The Library of Entertainment: Handbook

by John Chilton Scammell

"On Translating Homer."—Arnold.

"Ethics of the Heroic Age."—Gladstone.

"Life in the Homeric Age."—Seymour.

VERGIL

(70 B.C.–19 B.C.)

Unlike most distinguished Roman writers, Vergil was country born, coming from the district of Andes, near Mantua—hence 'the Mantuan,' as he was known to the scholastics.

After studying at Cremona and Rome, he returned to his father's small estate and wrote pastoral poetry; but being obliged to flee when the lands of Italy were assigned by the Triumvirs to their adherents, he again visited Rome, where he speedily became a favorite of Augustus. The liberality of Augustus and his own thrift enabled him to live in comparative opulence. Most of his life he spent in retirement on his estate in Campania. Here his time was given wholly to his art, except in so far as he was taken up with scientific and antiquarian studies, which he thought essential to elevate his thought and strengthen his grasp of profound subjects.

His character is universally commended. He was gentle, innocent, modest, and of a singular sweetness of disposition. He is generally conceded to be the greatest Roman poet and the most patriotic. Like other epic poets he was of a philosophic nature, and unlike the generality of Roman writers, he was reserved as to his personal feelings. He never married.

Before coming to Rome he had written his "Eclogues," the first of Latin pastorals, in imitation of Theocritus. His next poems, the "Georgics," were written to create fresh interest in agriculture, which had been the mainstay of republican Rome but was fast falling into decay. But his enduring fame rests upon the "Æneid," written at the request of Augustus, which treats of the founding of Rome by a colony from ancient Troy under the leadership of Æneas. In it Vergil sums up the glory of Rome and its culmination under Augustus. The "Æneid," the "Divine Comedy," and "Paradise Lost" enjoy the distinction of being the only great epics written in the full light of civilized society, and the inspiration of the latter works was largely drawn from Vergil.