VI RGIL 
 
 BY 
 
 T. R. GLOVER 
 
 HON. LL.D. queen's UNIVKRSI rV, CANADA 
 
 FELLOW AND LECTURER OP ST JOHN's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 
 
 UNIVERSITY LECTURFR IN ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 SF.COND EDITION 
 
 MfeTHUEN & GO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON 
 
First Published . . October igo4 
 (Efttitled "Studies in Virgil") 
 
 Second Edition . , November I()I2 
 {Mfthuen &» Co. Ltd.) 
 
^h 
 
 TO 
 
 DR JOHN WATSON 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, CANADA 
 
 How many a time, dear Watson, the snowy road we'd pace, 
 With the frozen lake behind us, and the North wind in our face ; 
 But the sun was bright above us in the blue Canadian sky, 
 As we walked and talked together of deep matters, you and I. 
 
 It was snow and air and sunshine ; and I look across the sea 
 To those days of glorious winter, and the life they meant to me ; 
 For my mind and soul caught something, as of sun and snow and air. 
 From the friend who walked beside me in those winters over there. 
 
 206^54 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 IT is generally recognized that at present there is a 
 movement in education away from the Classics. The 
 questions are being raised in the older English Univer- 
 sities, whether after all Greek is a necessary part of every 
 branch of study, and whether it should remain a compulsory 
 subject in every curriculum. In America and in the British 
 Colonies a further stage has been reached. Tradition there 
 has less power; Greek as a compulsory subject has been 
 quite discarded, and Latin itself is in some places a more 
 or less optional subject. The possibilities of danger to 
 education generally which are involved in this attitude 
 toward classical studies need no remark. Yet there is 
 another aspect of the matter which deserves considera- 
 tion, and here 1 may be allowed to speak from my own 
 experience. 
 
 I found when I was Professor of Latin in a Canadian 
 University a system of " options " in vogue, which per- 
 mitted a man, if he so wished, to drop the Classics alto- 
 gether at a very early stage. The higher study of Latin 
 and Greek was, of course, as in England, a matter of free 
 choice for the student who hoped for honours. But the 
 second of the two pass classes in Latin, involving acquaint- 
 ance with some half-dozen books, a little unseen translation, 
 and a very little prose composition, could be avoided if a 
 student so determined. Latin, in other words, had to 
 compete with all sorts of subjects, and to stand on its 
 own merits. A curious result followed. Not at all un- 
 frequently a student, in spite of woeful preparation and 
 a persistent inability to translate with accuracy or to 
 compose without elementary blunders in syntax, would 
 nevertheless realize something of the literary value of the 
 poet or historian who was being read in class, and would 
 
viii VIRGIL 
 
 persevere with an almost pathetic enthusiasm in a study 
 in which he could hope for no distinction, but which he 
 could and did enjoy. He realized, in fact, that the old 
 Scottish term " Humanity " meant something. 
 
 What the presence of such men and women in a class 
 meant to a teacher 1 need not say. When year after year 
 a succession of such students made their appearance, one 
 gained faith in the vitality of classical literature and in its 
 power to maintain itself. Only it was plain that classical 
 study had to be primarily the study of literature and of 
 life — syntax, philology, composition, and so forth must be 
 clearly means to an end, and of that end the class had 
 never to lose sight. What the students may have gained 
 from these courses they can best say ; that the experience 
 was of immense value to the teacher I record with gratitude. 
 
 It is easy to see that the factors which have produced 
 the present position of classical studies in Canada are at 
 work in England, and, though the movement will be slower, 
 it is not hard to predict that, unless steps are taken by 
 those who believe in classical literature, the same results 
 will follow here as in Canada. Opinions will differ as to 
 what are the right steps to be taken. Personally I believe 
 that none will be so effectual as the appeal to the threatened 
 literature. This will mean that students must have their 
 attention constantly directed to the human value of what 
 they are reading, and further that the training of literary 
 instinct must be more generally recognized as a main part 
 of the teacher's work. Very often the teacher supposes 
 that his class are a great deal nearer to him in taste and 
 feeling for literature than they are; things are so obvious 
 to him that he does not suppose it necessary to call 
 attention to them, and as a result they are missed by the 
 class. 
 
 In this book I have tried to apply to Virgil the method 
 I suggest. During five years in Canada I had to lecture 
 winter by winter on some three books of the Aeneidto a class 
 of from forty to sixty students, and the following chapters 
 are the indirect result. They have been written since my 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ix 
 
 return to England. Scholars who know the literature of 
 Virgil will recognize how much I owe to French scholars 
 and critics — to M. Boissier, Sainte-Beuve, Patin, Girard 
 and Martha, in particular. " The Gauls," Sainte-Beuve 
 says, " early found their way to the Capitol." To my own 
 countrymen I am also indebted, to Professor Tyrrell and 
 Mr Mackail among the living, to Nettleship, Sellar, and 
 Henry among the dead, and last but not least, to Virgil's 
 great editor, Conington, whose work remains a monument 
 of a great victory won long since for the cause of Liberalism 
 in education. 
 
 When his work is at last done, and his book is going 
 out into the world, a writer may be forgiven for wonder- 
 ing what will be its reception — particularly when he 
 has tried once more to draw so well-known a figure. 
 " This," the reader may say, " is not my idea of Virgil 
 at all." No doubt he is right, and in more than his state- 
 ment of fact. A great poet, expressing himself in great 
 poetry, is not easily grasped in his entirety. For the 
 great mind has the abundant suggestiveness of Nature and 
 her work, and the critic, in proportion as he deepens his 
 knowledge, has an increasing consciousness that he will not 
 soon exhaust the meaning and suggestion of the great 
 personality he studies. This picture of Virgil may not be 
 the reader's, but it still may be a true one, and it has at 
 least been drawn with growing affection for the poet. 
 Goethe once expressed himself with some freedom upon 
 Schlegel's criticisms of Euripides — the critic's point of view 
 was wrong — " If a modern man like Schlegel must pick out 
 faults in so great an ancient, he ought only to do it upon 
 his knees." Whatever else may have been done aright or 
 done wrong in this book, Goethe's word has not been 
 forgotten. 
 
 T. R. G. 
 
 September 1904 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 FOR the new edition, the book has been carefully 
 revised — indeed, twice, with a long interval between 
 the revisions. It has not been re-written. Years 
 bring new outlooks, and neither a book nor a picture 
 can very well be made from two points of view. A man 
 sees a thing, and expresses it as best he can there and 
 then ; and, if later on he retouches it, memory and some- 
 times timidity confuse the impression. 
 
 I have added translations of (I think) all the passages 
 of Virgil quoted — not always using the same words, I find, 
 where the same passage came more than once. Readers 
 of Virgil will guess the reason. 
 
 I should like to thank the reviewers in The Times and 
 The Athencsufn for criticisms which I have found of value 
 and have used. Another reviewer elsewhere thought I 
 might have added a chapter on Virgil in literature. I am 
 glad to explain why I did not — by referring my readers 
 at once to Domenico Comparetti's Virgil in the Middle 
 Ages, in Mr E. F. M. Benecke's English translation, a 
 delightful and most learned work which will appeal to 
 every student of Virgil. Sir Archibald Geikie's Love of 
 Nature among the Romans, a book full of Virgil, did not 
 reach me till this volume was already in type. 
 
 In a lecture recently published Mr J. W. Mackail spoke 
 with emphasis of what is to be gained from learning by 
 heart the poetry of a great poet. There is something even 
 in copying signal passages out for oneself. Virgil, as Mr 
 R. A. Neil once playfully said to me, is not the author 
 for a healthy boy ; — " perhaps more trivial airs may please 
 thee better," as Humphry Moseley wrote when he published 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xi 
 
 Milton's poems in 1645. But it is only in boyhood that 
 one has the opportunity, or perhaps the faculty, of learning 
 much poetry by heart, and I would give a good deal now 
 to have had my own mind charged from boyhood with 
 Virgil and Wordsworth. 
 
 September 191 2 
 
Don Quixote took it, and without speaking a word began to turn 
 over the leaves. After a little while he returned it, saying : — 
 
 " In the little which I have seen I have found three things in this 
 author worthy of reprehension. The first is some words which I 
 have re.id in the prolc^e ; another, that the language is Aragonese, 
 for now and then he writes without articles ; and the third, which 
 must stamp him for an ignoramus, is that he blunders and deviates 
 from the truth in what is the important thing in the histor.% for 
 here he says that the wife of Sancho Panza, my squire, was named 
 Mari Gutierrez, and she is not so named, but Theresa Panza ; and 
 he who errs in so considerable a point as this, there is much fear 
 that he will err in all the rest of the histor).'' 
 
 At this, cried Sancho :— " A pretty thing of a historian indeed !" 
 Dan Quixote, part ii. chapter 59 
 
TABLE OF DATES 
 
 B.C. 
 
 90 The Social War. 
 88-82 The Marian regime. 
 82-78 Rule of Sulla. 
 
 70 Consulship of Pompey and Crassus. IJirlh of Virgil. Birth 
 of Gallus. 
 
 65 Birth of Horace. 
 
 63 Consulship of Cicero and conspiracy of Catiline. Birth of 
 Augustus. 
 
 59 Consulship of Caesar. 
 
 53 Battle of Carrhae. The Parthians captured Roman standards. 
 
 48 Battle of Pharsalia. 
 48-44 Rule of Caesar. 
 
 44 Murder of Caesar. 
 
 42 Battle of Philippi. (Horace fought in Republican army.) 
 
 41 Plantation of the Veterans. Episode of Virgil's farm. 
 
 39 ? Virgil introduced Horace to Maecenas. 
 38-1 E c/ogues (MackaW). 
 
 31 Battle of Actium. 
 
 29 ? Georgics (Mackail). 
 
 27 Octavian took the title Augustus. Death of Gallus. 
 
 25 Propertius, Cynthia. 
 
 23 Death of the young Marcellus. Horace, Odes i.-iii. published. 
 
 20 The Parthians restored the standards taken at Carrhae. 
 
 19 Death of Virgil. Death of TibuUus. Horace, £/>/j//fj i. 
 8 Death of Maecenas. Death of Horace. 
 
 A.D, 
 
 14 Death of Augustus. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Preface to the First Edition ..... vii 
 Preface to the Second Edition • . . . x 
 
 Table of Dates ....... xiii 
 
 Chapter I. The Age and the Man . . . . i 
 
 Introduction, p. i. 1. Environment of poet ; change in Greek and 
 
 Roman thought, p. 4. II. Birth; home; education, p. 11. 
 
 III. The plantation of the veterans, p. 22. IV. Poetry; the 
 
 court; friends, p. 26. V. The Georgics; last days, p. 33. 
 
 Chapter II. Literature :—i. Literary Influences . 41 
 
 (Macrobius and literary indebtedness, p. 41. 1. Relations of Virgil 
 to Homer, p. 46. II. To the Attic drama; Euripides, p. 52. 
 
 III. To Alexandria, p. 55. IV. To Latin poets ; Lucretius, p. 58. 
 
 Chapter III. Literature :— 2. Contemporaries . . 67 
 
 Latin poetp; and its modes, p. 67. 1. Mythology ; Propertius and 
 
 Ovid, p. 71. II. Roman antiquities, p. 76. III. History, p. 
 
 79. IV. Panegyric; the Aeneid, p. 81. 
 
 Chapter IV. Literature : — 3. The Myths of Aeneas . 85 
 
 I. Aeneas in the Iliad ; the Troad ; Strabo, p. 86. II. The Wan- 
 derings of Aeneas; Aphrodite, p. 92. HI. Rome and Aeneas; 
 
 Virgil's use of the story, p. 100. 
 
 -Chapter V. The Land and the Nation: — i. Italy . 105 
 
 Novelty of appeal to a nation ; the unity of Italy, p. 105. 1. 
 
 Scenery ; travel ; Italian scenery and legends ; landscape ; birds, p. 
 
 108. II. The Italian people, p. 120. III. The Trojans in 
 
 Italy, p. 123. 
 
 ^.Chapter VI, The Land and the Nation :— 2. Rome . 126 
 
 Virgil and the meaning of Rome, p. 126. 1. The city ; its beauty ; 
 
 its memories, p. 128. II. Roman history ; religion and antiquities : 
 
 Roman character, p. 133. III. The Roman Empire; its under- 
 lying ideas, and its achievement, p. 141. 
 
XVI > I [%Vi 1 1 . 
 
 C'UArVKK VU IMK I AM' AM> lUK N \ VION ,; AVHU'SH'S 147 
 
 K«v>n*it iHvts *«v< t\\c wxMship v\t the VN«|>ci\vr, jv 147. — A, The 
 wwrk »t l\(hv»s ! Am(;«,*U\>' ^^M\^\w««t\^>\\ vvt \l ; its |;r»\Hluc«Cs«, \v ts^v 
 
 11. Vi«);»l A\u\ A«^«>t«s! t\ioiVvUUip t»\\»l syuviv«»tl\v i rtiluwirttl.m 
 
 for K««\»«u\«'s ch;u*»tci ixiul pv»\»tiv>rtl *k'l\icvr»H<>i\t 1 Vini»\ «\\vi IVmo 
 CTOcy. (v iji4. III. A«s«>t«s in the .4*mi\i \ A\\^\.\s\\\ii~ miwi ,W»\e*»j 
 
 rHAVVKK \lll iNVKKVKV lAVlON OK l.HPK;— 1. OU>0 . . l?^ 
 
 1, Ifjivw^iinv ««vl Uti'imv lvrt>-ki;»o«i\>l ; (io«t«\pnt i>t' \\4vmvvu. jk 175. 
 
 •. \\. \'\\c \\\\i ot thr j^vxIn »v> thv' stiMv ot Pikl»>. jv, lya III. 
 
 rh«»*v-tri ol P>viv>. p, 1$*,- — l\', I'hr c>vt;u\j;lc\u««»\t with .\cucv»s ; _ 
 Avwva's iv*\t. jv uSo,— .V, The luplute : the UwUhi^i; ^vt HrA>r\\: 
 nxavlnesis «iul kU-Alh >>f D\>U>. jv 10,! \l S>j;\\((\i-muf ^'t thr 
 
 xtvviy, jv ^\J, 
 
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 *otn ol Ar\\r*>»lii<" tvMt\ 0\>m(vlo\>tv, |v i}\.x>, U, Aenfi«s v\vm"rive\i 
 
 ivi\ ihr l\i\s*.>i vM A Homejio heio, \\ J\ {, lU, Arutws i»»\vl the ^ivnls ; 
 
 lV»titi,T J Vu*»ivlcnv"r i clVf\"t of Ae»\c«»* expeiienor im his ihAirti-ln, 
 
 \v aifv. IV. fStt<*ji, \\ 3di. V. .\c>\c;»s i».<i rviixk'e; the Slaj; 
 
 k\Uiv»j;, (v •86.—— VI. v\<\»>ivi»uvM\ >v>th the //*^.fr UU'^km, jv 
 
 CUAPTKK \ iNTKRPRKVAnoN OK I IKK; J, HAIMS . J;^^ 
 
 Se»vi«> .'« »ivth .<,H4>.i A\\\\ »ts elevvvent.*, jv d^\<i. I, Hinwlive 
 
 ielvjii«M\ *v\vl H>>me» : the AV^rw ; Mesiovl, }>. a^^. U. Klevisiuiau 
 
 mysteiic*: Uioiwsus /*^re«s : Orphi.Mw rttui IVthi*)^»T««»i>u\ 1 n«tv>, 
 
 jx a4a. lU. ItAlidu ule<vs i\t the other wvwUI ; l.uct^tiu!*; Oceio's 
 
 JMt*m «/S,i/4^i t.'>n\heHN vn the irA"^^».,v, jv a^a. IV. The sixth 
 
 CMAKIKK \l. In VKKKKKt AVION OK I IKK 4. iMVMKl'S 37} 
 
 \'\\<r ^.\U \\\ Vyw (svtn, p, jyj. — —l. OKI iwA wcvi \Arixs\\\ I KM\>e\ ; 
 l^Wwpvi*. jv 375. — II. t^itloiMtt ot p>vls by Xeu^^phaues ; by 
 Kmv\vivleA: hy TUto ; iWhue ol Olympian >;\\ls ; .\|H>lK>nius vxf 
 
 KhvHle.i, jv aSvV Ul, ltnh*n (xttnthe\M\ ; ontvcisn\ v^t lt»li;u\ leU- 
 
 j<»ivn by ToK Uiuj — " v»!«el«l " ; by l^iviv* a\\\\ by l.tioretius " i\»«i>ly»- 
 iwj " ; by i>\vt* - '" l>e<»vuitul " ; Stv>iv- views, p. jSa - IV. Niijjil 
 ttwvl the h\hU : j>««the>sn» in t.W'jfi.v; UvM\ve»io ijvhIs in .</*».j^m' t 
 lti*l\«n t;vHls : intluenoe ot Kv<in«n ohttiAotei vu\ vvnv^pi>ou» ot jIvhU ; 
 indueuv^e ot TUto j .fi .vvWir'i^ .4V»i»»v /,>7: hipiiei a\\<.\ Frtte ; Vii^jvl's 
 lnkle\-is\vvn ; " PeAi City «.U /.eusi" ; " lV*i ».Ntv ot t.'evioiv»" ; Stowiwn 
 
 itmmm 
 
'id I . / 
 
 • Chapter XII. Intkrpkf.tation of Lifk:— 5. Results . 306 
 
 M7 
 
 I'ACR 
 
 The "ancient t|uarrel of poetry and philosophy"; poetry and "the 
 
 problems of the universe," p. 306. 1. Dis aliler visum: death, 
 
 obscurity, and exile; quae lucis miserix lam dira eupido? p. 309. 
 
 II. Lucretius on deatli ; the " voice of Nature," according to Lucre- 
 tius and according to Virgil ; the Stoics and bereavement ; l';urii)idcs* 
 
 Andromache, p. 315. III. "The prol)lem" in the Georgia and 
 
 in the Aettcid; labor ittiprobus and tendimus in I.alium ; the future? 
 
 p. 319. IV. The individuiU's case ; the strenuous mind ; effects of 
 
 sufifering ; cons<jlalions, !>. 323. V. Conclusion; Virgil's the great 
 
 voice of hope and gladness iu the Roman world ; Virgil and 
 Christianity, |). 330. 
 
 INDKX 335 
 
VIRGIL 
 
.^™^gM^BHi 
 
VIRGIL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE AGE AND THE MAN 
 
 Oi5a/j.€u yap 6ti irdcra i] Kriait avcrrevdi^ei Kal ffvvudlvei. — St Paul. 
 
 IT is a commonplace that to understand a poet we need 
 some knowledge of his time and place. His mind will 
 take colour from his surroundings, by sympathy or 
 antipathy. He will share at least some of the limitations of 
 his age and generation, while, in common with his contem-, 
 poraries, he belongs to a stage of moral and intellectual 
 development in advance of his predecessors. At the same 
 time it must be remembered that a great poet will generally 
 also be in advance of his contemporaries in the fullness with 
 which he realizes the life of his day, with its problems and 
 its solutions of those problems; and he will represent in 
 some measure, whether he means it or not, the standpoint 
 of a later age.^ He will have grasped all that his own age 
 has to say, and he will feel more than other men the weak 
 points in a position with which they are satisfied. Even 
 if he does not consciously feel these weak points, they will 
 often be brought out by his work. For while a great poet's 
 work will rise to a region of feeling and insight where he 
 has to handle things of eternal and universal significance, 
 and where we forget that he is a poet of a certain time and 
 place, — so truly does he present to us the permanent and 
 common life of man, — yet even in such a region will his own 
 age claim him, as he develops those aspects of truth which 
 are wanting to the common thought of his day. A great 
 
 * "The artist," said Schiller, "it is true, is the son of his time ; but pity for 
 him, if he is its pupil, or even its favourite." 
 
 I 1 
 
2 VIRGIL 
 
 poet will, of course, not be what is called didactic, whatever 
 he may have to teach ; — indeed, when he explains in prose 
 what he means, it is never quite the same thing. None 
 the less he will have something to say that is urgent 
 and significant, and this will have been suggested to him, 
 somehow, by the life around him — how we may not be able 
 to see very readily, for the processes of a poet's thought are 
 more mysterious than those of other men; but, somehow, 
 he will not be satisfied, his work will not please him, till 
 all is adjusted to the harmony which he feels must be the 
 mark of the right view of the universe. 
 
 / Virgil is, of course, the great poet of the Augustan age, 
 /according to the common account. M. Patin,^ however, 
 suggests that neither Virgil's nor Horace's is the typical 
 poetry of the time, but that both represent a recoil from 
 the current fashion. Another French critic, M. Pierron,^ 
 maintains that Virgil, if born fifty years earlier or later, 
 would still have been Virgil — a less perfect Virgil, but yet 
 Virgil — while Horace would not have been Horace at any 
 other time. " Horace," he continues, " if I may so say, is 
 the age of Augustus personified." Probably the poetry of 
 no great poet is ever, in the sense which M. Patin means, 
 " typical " of its age, for the poetry, or v/hat passes for poetry, 
 of every age seems, like its prose, to be at best common- 
 place, or more probably bad. Yet Virgil and Horace must 
 after all be genuine representatives of their era, for their 
 contemporaries read and treasured their poetry, and left the 
 works of the rest to wrap the incense and the pepper of 
 which Horace speaks.^ Is the poet, who touches the heart 
 of his time and his people, or the average poetaster, the 
 truer type of the age? Setting aside the poetasters, who 
 were many,'* setting aside even names of greater note, such 
 as Tibullus and Ovid, are we to call Horace or Virgil the 
 
 1 Patin, Etudes sur la Poc'sie lalhte, i. c. viii. ; cf. Tyrrell, Latiti Poetry, p. 23 f. 
 
 * La Littt'ratitre roiiiaiuc, 405-6. Compare the remark of Goethe cited by 
 Carlyle, Essay on Diderot : " Thus, as the most original, resolute and self-directing 
 of all the Moderns has written : ' Let a man be but born ten years sooner, or 
 ten years later, his whole aspect and performance shall be different.' " 
 
 ' Cf. Horace, Efp. ii. i, 267 ; Catullus, 95, 9 ; and Persius, i, 43. 
 
 * Ovid, ex Poiito, iv. 16, enumerates some thirty contemporary poets. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 3 
 
 poet of the period ? Is Horace — Horace the prophet of 
 common sense, who never transcended the sterling, but 
 hardly inspiring, moralities of his most worthy father — is 
 Horace really after all the interpreter of the life of the 
 Augustan age? Is he fundamentally in sympathy enough 
 with all men, or with any man, to tell his age all that is 
 in its heart — its longing, its quest, and its despair? If 
 Horace is not the poet we seek, is Virgil? Allowing at once 
 that he sees beyond the men of his time, that he knows 
 their spirit as they do not know it themselves, and that 
 in many ways he is spiritually nearer to Marcus Aurelius 
 than to Augustus, let us try to see him in relation to his age 
 and to realize how he expresses the deepest mind of the 
 Roman world around him.^ 
 
 The " age of Augustus " is a phrase with which we are 
 familiar, and it has a certain suggestion of splendour and 
 promise, but more of this than we suppose may be due to 
 Virgil himself It is he who has taught us to associate 
 greatness and prosperity with the name of Augustus, but, if 1 
 we substitute for "Augustus" the name " Octavian," some of 
 the grandeur and most of the hopefulness is lost. We find, 
 in fact, that while Virgil bade his countrymen look forward 
 for all that was happy to the age opening before them, he 
 was himself the child of another and a darker age, and that 1 
 his vision of a brighter day was at least as much prayer as 
 prophecy. For the century which lay behind the inception 
 of the A enez'd knew more of the works of Octavian than of 
 Augustus. Augustus had indeed ended this century, and 
 the system which he introduced into the Roman world 
 was to save the world from its repetition. But it was one 
 thing to prevent the recurrence of such a period of pain 
 and of rapid decline, and quite another to undo the 
 effects which survived from a hundred years of civil war. 
 Let the Emperor have credit for all he did, but let us 
 remember that if Virgil prophesied peace for that age 
 
 1 "The Historian of a national Poetry," says Carlyle, "has to record the 
 highest Aim of a nation in its successive directions and developments ; for 
 by this the Poetry of the nation modulates itself; this ts the Poetry of the 
 nation." — Essay on Historic Survey of German Poetry. 
 
4 VIRGIL 
 
 of Augustus, at the dawn of which he died, his life had 
 been lived in times of confusion, of war, of treachery, and 
 defeneration. 
 
 The Roman people had lost in some measure its early 
 character. If war sometimes discovers the finer qualities 
 of a nation, it also develops the worse and the darker. 
 The long struggle with Hannibal displays in the most 
 splendid way the stability and the manhood of Rome at her 
 best,^ but it profoundly affected the history of the Roman 
 spirit. With it began the decline of Italian agriculture 
 [and the rise of the professional army, both attended with in- 
 evitable mischief It was followed by the rapid extension 
 of Roman power over the Mediterranean and the accentua- 
 tion of the pride of the sword. Conquest brought wealth 
 and the pride of wealth. Rich and conquering, Rome came 
 into contact with the older and decaying civilizations of 
 Greece and Asia, with peoples far advanced in moral and 
 intellectual decadence. The old ideals of the Roman farmer- 
 state were already shaken before the conquest of the East 
 flooded Rome with the ideas and the luxury of Greece and 
 of Asia. The old dignity gave place to the vulgarity of mind 
 which sudden wealth produces when it is not accompanied 
 by reflection. The Roman had never before conceived of the 
 possibilities which life offered of enjoyment, and when they 
 came he did not know how to use them, and plunged 
 from one excess of self-gratification to another. This new 
 appetite for unreserved indulgence was neither checked nor 
 compensated by the simultaneous rise of Greek influence 
 , over Rome. It was a degenerate Greece that took her 
 captor captive, and the arts she brought into rustic Latium 
 were not as a rule those of Aeschylus and Phidias, nor were 
 Plato and Aristotle the philosophers who made the first 
 impression on Roman thought. A Polybius might meet a 
 
 * Two lines from a great passage of Claudian may bo quoted here : 
 Nunquam sttcciibuit dainuis et territa nullo 
 vulnere post Canrias maior Trebiamqtie fremcbat. — Cons. StiL iii. 144. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 5 
 
 Scipio on equal terms, ^ each to be the larger and broader- 
 minded man for intercourse with the other, but too often 
 the Greek teacher had neither ideas nor ideals. He retailed 
 the dogmata of a doubtful philosophy, and led his pupil in 
 the paths of a scarcely doubtful morality. The more gifted 
 he was, the more dangerous a guide was he for one as much 
 his inferior in intelligence as his superior in wealth. ^ The 
 degeneration in Roman character, with the loss of the sense 
 of responsibility and of the idea of self-restraint, becomes 
 more and more marked with time. Whether the senate 
 or the people at Rome had by the time of Tiberius Gracchus 
 fallen furthest from the worth and dignity of the senate 
 and people of an earlier time it would be hard to say. 
 Oligarchy and opposition alike used the constitution accord- 
 ing to the lettei regardless of the spirit, and not un- 
 naturally came to disregard the letter itself. Open murder 
 in the street, secret murder in the home, judicial murder in 
 the court of law led up to avowed civil war, and the cynical 
 practice, introduced by Sulla, of posting lists of victims who 
 might be killed with impunity. Side by side with this went 
 on the careless spoliation of the provinces, destined to produce 
 evils from which the empire was never to recover. Rome had, 
 moreover, quarrelled with Italy, and the Social war, fought 
 out some twenty years before Virgil's birth, gained indeed 
 the Roman citizenship for the Italians, but left them with 
 a temper scarcely more friendly to senatorial government 
 than before the war. The ultimate position of Transpadane 
 Gaul, where the poet was born, was still doubtful. 
 
 Rome was after all repeating the experience of the 
 Greek world, and with a somewhat similar result. Political 
 life, with the opportunities it gave ror the development of 
 the political character and the political virtues, was gone, 
 but room was left for the growth of other virtues less akin 
 in the first instance to Greek or to Roman nature. Poetry 
 and philosophy indicate the change coming over the world. 
 
 ^ Polybius himself tells the story of their friendship, and it well deserves 
 reading. Polyb. xxxii. 9, 10. 
 
 * The career and the writings of Philo(^emus of Gadara are sufficient 
 illustration. 
 
6 VIRGIL 
 
 The Tragedy of Euripides, the New Comedy of Menander, 
 j the idylls of Theocritus, the mimes of Herondas, and even 
 the learned and didactic poetry of Aratus, show a shifting 
 of the interest of mankind from the state to the individual, | f, 
 from high life to low life, from the city to the field. They 
 show a certain contemplation of the virtues and feelings 
 of people once overlooked, of humble people, shepherds, 
 artisans, and slaves, which must be studied in conjunction 
 with the new teaching of the philosophers. For the 
 philosophers had left caring for the state, and were chiefly 
 concerned in making life tolerable for individuals, who 
 were now subjects rather than citizens. What was the 
 temper best fitted for the subject of a great despot, of an 
 Antiochus or a Philip? How should he face a world vaster 
 than geographer had guessed, vaster in its awful unity than 
 politician had ever dreamed, a world on which he could 
 exercise no influence? How could he, for whom life had 
 meant political activity, resign himself to sit with his 
 hands tied ? What virtues were needed for this new world 
 to make human life still possible ? A closer study of human 
 nature was necessary for poet and philosopher alike, and 
 this closer study brought to light many things which 
 changed the whole aspect of life. The outlook was over a 
 larger world, and its first great result was the discovery 
 of the common humanity of man. Homo sum ; humani nihil 
 a me alienum piito^ whether Terence said this spontaneously 
 or took it from Menander, is a sentiment which is alien to 
 the spirit of earlier Greece, and how much more to that 
 of earlier Rome ! The Aeneas of the Aeneid is unintelligible 
 till we realize that between him and Homer's Achilles 
 stands this new principle. And not only Aeneas, but, as 
 we shall see later on, the gods of Olympus themselves have 
 learnt the lesson. ^ 
 
 There is another result of the decline of state-life, which 
 is not quite so conspicuous, but must not be overlooked. 
 Philosophy, though not perhaps so early as it began to 
 devote itself to the individual, turned an occasional glance 
 
 ^ " I am a man ; nothing human do I count aUen to me." 
 
 ^ See generally Bernard Bosanquet, History of Aesthetic, ch. v. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 7 
 
 to the great movements of the empires which rose from 
 the ruins of Alexander's, The spectacle of mankind made 
 one politically had been seen for a moment and lost again, 
 but it had left an indelible impression on the minds of men. 
 The incessant struggles of the successors of Alexander seem 
 hard enough to link with any common idea, yet perhaps the 
 idea is there, latent indeed and always further and further, 
 it might seem, from realization, yet never forgotten. The 
 world had been one. And when Polybius looked out upon 
 the course of history he found the great idea again. ^ Other 
 people might suppose if they liked, as long after him St 
 Cyprian did," that the kingdoms of this world rise and fall 
 aimlessly by pure chance, but Polybius saw that it was 
 otherwise. All things pointed one way, to the universal 
 dominance of Rome, and when he looked at Rome he helcJii<-=- 
 that she was worthy. A deep-lying design, or at least some 
 element of rationality, made all history intelligible and 
 made it one, whose ever was the brain that conceived it. 
 The philosophy of history had begun to be.^ Probably 
 Virgil never read Polybius, but that is immaterial, for great 
 ideas are independent of books, and fructify in ways past 
 tracing. At all events, we may say that the Aeneid pre- 
 supposes this discovery of the common destiny of man as 
 well as that of his common nature. A certain philosophy 
 of history gives its unity to the poem, and marks it out from 
 all poetry yet written. 
 
 " From every moral death," says Carlyle, " there is a new 
 birth ; in this wondrous course of his, man may indeed 
 linger, but cannot retrograde or stand still." We see then 
 
 ^ Polybius opens his history by reference to the subjugation of almost the 
 whole world by the single city of Rome in about fifty years, and asks what 
 can be more valuable than to understand so unprecedented an event. At 
 the beginning of the sixth book he returns to this problem, and endeavours 
 to solve it in a discussion of the Roman character and constitution. 
 
 ^ Cyprian, quod idola del non sunt, c. v. Cyprian is one of the less reflective of 
 the fathers. For a nobler view, cf. p. 145. 
 
 * Diodorus Siculus, i. I, on universal history : ivavras dvdpdiirovs, nerexovras 
 fijkv T-qi irpos dX\7j\ovs cvyyepeias, tottois 8^ Kal xpovoLs diecrrriKOTas, €<l>i\oTifirjdri(Tav 
 viro filav KoX tt]v avrriv avvra^iu dyayeiv, uairep tlv^s vwovpyol rrjs deias Trpovoias 
 y€V7)devTes . . . rds KOivds ttjs oUovfxevqs wpd^eis, Kaddirep fitds Tro'Xews, dvaypd- 
 
8 VIRGIL 
 
 that amid the wreckage of old states and old systems man's 
 unconquerable mind has risen, independent of state and 
 system alike, to the possession of new truth. Yet it must 
 be admitted that there is a difference between earlier and 
 later philosophy, which is ominous for the time. The new 
 lessons have not been learned in quite the old way. There 
 is a growing suspicion of the mind and its powers, a mistrust 
 of the intellect, which issues in the denial of the power 
 of the mind to reach reality, in the rise of a sceptical 
 tendency and of another, and a related, tendency to seek 
 truth rather by intuition than by reflection. Magna ilia 
 ingenia cessere^ if we may turn the phrase of Tacitus from 
 history to philosophy, and men, mistrusting themselves and 
 their contemporaries, are more content to accept and 
 transmit dogmata, inherited from the great teachers of the 
 past, than to ask questions and find answers for themselves. 
 But when men forsake inquiry for opinion, when they once 
 begin to deal in dogmata, in spite of the limitations of the 
 dogjuatic temper, the desire for intellectual safety prompts 
 them to accept as many dogmata as possible, and eclecticism 
 is born, and the same mind holds, or thinks it holds, the 
 tenets of very different schools woven together in some 
 strange reconciliation.^ There is a growing desire to gather 
 up the fragments that nothing may be lost, but with every 
 gathering the fragments grow more fragmentary. Yet this 
 breaking up of the results of thought is not all loss, for 
 one might almost say that it is only so that they become 
 available for mankind at large. Philosophy, if its gaze is 
 not so clear, nor its note so certain, has at least a larger 
 audience than before, and if, like the successors of Alexander, 
 the successors of Plato and Aristotle are less and less great, 
 nevertheless the general thinking of mankind is on a higher 
 plane and on better lines than of old. Once more, we find 
 this in the Aeneid. Aeneas has voyaged all round Greece, 
 and he reaches Latium a philosopher. 
 [Summing up, then, we may say that the poet of the first 
 
 ^ " The great intellects have ceased to be." 
 
 * " All eclectics," says Novalis, "arc essentially and at bottom sceptics ; the 
 more comprehensive, the more sceptical." 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 9 
 
 century B.C. will have around him a society, more used to • 
 speculate, if not to speculate deeply, more open to receive ' 
 truths of universal scope, more responsive to the gentler/ 
 and tenderer emotions, in a word, more humane, than in any 
 previous age.^ While we have to remember that Virgil's 
 earlier manhood fell in a period of war and bloodshed, 
 when all the worst passions of human nature were given 
 their fullest freedom, we must reflect that it was yet a 
 period when the pain of suffering and seeing others suffer 
 would be most keenly felt. 
 
 Still, though we speak of the decline of state-life ^ and 
 its effects upon Greek thought, and recognize a similar 
 process at work in the Roman world, we must not fail to^ 
 notice that in Virgil's day the national life of Rome had not 
 yet lost its zest and meaning. Doubtless there was already 
 in many a mind that feeling of despair which everywhere 
 comes from a sense of the hopelessness of personal activity 
 on behalf of the state, and which, in the case of Rome, led 
 later on to that general " indifference to the state, as if it 
 did not belong to them," which Tacitus remarked as one of 
 the leading characteristics of Romans under the Empire.^ 
 But still the sense of responsibility for the government 
 and well-being of their country was a dominant feeling and 
 motive in the minds of citizens. It was impossible to fore- 
 see the extinction of the republic. Even later on the 
 elaborate pretence of " restoring the republic," which cloaked 
 every fresh step taken by Augustus for the security and 
 permanence of his system, is clear testimony to the vitality 
 of republican and patriotic sentiment. Nor did this die till 
 it became clear to every one that the empire belonged to 
 no one but the Emperor, and that energy or enterprise on 
 its behalf was a liberty which he might punish with death.* 
 
 ^ Cf. Lecky, European Morals, i. p. 227, on the influence exerted by Greece 
 for gentleness and humanity. 
 
 ^ "The state," says Dr Edward Caird, "ceased to be an ethical organization 
 of life, and became only the maintainer of outward order." Gretk Philosophy, ii. 
 pp. 40, 49, 154. 
 
 ' Tacitus, Hist. i. i. The "indifference" became far greater in the centuries 
 that followed. Encouraged by the government, it was one of the strong factors 
 in the fall of the ancient world. 
 
 * The story of Synesius and the barbarian invaders of the Cyrenaica may 
 
lo VIRGIL 
 
 In picturing to ourselves the Roman state which Virgil 
 knew, we see it as a rule with the eyes of Cicero or Cato of 
 Utica. To them, we know, it was painful to think of their 
 country's present position. But we should remember that, 
 while they were conscious of the decay of old ideals of 
 citizenship, the Italians as a rule had only recently become 
 citizens. To them the joys of citizenship and responsibility 
 were new and real. Rome meant more to them than she 
 had ever meant before. For centuries they had been 
 subjects of Rome, now they were Romans ; they themselves 
 were part of that great national life — they were Rome. 
 When we turn to Virgil's own district of Italy, we find 
 further that this position, so recently achieved by the other 
 /^Italians, was still, during the earlier part of his life, a hope 
 and a dream. Thus, side by side with the matured and 
 even ageing philosophy of Greece, we find Virgil under the 
 influence of a young and buoyant sense of national life. 
 
 For us who live under the British constitution, with its 
 perplexing, if highly curious and interesting, medley of tradi- 
 tions and ideas, feudal, monarchical, aristocratic, romantic, 
 and democratic, it is difficult to understand without explana- 
 tion what may or may not be meant by loyalty to the state. 
 To what are we loyal, and what do we mean by the state — 
 which of all the elements blended in the constitution — the 
 person of the monarch or the ideas of the race ? To us this 
 last is scarcely intelligible, but there are nations who have 
 no difficulty about it.^ For them, quite apart from sentiment 
 and the claims of common blood and of a common land, 
 certain ideas are associated with the thought of the people. 
 This, or something like it, was true of the Romans. Greek 
 and Jew were more conscious of race than of state : ^ the one 
 had too strong a sense of the individual, while the other 
 
 illustrate this (about 404 A.D. ). Cf. Syncsius, Epist. 107. It is a pity that these 
 delightful letters are not better known to classical students. 
 
 ^ Since this was first written, the swing of the pendulum is more clear, and 
 perhaps for the moment we are raore conscious of race than the facts of ethnology 
 warrant. It is not so evident that we feel so strongly the highest ideas with 
 which the history of our own people has been associated. 
 
 * I have to thank a friendly reviewer for the reminder that Athenian democracy is 
 an exception here — that state in which iroXiTTjs and TroXtre/a come nearer together 
 than anywhere else in antiquity or than in most lands of a more modern time. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN ii 
 
 tended to subordinate his state to his rehgion. With the 
 Roman race and state were one ; he had certain clear 
 conceptions as to its claims upon himself, his own part and 
 responsibility in working out its history, and his own place 
 and lot in the outcome of such work no less. The charter 
 of the American colony, which proclaimed that he who 
 planted a tree should eat the fruits thereof, is an old Roman 
 notion that underlay the steady Roman antipathy to kings, 
 that inspired the Plebeians in their struggle against the 
 Patricians, that was the very essence of the Twelve Tables 
 and the law which grew from them. The Roman knew what 
 his state meant for himself and for every other Roman. 
 He had no speculative habit, but the root of the matter 
 was in him. Consequently he was full of the sense of the 
 state. It was the embodiment of the ideas of the race, 
 their expression of themselves. 
 
 But, unhappily, other ideals of life had made their 
 appearance, and with them had come disorder, self-seeking, 
 and the betrayal of the state. The sixty years of faction, of 
 wrong done recklessly or in cold blood to the idea of the 
 community, shocked every man who thought. Most of all 
 must they have been shocked who had newly come into 
 the enjoyment of what they saw being sacrificed to private 
 fancy and fury. Hence it is that Virgil's love of his country, /-- 
 one of the great notes of all his poetry, gives such an 
 impression of depth and emotion ; it is conscious love ; it is 
 sympathy and anxiety. 
 
 II 
 
 Virgil was born at Andes near Mantua on October 15,^ 
 in the year 70 B.C. The year is significant as that of the 
 consulship of Pompey and Crassus, when Sulla's constitution 
 was finally undone, and free scope was given to the powers 
 which worked for the destruction of the old republican 
 system. It is significant too that he was born in a country 
 
 1 Suetonius, vita Vergilii (ed. Nettleship), 2 Natus est C>i. Pompeio Magna M. 
 Licinio Crasso privium coss idumii Octobrium die in pago qui Andes dicitur et 
 cJ)est a Mantua non proatl \ Martial, (i% Octobres Maro cravit Idus. 
 
12 VIRGIL 
 
 district, that he grew up there amid country people and 
 country occupations, " a Venetian, born of rustic parents, and 
 brought up in the midst of bush and forest." ^ We shall see 
 how some minds in Rome found him a villager to the end. 
 We shall find for ourselves other and more delightful traces 
 of his early years. 
 
 To begin with the village and countryside, Sainte-Beuve 
 remarks the influence upon character exerted by the small- 
 ness of a peasant's holding ^ — everything means so much 
 more than on a large estate ; the beasts are more closely 
 watched, the crop is more a matter of daily thought, hopes 
 and fears gather with quicker alternation and keener edge 
 about everything ; the growing boy is in closer and more 
 /personal contact with every part of the farm labour. On a 
 farm too the close relation of work and result is perhaps 
 clearer than in many industries. All this would contribute 
 to the Eclogues and the Georgics in later years. Perhaps 
 Horace would have been less in love with moderation if he 
 had not come from a small home. Boissier, again, calls 
 attention to the tendency of village life to be conservative, 
 especially in religion.^ 
 
 Prudentius has a beautiful and sympathetic picture of the 
 influence on a child's mind of the very kind of training which 
 Virgil must have had. " His first food was the sacred meal, 
 his earliest sight the sacred candles and the family gods 
 growing black with holy oil. He saw his mother pale at her 
 prayers before the sacred stone, and he too would be lifted 
 by his nurse to kiss it in his turn."* Certainly the past, and 
 above all the old religion of Italy exercised a strange charm 
 on Virgil, which survived all his studies in Alexandrian 
 literature and Epicurean philosophy — 
 
 fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes.^ 
 
 It is suggested by Sainte-Beuve * that the demi-tristesse 
 
 1 Macrobius, 6a/. v. 2. i Vtueto rusticis parent ibus inteisilvas etfrutices edncto. 
 
 * Sainte-Beuve, iltude sur Virgile, pp. 35-7. 
 ' Boissier, La J\elij^. Roviainc, i. 222-3. 
 
 * Prudentius, contra Syininachnm, i. 197-214. I have abridged the passage. 
 Cf. Apuleius, de Magia, 56. 
 
 * " Idlest is he also, who has for his friends the gods of the countryside.'' 
 ' Sainte-Beuve, itude sur Virgile, p. 42. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 13 
 
 of the Po-country had some share in developing Virgil's 
 melancholy. But, in the first place it would seem that the 
 character of the country has been greatly changed by the 
 clearing of the forests, as has very often happened in Canada 
 and America during the nineteenth century ; and in the 
 second place such an influence as that supposed by Sainte- 
 Beuve is not one on which we could very certainly reckon. 
 Probably Virgil's melancholy had its roots elsewhere. Yet 
 it is clear that that love of the country, which is the charming - 
 feature of TibuUus' poetry, is a vital and fundamental element 
 of Virgil's character. 
 
 We are left to conjecture the origin of Virgil's family. 
 There are those who maintain that it must have had a 
 Celtic strain. They rely on the etymology of the poet's 
 name and other names connected with him, and on certain 
 elements of his genius which are supposed to be eminently 
 Celtic. The first line of argument is somewhat conjectural, 
 and it is also used to support a conflicting view; the 
 second is so closely connected with the larger theory 
 that all genius is probably of Celtic origin that we may 
 leave it to people of Celtic blood to enjoy to the full.^ 
 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff believes Virgil's origin was 
 Umbrian.2 Cisalpine Gaul, as we call it, was perhaps 
 once inhabited by Italians ; it was certainly, when first 
 we hear of it. one of the main dwelling-places of the 
 Etruscans before their expulsion by the Gauls.^ Mantua, 
 in particular, remained Etruscan down into Imperial times. 
 A little town, it stood impregnable on its island in the wide 
 and stagnant lagoons of Mincius, and the great movements 
 passed it by and left it Etruscan still. Virgil himself pauses 
 for a moment in the course of the Aeneid to speak (not too 
 clearly) of his town's early days : " Mantua, rich in ancestry, 
 yet not all of one blood, a threefold race, and under each 
 
 ^ Yet the longer one associates with pure Saxons, the more tender one grows 
 even to so impossible a theory. 
 
 2 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Redcn u. Vortrdt^^e^, p. 265 (An den Quellen des 
 Clitumnus). He says Maro is an Umbrian name for a village official. He 
 rejects the view of Marx that Virgil is a Celt. " CatuU," he says, " ist Franzose, 
 Vergil Italiener." 
 
 ^ Polybius, ii. 17. 
 
14 VIRGIL 
 
 race four cantons ; herself, she is the cantons' head, and her 
 strength is of Tuscan blood." ^ 
 
 When we turn from questions of ethnology to the poet's 
 family history, we find an interesting, though short, account 
 of his origin and upbringing. His father perhaps began 
 life at Cremona ; at all events he lived there, and perhaps 
 he married there. Some said he was a potter ; others, the 
 hired servant of a petty official {viator') called Magius. A 
 man of character and energy, he meant to get on in life 
 and he succeeded. His industry won him his employer's 
 daughter, by whom he had three sons. Of these, one. Silo, 
 died in youth, another, Flaccus, in early manhood. Their 
 father was not content with one occupation, but by keeping 
 bees and by speculation in timber he made some money.^ 
 It is strange to think that Virgil owed his education to 
 the turning of forest into lumber. It is clear that the father 
 saw quality in his son and, with characteristic energy, deter- 
 mined to develop it to the utmost. Altogether, he made, 
 as we shall see, a strong impression upon his son. One 
 would like to know more of him.^ 
 
 Meantime, it is a pleasant reflection that in the fourth 
 Georgic Virgil is going back to boyhood, when he writes 
 with so much humour and affection of the bees. Nor was 
 his father's other business outside his interests. Mr Menzies 
 in his Forest Trees and Woodland Scenery^ cited and praised 
 by Professor Sellar,* testifies to the general accuracy of 
 Virgil's observation of woodcraft, maintaining that he must 
 have watched keenly the details of the work which tlie 
 foresters did around him, and adding that the art is indeed 
 little advanced since the days of Virgil. 
 
 Yet there was one aspect of the lumberman's work in the 
 forest, which may not greatly have moved himself, but 
 
 1 Aeneidx. 198-203; Pliny, N. H. iii. 19 (23) Mantua Tuscorum trans Padtim 
 sola reliqua. Its importance as a fortress is medieval and modern — familiar to 
 the student of nineteenth-century Italy. 
 
 * Suetonius Vit. Verg. i, egregieqtie stcbstantiae si his coemendis et apibjis 
 curandis auxisse reculam. It should be remembered that, in the absence of 
 sugar, honey was an article of more importance than i: is to-day ; e.g. Epictetus, 
 fr. II. 
 
 ^ All this is from Suetonius, v. Vergilii, i. 2. 14. 
 
 * Virgil (2nd edition), p. 265. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 15 
 
 which appealed to his poet son. The forest had to come 
 down ; the land on which it stood had been idle for years, 
 and man required it.^ But while the axes swung and the 
 trees fell, the young- poet, watching, saw the havoc made 
 of the birds' immemorial homes ; he saw the scattered nests, 
 he saw the frightened birds hovering in the air over the 
 spot where they were to build no more ; and though he 
 hailed the cultivated field that was to be, he never forgot 
 the sorrow of the birds. The ploughman of Mossgiel farm 
 ploughed up the daisy and destroyed the nest of the field- 
 mouse, but he felt what he was doing, and made mouse 
 and daisy immortal. In later days Virgil lingered in his 
 story of the reclaiming of the land to pity the ruin of its 
 most ancient inhabitants. He too is 
 
 Truly sorry man's dominion 
 
 Has broken Nature's social union. 
 
 It is quite clear that Virgil was a " lover of trees." ^ 
 
 Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes 
 flumina amem silvasque inglorius ^ {G. ii. 485). 
 
 The wood with its crowded life and strange solitude 
 appealed to him, as we can see again and again in his 
 poetry. To take a striking instance, he sends his hero to 
 find his way to the other world by another route from that 
 of Odysseus. The Greek hero sailed there over the sea ; 
 the Trojan passed there through woods * — 
 
 tenent media omnia silvae {A. vi. 131) — 
 
 ^ Georgics ii. 208 Et nemora evertit multos ignava per annos, \ antiqttasque 
 dornos avium c%im stirpibus imis \ eiwi ; illae altinn nidis petiere reliciis. Horace 
 also speaks of the reclaiming of forest lands, incuUae pacantur vomere silvae 
 Epp. i. 2. 45. Cf. Cowper, Poplar Field, "The blackbird has fled to another 
 retreat." 
 
 ^ Compare his glowing account of the use and beauty of the trees of the 
 forest in G. ii. 426-57, and the conclusion, forhniatos 7iimiu»i agricolas I On 
 the forests of Italy see Deecke, Italy, ch. xi. § 2, and the many immigrant trees 
 from America, Africa, and Australia, ch. viii. 
 
 * *' Let me delight in the country and the streams that freshen the valleys 
 
 let me love river and woodland with an unambitious love." (Cunington.) The 
 whole passage deserves quotation. 
 
 * Strabo, v. 244, it is true, tells us that the region was surrounded by woods 
 but the fact is one thing and the poetic use of it another. 
 
i6 VIRGIL 
 
 and whether the wonderful line that describes the strange 
 journey in the darkness, 
 
 ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram 
 
 refer to this or a slightly later stage of his journey, Virgil 
 couples it with the magnificent simile of the path through 
 the forest by night — 
 
 Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna 
 est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra 
 luppiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem.^ 
 
 With this love of trees we must link the poet's love of 
 water — of river, stream and lake — no doubt likewise a love 
 that went back to the island home of his boyhood. ^ Take 
 his picture of the waters of Italy — 
 
 Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia muros. 
 
 An mare, quod supra, memorem, quodque adluit infra ? 
 
 anne lacus tantos ? te, Lari maxume, teque, 
 
 fluctibus et fremitu adsurgens Benace marino ^ {G. ii. 157). 
 
 ^ Aeneid vi. 270-3. See Henry's comment, ad loc, in his Aeneidea. He 
 says (p. 281): "The picture, as charming as the most charming of our author's 
 always — when once rightly understood — charming pictures, cannot fail to 
 recommend itself to every reader who, when travelling on a clear and fine dark 
 night, has watched the spreading of the moonlight over the sky (luce maligna) 
 when, owing to the horizon being hid from him either by woods or high grounds, 
 he was still doubtful whether the moon was actually above the horizon or not ; " 
 p. 285 : " Incertam and maligna are the very words of all others we would 
 expect Virgil to have chosen to describe moonlight in a w^ood — incertam ex- 
 pressing its uncertain, flickering appearance as seen through the branches of the 
 trees . . . and maligna expressing its scantiness." 
 
 * The name Minciades, applied to Virgil by Juvencus, Minciadae dulcedo 
 Maronis, has more truth and feeling about it than the corresponding MeXT/o-tyej'T/s 
 (of Homer), or " the bard of Avon." 
 
 ^ "The rivers that flow below ancient walls. Or shall I speak of the two seas 
 that wash it above and below ? — or of those mighty lakes — of thee, Larius the 
 mighty, and thee, Benacus, rising with the wares and roar of the sea ? " The 
 reader will remember Tennyson's possession by these lines amid the scenery 
 Virgil describes — 
 
 We past 
 
 From Come when the light was gray. 
 
 And in my head, for half the day. 
 The rich Virgilian rustic measure 
 
 Of Lari Maxume, all the way, 
 
 Like ballad-burthen music, kept. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 17 
 
 Or take the picture of the autumn rain-storm — 
 
 Ruit arduus aether 
 et pluvia ingenti sata laeta boumque labores 
 diluit ; implentur fossae et cava flumina crescunt 
 cum sonitu, fervetque fretis spirantibus aequor ^ {G. i. 324). 
 
 We have one glimpse of Virgil's boyhood, which also 
 serves to show us something of the country and its state, 
 ^n epitaph is extant, which he is said to have written on 
 1 famous local brigand, an ex-gladiator, Ballista by name. 
 [t is a simple couplet, but it has a certain vivacity of 
 expression, and it is perhaps not going too far to say that 
 t shows the child as father of the man. From boyhood 
 V^'irgil would seem to be on the side of order, on the side of 
 ndustry and quietness. Perhaps, too, his grandfather was 
 >till a viator. 
 
 Monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus; 
 nocte, die, tutum carpe, viator, iter.^ 
 
 Another piece of verse, attributed to Virgil, which may 
 Delong to this part of his life, is a parody of Catullus' 
 'yJtaselus ilk. It is turned to account for a mule-driver. 
 [t is a curious coincidence, if the poem is Virgil's, that both 
 le and Milton should have begun by attempting humour 
 ipon carriers.^ He is also said to have written, at the age 
 )f sixteen, a poem called the Culex.'^ This is well attested ; 
 
 For Benacus (Garda) compare Catullus 31 {O venusta Sirmio.). It may 
 )erhaps be permissible to say that the line describing Benacus always brings 
 Dntario before my mind, as I have seen it under a south-west gale. In many 
 vays I think the scenery of the New World is nearer that of Virgil's Italy than 
 nostofwhat wesee in Europe to-day, though I am afraid theold towns are wanting. 
 
 ^"Down crashes the whole dome of the firmament, washing away before the 
 nighty rain-deluge all those smiling crops, all for which the ox toiled so hard, 
 rhe dykes are filled, the deep streams swell'with a roar, and the sea glows again 
 hrough every panting inlet " (Conington). Deecke, Italy, p. 80, says Italy 
 jelongs to the region of winter and autumn rains. 
 
 ^ Suet. V. Verg. 17. " Under this mount of stones Ballista lies, buried and 
 lid ; night and day, take thy way in safety, O traveller." 
 
 ' The piece is Catalepton 10 (8). Catullus' poem must be dated shortly after 
 lis return from Bithynia in 56 B.C. 
 
 * " The traveller," says Baedeker, " is not recommended to spend the night at 
 Mantua in summer, as the mosquitoes here are exceedingly troublesome." 
 
i8 VIRGIL 
 
 and it was believed in early times that the poem was 
 that still extant under the name. Professor Nettleship 
 held dubiously that this might be true.^ If Virgil wrote 
 it, we can only say that his later work is singularly 
 unlike it in rhythm and style and treatment generally, 
 but I believe the majority of critics are right in rejecting 
 the piece. 
 
 Virgil's early years were spent at Cremona, according to 
 Suetonius, and the eighth of the Cataleptofi. From there 
 his father sent him to study at Milan, and afterwards at 
 Rome. I do not know whether there was much continuity 
 in the story of a school in the Roman empire, but it is 
 interesting to notice that a century and a half after 
 Virgil the Milan school is the subject of a letter written 
 to Tacitus by Pliny. Two and a half centuries later 
 still St Augustine was engaged as a teacher of rhetoric 
 in Milan. 2 
 
 Two at least of Virgil's teachers we know by name. 
 Parthenius taught him Greek, and Siro initiated him into 
 philosophy. The traces of their teaching abode with him 
 through life, but it is of more interest to study his eman- 
 cipation from them, for it is characteristic. He was naturally 
 influenced by them at first, but he was still open to other 
 influences which corrected, and in time greatly modified, the 
 impression they made on him. It is the lot of most teachers 
 to be outgrown by their best pupils. 
 
 Parthenius is known to us by one surviving work, a hand- 
 book of love-tales (^aOpoicri? tcov epwTiKcov TruOtj/uLUTooi/), told in 
 brief (otoi^e) vTroiJ.vr]ixaTL(iov Tpoirov), and dedicated to Virgil's 
 friend Cornelius Gallus, in the hope that he may find some 
 useful material among them for elegy writing. If we may 
 believe the statement attributed to a scholiast, the Moretum 
 is a translation by Virgil from the original Greek of Par- 
 thenius. Two questions are involved here ; but whether 
 the extant Moretum is Virgil's or not, it is a delightful little 
 poem, and one would be glad to think that Virgil had a 
 
 1 Ancient Lives of Virgil, p. 38. See Mr Mackail's most interesting lecture in 
 his Lectures on Poetry (191 1). 
 
 ^ Pliny, Epp. iv. 13 ; Augustine, Conf. v. 13, 23. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 19 
 
 eacher who could write anything so good.^ The liandbook 
 s an infinitely duller work. 
 
 It is quite possible to suppose with M, Pierron, that 
 /irgil, when he wrote the Eclogues, was " more familiar with 
 he poets of the Greek decadence than with those of la belle 
 mtiquite^'' and that this was due to Parthenius, who would 
 )robably lead his pupils where he most enjoyed going — to 
 \lexandria, in fact. The time came when Virgil sought 
 >ut other and greater Greek poets for himself Yet he paid 
 'arthenius the same compliment as he did other poets, 
 )etter and less known, for Aulus Gellius tells us that the 
 ource of Virgil's line. 
 
 Glauco et Panopeae et Inoo Melicertac {G. i. 437) 
 
 s one by Parthenius 
 
 rXawft) /cat ^t]pei Kai eivaXlu) MeX«/ce/OT/?.^ 
 
 klany hard things have been said of Alexandrine poetry, 
 .nd not undeservedly, but Milton's countrymen can hardly 
 )lame Virgil for his sensitiveness to the music and enchant- 
 nent of proper names, used as the Alexandrines used them, 
 iis mind was, however, too Italian to yield altogether to the 
 \lexandrine manner, and the virile example of Lucretius 
 
 ^ See Teufifel, Roman Literature, § 230, and Schanz (1898) Rom. Lit. § 243, 
 n the Moretuni. The poem has been happy in its translators, for Cowper did 
 : into EngHsh from Virgil's Latin, 
 
 * Gellius, N. A. xiii. 27 ; for Parthenius see Erwin Rohde, Der Griechische 
 Ionian, pp. 113-7 ; Macrobius, Sat. v. 17, 18 Parthenius quo gra7iuitatico in 
 ^raecis Virgilitis usiis est (but see van Jan's note). He was a favourite poet of 
 le Emperor Tiberius, who set up his statue along with Euphorion of Chalcis 
 nd Rhianus (Suet. Tib. 70). Euphorion is referred to by Virgil {E. x. 50) as 
 nitated by Gallus, not, I think, by himself, as Pierron suggests {Litl. Roniaine, 
 . 387). 'iiordtn, Ne2ie Jahrbiicher, 1901, p. 267, says: "Die Bucolica sind 
 ^eniger im Stil Theokrits als der affectierten Manieristen Euphorion und 
 rallus gehalten, und gehoren daher zu den schwierigsten Gedichten in 
 iteinischer Sprache, die uns erhalten sind " ; a very characteristic judgement 
 f this scholar, who has a great contempt for "aesthetic criticism." He con- 
 nues : " Diese Manier iiberwindet er durch das Studium des Lucrez und 
 ^nnius, des Homer und ApoUonius, und setzt an die Stelle ^ci docla poematia 
 rossc Werke in leichtverstandlicher Sprache." The Moretum is a most vivid 
 icture of life, the servant (1. 32) might be drawn from the negress of 
 5-day, and the handmill (1. 19) is still used by the Italian poor ; Deecke, 
 taly, p. 194. 
 
20 VIRGIL 
 
 guarded his thought and style from its dangers, and gave 
 him something of 
 
 The graver grace, wherewith he crowned 
 The wild and sweet Sicilian strain.' 
 
 Of Siro we know less than we do of Parthenius, but we 
 are helped by having two little poems, attributed to Virgil 
 and very probably genuine, of which he is the subject. The 
 first of these dates from the moment when Virgil turned 
 from his preliminary studies to begin that of philosophy. 
 The poem is very short, but it is full of natural and 
 spontaneous feeling.^ 
 
 He bids an unregretted farewell to the rhetoricians, 
 whom he had not found inspired, and to the grammarians — 
 
 scholasticorum natio madens pingui — 
 among whom he dares to include the great Varro,^ and 
 announces that he is setting sail for the haven of happiness, 
 
 1 F. W. H. Myers, Lugano. 
 
 * For convenience the whole poem may be quoted — 
 
 Jte kmc, inanes, ite, rhetoruin ampullae, 
 
 injlata \rhoso non Achaico verba, [fread rore\ 
 
 et vos, Selique Tarquitique Varroque, 
 
 scholasticorum natio tnadens pingui, 
 
 ite hinc, inanis cymbalon iuventutis. 5 
 
 fjique, tnearum cura, Sexte, curarum 
 
 vale, Sabine; iam valete,formosi. 
 
 nos ad beatos vela mittimus partus, 
 
 magni petentes docta dicta Sironis, 
 
 vitamque ab omni vindicabimus cura. 10 
 
 ite hinc, Camcnae, vos quoqtte ite salvete, 
 
 dukes Camenae {namfatebi?iiur verum, 
 
 dulces fuistis), et tamen meas chart as 
 
 revisit ote, sed pudenter et raro. 
 In line 7 there is a variant morosi ; the reading depends on whether we are to 
 suppose that Virgil was addressing his fellow-students or his teachers. Line 3 is 
 a restoration. 
 
 Norden {Neue Jahrbikher fiir kl. Altertum, 1901, p. 270, n. 3) accepts this 
 poem as genuine, and characterizes it as beautiful. He makes the same point, 
 that Virgil moved over to Stoicism. Nettleship {Ancient Lives, p. 38) says that 
 " Virgil probably, if we may judge by the traces of antiquarian study in the Aeneid, 
 learned in after years to form a very different opinion of Roman scholarship." 
 Professor Nettleship, however, had a weakness for grammarians and antiquarians, 
 as readers of his Essays know well. 
 
 3 Perhaps he would have been less bold if he had known Varro, who certainly 
 made Cicero nervous. See ad Atticum, xiii. 25, 3. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 21 
 
 he is turning to the learned lore of Siro {docta dicta Sironis), 
 and will thus rescue his life from all distracting care ; the 
 Italian Muses, the Camenae, dear as they have been to him, 
 must henceforth leave him — no, they must visit him still, 
 but only at comely intervals. He does not ask the 
 grammarians and rhetoricians to revisit him ; he had got 
 from them all they had to give in quickening ; hereafter 
 their work is mere dead matter for him till it is touched by 
 philosophy and the Muses. It was not every Roman poet 
 who saw this so clearly. There is an air of " glad confident 
 morning" about these lines, which is not that of Virgil's later 
 and greater works — a suggestion of youth, and of hope, 
 which gives the piece its truth. Later on he realized, by 
 thought and pain, that not even the learned lore of Siro 
 could rescue his life from all care. 
 
 Siro was an Epicurean, and it is surely not a strange 
 coincidence that Virgil's philosophy in his earlier work 
 is also Epicurean, though the fourth Georgic indicates 
 already that he is perhaps not satisfied with the school. 
 But probably an even stronger impulse than that of Siro 
 was given to him in this direction by Lucretius, whose 
 great work was in the hands of the Ciceros in the year 54 
 B.C.^ Virgil, whether the parody of Catullus is genuine 
 or not, had certainly been a student of his fellow country- 
 man ; and it is hardly overbold (in view of the great influence 
 of Ennius on such men as Cicero and Lucretius) to suggest 
 that Virgil's knowledge of Ennius dates from his youth, 
 though perhaps he did not admire him so much then as later 
 on in life. When then there appeared such a poem as that 
 of Lucretius, great every way, in its grasp of principles, in 
 its exposition of the philosophy to which Virgil had so 
 joyfully looked forward, in its minute and sympathetic 
 observation of nature, in its thoroughly stalwart Roman 
 temper, and (not least perhaps in Virgil's eyes then or after- 
 wards) in its brilliant handling of Latin metre, it is not 
 surprising that Virgil was captured by it and remained its 
 captive for many a year. It is characteristic, however, of 
 
 ^ Cicero, ad Q. Fr. ii. 9 (ii) 4 Liuretii foemata ut scribis ita sunt, inuUis 
 himmibus ingernt, niultae lanien artis. 
 
22 VIRGIL 
 
 Virgil's genius that this loyalty did not interfere with other 
 loyalties, and that philosophy is throughout subordinated to 
 poetry. The combination of thought and art in Lucretius, 
 which Cicero recognizes, may, as already suggested, have 
 helped to save Virgil from subjection to Alexandrine 
 methods in poetry. We may also remark that if Virgil was 
 influenced by Lucretius, he also felt the influence of "the 
 anti-Lucretius in Lucretius," as M. Patin very happily 
 phrases it.^ 
 
 He would thus return to Mantua with some part at least 
 of his joyful prophecy fulfilled. He had escaped the 
 pedants ; he had entered under happy auspices on the 
 study of philosophy ; his interest in nature was deepened 
 and quickened ; and he had seen a wholly new field of serious 
 art opened up before him. But he had not made his 
 fortune. On the contrary, it is quite conceivable that 
 practical people shook their heads over him. With all his 
 philosophy and his rhetoric, he had not succeeded in his 
 chosen vocation of a pleader. He had made one attempt in 
 speaking at the bar, and then given it up altogether.^ Once 
 more we find that the poet 
 
 Is weak; and, man and boy, 
 Has been an idler in the land. 
 
 His poetical attempts were finding favour with people of 
 importance ; still the fact remained that he was twenty-seven 
 years of age and not yet very sure of any noticeable success 
 in life. 
 
 HI 
 
 It may not be fanciful to suppose that perhaps the first 
 public event of which Virgil took notice as a child or a boy 
 
 ^ Patin, Etudes stir la PoJsie Latiiie, I. vii. 
 
 2 We might find perhaps a hint of the forsaken profession in the speech of 
 Aeneas to Dido {A. iv. 333), whicli suggests the lawyer a little. The rhetorical 
 training for the profession may be similarly read in the speech of Turnus {A. xi, 
 377-444), where the rhetoric surely goes beyond what we should expect of the 
 speaker. Drances is more intelligible. "It is a strange trade, I have often 
 thought, that of advocacy," says Carlyle in writing of Jeffrey; of all trades 
 perhaps farthest from poetry. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 23 
 
 was the sedition of Catiline.^ There was some disturbance 
 at the time in Cisalpine Gaul,^ and we can imagine the 
 anxiety felt through the country during the months at the 
 end of 63 and the beginning of 62, when it was yet uncertain 
 what Catiline would do. Would he get through into 
 Cisalpine Gaul — into Transalpine ? Mantua may have been 
 well out of his way in fact, but this would hardly prevent 
 alarm.^ 
 
 As he grew older Virgil would learn more of what Catiline's 
 rising had meant, and with other Italians he would learn to 
 hate Sulla and Sulla's men.* And then as the star of the 
 first Caesar rose, Virgil with all the Transpadanes would 
 watch with eager interest the career with which their own 
 destiny, their Roman citizenship, was involved. In 49 Caesar 
 crossed the Rubicon and gave Transpadane Gaul the coveted 
 citizenship, and we may be sure that its inhabitants saw 
 without regret the fall of the Senatorial party with its Pisones 
 and Marcelli,^ and five years later mourned the Dictator in 
 earnest. What Virgil thought of the murder may be read at 
 the end of the first Georgia, 
 
 The rise of Octavian was accompanied with pain to 
 Transpadane Gaul. Lands had been promised to the 
 veterans, and to fulfil the promise owners and occupiers were 
 turned out. Little was gained by this. The soldiers were 
 hard to satisfy, and made great disorder. The dispossessed 
 crowded to Rome to plead their case, but in vain ; Octavian 
 
 1 Cf. Aen. viii. 668. 
 
 * Sallust, Cat. 42 isdem fere temporibxis in Gallia citeriore . . . viotus 
 erat. 
 
 ^ See Sallust, Cat. 56 Catilina per montis iter facere, vtodo ad urbeni niodo in 
 Galliani versus castra movere. 
 
 * He mentions Marius among the glories of Italy, exttdii haec Dccios Marios 
 viagnosque Camillos, G. ii. 169, but to Sulla he never alludes. 
 
 ^ Piso in 67 had been prosecuted by Caesar and the democrats for the murder 
 of a Transpadane (Sail. B. C. 49), and Marcus Marcellus the consul in 51, 
 after trying to get Caesar recalled from his province for enfranchising Novum 
 Comum, scourged one of the new citizens and sent him to Caesar as a mani- 
 festo (Appian, B. C. ii. 26 ?frjve pd^Sois €<p' oVyS^ ; Cic. ad Alt. v. 11. 2 
 Marcellus foede de Comensi). See Mommsen, Roman History, vol. iv. p. 
 546 n. and W. E. Heitland, The Roman Republic iii. § 1188. Caesar gave 
 the civitas to Transpadane Gaul in 49, but it was not incorporated in Italy till 
 after his death. 
 
24 VIRGIL 
 
 could not offend the army.^ But the indignation of the 
 sufferers did not stop here; and the short rising of L. 
 Antonius followed. It was crushed at Perusia in 41, when 
 Octavian displayed great severity in the hour of victory. 
 
 Amongst the dispossessed was the family of Virgil. 
 Mantua had suffered from its nearness to Cremona, and 
 Virgil had to see a soldier take possession of his farm or his 
 father's — barbarus has segetesl His first care was to find a 
 refuge for his father, who must have been an elderly man, 
 and he found it in the little estate of his former teacher 
 Siro. 
 
 Villula, quae Sironis eras, et pauper agelle, 
 
 verum illi domino tu quoque divitiae : 
 me tibi, et hos una mecum, quos semper amavi, 
 
 siquid de patria tristius audiero, 
 commendo, in primisque patrem. Tu nunc eris illi 
 
 Mantua quod fuerat, quodque Cremona prius.^ 
 
 {Catal. 8 (10)). 
 
 One or two things should be considered here. First, we do 
 not know where this little villa was, nor what was Virgil's 
 position with regard to it. Siro must have been dead, if 
 the first two lines mean anything. Had he then left his 
 estate to Virgil, as a favourite pupil ? In the second place, 
 this episode and this little peom should not be forgotten 
 when we read of Aeneas carrying Anchises from Troy. Of 
 all human relations in the Ae^ieid that of father and son is 
 dwelt on with most frequent and affectionate emphasis. Let 
 us take another illustration, the case of lapis, the surgeon. 
 He was of all men beloved of Apollo ; " to him Apollo 
 
 ^ Appian, B.C. v. 14 (SXXo h\\ rrX^Oos 'qv irepuv 7r6Xewv, at rais veve/xyj/jLepais 
 yeiTov€vov(Tal re \_Maiitua vae miserae niminm vicina Cretiiottae] Koi iroWa irpbs 
 rwv cTTpaTiaiTuiv ddiKOVfJ-evai Kare^ddiv roi) KaiVapos, dSiKure pas elvai rds diroiKiaeis 
 Tu>v ■n-poypa(puiv' rds iJ.ii> yap eVi ex^po^s, rds 5^ eirl firjdiv aSt/coOcrt yiyvecrdai. 
 Suet. A7t^. 13 nec^zte veteranoriDn neqiie possessoruin gratiam tenuit. Livy, 
 Epit. 125, 126. 
 
 "^ "Little farm, once Siro's, poor little field! but the wealth of him, when 
 he was thy lord ; to thee I entrust myself, and these with me, whom I^.have 
 always loved, if tidings of ill come from my country— most of all my father 
 I entrust to thee. Thou must be to him now what once Mantua was, and 
 Cremona before." 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 25 
 
 himself offered his own arts, his own gifts — augury and 
 the lyre and swift arrows ; but he, to prolong the days of his 
 father, given over to die, chose rather to know the virtues 
 of herbs and the craft of healing, to ply inglorious a silent 
 art."^ lapis rejected poetry for medicine; is it not that 
 Virgil learnt with sadness how little poetry avails to ease 
 pain, to give sight, to lengthen life ? The father he loved — 
 in primisque patrem — was blind, partly or wholly. It is 
 a moving picture of the village home which we gain when 
 we realize that Virgil would have sacrificed his own supreme 
 gift, if, like lapis, he could have given the blind father sight 
 and life.2 
 
 Suetonius passes rapidly over the episode of the planta- 
 tions, remarking that Virgil owed his escape from loss in 
 this distribution of lands to Pollio, Varus, and Gallus, and 
 that it was to celebrate them that he took to pastoral poetry. 
 Now Virgil does not give us any concise account of the 
 affair himself — one would hardly expect him to do so — and 
 it has been assumed that he was twice expelled, and that 
 after his restitution by Octavian he had to call in the help of 
 a friend nearer at hand to save him from the baj^barus 
 in possession. It seems more probable that Eclogue ix, 
 instead of referring to a second assault and expulsion, is 
 really earlier in date than Eclogue i, and that the two poems 
 refer to different stages of one and the same story, the first 
 being set at the front of the book by way of special honour 
 to the ruler. In any case it appears that Virgil had already 
 been writing poetry of some sort, presumably Bucolic, as it 
 was on the favour which his poetry had won with Varus 
 and others that he relied for help in this time of trouble. 
 If not himself, others had supposed this influence would 
 secure him against dispossession. Yes, he says, so the story 
 
 1 Aeneid xii. 393. 
 
 * Suet. V. Verg. 14. " Of all the forms of virtue," wrote Mr Lecky {Eiir. 
 Morals i. 299), " filial aftection is perhaps that which appears most rarely in 
 Roman history." As to the mother, who seems to have made a slighter 
 impression on the poet, it is conjectured that she married again, as Virgil left 
 most of his property to a half-brother. Incidentally, I do not believe that 
 Magia's name has anything to do with Virgil's medieval repute as a magician. 
 Rather, the popular mind could conceive of no other form of intellectual great- 
 ness. Plato, too, was made into a magician in the East. 
 
26 VIRGIL 
 
 went, but songs in time of war are helpless as pigeons 
 before the eagle — 
 
 Audieras et fama fuit ; sed carmina tantum 
 nostra valent, Lycida, tela inter Martia quantum 
 Chaonias dicunt aquila veniente columbas {E. ix. ii). 
 
 Yet after all he underestimated the power of his poetry, 
 
 for it led his great friends to intercede for him with Octavian, 
 
 who after a personal interview in Rome guaranteed him 
 
 security for the future — a great concession, as we can see from 
 
 '/what Appian says. The story of the visit to Rome and the 
 
 ■interview is told in the first Eclogue in a curious and not very 
 
 1 happy allegory. And there the episode ends. 
 
 IV 
 
 We must now consider the poetry. His education 
 finished, and his one appearance made at the bar, Virgil, as 
 we saw, went back to Mantua, and began serious work upon 
 pastoral poetry. The mode was suggested by Theocritus, 
 whose influence is very clearly marked in passage after 
 passage of the poems. But, as we have seen, Virgil was not 
 a man of one allegiance, and other influences are to be found, 
 — as foi instance that of Lucretius in Eclogue vi, which is never- 
 theless neither an imitation of Lucretius nor of Theocritus, 
 but, while enriched by both of them, an original work. 
 Critics have emphasized again and again Virgil's dependence 
 on Greek models, but here as everywhere else the sympathetic 
 reader will scarcely feel this. There may be imitation, but 
 the general effect is not that of imitative poetry. It is not 
 Theocritus, nor Lucretius, whom we are reading, but Virgil, 
 a poet and their peer. One is impressed with the justness of 
 Horace's characterization of these poems — 
 
 Molle atque facetum 
 Vergilio adnuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae (vS. i, lo. 44) ; 
 
 the " exquisite playfulness and tenderness " ^ of Virgil leave 
 
 ^ This is Leslie Stephen's description of Cowper's temperament. Though 
 it was not intended as a translation of Horace's phrase, the parallel it 
 suggests may excuse the quotation. Mollis is used by Ciceio to describe the 
 nature of his hot-tempered brother Quintus {ad Alt. i. 17. 3); he means 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 27 
 
 the most vivid and delightful iitipression. " True humour," 
 says Carlyle, " is sensibility in the most catholic and deepest 
 sense," ^ and Virgil has this mark of the great poet. It is 
 a world that smiles to him — in spite of soldiers — and he 
 smiles to the world. He goes hand in hand with Nature ; and 
 when he draws her, he does it as he sees her with his own 
 eyes. Theocritus and Lucretius call his attention to this 
 and that in Nature, but he consults herself before he quite 
 believes them. His heart is open {inolle) to the men and 
 women around him too, and, if he has not yet sounded their 
 deepest moods, he has still read them aright so far. Man 
 and Nature are in harmony, and Virgil has already begun 
 to make Silenus and Lucretius friends. He looks already 
 to find truth in reconciliation. 
 
 The episode of the plantation of the veterans, like every 
 real experience, left its mark upon the poet. Of course, from 
 a worldly point of view, it made his fortune. It introduced 
 him to Octavian, and thereafter he seems to have had little 
 or no rough contact with the world in person. But this 
 meant very little. The pain which he and his father had 
 undergone had opened his mind. The sword had gone 
 through his own soul also, and his own private trouble, soon 
 healed as it was, became the symbol of universal suffering. 
 He knew now. Perhaps it was not merely to compliment -._ 
 Csesar that he set at the front of his book that Eclogue ^\y> 
 in which he tells of Caesar's personal kindness to himself. 
 Tityrus is restored to his beech-tree's shade and sings of 
 his Amaryllis; the barbarian has restored to him his fields; 
 but Meliboeus — what of him ? 
 
 Nos patriae fines et dulcia linquimus arva; 
 nos patriam fugimus.^ 
 
 sensibility, Quintilian may be consulted on facctuni, vi. 3. 19. Sainte-Beuve 
 (on Medea, Revue des Deux Jllondes, 1843) : " II est vrai qu'il n'y a pas seulement 
 chez lui (Virgil) des traits de passion, on y trouve deja de la sejisibiliit!, qualite 
 moins precise et plutot moderne ; mais pourtant on est trop empress^ 
 d'ordinaire a restreindre le genie ancien ; en I'etudiant mieux et en I'appro- 
 fondissant, on decouvre qu'il avait devine plus de choses que notre premiere 
 prevention n'est portee ^ lui en accorder." 
 
 ^ Essay on Richter (1827). 
 
 2 '• We leave our country's borders and her sweet fields — we are exiles from 
 our country." 
 
28 VIRGIL 
 
 Here in the forefront of his work is the picture of human 
 sorrow, that sorrow which Virgil was to feel in ever-deepening 
 intensity. It is a new element in his mind and heart, and 
 it becomes the test by which he tries his philosophy and 
 his poetry. As yet it has not shadowed the joy of life, but, 
 as we shall see, it becomes more and more the background 
 of all his thought — a part of his being. " Zeus," says 
 Aeschylus, " made for man the road to Thought, and 
 established ' Learn by suffering ' to be an abiding Law." ^ 
 
 There is little episode in the remaining twenty years 
 of Virgil's life. He became the friend of Maecenas and 
 of Augustus, and they seem to have done all they could 
 to make life easy for him.^ It was probably not much that 
 they could do. 
 
 Sint Maecenates, non deerunt, Flacce, Marones^ 
 
 said Martial, who was looking for a Maecenas. The 
 sentiment has all the coarseness and want of inner truth 
 that stamps so much of the poetry of Rome between Persius 
 and Ausonius. Martial was wrong ; if any one man made 
 Virgil, it was rather the barbarns than Maecenas, but all the 
 king's horses and all the king's men, veterans and ministers, 
 could never make a Virgil — least of all out of a Martial. Virgil 
 owed something to Maecenas and Augustus, no doubt. The 
 V' shepherd went to court, as Touchstone puts it, and learnt 
 good manners — so they tell us. Myers, Sellar, and Sainte- 
 Beuve all call attention to this, and doubtless Virgil did 
 not mingle with men of affairs, with rulers and statesmen, 
 without learning from them. Aeneas might not have been 
 *' the high and mighty prince " he is, if Virgil had not 
 known Augustus ; he perhaps might not have had the 
 grace and dignity of manner, nor the essentially states- 
 
 ^ Aesch. Ag. ijS — 
 
 TOf (ppOVelf ^pOTOVS oSd}. 
 
 aavra, rov Tradet fiddo^ 
 Oevra Kvpius ex^tv. 
 
 * Suet. V. Verg. 13 mentions 10,000,000 sesterces, and a house near Maecenas' 
 gardens in Kome. 
 
 ^ Martial, viii. 56, " Let there be Maecenases, Flaccus, and Virgils will not 
 be wanting." 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 29 
 
 manlike cast of mind, which Virgil obviously admired in 
 Augustus. 
 
 But when one considers who and what manner of men 
 made up the court, we begin to wonder whether Virgil 
 after all had so much to learn from them, and we are hardly 
 surprised that at last he shrank from Rome. Who were 
 these men } In a most interesting essay on Horace, M. 
 Goumy ^ enumerates some of them. They were not of the 
 old aristocracy, in the main ; they were new men, partisans 
 and agents of Octavian (let us, for the moment, no^ say 
 Augustus) — soldiers of fortune who had rallied to him as his 
 opponents went down — Plancus morbo proditor;'^ Dellius 
 desultor bdlorum civiliuin;'^ LoUius"* and Murena (by 
 adoption, Varro)^ — men who were enriched by the civil 
 wars, by blood and confiscation. Horace addressed poems 
 to these people, but even he, in spite of his curious pleasure 
 in being the friend of the great,^ found that in the long run 
 he could have too much of Rome and the court. Virgil 
 could hardly have met them without thinking of Siro's villa. 
 Even Augustus must at times have shocked him. Suetonius 
 tells us, for instance, that Augustus ofifered Virgil the estate 
 of some exile, but Virgil "could not bear to accept it" — 
 noft sustijtuit accipere? One is tempted to try to picture 
 the interview and to wonder how Virgil expressed himself, 
 
 ' Goumy, Les Latins, pp. 224-38. No one who has read this book will fail 
 to regret the early death of its author. 
 
 * Velleius Paterculus, ii. 83. i. "Treachery was a disease with him." 
 
 * Messalla's designation of him, Sen. Rhet. Suas. i. 7. ("The circus-rider of 
 the Civil Wars" — it means he always knew the exact moment when to jump 
 to the next horse.) 
 
 * Veil. Pat. ii. 102 ; Pliny, N.H. ix. 35, 58, 118. 
 
 * See Verrall, Studies in Horace. 
 
 * Cf. Satires, ii. i. 75 lainen me \ cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque \ 
 invidia ; and even later in life he says the same, Epp. i. 17. 1$ principibus placuisse 
 viris non ultima laus est ; and finally in his own literary epitaph he says it 
 again, Epp. i. 20. 23 me primis Urbis belli placuisse domigue. And yet he was 
 no sycophant, and perhaps even a reluctant Caesarian. The boast of Horace 
 is found again in a letter of Sir Walter Scott's given by Lockhart (ch. xxxix.) : 
 " To have lived respected and regarded by some of the best men in our age, 
 is enough for an individual like me." I believe Horace may quite well have 
 meant our Virgil in Odes iv. 12. The phrase (1. 15) iuvenum nobilium cliens 
 as a description of Virgil would strike him much less curiously than it does the 
 modern reader. ''Suet. v. Verg. 12. 
 
1 
 
 30 
 
 VIRGIL 
 
 between conflicting feelings, for he would not wish to hurt 
 his friend. 
 
 We have a picture of Virgil at court from the hand of 
 a freedman of Maecenas, Melissus by name.^ This man, 
 though freeborn and entitled to freedom, had preferred to 
 remain a slave to Maecenas. He was soon manumitted, 
 and (says Suetonius) Augusto etiam insimiatus est, and 
 became a librarian. At sixty years of age he began to 
 compile books of funny stories {Ineptiae), and achieved no 
 less than 150 volumes, beside writing some comedies. 
 Melissus tells us that Virgil was "very slow of speech, and 
 almost like an uneducated person," while his countenance 
 was that of a rustic.^ This is the hero as seen by the valet. 
 Still, we must be grateful to him for a picture, which is 
 most probably true, though we must interpret it for our- 
 selves, Virgil's silence in the court of Augustus we can 
 readily accept, but for the true explanation let us consult 
 another poet. Browning in the Epistle of Karshish describes 
 the air of the quickened Lazarus among friends and strangers, 
 and the effect of 
 
 Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth ; 
 
 and substantially it is true of the poet. 
 
 He holds on firmly to some thread of life. 
 
 Which runs across some vast distracting orb 
 
 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, . , . 
 
 The spiritual life around the earthly life ; 
 
 The law of that is known to him as this. . . . 
 
 So is the man perplext with impulses 
 
 Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on. 
 
 Proclaiming what is right and wrong across. 
 
 And not along, this black thread through the blaze . . . 
 
 1 Suet, de Gramm. 21. The books were probably not unlike those of English 
 anecdotographers. Specimens may be found in Macrobius, Saturnalia, bk. ii, 
 opening chapters. One of Macrobius' stories of Augustus I have heard told 
 of Napoleon III. Pascal's "diseur de bons mots, mauvais caractere " may be 
 remembered. 
 
 * Suet. V. Verg. l6 in sermone tardissimum ac faeue indocto similem fiiisse 
 Melissus tradit. Ibid. % facie rusticana. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 31 
 
 Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within 
 Admonishes ; then back he sinks at once 
 To ashes that was very fire before . . . 
 He merely looked with his large eyes on me. 
 
 The great poet spoke another language and thought other 
 thoughts than these men of the court, and was probably 
 never at home with them. He stumbled in his speech, and 
 took refuge in silence, and then in flight from Rome, where 
 there were other embarrassing incidents beside those of the 
 court. For we are told that on one occasion, when his 
 verses, probably the Eclogues, were being read in the theatre, 
 he received from the people a demonstration usually reserved 
 for Augustus.^ 
 
 Yet we have glimpses of a circle which he found congenial. 
 Horace more than once refers to him, and always in terms 
 of warm affection ; while Virgil's feeling for Horace is shown 
 by his introduction of him to Maecenas. It is difficult to 
 see in the Epodes and earlier Satires anything very much 
 akin to Virgil's genius ; but after all contrast is often a 
 source of friendship, or at least of interest, and there was 
 certainly a sturdy Italian manhood about Horace which 
 may well have attracted Virgil. Of Varius we know little, 
 but Horace classes him with Virgil among the "white souls," 
 and Virgil made him his literary executor, Maecenas, the 
 centre of the group, owes his immortality to his poet friends. 
 With their aid and that of other writers, who have preserved 
 memories of him, we can see him still — statesman, fop, 
 husband, and friend, a man of affectations in dress and 
 jewel, and precious beyond intelligibility in language ; who 
 quarrelled a thousand times with his wife and had as many 
 reconciliations, though without excessive faithfulness on 
 either side; who flaunted his dislike for the toga so far 
 as to refuse to wear it even when acting as the Emperor's 
 deputy ; who tormented his friends with his complaints 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Dial. 13 f>opuIus qui auditis in theatro vcrsibus Vergilii surrexit 
 universus et forte praesentem spectanletnque Vergilium veneratus est sic quasi 
 Augusttim. Cf. Suet. v. Verg. e6 Bucolica eo successti edidit ut in scaena qiioque 
 per cantores crebro pronuntiarentur. Compare the triumph of fohn Gilpin in 
 1785, beyond the wish of the author. 
 
32 VIRGIL 
 
 about his health, gave them estates, listened to their poetry, 
 and won their love ; and who, finally, was a shrewd and 
 moderate statesman, sparing the sword, never abusing his 
 power, and guilty of no outrage but upon his mother- 
 tongue.^ 
 
 These and others were Virgil's intimates. It is easy to 
 guess that it is to them that Suetonius refers when he speaks 
 of Virgil reading his poems to others than Augustus, " but 
 not often, and generally passages about which he was doubt- 
 ful, with a view to criticism." ^ A poet who heard him read, 
 Julius Montanus by name, " used to say that he would steal 
 Virgil's voice and pronunciation and delivery, if he could, 
 for verses would sound well when he read them which from 
 any other lips were empty and dumb." ^ 
 
 We hear of these readings from Propertius, who seems 
 to have been present at one or more of them, and gave his 
 countrymen a hint of what to expect when the Aeneid 
 should be published.* That Horace read some of his lyrical 
 poems to his friends we learn from Ovid,^ who heard him, 
 though we can hardly imagine much intimacy between these 
 two men. Virgil, however, Ovid neither heard nor met — 
 Vergilium vidi tantuni is the famous phrase.® Possibly 
 Virgil's preference for living away from Rome was the 
 cause ; and in any case Ovid was only twenty-four years 
 old when the great poet died. 
 
 Virgil fled from Rome to Naples, to the " sweet Par- 
 thenope," who cherished him " embowered in pursuits of 
 inglorious peace." ' There he lived and wrote the Georgics ; 
 there he was buried ; and after death he became the great 
 legendary hero or patron saint of the place for centuries. 
 
 ^ See Seneca, Ep. 114. 4-7 ; Macrobius, Sat. ii. 4. 12, and Horace, /aj-j/w. 
 
 * Suet. V. Verg. 33. ^ \\i\^, 29. 
 
 * Prop. iii. 32, 59-66 ; of. Suet. v. Vcrg. 30. 
 
 ^ Ovid, Trisiia, iv. 10, 49. Da la Ville de yWxxnoxi'i, Jeimesse cCOvide, 217, 218. 
 
 * Ibid. 51. This phrase is familiar to the English reader in Sir Walter Scott's 
 account of his one meeting with Burns. Life of Scott, vol. i. p. 185. 
 
 "^ Conington's translation of the conclusion of G. iv. Ileyne bracketed the 
 four lines of biography, but they seem to be generally accepted. Studiis 
 iiorentem ignobi/is oti surely should be above suspicion. Tacitus alludes to this 
 retreat as a happy contrast with the life of an orator — vialo securiitn et quitttim 
 Vergilii secessum, says one of the persons in the Dialogue on Orators (13). 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 33 
 
 V 
 
 " I do not know whether the critics will agree with me," 
 wrote Burns, who read Dryden's translation, " but the 
 Georgics are to me by far the best of Virgil." ^ This was 
 Dryden's own opinion. In scope and conception the Georgics 
 are greatly in advance of the Eclogues. The poet has more 
 range, more freedom, more depth of reflection and insight, 
 and more music. He has added, critics tells us, Hesiod, 
 Aratus, and Nicander to his sources, and perhaps others as 
 well ; but, as always in a great poet's work, our dominant 
 impression is of a distinct and independent personality, an 
 original mind. 
 
 For, as we read the Georgics, we grow more and more 
 conscious that they are the outcome of experience, of 
 impression and thought. Here and there we meet, it is 
 true, reminiscences of Alexandrine literature, which we are 
 sometimes glad to forget, as they disturb rather than help 
 us. They are so far useful, however, that they show the 
 hold which that literature had upon Virgil ; and their 
 relative unimportance in the Georgics as compared with 
 the Eclogues reveals the progress of his emancipation. To 
 one such passage we shall have to return. We may also, 
 for the present, postpone all reference to Roman history, 
 and, as far as possible, the consideration of the Georgics as 
 a homage to Italy, and study the poem as a part of the 
 history of the poet's mind. 
 
 The poet of the Eclogues had had his experience of 
 danger and privation, but the great note of the Eclogues is I 
 after all happiness, a youthful happiness. Life — apart 
 from military colonies and the disturbance they bring — 
 is bright and sunny, with plenty of beech-tree shade when 
 it is too sunny; and its main occupations are singing, while 
 the goats graze, and making love to Amaryllis. Even in 
 spite of his assertions, we hardly feel that the love-lorn 
 shepherd is really inconsolable. But the Georgics show a 
 different spirit. Here we find the grim realization that 
 
 ^ Letter to Mrs. Dunlop, May 4, 1788. So also judged Montaigne, Essays ii. 10 
 (Florio), Essay 67 (Cotton). 
 
34 VIRGIL 
 
 life involves a great deal more work than Menalcas and 
 the rest had thought, hard work, and work all the year 
 round ; vigilance never to be remitted, and labour which 
 it is ruin to relax. This Virgil brings out, in speaking of 
 pulse — "spite of all patience in choosing, spite of all pains 
 in examining, I have seen it degenerate all the same, except 
 man applied himself (vis humand) year by year, to pick out 
 the largest one by one. So is it, all earthly things are 
 doomed to fall away and slip back and back, even as, if a 
 boatman, who scarcely manages to force his boat up stream 
 by rowing, relax his arms by chance, the headlong current 
 whirls him away down the river" {G. i. 197-203). Over 
 and over again the work has to be done, the vines must be 
 dressed, a toil cui nunquam exJiausti satis est ; every year 
 the ground has to be hoed " eternally " [aeternum frangenda 
 bidentibus) ; round and round in a circle comes the husband- 
 man's toil, as the year revolves upon itself {G. ii. 397-402). 
 
 Scilicet omnibus est labor impendendus — 
 
 the very rhythm tells its tale — work is to be paid into every- 
 thing, and more than work, for labor is the toil that brings 
 fatigue and exhaustion. And withal, "poor mortals that we 
 are, our brightest days of life are first to fly ; on creeps 
 disease and the gloom of age, and suffering sweeps us off and 
 the ruthless cruelty of death" {G. iii. 36). Even the bees — 
 the Italians of the insect world — are not exempt from "the 
 chances oi our life" {G. iv. 251). 
 
 There are those who find pessimism in this unflinching 
 picture of human life, but this is not just. The poet is 
 doing his proper work in presenting to us faithfully one 
 aspect of life which cannot be obscured. If he stopped 
 there, and showed us only a monotony of merciless toil 
 without any corresponding values, the charge of pessimism 
 would be just. But the emphasis lies quite as much on 
 the values — on the recompense of labour and on the con- 
 solations of Nature, the meaning of all which is only to be 
 reached by a true apprehension of what they are required 
 to do for us. They neod their background, which is real 
 experience of toil and pain. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 35 
 
 The work of the farmer is heavy and unceasing. Earth 
 is a hard mistress, but still she is the justest of all created 
 beings — iustissinia tellus {G. ii. 460) — and she makes no 
 scruple about paying her wages promptly and in full, when 
 the work required has been done for them — 
 
 fundit humo facilem victum ^ {G. ii. 460). 
 
 Nature has appointed " laws and eternal ordinances " 
 {G. i. 60), and it is the disciple of Lucretius wl-o u^es the 
 words, knowing quite well what they mean. The tree will 
 readily do what you tell it, if you take the right way of 
 telling it {G. ii. 52). Virgil uses the same word of farm 
 labour as he does of Rome's imperial work. Such phrases 
 as imperat arvis {G. i. 99), dura exerce imperia [G. iii. 369), may 
 be set side by side with the famous word of Anchises — 
 
 tu regere imperio populos Romane memento ^(yj. vi. 851), 
 
 while the accompanying /(^m iinpo7iere vwretn also suggests 
 a comparison. The world of men and the world of nature 
 are only to be ruled in one way — by obedience to the proper 
 laws of their being. 
 
 It may not be fanciful, perhaps, to connect with this 
 Virgil's practice of directing the farmer to watch the stars 
 and to regulate his work by them ; they mean as much to 
 the farmer as to the sailor, he says. The Roman calendar 
 had only recently emerged from incredible chaos, and it 
 might easily have returned to it, but no college of pontiffs 
 could reach the stellar system.^ So long as the farmer, in 
 Emerson's telling phrase, " hitched his wagon to a star," he 
 was safe, he would reap the reward of his labour, and would 
 have no cause to grumble at the universe. 
 
 But apart from such rewards as Earth gives him, the 
 farmer has a reward within himself in the hardening of 
 his fibre and the sharpening of his faculties. Using the 
 form of an old story, the poet tells us that Jupiter chose 
 
 ^ "Earth, that gives all their due, pours out from her soil plenteous susten- 
 ance " (Conington). 
 
 * "Yours, Roman, be the lesson to govern the nations as their lord ... to 
 impose the settled rule of peace " (Conington). 
 
 * Suetonius, y«/e«j 40, a very interesting chapter. See also p. 150. 
 
36 VIRGIL 
 
 that the culture of the land should not be easy ; by cares 
 he meant to quicken mortal hearts. He himself gave the 
 snake its poison, and bade the wolf raven, bade the sea toss, 
 and put fire and wine out of reach, that experience by 
 patient thought might hammer out the divers arts little 
 by little. Thus came the arts — it was toil, unsparing toil, 
 that won all the victories, and the pressure of want and 
 grinding adversity — 
 
 labor omnia vicit 
 improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas {G. i. 121- 146). ^ 
 
 Look at the men whom this rough Italian farm-life has 
 bred — those hard, and more than hard, frames they strip 
 for the wrestling {G. ii. 531) — the Ligurian (a North Italian 
 people, it should be noted) inured to hardship {adsuetunique 
 malo Ligurem, G. ii. 168) — and the youth of Italy in general, 
 
 patiens operum exiguoque adsueta iuventus ^ (6". ii. 472). 
 
 Is it surprising that a people bred in this hard school to be 
 masters of themselves are masters of the world, a people of 
 Marii and Scipios {G. ii. 167-172, 532 f.)? 
 
 But man has other sources of happiness as well, and here, 
 I think, the value of the Georgics is still unexhausted. The 
 poet looks at Nature, and if he does not find, like Bernardin 
 de St Pierre, some special profit or pleasure designed for 
 mankind in every detail of creation, he at least finds a 
 pleasure and a happiness in them all, which may or may 
 not have been meant for him, but it is there. The trees, 
 with all their beauties and their feelings too {G. ii. 82), 
 plants and their ways, wild and cultivated (the lucerne, for 
 example — " all Venetia is full of it," says Servius ^), and birds 
 and beasts and insects — he enjoys them all, thinks about 
 
 ^ " So Toil conquered the world, relentless Toil, and Want that grinds in adver- 
 sity " (Conington). Compare a fine passage in Carlyle's essay entitled Charac- 
 teristics, beginning "Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is actually Here," and 
 ending " Ever must Pain urge us to Labour ; and only in free Effort can any 
 blessedness be imagined for us." Cf. AUeyne Ireland, The Far Eastern Tropics, 
 pp. 8-10, on the growth of civilization in the temperate zone as distinct from the 
 tropics. 
 
 2 " A youth patient of toil and accustomed to scant fare." 
 
 2 Servius on G. i. 215, Hui us plena Venetia est. 
 
 \ 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 37 
 
 them and smiles to them. For all through the Gcorgics 
 runs the most delicate humour. The farmer stamps out 
 the insect and the vermin as mere pests, but the poet 
 looks at things from their point of view, and the contrast 
 is for him full of pathos and humour. The tiny mouse has 
 her mansions and her granaries, quite as significant to her 
 as his are to the farmer. How can the poet of work find 
 in his heart anything but sympathy for the ant in her 
 anxiety about her old age {G. i. 181 f.)? When he comes 
 to the bees, he enters so heartily and delightfully into their 
 concerns, — their care for their parvos Quirites, their loyalty 
 to their king, their true Italian passion for possession 
 {amor habcndi), their Cyclopean energy, their laws and 
 constitution, their good looks, and those terrible commotions 
 that a handful of dust will quiet, — that one could almost 
 believe he had been a bee himself, but that bees on the 
 whole seem a little deficient in humour. How much, in 
 short, is his conclusion, "we see in nature that is ours." 
 
 Turning to man's life Virgil finds it also full of charm 
 and happiness. In passages that recall the humour and the 
 close description of Cowper's Task, he tells of the joys of 
 spring and autumn, of the genial winter {genialis hienis) in 
 general and the winter night in the cottage — 
 
 I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st. 
 
 And dreaded as thou art . . . 
 
 I crown thee king of intimate delights, 
 
 Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness 
 
 And all the comforts that the lowly roof 
 
 Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours 
 
 Of long uninterrupted evening, know {Task, bk. iv). 
 
 The sum of the whole matter is given in the great passage 
 which closes the second Georgic — fortimatos — where the 
 poet sums up the joys of labour for the Earth and of her 
 rewards, of the settled low content, the sturdy character, 
 the yearly round with fresh pleasures in every season, and 
 all the happiness of honest married life and children. 
 
 There are signs in the Georgics of a change coming over 
 the poet's philosophy and his attitude toward Epicureanism. 
 
38 VIRGIL 
 
 This question must be reserved for treatment in another 
 chapter. For the moment it is enough to say that he seems 
 to be moving away from the position of Lucretius and Siro, 
 and feeling his way toward another ; and meanwhile though 
 he congratulates the man who grasps the laws of Nature — 
 
 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas ^ {G. ii. 490), 
 
 he himself finds his happiness elsewhere — 
 
 Fortunatus et ille deos qui novit agrestes 
 Panaque Silvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores ^ 
 (ibid. 493) ; 
 
 happiness lying, that is, in the contemplation of Nature's 
 beauty and the realization of the quieter joys possible to man. 
 He has made progress, too, in his delineation of passion. 
 It is a considerable step from Amaryllis to Eurydice. There 
 is too much that is Alexandrine in the closing episode of the 
 fourth Georgic, but there is feeling in the lines — 
 
 Ilia ' quis et me' inquit ' miseram et te perdidit, Orpheu, 
 quis tantus furor ^ en, iterum crudelia retro 
 fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus. 
 lamque vale ; feror ingenti circumdata nocte 
 invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas ' ^ 
 
 {G. iv. 494). 
 
 But Virgil was to do greater work than this, for the language 
 of passion in the Aeneid is clearer, stronger, and more 
 simple. 
 
 ^ "Happy the man who has gained a knowledge of the causes of things" 
 (Conington). It is in such phrases as this — e.g. sunt lacrimae rertun — that Virgil 
 is hardest to translate. He means, I think, by rerum causas the world and all 
 the fabric of law on which it rests. 
 
 2 *' Blest is he also who has for his friends the gods of the countryside — Pan, 
 and old Silvanus, and the sisterhood of Nymphs." Cf. Mr Warde Fowler's 
 Religious Experience of the Roman People, lecture xviii, on religious feeling in 
 the poems of Virgil, and especially pp. 406 ff. " Let us mark the word novit," 
 he says of this passage. 
 
 ^ "She cried — ' Oh ! what madness, what monstrous madness has undone me, 
 poor me, and thee too, my Orpheus ? Look ! again that cruel destiny is calling 
 me back, and sleep is burying my swimming eyes. And now farewell. I am 
 borne away, swathed in night's vast pall, and stretching towards thee powerless 
 hands — thine own, alas ! no longer ' " (Conington). The English is less involved 
 than the Latin. 
 
THE AGE AND THE MAN 39 
 
 Of course the Gcorgics secured Virgil's fame, even if it had 
 not been secure before. Obscure people parodied occasional 
 lines, ^ but the work was out of every one's reach but the 
 author's. It touched Italy to the heart. It was the most 
 Italian and the most poetic work ever done in Latin. If in 
 some ways it clearly falls short of the de Rerii^n Natura, in 
 concentration for instance, and in speculative grasp of 
 principles, it has a wealth of poetry, which makes us forget 
 its shortcomings, and which, with the Aeneid to support it, 
 captured the reading world altogether from Lucretius. 
 
 The last ten years of his life Virgil devoted to the Aeneid. 
 He lived, as we have seen, chiefly at Naples. In the year 
 19 B.C. he went to Greece, apparently meaning to give the 
 Aeneid its finishing touches there.^ At Athens he met 
 Augustus, returning from the East, who persuaded the poet 
 to return to Italy with him. Unfortunately they made a 
 visit to the ruins of Megara ^ on a very hot day, and Virgil 
 contracted some disorder.* The journey homeward made 
 matters worse, and he was so ill on reaching Brundusium 
 that he only lived a few days and died on September 21. 
 
 Suetoniustellsus that before leaving Italy Virgil had charged 
 his old poet-friend Varius to burn the Aeneid if anything 
 happened to him, but that Varius had refused. In his last 
 illness he wished to burn it himself, but no one would bring 
 him his scrinia. Failing in this, he gave verbal instructions 
 that Varius and Plotius Tucca — the two men whom Horace 
 had grouped with him as " the whitest of souls " — were to take 
 charge of his writings, but not to publish anything which he 
 had not published himself. But he had reckoned without 
 
 ^ Suetonius v. Verg. 43. Some one called Numitorius wrote Antibtuolica, of 
 which Suetonius preserves three lines — e.g. Tityre sitogacalda tibi est, quo ieginine 
 fagi} — and some one else finished off Nudus ara, sere ntidus (G. i. 299) habebis 
 frigora febrem. Servius also on E. ii. 23 quotes the malicious punctuation of 
 Vergiliomastix. 
 
 * Suet. V. Verg. 35 Impositurus Aeneidi sumtnam viamim statuit in Graeciam 
 et in Asiam secedere. 
 
 * Five and twenty years before (45 B.C.) Servius Sulpicius had written the 
 famous letter to Cicero {ad Fain. iv. 5), in which he spoke of the thoughts 
 awakened in him by these very ruins. 
 
 * Horace, Sat. i. 5. 49, tells us of Virgil suffering from indigestion on their 
 journey together from Rome to Brundusium wiih Maecenas. The satire is trans- 
 lated by Cowper (1759). 
 
40 VIRGIL 
 
 the Emperor, who knew too much of the A enetd to allow it 
 to be lost, and instructed Varius to give it to the world 
 without addition. This Varius did, making only the slightest 
 corrections. It must have been with emotion that he read 
 after his friend's death two lines borrowed from himself and 
 set in the very heart of the poem.^ 
 
 Virgil had meant, it is said, to devote three more years 
 to the revision of the Aenez'd, and then give the rest of his 
 life to philosophy.2 If the reason for this be asked, is it 
 not probable that he felt the unresolved problems of the 
 Aeneid, and that, with the fuller knowledge of the cares of 
 mankind, which he had gained with years, he longed still 
 more for that haven of rest and happiness, which he had so 
 long ago promised himself to find in philosophy, 
 
 tendebatque manus ripae ulterioris amore ?^ 
 
 ^ Cf. Macr. Sat. vi. i. 39. The lines of the Aeneid are vi. 621, and are 
 modelled after Varius ' 
 
 vendidit hie haiitim populis agrosque Quiriium 
 eripuit : fixit leges pretio at que refixit. 
 * Suet. V. Verg. 35 Trieiifiioque continuo nihil amplius qttam emendare ut 
 reliqiia vita tantum philosophiae vacaret. 
 
 ^ A, vi. 314, "and stretched forth passionate hands to the farther shore" 
 (Mackaii). 
 
CHAPTER II 
 LITERATURE.— 1. LITERARY INFLUENCES 
 
 "There is through all art a filiation. If you see a great master, you will 
 always find that he used what was good in his predecessors, and that it was 
 this which made him great. Men like Raphael do not spring out of the 
 ground. They took their root in the antique and in the best which had been 
 done before them. Had they not used the advantages of their time there 
 would be little to say about them." — Gokthe, Conversations with Ecl-eniiaitn, 
 Jan. 4, 1827. 
 
 "Among the deadliest of poetical sins is imitation." — Carlyle, Essay on the 
 Stale of German literature. 
 
 SOMEWHERE about the year 400 A.D. a great educa- 
 tional work was composed by the scholar Macrobius. 
 He gathered up all that he considered best in the 
 current criticism of Virgil, and, with some other cognate 
 matter — literary, archaeological, and physiological re- 
 miniscences — he constructed a long dialogue. The 
 :haracters who take part in the conversation are some of 
 :he leading men in the pagan society of the time, with a 
 few scholars and savants, and in particular Servius. The 
 :ime is the festival of the Saturnalia, from which the book 
 :akes its name, and the scene is laid from day to day in the 
 louses of Praetextatus, Flavian, and Symmachus, the chief 
 Dolitical leaders of the pagan party. A large part of the 
 dialogue is given up to the criticism of Virgil, but we might 
 De over-estimating the seriousness of Roman society at the 
 :ime if we believed that the guests enjoyed equally the 
 vhole of the discussion. The scholar Eustathius, for 
 example, has spoken of Virgil's debt to Homer, and 
 \vianius (the father of Symmachus) asks him to continue 
 md enumerate all that Virgil has borrowed ; " for what 
 :ould be more delightful than to hear two supreme poets 
 iaying the same thing ? " " Give me a copy of Virgil then," 
 lays Eustathius, " because as I go from passage to passage 
 
 41 - 
 
42 VIRGIL 
 
 I shall remember Homer's verses more easily." The book 
 is duly fetched by a slave, and Avianius asks the learned 
 scholar, who had hoped that a few passages would suffice, 
 not to pick them here and there, but " to begin at the 
 beginning and go steadily through the book."^ This is 
 duly done, and all the parallel passages are written out 
 side by side by Macrobius. Perhaps it was hardly necessary 
 for him to tell us in his preface that the conversation never 
 actually took place, but that he groups his material as a 
 dialogue that it may be more readily grasped and digested. 
 
 However, Macrobius hoped that this collection of parallel 
 passages might be of use, and he followed it up by some 
 criticism. Here Virgil excelled Homer ; there the poets 
 are equal, and there Homer is still pre-eminent. " Here 
 Virgil is slighter {gracilior) than his model," for " remark 
 Homer's swift movement without loss of weight " {vide 
 fiimiam celeritatein salvo pondere, v. 13. 2). Much of this 
 work upon Virgil was inherited, and some of it may have 
 come down from Virgil's own day, from Perellius Faustus 
 who " collected Virgil's thefts," and Q. Octavius Avitus, who 
 made "eight books of parallels containing the borrowed 
 verses and their sources." - So early had this kind of 
 criticism begun. 
 
 But Virgil did not merely borrow lines and phrases ; he 
 transferred whole episodes from Homer to the Aeneid. Let 
 us hear Eustathius again, speaking to Symmachus and his 
 friends. " And more, what of the whole of Virgil's work, 
 modelled, as it were, from a sort of mirrored reflection of 
 Homer's? For the storm is described with marvellous 
 imitation — let any one who wishes compare the verses of 
 them both ^ — and as Venus takes the place of Nausicaa, 
 
 ^ Macr. Sat. v. 3. 16 ; 4. I. On the Saturnalia see Comparetti, Vergil in the 
 Middle Ages, pp. 63 f. 
 
 * Suet. V. Verg. 44, 45. It is interesting that the same kind of unintelligent 
 and anti-poetic criticism was early applied to Milton, who was supposed to have 
 plagiarized from authors of Pisander's own eminence. See Masson, MiltorCs 
 Poetical Works, vol. ii. § 4. 
 
 ^ I would recommend any one who accepts Eustathius' hint to go to Sainte- 
 Beuve, £.ttide sur Virgile, pp. 209-16 (and the passages before and after, too), 
 rather than to Eustathius himself, if he wishes to make a real comparison of the 
 two poets. 
 
 w 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 43 
 
 daughter of Alcinous, Dido herself recalls the picture of 
 King Alcinous presiding over his banquet. Scylla too and 
 Charybdis and Circe are suitably touched on, and instead 
 of the cattle of the Sun the Strophades islands are invented. 
 Instead of the consultation of the dead we see Aeneas 
 descend to them in the company of the priestess. Palinurus 
 answers to Elpenor, the angry Dido to the angry Ajax, and 
 the admonition of Anchises to the counsels of Tiresias. 
 Then the battles of the Iliad and the description of the 
 wounds (done with perfection of learning), the double 
 enumeration of allies, the making of the arms, the variety 
 of the funeral games, the treaty made between the kings 
 and broken, the midnight reconnoitring, the embassy with 
 a refusal from Diomedes (after Achilles' example), the 
 lamentation over Pallas as over Patroclus, the altercation 
 of Drances and Turnus drawn after that between A':amem- 
 non and Achilles (for in both cases one thought of his own, 
 the other of the public, good), the single conflict of Aoneas 
 and Turnus as of Achilles and Hector, the reservation of 
 captives to be slain at the burial " ^ — here I may anticipate 
 Macrobius' et reliqua, and with him omit to supply my 
 sentence with a verb. There is nothing here that is not 
 quite obvious, and we may place beside this another example 
 of Virgil's borrowing, which Macrobius mentions as " gen- 
 erally known," *' the commonplace of schoolboys " {pueris 
 decantata). For Virgil, he says, " transcribed the fall of Troy 
 with his Sino and the wooden horse, and all the rest of 
 the second book, from Pisander, nearly word for word." 
 The English reader may not remember Pisander, but he 
 " is eminent among Greek poets for his work, which begins 
 with the marriage of Jupiter and Juno, and comprises in 
 
 1 Sat. V. 2. 13-16. There is in Seneca, Epistle lo8, 24 ff., an interesting 
 passage on the different ways in which grammarian and philosopher would read 
 the same passage of Virgil. The grammarian deinde Ennianos coUigit versus (33), 
 with a note on ancient usage ; and nGxtfeHcetii deinde se putat, quod invenerit, 
 unde visum sit Vergilio dicere : 
 
 quern super ingens 
 porta tonat caeli : 
 EimiujH hoc ait Homero subripuisse. Emtio Vergilitim. 
 
 Seneca elsewhere speaks of having wasted time on the grammarians, 
 Ep. 58, 5. 
 
44 VIRGIL 
 
 one continuous story the whole history of the world during 
 the intervening centuries down to Pisander's own age ; and 
 it makes one structure out of all the gulfs of time, and in it, 
 among other stories, the fall of Troy is narrated in this way, 
 and by a faithful translation Maro has devised for himself 
 his fall of the Ilian city."^ 
 
 The case for the critics who enjoy the discovery of 
 parallel passages could hardly be put more tersely than 
 Macrobius has here stated it, but the allusion to Pisander 
 betrays the real value of criticism by parallel passages. For 
 Macrobius does not reject the popular account of Virgil's , 
 debt to Pisander, but, for the time, disregards it as too well 
 known to need further discussion. If Virgil took the outline 
 of his story of Troy's fall from Pisander " nearly word for 
 word," and so many episodes, phrases, and verses from Homer 
 in the same wa^^ — if these statements are made in the same 
 breath, it would seem the natural conclusion that Virgil is 
 singularly little indebted to Homer. Let us take a some- 
 what similar instance of literary relations. 
 
 Shakespeare's debt to North's translation of Plutarch's 
 Lives is well known. Of Julius Caesar Archbishop Trench 
 says, " it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the whole 
 play is to be found in Plutarch. ... Of the incident there is 
 almost nothing which he does not owe to Plutarch, even as 
 continually he owes the very wording to Sir Thomas North." ^ 
 He follows this out with a list of incidents taken from 
 Plutarch's Lives of Julius Caesar, of Brutus and of Antony. 
 From this last Life the play of Antony and Cleopatra was 
 drawn, and in one striking example Archbishop Trench 
 shows how Shakespeare uses at once the fact of Plutarch and 
 
 ^ Sat, V. 2. 4, 5. Shakespeare, Voltaire says, only turned into dialogue the 
 romance of Claudius, Gertrude, andHainlet, written in full by Saxo Grammaticus, 
 "a qui gloire soit rendue.'' — Appel a ioutes les nations, 1761 {CEttvres, xl. p. 263). 
 
 On Pisander and this passage, see A. Forstemann, Aeneastnythus, p. 6. 
 
 2 Trench, Plutarch : His Life, his Parallel Lives and His Morals, 1874, pp. 
 66-74. Stapfer, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity {Kr\^. tr.) p. 299, suggests 
 it might be shorter to say what Shakespeare had added or altered ; he has 
 followed Plutarch more closely and completely in Antony a7id Cleopatra than in 
 the other plays ; but in all " Shakespeare, who usually treated the sources of his 
 materials with but scant courtesy, showed the utmost deference and submission 
 towards Plutarch." 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 45 
 
 the words of North.^ When the soldiers found Cleopatra 
 dead, " one of them seeing her woman, Charmion, angrily 
 said unto her : ' Is that well done, Charmion ? ' * Very 
 well,' said she again, ' and meet for a princess descended 
 from the race of so many noble kings : ' she said no more, 
 but fell down dead hard by the bed." So Plutarch and 
 North: and Shakespeare hardly alters it. 
 
 First Guard. What work is here ! Charmian, is this well 
 
 done ? 
 Charmian, It is well done, and fitting for a princess 
 
 Descended of so many royal kings. 
 
 On the other hand, while North and Plutarch tell how 
 Antony unfolded the robe which Caesar wore when he was 
 murdered, and how he " called the malefactors cruel and 
 cursed murtherers," Shakespeare (as the necessities of drama 
 required) made a speech for Antony, but what a speech ! ^ 
 
 Here, then, we have illustrations in Shakespeare of verbal 
 indebtedness and indebtedness for incident. How far are 
 we to say Shakespeare is "influenced " by Plutarch, or " under 
 the influence " of Plutarch ? i\nd in the same way, we may 
 ask if we are after all much helped to a real judgement 
 on Virgil by the information that he took such and such 
 episodes, passages, lines or phrases from Homer or Pisander]' 
 Was his mind in the least degree influenced by Pisander ? 
 How far does Homer affect his mind ? 
 
 A poet's work may show traces of the influence of a 
 predecessor or a contemporary either in matter, or in style, 
 or in spirit. Probably, so far as matter is concerned, a poet 
 may borrow with the utmost freedom without impairing his 
 independence or originality. Shakespeare seems never to 
 have invented a plot.^ Style, on the other hand, is so closely 
 related to spirit, that if a poet go beyond a certain point in 
 
 ^ It has been remarked that Shakespeare follows North in his mistakes in 
 translation. 
 
 * Heine, Letzte Gedichte und Gedanken, p. 230 " Wie Homer nicht allein die 
 Ilias gemacht, hat auch Shakespeare nicht allein seine Tragodien geliefert — er 
 gab nur den Geist, der die Vorarbeiten beseelte." 
 
 ^ Barrett Wendell, The Seventeenth Century in English Literature, p. 36, on 
 Shakespeare's "somewhat sluggish avoidance of needless invention." 
 
46 VIRGIL 
 
 reproducing the style and manner of another, his claim to 
 originality will be open to dispute.^ For when we come to 
 spirit, we are on safer ground, and the question is easier. If 
 a poet is to be great at all, his spirit will be his own. Others 
 may, and will, help to mould him, to train him in his business 
 of seeing the world and of interpreting it to himself, as well 
 as in the other part of his work, in his use of word and 
 rhythm and colour, and the other means which he must 
 employ to express his mind. Such and so much influence a 
 multitude of masters may exercise over a poet's develop- 
 ment, but if the influence of any of them goes beyond 
 quickening, and becomes so great as to aff"ect the independ- 
 ence of the poet's outlook on life, or even, we may probably 
 add, of his habitual mode of expressing himself, then we 
 may be sure at once that we are dealing with a mind of the 
 second order. 
 
 Now let us look at Virgil's relation to Homer. That 
 Virgil owes much of his matter to Homer we hardly need 
 Macrobius to tell us. His hero he took directly from the 
 Iliad, and many of his hero's adventures from the Odyssey, 
 while the battle-pieces of his last six books he modelled as 
 closely as he could after Homer's battles. He used the same 
 metre and much the same scale of length, and he gave to his 
 work as much as he could of the manner and movement of 
 the Homeric poem. Yet it may be said that the epic of 
 Quintus of Smyrna stands nearer to Homer in all this than 
 does the Aeneid. Writing four centuries after Virgil, Quintus 
 more studiously reproduces the matter and the form of 
 Homer. But he so utterly subordinates himself to Homer 
 that in the end he is infinitely further from Homer. For the 
 one dominant characteristic of Homer is life, and that is a 
 quality that cannot be learnt and cannot be copied, and it is 
 this quality which Quintus entirely lacks, but which has made 
 
 ^ "The spirit and the manner of an author are terms that may, I think, be used 
 conversely. The spirit gives birth to the manner, and tlie manner is an indica- 
 tion of the spirit." Cowper (on Homer and Pope), Southey's Life of Cotvper, 
 ii. p. 197. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 47 
 
 the Aeneid the book of Western Europe for centuries. And 
 what is true of Quintus is in measure true of Virgil — where 
 in form and matter he reminds us most of Homer, there his 
 work is generally least living ; it has lost its power of appeal. 
 
 What then did Homer do for Virgil ? He brought him 
 into a world of men, where, like Odysseus, he might see the 
 cities of many and learn their minds. He showed him the 
 energies, the passions, and the infinite life of men and women 
 in a larger air and on a grander and simpler scale than he 
 could find it elsewhere, in art or in what people call real life. 
 He showed him a broad, wide world, a world of battle and 
 seafaring, of city and forest, where warrior, sailor, counsellor, 
 fisherman, shepherd, all pursue their task with that keenness 
 of interest, that calm in the face of danger and obstacle, and 
 that fundamental content which a great poet can see, where 
 a lesser finds only failure and despair, broken hopes and 
 bafiled endeavours. The minor poets — the people whom 
 Goethe calls " the Lazaretto poets " — are overcome by the 
 sense of man's failure, but Homer's note is different. In him, 
 man triumphs over the world because he can and will look 
 it full in the face and find in the human spirit something to 
 overcome the world. There is probably no passage in Homer 
 better fitted to illustrate this than Sarpedon's speech to 
 Glaucus : — 
 
 " Friend of my soul, were it that, if we two were once 
 escaped from this war, we should live for ever without old age 
 or death, I should not fight myself among the foremost, nor 
 would I send thee into the battle that gives men glory ; but, 
 for fates of death stand over us, aye ! ten thousand, which 
 mortal man may not flee from nor escape, let us go on, and 
 give glory to another or win it ourselves."^ 
 
 Nor can Homer's language have been without its eft"ect on 
 Virgil's spirit. Here is a poet (Virgil lived long before Wolf, 
 and we may for the present use the name " Homer," as Virgil 
 did, without reference to the question of the single or divided 
 origin of the Homeric poems) — a poet, who, to quote Matthew 
 Arnold, " expressed himself like a man of adult reason," who 
 
 ^ Iliad xii. 322-8. The reader may be reminded of Matthew Arnold's discus- 
 sion of this passage in his book {On T^-anslating Homer). 
 
48 VIRGIL 
 
 "has actually an affinity with Voltaire in the unrivalled 
 clearness and straightforwardness of his thinking ; in the way 
 in which he keeps to one thought at a time, and puts that 
 thought forth in its complete natural plainness." i Now 
 Virgil's earlier interest in poetry had been directed to the 
 writers of Alexandria, and it was probably comparatively 
 late in life that he really found Homer. From the first his 
 Roman sense and feeling had saved him from extreme 
 Alexandrinism, and led him to leave Callimachus and 
 Euphorion to Propertius and Gallus. The earnestness and 
 passion of Lucretius helped him (if he needed help) to refuse 
 that diction, which, though beloved of scholars, was neither 
 earnest nor passionate. Then turning, a matured man, to 
 the closer study of Homer, he found another language, 
 "direct, simple, passionate, and noble." 
 
 To say that Virgil could not have written such a language 
 himself, without Homer's example, would be absurd. Yet 
 there can hardly be no significance in the fact that the 
 Latin poet, who gave to Homer a closer and a more sym- 
 pathetic study than any man of his day, is also the one 
 among Latin poets who, in spite of all the differences 
 and developments due to the growth of the world's mind 
 in the centuries between, yet resembles Homer most closely 
 in breadth of view, in keenness of interest, in manhood, 
 in the sympathy with which he looks upon man and man's 
 life, and in the simplicity, passion, and grandeur of his 
 language. 
 
 But we cannot leave the matter here, for we have to 
 recognize a great difference between the two poets. Virgil 
 has the poet's eye for human life, but he does not see it 
 with Homer's freshness. It is partly because Homer has 
 done or watched the things about which he writes, while 
 Virgil has read about them in books and pictured them 
 with " the inner eye." Sainte-Beuve finds an excellent 
 illustration of this detachment from the heroic age in the 
 elaborate account of fire-lighting in the first Aeneid? To 
 Homer the operation is too obvious to need description ; for 
 
 ^ On Translating Home)- (1896 edition), pp. 26, 27. 
 * £tude sur Virgile, p. 239; Aen. i. 174-6. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 49 
 
 Virgil it was a little away from ordinary experience, far 
 enough to quicken interest. 
 
 The most patent illustration, however, of the divergence 
 between the Homeric and the Virgilian point of view is to 
 be found in the descriptions of battle. On this point we 
 may call a witness who, whatever his qualifications for 
 literary criticism, at least understood war. Napoleon one 
 day took the fancy to examine the second Aeneid, and 
 he announced his conclusion peremptorily that in all that 
 concerns the military operations it is absurd from one end 
 to the other. Homer, he said, was a man who knew where 
 he stood, who had made war ; " the journal of Agamemnon 
 could not be more exact as to distances and time, and in 
 the life-like character of the military operations, than is the 
 Iliad.'' '^ Virgil was "nothing but a regent of a college, who 
 had never gone outside his doors, and did not know what 
 an army was." It may be urged, on the other hand, that 
 if Virgil had not made war he had some notions about it, 
 for he alludes to modern operations which Homer's day did 
 not know. He allows the Rutulians to assail Aeneas' camp 
 with the formation known as the testudo,- and this without 
 further remark. Quintus of Smyrna employs it too, but he 
 makes it appear as a happy thought of the moment, the 
 suggestion, of course, of Odysseus.^ Virgil, again, in the 
 eleventh book, sets Aeneas to attack Laurentum, and he 
 tries to do it by a " turning movement." * Still, there can be 
 little doubt that Napoleon is right. Virgil had not made 
 
 ^ See Sainte-Beuve, Etude, p. 238; Pierron, La Lit. romaine, p. 401, Cf. 
 Paul-Louis Courier (writing from Barletta, March 8, 1805): "Do not think 
 I am losing my time ; I am studying here better than ever I did, from 
 morning to night, after Homer's fashion, who had no books at all. He 
 studied men ; one sees them nowhere as one does here. Homer made war • 
 do not doubt it. It was savage war. He was aide-de-camp, I dare say, to 
 Agamemnon, or, very likely, his secretary. Nor would Thucydides either 
 have had so true and so profound an understanding — that is not to be learnt 
 in the schools. Compare, I beg of you, Sallust and Livy — the one talks pure 
 gold {park d'or), nobody could speak better; the other knows of what he 
 talks. And who shall hinder me some day . . . ? Why should I not make 
 some pictures, in which might be found some air of that naive truth which 
 we find so charming in Xenophon? I am telling you my dreams." 
 
 * ix. 505 f. ' Fosthomcrica, xi. 358. 
 
 * Boissier, Nouvtlles Promenades, p. 340 (Engl. tr. p. 317). 
 
50 VIRGIL 
 
 war, and his pictures of it are drawn from what he had 
 read in books — and with a certain reluctance, even with 
 pain. His only experience of it brought home to him its 
 sufferings, not its exhilaration. 
 
 When Homer is busy with a battle, he is absorbed in it ; 
 he thinks of it all the time and of nothing else ; he feels the 
 exhilaration of it, the earnest satisfaction, the joy of action 
 and achievement ; he deals every blow he describes, and 
 exults whenever the blow does its work. But Virgil draws 
 battle-scenes, not at all because he loves them, but because 
 he must draw them. He feels every blow that is dealt, 
 thinks of everything it involves, looks away from the battle 
 to untilled fields — 
 
 squalent abductis rura colonis^ {G. i. 507); 
 
 to funeral pyres and nameless graves — 
 
 cetera confusaeque ingentem caedis acervum 
 nee numero nee honore cremant^ {A. xi. 207) ; 
 
 to lonely parents at their prayers — 
 
 et nunc ille quidem spe multum captus inani 
 
 fors et vota facit cumulatque altaria donis ^ {A. xi. 49). 
 
 The result of this is that Virgil falls far short of Homer in 
 expressing " the stern joy that warriors feel." If the war 
 spirit is to be depicted, Virgil's is hardly the way in which 
 it will be done. If we are to go through a battle in 
 earnest, whether in real life or in literature, we shall hardly 
 manage it if we take Virgil's spirit into it. It will cost us 
 too much. We need not perhaps deplore Virgil's failure to 
 give us the enthusiasm of war, as the world has heard at 
 least enough of the poetry of drum and trumpet. 
 
 ^ "The tiller is swept off and the land left to weeds" (Conington). 
 
 * "The rest, a vast heap of undistinguishable slaughter, they burn uncounted 
 and unhonoured " (Mackail). Confusae is the pathetic word here. All these 
 dead bodies were once individual breathing men, and now — . Compare the grim 
 effect of the adverb in Thucydides' account of what the Corcyreans did with the 
 murdered oligarchs (iv. 48. 4) : koL avroi/s ol KepKvpaToi, iTreidi] ij/j.^pa. eyivero, 
 <popiJ.r]dbv (cross-wise, two over two) eirl d/xdfas eTrLJSaXovTes dTrrjyayov e^w ttJs 
 ir6\e«s. 
 
 ^ " And now he belike at this very moment in the deep delusion of empty hope 
 is making vows to Heaven, and piling the altars with gifts " (Conington). 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 51 
 
 But this difference between Homer and Virgil is but one 
 phase of a deeper contrast in mind and outlook. For the 
 same detachment from the immediate concern which we feel 
 in Virgil's battle-scenes is to be felt more or less in all his 
 work. He looks before and after, sees this and that, weighs 
 things and ponders them, and when he comes to present 
 either temper or action he is apt to be disconcerted by 
 the multitude of his reflections. He looks at his object, 
 but he looks beyond it, and there is something in his 
 description which tells us he is dreaming. There is apt 
 to be vagueness in his characters and halting in their 
 actions. 
 
 The same criticism has to be made of Virgil's verse as 
 contrasted with Homer's, With each his verse answers to 
 the picture in his mind. Homer's verse Matthew Arnold 
 pronounced to be direct, rapid, and simple, and at the same 
 time noble and " in the grand style." Now Virgil's is also 
 noble and in the grand style, but it is not always direct 
 or simple. He perhaps felt this himself, for we are told 
 that he said himself of his verses that he had to lick them 
 into shape as a bear might its cubs. He would write a 
 number of lines, then spend the rest of the day in polish- 
 ing, reshaping, and reducing them.^ The verses not un- 
 frequently bear witness to this process, at once in their 
 wealth of suggested meanings and in their bewildering 
 constructions.^ Virgil can write as simply and directly 
 as any man — 
 
 nudus in ignota Palinure iacebis arena' (A. v. 871), 
 
 but, to take one of his most wonderful lines, what does he 
 mean by his 
 
 sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt(yi. i. 462)? 
 
 What does he not mean? It is quite easy to find a meaning 
 for this line, but which is i/ie meaning ? Or are we to say 
 that all the meanings are not merely to be found in the 
 
 ^ Suet. V. Verg. 22 Cum Georgica scriberet traditur cotidie mediiatos wane 
 plurimos versus dictare solitiis, ac per totum dietn retractando ad paucissimos 
 redigere, non absurde carmen se ursae more parere dicens et lambendo demum 
 effingere. So Gellius, N. A. xvii. 10. 
 
 * " Naked on an unknown shore, Palinurus, Thou must lie." 
 
52 VIRGIL 
 
 line, but were actually considered by Virgil ? Professor 
 Conington, at all events, who understood Virgil better than 
 most commentators, says somewhere that with Virgil it is 
 far less rash to suppose he realized any possible meaning 
 for a line or a passage than that he did not. It is not at 
 all that Virgil is obscure as Propertius and Lucan are in 
 their several ways, for his obscurity is one that does not 
 impress the reader at first. With those poets a little 
 patience and a knowledge of mythology will often reveal 
 the fact that the riddle is only a piece of vacuous pedantry 
 or a half-finished epigram. But Virgil has his own Sibyl's 
 habit — obsairis vera involvens'^ (vi. lOo) — and his difficulty is 
 due to excess rather than defect of meaning, to his seeing 
 and trying to say several things at once.^ 
 X 
 
 II 
 
 From Homer we pass to the Attic dramatists. Virgil 
 tells us of his interest in them in a way that has em- 
 barrassed critics, Agameinnonius scaenis agitatus Orestes^ 
 {A. iv. 471) is a clear reference to Greek drama, and it is 
 coupled with another to Euripides' play, the Bacchae. We 
 need not now discuss the appropriateness of this allusion to 
 the actual stage ; it is enough that we have Virgil confessing 
 to his tastes in literature, as he did when Silenus borrowed 
 his song from Lucertius. 
 
 It is easy to find in Virgil suggestions taken from the 
 Greek dramatists — phrases and thoughts.* Indeed, we can 
 go further and rank the dramatists with Homer as his great 
 
 1 " Robing her truth in darkness " (Conington). 
 
 * It is here that William Morris seems to me to fail as a translator of Virgil. 
 His bent is toward narrative somewhat in the style of Chaucer (though much 
 more mannered), and where Virgil is bewilderingly rich in suggestion, Morris is 
 apt to be swift and simple. 
 
 3 " Agamemnon's Orestes rushing over the stage " (Conington). 
 
 * For example, striking parallels have been remarked between the Aeneid and 
 Sophocles' Ajax. Two may suffice — 
 
 Dido killed herself with Aeneas' sword, fion hos qnacsittim munus in tisus 
 (iv. 647), as Ajax fell upon Hector's sword, Ajax 661 tovt ede^dfirjv irap "YiKTOpos 
 ddiprj/j-a 5v(Tixeve<TTaT0v : and the famous lines, disce puer virtiitetn ex vie ve?-u/>ique 
 laborem, fortiinam ex aliis (xii. 435), point to Ajax 550 & iraT, yeyoLo irarpdi 
 evTVX^o'Tepos, to. 5' aW 6/j.oi.os. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 53 
 
 authorities on that old world, the story of which Virgil made 
 his theme. " It is perfectly clear," writes Dr Henry, " from 
 the story of Polydorus with which Virgil begins, and from 
 the story of Polyphemus with which he closes, the third 
 book of his Aeneid — both of them told almost without a 
 single variation in Euripides' own words — that Euripides 
 was seldom absent from before Virgil's eyes while he was 
 engaged in writing this part of his Aeneid." The narrative 
 of Troy's fall has clear affinity with the Troades and Hecuba, 
 in each of which are choral odes of deep feeling, beauty, and 
 simplicity, telling from a captive woman's point of view the 
 awful impressions of that night of surprise and bloodshed. 
 Lastly, the story of Dido owes much in its conception to the 
 Hippolytus and the Medea. 
 
 There is perhaps a closer bond of union between Virgil 
 and Euripides than linked him to any other author.^ Mr 
 Murray emphasizes the sympathy of Euripides with the 
 dumb and uninterpreted. The poet of the dispossessed, of 
 the old Cilician, of weary ox and energetic bee, of the hard- 
 worked labourer, and of all the obscure people, much-tried 
 and much-bereaved, of whom we never long lose sight in the 
 Aeneid — how could he help being drawn to "our Euripides 
 the human "? But of all things the poets most resemble one 
 another in their horror of war.- The one saw twenty years 
 of the Peloponnesian war, the other saw the two great civil 
 wars of Rome. Both had to witness bloodshed and brutality, 
 the anguish of the victim, the coarsening of the soldier, ruin 
 to city and country, the decline of ideals and the disappear- 
 ance of the political virtues. Sensibility was natural to 
 them both, and sore experience developed it ; and with eyes 
 opened by his own bitter lesson Virgil read Euripides for 
 himself. In one way and another Euripides had long been 
 a favourite with the Romans. From Ennius to Seneca they 
 translated and imitated his plays. Lucretius took from him 
 his Iphigenia, and found in him his own moral anticipated — 
 tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.^ 
 
 * Euripides was also Milton's favourite among the Greek tragic poets. Cf. 
 Courthope, Hist. English Poetry, iii. p. 448. 
 
 * Cf. W. Nestle, Euripides der Dichter der Griechischen Aufkldrung, p. 309. 
 ' " So much of evil could religion teach." 
 
54 VIRGIL 
 
 But Virgil found in him the story of his own life, his own 
 thoughts and sorrows. Very different men they were, the 
 one as markedly Greek as the other was Roman — one the 
 citizen of the keenest-witted of all Greek cities, the other 
 the child of an Italian farm — wide apart in outlook ^ and in 
 philosophy, wider still in theology. But the two stand out 
 together as the great exponents in the Greek and Latin 
 world of sorrow and suffering in general, and the misery of 
 war in particular. There is nothing in classical literature to 
 match the Troades outside the Aeneid. If Euripides is "the 
 most tragic " ^ of Greek poets, there is more tragedy in the 
 Aeneid than in all the rest of the Latin literature we know. 
 
 To many readers the story of Dido is the chief interest 
 of the Aeneid, and that story presupposes the Greek drama, 
 and above all Euripides. Here, as in a tragedy, everything 
 centres in the conflict of character and the coincident 
 conflict of destiny. Our attention is directed to a man 
 and woman, whose story unfolds itself in a simple and 
 spontaneous way till it ends in betrayal, despair, and death. 
 As we study it, we realize that this double conflict of 
 destiny and character has a universal significance, that it 
 goes beyond the actual history of Aeneas and Dido, beyond 
 the story of Rome and Carthage, and that it represents 
 the abiding riddle of our life. We see the unfolding of a 
 woman's character ; we see how what is best in her gives 
 its opportunity to what is worst, her capacity for love 
 leading her astray ; we see the triumph of her love become 
 her ruin. Behind all this we see some dark, divine power 
 forwarding a design, for which we find it hard to see an 
 adequate reason, and yet for which the instinct and passion 
 of a human creature are sacrificed, a life is crushed, and 
 crushed by no strange or unseen agency of Fate, but by the 
 act of one beloved. What does it mean ? What evil has 
 she done ? What evil have the countless sufferers done, out 
 
 1 Perhaps as great a contrast as any is that hetween Virgil's profound recogni- 
 tion of the significance of the State and that practical repudiation of State and 
 statecraft and statesmen which recurs in the plays of Euripides and reminds the 
 modern reader of Tolstoy and in a minor degree of Thoreau. 
 
 * Aristotle, Poetics 13, 6. " A master of emotional effect " is Professor Bywater's 
 paraphrase. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 55 
 
 of whose suffering, out of whose inexph'cable suffering, has 
 grown the world we know ? What has Hecuba done that 
 she should suffer as she does in the Troades ? What is 
 Phaedra's sin that Aphrodite should make a victim of her ? 
 Why is heaven so reckless of human sorrow, most careless of 
 the keenest anguish ? 
 
 Such questions are felt in Homer, but it is the dramatists 
 who give them their fullest expression in Greek literature. 
 And it is their presence in Virgil that explains or helps to 
 explain the difference between his epic and Homer's. 
 M. Patin, in emphasizing this influence of the Greek 
 dramatists upon the genius of Virgil, adds a caution which 
 we shall do well not to forget — they formed his genius indeed, 
 but it was '' with nature's aid." ^ 
 
 ni 
 
 It is a matter of common knowledge that, beside the 
 Greek dramatists, another notable school of Greek poets has 
 had a share in shaping Virgil — the school of Alexandria.^ 
 They were learned people, too learned for human beings, 
 but in one point they touched life, though remotely. In 
 their pedantic way they were interested in love, and they 
 told tales of passion. In particular, Apollonius of Rhodes 
 had told of the love of Jason and Medea, and Virgil studied 
 him closely. But here, as everywhere, he remained 
 independent, still his own master. He will not be led 
 into the side-paths of passion beloved of other Alexandrines, 
 and he will use, but not follow, Apollonius of Rhodes. 
 
 M. de la Ville de Mirmont, in his very thorough if rather 
 
 ^ Patin, Euripide, vol. i. ch. xii. p. 395 " Virgile ne s'occupe pas laborieuse- 
 ment de s'approprier par I'artifice de rimitation telle pensee, telle image, 
 tel vers du poete grec. C'est son esprit qu'il lui derolje, et en louant chez lui 
 ces traits d'une tristesse m^lancolique que lui inspire le spectacle de la grandeur 
 dechue, de I'esclavage, de I'exil — cette expression dont la verite penetrante n'est 
 jamais alteree par la grace, I'elegance, I'elevation du langage — il est juste de 
 reporter une part de cet eloge aux modeles de la Grece, qui, avec la nature, 
 avaienl forme son genie." I have italicized the words avec la nature. 
 
 * Goumy, Les Latins, p. 52; " L'avenement de I'alexandrinisme, cette puis- 
 sance nouvelle, faite de deux elements malsains, le p^dantisme et le mysticisme, 
 semble avoir brusquement dessechc et tari la veine comique du g^nie grec." 
 
56 VIRGIL 
 
 long book on Virgil and Apollonius,^ has made an elaborate 
 comparison of these two poets, and his results are very 
 instructive. Virgil has borrowed his episodes, not merely 
 from Homer but ^also from the Argonautica, but he has 
 borrowed with great caution. He rejects as unsuitable to 
 his work, as "too peregrinate," the enormous learning of 
 the Alexandrian poem, its obscure legends, its cosmogony 
 and its remoter gods. He was no Propertius, and he knew 
 that death is the inevitable offspring of pedantry in a work 
 of art. It :is a somewhat external judgement to say that 
 he knew that Alexandrine erudition would be unpopular 
 with the untutored Roman, as if he needed a monitor from 
 without and did not know in himself that mere learning 
 touches no spirit, and " makes no heart beat." ^ Yet the 
 feeling of the unlearned Roman might not after all have 
 been a bad criterion. Tertullian in a later day waved aside 
 the philosopher, and made a bold appeal for his faith to the 
 witness of the unsophisticated soul of man to God, the 
 testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae? Virgil simi- 
 larly, we may say, looks past the pedants to the warm 
 hearts, and even if he can please the pedants with his 
 scrupulous care about ritual, he lives in virtue of Dido ex- 
 stinctani ferroque extreina secutavi and ipsiiis umbra CreusaeJ^ 
 Sainte-Beuve, in his very suggestive lectures on the first 
 book of the Aeneid, deals with another side of Virgil's 
 relations with Apollonius.^ He makes a text of the episode 
 of Venus substituting Cupid for Ascanius. This is more 
 or less modelled after a passage at the beginning of the 
 third book of the Argonautica. There Hera and Athene 
 visit Aphrodite to ask her aid in making Medea fall in 
 love with Jason. They find her "sitting on a rounded 
 chair, fronting the door ; and both her white shoulders 
 were clad with her hair, which she was combing with 
 
 ^ Ap. de Rhodes et Virgile, Faris, 1894. See especially pp. 15, 76, 245-7, 
 518, 732. 
 
 * Sainte-Beuve, Etude stir Virgile, p. 80. 
 
 ^ Tertullian, Apologeticum, 17, and de Testimonio Animae. 
 
 * " Dead — and the sword had done it sworst " ; " the shade of Creusa herself" 
 — passages cited with feeling by St Augustine, Confessions, i. 13, 21 and 22 {Aen. 
 vi. 457, and ii. 727). ^ ^tude stir Virgile, p. 278. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 57 
 
 a golden comb, and making ready to plait in long braids." 
 She rose to meet them and give them seats; sat down 
 " and with her hands bound up her locks uncombed ; and 
 then with a smile bespoke them with winsome words " 
 (iii. 44-51). When they ask her to bid Eros inspire Medea 
 with love for Jason, she professes that she finds him hard 
 to rule ; she has been quite angry with him and wanted 
 to break his arrows ; " for he threatened me in rage that 
 if I did not keep my hands from him, while his spirit 
 was still under control, thereafter I should have but myself 
 to blame" (iii. 95-9). However, she agrees to approach 
 Eros, and she finds him dicing with Ganymede. She 
 promises him, if he will do what she asks, a golden ball 
 made by Adrasteia for Zeus, when Zeus was a child in the 
 cave of Ida, " and not from the hands of Hephaistos wilt 
 thou ever have a better toy" (iii. 135). 
 
 Now Virgil had read this whole passage, for he knew the 
 third book of the Argonautica well, and he used it, but all 
 this detail he entirely discarded. Venus in the Aeneid 
 calls Cupid to her aid against Dido, but she offers him no 
 bribe, for he is not the spoilt child of a sultan, but a young 
 god with a suggestion of the Roman about him — something 
 like the young Romans in the story, who attended the 
 senate's meetings but said never a word outside, as if 
 " Fortune, among her other bounties " (to quote Polybius), 
 "granted the Romans the privilege of being men of the 
 world from their cradles." ^ Yet it is not merely that 
 Cupid is a shrewd young Roman and Eros a child of the 
 Ptolem.ies. There lies behind this divergence something 
 more important. Virgil held a more serious view of poetry 
 than ApoUonius. It is with him "a high and philosophic 
 thing tending to express the universal." ^ Nothing is trivial 
 to him if it is really relevant. He can find the universal, 
 for instance, in the fading flower a girl has picked — 
 
 virgineo demessum pollice florem {^A. xi. ^'^^', 
 
 but ApoUonius' adornments, external and irrelevant, are a 
 betrayal of art. ApoUonius introduces these things into his 
 
 ^ Polybius, iii. 20. ^ Ar. Poet. 9. 3. 
 
58 VIRGIL I 
 
 poem ; he does not find them there. They are pictures, 
 every one of them — and pretty pictures ; Aphrodite combing 
 her hair, Aphrodite breaking Eros' arrows, Eros playing with 
 Ganymede at dice, Aphrodite giving Eros a ball — all of these 
 are of the type which Alexandrian painters loved to paint,^ 
 but they have nothing to do with Jason and Medea. They 
 are introduced to bribe the reader, as pictures are put into a 
 child's reading-book. And they are trivial, in Ovid's style 
 at best, and not very far from Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods. 
 Irrelevant and trivial, a surrender of the true ideal of poetry, 
 Alexandria loved them and Virgil refused them. What a 
 poet rejects is as significant as what he chooses.^ 
 
 IV 
 
 From the Greek poets, whom Virgil used, Macrobius turns 
 to the Latin, and cites side by side the verses which Virgil 
 borrowed, and the sources from which he took them. The 
 two most important names are Ennius and Lucretius. 
 To these we may add Catullus, and consider more generally 
 how they contributed to Virgil. We may dismiss for the 
 present Macrobius' method and try that of M. Patin. 
 
 " There is," he says, " for a literature a moment, slow to 
 come and swift to pass, when the language, polished and 
 made pliant by use, lends itself to the most vivid and most 
 exact expression of conceptions, which have themselves 
 been developed by the long labour of genius. It was thus 
 with Latin literature, when from that branch, long since 
 severed from the old Homeric trunk, which two centuries 
 of culture had accustomed to the sky and soil of Latium, 
 Virgil and Horace came to gather the fruits of poetry, 
 mature at last. All that the epic poetry of Naevius and 
 
 ^ See Boissier, Rome et Pompdi, ch. vi. § 3 ; Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought, 
 p. 272. 
 
 ' Cf. Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800, "It is not, then, to be 
 supposed that any one who holds that subhme notion of Poetry which I have 
 attempted to convey, will break in upon the sanctity and truth of his pictures 
 by transitory and accidental ornaments, and endeavour to excite admiration 
 of himself by arts, the necessity of which must manifestly depend upon the 
 assumed meanness of his subject." There can hardly be a better introduction 
 to the study of poetry — or poetics — than to steep one's mind in this Preface. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 59 
 
 of Ennius, the tragedy of Pacuvius and Attius, the comedy 
 of Plautus and Terence, the satire of Lucilius, the efforts 
 of poets of every class, had accumulated in the poetic 
 treasury of the Romans — well-defined terms, subtle shades 
 of meaning, natural analogies, graceful turns of expression, 
 happy phrasing, striking images, harmonious combinations 
 of words, that precision of form, that art in composition, 
 upon which the easy inspiration of Lucretius lighted by 
 happy chance, and which the skill and industry of Catullus 
 sought and found — all this, such was the fortune of their 
 birth, fell to Virgil and Horace to inherit, and entered 
 into the formation of their genius, very much as, at the 
 same time, the various powers of the republican constitution 
 gathered together into one single hand to form the absolute 
 authority of their imperial protector." ^ 
 
 This is admirably said. Two centuries had been spent 
 in the acquisition of ease, precision, and direction, and 
 Virgil gathered the fruits. It is immaterial how many lines 
 Virgil copied from Ennius, for Ennius' contribution to 
 him is not be reckoned in that way. Ennius was the 
 first Roman who attacked Homer in earnest, who really 
 tried " to wrench his club from Hercules." ^ A man of action, 
 he carried his vigour into his poetry ; but the kingdom of 
 heaven is not always to be taken by force. Virgil himself 
 might have been glad to be the author of the line 
 
 moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque,^ 
 
 but Ennius did not always write so well. Yet the spirit of the 
 line seems to pervade all he does — a certain strong Roman 
 quality, which he did not find in his Greek originals, which 
 sometimes fitted ill and uncomfortably with what he did 
 find there, but which is really, as Patin happily calls it, 
 a " prophecy of Virgil." * And to this we must add his 
 deliberate choice of his country as his theme. 
 
 There is a foolish story that Virgil, surprised with a copy 
 
 ^ Patin, La Po^sie latine, i. p. 222. 
 
 * The phrase is Virgil's ; Suet. v. Verg. 46. 
 
 ^ Ennius, Annalis xv. (Miiller). "On ancient ways Rome s common we 
 rests and on men." 
 
 * Patin, La Pohie latine, i. p. 164. 
 
6o ATRGIL 
 
 of Ennius in his hand. ss.:i he ws^ lookmg' for jewels 
 in the dunghill of Ennius,^ But, if we may judge 
 \'lrgil by his Aeneid, he was more likely to class Ennius 
 among the 
 
 pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti - (^. vi. 662). 
 
 The poet who looked with pleasure on rustic songs in the 
 Satumian metre, versibus incojnptis {G. n. 386), must have 
 recognized a real precursor of himself in this re- incarnated 
 Homer, who thought the thoughts and told the deeds of 
 Rome. 
 
 But it is when we reach his ov>ti centun,- that we find 
 the Latin poet to whom Virgil owes most. From Gellius 
 onward critics have remarked his indebtedness to Lucretius, 
 though Virgil, one may say, did not leave the critics c 
 discover it, but announced the fact himself as plaii 
 as the nature of his own subjects allowed. For instance, 
 to take the first case, the sixth Eclogue pays homage to 
 Lucretius. Silenus, 
 
 Forehead and brow with the juice of a blood-red mulberry 
 dyed {E. vi. 22, Bowen), 
 
 may seem remote enough from the austere poet of the 
 De Reruni Natia-a, but he has hardly time to begin his song 
 before it is clear where he learnt it The rhythm of nanique 
 canebat uti is almost as explicit as the terminology' of 
 niagnum per inane coacta semina, and together they bar 
 the claim of Apollonius to be the original here, quite apart 
 from the fact that his Orpheus gives the Argonauts not 
 Epicurean but (properly enough) Orphic doctrine, with traces 
 of Empedoclean teaching.^ 
 
 The bard lopas, who sings at Dido's feast as Demo- 
 
 ^ It is in the life attributed to Donatus. 
 
 * "Poets whose hearts were clean, and their songs worthy Phoebus' ear" 
 (Conington). 
 
 ^ Argon, i. 496 f. — 
 
 'fis 7aTa Ka\ oirpavbs -^^ OaXacca, 
 TO irplv eir' dWriXoLcri fu-^ crvvaprjpoTa fiop<pfi, 
 veUeos e| oXooio SieKpidev dpLtph eKacrra. 
 See Dieterich, Nekyia, p. loi. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 6i 
 
 docus did at Alcinous', is another witness to Lucretius' 
 power. 
 
 Hie canit errantem lunam solisque labores 
 unde hominum genus et pecudes, unde imber et ignes ^ 
 (A. i. 742). 
 
 But the most famous of all the passages is that in the second 
 Georgic, where Virgil speaks of the happiness of him who 
 understands the principles underlying all nature, and by this 
 knowledge has risen above all fears, above inexorable fate 
 and the noise of greedy Acheron — 
 
 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
 
 atque metus omnes et inexorabile fatum 
 
 subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari {G. ii. 490). 
 
 This passage comes after the expression of Virgil's desire to 
 be the poet of science (G^. ii. 475-82) ; it is fuil of Lucretian 
 phrases,'^ and it represents Lucretius' point of view. 
 
 Like Catullus,^ Virgil read Lucretius with the close care 
 of admiration and affection. His early longing for philosophy 
 drew him to this great exponent of all nature. Virgil loved 
 the country, and here was a man who looked on all the sights 
 of field and shore with the eyes of genius, and gave a new 
 meaning and a deeper value to all by subordinating all to 
 great underlying principles — causae rerii7n. 
 
 Lucretius had also the simplicity of genius. If he is at times 
 hard to understand, it is because his matter is itself difficult, 
 sometimes too difficult for his verse or any verse. No poet 
 could be more honest in his confession that he is seeking for 
 charm of language, but what makes this quest unique is its 
 entire subordination to the main purpose in hand.* No 
 Roman poet is more absolutely true in his language, just as 
 
 ^ Sings of the moons that wander, of suns eclipsed and in pain, 
 Whence the beginning of man and of beast, of the fire and the rain. 
 
 (Bowen.) 
 
 * See Munro on Lucr. i. 78, 253 ; iii. 449. Cf. the beginning of the Ciris, 
 which we are now told to attribute to Gallus. Cf. Skutsch Aus Vergils Fruhzeii, 
 and the delightful lecture of Professor Mackail on the Circle of Virgil, Lectures 
 oil Poetry (1911). 
 
 ^ See Munro on Lucr. iii. 57. 
 
 * Lucr. i. 143-5. 
 
62 VIRGIL 
 
 *- — - 
 
 none is more single in his loyalty to truth in thought. He 
 has nothing to say explicitly of his country and his people, 
 but not Virgil himself is more profoundly Roman in solidity 
 and integrity of thought and utterance. His verse is Latin 
 in word, beat, movement, and there is much, for example, in 
 Munro's suggestion that his avoidance of spondaic endings in 
 his sixth book (though following the tradition of Ennius he 
 had used them in the other five) is a sort of scornful criticism 
 of the modish writing of poets around him, with whom the 
 Alexandrine a-TrovSetd^cov was the latest prettiness.^ It was 
 not Roman to be pretty. His master was Ennius, and he 
 learnt of him a grander, a simpler, and a more severe speech. 
 He is not so careful as Virgil to avoid monotony and rough- 
 ness, but we shall not be far wrong in attributing to him 
 some share in the creation of the Virgilian hexameter. If 
 Catullus and his school gave it what M. Patin calls its 
 precision, Lucretius contributed simplicity and dignity. 
 Take as an example of "symphony austere " these lines — 
 
 In caeloque deum sedes et templa locarunt, 
 per caelum volvi quia nox et luna videtur, 
 luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa 
 noctivagaeque faces caeli flammaeque volantes, 
 nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando 
 et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum ^ 
 
 (v. 1188-93). 
 Let these lines be tried by any test. The thought would be 
 as sound in prose ; the language is near enough to that used 
 by men to suit Wordsworth's canon — long before Wordsworth 
 framed that canon Bentley had magnificently quoted the 
 line 
 
 luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa 
 
 ^ Munro, Lucr. vol. ii. p. 14. Cf. Cicero, ad Ait. vii. 2. i Ita belle nobis Jlavit 
 ab Epiro lenissimtis Onchesmiies. Hunc <jTtovhei6.'^ovTa. si cui voles rOiv vewrepiov 
 pro tiio vendita ; and Catullus, Ixiv. 78-80, the three consecutive lines ending 
 innuptaruni, Alinoiauro, vexareniur. 
 
 ^ " And they placed in heaven the abodes and realms of the gods, because night 
 and moon are seen to roll through heaven, moon day and night and night's austere 
 constellations and night-wandering meteors of the sky and Hying bodies of flame, 
 clouds sun rains snow winds lightnings hail and rapid rumblings and loud 
 threatful thunderclaps" (Munro). 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 63 
 
 as an example of the power of " common words " ^ — the sense 
 is direct, the movement is rapid, and the passage has the note 
 of grandeur. 
 
 Virgil might respond to the influence of Lucretius as he 
 did to that of other poets, but he was no man's disciple. 
 As he grew older he became dissatisfied with Lucretius' 
 philosophy, and tried to reconcile it somehow with other 
 aspects of truth, which he had himself realized. It became 
 quite clear that this was not to be done, and Lucretius' 
 Epicureanism had more and more to be modified. Virgil 
 did not live to achieve the reconciliation which he felt 
 to be necessary ; and we find in him a man distracted with 
 the spiritual necessity of holding opinions, which clearly 
 conflict, but which are yet valid for him in virtue of 
 undoubted elements of truth. 
 
 OvTOi avvexSeiv aXKa crvjUipiXeiv e<pui^ ^ 
 
 might be a fair summary of his attitude to religious and 
 philosophical thought. The temper is an entirely honest 
 one ; but while it is a necessary stage in development, it 
 hardly seems a final or a happy position. The prolongation 
 of this period of suspense developed in Virgil a certain 
 indistinct habit of thought. Dissatisfied with obvious 
 antitheses as superficial, but unable to penetrate them and 
 discover some fundamental unity underlying them, he 
 seems at times to confuse rather than to reconcile, and 
 eventually everything he does is apt to be affected by the 
 habit. The same unhealed division of mind shows itself 
 in his verse, which rarely keeps for long the clear and 
 unclouded directness of Lucretius. It reflects the poet 
 himself, which is after all what a poet's verse should do ; 
 and it has its own grandeur, which is not that of Lucretius, 
 but springs naturally from the poet's struggle, unsuccessful 
 as it may be, to grasp the whole of things. It represents 
 the last achievement of Roman poetry, for after Virgil 
 no Roman poet rose to such heights of mind. His 
 
 * See Jebb, Benlley, p. 69. 
 
 • '"Tis not my nature to join in hating, but in loving." Sophocles' Anligone 
 523 (Jebb). 
 
64 VIRGIL 
 
 successors thought of little but style, and had no philosophy. 
 Thus the last utterance of Roman poetry has the strong 
 sad tone of Virgil's mind, that tone which led Tennyson 
 to address the poet as 
 
 Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of 
 human kind.^ 
 
 Lastly we come to Catullus. Virgil's interest in Catullus 
 is proved by one of the most extraordinary examples of his 
 habit of borrowing. In the world below Aeneas meets 
 Dido's shade and addresses her — 
 
 In Vitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi ^ (A. vi. 460). 
 
 It is a bold, clear, good statement, but it suggests the 
 most disconcerting of all possible parallels. For it is a 
 reminiscence o{ the translation which Catullus made of 
 Callimachus' Co7?ia Berenices, where the severed lock, though 
 already a constellation, professes to regret its departure 
 from the queen's head — 
 
 Invita, O regina, tuo de vertice cessi ^ (Catullus, Ixvi. 39). 
 
 This is the very last thing of which we should wish to be 
 reminded in the situation. Yet, though happily an extreme 
 case, it is a typical instance of the habit, which Virgil 
 shared with his contemporaries, of transferring good lines 
 from the pages of others to his own.* 
 
 But after all it is quite accidental that Virgil finds in 
 Catullus a line so readily to be converted to his own 
 
 ^ It has been suggested that too much emphasis has been laid on Virgil's 
 sadness. The criticism is just, if it is not remembered that there are other 
 elements in the poet's thought. 
 
 2 "Against my will, O queen, I left thy shore." 
 
 3 " Against my will, O queen, I left thy head." 
 
 * The reader will remember the episode of Johnson and Boswell leaving Inch 
 Keith, when Johnson called for "a classical compliment to the island." "I 
 happened luckily, in allusion to the beautiful Queen Mary, whose name is upon 
 the fort, to think of what Virgil makes Aeneas say, on having left the country 
 of his charming Dido. 
 
 ' Invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi.' 
 'Very well hit off!' said he" {Tour to the Hebrides, Aug. i8). Consider- 
 ing the origin of the line, one is tempted to say it is more in keeping here than 
 in the sixth Aeneid. 
 
LITERARY INFLUENCES 65 
 
 purposes. His real debt to Catullus is profounder. I 
 cannot do better here than to quote M. Patin once more. 
 
 "Catullus does not improvise [as Lucilius did]; on the 
 contrary, he weighs words, he even counts them ; he chooses, 
 arranges, and plans ; he has already in his composition and 
 in his style those definite and precise forms, that fine and 
 delicate touch, that tempered strength, which moderates 
 itself, which of set purpose refrains, which cloaks itself 
 under the graces of urbanity — 
 
 urbani parcentis viribus atque 
 
 extenuantis eas consulto — 
 
 in fact all those characteristics which are supposed to 
 distinguish the poets of the following age." ^ 
 
 In other words, just as Tennyson affected the composition 
 of English poetry, even apart from clear imitators of 
 himself, by compelling a more self-conscious and more 
 studied style, so Catullus abolished the school of Ennius — 
 yes, and Lucretius too, before he had time to found a school, 
 — and compelled all later poets to reflect more upon style 
 and all its niceties and minutiae than had ever been the 
 custom in Rome before. None of these — we may disregard 
 for the moment those who really did not succeed in opening 
 their mouths — meditated upon his style as Virgil did. 
 Propertius, no doubt, thought of nothing very much apart 
 from style, yet he cannot be said to have achieved any 
 of Matthew Arnold's "notes" of the great poet. Virgil, 
 however, spoke out and had something to say, and yet could 
 choose, refine and concentrate his diction with more patience 
 and more power than any poet of them all. And in this we 
 may find the influence of Catullus. Yet his debt to Lucretius 
 is greater, for the whole history of his mind is affected by 
 his attitude toward Lucretius' philosophy. 
 
 Virgil, as we have seen, conformed to the contemporary 
 practice in Rome and borrowed largely from his Greek and 
 Latin predecessors, and often enough he transferred his 
 material in a sufficiently external way. But yet, when 
 
 ^ Patin, La Poisie latine, i. p. 59 ; the quotation is from Horace, Sat. 
 i. 10. 13. 
 
 5 
 
66 VIRGIL 
 
 every deduction is made for this, and when we have con- 
 sidered the real influence which his great precursors had 
 upon his mind and upon his outlook on life, we realize the 
 substantial truth of Goethe's saying that " To make an epoch 
 in the world two conditions are notoriously essential — a 
 good head and a great inheritance." ^ Supplement these 
 with another condition, on which Goethe elsewhere lays 
 great emphasis, and Virgil's endowment for his poetry is 
 fairly stated. " We cannot deny," said Goethe of a con- 
 temporary poet, " that he has many brilliant qualities, but he 
 is wanting in — love.'^ ^ 
 
 1 Conversations with Eckermann, May 2, 1824. 
 
 2 Ibid. Dec. 25, 1825. He is generally supposed to have meant Heine. Cf. 
 Arnold in his poem Heine's Grave. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 LITERATURE— 2. CONTEMPORARIES 
 
 Not from a vain or shallow thought 
 
 His awful Jove young Phidias brought ; 
 
 Never from lips of cunning fell 
 
 The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 
 
 Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 
 The burdens of the Bible old ; 
 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 
 Like the volcano's tongue of flame, 
 
 Up from the burning core below — 
 
 The canticles of love and woe. — Emerson, The Problem. 
 
 ONE of the things that mark Virgil as different from 
 the other poets of his day is the long and increas- 
 ingly vigorous life of his poetic genius. Fate 
 snuffed out some of his contemporaries in comparatively 
 early manhood, but not, one thinks, before they had given 
 mankind all, or nearly all, the light they had to give. Others 
 survived their genius, and either became silent altogether or 
 took refuge in imitating themselves. Horace avowed that 
 poetry had been for him an affair of youth and poverty; 
 that, now he was older and more well-to-do, he did not care 
 to write ; he preferred reading Homer and making excursions 
 into popular philosophy ; somebody else, who, like the 
 soldier of Lucullus, had "lost his purse," might write now.^ 
 It may have been that he felt, as he grew to have a deeper 
 appreciation of the meaning and purpose of poetry, that he 
 was not entirely fit for the work — though after all it is hard 
 to see why a genuine Epicurean should ever wish to write 
 poetry at all. But Virgil, on the other hand, shows a steady 
 growth in insight and in power of expression. Poetry was 
 not with him either an amusement or a trade. He wrote 
 
 ^ Horace, Epp. ii. 2. 26-40, and following (cf. Epp. i. 2. i). Dean Wickham 
 finds here " some irony and exaggeration, no doubt, but some substantial truth " 
 {Horace for English Readers). 
 
 67 
 
68 VIRGIL 
 
 neither for popularity nor advancement, neither to please 
 others nor to amuse himself. Poetry was to him something 
 like the " burden " of a Hebrew prophet, a necessity. Thought 
 and feeling sought and compelled expression, not any ex- 
 pression, but their " inevitable" expression. This necessity 
 for the perfect utterance of his nature kept him beyond the 
 reach of the dangers of lesser artists. Indolence could 
 not rob the world of what was due to it from him, nor 
 impatience wring it from him before it was mature. In 
 him Art is " imitating Nature " ; it has something of the 
 same inexhaustible vitality, the same necessity for self- 
 expression ; it follows a somewhat similar method of evolu- 
 tion, relentlessly sacrificing the unfit to the fit, the fit to 
 the fittest, suffering nothing to go forth that has not life 
 in itself and that cannot transmit this life — in a word his 
 art is essentially quickening.^ 
 
 Accordingly, as he began to feel himself nearer the com- 
 pletion of the Georgics, his mind ranged forward to his 
 next work. What was it to be ? The limits, within which 
 he would seek a theme were narrower than we might 
 suppose, for it was the tradition so far of Latin poetry to 
 confine itself within the frontiers of Greek literature. The 
 early development of native Italian literature had been 
 slow — "the Romans had plenty of other things to do," says 
 M. Patin, " to make their constitution, to defend themselves, 
 to conquer the world. It was when they had achieved this 
 task, when they had subdued Italy, crushed Carthage, taken 
 possession of Greece, that they found poetry among their 
 spoils, so to say, along with the statues which Mummius 
 with such particular care, with such insensibility, gave 
 orders to pack. Transported, transplanted to Rome, poetry 
 flourished there under the influence of a luxury and a 
 leisure both quite new for the Romans. . . . Rome had 
 made a Roman province of Greece ; by a sort of compensa- 
 tion, quite unexpected, Roman letters, Roman poetry became 
 provinces of the Greek imagination," ^ Latin literature, one 
 
 ^ I am glad here to quote Macrobius {Sat. v. i. 20) : Ignoscite nee nimimn me 
 vocetis qtd naturae rerum Vergilmin comparavi. 
 2 Etudes stir la Poisie latine, i. p. lo. 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 69 
 
 might almost say, ceases to develop along its own lines. 
 It is thoroughly Hellenized, At first it is rather that Greek 
 ideas reappear in Latin phrase ; and the progress of Latin 
 literature is from handling these ideas awkwardly to 
 handling them with ease. Of course this is not entirely 
 true, for the greater minds were still Italian, and the 
 literature they produced was, if written after Greek models, 
 Italian in spirit. The Roman thought the thing out for 
 himself, though he did it with more ease when he had 
 a Greek at his elbow. 
 
 Bellipotentes sunt magi' quam sapientipotentes, 
 
 as Ennius said of the house of Aeacus.^ 
 
 At first the Roman tried mere translation, and no doubt 
 found some satisfaction in the task. Homer was hammered 
 manfully and conscientiously into Latin hexameters. 
 
 Crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos 
 
 is a perfect translation of 
 
 'Qyuoj/ I3e/3p(jo6oi<i HpiajULOV Upia/uoio re iraiSag, 
 
 except that, as is suggested by the scholiast who saved it 
 from oblivion, it omits the feeling.^ From Menander and 
 Euripides the Roman poets turned to the Alexandrines, 
 and the cantores EicpJiorionis^ were the prevailing school 
 in the latter days of the republic. Nothing was too formid- 
 able or portentous to find a translator. Even so great a 
 poet as Catullus could hope to add to his fame by trans- 
 lating from Callimachus. 
 
 But, of course, the stronger writers as a rule would not 
 translate or even be content with adaptation. It was rather 
 that, after the careful study of the mind, the manner, and 
 the phrase of a Greek author, they wrote something origi- 
 nal and Latin, not without some very clear marks of its 
 
 ^ ap. Cic. de Div. ii. 56. 116. " Mighty in war are they rather than mighty in 
 wisdom." 
 
 * Labco transhilit Iliada el Odysseam, verbum ex verbo, ridicule satis, qitod verba 
 potius quam settstim secutus sit. Eius est ille versus : crudum, &c. Schoh ad 
 Pers. i. 4. "Eat Priam raw and Priam's children." 
 
 * Cicero, Tusc. iii. 19. 45. "Singers of Euphorion " (Latin imitators of the 
 poetry of Euphorion of Chalcis). 
 
70 VIRGIL 
 
 paternity. Sii suo similis patri'^ might almost be a canon 
 of this literature. Yet the Latin poetry of the age of 
 Julius, so much of it as survives, is in the main independent 
 and individual, the natural expression of the Latin mind, 
 if it be allowed that the Latin mind is thoroughly steeped 
 in Greek literature and has, in most cases, taken at least 
 suggestion, if not inspiration, from some Greek model. 
 Thus Virgil's Eclogues are classed as imitations, in the first 
 instance, of Theocritus, though they are, as we have seen, 
 a great deal more. If his Italian scenery be, as critics say, 
 confused with Sicilian and even with Arcadian, it is the 
 Italian which leaves upon us the strongest impression. 
 Poem by poem they are less Theocritean and more Roman 
 and Italian. The Greek form fits the Latin spirit somewhat 
 oddly to modern thinking, but it pleased the general Roman 
 taste, even the cultured Roman taste. The Georgics, in 
 like manner, owe suggestion to Hesiod — so Virgil says — 
 
 Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen^ {G. ii. 176), 
 
 to Nicander and Aratus too ; yet after all they owe but 
 little to these Greek models, who have now little or no 
 interest but for the fact that Virgil used them. 
 
 And now that the Georgics were accomplished, where 
 was he to turn ? to which of the Greeks ? So far he had 
 been indebted chiefly to Alexandria, perhaps because he 
 was as yet more familiar with Alexandrine than with 
 classical literature. There were, however, signs that he was 
 by no means under the yoke of Alexandria. There is a 
 sense of nationality about his writing, a directness of appeal 
 to his own Italian people at large, and a genial frankness 
 of utterance — foreign to the poets of the Museum and their 
 Latin imitators, and promising something of even wider 
 and deeper human interest than he had yet achieved. What 
 would he do? 
 
 Setting aside didactic verse, we find that the enormous 
 output of contemporary poetry may be roughly classified 
 as dealing with mythology, the antiquities of Rome, history, 
 
 ^ " Let him be like his father." 
 
 * " The song of Ascra I sing through the towns of Rome." 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 7 i 
 
 personal experience, and national glory. Mythology came 
 straight from Alexandria, entirely foreign, but fascinating 
 and intimately connected with painting. The last days of 
 the republic arc marked by an astonishing outburst of anti- 
 quarianism. History from Naevius and Ennius onward 
 had been a favourite field for Roman poets. Catullus with 
 his poems to Lesbia and his lampoons, Cicero with his auto- 
 biographical epics, and Gallus, Propertius, Tibullus, and 
 their school of erotic poetry, bear witness to the absorbing 
 interest felt by the poets, if not always by their readers, in 
 their own personal history. As for national consciousness, 
 if Ennius had written histories in metre — 
 
 Olli respondit rex Albai Longai.^ — 
 he had struck a nobler note in such utterances as his 
 
 Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem,^ 
 or his 
 
 Moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque.^ 
 
 Virgil is, less than any of his contemporaries, an autobio- 
 graphical poet* Pressure was to be put upon him to 
 deviate into a poetry of a personal character, though he 
 was not much interested in it. But in the other four spheres 
 of poetic activity mentioned he was keenly interested. He 
 had given study and enthusiasm to them all, yet he was 
 brought into bondage by none of them. It is instructive 
 to inquire what his contemporaries were doing in these 
 directions, and from the results of their attempts to deduce 
 why Virgil would not go with them. 
 
 I 
 
 Mythology was one of the contributions of Alexandria 
 to poetry, particularly mythology Avith an erotic tinge, but 
 
 ^ Miiller, Ennius Ann. i. 66. '* To him replied the King of Alba Longa.'' 
 
 * " One man by delaying gave us back the State." 
 
 ' "On ancient ways rests Rome's common weal and on men." 
 
 * Four lines suffice him, lines full of character and charm — 
 
 Illo Vergiliuni vie tempore dulcis alebat 
 
 Parthenope studiis Jlorentem ignobilis oti, 
 
 Carmina qui lusi pastorum audaxque iuventa 
 
 Tiiyre te patulae cecini sub tegmine J'agi (G. iv. 563-6). 
 
72 VIRGIL 
 
 scarcely, even on its erotic side, did it touch life. Still, 
 mythological poetry received a warm welcome at Rome, and 
 epics and elegies were written with the most Alexandrian 
 tone and profusion. Propertius boasted to be the Roman 
 Callimachus,^ and wrote his elegies with unction, as we shall 
 see, but the epics were too much even for his taste. Ponticus 
 had written a Thebaid, which, Propertius protests "on his 
 hopes of happiness," puts him next to Homer and even made 
 Homer's primacy doubtful — if only the fates would be kind? 
 Yet he goes on to say that if Ponticus is ever in love he 
 will be sorry he ever touched Thebes, and he will recognise 
 Propertius' supremacy — 
 
 tunc ego Romanis praeferar ingeniis. 
 
 In other words, Ponticus' Thebaid, like all the other 
 Memnonids and Thebaids and Argonautica, might be never 
 so meritorious, but it was dull — it had no vestige of human 
 interest. Propertius did not seem to realize that one might 
 have too much mythology even in an elegy. 
 
 Let us take an example of mythology in an elegy, a short 
 poem which he wrote to Postumus, who goes eastward to 
 fight the Parthians and leaves his wife Galla behind. 
 Postumus will quaff the Araxes, and Galla will pine for 
 good news. Postumus is happy in having a chaste wife 
 — he is like another Ulysses with a faithful Penelope. 
 At this point comes a sort of index to the Odyssey, a 
 catalogue of Ulysses' adventures in twelve lines, so com- 
 pact and complete that to count them on one's fingers 
 is irresistible ; ^ 
 
 Castra decem annorum et Ciconum manus, Ismara capta, 
 
 exustaeque tuae mox, Polypheme, genae, 
 et Circae fraudes, lotosque herbaeque tenaces, 
 
 Scyllaque et alternas scissa Charybdis aquas, 
 Lampeties Ithacis veribus mugisse iuvencos : 
 
 1 iv. 9. 43 inter Callimachi sat erit placiiisse libellos ; and v. I. 64 Umbria 
 Romani pairia Callimachi. Yet his native town has forgotten him for Saint 
 Francis. 
 
 2 i. 7. 4 Sint 7nodo fata tuis nioUia carminibus. 
 
 3 I hope no reader will complain, if I refuse to translate these foolish lines. 
 
 i 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 73 
 
 (This is a real masterpiece — how many of his readers will 
 know who was Lampetie? The poet hastens to explain.) 
 
 paverat hos Phoebo filia Lampetie : 
 
 (Yes, of course, if the reader had read his Odyssey with real 
 care, he would not have needed this note in the text to tell 
 him who Lampetie was. See the Odyssey, says Propertius, 
 book xii. line 132 — omitting to notice, however, that Homer 
 does not identify Phoebus with Lanipetie's father, the sun.) 
 
 et thalamum Aeaeae flentis fugisse puellae 
 
 (This is an easy riddle — Circe, of course.) 
 
 totque hiemis noctes totque natasse dies, 
 nigrantesque domos animarum intrasse silentum, 
 Sirenum surdo remige adisse lacus, 
 
 (We have left Homer's order of events here, but notice the 
 fine allusiveness of surdo feinige.) 
 
 et veteres arcus leto renovasse procorum, 
 errorisque sui sic statuisse modum. 
 
 " Oh ! yes ! " the poet remembers with a start, " Penelope, of 
 course— Penelope's special fame is eclipsed by Galla." ^ 
 
 This is an easy example, for all the references are to a 
 well-known book, but the genuine Alexandrine instinct 
 was to make them to a book unknown if possible, as if the 
 best poetry was that which could carry the largest and most 
 irrelevant weight of dead matter — Professorenpoesie, in fact.^ 
 Virgil, however, was a poet interpreting life to the living, 
 and he realized the wisdom of leaving the dead to bury their 
 dead in cyclopaedias or poems as they preferred. 
 
 But there was another side to the mythology : another 
 contemporary of Virgil's made his reputation by it. Ovid, 
 like Propertius, was learned in all the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians, but he did not take it seriously.^ Gods and 
 heroes lose in his hands that antique air which made them 
 
 ^ Propertius, iv. 11. 25-36. 
 
 * The word is taken from Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. 
 
 ' See Boissier, Rotne et PompH, ch. vi. § 4, p. 375 (Fr.) ; p. 405 (Engl, tr.). 
 
74 VIRGIL 
 
 venerable. He makes them into men, and men exactly like 
 those among whom he lived. The heroines who write love- 
 letters of such length and cleverness are really the contem- 
 poraries of Corinna, and have been in good society and 
 learnt the etiquette of gallantry in the Ars Atnoris. Ovid 
 adds to his Alexandrian learning an air of humour which 
 gives it quite a new complexion. In fact, as M. Boissier brings 
 out, the mythology is no more to him than to the painters of 
 Pompeii. Helbig has reckoned that, of nearly 2000 pictures 
 found there, 1400 deal with subjects from the Greek 
 mythology. Most of these subjects are love-stories — 
 Danae, lo, Leda, Europa, Daphne, Aphrodite and Ares, 
 coming over and over again — and they are not treated in 
 any spirit of reverence or religion at all, rather with an 
 air of mere sentimentalism, and occasionally of vulgarity. 
 Jewelled heroines, old women selling little Cupids to 
 young girls, Cupids dancing, gathering grapes, guiding 
 teams of lions, bringing letters to Polyphemus from Galatea 
 — it is to this that the mythology has come. Even before 
 Virgil's day in so serious a poem as Catullus' Ariadne — 
 a theme, by the way, treated in more than thirty Pompeian 
 pictures — we have the pretty and the pictorial asserting 
 itself— 
 
 Non flavo retinens subtilem vertice mitram, 
 
 non contecta levi velatum pectus amictu, 
 
 non tereti strophio lactentis vincta papillas, 
 
 omnia quae toto delapsa e corpore passim 
 
 ipsius ante pedes fluctus salis alludebant ^ (Ixiv. 62,). 
 
 Tum tremuli salis adversas procurrere in undas, 
 moUia nudatae tollentem tegmina surae^ (Ixiv. 128). 
 
 ^ " Down dropp'd the fillet from her golden hair, 
 
 Dropp'd the light vest that veil'd her bosom fair. 
 
 The filmy cincture dropp'd, that strove to bind 
 
 Her orbed breasts, which would not be confined ; 
 
 And, as they fell around her feet of snow, 
 
 The salt waves caught and flung them to and fro" (Sir Theodore Martin). 
 ^ "Anon she rush'd into the plashing sea, 
 
 Her fair soft limbs unbaring to the knee." (Sir Theodore Martin). 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 75 
 
 Mythology, then, involved its votary in pedantry, or 
 flippancy, or mere prettiness. 
 
 But Virgil had already made his experiments in 
 Alexandrinism. "The frigid mythology," says Mr Myers, 
 " with which the first Georgic opens is absolutely bad. It is 
 bad as Callimachus is bad, and as every other imitation of 
 Callimachus is bad too." Is Tethys trying to buy Augustus 
 as a son-in-law with a dowry of all her waters ? or does 
 Augustus propose to be a new star ^ where a space is 
 opening between Erigone and the Claws ? — the Scorpion is 
 drawing in his arms already. He surely will not prefer to 
 be king of Tartarus in spite of Greek accounts of Elysium. 
 What does all this mean ? Does it mean anything ? What 
 would Lucretius say to it, coming from a pupil of his 
 own ? Virgil did not do it again. The meaning of the 
 short clause at the opening of the second Georgic has been 
 debated. 
 
 Non hie te carmine ficto, 
 
 atque per ambages et longa exorsa tenebo ^ {G. ii. 45-6) 
 
 Whom is he addressing ? his reader ? Does he mean that at 
 some future day he will weave some romantic or mythical 
 strain, — something long, involved, and Alexandrine, — as 
 Conington half thinks the words (especially hie) may imply, 
 or is it an apology for the unreality of the flattering exordium 
 of the first book ? ^ 
 
 At all events, when he reaches his third Georgic, he begins 
 with a renunciation of Alexandria and its mythological 
 themes which is clear enough. The episode of Aristaeus 
 and Orpheus, at the end of the fourth, is indeed in the 
 manner of that school, but it was not part of Virgil's original 
 design, and in any case the story of the half-regained 
 Eurydice redeems its setting. But the resolution of the 
 poet not to go with any Callimachus, Cyrenian or Umbrian, 
 
 1 The redtictio ad ahsiirdum of this is Claudian's account of how Theodosius, 
 after a last address to his sons, shot up into heaven and left a path of light on the 
 clouds (iii. Cons. Hon. 162-74) — a strange pagan end for a Christian emperor. 
 
 * " I will not detain thee here with mythic strains, or circuitous detail, or 
 lengthy preambles " (Conington). 
 
 ' Myers, Essays Classical, pp. 153-4. 
 
ye VIRGIL 
 
 is significant for the vigour with which he expresses it, and 
 with which he adheres to it, "All the themes," he says, 
 " which once could have laid the spell of poesy on idle minds 
 {vacuus vientes, a very significant phrase), are, all of them, 
 hackneyed now. Who knows not Eurystheus, hardest of 
 masters, or the altars of Busiris, whom never tongue praised ? 
 Who has not told the tale of the lost boy Hylas, of Latona 
 and her Delos, of Hippodamia and Pelops of the ivory 
 shoulder, Pelops the driver of horses ? " {G. iii. 3). Why does 
 the poet reject such themes? Partly because the world had 
 had far too many Herakleids and Pelopids and so forth 
 already ; and partly, and chiefly, because Virgil felt that 
 these were really idle and empty themes ; they did not touch 
 life and they were irrelevant to his people.^ Virgil's rejection 
 of mythology and Ovid's application of it, coming as they 
 did in the same generation, explain one another amply. 
 
 II 
 
 But if Virgil was right in refusing Greek mythology, 
 Latin and Roman antiquities, it might be urged, stood on 
 another footing. There was a general awakening of interest 
 in these matters at the time.^ Varro in the course of 
 his long life set in order some forty-one books oi Antiquities, 
 according to St Augustine, twenty-five of which he gave to 
 human subjects (six to men, six to places, six to chronology, 
 and six to events [rebus), and one for an introduction), and 
 sixteen to the gods. '' Who," Augustine asks, " ever sought 
 out these matters with more care than Marcus Varro ? Who 
 showed more learning in their discovery .'' Who pondered 
 them with more attention, or grouped them with more 
 acuteness, or wrote of them with more diligence or at greater 
 length ? Though he has not so agreeable a style, yet he is 
 so full of information and ideas {sententiis), that in all those 
 studies, which we call secular but they call liberal, he has as 
 
 ^ Cf. Patin, La Poisie latine, i. 209: " Ces vieux sujets, sans rapport aucun 
 avec les preoccupations de la pensee romaine." 
 
 2 Norden, Neiujahrbiicher fiir kl. Allertuin, 1901, has an interesting article 
 on this movement, which he aptly calls Romanticism. 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 77 
 
 much instruction for the student of such matters as Cicero 
 has deh'ght for the student of words." ^ But Varro was not 
 alone in this. Dionysius of HaHcarnassus wrote his twenty 
 books of Roman Antiquities in the reign of Augustus, and 
 Livy his first decade dealing with the Roman kings and the 
 early wars of the Republic. 
 
 The poets, too, began to look in this direction for inspira- 
 tion. Propertius, after exhausting the poetic value of Cynthia, 
 turned to Rome and her antiquities — 
 
 Sacra diesque canam, et cognomina prisca locorum ^ (v. i. 69), 
 
 and he wrote one or two elegies dealing with the famous spots 
 of the city, but he soon gave it up. He was too clever for 
 his matter. 
 
 Fictilibus crevere deis haec aurea templa^ (v. i. 5) 
 
 is a clever saying, but it hardly promises well for a really 
 sympathetic treatment of the old days. But there is a 
 couplet in the poem which excels it and leaves no more to 
 be said — 
 
 Optima nutricum nostris lupa Martia rebus, 
 qualia creverunt moenia lacte tuo^ (v. i. 55). 
 
 The task which Propertius gave up was undertaken by 
 Ovid, who wrote twelve books of Fasti, dealing with old 
 Roman customs and legends in the order of the calendar. 
 Six alone have reached us, of which Mr Mackail remarks 
 that " it cannot be said that Latin poetry would be much 
 
 * Augustine, de Civitate Dei, vi. 2 and 3. In the chapters that follow the 
 antiquary furnishes the saint with ammunition to be used against paganism. He 
 had a bad name already with pious pagans of the day, cf. Servius, ad Ain. xi. 
 787 Varro libiqiie exptignalor religionis. Varro was born in 1 16 and died in 
 28 B.C. On Varro see Warde Fowler, Social Life at Rome (1908) pp. 335, 336 ; 
 Varro, holding the Stoic doctrine of the animus mundi, co-ordinates it with the 
 Grseco-Roman religion of the State in his day — the chief gods represent the/ar/^j 
 miindi, while the dai/xoves are used to rescue the Italian /ares, genii, etc. 
 
 * " Of sacred rites and days will I sing, and of ancient names of places." 
 ' " For gods of clay these golden temples rose." 
 
 * ' ' Best of nurses for our State, O Wolf of Mars, what walls have grown from thy 
 milk ! " 
 
78 VIRGIL 
 
 poorer" if they had been suppressed with the other six. The 
 author of the Heroiduin Epistiilae was not of the genuine 
 antiquary type, and however laboriously he might " dig the 
 sacred usages out of the ancient annals," ^ he did not really 
 care for them. He wrote from his heart only when he was 
 engaged on themes nearer himself and his day ; let others 
 play with antiquity, he preferred, he says, to be modern ; 
 his own age suited him exactly — 
 
 Prisca invent alios, ego me nunc denique natum 
 
 gratulor ; haec aetas moribus apta meis {^A, A. 3. 121). 
 
 Virgil too had felt the attraction of antiquity. Indeed at 
 an earlier period of his life he had begun an epic dealing 
 with the kings of Rome or of Alba, but he abandoned it. 
 Apollo, he says, touched his ear and said that a shepherd's 
 business was to feed sheep — 
 
 Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem 
 
 vellit et admonuit : pastorem, Tityre, pinguis 
 
 pascere oportet ovis, deductum dicere carmen ^ {E. vi. 3). 
 
 In plainer language, he did not like the subject. Cum res 
 Romanas incohasset, offensus viateria ad Bucolica transiit^ 
 says Suetonius in his life of Virgil (§ 19). He probably 
 felt himself unripe as yet for a great undertaking. But 
 now he realized that the tales of Alba were after all as 
 unimportant and as remote as the war of the Seven against 
 Thebes. He wanted a larger theme, a subject of ecumenical 
 significance, something involving a wider range of human 
 
 ^ Sacra recognosces annalihus eruta frisa's, A i. 7. "I have now," wrote Lord 
 Macaulay, at the end of his Ovid, "gone through the whole of Ovid's works, and 
 heartily tired I am of him and them. Yet he is a wonderfully clever man. But 
 he has two insupportable faults. The one is that he will always be clever ; and 
 the other that he never knows when to have done. He is rather a rhetorician 
 than a poet. There is little feeling in his poems. . . . He seems to have been a 
 very good fellow ... a flatterer and a coward ; but kind and generous." 
 
 2 " When I was venturing to sing of Kings and battles, the Cynthian god 
 touched my ear, and appealed to my memory. ' It is a shepherd's part, Tityrus, 
 that the sheep that he feeds should be fat, and the songs that he sings thin ' " 
 (Conington). 
 
 * " After beginning the history of Rome, he was displeased with his subject 
 and turned to Bucolics." 
 
 I 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 79 
 
 sympathies, touching mankind at more points than a 
 chronicle of village forays could possibly do. And he was 
 right. In spite of the ease of Livy's style the reader 
 wearies of the little wars and the long speeches in which 
 the mythical chieftains of his first book indulge. So Virgil 
 left the Fasti to Ovid, as he had left him the mythology. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But it might be suggested that, while undoubtedly Alba 
 was very remote and dead, there were other periods of 
 Roman history which were living, full of great men and 
 great movements, capable surely of poetic treatment. Had 
 not Ennius written of the Punic Wars? was not Varius 
 writing of Julius and of Augustus? For the moment, let us 
 reserve Varius and his epics, and ask why Virgil declined to 
 write an historical poem. It brings us face to face with 
 the other question, what is an epic .-* To discuss this with 
 any fullness would take us too far away, but we can answer 
 it in part by making clear the difference between an epic and 
 an historical poem. 
 
 One of the chief differences is the want of unity which will 
 not allow the metrical history to become a poem. The 
 poet is shackled to the fact, to the conscientious narration of 
 a series of details. Event follows event, and all must be 
 chronicled, whether capable or not of being fused, of being 
 related to the central conception, without which a poem is 
 impossible. Incidents and episodes may come in thick 
 succession, but they remain incidents and episodes, mere 
 disconnected fragments. As a rule they refuse to become 
 organic parts of one living whole ; they delay us rather than 
 help us onward, they scatter rather than concentrate the 
 thought. 
 
 Again, the functions of poetry and history are really 
 distinct. " Poetry," says Aristotle, " is a more philosophical 
 and a higher thing {cnrovSanWepov) than history ; for poetry 
 tends to express the universal, history the particular. By 
 the universal I mean how a person of given character will on 
 occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or 
 
8o VIRGIL 
 
 necessity. The particular is, for example, what Alcibiades 
 did or suffered." ^ History is full of accidents, strange 
 chances, and anomalies, while poetry has no more to do with 
 these than art with the illustration of oddities in the natural 
 world. Even the philosophical treatment of history, in spite 
 of its effort to exclude the accidental and reach the universal, 
 is scarcely a proper theme for poetry. The conflict of 
 national characters, for example, though real enough in its 
 way, or the conflict of great principles maintained by 
 opposing peoples over a great space of time, can only be 
 conceived by certain abstraction of thought, and can hardly 
 be represented by any group of symbols which poetry would 
 care to use. 
 
 Roman literature offers us two great examples of metrical 
 history, of which one is absurd and the other tiresome. 
 Silius Italicus wrote seventeen books of Punica^ which he 
 tried to embellish with what he supposed to be poetical 
 ornament. Hannibal fights under Juno's blessing, because 
 Dido had been a favourite of Juno. Anna, Dido's sister, 
 appears to him on the eve of Cannae to tell him what to do 
 (she had counselled her sister in the Aeneid), and begins by 
 explaining to him at length why in distant ages she had 
 left Carthage after Dido's death, and how she had become an 
 Italian goddess. The wind, which the Romans found so 
 disastrous during the battle, was sent by Aeolus, anxious 
 once more to oblige Juno. Lucan discarded all such 
 imbecilities in his Pharsalia, and tried to carry off his poem 
 with masses of scientific information and academic declama- 
 tion, though neither of these aids can hide the fact that his 
 epic is broken-backed and. 
 
 Like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. 
 
 We cannot tell whether Virgil had ever read Aristotle's 
 Poetics, but he probably would not have needed Aristotle to 
 advise him to avoid attempting an historical epic. His 
 
 ^ Poetics, 9. 3, 4, tr. Butcher, whose remarks in his larger edition, pp. 163, 183, 
 should be studied. Thucydides, whose work was used as a source by the writer 
 of the.' h.d7)vaioiv EoXtreia, but was little read in the fourth century B.C., might 
 have suggested to Aristotle a higher conception ©f History. 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 8 1 
 
 friend Varius had given himself to this kind of work. 
 Virgil always speaks of him with respect, and indeed made 
 him one of his executors, but he must have felt that as a poet 
 his friend was astray. Posterity seems to have agreed with 
 him. Horace, like Virgil, refused to attempt anything of 
 the kind, modestly saying that charming as it would be to 
 tell how temple and tower went to the ground, how 
 battles were fought on river and on shore, it was not for him.^ 
 Let us recognize once more the sanity of Virgil's genius and 
 the sureness of his judgement. 
 
 fV 
 
 If historical poetry was to be avoided, the biographical 
 epic was even less possible. To turn once more to Aristotle, 
 " unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist 
 in the unity of the hero. For infinitely various are the 
 incidents in one man's life, which cannot be reduced to 
 unity ; and so, too, there are many actions of one man 
 out of which we cannot make one action. Hence the error, 
 as it appears, of all poets who have composed a Herakleid, 
 a Theseid, or other poems of the kind. They imagine 
 that as Herakles was one man the story of Herakles 
 must be also a unity. But Homer, as in all else he 
 is of surpassing merit, here too — whether from art or 
 natural genius — seems to have happily discerned the 
 truth." 2 
 
 This would be one objection to writing the deeds of 
 Augustus in an epic, but there was another. While Augustus 
 would have been, from Aristotle's point of view, quite as bad 
 a subject as Herakles, from another he was even worse. 
 For, if Virgil could have been content with historical truth 
 and have been willing to sacrifice poetry, Augustus probably 
 did not much wish for historical truth ; he preferred, and 
 no doubt meant to have, panegyric. Augustus must have 
 known something of the lively admiration which Virgil 
 had for him, but he can hardly have understood his poetic 
 
 > Ep. ii. I. 250 f. 
 
 > Poetics, c. 8. 1-3 (tr. Butcher). 
 
82 VIRGIL 
 
 temper. He probably remarked that Virgil stood higher 
 than Varius in general estimation, and concluded that if 
 one of the friends could panegyrize him, the other, the 
 greater of the two, would do it even better. 
 
 Indeed, Virgil seems to have given the suggestion some 
 attention, and in the beginning of the third Georgic, after 
 his rejection of mythology, he speaks of raising a temple 
 in Caesar's honour, with pictures of the Nile and the cities 
 of Asia, triumphal columns and trophies, and statues of 
 the race of Assaracus — 
 
 Trosque parens et Troiae Cynthius auctor — 
 
 " for the meantime let us go back to the woods of the 
 Dryads." So he went back to the Dryads, and his meta- 
 phorical temple was never built. Virgil has not given 
 us, perhaps he did not give Augustus, his reasons for not 
 fulfilling this promise, but it is possible that the con- 
 siderations indicated above were among them, and, even 
 if he had no reasons, his poetic instinct was monitor 
 enough.^ 
 
 So far we have considered the classes of subjects which 
 Virgil rejected, and we now come to the theme he chose, 
 which after all has its affinities with every one of these 
 classes, and yet escapes most of their limitations. He 
 needed a subject, which should have a unity of its own, 
 
 ^ Another view is advanced by Norden {Neue Jahrbiicher fiir kl. Altertutn, 
 1901, pp. 313-22). He quotes the passage I have taken from Aristotle, but 
 dismisses the idea that Virgil was influenced in his change of plan by 
 " aesthetic " reasons. (Norden elsewhere shows great contempt for "aesthetic 
 criticism.") He urges that we must look for Virgil's reasons in the politics 
 of the day. The civil wars were over, peace was restored to the world, and 
 Augustus wished to emphasize the fact, as indeed he did in the Monumentum 
 Ancyranum, in other monuments, and on coins. "It was under the influence 
 of the great triumphs that Virgil had given the promise to celebrate the wars 
 of Caesar : how could he have kept it in a time, which was the antithesis of 
 the past age of terror, when the prince was actually inaugurating his pro- 
 gramme of peace for it, by materially reducing the number of the legions ? " 
 Norden fortifies his position by reference to Horace's last ode (iv. 15 Phoelnts 
 volentem), in which he finds a clear interpretation of Mrgil's motives side by 
 side with the more obvious reference to the Acneid {Troiamque et Anchisen et 
 alinae Progeniem Veneris canemus). I can only say that I have a fundamentally 
 different idea of poetry— a higher idea, I think. 
 
CONTEMPORARIES 83 
 
 and a grandeur, one in which he might express his inner- 
 most thought upon what meant most to him, his thought 
 upon his country and the life of man. Does Aeneas fulfil 
 these requirements ? The theme is hardly promising, a 
 mass of obscure, straggling, and scattered stories, gathered 
 accidentally around a Trojan of the second rank, who has 
 no individuality, no renown, no legend in fact. 
 
 It is clear that a poem about Aeneas may be as dead as 
 any Thebaid \ it may be as petty as any legend of Alba, 
 and as lacking in unity as the Hcrakleid which Aristotle 
 condemned. But the Aeneid is one, it is " grand," it interests, 
 it expresses the Roman people, and it rises from time to 
 time to be the utterance of humanity. It absorbs as much 
 of Greek mythology as the most exacting taste could 
 demand ; it is full of the ancient life and legends of Rome 
 and Italy — so full as to make it the special study of anti- 
 quaries for centuries, and yet it is never borne down by its 
 weight of learning ; it touches and illumines the history of 
 Rome from Rome's first origin in the decrees of Fate down 
 to the achievement of the universal Roman peace under 
 Augustus ; it does more for Augustus than any panegyric 
 ever did or could do for any monarch ; and it has been the 
 favourite poem of all Europe for eighteen centuries, express- 
 ing for the most living races of mankind more than any 
 single work of one man all they have felt of love and 
 sorrow. 
 
 The poem finds its unity in its central thought ; it is the 
 poem of the birth of a great people, of a great work done to 
 found a great race, of a spirit and temper brought into the 
 world which should in time enable that race to hold sway 
 over the whole world and be to the whole world, with all its 
 tribes and tongues, the pledge and the symbol of its union 
 and its peace. It is not the story of the life and adventures 
 of Aeneas — there were those who called it the gesta popiili 
 Romani} a name which shows a fine sympathy with the 
 poet's feeling, as if all the deeds of the Roman people sprang 
 from and were summed up in the work of one man. It is 
 
 ^ So Servius, ad Aai. vi, 752. On this see Patin, La Poisie latine, i. 199 ; 
 Myers, Essays Classical, p. 129. 
 
84 VIRGIL 
 
 the story of the planting in Italy of the seed from which 
 came Rome — 
 
 Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem ^ (A. i. 33). 
 
 The poet looks down the history of his race from Aeneas, 
 he looks back through it from Augustus, and he finds it 
 one, one story telling of one spirit. It is one spirit, and 
 the same spirit, that brought Aeneas from Troy to the 
 Tiber; that carried the Roman kings through the early 
 wars of Rome ; that sacrificed in Brutus a father's affection 
 to love of country ; that took Decii and Scipios from victory 
 to victory ; that put Carthage and Alexandria, with all they 
 meant of cruelty and disorder, under the feet of Rome ; 
 and that gave Augustus the world to pacify and to re- 
 generate. Virgil finds still more in it. He finds here his 
 philosophy of history, the unity of the story of mankind, 
 the drama of the progress of man from war, disorder, and 
 barbarism to peace and humanity. And he finds in this 
 story of Aeneas a clue to the story of every man, the 
 linking of divine decree with human suffering and service, 
 something to explain waste of life and failure of hope by 
 a broader view of heaven's purposes and earth's needs, a 
 justification of the ways of God to men, not complete, 
 only tentative, but yet an anodyne and an encouragement 
 in an unintelligible world. ^ 
 
 ^ " So vast the effort it cost to build up the Roman nation " (Conington). 
 
 2 It is curious and disappointing to find that so great a scholar as 
 Wilamowitz - Moellendorff can write as he does of the Aeiieid (Reden u. 
 Vortrdge^, p. 266) : " Das Heldengedicht, an dem jetzt sein Ruhm, bei uns 
 seine Unterschatzung hangt, ist ihm wohl wider bessere Einsicht durch 
 Maecenas und Augustus abgenotigt worden." The fact is that, for whatever 
 reason, the Germans do not enjoy the poetry of Virgil as the French do, and 
 to be a sound critic of a poet it is necessary to enjoy him. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 LITERATURE.— 3. THE MYTHS OF AENEAS i 
 
 " There is in genius that alchemy which converts all metals into gold." 
 
 Caklyle, Essay on Schiller. 
 
 WHEN Virgil chose Aeneas as his theme his choice 
 was not idly made. Aeneas played a part, not per- 
 haps of the highest importance, but still not an 
 insignificant one, in the war of Troy. Though he does not 
 accomplish very much, nor waken any very keen interest, 
 yet the Iliad seems to recognize in him a man of heroic 
 nature and a man with a destiny. Consequently a poet 
 who would treat of him again has the Iliad behind him, 
 and stands as it were in the succession of Homer. His 
 theme is at once Homeric, and epic. So much might 
 perhaps be said of Sarpedon or of Teucer, but for Virgil 
 these heroes would have lacked what he clearly desired 
 in his theme — relevance to Rome. But with Aeneas the 
 case was different, for, however it had happened, a mass 
 of legend had grown up around him, which by degrees 
 assumed some sort of consistency and at last became a 
 more or less fixed tradition. Step by step it could be 
 shown how Aeneas had made his way westward till he 
 reached Latium, and though at one time it looked as 
 if Sardinia might be a further stage in his westward 
 journey, it was agreed that Latium was really his goal. 
 Here he, or his son, or grandson, — Romus, Romulus, or 
 some such person, — had founded Rome, or, if not Rome, 
 Lavinium. At all events, if not Aeneas himself, some direct 
 descendant of the hero had eventually founded Rome, and 
 though chronologers might debate the number of intervening 
 generations, there was an undoubted filiation between Rome 
 
 * The reader may consult the work of Albrecht Fcirstemann, Zur Geschichte des 
 Aeneas/iiythos, Magdeburg, 1894. 
 
 85 
 
86 VIRGIL 
 
 and Troy. Thus in Aeneas Virgil had a theme, if not 
 thoroughly Roman, still closely connected with Rome — a 
 theme which in his hands might at last grow to be intensely 
 national. At the same time, he would have indeed to make 
 dry bones live ; for though the story had been accepted by 
 the Romans and even embodied in diplomatic documents, 
 it was in no sense really popular, but was the creation of 
 Greek scholars, evolved from a combination of discrepant 
 local tales by a rationalizing and rather dull philology. 
 Virgil made the story live, and so effectually that his reader 
 is pursued by his influence even into the conscientious pages 
 of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and finds it hard to imagine 
 what the story was before Virgil took it in hand. To strip 
 from it all that he gave it is hard, but by doing so we may 
 gain a clearer appreciation of Virgil's greatness, and for this 
 it is worth while to read Dionysius, and to survey the 
 confusing collection of fictions which he has preserved for 
 us. Let us first see what Homer says of Aeneas, and then 
 follow him through literature and legend down to Virgil's 
 day. 
 
 I 
 
 Of the passages in the Iliad dealing with Aeneas the 
 most important belong to the strata of the poem which 
 critics pronounce to be late. Aeneas comes into conflict 
 with Diomedes, with Idomeneus, and finally with Achilles. 
 The last of these encounters is for our present purpose the 
 most significant. It occurs in the twentieth book, with which 
 it is only loosely connected, while with the story proper it 
 has hardly any connexion at all. The real hero of the 
 passage seems not to be Achilles so much as Aeneas himself, 
 for whose glorification it is believed to have been inserted by 
 the author, whoever he was. The situation is this. Achilles 
 has been roused to fury by the death of Patroclus, and he 
 starts from the Greek camp to find Hector (1. 75). The first 
 enemy he meets is Aeneas, and here the story begins to 
 waver. We are told that Apollo, in the form of one of 
 Priam's sons, urged Aeneas to face Achilles (1. 79), but 
 later on (1. 156 f) Aeneas seems to be acting independently. 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 87 
 
 However that may be, Achilles is strangely unlike himself. 
 He had rushed into battle furious ; now he is sarcastic, and, 
 meeting Aeneas, he stops and begins by sneering at his 
 position in Troy : — 
 
 " Aeneas, why dost thou advance so far from out the 
 crowd to stand here ? Doth thy spirit bid thee fight with 
 me, because thou hopest to rule over the horse-curbing 
 Trojans with the dignity of Priam ? But even if thou slay 
 me, not therefore will Priam put his honour in thy hand ; 
 there be his own sons, and he is sound of mind and dotes 
 not yet " (xx ; 177-183).^ 
 
 He goes on to remind him of a previous meeting when 
 Aeneas had run away, and advises him to go back and 
 "mingle with the multitude before evil befall thee, and 
 encounter me not : the fool is wise too late." To this Aeneas 
 replies : — 
 
 " Pelides, think not to frighten me with big words, like a 
 child ; well skilled am I also to speak with jibe or with 
 courteous phrase. We know each other's race, and each 
 other's parents ... I style myself the son of great-hearted 
 Anchises, and my mother is Aphrodite. . . . But if thou 
 wouldest know my generation, I will tell it thee, a genera- 
 tion known of many men ; first of my line was Dardanus, 
 begotten of cloud-compelling Zeus ; and he builded 
 Dardania, for holy Ilium was not yet builded in the plain, 
 city of mortal men, but they dwelt in the skirts of many- 
 fountained Ida, And Dardanus begat a son, Erichthonius 
 the king, most opulent of men. [Here follows a further 
 digression upon Erichthonius' miraculous horses.] . . . 
 And Erichthonius begat Tros, king of the Trojans; and 
 to Tros were born three blameless sons, Ilus and Assaracus 
 and Ganymedes. [Here follow the pedigrees of Priam and 
 Aeneas ; Ilus, Laomedon, Priam ; and Assaracus, Capys, 
 Anchises, Aeneas.] And now no more ; let us not prattle 
 on, like children (1. 244) . . . come therefore (1. 258), let us 
 speedily make trial of each other's force with the brazen 
 spear.' 
 
 At the end of the previous book Achilles had held 
 
 ^ I quote from Purves' translation throughout. 
 
S8 VIRGIL 
 
 converse with his horses, and when Xanthus " the twinkling- 
 footed steed " had prophesied his death, he rejoined, 
 " Xanthus, why nam'st thou death ? It needed not. Full 
 well I know myself that my fate is to die here, far from my 
 father and from my mother; but yet I will not hold my hand 
 until I have given the Trojans surfeit of war" (xix. 420-3). 
 But now it would seem he has changed his mind, and 
 " holds his hand " to hear " a generation known of many 
 men " ; and when Aeneas begins the battle by hurling his 
 spear, Achilles " held his shield " — the very shield on which 
 Hephaestus had wrought the wonderful pictures, it should 
 be remembered — " away from him with his firm hand, /« 
 fear; for he thought that the long spear of great-hearted 
 Aeneas would lightly pierce it through." Then he hurls his 
 own spear with little effect. Hereupon Aeneas picks up a 
 huge stone, and " then had Aeneas stricken him with the stone 
 in his assault on helmet or on death-averting shield, and 
 Pelides had come upon him and taken his life with the 
 blade, had not Poseidon, shaker of the land, been quick 
 to see." Poseidon, not usually a friend of Trojans, addresses 
 Hera, as little their friend, and they both agree that Aeneas 
 should be rescued. So Poseidon "lifted Aeneas from the 
 ground and whirled him away ; and many a line of men 
 and many a line of horses did Aeneas pass over, as he 
 bounded from the hand of the god ; and he came to the 
 verge of the tumultuous war," where Poseidon had a word 
 for him. 
 
 So much for the fight of Achilles and Aeneas, but 
 Poseidon's words to Hera deserve study. " Ah me, I am in 
 pain," he says, " because of great-hearted Aeneas, who soon 
 shall fall before Pelides, and go down to the house of death ; 
 foolish, who listened to the biddings of far-fatal Apollo ; but 
 he shall not deliver him from destruction. Ah, why should 
 he stand thus in much sorrow, without a cause, himself 
 guiltless, by the fault of others — he who ever renders 
 acceptable gifts to the gods who hold wide heaven ? Come, 
 let us rescue him from the stroke of death, lest Cronides 
 [Zeus] be angry should Achilles slay him ; also it is his 
 fate to come off safe, that the line of Dardanus perish 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 89 
 
 not without seed, and vanish away ; Dardanus, whom 
 Cronides loved above all his children, who were born of 
 himself and of mortal women : for Cronion [Zeus] loveth 
 not the race of Priam any longer, but in days hereafter 
 the might of Aeneas shall rule over the Trojans, he, 
 and his children's children that shall come after him " 
 (xx. 293-308). 
 
 We may dismiss the question as to whether Poseidon is 
 quite clear about the scope of Fate, and do no more than 
 remark the Virgilian character of /zV/^j- which the god gives 
 to the hero. Two points stand prominently out in this 
 speech and the passage to which it supplies the key. First, 
 Aeneas belongs to the younger branch of the royal family, 
 and there is jealousy between the two branches. We learn 
 this even more explicitly in another passage (xiii. 460 f.), 
 where Deiphobus " found Aeneas standing on the battle's 
 verge ; for he was ever wroth with divine Priam, because he 
 honoured him not, though valiant among men " ; a little 
 later, Aeneas found the people following him to battle ''as 
 sheep follow the ram, when they come from the pasture to 
 drink, and the shepherd's heart is proud, so did Aeneas' 
 heart rejoice within him, when he saw the company of the 
 people following " (xiii. 492-5). Second, the words of the 
 god imply a tradition that the supremacy had actually 
 passed from Priam's family to Aeneas' line, and this will 
 bear examination. 
 
 It is quite clear that the encounter of Achilles and Aeneas 
 is in itself entirely trivial, and that, moreover, it blocks the 
 progress of the story. What is its explanation ? It is 
 generally pronounced to be a late insertion in the poem,^ 
 due to the desire of a Homerid poet to please some dynasty 
 or great family of the Troad, who wished to connect them- 
 selves with the founders of Troy, and fixed upon Aeneas as 
 
 ^ See Ameis-Hentze, Anhang zu Homers Ilias, vol. ii. (1879-86), Introduction 
 to book XX, for a conspectus of the views of critics ; and also Leaf, Companion to 
 the Iliad, Introduction, pp. 24, 25, and on the passages quoted. Sainte-Beuve, 
 Etude sur Virgile, in his excellent chapter on Aeneas in 1 lomer (iv), does not 
 do justice to this theory. Mr Andrew liang {Homer and his A^e, p. 324) admits 
 the passage to be an interpolation. Schwegler, Komische Ceschichte, i. 279-99, 
 may also be consulted with advantage. 
 
go VIRGIL 
 
 their ancestor,^ just as the great families of the Ionian cities 
 traced their descent from Neleus of Pylos, or Codrus, king of 
 Athens.2 This explanation seems satisfactory, and we find 
 it corroborated by one or two local traditions of the Troad. 
 Dionysius (i. 47) says that, when Aeneas sailed for the west, 
 he left Ascanius, his eldest son, behind, and Ascanius ruled 
 over a people in the district known as Dascylitis, where lake 
 Ascania is, but afterwards with Hector's son, Scamandrius, 
 he moved back to Troy. This may have been a local story, 
 or perhaps some grammarian's attempt at history.^ However, 
 Strabo (607-8) tells us definitely that at Scepsis in the Troad 
 the tradition was clear.* Old Scepsis was higher up on Ida, 
 but Scamandrius, Hector's son, and Ascanius, Aeneas' son, 
 brought the people down to the Scepsis known to history, 
 where both their families were " kings " ^ for a long time. 
 But this story, Strabo continues, does not agree with the 
 popular accounts to the effect that Aeneas was spared on 
 account of his quarrel with Priam (//. xiii. 460, cited above) 
 and went westward ; while Homer himself agrees neither 
 with the one nor the other, " for he shows that Aeneas 
 remained in Troy, and received the sovereignty, and left the 
 succession to his children's children, the family of Priam 
 being extinguished ; * for Cronion loveth not the race of 
 
 ^ Keller remarks how well the poet knew the ground and the old folk-tales of 
 the region [Lafidessagen), and concludes that the whole lay {Lied) comes from- an 
 old legend, and is designed for the glory of Aeneas, as ancestor of a house 
 established on Mount Ida for centuries after the fall of Troy. 
 
 * See e.g. Hdt. i. 147 ; Strabo, c. 633. 
 
 ' .See Dion. H. i. 53 for a mass of grammarians' efforts at once to keep Aeneas 
 in the Troad and to send him to Italy — were there two heroes called Aeneas, or 
 did the genuine one first go to Italy and then return ? 
 
 * Strabo was a man of real discernment, as can be seen in his chapters on 
 Scepsis, "a place so called either for some other reason or from its being a con- 
 spicuous place {irepiaKeirTov), if it is right to find in Greek words the etymology 
 of old-time barbarian names " (607). His criticism of the stories of Aeneas, in 
 view of Homer's actual words, is beyond most of the ancient authorities. The 
 account of the connexion of Aristotle's library with Scepsis, with which he 
 continues his record of the place, is most interesting and important. Dionysius 
 (i. 53) denies that Aeneas' ruling over the Trojans implies his ruling in the Troad ; 
 "was it not possible for him still to rule over the Trojans, whom he took with 
 him, even if they had a city elsewhere ? " Dionysius finds it easy to be orthodox. 
 
 ® The name, of course, rather implies a special hereditary priesthood than 
 royalty in any modern sense. 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 91 
 
 Priam any longer, but in days hereafter the might of Aeneas 
 shall rule over the Trojans, he and his children's children 
 that shall come after him ' (//. xx. 306, as cited) . . . Still 
 less does he agree with those who say Aeneas wandered as 
 far as Italy and make him end his life there. There are 
 some, however, who write, ' The race of Aeneas shall reign 
 over all, and his children's children,' meaning the Romans."^ 
 This was of course a mere violation of the text, which is 
 confirmed by a closely similar prophecy in the Homeric 
 hymn to Aphrodite, spoken by the goddess herself to 
 Anchises.2 
 
 The introduction, then, of Aeneas' fight with Achilles 
 and his rescue by Poseidon is explained by the existence of 
 this dynasty or sacred family in the Troad with its tradition 
 of descent from Aeneas. And in the same way we may 
 explain the somewhat similar, though less feeble, story of 
 his fight with Diomedes and his rescue by Aphrodite and 
 
 ^ It may be well to put side by side the two versions of the passage from 
 the Iliad— 
 
 Nw 5^ 57) AiVeiao ^[t] Tpd>e<Tcriv dvd^ei, 
 
 Kal iraLSojv TralSes, roi Kev ixerbtnade yevcovrai (Homer). 
 
 Nvv 5^ 5^] Alueiao yevos TravTeacriv dpd^et 
 
 Kal iraidwv iraides (Anon. ap. Strah.)- 
 
 It will be noticed that Virgil's rendering is nearer the latter — 
 
 Hie domtts Aenaeae cunctis dominabitur oris 
 
 et nati natoruni et qui nascentur ab illis {Aen. iii. 97). 
 Servius says Homer took the words from Orpheus, as Orpheus had taken them 
 from the oracle of Apollo. Long after Virgil, Quintus of Smyrna used the old 
 Homeric prophecy again — 
 
 Tov yap OeaKparov eari deu>v ipiKvSei ^ovKy 
 
 Qv/j-^piv eV evpvpeedpov aVo 'S.dvdoto ixoKovra 
 
 Tev^efiev iepov daru Kal ecrcro/xevoiai.v dyr)Tbv 
 
 dvOpuiiroii, avTOv d^ iroXvcnripeeaaL ^poToicri 
 
 KoipaveeiV iK rod 5^ yevos fxeroTnaOev dvd^eiv 
 
 dxpis eir' dvroKlTjv re Kai aKap-drov ovaw ijovs. 
 
 Posthottierica, xiii. 336. 
 * H. Aphr. 197 (with note of Allen and Sikes) — 
 
 2oi 6' Icrrai 0i\os mos, 8s iv Tpweffaiv dvd^ei, 
 
 Kal iratSey iraiSecfft, Biafiirepii eK7e7aoKrat. 
 Hesiod, T/ieoj^ony 1008, records the birth of Aeneas, the child of Cythereia and 
 Anchises, but makes no prophecy about him. He then adds that Circe bore to 
 Odysseus sons named Agrios and Latinos who dwelt far in a recess among the 
 islands and ruled over all the Etruscans. It is open to any one to question the 
 authenticity and the date of these latter lines. 
 
92 VIRGIL 
 
 Apollo, which we find in book v. But in the meantime 
 we have discovered, with some assistance from Strabo, that 
 Homer (if we may use the name again as the Greeks used it) 
 knew nothing of Aeneas' adventures in any western region, 
 near or far, but thought of him as continuing the race of 
 Dardanus in Dardanus' own land, which, in spite of Virgil,^ 
 was not Italy but the Troad. So far only does Homer stand 
 with Virgil, that, hymning a patron's ancestor, he makes that 
 ancestor a great warrior, great enough to face Achilles and 
 Diomedes, and dear enough to the gods, at once for his piety 
 and his descent, to be rescued by miracle and reserved to 
 fight again, " when Achilles dies and finds his fate " (//. xx. 
 337), and to found a line of kings.^ 
 
 II 
 
 The problem now rises as to how, in the face of the words 
 of Homer and of the traditions of the Troad, the story grew 
 which brought Aeneas to Italy and to Rome. The growth 
 of the story it is comparatively easy to trace, but why it 
 should have grown at all is not so clear. No doubt the 
 natural passion most men feel for pedigrees of their own 
 and of other people plays a great part here, and so does the 
 Greek habit of off-hand etymologizing. The connexion of 
 Aeneas with Aphrodite is also an important factor, though 
 the origin of this requires some explanation. 
 
 First, let us see how Aeneas left Troy. Various accounts 
 of this are quoted by Dionysius. Menecrates of Xanthus, 
 for example, began his tale with Achilles' burial, and went 
 on to narrate that Aeneas, from hatred of Priam and Paris, 
 betrayed the city to the Achaeans. This version was hardly / 
 likely to be productive in literature, and it will suffice to 
 
 ' Aen. iii. 163 Est locus, Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt . . . 
 167 Hae nobis propriae sedes, hinc Dardanus onus. 
 
 ^ A scholiast on //. xx. 307 tells us that Acusilaus of Argos (a logographer 
 of the sixth century, B.C.) discovered the real reason of the Trojan war in 
 Aphrodite's ambition for her son. She set the whole war on foot simply and 
 solely to transfer the sovereignty from the house of Priam to that of Aeneas — a 
 very suggestive interpretation, which may be illustrated at large from the history 
 of Greek cities and their tyrants and factions — (K7)Ti 'ZvKoau.vroi ei'pi/xw/j/a 
 (Strabo, c. 638). 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 93 
 
 say merely that Servius believed Virgil knew of it, that 
 Dares adopted it, and that Gower used it in his Confessio 
 Aviantis}- The next story is more famous and more fruit- 
 ful. " Sophocles, the tragic poet," says Dionysius " in his 
 drama of Laocoon has represented Aeneas on the . eve of 
 the city's capture as repairing to Ida, for so he was bidden 
 by his father Anchises, in remembrance of the charge of 
 Aphrodite ; while in view of what had just befallen the 
 family of Laocoon, he conjectured the approaching destruc- 
 tion of the city. His iambics, spoken by a messenger, 
 are as follows : — ' And now Aeneas, son of the goddess, is 
 at the gates ; on his shoulders he bears his father, the matter 
 dripping on his robe of byssos from his back, burnt by 
 the thunderbolt ; and round about are all the company of 
 his servants ; and with him follows a multitude, beyond 
 what thou thinkest, of Phrygians who desire to be of this 
 colony.' " 2 This is perhaps the only known reference to 
 Aeneas in Greek tragedy. Xenophon adds a little more 
 information. " Aeneas saved the gods of his father and of 
 his mother (tov<; iraTpojov^ koc fxtjTpcpov^ ^ 6eov^), and saved his 
 father too, and won thereby a name for piety, so that the 
 enemy granted to him alone of all whom they conquered 
 in Troy immunity from being pillaged."* 
 
 But neither of these accounts satisfies Dionysius of 
 Halicarnassus,^ and he gives us "the most reliable story" as 
 told by Hellanicus in his Troica — an explicit narrative of 
 
 ^ See Chassang, Histoire du Roman, p. 364. Servius, ad Aen. i. 242, 647. 
 Antenor more commonly is credited with this betrayal. Cf. Strabo c. 608. 
 
 * Dion. H. Ant. Rom. i. 48. Soph. Frag. 344 (Nauck). There are some 
 slight variations in reading. 
 
 For Kepawlov vutov, cf. A. Aphr. 287-9 — 
 
 Et Of Kev e'fetTTTjs koI eirev^eai atftpovL Ovfu^ 
 iv (piXoTrjTi fiiyrjvai iuaTe(pdvC{> Kvdepeir], 
 ZeJs <T€ xoXwcra/iei'os ^aXe'et ^poKoevri. KepavvQ — 
 and Aeneid ii. 647 — 
 
 lam pridem invisus divis et inutilis annos 
 demoror, ex quo me divom fater alque homintim rex 
 fulminis adjiavit ventis et contigit igni, 
 ' Who were these? * Xen. de Venationc, i. 15. 
 
 ^ " Ce bon Denys d'Halicarnasse," Boissier calls him, and the phrase is in 
 itself a suggestive criticism. 
 
94 VIRGIL 
 
 how Aeneas managed to hold the Acropoh's ; and how 
 when great numbers of Trojans had found their way to him, 
 he successfully evacuated it and fell back on Mount Ida, 
 resolved to wait there till the Greeks sailed for home ; and 
 how, when the Greeks, instead, prepared to attack him, he 
 made a treaty with them binding himself to leave the 
 Troad ; and how accordingly, after building a fleet, he 
 crossed to the promontory of Pallene in Europe.^ So began 
 the wanderings of Aeneas ; and he was to wander far, and 
 to found many cities, and to die and be buried in many 
 places, before ever he reached Latium. 
 
 To begin at the beginning, Dionysius quotes " Cephalon 
 of Gergithes " ^ to the effect that Aeneas died in Thrace, and 
 that one of his four sons, Romus by name, went to Italy and 
 founded Rome. Cephalon was " an ancient and reputable 
 writer," he says, but Athcnaeus informs us that the real 
 author of Cephalon's Troica was Hegesianax of Alexandria 
 in the Troad, a contemporary of Flamininus.^ That a 
 Greek writer of so late a day should tell a story so different 
 from the orthodox tradition is very significant. By and by, 
 we find that Aeneas got as far as Arcadia, and lived at 
 Orchomenus or " the Island, so called, though in the heart 
 of the country, because it is surrounded by marshes and 
 river," and there apparently he died after founding Capyae 
 (named after his ancestor Capys) — or else he went to 
 Hesperia and became the father of Romulus.* In fact, his 
 tomb was to be found in so many places, that Dionysius is 
 afraid it may disconcert students, " as it is impossible that 
 the same man should be buried in more than one place. 
 But let them reflect," he goes on, " that this difficulty is 
 common to many heroes, especially those who have had 
 remarkable fortunes and lived lives of wandering ; and let 
 them learn that while one place only receives the actual 
 body, memorials have been raised in many places from 
 
 1 Dion. H. i. 46, 47. 
 
 * " The Gergithes who were left behind as a remnant of the ancient Teucrians," 
 Hdt. V. 122. 
 
 3 Dion. H. i. 49. 72 ; Athen. ix, 49, p. 393 ; Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 303. 
 
 * Dion. H. i. 49. 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 95 
 
 goodwill for kindness rendered, especially if any of the 
 hero's race have survived, or because the hero founded the 
 particular city, or stayed there a long time and was a 
 benefactor." And in this way he explains the graves of 
 Aeneas in Ilium, Bebrycia, Phrygia, Pallene, Arcadia, and 
 Sicily and " many other places," where after death " he was 
 honoured with mounds and much building of tombs." ^ 
 
 We have, however, still better evidence of the course 
 of his wanderings than his various tombs, for as the son 
 of x^phrodite he built temples to his mother wherever he 
 went. We learn from Dionysius that he founded temples 
 to Aphrodite at Pallene, Cythera, Zacynthus, Buthrotum, 
 and other places, while at Leucas and Actium, and on the 
 river Elymus in Sicily, the temples bore his own name 
 coupled with his mother's — being dedicated to Aphrodite 
 Aineias. Moreover, his journey is commemorated by a 
 town Aineia on Pallene, by Capyae in Arcadia, by the 
 " race-course of Aphrodite and Aeneas " (with wooden images 
 of themselves) on Zacynthus, by a heroon of Aeneas in 
 Ambracia (with a small archaic image), by the brazen 
 cauldrons " with very archaic inscriptions " which he set 
 up at Dodona, by the harbour of Anchises and a hill called 
 Troia at Buthrotum, by the harbour of Aphrodite on the 
 lapygian promontory where he first landed in Italy, and 
 by his foundations of Aegesta and Elymus in Sicily.^ All 
 this Dionysius tells us,^ and other writers add the island 
 of Aenaria off Cumae,^ the hill Anchisia with a tomb of 
 Anchises at Mantinea,^ and the towns Aphl'odisias and Elis 
 in Arcadia.^ 
 
 It is, as Dionysius remarks, quite clear that a man cannot 
 die and be buried in more than one place, but we shall 
 
 ^ Dion. H. i. 54. Jupiter himself had at least one grave in Crete. 
 
 * Thucydides (vi. 2) says, " After the capture of Troy, some Trojans who had 
 escaped from the Achaeans came in ships to Sicily ; they settled near the 
 Sicanians, and both took the name Elymi. The Elymi had two cities, Eryx and 
 Egesta." Dionysius (i. 52) expands this with a wonderful story of a Trojan 
 Elymus, born in Sicily the child of refugees, who returned to Troy and, after the 
 Trojan war, co-operated with Aeneas in Sicily. 
 
 3 Dion. H. i. 49-53. * Pliny, N.ff. iii. 12, § 82. 
 
 ^ Pausanias, viii. 12. 8. 
 
 ' Pausanias, iii. 22. 11 ; viii. 12. 8. See Schwegler, A'o'm. Gesch. i. 300 fT. 
 
96 VIRGIL 
 
 not now be inclined to explain Aeneas' multitude of 
 tombs as his historian does. All Dionysius' archaeological 
 evidence, his very archaic wooden statues and his very 
 archaic inscriptions, prove nothing. The world was full 
 of such things. Agamemnon's staffs and the disc of 
 Lycurgus ^ were to be seen, and even the remainder of 
 the lump of clay out of which Prometheus made the first 
 man.^ The difficulty of being sure of St Edmund's 
 bones, all of whose adventures fall within what we may 
 call modern history, should make us very sceptical of 
 Dionysius' pronouncements on relics from before the day 
 of Homer. But we may use the evidence he quotes to 
 establish a different thesis. 
 
 Dr Farnell, in his interesting account of the worship 
 of Aphrodite,'* suggests that the story of the wanderings 
 of Aeneas is the legendary record of the diffusion of a 
 cult of Aphrodite over the Mediterranean. Aeneas in 
 Homer is unlike the other heroes ; he is a mysterious 
 figure with a future in reserve ; and this suggests that it 
 was from the goddess that the name Atveiag passed directly 
 to a clan of worshippers,^ and that, to explain their name 
 and position, the sacred hero Aeneas was imagined, as 
 such ancestors often were. As to the meaning of the name, 
 it has been variously derived from aivt] or uluog, i.e. " the 
 glorious," and from aiveo), i.e. " the consenting " ^ ; and again 
 from A'lpr], the name of the goddess of Ecbatana to whose 
 temple Polybius alludes.' 
 
 The cult of Aphrodite Aeneas then, we should suppose, 
 spread from the Troad to the various places which Dionysius 
 and the others mention. There were other cults of Aphrodite 
 widely diffused, and with some of these it would blend. For 
 
 ^ Pausanias, ix. 40. 11. It was honoured with daily sacrifices at Chaeronea. 
 ^ Plutarch, Lye. i, says it was used as evidence by Aristotle. 
 ^ Pausanias, x. 4. 4, near .the Phocian Panopeis. The remnants consisted of 
 stones as large as a wagon-load, and smelt very like human flesh, 
 
 * Cul/s of the Greek States, vol. ii. c. xxi. pp. 638 ff. 
 
 * We have seen that Strabo calls them kings — a name which may well imply 
 priesthood, as at Athens and Rome. 
 
 * See Schwegler, Ho/n. Gesch. i. 302, n. 16. 
 
 ' See Farnell, op. cit. p. 640 ; Polybius, x. 27. She is also called Anaitis. 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 97 
 
 instance, Eryx ^ had a Carthaginian cult, to judge from its 
 similarities with that at Carthage ; and near Eryx, our 
 authorities tell us, there were temples associated with the 
 name Aeneas. At Cythera, too, was a shrine of great age 
 and sanctity. " It was the Phoenicians," says Herodotus,^ 
 " who founded the temple in Cythera, coming from the land 
 of Syria." Aphrodite is already Cythereia in Homer,^ while 
 Hesiod * says that it was from Cythera that she passed to 
 Cyprus. All or most of the shrines of Aphrodite are on the 
 sea-coast, and it is generally held that they tell a tale of 
 Phoenician occupation. 
 
 To explain the name of the priestly tribe the eponymous 
 hero Aeneas was invented, and he had the good fortune to 
 play a considerable part in Homer's poetry. Anchises 
 answers closely to such legendary figures as Adonis and 
 Cinyras, but, thanks to the author of the Homeric hymn to 
 Aphrodite, he has a clearly marked and individual character 
 of his own. His son, in like manner, gained from the Iliad 
 a renown far beyond that of eponymous heroes in general. 
 One might say that he, like Achilles,^ had gained everything 
 by the obscuration of his divinity in his human nature. He 
 became a figure in literature. Thereafter, when the Greeks 
 met the name Aeneas, masculine or feminine, they thought 
 of Homer first, just as the name Falstaff to an Englishman 
 must invariably suggest one man of the name, whom we have 
 learnt to know in a particular author. But what could be the 
 connexion between Aeneas and (for instance) Leucas ? We 
 have seen how Dionysius settles our difficulties. Aeneas 
 obviously visited all these places, and when he had come so 
 far, to cross the Adriatic was easy. Italy was near, it had no 
 legends of its own, and it had shrines of Aphrodite. 
 
 It has been supposed that Stesichorus first sent Aeneas to 
 Italy, but this is merely an inference from the pictures of 
 the Tabula Iliaca. This monument represents in a series 
 
 ^ See Farneirs references on p. 742, n. 83, and Boissier, Country of Horace 
 and Virgil, 2. §4. The identification of Dido with this goddess as worshipped in 
 Carthage has been suggested as the original explanation of Aeneas' connexion 
 with her. 
 
 2 Herodotus, i. 105. ' Odyssey, 18. 193. * Hesiod, Theogony, 191. 
 
 * Achilles was a sea-god, lord of the Euxine, till he was ousted by St Phocas. 
 
98 VIRGIL 
 
 of pictures the scenes of the Trojan war, and it indicates in 
 the spaces between them the sources from which they were 
 taken, — the Iliad (or instance, the Aethiopis of Arctinus, and 
 lastly, the Iliupersis of Stesichorus. The last picture re- 
 presents Aeneas, holding the hand of Ascanius, Anchises 
 carrying the sacred things, and the trumpeter Misenus 
 behind them, as they embark, and it bears the inscription 
 AtVj/a? CTvv Tol<i iSioig airaipcav eU t?;v 'Ecrxep/ai/. As Latin 
 sources are not mentioned, it has been supposed that this last 
 picture must come from Stesichorus — a Greek poet of 
 Himera, in Sicily, who is supposed to belong to the seventh 
 century B.C. But the table is Roman and is generally supposed 
 to date from the early empire, so that one feels a reasonable- 
 ness in the view of M. Hild, that this particular picture and 
 those near it may have been influenced by Virgil as much as 
 by Stesichorus.2 Or, if Weicker's view, cited by Schwegler, 
 is right, and the table dates from the age of Julius, the tale of 
 Aeneas coming to Italy could obviously not be entirely 
 ignored in a work designed for educational use in Rome. 
 
 Whatever we conclude about Stesichorus, we have seen 
 that in Thucydides' day the Trojan foundation of one or 
 two Sicilian towns, belonging to the " Elymi," was generally 
 allowed.^ This was of course earlier than the time when 
 the Greeks began to think of finding a heroic origin for 
 Rome. The temple of Aphrodite Aineias at Elymus would 
 fix the Trojan tradition and connect it permanently with the 
 name of Aeneas. When he was once in Sicily, and had 
 founded one temple, it was easy to let him found another, 
 the more famous one on Eryx. Different opinions have been 
 hazarded as to the real founders of this great temple. One 
 would naturally suppose it to be Phoenician, and even if a 
 pre-Phoenician worship of a nature goddess on the summit 
 of the mountain is to be conceded, still a strong Phoenician 
 element has to be recognized in the cult as known to 
 history. Boissier quotes M. Salinas, a distinguished archaeo- 
 
 ^ See Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 298-9, 
 
 ^ Hild, La L^gende d" Eiiie avant Virgile, cited by Boissier, Nouvelles 
 Promenades, p. 134 (tr. Country of Horace and Virgil, p. 126). Forstemann, 
 Aeneasmythus, p. 9. 
 
 * Thuc. vi. 2. 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 99 
 
 legist of Palermo, for the fact that the great substructions of 
 the plateau, works so vast that the ancients attributed them 
 to Daedalus, and that in more modern times they have been 
 described by the hardly more enlightening term " Cyclopean," 
 bear letters cut upon them, and that these letters are 
 Phoenician.^ Boissier's statement, that the foundation of 
 the temple was made by the Carthaginians, seems a little 
 loose, for the rise of Carthage only followed the decline of 
 Tyre before the Assyrians in the eighth and seventh 
 centuries B.C. Phoenician influence was widespread in the 
 Mediterranean long before that period, though it does not 
 necessarily follow that they were in possession of Eryx at a 
 very early date, and the view is held that they came to 
 Sicily after the Greeks. ^ In any case the great name of 
 Venus Erycina was enough to bring Aeneas to Eryx, even if 
 he had been further away than Elymus. 
 
 We have now reached the longest and most difficult step 
 which Aeneas had to take — from Sicily to Latium — even if 
 he made two steps of it by pausing at Cumae. Mliller 
 (cited by Schwegler^) sets forth Aeneas' connexion with 
 Cumae thus. The Aeneadae of the Troad became the 
 subject of the prophecies of the Sibyl of Gergithes, who 
 lost her identity in the more famous Sibyl of Erythrae ; 
 when the Italian Cumae was founded, in part by Aeolians 
 from Cyme, near neighbours of the Teucrian Gergithes, 
 Cumae in turn became the seat of a Sibyl, and the Sibylline 
 oracles foretelling the destiny of Aeneas' house came with 
 the Sibyl to Italy, and with them came Aeneas. This is most 
 ingenious, but unhappily the oracles of Sibyls seem, as a 
 rule, when they indicate anything at all definite, to have 
 been composed after the event, and accordingly we may 
 rank the Sibyl's contribution to our story, with Virgil's 
 
 ^ Boissier, Nmivelles Promenades, p. 236 — a Tery interesting section on this 
 Venus, her influence on the maritime world, and her worship, and on the 
 Madonna di Trapani, whose church exactly at the foot of Eryx has inherited some 
 of the honours of the pagan shrine. Salinas, Le unirafenicie di Erice, in Notizie 
 degli scavi, April, 1883. 
 
 * See Beloch, Griechische Gesckichte, i. 186. Thucydides vi, 2, 6, is the great 
 authority for the priority of the Phoenicians. 
 
 ' Schwegler, Kdm. Gesch. i. 312-5. 
 
loo VIRGIL 
 
 own, as a recognition of a pre-existing tradition rather 
 than as a source whence such a tradition sprang. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Every city must have some founder, and the Greeks who 
 first became familiar with Rome began, after their habit, to 
 look for some suitable hero who should have founded the 
 city. Aristotle is quoted as the authority for the existence 
 of a story to the effect that some Achaeans, blown out of 
 their course on their voyage from Troy, reached Latium, 
 and, overtaken by winter, waited there for the spring, 
 but some captive Trojan women, less anxious than they to 
 reach Greece, burnt their ships.^ Another story, told by 
 Xenagoras, was that Romus, a son of Ulysses and Circe, 
 founded Rome, while his brothers Antias and Ardeas 
 founded Antium and Ardea.^ Cape Misenum, it should 
 be remembered, took its name from Misenus, who was 
 at first one of Ulysses' men and was afterwards turned 
 over to Aeneas.^ As to Rome and her founder, all sorts of 
 variants are quoted by Plutarch,* and the interpolator of 
 Servius,^ Dionysius cites Hellanicus and the chronicle 
 of the Argive priestesses (if this has any value whatever 
 independently of Hellanicus) for Aeneas' foundation of 
 Rome,^ But the story only began to have a real significance 
 in the time of Pyrrhus' war with Rome. It was then 
 convenient that Rome should not have been founded by a 
 Greek, and in Aeneas the Romans could have an ancestor 
 traditionally hostile to Pyrrhus' ancestor Achilles.' A 
 generation later, at the end of the first Punic war, the 
 Acarnanians needed help against the Aetolians, and solicited 
 the aid of Rome on the ground that, alone among the 
 
 ^ Aristotle, ap. Dion. H. i. 72. Plutarch, J?o//i. Quaest. 6. See Schwegler, 
 R. G. i. 4. 
 
 2 Dion. H. i. 72. 
 
 3 Strabo, c. 26 ; Aen. vi. 162 f. * Plutarch, Romulus, 2. 
 s ad Aen. i. 273. 
 
 ® Dion. H. i. 72, in conjunction with Odysseus, of all people. 
 
 ' Pausanias, i. 12. I i>-vr]ix.'r\ rhv \\.vppov ttjs dXciaews eliXTjXde ttjs 'IXiov, Kai ol 
 Kara, ravra ijXiri^e xwpT^o-eiJ' TroXe/ioOvrf arpaTevaeiv ydp eVt Tpwujv dirolKOVS 
 'Ax'^^ews <Ji"' dTr6yovos. 
 
 < ' 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS ioi 
 
 Greeks, their ancestors had not joined in the campaign 
 against Troy,* It was probably the first time that a Greek 
 state had ever made such a boast, and it implies a belief at 
 least in Greece that Rome had accepted her Trojan origin. 
 From this date onwards the fact is allowed and even 
 emphasized by diplomacy and literature. 
 
 It was not perhaps in harmony with the old and native 
 legends of Rome's foundation, and by what process it came 
 to be accepted it is hard for a modern to understand. 
 Timaeus could, no doubt, satisfy himself easily enough that 
 the Penates of Lavinium were of Trojan clay, and the 
 heralds' staffs of brass and iron Trojan too. Similar stories 
 were adopted by other towns in Latium and in Italy. 
 Tusculum and Praeneste were founded by Telegonus ; 
 Lanuvium by Diomedes ; Ardea by a son of Circe or of 
 Danae ; Politorium by Priam's son Polites^; the Salentini 
 were planted by Idomeneus ; Petelia by Philoctetes ^ ; 
 Argyripa by Diomedes,* 
 
 It is useless to ask the reason of such tales, though we 
 may hazard the guess that they were more familiar to the 
 readers of Greek books upon antiquities than to those who 
 knew the legends of their own countryside alone. Where the 
 tales were really taken in hand, they were well managed 
 by the Greek scholars in Italy. Variants were dropped 
 where they could not be harmonized, and chronology was 
 carefully adapted to fit both the local and the foreign tales. 
 It was, for example, a recognized fact (no doubt owing 
 something to the same school of Greek redactors) that Rome 
 had had seven kings only.^ Consequently Rome could not 
 
 ^ Justin, xxviii. i. 6 ; 2. 2 ; cf. Dion. H. i. 51. 
 
 * See Schwegler, Rom. Gesck. i. 310, for all these places, Tusculum, Propert. 
 ii. 32. 4 ; Dion. H. iv. 45, (S:c. Praeneste, Horace, Odes. iii. 29. 8 ; Ovid, 
 Fasti, iii, 92 ; Virgil {A. vii. 678) and the Praenestines, however, said Caeculus, 
 and there were also other stories. Lanuvium, Appian, B, C. ii. 20, Ardea, 
 Dion, H. i. 72. Politorium, cf. Servius on Aen. v. 564 noinen avi referens 
 Priamus, ttia cara. Polite, \ progenies, aiictura Italos. Sulmo by Solymus, Ovid, 
 Fasti, iv. 70-82. 
 
 3 Virg. Aen. iii, 400. * Aen. xi, 243-8. 
 
 ' The work of Ettore Pais seems to me to have shaken ,the orthodox tradition 
 as to the Roman kings (especially Servius TuUius), though this is not to say that 
 all his theories are fully established. 
 
^o2 VIRGIL 
 
 have been founded more than seven generations before the 
 year at which the lists of consuls began. By a happy 
 coincidence with Athenian history this year was 510 or 
 511, and reckoning roughly the usual three generations to 
 a century (some authorities, however, preferring forty years 
 to a generation), the historiographer reached the date 753 or 
 754. But Troy fell, by current reckoning, based e.g. on the 
 date of Lycurgus {yjG) and his distance from his ancestor 
 Herakles, some three hundred years earlier, and thus 
 Aeneas could leave plenty of room for Romulus. Hence 
 Aeneas did not found Rome, but Lavinium,i which may 
 or may not have been (as some critics suppose) a kind of 
 federal foundation in Latium, and therefore without a local 
 legend of a founder. This explanation does not seem to 
 account for Praeneste, Ardea, and the other places, though 
 Schwegler and Boissier accept it.^ 
 
 It now only remained for some ingenious person to collect 
 and harmonize the tales of Aeneas' wanderings, and this 
 was gradually done. Fabius Pictor adopted the story. 
 Naevius, who served in the first Punic war, and wrote 
 its history in Saturnian verse, was the first poet to touch 
 the tale. He is supposed to have traced the feud of Rome 
 and Carthage back to Aeneas and Dido,^ telling of Troy's 
 burning, of the escape of Aeneas and Anchises, the voyage, 
 and the visit to Dido.* Ennius in his turn touched the 
 tale, and made Ilia the daughter of Aeneas, and Romulus 
 his grandson, a proceeding which, as we have seen, 
 needed correction. ^ By this time the fiction was common 
 property, Philip V of Macedon had to recognize in a 
 treaty with Ilium the town's hereditary connexion with 
 Rome.^ Flamininus, the great phil-Hellen, described his 
 countrymen as Aeneadae.'^ Later on the fashion set in at 
 Rome of finding ancestors among the Trojans. Julius Caesar, 
 
 ^ The Lavinium story was helped by the coincidence that a neighbouring 
 spot bore the name Troia — proof positive. 
 
 ^ Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 316 f. ; Boissier, Nouv. prom. p. 145. 
 
 ' Timaeus, cited by Dion. H. i. 74, said Carthage and Rome were founded 
 contemporaneously. 
 
 ^ Schwegler, Rom. Gesch. i. 85. ° Preller, Rom. Mythologie, ii. 311, n. I. 
 
 Livy, xxix. 12. '' Plutarch, Flamininus^ 12. 
 
THE MYTHS OF AENEAS 103 
 
 in his famous speech at the funeral of his aunt, the widow of 
 Marius, laid claim to descent from lulus, the son of Aeneas.^ 
 This of course settled the question of Aeneas' son, for so far, 
 as we have seen, it had been uncertain whether Ascanius 
 came to Italy or not. And indeed an Italian son of Aeneas 
 by Lavinia is a competitor for the honour of being the 
 Emperor's ancestor.^ But many Romans beside Caesar 
 claimed Trojan blood, and to some of these famihes Virgil 
 gave credentials, while Varro (rather earlier) wrote a book 
 on the whole subject — de fainiliis Troianis.^ 
 
 Among Virgil'scontemporaries several, whoseworkssurvive, 
 touched the story of Aeneas. Livy, for instance, begins his 
 history with it, and even he leaves it shadowy and unsub- 
 stantial.^ Tibullus has left us a long address supposed to be 
 delivered by a Sibyl to Aeneas, in which his future wanderings 
 and arrival are told, but if Tibullus had never written in 
 another vein this poem would never have made his name 
 immortal.^ Horace and Propertius were both faintly in- 
 terested in the ancient history of Rome, but Propertius never 
 found very much inspiration in any theme but Cynthia, and 
 Horace was no more an archaeologist than Omar Khayyam. 
 
 They say the Lion and the Lizard keep 
 
 The Courts where Jamsh)M gloried and drank deep : 
 
 And Bahram that great Hunter — the Wild Ass 
 Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep. 
 
 What is this but a more poetical variant of 
 
 Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit et Ancus? 
 Thus, when Virgil took the theme in hand, he found it a 
 fairly complete and coherent tradition, but still, in spite of 
 his predecessors, imbued with the prosaic flavour of the 
 
 ^ Suetonius, /«/»/5, 6. Norden \^Neu€ Jahrbiicher fur kl. Altertum, 1901, p. 
 258) cites Babelon (Alonnaies de la AV/. Rom. ii. p. 9 ff.) for the fact that the 
 head of Venus appears on coins of the JuHi about the period 154-134 B.C. 
 
 * See Norden {Neue Jahrbiicher fiir kl. AUerhim, 1901, pp. 276-9) for a dis- 
 cussion of the whole matter. 
 
 ' Servius, ad Aen. v. 704. Atticus did the same sort of genealogical work, 
 Nepos, 18. 2. 
 
 * Livy, i. 1-2. 6 Tibullus, ii. 5. 19-65. 
 
104 VIRGIL 
 
 Greek chronographers ; and how prosaic and tiresome a Greek 
 writer could be, no one knows who has not made excursions 
 into Greek chronologies. The treatment of Naevius and 
 Ennius was not that which Virgil would care to give to his 
 story. No great poet would wish, in his happier moments, 
 to be an annalist. If Virgil then was to make anything of 
 the story of Aeneas, he must redeem it for himself Homer, 
 no doubt, might help him in battle pieces, but he had no 
 Homer to give him his Italians. Evander, Remulus, Turnus 
 are his own creations, even if legend had known them of old. 
 The voyage of Aeneas might be made easier by reminiscences 
 of the Odyssey, and the episode of Dido by the Hippolyttis 
 and the Argonautica. 
 
 But the substantial originality of Virgil is not diminished, 
 even if we concede that he borrowed as much as the most 
 hostile critic would wish to assert. No great poem was ever 
 made entirely of borrowed material, and that the Aeneid is 
 a great poem is beyond dispute. Its subject had so far 
 inspired no great poetry whatever, and it is only under the 
 touch of Virgil that we realize that it had any poetic 
 possibilities in it. He found it a Greek antiquary's tale — 
 to call it a fancy might imply too much imagination — he 
 wrought it into life, and he left it a nation's epic, filled 
 through and through with the national Roman spirit, and 
 so instinct with human feeling that for generations men, to 
 whom Rome was not what she was to Virgil, found in the 
 Aeneid the word for every experience of human life. Con- 
 versely, the poverty and the dryness of the story before 
 Virgil, when we compare it with the wonderful epic, bring 
 home to us in a new way the genius of the Roman poet. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE LAND AND THE NATION— 1. ITALY 
 
 Open my heart and you will see 
 
 Graved inside of it, " Italy," 
 
 Such lovers old are I and she : 
 
 So it always was, so shall ever be. — Browning. 
 
 AMONG the most original and significant features of 
 the poetry of Virgil is its conscious appeal to a nation, 
 as we understand the word "nation" to-day, to a 
 people of one blood living within well-defined but broad 
 limits, a people with various traditions all fusing in one 
 common tradition. It is the poetry of a nation and a country, 
 for the poet will not think of them apart; and it is not the 
 least of his greatness that he has linked them thus closely, 
 and made people and land as a unity so distinct from the 
 rest of the world. 
 
 It was a new thing in literature. The Homeric poems are 
 Df course addressed to all the Greeks, and all Greeks saw 
 in them a common inheritance, but the underlying idea is 
 :iuite other than that of Virgil's Italy. Greeks lived here 
 and there in Europe, Asia, and Africa, under every form of 
 government, divided into many independent and often 
 antagonistic communities, conscious indeed of their being of 
 Dne blood, but resolved never to submit, if possible, to being 
 under one government. Greek sold Greek to the barbarian 
 as uniformly then as in a later age one Christian people in 
 Eastern Europe has betrayed another Christian people to 
 :he Moslem. The conception of one Greece and a common 
 :itizenship of all Greeks was as impossible from Greek ways 
 Df thinking, even in the days of Aristotle, as it was geo- 
 graphically incapable of being realized. If one may use an 
 llustration from Aristophanes with a slight extension of its 
 suggestion, the anxiety felt by Strepsiades, on his first 
 
 105 
 
io6 VIRGIL 
 
 inspection of a map, to have Sparta removed as far as 
 possible from Athens, would seem to have been shared by 
 almost every Greek state with reference to its neighbours, 
 unless there were some strong probability of those neighbours 
 being subdued and annexed. 
 
 oj? eyyi;? ijixoov' touto iravv (ppovTi^eTe, 
 
 TavTrjv acf) rj/j-wv airayayeiv Troppw Travv^ (^Clouds 215)- 
 
 " How near to us ! " Such an exclamation never led to 
 national unity. 
 
 Later Greek literature offers us no such ideal. ^ The plays 
 of the great Athenian dramatists were primarily for Athens, 
 and though they might be read and were read abroad,^ they 
 would waken little more consciousness of common nationality 
 than the best American literature may in England. The 
 literature of Alexandria was still less national, produced as 
 it was under a dynasty which steadily became less and less 
 Greek, and by scholars who grew more and more unconscious 
 of the possibility of an appeal to any audience not as learned 
 or as city-less as themselves. That Greek literature was 
 throughout so independent of national or political inte- 
 rests, few will count to be an unmixed loss to mankind. For 
 the moment, however, this aspect of it may be emphasized 
 to raise into greater prominence the novelty of Virgil's 
 conception. 
 
 Virgil, then, gave for the first time its literary expression 
 to the triumph of a nation, politically, racially, and geo- 
 graphically one, over the clan and over the city-state. Like 
 all great conceptions, this was the fruit of long years, of 
 centuries of maturing. It was, we might say, foreshadowed 
 by the blind Appius Claudius, when he counselled the Senate 
 to make no peace with Pyrrhus so long as he was on Italian 
 soil. The old man must not be supposed to have divined 
 the far distant union of all Italians in a common citizen- 
 
 ^ " How parlous close it is ! Let this be your sole study — to shift it leagues 
 away from us " (Starkie). 
 
 ^ Isocrates may be cited, but his views of national unity are hardly Virgil's. 
 
 ^ Cf. Plutarch, Nicias 29, the popularity of Euripides in Sicily, attested by the 
 famous story of the Athenian captives in 413 B.C. 
 
ITALY 107 
 
 ship, yet from this assertion by Appius Claudius of the 
 jnity of Italy Virgil's conception is lineally descended, 
 [t was some feeling of this kind that kept so much of 
 Italy loyal to Rome throughout the Hannibalic war.^ 
 fhe expansion of Rome over the Mediterranean served to 
 leighten this sense of Rome and Italy being one. Roman 
 ind Italian served together in the same army, and the 
 Roman merchant and the Italian did business together 
 in a hundred cities of the East under the common security 
 3f the Roman name. Just as to-day the signficance of 
 the British flag is best learned abroad, we may believe that 
 the opening of the old world of the East and the new world 
 of Spain and Gaul to Italian commerce helped forward the 
 detrition of old clan distinctions and made Marsian and 
 Apulian conscious that they were both Italian in blood 
 and Roman in fact, if not yet in the letter of the law. The 
 Social War was essentially, like the American Civil War, 
 a war for unity. The day of tribal independence was gone, 
 and the Italian fought for Italy, and for a united Italy, 
 against the Roman, who fought for a divided Italy. The 
 significant new name given to Corfinium, the federal capital, 
 is evidence enough, Italica was to be the capital of Italy, 
 and we may say that the conception embodied in this 
 renaming of Corfinium carried the day. Corfinium was 
 a failure, but Italica was triumphant. After one year of 
 war the Romans accepted Italica — not Corfinium — and peace 
 came as soon as Rome became the new Italica. The name 
 was dropped and forgotten, but the great idea lived, and 
 when Caesar in 49 extended the Roman citizenship to 
 Transpadane Gaul, he gave to it its full and complete 
 realization. Though the incorporation of Cisalpine Gaul 
 was not actually achieved for some years, still Italy was at 
 last admittedly one in idea, one people, and one country 
 from the Alps to the straits of Messina ; and with her unity 
 came her poet. This great achievement of Caesar's was one 
 of the links that bound the poet to his house. There is thus 
 a significance in the poet's language when he describes the 
 battle of Actium. It is not the victory of Rome so much as 
 
 ' Cf. Horace, OdeSy iii. 6. 33-44. 
 
io8 VIRGIL 
 
 of Italy. Italy has her place in senate and people ; they are 
 Italian gods who bless Caesar's cause, and the troops he 
 leads are Italians — 
 
 Hinc Augustus agens Italos in proelia Caesar 
 cum patribus populoque penatibus et magnis dis 
 
 (viii. 678).! 
 
 For the sake of clearness we may group what Virgil 
 has to say of Italy under the headings of the country, the 
 inhabitants, and the Trojan invasion. 
 
 I 
 
 Virgil did for Italy in some degree what Scott did for 
 Scotland. He called the attention of his people for all 
 future time to the beauty of the land, and linked the 
 scenery with its history in language that could not be 
 forgotten, while in emphasizing the unity of the Italian 
 people he did a great deal more than Scott did or needed 
 to do. 
 
 This interest in scenery and in nature was a compara- 
 tively new thing in the world, and we may say that it was 
 one of the fruits of literature. An unlettered people is 
 seldom much affected by scenery ; to feel the charm and the 
 sublimity of a natural scene implies more reflection than 
 they can readily achieve. And again, a people keenly 
 absorbed in political or commercial life is apt to be in- 
 terested in man to the exclusion of nature. This explains 
 the inattention of Homer to landscape, as compared with 
 later Greek writers and with Virgil.^ 
 
 ^ " On this side is Augustus Caesar leading the Italians to conflict, with the 
 senate and the people and the home-gods and their mighty brethren " (Conington). 
 We may compare Horace, Odes, iii. 5. 9-12, where the combination of Roman 
 and Italian names is highly significant. He is speaking of the soldiers who 
 surrendered after Crassus' defeat at Carrhae, 53 B.C. — 
 
 Sub rege Medo Marsu» et Apulus, 
 anciliorum et noiiiinist et togae 
 oblilus aeternaeque Vestae, 
 incoluiiii love et urhe Roma. 
 
 ^ One might almost say that Homer is more interested in sea than land — 
 
ITALY 109 
 
 At a later day than Homer's we find Socrates startled and 
 arprised by the aspect of a country spot, a mile or two 
 om Athens, and when Phaedrus, who has brought him 
 lere, exclaims that he talks as if he were a complete 
 tranger to the region, he admits it. He is, he says, fond of 
 istruction, and "country places and trees will not teach 
 im anything." ^ 
 
 But a change was coming over the world, for we find 
 iristotle writing on natural history (Trepl ^wwu) and his 
 upil Theophrastus on botany. Socrates had been amazed 
 t the grass, as if he had seen it for the first time. Aristotle, 
 n the other hand, was an acute and careful student of 
 ature, and his powers of observation, according to Huxley, 
 ^ere, if not of the highest class, at least very good.^ 
 
 With the decay of political life, as we have seen, men 
 Lirned their minds to matters which they had ignored in 
 he days of the city state, and they found ever increasing 
 Tterest where of old they had suspected none. And Nature, 
 hey found, repaid their study, and the poets, while still 
 hinking first of man, began to look at her. To go no 
 jrther, we find abundant evidence of a certain interest in 
 er in the poetry of Theocritus and Meleager. The fashion 
 /as set, and everybody began to draw flowers and trees and 
 o forth — not necessarily from nature, but from Theocritus 
 terhaps — and from the Greeks the mode passed to Rome, 
 low popular it was, may be seen in Horace's lofty contempt 
 or these second-hand artists. It was for their groves and 
 treams that he coined one of his most famous phrases — the 
 
 thoroughly Greek habit of mind ; while Virgil, an Italian, is of the opinion 
 xpressed by Lucretius — 
 
 Stiave mari magna turbantibus aequora ventis 
 e terra . . . spectare {\\. i). 
 
 Jut he gives a memorable line to the fisherman on the sea (6'. i. 142). 
 
 * Phaedrus, 230 C, D. The sentiment has been surprisingly echoed in our 
 iwn day. "When Wordsworth tells us," writes Viscount Morley, in the 
 ntroduction to his edition of Wordsworth, "that 'one impulse from a vernal 
 vood ma)' teach you more of man, of moral evil and of good, than all the sages 
 an,' such a proposition cannot seriously be taken as more than a half- playful 
 ally for the benefit of some too bookish friend. No impulse from a vernal wood 
 an teach us anything at all of moral evil and of good." 
 
 * Huxley, Sciciue and Culture, Lect. viii. 
 
no VIRGIL 
 
 "purple patch." ^ Horace himself does not altogether 
 disregard Nature — 
 
 domus Albuneae resonantis 
 et praeceps Anio ac Tiburni lucus et uda 
 mobilibus pomaria rivis ^ {C. i. 7. 11) — 
 
 but he cannot be accused of wasting time upon her. He 
 was a friend, but a lukewarm friend,^ of the country in spite 
 of O rus divimim. The country, in fact, was a refuge from 
 tiresome people who worried him in Rome. 
 
 But to turn from Nature to scenery, we find, until the 
 invasion of Rome by Greek literature, little trace of interest 
 in history or travel. 
 
 Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona, * 
 
 but the very names of their battlefields perished with their 
 own, unsung. It was Greek literature that first quickened 
 Rome ; and when the Roman waked to the charm and 
 interest of legend and history, it was to the stories of the 
 great Greek past that he turned ; and they, with the art and 
 architecture of Greece, wooed him abroad. Italy was a land 
 of prose, but Greece of poetry, of heroism, and romance. 
 The great towns and scenes of Greece drew pilgrims in 
 increasing numbers, and some of them went home with 
 deepened experience and larger sympathies. When Tullia 
 died, Servius Sulpicius wrote to Cicero reflections which had 
 been called forth within him by the ruins of Megara.^ 
 
 1 Horace, A. P. \^ purpiiretis, late qui splendeat, unus et alter \ adsuitur paiinus, 
 cum Incus et ara Dianae \ et properantis aquae per anioenos ambitus agros, \ aut 
 fluiiien Rhenum aut pluvius describitur arcus. 
 
 2 " Bright Albunea echoing from her cell. 
 O headlong Anio ! O Tiburnian groves, 
 
 And orchards saturate with shifting streams." (Conington). 
 ' Boissier, Nouvelles Promenades Arch^ologiques, i. § 2 " Horace fut longtemps 
 un ami assez tiede de la campagne." 
 * Horace, Odes iv. 9, 25 : 
 
 " Before Atrides men were brave : 
 But ah ! oblivion, dark and long, 
 Has lock'd them in a tearless grave, 
 
 For lack of consecrating song" (Conington). 
 ^ Cicero, Fam. iv. 5. 
 
ITALY 1 1 1 
 
 In the last years of the Republic and the early years of 
 the Empire there was a great deal of foreign travel for 
 pleasure. If Catullus went on business to the province that 
 repaid him so ill, he chose his homeward route to please 
 himself Horace talks of men who travelled to sunny 
 Rhodes, to Corinth on its isthmus, Delphi and Tempe, but, 
 like a good Epicurean, he wonders why they should go 
 so far. 
 
 Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt 
 
 is his conclusion to a letter to a friend who travelled in Asia 
 Minor.i What they seek may be found nearer home — 
 the quiet scene, comfort and content. But not everybody 
 would accept such a doctrine, denying as it virtually did any 
 real value to experience. Something was to be gained by 
 seeing the islands "where burning Sappho loved and sung." 
 Horace was wrong. 
 
 It is here that Virgil comes into our story. He would 
 agree with the traveller. It is something to stand on the 
 site of Troy as Caesar did after Pharsalia, to wander along 
 the Simois and think of Homer and of Hector and 
 Achilles.2 But there is another land beside Greece full of 
 charm, romance, and poetry. Why look for such things 
 only in the mythical, the distant, the unknown ? Are there 
 no stories of great deeds and great inspirations but in 
 Colchis, no rivers of charm and suggestion but Hermus and 
 Ganges, mythical and half-unknown, no beauty in earth's 
 gifts unless they come from Arabia and the fabulous 
 Panchaia? Or is it not truer that Italy herself is no land of 
 prose, but is full of every charm, every appeal to imagina- 
 tion and sympathy, which Greece can boast? Look, he 
 cries in the second Georgic, look at our own land, consider 
 her fields and crops and herds, think of her streams and 
 of her lakes — are these lacking in poetry, in beauty, in 
 appeal .'' Think of her people and their inglorious heroism — 
 
 1 Epp. i. II. 
 
 " We come to this ; when o'er the world we range, 
 'Tis but our climate, not our mind we change" (Conington.) 
 * Lucan, Pharsalia, ix. 961. 
 
112 VIRGIL 
 
 the hardy race, schooled to bear evil, the patient builders of 
 the little towns on the hill-tops — look at what they have 
 done, look at their conquest of Nature, look at the fights 
 they have fought for home and country, look at their victory 
 over themselves — 
 
 Salve magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus, 
 magna virum ! {G. ii. 173).-^ 
 
 What Virgil did once in the Georgics he does again in 
 the Aeneid. The scene is still Italy, but by the time the 
 poet lays down his pen it is a new Italy, full of poetic 
 associations, every region rich with heroic legend told in 
 great language, itself moving and stimulating. 
 
 ^ " Hail to thee, land of Saturn, mighty mother of noble fruits and noble 
 men " (Conington). I have resisted, but succumb to, the temptation of quoting 
 here Ausonius' greatest poem, the Mosella. With much inferior matter inter- 
 mingled, he really does represent the spirit of Virgil again after four centuries of 
 external imitation. He studies a river of his native land (I use the term broadly), 
 and finds it as full of inspiration and suggestion as Virgil found Italian waters. 
 He goes indeed beyond Virgil in his study of Nature, e.g. his picture of the river- 
 bottom — 
 
 Sic dettiersa procul durante per intima visu 
 
 cerninius, arcanique patet penetrale profundi, 
 
 cum vada lene meant liquidarum et lapsus aquarum 
 
 prodit caerulea dispersas hue Jiguras : 
 
 quod sulcata levi crispatur aretia meatu, 
 
 inclinata tremunt viridi quod gramina f undo ; 
 
 tisque sub ingenuis agiiatae fontibus herbae 
 
 vibrantes patiuntiir aquas, lucetque latetque 
 
 calculus, et viridem distinguit glarea museum . . . 
 
 intentos tamen usque oculos errore fatigant 
 
 interhidentes, examina lubrica, pisces {Mosella, 59 ff.). 
 
 Does he need to tell us ast ego . . . Naturae mirabor opus (1. 51) ? Later on he 
 quotes our passage of the Georgics for his own land — 
 
 Salve magne parens frugumque virumque Mosella ! 
 
 te clari proceres, te beilo exercita pubes, 
 
 aemula te Latiae decorat facundia linguae. 
 
 Quin etiam mores et laetum fronte serena 
 
 ingenium Natura tuis concessit alumnis. 
 
 Nee sola antiquos ostentat Roma Catones, 
 
 aut unus tatitum iusti spectator et aequi 
 
 pallet Aristides veteresque illustrat Athenas (Ibid. 381). 
 
 That the form of this is Virgilian is clear, but the spirit also is the same, 
 and the inspiration comes from the same source — vincit amor patriae. 
 
ITALY 1 1 3 
 
 Even before Aeneas reaches Italy we have evidence ot 
 the new interest in scenery — 
 
 iam medio apparet fluctu nemorosa Zacynthos^ (iii. 270). 
 
 This is no mere imitation of Homer's vX^ecrcra ZdKuv6o<; 
 {Od. 9. 24). It is the imagined sight of the island rising 
 from the sea and slowly showing more and more of its 
 forests as the ships come nearer. But we are told that Virgil 
 made slips in his pictures of the islands and other places 
 on the voyage. Myconos is not lofty, though Aeneas tells 
 Dido that it is (iii. y6). Mr W. G. Clark doubts whether 
 Virgil knew at first hand any of the scenery through 
 which Aeneas sailed till he reached Italy, and there seem 
 to be difficulties not only in the Aegaean but on the west 
 coast of Greece." Still, the interest in scenery is clear 
 enough, if some of the scenes are confused ; and, after all, 
 these places are only passed on the way to the promised 
 land. At last it is sighted, and here at least, one feels, 
 Virgil was recalling a homeward voyage of his own and 
 his first home-thoughts from abroad. He had himself seen 
 at daybreak the dim line of land along the horizon. At all 
 events he draws the low-lying shore of the Brindisi coast 
 exactly as it looks from the sea. 
 
 lamque rubescebat stellis Aurora fugatis, 
 cum procul obscuros coUis humilemque videmus 
 Italiam, Italiam primus conclamat Achates, 
 Italiam laeto socii clamore salutant^ (iii. 521). 
 
 But now, save for the storm that drove the fleet to 
 Carthage and the lamentable delay there, Virgil is done with 
 foreign seas, and Aeneas coasts up the western shore of Italy, 
 and point by point the headlands rise, and receive the 
 
 ^ " Now from mid sea rises Zacynthos with its woods." 
 
 * W. G. Clark, Pe/oJ>onnesus, pp. 20, 21, cited by Conington on Aen. iii. 76. 
 Compare the question of the temple, Aen. iii. 275-80, where Actium and Leucas 
 are in some confusion. 
 
 ^ " And'now the stars were fled away and Dawn was reddening, when afar we see 
 the dim hills and low line of Italy ; — ' Italy ! ' Achates was the first to cry ; 
 ' Italy ! ' my comrades salute her with a glad shout." 
 
114 VIRGIL 
 
 names they bear in history, Palinurus, Caieta, Misenum.^ 
 Virgil could do little for Corcyra ; it had its legend and he 
 could only recall it ; but, while he found the tale of Palinurus, 
 for example, ready to his hand, a mere archaeological fancy, 
 based on a sailor's story, he made the legend for all time. 
 The cape Palinurus would always thereafter recall the 
 story of the lost pilot and his chief's lament, lines among 
 the most unforgettable ever written by Virgil for their 
 simplicity and pathos — 
 
 O nimium caelo et pelago confise sereno 
 
 nudus in ignota Palinure iacebis arena ^ (v. S70). 
 
 The meeting of Aeneas and his pilot in Hades no doubt 
 was suggested by the similar meeting of Odysseus and 
 Elpenor in the Odyssey^ but in its development we can see 
 the method of Virgil. Elpenor has no abiding name or 
 home in the Greek world ^ ; Palinurus wakes memories of 
 Italy, and makes a new and splendid tradition — 
 
 aeternumque locus Palinuri nomen habebit* (vi. 381). 
 
 The story is localized, it becomes Italian, and Italy is 
 enriched by one more poetic association. 
 
 Similarly Virgil takes a pleasure in gathering up the old 
 legends of Italy. The modern expert in folklore would find 
 fault with him for his occasional addition of a slight Greek 
 colouring to them. On the other hand, the great editor 
 Heyne (Carlyle's Heyne) found an element of " the rough and 
 rustic " in them, which survived even the " elegance of Virgil." 
 Such stories as those of Camilla, the little girl sent flying 
 
 1 For Palinurus and Misenus see Dion. H. Ant Rom. i. 83. Preller, Rom. 
 Myih.^ ii. 316, "A mariner's tale, such as were common in the Mediterranean, 
 a personification of the favourable wind, vaXiv odpos, which is turned into 
 a steersman." Capes of the name are found near Cyrene and near Ephesus. 
 (See chapter iv.) 
 
 " "Ah, too trustful in calm skies and seas, thou shalt lie, O Palinurus, naked 
 on an alien sand " (Mackail). 
 
 3 For the real value of the episode of Elpenor the reader should consult Miss 
 Stawell's chapter on " The House of Death " in her brilliant book, Homer and the 
 Iliad. 
 
 * " For evermore shall the place keep Palinurus' name " (Mackail). 
 
ITALY 1 1 5 
 
 across the swoln stream lashed to her father's spcar,^ of 
 Caeculus, the child of a spark of fire,^ of Cacus breathing 
 flame,^ of the famous white sow with thirty porkers,^ and of 
 the twins nursed by the wolf, were told in Italy long before 
 Virgil's day, the genuine heritage of the countryside. Simple 
 old tales they were, loved by the people ; and the poet of 
 the Italian people loved them too, and was glad to weave 
 them into the great epic. 
 
 In the same spirit he placed in Italy the entrance by 
 which Aeneas made his way into the lower world. Odysseus 
 had gone sailing over the sea, no man knew where, to find a 
 way ; but Virgil, true to Italy and to Italy's legends, reasserts 
 the old popular story. Lucretius had refuted it a generation 
 before with elaborate etymological and scientific explanations 
 and parallels — 
 
 ianua ne forte his Orci regionibus esse 
 
 credatur, post hinc animas Acheruntis in oras 
 
 ducere forte deos manes inferne reamur ^ (Lucr. vi. 763). 
 
 Virgil had read the passage, for he borrows a striking 
 phrase from it,^ and we may remember his Epicureanism of 
 the first Georgic. Had he been cross-questioned, he must 
 have confessed to sharing the belief of Lucretius, but here is 
 one striking difference between the two poets. Lucretius 
 will pursue truth into prose ; Virgil, on the other hand, will 
 avail himself of legend, though, as here, it may be scientifi- 
 cally demonstrated to be untrue, if by use of it he may 
 develop some higher and poetic truth. And, whether we 
 allegorize it or not, there is suggestion in the idea that to 
 
 ^ A. xi. 562 sotiitere undae, rapzdum super amnem | infelix fiigit in iaculo 
 stridetite Camilla. Her figure, says Conington, *' is a bright relief to the tedium of 
 the Virgilian battle." 
 
 •^ Servius, ad A. vii. 68i. ^ A. viii. 251. 
 
 * Varro, R. R. ii. 4. 18, says bronze images of the sow and the pigs are to be 
 seen at Lavinium, et corpus matris ab sacerdotibus, quod in salsura fuerit, 
 demonstratur. Virgil disposed of it differently, A. viii. 81-5. Dion. H. Ant. 
 Rom. i. 56, 57, also has the tale. 
 
 * " That the gate of Orcus be not haply believed to exist in such spots ; and 
 next we imagine that the manes gods from below do haply draw souls down from 
 them to the borders of Acheron " (Munro). 
 
 * Remigium alarum, Aen. vi. 19; remigi peiinarum, Lucr. vi. 743. 
 
ii6 VIRGIL 
 
 reach the other world we have not far to go over the sea, that 
 the entrance is at our feet, here in Italy. 
 
 This contrast may be traced still further. Lucretius' poem 
 abounds in close and brilliant observation of nature, and 
 with the instinct of the man of science he links together 
 what he sees, and makes one thing illustrate another, as he 
 expounds some general principle to cover all the cases. His 
 observations were uniformly made in Italy ; their subjects 
 are familiar sights of the countr}'side and also of the seaside. 
 Virgil is not so spontaneous an observer, but he too observes 
 with care and precision, looking, as a rule, in accordance 
 with his instincts, landward. But the great difference is 
 here. Lucretius obviously delights in observation because 
 it leads him to the apprehension and confirmation of the 
 principles of nature. Virgil watches nature, because it is 
 nature, and because it is also Italian nature, and every 
 fresh discovery makes Italy dearer to him — 
 
 Contented if he might enjoy 
 
 The things which others understand. 
 
 The charm of Italy does not depend on legends. It is 
 the country itself, its beauty, the simple natural features, 
 that Virgil gives back to his reader. Macrobius contrasts 
 Virgil's "catalogue" with Homer's. Homer begins with 
 Boeotia, " not for any special merit of Boeotia, but he 
 chooses a celebrated promontory to start from," and then in 
 a systematic way works through the geography of Greece. 
 Virgil unhappily forgets geography and tangles Clusium, 
 Populonia, and Pisa, then flies back to Caere and other 
 places near Rome, and off again to Liguria and Mantua.^ 
 We can perhaps forgive him. His interest is in the places, 
 and their people. He speaks of what most charmed and 
 interested him in the places when he saw them; of "steep 
 Praeneste and the fields of Juno of Gabii, cool Anio, and 
 the Hernican rocks dewy with streams " (vii. 682) — and if we 
 could not draw a map from his account of Italy, we know 
 
 1 Macrobius, Sa/. v. 15. Similarly in the review of Roman heroes in bk. vi, 
 it has been remarked that Virgil has not thought it his duty to deal with 
 them in chronological order. 
 
ITALY 117 
 
 the country, we have seen it with a poet's eyes. We see the 
 olive-groves of Mutusca (vii. 711), "the Massic lands glad 
 with wine" (vii. 725), and Abella city looking down from 
 amid her apple orchards (vii. 740).^ We pass from stream 
 to lake, from "the shallows of Volturnus river" (vii. 728) to 
 " Mincius, child of Benacus, draped in grey reeds" (x. 205) ^ ; 
 from the strange Lake Amsanctus among its woods ^ (vii. 563) 
 to Fucinus of the glassy waters ^ (vii. 759) ; from where " the 
 ploughshare goes up and down on the Rutulian hills and 
 the ridge of Circe " (vii. 798) to " where the marsh of Satura 
 lies black, and cold Ufens seeks his way along the valley- 
 bottoms and sinks into the sea" (vii. 801). Descriptions like 
 these could not fail to touch the hearts of those who loved 
 their country, and open the eyes of those who had never 
 known their native land. 
 
 Virgil was perhaps not so keen an observer of the life of 
 Nature as Lucretius, but he loved her as much, perhaps even 
 more, and here as elsewhere love is more potent than 
 intellect to find truth. In the Aeneid he is of course more 
 specially concerned with man, and we learn more of Nature 
 from the Eclogues and Georgics. Yet there is the same 
 character running through all his work. A German critic^ 
 emphasizes that in the Eclogues the flowers and plants are 
 not mere aesthetic additions to the pictures, but belong to 
 
 ^ It is here that a dash of poetry comes into Varro's scientific and patriotic 
 explanation of why Italy is a more cultivated land than any in the world. 
 He speaks of zones, climates, &c., and then he asks, non arboribus consita 
 Italia ut iota poviaruim videaturl Re Rust. i. 2. 6. The old Cilician pirate of 
 the Georgics will occur to the reader, and how in old age he took to growing 
 flowers on a patch of waste land under Oebalia's towers (C iv. 125). Lecky 
 (European Morals, i. 265) finds a strange anticipation of Cowper's thought that 
 "God made the country, and man made the town" {Task, i. 749) in Varro — 
 Divina natura dedit agros ; ars humana aedificavit u7-bes. 
 
 ^ One may recall here the pleasant phrase of Juvencus, not the meanest of 
 Virgil's lovers and imitators, when he speaks of his master — Mittciadae dulcedo 
 Maronis, Praef. ii. 9. 
 
 * Lago Amsanto still exhales its sulphuretted hydrogen (Deeckc, Italy, p. 72), 
 but its woods are gone. 
 
 * See Deecke, p. '107, on Fucinus. In 1875, by means of a tunnel, 36,000 
 acres of arable land were reclaimed from the lake, and the hold of malaria 
 upon the region reduced. 
 
 ' E. Glaser, Publiiis Virgilius Maro ah Natitrdichtcr und Theist (Giitersloh, 
 1880), pp. 20-1. 
 
ii8 VIRGIL 
 
 them, and are an essential and inseparable part of them. 
 The poet is intimately concerned with all that lives and 
 moves. It is all Italian. How full the Georgics are of 
 Italian nature needs no mention here. In like manner 
 Virgil uses by preference the trees, the birds, and beast? of 
 Italy for his similes in the Aeneid. His fancy for the 
 musical names of Greek poetry may lead him to call his 
 cranes " Strymonian " (x. 265), and to picture his swans in the 
 "Asian fen" (vii. 701), but we may be sure that it was in no 
 Asian fen that he learnt the swan's note, but "among the 
 vocal pools on the fish-filled river of Padusa" (a mouth of 
 the Po, xi. 456). And note that the swans are compared to 
 Italian troops singing their king as they go — 
 
 With measured pace they march along, 
 And make their monarch's deeds their song ; 
 Like snow-white swans in liquid air, 
 When homeward from their food they fare, 
 And far and wide melodious notes 
 Come rippling from their slender throats, 
 While the broad stream and Asia's fen 
 Reverberate to the sound again. 
 Sure none had thought that countless crowd 
 
 A mail-clad company ; 
 It rather seemed a dusky cloud 
 Of migrant fowl, that, hoarse and loud 
 
 Press landward from the sea (vii. 698-705, Conington).^ 
 
 When Virgil describes the thronging of the dead to the bank of 
 Acheron, he uses Bacchylides' simile of the wind driving the 
 fallen leaves,^ though he introduces a characteristic touch of 
 his own, autuinni frigore prinio? To this he adds " birds that 
 swarm landward from the deep gulf, when the chill of the year 
 routs them overseas and drives them to sunny lands " (vi, 310). 
 He must have watched them on the Adriatic shore of Italy. 
 
 ^ VVarde Fowler, A Year -with the Birds (2nd ed.), p. 153, says this swan is the 
 Cyoms musictts, or " whooper." In Northern Europe it is the bird associated 
 with the charming swan-princesses of fairy tale. 
 
 ^ Bacchylides, v. 63 tvda dvaravwv ^poTuv | \pvx^s eddrj -Kapa, 'Kwkvtov 
 peedpoLS, I old re <pvX\' dvefMos | "I5as dvd /xtjXo^o'toi'S | irpiZvas dpyrjcrrds dovei. 
 
 ^ " At the first cold of Autumn." 
 
ITALY 119 
 
 One very interesting question rises in connexion with 
 Virgil's birds. In the third Eclogue (^6^) he speaks of the 
 stock-dove nesting — 
 
 Namque notavi 
 Ipse locum, aeriae quo congessere palumbes.^ 
 
 In the Georgics he pictures the rook {corvits) returning to its 
 brood at the approach of rain.^ But to-day it is doubtful if 
 the stock-dove breeds at all in Italy, and the rook does so 
 only in the sub-Alpine region. The swan, once familiar in the 
 region of Mantua,* is now rarely to be seen, while the stork 
 with the other birds passes over Italy for northern latitudes. 
 How are we to explain this ? Are we to say that Virgil is a 
 bad observer, or can we save his credit?* It seems in fact 
 that the explanation lies in a change in the Italian country 
 and climate.° The great forests are gone, and with them the 
 cooler air, which the breeding bird seeks ; and the swamps 
 and marshes of the swans and storks have been dried up by 
 drainage and by the clearing of the forests. Ufens, Conington 
 says, has no longer to look for a way, for one has been dug 
 for him. 
 
 But one inhabitant of the marshes is still to be found 
 where he was in Virgil's days. The wild boar, to which he 
 compares Mezentius, is still there — 
 
 Long fostered in Laurentum's fen 
 
 'Mid reeds and marish ground {A. x. 709). 
 
 It was there that Pliny hunted him, notebook {pugillares) in 
 hand ; and there he is hunted to-day, probably as he was then, 
 but without notebooks.*' 
 
 ' " For I have marked the place, where the doves have built high in air." 
 
 * G. i. 414 Progeniem parvam dnlcesqiie revisere nidos. 
 3 G. ii. 198— 
 
 Et qualem infelix aviisit Mantua campum 
 pasccntem niveos herboso Jlumine cycnos. 
 
 * The reader may recall the terrible efforts made to keep the lark from the 
 window in V Allegro, 
 
 5 Warde Fowler, op. cit. pp. 143, 148, 153. Similar observations of change 
 in the climate are being made in North America to-day. Cf. Deecke, Italy, p. 
 185, on the forests of Italy, of which he gives a somewhat melancholy account. 
 
 * Cf. Boissier, Country of Horace and Virgil (tr. ), pp. 304-6, and Pliny, 
 Epp. i. 6. 
 
I20 VIRGIL 
 
 II 
 
 From the country we pass to the people.^ There are 
 readers to whom the second half of the Aeneid seems to be 
 remote, if not rather dull ; the poet seems to have fallen 
 from the heights he reached in the earlier books. But this 
 is hardly Virgil's view. As an Italian, it would seem to him 
 that now w^as the moment when his poem touched the heart 
 most nearly, when it told — 
 
 quibus Itala iam tum 
 floruerit terra alma viris (vii. 643) — 
 
 how even then {ia^n turn) the dear motherland flowered with 
 heroes. The metaphor is a fine one. Flowers are the 
 natural outcome of right seed in right soil. 
 
 On the other hand, there are those to whom Virgil seems 
 to have lost his opportunity. What might he not have told 
 of old Italian wont and use, if only he had been willing to 
 sink the poem in the dictionary ? Virgil is quite sensible 
 of the picturesque aspect of his subject,^ but it is as a poet 
 rather than as an antiquary. Latin scholars of a later day 
 loved to think of him as one of themselves, but it was an 
 injustice to him. Thus while he tells us of the dress and 
 arms of this ancient tribe and that, the charge which Carlyle 
 brought against Scott, that he drew his men from the jerkin 
 inward, does not lie against Virgil. He is more interested in 
 the character of the people than their clothing. It is on this 
 that he spends most care. He is a philosophic student of 
 history, and he is tracing for us the emergence of the higher 
 life of Italy from barbarism. He watches throughout the 
 process the continuance of the strong and worthy qualities 
 
 '^ Pandite nunc Helicotia deae {A. vii. 641 ). Virgil's invocation may be compared 
 with Spenser's, when he comes to his Chronicle of Briton Kings (F. Q. ii. x.) — 
 "Who now shall give unto me words and sound 
 Equal unto this haughty enterprise ? " &c. 
 2 See Bernard Bosanquet, Hist, of Aesthetic, p. 92, on Virgil's praise of 
 Italy, in which he finds blended affection for the scenery, historical senti- 
 ment, the sentiment of national duty, "heightened by appreciation of the 
 picturesqueness in life and manners, produced by the relations of Rome with 
 all quarters of the known world." 
 
ITALY 121 
 
 that underlay the barbarism, and he shows their independence 
 of it. Remulus Numanus is a survival of the old days and 
 the old ways, but every manly attribute he boasts for his 
 people survives in Evander and Pallas, not a whit lessened, 
 though refined. We shall understand the whole scope and 
 purpose of the Acneid more truly, if we realize that the work 
 of Aeneas, like that of every man who has helped mankind 
 forward, has been heralded by many another working in the 
 same direction and with a similar inspiration. The rise of 
 Italy is the theme of the whole book and of its parts — 
 
 Romanam condere gentem. 
 
 There is occasional vagueness in Virgil's account of early 
 Italy, but it is possible to collect a tolerably consistent story 
 from what he says. Let us begin with Evander on Italian 
 history (viii. 314 f.). "In these woodlands dwelt fauns and 
 nymphs sprung of the soil, and a tribe of men born of 
 stocks and hard oak, who had neither law nor grace ol 
 life ; they never learnt to yoke the ox, nor to garner their 
 stores, nor to husband what they got ; but the boughs 
 nurtured them and the hard living of the hunter." (It 
 is very characteristic of the good Italian to regard the men 
 as barbarians who 
 
 haud componere opes norant aut parcere parto.^ 
 
 Thrift was the first virtue of civilization.) Saturn brought 
 civilization into Italy, and after him came others, not all 
 of his mind. Last, Evander himself, like Saturn an exile, 
 " driven from his native land and voyaging to the ends of 
 the seas, all-powerful Fortune and inevitable Destiny set 
 on these shores." Progress has not had an uninterrupted 
 course, and there are plenty of barbarians yet, though the 
 people are not content v/ith them. Mezentius has been 
 
 ^ Cf. Horace's account of the country mouse, who is a thorough Italian 
 peasant, asper et attenttis quaesitis {S. ii. 6. 82). The mouse, however, is as 
 hospitable as Evander himself, to do him justice. We may again compare 
 Spenser {F. Q. ii. x. 7) on the early inhabitants of Albion who "by hunting and 
 by spoiling liveden," though in the case of our own land the Trojan "Brutus, 
 anciently deriv'd, From roiall stocke of old Assaracs line " abolished the savage 
 foe. Italy's story, as we shall see, was different. 
 
122 VIRGIL 
 
 expelled from Etruria, and Turnus has to face a hostile 
 party among his people. These men still represent brutality 
 and violence, qualities not incompatible in the case of 
 Mezentius with a certain chivalry and deep affection. 
 
 Remulus pictures a midway stage between the earliest 
 barbarism and the new civilization. He is of the school 
 and family of Turnus, and on the whole prefers the 
 barbarism. Still, he emphasizes some of the real virtues 
 of the Italian. " A hardy breed," he says, " we carry our 
 new-born sons to the streams, and harden them in the cruel 
 cold of the waters. Our boys spend wakeful nights in 
 hunting and tire out the woodland ; their sport is to rein 
 the steed and level shafts with the bow. Our youth, 
 schooled to labour and trained to want, subdues the soil 
 with the mattock and shakes the city walls with battle. 
 All our life bears the mark of iron ; to prick the steer's 
 flank we turn our spear. Old age, which dulls the force 
 of all else, weakens not our strength of spirit nor abates 
 our vigour. White hairs bear the helmet, and it is ever 
 our delight to bring home fresh spoil and live by plunder " 
 (ix. 603-13).! 
 
 Some of this was not new. 
 
 Patiens operum parvoque adsueta iuventus 
 
 was a phrase Virgil had used in the Georgics;- when he was 
 praising country life. 
 
 O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint 
 agricolas^ {G. ii. 458), 
 
 he cries ; and this character is part of thejr blessedness ; but, 
 where Remulus adds his vivere rapio, Virgil prefers to 
 emphasize sacra deu7n sanctique patres. 
 
 Now if we turn once more to Evander, we shall find this 
 latter combination in his little town of Pallanteum. He 
 himself and his son Pallas fall short in no degree of the 
 
 "^ Cf. Hymn to Demetrius Poliorcetes AItuXikov yap apirdaai. rd twu iriXas, 
 * Geo7-g. ii. 472, but {ox parvo he there has exiguo. See ch. i. § v. p. 36. 
 3 " O happy, beyond human happiness, had they but a sense of their blessings, 
 the husbandmen " (Conington). 
 
ITALY 123 
 
 manhood of Turnus, but it is significant that when first we 
 see them they are engaged in sacrifice to Hercules. They 
 represent in the heroic age all the virtues of Roman and 
 Italian at the best period of their history — simplicity, 
 dignity, hardness, faith, courage, and piety. And these men 
 are the allies of Aeneas. When he welcomes Aeneas to his 
 house, Evander bids him enter in a sentence which probably 
 sums up his own philosophy of life and perhaps the poet's, a 
 sentence which has not lost its charm and its value — Fenelon, 
 we are told, could never read it without tears — 
 
 aude, hospes, contemnere opes et te quoque dignum 
 finge deo, rebusque veni non asper egenis ^ (viii. 364). 
 
 Ill 
 
 To such an Italy the Trojans came. If it is to them the 
 land of promise, they are no less promised to Italy. They 
 are to deliver the Etruscans from the rule of Mezentius — a 
 symbolic action. They are to bring to Italy all that is 
 signified to a Trojan by Troy, all that Evander found 
 wanting in the old life of the country — mos and cultus — 
 
 pacisque imponere morem. 
 
 They are to bring the gods to Italy ; indeed, they find some 
 of their own gods waiting them; Cybele is already an 
 effective power in the Tiber. 
 
 M. Boissier even held that the Aeneid is a religious epic, 
 and that the chief purpose of Aeneas is this introduction of 
 the gods into Latium. But Virgil at least links with this 
 another idea, which elsewhere seems to overshadow it. 
 Take these lines — 
 
 Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem 
 inferretque deos Latio — genus unde Latinum 
 Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae ^ {A. i. 5) 
 
 ^ " Dare thou, my guest, to despise riches ; mould thyself to like dignity of god- 
 head, and come not harsh to our poverty " (Mackail), Quoque, because Evander is 
 referring to the visit of Hercules to that house. 
 
 * " Much too he suffered in war, ere he might found a city and bring his gods 
 into Latium ; from whom is the Latin race, the fathers of Alba, and the walls of 
 lofty Rome." 
 
124 VIRGIL 
 
 with the line a little below, in which he sums up his theme 
 again — 
 
 Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem^ (i. 33). 
 
 Virgil had not been an Epicurean for nothing. The gods 
 whom Aeneas was bringing to Rome the poet might now 
 recognize as symbols of divinity, but he could scarcely 
 attach such superlative importance to these particular 
 symbols. At any rate for the reader their significance is 
 rather slight. ^ Aeneas carefully brought them from Troy, but 
 it is clear that they derive their importance from Rome, 
 and that Rome does not owe her importance to them. 
 
 The foundation of Rome — of the Roman race — is the 
 centre of the whole story, but Rome is to be no Trojan 
 town nor her people Trojans. She is to be rather the 
 summing up of all that is excellent in Italy. The Trojan 
 element reaffirms the ideals of the Italian race ; all it does 
 is to add the slight touch that changes nothing while it 
 alters everything. 
 
 This is brought out by the speech in which Juno makes 
 her submission to Fate, and by Jupiter's reply.^ By a 
 certain looseness in regard to the letter, Conington has 
 given a heightened expression to the spirit, and the passages 
 may be quoted in his rendering. Juno concludes — 
 
 Vouchsafe me yet one act of grace 
 For Latium's sake, your sire's own race : 
 No ordinance of fate withstands 
 The boon a nation's pride demands. 
 When treaty, aye, and love's blest rite 
 The warring hosts in peace unite. 
 Respect the ancient stock, nor make 
 The Latin tribes their style forsake. 
 Nor Troy's nor Teucer's surname take, 
 Nor garb nor language let them change 
 
 ^ " So mighty a task it was to found the race of Rome." 
 
 ^ In A. iii. 147 they come in a dream to Aeneas and bid him seek Italy, promis- 
 ing fame and empire to him and to his race. 
 ^ A. xii. 791-840. 
 
ITALY 125 
 
 For foreign speech and vesture strange, 
 
 But still abide the same : 
 Let Latium prosper as she will, 
 Their thrones let Alban monarchs fill ; 
 Let Rome be glorious on the earth, 
 The centre of Italian worth ; 
 But fallen Troy be fallen still 
 
 The nation and the name. 
 
 Jupiter replies — 
 
 Ausonia shall abide the same 
 Unchanged in customs, speech, and name : 
 The sons of Troy, unseen though felt 
 In fusion with the mass shall melt : 
 Myself will give them rites, and all 
 Still by the name of Latins call. 
 The blended race that thence shall rise 
 
 Of mixed Ausonian blood 
 Shall soar alike o'er earth and skies 
 
 So pious, just, and good. 
 
 The Italy of Aeneas is not externally like the Italy of 
 Augustus. The golden Capitol of Augustus has replaced 
 the brakes and bushes of Evander's day, but the god, the 
 unknown god, who haunted the place in the Arcadian 
 times haunts it still, and now he is known as the Roman 
 Jupiter. The race is still the same. Italians they were 
 when Aeneas came, and after a thousand years the strength 
 of Rome is still the Italians. Nor is this all, for with the 
 blood the character still prevails. The Italians are still 
 
 patiens operum parvoque adsueta iuventus, 
 
 and the words of Evander are still the key-note of that 
 character which brought the world under the sway of Italy. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE LAND AND THE NATION.— 2. ROME 
 
 Gloriosa dicia stmt de te, civilas Dei. 
 
 WHAT is it," asks M. Patin, "that makes the 
 story of Aeneas establishing himself in Italy 
 into a Roman epic? It is the eminently 
 national character of the legend used by the poet ; it is 
 also something more closely concerned with his art — I 
 mean the perspectives continually opened down the history 
 of Rome, which, seen thus from the heart of the fable, as 
 it were from a distance, becomes what it never yet had been 
 with Virgil's predecessors — poetic, epic." 
 
 In the preceding chapter we discussed Virgil's feeling for 
 Italy, and it remains to consider what he has to say of 
 the city which made the land one, and what of its race of 
 soldiers and citizens. It will hardly be needful to repeat 
 that Virgil will look deeper than many other patriots and 
 poets for the grounds and meaning of Rome's greatness. 
 He will probably not be so ready as some of his fellow 
 citizens, varicosi centuriones, to find the cause and the 
 justification of Rome's rule in her strong arm. That theory 
 he leaves for Remulus Numanus, the Rob Roy of Latium. 
 
 The good old rule, the ancient plan, 
 That they should take, who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can, 
 
 has its parallel in 
 
 semperque recentis 
 comportare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto ^ (ix. 612). 
 
 It was not merely the theory of Remulus ; it was also the 
 idea underlying Sulla's constitution — the divine right of 
 
 ^ " Ever fresh booty it is our delight to gather and to live by plunder." 
 126 
 
ROME 127 
 
 the senate to misgovern and to plunder as long as there 
 was a decent equality of opportunities. This theory was 
 hardly likely to commend itself to Virgil the philosopher 
 any more than to Virgil the farmer — barbarus has segetes} 
 It had brought endless misery upon mankind, and it had 
 ruined the old Republic. It offended the patriot, who 
 thought of his country as larger than 2Lny pomoerium conld 
 encircle. It repelled the thinker, who had caught the spirit 
 of the gentler philosophy of later Greece. It shocked the 
 poet. 
 
 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere caussas.^ 
 
 So Virgil wrote of Nature and her laws, and we may be 
 sure he would apply the same language to the history 
 of man. Why did Rome conquer the world ? Or, to 
 put it otherwise, what end does Rome's dominion of 
 the world serve? What is Rome's moral title to rule? 
 Questions which not every one asked, but questions on the 
 answers to which a poet felt everything depended. 
 
 But there are other things which come into a poet's 
 view — the life of man with its endless variety of form and 
 spirit, all the ways in which human nature seeks to express 
 itself, all the things which shallower reflection would call 
 external, but which the poet loves as the outcome of 
 something within — garb, phrase, and usage, — ambitions and 
 achievements, failures, too, — through which, through all of 
 which, he sees the marvellous mind of man, hoping, striving, 
 failing, but, generation by generation, gaining ground, never 
 giving up the forward struggle. 
 
 HoXAa Tu Seiua KovSev uvOpiairov SeiuoTcpov ireXei.^ 
 
 And of all the wonderful endowments of man, the most 
 amazing, Virgil would agree with Sophocles, and the most 
 godlike are " speech and wind-swift thought and all the 
 moods that mould a state " 
 
 Ka\ (jiOiyixa kol avejuoeu (ppovrjfia KUi acTTVvojuovg O/oya?.' 
 
 ^ " Happy he who could learn the laws on which the world rests." 
 * "Many are the wondrous things, and nought than man more wondrous." 
 Sophocles, Antigone, 332. ^ Ibid. 354. 
 
128 VIRGIL 
 
 Thus history, and particularly the history of his own race, is 
 to the poet no empty tale, but a long self-manifestation of 
 the human spirit, of the utmost interest and pathos ; and to 
 make it his own, to interpret it to himself, and to bring it 
 home to others, is the necessity laid upon him. 
 
 Nor was it only the past that Virgil found so full of 
 meaning ; he was no mere antiquary, and the past would 
 have been nothing to him if the present had had no interest. 
 The Empire as he saw it, and the City which was the 
 Empire's heart, touched him and held him. Rome, the 
 world's mistress, Rome, the centre of all the history of his 
 people, was the Rome he walked the streets of, — the Rome 
 he fled from to Naples, — the Rome his heart could never 
 forget. All these links that bound him to Rome are to be 
 found in the Aeneid, and we shall not understand Virgil and 
 his poem until we begin to feel with him something of what 
 he felt for Rome. 
 
 I 
 
 In the first Eclogue Virgil has recorded his first impression 
 of Rome. Tityrus tells Meliboeus that he had imagined 
 Rome a sort of bigger Mantua, but still like Mantua, as a 
 big dog is like a puppy, but that he had found it something 
 quite different — something distinct in the nature of things. 
 It was not so much the size as the splendour and the beauty 
 of Rome that impressed him. He later on emphasizes this 
 explicitly ; Rome is the most beautiful thing in the world — 
 
 scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma^ {G. ii. 534). 
 
 This judgement is also Plutarch's, who quite independently 
 pronounces Rome " the most beautiful of all the works of 
 man." ^ Virgil gently laughs at the splendid portals of the 
 houses and the swarms of clients, who gape at the door- 
 posts inlaid with tortoise-shell, the gold embroidery and 
 the bronzes of Corinth {G. ii. 461); but, though he can 
 
 1 " Yes and Rome has become the most beautiful thing in the world." 
 * De fortuna Romanorum 316 E rwi/ dvdpuirivui' ^pyuv rb KaWicrTov. 
 
ROME 129 
 
 dispense with them, they have not escaped him, they have 
 made their appeal to the quick eyes of the poet.^ 
 
 Not much attention has been called to it, but it is 
 certainly remarkable what a charm the great city had for 
 this poet of country life. He had been caught by the spell 
 of the "rivers gliding under the ancient walls" of Italy, 
 and of such little towns as Abella on its hill -top among 
 the orchards ; but the power of a great city is different, and 
 does not always appeal to the mind that Abella will 
 fascinate. Yet it is hard to think he was not moved 
 himself, when we read of the effect of the sight of Carthage 
 on Aeneas — the towers, the great stones in the walls, the 
 temples, the theatre ; yes, but also the harbour, the life and 
 movement of the streets, and the 7ioise of a great city — 
 
 Miratur portas strepitumque et strata viarum 2 (i. 422). 
 
 Where Juvenal and Horace draw pictures, vivid and 
 realistic, of the streets of Rome and the discouraging details 
 
 ^ Facihs ociili, A. viii. 310. A poet is the best interpreter of a poet, and 
 even if it seems a shade irrelevant, the reader may be reminded of Browning's 
 conception of a poet at large in the streets of a town. The whole poem should 
 be studied. 
 
 He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, 
 
 Scenting the world, looking it full in face . . . 
 
 He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, 
 
 The man who slices lemons into drink . . . 
 
 He took such cognizance of men and things, 
 
 If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ; 
 
 If any cursed a woman, he took note ; 
 
 Yet stared at nobody. (How it strikes a Contemporary.) 
 
 Horace confesses to a weakness for loafing and looking round the streets 
 (Sat. i. 6, III), but for all his looking, I think he saw less than Virgil. 
 
 * " He marvels at the gates and the noise and the paved ways." Strata 
 viarum : note here what Strabo says of Rome, c. 235 ovroi (the Romans) 
 wpoiiv&rjcrav /iaKiffra wv iLXiyuiprjcTav iKeivoi (the Greeks), arpJicrews oSoJv Kal vdaruv 
 ela-aywyT}^ Kal vTrovo/Mwv tuv dvva/M^vuiv (kk\v^€i.v to. XvfxaTa t^s TrdXews els tw 
 Ti^epiv. effTpucrav 8^ Kal rds Kara t7)v xwpai' 65oi's . . . the ancients (c. 236) 
 neglected the beauty of Rome tt/jos dXXois /xd^oat Kal dvayKaiorepois ^j/res, but 
 later, and especially in these days of Augustus, the city has been tilled full of 
 dvadrj/j.'XTUP iroWuv /cat KaXuiv. Cf. also Wordsworth's description of London 
 Pretude, bk. vii — 
 
 The quick dance 
 Of colours, lights, and forms ; the deafening din ; 
 The comers and the goers face to face. 
 
I30 VIRGIL 
 
 which a poet would meet there, the greater poet looks 
 through the dust and the detail, and feels that 
 
 Earth has not anything to show more fair. 
 
 If the Georgics are, as Dean Merivale phrased it, "the 
 Glorification of Labour," the poet recognizes work in the 
 great city too, and hails it. He compares the busy hum of 
 men with the labour of the bees, and it is the poet of the 
 fourth Georgic who does so, sympathetic alike with the 
 industry of bees and men. 
 
 It is curious, too, that twice he gives us pictures of 
 the sack of a great city, with something of that feeling 
 of pain for the waste of humanity which he shows in 
 telling of such a death as that of Galaesus.^ The fall of 
 Troy, told by Aeneas to Dido, may naturally call for 
 sympathy — 
 
 urbs antiqua ruit multos dominata per annos ^ (ii. 363). 
 
 But in the other case it is Carthage herself, and the poet 
 is haunted by the pathos of the scene, the horror of the 
 irrational flames and the wreck they make of homes and 
 temples, places where human memories are clustered most — 
 
 non aliter quam si immissis ruat hostibus omnis 
 Karthago aut antiqua Tyros, flammaeque furentes 
 culmina perque hominum volvuntur perque deorum ^ 
 
 (iv. 669-71). 
 
 Nor was the river on which Rome stood without its 
 charm for the poet.^ He makes the river-god at once the 
 
 ^ lusHssimus unus quifuit (vii. 535) ; foedatique ora Galaesi (vii. 575). 
 
 2 " The ancient city falls, after her long years of empire." 
 
 • " Even as though all Carthage or ancient Tyre went down, as the foe poured 
 in, and the flames rolled furious over the roofs of house and temple. " It may be 
 noted that there were great historic sieges of both Tyre and Carthage. Kingsley, 
 in Herezvard the Wake, touches on the psychological effect of the flames blazing 
 in daylight over a building with associations ; and the spectacle of a hospital 
 burning in the sunshine of a Canadian Christmas remains in the writer's 
 mind. 
 
 ^ Fliivio Tiberinus amocno (vii. 30-viii. 31) ; (ado gj-atissimtis arnnis (viii. 
 64). Ainoenus is, as Professor Sellar remarks, a strong and emphatic word, 
 "lovely." 
 
ROME 1 3 1 
 
 friend and benefactor of Rome's great ancestor (viii. 31). 
 He recalls with interest its ancient name — 
 
 amisit verum vetus Albula nomen ^ (viii. 332). 
 
 But his most important picture of the river is that of Aeneas' 
 first entrance. The story of Aeneas' coming was an old one, 
 and a century before Virgil's day a Roman writer, Fabius 
 Maximus, had looked at the Tiber and its mouth, and given 
 his own feelings to Aeneas — " he was not at all pleased to 
 have come to a country so very bare and shingly." 2 « This 
 vigorous phrase," says M. Boissier, " represents to admiration 
 the aspect of the country as we see it to-day," but he goes 
 on to point out that in Virgil's day it was otherwise. 
 Pliny the Elder, in an interesting chapter on the river, 
 says " it will admit even great ships coming from the 
 Italian sea, a most peaceful trafficker in everything that 
 the whole world produces ; and, one river as it is, it has 
 almost more villas than all the rivers in all the lands, 
 planted and beautiful, upon its banks." ^ 
 
 Aeneas reached the Tiber's mouth at dawn.* "And now 
 the sea reddened with shafts of light, and high in heaven 
 yellow Dawn shone in her rosy car; when the winds fell, and 
 every breath sank suddenly, and the oar-blades toil through 
 the heavy ocean-floor. And on this Aeneas descries from 
 the sea a mighty forest. Midway in it the pleasant Tiber 
 stream breaks to sea in swirling eddies, laden with yellow 
 sand.^ Around and above fowl many in sort, that haunt 
 
 * " It has lost the true name of old, Albula." 
 
 * Interpolated in Servius, ad Aen. i. 3, Fabius Maximus annaliujn prima : turn 
 Aeneas aegre patiebatur in eum devenisse ag7um, macerritnum litorosissimumque. 
 
 ' Boissier, Ho7-ace et Virile, p. 266 (Fr.) ; p. 248 (Engl, tr.); Pliny, N. H. 
 iii- 5 (9)- 
 
 * VV. Warde Fowler, Social Life at Rome, p. 2. " Virgil showed himself a true 
 artist in bringing his hero up the Tiber. ... He saw that by the river alone he 
 could land him exactly where he could be shown by his friendly host, almost at a 
 glance, every essential feature of the site, every spot most hallowed by antiquity 
 in the minds of his readers." 
 
 * Elsewhere Virgil alludes to the Tiber's habit of wearing away its banks 
 viii. 63 stringentem ripas. Servius tells us there that it was to this the river 
 owed its ancient name Rumon, quasi ripas ruminans et exedens. It is possible 
 that Rome was named from the river, though at best this is a guess, Deccke 
 
132 VIRGIL 
 
 his banks and the channel of his flood, solaced heaven with 
 song and flew about the forest " (vii. 25-34, Mackail). 
 
 Turning now to the " sights " of Rome, we find that Virgil 
 manages to bring some of them already into prominence in 
 Evander's town. Here is the cave of Cacus, and Evander 
 tells its legend. Here is the Carmental gate, the grove 
 which in later days Romulus made his asylum, the Lupercal, 
 the wood of Argiletum, the Tarpeian rock, the Capitol, 
 " golden now, of old rough with bush and thicket," yet even 
 then the abode of a great god, whom the Arcadian settlers 
 take to be Jove himself. Aeneas and the king pass on and 
 see "the cattle lowing all about the Roman forum and down 
 the gay Carinae." ^ 
 
 It was not idly that Virgil gave time and thought to these 
 memorials of the oldest Rome. The sympathy with the 
 primitive and simple life of the old days, expressed in the 
 thought which he gives to Evander — 
 
 aude, hospes, contemnere opes, et te quoque dignum 
 finge deo, rebusque veni non asper egenis ^ (viii. 364) — 
 
 was deeply rooted in his nature. He was the child of the 
 country — bred simply by rustic parents, in a land of woods 
 and standing waters. He at least had no contempt for the 
 old and poor Rome ; the Capitol was for him as much the 
 seat of Juppiter Capitolinus in the days of bush and forest as 
 in the new and golden splendours of his own day. He has 
 no such feeling as lurks in the epigram of Propertius — 
 
 For gods of clay these golden temples rose.^ 
 
 More of reverence dwells in the greater poet. And quite 
 apart from his sympathy for the plain life of the old days, 
 these relics helped him to realize the men who made Rome, 
 till he knew them as Livy did not. 
 
 Italy, p. S6, says the Tiber has a yellowish-brown appearance in spring — the 
 season of Aeneas' coming, according to Virgil's indications. On p. 93 he gives 
 some extraordinary figures as to the solid matter carried by the river. 
 
 '^ Cf. Propertius, v. I, 3 afqnc zibi Navali stant sacra Palatia Phoebo \ Evandri 
 profugae concubiiere boves. 
 
 2 "Dare thou, my guest, to despise riches; mould thyself to like dignity of 
 godhead, and come not harsh to our pewerty " (Mackail). 
 
 ^ Prop. V. I. ^Jictilibns crevere deis ha£c aurca tenipla. 
 
ROME 133 
 
 II 
 
 Virgil looks upon Roman history as one from first to 
 last. From the oldest days to the latest there has been 
 a continuity of usage and religion, a succession of patriots 
 and heroes, one and the same spirit animating every great 
 Roman in his turn, and filling with meaning those rites 
 which he learnt from his father and taught to his son. 
 Aeneas is nobly forgetful of the ways of Homeric Troy, 
 and observes faithfully the religious usages of historic 
 Rome. At his first sacrifice on Italian soil he veiled his 
 head, as bidden by the seer Helenus.^ There is a legend, 
 quoted by Servius and by Plutarch, that he did this to 
 avoid seeing the face of Diomedes ; but the custom was 
 no doubt Roman before the Romans ever heard of Dio- 
 medes or Aeneas — 
 
 hac casti maneant in religione nepotes ^ {A. iii. 409), 
 
 says Helenus, a clear indication. De la Ville de Mirmont 
 calls attention to the further fact that in the Aeneid 
 magic and unlawful rites are left to the enemies of Rome.^ 
 Dido uses magic, and Amata practises Bacchic orgies; for 
 Aeneas and his followers the dignified and ancient ritual 
 of Rome suffices. 
 
 The most elaborate account given by Virgil of ritual 
 and service concerns the sacrifice to Hercules at the Ara 
 Maxima. This sacrifice, however, was offered with Greek 
 usages, but it was of immemorial antiquity, and it was still 
 in Virgil's day a yearly event. Mommsen dissevers Hercules 
 the Latin god of gardens from the Greek Herakles, but 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus^ and Livy,^ like Virgil, connect 
 the feast with Herakles' slaying of Cacus, the brigand who 
 stole his cattle — the cattle he himself had taken from 
 Geryon. Dionysius indeed says that that is the " more 
 mythical " story, and he follows it up with a more surprising 
 if "truer account," one of those attempts which M. Chassang 
 
 * A. iii. 404, 545 ; Plutarch, Qiiaest. Rom. 10. 
 
 * " Let the piety of generations to come abide in this observance " (Conington). 
 
 * Ap. de Rhodes et Virgile, p. 149 f. 
 
 *Dion. H. Ant. Rom. i. 39-42. *Livy, i. 7. 
 
134 VIRGIL 
 
 happily characterizes as " the torturing of mythology to the ^ 
 
 detriment of poetry, without profit to history." ^ Some * 
 explanation had to be given of the foreign ritual. Livy | 
 
 says it was the only foreign ceremony adopted by Romulus, 
 and suggests that he had a prophetic sympathy for a ' 
 
 deified hero. Virgil lets it date, foreign as it is, from the \ 
 earliest town on the destined site of Rome, and he eliminates 
 some of the features that appear in Livy. Hercules is a 
 deliverer, and no mention is made of his being ado vinoque 
 gravatus.^ Evander is very careful to make it clear to 
 Aeneas that the sacrifice is not a mere novelty lightly 
 adopted, as new religions were adopted at a later day in 
 Rome.^ "No idle superstition," he says, "that knows not ., 
 the gods of old, hath ordered these our solemn rites, this 
 customary feast, this altar of august sanctity ; saved from 
 bitter perils, O Trojan guest, do we worship, and most due 
 are the rites we inaugurate" (viii. 185, Mackail). The 
 proper, traditional priestly families of Potitii and Pinarii 
 wait upon the altar, already and for ever the Ara Maxima. 
 The sacrifice is followed by a sacred dance of the Salii and 
 a hymn in honour of the hero. In the general revival of 
 ancient ceremonies under Augustus, the sacrifice, which 
 does not seem, to have fallen into disuse, would not lose 
 importance, and Virgil by this account of it links the 
 generations together. 
 
 It is curious that, while Virgil emphasizes more than 
 once the poverty of Evander, he should give so much 
 splendour to Latinus, whose palace has the most Roman 
 and patriotic air. " His house, vast and reverend, crowned 
 the city, upreared on an hundred columns, once the palace 
 of Laurentian Picus, amid awful groves of ancestral sanctity. 
 Here it was held of good omen that the kings should 
 receive the sceptre and have their fasces first raised 
 before them ; this temple was their senate-house ; this their 
 
 1 Chassang, Hisioire du Eoi/ian, p. 74. 
 
 2 " Heavy with food and wine." Virgil would have leant to Balaustion's 
 version of Alcestis — eyen against Euripides. 
 
 * Tacitus, Ann. xv. 44 quo cuncta undiqtte atrocia ant pudenda confluunt 
 celebrant urque. The historian is explaining how it was that the Christian 
 religion came to Rome. 
 
ROME 135 
 
 sacred banqueting-hall ; here, when a ram was slain, the 
 elders were wont to sit down at long tables. Further, there 
 stood a-row in the entry images of the forefathers of old in 
 ancient cedar,i Italus, and father Sabinus, planter of the 
 vine, still holding in show the curved pruning-hook, and 
 ancient Saturn, and the likeness of Janus with two faces, 
 and the rest of the kings from the beginning, and they who 
 had suffered wounds of war in fighting for their country. 
 Moreover, there hung much armour on the sacred doors, 
 captive chariots and curved axes, helmet-crests and massy 
 gateway-bars, lances and shields, and beaks torn from 
 war-ships. He too sat there, with the augur-staff of Quirinus, 
 girt in short augural gown, and carrying on his left arm the 
 sacred shield {ancile), Picus tamer of horses; he whom Circe 
 his spouse, blind with passion, smote with her golden rod 
 and turned by her poisons into a bird of dappled wing" 
 (vii. 170-91). "This edifice," says Conington in his note 
 on the passage, " combines the temple and the senate-house. 
 Virgil has also employed it as a sort of museum of Roman 
 antiquities." ^ The ceremonies of entering on office, the 
 gathering of the senate, the archaic statues of the king's 
 ancestors, the trophies on the walls (most glorious ana- 
 chronism of all, the erepta rostra carinis), the lituus, the 
 trabea, the ancile — all these things were full of suggestion 
 to the Roman reader, and reminded him of all that was 
 noble and triumphant in the national history. They might 
 also remind him a little of a palace and a temple on the 
 Palatine, where another and a greater ruler was gathering 
 up the nation's traditions in himself, amidst surroundings 
 as crowded with revivals of old memories. 
 
 Take again the description of the ancient usage of 
 Latium in proclaiming war — "a custom kept sacred by 
 the Alban cities and kept to this day by Rome, mistress 
 of the world, when they stir the War-God to enter battle ; 
 
 * The reader will remember how many i,btx.va. mark the track of Aeneas through 
 the pages of Dionysius of Ualicarnassus. 
 
 * Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 147, on sanctuaries as " public 
 parks and public halls," and their use for the accumulation of treasure. The 
 antiquarian interest of Latinus' building is due to the spirit of Virgil's age. 
 
136 VIRGIL 
 
 whether it be against the Getae they purpose to carry 
 tearful war,^ or against the Hyrcanians, or the Arabs, or to 
 reach to India and track the Morning-Star to its home and 
 reclaim the standards from the Parthians " (vii. 601-6). 
 Here the last achievement of Roman power, the recovery of 
 the standards lost by Crassus at Carrhae, is brought into 
 connexion with the remotest antiquity of Rome — could 
 the continuity of the nation's life find more striking 
 expression ? For, while we may doubt, and Virgil might 
 agree with us in doubting, the existence of King Latinus, a 
 religious or semi-religious practice of this kind is a genuine 
 survival and tells a tale, much as the strange ceremonies 
 employed at the opening of Parliament — ceremonies the 
 origin of which no man perhaps knows certainly — speak of 
 seven hundred years of English history, of the slow winning 
 of freedom and democracy, and of the continuity of the 
 race through it all. Nor should we forget that Virgil, in 
 speaking of the opening of the twin gates of War, reminds 
 his readers that they had been shut, when at last Rome 
 had come within sight of her goal of universal peace under 
 Augustus. 
 
 And more, through all the years which have seen these 
 customs live Rome has never ceased to be felix prole virum^ 
 {A. vi. 784). With a fine daring Virgil takes a picture from 
 Lucretius — the mother of the gods in procession ; but it is 
 not as a type of Nature that he uses her, but as a parable of 
 Rome, mother of heroes. And then, as if to match the 
 Phrygian procession following the goddess, Virgil lets us 
 see these heroes — Romulus, the founder; Numa, like so 
 many of the Romans rising from small estate to glory, 
 
 Curibus parvis et paupere terra 
 missus in imperium magnum ^ (vi. 811); 
 
 Brutus, the liberator, unhappy in having to choose between 
 his sons and his country, but a Roman in his choice; 
 Camillus; the Scipios ; Fabius Maximus the Delayer, saviour 
 
 ^ Notice how the adjective lacrimabile escapes Virgil even here. 
 
 * " Happ3' in her warrior brood." 
 
 ' " Sent from his homely Cures and a land of poverty into a mighty empire. ' 
 
ROME 137 
 
 of the commonwealth ; Caesar, Pompey, and Augustus. 
 No age has failed to produce its own brood of heroes, every 
 variety of man doing all kinds of service, but all in the 
 same spirit and all for the same city. 
 
 The shield of Achilles in the Iliad is, like the Iliad itself, 
 a picture of life, of human activity, Greek no doubt, but 
 hardly Greek in any exclusive or self-conscious way. But 
 the shield of Aeneas serves a different purpose. Its pictures 
 are not ornament ; they are to be prophecy, inspiration, 
 history. The matter of this shield answers in like manner 
 to the poem — both tell of Rome, of Roman life and Roman 
 men — 
 
 res Italas Romanorumque triumphos (viii. 626). 
 
 Here we have more colour and action than in the other 
 passage with its silent procession of the unborn. We see 
 the mother-wolf with the Roman twins, proper founders for 
 their race, inipavidi; the rape of the Sabine women and the 
 peace they made between husbands and parents ; Porsenna, 
 baffled and angered by the boldness of a Codes and a 
 Cloelia ; the Capitol saved by Manlius and the geese ; the 
 punishment of Catiline among the dead ; Cato on the 
 throne of Rhadamanthus ; and finally the last great battle 
 of Rome against the East at Actium, the marshalling of 
 Augustus and his Italians against Antony and his motley 
 barbarian hordes, of the gods of Rome and Italy against 
 dog-faced Anubis and the monsters of the East, and the 
 victory of right over wrong, of the Roman over the Oriental 
 spirit. These are the pictures upon the shield — pictures of 
 joy and hope — 
 
 rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet (viii. 730). 
 
 Critics have objected to the line, which ends the passage, as 
 being something more like an epigram than one would 
 expect of Virgil, yet, if we have caught the spirit of the 
 poet, we can see how alien the suggestion of an epigram 
 really is. The hero, bearing the shield pictured with the 
 destinies of his race, symbolizes what he is in sober earnest. 
 The pictures he carries are emblems of the destinies which 
 
138 VIRGIL 
 
 he also carries — his race and its future are really as well as 
 symbolically laid upon him, as he goes 
 
 attollens humero famamque et fata nepotum ^ (viii. 731). 
 
 The poet, says Mr Myers, one of his most sympathetic 
 critics, "was summing up in those lines like bars of gold the 
 hero-roll of the Eternal City, conferring with every word 
 an immortality, and, like his own Aeneas, bearing on his 
 shoulders the fortune and the fame of Rome." ^ 
 
 But there is more than a continuity of ritual and a recur- 
 rence of heroism. Through all these centuries there runs 
 a continuity of character clearly to be traced. 
 
 In his interesting study of Aeolus in Homer and in Virgil 
 Sainte-Beuve remarks the wide difference between the 
 Homeric god, " a good enough fellow, a genuine patriarch 
 among his family, given over on his island to enjoyment, to 
 mirth and good cheer," and the Virgilian Aeolus, " this 
 subaltern of a god, sombre, uninquisitive, a little bored upon 
 his rock." " The rude Roman discipline," he continues, " has 
 passed over the brow of Virgil's Aeolus ; he is one of those 
 chiefs who, as was said of Burrus, could have grown old in 
 the obscure honours of some legion. There is in him some- 
 thing of the centurion, or the military tribune, ennobled, 
 deified." ^ 
 
 " II y a en lui du centurion." It is exactly this that marks 
 the great difference between Greek and Roman character, 
 between the men and gods of Homer and the men and gods 
 of Virgil. Greek history abounds in men who leave upon 
 the mind a vivid impression of character, good or bad, but 
 individual ; while in Roman history we instinctively think 
 first of the state, and find as a rule only a very much 
 modified individuality in the citizens. The Greek's gift of 
 looking the world and nature, as it were, between the eyes 
 
 ^ " He joys in the portraiture of the story he knows not, as he lifts upon his 
 shoulder the fame and the fates of his children." 
 
 * Essays Classical, p. 143. 
 
 3 Etude stir Virgile, p. 204 ; De la Ville de Mirmont's objection that the 
 "centurion" is very ready to forget his military allegiance under the blandish- 
 ments of Juno maybe dismissed. Fimbria and Galba could give us plenty of 
 parallels. 
 
ROME 139 
 
 for himself contributed at once to the political impotence 
 and the intellectual and artistic sovereignty of his race. The 
 Roman had less imagination ; he was more content to 
 take orders from a magistrate or an officer and to carry 
 them out without any special reference to first principles. 
 He is above all things par negotio neque stipra^ — a type of 
 character, no doubt eminently useful, but not supremely 
 interesting. 
 
 This national character asserts itself in the Aeneid. Aeolus 
 is something of a centurion. When Juno bribes him with 
 a wife, she thinks of lawful Roman wedlock — 
 
 connubio iungam stabili propriamque dicabo 2 {A. i. 73). 
 
 " Elle sera comme une matrone romaine, une materfamilias 
 du bon temps," for Pronuba Juno promises offspring too. 
 When Jupiter rises from his golden throne the gods escort 
 him home as if he were a Roman magistrate — 
 
 caelicolae medium quern ad limina ducunt {^A. x. 117).^ 
 
 The council of Jupiter is not like that of Zeus. " Zeus," says 
 Homer " bade Themis call the gods to assembly from the 
 head of deeply-delled Olympus ; and she went hither and 
 thither, and bade them come to the house of Zeus. No river 
 was not there, save only Ocean, no nymph of the pleasant 
 groves, or the river fountains, or the meadow leas ; they 
 came to the house of cloud-compelling Zeus " {Iliad, xx. 
 4-10 ; Purves). In fact the Homeric gods gather in a general 
 assembly, much like the Homeric soldiers in the second 
 Iliad. Virgil only admits the great gods ; he does not let 
 them drink before deliberating, and he makes them sit, grave 
 as senators of the better sort in the senate-house.* 
 
 1 " Equal to his task and not above it." 
 
 * " I will unite her to thee in lasting wedlock, and consecrate her thine own " 
 (Conington). 
 
 ' "The heavenly people surround and escort him to the doorway." Cf. Ovid, 
 Epp. ex Ponto, vi. 4. 41 ttide domum repetes toto comiiattte senalu, cited by 
 Conington. 
 
 * See Boissier, La Religion romaine, i. 254. The Roman dignity of the Virgilian 
 Jupiter may be brought out by a few lines from Ovid, Met. ii. 847 : 
 
 sceptri gravitate relict a 
 i lie pater rector que deum, cui dcxta trisulcis 
 
I40 VIRGIL 
 
 The same Roman character marks Aeneas' men, and 
 indeed in such a degree as to impair to some extent the 
 vigour of the poem. Not one of them has any clearly in- 
 dividual character, any " physiognomy," to use Sainte-Beuve's 
 word for it. Achates of course is yf^f/zj- ; he carries Aeneas' 
 bow, and is always ready and at hand ; he is the first to sight 
 Italy and to hail it ; but we do not know him. Gyas and 
 Serestus are each of them fortis. Gyas, it is true, on one 
 occasion forgets himself {oblitus decoris sui — what a rebuke is 
 in the phrase !) and throws his steersman overboard, but such 
 outbreaks of individuality are rare. Ilioneus twice makes 
 diplomatic speeches, grave, to the point, and dignified, as 
 became a Roman ambassador, but he does not let himself go. 
 The reason for all this can hardly be accident. The poet 
 looks at these men much as a Roman general would have, 
 and he conceives that Aeneas did the same. Watchful of 
 their general interests, careful, kindly, Aeneas will not 
 concern himself too closely with them as individuals, he 
 thinks of them as a body. If Aeolus is a centurion, Aeneas 
 is an imperator. He says "to this man, Go, and he goeth ; 
 and to another. Come, and he cometh" ; and when the brave 
 Serestus has loyally done what he is told to do, there is no 
 more to be said about him. We might have preferred that 
 realization of the last and least individual upon the scene, 
 which we have in Homer, and above all in Shakespeare; but 
 yet, if we had been given it by the poet, it might after all have 
 made the general picture less Roman. The Roman Empire 
 was made by men of little individual " physiognomy," if men 
 of a wonderfully uniform practical capacity ; by " average 
 men," but men of an unexampled high average, every one of 
 them gifted by nature with the instinct to rule and to be 
 ruled. Fessi rerum they work on undaunted.^ Hence 
 Aeneas' men — quiet, patient, reliable, Roman as they are — 
 are hardly so interesting as his enemies. 
 
 ignibtis artnata est, gut nutu concutit orbem, 
 induittir faciem tauri mixtusqiie iuvencis 
 mugit et in teneris formostis obanibulat herbis. 
 
 A later Greek poet, Nonnus, seizes this occasion to make Zeus say del8i.a 
 HvdoTOKov TrXeov 'EXXdSa {Dionysiaca, i. 385). 
 
 ^ A. i. 178. 
 
ROME 141 
 
 III 
 
 Virgil, in Aeneas and his men, shows us what he holds to 
 be the ideal Roman temper. These are the people whom he 
 sends to Latium to fuse with Latin and Italian, to conquer 
 and to rule the world, and it is on this destiny of theirs that 
 the epic turns,^ He has discarded the mock-epic motive he 
 played with in the first Georgic — 
 
 Laomedonteae luimus periuria Troiae ^ {G. \. 502). 
 
 It is true that as a sort of after-thought (a tribute to the 
 legends of Troy) he credits Juno with some resentment born 
 of slighted beauty — spretae inuiria forniae \ but he draws her 
 on a large scale, as a nobler Livy might have drawn Hannibal. 
 Juno means empire. She too has something of the Roman 
 in her, for, whatever her original motive, she plays a great 
 game for a great stake, involving world-wide issues. Fate 
 has decreed that one people shall rule the world ; she prefers 
 another, and she tries conclusions with Fate. Aeneas as the 
 instrument of Fate suffers. Hence Dr Henry was less awake 
 than he thought when, "just as he went to sleep and began 
 
 ^ In a tract, which is by no means as good as its title, Plutarch discusses 
 the Roman Empire {De Fortuna Romanoriini). He recognizes its greatness, and 
 calls Rome, in language curiously anticipatory of Claudian, ■ko.cjlv avOpdiirois 
 e<XTlav lepdv, us d\r]du!S, Kal dvTjffidupav, /cat ireifffia. fibviixov koI (TTOixf^ov didiov, 
 i>TO(pepoix€vois Tois wpdyixacnv ayKvprj^oXiov crdXov Kal ir\dvT)s (316 F) — his 
 metaphors, he says, are borrowed from Democritus. Just as the elements 
 were at war till the KOff/xos united them, so Rome united the world, and he 
 raises the question : Does she owe more to 'Aperrj or to Ti^x'? ? He thinks 
 she owes much to both, but his tract falls away into a discussion of the 
 services Chance has rendered Rome, e.g. the co-operation of Romulus' wolf, 
 and Manlius' geese, and the occasional quarrels or pre-occupations of Rome's 
 enemies. The reader is disappointed to find so very little recognition that 
 Rome owed her greatness to character. Schlemm calls the tract "a mere 
 rhetorical exercise," and one would like to believe him for Plutarch's credit. 
 Dr Oakesmith {Keli^07i of Plutarch, p. 83), however, following Wyttenbach, 
 includes Providence as well as Chance under Tux^?! and finds little in the 
 tract that clashes with Plutarch's established opinions. See also Greard, La 
 morale de Plutarqjie, p. 35 ; he holds it to have been designed for a Roman 
 audience. 
 
 1 << w^g have atoned the perjuries of Laomedon and his Troy." It is interesting 
 to note this passage as an unconscious hint of the Aeneid to come, as it is to 
 study the list of subjects which Milton sketched out for his eventual theme. 
 
142 VIRGIL 
 
 to forget himself," he parodied Conington in the graceful 
 line, 
 
 Juno's vixen and not fell.^ 
 
 It is rather on quo numine laeso that the stress falls — on 
 Juno's divine will and purpose as crossing and thwarting 
 the order of things decreed by Fate. 
 
 For Fate has decreed that Aeneas shall found 
 
 populum late regem belloque superbum ^ {A. i. 21). 
 
 This is a profoundly true and forcible description of the 
 Roman people. If Cineas found the Senate an "assembly of 
 kings," outside its doors he might have found a sovereign 
 people, sovereign as no other ancient people ever was. The 
 world knew Alexander rex, Ptolemaeus rex, but here was 
 populus rex? That very want of physiognomy, which 
 marked the individual Roman character, gave force and 
 power to the national character. The private citizen was 
 content, was glad, to be fused in the populus Romanus. 
 Roman generals might lose battles, Roman governors might 
 govern ill, and Roman judges might sell justice ; yet the 
 nation never failed to carry a war through to victory ; the 
 nation ruled the world better than it had ever been ruled 
 before ; the nation formed a body of laws which shaped the 
 character of European institutions and differentiated, once 
 and for all. Western from Oriental ideas of law, justice, and 
 government. 
 
 For this people Fate " appoints neither period nor boundary 
 of empire, but dominion without end " — 
 
 his ego nee metas rerum nee tempora pono, 
 imperium sine fine dedi ■* {A. i. 278). 
 
 Fate, Jupiter continues, ordains them to be 
 
 Romanes rerum dominos gentemque togatam ^ {A, i. 282). 
 
 1 Aeneidea, i. p. 56. 
 
 2 " A nation, monarch of broad realms and glorious in war" (Conington). 
 
 3 Cf. C\c. pro Plancio, 4. II hjdus principis pop7ili et otnniiim geiilium domuii 
 atque vidoris. 
 
 * "To them I set neither limit of time nor space ; empire without end I have 
 given them." 
 
 * " Romans, lords of the world, the race of the toga." 
 
ROME 143 
 
 This is an addition to what we have heard. The sovereignty 
 of the world is to belong to the collective Roman people 
 {reruni dominos), but the people is one whose distinctive 
 mark is the garb of peace.^ A nation of citizens, unarmed, 
 is to govern the world in peace, and the very object of its 
 rule is peace. For, Jupiter adds, the day shall come when, 
 under Augustus' sway, "the iron ages shall soften and lay 
 war aside ; the gates of war shall be shut," and the war-fury 
 shall be shackled, a helpless prisoner. 
 
 If Jupiter's prediction is not enough, we have the crown- 
 ing word which Anchises speaks in the lower world on the 
 duty and destiny of Rome — 
 
 Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera 
 
 (credo equidem), vivos ducent de marmore vultus, 
 
 orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus 
 
 describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent : 
 
 tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento 
 
 (hae tibi erunt artes) pacisque imponere morem, 
 
 parcere subjectis et debellare superbos ^ (^A. vi. 847-853). 
 
 * "Not merely," says Henry, on gentetn togatam, "the Romans, whose 
 national dress is the toga, commanding the world ; but the Romans in their 
 garb of peace, the ''toga,'' i.e. in their civilian character — a nation of citizens — 
 commanding the world." Conington, however, finds "no need to seek a point 
 in any antithesis between arma and toga. " 
 
 - Others will mould their bronzes to breathe with a tenderer grace, 
 Draw, I doubt not, from marble a vivid life to the face, 
 Plead at the bar more deftly, with sapient wands of the wise, 
 Trace heaven's courses and changes, predict us stars to arise. 
 Thine, O Roman, remember to rule over every race ! 
 These be thine arts, thy glories, the ways of peace to proclaim, 
 Mercy to show to the fallen, the proud with battle to tame. (Bowen.) 
 Cf. the statement of Augustus on the Monument of Ancyra (3), Vidor omnibus 
 civibus snperstitibus peperci. Externas gentes, qiUbus tuto ignosci potuit, con- 
 servare gitam excidere tnalui. Also Horace, Carmen Seculare (b.c. 17, two years 
 after Virgil's death), 1. 50, Clarus Anchisae Venerisque sanguis . . . be//ante prior, 
 iacentetn lenis in hostem. We may contrast the account of Persia, which 
 Aeschylus ironically put into the mouth of a Persian, on the eve of the arrival 
 of news of Salamis (/'«?.fa^, loi f.) — 
 
 deodev yap /card /j-oTp' iKp6.T7](T€v to iraXaiov, iiricTKrj^{/e 5i Tiepcrais 
 iroXinovs irvpyooaiKTOvs 
 
 diiirfiv liririoxo-pfiCLS re kKovovs, woKewv t dyaffrdcreis. 
 The last clause explains why the Persian Empire failed to leave any such 
 impression as Rome's — there was no pacis imponere morem. 
 
144 VIRGIL 
 
 Pads imponere morem^ says Virgil, and the best com- 
 mentary which can be quoted on the phrase is a passage of 
 Claudian, written four centuries later — 
 
 Rome, Rome alone has found the spell to charm 
 The tribes that bowed beneath her conquering arm, 
 Has given one name to the whole human race, 
 And clasped and sheltered them in fond embrace; 
 Mother, not mistress, called her foe her son, 
 And by soft ties made distant countries one. 
 This to her peaceful sceptre all men owe. 
 That through the nations, wheresoe'er we go, 
 Strangers, we find a fatherland ; our home 
 We change at will. We count it sport to roam 
 To distant Thule, or with sails unfurled 
 Seek the most drear recesses of the world ; 
 That we may tread Rhone's or Orontes' shore 
 That we are all one nation evermore.^ 
 
 Claudian' s tone is not exactly the same as Virgil's, but 
 his thought is inspired by Virgil's thought. He sees very 
 much the same empire that Virgil saw, but he sees it after 
 four hundred years of the rule of that Roman spirit 
 which Virgil portrays in the Aeneid. His story is the fulfil- 
 ment of Virgil's prophecy, and his central thought is the 
 
 ^ Claudian, Cons. Stil. iii. 150. The rendering is Dr Hodgkin's — 
 Haec est in gre/nium victos quae sola recepit 
 Jnimanuinque gemis co7nmuni nomine fovit 
 main's no7i doniinae ritu : civesque vocavit 
 quos domuit, 7iexuque pio longinqua revinxit. 
 Hiiius pacijicis debeimis nioribiis oinnes, 
 quod veluti patriis regionibus utiticr hospes, 
 quod sedon nmtare licet, quod cernere Thulen 
 lusus et horrendos quondam penetrare recessus, 
 quod bibinius passim Rhodanum potamus Oi'ontem, 
 quod cuncti gens una sumus. Nee terminus unquam 
 Roma7iae dicio7iis e7~it. Na77i cetera reg7ia 
 luxuries vitiis odiisque supo-bia vertit. 
 
 It is also interesting to find the same sort of thought in Epictetus, who pro- 
 bably like all the Greeks ignored Virgil and Latin literature : — bpare yap 6ti 
 dprjVT^v fj.eydXrii' Kalaap 7)fxlv SoKel irapexeiv, 6ti ovk elcrlv ovk€tl iroXefioi, ovoi 
 fj.dxo-1-, odS^ \ToaT7jpia /j.eyd\a, ov5^ weipaTLKa' dW ^^ecrri irdaij ibpa odeveiv, ttXhv 
 dirb dvaroXuv iiri dvafids {D. III. xiii.). 
 
ROME 145 
 
 same. His pacifui mores represents very closely Virgil's 
 pads imponere morcDi. The intervening ages had not been 
 so golden as Virgil had hoped, at least not so glittering, but 
 they were a period of the diffusion of the old world's gains 
 and of a deepening and quickening of the human spirit. 
 If the fabric of the Roman state did not wear so well as 
 Virgil had predicted, the mind of mankind had caught the 
 mood and temper of the poet, and had learnt to find in a 
 teaching which he never knew the satisfaction of the yearn- 
 ings which he had uttered for ever in his poetry. The 
 spiritual development of the Western world under the Empire 
 is quite in consonance with Virgil's prophecy and with his 
 own feelings. The connexion between this spiritual growth 
 and the pacific rule of Rome is brought out and emphasized 
 by Claudian's contemporary, Prudentius, who sees still deeper 
 into the significance of Rome.^ 
 
 Rome's purpose was not mere conquest. Augustus was 
 not the only great conqueror of his day. Virgil shows us 
 Antony 
 
 victor ab Aurorae populis et litore rubro ^ {A, viii. 686), 
 
 * Prudentius, contra Synimachum, ii. 586 ff. : 
 
 Discordes Unguis populos et dissona cultu 
 regna volens sociare Deus, siibiunper uni 
 irnperto, qiiidqiiid tractabile moribus esset, 
 concordique iiigo retinactila molliaferre 
 constiticit, quo corda hominum coniuncta teneret 
 relligionis amor : nee enimfit copula Christo 
 digna nisi implicitas societ mens tinica gentes . . . 
 Miscebat Bellona furens niortalia cuncia 
 armahatqtie feras in vulnera mutua dextras. 
 Hanc frenaturus rabiem Deus iindique gentes 
 inclinare caput docuit sub legibus isdefn 
 Rovianosque oinnes fieri . . . 
 lus fecit conununc pares et nomine eodcvi 
 nexuit et domitos fraterna in vincla redegit . . . 
 Hoc actum est tantis successibus atque triumphis 
 Romani imperii ; Christo iam tunc venienti, 
 crede, parata via est, quam dudum publica nostras 
 pads amicitia struxit moderamine Romae . . . 
 Jam mundus tc, Christe, capit, quern congrege nexu 
 pax et Roma tenenl. 
 * " Conqueror from the races of the East and the Red Sea." 
 
146 VIRGIL 
 
 but Antony has abandoned the ideals of Rome. Self-indulg- 
 ence and indifference to his country's claim have denationalized 
 him, and he comes to battle with Cleopatra at his side and 
 under the tutelage of dog-headed Anubis and the portentous 
 gods of the East. Against him are " the fathers and the 
 people, the Penates and the Great Gods," and the world 
 passes from his grasp to one who will rule it with more 
 loyalty to the ideas and to the spirit of his race.^ 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, in comparing the ArgonaiUica of ApoUonius 
 with the Aeneid, allows it every claim it can lay to learning, 
 elegance, and ingenuity, but, he concludes, it was the epic of 
 no nation — "il ne fit battre aucun coeur." There, in that 
 word, lies the supremacy of the Aeneid. It is a poem which 
 appealed to a great people and to every citizen, and which 
 still, though that people has ceased to be, "makes the heart 
 beat." 2 
 
 ^ The battle of Actium, A. viii. 675-713. 
 
 * I am glad to find a similar view held by Mr Warde Fowler. See h\s Religious 
 Experience of the Roman People (191 1) pp. 409, 410. He finds the mission of 
 Rome in the world recurrent, like the subject of a fugue, through the whole 
 poem. "There are drawbacks," he owns — e.g. the intervention of the gods after 
 the Homeric manner, and "the seeming want of warm human blood in the hero" 
 — " but he who keeps the great theme ever in mind, watching for it as he reads, 
 as one watches for the new entry of a great fugue -subject, will never fail to 
 see in the Aeneid one of the noblest efforts of human art — to understand what 
 makes it the world's second great epic." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE LAND AND THE NATION —3. AUGUSTUS 
 
 Nam genus htimainait, dcfessuni vi colerc acz'om, 
 
 ex inimicitiis languebat ; qiiojnagis ipsttin 
 
 sponte sua cccidit sub leges artaquc iura. — LuCRETIUS, v. 1 145. 
 
 ** For myself," Goethe continued, " I have always been a royalist." 
 
 EcKERMANN, Conversations with Goethe^ Feb. 25, 1824. 
 
 PROBABLY there is nothing that startles the modern 
 reader of Horace and Virgil so much as the deification 
 of the Emperor Augustus. To us he hardly seems a 
 poetical, still less a divine, figure.^ A shrewd and successful 
 adventurer, without ideas of his own, he lived by assimilating 
 the ideas of his uncle and adoptive father, while he cautiously 
 discarded, either from inability to grasp them or from a feeling 
 that they would militate against his success, some of those 
 conceptions and thoughts of Julius which most appeal to us 
 to-day. He is essentially the " middleman " who comes in 
 the train of genius to break up, to distribute, and to utilize 
 those gains, which genius can indicate but cannot gather 
 either for itself or for the world. Like other political and 
 intellectual middlemen, he was eminently successful in life, 
 and owed his success at once to his practical adroitness and 
 his intellectual inferiority. He stood near enough to Julius 
 to understand his political plans, while he stood nearer than 
 Julius did to the people he had to rule, nearer in the limita- 
 tion of his outlook, in his slighter power of handling ideas, 
 and in the resulting ability to follow the workings of the 
 average Italian mind. Genius is apt to see too far, and 
 range too high, and look reality too clearly in the face, to 
 sympathize with the pedestrian limitations of its neighbours ; 
 
 ^ A friendly critic has held that this paragraph looks too like a final judgement, 
 but it was definitely intended to represent one side of the case ; the other side, it 
 was hoped, was presented strongly enough in the rest of the chapter. 
 
 147 
 
148 VIRGIL 
 
 and Julius met his death through his mistake in supposing 
 that the men about him were as much moved as he by the 
 logic of reaHties and as little satisfied with the surfaces of 
 things.^ Augustus, on the other hand, had a clearer notion 
 of the ways of the common man and a more kindly feeling for 
 his prejudices. He was intensely practical, he had a wonder- 
 ful faculty for learning from the mistakes of others and for 
 avoiding the repetition of his own, but he hardly seems to us 
 the man to quicken a poet's imagination. Dexterity, 
 calculation, coolness are excellent qualities for a business 
 man, but they hardly suggest inspiration. 
 
 Yet Virgil and Horace write of Augustus with an enthu- 
 siasm which, if not entirely real, is in the main genuine 
 enough. When the utterances of both are weighed, it will 
 be found perhaps that Horace has said more and meant less 
 than Virgil. It is Horace who speaks of Augustus as a 
 possible incarnation of Mercury or some other god,^ who 
 pictures him attaining godhead {caelum) by the methods of 
 Bacchus, Pollux, and Hercules, and "reclining among them 
 to drink the nectar with purple lips " ; ^ who goes further still 
 and proclaims that he shall be a god while yet he lives.^ 
 But the poet of the odes to Lalage and Lydia may fairly 
 ask not to be taken too seriously, and we find that in the 
 more prosaic affairs of life Horace held aloof from the 
 Emperor ; he refused to become his private secretary, de- 
 clined to write an epic for him, and abstained from asking 
 favours, till the Emperor wrote and accused him of despising 
 his friendship, and asked if the poet were afraid posterity 
 would count it against him to have been the intimate of 
 Augustus.^ 
 
 But Horace is not alone in speaking of Augustus as a god. 
 Does not Tityrus say 
 
 deus nobis haec otia fecit? ^ {E. i. 6). 
 
 1 See Suetonius, //<//«^ cc. 76, 77, for evidence on this point. 
 
 2 Odes, i. 2. 41. * Odes, iii. 3. (^-xz purpurea libit ore nectar, 
 * Odes, iii. 5. 2 praesens diviis habebitur Augustus. 
 
 ^ The letters are extant in tlie short life of Horace by Suetonius, and well 
 deserve attention. 
 
 " It was a god that gave us this peace." 
 
AUGUSTUS 149 
 
 Is there not at the beginning of the first Georgia an elaborate 
 discussion of the Emperor's godhead ? Is not the Aeneid full 
 of Augustus? For Virgil poetry is a higher, a more serious, 
 thing — aTTovSaioTepov — than for Horace. What then does he 
 mean by this repeated adoration of the ruler ? How should 
 a man of peace glorify the author of proscription and con- 
 fiscation ? How should the pupil of Siro and Lucretius 
 make a god of this man, who was assuredly no Epicurus? 
 How should the poet of Dido and Evander and Pallas find 
 a place in such a company for a figure so essentially 
 prosaic ? 
 
 To answer these questions we must understand the rela- 
 tions of the poet and the Emperor. The base suggestion 
 which makes of Virgil a sort of glorified Martial, and finds 
 the explanation of everything in a farm near Mantua and a 
 house at Naples, may be at once dismissed. Great poetry 
 does not spring from such motives. Nor can we say at once 
 that Virgil was influenced merely by friendly or patriotic 
 considerations. He was indebted to Augustus, he was his 
 friend, and he admired him as a statesman ; and in view of 
 all that Augustus was to the poet personally, and of all that 
 he had done for their country, we cannot blame Virgil either 
 for his friendship or his admiration. To connect his great 
 work with such a friend's name would surely be a venial 
 offence, if an offence at all. But Virgil has done more than 
 this, for, whether it appear to us legitimate or not, he has 
 tried to bring Augustus into vital relation with the whole of 
 the Aefteid, and to make the whole poem turn, or at least 
 seem to turn, upon the destiny of Augustus. Is it a triumph 
 of the friend over the poet ? That is a dangerous and 
 doubtful suggestion to make about a great poet, as it involves 
 misconception of a poet's habits of mind. The poet will 
 generally be found to think first of truth and poetry, and, 
 where these are concerned,' to have a singular faculty of clear 
 vision. Whatever his relations with philosophy, whatever 
 the coincidence or difference of philosophic and poetic truth, 
 the poet will always agree with the philosopher that " it is 
 the best course, and indeed necessary, at least where truth is 
 at stake, to sacrifice even what is near and dear to us ; for, 
 
ISO VIRGIL 
 
 where both are dear to us, it is a sacred duty to prefer truth." ^ 
 Is there then any poetic truth in Virgil's presentment of 
 Augustus? 
 
 It will perhaps be simplest to try to obtain some clear 
 idea of what Augustus did and was ; and then to study the 
 impression he made upon the poet ; and, thus prepared, to 
 consider how the poet embodies his impression in his poetry. 
 
 " Ce trop habile homme, par peur des poignards, n'organisa 
 que le viager, et ne consacra que le mensonge." 
 
 In this striking and epigrammatic form M. Goumy has 
 summed up a great deal of criticism upon the imperial 
 system which Augustus devised and handed down to his 
 successor.^ To attempt to reconcile such a judgement with 
 " poetic truth " may seem like propounding a paradox, par- 
 ticularly when it must be owned at the outset that M. Goumy 
 in his way is right. But we have to distinguish between what 
 Augustus did and what he wished the Roman world to think. 
 What he did was to carry into effect the ideas of Julius; but 
 he wished his fellow countrymen to suppose that he was 
 doing the opposite. 
 
 Now the very essence of the ideas of Julius was the recog- 
 nition of the actual. It is hardly fanciful to take his correc- 
 tion of the Calendar as typical of all he did in the re- 
 organization of the government at large. " When he turned 
 to set the republic in order," says Suetonius, " he put the 
 Calendar right, which had been brought, by the recklessness 
 of the pontifices in intercalation, to such confusion, that the 
 harvest festival was not in summer, nor the vintage in 
 
 ■* Aristotle, Ethics, i. 4. 6, p. 1096 a : jBeXnov elvai Kal 5eiv iTrl cniiTtipiq. ye rrjs 
 dXriOeias Kal tA o'iKe'ia avaipeiv, fiWws re Kal cpCKocrbcpov's ovras' ajxtpoiv yap ovToiv 
 (piKoLV oaiop irpoTifiav ttjv oK-qdeiav. 
 
 * M. Henri Rochefort in the days of the Dreyfus troubles put the same thought 
 in a maxim of wider range : — " Everyone knows, and the Ministers best of all, that 
 to govern is to lie {gouveyncr c'est nienfir)." See F. C. Conybeare, The Dreyfits 
 Case, p. 156. It is a brilliant phrase and many people, in ancient times and 
 modern, have believed it — practical politicians and their critics — yes, and thinkers 
 like Euripides and Tolstoi have said it in bitterness of heart. It deserves study. 
 
AUGUSTUS 151 
 
 autumn. He adjusted the year to the course of the sun." ^ 
 There at least Julius was in toucli with the ultimate fact. 
 It is clear throughout everything he does that his intention 
 is to grasp the real state of the case, and then, in full view 
 of everything material, to plan real provision for real need. 
 This is the statesman's temper. It is recognizable in Julius 
 from the beginning ; he of all men took the truest measure 
 of Pompey from the first. But it was in Gaul that he had 
 his first chance of exercising and developing his faculty. 
 There he had a great country to deal with, large problems 
 to face, and freedom in working them out. When he found 
 himself master of the Roman world, he worked on in the 
 same way. What were the real facts, the real requirements .■' ^ 
 
 The first and most clamant need of the Roman world was 
 government. The Roman constitution had not been con- 
 trived for the inclusion of a subject empire. As province 
 after province was added, one expedient and another were 
 devised to meet each case as it came ; but wise and good as 
 many of these expedients might be, there was an air of 
 makeshift about the whole. By Caesar's day it was plain 
 that the sovereign people would not take the thought and 
 trouble necessary for the working of these expedients, while 
 the upper classes looked upon the provinces chiefly as sources 
 of private revenue for senatorial governors and for the 
 leaders of the financial world, and hence as mere counters 
 in the game of politics. 
 
 In short, there was no serious government any longer, 
 nothing but improvisation. There was no continuity of 
 policy for the province ; there were no general principles 
 of policy for the empire. The empire was not looked at 
 as a whole; it was not studied with intelligence; even 
 considered as a collection of estates it was badly managed. 
 Yet it made itself felt in Rome, and now and then men 
 recognized that the peculiar problems it presented required 
 special and intelligent treatment. For instance, in 6"] B.C. 
 
 ^ Suetonius, Julius, 40. May we quote Virgil in a new connexion : Soleni 
 quis di cere f ahum audeat (C i. 463) ? 
 
 * Compare Carlyle, French RevohitioJt vol. iii. bk. 3, ch. i : " Whatsoever man 
 or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it [the Movement] has, and give 
 them voice and activity, will obtain the lead of it." 
 
152 VIRGIL 
 
 piracy had reached such dimensions, that it was seen to be an 
 imperial question, not to be managed by partial operations 
 in the various provinces. It was clear that the thing 
 needed was a central and comprehensive plan, steadily 
 directed and controlled by an organizing mind, which must 
 be in possession of all the facts to be faced, and able to set 
 in motion forces adequate for the work to be done. The 
 Gabinian law gave Pompey a free hand on the tacit condition 
 that he actually did the work. This was, in fact, a direct 
 denial of the whole scheme of senatorial and popular rule. The 
 " talk of the dictatorship " current in Rome during Caesar's 
 absence in Gaul proves that people recognized the want of 
 government in the city itself and in the world at large. 
 
 The first task of Caesar, therefore, was to govern. 
 Government means responsibility, and Caesar undertook 
 this himself. The whole executive of the empire became 
 directly or indirectly responsible to himself, and he took 
 care to be served by capable and reliable men. They were 
 not always people of good family — he appointed a eunuch, 
 the son of a freedman of his own, to be over three legions 
 in Alexandria, and some of his slaves he set over the mint 
 and the public revenue department. The old families of 
 Rome grumbled ; but Caesar meant work to be done, and 
 picked men who would do it, irrespective of old traditions — 
 spreto patrio inore^ 
 
 He realized further that the old division of the world into 
 Rome and the subject empire had become, by the substi- 
 tution of himself for senate and people as the ruling power, 
 even more obsolete than it had virtually been for some 
 long while before. His introduction of Gauls into the senate 
 was the expression of this belief. The angry verses quoted 
 round the town show what the Romans thought of this — 
 
 Caesar led the Gauls in triumph; to the Senate-house he 
 
 led ; 
 And the Gauls took off their trousers, wore the laticlave 
 
 instead.^ 
 
 ^ Suetonius, y^/ ////J, 76. 
 
 ^ Suetonius, y>////^i', 80 Gallos Caesar in friunifhunt dua'f, idem in curiam, \ 
 Gain bracas deposuenmt , latum clavum sumpscrunt. 
 
AUGUSTUS 153 
 
 The remark, which Suetonius tells us Caesar made, though 
 a tactical blunder, was nevertheless a profound truth, and 
 the basal truth of the whole imperial system. " The re- 
 public," he said, " was nothing — it was a mere phrase without 
 form or substance.",,^ For this nothing Caesar substituted an 
 intensely real something, which corresponded with every 
 reality in the empire — the control of a single intelligence, 
 which should make itself felt uniformly and everywhere in 
 steady and intelligent government. 
 
 Julius, we might perhaps say, was murdered for what he 
 said 2 rather than for what he did. Augustus realized the 
 one mistake of his uncle and did not repeat it, but what 
 Julius had done before him he did again. He regained the 
 personal control of the entire government, and established 
 throughout the world at large that real something which 
 Julius had seen to be demanded by the empire. Only in 
 Rome, because the Romans had a traditional preference for 
 the nothing, he gave it them in words. Whenever by 
 change or development of plan he got a firmer grasp of 
 everything and made the reality of his government more 
 real, he repeated in a more noticeable tone his phrase about 
 ' the restoration of the republic." ^ He took care also 
 to emphasize the lime-limits set to his tenure of offices, 
 ivhich he intended all the same to keep as long as he lived 
 md to hand on to his successor. This is what M. Goumy 
 means by " organizing the temporary and consecrating 
 falsehood." Augustus, it is said, on his death-bed asked 
 bis friends whether they thought he had played the farce 
 af life well enough.^ Viewed from this standpoint, his 
 ife was in measure a farce, but it was far from being this 
 in reality. 
 
 Augustus had maintained his power by the methods with 
 ivhich he won it. When the world was divided between 
 
 1 Suetonius, /tilitis 77 Nihil esse retnpublicam, appeUatio7iem modo sine corpore 
 ic specie. It is of course possible that Caesar had more tact than to say so. 
 
 * Or what people said he said— a rather different thing, though often enough 
 I manufactured anecdote hits off a situation more accurately than a true one 
 night. 
 
 ' On one such occasion he doubled the pay of his guards. 
 
 * Suet. Augm 99, ecquid iis vidcrelur minium vilue commode Iransegisse. 
 
154 VIRGIL 
 
 himself and Antony, he had captured the general goodwill 
 by genuine service of mankind. He had crushed piracy 
 on the sea and brigandage in Italy ; he had given quiet 
 to all the West; he had enabled industry and business to 
 regain their ordinary activity — the fall in the rate of 
 interest was the sign of this ; by sense and firmness, 
 combined with clemency, he had gained the confidence 
 of serious people ; and in negotiation and war he had 
 maintained the credit of Rome with the foreigner. In 
 every one of these details his success stood in vivid contrast 
 to the failure of Antony. When he died, public talk in 
 Rome owned that "no resource had been left for the 
 distracted country but the rule of one man ; under his rule 
 the frontiers had been pushed forward to the Ocean or to 
 distinct rivers; the provinces, the armies, and the fleets 
 of the empire had been brought into communication with 
 one another; justice had been dispensed at home; con- 
 sideration had been shown to the allies ; and the city itself 
 had been sumptuously adorned." ^ 
 
 All this is true work, and has to be weighed against 
 the lies of statecraft with which the Emperor kept the 
 senate quiet. We may go further still, and say that if, 
 as most people admit upon a broad view of it, the genius 
 of Rome was " to govern the nations, to crush disorder, 
 to spare the subject, and to set up and maintain the wont 
 and use of peace," Augustus was a genuine embodiment 
 of this genius, and, whatever his defects of mind and 
 character, he had, on the soberest estimate, fulfilled the 
 destiny of his people, and given recognition and satis- 
 faction to the instincts and demands of the whole Medi- 
 terranean — in other words, that his work was an honest 
 endeavour to give expression to the truth of the world 
 around him. 
 
 II 
 
 Virgil first came into contact with Augustus, or Octavian 
 as he was then called, in connexion with the confiscation 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Annals, i. 9. The hostile criticisms quoted by Tacitus in the following 
 chapter are personal, and do not touch the record of his real politic-al services. 
 
AUGUSTUS 155 
 
 )f his farm. That famous interview he describes — not 
 'ery clearly, nor, even, very happily — in the first Eclogue. 
 ^e had seen Rome, the city without peer, and he had 
 een the young Caesar — 
 
 hie ilium vidi iuvenem (42) — 
 
 v'ho had in the most bucolic terms encouraged him to 
 \o on with his farm life, and incidentally to make music with 
 lis pipe — 
 
 ludere quae vellem calamo permisit agresti * — 
 
 ind who will, in consequence, be to him a god, whose face 
 le can never forget. 
 
 O Meliboee deus nobis haec otia fecit 
 namque erit ille mihi semper deus * (6). 
 
 Disentangling Virgil and his pipe from Tityrus and his 
 :attle, we find that Augustus restored his farm to the poet, 
 ,nd made it possible for him to live the life of " inglorious 
 [uiet" {G. iv. 564) which his genius required. In process 
 )f time their relations became closer, and Virgil received 
 rom him various gifts of land and house property, though 
 le refused, as we have seen, to accept an exile's confis- 
 ated estate. Eventually a warm friendship bound them to 
 ■ach other. Augustus, from his peculiar position and 
 he temper it bred, was a somewhat dangerous and even 
 mcomfortable friend to have. He did not, we learn, make 
 riends easily, but he kept them when he made them, 
 ind was willing to tolerate their vices and foibles "in 
 noderation,"^ It should be remarked to the credit of 
 -\ugustus, that of all who shared his friendship, two of 
 he most successful in retaining it without loss of dignity 
 )r independence were men of humble origin, one indeed 
 
 * " He set me free to play as I pleased upon my rustic pipe." 
 
 * " O Meliboeus it was a god who gave us this peace — for a god he shall ever 
 yc to me." 
 
 ' Suet. Attg. 66, sed vitia quogtie ct dclicta, dnmtaxat niodt'ca, ferpessus, 
 n interesting chapter on the Emperor's friendships. Cf. Horace, Sat. ii. i. 
 :o cu! male si palperc recalcitrat. 
 
156 VIRGIL 
 
 a perfect man of the world, the other a shy and silent 
 student — the poets Horace and Virgil. 
 
 The intimacy rested on character and poetry, and it is 
 pleasant to note the interest which Emperor and poet took 
 in each other's work. Virgil, we learn, on one occasion 
 read the whole of the Georgics to Augustus, spreading the 
 work over four days, and handing the manuscript to 
 Maecenas when his voice grew weary. ^ In the Aeneid, 
 as was natural, the Emperor was keenly interested, and 
 in the course of the Cantabrian war he wrote to the poet 
 from Spain letters full of playful entreaties and equally 
 playful menaces to wring from him " either a first draft of 
 the poem, or at any rate some part of it." ^ 
 
 Whether the letter of Virgil, which Macrobius has pre- 
 served, was written in answer to these letters of Augustus 
 from Spain it is impossible to say certainly, but it may 
 very well have been. He begins, " I am receiving frequent 
 letters from you " ; and, lower down he continues, " As to 
 my Aeneas, if I really had him in a state worthy of your 
 ears, I would gladly send him ; but the subject I have 
 taken in hand is so vast, that I feel it was madness to 
 attack so big a work, particularly when I have, as you 
 know, to devote other and more important study to that 
 work." ^ However, at a later date, Virgil read the second, 
 
 ^ Suet. V. Verg. 27 Georgica reverso post Actiacam victoriam Aicgiisfo afque 
 Atellae reficiendai~nm faticium causa comnioraiiii per continuum quadriduwn 
 legit, suscipiente Maecenate legendi vicein, quotiens interpellaretur ipse vocis 
 offensione. Pronuntiabat azite?n cum suavitate turn lenociniis viiris. Nettleship, 
 Ancient Lives, p. 52, calls attention to the fact that the date given here by 
 Suetonius is "merely a general expression." 
 
 ^ Suet. op. cit. 31 effiagitabat nt sibi ^^ de Aeneidc" uf ipsius verba sunt vel 
 prima carminis \jwoypa,<p7) vel quodlibet colojt mitteretur. 
 
 ^ Macr. Sat. i. 24, 1 1 Ipsius enim Maronis epistula, qua compellat Augustnm, 
 ita incipit " Ego ve7-o frequentes a te lift eras accipio" et infra *' de Aenea quidem 
 meo, si mehercle iam dignum atiribus haberem tuis, libenter mitterem, sed tanta 
 [v. 1. tafituni] incohata res est ut paene vitio mentis tantum opus ingrcssus mihi 
 videar, cum praesertim , tit scis, alia quoque studia ad id opus 7Hultoque potiora 
 ijnpcrtiar." It is suggested that ad id opus may mean " beside that work." 
 
 Tacitus {Dial. 13) seems to imply that the letters of Augustus to Virgil were 
 extant : nequc apud divum Augustum gratia caruit . . . testes Augusti epistolae. 
 Seneca the elder may be referring to Virgil's letters, when he says {Controv. iii. 
 praef. 8), Ciceronem eloquentia sua in carminibtis destituit, Vergiliutyt ilia 
 felicitas ingenii in 07-atione soluta reliquit. 
 
AUGUSTUS 157 
 
 fourth, and sixth books of the Aencid to Augustus and 
 Octavia. Suetonius records that, when the poet came to the 
 famous passage Tu Marccllus eris, Octavia fainted.* 
 
 Finally, it was when travelling with Augustus that Virgil 
 contracted, on a visit to the ruins of Megara, the illness of 
 which he died. 
 
 It has long been remarked how congenial Virgil found 
 the political changes of Augustus. It was partly because 
 neither hereditary nor personal ties bound him to the old 
 order which Augustus had ended ; and partly that the real 
 ^ains, which the rule of Augustus meant for the world and 
 for Italy, appealed to the poet. The silence of the forum, 
 kvhich Cicero had found intolerable under Julius, meant 
 nothing to the native of Cisalpine Gaul. " How many were 
 left who had known the republic .'' " asks Tacitus, when 
 le is explaining the peacefulness of the later period of 
 Augustus' reign.2 He refers to Romans. But the republic 
 ivas little or nothing to Italians, excepting individuals who 
 >ought their fortune at Rome. For Cicero nearly the 
 -vhole of life was bound up with republican constitution and 
 jsage ; but even he, popular as he was with the Italians, 
 :ould wake in them no enthusiasm for a government which 
 lad meant to them oppression of every kind. The Senate 
 md people of Rome had treated Italy with contempt and 
 njustice ; they had refused the franchise, and, when it was 
 vrung from them by force of arms, they had in great 
 neasure neutralized it by political chicane. The traditions 
 )f Sulla were all associated with that .senatorial rule which 
 le had laboured to make secure, and they made it the more 
 inpopular ; nor had the careers of " Sulla's men," of Pompey 
 md of Catiline, done anything to abate the ill-will which 
 till attached itself to the name of Sulla. 
 
 Virgil was no doubt familiar from childhood with the 
 tory of the political aspirations of his fellow-country- 
 nen, of Sulla and the Senate, and all his national feeling 
 vould direct his sympathies away from the fallen republic to 
 he great house which had made Italy one. It must be 
 
 1 V. Verg. 32. Marcellus was her son who had died young. 
 ' Annals, i. 3. 7. 
 
158 VIRGIL 
 
 remembered, too, that Virgil neither had, nor, apparently, 
 wished to have, any experience of poHtical life — hardly 
 any of active life of whatever kind. For all his interest 
 in Roman history, he had little or no sympathy for 
 republican institutions, for the spectacle of a great people 
 governing itself. The old Roman commonwealth, praised 
 by Polybius and sighed for by Cicero, was a thing foreign 
 to his mind. His own people had been governed for 
 centuries ; they had not governed themselves ; they had 
 had no share in the inner movement of Roman political 
 life ; they had been ruled from without. Consequently the 
 republic, lying quite outside Virgil's experience, touched 
 his imagination but little or not at all. 
 
 And, again, Virgil's whole nature was on the side of 
 peace. His ideal was a quiet life unruffled by the storms 
 of political disorder, and, still more, unassailed by the 
 fiercer storms of civil war ; and for a century republican 
 government had meant incessant strife, bloodshed, war, and 
 confiscations — the utter unsettlement of life — 
 
 tot bella per orbem, 
 tam multas scelerum facies, non ullus aratro 
 dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis ^ {G. i. 505). 
 
 It was not until the republican party was finally driven 
 out of Italy that the land began to recover itself; nor, 
 until it was crushed throughout the world, that wars ceased 
 and the temple of Janus was closed. In a word, the victory 
 of Augustus meant the restoration of the proper and normal 
 life of man. 
 
 Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet 
 secula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva 
 Saturno quondam ^ (vi. 792). 
 
 1 "So many wars throughout the world, so many forms of sin ; none of the 
 honour that is its due is left to the plough ; the husbandman is matched away and 
 the fields lie dirty." 
 
 2 " Augustus Caesar, true child of a god, who shall establish again for Latium a 
 golden age in that very region where Saturn once reigned" (Conington). The 
 original aurea secula were under Saturn's rule, according to Evander {Aen. 
 viii. 324). 
 
AUGUSTUS 159 
 
 This return of the golden age carried with it the 
 restoration of all that was venerable and worthy in the 
 past. Augustus restored or rebuilt the ancient temples, 
 beside building new ones. " The number, dignity, and allow- 
 inces of the priests he increased, particularly those of the 
 V^estal virgins," says Suetonius; "some too of the ancient 
 :eremonies, which had gradually fallen into disuse, he 
 reinstituted, as for example the Auguriuin Salutis^ the 
 laminate of Jupiter, the Lupercal festival [we may add 
 :he Arval Brothers]. . . Honour next to that of the immortal 
 jods he paid to the memory of the generals who had found 
 :he Roman people's empire small and made it great." ^ 
 Everything that an Emperor could do he did by statute 
 ind example to encourage morality and family life. It 
 Tiust be owned that his laws compelling marriage were 
 lot very successful, but his severity in dealing with his 
 uckless daughter Julia is evidence that he was in earnest 
 n his resolve that marriage should be respected.^ Just as 
 le tried to purge the popular pantheon of alien unauthorized 
 jods, such as Apis,^ he purged the Senate of its more un- 
 vorthy members — no doubt, including among them some of 
 he Gauls whom Julius had made senators — and he took care 
 o restore to that body its ancient decorum and splendour, 
 )ut not its old power. Even the dress of his fellow citizens 
 lid not escape the Emperor's eye, and in after years he could 
 md did quote, " with indignation and in a loud voice," a 
 jreat line of Virgil to support his zeal for the toga.* 
 
 This religious reformation was bound to be superficial ^ ; 
 t was certainly a piece of studied policy like the more 
 elaborate pretence of " restoring the republic " by permitting 
 he election of magistrates with republican titles. In the 
 
 ^ Suet. Aug. 29-31, 
 
 * See Boissier, V Opposition sous les Cisars, pp. 133 ff., who shrewdly remarks 
 hat the Emperor's cold-blooded method of marrying and remarrying her, 
 without reference to her own wishes, to men whom he forced to divorce wives 
 eally loved, was hardly calculated to "make a Lucretia of Julia." For the 
 iws, cf. Suet. Aug. 34. 
 
 * Suet. Aug. 93. The Emperor frowned on Judaism, too, among Romans. 
 
 * Suet. Aug. 40 Romanos rcriim doiiiinos genlemqtie togalani. 
 
 ' There was, however, a real revival of religion, which began at this time, 
 ut it did not develop along the lines laid down by the Emperor. 
 
i6o VIRGIL 
 
 long run the one was found to be scarcely more genuine or 
 real than the other. But, for the moment, this great idea of 
 restoration appealed to the imagination of serious people. 
 It was supported by the poet Horace, who wrote a number 
 of Odes to show that he too would be as happy as the 
 Emperor himself to see other people married and pious.^ 
 
 Virgil, too, was interested and took his share in the work, 
 though the solemn utterances of Horace about violet-beds 
 and pier-building, about the restoration of temples and the 
 lex de inaritandis ordmibus^ hardly came into his conception 
 of poetry. Still, he was attracted, and probably more really 
 attracted than Horace, by this aspect of the Emperor's work, 
 inasmuch as he was of all the poets of Rome the most 
 interested and intelligent student of Roman and Italian 
 antiquities. The old garb and phrase, the old use and 
 ritual, appealed to him as a poet. They were not to him, 
 as to the antiquary, mere curiosities of history, but relics 
 which made a forgotten day live again, symbols that 
 expressed the real grandeur of an ancient people, with 
 whom he and his day might still feel a spiritual kinship. 
 If to Augustus this restoration of the past was a political 
 device — and perhaps even to him it was more — for Virgil 
 it had a deeper import, and his regard for the Emperor, 
 as his personal friend and as the giver of peace to his 
 country, was deepened by the thought that in him the 
 present was being re-linked to the past in a hundred ways, 
 all full of poetic significance and suggestion. 
 
 We may go further and recognize in Virgil a certain 
 admiration for the personal character of Augustus — an 
 admiration which the historians do not make it very easy 
 for us to share, but which should at least be considered 
 
 ^ Horace in a short ode informs us of his conversion from " insane philosophy." 
 But Faunus and Jupiter acting in concert to convert the Epicurean poet, the one 
 holding up the falling branch and the other thundering from a blue sky, are more 
 delightful than convincing. Odes ii. 17, 27 ; and i. 34. There was rather more 
 than a strain of superstition in Augustus, and as little of it in Horace as in any- 
 body. The odes, in which he takes the high imperial line of virtue and reforma- 
 tion, are very curious. It is hard to imagine anyone taking them very seriously 
 who knew Horace at all well, and it is impossible to suppose them to be banter. 
 Perhaps Augustus thought they would do for his public. 
 
AUGUSTUS i6i 
 
 along with their judgements upon the Emperor. It is part 
 of the poet's character to "count nothing human as alien," 
 and it not infrequently happens that the man of reflection 
 finds a peculiar interest in the man of action, of capacity, 
 of achievement — in the man who does things.^ In a world 
 of scattered minds, of minds wasted by diffusion of effort, 
 there is something magnetic in the man who will set before 
 him one definite goal, who will steadily resist, even to the 
 point of seeming insensible to them, the temptations offered 
 by pleasure or by pain to lead him aside, and who at last 
 achieves his goal in virtue of this singleness of aim. 
 Augustus was a man of this type. The famous interview 
 with Cleopatra is the standard illustration of his inflexi- 
 bility ; but his whole life is one long repression of instinct 
 and impulse, and not merely of his own, for he demanded 
 as much of those around him — as his daughter and as 
 Tiberius could testify. A hard, cold man, neither friend- 
 ship nor hostility could distract him from policy. He 
 could be reconciled to Plancus ; he could sacrifice his sister 
 Octavia to Antony. But to his great purpose of ruling and 
 regenerating the Roman Empire he was inexorably faithful. 
 How far self-interest and patriotism conflict or conspire 
 in shaping the purposes of a great ruler, especially of a 
 ruler who has to fight his way to power, it is difficult to 
 estimate in any case. Probably the mere love of personal 
 power, which a vulgar mind feels, is in the case of greater 
 men lifted into a higher region, and becomes a love of 
 achievement, of construction ; and the man who is really 
 fitted to use power enjoys it, not so much for possessing 
 it, as for the opportunity it gives him to accomplish some- 
 thing of broad reference, which could not be done, or could 
 not be done so well, by another. Hence in a character 
 like Augustus — or even Sulla — what in a smaller man we 
 should have to regard as merely selfish has in reality a 
 nobler element. The personal motive is subordinated to 
 
 * Cf. Prof. Dowden, Shakespeare, His Mind and Art, ch. vi. p. 281 : " Shake- 
 speare's admiration of the great men of action is immense, because he himself was 
 primarily not a man of action." There is of course a school of critics who hold 
 :he opposite view — that Shakespeare preferred Richard II. to Henry V. See 
 ilso Froude's Carlyic's Life in Lotdon, 19 February 183S, vol. i. p. 138. 
 
i62 VIRGIL 
 
 wider and more really generous considerations, and, while 
 we have to own that the character is still unlovely, we have 
 to admit a certain nobility. Thus in the case of Augustus, 
 Virgil looks to the higher quality of the man, to his real 
 patriotism, to his political wisdom, to his love of peace, and 
 never forgets that, whatever the superficial or even the 
 essential weakness and inadequacy of the Emperor's nature, 
 he had in truth sought and achieved peace and regeneration 
 for his country and the Empire.^ 
 
 Viro-il finds the colour and movement of human life and 
 the unfolding of human character more moving than the 
 play of political principles. When he contemplates Roman 
 history, he is attracted more by the heroes than by the great 
 forward movement of political thought implied in the growth 
 and progress of the Roman republic. The temper and qualities, 
 which he admires in the hero, are rather those necessary to 
 any stable human society than those required for the self- 
 croverning state. Even if he speaks oi populum late regem, it 
 is rather of Rome's government of the conquered that he 
 thinks than of the republican constitution. A well-known 
 simile in the first book will illustrate his mind.^ 
 
 As in a great assembly," when Discord leaps at a word 
 Suddenly forth, and ignoble crowds with fury are stirred, 
 Firebrands fly, stones volley, the weapons furnished of wrath, — 
 If peradventure among them a Man stand forth in the path 
 Loyal and grave, long honoured for faithful service of years, 
 Seeing his face they are silent, and wait with listening 
 
 ears : 
 He with his counsel calms their souls, assuages their ire. 
 
 {A. i. 148-53, Bowen.) 
 
 This is not a sympathetic picture of Democracy, though it 
 is fairly true for the last century of the republic ; and, when 
 
 1 Cf. J. T^' Green, Stray Studies, p. 283 ; and Pierron, La Lit. rom. p. 399. 
 So Georgii in a Progranim (Stuttgart, 1880), cited by Norden, Neue Jahrbucher 
 
 fjir das kl. Altertum, vol. vii. p. 250: "Augustus wird von Vergil nur verherr- 
 licht sofern er die romischen Dinge aus klaglicher Verwirrung gercttet, den 
 Weltfrieden begriindet und das romische Volk zu seinem Berufe zuriickgefiihrt hat." 
 
 2 Cf. Sainte-Beuve, Etudes sur Virgile, pp. 229-32. 
 2 The word is popu I a, and it is significant. 
 
AUGUSTUS 163 
 
 we set beside it the hopeless scene where Latinus consults 
 his people (A. xi), and the sketch of the typical democratic 
 leader Drances, iargns oputn, lingua melior, seditione potcns ^ 
 (xi. 336-41), a man with some doubtful places in his 
 pedigree, it can hardly be maintained that Virgil's admira- 
 tion for the old Roman character included any regard for 
 the old government. It is the vir pietate gravis ac meritis 
 whom he prefers — the hero. Poets as a rule are not poli- 
 ticians, and, as they grow old, they often lapse into pre- 
 ferring freedom to be "sober-suited." The author of our 
 only " revolutionary epic " became a Tory prime minister and 
 an earl. 2 
 
 Virgil then found in Augustus a friend, a saviour of his 
 country, and a heroic character. Each of these considera- 
 tions may help us to realize that, however much exaggerated 
 we may think it, his praise of the Emperor is at least the 
 outcome of honest feeling, and is so far legitimate. It 
 remains now to review his references to Augustus in his 
 poety, direct and indirect. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Quite early in the Aeneid, in fact in the first utterance of 
 Jupiter, we find the prophecy of Augustus' reign (i. 257). 
 Whether the Julius (288) of Jupiter's speech is Augustus, as 
 many editors think, or Julius the Dictator, as Dr Henry 
 maintains, the immediate allusion to the closing of the 
 temple of Janus clearly refers to Augustus. Venus may be 
 
 ^ " Lavish of his wealth, a master with his tongue, powerful in the arts of 
 faction." 
 
 * See Dowden on Shakespeare's attitude to Democracy {Shakespeare, His 
 Mind and Art, ch. vi. § 3, pp. 319 ff.) : " It was only after such an immense 
 achievement as that of 1789, such a proof of power as the French Revolution 
 afforded, that moral dignity, the spirit of self-control and self-denial, the heroic 
 devotion of masses of men to ideas and not merely interests, could begin to 
 manifest themselves." See Wordsworth, Frelude, bk. ix. 354-389, on his dis- 
 cussions with Beaupuy in 1793, with the spectacle before their eyes of 
 a people from the depth 
 Of shameful imbecility uprisen, 
 Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked 
 Upon their virtues ; saw, in rudest men, 
 Self-sacrifice the firmest ; &c. 
 
l(.l 
 
 \ iit(;ii. 
 
 irttM'Hmr*! ; li«i in •■\*\ir t>l tin- h.itr «>l llliio. the •,|.m lu-i i>l 
 AcoIm'i, ai\.l III.- \i.>l.ni.- «>l l'ini»ur<, l)«\*itin\ will luwr itM 
 \va\' ; Koiur ,-.h.Ul f.n lotih » «Mi.|uniM^j, niUil iii»>lri ,\u|Mnlu.«<, 
 l\n h>«*t t"oi\«HU"rtt »>«m|<Kl.. .hr rthriitlici \\\r -.woul, VUv 
 lci}.M\ «>l \\)p,»|»ltM>4 U \\\\\'i lli>- t U>VVM ,nul ('llllMill(ltioi) nl 
 Kom.ui l»i.l>'r\', (n\»l tlir Iwo lici»u':s Arncw?*, jtriU In 
 I ,((utn\ t>> l.Miw.l (hr i.(<>-, ,it\il August UK, burn tt> rr^^rnrrato 
 thoiiUo<(iul « oinplcN- il'<\vo(K, air lM(>\i|'.ht (of^'.rthrr lioin 
 {\\r vny lu'^iuiUMf" >>l ll\<' |>o«mu Not .IK- tli.-\' f'xri lt>M|| 
 
 ifVi'l.ltioiv I-. m.uU' t>t liim-irlt. lie •.(•>■•* \\\c loH|', lint" ol hi,«4 
 ilr.svtMivl.mt'., .lutl » liirl nm.>n;,' ihmi llu- oIltMi iMoiui.scil 
 Ainiu.«*tuji - 
 
 Kc.toi ri >>l t hr .i',;r ol ;;ol(l 
 
 In l.in*l"i whrii* .S.itmn niKnl ol old ; 
 
 (Vol IntI ;uul I i.iiiim.mt r\ttcmr 
 
 .".li.ill -.lird li hi'. l)o\in»llc!«m I'clj^n. 
 Look lo lli.it l.nul whu h Urs <i('(U' 
 Mr)'<>inl tl\r (i.ilh oIMmi or stuv, 
 W'hrir Atl.r. on hi>. •.Iionhjci* I'curi 
 Thr ImnhMi »»rthr iMi'Minl>rnt Mphoixsjl, 
 l'Y,\'|>t rVii MOW iUitl Ci'.pi.i hr.ir 
 The niuttrifd voii V' ol iu.iii\' .1 ■..fi . 
 .\iul NiU^'.'s Nrvrn uunith.s. ilistmlinl wiili i.-.n 
 
 Their rominji roM(|Mrror lu»*)\v . 
 ,\U i»K s in his suvaj.jr cha.so 
 Nr'ri tr.ivoMr«l oVi .so wide a sparr, 
 What thoiii'.h thr l»iass ho»»h^l lUri lu- killrd. 
 .\n>l I'lNui.uithif; lotrst ,stilU-il, 
 
 \ii>l I riu.i's thpth w ith Inioi thnll.d 
 
 At t\\.iii)Mn;; ol his how : 
 Nor .strotohnl hi.i «on«niiiiii!; m.mh .0 i.n 
 \\'\\o ilrovr his ivy haiurssal t-.u 
 l'"roii\ Ny.sa's K>tty hrij^ht, aiul hrokr 
 
 The ti|-icr'n .spirit 'urath his yukr. 
 :\\\k\ .shrink w<' in this {.'.hMioiis hour 
 l""iv)n\ liiiUhMp, wi>ilh assoil her power, 
 
Af'GLSTCS t6s 
 
 (>f can «mf tnvtm keatU recoil 
 Vr«m mittimg cm Amacmitm uA ? 
 
 ,',u-<\'4"! '""-> '■:..: •'.*/ ':.'4..' ;>..'! '/-. .'.^>e*«, — amd it m 
 
 A'.. r$ to mtuik to Mm m Awcfcttw her« hoped 
 
 it ' iMMC Ittre appealed to tW Efliperof . 
 
 It r4ciiid at onc« at tlM; vtedicMor tA 
 
 koauM nuytHy thffMffiiout the w<jrid — for even 
 
 tfea Mtiwdom to ImAiam wm otA j^ Mmatkal 
 
 Implrjttoi and aa tkt rttitorer /t. 
 
 I'ht la»t Mty )kktM c4 the t ^tki jm €¥tn 
 
 ttifAK lAabofniU accoust of tf>^ . .f 
 
 t/K: t/MMipIl of Ai^tMiOf oyer A / 
 hi» teayte^ b u jl d ^ f a^d of t 
 aii pktMwl M the ^ ^ 
 tkat, the p at Mff 
 
 Of) Angttittia, wl». I wa» . wrtte, a»d for 
 
 WlMCbJMflMy> 
 
 At afl ««r<«t< 
 florfcaof: 
 Tbcv r 
 
 bat w'. 
 
 if tlie i€ifUvM f/i > ere the jjawie '/f Iroy, nr/w the 
 cU/tiny ' *'- ' ' .-..>.,, pj^jjig^ fwrendcr 
 of Cr;> yitU^me tettple of 
 Apollo, ar /f jvjaroeuui, Even to Mnali a 
 -" ^' • -' '-' ' -' ^'rnial 
 
 d or 
 
 (^K;tar»— 
 
 Atyf, fCMM wide Atij dtixere I..atioj ^ (v, '/Z). 
 
 Fttftlier detail wiJl rvot be needed. The poern could Itardly 
 c*rry more of thi« direct kind of iilutv/n Uj the Ewperor, 
 7>>ere ii m^x*: of it than the s»odern re^dtr — the w/O'LkXin 
 rt9dtr^<^t4 to ftmtmber. Yet there are critkt who go 
 further still in WMng Utr Augtiftuf in the poem. 
 
 " A'r*. (mm «lbM» ar« d >wr ad i i < due fji^m Mk." 
 
i66 VIRGIL 
 
 It is sometimes said that Aeneas is drawn from the 
 Emperor. Dunlop, cited by Sainte-Beuve, carries the 
 parallel into detail.^ Aeneas has a remarkable filial piety 
 for Anchises, as Augustus for Julius ; ^ he is compared to 
 Apollo, as Augustus loved to be ; ^ the descent of the 
 one into hell answers to the other's initiation into the 
 mysteries ; the war against Turnus, Latinus, and Amata, 
 reproduces that against Antony, his brother Lucius, and 
 Fulvia ; and Dido is Cleopatra herself. Turnus is Antony, 
 says Dunlop ; Achates is Agrippa ; Lavinia, Livia ; the 
 orator Drances (" oh ! ici je me revolte ") would be Cicero.* 
 " Non, non, encore une fois non, me crie de toutes ses 
 forces ma conscience poetique," cries Sainte-Beuve, and 
 every one with any poetic conscience at all will agree 
 with him. 
 
 But is there then no connexion between the characters of 
 Augustus and Aeneas ? An illustration (if one is needed) 
 from English literature may help us to a right point of view. 
 Browning was beset with questions by people who wished 
 to know if his poem T/ie Lost Leader referred to Wordsworth 
 — was Wordsworth the Lost Leader? In 1875 he wrote to 
 one of these correspondents the following explanation : " I 
 did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and 
 venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's 
 model ; one from which this or the other particular feature 
 may be selected and turned to account ; had I intended 
 more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire 
 man, I should not have talked about ' handfuls of silver and 
 bits of ribbon.' These never influenced the change of 
 politics in the great poet. . . . But just as in the tapestry on 
 my wall I can recognize figures which have struck out a fancy, 
 on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet 
 
 ^ Sainte-Beuve, Etude sur Virile, p. 63. Merivale, Hisl. of A'omans under '■■ 
 
 Empire, vol. v. ch. xli. pp. 107-8, traces a somewhat similar series of parallels, ' 
 
 though he owns that " the opinion that Augustus himself is specially represented J 
 
 by Aeneas cannot be admitted without great reservation" — e.g. Aeneas' omens ' 
 and tears and betrayal of Dido should be deducted. 
 
 * Cf. Monument of Ancyra, § 2 qui parentem ineuni interfeceru7it, eos inexilium 
 expidi itidiciis legitimis ultus eoru»i facinus. 1 
 
 ^ See Patin, La Poi'sie latine, i. p. 64 ; cf. Suetonius, Augustus 70. I 
 
 * I gather from Conington's edition that Dunlop is not alone here. 
 
AUGUSTUS 167 
 
 would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny 
 the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have 
 it considered as the ' very effigies ' of such a moral and 
 intellectual superiority," ^ 
 
 These words of Browning may fairly be applied to the 
 case of Aeneas and Augustus. Virgil was "turning to 
 account " many features which he admired in the character 
 of the Emperor, and the Emperor was " a sort of painter's 
 model," though we must not forget that after all the ideal 
 figure, in which Virgil has embodied so man)- borrowed 
 features, stands, as his ancestor, in a closer relation to the 
 model than the Lost Leader did to Wordsworth. If we go 
 beyond this we shall find it difficult to explain what ad- 
 vantage the Acneid has over a mere historical poem. A 
 creaking allegory, with a figure drawn from life in the very 
 middle of it, is not likely to have been Virgil's idea of an 
 epic. The poet draws the largest and most heroic figure he 
 can conceive, and even if in some of its traits it resembles 
 Augustus, it is more truly an ideal for the Emperor to 
 follow than a portrait of what he actually is. 
 
 A somewhat similar reply may be made to the critics who, 
 without adopting the theory of Dunlop in all its wooden- 
 ness, speak nevertheless as if the main purpose, or one of 
 the main purposes, of the Aeneid was to serve as a sort of 
 political pamphlet, " a vindication of monarchy," to quote 
 Dean Merivale.^ Olympus and Troy are monarchical ; all 
 the demi-gods and heroes have been kings. " Hence the 
 Romans may submit without dishonour to the sceptre " of 
 Augustus, who " has recovered the kingdom of his ancestors," 
 and whose " legitimate right may be traced to his illustrious 
 ancestors"; for by the extinction of the house of Ilus, "all 
 its rights and honours, its hopes and aspirations, have 
 reverted to the offspring of the cadet Assaracus." A French 
 critic, who is generally sounder, takes the same line — " Qui 
 dit monarchic, dit legitimite. Virgile allait offrir, dans 
 VAneide, les parchemins attestant la legitimite *de la maison 
 
 ^ The Cambridge edition of Browning, p. 164 (Houghton, MiflBin & Co., 
 Boston and New York). 
 
 * Merivale, 0/. cit., pp. 104-5, from whom I gather the phrases which follow. 
 
i68 VIRGIL 
 
 Julienne." ^ We may forgive M. Goumy for his epigram, 
 but both he and Dean Merivale seem here to have left poetr}^ 
 for prose of the most commonplace level. To begin, 
 Augustus was not king, and aimed at avoiding any appear- 
 ance of monarchy ; and though Virgil, as we have seen, had 
 no regrets for the old days of the republic, he understood 
 and shared Roman feeling too deeply to flaunt a thoroughly 
 un-Roman ideal. Aeneas is a king, but Augustus stands in 
 the line of Brutus, of Fabius Cunctator, of Scipio, a hero and 
 a saviour. Of course the Aeneid is full of personal rule — so 
 is the Iliad, which it professes to follow — but personal rule 
 is with Virgil a means and not an end. He has given us 
 again and again Augustus' title to rule — his fulfilment of 
 Rome's destiny and his embodiment of the great ideas of 
 the race. Aeneas' claim to Trojan loyalty is not his descent 
 so much as his nature. Descent as a title to sovereignty 
 was German and Oriental, and not Roman till Diocletian's 
 era.2 There is a vindication of Augustus, and a great one, 
 running through the Aeneid; but to suggest that this appeal 
 to ancestry and the monarchical Olympus is Virgil's 
 conception of a defence of his hero is to mistake the values 
 of things fundamentally, and to misrepresent the poet — and 
 perhaps the Emperor, and certainly the Roman people, who 
 were not to be won by such flimsy pleading. And, what is 
 more important, if such a presentment of monarchy was 
 politically futile, it was even more to be condemned from the 
 point of view of poetry. Poets, it is true, have written to 
 support all sorts of things — even to defend capital punish- 
 ment.^ But Virgil, as we have seen, had deliberately 
 rejected the project of writing an epic about Augustus, and 
 he would probably have felt that to inculcate " royalist " or 
 
 ^ Goumy, Lcs Latins, p. 200. One feels M. Goumy must have been thinking 
 of the Comte de Chambord and his cousins. Indeed English scholars have not 
 always been exempt from the charge of thinking about France and her revolutions 
 when they supposed they were writing ancient history. 
 
 * The "divine right of kings" has a Levitical ancestry, and owes a good deal 
 to the fact that it could be used against the papal theory that all kings derived 
 their power from the pope. See Trevelyan, Engla^id under the Stuai-is, p. 105. 
 
 3 Whether the political value of such poetry has been more or less trifling than 
 its poetical value, may be questioned. Did Horace do more to promote marriage 
 or Wordsworth to delay the Reform Bill ? 
 
AUGUSTUS 169 
 
 "legitimist" opinions in the course of the work he had 
 chosen would have been to go back to an idea which he had 
 rejected as unpoetical. Virgil put too serious a value on 
 poetry to care to spend his genius on a matter so essentially- 
 trivial and external. 
 
 Closely connected with this subject is another question. 
 What was the attitude of Virgil to the deification of 
 Augustus? In the first Eclogue he announces that Octavian 
 "will ever be a god for him," and that in his honour many 
 a lamb shall stain the altar with its blood. In the beginning 
 of the first Gcorgic he again speaks of Augustus' deity with 
 much disquisition on the various spheres in which he may 
 hereafter exercise his divine power. What does it all 
 meanpi 
 
 Far too much stress may be laid on these passages. In 
 the first place, the Eclogue is after all largely symbolic 
 throughout. Virgil was not Tityrus, or at most he was 
 only partially Tityrus; and, however appropriate or in- 
 appropriate the proposal to make a god of Octavian may 
 have been in the mouth of a herd and a freedman, there 
 is so much in the rest of the poem which is manifestly 
 absurd, if applied directly to Virgil, that it is wiser not to 
 take this passage as the indication of any feeling of Virgil's 
 other than gratitude. He was an Epicurean still, and even 
 if gratitude made him write frigid poetry, it could not rob 
 him of his sanity. As to the passage in the first Georgic^ 
 it should be compared with the rendering which Catullus 
 made of the Coma Berenices. The elaborate enumera- 
 tion of the realms of heaven, hell, and the sea, with all the 
 accompanying mythological ornament, is a mere piece of 
 Alexandrinism, and means absolutely nothing. Virgil had 
 before him the precedent of Lucretius invoking in Venus a 
 heavenly power in whom he did not believe, and the 
 Epicureanism, which he expresses later on in the book, once 
 more shows that he did not and could not believe in 
 Augustus' godhead. In fact the passage is an experiment, 
 
 ^ On deification see Plutarch's Life of Romulus 28 — a striking sentence at the 
 2nd of the discussion shows how philosophic minds could find it natural and 
 reasonable. 
 
 * See Sellar, Virgil, ch. iii. p. 217. 
 
I70 VIRGIL 
 
 which Virgil was content perhaps to have made, but which 
 he never repeated. Thereafter, when he praised Augustus, 
 it was for his real services to mankind, and his praise is 
 sincere and not unworthy of our respect. 
 
 Once in the A enet'al Virgil alludes to the deification of a 
 Caesar, but whether it is Julius or Augustus is disputed 
 (i. 286-90). He also compares Augustus to Bacchus and 
 to Hercules, both semi-divine conquerors who attained 
 heaven by services to mankind,^ but he does not picture 
 him, as Horace does, " drinking nectar with purple mouth" 
 in their company. The worship of the Emperor was no 
 doubt already prominent though not so much emphasized 
 by the government as it was a generation or two later. 
 It was Greek and Asiatic rather than Roman, more fitted 
 for the Ptolemies than the Julii. If Virgil could have been 
 questioned on his views on the matter, he might probably 
 have leant rather to some such doctrine as Cicero sets forth 
 in his Dream of Scipio — the future rewarding and glorifica- 
 tion in a higher and more divine region of all who have 
 served their country. Indeed, if we can draw any safe 
 inference from the vision granted to Aeneas in Hades, 
 Augustus stands on essentially the same footing, and is 
 subjected to the same conditions, as the other patriots 
 there revealed — within and not without the cycle of 
 recurrent life. But as a rule Augustus' glories are of this 
 world, and the poet looks more to his power to benefit 
 mankind by his human activity than to any shadowy 
 apotheosis. 
 
 To sum up ; Virgil was drawn to Augustus by personal 
 affection, by admiration for his character, and by belief in 
 
 ^ Julian the apostate flattered himself that he was of the order of Dionysos 
 and Herakles. I do not now go so far as Vollert in construing this as a claim 
 laid to actual deity. The whole question of the deification of a living emperor, 
 or the incarnation in Julian or Augustus of some divine being, is bound up, I now 
 see, with the Daemon theory, as set forth by Plutarch and Apuleius. In view 
 of the current belief in daemons, scarcely distinguishable from men's souls except 
 that the latter for the moment are possessed of bodies, it is quite easy to see how 
 even a reasonable man could believe an emperor to be an incarnation of some- 
 thing divine. I may perhaps be allowed to refer the reader to The Conflict 0/ 
 Religions in the Early Eoman Empire, where daemons are discussed at some 
 length. 
 
AUGUSTUS 171 
 
 his power and his will to save Italy and the Empire. In 
 his earlier works he used expressions and methods, untrue 
 and unpoetical, which he subsequently discarded. If the 
 introduction of Augustus into the Acneid must be conceded 
 to be a failure to achieve the highest poetic truth, it was 
 at least prompted b\' honest motives, and the attention of 
 the reader is uniformly called to the really valid and sound 
 features of the Emperor's work and character. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INTERPRETATION OF LIFE.— 1. DIDO 
 
 Strong and fierce in the heart, Dear, 
 
 With — more than a will — what seems a power 
 
 To pounce on my prey, love outbroke here 
 In flame devouring and to devour. 
 
 Such love has laboured its best and worst 
 
 To win 7Tie a lover ; yet, last as first, 
 
 I have not quickened his pulse one beat, 
 
 Fixed a moment's fancy, bitter or sweet : 
 
 Yet the strong fierce heart's love's labour's due, 
 
 Utterly lost, was — you ! — Browning, 
 
 OVID tells us that no part of the Aeneid was so 
 popular as the episode of Dido.^ Though he makes 
 this statement in self-defence we may well believe 
 him in view of the abiding attraction of the story. Macrobius 
 says that for centuries painters, sculptors, and workers in 
 embroidery had turned to Dido, as if it were the only subject 
 in which beauty was to be found, while the very actors 
 had never ceased to tell her sorrows in dance and song.^ 
 Augustine himself confesses that he wept to read of Dido 
 and "how she slew herself for love," and he links her story 
 with ipsms umbra Creusae^ And to-day there are still those 
 who maintain that "what touch of human interest the Aeneid 
 can claim it gains from the romance of Dido." * That Dido 
 has ruined the character of Aeneas with nine-tenths of his 
 readers is the admission of one of Virgil's most sympathetic 
 critics, who proceeds to ask the pertinent question whether 
 the poet failed to see what his readers have seen, and 
 why, if he saw it, he used the story as he did.^ Some 
 
 ^ Ovid, Trisiia, ii. 533. 
 
 - Macrobius, Sat. v. 17. 5-6 tanqiiam tinico arfftiviento decoris. 
 
 ^ Augustine, Coaf. i. 13. 21. 
 
 * Bernard Bosanquet, History of Aestheik, p. 88. 
 
 * J. R. Green, Stray Studies : the essay on Aeneas is one of the best treat- 
 
 172 
 
DIDO 173 
 
 explanation is necessary if we are to understand the Aeneid 
 as a whole. 
 
 I 
 
 We need not here discuss at lenj^th the possibility of 
 Dido being another name for the goddess known in other 
 lands as Ashtoreth, Semiramis, and Aphrodite, though this 
 identification would give us an attractive explanation of 
 the original connexion of the names of Dido and Aeneas. 
 It is enough at present to refer to the lost Punic War of 
 the old Roman poet Naevius, a work " as delightful as 
 Myro's sculpture." ^ It had appealed to Ennius, it charmed 
 Cicero, and Virgil borrowed from it. So at least Macrobius 
 tells us. " In the beginning of the Aeneid a tempest is 
 described ; Venus complains to Jove of the perils of her 
 son, and is assured of the prosperity of his future. This 
 whole passage is taken from Naevius — from the first book 
 of the Punic War." ^ It is generally conjectured that the 
 poem went on to tell of the meeting of Dido and Aeneas 
 and of the queen's unhappy love. 
 
 If this be so, we have no longer to explain how Virgil 
 came to introduce Carthage and Dido into his story, for 
 they were in the story already. The question is rather 
 why he retained the episode, for it was not unchallenged. 
 TertuUian, the most brilliant of early Christian writers, 
 was a Carthaginian, and three times over he alludes to 
 Dido having preferred the pyre to marriage.^ Macrobius 
 says that everybody {iiniversitas) knew the tale to be 
 false ; it was well known that Dido laid hands on herself 
 to save her fair name — though, he adds, every one prefers 
 the version of Virgil. The interpolator of Servius adds 
 something more disconcerting still. He quotes Varro to 
 
 nients of the character I have seen. I quote his pages from the first edition, 
 1876. Ci. also Warde Fowler, Religious Experience of (he Roman People 
 (1911) p. 416. "If for us the character of Aeneas suffers by his desertion of 
 Dido, that is simply because the poet, seized with intense pity for the injured 
 queen, seems for once, like bis own hero, to have forgotton his mission in 
 the poem." 
 
 ^ Cicero, Brutus, 19. 75 belluin Punicuiii quasi Myronis opus delcctat. 
 
 * Macrobius, Saturnalia, vi. 2. 31. 
 
 * Apology 50 ; ad tiiartyras 4 ; ad Nat t, i. 18. 
 
174 VIRGIL 
 
 the effect that it was Anna, and not Dido, who immolated 
 herself for love of Aeneas.^ And in the generation after 
 Virgil, Velleius Paterculus wrote that " sixty-five years 
 before Rome was founded, the Tyrian Elissa, whom some 
 people call Dido, founded Carthage." ^ Thus here as else- 
 where Virgil had considerable freedom of choice as to the 
 turn he might prefer to give to the legend. 
 
 If the conjecture as to Naevius be right, the tale of 
 Dido and Aeneas formed in his poem a background to 
 the Punic war. But with Virgil it is the other way ; the 
 historical is the background of the legendary. He finds 
 legend and history already linked, and he accepts them 
 in their existing connexion, but he brings them into far 
 closer contact. Dido and Aeneas formed a mere episode 
 in the poem of Naevius. The Punic war is no episode 
 at all in the Aeneid, and yet it underlies the whole narrative 
 of the meeting and parting of the founder of Rome and 
 the foundress of Carthage. We are not explicitly told of it, 
 but we feel again and again, tingling and burning through 
 our tale of love and hate, memories of the conflict of the 
 two nations. If the Aeneid was to be the epic of the 
 Roman people, as the Romans recognized it to be, that 
 great struggle could not be forgotten. From the very 
 beginning, and before the beginning, Carthage was the 
 enemy of Rome, and the simple Annals of Naevius gave 
 Virgil his opportunity for a more splendid and imaginative 
 treatment of that rivalry, on the issue to which had turned 
 the destiny of his people. 
 
 For it is in virtue of the imaginative element that the 
 old fable rises into poetry. Without it, however quaint it 
 
 1 Ileinze, Virgils epische Technik, p. 113, n. i, suggests that it may be merely 
 a conjecture of Varro's to reconcile the discrepant stories of Dido. 
 
 * Macr. Sat. v. 16. 6 ; Servius, ad Aen. iv. 682 ; Veil. Pat. i. 6. The cool 
 phrase quam quidam Dido autumant may explain the remarkable judgement of 
 Velleius, who coupled Virgil with Rabirius, the author of a historical poem on the 
 downfall of Antony. Ovid, ex Ponto iv. 16, 5, calls him magni Rabirius oris; 
 and Quintilian x. i. 90 classes him with Pedo as non indigni cogjiitione, si vacet 
 — a discouraging qualification. It is thought that some 67 hexameters on the 
 Egyptian war, found in a papyrus roll at Herculaneum, may belong to the epic 
 of Rabirius — they are the work of " a moderately gifted poet." Schanz, Rom. 
 Lit. § 316. 
 
DIDO 175 
 
 might be, it would be foolish, an impertinence in a serious 
 work. But the poet transforms his hero and heroine into 
 representatives, each embodying and expressing the genius 
 of a race. The Punic wars are now no longer the result of 
 hatred accidentall)' produced, but the inevitable outcome 
 of the clash of two national tempers. Historically, Rome 
 and Carthage fought for Sicily and the command of the 
 sea— a struggle of greed with greed, some might say, but 
 that is an inadequate way of judging history. Rather it 
 is that the nations, seeking the realization and fulfilment 
 of the life within them, came into conflict inevitably,^ and 
 brought into it so many armies and fleets, no doubt, but 
 also ideas and principles. Providence, we have heard, is on 
 the side of the biggest battalions, and perhaps it is true; 
 for the biggest battalions naturally gravitate to the side of 
 the larger ideals. In the Punic wars these were unques- 
 tionably on the Roman side. Two great types of national 
 thinking are in conflict — the Oriental and the Western 
 character meet, and bring with them all that they imply, 
 ideals of state and government, of citizenship, of law and 
 thought. And when Virgil draws us Aeneas and Dido he 
 gives us back this identical conflict. 
 
 But beside the main issue there enter into every great 
 struggle other issues, which complicate it and make decision 
 difficult, and men from right motives take the wrong side. 
 It is this confusion of issues that lies at the heart of all 
 Tragedy, — the conflict of good with good, the division of the 
 spirit against itself^ Put the question as directly as man 
 can, the answer will never be a plain Yes or No. But if the 
 case is brought before us, not on the large and more 
 nearly abstract scale, where nations are involved, but on a 
 smaller stage, where the representatives of the ideas in 
 conflict are individual men and women ; if the principles 
 they maintain are entangled in all the reactions of personality 
 upon personality, and we have to hold firmly to the thread, 
 
 * This adverb is open to criticism, but I think the conflict of Rome and 
 Carthage, in view of the position of things in the Mediterranean and the 
 commercial theories of the age, was inevitable. 
 
 * See Mr A. C. Bradley on Hegel's ibeury of Tragedy, in his Oxford Lectures 
 on Poetry, an essay to which I owe a great deal. 
 
176 VIRGIL 
 
 which study of the final issue alone can give us, and to 
 disregard for the while every appeal of sympathy and 
 instinct, the task of judgement is immeasurably more 
 difficult. 
 
 For us to-day the issue between Carthage and Rome is 
 so far away as to be relatively simple. If the poet chose 
 to present it to us in a purely symbolic form, we might 
 decide it easily, but we might not be greatly interested in 
 it. If Dido and Aeneas were merely figures in an allegory, 
 probably no one would ever have wept over Dido 
 
 extinctam ferroque extrema secutam. ^ 
 
 "Abstract Ideas," says Carlyle, "however they may put on 
 fleshly garments, are a class of character whom we cannot 
 sympathize with or delight in." ^ We must have flesh and 
 blood if we are to be moved as well as interested. Let hero 
 and heroine represent types of national character, but they 
 must still be individual, personal, human. Then the poet 
 will touch us indeed, for in the persons of two creatures of 
 our own nature he will let us see the same sort of warfare as 
 too often occupies ourselves to this day, dividing brother 
 from brother, and wrenching the same heart asunder, as love 
 and duty pull different ways. If there is anything gained 
 by using more technical language, the poet must show us the 
 universal in the particular. 
 
 Virgil took his theme from Naevius, if we are right in 
 following conjecture. But in all probability his treatment 
 of it was very different, for he had other models beside the 
 old annalist. He had before him the tragic poets of the 
 great age of Greece, and the Alexandrines, his own earlier 
 allegiance, — in particular Euripides and ApoUonius, both of 
 whom it is clear that he studied with care and affection. 
 Greek tragedy had delighted to show the conflict of character 
 with character, and from the first had depicted with 
 sympathy the play of passion and principle upon feminine 
 nature. But when we come to Euripides we find that a 
 great many of his plays deal with woman primarily, and only 
 secondarily with man. Hecuba, Andromache, and Alcestis 
 
 1 See p. 56, n. 4. 2 E^say on Werner. 
 
DIDO 177 
 
 are pictures of woman as wife and mother, but the poet did 
 not stop there. In Phaedra an altogether new note in 
 poetry is struck, for one of the main motives of the Hippolytus 
 is the struggle of the heroine to resist passion. Love has 
 been added to the domain of poetry, never to be lost again. 
 Euripides was essentially a pioneer ; and those who followed 
 him into this region were many, especially when, by the 
 Macedonian conquest of the world, the thoughts of men were 
 turned from the state to the individual. 
 
 The love-tale in one form or other is one of the main 
 constituents of Alexandrine poetry, sometimes overlaid 
 with masses of irrelevant learning and cleverness, some- 
 times, though less often, clear of all irrelevance, strong, 
 direct, and true, as in Theocritus' Simaetha.^ From 
 Euripides and the Alexandrines the love motive found its 
 way into Latin poetry, and in Virgil's day it had perhaps 
 more vogue than ever before or after in the history of Latin 
 literature. 
 
 Parthenius, for example, the teacher of Virgil, made a 
 handbook of love-tales for another pupil, Gallus ; and 
 however little or much influence Parthenius may have had 
 on Virgil, Virgil was closely connected with Gallus and read 
 his poetry, if indeed the two young poets had not for a while 
 a sort of literary partnership.^ He also steeped himself in 
 Catullus, whose story of Ariadne deserted by Theseus, and 
 whose Attis he must have read with care. Ovid's Letters of 
 the Heroines published perhaps a few years after Virgil's 
 death, are an indication of the taste of the period before and 
 after their appearance, a proof of the absorbing interest in 
 pictures of passion, 
 
 Virgil was too closely in touch with the great literature of 
 the past and with the life of his time not to feel the attrac- 
 tion of this particular study of human nature. It was 
 essentially cognate to his peculiar gift of tenderness and 
 sympathy, and we can almost trace the growth of his interest 
 
 ^ Erwin Rohde in his book, Dcr ip-iechischc Roman, has given a comprehen- 
 sive and minute survey of the Alexandrine literature concerned with love. 
 See Part i. 
 
 * See the interesting essay of Mr J. W. Mackail on the Virgilian circle in his 
 Lectures on Poetry. 
 
178 VIRGIL 
 
 in it. But perhaps nowhere can the sanity of Virgil's genius 
 be more clearly remarked than here. Nothing will seduce 
 him from the universal. The peculiar, the exaggerated, 
 the pathological case alike repel him. The unbalanced and 
 abnormal mind shocks and disgusts him, and he will not 
 waste his mind upon it. He may use it at times as a foil, 
 but no words are needed to show his entire acceptance of 
 the words of Catullus at the end of the Attis — 
 
 Procul a mea tuos sit furor omnis, era, domo ; 
 alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos.^ 
 
 Every line he writes is a tacit protest. 
 
 The lovers in the Eclogues are delightful and amiable 
 young men, but we hardly think that they are really very 
 much in love. When we come to the story of Orpheus we 
 are tempted to believe that we have a more serious record of 
 human experience, and yet a closer study of metre and 
 language raises a doubt, which it is hard to lay. All is so 
 stately, so musical, so picturesque. Take the very central 
 words of the story, Eurydice's farewell — 
 
 Ilia " quis et me " inquit " miseram et te perdidit, Orpheu, 
 quis tantus furor } en iterum crudelia retro 
 fata vocant, conditque natantia lumina somnus. 
 lamque vale : feror ingenti circumdata nocte 
 invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas " ^ 
 
 {G. iv.494). 
 
 The passage is beautiful, but does not its structure suggest 
 meditation rather than emotion, painting rather than expe- 
 rience ? The first sentence with its double quis and its 
 tantiis\ the third with its rare and sleepy rhythm, far more 
 effectively used elsewhere to describe in the third person 
 sleep overcoming Palinurus ; ^ are they not a little studied ? 
 But the last sentence is surely conclusive. Five thoughts 
 clustering about one verb, and above all the parenthesis heu 
 non tua, speak only too clearly of the distance between 
 
 1 "Far from my house by all thy madness, goddess ; others drive thou head- 
 long, other drive in frenzy." 
 
 2 For translation see p. 38. 
 
 ^ A.v. 856 ciinct antique natantia liimina solvit. 
 
DIDO 179 
 
 utterance and realization. Emotion does not express 
 itself in periods so involved, least of all in the moment 
 of suffering. 
 
 Do you see this ? Look on her, look, her lips, 
 Look there, look there ! 
 
 So cries the dying Lear. There is a moving simplicity 
 in those lines of quiet despair which Catullus wrote at his 
 brother's grave, in such passages as the address of Mezentius 
 to his horse ^ and his dying request to Aeneas,^ which speaks 
 straight from the heart to the heart. The sentences are 
 short, direct, and rapid ; they do not suggest skill ; but they 
 throb with feeling and truth. 
 
 In short, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is not a 
 genuine transcript of passion, nor an imaginative present- 
 ment of it.^ It is more like a masque of the Triumph of Music. 
 Its nearest analogue is the Ariadne of Catullus, which also is 
 somewhat disconnectedly set in the middle of another poem. 
 But when we reach Dido we come into touch with the most 
 serious mind of the poet. Here is real passion, drawn with all 
 the power and truth that the poet could put into his work. 
 
 II 
 
 One preliminary question has to be asked before we 
 begin to study the tragedy of Dido, for here, as in the 
 Hippolytus, we have a prologue, but a more difficult one. 
 Whatever we make of Aphrodite in the play of Euripides, 
 whether we suppose the poet to be directing a covert and 
 ingenious attack on the Olympian gods,* or hold that he 
 is figuring "a force of Nature or a Spirit working in the 
 
 ^ A, X. 861 Rhaebe, din, res si qua diu viortalibiis tilla est, \ vixiiinis, 
 
 * A. X. 900-6. 
 
 ^ After eight or ten years I let the passage stand as I wrote it, but while I do 
 so, I should like to suggest that what my words might seem to deny is also true — 
 that with the art there is still feeling in the passage of the fourth Georgic. None 
 the less the fourth Aeneid stands on a far higher plane of truth to feeling. 
 
 * "Serait-il temeraire de pretendre qu'Euripide, qui, tout en usant, comma 
 poete, des croyances de sa patrie et de son temps, ne s'interdisait pas de 
 t^moigner qu'elles repugnaient a sa raison, a voulu, lorsqu'il les a ainsi 
 presentees aux regards dans toute leur nudit^, protester indirectement contre 
 elles ? " Patin, Eun'pide, i. p. 44. 
 
i8o VIRGIL 
 
 world," 1 a fact real enough, however hateful — whatever 
 our conclusion about her, the language and the purpose 
 of the goddess are alike clear. She announces her intention 
 to punish Hippolytus for his neglect of her, and to use 
 Phaedra as her instrument. She quite well realizes that 
 this will mean Phaedra's undoing, but she does not care.^ 
 
 Seeing he hath offended, I this day- 
 Shall smite Hippolytus . . . 
 And she, not in dishonour, yet shall die. 
 I would not rate this woman's pain so high 
 As not to pay mine haters in full fee 
 That vengeance that shall make all well with me. 
 
 Virgil's prologue, if the word may be used, is in two 
 parts. We have in the first book the interview of Venus 
 and Cupid, and the later dialogue of Venus and Juno in 
 the fourth book. 
 
 As a result of Juno's storm, Aeneas has been driven 
 ashore close to the town, which of all places was to be 
 most hostile to him and his race. His mother in alarm 
 intercedes with Jupiter, and Mercury is sent to soften the 
 hearts of the Carthaginians — especially the queen's — 
 towards the newcomers.^ Accordingly when Dido and 
 Aeneas meet, it is in perfect amity and courtesy. But 
 Venus is not yet at ease. She does not like the double- 
 tongued Tyrians ; and the thought comes to her again 
 and again that her son is in the very stronghold of the 
 foe, and practically at the mercy of Juno. She resolves 
 to storm the enemy's citadel, and to detach Dido from the 
 schemes and influence of her patron-goddess by making 
 her fall in love with Aeneas. Then, at least. Dido will 
 do him no harm, and he will come away safely. Dido's 
 fame or feelings she does not consider. She is only afraid 
 
 ^ Mr Murray in notes to his translation, which I quote in the text. 
 
 2 "A 5' els ifi' i]/j.dpTrjKe, rifjuopriao/JLaL 
 'iTTTroKvTov iv rfid' yj/xepa' (2l) 
 
 fj 5' €VK\er]s p.€v, dXX' S/j-ws dfrdWvTai, 
 ^aidpa- TO yap rrjad' oii irpoTL^rjffU} ko-kov 
 rb pLT] oi) irapacrxe^v Toi/s e/xoi/s ixdpovs e/xol 
 diariv TOffavTTiv u(Jt' €/jloI koKGis ix^iv (47-50). 
 
 3 A. i. 297. 
 
DIDO i8i 
 
 of treachery, and, once secure against that, she thinks nc 
 more of Dido than Aphrodite does of Phaedra in the 
 Hippolytus. Whether she means that the passion, which 
 she intends to wake, should culminate as it does, or remain 
 concealed, as Phaedra would have kept hers, Venus does 
 not say, nor, very probably, does she greatly care.^ 
 
 When we next overhear the discussions of the gods 
 things have advanced materially.^ Venus has successfully 
 out-manceuvred Juno, and Juno has realized it and is now 
 concerned to make the most of the present position. She 
 scornfully congratulates Venus on trapping Dido — she 
 understands the motive perfectly — but how long is the 
 struggle between them to continue ? why not end it by 
 marrying their favourites ? Venus instantly sees the design 
 — if Aeneas cannot be destroyed by storm at sea or by 
 Tyrian ashore, he can be kept an unconscious prisoner 
 at Carthage, and Rome will not be founded. Accordingly 
 she answers Juno in the most conciliatory way. Who 
 would wish to engage in a quarrel with the queen of 
 Jove .'' She herself is not quite sure, she hints, whether 
 destiny will permit the fusion of Trojans and Tyrians in 
 one city — but Jove's wife should be able to learn this 
 from Jove. Juno, in reply, undertakes to do all that is 
 needed. She will manage the union of Dido and Aeneas, 
 and, if Venus agrees, it shall be marriage. Venus says 
 no more. She only laughs, for she knows the intentions 
 of destiny better than Juno does, and she sees that her 
 enemy's new move will be ineffectual. There will be no 
 marriage, nothing but a temporary union, to be ended 
 in due time, Rome is secure and Juno is outwitted. 
 
 This then is the " prologue." The whole question of the 
 part and place of the gods in the Aeneid must for the present 
 be reserved. But it should be noted that here, as in the 
 Hippolytus, the intervention of Venus effects nothing that 
 could not have occurred independently of it. " It is to the 
 heart of man that the dramatic struggle is transported ; the 
 actors are our faculties themselves ; the subject of the piece 
 is that inward war of sensibility and reason, old as our 
 
 ^ A. i. 657-694. * A. iv. 90, f. 
 
1 82 VIRGIL 
 
 nature, and as eternal." So writes M. Patin of the dramas 
 of Euripides,! and it is true of Virgil's tragedy. 
 
 'Hi/ ov/uo? viog KaX\o9 eKTrperrecTTaTO?, 
 6 cro? c)' iSoov VLV vov^ eTron'iOr] IvvTvpi?, 
 
 said Hecuba to Helen.^ Could not Venus say the same^ 
 and say it justly, to Dido? If Aeneas was not beautiful as 
 Paris was, he had his appeal to Dido's heart, and that heart, 
 confronted by that appeal, was Venus enough. In fact, the 
 parallel with the Hippolytus holds, and we may for the 
 purposes of our present study disregard the action of the 
 gods, without deciding at once whether or not they are after 
 all mere epic machinery. Here, as throughout the Aeneid, 
 they really contribute little but their names to forces already 
 at work. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In studying this tragedy of Aeneas and Dido, the first 
 thing to be done is to realize Virgil's conception of the 
 central figure, and this is of course Dido. She is at once 
 a woman and a queen, a woman in the large and ample 
 sense, in instinct, feeling, and sympathy, and a queen in her 
 ideas and her achievements. 
 
 Dido is a woman. Calypso in Homer is a goddess. 
 Medea in Apollonius is a girl, even if a magician and a 
 princess.^ Catullus' Ariadne is little more than a child. 
 Dido has been a wife and is a widow. 
 
 She has a woman's eye for the stature and the carriage of :j 
 
 the hero * — 
 
 quem sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et armis {A. iv. 1 1). 
 
 ^ Eschyle, p. 47. 
 ^ Troades, 9S7 — 
 
 " My son was passing beautiful, beyond 
 His peers ; and thine own heart, that saw and conned 
 His face, became a spirit enchanting thee " (Murray). 
 ^ On Medea, see Girard, Etudes sur la poisie grecque, p. 331, who calls 
 attention to the startling contrasts in her character as presented by Apollonius ; 
 Sainte-Beuve, De la Mt'd^e d^Ap. in Rev. des deux Mondes, 1845, vol. xi. 
 
 * ' ' What a face and carriage ! what strength of breast and shoulders " 
 (Conington). For the appeal of physical beauty a parallel may be quoted in the 
 case of Euryalus — gratior et pitlchro venietts in corpofe virtus {A. v. 344). 
 
DIDO 183 
 
 For Aeneas, we are told, is like a god in countenance and 
 shoulders, 
 
 OS humerosque deo similis (A. i. 589). 
 
 When Charon takes Aeneas into his craft, the size of the 
 hero is emphasized in contrast to the craziness of the boat 
 (A. vi. 413). But more striking is an allusion in the tenth 
 book. It is a battle-scene. Aeneas pursues a foe, who 
 stumbles in his flight. One moment of consciousness is 
 left him, and he realizes a great shadow falling across him, 
 and instantly he dies by the hand of Aeneas.^ 
 
 Perhaps in this connexion it may be permissible to find 
 a feminine trait in Dido's pleasure in the gifts which Aeneas 
 brings her — the mantle of gold embroidery, the veil, the 
 beaded necklace, and the circlet of gold, 
 
 .Dido has imagination. She can understand this great, 
 tall, and rather melancholy hero better than many of his 
 readers have done. 
 
 My story being done, 
 She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 
 She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd. 
 
 To this Dido was helped by her own story. 
 
 Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco ^ (A. i. 630). 
 
 For, in many particulars, the experience of both has been 
 the same. She has left a lost husband, as he a lost wife, in 
 a native land never to be seen again. She has been " tossed 
 by the fates," and the wars of Africa, 
 
 terra triumphis 
 dives (A. iv. t,";), 
 
 * Quern C07igressus agit campo, lapsumque superstans 
 
 immolat, ingentique umbra tegit {A. x. 540). 
 
 The Times reviewer (16 December 1904) suggests that this is letting "literary 
 instinct take the bit in its teeth," adding that "such over-subtle interpretation 
 as this is to be deprecated with any great artist." He may very well be right, 
 but I leave the passage and quote the criticism — not the only one which I have 
 found of value to me in the review — and suggest that the reader decides the 
 point for himself. 
 
 ^ " Full well I know evil and learn to succour the unhappy." 
 
1 84 VIRGIL 
 
 have taught her what the long Trojan war meant. She too 
 has sought a city. She has ruled, and she knows instinctively 
 the ruler of men. 
 
 She loves children. If she takes Ascanius to her heart, 
 taken by his likeness to his father — 
 
 genitoris imagine capta (A. iv. 84), 
 
 it is hardly too much to say that the child helped to win 
 her for the father. The elaborate substitution of Cupid is 
 really needless. Even before the god in disguise begins 
 his work we are told that she is moved alike by the child 
 and by the gifts — 
 
 pariter puero donisque movetur {A. i. 714). 
 
 She watches the boy with eyes and heart open, and takes 
 him to her bosom — 
 
 Haec oculis, haec pectore toto 
 haeret et interdum gremio fovet {A. i. 717). 
 
 But she is herself childless, and she feels it. When she 
 learns of the Trojan preparations to sail, and challenges 
 Aeneas with them, before his coldness wakes her rage, the 
 last cry from her heart is that of the childless woman. Had 
 she only a little Aeneas to play in her hall, to recall his 
 look ! Aeneas has a child, she has none.^ 
 
 Saltem siqua mihi de te suscepta fuisset 
 
 ante fugam suboles, si quis mihi parvulus aula 
 
 luderet Aeneas, qui te tamen ore referret 
 
 non equidem omnino capta ac deserta viderer^ (A. iv. 327). 
 
 She is childless and a widow — and what a story she has 
 to remember ! It is the marring of her life. In the back- 
 
 ^ Queen Elizabeth is reported to have exclaimed, on hearing of the birth of the 
 child, afterwards James I : " The Queen of Scots is the mother of a fair son, and 
 I am a barren stock." The diminutive parvulus should be remarked. It is, I 
 think, the only one in Virgil's works — the only deliberate diminutive, in which 
 the form has its force ; and it is very significant. 
 
 ^ "Had I but borne any offspring of you before your flight, were there but 
 some tiny Aeneas to play in my hall, and remind me of you, though but in look, 
 I should not then feel utterly captive and forlorn " (Conington). 
 
DIDO 185 
 
 ground of all her thoughts is the murder of her husband, 
 Sychaeus, by Pygmalion, her brother. Heedless of her 
 love in his greed of power and gold, he made his sister a 
 widow. This may have been the legend, but the poet 
 divined what it meant to a sensitive being — the crushing 
 of natural instincts ; a wound dealt to the spirit, where it 
 would be most felt ; the killing of human love. Virgil's 
 methods are not Hawthorne's, or he might have analysed 
 the effects of such a blow upon character and nature, in 
 the disordering of the natural courses of feeling, the 
 accentuation of tendencies to extravagance and hysteria, 
 the pathological susceptibility to be overcome by passion 
 and emotion. These features of her disposition are not 
 set out and catalogued, but they are there, and they make 
 themselves felt in the progress of the story. 
 
 Dido is a queen, and a great queen. Without going into 
 the ancient history of the word, the Romans of Virgil's 
 day had learnt in Egypt the meaning of regina?- It has 
 been suggested that Dido has been drawn from Cleopatra, 
 but this is absurd, though Virgil may well have borrowed 
 suggestion. He is not writing a historical epic, and he 
 looks beyond the actual. Still, Cleopatra had revealed one 
 side of feminine nature to the Romans, which, in spite of 
 Clytaemnestra, antiquity had not known. Medea in Euri- 
 pides is an injured and angry wife ; Deianira is injured 
 and forgiving. In Phaedra the queen, a queen-consort at 
 most, is sunk in the woman. Ariadne is a forsaken girl. 
 But Dido is a queen and always a queen. Her greatness 
 and her fall hang together. The key-note is to be caught 
 throughout — 
 
 dux femina facti ^ {^A. i. 364). 
 
 Her magnificence is a queen's — 
 
 urbem quam statuo vestra est^ {A. i. 573). 
 
 The dowry she brings to Aeneas is a people, an empire ; 
 
 * A. viii. 696 regina in mediis patrio vocat agviina sistro ; Horace, Odes, 
 i. 37. 
 
 * The Englishman in Elizabeth's reign saw the meaning of this phrase. 
 ^ "The city I found — is yours." 
 
1 86 VIRGIL 
 
 the sneer may be Juno's, the generous act is Dido's.^ And 
 when she dies, she dies a queen and the founder of a 
 nation ; ^ and in Hades itself she retains her queenly 
 dignity.^ 
 
 IV 
 
 One of the most obviously impossible things to explain is 
 why any two people fall in love with each other ; and even 
 if in the case of Dido and Aeneas we refer to the plotting of 
 rival goddesses we are not much enlightened. Dido's love 
 began in sympathy for one whose lot had been so like her 
 own. It was helped forward by her fondness for his child. 
 His story, we are told and we can well believe it, was not 
 without its effect ; and in the imperceptible way in which 
 these things happen the queen fell in love with her guest. 
 
 From the first we can see it will go ill with her. 
 Despite their splendour and charm, those gifts, which 
 Aeneas has brought from the ships, are not all of happy 
 omen. The robe of stiff gold embroidery and the veil had 
 been Leda's once, and then Helen's — 
 
 Ornatus Argivae Helenae, quos ilia Mycenis 
 Pergama cum peteret inconcessosque hymenaeos 
 extulerat^ {A. i. 650). 
 
 Their story was not a good one. They came from a 
 family of bad women.^ They had already seen broken 
 wedlock and all the ruin and suffering it brought. The 
 later gift of the sword was scarcely happier.^ 
 
 ^ A. iv. loi — 
 
 Communem htinc ergo popuhim paribusque regainus 
 auspiciis ; liceat Phrygio so-vire marito 
 dotalisque time Tyrios po-miiiere dextrae. 
 2 A. iv. 653— 
 
 Vixi et quern dederat cur sum fortuna peregi, 
 et nu7ic magna niei sub terras ibit imago : 
 urbem praeclaram siattii, mea moenia vidi. 
 ' A. vi. 450-474. 
 
 * " Adornments of Argive Helen, which she carried away from Mycenae, when 
 she went to Troy and to her unblest bridal." 
 
 ^ Cf. Dr. Verrall's note on Agamemnon's address to Clytaemnestra (Helen's 
 sister) beginning Aij'Sas yive9\op, Aesch. Ag. 914. 
 
 * A. iv. 647. The still surviving superstition on giving knives may be 
 compared — " knives," we are told, " cut love." 
 
DIDO 187 
 
 Dido's love, moreover, has from the first the promise 
 of misery in itself It is too fierce and passionate, over- 
 mastering her like the madness of Attis. She can know 
 no rest, for the new passion is battling with an old pre- 
 possession. 
 
 She complains to her sister Anna that she is haunted 
 by dreams. Dr Henry suggests that they are visions of her 
 husband Sychaeus, in view of Anna's pointed allusion to the 
 Manes of the dead.^ It will be remembered that dreams of 
 Sychaeus had influenced her before in her flight from Tyre.^ 
 
 She has bad dreams, and yet — who is this strange guest ? 
 What a man he is ! What a countenance he has and what 
 a frame ! No doubt, a child of gods. And what a life he 
 has lived ! All this hints at passion, and the hint is 
 immediately confirmed by her reference to her long-fixed 
 resolve never again to marry. But for that, she *' might 
 have yielded to this one reproach. Anna — for I will own 
 the truth — since the fate of Sychaeus, my hapless husband, 
 he and he alone has touched my heart, and shaken my 
 resolve till it totters. I recognize the traces of the flame 
 I knew of old." The truth is out, and she realizes that 
 there has been a weakening in her purpose. And here 
 the poet is true to experience, for she instantly fortifies 
 her wavering resolution with a curse, an appeal to her 
 honour {pudor), and an invocation of her old love — and 
 bursts into tears. 
 
 It is now that Anna comes into the story. The sister 
 of the heroine is a familiar figure in Greek tragedy. 
 Ismene, in the play of Sophocles, takes a lower and less 
 reflective view of duty than Antigone, and is quite unable 
 to grasp what it is that moves her sister to action. So 
 here Anna represents a more commonplace type of mind. 
 She is shrewd enough. Probably long before Dido got 
 so far as Anna fatebor enim Anna had summed up the 
 situation, and by the time the curse and the tears ended 
 the speech she knew quite well what her own line would 
 be. Anna is a woman of the common-sense school, not 
 at all of an imaginative habit. To prove this, it is only 
 ^ Henry, Aeneidea, ii. p. 558, on A. iv. 9. * A. i. 353. 
 
1 88 VIRGIL 
 
 necessary to anticipate by a little the moment when Dido 
 has resolved to kill herself. Of such an outcome Anna 
 never dreams for an instant — 
 
 nee tantos mente furores 
 concipit aut graviora timet quam morte Sychaei (iv. 501). 
 
 " I think," wrote Fox, " the coarsest thing in the whole 
 book (not, indeed, in point of indecency, but in want of 
 sentiment) is verse 502. She thought she would take it as 
 she did the last time is surely vulgar and coarse to the last 
 degree." ^ Dr Henry warmly apostrophizes " Mr Fox " in 
 an almost Montanist outburst upon second marriages in 
 general, and ardently repels the suggestion that Virgil is 
 coarse or deficient in sentiment. But whether Fox imagined 
 or not that the view which he condemned as coarse was 
 Virgil's own, the criticism is entirely just, if it is directed 
 upon Anna. It is Anna's view, and it is " coarse " and 
 " wanting in sentiment." But it is hardly more so than her 
 first speech to Dido on the subject of her new passion. 
 
 It is a most significant utterance. Why, she asks, should 
 Dido forgo the pleasures of husband and children ? She 
 has remained unmarried so far out of loyalty to Sychaeus. 
 
 Id cinerem aut manes credis curare sepultos ? ^ (iv. 34). 
 
 Sychaeus, like Frederick Prince of Wales in the old 
 rhyme — 
 
 Was alive and is dead ; 
 There's no more to be said. 
 
 Anna asks herself why Dido has never married again, and 
 the only reason of which she can conceive — the only reason 
 that could weigh with herself — is that she had not so far 
 wished to do it. But if she wishes to now, why should she 
 not? larbas and the Africans — she might well (shall we 
 say .-•) mislike them for their complexion ; but Aeneas is a 
 hero of another colour ; and if Dido cares to marry him — 
 
 placitone etiam pugnabis amori ? ^ (iv. 38). 
 
 1 Letter to Wakefield, in Russell's Memoirs of Fox, vol. iv. p. 426, cited by 
 Henry ad loc. 
 
 * "Think you that ashes and a ghost in a grave heed this ? " 
 
 * " Will you contend even with a love that is to your liking? " 
 
 I 
 
DIDO 189 
 
 Anna is a Cyrenaic in her philosophy, and inclination is 
 her guide in life. She proceeds to fortify her advice by a 
 number of political considerations — 
 
 nee venit in mentem quorum consederis arvis ? 1 (iv. 39), 
 
 Gaetulians, Numidians, Barcaeans and Tyrians are all 
 threatening Dido, and only to be overcome by the aid 
 of Aeneas. But the real reason is still transparent. 
 
 Tu lacrimis evicta meis, 
 
 says Dido later on, when she has realized her mistake.^ 
 
 Tt (T€/j.vofJi.vOeig ', ov \oywv evcrxifJi-ovoov 
 Sei a-', aWa ravSpo?. 
 
 So says her nurse to Phaedra in the play of Euripides,' and 
 Anna's feeling is no other. 
 
 Dido, we have seen, is a woman of some character and 
 greatness, but her forte is action rather than reflection. 
 Hers after all has been an " unexamined life," and, in her 
 hour of need, she has nothing adequate on which to fall 
 back. She surrenders at once, and gives up her ideal for 
 her inclination. Virgil marks this definitely enough. 
 Dido had invoked on herself the most awful curse — 
 
 ante, pudor, quam te violo aut tua iura resolvo * (iv. 27) — 
 
 and now Anna's words have achieved exactly what Dido in 
 her excitement had deprecated. 
 
 His dictis incensum animum flammavit amore 
 spemque dedit dubiae menti solvitque pudorem ^ (iv. 54). 
 
 It is easy to underestimate and to overestimate this 
 comment of Virgil's by giving little or much emphasis to 
 pudor. Conington ^ and Mackail both render it honour, 
 
 ^ " Nor do you think upon whose lands you have settled?" 
 
 * " Overcome by my tears," iv. 548. 
 
 3 Hippolytiis, 490. "Why speak so proudly? 'Tis not fair words thou 
 needest, but — the man ! " 
 
 * " Ere I do thee wrong, my woman's honour, or break thy laws." 
 
 * " By these words she added fresh fuel to the fire of love, gave confidence to 
 her wavering mind, and loosed the ties of woman's honour" (Conington). 
 
 * In the prose rendering. In the verse translation he makes it "woman's 
 shame." 
 
190 VIRGIL 
 
 but of honour there are various conceptions. Different 
 minds will form different judgements upon a widow, who 
 owns to herself that a new love has taken possession of her, 
 and who resolves to win the man she loves. A certain 
 school, not altogether free from the charge of prudishness, 
 will at once condemn her. But the serious student will 
 rarely begin by taking the unkindest view. Pudor is 
 something easier to feel than to define. It is a peculiar 
 and unexplained sensitiveness, which Anna, as we have 
 seen, could not understand — loyalty to an ideal, and tin 
 ideal with which reason has less to do than instinct. 
 Many readers will accordingly think little of it, as Anna 
 did. But in spite of argument Dido's conscience is still on 
 the side of this instinct of hers ; and though she decides to 
 follow inclination, slightly cloaked by reason, her heart 
 condemns her all the time. Se iudice 7iemo nocens ahsolvi- 
 tur said Juvenal, a phrase much used by moralists of later 
 days.i It would be unfair to Dido to suppose that she has 
 yet lost what the world would call ptidor, as she lost it later 
 on. But the end is the outcome of the beginning. To 
 resolve to win the love of Aeneas is no wrong thought or 
 action, but to attempt it against her conscience is the first 
 step toward shame. 
 
 Dido has made the great refusal, and at once she and her 
 sister betake themselves to the temples, There is something 
 startling in Virgil's abrupt combination of these ideas. 
 
 His dictis . . . solvitque pudorem. 
 Principio delubra adeunt pacemque per aras 
 exquirunt {A. iv. 53-56). 
 
 "In the true spirit of tragic irony," writes Professor 
 Nettleship, " Virgil represents Dido and her sister as 
 sacrificing to win the favour of heaven, from which she 
 has just invoked a curse on her faithlessless ; and to what 
 gods does she sacrifice ? To Ceres, Apollo, and Lyaeus, the 
 gods presiding over the foundation of cities and the giving 
 of laws, when she is forgetting her duty as a queen ; to 
 
 1 "No guilty person is ever acquitted by himself," Juvenal, xiii. 3 ; cited by 
 Macr. Co7iim. Somn. Scip. i. 10. 12. 
 
DIDO 191 
 
 Juno the goddess of marriage, when she is forgetting her 
 faith to her husband." ^ 
 
 Heu vatum ignarae mentes ! quid vota furentem, 
 quid delubra iuvant? (iv. 65).^ 
 
 This is Virgil's comment on Dido's sacrifices — one of those 
 utterances in which he seems to speak his innermost mind 
 about gods and sacred things. What help is there in shrine 
 or sacrifice for one resolved to do what seems wrong ? 
 Dido's prayers and oft"erings are superstition, an indica- 
 tion of a mental flaw in her, which is more emphasized by 
 and by. 
 
 Her courting of Aeneas proceeds. She leads him with her 
 through Carthage ; she displays to him the treasures of 
 Sidon ; he is seeking a city, and she shows him a city built 
 and finished, to be his for the asking ; she begins to speak 
 and stops — will he not see that she is offering him the city 
 he seeks, offering him herself the queen of it? He does not 
 see. Then evening by evening, again and again, she 
 recurs to the story of Troy. But he does not understand, 
 and they part, he to sleep, she to return to the couch on 
 v/hich he had lain in the banqueting-room, to see and 
 hear him once more in imagination. She takes Ascanius to 
 her heart to find her way to his father's. So the days pass. 
 
 The surrender of one ideal begins to affect her general 
 sense of duty. She neglects Carthage. In the first book 
 Virgil gives a picture of her activity before this fatal 
 passion began. The Tyrians are hot at work — 
 
 instant ardentes Tyrii — 
 
 raising huge walls, digging harbours, laying foundations for 
 the theatre, hewing columns from the rock, busy as bees 
 (i. 423 f). As Venus says, Dido is the moving spirit of 
 it all- 
 dux femina facti — 
 
 ^ Essays in Latin Lit. i. p. 127. 
 
 * "Alas! for the blind hearts of seers! What help have vows, what help 
 have shrines for the madness of love ? " Contrast with the passage in Apollonius, 
 where the crow laughs at the prophet who has forgotten that two is company and 
 three none. Argon, iii. 931. 
 
192 VIRGIL 
 
 and we see her pressing on the work, her kingdom that is 
 to be — 
 
 instans operi regnisque futuris (i. 504). 
 
 But now the towers she had begun cease to rise ; no more is 
 there practice in arms ; no heed is given to harbour or 
 bastion, the work hangs suspended, "frowning and giant 
 towers, grim engines mounting the sky." ^ The crane with 
 its long arm idly reaching to heaven is a poor augury for the 
 ultimate value of Anna's political considerations. 
 
 At this point comes the episode of Juno and Venus. The 
 plan, which Juno unfolds, is fulfilled to the letter. The 
 hunting-party takes place ; it is interrupted by the storm. 
 In the excitement and confusion, which follow. Dido 
 speaks her mind. Pronuba Juno it may be who contrives 
 the match ; but when Aeneas later on says 
 
 nee coniugis unquam 
 praetendi taedas aut haec in foedera veni ^ (iv. 338), 
 
 it is well to remember that, whether or not the words sound 
 harsh and heartless, they are true, and Dido knows that 
 they are true.^ 
 
 If Carthage was neglected before, it is still more neg- 
 lected now. Rumour denounces both Aeneas and Dido as 
 
 regnorum immemores turpique cupidine captos (iv. 194). 
 
 For her pains the poet elaborately describes Rumour as 
 a fiend,^ but she is only saying what heaven will have to 
 
 ^ Non coeptae adsurguni turres ; non arma inventus 
 
 exercet, portusve aut propiignacula hello 
 tuta parant : pendent opera interrupta minaeqiie 
 murorum higentes aequataque viachina caelo {A. iv. 86). 
 
 2 " Nor did I ever hold out the marriage torch or enter thus into alliance" 
 (Mackail). 
 
 ^ I am glad to find this view supported by M. Girard, Etudes sur la po^sie 
 grecgue, p. 348 : " II donne a Junon, qui preside a I'union d'Enee et de Didon, 
 le nom respecte de Pronuba . . precisement au moment ou elle assure le succes 
 d'une surprise de I'amour et emprunte le role de Venus. Cette confusion volon- 
 taire qu'il fait dans un passage capital ne trompe ni Didon elle-meme, malgre ses 
 efforts pour s'abuser, ni surtout Enee, qui ne sait que trop nettement la valeur 
 d'un tel engagement." Sainte-Beuve has some good criticism in his essay on the 
 Medea of Apollonius {Rev. des deux Maudes, 1845, '^ol. xi. p. 889). 
 
 * Monstruin horrendum, dea foeda, malum quo non vclocius ulluni {A. iv. 
 173 f-)- 
 
DIDO 193 
 
 say very soon. Indeed, the Omnipotent Jupiter himself, 
 when his attention is called to it, recognizes that the 
 fiend spoke truth. He looks at Carthage and he sees 
 that the lovers have indeed forgotten their better fame — 
 
 oblitos famae melioris amantes (iv. 221). 
 
 So much for Anna's advice. Solvit pudorem. Dido 
 turned her back on her ideal for inclination, and found 
 that inclination demanded more and more, and, at last, 
 the sacrifice of everything she honoured in herself. She 
 has been taken further than she meant to go. 
 
 Omne maluvi aut timore aut pudore natjira perfudit} wrote 
 a great Carthaginian. Tertullian's saying might well 
 be illustrated from this story of the foundress of his city. 
 Dido has achieved the gratification of her inclination, 
 but it has hardly contributed to her happiness. All seems 
 well, and she is afraid because it does so seem — 
 
 omnia tuta timens (iv. 298) — 
 
 and she cannot find rest. She is watching Aeneas all 
 the time. She knows the story of his seven years' quest ; 
 she knows the long direction of his mind to Italy; can she 
 be sure of his remaining with her? All seems safe and 
 assured — yet she has presentiments of pain — 
 
 hunc ego si potui tantum sperare dolorem ^ (iv. 419). 
 
 She knows everything that the Trojans are doing. The 
 first suggestion of movement among them reaches her 
 instantly (iv. 296). This uneasiness of mind is seen- in 
 her whole conduct. She is, as Aeneas puts it to him- 
 self, a regina furens (iv. 283). All the disorder of her 
 mind is asserting itself now that the control of duty is 
 thrown off. 
 
 Nor is Aeneas happier. So complete a change of life 
 and purpose could not be made without many a return 
 
 * " Nature has steeped every evil thing either in fear or shame." 
 
 • " If I have been able to foresee this mighty grief." 
 
 13 
 
194 VllU.TI. 
 
 of thoujijht to past years. When the strain of watchinc^ 
 Dido's moods is relaxed, the old and more real mind 
 asserts itself. He thinks of the Troy left behind ; perhaps 
 of the wife taken from him on the last night of Troy ; 
 of that Italy which so many oracles and prophecies had 
 bidden him seek ; and of all the years of voyaging. He 
 thinks of his father, the Anchises of the second and third 
 books, long partner of his quest, bound up, while life 
 lasted, in the hopes of a great future for his race in the 
 new land ; and when he sleeps, he sees his father's face 
 troubled {tiirbicia, iv, 353) — no longer his "solace in every 
 care and chance " — 
 
 omnis curae casusque levamen (iii. 709), 
 
 but an object oi fear — he cannot look him in the eyes 
 {terret, iv. 353). He thinks of his son, of the wrong he 
 does the child who also had shared the wanderings, and 
 for whom the bright future overseas must mean more (iv. 
 354, 355). And all this makes the frantic passion of the 
 queen less and less tolerable. Yet she too has a hold 
 upon him ; he feels for her (iv. l^z, 395). 
 
 The turning-point is reached when Mercury appears 
 to Aeneas, and, faithful to the instructions of Jupiter, 
 asks him the questions he has been asking himself — 
 
 " He, he, the Sire, enthroned on high, 
 Whose nod strikes awe through earth and sky. 
 He sends me down, and bids me bear 
 His mandate through the bounding air. 
 What make you here? what cherished scheme 
 Tempts you in Libyan land to dream.? 
 If zeal no more your soul inflame 
 / To labour for your own fair fame, 
 
 Let young Ascanius claim your care : 
 Regard the promise of your heir, 
 To whom, by warranty of fate 
 The Italian crown, the Roman state, 
 Of right arc owing." Hermes said, 
 And e'en in speaking passed and fled.^ 
 
 ' A. iv. 268-76, Conington. 
 
DIDO 195 
 
 Heaven's "mandate" takes, as it frequently does, the form 
 of a question, the articulate expression of what the mind 
 has been shaping to itself. To such questions the answer is 
 always ready. Hcu quid agat ? What is he to do ? Aeneas 
 has not been told to leave Carthage. If Jupiter uttered his 
 wish in one word, naviget, it was to Mercury, and Mercury 
 did not repeat it. Aeneas will sail. On that he is clear 
 enough, but how is he to do it? How is he to broach it to 
 the queen, who is even now only on the border-line of 
 sanity — reginam furentem ? This task he postpones, and 
 Dido does it for him. 
 
 The successive utterances of Dido from this point to the 
 end are not to be translated, and here a bare summary 
 must suffice. She at once charges Aeneas with the inten- 
 tion of leaving her. Her love goes for nothing. It is 
 winter ; ^ he is not even homeward bound ; he seeks an 
 unknown shore — and yet he leaves her. By ever}'thing 
 that can move him, by everything she has been to him, she 
 pleads for his pity. Her neighbours hate her on his account 
 Her good name has been sacrificed for him — 
 
 te propter eundem 
 extinctus pudor. 
 
 His going means death to her. If only she had a child to 
 recall his face, z fan' u I us Aeneas, she would not be so utterly 
 lost. 2 
 
 Aeneas replies, and his answer is for the student one of 
 some difficulty through its alternations of feeling and coldness. 
 He admits what Dido has done for him, yet his phrase jars 
 upon the ear ; he will never forget her — 
 
 nee me meminisse pigebit Elissae. 
 
 *' But to come to the matter in hand " — 
 
 pro re pauca loquar — 
 
 he had not thought of stealing from her land, though he had 
 never meant to stay there. Then in a strong outburst of truth 
 
 ^ We might almost hate diyined this from the beautifal song of lopas, 
 ^- i. 7 44 f- * iv. 305-30. 
 
196 VIRGIL 
 
 he tells her that, if fate allowed him to choose his life to 
 please himself, first and foremost would he set the city of 
 Troy, all that was left of his people — a new Troy should rise. 
 But he is compelled by the gods to seek Italy. Let her 
 think what Carthage has been to her, a new town as it is and 
 on an unknown shore, and she would wonder no more at his 
 seeking a strange land. He tells her of his dreams of his 
 father, of his thoughts of his son, of his vision of Mercury. 
 Let her not set herself and him on fire with words of passion. 
 He has no choice. 
 
 Italiam non sponte sequor.^ 
 
 The response of Dido is a v/ild outbreak of fury, in marked 
 contrast to the delicacy and kindliness of her welcome 
 of Aeneas in the first book, but after all nothing new or 
 strange in her much-wronged and disordered heart. It has 
 not shown itself markedly till now, but we realize at last 
 that there is some touch of the Oriental in Dido, and we 
 recognize that we have had hints of it before. Venus felt it — 
 
 quippe domum timet ambiguam ^ (i. 66 1), 
 
 but we have better evidence in the tale which Ilioneus tells. 
 He had been attacked by the Carthaginians on the shore, 
 and his ships were in danger of being burnt ; shipwrecked 
 mariners, they were forbidden "the hospitality of the sand" 
 (i. 522-41). In the graciousness of Dido's reply, we do not 
 notice that she admits her own responsibility for this outrage 
 on humanity — 
 
 Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt 
 moliri et late fines custode tueri ^ (i. 562). 
 
 The savage element in her nature lies dormant during the 
 early part of Aeneas' stay, but we have seen signs of its 
 waking, and now it is not only awake but entirely master 
 of her. 
 
 Her eyes roll in fury, and she speaks in taunt and curse. 
 
 1 iv. 331-61. ^ "She fears the two-faced generation." 
 
 * " It is the stress of danger and the infancy of my kingdom that make me put 
 this policy in motion and protect my frontiers with a guard all about." We may 
 recall how Venus put a cloud about Aeneas on his way to the city {A. i. 411). 
 
DIDO 197 
 
 Goddess-born ! not he ! he is not even human ! Have her 
 tears cost him a sigh ? Look at his hard, cold eyes — have 
 they wept? Has he pitied her? She had pitied him, a 
 shipwrecked beggar on her shore. So the gods send him 
 to Italy ! And here Dido shows that, for all her supersti- 
 tion, a hedonist is apt to be Epicurean. She has appealed 
 to Juno and Jupiter, but now — 
 
 Scilicet is superis labor est, ea cura quietos 
 sollicitat (iv. 379).^ 
 
 Let him go, if he likes, and hunt a kingdom through the 
 waves — and be wrecked — if there is such a thing as divine 
 justice and if it has so much power — 
 
 siquid pia numina possunt.^ 
 
 She will have vengeance,^ 
 
 She flings herself away, and leaves him "hesitating and 
 fearing and thinking of a thousand things to say." * He can 
 do nothing but push on his preparations, openly now. 
 
 Dido's mood changes as she watches from her palace, and 
 she sends Anna to entreat, but not now for the coniugium 
 of her former hopes, not for the abandonment of his quest 
 of Latium — with a dash of bitterness she calls it " beauti- 
 ful Latium " ; she only asks time, empty time, a breathing- 
 space to give her madness rest and room, till fortune teach 
 her grief submission. But Aeneas will be entangled no 
 more. His tears flow as he listens to Anna, but they flow 
 in vain, his mind is unshaken — 
 
 mens immota manet^ {^A. iv. 449). 
 
 Despair achieves Dido's descent into insanity. She sees 
 awful sights, and tells no one, not even her sister. The 
 screech of the owl becomes an omen. All her Oriental 
 
 * " Aye, of course, that is the employment of the powers above, those the 
 cares that break their rest " (Conington). 
 
 * Does Virgil mean to recall Aeneas' words, i. 603? ' A. iv. 362-87. 
 
 * A. iv. 390 linquens mtilla nietu cundantcm et viulta parantevi dicere. 
 
 * I am glad to think that Dr Henry holds the lacrimae volvunttir inanes to 
 refer to Aeneas, though Conington dissents. 
 
198 VIRGIL 
 
 superstition is quickened, and her bad dreams become more 
 frequent and terrifying. In her sleep 
 
 Aeneas with unpitying face 
 Still hounds her in a nightly chase ; 
 And still companionless she seems 
 To tread the wilderness of dreams, 
 And vainly still her Tyrians seek 
 Through desert regions, ah, how bleak ! ^ 
 
 She resolves to kill herself, and with the cunning of mad- 
 ness deceives her sister into making the preparations she 
 requires by talking of magic. Anna's unemotional sanity 
 fails, naturally enough, to divine her sister's feelings in the 
 least. It will, she expects, be no worse than when Sychaeus 
 was killed.^ 
 
 All is made ready, as Dido bids, and in the silence of 
 night her trouble wakes again. What is left open to her? 
 To trust herself to Aeneas and go with him ? Trust human 
 gratitude, the gratitude of the race of Laomedon ? Better 
 to die, since she has not kept faith with Sychaeus.^ 
 
 Meanwhile all is ready on the Trojan fleet. Aeneas, 
 resolved upon departure, is asleep on the poop of his ship, 
 when Mercury again appears — this time in a dream — and 
 tells him how things stand. Dido is resolved to die, but 
 before she dies she will have vengeance ; by morning the 
 harbour will be a scene of flame and wreckage. Let him 
 be up and going. " A thing of moods and fancies is woman." * 
 And with these words the god is gone. Aeneas leaps up, 
 calls his men and cuts his cable; his fleet is off and away; 
 and for him the story of Dido is ended — save for surmise and 
 pain.^ 
 
 With the first gleam of dawn Dido is at her outlook and 
 sees the harbour empty, and in her uncontrolled outburst 
 of rage she shows how well founded was the warning of 
 
 ^ Virgil is thought to have had in mind some lines of Ennius : Annals, i. 
 fragm. xxxii. ita sola \ postilla, gerniana soror, a-rare videbar \ tardaque vestigare 
 et quaerere te neque posse \ corde capessere ; &'c: ap. Cicero, de div. i. 20. 40. 
 
 ^A. iv. 450-503- ^ A. iv. 521-53. 
 
 * Variuin et mutabile semper femina, A. iv. 569. ^ A. v. 5-7. 
 
DIDO 199 
 
 the dream. She begins with a scream of fury at his escape 
 — can they not overtake him ? Out with their oars and 
 firebrands, down to the water with the ships ! Then the 
 queen in her asserts itself; her practical genius is aghast 
 at her madness — 
 
 Quid loquor? aut ubi sum? quae mentem insania mutat ? 
 
 O ! that way madness lies ; let me shun that ; 
 No more of that. 
 
 " Poor Dido ! " she says in quieter strain, " now dost thou 
 feel thy wickedness? That had graced thee then, when 
 thou gavest away thy sceptre." ^ But the very thought of 
 what she had given to Aeneas wakes madness once more, 
 and her momentary self-control is gone ; she falls a-cursing, 
 unpacks her heart with words. Murder is her thought — 
 could she not have murdered him — his men — Ascanius — or, 
 better, have killed the boy, and, like Thyestes, given him 
 to his father to eat? Suppose there had been a battle? 
 There might have been danger? What danger, when she 
 meant to die, would die ? She pauses, and a change comes 
 over her mood. When she speaks, it is in a quieter tone, 
 and she utters the last great curse, the curse that embroils 
 Roman and Carthaginian for ever. 
 
 Eye of the world, majestic Sun, 
 
 Who see'st whate'er on earth is done, 
 
 Thou, Juno, too, interpreter 
 
 And witness of this heart's wild stir, 
 
 And Hecate, tremendous power. 
 
 In cross-ways howled at midnight hour, 
 
 Avenging fiends, and gods of death 
 
 Who breathe in d)'ing Dido's breath, 
 
 ^ Surely Henry and Mackail are right in taking \!a& facta impia to be Dido's 
 own. Henry cites Euripides, Medea, 796 iindpravov rbd', ijviK' e^eXl/nravoi' 
 dofiovs ■jrarpijious, and Hippolytus, 1072 rbre. arevd^eiv Kal Trpoyiviba'Keii' ixRV") ^'^' 
 et's iraTpt^av dXoxov v^pi^eiv ^tXtjj, and for the tan^unt the most dramatic line 
 of the Hippolytus (310). Is the cause of Phaedra's sorrow, asks the nurse, her 
 stepson ? 
 
 'l7r7r6Xi;ro»' ; 4>AI. o'^iot. TP. Biy^dviL aeOev rode ; 
 These plays were very carefully studied by Virgil, and their evidence confirms 
 the interpretation, if confirmation is needed. 
 
200 VIRGIL 
 
 Stoop your great powers to ills that plead 
 
 To heaven, and my petition heed. 
 
 If needs must be that wretch abhorred 
 
 Attain the port and float to land ; 
 If such the will of heaven's high lord, 
 
 And so the fated order stand ; 
 615 Scourged by a savage enemy, 
 
 An exile from his son's embrace, 
 So let him sue for aid, and see 
 
 His people slain before his face ; 
 Nor, when to humbling peace at length 
 
 He stoops, be his or life or land. 
 But let him fall in manhood's strength 
 
 And lie unburied on the sand. 
 This last of prayers to heaven I pour, 
 This last I pray, and pray no more. 
 And, Tyrians, you through time to come 
 
 His seed with deathless hatred chase : 
 Be that your gift to Dido's tomb : 
 
 No love, no league, 'twixt race and race. 
 Rise from my ashes, scourge of crime, 
 
 Born to pursue the Dardan horde. 
 To-day, to-morrow, through all time, 
 
 Oft as our hands can wield the sword : 
 Fight shore with shore, fight sea with sea, 
 Fight all that are or e'er shall be ! ^ 
 
 The preparations she had ordered have been made ; all is 
 ready and she is ready. " Fluttered and fierce in her awful 
 purpose, with bloodshot restless gaze, and spots on her 
 quivering cheeks burning through the pallor of approaching 
 death, she bursts into the inner courts of the house and 
 mounts in madness the high funeral pyre." On it lay the 
 bed— 
 
 lectumque iugalem 
 quo peril (A. iv, 496) — 
 
 1 A. iv. 607-27, Conington, but with an alteration or two. The reader will 
 remember the anecdote that Charles I., drawing for a sors Vergiliana, lit on the 
 lines 615 f. — at bello audacis poptili vexatits et armis, &c. 
 
DIDO 20I 
 
 the dress of Aeneas, an image of him,i and his sword, begged 
 of him as a keepsake, but for no such use as now it finds. 
 She drew it from its sheatji, and pressed her bosom to the 
 bed. 
 
 " Sweet relics of a time of love. 
 
 When fate and heaven were kind, 
 Receive my life-blood, and remove 
 
 These torments of the mind. 
 My life is lived, and I have played 
 
 The part that fortune gave. 
 And now I pass, a queenly shade, 
 
 Majestic to the grave. 
 A glorious city I have built, 
 
 Have seen my walls ascend. 
 Chastised for blood of husband spilt, 
 
 A brother, yet no friend. 
 Blest lot ! yet lacked one blessing more. 
 That Troy had never touched 'my shore." 
 Then, as she kissed the darling bed, 
 " To die ! and unrevenged ! " she said, 
 *' Yet let me die: thus, thus I go 
 Rejoicing to the shades below. 
 Let the false Dardan feel the blaze 
 That burns me pouring on his gaze, 
 And bear along, to cheer his way, 
 The funeral presage of to-day." '^ 
 
 These are the last words of Dido. We need not linger 
 to listen to Anna's lament, or to watch the slow death- 
 struggle with its strange ending, suggested by the story 
 of Death and Alcestis.^ The story is told. St Augustine 
 wept over Dido quia se occidit ob amorem ; * she killed 
 
 ^ This to deceive Anna, perhaps. The use of an image in magic is familiar. 
 Cf. Theocritus, ii. 28, and Virg. E. 8. 80. 
 
 * A. iv, 651-62. Conington's version. There are weaknesses in this 
 translation, but in what translation of the passage are there not ? I am more and 
 more conscious of my own inability to render Virgil. 
 
 * The cutting of the lock of hair, done by Death in the case of Alcestis 
 {Eurip. Ale. 74), is managed in Dido's by Iris, A. iv. 704. 
 
 * Conf. i. 13. 20. 
 
202 VIRGIL 
 
 herself for love, and let us end with that. Love for Aeneas 
 after all has mastered her madness, and her hatred, and 
 it is the dominant note in her death. 
 
 VI 
 
 Whereupon all the friendly moralists 
 
 Drew this conclusion : chirped, each beard to each : 
 
 "Manifold are thy shapings, Providence ! 
 
 Many a hopeless matter gods arrange. 
 
 What we expected never came to pass : 
 
 What we did not expect gods brought to bear ; 
 
 So have things gone, this whole experience through ! " 
 
 Thus Browning and Euripides tell us that the Chorus of 
 the play will not pluck out for us the heart of the poet's 
 mystery, but that if it is to be done we must do it for 
 ourselves. Virgil seems to be of their opinion ; at any rate 
 he gives us no Chorus and very little comment. What does 
 he mean ? 
 
 We have the story of an entanglement, which results in 
 the woman's death, while the man apparently escapes scot- 
 free. Dido is drawn with such truth and interest by the 
 poet, that she has enlisted the sympathies of all readers. 
 Of whatever mistakes she is guilty, whatever the flaws 
 of her character, she is a great woman. There is nothing 
 incredible in her story — it happens every day — and our 
 sympathies go with her, right or wrong. Our sympathies — 
 but our judgement? If the view here put forward has been 
 true to Virgil's mind, we shall have to own that our judge- 
 ment must reluctantly be given against her — but in the 
 same spirit as it is given against Oedipus or King Lear. 
 Like the ideal tragic hero of Aristotle, she falls from a 
 height of greatness, and "the disaster that wrecks her 
 life may be traced not to deliberate wickedness, but to 
 some great error or frailty."^ Her ruin is due to a failure 
 of will. Accident throws Aeneas in her way, he becomes 
 
 ^ Aristot. Foet. xiii. 3 ; Butcher's essays, pp. 311 ff. 
 
DIDO 203 
 
 to her a temptation, and she sacrifices her sense of right 
 to her inclination. 
 
 So much perhaps may be agreed, but we have to deal 
 with the part of Aeneas in the tragedy. There is a 
 declension from ideals in his case also, which may be 
 judged from various standpoints with very different con- 
 clusions. It is quite clear that he goes wrong in two ways, 
 first, by staying in Carthage when his duty was to push on 
 to Italy ; and then by agreeing to the proposals made by 
 Dido in her weakness. To-day readers will lay more stress 
 on the second of these points, but at the time, when the 
 Aeneid was written, probably the former would seem the 
 more serious. 
 
 We must remember that at that period marriage and 
 love were terms which did not suggest each other. The 
 connexion between them to-day seems so natural and in- 
 evitable that it is hard to realize the ancient point of view. 
 We are taught to admire Penelope for refusing the suitors, 
 but it is not suggested that we should feel the least surprise 
 at the relations of Odysseus with Circe and Calypso. Out- 
 side the plays of Euripides — the "woman-hater" — it is hard 
 to recall in ancient literature a case of love between man 
 and woman parallel to that of Hector and Andromache. 
 The Roman feeling is sufficiently revealed by the difficulty 
 felt by Catullus in expressing his love for Lesbia. He 
 wishes to describe a love pure of all selfish elements, and 
 he says that he loved her, not as man would love a mistress, 
 but as a father would his sons and sons-in-law.^ This 
 extraordinary comparison indicates plainly enough the 
 distance between the ancient and modern attitude. Hence 
 faithfulness in a husband and chastity in a man were 
 neither expected nor particularly admired. No one thought 
 less of Julius because of his relations with Cleopatra, 
 except in so far as he was under her influence.^ Roman 
 opinion would not condemn Aeneas for a lapse — if lapse 
 
 1 Catullus, 72. 3, 4 Dilexi (contrast the verb with atiiare) (urn te non tantum ut 
 vulgus amicam, sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos. 
 
 * Cf. the letter of Antony, Suet. Aug. 69 : and the story of Titus and Berenice, 
 Suet. Titus, 7. 
 
204 VIRGIL 
 
 it were^ — far less conspicuous than those of his great 
 descendant. 
 
 And yet the same story comes differently from Suetonius 
 and from Virgil. What is quite unnoticed in the common- 
 place prose of the one makes the most painful impression 
 when it comes in the poem of the other. Whether the 
 poet felt as his readers feel to-day may be questioned. ^ 
 He would perhaps not have been so much shocked at such 
 an episode in the life of a contemporary, but it is almost 
 inconceivable that he did not see how it would jar in 
 the setting of his poetry. But whatever he thought or 
 felt, he has at least made clear to his readers the real 
 significance of such action. The character of Aeneas, as 
 conceived by Virgil, is a background against which such 
 conduct is seen for what it is — it becomes something very 
 like sin. It is the reader, not Aeneas, who realizes this. 
 And in his portrayal of Dido, too, the poet broke fresh 
 ground. 
 
 Nee me meminisse pigebit Elissae, 
 
 says Aeneas (iv, 335), and Dido's reply is to kill herself 
 with his sword. Can a thing be right, or even only 
 slightly wrong, which makes such a painful contrast with 
 the ideal of manhood and which costs so much to 
 woman ? 
 
 We are told often enough that literature has nothing 
 to do with morality. In a sense this is true. The poet 
 and the artist are concerned with reality, and have no 
 business to preach ; but if their work is true, it has 
 inevitably, like all life, morality implied in itself. It may 
 be true that no one has abstained from evil because of 
 the story of Dido and Aeneas, but it is probably as true, 
 
 ^ I should have thought it needless to explain that the words " if lapse it were " 
 were designed to represent Roman opinion, not my own ; but, as a reviewer in a 
 journal of repute has mistaken the meaning intended, it is perhaps as well to be 
 explicit. 
 
 '^ But of. Suet, -v. Verg. lo Vulgatttm est consuesse euni cum Plotia Hieria. Sed 
 Asconius Pedianus adfirmat ipsain poslea narrare soliiam invitatiim qiiidem a Vario 
 ad communionem sui, verwn tertinacissime reciisasse. 
 
DIDO 205 
 
 or truer, that the faithful telling of it by Virgil has 
 contributed to the development of the moral sense of 
 mankind. 
 
 But Virgil, so far as his words go, lays more stress on 
 the wrong done by Aeneas to Rome, upon the failure in 
 patriotism. In the books that follow there is little 
 suggestion that Aeneas thought of Dido again after their 
 meeting in the lower world. ^ Of course, it might be urged 
 that the vision of Dido beyond the grave, restored to 
 Sychaeus and at peace, has in it some hint of what in a 
 tragedy we might call reconciliation, but this might be 
 carrying things further than Virgil really went. And 
 again it might be replied that, if the poet does not record, 
 neither should he record, all that goes on in his hero's 
 mind, and that memories of Dido would be irrelevant in 
 the Italian campaign. Still Dido is left behind, and Rome 
 is the first concern of hero and poet ; and we ask, are 
 they right as to the supreme importance of Rome ? Is 
 it true that Rome is also the first thought of the gods? 
 Can Rome be a supreme moral issue ? Is it not an 
 external thing, essentially ? 
 
 We have to allow something for the necessity which epic 
 tradition laid upon the poet of representing an inward 
 call or monition as an immediate instruction from an 
 external deity. Virgil himself gives us a hint of another 
 psychology — 
 
 Dine hunc ardorem mentibus addunt, 
 Euryale, an sua cuique deus fit dira cupido? ^ (A. ix. 184). 
 
 But in general he must stick to the old and rather 
 clumsy way of Epic. With this in mind we shall better 
 understand what is meant by the reiterated emphasis on 
 the fact, that the quest of Rome is laid upon Aeneas 
 
 ^ It may partly be due to the irregular way in which Virgil worked here and 
 there at his poem as he pleased. Suet. v. Verg. 23 Aeneida prosa prius oratione 
 formatam digestanique in xii libros partindatim coniponere instituit, prout liberet 
 qxiidque et nihil in ordinetn arripiens. 
 
 * "Is it the gods, Euryalus, that make men's hearts glow thus? or does 
 each one's ungovemed yearning become his god ? " (Conington). 
 
2o6 VIRGIL 
 
 from without. He tells us that it is under compulsion 
 he leaves Carthage — 
 
 Italiam non sponte sequor. 
 
 It is the bidding of the divine voice — of many divine voices. 
 There is, however, many readers will urge, in the anguish 
 of Dido a voice as divine as any brought by Mercury to 
 Aeneas bidding him seek Ital\\ Has the poet then failed 
 here? If he has, to be fair to him, it is partly his own 
 truthfulness that has let us see it. 
 
 It looks at first as if the gods set the foundation of Rome 
 before everything, and cared no jot for Dido's pain. So the 
 poet seems to assure us ; but he knows quite well that it is 
 not so. He is too just a thinker and too great a poet not to 
 know it. He knows, too, how little such things as names 
 and places, in spite of all their appeal, really are, as opposed 
 to the virtues and the character which are the foundation of 
 all society. And yet Dido's anguish seems to suggest that 
 the gods think more of seven hills beside a river than of 
 human woe or of right and wrong. What are we to say ? 
 
 Once more it seems we have slipped back into the 
 consideration of Dido, and once more we have to brace 
 ourselves to look beyond. This is not to ignore Dido. New 
 thoughts upon character and righteousness gleam from 
 Virgil's work, and by the light they shed we must read it. 
 Dido's story, with everything involved and implied in 
 it, comes from the poet's heart, and it is not to be brushed 
 aside. The quest of Aeneas has indeed suggestions of 
 the arbitrary about it — why the town must be on the 
 Tiber is not explained ; that is a sore gap which it is 
 hard to fill, and until it is filled, the ways of the gods 
 will not be justified to the thoughtful reader. Yet a 
 man's task, however realized, when once it is realized, leaves 
 him no choice. That Aeneas must go, we see. The sense 
 of the inevitable task to be fulfilled, whatever the cost, — 
 that also comes from Virgil's heart. The collision of 
 the two lives and the wreckage are of the essence of 
 tragedy ; and that Dido's story is tragedy, we saw from 
 the beginning. In every tragedy there is an incompre- 
 
DIDO 207 
 
 hensible element — but in this one the part played by 
 the gods is less intelligible than we feel we have a right 
 to expect, for their purpose — the planting of a city in 
 a certain place — seems but little connected with moral issues. 
 Yet for Aeneas there is a moral issue, and it is clear — 
 whether it is intelligible or not duty must be done. Italiavi 
 non sponte scquor — but he follows. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE INTERPRETATION OF LIFE— 2. AENEAS 
 
 Ducimus autem 
 hos quoque felices, qui ferre incommoda vitae 
 nee iactare iugum vita didicere magistra. — Juvenal, xiii. 20. 
 
 CHARLES JAMES FOX, writing to his friend 
 Trotter, speaks of the Aeneid thus : " Though the 
 detached parts of the Aeneid appear to me to be 
 equal to anything, the story and characters appear more faulty 
 every time I read it. My chief objection (I mean that 
 to the character of Aeneas) is of course not so much felt 
 in the three first books ; but afterwards he is always either 
 insipid or odious ; sometimes excites interest against him, 
 and never for him." The student of Virgil may turn to 
 Dr Henry's tremendous vindication of the phrase Sum pius 
 Aeneas (i. 381), to which Fox takes especial exception, and 
 if Dr Henry does not satisfy him, he can read Marlowe's 
 Dido Queen of Carthage ; and from the Elizabethan Aeneas 
 let him go back to Virgil's hero, and consider whether after 
 all he is not at once more natural, more manly, and more 
 attractive.^ 
 
 But Fox's criticism is one to which it is probable that 
 a large number of Virgil's readers will subscribe, and we 
 are forced to ask ourselves whether it is just ; whether 
 it is possible that Virgil's highest conception of manhood 
 is really so worthless .-' Or even if we suppose Fox to 
 use the words " insipid " and " odious " with something of 
 the exaggeration of Jane Austen's beaux, must we confess 
 that Aeneas is still fundamentally a failure } By lightly 
 accepting such a judgement we should probably lose 
 something which the poet felt intensely to be vital to 
 
 ^ Henry, Aeneidea, i. 647 ii. 
 208 
 
 1 
 
AENEAS 209 
 
 himself and to everybody. Virgil has a right to require 
 us to make some attempt to discover this. 
 
 Probably no one has ever read Homer and Virgil without 
 remarking the broad gulf between their two heroes. Every 
 one recognizes at once the intense and true humanity of 
 Achilles. There is no doubt that he is a real man, and, as 
 is usual with the creations of a great poet, we like our kind 
 better because Homer has shown us Achilles. We are 
 reconciled to life and death, and have something of Ben 
 Ezra's feeling — " Thanks that I was a man." Aeneas is not 
 the natural man. Ii£..r.epries.ents^a^_stage at once beyond 
 and behind that of Achilles. He has seen a great deal 
 more of Iffe, he has felt the lifting of a great purpose, he is 
 part of a larger world. He is at once an older man than 
 Achilles and the child of a later age of mankind. In the 
 interval between the fall of Troy and his arrival in Italy he 
 has seen many more cities than Odysseus saw and learnt 
 the minds of many more men, and these many minds have 
 confused him. He is a dreamer, and where Achilles looked 
 straight before him, Aeneas " thinks of many things," ^ and 
 amongst them there are some which remain for him 
 unresolved mysteries. He has a mission ; he is a pilgrim ; 
 he knows that heaven has a purpose for him. Ego poscor 
 Olympo 2 is deeply imprinted in his consciousness, but the 
 inner meaning of the call of Olympus he has not reached. 
 Achilles, like the rest of us, has to face the problems of life, 
 but for him there are no such riddles as this which confuses 
 Aeneas. 
 
 For though Aeneas can explain to others where he is 
 going and that it is the will of the gods, he does not seem 
 able to make it clear to himself. He knows that he is to 
 seek Italy, but in spite of his abundance of revelations he is 
 outside the counsel of the gods. He needs from time to 
 time the hand of heaven to push him forward. His quest 
 is not a spiritual or inward necessity to him. Crete, Epirus, 
 
 1 A. vi. 332 ; cf. iv. 390. 8 .-/. viii, 533. 
 
 14 
 
2IO VIRGIL 
 
 Sicily, or even Carthage would have satisfied himself. That 
 he was not to rest till he reached Italy was no part of his 
 conviction. The Pilgrim Fathers knew why the Mayflower 
 crossed the Atlantic, and they knew what they meant to 
 find at or near Plymouth Rock — or some other rock ; the 
 place was immaterial, but the impulse which drove them 
 westward they felt, no doubt, to come from heaven, and 
 they understood it. They might not see all that would 
 follow, but they had that priceless gift which their descen- 
 dants have never lost for long — a conviction of a future, 
 which would be the necessary spiritual outcome of their 
 principles. This Aeneas had not consciously, and though 
 Virgil clearly means that the Roman Empire is the outcome 
 of character of the type of his hero's, this want of clearness 
 and conviction tends to mar a fine conception. Would he, 
 for instance, so soon have yielded to Dido if Italy had been 
 a spiritual necessity ? But this, of course, it could not be, 
 for there was nothing as yet that it could suggest to him. 
 Italy was a region, it was not an idea.^ 
 
 Then again, we do not see the whole of Aeneas. It was 
 not the Roman character to show feeling, nor would it 
 perhaps have been natural for a man, schooled by so long 
 a course of affliction, to lay bare his heart. In any case 
 Aeneas does not often do it. We see him in despair for a 
 moment in the storm, but never again does he betray such 
 weakness. He feels other people's sorrows keenly enough, 
 but they do not throw him off his balance. Once, in the 
 parting with Dido, feeling seems to surge up and demand 
 expression, but it is instantly repressed — 
 
 Desine meque tuis incendere teque querellis ^ (^A. iv. 360). 
 
 The word incendere shows his thought. Dido's words must 
 rouse passion ; and passion, he feels, helps nothing forward, 
 and he dreads it. This to the modern reader is one of the 
 weaknesses in the character of Aeneas — there seems to be 
 no passion there. It has been stamped out, or so nearly 
 
 ^ The faint tales that his remote ancestors came from Italy are of little conse- 
 quence. They are in A. iii. 94-6 ; 163-8. 
 
 * " Cease thou to set me on fire, to set thyself on fire with these regrets." 
 
AENEAS 
 
 21 I 
 
 Stamped out as to rob him of almost all that play of mood 
 and feeling which is one of the essentially human things. 
 Half his humanity is lost by his self-suppression, for it is so 
 effectually done that we do not realize that there was any 
 struggle within him. And a great part of the value of a 
 man to us is our realizing, without his telling us, that he is 
 victor in such a struggle.^ 
 
 The result of Aeneas' subjection to heaven, and his conse- 
 quent suppression of feeling (so far as his experience left 
 any capacity for feeling which might need], to be suppressed), 
 is that he has lost the air of life. He has not enough 
 freedom of will. There are indeed such people to be met 
 with in the world, but they rarely interest us.^ 
 
 To sum up, Achilles satisfies us, because at every point 
 we feel that he is a man ; he thinks, he feels, he suffers as 
 a man ; and his experience, deep and intense as it is, is the 
 common lot of humanity, felt and interpreted by a poet. 
 Aeneas does not so readily satisfy us, for his experience, 
 though not improbable, indeed though highly probable and 
 often enough actually true, is not entirely interpreted to us. 
 There remains something unintelligible about him. 
 
 The character of Aeneas then is so far a failure,^ for want 
 of completeness and conviction, but a failure which threw 
 into the shade every poetic success between Euripides and 
 Dante ; a failure which opened for poetry for all time a door 
 into a new world, which brought under poetry's survey 
 great conceptions, unthought and almost unfelt before, of 
 man the agent of heaven, attempting and achieving acts 
 small in themselves but of incredible consequence for man- 
 kind ; of a divine purpose and providence, in the least as in 
 the largest things, working through individual suffering the 
 general good ; and of something like a mutual intelligibility 
 
 * Nay, when the fight begins within himself 
 A man 's worth something, 
 
 says Browning's Blougram. 
 
 * -Vnd yet after ten years more of life — I will not attempt autobiography, but 
 Aeneas seems a more intelligible and sympathetic cliaracter. Years ago, I 
 remember Mr R. A. Neil, of Pembroke College, suggesting that Virgil was no 
 author for a healthy boy. 
 
 * I do not like to say this ; I hope the reader will not press the word. 
 
212 VIRGIL 
 
 of man and God, a community of purpose, perhaps even 
 a spiritual unity. These things are not indeed worked out 
 adequately in the Aetieid, but they are suggested or implied. 
 The poet has caught sight of them and is quickened by the 
 sight, but at times it comes over him that he may be 
 deceived. Hence there is a wavering and an uncertainty 
 about the whole poem, a feeling of pain and suspense — 
 
 aut videt aut vidisse putat per nubila^ {A. vi. 454). 
 
 Aeneas is not at all a hero of the type of Achilles, and if 
 we come to the A eneid yNXth. preconceived opinions of what 
 the hero of an epic should be, we run the risk of disappoint- 
 ment and also of losing Virgil's judgement upon human life. 
 Virgil obviously did not intend to make a copy of Homer's 
 Achilles or of any of Homer's heroes. That was a feat to 
 be left to Ouintus of Smyrna. If, as it is, there is an air of 
 anachronism about Virgil's Aeneas, there would have been 
 a far profounder anachronism about him if in the age of 
 Augustus he had been a real Homeric hero. The world, as 
 we have seen, had moved far since Homer's day. Plato's 
 repudiation of Homer meant that a new outlook and new 
 principles were needed in view of new conditions of life and 
 the new thoughts which they waked. In its turn the impulse, 
 with which we connect the literature of Athens, and such 
 names as Euripides, Plato, and Aristotle, was itself spent, 
 though not before it had made an imperishable contribution 
 to the growth of mankind. The world was awaiting another 
 fresh impulse, and, till this should come, it was occupied in 
 analysing, co-ordinating, and developing its existing stock of 
 ideas, not without some consciousness that they were already 
 inadequate. 
 
 It was at this moment that Virgil wrote, and as he was a 
 poet rather than a mere scholar or antiquary, he sought to 
 bring his Aeneas into connexion with his own age, while, 
 if possible, still keeping him a Homeric hero. It was hardly 
 to be done. If Aeneas as the ideal hero was to be " heir of 
 all the ages," it would be difficult to keep the simplicity of 
 Homer's outlook and philosophy. Aeneas could not stand 
 
 ^ " He sees— or else he thinks he saw — through the mist." 
 
AENEAS 213 
 
 in Achilles' relation to men. He must have new virtues 
 which had been discovered since Homer's day, if he was to 
 be a hero near the hearts of Virgil's contemporaries — the 
 new private virtues which Menander and Cleanthes and 
 many more were finding out, and the new political virtues 
 which Alexander and the Ptolemies, Julius and Augustus, 
 were revealing to the world. Aeneas, again, could not stand 
 ill Achilles' relation to heaven. The gods no longer came 
 among men in bodily form, they were far away ; and yet 
 perhaps they were not so very far away after all — 
 
 deum namque ire per om-nes.^ 
 
 This is another reason why Aeneas does not appeal to us 
 as Achilles does. The fusion of the Homeric and the 
 modern types is not complete. Virgil's Aeneas is two 
 heroes in one, perhaps more, for beside the Homeric hero 
 and the modern hero one feels sometimes that we have 
 another creature, which is not a hero at all, but an idea,^ an 
 allegory of a virtue, and a political virtue at that, partially 
 incarnated. 
 
 It is true, of course, that Virgil did not put the last touches 
 to his poem ; but it is not clear that, even if he had, the 
 character of Aeneas could have been given the final and 
 convincing unity. 
 
 To understand the character and the poem of which 
 it is the centre, it will be helpful to analyse the various 
 elements in Aeneas. In this process we shall necessarily 
 lose our consciousness of what we have felt to be the 
 great defect of the hero, his want of unity, and we shall 
 probably gain a clearer notion of what the poet intended. 
 
 II 
 
 First of all, there is Aeneas conceived as a Homeric hero. 
 Aeneas has of course the heroic manner, in measure, but 
 not quite the manner of Homeric heroes, a more magnificent, 
 
 ^ G. iv. 221, "for God pervades all." 
 
 » Goethe's word. He told Eckermann (Oct. 29, 1823) "You must do some 
 degree of violence to yourself to get out of the idea." 
 
214 VIRGIL 
 
 a more courtly manner. He has the wealth of the Homeric 
 hero, and his habit of giving splendid presents and receiving 
 |them. At times, Virgil would have us think, he feels the 
 same wild delight in battle which we find in Homer's 
 heroes. " Lie there now, terrible one ! No mother's love 
 shall lay thee in the sod, or place thy limbs beneath 
 thine heavy ancestral tomb. To birds of prey shalt thou 
 be left, or borne down in the eddying water, where hungry 
 fish shall suck thy wounds." ^ This is what Virgil remembers 
 to have read in the Iliad; he blends what Odysseus says to 
 Socus with the words of Achilles to Lycaon.^ But the 
 club has not been wrested from Hercules ; ^ the words are 
 still Homer's ; they do not belong to Aeneas. Again, the 
 reservation of eight captured youths to be sacrificed to the 
 Manes of Pallas * can be defended by the Homeric parallel 
 of Achilles slaying Trojans over the pyre of Patroclus ^ and 
 by more awful contemporary parallels, but still it is not con- 
 vincing. Augustus may have ordered or performed a human 
 sacrifice ; ^ but when Virgil transfers this to Aeneas, the 
 reader feels the justice of Aristotle's paradox : " there is no 
 reason why some events that have actually happened should 
 not conform to the law of the probable and possible." '' 
 This may have been an actual event, but it is not " probable " 
 here. 
 
 But perhaps the most incongruous Homeric touch in 
 Virgil's story of Aeneas is the beautifying of the hero by 
 his mother to enable him unconsciously to win Dido. That 
 Aeneas is " like a god in face and shoulders " we can well 
 believe ; but the addition of the " purple light of youth " '^ to 
 a man of years, " long tossed on land and sea," worn to 
 grandeur by war and travel, is surely a triumph of imitation 
 over imagination. 
 
 1 A. X, 557 (Mackail). * //. xi. 452, and xxi. 122. 
 
 * Cf. the saying of Virgil in the Life by Suetonius, c. 46 ; and Macrobius, 
 Satuitialia, v. 3, 16. Cf. p. 59. 
 
 ■* xi. 81 vinxerat et post terga maims, qiios mitteret unihris \ r'n/enas, caeso 
 Sparsurus sanguine Jianimas ; cf. x. 517-20. 
 
 * //. xxiii. 22-3. In 11. 175-6 Dr Leaf finds a "moral condemnation of 
 the act" by the poet possible, though not inevitable, in the Greek — ko-ko. 8i 
 <pp€ffl /UTjSero epya. 
 
 « Suet. Aug. 15. ' Poetics, ix. 9. » A. i. 58S. 
 
AENEAS 215 
 
 This perhaps will be best realized if we consider for a 
 moment the passage, or passages, in the Odyssey which 
 Virgil had in mind. Twice Athene changes the aspect of 
 Odysseus. First, at his meeting with Nausicaa, the goddess, 
 after his bath, " made him greater and more mighty to 
 behold, and from his head caused deep curling locks to flow, 
 like the hyacinth flower . . . Then to the shore of the sea went 
 Odysseus apart, and sat down, glowing in beauty and grace, 
 and the princess marvelled at him." ^ And very naturally, 
 for she was a young girl, and the goddess knew it, and made 
 her appeal to the imagination in a true and natural way. 
 
 Again, when Odysseus makes himself known to his wife, 
 the poet uses the very words, and the simile that follows 
 them, once again. Penelope " sat down over against Odysseus 
 in the light of the fire. Now he was standing by the tall 
 pillar, looking down and waiting to know if perchance his 
 noble wife would speak to him when her eyes beheld him. 
 But she sat long in silence, and amazement came upon her 
 soul, and now she would look upon him steadfastly with 
 her eyes, and now again she knew him not." Odysseus with- 
 draws, and bathes, and comes back, and " Athene shed great 
 beauty from his head downwards, and [made him] greater 
 and more mighty to behold, and from his head caused deep 
 curling locks to flow, like the hyacinth flower." ^ Once 
 more it is an appeal to the imagination. Penelope has still 
 a final test to make before she will be sure, but in her mind 
 she sees her husband as he was twenty years before, young, 
 strong and tall, as she had always pictured him during the 
 long years of his absence. Homer is justified. 
 
 But is Virgil justified ? People tell us that youth and 
 beauty are not without their appeal to women in middle 
 life or toward it, but the reader can hardly think of Dido 
 as Venus would seem to have done. She was not Nausicaa. 
 Nor can the poet claim Homer's plea in the second case, for 
 Aeneas and Dido had never met before.^ In fact, it is a 
 
 ^ Odyssey vi. 229 f. ^ Odyssey, xxiii. 156. 
 
 3 It may be objected that Teucer had told Dido of Aeneas long before (^. i. 
 619, a point made by Heinze, Vergils epische Technik, p. 1 19), and that there was 
 a picture of Aeneas in Dido's temple i^A. i. 488). It will hardly be maintained 
 that it can have been a photographic likeness. 
 
2i6 VIRGIL 
 
 piece of imitation, dull and unconvincing, as nearly all the 
 purely Homeric touches are in the character and the story 
 of Aeneas.i 
 
 III 
 
 Virgil's Aeneas implies a new relation to heaven. While 
 the whole question of Olympus and the gods will have to 
 be reserved for separate treatment at more length, it will 
 be convenient to anticipate a few points of importance. 
 
 Greek thinkers had moved, and brought mankind with 
 them, beyond the Olympus of Homer. Men no longer 
 might expect to 
 
 Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
 Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
 
 There was a gain, however, in their loss, for it was a 
 deepening consciousness of the real character of the Divine 
 nature that carried men away from Olympus to look for 
 divinity in a higher region. The divine was more remote, 
 but it was more divine. It had less contact with humanity, 
 but it was freer from the weaknesses and the vices of 
 humanity. It was perhaps less interested in the individual, 
 but it might exercise a wider and a firmer power over the 
 universe. 
 
 The Homeric gods, in accordance with epic usage, had to 
 watch over Aeneas, but they were gods in whom no one 
 really believed. Hence Virgil handles them with a caution 
 that excludes warmth. Though Aeneas is favoured with one 
 theophany after another, and is for the while re-assured by 
 them, he is not on such easy terms with the gods as was 
 Achilles. He sees them less frequently, and his relations 
 are more formal. In fact, the complete rejection of the 
 Homeric pantheon by educated people in favour of eastern 
 religion or Greek philosophy was too strong for the poet.^ 
 
 Yet Virgil is far from refusing the idea of some divine 
 
 ^ Sainte-Beauve has some excellent criticism on this episode of the beautifica- 
 tion. Etude sur Virgile, 274-6. 
 
 ^ Cf. Sainte-Beauve, Etude sur Virgile, p. 276: " Avec lui (Virgil) on est 
 deja dans la mythologie ; avec Homere on etait dans la religion." 
 
AENEAS 217 
 
 government of the world. Some of the philosophers had 
 rejected the Homeric theology, just because it did not 
 sufficiently relate the world to the gods. They traced 
 the world's origin back to divine intelligence ; they re- 
 cognized the diviner element in man's nature, his power 
 of remembering and re-discovering the divine " ideas " ; and 
 they leant to a belief in the moral government of the 
 universe. With the gradual direction of philosophy to 
 individual life, men came to believe in a personal concern 
 of heaven with the individual man. If Fate is hard and 
 unrelenting, it has recognized the individual, and on the 
 whole the individual may accept it without resentment. 
 Hence Cleanthes bade Fate lead him in the destined way 
 and he would be fearless, though, as he reminded himself 
 meanwhile, there was no question about his following.^ 
 Man is thus entirely dependent upon the divine, and of 
 this Aeneas is always conscious. It was, however, a con- 
 sciousness never before presented in poetry, and Virgil, 
 in loyalty to the traditions of the epic, endeavoured to 
 present it by the means of the old, incredible Homeric gods. 
 This was indeed to pour new wine into old bottles, with 
 the inevitable result. 
 
 This idea of Destiny, perhaps of Providence, is the 
 dominant one in Virgil, and it is one of the things in which 
 he is furthest from Homer. 
 
 Destiny, as M. Boissier remarks, has its place in Homer. 
 His heroes often know well that they are doomed to fall, 
 but as a rule they forget it and act as if they had not the 
 knowledge. The action is only now and again darkened 
 by the shadow of Fate, but in general we have the free 
 development of the individual's story, as he carelessly 
 abandons himself to the fever of life, and forgets the 
 menaces of the future in the interests of the present.^ 
 The same idea is well developed by M. Girard in his 
 
 ^ 'A701' Se fi w ZeO Kai <tv y 77 ncirpwfj.evrj 
 
 diroi nod' vfiiv et/xi diareraynevoi' 
 
 uis txpofiai y doKvos' rjv di fir) de\o) 
 
 KaKbs yevcuevos ovdiv Tjcrjov e\l/o/J.ai., 
 Cleanthes a/>. Epictetus, Matiual, 52, end of book. 
 * La Religion rotiiaine, i. p. 244. 
 
2i8 VIRGIL 
 
 chapter on " Man in Homer and Hesiod." In particular 
 he instances Hector leaving child and wife for a death 
 he foresaw, but the prevailing tone of the poem he finds, 
 with Arnold, in the words of Sarpedon to Glaucus — 
 
 vvv 8 e/jLTrrjg yap Krjpe^ €(pecrTaaiv Oavdroio 
 fxvpiai, a? ovK eaTi (pvyeiv ^porov ov6 vTraXv^ai, 
 'lo/xev, rj6 TOO ev)(0'i ope^o/xev rji Ti9 t]ij.lv.^ 
 
 The Greek and the Trojan heroes in the Iliad recognize 
 Destiny well enough, but they make up their own minds, 
 and are ready to accept the consequences. They survey 
 the world for themselves, look facts well in the face, and 
 then shape their own courses. If the gods intervene, these 
 calculations may ,be upset, it is true, but this is accident 
 after all. 
 
 Aeneas, on the contrary, is entirely in the hands of 
 heaven, and for guidance keeps his eyes fixed on superior 
 powers. He resigns himself to Providence as a willing, 
 if not entirely intelligent, agent. Wherever his great quest 
 is concerned, he is a man of prayer, anxiously waiting for 
 a sign from heaven, which never fails him. It is the 
 attitude of the Roman general taking the auspices. 
 
 Haud equidem sine mente, reor, sine numine divom 
 adsumus et portus delati intramus amicos ^ {^A. v. 56). 
 
 So says Aeneas, when wind and storm drive him out of 
 his course, and land him at his father's grave in Sicily. 
 Delati is the whole story of his voyage in one word — an 
 involuntary quest, perpetually over-ruled by a somewhat 
 unintelligible divine will, but with a happy result. The 
 hero, like a Christian saint, has surrendered his own will, 
 though not with the same restfulness of mind.^ 
 
 ^ Girard, Le Senfi/neni religievx en Grece, pp. 70-5 ; Arnold, On Translating 
 Homer, p. 18; Iliad yM. 310-28. "But now a thousand fates of death stand 
 over us, which mortal man may not flee from nor avoid ; then let us on, and 
 give a glory, or obtain it ourselves " (Purves). 
 
 2 "Not in truth, I deem, without the thought or the will of the gods are we 
 here, driven as we are into a friendly haven." Years add beauty to such a couplet. 
 
 * TTOioO^'Tes 7dp TO OeXijfxa rod Xpio-roi) evpTja-o/j.eu dpa-n-avcnv is a Christian saying 
 of the second century. It is in the homily known as Second Clement, 6, 7. 
 
AENEAS 219 
 
 Aeneas then is the chosen vessel of Destiny from first 
 to last — fata profugus •,'^ he is guided by fate throughout 
 all his wanderings — 
 
 Nate dea, quo fata trahunt retrahuntquc sequamur ; 
 quidquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est {A. v. 
 709), 
 
 says one of his captains.^ He so entirely subordinates 
 himself to Fate, and, in spite of Virgil's showing him to us 
 "this way and that dividing the swift mind," he so fre- 
 quently looks to divine intervention rather than to re- 
 flection and resolution, that the reader feels that life is 
 after all made plain to him even if it is not easy, and that 
 his pilgrimage is tedious rather than dark or perplexing. 
 
 It was a Roman conviction that Rome was under the 
 special care of heaven — a belief which great Roman generals 
 extended to cover their own personal fortunes. " It was 
 not by numbers," says Cicero, " that we overcame the 
 Spaniards, nor by our strength the Gauls, the Carthaginians 
 by our cunning, or the Greeks by our arts, nor lastly was 
 it by that sense, which is the peculiar and natural gift of 
 this race and land, that we overcame the Italians themselves 
 and the Latins ; but by piety {pietas) and by regard for 
 the divine {religio), and by this sole wisdom — our recog- 
 nition that all things are ruled and directed by the will 
 of the immortal gods — by these things we have overcome all 
 races and peoples." ^ 
 
 As this utterance is from a speech, we may take it to 
 represent the belief rather of Cicero's audience than of 
 himself, and this assumption is confirmed by similar language 
 addressed to the Romans by Horace.* Probably Virgil 
 shared this popular feeling more than either Cicero or 
 Horace could, and consistently with his habit of showing 
 the future in the past, the spiritual sequence of events from 
 
 ^ A. i. 2, "an exile of destiny. " 
 
 ' " Goddess-born whither Fate draws us, onward or backward, let us follow ; 
 come what may, every chance must be overcome by bearing it." 
 
 ' Cicero, de Harusp. Resp. 9. 19. Cf. Warde Fowler, Religious Experience 
 of the Roman people, pp. 249 ff., with notes. 
 
 * Dis te minorem qttod geris iviperas, and other utterances of the kind. 
 
220 VIRGIL 
 
 principles, he endows Aeneas with this thoroughly Roman 
 attitude towards the gods. Aeneas, the founder of the race, 
 like all his most eminent descendants, holds the belief that 
 his country — for he calls Italy his patria — is beloved and 
 chosen of heaven ; like them, he subordinates himself to 
 heaven's purpose for his country, and, on every occasion, 
 seeks to learn at once, and in the directest possible way, 
 what is the will of the gods ; and, once more like them, he 
 finds that heaven never fails Rome. 
 
 One or two questions naturally rise at this point. We 
 may ask whether this Roman view, that Rome is the 
 supreme thing for which Providence should care, is a true 
 one; but there is another inquiry which bears more closely 
 upon Aeneas. Has he any real conviction that the gods 
 care for him ? They care for Rome — that is evident enough 
 — and for Aeneas as the destined founder of Rome. But 
 do they care for the man as apart from the agent ? ^ Does 
 he feel that they care for him .'' 
 
 On the whole, the answer is fairly clear. No one could 
 well be more loyal than Aeneas to the bidding of heaven, 
 but his loyalty gives him little joy. He is a man who has 
 known affliction, who has seen the gods in person destroying 
 what he had loved above all things — his native city ;2 who 
 has been driven, and expects to be driven, over land and 
 sea by these same gods to a goal foreign to his hopes and 
 affections. He realizes that in the end some advantage 
 will accrue to his people, or their descendants, from all that 
 he undergoes, and he is willing to work for them. Sorrow, 
 it will be seen, has not cramped him, but rather has 
 broadened and deepened his nature. He lives for others; 
 and because he is told that the planting of Rome will be 
 a blessing to his people, he makes Rome "his love and his 
 country " — 
 
 hie amor, haec patria est {^A. iv. 346). 
 
 If his comrades grow weary, and despair, he has words of 
 hope and cheerfulness for them. But for himself? For 
 
 ^ Cicero's Stoic said they did. Cf. de natura deoriirn ii. 65, 164. 
 * A. ii. 608 f., 622. 
 
AENEAS 22 1 
 
 himself, he only expects the repetition of the past. There 
 is little comfort, little hope for himself. Even his goddess- 
 mother seems to think as much of the ultimate Augustus 
 as of her son. Does any one, God or man, think about 
 Aeneas and his happiness .'' His thoughts are ever of wars 
 behind him and wars before him ; and he hates war. He 
 has nothing to which to look forward, and only too much to 
 which to look back. 
 
 Et nimium meminisse necesse est ^ (A. vi. 514). 
 Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem ^ (^A. ii. 3). 
 
 And with these thoughts he is perhaps the most solitary 
 figure in literature. 
 
 Virgil is true here to human experience, for with his story 
 of pain, and with a doubt at his heart, Aeneas could hardly 
 be other than he is. He can never forget the story he tells 
 to Dido.^ The poet has seized the meaning of the fall of 
 Troy, and interpreted it in this quiet, wounded, self-obliter- 
 ating man. If Virgil's hand shakes here and there, his 
 picture, as he saw it in his mind, is true. Underneath the 
 trappings of the Homeric hero is the warrior-sage, who has 
 sounded human sorrow, and who, though he cannot solve 
 the riddle, will not believe that all is vanity and a striving 
 after wind. 
 
 Virgil is anticipating a later age, and Aeneas resembles 
 more closely the character of Marcus Aurelius than any 
 other in classical history. " Such was his calm that neither 
 sorrow nor joy changed his expression, devoted as he was 
 to the Stoic philosophy."* This face of impassive calm 
 
 ' " But too good cause is there to remember." 
 
 - " Too cruel to be told, O queen, is the sorrow you bid ir.e revive." 
 ' Aeneas' words to Dido, Aen. iv. 340, give the keynote of his character. 
 r/ie si fata nicis paterentiir diicere vitatn 
 aiispiciis et sponte mea cotnponere curas, 
 urbem Troianain primiim dtilcisque meoruin 
 reliqnias colerctn, Priami tecla alta inancrent 
 et recidiva manu posnissem Perga/na victis. 
 sed nunc Italiam, etc. 
 * Erat enim ipse, says his biographer of Marcus, lantae tranquillitatis ttt vultttm 
 nunquaiit viutaverit niaerore vel gaiidio, philosophiae deditiis Stoicae. Hist, Aug, 
 M. Anton. 16. Cf. ille lovis vionitis iminota tencbat lumina {A. iv. 331). It 
 should be borne in mind that Aeneas' eyes were natmaWy J'aci/es {A. viii. 310). 
 
222 VIRGIL 
 
 was the index of the mind within, unsatisfied in its deepest 
 longings for an explanation of life, yet resolved to endure 
 without satisfaction and with the slightest of hope to work 
 on toward an impossible goal.* It implied a conscious- 
 ness of the inadequacy of all conceptions of the divine yet 
 achieved, Virgil, Suetonius says, meant on finishing the 
 A eneid to give himself to philosophy. Of himself, as of his 
 hero, the words are true — 
 
 per mare magnum 
 Italiam sequimur fugientem et volvimur undis^ {A. v. 628). 
 
 IV 
 
 We have now to consider Aeneas as influenced by the 
 long study of man which marks the centuries between 
 Pisistratus and Augustus. We must begin by setting aside 
 the elements in his character which are mere external imi- 
 tations of Homer, and also the episode of Dido, which has 
 not perhaps in the Aeneid its proper psychological effect on 
 the mind of Aeneas.^ 
 
 Few epithets have been more misconstrued than the 
 untranslatable pins, which Virgil has associated with the 
 
 ^ Cf. Lecky, European Morals i. 249-255 on Marcus Aurelius and his solitude. 
 "Seldom," he says, "has such active and unrelaxing virtue been united with so 
 little enthusiasm and been cheered by so little illusion of success." 
 
 2 "Over a vast sea we follow a flying Italy and are tossed with the waves." 
 Cf. nos ad beatos vela }>iittiii!us partus {Catalepton 5, 8) and note the contrast of 
 
 tone. 
 
 3 1 quote with pleasure the suggestion of the reviewer in the Athenaeum {4 
 March 1905) : " Unconsciously, perhaps, but with profound truth, Virgil draws 
 Aeneas, after the Carthaginian episode, as always careworn, brave in action, 
 but pensive in reflection ; there stands between him and his past the shadow of a 
 crime, a shadow which glares but will not speak {A. vi. 467-474) and turns 
 away, as one who 'does her true love know from another one,' to rejoin 
 Sychaeus who has forgiven her. That is the most Virgilian thing in all Virgil." 
 It might be urged that the first book shows Aeneas careworn already, but the 
 suggestion deserves study. Mr Warde Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman 
 People (1911), PP- 4io> 41" suggests that "the development of the character of 
 Aeneas under stress of perils, moral and material, was much more obvious to the 
 Roman than it is to us, and much more keenly appreciated." See the whole 
 chapter. " The character of Aeneas," he holds, "is pivoted on religion." Also 
 cf. his remarks on book v. pp. 417, 418, which seem to me to come nearer the 
 heart of the thin than any comment I recall on that book. 
 
AENEAS 223 
 
 name of Aeneas ; yet to understand it thoroughly is neces- 
 sary, if we are to have a clear comprehension of the whole 
 poem. What is pictas ? It is not merely " piety," for that 
 is only a part of its connotation, nor is it enough to add 
 " pity " to " piety," in accordance with the happy suggestion 
 of a French critic, unless one give both the words a large 
 and generous rendering. Let us take a few illustrations of 
 the spirit indicated by the word. 
 
 First, the death of Lausus, who in rescuing his father was 
 killed by Aeneas in battle — 
 
 At vero ut voltum vidit morientis et ora, 
 ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris, 
 ingemuit miserans graviter dextramque tetendit 
 et inentem patriae subiit pietatis imago. 
 " quid tibi nunc, miserande puer, pro laudibus istis, 
 quid pius Aeneas tanta dabit indole dignum ? 
 arma quibus laetatus habe tua ; teque parentum 
 manibus et cineri, si qua est ea cura, remitto. 
 hoc tamen infelix miseram solabere mortem : 
 Aeneae magni dextra cadis (x. 821-30).^ 
 
 This is how Aeneas makes war. Stern necessity compels 
 him to strike down Lausus : but in a moment the dying 
 face, the boyhood, and the filial love of his victim turn 
 Aeneas from foe to friend. Lausus is but a hoy— puer — 
 but he has done what Aeneas did himself years before, he 
 
 1 But when Anchises' son surveyed 
 The fair, fair face so ghastly made, 
 He groaned, by tenderness unmanned, 
 And stretched the sympathizing hand, 
 As reproduced he sees once more 
 The love that to his sire he bore. 
 " Alas ! what honour, hapless youth, 
 To those great deeds, that soul of truth, 
 
 Can good Aeneas show ? 
 Keep the frail arms you loved to wear ; 
 The lifeless corpse I yield to share 
 (If thought like this still claim your care) 
 
 Your fathers' tomb below. 
 Yet take this solace to the grave ; 
 'Twas great Aeneas' hand that gave 
 
 The inevitable blow " (Conington). 
 
224 VIRGIL 
 
 has saved his father — the patronymic Anchisiades is not 
 without purpose — and now all the honour that a hero can 
 pay to a hero Aeneas will render to Lausus. Pietas covers 
 his feeling for Lausus as well as his feeling for Anchises. 
 
 We pass naturally to the scene that rose in the mind of 
 Aeneas — the fall of Troy and the rescue of Anchises and the 
 little lulus. Enough has been said of Anchises, but mark 
 the picture of the child — 
 
 dextrae se parvus lulus 
 implicuit, sequiturque patrem non passibus aequis^ (ii. 723). 
 
 The instinctive act of the child — slipping his hand into his 
 father's — is his comment on Aeneas' /zV/rtJ-, and it is surely 
 significant that at such an hour and in such a place the 
 little footsteps of the child are one of the signal memories 
 of the night.2 
 
 Now another picture of lulus. During the siege of the 
 camp (Book ix) he is galled by the taunts which Remulus 
 Numanus levels at the Trojans, and, with a prayer to 
 Jupiter for success, he shoots an arrow at him and brings 
 him down. The boy is delighted with his shot, and the 
 Trojans cheer him. His father is not there, but his place 
 is for the moment taken by Apollo, and though the action 
 and the words are Apollo's, they are in the spirit of Aeneas, 
 and may illustrate the quality which v/e are considering — 
 pietas. The god applauds the boy in an aside, and then in 
 clearer tone adds a word for gentleness — 
 
 atque his ardentem dictis adfatur lulum : 
 "sit satis, Aenide, telis impune Numanum 
 oppetiisse tuis ; primam hanc tibi magnus Apollo 
 concedit laudem et paribus non invidet armis ; 
 cetera parce puer bello"^ (ix. 652). 
 
 1 " My little lulus has fastened his hand in mine and follows his father with 
 ill-matched steps " (Conington). 
 
 ^ J. R. Green, Stray Sltidies, p. 267, brings this out well. 
 3 Enough, Aeneas' son, to know 
 
 Your hand, unharmed, with shaft and bow 
 Numanus' life has ta'en ; 
 
AENEAS 225 
 
 "C'est k la fois," says Sainte-Beuve, "management et re- 
 spect pour le fils de leur roi et pour I'esperance de la tige ; et 
 puis Ascagne est trop jeune pour la guerre ; si jeune, on de- 
 vient trop aisement cruel. J'entrevois ce dernier sentiment 
 sous-entendu. " ^ 
 
 That we are right to suppose that this is the real senti- 
 ment of Aeneas as well as of Apollo we can see from Aeneas' 
 words of farewell at the bier of Pallas — 
 
 Nos alias hinc ad lacrimas eadem horrida belli 
 fata vocant ; salve aeternum mihi, maxime Palla, 
 aeternumque vale ^ (xi. 96). 
 
 It is the revolt oi pictas, in its broadest and finest quality^ 
 against a destiny which drags the hero against his will into war. 
 Let our last illustration of pictas be the familiar utter- 
 ance of Aeneas when he saw the pictures of the Trojan 
 warriors, including himself, on the walls of Dido's temple — 
 
 Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia 
 tangunt) A. i 462). 
 
 Professor Tyrrell holds that rerum and mortalia mean 
 "things inanimate" and "the works of men's hands." In 
 this case Vir^^'il would mean to suggest the appeal ot art to 
 the sympathetic temper. Wordsworth and Sainte-Beuve 
 think rather of the appeal of man's lot to man. 
 
 Tears to human sufiftrings are due ; 
 And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown 
 Are mourned by man.^ 
 
 Such glory to your first of fields 
 
 Your patrcn god ungrudging yields, 
 
 Nor robs of praise tlie arms he wields : 
 From further flight refrain. 
 Conington has here omitted the significant puer, which Sainte-Beuve seizes 
 so well. 
 
 * Sainte-Beuve, Elude sur Vir^ile, p. 178. 
 
 *"Once again war's dreadful destiny calls us hence toother tears: hail thou 
 for evermore, O princely Pallas, and for evermore farewell." 'I'he modern 
 reader will think here of the farewell of Catullus (ci.) to his brother, at the grave 
 at Rhoeteum, and Tennyson's comment on in perpetuurn, and he may wonder 
 how, if it were in Virgil's mind also, it squares with book vi. 
 
 * Laodamia, Attention may be called to Henry's note, Aeneidea, ad loc. 
 
 15 
 
226 VIRGIL 
 
 The former rendering is not at all impossible or un- 
 Virgilian, but the latter gives a broader and deeper 
 sense. Aeneas recognizes that at Carthage too, human 
 creatures have human hearts, and he takes courage, know- 
 ing what appeal human sorrow makes to the human heart 
 in himself. 
 
 If to Terence's humani nihil a me alienum puto we might 
 add nihil divini, the enlarged expression (if rather cumbrous) 
 would very fairly represent that new attitude of the quick- 
 ened man, with which Virgil endows his hero, giving it the 
 name pietas, by which he links a modern and rather Greek 
 habit of mind to an old Roman virtue, enlarging the one, 
 and naturalizing the other. 
 
 V 
 
 We have not yet considered Aeneas as prince. Achilles 
 and Agamemnon are called kings by Homer, but the royalty 
 of Virgil's Aeneas dwarfs them at once into Highland chief- 
 tains. Mycene may have been rich in gold, and yet had, 
 like Ithaca, a midden at the palace doors ; but Virgil was 
 writing under a monarch who could boast that he had found 
 Rome brick and left her marble.^ It was a boast that 
 implied imperial resources, imperial power, and an imperial 
 outlook, and all these come between the Homeric chiefs and 
 Aeneas, and make him a prince in manner, in attitude, and 
 in ideal. 
 
 To take a telling example of the princely manner of 
 Aeneas, we may turn to the episode of his killing the stags 
 in the first book, which is of course modelled in Virgil's way 
 after Odysseus' story of his stag-killing. It has been well 
 handled by Sainte-Beuve, whose account of it may be para- 
 phrased. " The difference between the two pictures," he 
 says, " one feels instinctively. Aeneas and Odysseus are 
 voyaging at the same time, but there is a distance of some 
 centuries between their manners and methods. Odysseus, 
 the hero of the simple ages, whose only aspiration is toward 
 his poor Ithaca, withdraws alone from his companions and 
 
 ^ Suet. Aug. 28 martnaream se relinquere quam latenciam accepisset. 
 
AENEAS 227 
 
 goes to spy out the island ; he sees a big stag, one only, and 
 it is quite enough ; he kills it without needing to ask his 
 arms of his squire (he has no squire or confidant), and, as it 
 is necessary to bring back the beast at once and this involves 
 difficulty, he tells us in detail how he did it, how he made 
 a cord, and how he lifted the animal on to his neck, and 
 made his way, leaning on his spear ; he forgets nothing. 
 All is naive and frank, quite in the style of Robinson 
 Crusoe, a style which Virgil is careful not to applv to the 
 founder of the future Roman Empire. How could these two 
 men, Aeneas and Achates, have carried their seven big 
 beasts to the ships? It is a question not even asked in so 
 dignified a tale. Imagine the figure of Aeneas drawn with 
 a stag upon his shoulders and his head appearing among 
 the four feet of the animal ! Virgil could not for a moment 
 entertain the idea of such a picture. Between his Aeneas 
 and Od}'sseus had come cette prodicction sociale fine, delicate, 
 dedaigneuse ; rurba?tite' etait nee." ^ 
 
 Yes, urbanitas had been born, and Aristotle had written 
 of the Magnificent Man. It was the mark of a vulgar 
 mind, according to a Greek comic poet, to walk " unrhythmic- 
 ally " in the street. Court etiquette had grown up round 
 Alexander, and probably still more round his less great 
 successors. Some part of this would inevitably find its 
 way to Rome, where it would fit in well with the national 
 affectation of gravitas. The world was still a long way 
 from Abraham Lincoln. Let us, however, call the thing 
 dignity in Aeneas, and recognize it as a mark of the great 
 prince. 
 
 But, if Aeneas has the outward bearing of the prince, 
 he has the higher qualities too, for he is Virgil's picture 
 of an ideal ruler. Morality for princes was probably 
 
 ' Sante-Beuve, iiude sio- Virgile, p. 243. The passages of Homer and 
 Virgil are Odyssey y.. 144-71, and Aeneid i. 180-93. The German critic Rohde 
 has also called the C^'^j^y *' die alleste Robinsonade." Another French critic, 
 however, shared the Roman feeling. La Motte, according to M. Patin {Euripide, 
 i. p. 52), "regrettait qu'Homere efit degrade son Achille en lui faisant de ses 
 propres mains appreter son repas, et ne lui eut pas donne, pour soutenir son rang 
 de lieros, un maitre d'h6tel, ou, tout au moins, un cuisinier." See also on Homer's 
 method, the letter of Cowper to Samuel Rose, 4 October 1789. 
 
2 28 VIRGIL 
 
 already becoming a branch of ethics ; certainly a little time 
 after Virgil's day it is well developed. Seneca's tract on 
 Clemency, written for Nero, and Dio Chrysostom's treatises 
 addressed to Trajan are early examples of this sort of litera- 
 ture ; while by the fourth century A.D. Julian, Claudian, and 
 Synesius had a plentiful supply of honourable and ancient 
 maxims for Emperors, But it is unlikely that Virgil 
 troubled the minor philosophers for their commonplaces. 
 With a poet's feeling he read the story of Alexander, and 
 watched the work of Augustus, and rising, in his way, 
 from the particular to the universal, he developed in his 
 own mind the idea of a great prince and drew him in 
 Aeneas. 
 
 Aeneas has the statesman's temper. A man of broad out- 
 look and of quick intelligence, he thinks for a nation, and 
 as their ruler subordinates himself to the good of his people. 
 Apart from the affair of Dido, nowhere does he fail to put 
 his people, his people present and future, before himself. 
 Not that he submits to their will or inclination, for he is 
 every inch a King and not a President ; he gives orders 
 and they are carried out, he does not take mandates except 
 from the gods. Yet he is not unwilling to listen to advice — 
 from Anchises or Nautes, from the old and the trusted. He 
 will humour the weak, who judge themselves unworthy of 
 his quest, and like an Alexander he dots the world with his 
 foundations. The Homeric chief had destroyed towns ; 
 Aeneas builds them. 
 
 He makes war and peace as a prince with full appre- 
 hension of what they mean for his people. If as a man, 
 worn with war and travel, he desires peace, he also desires 
 it as a prince for his people and his neighbours. To 
 the Latins, who come to beg the bodies of the slain, he 
 speaks thus — 
 
 Pacem me exanimis et Martis sorte peremptis. 
 Gratis ? equidem et vivis concedere vellem ^ (xi. no). 
 
 This is always his attitude, but, if war is forced upon him, 
 
 * " Is it peace for the dead you ask of me, for them on whom the War-God's 
 lot has fallen ? Nay, to the living also would I grant it." 
 
AENEAS 229 
 
 he makes war like a prince. He carries his alh'es into action 
 with him, and no cost of death or suffering will tempt him to 
 falter. War, and real war, his enemies shall have, if they 
 choose it ; but he had rather they chose peace.^ Aeneas 
 is here a thorough Roman, and he hardly needed his father's 
 words to supplement his own instinct — 
 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, 
 hae tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem 
 parcere subiectis et debellare superbos ^ (vi. 851). 
 
 Latinus and Turnus are his foils ; the one unable or 
 unwilling to make up his mind and act on it, and by this 
 weakness bringing defeat and death on his people ; ^ the 
 other heedless of national well-being or divine decree, if, at 
 any cost to anybody and everybody, he can gratify his own 
 wishes. If the reader wearies at times of Aeneas in the 
 pageantry of the prince, still, as prince in council and 
 prince in action Aeneas is well and strongly drawn. The 
 weariness, which the reader feels, may be his own fault as 
 much as the poet's, for it takes more mental effort to picture 
 and to realize to oneself the hero as king than in some other 
 characters. 
 
 Aeneas represents, here as elsewhere, a later age than 
 Homer, No doubt, in Homer the chief leads, and the people 
 follow the chief as " shepherd of his people." But the 
 Homeric chief is nearer Remulus Numanus ; he has the 
 weakness, too persistent in Greece, for petty war and the 
 pillaging of his neighbours — 
 
 semperque recentes 
 comportare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto^ (ix. 612). 
 
 Aeneas' mind is other, and he belongs to a later and more 
 developed society. Witness his admiration of the rising 
 
 ^ One might compare Caesar's ejaculation when he saw the dead of the 
 enemy upon the field of Pharsalia — hoc voluerunt — quoted from Poliio by 
 Suet. hil. 30. Plutarch Caesar, 46, roOro i^ovXriff-qa-ay, els tovto fie dvdyKTii 
 iirriydyoiTO. 
 
 * Translation on p 143. 
 
 ' The querulous weakness of Latinus [A. vii. 598) nam 7nihi parta quits, etc. 
 
 * " Ever it is our delight to gather fresh booty and to live by plunder." 
 
230 VIRGIL 
 
 Carthage, its walls, its senate-house, its port, its theatre — 
 even its streets and their noise — 
 
 miratur molem Aeneas, magalia quondam,^ 
 
 miratur portas, strepitumque et strata viarum (i. 421). 
 
 But it is as a prince that he looks at the great city, with 
 the spirit of an Alexander rather than of a Pericles. 
 Democracy and its factions flourish among the Italian 
 tribes ; Drances and Turnus have each his party ; but there 
 are no parties among the Trojans. They have no politics 
 but loyalty to their prince. This means a certain lack of in- 
 terest. The Trojans generally, as we have seen, " want 
 physiognomy." Like the Romans under the later Emperors, 
 they lack initiative ; they are apt to be rather helpless, 
 almost spiritless, when without their prince ; and the life 
 of the nation is summed up in the prince. Virgil's political 
 philosophy is not Cicero's. On the whole perhaps the poets 
 are not generally very whole-hearted republicans. " For 
 myself," Goethe said to Eckermann, " I have always been 
 royalist." ^ Aeneas is Virgil's ideal of a princely character, as 
 he is his ideal of manhood. 
 
 fyx. 
 
 In conclusion, when we have weighed the character of 
 Aeneas, and allowed for the incompleteness of presentation 
 which we have remarked, we may sum up the matter 
 perhaps most truly by saying that Aeneas is Virgil's 
 picture of the "Happy Warrior."^ The traditions of 
 epic poetry, involving the Olympian gods, make Aeneas 
 less reliant upon the " inward light " than Wordsworth's 
 
 ^ "Aeneas admires the mighty structure, once mere huts; he admires the 
 gates, and the noise and the paved streets." The tnagalia quondam has a trans- 
 Atlantic tone. The thought behind it lies, as a rule, outside the experience of 
 Englishmen, who misjudge the utterance in consequence. 
 
 - 25 February 1824. 
 
 ^ It should be remembered that the delineation of the perfect man was much in 
 vogue. The Epicureans had their ideal sage in Epicurus. Lucretius' attack on 
 Hercules points to a similar glorification of that hero. A later example is 
 ApoUonius of Tyana. We may add the adoption by the Stoics of the reference 
 to the personal example — e.g. Socrates and Zeno. 
 
AENEAS 231 
 
 warrior, even if Virgil had been as clear as Wordsworth 
 on the possibility or sufficiency of such a guide in lite. 
 
 Aeneas, 
 
 if he be called upon to face 
 Some awful moment, to which Heaven has joined 
 Great issues, good or bad, for human kind, 
 
 is certainly not "happy as a lover," nor "attired with 
 sudden brightness like a Man inspired." A genuine Roman, 
 he is not supremely concerned with the labour "good on 
 good to fix," nor, perhaps, to " make his moral being his 
 prime care." Yet much of Wordsworth's poem is true of 
 Virgil's Aeneas — 
 
 Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, 
 And Fear and Bloodshed, miserable train ! 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain : 
 In face of these doth exercise a power 
 Which is our human nature's highest dower ; 
 Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves 
 Of their bad influence, and their good receives ; 
 By objects, which might force the soul to abate 
 Her feeling, rendered more compassionate . . . 
 Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; . . • 
 Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans 
 To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes . . . 
 More brave for this, that he hath much to love. 
 
 The differences between the two characters are not so 
 much contradictions as the result of a progression in the 
 ideals of humanity. If Aeneas has sight of virtues un- 
 known to Achilles, the "Happy Warrior" has in like 
 manner advanced beyond Aeneas. The greatness of 
 Achilles is not lost in Aenas, but developed by the ripening 
 and enlarging of human experience. Aeneas is morally 
 on a higher plane, in spite of the occasional vagueness in 
 Virgil's drawing of him, and in spite of some uncertainty 
 about the supreme things, which passes from the poet into his 
 creation. The " Happy Warrior," in turn, has lost nothing 
 of Aeneas' greatness, but he has regained the clear look 
 
2 32 VIRGIL 
 
 of Achilles ; he is not distracted by unreconciled views 
 of the universe ; he " finds comfort in himself and in his 
 cause," and is " happy as a lover," because he has, what 
 Aeneas at heart lacked, " confidence of Heaven's applause." 
 Aeneas falls short of the " Happy Warrior," but he is of 
 the same family.^ 
 
 ^ I may be allowed to quote Sainte-Beuve once more, Etude, p. 112 : "Ce 
 personnage si distinct, si accompli, le plus Aeneas, pieux envers les hommes 
 autant qu'envers les dieux, et que (sauf son moment d'erreur et d'oubli a Car- 
 thage), considerant toutes ses vertus, ses devotions et religions, ses preuves 
 d'humanite, de prud'homie, de courage, je suis tenle de nommer le Godefroy 
 de Bouillon, ou mieux (je I'ai dit deja) le saint Louis d'antiquite ; — le plus 
 parfait ideal de heros que puisse presenter cette religion des Numa, des 
 Xenophon, dont Plutarque est pour nous le dernier pretre." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 INTERPRETATION OF LIFE.— 3. HADES 
 
 Thou soul of God's best earthly mould ! 
 
 Thou happy soul ! and can it be 
 
 That these two words of glittering gold 
 
 Are all that must remain of thee ?— Wordsworth, Matthew. 
 
 Hoc habet argumenlum divinitatis suae [xc. animus] quod ilium divina 
 delectant nee ut alienis sed ut suis interest. Seneca Naturales Qtiatstiones i., 
 Prol. § 12. 
 
 •' )4 LL Virgil is full of learning," says Servius, in 
 ZJk opening his commentary on the sixth book of 
 X ^the Aeneid, "but for learning this book takes the 
 chief place. The greater part of it is from Homer. Some 
 of it is simple narrative, much turns on history, much 
 implies deep knowledge of philosophers, theologians, and 
 i Egyptians, to so great an extent indeed that many have 
 written complete treatises on points of detail in this book." 
 So much said, Servius turns at once to the text. Our 
 purpose, however, is rather to obtain a general view of 
 Virgil's ideas about the other world, and to see, if possible, 
 the various parts played by Homer and the philosophers 
 in forming those ideas.^ Once more we shall find traces 
 of the progress of human thought, and once more a strong 
 Roman feeling running through the whole. " He knew," 
 
 ^ In a poet with so many literary affinities as Virgil, a larger amount of 
 space must be taken up with the study of his literary antecedents than in the 
 case of a more original speculator. Hence in this and the following chapter 
 more attention is given to ihe hi-tory of speculation upon Hades nnd Olympus 
 than may at first seem necessary, while for the specialist the chapters will not 
 be interesting. I have a feeling that the specialist in primitive religion knows 
 a great deal more about it than Virgil did and that this special knowledge of his 
 therefore lies outside our present sphere. I am also quite clear that what Virgil 
 did know meant incomparably more to him — if some friendly scholars will let 
 me say so. 
 
 288 
 
234 VIRGIL 
 
 says Servius, "that various opinions are held on the sway 
 of the gods, so very wisely he gave it a general treatment 
 {teniiit generalitateni). In the main he follows Siro, his 
 Epicurean teacher. The men of this school, as we know, 
 deal with the surface of things, and never penetrate very 
 deep." 1 Servius here speaks, as the Neo-Platonists of 
 his day spoke, of Epicurus, but the hint he gives must 
 not be disregarded. Whatever Virgil learnt from Homer 
 and the philosophers, he was not a Neo-Platonist, and the 
 early influence of Siro, and still more of Lucretius, could 
 never be wholly eradicated from his mind. No doubt he 
 was never so thorough an Epicurean as Lucretius ; his 
 adherence depended more on training than on conviction ; 
 but still his Epicureanism was enough to keep him from 
 ever holding such a point of view as that of Plutarch. 
 Again, we must remember that Virgil is pre-eminently 
 a poet rather than a philosopher or a theologus^ and we 
 must expect him to treat this subject, like others, with the 
 full freedom of a poet. In a word, while we look for 
 dependence upon others who have treated the subject 
 before him, we must also look for detachment. 
 
 I 
 
 When we begin to examine the sources of Virgil's Hades, 
 we are apt to think first of literature, of descriptions of 
 Hades which we find in extant books, particularly in great 
 books ; but the archaeologists would turn our attention 
 elsewhere. By dint of careful reading of books, which are 
 not literature, some, ancient manuals of antiquities, some, 
 polemical treatises ; by elaborate study of ancient ritual 
 with the constant aid of the excavator, they have brought 
 to light another and very different side of ancient life. We 
 have been accustomed in our study of the classics to hold to 
 a traditional account of mythology, accepted eventually by 
 Greeks and Romans as the traditional account of Old 
 Testament history was by the Jews, and amongst other 
 
 1 Servius, ad Aen. vi. 264 siiperficiem reruni traclare^ nunquam altiora 
 disquirere. 
 
HADES 235 
 
 matter a fairly consistent picture of Hades has reached us. 
 Literature and art organized the mythology, and we have 
 habitually accepted this organization. 
 
 But nowadays the comparative study of religion has 
 given us new principles and taught us to look for much 
 that was before unnoticed, and the archaeologists have 
 given us abundant material from the Greek world itself to 
 which to apply our new methods. We find then in only 
 too bewildering profusion ideas of things divine, demonic, 
 or devilish, which we had not suspected ; now and then we 
 find them glimmering perplexingly behind passages and 
 phrases of our poets long familiar ; often it is the excava- 
 tion of a grave or the discovery of an inscription which tells 
 us how little we really knew of what the common people 
 were thinking while the great minds were 
 
 Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. 
 
 One or two important points should be noted. First of 
 all, one feels more and more the imperative need of caution 
 until our acquisitions are better known. We do not yet 
 know from whom came the conceptions of the other world 
 current in classical Greece, or indeed where, and still less 
 when, they began. We may use such words as Pelasgic, 
 chthonic, Orphic, and so forth, but it is difficult to use them 
 with much definition, partly because our knowledge is only 
 partial ; partly because, as M. Boissier says,i where there is 
 no monotheism there are no false gods, and it was even 
 easier for one set of ideas to be merged in another, especially 
 where neither dealt with anything definitely known, than 
 for Catholicism to absorb and adapt the ideas and practices 
 of its pagan environment. In the next place, as we gain 
 insight into the confused and superstitious thinking of 
 the common people, we realize more forcibly the grandeur 
 and the value of what we call the Greek genius. The 
 significance of that transcendence of current notions and of 
 that clear strong grip of reality, which are its constant 
 marks, becomes intensified. 
 
 ^ La Religion romaine, i. p. 335 : " Pour des gens qui ne croyaient pas i 
 I'existence dun Dieu unique, il u'y avail pas de faux dieux." 
 
236 VIRGIL 
 
 Let us turn at once to Homer's world of the dead. Homer 
 has been scanned through and through by eager eyes 
 anxious to find traces of what is called primitive religion, 
 and singularly little has been founds Aeschylus is a richer 
 field for such investigation. For the great mind, which it 
 is hardly possible not to feel behind the Iliad and Odyssey 
 as we have them (whatever their ultimate origin in whole 
 or in part), divination, magic, the cult of the dead, ritual 
 generally, are outside the circle of supreme interests ; they 
 are dead, unreal, to be disregarded. That great mind, seems 
 as unconscious of such things as Shakespeare habitually is 
 of the religious controversies that raged around him. 
 
 To take the first example, discussion has risen about the 
 libations which Odysseus pours at Circe's bidding, and the 
 blood which the ghosts drink. Is there here some trace 
 of the cult of the dead ? If there is, the German critic 
 Kammer would cut the passage out as an insertion ; or, if 
 the passage is not so easily to be detached, the whole Nekyia, 
 the visit to the dead, must be set down as of late date ; so 
 alien to Homer is the suggestion of such a cult. On the 
 other hand, Rohde maintains that, while the cult of the 
 dead is long anterior to Homer's age and lasted long after 
 it, it was not practised at the actual time — it was re- 
 membered, however, and the poet used it. But at all 
 events, whatever the origin of the rights performed by 
 Odysseus, the poet has his own explanation — the "strength- 
 less heads of the dead " drink of the blood to gain vision 
 and speech. Anticleia, the hero's mother, is not suffered to 
 approach the blood till Teiresias has spoken, and then 
 Odysseus says, " I see here the spirit of my mother dead ; 
 lo, she sits in silence near the blood, nor deigns to look 
 her son in the face nor speak to him ! Tell me, prince, 
 how may she know me again that I am he ? " Teiresias 
 says that she must drink the blood. So Anticleia " drank 
 the dark blood, and at once she knew me." ^ The sacrifice 
 is lost in the contrivance. Thus, in general, Homer's is the 
 
 ^ The reader may consult Professor Gilbert Murray's Rise of the Greek Epic ; 
 and Mr Andrew Lang's World of Homer (1910) pp. 126, 127, 133. 
 * Odyssey^ xi. 141 f. (Butcher and Lang). 
 
HADES 237 
 
 poetry of live men, and he " lets the dead bury their 
 dead." ^ 
 
 But why does Odysseus go to visit the dead at all ? 
 Especially, it is asked, why should he go to learn of 
 Teiresias what Circe can and does tell him in more fullness ? 
 In reply, another question is raised. Did he go at all in 
 the oldest form of the story ? Now, when we begin to speak 
 of the oldest form of the story, it is time to pause. What is the 
 oldest form of the story .'* We take the Odyssey as we find 
 it ; and, analysing it, we recognize stories here and there 
 which we meet elsewhere. Failing another name, we call 
 them *' folk-tales " — stories told from of old everywhere : to 
 whom do they belong or what is their oldest form ? More 
 than three hundred variants of Cinderella have been col- 
 lected. When we have recognized our folk-tales in the 
 Odyssey, we can make our conjectures as to how the poem 
 may have grown. Whatever the original germ, it now 
 includesso many elements of immemorial antiquity — who shall 
 say how, or when, or where it came by them ? Some of 
 them fit into their places only loosely, some have interpola- 
 ations within themselves.^ 
 
 Odysseus really visits the dead in virtue of the old 
 instinct, which in other lands and among other peoples sent 
 some one to explore the undiscovered country and return, 
 and the very looseness of connexion between book xi and 
 the rest of the Odyssey betrays the original character of the 
 tale. In the Kalevala, Walnamofnen, " like all epic heroes, 
 
 ^ See H. Weil, Etudes sur V antiquity p-ecque, p. 12, on Homer's attitude to 
 the abode and the religion of the dead generally. "Dans ses poemes il fait 
 grand jour." See also the fine chapter on "The House of Death" in Miss 
 F. Melian Stawell's Homer and the Iliad — on the question of the blood and the 
 ghosts, p. 157. 
 
 * Rohde Psyche^, pp. 49 ff. , on the descent of Odysseus, holds it is "one of the 
 few certain results of critical analysis " that this was not originally a part of the 
 Odyssey. Miss Stawell, Homer and the Iliad, p. 165, has another view : "The 
 loss of weight to the Odyssey if this Book were removed can hardly be over- 
 estimated.'' I am less and less in a hurry to discuss the Homeric question ; I 
 feel that so far more learning than real feeling for literature has been in most 
 cases brought to bear on it. It is for that reason that with a warm welcome 
 for the books of Mr Murray, Miss Stawell, Mr Lang and others, I do not want 
 to make up my own mind. The study of poety grows more fascinating and more 
 perplexing as one reads the poets. 
 
238 VIRGIL 
 
 visits the place of the dead," ^ and from his story we can 
 glean a hint or two for future use. " The maidens who play 
 the part of Charon are with difficulty induced to ferry over 
 a man bearing no mark of death by fire or sword or water " 
 — this was what Aeneas found. Again, on his return, 
 Wafnamoinen warns mankind to " beware of perverting 
 innocence, of leading astray the pure heart; they that do 
 these things shall be punished eternally in the depths of 
 Tuoni. There is a place prepared for evil-doers, a bed of 
 stones burning, rocks of fire, worms and serpents." The 
 " somewhat lax and wholesale conversion " of the Finns to 
 Christianity left them much where they were, but we can 
 feel here, with Mr Lang, that this revelation is coloured by 
 ideas which were not those of the primitive Finns. In the 
 same way we are not surprised to be told that scholars 
 question the age of that passage in the Nekyia where 
 Odysseus sees Minos judging and Tityos, Tantalus, and 
 Sisyphus in torment (568-600).^ Whoever added them to 
 the story was so absent-minded as not to notice that they 
 could not well come to Odysseus like the other shades. 
 They are there, it is clear, to point a moral. Similarly 
 to safeguard tradition, a late hand added the explanation, 
 not a very lucid one, of how it is that Herakles can be 
 at once a god in Olympus and be seen by Odysseus, a shade 
 in hell. 
 
 Odysseus visits the other world, and while it is better for 
 us not to question too closely as to the reason for his going, 
 we may ask what he finds there. We have put on one side 
 the moral tales of Sisyphus and the others, and it is 
 generally agreed that we must also set aside the charming 
 but rather irrelevant heroines, who seem to have been 
 sent to see him to please another and a less poetic age.^ 
 
 ^ Andrew Lang, Ctisto?n and Myth, p. 171. 
 
 * Weil, Etudes, p. 22, points out that ancient and modem criticism agrees here. 
 Miss Stawell, op. cit. p. 154, would omit Minos, Sisyphus, and Herakles. 
 
 ^ Miss Stawell, op. cit. 159, defends the heroines, against the view of Wilamowitz 
 that the choice of figures is accidental.. In view of recent research in the folk- 
 lore of the Dioscuri, it is perhaps worth while to note in passing that every 
 heroine who is mentioned in the passage as having a god for her lover bore twins. 
 The mother of Herakles is not an exception. But this is a little remote from 
 Virgil. 
 
HADES 239 
 
 Odysseus, then, sets his sails, and "a breeze of the 
 North wind " (x. 507), sent by Circe (xi. 6), bore the ship 
 " to the limits of the world, to the deep-flowing Oceanus. 
 There is the land and the city of the Cimmerians, shrouded 
 in mist and cloud, and never does the shining sun look 
 down on them with his rays, neither when he climbs up 
 the starry heavens, nor when again he turns earthward 
 from the firmament, but baleful night is outspread over 
 miserable mortals. Thither we came and beached the ship." 
 He disembarks and goes on foot to " the place which Circe 
 had declared." Circe's geography is still a little vague. She 
 had told him to beach his ship by deep-eddying Oceanus, 
 " but go thyself to the dank house of Hades." " Thereby, 
 she continues, " into Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon and 
 Cocytus, a branch of the water of the Styx, and there is 
 a rock and the meeting of the two roaring waters." One may 
 wonder whether Circe actually named these streams, which 
 Odysseus does not again mention, or whether they came into 
 the story with Sisyphus and the heroines. 
 
 However, on reaching the place, wherever it was, Odysseus 
 drew his sword, dug his pit, a cubit in length and breadth, 
 and " poured a pouring " to all the dead, of mead and wine 
 and water. Then he sprinkled white meal, prayed and 
 promised other offerings — a black heifer for them all, and a 
 black ram for Teiresias — to be given on his return. So much 
 said, he bled the sheep over the trench, "and lo ! the spirits 
 of the dead that be departed gathered them from out of 
 Erebus. Brides and youths unwed, and old men of many 
 and evil days, and tender maidens with grief yet fresh at 
 heart; and many there were, wounded with bronze-.shod 
 spears, men slain in fight with their bloody mail about 
 them. And these many ghosts flocked together from every 
 side about the trench with a wondrous cry, and pale fear 
 got hold on me." ^ The sheep are burnt and prayer made 
 to mighty Hades and to dread Persephone. 
 
 When at last the dead begin to speak with Odysseus, we 
 get from them the clearest picture of their state. " Where- 
 fore," asks Teiresias, "hast thou, poor man, left the sunlight 
 
 > Od. xi. 36-43. 
 
240 VIRGIL 
 
 and come hither to behold the dead and a joyless land ? " ^ 
 Odysseus tries to embrace his mother, but thrice she flits 
 from his hands " like a shadow or a dream," and he asks if 
 she is but a phantom, " Ah ! me ! my child, Persephone, 
 daughter of Zeus, doth in no wise deceive thee, but even 
 thus is it with mortals when a man dies. For the sinews no 
 more bind together the flesh and the bones, but the great 
 force of burning fire abolishes these, so soon as the life has 
 left the white bones, and the spirit like a dream flies away 
 and is gone. But to the light haste with all thy heart" 
 (216-23). 
 
 The shade of Agamemnon wept and shed tears, but could 
 not embrace Odysseus. " It might not be, for he had now 
 no steadfast strength nor power at all, such as was afore- 
 time in his supple limbs" (393). "How," asks Achilles, 
 "durst thou come down to the house of Hades, where dwell 
 the senseless dead, the phantoms of men outworn ?" (475). 
 " Nay, speak not comfortably to me of death," he cries. 
 " Rather would I live on ground, as the hireling of another, 
 with a landless man, who had no great livelihood, than bear 
 sway among all the dead that be departed "(488-91). 
 
 " Persephone doth in no wise deceive thee ! " The dead 
 are as shadows or dreams, dwelling in a joyless land with- 
 out light or sun. Their lot is duller than the dullest and 
 weariest the living can know — "a nerveless, noiseless ex- 
 istence." So judged the poet of the Odyssey?' Later hands 
 confused his tale with moral instances, and the long develop- 
 ment of hell began.^ But even so, apart from the three 
 great sinners of legend, it is startling to realize how empty 
 
 ^ Note the force of omitting line 92, which is absent from the MSS. Teiresias 
 does not recognize the visitor, until he has drunk the blood. " Anticleia," says 
 Mr Nairn, "seems to have had a vague knowledge of her son before she had 
 drunk the blood : hence she lingers . . . full consciousness she only attains with 
 the draught." 
 
 * The second Nekyia does not belong to the picture. The ghosts are, perhaps 
 a little livelier— they have at least something to talk about; they are not the 
 ghosts of the first Nekyia, they are an imitation and not a good one. The local 
 colour of the " White Rock " and Hermes and his rod are all of a later age. See 
 Ettig, Acherimtica, p. 276. 
 
 2 Dieterich, Nekyia (Teubner, 1893), P- 77> holds that these insertions were 
 made by men who were far above the ideas criticized by Plato (see p. 249), but 
 who yet were Orphics. 
 
HADES 241 
 
 after all is the eventual hell of the Odyssey. Whatever may 
 be the function of the Homeric Erinnyes,^ it is not exercised 
 in this Hades. There is no Tartarus, no Elysium, so no 
 Minos is needed to send the dead to the one or the other.^ 
 Proteus, it is true, prophesies to Menelaus that he will not 
 die in Argos, " but the deathless gods will convey thee to 
 the Elysian plain and the world's end, where is Rhadamanthys 
 of the fair hair, where life is easiest for men. No snow is 
 there, nor yet great storm, nor any rain ; but always Oceanus 
 sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill West to blow cool on 
 men ; yea, for thou hast Helen to wife, and thereby they 
 deem thee {cr<piv) to be son-in-law of Zeus" (iv. 561-70). 
 Of all this Odysseus sees nothing whatever, and, even on 
 Proteus' showing, it seems to be reserved for the sons-in-law 
 of Zeus. The history of the Greek ideas of the other world 
 is the story of the conquest of Elysium for common people, 
 the introduction of merit and eventually of morals into life 
 beyond the grave and the consequent necessity for Tartarus. 
 Perhaps the first order introduced into the world of the 
 dead is due to "the clear but clumsy intellect ' ^ of Hesiod, 
 but even he does not take us very far. The dead of the 
 golden age are " good demons, above ground, guardians of 
 mortal men " ; those of the silver age are underground, 
 but blessed, conspicuously coming second, yet in honour; 
 those of the bronze age are in "the dank house of chill 
 Hades, nameless " ; the heroes, the fourth race, are no longer 
 where Homer left them, but, " with hearts free from care, 
 are in the islands of the blessed, by the eddies of Oceanus " 
 ( Works and Days, 109-73). As for the men of his own 
 day, Hesiod shows us that things are bad enough on earth, 
 but their eventual lot he omits to mention. The Titans are 
 in murky darkness, with no escape, girt by a wall and gates 
 of brass {Theog. 720-45). 
 
 ^ See Iliad, xix. 259 'Ep'i'i^f s, at ^' t'l'i '^aia.v dvOpiLirov^ Tivvvrai., oris k' iirlopKov 
 d/xoffffri. In //. iii. 278 the Erinnyes yield place to a vaguer oi. 
 
 * Minos defjitffT(vei for the dead {!.■ 268), who ask him for pronouncements 
 (5t«as). In other words, just as Orion hunted in life and goes on hunting below, 
 so Minos goes on judging. Even so, lioth Orion and Minos are insertions. 
 Plato's view of Minos is not Homer's, even though he quotes the passage, Gorgias, 
 526 D. ^ Gomperz, Greek Thinkers^ i. p. 38. 
 
 16 
 
242 VIRGIL 
 
 II 
 
 The chief sources ol teaching on the other world were 
 the various mysteries, especially those of Eleusis. It is 
 difficult to distinguish the confluent streams of thought, 
 but three stages in the history of Eleusis and its rites are 
 recognized — the first, that represented in the Homeric 
 hymn to Demeter ; the second, marked by the gradual 
 introduction of orgiastic and Dionysiac rites and associated 
 with the mystic name of lacchus ; and the third, connected 
 more closely with the name Dionysus Zagreus, with Orphic 
 religion and Oriental rite, and dating from about the time 
 of Alexander the Great.i 
 
 The Homeric hymn speaks of Demeter teaching Tripto- 
 lemus and other kings, whose names grew more mystic in 
 later days, " the doing of sacred things, and awful rites 
 {opyia aejULva), that none may transgress nor ask of, nor tell 
 — great awe of the gods checks speech. Happy is he among 
 men on earth who has seen them ; and he that is not initiate, 
 and he that has part therein, have never the same lot, when 
 dead, and in dank darkness below" (474-82). Does happi- 
 ness imply immortality } 
 
 Many strange ideas have been current about what was 
 done in the mysteries and what there was to conceal. Ex- 
 cavation of the site of the Hall of Mysteries has revealed 
 that it was not a temple, had no statue of a deity, knew no 
 sacrifices within doors. The arrangements for exit, seating, 
 and so forth are so free from any suggestion of mystery as 
 to cause " a shade of disillusion " ^ — in fact, as Pompey found 
 at Jerusalem, we find at Eleusis nu//a intus deuni effigie 
 
 ^ Percy Gardner, Neiv Chapters in Greek History, ch. xvii. p. 385 f. ; 
 Lenormant, Contemporary Review, May, i88o (vol. i. p. 859). Here again, as in 
 the previous section on Homer, I may be allowed to apply to myself the re- 
 mark of Servius quoted at the beginning of the chapter — " he knew there were 
 various opinions, but tennit generalitatem " — or, like Poins, tried to keep to the 
 middle of the road. The real aim of the chapter is lightly to sketch such views 
 as Virgil probably knew about — not to discuss archaeological problems, non 
 nosti-um inter vos tantas componere lites. 
 
 * P. Gardner, op. cit., p. 391 ; Lenormant, C. R., Sept., 1880, p. 419. 
 
HADES 243 
 
 vacuam sedent et inania arcana}- It would seem that miracle 
 plays, as we should call them, and these of no very intricate 
 or elaborate machinery, were performed — plays turning on 
 the stories of Demeter, and, later on, of Zagreus. That 
 representations of the tortures of Tartarus or the delights 
 of Elysium were given is apparently very doubtful. Con- 
 fronted with Aristophanes' Frogs, Lenormant holds that 
 "the boldness of the poet appears to demonstrate just the 
 opposite of that which it is sought to infer from it. If the 
 sight of the infernal regions had been placed before the eyes 
 of the initiated in the mysteries, an illusion so direct would 
 have been considered as a violation of the secret." 
 
 Nor does it seem that the priests taught any theological 
 or mystical doctrine, or had indeed any ideas, very different 
 from those current without the precincts. Synesius of 
 Cyrene (not yet a bishop), in criticizing the ecstatic virtues 
 of the Christian monks and priests, complains that there 
 is no reason or reflection about them ; the monks remind 
 him of what Aristotle said of men being initiated in the 
 mysteries — " they learnt nothing, but had feelings, were 
 put into a frame of mind — supposing, of course, they were 
 in a fit state beforehand," and this fit state (is this Aristotle 
 or Synesius speaking?) was aXoyo?, had nothing to do with 
 reason.- No wonder that Pindar, hinting at the mysteries, 
 says ^covdeura a-vveroicnv.^ Professor Gardner suggests a 
 comparison with Christian sacraments, which may be only 
 too apposite.* 
 
 More important than the original contribution of Eleusis 
 to the doctrine of another life are those of two schools of 
 thought, differing in their initial aims and ideas but uniting 
 at last in one great tradition — the Pythagoreans and the 
 Orphics. Into their origin we cannot here inquire. It will 
 be enough to say that direct or indirect indebtedness to the 
 
 1 Tacitus, //isf. v 9. " No image within of a god, the shrine vacant, the 
 mysteries empty." 
 
 "Synesius, Dio, p. 48, Migne col. 1 1 33. Ar. Fra^:, ed. Heitz, p. 40; Oi) 
 IxaOeiv ri del {yp. ri 5e1v) is Migne's text. 
 
 ' 01. ii. 93, " with a voice for such as understand." 
 
 * Op. cit., p. 402. Cf. Dr Hatch's Hibbert Lectures, x. pp. 295 ff., on the 
 historical connexion between Greek and Christian "mysteries." 
 
244 VIRGIL 
 
 far East has been asserted of Pythagoras, and that side by 
 side with the Thracian connexion of Orphism there has been 
 recognized considerable affinity with Egyptian thought^ 
 To be brief, Pythagoras was led to emphasize the doctrine of 
 the transmigration of souls.^ The Orphic teaching found its 
 centre in the myth of Dionysus Zagreus, the child-god 
 mutilated and devoured by the Titans, whose heart, however, 
 was rescued by Athene and swallowed by Zeus to reappear 
 as the new Dionysus.^ The Titans were struck by the 
 thunderbolt, and from their ashes rose mankind, creatures 
 of a two-fold nature, Titanic and divine, ever to be torn 
 this way and that by these conflicting elements of evil and 
 good linked in uneasy union. Traces are here of very 
 different lines of thought — in the rending of the child-god 
 asunder we are near the strange rites that cluster round the 
 sacramental animal, the camel of the Arabs, the calf of the 
 Maenads, rites surviving in a purified form in the Hebrew 
 Passover.* In the war of Titans and gods, and the resulting 
 double nature of man, we are not far from doctrines most 
 familiar to the western world in Manichaeanism.^ With 
 
 ^ See Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, bk. i. ch. 5 ; Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 72-107. 
 Jevons, Intr. to Hist, of Religion, pp. 352 f., 376. Miss Jane Harrison, 
 Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, passim. 
 
 * "Leave off beating the dog ; for I recognize in his tones the voice of the 
 soul of a friend." So Xenophanes reports him to have said ; aj). Diogenes 
 Laertius, viii. 36 : 
 
 Kol irore /xiv aTv4>e\i^ofJievov <TKv\aKos irapiovra. 
 
 (fxialv ewoLKTeipai. /cat rode (pdcrdai. iwos, 
 iravaaL fi,rjSi pairil'' eireirj (piKov a.vipo% earl 
 
 Hohn {Gk. Hist. i. 369) takes the story to be parody. Gomperz, even so, finds 
 it true to character. See also Rhys David's Hibbert Lectures, iii. "The 
 Buddhist Doctrine of Karma." He distinguishes between the Platonic and 
 Buddhist theories, and doubts if transmigration was ever held by an Aryan race 
 uninfluenced from outside. 
 
 ^ Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, 1 5 P. citing ' ' Orpheus the poet. " 
 
 * See Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, lecture ix. p. 338. In 
 January 1897 there was some little trouble with the Indians of British Columbia, 
 owing to the government's objection to a rite, in which a live dog was torn up by 
 the participants with their teeth and eaten raw. 
 
 ^ See Gustav Fliigel, Mani, seine Lehrc u. seine Schriften aus dem. Fihrist, 
 Leipzig, 1862 (pp. 89-105, a translation of the fragments of Mani's original 
 teaching). 
 
HADES 245 
 
 both Orphics and Manichaeans the problem was the 
 universal one, to explain the strange contradiction in 
 human nature, and then to disentangle the divine element. 
 
 The common doctrine of Pythagorean and Orphic " may- 
 be epitomized in a single significant phrase as the 'fall of 
 the soul by sin.' The soul was of divine origin, and its 
 earthly existence was unworthy of it. Its body was a 
 fetter, a prison, a grave. ... Its sin involved it in peniten- 
 tial punishment, for through atonement and purification 
 alone would it be able to return to the divine home whence 
 it came. This process of purification and atonement was 
 accomplished in two ways — by the penalties of Hades and 
 by the cycle of births. We may conjecture that the 
 penalties of Hades were a later accretion to the Pythagorean 
 doctrine of metempsychosis, derived from the Orphics and 
 fused with it through their influence." 1 After a long series 
 of re-incarnations, interrupted by epochs of punishment 
 in the pool of mire (a great feature in Orphic schemes of 
 the other world), the soul, pure once more, escaped to 
 re-enter its home and be with the gods. The wheel which 
 we know in Buddhism, ^ or one very like it, reappears in 
 Orphism. An actual wheel was used in Orphic ceremonies ; 
 a pictured wheel appears in their presentments of the other 
 world.^ It will be seen that here we have the origin of 
 much in Virgil's Hades. The wheel itself reappears in his 
 story, 
 
 ubi mille rotam volvere per annos^ (A. vi. 748). 
 
 " The best witness to the faith of the Orphic as to the 
 future life," says Miss Harrison, " are his own confessions, 
 buried with him in his tomb, inscribed, happily for us, on 
 imperishable gold." Eight tablets of very thin gold have 
 been found in graves, most of them in southern Italy, and 
 they date apparently from the third and fourth centuries B.C. 
 
 1 Gomperz, GreeJi: Thinkers, p. 128. See also Dieterich, Nekyia, ch. iii. 
 
 * See W. Simpson, llie Buddhist Praying Wheel, Notes, p. 272, for a picture 
 of a Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Life, taken {torn Journal of Royal Asiatic Society. 
 
 ' See Miss Harrison, Prolegomefia, pp. 589-94, and figures 163, 164. Simpson, 
 Buddhist Fraying Wheel, figures on pp. 41, 266, 267. 
 
 4 »' When they have rolled the wheel for a thousand years," 
 
246 VIRGIL 
 
 Two will suffice us for the present. First, the Campagno 
 tablet, found near Naples, close to the hand of a skeleton — 
 
 Out of the pure I come. Pure Queen of Them Below, 
 Eukles and Eubuleus and the other Gods immortal. 
 For I also avow me that I am of your blessed race, 
 But Fate laid me low and the other Gods immortal 
 
 starflung thunderbolt. 
 
 I have flown out of the sorrowful weary Wheel. 
 
 I have passed with eager feet to the Circle desired. 
 
 I have sunk beneath the bosom of Despoina, Queen of 
 
 the Underworld. 
 I have passed with eager feet from the Circle desired. 
 Happy and Blessed One, thou shalt be God instead of 
 
 mortal. 
 
 A kid I have fallen into milk.^ 
 
 The second tablet is from Petelia, and it runs — 
 
 Thou shalt find on the left of the House of Hades a 
 Well-spring, 
 
 And by the side thereof standing a white cypress. 
 
 To this Well-spring approach not near. 
 
 But thou shalt find another by the Lake of Memory, 
 
 Cold water flowing forth, and there are guardians before it. 
 
 Say : " I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven ; 
 
 But my race is of Heaven (alone). This ye know your- 
 selves. 
 
 And lo ! I am parched with thirst and I perish. Give 
 me quickly 
 
 The cold water flowing forth from the Lake of Memory." 
 
 And of themselves they will give thee to drink from the 
 holy Well-spring, 
 
 And thereafter among the other heroes thou shalt have 
 lordship . . . 
 
 Three lines follow, of which only scattered words remain.^ 
 
 ^ Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to Greek Religion, ch. xi. p. 586. There is no 
 lacuna or illegibility on the tablet itself answering to the dots ; but metre 
 and sense show there is an omission. The tablet is in the National Museum 
 at Naples. H. Weil, Etudes, pp. 37 ff. 
 
 * Miss Harrison, op. cit., p. 374. This is in the British Museum. 
 
HADES 247 
 
 Before we pass on, it bears upon our present purpose 
 to notice that both Orpheus and Pythagoras were said to 
 have descended into hell. Orpheus' descent is of course 
 famous — how much of its fame comes from the fourth 
 Georgict — but it seems highly probable that the romantic 
 motive, on which it turns in the common story, is not the 
 original one. Either he did not descend to regain the lost 
 Eurydice but to learn about things below with a view to 
 teaching them above ground ; or, if he did go to recover 
 Eurydice, it seems highly probable that the story is a 
 variant of the descent of Dionysus to recover Semele.* 
 Pythagoras, according to one story, saw the soul of Hesiod 
 bound with brass to a pillar, and squeaking {rplt^ovrrav), while 
 Homer's was hanging to a tree with serpents round it — 
 punishments for their stories of the gods. An interesting 
 fragment of the Pythagorean of the comic poet Aristophon 
 brings us back into touch with the actual world : " He said 
 that he went down to the regime below and saw the 
 various groups ; and that the Pythagoreans were by far the 
 best off among the dead ; for they were the only people with 
 
 whom Pluto dined — on account of their piety. Well, he's 
 
 an easy-going god, if he enjoys the company of such 
 unwashed fellows." ^ 
 
 Whatever the date of Aristophon, who is supposed to 
 be a poet of the New Comedy, Orphic and Pythagorean 
 teaching about the other world seems to have been widely 
 known, and traces of it are found freely in the great 
 literature of the fifth century B.C. In one of Pindar's Threnoi, 
 
 * Miss Harrison, Prolegomena, pp. 603 ff. : Dieterich, Nekyia, p. 128. It may 
 be noted that the end of Orpheus also suggests one story of Dionysus. 
 Orpheus was torn in pieces by women, G. iv. 520. Plutarch de sera numinum 
 vindicta 565 F on the recovery of Semele and the place of Lethe. 
 
 • Diogenes Lacrtius, viii. 21 and 36 : 
 
 A. l<pi] re Karafias e's diaiTav rr]v koltu, 
 18(11/ eKacTTovs' dia<pepeiv Sk Trdfj.woXu 
 
 Toiis HvdayopL<TTas tujv vsKpuv. fuivoLcTt yap 
 
 T01JT0l(7i TOV UXoVTUVa (TVfffflTeTv i(j>7} 
 
 5i' evae^eiav. 
 
 B. (vx^p^ 6e6y Xe7eis 
 ei roij p'irov fxeaTolaiv ijdeTai. ^vvuiv. 
 
 See also Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 78, 129 ; Ettig, Acherwitica, p. 288. 
 
248 VIRGIL 
 
 for instance, we read: "The body of all men is subject 
 to all-powerful death, but alive there yet remains an image 
 of the living man ; for that alone is from the gods. It 
 sleeps when the limbs are active, but to them that 
 sleep in many a dream it revealeth an award of joy or 
 sorrow drawing near." ^ 
 
 The ideas of reward and punishment after death stamped 
 themselves upon the common mind. Cephalus, in the 
 Republic, tells how in advancing age he is haunted by 
 them.^ The forms which reward and punishment would 
 take were also well known — as is shown by the dialogue 
 in the Frogs between Dionysus and the slave newly landed 
 in Hades — 
 
 Dionysus. Well, and what have we here ? 
 
 Slave. Darkness — and mud. 
 
 Dionysus. Did you see any of the perjurers here, 
 
 And father-beaters, as he said we should ? 
 Slave. Why, didn't you ? 
 
 Dionysus. I .'' Lots.^ 
 
 Public opinion was just as clear about the rewards : " the 
 blessings which Musaeus and his son give from the gods 
 are gayer still (veaviKwrepa) ; for in their story they take 
 them down to Hades and make them sit down, and then 
 they get up a banquet of the 'holy' and display them, 
 crowned, with nothing to do henceforth and for ever but to 
 get drunk. For the finest possible prize for virtue, they 
 seem to think, is eternal drunkenness."* 
 
 '^ Kol (TtS/ua fxkv Travruiv '^Trerai, Oavdrqi irepLdOevet, 
 
 ^wov 8' iTL XeiweTai aliivos eidwXov to yap tan [jlovov 
 
 iK dewV evoei 5^ irpacraovriiiv fxeXicov, drap evdovreaaiv iv ttoWols oveLpois 
 delKvvffi TepTrvQv ecpeprroiaav xt^Xewuf re Kplcnv. 
 
 Pindar, Threni it. 96. 
 See Dr James Adam, " Doctrine of the Celestial Origin of the Soul from Pindar 
 to Plato," in his Vitality of P/atonism, 1911. 
 
 * Rep , i. 330, D KarayeXuifievoi r^ws rdre dr] ffTpi<pov(Ti. ttjv ^vxv" M dX-qOets 
 &cnp. 
 
 * Aristophanes, Frogs, 273 (Murray). Dionysus looks at the audience as he 
 speaks these last words. 
 
 * Plato, Kep. ii. 363 c. See Dr Adam's notes. Weil, Etudes, p. 41 ; " c'est 
 un ideal quelque peu thrace." 
 
HADES 249 
 
 The interesting word here is " the holy," which is almost 
 a technical term for the initiated.^ It shows us at once the 
 weak spot in the Mysteries. They are not in any decisive 
 way connected with morality. The language of the gold 
 plates, already quoted, is beautiful, but what is meant by 
 "pure"? Is it actually and spiritually "pure," or only 
 ceremonially and technically? We may be fairly sure that, 
 with the majority of people, there was a general consensus 
 of opinion that to secure the joys of "eternal drunkenness" 
 it was only necessary to be initiated, that a sacrament, in 
 fact, could veto the operation of moral law. Virtue, says 
 Plato, is hard ; wickedness pleasant and profitable ; and 
 then " quacks and prophets go to rich men's doors and 
 persuade them that they have power from the gods, by 
 means of sacrifices and chants, to cure any wrong deed of 
 their own or their ancestors in a course of pleasures and 
 feasts " ; they quote Homer to the effect that even the gods 
 themselves can be won by prayer, that men turn them 
 aside by sacrifices and winning supplications, by drink 
 offering and the smoke of the victim ; they produce piles 
 of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, sacrificial liturgies in 
 fact, and " persuade men and cities that there are absolu- 
 tions and atonements by means of sacrifices and pleasures 
 for them while they live, and, when we are dead, the mys- 
 teries {TeXeraC), as they call them, rid us of trouble, over 
 there; but if we have not sacrificed, terrible things await us."^ 
 
 Yet Plato did not reject Orphism.^ His apocalypses (it 
 one may use the word) are full of Orphic and Pythagorean 
 ideas. The accounts of the other world given by him in the 
 Phaedrus^ the Gorgias, the Phaedo, and the Republic have 
 been woven by Doring into a complete and harmonious 
 whole.* The whole story of the soul is given in the 
 Phaedrus — its condition before incarnation, the fall due to 
 
 ^ The reader will remember the use of the term "saints" in the New Testament. 
 
 ^ Plato, Rep. ii. 364 A-365 A. Homer, Iliad., ix. 497-501. See Robertson 
 Smith, Religion of the Semites, lect. vii. p. 261, on the gaiety of sacrifices. 
 
 *See article by Mr F. M. Cornford, in the Classical Review, Dec. 1903, " Plato 
 and Orpheus." 
 
 * A. Doring, Die eschatologischen Mythen Platos, in Archiv fiir Gesch. der 
 Fhilosopkie, vol. vi. 1893. Weil, Ettides, pp. 65 f., 82. 
 
2 50 VIRGIL 
 
 the inability of reason to control desire, the first incarna- 
 tion and its meaning (o-co/xa = cr^/xa),^ the judgement with 
 punishment or reward, and lastly the new choice of life. It 
 is in the Gorgias that the most vivid account is given of 
 the judgement after death. "The judge must be naked, 
 dead, with very soul contemplating the very soul of each 
 immediately on death {^avTr} rr] ^Jrvxi) avrrjv rrjv yjrvxw Oecopovvra 
 e^ai^vtj? cnroOavovTog tKacTTOv), alone without a kinsman be- 
 side him, all the trappings of his life left behind on earth, 
 that the judgement may be just (523 E)." "Everything is 
 visible in the soul when it is stripped of the body. Every- 
 thing that belongs to it by nature, and the results in a 
 man's soul of every pursuit" (524 D.) The judge does not 
 know whose soul it is — it may be a king's soul, which he 
 finds unsound through and through, " full of scars of deceit 
 and injustice, which each man's deeds have left printed 
 (eicojuLop^aro) upon the soul, all crooked with lying and 
 trickery, nothing straight" (524 E). Such were Tantalus, 
 Sisyphus, and Tityos in Homer, " most dynasts being bad " 
 (526 B). The main concern of life is to go to the judge with 
 the healthiest possible soul, so made by the search for truth 
 {rrjv a\i]6eiav o-kottwv 526 D). "For you will suffer nothing 
 terrible, if you will really be honourable and good, and 
 practise virtue" (527 D). It should be noticed that nothing 
 is said here about service of the state, which plays a large 
 part in the judgement as described by Cicero and Virgil. 
 
 In the Phaedo we have the topography of the other world, 
 its underground rivers of fire and mud, and its abysses. 
 The souls judged are divided into five classes. "Average" 
 people are sent by way of Acheron to the Acherusian 
 lake for shorter or longer terms, to be rewarded and 
 purified as they deserve, and thence they pass to be born 
 again as animals (113 D, A). Incurable sinners go at once 
 to Tartarus for ever (113 E). Those guilty of great sins, but 
 not too great for punishment, go to Tartarus for a year, 
 when, if those they have wronged are willing, they may 
 pass to the Acherusian lake (114 A, B). The fourth class, 
 who have been pre-eminent for holiness, "ascend to their 
 
 ^ The doctrine may be compared with the Hindu Karma. 
 
HADES 251 
 
 pure habitation and dwell on the earth's surface. And 
 those of them who have sufficiently purified themselves 
 with philosophy live thenceforth without bodies and pro- 
 ceed to dwelling-s fairer than these, which are not easily 
 described" (114 B, C). "A man of sense," concludes Plato, 
 " will not insist that these things are exactly as I have 
 described them. But I think he will believe that some- 
 thing of the kind is true of the soul and her habitations." 
 In the last book of the Republic Plato adds more on choice 
 in reincarnation, but as Virgil passes over this we need not 
 now discuss it. 
 
 The Orphism of Plato is thus quite distinct from the 
 confused thinking of the mass of Orphics, and quite distinct 
 too from the miracle-plays which Clement of Alexandria 
 so pitilessly describes. Which of these forms was dominant 
 at any given time is a question perhaps hard to answer ; 
 which influenced most the development of Greek thought 
 it is easier to say. 
 
 Before we leave Greece for Rome, one point already 
 mentioned may be recalled. A short study of popular 
 Orphism and a little acquaintance with Orphic mysteries 
 will help to explain the real greatness of Epicurus. Neo- 
 Pythagoreans, Neo-Platonists, religious men, and men who 
 made their living by religion, united in giving him a low 
 place in the hell he denied. But his bold application of the 
 science of Democritus to religious questions, his reference 
 of all existence to law, in spite of all inconsistencies and 
 failures, was, as Lucretius says, a great victory. 
 
 Quare religio pedibus subiecta vicissim 
 opteritur, nos exaequat victoria caelo ^ (i. 78). 
 
 To-day we are able to sympathize with both sides in the 
 quarrel, and to avail ourselves of all they had of permanent 
 value. It is part of the greatness of Virgil that after an 
 Epicurean training he was able to grasp and use the real 
 contribution of the other side, without surrendering the 
 freedom which Lucretius had taught him to prize. 
 
 * "Therefore religion is put under foot and trampled upon in turn; us his 
 victory brings level with heaven" (Munro). 
 
252 VIRGIL 
 
 III 
 
 The Italians seem to have developed no very definite or 
 well organized scheme of things divine, though it is clear 
 that they had some notions of an after-world, not less 
 dreadful for being dim. There are in Etruscan tombs 
 pictures of demons of frightful aspect. One, called Tuchul- 
 cha, is drawn brandishing a snake, and yelling. Another, 
 who occurs very frequently, is called Charun — a perversion 
 of Charon. He has a large mouth and teeth, wings on his 
 back, and a hooked nose ; he carries a hammer, and, to 
 crown all, he is painted green. In one picture he stands 
 by Achilles, who is sacrificing his prisoners in honour of 
 Patroclus.^ 
 
 In the age of Virgil two great men of letters dealt 
 deliberately with the other world in works which are of 
 interest and importance to the student of the sixth Aeneid. 
 In his attack upon the gods Lucretius could not overlook 
 the popular dread of punishment after death, and he dis- 
 cussed it at some length. Cicero likewise, imitating Plato, 
 concluded his Republic with a myth of his own, which turns 
 upon the future hfe. 
 
 A thorough-going materialist, Lucretius energetically 
 argues for the mortality of the soul. It is like the bbdy 
 material, and Nature has a claim upon all matter for her 
 own purposes, and only lends it to us — 
 
 vitaqua mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu - (Lucr. iii. 
 791). 
 
 Even if time gather again our matter after our decease, 
 rearrange it in the same way, and again give it the light 
 of life, that has nothing to do with us when once our con- 
 sciousness of identity has been broken — 
 
 interrupta semel cum sit repetentia nostri (iii. 851). 
 
 ^ Boissier, H«race et Virgile, pp. 94-7 (tr. 87-90). 
 
 * Cf. a slightly ditferent turn of the same thought in Euripides, Phoenissae, 555 
 oOroi TO -xpyjixar tSia Keicrrjvrai ^poroi, \ rd Twi/ 6eu!V d' lx<"^^^ e-rtfieXovfieda.' | 
 
HADES 253 
 
 No, the great truth is that mortal life ends for us in im- 
 mortal death — 
 
 mortalem vitam mors cum immortalis ademit (iii. 869). 
 
 Philosophy thus effects the emancipation of man's mind by 
 driving headlong out of doors " the dread of something 
 after death," which disturbs and paralyses all within.^ 
 Nature cannot afford to dismiss any matter to Tartarus ; 
 her economy is our salvation (iii. 964-6). But what of 
 Avernus ? Is it not the mouth of Hell, as people said ? ^ 
 No, the fact is that Avernus near Cumae is only one of 
 several such places, where birds and other creatures cannot 
 breathe because of sulphur fumes, an entirely natural 
 phenomenon easily explained by natural law.^ The stories 
 which poets, and Ennius in particular, tell of hell are really 
 true of this life — Tityos is merely the lustful man, while 
 Sisyphus is the politician with ambitions, defeated again and 
 again at the poU.^ In short, the only real hell is the hell 
 fools make of their lives on earth — 
 
 hie Acherusia fit stultorum denique vita (iii. 1023), 
 
 Lastly, as if Lucretius had divined what the sixth Aeneid 
 would be, he applied to one of its central doctrines the most 
 splendid reductio ad absurdum, and finally disposed of the 
 ideas of immortality and transmigration. He pictures the 
 transmigrant souls jostling to get places in new bodies. Is 
 it at birth, or perhaps at conception, he asks, that the im- 
 mortal beings elbow one another in their headlong eager- 
 ness for mortal members ? Or do they arrange to go on the 
 plan of " first come, first served ? " ^ 
 
 In the first book of the Tusciilan Disputations Cicero 
 discusses the immortality of the soul as a philosophical 
 question, and in the epilogue to his Republic he gives a vivid 
 
 ^ Et melus ilk for as prae.ceps Ackeruniis agendus, 
 
 funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab into 
 omnia suffundens mortis nigrore (iii. 37-9). 
 
 * Strabo, c. 244, tells us that this idea is as old as Ephorus. He seems to 
 imply that the story about the birds was fiction, or had at least ceased to be true. 
 
 ^ Lucr. vi. 738-68, omnia quae naturali raiione geruntur (760). 
 
 * Lucr. iii. 978- 1023. » Lucr. iii. 776-83. 
 
2 54 VIRGIL 
 
 and startling presentation of the after-life. It is in the form 
 of a dream, which came to Scipio Africanus the younger 
 outside the walls of Carthage. He finds himself with the 
 elder Africanus and his own father, Aemilius Paullus, in a 
 place high and bright and full of stars, which proves to be 
 the Milky Way. From it he beholds the world, and the 
 sense of infinite space and infinite time is brought home to 
 him.^ The soul, he learns, is but a prisoner in the body ; 
 the life men know on earth being more really death. It 
 comes from the eternal fires called stars, for the stars are 
 animated with a divine intelligence. All on earth is 
 transitory except the soul, the gift of the gods, while beyond 
 the moon all is eternal. The mind is the man {mens cuiusque 
 is est quisque), and it is divine. Man's work is the service of 
 the community of which he is a member. " For all who have 
 saved, helped, or increased their country {patriani), there is a 
 sure and definite place in the sky {certiim esse in caelo 
 definitufn locum), where in happiness they may enjoy eternal 
 life. For to that supreme God, who rules the universe, 
 nothing that is on earth is more grateful than those gather- 
 ings and ordered societies of men which are called states. 
 The rulers and saviours of these proceed hence and return 
 again hither " — to the Milky Way. The universe consists of 
 nine related spheres, of which the outermost, which guards 
 and contains the rest, is the supreme God himself It is he 
 who has given man his soul, and without his order {iniussu 
 eius) man must not leave life, lest he "seem to have 
 abandoned the hum.an task assigned by God." 
 
 The myth is a medley of borrowed matter. It is chiefly 
 valuable for our present purpose because it shows so clearly 
 the ideas of a Roman of culture and sensibility. Infinite 
 time and infinite space — the centre of them for the Roman 
 in Rome. The gods have set him there, and without their 
 leave he must not quit his post. No one will quarrel with 
 such a view, however fantastic the setting, and we shall find 
 that Virgil holds it fully as strongly as Cicero. 
 
 As for the tales which the poets in the old days had told 
 
 ^ Cf. Seneca, Nat, Quaest., i. Prologue § 7 ; and Carlyle's Reminiscences, vol. i. 
 p. 44 (of James Carlyle). 
 
HADES 255 
 
 about Hades, Cicero several times lets us know that they 
 are freely ridiculed — should not a philosopher be ashamed 
 to boast that he is not afraid of such things ? ^ For people — 
 and even Epicureans — did fear them. On the other hand, 
 there were those who marked with anxiety the passing of 
 belief in Hades. Long before Polybius had said that the 
 scrupulous fear of the gods kept the Roman commonwealth 
 together — that it was not idly that the ancients had instilled 
 into the vulgar the belief in punishments in Hell ; there 
 was risk to the state in the rejection of these beliefs.^ So, 
 in Virgil's own day, the historian Diodorus remarked that 
 the old tales — " the mythology," fictitious as it might be — 
 did contribute to piety and righteousness in the many.^ The 
 restoration of religion, attempted by Augustus, was no doubt 
 in part a police measure to counteract the spirit of the 
 times, though that it was not merely this is proved by the 
 clear traces of superstition and romanticism in that hard 
 and shrewd character. 
 
 The poet's view of the matter will probably not be that 
 of the pure philosopher. Still less will he take up the 
 position of the practical moralist or of the Emperor, the 
 arch-policeman of the state. Yet it is quite possible that, 
 however unphilosophic and unpractical, he may come nearer 
 to the truth of things, and that is what we have now to see. 
 
 In the first Georgt'cYngil gently laughed at "the Elysian 
 fields which Greece admires";* he could never deride or 
 attack in the style of Lucretius. In the second book he 
 spoke with admiration of the philosopher victorious over 
 " all fears " and " the noise of greedy Acheron," ^ but he did 
 so with some consciousness of detachment from him — his 
 own happiness lying elsewhere. 
 
 In his story of Orpheus in the fourth Georgic he has 
 given a sketch of Hades himself, but, as the dominant 
 motive is the recovery of Eurydice, it will not surprise us 
 that the treatment leans more to literature than to religion. 
 
 ^ Tusculans, i. 21, 48. » Polybius, vi. 56. 
 
 * Diod. Sic. i. 2 -q tCv iv ^Sov /xvdoXoyia, rrjv vwoOecTLv TreTrXaafi^vrji' €xov(Ta, 
 TToXXd (Tu/ijSdXXeroi rdis avOpwiron irpos evcr^^eiav Kal 5iKaioffvvr]y, 
 
 * C i. 38 qiuxmvis Elysios viiretur Graecia campos. 
 ' G. ii. ^^o-'^fe/ix qui potuit, etc. 
 
ZS6 VIRGIL 
 
 It is, in fact, the Hades of literary convention.^ The 
 passage which most concerns us at present, though not that 
 which most permanently moves us, runs as follows in Lord 
 Burghclere's rendering ^ — 
 
 Then through the jaws of Taenarus he passed, 
 
 The cavernous gates of Dis ; the grove of gloom, 
 
 Wherein the horror of the darkness broods, 
 
 And stood before the powers of nether Hell 
 
 With their dread king ; and wrestled with the hearts 
 
 That know not pity for the prayers of men. 
 
 There, startled by his song, wan spectres flocked 
 
 Forth from the utmost deeps of Erebus, 
 
 Dim phantoms that had lost the light of day, 
 
 Swarming around like flights of myriad birds, 
 
 Who seek the sheltered wood when winter storm 
 
 Or chilly evening drives them from the hills : 
 
 Matrons and husbands, and the forms long dead 
 
 Of high-souled heroes, boys and spouseless girls, 
 
 And well-loved youths who in their parents' sight 
 
 Were laid to rest upon untimely pyres. 
 
 All these were they whom black Cocytus binds 
 
 With darkling ooze, with fringe of loathly reeds, 
 
 With sleepy waves that lap the loveless shore ; 
 
 They whom abhorrent Styx for ever chains. 
 
 Girt with the ninefold fetters of its flood. 
 
 The very denizens of deepest Hell 
 
 Listened, astonied, to the strains he sang : 
 
 The Furies with their locks of livid snakes, 
 
 Grim Cerberus with triple mouth agape. 
 
 While the hushed whirlwind stayed Lvion's wheel. 
 
 The description, one might guess, may date from Virgil's 
 Alexandrine days. If the story is true that the fall of 
 Gallus involved a new conclusion to the book,^ as seems 
 generally agreed, it is quite possible that in the episode of 
 
 ^ Similar descriptions are in Horace, Odes, ii. 13 and 14 ; iii. 11. 
 
 * G. iv. 467 f. 
 
 ' Servius ad Eel. x./uti au£ef7i amicus Vei'gilii, adeo ut quartus Georgicorum 
 a medio usque ad Jinem eius laudes teneret ; quas postea iubente Augusto in 
 Ai'istaei fabtilatn commutavit. 
 
HADES 257 
 
 Aristaeus, of which this is a not specially relevant part, 
 Virgil used old material. The student of philosophy or 
 religion might ask the poet how he reconciled this literary 
 hell with the Pythagoreanism of the earlier part of the book 
 (1. 221), where he speaks of God pervading all things, and 
 of their life, drawn from His, ascending after death to the 
 stars. Whatever reconciliations readers may make, probably 
 the poet would be content to make none. 
 
 When he began to draw Hades in earnest, Virgil 
 remembered this passage. The lines, " Matrons and 
 husbands " to " untimely pyres," he took over as they stood, 
 but the simile he altered. The alteration was slight, but 
 it is significant of the poet's own change of mind and mood. 
 The birds in the Georgic are driven by storm from hill 
 to wood. In the Aeneid it is "the chill of the year" that 
 " chases them oversea and sends them to sunny lands," and 
 the poet adds the old simile of the fallen leaves — 
 
 oil] irep (pvWwv yevf?/, tou] Se Kai avSpoov (^Iliad, vi. 1 46). 
 
 In place of a pretty simile we have two deeply moving 
 analogies of man's life. Autumn comes, and the leaves 
 fall — "surely," said the Hebrew poet, "surely the people 
 is grass." The birds seek another home, "and man goeth 
 to his long home." The shades, which Aeneas sees, have 
 no longer any heart for music ; they think only of crossing 
 Acheron — 
 
 tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore. 
 
 The picturesque figures which listened to Orpheus in the 
 Georgic have all the air of being borrowed from Greek 
 painters ; they were borrowed by Horace more than once, 
 and not without a touch of humour.^ If Ixion reappears 
 in the Ae^ieid, it is in more seriousness. There no casual 
 visitant, not even an Orpheus, can interfere with eternal 
 law. We are nearer Thomas of Celano and his great 
 hymn — 
 
 Mors stupebit et Natura 
 
 cum resurget creatura 
 
 iudicanti responsura. 
 
 * Odes, ii. 13 ; iii. il. 
 17 
 
2 58 VIRGIL 
 
 He at least is doing with the apocalypses of the early 
 Church what Virgil did with the Orphic and Pythagorean 
 apocalypses, from which those are in part descended. 
 
 IV 
 
 We now come to Virgil's sixth book. We have seen 
 something of the long development of men's ideas upon 
 the other world, and we find here as elsewhere that Virgil 
 tries to sum up all that is of value in the traditions, the 
 philosophies, and the fancies of the past.^ The phrase 
 may be vague, but a poet has his own scheme of values, 
 which is not the philosopher's nor the historian's. Much 
 that to them is idle is to the poet significant, and he will 
 not let it go. The result is one that might have been 
 foreseen. Full of beauty, of suggestion, of moral worth 
 and religious feeling, the book is not rigidly consistent 
 with itself. Attempts have been made, notably one by 
 Norden, to bring everything into harmony, but it must 
 be owned that they have not been very happy. The 
 question first to be answered is, whether it is conceivably 
 possible to give a presentment of a world which none 
 of us have seen, and to give it with the very considerable 
 precision which marks Virgil's treatment as contrasted 
 with the loose and vague descriptions of others, and not 
 in doing it to involve oneself in contradictions. 
 
 Aeneas prepared for his journey by sacrificing in the most 
 legitimate way, but if we are to form any strictly spiritual 
 conception of ^that other world and its powers, what can 
 we suppose to be the efficacy of sacrifice? If the world 
 below (or beyond) is governed through and through by 
 moral law, as Plato taught and as Virgil implies, what rele- 
 vancy have black cattle? Would not some more moral 
 preparation of heart be preferable ? Of course it would seem 
 so to a modern mind, but Virgil had not to part company 
 with the religion of his fathers, bound up with which was, 
 or seemed to be, what hope remained of the triumph of 
 
 1 Cf. Servius ad Aen. vi. 719, Miscet philosophiae figmenta poetica, ei ostendit 
 tarn quod est vulgare, quam quod contitut Veritas et ratio naturalis. 
 
HADES 259 
 
 moral ideas in the Roman world. Similarly, what are we 
 to make of the golden bough, which Aeneas must take to 
 Proserpine ? It is not, so far as we know, borrowed from 
 any Greek apocalypse or other Greek source. It is not 
 the golden tablet of the Orphic grave. However it may be 
 connected with tree worship, as Dr Frazer's famous book 
 suggests, Virgil is moving in a different order of ideas 
 altogether from those primitive fancies and usages connected 
 with woods and cornfields. It is quite possible that the 
 thing is originally a symbol of something connected with 
 Nature-worship ; but in Virgil it is a borrowed symbol, and 
 its precise significance it is hard, if not impossible, to guess. 
 But we must not press the poet. 
 
 It will perhaps be enough to say that, just as to-day the 
 ritual and symbolism of a rejected faith may appeal to the 
 mind in which aesthetic considerations outweigh philosophy, 
 — yes, and also in certain moods to the mind in which 
 philosophy still rules, which refuses to accept any dogmata, 
 whatever their aesthetic company, unless justified by reason, 
 — so, side by side with all the teaching of Epicurus, Plato, 
 Pythagoras, and the Stoics, a crowd of usages and fancies, 
 dreams and hopes, from out of the past, appealed to the poet 
 with all the charms of beauty and association. This appeal, 
 not valid against the findings of reason, but surely valid so 
 far as to claim the attention of philosophy, had at all events 
 a claim to be heard in the highest court to which Virgil 
 had access, that of poetic truth. We may not be able to 
 reconcile by logic, still less perhaps by philosophy, all that 
 Virgil tells us in this book, but it is all full of beauty, and 
 beauty has a logic and philosophy of its own ; its symbols 
 are not to be treated as algebraic letters representing so 
 many logical or philosophic ideas, into which they can 
 be converted without trouble, but as combining to open 
 avenues of thought and emotion by following which the 
 mind will find itself at last not far from truth. 
 
 When the required sacrifices have been duly made, 
 Aeneas and the Sibyl start their journey ; and the poet 
 addresses to the gods who rule over souls, to the shades 
 and Chaos and Phlegethon, the prayer that he may be 
 
26o VIRGIL 
 
 allowed to tell of what he has heard, of things in the depths 
 of earth and night. Through darkness, solitude, night, and 
 shadow, hero and Sibyl go through the vacuous land of 
 Dis, the empty realms, as men feel their way through 
 a wood on a night when the clouds about the moon give 
 just enough light to make darkness visible.^ About the very 
 jaws of Hades hang Sorrow, Care, Disease, Age, Fear, 
 Hunger, Toil, the common ills of man, and pre-eminent 
 among the Furies (as one would expect of Virgil) death- 
 dealing War and mad Discord. Here is the elm where 
 nest vain dreams, and here the substanceless forms of 
 Chimaeras, Scyllas, Gorgons, and Centaurs, separated 
 by the river Acheron from the actual dwellings of the 
 dead. 
 
 Acheron is reached, and Charon is seen. The poet draws 
 him in a few lines with extraordinary life and power; no one 
 would take him for a ghost or spirit, so lifelike he is with 
 his rough garb and his crazy boat, his eyes of flame and 
 his clear brain — 
 
 cruda deo viridisque senectus. 
 
 On the river banks are the throngs of the dead, many as the 
 leaves of autumn, the fallen leaves. The simile is doubly 
 effective, at once for its suggestion of mortality and the 
 added awfulness of numbers. We never realize how many 
 are the leaves till they fall, and here are the dead gathered 
 from how many homes, here one and there one, swept 
 together like the fallen leaves to one spot, impressive for 
 their mere numbers, only here to be understood. To the 
 simile of the leaves is added, as we saw, that of the birds. 
 A blind instinct within drives the dead to Acheron, and 
 teaches them they must cross it. The contrast with the simile 
 in the Georgics has been already remarked, but a further point 
 calls for attention here. As we saw, the picture in the 
 Georgics was drawn with something of Virgil's early play- 
 fulness. Here the comparison with the birds is in keeping 
 with the whole Virgilian Hades — life survives in some 
 degree even in death, and the other world, void and 
 ^ See note on p. 1 6. 
 
HADES 261 
 
 empty though it be in contrast with the Nature we know, is 
 yet throbbing with earnestness and purpose. Right 
 through the story, through the mythological, the 
 religious, and the philosophic contributions, runs meaning, 
 intention, effort. Every human personality we meet is 
 touched with the sense of the seriousness of being. Life is 
 not extinct at all; the soul is quit of its encumbrances and 
 more in earnest than ever. It is the very antithesis of the 
 Hades of the Odyssey. The Orphic and Platonic doctrine that 
 the body is a tomb of the soul {a-wjua and crrjixa) we shall meet 
 explicitly later on, but surely ^v•e have it here already 
 implicitly. 
 
 Through the darkness comes a dim and sad figure — barely 
 recognizable as the ghost of Palinurus, the unburied 
 steersman. 1 This is clearly suggested by the similar 
 episode in the Odyssey.^ where Odysseus sees among the 
 dead Elpenor, whom he had supposed to be alive. The 
 ancient world at large had gloomy thoughts about the 
 unburied and their lot in the other world, in spite of the 
 assurance philosophers felt. We cannot imagine the 
 appearance of such a story as this in the Gorgias, but the 
 popular idea was long-lived. Four centuries later Synesius 
 tells us that he and his fellow passengers on a ship in distress 
 fastened gold or jewels to themselves in order to tempt any, 
 who might find their dead bodies on the beach, to bury 
 them in return for the gift they brought.^ Elpenor was in 
 no more distress than any other ghost. His desire for a 
 grave was a natural one ; and his suggestion that he might 
 become "a curse from the gods " {Qewv juDji'ifxa) to Odysseus, 
 if he were left unburied, is very far from the passionate sense 
 of need which is marked in Palinurus. Virgil is here in 
 close touch with popular sentiment, and though we may 
 reconcile it somehow with the rest of his picture, we feel 
 that philosophy has here waived its rights to poetry — and 
 
 ^ See the curious note of Servius ad Aen. vi. 340, who explains the dim- 
 ness on the ground that Palinurus had not reached the loca purgationis ; 
 the wiser, he says, say of souls in the world beyond, \\\2X purgatac incipiunt esse 
 elariores. 
 
 * Od. xi. 51-80, See Miss F. Melian Stawell, Homer and the Iliad, p. 157. 
 
 * Ep. 4. Cf. Horace, Odes, i. 28, on the unburied Archytas. 
 
262 VIRGIL 
 
 perhaps to patriotism, for Cape Palinurus is our parting 
 thought. 
 
 Aeternumque locus Palinuri nomen habebit ^ (vi. 381). 
 
 Italy haunts the poet's mind even in Hades, 
 
 Once across Acheron Aeneas passes through five regions 
 of Hades, about which there has been a great deal of 
 controversy.^ They are occupied respectively by children 
 who died in infancy, by those unjustly condemned to death, 
 by innocent people who have committed suicide, by un- 
 happy lovers, and by those who have fallen in war. Norden 
 wishes to group these five regions as one intermediate state, 
 finding the common likeness among these five rather dif- 
 ferent classes of people in the fact that they all have been 
 cut off prematurely. He produces a certain amount of 
 evidence to show that views were current upon the acopoi 
 or l^iaioBavaTOi, as such people were called, to the effect that 
 they had to reach the period originally assigned to their 
 lives before they could be properly ranked with the dead.^ 
 In this he is not generally followed. Fallen heroes, for 
 example, do not belong to this class in any case, and if they 
 did, it is hard to see why some should be in Elysium already 
 (649) and others not. If Virgil had meant to represent all 
 his five classes as j^iaioQavaToi, he could, as Norden admits, 
 have explained this in a line or two. He did not explain 
 it, and Norden says it is not worth while to ask why he did 
 not.* It is simpler and sounder not to attempt reconcilia- 
 
 ^ " For ever the place shall bear the name of Palinurus." 
 
 2 See E. Norden, Vergilstudienxvi Hermes, \%()t,. See also Weil, ^/«a'i?j, p. 88, 
 and Dieterich Nekyia, 152, n., for criticisms of weight and significance upon 
 Norden's views. 
 
 * e.g. Servius on Aen. iv. 386 dicunt physici biothanatorum animas non recipi 
 in originein suatn nisi vagantes legitimu?n tempzis fati conipleverint, Plato, Rep. 
 X. 615 C, alludes, without explanation, to the condition below of those who die 
 at birth. 
 
 * Norden's own words may be quoted. Hermes, 1893, p. 388 : " Hatte 
 Vergil nur mit einem Worte darauf hingedeutet, dass alle diese in der Zwischen- 
 region sich aufhaltenden Seelen, wenn ihre Zeit erfullt sei, aus diesem Aus- 
 nahmezustand erlost warden, so ware die missverstandliche Auffassung dieser 
 Stelle ausgeschlossen gewesen. Warum er es nicht gethan hat, ist uberfliissig zu 
 fragen : dass er keineswegs die Kenntniss dieser abstrusen Lehre bei seinen 
 Lesern voraussetztn durfte, wird dadurch bewiesen, dass in den ausserordentlich 
 
HADES 263 
 
 tions which the poet has not troubled to make. Norden's 
 thesis is that the book is a finished and consistent whole, 
 and to support this he feels that discrepancies must be 
 reconciled. But the almost casual allusion to Minos (431-3) 
 suggests incomplete revision ; or, if it does not mean this, 
 it is surely significant that so vital and important a figure 
 is introduced in connexion with one small and insignificant 
 group of people. 
 
 But, whatever logical consistency we may introduce into 
 this passage by bringing all five classes under one descrip- 
 tion, it is important to remember that, even if Virgil meant 
 this, there still remains a moral inconsistency. We can 
 understand Plato putting infant children in a class by 
 themselves {Rep. x. 615 C); they at least have some claim 
 to a limbo of their own, as they are neither moral nor 
 immoral. The intermediate position in Hades held by the 
 spirits of adult persons of no very distinct moral character, 
 which Plato describes in the Phaedo, is also thoroughly 
 intelligible. But here some heroes are in Elysium, others 
 are not — why should mere lapse of time make such a dif- 
 ference ? Among the lovers, too, Pasiphae, Phaedra, and 
 Dido seem widely different in character. Why should 
 Sychaeus be here? It is clear that this grouping of the 
 lovers by themselves is an idea borrowed from the Odyssey}- 
 There is no philosophy about it. Take again the wounds 
 of Deiphobus — his ghostly form bears, like some of the 
 ghosts Odysseus saw,^ the wounds his physical body 
 received at his death. That is, we think of Deiphobus 
 for ever as we saw him last. How wide the interval 
 between these wounds and the scars which the souls of 
 tyrants lay bare to Rhadamanthus in the Gorgiasl In 
 fact, Virgil has sacrificed " consistency " to his endeavour 
 to use every thought, popular or philosophical, of the other 
 
 zahlreichen Nekyien der nachvergilischen Dichter trotz ihrer offenbaren, zum 
 Theil sehr slarken Nachahmung des 6. Buches der Aeneis keine Spur deiser 
 Scheidiing mehr vorhanden ist." 
 
 1 The Elysium of good lovers is described by Tibullus (I. iii. 57 f.), and 
 contrasted with a Tartarus, which has a Tisiphone and the three great classic 
 sinners, &c. In fact, it is a literary tradition — and a charming one, 
 
 * Od. xi. 40. 
 
264 VIRGIL 
 
 world which could lend itself to poetic treatment and had 
 beauty within it. 
 
 One point should be noticed, however, before we pass on. 
 We have seen that those who killed themselves had been 
 innocent, and that their unhappy position below is the 
 result of their casting away their lives {proiecere animas). 
 This condemnation of suicide was Pythagorean, and was 
 afterwards a prominent feature in Neo-Platonism. One 
 must not, said the Neo-Platonists, leave life so long as there 
 is possibility of self-development.^ " How gladly would 
 they choose now," says Virgil, " in the air above to bear to 
 the end poverty and hard toil " (438). Once more the ten- 
 dency of his Hades is all against surrender, all for the 
 earnest and strenuous life. 
 
 Inde datum molitur iter ^ 
 
 is said of Aeneas at the end of this passage (477), and his is 
 pre-eminently a life in earnest. 
 
 Aeneas now reaches the parting of the ways.^ On his 
 left is Tartarus, which he does not visit, but which the 
 Sibyl describes to him. In its awful abysses (the depth is 
 twice that of Homer's old phrase) * there are of course the 
 classical sinners of antiquity — Titans, Tityos, Ixion — but 
 there are others of a more everyday order, sinners who have 
 never indeed tried to overthrow Jove from his throne in 
 heaven, but who in their own way have struck at those 
 laws on which human society rests, who have betrayed their 
 country for gold, who have sold justice, who have cheated 
 their clients, committed adultery, and hated their brothers. 
 The poet's language approaches, as near as it may, the 
 phrase of the Twelve Tables,^ that code which, down to 
 Cicero's day at least, every schoolboy learnt by heart,^ and 
 
 ' Plotinus, Enn. i. 9 ; Porphyry, vita Plotini, 1 1 ; Macrobius, Coinm. Sotnn. 
 Scip. i. 13. 15-16. 
 
 * " Thence he presses on the path given." 
 3 Plato, Gorgias, 524 A ; Rep. 614 C. 
 
 * //. 8. 16 Tbcraov IvepO' 'Ai'Sew ocrov ovpavos ear' dirb yairjs. 
 ^ Norden, op, cit., p. 390 ; and Servius on A. vi. 609. 
 
 * Cicero, de Legibus, ii. 23, 59 nostis quae sequtintur. Discebamus enim pueri 
 xii, ut carmen necessarmm, quas tain nemo discit. 
 
HADES 265 
 
 the very words of which must have risen to the minds of 
 many of his readers. Once more Virgil has linked ancient 
 and modern thought. His Tartarus may be an Orphic Tar- 
 tarus, it may have elements from Homer and Hesiod, but the 
 quiet power with which the poet subjects it all to the simple 
 old code, to the fundamental laws of home and state, takes 
 it out of the region of folklore and brings it home to men 
 with a new force and a new seriousness. Plato had already 
 established moral law beyond the grave, as we have seen, and 
 had consigned most " dynasts " to Tartarus, but it was a new 
 thing when Virgil so triumphantly asserted the divine right 
 of the state. As Tartarus seems to have lain outside the 
 circle of re-birth, the Sibyl could not well give instances of 
 Roman sinners there, but the gap is made good on the shield 
 of Aeneas, where Vulcan set in his picture of Tartarus 
 no Tityos or Ixion, but Catiline,^ while on the throne 
 of Minos he set Cato.^ A long period of individualism, 
 and a much longer one of identification of duty to the state 
 with duty to the privileged, have made it hard for us to-day 
 to grasp Virgil's thought, but signs are not wanting that in 
 our own re-mapping of Tartarus and Elysium, wherever we 
 may place them, the claims of the state and of its ideals will 
 not go unconsidered. Here at least we can hail Maro vates 
 gentilium. But for the present we must return to Aeneas. 
 
 The Sibyl has now brought Aeneas to Elysium, " the glad 
 region, the fair bowers of the glades of happiness, the home 
 of the blest." ^ Here is the larger air, the bright light, of 
 those old islands of the blest where the sons-in-law of the 
 gods went in Homer's days; but another teacher has told 
 mankind more about it all, and his is the first figure we 
 recognize. " The Thracian priest in the long robe " is 
 Orpheus, not the sad lover of the Georgics, but the teacher 
 and purifier of mankind, clad as he is drawn in Orphic 
 pictures. With him is Musaeus. Here (as in Pindar's 
 Dirge) are the heroes of ancient days, still happy as of old 
 
 * Plutarch, later on, does the same with Nero ; de sera numinum vindicia 
 567 F. * viii. 666-670. 
 
 ^ A. vi. 638. These amoena virecta are horTOWcd by Prudentius for the garden 
 of Kden, Cathetnerinon, iii. loi. 
 
266 VIRGIL 
 
 in song and dance and chariot. If one did not know how 
 hard others have found it to give any picture of a Christian 
 heaven, one might confess to a certain reminiscence of 
 Alcinous and his Phaeacians here — 
 
 aiei. <5' ^/miv Sal? re ^iXt] KiOaptg re X^pof' T€.^ 
 
 But we shall do better to notice who the company are. 
 They are men who have bled for their country, holy priests, 
 true poets, men who have enriched human life with the arts 
 they have discovered, men who have made themselves names 
 by doing service. Mark here again how Virgil borrows but 
 remains independent. The whole atmosphere is Orphic, but 
 that popular Orphism, which Plato denounced, is not here. 
 No mention is made of mysteries or initiation, hardly any 
 of the gods. As Hector in the Iliad dismissed divination, 
 so Virgil dismisses initiation — 
 
 eT? oioovo? apicTTOg, a/xvveadai irepi irar pr}<i.^ 
 
 He looks at the state and at mankind in assessing the worth 
 of a man's life. In his five doubtful regions we sav/ him fail 
 a little in using canons of justice and righteousness, and here 
 again, while we recognize the grandeur and worth of his 
 teaching, we feel that Plato is on a higher level v/hen he 
 makes the final judgement turn on what a man is, rather than 
 on what he has done. But, as we have seen, it was not the 
 Roman's way to 
 
 Make his moral being his prime care. 
 
 At last Aeneas is face to face with his father's shade ; the 
 avowed object of his descent into Hades is attained. In the 
 dream in Sicily Anchises had bidden him come — "then 
 shalt thou learn of all thy race and of the city to be given 
 thee" (v. 737). So now, after a vain attempt at an embrace 
 (like that of Odysseus in the Odyssey)^ Aeneas sees in a 
 secluded valley of woods, by the side of a quiet stream, 
 
 * Od. viii. 248. " Ever to us is the banquet dear, the lyre and the dance." 
 2 Iliad xii. 243. Polydamas wishes to draw an omen from a bird ; Hector 
 rejoins : " The one best bird (omen) — is to fight for our country." 
 
HADES 267 
 
 innumerable souls, many as the bees in summer.^ Who are 
 they, he asks, and what is the river ? It is Lethe, the river 
 of forgetfulness, the waters of which are drunk by souls 
 destined again to enter the body.^ Here we touch once 
 more the teaching of the Orphics and Plato. Souls which 
 are to be free from the wheel of Birth drink of the spring 
 of Memory, according to the Orphics ; and Plato tells 
 how souls returning to earthly life cross the plain of 
 Forgetfulness, and, reaching the river of Negligence (or 
 Forgetfulness, as he calls it later on), they are " all obliged 
 to drink a certain quantity, and those who are not saved 
 by wisdom drink more than is necessary and forget all 
 things." ^ Virgil avails himself of this Pythagorean and 
 Orphic teaching to enable Aeneas to see the souls of the 
 great Romans of the future. These great men we may 
 pass by, and consider instead the philosophy of life which 
 Anchises unfolds to his son. 
 
 Know first, the heaven, the earth, the main, 
 The moon's pale orb, the starry train, 
 
 Are nourished by a soul, 
 A spirit whose celestial flame 
 Glows in each member of the frame 
 
 And stirs the mighty whole.^ 
 Thence souls of men and cattle spring, 
 And the gay people of the wing, 
 And those strange shapes that ocean hides 
 Beneath the smoothness of his tides. 
 A fiery strength inspires their lives, 
 An essence that from heaven derives,^ 
 
 ^ The simile goes back surely to early days at Andes or Mantua, cf. 
 p. 14, n. 2. 
 
 * A. vi. 713 animae quibus altera fat corpora debentur. The comment of 
 Servius on this passage is most interesting, with its Neo-Platonic tinge. 
 
 ' Rep. X. 621 A; Dieterich, Nekyia, p. 90; Miss Harrison, Prolegomena, 
 cited already. 
 
 * Cf. E. Caird, Greek Philosophy ii. 87-89; and the "Something far more 
 deeply interfused " of Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. 
 
 5 Igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo (730). Cf. the rrveO/aa oidirvpov of the 
 Stoics and their divinae partictila aurae, Hor. Sat. ii. 2. 79, with Epictetus D. 
 ii. 8 ai) aTr6<riraafj.a el tou deov. 
 
268 VIRGIL 
 
 Though clogged in part by limbs of clay 
 
 And the dull "vesture of decay." 
 
 Hence wild desires and grovelling fears, 
 
 And human laughter, human tears : ^ 
 
 Immured in dungeon-seeming night, 
 
 They look abroad, yet see no light. 
 
 Nay, when at last the life has fled, 
 
 And left the body cold and dead, 
 
 E'en then there passes not away 
 
 The painful heritage of clay ; 
 
 Full many a long-contracted stain 
 
 Perforce must linger deep in grain. 
 
 So penal sufferings they endure 
 
 For ancient crime, to make them pure : 
 
 Some hang aloft in open view 
 
 For winds to pierce them through and through ^ 
 
 While others purge their guilt deep-dyed 
 
 In burning fire or whelming tide. 
 743 Each for himself, we all sustain 
 
 The durance of our ghostly pain ; 
 
 Then to Elysium we repair, 
 
 The few, and breathe this blissful air : 
 745 Till, many a length of ages past. 
 
 The inherent taint is cleansed at last, 
 
 And nought remains but ether bright, 
 
 The quintessence of heavenly light. 
 748 All these, when centuries ten times told 
 
 The wheel of destiny have rolled, 
 
 The voice divine from far and wide 
 
 Calls up to Lethe's river-side. 
 
 That earthward they may pass once more 
 
 Remembering not the things before, 
 
 And with a blind propension yearn 
 751 To fleshly bodies to return.^ 
 
 The terminology of this passage is Stoic ; the matter shows 
 indebtedness to Plato and the Neo-Pythagoreans, As in the 
 
 ' Virgil is nearer the philosophers here, doleiit gaudentqne. 
 
 * Cf. the account given by Pythagoras of Homer's soul in Hades. 
 
 ^ A. vi. 724-51 (Conington). 
 
HADES 269 
 
 famous passage in the Georgics (iv. 219-27), Virgil leans to 
 the belief that all nature is alive with one divine life, per- 
 meating through race and individual. This life has a fiery 
 origin and nature, which continues in the creature of flesh, 
 except in so far as the body dulls and blunts its faculties by 
 hope and fear, pain and pleasure, blinding it with the dark- 
 ness of the prison-house — crwyua, as we saw, being identical 
 with (jriixa. The influence of the body survives death, and, 
 as Plato taught us, the soul appears before its judge (though 
 he is not mentioned in this passage) bearing all its scars 
 and wounds and sickness. These have to be treated, as 
 Plato and the Orphics said, till they are healed, and the 
 treatment is punishment. And now we have reached the 
 difficult part of the passage. 
 
 " We suffer, each a several ghost," ^ says Virgil, "and then 
 we are sent through broad Elysium and a few of us abide 
 itcnemiis) in the happy fields." So far Plato and the others 
 go with him, but our text continues amazingly — " until long 
 days, a full orb of time, have taken away the ingrown stain 
 and left untainted the aetherial sense and the pure spiritual 
 flame {aurai siniplicis ignetn). All these, when the wheel 
 has revolved for them a thousand years, the god calls in vast 
 array to Lethe's stream, that in forgetfulness they may see 
 once more the dome of sky above, and begin again to wish 
 to return to the body." The confusion is obvious. Do the 
 elect who hold the happy fields go through purification and 
 then drink of Lethe? are all involved in the "wheel"? Are 
 there two purgations — one before Elysium is reached, one 
 within it? 
 
 The general teaching of the school which Virgil is here 
 following is clear, and various attempts have been made to 
 reconcile his text with his teachers. Should we transpose 
 11. 743, 744 with 11. 745-7 ? " This and that soul are purged 
 with wind, water, and fire, till long time has taken away the 
 stain and left the fiery nature pure. Each suffers in his 
 
 1 Quisque suos patimur manes {A. vi. 743). This famous phrase Servius 
 explains by reference to the doctrine ol'CnG. genius. Nam cum nasciiniir, duosgentos 
 sortimur : umis qui hortatur ad bona, alter qui depravat ad tnala. The doctrine- 
 is important in the history of religion, but its introduction illustrates the com- 
 mentator rather than the poet. 
 
270 VIRGIL 
 
 spirit; a few hold (for ever) the happy fields. All these 
 (with a wave of the hand to the souls on Lethe's brink), as 
 distinguished from the few, drink of Lethe and are reborn." 
 To this it is objected the Anchises has not had to wait 
 "a full orb of time." His purgation has been at the very- 
 longest a year. It may be replied that our Orphic gold 
 tablets suppose the buried Orphic to become a god at once ; 
 and also — a sounder argument — that Virgil is inconsistent 
 and does not mind being inconsistent. The second remedy 
 is to put 11. 745-7 last of all, i.e. " these, the ordinary run of 
 men, continue to be born over and over again, they drink 
 Lethe, revisit the light, till after a full orb of time the 
 ingrown taint is at last removed." This, like the other 
 transposition, gives us good Orphism, but in neither case is 
 it explained how the order of the passage came to be upset. 
 The third remedy is that of Dieterich. He puts a pause 
 in the speech at the mention of the few who reach and keep 
 Elysium (1. 744). Then Anchises begins (a little rhetoric- 
 ally) by an immense inversion — " Until long time has purged 
 them, &c., these (with great emphasis and a most marked 
 wave of the spectral hand) the god keeps calling to Lethe 
 and sending to fresh bodies." It is hard to credit the shade 
 of Anchises with so much rhetoric. Fourthly, Norden cuts 
 the knot by saying that we have here two recensions, quite 
 distinct, but both by Virgil, one of which the poet meant to 
 reject ; and that Varius, finding both in the manuscript, and, 
 not clear which to choose himself, left every reader the 
 same freedom and perplexity.^ If Varius did this, it may 
 be permissible for us to come to no decision. 
 
 We have now seen Virgil's Hades, and we have dealt, in a 
 summary way enough, with its relations to the various 
 descriptions which the poet knew of the abode and the life 
 of the dead. What does it all mean } We shall probably 
 not try to make one consistent scheme of elements taken 
 from sources so wide apart in time and thought. The 
 traditional and the philosophical, the new and the old, 
 
 ^ See, on the whole passage, Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 154-60 (full of interest) ; 
 Norden, Vergihhidien {Hermes, 1893), PP- 395-402 ; Ettig, Acheruntica 
 (Leipziger Studien, 1891), pp. 349 ff. ; Rohde, Psyche^, ii. 165 Anm. 
 
HADES 271 
 
 have all their charm and their suggestion for us, but if 
 we attempt to apply a rigid logic to them, we shall lose much 
 and gain very little. But we have none the less to ask our 
 poet what truth he is embodying for us here ; what truth he 
 had consciously in mind when he wrote. Had he, apart 
 from inconsistencies superficial or fundamental, any clear 
 idea to convey ; or does he mean by the ivory gate, through 
 which Aeneas leaves Hades, a hint to us that the best in 
 this kind are but shadows, that we have been dreaming 
 dreams with no interpretation ? ^ Let us go back to Plato 
 for a moment. 
 
 " I do not mean to affirm that the description which 
 I have given of the soul and her mansions is exactly true — 
 a man of sense ought hardly to say that. But I do say that, 
 inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may 
 venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that 
 something of the kind is true. The venture is a glorious 
 one, and he ought to comfort himself with words like these, 
 which is the reason why I lengthen out my tale. Where- 
 fore, I say, let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who 
 has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body 
 as alien to him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has 
 followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life; who 
 has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels, which 
 are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and 
 truth — in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to 
 the world below, when her time comes." ^ 
 
 Is this Virgil's meaning? Would he go so far ? Possibly 
 not quite so far. He would tell us perhaps : " This and 
 that is what men have said about the other life. Epicurus 
 and Lucretius utterly denied it all, but, as Cephalus said,^ 
 it comes back upon one, and one does not altogether 
 know what to think. Yet one or two things seem probable 
 — if there is another life, it must be like this life in 
 the main ; it must be bound up with love and under 
 the sway of moral law. One thing is certain — that of 
 
 * Et poelice apertus est sensus : vult autem intellegi falsa esse omnia quae dixit, 
 SJiys Servius. 
 
 • Phaedo, 1 14, Jowett's translation. * Plato's Republic i. 330, D. 
 
272 VIRGIL 
 
 all that men do, service of the state or humanity is the best 
 worth doing. If there are rewards for anything, they must 
 be for this — Cicero, you will remember, says the same in his 
 myth. As to your personal immortality or mine being 
 assured, we shall know better by and by — and, after all, 
 what does it matter, if he is not to see his Tullia, and I — ? 
 Did you notice what Anchises said ? 
 
 Venisti tandem, tuaque expectata parent! 
 vicit iter durum pietas ? ^ 
 
 Meanwhile there is our earth here." 
 
 ^ " Art thou come at last ; and has that love thy father looked to conquered 
 the hardness of the way?" {A. vi. 687). 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 INTERPRETATION OF LIFE.— 4. OLYMPUS 
 
 The souls of now two thousand years 
 Have laid up here their toils and fears, 
 And all the earnings of their pain, — 
 Ah ! yet consider it again. 
 
 We ! what do we see ? each a space 
 
 Of some few yards before his face ; 
 
 Does that the whole wide plan explain ? 
 
 Ah ! yet consider it again ! — Clough. 
 
 LUCAN'S Pharsalia, as Voltaire remarked, is dis- 
 tinguished from all other ancient epics by the bold 
 omission of the whole mythological apparatus, which 
 tradition, resting upon Homer, had exacted of the poets.^ 
 Lucan was a young man, and he had that intolerance of old 
 ways and old ideas which is often, though not always, a 
 sign of promise. Antiquity — 
 
 famosa vetustas 
 miratrixque sui ^ — 
 
 had for centuries encumbered its poetry with gods in whom 
 men had ceased to believe, and it is one of the merits of the 
 Pharsalia that its author resolved to be independent of 
 artifice so outworn and so insincere, and to give to his 
 readers a poem resting on the actual and the real. If he 
 was not successful, if his poem fails of poetic truth, he was 
 at least so far honest. 
 
 The noble lines spoken by Cato, though marked by 
 Lucan's inevitable haste and rhetoric, still take us nearer to 
 the truth of things than any epic machinery — 
 
 Haeremus cuncti superis, temploque tacente 
 nil facimus non sponte dei . . . 
 
 ' Voltaire, Essai sur la poilsie, ipique, ch. iv. (vol. x. p. 437). 
 * Pkars. iv. 654, "antiquity with its tales and its admiration of itself." 
 18 273 
 
274 VIRGIL 
 
 estque dei sedes nisi terra et pontus et aer 
 
 et caelum et virtus ? superos quid quaerimus ultra ? 
 
 luppiter est, quodcunque vides, quodcunque moveris.^ 
 
 The poet is in touch with the same thought which Virgil 
 expresses in the Georgics — 
 
 esse apibus partem divinae mentis et haustus 
 aetherios dixere : deum namque ire per omnes 
 terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum ^ 
 
 {G. iv. 220). 
 
 Yet a critic of Lucan's day, a man not without discern- 
 ment or literary skill, was moved to write two or three 
 hundred lines of a Pharsalia of his own, to show how it 
 ought to be done. The main defect of Lucan would appear 
 to be that he had left out the gods.^ That Statins had the 
 gods in his Thebaid was natural enough ; it was the right 
 place for them. But Silius Italicus could not let Hannibal 
 fight at Cannae without the co-operation of Juno and Aeolus 
 and Anna Perenna, Three hundred years later Claudian could 
 find no better explanation of the power of a prime minister, 
 whom he disliked, than the direct intervention of the 
 fury Megaera on the motion of a conference of infernal 
 authorities^ — a view which may appeal to us as politicians 
 more than it will to serious lovers of poetry. 
 
 Every one of these writers would probably shield himself 
 with the great name of Virgil — and Virgil was, or had been, 
 an Epicurean. It is a question which the student of Virgil 
 has to face — How comes an Epicurean poet to introduce 
 so much of Olympus into his last and crowning work, 
 and what does he mean by it? It is, of course, easy to say 
 
 ^ Phars. ix. 573-80. " We are all of us bound up with the gods, and though 
 the shrine be silent, there is nothing we do without God's will. . . . Nay ! is 
 there an abode of God, save earth and sea and air and sky and virtue? Why 
 seek we gods outside ? Jupiter is all you see and all that lives within you ! " 
 
 * " Some have said that bees have received a share of the divine intelligence, 
 a draught from aether ; God, they tell us, pervades all, earth and the expanse of 
 sea, and the deep vault of heaven." 
 
 * Petronius puts the poem into the mouth of Eumolpus. Boissier, 
 L' Opposition, ch. v. p. 244, holds that Eumolpus expresses his creator's view ; 
 E. Thomas, in his P^trone, without going so far as to deny this, questions it. 
 
 * See the opening of In Rufinum. 
 
OLYMPUS 2;5 
 
 that he is following Homer, but a little study of the Aeneid 
 reveals the influence of other leaders. For example, 
 Euripides is an author whom Virgil studied closely ; 
 Plato and Pythagoras, the Stoics and Epicurus, have con- 
 tributed to the growth of his mind, directly or indirectly. 
 If we admit that literary convention required the intro- 
 duction of the Homeric gods, are the gods of the Aeneid 
 Homeric ? How do they accommodate themselves in the 
 poet's mind to the company of the philosophers ? When 
 we have analysed the various elements from various sources 
 which are combined in Virgil's pantheon, we have still 
 to explain Virgil's attitude towards the divine. The study 
 is not merely a literary one, but it is a chapter in the 
 history of religion, and an important one, for in Virgil we 
 have a forerunner of the great religious revival of the 
 Roman Empire. 
 
 I 
 
 Whatever unity there may be in a man's conceptions 
 of God and of the universe, it is almost impossible that there 
 should not be among them survivals from systems which he 
 has inherited and outgrown. Just as the "life-history" of 
 the individual man is a sort of epitome of the history of 
 the race, the analysis of his opinions will tend to show 
 in measure a similar history of the thinking of mankind, 
 and if he will take the trouble to trace the origins and 
 affinities of his ideas, he may very well find points where 
 he is in contact with almost every stage of religious 
 thought. A great part of the religious life is the habit 
 of constantly re-thinking the old in the terms of the new 
 — it, is a long and confusing process for the individual 
 and for the race, but any one who is pursuing it and who 
 will study the record of his own mind will bring a new 
 insight and sympathy to the study of the thinkers of the 
 past. 
 
 When, in this temper, we try to understand the pre- 
 sentment of the divine which we find in Homer,^ we are 
 
 ^ For the moment it is not very material whether "Homer "is one man or 
 several. 
 
276 VIRGIL 
 
 impressed first by the confusion of the ideas,i and then by the 
 fact that there is an order in this confusion. For as soon as 
 we realize that we are looking at things in perspective, 
 and are following the processes of thought still moving 
 onward, it becomes easier to grasp the relations of the 
 parts of the picture left upon our minds. 
 
 Far away upon the horizon we see dimly the awful and 
 disgusting figures of the old gods, dethroned by Zeus, 
 and the monsters, children of earth, Titans, and so forth, 
 of whose struggles with Zeus and his dynasty broken 
 fragments of narrative tell us a little, but enough.^ In 
 Hesiod these ancient powers are still in the foreground, 
 and they re-emerge from time to time in various forms in the 
 history of Greek religion. They, and not the true household 
 of Homer's Zeus, lie behind the mysteries which Clement of 
 Alexandria attacked. They emerge again for the last time 
 in the epic of Nonnus, monstrous as themselves, though here 
 Neo-Platonism is doing its best to keep them rational and 
 clean. In fact, we might almost say that in religious thought 
 action and re-action are equal as well as opposite, for wherever 
 a great step in advance has to be taken, those who refuse it 
 seem to take as great a step, but backwards. 
 
 However, in Homer, these gods, whom we may call (though 
 he does not) rude embodiments of forces of Nature, observed 
 but not yet brought into subjection to law, are already 
 towards or upon the horizon, and the divine beings in the 
 foreground are made in the likeness of man. How great an 
 achievement this was is hinted in the legends of the wars 
 of Zeus. It was a triumph, hard-won, but a triumph 
 indeed. " The soul," says M. Girard, " a prey to darkness 
 and uncertainty, oppressed and timorous, the slave of matter 
 and external nature, had re-acted against the forces that 
 crushed it, and set to work to conceive them in accord with 
 laws which its instinct divined. Its first act was to clothe 
 them in human form. In whatever century it happened, it 
 
 1 It is one of the dangers of the anthropologist to project his own confusion 
 upon the primitive man, who sees only one order of ideas, while the inquirer 
 is conscious of several. Homer, however, is very little more "primitive" than 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 * See Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, pp. 28-30 ; also pp. 38, 39 for Hesiod. 
 
OLYMPUS 277 
 
 was the awakening of the Greek spirit, the barriers were 
 removed from the activity of the intelligence. It was the 
 outcome of an effort, great in itself, greater still in its 
 consequences." ^ 
 
 The process had been begun, which philosophy was to 
 continue — intelligence rather than brute strength becomes 
 the characteristic of a god. Passion may influence the 
 divine being, but it is human passion and intelligent, it is no 
 longer blind fury. Poseidon hates Odysseus, but for clear 
 reasons which any rational being can understand. Poseidon 
 is in fact a personality. Yet he is more. If the Titans and 
 their kind were forces of nature, we may call the new gods 
 powers of nature — and the difference is great. This is clear, 
 for instance, in Homer's Poseidon. " There came he and 
 yoked beneath his car his bronzen-footed horses, swift to 
 fly, with long manes of gold ; and he arrayed himself in gold, 
 and grasped a golden well-wrought whip, and stepped upon 
 the car, and drove across the waves ; and the sea-beasts 
 came from their chambers everywhere, and gambolled 
 beneath him, knowing well their king ; and the rejoicing 
 sea parted before him ; swiftly the horses flew, and the 
 bronzen axle was not wet beneath." ^ Here we have the 
 ruler of the sea, whose rule, like all ideal rule, means harmony, 
 and at the same time we have the intensely human god. 
 The two are combined in one. The " ancient feud of 
 philosophy and poetry " ^ has hardly begun, or at least it is 
 not yet acute. 
 
 There is also progress to be seen within the Homeric 
 poems. In the Iliad Athene plucks Achilles by the hair to 
 check him. In the Odyssey she speaks to the mind of 
 Odysseus, suggesting a thought rather than uttering a 
 command.^ To say that the conception of the goddess has 
 
 1 Girard, Le Sentiment religieiix en Grece, bk. i. ch. ii. on "the Gods of 
 Homer and Hesiod," p. 42. I have omitted phrases and sentences in the passage 
 quoted. Sec also Professor John Watson, Christianity and Idealism, ch. ii. 
 
 * Iliad, xiii. 23-30, Purves. 
 
 •* Plato, Jiep. X. p. 607 B TraXaia /x^i/ tu Sia^opd <pi\oo-0(piq. re Kal -n-onjTiKjj, 
 
 * Cf. also Iliad, xv. So, "As when the mind of a man runs up and down, a 
 traveller over much of earth, and he thinks in his deep heart, ' Would I were 
 here or there,' in his keen desire ; as swift as that did lady Hera fly." 
 
2/8 VIRGIL 
 
 become more " spiritual " might be ambiguous in view of 
 Christian terminology. Yet the gods are beginning to 
 connect themselves with moral as well as with physical law. 
 Zeus is " protector of those rights on which depend all the 
 relations of men with one another." He is god of the oath, 
 of the family, of the suppliant, the herald and the beggar. 
 There are signs, dim and intermittent, that he will yet be 
 the sole and supreme god.^ 
 
 In a famous passage Homer gives a premonition of this 
 future faith, though in a strangely anthropomorphic garb. 
 "Make trial," says Zeus, "if ye will, that all may know; let 
 down a golden chain from heaven to earth, and all ye gods 
 and goddesses take hold ; but ye will not draw down Zeus, 
 the most high counsellor, from heaven to the ground, 
 no, not with much endeavour. But were I to draw, and put 
 to my strength, I could updraw you all and earth and sea to 
 boot, and bind the chain about a horn of Olympus, and 
 leave all hanging." '^ 
 
 But after all, it is neither as powers of nature nor as 
 guardians of moral law that the Homeric gods make their 
 strongest impression upon the reader : it is rather as a society 
 of very human persons. One is tempted at first to think 
 that their individual characters as presented in the poems 
 are survivals of an earlier age, for it is clear that human 
 morality is far in advance of divine. No one in heaven, in 
 the best circle of heaven, has at all the moral grandeur 
 of Achilles, Hector or Sarpedon. Yet while this suggestion 
 may be partly true, it is al.so to be remembered that the 
 god closely resembles the Greek tyrant of a later day. 
 " Absolute power," says Herodotus, " would set even the best 
 
 ^ Cf. Girard, Le Sentiment religieux, p. 59, " CY-tait un monollieisme incomplct 
 ct f^rossier." Cf. also Walson, Christianity and Idealism, p. 29, " lOven in Homer 
 there are elements which show that the Cireck religion must ultimately accomplish 
 its own euthanasia. There was in it from the first a latent contradiction which 
 could not fail to manifest itself openly at a later lime." 
 
 * Iliad, viii. 18-26, Purves. This chain is turned by Plato into the sun, 
 Theaetetns, 153 c. Macrobius and the Nco-Platonists made it into the 
 descent in being from the Supreme One through all nature. Comni . Somn. 
 Scip. i. 14, 15. The English reader will rememl)er how Spenser, speaking of 
 " this worlds faire workmanship," thinks of " that great golden chaine," "with 
 which it blessed Concord hath together tide." 
 
OLYMPUS 279 
 
 of men outside the customary thoughts." ^ The Homeric 
 god has not the safeguard that lies for us in consciousness 
 of limitations. The gods are stronger than men, but they 
 have no moral or spiritual superiority whatever.- 
 
 The gods then are a community of immortals living on 
 Olympus, and Zeus is their king. When they meet in 
 council, they can remonstrate with Zeus, but they dare not 
 oppose him. They have their own functions and their 
 relative dignities, though there is occasional vagueness in 
 these. On the other hand, their characters are clearly and 
 strongly marked. Homer's gods are as individual as his 
 heroes, and their histories are as well known. The sensu- 
 ality and favouritism of Zeus are not cloaked. He likes 
 sacrifices, he enjoys the strife of the Olympians ; ^ he is cut 
 to the heart by the death of Sarpcdoii ; and he indulges 
 in furious outbreaks of anger against other gods. Hera out- 
 wits and cajoles him easily and successfully, though she 
 too has suffered from his anger.** She is of all the immortals 
 the most unpleasant ; she is very powerful, quite unscrupu- 
 lous, and frankly savage. Zeus twits her with the will to 
 eat Priam and Priam's sons alive. Poseidon is similarly 
 arbitrary and unrestrained in his animosities. Athene and 
 Apollo are of all the gods the most rational and honourable. 
 Athene is the cleverest and most effective of all the 
 Olympian deities, though "she will never be forgiven for the 
 last betrayal of Hector."'* Apollo is a genial god, prophet, 
 giver of oracles, and lord of the bow, but hardly as yet the 
 sun-god, for Lelios (Helios) is a distinct personality, nor yet 
 god of healing, for that place is taken by Paieon. As 
 god of the Lycians and lord of Chrysa he befriends the 
 Trojans. Aphrodite is a goddess of great power, but yet 
 contemptible. Athene urges Diomedes not to fear her on 
 the field of battle, and thus encouraged he wounds Aphrodite 
 on the wrist without incurring any special censure from 
 
 ' Hdt. iii. 80 iKTbi rQv iudhruv vorj/xdruv. 
 
 * Mr Andrew Lang, in 77te World of Homer {1910) p. I20, draws a distinction, 
 well worth noting, between the religion of Homer, "a good faith to live and 
 die in," and his mythology. 
 
 » Iliad, XX. 22. « Iliad, i. 5S6-94. 
 
 * Gilbert Murray, Ancient Greek Literature, p. 36. 
 
280 
 
 VIRGIL 
 
 higher powers .^ She is harsh and cruel, as, for instance, 
 with Helen ; and in the lay of Demodocus in the Odyssey 
 the most explicit tale is told of her humiliation in the net 
 of Hephaestus. 
 
 H 
 
 Had oxen or had lions but had hands , 
 
 Wherewith to draw and work such work as men, ! 
 
 They too had painted pictures of the gods, -j 
 
 And given them bodies like unto their own ; | 
 
 The horse's god were horse, the cow's a cow.^ •) 
 
 So wrote Xenophanes of Colophon in the sixth century 
 B.C., and in this vigorous fashion called the attention of the 
 Greeks to the fact that anthropomorphism was outworn. 
 Asiatic Greece had fallen before the Persians, and in long 
 wandering and observation the philosopher had pondered 
 the matter and had found the explanation in the low moral 
 standards of his people, and these he connected with their 
 religion. Homer and Hesiod, whom the Greeks regarded 
 as the founders of their religion, he attacked in epic, elegy, 
 and iambic, for what they said of the gods. 
 
 Homer and Hesiod cast against the gods 
 All that is shame and blame among mankind. 
 The gods, they said, work all unrighteousness, 
 They steal, deceive, commit adultery.^ 
 
 Himself perhaps the first geologist, impressed by Nature 
 and her power, and by the vast variety of human opinion, he 
 made no gods in human or other form ; yet he allowed gods 
 to be, but thought of One Supreme, " a uniform and all-per- 
 vading power, governing the universe as the soul governs 
 the body, endowing it with motion and animation, but 
 inseparably bound up with it." He was, says Aristotle, " the 
 
 ^ Dione, in consoling Aphrodite, threatens Diomedes very gently, //. v. 
 381-415. Contrast Aen. xi. 269-77, where Diomedes speaks of his act. The 
 change of tone is noticeable. 
 
 2 Ritter and Preller (sixth ed.) § 83. Clem. Alex. Strom, v. § 109, p. 715 
 P. Cf. the ironical passage in Heine Atta Troll, viii. on bear- theology. 
 
 3 Ritter and Preller, § 82. Sextus Empiricus Adv. Math. i. 289 ; ix. 193. 
 
OLYMPUS 281 
 
 first partisan of the One." The attack upon the gods springs 
 from a higher conception of the divine nature, and it is 
 made by one "god-intoxicated" — a phenomenon which will 
 recur.i 
 
 Within a century these views of the gods had found 
 a more enduring position in literature. A poet, the most 
 popular after Homer of all Greek poets, steeped in the 
 teaching of the philosophers, and above all things impressed 
 by man's capacity for wretchedness, set the legends of 
 Olympus side by side with human misery, and left the 
 world to draw its inferences. Dissatisfaction had long been 
 felt with the moral content of the popular religion, but so 
 far the great poets, Pindar, Aeschylus,^ and, in measure, 
 Sophocles had accepted the religion and endeavoured to 
 inspire it with higher conceptions of God and more serious 
 ideals of duty.^ It was not to be done. The new thoughts 
 refused to blend with the old legends. Euripides realized 
 this, and instead of trying to blend them he contrasted 
 them.4 
 
 A striking example of this contrast is to be found in the 
 Troades. The play begins with a dialogue between Poseidon 
 and Athena. The goddess complains that the Greeks have 
 treated her and her temple with disrespect — Ajax has 
 violated its technical sanctity without comment or rebuke. 
 She proposes to destroy the fleet, and Poseidon agrees. 
 God and goddess bury their old quarrel in their desire for 
 revenge, for it is nothing else. And all the while in the 
 dirt at their feet Hecuba is lying unpitied. The gods 
 are coolly discussing their own trivial wrongs, and they 
 never betray the slightest feeling for the great queen's 
 
 ^ For Xenophanes see Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, bk. ii. ch. i. Burnet, Early 
 Greek Philosophy (2nd ed., 1908) §§ 55-62 ; Adam, Religious Teachers of Greece, 
 pp. 198 ff. The question of the monotheism of Xenophanes is remote from 
 our present purpose. The quotation in the text is from Gomperz (on whom, how- 
 ever, see Burmet's criticism) ; it is he too who borrows for Xenophanes the phrase 
 
 god-intoxicated " from Novalis, who used it of Spinoza. The geology is proved 
 from Hippolytus, Ref. Haer. i. 14, who tells of his speculations about fossil shells 
 found near Syracuse : raOra 5e <pr\ai yeveaOai Sre irapra iirrfKihdrjaav irdXai, rbv di 
 Tijirov IV T(p 7rr]\<f ^yjpavOrjvai. Aristotle, Met. A. 5. 986 b 21, cited by Burnet. 
 
 'Cf. Butcher, Aspects 0/ Greek Genius, p. 108. ' Butcher, op. cit., p. 44. 
 
 * Cf. Dr Verrall's Euripides the Rationalist, and his introduction to Ion. 
 
282 VIRGIL 
 
 misery and widowhood, for the fallen city, the captive 
 women, or the fatherless children. With a tenderness and 
 sympathy, hardly to be equalled in literature, Euripides 
 paints the incredible anguish of Hecuba, deepening with 
 every scene in the play, yet not crushing her capacity for 
 helping others to bear their sorrows. In the Hecuba the 
 horror of the triumph touches even the conqueror. " All is 
 well done," says Agamemnon, "if in such things aught is 
 well " ^ — but here god and goddess are utterly indifferent to 
 it all. The spectator and the reader of the play are left to 
 draw their own inferences. 
 
 It is the same in the lon^ where we have the story of the 
 rape of a girl by Apollo.^ Years afterwards she herself 
 tells with the clear and precise detail, which belongs to 
 painful memories, how she exposed the child of shame, and 
 how the little thing's helpless hands have been before her 
 eyes ever since. 
 
 The Servant : rt? yap viv e^eOrjKev ; ov yap St] au ye- 
 Creusa : ^/mcig, ev bpcpvi] cnrapyavcocravTeg TreTrXoi? . . . 
 
 TAe Servant: TXt'jjmwv crv ToXixrif 6 Se Geo? /uaXXov aiOev. 
 Creusa : el iralSa y eiSe^ ^(eipai; eKTeivovTo. julol.^ 
 
 Homer has many allusions to such legends, but no one had 
 thought them out before Euripides. 
 
 When Aristophanes attacked Euripides and said that 
 the drift of his tragedies was atheism,^ it is clear that, if 
 we understand atheism in the sense intended, the charge 
 was just. At the same time it would be difficult to see 
 how belief in the traditional gods was fostered by the 
 author of the Frogs and the Birds, if the orthodox were not 
 
 ^ Hec, 731 rcLKeWev yap ev Trerrpayfiev' earlv, el ri tu>v8' iarlv /caXtDs. 
 
 * The choric ode in which Creusa tells the tale is indescribably powerful, 
 Euripidean in excelsis, 11. 881-906. The reader may compare the tale of lamos 
 in Pindar, Olympian vi. 47-63. 
 
 * Serv. " Who was it that exposed him ? Surely not thou." 
 
 Ci'e. " I did it in the darkness, wrapped in swaddling bands" . . . 
 Serv. " Stern must thou have been to dare it ; and the god more." 
 Cre. " If thou hadst seen the child, reaching his hands to me." 
 ■* Ar. Thesm. 450 : 
 
 vvv d' ovTos if Totcnv rpaywdiats ttoiuv 
 roiis dcSpas dvairiireiKev ovk dvai deovs. 
 
OLYMPUS 283 
 
 always entitled to more freedom of speech than their critics. 
 Yet ,the indignation of Euripides against the gods is not 
 atheism at all ; it is revolt against inadequate views of God. 
 The only enemy that a religion or a theology need fear is 
 one in closer touch with truth and morality ; and, however 
 vague in a general way the theology of Euripides may have 
 been, it at least set truth and morality in the forefront of 
 everything. To associate God and immorality was to lie ; 
 it was better to say God meant morality, even if nothing 
 more was said. " God," said Plato, " should always be 
 represented as he really is." ^ 
 
 In discussing education, Plato, it would appear, went out 
 of his way to make a slashing attack on Homer, but on 
 further study it becomes clear that Homer stood directly in 
 his path, and with him Hesiod. These two poets, Hero- 
 dotus says,^ had made the Greek theogony ; the Greeks had 
 learnt from them " whence the several gods had their origin, 
 and whether they were all from the beginning and of what 
 form they were " ; they gave their titles to the gods, and 
 distributed to them honours and arts and set forth their 
 forms. These poets formed the basis of Greek education. 
 "I will quote the poem," says Aeschines, " for I suppose we 
 learn the thoughts of the poets when we are boys that we 
 may use them when we are men." ^ 
 
 Plato, however, held that education began with religion, 
 and when he looked at the religious teaching of these two 
 poets he peremptorily banished them from his ideal state. 
 " If we would have our guardians grow up to be as godlike 
 and godfearing as it is possible for man to be," * such teach- 
 ing would be intolerable. The object of life was assimila- 
 tion to God — e/9 ocTov SuvaTov avOpcoirco ofJLoiovcrOac Oeu).^ " We 
 must not," then, "tell a youthful listener that he will be 
 doing nothing extraordinary if he commit the foulest 
 crimes, nor yet if he chastise the crimes of a father in the 
 most unscrupulous manner, but will simply be doing what 
 the first and greatest of the gods did.® . . . Nor yet is it 
 
 ^ ■^<'/- 379 A oroj Tvyxdvfi 6 Oeos dv, del drjTrov airoooriov. * Hdt. ii. 55. 
 ' Aeschines, in Cteuph. 135, quoting Hesiod. * l\ep. ii. 383 C. 
 
 ^ Ibid. X. 613 A. « A reference to Ilesiod's Theogony, e.g. 1. 490. 
 
284 VIRGIL 
 
 proper to say in any case — what is indeed untrue — that gods 
 wage war against gods, and intrigue and fight among them- 
 selves ; . . . Stories like the chaining of Hera by her son, 
 and the flinging of Hephaestus out of heaven for trying 
 to take his mother's part when his father was beating her,^ 
 and all those battles of the gods which are to be found in 
 Homer, must be refused admittance to our state, whether 
 they are allegorical or not." ^ But what, asks Adeimantus 
 in the dialogue, is to be the type of our stories about the 
 gods ? ^ Plato lays down two canons — first, that God is 
 good and the cause of good alone ; the second, that God is 
 true and incapable of change or deceit. It was to be some 
 time, however, before the poets would definitely accept these 
 canons, yet they made themselves felt in poetry none 
 the less. 
 
 A turning-point had been reached in the war between 
 philosophy and polytheism. The Olympians had borne 
 the brunt of the first campaign, and had been hopelessly 
 defeated. The decline of the Greek city state completed 
 their rout. Their cults were bound up with the existence 
 of the city state, and passed away with it.* Their names 
 remained, but the real issue was fought elsewhere. The 
 second campaign was one, we may say, of guerilla warfare. 
 The gods no longer "come forth into the light of things," 
 they keep to the bush. Apollo and Athene had been destroyed 
 by being seen. The new gods were not seen except by the 
 initiated. Secret rituals and mysteries kept them out of 
 sight and in safety. They had no legends like those of the 
 Olympians, but they had myths. When attacked, they 
 entrenched themselves behind symbol and allegory, and 
 passed themselves off as philosophic conceptions. Their 
 cults may be dignified by the name of Nature-worship, but 
 
 ' 11. i. 586-94. 
 
 "^ Ibid. ii. 377 to end ; iii. 392 ; echoed by Cicero, N. D. i. 16. 42. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 379 A ot TuVot Trept OeoXoyia^. 
 
 * Cf. Watson, Christianity and Idealism, p. 20, on polytheism, "as the vehicle 
 for the religious ideal of peoples who cannot conceive of a wider bond than that 
 of the nation, or of the nation, as other than a political unity based upon the 
 natural tie of blood " ; and p. 22, " The Greeks only reached this stage (Mono- 
 theism) when their narrow civic slate had already revealed its inadequacy." 
 
OLYMPUS 285 
 
 their practice was a mixture of ritual and obscenity — a 
 religion of harlots.^ 
 
 Religion offered a choice between Cleanthes and (let us 
 say) Diana of the Ephesians, and literature for the monnent 
 did not care greatly for either. It shifted its quarters from 
 Athens to Alexandria, and in the splendid isolation of the 
 Museum, "the birdcage of the Muses," ^ devoted itself to 
 pedantry and prettiness, and paid the penalty of apostasy 
 from reality in the loss of every human interest. 
 
 The learned poets of Alexandria were Virgil's early 
 models, and it is so far of importance to realize their attitude 
 toward the gods. They are catholic enough in their taste, 
 for any and every divine legend or myth is acceptable to 
 them, but they write with neither the good faith of Hesiod, 
 the moral sense of Aeschylus, nor Plato's indignation. The 
 type of story they prefer to tell about the gods is exactly 
 that which Plato would censure, though the poets might 
 have defended themselves by the plea that nothing which 
 they wrote was likely to have any wide effect in the corrup- 
 tion of morals. They wrote for the learned, for an audience 
 which was far past believing at all in any Olympus except 
 as literary material. When they used the mythology it 
 was almost a sign that they were not serious. 
 
 Yet when ApoUonius set about writing his Argonautica, 
 his intention was to create a serious epic, in which skill 
 might supply the place of faith. But, as Boissier puts it, 
 it is vain to cherish the firm resolve to be antique ; a man 
 always belongs to his own age in spite of himself.^ Apol- 
 lonius is writing of a pre-Homeric age, for his heroes belong 
 to an earlier generation than Homer's, yet his Zeus is a 
 much later Zeus than the Zeus of the Iliad.^ The other 
 gods also bear upon them marks of a later date. The steady 
 tendency of thought away from polytheism made daily 
 broader the gulf between Zeus and the gods, for while he 
 
 1 Cf. Catullus, 10. 26 ; the Attis ; Ovid, Avi. iii. 10. Plutarch's tract de Iside 
 et Osiride is a defence, with admissions. 
 
 * Moi;<rew»' iv Tokapt^, a phrase of Timon of Phlius, quoted by Athenaeus, 22 D. 
 ^ La Religion roniaine, i. 193. 
 
 * So de la Ville de Mirmont, ApoUonius de Rhodes et Virgile, p. 217. I have 
 drawn a good deal here and elsewhere from this most ample of all treatises. 
 
286 VIRGIL 
 
 gained by it, as bearing the only available name for a god 
 who could be conceived of as supreme, the rest proportion- 
 ately lost ground.^ He became a philosophic conception ; 
 they became literary toys. Consequently in the Argonautica 
 Zeus is a remote and invisible power, ruling the moral and 
 physical universe alone, — well on the way, one might say, to; "' 
 the eventual god of the philosophers, of whom nothing 
 whatever, not even being, could be predicated.- 
 
 The other gods would recognize themselves in Ovid's pan- 
 theon. Goddesses who have private rooms, who use dainty • 
 golden combs, who pay one another surprise visits, who 
 are threatened by their little sons, are mere ornaments, , 
 mere literary prettiness, as little divine in literature as in 
 art. As a result, de la Ville de Mirmont remarks the real 
 want of relation between gods and men. There are no P' 
 prayers but official ones. Zeus is above and beyond prayer ; 
 the rest of the gods are hardly likely to awake it. Yet the 
 Argonauts were by no means impious — (they were initiated 
 into the rites of Samothrace) — it is only that prayer is not 
 a thing that would occur to the mind. 
 
 The Argonauts are so far, to all intents and purposes, 
 Epicureans. Such gods as there are do not come into a 
 practical man's calculations; they are a negligible quantity.^ 
 It will be more convenient to deal with Epicureanism in 
 the form in which it made its main appeal to Virgil — the 
 de Reruvi Natura. 
 
 ni 
 
 So far we have been considering the literary influences 
 of Greece upon the conceptions of the gods^embodied in 
 
 ^ See Gardner, Manual, p. 124. Boissier, La Religion roniaine, i. 254, spe.ik- 
 ing of Jupiter by Virgil's clay, sums up the same tendency thus : " II est devenu 
 tout a fait le dieu des dieux, celuien quiles autresdoivent finirpars'absorber, etqui 
 profile tous les jours des progres que fait le monotheisme. " Cf. Plutarch, de defcctit 
 oraculoruni, 426 D, the contrast between 6 ytteV '0/j.rjpiK6s Zevs and 6 5' dXTjOivds. 
 
 * See Hatch, Hihbert Lectures, lect. ix. pp. 254, 255, on the Gnostic oiK Cbv 
 6(6s who is d.v€i>i'&T)Tos Kal dvovcrios. "God, who was not, without thought, with- 
 out perception, without will, without purpose, without passion, without desire, 
 willed to make a world," said a Gnostic (quoted by Hippolytus 7, 21), who then 
 proceeded to explain away the words "willed" and " world." 
 
 ' Cf. Tertullian, oti Nationes, ii. 2 Epicurei \deum esse volunt] oiiosum et in- 
 exercitatum et, ut ita dixefint, neminem. 
 
OLYMPUS 287 
 
 :he Aeneid. We have now to look at the Roman world, 
 ind to note the attitude to things divine which pre- 
 k^ailed in Virgil's Italy. The treatment must be in bare 
 ';;|Dutline. 
 
 The Italian pantheon is at once remarkable for the number 
 of its gods and for their obscurity. To paraphrase a few 
 words of St Augustine, it is as if "all human goods were 
 set out with minute particularity," and they tried "to 
 provide a minute and particular god for every one of them." ^ 
 For every contingency in life a god or goddess was provided, 
 and the whole of life was pervaded by this crowd of little 
 gods {turba yninutorum deorum)^ though some of them must 
 have had an activity of only a few minutes or seconds. 
 Thus Cunina watched over the child in its cradle, Rumina 
 presided over its nutrition, Vaticanus over its crying, and 
 Numeria taught it to count' As might have been expected, 
 these gods and goddesses were colourless, they had neither 
 character nor legend ; they were little more, in many cases, 
 than verbal nouns. Yet there were some, who had to 
 do with agriculture and country life, who in time under 
 Greek influence became more than names — Liber, Saturnus, 
 Proserpina, Faunus. Some were for centuries after the 
 Christian era objects of dread to the country people. Pro- 
 bably we should understand their nature better if we called 
 them fairies or goblins — "little people."^ 
 
 Many of them can have had little or no worship, but 
 others had definite rituals, but generally of an unemotional 
 type. Numa, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, was 
 to be praised on account of the cheapness of the sacrifices 
 he ordained.^ The prayers had the hard, dry character 
 of legal formulae, and altogether it was a " layman's 
 
 * Cf. St Augustine de Civilate Dei, iv. 21, and also iv. 8. 
 
 * Ibid., iv. 9. 
 
 ' Ibid., iv. II. On this section see VVarde Fowler, The Relis^ious Experience 
 of the Roman People (1911) Lecture vii. 
 
 * It is har^i sometimes for those who love Hans Andersen to understand that the 
 fairies were pre-eminently malign beings — a terror and an incubus tending to the 
 paralysis of the human mind. The early Christians ranked it among the greatest 
 benefits of the Gospel that it '* set them free from ten thoasand tyrants " — the 
 small gods and the demons. 
 
 * Dion. H. Antt. ii. 23 r^y euVeXeias rCiv Ovaiwy. 
 
288 VIRGIL 
 
 religion," ^ cautious rather than imaginative or reflective. 
 The ancients, says Gellius,^ were in their religion castissimi 
 cmitisshnique — if a god sent an earthquake, and some 
 ceremony were decreed, they took care not to mention the 
 god's name for fear of mistake ; the right god (or goddess) 
 would know. No god or temple could receive gift or legacy, = 
 of land even from a private person without a decree of thee! 
 people.^ j 
 
 Different views have been taken of this religion. The 
 Romans themselves attributed to it the superior honesty 
 and patriotism which marked the old days, and this was 
 the view of Polybius. "The most important difference for 
 the better," he says, " which the Roman commonwealth i 
 appears to me to display is in their religious beliefs. For 
 I conceive that what in other nations is looked upon as 
 a reproach, 1 mean a scrupulous fear of the gods (Xeyw (5e rr\v 
 Seia-iSaijuoviav), is the very thing which keeps the Roman 
 commonwealth together. To such an extraordinary extent 
 is this carried among them {eKreTpaycpStjrai), both in private 
 and public business, that nothing could exceed it. Many i 
 people might think this unaccountable ; but in my opinion \ 
 their object is to use it as a check upon the common people, i 
 If it were possible to form a state wholly of philosophers, 
 such a custom would perhaps be unnecessary. . . . To my 
 mind, the ancients were not acting without purpose or 
 at random when they brought in among the vulgar those i 
 opinions about the gods, and the belief in punishments in | 
 Hades : much rather do I think that men nowadays are -• 
 acting rashly and foolishly in rejecting them.* In fact, as 
 Varro put it, it was to the state's advantage that people 
 should be deceived in religion.^ 
 
 But there was another side to the religion. The very 
 vagueness of the powers and characters of these gods made 
 them more awful, just as under the early empire the in- 
 
 1 The phrase is Boissier's. * Gellius, JV. A. ii. 28. 
 
 ^ Cic, de Leg. ii. 9. 22 nequis agrum consecrate. Cf. Cic. de domo sua, 49, 127 
 
 * Polybius, vi. 56. 6-12, tr. Shuckburgh. 
 
 ^ Varro ap. Aug. C. D. iv. 27. Expedit homines f alii in religione. CJ. the 
 very remarkable verses of Critias on the invention of the gods ; cited by Sextus 
 Empir. adv. Math. ix. 54. 
 
•''ectii 
 
 'Onti 
 
 ofti 
 
 Ti 
 
 s wa 
 cefo 
 
 OLYMPUS 289 
 
 I determinate nature of the relations of emperor and senate 
 made both miserable and nervous in their dealings with 
 one another,^ No one knew where or how he might meet 
 and offend a god. "To tell the truth," says Cicero,^ "super- 
 stition has spread everywhere, and has crushed the minds 
 of wellnigh all men, and made itself mistress of human 
 weakness. ... It follows you up ; it is hard upon you ; 
 wherever you turn it pursues you. If you hear a prophet, 
 or an omen ; if you sacrifice ; if you catch sight of a bird ; 
 if you see a Chaldaean or a haruspex; if it lightens, if it 
 thunders, if anything is struck by lightning ; if anything 
 like a portent is born, or occurs in any way — something or 
 other of the kind is bound to happen, so that you can never 
 be at ease and have a quiet mind. The refuge from all our 
 toils and anxieties would seem to be sleep. Yet from sleep 
 itself the most of our cares and terrors come." ^ So too said 
 Plutarch of superstition — "Alone it makes no truce with 
 sleep."* Plutarch's Lives are full of dreams. In the reign 
 of Marcus Aurelius a work in five books was written on the 
 interpretation of dreams by Artemidorus Daldianus, which 
 is still extant.^ 
 
 All this superstition Lucretius attacked with an energy 
 and an anger that testify plainly to its power over men's 
 minds, and perhaps over his own. Over and over he insists 
 that such gods as there are live lapped in eternal peace, 
 unconcerned with us and our doings ; that nothing happens 
 that cannot be explained by natural causes, or by pure 
 chance ; that therefore neither in this life need we fear the 
 gods, who take no interest in us in any way, nor in any other 
 life, because there is no other life. Epicurus has brought us 
 salvation ; he is the real god of mankind ; he has given us 
 ;ry| peace of mind and happiness. And yet — 
 
 " When we look up to the great expanses of heaven, the 
 
 1 On this aspect of the Empire see Boissier, Cicero and his Friends (tr.) 
 p. 386 f. 2 Cicero, de Div. ii. 72. 148-50. 
 
 * See Martha, Lucrece, ch. iv. La religion de Lucrece. It should be noted 
 that the Stoics accepted divination. 
 
 * Plutarch, de Superstilione 165 E (§ 3) novt) yap ov <nrlv5eTai. irphs rbu vttvov, 
 
 * Similar works, of some size too, are current in modern Greek, and there is 
 a steady sale for small " books of dreams" in English. 
 
 19 
 
290 VIRGIL 
 
 aether set on high above the glittering stars, and the thought 
 comes into our mind of the sun and the moon and their 
 goings ; then indeed in hearts laden with other woes that 
 doubt too begins to wake and raise its head — Can it be 
 perchance, after all, that we have to do with some vast 
 divine power that wheels those bright stars each in its 
 course? " ^ 
 
 What the great poet felt and expressed in this moving 
 way we need not doubt that smaller minds experienced, 
 who had less grasp of Epicurean principles, and fluctuated 
 wretchedly between unbelief and superstition. 
 
 There is yet a third aspect of the old religion. To some 
 minds it was full of quiet charm and beauty. A tendency 
 akin to romanticism meets us in the age of Virgil, and 
 perhaps it is to this that we should refer the affection felt 
 by some for the old gods of the countryside rather than to 
 conviction of their divinity. "Lares of my fathers!" says 
 Tibullus, " keep ye m.e safe ; for ye were my guardians 
 when a tiny child I ran about at your feet. No shame it is 
 that you are of ancient wood ; even thus it was ye dwelt in 
 the house of my grandsire of old. In those days they kept 
 faith better, when in the little shrine a god of wood was 
 content with humble offerings." ^ 
 
 But neither tradition, nor Epicureanism, nor romanticism 
 will suffice for the religious temper, and for it there was 
 nothing so strong and helpful as the practical Roman 
 Stoicism. Whatever the origin of its various doctrines, a 
 summary of them is given by Cicero in his second book De 
 Natura Deormn.^ Surveying the gods, the Roman Stoic 
 
 ^ Lucretius, v. 1204-10 : 
 
 Nam aim stispicinms magni caelestia nnindi 
 tefupla super stellisque micantibtis aetherajixum, 
 et venit in 7Jientem salts lunaegue viarum, 
 tunc aliis oppressa malis in pectora cura 
 ilia quoque expergefactu^n caput erigere injit, 
 nequae forte dcum nobis iDitnensa potestas 
 sit, vario motu quae Candida sidera verset. 
 ^ Tibullus, i. 10. 15-20 aluistis et idem cursarem vestros cum tener ante pedes. 
 ^ Cicero owns frankly that he used Greek originals in composing his philosophic 
 works — ad Atticum xii. 52, 3, aTroypacpa stint, minore labore fiunt; verba 
 tanium adfero qtiihus abundo. 
 
OLYMPUS 291 
 
 found some to be deified men — Hercules, Castor, and Romu- 
 lus (24, 62) — some deifications of divine gifts (23, 60), and 
 some personified forces of nature ; " but when we look up 
 at the sky and contemplate the celestial bodies, what is so 
 clear as that there is a divine power of excelling intelligence, 
 whereby they are guided? " (2, 4). The universe is a vast 
 organism permeated and controlled by an intelligent and 
 sentient nature ; " and when we say the universe consists 
 and is directed by nature, we do not speak of it as a clod, 
 or a chip of stone, or something of the kind with no natural 
 cohesion, but as a tree or an animal " (2i^^ 82). The gods, 
 the Stoic holds, are not distinct and opposed beings, but the 
 varied activity of the one God under various names ; and 
 their proper worship is veneration with pure, honest, and 
 incorrupt mind and voice (28, 71). Divine Providence thus 
 rules the universe (30, 75), and not only do the gods think 
 for mankind, but for men (65, 164).^ 
 
 IV 
 
 Our preliminary survey has been long, but it may have 
 enabled us to get a clearer view of the elements which went 
 to form Virgil's conceptions of the divine. He was an 
 Italian, brought up in his native village, no doubt, to hold 
 the old traditional views of his people. His first great 
 teacher, however, in early youth was Lucretius. As his 
 experience of life enlarged, he began to feel the weak 
 points of Epicureanism, and simultaneously he was reading 
 very widely in Greek literature. That he studied Euripides 
 carefully is clear, and it is hardly conceivable that he read 
 none of Plato's works. A matured man, he wrote his epic 
 on the model of Homer ; and he had, in accordance with 
 tradition, to produce gods of a conventional Homeric type. 
 
 ^ I quote the last clause, as of special import : Nee vera universo generi homi- 
 mini solum sed etiam singulis a dis immortalibus consuli et provideri solet. I have 
 borrowed a phrase or two from Dr J. B. Mayor. Since this book was written, 
 three volumes have appeared, dealing with Stoicism — Prof. W, L. Davidson, The 
 Stoic Creed {\<^o']) ; Mr R. D. IWcks, Stoic and Epicurean (1910) ; Prof. E. V. 
 Arnold, Roman Stoicism. There is also a chapter on it in The Cov/lict of 
 Religions in the Early Roman Empire (1909). 
 
292 VIRGIL 
 
 But to do this exactly was impossible for one of so inde- 
 pendent a character and such wide sympathies. The gods 
 in consequence have a tendency to fall away from the 
 standard of Homer, and to betray other influences. 
 
 In the Eclogues and in the second conclusion to the fourth 
 Georgic the gods are frankly literary and Alexandrine. 
 But in the rest of the Georgics we come nearer to the poet's 
 mind. The clear and picturesque outlines of the literary 
 gods fade away, and we find sometimes a half-romantic 
 leaning toward the old country gods of Italy, sometimes 
 a gleam of a vaster and still more moving conception. 
 
 He tells us of the fascination for him of the scientific 
 outlook on life.i The Muses, dear above all things to him, 
 would teach him, if they would hear his prayer, the laws 
 of heaven and earth and sea, the great principles that 
 underlie all Nature. But if this is beyond him — the re- 
 flection shows a certain consciousness that his true sphere 
 is elsewhere — be it his to love the country with its gentle 
 streams and woods, and to let glory go. Happy indeed 
 is he who has mastered Nature's secrets and by their aid 
 has triumphed over the terrors of superstition {nietus omnes) 
 and of death ; but there is another blessedness in the 
 knowledge of the country gods, Pan, Silvanus, and the 
 nymphs. These names are not to be taken literally, as 
 the rustics might have taken them, but as embodying a 
 point of view which is on the whole new to literature. He 
 means that he will turn to Nature herself in her smiling 
 rather than in her scientific mood ; he will " view the 
 outward shows of sky and earth, of hill and valley," and, 
 while the man of science is busy and bustling on the track 
 of laws, he will wait for " impulses of deeper birth," feeding 
 his mind "in a wise passiveness." And this he did, and 
 after deciding in his first Georgic that the weather-wisdom 
 of the crows is not a divine gift,^ he came at last to a 
 view, which may be called technically Stoic or Pythagorean, 
 but which is no mere dogma of the schools but an acquisi- 
 
 1 G. ii. 475- 
 
 ^ Contrast Epictetus [D. i. 17) oi;5^ rbv KopaKa 6av/jLd^o/ji.€v fj t^v Kopwv-qv dXXA 
 rov deov rov cnj/xalyovra 5id Toiirwy. 
 
OLYMPUS 393 
 
 tion of his own, suggested no doubt by the philosophers, 
 but, lii<e Wordsworth's philosophy, learnt from Nature 
 herself — God pervades earth and air and sea, and He is 
 the life that moves in all living things, bird and insect, 
 farmer and flower, all dear to the poet.^ It must not be 
 supposed that Virgil grasped this at all with the clearness 
 of Wordsworth, or drew Wordsworth's inferences from it, 
 but it was still his theory when he wrote the famous speech 
 of Anchises in the underworld. Round it is a vast fringe 
 of uncertainties, and the greatest of them is the doubt as 
 to Providence caring for the individual — the final difficulty 
 of every religious mind, on the solution of which everything 
 depends. 
 
 In the Aeneid the presentment of Virgil's own views 
 is complicated by the convention of epic poetry, which in 
 its turn is modified by the poet's endeavour to draw it 
 as far as may be into touch with the higher conception of 
 divinity which mankind had learnt from philosophers. He 
 has also to bring the Olympian gods into friendly relations 
 with the native gods of Italy — a process helped by the 
 common Roman habit of recognizing their gods in other 
 forms in foreign pantheons ; and he also finds a place for 
 Cybele, who was probably the most living of them all. It 
 must be said that he manages his task well. Sciens de deoruni 
 itnperio varias esse opiniones, says Stxvms, pmdentissime tenuit 
 generalitatemP- There is a uniform tone about them all, and 
 peculiarities are not emphasized. Even the Italian stories, 
 quaint and primitive as they are, do not seem out of keep- 
 ing. It should also be remarked how free the poem is from 
 divination and magic — the lamentable side-tracks of popular 
 and even of literary religion. 
 
 Beginning with the Homeric aspect of Virgil's gods, we 
 find a close adherence to the Iliad and the Odyssey, and 
 sometimes even too faithful an imitation. The gods act 
 as they did in Homer's poems, they do the same things, but 
 they do them rather stiffly. Venus appears from time to time 
 to help Aeneas, as Athene does to help Odysseus, and Juno 
 never for very long forgets to put difficulties in the way, as 
 
 ^ G. iv. 221. * On Aen. vi. 264. See p. 233. 
 
294 VIRGIL 
 
 Poseidon does in the Odyssey. There is also divine interven- 
 tion in battle in the old style. Juno, for example, borrows a 
 hint from Apollo. In the Iliad Apollo, to safeguard Aeneas, 
 snatched him from the battle and left a phantom of him, 
 over which Greeks and Trojans went on fighting. Juno, to 
 save Turnus, applies the device in another way. The rescue 
 of Aeneas had hardly been heroic enough, so Juno frames 
 an image, not of Turnus, but of Aeneas, which Turnus in 
 fury pursues from the field and on to a ship which is stand- 
 ing in the river. Juno at once cuts the moorings, and 
 Turnus is safely but most honourably kidnapped. This is 
 sufficiently mechanical.^ 
 
 Then there is the nymph Juturna, the sister of Turnus. 
 She took her name from a medicinal spring near the 
 fountain of Numicus, from which water was brought to 
 Rome for sacrificial purposes.^ She is, therefore, entirely 
 Italian, but in Virgil's hands her story becomes Homeric. 
 She owes her divinity and her sovereignty over pools and 
 streams to the love of Jupiter, though Juno has graciously 
 made an exception in her case and does not hate her.^ 
 Informed by Juno of her brother's peril, Juturna begins 
 to take an active part in the story. She emulates Athene in 
 upsetting the arrangements which Trojans and Rutulians 
 are making to end the war by a single conflict between 
 Aeneas and Turnus. But Athene was more expert, for she 
 disguised herself as a Trojan, and induced the Trojans 
 to break the truce, thus saving the honour of the Greeks, 
 while Juturna employs her arts with the Latins and so 
 involves her ov/n friends in disgrace.* Later on, she again 
 imitates Athene by ousting her brother's charioteer and 
 taking the reins herself, just as Athene turned out Sthenelus 
 and drove the chariot of Diomedes.^ 
 
 But of all the cases in which the Virgilian gods imitate 
 the Homeric, the episode of the arms of Aeneas is the most 
 conspicuous. In the Iliad Thetis goes to the house of 
 
 1 Iliad, V. 449 ; A. x. 636-S8. 
 
 2 Teuffel suggests that her association with Turnus is due to the last two 
 syllables of her name. 
 
 3 A. xii. 137-45. ■* liiad, iv. 5>6 If. ; A. xii. 222 f. 
 ^ A. xii. 469 ; Iliad, v. 835. 
 
OLYMPUS 295 
 
 Hephaestus to ask arms for Achilles ; but, before she has 
 made known her request at all, Hephaestus himself recalls 
 how she and Eurynome, daughters of Ocean, had saved 
 him when Hera flung him from heaven, " and now is 
 Thetis come to our house : surely I am bound to pay the 
 price of life to sweet-haired Thetis."^ Then in a direct 
 and pathetic speech the goddess tells him why she has 
 come, and he at once goes off to make the arms. Virgil, 
 however, had another and very different divine mother to 
 deal with, whose relations with Vulcan were much 
 more difficult. Venus has to intercede with her husband 
 on behalf of her son who is not his, and Virgil has taken 
 as his model the deceiving of Zeus by Hera.^ The passage 
 :s not a very successful one ; it was severely criticized 
 in antiquity,^ and it is hardly Hkely to find defenders 
 now. 
 
 Side by side with the Homeric are the Italian gods. 
 Saturn, Janus, Picus, Pilumnus, and Faunus do not indeed 
 take an active part in the story, but they are recognized, 
 and they are given Olympian rank. More it was hardly 
 possible to do, for, like Italian gods generally, they are very 
 dim figures. Most of them had one solitary charm to 
 weigh against the various activity of the true Olympians; 
 they are inert and colourless, but they are veteres,^ the "old 
 gods " — a name which would seem to imply more affection 
 than faith. 
 
 They are apt to be adorned with traits borrowed from 
 the Greek gods. Picus, for example, the woodpecker-god, is 
 married to Circe, and owes his bird-form to her enchant- 
 ments.^ Tiber himself appears garbed as a Greek divinity 
 — " thin lawn veiled him with its grey covering, and shadowy 
 reeds hid his hair"^ — but he has a genuine Italian oak 
 hung with spoils of conquered foes,' We read of the god of 
 Soracte " for whom the blaze of the pinewood heap is fed, 
 
 1 Iliad, xviii. 406, 407. ^ A. viii. 370 ff. ; Iliad yC\s. 153-353. 
 
 ' Gellius, N. A. ix. 10. See also Servius ad loc. Statius is still less 
 happily inspired. He makes Venus remind Mars of Lemniacae catenae, Theb, 
 iii. 272. 
 
 * Cf. A. vii. 254 vcteris Fauni ; viii. 187, and ix. 786 veterunique deoruin. 
 
 * A. vii. 189. • A. viii. 32. ' A. x. 423. 
 
296 VIRGIL 
 
 where we thy worshippers in pious faith print our steps 
 amid the deep embers of the fire "^ — he is called Apollo, but 
 we may be sure it was not his original name. In close 
 connexion with Apollo are the Penates, who, according 
 to the story, came from Troy,^ but are certainly Italian. 
 Ancient antiquaries indeed debated whether Apollo were 
 not one of the Penates himself, which would be quite un- 
 Homeric.^ Jupiter has both Greek and Italian traits. To 
 Evander he is (by a beautiful inspiration) the Arcadian 
 Jupiter ;* in another place he is Jupiter Anxurus ; ^ he is at 
 the same time Jove of the Capitol, as a famous passage 
 attests ;^ and to larbas he seems to have been Ammon.' In 
 a word, he is the Jove of the Roman Empire, a god of 
 many names and characters, a symbol of Rome's policy 
 in dealing with religions. Juno likewise is Hera of Samos,^ 
 Juno Lacinia,^ Juno of Gabii,^° and Juno Caelestis of Carthage. 
 The rites which are paid to these gods are generally Roman, 
 without distinction between those of Greek and those of 
 Italian origin. 
 
 Virgil is endeavouring to bring all the gods into real 
 contact with Rome, and to do this he has to make them 
 serious beings, possessed of Roman dignity and gravity. 
 
 ^ A. xi. 785-8 (Mackail). Pliny {N. H. vii. 2. 19) alludes to the fact, but says 
 nothing. Servius' comment may be quoted. " So says Virgil ; but Varro, 
 everywhere an opponent of religion {ubiqtie exptignator religionis), in describing a 
 certain drug, says, ' as the Hirpini do, who, when they have to walk through 
 fire, touch their soles with a drug.' " Fire-walking may still be seen in Japan ; 
 a friend of mine has described to me how one of his own students in Economics 
 pulled off his patent leather boots and did it before his eyes. Mr Saville, of the 
 London Missionary Society, saw it done on Huahine, near Tahiti. It is also 
 done on Kandaru, in the Fiji group, by the inhabitants of a particular village, 
 with whom it is hereditary. See Andrew Lang, Modern Afythology, ch. xii. 
 
 * A. ii. 296 ; iii. 12, «S<:c. 
 
 ■* Macrobius, Sat- iii. 4. 6. Nigidius and Cornelius Labeo thought the Penates 
 must be Apollo and Neptune. Warde Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman 
 People, Lecture iv. (on the religion of the family). 
 
 * A. viii. 573 : 
 
 At 7J0S, superi et divum tu maxime rector 
 luppiter, Arcadii, quaeso, misei-escite regis. 
 De la Ville de Mirmont, Ap. et Virg. p. 230 on this conflate Jupiter. 
 
 ^ A. vii. 799. •* A. viii. 351 f. ' A. iv. 198. 
 
 ^ A. i. 12-16, Carthage is preferred by her to Samos. * A. iii. 552. 
 
 »» A. vii. 682. 
 
OLYMPUS 297 
 
 Consequently he no longer plays with them as the Alex- 
 indrine poets did, and as he did himself with the delightful 
 Did Silenus in the sixth Eclogue, whose bad ways we forgive 
 or his good temper and the song he steals from Lucretius — 
 md for his brow and temples stained with the mulberry 
 uice. Everything is more serious. For instance, the inter- 
 view between Venus and Cupid, with reference to Dido, 
 ivas suggested by a similar episode in the Argonautica, but 
 it is graver, more dignified, and less pretty. Cupid is not 
 1 Ptolemy baby like Eros in the poem of Apollonius, but " a 
 fjuer bullatiis of the good old days." ^ 
 
 Virgil's gods are thoroughly Roman, in whatever epics 
 they have adventured themselves in the past. There is 
 a fine Roman propriety about rhem, which is a little stiff 
 perhaps, but very proper to reclaimed characters who are 
 trying to forget they were ever at Alexandria. Venus, 
 a cruel and rather contemptible character in the Iliad, 
 is in the Aeneid pre-eminently a divine mother — alma 
 Vemis. Sainte-Beuve calls her " invariably charming, tender, 
 loving, and yet sober and serious." In an interesting study 
 he contrasts the meeting of Aphrodite and Anchises in the 
 Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite with that of Venus and Aeneas 
 in the first Aeneid!^ Virgil had read the Hymn, but his 
 treatment is very different. That Venus is Aeneas' mother 
 accounts for much of the change, but the whole interview 
 is conceived in a different tone. Venus appears in the 
 garb and guise of Diana, as a huntress maiden. There is 
 grace, dignity, and charm about her, but nothing voluptuous, 
 as in the Hymn. 
 
 Jupiter, however, is in many ways the most interesting 
 of Virgil's gods,2 He has Homeric traits, but he is mainly 
 Roman. He has come nearer to mankind than Apollonius 
 allowed him ; from a Ptolemy, we might say, he has become 
 an Augustus. He is a grave and wise god, free from the 
 tyrannical and sensual characteristics of the Homeric Zeus. 
 As with Aeneas, so in Jupiter's case, Virgil lapses at times 
 
 ^ De la Ville de Mirmont, Ap. de Kh. et Virgile, p. 647, See p. 57. 
 
 * Etude sur Virgile, pp. 250-8. 
 
 ^ Boissier, La Religion romaine, i. 254. 
 
i;:. 
 
 298 VIRGIL 
 
 into weak imitations of Homer, and we hear of Juturna 
 and of Ganymede in connexion with him ; but as a rule 
 he conforms more to what Plato thinks the divine nature 5 ; 
 should be. "If the poets will not so far respect all the 
 gods," says Plato, '' at least we shall entreat them not to 
 presume to draw so unlike a picture of the highest of the 
 gods as to make him say, ' Ah me, now is it fated that 
 Sarpedon, my beloved, shall fall beneath the hand of 
 Patroclus, IMenoetius' son.' " ^ Accordingly in the Aeneid 
 it is Hercules who sheds unavailing tears for Pallas, while 
 Jupiter consoles him. " * Each has his own appointed day, '^ 
 short and unrecoverable is the span of life for all ; but to 
 spread renown by deeds is the task of valour. Under high 
 Troy town many and many a god's son fell ; nay, mine own f' 
 child Sarpedon likewise perished. Turnus too his own 
 fate summons, and his allotted period has reached the goal.' 
 So speaks he, and turns his eyes away from the Rutulian 
 fields."- Jupiter feels the sorrow of men here, but he 
 does not propose, as he did in the Iliad, to overturn the 
 order of things by rescuing the doomed hero. His attitude 
 at the Council of the Gods has been compared to the 
 undecided conduct of Latinus, and his general position 
 with reference to Destiny is on the whole vague. But 
 in the main he sustains the character of a great and wise 
 god very successfully. 
 
 Hercules too is a god who owes something to the 
 philosophers. The Herakles of the Attic stage, braggart, 
 bully, and glutton, has given way to the Herakles of 
 Prodicus' fable, a god vowed to the service of Virtue,^ not 
 undeserving of his canonization by the Stoics.* Virgil 
 
 iie* 
 
 k 
 
 1 riato, AV/. iii. 3.S8. liiad, xvi. 433. * A. x. 467-74, Mackail. 
 
 ' Xenophon, Mem. ii. i. 21 ft"., "The choice of Herakles.'' Cl". Diod. Su: i. 2.- 
 * Seneca, D/a/. ii. 2. I, counts Hercules among the s:igcs ; Epictetus /?. iii. 
 24, on his trust in Zeus his father, and D. iii. 26, on Herakles as el<rayi>}yei>s 
 diKaioavviji Kai octiottjtos ; Apuleius, Florida, iv. 22, calls him a philosopher ; 
 and Julian, Or. vi. p. 187 c, says that, besides conferring other benefits on 
 mankind, he was the founder of the Cynic philosopliy. Horace himself 
 recognizes the god's new dignity : hac arte Pollux et vag-us Hercules {C. iii. 3. 9). 
 See Neltleship, Essays, i. p. 135. Compare also the question of Cotta in Cicero, 
 A^. D. iii. 20. 42 quern fotissimum Hereultm calamus, scire velim ; plurcs enim 
 tradunt nobis. 
 
OLYMPUS 299 
 
 *|jts into the mouth of Evander, the most serious and 
 nerable figure in Italy, the story of Hercules' connexion 
 Ith Rome, and the justification of his cult, as that of 
 
 saviour and deliverer. 
 
 Non haec sollemnia nobis, 
 has ex more dapes, hanc tanti numinis aram 
 vana superstitio veterumque ignara deorum 
 imposuit ^ (A. viii. 185). 
 
 onington remarks that one might almost suppose Virgil 
 
 ut:|ere to be defending religion against Lucretius, who had 
 
 ken pains to depreciate Hercules in comparison with 
 
 
 .^.picurus.'* 
 
 In the same spirit Virgil tones down or apologizes for 
 2gends which he has to tell. For instance, Misenus 
 hallenged Triton to a contest in trumpeting, and the god 
 lew him for jealousy (aemu/us). So said the legend ; 
 )ut envy, according to Plato, "stands outside the divine 
 horus," ^ so the poet adds a caveat of his own — 
 
 si credere dignum est* 
 
 Si credere dignum est\ The exclamation raises a 
 ieeper issue and one of wider import than the character 
 Df Triton ; for is not all Olympus involved ? So at least 
 the poet hints, or half hints, at the very beginning of his 
 poem. 
 
 Tantaene animis caelestibus irae "i ^ 
 
 He knew the answer that all the philosophers, from Plato 
 to Lucretius, would make. It was his own answer. At the 
 
 * " No idle superstition that knows not the gods of old has ordered 
 these our solemn rites, this customary feast, this altar of august sanctity " 
 (Mackail). 
 
 * Lucretius, v, exordium. 
 
 * Plato, Phaedrus, 247 A : (pdovos yap ^^w Oeiov xopov laraTai. 
 
 * j4. vi. 173. " If belief is due." Cf. the same expression (G. iii. 391) in the 
 case of another legend, borrowed by Virgil from Nicander (Macr. Sa/. v. 22. 10), 
 and from Virgil by Browning, Pan and Luna. 
 
 * " Can heavenly natures hate so fiercely and so long?" (Conington). 
 
300 VIRGIL 
 
 end he addresses the question directly to Jove himself, anc 
 in a more searching form — 
 
 Tanton' placuit concurrere motu, 
 luppiter, aeterna gentes in pace futuras ? ^ (A. xii. 503). 
 
 The question goes beyond Jupiter, for even he admits 
 that things lie on the knees — not of gods, but of still higher 
 powers. At a critical moment in the war between Aeneas 
 and Turnus, Jupiter declares that he will do nothing ; he 
 will be impartial — 
 
 rex luppiter omnibus idem. 
 
 Venus elsewhere hints that Fate, which she loosely connects 
 with Jupiter, is the supreme power in the world ;^ and Juno 
 at the last admits, on the suggestion of her husband, that 
 Fate is too powerful for her and yields to it.^ But Jupiter 
 is more frank. He will take no part in the war, he says, 
 cloaking his inaction with the fine phrase quoted, and 
 continuing " the Fates will find a way." 
 
 Fata viam invenient. 
 
 " The poet seems," writes an ancient commentator, " to have 
 shown here that the Fates are one thing and Jupiter 
 another. " * But Jupiter says more than this, for, though we 
 must give him leave to speak as loosely as we do ourselves 
 in common talk, it is remarkable that he recognizes another 
 factor in human affairs — 
 
 Sua cuique exorsa laborem 
 fortunamque ferent. 
 
 " As each has begun, so shall his toil and his fortune be." 
 
 Jupiter is raising the same question which Tacitus 
 debated a century after Virgil's day. " As for myself," 
 
 ^ " Was it thy will, O God, that nations destined to everlasting peace should 
 clash in so vast a shock?" (Mackail). 
 
 2 A. iv. no. ^ A, xii. 794, 795 ; 810-20. 
 
 * Interpolation in Servius, ad A. x. in (the passage in question) viddur hie 
 osleudisse aliiui esse fata, aliud lovein. 
 
OLYMPUS 301 
 
 vrote the historian, " my mind remains in doubt whether 
 luman affairs are ordered by fate and unchangeable 
 lecessity or proceed by chance. For you will find the 
 visest of ancient philosophers and their followers at 
 variance on this point. Many firmly believe that the gods 
 ;ake no care for our beginning or our end, or for man's 
 ife at all . . . Others again hold that there is a corre- 
 icai spondence between fate and the course of events ; only 
 that this does not depend upon the movements of the 
 stars, but on certain elemental principles, and on the 
 sequence of natural causes. Yet even so they would leave 
 to us our choice of life ; which once made, what comes 
 after is fixed immutably."^ Does Jupiter mean by his 
 sua exorsa at all what Tacitus means by his ubi elegeris ? 
 that in some way men are the authors of their own 
 destiny, and must go through with what they begin ? 
 Is this Jupiter's idea? He does not explain it, and the 
 gods do not ask.2 
 
 Whatever interpretation we put on Jupiter's speech, it is 
 quite clear that the gods are not the supreme rulers of the 
 universe. Nor are they, it also follows from the study 
 of the Aeneid, even those manifestations of the supreme 
 divinity, which the Neo-Platonists later on held them to be. 
 Virgil, filled with the thought of the divine life pervading 
 all things, hardly seems to conceive of the Olympian gods as 
 sharing that life. He has done everything possible for 
 them ; he has toned down the dark elements in their 
 stories ; he has emphasized the grave and moral ; he has 
 Platonized them as far as he could ; but he has not made 
 them live. Set in the Aeneid, as in the plays of Euripides, 
 side by side with human life and all it means of love and 
 sorrow, but drawn with more kindliness of feeling, the 
 
 ^ Tacitus. Annals, vi. 22 (Ramsay's translation) Fatum quidem congrtiere rebus 
 putant, ted non e vagis stellis, verum apud princifia et nexus naturalium 
 causarum ; ac tamtn electionem vitae nobis relinquitnt, quani ubi elegeris, cerium 
 imminent ium ordinefn. 
 
 * Evander, A. viii. 333-6, attributes his coming to Italy at once to fate, 
 fortune, and divine oracles. Servius tries to explain the statement by reference 
 to the Stoics and to the ingenuity of Virgil. See Gellius, N. A. vii. (vi.) 2, for 
 an interesting discussion by Clirysippus of fate and freewill. 
 
302 VIRGIL 
 
 Olympian gods are found to be dead beyond disguise — thei 
 truth cannot be hid. They are mere epic machinery. Nor 
 is it otherwise with the gods of Italy ; they perhaps had 
 never lived in any personal way. Is the throne of heaven 
 vacant, or is there no throne at all, or has it another 
 occupant ? 
 
 It is quite clear from the sixth book that Virgil is no 
 longer an Epicurean. The traditional gods of heaven are 
 conspicuously absent from man's existence before birth 
 and after death, but all his life is permeated by divine 
 law and is indeed itself divine, and this is Stoic doctrine. 
 Throughout the whole Aeneid we are taught to think 
 that Destiny, if not divine, at least greater than the 
 traditional gods, has plans and aims, which it achieves ; 
 in other words, that Providence rules the affairs of men, 
 whatever Providence may be and in whatever way it 
 works. This again is Stoic doctrine. But this is not the 
 whole matter. 
 
 " ' Dear city of Cecrops,' says he of old ; and will not you 
 
 say, ' Dear city of Zeus ' .? " So wrote Marcus Aurelius in 
 
 his diary,* and the form of utterance is significant. The 
 
 exclamation may seem a natural deduction from the Stoic 
 
 view of the world, but the Stoic does not easily say, " Dear 
 
 city of Zeus," because it remains after all only a deduction 
 
 for him. But to the poet of the Georgics it is no mere 
 
 deduction, it is a living truth. The world is a "dear city" 
 
 to Virgil — 
 
 \ 
 The beauty and the wonder and the power, ^ 
 
 The shapes of things, their colours, lights ^ and shades, \ 
 
 Changes, surprises. 
 
 To him, as to Goethe, the world is the living garment of 
 Deity ,^ The Stoic finds little value in the particular beauties 
 
 1 Marcus Aurelius, iv. 23 'E/cetvos ii.iv (prjaf IldXt ^l\r) KiKpoiro?' aii S^ ovk 
 ipeh' "U TToXt <lii\-q Aids ; " He" is Aristophanes in a lost play. 
 
 * Cf. Georgics i. 46 [ittcijiiai] sulco altritus splendescere votner. 
 
 * Faust, Part I. Sc. i. The Geist speaks: 
 
 In Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm 
 
 Wall' ich auf und ab . . . 
 
 So schafF ich am saufenden Webstuhl der Zeit, 
 
 Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. 
 
OLYMPUS 303 
 
 ■till of Nature, which means so much to Virgil. " Decay is in 
 
 ^0 the material substance of all things ; they are but water, 
 
 ^a( dust, bones, stench."^ The "dear city of Zeus " is after all 
 
 a depressing place of abode, or at least the visible part of it, 
 
 ei the suburb of our habitation. Pan and Silvanus and the 
 
 nymphs are very unphilosophic creatures, but they at least 
 
 represent a feeling that all Nature is not " water, dust, bones, 
 
 stench," and they are so far real — a poetic protest against 
 
 one side of Stoicism. 
 
 Again, the "dear city of Cecrops " is the expression of a 
 poet's love for Athens, a feeling which the Stoic would only 
 doubtfully approve. "The Stoics," writes Dr Caird, "are 
 driven back upon the isolated inner life of the individual, 
 and have to confine the absolute good to the bare state and 
 direction of the will. Now the mistake of this negative 
 attitude may easily escape notice, so long as it shows itself 
 merely in treating wealth, or fame, or pleasure, as indifferent ; 
 but when it leads the Stoics to deal in the same way with 
 the ties of kindred and friendship, of family or nation, and 
 to place virtue in obedience to an abstract law which is 
 independent of all these, we begin to suspect some mistake 
 or over-statement. . . . They do not realize that the con- 
 sciousness of self as a moral being, and the consciousness 
 of other selves as members of one society, are two factors 
 that cannot be separated." ^ Dr Caird writes from a 
 point of view which will hardly be attributed to Virgil, 
 and yet Virgil in his own way felt the same weakness in 
 the Stoic position. 
 
 Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.^ 
 
 Was there not a danger that in turning away from Juppiter 
 Capitolinus, from Vesta and the Penates, the philosopher 
 might lose something real, of which these had been a 
 symbol ? 
 
 ^ Marcus Aurelius, ix. 36. This is not the only mood oi Marcus, it may be 
 noted. 
 
 * Dr Edward Caird, Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, vol. ii. 
 
 P- 153- 
 
 * " So mighty a task it was found the Roman race." 
 
304 VIRGIL 
 
 There lies the essence of Virgil's uncertainty. On onei 
 side is the teaching of the philosophers with an imperious 
 call which he was glad to obey ; but on the other side : 
 there was the poet's instinct, as imperious and as true. 
 The delight he took in Nature, the deep love he felt for 
 his country, seemed to be bound up with the old gods 
 of farm and city. Figments they might be, or slight 
 embodiments of the divine, but so long as men had held 
 by them the great cardinal virtues had lived and flourished 
 in Italy, and men had set the state before themselves. 
 Who was to guarantee as much of Stoicism ? Marcus 
 Aurelius had not yet lived, and even he did not keep all 
 that Virgil wanted. 
 
 But we may go further still. Individualistic as Stoic 
 teaching was, it did not provide enough for the individual. 
 The Stoic sage is a solitary in the world around him, 
 however much he is at home in " the city of Zeus " of his 
 thoughts — and perhaps even Zeus leaves him a little too 
 much alone. He has to be for ever assuring himself and 
 adjuring himself; it is all his own mind's doing, and no 
 assurance, none at least of a distinct kind, comes to him from 
 heaven. The diary of Marcus is a melancholy record. Now 
 the old religion had been cheerful. The sage might smile 
 at the gods of clay and ancient wood, and at their poor 
 little offerings of meal and salt ; yet in the old days and in 
 the old religion man and god had come very near together, 
 they had known one another, the god was interested in the 
 individual — and this was a happiness which the Stoic 
 would have as a rule to forgo, which he might despise. But 
 if ever a man's being was an expression of a need of the 
 divine, the character of Aeneas is just such an expression. 
 His melancholy anticipates that of Marcus, and has the 
 same root. The poet craves for recognition by God, and if 
 he does not express this craving in the articulate speech of 
 philosopher or devotee, in the no less real voice of poetry it 
 is clearly to be heard. 
 
 Stoicism draws him and holds him, but the poet in Virgil 
 cries out against a world with no content and no meaning, 
 where the only reality is the individual, and even he is 
 
OLYMPUS 30s 
 
 incomplete. The old religion had in its crude and poor way- 
 provided against these evils, and so far the poet felt it to be 
 true and clung to it. His mind and his reason go with the 
 philosophers ; his heart turns to the faith of the past. He 
 realizes the truth in both, but how to reconcile them was 
 godi his problem, as it is ours. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 INTERPRETATION OF LIFE.— 5. RESULTS 
 
 'Tis not the calm and peaceful breast 
 
 That sees or reads the problem true ; 
 They only know on whom 't has prest 
 
 Too hard to hope to solve it too. — Clough, 
 
 'Apfiovir] d(pavr]s (pavepTJs Kfidmcv. — Heraclitus, fr. 47. 
 
 ONE day in conversation with Eckermann the aged 
 Goethe began to talk of certain poets of the time. 
 "They write," he said, "as if they were ill and the 
 whole v/orld were a lazaretto. They all speak of the woe 
 and misery of this earth. . . . All are discontented, and one 
 draws the other into a state of still greater discontent. This is a 
 real abuse of poetry, which was given to us to hide the little 
 discords of life and to make man contented with the world and 
 his condition. ... I have hit on a good word to tease these 
 gentlemen. I will call their poetry ' Lazaretto-poetry,' and 
 I will give the name of Tyrtaean-poetry to that which not 
 only sings war-songs, but also arms men with courage to 
 undergo the conflicts of life." ^ 
 
 The " ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy " is 
 still kept alive by their camp-followers, and an obiter dictum, 
 such as Goethe has here let fall upon the function of poetry, 
 will scarcely escape challenge from the adherents of certain 
 poetic schools. He implies, they will say, too much purpose 
 in poetry ; for, if a poet turn moralist or philosopher, all is 
 over with his art. Goethe knew this as well as any one, 
 and so far was he from betraying poetry to the philosophers 
 that he has not escaped their censure for some of his utter- 
 ances upon philosophy. " Man," he said, " is born not to 
 
 1 Eckermann, Conversations 7vttk Goethe, Sept. 24, 1827 (Tr. John Oxenford, 
 1850). 
 
 306 
 
RESULTS 307 
 
 solve the problems of the universe, but to find out where the 
 problem begins, and then to restrain himself within the limits 
 of the comprehensible." ^ But perhaps even this will not satisfy 
 his critics in the camp of poetry. Poetry, they say, has nothing 
 to do with problems of the universe, or with problems at all ; its 
 business is with man and what he does, what he suffers, and 
 what he enjoys. To this the great poets would probably 
 make no objection. But somehow when they handle these 
 subjects they have a tendency to come very near philosophy 
 — everything means so much more to the great mind ; the 
 universe and its problem are involved in even the smallest 
 things. Carlyle, in discussing Schiller's shortcomings, has 
 indicated that they are due to nothing so much as his failure 
 to feel the values and implications of the small and the 
 ordinary. " The common doings and interests of Men," he 
 says, " mean as they seem, are boundless in significance ; 
 for even the poorest aspect of Nature, especially of living 
 Nature, is a type and manifestation of the invisible spirit 
 that works in Nature. There is properly no object trivial 
 or insignificant : but every finite thing, could we look well, 
 is as a window, through which solemn vistas are opened into 
 into Infinitude itself." Aristotle and Wordsworth^ have 
 said very much the same, each in his own way. 
 
 If we attach any serious value to Virgil's poetry, we are 
 almost bound to ask how it will stand criticism upon these 
 lines; to inquire how far he realizes the problem of the 
 universe; whether the individual case is to him a type and 
 manifestation of some invisible spirit at work in Nature ; 
 how far he takes in the whole experience of man, what value 
 he attaches to it, and finally what inference he draws from 
 it all ; and whether he belongs to the Lazaretto school or to 
 the Tyrtaeans. It will be of interest and indeed important 
 to determine, if we can, to which school he belongs ; it will 
 be of far more interest and import to learn how he stands 
 toward the problem of the universe. 
 
 A favourite way of criticizing the universe is the method 
 recommended by Robinson Crusoe. " I began," he said, " to 
 
 1 Ibid., Oct. 15, 1825. 
 
 ■■^ In the preface he wrote for the 1800 edition oi Lyrical Ballads. 
 
3o8 VIRGIL 
 
 comfort myself as well as I could and to set the Good 
 against the Evil, that I might have something to distinguish 
 my Case from worse ; and I stated it very impartially, like 
 Debtor and Creditor, the Comforts I enjoy'd against the 
 Miseries I suffer'd." The balance in his account, it will be 
 remembered, was in favour of good " upon the whole " ; and 
 he proceeds to the generalization " that we may always find 
 something to comfort ourselves from and to set, in the De- 
 scription of Good and Evil, on the Credit side of the 
 Account." The something may indeed be " negative," he 
 admits, as : — " I see no wild Beasts to hurt me." Now, all 
 this was very philosophic of the " Solitaire," but we shall 
 want more of our poet when he deals with life in general. 
 If his view is merely that, on subtracting the evil from the 
 good, there is a balance of ten per cent, in favour of the good, 
 we shall feel that nine-tenths of life is without meaning for 
 him, and we shall find little satisfaction in his ten per cent, 
 optimism. Still less shall we be content if, adopting the 
 debtor and creditor plan, he forgets to make his subtraction. 
 But we shall prefer some other method that will give back 
 the lost nine-tenths — some method of addition rather than 
 subtraction — by which we may find meaning in the whole 
 of life. It will be harder to manage, but we have a feeling 
 that we cannot be content with less, and that " the problem 
 of the universe " is after all to make this addition. 
 
 It is not easy to add up happiness and misery, but the 
 poet must do it — and know what he is doing. He must, for 
 example, stand with Lear upon the heath, and share his 
 mood. 
 
 In such a night as this ! O Regan, Goneril ! 
 
 Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all, — 
 
 O ! that way madness lies : let me shun that. 
 
 But the poet must not shun it, he must suffer and under- 
 stand it, as he enjoys and understands the happiness of 
 Perdita among her flowers. Brutus, and Sir Toby Belch, 
 and Timon — he must sympathize with them all. 
 
 Humani nihil a me alienum puto. 
 
RESUTVIS 309 
 
 When he has surveyed all, suffered ^all, and enjoyed all ; 
 when he has been through "the whole tragedy and comedy 
 of life," 1 he will be able to make his addition, for he will 
 know what he has to add to what. And then perhaps he 
 will not be in so great a hurry as people of less experience 
 to say what is good and what is bad, and to make 
 subtractions and strike balances. He will have a feeling 
 that heaven does not make quite the same distinctions as 
 we do, and that the universe means more when we look at 
 it from that point of view. 
 
 I 
 
 Seneca, moralizing to Lucilius, quotes three words of Virgil 
 in a way which shows at once how the poet's phrase had 
 passed into common speech, and how his thought answered 
 to the experience of his readers. " You will feel," he says, 
 " and you will acknowledge it, that of all these dear and 
 desirable things none is of use, unless you fortify yourself 
 against chance and all it involves ; unless often and without 
 complaint, as one thing after another is lost, you quote 
 to yourself the poet's dis aliter visum" ^ 
 
 Dis aliter visum breaks from Aeneas' lips when he tells of 
 the death of Rhipeus, " most just, most careful of right of all 
 men in Troy " — 
 
 Cadit et Rhipeus, iustissimus unus 
 
 qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus aequi — 
 
 dis aliter visum {A. ii. 426-8). 
 
 It is not a suggestion of any divergence of view as to the 
 merits of Rhipeus. It is rather an ejaculation on the diffi- 
 culty of understanding Heaven's ways — " Heaven's will be 
 done!" is Conington's rendering.^ Mortal gratitude would 
 have made the man some return, but the gods are not 
 grateful to men for their piety. Goodness constitutes no 
 claim to be exempt from the common lot, and, if the gods 
 give any rewards for spiritual excellence, they are not 
 
 ^ Plato, Philcbus, 50 B tj tov jStou ^v/iTrda-r) Tpay(f)5ia Kai Kw/xcfdiq.. 
 * Seneca, £p/. 98. 4. He goes on to say that Dt melius would be carmen 
 fortius ac iustius. 
 
 ' Mr Mackail renders it : " The gods' ways are not ours." 
 
3IO VIRGIL 
 
 paid in material currency. Aeneas is stating in a vivid 
 way the criticism which Adeimantus in the Republic brings 
 upon the teaching of Hesiod and Homer.^ 
 
 No one, again, has lived a better or more useful life than 
 Evander. He sends his son off to the war, with a moving 
 prayer to the god of his fathers that they may meet again. 
 
 At vos o superi et divom tu maxime rector 
 luppiter Arcadii, quaeso, miserescite regis, 
 et patrias audite preces ^ {A. viii. 572-4). 
 
 The gallant Pallas encounters Turnus in single conflict, and 
 addresses a prayer to Hercules, the god whose cult Evander 
 had been celebrating with such ceremony a day or two 
 before. But it is in vain. Hercules, we are told, wept, but 
 they were idle tears, and when Jupiter himself sought 
 to console him his words only emphasized the hapless lot of 
 men. " Each hath his own appointed day ; short and 
 irrecoverable is the span of life for all ; but to spread 
 renown by deeds is the task of valour. Under high Troy 
 town many and many a god's son fell ; nay, mine own child 
 Sarpedon likewise perished." ^ Saying so much, Jupiter 
 turned his eyes from the battlefield. If he felt for men, 
 his pity was ineffectual. Pallas had won glory, but 
 it did not keep Evander's heart from breaking — the 
 gods had not heard his prayers, 
 
 nuUi exaudita deorum 
 vota precesque meae^ i^A. xi. 157). 
 
 But not all who thus fall reach glory. Mimas, the friend 
 of Paris, is a man who gains none. His story is that of 
 many a common man — pain, exile, death, and obscurity. 
 
 ^ Rep. ii. 363. Cf. A. C. Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy, p. 326, discussion 
 on the death of Cordeha in King Lear. 
 
 - " But you, great powers above, and thou, Jupiter, mightiest ruler of the gods. 
 pity, I beseech you, an Arcadian king, and hear a father's prayers." 
 3 A. X. 467 : 
 
 Slat sua ctiiqne dies : breve et irreparabile tetnpus 
 omnibus est vitae : sedfamam extendercfactis, 
 hoc virttUis opus. 
 * " Alas for those my vows and prayers, that found no audience with any of 
 the gods " (Conington). 
 
RESULTS 311 
 
 " His mother Theano bare him to Amycus on the same 
 night that queen Hecuba bare Paris, the torch she had 
 carried in her womb. Paris Hes in the city of his father ; 
 Mimas on the shore of Laurentum, a stranger in a strange 
 land." 
 
 Ignarum Laurens habet ora Mimanta ^ {A. x. 702-6). 
 
 Born on one night in one town, Paris has ruined his people 
 and Hes with his ancestors in his own land ; Mimas falls 
 hundreds of miles away on a foreign shore. But there is 
 more than this, for the Laurens ora is the land of promise, 
 sought for seven years in weary travel over land and sea, 
 and found at last ; and now the journey is over, the goal is 
 reached, and all the land of promise has to give is a grave.^ 
 
 There is perhaps a certain consciousness of glory, or at 
 least of right-doing, in a life of quest for him who chooses 
 it — but for those who do not choose it ? In the fifth book, 
 while the men celebrate Anchises with game and race, 
 Virgil shows us the women sitting apart and weeping for 
 him. 
 
 Amissum Anchisen flebant, 
 
 says the poet ; but the reader thinks of the captive women 
 who wailed for " Patroclus in seeming, but every one in her 
 heart for her own calamity," ^ And Virgil tells us that we 
 are right. 
 
 Cunctaeque profundum 
 pontum aspectabant flentes. 
 
 They weep as they look at the sea ; and yet, as Sainte-Beuve 
 says,^ it is the same Sicilian sea, with its blue horizon, 
 which the little shepherd in Theocritus only asks to see for 
 ever, for ever to have before his eyes, as he sits on the rock 
 with his shepherdess in his arms, while his flock and hers 
 
 * Dr Henry holds with Servius that igiiariim means that he is killed by an 
 unexpected blow, before he knows it. 
 
 * Compare the death of Aeolus : domus alta suh Ida, Lyrnesi domus alta, solo 
 Laurente sepulcrum {A. >.ii. 546) ; and the Latins killed in their city gates, sed 
 limine in ipso moenibus in patriis at que inter tut a domoruvi confixi expirant 
 aninias {A. xi. 88l). 
 
 * A. V. 614. Cf. //. xix. 301 (Tri Si ffrevdxovTO yvvaiKes, TldrpoKXov irpd^affiv, 
 c<puv 5' ai^TWJ' KTjSf' iKaarr), * Etude sur Virgile, p. 166, 
 
312 VIRGIL 
 
 graze round them.^ " But exile changes the colours." So 
 many seas they have crossed, and still one more, is the 
 women's thought. 
 
 Per mare magnum 
 Italiam sequimur fugientem et volvimur undis ^ (^A. v. 628). 
 
 It is a picture of human life in general — ever some un- 
 known Italy before us, but the nearer we come to it the 
 further it flies from us, and meanwhile wave and storm- 
 wind have us at their mercy. Once more for what ? 
 
 That we find in the eleventh book. We seek a flying 
 Italy to bury the dead there. The episode is a moving one. 
 First we see the hewing of timber for the pyres, a vigorous 
 picture of activity. Then the day breaks which is appointed 
 for the burial. Dawn, as ever, displays her genial light, but 
 to the eyes of these Trojans it is not welcome ; it brings back 
 pain and trouble. Yet they must be up and doing. All 
 along the winding shore stand the pyres, and on them they 
 lay their dead. The fires are lit, and the thick smoke of 
 the kindling wood rolls in clouds to the sky. They wait till 
 the pyres blaze, and then in old Roman fashion, with 
 shout and trumpet, they ride thrice round them. Some 
 throw into the flames the spoils the dead had taken ; but 
 some of the fallen had taken no spoils and receive only their 
 own shields, their own luckless arms, 
 
 ipsorum clipeos et non felicia tela. 
 
 Victims are slain over the pyres, and then the ceremonies are 
 
 over that kept the mind occupied. Now comes the waiting, 
 
 and the mind is released to prey upon itself " Then all 
 
 along the shore they sit and gaze while their friends 
 
 are burning, and watch the slow-consuming pyres, nor can 
 
 tear themselves away, till dewy night wheels round the 
 
 sky, set with its burning stars." ^ 
 
 The picture is drawn with the same realism which has 
 
 given their charm to the Georgics, but which here with 
 
 every touch deepens the impression of pain. The poet 
 
 1 Theocritus, 8, 53-6. 
 
 * "Over a vast sea we follow a flying Italy and are tossed by the waves." 
 
 ^ A. xi. 134-8; 182-202. 
 
RESULTS 313 
 
 nakes no reflection, except perhaps in the miseris mortalibus, 
 ind that is traditional and from the past.^ It is doubtless, 
 ilso, not without purpose that he uses at the end the familiar 
 phrase of his great predecessor Ennius — 
 
 caelum stellis ardentibus aptum.^ 
 
 The contrast gains from the old words. Here is human 
 sorrow — 
 
 Infinite passion, and the pain 
 Of finite hearts that yearn — 
 
 set before us in these silent watchers, brooding beside the 
 dying flames, and the background is the night and the 
 eternal and passionless stars. It is Pindar's old thought 
 again — 
 
 eirajuepoi' Ti Se rtf ', tc S ou T19 ', o"/cmp bvap 
 
 avBpwiroi.^ 
 
 It is not only what we have to bear that gives life its pain. 
 Doing is sometimes worse than suffering. Aeneas has to 
 make war and how reluctantly ! He bids Lausus withdraw, 
 but Lausus still presses on, till Aeneas must kill him. One 
 blow drives the sword through the poor gear of the brave 
 lad, through the tunic his mother's love had woven. In that 
 instant the look of death passes over the boyish face, and 
 the older man groans to see what he has done. It is with 
 meaning that Virgil here calls him Anchisiades^ 
 
 With the picture of burning Troy ever in his mind and 
 memories of the brutal flames {flammae furentes) that leapt 
 
 ' Servius says, from Homer ; 5etXo?crt ^poToiai. 
 
 *A combination of two forms, for Macrobius tells us {Sat. vi. i. 9) that 
 Ennius twice used caelum stellis Julgenlibus aptum, and once tiox stellis ardentibus 
 apta. Virgil had already varied it in A. iv. 482 axeni . . . stellis ardentibus 
 aptum. The Iliad, 23, 217-25, maybe compared, but the starry night is not 
 there. 
 
 ^Pindar, Pythians, 8. 95, "Creatures of a day ! what are we, or what not? 
 A dream of a shadow is man." 
 
 * A. X. S21 — Atvero ut voUuin vidit morientis et ora, 
 ora vioais Anchisiades pallentia niiris, 
 iiigemtiit miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit, 
 el inentem patriae subiit pietatis imago. 
 Contrast the satisfaction of the young Ascanius in killing a man for the first 
 time — A. ix. 652 — and cetera parce puer hello. See p. 224. 
 
314 VIRGIL 
 
 ! 
 
 and exulted amid scenes which meant everything to his^ 
 heart, Aeneas is hounded by fate from land to land, andi 
 when he reaches Italy it is the tale of Troy again. He has'^ 
 to fight, to kill men — and boys even — to make womenn 
 childless and children fatherless. Is it strange that, wheni 
 among the shades his father showed him souls hastening to.) 
 reincarnation, the words sprang from his lips — 
 
 O pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est 
 
 sublimes animas iterumque ad tarda reverti 
 
 corpora? quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido ?^ {A. vi. 719). 
 
 He has had enough, too much, of life:^ they must be 
 pitiable who could wish a second life. This is not Achilles' 
 thought — (3ovXoijULr]v K €7rapoupo9 eoov. For Achilles life in 
 the sun is good, and the shadowy existence beyond the 
 grave is not to be compared with it. But the mood which 
 inspired Ecclesiastes was by now familiar to the western 
 world — " I praised the dead which are already dead more \ 
 than the living which are yet alive " — and it sprang from the 
 same source — from " all the oppressions that are done under 
 the sun, and the tears of such as were oppressed." 
 
 " The gods in Jove's house marvel at the rage, the empty 
 rage of both," Trojan and Italian, " and all the agonizing of ] 
 mortals."^ In the Iliad the gods had enjoyed the> sight; 
 they would even take part in the fray. But Virgil's gods, 
 like philosophers, look at it sadly. The troubles and labours 
 of man are an amazement to the gods themselves, and they 
 are after all " a striving after wind." The gods pity man, 
 but their pity is idle as his pain — fruitless and ineffectual.^ 
 
 1 " O my father ! and are there, and must we believe it," he said, 
 
 " Spirits that fly once more to the sunlight back from the dead ? 
 Souls that anew to the body return and the fetters of clay ? 
 Can there be any who long for the light as blindly as they ? " 
 
 (Bowen). 
 
 "^ Cf. King Lear v. 3, 304, " And my poor fool is hanged ! No, no, no life ! " 
 
 * A. X. 758. 
 
 * Cf. Hugo von Trimberg (cited by Carlyle, Essay on Early German 
 Literature). " God might well laugh, could it be, to see his mannikins live so 
 wondrously on this earth ; two of them will take to fighting, and nowise let it 
 alone ; nothing serves but with two long spears they must ride and stick at one 
 
 The 
 
 a qui 
 the 
 
 it 
 tno': 
 
 sna 
 
 tttO 
 
 to 
 lu( 
 M 
 th 
 le 
 
RESULTS 315 
 
 to Ijl The problem, it will be agreed, is fairly adequately 
 presented by Virgil. Has he a solution for it ? 
 
 II 
 
 When Virgil wrote his description of the watchers by the 
 dying flames of the funeral pyres, he was raising once more 
 a question which his master Lucretius had settled. One of 
 the most striking passages of the De Reruin Natura deals 
 with death and bereavement. " Now no more," say the 
 mourners, " shall thy house give thee glad welcome, nor a 
 most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be the first to 
 snatch kisses and touch thy heart with a silent joy. No 
 ''ieif more mayst thou be prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard 
 ■ i'l to thine own. One disastrous day has taken from thee, 
 luckless man, in luckless wise all the many prizes of life." 
 " We, with a sorro^^ that would not be sated, have wept for 
 :wii| thee as on the hateful pyre thou didst turn to ash, and no 
 length of days shall pluck everlasting sorrow from our 
 heart." ^ That is a fair presentment of the question of 
 human sorrow. 
 
 The answer of Lucretius is that such feelings are largely 
 irrational. Reflect, he says, that if the dead shall see 
 no more his wife or child, it is as true that " now no longer 
 does any desire for them remain to him " ; sunk in the deep 
 sleep of death, so shall he continue for all time, free from all 
 pain and grief " What," he asks, " is there so passing bitter, 
 if it come in the end to sleep and rest ? " — particularly 
 when, as he states, in that sleep of death no dreams will 
 come. 
 
 Finally, he pictures Nature suddenly uttering a voice and 
 herself rallying us. " What hast thou, O mortal, so much at 
 heart to yield to this excess of sorrow ? Why moan and 
 bewail death ? For say thy life past and gone has been 
 welcome to thee, and thy blessings have not all, as if 
 
 p-iiother : greatly to their hurt ; for when one is by the other skewered through 
 the bowels or through the weasand, he hath small profit thereby. But who 
 forced them to such straits ? " Carlyle's own rendering of this in Sartor 
 Resarttis will be remembered. 
 1 Lucr. iii. 894-9 ; 906-9. 
 
3i6 VIRGIL 
 
 poured into a leaky vessel, run through and been lost | 
 without avail ; why not then take thy departure as a guest J 
 who has had his fill of life {iit plenus vitae conviva) ? . , . ' 
 There is nothing more that I can contrive and discover 
 for thee to give thee pleasure." Life, he says, is not given 
 us in fee-simple, we have it only in usufruct — 
 
 Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu (Lucr. iii. 971). 
 
 Our substance is needed for other beings.^ Why not accept 
 the fact quietly ? " Is there aught that looks appalling in 
 death, aught that wears an aspect of gloom ? is it not more 
 untroubled than any sleep ? " 
 
 So sounds the voice of Nature to Lucretius, but eager 
 spirits are not always the best listeners. Much as Lucretius 
 heard of what Nature had to say, there was a word which he 
 did not notice, but which caught his pupil's ear — 
 
 Insatiabiliter deflevimus, aeternumque 
 
 nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet ^ (Lucr. iii. 907). 
 
 The master had indeed heard the sentence and triumphantly 
 brushed it aside ; it was merely the voice of man, irrational 
 man. The pupil was not so sure ; he could not rid himself 
 of the feeling that Nature speaks in man as well as else- 
 where — that a broken heart is as distinctly a voice of Nature 
 as any syllogism. To him Nature does not argue so quickly 
 and so logically — 
 
 gives birth 
 
 To no impatient or fallacious hopes, 
 
 No heat of passion or excessive zeal, 
 
 No vain conceits ; provokes to no quick turns 
 
 Of self-applauding intellect.^ 
 
 For Virgil, as for the modern poet, 
 
 the lonely roads 
 Were open schools in which I daily read 
 
 ^ For a Stoic view of the resolution of man et's rd 0iXa /cat <jv^-^ivr\, ei'y ret 
 CTOix^la., see Epictetus (Z). iii. 13), though he adds rather curiously ito-vro. Qeiav 
 /xecrToL Kai 8aifj.6vu}V. 
 
 '^ " Insatiably we wept ; and that everlasting sorrow no time shall take from 
 our heart." * See the Prelude, bk. xiii. 
 
RESULTS 317 
 
 With most delight the passions of mankind, 
 Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed ; 
 There saw into the depths of human souls, 
 Souls that appear to have no depth at all 
 To careless eyes.^ 
 
 His chosen theme being 
 
 No other than the very heart of man,i 
 from long study of it he holds that 
 
 From Nature doth emotion come.^ 
 
 Thus it came about that the very utterance, which 
 Lucretius invoked this dramatic interference of Nature 
 to refute, became for Virgil, above all other voices. Nature's 
 own. For when he " saw into the depth of human souls " 
 he realized that 4;he deepest and most permanent thing 
 there is love, and listening to this, as to the voice of Nature, 
 he heard again in clearer and clearer tone, with deepening 
 intensity and passion, the question, which for Lucretius 
 v/as hardly a question at all— what is the meaning of human 
 
 sorrow ? 
 
 The same voice of Nature invalidated for him much of 
 the teaching of the other great philosophic school, to which 
 he obviously leaned in later life. The Stoic 2 admitted that 
 it was natural to long for the lost friend, but in moderation. 
 He pointed out to the weeping mother the short and quiet 
 grief of the cow;^ he suggested that such grief as hers 
 was "rather feminine"; that the barbarian felt it more 
 keenly than the man of culture ; that time would mend it : 
 « What harm does it do to whisper to yourself, as you kiss 
 your child, 'To-morrow you will die'.?"* "I knew," said 
 
 1 See the Prelude, bk. xiii. 
 
 « Seneca, de Consolatione, 7, 1-3. At enim naiurale desiderium suorum est. 
 Quis negat, qiiavidiu modicum est? . . . There is, of course, a certain value in 
 
 al! this. 
 
 3 Vaccarum uiio die altcrove mugitus auditur. But contrast Lucr. u. 352. 
 
 « Epictetus D. iii. 24. Cf. D. iii. 18, and Manual 14, 16. "If you weep 
 with a friend, let it be /xexP' ^<W<»'. look to it A ««' ?<Tw^ei' crrevd^Tys. " 
 
318 VIRGIL 
 
 Anaxagoras,' "that I had not begotten an immortal." 2 
 In fact Stoic and Epicurean are at one in their practical 
 advice, for if the pleasure of life is to be unruifled, or if 
 the soul is to live in the universal and eternal, it is 
 better without the temporary connexions of state and 
 family ; on the whole, insensibility is best. But Nature 
 has refused us this gift — Nature, as to whom, according 
 to Pliny,^ we can never quite decide whether she is 
 mother or step-mother. 
 
 Starting from the obvious, our moral philosophers have i 
 led us on amiably and logically, till they ask us to affirm ' 
 that the ideal of humanity is virtually inhumanity.* It 
 is here that the poets intervene. They may theorize too, ] 
 but they have an instinct to keep " in company with flesh i 
 and blood." They have divined 
 
 The value and significance of ilesh, 
 
 and tbey come to the aid of the philosophers, when they 
 grow abstract. The deep indebtedness of poetry to 
 philosophy, despite the ancient quarrel, must not obscure 
 for us the fact that the obligations are not all on one side. 
 Long ago Euripides had put into the mouth of one of 
 the very unhappiest of mothers words true to human 
 experience, truer far than Stoic or Epicurean taught in 
 theory. 
 
 Tracri avupooiroL^ ap tjv 
 '4^V)(ri T€Kv ' b(TTi<i 6 aiiT aireipo? mu xfreyei, 
 }j<Tcrov fxev aXyet, Svcttv^wv (5 evSaifxovel.^ 
 
 Though Virgil does not make an aphorism of it, his poetry 
 
 ^ The ascription is doubtful, as the story is also told of Solon and Xenophon. 
 See Epictetus Z>. iii. 24 (near end) ; Seneca Cons, ad Pol. 30 ; Cic. Tusc. iii. 13 ; 
 Plutarch, Cons, ad ApoU. 118 D. 
 
 * The magnificent treatment of this in Tristram Shandy is only too just. 
 ^ Pliny, N. H. vii. i parens melior homini an (ristior noverca. 
 
 ■* Cf. the revolt of Plutarch (_Cons. ad A poll. 102 B) against t7]v dypLov Kal 
 OKXripav awddeiav, citing (102 D) Grantor to yap dvudwov tovt ovk dvev /xeydXwv 
 iyylverai t<^ dvdpdiiK^' TeOripiQiadaL yap elKos ^Ket /xii> awfia toiovtov ivraiida 8e 
 
 * Andromache, 418. " Children after all are the soul of life ; and as for those 
 who know them not and doubt of them, their troubles may be less, but their 
 very happiness is misfortune." 
 
 fo'- 
 
RESULTS 319 
 
 eaffirms this utterance of experience. We may wonder 
 bout his philosophy at times — he owns himself in the 
 leorgics that he is not great or original as a thinker — 
 it ;, l)ut he does the proper work of a poet in calling us back 
 J5 Irom the barren ways of abstract dogma to "the universal 
 tut; |ieart." 
 
 It was thus that Wordsworth, shocked at the excesses 
 nto which abstract political speculation led the men of the 
 French Revolution, turned back to Nature, and, looking into 
 ' the depth of human souls," did not despair of the greater 
 Republic — the " dear city of Zeus." Theories are very 
 fascinating, we all know, but the poet " rejoices more in the 
 spirit of life that is in him." ^ Hence it comes that Virgil 
 sees more truly than Stoic or Epicurean, and he has done 
 genuine service in bringing home to us the fact that their 
 solutions of the question of human sorrow were not solutions 
 at all. Whatever answer he may himself offer, he has at 
 least advanced matters by making it clear that the question 
 is no accidental or easy one, no side issue, but that it goes to 
 the very depth of man's being and is an integral element of 
 the problem of the universe.^ 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the Georgics, as we have seen, Virgil faced the question 
 of man's dealings with Nature, and he found that the under- 
 lying purpose of Jove had justified itself. The name Jove 
 was perhaps traditional, and must not be pressed, but the 
 main drift of the poem is that the universe, so far as it 
 concerns the farmer, is intelligible, and the mind behind it 
 not unfriendly. The life of the farm is hard, but man's life 
 has always been hard since the beginning, and it is to this 
 hardness that we owe everything. The arts of life spring 
 from it, and the sciences too — all our knowledge of earth and 
 its creatures and their ways, and our knowledge of the sky 
 and the stars. Need has brought us into touch with all our 
 
 * Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1 800. 
 
 - Dr Henry translates sunt lacrimae rerum in this sense — " Tears belong to 
 the constitution of Nature." 
 
320 VIRGIL 
 
 environment and established the greatness and the worth 
 of man. 
 
 Labor omnia vincit 
 improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas ^ {G. i. 145). 
 
 Mankind, like the Happy Warrior, has " turned necessity to 
 glorious gain." ^ 
 
 Man has emerged from his long contest with necessity 
 stronger and better. In the Aeneid vjq have a further stage 
 of his history. He is applying the faculties which he has 
 acquired in a higher and harder warfare. He has now to 
 battle not with hunger, or blight and weeds, but with other 
 men and with himself in his attempt to lift the race higher 
 yet. Far in the future he divines a happiness for coming 
 generations which depends in measure upon his own moral 
 quality. It is represented that the gods assure him of this, 
 but as a rule Aeneas seems to act, as we all act, more upon 
 the instinctive feeling for right than upon external divine 
 command. The enemy is nominally Juno ; more really 
 it is inward weakness. Juno, Aeolus, Turnus, and others 
 throw difficulties in the way, but the real fight is within. 
 It is the stuggle to keep facing in the right direction, to 
 think first of kin and country, and to overcome every chance 
 by endurance. 
 
 Quidquid erit superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est ^ 
 
 {A. V. 710). 
 
 Aeneas has seen Troy burning ; he has been " much 
 battered to and fro on land and sea " ; but he never ceases 
 to look toward his goal — 
 
 tendimus in Latium {A. i. 205). 
 
 ^ "So toil conquered the world, relentless toil, and Want that grinds in 
 adversity'' (Conington). 
 
 * The same idea is revived by Claudian in his Rape of Prozerpine as the key- 
 note to his story. See the speech of Jove, iil 18-65, modelled after Virgil — 
 
 Quod dissuasor homsti 
 luxus et humanas oblimat copia mentes, 
 frrcnjocet ut se:;nes animos rerumque remotas 
 ingeniosa via: paulaiim exploret egestas, 
 iitqui aries pariat soller/ia, nutriat usus. 
 
 * " Whatever it be, every chance must be overcome by bearing it." 
 
RESULTS 
 
 321 
 
 With all his reverses and despondencies, he may fairly be 
 said to triumph over life ; he never surrenders. There is 
 wavering in Virgil's portrait of him, due, as we have seen, 
 to sensitiveness to the claims of the Homeric tradition, but 
 it is clear enough tliat Virgil conceived his character as 
 of the true " Tyrtaean " strain. His story should '' arm men 
 with courage to undergo the conflicts of life," and it does. 
 
 It is not here a fair objection to urge that the connexion 
 between Aeneas and Rome is a mechanical one. There are 
 certainly traces of the mechanical in the story, but it is 
 far nearer the truth to say that Virgil is making an honest 
 attempt to present the type of manhood that made Rome. 
 Legend — one legend — said that Aeneas founded Rome ; 
 then what sort of man was he.? What sort of people did 
 he leave behind him ? He is cast in their mould. The 
 necessities of poetic treatment require that he shall be 
 individualized, and this is done. Troy comes into the 
 story of Aeneas, and this, for one thing, differentiates him 
 from other Romans. The man who had been through the 
 siege and the fall of Troy would not be as other men. If 
 he were not hardened by it, he must have been ripened, 
 and it is so with Aeneas. He has far more sensibility than 
 the average Roman ; the truth is, that there is a good deal 
 of Virgil in him. Now while all a man does will show, 
 in some way or other, all that he is, and the whole man 
 is apt to be revealed, more or less, in every act, we can 
 separate out in the character of Aeneas certain features 
 which he has in common with all the great men of Rome 
 whose names are mentioned in the poem as representative 
 of the Roman people. And if we are too cautious or too 
 prosaic to say that Aeneas made Rome, and prefer to say 
 that certain other heroes and a great many " common 
 people" made her, we shall still find on examination that, 
 whoever it was who did the work, it was done in exactly 
 the spirit of Virgil's Aeneas — by men who have essentially 
 the same character, though they may lack the dijft-rcutiae 
 which make him Aeneas and have others of their own. 
 
 The outcome of the poem, then, is that character of this 
 type does not fail of effect and achievement. " They little 
 
322 VIRGIL 
 
 suspect," said Goethe of some people, " what an inaccessible 
 stronghold that man possesses who is always in earnest with 
 him.self and the things around him." The implication of 
 the Aeneid is the same. The Romans are rerum domini 
 in virtue of this character. The farmer in the Georgics 
 had got his reward from iustissima tellus by no other magic. 
 How many heroes and worthies of Roman history are named 
 in the Aeneid, and did any of them ever attain greatness — 
 let us be careful to give the word Virgil's meaning — by any 
 other arts } Modern readers complain of the part played 
 by Augustus in the poem, really judging him from the 
 standpoint of Tacitus ; but for Virgil, who died a whole 
 generation before Augustus, the main thing in the Em- 
 peror's career is the fact that he had represented the old 
 Roman character in the world, and once more conquered 
 the world in virtue of it. Augustus had taken thought 
 for his country and the empire, and had been in earnest, 
 as conspicuously as Antony had trifled about everything 
 but personal pleasure ; and history's verdict, given at 
 Actium, was profoundly just. 
 
 It has, however, been suggested that Virgil does not 
 make in the Aeneid such prophecies of the Golden Age 
 as he made in the fourth Eclogue. It might be a sound 
 reply to say that the poet who wrote the hymn (is it any- 
 thing else ?) to Labor improbus in the Georgics will hardly 
 conceive of so great a reversal of human history as a millen- 
 nium resplendent with purple and saffron rams.^ The 
 Eclogue is, in spite of the early Church, much more a poetic 
 exercise than a prophecy of the Messiah. It must, however, 
 be owned that as men grow older they become less and less 
 ready to predict speedy returns of either golden ages or 
 millenniums, and Virgil will prophesy no more than the 
 reign of Peace. That is the only golden age he can now 
 conceive.^ 
 
 Aspera tum positis mitescent secula bellis ^ (^A. i. 291). 
 
 ^ E. iv. 43 — Ipse sed in pratis aries iaiit suave rubenti 
 
 jiM?-iie, ia»i croceo niutabit vellera luto, &c. 
 2 Cf. A. vi. 792. 
 8 " War shall cease and harsh times grow gentle." 
 
RESULTS 323 
 
 ^sibii fhe ancients knew much less than we know of anthro- 
 '^''^ pology and history, and they did not realize in full the 
 " '' yrandeur and promise of mankind's long progress. All 
 3ur speculation, moreover, on man and his destiny is illu- 
 mined by some idea of evolution,^ and our prevailing feeling 
 Iis that the race has far more triumphs before it than we 
 can imagine. Hence Wordsworth can bid "the most un- 
 tiappiest man of men " take comfort in " man's unconquerable 
 mind." Virgil naturally cannot go nearly so far, but he 
 has gone further, I think, than any poet before him in this 
 direction, when he emphasizes, as he does, the steady pro- 
 gress of the past. He is more silent as to the future, as men 
 are apt to be who know life deeply. Yet, whatever we may 
 take to be the poet's personal inference from his facts, if we 
 fairly grasp those facts, we at least shall suck no melancholy 
 from the Georgios and the Aeneid. We shall find in them 
 true pictures of man's history, and if the mood, to which the 
 poet brings us, is one of pensive and chastened thought, it 
 will yet be one of hope for the race. 
 
 IV 
 
 But what has Virgil to say of the individual ? It is, 
 comparatively, easy to be hopeful for mankind in a general 
 way. The Stoic, it has been said, lived in the best of all 
 possible worlds, in which, however, everything was a 
 necessary evil.^ The poet has to avoid such a conclusion, 
 if his poetry is to be reconciling. For him, if for no one 
 else, universal truths must prove true in particular cases ; 
 he cannot accept a general statement which he finds false in 
 every individual application of it. If a certain temper or 
 attitude of mind is satisfactory for the race at large, as 
 
 1 There is a danger of careless thinking when we speak of evolution — those of 
 us who are not men of science, so the reader, I hope, will not press the word too 
 hard. 
 
 ' The epigram is borrowed by Professor Caird from Mr F. H. Bradley for the 
 Stoics. Plutarch {de repugnantiis Stokorum 1048 F) anticipated the criticism : 
 " all men are mad, bad and sad, the Stoics say ; dra -rrpofoiq. deQv dt.oi.Kei(rdai ret 
 Kud' T]/xd.s of'Tws adXius irpaTTovras ; could it be worse if the gods hated us? could 
 we not quote (Eur. //. F. 1245) 7^ju .• KaKi2y Stj kojuk^t i<xd' Hirov reOy ?" 
 
324 VIRGIL 
 
 Virgil sees, it should be so for the individual man. The 
 question for the poet, in short, is the question of Plato's 
 Republic} whether righteousness in itself and by itself is 
 (in popular phrase), " worth while." 
 
 There will always be strong support (at least, strong 
 numerical support) for the view advanced by some of Plato's 
 friends that righteousness " pays " better than unrighteous- 
 ness, — frequently, they will say, even in this world, and most 
 certainly in the next. It may be said that Virgil represents 
 this view in his picture of Elysium, and that he holds out to 
 the righteous the hope of happy groves, with larger air and 
 purer light, the gymnasium and the dance and the songs of 
 Orpheus. This is true, but these things are no more to be 
 taken literally in the Aeneid than, in the Rhythm of St 
 Bernard, the milk and honey of the golden Jerusalem, 
 
 The song of them that triumph, 
 The shout of them that feast. 
 
 The whole of Virgil's Hades is animated by the strenuous 
 mind, " always in earnest with itself and the things around 
 it." While he avails himself, as usage perhaps required, 1 
 of the traditional symbols of damnation, and extends their 
 application from Titanic sinners against Jupiter to com- 
 monplace sinners against humanity, there is one place where | 
 his thought is unveiled without symbol. He speaks of 
 those who have made their own quietus ; innocent people — 
 he gives them credit for that — but people who quailed, who 
 shirked their task, and for them the only punishment is the | 
 sense of failure — i 
 
 quam vellent aethere in alto 
 nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores ^ (^A. vi. 436). 
 
 ' Rep. 363 A, Criticism of people ovk aiiro SiKaioavvrju iiraivouvTes dXXd. xas air' 
 avrr/s evooKifJ.'qcreLS, 
 
 * " How gladly would they choose now in the air above to bear to the end 
 poverty and hard toil." Cf. Browning, Statue and the Bust — 
 
 Let a man contend to the uttermost 
 
 For his life's set prize, be it what it will ! 
 
 The counter our lovers staked was lost 
 
 As surely as if it were lawful coin : 
 
 And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
 
 Was — the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin. 
 
RESULTS 325 
 
 This is a hint of Virgil's mind. He leaves it to moralists 
 and minor poets to tell us that virtue is its own reward — 
 
 ipsa quidem virtus pretium sibi * — 
 
 the most discouraging platitude which ever disguised the 
 feeling that virtue has no reward at all. For, as a rule, he 
 prefers to let his thoughts " slide into the mind of the reader 
 while he is imagining no such matter," ^ and it is from the 
 A enet'd as a whole that we shall best learn what he means. 
 Whatever his view of them may be, it will not be in Hades 
 only that virtue and vice reveal their essential nature, for 
 a great poet will not falsify our experience and our standards 
 by dividing life in two in so arbitrary a way. 
 
 Let us, however, begin with two more or less definite 
 statements. The old Aletes, in thanking Nisus and Euryalus 
 for their valour, uses these words : 
 
 quae vobis, quae digna, viri, pro laudibus istis 
 praemia posse rear solvi ? pulcherrima primum 
 di moresque dabunt vestri ^ {A. ix. 252). 
 
 Aeneas, in a similar strain, says to Dido — 
 
 Di tibi (siqua pios respectant numina, siquid 
 usquam iustitia est et mens sibi conscia recti) 
 praemia digna ferant ^ (A. i. 607). 
 
 Each of these utterances has the spontaneity which the 
 dramatic situation requires. As in popular speech, there 
 is a slight and very natural confusion — do the gods give 
 rewards to the good, or is the real worth of goodness to be 
 
 * Claudian, Paneg. Manl. Theod. i. It was not his own invention — Virtutum 
 omnium pretium in ipsis est, wrote Seneca, Ep. 8l. 19. 
 
 * Lamb's phrase in a letter to Wordsworth, Jan. 1 801, criticizing The Old 
 Cumberland Beggar. 
 
 ^ " What guerdons, gallant men, what can I fancy of worth enough to pay you 
 for glories like these ? first and richest will be the praise of heaven and your own 
 hearts" (Conington). 
 
 * "May the gods — if there are powers that regard the pious, if justice and 
 conscious rectitude count for aught anywhere on earth — may they give you the 
 reward you merit ! " (Conington). Editors dispute whether to read iustitia or 
 iuslitiae. Heyne, Henry, Conington, Forbiger, and Ribbeck are for the former. 
 The latter seems prosaic, and indeed on a lower moral plane. 
 
I 
 
 326 VIRGIL 
 
 found in character and conscience ? The course of the story 
 offers some comment upon this. In the first case, Nisus and 
 Euryalus are killed within twelve hours ; in the other, the 
 gods, so far from rewarding Dido, entangle her in an affection 
 which brings upon her untold misery and death. It is plain 
 that the first theory, that of rewards of goodness, has failed, 
 and if we trust popular standards we shall be at a loss. 
 
 But if the poet habitually shows us men and women 
 living strenuous lives, doing brave deeds, giving themselves 
 up for love of child and father and people, and content to 
 get no visible or tangible rewards, preferring to do the 
 service, whatever comes of it — has he not indicated to us 
 where we should look for our explanation of things } Why 
 does Lausus rescue his father at the cost of what must be 
 certain death for himself } What reward is in his mind 1 
 What takes Aeneas over land and sea ? Is it really hope 
 of ease — or praise? Are high deeds ever done for such 
 motives? Is not the poet tacitly revealing his own thought 
 that rewards and punishments are hardly pertinent in this 
 case ; that the good man, hero in battle or ploughman in 
 the field, does right because it is right and because he " cannot 
 help it " .'' It is " in him " to do it, and do it he will — " though 
 it rains duke Georges " — though, like Lausus, he knows he 
 will be killed upon the spot — though Juno's unrelenting hate 
 move earth and heaven and hell against him. Of course, 
 Virgil has not said all this explicitly ; but is it not the 
 implicit meaning of his story of life on farm and on the sea 
 and in war, that righteousness in itself and by itself is worth 
 everything else ? 
 
 Character, then, in Virgil's view, means achievement in 
 the long run for the race and for the individual, but, quite 
 apart from results, character is achievement in itself, and 
 the righteous man does not look for rewards for righteous- 
 ness. But we must come back to what is perhaps the 
 hardest case of all. What has Virgil to say to the mourners 
 beside the funeral pyre ? 
 
 We have seen how Seneca advised moderation in grief — 
 a wise enough counsel, if it did not mean the cramping and 
 narrowing of affection, the most obvious way in which to be 
 
RESULTS 327 
 
 independent of accident. Lucretius, on the other hand, 
 urged that the dead really need no commiseration ; why 
 mourn for those who are not to be pitied ? 
 
 To Lucretius, the mourner (if he cared to answer) might 
 reply by asking whether, even assuming the Epicurean 
 doctrine of extinction at death, the childless father is so 
 much better off? Is a blank and empty life here better 
 because there is no other ? 
 
 Aeternumque 
 nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet. 
 
 Lucretius may have shown that all is well for the dead, 
 but has he helped the living ? Will the " eternal sorrow 
 in his heart " really yield to such arguments ? Is it quite 
 certain, too, that the dead have no longer any love or 
 longing for the»living? The philosopher may argue as he 
 likes, but the lover will never believe it. Virgil's Anchises 
 is a figure of legend, but is there no meaning for real people 
 in his words beyond the grave ? 
 
 Venisti tandem, tuaque expectata parent! 
 
 vicit iter durum pietas ? datur era tueri 
 
 nate tua et notas audire et reddere voces ^ (A. vi. 687). 
 
 To the Stoic Virgil's mourner might reply with Euripides' 
 Andromache that the happiness of the days when he had no 
 son was poor compared with what he has since known ; he 
 has enlarged his experience ; love has made him another and 
 a larger man, and he cannot unlearn or go back — would 
 not even if he could. The poet is all on the side of 
 largeness of sympathy, not merely in theory, like the 
 Stoics, but in fact and life. He does not wish to escape 
 the risks of sorrow to which love exposes him. The price is 
 too high for one thing. But he looks more earnestly at the 
 matter, and he finds that the evils which the Stoic sought 
 to avoid are at once far more painful than the man of 
 deadened sensibility supposes, and far too valuable to be 
 
 ^ " Here thou comest at last, and the love I counted upon 
 
 Over the rugged path has prevailed. Once more, O my son, 
 I may behold thee, and answer with mine thy voice as of yore." 
 
 (Bowen). 
 
328 VIRGIL 
 
 called evil. For the very uncertainties of life, and the 
 perils to which love is subjected, make love more intense 
 and more conscious. To share a danger deepens friend- 
 ship — 
 
 O socii, neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum ^ 
 
 {A. i. 198). 
 
 Does it mean less to love ? We have an illustration 
 in the description of Allecto blowing the trumpet 
 {A. vii. 511). 
 
 Standing on a watch-tower, the Fury sounds the war- 
 note, putting into it the full capacity of her voice of 
 hell— 
 
 Tartaream intendit vocem. 
 
 It is a picture of mere irrational and devilish malevolence — 
 pure evil, if it is to be found anywhere. The forests trembled 
 at the sound, it flew by lake and stream, 
 
 et trepidae matres pressere ad pectora natos {A. vii, 518). 
 
 Allecto does her worst, and the effect is to make the mother 
 press her child to her breast — the Fury has quickened 
 maternal love into new consciousness. She is a symbol of 
 evil opening our eyes to good ; the evil vanishes, but the 
 good, once seen, remains ours. 
 
 Virgil shows us the effect of pain and sorrow upon 
 character in the deepening and broadening of love. As 
 toil and want gave mankind the joy of action, the know- 
 ledge of earth and sea and sky, and the great sense of 
 achievement, so pain and sorrow open the eyes of men 
 to the human world around them, and bring men into 
 sympathy with one another. In short, they teach men 
 "humanity," and if we give the word all the fine sug- 
 gestion of its etymology, we shall feel with the poet that 
 the lesson is too great and too valuable to allow us to 
 call our teachers evil. 
 
 If proof is needed that Virgil has some such thought, 
 
 ^ " Comrades, for we are not unacquainted with misfortune ere this." 
 
RESULTS 329 
 
 Dido's utterance may be cited as its most succinct 
 expression — 
 
 Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco ^ (A. i. 630). 
 
 But great poets seldom entrust their deepest mind to solitary 
 lines. If this is Virgil's mind, we shall find it pervading 
 his whole poem ; and we do find, in fact, that it is his way to 
 draw characters who have been " humanized " by " deep 
 distress " ^ — Dido, Evander, Andromache, and the kindly 
 Tityrus, for instance, and, most of all, the central figure 
 of the poem. If we have been right in our study of Aeneas, 
 the key-note to his character, as conceived by Virgil, is the 
 full and strong humanity that results from long but victorious 
 knowledge of pain and sorrow — " our human nature's highest 
 dower." It had been Virgil's own experience from the days 
 of the plantatioif of the veterans. 
 
 To the mourner by the pyre, then, if Virgil had said 
 anything at all — poets have their own times and ways of 
 speaking — he might have said — or, more probably, he 
 would himself have felt — that capacity for sorrow is a 
 measure of love, that love is often best learnt in sorrow, 
 and that there is nothing for man better worth learning 
 at whatever cost. And he would have felt the gap in 
 fwhat he said. 
 
 But life is not all battle and bereavement, and one of 
 Virgil's great achievements is to open up for us many 
 avenues to delight. What pleasure he has found in books, 
 in " the strong-winged music of Homer " — and also in the 
 studied rhythms of Alexandria ! Who can have an utterly 
 miserable life who has a beehive to study, or can watch 
 earth and sky and sea, all filled with delightful living 
 things, manifestations, each and all, of divinity ? 
 
 A poet could not but be gay 
 In such a jocund company. 
 
 ^"Myself no stranger to sorrow. I am learning to succour the unhappy" 
 (Conington). 
 
 'Wordsworth, Elegiac Stanzas (1805) "A deep distress hath humanized 
 my Soui," 
 
330 VIRGIL 
 
 Even the wicked old Cilician pirate settles down to a sober 
 and happy life in a garden of his own contriving on a strip 
 of waste Italian land.^ If Virgil is melancholy, it is with 
 constant gleams of happiness. Few poets of antiquity have 
 found so much to:enjoy in man's life and environment, and 
 perhaps it was the melancholy that opened his eyes to see it 
 all — once more the soul of goodness in things evil. 
 
 V 
 
 It comes out clearly in the study of his poetry that Virgil 
 has felt, with the rest of mankind, 
 
 The heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world, 
 
 and also that he has known the mood in which it is 
 lightened. He does not leave the reader long in doubt as to 
 the burden of thought that comes upon us when we look on 
 man with sympathy, nor as to the reflections which tend to 
 make it tolerable. He has not done as Robinson Crusoe 
 suggests, because he has found that good and evil, as men 
 call them, will not be separated in thought any more than 
 in experience. He has not refused to recognize the existence 
 of evil ; but he tries to bereave it of its bad influence, hold- 
 ing that this can be done by looking it well in the face. 
 
 To say that he gives us a full presentment of every aspect 
 of the problem of mankind would of course be absurd. Does 
 he, for example, realize the power of evil passion ? The 
 animae candidiores seldom understand it, and it was 
 reserved perhaps for a later age to feel with Augustine the 
 force of sin. It is clear, too, that Virgil is himself conscious 
 of having something still to gain, for the melancholy which 
 haunts him is not wholly vanquished by his philosophy and 
 his pleasure in the world. Where lies its strength ? 
 
 When we consider the age in which he lived, it is not 
 hard to account for the depression of a man so human and 
 so tender as Virgil. 
 
 For a century, or near it, right and wrong had been con- 
 founded, the world full of war and every kind of crime ; 
 
 ^ G. iv. 125-46. 
 
RESULTS 331 
 
 the ploughman had been marched away to become a 
 soldier ; East and West it had been the same, everywhere 
 the fury of murder and destruction, and the paralysis of 
 man's better faculties. ^ The wonder is that with such a 
 consciousness of human misery Virgil could write a poem of 
 such enduring happiness as the Georgics. 
 
 The mischief resulting to the world from a century of 
 civil war was not to be mended in a decade, nor was the 
 grim experience of forty years to be obliterated from such a 
 mind as the poet's. But there is no pessimism about him. 
 Like his hero, he never surrenders, though it is with a 
 terrible sense of effort that hero and poet keep facing for 
 Latium, particularly when with time it seems to come no 
 nearer. 
 
 It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 
 To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, 
 Anfl baffled, get up and begin again,^ 
 
 but eventually the" getting up and beginning again " becomes 
 acutely painful, for the new hopes needed are slow to frame 
 themselves, and the doubt recurs more and more often 
 whether the struggle is really leading to anything. The world 
 offered Virgil nothing by which this doubt might be finally 
 killed. Apart from the Jews, there was no nation in the 
 Mediterranean world which consciously hoped. Amid all 
 this depression who will wonder that Virgil knew melancholy ? 
 And yet his is the great voice of hope, reality and gladness 
 in the Roman world. 
 
 Virgil, again, as we have seen, felt the mystery of death. 
 Ancient religion did not look much beyond the grave. As 
 for contemporary philosophy, we know what Lucretius said, 
 and the best the Stoics could say was " Disembark ; if for 
 another life, nothing is without the gods, even there." ^ 
 Neither could satisfy one to whom love meant so much. 
 Love being the one thing in the world that refuses to accept 
 
 1 G. i. 505. 
 
 * Cf. Marcus Aurelius, 5. 9 )i.y\^h diravdav . . . dWd eKKpovadivTa irdXiv 
 iir(xi>Uvai. 
 
 ' Marcus Aurelius, 3. 3 tI ravra ; ivl^-i}%, HnXivaai, Kar-^x^V^' ^Kjjrjdt. El niv 
 e<p' irepov §'iov, oiiMv OfUf Kffov, oyS^ e/cei. 
 
332 VmGIL 
 
 the fact of death, the poet in Virgil cannot accept it, but the 
 philosopher in him cannot yet see how to escape it. Mean- 
 while, as we have seen, whatever the outcome, Virgil stands 
 with the lovers for the larger life.^ 
 
 Most of us will probably allow that if Virgil has not solved 
 the problem of the universe he has felt it with some fulness. 
 
 " La venue meme du Christ n'a rien qui etonne quand on 
 a lu Virgile," says Sainte-Beuve.^ The early history of the 
 Church illustrates the truth of this conclusion. To minds 
 touched with the same sense of life's problems which pervades 
 the poetry of Virgil, the Gospel brought the rest and peace 
 which they could not find elsewhere. The early Church 
 was quick to recognize a friend and a forerunner in Virgil. 
 If to-day we discard the interpretations which the early 
 Christians put upon the fourth Eclogue, we can share their 
 deeper feeling for Maro vates Gentiliuin? 
 
 An unknown student of the poet has embodied in a stanza 
 of a Mass of St Paul a fine appreciation of the worth and 
 significance of Virgil's poetry and of the one thing which the 
 new view of life could have added to it. He pictures St Paul 
 pausing on his journey to Rome to visit the mausoleum of 
 Virgil at Naples. 
 
 Ad Maronis mausoleum 
 
 Ductus fudit super eum 
 
 Piae rorem lacrimae ; 
 
 ^ A very remarkable letter of Mazzini to Mrs Carlyle on this subject (date of 15 
 July 1846) will be found in Froude's Carlyle s Life in London i. p. 413. 
 
 ^ Ehide sitr Virgile, p. 68. This phrase was criticized in The Spectator as " a 
 silly and audacious epigram, which . . . will hardly be accepted by real students 
 of Virgil and of the Gospels." After an interval of years I still deliberately 
 accept it. The critic, I may mention, gave his own point of view by adding : 
 " To study the philosophical or religious views of some great poet is an amusement 
 which is now very fashionable." I am glad to find that Mr Warde Fowler 
 (Religious Experience of the Roman People, p. 404) compares the phrase of Sainte- 
 Beuve with the more cautiously worded judgement of Sellar, Virgil, p. 371, and 
 gives his verdict that " the feeling that underlies both utterances is a true one." 
 I think that any one who has tried in earnest to grapple with a great poet of 
 antiquity will not call it an amusement, but a discipline, and will be glad to have 
 submitted his mind to such a teacher in such an intimacy. 
 
 ^ 'E7rai5a7a>76t -yo-p koX t] ^iKocro<pia t6 "EWtjvikov us 6 vbixo% roiis "E^paiovs els 
 Xpicrrdv, wrote Clement of Alexandria (Strom, i. 28). If Greeks had read Latin 
 poetry, so catholic a mind could have said as much for Virgil. 
 
eat 
 
 RESULTS 333 
 
 Quern te, inquit, reddidissem, 
 Si te vivum invenissem, 
 Poetarum maxime.^ 
 
 "Virgil's tomb the saint stood viewing, 
 And his aged cheek bedewing, 
 SS, I Fell the sympathetic tear ; 
 
 Qj I ' Ah ! had I but found thee living, 
 
 ,1 I What new music wert thou giving, 
 
 I Best of poets and most dear ! ' " 
 
 "'i Cited by Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages^ pt. i. ch. 7, p. 98. The use of 
 icj Virgil's peculiar adjective should be noted. 
 
 ice 
 
INDEX 
 
 Achilles — 
 
 among the dead, 240, 314. 
 contrast with Aeneas, 209-213, 
 
 294. 
 fight with Aeneas, 86-92. 
 Aeneas, chs. iv, ix. 
 
 i. Mythology and Literature — 
 myths of, ch. iv, 85-104. 
 origin of his connexion with 
 
 Aphrodite, 96, 97. 
 origin of his name, 96. 
 fight with Athilles, 86-92. 
 his wanderings, 92-99. 
 founder of towns, 90, 95, 228. 
 his temples to Aphrodite, 95- 
 
 97- 
 his tombs, 95. 
 in Iliad, 86-92. 
 in Latin literature, 102. 
 ii. VirgiPs presentment of 
 
 Aeneas — 
 as ideal hero, 212, 226, 230- 
 
 232. 
 character of Aeneas, ch. ix, 
 
 321, 322, 329. 
 character of Aeneas in epi- 
 sode of Dido, 203-207. 
 contrast with Achilles, 209- 
 
 213, 294. 
 pietas, 89, 222-226. 
 feeling on war, 228, 313. 
 quest of Italy, 193-196. 
 the strenuous life, 264. 
 self-repression, 210. 
 relations with gods, 209, 211, 
 
 216-222, 304. 
 character of his allies, 123. 
 how far modelled after 
 
 Augustus, 28, 166-169. 
 as prince, 226-230. 
 as Homeric hero, 213-216. 
 
 Aeneas — continued. 
 
 compared with The Happy 
 Warrior, 230-232. 
 iii. Episode of Dido. See ch. 
 viii. 
 
 height and appearance of 
 Aeneas, 183. 
 
 beautified by Venus, criti- 
 cism of this, 214, 215. 
 
 prepares to leave Carthage, 
 
 195 f- 
 sails trom Carthage, 198. 
 Aeneid, 39, 83, 84, 104, 156. 
 gesta populi Romani, 83. 
 its place in Europe, 46, 47. 
 Aeolus, 138. 
 Aeschylus, 236, 281. 
 After-Ufe. See Hades. 
 Albula, 131. 
 
 Alexandrine literature, 19, ^7,, 
 55-58, 106, 1^7-179, 285. 
 influence of painting, 58, 73-76. 
 Allecto, 328. 
 Ancestors, 92, 102-103. 
 Anchises and Aeneas, 87, 93, 194, 
 266-270, 327. 
 and Aphrodite, 97. 
 Anna (sister of Dido), 172, 187- 
 
 i9o>. i93> 197. 198' 201. 
 Antiquarianism, 76-79. 
 Antiquities, 76-78, 95, loi. 
 Antony, 137, 146, 154, 165, 166, 
 
 322. 
 Ants, 37. 
 Aphrodite, 56-57, 95-99. See 
 
 Venus. 
 Apollo in Italy, 296. 
 Apollonius of Rhodes, 55-58, 
 
 146, 176, 285, 286. 
 Archaelogy and primitive religion, 
 
 235- 
 
 336 
 
u^ 
 
 VIRGIL 
 
 Aristophanes, 105, 106, 243, 248, 
 
 282, 302. 
 Aristophon, 247. 
 Aristotle, 227, 243, 281. 
 
 Poetics, 68, 79, 81, 202, 214. 
 
 Ethics, 150. 
 Arnold (M.), 47, 51, 218. 
 Art and Nature, 68. 
 Ascanius. See lulus. 
 Athenaeum, 222. 
 Augustan age, 2, 3, 143. 
 Augustine (St), 18, 76, 172, 201, 
 
 287, 330. 
 Augustus, ch. vii ; 3, 9, 24, 26- 
 29, 39, 82. 
 
 age of, 3. 
 
 apotheosis, 147, 167-171. 
 
 attitude to ideas of Julius, 147, 
 
 153- 
 attitude to Republic, 9, 168. 
 as subject for poetry, 79, 
 
 147. 
 panegyrical epic, 81, 165-168. 
 references in Aeneid, 163-171. 
 compared with Aeneas, 166. 
 friendship with Virgil, 39, 81, 
 
 155 f- 
 peace, 158, 162, 168. 
 rehgion, 159-160, 255. 
 his character, 147, 161. 
 his court, 29. 
 his work, 150-4, 159, 164, 170, 
 
 171. 
 Ausonius, 112. 
 
 Beautification of Aeneas, 214- 
 
 216. 
 Bees, 14, 34, 37- 
 ^laioMvaroi, 262, 263. 
 Birds, 15, 118-119, 257, 260, 
 Boswell (J.), 64. 
 Browning, 30, 129, 202, 209, 
 
 3^3^ 325. 331- 
 Browning and Wordsworth, 
 
 166. 
 
 Buddhism, 244. 
 
 Burns, 15, 33. 
 
 Caesar (C. Julius), 23, 103, 147- 
 . 153. 203, 229. 
 
 his mind, 150, 151. 
 Caird (E.), 9, 267, 303. 
 Calendar, 35, 150. 
 Callimachus, 72, 75. 
 Carlyle, 2, 3, 7, 22, 36, 41, 85, 
 151, 161, 176, 254, 307, 314. 
 Carthage — 
 
 war with Rome, 174, 175, 199. 
 
 destruction of, 130. 
 Catalepton, 18-21, 222. 
 Catiline, 23, 265. 
 Catullus, 17, 21, 58, 65, 169, 179, 
 188, 203. 
 
 Ariadne, 74, 177, 179. 
 Celts, 13. 
 
 Character, 319-329. 
 Chronologists, loi, 102, 104. 
 Cicero (M.), 21, 157, 166, 289- 
 291. 
 
 dream of Scipio, 170, 253, 254. 
 City- 
 charm of a, 129-130. 
 
 destruction of a, 130, 313. 
 City of Zeus, 302-304, 319. 
 Claudian, 75, 144, 145, 274, 
 
 325- 
 Cleanthes, 217. 
 Clement of Alexandria, 244, 251, 
 
 332. 
 Cleopatra, 146, 185. 
 Clough, 273, 306. 
 Corfinium, 107. 
 Courier (P. L.), 49. 
 Cowper, 15, 19, 26, 29, 37, 46, 
 
 117, 227. 
 Cukx, 17, 18. 
 
 Daemons, 170. 
 
 Dead. See Hades, 
 burial of, 312, 313. 
 cult of, 236. 
 
 Deification, 169, 170. 
 
 Dido- 
 popularity of Virgil's Dido, 54, 
 172. 
 
INDEX 
 
 337 
 
 D ido — continued. 
 
 is she equivalent to Aphrodite ? 
 
 97, 173- . 
 
 in early Latin poetry, 173. 
 
 character, 182-186, 191, 194. 
 
 love of children, 184. 
 
 passion for Aeneas, 186-202. 
 
 her dreams, 187, 198. 
 
 passionate nature, 185, 187, 
 196. 
 
 abandons her ideals, 190, 192. 
 
 religion, 190, 191. 
 
 her capture of Aeneas, 192. 
 
 her desertion, 194, f. 
 
 her madness, 197-201. 
 
 suicide, 199-202. 
 
 significance of her story, 202- 
 207. 
 Diodorus Siculus, 7, 255. 
 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 92- 
 
 100, 134, 287. 
 Dionysus Zagreus, 244. 
 Dis aliter visum, 309 f. 
 Divination, 236, 266, 271. 
 Dogmata, 8. 
 Drances, 163, 166, 230. 
 
 ECCLESIASTES, 3 1 4. 
 
 Eclecticism, 8. 
 
 Eclogues, 25-28, 31, II, 128, 169, 
 
 178, 292, 322. 
 Elysium, 241, 251, 265, 267-270, 
 
 324- 
 Emerson, 35, 67. 
 Empire (imperial system), 9, 150- 
 
 154- 
 Ennius, 53, 59, 60, 71, 173, 198, 
 
 253. l^l- 
 Epictetus, 144, 292, 298, 316, 
 
 317,318. 
 Epicurus and Epicureanism, 21, 
 
 37j 38, 197, 251-253. See 
 
 Lucretius. 
 Erinnyes, 241. 
 Eryx, 98. 
 
 Etruscans, 13, 252. 
 Euphorion, 69. 
 
 Euripides, 6, 53, 54, 106, 176, 
 202, 203. 
 
 and gods, 281-283. 
 
 popularity with Romans, 53. 
 
 and Virgil, 53-55. 
 
 Andromache, 318. 
 
 Bacchae, 53. 
 
 Hecuba, 53. 
 
 Hippolytus, 53, 177, 179-181, 
 189, 199. 
 
 Ion, 282. 
 
 Medea,^ 53, 199. 
 
 Phoenissae, 252. 
 
 Troades, 53-55, 281. 
 Eurydice, 38, 179, 255. 
 Evander, 121-123, 132-134, 310. 
 
 Farm-life, etc. See Georgics. 12, 
 
 14. 15, 34-36, 319- 
 Fate, 141-142, 217-219, 300-301. 
 Fire-walking, 296. 
 Fox (C. J.), 188, 208. 
 Fowler (W. Warde), 38, 77, 131, 
 
 146, 173, 222,287, 296, 332. 
 
 Gallus, 18, 25, 48, 177, 256. 
 Gaul, Transpadane, 5, 23, 107. 
 
 Caesar in Gaul, 151. 
 Gellius (A.), 288, 295, 301. 
 Genius, 269. 
 Georgics, 2,Z-Z9^ 75, 169, 255-257, 
 
 292-293, 319, 322. 
 Girard, 192, 218, 276-278. 
 Gods, ch. ix, § 3, ch. xi. 
 
 in Homer, 275-280, 283, 284, 
 
 293-295, 314- . 
 a crude monotheism in Homer, 
 
 278. 
 turned into men by Homer, 97. 
 traditional in epic, 273, 274. 
 in Argonautica, 56, 57, 285, 
 
 286. 
 in Georgics, 292-293. 
 in Aeneid, 180-182, 216-221, 
 
 293-300, 314- 
 omitted by Lucan, 273. 
 
138 
 
 VIRGIL 
 
 Gods — continued, 
 
 Italian gods, 252, 287, 288, 
 
 290-291, 295-299, 304. 
 Penates brought to Italy by 
 
 Aeneas, 123-124, 296. 
 evolution of gods, 216-222, 
 
 275-279, 283-285. 
 fate and the gods, 217-220, 
 
 300-301. 
 personal relations with men, 
 
 220-222, 304. 
 prayer, 286. 
 Goethe, 41, 66, 147, 213, 302, 
 
 306, 322. 
 " Golden Age," 322. 
 Greeks — 
 
 their divisions, 105-106. 
 Greek individuality, 138. 
 Greek genius, 235. 
 
 Hades and after-life, ch. x — 
 Homer's picture of it, 236-241. 
 isles of the blest, 240-241. 
 Achilles on Hades, 240, 314. 
 development in ideas of Hades, 
 
 240-241. 
 influence of Orphism and mys- 
 teries, 242-243. 
 descents into Hades : 
 
 Odysseus, 236-240. 
 
 Wainamoinen, 237-238. 
 
 Orpheus, 247. 
 
 Pythagoras, 247. 
 
 Dionysus, 247 {in Ar. Raji., 
 248). 
 
 Aeneas, 258-271. 
 in literature, 255-256. 
 rewards and punishments : 
 
 none in Homer, 241. 
 
 dependent on initiation, 242, 
 248, 249, 266. 
 
 dependent oncharacter, 245, 
 250. 
 Plato's ideas of Hades, 249-2 5 1 . 
 criticism of Hades by Epicurus 
 
 and school, 251. 
 Epicurus in hell, 251. 
 
 Hades and after-life — continued. 
 Etruscan ideas, 252. 
 Cicero and after-life, 253-254. 
 as deterrent, 255. 
 in Georgics, 255-257. 
 Aeneid v'\, 258-271. 
 limbo, 262. 
 survival of personality, 252-253, 
 
 272, 327. 
 transmigration of souls. See 
 Re-birth. 
 Heine (H.), 66, 280. 
 Herakles and Hercules, 133-134, 
 148, 170, 238, 291, 298-299, 
 310. 
 Hero, ideal, ch. viii. 
 Herodotus, 278. 
 Hesiod, 76, 91, 97, 241, 276. 
 History — 
 
 philosophy of, 7, 126-128. 
 and poetry, 79, 80. 
 Homer, 46-52, 59, 69, 81, 97, 105, 
 1 16, 140, 236-241. 
 Odyssey, 72, 215, 226, 227,236- 
 
 240. 
 Iliad, 86-92, 137. 
 vixuia 236-241, 263. 
 and Plato, 212, 283-284. 
 Homeric heroes, 209-215. 
 Homeric gods, 275-80, 283, 
 
 284, 293-295, 314. 
 compared with Virgil, 41-43, 
 46-51. 
 Homeric hymns, 91, 93, 97, 242, 
 
 297. 
 Horace, 2, 12, 29, 31, 32, 67, 81, 
 103, 108, III, 147, 148, 160, 
 256, 257, 261. 
 Humanity — 
 study of, 5, 6. 
 progress, 7. 
 
 Iapis, 24-25. 
 Imitation, 45-46, 69-70. 
 lopas, 61, 195. 
 Italians, 10, 112, 120-123. 
 character, 36, 121-123, 125. 
 
INDEX 
 
 339 
 
 taly— 
 scenery, i6, 111-114, 116-117, 
 
 129. 
 fauna, 11 7- 11 9. 
 legends, 114, 115. 
 towns founded by Greeks and 
 
 Trojans, 100-102. 
 what Trojans did for Italy, 123- 
 
 125 
 early history, 1 21-123. 
 gods of Italy, etc., 252, 287, 
 
 288, 290, 295-296. 
 Virgil poet of Italian unity, 
 
 105-108. 
 lulus (and Ascanius), 90, 98, 103, 
 
 224-225. , 
 
 Janus, 135-136, 158, 295. 
 Jews, 10, 331. 
 
 Juno, 139, 141-142, 180-181, 294. 
 Jupiter (and Zeus), 132, 139, 193- 
 
 194, 276, 278, 279, 285-286, 
 
 294-298, 300-303. 
 Juturna, 294. 
 Juvenal, 129, 190, 208. 
 
 Kalevala, 237, 238. 
 King Lear, 179, 308. 
 
 Labour, Virgil on, 34-37. 13°. 
 
 319* 320. 
 Lamb (C), 325. 
 Latin literature, 58, 70-71. 
 
 influence of Greek literature, 
 68-70. 
 Latinus, 134, 229. 
 Lausus, 223, 313, 326. 
 *' Lazaretto-poetry," 306. 
 Lecky (\V. E. H.), 9, 23, 117,222. 
 Livy, 77, 103, 134, 141. 
 Lucan, 80, 273-274. 
 I Lucretius, 21, 22, 27, 53, 61-63, 
 115, 169, 327. 
 and Virgil, 60-63, 65, 115, 136. 
 on gods, 289-290. 
 
 Lucretius — continued. 
 
 on after-life, 252-253, 316. 
 on bereavement, 315-317. 
 
 Macaulay (Lord), 78. 
 
 Macrobius, 41-44,68, 1 16, 1 72-1 73. 
 
 Maecenas, 28, 30-32, 156. 
 
 Magia, 25. 
 
 Magius, 14. 
 
 Manichaeanism, 244. 
 
 Mankind, progress of, 5-8, 212- 
 
 213. 320-322. 
 Mantua, 13, 17, 23, 119. 
 Marcus Aurelius, 2, 221, 222, 
 
 302-304. 
 Marius, 23. 
 Martial, 11, 28. 
 Mazzini, 332. 
 Melissus, 30. 
 Metempsychosis, 245, 250, 264, 
 
 267-270. 
 Milton, 17, 19, 53, 141. 
 Mimas, 310, 311. 
 Mincius, 13, 16. 
 Misenus, 100, 114, 299. 
 Monarchy, 156, 157. 
 Morality of sexes, 203-207. 
 More turn, 18, 19. 
 Morris (William), 52. 
 Mosella, 112. 
 Mysteries, 242-249, 284. 
 
 slight connexion with morality, 
 
 243, 249. 
 Mythology, 71-76, 255. 
 
 Naevius, 173. 
 
 Napoleon on Virgil and Homer, 49. 
 Nation in poetry, new, 105. 
 Nature, 6, 14-17, 27, 36-37, 109- 
 
 III, 117-119, 308. 
 personified by Lucretius, 315- 
 
 316. 
 Neil(R. A.), 211. 
 Neo-Platonists, 234, 264, 278, 301 . 
 Nonnus, 276. 
 Novalis, 8, 281. 
 
340 
 
 VIRGIL 
 
 OcTAViAN. Se£ Augustus. 
 Olympus, ch. xi. See Gods. 
 Omar, 103. 
 
 Orpheus (music), 255-256. 
 Orphism.etc, 60, 243-247, 2 65-266. 
 
 Orphic tablets, 245-246. 
 
 Plato and Orphism, 249-250. 
 Ovid 32, 5S, 73-74, 77-78, 172, 
 
 177. 
 
 Painting, 58, 74. 
 
 Pais (Ettore), loi. 
 
 Palinurus, 51, 114, 178,261,262. 
 
 Pallas (son of Evander), 298, 310. 
 
 Parthenius, 18, 19, 177. 
 
 Parthians, 136. 
 
 Passover, 244. 
 
 Patin, 22, 58, 59, 65, 68, 126, 179. 
 
 Penates, 123-124, 296. 
 
 Petronius, 274. 
 
 Philodemus of Gadara, 5. 
 
 Philosophy, progress in later 
 
 Greece, 6. 
 Piefas, 89, 222-226. 
 Pindar, 24S, 281, 282, 313. 
 Pisander, 43-44. 
 Plato, 309. 
 
 criticism of Homer, 212, 283- 
 2S4, 310. 
 
 on mysteries, 24S-249. 
 
 doctrine of future life, 249-251, 
 263, 267, 269, 271. 
 
 and the gods, 283, 2S5, 29S. 
 
 and righteousness, 324. 
 Pliny (elder), 131, 318. 
 Pliny (younger), 18, 119. 
 Plotia Hieria, 204. 
 Plutarch, 141, 2S6, 2S9, 31S, 323. 
 
 and Shakespeare, 44, 45. 
 Poetry, i, 306 f. 
 
 borrowing and imitation, 44-46. 
 
 expressing the universal. So. 
 
 and history, 79, So. 
 
 " ancient quarrel with philo- 
 sophy," 277, 306, 318. 
 Pollio, 25. 
 Polybius, 5, 7, 57, 255, 288. 
 
 Prince, 226-230. 
 
 Propertius,32,48,52,72-73, 77,132. 
 Providence, 219-220. 
 Prudentius, 12, 145, 265. 
 Fudor, 190. 
 
 Punic wars, 174 f., 199-200. 
 Pythagoras and his school, 243- 
 244, 245, 247, 292. 
 
 QuiNTUS of Smyrna, 46, 49, 91, 
 212. 
 
 Re-birth, 245,250, 264, 267-270. 
 Remulus Numanus, 121-122,126, 
 
 229. 
 Republic and republican senti- 
 ment, 9-10. 
 
 Caesar's criticism, 153. 
 
 Virgil's feeling, 162-163. 
 Rewards and punishments, 324- 
 
 326. 
 Rivers, 16, 117, 130-131. 
 jRolunson Crusoe, 227, 307-308. 
 Rochefort (H.), 150. 
 Rohde (E.), 237, 270. 
 Roman character, 4, 10, 11,83-84, 
 13S-143, 321. 
 
 want of " physiognomy," 140. 
 
 usage and ritual, 133-136. 
 
 people (populus), 142. 
 
 heroes, 136-13S. 
 Romanticism, 290. 
 Rome — 
 
 significance of, 126-128. 
 
 continuity of her history, 125, 
 
 133- . 
 
 foundation of, 85, 100-2. 
 expansion into Italy, 107. 
 Trojan legend, loo-ioi. 
 stories from her history, 137. 
 national life of, 9, 10. 
 reliance on gods, 219-220. 
 character of her rule, 142-146. 
 decline of repubhc, 11, 150. 
 the city, 128-132. 
 its streets, 129. 
 
INDEX 
 
 341 
 
 Rom e — continued. 
 
 its famous sights, 132. 
 Rumon, 131. 
 Rumour, 192. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 12, 138, 146, 
 166, 225, 226-227, 232, 311, 
 
 332. 
 Sarpedon, 47, 218, 278-279, 298. 
 Saturnalia, 41-44. 
 Scenery, interest in, 108-115. 
 Scott (Sir Walter), 29, 32, 108. 
 Seneca, 43, 233, 254, 309, 317, 
 
 325. 326. 
 Servius, 36, 41, 93, 173, 233-234, 
 256, 258,*26i, 262, 269, 271, 
 293. 295. 296, 300, 301, 311, 
 
 Servius Sulpicius, 39. 
 Shakespeare, 44-45, 140, 161, 179, 
 
 308. 
 Silenus, 27, 60, 297. 
 Silius Italicus, 80, 274, 
 Siro, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24. 
 Sophocles, 52, 93, 127, 187, 281. 
 Soracte, fire-walking on, 296. 
 Sors Vergiliana, 200. 
 Spectator, 332. 
 Spenser (E.), 120, 121, 278. 
 Stapfer, 44. 
 
 Starry sky, 290, 312-313. 
 State, service of, 10, 11, 161, 170, 
 
 228, 250, 254. 
 Stawell (F. M.), 237, 238. 
 Stoicism, 221, 291, 292, 302-304, 
 
 317-319, 323, 327. 
 Strabo, 15, 90, 129, 253. 
 Suetonius, 11, 14, 25, 30, 35, 39, 
 
 148, 156, 157, 159. 
 Sulla, 23, 157, 161. 
 Superstition, 249, 288, 289. 
 Synesius, 9, 243, 261. 
 
 Tacitus, 9, 300-301. 
 Tennyson, 16, 64, 225. 
 Tertullian quoted, 56, 179. 
 
 Theocritus, 26, 109, 177, 311. 
 Thomas of Celano, 257. 
 Thucydides, 49, 50. 
 Tiber, 130-132, 295. 
 Tibullus, 13, J03, 290. 
 Tityrus, 27, 148, 169, 329. 
 Toga, 142. 
 
 Tragedy, 53-55, 175, 187. 
 Travel, no, m. 
 Trees, 14, 15, 16, 36. 
 Trojans in Italy, 123-125. 
 Tucca, 39. 
 
 Turnus, 229, 230, 294, 298. 
 Twelve tables, 11, 264. 
 
 Urbanitas, 227. 
 
 Varius, 30,39,40,79,81,204,270. 
 Varro, 20, 76, 103, 115, 117, 173, 
 
 288, 296. 
 Varus, 25. 
 Velleius Paterculus and Virgil, 
 
 174. 
 Venus. See Aphrodite. 181-182, 
 
 214-215, 295, 297. 
 Vergiliomastix, 39. 
 Virgil. 
 
 i. Personal History — 
 
 his native land, 5, 9. 
 
 his father, 14, 24, 25. 
 
 birth, II. 
 
 home life, 11- 15. 
 
 boyhood, 17. 
 
 training and education, 12, 
 18-22. 6*^^ Parthenius and 
 Siro. 
 
 learning, 233-234. 
 
 the bar, 22. 
 
 episode of the farm, 23-26, 
 
 155- 
 at Rome, 26, 28-32. 
 relations with Augustus, ch. 
 
 vii, 29, 39, 40, 81-84, 149, 
 
 154-163. 
 method of composition, 52, 
 
 205. 
 
342 
 
 VIRGIL 
 
 Vi rgil — continued. 
 
 read his poetry, 32, 156. 
 letter to Augustus, 156. 
 sayings, 51,59, 60,205, 214. 
 voice, 32. 
 
 feature and manners, 28. 
 popularity, 31, 39. 
 at Naples, 32, 39. 
 journey to East, 39. 
 death, 39. 
 ii. Relations to other authors {not 
 
 contemporaries). See also 
 
 under their own names — 
 Alexandrines, 19, 20, 55-58, 
 
 74-76. 
 Catullus, 17, 64-65. 
 Ennius, 59-60. 
 Euripides, 53-55. 
 Homer, 41-43, 46-5 1, 59, 214. 
 Lucretius, 21, 22, 27, 38, 
 
 60-63, 65, 115, 136, 291, 
 
 315-319. 327- 
 Sophocles, 52. 
 iii. National Life — 
 
 first to treat of " nation " in 
 
 poetry, 105. 
 national feeling, 83, 84, 105 
 
 f., 111-119. 
 pontics, 23, 157-163. 
 notademocrat, 158,162-163. 
 city-life, 129, 130. 
 See also : 
 Italy, ch. V. 
 Rome, ch. vi. 
 iv. VirgiPs Character and Tastes — 
 mind very open to impression, 
 
 63, 160, 177-178,259,321. 
 sensibility, 26, 27. 
 humour, 14, 26-27, 37- 
 feeling for character, 160-161, 
 
 321-322. 
 love of peace, 145, 158, 260, 
 
 322. 
 love of nature, 14-17, 36-37, 
 
 117-119, 329. 
 melancholy, 13,220-221,329- 
 
 332- 
 
 Virgil — continued. 
 
 dislike of abnormal, 178. 
 antiquities, 78, 132, 134-136, 
 
 259, 295, 304. 
 women, 203-205. 
 the sea, 16, 109, 113. 
 v. VirgiPs Mi?id and Philosophy. 
 
 See also Plato, Stoicism, 
 
 Epicurus, 
 development of his mind, 27, 
 
 33 f- 
 
 philosophy, 20-21, 34-38, 40, 
 57,123, 221-222, 234, 258- 
 259,261,264,269,271-272, 
 274-275.292-293, 297-305, 
 316-319, 324 f. 
 
 seeks truth in reconciliation, 
 
 27. 51. 305. 323- 
 the gods, ch. xi, esp. 291- 
 
 305- 
 fate, 300-301. 
 the question of evil, 36, 307- 
 
 309. 328-329. 
 history, 127-128. 
 religion of the state, 160. 
 righteousness, 324-326. 
 character, 320-326. 
 morality of sexes, 203-207. 
 treatment of passion, 38, 177- 
 
 t79> 317, 3i?> 330- 
 judgment on Dido, 202-207. 
 human sorrow, ch. xii, 28, 
 
 309-314, 327-329. 
 no pessimist, 34, 331. 
 suicide, 264, 324. 
 the large experience, 317- 
 
 319. 327. 332; SeePietas. 
 the strenuous mind, 260-261, 
 
 264, 322, 324-325. 
 happiness, 25, 34, 35, 32S- 
 
 329, Zl^- 
 the soul, 267-272. 
 presentment of Hades, 258- 
 
 272. 
 his conclusions, 323-332. 
 vi. VirgiPs Works — 
 methods, 51, 205. 
 
l^fll— 
 
 iM«>i»>..»....i»nr,,.,.,v>,wir,T.>w^n-T-ii..it»i»i.ws««..^ 
 
 INDEX 
 
 343 
 
 Virgil — continued. 
 
 early works, i8, 19. 
 
 letters, 156. 
 
 battle-scenes, 49-51. 
 
 obscurity, 51, 52. 
 
 language, 51-52, 63. 
 
 failures, 205-207, 211, 295. 
 See also Aeneid, Caialepton, 
 Eclogues, Georgics. 
 Voltaire, 44, 48, 273. 
 
 Watson (J.), 277, 278, 284. 
 
 Wordsworth, 22, 58, 62, 109, 
 116, 126, 129, 130, 163, 
 166, 225, 230, 231, 233, 
 293>3i6, 317.323, 329, 330- 
 
 Xenophanes, 244, 280. 
 Xenophon, 50, 93. 
 
 Zagreus, 244. 
 Zeus. See Jupiter. 
 Zeus, city of, 302-304. 
 

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