Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

FIG.

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

PAGE

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

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.)

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

ABBREVIATIONS

Annali, Annali dell' Istituto di Correspondenza Archeologica, 18291885.

Bartoli, Sepolchri Antichi, Rome, 1768.

Baum., Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums, 1885.

B. M. C., British Museum Catalogue of Coins.

Brunn, Brunn-Bruckmann, Denkmäler griechischer und römischer Sculptur.

Duruy, Duruy, History of Rome.
Furtw. M., Furtwängler, Masterpieces
of Greek Sculpture, 1895.
Furtw.

U., Furtwängler - Urlichs, Denkmäler griechischer und römischer Sculptur, 1898.

G. and K., Guhl and Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, 1876. Harper, Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, 1898.

[blocks in formation]

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

VIRGIL'S AENEID

[graphic]

in Gaul. Pollio was himself distinguished a as a scholar, orator, and historian. Under 1 ond, third, and fifth Eclogues had already b literary labors and the peaceful life of the interrupted. The veteran legions of Octavi Philippi, demanded the allotments of land w ised them as a reward for their services in were authorized to take possession of eighte the district of country pertaining to each. this manner were those which had espoused For this the unhappy occupants of the ad forced to give up their hereditary estates to t As the lands of Cremona, which was one of t were not sufficient to satisfy the legionaries to assigned, they took violent possession also of belonging to the neighboring city of Mantua. was in this district and was thus endangered, to Pollio, and for a time was secure under when that commander, in B.C. 41, marched wi aid of L. Antonius in the Perusian war, Virg seek relief in person from Octavian, later the and for this purpose visited Rome. It was given him by the future emperor on this occa the grateful and glowing eulogy contained i written in the summer of B.C. 41.

After the close of the Perusian war, the M again disturbed by the demands of the vetera vain attempted, though at the risk of his life, to against the centurion Arrius. Fleeing again for he was reinstated in the possession of his farm, long and anxious delay. During this period of ing uncertainty, in the autumn of B.C. 41, Eclogue, in which he bewails his unhappy lot. at length the object of his petition, his joy a utterance in the beautiful hymn called the

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

« PredošláPokračovať »