This epic poem on the foundation of Rome by a colony from Troy is based on an old Latin tradition, and is modelled on the form of the poems of Homer. The first six books remind the student of the adventures of Ulysses in the "Odyssey," while the last six books, recounting the contest of the Trojan settlers under Æneas with the native inhabitants under their King Latinus, follow the style of the battle-pieces of the "Iliad." The most striking and original part of the plan of the poem is the introduction of Carthage and the Carthaginian queen, on whose coasts Æneas, in defiance of all chronology, is described as suffering shipwreck. The historic conflict between Rome and Carthage, when Hannibal and his cavalry rode from one end of Italy to another, and encamped under the walls of Rome itself, left an indelible impression on the imagination of the Romans. The war with Carthage was to them all that the Arab invasion was to Spain, or the Saracen hordes to Eastern Europe. It was the first great struggle for empire in times of which history holds record, between the East and the West, between the Semitic and Aryan races, and Virgil, with consummate skill, took the opportunity of predicting the future rivalry between Rome and Carthage, and the ultimate triumph of the former power. All through the poem there are allusions to the history of Rome, and to the descent of the Julian house from the great Trojan hero. The hero Æneas, himself, is rather an insipid character, but, on the other hand, Dido is painted with great force, truth, and tenderness. The visit to Carthage gives occasion for the narrative of the fall of Troy in the second and third books, while the sixth book, describing the landing in Italy and the hero's descent to the infernal regions, has been regarded as containing the esoteric teaching of the ancient mysteries, and has influenced deeply the belief of the Christian world. Virgil lived, it may be said, at the parting of the ways. The old gods, who were goodly and glad, had become discredited; the world was no longer young, no longer fresh and fair and hopeful; it had passed through ages of war and misery, it was harassed by doubt, the general feeling was what we would now call pessimistic, and a resigned melancholy, a keen sense of there being something wrong in the universe, can be felt in every line of Virgil, and there are tears in his voice.

In person Virgil was tall, his complexion dark, and his appearance that of a rustic. He was modest, retiring, loyal to his friends. The liberality of Mæcenas and Augustus had enriched him, and he left a considerable property and a house on the Esquiline Hill. He had troops of friends, all the accomplished men of the day; he was quite free from jealousy and envy, and of amiable temper. No one speaks of him except in terms of affection and esteem. He used his wealth liberally, supporting his parents generously, and his father, who became blind in his old age, lived long enough to hear of his son's fame and feel the effects of his prosperity.[Back to Contents]

HORACE
By J. W. Mackail
(65-8 B.C.)

Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Horace], Latin poet and satirist, was born near Venusia, in Southern Italy, on December 8, 65 B.C. His father was a manumitted slave, who as a collector of taxes or an auctioneer had saved enough money to buy a small estate, and thus belonged to the same class of small Italian freeholders as the parents of Virgil. Apparently Horace was an only child, and as such received an education almost beyond his father's means; who, instead of sending him to school at Venusia, took him to Rome, provided him with the dress and attendance customary among boys of the upper classes, and sent him to the best masters. At seventeen or eighteen he proceeded to Athens, then the chief school of philosophy, and one of the three great schools of oratory, to complete his education; and he was still there when the murder of Julius Cæsar, March 15, 44 B.C., rekindled the flames of civil war.

In the autumn of this year, Brutus, then proprætor of Macedonia, visited Athens while levying troops. Horace joined his side; and such was the scarcity of Roman officers, that though barely twenty-one, and totally without military experience, he was at once given a high commission. He was present at the battle of Philippi, and joined in the general fight that followed the republican defeat; he found his way back to Italy, and apparently was not thought important enough for proscription by the triumvirate. His property, however, had been confiscated, and he found employment in the lower grade of the civil service to gain a livelihood.

It was at this period that poverty, he says, drove him to make verses. His earliest were chiefly satires and personal lampoons; but it was probably from some of his first lyrical pieces, in which he showed a new mastery of the Roman language, that he became known to Varius and Virgil, who in or about 38 B.C. introduced him to Mæcenas, the confidential minister of Octavianus and a munificent patron of art and letters. The friendship thus formed was uninterrupted till the death of Mæcenas, to whose liberality Horace owed release from business and the gift of the celebrated farm among the Sabine Hills.

From this time forward his life was without marked incident. His springs and summers were generally spent at Rome, where he enjoyed the intimacy of nearly all the most prominent men of the time; his autumns at the Sabine farm, or a small villa which he possessed at Tibur; he sometimes passed the winter in the milder seaside air of Baiæ. Mæcenas introduced him to Augustus, who, according to Suetonius, offered him a place in his own household, which the poet prudently declined. But as the unrivalled lyric poet of the time Horace gradually acquired the position of poet-laureate; and his ode written to command for the celebration of the Secular Games in 17 B.C., with the official odes which followed it on the victories of Tiberius and Drusus, and on the glories of the Augustan age, mark the highest level which this kind of poetry has reached.

On November 27, 8 B.C., he died in his fifty-seventh year. Virgil had died eleven years before. Tibullus and Propertius soon after Virgil. Ovid, still a young man, was the only considerable poet whom he left behind; and with his death the Augustan age of Latin poetry ends.