I' A > 
 
i 
 
 (i 
 
<D 
 
•\(^Ti:X'l' T.TVES 01' N'EimiL 
 
 wTi'i! AX i:.'>>AV (»N ■riir. 
 
 POEMS OF VERGIL 
 
 IN ro\XF.«Tin\ WITH Ills EiKi: AND TT:\n:s 
 
 BY 
 
 H. NETTLESIITP, M. A 
 
 >i; nr T.ATTK TX THK INIVKKHITY (<\ ii\i..|;ii 
 
 V. '' 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 M ii'.cr i.^>[ix 
 
 Price Two Shiniiit;<? 
 
sMa 
 
(D 
 
 ANCIENT LIVES OF VERGIL 
 
 WITH AN ESSAY ON THE 
 
 POEMS OF YERGIL 
 
 IN CONNECTION WITH HIS LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 BY 
 
 H. NETTLESHIP, M.A. 
 
 COBFDS PB0FES80R OF LATIN IN THE UNIVERSITT OF OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 MDCCCLXXIX 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
Uontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 
 N / 
 
 7 3 4, d'S- 
 
 PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OP 
 
 (©.xforlj 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 
 The following essay is based upon two public lectures de- 
 livered ill the ball of Corpus Christi College in the October Term 
 of 1878. In illustration of it I have thought it advisable to 
 print four ancient lives of Vergil, those namely which bear the 
 names of Probus^ Donatus, and Servius, with one taken from 
 two Berne MSS. assigned (at the latest) to the tenth century. 
 This Life is printed by Reifferscheid in his Suetonl TronqniUi 
 praeter Caesarnm libros reliquiae, and by Hagen in his edition of 
 the Berne scholia on the Eclogues and Bucolics [JahrbUcher fUr 
 Classische Pkilologie, Suppl. Band iv. Heft 5). 
 
 I have printed the memoir attributed to Probus nearly as it is 
 edited by Keil on the basis of two fifteenth-century MSS. and 
 the editio princess of Probus' commentary on A'^ergil, adding a 
 few notes where comment appeared necessary. 
 
 Tlie Life attributed to Donatus exists, as is well known, in 
 an interpolated and an uninterpolated form. The interpolated 
 version, containing a mass of apocryphal matter which must 
 have gathered shape in the course of centuries, is now generally 
 acknowledged to have assumed its present form before the in- 
 vention of printing. The vulgate as printed by Reifferscheid, 
 mainly from the Venice edition of 1558, exhibits differences 
 from the earlier recension which in Hagen's opinion are due 
 to the first printer of the work {Jahrbiic/ier, &c. p. 680). The 
 text of the uninterpolated memoir was based by Daniel, and 
 recently by Reifferscheid, on a Berne MS. of the tenth century 
 (-8 172). But Hagen has brought to light a far superior re- 
 cension, that of a St. Gallen ]\IS,, also of the tenth century (^G), 
 which he has rightly taken as the foundation of his text. 7i 172 
 
 B 2 
 
 ^^(i ir- 
 
'■'fe; ;^\>^-ij.^^<,v V \i >iv'ui:V.'V.'y c^ 
 
 4 Preface. 
 
 appears, according to Hagen's report, to have been corrected in a 
 great many places from a copy representing the same recension 
 as G. 
 
 The St. Gallen recension is represented in three fifteenth- 
 century MSS, of the interpolated memoir, a Berne MS. collated 
 by Hagen and called by him B 527, and two Oxford MSS. 
 collated, as far as I know, for the first time by myself, whose 
 readings correspond remarkably with those of B 527, though 
 one important difference (see § 17) shews that they were not 
 copied from the same original. Of the two Oxford MSS., whose 
 readings are nearly identical throughout, by far the better is 
 Canonicianus 61 (^Caii.). This MS. contains the whole of 
 Vergil with the interpolated Life prefixed. At the end of the 
 volume is the following snhscrlj^fio : ' Te'Aos. Leoninus Brembatus 
 Rodigii ' (Rodigo near Mantua) ' mccccxxxviiii.' The other 
 MS. (C.) is in the Library of Corpus Christi College, in a volume 
 containing also the epitome de viris illustribus, Sextus Rufus' 
 Bomnna Hisioria, and lives of Plato, Demosthenes, and Cicero. 
 This manuscript contains a memorandum stating that it was 
 bought in London by the Bishop of Durham (John Shirwood) in 
 1469. It was given to the College by its founder, Richard 
 Fox. 
 
 The orthography of the Canonicianiis is good, as will be seen 
 from the specimens I have given of its readings. 
 
 The Berne recension is represented also by a Paris MS. of the 
 ninth century (Pithoeanus, Paris. Suppl. Lat. loii), whose 
 readings are given by Ilagen. Following Hagen I call this 
 MS. P. 
 
 I have written a short commentary, Avith an apparatus crit'iciis, 
 on the Life attributed to Donatus, partly in order to explain my 
 reasons for differing, where I do differ, from Hagen and Ribbeck, 
 partly to support by detailed illustration the view which I have 
 maintained in the essay (p. 28 foil.) that the work is from the hand 
 of Suetonius. This theory, first advanced, as far as I know, by 
 Johann Gerhard Voss in a note on Velleius Paterculus, 2. 103 
 (edition of 1687), and afterwards supported by J. F. Gronovius, 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
Preface. 5 
 
 g-encrally aeoepteil. l^iit I am not aware tliat llio ooincidcnct's 
 betwcon tlie stylo and lang-nage of our monioir and those of Sue- 
 tonius liave ever been exhibited with the minuteness of detail 
 which they deserve. Some of them I have pointed out in the 
 essay, many more in the commentary, in w'hich I have endeavoured 
 to advance further on the line indicated by Gronovins. I have 
 consulted Heyne's commentary throughout, but without obtain- 
 ing- much lig-ht from it on questions of criticism. When I 
 mention Ribbeck's name in my notes, I refer to his views ex- 
 pressed in the Prolegomena to his larg-e critical edition of Verg-il, 
 and in the e!?say prefixed to his text published in the Teubner 
 series. 
 
 I have also printed the Life prefixed to the commentary of 
 Servius, adding a few notes, chiefly with the view of shewing 
 how far it is dependent on the work of Suetonius. The text 
 I have based on that of Thilo, the first volume of whose 
 Servius has just appeared. In addition to the readings of 
 Thilo's ]MSS., of which I have quoted the most important, 
 I have given those of a Harleian MS. (2782) assigned to the 
 ninth century, which does not appear to have been collated by 
 any editor of Servius, In this MS. the Life of Vergil is 
 prefixed to the commentary on the Aeneid, and part of it 
 repeated, with some slight variations of wording, before the 
 commentary on the Eclogues; one of these variations, a(h'o 
 rerecvndus for adeo vereciaidissimus, I have adopted. The Berne 
 memoir, which I have printed last, is important only as con- 
 taining the statement that Vergil attended the lectures of 
 Epidius. 
 
 The verses of Focas I have not thought it worth while to 
 print, as they merely reproduce in a metrical form the in- 
 formation given l)y Suetonius. 
 
 H. N. 
 
 December, 1878, 
 
Probus. 
 
 Life prefixed to the Commentary of Valerius Probus. 
 
 P. Verg-ilius INIaro natus est idibus Octobribus Crasso ot 
 Pompeio consulibus matrQr^Iagia^Polla patro^crjTfilio rustico 
 in vico Andibus, qui abest a !Mantua milia i)assuum XXX ~, tenui 
 facuUate nutritus. Sed cum iani summis eloquentiae docto- r^ 
 ribus vacaret, in belli civilis tempora incidit, quod Augustus 
 ad versus Antonium g-essit^ primumque post Mutinense bellum^ 
 veteranis [agri eius * distributi sunt] : postea restitutus beneficio 
 Alfeni^^ari Asini^Pollionis et Corneljiijjralli, quibus in Bucolicis 
 adulatur, deinde per gratiam Maeeenatis in amicitiam Caesaris 
 ductus est. 
 
 Vixit pluribu9'*?!nnis liberali-in'otio, sccutus Epicuri seetam^, 
 insigni coneordia et familiaritate usus Qui^li^ Tugcae et Yari. 
 Scripsit bucolica annos natus VIII et XX Tiieocritum secutus, 
 georgica Hesiodum et A^arronem. Aeneida ingressus bello 
 Cantabrico "^ . . . hoe quoque magna industria. Ab Augusto ^ 
 usque ad sestertium centiens honestatus est. Decessit in 
 Calabria annum^agen^ quiuquagesimum beredibus Augusto et 
 
 * Muffia : hence, probably, in part, the middle age legend which made Vergil a 
 mar/u8. 
 
 * milia passuum XXX : see Essay, p. 33. 
 ' post Mutinense bellum : a grave historical mistake ; for the events referred to 
 
 did not take place till after Piiilippi. 
 
 * agri eius : the words in brackets are inserted by Keil. For the facts, comp. 
 Suetonius, 19. 
 
 ' sccutus Ei>icuri sectam : these words probahly refer rather to his quiet manner 
 of life than to his opinions ; but see also Essay, p. 37. 
 
 * QuintiU, i. e. Quintilius Varus, the great friend of Horace and Vergil : Horace, 
 Od. I. 24, A. P. 438. 
 
 ' bello Cantabrico, 26 and 25 B.C. See Suetonius, 31. The text is here corrupt; 
 Keil has marked a lacuna before hoc quoque. I suppose that something must 
 have been said about Vergil's inutation of Homer, to balance what the biographer 
 remarks about Theocritus and Hesiod. 
 
 * ab Auyueto, &c. Compare Suetonius, 13. 
 
 ■V 
 
8 Probits. Suetonius. 
 
 Maecenate cum Proculo minore fratre. In cuius sepulcro^ 
 quod est in^daTPuteolana hoc leg-itur epigramma : 
 Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc 
 Parthenope : cecini pascua, rura, duces, 
 Aeneis servata ab Aug-usto, quamvis ipse testamento damnaverit, 
 ne quid eorum quod non edidisset extaret : [quod et Servius 
 Maurus ^ hoc testatur epig-ranimate : 
 
 lusserat haec rapidis aboleri carmina flammis 
 Vergilius, Phrygium quae cecinere ducem : 
 Tucca vetat Variusque, simul tu, maxime Caesar, 
 Non tibi sed Latiae consulis historiae]. 
 
 II. 
 
 Life by Suetonius, originally prefixed to the 
 Commentary by Aelius Donatus, and 
 
 USUALLY attributed TO HIM. 
 
 G. = Sangallensis 862 saeculi decimi. 
 
 B 52 7. = Bernensis saeculi xv ineuntis. 
 
 Can. = Canonicianus anni Mccccxxxviiii. 
 
 C = Codex Collegii Corporis Christi eraptus Londinii anno MCCCCLXViiii. 
 
 B. = Bernensis 172 saeculi decimi. 
 
 P. =Pitlioeanu3 saeculi noni (Paris. Suppl. Lat. loii). 
 
 F«?^. =Vulgata ad editionem Venetam anni mdlviii a Reifferscheidio constituta. 
 
 1. Publius Vergilius Maro Mantuanus^ parentibus modicis* 
 fuit ac praecipue patre, quem quidem opificeiti figulum, plures 
 Magi cuiusdam viatoris initio mercenn^^ium, mox'ob industriam 
 
 1. ac praecipue. et Can. C. coemundis Caw. C. suhstantiae recuJam ; sic codd. 
 nonne scribendum est substantiam recalae ? Tac. Dial. 8 suhstantiam facuUattim. 
 
 * In cuius sepulcro, so the MSS. : in eius Keil. 
 
 * Servius Maurus Otto Jahn, Servius Varus MSS. The lines were really by 
 Sulpicius Apollinaris, Suetonius 38, where see note. If Jahn's emendation be 
 right, the words from quod et — historiae cannot belong to the memoir by Probus. 
 
 ^ Publius Vergilius Maro Mantuanus : comp. Suetonius De Grammaticis 9, L. 
 Orbilius Pupillus Beneventanus ; 23, Q. Remmius Palaeinon Vicetinus; 24, M. 
 Valerius Probus Berytius ; De Rhet. 6, C. Albucius Silus Novarensis ; Deperd. 
 Libr. Rell. p. 291 Roth, Pacuvius Brundisinus, P. Terentius Karthaginiensis ; 
 p. 295, L. Pomponius Bononiensis ; p. 296, Cornelius Gallus Foroiuliensis ; p. 297, 
 Q. Horatius Flaccus Venusinus. 
 
 * modicis, humble: Hor. Od. i. 20. i : 'modicis cantharis;' S. i. 5. 2 : 'hos- 
 pitio modico ; ' Epist. 1.5. 2 : ' modica patella ; ' Tac. A. 6. 39 : ' raodicus originis ; ' 
 
Siaionins. 
 
 genorum traJidovunt, cg^rogMoqno suVtantiao^ silvis eoomcndis ^ ,; 
 
 et apibiis ciiraiulis auxisso roculaiTiT 12. Natus est Cn. Pompcio'' ^. 
 
 Mag-no ^I. Licinio Crasso prinium consulibus iduum Octobrium 
 
 die in pag-o qui Andes dioitur et abest a ^fantua non i)rocid ■*. 
 
 3. Praeg-nans^^o mater somniavit enixam se laureura^^mum, 
 
 quem contact ^,_^rrae coaluisse et excrevisse ibeo in speciem 
 
 matura»-m-boi\s r^ifertaeque variis pomis et floribus, ac sequent i 
 
 luce cum marito rus pvopinquum'^ petcns ex itinere devertit / 
 
 atque in subiecta fossa" partu levata est. /T-v* 
 
 4. Ferunt infantem ut sit ejlitus neque vagisse et adeo miti 1-^/V*'^^ 
 vultu fuisse ut baud dubiam spem prospevioris g-eniturae^ iam 
 tum daret^. 5. Accessit aliud praesag-ium, siquidem^" virg-a 
 populea moriyegionii^jn'^ierperiis eodem statim loco depacta ita 
 
 egregie substautiae om. Can. C. 2. Cn. Ponipeio Magno [et] M. Licinio 
 
 Crasso G. Cn. Pompeio Magno et M. Licinio Crasso li. P. Can. C. Et abe.-t : 
 qui abest Can. C. 3. praegnans mater Maia quom somiiiasset Can. C. (cum 
 
 C) contactu (?. compactu^ 527. compactum 6\t?i. C contracta terra ZJ. ilico 
 Can. refertae variis t'aw. C. 4. cum sit lieiffcrschcid. utsitcocW. vagiisse 
 
 Can. C. iam duraret G. iam tum daret B. P. iam tum indicaret Can. C. 
 5. accessit vel accessit et Gronovius. et accessit lihH. ita brevi [tempore] evaluit 
 
 Suet. Nero 48 : 'modica culcita ;' Aug. 6 : 'locus in avito suburbano permodicus 
 et celiac penuariae instar.' For the facts comp. Life by Probus : ' matre Magia 
 Polla patre rustico . . . teuui facultate nutritus.' The critic in Macrobius, 5. 2. i, 
 speaks of Vergil as ' Veneto inter silvas et frutices educto.' 
 
 * substantiae rcculam : see critical note. 
 ' silvis coemendis : see Essay, p. 33. 
 
 * Cn. Pompeio, &c. : i. e. B.C. 70. The same date is given in the Life by Probus, 
 who speaks however of Andes as a vicuf, not a pagus. Andes is the name of a 
 Gallic tribe in Caes. B. G. 2. 35 and elsewhere. 
 
 * non procul : Essay, p. 33. 
 
 * Similar omens from dreams are mentioned, Suetonius, lul. 7 '■ ' Augustus 94 
 Atia priusquam pareret somniavit intestina sua ferri ad sidera . . . somniavit et 
 pater Octavius utero Atiae iubar solis exortum;' compare Domit. 23. 
 
 * rus propinqnum, a neighbouring estate. luv. 14. 141 : 'cum rus non sufficit 
 unum.' 
 
 ^ subiecta fossa : Suetonius, Nero, 48 : ' aquam ex subiecta lacuna hausit ' (J. F. 
 Gronovius). 
 
 * genitura, horoscope: Sueton. Aug. 94, Cal. 57, Nero 6, Yitell. 3, Vesp. 25, 
 Tit. 9. 
 
 * With the prodigy compare Sueton. Aug. 94 : ' infans adhuc, ut scriptum 
 apud C. Drusum extat, repositus vespere in cunas a nutricula loco piano, postera 
 luce non comparuit, diuque quaesitus tandem in alti.ssima turri repertus est, iacens 
 contra solis exortum.' 
 
 *" AccpMit aliud pracnagiiua, mquidem. Suetonius, Vitellius, 9: 'laetum evcnit 
 auspicium, siquidem.' Tliis use of niquidem is common in silver age Latin. 
 
 For the prodigy of the ])oplar compare Suetonius, Augustus, 94: 'apud 
 Mundam Divus lulius, castris locum capiens cum silvam caederet, arborem palmac 
 
lo Suetonius. 
 
 brevi evaluit ut multo stnte satas populos adaequaret, quae arbor 
 Vergilii ex eo dicta atque etiam consecrata est sumraa gravidarum 
 ae fetarum religione^ et suscipientium ibi et solventium vota. 
 
 6. Initia aetatis Cremonae^ egit usque ad virilem togam, quam 
 XV anno natali suo accepit isdem illis consulibus iteriim quibus 
 erat natus, evenitque ut eo ipso die Lucretius poeta decederet. 
 
 7. Sed Vergilius a Cremona Mediolanum et .inde paulo post ^ 
 transiit in urbem. ^/^-■■^■'■^' \ ■' ^' Cw^ i 
 
 8. Corpore et statura fuit grandi ^, aqi^"l:olore, 'facie rusti- l^^'^ 
 cana, valetudine.-varia ; nam plerumque a stomacho et a faucibus ' 
 ac dolore capitis laborabat*, sanguinem etiam saepius reiecit^. 
 9. Cibi vinique minimi^, libidinis'^ in pueros pronior, quorum 
 
 s. tempore 
 ut 6. ita brevi evaluit P. ita bre\'i evaluit tempore B. ita brevi coaluit 
 Can. C adaequarle C- adaequavisset cocld. cet. [et] suscipientium G- et om. 
 Can. C. 6. XVII B. XV Reifferscheid. coepit G. Can. consulibus 
 
 iterum [duobus] G. consulibus iterum Can. C. eodem ipso die 0. Can. C. 
 
 7. [Sed Vergilius a] Reifferscheid. ' 8. grandi G. Can. C. grandis B. P. 
 
 aquilo G. aquUi B. P. aquiline Can. aquilio C. ob stomacho G. 
 ab stomacho Can, C, et faucibus Can. C. saepius reiecit G. saepius eiecit 
 B 527, Can. C. saepe reiecit Reiff'erscheid, Hayen. 9. promoris G. 
 
 repertam conservari ut omen victoriae iussit ; ex ea continuo enata suboles adeo in 
 paucis diebus adolevit ut non aequiperaret modo matricem, verum et obtegeret fre- 
 quentareturque columbarum nidis,' &c. Vespas. 5: 'in suburbano Flaviorimi 
 quercus antiqua, quae erat Marti sacra, per tres Vespasiae partus singulos repente 
 ramos a frutice dedit;' ih, 'arbor quoque cupressus in agro avito sine ulla vi tem- 
 pestatis evulsa radicitus atque prostrata, insequenti d'e viridior ac firmior resur- 
 rexit.' Livy, 43. 13. 5, mentions as a prodigy 'palinam in area enatam.' See 
 Plin. 16. 132 ; 17. 243 : 'C. Epidi commentarii in quibus arbores locutae quoque 
 reperiuntur ; ' hence perhaps Schol. Bern. Eel. i. 17: 'in templo lovis Dodonaei 
 quercus fuerunt dedicatae quae fata Romanorum cecinerunt.' 
 
 * summa gravidarum ac fetarum religione: compare the supposed effects of the 
 contact of a fruitful bough, luv. 2. 142, and the scholion as emended by Haupt : ' quia 
 frutectum multi seminis credi[tur conducere] contactu ad fecunditatem dandam.' 
 
 ^ Cremonae: was his mother, a Magia, a native of Cremona? Caesar, B.C. i. 24.4, 
 mentions a Numerius Magius Cremona. 
 
 ^ Compare Suetonius, lulius, 45 : ' fuisse traditur excelsa statura, colore candido 
 .... valetudine prospera ; ' Aug. 79, where note the expression ' colorem inter 
 aquilum candidumque ; ' Tiberius, 68 : ' corpore fuit amplo atque robusto, statura 
 quae iustam excederet .... colore erat candido .... facie honesta .... 
 valetudine prosperrima usus est;' Calig. 50 ; Claud. 30; Nero, 51 ; and the other 
 lives by Suetonius. Aquilus seems to mean dark, candidihs fair. 
 
 * a stomacho <£;c. laborare, a common use of a : see Dictt. Sueton. Tib. 68 : ' latus 
 ab humeris et pectore.' 
 
 ^ sanguinem reiecit : either reicere or eicere may be used in this sense. Grono- 
 vius quotes Plin. Epist. 5. 19 : 'sanguinem reiecit.' 
 
 ' Sueton. Aug. 76: 'cibi minimi erat atque vulgaris fere;' Claud. 33: 'cibi 
 vinique .... appetentissimus ; ' Galba, 22: 'cibi plurimi traditur.' 
 
 ^ lihldinis d:c. : Sueton. Galba, 22: 'libidiuis in mares pronior.' Compare also 
 
Siwtonius. 1 I 
 
 maxime dilexit Cebetein et Alexandrum, quern secuuda \\n- 
 colicoruni^ eclog'a Alexim appellat, donatum sibi ab Asinio 
 Pollioae, utrunique non ineruditum, Cebetem vero et poctam. 
 10. Vulq-atum est coiisuesse^ cum et cum Plotia-rWieria. Sed 
 Asconius Pedianus adfirmat ipsam^5ostea narrarc solitam invi- 
 tatum quidem a Vario ad communionem sui, verum pertina- I -^ 
 jL^4r cissime recusasse ^. 11. Cetera sane vita et ore et animo tam jf^^ 
 ^ pcobum ^ constat "* ut Neapoli Parthenias '' vnlgfo appellatus sit, 
 
 ae si quaudo Romac, quo rarissime commeabat, viseretur in pub- 
 lico, sectantes ^ demonstrantesque se subterfugeret in proximum 
 tectum. 12. Bona autem cuiusdam exulantis offcrente Augusto 
 non sustinuit ' accipere. 13. Possedit *^ prope centiens sester- 
 tium ex liberalitatibus ^ amicorum, habuitque domum Romae 
 
 pronior . . . hil B. P. pronioris Can. C. Ilarjen. Vide quae ex Suetonio ex- 
 cmpla collc'ji. quorum maxime ; verum inte.- eos maxime Can. C. non 
 
 ineruditum, nam Alexandrum B 527. non ineruditum, nam Alexandrum gram- 
 maticum Can. C. 10. consuesse G. consuevisse Can. C- Hieria G. 
 
 Can. C. ieria P. geria, corr. ieria i?. Leria (Sert'tMS ccZ. ii. 15. Gsileria. Bihbeck. 
 Varo B 527, Can. C verum: «ed i? 527. sed pertiiiacissime abstinuisse 
 Can. C. 11. vita 6r. Can. yitae Beiffcrscheid, Hoijtn. ore 2^rohum : more 
 
 Bihicclc. tam probatum coni. Hagcn. sod cf. Salltitiius apud Sucton. dc Claris 
 Grammaiicis iam a Gronomo laudatus : oris probi, animo inverecundo ; Sueton. 
 Dam. 18, commendari se verecundia oris; Plin. Panerj. 4, dignitas oris; 24, oris 
 humanitas ; 48, in ore inipudentia ; Fronto ad Marc. Aur. Epist. 4. 12 Jin., 
 tuum 03 probum ac facetum. Probum fuisse constat, Can. probum constat 
 G. proba, corr. probum B. subter fugere in proximum tectum G. Can. C. 
 (improximum C ) subterfugeret //ag'ert. suffugere £. P. suffugeret 7^c(^mc/teid. 
 
 Jul. 50: 'pronum et sumptuosum in libidines;' Claud. 33: 'libidinis in feminas 
 profusissimae ; ' Tib. 44 : ' pronior ad id genus libidinis.' From these instances it 
 woul 1 seem that pronus is u.sed of the person, not of the feeling. 
 
 ' contiiei<se : see Dictt. for this use. Hitria : 'Hieriam Maecenatis ancillam' 
 Schol. Bern. Eel. 6. 17 (Ribbeck). Servius on Eel. 2. 15 : ' tres dicitur Vergilius 
 , . , amasse, Alexandrum, quern donavit ei Pollio, et Cebetem puerum cum Lena 
 ( = ieria) puella, quos a Maecenate dicitur accepisse.* 
 
 * jiertinaci^simc recusassc : Gronovius quotes Sueton. Tib. 45: 'et quicquam 
 amplius pati constanti-sime recusantem.' 
 
 ' ore . . probum : modest in expression as well as in mind : see critical note. 
 
 * probum constat: for the syntax compare Suet. Galba 22: * cibi plurinii 
 traditur.' 
 
 * Parthenias : no doubt a pun on hi.s name, as Heyne saw. 
 
 * sectantes, &c. Compare Horace's ' Monstraridigitopraetereuntium;' Persius' 
 ' at suavest digito monstrari et dicier Hie est.' 
 
 ^ non sustitiuit : Suetonius, lul. 74 : ' Cornelio Phagitae . . . numquam nocere 
 Bustinuit.' Gronovius also quotes Titus, 9 ; ' nee occidere nee seponere sustinuit.' 
 
 * Suet. Fragm. Roth, p. 290 : ' possedit bis iniliens sestertium.' Probus says, ' ab 
 Augusto usque ad sestertium centiens lionestatus est.' 
 
 ' Liberalitates in the sense of presents; Sueton. Claud. 29, Galba, 15. 
 
 i«. 
 
J- 
 
 1 2 Suetonius. 
 
 Esquiliis iuxtar^hortos^Maecenatianos ^, quamquam secessii Cam- 
 paniae^ Siciliaeque plurimnm uteretur. 14. Parentes^ iam 
 grandis amisit, ex qi;ibus patrem captnrn oculis, et duos fratres 
 germanos, Silonem inpuberem, Flaccum iam adultum, cuius 
 exituni'* sub nomine Daphnidis defleL--/ 
 
 15. Inter cetera stadia medicinae quoque et maxime matligr -/nf^A 
 maticae operam dedit ■'. Egit et causam apud iudices unam '^ * 
 oninino, nee amplius quam semel '^ ; 16. nam et in sermone 
 tardissimum ac paene indocto similem fnisse Melissus tradidit. 
 17. Poeticam puer adhuc auspicatus'^ in Ballistam ludi^ magis- 
 trum ob iufamiam latrociniorum coopertum lapidibus distiehon 
 fecit 
 
 Monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus ; 
 Noctej die, tutum carpe, viator, iter''. 
 
 13. aesquiliis G. Can. ortos B ^2'j, Can. mecenati.inos G. B. 527, Can. ; 
 
 cf. Suet. Tib. 15. mecenatis B.P. 14. [iam] adultum G. iam adultum Can- 
 
 alultum C. 15. studia ut superius dixi i? 527, Can. C. apud iudicts 
 
 om. Can. C. 16. nam et in om. Can. C. indocto G. Can. indoctum B. 
 
 similem evmi fuisse Hagen. 17. adhuc puer Can. C. ludi magi.strum 
 
 Can. C. ludi [gladiatorii] magistrum iJ 527. catalecton lihri : vid. jj. 34. 
 
 ^ hortos Maecenatianos : Sueton. Tib. 15; ' Esquilias in hortos Maecenatiancs 
 transmigravit.' 
 
 ^ secessii Campaniae : Sueton. Tib. 43 : 'secessu Capreensi ;' Aug. 94: 'secessns 
 Apolloniae;' 98: 'secessui Caprearum;' Cal. 29: ' .secessus Anticyrae.' 
 
 ^ Suetonius, Aug. 8 : ' quadiimus patrem amisit;' Nero, 6: 'trimulus patrem 
 amisit ; ' lul. i : 'annum agens xvi patrem amisit.' 
 
 * cuius exitiim, &c. See Essay, p. 39. 
 
 Eibbeck quotes fi-om the Berne scholia on Eel. 5. 22, ' superstite enim Maia 
 matre Flaccus defunctus est, quae eius mortem graviter ferens non diu supervixit.' 
 Supervir.it, it may be observed, is used by Suetonius, lul. 89 : ' percussorum autem 
 neque triennio quisquam supervixit : ' the Dictt. quote instances from the younger 
 Pliny, Justin, and Florus. 
 
 The Berne scholion on Eel. 5. i. 22: 'obitum fratris deflet, fratrem suum, 
 nomine Flaccum, deflet, sub cuius nomine vel Flaccum germanum suum vel lulium 
 deflet,' is clearly borrowed from Suetonius. 
 
 ^ wathematicae, astrology. 
 
 ^ Effit et causam , . . nee amplius quam »emel : does this mean that he only 
 spoke in one case, and that only in one actio ? 
 
 For the language, comp. Sueton. Claud. 17: ' expeditionein unam omnino sus- 
 cepit, eamque modicam.' 
 
 ^ ausiiicari, to begin: Sueton. Claud. 7: ' honores auspicatus ;' Nero, 7: ' aus- 
 picatus est et iurisdictionem ;' 22 : 'cantare auspicatus ;' Plin. Paneg. i : ' nihil rite 
 . . . sine deorum inimortalium ope . . . auspicarentor;' Columella i. 5. 9 : ' sed quis- 
 quis aedificia volet in declivibus areis extruere, semper ab iufeiiore parte auspicetur.' 
 
 * ludi, i. e. a school of gladiators. 
 
 ' Node (He, &c. : imitated by Ov. Nux 43-4 : 'Sic timet insidias, qui scit se 
 
K.^UM^ 
 
 ^f 
 
 f" 
 
 Suctouiits. 1 3 
 
 Deintlo [catalepton ^ ot priapia et epig-raminata ct diras, item 
 ciriin et] culiooni cum cssct annorum XVI. 18. Cuius materia 
 talis est. Pastor fiitigatus aestu cum sub arbore couJormisset ^ 
 ct serpens ad eum prorepcret c palude, culex pracvolavit atque 
 inter duo tempora aculeum (ixit pastori. At ille continue 
 culicem eontrivit et serpentem interemit ac scpulcrum culiei 
 statuit et disticlion fecit ; ^— -"^^ [ > 
 
 Parve culex •', pecudum custos tibi tale-merenti m^ 
 Funeri^^flieium vita<fpro jpuij^-e reddit. (,' V 
 
 19. Scripsit etiam de qua ambiyitur Aetnani. INIox cum res 
 Romanas incohasset, offensus materia ad Bucolica transiit 
 maxima ut Asinium Pollionem "* Alfenum Varum et Cornelium r, 
 
 Galium celebraretj quia in distributione agronun- qUi postrPhilip- 
 pensenfT^ictoriam veteranis-dividebanturil mem pem se praestitis- 
 sent. 20. Deinde [edidit] Georg-ica in bonorem Maecenatis^ 
 qui sibi-flTediocriter adlinc noto opem tulisset adversus veteran! 
 eniusdam violentiam ''^ a quo i»- -altercatione litig^agrariae , u 
 paulum afuit quin occideretur. 21. Novissime Aeneidem inco- ■''>yV'^ 
 
 deinde moretum et priapeiain et epigr.immata et diras et culicem Can. C. omissis 
 catalecton el cirim. Unde suspicor Suetonium scripsisse deiwle culicem. XV Can. 
 XX. C. et item cirim G. [et] item cirimus B. P. 18. condormisset B. P. 
 
 obdormisset G. obdormuisset Can. C. condormiebat Suet. Aug. 78. ad eum 
 
 B.P. ad ilhim (?. Caw. praevolavit G'. Cent 6'. provolavit 7^ P. eontrivit 
 G.Cun.C. attrivit ii. adtrivit P. cuhci G. Can. culicis ii. i'. 19.de 
 
 qua ambigitur uncis inchmt Ilufjen. scripsit etnam G. aetbnam de qua 
 
 ambigitur B. de qua ambigitur .^etnam Vul(j. Can. et mox C. quom 
 
 Can. incohasset Can. incoasset C. materia ad B. G. Can. C. materia 
 et nominum asperitate Vulj.' Alphenumque G. Haijen. Alphenum ii. P. 
 Can. Reifferscheid. 20. edidit om. Itbri, post deinde inscruit Ifagen. 
 
 e 
 in honorem P. in honorem Peifferscheid. in honore G. Ilagen. honori 
 P 527, Can. C. vixdum noto B 527, Can. C. litis agrariae G. Can. 
 
 agiarii ac C. litis B. P. abfuit Can. C. 21. incohavit ; aggressua est 
 
 ferre viator, Quod timeat : tutum carpit inanis iter : ' see Mayor ou luv. 10. 22, 
 second edition. 
 
 * catalepton : Essay, p. 34 ; cuHccm, ib. p. 38. 
 
 * condormisset : see critical note. 
 
 ' Parve culex, &c. : these lines conclude the poem which bears the name of Culex. 
 
 * Asinium Pollionem, &c. Probus : ' postea restitutus beneticio Alfeni Vari, 
 Asinii Pollionis, et Cornelii Galli, quibus in Bucolicis adulatur : ' see Essay, p. 40 foil. 
 
 * Maecenas introduced him to Augustus according to Probus : ' deinde per gratiam 
 Maecenatis in amicitiam Caesaris ductus est.' 
 
 For deinde followed by novtHgime comp. Suet. De Gramm. 6: * philosophiam 
 primo, deinde rhetoricam, novissime grammaticam.' 
 
 * violentiam : Focas : ' lam Maro jjuIsus erat, sed viribus obvius ibat Fretus 
 amicorum clipeo, cum paene nefando Ense perit.' Vergil may have met force by 
 force, and had an affray similar to that described by Cicero pro Caecina. 
 
 1^ 
 
T4 
 
 i/ 
 
 Suetonhis. 
 
 havit, argumentum varium ac multiplex et quasi amborum 
 Plomei'i carminum instar^, praeterea nominibus ac rebus^/Graecis 
 Latinisque commune efc in quo ^, quod maxime studebat, Romanae 
 simul uvbis et Aug-usti orig-o contineretur. 
 
 22. Cum Georo-ica scriberet, traditur cotidie meditatos * mane 
 plnrimos versus dictare solitus, ac per totum diem retractando 
 ad paucissimos redigere ^, non absurde ^ carmen se ursae more '^ 
 parere dicens et lambendo demum^^ngere. 23. Aeneida prosa 
 prius oratione iormatam ^ digestamque in XII libros particu- 
 latim componere instituit, prout liberet quidque et nihil in 
 ordinem arripiens. 24. Ac ne quid irapetum raoraretur, quaedam 
 imperfecta transmisit, alia levissimis versibus veluti fulsit, quos 
 
 Can. C. cf. Probus, Vita Vergilii, Aeneida ingressus bello Cantabrico. carminum 
 G. Can. carmini B., corr. caiminis. carminis P. 22. meditatus Uagen. 
 
 meditatos lihri, Reifferschdd. carmen se more : carmen se informe more 
 
 Reijferscheid. more ursae ; ursae more G. Can. C. more ursae B. P. 23. 
 
 firmatam Hagen. formare autem Suetonianum est : Aug. 89 ; 'si quid res exigeret 
 Latine forniabat vertendumque alii dedit ; ' Nero, 47 : ' inventus est postea in scrinio 
 eius ac de re sermo formatus.' bis sena volumina sacro Formavit donata duci 
 trieteride quarta Focas. arripiens G. accipiens, corr. arripiens B. 24. 
 
 ac ne quid G. Hagen. ut ne quid B. P. Rcifferscheid levissimis versibus G. B 
 
 527, Can. C. verbis B. P. Eeifferscheid. seripsit B 527 Can. C. quos 
 
 G. B 527, Can. C. quae B. P. tigillis Can. C. tigillis [vel tibicinibus] 
 
 B 527. tibicinibus G. P. tibianibus B. a se dieebat G. Can. aiebat 
 
 ^ instar : Suet. Vesp. 5 : ' tertium vero instar arboris ' (as large as a tree). 
 
 * nominibus ac rebus, &c. : the hostile critic in Macrobius says, ' vel si mille alia 
 multum pudenda seu in verbis modo Graecis mode barbaris sen in ipsa dispositions 
 operis deprehendentur.' 
 
 ^ in quo, &c. Compare Propertius, quoted in Essay, p. 66, ' Caesaris in magnos 
 condere nomen avos.' 
 
 Sei'vius on Aen. i. i, doubtless from Suetonius or the same sources: 'intentio 
 Vergilii haec est, Homerum imitarj, et Augustum laudare a parentibus.' 
 
 * meditatos : the passive use of this participle is found in Cicero ; with this pas- 
 sage compare Suetonius, Aug. 84, 'meditata et composita oratione.' 
 
 " ad paucii^simos redigere : this is probably fi-om the memoir by Varius : Quint. 
 10. 3. 8 : ' Vergilium quoque paucissimos die composuisse versus auctor est Varius.' 
 
 ^ non absurde, not badly : Suetonius, De Gramm. 6 : ' ex quibus novem unius 
 corporis , . . non absurde et fecisse et scripsisse se ait ; ' Dom. 3 : ' non absurde 
 responsum sit ;' and not unfrequently in the Latin of the silver age. 
 
 ' ursae more : again very probably from Varius: Gell. 17. 10: ' amici familia- 
 resque P. Vergilii in eis quae de ingtnio moribusque eius memoriae tradiderunt, 
 dicere eum solitum ferunt, parere se versus more atque ritu ursino. Nam ut ilia 
 bestia fetum ederet ineffigiatuni informemque, lambendo id pustea quod ita edi- 
 disset conformaret et fingeret, proinde iiigenii quoque sui partus recentes rudi esse 
 facie et impei'fecta, sed deinceps tractando colendoque reddire se oris et vultus 
 llneamenta.' Comp. Vergil's ' corpora fingere lingua ' (A. 8. 634). 
 
 * formatam, drafted, put roughly into shape : see the passages quoted in the 
 critical note, which shew that the word was used of the preliminary drafting of a 
 work for subsequent use or alteration. So the critic in Macrubius, 5. 17. 4, says, 
 
 
\^ 
 
 (' 
 
 Sueionins. 
 
 (/V^**^ 
 
 \^ 
 
 per iocum pro tibicinibus interponi aiebat ad sustiucndum opus, 
 donee solidae columnae advenirent. 
 
 25. Bucolica trienuio\ Georgica VII, Aeneida XI perfocit 
 annis. 26. Bucolica eo successu edidit, ut in scacna cpioque 
 per cantores - crebro pronuntiarentur ^. 
 
 27. Georgica^-e verso post Actiacani victoriam Augusto atque 
 Atellae reficiendavum faucium * causa commoranti per continuum 
 quadriduuni'^ It'git, susoipiente Maecenato legendi vicem, quotiens 
 interpellaretur ipse vocis oflfensione. 28^. Pronuutiabat autem 
 cum suavitate tum lenociniis^^^^iiris. 29^. Seneca tradidit 
 lulium Montanum poetam solitum dicere involaturura se Ver- . mjP^^- 
 gilio quaedam si et vocem posset et ^^ et liypogrisin ; eosdem 
 enim versus ipsq^rouuntiante ^ bene sonare, sine illo inanes esse 
 
 tri 
 B. P. 25. biennio G. C. biennio Can. confecit Can. C. perficit 
 
 G. hoc carmine consul Pollio laiulatur ter se revocantibus annis composite 
 Pocas. 26. crebra pronuntiarentur G. B 527, Can. C. crebra proniin- 
 
 tiatione recitarentur Vulg. 27. post Actiacam victoriam B. per G. ab 
 
 Actiaca victoria Can. C. forfasse rectc faucium B. P. virium G. B 527, Can. C. 
 reficiendaruni %nrium causa . . . faucium offensione coni. Ila/jen. 28. cum 
 
 suavitatem lenociuiis G. cum suavitate lenociniis Can. C. cum suavite [et] 
 lenociniis B ^2"]. cum suavitate cum lenociniis B. P. cum .... tum Rciffer- 
 scheid. 29. Ac Seneca IIa<jen. et Seneca G. B. P. Seneca Can. C. 
 
 inanes esse mutosque: inanescere quasi mutos B 527, Can. C, eo pronuntiante 
 
 ' librum Aeneidos suae quartum totum paene (de Argonauticorum quarto) for- 
 maverit:' i.e. Vergil took the main idea and outline of the work from Apollonius. 
 
 For the order in which the books of the Aeneid may have been composed, see 
 Essay, p. 65 foil. 
 
 * triennio : see critical note, and note on the Life by Servius, and Essay, p. 48. 
 
 * cantores, reciters of verses : compare Horace's ' Omnibus hoc vitium est canto- 
 ribus : nil praeter Calvum et doctus cantare Catullum.' (1 S. 3. i, 10. 19.) 
 
 ^ To these recitations of the Eclogues Ribbeck refers the words of Tacitus, Dial. 
 13 : ' testis ipse populus, qui auditis in theatro Vergilii versibus surrexit universus, 
 et forte prae-entem spectantemque Vergilium veneratus est sic quasi Augustiim.' 
 
 * rejiciendarum faucium : his throat seems to have been weak, if we may trust 
 Suetonius, Aug. 84 : ' noununciuam infirmatis faucibus praeconis voce a<l populum 
 contionatus est.' 
 
 * j:ier continutim quadriduum : comp. Columella, 2. 4. 5 : ' continue triennio.' 
 
 * Compare Suetonius, Aug. 84 : ' pronuntiabat dulci et proprio quoilam oris 
 sono;' lul. 55: ' pronuntiasse autem dicitur voce acuta, ardtuti motu gestuque, 
 non sine venustate.' 
 
 ^ This story is not found in the extant works of either Seneca : but the rhetori- 
 cian Seneca has another aneciote about ' Montanus lulius qui comis fuit qui(|uo 
 egregius poeta ;' Controv. 7. 27. For lulius Montanus see Teuffel, R. L. § 247. 13. 
 Ov. Pont. 4. 16. II : 'quique vel im[)aribus numeris. Montane, vel acquis SulHcis.' 
 
 ' 08, utterance, management of the voice, pronunciation : Quint, i. i. 37: 'quo 
 sit absolutius os et expressior sermo ; ' 1 1. 3. 30 : ' promptum sit os, non praeceps, 
 mo«leratum, non lentum.' 
 
 ' pronuntiante, reading or reciting. 
 
< 
 
 1 6 ,j ijr Suetonius . 
 
 iruitosque ^. 30 ^. AeneidSsvixdum coeptae tanta extitit fama ut 
 Sextus Proper tius non dubitaverit sic praedicare ; 
 Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite^ Grai ; 
 Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade. 
 31. Augustus vero, nam forte expeditione Cantabrica aberat, 
 supplicibus atque etiam minacibus'^ per iocum litteris efflag-itabat 
 ut sibi ' de Aeneide ' ut ijjsius verba sunt ' vel prima carminis 
 vjloypa(f>ri vel quodlibet colon mitteretur.' Cui tamen multo 
 post perfectaque demum materia tres omnino libros recitavit, 
 secundum quartum et sextum; 32. sed hunc notabili Octaviae ^ 
 
 adfectione^, quae cum recitationi interesset, ad illos de filia sua /I ,» » 
 versus ' Tu Marcellus eris ' defecisse fertur atque aegre focilata ^ 
 est. 33 *^. Recitavit et pluribus, sed neque frequenter et ea fere 
 de quibus ambigebat, quo magis indicium liomiuum experiretur. 
 34. Erotem librariunf^eius exactae iam senectutis'^ tradunt 
 referre solitum^, quondam eum in recitando duos dimidiatos 
 versus complesse ex tempore. Nam cum hactenus haberet 
 ' Misenum Aeoliden,' adiecisse ' quo non praestantior alter,' 
 item huic ' Acre ciere viros ' simili^j^lor^jactatum subiunxisse 
 
 Can. C. 30. grai Can. C. 31. cum iam forte Can. C mitteretur, 
 
 Cui : mitteretur G. mitteretur. negavit [se facturum Vergilius] cui B f,2'j. 
 mitteret. negavit. cui Can. mitteret Beiffersckeid. et sextum G. 5 527, 
 
 Can. C. et om. B. P. 33. et ferme ilia Ca7i. C, 34. climidio3 
 
 C. iactatum B. 6. P. Can. elatum Meifferscheid. adscriberet G". Can. 
 
 ^ inanes esse, 8cc. ; see critical note : inanesco is quoted in the Dictt. from Am- 
 mianus and Augustine. 
 
 ^ See Essay, p. 66. 
 
 ' supplicihus atque etiam minacihus :■ Suetonius, Titus, 5 : ' suppliciter nee non 
 et minaciter efflagitantes, aut remaneret aut secum omnes abduceret.' 
 
 This correspondence was extant, we must suppose, in the time of Tacitus : Dial. 
 13 : ' testes Augusti litterae.' For Vergil's answer see Essay, p. 64. 
 
 * adfectione : Tac. A. 4. 15 ; 'laetas inter audientium adfectiones.' 
 
 ' aegre focilat us Plin. Epist. 3. 14. 4 ; Gronovius quotes Sueton. Aug. 17 : ' M. 
 Antoni societatem semper dubiam et incertam reconciliationibusque variis male 
 focilatam.' 
 
 '' Horace was more fastidious: 'nee recito cuivis nisi amicis, idque coactus' 
 S. I. 4. 73. Vergil laid himself open to hostile as well as friendly criticism. 
 
 ' exactae sencclutis : Gronov. quotes Suet. De Grammaticis, 17 : 'decessit aetatis 
 exactae sub Tiberio.' 
 
 This story sounds apocryphal : yet for the last sentence compare Hofcice, S. i. 10. 
 92 : ' 1 puer atque meo citus baec subscribe libello.' 
 
 * tradunt referre solltuin : for the con.struction compare Sueton. lul. 83 : 
 ' Quintus Tubero tradit heredem ab eo scribi solitum . . . Cn. Ponipeium.' 
 
'>^^ 
 
 Sucfoniits. . ^ 17 
 
 ' Martemque accenclero cantu,' statimqnc sibi impcrasse ut J""^^ ^ 
 
 utrunique voluniini lulscriberot. SS./Aiino aelatis quin(|ua- '^'' 
 
 gesimoT^nndo impositurus Aoncidi summam nianuni statuit 
 in Graeciam et in Asiam sccedere, tvieniiidipic t-ontinuo nihil 
 amplius qnani emondare, ut reliqua vita lautum philosophiae 
 vacarot ^. Sed cum ingressus iter Athenis occurrissct Augusto , -, 
 ab Oriente Romam revertenti, destinaretque non^)sistere atque 'f 
 etiam una rcdiro. durn INFogara vicinnm oppidnm ferventissimo 
 
 sole cognoscit ", langnorem nactus-* est eumque non intermissa j/'^y^ f I 
 navigatione auxit ita ut gravior* aliquando Brundisinm appel- 
 leret, ubi diebus paucis obiit XI Kal. Oct. C. Sentio Q. Lucretio 
 consulibus. 
 
 36. Ossarems Neapolim. trahslata sunt tumuloque condita qui 
 est via^uteolana intra lapidem'-secundum, in quo distiehon fecit 
 tale 
 
 ^Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc 
 Parthenope, cecini pascua, rura, duces ^. ^ 
 
 37. Heredes fecit ex diimdia parte Valerium Proculum fratrem 
 alio patre^, ex qugrta Augustum, ex duadecima Maccenatem, ex 
 reliqua L. Varium et Plotium Tuccam, qui eius Aeneida post 
 
 "I 
 
 ascriberet B. 35. summam Q. summa B. P. ultimam Vuhj. Can. 
 
 gravior : aegrior Ifagen. gravior codd. Reifferscheid. ut gra^nor tandem Brun- 
 disium adventarit Can. C. Nee abhorret f/ravior a Latino sennone : Lucret. 3. 
 1066 : ' abit in somnum gravis ; ' Yal. Flacc. 6. 65 : ' gravior de vulmre ; ' Fronto 
 Epp. ad Marc. Aur. 5. 8. 23 : 'mater iam levior est, dis volentibus.' XI Kal. : 
 X Kal. Can. C. C. Sentius faati cousulares. Cn. Sentio G. Can. C. Sencio 
 G. B ^jy. Festio i?. Plantio I'^/gr. 37. ex diniidia parte ^r. ex dimidiam 
 
 parteni (corr. m. 2) B. ex alio patre G. Can. C. alio patre B. Reifferscheid. 
 Hagen. L. Varium G. Varum Can. Valerium B. Aeneidem G. Can. 
 
 ^ ut . . . philoxophiae vacaref : compare the end of the second Georgic. So Pro- 
 pertius, 4. 5. 25 foil., say.s of his old age, ' Turn raihi naturae libeatperdiscere mores 
 &c.' See Essay, p. 37. 
 
 * cognoscit: Propertius, I. 6. 13: 'an mihi sit tanti doctas cogno.scere Athenas;' 
 Suet. Cal. 3 : 'sicubi clarorum viroruin sepulcra cognosceret ;' Aug. 53 : ' inusita- 
 turn dignumque cognitu ; ' and other instances in the Dictt. 
 
 ' nactus : Gronov. quotes Sueton. Titus, 10: ' febrim nactus;' the Dictt. give 
 also Nepos, Atticus, 21. 2 : 'morbum nactus.' 
 
 * gravior : see critical note. 
 
 ' Probus, Life : ' in cuius sepulcro quod est in via Puteolana hoc legitur epi- 
 gramma, Mantua e q. s.' 
 
 * alio patre : his father then must have died first and his mother have married 
 again. Compare Probus, Life: 'doces.'-it in Calabria annum a^'euM quiiKiiiagesinuiin 
 et primum heredibua Augusto et Maecenate cum Proculn minoro fratre.' 
 
 C 
 
■■/ 
 
 1 8 Sueto7iius. 
 
 obitum iussu Caesaris emendaverunt. 38. De qua re Sulpicii^ 
 
 Kai'tliaginiensis extant huiusmodi versus 
 
 lusserat haec rapidis aboleri carmina flammis 
 
 Verg-ilius, Phrygiuni quae cecinere dueem ; 
 
 Tueca vetat Yariusque^ simul tu, maxime Caesar 
 
 Non sinis^ et Latiae consulis historiae, 
 
 Infelix ^ gemino cecidit prope Perg-amon igni, 
 
 Et paene est alio Troia cremata rogo'*. 
 
 39. Egerat cum Vario priusquam Italia decederet ut si quid 
 
 sibi aeeidisset Aeneida combureret ; at is facturum se pernegarat. 
 
 Igitur in extrcma valetudine assidue scrinia desideravit cre- 
 
 ^^n^ maturus ipse ; verum nemine ofFerente nihil quidem nominatim 
 
 de ea cajit^, 40. ceterum eideni.Yario ao:^imvff*ruecae.5-ecfipta 
 
 sua sub ea eondieione legavit ne ,q.uid edgJ^eftfe^uod non a se 
 
 editum esset. 41. Edi^jJLaaifceiwSxicfore Augusto Varius sed sum- 
 
 matim emendat«f1afj5[ui versi>s^^tiam Imperfectos sicuti erant re- 
 
 liquerit ; quos multi mox supplere eonati non perinde^ valuerunt 
 
 ob difficultatem, quod omnia fere apud eum bemistichia absoluto 
 
 perfectoque sunt sensu praeter illud ' quem tibi * iam Troia.' 
 
 aeneidam B.T. 38. aboleri: adoleri? Gell. xvii. lo. 7: 'petivit . , . ut 
 
 Aeneida quam non satis elimavisset adolerent. No7i sinis et : non tibi sed Probi 
 quae fertur vita Veryilii. Pergamos Can. C. cremata : cremata sepulta G. 
 cremuta Can. C. sepulta Hagen. 39. at is : et is libri. at Harjen. 
 
 sed Reifferfcheid. is facturum libri. is ita facturum Hagen. assiduo 0. 
 41. praeter iUud quem tibi iam Troia sensum videantur habere perfectum G. : sic 
 
 ^ Sulpicii : Sulpicius ApoUinaris, the master ofAulus Gellius: Teuffel, Rom. 
 Litt. § 353. 2. 
 
 * non sinis : this surely and not non tibi (see critical note) must be the right 
 reading. Latiae consulis historiae is taken from Propertius, 4. 4 (3). 10 : 'ite et 
 Romauae consulite historiae.' 
 
 * Infelix, &c.: these two lines are not quoted in the Life by Probus, in which in- 
 deed the whole poem has no place, being confessedly taken from Servius; who pro- 
 bably in his turn took it from Suetonius. 
 
 * sepulta rogo, the reading adopted by Hagen, is surely a strange expression : 
 although it is true that sepelire has a far more general meaning than huniare. 
 
 ^ Probus, Life : ' Aeneis servata ab Augusto quamvis ipse testamento damna- 
 verat, ne quid eorum quod non edidisset e.x.taret.' The hostile critic in Macrobius, 
 I. 24. 6, takes Vergil at his own estimate: 'qui enim moriens poema suum legavit 
 igni . . . erubuit quippe de se futura iudicia, &c.' 
 
 * Vergil's three great friends were Quintilius Varus, Varius, and Tucca. Probus, 
 Life: 'insigiii concordia et familiaritate usus Quintili, Tuccae, et Vari.' Quintili 
 is the Quintilius of Horace : ' Tu frustra pius heu non ita creditum Poscis Quiuti- 
 lium decs: Quintilio si quid recitares.' 
 
 '' non perinde : see Essay, p. 30. 
 
 * quem tihi : tliis reading, confirmed as it is by the reading of tlie best MSS. 
 
i 
 
 f^ 
 
 Siic/ouius. 19 
 
 42. Nisus ^ grammatieus audisse se a.^eiiioribus aiebat Varium 
 duonim librorum ordinem commutasse, et qui tunc sccundus 
 erat- in tertium locum transtulisso, etiam primi libri correxisse 
 principium his versibus demptis 
 
 ^ Ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus avena 
 
 Carmen, et egressus'silvis vicina coegi 
 
 Ut quamvis avido parerent ai'va colono, 
 
 Giatum opus agricolis; at nunc bonvntia !Mavtis 
 
 Arma virumque cano. 
 43. Obtrectatores Yergilio numquam defuerunt, nee mirum, 
 nam ne Homero quidem. Prolatis ^ Bucolicis Numitorius | < A 
 
 quidam rescripsit Antibucolica, duas modo eclogas sod insul- |^;\JvVi^^^ 
 sissime T:amh]CTas, quarum prioris initium est „ ? ' i^^j^S 
 
 Tityre, si toffj^caldajibi est, quo tegmine fagi? t^^ ♦ 
 sequentis Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium recus ? anne Latinum ? -yL_ / 
 
 Non. Vei'uiiL.Aegonis nostri sic rure loquuntur 
 Alius recitante eo ex Georgicis 
 
 Nudus araj sere nudus, 
 subiecit 
 
 habebis frigore febrim ^. 
 
 Can. C., 7nsi quod \'idebatur pro videantur hdbent. qiiem tibi iam Trdia peperit 
 sensum videntur habere perfectuni Vulg. 42. Nisi G. Nisius B 527, 
 
 Can. C' qui tuuc secundus erat in tertium locum B 527, Can. C. qui nunc 
 secundus sit B. G. qui nunc secundus sit in jirinium, tertium in secundum et 
 primum in tertium Reiffcmcheid. qui tunc secundus esset in tertium Hagen, 
 43. nee Homero coc/(i. ne Homero (j?'o/(o*u<s. l^xniiMorms IIagcu,liihhecl•,^Voelfllin 
 numinatoris B. numinatoriis F. Prolatis Bucolicis . . . quidam G paro- 
 
 desas G. irafXfiS^cas B. P. paro quidam Vulg. Can. C. Non. Verum, d-c. : 
 
 of Vergil, proves conclusively that the sentence was left unfinished, and that the 
 attempt to emend it by wTitiug quae from inferior copies is a mistake. 
 
 ' Nisus : a scholar of the age of Tiberius, quoted later by Charisius, Velius 
 Longus, Macrobius, and others : Teuffel, R. L. § 277. 4. 
 
 ^ qui tunc secundus erat, &c. I follow the reading of ^ 527 and Can., and under- 
 stand the words to mean that Varius found the third Aeneid in Vergil's manu- 
 script placed, accidentally or otherwise, before the second : that it was written before 
 the second there seems to be no doubt; see Es.say, p. 64. Hagen thinks the words 
 refer to the prose draft of the Aeneid. But the whole story may be apocryphal. 
 
 ' Ille ego, &c. : I am 8ur[)rised that Henry in his posthumous ' Aeneidea ' defends 
 the genuineness of the.se lines, although the Aeneid read by Ovid must have 
 begun with 'arma virumque cano;' see Conington on Aen. i. i. The scholia 
 attributed to Servius are inconsistent on this point : for in the preface (fin.) the 
 words ' arma virumque cano ' are quoted as the beginning of tlie Aeneid, while on 
 Aen. I. I the commentator states that Vergil did not begin with 'arma.' 
 
 * Prolatis: Cic. Att. 15. 13 a. i : 'eius (orationis) proferendae arbitriuni tuum.' 
 
 ' Servius on Eel. 2. 23 quotes a similar criticii-m on tlie line ' lac mihi non aestate 
 
 t 2 
 
 '■0d^U^ 
 
/, 
 
 Suetonms. '\A^j / Mf 
 
 20 ^ . ■ 'I »^v ^ 
 
 44. Est et adversus Aeneida liLer Carvili Pictoris titulo 
 Aeneidomastix. M. yvipsanius ^ arMaoconate- eum sup^situm ,. , 
 appellal>at'i!Sva6 cacozeliat' repr^rtorcni, non tumidae nee exilisy v-^' 
 sed ex communibus verbis atque ideo latentis, Herennius 
 tantum vitia eius, Perellius Faustus furta contraxit. 45. Sed 
 et Q. Octavi Aviti o/ixotor^rcor ^ octo volumina quos efrTj^e versus 
 transtulerint continent. " 46'*. Asconiua«Pedianus libro quera 
 contra obtrectatores Vergilii scripsit pauea admodum obiecta ei 
 pro^onit eaque circa historiam fere et quod pleraque ab Homero 
 sumpsisset ; sed hoc ipsum crimen sic defendere adsuetum ait 
 
 interpunctio Gronovii est, ' Sed Aegonis nostri rure, hoc est in Virgilii Bucolicis, 
 ita loquuiitur.' 44. Carbili B. P. Carbilii Can. Cabili G. sup- 
 
 positum KaKOTfXTJ appellat repertoremque £ 527, Can. repertore G. Ilagen. 
 repertorem B. P. Reifferscheid. Faustinas G. Can. 45. o/ioioTrjTajv 
 
 Hagen. ofioiorfKeiiTcuv G. homoeotheleuton B. P. ofioiaiv IXt'7X'ui' Beiffcr- 
 scheid. Sunt Q. Octavi Habiti volumina quos et unde versus transtulerit 
 
 Can. C. sed et quinti octavi aviti G. sed et quae octaviani {in. 2 qui octavi 
 aviti) B. 46. pleraque ab Homero sumpserit 5 527, Can. C. recedere 
 
 Jteginensis, Reifferscheid. decederet B. P. : decideret G. Can. 
 
 novum non frigore defit,' the sense of which the critic changed by punctuatinir after 
 ' frigore.' 
 
 * M. Vipsanins : there seems no reason to doubt that this is M. Vipsanius 
 Agrippa. 
 
 * a Maccenate, &c. : that he was suborned by Maecenas to invent a new kind of 
 affectation in style. Suetonius, Aug. 86: 'cacozelos et antiquaries ut diverse 
 genere vitiosos pari f;istidio sprevit exagitabatque nonnumquam, in primis Mae- 
 cenatem suum;' for an explanation of Kano^-qKia, see Quint. 8. 3. 56: ' KaKo^rjKov, 
 id est mala adfectatio, per omne dicendi genus peccat : nam et tumida et pusilla 
 et praedulcia et abundaiitia et arcessita et exultantia sub idem nomen cadunt. 
 Denicjue cacozelon vocatur quidquid est ultra virtutem, quotiens ingenium iudicio 
 caret et specie boni fallitur, omnium in eloquentia vitiorum pessimum.' 
 
 ^ onoiOTTjTOJv : Hagen refers to Athenaeus 15, p. 690 E, iv. p. 170 E, where 
 o/jLoioTfjTes means equivalent expressions, as structor for Tpave^oHofjios : if Hagen's 
 conjecture be adopted, the word here should mean transkitions. 
 
 * I suppose this to mean that Asconius in his reply to the obtrectatores sets forth 
 only a few of the hostile criticisms made against Vergil, and that those which he 
 does mention concern only Vergil's management of his story. The hostile critic in 
 Maerobius, i. 24. 6, speaks of ' multa pudenda in dispositione operis.' An answer to 
 objections of this kind is given by Servius (p. 4, Thilo) : ' Ordo quoque nianifestus 
 est, licet quidam superfine dicant secundum primum esse, tertium secundum, et 
 primum tertium, ideo quia primo Ilium concidit, post erravit Aenea.s, inde ad 
 Didonis regna pervenit ; nescientes banc esse artem poetic.im, ut a mediis incijiientes 
 per narrationem prima reddamus, et nonnunqiiam futura praeoccupemus ut per 
 vaticinationem.' Comp. Maerobius, 5. 14. 9: 'ille enim vitans in poemate histori- 
 corum similitudinem, quibus lex est incipere ab initio rerum et continuam narra- 
 tionem usque ad finem perducere, ipse poetica disciplina a rerum medio coepit et 
 ad initium post reversus est.' 
 
Suetonius. Servius. 
 
 21 
 
 II 
 
 ' cur non illi quoque eadem furta temptarent ? verum intellocturos 
 facilius esse llerculi cliivam quam Ilomero vcrsuiu subrijiciv' ; ' 
 et tamea destiiiasse seeedere- ut omuia a d satietatom ma li'vultiniin 
 decideret ^. T 
 
 ' ^lacrobius, 5. 3. i6, no doubt drawiiifj on the sam^ sources as Suetonius : ' tria 
 ex aequo impossibilia, vel lovi fulmen vel Herculi ^avam vel versum Homero 
 Bubripere.' 
 
 * seccdeie, to go into retirement : see § 35. 
 
 * decideret, if Gronoviua is not right in conjecturing \'eci4eret, must apparently 
 mean 'settle the doubtful points raised by his critics.' put this sense haidly agrees 
 with the words ad satietatem, which can only mean ' till his critics were satisfied.' 
 
 III. 
 
 Life prefixed to the Commentary of Servius. 
 
 Codices a Thilone adhibiti. 
 .C=Bemensi3 363, saec. ix. 
 Jf. = C'aroliruhensis 186, saec. ix. 
 i. = Lipsiensis, saec. x. 
 //. = H;imburgensis, saec. xi. 
 J/. = Monacensis cod. lat. 6394, saec. xi. 
 .ff. = Monacensis cod. lat. 1S059, saec. xii. 
 D. = Dresdensis, saec. xv. 
 
 C. = Fuldensis, nunc Cassellanus, saec. ix. vel x. ineunt's. 
 P. = Parisinu3 1750, saec. x. 
 
 i^*. =Floriacen3is Danielis, nunc Bemensis 172, saec. ix. vel x. ineuntis. 
 G. =Bemensis 167, saec. x. 
 Pam. = Parisinu.s 7959. 
 7/ar/. = Harleianus 2782, quein ipse contuli, saeculo ix, adsignatus. 
 
 Vergilii* haec vita est. Patre Yergilio'' matre Magia" fuit ; 
 civis Mantuanus, quae civitas est Venetiae. Diversis in locis 
 operam litteris dedit; nam et Cremonae^ et Mediolani et Neapoli 
 studuit. Adeo autem verecundus*^ fuit^ ut ex moribus cog- 
 nomen acceperit®; nam dictus est Parthenias. Omni vita pro- 
 batus uno tantum murbo laborabat; nam inpatiens libidinis 
 
 » Virgilii codd. ^ Veryilio, figulo Paris. 7959 : cf. Suetonius, i. " Magia 
 
 G. U. Harl. (g in rasura). maia //. Paris. M. E. ma-ia L. ^ verecundus 
 
 Hurl. Eel. i. verecunflissunus codd. in hoc loco. " acceperit I'ai-is, acci- 
 
 peret cet. acceperit Thilo. 
 
 * Cremona, Mediolani : Suetonius, 6, 7. Neapoli, referring to the composition of 
 the Georgics and Aeneid. 
 
 * Adeo autem . . .fuit: a confu.sud abridgement of Suetonius, 9-11 : omni vita 
 prohutas being apparently taken from cetera sane vilaet ore et animo tain jTobuvi 
 constat. 
 
22 Servius. 
 
 fuit. Primum ab hoc disticho incepit ^ ', quod factum est in 
 Ballistam ^ latronem 
 
 Monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus ; 
 Nocte die tutum carpe viator iter. 
 
 Scripsit etiaui ^ septem sive octo hbros hos : Cirin, Aetnam, 
 Culicem, Priapeia, Catalepton ^^ Epigrammata, Copam, Diras. 
 Postea^, ortis belli s civilibus inter Antonium et Augustum, 
 Augustus victor Cremonensium agros, quia pro Antonio sense- 
 rant, dedit militibus suis. Qui cum non sufficerent, his addidit 
 agros Mantuanos, sublatos non propter civium culpam sed 
 propter vicinitatem ' Cremonensium ; unde ipse in Bucolicis 
 ^Mantua vae raiserae nimium vieina Ci'emonae. 
 
 Amissis ergo agris Romam venit et usus patrocinio Pollionis 
 et Maecenatis ^ solus agrum quem amiserat meruit ''. Tunc 
 ei ^ proposuit Pollio ut carmen Bucolicum scriberet, quod 
 eum constat triennio scripsisse et emendasse. Item proposuit 
 Maecenas Georgica, quae scripsit emendavitque septem^ annis. 
 Postea ab Augusto Aeneidem "^ propositam scripsit annis un- 
 decim, sed nee emendavit nee edidit ™ ; unde eam moriens prae- 
 
 f Ab lioc disticho incepit scrips!.. primum a distichon caepit quod 
 factum est L. primum coepit a distichon factum . . . Hurl, primum ab hoc 
 distichon factum est Paris. H. M. E. Thilo. primum distichon in balistam 
 latronem composuit G. ' Ballistam M. Harl. Thilo. balistam cet. ballista 
 
 ta 
 M. balista cet. ^ catalepton V. Burmanni. calepton Paris, catalectum G. 
 
 catalecton cet. ' vicinitatem corr. al. man. e civitatem Harl. ^ meruit 
 
 adipisci G. sed adipisci supra vevsmn scripfo. recipere meruit E. ^ septem : 
 
 VIvelVIIi?. \ll L. {sed altera -parte Utterae aUriia). Ylll Harl. "> nee 
 
 -/• scripsit vel cecinit a+ edidit 
 
 edidit Paris, nee edidit B. nee edidit M. nee cecinit G. nee cecinit E. nee 
 
 ^ Primum ab hoc disticho incepit : see critical note. I suspect that these words 
 represent the whole or certainly a part of what was written : compare below, ' ab 
 armis non coepit.' Comp. Suetonius, 1 7. 
 
 ^ Scripsit etiam, &c. : see Suetonius, 17, 19, and critical note. 
 
 ' Postea . . , Cremonae : this account is much fuller than that in Suetonius, 19. 
 Was it taken from a completer edition of the memoir than that which has come 
 down to us ? 
 
 * Mantua, &c. Eel. 9. 28. 
 
 ^ Pollionis et Maecenatis : Probus and Suetonius .<!ay, probably with more truth, 
 Alfenus Varus, Asinius Pollio, and Cornelius Gallus ; for Maecenas' part in the 
 matter, see Suetonius, 20. 
 
 ^ Tunc ei, &c. Compare Suetonius, 19. It seems clear from these passages that 
 Suetonius sujiposed the composition of the Eclogues to have begun after Vergil's re- 
 storation to his estate ; hence the supposed period of three years. See Essay, p. 48. 
 
 ' Aeneidem : Suetonius, 21. It is to be observed that tlie Eclogues, Georgics, 
 and Aeneid are here represented as tasks undertaken at the suggestion of the 
 persons in whose honour tiiey were written. 
 
Scrvius. 23 
 
 ccpit incendi. Augustus voro, ne tantum opus poriret, Tuccam 
 et Vavium ^ ° hac log-e iussit omondarc ut suporflua demorent, 
 nihil adderent tamen ; undo et scmiplonos eius invenimus versi- 
 culos, ut 
 
 Hie cursus° fuit - ; 
 
 et aliquos detractos, ut in principio; nam ab armis non coepit, 
 
 sed sic; 
 
 Ille eg"0 qui quondam gracili modulatus avena 
 Carmen, et egressus silvis vicina eoegi 
 Ut quamvis avido parerent arva colono 
 Gratum opus ag-ricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis 
 Arma virumque cano — 
 
 Et in secundo hos versus constat esse detractos p ; 
 
 aut ignibus ^ aegra dodere. 
 lamque adeo super unus cram, cum limina Vestae 
 Servantem et tacitam secreta in sede latentem 
 Tyndarida aspicio : dant clara** incendia lucem 
 Eiranti passimque oculos per cuncta ferenti. 
 Ilia sibi infestos eversa ob Pergama Teucros 
 Et Danaum poenara"" et deserti coniugis iras 
 Praemetuens ^, Troiae et patriae communis Erinys, 
 Abdiderat sese atque aris invisa sedebat. 
 Exarsere ignes animo ; subit ira cadentem 
 Ulcisci patriam et sceleratas sumere poenas*. 
 ' Scilicet haec Spartam incolumis patria?que Mycenas 
 Aspicief^, partoque ibit regina triumpho, 
 Coniugiumque domumque patres natosque videbit, 
 Iliadum turba et Pbrygiis comitata ministris ? 
 Occiderit ferro Priamus ^ ? Troia arserit igni ? 
 
 cecinit nee ad limam perduxit (nee — perduxit man. al.) Harl. " Tucam U. 
 
 Harl. varrum //. varum cet. ° cursus Vari><. eursus corr. e currus Harl. 
 
 currus cet. p et in secundo libro aliquos versus posuerat quos constat esse 
 
 detractos, quos invenimus eum perveneriuius ad locum de quo detracti sunt C. qui 
 rersiis ianique adeo . . . ferebar ad Aen. ii. 566 praebet. 1 dira Ilarl. 
 
 ■■ Danaum paenam E. Harl. poenas C. poenas Danaum Vulg. ' permetuens 
 
 B. * poenas C Harl. paenam E. " aspiciat L. ' Priamus Troia 
 
 C E. troia nianus B. Priamo ut Troia Paris, propria ut troico G. pro priam' 
 
 ' Tuccam et Varium: Suetonius, 41, 42. 
 
 * Hie cursus fuit : Aen. i. 534. 
 
 • aut ifjnibus, &e. : 2. 566. The following lines are not in the best MSS. of Vergil, 
 nor are tbey mentioned by Suetonius: Servius on Aen. 2. 566 says, 'post hunc 
 versum hi versus fuerunt qui a Tucca et Vario obliti sunt' (so Bergk). 
 
24 Servius. Vita Bernensis. 
 
 Dardanium totiens sudarit '^^ sanguine litus ? 
 Non ita. Namque etsi nullum memorabile nomen 
 Fominea in poena est, nee habet^ victoria laudem, 
 Extinxisse nefas tamen et sumpsisse merentis 
 Laudabor poenas, animumque explesse iuvabit 
 ■^Ultricis famam^y et eineres satiasse meorum.' 
 Talia iactabam et furiata mente ferebar^, 
 Cum mihi se non ante alias — 
 
 troia L. ... priamo aut troico H. propriam ut Troia M. propriam ut troi"", propriam 
 corr. e priamus, troico e troia IJarl. ^' sudarit C '. sudarat B. sudaret C- G. 
 
 L. II. M. E. Hurl. ^ nee habet ecvempl>Ha impressa. habet haec codd. 
 
 Thilo. y Ultricis famam B. G. Paris. L. H. M. K Rarl. ultricis famae C. 
 
 ultricis flammae Vidg. " ferebam Paris. 
 
 ^ Ultncis famam is ineaningleBS : the common reading ' ultricis flammae ' is again 
 questionable Latin, even if ' explere ' were ever used with the genitive, which is 
 very doubtful. Can the true reading be 'altricis famam'? 'To have satisfied the 
 glory of my country and the ashes of my loved ones ' ? If so, it is necessary to 
 suppose that a verse has fallen out after ' explesse iuvabit.' ' Altrix' is often used 
 in poetry as an epithet of the place in which a person was born. ' Satiasse eineres ' 
 for 'satis fecisse ' or 'satis dedisse eineribus' is surely not classical Latin ; but 
 it is a phrase which might conceivably be used by a clever imitator of Vergil who 
 wished in his own way to render the sense of ' sat patriae Priamoque datum.' 
 
 IV. 
 
 Life taken fkom the MSS. known as Beknenses 173 
 (saec. x), 167 (saec. ix-x). 
 
 Publius Verg-ilius Maro genere Mantuanus dignitate eques 
 Romanus, natus idibus Octobribus Cn. Pompeio M. Crasso con- 
 sulibus, ut primum se contulit E-omae^ studuit apud Epidium 
 oratorem cum Caesare Augusto, unde cum omnibus Mantuanis 
 agri auferrentur, quod Antonianis partibus favissent, huic solo ^ 
 concessit memoria condiscipulatus, ut et ipse poeta testatur in 
 Bucolicis dicendo Deus nohis haec otia fecit. In quibus ing'cnium 
 suum expertus est, favorem quoque Caesai'is emeruit, ac deinde 
 Georgica conscripsit et in his corroborato ingenio eius Aeueida 
 conscripsit, cui finem non potuit imponere raptus a fatis ; et ideo 
 inveniuntur apud eum versus non peracti, quibus non supervixit 
 ad replendum. Vixit annos Lii amicitia usus imperatoris 
 Augusti et aliorum complurium probatissimorum virorum. 
 
 ', ^ Roiiiae : sdo : so the MSS. 
 
ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF VERGIL IN 
 CONNECTION WITH HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 
 
 The imperial system, of which the foundations were laid by 
 Augustus, did not create the literature of the so-called Augustan 
 ag-e, or seriously modify its form, or influence it to any great 
 extent by patronage, but found it already existing, the genuine 
 and spontaneous product of the later years of the republic. The 
 men of letters on their side did not as a rule greet the advent 
 of the new political order with much satisfaction, or acquiesce 
 in the growing power of the Caesars as clients in that of their 
 patron, or servants in that of their master. Before Vergil and 
 Horace, the great writers of Italy had mostly attached them- 
 selves to the cause of the republic. The achievements of Julius 
 Caesar for the first time drew some of the foremost writers over 
 to the other side, and with some reason, for he had apparently 
 shewn, as none of the popular leaders had shewn before him, 
 that the new order of things was compatible not only with the 
 formation of a strong government, but also with tlie encourage- 
 ment of learning and letters. In the civil and foreign wars 
 which followed on the murder of Julius Caesar, Antonius dis- 
 credited himself completely by his failure in the Parthian cam- 
 paign of B.C. 36, and by his subsequent display of unpatriotic 
 and anti-national feeling. He was not the man to save the 
 Roman empire from its Eastern enemies or to encourage the 
 preservation of the nobler elements in the Roman character. 
 Thus Octavianus succeeded, but not without a great struggle, 
 to the position as well as to the name of his uncle. Italy, long 
 
2 6 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 torn with civil wars, had been a prey to confusion and distrac- 
 tion of which the existing- literature only gives us a faint 
 conception. 
 
 Under the government of Octavianus there was at least 
 a prospect of peace and immunity from the weary contentions 
 of rival factions. But the intimacy which grew up between 
 Octavianus and some of the great writers of his time did not 
 imply more than the relation which, in the Italy of this period, 
 often existed between a poor poet and his powerful friend in 
 public life. For as the men of nobler character among the 
 Roman aristocracy were mostly ambitious of achieving literary 
 success themselves, and were sometimes really successful in 
 achieving it ; as they had formed a high and manly ideal of 
 individual culture, not being content with mastering only one 
 accomplishment or branch of knowledge, but aiming at excel- 
 lence in literature and philosophy as well as in politics and the 
 art of war, so they looked as a rule with a kindly eye on the 
 men of talent or genius who, with less vt^ealth and social 
 resources than their own, were engaged in the great work of 
 improving the national literature. There were many such in 
 the last century and a-half of the republic, especially among the 
 eqiiiies or upper bourgeoisie of Italy and Rome; men whose 
 families, though wealthy enough to maintain a respectable posi- 
 tion, were not ennobled by office or aristocratic descent. The 
 names of Ennius and Lucilius, the friends of the Scipios and 
 of Laelius, occur at once in this connection, and the fact is 
 abundantly illustrated by other examples. Catullus is the friend 
 of the Metelli and of Manlius Torquatus, Varius Gallus Vergil and 
 Horace of Asinius Pollio, of Maecenas, and of Octavianus long 
 before he became princeps, Tibullus and Propertius of Messala. 
 If poor, as Vergil and Horace were, a man of letters might look 
 for substantial assistance from his friends in high place : assist- 
 ance which, in the then existing state of public opinion they 
 considered it only natural to offer, and which it brought no slur 
 on him to accept. In his comprehensive love of letters and 
 learning Octavianus shewed himself a worthy successor to Julius 
 Caesar, and the friendship which he extended to poets and 
 scholars was, so far as we can see, uninfluenced by party consider- 
 ations. This is notably so in the case of Horace, who was in his 
 
in Coiuitt^ion zuiik his Life and rinu's. 27 
 
 youth a iviniMican. and had fous^-ht on the side of the oljo-arehy 
 at Philijipi with Brutus and Cassius; indeed it is notorious that 
 the friendship of Augustus was not of his seeking", but was more 
 or less forced upon him by the Emperor, who, like Sulla, 
 was apprehensive that the task of celebrating his exploits 
 might chance to fall into incompetent hands. It is of course 
 true that Vergil and Horace, and still more Ovid, speak of the 
 princeps and the consolidation of the Roman power under him in 
 terms which, if rendered literally into modern English and 
 interpreted according to modern ways of thinking, savour of 
 flattery and exaggeration. But it must be remembered that 
 such words as tieus, dints, and divhiits, when applied to a man, 
 though displeasing to the saner feeling of the old-fashioned 
 Romans, conveyed much less to Italian ears than their English 
 equivalents do to our own. The word divinus is constantly used 
 in impassioned prose like that of Cicero as an epithet of extra- 
 ordinary men and great achievements ; nor, when applied to the 
 princejjs, although in this connection they carried with them, 
 in the Roman religious system, a definite religious association, 
 did deus and divus of necessity imply more than what lay at the 
 root of so much of the Greek and Roman religion, mere admira- 
 tion of commanding merit. The power which at length secured 
 peace to the distracted and tottering empire seemed to its mixed 
 population as divine as many others among the numerous objects 
 to which their worship had attached itself, and men of letters 
 followed the feeling of the people, less ignorantly, no doubt, yet 
 not without sincerity. For the successful cultivation of litera- 
 ture demands security of property, leisure, and an undisturbed 
 mind ; it is peace for which Lucretius prays in his immortal 
 prelude, peace which the authority of the prificrjjs was liegin- 
 ning, for the first time since the civil wars of Marius and Sulla, 
 to establish in Italy. It is probable that the despotic tendencies 
 involved in the division of power between the princeps and the 
 senate were but imperfectly realized by Augustus and Tiberius ; 
 indeed a strong effort was made by those illustrious men to 
 avoid anything which might bear the appearance of a regal or 
 uncitizenlike bearing. And the literary men who espoused the 
 cause of the Caesars were, in all likelihood, mainly concerned 
 about the change from constant civil war to a fair prospect of 
 
28 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 tranquillity, and from a worse to a better government of tlie 
 Roman empire. They did not foresee those literary results 
 which to us, to whom Roman history is a thing- of the past, seem 
 as melancholy as they were apparently inevitable. 
 
 I have said so much before proceeding to examine the life of 
 Vergil in detail in order to obviate a fallacy implied in a great 
 deal of current criticism, that the Augustan literature was the 
 artificial product of a despotic constitution, fostered by the 
 patronage of an imperial court. It was not yet time to say 
 et spes et ratio stud'wrum in Caesare tantum. As far as Vergil 
 is concerned it would almost be sufficient to refer to dates, which 
 shew that the poet was thirty-nine years old and had nearly 
 finished the Georgics when the victory of Actium put anything 
 like absolute power into the hands of Augustus. But a con- 
 tinuous examination of the facts of his life in relation to 
 current events will afford the best means of illustrating the 
 details and general bearing of the question. It will be seen that 
 in the years of agony, vindictive passion, confusion, and insecu- 
 rity which followed Pharsalia and Philippi, the voices of the 
 poets echo in living accents the natural feelings of their time, 
 and help us materially in realizing the inner movements of a 
 period of which the existing historical authorities give only 
 a superficial and fragmentary idea. This is the general and 
 the most interesting aspect of Vergil's life, but it must be added 
 that the details of the subject require fresh treatment. There 
 are several points which the most recent works have not fully 
 cleared up, but which may, I think, on a further examination 
 be elucidated at least with some degree of probability. The 
 following observations may, I hope, be not unacceptable as sug- 
 gesting solutions which I wish to be thoroughly sifted by com- 
 petent critics, and accepted or rejected as they deserve. And 
 first a few words on our authorities. 
 
 The life of Vergil attributed to Donatus has been well 
 edited, in its genuine or uninterpolated form, by Reifferscheid 
 and Hagcn. That it is in the main the work of Suetonius is 
 a theory held by both these scholars, by Ribbeck, who has gone 
 over this ground in his preface to the Teubnertext of Vergil, and 
 by Comparetti ; nor do I gather that Professor Sellar disputes 
 this conclusion. But Roth has hesitated to print this life in his 
 
/'// Connect ion with his Life and Times. 29 
 
 fra<:fTnents of Suetonius ; and I do noii know that any scholar 
 has, recently at least, taken the trouble to prove in detail an 
 impoi'tant proposition which, although completely supported by 
 the g-eneral impression left upon the reader by the style and 
 manner of the work, oug-ht certainly not to be accepted without 
 proof. That this memoir, or the great bulk of it, was written 
 by Suetonius is to my mind morally certain, and I will state 
 as briefly as possible the reasons which have led me to this 
 conclusion. 
 
 This is a case in which our chief reliance must be placed 
 upon internal evidence; yet there are certain probabilities about 
 it which, though they do not reach the force of direct external 
 evidence, go far to support the arguments drawn from the style, 
 language, and syntax of the work. Aelius Donatus prefixed to 
 his commentary on Terence a life admittedly taken from Sueto- 
 nius ; it is hardly conceivable that Suetonius, in his Lives of 
 the Poets, should have omitted Vergil ; it is not likely that if 
 he did write one, Donatus, when commenting on Vergil, would 
 go to any other source for his information ; for Suetonius was 
 the favourite authority for students of history and biography 
 in the fourth and fifth centuries a.d. I need do no more, in this 
 connection, than allude to the frequent use to which his writings 
 are put by Jerome. I should not, however, be justified in laying 
 much stress on these general presumptions were they not, to my 
 mind, strongly confirmed by considerations drawn from the 
 style, the arrangement, the language, and the syntax of the 
 work before us. The style is, in the main, the peculiar style 
 of Suetonius ; the Latin is the quiet, sober, terse, unafTected 
 and yet distinguished Latin which characterizes him among 
 other writers of his period, and separates him from the later 
 writers of the Ilisloria Augusta. The memoir starts in the 
 true Suetonian manner, in which the place of birth is expressed 
 by an adjective: P. Vergilius Mantjianus, like i/. Orljitias FupUlus 
 Beneventanus, Q. Itemn'tus Palaemon Vicetimis, Pacuvius Brun- 
 di sinus, P. Terenlius Kartliaginiensis, Cornelius Gallus Foroni- 
 liensis, Q. Horatins Flaccus Fenusi?ius. With regard to the 
 arrangement, I wish to draw particular attention to a pecu- 
 liarity of Suetonius which occurs also in the Life of Vergil, but 
 which I have not observed in any of the writers of the llistoria 
 
30 Essay on the Poetry of Vci'gil 
 
 Augusta. It is this, that the description of the person and 
 habits and character of his heroes almost always immediately 
 precedes his account of their studies and literary efforts. I have 
 noticed this arrangement in his lives of Julius, Augustus, Tibe- 
 rius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian ; though I must 
 admit that it is not observed in the short life of Terence. 
 
 Again, Suetonius is particular in giving where he can the 
 exact time at which a man lost his parents : annum agens xvi, 
 quadrimus, patrem aniisit, and the like. Just in this manner our 
 Life says of Vergil, parentes iam grandis aniisit. Another man- 
 nerism of Suetonius which our Life also exhibits is the constant 
 quotation of verses or lines of poetry to support or illustrate or 
 give point to his statements. 
 
 The general character of the syntax is undoubtedly Suetonian, 
 though it would perhaps be impossible to single out any one usage 
 which could not be paralleled from other writers of the same 
 period of Latin. It is far purer than that of the fourth century 
 A.D. The constant use of the conjunctions siquidem = since, 
 sed et = also, moreover, and of the perfect subjunctive after rit 
 fin 1 where a more classical writer would have used the im- 
 perfect — these are phenomena which it is easy to illustrate from 
 the Latin prose of the early second century and succeeding 
 periods; but it must be observed that both Suetonius and our 
 biographer are very fond of these usages. There is, how- 
 ever, an idiom occurring in this Life which calls for special 
 remark, as I have so far foimd it illustrated in Suetonius alone, 
 though approximations to it may be found in Tacitus ; I 
 mean the use of 7ion perinde without any explanatory clause. 
 Our Life, in speaking of Vergil's unfinished lines, says that 
 writers who tried to complete them ' non perinde valuerunt ob 
 difficultatem ;' 'did not succeed to their mind.' Now this 
 noticeable construction also occurs in Suetonius' Life of Terence ; 
 ' quos non perinde exprimeret in scriptis,' ' characters which 
 he did not represent as he would have liked ; ' Augustus, 80, 
 ' crure sinistro non perinde valebat,' ' he was not so strong in his 
 left leg as his right;' Tib. 52, ' ne mortuo quidem perinde 
 adfectus est,' ' so much moved as he should have been ;' Galba, 
 13, 'quare adventus eius non perinde gratus fuit,' 'so welcome 
 as was expected.' The last three instances I owe to Ritschl's 
 
/;/ Connection witJi his: Life and Times. 31 
 
 commentary on the Life of Terence, the iiict which I wish to 
 lay stress u])on is that they are all drawn from Suetonius. 
 
 Turning to the language, we find in our Life of Vergil several 
 words which are more or less favourites with Suetonius. I have 
 noticed aqu'dus of complexion (Aug. 79, ' inter aquilum candi- 
 dumque') ; secessus with the genitive of the place to which retreat 
 is made, secessus Campaniae^ for (lie quiet of Campania ; fonnare 
 of putting a composition into its first shape; auxpicari with the 
 accusative in the sense of to enter upon, begin ; liberalitates in the 
 sense of p?-esents, pronus of a character inclined to passionate 
 excesSj genitnra for horoscope, novissime in tlie numerical sense 
 of last in an enumeration. These and similar points I have 
 touched upon in the commentary prefixed to this essay. The 
 converging force of the arguments I have dwelt on tends, 
 I think, to prove almost irrefragably that our memoir is the 
 work of Suetonius : for it must be remembered that the 
 numerous marks of the Suetonian style occur in the space 
 of only a few pages. There are indeed one or two passages 
 which may be due either to Donatus himself or to some other 
 hand, but this fact does not affect the general style and character 
 of the work. 
 
 Besides this Life^ which was prefixed to Donatus' commentary 
 on Vergil, there is a far shorter one which stands at the begin- 
 ning of the commentary of Servius. I am not sure that it has 
 been observed, as I think it ought to be, that this Life, with the 
 exception of one or two not very important statements, is a lame 
 abridgement of the Life attributed to Donatus, and need hardly 
 therefore be considered as an independent authority. For a 
 detailed substantiation of this statement I must refer to the 
 notes appended to this Life, p. 21. 
 
 The fragment of a memoir attributed to Valerius Probus, 
 though containing one gross historical error, is, as far as it goes, 
 so good, that we can only wish that more of it had survived. 
 As far as I can judge, I should be inclined to conjecture that this 
 work was compiled independently from the same materials as 
 those used by Suetonius. It will be seen from the notes (p. 7) 
 that the text as we have it is unsound. 
 
 In the main, then, it would appear that we must rely for our 
 knowledge of Vergil's life on his biogrjiphy by Suetonius, 
 
32 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 together with such light as we can obtain from his poems them- 
 selves, from the early commentators on them, and from the 
 historians of the period. Suetonius was a conscientious collector 
 of facts, who was careful to draw upon the best available sources 
 and to sift his evidence with sense and discernment. In the 
 case of Vergil he probably drew upon sources reaching back 
 to the time of the poet himself. Memoirs of Vergil were 
 written by the poet Varius and by other friends, one of whom 
 was Melissus, a freedman of Maecenas. A fragment of corre- 
 spondence, no doubt taken directly or indirectly from the same 
 sources, is preserved by Macrobius ; and a few anecdotes are 
 found in Seneca and in Aulus Gellius. Varius is the authority 
 for the statement, which appears both in Quintilian and Suetonius, 
 that Vergil was in the habit of writing a very few verses every 
 day ; and Suetonius, though he does not mention Varius' name 
 in this connection, may have drawn upon his memoir for more 
 facts than this, for nothing is commoner with classical writers 
 than to borrow without naming their sources. In one case he 
 acknowledges his debt to Melissus, in another to Asconius, who 
 in the early part of the first century wrote a work in answer 
 to the attacks of Vergil's detractors. Ribbeck infers, I think 
 somewhat too hastily, that the work of Asconius was the main 
 authority upon which the memoir of Suetonius is based. It 
 seems to me rather to suggest a compendium carefully put 
 too-ether from several sources. 
 
 It is the more important to dwell upon the paramount autho- 
 rity of the memoir by Suetonius, as a vague and false tradition 
 of Vergil's life was current even in well-informed literary circles 
 by the end of the first century a.d. It is surprising to find 
 Martial (8. 56) giving a wholly inaccurate summary of the main 
 facts, representing for instance Maecenas, not Augustus, as re- 
 storing Vergil to his farm, and the Aeneid as undertaken imme- 
 diately after the Culex. Lucan and Statius ^, again, appear to have 
 thought that the Culex was written in Vergil's twenty-seventh 
 year, though speaking of it as his first attempt in the way of 
 
 ' Suetonius, Vita Lucani : ' ut praefatione quadam aetatem et initia sua cum 
 Vergilio comparans ausus sit dicere Et quantum mihi rcstat Ad Calicem,^ i.e. though 
 only twenty-foiur I have still some time left before I am as old as Vergil was 
 \^■hen he wrote the Culex : Statius Silvae, i praef., 2. 7 73. 
 
/// Connection ivitli his Life and Times. 33 
 
 poetry; an impossible combination, as it is abuntlantly cl(\ir 
 that by his twenty-seventh year, if not before, Verg-il h:ul bcg-uu 
 his Eclogues, in which he almost attained the full ripeness of his 
 style. Here the testimony of Suetonius, that the Cnlex was 
 written in his seventeenth year, is far more consonant to the 
 prol)abilities of the case. 
 
 Having thus attempted to clear the ground, I will go on to con- 
 sider the life of Vergil continuously in relation to his poems, dwel- 
 ling chiefly upon such points as seem to require fresh elucidation. 
 
 Andes, the birthplace of the poet, is said in our text of Probus 
 to have been thirty Roman miles distant from Mantua ; a state- 
 ment which, though accepted by Mommsen in his account of 
 Mantua in the fifth volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum, I cannot 
 but regard as mistaken, if the MS. tradition be correct. For 
 it is hard to see how Vergil could say of himself in his own 
 epitaph Mantua me gemnt, how Suetonius could call him Man- 
 tua juiis and say that Andes his birthplace was not far from 
 Mantua, if he had really been born some seventeen English 
 miles away: why indeed, in this case, should he have been 
 a citizen of Mantua at all ? Mantua had only a small territory, 
 and any one born at such a distance from it would probably have 
 become a citizen either of Cremona, or Brixia, or Verona, or 
 Vicetia, or Patavium. The tradition which identifies Andes with 
 Pietole, a village two or three miles from ^lantua, seems to be 
 nearer the truth than the statement, if statement it be, of Probus. 
 
 The rustic character of Vergil's early surroundings was noticed 
 by his detractors in antiquity : Veneto rnsticis parentibus nato, 
 inter silvas etfrutices educfo, says the critic in Macrobius, 5. 2. i. 
 
 His father is said to have raised himself from the position 
 of a', hired servant to tlfet of his master's son-in-law, and to 
 have increased his substance by buying up tracts of forest-land 
 and by keeping bees. Remembering that Vergil was born in 
 B.C. 70, we may conjecture that his father took advantage of the 
 confusion of the period of the Sullan proscriptions to make cheap 
 purchases of land. Doubtless there is many a reminiscence 
 of Vergil's early years in the Georgics, where his love of the 
 woods in which he must have wandered as a boy meets us on 
 every page. His mother's name, Magia, has probably much to 
 do with the middle-age fable which made the poet into a 
 
 D 
 
34 Essay on the Poch-y of Vergil 
 
 mag'ician. How lie came into possession of the little farm 
 of which we hear so much in the Eclogues there is nothing* 
 to shew. Vergil received the rudiments of his education in 
 the neighbouring city of Cremona, already the mother of two 
 poets, Furius Bibaculus who was nearly thirty years Vergil's 
 senior, and his much nearer contemporary Quintilius Varus, the 
 intimate friend both of himself and of Horace. But Vergil's 
 father, like Horace^s, though born in a humble station, seems 
 to have had the honourable ambition of securing for his son the 
 best education then attainable, for in his fifteenth year the boy 
 was taken to Milan, and soon after (in his seventeenth year) 
 to Rome. His genius, unlike that of Lucretius and Catullus, 
 who died respectively at the ages of fortj^-one and of thirty, 
 was not quickly developed. Still there is little doubt that he 
 began to write poetry when quite a boy. His earliest known 
 production is a couplet on a robber named Ballista (Suetonius, 1 7}. 
 The collection which commonly goes by the unintelligible name 
 catalecton, has been, I think rightly, re-named by Bergk and 
 linger {Neue Jahrbucher, 1876, p. 429) catalepton (ra Kara keiTTov, 
 or minor poems). Bergk relied on MS. evidence and the general 
 probabilities of the case ; but linger has supplemented his argu- 
 ments by two passages from the Greek Life of Aratus, in which 
 the phrase to. Kara X^tttov is twice used, and apparently in this 
 sense. This collection contains several pieces which shew a close 
 study and imitation of Catullus, and this is just what might be 
 expected of Vergil's boyhood. Whoever is the author of these 
 poems, they undoubtedly belong to different periods. The seventh, 
 if by Vergil, must have been written in his seventeenth year 
 or thereabouts (b.c. ^^) : the tenth refers to his ejection from his 
 farm, and must therefore belong to the year 41. The date and 
 the subject of the twelfth have been matter of much doubt. 
 The subject of the poem is a prince who is represented as 
 having convulsed the great world with war, having crushed the 
 kings and peoples of Asia, and as threatening Rome herself 
 with destruction, when suddenly, driven from his country by 
 exile, he falls headlong from his eminence. I have recently 
 fallen upon a hypothesis with regard to this piece which is, so far 
 as I am aware, a new one, and requires therefore to be sub- 
 stantiated in detail. The words of the poem are : — 
 
/// Councciion iLutJi /lis Life and Ti»ics. 35 
 
 Aspice qiiein vhHcIo subnixiim gloria regno 
 
 Altiiis et caeli sedibus extulerat ; 
 Terrarum hie hello magnum concusserat orbem. 
 
 Hie reges Asiae fregerat, hie populos, 
 Hie grave servitium tibi iam, tibi, Roma, feiebat. 
 
 Cetera namque viri cuspiiie conciderant, 
 Cum subito in medio rerum certamine praeceps 
 
 Corruit, e patria pulsus in exilium. 
 Tale deae numen, tali niortalia ritu 
 
 Fallax moniento temporis hora tulit. 
 
 Scholars liavc thou^'ht of Mithradates and Pompeius Mag^nus : 
 but it is impossible with any semblance of probability to refer 
 this poem to either of them. For the INIithradatic war was in 
 Verg-il's time a thing* of the past, and Pompeius Mng-nus could 
 never, not even in his third consulship, have been described as 
 raised on hig'h in firmly established royalty. Nor, ag-ain, were 
 either Mithradates or Pompeius banished, in the strict sense 
 of the word, from their countr3\ There is however a prince 
 to whom, supposing the poem to have been written in Vergil's 
 time at all, it will I think exactly apply in all particulars; 
 I mean Phraates kingp of Parthia. This monarch, after ascending 
 the throne in 37 B.C. and signalizing his accession by murders 
 and cruelties committed upon his own brothers, thus alienating 
 many, nobles (and among them Monaeses) from his cause, proved 
 a formidable enemy to the Romans. In 36 B.C. he defeated 
 Caecilius Statianus on the Euphrates, destroyed his army, and 
 took prisoner Polemo king of Pontus. Soon afterwards he 
 compelled Antonius to retreat into Armenia with heavy losses, 
 which were before long disastrously increased by the winter march 
 to the frontier. His successes over the Romans made Phraates 
 more haughty and overbearing, so that as early as ^^ B.C. the 
 Medes are described as discontented with him for failing to 
 give them their due share of the spoil. 
 
 In 34 B.C. Armenia was occupied by the Romans in spite of the 
 opposition of Artaxias son of Artavasdes, who was conquered in 
 this year V)y the INIedes. In the following year, 33, Antonius again 
 advanced as far as the Araxes, formed an alliance with Media, 
 and made over Lesser Armenia to Polemo. But the tide of 
 Roman success was checked by the withdrawal of the troops 
 of Antonius, which were now required to help their general 
 in the impending civil war. The Medes were at once defeated 
 
 D 2 
 
36 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 and their king- taken prisoner by Phraates, and thus, as Dio 
 says, Armenia and Media cmcaXovro, were destroyed, or (perhaps) 
 lost to the Romans. 
 
 Phraates was now at the heig-ht of his power ; but his 
 insolence and cruelty became unbearable. An insurrection 
 headed by Tiridates drove him from his throne and country, 
 to which he was afterwards again restored by the help of the 
 Scythians^. 
 
 Now, supposing our poem to have been written just after the 
 Parthian revolution and the banishment of Phraates, we shall 
 find every allusion in it cleared up. Phraates had been raised 
 to heaven on the throne of the Arsacidae ; he had shaken the 
 world with war ; he had taken prisoner, first Polemo king- of 
 Pontus, and then the king's of Media and Armenia. I take this 
 to be the meaning* of /lic reges Asiae fregerat, hie populos. He 
 was threatening" Rome herself; the Parthians, as Horace says, 
 were ready to fall upon Latium ; but in the midst of the world- 
 wide conflict {in medio rerum certamine^ he falls and is driven 
 suddenly into exile : cum multa crudeliter consnleret^ says Justin, 
 in exilinm a ])02)ulo sno pelliiur. 
 
 I have therefore little hesitation in assigning this poem to the 
 period immediately following the exile of Phraates, '3^'^^ or 32 B.C. 
 It thus probably synchronizes roughly with Horace's seventh 
 epode, sed ut seeundam votci Parthorum sua Urbs haee jieriret 
 dextera, and the twenty-sixth ode of the first book, quis suh Arcto 
 Rex gelidae metuatur orae, &c. In the last line but one, tale deae 
 numen, &c., who is dea ? No doubt either Nemesis or Fortuna ; 
 but probably, I think, the latter : comp. Tibullus, 2. 5. 46, 
 tandem ad Troianos diva superba venit: at any rate, if this 
 interpretation be the true one^ the poem will in its ideas be 
 a companion-piece to the thirty-fifth ode of Horace's first book, 
 diva gratum quae regis Antium. For in this ode there is 
 also, I think, an allusion to the fortunes of Phraates. At 
 least it is difficult to suggest a more suitable reference for the 
 lines {te) regumque matres barbarorum et Piapurei metuunt tyranni, 
 hmirioso ne pede proruas Stautem colujunam, neu pojndus frequens 
 Ad arma cessantes, ad arma Concilet, imperiitmque frangat. Beges 
 barbarorum may well be the Eastern princes whom Phraates slew 
 
 ' Dio, 49. 23 foil., 51. 18; Justin, 42. 5. 
 
/;/ Connection icitk /lis Life and Ti?ncs. 37 
 
 or imprisoned : purpnrei ti/rann'i may mean Pliraates himself. 
 Horgce mentions the Daeians and the Scythians in the same 
 context. Now the Daeians were helping Antonins, and the 
 Scythians Phraates, in 32-31 B.C., and the occurrence of their 
 names in this connection is therefore in favour of my hypo- 
 tl\esis, which I now leave to the consideration and criticism 
 of scholars. 
 
 Let us now return to Ver<^il, whom we left a boy of sixteen 
 at Rome, beg-inuing, after the fashion of his time, the study 
 of rhetoric. Like Propertius and Ovid, he had been set by his 
 father to study law, for we hear of his conducting one case 
 in a court of law, and one only. But although Vergil studied 
 rhetoric under the best professors, among them Epidius the 
 master of both Antonius and Octavianus, he made little or no 
 progress in the art. The notion of the Berne biograph}' (see 
 p. 24) that Octavianus was his fellow-student in the school of 
 Epidius, though not decidedly rejected (if I understand him 
 rightly) by Ilibbeck, must surely be regarded as a natural fiction 
 of later tradition ; for Octavianus was at this time nine years 
 old. Augustus, it is true, is said to have recited a funeral speech 
 over his mother's grave when a boy of twelve : but to imagine 
 him studying rhetoric at nine would be to make too much even 
 of his precocious talent. 
 
 From rhetoric Vergil, like many other distinguished Romans, 
 proceeded in the ordinary course to philosophy, for which he 
 never lost his taste till the end of his life. His master was 
 Siron, a celebrated Epicurean, under the influence of whose 
 teaching Vergil remained for many years, almost, we may con- 
 jecture, up to the time when the Georgics were published. - He 
 had probably given up Epicureanism for a form of Platonism 
 by the time when he wrote the sixth Aeneid ; but the Eclogues 
 and Georgics shew marked traces of its influence. The boy 
 threw himself into his new study with all the ardour of youthful 
 hope, and naturally, for the vision of a life of moral happiness, 
 marred neither by entanglement from without nor passion nor 
 superstition from within, long exercised a powerful fascination 
 on many of the loftier minds in antiquity j Epicureanism was 
 not a creed only, but a life. If we may take the seventh poem 
 of the (caret Ktinov as expressing the poet's real feeling at this 
 
38 Essay on ike Poetry of Vergil 
 
 time, it is clear that he looked to philosophy to deliver hiin 
 from pedantry and rhetoric, and to purify such poetry as he 
 intended to write in future ; for he did not intend to write 
 much. The sweet Muses are bidden to depart, and wnth them 
 youthful love and the beautiful comrades of his boyhood. As 
 for the great masters of learning- as it was then understood, 
 Aelius Stilo and Terentius Yarro, they are a tribe of pedants 
 soaking- in fat, the tinkling- cymbals of the idle class-room 
 {scholast'icoTum natlo madens ping 2d ; inmiis cymbalon iuventutis). 
 But Verg-il probably, if we may judge by the traces of anti- 
 quarian study in the Aeneid, learned in after years to form a 
 very different opinion of Roman scholarship. 
 
 According to Suetonius, Vergil wrote the Calex at the age 
 of sixteen, that is, just at the time at which we have now 
 arrived. The literary tradition preserved by Lucan, Statins and 
 Martial points to this poem as his first serious and elaborate 
 work. We still possess a long and dreary hexameter poem 
 called Calex, ending with the two lines quoted as its conclusion 
 by Suetonius. Of this piece it is, with our present data, difficult 
 if not impossible to decide whether it is as a whole or in part 
 the work of Vergil. Its length would correspond with what 
 might be expected in a boy^s first elaborate effort ; it contains 
 reminiscences of Lucretius, who had died two years before 
 Vergil's Cidex was written ; it contains also passages of rhe- 
 torical commonplace, the subjects of wdiich resemble those of 
 some of Vergil's later work, but of which it is hard to say 
 whether they are first drafts or later imitations. The sub- 
 ject is trivial and the handling bad, full of wordy rhetoric 
 and weak puerile exaggeration. In these facts there is nothing 
 to determine whether the poem in its entirety is the genuine 
 production of Vergil, or his genuine production interpolated, 
 or altogether a forgery. 
 
 We are now at a turning-point in Vergil's life. In his boy- 
 hood, and before his introduction to the study of philosophy, 
 he had in all probability wa'itten occasional pieces of lyric and 
 lampoon in the style of Catullus. The literary career of Catullus 
 more than covered, in point of time, the years of Vergil's early 
 boyhood, and nothing is more natural than that the susceptible 
 young poet should have been deeply influenced by the style 
 
in Connection ivith his Life and Times. 39 
 
 of liis illustrious elder contemporary. But partly the <i-rowtU 
 of Verfril's own mind, partly the study of philosophy, partly his 
 respect for Lucretius, for lielvius Cinna the learned and admired 
 of Catullus \ for Varius the epic and Asinius Pollio the tragic 
 poet, may have g-ivon a more serious turn to his aspirations. 
 We are told (and his own language hears out the notion) that 
 hefore writing the I'xlogues he attempted a poem on the history 
 of Rome, but found the subject little to his liking. Probably 
 the years of his early manhood were spent in study rather than 
 in production ; but by his twenty-sixth or twenty-seventh year 
 he appears as the originator of an elaborate kind of poetry 
 altogether new in Latin literature. 
 
 So much really excellent criticism of all kinds has been 
 brought to bear upon the Eclogues that I only propose to touch 
 upon a few historical questions which seem still to admit of 
 a more satisfactory treatment than they have yet received. The 
 third Eclogue speaks of Asinius Pollio as favouring Vergil 
 and encouraging his studies in pastoral poetry; and Asinius 
 Pollio was appointed leyatus in Gallia Cisalpina in the year 43. 
 It is possible then that this Eclogue was written not later than 
 this year, the twenty-seventh of Vergil's age : though it must be 
 admitted that Pollio's appointment cannot be taken as a decisive 
 landmark. The first great difficulty that occurs is with regard 
 to the Daphnis, or fifth Eclogue, which in Suetonius' opinion 
 was Vergil's tribute of affection to his brother Flaccus, but 
 which others among the ancient interpreters of the poem referred 
 to Julius Caesar. I confess that, in spite of Ribbeck's repu- 
 diation of this idea, it still appears to me, as I am glad to see 
 that it does to Mr. Sellar, deserving of serious attention. Caesar, 
 who had been patron of Gallia Transpadana since 68 B.C., had in 
 the year 49 conferred the Roman citizenship on its inhabitants, 
 thereby attaching the whole region to his cause, and among them 
 very probably the family of Vergil. In any case there seems no 
 doubt that Vergil's attachment to the cause of Caesar, like that 
 of Varius and unlike that of Horace^ was lifelong and heartfelt. 
 
 The Roman world was shaken as by an earthquake at the 
 assassination of the great dictator ; what Vergil felt is clearly 
 
 ' Kiesslin<j, in the Commentationes Philologicae in honour of Mouinisen, 
 makes it probable that Helviuw Cinna w.as a native of Brixia (p. 354). 
 
40 Essay on tJie Poetry of Vergil 
 
 shewn by the conclusion of the first Georgic; and the Daphnis 
 is conceived on a broader and loftier scale than might be ex- 
 pected in a poem intended only to enshrine a private g-rief. 
 Caesar was formally recognized as dlvus and an object of 
 public worship in the year 43 B.C., but the multitude at Rome 
 had by a spontaneous act begun to venerate him in this way 
 almost immediately after his funeral. Suetonius, lul. 88, says, 
 hi deorum numerum relatus est non ore modo decernentium sed. et 
 op'inione vulgi. Nothing therefore would be more natural than 
 that Vergil, already attached on public grounds to his cause, 
 should catch the popular feeling and embody it after his fashion 
 in an allegorical poem. The grandeur and elevation of the 
 language of this Eclogue would in every way suit so great a sub- 
 ject; and there are two minor details on which, though not 
 wishing to lay much stress upon them, I cannot but dwell for 
 a moment, for a little light in such a matter is better than none. 
 In Suetonius' Life of Julius Caesar there are two fancies men- 
 tioned which appear in the fifth Eclogue. One is, that on the 
 night before his assassination Caesar, dreamed that he was 
 soaring above the clouds and touching the right hand of Jupiter 
 himself. The reader is irresistibly reminded of Vergil's can- 
 didiis insiietum miratur limen Olf/mpi Snh jjedibusque videf nuhes ei 
 sidera Daphnis: in the sheen of his divinity he looks for the 
 first time on the threshold of heaven and sees the clouds and 
 stars beneath his feet : — 
 
 ' Where the deep tr.ansported mind may soar 
 Above the wheeling poles, and at Heaven's door 
 Look in and see each blissful deity 
 How he before the thunderous throne doth lie.' 
 
 The other has been noticed by Spohn and subsequent com- 
 mentators — it was said that a number of horses which Caesar 
 had consecrated and set free in the neighbourhood of the 
 Rubicon, for some days before his murder shed floods of tears 
 and refused to touch any food. Non ulli pastos ill'is egere d'lchns 
 Friglda Daphn'i boves ad jlumina ; nulla nee amnem Lihavit (fiad- 
 riipes nee (jram'm'is attigit herham. Nor ought it to be forgotten 
 that the words Dapjhnis thiasos indiieere BaccJu {jnstifuif) (Eel. 
 5. 29) are ex[)lained by Servius as alluding to new rites ia 
 honour of Liber introduced by Julius Caesar. 
 
in Connection loith his Life and 7 inns. 41 
 
 I now pass on to the year 41 B.C., the time of war and confis- 
 cation, when the territory of Cremona and part also of that 
 of Mantua were parcelled out by the triumvirs among* their 
 veterans. The ill-fortune of Mantua hroui^^ht with it a bad time 
 for the poet and his family, who were expelled from their estate 
 and fled for refuge to the villa of Siron, VergiPs master in the 
 Epicurean philosophy. In a touching little poem, now placed tenth 
 among the Kara Actito';', Vergil commits himself and those whom 
 he loveJ, but especially, as he says, his father, to the little vilhi. 
 
 The times were full of discord and dismay, of which only 
 a few faint echoes survive in the Eclogues and in the anonymous 
 poems called the Dirae, which must evidently be assigned to this 
 period. At the end of the year 41 war again broke out between 
 Octavianus and Lucius Antonius : Asinius Pollio, VergiFs 
 friend, who was allied with the latter, was removed from his 
 position of legatus in Cisalpine Gaul, and Alfenus Varus was put 
 in his place. Whether this was the Varus who had been Vergil's 
 fellow-student is not certain ; however this may be, verses 
 addressed to him by Vergil and interceding for Mantua are 
 mentioned in the ninth Eclogue. This poem purports to be 
 a dialogue between Lycidas and Moeris about the dispossession 
 of Menalcas, who (as Quintilian, probably drawing upon earlier 
 commentators, assures us) is doiibtless Vergil himself. They 
 complain that his songs have had no power to secure him in the 
 possession of his estate ; Lycidas and Moeris too could sing, 
 Lycidas not as an inspired bard, but as a writer of verses ; but 
 now they are too sad to sing ; Menalcas their poet has been 
 robbed of his home and nearly slain. Whether Lycidas and 
 Moeris represent friends of Vergil, or whether they are simply 
 personifications of his various feelings, it is impossible to say ; 
 the general scope of the poem is, however, clear enough through 
 the mist of allegory. Mantua has been sacrificed in spite of 
 Vergil's intercession ; Vergil has been ejected with violence 
 from his farm in spite of his achievements as a poet. The first 
 Eclogue represents Tityrus, that is Vergil, reinstated in the 
 possession of his farm by the favour of Octavianus, and in a 
 rapture of gratitude and veneration towards the ' god ' who has 
 restored him. 
 
 In this short account of the transactions alluded to in the 
 
 X 
 
42 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 ninth and first Eclogues I have, as will be observed, assumed 
 that Vergil was only once ejected from his farm and once 
 restored to it. As the current theory on the matter, accepted 
 as far as I know by all scholars, is that Vergil was twice ejected, 
 once before he wrote the first Eclogue, and then again before 
 he wrote the ninth, I must ask for the indulgence of my readers 
 if I go into the question in some detail. 
 
 The first Eclogue represents Vergil as restored to the posses- 
 sion of his estate; the ninth complains of his violent expulsion 
 from it. Servius and (I think) all modern critics explain this fact 
 by saying that after the poet had been restored by Octavianus 
 (Eel. 1 ) he was again expelled (Eel. 9), and afterwards, at some 
 time not mentioned, again reinstated. 
 
 I am disposed to think that the notion of a double ejection 
 rests on no sufficient evidence. As far as I know, the only good 
 authorities which support it are Servius on the first Eclogue, 
 and other commentators [cdi'i) whom he quotes on the ninth. 
 Now the two Eclogues themselves, it must be observed, lend 
 no real support to the hypothesis, but rather the reverse. In 
 the ninth Vergil says, ' That has happened which we never 
 thought possible ; a stranger has turned Menaleas out of his 
 farm.' How could it appear impossible, if it had happened once 
 already, and only a few months before ? The poem proceeds : 
 ' " I had heard a rumour that Menaleas' songs had kept his 
 property safe." " Yes, and it was a mere rumour ; for songs 
 go for nothing amid the din of arms." ' These words are gene- 
 rally taken as implying that Vergil, after his estate had been 
 given back to him by Octavianus, had been again driven out ; 
 all that they need mean is that he had hoped at one time 
 to retain his farm, but that it had after all been taken away. 
 It may well be that when the first order came for the confis- 
 cation of the Mantuan territory, Vergil* made interest with 
 Pollio for at least the temporary preservation of it ; hence the 
 rumour alluded to. Had Vergil actually gone to Rome and 
 returned with an order from Octavianus for its restoration, 
 is it conceivable that there should not be some distinct allusion 
 in the poem to so important a fact ? Yet the only allusion 
 to Octavianus is contained in the lines, Ecce Bionaei processH 
 Caesarh astrum, Asfriim quo segefes gcniderent fnigilus et qvo 
 
/// Con need 0)1 loith his Life and Times. 43 
 
 Diicerel npricia in coUibn^s nva cuiorem ; the tfuo interpiclatiori 
 of which must surely be, 'The star of Caesar has appeared, under 
 which the fields oi'ff/if to he rejoiciug in their fruits and the hill- 
 vineyards in their grapes.' It is the complaint of the fifth 
 Eclogue and the first Georgie, that the overthrow of Caesar's 
 power has broug-ht in its train the ruin of tillag'c. To my mind 
 these lines imply no more than that Vergil has yet some faint 
 ho]ie in the generosity of Octavianus. 
 
 Turning to the ancient commentators, we find that Pro1)us, 
 •whose account of this matter is, as Mommsen has seen, clearer 
 and more reasonable than that of Servius, says that Octavianus 
 ordered the territory of ISfantua to be confiscated in case that 
 of Cremona were not sufficient ; that Vergil thus lost his estate, 
 but had it restored on being introduced to Octavianus by Cor- 
 nelius Gallus ; that the veterans were so irritated at this that 
 Vergil was nearly killed by the primipilaris Milienius Toro ; 
 that the Eclogues were not published in the order in which they 
 were written, for the ninth, a complaint of injury, ought to be 
 placed before the first, which is an expression of gratitude for 
 the redress of the injury. It follows from this that Probus, 
 who seems to have followed the same sources of information 
 as Suetonius, regarded the first Eclogue as referring to the final 
 restoration of Vergil to his estate, subsequent to the act of 
 violence of which complaint is made in the ninth. 
 
 Neither Suetonius' Life of Vergil nor the verses of Focas make 
 any mention of a double ejection. But Servius on the first 
 Eclogue, in explaining the relation of the ninth Eclogue to the 
 first, says that alter the first Eclogue was written Vergil went 
 back to his estate ; was then almost killed, not by Milienius 
 Toro, but by one Arrius, saved himself by leaping into the 
 Mincio, and afterwards (when does not appear) had his estate 
 again restored by Octavianus. The ninth Eclogue Servius places 
 after the first, and so do 'others' whom he quotes, who however 
 give a totally different account of the transaction. According 
 to them, Vergil, after obtaining iuimunHas agrornm from Octa- 
 vianus, fell into a dispute with his neighbour about his 
 boundaries; a neighbour named Clodius threatened to kill him 
 and pursued him with a drawn sword, but Vergil escaped into 
 a charcoal-burner's shop. 
 
44 Essay on ike Poetry of Vergil 
 
 I much doubt whether it is worth while attempting", as 
 E/ibbeck does^ to weave these different accounts into a consistent 
 story. It is clear that, as is natural in such a case, different 
 versions of the facts must have existed in Servius' time, and 
 very probably much earlier ; the question is, what does the best 
 evidence, that of the Eclogues themselves, warrant us in infer- 
 ring? The commentators were evidently somewhat puzzled 
 by the fact of the ninth Eclogue coming- after the first. The 
 difficulty is noticed by Probus, who accounts for it in a rational 
 way: but I suspect that Servius and the authorities whom 
 he quotes, misled by the order in which the Eclogues stand, 
 arranged the facts so as to put the ninth chronologically subse- 
 quent to the first. I believe that Probus was right in supposing 
 the ninth to have been written first, and the first to refer to the 
 final restitution of Vergil's estate. This supposition is not 
 contradicted by the mention of Varus in the ninth Eclogue, 
 supposing him, as we must suppose, to be the Alfenus Varus who 
 had succeeded Pollio as legatus in Cisalpine Gaul. Eor Suetonius 
 expressly says that it was this Varus, with Asinius Pollio and 
 Gallus, whose influence secured to Vergil the possession of his 
 estate. In other words, the entreaties addressed to Varus in the 
 ninth Eclogue were successful, Varus not caring to pursue his 
 political differences with Pollio so far as to injure Pollio's friend. 
 
 These events led to the commencement of Vergil's nearer 
 acquaintance with Maecenas. Here the testimony of Suetonius 
 is clear and simple ; Maecenas, he says, had assisted Vergil when 
 little known to him against the violence of a veteran soldier 
 who had almost killed him in a quarrel about his land. How 
 far more precise and convincing is this than the statement 
 of MartiaP, that Maecenas restored his farm to Vergil: a fact 
 completely disproved, if by nothing else, by the internal 
 evidence which the Eclogues themselves supply. 
 
 No doubt it would require strong interest to induce Octa- 
 vianus to restore Vergil's land. Octavianus, who was seven 
 years younger than Vergil, probably knew little or nothing 
 
 ' 8. 56. 7 : 'lugera perdidevat miserae vicina Creinonae 
 Flebat et abductas Titynis aeger oves ; 
 Ri.sit Tusciis eques, paupertatemque malignam 
 Reppiilit, et celeri iussit abire fiiga.' 
 
/// Connection i^'ilh his Life and Times. 45 
 
 of him at this time, and according- to both Dio and A])|)iaii 
 he was unwilling" enough to g-ivc any oflence to the veterans 
 by restoring conliseated estates. Dio mentions however that 
 he was at length forced by the general outcry to exempt the 
 lands of senators, the dowries of married women, and those 
 estates which were too small for more than one man to culti- 
 vate; but even these he was again forced, almost at the peril 
 of his life, to restore to the soldiers. These and other expres- 
 sions in Dio and Appian would fit Vergil's case, however we 
 conceive it. But I doubt whether the evidence afforded by the 
 Eclogues themselves and by Suetonius (and the other evidence 
 we have seen to be confused and iuconsistent) warrants our 
 assuming- more than this ; that Vcrg-il w-as ejected with violence 
 and at the peril of his life from his farm, after having been 
 imder the impression that he was to keep it ; that in his trouble 
 he was assisted by JNIaecenas ; that he addressed Alfenus Varus 
 on the subject in the ninth Eclogue, and pi'obably also in plain 
 prose ; that he then went to Rome, where, backed by the intlu- 
 ence of Varus and Pollio and Gallus, he obtained from Octa- 
 vianus the restitution of his estate. 
 
 The violence offered to Vergil, mentioned both in the ninth 
 Eclogue and in the memoirs of Probus and Suetonius, is ex- 
 plained by Probus in his commentary as due to the irritation 
 felt by the veterans at the restitution of the farm ; Suetonius 
 speaks generally of a quarrel in which Vergil was roughly 
 handled. But there is nothing in all this to shew that the 
 ninth Eclogue was written subsequently to the first. Vergil 
 may have suffered violence, as he says in the ninth Eclogue, 
 on his ejection ; he may have suffered it again on his restitu- 
 tion ; but this does not prove that he made two journeys 
 to Rome, or was twice restored by Octavianus. 
 
 I see no reason for supposing that Vergil was not restored 
 to his own farm in the neighbourhood of Mantua, though, 
 as he was afterwards fond of living in Campania, it is probable 
 enough that he had a country house near Naples, perhaps given 
 him, as the Sabine farm was to Horace, by one of his powerful 
 friends. 
 
 Propertius and Tibulius suflered in these confiscations as well 
 as Vergil (Prop. 5. i. 125 foil., Tibull. 4. i. 183). Propertius 
 
46 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 says that not long after this event i^mox) he took his toga viriVis : 
 supposing him to have been fourteen at the time, his birth 
 should be placed about ^^ B.C., and not in 49 or thereabouts, 
 as Teuffel suggests in his Histor}^ of Roman Literature, The 
 earlier date would also suit other passages in his poems. The 
 two last poems of his first book contain a vivid allusion to the 
 war of Perusia of B.C. 41 : supposing them to have been written 
 near the events referred to, Propertius must, if he were born 
 in 49, have been a poet when he was eight years old. But 
 supposing him to have been fourteen or fifteen at the time of 
 the helium Pernsinnm, these poems may be taken as specimens 
 of his early writing ; for he began poetry, as he himself tells 
 us, at the time of his taking the toga virilis. I would observe 
 further that the date ^6 or ^^ B.C. would tally with the language 
 of 4. II, written not earlier than 29 B.C. and probably not long 
 after, in which he speaks of his utventa as passed. This would 
 be an expression natural for a sensitive poet of twenty-seven 
 or twenty- eight, but not for a youth of twenty or twenty-one. 
 
 If the Varus of the sixth Eclogue be, as he almost certainly is, 
 the Alfenus Varus mentioned above, this poem, inscribed with his 
 name, may be assigned to this period. The Eclogue is remark- 
 able mainly for the beautiful song of Silenus, the earliest extant 
 piece in which any sign appears of VergiFs philosophical studies. 
 It shews that for the purpose of poetry Vergil had attained 
 a sufficient mastery of philosophical language; and some lines 
 give evidence of the careful study of Lucretius which would 
 no doubt be encouraged in the school of Siron, and of which 
 the traces are so marked in the Georgics and the Aeneid. 
 
 Suetonius and Probus (?) inform us that the Eclogues as 
 finally published by Vergil were intended as a compliment 
 to Alfenus Varus, Asinius Pollio, and Cornelius Gallus. These 
 are the tres amicl of the Berne scholia on Eel. i. Of Alfenus 
 Varus we have already spoken ; Gallus is the hero of the tenth 
 Eclogue ; the fourth and the eighth were written in honour of 
 Pollio. I admit that the meaning of the fourth Eclogue cannot, 
 with our i^'csent data, be ascertained with certainty; yet when 
 the events of the year 40 B.C. are considered, I think that it is 
 not impossible to arrive at a probable explanation of it. In this 
 year peace was concluded at Brundisium between Antonius and 
 
/;/ Connection icitli /lis Life and Times. 47 
 
 Oetavianus, and Asinius Pollio was one of tlio consuls. I am 
 quite unable to untlerstanJ the reasons which have induced some 
 recent German critics to eliminate the mention of Pollio from 
 this Eclog-ue ; a procoedin<2c which cannot, as it seems to me, be 
 defended on any grounds either of history or criticism. For 
 the most natural interpretation of the poem (a birthday ode) 
 would seem to be that which refers it to the child expected from 
 the marriag-e of Oetavianus with Scribonia. At least there 
 seems nothing to hinder such an explanation ; while to re!"er 
 it to the chikl of Pollio is difficult, considering the circumstances 
 of the year. Civil war was ajiparently put an end to by the 
 peace of Brundisium, which had been brought about, in great 
 part, by Pollio. The mere advent of peace in those times would 
 be sufficient to suggest to an enthusiastic poet a dream of the 
 golden age returning. The coming child, says Vergil, is to rule 
 the world with the manly virtues of his father ; he is the off- 
 spring of gods, and another Jove is to grow from him ; of whom 
 could the poet say this but of the offspring of the Caesars? 
 Antonius was indeed, with Oetavianus, master of the Roman 
 world ; but any such reference to him on Vergil's part is out of 
 the question. The honours of the poem must, it would appear 
 in any case, be divided between Pollio and Oetavianus. This 
 was p(?rceived by the critic in ISIaerobius, 3, 7. i, whose remarks 
 are worth quoting at length. Cam loqueretur de jillo PoUlonis, 
 id quod ad jjfincipem suum sjiectaref, adiec'it ; 
 
 Ijjse sed i« gratis aries iam suave rubenti 
 Miirice, iam croceo mutabit vellera luio. 
 Traditur autem in libris Elruscorum, si hoc animal insoUto colore 
 fuerit inductum, portendi imperatori rerum onmiiim felicitatem. 
 Est super hoc liber Tarqtulii transcripdus ex Osientario Tusco. Ibi 
 reperiiur : 'purpurea aureove colore oris ariesve si aspergeiur, 
 jorincipi ordinis et generis summa cum felicitate largitatem auget, 
 genus progeniem prop)agat in claritatc laefiorernque ejjlcit.^ Iluius- 
 modi igitur slatum in transitu vaticinatur. The Berne scholia also 
 mention critics who took the poem as alluding to Oetavianus. 
 I am aware that Servius as well as INIacrobius (if indeed both 
 names do not rather represent the same comment) apply this 
 poem to the child of Pollio, and that among modern critics 
 Ribbeck and Sellar have taken the same view. Yet I find it 
 
48 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 difficult to imagine that in face of the circumstances of the time 
 and the present power of the triumvirs Vergil would have ven- 
 tured to point to the offspring of Asinius Pollio as destined to 
 govern and regenerate the Roman world, even if, in any case, his 
 language could have been applied to the family of the Asinii 
 without gross exaggeration. But a child of the Julian (jens 
 might fairly be called deum stiboles ; lulus in the ninth Aeneid 
 is (lis genite et yemtnre deos : even Julius Caesar was not free 
 from the vanity of tracing his descent from Venus ; and I in- 
 cline therefore to refer this Eclogue to the expected child 
 of Octavianus and Scribonia, and to compare its language with 
 the verses in the sixth Aeneid (729 foil.) where Augustus 
 is spoken of as the restorer of the golden age. 
 
 The eighth Eclogue must apparently be assigned to the time 
 of Pollio's expedition against the Parthini, B.C. 40. It will 
 then precede by a year or thereabouts the first ode of Horace's 
 second book. As often, so here these twin poets express them- 
 selves in nearly identical language ; grande mimits Cecrojno repefes 
 cothnrno ; sola Sojohocleo iua carmina digna cofhnrno. 
 
 I have attempted so far to deal with some of the main diffi- 
 culties presented by the Eclogues ; whether successfully or not 
 I must leave it to other scholars to decide. As to the time 
 which their composition occupied, we are met with an apparent 
 conflict between the statement of Suetonius and the internal 
 evidence offered by the poems themselves. Suetonius says that 
 the Eclogues w^ere written in three years ; Probus, if it be 
 Probus, that he wrote them, i.e. I suppose, began them, in his 
 twenty-ninth year : and they may, as w^e have seen, have been 
 begun as early as B.C. 43 or 42. In spite of Ribbeck's opinion 
 to the contrary, I am inclined to think those scholars were in 
 the right w^ho assigned the tenth Eclogue, with its allusion to 
 the cold Rhine, to the year 37, when that river was crossed by 
 Agrippa. Thus instead of the three years of Suetonius we get 
 five or six. I would suggest, as a means of getting over this diffi- 
 culty, that Suetonius, or the authority whom he followed, probably 
 took the Eclogues as they stood in the order of publication, and 
 noticing that the date of the first was about 40 and that of the 
 last about 37 B.C., jumped to the conclusion that the whole work 
 was composed in that period, forgetting that, like Horace's Odes 
 
/;/ Cotincction with his Life and Times. 49 
 
 and Epodes, the Eclog-nes arc a collection of poems written in 
 different years, and arrans^ed not clironologically, hut in an 
 order intended to gratify the poet's friends. For it is clear that 
 the first Eclowue owes its place to its suhject, and is intended as 
 au acknowledgement of the g-enerosity of Octavianus. 
 
 No certain date can he assigned either to the second, third, 
 fifth, or sixth Eclogues; the seventh cannot be dated at all. 
 But the seventh Eclogue raises a question of great interest, 
 first suggested to me by IVIr. Munro in an article on Propertius 
 in the Journal of Philology, as to the place at which it and 
 perhaps others among the Eclogues were composed. Propertius 
 says of Vergil (3. 26, 67), Tu cams nmhrosi snhfer p'lnefa GaJaen 
 TJn/rmi et attrit'is Baphnin arnndinibus, implying that the Tliyrsis 
 and Daphnis of his brother poet l)elonged to the neighbourhood 
 not of ^Mantua but of Tarentum. That Vergil was once at Taren- 
 tum, and at a time which would fairly coincide with that of the 
 composition of the Eclogues, is proved by a passage in the fourth 
 Georgic (125), namqne sttb Oebaliae memini we moen'ibns altis . . . 
 Corycium v'uVisse senem. If the Georgics were published in 29 B.C. 
 Vergil might fairly speak of a ' memory ' of some ten or twelve 
 years before. Mr. Munro remarks that the scenery about 
 Tarentum suits the description of scenery in the Eclogues, which 
 the neighbourhood of Mantua notoriously does not ; and I have 
 endeavoured since reading his article to find other evidence in 
 confirmation of the view which he suggests. Not much, I must 
 admit, is forthcoming ; but it is worth noticing, I think, that in 
 the second Georgic (197) Vergil mentions the country about 
 Tarentum in the same breath with that of Mantua, as if both 
 were equally familiar to him : Salfns et saturi ])ef'Uo longinqna 
 Tarenti^ Et qnalem hifelix amisit Mantua cajnpnm., Fasceniem nireos 
 herboso fiumme cycnos. Vergil's intimacy with Horace, and 
 Horace's well-known fondness for Tarentum (Od. 2. 6. 9, Bulce 
 
 pellith oribns Galae-n Flumen et rerjnata petam Laconi Rura 
 Phalaniho ; 3. 16. 33, Calabrae open; i. 31. 5, acstiiosae grata 
 Calalriae Armenia; Epist. i. 16. 11, dicas adduclum propnua 
 
 frondere Tarentutn) suggest the possibility that the two poets 
 may at some time have been at Tarentum together. 
 
 The ten Eclogues as we have them would appear from their 
 title to be a selection from a larger number. In the ninth a 
 
 £ 
 
50 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 number of verses are quoted which profess to come from another 
 unfinished poem, and it is quite possible that Verg-il wrote others 
 which he never published. Perhaps the round number ten points 
 in the same direction. 
 
 The success of the Eclogues at the time of their publication 
 was so great that they were often recited in the theatre, where 
 Vergil, if we may believe Tacitus, was received with honours 
 equal to those paid to Augustus himself. Whether they were 
 performed as dramatic pieces with scenic accompaniment, or as 
 simple poems, we do not know. Modern criticism dwells readily 
 on the artificiality of their construction. It would seem as if at 
 this period Vex'gil must have been in love with allegory ; so little 
 is stated plainly^ so much has to be discerned through a mist of 
 serious or playful suggestion. The names are often Greek : 
 the very descriptions of scenery are in many cases taken from 
 Theocritus, and, when transferred from Sicily to the country 
 about Mantua, entirely conventional and misleading. Yet how 
 much real beauty is there in Vergil's Eclogues ! To say nothing 
 of the lovely rhythm of his verse, evidently perfected with so 
 much devotion and labour, what a sense is there of the charm of 
 nature, of the beautiful fancies of the Greek mythology, of the 
 inestimable value of philosophical culture ! in his very devotion 
 to Theocritus, what a genuine love of one of the most refreshing 
 of Greek poets ! and everywhere what a light and playful hand, 
 what a sure poetic touch! The Eclogues (and here is the best proof 
 of Vergil's original genius) charm us in spite of the strangeness 
 of their form, which cannot silence the voice of the harmonious 
 mind speaking in those musical accents. 
 
 It must always be remembered, also, that Vergil, though re- 
 producing in the Eclogues the form of the idyllion of Theocritus, 
 did so for the first time, and with a peculiarity of style to a 
 great extent his own. In the hands of Theocritus the idijllion or 
 picture of country life is, on the whole, what it professes to be ; 
 but Vergil makes the form of the pastoral poem serve as a frame- 
 work for allusion to his own times and circumstances. In the 
 idyll proper, shepherds talk to one another of their loves and their 
 flocks ; but the poet as well as the shepherd is, in his way, the 
 votary of Nature, who loves to haunt mountains and rivers and 
 forests ; and thus, as the form of the idyll developed itself, the 
 
in Coimcction with Jiis Life and Times. 51 
 
 poet and the shepherd came to be identified. Bion in Moschus' 
 lovely poem is called a yhopherd, and most of all in Verg-il's 
 eclog-ue the shepherd speaks not only in his own person but in 
 that of the poet, and the names of his companions are chosen to 
 denote well-known persons in whom the interest of the poet and 
 his readers happen to centre. This form of composition could, 
 it is plain, be attempted successfully only by a master-hand. 
 It has its inconveniences^ it lays itself open readily to the 
 attacks of criticism ; but it must not be forg-otten that it is 
 mainly Vergil to whose genius English literature owes the 
 Lvcidas and the Thyrsis. 
 
 The acquaintance of Vergil with Horace must have begun 
 before the publication of the Eclogues. For it was probably in 
 B.C. 37, the year when the last Eclogue was composed, that 
 Vergil with Varius and Tucca, the future editors of his Aeneid, 
 joined Horace at Sinuessa on their journey to Brundisium. 
 Horace speaks of Vergil as at that time one of his most intimate 
 friends (Sat. i. 5. 40), as if the acquaintance were now of long 
 standing. We have nothing here but faint indications to guide 
 us : still it is worth while to put together such fragments of 
 evidence as exist. Horace, like Vergil, was for some time an 
 Epicurean : witness the third satire of the first book, and the 
 ode (i. 34) Parens Beoruni cnltor. Had he learned his philo- 
 sophy, like Vergil, in the school of Siron ? The only relic, as far 
 as I know, of the early stages of friendship between the two 
 poets is the twelfth ode of the fourth book, which, in spite of 
 the fact that this book was published after VergiFs death, I am 
 disposed to think refers to our Vergil. The ode, which Horace 
 perhaps had not cared to publish before, is addressed to a Ver- 
 gilius whom Horace asks to dinner on condition of his bringing 
 with him a box of nard in exchange for Horace's wine. The 
 language of the poem would very well suit the time when both 
 poets were young and Horace poor, and before his introduction 
 by Vergil, the iuverium nofjilium cllcns, to the circle of 
 Maecenas. 
 
 The wealthy and accomplished Etruscan eques, C. Cilnius 
 ^Maecenas, had, as we have seen, aided Vergil, who was at that 
 time but slightly known to him, in resisting the violence of 
 a veteran soldier in the quarrel arising from the confiscation of 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 the poet's estate. Maecenas, himself something- of a poet, and 
 the g-enerous friend and patron of several men of letters, probably 
 introduced Vergil to the nearer friendship of Octavianus. In his 
 honour Vergil undertook the composition of his second great 
 work, the Georg-ics, on which we are told by Suetonius and can 
 well believe that he was occupied seven years. 
 
 There is really no evidence to shew when Vergil began the 
 composition of the Georgics. For the line at the end of the 
 first (509), h'lc movet Euphrates, illic Germania helium, which has 
 usually been relied upon as referring" to the events of 37 B.C., 
 refers rather, as I hope to shew below, to those of the year 
 '>f'>^ or 3a. Indeed the whole question of the composition and 
 editions of the Georgics is one of g-reat difficulty. They were 
 read to Octavianus by Vergil and Maecenas in turn in the 
 year 29, when he finally returned to Italy after his settlement 
 of the East. Suetonius says, Georgica post Actiacam victoriam 
 Angusto atque Atellae reficieudarum faucium causa commoranti 
 jper continuum quadriduum legit, suscipiente Maecenate legendi 
 vicem. This statement, as Heyne reminds us, cannot be taken 
 as literally true, for Augustus, though he returned to Italy after 
 the battle of Actium in the winter of 31, only stayed a month 
 at Brundisium settling matters with his veterans. The year 30 
 he spent partly in composing the affairs of Parthia by restoring 
 Phraates to his throne {Horace, Od. 3. 3. 16, redditum Cyri solio 
 Phraaten Dissidens plebi numero heatorum Eximit virtus ; Die, 
 51. 18). We must suppose therefore that the words j^^st 
 Actiacam victoriam are merely a general expression. 
 
 The year 39 therefore is the terminus ad quern of the com- 
 position of the Georgics : that is, of the first edition of them ; 
 for the original conclusion of the fourth was, we are distinctly 
 informed by Servius, an episode on Vergil's friend and fellow- 
 poet Cornelius Gallus, whose fall and suicide took place in 
 B.C. 26. The episode of Aristaeus was substituted for the 
 original conclusion at the desii'e of Augustus ; a fact hardly 
 creditable to Vergil's courage or fidelity to an old friend. 
 The only terminus a quo is, as far as I am aware, the mention of 
 the portus lulius made by Agrippa in 37 (G. 2. 161,) For the 
 rest, we are left in this question mainly to internal evidence, 
 and that not of a very decisive or satisfactory kind. I will 
 
in Cojuicction i^'iili /lis Life a)id Times. 53 
 
 state however the conehisions at which I have finally arrived 
 after a repeated consideration of the various points which claim 
 attention. 
 
 I would first ohserve that some passages in the Georg-ics may, 
 in my opinion, have been originally written by Vergil inde- 
 pendently of the context in which they now stand. I would 
 note in ]>artieular the conclusion of the first Georgic on the 
 death of Caesar ; the lines in the second where Vergil speaks of 
 the happiness of the peasant's life, and of his own longings for 
 a knowledge of philosophy and science, — a passage of which there 
 is an inferior draft or copy in the Culex; the introductions to the 
 first and third Georgies, which can hardly have been written before 
 the year 29, in which Octavianus celebrated his triple triumph. 
 Very probably the same is the case with the episode of Aristaeus 
 of which I have already spoken. 
 
 Part of the first, second, and third Georgics was probably 
 written from 31 to 29 B.C. Ilaec svper arvorum cultu pecorum- 
 que canebam Et super arboribus, Caesar dum magmis ad alium 
 FuJminat Etiphraten hello, n'lctorque volentes Per populos dat iura 
 viamque adfectat Oli/mpo, says Vergil in verses now placed, nob 
 after the third Georgic as might be expected, but after the 
 fourth, although they contain no mention of bees. These lines 
 must surely refer to the settlement of Eastern affairs by 
 Octavianus after the battle of Actium. But there are passages 
 in the Georgics which both from the actual historical allusions 
 which they contain and from their general tone must be placed 
 earlier than this. Much difficulty has been occasioned by the 
 conclusion of the first book. Vergil, after describing in im- 
 mortal lines the thrill of horror which passed through Italy at 
 the assassination of Julius Caesar, proceeds to say that not only 
 was all nature moved at the dreadful deed, but that the gods 
 exacted a more awful vengeance ; for Roman again met Roman 
 in deadly strife at Philippi, and Emathia and the ])lains of 
 Haemus were again fattened with Roman blood. The time was 
 out of joint; the only hope lay with the gods, that they would 
 not hinder the young Caesar from bringing aid ; the land was 
 desolated with war and crime, the plough was held in no honour, 
 the fields lay untended and there was none to till them, the 
 j)runing-hook was beaten out into the blade of a sword. On this 
 
54 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 side the Euphrates, on the other side Germany was stirring- up 
 war ; city was arming against city, the demons of strife were 
 abroad, and there was none to check or hinder them. 
 
 The lines describing the immediate consequences of Caesar's 
 murder may, as I have said, have been written independently and 
 afterwards inserted in their present position; the verses about Phi- 
 lippi, too, have the air of a recent allusion, and may have been 
 originally composed soon after the battle ; but the passage 
 beginning Bi patrii indiffetes, which immediately follows them, 
 must, I think, have been written at the end of ^^ or the 
 beginning of 32 B.C., at the commencement of the civil war 
 which ended at Actium. This passage is full of melancholy 
 forebodings, and nothing can be more explicit than the words 
 v'lcinae ruptis inter se leg'ihus nrles Anna fernnf, saeuit toto liars 
 impius orl/e, the exact allusion in which is not, I think, rightly 
 caught by Ribbeck in his Prolegomena. Mars imp'ms must mean 
 civil war : vicinae ttrhes cannot well refer to any but the neigh- 
 bour cities of Italy. Now with regard to Italy, Dio (50. 6) 
 says, in speaking of the events of 33 B.C., KoiVapt [i\v ij re 
 'IraXia avvqpaTo, irdvTas yap kol tovs vtio tov ^AvtoovCov airoiKi- 
 (rdivras, to. fxkv iK(pol3rjaas are okCyovs ovras, to. 8e koI (vepyeTrjaas, 
 TTpofT^TiOeTo, Ta re yap aXka Kal tovs ttjv Bov(aviav iiroLKOVVTas 
 avTOi avOis, iva hi] Kal v(p kavTov a-ni^KLcrOai boKwcTt,, TrpoaKareaTi]- 
 (TUTo. These words clearly imply that there were cities in Italy 
 which favoured Antonius, and that Octavianus had some trouble 
 in crushing or disarming their opposition. There must have 
 been a time, probably towards the end of ^^ or beginning of 
 32 B.C., when their hostility to him and to the cities which 
 took his side was making itself felt, and Vergil's lines may well 
 apply to this very time. It is important to remember that 
 about this time Phraates, on Antonius withdrawing his forces 
 from the frontier, overran Media and Armenia. To this raid 
 I am inclined to refer the words /lie viovet Euphrates helium.; 
 for soon after this, probably owing to their internal troubles, 
 the Parthians were quiet (6 flap^oj ovl\v -nap^KLvei, Dio, 50. i). 
 
 The allusion to Germany is not cleared up by any explicit 
 statement in the historical books. But, as Ribbeck has observed 
 in his Frolegomena, Dio (51. 21), when describing the triple 
 triumj^h of Augustus in 39 B.C., mentions that C. Carrinas was 
 
in Connection loith his Life and Times. 55 
 
 allowed a triumph for his victories over the ]\rorini, whom he 
 had crushed, and the Suevi, whom he had driven over the Rhine. 
 The Romans were vague in their use of the name Suevi, which 
 A'ergil mi^ht easily render by German'ia. This triumph of 
 Carrinas is distinctly alluded to in the eig-hth Aeneid (727), 
 exfremique homhium Morini, Bhennsqne bicornis. Though no 
 exact date is assigned to the victory of Carrinas over the Suevi, 
 it is reasonable to suppose that it took place after the German 
 campaign of Agrippa in ^6, and at a period not very far distant 
 from the trium])hs of 29 n.c. ; otherwise it would hardly have 
 been commemorated in that celebration. As to the war itself, 
 Die expressly implies that it was aggressive on the part of the 
 Suevi, defensive on the part of the Romans : tovs ^ovi'iftovs tod 
 ^Pijvov €ttI TToXe'jixci) 8ia/3arTas aTreuxraTo. Movere helium is the 
 natural expression for an offensive war (Livy, 43. i. 11, ne 
 lellum cum nlla gente moveai), and as it will perfectly well 
 apply to the attacks of Phraates in the East, there seems no 
 reason to doubt that it may refer equally well to the movements 
 of the Suevi on the Rhine, which I suppose to have taken place 
 between 33 and 31 B.C., and perhaps to have been occasioned by 
 the outbreak of the civil war ; for the civil dissensions of the 
 Romans were always the opportunity of their foreign enemies. 
 Compare Propertius, 4. 3 (2). 45, Barharus aut Suevo perfusus 
 sanguine Rhenus Saucia maerenti corpora vectet aqua; lines which 
 may indeed refer to the former wars against the Suevi, but 
 will equally well apply to their repulse by Carrinas; indeed 
 they seem to imply an unsuccessful combat on a river side. 
 
 The end of the first Georgia is therefore best referred to the 
 period immediatel}^ preceding the civil war which ended at 
 Actium, the end of 33 or the beginning of 32 B.C. Octavianus 
 is not spoken of as victorious^ but prayed for as the only hope of 
 his falling country. The words iam prideni caeli nobis fe regia, 
 Caesar, Invidet, atqv.e honi'innm queritur curare triuvijthos need not, 
 I think, be pressed too literally, as if they could only refer to the 
 actual triumphi of B.C. 29. Vergil means that the world is 
 grown too wicked for a god to dwell in ; the gods have turned 
 their eyes away from Rome, and are jealous at thinking that one 
 of themselves can trouble himself about any honours of victory 
 which men can offer him. 
 
56 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 Thvis interpreted, the whole passage is in striking- accord with 
 the second ode of Horace's first book. The sense of this poem 
 plainly is that Rome is suffering for the sins of her children, and 
 Horace, like Vergil, but less directly and in allegorical language, 
 expresses the same hope, but not more than the same hope, that 
 Octavianus may prove the saviour of his country. Roman citizens 
 have sharpened against each other's breasts the sword by which 
 the Parthians ought to have perished : what god can we call upon 
 amid the ruins of the falling empire ? Vesta will hardly listen to 
 the prayers of her virgins ; perhaps Apollo or Venus or Mars or 
 the son of Maia, in guise of the young Caesar, the avenger of 
 his father's murder, may take pity on us. May Caesar still 
 deign to remain among men and think still of earthly triumphs, 
 accepting the names of father and priucejjs, and not suffering the 
 Medes to ride unavenged. 
 
 The last two stanzas correspond remarkably with Vergil's 
 words, iam pridem nobis cael'i te regia, Caesar, Invidef, at que homhmm 
 queritur curare triumphos; while the tone of the whole poem, and 
 especially the words about the Medes in the last two lines, is 
 doubtful and apprehensive, and makes it difficult if not impos- 
 sible to suppose that it was written after the settlement of the 
 Eastern difficulties by Octavianus in B.C. 30. 
 
 To about the same period it would seem also reasonable to 
 assign the seventh epode of Horace, Quo quo scelesti ruitis, and 
 the seventeenth, altera iam teritur bellis civilibiis aetas, though it 
 is to be observed that in these poems there is no allusion of any 
 kind to Octavianus, and it is therefore not impossible that they 
 were written before the battle of Philippi, while Horace was still 
 a republican. In any case we must be struck by the similarity 
 of their language and spirit to those of Vergil. This is, if pos- 
 sible, still more remarkable in the concluding stanzas of the first 
 ode in the second book (though written, perhaps, six years 
 before), Quis non Lat'mo sanguine jnngtiior Campus sepulcris impia 
 proelia Testatiir, auditumque Medis Hesperiae sonitum ruinae? 
 Listen to Vergil in the first Georgic (491), Nee fait indigmtm 
 superis, his sanguine nostra Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere 
 campos. 
 
 Reminiscences of this troublous time recur in the second 
 Georgic. At least it is difficult to assign to any other period 
 
i)L Connection n'itli liis Life and 'Jinies. 57 
 
 the line (497), (^i(f coiiiiirato (lescoidens Dacuft ah Is/ro, wliic-h, if 
 the word cuiiiurafo is to bear its full meanino*, must surely allude 
 to the support given by the Dacians to Antonius in his last 
 strug-g-le (Dio, 51. 22). The rest of the passage, though Vergil 
 seems to have expressed himself almost studiously in general 
 language, will very well fit the circumstances of the same years. 
 Parts of it may indeed, I think, be taken as containing a covert 
 attack on Antonius and his party. I would call particular 
 attention to the words, ilium . . . ?io>i purpura regiun Flexit ; 
 ruii.utqne hi ferrum, penetrant aulas et limina regum, which are 
 best explained as alluding to intrigues with Oriental courts such 
 as Antonius had been carrying on with INIedia and Armenia and 
 Egypt ; res Bomanae perlturaque regna must mean the fortunes 
 of Rome, and the falling Eastern despotisms opposed to her ; 
 hifidos agitans discordia fratres, if the words have a special 
 reference at all, may be meant either for Phraates the murderer 
 of his brother, or for the Armenian princes Artaxias and Tigranes ; 
 and the lines hie petit excidiis Urliem patriosque Penates, Vt gemma 
 bibat et Sarrano dormiat ostro, might be very well applied to 
 Antonius himself. Ferrea iura I am inclined to explain as mean- 
 ing shameless, or ruthless, decisions in the Roman courts of law. 
 This meaning of iiu-a I have illustrated in the latest number 
 o^ t)ie Journal of PMIologi/ ; iox ferreus in the sense of shameless 
 we may compare the words of the orator Licinius Crassus, 
 quoted by Suetonius (Nero, 4), cui as ferreum, cor plumbeum. 
 esset, Cicero in Pisonem, § 6^, as tuum ferreum senatus convicio 
 verberari, Catullus, 42. 17, ferreo canis expjrimamus ore ; in 
 Quintilian (?), Deelam. 3. 10. 8, ferrea iura fatorum means the 
 inexorable decrees of fate. 
 
 The lines 17 1-2, ie maxime Caesar, Qui nunc extremis Asiae iatn 
 victor in oris Imhellem avertis Boinanis arcibus Indnm, refer to the 
 settlement of the East by Octavianils after the battle of Actium, 
 31 B.C. Of this Dio, 51. 18, says: h re ti]v ''Xaiav to eOvos bia 
 Trji Su/^i'as )]Kd€ KainavOa TTap€\(Lixa(Te, to. t€ tS)V vit^Koiav Koi to. 
 tQv riapdiov ajxa Kadiardixevo^. Compare Georgic 3. 30, 7/rtjes 
 Asiae domitas, and 4. 561, victorque volentes Per populos dat iura 
 viamque adfectat Ol^mpo. 
 
 I now come to the introductions to the first and third Georgics, 
 which I am inclined to think were composed immediately before 
 
58 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 and with a view to the recitation of 29 B.C. The years 30 and 
 29 were signalised by the granting" of all kinds of public honours 
 to Octavianus. In particular we are told by Dio (1. c. 20) that 
 after the news about the settlement of the Parthian affairs 
 arrived, it was decreed that the name of Octavianus should be 
 mentioned in the public forms of religious service (es rovs v\ivovs 
 — k^ 'i(Tov TOLs OeoU iaypdcfyicrdaL), and that a number of other 
 religious ceremonies were inaugurated in his honour. For these, 
 as Vergil says at the end of the fourth Georgic, he had been, 
 since Actium, winning his way: vlamque adfectat Olympo. The 
 address to Octavianus as a deity at the beginning of the first 
 Georgic must, I think, be taken as a poetical expression of the 
 public feeling at this time. Its tone is so entirely different from 
 that of the concluding lines of the poem that it is impossible to 
 suppose that the two passages can have been written in the same 
 year ; Octavianus is welcomed as a present deity, and there is no 
 mention of the wrath of Heaven or of gloomy forebodings. 
 E/ibbeck with Franke refers this passage to the summer of the 
 year 36, when Sextus Pompeius had been conquered and peace 
 apparently restored. In this year, it is true, many honours were 
 voted to Octavianus at Rome, and in some Italian cities he was 
 enrolled among the gods : at Tro'Aets rots acperepoLS deols awihpvov, 
 Appian, 5. 132. But I doubt whether this fact corresponds 
 adequately with the general tone of the introduction to the first 
 Georgic. The opening of the third Georgic may also, I think, be 
 more fitly assigned to the year 29 than to any other. It was a 
 year of general holiday (Dio, 51. 21), and Vergil's tone is one of 
 unmixed joy and exultation. Pugnam Gangaridum . . . victorisque 
 arma Quirini the commentators refer rightly to the defeat of 
 Antonius with his Eastern following : navali surgentes aere 
 columnas is illustrated by the decree of the senate (b.c. 30), rrjv 
 Kprjulha Tov 'lovkietov rip(aov rot? twv ai)(jj.aXo>TLb(av V(a>v efi/3o'\ots 
 Koa-pLrjOfjvai : tirbes Asiae domifas pulsumque Nlphaten refers to the 
 settlement of the difficulties with Armenia, which had been in 
 arms against the Romans five years before. The lines, et duo 
 rapta manii diverso ex Jioste tropaea, Bisque triumphatas iitroque ah 
 liiore gentes, have caused much difficulty: but it seems quite 
 possible to refer them to the Morini and the Dalmatians. The 
 Morini had been twice conquered, once by Julius Caesar, and 
 
i)L Coiuicction ivitli his Life and Times. 59 
 
 later ajrain by Gains Carrinas : the Dalmatians had been subdued 
 by ^'atiuius, who received a snp])lical\o ou this account in tlie 
 year 45, and again by Oetavianus himself in B.C. 34. Both the 
 !Morini and the Dalmatians appeared in the triple triumph of 29. 
 Propertius, 4. 8 (9). ^'i^, alludes in similar language to the same 
 events : Proscquar ei currns iitroque ah litore ovantes. 
 
 To this passage, too, Horace offers us a companion poem : I 
 mean the ninth ode of the second book : et potius nova Canlemus 
 Augusti tropaea Caesaris, et rig'uhim Nip/iafen, Mediinique Jlumen 
 gentiOus additum Victis mhiores volvere vortices. 
 
 I am tempted here to raise a further question about the open- 
 ing of the third Georgic. Vergil speaks as if he were thinking 
 of a journey from Greece back to Italy; but this idea he turns at 
 once into a metaphor, saying that he will bring back the jNIuses 
 with him and set up a temple on the banks of the Mincio, 
 where all the athletes of Greece shall, for the pleasure of Caesar, 
 exhibit their rival excellence. Was Vergil really in Greece when 
 he wrote this passage ? Horace has an ode (the fourth of the 
 first book) inscribed to a Vergilius, described as starting on a 
 journey for Athens, whom he calls the other half of his soul. 
 It is very difficult to suppose that Vergilius is not the poet; 
 that Horace had two intimate friends of this name is possible, 
 but hardly probable. The only journey of Vergil's into Greece 
 which is mentioned by Suetonius is indeed his last one, under- 
 taken in the year 19 : that Horace can be referring to this in 
 the first book of his odes is a chronological impossibility. I 
 think therefore that it is worth while to raise the question 
 whether Vergil did not, shortly before writing the beginning of 
 the third Georgic, travel to Greece, and whether a record of this 
 journey is not preserved in Horace's well-known ode. 
 
 The three first Georgics were, according to the poet's own 
 statement, written at or in the neighbourhood of Naples. 
 The statement of Suetonius, that the composition of the whole 
 work occupied Vergil seven years, is fully borne out by the 
 elaboration of their style, nor, as we have seen, is it contradicted 
 by the scanty historical allusions which help us to fix their date 
 by internal evidence. The earliest of these allusions is to the 
 portus Tulius of Agrippa made in '^'j B.C., the latest is to the 
 triumphs of 29. Supposing Vergil to have set to work upon 
 
6o Essay on the Poetry of Vergit 
 
 tlie Georgics in 36, we g-et an interval of seven years for their 
 composition; the very time mentioned by Suetonius. 
 
 The Georgics give evidence of a far riper growth of Vergil's 
 mind than the Eclogues ; they afford also a more striking 
 testimony to the real originality and independence of his 
 genius. In the Eclogues Vergil is to a great extent the pupil 
 of Theocritus ; of the Greek authorities whom he follows in the 
 Georgics, Aratus, Nicander, even Hesiod, he is in a poetical 
 sense the master. The common characteristic of the Greek 
 didactic poems, so far as their remains enable us to judge, is 
 a simplicity not without a flavour of its owUj but still prosaic. 
 The phraseology of the great Greek epics is indeed employed, 
 but there is little of conscious poetical inspiration ; the words 
 follow the ideas, and the ideas do not often rise above a com- 
 paratively ordinary level. Turning to Vergil, what a change do 
 we find ! It is not the details which make his poetry or 
 determine its spirit ; it is he who finds out and masters the 
 details, informing them with the breath of poetry. Few, if 
 any, didactic poets have equalled, and none have surpassed 
 Vergil in this power of throwing a poetical colour over the 
 details of an unpoetical subject. An extraordinary mixture of 
 learning with originality meets us on every page ; line upon 
 line is a monument of living, creative study. Nor is it Greek 
 masters only to whom Vergil has had recourse ; he has made 
 a profound study of Lucretius, and is in fact full of the spirit of 
 philosophical speculation, as this was understood in his age 
 and country. The poetical side of the Epicurean philosophy, 
 as it had wholly absorbed the passionate soul of Lucretius, 
 exercised in like manner its powerful spell over the mind of 
 Vergil, though at the time of the composition of the Georgics 
 he had emancipated himself from its exclusive influence. In the 
 first Georgic he accounts for the movements of the birds by an 
 Epicurean explanation ; in the fourth he shews signs of being 
 attracted by Platonism, which seems afterwards to have gained 
 a permanent hold upon his mind. 
 
 Traces of the study of Lucretius meet us on almost every 
 page of the Georgics. His influence over Veigil was natural 
 enough, as he died at the time when the latter was just growing 
 out of boyhood, and would thus be most susceptible to poetical 
 
 1 
 
ill Connection uutli his Life and Times. 6i 
 
 ideas. The teachinjT: of Siron would douhtloss deepen the im- 
 pression. The attitude of Vergil towards nature is, however, 
 diflerent from that of Lucretius. Inclined as he evidently was 
 towards the system of Epicurus at the time when the first three 
 Georgics were written, he never committed himself to any 
 philosophical dogma which could narrow the range of his 
 sympathies. A^'ergil never brings himself to give up the details 
 of his familiar mythology; the beings who haunt the rivers, 
 fields, and rocks, the kindly friends of the husbandman, whom 
 Greek and Roman had worshipped for generations and whom 
 poet and husbandman alike had hailed and honoured as their 
 friends, the husbandman as his companions and jirotectors, the 
 poet because they suggested to him a thousand memories of 
 fancy and beauty. So in the Georgics a poetical colouring is 
 given to the primitive worship of nature on which Greek and 
 Roman religion was alike based ; to Vergil the country is the 
 abode of Pan, Ceres, and the Nymphs, and every implement, 
 every process of cultivation, has its tutelary deity. For all this 
 there was no place in the system of Epicurus, in which the gods 
 are represented as taking no part in the direction of human 
 affairs. And thus Lucretius' deep love of nature is untouched by 
 any associations of fable or mythological fancy ; it is the pure 
 passion, the clear unthwarted vision of the philosophic poet. 
 Vergil's mind was too susceptible to the manifold impressions 
 of mythology and literature to bind itself by a theory which 
 banished the ancient gods from human life and from the 
 imagination of the poet. His study of Lucretius is thus only 
 in part sympathetic ; with all Vergil's devotion to his master, 
 there are many traces of a tacit protest against the rigour of his 
 doctrine and method. 
 
 The Georgics are, again, not without their value as illus- 
 trating the politics and history of Vergil's time. Few things 
 in literature, for instance, give a deeper sense than the end 
 of the first Georgic of the horror and passion which con- 
 vulsed Italy at the assassination of Julius Caesar. To the 
 floating rumours which gathered in an atmosphere full of 
 wild excitement and imaginative superstition, Vergil has given 
 poetical form and coherence. With him it is all nature that 
 mourns the death of a hero ; the sun hides his lustrous head 
 
62 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 in a veil of darkness, and the godless generations fear the 
 coming- of eternal night. A terrible vengeance is exacted by 
 Heaven in the civil wars which desolated the world. It must 
 not be supposed that this notion of a Providence avengiog 
 Caesar's death was a mere poetic fancy. It was more probably 
 a fanatical conviction alive in the breasts of all, high and low 
 alike, who had venerated the great dictator as the saviour of his 
 country. No doubt it took various forms in different minds : 
 Vergil speaks as a poet; the stern words of Suetonius (lulius, 89) 
 present another aspect of the same idea : percussorum autem neque 
 triennio qtdsquam amjjlius supervixit, neque sua morte defuncUis est. 
 Damnati ovines alius alio casic jperiit, pars naiifragio^ pars proelio ; 
 nonnulli semet eoclem illo pugione quo Caesarem violaverant, inter- 
 emerunt. And it may be said in general that the corruption and 
 desolation of the time, the breaking up of moral and social ties 
 consequent on the revolutions and civil wars of a century, which 
 had struck deep sorrow into all the most patriotic minds in 
 Italy, is commemorated by the melancholy verses of Vergil and 
 Horace as vividly as by any historian. Yet Vergil speaks as 
 a poet, not as a preacher : whether the Georgics have any direct 
 ethical purpose may well, I think, be doubted. 
 
 It will be not without interest, now that we have arrived at 
 this point in VergiFs career, to notice a few passages which, in 
 addition to those already quoted, may be taken as evidence of the 
 intimate friendship between him and Horace. Horace's judg- 
 ment of Vergil is well known — molle atquefacetum {epos) Vergilio 
 annuerunt gaudentes rure Camenae^ the Muses have granted him 
 tenderness and refined wit in his hexameter writing. It must 
 be remembered that these words can only be referred to the 
 Eclogues, for the tenth satire of the first book is not dated by 
 any critic, so far as I know, later than 32 B.C. But there are lines 
 in the Epodes and in the two books of the Satires which so 
 closely resemble passages in the Georgics as well as in the 
 Eclogues, as to suggest either direct imitation of the one poet 
 by the other, or, which I think more probable, constant and 
 intimate communication between the two friends, who would no 
 doubt see much of each other's work while in progress and 
 before publication. To use a friend's verses seems to have been 
 regarded l)y the Roman poets as a compliment and a mark of 
 
i)L Conncciion wit/i /lis Life and Times. 63 
 
 affection. The second Epode is a playful treatment of the theme 
 to which Verg-il has devoted his beautiful lines (513 foil.) at the 
 end of the second Georgic ; the sixteenth, both in subject and 
 treatment, sugg-ests a memory of the fourth Eclogue, especially 
 when Horace's lines non hue Argoo contemUt reimge pitnis are 
 compared with Vergil's nee nautica pinns Mutabit merces. In the 
 eleventh Epode (line 6) silvis honorem deciitit recalls frigidus ei 
 sili'in Aquilo decitssit honorem (Georg, 2. 404) ; compare further 
 Sat. I. I. 36, s'lmul inversum eonfridat Aquarius annum, with 
 Georg. 3. 279, pluv'io contrhtat frigore caelum \ Sat. 1. i. 114, 
 ut cum carceribus missos rajni nngula eurrus, with Georg. i. 512, 
 id cum carceribus sese effudere quadrigae, Fertur equis auriga ; Sat. 
 I. 2. 89, breve quod caput, ardua cervix, with Georg. 3. 79, ardua 
 cervix Argutumque caput; Sat. 2. 2. 93, tellus me prima tulisset, 
 with Georg. i. 12, cui prima fremeniem Fudit ecum magna tellus 
 percussa tridenti ; Sat. 2.6.91, praerupii nemoris padentem vivere 
 dorso, with Georg. 3. 436, dorso nemoris .. .iacuisse per herbas. 
 
 Vergil's friendship with Varius is attested in the same way. 
 The critic in Macrobius^ 6. i . 39, points out that Vergil owed to 
 his friend's poem. Be Morte Caesaris, Georg. 2. 506, ut gemma 
 bibat et Sarrano dormiat ostro, and Eel. 8. 85, talis amor JDaphnin^ 
 qualis cumfessa iuvencum Per nemora atque altos quaerendo bucula 
 lucos Propter aquae rivum viridi procumbit in ulva Perdita, nee 
 serae meminit decedere nocti; Varius having written iucubet et 
 Tj/riis atque ex solido bibat auro; Ceu canis umbrosam lustrans 
 Gortynia vallem. Si veteris potuit cervae deprendere lustra, Saevit 
 in absentem, et circum vestigia histrans Aethera per nitidum tenues 
 sectatur adores; Non amnes illam medii, nan Jlumina tardant; 
 Perdita nee serae memi7iit decedere nocti; a passage which has 
 been turned to account by Vergil more than once. 
 
 That Propertius knew and admired the Georgics is proved not 
 only by the well-known passage about them in the last elegy of 
 his third book, but by a remarkable passage in the fifth poem of 
 his fourth book (v. 25 foil.) : Turn mihi naturae libeat perdiscere 
 mores, Quis deus hanc 7nundi temperet arte domum. Qua venit 
 exoriens, qua dejicit, unde coactis Cornibus in plenum menstrua luna 
 redit, Unde salo superant vetiti, quid Jlamine cajdet Eurus, et in 
 nubes nude perennis aqua, Sit ventura dies, mundi quae subruat 
 arces, Purpureus pluvias cur bibat arcus aquas, Aut cur Pcrrhaebi 
 
64 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 tremuere caciimina Pindi, Solis et atratis luxerit orbis equis ; Cur 
 serus versare boves et plaustra Bootes, Pleiadum spisso cur coit igne 
 chorus; Curve snos fines altxim non exeat aeqnor,Plenus et in jmrtes 
 quattuor annus eat ; Sub terris sint iura deum et tormenta Gigan- 
 tum, Sfc. The general sense of this passage is so strikingly 
 identical with that of Georg. 2. 475 foil, as to suggest strong 
 sympathy if not imitation. And the words naturae perdiscere 
 mores come probably from Georg. i. 51, var'ium caeli jjraediscere 
 tnorem. In the same way the passage about Italy in Propertius 
 4 (3). 22 may be compared with Georg. 2. 134 foil. 
 
 Vergil distinctly says at the beginning of the third Georgie 
 that he means to celebrate the exploits of Octavianus. He 
 never carried out this intention literally, but the Aeneid, which 
 occupied him for the rest of his life, embraced a wider field than 
 he had originally contemplated. The remark of Suetonius that 
 the Aeneid was argumentum varlum ac mnltijdex et quasi ambornm 
 Homeri car^ninum instar, praeterea nom'mibus ac rebus Graecis 
 Latinisque commune et, in quo, quod maxime studebat, Eomanae 
 simul urbis et Augusti origo contineretur , contains the gist of 
 much actual and possible criticism. I have endeavoured else- 
 where [Suggestions introductory to a Study of the Aeneid^ to 
 trace out some of the leading ideas which guided Vergil in his 
 treatment of the story; I shall therefore confine myself on the 
 present occasion to making a few remarks on the probable order, 
 so far as this can be ascertained, in which the books of the 
 Aeneid were composed, and to noticing some passages in Pro- 
 pertius which seem to shew that he had seen some of it before it 
 was published, with a few which Vergil apparently took from 
 Horace and Varius. 
 
 I cannot suppose that Vergil's desire to burn the Aeneid was 
 occasioned by his sense of his own incapacity to write epic 
 poetry. It is far more likely that, as he says in his letter to 
 Augustus (Maerob. i. 24. ii), he was conscious of the vastness 
 of the material and the compass of the subject, and felt that he 
 had not had time to mould his conceptions into perfect form. 
 Tanta incohata res est ut paene vitio mentis tantum opus ingnssns 
 mihi videar. His misgiving would be seriously increased by the 
 reflection that even the outer incidents of the story had not in 
 some important parts been brought into even tolerable harmony 
 
/;/ Connection ui/fi //is Life and Times. 65 
 
 with each other. For Suetonius states that Vergil futjt drafted 
 the Aeneid in prose and then wrote the various parts in no 
 definite order, but just as the fancy took him : pa)ticidatlm coiii- 
 ponere instiiuit, jrrout liberet qtudqne d nihil in ordiiiem arripiens. 
 This statement is fully borne out by internal evidence. The 
 inconsistencies and discrepancies between diil'erent parts of the 
 Aeneid have been often noticed, by no one to more purpose than 
 by Ribbeck in his Fn>/ef/o///c?ia. The account of Aeneas' wander- 
 ings given in the third book cannot be reconciled with that of 
 the first and fifth books. In the third book they are represented 
 as lasting two and a half or three years, in the first and fifth as 
 lasting more than six. Clearly Vergil must have at diflerent 
 times taken up different traditions — there were many in the 
 second-rate mythology which he followed — and had not before 
 his death finally decided which to adopt. Again^ at the end 
 of the second book, Creusa the wife of Aeneas is said to have 
 appeared to him after her death and prophesied to him the rise 
 of his kingdom in Italy. Now in the third book, which con- 
 tains the story of his wanderings immediately after this pro- 
 phecy was given, there is no mention of it whatever, and yet, 
 had Aeneas remembered it, it would have saved him his voyage 
 to Crete. This glaring inconsistency makes it almost certain 
 that the third book was written before the second. 
 
 Again, the fifth book somewhat interferes with the narrative 
 of the fourth and sixth, and contains one notable inconsistency 
 with that of the sixth Aeneid. The sixth book would naturally 
 follow the fourth, for Aeneas intended to go straight from 
 Carthage to Italy, and Dido in the sixth book appears to Aeneas 
 as fresh from the slaughter, recens a volnere. The' inconsistency 
 to which I have alluded occurs in the accounts of the death of 
 Palinurus, the steersman of Aeneas, In the fifth book he is 
 drowned in a calm sea by the agency of a god ; in the sixth he 
 falls from the helm to which he is clinging in aj)prehension 
 of the rough weather which is threatening the ship [lanlis 
 suryenlihus undis). This fact so far as it goes tends, I think, 
 to shew that the fifth book was written subsequently to the 
 sixth. 
 
 It is improbable, again, that the fifth book was written before 
 the ninth ; for in the ninth Nisus and Euryalus are introduced 
 
 p 
 
66 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 as if no mention had ])eon made of them before, although they 
 have been ah-eady spoken of at length as taking part in the 
 games described in the fifth. 
 
 Little can be ascertained as to the actual dates at which 
 different parts of the Aeneid were composed. The lines in the 
 eig^ith book describing the triple triumph of 29 B.C. can hardly 
 have been written long after that event, and the same may 
 perhaps be conjectured with regard to other passages referring 
 to the same period^ as for instance the description of the Indus 
 Troiae in the fifth book, and that of the Actian games in 3. 280. 
 I am inclined to think that the third Aeneid was one of the 
 earliest which Vergil completed. That it was written before 
 the first we have already seen ; and its style throughout is so 
 inferior to that of any other part of the poem as readily to 
 suggest the idea that it was Vergil's first attempt upon the 
 story of Aeneas. It contains a complete and independent story, 
 that of the wanderings of Aeneas between Troy and Carthage, 
 which, as we have seen, Vergil never harmonized with the con- 
 elusion of the second book. 
 
 Augustus when absent on the Cantabrian campaign (b.c. 26 
 and 25) wrote Vergil a half-playful, half-threatening letter, 
 asking the poet to send him the first draft, or if not that, any 
 single passage of the Aeneid. No doubt Suetonius, to whom we 
 owe this information, had before him the same correspondence 
 of which a fragment is preserved by Macrobius. Of Vergil's 
 characteristic reply I have already spoken. It was not until 
 long after this that he consented to read to Augustus three 
 books, two of which were certainly the fourth and the sixth. 
 The sixth book cannot have been recited earlier than B.C. 23, the 
 year in which the young Marcellus died, nor later than 23, when 
 Augustus went to Sicily. No date can be assigned to the 
 reading of the fourth book : nor is it certain whether the other 
 book recited was the first, second, or third. 
 
 The sixth book contains allusions to the conquest of the 
 Garamantes and the seventh to the restoration of the Koman 
 standards: (6. 794, sKjjer et Garainantas et Inclos Proferet im- 
 jierhrm; 7. 606, Auroramque scqui PariJtosfjne rejioacere s'u/na). 
 Both these events belong to the year of Vergil's death, 19 b.c. ; 
 supposing, that is, that the passage about the Garamantes refers 
 
/;/ Connection zoil/i /lis Life a)id Tiuics. 67 
 
 to the actual triuin))l\ of Aug-ustus, not lo his c'ami»aii>ti of the 
 previous year. 
 
 I now come to the point with the consideration of which 
 I shall conclude this essay. It is clear from the testimony of 
 Suetonius that parts of the Aeneid had become famous long 
 before A'crg-il's death, in spite of the fact that like Horace he 
 was particular only to recite to select audiences of friends and 
 critics. I need hardly allude to the well-known lines of Pro- 
 pertius, Cedife Boniani scrijjfores, cedite Gra'ii, Nescio quid maiitu 
 nascitur Iliade, which were written, if Suetonius may be be- 
 lieved, soon after the commencement of Vergil's labours. Tlie 
 language of Propertius shews, I think, that he was one of the 
 favoured circle who were allowed to see the Aeneid in progress. 
 The poem in question (3. 26) must have been written in or 
 shortly after the year 26, when the poet Gallus came to his 
 tragical end ; and the expressions Actia Utora Phoebi^ iacfaque 
 Lavinis fnoenia litoribus, recall the words of Vergil so accurately 
 that it is impossible to suppose that they were not known to 
 Propertius. The Aeneid seems also to be distinctly alluded 
 to in 2. I. 41^ nee mea conveniunt duro praecordla versu Caesaris 
 in Pliri/fjios condere nomen avos ; and a passage ten lines above 
 in the same poem, Aldus cum tractus in nrbem Septem captlvis 
 debilis ibat aquis, must be compared with Vergil's words written 
 in or referring to the same year, 29 B.C., Eujihrates ibat iam 
 moUior nndin. Again, 5. 3. 32 (b.c. 20 or 19), (ncis et nuctores 
 non dare carmen aves, is strangely like Aen. 8. 455, Evandrum . . . 
 /ux snscilat alma, Et matutini rolucrum sub culmine cant us ; so 
 Propertius, miscebant iista inoclia nuda sude (5. i. 28), recalls 
 Vergil's sudibusve praeustis (decernunt) Aen. 7. 524. There are 
 other expressions common to Vergil and Propertius in poems 
 of the latter, to which no date can apparently be assigned ; such 
 are i. 16. 25, tu sola hiimanos numquam miserata labores, com- 
 pared with Aen. i. 597, sola infandos Troiae miserata lafjores ; 
 2. 5. 3, dabis mihi perfida pocuas, Aen. 4. 386, dabis Improhe 
 poenas; 3. 3. 5> idem non frnstra rentosas addidit alas, Aen. 12. 
 848, ventosasqtte addidit alas; 4. i 1 . 12, rnnorumque pares dncite 
 sorte vices, Aen. 3. 510, sortitl renios; 4. 7. 49, Aen. 10. 136, 
 Oricia terebinlho ; 5. 2. 8, Itac quondam Tit)eriiins iter ficicfjdt, 
 et aiunt Bemorntn auditos per vada puha soiios; 5. 6. 26. armoruui 
 
 F a. 
 
68 Essay on the Poetry of Vergil 
 
 radiis jjicta tremehat aqua, Aen. 8. 92, tmratur nemus insiietvin 
 fulgentia lovge Scuta virnm Jluvio p'lctasque innare carinas; ^. 6. 
 49, qnodqne vehmit prorae Centaurica saxa minantes, Aen. 10. 
 195, inrjentem rem'is Centaurum promovet ; ille Instat aquae, sax- 
 umque ingens immane minatur Ardnus. When it is uncertain, 
 as it is in some of these cases, wliether Propertius wrote before 
 Vergil's deaths it is impossible to be sure which poet is borrow- 
 ing- from the other ; but the coincidences are striking in 
 themselves, and may well point to friendship between the two 
 writers. 
 
 The same remarks apply to some passages in Horace which 
 were either imitated by Vergil in the Aeneid, or represent the 
 common thoughts of the two poets. Sed we per hosfes Mercurius 
 celer Benso paventem siistnlit acre, Te nirsus hi helium resorhens 
 JJnda fretis tulit aesUiosis (Od. 2. 7. 14), recalls two passages 
 in the Aeneid, i. 411, at Venus ohscuro grandientes acre saepsit, 
 II. 627, rapidus retro atque aestu revoluta resorhens Saxa fugk. 
 Compare also Sol uhi montium Mutaret ^^mhraK (Od. 3. 6. 41) and 
 Aen. I. 607, dv/m montihiis vmhrae Lnstrabunt convexaj Sat. 
 2. I. 58, mors airis circumvolat alls, and Aen. 6. 866, sed nox 
 atra caput tristi circumvokd umtjra. 
 
 From Varius Vergil borrowed Aen. 6. 622, Vendidit hie 
 nnro patriam dominumque potentem Imposnit, Jixit leges p)^''^tM 
 atque refixit, and part of 6. 79, tanto magis ille fatigat Os raU- 
 dmn, /era corda domans, jingilque premendo. Varius had written 
 Vendidit hie Latium pojndis, domimmique potentem Imposuit, jixit 
 leges pretio atque rejixit : and speaking of a horse and his rider, 
 angusto prius ore coercens Insultare docet campis^ fngitque morando. 
 
 The chronological results of the foregoing discussion may 
 be summed up in the following table of dates : — 
 
 B.C. 70. Birth of Vergil. 
 6^. Birth of Horace. 
 63. Birth of Augustus. 
 56 or ^^ ? Birth of Propertius. 
 ^^. Vergil takes the toga virilis. 
 
 54 or 53 ? The seventh poem of the Kara Xctttov and the 
 Culex. Vergil begins the study of philosophy. 
 
in Connection loiiJi /lis Life and Times. 69 
 
 B.C. 49. Roman fitizonshi]) conferred by Jnlins Caesar on the 
 towns of Gullia Transjjada/nf. 
 
 43. Earliest, date assig-nalde to any of the Eclogues. 
 
 42. Battle of Philippi. 
 
 41. Confiscations by the triumvirs: Vergil, Propertius, 
 and Tibullus all suffer — Eclogue 9 : the tenth poem 
 of the Kara AeTrroi- : A'ergil flies to the villa of 
 Siron. Commencement of Vergil's acquaintance 
 with Maecenas. 
 
 War of Perusia : (Propertius 1. 21 and 22?). 
 
 40. Consulship of Asinius Pollio. Restoration of Vergil 
 to his estate. Eclogues i. 4. 8 : 6? 
 
 39. Horace, Odes 2. i ? P. Alfenus (Varus?) consul 
 siiJfeclKS : Orelli-Henzen Inscr. 64^^. 
 
 37. Eclogue 10. Vergil and Varius meet Horace at 
 Sinuessa. Construction of the partus Jnlins by 
 Agrippa. Terminus a quo of the Georgics. Phraates 
 ascends the throne of Parthia. 
 
 36. Expedition of Antonius against the Parthians. De- 
 feat of Oppius Statianus : Polemo king of Pontus 
 taken prisoner by Phraates ; disastrous retreat of 
 Antonius. 
 
 '^^. Discontent of the Medians with Phraates. 
 
 34. Occupation of Armenia by the Romans : conquest of 
 Artaxias by the AFedians. 
 
 33. Roman troops withdrawn from the East : Armenia 
 and Media overrun by Phraates. The Roman em- 
 pire threatened with civil war. The Suevi cross 
 the Rhine? Georg. i. 498 foil. ; 2. 495 foil. Horace, 
 Odes I. 2? Epod. 7 and 17? 
 
 32. Revolution in Parthia : Phraates driven into exile ; 
 his flight to the Scythians. The events of this year 
 
70 Essay on the Podry of Vei'gil, &c. 
 
 are alluded to in the twelfth poem of the Kara 
 X^TiTov, probably also by Horace^ Odes i. 26 and "i^^. 
 
 B.C. 31. Battle of Actium. Octavianus leaves Italy for the 
 East (winter). 
 
 30. Settlement of the East by Octavianus. Georgie 2. 
 171-2. 
 
 29. Return of Octavianus : divine and human honours 
 decreed to him : his triple ti'iumph. Georgics recited 
 to him at Atella. Openings of the first and of the 
 third Georgics. Propertius, 4. 8 (9). ^"^^y and else- 
 where. Horace, Od. 2. 9. 
 
 Closing of the temple of Janus by Octavianus. 
 
 Aeneid 8. 714 foil.? i. 289 foil.? 
 
 28. Aeneid '>f'^. '2^. 280, Actiaque Iliacis celebramus litora 
 ludis : Propertius, 3 (2). 32^ Actia . . . litora 
 Phoebi, &c. ? 
 
 27. Title of Augustus conferred upon Octavianus. 
 
 26, Augustus leaves Italy for the campaign against the 
 Cantabri, on which he is absent during this and the 
 following year. His correspondence with Vergil. 
 
 23. Death of Marcellus. Recitation of Aeneid 6? 
 
 20. Expedition of Augustus to the East. Aen. 6. 794, 
 7. 606. 
 
 19. Journey of Vergil to Greece : his death. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 SUGGESTIOXS INTRODUCTORY TO A STUDY OF THE 
 AENEID. Demy 8vo. Price, Eighteenpence. 
 
 THE ROMAN SATURA, ITS ORIGINAL FORM IN CON- 
 NECTION WITH ITS LITERARY DEVELOPMENT. 
 Demy 8vo. Price, Oue Sbilliug. 
 
Books Lately Published. 
 
 Cicero. The Philippic Orations. With Notes. By 
 
 J. R. King, M.A., formerly Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford. 
 Second Edition. Demy Svo. cloth, los. 6d. 
 
 Cicero. Select Letters. With English Introduc- 
 tions, Notes, and Appendices. By Albert Watson, M.A., Fellow and 
 Lecturer of Brasenose College, Oxford. Second Edition. Demy Svo. cloth, 
 1 8s. 
 
 Cicero. Select Letters (Text). By the same 
 
 Editor. Extra fcap. Svo, cloth, 4,s. 
 
 Cicero de Oratore. With Introckiction and Notes. 
 
 By A. S. Wilkins, MA., Professor of Latin, Owens College, Manchester. 
 Book I. Svo. cloth. Just ready. 
 
 Catulli Veronensis Liber. Iterum recognovit, ap- 
 
 paratura criticum prolegomena appendices addidit, Robinson EUis, A. M. 
 Svo. cloth, 1 6s. 
 
 Catullus. A Commentary on Catullus. By Eobin- 
 
 son Ellis, M.A. Svo. cloth, i6s. 
 
 Horace. With Introductions and Notes. By Edward 
 
 C. Wickliam, MA., Head Master of Wellington College. 
 Vol. I. The Odes, Cai-men Seculare, and Epodes. Second Edition. Demy 
 Svo. cloth, 12S. 
 
 LiVY, Books I-X. By J. E. Seeley, M.A., Begins Pro- 
 
 fes.sor of Modern History, Cambridge. Book I. Second Edition. Demy Svo. 
 cloth, 6s. 
 
 Persius. The Satires. With a Translation and 
 
 Commentary. By John Conington, M.A. Edited by H. Nettleship, M.A. 
 Second Edition. Svo. cloth, 76'. 6d. 
 
 Selections from the less known Latin Poets. By 
 
 North Finder, M.A. Demy Svo. cloth, 15s. 
 
 Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin. With 
 
 Introduction and Notes. By John Wordsworth, M.A., Tutor of Brasenose 
 College, Oxford. Demy Svo. cloth, iSs. 
 
 A Manual of Comparative Philology, as aj^plied to 
 
 the Illustration of Greek and Latin Inflections. By T. L. Papillon, M.A., 
 Fellow of New College. Second Edition, Crown Svo. cloth, 6s. 
 
 MACMILLAN and CO., 30, Bedford Street, Strand, London. 
 
 lH- 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 j^i 
 
 RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 
 (510)642-6753 
 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books 
 
 to NRLF 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days 
 
 prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 JAN 3 1 1997 
 
 '^AR 1 3 1999 
 
 NOV 20 2001 
 
 SENT ON ILL 
 
U C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 m,: 
 
 
 -^ ^. 
 
 
 
 %.^4fc 
 

 
 Wn\\'ii