Donatus, ‘Egerat cum Vario, priusquam Italia decederet, ut si quid sibi accidisset Aeneida combureret; sed is facturum se pernegarat ... Edidit autem auctore Augusto Varius, sed summatim emendata, ut qui versus etiam imperfectos sicut erant reliquerit.’
This account is corroborated by Pliny the elder, N.H. vii. 114, Gellius, and Macrobius.
The rules laid down to the editors by the Emperor were, according to Servius, ‘ut superflua demerent, nihil adderent tamen.’
It seems probable that the Aeneid was published B.C. 17, for it is in the Carmen Saeculare of that year that Horace first alludes to the story of Aeneas (cf. l. 50, ‘clarus Anchisae Venerisque sanguis’), and in the fourth Book of the Odes (four years later) it is more than once introduced.
The choice of the subject was influenced (1) by the personal desire of the Emperor; (2) by the connexion of the Caesarian house with Venus, through Iulus;[51] cf. the invention of Atys (Aen. v. 568) by Virgil to please Augustus, whose mother was Atia; (3) by Virgil’s design to write an epic on the greatness of Rome, in the manner of Homer.
The Aeneas Legend.—Stesichorus of Himera, among other writers, made Aeneas, a Homeric hero (cf. Il. xx. 307-8), settle in Italy; and Naevius is said to have adopted the legend in the form given by Timaeus, the Sicilian historian of the third century B.C. The legend probably arose from the worship of Aphrodite on the coasts of Italy, and was disseminated by the Greeks of Cumae to please the Romans. The connexion of Rome with Troy had been officially recognized for two hundred years (cf. Sueton. Claud. 25), and, though not a popular belief, had been accepted in literature from the time of Naevius.
Sources of the Aeneid.—1. Earlier Roman poets as Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, Lucilius, Hostius, Varro Atacinus, Lucretius. For details see under these names.
2. Cato’s Origines and Varro’s Antiquitates, for Italian legends and peoples.
3. Ius pontificium and ius augurale, as found in the books of sacred colleges (Macrob. i. 24, 16). Cf. the ritual meaning of porricio (v. 776), porrigo (viii. 274), the habit of praying with veiled head (iii. 405), prayer to Apollo of Soracte (xi. 785).
4. Greek sources: (a) particularly the Iliad and Odyssey, but also the Homeric Hymns and Cyclic Poems. Thus the games in Book v. = the games in honour of Patroclus in Il. xxiii.; the shield of Aeneas (viii. 626-731) = the shield of Achilles in Il. xviii.; (b) Apollonius Rhodius, for the passion of Dido = that of Medea; (c) Greek tragedies, e.g. the lost Laocoon of Sophocles for ii. 40 sqq.