FIG.

53. Charon receiving a Soul to ferry over the River Styx- From a Roman lamp

PAGE

N 177
N 184

Bartoli N 186

Photo.

54. Struggle of the Giants - From an ancient bas relief. Baum.
55. Tantalus, Ixion, and Sisyphus - From a sepulchral relief.
56. The Emperor Augustus - From a statue in the Vatican.
57. Brutus - From a coin.
58. Fasces

Baum.

59. Pluto and Proserpina — From a vase painting. Baum. (VI ED.)

ABBREVIATIONS

e

of

a

I. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF VIRGIL

PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARO was born at Andes, a village near Mantua, in the consulship of Pompey and Crassus, B.C. 70. Virgil's father possessed a farm at Andes sufficiently valuable to place his family in easy circumstances, and to afford him the means of educating his son under the most eminent teachers then living in Italy. The education of the future poet appears to have been commenced at Cremona, from whence, on assuming the toga virilis, in his sixteenth year, he was transferred to the charge of new teachers at Mediolanum (Milan).

After pursuing his studies, probably for several years, at Mediolanum, he placed himself under the instruction of the Greek poet and grammarian, Parthenius, who was then flourishing at Naples. At the age of twenty-three he left Naples for Rome, where he finished his education under Syro the Epicurean, an accomplished teacher of philosophy, mathematics, and physics.

Virgil's love of literary pursuits, as well as the delicacy of his physical constitution, led him to choose a life of retirement rather than that public career which was more generally deemed proper for a Roman citizen. Hence, at the age when aspiring young Romans usually entered upon the stirring scenes of political and military life, he withdrew from Rome to his native Andes, with the intention of devoting himself to agriculture, science, and letters. The Sicilian Greek, Theocritus, was at this time his favorite author, and it was from him that the general plan, though not the individual character, of the Eclogues was derived, the first authentic work produced by the poet.

The Eclogues were begun about B.C. 42, at the request of C. Asinius Pollio, who was then acting as the lieutenant of Antony

II

in Gaul.

Pollio was himself distinguished as a poet, and not less as a scholar, orator, and historian. Under his patronage the second, third, and fifth Eclogues had already been written, when the literary labors and the peaceful life of the poet were suddenly interrupted. The veteran legions of Octavian, on returning from Philippi, demanded the allotments of land which had been promised them as a reward for their services in the civil war. They were authorized to take possession of eighteen Italian cities, with the district of country pertaining to each. The cities allotted in this manner were those which had espoused the side of Brutus. For this the unhappy occupants of the adjacent country were forced to give up their hereditary estates to the rapacious soldiery. As the lands of Cremona, which was one of the condemned cities, were not sufficient to satisfy the legionaries to whom they had been assigned, they took violent possession also of a part of the country belonging to the neighboring city of Mantua. Virgil, whose farm was in this district and was thus endangered, had recourse at first to Pollio, and for a time was secure under his protection. But when that commander, in B.C. 41, marched with his troops to the aid of L. Antonius in the Perusian war, Virgil was compelled to seek relief in person from Octavian, later the Emperor Augustus, and for this purpose visited Rome. It was the kind reception given him by the future emperor on this occasion which inspired the grateful and glowing eulogy contained in the first Eclogue, written in the summer of B.C. 41.

After the close of the Perusian war, the Mantuan country was again disturbed by the demands of the veterans, and the poet in vain attempted, though at the risk of his life, to maintain his rights. against the centurion Arrius. Fleeing again for succor to Octavian, he was reinstated in the possession of his farm, though not without

long and anxious delay. During this period of delay and depressing uncertainty, in the autumn of B.C. 41, he wrote the ninth Eclogue, in which he bewails his unhappy lot. But on obtaining at length the object of his petition, his joy and gratitude found utterance in the beautiful hymn called the fourth Eclogue, in

which he hails the auspicious times just dawning on the world, initiated by the consulship of his friend and patron Pollio in

B.C. 40.

Though the material of the Eclogues, or Bucolics, as they are sometimes called, is taken largely from Theocritus and to some extent from other Greek poets, yet Virgil has given to most of them something of a national character by associating this foreign material with circumstances and personages pertaining to his own time and country. In the first and ninth Eclogues, for example, he describes with deep feeling, in the dialogues of the shepherds, the social miseries attending the wars of the triumvirate, and in the fourth he dwells with delight on the anticipated return of peace and blessedness under the reign of Octavian. In the first, again, he finds, or rather makes for himself, the opportunity of expressing his grateful love and admiration of the youthful ruler, while in the fifth he commemorates, under the name of Daphnis, the greatness and the untimely death of the deified Julius Caesar. Finally, in the sixth and tenth, in the midst of myths and fancies. derived from his Grecian masters, he has immortalized the name of his friend Cornelius Gallus.

Though open to some criticisms, the Eclogues are among the most graceful and beautiful of all idyllic poems, and they possess a charm which fascinates the reader more and more with every perusal.

These poems established the reputation of the poet, and at once gained for him ardent friends and admirers among the most powerful and the most cultivated of the Romans. Among these, besides his early and faithful friend Pollio, were Octavian, Maecenas, Varius, Horace, and Propertius. These and all other educated Romans of the day regarded Virgil as already superior in many respects to any poet that had yet appeared. His excellence lay. most of all in the exquisite finish and harmony of his hexameters. The hexameter verse had been introduced into the Latin language, at the close of the second Punic war, by the soldier and poet Ennius. But though distinguished by originality, strength, and