CHAPTER VIII
THE PATRONS OF LITERATURE—VIRGIL
Effect of the Empire upon literature—Augustus, 63 B. C.-14 A. D.—Agrippa, 63-12 B. C.—Pollio, 67 B. C.-5 A. D.—Messalla, 64 B. C.-8 A. D.—Mæcenas, 70 (?)-8 B. C.—Virgil, 70-19 B. C.—His life—The Eclogues—The Georgics—The Æneid.
Effect of the Empire upon literature.With the battle of Actium the Roman Republic came to an end. Julius Cæsar had, to be sure, gathered all the power of the state into his own hand, but he had held it only a short time; Octavius—after 27 B. C., Augustus—held the full power until his death, and left it unimpaired to his successors. The change from a free government, whatever its corruption and decay, to what was really an unlimited monarchy could not fail to have some influence upon literature. Henceforth the great orator might hope to win cases in the courts, but he could no longer change the policy of the nation; the historian might search the records of the past and describe the deeds of those who were no longer living, but if he wrote of the history of his own times, he must have the fear of the master always before his eyes; the poet could sing of love and wine and nature without let or hindrance, but poems of national and political importance could hardly be written except by those in sympathy with the empire. The emperor might exert his influence to put down all literary expression not agreeable to him without encouraging literature of any kind, or he might encourage certain kinds of literature and certain writers without treating with severity even those whose works displeased him, or he might at the same time encourage some and suppress others. Under an imperial master literary expression could not be so free as in the days of the republic, but the degree of restraint at any time depended upon the character of the emperor. It is due to the enlightened liberality of Augustus that the period of his rule was the most brilliant epoch of Roman literature.
Augustus (63 B. C.-14 A. D.) had received a careful education in his youth, and had a genuine and intelligent admiration for literature. Augustus. His own literary productions comprised an epic poem entitled Sicily, some short epigrams, an unfinished tragedy entitled Ajax, orations, memoirs, and letters. Before his death he directed that an account of his deeds (Index Rerum Gestarum) should be engraved on bronze tablets and affixed to his tomb. He probably composed this account himself, and the copy of it found inscribed upon the wall of the temple of Augustus and Rome at Ancyra (the Monumentum Ancyranum), containing in simple and dignified language the record of his life, his political measures, and his military activity, shows the good taste of the first Roman emperor, for he who had become the ruler of the civilized world was not led to praise himself or speak in extravagant terms of any of his deeds, but composed the record of his wonderful life in terms of simplicity so grave and dignified as to inspire veneration. It was not, however, through his own compositions but through his influence that Augustus made his name great in the history of literature. He encouraged Virgil, Horace, and other poets, he attended the recitations of authors who wished to bring their new works before an enlightened public, and he surrounded himself with friends who delighted in aiding and honoring those whose genius could give glory to their patrons and add lustre to the empire.
Agrippa. Among these friends of literature was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (63-12 B. C.), who caused the first map of the world to be set up in the porticus Polæ and was himself the author of geographical works. More important was Gaius Asinius Pollio (67 B. C.-5 A. D.), who established the first public library in Rome. Pollio. His example was followed by Augustus, who established two libraries, one in the porch of Octavia, the other in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, under the care of the learned Varro. Pollio was a soldier, statesman, and orator, but also wrote tragedies and a history of the years 60-42 B. C., in which he criticized boldly the statements of Julius Cæsar, the adoptive father of Augustus. Pollio was the first to hold and encourage public and private recitations of new literary works. Mesalla. Less closely connected with the emperor was Marcus Valerius Messalla (64 B. C.-8 A. D.), who had originally been a partizan of Brutus, but had made his peace with Augustus. He was, like Pollio, an orator, but occupied himself also with antiquarian and grammatical researches, and in his earlier years made translations from the Greek and wrote Greek prose and verse. His house was a gathering place for the younger poets of the period.
But of all the patrons of literature under Augustus, the most distinguished was Gaius Mæcenas, the friend of Augustus, of Virgil, and of Horace. Mæcenas. He was born about 70 B. C., and died in 8 B. C. A member of an ancient and noble Etruscan family, he had been carefully educated, and developed the most refined literary taste. His attractive and winning personality made him of great service to Octavius in his negotiations with Antony and Sextus Pompey, and after the power of Augustus was established Mæcenas was the close friend and constant adviser of the emperor. In spite of his fine literary taste, he was without talent as a writer, and his works, both prose and verse, were severely criticized by his contemporaries and by later readers. It is little to be regretted that his writings, like those of the other patrons of literature who have been mentioned, are lost. And yet the name of Mæcenas will always occupy an honored place in the history of literature, for it was he who made possible the poems of Virgil and Horace.
The greatest of Roman poets is Virgil. Publius Vergilius Maro was born of humble parents, at Andes, a village in the territory of Mantua, October 15, 70 B. C. Mæcenas. His parents can not have been poor, for they gave him a good education, first at Cremona, then at Milan, and later at Rome. He was trained chiefly in rhetoric and philosophy, but the only teacher whose influence seems to have been lasting was the Epicurean philosopher Siro. For oratory Virgil developed no taste. After the battle of Philippi (42 B. C.) the triumvirs recompensed their veterans by a distribution of farm lands, and Virgil’s farm was given to a new owner. At that time Asinius Pollio, who had admired Virgil’s poetry and had encouraged him to write the Bucolics or Eclogues, was governor of the region beyond the Po, and through his influence the poet was reinstated in his property. But in the following summer a new distribution of lands was made, and Pollio was no longer governor of the province. Virgil was dispossessed, and had to take refuge at the villa of his teacher Siro. Through the influence of Cornelius Gallus and Mæcenas, Augustus was led to recompense the poet for his loss, and from this time Virgil was in close relations to the imperial circle. Hereafter he lived at Rome and on an estate near Naples, which he received from Augustus.
In 37 or 36 B. C. and the following years he wrote the Georgics in honor of Mæcenas, and the Æneid, written at the request of Augustus, was begun in 29 B. C. When the poem was finished and the poet had reached his fifty-first year, he went to Athens, intending to devote three years to the final revision of his work, and then to give himself up to the study of philosophy. But at Athens he met with Augustus, who was on the point of returning to Rome from the East and invited him to join the imperial party. Virgil was already ill from exposure to the heat during a visit to Megara, but accepted the invitation. On the voyage his illness increased, and a few days after his arrival at Brundusium he died, September 21, 19 B. C. He was buried at Naples, where he had passed most of his later years.
Virgil’s undisputed works are three: the Eclogues, called, on account of their pastoral nature, the Bucolics; the Georgics; and the Æneid. The Eclogues are a series of ten idylls in imitation of the poems of the Greek poet Theocritus. The Greek word “idyll” means “little picture,” and since all Virgil’s idylls, except the fourth, and most of those of Theocritus, depict the life of herdsmen in the country, the word is generally applied to pastoral poems. Virgil’s Works. The Eclogues. Virgil’s Eclogues are little pictures of pastoral life, but contain many allusions to the poet’s own circumstances and to his friends and patrons, Pollio, Gallus, Varus, Mæcenas, and Augustus. Pastoral poems, written for the cultivated circle of an imperial court, are necessarily artificial, and to this rule the Eclogues are no exception. Yet the charm of their diction, the polish of their verse, the genuine love of nature and appreciation of rural life which they display, have given these poems a well-deserved place among the most famous productions of Roman literature. In the Eclogues Virgil is, even more than in his other poems, dependent on Greek originals. Not only scattered lines, but whole passages are almost literal translations from the idylls of Theocritus, and less noticeable adaptations from other poets also occur. Sometimes Virgil’s version is less beautiful than the original poem from which he borrows, and some of the most admired passages are not his own inventions; but even in the Eclogues, the earliest of his authentic works, written when he was about thirty years of age, amid the distress that accompanied his ejection from his little property, Virgil succeeds in making from his Greek originals new and great poems of genuinely Roman character. From first to last Virgil is a national poet.
The poem which stands first in the series, but which was not the first in order of composition, has the form of a dialogue between two herdsmen, Melibœus and Tityrus. In it the poet expresses his gratitude to Augustus, whom he calls a god. The poem begins:
Melibœus. Stretched in the shadow of the broad beech, thou
Rehearsest, Tityrus, on the slender pipe
Thy woodland music. We our fatherland
Are leaving, we must shun the fields we love:
While, Tityrus, thou, at ease amid the shade,
Bidd’st answering woods call Amaryllis “fair.”
Tityrus. O Melibœus! ’tis a god that made
For me this holiday: for a god I’ll aye
Account him; many a young lamb from my fold
Shall stain his altar. Thanks to him, my kine
Range as thou seest them: thanks to him, I play
What songs I list upon my shepherd’s pipe.[52]
In the dialogue that follows, Tityrus, who represents Virgil himself, speaks of his visit to Rome and his meeting with Augustus:
There, Melibœus, I beheld that youth
For whom each year twelve days my altars smoke.
Thus answered he my yet unanswered prayer,
“Feed still, my lads, your kine, and yoke your bulls.”[53]
The fourth Eclogue, addressed to Pollio, and written in the year of his consulship (40 B. C.), celebrates in prophetic and lofty language the birth of a child. As the child grows the world is to become better, until the golden age of peace and good-will among men shall come again. This poem was, curiously enough, long supposed to be an inspired prophecy of the coming of Christ. Who the child really was is uncertain, but there is some evidence that Gaius Asinius Gallus, Pollio’s son, is meant. The lofty tone is struck with the very opening of the poem:
Muses of Sicily, a loftier song
Wake we! Some tire of shrubs and myrtles low.
Are woods our theme? Then princely be the woods.
Come are those last days that the Sibyl sang;
The ages’ mighty march begins anew.
Now comes the virgin, Saturn reigns again;
Now from high heaven descends a wondrous race.
Thou on the new-born babe—who first shall end
That age of iron, bid a golden dawn
Upon the broad world—chaste Lucina, smile:
Now thy Apollo reigns. And Pollio, thou
Shalt be our Prince, when he that grander age
Opens, and onward roll the mighty moons:
Thou, trampling out what prints our crimes have left,
Shalt free the nations from perpetual fear.
While he to bliss shall waken; with the Blest
See the Brave mingling, and be seen of them,
Ruling that world o’er which his father’s arm shed peace.[54]
But the atmosphere of the Eclogues is generally that of the country, and the form that of dialogue, with competitive songs by the herdsmen. The opening lines of the fifth Eclogue may serve as an example. The characters are Menalcas and Mopsus:
Men. Mopsus, suppose now two good men have met—
You at flute-blowing, as at verses I—
We sit down here, where elm and hazel mix.
Mop. Menalcas, meet it is that I obey
Mine elder. Lead, or into shade—that shifts
At the wind’s fancy—or (mayhap the best)
Into some cave. See, here’s a cave, o’er which
A wild vine flings her flimsy foliage.
Men. On these hills one—Amyntas—vies with you.
Mop. Suppose he thought to out-sing Phœbus’ self?
Men. Mopsus, begin. If aught you know of flames
That Phyllis kindles, aught of Alcon’s worth,
Or Codrus’ ill-temper, then begin;
Tityrus meanwhile will watch the grazing kids.
Mop. Ay, I will sing the song which t’other day
On a green beech’s bark I cut; and scored
The music as I wrote. Hear that, and bid
Amyntas vie with me.
Men. As willow lithe
Yields to pale olive; as to crimson beds
Of roses yields the lowly lavender,
So, to my mind, Amyntas yields to you.[55]
The Eclogues were published not later than 38 B. C. In 29 B. C. the four books of the Georgics were completed. The Georgics. One of the most important tasks of the new government, now that the civil strife was ended, was to ensure the continuance of tranquility by settling the veterans in the country and encouraging agriculture, which had been sadly neglected in Italy for many years. It was therefore with a practical end in view that Mæcenas suggested to Virgil the composition of a poem on agriculture. This was a subject which Virgil was especially qualified to treat with success, and the poem, to which he devoted seven years, is the most perfect of his works. It is a very free imitation of the Works and Days of Hesiod, and contains many passages derived from Aratus and other Greek poets, but in its composition and its poetic beauty it is independent of all but Virgil’s own genius. It is dedicated to Mæcenas. The first book treats of the tilling of the soil, the beginning of agriculture, the instruments needed by the farmer, the tasks appropriate to the different seasons, and the signs of the weather, ending with a splendid passage describing the portents at the time of Cæsar’s death, and a prayer that Augustus may put an end to the wars and disorders of the times. This passage is closely connected with the preceding lines in which the signs of the weather given by the appearance of the sun are described. It begins:
And last, what evening brings, and when the wind
Bears placid clouds, and also with what thoughts
The wet south wind is moved, of all these things
The sun will give thee signs. Who dares to say
The sun is false? He even warns ofttimes
That strife unseen and treason are at hand
And hidden wars are swelling to break forth.
He even, pitying Rome for Cæsar’s fall,
In pitchy darkness veiled his shining head;
The impious age feared endless night. Yet then
Earth also and the waters of the sea
And obscene dogs and evil-omened birds
Gave signs. How often did we see boil forth
From bursting furnace of the Cyclopes
The waves of Ætna o’er the fertile fields
And roll her balls of flame and molten rocks!
Germania heard through all the sky the sound
Of arms; the Alps with unused tremblings shook.
Then, too, by many through the silent groves
A mighty voice was heard, and pallid forms
In wondrous wise appeared in dusky night,
And dumb beasts spake (oh, horror!), and the streams
Stood still, and earth yawned open, and the sad
Carved ivory wept within the sacred fanes,
And sweat poured forth from statues wrought of bronze.
Eridanus, the king of rivers, rushed
Whirling the woods along on eddies mad,
And through the fields bore stables with the herds.[56]
The second book treats of the culture of trees and of the vine, and includes a description of the properties of different kinds of soil. Among its beautiful passages one is the praise of Italy,[57] another the description of the blessings of the farmer’s life, beginning—
O blessed farmers, if they only might
Their blessings know! For whom the bounteous earth
Herself, afar from strife of clashing arms,
Pours forth an easy livelihood.[58]
The third book is devoted to the care of horses and cattle. A beautiful passage, near the beginning of the book, expresses the poet’s love for his native Mantua and his homage to Augustus. The first lines of this passage are as follows:
I first, if life be granted, coming back,
Will lead the Muses from Aonian heights
To my own land; I first will bring to thee,
My Mantua, Idumæan palms, and in
Thy verdant mead will build a marble fane
Beside the water, where the mighty stream
Of Mincius wanders slow with winding curves
And clothes with tender reeds the river banks.
There in the midst for me shall Cæsar stand
And hold the temple. Then to him will I
As victor, clad in Tyrian purple garb,
Drive to the stream a hundred four-horse cars.[59]
The fourth book treats of the culture of bees. It contains several passages of singular beauty, one of the most striking of which is the description of the life of the hive.[60] The poem ends with an epic description of the visit of Aristæus, the mythical founder of bee culture, to his mother, the sea-nymph Cyrene. This includes an account of the struggle of Aristæus with the sea-god Proteus and the death of Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus. A tradition exists that the poem originally ended with a passage in praise of Gallus; but before its publication Gallus had died in disgrace, and the present ending was substituted. In its final form the close of the Georgics shows that Virgil was already tending to become an epic poet.
At the request of Augustus, Virgil began, in 29 B. C., the composition of his greatest work, the Æneid, in which he tells of the mythical origin of the Roman race and of the greatness and glory of the Rome that was to arise and reach its height under the leadership of the Julian family, which claimed direct descent from Æneas. The Æneid. As early as the sixth century B. C. the Sicilian poet Stesichorus had sung of the coming of Æneas to Italy. Nævius and Ennius had connected Æneas with the origin of Rome, and had fixed some of the details of the story. Upon the foundations thus prepared for him Virgil erected the splendid structure of his poem. In the Eclogues he had followed, closely for the most part, in the footsteps of Theocritus; the Works and Days of Hesiod had served as the prototype of the Georgics, though here Virgil was so far from slavish imitation that his work surpasses the Works and Days in every respect. In the Æneid the imitation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey is constantly evident, and certain passages are clearly derived from Euripides, Sophocles, and Apollonius of Rhodes; but the Æneid is by no means a mere imitation. In some respects it is far inferior to the Homeric poems. It lacks their simplicity, their rapidity of movement, and their fresh joyousness; it can not be compared with them in narrative power or brilliancy of imagery. In these qualities Homer is unapproachable. But as a national epic, as the expression in prophetic form of the national greatness and of the poet’s deep-seated passion for his country’s glory the Æneid had no prototype, as it has had no successor. Virgil is not Homer; he is reflective, filled with the deep thoughts that centuries of speculation had implanted in the serious minds of his age; and his great poem is more than a mere narrative. In execution the Æneid is uneven. At times it is polished to the highest degree, at other times it falls to a level hardly, if at all, above mediocrity; some passages breathe a poetic fervor unsurpassed, while others might almost as well be written in prose. So conscious was Virgil himself of the unevenness and imperfections of his work that he wished it to be burned after his death, and could hardly be persuaded to leave its fate in the hands of his friends. His death came before he had perfected the poem, and its most perfect parts show what he wished it all to be and what it might have become had his life been spared. Even though it lacks the master’s final revision, it remains the greatest poem of Roman times and one of the greatest poems of all ages.
The Æneid was to be for the Romans what the Iliad and the Odyssey together were for the Greeks. The first six books are modelled chiefly on the Odyssey. Imitation of Homer. As the Odyssey tells of the wanderings and adventures of Odysseus before he reaches his home, so these books of the Æneid tell of the adventures of Æneas on his voyage from Troy to Italy, and more than one passage shows how constantly the Odyssey was in the poet’s mind. The last six books tell of the struggles of Æneas and his followers against the warriors who opposed their settlement in Italy; and here the combats described in the Iliad are imitated, sometimes even in details. In the final struggle Æneas is a second Achilles, and the brave but unfortunate Turnus is an Italian Hector.
In the first book, after a brief introduction, the poem begins in the midst of the story. The fleet of Æneas is off the coast of Sicily, when Juno causes the wind-god, Æolus, to rouse a storm. The Trojan vessels are driven on the rocks, and the sea is stirred to its lowest depths. Then Neptune, angered that his waters are thus tossed about without his consent, rebukes Æolus, and puts the waves to rest:
He said, and ere his words were done,
Allays the surge, brings back the sun:
Triton and swift Cymothoë drag
The ships from off the pointed crag:
He, trident-armed, each dull weight heaves,
Through the vast shoals a passage cleaves,
Makes smooth the ruffled wave, and rides
Calm o’er the surface of the tides.
As when sedition oft has stirred
In some great town the vulgar herd,
And brands and stones already fly—
For rage has weapons always nigh—
Then should some man of worth appear
Whose stainless virtue all revere,
They hush, they hist: his clear voice rules
Their rebel wills, their anger cools:
So ocean ceased at once to rave,
When, calmly looking o’er the wave,
Girt with a range of azure sky,
The father bids his chariot fly.[61]
The Trojans reach the African coast, where Æneas meets his mother, Venus, and is directed to the city of Carthage, which the Phœnician princess Dido has just founded. Æneas and his comrade, the faithful Achates, enter the city wrapped in a cloud, which makes them invisible. When they are revealed to Dido, she receives them kindly, and takes them to her palace. Æneas sends to the ships for his son Ascanius, also called Iulus, but Venus substitutes for him the god of love, Cupid, who fills Dido’s heart with love for Æneas. In the second book Æneas begins the story of his adventures with a superb account of the fall of Troy, his own valiant but ineffectual struggle against the Greeks, and his final flight. In the third book he continues his story to the time of his arrival at Carthage. The fourth book is devoted to the love and fate of Dido. Æneas and Dido, with their followers, go hunting in the forest; a storm arises, and the two, separated from the rest, take refuge in a cave, where only the woodland nymphs witness the union of their loves. Dido looks forward to a joint reign over Trojans and Tyrians alike. But Æneas is warned by Mercury, at the command of Jupiter, to fulfil his destiny and sail to Italy. Dido overwhelms him with loving reproaches, but in vain; he remains steadfast in his obedience to the divine will. Then Dido determines to die. She erects a funeral pyre, places upon it the mementoes of her former husband, Sychæus, and mounts it to end her life. But before she dies she calls down curses upon Æneas and his race:
Eye of the world, majestic Sun,
Who seest whate’er on earth is done,
Thou, Juno, too, interpreter
And witness of the heart’s fond stir,
And Hecate, tremendous power,
In cross-ways howled at midnight hour,
Avenging fiends, and gods of death
Who breathe in dying Dido’s breath,
Stoop your great powers to ills that plead
To heaven, and my petition heed.
If needs must be that wretch abhorred
Attain the port and float to land;
If such the fate of heaven’s high lord,
And so the moveless pillars stand;
Scourged by a savage enemy,
An exile from his son’s embrace,
So let him sue for aid and see
His people slain before his face;
Nor, when to humbling peace at length
He stoops, be his or life or land,
But let him fall in manhood’s strength
And welter tombless on the sand.
Such malison to heaven I pour,
A last libation with my gore.
And, Tyrians, you through time to come
His seed with deathless hatred chase:
Be that your gift to Dido’s tomb.
No love, no league ’twixt race and race.
Rise from my ashes, scourge of crime,
Born to pursue the Dardan horde
To-day, to-morrow, through all time,
Oft as our hands can wield the sword,
Fight shore with shore, fight sea with sea,
Fight all that are or e’er shall be![62]
These lines are the poetic and mythological justification for the long and disastrous wars between Rome and Carthage. In the fifth book the Trojans reach Sicily, and celebrate at Eryx funeral games in honor of Anchises, the father of Æneas, who had died there the year before. In the sixth book they reach Cumæ, in Italy. Æneas descends to Hades to consult with the shade of Anchises. Here he sees the fabled monsters of the lower regions, and the shades of many departed heroes. Then there pass before him the forms of those as yet unborn. This gives the poet an opportunity to praise the great men of Rome, among them Julius Cæsar and Augustus. Here he sees the form of the young Marcellus, son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. When this book was written, Marcellus had recently died in his twentieth year. Virgil read his lines[63] on Marcellus to Augustus and Octavia, and the bereaved mother was so moved that she fainted. Virgil’s description of the realm of the dead is in some parts unusually beautiful, and is especially interesting, because it stands, not only in date but also in many other respects, midway between the eleventh book of Homer’s Odyssey and Dante’s Divine Comedy.
The last six books of the Æneid, recounting the struggles of the Trojans in Italy, contain many fine passages, but are for the most part less interesting to the modern reader than the earlier books. The last six books. In many parts they are finished with most exquisite art, even showing that Virgil’s technical ability increased as the poem drew toward its close, but many other passages show the lack of the final revision. To the Roman the ancient legends of the origin of the Roman power must have been of surpassing interest, but most modern readers remember, amid the successive scenes of strife, only the heroic Turnus, the lovely Lavinia, the warlike maidens Camilla and Juturna, and the brave and devoted friends, Nisus and Euryalus, who were slain when endeavoring to carry a message in the night through the hostile camp to the absent Æneas:
Blest pair! if aught my verse avail,
No day shall make your memory fail
From off the heart of time,
While Capitol abides in place,
The mansion of the Æneian race,
And throned upon that moveless base
Rome’s father sits sublime.[64]
The Æneid closes with the death of Turnus, the chief opponent of the Trojans in Italy. Virgil in the Middle Ages. In spite of its obvious imperfections, it is the greatest poem in the Latin language; and no later epic poem in any language equalled or even approached it in excellence until the appearance of Dante’s Divine Comedy. It is not to be wondered at that throughout the Middle Ages Virgil was regarded as the impersonation of all that was great in poetry; nor is it strange that the poet whose verses breathe such an indescribable, sweet sadness, who sings in lofty, inspired language of that Roman greatness which was ever present to the mediæval imagination, who describes the dwellings of the dead, and who was even believed to have foretold the coming of the Messiah, should have become in mediæval legends the possessor of all wisdom and all magic power. It is natural that Dante chose Virgil as his guide through hell and purgatory, and would gladly have admitted him to paradise had his theology allowed him to do so.
VIRGIL AND TWO MUSES.
Mosaic in the Bardo Museum, Tunis.