +That could hardly have been Vergil's meaning, however; for the Celts who +flooded the Po Valley four centuries before drove all before them except +in the Venetian marshes and the Ligurian hills. They could not have left +an Etruscan stronghold in the center of their path. Vergil was probably +not Etruscan. + +The case for a Celtic origin is equally improbable. From the time when +the Senones burned Rome in 390 B.C. till Caesar conquered Gaul, the fear +of invasions from this dread race never slumbered. During the weary +years of the Punic war when Hannibal drew his fresh recruits from the Po +Valley, the determination grew ever stronger that the Alps should become +Rome's barrier line on the North. Accordingly the pacification of the +Transpadane region continued with little intermission until Polybius[3] +could say two generations before Vergil's birth that the Gauls had +practically been driven out of the Po Valley, and that they then held but +a few villages in the foothills of the Alps. If this be true, the open +country of Mantua must have had but few survivors. And the few that +remained were not often likely to have the privilege of intermarrying +with the Roman settlers who filled the vacuum. Romans were too proud of +their citizenship to intermarry with _peregrini_ and raise children who +must by Roman laws forego the dignities of citizenship.[4] + +[Footnote 3: Polybius, II. 35, 4 (written about 140 B.C.).] + +[Footnote 4: Ulpian, _Dig_. V. 8, ex peregrino et cive Romano, peregrinus +nascitur.] + +A Celtic strain of romance has been from time to time claimed for +Vergil's poetry, though those who employ such terms seldom agree in their +definition of them. His romanticism may be more easily explained by +his early devotion to the Catullan group of poets, and the Celtic +traits--whatever they may be--by the close racial affiliations between +Celts and Italians, vouched for by anthropologists. But the difficulty of +applying the test of the "Celtic temperament" lies in the fact that there +are apparently now no true representatives of the Celtic race from +whom to establish a criterion. The peoples that have longest preserved +dialects of the Celtic languages appear from anthropometric researches +to contain a dominant strain of a different race, perhaps that of the +pre-Indo-European inhabitants of Western Europe. It may be, therefore, +that what Arnoldians now refer to the "Celts" is after all not Celtic. At +best it is unsafe to search for racial traits in the work of genius; in +this instance it would but betray loose thinking. + +The assumption of Celtic origin is, therefore, hazardous.[5] There is, +however, a strong likelihood that Vergil's forbears were among the Roman +and Latin colonists who went north in search of new homes during the +second century B.C. Vergil's father was certainly a Roman citizen, for +none but a citizen could have sent his son to Rome to prepare for a +political career. Mantua indeed, a "Latin" town after 89 B.C., did not +become a Roman municipality until after Vergil had left it, but Vergil's +father, according to the eighth _Catalepton_, had earlier in his life +lived in Cremona. That city was colonized by Roman citizens in 218 B.C. +and recolonized in 190, and though the colonists were reduced to the +"Latin status," the magistrates of the town and their descendants secured +citizenship from the beginning, and finally in 89 B.C. the whole colony +received full citizenship. But quite apart from this, all of Cisalpine +Gaul, as the region was called, was receiving immigrants from all parts +of Italy throughout the second century, when the fields farther south +were being exhausted by long tilling, and were falling into the hands +of capitalistic landlords and grazers. Since Roman citizenship was a +personal rather than a territorial right, such immigrants could +preserve their political status despite their change of habitation. The +probabilities are, therefore, that in any case Vergil, though born in the +province, was of the old Latin stock. + +[Footnote 5: Vergil we know was tall and dark. The Gauls were as a rule +fair with light hair. The Etruscans on the other hand, while dark, +were generally short of stature. Such data are however not of great +importance.] + +About the child appropriate stories gathered in time, but what the +biographers chose to repeat in the credulous days of Donatus, when Rome +was almost an Oriental city, need not detain us long. To Donatus, no +doubt, _Magia_ seemed a suitable name for the mother of a poet who knew +the mysteries of the lower world; that she dreamed prophetically of the +coming greatness of her son, we may grant as a matter of course. Sober +judgment, however, can hardly accept the miraculous poplar tree which +shot up at the place of nativity, or the birth-stories deriving +"Vergilus" from _virga_, contrary to early Latin nomenclature and +phonology. It is well to mention these things merely so that we may keep +in mind how little faith the late biographers really deserve. + +Donatus is also inclined to accept the tradition that Vergil's father was +a potter and a man of very humble circumstances. That Vergil's father +made pottery may be true; a father's occupation was apt to be recorded in +Augustan biography--but it requires some knowledge of Roman society to +comprehend what these words meant at the end of the Republic. In Donatus' +day a "potter" was a day-laborer in loin-cloth and leather apron, earning +about twenty cents for a long day of fourteen hours. Needless to say, +Vergil's leisured competence during many years did not draw from such a +trickling source. Donatus had forgotten that in Vergil's day the economic +system of Rome was entirely different. At the end of the Republic, the +potters of Northern Italy conducted factories of enormous output, for +they had with their artistic red-figured ware captured the markets of the +whole Mediterranean basin. The actual workmen were not Roman citizens by +any means, but slaves. And we should add that while industrial producers, +like traders, were in general held in low esteem, because most of them +were foreigners and freedmen, the producers of earthenware had by +accident escaped from the general odium. The reason was simply that +earthenware production began as a legitimate extension of agriculture--it +was one form of turning the products of the villa-soil to the best +use--and agriculture as we remember (including horticulture and +stock-raising) continued into Cicero's day the only respectable +income-bringing occupation in which a Roman senator could engage without +apology. That is the reason why even the names of Cicero, Asinius Pollio, +and Marcus Aurelius are to be found on brick stamps when it would have +been socially impossible for such men to own, shall we say, hardware or +clothing factories. Donatus was already so far away from that day that +he had no feeling for its social tabus. The property of Vergil's +father--possibly a farm with a pottery on some part of it--could hardly +have been small when it supported the young student for many years in his +leisured existence at Rome and Naples under the masters that attracted +the aristocracy of the capital. The story of Probus, otherwise not very +reliable, may, therefore, be true--that sixty soldiers received their +allotments from the estates taken from Vergil's father. + +Of no little significance is the fact that Vergil first prepared himself +for public life,[6] and progressed so far as to accept one case in court. +In order to enter public life in those days it was customary to train +one's self as widely as possible in literature, history, rhetoric, +dialectic, and court procedure, and to attract public notice for election +purposes by taking a few cases. It was not every citizen who dared enter +such a career. This was the one occupation that the nobility guarded most +jealously. While any foreigner or freedman might become a doctor, banker, +architect or merchant prince, he could not presume to stand up before a +praetor to discuss the rights and wrongs of Roman citizens; and since the +advocate's work was furthermore considered the legitimate preliminary to +magisterial offices it must the more carefully be protected. It would +have been quite useless for Vergil to prepare for this career had it been +obviously closed. We have no sure record in Cicero's epoch of any young +man rising successfully from the business or industrial classes to a +career in public life except through the abnormal accidents provided by +the civil wars. Presumably, therefore, Vergil's father belonged to a +landholding family with some honors of municipal service to his credit. + +[Footnote 6: Donatus, 15; _Ciris_, l.2; _Catal_. V.; Seneca, _Controv_. +III. praef. 8.] + +Of the poet's physical traits we have no very satisfactory description +or likeness. He was tall, dark and rawboned, retaining through life the +appearance of a countryman, according to Donatus. He also suffered, +says the same writer, the symptoms that accompany tuberculosis. The +reliability of this rather inadequate description is supported by a +second-century portrait of the poet done in a crude pavement mosaic which +has been found in northern Africa.[7] To be sure the technique is so +faulty that we cannot possibly consider this a faithful likeness. But +we may at least say that the person represented--a man of perhaps +forty-five--was tall and loose-jointed, and that his countenance, with +its broad brow, penetrating eye, firm nose and generous mouth and chin, +is distinctly represented as drawn and emaciated. + +[Footnote 7: See _Monuments Piot_. 1897, pl. xx; _Atene e Roma_, 1913, +opp. p. 191.] + +There is also an unidentified portrait in a half dozen mediocre +replicas representing a man of twenty-five or thirty years which some +archaeologists are inclined to consider a possible representation of +Vergil.[8] It is the so-called "Brutus." The argument for its attribution +deserves serious consideration. The bust, while it shows a far younger +man than the African mosaic, reveals the same contour of countenance, of +brow, nose, cheeks and chin. Furthermore it is difficult to think of any +other Roman in private life who attained to such fame that six marble +replicas of his portrait should have survived the omnivorous lime-kilns +of the dark ages. The Barrocco museum of Rome has a very lifelike +replica[9] of this type in half-relief. Though its firm, dry workmanship +seems to be of a few decades later than Vergil's youth it may well be a +fairly faithful copy of one of the first busts of Vergil made at the time +when the _Eclogues_ had spread his fame through Rome. + +[Footnote 8: See British School _Cat. of the Mus. Capitolino_, p. 355; +Bernoulli, _Röm. Ikonographie_, I, 187, Helbig,'3 I, no. 872.] + +[Footnote 9: Mrs. Strong, _Roman Sculpture_ plate, CIX; Hekler, _Greek +and Roman Portraits_, 188 a. The antiquity of this marble has been +questioned.] + +A land of sound constitutions, mentally and physically, was the frontier +region in which Vergil grew to manhood; and had it not later been drained +of its sturdy citizenry by the civil wars and recolonized by the wreckage +of those wars it would have become Italy's mainstay through the Empire. +The earlier Romans and Latins who had first accepted colonial allotments +or had migrated severally there for over a century were of sterner stuff +than the indolent remnants that had drifted to the city's corn cribs. +These frontiersmen had come while the Italic stock was still sound, not +yet contaminated by the freedmen of Eastern extraction. Cities like +Cremona and Mantua were truer guardians of the puritanic ideals of Cato's +day than Rome itself. The clear expressive diction of Catullus' lyrics, +full of old-fashioned turns, the sound social ideals of Vergil's +_Georgics_, the buoyant idealism of the _Aeneid_ and of Livy's annals +speak the true language of these people. It is not surprising then that +in Vergil's youth it is a group of fellow-provincials--returning sons +of Rome's former emigrants--that take the lead in the new literary +movements. They are vigorous, clever young men, excellently educated, +free from the city's binding traditionalism, well provided also, many +of them, with worldly goods acquired in the new rich country. Such were +Catullus of Verona, Varius Rufus, Quintilius Varus, Furius, and Alfenus +of Cremona, Caecilius of Comum, Helvius Cinna apparently of Brescia, and +Valerius Cato who somehow managed to inspire in so many of them a love +for poetry. + + + + +II + +SCHOOL AND WAR + + +To Cremona, Vergil was sent to school. Caesar, the governor of the +province, was now conquering Gaul, and as Cremona was the foremost +provincial colony from which Caesar could recruit legionaries, the school +boys must have seen many a maniple march off to the battle-fields of +Belgium. Those boys read their _Bellum Gallicum_ in the first edition, +serial publication. When we remember the devotion of Caesar's soldiers to +their leader, we can hardly be surprised at the poet's lasting reverence +for the great _imperator_. He must have seen the man himself, also, for +Cremona was the principal point in the court circuit that Caesar traveled +during the winters between his campaigns--whenever the Gauls gave him +respite. + +The _toga virilis_ Vergil assumed at fifteen, the year that Pompey and +Crassus entered upon their second consulship--a notice to all the world +that the triumvirate had been continued upon terms that made Julius the +arbiter of Rome's destinies. + +That same year the boy left Cremona to finish his literary studies in +Milan, a city which was now threatening to outstrip Cremona in importance +and size. The continuation of his studies in the province instead of at +Rome seems to have been fortunate: the spirit of the schools of the north +was healthier. At Rome the undue insistence upon a practical education, +despite Cicero's protests, was hurrying boys into classrooms of +rhetoricians who were supposed to turn them into finished public men +at an early age; it was assumed that a political career was every +gentleman's business and that every young man of any pretensions must +acquire the art of speaking effectively and of "thinking on his feet." +The claims of pure literature, of philosophy, and of history were +accorded too little attention, and the chief drill centered about the +technique of declamatory prose. Not that the rhetorical study was itself +made absolutely practical. The teachers unfortunately would spin the +technical details thin and long to hold profitable students over several +years. But their claims that they attained practical ends imposed on the +parents, and the system of education suffered. + +In the northern province, on the other hand, there was less demand +for studies leading directly to the forum. Moreover, some of the best +teachers were active there.[1] They were men of catholic tastes, who in +their lectures on literature ranged widely over the centuries of Greek +masters from Homer to the latest popular poets of the Hellenistic period +and over the Latin poets from Livius to Lucilius. Indeed, the young men +trained at Cremona and Milan between the days of Sulla and Caesar were +those who in due time passed on the torch of literary art at Rome, +while the Roman youths were being enticed away into rhetoric. Vergil's +remarkable catholicity of taste and his aversion to the cramping +technique of the rhetorical course are probably to be explained in large +measure, therefore, by his contact with the teachers of the provinces. +Vergil did not scorn Apollonius because Homer was revered as the supreme +master, and though the easy charm of Catullus taught him early to love +the "new poetry," he appreciated none the less the rugged force of +Ennius. Had his early training been received at Rome, where pedant was +pitted against pedant, where every teacher was forced by rivalry into a +partizan attitude, and all were compelled by material demands to provide +a "practical education," even Vergil's poetic spirit might have been +dulled. + +[Footnote 1: Suetonius, _De Gram_. 3.] + +How long Vergil remained at Milan we are not told; Donatus' _paulo post_ +is a relative term that might mean a few months or a few years. However, +at the age of sixteen Vergil was doubtless ready for the rhetorical +course, and it is possible that he went to the great city as early as +54 B.C., the very year of Catullus' death and of the publication of +Lucretius' _De Rerum Natura_. The brief biography of Vergil contained in +the Berne MS.--a document of doubtful value--mentions Epidius as Vergil's +teacher in rhetoric, and adds that Octavius, the future emperor, was a +fellow pupil. This is by no means unreasonable despite a difference +of seven years in the ages of the two pupils. Vergil coming from the +provinces entered rhetoric rather late in years, whereas Octavius must +have required the aid of a master of declamation early, since at the age +of twelve he prepared to deliver the _laudatio funebris_ at the grave of +his grandmother. Thus the two may have met in Epidius' lecture room in +the year 50 B.C. Vergil could doubtless have afforded tuition under such +a master since he presently engaged the no less distinguished Siro. We +have the independent testimony of Suetonius that Epidius was Octavius' +and Mark Antony's teacher. + +If Antony's style be a criterion, this new master of Vergil's was a +rhetorician of the elaborate Asianistic style,[2] then still orthodox at +Rome. This school--except in so far as Cicero had criticized it for +going to extremes--had not yet been effectively challenged by the rising +generation of the chaster Atticists. Hortensius was still alive, and +highly revered, and Cicero had recently written his elaborate _De +Oratore_ in which, with the apparent calmness of a still unquestioned +authority, he laid down the program of the writer of ornate prose who +conceived it as his chief duty to heed the claims of art. While not an +out and out Asianist he advocates the claims of the "grand-style," +so pleasing to senatorial audiences, with its well-balanced periods, +carefully modulated, nobly phrased, precisely cadenced, and pronounced +with dignity. To be sure, Calvus had already raised the banner of +Atticism and had in several biting attacks shown what a simple, frugal +and direct style could accomplish; Calidius, one of the first Roman +pupils of the great Apollodorus, had already begun making campaign +speeches in his neatly polished orations which painfully eschewed all +show of ornament or passion; and Caesar himself, efficiency personified, +had demonstrated that the leader of a democratic rabble must be a master +of blunt phrases. But Calvus did not threaten to become a political +force, Calidius was too even-tempered, and Caesar was now in the north, +fighting with other weapons. Cicero's prestige still seemed unbroken. It +was not till Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49, after Hortensius had died, +and Cicero had been pushed aside as a futile statesman, that Atticism +gained predominance in the schools. Later, in 46, Cicero in several +remarkable essays again took up the cudgels for an elaborate prose, but +then his cause was already lost. Caesar's victory had demonstrated that +Rome desired deeds, not words. + +[Footnote 2: Octavius was drawn to the Atticistic principles by the great +master Apollodorus.] + +When Virgil, therefore, turned to rhetoric, probably under Epidius, +he received the training which was still considered orthodox. His +farewell[3] to rhetoric--written probably in 48--shows unmistakably the +nature of the stuff on which he had been fed. It is the bombast and the +futile rules of the Asianic creed against which he flings his unsparing +scazons. + +[Footnote 3: _Catalepton_ V (Edition, Vollmer). Birt, _Jugendverse und +Heimatpoesie Vergils_, 1910, has provided a useful commentary on the +_Catalepton_.] + + Begone ye useless paint-pots of the school; + Your phrases reek, but not with Attic scent, + Tarquitius' and Selius' and Varro's drool: + A witless crew, with learning temulent. + And ye begone, ye tinkling cymbals vain, + That call the youths to drivelings insane. + +Epidius, to be sure, is not mentioned, but we happen to know that +Varro--if this be the erudite friend of Cicero--was devoted to the +Asianic principles. And Epidius, the teacher of the flowery Mark Antony, +may well be concealed in Vergil's list of names even if mention of him +was omitted for reasons of propriety. + +This poem reveals the fact that Vergil did not, like the young men of +Cicero's youth, enjoy the privilege of studying law, court procedure, and +oratory by entering the law office, as it were, of some distinguished +senator and thus acquiring his craft through observation, guided +practice, and personal instruction. That method, so charmingly described +by Cicero as in vogue in his youth, had almost passed away. The school +had taken its place with its mock courts, contests in oratory, set themes +in fictitious controversies. The analytical rules of rhetoric were +growing ever more intricate and time-wasting, and how pedantic they were +even before Vergil's childhood may be seen by a glance into the anonymous +_Auctor ad Herennium_. The student had to know the differences between +the various kinds of cases, demonstrativum, deliberativum and judiciale; +he must know the proportionate value to the orator of inventio, +dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio, and how to manage each; +he must know how to apply inventio in each of the six divisions of the +speech: exordium, narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio. +On the subject of adornment of style a relatively small task lay in +memorizing illustrations of some sixty figures of speech--and so on ad +infinitum. _Inane cymbalon juventutis_ is indeed a fitting commentary on +such memory tasks. The end of the poem cited betrays the fact that the +poet had not been able to keep his attention upon his task. He had been +writing verses; who would not? + +Quite apart, however, from the unattractive content of the course, the +gradual change in political life must have disclosed to the observant +that the free exercise of talents in a public career could not continue +long. The triumvirate was rapidly suppressing the free republic. Even in +52, when Pompey became sole consul, the trial of Milo was conducted under +military guard, and no advocate dared speak freely. During the next two +years every one saw that Caesar and Pompey must come to blows and that +the resulting war could only lead to autocracy. + +The crisis came in January of 49 B.C. when Vergil was twenty years old. +Pompey with the consuls and most of the senators fled southward in +dismay, and in sixty days, hotly pursued by Caesar, was forced to +evacuate Italy. Caesar, eager to make short work of the war, to attack +Spain and Africa while holding the Alpine passes and pressing in pursuit +of Pompey, began to levy new recruits throughout Italy.[4] Vergil also +seems to have been drawn in this draft, since this is apparently the +circumstance mentioned in his thirteenth _Catalepton_. "Draft," however, +may not be the right word, for we do not know whether Caesar at this time +claimed the right to enforce the rules of conscription. In any case, it +is clear from all of Vergil's references to Caesar that the great general +always retained a strong hold upon his imagination. Like most youths who +had beheld Caesar's work in the province close at hand, he was probably +ready to respond to a general appeal for troops, and Labienus' words to +Pompey on the battlefield of Pharsalia make it clear that Caesar's +army was largely composed of Cisalpines. The accounting they gave of +themselves at that battle is evidence enough of the spirit which pervaded +Vergil's fellow provincials. Nor is it unlikely that Vergil himself +took part, for one of the most poignant passages in all his work is the +picture of the dead who lay strewn over the battlefield of Pharsalia. + +[Footnote 4: Cic. _Ad Att_. IX. 19, in March.] + +It is also probable that Vergil had had some share in the cruises on the +Adriatic conducted by Antony the summer and winter before Pharsalia. +Not only does this poem speak of service on the seas, but his poems +throughout reveal a remarkable acquaintance with Adriatic geography. If +he took part in the work of that stormy winter's campaigns, when more +than one fleet was wrecked, we can comprehend the intimate touches in the +description of Aeneas' encounters with the storms. + +The thirteenth _Catalepton_, which mentions the poet's military service, +is not pleasant reading. Written perhaps in 48 or 47 B.C., directed +against some hated martinet of an officer, it bears various disagreeable +traces of camp life, which was then not well-guarded by charitable +organizations of every kind as now. We need quote only the first few +lines:[5] + + You call me caitiff, say I cannot sail + The seas again, and that I seem to quail + Before the storms and summer's heat, nor dare + The speeding victor's arms again to bear. + +We know how frail Vergil's health was in later years. His constitution +may well have been wrecked during the winter of 49 which Caesar himself, +inured though he was to the storms of the North, found unusually severe. +Vergil, it would seem from these lines, was given sick-leave and +permitted to go back to his studies, though apparently taunted for not +later returning to the army. + +[Footnote 5: + Jacere me, quod alta non possim, putas + Ut ante, vectari freta, + Nec ferre durum frigus aut aestum pati + Neque arma victoris sequi. +The verses were written before 46 B.C. when the _collegia compitalicia_ +were disbanded; Birt, _Rhein. Mus_. 1910, 348.] + +There is another brief epigram which--if we are right in thinking Pompey +the subject of the lines--seems to date from Vergil's soldier days, the +third _Catalepton_: + + Aspice quem valido subnixum Gloria regno + Altius et caeli sedibus extulerat. + Terrarum hic bello magnum concusserat orbem, + Hic reges Asiae fregerat, hic populos, + Hic grave servitium tibi iam, tibi, Roma, ferebat + (Cetera namque viri cuspide conciderant), + Cum subito in medio rerum certamine praeceps + Corruit, e patria pulsus in exilium. + Tale deae numen, tali mortalia nutu + Fallax momento temporis hora dedit.[6] + +[Footnote 6: Behold one whom, upborne by mighty authority, Glory had +exalted even above the abodes of heaven. Earth's great orb had he shaken +in war, the kings and peoples of Asia had he broken, grievous slavery was +he bringing even to thee, O Rome,--for all else had fallen before that +man's sword,--when suddenly, in the midst of his struggle for mastery, +headlong he fell, driven from fatherland into exile. Such is the will of +Nemesis; at a mere nod, in a moment of time, the faithless hour tricks +mortal endeavor.] + +Whether or not Pompey aspired to become autocrat at Rome, many of his +supporters not only believed but desired that he should. Cicero, who did +not desire it, did, despite his devotion to his friend, fear that Pompey +would, if victorious, establish practically or virtually a monarchy.[7] +Vergil, therefore, if he wrote this when Pompey fled to Greece in 49, or +after the rout at Pharsalia, was only giving expression to a conviction +generally held among Caesar's officers. Quite Vergilian is the repression +of the shout of victory. The poem recalls the words of Anchises on +beholding the spirits of Julius and Pompey: + + Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo + Proice tela manu, sanguis meus. + +[Footnote 7: Cic. _Ad Att_. VIII, 11, 4; X, 4, 8.] + +This is the poet's final conviction regarding the civil war in which he +served; his first had not differed widely from this. + +Vergil's one experience as advocate in the court room should perhaps be +placed after his retirement from the army. Egit, says Donatus, et causam +apud judices, unam omnino nec amplius quam semel. The reason for his lack +of success Donatus gives in the words of Melissus, a critic who ought to +know: in sermone tardissimum ac paene indocto similem. The poet himself +seems to allude to his disappointing failure in the _Ciris_: expertum +fallacis praemia volgi. How could he but fail? He never learned to cram +his convictions into mere phrases, and his judgments into all-inclusive +syllogisms. When he has done his best with human behavior, and the +sentence is pronounced, he spoils the whole with a rebellious dis aliter +visum. A successful advocate must know what not to see and feel, and he +must have ready convictions at his tongue's end. In the _Aeneid_ there +are several fluent orators, but they are never Vergil's congenial +characters. + + + + +III + +THE "CULEX" + + +It was apparently in the year 48--Vergil was then twenty-one--that the +poet attempted his first extended composition, the _Culex_, a poem that +hardly deserved the honor of a versified translation at the hands of +Spenser. This is indeed one of the strangest poems of Latin literature, +an overwhelming burden of mythological and literary references saddled on +the feeblest of fables. + +A shepherd goes out one morning with his flocks to the woodland glades +whose charms the poet describes at length in a rather imitative rhapsody. +The shepherd then falls asleep; a serpent approaches and is about to +strike him when a gnat, seeing the danger, stings him in time to save +him. But--such is the fatalism of cynical fable-lore--the shepherd, still +in a stupor, crushes the gnat that has saved his life. At night the +gnat's ghost returns to rebuke the shepherd for his innocent ingratitude, +and rather inappropriately remains to rehearse at great length the tale +of what shades of old heroes he has seen in the lower regions. The poem +contains 414 lines. + +The _Culex_ has been one of the standing puzzles of literary criticism, +and would be interesting, if only to illustrate the inadequacy of +stylistic criteria. Though it was accepted as Vergilian by Renaissance +readers simply because the manuscripts of the poem and ancient writers, +from Lucan and Statius to Martial and Suetonius, all attribute the work +to him, recent critics have usually been skeptical or downright recusant. +Some insist that it is a forgery or supposititious work; others that it +is a liberally padded re-working of Vergil's original. Only a few have +accepted it as a very youthful failure of Vergil's, or as an attempt of +the poet to parody the then popular romances. Recent objections have not +centered about metrical technique, diction, or details of style: these +are now admitted to be Vergilian enough, or rather what might well have +been Vergilian at the outset of his career. The chief criticism is +directed against a want of proportion and an apparent lack of artistic +sense betrayed in choosing so strange a character for the ponderous +title-role. These are faults that Vergil later does not betray. + +Nevertheless, Vergil seems to have written the poem. Its ascription to +Vergil by so many authors of the early empire, as well as the concensus +of the manuscripts, must be taken very seriously. But the internal +evidence is even stronger. Octavius, to whom the poem is dedicated, is +addressed _Octavi venerande_ and _sancte puer_, a clear reference to the +remarkable honor that Caesar secured for him by election to the office of +pontiff[1] when he was approaching his fifteenth birthday and before +he assumed the _toga virilis_. Vergil was then twenty-one years of +age--nearing his twenty-second birthday--and we may perhaps assume in +Donatus' attribution of the _Culex_ to Vergil's sixteenth year a mistake +in some early manuscript which changed the original XXI to XVI, a +correction which the citations of Statius and Lucan favor.[2] Finally, +when, as we shall see presently, Horace in his second _Epode_, accords +Vergil the honor of imitating a passage of the _Culex_, Vergil returns +the compliment in his _Georgics_. We have therefore not only Vergil's +recognition of Horace's courtesy, but, in his acceptance of it, his +acknowledgment of the _Culex_ as his own.[3] + +[Footnote 1: Vellius, II. 59, 3, pontificatus sacerdotio _puerum_ +honoravit, that is, before he assumed _the toga virilis_ on October 18th. +Nicolaus Damascenus (4) confirms this. Octavius received the office made +vacant by the death of Domitius at Pharsalia (Aug. 9). His birthday was +Sept. 23, 63. This high office is the first indication that Caesar had +chosen his grandnephew to be his possible successor. The boy was hardly +known at Rome before this time. See _Classical Philology_, 1920, p. 26.] + +[Footnote 2: Anderson, in _Classical Quarterly_, 1916, p. 225; and +_Class. Phil_. 1920, p. 26. The dedicatory lines of the _Culex_ imply +that the body of the poem was already complete. Whether the interval was +one of weeks or months or years the poet does not say.] + +[Footnote 3: _Classical Philology_, 1920, pp. 23, 33.] + +The _Culex_, therefore, is the work of a beginner addressed to a young +lad just highly honored, but after all to a schoolboy whom Vergil had, +presumably two years before, met in the lecture rooms of Epidius. Does +this provide a key with which to unlock the hidden intentions of our +strange treasure-trove of miscellaneous allusions? Let the reader +remember the nature of the literary lectures of that day when +dictionaries, reference books, and encyclopedias were not yet to be found +in every library, and school texts were not yet provided with concise +Allen and Greenough notes. The teacher alone could afford the voluminous +"cribs" of Didymus. Roman schoolboys had not, like the Greeks, drunk in +all myths by the easy process of nursery babble. By them the legends of +Homer and Euripides must be acquired through painful schoolroom exegesis. +Even the names of natural objects, like trees, birds, and beasts came +into literature with their Greek names, which had to be explained to the +Roman boys. Hence the teacher of literature at Rome must waste much +time upon elucidating the text, telling the myths in full, and giving +convenient compendia of metamorphoses, of Homeric heroes, of "trees and +flowers of the poets," and the like. Epidius himself, a pedagogue of the +progressive style, had doubtless proved an adept at this sort of +thing. Claiming to be a descendant of an ancient hero who had one day +transformed himself into a river-god, he must have had a knack for these +tales. At any rate we are told that he wrote a book on metamorphosed +trees.[4] When Octavius read the _Culex_, did he recognize in the quaint +passage describing the shepherd's grove of metamorphosed trees (124-145) +phrases from the lecture notes of their voluble teacher? Are there +reminiscences lurking also in the long list of flowers so incongruously +massed about the gnat's grave and in the two hundred lines that detail +the ghostly census of Hades? If this is a parody at all, it is to remind +Octavius of Epidian erudition. In any case it is a kind of prompter of +the poetic allusions that occupied the boys' hours at school. The simple +plot of the shepherd and the gnat was selected from the type of fable +lore thought suitable for school-room reading. It served by its very +incongruity as a suitable thread for a catalogue of facts and fiction. +Vergil himself furnishes the clue for this interpretation of the _Culex_, +but it has been overlooked because of the wretched condition of the text +that we have. The first lines[5] of the poem seem to mean: + +"My verses on the _Culex_ shall be filled with erudition so that all +the lore of the past may be strung together playfully in the form of a +story." That Martial considered it a boy's book appropriate for vacation +hours between school tasks is apparent from the inscription:[6] + + Accipe facundi _Culicem_, studiose, Maronis, + Ne nucibus positis, _Arma virumque_ legas. + +[Footnote 4: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. XVII. 243; Suetonius, _De Rhetoribus_, +4.] + +[Footnote 5: Lines 3-5: + lusimus (haec propter culicis sint carmina docta, + omnis ut historiae per ludum consonet ordo + notitiae) doctumque voces, licet invidus adsit.] + +[Footnote 6: Martial, XIV. 185.] + +The _Culex_ is then, after all, a poem of unique interest; it takes us +into the Roman schoolroom to find at their lectures the two lads whose +names come first in the honor roll of the golden age. + +The poem is of course not a masterpiece, nor was it intended to be +anything but a _tour de force_; but a comprehension of its purpose will +at least save it from being judged by standards not applicable to it. It +is not naïvely and unintentionally incongruous. To the modern reader it +is dull because he has at hand far better compendia; it is uninspired +no doubt: the theme did not lend itself to enthusiastic treatment; the +obscurity and awkwardness of expression and the imitative phraseology +betray a young unformed style. To analyze the art, however, would be to +take the poem more seriously than Vergil intended it to be when he wrote +currente calamo. Yet we may say that on the whole the modulation of the +verse, the treatment of the caesural pauses[7] and the phrasing compare +rather favorably with the Catullan hexameters which obviously served as +its models, that in the best lines the poet shows himself sensitive to +delicate effects, and that the pastoral scene--which Horace compliments +a few years later--is, despite its imitative notes, written with +enthusiasm, and reminds us pleasantly of the _Eclogues_. + +[Footnote 7: For stylistic and metrical studies of the _Culex_, see _The +Caesura in Vergil_, Butcher, _Classical Quarterly_, 1914, p. 123; Hardie, +_Journal of Philology_, XXXI, p. 266, and _Class Quart_. 1916, 32 ff.; +Miss Jackson, _Ibid_. 1911, 163; Warde Fowler, _Class. Rev_. 1919, 96.] + + + + +IV + +THE "CIRIS" + + +It was at about this same time, 48 B.C., that Vergil began to write the +_Ciris_, a romantic epyllion which deserves far more attention than it +has received, not only as an invaluable document for the history of the +poet's early development, but as a poem possessing in some passages at +least real artistic merit. The _Ciris_ was not yet completed at the time +when Vergil reached the momentous decision to go to Naples and study +philosophy. He apparently laid it aside and did not return to it until he +had been in Naples several years. It was not till later that he wrote the +dedication. As we shall see, the author again laid the poem away, and it +was not published till after his death. The preface written in Siro's +garden is addressed to Messalla, who was a student at Athens in 45-4 +B.C., and served in the republican army of Brutus and Cassius in 43-2. In +it Vergil begs pardon for sending a poem of so trivial a nature at a time +when his one ambition is to describe worthily the philosophic system that +he has adopted. "Nevertheless," he says, "accept meanwhile this poem: it +is all that I can offer; upon it I have spent the efforts of early youth. +Long since the vow was made, and now is fulfilled." (_Ciris_, 42-7.)[1] + +[Footnote 1: On the question of authenticity, see, Class. Phil. 1920, 103 +ff.] + +The story, beginning at line 101, was familiar. Minos, King of Crete, had +laid siege to Megara, whose king, Nisus, had been promised invincibility +by the oracles so long as his crimson lock remained untouched. Scylla, +the daughter of Nisus, however, was driven by Juno to fall in love with +Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the +temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when +she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the +dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own +heart, is an interesting attempt at intensive art: 209-219: + + cum furtim tacito descendens Scylla cubili + auribus erectis nocturna silentia temptat + et pressis tenuem singultibus aera captat. + tum suspensa levans digitis vestigia primis + egreditur ferroque manus armata bidenti + evolat: at demptae subita in formidine vires + caeruleas sua furta prius testantur ad umbras. + nam qua se ad patrium tendebat semita limen, + vestibulo in thalami paulum remoratur et alti + suspicit ad gelidi nictantia sidera mundi + non accepta piis promittens munera divis. + +Her aged nurse, Carme, comes upon the bewildered and shivering girl, +folds her in her robe, and coaxes the awful confession from her; 250-260: + + haec loquitur mollique ut se velavit amictu + frigidulam iniecta circumdat veste puellam, + quae prius in tenui steterat succincta crocota. + dulcia deinde genis rorantibus oscula figens + persequitur miserae causas exquirere tabis. + nec tamen ante ullas patitur sibi reddere voces, + marmoreum tremebunda pedem quam rettulit intra. + ilia autem "quid me" inquit, "nutricula, torques? + quid tantum properas nostros novisse furores? + non ego consueto mortalibus uror amore." + +Scylla does not readily confess. The poet's characterization of her +as she protracts the story to avoid the final confession reveals an +ambitious though somewhat unpracticed art. Carme tries in vain to +dissuade the girl, and must, to calm her, promise to aid her if all other +means fail. The aged woman's tenderness for her foster child is very +effectively phrased in a style not without reminiscences of Catullus +(340-48): + + his ubi sollicitos animi relevaverat aestus + vocibus et blanda pectus spe luserat aegrum, + paulatim tremebunda genis obducere vestem + virginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem + inverso bibulum restinguens lumen olivo + incipit ad crebros (que) insani pectoris ictus + ferre manum assiduis mulcens praecordia palmis. + noctem illam sic maesta super morientis alumnae + frigidulos cubito subnixa pependit ocellos. + +On the morrow the girl pleads with her father to make peace, with +humorous naïveté argues with the counsellors of state, tries to bribe the +seers, and finally resorts to magic. When nothing avails, she secures +Carme's aid. The lock is cut, the city falls, the girl is captured by +Minos--in true Alexandrian technique the catastrophe comes with terrible +speed--and she is led, not to marriage, but to chains on the captor's +galley. Her grief is expressed in a long soliloquy somewhat too +reminiscent of Ariadne's lament in Catullus. Finally, Amphitrite in pity +transforms the captive girl into a bird, the Ciris, and Zeus as a reward +for his devout life releases Nisus, also transforming him into a bird of +prey, and henceforth there has been eternal warfare between the Ciris and +the Nisus: + + quacunque illa levem fugiens secat aethera pennis, + ecce inimicus atrox magno stridore per auras + insequitur Nisus; qua se fert Nisus ad auras, + illa levem fugiens raptim secat aethera pennis.[1] + +[Footnote 1: These four lines occur again in the _Georgios_, I. 406-9.] + +The _Ciris_ with all its flaws is one of our best examples of the +romantic verse tales made popular by the Alexandrian poets of +Callimachus' school. The old legends had of course been told in epic +or dramatic form, but changing society now cared less for the stirring +action and bloodshed that had entertained the early Greeks. The times +were ripe for a retelling from a different point of view, with a more +patient analysis of the emotions, of the inner impulses of the moment +before the blow, the battle of passions that preceded the final act. We +notice also in these new poems a preponderance of feminine characters. +These the masculine democracy of classical Athens had tended to +disregard, but in the capitals of the new Hellenistic monarchies, many +influential and brilliant women rose to positions of power in the +society of the court. A poet would have been dull not to respond to this +influence. This new note was of course one that would immediately appeal +to the Romans, for the ancient aristocracy, which had always accorded +woman a high place in society and the home, had never died out at Rome. +Indeed such early dramatists as Ennius and Accius had already felt the +need of developing the interest of feminine roles when they paraphrased +classical Greek plays for their audiences. Thus both at Alexandria and +at Rome the new poets naturally chose the more romantic myths of the old +regal period as fit for their retelling. + +But the search for a different interpretation and a deeper content +induced a new method of narration. Indeed the stories themselves were too +well known to need a full rehearsal of the plot. Action might frequently +be assumed as known and relegated to a significant line or two here +and there. The scenic setting, the individual traits of the heroes and +heroines, their mental struggles, their silent doubts and hesitations, +became the chief concern of the new poets. Horace called this the +"purple-patch" method of writing. + +The narrative devices, however, varied somewhat. Some poets discarded +all idea of form. They roamed through the woods by any path that might +appear. This is the way that Tibullus likes to treat a theme. Whatever +semi-apposite topic happens to suggest itself, provided only it contains +pleasing fancies, invites him to tarry a while; he may or may not bring +you back to the starting point. Other poets still adhere to form, though +the pattern must be elaborate enough to hide its scheme from the casual +reader, and sufficiently elastic to provide space for sentiment and +pathos. In his sixty-eighth poem Catullus employs what might be called a +geometrical pattern, in fact a pyramid of unequal steps. He mounts to the +central theme by a series of verses and descends on the other side by a +corresponding series. In the sixty-fourth poem, however, the _epyllion_ +which the author of the _Ciris_ clearly had in mind, Catullus used an +intricate but by no means balanced form. The poem opens with the sea +voyage of Peleus on which he meets the sea-nymph, Thetis. Then the poet +leaps over the interval to the marriage feast, only to dwell upon the +sorrows of Ariadne depicted on the coverlet of the marriage couch; thence +he takes us back to the causes of Ariadne's woes, thence forward to the +vengeance upon Ariadne's faithless lover; then back to the second scene +embroidered on the tapestry; and now finally to the wedding itself which +ends with the Fates' wedding song celebrating the future glories of +Peleus' promised son. + +The _Ciris_, to be sure, is not quite so intricate, but here again we +have only allusions to the essential parts of the story: how Scylla +offended Juno, how she met Minos, how she cut the lock, and how the city +was taken. We are not even told why Minos failed to keep his pledge to +the maiden. In the midst of the tale, Carme suspends the action by a long +reference to Minos' earlier passion for her own daughter, Britomartis, +which caused the girl's destruction, but the lament in which this story +is disclosed merely alludes to but does not tell the details of the +story. The whole plot of the _Ciris_ is in fact unravelled by means of +a series of allusions and suggestions, exclamations and soliloquies, +parentheses and aposiopeses, interrogations and apostrophes. + +In verse-technique[2] the _Ciris_ is as near Catullus' _Peleus_ and +_Thetis_ as it is the _Aeneid_: indeed it is as reminiscent of the former +as it is prophetic of the latter. The spondaic ending which made the line +linger, usually over some word of emotional content, (l. 158): + + At levis ille deus, cui semper ad ulciscendum + +was to Cicero the earmark of this style. The _Ciris_ has it less often +than Catullus. Being somewhat unjustly criticized as an artifice it was +usually avoided in the _Aeneid_. There are more harsh elisions in the +_Ciris_ than in the poet's later work, reminding one again of Catullan +technique. In his use of caesuras Vergil in the _Ciris_ resembles +Catullus: both to a certain extent distrust the trochaic pause. Its +yielding quality, however, brought it back into more favor in various +emotional passages of the _Aeneid_; but there it is carefully modified by +the introduction of masculine stops before and after, a nuance which is +hardly sought after in the _Ciris_ or in Catullus. Finally, the sentence +structure has not yet attained the malleability of a later day. While the +_Ciris_, like the _Peleus and Thetis_, is over-free with involved and +parenthetical sentences, it has on the whole fewer run-over lines so that +indeed the frequent coincidence of sense pauses and verse endings almost +borders on monotony. + +[Footnote 2: See especially Skutsch, _Aus Vergils Frühzeit_, p. 74; +Drachmann, _Hermes_, 1908, p. 412 ff.; L.G. Eldridge, _Num. Culex et +Ciris_, etc. Giessen, 1914; Rand, _Harvard Studies_, XXX, p. 150. The +introduction which was written last is more reminiscent of Lucretius. On +the question of authenticity, see Drachmann, _loc. cit_. Vollmer, _Sitz. +Bayer. Akad_. 1907, 335, and _Vergil's Apprenticeship_, _Class. Phil_. +1920, p. 103.] + +These are but a few of the minor details that show Vergil in his youth a +close reader of Catullus, and doubtless of Calvus, Cinna and Cornificius, +who employed the same methods. It was from this group, not from Homer or +Ennius, that Vergil learned his verse-technique. The exquisite finish of +the _Aeneid_ was the product of this technique meticulously reworked to +the demands of an exacting poetic taste. + +The _Ciris_ gave Vergil his first lesson in serious poetic composition, +and no task could have been set of more immediate value for the training +of Rome's epic poet. In a national epic classical objectivity could not +suffice for a people that had grown so self-conscious. Epic poetry must +become more subjective at Rome or perish. To be sure the vices of the +episodic style must be pruned away, and they were, mercilessly. The +_Aeneid_ has none of the meretricious involutions of plot, none of the +puzzling half-uttered allusions to essential facts, none of the teasing +interruptions of the neoteric story book. The poet also learned to avoid +the danger of stressing trivial and impertinent pathos, and he rejected +the elegancies of style that threatened to lead to preciosity. What he +kept, however, was of permanent value. The new poetry, which had emerged +from a society that was deeply interested in science, had taught Vergil +to observe the details of nature with accuracy and an appreciation of +their beauty. It had also taught him that in an age of sophistication the +poet should not hide his personality wholly behind the veil. There is +a pleasing self-consciousness in the poet's reflections--never too +obtrusive--that reminds one of Catullus. It implies that poetry is +recognized in its great role of a criticism of life. But most of all +there is revealed in the _Ciris_ an epic poet's first timid probing into +the depths of human emotions, a striving to understand the riddles behind +the impulsive body. One sees why Dido is not, like Apollonius' Medea, +simply driven to passion by. Cupid's arrow--the naive Greek equivalent +of the medieval love-philter--why Pallas' body is not merely laid on the +funeral pyre with the traditional wailing, why Turnus does not meet his +foe with an Homeric boast. That Vergil has penetrated a richer vein of +sentiment, that he has learned to regard passion as something more than +an accident, to sacrifice mere logic of form for fragments of vital +emotion and flashes of new scenery, and finally that he enriched the +Latin vocabulary with fecund words are in no small measure the effect of +his early intensive work on the _Ciris_ under the tutelage of Catullus. + +Vergil apparently never published the _Ciris_, for he re-used its +lines, indeed whole blocks of its lines with a freedom that cannot be +paralleled. The much discussed line of the fourth _Eclogue_: + + Cara deum suboles, magnum Jovis incrementum, + +is from the _Ciris_ (I. 398), so is the familiar verse of _Eclogue_ VIII +(I. 41): + + Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error, + +and _Aeneid_ II. 405: + + Ad caelum tendens ardentia lumina frustra, + +and the strange spondaic unelided line (_Aen_. III. 74): + + Nereidum matri et Neptuno Aegaeo, + +and a score of others. The only reasonable explanation[3] of this strange +fact is that the _Ciris_ had not been circulated, that its lines were +still at the poet's disposal, and that he did not suppose the original +would ever be published. The fact that the process of re-using began even +in the _Eclogues_[4] shows that he had decided to reject the poem as +early as 41 B.C. A reasonable explanation is near at hand. Messalla, to +whom the poem was dedicated, joined his lot with that of Mark Antony and +Egypt after the battle of Philippi, and for Antony Vergil had no love. +The poem lay neglected till he lost interest in a style of work that was +passing out of fashion. Finding a more congenial form in the pastoral he +sacrificed the _Ciris_. + +[Footnote 3: Drachmann, _Hermes_, 1908, p. 405.] + +[Footnote 4: Especially in 8, 10, and 4. This method of re-working old +lines reveals an extraordinary gift of memory in the poet, who so vividly +retained in mind every line he had written that each might readily fall +into the pattern of his new compositions without leaving a trace of the +joining. Critics who have tried the task have been compelled to confess +that the criterion of contextual appropriateness cannot alone determine +whether or not these lines first occurred in the _Ciris_.] + + + + +V + +A STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY AT NAPLES + + +The _Culex_ seems to have been completed in September 48 B.C., and the +main part of the _Ciris_ was written not much later. Now came a crisis in +Vergil's affairs. Perhaps his own experience in the law courts, or the +conviction that public life could contain no interest under an autocracy, +or disgust at rhetorical futility, or perhaps a copy of Lucretius brought +him to a stop. Lucretius he certainly had been reading; of that the +_Ciris_ provides unmistakable evidence. And the spell of that poet he +never escaped. His farewell to Rome and rhetoric has been quoted in part +above. The end of the poem bids--though more reluctantly--farewell to the +muses also: + + Ite hinc Camenae; vos quoque ite jam sane + dulces Camenae (nam fatebimur verum, + dulces fuistis): et tamen meas chartas + revisitote, sed pudenter et raro. + +It is to Siro that he now went, the Epicurean philosopher who, closely +associated with the voluminous Philodemus, was conducting a very popular +garden-school at Naples, outranking in fact the original school at +Athens. It is not unlikely that this is where Lucretius himself had +studied. + +It is well to bear in mind that the ensuing years of philosophical study +were spent at Naples--a Greek city then--and very largely among Greeks. +This fact provides a key to much of Vergil. Our biographies have somehow +assumed Rome as the center of Siro's activities, though the evidence in +favor of Naples is unmistakable. Not only does Vergil speak of a journey +(Catal. V. 8): + + Nos ad beatos vela mittimus portus + Magni petentes docta dicta Sironis, + +and Servius say _Neapoli studuit_, and the _Ciris_ mention _Cecropus +horrulus_, and Cicero in all his references place Siro on the bay of +Naples,[1] but a fragment of a Herculanean roll of Philodemus locates the +garden school in the suburbs of Naples. + +[Footnote 1: _De Fin_. II. 119, Cumaean villa; _Acad_. II. 106, Bauli; +_Ad. Fam_. VI. 11.2; Vestorius is a Neapolitan; of. _Class. Phil_. +1920, p. 107, and _Am. Jour. Philology_, XLI, 115. For other possible +references, see _Am. Jour. Phil_.1920, XLI, 280 ff.] + +Even after Siro's death--about 42 B.C.--Vergil seems to have remained at +Naples, probably inheriting his teacher's villa. In 38 he with Varius and +Plotius came up from Naples to Sinuessa to join Maecenas' party on their +journey to Brundisium; Vergil wrote the _Georgics_ at Naples in the +thirties (_Georg_. IV. 460), and Donatus actually remarks that the poet +was seldom seen at Rome. + +As the charred fragments of Philodemus' rolls are published one by one, +we begin to realize that the students of Vergil have failed to appreciate +the influences which must have reached the young poet in these years of +his life in a Greek city in daily communion with oriental philosophers +like Philodemus and Siro. After the death of Phaedrus these men were +doubtless the leaders of their sect; at least Asconius calls the former +_illa aetate nobilissimus_ (_In Pis_. 68). Cicero represents them as +_homines doctissimos_ as early as 60 B.C., and though in his tirade +against Piso--ten years before Vergil's adhesion to the school--he must +needs cast some slurs at Piso's teacher, he is careful to compliment both +his learning and his poetry. Indeed there seems to be not a little direct +use of Philodemus' works in Cicero's _De finibus_ and the _De natura +deorum_ written many years later. In any case, at least Catullus, Horace, +and Ovid made free to paraphrase some of his epigrams. And these verses +may well guard us against assuming that the man who could draw to his +lectures and companionship some of the brightest spirits of the day is +adequately represented by the crabbed controversial essays that his +library has produced. These essays follow a standard type and do not +necessarily reveal the actual man. Even these, however, disclose a man +not wholly confined to the _ipsa verba_ of Epicurus, for they show more +interest in rhetorical precepts than was displayed by the founder of the +school; they are more sympathetic toward the average man's religion, and +not a little concerned about the affairs of state. All this indicates a +healthy reaction that more than one philosopher underwent in coming in +contact with Roman men of the world, but it also doubtless reflects the +tendencies of the Syrian branch of the school from which he sprang; for +the Syrian group had had to cast off some of its traditional fanaticism +and acquire a few social graces and a modicum of worldly wisdom in its +long contact with the magnificent Seleucid court. + +Philodemus was himself a native of Gadara, that unfortunate Macedonian +colony just east of the Sea of Galilee, which was subjected to Jewish +rule in the early youth of our philosopher. He studied with Zeno of +Sidon, to whom Cicero also listened in 78, a masterful teacher whose +followers and pupils, Demetrius, Phaedrus, Patro, probably also Siro, +and of course Philodemus, captured a large part of the most influential +Romans for the sect.[2] + +[Footnote 2: _Italiam totam occupaverunt_. Cic. _Tusc_. IV, 7.] + +How Philodemus taught his rich Roman patrons and pupils to value not only +his creed but the whole line of masters from Epicurus we may learn from +the Herculanean villa where his own library was found, for it contained +a veritable museum of Epicurean worthies down to Zeno, perhaps not +excluding the teacher himself, if we could but identify his portrait.[3] + +[Footnote 3: See _Class. Phil_. 1920, p. 113.] + +The list of influential Romans who joined the sect during this period is +remarkable, though of course we have in our incidental references but a +small part of the whole number. Here belonged Caesar, his father-in-law +Piso, who was Philodemus' patron, Manlius Torquatus, the consulars +Hirtius, Pansa, and Dolabella, Cassius the liberator, Trebatius +the jurist, Atticus, Cicero's life-long friend, Cicero's amusing +correspondents Paetus and Callus, and many others. To some of these the +attraction lay perhaps in the philosophy of ease which excused them from +dangerous political labors for the enjoyment of their villas on the Bay +of Naples. But to most Romans the greatest attraction of the doctrine lay +in its presentation of a tangible explanation of the universe, weary as +they were of a childish faith and too practical-minded to have patience +with metaphysical theories now long questioned and incomprehensible +except through a tedious application of dubious logic. + +Vergil's companions in the _Cecropius hortulus_, destined to be his +life-long friends, were, according to Probus, Quintilius Varus, the +famous critic, Varius Rufus, the writer of epics and tragedies, and +Plotius Tucca. Of his early friendship with Varius he has left a +remembrance in _Catalepton_ I and VII, with Varus in _Eclogue_ VI. Horace +combined all these names more than once in his verses.[4] That the four +friends continued in intimate relationship with Philodemus, appears from +fragments of the rolls.[5] + +[Footnote 4: Cf. Hor. _Sat_. i. 5.55; i. 10. 44-45 and 81; _Carm_. i. +24.] + +[Footnote 5: _Rhein. Mus_., 1890, p. 172. The names of Quintilius and +Varius occur twice; the rest are too fragmentary to be certain, but +the space calls for names of the length of [Greek: Plo]tie] and [Greek: +Ou[ergilie] and the constant companionship of these four men makes the +restoration very probable.] + +Of the general question of Philodemus' influence upon Varius and Vergil, +Varus and Horace, the critics and poets who shaped the ideals of the +Augustan literature, it is not yet time to speak. It will be difficult +ever to decide how far these men drew their materials from the memories +of their lecture-rooms; whether for instance Varius' _de morte_ depended +upon his teacher's [Greek: peri thanatou], as has been suggested, or to +what extent Horace used the [Greek: peri orgaes] and the [Greek: peri +kakion] when he wrote his first two epistles, or the [Greek: peiri +kolakeias] when he instructed his young friend Lollius how to conduct +himself at court, or whether it was this teacher who first called +attention to Bion, Neoptolemus, and Menippus; nor does it matter greatly, +since the value of these works lay rather in the art of expression and +timeliness of their doctrine than in originality of view. + +In the theory of poetic art there is in many respects a marked difference +between the classical ideals of the Roman group and the rather luxurious +verses of Philodemus, but he too recognized the value of restraint and +simplicity, as some of his epigrams show. Furthermore his theories of +literary art are frequently in accord with Horace's Ars Poetica on the +very points of chaste diction and precise expression which this Augustan +group emphasized. It would not surprise his contemporaries if Horace +restated maxims of Philodemus when writing an essay to the son and +grandsons of Philodemus' patron. However, after all is said, Vergil had +questioned some of the Alexandrian ideals of art before he came under the +influence of Philodemus, and the seventh Catalepton gives a hint that +Varius thought as Vergil. It is not unlikely that Quintilius Varus, +Vergil's elder friend and fellow-Transpadane, who had grown up an +intimate friend of Catullus and Calvus, had in these matters a stronger +influence than Philodemus. + +There are, however, certain turns of sentiment in Vergil which betray a +non-Roman flavor to one who comes to Vergil directly from a reading of +Lucretius, Catullus, or Cicero's letters. This is especially true of the +Oriental proskynesis found in the very first _Eclogue_ and developed into +complete "emperor worship" in the dedication of the _Georgics_. This +language, here for the first time used by a Roman poet, is not to +be explained as simple gratitude for great favors. It is not even +satisfactorily accounted for by supposing that the young poet was +somewhat slavishly following some Hellenistic model. Catullus had +paraphrased the Alexandrian poets, but he could hardly have inserted a +passage of this import. Nor was it mere flattery, for Vergil has shown +in his frank praise of Cato, Brutus, and Pompey that he does not merely +write at command. No, these passages in Vergil show the effects of the +long years of association with Greeks and Orientals that had steeped +his mind in expressions and sentiments which now seemed natural to him, +though they must have surprised many a reader at Rome. His teachers at +Naples had grown up in Syria and had furthermore carried with them the +tradition of the Syrian branch of the school that had learned to adapt +its language to suit the whims of the deified Seleucid monarchs. As +Epicureans they also employed sacred names with little reverence. Was not +Antiochus Epiphanes himself a "god," while as a member of the sect he +belittled divinity? + +Naples, too, was a Greek city always filled with Oriental trading folk, +and these carried with them the language of subject races. It is at +Pompeii that the earliest inscriptions on Italian soil have been found +which recognize the imperial cult, and it is at Cumae that the best +instance of a cult calendar has come to light. It is a note, one of the +very few in the great poet's work, that grates upon us, but when he wrote +as he did he was probably not aware that his years of residence in the +"garden" had indeed accustomed his ear to some un-Roman sounds.[6] +Octavian was of course not unaware of the advantage that accrued to the +ruler through the Oriental theory of absolutism, and furtively accepted +all such expressions. By the time Vergil wrote the Aeneid the Roman world +had acquiesced, but then, to our surprise, Vergil ceases to accord divine +attributes to Augustus. + +[Footnote 6: Julius Caesar began as early as 45 B.C. to invite +extraordinary honors for political purposes, but Roman literature seems +not to have taken any cognizance of them at that time.] + +Again, I would suggest that it was at Naples that Vergil may most readily +have come upon the "messianic" ideas that occur in the fourth _Eclogue_, +for despite all the objections that have been raised against using that +word, conceptions are found there which were not yet naturalized in the +Occident. The child in question is thought of as a Soter whose _deeds_ +the poet hopes to sing (l. 54), and furthermore lines 7 and 50 contain +unmistakably the Oriental idea of _naturam parturire_, as Suetonius +phrases it (_Aug_. 94). Quite apart from the likelihood that the Gadarene +may have gossiped at table about the messianic hopes of the Hebrews, +which of course he knew, it is not conceivable that he never betrayed any +knowledge of, or interest in, the prophetic ideas with which his native +country teemed. Meleager, also a Gadarene, preserved memories of the +people of his birthplace in his poems, and Caecilius of Caleacte, who +seems to have been in Italy at about this time, was not beyond quoting +Moses in his rhetorical works.[7] + +[Footnote 7: It is generally assumed that his book was the source for the +quotation in _Pseudo-Longinus_.] + +Furthermore, Naples was the natural resort of all those Greek and +Oriental rhetoricians and philosophers, historians, poets, actors, and +artists who drifted Romeward from the crumbling courts of Alexandria, +Antioch, and Pergamum. There they could find congenial surroundings while +discovering wealthy patrons in the numerous villas of the idle rich near +by, and thither they withdrew at vacation time if necessity called them +to Rome for more arduous tasks. Andronicus, the Syrian Epicurean, brought +to Rome by Sulla, made his home at nearby Cumae; Archias, Cicero's +client, also from Syria, spent much time at Naples, and the poet +Agathocles lived there; Parthenius of Nicaea, to whom the early Augustans +were deeply indebted, taught Vergil at Naples. Other Orientals like +Alexander, who wrote the history of Syria and the Jews, and Timagenes, +historian of the Diadochi, do not happen to be reported from Naples, but +we may safely assume that most of them spent whatever leisure time they +could there. + +Puteoli too was still the seaport town of Rome as of all Central Italy, +and the Syrians were then the carriers of the Mediterranean trade.[8] +That is one reason why Apollo's oracles at Cumae and Hecate's necromatic +cave at Lake Avernus still prospered. When Vergil explored that region, +as the details of the sixth book show he must have done, he had occasion +to learn more than mere geographic details. + +[Footnote 8: Frank, _An Economic History of Rome_, chap. xiv.] + +That Vergil had Isaiah, chapter II, before his eyes when he wrote the +fourth _Eclogue_ is of course out of the question; there is not a single +close parallel of the kind that Vergil usually permits himself to borrow +from his sources; we cannot even be sure that he had seen any of the +Sibylline oracles, now found in the third book of the collection, +which contains so strange a syncretism of Mithraic, Greek, and Jewish +conceptions, but we can no longer doubt that he was in a general way +well informed and quite thoroughly permeated with such mystical and +apocalyptic sentiments as every Gadarene and any Greek from the Orient +might well know. It speaks well for his love of Rome that despite these +influences it was he who produced the most thoroughly nationalistic epic +ever written. + +The first fruit of Vergil's studies in evolutionary science at Naples was +the _Aetna_, if indeed the poem be his. The problem of the authorship +has been patiently studied, and the arguments for authenticity concisely +summarized by Vessereau[9] make a strong case. The evidence is briefly +this. Servius attributed the poem to Vergil in his preface and again in +his commentary on _Aeneid_, III, 578. Donatus also seems to have done so, +though some of our manuscripts of his _Vita_ contain the phrase _de qua +ambigitur_. Again, the texts of the _Aetna_ which we have agree also in +this ascription. Internal evidence proves the poem to be a work of the +period between 54 and 44, which admirably suits Vergilian claims. Its +close dependence upon Lucretius gives the first date, its mention of the +"Medea" of the artist Timomachus as being overseas, a work which was +brought to Rome between 46 and 44, gives the second. Finally, the _Aetna_ +is by a student of Epicurean philosophy largely influenced by Lucretius. +It would be difficult to make a stronger case short of a contemporaneous +attribution. Has not Vergil himself referred to the _Aetna_ in the +preface of his _Ciris_, where he thanks the Muses for their aid in an +abstruse poem (l. 93)? + + Quare quae _cantus_ meditanti mittere _caecos_[10] + Magna mihi cupido tribuistis praemia divae. + +What other poem could he have had in mind? The designation does not fit +the _Culex_, which is the only poem besides the _Aetna_ that could be in +question. It is best, therefore, to take the _Aetna_[11] into account in +studying Vergil's life, even though we reserve a place in our memories +for that stray phrase _de qua ambigitur_. + +[Footnote 9: Vessereau, _Aetna_, xx ff.; Rand, _Harvard Studies_, XXX, +106, 155 ff. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Seneca +attributed the _Aetna_ to Vergil in _ad Lucilium_ 79, 5: The words +"Vergil's complete treatment" can hardly refer to the seven meager lines +found in the third book of the _Aeneid_.] + +[Footnote 10: Lucretius is very fond of using the word _caecus_ with +reference to abstruse and obscure philosophical and scientific subjects.] + +[Footnote 11: When Vergil wrote the _Georgics_, on a subject which the +poet of the _Aetna_ derides as trivial (264-74) he seems to apologize for +abandoning science, in favor of a meaner theme, _Georgics_ II, 483 ff. Is +not this a reference to the _Aetna_?] + +The poet after an invocation to Apollo justifies himself for rejecting +the favorite themes of myth and fiction: the mysteries of nature are more +worthy of occupying the efforts of the mind. He has chosen one out of +very many that needs explanation. The true cause of volcanic eruption, he +says, is that air is driven into the pores of the earth, and when this +comes into contact with lava and flint which contain atoms of fire, +it creates the explosions that cause such destruction. After a second +invitation to the reader to appreciate the worth of such a theme he +tells the story of two brothers of Catania who, when other refugees from +Aetna's explosion rescued their worldly goods, risked their lives to save +their parents. + +The poem is not a happy experiment. There is no lack of enthusiasm for +the subject, despite the fact that the science of that day was wholly +inadequate to the theme. But Vergil could hardly realize this, since both +Stoics and Epicureans had adopted the theory of the exploding winds. +The real trouble with the theme is its hopelessly prosaic ugliness. +Lucretius, by his imaginative power, had apparently deceived him into +thinking that any fragment of science might be treated poetically. In +his master the "flaring atom streams" had attained the sublimity of a +Platonic vision, and the very majestic sadness of his materialism carried +the young poet off his feet. But the mechanism of Aetna remained merely a +puzzle with little to inspire awe, and the theme contained inherently no +deep meaning for humanity--which, after all, the scientific problem must +possess to lend itself to poetic treatment. The poet indeed realized all +this before he had finished. He sought, with inadequate resources, to +stir an emotion of awe in describing the eruption, to argue the reader +into his own enthusiasm for a scientific subject, to prove the humanistic +worth of his problem by asserting its anti-religious value, and finally, +in a Turneresque obtrusion of human beings, to tell the story of the +Catanian brothers. But though the attempt does honor to his aesthetic +judgment the theme was incorrigible. Perhaps the recent eruptions of +Aetna--they are reported for the years 50 and 46 B.C.--had given the +theme a greater interest than it deserved. We may imagine how refugees +from Catania had flocked to Naples and told the tale of their suffering. + +There is another element in the poem that is as significant as it is +prosaic, a spirit of carping at poetic custom which reminds the reader of +Philodemus' lectures. Philodemus, whether speaking of philosophy or music +or poetry, always begins in the negative. He is not happy until he has +soundly trounced his predecessors and opponents. The author of the +_Aetna_ has learned all too well this scholastic method, and his acerbity +usually turns the reader away before he has reached the central +theme. There is of course just a little of this tone left in the +_Georgics_--Lucretius also has a touch of it--but the _Aeneid_ has freed +itself completely. + +The compensation to the reader lies not so much in episodical myths, +descriptions, and the story at the end, apologetically inserted on +Lucretius' theory of sweetened medicine, as rather in the poet's +contagious enthusiasm for his science, the thrill of discovery and the +sense of wonder (1. 251): + + Divina est animi ac jucunda voluptas! + +Men have wasted hours enough on trivialities (258): + + Torquemur miseri in parvis, terimurque labore. + +A worthier occupation is science (274): + + Implendus sibi quisque bonis est artibus: illae + Sunt animi fruges, haec rerum est optima merces. + +And science must be worthy of man's divine majesty (224): + + Non oculis solum pecudum miranda tueri + More nec effusis in humum grave pascere corpus; + Nosse fidem rerum dubiasque exquirere causas, + Ingenium sacrare caputque attollere caelo, + Scire quot et quae sint magno fatalia mundo + Principia. + +This may be prose, but it has not a little of the magnificence of the +Lucretian logic. The man who wrote this was at least a spiritual kinsman +of Vergil. + + + + +VI + +EPIGRAM AND EPIC + + +The years of Vergil's sojourn in Naples were perhaps the most eventful +in Rome's long history, and we may be sure that nothing but a frail +constitution could have saved a man of his age for study through those +years. After the battle of Pharsalia in 48, Caesar, aside from the +lotus-months in Egypt, pacified the Eastern provinces, then in 46 subdued +the senatorial remnants in Africa, driving Cato to his death, and +in September of that year celebrated his fourfold triumph with a +magnificence hitherto undreamed. All Italy went to see the spectacle, and +doubtless Vergil too; for here it was, if we mistake not, that he first +resolved to write an epic of Rome. The year 45 saw the defeat of the +Pompeian remnants in Spain, and the first preparations for the great +Parthian expedition which, as all knew, was to inaugurate the new +Monarchy. Then came the sudden blow that struck Caesar down, the civil +war that elevated Antony and Octavian and brought Cicero to his death, +and finally the victory at Philippi which ended all hope of a republic. +Through all this turmoil the philosophic group of the "Garden" continued +its pursuit of science, commenting, as we shall see, upon passing events. + +The _Aetna_--which seems to date from about 47-6--reveals the young +philosopher, if it is Vergil, in a serious mood of single-minded devotion +to his new pursuit. But as may be inferred from the fifth _Catalepton_ he +was not sure of not backsliding. To the influence of Catullus, plainly +visible all through these brief poems, there was added the example +of Philodemus who wrote epigrams from time to time. Several of the +_Catalepton_ may belong to this period. The very first,[1] addressed to +Vergil's lifelong friend Plotius Tucca, is an amusing trifle in the very +vein of Philodemus. The fourth, like the first in elegiacs, is a gracious +tribute to a departing friend, Musa, perhaps his fellow-townsman Octavius +Musa.[2] It closes with a generous expression of unquestioning friendship +that asks for no return: + + Quare illud satis est si te permittis amari + Nam contra ut sit amor mutuus, unde mihi? + +[Footnote 1: +Dequa saepe tibi, venit? sed, Tucca, videre + Non licet. Occulitur limine clausa viri. +Dequa saepe tibi, non venit adhuc mihi; namque + Si occulitur, longe est tangere quod nequeas. +Venerit, audivi. Sed iam jnihi nuntius iste + Quid prodest? illi dicito cui rediit.] + +[Footnote 2: See Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 82; Servius on _Ecl_. IX. 7; Berne +Scholia on _Ecl_. VIII. 6.] + +That is the trait surely that accounts for Horace's outburst of +admiration. + + Animae quales neque candidiores + Terra tulit. + +The seventh is an epigram mildly twitting Varius for his insistence upon +pure diction. The crusade for purity of speech had been given a new +impetus a decade before by the Atticists, and we may here infer that +Varius, the quondam friend of Catullus, was considered the guardian of +that tradition. Vergil, despite his devotion to neat technique, may have +had his misgivings about rules that in the end endanger the freedom of +the poet. His early work ranged very widely in its experiments in style, +and Horace's _Ars Poetica_ written many years later shows that Vergil had +to the very end been criticized by the extremists for taking liberties +with the language. The epigram begins as though it were an erotic poem in +the style of Philodemus. Then, having used the Greek word _pothos_, he +checks himself as though dreading a frown from Varius, and substitutes +the Latin word _puer_, + + Scilicet hoc fraude, Vari dulcissime, dicam: + "Dispeream, nisi me perdidit iste pothos." + Sin autem praecepta vetant me dicere, sane + Non dicam, sed: "me perdidit iste puer." + +For the comprehension of the personal allusions in the sixth and twelfth +epigrams, we have as yet discovered no clue, and as they are trifles of +no poetic value we may disregard them. + +The fourteenth is, however, of very great interest. It purports to be a +vow spoken before Venus' shrine at Sorrento pledging gifts of devotion in +return for aid in composing the story of Trojan Aeneas. + + Si mihi susceptum fuerit decurrere munus, + O Paphon, o sedes quae colis Idalias, + Troius Aeneas Romana per oppida digno + Iam tandem ut tecum carmine vectus eat: + Non ego ture modo aut picta tua templa tabella + Ornabo et puris serta feram manibus-- + Corniger hos aries humilis et maxima taurus + Victima sacrato sparget honore focos + Marmoreusque tibi aut mille coloribus ales + In morem picta stabit Amor pharetra. + Adsis o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo + Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat. + +The poem has hitherto been assigned to a period twenty years later. But +surely this youthful ferment of hope and anxiety does not represent the +composure of a man who has already published the _Georgics_. The eager +offering of flowers and a many-hued statue of Cupid reminds one rather of +the youth who in the _Ciris_ begged for inspiration with hands full of +lilies and hyacinths. + +However, we are not entirely left to conjecture. There is indubitable +evidence that Vergil began an epic at this time, some fifteen years +before he published the _Georgics_. It seems clear also that the epic was +an _Aeneid_, with Julius Caesar in the background, and that parts of the +early epic were finally merged into the great work of his maturity. The +question is of such importance to the study of Vergil's developing art +that we may be justified in going fully into the evidence[3]. As it +happens we are fortunate in having several references to this early +effort. The ninth _Catalepton_, written in 42, mentions the poet's +ambition to write a national poem worthy of a place among the great +classics of Greece (l.62): + + Si patrio Graios carmine adire sales. + +The sixth _Eclogue_ begins with an allusion to it: + + Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere versu + Nostra, nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia. + Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem + Vellit et admonuit, pastorem Tityre pinguis + Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen. + +[Footnote 3: Cf. _Classical Quarterly_, 1920, 156.] + +This may be paraphrased: "My first song--the _Culex_--was a pastoral +strain. When later I essayed to sing of kings and battles, Phoebus +warned me to return to my shepherd song." On this passage Servius +has the comment: significat aut Aeneidem aut gesta regum Albanorum. +Donatus finally in his _Vita_ says explicitly: mox cum res Romanas +inchoasset, offensus materia, ad Bucolica transit. The poem, therefore, +was on the stocks before the _Bucolics_. We may surmise that the death +of Caesar, whose deeds seem to have brought the idea of such a poem to +Vergil's mind, caused him to lay the work aside. + +Returning to the fourteenth _Catalepton_, we find what seems to be a +definite key to the date and circumstances of its writing. The closing +lines are: + + Adsis, o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo + Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat. + + +It was on September 26 in 46 B.C., that Julius Caesar so strikingly +called attention to his claims of descent from Venus and Aeneas by +dedicating a temple to Venus Genetrix, the mother of the Julian gens. It +was on that day that Caesar "called Venus from heaven" to dwell in her +new temple.[4] + +[Footnote 4: Cassius Dio, 43, 22; Appian, II. 102. There is independent +proof that _Catalepton_ XIV is earlier than the _Georgics_. In _Georgics_ +II, 146, Vergil repeats the phrase _maxima taurus victima_, but the +phrase must have had its origin in the _Catalepton_, since here _maxima_ +balances _humilis_. In the _Georgics_ the phrase is merely a verbal +reminiscence, for there is nothing in the context there to explain +_maxima_. On the order of composition of the Aeneid, see M.M. Crump, _The +Growth of the Aeneid_] + +Was not this the act that prompted the happy idea of writing the epic of +Aeneas? Vergil was then living at Naples, and we can picture the poet +fevered with the new impulse, sailing away from his lectures across the +fair bay for a day's brooding. Could one find a more fitting place than +Venus's shrine at Sorrento for the invocation of the _Aeneid_? + +How far this first attempt proceeded we shall probably not know. Vergil's +own words would imply that his early effort centered about Aeneas' wars +in Italy; the sixth _Eclogue_, + + Cum canerem reges et proelia, + +is rather explicit on this point. Furthermore, the erroneous reference of +Calaeno's omen to Anchises in the seventh book (l. 122) would indicate +that this part at least was written before the harpy-scene of the third, +for the latter is so extensive that the poet could hardly have forgotten +it if it had already been written. + +It is, however, in reading the first and fifth books that I think we +may profit most by keeping in mind the fact that the poet had begun the +_Aeneid_ before Caesar's death. In Book I, 286 ff., occurs a passage +which Servius referred to Julius Caesar. It reads: + + Nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Caesar, + Imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris, + Iulius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo. + Hunc tu olim caelo, spoliis Orientis onustum, + Accipies secura; uocabitur his quoque uotis.[5] + +[Footnote 5: The following lines (291-6) refer to the succeeding reign +of Augustus as the poet is careful to indicate in the words _tum +positis-bellis_.] + +Very few modern editors have dared accept Servius' judgment here, and +yet if we may think of these lines as adapted from (say) an original +dedication to Julius Caesar written about 45 B.C., the difficulties of +the commentators will vanish. The facts that Vergil seems to have in mind +are these: in September 46 B.C., Julius Caesar, after returning from +Thapsus, celebrated his four great triumphs over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and +Africa, displaying loads of booty such as had never before been seen at +Rome. He then gave an extended series of athletic games, of the kind +described in Vergil's fifth book, including a restoration of the ancient +_ludus Troiae_. When these were over he dedicated the temple of Venus +Genetrix, thereby publicly announcing his descent from Venus, and +presently proclaimed his own superhuman rank more explicitly by placing a +statue of himself among the gods on the Capitoline (Dio, XLIII, 14-22). +Are not the phrases, _imperium Oceano_ and _spoliis Orientis onustum_ +a direct reference to this triumph which, of course, Vergil saw? And did +not these dedications inspire the prophecy _uocabitur hic quoque uotis?_ +Be that as it may, it is difficult to refuse credence to Servius in this +case, for Vergil here (I, 267-274 and 283) accepts Julius Caesar's claim +of descent from Iulus, whereas in the sixth book, in speaking of the +descent of the royal Roman line, he derives it, as was regularly done in +Augustus' day, from Silvius the son of Aeneas and Lavinia (VI, 763 ff.). +We must notice also that in the _Aeneid_ as in the _Georgics_ Augustus is +regularly called 'Augustus Caesar' or 'Caesar,' whereas in the only other +references to Julius in the _Aeneid_ the poet explicitly points to him by +saying 'Caesar et omnis _Iuli_ progenies' (VI, 789). + +Servius, therefore, seems to be correct in regarding Julius as the +subject of the passage in the first book, and it follows that the passage +contains memories of the year 46 B.C., whether or not the lines were, as +I suggest, first written soon after Caesar's triumph. + +The fifth book also, despite the fact that its beginning and end show a +late hand, contains much that can be best brought into connection with +Vergil's earlier years. It is, for instance, easier to comprehend the +poet's references to Memmius, Catiline, and Cluentius in the forties than +twenty years later. + +Vergil's strange comparison of Messalla to the _superbus Eryx_ in +_Catalepton_ IX, written in 42 B.C.,[6] is also readily explained if we +may assume that he has recently studied the Eryx myth in preparation for +the contest of Book V (11. 392-420). The poet's enthusiasm for the _ludus +Troiae is well understood as a description of what he saw at Caesar's +re-introduction of the spectacle in 46. At Caesar's games Octavian, then +sixteen years of age, must have led one of the troops:[7] in the fifth +book Atys the ancestor of Octavian's maternal line led one column by the +side of Iulus: + + Alter Atys, genus unde Atii duxere Latini (1. 568). + +[Footnote 6: See Chapter VIII.] + +[Footnote 7: The brief account of Nicolaus of Damascus (9) mentions that +Octavius had charge of the Greek plays at the triumphal games.] + +Then, too, marks of youth pervade the substance of the book. The +questionable witticisms might perhaps be attributed to an attempt to +relieve the strain, but there is an unusual amount of Homeric imitation, +and inartistic allusion to contemporaries which, as in the youthful +_Bucolics_, destroys the dramatic illusion. Thus, Vergil not only dwells +upon the ancestry of the Memmii, Sergii, and Cluentii, but insists upon +reminding the reader of Catiline's conspiracy in the _Sergestus, furens +animi_, who dashes upon the rock in his mad eagerness to win, and +obtrudes etymology in the phrase _segnem Menoeten_ (1. 173). One is +tempted to suspect that the whole narrative of the boat-race is filled +with pragmatic allusions. If the characters of his epic must be connected +with well-known Roman families, it is at least interesting that the +connections are indicated in the fifth book and not in the passages where +the names first meet the reader. Does it not appear that the body of the +book was composed long before the rest, and then left at the poet's death +not quite furbished to the fastidious taste of a later day? + +Finally, I would suggest that the strange and still unexplained[8] omen +of Acestes' burning arrow in 11. 520 ff. probably refers to some event of +importance to Segesta in the same year, 46 B.C. We are told by the author +of the _Bellum Africanum_ that Caesar mustered his troops for the African +campaign at Lilybaeum in the winter of 47. We are not told that while +there he ascended the mountain, offered sacrifices to Venus Erycina, and +ordered his statue to be placed in her temple, or that he gave favors to +the people of Segesta who had the care of that temple. But he probably +did something of that kind, for as he had already vowed his temple to +Venus Genetrix he could hardly have remained eight days at Lilybaeum so +near the shrine of Aeneas' Venus without some act of filial devotion. If +Vergil wrote any part of the fifth book in or soon after 46 this would +seem to be the solution of the obscure passage in question. + +[Footnote 8: See however DeWitt, _The Arrow of Acestes, Am. Jour. Phil_. +1920, 369.] + +It is of importance then in the study of the _Aeneid_ to keep in mind +the fact that the plot was probably shaped and many episodes blocked out +while Vergil was young and Julius Caesar still the dominant figure in +Rome. Many scenes besides those in the fifth book may find a new meaning +in this suggestion. Does it not explain why so many traits in Dido's +character irresistibly suggest Cleopatra,[9] why half the lines of the +fourth book are reminiscent of Caesar's dallying in Egypt in 47? Do +not the protracted battle scenes of the last book--otherwise so +un-Vergilian--remind one of Caesar's never-ending campaigns against foes +springing up in all quarters, and of the fact that Vergil had himself +recently had a share in the struggle? The young Octavius, also, whose +boyhood is so sympathetically sketched by Nicolaus (5-9)--a leader among +his companions always, but ever devoted and generous--seems to peer +through the portrait of Ascanius.[10] Vergil's memories of the boy at +school, the recipient of the _Culex_, the leader of the Trojan troop at +Caesar's games, the lad of sixteen sitting for a day in the forum as +_praefectus urbi_, seem very recent in the pages of the epic. + +[Footnote 9: Nettleship, _Ancient Lives of Virgil_, 104; Warde Fowler, +_Religious Experience of the Roman People_, p. 415.] + +[Footnote 10: See Warde Fowler, _The Death of Turnus_, pp. 87-92, on the +character of Ascanius.] + +It would be futile to attempt to pick out definite lines and claim that +these were parts of the youthful poem. Indeed the artistry of most of the +verses discussed is, as any reader will notice, more on the plane of the +later work than of the _Ciris_, written about 47-3 B.C. It is safe to say +that Vergil did not in his youth write the sonorous lines of _Aen_. I, +285-290, just as they now stand. But as we may learn from the _Ciris_, +which Vergil attempted to suppress, no poet has more successfully +retouched lines written in youth and fitted them into mature work without +leaving a trace of the process. + +Critics have always expressed their admiration for the comprehensive +scope of the _Aeneid_, its depth of learning, its finished artistry, and +its wide range of observation. The substantial character of the poem is +not a mystery to us when we consider how long its theme lay in the poet's +mind. + + + + +VII + +EPICUREAN POLITICS + + +Caesar fell on the Ides of March, 44. The peaceful philosophic community +at Herculaneum "seeking wisdom in daily intercourse" must have felt +the shock as of an earthquake, despite Epicurean scorn for political +ambition. Caesar had been friendly to the school; his father-in-law, +Piso, had been Philodemus' life-long friend and patron, and, if we may +believe Cicero, even at times a boon companion. Several of Caesar's +nearest friends were Epicureans of the Neapolitan bay. Their future +depended wholly upon Caesar. Dolabella was Antony's colleague in that +year's consulship, while Hirtius and Pansa had been chosen consuls for +the following year by Caesar. To add to the shock, the liberators had +been led by a recent convert to the school, Cassius. + +The community as a whole was Caesarian, a fact explained not wholly by +Piso's relations to Philodemus and the friendly attitude of so many +followers of Caesar, but also by the consideration that the leading +spirits were Transpadanes: Vergil, Varius and Quintilius, at least. But +at Rome the political struggle soon turned itself into a contest to +decide not whether Caesar's regime should be honored and continued in the +family--Octavius seemed at first too young to be a decisive factor--but +whether Antony would be able to make himself Caesar's successor. When in +July Brutus and Cassius were out-manoeuvered by Antony, and Cicero fled +helplessly from Rome, it was Piso who stepped into the breach, not to +support Brutus and Cassius, but to check the usurpation of Antony. This +gave Cicero a program. In September he entered the lists against Antony; +in December he accepted the support of Octavian who had with astonishing +daring for a youth of eighteen collected a strong army of Caesar's +veterans and placed himself at the service of Cicero and the Senate in +their warfare against Antony. Spring found the new consuls, Hirtius +and Pansa, both Caesarians, with the aid of Octavian, Caesar's heir, +besieging Antony at the bidding of the Senate in the defence of +Decimus Brutus, one of Caesar's murderers! Such was Cicero's skill in +generalship. Of course Caesarians were not wholly pleased with this +turn of events. Cicero's success would mean not only the elimination of +Antony--to which they did not object--but also the recall of Brutus and +Cassius, and the consequent elimination of themselves from political +influence. Piso accordingly began to waver. While assuring the Senate +of his continued support in their efforts to render Antony harmless, +he refused to follow Cicero's leadership in attempting the complete +restoration of Brutus' party. Cicero's _Philippics_ dwell with no little +concern upon this phase of the question. + +We would expect the Garden group, friendly to the memory of Caesar, to +adopt the same point of view as Piso and for the same reasons. They could +hardly have sympathized with the murderers of Caesar. On the other hand, +they had no reason for supporting the usurpations of Antony, and seem to +have enjoyed Cicero's _Philippics_ in so far as these attacked Antony. +Extreme measures were, however, not agreeable to Epicureans, who in +general had nothing but condemnation for civil war. However, Octavian's +strong stand could only have pleased them: Caesar's grand-nephew and heir +would naturally be to them a sympathetic figure. + +A fragment of Philodemus, recently deciphered,[1] reveals the teacher +adopting in his lectures the very point of view which we have already +found in Piso. The fragment is brief and mutilated, but so much is clear: +Philodemus criticizes the party of Cicero for carrying the attack upon +Antony to such extremes that through fear of the liberators a reaction +in favor of Antony might set in. We find this position reflected even in +Vergil. He never speaks harshly of the liberators, to be sure; in +fact his indirect reference to Brutus in the _Aeneid_ is remarkably +sympathetic for an Augustan poet, but we have two epigrams of his +attacking partizans of Antony in terms that remind us of passages in +Cicero's _Philippics_. It would almost appear that Vergil now drew his +themes for lampoons from Cicero's unforgettable phrases,[2] as Catullus +had done some fifteen years before. How thoroughly Vergil disliked Antony +may be seen in the familiar line in the _Aeneid_ which Servius recognized +as an allusion to that usurper (_Aen_. VI. 622): + + Fixit leges pretio atque refixit. + +[Footnote 1: _Hermes_, 1918, p. 382.] + +[Footnote 2: Three other epigrams, VI, XII, XIII, have been assumed by +some critics to be direct attacks upon Antony, but the key to them has +been lost and certainty is no longer attainable.] + +If Servius is correct, we have here again a reminder of those stormy +years. This, too, is a dagger drawn from Cicero's armory. Again and again +the orator in the _Philippics_ charges Antony with having used Caesar's +seal ring for lucrative forgeries in state documents. It is interesting +to find that Vergil's school friend, Varius, in his poem on Caesar's +death, called _De Morte_[3] first put Cicero's charges into effective +verse: + + Vendidit hic Latium populis agrosque Quiritum + Eripuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit. + +[Footnote 3: Some recent critics have suggested that the poem may have +been a general discussion of the fear of death, but Varius is constantly +referred to as an epic poet (Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 43; _Carm_. I. 6 +and Porphyrio _ad loc_). His poem was written before Vergil's eighth +_Eclogue_ which we place in 41 B.C. (Macrobius, _Sat_. VI. 2. 20) and +probably before the ninth (see I.36).] + +The reference here, too, must have been to Antony. The circle was clearly +in harmony in their political views. + +The two creatures of Antony attacked by Cicero and Vergil alike are +Ventidius and Annius Cimber. The epigram on the former takes the form +of a parody of Catullus' "Phasellus ille," a poem which Vergil had good +reason to remember, since Catullus' yacht had been towed up the Mincio +past Vergil's home when he was a lad of about thirteen. Indeed we hope +he was out fishing that day and shared his catch with the home-returning +travelers. Parodies are usually not works of artistic importance, and +this for all its epigrammatic neatness is no exception to the rule. But +it is not without interest to catch the poet at play for a moment, and +learn his opinion on a political character of some importance. + +Ventidius had had a checkered career. After captivity, possibly slavery +and manumission, Caesar had found him keeping a line of post horses and +pack mules for hire on the great Aemilian way, and had drafted him into +his transport service during the Gallic War. He suddenly became an +important man, and of course Caesar let him, as he let other chiefs of +departments, profit by war contracts. It was the only way he could +hold men of great ability on very small official salaries. Vergil had +doubtless heard of the meteoric rise of this _mulio_ even when he was +at school, for the post-road for Caesar's great trains of supplies led +through Cremona. After the war Caesar rewarded Ventidius further by +letting him stand for magistracies and become a senator--which of course +shocked the nobility. Muleteers in the Senate! The man changed his +cognomen to be sure, called himself Sabinus on the election posters, but +Vergil remembered what name he bore at Cremona. Caesar finally designated +him for the judge's bench, as praetor, and this high office he entered in +43. He at once attached himself to Antony, who used him as an agent to +buy the service of Caesarian veterans for his army. It was this that +stirred Cicero's ire, and Cicero did not hesitate to expose the man's +career. Vergil's lampoon is interesting then not only in its connections +with Catullus and the poet's own boyhood memories, but for its +reminiscences of Cicero's speeches and the revelation of his own +sympathies in the partizan struggle. The poem of Catullus and Vergil's +parody must be read side by side to reveal the purport of Vergil's +epigram. + + Phaselus ille, quem videtis, hospites, + Ait fuisse navium celerrimus, + Neque ullius natantis impetum trabis + Nequisse praeterire, sive palmulis + Opus foret volare sive linteo. + Et hoc negat minacis Adriatici + Negare litus insulasve Cycladas + Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam + Propontida trucemve Ponticum sinum, + Ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit + Comata silva: nam Cytorio in iugo + Loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma. + Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer, + Tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima + Ait phaselus: ultima ex origine + Tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine, + Tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore, + Et inde tot per inpotentia freta + Erum tulisse, laeva sive dextera + Vocaret aura, sive utrumque Iuppiter + Simul secundus incidisset in pedem; + Neque ulla vota litoralibus deis + Sibi esse facta, cum veniret a mari + Novissimo hunc ad usque limpidum lacum. + Sed haec prius fuere; nunc recondita + Senet quiete seque dedicat tibi, + Gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. + +Vergil's parody,[4] which substitutes the mule-team plodding through the +Gallic mire for Catullus' graceful yacht speeding home from Asia, follows +the original phraseology with amusing fidelity: + + Sabinus ille, quem videtis, hospites + Ait fuisse mulio celerrimus, + Neque ullius volantis impetum cisi + Nequisse praeterire, sive Mantuam + Opus foret volare sive Brixiam. + Et hoc negat Tryphonis aemuli domum + Negare nobilem insulamve Caeruli, + Ubi iste post Sabinus, ante Quinctio + Bidente dicit attodisse forcipe + Comata colla, ne Cytorio iugo + Premente dura volnus ederet iuba. + Cremona frigida et lutosa Gallia, + Tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima + Ait Sabinus: ultima ex origine + Tua stetisse (dicit) in voragine, + Tua in palude deposisse sarcinas + Et inde tot per orbitosa milia + Iugum tulisse, laeva sive dextera + Strigare mula sive utrumque coeperat + + * * * * * + + Neque ulla vota semitalibus deis + Sibi esse facta praeter hoc novissimum, + Paterna lora proximumque pectinem. + Sed haec prius fuere: mine eburnea + Sedetque sede seque dedicat tibi, + Gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. + + +[Footnote 4: See _Classical Philology_, 1920, p. 114.] + +The other epigram referred to (_Catalefton II_) also attacks a creature +of Antony's, Annius Cimber, a despised rhetorician who had been helped +to high political office by Antony. Again Cicero's _Philippics_ (XI. 14) +serve as our best guide for the background. + + Corinthiorum amator iste verborum, + Iste iste rhetor, namque quatenus totus + Thucydides, Britannus, Attice febris! + Tau Gallicum min et sphin ut male illisit, + Ita omnia ista verba miscuit fratri. + +It might be paraphrased: "a maniac for archaic words, a rhetor indeed, he +is as much and as little a Thucydides as he is a British prince, the +bane of Attic style! It was a dose of archaic words and Celtic brogue, I +fancy, that he concocted for his brother." + +There seem to be three points of attack. Cimber, to judge from Cicero's +invective, was suspected of having risen from servile parentage, and of +trying, as freedmen then frequently did, to pass as a descendant of +some unfortunate barbarian prince. Since his brogue was Celtic (_tau +Gallicum_) he could readily make a plausible story of being British. +Vergil seems to imply that the brogue as well as the name Cimber had been +assumed to hide his Asiatic parentage. The second point seems to be that +Cimber, though a teacher of rhetoric, was so ignorant of Greek, that +while proclaiming himself an Atticist, he used non-Attic forms and +vaunted Thucydides instead of Lysias as the model of the simple style. +Finally, it was rumored, and Cicero affects to believe the tale, that +Cimber was not without guilt in the death of his brother. Vergil is, of +course, not greatly concerned in deriding Atticism itself: to this school +Vergil must have felt less aversion than to Antony's flowery style; it is +the perversion of the doctrine that amuses the poet. + +Taken in conjunction with other hints, these two poems show us where the +poet's sympathies lay during those years of terror. There may well have +been a number of similar epigrams directed at Antony himself, but if +so they would of course have been destroyed during the reign of the +triumvirate. Antony's vindictiveness knew no bounds, as Rome learned when +Cicero was murdered. + + + + +VIII + +LAST DAYS AT THE GARDEN + + +Vergil's dedication of the _Ciris_ to Valerius Messalla was, as the poem +itself reveals, written several years after the main body of the poem. +The most probable date is 43 B.C., when the young nobleman, then only +about twenty-one, went with Cicero's blessing[1] to join Brutus and +Cassius in their fight for the Republic. Messalla had then, besides +making himself an adept at philosophy--at Naples perhaps, since Vergil +knew him--and stealing away student hours at Athens for Greek verse +writing, gained no little renown by taking a lawsuit against the most +learned lawyer of the day, Servius Sulpicius. Cicero's letter of +commendation, which we still have, is unusually laudatory. + +[Footnote 1: Cicero, _Ad Brutum_, I, 15.] + +The dedication of the _Ciris_ reveals Vergil still eager to win his place +as a rival of Lucretius. We may paraphrase it thus: + +"Having tried in vain for the favor of the populace, I am now in the +'Garden' seeking a theme worthy of philosophy, though I have spent many +years to other purpose. Now I have dared to ascend the mountain of wisdom +where but few have ventured. Yet I must complete these verses that I +have begun so that the Muses may cease to entice me further. Oh, if only +wisdom, the mistress of the four sages of old, would lead me to her tower +whence I might from afar view the errors of men; I should not then honor +one so great with a theme so trifling, but I should weave a marvelous +fabric like Athena's pictured robe ... a great poem on Nature, and into +its texture I should weave your name. But for that my powers are still +too frail. I can only offer these verses on which I have spent many hours +of my early school-days, a vow long promised and now fulfilled." + +It is apparent that the student still throbs with a desire to become +a poet of philosophy, and that he is willing to appease the muses of +lighter song only because they insist on returning. But there is another +poem addressed to Messalla that is equally full of personal interest. + +Messalla, as we know from Plutarch's _Brutus,_ drawn partly from the +young man's diary, joined Cassius in Asia, and did noteworthy service in +helping his general win the Eastern provinces from the Euxine to Syria +for the Republican cause. Later at Philippi he led the cavalry charge +which broke through the triumvirate line and captured Octavius' camp. +That was the famous first battle of Philippi, prematurely reported in +Italy as a decisive victory for the Republican cause. Three weeks later +the forces clashed again and the triumvirs won a complete victory. +Messalla, who had been chosen commander by the defeated remnant, +recognized the hopelessness of his position and surrendered to the +victors. + +Vergil's ninth _Catalepton_ seems to have been written as a paean in +honor of Messalla on receipt of the first incomplete report. The poem +does not by any means imply that Vergil favored Brutus and Cassius or +felt any ill-will towards Octavian. Vergil's regard for Messalla +was clearly a personal matter, and of such a nature that political +differences played no part in it. The poet's complete silence in the +poem about Brutus and Cassius indicates that it is not to any extent the +_cause_ which interests him. Nor can a eulogy of a young republican at +this time be considered as implying any ill-will toward Octavian, to whom +Vergil was always devoted. At this early day Antony was still looked upon +as the dominating person in the triumvirate, and for him Vergil had no +love whatever. He may, therefore, though a Caesarian and friendly to +Octavian, sing the praises of a personal friend who is fighting Antony's +triumvirate. + +The ninth _Catalepton,_ like most eulogistic verse thrown off at high +speed, has few good lines (indeed it was probably never finished), but it +is exceedingly interesting as a document in Vergil's life. + +Since it has generally been placed about fifteen years too late and +therefore misunderstood, we must dwell at length on some of its +significant details. The poem can be briefly summarized: + +"A conqueror you come, the great glory of a mighty triumph, a victor on +land and sea over barbarian tribes; and yet a poet too. Some of your +verses have found a place in my pages, pastoral songs in which two +shepherds lying under the spreading oak sing in honor of your heroine to +whom the divinities bring gifts. The heroine of your song shall be more +famous than the themes of Greek song, yes even than the Roman Lucrece for +whose honor your sires drove the tyrants out of Rome." + +"Great are the honors that Rome has bestowed upon the liberty-loving +(Publicolas) Messallas for that and other deeds. So I need not sing of +your recent exploits: how you left your home, your son, and the forum, to +endure winter's chill and summer's heat in warfare on land and sea. And +now you are off to Africa and Spain and beyond the seas." + +"Such deeds are too great for my song. I shall be satisfied if I can but +praise your verses." + +The most significant passage is the implied comparison of Valerius +Messalla with the founder of the Valerian family who had aided the first +Brutus in establishing the republic as he now was aiding the last Brutus +in restoring it. The comparison is the more startling because our +Messalla later explicitly rejected all connection with the first Valerius +and seems never to have used the cognomen Publicola. The explanation of +Vergil's passage is obvious.[2] The poet hearing of Messalla's remarkable +exploit at Philippi saw at once that his association with Brutus would +remind every Roman of the events of 509 B.C., and that the populace would +as a matter of course acclaim the young hero by the ancient cognomen +"Publicola." Later, after his defeat and submission, Messalla had +of course to suppress every indication that might connect him with +"tyrannicide" stock or faction. The poem, therefore, must have been +written before Messalla's surrender in 42 B.C. + +[Footnote 2: The argument is given in full in _Classical Philology_, +1920, p. 36.] + +The poet's silences and hesitation in touching upon this subject of civil +war are significant of his mood. The principals of the triumph receive +not a word: his friend is the "glory" of a triumph led by men whose names +are apparently not pleasant memories. Nor is there any exultation over +a presumed defeat of "tyrants" and a restoration of a "republic." The +exploit of Messalla that Vergil especially stresses is the defeat of +"barbarians," naturally the subjection of the Thracian and Pontic tribes +and of the Oriental provinces earlier in the year. And the assumption is +made (1. 51 ff.) that Messalla has, as a recognition of his generalship, +been chosen to complete the war in Africa, Spain, and Britain. Most +significant of all is Vergil's blunt confession that his mind is not +wholly at ease concerning the theme (II. 9-12): "I am indeed strangely at +a loss for words, for I will confess that what has impelled me to write +ought rather to have deterred me." Could he have been more explicit in +explaining that Messalla's exploits, for which he has friendly praise, +were performed in a cause of which his heart did not approve? And does +not this explain why he gives so much space to Messalla's verses, and why +he so quickly passes over the victory of Philippi with an assertion of +his incapacity for doing it justice? + +To the biographer, however, the passage praising Messalla's Greek +pastorals is the most interesting for it reveals clearly how Vergil came +to make the momentous decision of writing pastorals. Since Messalla's +verses were in Greek they had, of course, been written two years before +this while he was a student at Athens. Would that we knew this heroine +upon whom he represents the divinities as bestowing gifts! Propertius, +who acknowledged Mesalla as his patron later employed this same motive +of celestial adoration in honor of Cynthia (II. 3, 25), but surely +Messalla's _herois_ was, to judge from Vergil's comparison, a person of +far higher station than Cynthia. Could she have been the lady he married +upon his return from Athens? Such a treatment of a woman of social +station would be in line with the customs of the "new poets," Catullus, +Calvus, and Ticidas, rather than of the Augustans, Gallus, Propertius, +and Tibullus. Vergil himself used the motive in the second _Eclogue_ (l. +46), a reminiscence which, doubtless with many others that we are unable +to trace, Messalla must have recognized as his own. + +The pastoral which Vergil had translated from Messalla is quite fully +described: + + Molliter hic _viridi patulae sub tegmine quercus_ + Moeris pastores et Meliboeus erant, + Dulcia jactantes alterno carmina versu + Qualia Trinacriae doctus amat iuvenis. + +That is, of course, the very beginning of his own _Eclogues_. When he +published them he placed at the very beginning the well-known line that +recalled Messalla's own line: + + Tityre, tu _patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi_. + +What can this mean but a graceful reminder to Messalla that it was he who +had inspired the new effort?[3] + +[Footnote 3: Roman writers frequently observed the graceful custom of +acknowledging their source of inspiration by weaving in a recognizable +phrase or line from the master into the very first sentence of a new +work: cf. _Arma virumque cano_--[Greek: Andra moi ennepe] (Lundström, +_Eranos_, 1915, p. 4). Shelley responding to the same impulse paraphrased +Bion's opening lines in "I weep for Adonais--he is dead."] + +We may conclude then that Vergil's use of that line as the title of his +_Eclogues_ is a recognition of Messalla's influence. Conversely it is +proof, if proof were needed, that the ninth _Catalepton_ is Vergil's. We +may then interpret line thirteen of the ninth _Catalepton:_ + + pauca tua in nostras venerunt carmina chartas, + +as a statement that in the autumn of 42, Vergil had already written some +of his _Eclogues_, and that these early ones--presumably at least numbers +II, III, and VII--contain suggestions from Messalla. + +There was, of course, no triumph, and Vergil's eulogy was never sent, +indeed it probably never was entirely completed.[4] Messalla quickly made +his peace with the triumvirs, and, preferring not to return to Rome in +disgrace, cast his lot with Antony who remained in the East. Vergil, who +thoroughly disliked Antony, must then have felt that for the present, at +least, a barrier had been raised between him and Messalla. Accordingly +the _Ciris_ also was abandoned and presently pillaged for other uses. + +[Footnote 4: It ought, therefore, not to be used seriously in discussions +of Vergil's technique.] + +The news of Philippi was soon followed by orders from Octavian--to be +thoroughly accurate we ought of course to call him Caesar--that lands +must now, according to past pledges, be procured in Italy for nearly +two hundred thousand veterans. Every one knew that the cities that had +favored the liberators, and even those that had tried to preserve their +neutrality, would suffer. Vergil could, of course, guess that lands in +the Po Valley would be in particular demand because of their fertility. +The first note of fear is found in his eighth _Catalepton_: + + Villula, quae Sironis eras, et pauper agelle, + Verum illi domino tu quoque divitiae, + Me tibi et hos una mecum, quos semper amavi, + Si quid de patria tristius audiero, + Commendo imprimisque patrem: tu nunc eris illi + Mantua quod fuerat quodque Cremona prius. + +It is usually assumed from this passage that Siro had recently died, +probably, therefore, some time in 42 B.C., and that, in accordance with a +custom frequently followed by Greek philosophers at Rome, he had left his +property to his favorite pupil. The garden school, therefore, seems to +have come to an end, though possibly Philodemus may have continued it +for the few remaining years of his life. Siro's villa apparently proved +attractive to Vergil, for he made Naples his permanent home, despite the +gift of a house on the Esquiline from Maecenas. + +This, however, is not Vergil's last mention of Siro, if we may believe +Servius, who thinks that "Silenum" in the sixth _Eclogue_ stands for +"Sironem," its metrical equivalent. If, as seems wholly likely, Servius +is right, the sixth _Eclogue_ is a fervid tribute to a teacher who +deserves not to be forgotten in the story of Vergil's education. The poem +has been so strangely misinterpreted in recent years that it is time to +follow out Servius' suggestion and see whether it does not lead to some +conclusions.[5] + +[Footnote 5: Skutsch roused a storm of discussion over it by insisting +that it was a catalogue of poems written by Gallus (_Aus Vergils +Frühzeit_.) Cartault, _Étude sur les Bucoliques de Virgile_ (p. 285), +almost accepts Servius' suggestion: "un résumé de ses lectures et de ses +études."] + +After an introduction to Varus the poem tells how two shepherds found +Silenus off his guard, bound him, and demanded songs that he had long +promised. The reader will recall, of course, how Plato also likened his +teacher Socrates to Silenus. Silenus sang indeed till hills and valleys +thrilled with the music: of creation of sun and moon, the world of +living things, the golden age, and of the myths of Prometheus, Phaeton, +Pasiphaë, and many others; he even sang of how Gallus had been captured +by the Muses and been made a minister of Apollo. + +A strange pastoral it has seemed to many! And yet not so strange when we +bear in mind that the books of Philodemus reveal Vergil and Quintilius +Varus as fellow students at Naples. Surely Servius has provided the key. +The whole poem, with its references to old myths, is merely a rehearsal +of schoolroom reminiscences, as might have been guessed from the fine +Lucretian rhythms with which it begins: + + Namque canebat, uti magnum per inane coacta + Semina terrarumque animaeque marisque fuissent + Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis + Omnia et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis; + Tum durare solum et discludere Nerea ponto + Coeperit, et rerum paulatim sumere formas; + Iamque novum terrae stupeant lucescere solem. + Altius atque cadant summotis nubibus imbres; + Incipiant silvae cum primum surgere, cumque + Rara per ignaros errent animalia montis. + +The myths that follow are meant to continue this list of subjects, only +with somewhat less blunt obviousness. They suggested to Varus the usual +Epicurean theories of perception, imagination, passion, and mental +aberrations, subjects that Siro must have discussed in some such way as +Lucretius treated them in his third and fourth books of the _De Rerum +Natura_. + +It is, of course, not to be supposed that Siro had lectured upon +mythology as such. But the Epicurean teachers, despite their scorn +for legends, employed them for pedagogical purposes in several ways. +Lucretius, for instance, uses them sometimes for their picturesqueness, +as in the _prooemium_ and again in the allegory of the seasons (V. 732). +He also employs them in a Euhemeristic fashion, explaining them as +popular allegories of actual human experiences, citing the myths of +Tantalus and Sisyphus, for example, as expressions of the ever-present +dread of punishment for crimes. Indeed Vergil himself in the _Aetna_--if +it be his--somewhat naïvely introduced the battle of the giants for its +picturesque interest. It is only after he had enjoyed telling the story +in full that he checked himself with the blunt remark: + + (1. 74) Haec est mendosae vulgata licentia famae. + +Lucretius is little less amusing in his rejection of the Cybele myth, +after a lovely passage of forty lines (II, 600) devoted to it. + +Vergil was, therefore, on familiar ground when he tried to remind his +schoolmate of Siro's philosophical themes by designating each of them by +means of an appropriate myth. Perhaps we, who unlike Varus have not heard +the original lectures, may not be able in every case to discover the +theme from the myth, but the poet has at least set us out on the right +scent by making the first riddles very easy. The _lapides Pyrrhae_ (I. +41) refer of course to the creation of man; _Saturnia regna_ is, in +Epicurean lore, the primitive life of the early savages; _furtum +Promethei_ (I. 42) must refer to Epicurus' explanation of how fire came +from clashing trees and from lightning. The story of Hylas (I. 43) +probably reminded Varus of Siro's lecture on images and reflection, +Pasiphaë (I. 46) of unruly passions, explained perhaps as in Lucretius' +fourth book, Atalanta (I. 61) of greed, and Phaeton of ambition. As for +Scylla, Vergil had himself in the _Ciris_ (I. 69) mentioned, only to +reject, the allegorical interpretation here presented, according to which +she portrays: + + "the sin of lustfulness + and love's incontinence." + +Vergil had not then met Siro, but he may have read some of his lectures. + +Finally, the strange lines on Cornelius Gallus might find a ready +explanation if we knew whether or not Gallus had also been a member +of the Neapolitan circle. Probus, if we may believe him, suggests the +possibility in calling him a schoolmate of Vergil's, and a plausible +interpretation of this eclogue turns that possibility into a probability. +The passage (II. 64-73) may well be Vergil's way of recalling to Varus a +well-beloved fellow-student who had left the circle to become a poet. + +The whole poem, therefore, is a delightful commentary upon Vergil's +life in Siro's garden, written probably after Siro had died, the school +closed, and Varus gone off to war. The younger man's school days are +now over; he had found his idiom in a poetic form to which Messalla's +experiments had drawn him. The _Eclogues_ are already appearing in rapid +succession. + + + + +IX + +MATERIALISM IN THE SERVICE OF POETRY + + +It has been remarked that Vergil's genius was of slow growth; he was +twenty-eight before he wrote any verses that his mature judgment +recognized as worthy of publication. A survey of his early life reveals +some of the reasons for this tardy development. Born and schooled in +a province he was naturally held back by lack of those contacts which +stimulate boys of the city to rapid mental growth. The first few years at +Rome were in some measure wasted upon a subject for which he had neither +taste nor endowment. The banal rhetorical training might indeed have +made a Lucan or a Juvenal out of him had he not finally revolted so +decisively. However, this work at Rome proved not to be a total loss. +His choice of a national theme for an epic and his insight into the +true qualities of imperial Rome owe something to the study of political +questions that his preparation for a public career had necessitated. He +learned something in his Roman days that not even Epicurean scorn for +politics could eradicate. + +However, his next decision, to devote his life to philosophy, again +retarded his poetic development. Certainly it held him in leash during +the years of adolescent enthusiasms when he might have become a lyric +poet of the neoteric school. A Catullus or a Keats must be caught +early. Indeed the very dogmas of the Epicurean school, if taken in all +earnestness, were suppressive of lyrical enthusiasm. The _Aetna_ shows +perhaps the worst effects of Epicurean doctrine in its scholastic +insistence that myths must now give way to facts. Its author was still +too absorbed in the microscopic analysis of a petty piece of research +to catch the spirit of Lucretius who had found in the visions of the +scientific workshop a majesty and beauty that partook of the essence of +poetry. + +In the end Vergil's poetry, like that of Lucretius, owed more to +Epicureanism than modern critics--too often obsessed by a misapplied +_odium philosophicum_--have been inclined to admit. It is all too easy +to compare this philosophy with other systems, past and present, and +to prove its science inadequate, its implications unethical, and its +attitude towards art banal. But that is not a sound historical method of +approach. The student of Vergil should rather remember how great was the +need of that age for some practical philosophy capable of lifting the +mind out of the stupor in which a hybrid mythology had left it, and how, +when Platonic idealism had been wrecked by the skeptics, and Stoicism +with its hypothetical premises had repelled many students, Epicurean +positivism came as a saving gospel of enlightenment. + +The system, despite its inadequate first answers, employed a scientific +method that gave the Romans faith in many of its results, just at a time +when orthodox mythology had yielded before the first critical inspection. +As a preliminary system of illumination it proved invaluable. Untrained +in metaphysical processes of thought, ignorant of the tools of exact +science, the Romans had as yet been granted no answers to their growing +curiosity about nature except those offered by a hopelessly naïve faith. +Stoicism had first been brought over by Greek teachers as a possible +guide, but the Roman, now trained by his extraordinary career in world +politics to think in terms of experience, could have but little patience +with a metaphysical system that constantly took refuge in a faith in +aprioristic logic which had already been successfully challenged by +two centuries of skeptics. The Epicurean at least kept his feet on the +ground, appealed to the practical man's faith in his own senses, and +plausibly propped his hypotheses with analogous illustrations, oftentimes +approaching very close to the cogent methods of a new inductive logic. He +rested his case at least on the processes of argumentation that the Roman +daily applied in the law-courts and the Senate, and not upon flights of +metaphysical reasoning. He came with a gospel of illumination to a race +eager for light, opening vistas into an infinity of worlds marvelously +created by processes that the average man beheld in his daily walks. + +It was this capacity of the Epicurean philosophy to free the imagination, +to lift man out of a trivial mythology into a world of infinite visions, +and to satisfy man's curiosity regarding the universe with tangible +answers[1] that especially attracted Romans of Vergil's day to the new +philosophy. Their experience was not unlike that of numberless men of +the last generation who first escaped from a puerile cosmology by way +of popularized versions of Darwinism which the experts condemned as +unscientific. + +[Footnote 1: It is not quite accurate to say that the Romans made a dogma +of Epicurus' _ipse dixit_ which destroyed scientific open-mindedness. +Vergil uses Posidonius and Zeno as freely as the Stoic Seneca does +Epicurus.] + +Furthermore, Epicureanism provided a view of nature which was apt in the +minds of an imaginative poet to lead toward romanticism. Stoicism indeed +pretended to be pantheistic, and Wordsworth has demonstrated the value +to romanticism of that attitude. But to the clear of vision Stoicism +immediately took from nature with one hand what it had given with the +other. Invariably, its rule of "follow nature" had to be defined in terms +that proved its distrust of what the world called nature. As a matter of +fact the Stoic had only scorn for naturalism. Physical man was to him a +creature to be chained. Trust not the "scelerata pulpa; peccat et haec, +peccat!" cries Persius in terror. + +The earlier naïve animism of Greece and Rome had contained more of +aesthetic value, for it was the very spring from which had flowed all the +wealth of ancient myths. But the nymphs of that stream were dead, slain +by philosophical questioning. The new poetic myth-making that still +showed the influence of an old habit of mind was apt to be rather +self-conscious and diffident, ending in something resembling the pathetic +fallacy. + +Epicureanism on the other hand by employing the theory of evolution was +able to unite man and nature once more. And since man is so self-centered +that his imagination refuses to extend sympathetic treatment to nature +unless he can feel a vital bond of fellowship with it, the poetry of +romance became possible only upon the discovery of that unity. This is +doubtless why Lucretius, first of all the Romans, could in his prooemium +bring back to nature that sensuousness which through the songs of the +troubadours has become the central theme of romantic poetry even to our +day. + + Nam simulac species patefactast verna diei ... + Aëriae primum volucres te diva tuumque + Significant initum perculsae corda tua vi, + Inde ferae pecudes persultant pabula laeta. + +Vergil, convinced by the same philosophy, expresses himself similarly: + + Et genus aequoreum, pecudes, pictaeque volucres + amor omnibus idem. + +And again: + + Avia tum resonant avibus virgulta canoris + Et Venerem certis repetunt armenta diebus + Parturit almus ager Zepherique trementibus auris + Laxant arva sinus. + +It is, of course, the theme of "Sumer is icumen in." Lucretius feels so +strongly the unity of naturally evolved creation that he never +hesitates to compare men of various temperaments with animals of +sundry natures--the fiery lion, the cool-tempered ox--and explain the +differences in both by the same preponderance of some peculiar kind of +"soul-atoms." + +Obviously this was a system which, by enlarging man's mental horizon and +sympathies, could create new values for aesthetic use. Like the crude +evolutionistic hypotheses in Rousseau's day, it gave one a more soundly +based sympathy for one's fellows--since evolution was not yet "red in +tooth and claw." If nature was to be trusted, why not man's nature? Why +curse the body, any man's body, as the root-ground of sin? Were not the +instincts a part of man? Might not the scientific view prove that the +passions so far from being diseases, conditioned the very life and +survival of the race? Perhaps the evils of excess, called sin, were after +all due to defects in social and political institutions that had applied +incorrect regulative principles, or to the selfishly imposed religious +fears which had driven the healthy instincts into tantrums. Rid man of +these erroneous fears and of a political system begot for purposes +of exploitation and see whether by returning to an age of primitive +innocence he cannot prove that nature is trustworthy.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Lucretius, III, 37-93; II, 23-39; V, 1105-1135.] + +There is in this philosophy then a basis for a large humanitarianism, +dangerous perhaps in its implications. And yet it could hardly have been +more perilous than the Roman orthodox religion which insisted only upon +formal correctness, seldom upon ethical decorum, or than Stoicism with +its categorical imperative, which could restrain only those who were +already convinced. The Stoic pretence of appealing to a natural law could +be proved illogical at first examination, when driven to admit that +"nature" must be explained by a question-begging definition before its +rule could be applied. + +Indeed the Romans of Vergil's day had not been accustomed to look for +ethical sanctions in religion or creed. Morality had always been for them +a matter of family custom, parental teaching of the rules of decorum, +legal doctrine regarding the universality of _aequitas_, and, more than +they knew, of puritanic instincts inherited from a well-sifted stock. It +probably did not occur to Lucretius and Vergil to ask whether this new +philosophy encouraged a higher or a lower ethical standard. Cicero, as +statesman, does; but the question had doubtless come to him first out of +the literature of the Academy which he was wont to read. Despite their +creed, Lucretius and Vergil are indeed Rome's foremost apostles of +Righteousness; and if anyone had pressed home the charge of possible +moral weakness in their system they might well have pointed to the +exemplary life of Epicurus and many of his followers. To the Romans this +philosophy brought a creed of wide sympathies with none of the "lust +for sensation" that accompanied its return in the days of Rousseau and +"Werther." Had not the old Roman stock, sound in marrow and clear of +eye, been shattered by wars and thinned out by emigration, only to be +displaced by a more nervous and impulsive people that had come in by +the slave trade, Roman civilization would hardly have suffered from the +application of the doctrines of Epicurus. + +Whether or not Vergil remained an Epicurean to the end, we must, to be +fair, give credit to that philosophy for much that is most poetical in +his later work,--a romantic charm in the treatment of nature, a deep +comprehension of man's temper, a broader sympathy with humanity and a +clearer understanding of the difference between social virtue and mere +ritualistic correctness than was to be expected of a Roman at this time. + +It is, however, very probable that Vergil remained on the whole faithful +to this creed[3] to the very end. He was forty years of age and only +eleven years from his death when he published the _Georgics_, which are +permeated with the Epicurean view of nature; and the restatement of this +creed in the first book of the _Aeneid_ ought to warn us that his faith +in it did not die. + +[Footnote 3: This is, of course, not the view of Sellar, Conington, +Glover, and Norden,--to mention but a few of those who hold that Vergil +became a Stoic. See chapter XV for a development of this view.] + + + + +X + +RECUBANS SUB TEGMINE FAGI + + +The visitor to Arcadia should perhaps be urged to leave his microscope at +home. Happiest, at any rate, is the reader of Vergil's pastorals who can +take an unannotated pocket edition to his vacation retreat, forgetting +what every inquisitive Donatus has conjectured about the possible +hidden meanings that lie in them. But the biographer may not share that +pleasure. The _Eclogues_ were soon burdened with comments by critics who +sought in them for the secrets of an early career hidden in the obscurity +of an unannaled provincial life. In their eager search for data they +forced every possible passage to yield some personal allusion, till the +poems came to be nothing but a symbolic biography of the author. The +modern student must delve into this material if only to clear away a +little of the allegory that obscures the text. + +It is well to admit honestly at once that modern criticism has no +scientific method which can with absolute accuracy sift out all the +falsehoods that obscure the truth in this matter, but at least a +beginning has been made in demonstrating that the glosses are not +themselves consistent. Those early commentators who variously place the +confiscation of Vergil's farm after the battle of Mutina (43 B.C.), +after Philippi (42) and after Actium (31), who conceive of Mark Antony +as a partizan of Brutus, and Alfenus Varus as the governor of a province +that did not exist, may state some real facts: they certainly hazard many +futile guesses. The safest way is to trust these records only when they +harmonize with the data provided by reliable historians, and to interpret +the _Eclogues_ primarily as imaginative pastoral poetry, and not, except +when they demand it, as a personal record. We shall here treat the +_Bucolics_ in what seems to be their order of composition, not the order +of their position in the collection. + +The eulogy of Messalla, written in 42 B.C., reveals Vergil already at +work upon pastoral themes, to which, as he tells us, Messalla's Greek +eclogues had called his attention. We may then at once reject the +statement of the scholiasts that Vergil wrote the _Eclogues_ for the +purpose of thanking Pollio, Alfenus, and Gallus for having saved his +estates from confiscation. At least a full half of these poems had been +written before there was any material cause for gratitude, and, as we +shall see presently, these three men had in any case little to do with +the matter. It will serve as a good antidote against the conjectures of +the allegorizing school if we remember that these commentators of the +Empire were for the most part Greek freedmen, themselves largely occupied +in fawning upon their patrons. They apparently assumed that poets as a +matter of course wrote what they did in order to please some patron--a +questionable enough assumption regarding any Roman poetry composed before +the Silver Age. + +The second _Eclogue_ is a very early study which, in the theme of the +gift-bringing, seems to be reminiscent of Messalla's work.[1] The third +and seventh are also generally accepted as early experiments in the more +realistic forms of amoebean pastoral. Since the fifth, which should be +placed early in 41 B.C., actually cites the second and third, we have a +_terminus ante quem_ for these two eclogues. To the early list the tenth +should be added if it was addressed to Gallus while he was still doing +military service in Greece, and with these we may place the sixth, +discussed above. + +[Footnote 1: See Chapter VIII.] + +The lack of realistic local color in these pastorals has frequently been +criticized, on the supposition that Vergil wrote them while at home in +Mantua, and ought, therefore, to have given true pictures of Mantuan +scenery and characters. His home country was and is a monotonous plain. +The jutting crags with their athletic goats, the grottoes inviting +melodious shepherds to neglect their flocks, the mountain glades and +waterfalls of the _Eclogues_ can of course not be Mantuan. The Po Valley +was thickly settled, and its deep black soil intensively cultivated. A +few sheep were, of course, kept to provide wool, but these were herded by +farmers' boys in the orchards. The lone she-goat, indispensable to every +Italian household, was doubtless tethered by a leg on the roadside. There +were herds of swine where the old oak forests had not yet been cut, but +the swine-herd is usually not reckoned among songsters. Nor was any +poetry to be expected from the cowboys who managed the cattle ranches +at the foot hills of the Alps and the buffalo herds along the undrained +lowlands. Is Vergil's scenery then nothing but literary reminiscence? + +In point of fact the pastoral scenery in Vergil is Neapolitan. The eighth +_Catalepton_ is proof that Vergil was at Naples when he heard of the +dangers to his father's property in the North. It is doubtful whether +Vergil ever again saw Mantua after leaving it for Cremona in his early +boyhood. The property, of course, belonged not to him but to his father, +who, as the brief poem indicates, had remained there with his family. The +pastoral scenery seldom, except in the ninth _Eclogue_, pretends to be +Mantuan. Even where, as in the first, the poem is intended to convey +a personal expression of gratitude for Vergil's exemption from harsh +evictions, the poet is very careful not to obtrude a picture of himself +or his own circumstances. Tityrus is an old man, and a slave in a typical +shepherd's country, such as could be seen every day in the mountains near +Naples. And there were as many evictions near Naples as in the North. +Indeed it is the Neapolitan country--as picturesque as any in Italy--that +constantly comes to the reader's mind. We are told by Seneca that +thousands of sheep fed upon the rough mountains behind Stabiae, and +the clothier's hall and numerous fulleries of Pompeii remind us that +wool-growing was an important industry of that region. Vergil's excursion +to Sorrento was doubtless not the only visit across the bay. Behind +Naples along the ridge of Posilipo,[2] below which Vergil was later +buried, in the mountains about Camaldoli, and behind Puteoli all the +way to Avernus--a country which the poet had roamed with observant +eyes--there could have been nothing but shepherd country. Here, then, +are the crags and waterfalls and grottoes that Vergil describes in the +_Eclogues_. + +[Footnote 2: The picturesque road from Naples to Puteoli clung to the +edge of the rocky promontory of Posilipo, finally piercing the outermost +rock by means of a tunnel now misnamed the "grotto di Sejano." Most of +the road is now under twenty feet of water: See Günther, _Pausilypon_. To +see the splendid ridge as Vergil saw it from the road one must now row +the length of it from Naples to Nésida, sketching in an abundance of +ilexes and goats in place of the villas that now cover it.] + +And here, too, were doubtless as many melodious shepherds as ever +Theocritus found in Sicily, for they were of the same race of people as +the Sicilians. Why should the slopes of Lactarius be less musical than +those of Aetna? Indeed the reasonable reader will find that, except for +an occasional transference of actual persons into Arcadian setting--by an +allegorical turn invented before Vergil--there is no serious confusion +in the scenery or inconsistent treatment in the plots of Vergil's +_Eclogues_. But by failing to make this simple assumption--naturally due +any and every poet--readers of Vergil have needlessly marred the effect +of some of his finest passages. + +The fifth _Eclogue_, written probably in 41 B.C., is a very melodious +Daphnis-song that has always been a favorite with poets. It has been and +may be read with entire pleasure as an elegy to Daphnis, the patron god +of singing shepherds. Those, however, who in Roman times knew Vergil's +love of symbolism, suspected that a more personal interest led him to +compose this elegy. The death and apotheosis of Julius Caesar is still +thought by some to be the real subject of the poem, while a few have +accepted another ancient conjecture that Vergil here wrote of his +brother. The person mourned must, however, have been of more importance +than Vergil's brother. On the other hand, certain details in the +poem--the sorrow of the mother, for instance--preclude the conjecture +that it was Caesar, unless the poet is here confusing his details more +than we need assume in any other eclogue. + +It is indeed difficult to escape the very old persuasion that a sorrow +so sympathetically expressed must be more than a mere Theocritan +reminiscence. If we could find some poet--for Daphnis must be that--near +to Vergil himself, who met an unhappy death in those days, a poet, too, +who died in such circumstances during the civil strife that general +expression of grief had to be hidden behind a symbolic veil, would not +the poem thereby gain a theme worthy of its grace? I think we have such +a poet in Cornificius, the dear friend of Catullus, to whom in fact +Catullus addressed what seem to be his last verses.[3] Like so many of +the new poets, Cornificius had espoused Caesar's cause, but at the end +was induced by Cicero to support Brutus against the triumvirs. After +Philippi Cornificius kept up the hopeless struggle in Africa for several +months until finally he was defeated and put to death. If he be Vergil's +Daphnis we have an explanation of why his identity escaped the notice of +curious scholars. Tactful silence became quite necessary at a time when +almost every household at Rome was rent by divided sympathies, and yet +brotherhood in art could hardly be entirely stifled. From the point of +view of the masters of Rome, Cornificius had met a just doom as a rebel. +If his poet friends mourned for him it must have been in some such guise +as this. + +[Footnote 3: Catullus, 38.] + +In this instance the circumstantial evidence is rather strong, for we are +told by a commentator that Valgius, an early friend of Vergil's, +wrote elegies to the memory of a "Codrus," identified by some as +Cornificius:[4] + + Codrusque ille canit quali tu voce canebas, + Atque solet numeros dicere Cinna tuos. + +[Footnote 4: _Scholia Veronensia_, Ecl. VII, 22. The evidence is +presented in _Classical Review_, 1920, p. 49.] + +That "shepherd" at least is an actual person, a friend of Cinna, and +a member of the neoteric group; that indeed it is Cornificius is +exceedingly probable. The poet-patriot seems then, not to have been +forgotten by his friends. + +All too little is known about this friend of Catullus and Cinna, but what +is known excites a keen interest. Though he was younger than Cicero by +nearly a generation, the great orator[5] did him no little deference as +a representative of the Atticistic group. In verse writing he was of +Catullus' school, composing at least one epyllion, besides lyric verse. +According to Macrobius, Vergil paid him the compliment of imitating him, +and he in turn is cited by the scholiasts as authority for an opinion of +Vergil's. If the Daphnis-song is an elegy written at his death--and it +would be difficult to find a more fitting subject--the poem, undoubtedly +one of the most charming of Vergil's _Eclogues_, was composed in 41 B.C. +It were a pity if Vergil's prayer for the poet should after all not come +true: + + Semper honos, nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt. + +[Footnote 5: See Cicero's letter to him: _Ad Fam_. XII, 17, 2.] + +The tenth _Eclogue_, to Gallus, steeped in all the literary associations +of pastoral elegies, from the time of Theocritus' Daphnis to our own +"Lycidas" and "Adonais," has perhaps surrounded itself with an atmosphere +that should not be disturbed by biographical details. However, we must +intrude. Vergil's associations with Gallus, as has been intimated, were +those, apparently, of Neapolitan school days and of poetry. The sixth +_Eclogue_ delicately implies that the departure of Gallus from the circle +had made a very deep impression upon his teacher and fellow students. + +What would we not barter of all the sesquipedalian epics of the Empire +for a few pages written by Cornelius Gallus, a thousand for each! This +brilliant, hot-headed, over-grown boy, whom every one loved, was very +nearly Vergil's age. A Celt, as one might conjecture from his career, +he had met Octavius in the schoolroom, and won the boy's enduring +admiration. Then, like Vergil, he seems to have turned from rhetoric to +philosophy, from philosophy to poetry, and to poetry of the Catullan +romances, as a matter of course. It was Cytheris, the fickle actress--if +the scholiasts are right--who opened his eyes to the fact that there were +themes for passionate poetry nearer home than the legendary love-tales; +and when she forgot him, finding excitement elsewhere during his months +of service with Octavian, he nursed his morbid grief in un-Roman +self-pity, this first poet of the _poitrinaire_ school. His subsequent +career was meteoric. Octavian, fascinated by a brilliancy that hid a +lack of Roman steadiness, placed him in charge of the stupendous task +of organizing Egypt, a work that would tax the powers of a Caesar. The +romantic poet lost his head. Wine-inspired orations that delighted his +guests, portrait busts of himself in every town, grotesque catalogues of +campaigns against unheard-of negro tribes inscribed even on the venerable +pyramids did not accord with the traditions of Rome. Octavian cut his +career short, and in deep chagrin Gallus committed suicide. + +The tenth _Eclogue_[6] gives Vergil's impressions upon reading one of the +elegies of Gallus which had apparently been written at some lonely army +post in Greece after the news of Cytheris' desertion. In his elegy the +poet had, it would seem, bemoaned the lot that had drawn him to the East +away from his beloved. + +"Would that he might have been a simple shepherd like the Greeks about +his tent, for their loves remained true!" And this is of course the very +theme which Vergil dramatizes in pastoral form. + +[Footnote 6: This is the interpretation of Leo, _Hermes_, 1902, p. 15.] + +We, like Vergil, realize that Gallus invented a new genre in literature. +He had daringly brought the grief of wounded love out of the realm of +fiction--where classic tradition had insisted upon keeping it--into the +immediate and personal song. The hint for this procedure had, of course, +come from Catullus, but it was Gallus whom succeeding elegists all +accredited with the discovery. Vergil at once felt the compelling force +of this adventuresome experiment. He gave it immediate recognition in his +_Eclogues_, and Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid became his followers. + +The poems of Gallus, if the Arcadian setting is real, were probably +written soon after Philippi. Vergil's _Eclogue_ of recognition may have +been composed not much later, for we have a right to assume that Vergil +would have had one of the first copies of Gallus' poems. If this be true, +the first and last few lines were fitted on later, when the whole book +was published, to adapt the poem for its honorable position at the close +of the volume. + + + + +XI + +THE EVICTIONS + + +The first and ninth _Eclogues_, and only these, concern the confiscations +of land at Cremona and Mantua which threatened to deprive Vergil's father +of his estates and consequently the poet of his income. There seems to be +no way of deciding which is the earlier. Ancient commentators, following +the order of precedence, interpreted the ninth as an indication of a +second eviction, but there seems to be no sound reason for agreeing with +them, since they are entirely too literal in their inferences. Conington +sanely decides that only one eviction took place, and he places the ninth +before the first in order of time. He may be right. The two poems at any +rate belong to the early months of 41. + +The obsequious scholiasts of the Empire have nowhere so thoroughly +exposed their own mode of thought as in their interpretations of these +two _Eclogues_. Knowing and caring little for the actual course of +events, having no comprehension of the institutions of an earlier day, +concerned only with extracting what is to them a dramatic story from +the _Eclogues_, they put all the historical characters into impossible +situations. The one thing of which they feel comfortably sure is that +every _Eclogue_ that mentions Pollio, Gallus and Alfenus Varus must have +been a "bread and butter" poem written in gratitude for value received. +Of the close literary associations of the time they seem to be unaware. +To suit such purposes Pollio[1] is at times made governor of Cisalpine +Gaul, and at times placed on the commission to colonize Cremona, Alfenus +is made Pollio's "successor" in a province that does not exist, and +Gallus is also made a colonial commissioner. If, however, we examine +these statements in the light of facts provided by independent sources we +shall find that the whole structure based upon the subjective inferences +of the scholiasts falls to the ground. + +[Footnote 1: See Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_, pp. 51 ff.] + +We must first follow Pollio's career through this period. When the +triumvirate was formed in 43, Pollio was made Antony's _legatus_ in +Cisalpine Gaul and promised the consulship for the year 40.[2] After +Philippi, however, in the autumn of 42, Cisalpine Gaul was declared +a part of Italy and, therefore, fell out of Pollio's control.[3] +Nevertheless, he was not deprived of a command for the year remaining +before his consulship (41 B.C.), but was permitted to withdraw to the +upper end of the Adriatic with his army of seven legions.[4] His duty was +doubtless to guard the low Venetian coast against the remnants of the +republican forces still on the high seas, and, if he had time, to subdue +the Illyrian tribes friendly to the republican cause.[5] During this +year, in which Octavian had to besiege Lucius Antony at Perusia, Pollio, +a legatus of Mark Antony, was naturally not on good terms with Octavian, +and could hardly have used any influence in behalf of Vergil or any one +else. After the Perusine war he joined Antony at Brundisium in the spring +of 40, and acted as his spokesman at the conference which led to the +momentous treaty of peace. We may, therefore, safely conclude that Pollio +was neither governor nor colonial commissioner in Cisalpine Gaul when +Cremona and Mantua were disturbed, nor could he have been on such terms +with Octavian as to use his influence in behalf of Vergil. The eighth and +fourth _Eclogues_ which do honor to him, seem to have nothing whatever +to do with material favors. They doubtless owe their origin to Pollio's +position as a poet, and Pollio's interest in young men of letters. + +[Footnote 2: Appian, IV. 2 and V. 22.] + +[Footnote 3: Appian, V. 3 and V. 22.] + +[Footnote 4: Velleius Paterculus, II. 76.2; Macrobius, _Sat_. I. XI. 22] + +[Footnote 5: A task which he performed in 39.] + +With regard to Alfenus and Gallus, the scholiasts remained somewhat +nearer the truth, for they had at hand a speech of Callus criticizing the +former for his behavior at Mantua. By quoting the precise words of this +speech Servius[6] has provided us with a solid criterion for accepting +what is consistent in the statements of Vergil's earlier biographers and +eliminating some conjectures. The passage reads: "When ordered to leave +unoccupied a district of three miles outside the city, you included +within the district eight hundred paces of water which lies about the +walls." The passage, of course, shows that Alfenus was a commissioner on +the colonial board, as Servius says. It does not excuse Servius' error +of making Alfenus Pollio's successor as provincial governor[7] after +Cisalpine Gaul had become autonomous, nor does it imply that Alfenus had +in any manner been generous to Vergil or to any one else. In fact it +reveals Alfenus in the act of seizing an unreasonable amount of land. +Vergil,[8] of course, recognizes Alfenus' position as commissioner in his +ninth Eclogue where he promises him great glory if he will show mercy to +Mantua: + +Vare, tuum nomen, superet modo Mantua nobis ... + +And Vergil's appeal to him was reasonable, since he, too, was a man of +literary ambitions.[9] But there is no proof that Alfenus gave ear to +his plea; at any rate the poet never mentions him again. Servius' +supposition that Alfenus had been of service to the poet[10] seems +to rest wholly on the mistaken idea that the sixth _Eclogue_ was +obsequiously addressed to him. As we have seen, however, Quintilius +Varus has a better claim to that poem. + +[Footnote 6: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. IX. 10; ex oratione Cornelii in +Alfenum. Cf. Kroll, in _Rhein. Museum_ 1909, 52.] + +[Footnote 7: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 6.] + +[Footnote 8: Vergil, _Eclogue_ IX, 26-29.] + +[Footnote 9: See _Suffenus and Alfenus, Classical Quarterly_, 1920, p. +160.] + +[Footnote 10: On _Eclogue_. VI. 6.] + +The quotation from the speech of Gallus also lends support to a statement +in Servius that Gallus had been assigned to the duty of exacting moneys +from cities which escaped confiscation.[11] For this we are duly +grateful. It indicates how Alfenus and Gallus came into conflict since +the latter's financial sphere would naturally be invaded if the former +seized exempted territory for the extension of his new colony of Cremona. +In such conditions we can realize that Gallus was, as a matter of course, +interested in saving Mantua from confiscation, and that in this effort +he may well have appealed to Octavian in Vergil's behalf. In fact his +interpretation of the three-mile exemption might actually have saved +Vergil's properties, which seem to have lain about that distance from the +city.[12] + +[Footnote 11: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 64.] + +[Footnote 12: Vita Probiana, _milia passuum_ XXX is usually changed to +III on the basis of Donatus: _a Mantua non procul_.] + +Again, however, there is little reason for the supposition that Vergil's +_Eclogues_ in honor of Gallus have any reference whatever to this affair. +The sixth followed the death of Siro, and the tenth seems to precede the +days of colonial disturbances, if it has reference to Gallus as a soldier +in Greece. If the sixth _Eclogue_ refers to Siro, as Servius holds, then +Vergil and Gallus had long been literary associates before the first and +ninth were written. + +The student of Vergil who has once compared the statements of the +scholiasts with the historical facts at these few points, where they +run parallel, will have little patience with the petty gossip which was +elicited from the _Eclogues_. The story of Vergil's tiff with a soldier, +for example, is apparently an inference from Menalcas' experience in +_Eclogue_ IX. 15; but "Menalcas" appears in four other _Eclogues_ where +he cannot be Vergil. The poet indeed was at Naples, as the eighth +_Catalepton_ proves. The estate in danger is not his, but that of his +father, who presumably was the only man legally competent of action in +case of eviction. Vergil's poem, to be sure, is a plea for Mantua, but it +is clearly a plea for the whole town and not for his father alone. The +landmark of the low hills and the beeches up to which the property was +saved (IX.8) seems to be the limits of Mantua's boundaries, not of +Vergil's estates on the low river-plains. We need not then concern +ourselves in a Vergilian biography with the tale that Arrius or Clodius +or Claudius or Milienus Toro chased the poet into a coal-bin or ducked +him into the river.[13] The shepherds of the poem are typical characters +made to pass through the typical experiences of times of distress. + +[Footnote 13: See Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_, p. 58.] + +The first _Eclogue, Tityre tu_, is even more general than the ninth in +its application. Though, of course, it is meant to convey the poet's +thanks to Octavian for a favorable decree, it speaks for all the poor +peasants who have been saved. The aged slave, Tityrus, does not +represent Vergil's circumstances, but rather those of the servile +shepherd-tenants,[14] so numerous in Italy at this time. Such men, though +renters, could not legally own property, since they were slaves. But in +practice they were allowed and even encouraged to accumulate possessions +in the hope that they might some day buy their freedom, and with freedom +would naturally come citizenship and the full ownership of their +accumulations. Many of the poor peasants scattered through Italy were +_coloni_ of this type and they doubtless suffered severely in the +evictions. Tityrus is here pictured as going to the city to ask for his +liberty, which would in turn ensure the right of ownership. Such is the +allegory, simple and logical. It is only the old habit of confusing +Tityrus with Vergil which has obscured the meaning of the poem. However, +the real purpose of the poem lies in the second part where the poet +expresses his sympathy for the luckless ones that are being driven from +their homes; and that this represents a cry of the whole of Italy and +not alone of his home town is evident from the fact that he sets the +characters in typical shepherd country,[15] not in Mantuan scenery as in +the ninth. The plaint of Meliboeus for those who must leave their homes +to barbarians and migrate to Africa and Britain to begin life again is +so poignant that one wonders in what mood Octavian read it. "En quo +discordia cives produxit miseros!" was not very flattering to him. + +[Footnote 14: See Leo, _Hermes_, 1903, p. 1 ff., questioned by Stampini, +_Le Bucoliche_,'3 1905, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 15: Capua and Nuceria were two of the cities near Naples where +Vergil could see the work of eviction near at hand.] + +The very deep sympathy of Vergil for the poor exiles rings also through +the _Dirae_, a very surprising poem which he wrote at this same time, +but on second thought suppressed. It has the bitterness of the first +_Eclogue_ without its grace and tactful beginning. The triumvirs were in +no mood to read a book of lamentations. "Honey on the rim" was Lucretius' +wise precept, and it was doubtless a prudent impulse that substituted +the _Eclogue_ for the "Curses." The former probably accomplished little +enough, the latter would not even have been read. + +The _Dirae_ takes the form of a "cursing roundel," a form once employed +by Callimachus, who may have inherited it from the East. It calls down +heaven's wrath upon the confiscated lands in language as bitter as ever +Mt. Ebal heard: fire and flood over the crops, blight upon the fruit, and +pestilence upon the heartless barbarians who drive peaceful peasants into +exile. + +The setting is once more that of the country about Naples, of the +Campanian hills and the sea coast, not that of Mantua.[16] It is +doubtless the miserable poor of Capua and Nuceria that Vergil +particularly has in mind. The singers are two slave-shepherds departing +from the lands of a master who has been dispossessed. The poem is +pervaded by a strong note of pity for the lovers of peace,--"pii cives," +shall we say the "pacifists,"--who had been punished for refusing to +enlist in a civil war. A sympathy for them must have been deep in the +gentle philosopher of the garden: + + O male deuoti, praetorum crimina, agelli![17] + Tuque inimica pii semper discordia ciuis. + Exsul ego indemnatus egens mea rura reliqui, + Miles ut accipiat funesti praemia belli. + Hinc ego de tumulo mea rura nouissima uisam, + Hinc ibo in siluas: obstabunt iam mihi colles, + Obstabunt montes, campos audire licebit.[18] + +[Footnote 16: It is just possible that "Lycurgus" (l. 8) who is spoken of +as the author of the mischief is meant for Alfenus Varus, who boasted of +his knowledge of law. Horace lampoons him as _Alfenus vafer_.] + +[Footnote 17: + Ye fields accursed for our statesmen's sins, + O Discord ever foe to men of peace, + In want, an exile, uncondemned, I yield + My lands, to pay the wages of a hell-born war. + Ere I go hence, one last look towards my fields, + Then to the woods I turn to close you out + From view, but ye shall hear my curses still.] + +[Footnote 18: The _Lydia_ which comes in the MS. attached to the _Dirae_ +is not Vergil's. Nor can it be the famous poem of that name written by +Valerius Cato, despite the opinion of Lindsay, _Class. Review_, 1918, p. +62. It is too slight and ineffectual to be identified with that work. +The poem abounds with conceits that a neurotic and sentimental pupil of +Propertius--not too well practiced in verse writing--would be likely to +cull from his master.] + +For Vergil there was henceforth no joy in war or the fruits of war. His +devotion to Julius Caesar had been unquestioned, and Octavian, when he +proved himself a worthy successor and established peace, inherited that +devotion. But for the patriots who had fought the losing battle he had +only a heart full of pity. + + Ne pueri ne tanta animis adsuescite bella, + Neu patriae validos in viscera vertite viris; + Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, + Projice tela manu, sanguis meus! + + + + +XII + +POLLIO + + +We come finally to the two _Eclogues_ addressed to Asinius Pollio. This +remarkable man was only six years older than Vergil, but he was just old +enough to become a member of Caesar's staff, an experience that matured +men quickly. To Vergil he seemed to be a link with the last great +generation of the Republic. That Catullus had mentioned him gracefully +in a poem, and Cinna had written him a _propempticon_, that Caesar had +spoken to him on the fateful night at the Rubicon, and that he had been +one of Cicero's correspondents, placed him on a very high pedestal in +the eyes of the studious poet still groping his way. It may well be that +Gallus was the tie that connected Pollio and Vergil, for we find in a +letter of Pollio's to Cicero that the former while campaigning in Spain +was in the habit of exchanging literary chitchat with Gallus. That was in +the spring of 43, at the very time doubtless when Pollio--as young men +then did--spent his leisure moments between battles in writing tragedies. +Vergil in his eighth Eclogue, perhaps with over-generous praise, compares +these plays with those of Sophocles. + +This _Eclogue_ presents one of the most striking studies in primitive +custom that Latin poetry has produced, a bit of realism suffused with a +romantic pastoral atmosphere. The first shepherd's song is of unrequited +love cherished from boyhood for a maiden who has now chosen a worthless +rival. The second is a song sung while a deserted shepherdess performs +with scrupulous precision the magic rites which are to bring her +faithless lover back to her. There are reminiscences of Theocritus of +course, any edition of the _Eclogues_ will give them in full, but Vergil, +so long as he lived at Naples, did not have to go to Sicilian books for +these details. He who knows the social customs of Campania, the magical +charms scribbled on the walls of Pompeii, the deadly curses scratched on +enduring metal by forlorn lovers,--curses hidden beneath the threshold +or hearthstone of the rival to blight her cheeks and wrinkle her silly +face,--knows very well that such folks are the very singers that Vergil +might meet in his walks about the hills of the golden bay. + +The eighth _Eclogue_ claims to have been written at the invitation of +Pollio, who had apparently learned thus early that Vergil was a +poet worth encouraging. That the poem has nothing to do with the +confiscations, in so far at least as we are able to understand the +historical situation, has been suggested above. It is usually dated in +the year of Pollio's Albanian campaign in 39, that is a year after his +consulship. Should it not rather be placed two years earlier when Pollio +had given up the Cisalpine province and withdrawn to the upper Adriatic +coast preparatory to proceeding on Antony's orders against the Illyrian +rebels? In the spring of 41 Pollio camped near the Timavus, mentioned in +line 6; two years later the natural route for him to take from Rome would +be via Brundisium and Dyrrhachium.[1] The point is of little interest +except in so far as the date of the poem aids us in tracing Pollio's +influence upon the poet, and in arranging the _Eclogues_ in their +chronological sequence. + +[Footnote 1: Antony's province did not extend beyond Scodra; the roads +down the Illyrian mountain from Trieste were not easy for an army to +travel; if the _Eclogues_ were composed in three years (Donatus) the year +39 is too late. Finally, Vellius, II, 76.2, makes it plain that in 41 +Pollio remained in Venetia contrary to orders. He had apparently been +ordered to proceed into Illyria at that time.] + +Finally, we have the famous "Messianic" _Eclogue_, the fourth, which was +addressed to Pollio during his consulship. By its fortuitous resemblance +to the prophetic literature of the Bible, it came at one time to be the +best known poem in Latin, and elevated its author to the position of +an arch-magician in the medieval world. Indeed, this poem was largely +influential in saving the rest of Vergil's works from the oblivion to +which the dark ages consigned at least nine-tenths of Latin literature. + +The poem was written soon after the peace of Brundisium--in the +consummation of which Pollio had had a large share--when all of Italy was +exulting in its escape from another impending civil war. Its immediate +purpose was to give adequate expression to this joy and hope at once in +an abiding record that the Romans and the rulers of Rome might read and +not forget. Its form seems to have been conditioned largely by a strange +allegorical poem written just before the peace by a still unknown poet. +The poet was Horace, who in the sixteenth epode had candidly expressed +the fears of Roman republicans for Rome's capacity to survive. Horace had +boldly asked the question whether after all it was not the duty of those +who still loved liberty to abandon the land of endless warfare, and found +a new home in the far west--a land which still preserved the simple +virtues of the "Golden Age." Vergil's enthusiasm for the new peace +expresses itself as an answer to Horace:[2] the "Golden Age" need not be +sought for elsewhere; in the new era of peace now inaugurated by Octavian +the Virgin Justice shall return to Italy and the Golden Age shall come +to this generation on Italian soil. Vergil, however, introduces a new +"messianic" element into the symbolism of his poem, for he measures the +progress of the new era by the stages in the growth of a child who is +destined finally to bring the prophecy to fulfillment. This happy idea +may well have been suggested by table talks with Philodemus or Siro, who +must at times have recalled stories of savior-princes that they had heard +in their youth in the East. The oppressed Orient was full of prophetic +utterances promising the return of independence and prosperity under the +leadership of some long-hoped-for worthy prince of the tediously unworthy +reigning dynasties. Indeed, since Philodemus grew to boyhood at Gadara +under Jewish rule he could hardly have escaped the knowledge of the very +definite Messianic hopes of the Hebrew people. It may well be, therefore, +that a stray image whose ultimate source was none other than Isaiah came +in this indirect fashion into Vergil's poem, and that the monks of the +dark ages guessed better than they knew. + +[Footnote 2: Sellar, _Horace and the Elegiac Poets_, p. 123. Ramsay, +quoted by W. Warde Fowler, _Vergil's Messianic Eclogue_, p, 54.] + +To attempt to identify Vergil's child with a definite person would be a +futile effort to analyze poetic allegory. Contemporary readers doubtless +supposed that since the Republic was dead, the successor to power after +the death of Octavius and Antony would naturally be a son of one of +these. + +The settlements of the year were sealed by two marriages, that of +Octavian to Scribonia and that of Octavian's sister to Antony. It was +enough that some prince worthy of leadership could naturally be expected +from these dynastic marriages, and that in either case it would be a +child of Octavian's house.[3] Thus far his readers might let their +imagination range; what actually happened afterwards through a series of +evil fortunes has, of course, nothing to do with the question. Pollio is +obviously addressed as the consul whose year marked the peace which all +the world hoped and prayed would be lasting. + +[Footnote 3: See _Class. Phil_. XI, 334.] + +We have now reviewed the circumstances which called forth the _Eclogues_. +They seem, as Donatus says, to have been written within a period of three +years. The second, third, seventh and sixth apparently fall within the +year 42, the tenth, fifth, eighth, ninth and first in the year 41, while +the _Pollio_ certainly belongs to the year 40, when Vergil became thirty +years of age. The writing of these poems had called the poet more and +more away from philosophy and brought him into closer touch with the +sufferings and experiences of his own people. He had found a theme after +his own heart, and with the theme had come a style and expression +that fitted his genius. He abandoned Hellenistic conceits with their +prettiness of sentiment, attained an easy modulation of line readily +responding to a variety of emotions, learned the dignity of his own +language as he acquired a deeper sympathy for the sufferings of his own +people. There is a new note, as there is a new rhythm in: + + _Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo_. + + + + +XIII + +THE CIRCLE OF MAECENAS + + +Julius Caesar had learned from bitter experience that poets were +dangerous enemies. Cicero's innuendoes were disagreeable enough but they +might be forgotten. When, however, Catullus and Calvus put them into +biting epigrams there was no forgetting. This was doubtless Caesar's +chief reason for his constant endeavor to win the goodwill of the young +poets, and he ultimately did win that of Calvus and Catullus. Whether +Octavian, and his sage adviser Maecenas, acted from the same motive we +do not know, though they too had seen in Vergil's epigrams on Antony's +creatures, and in Horace's sixteenth epode that the poets of the new +generation seemed likely to give effective expression to political +sentiments. At any rate, the new court at Rome began very soon to make +generous overtures to the literary men of the day. + +Pollio, Octavian's senior by many years, and of noble family, could +hardly be approached. Though gradually drawing away from Antony, he +had so closely associated himself with this brilliant companion of his +Gallic-war days, that he preferred not to take a subordinate place at the +Roman court. Messalla, who had entered the service of Antony, was also +out of reach. There remained the brilliant circle of young men at Naples, +men whose names occurred in the dedications of Philodemus' lectures: +Vergil, Varius, Plotius and Quintilius Varus, three of whom at least were +from the north and would naturally be inclined to look upon Octavian with +sympathy. + +Varius had already written his epic _De Morte_ which seems to have +mourned Caesar's death, and, though in hidden language, he had alluded +bitterly to Antony's usurpations in the year that followed the murder. +Before Vergil's epic appeared it was Varius who was always considered the +epic poet of the group. Of Plotius Tucca we know little except that he is +called a poet, was a constant member of the circle, and with Varius +the literary executor who published Vergil's works after his death. +Quintilius Varus had, like Varius, come from Cremona, known Catullus +intimately, and, if we accept the view of Servius for the sixth +_Eclogue_, had been Vergil's most devoted companion in Siro's school. He +also took some part in the civil wars, and came to be looked upon as +a very firm supporter of sound literary standards.[1] Horace's _Ouis +desiderio_, shows that Varus was one of Vergil's most devoted friends. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 440.] + +Vergil's position as foremost of these poets was doubtless established by +the publication of the _Eclogues_. They took Rome by storm, and were even +set to music and sung on the stage, according to an Alexandrian fashion +then prevailing in the capital. Octavian was, of course, attracted to +them by a personal interest. The poet was given a house in Maecenas' +gardens on the Esquiline with the hope of enticing him to Rome. Vergil +doubtless spent some time in the city before he turned to the more +serious task of the _Georgics_, but we are told that he preferred the +Neapolitan bay and established his home there. This group, it would seem, +was definitely drawn into Octavian's circle soon after the peace of +Brundisium, and formed the nucleus of a kind of literary academy that set +the standards for the Augustan age. + +The introduction of Horace into this circle makes an interesting story. +He was five years younger than Vergil, and had had his advanced education +at Athens. There Brutus found him in 43, when attending philosophical +lectures in order to hide his political intrigues; and though Horace +was a freedman's son, Brutus gave him the high dignity of a military +tribuneship. Brutus as a Republican was, of course, a stickler for all +the aristocratic customs. That he conferred upon Horace a knight's office +probably indicates that the _libertinus pater_ had been a war captive +rather than a man of servile stock, and, therefore, only technically a +"freedman." In practical life the Romans observed this distinction, even +though it was not usually feasible to do so in political life. After +Philippi Horace found himself with the defeated remnant and returned to +Italy only to discover that his property had been confiscated. He was +eager for a career in literature, but having to earn his bread, he bought +a poor clerkship in the treasury office. Then during spare moments he +wrote--satires, of course. What else could such a wreckage of enthusiasm +and ambitions produce? + +His only hope lay in attracting the attention of some kindly disposed +literary man, and for some reason he chose Vergil. The _Eclogues_ were +not yet out, but the _Culex_ was in circulation, and he made the pastoral +scene of this the basis of an epode--the second--written with no little +good-natured humor. Horace imagines a broker of the forum reading that +passage, and, quite carried away by the succession of delightful scenes, +deciding to quit business for the simple life. He accordingly draws in +all his moneys on the Calends--on the Ides he lends them out again![2] +What Vergil wrote Horace when he received a copy of the _Epode_, we +are not told, but in his next work, the _Georgics_, he returned the +compliment by similarly threading Horace's phrases into a description of +country life--a passage that is indeed one of the most successful in the +book.[3] + +[Footnote 2: Horace's scenes (his memory is visual rather than auditory) +unmistakably reproduce those of the _Culex_; cf. _Culex_ 148-58 with +_Epode_ 26-28; _Culex_ 86-7 with _Epode_ 21-22; _Culex_ 49-50 with +_Epode_ 11-12; etc. A full comparison is made in _Classical Philology_, +1920, p. 24. Vergil could, of course, be expected to recognize the +allusions to his own poem.] + +[Footnote 3: _See Georgics_, II, 458-542, and a discussion of it in +_Classical Philology_, 1920, p. 42.] + +The composition of the sixteenth epode by Horace--soon after the second, +it would seem--gave Vergil an opportunity to recognize the new poet, and +answer his pessimistic appeal with the cheerful prophecy of the fourth +Eclogue, as we have seen. By this time we may suppose that an intimate +friendship had sprung up between the two poets, strengthened of course +by friendly intercourse, now that Vergil could spend some of his time +at Rome. Horace himself tells how Vergil and Varius introduced him to +Maecenas (_Sat_. 1. 6), an important event in his career that took place +some time before the Brundisian journey (_Sat_. 1. 5). Maecenas had +hesitated somewhat before accepting the intimacy of the young satirist: +Horace had fought quite recently in the enemy's army, had criticized +the government in his _Epodes_, and was of a class--at least +technically--which Octavian had been warned not to recognize socially, +unless he was prepared to offend the old nobility. But Horace's dignified +candor won him the confidence of Maecenas; and that there might be no +misunderstanding he included in his first book of _Satires_ a simple +account of what he was and hoped to be. Thus through the efforts of +Vergil and Varius he entered the circle whose guiding spirit he was +destined to become. + +Thus the coterie was formed, which under such powerful patronage was +bound to become a sort of unofficial commission for the regulation of +literary standards. It was an important question, not only for the young +men themselves but for the future of Roman literature, which direction +this group would take and whose influence would predominate. It might be +Maecenas, the holder of the purse-strings, a man who could not check his +ambition to express himself whether in prose or verse. This Etruscan, +whose few surviving pages reveal the fact that he never acquired +an understanding of the dignity of Rome's language, that he was +temperamentally un-Roman in his love for meretricious gaudiness and +prettiness, might have worked incalculable harm on this school had his +taste in the least affected it. But whether he withheld his dictum, or it +was disregarded by the others, no influence of his can be detected in the +literature of the epoch. + +Apollodorus, Octavian's aged teacher, a man of very great personal +influence, and highly respected, probably counted for more. In his +lectures and his books, one of which, Valgius, a member of the circle, +translated into Latin, he preached the doctrines of a chaste and +dignified classicism. His creed fortunately fell in with the tendencies +of the time, and whether this teaching be called a cause, or whether the +popularity of it be an effect of pre-existing causes, we know that this +man came to represent many of the ideals of the school. + +But to trace these ideals in their contact with Vergil's mental +development, we must look back for a moment to the tendencies of the +Catullan age from which he was emerging. In a curious passage written not +many years after this, Horace, when grouping the poets according to their +styles and departments,[4] places Vergil in a class apart. He mentions +first a turgid epic poet for whom he has no regard. Then there are +Varius and Pollio, in epic and tragedy respectively, of whose forceful +directness he does approve. In comedy, his friend, Fundanius, represents +a homely plainness which he commends, while Vergil stands for gentleness +and urbanity (molle atque facetum). + +[Footnote 4: _Sat_. I. 10, 40 ff.] + +The passage is important not only because it reveals a contemporaneous +view of Vergil's position but because it shows Horace thus early as the +spokesman of the "classical" coterie, the tenets of which in the end +prevailed. In this passage Horace employs the categories of the standard +text-books of rhetoric of that day[5] which were accustomed to classify +styles into four types: (1) Grand and ornate, (2) grand but austere, (3) +plain and austere, (4) plain but graceful. The first two styles might +obviously be used in forensic prose or in ambitious poetic work like +epics and tragedies. Horace would clearly reject the former, represented +for instance by Hortensius and Pacuvius, in favor of the austere dignity +and force of the second, affected by men like Cornificius in prose and +Varius and Pollio in verse. The two types of the "plain" style were +employed in more modest poems of literature, both, in prose and in such +poetry as comedy, the epyllion, in pastoral verse, and the like. Severe +simplicity was favored by Calvus in his orations, Catullus in his +lyrics 5 while a more polished and well-nigh _précieuse_ plainness was +illustrated in the speeches of Calidius and in the Alexandrian epyllion +of Catullus' _Peleus and Thetis_ and in Vergil's _Ciris_ and _Bucolics_. + +[Footnote 5: E.g. Demetrius, Philodemus, Cicero; of. _Class. Phil_. 1920, +p. 230.] + +In choosing between these two, Horace, of course, sympathizes with the +ideals of the severe and chaste style, which he finds in the comedies of +Fundanius. Vergil's early work, unambitious and "plain" though it is, +falls, of course, into the last group; and though Horace recognizes his +type with a friendly remark, one feels that he recognizes it for reasons +of friendship, rather than because of any native sympathy for it. By his +juxtaposition he shows that the classical ideals of the second and third +of the four "styles" are to him most sympathetic. _Mollitudo_ does not +find favor in any of his own work, or in his criticism of other men's +work. Vergil, therefore, though he appears in this Augustan coterie as +an important member, is still felt to be something of a free lance who +adheres to Alexandrian art[6] not wholly in accord with the standards +which are now being formulated. If Horace had obeyed his literary +instincts alone he would probably have relegated Vergil at this period +to the silence he accorded Callus and Propertius if not to the open +hostility he expressed towards the Alexandrianism of Catullus. It is +significant of Vergil's breadth of sympathy that he remitted not a jot in +his devotion to Catullus and Gallus and that he won the deep reverence of +Propertius while remaining the friend and companion of the courtly group +working towards a stricter classicism. If we may attempt to classify +the early Augustans, we find them aligning themselves thus. The strict +classicists are Horace the satirist, Varius a writer of epics, Pollio +of tragedy; while Varus, Valgius, Plotius, and Fundanius, though less +productive, employ their influence in the support of this tendency as +does Tibullus somewhat later. Vergil is a close personal friend of these +men but refuses to accept the axioms of any one school; Gallus, his +friend, is a free romanticist, and is followed in this tendency a few +years later by Propertius. + +[Footnote 6: Horace had doubtless seen not only the _Culex_ but several +of the other minor works that Vergil never deigned to put into general +circulation.] + +The influences that made for classicism were many. Apollodorus, the +teacher of Octavian, must have been a strong factor, but since his work +has been lost, the weight of it cannot now be estimated. Horace imbibed +his love for severe ideals in Athens, of course. There his teachers were +Stoic rhetoricians who trained him in an uncompromising respect for +stylistic rules.[7] He read the Hellenistic poets, to be sure, and +reveals in his poems a ready memory of them, but it was the great epoch +of Greek poetry that formed his style. Such are the foreign influences. +But the native Roman factors must not be forgotten. In point of fact it +was the classicistic Catullus and Calvus, of the simple, limpid lyrics, +written in pure unalloyed every-day Latin, that taught the new generation +to reject the later Hellenistic style of Catullus and Calvus as +illustrated in the verse romances. Varus, Pollio, and Varius were old +enough to know Catullus and Calvus personally, to remember the days when +poems like _Dianae sumus in fide_ were just issued, and they were poets +who could value the perfect art of such work even after the authors of +them had been enticed by ambition into dangerous by-paths. In a word, it +was Catullus and Calvus, the lyric poets, who made it possible for the +next generation to reject Catullus and Calvus the neoteric romancers. + +[Footnote 7: For the stylistic tenets of the Stoic teachers see +Fiske, _Lucilius and Horace_, pp. 64-143. Apollodorus seems to be the +rhetorician whom Horace calls Heliodorus in _Sat_. I, 5, see _Class. +Phil_. 1920, 393.] + +For the modern, therefore, it is difficult to restrain a just resentment +when he finds Horace referring to these two great predecessors with a +sneer. Yet we can, if we will, detect an adequate explanation of Horace's +attitude. Very few poets of any time have been able to capture and hold +the generation immediately succeeding. The stronger the impression made +by a genius, the farther away is the pendulum of approbation apt to +swing. The _neoteroi_ had to face, in addition to this revulsion, the +misfortunes of the time. The civil wars which came close upon them had +little use for the sentimentality of their romances or the involutions +of their manner of composition. And again, Catullus and Calvus had been +over-brutal in their attacks upon Julius Caesar, a character lifted to +the high heavens by the war and the martyrdom that followed. And, as +fortune would have it, almost all of the new literary men were, as we +have seen, peculiarly devoted to Caesar. We know enough of wars to have +discovered that intense partizanship does silence literary judgment +except in the case of a very few men of unusual balance. Vergil was one +of the very few; he kept his candle lit at the shrine of Catullus still, +but this was hardly to be expected of the rest. + +In prose also the Augustans upheld the refined and chaste work of +classical Atticism, an ideal which they derived from the Romans of the +preceding generation rather than from teachers like Apollodorus. Pollio +and Messalla are now the foremost orators. Pollio had stood close to +Calvus as well as to Caesar, and had witnessed the revulsion of feeling +against Cicero's style which continued to move in its old leisurely +course even after the civil war had quickened men's pulses. Messalla may +have been influenced by the example of his general, Brutus, a man who +never wasted words (so long as he kept his temper). Messalla and Pollio +were the dictators of prose style during this period. + +We find Vergil, therefore, in a peculiar position. He was still +recognized as a pupil of Catullus and the Alexandrians at a time when the +pendulum was swinging so violently away from the republican poets that +they did not even get credit for the lessons that they had so well taught +the new generation. Vergil himself was in each new work drifting more and +more toward classicism, but he continued to the last to honor +Catullus and Calvus, Cinna and Cornificius, and his friend Gallus, in +complimentary imitation or by friendly mention. The new Academy was proud +to claim him as a member, though it doubtless knew that Vergil was too +great to be bound by rules. To after ages, while Horace has come to stand +as an extremist who carried the law beyond the spirit, Vergil, honoring +the past and welcoming the future, has assumed the position of Rome's +most representative poet. + + + + +XIV + +THE "GEORGICS" + + +The years that followed the publication of the _Eclogues_ seem to have +been a season of reading, traveling, observing, and brooding. Maecenas +desired to keep the poet at Rome, and as an inducement provided him with +a villa in his own gardens on the Esquiline. The fame of the _digitus +praetereuntium_ awaited his coming and going, his _Bucolics_ had been set +to music and sung in the concert halls to vehement applause.[1] He seems +even to have made an effort to be socially congenial. There is intimate +knowledge of courtly customs in the staging of his epic; and in Horace's +fourth book a refurbished early poem in Philodemus' manner pictures a +Vergil--apparently the poet--as the pet of the fashionable world. But +these things had no attraction for him. Rome indeed appealed to his +imagination, _Roma pulcherrima rerum_, but it was the invisible Rome +rather than the _fumum et opes strepitumque_, it was the city of pristine +ideals, of irresistible potency, of Anchises' pageant of heroes. When +he walked through the Forum he saw not only the glistening monuments in +their new marble veneer, but beyond these, in the far distant past, the +straw hut of Romulus and the sacred grove on the Capitoline where the +spirit of Jove had guarded a folk of simpler piety.[2] And down the +centuries he beheld the heroes, the law-givers, and the rulers, who had +made the Forum the court of a world-wide empire. The Rome of his own day +was too feverish, it soon drove him back to his garden villa near Naples. + +[Footnote 1: Tacitus, _Dialogus_, 13: Malo securum et quietum Vergilii +secessum, in quo tamen neque apud divum Augustum gratia caruit neque apud +populum Romanum notitia. Testes Augusti epistulae, testis ipse populus, +qui auditis in theatro Vergilii versibus surrexit universus et forte +praesentem spectantemque Vergilium veneratus est quasi Augustum.] + +[Footnote 2: _Aeneid_ VIII.] + +It was well that he possessed such a retreat during those years of petty +political squabbles. The capital still hummed with rumors of civil war. +Antony seemed determined to sever the eastern provinces from the empire +and make of them a gift to Cleopatra and her children--a mad course that +could only end in another world war. Sextus Pompey still held Sicily and +the central seas, ready to betray the state at the first mis-step on +Octavian's part. At Rome itself were many citizens in high position who +were at variance with the government, quite prepared to declare for +Antony or Pompey if either should appear a match for the young heir of +Caesar. Clearly the great epic of Rome could not have matured in that +atmosphere of suspicion, intrigue, and selfishness. The convulsions of +the dying republic, beheld day by day near at hand, could only have +inspired a disgust sufficient to poison a poet's sensitive hope. It was +indeed fortunate that Vergil could escape all this, that he could retain +through the period of transition the memories of Rome's former greatness +and the faith in her destiny that he had imbibed in his youth. The time +came when Octavian, after Actium, reunited the Empire with a firm hand +and justified the buoyant optimism which Vergil, almost alone of his +generation, had been able to preserve. + +During these few years Vergil seems to have written but little. We have, +however, a strange poem of thirty-eight lines, the _Copa_, which, to +judge from its exclusion from the _Catalepton_, should perhaps be +assigned to this period. A study in tempered realism, not unlike the +eighth _Eclogue_, it gives us the song of a Syrian tavern-maid inviting +wayfarers into her inn from the hot and dusty road. The spirit is +admirably reproduced in Kirby Smith's rollicking translation:[3] + +[Footnote 3: See Kirby Flower Smith, _Marital, the Epigrammatist and, +Other Essays_, Johns Hopkins Press, 1920, p. 170. The attribution of the +poem to Vergil by the ancients as well as by the manuscripts, and the +style of its fanciful realism so patent in much of Vergil's work place +the poem in the authentic list. Rand, _Young Virgil's Poetry_, Harvard +Studies, 1919, p. 174, has well summed up the arguments regarding the +authorship of the poem.] + +'Twas at a smoke-stained tavern, and she, the hostess there-- +A wine-flushed Syrian damsel, a turban on her hair-- +Beat out a husky tempo from reeds in either hand, +And danced--the dainty wanton--an Ionian saraband. +"'Tis hot," she sang, "and dusty; nay, travelers, whither bound? +Bide here and tip a beaker--till all the world goes round; +Bide here and have for asking wine-pitchers, music, flowers, +Green pergolas, fair gardens, cool coverts, leafy bowers. +In our Arcadian grotto we have someone to play +On Pan-pipes, shepherd fashion, sweet music all the day. +We broached a cask but lately; our busy little stream +Will gurgle softly near you the while you drink and dream. +Chaplets of yellow violets a-plenty you shall find, +And glorious crimson roses in garlands intertwined; +And baskets heaped with lilies the water nymph shall bring-- +White lilies that this morning were mirrored in her spring. +Here's cheese new pressed in rushes for everyone who comes, +And, lo, Pomona sends us her choicest golden plums. +Red mulberries await you, late purple grapes withal, +Dark melons cased in rushes against the garden wall, +Brown chestnuts, ruddy apples. Divinities bide here, +Fair Ceres, Cupid, Bacchus, those gods of all good cheer, +Priapus too--quite harmless, though terrible to see-- +Our little hardwood warden with scythe of trusty tree. + +"Ho, friar with the donkey, turn in and be our guest! +Your donkey--Vesta's darling--is weary; let him rest. +In every tree the locusts their shrilling still renew, +And cool beneath the brambles the lizard lies perdu. +So test our summer-tankards, deep draughts for thirsty men; +Then fill our crystal goblets, and souse yourself again. +Come, handsome boy, you're weary! 'Twere best for you to twine +Your heavy head with roses and rest beneath our vine, +Where dainty arms expect you and fragrant lips invite; +Oh, hang the strait-laced model that plays the anchorite! +Sweet garlands for cold ashes why should you care to save? +Or would you rather keep them to lay upon your grave? +Nay, drink and shake the dice-box. Tomorrow's care begone! +Death plucks your sleeve and whispers: 'Live now, I come anon.'" + +Memories of the Neapolitan bay! The _Copa_ should be read in the arbor of +an _osteria_ at Sorrento or Capri to the rhythm of the tarantella where +the modern offspring of Vergil's tavern-maid are still plying the arts of +song and dance upon the passerby.[4] + +[Footnote 4: Unfortunately the evidence does not suffice to assign the +_Moretum_ to Vergil, though it was certainly composed by a genuine if +somewhat halting poet, and in Vergil's day. It has many imaginative +phrases, and the meticulous exactness of its miniature work might seem to +be Vergilian were it not for the unrelieved plainness of the theme. Even +so, it might be considered an experiment in a new style, if the rather +dubious manuscript evidence were supported by a single ancient citation. +See Rand, _loc. Cit._ p. 178.] + +There are also three brief _Priapea_ which should probably be assigned to +this period. The third may indeed have been an inscription on a pedestal +of the scare-crow god set out to keep off thieving rooks and urchins in +the poet's own garden: + +This place, my lads, I prosper, I guard the hovel, too, +Thatched, as you see, by willows and reeds and grass that grew +In all the marsh about it; hence me, mere stump of oak, +Shaped by the farmer's hatchet, they now as god invoke. +They bring me gifts devoutly, the master and his boy, +Supposing me the giver of the blessings they enjoy. +The kind old man each morning comes here to weed the ground, +He clears the shrine of thistles and burrs that grow around. +The lad brings dainty offerings with small but ready hand: +At dawn of spring he crowns me with a lavish daisy-strand, +From summer's earliest harvest, while still the stalk is green, +He wreathes my brow with chaplets; he fills me baskets clean +With golden pansies, poppies, with apples ripe and gourds, +The first rich blushing clusters of grapes for me he hoards. +And once to my great honor--but let no god be told!-- +He brought me to my altar a lambkin from the fold. +So though, my lads, a Scare-Crow and no true god I be, +My master and his vineyard are very dear to me. +Keep off your filching hands, lads, and elsewhere ply your theft: + +Our neighbor is a miser, his Scare-Crow gets no gifts, +His apples are not guarded--the path is on your left. + +The quaint simplicity of the sentiment and the playful surprise at the +end quickly disarm any skepticism that would deny these lines to Horace's +poet of "tender humor." + +During this period the poet seems also to have traveled. Maecenas enjoyed +the society of literary men, and we may well suppose that he took Vergil +with him in his administrative tours on more than the one occasion +which Horace happens to have recorded. The poet certainly knows Italy +remarkably well. The meager and inaccurate maps and geographical works of +that day could not have provided him with the insight into details which +the Georgics and the last six books of the _Aeneid_ reveal. We know, of +course, from Horace's third ode that Vergil went to Greece. This famous +poem, a "steamer-letter" as it were, is undated, but it may well be a +continuation of the Brundisian diary. The strange turn which the poem +takes--its dread of the sea's dangers--seems to point to a time when +Horace's memories of his own shipwreck were still very vivid. + +There was also time for extensive reading. That Vergil ranged widely and +deeply in philosophy and history, antiquities and all the world's best +prose and poetry, the vast learning of the _Georgics_ and the _Aeneid_ +abundantly proves. The epic story which he had early plotted out must +have lain very near the threshold of his consciousness through this +period, for his mind kept seizing upon and storing up apposite incidents +and germs of fruitful lore. References to Aeneas crop out here and there +in the _Georgics_, and the mysterious address to Mantua in the third book +promises, under allusive metaphors, an epic of Trojan heroes. Nor could +the poet forget the philosophic work he had so long pondered over. Doubts +increased, however, of his capacity to justify himself after the sure +success of Lucretius. A remarkable confession in the second book of the +_Georgics_ reveals his conviction that in this poem he had, through +lack of confidence, chosen the inferior theme of nature's physical +and sensuous appeal when he would far rather have experienced the +intellectual joy of penetrating into nature's inner mysteries.[5] + +[Footnote 5: + Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, + Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus-amore, + Accipiant, caelique vias et sidera monstrent-- + Sin, has ne possim naturae accedere partes, + Frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis, + Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes. + _Georgics_, II. 475. ff. + +Was this striking _apologia of the Georgics_ forced upon Vergil by +the fact that in the _Aetna_, 264-74, he had pronounced peasant-lore +trivial in comparison with science?] + +Though we need not take too literally a poet's prefatorial remarks, +Vergil doubtless hoped that his _Georgics_ might turn men's thoughts +towards a serious effort at rehabilitating agriculture, and the +practical-minded Maecenas certainly encouraged the work with some such +aim in view. The government might well be deeply concerned. The veterans +who had recently settled many of Italy's best tracts could not have +been skilled farmers. The very fact that the lands were given them for +political services could only have suggested to the shrewd among them +that the old Roman respect for property rights had been infringed, +and that it was wise to sell as soon as possible and depart with some +tangible gain before another revolution resulted in a new redistribution. +Such suspicions could hardly beget the patience essential for the +development of agriculture. And yet this was the very time when farming +must be encouraged. Large parts of the arable land had been abandoned to +grazing during the preceding century because of the importation of the +provincial stipendiary grain, and Italy had lost the custom of raising +the amount of food that her population required. As a result, the younger +Pompey's control of Sicily and the trade routes had now brought on a +series of famines and consequent bread-riots. Year after year Octavian +failed in his attempts to lure away or to defeat this obnoxious rebel. +At best he could buy him off for a while, though he never knew at what +season of scarcity the purchase price might become prohibitive. The +choice of Vergil's subject coincided, therefore, with a need that all men +appreciated. + +The _Georgics_, however, are not written in the spirit of a colonial +advertisement. In the youthful _Culex_ Vergil had dwelt somewhat too +emphatically upon the song-birds and the cool shade, and had drawn upon +himself the genial comment of Horace that Alfius did not find conditions +in the country quite as enchanting as pictured. This time the poet paints +no idealized landscape. Enticing though the picture is, Vergil insists on +the need of unceasing, ungrudging toil. He lists the weeds and blights, +the pests and the vermin against which the farmer must contend. Indeed +it is in the contemplation of a life of toil that he finds his honest +philosophy of life: the gospel of salvation through work. Hardships whet +the ingenuity of man; God himself for man's own good brought an end to +the age of golden indolence, shook the honey from the trees, and gave +vipers their venom. Man has been left alone to contend with an obstinate +nature, and in that struggle to discover his own worth. The _Georgics_ +are far removed from pastoral allegory; Italy is no longer Arcadia, it is +just Italy in all its glory and all its cruelty. + +Vergil's delight in nature is essentially Roman, though somewhat +more self-conscious than that of his fellows. There is little of the +sentimental rapture that the eighteenth century discovered for us. Vergil +is not likely to stand in postures before the awful solemnity of the +sea or the majesty of wide vistas from mountain tops. Italian hill-tops +afford views of numerous charming landscapes but no scenes of entrancing +grandeur or awe-inspiring desolation, and the sea, before the days of the +compass, was too suggestive of death and sorrow to invite consideration +of its lawless beauty. These aspects of nature had to be discovered by +later experiences in other lands. At first glance Vergil seems to care +most for the obvious gifts of Italy's generous amenities, the physical +pleasure in the free out-of-doors, the form and color of landscapes, +the wholesome life. As one reads on, however, one becomes aware of an +intimacy and fellowship with animate things that go deeper. Particularly +in the second book the very blades of grass and tendrils of the vines +seem to be sentient. The grafted trees "behold with wonder" strange +leaves and fruits growing from their stems, transplanted shoots "put off +their wild-wood instincts," the thirsting plant "lifts up its head" in +gratitude when watered. Our own generation, which was sedulously enticed +into nature study by books crammed with the "pathetic fallacy," has +become suspicious of everything akin to "nature faking." It has learned +that this device has been a trick employed by a crafty pedagogy for the +sake of appealing to unimaginative children. Vergil was probably far from +being conscious of any such purpose. As a Roman he simply gave expression +to a mode of viewing nature that still seemed natural to most Greeks and +Romans. The Roman farmer had not entirely outgrown his primitive animism. +When he said his prayers to the spirits of the groves, the fields, and +the streams, he probably did not visualize these beings in human form; +manifestations of life betokened spirits that produced life and growth. +Vergil's phrases are the poetic expression of the animism of the +unsophisticated rustic which at an earlier age had shaped the great +nature myths. + +And if Vergil had been questioned about his own faith he could well have +found a consistent answer. Though he had himself long ceased to pay +homage to these _animae_, his philosophy, like that of Lucretius, also +sought the life-principle in nature, though he sought that principle a +step farther removed in the atom, the vitalized seeds of things, forever +in motion, forever creating new combinations, and forever working the +miracles of life by means of the energy with which they were themselves +instinct. The memorable lines on spring in the second book are cast into +the form of old poetry, but the basis of them is Epicurean energism, as +in Lucretius' prooemium. Vergil's study of evolution had for him also +united man and nature, making the romance of the _Georgics_ possible; it +had shaped a kind of scientific animism that permitted him to accept the +language of the simple peasant even though its connotations were for him +more complex and subtle. + +Finally, the careful reader will discover in Vergil's nature poetry a +very modern attention to details such as we hardly expect to find before +the nineteenth century. Here again Vergil is Lucretius' companion. +This habit was apparently a composite product. The ingredients are the +capacity for wonder that we find in some great poets like Wordsworth and +Plato, a genius for noting details, bred in him as in Lucretius by long +occupation with deductive methods of philosophy,--scientific pursuits +have thus enriched modern poetry also--and a sure aesthetic sense. +This power of observation has been overlooked by many of Vergil's +commentators. Conington, for example, has frequently done the poet an +injustice by assuming that Vergil was in error whenever his statements +seem not to accord with what we happen to know. We have now learned to be +more wary. It is usually a safer assumption that our observation is +in error. A recent study of "trees, shrubs and plants of Vergil," +illuminating in numberless details, has fallen into the same error here +and there by failing to notice that Vergil wrote his _Bucolics_ and +_Georgics_ not near Mantua but in southern Italy. The modern botanical +critic of Vergil should, as Mackail has said, study the flora of Campania +not of Lombardy. In every line of composition Vergil took infinite +pains to give an accurate setting and atmosphere. Carcopino[6] has just +astonished us with proof of the poet's minute study of topographical +details in the region of Lavinium and Ostia, Mackail[7] has vindicated +his care as an antiquarian, Warde Fowler[8] has repeatedly pointed +out his scrupulous accuracy in portraying religious rites, and now +Sergeaunt,[9] in a study of his botany, has emphasized his habit of +making careful observations in that domain. + +[Footnote 6: Carcopino, _Virgile et les origines d'Ostie_.] + +[Footnote 7: Mackail, _Journal of Roman Studies_, 1915.] + +[Footnote 8: Warde Fowler, _Religious Experience of the Roman +People_. p. 408.] + +[Footnote 9: Sergeaunt, _Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil_.] + +This modern habit it is that makes the _Georgics_ read so much like +Fabre's remarkable essays. The study of the bees in the fourth book is, +of course, not free from errors that nothing less than generations of +close scrutiny could remove. But the right kind of observing has begun. +On the other hand the book is not merely a farmer's practical manual +on how to raise bees for profit. The poet's interest is in the amazing +insects themselves, their how and why and wherefore. It is the mystery +of their instincts, habits, and all-compelling energy that leads him to +study the bees, and finally to the half-concealed confession that his +philosophy has failed to solve the problems of animate nature. + + + + +XV + +THE AENEID + + +While Caesar Octavian, now grown to full political stature, was reuniting +the East and the West after Actium, Vergil was writing the last pages of +the _Georgics_. The battle that decided Rome's future also determined the +poet's next theme. The Epic of Rome, abandoned at the death of Caesar, +unthinkable during the civil wars which followed, appealed for a hearing +now that Rome was saved and the empire restored. Vergil's youthful +enthusiasm for Rome, which had sprung from a critical reading of her past +career, seemed fully justified; he began at once his _Arma virumque_. + +The _Aeneid_ reveals, as the critics of nineteen centuries have +reiterated, an unsurpassed range of reading. But it is not necessary +to repeat the evidence of Vergil's literary obligations in an essay +concerned chiefly with the poet's more intimate experiences. In point of +fact, the tracking of poetic reminiscences in a poet who lived when no +concealment of borrowed thought was demanded does as much violence to +Vergil as it does to Euripides or Petrarch. The poet has always been +expected to give expression to his own convictions, but until recently it +has been considered a graceful act on his part to honor the good work of +his predecessors by the frank use, in recognizable form, of the lines +that he most admires. The only requirement has been that the poet should +assimilate, and not merely agglomerate his acceptances, that he should as +Vergil put it, "wrest the club from Hercules" and wield it as its master. + +In essence the poetry of the _Aeneid_ is never Homeric, despite the +incorporation of many Homeric lines. It is rather a sapling of Vergil's +Hellenistic garden, slowly acclimated to the Italian soil, fed richly by +years of philosophic study, braced, pruned, and reared into a tree of +noble strength and classic dignity. The form and majesty of the tree +bespeak infinite care in cultivation, but the fruit has not lost the +delicate tang and savour of its seed. The poet of the _Ciris_, the +_Copa_, the _Dirae_, and the _Bucolics_ is never far to seek in the +_Aeneid_. + +It would be a long story to trace the flowering in the Aeneid of the +seedling sown in Vergil's boyhood garden-plot.[1] The note of intimacy, +unexpected in an epic, the occasional drawing of the veil to reveal the +poet's own countenance, an un-Homeric sentimentality now and then, the +great abundance of sense-teeming collocations, the depth of sympathy +revealed in such tragic characters as Pallas, Lausus, Euryalus, the +insistent study of inner motives, the meticulous selection of incidents, +the careful artistry of the meter, the fastidious choice of words, and +the precision of the joiner's craft in the composition of traditional +elements, all suggest the habits of work practiced by the friends of +Cinna and Valerius Cato. + +[Footnote 1: For a careful study of this subject see Duckett, +_Hellenistic Influence on the Aeneid,_ Smith College Studies, 1920.] + +The last point is well illustrated in Sinon's speech at the opening of +the second book. The old folktale of how the "wooden horse," left on the +shore by the Greeks, was recklessly dragged to the citadel by the Trojans +satisfied the unquestioning Homer. Vergil does not take the improbable +on faith. Sinon is compelled to be entirely convincing. In his speech he +uses every art of persuasion: he awakens in turn curiosity, surprise, +pity, admiration, sympathy, and faith. The passage is as curiously +wrought as any episode of Catullus or the _Ciris_. It is not, as has been +held, a result of rhetorical studies alone; it reveals rather a native +good sense tempered with a neoteric interest in psychology and a neoteric +exactness in formal composition. And yet the passage exhibits a great +advance upon the geometric formality of the _Ciris_. The incident is not +treated episodically as it might have been in Vergil's early work. The +pattern is not whimsically intricate but is shaped by an understanding +mind. While its art is as studied and conscious as that of the _Ciris_, +it has the directness and integrity of Homeric narrative. Yet Vergil +has not forgotten the startling effects that Catullus would attain by +compressing a long tale into a suggestive phrase, if only a memory of the +tale could be assumed. The story of Priam's death on the citadel is told +in all its tragic horror till the climax is reached. Then suddenly with +astonishing force the mind is flung through and beyond the memories of +the awful mutilation by the amazingly condensed phrase: + + jacet ingens litore truncus + avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus. + +There Vergil has given only the last line of a suppressed tragedy which +the reader is compelled to visualize for himself. + +Neoteric, too, is the accurate observation and the patience with details +displayed by the author of the _Aeneid_. In his youth Vergil had, to be +sure, avoided the extremes of photographic realism illustrated by the +very curious _Moretum_, but he had nevertheless, in works like the +_Copa_, the _Dirae_, and the eighth _Eclogue_, practiced the craft of the +miniaturist whenever he found the minutiae aesthetically significant. To +realize the precision of his strokes even then one has but to recall the +couplet of the _Copa_ which in an instant sets one upon the dusty road of +an Italian July midday: + + Nunc cantu crebro rumpunt arbusta cicadae + nunc varia in gelida sede lacerta latet. + +Throughout the _Aeneid,_ the patches of landscape, the retreats for +storm-tossed ships, the carved temple-doors, the groups of accoutred +warriors marching past, and many a gruesome battle scene, are reminders +of this early technique. + +What degrees of conscientious workmanship went into these results, we are +just now learning. Carcopino,[2] who, with a copy of Vergil in hand, has +carefully surveyed the Latin coast from the Tiber mouth, past the site of +Lavinium down to Ardea, is convinced that the poet traced every manoeuvre +and every sally on the actual ground which he chose for his theatre of +action in the last six books. It still seems possible to recognize the +deep valley of the ambuscade and the plain where Camilla deployed her +cavalry. Furthermore, there can be little doubt that for the sake of a +heroic-age setting Vergil studied the remains and records of most ancient +Rome. There were still in existence in various Latin towns sixth-century +temples laden with antique arms and armor deposited as votive offerings, +terracotta statues of gods and heroes, and even documents stored for +safe-keeping. In the expansion of Rome over the Campus Martius unmarked +tombs with their antique furniture were often disclosed. It is apparent +from his works that Vergil examined such material, just as he delved into +Varro's antiquities and Cato's "origins" for ancient lore. His remarks +on Praeneste and Antemnae, his knowledge of ancient coin symbols, of the +early rites of the Hercules cult, show the results of these early habits +of work. It must always be noticed, however, that in his mature art he is +master of his vast hoard of material. There is never, as in the _Culex_ +and _Ciris_, a display of irrelevant facts, a yielding to the temptation +of being excursive and episodic. Wherever the work had received the final +touch, the composition shows a flawless unity. + +[Footnote 2: Carcopino, _Virgile et les origines d'Ostie_.] + +The poet's response to personal experience reveals itself nowhere more +than in the political aspect of the _Aeneid_ a fact that is the more +remarkable because Vergil lived so long in Epicurean circles where an +interest in politics was studiously suppressed. + +What makes the poem the first of national epics is, however, not a +devotion to Rome's historical claims to primacy in Italy. The narrow +imperialism of the urban aristocracy finds no support in him. Not the +city of Rome but Italy is the _patria_ of the _Aeneid_, and Italy as a +civilizing and peace-bringing force, not as the exploiting conqueror. +Here we recognize a spirit akin to Julius Caesar. Vergil's hero Aeneas, +is not a Latin but a Trojan. That fact is, of course, due to the +exigencies of tradition, but that Aeneas receives his aid from the Greek +Evander and from the numerous Etruscan cities north of the Tiber while +most of the Latins join Turnus, the enemy, cannot be attributed to +tradition. In fact, Livy, who gives the more usual Roman version, says +nothing of the Greeks, but joins Latinus and the Latian aborigines to +Aeneas while he musters the Etruscans under the Rutulian, Turnus. The +explanation for Vergil's striking departure from the usual patriotic +version of the legend is rather involved and need not be examined here. +But we may at any rate remark his wish to recognize the many races that +had been amalgamated by the state, to refuse his approval of a narrow +urban patriotism, and to give his assent to a view of Rome's place +and mission upon which Julius Caesar had always acted in extending +citizenship to peoples of all races, in scattering Roman colonies +throughout the empire, and in setting the provinces on the road to a +full participation in imperial privileges and duties. With such a policy +Vergil, schooled at Cremona, Milan, and Naples, could hardly fail to +sympathize. + +It has been inferred from the position of authority which Aeneas assumes +that Vergil favored a strong monarchial form of government and intended +Aeneas to be, as it were, a prototype of Augustus. The inference is +doubtless over-hasty. Vergil had a lively historical sense and in his +hero seems only to have attempted a picture of a primitive king of the +heroic age. Indeed Aeneas is perhaps more of an autocrat than are +the Homeric kings, but that is because the Trojans are pictured as a +migrating group, torn root and branch from their land and government, and +following a semi-divine leader whose directions they have deliberately +chosen to obey. In his references to Roman history, in the pageant of +heroes of the sixth book, as well as in the historical scenes of the +shield, no monarchial tendencies appear. Brutus the tyrannicide, Pompey +and Cato, the irreconcilable foes of Caesar, Vergil's youthful hero, +receive their meed of praise in the _Aeneid_, though there were many who +held it treason in that day to mention rebels with respect. + +It is indeed a very striking fact that Vergil, who was the first of Roman +writers to attribute divine honors to the youthful Octavian, refrains +entirely from doing so in the _Aeneid_ at a time when the rest of Rome +hesitated at no form of laudation. Julius Caesar is still recognized as +more than human, + + vocabitur hic quoque votis, + +but Augustus is not. The contrast is significant. The language of the +very young man at Naples had, of course, been colored by Oriental +forms of expression that were in part unconsciously imbibed from the +conversations of the Garden. These were phrases too which Julius Caesar +in the last two years of his life encouraged; for he had learned from +Alexander's experience that the shortest cut through constitutional +obstructions to supreme power lay by way of the doctrine of divine +royalty. In fact, the Senate was forced to recognize the doctrine before +Caesar's death, and after his death consistently voted public sacrifices +at his grave. Vergil was, therefore, following a high authority in the +case of Caesar, and was drawing the logical inference in the case of +Octavian when he wrote the first _Eclogue_ and the prooemium of the +_Georgics_. This makes it all the more remarkable that while his +admiration for Augustus increased with the years, he ceased to give any +countenance to the growing cult of "emperor worship." That the restraint +was not simply in obedience to a governmental policy seems clear, +for Horace, who in his youthful work had shown his distrust of the +government, had now learned to make very liberal use of celestial +appellatives. + +Augustus, then, is not in any way identified with the semi-divine Aeneas. +Vergil does not even place him at a post of special honor on the mount +of revelations, but rather in the midst of a long line of remarkable +_principes_. With dignity and sanity he lays the stress upon the great +events of the Republic and upon its heroes. We may, therefore, justly +conclude that when he wrote the epic he advocated a constitution of the +type proposed by Cicero, in which the _princeps_ should be a true leader +in the state but in a constitutional republic. + +It is the great past, illustrated by the pageant of heroes and the +prophetic pictures of Aeneas's shield, that kindles the poet's +imagination. His sympathies are generous enough to include every race +within the empire and every leader who had shared in Rome's making, +from the divine founder, Romulus, and the tyrannicide, Brutus, to the +republican martyrs, Cato and Pompey, as well as the restorers of peace, +Caesar and Augustus. He has no false patriotism that blinds him to Rome's +shortcomings. He frankly admits with regret her failures in arts and +sciences with a modesty that permits of no reference to his own saving +work. What Rome has done and can do supremely well he also knows: she can +rule with justice, banish violence with law, and displace war by peace. +After the years of civil wars which he had lived through in agony of +spirit, it is not strange that such a mission seemed to him supreme. And +that is why the last words of Anchises to Aeneas are: + + Hae tibi erunt artes: pacisque imponere morem + Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. + +The tragedy of Dido reveals better perhaps than any other portion of +the _Aeneid_ how sensitively the poet reflected Rome's life and +thought rather than those of his Greek literary sources. And yet the +irrepressible Servius was so reckless as to say that the whole book had +been "transferred" from Apollonius. Fortunately we have in this case the +alleged source, and can meet the scholiast with a sweeping denial. Both +authors portray the love of a woman, and there the similarity ends. +Apollonius is wholly dependent upon a literal Cupid and his shafts. +Vergil, to be sure, is so far obedient to Greek convention as to play +with the motive--Cupid came to the banquet in the form of Ascanius--but +only after it was really no longer needed. The psychology of passion's +progress in the first book is convincingly expressed for the first time in +any literature. Aeneas first receives a full account of Dido's deeds of +courage and presently beholds her as she sits upon her throne, +directing the work of city building, judging and ruling as lawgiver +and administrator, and finally proclaiming mercy for his shipwrecked +companions. For her part she, we discover as he does, had long known +his story, and in her admiration for his people had chosen the deeds of +Trojan heroes for representation upon the temple doors: Sunt lacrimae +rerum. The poet simply and naturally leads hero and heroine through +the experience of admiration, generous sympathy, and gratitude to +an inevitable affection, which at the night's banquet, through a +soul-stirring tale told with dignity and heard in rapture, could only +ripen into a very human passion. + +The vital difference between Vergil's treatment of the theme and +Apollonius' may be traced to the difference between the Roman and the +Greek family. Into Italy as into Greece had come, many centuries before, +hordes of Indo-European migrants from the Danubian region who had carried +into the South the wholesome family customs of the North, the very +customs indeed out of which the transalpine literature of medieval +chivalry later blossomed. + +In Greece those social customs--still recognizable in Homer and the early +mythology--had in the sixth century been overwhelmed by a back-flow of +Aegean society, when the northern aristocracy was compelled to surrender +to the native element which constituted the backbone of the democracy. +With the re-emergence of the Aegean society, in which woman was relegated +to a menial position, the possibility of a genuine romantic literature +naturally came to an end. + +At Rome there was no such cataclysm during the centuries of the Republic. +Here the old stock though somewhat mixed with Etruscans, survived. The +ancient aristocracy retained its dominant position in the state and +society, and its mores even penetrated downward. They were not stifled +by new southern customs welling up from below, at least not until the +plebeian element won the support of the founders of the empire, and +finally overwhelmed the nobility. At Rome during the Republic there was +no question of social inequality between the sexes, for though in law the +patriarchal clan-system, imposed by the exigencies of a migrating group, +made the father of the family responsible for civil order, no inferences +were drawn to the detriment of the mother's position in the household. +Nepos once aptly remarked: "Many things are considered entirely proper +here which the Greeks hold to be indelicate. No Roman ever hesitates to +take his wife with him to a social dinner. In fact, our women invariably +have the seat of honor at temples and large gatherings. In such matters +we differ wholly from the Greeks." + +Indeed the very persistence of a nobility was in itself a favorable +factor in establishing a better position for women. Not only did the +accumulation of wealth in the household and the persistence of +courtly manners demand respect for the _domina_ of the villa, but the +transference of noble blood and of a goodly inheritance of name and land +through the mother's hand were matters of vital importance. The nobility +of the senate moreover long controlled the foreign policy of the empire, +and as the empire grew the men were called away to foreign parts on +missions and legations. At such times, the lady in an important household +was mistress of large affairs. It has been pointed out as a significant +fact that the father of the Gracchi was engaged for long years in +ambassadorial and military duties. The training of the lads consequently +fell to the share of Cornelia, a fact which may in some measure account +for the humanitarian interests of those two brilliant reformers. The +responsibilities that fell upon the shoulders of such women must have +stimulated their keenest powers and thus won for them the high esteem +which, in this case, we know the sons accorded their mother. One does +not soon forget the scene (Cicero, _Ad Att_. XV, II) at which Brutus and +Cassius together with their wives, Porcia and Tertia, and Servilia, the +mother of Brutus, discussed momentous decisions with Cicero. When Brutus +stood wavering, Cicero avoiding the issue, and Cassius as usual losing +his temper, it was Servilia who offered the only feasible solution, +and it was her program which they adopted. Is it surprising that Greek +historians like Plutarch could never quite comprehend the part in Roman +politics played by women like Clodia, Porcia and Terentia? In sheer +despair he usually resorts to the hypotheses of some personal intrigue +for an explanation of their powerful influence. + +It is in truth very likely that had Roman literature been permitted to +run its own natural course, without being overwhelmed, as was the Italian +literature of the renaissance, it would have progressed much farther on +the road to Romanticism. Apollonius was far more a restraining influence +in this respect than an inspiration. As it is, Vergil's first and fourth +books are as unthinkable in Greek dress as is the sixth. They constitute +a very conspicuous landmark in the history of literature. + +Vergil does not wholly escape the powerful conventions of his Greek +predecessors: in his fourth book, for instance, there are suggestions of +the melodramatic "maiden's lament" so dear to the music hall gallery of +Alexandria. But Vergil, apparently to his own surprise, permits his Roman +understanding of life to prevail, and transcends his first intentions +as soon as he has felt the grip of the character he is portraying. Dido +quickly emerges from the role of a temptress designed as a last snare to +trap the hero, and becomes a woman who reveals human laws paramount even +to divine ordinance. Once realizing this the poet sacrifices even his +hero and wrecks his original plot to be true to his insight into human +nature. The confession of Aeneas, as he departs, that in heeding heaven's +command he has blasphemed against love--_polluto amore_--how strange a +thought for the _pius Aeneas_! That sentiment was not Greek, it was a new +flash of intuition of the very quality of purest Romance. + +The _Aeneid_ is also a remarkably religious poem to have come from one +who had devoted so many enthusiastic years to a materialistic philosophy. +Indeed it is usual to assume that the poet had abandoned his philosophy +and turned to Stoicism before his death. But there is after all no +legitimate ground for this supposition. The _Aeneid_ has, of course, none +of the scientific fanaticism that mars the _Aetna_, and the poet has +grown mellow and tolerant with years, but that he was still convinced of +the general soundness of the Epicurean hypotheses seems certain. Many +puzzles of the _Aeneid_ are at least best explained by that view. The +repetition of his creed in the first _Aeneid_ ought to warn us that +his enthusiasm for the study of _Rerum natura_ did not die. Indeed the +_Aeneid_ is full of Epicurean phrases and notions. The atoms of fire are +struck out of the flint (VI, 6), the atoms of light are emitted from the +sun (VII, 527, and VIII, 23), early men were born _duro robore_ and lived +like those described in the fifth book of Lucretius (VIII, 320), and +Conington finds almost two hundred reminiscences of Lucretius in the +_Aeneid_, the proportion increasing rather than decreasing in the later +books.[3] + +[Footnote 3: Servius, VI, 264, makes the explicit statement: ex majore +parte, Sironem, id est, magistrum Epicureum sequitur.] + +It is, however, in the interpretation of the word _fatum_ and the role +played by the gods[4] that the test of Vergil's philosophy is usually +applied. The modern equivalent of _fatum_ is, as Guyau[5] has said, +_determinism_. Determinism was accepted by both schools but with a +difference. To the Stoic, _fatum_ is a synonym of Providence whose +popular name is Zeus. The Epicurean also accepts _fatum_ as governing the +universe, but it is not teleological, and Zeus is not identified with it +but is, like man, subordinated to it. Again, the Stoic is consistently +fatalistic. Even man's moral obligations, which are admitted, imply no +real freedom in the shaping of results, for though man has the choice +between pursuing his end voluntarily (which is virtue) or kicking against +the pricks (which is vice), the sum total of his accomplishments is not +altered by his choice: _ducunt volentern fata, nolentem trahunt_. On the +other hand, Vergil's master, while he affirms the causal nexus for the +governance of the universe: + + nec sanctum numen _fati protollere fines_ + posse neque adversus naturae foedera niti + +[Footnote 4: The passages have been analyzed and discussed frequently. +See especially Heinze, _Vergils Epische Technik_, 290 ff., who interprets +Zeus as fate; Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, pp. 11-26, who denies the +identity; Drachmann, Guderne kos Vergil, 1887; MacInnis, _Class. Rev_. +1910, p. 160, and Warde Fowler, _Aeneas at the Site of Rome_, pp. 122 fF. +For a fuller statement of this question see _Am. Jour_. Phil. 1920.] + +[Footnote 5: _Morale d'Epicure_, p. 72.] + +(Lucr. V, 309), posits a spontaneous initiative in the soul-atoms of man: + + quod _fati foedera rumpat_ + ex infinite _ne causam causa sequatur_. + +(Lucr. II, 254). If then Vergil were a Stoic his Jupiter should be +omnipotent and omniscient and the embodiment of _fatum_, and his human +characters must be represented as devoid of independent power; but such +ideas are not found in the _Aeneid_. + +Jupiter is indeed called "omnipotens" at times, but so are Juno and +Apollo, which shows that the term must be used in a relative sense. In a +few cases he can grant very great powers as when he tells Venus: Imperium +sine fine dedi (I, 278). But very providence he never seems to be. He +draws (sortitur) the lots of fate (III, 375), he does not assign them at +will, and he unrolls the book of fate and announces what he finds (I, +261). He is powerless to grant Cybele's prayer that the ships may escape +decay: + + Cui tanta deo permissa potestas? (IX, 97.) + +He cannot decide the battle between the warriors until he weighs their +fates (XII, 725), and in the council of the gods he confesses explicitly +his non-interference with the laws of causality: + + Sua cuique exorsa laborem + Fortunamque ferent. Rex Jupiter omnibus idem. + Fata viam invenient. (X, 112.) + +And here the scholiast naïvely remarks: + + Videtur his ostendisse aliud esse fata, aliud Jovem.[6] + +[Footnote 6: Serv. _ad loc_. MacInnis, _Class. Rev_. 1910, p. 172, cites +several other passages to the point in refutation of Heinze.] + +Again, contrary to the Stoic creed, the poet conceives of his human +characters as capable of initiating action and even of thwarting fate. +Aeneas in the second book rushes into battle on an impulse; he could +forget his fates and remain in Sicily if he chose (V, 700). He might also +remain in Carthage, and explains fully why he does not; and Dido, if left +_nescla fati_, might thwart the fates (I, 299), and finally does, slaying +herself before her time[7] (IV, 696). The Stoic hypothesis seems to break +down completely in such passages. + +[Footnote 7: See Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, p. 19.] + +Can we assume an Epicurean creed with better success? At least in so far +as it places the _foedera naturae_ above the gods and attributes some +freedom of will and action to men, for as we have seen in both of +these matters Vergil agrees with Lucretius. But there is one apparent +difficulty in that Vergil, contrary to his teacher's usual practice, +permits the interference of the gods in human action. The difficulty is, +however, only apparent, if, as Vergil does, we conceive of these gods +simply as heroic and super-human characters in the drama, accepted from +an heroic age in order to keep the ancient atmosphere in which Aeneas had +lived in men's imagination ever since Homer first spoke of him. As such +characters they have the power of initiative and the right to interfere +in action that Epicurus attributes to men, and in so far as they are +of heroic stature their actions may be the more effective. Thus far an +Epicurean might well go, and must go in an epic of the heroic age. This +is, of course, not the same as saying that Vergil adopted the gods +in imitation of Homer or that he needed Olympic machinery because he +supposed it a necessary part of the epic technique. Surely Vergil was +gifted with as much critical acumen as Lucan. But he had to accept these +creatures as subsidiary characters the moment he chose Aeneas as his +hero, for Aeneas was the son of Venus who dwelt with the celestials at +least a part of the time. Her presence in turn involved Juno and Jupiter +and the rest of her daily associates. Furthermore, since the tale was of +the heroic age of long ago, the characters must naturally behave as the +characters of that day were wont to do, and there were old books like +Homer and Hesiod from which every schoolboy had become familiar with +their behavior. If the poet wished to make a plausible tale of that +period he could no more undertake to modernize his characters than could +Tennyson in his _Idylls_. The would-be gods are in the tale not to +reveal Vergil's philosophy--they do not--but to orient the reader in the +atmosphere in which Aeneas had always been conceived as moving. They +perform the same function as the heroic accoutrements and architecture +for a correct description of which Vergil visited ancient temples and +studied Cato. + +Had he chosen a contemporary hero or one less blessed with celestial +relatives there is no reason to suppose that he would have employed the +super-human personages at all. If this be true it is as uncritical to +search for the poet's own conception of divinity in these personages as +it would be to infer his taste in furniture from the straw cot which he +chooses to give his hero at Evander's hovel. In the epic of primitive +Rome the claims of art took precedence over personal creed, and so they +would with any true poet; and if any critic were prosaic enough +to object, Vergil might have answered with Livy: Datur haec venia +antiquitati ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augustiora +faciat, and if the inconsistency with his philosophy were stressed he +could refer to Lucretius' proemium. It is clear then that while the +conceptions of destiny and free-will found in the _Aeneid_ are at +variance with Stoic creed at every point, they fit readily into the +Epicurean scheme of things as soon as we grant what any Epicurean poet +would readily have granted that the celestials might be employed as +characters of the drama if in general subordinated to the same laws of +causality and of freedom as were human beings. + +What then are we to say of the Stoic coloring of the sixth book? In the +first place, it is not actually Stoic. It is a syncretism of mystical +beliefs, developed by Orphic and Apocalyptic poets and mystics from +Pythagoras and Plato to a group of Hellenistic writers, popularized by +the later less logical Stoic philosophers like Posidonius, and gaining in +Vergil's day a wide acceptance among those who were growing impatient of +the exacting metaphysical processes of thought. Indeed Vergil contributed +something toward foisting these beliefs upon early Christianity, though +they were no more essential to it than to Stoicism. + +Be that as it may, this mystical setting was here adopted because the +poet needed for his own purposes[8] a vision of incorporated souls of +Roman heroes, a thing which neither Epicurean nor orthodox Stoic creed +could provide. So he created this _mythos_ as Plato for his own purpose +created a vision of Er.[9] The dramatic purpose of the _descensus_ was of +course to complete for Aeneas the progressive revelation of his mission, +so skilfully developed by careful stages all through the third book,[10] +to give the hero his final commands and to inspire him for the final +struggle.[11] Then the poet realized that he could at the same time +produce a powerful artistic effect upon the reader if he accomplished +this by means of a vision of Rome's great heroes presented in review by +Anchises from the mount of revelations, for this was an age in which Rome +was growing proud of her history. But to do this he must have a _mythos_ +which assumed that souls lived before their earthly existence. A Homeric +limbo of departed souls did not suffice (though Vergil also availed +himself of that in order to recall the friends of the early books). With +this in view he builds his home of the dead out of what Servius calls +much _sapientia_, filling in details here and there even from the +legendary lower-world personages so that the reader may meet some +familiar faces. However, the setting is not to be taken literally, for of +course neither he nor anyone else actually believed that prenatal spirits +bore the attributes and garments of their future existence. Nor is the +poet concerned about the eschatology which had to be assumed for the +setting; but his judgments on life, though afforded an opportunity to +find expression through the characters of the scene, are not allowed to +be circumscribed by them; they are his own deepest convictions. + +[Footnote 8: No one would attempt to infer Stephen Phillips' eschatology +from the setting of his _Christ in Hades_.] + +[Footnote 9: Vergil indeed was careful to warn the reader (VI, 893) that +the portal of unreal dreams refers the imagery of the sixth book to +fiction, and Servius reiterates the warning. On the employment of myths +by Epicureans see chapter VIII, above.] + +[Footnote 10: See Heinze, _Epische Technik_, pp. 82 ff.] + +[Footnote 11: This Vergil indicates repeatedly: _Aen_. V, 737; VI, 718, +806-7, 890-2.] + +It has frequently been said that Vergil's philosophical system is +confused and that his judgments on providence are inconsistent, that in +fact he seems not to have thought his problems through. This is of course +true so far as it is true of all the students of philosophy of his day. +Indeed we must admit that with the very inadequate psychology of that +time no reasonable solution of the then central problem of determinism +could be found. But there is no reason for supposing that the poet did +not have a complete mastery of what the best teachers of his day had to +offer. + +Vergil's Epicureanism, however, served him chiefly as a working +hypothesis for scientific purposes. With its ethical and religious +implications he had not concerned himself; and so it was not permitted +in his later days to interfere with a deep respect for the essentials of +religion. Similarly, the profoundest students of science today, men +who in all their experiments act implicitly and undeviatingly on the +hypotheses of atomism and determinism in the world of research, are +usually the last to deny the validity of the basic religious tenets. In +his knowledge of religious rites Vergil reveals an exactness that seems +to point to very careful observances in his childhood home. They have +become second nature as it were, and go as deep as the filial devotion +which so constantly brings the word _pietas_ to his pen. + +But his religion is more than a matter of rites and ceremonies. It has, +to a degree very unusual for a Roman, associated itself with morality and +especially with social morality. The culprits of his Tartarus are not +merely the legendary offenders against exacting deities: + + Hic quibus invisi fratres, dum vita manebat, + Pulsatusve parens et fraus innexa clienti, + Aut qui divitiis soli incubuere repertis + Nec partem posuere suis, quae maxima turba est. + +The virtues that win a place in Elysium indicate the same fusion of +religion with humanitarian sympathies: + + Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, + Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, + Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, + Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artis, + Quique sui memores aliquos fecere merendo: + Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta. + +His Elysium is far removed from Homer's limbo; truly did he deserve his +place among those + + Phoebo digna locuti. + +Before he had completed his work the poet set out for Greece to visit the +places which he had described and which in his fastidious zeal he seems +to have thought in need of the same careful examination that he had +accorded his Italian scenery. Three years he still thought requisite for +the completion of his epic. But at Megara he fell ill, and being carried +back in Augustus' company to Brundisium he died there, in 19 B.C. at the +age of fifty-one. Before his death he gave instructions that his epic +should be burned and that his executors, his life-long friends Varius and +Tucca, should suppress whatever of his manuscripts he had himself failed +to publish. In order to save the Aeneid, however, Augustus interposed +the supreme authority of the state to annul that clause of the will. The +minor works were probably left unpublished for some time. Indeed, there +is no convincing proof that such works as the Ciris, the Aetna, and the +Catalepton were circulated in the Augustan age. + +The ashes were carried to his home at Naples and buried beneath a +tombstone bearing the simple epitaph written by some friend who knew the +poet's simplicity of heart: + + Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc + Parthenope; cecini pascua rura duces. + +His tomb[12] was on the roadside outside the city, as was usual--Donatus +says on the highway to Puteoli, nearly two miles from the gates. Recent +examination of the region has shown that by some cataclysm of the middle +ages not mentioned in any record, the road and the tomb have subsided, +and now the quiet waters of the golden bay flow many fathoms over them. + +[Footnote 12: Günther, _Pausilypon_, p. 201] + + + + +INDEX + + +Acestes +Aeneas +_Aeneid_, the +_Aetna_, the +Alexandrian poetry +Alfenus Varus +Allegory +Ancestry of Vergil +Animism +Annius Cimber +Antiquarian lore in the _Aeneid_ +Antony, Mark +Antony, Lucius, at Perugia +Apollodorus, the rhetorician +Apollonius of Rhodes +Archias, the poet +Asianists, the +Atticists, the +_Auctor ad Herennium_ +Augustus, cf. Octavius. +Avernus, Lake + +Birt's edition of the _Catalepton_ +Brutus, M. Junius +_Bucolics_, the, see _Eclogues_. +Burial-place of Vergil + +Caecilius of Caleacte +Callimachus +Calvus, C. Licinius +Capua +Cassius, Longinus +_Catalepton_ +Catullus, C. Valerius +Celts, the +Child, of the fourth _Eclogue_ +Cicero, M. Tullius +Cinna, C. Helvius +_Ciris_, the +Cisalpine Gaul +Civil War, the +Classicism +Cleopatra and Dido +Clodia +Confiscation of Vergil's lands +_Copa_, the +Cornificius, the poet +Cremona +_Culex_, the +Cumae +Cytheris (Lycoris) + +Daphnis +Death of Vergil +Diction, purity of +Dido +Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_ +_Dirae_, the +Donatus, the _Vita_ of + +_Eclogues_, the; + No. I + No. II + No. IV + No. V + No. VI + No. VIII + No. IX + No. X +Education of Vergil +"Emperor Worship" +Ennius +Epic, an early effort at +Epicurean philosophy +Epidius +Epigrams of Vergil + see _Catalepton_. +Epyllia +Ethics in the _Aeneid_ +Etruscans +Evictions by the triumvirs +Evolution + +Fate, in the _Aeneid_ +Fowler, W.W., Studies of +Freedmen +Fundanius + +Gallus, Cornelius +"Garden," the, near Naples +_Georgics_, the +Golden Age, the +"Grand Style," the +Greeks, in the _Aeneid_ + +Hades +Herculaneum +Homer +Horace +Imperial Cult, the +Julius Caesar +Law, the study of +Literary theory + +Lucretius +_Ludus Troiae_ +Lycoris (Cytheris) +Lydia, the +Lysias, as model of style + +Maecenas, C. Cilnius + the literary circle of +Magia, Vergil's mother +Mantua +Maro, meaning of +Martial, on the _Culex_ +Materialism +Meleager of Gadara +Melissus +Messalla, M. Valerius +Messianic prophecy +Metrical technique +Milan +Mountain scenery in the _Eclogues_ + +Naples +Nationalism in the _Aeneid_ +Nature, observation of +"New poetry," the _neoteroi_ +Nicolaus Damascenus + +Octavius, or Octavianus + see Augustus. +Octavius Musa +Oracles, the Sibylline +Orientals at Naples +Ovid + +Parthenius +parody, Vergil's in _Catalepton_, X +Pasiphaë, the myth of +Pastoral elegy +Pastoral poetry +"Pathetic fallacy," the +Patriotism in the _Aeneid_ +Peace of Brundisium +Perusine War, the +Pharsalia, the battle of +Philippi, the battle of +Philodemus +Philosophic study +Piso, Calpurnius +"Plain style" the +Plato +Plotius Tucca, +Politics of the Epicurean group +Pollio, C. Asinius +Pompeii +Pompey, the Great +Porcia +Portraits of Vergil +Posilipo +_Priapea_, the three +Probus, the _Vita_ of +Propertius +Purity of diction +_Purpureus pannus_ + +Quintilius Varus +Rand, _Young Virgil's Poetry_ +Realism in the _Eclogues_ + in the _Aeneid_ +_Res Romanae_ of Vergil +Rhetoric +Romantic poetry +Romanticism +Scholiasts, on Vergil +Scylla +Servius +Siro +Skutsch, _Aus Vergils Frühzeit_ +Sorrento +Spenser's _Gnat_ +Stoicism +Syrians at Naples +Theocritus +Thucydides, as a model of style +Tibullus +Tityrus +Tucca, see Plotius +Turnus +Valerius Cato +Valerius Messalla, see Messalla +Valgius +Varius Rufus +Varus, see Alfenus Varus, and Quintilius Varus +Ventidius Bassus +Venus Genetrix +Vergil, see Table of Contents +Vessereau, on the _Aetna_ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vergil, by Tenney Frank + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERGIL *** + +***** This file should be named 10960-8.txt or 10960-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/6/10960/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Bradley Norton and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10960-8.zip b/old/10960-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..869b2bc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10960-8.zip diff --git a/old/10960.txt b/old/10960.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a0fc59 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10960.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5109 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vergil, by Tenney Frank + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vergil + A Biography + +Author: Tenney Frank + +Release Date: February 6, 2004 [EBook #10960] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERGIL *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Bradley Norton and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +VERGIL + +_A Biography_ + +By + +TENNEY FRANK + +_Professor of Latin +in the +Johns Hopkins University_ + + + +1922 + + +_TO_ + +THE MEMORY OF + +W. WARDE FOWLER + + + + + + +PREFACE + + +Modern literary criticism has accustomed us to interpret our masterpieces +in the light of the author's daily experiences and the conditions of the +society in which he lived. The personalities of very few ancient poets, +however, can be realized, and this is perhaps the chief reason why their +works seem to the average man so cold and remote. Vergil's age, with its +terribly intense struggles, lies hidden behind the opaque mists of twenty +centuries: by his very theory of art the poet has conscientiously drawn a +veil between himself and his reader, and the scraps of information about +him given us by the fourth century grammarian, Donatus, are inconsistent, +at best unauthenticated, and generally irrelevant. + +Indeed criticism has dealt hard with Donatus' life of Vergil. It has +shown that the meager _Vita_ is a conglomeration of a few chance facts +set into a mass of later conjecture derived from a literal-minded +interpretation of the _Eclogues_, to which there gathered during the +credulous and neurotic decades of the second and third centuries an +accretion of irresponsible gossip. + +However, though we have had to reject many of the statements of Donatus, +criticism has procured for us more than a fair compensation from another +source. A series of detailed studies of the numerous minor poems +attributed to Vergil by ancient authors and mediaeval manuscripts--till +recently pronounced unauthentic by modern scholars--has compelled most +of us to accept the _Appendix Vergiliana_ at face value. These poems, +written in Vergil's formative years before he had adopted the reserved +manner of the classical style, are full of personal reminiscences. They +reveal many important facts about his daily life, his occupations, his +ambitions and his ideals, and best of all they disclose the processes by +which the poet during an apprenticeship of ten years developed the mature +art of the _Georgics_ and the _Aeneid_. They have made it possible for us +to visualize him with a vividness that is granted us in the case of no +other Latin poet. + +The reason for attempting a new biography of Vergil at the present time +is therefore obvious. This essay, conceived with the purpose of centering +attention upon the poet's actual life, has eschewed the larger task of +literary criticism and has also avoided the subject of Vergil's literary +sources--a theme to which scholars have generally devoted too much +acumen. The book is therefore of brief compass, but it has been kept +to its single theme in the conviction that the reader who will study +Vergil's works as in some measure an outgrowth of the poet's own +experiences will find a new meaning in not a few of their lines. + +T.F. + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + +I MANTUA DIVES AVIS + +II SCHOOL AND WAR + +III THE CULEX + +IV THE CIRIS + +V A STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY + +VI EPIGRAM AND EPIC + +VII EPICUREAN POLITICS + +VIII LAST DAYS AT THE GARDEN + +IX MATERIALISM IN THE SERVICE OF POETRY + +X RECUBANS SUB TEGMINE FAGI + +XI THE EVICTIONS + +XII POLLIO + +XIII THE CIRCLE OF MAECENAS + +XIV THE GEORGICS + +XV THE AENEID + + + + +VERGIL + + + + + + +I + +MANTUA DIVES AVIS + + +Among biographical commonplaces one frequently finds the generalization +that it is the provincial who acquires the perspective requisite for +a true estimate of a nation, and that it is the country-boy reared in +lonely communion with himself who attains the deepest knowledge of human +nature. If there be some degree of truth in this reflection, Publius +Vergilius Maro, the farmer's boy from the Mantuan plain, was in so far +favored at birth. It is the fifteenth of October, 70 B.C., that the +Mantuans still hold in pious memory: in 1930 they will doubtless invite +Italy and the devout of all nations to celebrate the twentieth centenary +of the poet's birth. + +Ancient biographers, little concerned with Mendelian speculation, have +not reported from what stock his family sprang. Scientific curiosity +and nationalistic egotism have compelled modern biographers to become +anthropologists. Vergil has accordingly been referred, by some critic +or other, to each of the several peoples that settled the Po Valley in +ancient times: the Umbrians, the Etruscans, the Celts, the Latins. The +evidence cannot be mustered into a compelling conclusion, but it may be +worth while to reject the improbable suppositions. + +The name tells little. _Vergilius_ is a good Italic _nomen_ found in all +parts of the peninsula,[1] but Latin names came as a matter of course +with the gift of citizenship or of the Latin status, and Mantua with +the rest of Cisalpine Gaul had received the Latin status nineteen years +before Vergil's birth. The cognomen _Maro_ is in origin a magistrate's +title used by Etruscans and Umbrians, but _cognomina_ were a recent +fashion in the first century B.C. and were selected by parents of the +middle classes largely by accident. + +[Footnote 1: Braunholz, _The Nationality of Vergil_, _Classical Review_, +1915, 104 ff.] + +Vergil himself, a good antiquarian, assures us that in the _heroic_ +age Mantua was chiefly Etruscan with enclaves of two other peoples +(presumably Umbrians and Venetians). In this he is doubtless following a +fairly reliable tradition, accepted all the more willingly because of his +intimacy with Maecenas, who was of course Etruscan:[2] + + Mantua dives avis, sed non genus omnibus unum, + Gens illis triplex, populi sub gente quaterni, + Ipsa caput populis; Tusco de sanguine vires. + +[Footnote 2: Aeneid, X, 201-3.] + +Pliny seems to have supposed this passage a description of Mantua in +Vergil's own day: Mantua Tuscorum trans Padum sola reliqua (III. 130). +That could hardly have been Vergil's meaning, however; for the Celts who +flooded the Po Valley four centuries before drove all before them except +in the Venetian marshes and the Ligurian hills. They could not have left +an Etruscan stronghold in the center of their path. Vergil was probably +not Etruscan. + +The case for a Celtic origin is equally improbable. From the time when +the Senones burned Rome in 390 B.C. till Caesar conquered Gaul, the fear +of invasions from this dread race never slumbered. During the weary +years of the Punic war when Hannibal drew his fresh recruits from the Po +Valley, the determination grew ever stronger that the Alps should become +Rome's barrier line on the North. Accordingly the pacification of the +Transpadane region continued with little intermission until Polybius[3] +could say two generations before Vergil's birth that the Gauls had +practically been driven out of the Po Valley, and that they then held but +a few villages in the foothills of the Alps. If this be true, the open +country of Mantua must have had but few survivors. And the few that +remained were not often likely to have the privilege of intermarrying +with the Roman settlers who filled the vacuum. Romans were too proud of +their citizenship to intermarry with _peregrini_ and raise children who +must by Roman laws forego the dignities of citizenship.[4] + +[Footnote 3: Polybius, II. 35, 4 (written about 140 B.C.).] + +[Footnote 4: Ulpian, _Dig_. V. 8, ex peregrino et cive Romano, peregrinus +nascitur.] + +A Celtic strain of romance has been from time to time claimed for +Vergil's poetry, though those who employ such terms seldom agree in their +definition of them. His romanticism may be more easily explained by +his early devotion to the Catullan group of poets, and the Celtic +traits--whatever they may be--by the close racial affiliations between +Celts and Italians, vouched for by anthropologists. But the difficulty of +applying the test of the "Celtic temperament" lies in the fact that there +are apparently now no true representatives of the Celtic race from +whom to establish a criterion. The peoples that have longest preserved +dialects of the Celtic languages appear from anthropometric researches +to contain a dominant strain of a different race, perhaps that of the +pre-Indo-European inhabitants of Western Europe. It may be, therefore, +that what Arnoldians now refer to the "Celts" is after all not Celtic. At +best it is unsafe to search for racial traits in the work of genius; in +this instance it would but betray loose thinking. + +The assumption of Celtic origin is, therefore, hazardous.[5] There is, +however, a strong likelihood that Vergil's forbears were among the Roman +and Latin colonists who went north in search of new homes during the +second century B.C. Vergil's father was certainly a Roman citizen, for +none but a citizen could have sent his son to Rome to prepare for a +political career. Mantua indeed, a "Latin" town after 89 B.C., did not +become a Roman municipality until after Vergil had left it, but Vergil's +father, according to the eighth _Catalepton_, had earlier in his life +lived in Cremona. That city was colonized by Roman citizens in 218 B.C. +and recolonized in 190, and though the colonists were reduced to the +"Latin status," the magistrates of the town and their descendants secured +citizenship from the beginning, and finally in 89 B.C. the whole colony +received full citizenship. But quite apart from this, all of Cisalpine +Gaul, as the region was called, was receiving immigrants from all parts +of Italy throughout the second century, when the fields farther south +were being exhausted by long tilling, and were falling into the hands +of capitalistic landlords and grazers. Since Roman citizenship was a +personal rather than a territorial right, such immigrants could +preserve their political status despite their change of habitation. The +probabilities are, therefore, that in any case Vergil, though born in the +province, was of the old Latin stock. + +[Footnote 5: Vergil we know was tall and dark. The Gauls were as a rule +fair with light hair. The Etruscans on the other hand, while dark, +were generally short of stature. Such data are however not of great +importance.] + +About the child appropriate stories gathered in time, but what the +biographers chose to repeat in the credulous days of Donatus, when Rome +was almost an Oriental city, need not detain us long. To Donatus, no +doubt, _Magia_ seemed a suitable name for the mother of a poet who knew +the mysteries of the lower world; that she dreamed prophetically of the +coming greatness of her son, we may grant as a matter of course. Sober +judgment, however, can hardly accept the miraculous poplar tree which +shot up at the place of nativity, or the birth-stories deriving +"Vergilus" from _virga_, contrary to early Latin nomenclature and +phonology. It is well to mention these things merely so that we may keep +in mind how little faith the late biographers really deserve. + +Donatus is also inclined to accept the tradition that Vergil's father was +a potter and a man of very humble circumstances. That Vergil's father +made pottery may be true; a father's occupation was apt to be recorded in +Augustan biography--but it requires some knowledge of Roman society to +comprehend what these words meant at the end of the Republic. In Donatus' +day a "potter" was a day-laborer in loin-cloth and leather apron, earning +about twenty cents for a long day of fourteen hours. Needless to say, +Vergil's leisured competence during many years did not draw from such a +trickling source. Donatus had forgotten that in Vergil's day the economic +system of Rome was entirely different. At the end of the Republic, the +potters of Northern Italy conducted factories of enormous output, for +they had with their artistic red-figured ware captured the markets of the +whole Mediterranean basin. The actual workmen were not Roman citizens by +any means, but slaves. And we should add that while industrial producers, +like traders, were in general held in low esteem, because most of them +were foreigners and freedmen, the producers of earthenware had by +accident escaped from the general odium. The reason was simply that +earthenware production began as a legitimate extension of agriculture--it +was one form of turning the products of the villa-soil to the best +use--and agriculture as we remember (including horticulture and +stock-raising) continued into Cicero's day the only respectable +income-bringing occupation in which a Roman senator could engage without +apology. That is the reason why even the names of Cicero, Asinius Pollio, +and Marcus Aurelius are to be found on brick stamps when it would have +been socially impossible for such men to own, shall we say, hardware or +clothing factories. Donatus was already so far away from that day that +he had no feeling for its social tabus. The property of Vergil's +father--possibly a farm with a pottery on some part of it--could hardly +have been small when it supported the young student for many years in his +leisured existence at Rome and Naples under the masters that attracted +the aristocracy of the capital. The story of Probus, otherwise not very +reliable, may, therefore, be true--that sixty soldiers received their +allotments from the estates taken from Vergil's father. + +Of no little significance is the fact that Vergil first prepared himself +for public life,[6] and progressed so far as to accept one case in court. +In order to enter public life in those days it was customary to train +one's self as widely as possible in literature, history, rhetoric, +dialectic, and court procedure, and to attract public notice for election +purposes by taking a few cases. It was not every citizen who dared enter +such a career. This was the one occupation that the nobility guarded most +jealously. While any foreigner or freedman might become a doctor, banker, +architect or merchant prince, he could not presume to stand up before a +praetor to discuss the rights and wrongs of Roman citizens; and since the +advocate's work was furthermore considered the legitimate preliminary to +magisterial offices it must the more carefully be protected. It would +have been quite useless for Vergil to prepare for this career had it been +obviously closed. We have no sure record in Cicero's epoch of any young +man rising successfully from the business or industrial classes to a +career in public life except through the abnormal accidents provided by +the civil wars. Presumably, therefore, Vergil's father belonged to a +landholding family with some honors of municipal service to his credit. + +[Footnote 6: Donatus, 15; _Ciris_, l.2; _Catal_. V.; Seneca, _Controv_. +III. praef. 8.] + +Of the poet's physical traits we have no very satisfactory description +or likeness. He was tall, dark and rawboned, retaining through life the +appearance of a countryman, according to Donatus. He also suffered, +says the same writer, the symptoms that accompany tuberculosis. The +reliability of this rather inadequate description is supported by a +second-century portrait of the poet done in a crude pavement mosaic which +has been found in northern Africa.[7] To be sure the technique is so +faulty that we cannot possibly consider this a faithful likeness. But +we may at least say that the person represented--a man of perhaps +forty-five--was tall and loose-jointed, and that his countenance, with +its broad brow, penetrating eye, firm nose and generous mouth and chin, +is distinctly represented as drawn and emaciated. + +[Footnote 7: See _Monuments Piot_. 1897, pl. xx; _Atene e Roma_, 1913, +opp. p. 191.] + +There is also an unidentified portrait in a half dozen mediocre +replicas representing a man of twenty-five or thirty years which some +archaeologists are inclined to consider a possible representation of +Vergil.[8] It is the so-called "Brutus." The argument for its attribution +deserves serious consideration. The bust, while it shows a far younger +man than the African mosaic, reveals the same contour of countenance, of +brow, nose, cheeks and chin. Furthermore it is difficult to think of any +other Roman in private life who attained to such fame that six marble +replicas of his portrait should have survived the omnivorous lime-kilns +of the dark ages. The Barrocco museum of Rome has a very lifelike +replica[9] of this type in half-relief. Though its firm, dry workmanship +seems to be of a few decades later than Vergil's youth it may well be a +fairly faithful copy of one of the first busts of Vergil made at the time +when the _Eclogues_ had spread his fame through Rome. + +[Footnote 8: See British School _Cat. of the Mus. Capitolino_, p. 355; +Bernoulli, _Roem. Ikonographie_, I, 187, Helbig,'3 I, no. 872.] + +[Footnote 9: Mrs. Strong, _Roman Sculpture_ plate, CIX; Hekler, _Greek +and Roman Portraits_, 188 a. The antiquity of this marble has been +questioned.] + +A land of sound constitutions, mentally and physically, was the frontier +region in which Vergil grew to manhood; and had it not later been drained +of its sturdy citizenry by the civil wars and recolonized by the wreckage +of those wars it would have become Italy's mainstay through the Empire. +The earlier Romans and Latins who had first accepted colonial allotments +or had migrated severally there for over a century were of sterner stuff +than the indolent remnants that had drifted to the city's corn cribs. +These frontiersmen had come while the Italic stock was still sound, not +yet contaminated by the freedmen of Eastern extraction. Cities like +Cremona and Mantua were truer guardians of the puritanic ideals of Cato's +day than Rome itself. The clear expressive diction of Catullus' lyrics, +full of old-fashioned turns, the sound social ideals of Vergil's +_Georgics_, the buoyant idealism of the _Aeneid_ and of Livy's annals +speak the true language of these people. It is not surprising then that +in Vergil's youth it is a group of fellow-provincials--returning sons +of Rome's former emigrants--that take the lead in the new literary +movements. They are vigorous, clever young men, excellently educated, +free from the city's binding traditionalism, well provided also, many +of them, with worldly goods acquired in the new rich country. Such were +Catullus of Verona, Varius Rufus, Quintilius Varus, Furius, and Alfenus +of Cremona, Caecilius of Comum, Helvius Cinna apparently of Brescia, and +Valerius Cato who somehow managed to inspire in so many of them a love +for poetry. + + + + +II + +SCHOOL AND WAR + + +To Cremona, Vergil was sent to school. Caesar, the governor of the +province, was now conquering Gaul, and as Cremona was the foremost +provincial colony from which Caesar could recruit legionaries, the school +boys must have seen many a maniple march off to the battle-fields of +Belgium. Those boys read their _Bellum Gallicum_ in the first edition, +serial publication. When we remember the devotion of Caesar's soldiers to +their leader, we can hardly be surprised at the poet's lasting reverence +for the great _imperator_. He must have seen the man himself, also, for +Cremona was the principal point in the court circuit that Caesar traveled +during the winters between his campaigns--whenever the Gauls gave him +respite. + +The _toga virilis_ Vergil assumed at fifteen, the year that Pompey and +Crassus entered upon their second consulship--a notice to all the world +that the triumvirate had been continued upon terms that made Julius the +arbiter of Rome's destinies. + +That same year the boy left Cremona to finish his literary studies in +Milan, a city which was now threatening to outstrip Cremona in importance +and size. The continuation of his studies in the province instead of at +Rome seems to have been fortunate: the spirit of the schools of the north +was healthier. At Rome the undue insistence upon a practical education, +despite Cicero's protests, was hurrying boys into classrooms of +rhetoricians who were supposed to turn them into finished public men +at an early age; it was assumed that a political career was every +gentleman's business and that every young man of any pretensions must +acquire the art of speaking effectively and of "thinking on his feet." +The claims of pure literature, of philosophy, and of history were +accorded too little attention, and the chief drill centered about the +technique of declamatory prose. Not that the rhetorical study was itself +made absolutely practical. The teachers unfortunately would spin the +technical details thin and long to hold profitable students over several +years. But their claims that they attained practical ends imposed on the +parents, and the system of education suffered. + +In the northern province, on the other hand, there was less demand +for studies leading directly to the forum. Moreover, some of the best +teachers were active there.[1] They were men of catholic tastes, who in +their lectures on literature ranged widely over the centuries of Greek +masters from Homer to the latest popular poets of the Hellenistic period +and over the Latin poets from Livius to Lucilius. Indeed, the young men +trained at Cremona and Milan between the days of Sulla and Caesar were +those who in due time passed on the torch of literary art at Rome, +while the Roman youths were being enticed away into rhetoric. Vergil's +remarkable catholicity of taste and his aversion to the cramping +technique of the rhetorical course are probably to be explained in large +measure, therefore, by his contact with the teachers of the provinces. +Vergil did not scorn Apollonius because Homer was revered as the supreme +master, and though the easy charm of Catullus taught him early to love +the "new poetry," he appreciated none the less the rugged force of +Ennius. Had his early training been received at Rome, where pedant was +pitted against pedant, where every teacher was forced by rivalry into a +partizan attitude, and all were compelled by material demands to provide +a "practical education," even Vergil's poetic spirit might have been +dulled. + +[Footnote 1: Suetonius, _De Gram_. 3.] + +How long Vergil remained at Milan we are not told; Donatus' _paulo post_ +is a relative term that might mean a few months or a few years. However, +at the age of sixteen Vergil was doubtless ready for the rhetorical +course, and it is possible that he went to the great city as early as +54 B.C., the very year of Catullus' death and of the publication of +Lucretius' _De Rerum Natura_. The brief biography of Vergil contained in +the Berne MS.--a document of doubtful value--mentions Epidius as Vergil's +teacher in rhetoric, and adds that Octavius, the future emperor, was a +fellow pupil. This is by no means unreasonable despite a difference +of seven years in the ages of the two pupils. Vergil coming from the +provinces entered rhetoric rather late in years, whereas Octavius must +have required the aid of a master of declamation early, since at the age +of twelve he prepared to deliver the _laudatio funebris_ at the grave of +his grandmother. Thus the two may have met in Epidius' lecture room in +the year 50 B.C. Vergil could doubtless have afforded tuition under such +a master since he presently engaged the no less distinguished Siro. We +have the independent testimony of Suetonius that Epidius was Octavius' +and Mark Antony's teacher. + +If Antony's style be a criterion, this new master of Vergil's was a +rhetorician of the elaborate Asianistic style,[2] then still orthodox at +Rome. This school--except in so far as Cicero had criticized it for +going to extremes--had not yet been effectively challenged by the rising +generation of the chaster Atticists. Hortensius was still alive, and +highly revered, and Cicero had recently written his elaborate _De +Oratore_ in which, with the apparent calmness of a still unquestioned +authority, he laid down the program of the writer of ornate prose who +conceived it as his chief duty to heed the claims of art. While not an +out and out Asianist he advocates the claims of the "grand-style," +so pleasing to senatorial audiences, with its well-balanced periods, +carefully modulated, nobly phrased, precisely cadenced, and pronounced +with dignity. To be sure, Calvus had already raised the banner of +Atticism and had in several biting attacks shown what a simple, frugal +and direct style could accomplish; Calidius, one of the first Roman +pupils of the great Apollodorus, had already begun making campaign +speeches in his neatly polished orations which painfully eschewed all +show of ornament or passion; and Caesar himself, efficiency personified, +had demonstrated that the leader of a democratic rabble must be a master +of blunt phrases. But Calvus did not threaten to become a political +force, Calidius was too even-tempered, and Caesar was now in the north, +fighting with other weapons. Cicero's prestige still seemed unbroken. It +was not till Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49, after Hortensius had died, +and Cicero had been pushed aside as a futile statesman, that Atticism +gained predominance in the schools. Later, in 46, Cicero in several +remarkable essays again took up the cudgels for an elaborate prose, but +then his cause was already lost. Caesar's victory had demonstrated that +Rome desired deeds, not words. + +[Footnote 2: Octavius was drawn to the Atticistic principles by the great +master Apollodorus.] + +When Virgil, therefore, turned to rhetoric, probably under Epidius, +he received the training which was still considered orthodox. His +farewell[3] to rhetoric--written probably in 48--shows unmistakably the +nature of the stuff on which he had been fed. It is the bombast and the +futile rules of the Asianic creed against which he flings his unsparing +scazons. + +[Footnote 3: _Catalepton_ V (Edition, Vollmer). Birt, _Jugendverse und +Heimatpoesie Vergils_, 1910, has provided a useful commentary on the +_Catalepton_.] + + Begone ye useless paint-pots of the school; + Your phrases reek, but not with Attic scent, + Tarquitius' and Selius' and Varro's drool: + A witless crew, with learning temulent. + And ye begone, ye tinkling cymbals vain, + That call the youths to drivelings insane. + +Epidius, to be sure, is not mentioned, but we happen to know that +Varro--if this be the erudite friend of Cicero--was devoted to the +Asianic principles. And Epidius, the teacher of the flowery Mark Antony, +may well be concealed in Vergil's list of names even if mention of him +was omitted for reasons of propriety. + +This poem reveals the fact that Vergil did not, like the young men of +Cicero's youth, enjoy the privilege of studying law, court procedure, and +oratory by entering the law office, as it were, of some distinguished +senator and thus acquiring his craft through observation, guided +practice, and personal instruction. That method, so charmingly described +by Cicero as in vogue in his youth, had almost passed away. The school +had taken its place with its mock courts, contests in oratory, set themes +in fictitious controversies. The analytical rules of rhetoric were +growing ever more intricate and time-wasting, and how pedantic they were +even before Vergil's childhood may be seen by a glance into the anonymous +_Auctor ad Herennium_. The student had to know the differences between +the various kinds of cases, demonstrativum, deliberativum and judiciale; +he must know the proportionate value to the orator of inventio, +dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio, and how to manage each; +he must know how to apply inventio in each of the six divisions of the +speech: exordium, narratio, divisio, confirmatio, confutatio, conclusio. +On the subject of adornment of style a relatively small task lay in +memorizing illustrations of some sixty figures of speech--and so on ad +infinitum. _Inane cymbalon juventutis_ is indeed a fitting commentary on +such memory tasks. The end of the poem cited betrays the fact that the +poet had not been able to keep his attention upon his task. He had been +writing verses; who would not? + +Quite apart, however, from the unattractive content of the course, the +gradual change in political life must have disclosed to the observant +that the free exercise of talents in a public career could not continue +long. The triumvirate was rapidly suppressing the free republic. Even in +52, when Pompey became sole consul, the trial of Milo was conducted under +military guard, and no advocate dared speak freely. During the next two +years every one saw that Caesar and Pompey must come to blows and that +the resulting war could only lead to autocracy. + +The crisis came in January of 49 B.C. when Vergil was twenty years old. +Pompey with the consuls and most of the senators fled southward in +dismay, and in sixty days, hotly pursued by Caesar, was forced to +evacuate Italy. Caesar, eager to make short work of the war, to attack +Spain and Africa while holding the Alpine passes and pressing in pursuit +of Pompey, began to levy new recruits throughout Italy.[4] Vergil also +seems to have been drawn in this draft, since this is apparently the +circumstance mentioned in his thirteenth _Catalepton_. "Draft," however, +may not be the right word, for we do not know whether Caesar at this time +claimed the right to enforce the rules of conscription. In any case, it +is clear from all of Vergil's references to Caesar that the great general +always retained a strong hold upon his imagination. Like most youths who +had beheld Caesar's work in the province close at hand, he was probably +ready to respond to a general appeal for troops, and Labienus' words to +Pompey on the battlefield of Pharsalia make it clear that Caesar's +army was largely composed of Cisalpines. The accounting they gave of +themselves at that battle is evidence enough of the spirit which pervaded +Vergil's fellow provincials. Nor is it unlikely that Vergil himself +took part, for one of the most poignant passages in all his work is the +picture of the dead who lay strewn over the battlefield of Pharsalia. + +[Footnote 4: Cic. _Ad Att_. IX. 19, in March.] + +It is also probable that Vergil had had some share in the cruises on the +Adriatic conducted by Antony the summer and winter before Pharsalia. +Not only does this poem speak of service on the seas, but his poems +throughout reveal a remarkable acquaintance with Adriatic geography. If +he took part in the work of that stormy winter's campaigns, when more +than one fleet was wrecked, we can comprehend the intimate touches in the +description of Aeneas' encounters with the storms. + +The thirteenth _Catalepton_, which mentions the poet's military service, +is not pleasant reading. Written perhaps in 48 or 47 B.C., directed +against some hated martinet of an officer, it bears various disagreeable +traces of camp life, which was then not well-guarded by charitable +organizations of every kind as now. We need quote only the first few +lines:[5] + + You call me caitiff, say I cannot sail + The seas again, and that I seem to quail + Before the storms and summer's heat, nor dare + The speeding victor's arms again to bear. + +We know how frail Vergil's health was in later years. His constitution +may well have been wrecked during the winter of 49 which Caesar himself, +inured though he was to the storms of the North, found unusually severe. +Vergil, it would seem from these lines, was given sick-leave and +permitted to go back to his studies, though apparently taunted for not +later returning to the army. + +[Footnote 5: + Jacere me, quod alta non possim, putas + Ut ante, vectari freta, + Nec ferre durum frigus aut aestum pati + Neque arma victoris sequi. +The verses were written before 46 B.C. when the _collegia compitalicia_ +were disbanded; Birt, _Rhein. Mus_. 1910, 348.] + +There is another brief epigram which--if we are right in thinking Pompey +the subject of the lines--seems to date from Vergil's soldier days, the +third _Catalepton_: + + Aspice quem valido subnixum Gloria regno + Altius et caeli sedibus extulerat. + Terrarum hic bello magnum concusserat orbem, + Hic reges Asiae fregerat, hic populos, + Hic grave servitium tibi iam, tibi, Roma, ferebat + (Cetera namque viri cuspide conciderant), + Cum subito in medio rerum certamine praeceps + Corruit, e patria pulsus in exilium. + Tale deae numen, tali mortalia nutu + Fallax momento temporis hora dedit.[6] + +[Footnote 6: Behold one whom, upborne by mighty authority, Glory had +exalted even above the abodes of heaven. Earth's great orb had he shaken +in war, the kings and peoples of Asia had he broken, grievous slavery was +he bringing even to thee, O Rome,--for all else had fallen before that +man's sword,--when suddenly, in the midst of his struggle for mastery, +headlong he fell, driven from fatherland into exile. Such is the will of +Nemesis; at a mere nod, in a moment of time, the faithless hour tricks +mortal endeavor.] + +Whether or not Pompey aspired to become autocrat at Rome, many of his +supporters not only believed but desired that he should. Cicero, who did +not desire it, did, despite his devotion to his friend, fear that Pompey +would, if victorious, establish practically or virtually a monarchy.[7] +Vergil, therefore, if he wrote this when Pompey fled to Greece in 49, or +after the rout at Pharsalia, was only giving expression to a conviction +generally held among Caesar's officers. Quite Vergilian is the repression +of the shout of victory. The poem recalls the words of Anchises on +beholding the spirits of Julius and Pompey: + + Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo + Proice tela manu, sanguis meus. + +[Footnote 7: Cic. _Ad Att_. VIII, 11, 4; X, 4, 8.] + +This is the poet's final conviction regarding the civil war in which he +served; his first had not differed widely from this. + +Vergil's one experience as advocate in the court room should perhaps be +placed after his retirement from the army. Egit, says Donatus, et causam +apud judices, unam omnino nec amplius quam semel. The reason for his lack +of success Donatus gives in the words of Melissus, a critic who ought to +know: in sermone tardissimum ac paene indocto similem. The poet himself +seems to allude to his disappointing failure in the _Ciris_: expertum +fallacis praemia volgi. How could he but fail? He never learned to cram +his convictions into mere phrases, and his judgments into all-inclusive +syllogisms. When he has done his best with human behavior, and the +sentence is pronounced, he spoils the whole with a rebellious dis aliter +visum. A successful advocate must know what not to see and feel, and he +must have ready convictions at his tongue's end. In the _Aeneid_ there +are several fluent orators, but they are never Vergil's congenial +characters. + + + + +III + +THE "CULEX" + + +It was apparently in the year 48--Vergil was then twenty-one--that the +poet attempted his first extended composition, the _Culex_, a poem that +hardly deserved the honor of a versified translation at the hands of +Spenser. This is indeed one of the strangest poems of Latin literature, +an overwhelming burden of mythological and literary references saddled on +the feeblest of fables. + +A shepherd goes out one morning with his flocks to the woodland glades +whose charms the poet describes at length in a rather imitative rhapsody. +The shepherd then falls asleep; a serpent approaches and is about to +strike him when a gnat, seeing the danger, stings him in time to save +him. But--such is the fatalism of cynical fable-lore--the shepherd, still +in a stupor, crushes the gnat that has saved his life. At night the +gnat's ghost returns to rebuke the shepherd for his innocent ingratitude, +and rather inappropriately remains to rehearse at great length the tale +of what shades of old heroes he has seen in the lower regions. The poem +contains 414 lines. + +The _Culex_ has been one of the standing puzzles of literary criticism, +and would be interesting, if only to illustrate the inadequacy of +stylistic criteria. Though it was accepted as Vergilian by Renaissance +readers simply because the manuscripts of the poem and ancient writers, +from Lucan and Statius to Martial and Suetonius, all attribute the work +to him, recent critics have usually been skeptical or downright recusant. +Some insist that it is a forgery or supposititious work; others that it +is a liberally padded re-working of Vergil's original. Only a few have +accepted it as a very youthful failure of Vergil's, or as an attempt of +the poet to parody the then popular romances. Recent objections have not +centered about metrical technique, diction, or details of style: these +are now admitted to be Vergilian enough, or rather what might well have +been Vergilian at the outset of his career. The chief criticism is +directed against a want of proportion and an apparent lack of artistic +sense betrayed in choosing so strange a character for the ponderous +title-role. These are faults that Vergil later does not betray. + +Nevertheless, Vergil seems to have written the poem. Its ascription to +Vergil by so many authors of the early empire, as well as the concensus +of the manuscripts, must be taken very seriously. But the internal +evidence is even stronger. Octavius, to whom the poem is dedicated, is +addressed _Octavi venerande_ and _sancte puer_, a clear reference to the +remarkable honor that Caesar secured for him by election to the office of +pontiff[1] when he was approaching his fifteenth birthday and before +he assumed the _toga virilis_. Vergil was then twenty-one years of +age--nearing his twenty-second birthday--and we may perhaps assume in +Donatus' attribution of the _Culex_ to Vergil's sixteenth year a mistake +in some early manuscript which changed the original XXI to XVI, a +correction which the citations of Statius and Lucan favor.[2] Finally, +when, as we shall see presently, Horace in his second _Epode_, accords +Vergil the honor of imitating a passage of the _Culex_, Vergil returns +the compliment in his _Georgics_. We have therefore not only Vergil's +recognition of Horace's courtesy, but, in his acceptance of it, his +acknowledgment of the _Culex_ as his own.[3] + +[Footnote 1: Vellius, II. 59, 3, pontificatus sacerdotio _puerum_ +honoravit, that is, before he assumed _the toga virilis_ on October 18th. +Nicolaus Damascenus (4) confirms this. Octavius received the office made +vacant by the death of Domitius at Pharsalia (Aug. 9). His birthday was +Sept. 23, 63. This high office is the first indication that Caesar had +chosen his grandnephew to be his possible successor. The boy was hardly +known at Rome before this time. See _Classical Philology_, 1920, p. 26.] + +[Footnote 2: Anderson, in _Classical Quarterly_, 1916, p. 225; and +_Class. Phil_. 1920, p. 26. The dedicatory lines of the _Culex_ imply +that the body of the poem was already complete. Whether the interval was +one of weeks or months or years the poet does not say.] + +[Footnote 3: _Classical Philology_, 1920, pp. 23, 33.] + +The _Culex_, therefore, is the work of a beginner addressed to a young +lad just highly honored, but after all to a schoolboy whom Vergil had, +presumably two years before, met in the lecture rooms of Epidius. Does +this provide a key with which to unlock the hidden intentions of our +strange treasure-trove of miscellaneous allusions? Let the reader +remember the nature of the literary lectures of that day when +dictionaries, reference books, and encyclopedias were not yet to be found +in every library, and school texts were not yet provided with concise +Allen and Greenough notes. The teacher alone could afford the voluminous +"cribs" of Didymus. Roman schoolboys had not, like the Greeks, drunk in +all myths by the easy process of nursery babble. By them the legends of +Homer and Euripides must be acquired through painful schoolroom exegesis. +Even the names of natural objects, like trees, birds, and beasts came +into literature with their Greek names, which had to be explained to the +Roman boys. Hence the teacher of literature at Rome must waste much +time upon elucidating the text, telling the myths in full, and giving +convenient compendia of metamorphoses, of Homeric heroes, of "trees and +flowers of the poets," and the like. Epidius himself, a pedagogue of the +progressive style, had doubtless proved an adept at this sort of +thing. Claiming to be a descendant of an ancient hero who had one day +transformed himself into a river-god, he must have had a knack for these +tales. At any rate we are told that he wrote a book on metamorphosed +trees.[4] When Octavius read the _Culex_, did he recognize in the quaint +passage describing the shepherd's grove of metamorphosed trees (124-145) +phrases from the lecture notes of their voluble teacher? Are there +reminiscences lurking also in the long list of flowers so incongruously +massed about the gnat's grave and in the two hundred lines that detail +the ghostly census of Hades? If this is a parody at all, it is to remind +Octavius of Epidian erudition. In any case it is a kind of prompter of +the poetic allusions that occupied the boys' hours at school. The simple +plot of the shepherd and the gnat was selected from the type of fable +lore thought suitable for school-room reading. It served by its very +incongruity as a suitable thread for a catalogue of facts and fiction. +Vergil himself furnishes the clue for this interpretation of the _Culex_, +but it has been overlooked because of the wretched condition of the text +that we have. The first lines[5] of the poem seem to mean: + +"My verses on the _Culex_ shall be filled with erudition so that all +the lore of the past may be strung together playfully in the form of a +story." That Martial considered it a boy's book appropriate for vacation +hours between school tasks is apparent from the inscription:[6] + + Accipe facundi _Culicem_, studiose, Maronis, + Ne nucibus positis, _Arma virumque_ legas. + +[Footnote 4: Pliny, _Nat. Hist_. XVII. 243; Suetonius, _De Rhetoribus_, +4.] + +[Footnote 5: Lines 3-5: + lusimus (haec propter culicis sint carmina docta, + omnis ut historiae per ludum consonet ordo + notitiae) doctumque voces, licet invidus adsit.] + +[Footnote 6: Martial, XIV. 185.] + +The _Culex_ is then, after all, a poem of unique interest; it takes us +into the Roman schoolroom to find at their lectures the two lads whose +names come first in the honor roll of the golden age. + +The poem is of course not a masterpiece, nor was it intended to be +anything but a _tour de force_; but a comprehension of its purpose will +at least save it from being judged by standards not applicable to it. It +is not naively and unintentionally incongruous. To the modern reader it +is dull because he has at hand far better compendia; it is uninspired +no doubt: the theme did not lend itself to enthusiastic treatment; the +obscurity and awkwardness of expression and the imitative phraseology +betray a young unformed style. To analyze the art, however, would be to +take the poem more seriously than Vergil intended it to be when he wrote +currente calamo. Yet we may say that on the whole the modulation of the +verse, the treatment of the caesural pauses[7] and the phrasing compare +rather favorably with the Catullan hexameters which obviously served as +its models, that in the best lines the poet shows himself sensitive to +delicate effects, and that the pastoral scene--which Horace compliments +a few years later--is, despite its imitative notes, written with +enthusiasm, and reminds us pleasantly of the _Eclogues_. + +[Footnote 7: For stylistic and metrical studies of the _Culex_, see _The +Caesura in Vergil_, Butcher, _Classical Quarterly_, 1914, p. 123; Hardie, +_Journal of Philology_, XXXI, p. 266, and _Class Quart_. 1916, 32 ff.; +Miss Jackson, _Ibid_. 1911, 163; Warde Fowler, _Class. Rev_. 1919, 96.] + + + + +IV + +THE "CIRIS" + + +It was at about this same time, 48 B.C., that Vergil began to write the +_Ciris_, a romantic epyllion which deserves far more attention than it +has received, not only as an invaluable document for the history of the +poet's early development, but as a poem possessing in some passages at +least real artistic merit. The _Ciris_ was not yet completed at the time +when Vergil reached the momentous decision to go to Naples and study +philosophy. He apparently laid it aside and did not return to it until he +had been in Naples several years. It was not till later that he wrote the +dedication. As we shall see, the author again laid the poem away, and it +was not published till after his death. The preface written in Siro's +garden is addressed to Messalla, who was a student at Athens in 45-4 +B.C., and served in the republican army of Brutus and Cassius in 43-2. In +it Vergil begs pardon for sending a poem of so trivial a nature at a time +when his one ambition is to describe worthily the philosophic system that +he has adopted. "Nevertheless," he says, "accept meanwhile this poem: it +is all that I can offer; upon it I have spent the efforts of early youth. +Long since the vow was made, and now is fulfilled." (_Ciris_, 42-7.)[1] + +[Footnote 1: On the question of authenticity, see, Class. Phil. 1920, 103 +ff.] + +The story, beginning at line 101, was familiar. Minos, King of Crete, had +laid siege to Megara, whose king, Nisus, had been promised invincibility +by the oracles so long as his crimson lock remained untouched. Scylla, +the daughter of Nisus, however, was driven by Juno to fall in love with +Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the +temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when +she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the +dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own +heart, is an interesting attempt at intensive art: 209-219: + + cum furtim tacito descendens Scylla cubili + auribus erectis nocturna silentia temptat + et pressis tenuem singultibus aera captat. + tum suspensa levans digitis vestigia primis + egreditur ferroque manus armata bidenti + evolat: at demptae subita in formidine vires + caeruleas sua furta prius testantur ad umbras. + nam qua se ad patrium tendebat semita limen, + vestibulo in thalami paulum remoratur et alti + suspicit ad gelidi nictantia sidera mundi + non accepta piis promittens munera divis. + +Her aged nurse, Carme, comes upon the bewildered and shivering girl, +folds her in her robe, and coaxes the awful confession from her; 250-260: + + haec loquitur mollique ut se velavit amictu + frigidulam iniecta circumdat veste puellam, + quae prius in tenui steterat succincta crocota. + dulcia deinde genis rorantibus oscula figens + persequitur miserae causas exquirere tabis. + nec tamen ante ullas patitur sibi reddere voces, + marmoreum tremebunda pedem quam rettulit intra. + ilia autem "quid me" inquit, "nutricula, torques? + quid tantum properas nostros novisse furores? + non ego consueto mortalibus uror amore." + +Scylla does not readily confess. The poet's characterization of her +as she protracts the story to avoid the final confession reveals an +ambitious though somewhat unpracticed art. Carme tries in vain to +dissuade the girl, and must, to calm her, promise to aid her if all other +means fail. The aged woman's tenderness for her foster child is very +effectively phrased in a style not without reminiscences of Catullus +(340-48): + + his ubi sollicitos animi relevaverat aestus + vocibus et blanda pectus spe luserat aegrum, + paulatim tremebunda genis obducere vestem + virginis et placidam tenebris captare quietem + inverso bibulum restinguens lumen olivo + incipit ad crebros (que) insani pectoris ictus + ferre manum assiduis mulcens praecordia palmis. + noctem illam sic maesta super morientis alumnae + frigidulos cubito subnixa pependit ocellos. + +On the morrow the girl pleads with her father to make peace, with +humorous naivete argues with the counsellors of state, tries to bribe the +seers, and finally resorts to magic. When nothing avails, she secures +Carme's aid. The lock is cut, the city falls, the girl is captured by +Minos--in true Alexandrian technique the catastrophe comes with terrible +speed--and she is led, not to marriage, but to chains on the captor's +galley. Her grief is expressed in a long soliloquy somewhat too +reminiscent of Ariadne's lament in Catullus. Finally, Amphitrite in pity +transforms the captive girl into a bird, the Ciris, and Zeus as a reward +for his devout life releases Nisus, also transforming him into a bird of +prey, and henceforth there has been eternal warfare between the Ciris and +the Nisus: + + quacunque illa levem fugiens secat aethera pennis, + ecce inimicus atrox magno stridore per auras + insequitur Nisus; qua se fert Nisus ad auras, + illa levem fugiens raptim secat aethera pennis.[1] + +[Footnote 1: These four lines occur again in the _Georgios_, I. 406-9.] + +The _Ciris_ with all its flaws is one of our best examples of the +romantic verse tales made popular by the Alexandrian poets of +Callimachus' school. The old legends had of course been told in epic +or dramatic form, but changing society now cared less for the stirring +action and bloodshed that had entertained the early Greeks. The times +were ripe for a retelling from a different point of view, with a more +patient analysis of the emotions, of the inner impulses of the moment +before the blow, the battle of passions that preceded the final act. We +notice also in these new poems a preponderance of feminine characters. +These the masculine democracy of classical Athens had tended to +disregard, but in the capitals of the new Hellenistic monarchies, many +influential and brilliant women rose to positions of power in the +society of the court. A poet would have been dull not to respond to this +influence. This new note was of course one that would immediately appeal +to the Romans, for the ancient aristocracy, which had always accorded +woman a high place in society and the home, had never died out at Rome. +Indeed such early dramatists as Ennius and Accius had already felt the +need of developing the interest of feminine roles when they paraphrased +classical Greek plays for their audiences. Thus both at Alexandria and +at Rome the new poets naturally chose the more romantic myths of the old +regal period as fit for their retelling. + +But the search for a different interpretation and a deeper content +induced a new method of narration. Indeed the stories themselves were too +well known to need a full rehearsal of the plot. Action might frequently +be assumed as known and relegated to a significant line or two here +and there. The scenic setting, the individual traits of the heroes and +heroines, their mental struggles, their silent doubts and hesitations, +became the chief concern of the new poets. Horace called this the +"purple-patch" method of writing. + +The narrative devices, however, varied somewhat. Some poets discarded +all idea of form. They roamed through the woods by any path that might +appear. This is the way that Tibullus likes to treat a theme. Whatever +semi-apposite topic happens to suggest itself, provided only it contains +pleasing fancies, invites him to tarry a while; he may or may not bring +you back to the starting point. Other poets still adhere to form, though +the pattern must be elaborate enough to hide its scheme from the casual +reader, and sufficiently elastic to provide space for sentiment and +pathos. In his sixty-eighth poem Catullus employs what might be called a +geometrical pattern, in fact a pyramid of unequal steps. He mounts to the +central theme by a series of verses and descends on the other side by a +corresponding series. In the sixty-fourth poem, however, the _epyllion_ +which the author of the _Ciris_ clearly had in mind, Catullus used an +intricate but by no means balanced form. The poem opens with the sea +voyage of Peleus on which he meets the sea-nymph, Thetis. Then the poet +leaps over the interval to the marriage feast, only to dwell upon the +sorrows of Ariadne depicted on the coverlet of the marriage couch; thence +he takes us back to the causes of Ariadne's woes, thence forward to the +vengeance upon Ariadne's faithless lover; then back to the second scene +embroidered on the tapestry; and now finally to the wedding itself which +ends with the Fates' wedding song celebrating the future glories of +Peleus' promised son. + +The _Ciris_, to be sure, is not quite so intricate, but here again we +have only allusions to the essential parts of the story: how Scylla +offended Juno, how she met Minos, how she cut the lock, and how the city +was taken. We are not even told why Minos failed to keep his pledge to +the maiden. In the midst of the tale, Carme suspends the action by a long +reference to Minos' earlier passion for her own daughter, Britomartis, +which caused the girl's destruction, but the lament in which this story +is disclosed merely alludes to but does not tell the details of the +story. The whole plot of the _Ciris_ is in fact unravelled by means of +a series of allusions and suggestions, exclamations and soliloquies, +parentheses and aposiopeses, interrogations and apostrophes. + +In verse-technique[2] the _Ciris_ is as near Catullus' _Peleus_ and +_Thetis_ as it is the _Aeneid_: indeed it is as reminiscent of the former +as it is prophetic of the latter. The spondaic ending which made the line +linger, usually over some word of emotional content, (l. 158): + + At levis ille deus, cui semper ad ulciscendum + +was to Cicero the earmark of this style. The _Ciris_ has it less often +than Catullus. Being somewhat unjustly criticized as an artifice it was +usually avoided in the _Aeneid_. There are more harsh elisions in the +_Ciris_ than in the poet's later work, reminding one again of Catullan +technique. In his use of caesuras Vergil in the _Ciris_ resembles +Catullus: both to a certain extent distrust the trochaic pause. Its +yielding quality, however, brought it back into more favor in various +emotional passages of the _Aeneid_; but there it is carefully modified by +the introduction of masculine stops before and after, a nuance which is +hardly sought after in the _Ciris_ or in Catullus. Finally, the sentence +structure has not yet attained the malleability of a later day. While the +_Ciris_, like the _Peleus and Thetis_, is over-free with involved and +parenthetical sentences, it has on the whole fewer run-over lines so that +indeed the frequent coincidence of sense pauses and verse endings almost +borders on monotony. + +[Footnote 2: See especially Skutsch, _Aus Vergils Fruehzeit_, p. 74; +Drachmann, _Hermes_, 1908, p. 412 ff.; L.G. Eldridge, _Num. Culex et +Ciris_, etc. Giessen, 1914; Rand, _Harvard Studies_, XXX, p. 150. The +introduction which was written last is more reminiscent of Lucretius. On +the question of authenticity, see Drachmann, _loc. cit_. Vollmer, _Sitz. +Bayer. Akad_. 1907, 335, and _Vergil's Apprenticeship_, _Class. Phil_. +1920, p. 103.] + +These are but a few of the minor details that show Vergil in his youth a +close reader of Catullus, and doubtless of Calvus, Cinna and Cornificius, +who employed the same methods. It was from this group, not from Homer or +Ennius, that Vergil learned his verse-technique. The exquisite finish of +the _Aeneid_ was the product of this technique meticulously reworked to +the demands of an exacting poetic taste. + +The _Ciris_ gave Vergil his first lesson in serious poetic composition, +and no task could have been set of more immediate value for the training +of Rome's epic poet. In a national epic classical objectivity could not +suffice for a people that had grown so self-conscious. Epic poetry must +become more subjective at Rome or perish. To be sure the vices of the +episodic style must be pruned away, and they were, mercilessly. The +_Aeneid_ has none of the meretricious involutions of plot, none of the +puzzling half-uttered allusions to essential facts, none of the teasing +interruptions of the neoteric story book. The poet also learned to avoid +the danger of stressing trivial and impertinent pathos, and he rejected +the elegancies of style that threatened to lead to preciosity. What he +kept, however, was of permanent value. The new poetry, which had emerged +from a society that was deeply interested in science, had taught Vergil +to observe the details of nature with accuracy and an appreciation of +their beauty. It had also taught him that in an age of sophistication the +poet should not hide his personality wholly behind the veil. There is +a pleasing self-consciousness in the poet's reflections--never too +obtrusive--that reminds one of Catullus. It implies that poetry is +recognized in its great role of a criticism of life. But most of all +there is revealed in the _Ciris_ an epic poet's first timid probing into +the depths of human emotions, a striving to understand the riddles behind +the impulsive body. One sees why Dido is not, like Apollonius' Medea, +simply driven to passion by. Cupid's arrow--the naive Greek equivalent +of the medieval love-philter--why Pallas' body is not merely laid on the +funeral pyre with the traditional wailing, why Turnus does not meet his +foe with an Homeric boast. That Vergil has penetrated a richer vein of +sentiment, that he has learned to regard passion as something more than +an accident, to sacrifice mere logic of form for fragments of vital +emotion and flashes of new scenery, and finally that he enriched the +Latin vocabulary with fecund words are in no small measure the effect of +his early intensive work on the _Ciris_ under the tutelage of Catullus. + +Vergil apparently never published the _Ciris_, for he re-used its +lines, indeed whole blocks of its lines with a freedom that cannot be +paralleled. The much discussed line of the fourth _Eclogue_: + + Cara deum suboles, magnum Jovis incrementum, + +is from the _Ciris_ (I. 398), so is the familiar verse of _Eclogue_ VIII +(I. 41): + + Ut vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error, + +and _Aeneid_ II. 405: + + Ad caelum tendens ardentia lumina frustra, + +and the strange spondaic unelided line (_Aen_. III. 74): + + Nereidum matri et Neptuno Aegaeo, + +and a score of others. The only reasonable explanation[3] of this strange +fact is that the _Ciris_ had not been circulated, that its lines were +still at the poet's disposal, and that he did not suppose the original +would ever be published. The fact that the process of re-using began even +in the _Eclogues_[4] shows that he had decided to reject the poem as +early as 41 B.C. A reasonable explanation is near at hand. Messalla, to +whom the poem was dedicated, joined his lot with that of Mark Antony and +Egypt after the battle of Philippi, and for Antony Vergil had no love. +The poem lay neglected till he lost interest in a style of work that was +passing out of fashion. Finding a more congenial form in the pastoral he +sacrificed the _Ciris_. + +[Footnote 3: Drachmann, _Hermes_, 1908, p. 405.] + +[Footnote 4: Especially in 8, 10, and 4. This method of re-working old +lines reveals an extraordinary gift of memory in the poet, who so vividly +retained in mind every line he had written that each might readily fall +into the pattern of his new compositions without leaving a trace of the +joining. Critics who have tried the task have been compelled to confess +that the criterion of contextual appropriateness cannot alone determine +whether or not these lines first occurred in the _Ciris_.] + + + + +V + +A STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY AT NAPLES + + +The _Culex_ seems to have been completed in September 48 B.C., and the +main part of the _Ciris_ was written not much later. Now came a crisis in +Vergil's affairs. Perhaps his own experience in the law courts, or the +conviction that public life could contain no interest under an autocracy, +or disgust at rhetorical futility, or perhaps a copy of Lucretius brought +him to a stop. Lucretius he certainly had been reading; of that the +_Ciris_ provides unmistakable evidence. And the spell of that poet he +never escaped. His farewell to Rome and rhetoric has been quoted in part +above. The end of the poem bids--though more reluctantly--farewell to the +muses also: + + Ite hinc Camenae; vos quoque ite jam sane + dulces Camenae (nam fatebimur verum, + dulces fuistis): et tamen meas chartas + revisitote, sed pudenter et raro. + +It is to Siro that he now went, the Epicurean philosopher who, closely +associated with the voluminous Philodemus, was conducting a very popular +garden-school at Naples, outranking in fact the original school at +Athens. It is not unlikely that this is where Lucretius himself had +studied. + +It is well to bear in mind that the ensuing years of philosophical study +were spent at Naples--a Greek city then--and very largely among Greeks. +This fact provides a key to much of Vergil. Our biographies have somehow +assumed Rome as the center of Siro's activities, though the evidence in +favor of Naples is unmistakable. Not only does Vergil speak of a journey +(Catal. V. 8): + + Nos ad beatos vela mittimus portus + Magni petentes docta dicta Sironis, + +and Servius say _Neapoli studuit_, and the _Ciris_ mention _Cecropus +horrulus_, and Cicero in all his references place Siro on the bay of +Naples,[1] but a fragment of a Herculanean roll of Philodemus locates the +garden school in the suburbs of Naples. + +[Footnote 1: _De Fin_. II. 119, Cumaean villa; _Acad_. II. 106, Bauli; +_Ad. Fam_. VI. 11.2; Vestorius is a Neapolitan; of. _Class. Phil_. +1920, p. 107, and _Am. Jour. Philology_, XLI, 115. For other possible +references, see _Am. Jour. Phil_.1920, XLI, 280 ff.] + +Even after Siro's death--about 42 B.C.--Vergil seems to have remained at +Naples, probably inheriting his teacher's villa. In 38 he with Varius and +Plotius came up from Naples to Sinuessa to join Maecenas' party on their +journey to Brundisium; Vergil wrote the _Georgics_ at Naples in the +thirties (_Georg_. IV. 460), and Donatus actually remarks that the poet +was seldom seen at Rome. + +As the charred fragments of Philodemus' rolls are published one by one, +we begin to realize that the students of Vergil have failed to appreciate +the influences which must have reached the young poet in these years of +his life in a Greek city in daily communion with oriental philosophers +like Philodemus and Siro. After the death of Phaedrus these men were +doubtless the leaders of their sect; at least Asconius calls the former +_illa aetate nobilissimus_ (_In Pis_. 68). Cicero represents them as +_homines doctissimos_ as early as 60 B.C., and though in his tirade +against Piso--ten years before Vergil's adhesion to the school--he must +needs cast some slurs at Piso's teacher, he is careful to compliment both +his learning and his poetry. Indeed there seems to be not a little direct +use of Philodemus' works in Cicero's _De finibus_ and the _De natura +deorum_ written many years later. In any case, at least Catullus, Horace, +and Ovid made free to paraphrase some of his epigrams. And these verses +may well guard us against assuming that the man who could draw to his +lectures and companionship some of the brightest spirits of the day is +adequately represented by the crabbed controversial essays that his +library has produced. These essays follow a standard type and do not +necessarily reveal the actual man. Even these, however, disclose a man +not wholly confined to the _ipsa verba_ of Epicurus, for they show more +interest in rhetorical precepts than was displayed by the founder of the +school; they are more sympathetic toward the average man's religion, and +not a little concerned about the affairs of state. All this indicates a +healthy reaction that more than one philosopher underwent in coming in +contact with Roman men of the world, but it also doubtless reflects the +tendencies of the Syrian branch of the school from which he sprang; for +the Syrian group had had to cast off some of its traditional fanaticism +and acquire a few social graces and a modicum of worldly wisdom in its +long contact with the magnificent Seleucid court. + +Philodemus was himself a native of Gadara, that unfortunate Macedonian +colony just east of the Sea of Galilee, which was subjected to Jewish +rule in the early youth of our philosopher. He studied with Zeno of +Sidon, to whom Cicero also listened in 78, a masterful teacher whose +followers and pupils, Demetrius, Phaedrus, Patro, probably also Siro, +and of course Philodemus, captured a large part of the most influential +Romans for the sect.[2] + +[Footnote 2: _Italiam totam occupaverunt_. Cic. _Tusc_. IV, 7.] + +How Philodemus taught his rich Roman patrons and pupils to value not only +his creed but the whole line of masters from Epicurus we may learn from +the Herculanean villa where his own library was found, for it contained +a veritable museum of Epicurean worthies down to Zeno, perhaps not +excluding the teacher himself, if we could but identify his portrait.[3] + +[Footnote 3: See _Class. Phil_. 1920, p. 113.] + +The list of influential Romans who joined the sect during this period is +remarkable, though of course we have in our incidental references but a +small part of the whole number. Here belonged Caesar, his father-in-law +Piso, who was Philodemus' patron, Manlius Torquatus, the consulars +Hirtius, Pansa, and Dolabella, Cassius the liberator, Trebatius +the jurist, Atticus, Cicero's life-long friend, Cicero's amusing +correspondents Paetus and Callus, and many others. To some of these the +attraction lay perhaps in the philosophy of ease which excused them from +dangerous political labors for the enjoyment of their villas on the Bay +of Naples. But to most Romans the greatest attraction of the doctrine lay +in its presentation of a tangible explanation of the universe, weary as +they were of a childish faith and too practical-minded to have patience +with metaphysical theories now long questioned and incomprehensible +except through a tedious application of dubious logic. + +Vergil's companions in the _Cecropius hortulus_, destined to be his +life-long friends, were, according to Probus, Quintilius Varus, the +famous critic, Varius Rufus, the writer of epics and tragedies, and +Plotius Tucca. Of his early friendship with Varius he has left a +remembrance in _Catalepton_ I and VII, with Varus in _Eclogue_ VI. Horace +combined all these names more than once in his verses.[4] That the four +friends continued in intimate relationship with Philodemus, appears from +fragments of the rolls.[5] + +[Footnote 4: Cf. Hor. _Sat_. i. 5.55; i. 10. 44-45 and 81; _Carm_. i. +24.] + +[Footnote 5: _Rhein. Mus_., 1890, p. 172. The names of Quintilius and +Varius occur twice; the rest are too fragmentary to be certain, but +the space calls for names of the length of [Greek: Plo]tie] and [Greek: +Ou[ergilie] and the constant companionship of these four men makes the +restoration very probable.] + +Of the general question of Philodemus' influence upon Varius and Vergil, +Varus and Horace, the critics and poets who shaped the ideals of the +Augustan literature, it is not yet time to speak. It will be difficult +ever to decide how far these men drew their materials from the memories +of their lecture-rooms; whether for instance Varius' _de morte_ depended +upon his teacher's [Greek: peri thanatou], as has been suggested, or to +what extent Horace used the [Greek: peri orgaes] and the [Greek: peri +kakion] when he wrote his first two epistles, or the [Greek: peiri +kolakeias] when he instructed his young friend Lollius how to conduct +himself at court, or whether it was this teacher who first called +attention to Bion, Neoptolemus, and Menippus; nor does it matter greatly, +since the value of these works lay rather in the art of expression and +timeliness of their doctrine than in originality of view. + +In the theory of poetic art there is in many respects a marked difference +between the classical ideals of the Roman group and the rather luxurious +verses of Philodemus, but he too recognized the value of restraint and +simplicity, as some of his epigrams show. Furthermore his theories of +literary art are frequently in accord with Horace's Ars Poetica on the +very points of chaste diction and precise expression which this Augustan +group emphasized. It would not surprise his contemporaries if Horace +restated maxims of Philodemus when writing an essay to the son and +grandsons of Philodemus' patron. However, after all is said, Vergil had +questioned some of the Alexandrian ideals of art before he came under the +influence of Philodemus, and the seventh Catalepton gives a hint that +Varius thought as Vergil. It is not unlikely that Quintilius Varus, +Vergil's elder friend and fellow-Transpadane, who had grown up an +intimate friend of Catullus and Calvus, had in these matters a stronger +influence than Philodemus. + +There are, however, certain turns of sentiment in Vergil which betray a +non-Roman flavor to one who comes to Vergil directly from a reading of +Lucretius, Catullus, or Cicero's letters. This is especially true of the +Oriental proskynesis found in the very first _Eclogue_ and developed into +complete "emperor worship" in the dedication of the _Georgics_. This +language, here for the first time used by a Roman poet, is not to +be explained as simple gratitude for great favors. It is not even +satisfactorily accounted for by supposing that the young poet was +somewhat slavishly following some Hellenistic model. Catullus had +paraphrased the Alexandrian poets, but he could hardly have inserted a +passage of this import. Nor was it mere flattery, for Vergil has shown +in his frank praise of Cato, Brutus, and Pompey that he does not merely +write at command. No, these passages in Vergil show the effects of the +long years of association with Greeks and Orientals that had steeped +his mind in expressions and sentiments which now seemed natural to him, +though they must have surprised many a reader at Rome. His teachers at +Naples had grown up in Syria and had furthermore carried with them the +tradition of the Syrian branch of the school that had learned to adapt +its language to suit the whims of the deified Seleucid monarchs. As +Epicureans they also employed sacred names with little reverence. Was not +Antiochus Epiphanes himself a "god," while as a member of the sect he +belittled divinity? + +Naples, too, was a Greek city always filled with Oriental trading folk, +and these carried with them the language of subject races. It is at +Pompeii that the earliest inscriptions on Italian soil have been found +which recognize the imperial cult, and it is at Cumae that the best +instance of a cult calendar has come to light. It is a note, one of the +very few in the great poet's work, that grates upon us, but when he wrote +as he did he was probably not aware that his years of residence in the +"garden" had indeed accustomed his ear to some un-Roman sounds.[6] +Octavian was of course not unaware of the advantage that accrued to the +ruler through the Oriental theory of absolutism, and furtively accepted +all such expressions. By the time Vergil wrote the Aeneid the Roman world +had acquiesced, but then, to our surprise, Vergil ceases to accord divine +attributes to Augustus. + +[Footnote 6: Julius Caesar began as early as 45 B.C. to invite +extraordinary honors for political purposes, but Roman literature seems +not to have taken any cognizance of them at that time.] + +Again, I would suggest that it was at Naples that Vergil may most readily +have come upon the "messianic" ideas that occur in the fourth _Eclogue_, +for despite all the objections that have been raised against using that +word, conceptions are found there which were not yet naturalized in the +Occident. The child in question is thought of as a Soter whose _deeds_ +the poet hopes to sing (l. 54), and furthermore lines 7 and 50 contain +unmistakably the Oriental idea of _naturam parturire_, as Suetonius +phrases it (_Aug_. 94). Quite apart from the likelihood that the Gadarene +may have gossiped at table about the messianic hopes of the Hebrews, +which of course he knew, it is not conceivable that he never betrayed any +knowledge of, or interest in, the prophetic ideas with which his native +country teemed. Meleager, also a Gadarene, preserved memories of the +people of his birthplace in his poems, and Caecilius of Caleacte, who +seems to have been in Italy at about this time, was not beyond quoting +Moses in his rhetorical works.[7] + +[Footnote 7: It is generally assumed that his book was the source for the +quotation in _Pseudo-Longinus_.] + +Furthermore, Naples was the natural resort of all those Greek and +Oriental rhetoricians and philosophers, historians, poets, actors, and +artists who drifted Romeward from the crumbling courts of Alexandria, +Antioch, and Pergamum. There they could find congenial surroundings while +discovering wealthy patrons in the numerous villas of the idle rich near +by, and thither they withdrew at vacation time if necessity called them +to Rome for more arduous tasks. Andronicus, the Syrian Epicurean, brought +to Rome by Sulla, made his home at nearby Cumae; Archias, Cicero's +client, also from Syria, spent much time at Naples, and the poet +Agathocles lived there; Parthenius of Nicaea, to whom the early Augustans +were deeply indebted, taught Vergil at Naples. Other Orientals like +Alexander, who wrote the history of Syria and the Jews, and Timagenes, +historian of the Diadochi, do not happen to be reported from Naples, but +we may safely assume that most of them spent whatever leisure time they +could there. + +Puteoli too was still the seaport town of Rome as of all Central Italy, +and the Syrians were then the carriers of the Mediterranean trade.[8] +That is one reason why Apollo's oracles at Cumae and Hecate's necromatic +cave at Lake Avernus still prospered. When Vergil explored that region, +as the details of the sixth book show he must have done, he had occasion +to learn more than mere geographic details. + +[Footnote 8: Frank, _An Economic History of Rome_, chap. xiv.] + +That Vergil had Isaiah, chapter II, before his eyes when he wrote the +fourth _Eclogue_ is of course out of the question; there is not a single +close parallel of the kind that Vergil usually permits himself to borrow +from his sources; we cannot even be sure that he had seen any of the +Sibylline oracles, now found in the third book of the collection, +which contains so strange a syncretism of Mithraic, Greek, and Jewish +conceptions, but we can no longer doubt that he was in a general way +well informed and quite thoroughly permeated with such mystical and +apocalyptic sentiments as every Gadarene and any Greek from the Orient +might well know. It speaks well for his love of Rome that despite these +influences it was he who produced the most thoroughly nationalistic epic +ever written. + +The first fruit of Vergil's studies in evolutionary science at Naples was +the _Aetna_, if indeed the poem be his. The problem of the authorship +has been patiently studied, and the arguments for authenticity concisely +summarized by Vessereau[9] make a strong case. The evidence is briefly +this. Servius attributed the poem to Vergil in his preface and again in +his commentary on _Aeneid_, III, 578. Donatus also seems to have done so, +though some of our manuscripts of his _Vita_ contain the phrase _de qua +ambigitur_. Again, the texts of the _Aetna_ which we have agree also in +this ascription. Internal evidence proves the poem to be a work of the +period between 54 and 44, which admirably suits Vergilian claims. Its +close dependence upon Lucretius gives the first date, its mention of the +"Medea" of the artist Timomachus as being overseas, a work which was +brought to Rome between 46 and 44, gives the second. Finally, the _Aetna_ +is by a student of Epicurean philosophy largely influenced by Lucretius. +It would be difficult to make a stronger case short of a contemporaneous +attribution. Has not Vergil himself referred to the _Aetna_ in the +preface of his _Ciris_, where he thanks the Muses for their aid in an +abstruse poem (l. 93)? + + Quare quae _cantus_ meditanti mittere _caecos_[10] + Magna mihi cupido tribuistis praemia divae. + +What other poem could he have had in mind? The designation does not fit +the _Culex_, which is the only poem besides the _Aetna_ that could be in +question. It is best, therefore, to take the _Aetna_[11] into account in +studying Vergil's life, even though we reserve a place in our memories +for that stray phrase _de qua ambigitur_. + +[Footnote 9: Vessereau, _Aetna_, xx ff.; Rand, _Harvard Studies_, XXX, +106, 155 ff. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Seneca +attributed the _Aetna_ to Vergil in _ad Lucilium_ 79, 5: The words +"Vergil's complete treatment" can hardly refer to the seven meager lines +found in the third book of the _Aeneid_.] + +[Footnote 10: Lucretius is very fond of using the word _caecus_ with +reference to abstruse and obscure philosophical and scientific subjects.] + +[Footnote 11: When Vergil wrote the _Georgics_, on a subject which the +poet of the _Aetna_ derides as trivial (264-74) he seems to apologize for +abandoning science, in favor of a meaner theme, _Georgics_ II, 483 ff. Is +not this a reference to the _Aetna_?] + +The poet after an invocation to Apollo justifies himself for rejecting +the favorite themes of myth and fiction: the mysteries of nature are more +worthy of occupying the efforts of the mind. He has chosen one out of +very many that needs explanation. The true cause of volcanic eruption, he +says, is that air is driven into the pores of the earth, and when this +comes into contact with lava and flint which contain atoms of fire, +it creates the explosions that cause such destruction. After a second +invitation to the reader to appreciate the worth of such a theme he +tells the story of two brothers of Catania who, when other refugees from +Aetna's explosion rescued their worldly goods, risked their lives to save +their parents. + +The poem is not a happy experiment. There is no lack of enthusiasm for +the subject, despite the fact that the science of that day was wholly +inadequate to the theme. But Vergil could hardly realize this, since both +Stoics and Epicureans had adopted the theory of the exploding winds. +The real trouble with the theme is its hopelessly prosaic ugliness. +Lucretius, by his imaginative power, had apparently deceived him into +thinking that any fragment of science might be treated poetically. In +his master the "flaring atom streams" had attained the sublimity of a +Platonic vision, and the very majestic sadness of his materialism carried +the young poet off his feet. But the mechanism of Aetna remained merely a +puzzle with little to inspire awe, and the theme contained inherently no +deep meaning for humanity--which, after all, the scientific problem must +possess to lend itself to poetic treatment. The poet indeed realized all +this before he had finished. He sought, with inadequate resources, to +stir an emotion of awe in describing the eruption, to argue the reader +into his own enthusiasm for a scientific subject, to prove the humanistic +worth of his problem by asserting its anti-religious value, and finally, +in a Turneresque obtrusion of human beings, to tell the story of the +Catanian brothers. But though the attempt does honor to his aesthetic +judgment the theme was incorrigible. Perhaps the recent eruptions of +Aetna--they are reported for the years 50 and 46 B.C.--had given the +theme a greater interest than it deserved. We may imagine how refugees +from Catania had flocked to Naples and told the tale of their suffering. + +There is another element in the poem that is as significant as it is +prosaic, a spirit of carping at poetic custom which reminds the reader of +Philodemus' lectures. Philodemus, whether speaking of philosophy or music +or poetry, always begins in the negative. He is not happy until he has +soundly trounced his predecessors and opponents. The author of the +_Aetna_ has learned all too well this scholastic method, and his acerbity +usually turns the reader away before he has reached the central +theme. There is of course just a little of this tone left in the +_Georgics_--Lucretius also has a touch of it--but the _Aeneid_ has freed +itself completely. + +The compensation to the reader lies not so much in episodical myths, +descriptions, and the story at the end, apologetically inserted on +Lucretius' theory of sweetened medicine, as rather in the poet's +contagious enthusiasm for his science, the thrill of discovery and the +sense of wonder (1. 251): + + Divina est animi ac jucunda voluptas! + +Men have wasted hours enough on trivialities (258): + + Torquemur miseri in parvis, terimurque labore. + +A worthier occupation is science (274): + + Implendus sibi quisque bonis est artibus: illae + Sunt animi fruges, haec rerum est optima merces. + +And science must be worthy of man's divine majesty (224): + + Non oculis solum pecudum miranda tueri + More nec effusis in humum grave pascere corpus; + Nosse fidem rerum dubiasque exquirere causas, + Ingenium sacrare caputque attollere caelo, + Scire quot et quae sint magno fatalia mundo + Principia. + +This may be prose, but it has not a little of the magnificence of the +Lucretian logic. The man who wrote this was at least a spiritual kinsman +of Vergil. + + + + +VI + +EPIGRAM AND EPIC + + +The years of Vergil's sojourn in Naples were perhaps the most eventful +in Rome's long history, and we may be sure that nothing but a frail +constitution could have saved a man of his age for study through those +years. After the battle of Pharsalia in 48, Caesar, aside from the +lotus-months in Egypt, pacified the Eastern provinces, then in 46 subdued +the senatorial remnants in Africa, driving Cato to his death, and +in September of that year celebrated his fourfold triumph with a +magnificence hitherto undreamed. All Italy went to see the spectacle, and +doubtless Vergil too; for here it was, if we mistake not, that he first +resolved to write an epic of Rome. The year 45 saw the defeat of the +Pompeian remnants in Spain, and the first preparations for the great +Parthian expedition which, as all knew, was to inaugurate the new +Monarchy. Then came the sudden blow that struck Caesar down, the civil +war that elevated Antony and Octavian and brought Cicero to his death, +and finally the victory at Philippi which ended all hope of a republic. +Through all this turmoil the philosophic group of the "Garden" continued +its pursuit of science, commenting, as we shall see, upon passing events. + +The _Aetna_--which seems to date from about 47-6--reveals the young +philosopher, if it is Vergil, in a serious mood of single-minded devotion +to his new pursuit. But as may be inferred from the fifth _Catalepton_ he +was not sure of not backsliding. To the influence of Catullus, plainly +visible all through these brief poems, there was added the example +of Philodemus who wrote epigrams from time to time. Several of the +_Catalepton_ may belong to this period. The very first,[1] addressed to +Vergil's lifelong friend Plotius Tucca, is an amusing trifle in the very +vein of Philodemus. The fourth, like the first in elegiacs, is a gracious +tribute to a departing friend, Musa, perhaps his fellow-townsman Octavius +Musa.[2] It closes with a generous expression of unquestioning friendship +that asks for no return: + + Quare illud satis est si te permittis amari + Nam contra ut sit amor mutuus, unde mihi? + +[Footnote 1: +Dequa saepe tibi, venit? sed, Tucca, videre + Non licet. Occulitur limine clausa viri. +Dequa saepe tibi, non venit adhuc mihi; namque + Si occulitur, longe est tangere quod nequeas. +Venerit, audivi. Sed iam jnihi nuntius iste + Quid prodest? illi dicito cui rediit.] + +[Footnote 2: See Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 82; Servius on _Ecl_. IX. 7; Berne +Scholia on _Ecl_. VIII. 6.] + +That is the trait surely that accounts for Horace's outburst of +admiration. + + Animae quales neque candidiores + Terra tulit. + +The seventh is an epigram mildly twitting Varius for his insistence upon +pure diction. The crusade for purity of speech had been given a new +impetus a decade before by the Atticists, and we may here infer that +Varius, the quondam friend of Catullus, was considered the guardian of +that tradition. Vergil, despite his devotion to neat technique, may have +had his misgivings about rules that in the end endanger the freedom of +the poet. His early work ranged very widely in its experiments in style, +and Horace's _Ars Poetica_ written many years later shows that Vergil had +to the very end been criticized by the extremists for taking liberties +with the language. The epigram begins as though it were an erotic poem in +the style of Philodemus. Then, having used the Greek word _pothos_, he +checks himself as though dreading a frown from Varius, and substitutes +the Latin word _puer_, + + Scilicet hoc fraude, Vari dulcissime, dicam: + "Dispeream, nisi me perdidit iste pothos." + Sin autem praecepta vetant me dicere, sane + Non dicam, sed: "me perdidit iste puer." + +For the comprehension of the personal allusions in the sixth and twelfth +epigrams, we have as yet discovered no clue, and as they are trifles of +no poetic value we may disregard them. + +The fourteenth is, however, of very great interest. It purports to be a +vow spoken before Venus' shrine at Sorrento pledging gifts of devotion in +return for aid in composing the story of Trojan Aeneas. + + Si mihi susceptum fuerit decurrere munus, + O Paphon, o sedes quae colis Idalias, + Troius Aeneas Romana per oppida digno + Iam tandem ut tecum carmine vectus eat: + Non ego ture modo aut picta tua templa tabella + Ornabo et puris serta feram manibus-- + Corniger hos aries humilis et maxima taurus + Victima sacrato sparget honore focos + Marmoreusque tibi aut mille coloribus ales + In morem picta stabit Amor pharetra. + Adsis o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo + Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat. + +The poem has hitherto been assigned to a period twenty years later. But +surely this youthful ferment of hope and anxiety does not represent the +composure of a man who has already published the _Georgics_. The eager +offering of flowers and a many-hued statue of Cupid reminds one rather of +the youth who in the _Ciris_ begged for inspiration with hands full of +lilies and hyacinths. + +However, we are not entirely left to conjecture. There is indubitable +evidence that Vergil began an epic at this time, some fifteen years +before he published the _Georgics_. It seems clear also that the epic was +an _Aeneid_, with Julius Caesar in the background, and that parts of the +early epic were finally merged into the great work of his maturity. The +question is of such importance to the study of Vergil's developing art +that we may be justified in going fully into the evidence[3]. As it +happens we are fortunate in having several references to this early +effort. The ninth _Catalepton_, written in 42, mentions the poet's +ambition to write a national poem worthy of a place among the great +classics of Greece (l.62): + + Si patrio Graios carmine adire sales. + +The sixth _Eclogue_ begins with an allusion to it: + + Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere versu + Nostra, nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia. + Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem + Vellit et admonuit, pastorem Tityre pinguis + Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen. + +[Footnote 3: Cf. _Classical Quarterly_, 1920, 156.] + +This may be paraphrased: "My first song--the _Culex_--was a pastoral +strain. When later I essayed to sing of kings and battles, Phoebus +warned me to return to my shepherd song." On this passage Servius +has the comment: significat aut Aeneidem aut gesta regum Albanorum. +Donatus finally in his _Vita_ says explicitly: mox cum res Romanas +inchoasset, offensus materia, ad Bucolica transit. The poem, therefore, +was on the stocks before the _Bucolics_. We may surmise that the death +of Caesar, whose deeds seem to have brought the idea of such a poem to +Vergil's mind, caused him to lay the work aside. + +Returning to the fourteenth _Catalepton_, we find what seems to be a +definite key to the date and circumstances of its writing. The closing +lines are: + + Adsis, o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo + Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat. + + +It was on September 26 in 46 B.C., that Julius Caesar so strikingly +called attention to his claims of descent from Venus and Aeneas by +dedicating a temple to Venus Genetrix, the mother of the Julian gens. It +was on that day that Caesar "called Venus from heaven" to dwell in her +new temple.[4] + +[Footnote 4: Cassius Dio, 43, 22; Appian, II. 102. There is independent +proof that _Catalepton_ XIV is earlier than the _Georgics_. In _Georgics_ +II, 146, Vergil repeats the phrase _maxima taurus victima_, but the +phrase must have had its origin in the _Catalepton_, since here _maxima_ +balances _humilis_. In the _Georgics_ the phrase is merely a verbal +reminiscence, for there is nothing in the context there to explain +_maxima_. On the order of composition of the Aeneid, see M.M. Crump, _The +Growth of the Aeneid_] + +Was not this the act that prompted the happy idea of writing the epic of +Aeneas? Vergil was then living at Naples, and we can picture the poet +fevered with the new impulse, sailing away from his lectures across the +fair bay for a day's brooding. Could one find a more fitting place than +Venus's shrine at Sorrento for the invocation of the _Aeneid_? + +How far this first attempt proceeded we shall probably not know. Vergil's +own words would imply that his early effort centered about Aeneas' wars +in Italy; the sixth _Eclogue_, + + Cum canerem reges et proelia, + +is rather explicit on this point. Furthermore, the erroneous reference of +Calaeno's omen to Anchises in the seventh book (l. 122) would indicate +that this part at least was written before the harpy-scene of the third, +for the latter is so extensive that the poet could hardly have forgotten +it if it had already been written. + +It is, however, in reading the first and fifth books that I think we +may profit most by keeping in mind the fact that the poet had begun the +_Aeneid_ before Caesar's death. In Book I, 286 ff., occurs a passage +which Servius referred to Julius Caesar. It reads: + + Nascetur pulchra Troianus origine Caesar, + Imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris, + Iulius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo. + Hunc tu olim caelo, spoliis Orientis onustum, + Accipies secura; uocabitur his quoque uotis.[5] + +[Footnote 5: The following lines (291-6) refer to the succeeding reign +of Augustus as the poet is careful to indicate in the words _tum +positis-bellis_.] + +Very few modern editors have dared accept Servius' judgment here, and +yet if we may think of these lines as adapted from (say) an original +dedication to Julius Caesar written about 45 B.C., the difficulties of +the commentators will vanish. The facts that Vergil seems to have in mind +are these: in September 46 B.C., Julius Caesar, after returning from +Thapsus, celebrated his four great triumphs over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and +Africa, displaying loads of booty such as had never before been seen at +Rome. He then gave an extended series of athletic games, of the kind +described in Vergil's fifth book, including a restoration of the ancient +_ludus Troiae_. When these were over he dedicated the temple of Venus +Genetrix, thereby publicly announcing his descent from Venus, and +presently proclaimed his own superhuman rank more explicitly by placing a +statue of himself among the gods on the Capitoline (Dio, XLIII, 14-22). +Are not the phrases, _imperium Oceano_ and _spoliis Orientis onustum_ +a direct reference to this triumph which, of course, Vergil saw? And did +not these dedications inspire the prophecy _uocabitur hic quoque uotis?_ +Be that as it may, it is difficult to refuse credence to Servius in this +case, for Vergil here (I, 267-274 and 283) accepts Julius Caesar's claim +of descent from Iulus, whereas in the sixth book, in speaking of the +descent of the royal Roman line, he derives it, as was regularly done in +Augustus' day, from Silvius the son of Aeneas and Lavinia (VI, 763 ff.). +We must notice also that in the _Aeneid_ as in the _Georgics_ Augustus is +regularly called 'Augustus Caesar' or 'Caesar,' whereas in the only other +references to Julius in the _Aeneid_ the poet explicitly points to him by +saying 'Caesar et omnis _Iuli_ progenies' (VI, 789). + +Servius, therefore, seems to be correct in regarding Julius as the +subject of the passage in the first book, and it follows that the passage +contains memories of the year 46 B.C., whether or not the lines were, as +I suggest, first written soon after Caesar's triumph. + +The fifth book also, despite the fact that its beginning and end show a +late hand, contains much that can be best brought into connection with +Vergil's earlier years. It is, for instance, easier to comprehend the +poet's references to Memmius, Catiline, and Cluentius in the forties than +twenty years later. + +Vergil's strange comparison of Messalla to the _superbus Eryx_ in +_Catalepton_ IX, written in 42 B.C.,[6] is also readily explained if we +may assume that he has recently studied the Eryx myth in preparation for +the contest of Book V (11. 392-420). The poet's enthusiasm for the _ludus +Troiae is well understood as a description of what he saw at Caesar's +re-introduction of the spectacle in 46. At Caesar's games Octavian, then +sixteen years of age, must have led one of the troops:[7] in the fifth +book Atys the ancestor of Octavian's maternal line led one column by the +side of Iulus: + + Alter Atys, genus unde Atii duxere Latini (1. 568). + +[Footnote 6: See Chapter VIII.] + +[Footnote 7: The brief account of Nicolaus of Damascus (9) mentions that +Octavius had charge of the Greek plays at the triumphal games.] + +Then, too, marks of youth pervade the substance of the book. The +questionable witticisms might perhaps be attributed to an attempt to +relieve the strain, but there is an unusual amount of Homeric imitation, +and inartistic allusion to contemporaries which, as in the youthful +_Bucolics_, destroys the dramatic illusion. Thus, Vergil not only dwells +upon the ancestry of the Memmii, Sergii, and Cluentii, but insists upon +reminding the reader of Catiline's conspiracy in the _Sergestus, furens +animi_, who dashes upon the rock in his mad eagerness to win, and +obtrudes etymology in the phrase _segnem Menoeten_ (1. 173). One is +tempted to suspect that the whole narrative of the boat-race is filled +with pragmatic allusions. If the characters of his epic must be connected +with well-known Roman families, it is at least interesting that the +connections are indicated in the fifth book and not in the passages where +the names first meet the reader. Does it not appear that the body of the +book was composed long before the rest, and then left at the poet's death +not quite furbished to the fastidious taste of a later day? + +Finally, I would suggest that the strange and still unexplained[8] omen +of Acestes' burning arrow in 11. 520 ff. probably refers to some event of +importance to Segesta in the same year, 46 B.C. We are told by the author +of the _Bellum Africanum_ that Caesar mustered his troops for the African +campaign at Lilybaeum in the winter of 47. We are not told that while +there he ascended the mountain, offered sacrifices to Venus Erycina, and +ordered his statue to be placed in her temple, or that he gave favors to +the people of Segesta who had the care of that temple. But he probably +did something of that kind, for as he had already vowed his temple to +Venus Genetrix he could hardly have remained eight days at Lilybaeum so +near the shrine of Aeneas' Venus without some act of filial devotion. If +Vergil wrote any part of the fifth book in or soon after 46 this would +seem to be the solution of the obscure passage in question. + +[Footnote 8: See however DeWitt, _The Arrow of Acestes, Am. Jour. Phil_. +1920, 369.] + +It is of importance then in the study of the _Aeneid_ to keep in mind +the fact that the plot was probably shaped and many episodes blocked out +while Vergil was young and Julius Caesar still the dominant figure in +Rome. Many scenes besides those in the fifth book may find a new meaning +in this suggestion. Does it not explain why so many traits in Dido's +character irresistibly suggest Cleopatra,[9] why half the lines of the +fourth book are reminiscent of Caesar's dallying in Egypt in 47? Do +not the protracted battle scenes of the last book--otherwise so +un-Vergilian--remind one of Caesar's never-ending campaigns against foes +springing up in all quarters, and of the fact that Vergil had himself +recently had a share in the struggle? The young Octavius, also, whose +boyhood is so sympathetically sketched by Nicolaus (5-9)--a leader among +his companions always, but ever devoted and generous--seems to peer +through the portrait of Ascanius.[10] Vergil's memories of the boy at +school, the recipient of the _Culex_, the leader of the Trojan troop at +Caesar's games, the lad of sixteen sitting for a day in the forum as +_praefectus urbi_, seem very recent in the pages of the epic. + +[Footnote 9: Nettleship, _Ancient Lives of Virgil_, 104; Warde Fowler, +_Religious Experience of the Roman People_, p. 415.] + +[Footnote 10: See Warde Fowler, _The Death of Turnus_, pp. 87-92, on the +character of Ascanius.] + +It would be futile to attempt to pick out definite lines and claim that +these were parts of the youthful poem. Indeed the artistry of most of the +verses discussed is, as any reader will notice, more on the plane of the +later work than of the _Ciris_, written about 47-3 B.C. It is safe to say +that Vergil did not in his youth write the sonorous lines of _Aen_. I, +285-290, just as they now stand. But as we may learn from the _Ciris_, +which Vergil attempted to suppress, no poet has more successfully +retouched lines written in youth and fitted them into mature work without +leaving a trace of the process. + +Critics have always expressed their admiration for the comprehensive +scope of the _Aeneid_, its depth of learning, its finished artistry, and +its wide range of observation. The substantial character of the poem is +not a mystery to us when we consider how long its theme lay in the poet's +mind. + + + + +VII + +EPICUREAN POLITICS + + +Caesar fell on the Ides of March, 44. The peaceful philosophic community +at Herculaneum "seeking wisdom in daily intercourse" must have felt +the shock as of an earthquake, despite Epicurean scorn for political +ambition. Caesar had been friendly to the school; his father-in-law, +Piso, had been Philodemus' life-long friend and patron, and, if we may +believe Cicero, even at times a boon companion. Several of Caesar's +nearest friends were Epicureans of the Neapolitan bay. Their future +depended wholly upon Caesar. Dolabella was Antony's colleague in that +year's consulship, while Hirtius and Pansa had been chosen consuls for +the following year by Caesar. To add to the shock, the liberators had +been led by a recent convert to the school, Cassius. + +The community as a whole was Caesarian, a fact explained not wholly by +Piso's relations to Philodemus and the friendly attitude of so many +followers of Caesar, but also by the consideration that the leading +spirits were Transpadanes: Vergil, Varius and Quintilius, at least. But +at Rome the political struggle soon turned itself into a contest to +decide not whether Caesar's regime should be honored and continued in the +family--Octavius seemed at first too young to be a decisive factor--but +whether Antony would be able to make himself Caesar's successor. When in +July Brutus and Cassius were out-manoeuvered by Antony, and Cicero fled +helplessly from Rome, it was Piso who stepped into the breach, not to +support Brutus and Cassius, but to check the usurpation of Antony. This +gave Cicero a program. In September he entered the lists against Antony; +in December he accepted the support of Octavian who had with astonishing +daring for a youth of eighteen collected a strong army of Caesar's +veterans and placed himself at the service of Cicero and the Senate in +their warfare against Antony. Spring found the new consuls, Hirtius +and Pansa, both Caesarians, with the aid of Octavian, Caesar's heir, +besieging Antony at the bidding of the Senate in the defence of +Decimus Brutus, one of Caesar's murderers! Such was Cicero's skill in +generalship. Of course Caesarians were not wholly pleased with this +turn of events. Cicero's success would mean not only the elimination of +Antony--to which they did not object--but also the recall of Brutus and +Cassius, and the consequent elimination of themselves from political +influence. Piso accordingly began to waver. While assuring the Senate +of his continued support in their efforts to render Antony harmless, +he refused to follow Cicero's leadership in attempting the complete +restoration of Brutus' party. Cicero's _Philippics_ dwell with no little +concern upon this phase of the question. + +We would expect the Garden group, friendly to the memory of Caesar, to +adopt the same point of view as Piso and for the same reasons. They could +hardly have sympathized with the murderers of Caesar. On the other hand, +they had no reason for supporting the usurpations of Antony, and seem to +have enjoyed Cicero's _Philippics_ in so far as these attacked Antony. +Extreme measures were, however, not agreeable to Epicureans, who in +general had nothing but condemnation for civil war. However, Octavian's +strong stand could only have pleased them: Caesar's grand-nephew and heir +would naturally be to them a sympathetic figure. + +A fragment of Philodemus, recently deciphered,[1] reveals the teacher +adopting in his lectures the very point of view which we have already +found in Piso. The fragment is brief and mutilated, but so much is clear: +Philodemus criticizes the party of Cicero for carrying the attack upon +Antony to such extremes that through fear of the liberators a reaction +in favor of Antony might set in. We find this position reflected even in +Vergil. He never speaks harshly of the liberators, to be sure; in +fact his indirect reference to Brutus in the _Aeneid_ is remarkably +sympathetic for an Augustan poet, but we have two epigrams of his +attacking partizans of Antony in terms that remind us of passages in +Cicero's _Philippics_. It would almost appear that Vergil now drew his +themes for lampoons from Cicero's unforgettable phrases,[2] as Catullus +had done some fifteen years before. How thoroughly Vergil disliked Antony +may be seen in the familiar line in the _Aeneid_ which Servius recognized +as an allusion to that usurper (_Aen_. VI. 622): + + Fixit leges pretio atque refixit. + +[Footnote 1: _Hermes_, 1918, p. 382.] + +[Footnote 2: Three other epigrams, VI, XII, XIII, have been assumed by +some critics to be direct attacks upon Antony, but the key to them has +been lost and certainty is no longer attainable.] + +If Servius is correct, we have here again a reminder of those stormy +years. This, too, is a dagger drawn from Cicero's armory. Again and again +the orator in the _Philippics_ charges Antony with having used Caesar's +seal ring for lucrative forgeries in state documents. It is interesting +to find that Vergil's school friend, Varius, in his poem on Caesar's +death, called _De Morte_[3] first put Cicero's charges into effective +verse: + + Vendidit hic Latium populis agrosque Quiritum + Eripuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit. + +[Footnote 3: Some recent critics have suggested that the poem may have +been a general discussion of the fear of death, but Varius is constantly +referred to as an epic poet (Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 43; _Carm_. I. 6 +and Porphyrio _ad loc_). His poem was written before Vergil's eighth +_Eclogue_ which we place in 41 B.C. (Macrobius, _Sat_. VI. 2. 20) and +probably before the ninth (see I.36).] + +The reference here, too, must have been to Antony. The circle was clearly +in harmony in their political views. + +The two creatures of Antony attacked by Cicero and Vergil alike are +Ventidius and Annius Cimber. The epigram on the former takes the form +of a parody of Catullus' "Phasellus ille," a poem which Vergil had good +reason to remember, since Catullus' yacht had been towed up the Mincio +past Vergil's home when he was a lad of about thirteen. Indeed we hope +he was out fishing that day and shared his catch with the home-returning +travelers. Parodies are usually not works of artistic importance, and +this for all its epigrammatic neatness is no exception to the rule. But +it is not without interest to catch the poet at play for a moment, and +learn his opinion on a political character of some importance. + +Ventidius had had a checkered career. After captivity, possibly slavery +and manumission, Caesar had found him keeping a line of post horses and +pack mules for hire on the great Aemilian way, and had drafted him into +his transport service during the Gallic War. He suddenly became an +important man, and of course Caesar let him, as he let other chiefs of +departments, profit by war contracts. It was the only way he could +hold men of great ability on very small official salaries. Vergil had +doubtless heard of the meteoric rise of this _mulio_ even when he was +at school, for the post-road for Caesar's great trains of supplies led +through Cremona. After the war Caesar rewarded Ventidius further by +letting him stand for magistracies and become a senator--which of course +shocked the nobility. Muleteers in the Senate! The man changed his +cognomen to be sure, called himself Sabinus on the election posters, but +Vergil remembered what name he bore at Cremona. Caesar finally designated +him for the judge's bench, as praetor, and this high office he entered in +43. He at once attached himself to Antony, who used him as an agent to +buy the service of Caesarian veterans for his army. It was this that +stirred Cicero's ire, and Cicero did not hesitate to expose the man's +career. Vergil's lampoon is interesting then not only in its connections +with Catullus and the poet's own boyhood memories, but for its +reminiscences of Cicero's speeches and the revelation of his own +sympathies in the partizan struggle. The poem of Catullus and Vergil's +parody must be read side by side to reveal the purport of Vergil's +epigram. + + Phaselus ille, quem videtis, hospites, + Ait fuisse navium celerrimus, + Neque ullius natantis impetum trabis + Nequisse praeterire, sive palmulis + Opus foret volare sive linteo. + Et hoc negat minacis Adriatici + Negare litus insulasve Cycladas + Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam + Propontida trucemve Ponticum sinum, + Ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit + Comata silva: nam Cytorio in iugo + Loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma. + Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer, + Tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima + Ait phaselus: ultima ex origine + Tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine, + Tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore, + Et inde tot per inpotentia freta + Erum tulisse, laeva sive dextera + Vocaret aura, sive utrumque Iuppiter + Simul secundus incidisset in pedem; + Neque ulla vota litoralibus deis + Sibi esse facta, cum veniret a mari + Novissimo hunc ad usque limpidum lacum. + Sed haec prius fuere; nunc recondita + Senet quiete seque dedicat tibi, + Gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. + +Vergil's parody,[4] which substitutes the mule-team plodding through the +Gallic mire for Catullus' graceful yacht speeding home from Asia, follows +the original phraseology with amusing fidelity: + + Sabinus ille, quem videtis, hospites + Ait fuisse mulio celerrimus, + Neque ullius volantis impetum cisi + Nequisse praeterire, sive Mantuam + Opus foret volare sive Brixiam. + Et hoc negat Tryphonis aemuli domum + Negare nobilem insulamve Caeruli, + Ubi iste post Sabinus, ante Quinctio + Bidente dicit attodisse forcipe + Comata colla, ne Cytorio iugo + Premente dura volnus ederet iuba. + Cremona frigida et lutosa Gallia, + Tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima + Ait Sabinus: ultima ex origine + Tua stetisse (dicit) in voragine, + Tua in palude deposisse sarcinas + Et inde tot per orbitosa milia + Iugum tulisse, laeva sive dextera + Strigare mula sive utrumque coeperat + + * * * * * + + Neque ulla vota semitalibus deis + Sibi esse facta praeter hoc novissimum, + Paterna lora proximumque pectinem. + Sed haec prius fuere: mine eburnea + Sedetque sede seque dedicat tibi, + Gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. + + +[Footnote 4: See _Classical Philology_, 1920, p. 114.] + +The other epigram referred to (_Catalefton II_) also attacks a creature +of Antony's, Annius Cimber, a despised rhetorician who had been helped +to high political office by Antony. Again Cicero's _Philippics_ (XI. 14) +serve as our best guide for the background. + + Corinthiorum amator iste verborum, + Iste iste rhetor, namque quatenus totus + Thucydides, Britannus, Attice febris! + Tau Gallicum min et sphin ut male illisit, + Ita omnia ista verba miscuit fratri. + +It might be paraphrased: "a maniac for archaic words, a rhetor indeed, he +is as much and as little a Thucydides as he is a British prince, the +bane of Attic style! It was a dose of archaic words and Celtic brogue, I +fancy, that he concocted for his brother." + +There seem to be three points of attack. Cimber, to judge from Cicero's +invective, was suspected of having risen from servile parentage, and of +trying, as freedmen then frequently did, to pass as a descendant of +some unfortunate barbarian prince. Since his brogue was Celtic (_tau +Gallicum_) he could readily make a plausible story of being British. +Vergil seems to imply that the brogue as well as the name Cimber had been +assumed to hide his Asiatic parentage. The second point seems to be that +Cimber, though a teacher of rhetoric, was so ignorant of Greek, that +while proclaiming himself an Atticist, he used non-Attic forms and +vaunted Thucydides instead of Lysias as the model of the simple style. +Finally, it was rumored, and Cicero affects to believe the tale, that +Cimber was not without guilt in the death of his brother. Vergil is, of +course, not greatly concerned in deriding Atticism itself: to this school +Vergil must have felt less aversion than to Antony's flowery style; it is +the perversion of the doctrine that amuses the poet. + +Taken in conjunction with other hints, these two poems show us where the +poet's sympathies lay during those years of terror. There may well have +been a number of similar epigrams directed at Antony himself, but if +so they would of course have been destroyed during the reign of the +triumvirate. Antony's vindictiveness knew no bounds, as Rome learned when +Cicero was murdered. + + + + +VIII + +LAST DAYS AT THE GARDEN + + +Vergil's dedication of the _Ciris_ to Valerius Messalla was, as the poem +itself reveals, written several years after the main body of the poem. +The most probable date is 43 B.C., when the young nobleman, then only +about twenty-one, went with Cicero's blessing[1] to join Brutus and +Cassius in their fight for the Republic. Messalla had then, besides +making himself an adept at philosophy--at Naples perhaps, since Vergil +knew him--and stealing away student hours at Athens for Greek verse +writing, gained no little renown by taking a lawsuit against the most +learned lawyer of the day, Servius Sulpicius. Cicero's letter of +commendation, which we still have, is unusually laudatory. + +[Footnote 1: Cicero, _Ad Brutum_, I, 15.] + +The dedication of the _Ciris_ reveals Vergil still eager to win his place +as a rival of Lucretius. We may paraphrase it thus: + +"Having tried in vain for the favor of the populace, I am now in the +'Garden' seeking a theme worthy of philosophy, though I have spent many +years to other purpose. Now I have dared to ascend the mountain of wisdom +where but few have ventured. Yet I must complete these verses that I +have begun so that the Muses may cease to entice me further. Oh, if only +wisdom, the mistress of the four sages of old, would lead me to her tower +whence I might from afar view the errors of men; I should not then honor +one so great with a theme so trifling, but I should weave a marvelous +fabric like Athena's pictured robe ... a great poem on Nature, and into +its texture I should weave your name. But for that my powers are still +too frail. I can only offer these verses on which I have spent many hours +of my early school-days, a vow long promised and now fulfilled." + +It is apparent that the student still throbs with a desire to become +a poet of philosophy, and that he is willing to appease the muses of +lighter song only because they insist on returning. But there is another +poem addressed to Messalla that is equally full of personal interest. + +Messalla, as we know from Plutarch's _Brutus,_ drawn partly from the +young man's diary, joined Cassius in Asia, and did noteworthy service in +helping his general win the Eastern provinces from the Euxine to Syria +for the Republican cause. Later at Philippi he led the cavalry charge +which broke through the triumvirate line and captured Octavius' camp. +That was the famous first battle of Philippi, prematurely reported in +Italy as a decisive victory for the Republican cause. Three weeks later +the forces clashed again and the triumvirs won a complete victory. +Messalla, who had been chosen commander by the defeated remnant, +recognized the hopelessness of his position and surrendered to the +victors. + +Vergil's ninth _Catalepton_ seems to have been written as a paean in +honor of Messalla on receipt of the first incomplete report. The poem +does not by any means imply that Vergil favored Brutus and Cassius or +felt any ill-will towards Octavian. Vergil's regard for Messalla +was clearly a personal matter, and of such a nature that political +differences played no part in it. The poet's complete silence in the +poem about Brutus and Cassius indicates that it is not to any extent the +_cause_ which interests him. Nor can a eulogy of a young republican at +this time be considered as implying any ill-will toward Octavian, to whom +Vergil was always devoted. At this early day Antony was still looked upon +as the dominating person in the triumvirate, and for him Vergil had no +love whatever. He may, therefore, though a Caesarian and friendly to +Octavian, sing the praises of a personal friend who is fighting Antony's +triumvirate. + +The ninth _Catalepton,_ like most eulogistic verse thrown off at high +speed, has few good lines (indeed it was probably never finished), but it +is exceedingly interesting as a document in Vergil's life. + +Since it has generally been placed about fifteen years too late and +therefore misunderstood, we must dwell at length on some of its +significant details. The poem can be briefly summarized: + +"A conqueror you come, the great glory of a mighty triumph, a victor on +land and sea over barbarian tribes; and yet a poet too. Some of your +verses have found a place in my pages, pastoral songs in which two +shepherds lying under the spreading oak sing in honor of your heroine to +whom the divinities bring gifts. The heroine of your song shall be more +famous than the themes of Greek song, yes even than the Roman Lucrece for +whose honor your sires drove the tyrants out of Rome." + +"Great are the honors that Rome has bestowed upon the liberty-loving +(Publicolas) Messallas for that and other deeds. So I need not sing of +your recent exploits: how you left your home, your son, and the forum, to +endure winter's chill and summer's heat in warfare on land and sea. And +now you are off to Africa and Spain and beyond the seas." + +"Such deeds are too great for my song. I shall be satisfied if I can but +praise your verses." + +The most significant passage is the implied comparison of Valerius +Messalla with the founder of the Valerian family who had aided the first +Brutus in establishing the republic as he now was aiding the last Brutus +in restoring it. The comparison is the more startling because our +Messalla later explicitly rejected all connection with the first Valerius +and seems never to have used the cognomen Publicola. The explanation of +Vergil's passage is obvious.[2] The poet hearing of Messalla's remarkable +exploit at Philippi saw at once that his association with Brutus would +remind every Roman of the events of 509 B.C., and that the populace would +as a matter of course acclaim the young hero by the ancient cognomen +"Publicola." Later, after his defeat and submission, Messalla had +of course to suppress every indication that might connect him with +"tyrannicide" stock or faction. The poem, therefore, must have been +written before Messalla's surrender in 42 B.C. + +[Footnote 2: The argument is given in full in _Classical Philology_, +1920, p. 36.] + +The poet's silences and hesitation in touching upon this subject of civil +war are significant of his mood. The principals of the triumph receive +not a word: his friend is the "glory" of a triumph led by men whose names +are apparently not pleasant memories. Nor is there any exultation over +a presumed defeat of "tyrants" and a restoration of a "republic." The +exploit of Messalla that Vergil especially stresses is the defeat of +"barbarians," naturally the subjection of the Thracian and Pontic tribes +and of the Oriental provinces earlier in the year. And the assumption is +made (1. 51 ff.) that Messalla has, as a recognition of his generalship, +been chosen to complete the war in Africa, Spain, and Britain. Most +significant of all is Vergil's blunt confession that his mind is not +wholly at ease concerning the theme (II. 9-12): "I am indeed strangely at +a loss for words, for I will confess that what has impelled me to write +ought rather to have deterred me." Could he have been more explicit in +explaining that Messalla's exploits, for which he has friendly praise, +were performed in a cause of which his heart did not approve? And does +not this explain why he gives so much space to Messalla's verses, and why +he so quickly passes over the victory of Philippi with an assertion of +his incapacity for doing it justice? + +To the biographer, however, the passage praising Messalla's Greek +pastorals is the most interesting for it reveals clearly how Vergil came +to make the momentous decision of writing pastorals. Since Messalla's +verses were in Greek they had, of course, been written two years before +this while he was a student at Athens. Would that we knew this heroine +upon whom he represents the divinities as bestowing gifts! Propertius, +who acknowledged Mesalla as his patron later employed this same motive +of celestial adoration in honor of Cynthia (II. 3, 25), but surely +Messalla's _herois_ was, to judge from Vergil's comparison, a person of +far higher station than Cynthia. Could she have been the lady he married +upon his return from Athens? Such a treatment of a woman of social +station would be in line with the customs of the "new poets," Catullus, +Calvus, and Ticidas, rather than of the Augustans, Gallus, Propertius, +and Tibullus. Vergil himself used the motive in the second _Eclogue_ (l. +46), a reminiscence which, doubtless with many others that we are unable +to trace, Messalla must have recognized as his own. + +The pastoral which Vergil had translated from Messalla is quite fully +described: + + Molliter hic _viridi patulae sub tegmine quercus_ + Moeris pastores et Meliboeus erant, + Dulcia jactantes alterno carmina versu + Qualia Trinacriae doctus amat iuvenis. + +That is, of course, the very beginning of his own _Eclogues_. When he +published them he placed at the very beginning the well-known line that +recalled Messalla's own line: + + Tityre, tu _patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi_. + +What can this mean but a graceful reminder to Messalla that it was he who +had inspired the new effort?[3] + +[Footnote 3: Roman writers frequently observed the graceful custom of +acknowledging their source of inspiration by weaving in a recognizable +phrase or line from the master into the very first sentence of a new +work: cf. _Arma virumque cano_--[Greek: Andra moi ennepe] (Lundstroem, +_Eranos_, 1915, p. 4). Shelley responding to the same impulse paraphrased +Bion's opening lines in "I weep for Adonais--he is dead."] + +We may conclude then that Vergil's use of that line as the title of his +_Eclogues_ is a recognition of Messalla's influence. Conversely it is +proof, if proof were needed, that the ninth _Catalepton_ is Vergil's. We +may then interpret line thirteen of the ninth _Catalepton:_ + + pauca tua in nostras venerunt carmina chartas, + +as a statement that in the autumn of 42, Vergil had already written some +of his _Eclogues_, and that these early ones--presumably at least numbers +II, III, and VII--contain suggestions from Messalla. + +There was, of course, no triumph, and Vergil's eulogy was never sent, +indeed it probably never was entirely completed.[4] Messalla quickly made +his peace with the triumvirs, and, preferring not to return to Rome in +disgrace, cast his lot with Antony who remained in the East. Vergil, who +thoroughly disliked Antony, must then have felt that for the present, at +least, a barrier had been raised between him and Messalla. Accordingly +the _Ciris_ also was abandoned and presently pillaged for other uses. + +[Footnote 4: It ought, therefore, not to be used seriously in discussions +of Vergil's technique.] + +The news of Philippi was soon followed by orders from Octavian--to be +thoroughly accurate we ought of course to call him Caesar--that lands +must now, according to past pledges, be procured in Italy for nearly +two hundred thousand veterans. Every one knew that the cities that had +favored the liberators, and even those that had tried to preserve their +neutrality, would suffer. Vergil could, of course, guess that lands in +the Po Valley would be in particular demand because of their fertility. +The first note of fear is found in his eighth _Catalepton_: + + Villula, quae Sironis eras, et pauper agelle, + Verum illi domino tu quoque divitiae, + Me tibi et hos una mecum, quos semper amavi, + Si quid de patria tristius audiero, + Commendo imprimisque patrem: tu nunc eris illi + Mantua quod fuerat quodque Cremona prius. + +It is usually assumed from this passage that Siro had recently died, +probably, therefore, some time in 42 B.C., and that, in accordance with a +custom frequently followed by Greek philosophers at Rome, he had left his +property to his favorite pupil. The garden school, therefore, seems to +have come to an end, though possibly Philodemus may have continued it +for the few remaining years of his life. Siro's villa apparently proved +attractive to Vergil, for he made Naples his permanent home, despite the +gift of a house on the Esquiline from Maecenas. + +This, however, is not Vergil's last mention of Siro, if we may believe +Servius, who thinks that "Silenum" in the sixth _Eclogue_ stands for +"Sironem," its metrical equivalent. If, as seems wholly likely, Servius +is right, the sixth _Eclogue_ is a fervid tribute to a teacher who +deserves not to be forgotten in the story of Vergil's education. The poem +has been so strangely misinterpreted in recent years that it is time to +follow out Servius' suggestion and see whether it does not lead to some +conclusions.[5] + +[Footnote 5: Skutsch roused a storm of discussion over it by insisting +that it was a catalogue of poems written by Gallus (_Aus Vergils +Fruehzeit_.) Cartault, _Etude sur les Bucoliques de Virgile_ (p. 285), +almost accepts Servius' suggestion: "un resume de ses lectures et de ses +etudes."] + +After an introduction to Varus the poem tells how two shepherds found +Silenus off his guard, bound him, and demanded songs that he had long +promised. The reader will recall, of course, how Plato also likened his +teacher Socrates to Silenus. Silenus sang indeed till hills and valleys +thrilled with the music: of creation of sun and moon, the world of +living things, the golden age, and of the myths of Prometheus, Phaeton, +Pasiphae, and many others; he even sang of how Gallus had been captured +by the Muses and been made a minister of Apollo. + +A strange pastoral it has seemed to many! And yet not so strange when we +bear in mind that the books of Philodemus reveal Vergil and Quintilius +Varus as fellow students at Naples. Surely Servius has provided the key. +The whole poem, with its references to old myths, is merely a rehearsal +of schoolroom reminiscences, as might have been guessed from the fine +Lucretian rhythms with which it begins: + + Namque canebat, uti magnum per inane coacta + Semina terrarumque animaeque marisque fuissent + Et liquidi simul ignis; ut his exordia primis + Omnia et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis; + Tum durare solum et discludere Nerea ponto + Coeperit, et rerum paulatim sumere formas; + Iamque novum terrae stupeant lucescere solem. + Altius atque cadant summotis nubibus imbres; + Incipiant silvae cum primum surgere, cumque + Rara per ignaros errent animalia montis. + +The myths that follow are meant to continue this list of subjects, only +with somewhat less blunt obviousness. They suggested to Varus the usual +Epicurean theories of perception, imagination, passion, and mental +aberrations, subjects that Siro must have discussed in some such way as +Lucretius treated them in his third and fourth books of the _De Rerum +Natura_. + +It is, of course, not to be supposed that Siro had lectured upon +mythology as such. But the Epicurean teachers, despite their scorn +for legends, employed them for pedagogical purposes in several ways. +Lucretius, for instance, uses them sometimes for their picturesqueness, +as in the _prooemium_ and again in the allegory of the seasons (V. 732). +He also employs them in a Euhemeristic fashion, explaining them as +popular allegories of actual human experiences, citing the myths of +Tantalus and Sisyphus, for example, as expressions of the ever-present +dread of punishment for crimes. Indeed Vergil himself in the _Aetna_--if +it be his--somewhat naively introduced the battle of the giants for its +picturesque interest. It is only after he had enjoyed telling the story +in full that he checked himself with the blunt remark: + + (1. 74) Haec est mendosae vulgata licentia famae. + +Lucretius is little less amusing in his rejection of the Cybele myth, +after a lovely passage of forty lines (II, 600) devoted to it. + +Vergil was, therefore, on familiar ground when he tried to remind his +schoolmate of Siro's philosophical themes by designating each of them by +means of an appropriate myth. Perhaps we, who unlike Varus have not heard +the original lectures, may not be able in every case to discover the +theme from the myth, but the poet has at least set us out on the right +scent by making the first riddles very easy. The _lapides Pyrrhae_ (I. +41) refer of course to the creation of man; _Saturnia regna_ is, in +Epicurean lore, the primitive life of the early savages; _furtum +Promethei_ (I. 42) must refer to Epicurus' explanation of how fire came +from clashing trees and from lightning. The story of Hylas (I. 43) +probably reminded Varus of Siro's lecture on images and reflection, +Pasiphae (I. 46) of unruly passions, explained perhaps as in Lucretius' +fourth book, Atalanta (I. 61) of greed, and Phaeton of ambition. As for +Scylla, Vergil had himself in the _Ciris_ (I. 69) mentioned, only to +reject, the allegorical interpretation here presented, according to which +she portrays: + + "the sin of lustfulness + and love's incontinence." + +Vergil had not then met Siro, but he may have read some of his lectures. + +Finally, the strange lines on Cornelius Gallus might find a ready +explanation if we knew whether or not Gallus had also been a member +of the Neapolitan circle. Probus, if we may believe him, suggests the +possibility in calling him a schoolmate of Vergil's, and a plausible +interpretation of this eclogue turns that possibility into a probability. +The passage (II. 64-73) may well be Vergil's way of recalling to Varus a +well-beloved fellow-student who had left the circle to become a poet. + +The whole poem, therefore, is a delightful commentary upon Vergil's +life in Siro's garden, written probably after Siro had died, the school +closed, and Varus gone off to war. The younger man's school days are +now over; he had found his idiom in a poetic form to which Messalla's +experiments had drawn him. The _Eclogues_ are already appearing in rapid +succession. + + + + +IX + +MATERIALISM IN THE SERVICE OF POETRY + + +It has been remarked that Vergil's genius was of slow growth; he was +twenty-eight before he wrote any verses that his mature judgment +recognized as worthy of publication. A survey of his early life reveals +some of the reasons for this tardy development. Born and schooled in +a province he was naturally held back by lack of those contacts which +stimulate boys of the city to rapid mental growth. The first few years at +Rome were in some measure wasted upon a subject for which he had neither +taste nor endowment. The banal rhetorical training might indeed have +made a Lucan or a Juvenal out of him had he not finally revolted so +decisively. However, this work at Rome proved not to be a total loss. +His choice of a national theme for an epic and his insight into the +true qualities of imperial Rome owe something to the study of political +questions that his preparation for a public career had necessitated. He +learned something in his Roman days that not even Epicurean scorn for +politics could eradicate. + +However, his next decision, to devote his life to philosophy, again +retarded his poetic development. Certainly it held him in leash during +the years of adolescent enthusiasms when he might have become a lyric +poet of the neoteric school. A Catullus or a Keats must be caught +early. Indeed the very dogmas of the Epicurean school, if taken in all +earnestness, were suppressive of lyrical enthusiasm. The _Aetna_ shows +perhaps the worst effects of Epicurean doctrine in its scholastic +insistence that myths must now give way to facts. Its author was still +too absorbed in the microscopic analysis of a petty piece of research +to catch the spirit of Lucretius who had found in the visions of the +scientific workshop a majesty and beauty that partook of the essence of +poetry. + +In the end Vergil's poetry, like that of Lucretius, owed more to +Epicureanism than modern critics--too often obsessed by a misapplied +_odium philosophicum_--have been inclined to admit. It is all too easy +to compare this philosophy with other systems, past and present, and +to prove its science inadequate, its implications unethical, and its +attitude towards art banal. But that is not a sound historical method of +approach. The student of Vergil should rather remember how great was the +need of that age for some practical philosophy capable of lifting the +mind out of the stupor in which a hybrid mythology had left it, and how, +when Platonic idealism had been wrecked by the skeptics, and Stoicism +with its hypothetical premises had repelled many students, Epicurean +positivism came as a saving gospel of enlightenment. + +The system, despite its inadequate first answers, employed a scientific +method that gave the Romans faith in many of its results, just at a time +when orthodox mythology had yielded before the first critical inspection. +As a preliminary system of illumination it proved invaluable. Untrained +in metaphysical processes of thought, ignorant of the tools of exact +science, the Romans had as yet been granted no answers to their growing +curiosity about nature except those offered by a hopelessly naive faith. +Stoicism had first been brought over by Greek teachers as a possible +guide, but the Roman, now trained by his extraordinary career in world +politics to think in terms of experience, could have but little patience +with a metaphysical system that constantly took refuge in a faith in +aprioristic logic which had already been successfully challenged by +two centuries of skeptics. The Epicurean at least kept his feet on the +ground, appealed to the practical man's faith in his own senses, and +plausibly propped his hypotheses with analogous illustrations, oftentimes +approaching very close to the cogent methods of a new inductive logic. He +rested his case at least on the processes of argumentation that the Roman +daily applied in the law-courts and the Senate, and not upon flights of +metaphysical reasoning. He came with a gospel of illumination to a race +eager for light, opening vistas into an infinity of worlds marvelously +created by processes that the average man beheld in his daily walks. + +It was this capacity of the Epicurean philosophy to free the imagination, +to lift man out of a trivial mythology into a world of infinite visions, +and to satisfy man's curiosity regarding the universe with tangible +answers[1] that especially attracted Romans of Vergil's day to the new +philosophy. Their experience was not unlike that of numberless men of +the last generation who first escaped from a puerile cosmology by way +of popularized versions of Darwinism which the experts condemned as +unscientific. + +[Footnote 1: It is not quite accurate to say that the Romans made a dogma +of Epicurus' _ipse dixit_ which destroyed scientific open-mindedness. +Vergil uses Posidonius and Zeno as freely as the Stoic Seneca does +Epicurus.] + +Furthermore, Epicureanism provided a view of nature which was apt in the +minds of an imaginative poet to lead toward romanticism. Stoicism indeed +pretended to be pantheistic, and Wordsworth has demonstrated the value +to romanticism of that attitude. But to the clear of vision Stoicism +immediately took from nature with one hand what it had given with the +other. Invariably, its rule of "follow nature" had to be defined in terms +that proved its distrust of what the world called nature. As a matter of +fact the Stoic had only scorn for naturalism. Physical man was to him a +creature to be chained. Trust not the "scelerata pulpa; peccat et haec, +peccat!" cries Persius in terror. + +The earlier naive animism of Greece and Rome had contained more of +aesthetic value, for it was the very spring from which had flowed all the +wealth of ancient myths. But the nymphs of that stream were dead, slain +by philosophical questioning. The new poetic myth-making that still +showed the influence of an old habit of mind was apt to be rather +self-conscious and diffident, ending in something resembling the pathetic +fallacy. + +Epicureanism on the other hand by employing the theory of evolution was +able to unite man and nature once more. And since man is so self-centered +that his imagination refuses to extend sympathetic treatment to nature +unless he can feel a vital bond of fellowship with it, the poetry of +romance became possible only upon the discovery of that unity. This is +doubtless why Lucretius, first of all the Romans, could in his prooemium +bring back to nature that sensuousness which through the songs of the +troubadours has become the central theme of romantic poetry even to our +day. + + Nam simulac species patefactast verna diei ... + Aeriae primum volucres te diva tuumque + Significant initum perculsae corda tua vi, + Inde ferae pecudes persultant pabula laeta. + +Vergil, convinced by the same philosophy, expresses himself similarly: + + Et genus aequoreum, pecudes, pictaeque volucres + amor omnibus idem. + +And again: + + Avia tum resonant avibus virgulta canoris + Et Venerem certis repetunt armenta diebus + Parturit almus ager Zepherique trementibus auris + Laxant arva sinus. + +It is, of course, the theme of "Sumer is icumen in." Lucretius feels so +strongly the unity of naturally evolved creation that he never +hesitates to compare men of various temperaments with animals of +sundry natures--the fiery lion, the cool-tempered ox--and explain the +differences in both by the same preponderance of some peculiar kind of +"soul-atoms." + +Obviously this was a system which, by enlarging man's mental horizon and +sympathies, could create new values for aesthetic use. Like the crude +evolutionistic hypotheses in Rousseau's day, it gave one a more soundly +based sympathy for one's fellows--since evolution was not yet "red in +tooth and claw." If nature was to be trusted, why not man's nature? Why +curse the body, any man's body, as the root-ground of sin? Were not the +instincts a part of man? Might not the scientific view prove that the +passions so far from being diseases, conditioned the very life and +survival of the race? Perhaps the evils of excess, called sin, were after +all due to defects in social and political institutions that had applied +incorrect regulative principles, or to the selfishly imposed religious +fears which had driven the healthy instincts into tantrums. Rid man of +these erroneous fears and of a political system begot for purposes +of exploitation and see whether by returning to an age of primitive +innocence he cannot prove that nature is trustworthy.[2] + +[Footnote 2: Lucretius, III, 37-93; II, 23-39; V, 1105-1135.] + +There is in this philosophy then a basis for a large humanitarianism, +dangerous perhaps in its implications. And yet it could hardly have been +more perilous than the Roman orthodox religion which insisted only upon +formal correctness, seldom upon ethical decorum, or than Stoicism with +its categorical imperative, which could restrain only those who were +already convinced. The Stoic pretence of appealing to a natural law could +be proved illogical at first examination, when driven to admit that +"nature" must be explained by a question-begging definition before its +rule could be applied. + +Indeed the Romans of Vergil's day had not been accustomed to look for +ethical sanctions in religion or creed. Morality had always been for them +a matter of family custom, parental teaching of the rules of decorum, +legal doctrine regarding the universality of _aequitas_, and, more than +they knew, of puritanic instincts inherited from a well-sifted stock. It +probably did not occur to Lucretius and Vergil to ask whether this new +philosophy encouraged a higher or a lower ethical standard. Cicero, as +statesman, does; but the question had doubtless come to him first out of +the literature of the Academy which he was wont to read. Despite their +creed, Lucretius and Vergil are indeed Rome's foremost apostles of +Righteousness; and if anyone had pressed home the charge of possible +moral weakness in their system they might well have pointed to the +exemplary life of Epicurus and many of his followers. To the Romans this +philosophy brought a creed of wide sympathies with none of the "lust +for sensation" that accompanied its return in the days of Rousseau and +"Werther." Had not the old Roman stock, sound in marrow and clear of +eye, been shattered by wars and thinned out by emigration, only to be +displaced by a more nervous and impulsive people that had come in by +the slave trade, Roman civilization would hardly have suffered from the +application of the doctrines of Epicurus. + +Whether or not Vergil remained an Epicurean to the end, we must, to be +fair, give credit to that philosophy for much that is most poetical in +his later work,--a romantic charm in the treatment of nature, a deep +comprehension of man's temper, a broader sympathy with humanity and a +clearer understanding of the difference between social virtue and mere +ritualistic correctness than was to be expected of a Roman at this time. + +It is, however, very probable that Vergil remained on the whole faithful +to this creed[3] to the very end. He was forty years of age and only +eleven years from his death when he published the _Georgics_, which are +permeated with the Epicurean view of nature; and the restatement of this +creed in the first book of the _Aeneid_ ought to warn us that his faith +in it did not die. + +[Footnote 3: This is, of course, not the view of Sellar, Conington, +Glover, and Norden,--to mention but a few of those who hold that Vergil +became a Stoic. See chapter XV for a development of this view.] + + + + +X + +RECUBANS SUB TEGMINE FAGI + + +The visitor to Arcadia should perhaps be urged to leave his microscope at +home. Happiest, at any rate, is the reader of Vergil's pastorals who can +take an unannotated pocket edition to his vacation retreat, forgetting +what every inquisitive Donatus has conjectured about the possible +hidden meanings that lie in them. But the biographer may not share that +pleasure. The _Eclogues_ were soon burdened with comments by critics who +sought in them for the secrets of an early career hidden in the obscurity +of an unannaled provincial life. In their eager search for data they +forced every possible passage to yield some personal allusion, till the +poems came to be nothing but a symbolic biography of the author. The +modern student must delve into this material if only to clear away a +little of the allegory that obscures the text. + +It is well to admit honestly at once that modern criticism has no +scientific method which can with absolute accuracy sift out all the +falsehoods that obscure the truth in this matter, but at least a +beginning has been made in demonstrating that the glosses are not +themselves consistent. Those early commentators who variously place the +confiscation of Vergil's farm after the battle of Mutina (43 B.C.), +after Philippi (42) and after Actium (31), who conceive of Mark Antony +as a partizan of Brutus, and Alfenus Varus as the governor of a province +that did not exist, may state some real facts: they certainly hazard many +futile guesses. The safest way is to trust these records only when they +harmonize with the data provided by reliable historians, and to interpret +the _Eclogues_ primarily as imaginative pastoral poetry, and not, except +when they demand it, as a personal record. We shall here treat the +_Bucolics_ in what seems to be their order of composition, not the order +of their position in the collection. + +The eulogy of Messalla, written in 42 B.C., reveals Vergil already at +work upon pastoral themes, to which, as he tells us, Messalla's Greek +eclogues had called his attention. We may then at once reject the +statement of the scholiasts that Vergil wrote the _Eclogues_ for the +purpose of thanking Pollio, Alfenus, and Gallus for having saved his +estates from confiscation. At least a full half of these poems had been +written before there was any material cause for gratitude, and, as we +shall see presently, these three men had in any case little to do with +the matter. It will serve as a good antidote against the conjectures of +the allegorizing school if we remember that these commentators of the +Empire were for the most part Greek freedmen, themselves largely occupied +in fawning upon their patrons. They apparently assumed that poets as a +matter of course wrote what they did in order to please some patron--a +questionable enough assumption regarding any Roman poetry composed before +the Silver Age. + +The second _Eclogue_ is a very early study which, in the theme of the +gift-bringing, seems to be reminiscent of Messalla's work.[1] The third +and seventh are also generally accepted as early experiments in the more +realistic forms of amoebean pastoral. Since the fifth, which should be +placed early in 41 B.C., actually cites the second and third, we have a +_terminus ante quem_ for these two eclogues. To the early list the tenth +should be added if it was addressed to Gallus while he was still doing +military service in Greece, and with these we may place the sixth, +discussed above. + +[Footnote 1: See Chapter VIII.] + +The lack of realistic local color in these pastorals has frequently been +criticized, on the supposition that Vergil wrote them while at home in +Mantua, and ought, therefore, to have given true pictures of Mantuan +scenery and characters. His home country was and is a monotonous plain. +The jutting crags with their athletic goats, the grottoes inviting +melodious shepherds to neglect their flocks, the mountain glades and +waterfalls of the _Eclogues_ can of course not be Mantuan. The Po Valley +was thickly settled, and its deep black soil intensively cultivated. A +few sheep were, of course, kept to provide wool, but these were herded by +farmers' boys in the orchards. The lone she-goat, indispensable to every +Italian household, was doubtless tethered by a leg on the roadside. There +were herds of swine where the old oak forests had not yet been cut, but +the swine-herd is usually not reckoned among songsters. Nor was any +poetry to be expected from the cowboys who managed the cattle ranches +at the foot hills of the Alps and the buffalo herds along the undrained +lowlands. Is Vergil's scenery then nothing but literary reminiscence? + +In point of fact the pastoral scenery in Vergil is Neapolitan. The eighth +_Catalepton_ is proof that Vergil was at Naples when he heard of the +dangers to his father's property in the North. It is doubtful whether +Vergil ever again saw Mantua after leaving it for Cremona in his early +boyhood. The property, of course, belonged not to him but to his father, +who, as the brief poem indicates, had remained there with his family. The +pastoral scenery seldom, except in the ninth _Eclogue_, pretends to be +Mantuan. Even where, as in the first, the poem is intended to convey +a personal expression of gratitude for Vergil's exemption from harsh +evictions, the poet is very careful not to obtrude a picture of himself +or his own circumstances. Tityrus is an old man, and a slave in a typical +shepherd's country, such as could be seen every day in the mountains near +Naples. And there were as many evictions near Naples as in the North. +Indeed it is the Neapolitan country--as picturesque as any in Italy--that +constantly comes to the reader's mind. We are told by Seneca that +thousands of sheep fed upon the rough mountains behind Stabiae, and +the clothier's hall and numerous fulleries of Pompeii remind us that +wool-growing was an important industry of that region. Vergil's excursion +to Sorrento was doubtless not the only visit across the bay. Behind +Naples along the ridge of Posilipo,[2] below which Vergil was later +buried, in the mountains about Camaldoli, and behind Puteoli all the +way to Avernus--a country which the poet had roamed with observant +eyes--there could have been nothing but shepherd country. Here, then, +are the crags and waterfalls and grottoes that Vergil describes in the +_Eclogues_. + +[Footnote 2: The picturesque road from Naples to Puteoli clung to the +edge of the rocky promontory of Posilipo, finally piercing the outermost +rock by means of a tunnel now misnamed the "grotto di Sejano." Most of +the road is now under twenty feet of water: See Guenther, _Pausilypon_. To +see the splendid ridge as Vergil saw it from the road one must now row +the length of it from Naples to Nesida, sketching in an abundance of +ilexes and goats in place of the villas that now cover it.] + +And here, too, were doubtless as many melodious shepherds as ever +Theocritus found in Sicily, for they were of the same race of people as +the Sicilians. Why should the slopes of Lactarius be less musical than +those of Aetna? Indeed the reasonable reader will find that, except for +an occasional transference of actual persons into Arcadian setting--by an +allegorical turn invented before Vergil--there is no serious confusion +in the scenery or inconsistent treatment in the plots of Vergil's +_Eclogues_. But by failing to make this simple assumption--naturally due +any and every poet--readers of Vergil have needlessly marred the effect +of some of his finest passages. + +The fifth _Eclogue_, written probably in 41 B.C., is a very melodious +Daphnis-song that has always been a favorite with poets. It has been and +may be read with entire pleasure as an elegy to Daphnis, the patron god +of singing shepherds. Those, however, who in Roman times knew Vergil's +love of symbolism, suspected that a more personal interest led him to +compose this elegy. The death and apotheosis of Julius Caesar is still +thought by some to be the real subject of the poem, while a few have +accepted another ancient conjecture that Vergil here wrote of his +brother. The person mourned must, however, have been of more importance +than Vergil's brother. On the other hand, certain details in the +poem--the sorrow of the mother, for instance--preclude the conjecture +that it was Caesar, unless the poet is here confusing his details more +than we need assume in any other eclogue. + +It is indeed difficult to escape the very old persuasion that a sorrow +so sympathetically expressed must be more than a mere Theocritan +reminiscence. If we could find some poet--for Daphnis must be that--near +to Vergil himself, who met an unhappy death in those days, a poet, too, +who died in such circumstances during the civil strife that general +expression of grief had to be hidden behind a symbolic veil, would not +the poem thereby gain a theme worthy of its grace? I think we have such +a poet in Cornificius, the dear friend of Catullus, to whom in fact +Catullus addressed what seem to be his last verses.[3] Like so many of +the new poets, Cornificius had espoused Caesar's cause, but at the end +was induced by Cicero to support Brutus against the triumvirs. After +Philippi Cornificius kept up the hopeless struggle in Africa for several +months until finally he was defeated and put to death. If he be Vergil's +Daphnis we have an explanation of why his identity escaped the notice of +curious scholars. Tactful silence became quite necessary at a time when +almost every household at Rome was rent by divided sympathies, and yet +brotherhood in art could hardly be entirely stifled. From the point of +view of the masters of Rome, Cornificius had met a just doom as a rebel. +If his poet friends mourned for him it must have been in some such guise +as this. + +[Footnote 3: Catullus, 38.] + +In this instance the circumstantial evidence is rather strong, for we are +told by a commentator that Valgius, an early friend of Vergil's, +wrote elegies to the memory of a "Codrus," identified by some as +Cornificius:[4] + + Codrusque ille canit quali tu voce canebas, + Atque solet numeros dicere Cinna tuos. + +[Footnote 4: _Scholia Veronensia_, Ecl. VII, 22. The evidence is +presented in _Classical Review_, 1920, p. 49.] + +That "shepherd" at least is an actual person, a friend of Cinna, and +a member of the neoteric group; that indeed it is Cornificius is +exceedingly probable. The poet-patriot seems then, not to have been +forgotten by his friends. + +All too little is known about this friend of Catullus and Cinna, but what +is known excites a keen interest. Though he was younger than Cicero by +nearly a generation, the great orator[5] did him no little deference as +a representative of the Atticistic group. In verse writing he was of +Catullus' school, composing at least one epyllion, besides lyric verse. +According to Macrobius, Vergil paid him the compliment of imitating him, +and he in turn is cited by the scholiasts as authority for an opinion of +Vergil's. If the Daphnis-song is an elegy written at his death--and it +would be difficult to find a more fitting subject--the poem, undoubtedly +one of the most charming of Vergil's _Eclogues_, was composed in 41 B.C. +It were a pity if Vergil's prayer for the poet should after all not come +true: + + Semper honos, nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt. + +[Footnote 5: See Cicero's letter to him: _Ad Fam_. XII, 17, 2.] + +The tenth _Eclogue_, to Gallus, steeped in all the literary associations +of pastoral elegies, from the time of Theocritus' Daphnis to our own +"Lycidas" and "Adonais," has perhaps surrounded itself with an atmosphere +that should not be disturbed by biographical details. However, we must +intrude. Vergil's associations with Gallus, as has been intimated, were +those, apparently, of Neapolitan school days and of poetry. The sixth +_Eclogue_ delicately implies that the departure of Gallus from the circle +had made a very deep impression upon his teacher and fellow students. + +What would we not barter of all the sesquipedalian epics of the Empire +for a few pages written by Cornelius Gallus, a thousand for each! This +brilliant, hot-headed, over-grown boy, whom every one loved, was very +nearly Vergil's age. A Celt, as one might conjecture from his career, +he had met Octavius in the schoolroom, and won the boy's enduring +admiration. Then, like Vergil, he seems to have turned from rhetoric to +philosophy, from philosophy to poetry, and to poetry of the Catullan +romances, as a matter of course. It was Cytheris, the fickle actress--if +the scholiasts are right--who opened his eyes to the fact that there were +themes for passionate poetry nearer home than the legendary love-tales; +and when she forgot him, finding excitement elsewhere during his months +of service with Octavian, he nursed his morbid grief in un-Roman +self-pity, this first poet of the _poitrinaire_ school. His subsequent +career was meteoric. Octavian, fascinated by a brilliancy that hid a +lack of Roman steadiness, placed him in charge of the stupendous task +of organizing Egypt, a work that would tax the powers of a Caesar. The +romantic poet lost his head. Wine-inspired orations that delighted his +guests, portrait busts of himself in every town, grotesque catalogues of +campaigns against unheard-of negro tribes inscribed even on the venerable +pyramids did not accord with the traditions of Rome. Octavian cut his +career short, and in deep chagrin Gallus committed suicide. + +The tenth _Eclogue_[6] gives Vergil's impressions upon reading one of the +elegies of Gallus which had apparently been written at some lonely army +post in Greece after the news of Cytheris' desertion. In his elegy the +poet had, it would seem, bemoaned the lot that had drawn him to the East +away from his beloved. + +"Would that he might have been a simple shepherd like the Greeks about +his tent, for their loves remained true!" And this is of course the very +theme which Vergil dramatizes in pastoral form. + +[Footnote 6: This is the interpretation of Leo, _Hermes_, 1902, p. 15.] + +We, like Vergil, realize that Gallus invented a new genre in literature. +He had daringly brought the grief of wounded love out of the realm of +fiction--where classic tradition had insisted upon keeping it--into the +immediate and personal song. The hint for this procedure had, of course, +come from Catullus, but it was Gallus whom succeeding elegists all +accredited with the discovery. Vergil at once felt the compelling force +of this adventuresome experiment. He gave it immediate recognition in his +_Eclogues_, and Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid became his followers. + +The poems of Gallus, if the Arcadian setting is real, were probably +written soon after Philippi. Vergil's _Eclogue_ of recognition may have +been composed not much later, for we have a right to assume that Vergil +would have had one of the first copies of Gallus' poems. If this be true, +the first and last few lines were fitted on later, when the whole book +was published, to adapt the poem for its honorable position at the close +of the volume. + + + + +XI + +THE EVICTIONS + + +The first and ninth _Eclogues_, and only these, concern the confiscations +of land at Cremona and Mantua which threatened to deprive Vergil's father +of his estates and consequently the poet of his income. There seems to be +no way of deciding which is the earlier. Ancient commentators, following +the order of precedence, interpreted the ninth as an indication of a +second eviction, but there seems to be no sound reason for agreeing with +them, since they are entirely too literal in their inferences. Conington +sanely decides that only one eviction took place, and he places the ninth +before the first in order of time. He may be right. The two poems at any +rate belong to the early months of 41. + +The obsequious scholiasts of the Empire have nowhere so thoroughly +exposed their own mode of thought as in their interpretations of these +two _Eclogues_. Knowing and caring little for the actual course of +events, having no comprehension of the institutions of an earlier day, +concerned only with extracting what is to them a dramatic story from +the _Eclogues_, they put all the historical characters into impossible +situations. The one thing of which they feel comfortably sure is that +every _Eclogue_ that mentions Pollio, Gallus and Alfenus Varus must have +been a "bread and butter" poem written in gratitude for value received. +Of the close literary associations of the time they seem to be unaware. +To suit such purposes Pollio[1] is at times made governor of Cisalpine +Gaul, and at times placed on the commission to colonize Cremona, Alfenus +is made Pollio's "successor" in a province that does not exist, and +Gallus is also made a colonial commissioner. If, however, we examine +these statements in the light of facts provided by independent sources we +shall find that the whole structure based upon the subjective inferences +of the scholiasts falls to the ground. + +[Footnote 1: See Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_, pp. 51 ff.] + +We must first follow Pollio's career through this period. When the +triumvirate was formed in 43, Pollio was made Antony's _legatus_ in +Cisalpine Gaul and promised the consulship for the year 40.[2] After +Philippi, however, in the autumn of 42, Cisalpine Gaul was declared +a part of Italy and, therefore, fell out of Pollio's control.[3] +Nevertheless, he was not deprived of a command for the year remaining +before his consulship (41 B.C.), but was permitted to withdraw to the +upper end of the Adriatic with his army of seven legions.[4] His duty was +doubtless to guard the low Venetian coast against the remnants of the +republican forces still on the high seas, and, if he had time, to subdue +the Illyrian tribes friendly to the republican cause.[5] During this +year, in which Octavian had to besiege Lucius Antony at Perusia, Pollio, +a legatus of Mark Antony, was naturally not on good terms with Octavian, +and could hardly have used any influence in behalf of Vergil or any one +else. After the Perusine war he joined Antony at Brundisium in the spring +of 40, and acted as his spokesman at the conference which led to the +momentous treaty of peace. We may, therefore, safely conclude that Pollio +was neither governor nor colonial commissioner in Cisalpine Gaul when +Cremona and Mantua were disturbed, nor could he have been on such terms +with Octavian as to use his influence in behalf of Vergil. The eighth and +fourth _Eclogues_ which do honor to him, seem to have nothing whatever +to do with material favors. They doubtless owe their origin to Pollio's +position as a poet, and Pollio's interest in young men of letters. + +[Footnote 2: Appian, IV. 2 and V. 22.] + +[Footnote 3: Appian, V. 3 and V. 22.] + +[Footnote 4: Velleius Paterculus, II. 76.2; Macrobius, _Sat_. I. XI. 22] + +[Footnote 5: A task which he performed in 39.] + +With regard to Alfenus and Gallus, the scholiasts remained somewhat +nearer the truth, for they had at hand a speech of Callus criticizing the +former for his behavior at Mantua. By quoting the precise words of this +speech Servius[6] has provided us with a solid criterion for accepting +what is consistent in the statements of Vergil's earlier biographers and +eliminating some conjectures. The passage reads: "When ordered to leave +unoccupied a district of three miles outside the city, you included +within the district eight hundred paces of water which lies about the +walls." The passage, of course, shows that Alfenus was a commissioner on +the colonial board, as Servius says. It does not excuse Servius' error +of making Alfenus Pollio's successor as provincial governor[7] after +Cisalpine Gaul had become autonomous, nor does it imply that Alfenus had +in any manner been generous to Vergil or to any one else. In fact it +reveals Alfenus in the act of seizing an unreasonable amount of land. +Vergil,[8] of course, recognizes Alfenus' position as commissioner in his +ninth Eclogue where he promises him great glory if he will show mercy to +Mantua: + +Vare, tuum nomen, superet modo Mantua nobis ... + +And Vergil's appeal to him was reasonable, since he, too, was a man of +literary ambitions.[9] But there is no proof that Alfenus gave ear to +his plea; at any rate the poet never mentions him again. Servius' +supposition that Alfenus had been of service to the poet[10] seems +to rest wholly on the mistaken idea that the sixth _Eclogue_ was +obsequiously addressed to him. As we have seen, however, Quintilius +Varus has a better claim to that poem. + +[Footnote 6: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. IX. 10; ex oratione Cornelii in +Alfenum. Cf. Kroll, in _Rhein. Museum_ 1909, 52.] + +[Footnote 7: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 6.] + +[Footnote 8: Vergil, _Eclogue_ IX, 26-29.] + +[Footnote 9: See _Suffenus and Alfenus, Classical Quarterly_, 1920, p. +160.] + +[Footnote 10: On _Eclogue_. VI. 6.] + +The quotation from the speech of Gallus also lends support to a statement +in Servius that Gallus had been assigned to the duty of exacting moneys +from cities which escaped confiscation.[11] For this we are duly +grateful. It indicates how Alfenus and Gallus came into conflict since +the latter's financial sphere would naturally be invaded if the former +seized exempted territory for the extension of his new colony of Cremona. +In such conditions we can realize that Gallus was, as a matter of course, +interested in saving Mantua from confiscation, and that in this effort +he may well have appealed to Octavian in Vergil's behalf. In fact his +interpretation of the three-mile exemption might actually have saved +Vergil's properties, which seem to have lain about that distance from the +city.[12] + +[Footnote 11: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 64.] + +[Footnote 12: Vita Probiana, _milia passuum_ XXX is usually changed to +III on the basis of Donatus: _a Mantua non procul_.] + +Again, however, there is little reason for the supposition that Vergil's +_Eclogues_ in honor of Gallus have any reference whatever to this affair. +The sixth followed the death of Siro, and the tenth seems to precede the +days of colonial disturbances, if it has reference to Gallus as a soldier +in Greece. If the sixth _Eclogue_ refers to Siro, as Servius holds, then +Vergil and Gallus had long been literary associates before the first and +ninth were written. + +The student of Vergil who has once compared the statements of the +scholiasts with the historical facts at these few points, where they +run parallel, will have little patience with the petty gossip which was +elicited from the _Eclogues_. The story of Vergil's tiff with a soldier, +for example, is apparently an inference from Menalcas' experience in +_Eclogue_ IX. 15; but "Menalcas" appears in four other _Eclogues_ where +he cannot be Vergil. The poet indeed was at Naples, as the eighth +_Catalepton_ proves. The estate in danger is not his, but that of his +father, who presumably was the only man legally competent of action in +case of eviction. Vergil's poem, to be sure, is a plea for Mantua, but it +is clearly a plea for the whole town and not for his father alone. The +landmark of the low hills and the beeches up to which the property was +saved (IX.8) seems to be the limits of Mantua's boundaries, not of +Vergil's estates on the low river-plains. We need not then concern +ourselves in a Vergilian biography with the tale that Arrius or Clodius +or Claudius or Milienus Toro chased the poet into a coal-bin or ducked +him into the river.[13] The shepherds of the poem are typical characters +made to pass through the typical experiences of times of distress. + +[Footnote 13: See Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_, p. 58.] + +The first _Eclogue, Tityre tu_, is even more general than the ninth in +its application. Though, of course, it is meant to convey the poet's +thanks to Octavian for a favorable decree, it speaks for all the poor +peasants who have been saved. The aged slave, Tityrus, does not +represent Vergil's circumstances, but rather those of the servile +shepherd-tenants,[14] so numerous in Italy at this time. Such men, though +renters, could not legally own property, since they were slaves. But in +practice they were allowed and even encouraged to accumulate possessions +in the hope that they might some day buy their freedom, and with freedom +would naturally come citizenship and the full ownership of their +accumulations. Many of the poor peasants scattered through Italy were +_coloni_ of this type and they doubtless suffered severely in the +evictions. Tityrus is here pictured as going to the city to ask for his +liberty, which would in turn ensure the right of ownership. Such is the +allegory, simple and logical. It is only the old habit of confusing +Tityrus with Vergil which has obscured the meaning of the poem. However, +the real purpose of the poem lies in the second part where the poet +expresses his sympathy for the luckless ones that are being driven from +their homes; and that this represents a cry of the whole of Italy and +not alone of his home town is evident from the fact that he sets the +characters in typical shepherd country,[15] not in Mantuan scenery as in +the ninth. The plaint of Meliboeus for those who must leave their homes +to barbarians and migrate to Africa and Britain to begin life again is +so poignant that one wonders in what mood Octavian read it. "En quo +discordia cives produxit miseros!" was not very flattering to him. + +[Footnote 14: See Leo, _Hermes_, 1903, p. 1 ff., questioned by Stampini, +_Le Bucoliche_,'3 1905, p. 93.] + +[Footnote 15: Capua and Nuceria were two of the cities near Naples where +Vergil could see the work of eviction near at hand.] + +The very deep sympathy of Vergil for the poor exiles rings also through +the _Dirae_, a very surprising poem which he wrote at this same time, +but on second thought suppressed. It has the bitterness of the first +_Eclogue_ without its grace and tactful beginning. The triumvirs were in +no mood to read a book of lamentations. "Honey on the rim" was Lucretius' +wise precept, and it was doubtless a prudent impulse that substituted +the _Eclogue_ for the "Curses." The former probably accomplished little +enough, the latter would not even have been read. + +The _Dirae_ takes the form of a "cursing roundel," a form once employed +by Callimachus, who may have inherited it from the East. It calls down +heaven's wrath upon the confiscated lands in language as bitter as ever +Mt. Ebal heard: fire and flood over the crops, blight upon the fruit, and +pestilence upon the heartless barbarians who drive peaceful peasants into +exile. + +The setting is once more that of the country about Naples, of the +Campanian hills and the sea coast, not that of Mantua.[16] It is +doubtless the miserable poor of Capua and Nuceria that Vergil +particularly has in mind. The singers are two slave-shepherds departing +from the lands of a master who has been dispossessed. The poem is +pervaded by a strong note of pity for the lovers of peace,--"pii cives," +shall we say the "pacifists,"--who had been punished for refusing to +enlist in a civil war. A sympathy for them must have been deep in the +gentle philosopher of the garden: + + O male deuoti, praetorum crimina, agelli![17] + Tuque inimica pii semper discordia ciuis. + Exsul ego indemnatus egens mea rura reliqui, + Miles ut accipiat funesti praemia belli. + Hinc ego de tumulo mea rura nouissima uisam, + Hinc ibo in siluas: obstabunt iam mihi colles, + Obstabunt montes, campos audire licebit.[18] + +[Footnote 16: It is just possible that "Lycurgus" (l. 8) who is spoken of +as the author of the mischief is meant for Alfenus Varus, who boasted of +his knowledge of law. Horace lampoons him as _Alfenus vafer_.] + +[Footnote 17: + Ye fields accursed for our statesmen's sins, + O Discord ever foe to men of peace, + In want, an exile, uncondemned, I yield + My lands, to pay the wages of a hell-born war. + Ere I go hence, one last look towards my fields, + Then to the woods I turn to close you out + From view, but ye shall hear my curses still.] + +[Footnote 18: The _Lydia_ which comes in the MS. attached to the _Dirae_ +is not Vergil's. Nor can it be the famous poem of that name written by +Valerius Cato, despite the opinion of Lindsay, _Class. Review_, 1918, p. +62. It is too slight and ineffectual to be identified with that work. +The poem abounds with conceits that a neurotic and sentimental pupil of +Propertius--not too well practiced in verse writing--would be likely to +cull from his master.] + +For Vergil there was henceforth no joy in war or the fruits of war. His +devotion to Julius Caesar had been unquestioned, and Octavian, when he +proved himself a worthy successor and established peace, inherited that +devotion. But for the patriots who had fought the losing battle he had +only a heart full of pity. + + Ne pueri ne tanta animis adsuescite bella, + Neu patriae validos in viscera vertite viris; + Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, + Projice tela manu, sanguis meus! + + + + +XII + +POLLIO + + +We come finally to the two _Eclogues_ addressed to Asinius Pollio. This +remarkable man was only six years older than Vergil, but he was just old +enough to become a member of Caesar's staff, an experience that matured +men quickly. To Vergil he seemed to be a link with the last great +generation of the Republic. That Catullus had mentioned him gracefully +in a poem, and Cinna had written him a _propempticon_, that Caesar had +spoken to him on the fateful night at the Rubicon, and that he had been +one of Cicero's correspondents, placed him on a very high pedestal in +the eyes of the studious poet still groping his way. It may well be that +Gallus was the tie that connected Pollio and Vergil, for we find in a +letter of Pollio's to Cicero that the former while campaigning in Spain +was in the habit of exchanging literary chitchat with Gallus. That was in +the spring of 43, at the very time doubtless when Pollio--as young men +then did--spent his leisure moments between battles in writing tragedies. +Vergil in his eighth Eclogue, perhaps with over-generous praise, compares +these plays with those of Sophocles. + +This _Eclogue_ presents one of the most striking studies in primitive +custom that Latin poetry has produced, a bit of realism suffused with a +romantic pastoral atmosphere. The first shepherd's song is of unrequited +love cherished from boyhood for a maiden who has now chosen a worthless +rival. The second is a song sung while a deserted shepherdess performs +with scrupulous precision the magic rites which are to bring her +faithless lover back to her. There are reminiscences of Theocritus of +course, any edition of the _Eclogues_ will give them in full, but Vergil, +so long as he lived at Naples, did not have to go to Sicilian books for +these details. He who knows the social customs of Campania, the magical +charms scribbled on the walls of Pompeii, the deadly curses scratched on +enduring metal by forlorn lovers,--curses hidden beneath the threshold +or hearthstone of the rival to blight her cheeks and wrinkle her silly +face,--knows very well that such folks are the very singers that Vergil +might meet in his walks about the hills of the golden bay. + +The eighth _Eclogue_ claims to have been written at the invitation of +Pollio, who had apparently learned thus early that Vergil was a +poet worth encouraging. That the poem has nothing to do with the +confiscations, in so far at least as we are able to understand the +historical situation, has been suggested above. It is usually dated in +the year of Pollio's Albanian campaign in 39, that is a year after his +consulship. Should it not rather be placed two years earlier when Pollio +had given up the Cisalpine province and withdrawn to the upper Adriatic +coast preparatory to proceeding on Antony's orders against the Illyrian +rebels? In the spring of 41 Pollio camped near the Timavus, mentioned in +line 6; two years later the natural route for him to take from Rome would +be via Brundisium and Dyrrhachium.[1] The point is of little interest +except in so far as the date of the poem aids us in tracing Pollio's +influence upon the poet, and in arranging the _Eclogues_ in their +chronological sequence. + +[Footnote 1: Antony's province did not extend beyond Scodra; the roads +down the Illyrian mountain from Trieste were not easy for an army to +travel; if the _Eclogues_ were composed in three years (Donatus) the year +39 is too late. Finally, Vellius, II, 76.2, makes it plain that in 41 +Pollio remained in Venetia contrary to orders. He had apparently been +ordered to proceed into Illyria at that time.] + +Finally, we have the famous "Messianic" _Eclogue_, the fourth, which was +addressed to Pollio during his consulship. By its fortuitous resemblance +to the prophetic literature of the Bible, it came at one time to be the +best known poem in Latin, and elevated its author to the position of +an arch-magician in the medieval world. Indeed, this poem was largely +influential in saving the rest of Vergil's works from the oblivion to +which the dark ages consigned at least nine-tenths of Latin literature. + +The poem was written soon after the peace of Brundisium--in the +consummation of which Pollio had had a large share--when all of Italy was +exulting in its escape from another impending civil war. Its immediate +purpose was to give adequate expression to this joy and hope at once in +an abiding record that the Romans and the rulers of Rome might read and +not forget. Its form seems to have been conditioned largely by a strange +allegorical poem written just before the peace by a still unknown poet. +The poet was Horace, who in the sixteenth epode had candidly expressed +the fears of Roman republicans for Rome's capacity to survive. Horace had +boldly asked the question whether after all it was not the duty of those +who still loved liberty to abandon the land of endless warfare, and found +a new home in the far west--a land which still preserved the simple +virtues of the "Golden Age." Vergil's enthusiasm for the new peace +expresses itself as an answer to Horace:[2] the "Golden Age" need not be +sought for elsewhere; in the new era of peace now inaugurated by Octavian +the Virgin Justice shall return to Italy and the Golden Age shall come +to this generation on Italian soil. Vergil, however, introduces a new +"messianic" element into the symbolism of his poem, for he measures the +progress of the new era by the stages in the growth of a child who is +destined finally to bring the prophecy to fulfillment. This happy idea +may well have been suggested by table talks with Philodemus or Siro, who +must at times have recalled stories of savior-princes that they had heard +in their youth in the East. The oppressed Orient was full of prophetic +utterances promising the return of independence and prosperity under the +leadership of some long-hoped-for worthy prince of the tediously unworthy +reigning dynasties. Indeed, since Philodemus grew to boyhood at Gadara +under Jewish rule he could hardly have escaped the knowledge of the very +definite Messianic hopes of the Hebrew people. It may well be, therefore, +that a stray image whose ultimate source was none other than Isaiah came +in this indirect fashion into Vergil's poem, and that the monks of the +dark ages guessed better than they knew. + +[Footnote 2: Sellar, _Horace and the Elegiac Poets_, p. 123. Ramsay, +quoted by W. Warde Fowler, _Vergil's Messianic Eclogue_, p, 54.] + +To attempt to identify Vergil's child with a definite person would be a +futile effort to analyze poetic allegory. Contemporary readers doubtless +supposed that since the Republic was dead, the successor to power after +the death of Octavius and Antony would naturally be a son of one of +these. + +The settlements of the year were sealed by two marriages, that of +Octavian to Scribonia and that of Octavian's sister to Antony. It was +enough that some prince worthy of leadership could naturally be expected +from these dynastic marriages, and that in either case it would be a +child of Octavian's house.[3] Thus far his readers might let their +imagination range; what actually happened afterwards through a series of +evil fortunes has, of course, nothing to do with the question. Pollio is +obviously addressed as the consul whose year marked the peace which all +the world hoped and prayed would be lasting. + +[Footnote 3: See _Class. Phil_. XI, 334.] + +We have now reviewed the circumstances which called forth the _Eclogues_. +They seem, as Donatus says, to have been written within a period of three +years. The second, third, seventh and sixth apparently fall within the +year 42, the tenth, fifth, eighth, ninth and first in the year 41, while +the _Pollio_ certainly belongs to the year 40, when Vergil became thirty +years of age. The writing of these poems had called the poet more and +more away from philosophy and brought him into closer touch with the +sufferings and experiences of his own people. He had found a theme after +his own heart, and with the theme had come a style and expression +that fitted his genius. He abandoned Hellenistic conceits with their +prettiness of sentiment, attained an easy modulation of line readily +responding to a variety of emotions, learned the dignity of his own +language as he acquired a deeper sympathy for the sufferings of his own +people. There is a new note, as there is a new rhythm in: + + _Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo_. + + + + +XIII + +THE CIRCLE OF MAECENAS + + +Julius Caesar had learned from bitter experience that poets were +dangerous enemies. Cicero's innuendoes were disagreeable enough but they +might be forgotten. When, however, Catullus and Calvus put them into +biting epigrams there was no forgetting. This was doubtless Caesar's +chief reason for his constant endeavor to win the goodwill of the young +poets, and he ultimately did win that of Calvus and Catullus. Whether +Octavian, and his sage adviser Maecenas, acted from the same motive we +do not know, though they too had seen in Vergil's epigrams on Antony's +creatures, and in Horace's sixteenth epode that the poets of the new +generation seemed likely to give effective expression to political +sentiments. At any rate, the new court at Rome began very soon to make +generous overtures to the literary men of the day. + +Pollio, Octavian's senior by many years, and of noble family, could +hardly be approached. Though gradually drawing away from Antony, he +had so closely associated himself with this brilliant companion of his +Gallic-war days, that he preferred not to take a subordinate place at the +Roman court. Messalla, who had entered the service of Antony, was also +out of reach. There remained the brilliant circle of young men at Naples, +men whose names occurred in the dedications of Philodemus' lectures: +Vergil, Varius, Plotius and Quintilius Varus, three of whom at least were +from the north and would naturally be inclined to look upon Octavian with +sympathy. + +Varius had already written his epic _De Morte_ which seems to have +mourned Caesar's death, and, though in hidden language, he had alluded +bitterly to Antony's usurpations in the year that followed the murder. +Before Vergil's epic appeared it was Varius who was always considered the +epic poet of the group. Of Plotius Tucca we know little except that he is +called a poet, was a constant member of the circle, and with Varius +the literary executor who published Vergil's works after his death. +Quintilius Varus had, like Varius, come from Cremona, known Catullus +intimately, and, if we accept the view of Servius for the sixth +_Eclogue_, had been Vergil's most devoted companion in Siro's school. He +also took some part in the civil wars, and came to be looked upon as +a very firm supporter of sound literary standards.[1] Horace's _Ouis +desiderio_, shows that Varus was one of Vergil's most devoted friends. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 440.] + +Vergil's position as foremost of these poets was doubtless established by +the publication of the _Eclogues_. They took Rome by storm, and were even +set to music and sung on the stage, according to an Alexandrian fashion +then prevailing in the capital. Octavian was, of course, attracted to +them by a personal interest. The poet was given a house in Maecenas' +gardens on the Esquiline with the hope of enticing him to Rome. Vergil +doubtless spent some time in the city before he turned to the more +serious task of the _Georgics_, but we are told that he preferred the +Neapolitan bay and established his home there. This group, it would seem, +was definitely drawn into Octavian's circle soon after the peace of +Brundisium, and formed the nucleus of a kind of literary academy that set +the standards for the Augustan age. + +The introduction of Horace into this circle makes an interesting story. +He was five years younger than Vergil, and had had his advanced education +at Athens. There Brutus found him in 43, when attending philosophical +lectures in order to hide his political intrigues; and though Horace +was a freedman's son, Brutus gave him the high dignity of a military +tribuneship. Brutus as a Republican was, of course, a stickler for all +the aristocratic customs. That he conferred upon Horace a knight's office +probably indicates that the _libertinus pater_ had been a war captive +rather than a man of servile stock, and, therefore, only technically a +"freedman." In practical life the Romans observed this distinction, even +though it was not usually feasible to do so in political life. After +Philippi Horace found himself with the defeated remnant and returned to +Italy only to discover that his property had been confiscated. He was +eager for a career in literature, but having to earn his bread, he bought +a poor clerkship in the treasury office. Then during spare moments he +wrote--satires, of course. What else could such a wreckage of enthusiasm +and ambitions produce? + +His only hope lay in attracting the attention of some kindly disposed +literary man, and for some reason he chose Vergil. The _Eclogues_ were +not yet out, but the _Culex_ was in circulation, and he made the pastoral +scene of this the basis of an epode--the second--written with no little +good-natured humor. Horace imagines a broker of the forum reading that +passage, and, quite carried away by the succession of delightful scenes, +deciding to quit business for the simple life. He accordingly draws in +all his moneys on the Calends--on the Ides he lends them out again![2] +What Vergil wrote Horace when he received a copy of the _Epode_, we +are not told, but in his next work, the _Georgics_, he returned the +compliment by similarly threading Horace's phrases into a description of +country life--a passage that is indeed one of the most successful in the +book.[3] + +[Footnote 2: Horace's scenes (his memory is visual rather than auditory) +unmistakably reproduce those of the _Culex_; cf. _Culex_ 148-58 with +_Epode_ 26-28; _Culex_ 86-7 with _Epode_ 21-22; _Culex_ 49-50 with +_Epode_ 11-12; etc. A full comparison is made in _Classical Philology_, +1920, p. 24. Vergil could, of course, be expected to recognize the +allusions to his own poem.] + +[Footnote 3: _See Georgics_, II, 458-542, and a discussion of it in +_Classical Philology_, 1920, p. 42.] + +The composition of the sixteenth epode by Horace--soon after the second, +it would seem--gave Vergil an opportunity to recognize the new poet, and +answer his pessimistic appeal with the cheerful prophecy of the fourth +Eclogue, as we have seen. By this time we may suppose that an intimate +friendship had sprung up between the two poets, strengthened of course +by friendly intercourse, now that Vergil could spend some of his time +at Rome. Horace himself tells how Vergil and Varius introduced him to +Maecenas (_Sat_. 1. 6), an important event in his career that took place +some time before the Brundisian journey (_Sat_. 1. 5). Maecenas had +hesitated somewhat before accepting the intimacy of the young satirist: +Horace had fought quite recently in the enemy's army, had criticized +the government in his _Epodes_, and was of a class--at least +technically--which Octavian had been warned not to recognize socially, +unless he was prepared to offend the old nobility. But Horace's dignified +candor won him the confidence of Maecenas; and that there might be no +misunderstanding he included in his first book of _Satires_ a simple +account of what he was and hoped to be. Thus through the efforts of +Vergil and Varius he entered the circle whose guiding spirit he was +destined to become. + +Thus the coterie was formed, which under such powerful patronage was +bound to become a sort of unofficial commission for the regulation of +literary standards. It was an important question, not only for the young +men themselves but for the future of Roman literature, which direction +this group would take and whose influence would predominate. It might be +Maecenas, the holder of the purse-strings, a man who could not check his +ambition to express himself whether in prose or verse. This Etruscan, +whose few surviving pages reveal the fact that he never acquired +an understanding of the dignity of Rome's language, that he was +temperamentally un-Roman in his love for meretricious gaudiness and +prettiness, might have worked incalculable harm on this school had his +taste in the least affected it. But whether he withheld his dictum, or it +was disregarded by the others, no influence of his can be detected in the +literature of the epoch. + +Apollodorus, Octavian's aged teacher, a man of very great personal +influence, and highly respected, probably counted for more. In his +lectures and his books, one of which, Valgius, a member of the circle, +translated into Latin, he preached the doctrines of a chaste and +dignified classicism. His creed fortunately fell in with the tendencies +of the time, and whether this teaching be called a cause, or whether the +popularity of it be an effect of pre-existing causes, we know that this +man came to represent many of the ideals of the school. + +But to trace these ideals in their contact with Vergil's mental +development, we must look back for a moment to the tendencies of the +Catullan age from which he was emerging. In a curious passage written not +many years after this, Horace, when grouping the poets according to their +styles and departments,[4] places Vergil in a class apart. He mentions +first a turgid epic poet for whom he has no regard. Then there are +Varius and Pollio, in epic and tragedy respectively, of whose forceful +directness he does approve. In comedy, his friend, Fundanius, represents +a homely plainness which he commends, while Vergil stands for gentleness +and urbanity (molle atque facetum). + +[Footnote 4: _Sat_. I. 10, 40 ff.] + +The passage is important not only because it reveals a contemporaneous +view of Vergil's position but because it shows Horace thus early as the +spokesman of the "classical" coterie, the tenets of which in the end +prevailed. In this passage Horace employs the categories of the standard +text-books of rhetoric of that day[5] which were accustomed to classify +styles into four types: (1) Grand and ornate, (2) grand but austere, (3) +plain and austere, (4) plain but graceful. The first two styles might +obviously be used in forensic prose or in ambitious poetic work like +epics and tragedies. Horace would clearly reject the former, represented +for instance by Hortensius and Pacuvius, in favor of the austere dignity +and force of the second, affected by men like Cornificius in prose and +Varius and Pollio in verse. The two types of the "plain" style were +employed in more modest poems of literature, both, in prose and in such +poetry as comedy, the epyllion, in pastoral verse, and the like. Severe +simplicity was favored by Calvus in his orations, Catullus in his +lyrics 5 while a more polished and well-nigh _precieuse_ plainness was +illustrated in the speeches of Calidius and in the Alexandrian epyllion +of Catullus' _Peleus and Thetis_ and in Vergil's _Ciris_ and _Bucolics_. + +[Footnote 5: E.g. Demetrius, Philodemus, Cicero; of. _Class. Phil_. 1920, +p. 230.] + +In choosing between these two, Horace, of course, sympathizes with the +ideals of the severe and chaste style, which he finds in the comedies of +Fundanius. Vergil's early work, unambitious and "plain" though it is, +falls, of course, into the last group; and though Horace recognizes his +type with a friendly remark, one feels that he recognizes it for reasons +of friendship, rather than because of any native sympathy for it. By his +juxtaposition he shows that the classical ideals of the second and third +of the four "styles" are to him most sympathetic. _Mollitudo_ does not +find favor in any of his own work, or in his criticism of other men's +work. Vergil, therefore, though he appears in this Augustan coterie as +an important member, is still felt to be something of a free lance who +adheres to Alexandrian art[6] not wholly in accord with the standards +which are now being formulated. If Horace had obeyed his literary +instincts alone he would probably have relegated Vergil at this period +to the silence he accorded Callus and Propertius if not to the open +hostility he expressed towards the Alexandrianism of Catullus. It is +significant of Vergil's breadth of sympathy that he remitted not a jot in +his devotion to Catullus and Gallus and that he won the deep reverence of +Propertius while remaining the friend and companion of the courtly group +working towards a stricter classicism. If we may attempt to classify +the early Augustans, we find them aligning themselves thus. The strict +classicists are Horace the satirist, Varius a writer of epics, Pollio +of tragedy; while Varus, Valgius, Plotius, and Fundanius, though less +productive, employ their influence in the support of this tendency as +does Tibullus somewhat later. Vergil is a close personal friend of these +men but refuses to accept the axioms of any one school; Gallus, his +friend, is a free romanticist, and is followed in this tendency a few +years later by Propertius. + +[Footnote 6: Horace had doubtless seen not only the _Culex_ but several +of the other minor works that Vergil never deigned to put into general +circulation.] + +The influences that made for classicism were many. Apollodorus, the +teacher of Octavian, must have been a strong factor, but since his work +has been lost, the weight of it cannot now be estimated. Horace imbibed +his love for severe ideals in Athens, of course. There his teachers were +Stoic rhetoricians who trained him in an uncompromising respect for +stylistic rules.[7] He read the Hellenistic poets, to be sure, and +reveals in his poems a ready memory of them, but it was the great epoch +of Greek poetry that formed his style. Such are the foreign influences. +But the native Roman factors must not be forgotten. In point of fact it +was the classicistic Catullus and Calvus, of the simple, limpid lyrics, +written in pure unalloyed every-day Latin, that taught the new generation +to reject the later Hellenistic style of Catullus and Calvus as +illustrated in the verse romances. Varus, Pollio, and Varius were old +enough to know Catullus and Calvus personally, to remember the days when +poems like _Dianae sumus in fide_ were just issued, and they were poets +who could value the perfect art of such work even after the authors of +them had been enticed by ambition into dangerous by-paths. In a word, it +was Catullus and Calvus, the lyric poets, who made it possible for the +next generation to reject Catullus and Calvus the neoteric romancers. + +[Footnote 7: For the stylistic tenets of the Stoic teachers see +Fiske, _Lucilius and Horace_, pp. 64-143. Apollodorus seems to be the +rhetorician whom Horace calls Heliodorus in _Sat_. I, 5, see _Class. +Phil_. 1920, 393.] + +For the modern, therefore, it is difficult to restrain a just resentment +when he finds Horace referring to these two great predecessors with a +sneer. Yet we can, if we will, detect an adequate explanation of Horace's +attitude. Very few poets of any time have been able to capture and hold +the generation immediately succeeding. The stronger the impression made +by a genius, the farther away is the pendulum of approbation apt to +swing. The _neoteroi_ had to face, in addition to this revulsion, the +misfortunes of the time. The civil wars which came close upon them had +little use for the sentimentality of their romances or the involutions +of their manner of composition. And again, Catullus and Calvus had been +over-brutal in their attacks upon Julius Caesar, a character lifted to +the high heavens by the war and the martyrdom that followed. And, as +fortune would have it, almost all of the new literary men were, as we +have seen, peculiarly devoted to Caesar. We know enough of wars to have +discovered that intense partizanship does silence literary judgment +except in the case of a very few men of unusual balance. Vergil was one +of the very few; he kept his candle lit at the shrine of Catullus still, +but this was hardly to be expected of the rest. + +In prose also the Augustans upheld the refined and chaste work of +classical Atticism, an ideal which they derived from the Romans of the +preceding generation rather than from teachers like Apollodorus. Pollio +and Messalla are now the foremost orators. Pollio had stood close to +Calvus as well as to Caesar, and had witnessed the revulsion of feeling +against Cicero's style which continued to move in its old leisurely +course even after the civil war had quickened men's pulses. Messalla may +have been influenced by the example of his general, Brutus, a man who +never wasted words (so long as he kept his temper). Messalla and Pollio +were the dictators of prose style during this period. + +We find Vergil, therefore, in a peculiar position. He was still +recognized as a pupil of Catullus and the Alexandrians at a time when the +pendulum was swinging so violently away from the republican poets that +they did not even get credit for the lessons that they had so well taught +the new generation. Vergil himself was in each new work drifting more and +more toward classicism, but he continued to the last to honor +Catullus and Calvus, Cinna and Cornificius, and his friend Gallus, in +complimentary imitation or by friendly mention. The new Academy was proud +to claim him as a member, though it doubtless knew that Vergil was too +great to be bound by rules. To after ages, while Horace has come to stand +as an extremist who carried the law beyond the spirit, Vergil, honoring +the past and welcoming the future, has assumed the position of Rome's +most representative poet. + + + + +XIV + +THE "GEORGICS" + + +The years that followed the publication of the _Eclogues_ seem to have +been a season of reading, traveling, observing, and brooding. Maecenas +desired to keep the poet at Rome, and as an inducement provided him with +a villa in his own gardens on the Esquiline. The fame of the _digitus +praetereuntium_ awaited his coming and going, his _Bucolics_ had been set +to music and sung in the concert halls to vehement applause.[1] He seems +even to have made an effort to be socially congenial. There is intimate +knowledge of courtly customs in the staging of his epic; and in Horace's +fourth book a refurbished early poem in Philodemus' manner pictures a +Vergil--apparently the poet--as the pet of the fashionable world. But +these things had no attraction for him. Rome indeed appealed to his +imagination, _Roma pulcherrima rerum_, but it was the invisible Rome +rather than the _fumum et opes strepitumque_, it was the city of pristine +ideals, of irresistible potency, of Anchises' pageant of heroes. When +he walked through the Forum he saw not only the glistening monuments in +their new marble veneer, but beyond these, in the far distant past, the +straw hut of Romulus and the sacred grove on the Capitoline where the +spirit of Jove had guarded a folk of simpler piety.[2] And down the +centuries he beheld the heroes, the law-givers, and the rulers, who had +made the Forum the court of a world-wide empire. The Rome of his own day +was too feverish, it soon drove him back to his garden villa near Naples. + +[Footnote 1: Tacitus, _Dialogus_, 13: Malo securum et quietum Vergilii +secessum, in quo tamen neque apud divum Augustum gratia caruit neque apud +populum Romanum notitia. Testes Augusti epistulae, testis ipse populus, +qui auditis in theatro Vergilii versibus surrexit universus et forte +praesentem spectantemque Vergilium veneratus est quasi Augustum.] + +[Footnote 2: _Aeneid_ VIII.] + +It was well that he possessed such a retreat during those years of petty +political squabbles. The capital still hummed with rumors of civil war. +Antony seemed determined to sever the eastern provinces from the empire +and make of them a gift to Cleopatra and her children--a mad course that +could only end in another world war. Sextus Pompey still held Sicily and +the central seas, ready to betray the state at the first mis-step on +Octavian's part. At Rome itself were many citizens in high position who +were at variance with the government, quite prepared to declare for +Antony or Pompey if either should appear a match for the young heir of +Caesar. Clearly the great epic of Rome could not have matured in that +atmosphere of suspicion, intrigue, and selfishness. The convulsions of +the dying republic, beheld day by day near at hand, could only have +inspired a disgust sufficient to poison a poet's sensitive hope. It was +indeed fortunate that Vergil could escape all this, that he could retain +through the period of transition the memories of Rome's former greatness +and the faith in her destiny that he had imbibed in his youth. The time +came when Octavian, after Actium, reunited the Empire with a firm hand +and justified the buoyant optimism which Vergil, almost alone of his +generation, had been able to preserve. + +During these few years Vergil seems to have written but little. We have, +however, a strange poem of thirty-eight lines, the _Copa_, which, to +judge from its exclusion from the _Catalepton_, should perhaps be +assigned to this period. A study in tempered realism, not unlike the +eighth _Eclogue_, it gives us the song of a Syrian tavern-maid inviting +wayfarers into her inn from the hot and dusty road. The spirit is +admirably reproduced in Kirby Smith's rollicking translation:[3] + +[Footnote 3: See Kirby Flower Smith, _Marital, the Epigrammatist and, +Other Essays_, Johns Hopkins Press, 1920, p. 170. The attribution of the +poem to Vergil by the ancients as well as by the manuscripts, and the +style of its fanciful realism so patent in much of Vergil's work place +the poem in the authentic list. Rand, _Young Virgil's Poetry_, Harvard +Studies, 1919, p. 174, has well summed up the arguments regarding the +authorship of the poem.] + +'Twas at a smoke-stained tavern, and she, the hostess there-- +A wine-flushed Syrian damsel, a turban on her hair-- +Beat out a husky tempo from reeds in either hand, +And danced--the dainty wanton--an Ionian saraband. +"'Tis hot," she sang, "and dusty; nay, travelers, whither bound? +Bide here and tip a beaker--till all the world goes round; +Bide here and have for asking wine-pitchers, music, flowers, +Green pergolas, fair gardens, cool coverts, leafy bowers. +In our Arcadian grotto we have someone to play +On Pan-pipes, shepherd fashion, sweet music all the day. +We broached a cask but lately; our busy little stream +Will gurgle softly near you the while you drink and dream. +Chaplets of yellow violets a-plenty you shall find, +And glorious crimson roses in garlands intertwined; +And baskets heaped with lilies the water nymph shall bring-- +White lilies that this morning were mirrored in her spring. +Here's cheese new pressed in rushes for everyone who comes, +And, lo, Pomona sends us her choicest golden plums. +Red mulberries await you, late purple grapes withal, +Dark melons cased in rushes against the garden wall, +Brown chestnuts, ruddy apples. Divinities bide here, +Fair Ceres, Cupid, Bacchus, those gods of all good cheer, +Priapus too--quite harmless, though terrible to see-- +Our little hardwood warden with scythe of trusty tree. + +"Ho, friar with the donkey, turn in and be our guest! +Your donkey--Vesta's darling--is weary; let him rest. +In every tree the locusts their shrilling still renew, +And cool beneath the brambles the lizard lies perdu. +So test our summer-tankards, deep draughts for thirsty men; +Then fill our crystal goblets, and souse yourself again. +Come, handsome boy, you're weary! 'Twere best for you to twine +Your heavy head with roses and rest beneath our vine, +Where dainty arms expect you and fragrant lips invite; +Oh, hang the strait-laced model that plays the anchorite! +Sweet garlands for cold ashes why should you care to save? +Or would you rather keep them to lay upon your grave? +Nay, drink and shake the dice-box. Tomorrow's care begone! +Death plucks your sleeve and whispers: 'Live now, I come anon.'" + +Memories of the Neapolitan bay! The _Copa_ should be read in the arbor of +an _osteria_ at Sorrento or Capri to the rhythm of the tarantella where +the modern offspring of Vergil's tavern-maid are still plying the arts of +song and dance upon the passerby.[4] + +[Footnote 4: Unfortunately the evidence does not suffice to assign the +_Moretum_ to Vergil, though it was certainly composed by a genuine if +somewhat halting poet, and in Vergil's day. It has many imaginative +phrases, and the meticulous exactness of its miniature work might seem to +be Vergilian were it not for the unrelieved plainness of the theme. Even +so, it might be considered an experiment in a new style, if the rather +dubious manuscript evidence were supported by a single ancient citation. +See Rand, _loc. Cit._ p. 178.] + +There are also three brief _Priapea_ which should probably be assigned to +this period. The third may indeed have been an inscription on a pedestal +of the scare-crow god set out to keep off thieving rooks and urchins in +the poet's own garden: + +This place, my lads, I prosper, I guard the hovel, too, +Thatched, as you see, by willows and reeds and grass that grew +In all the marsh about it; hence me, mere stump of oak, +Shaped by the farmer's hatchet, they now as god invoke. +They bring me gifts devoutly, the master and his boy, +Supposing me the giver of the blessings they enjoy. +The kind old man each morning comes here to weed the ground, +He clears the shrine of thistles and burrs that grow around. +The lad brings dainty offerings with small but ready hand: +At dawn of spring he crowns me with a lavish daisy-strand, +From summer's earliest harvest, while still the stalk is green, +He wreathes my brow with chaplets; he fills me baskets clean +With golden pansies, poppies, with apples ripe and gourds, +The first rich blushing clusters of grapes for me he hoards. +And once to my great honor--but let no god be told!-- +He brought me to my altar a lambkin from the fold. +So though, my lads, a Scare-Crow and no true god I be, +My master and his vineyard are very dear to me. +Keep off your filching hands, lads, and elsewhere ply your theft: + +Our neighbor is a miser, his Scare-Crow gets no gifts, +His apples are not guarded--the path is on your left. + +The quaint simplicity of the sentiment and the playful surprise at the +end quickly disarm any skepticism that would deny these lines to Horace's +poet of "tender humor." + +During this period the poet seems also to have traveled. Maecenas enjoyed +the society of literary men, and we may well suppose that he took Vergil +with him in his administrative tours on more than the one occasion +which Horace happens to have recorded. The poet certainly knows Italy +remarkably well. The meager and inaccurate maps and geographical works of +that day could not have provided him with the insight into details which +the Georgics and the last six books of the _Aeneid_ reveal. We know, of +course, from Horace's third ode that Vergil went to Greece. This famous +poem, a "steamer-letter" as it were, is undated, but it may well be a +continuation of the Brundisian diary. The strange turn which the poem +takes--its dread of the sea's dangers--seems to point to a time when +Horace's memories of his own shipwreck were still very vivid. + +There was also time for extensive reading. That Vergil ranged widely and +deeply in philosophy and history, antiquities and all the world's best +prose and poetry, the vast learning of the _Georgics_ and the _Aeneid_ +abundantly proves. The epic story which he had early plotted out must +have lain very near the threshold of his consciousness through this +period, for his mind kept seizing upon and storing up apposite incidents +and germs of fruitful lore. References to Aeneas crop out here and there +in the _Georgics_, and the mysterious address to Mantua in the third book +promises, under allusive metaphors, an epic of Trojan heroes. Nor could +the poet forget the philosophic work he had so long pondered over. Doubts +increased, however, of his capacity to justify himself after the sure +success of Lucretius. A remarkable confession in the second book of the +_Georgics_ reveals his conviction that in this poem he had, through +lack of confidence, chosen the inferior theme of nature's physical +and sensuous appeal when he would far rather have experienced the +intellectual joy of penetrating into nature's inner mysteries.[5] + +[Footnote 5: + Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, + Quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus-amore, + Accipiant, caelique vias et sidera monstrent-- + Sin, has ne possim naturae accedere partes, + Frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis, + Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes. + _Georgics_, II. 475. ff. + +Was this striking _apologia of the Georgics_ forced upon Vergil by +the fact that in the _Aetna_, 264-74, he had pronounced peasant-lore +trivial in comparison with science?] + +Though we need not take too literally a poet's prefatorial remarks, +Vergil doubtless hoped that his _Georgics_ might turn men's thoughts +towards a serious effort at rehabilitating agriculture, and the +practical-minded Maecenas certainly encouraged the work with some such +aim in view. The government might well be deeply concerned. The veterans +who had recently settled many of Italy's best tracts could not have +been skilled farmers. The very fact that the lands were given them for +political services could only have suggested to the shrewd among them +that the old Roman respect for property rights had been infringed, +and that it was wise to sell as soon as possible and depart with some +tangible gain before another revolution resulted in a new redistribution. +Such suspicions could hardly beget the patience essential for the +development of agriculture. And yet this was the very time when farming +must be encouraged. Large parts of the arable land had been abandoned to +grazing during the preceding century because of the importation of the +provincial stipendiary grain, and Italy had lost the custom of raising +the amount of food that her population required. As a result, the younger +Pompey's control of Sicily and the trade routes had now brought on a +series of famines and consequent bread-riots. Year after year Octavian +failed in his attempts to lure away or to defeat this obnoxious rebel. +At best he could buy him off for a while, though he never knew at what +season of scarcity the purchase price might become prohibitive. The +choice of Vergil's subject coincided, therefore, with a need that all men +appreciated. + +The _Georgics_, however, are not written in the spirit of a colonial +advertisement. In the youthful _Culex_ Vergil had dwelt somewhat too +emphatically upon the song-birds and the cool shade, and had drawn upon +himself the genial comment of Horace that Alfius did not find conditions +in the country quite as enchanting as pictured. This time the poet paints +no idealized landscape. Enticing though the picture is, Vergil insists on +the need of unceasing, ungrudging toil. He lists the weeds and blights, +the pests and the vermin against which the farmer must contend. Indeed +it is in the contemplation of a life of toil that he finds his honest +philosophy of life: the gospel of salvation through work. Hardships whet +the ingenuity of man; God himself for man's own good brought an end to +the age of golden indolence, shook the honey from the trees, and gave +vipers their venom. Man has been left alone to contend with an obstinate +nature, and in that struggle to discover his own worth. The _Georgics_ +are far removed from pastoral allegory; Italy is no longer Arcadia, it is +just Italy in all its glory and all its cruelty. + +Vergil's delight in nature is essentially Roman, though somewhat +more self-conscious than that of his fellows. There is little of the +sentimental rapture that the eighteenth century discovered for us. Vergil +is not likely to stand in postures before the awful solemnity of the +sea or the majesty of wide vistas from mountain tops. Italian hill-tops +afford views of numerous charming landscapes but no scenes of entrancing +grandeur or awe-inspiring desolation, and the sea, before the days of the +compass, was too suggestive of death and sorrow to invite consideration +of its lawless beauty. These aspects of nature had to be discovered by +later experiences in other lands. At first glance Vergil seems to care +most for the obvious gifts of Italy's generous amenities, the physical +pleasure in the free out-of-doors, the form and color of landscapes, +the wholesome life. As one reads on, however, one becomes aware of an +intimacy and fellowship with animate things that go deeper. Particularly +in the second book the very blades of grass and tendrils of the vines +seem to be sentient. The grafted trees "behold with wonder" strange +leaves and fruits growing from their stems, transplanted shoots "put off +their wild-wood instincts," the thirsting plant "lifts up its head" in +gratitude when watered. Our own generation, which was sedulously enticed +into nature study by books crammed with the "pathetic fallacy," has +become suspicious of everything akin to "nature faking." It has learned +that this device has been a trick employed by a crafty pedagogy for the +sake of appealing to unimaginative children. Vergil was probably far from +being conscious of any such purpose. As a Roman he simply gave expression +to a mode of viewing nature that still seemed natural to most Greeks and +Romans. The Roman farmer had not entirely outgrown his primitive animism. +When he said his prayers to the spirits of the groves, the fields, and +the streams, he probably did not visualize these beings in human form; +manifestations of life betokened spirits that produced life and growth. +Vergil's phrases are the poetic expression of the animism of the +unsophisticated rustic which at an earlier age had shaped the great +nature myths. + +And if Vergil had been questioned about his own faith he could well have +found a consistent answer. Though he had himself long ceased to pay +homage to these _animae_, his philosophy, like that of Lucretius, also +sought the life-principle in nature, though he sought that principle a +step farther removed in the atom, the vitalized seeds of things, forever +in motion, forever creating new combinations, and forever working the +miracles of life by means of the energy with which they were themselves +instinct. The memorable lines on spring in the second book are cast into +the form of old poetry, but the basis of them is Epicurean energism, as +in Lucretius' prooemium. Vergil's study of evolution had for him also +united man and nature, making the romance of the _Georgics_ possible; it +had shaped a kind of scientific animism that permitted him to accept the +language of the simple peasant even though its connotations were for him +more complex and subtle. + +Finally, the careful reader will discover in Vergil's nature poetry a +very modern attention to details such as we hardly expect to find before +the nineteenth century. Here again Vergil is Lucretius' companion. +This habit was apparently a composite product. The ingredients are the +capacity for wonder that we find in some great poets like Wordsworth and +Plato, a genius for noting details, bred in him as in Lucretius by long +occupation with deductive methods of philosophy,--scientific pursuits +have thus enriched modern poetry also--and a sure aesthetic sense. +This power of observation has been overlooked by many of Vergil's +commentators. Conington, for example, has frequently done the poet an +injustice by assuming that Vergil was in error whenever his statements +seem not to accord with what we happen to know. We have now learned to be +more wary. It is usually a safer assumption that our observation is +in error. A recent study of "trees, shrubs and plants of Vergil," +illuminating in numberless details, has fallen into the same error here +and there by failing to notice that Vergil wrote his _Bucolics_ and +_Georgics_ not near Mantua but in southern Italy. The modern botanical +critic of Vergil should, as Mackail has said, study the flora of Campania +not of Lombardy. In every line of composition Vergil took infinite +pains to give an accurate setting and atmosphere. Carcopino[6] has just +astonished us with proof of the poet's minute study of topographical +details in the region of Lavinium and Ostia, Mackail[7] has vindicated +his care as an antiquarian, Warde Fowler[8] has repeatedly pointed +out his scrupulous accuracy in portraying religious rites, and now +Sergeaunt,[9] in a study of his botany, has emphasized his habit of +making careful observations in that domain. + +[Footnote 6: Carcopino, _Virgile et les origines d'Ostie_.] + +[Footnote 7: Mackail, _Journal of Roman Studies_, 1915.] + +[Footnote 8: Warde Fowler, _Religious Experience of the Roman +People_. p. 408.] + +[Footnote 9: Sergeaunt, _Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil_.] + +This modern habit it is that makes the _Georgics_ read so much like +Fabre's remarkable essays. The study of the bees in the fourth book is, +of course, not free from errors that nothing less than generations of +close scrutiny could remove. But the right kind of observing has begun. +On the other hand the book is not merely a farmer's practical manual +on how to raise bees for profit. The poet's interest is in the amazing +insects themselves, their how and why and wherefore. It is the mystery +of their instincts, habits, and all-compelling energy that leads him to +study the bees, and finally to the half-concealed confession that his +philosophy has failed to solve the problems of animate nature. + + + + +XV + +THE AENEID + + +While Caesar Octavian, now grown to full political stature, was reuniting +the East and the West after Actium, Vergil was writing the last pages of +the _Georgics_. The battle that decided Rome's future also determined the +poet's next theme. The Epic of Rome, abandoned at the death of Caesar, +unthinkable during the civil wars which followed, appealed for a hearing +now that Rome was saved and the empire restored. Vergil's youthful +enthusiasm for Rome, which had sprung from a critical reading of her past +career, seemed fully justified; he began at once his _Arma virumque_. + +The _Aeneid_ reveals, as the critics of nineteen centuries have +reiterated, an unsurpassed range of reading. But it is not necessary +to repeat the evidence of Vergil's literary obligations in an essay +concerned chiefly with the poet's more intimate experiences. In point of +fact, the tracking of poetic reminiscences in a poet who lived when no +concealment of borrowed thought was demanded does as much violence to +Vergil as it does to Euripides or Petrarch. The poet has always been +expected to give expression to his own convictions, but until recently it +has been considered a graceful act on his part to honor the good work of +his predecessors by the frank use, in recognizable form, of the lines +that he most admires. The only requirement has been that the poet should +assimilate, and not merely agglomerate his acceptances, that he should as +Vergil put it, "wrest the club from Hercules" and wield it as its master. + +In essence the poetry of the _Aeneid_ is never Homeric, despite the +incorporation of many Homeric lines. It is rather a sapling of Vergil's +Hellenistic garden, slowly acclimated to the Italian soil, fed richly by +years of philosophic study, braced, pruned, and reared into a tree of +noble strength and classic dignity. The form and majesty of the tree +bespeak infinite care in cultivation, but the fruit has not lost the +delicate tang and savour of its seed. The poet of the _Ciris_, the +_Copa_, the _Dirae_, and the _Bucolics_ is never far to seek in the +_Aeneid_. + +It would be a long story to trace the flowering in the Aeneid of the +seedling sown in Vergil's boyhood garden-plot.[1] The note of intimacy, +unexpected in an epic, the occasional drawing of the veil to reveal the +poet's own countenance, an un-Homeric sentimentality now and then, the +great abundance of sense-teeming collocations, the depth of sympathy +revealed in such tragic characters as Pallas, Lausus, Euryalus, the +insistent study of inner motives, the meticulous selection of incidents, +the careful artistry of the meter, the fastidious choice of words, and +the precision of the joiner's craft in the composition of traditional +elements, all suggest the habits of work practiced by the friends of +Cinna and Valerius Cato. + +[Footnote 1: For a careful study of this subject see Duckett, +_Hellenistic Influence on the Aeneid,_ Smith College Studies, 1920.] + +The last point is well illustrated in Sinon's speech at the opening of +the second book. The old folktale of how the "wooden horse," left on the +shore by the Greeks, was recklessly dragged to the citadel by the Trojans +satisfied the unquestioning Homer. Vergil does not take the improbable +on faith. Sinon is compelled to be entirely convincing. In his speech he +uses every art of persuasion: he awakens in turn curiosity, surprise, +pity, admiration, sympathy, and faith. The passage is as curiously +wrought as any episode of Catullus or the _Ciris_. It is not, as has been +held, a result of rhetorical studies alone; it reveals rather a native +good sense tempered with a neoteric interest in psychology and a neoteric +exactness in formal composition. And yet the passage exhibits a great +advance upon the geometric formality of the _Ciris_. The incident is not +treated episodically as it might have been in Vergil's early work. The +pattern is not whimsically intricate but is shaped by an understanding +mind. While its art is as studied and conscious as that of the _Ciris_, +it has the directness and integrity of Homeric narrative. Yet Vergil +has not forgotten the startling effects that Catullus would attain by +compressing a long tale into a suggestive phrase, if only a memory of the +tale could be assumed. The story of Priam's death on the citadel is told +in all its tragic horror till the climax is reached. Then suddenly with +astonishing force the mind is flung through and beyond the memories of +the awful mutilation by the amazingly condensed phrase: + + jacet ingens litore truncus + avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus. + +There Vergil has given only the last line of a suppressed tragedy which +the reader is compelled to visualize for himself. + +Neoteric, too, is the accurate observation and the patience with details +displayed by the author of the _Aeneid_. In his youth Vergil had, to be +sure, avoided the extremes of photographic realism illustrated by the +very curious _Moretum_, but he had nevertheless, in works like the +_Copa_, the _Dirae_, and the eighth _Eclogue_, practiced the craft of the +miniaturist whenever he found the minutiae aesthetically significant. To +realize the precision of his strokes even then one has but to recall the +couplet of the _Copa_ which in an instant sets one upon the dusty road of +an Italian July midday: + + Nunc cantu crebro rumpunt arbusta cicadae + nunc varia in gelida sede lacerta latet. + +Throughout the _Aeneid,_ the patches of landscape, the retreats for +storm-tossed ships, the carved temple-doors, the groups of accoutred +warriors marching past, and many a gruesome battle scene, are reminders +of this early technique. + +What degrees of conscientious workmanship went into these results, we are +just now learning. Carcopino,[2] who, with a copy of Vergil in hand, has +carefully surveyed the Latin coast from the Tiber mouth, past the site of +Lavinium down to Ardea, is convinced that the poet traced every manoeuvre +and every sally on the actual ground which he chose for his theatre of +action in the last six books. It still seems possible to recognize the +deep valley of the ambuscade and the plain where Camilla deployed her +cavalry. Furthermore, there can be little doubt that for the sake of a +heroic-age setting Vergil studied the remains and records of most ancient +Rome. There were still in existence in various Latin towns sixth-century +temples laden with antique arms and armor deposited as votive offerings, +terracotta statues of gods and heroes, and even documents stored for +safe-keeping. In the expansion of Rome over the Campus Martius unmarked +tombs with their antique furniture were often disclosed. It is apparent +from his works that Vergil examined such material, just as he delved into +Varro's antiquities and Cato's "origins" for ancient lore. His remarks +on Praeneste and Antemnae, his knowledge of ancient coin symbols, of the +early rites of the Hercules cult, show the results of these early habits +of work. It must always be noticed, however, that in his mature art he is +master of his vast hoard of material. There is never, as in the _Culex_ +and _Ciris_, a display of irrelevant facts, a yielding to the temptation +of being excursive and episodic. Wherever the work had received the final +touch, the composition shows a flawless unity. + +[Footnote 2: Carcopino, _Virgile et les origines d'Ostie_.] + +The poet's response to personal experience reveals itself nowhere more +than in the political aspect of the _Aeneid_ a fact that is the more +remarkable because Vergil lived so long in Epicurean circles where an +interest in politics was studiously suppressed. + +What makes the poem the first of national epics is, however, not a +devotion to Rome's historical claims to primacy in Italy. The narrow +imperialism of the urban aristocracy finds no support in him. Not the +city of Rome but Italy is the _patria_ of the _Aeneid_, and Italy as a +civilizing and peace-bringing force, not as the exploiting conqueror. +Here we recognize a spirit akin to Julius Caesar. Vergil's hero Aeneas, +is not a Latin but a Trojan. That fact is, of course, due to the +exigencies of tradition, but that Aeneas receives his aid from the Greek +Evander and from the numerous Etruscan cities north of the Tiber while +most of the Latins join Turnus, the enemy, cannot be attributed to +tradition. In fact, Livy, who gives the more usual Roman version, says +nothing of the Greeks, but joins Latinus and the Latian aborigines to +Aeneas while he musters the Etruscans under the Rutulian, Turnus. The +explanation for Vergil's striking departure from the usual patriotic +version of the legend is rather involved and need not be examined here. +But we may at any rate remark his wish to recognize the many races that +had been amalgamated by the state, to refuse his approval of a narrow +urban patriotism, and to give his assent to a view of Rome's place +and mission upon which Julius Caesar had always acted in extending +citizenship to peoples of all races, in scattering Roman colonies +throughout the empire, and in setting the provinces on the road to a +full participation in imperial privileges and duties. With such a policy +Vergil, schooled at Cremona, Milan, and Naples, could hardly fail to +sympathize. + +It has been inferred from the position of authority which Aeneas assumes +that Vergil favored a strong monarchial form of government and intended +Aeneas to be, as it were, a prototype of Augustus. The inference is +doubtless over-hasty. Vergil had a lively historical sense and in his +hero seems only to have attempted a picture of a primitive king of the +heroic age. Indeed Aeneas is perhaps more of an autocrat than are +the Homeric kings, but that is because the Trojans are pictured as a +migrating group, torn root and branch from their land and government, and +following a semi-divine leader whose directions they have deliberately +chosen to obey. In his references to Roman history, in the pageant of +heroes of the sixth book, as well as in the historical scenes of the +shield, no monarchial tendencies appear. Brutus the tyrannicide, Pompey +and Cato, the irreconcilable foes of Caesar, Vergil's youthful hero, +receive their meed of praise in the _Aeneid_, though there were many who +held it treason in that day to mention rebels with respect. + +It is indeed a very striking fact that Vergil, who was the first of Roman +writers to attribute divine honors to the youthful Octavian, refrains +entirely from doing so in the _Aeneid_ at a time when the rest of Rome +hesitated at no form of laudation. Julius Caesar is still recognized as +more than human, + + vocabitur hic quoque votis, + +but Augustus is not. The contrast is significant. The language of the +very young man at Naples had, of course, been colored by Oriental +forms of expression that were in part unconsciously imbibed from the +conversations of the Garden. These were phrases too which Julius Caesar +in the last two years of his life encouraged; for he had learned from +Alexander's experience that the shortest cut through constitutional +obstructions to supreme power lay by way of the doctrine of divine +royalty. In fact, the Senate was forced to recognize the doctrine before +Caesar's death, and after his death consistently voted public sacrifices +at his grave. Vergil was, therefore, following a high authority in the +case of Caesar, and was drawing the logical inference in the case of +Octavian when he wrote the first _Eclogue_ and the prooemium of the +_Georgics_. This makes it all the more remarkable that while his +admiration for Augustus increased with the years, he ceased to give any +countenance to the growing cult of "emperor worship." That the restraint +was not simply in obedience to a governmental policy seems clear, +for Horace, who in his youthful work had shown his distrust of the +government, had now learned to make very liberal use of celestial +appellatives. + +Augustus, then, is not in any way identified with the semi-divine Aeneas. +Vergil does not even place him at a post of special honor on the mount +of revelations, but rather in the midst of a long line of remarkable +_principes_. With dignity and sanity he lays the stress upon the great +events of the Republic and upon its heroes. We may, therefore, justly +conclude that when he wrote the epic he advocated a constitution of the +type proposed by Cicero, in which the _princeps_ should be a true leader +in the state but in a constitutional republic. + +It is the great past, illustrated by the pageant of heroes and the +prophetic pictures of Aeneas's shield, that kindles the poet's +imagination. His sympathies are generous enough to include every race +within the empire and every leader who had shared in Rome's making, +from the divine founder, Romulus, and the tyrannicide, Brutus, to the +republican martyrs, Cato and Pompey, as well as the restorers of peace, +Caesar and Augustus. He has no false patriotism that blinds him to Rome's +shortcomings. He frankly admits with regret her failures in arts and +sciences with a modesty that permits of no reference to his own saving +work. What Rome has done and can do supremely well he also knows: she can +rule with justice, banish violence with law, and displace war by peace. +After the years of civil wars which he had lived through in agony of +spirit, it is not strange that such a mission seemed to him supreme. And +that is why the last words of Anchises to Aeneas are: + + Hae tibi erunt artes: pacisque imponere morem + Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. + +The tragedy of Dido reveals better perhaps than any other portion of +the _Aeneid_ how sensitively the poet reflected Rome's life and +thought rather than those of his Greek literary sources. And yet the +irrepressible Servius was so reckless as to say that the whole book had +been "transferred" from Apollonius. Fortunately we have in this case the +alleged source, and can meet the scholiast with a sweeping denial. Both +authors portray the love of a woman, and there the similarity ends. +Apollonius is wholly dependent upon a literal Cupid and his shafts. +Vergil, to be sure, is so far obedient to Greek convention as to play +with the motive--Cupid came to the banquet in the form of Ascanius--but +only after it was really no longer needed. The psychology of passion's +progress in the first book is convincingly expressed for the first time in +any literature. Aeneas first receives a full account of Dido's deeds of +courage and presently beholds her as she sits upon her throne, +directing the work of city building, judging and ruling as lawgiver +and administrator, and finally proclaiming mercy for his shipwrecked +companions. For her part she, we discover as he does, had long known +his story, and in her admiration for his people had chosen the deeds of +Trojan heroes for representation upon the temple doors: Sunt lacrimae +rerum. The poet simply and naturally leads hero and heroine through +the experience of admiration, generous sympathy, and gratitude to +an inevitable affection, which at the night's banquet, through a +soul-stirring tale told with dignity and heard in rapture, could only +ripen into a very human passion. + +The vital difference between Vergil's treatment of the theme and +Apollonius' may be traced to the difference between the Roman and the +Greek family. Into Italy as into Greece had come, many centuries before, +hordes of Indo-European migrants from the Danubian region who had carried +into the South the wholesome family customs of the North, the very +customs indeed out of which the transalpine literature of medieval +chivalry later blossomed. + +In Greece those social customs--still recognizable in Homer and the early +mythology--had in the sixth century been overwhelmed by a back-flow of +Aegean society, when the northern aristocracy was compelled to surrender +to the native element which constituted the backbone of the democracy. +With the re-emergence of the Aegean society, in which woman was relegated +to a menial position, the possibility of a genuine romantic literature +naturally came to an end. + +At Rome there was no such cataclysm during the centuries of the Republic. +Here the old stock though somewhat mixed with Etruscans, survived. The +ancient aristocracy retained its dominant position in the state and +society, and its mores even penetrated downward. They were not stifled +by new southern customs welling up from below, at least not until the +plebeian element won the support of the founders of the empire, and +finally overwhelmed the nobility. At Rome during the Republic there was +no question of social inequality between the sexes, for though in law the +patriarchal clan-system, imposed by the exigencies of a migrating group, +made the father of the family responsible for civil order, no inferences +were drawn to the detriment of the mother's position in the household. +Nepos once aptly remarked: "Many things are considered entirely proper +here which the Greeks hold to be indelicate. No Roman ever hesitates to +take his wife with him to a social dinner. In fact, our women invariably +have the seat of honor at temples and large gatherings. In such matters +we differ wholly from the Greeks." + +Indeed the very persistence of a nobility was in itself a favorable +factor in establishing a better position for women. Not only did the +accumulation of wealth in the household and the persistence of +courtly manners demand respect for the _domina_ of the villa, but the +transference of noble blood and of a goodly inheritance of name and land +through the mother's hand were matters of vital importance. The nobility +of the senate moreover long controlled the foreign policy of the empire, +and as the empire grew the men were called away to foreign parts on +missions and legations. At such times, the lady in an important household +was mistress of large affairs. It has been pointed out as a significant +fact that the father of the Gracchi was engaged for long years in +ambassadorial and military duties. The training of the lads consequently +fell to the share of Cornelia, a fact which may in some measure account +for the humanitarian interests of those two brilliant reformers. The +responsibilities that fell upon the shoulders of such women must have +stimulated their keenest powers and thus won for them the high esteem +which, in this case, we know the sons accorded their mother. One does +not soon forget the scene (Cicero, _Ad Att_. XV, II) at which Brutus and +Cassius together with their wives, Porcia and Tertia, and Servilia, the +mother of Brutus, discussed momentous decisions with Cicero. When Brutus +stood wavering, Cicero avoiding the issue, and Cassius as usual losing +his temper, it was Servilia who offered the only feasible solution, +and it was her program which they adopted. Is it surprising that Greek +historians like Plutarch could never quite comprehend the part in Roman +politics played by women like Clodia, Porcia and Terentia? In sheer +despair he usually resorts to the hypotheses of some personal intrigue +for an explanation of their powerful influence. + +It is in truth very likely that had Roman literature been permitted to +run its own natural course, without being overwhelmed, as was the Italian +literature of the renaissance, it would have progressed much farther on +the road to Romanticism. Apollonius was far more a restraining influence +in this respect than an inspiration. As it is, Vergil's first and fourth +books are as unthinkable in Greek dress as is the sixth. They constitute +a very conspicuous landmark in the history of literature. + +Vergil does not wholly escape the powerful conventions of his Greek +predecessors: in his fourth book, for instance, there are suggestions of +the melodramatic "maiden's lament" so dear to the music hall gallery of +Alexandria. But Vergil, apparently to his own surprise, permits his Roman +understanding of life to prevail, and transcends his first intentions +as soon as he has felt the grip of the character he is portraying. Dido +quickly emerges from the role of a temptress designed as a last snare to +trap the hero, and becomes a woman who reveals human laws paramount even +to divine ordinance. Once realizing this the poet sacrifices even his +hero and wrecks his original plot to be true to his insight into human +nature. The confession of Aeneas, as he departs, that in heeding heaven's +command he has blasphemed against love--_polluto amore_--how strange a +thought for the _pius Aeneas_! That sentiment was not Greek, it was a new +flash of intuition of the very quality of purest Romance. + +The _Aeneid_ is also a remarkably religious poem to have come from one +who had devoted so many enthusiastic years to a materialistic philosophy. +Indeed it is usual to assume that the poet had abandoned his philosophy +and turned to Stoicism before his death. But there is after all no +legitimate ground for this supposition. The _Aeneid_ has, of course, none +of the scientific fanaticism that mars the _Aetna_, and the poet has +grown mellow and tolerant with years, but that he was still convinced of +the general soundness of the Epicurean hypotheses seems certain. Many +puzzles of the _Aeneid_ are at least best explained by that view. The +repetition of his creed in the first _Aeneid_ ought to warn us that +his enthusiasm for the study of _Rerum natura_ did not die. Indeed the +_Aeneid_ is full of Epicurean phrases and notions. The atoms of fire are +struck out of the flint (VI, 6), the atoms of light are emitted from the +sun (VII, 527, and VIII, 23), early men were born _duro robore_ and lived +like those described in the fifth book of Lucretius (VIII, 320), and +Conington finds almost two hundred reminiscences of Lucretius in the +_Aeneid_, the proportion increasing rather than decreasing in the later +books.[3] + +[Footnote 3: Servius, VI, 264, makes the explicit statement: ex majore +parte, Sironem, id est, magistrum Epicureum sequitur.] + +It is, however, in the interpretation of the word _fatum_ and the role +played by the gods[4] that the test of Vergil's philosophy is usually +applied. The modern equivalent of _fatum_ is, as Guyau[5] has said, +_determinism_. Determinism was accepted by both schools but with a +difference. To the Stoic, _fatum_ is a synonym of Providence whose +popular name is Zeus. The Epicurean also accepts _fatum_ as governing the +universe, but it is not teleological, and Zeus is not identified with it +but is, like man, subordinated to it. Again, the Stoic is consistently +fatalistic. Even man's moral obligations, which are admitted, imply no +real freedom in the shaping of results, for though man has the choice +between pursuing his end voluntarily (which is virtue) or kicking against +the pricks (which is vice), the sum total of his accomplishments is not +altered by his choice: _ducunt volentern fata, nolentem trahunt_. On the +other hand, Vergil's master, while he affirms the causal nexus for the +governance of the universe: + + nec sanctum numen _fati protollere fines_ + posse neque adversus naturae foedera niti + +[Footnote 4: The passages have been analyzed and discussed frequently. +See especially Heinze, _Vergils Epische Technik_, 290 ff., who interprets +Zeus as fate; Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, pp. 11-26, who denies the +identity; Drachmann, Guderne kos Vergil, 1887; MacInnis, _Class. Rev_. +1910, p. 160, and Warde Fowler, _Aeneas at the Site of Rome_, pp. 122 fF. +For a fuller statement of this question see _Am. Jour_. Phil. 1920.] + +[Footnote 5: _Morale d'Epicure_, p. 72.] + +(Lucr. V, 309), posits a spontaneous initiative in the soul-atoms of man: + + quod _fati foedera rumpat_ + ex infinite _ne causam causa sequatur_. + +(Lucr. II, 254). If then Vergil were a Stoic his Jupiter should be +omnipotent and omniscient and the embodiment of _fatum_, and his human +characters must be represented as devoid of independent power; but such +ideas are not found in the _Aeneid_. + +Jupiter is indeed called "omnipotens" at times, but so are Juno and +Apollo, which shows that the term must be used in a relative sense. In a +few cases he can grant very great powers as when he tells Venus: Imperium +sine fine dedi (I, 278). But very providence he never seems to be. He +draws (sortitur) the lots of fate (III, 375), he does not assign them at +will, and he unrolls the book of fate and announces what he finds (I, +261). He is powerless to grant Cybele's prayer that the ships may escape +decay: + + Cui tanta deo permissa potestas? (IX, 97.) + +He cannot decide the battle between the warriors until he weighs their +fates (XII, 725), and in the council of the gods he confesses explicitly +his non-interference with the laws of causality: + + Sua cuique exorsa laborem + Fortunamque ferent. Rex Jupiter omnibus idem. + Fata viam invenient. (X, 112.) + +And here the scholiast naively remarks: + + Videtur his ostendisse aliud esse fata, aliud Jovem.[6] + +[Footnote 6: Serv. _ad loc_. MacInnis, _Class. Rev_. 1910, p. 172, cites +several other passages to the point in refutation of Heinze.] + +Again, contrary to the Stoic creed, the poet conceives of his human +characters as capable of initiating action and even of thwarting fate. +Aeneas in the second book rushes into battle on an impulse; he could +forget his fates and remain in Sicily if he chose (V, 700). He might also +remain in Carthage, and explains fully why he does not; and Dido, if left +_nescla fati_, might thwart the fates (I, 299), and finally does, slaying +herself before her time[7] (IV, 696). The Stoic hypothesis seems to break +down completely in such passages. + +[Footnote 7: See Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, p. 19.] + +Can we assume an Epicurean creed with better success? At least in so far +as it places the _foedera naturae_ above the gods and attributes some +freedom of will and action to men, for as we have seen in both of +these matters Vergil agrees with Lucretius. But there is one apparent +difficulty in that Vergil, contrary to his teacher's usual practice, +permits the interference of the gods in human action. The difficulty is, +however, only apparent, if, as Vergil does, we conceive of these gods +simply as heroic and super-human characters in the drama, accepted from +an heroic age in order to keep the ancient atmosphere in which Aeneas had +lived in men's imagination ever since Homer first spoke of him. As such +characters they have the power of initiative and the right to interfere +in action that Epicurus attributes to men, and in so far as they are +of heroic stature their actions may be the more effective. Thus far an +Epicurean might well go, and must go in an epic of the heroic age. This +is, of course, not the same as saying that Vergil adopted the gods +in imitation of Homer or that he needed Olympic machinery because he +supposed it a necessary part of the epic technique. Surely Vergil was +gifted with as much critical acumen as Lucan. But he had to accept these +creatures as subsidiary characters the moment he chose Aeneas as his +hero, for Aeneas was the son of Venus who dwelt with the celestials at +least a part of the time. Her presence in turn involved Juno and Jupiter +and the rest of her daily associates. Furthermore, since the tale was of +the heroic age of long ago, the characters must naturally behave as the +characters of that day were wont to do, and there were old books like +Homer and Hesiod from which every schoolboy had become familiar with +their behavior. If the poet wished to make a plausible tale of that +period he could no more undertake to modernize his characters than could +Tennyson in his _Idylls_. The would-be gods are in the tale not to +reveal Vergil's philosophy--they do not--but to orient the reader in the +atmosphere in which Aeneas had always been conceived as moving. They +perform the same function as the heroic accoutrements and architecture +for a correct description of which Vergil visited ancient temples and +studied Cato. + +Had he chosen a contemporary hero or one less blessed with celestial +relatives there is no reason to suppose that he would have employed the +super-human personages at all. If this be true it is as uncritical to +search for the poet's own conception of divinity in these personages as +it would be to infer his taste in furniture from the straw cot which he +chooses to give his hero at Evander's hovel. In the epic of primitive +Rome the claims of art took precedence over personal creed, and so they +would with any true poet; and if any critic were prosaic enough +to object, Vergil might have answered with Livy: Datur haec venia +antiquitati ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augustiora +faciat, and if the inconsistency with his philosophy were stressed he +could refer to Lucretius' proemium. It is clear then that while the +conceptions of destiny and free-will found in the _Aeneid_ are at +variance with Stoic creed at every point, they fit readily into the +Epicurean scheme of things as soon as we grant what any Epicurean poet +would readily have granted that the celestials might be employed as +characters of the drama if in general subordinated to the same laws of +causality and of freedom as were human beings. + +What then are we to say of the Stoic coloring of the sixth book? In the +first place, it is not actually Stoic. It is a syncretism of mystical +beliefs, developed by Orphic and Apocalyptic poets and mystics from +Pythagoras and Plato to a group of Hellenistic writers, popularized by +the later less logical Stoic philosophers like Posidonius, and gaining in +Vergil's day a wide acceptance among those who were growing impatient of +the exacting metaphysical processes of thought. Indeed Vergil contributed +something toward foisting these beliefs upon early Christianity, though +they were no more essential to it than to Stoicism. + +Be that as it may, this mystical setting was here adopted because the +poet needed for his own purposes[8] a vision of incorporated souls of +Roman heroes, a thing which neither Epicurean nor orthodox Stoic creed +could provide. So he created this _mythos_ as Plato for his own purpose +created a vision of Er.[9] The dramatic purpose of the _descensus_ was of +course to complete for Aeneas the progressive revelation of his mission, +so skilfully developed by careful stages all through the third book,[10] +to give the hero his final commands and to inspire him for the final +struggle.[11] Then the poet realized that he could at the same time +produce a powerful artistic effect upon the reader if he accomplished +this by means of a vision of Rome's great heroes presented in review by +Anchises from the mount of revelations, for this was an age in which Rome +was growing proud of her history. But to do this he must have a _mythos_ +which assumed that souls lived before their earthly existence. A Homeric +limbo of departed souls did not suffice (though Vergil also availed +himself of that in order to recall the friends of the early books). With +this in view he builds his home of the dead out of what Servius calls +much _sapientia_, filling in details here and there even from the +legendary lower-world personages so that the reader may meet some +familiar faces. However, the setting is not to be taken literally, for of +course neither he nor anyone else actually believed that prenatal spirits +bore the attributes and garments of their future existence. Nor is the +poet concerned about the eschatology which had to be assumed for the +setting; but his judgments on life, though afforded an opportunity to +find expression through the characters of the scene, are not allowed to +be circumscribed by them; they are his own deepest convictions. + +[Footnote 8: No one would attempt to infer Stephen Phillips' eschatology +from the setting of his _Christ in Hades_.] + +[Footnote 9: Vergil indeed was careful to warn the reader (VI, 893) that +the portal of unreal dreams refers the imagery of the sixth book to +fiction, and Servius reiterates the warning. On the employment of myths +by Epicureans see chapter VIII, above.] + +[Footnote 10: See Heinze, _Epische Technik_, pp. 82 ff.] + +[Footnote 11: This Vergil indicates repeatedly: _Aen_. V, 737; VI, 718, +806-7, 890-2.] + +It has frequently been said that Vergil's philosophical system is +confused and that his judgments on providence are inconsistent, that in +fact he seems not to have thought his problems through. This is of course +true so far as it is true of all the students of philosophy of his day. +Indeed we must admit that with the very inadequate psychology of that +time no reasonable solution of the then central problem of determinism +could be found. But there is no reason for supposing that the poet did +not have a complete mastery of what the best teachers of his day had to +offer. + +Vergil's Epicureanism, however, served him chiefly as a working +hypothesis for scientific purposes. With its ethical and religious +implications he had not concerned himself; and so it was not permitted +in his later days to interfere with a deep respect for the essentials of +religion. Similarly, the profoundest students of science today, men +who in all their experiments act implicitly and undeviatingly on the +hypotheses of atomism and determinism in the world of research, are +usually the last to deny the validity of the basic religious tenets. In +his knowledge of religious rites Vergil reveals an exactness that seems +to point to very careful observances in his childhood home. They have +become second nature as it were, and go as deep as the filial devotion +which so constantly brings the word _pietas_ to his pen. + +But his religion is more than a matter of rites and ceremonies. It has, +to a degree very unusual for a Roman, associated itself with morality and +especially with social morality. The culprits of his Tartarus are not +merely the legendary offenders against exacting deities: + + Hic quibus invisi fratres, dum vita manebat, + Pulsatusve parens et fraus innexa clienti, + Aut qui divitiis soli incubuere repertis + Nec partem posuere suis, quae maxima turba est. + +The virtues that win a place in Elysium indicate the same fusion of +religion with humanitarian sympathies: + + Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, + Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, + Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, + Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artis, + Quique sui memores aliquos fecere merendo: + Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta. + +His Elysium is far removed from Homer's limbo; truly did he deserve his +place among those + + Phoebo digna locuti. + +Before he had completed his work the poet set out for Greece to visit the +places which he had described and which in his fastidious zeal he seems +to have thought in need of the same careful examination that he had +accorded his Italian scenery. Three years he still thought requisite for +the completion of his epic. But at Megara he fell ill, and being carried +back in Augustus' company to Brundisium he died there, in 19 B.C. at the +age of fifty-one. Before his death he gave instructions that his epic +should be burned and that his executors, his life-long friends Varius and +Tucca, should suppress whatever of his manuscripts he had himself failed +to publish. In order to save the Aeneid, however, Augustus interposed +the supreme authority of the state to annul that clause of the will. The +minor works were probably left unpublished for some time. Indeed, there +is no convincing proof that such works as the Ciris, the Aetna, and the +Catalepton were circulated in the Augustan age. + +The ashes were carried to his home at Naples and buried beneath a +tombstone bearing the simple epitaph written by some friend who knew the +poet's simplicity of heart: + + Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc + Parthenope; cecini pascua rura duces. + +His tomb[12] was on the roadside outside the city, as was usual--Donatus +says on the highway to Puteoli, nearly two miles from the gates. Recent +examination of the region has shown that by some cataclysm of the middle +ages not mentioned in any record, the road and the tomb have subsided, +and now the quiet waters of the golden bay flow many fathoms over them. + +[Footnote 12: Guenther, _Pausilypon_, p. 201] + + + + +INDEX + + +Acestes +Aeneas +_Aeneid_, the +_Aetna_, the +Alexandrian poetry +Alfenus Varus +Allegory +Ancestry of Vergil +Animism +Annius Cimber +Antiquarian lore in the _Aeneid_ +Antony, Mark +Antony, Lucius, at Perugia +Apollodorus, the rhetorician +Apollonius of Rhodes +Archias, the poet +Asianists, the +Atticists, the +_Auctor ad Herennium_ +Augustus, cf. Octavius. +Avernus, Lake + +Birt's edition of the _Catalepton_ +Brutus, M. Junius +_Bucolics_, the, see _Eclogues_. +Burial-place of Vergil + +Caecilius of Caleacte +Callimachus +Calvus, C. Licinius +Capua +Cassius, Longinus +_Catalepton_ +Catullus, C. Valerius +Celts, the +Child, of the fourth _Eclogue_ +Cicero, M. Tullius +Cinna, C. Helvius +_Ciris_, the +Cisalpine Gaul +Civil War, the +Classicism +Cleopatra and Dido +Clodia +Confiscation of Vergil's lands +_Copa_, the +Cornificius, the poet +Cremona +_Culex_, the +Cumae +Cytheris (Lycoris) + +Daphnis +Death of Vergil +Diction, purity of +Dido +Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_ +_Dirae_, the +Donatus, the _Vita_ of + +_Eclogues_, the; + No. I + No. II + No. IV + No. V + No. VI + No. VIII + No. IX + No. X +Education of Vergil +"Emperor Worship" +Ennius +Epic, an early effort at +Epicurean philosophy +Epidius +Epigrams of Vergil + see _Catalepton_. +Epyllia +Ethics in the _Aeneid_ +Etruscans +Evictions by the triumvirs +Evolution + +Fate, in the _Aeneid_ +Fowler, W.W., Studies of +Freedmen +Fundanius + +Gallus, Cornelius +"Garden," the, near Naples +_Georgics_, the +Golden Age, the +"Grand Style," the +Greeks, in the _Aeneid_ + +Hades +Herculaneum +Homer +Horace +Imperial Cult, the +Julius Caesar +Law, the study of +Literary theory + +Lucretius +_Ludus Troiae_ +Lycoris (Cytheris) +Lydia, the +Lysias, as model of style + +Maecenas, C. Cilnius + the literary circle of +Magia, Vergil's mother +Mantua +Maro, meaning of +Martial, on the _Culex_ +Materialism +Meleager of Gadara +Melissus +Messalla, M. Valerius +Messianic prophecy +Metrical technique +Milan +Mountain scenery in the _Eclogues_ + +Naples +Nationalism in the _Aeneid_ +Nature, observation of +"New poetry," the _neoteroi_ +Nicolaus Damascenus + +Octavius, or Octavianus + see Augustus. +Octavius Musa +Oracles, the Sibylline +Orientals at Naples +Ovid + +Parthenius +parody, Vergil's in _Catalepton_, X +Pasiphae, the myth of +Pastoral elegy +Pastoral poetry +"Pathetic fallacy," the +Patriotism in the _Aeneid_ +Peace of Brundisium +Perusine War, the +Pharsalia, the battle of +Philippi, the battle of +Philodemus +Philosophic study +Piso, Calpurnius +"Plain style" the +Plato +Plotius Tucca, +Politics of the Epicurean group +Pollio, C. Asinius +Pompeii +Pompey, the Great +Porcia +Portraits of Vergil +Posilipo +_Priapea_, the three +Probus, the _Vita_ of +Propertius +Purity of diction +_Purpureus pannus_ + +Quintilius Varus +Rand, _Young Virgil's Poetry_ +Realism in the _Eclogues_ + in the _Aeneid_ +_Res Romanae_ of Vergil +Rhetoric +Romantic poetry +Romanticism +Scholiasts, on Vergil +Scylla +Servius +Siro +Skutsch, _Aus Vergils Fruehzeit_ +Sorrento +Spenser's _Gnat_ +Stoicism +Syrians at Naples +Theocritus +Thucydides, as a model of style +Tibullus +Tityrus +Tucca, see Plotius +Turnus +Valerius Cato +Valerius Messalla, see Messalla +Valgius +Varius Rufus +Varus, see Alfenus Varus, and Quintilius Varus +Ventidius Bassus +Venus Genetrix +Vergil, see Table of Contents +Vessereau, on the _Aetna_ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vergil, by Tenney Frank + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERGIL *** + +***** This file should be named 10960.txt or 10960.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/6/10960/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin, Bradley Norton and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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