Varius, with whom he is by implication contrasted in those lines, is characterised by Horace as ‘Maeonii carminis ales,’ at a time when Virgil was only famous as the poet of rural life. He was the author of a poem on the death of Julius Caesar. We hear also of other specimens of the contemporary epic produced in the Augustan Age, one by Cornelius Severus treating of the Sicilian Wars, one by Rabirius treating of the Battle of Actium, and one by Pedo Albinovanus treating of the voyage of Germanicus ‘per oceanum septentrionalem[451].’
We find Horace repeatedly excusing himself with self-disparaging irony, while exhorting younger poets to the task of directly celebrating the wars of Augustus,—e.g. Epist. i. 3. 7:—
Quis sibi res gestas Augusti scribere sumit?
Bella quis et paces longum diffundit in aevum[452]?
Horace does indeed celebrate some of the military as well as [pg 294]the peaceful successes of the Augustan Age, in the only form in which contemporary or recent events admit of being poetically treated, viz. lyrical poetry. But considering how eager Augustus was to have his wars celebrated in verse and how strong in him was the national passion for glory, and considering that Virgil and Horace were pre-eminently the favourite poets of the time and the special friends both of the Emperor himself and his minister, it is remarkable how they both avoid or defer the task which he wished to impose on them. This reluctance arose from no inadequate appreciation of his services to the world, but from their high appreciation of what was due to their art. Virgil had been similarly importuned in earlier times by Pollio and Varus, and had gracefully waived the claim made on him by pleading the fitness of his own muse only for the lighter themes of pastoral poetry. He seems to have hesitated long as to the form which the celebration of the glories of the Augustan Age should take. How he solved the problem, how he sought to combine in a work of Greek art the inspiration of the national epic with the personal celebration of Augustus, will be treated of in the following chapter.