Among the sources which Virgil used in the third book were [pg 321]probably the prose accounts of the late Greek historians, who rationalised the traditions of the various settlements of Aeneas which grew out of his association with the worship of Aphrodite. But the whole suggestion of sea-adventure, and still more of the incidents arising out of the visit to the land of the Cyclops, is due to the Odyssey, while the events connected with the landing in Thrace and in Epirus owe their origin to the Hecuba and Andromache of Euripides. But, on the other hand, the exact geographical knowledge displayed in it imparts a thoroughly modern character to the book; and one passage at least (as has been shown by a writer in the Journal of Philology)—the description of the voyage round the eastern and southern shores of Sicily—is so minutely accurate in detail as to give clear indication of being drawn from the personal experience of the author. Again, the frequent mention of Italy in the book, the speech of Helenus which announces the old traditional omen of the white sow, the direction as to the mode of performing religious ceremonies which the Romans should observe in all future times,—
Hac casti maneant in religione nepotes,—[490]
and the trophy raised by Aeneas on the shores of Actium, help to remind us of the modern meaning which Virgil desired to impart to his representation of antique manners.
The fourth book, in which Virgil deserts the guidance of Homer for that of the Alexandrine epic, is intended to give the most passionate human, as distinct from the pervading national, interest to the poem. But the tragic nature of the situation arises from the clashing between natural feeling and the great considerations of State by which the divine actors in the drama were influenced. The death of Dido gives moreover a poetical justification for the deadly enmity which animated the struggle between Rome and her most dangerous antagonist. The fifth book follows the old tradition—as old at least as the time of Thucydides—which represented Trojan settlements as estab[pg 322]lished in Sicily. The account of the foundation of Segesta by the followers of Aeneas, and the story of the burning of the ships by the Trojan women, may have been told by Timaeus; and it was natural to ascribe to her son the building of the famous temple of Venus Erycina. But the greater part of the book is occupied with an account of the funeral games in honour of Anchises, which, with modifications to suit the changed locality, reproduce the games which Achilles celebrated in honour of Patroclus. But the account of these games serves the purpose of giving some individuality to three of the most shadowy personages in the poem by establishing their connexion with three illustrious Roman families, and to flatter Augustus by assigning an ancient origin to the Ludus Troiae,—a kind of bloodless tournament of noble youths exhibited in the early years of his reign,—and also, by the invention of a fabulous ancestor, to add distinction to the provincial family of the Atii, which was more truly ennobled by the great personal qualities of the Emperor’s mother, Atia.
With the landing in Italy the narrative assumes greater independence. The various localities introduced and the traditions connected with them, the usages or ceremonies peculiar to Italy which admit of being referred to an immemorial past, the mere Italian names of Latinus and Turnus, Mezentius and Camilla, are able to evoke national and sometimes modern associations. Thus the introduction of the Cumaean Sibyl into the narrative affords the opportunity of reminding the Romans of the importance assigned to the Sibylline prophecies in their national counsels; and the impressive ceremony of the opening of the gates of war enables the poet to appeal to the patriotic impulses of his own age, in the lines—
Sive Getis inferre manu lacrimabile bellum
Hyrcanisve Arabisve parant, seu tendere ad Indos
Auroramque sequi Parthosque reposcere signa[491].
But many of the warlike incidents in the later books—as for instance the night foray of Nisus and Euryalus, the treacherous wounding of Aeneas, the withdrawal by supernatural agency of Turnus from the battle, the death of Pallas and the effect which that event has on Aeneas, and the final conflict between Turnus and Aeneas—show that Virgil was still following in the footsteps of his original guide. The passages, however, which bring out most clearly both this relation of Virgil to Homer and his point of departure from him are those which give an account of the descent into hell and describe the shield of Aeneas. The sixth book of the Aeneid owes its existence to the eleventh book of the Odyssey: but the shadowy conceptions of the Homeric ‘Inferno,’ suggested by the impulses of natural curiosity and the yearnings of human affection, are enlarged and made more definite, on the one hand, by thoughts derived from Plato, and, on the other, by the proudest memories of Roman history, from the legends of the Alban kings to the warlike and peaceful triumphs of the Augustan Age. The shield of Achilles presents to the imagination the varied spectacle of human life—sowing and reaping, a city besieged, a marriage festival, etc.; the shield of Aeneas presents the spectacle of the most momentous crises in the annals of Rome, culminating in the great triumph of Augustus. We note too in the latter passage the enhancement of patriotic sentiment by the use of the language and representation of Ennius, as at lines 630–634, and the lesson taught of the dependence of national welfare on the observance of religious traditions and of the duties of life sanctioned by religion, in the lines which describe the processions of the Salii and Luperci, and which indicate the punishment awarded to the sin of rebellion and disloyalty in the person of Catiline, and the recognition of civic virtue, even when exercised in defence of a losing cause, in the position assigned to Cato in the nether world—
Secretosque pios, his dantem iura Catonem[492].