There is a passage in the Odes of Horace[[539]] which seems to hint that he engaged to a slight extent in mercantile concerns: even if this formed one source of his wealth, the love of gain (studium lucri,) and anxiety about the means of living, do not appear to have hindered him from devoting his hours of serious occupation to literary labours and the diligent use of his well-stored library, whilst his leisure was given to the delights of social intercourse, for which he was so eminently qualified by his sweet temper and amiable disposition.
The poet’s term of life was not extended far beyond fifty years. He had never been healthy or robust: he sometimes spat blood, and frequently suffered from headache and indigestion.[[540]] Ill health was the only drawback to a life otherwise passed in calm felicity. In the year B. C. 19 he meditated a tour in Greece, intending, during the course of it, to give the final polish to his great epic poem. Greece and her classic scenes, the favourite haunts of the Muses, the time-honoured contests of Olympia, the living and breathing statues which he beheld in that home of art, evidently inspired the beautiful imagery which adorns the introduction to the third Georgic. He, however, only reached Athens: there he met Augustus, who was on his way back from Samos, and both returned together. On the occasion of this voyage, Horace wrote that tender ode[[541]] in which he affectionately calls him “the half of his soul:”—
Navis quæ tibi creditum
Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis
Reddas incolumem precor
Et serves animæ dimidium meæ.
On the way he was seized with a mortal sickness, which was aggravated by the motion of the vessel, and he only lived to land at Brundisium. The powers of nature, already enfeebled, were now totally exhausted, and he expired on the 22nd of September. He was buried rather more than a mile from Naples, on the road to Puteoli (Pozzuoli.) A tomb is still pointed out to the traveller which is said to be that of the poet. Nor is this improbable; for, although it is not situated on the present high-road, it is quite possible that the original direction of the road may have been changed.[[542]] His epitaph is said to have been dictated by himself in his last moments:—
Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc
Parthenope. Cecini Pascua, Rura, Duces.[[543]]
Virgil was deservedly popular both as a poet and as a man. His rivals in literature could not envy one so unassuming and inoffensive his well-merited success, but loved him as much as they admired his poetry. The emperor esteemed him, the people respected him. “Witness,” says Tacitus,[[544]] “the letters of Augustus,—witness the conduct of the people itself, which, when some of his verses were recited in the theatre, rose en masse, and showed the same veneration for Virgil, who happened to be present among the audience, which they were wont to show to Augustus.” He was exceedingly temperate in his manner of living; so pure-minded[[545]] and chaste in the midst of a profligate and licentious age, that the Neapolitans gave him the name of Parthenias (from παρθενος, a virgin,) unselfish, although surrounded by selfishness, kind-hearted, and sympathizing. His talents and popularity never spoiled his natural simplicity and modesty, as his moving in the polite circles of the capital never could entirely wear off his rustic shyness and unfashionable appearance.