This branch of his subject moreover enables Virgil to celebrate the floral beauties of Italy, and to exhibit on a small scale a picture of a community at once warlike, politic, and industrious, such as had been realised on the soil of Italy, and especially in the old Roman Commonwealth, more completely than among any other people. The subject was moreover intimately associated with the national history. Several of the early legends, such as those of Cincinnatus, and, in more historical times, of Atilius Regulus and Curius Dentatus, attest the prominence which agriculture enjoyed among the pursuits of the foremost men in the Republic. The surnames of many noble families, patrician and plebeian, such as the Lentuli, Stolones, Bubulci, Pisones, Dolabellae, and the name of the great Fabian Gens, are connected etymologically with agricultural occupations, products, or implements, and afford evidence of a time when the men who filled the great offices of the State lived on their own lands', and were known for the success with which they improved their farms. The passion to possess and subdue the land was, in the early history of the Republic, the main motive power both of the political and military history of Rome. Even down to the establishment of the Empire there was no question which more divided the two great parties in the State than that of the Agrarian laws. And though, after the conquest of Italy, Roman wars were fought for dominion rather than for new territory, yet the hope of owning land, if not on Italian yet on some foreign soil, which he should hold by his sword as well as cultivate by his plough, supported the Roman wine grow mellow in a Formian jar, nor fleeces grow rich in Gallic pasCompare too tures.' Ego apis Matinae The importance of honey as a source of wealth is referred to by Mommsen in his History of Rome, book v. chap. xi. 'A small bee-breeder of this period sold from his thyme-garden, not larger than an acre, in the neighbourhood of Falerii, honey to an average annual amount of at least 10,000 sesterces (1007.).' Illis enim temporibus proceres civitatis in agris morabantur.' Columella. soldier, even under the Empire, through the long years of his service. The Roman 'colonies,' the origin of so many famous European cities, were settlements of Coloni' or cultivators of the soil. Thus in the selection of his subject Virgil appealed to old national associations and living tastes in a way in which no Greek poet could have done in choosing any mode of practical industry for poetic treatment. Even the details of direct instruction would attract a Roman reader by reminding him of labours which he may often have watched and perhaps have shared. Though Virgil found new sources of attraction by references to Greek mythology and science, and though he availed himself of the diction of Greek poets much inferior to himself in their perception of beauty and their power over language, yet his materials are mainly drawn either from personal observation, or from Italian writers who had put on record the results of what they had seen and done. There is a thoroughly Roman character in the technical execution of the poem, in the command over details, in the power of orderly arrangement with a view to convenience rather than logical symmetry, and in the combined sobriety and dignity of the workmanship. But it is in the longer episodes, in which the deeper meaning of the poem is most brought out, that the intimate connexion between the various topics treated in it and the national character and fortunes becomes most apparent. There is indeed one marked exception to the maintenance of this unity of impression. The long episode in Book iv, from line 315 to 558, has no national significance. And this is an undoubted blot on the artistic perfection of the work. This episode not only adds nothing to its representative character, but it suggests fancies and associations utterly alien from the Italy of the Augustan Age. The space given to such a theme is opposed to the truer taste of the poet, expressed in such lines as these Non hic te carmine ficto Atque per ambages et longa exorsa tenebo, Cetera quae vacuas tenuissent carmina mentes, But it is not the judgment of the poet, but the despotic will of the Emperor, that is responsible for this imperfection. The fourth Book originally ended with an episode which afforded scope for the expression of personal feeling, for awakening an interest in that land which was now of vast importance to the State, and which affected the imagination of cultivated Romans as it does that of cultivated men in modern times 2, and for illustrating the national greatness and the recent history of Rome. In the first edition the mention of Egypt at line 287 had led Virgil to celebrate the administration of that province under his early friend Cornelius Gallus. When Gallus fell into disgrace and was forced to commit suicide in 26 B.C., Virgil was required to re-edit the poem with a new concluding episode. The subject treated in the earlier edition of the poem would have enabled Virgil to give renewed expression to his admiration and affection for the Gallus of the Eclogues, to tell the tale of the downfall of Cleopatra, and to magnify the greatness of Rome in the conquest and government of her provinces. The episode as it now stands is a finished piece of metrical execution; it illustrates the attraction which the Greek mythological stories had for educated Romans; it is expressed in those tones of tender pathos of which Virgil was a master; but it is at the same time a standing proof of the malign 1 'I shall not here detain you with any tale of fancy, and winding digressions and long preambles.' The other themes that might have charmed the vacant mind, are all hackneyed now.' 2 Cf. Tac. Ann. ii. 59-61: 'M. Silano, L. Norbano consulibus Germanicus Aegyptum proficiscitur cognoscendae antiquitatis.' The whole account of the tour of Germanicus illustrates the cultivated taste for foreign travel among the Romans of the later Republic, the Augustan Age, and early Empire, and also the mysterious interest which has attached to Egypt from the earliest times known to history. 3 This is distinctly stated by Servius in two places, his introductory comments on Eclogue x, and on Georgic iv, and seems sufficiently attested. Besides, the introduction into the Georgics of such an episode as the 'Pastor Aristaeus' requires some explanation. influence which the Imperial despotism already exercised on the spontaneous inspiration of genius, as well as on all sincere expression of feeling. III. If the idea of the poem and of the national interests associated with it arose in Virgil's mind during his life in Rome, it was in his retirement in Campania that he prepared himself for and executed his task. Like the Aeneid it was a work of slow growth, the result of careful study and meditation. Besides the great change of the concluding episode, there are some slight indications that the poem was retouched in later editions; and perhaps a very few lines added to the original work may have been either left finally unadjusted to their proper place, or may have been transposed in the copying of the manuscript1. Although regard for his art was a more prominent consideration in the mind of Virgil than of Lucretius, yet he did not, any more than his predecessor, wish to 1 Both the nexus of the sense and the rhythm condemn the latitude of transposition which Ribbeck allows himself. Perhaps the only alteration which is absolutely demanded is at iv. 203-205. The lines there, as they stand, clearly interrupt the sense, and are more in place either after 196 or after 218. The strong line, Tantus amor florum et generandi gloria mellis, is a fitting conclusion for the fine paragraph beginning Nunc age, naturas apibus quas Iuppiter ipse, etc. Either of these places seems more suitable for the lines than that after 183. It is possible that the conjecture which Ribbeck adopts from Wagner, 'absoluto iam opere in marginem illos versus a poeta coniectos esse,' may give the true explanation of the misplacement of the lines, though this does not seem to apply to any other passage in the poem. Such bold changes as those introduced by Ribbeck at ii. 35-46, and again at iii. 120122, are not required by the sense, and are condemned by rhythmical considerations. The line 119, Exquirunt calidumque animis et cursibus acrem, is weak for the concluding line of the paragraph, which ends much more naturally with that transposed from 122 to 99, Neptunique ipsa deducat origine gentem, as it is Virgil's way to introduce his mythological illustrations after his real observations are finished. The paragraph of four lines, Quare agite o proprios. ... Taburnum, stands bald and bare in the position Ribbeck assigns it, between 108 and 109. The minor changes for the most part disturb old associations and throw no new light on the poet's thought. SOURCES OF HIS MATERIALS 191 separate the office of a teacher from that of a poet. How far the experience of his early years in the farm in the district of Andes or of his later residence on his land near Nola may have contributed to his knowledge of his subject, we have no means of knowing; but probably the delicacy of his health as well as his devotion to study may have limited his experience to the observation of the labours of others. But the power of vividly realising and enjoying the familiar sights and work of the farm, the life which he gives to the notices of seedtime and harvest, of the growth of trees and ripening of fruits, of the habits of flocks, herds, and bees, etc.,-the deep love for his subject in all its details Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore1 were gifts which could not come from any study of books. The poetry of manhood is, more often perhaps than we know, the conscious reproduction of the unconscious impressions of early years, received in a susceptible and retentive mind. Virgil, in common with all great poets, retained through life the 'child's heart within the man's.' Through this geniality of nature he was able angustis hunc addere rebus honorem 2- to glorify trite and familiar things by the light reflected from the healthy memories and the idealising fancies of boyhood and early youth. But while his feeling is all his own,-the happy survival probably of the childhood and youth passed in his home in the district of Andes,--he largely avails himself of the observation, the thought, and the language of earlier writers, both Greek and Roman. His poem is eminently a work of learning as well as of native feeling. He combines in its varied and firm texture the homely wisdom embodied in the precepts and proverbs of Italian peasants (' veterum praecepta '),-the quaint and oracular dicta of Hesiod,-the scientific knowledge and mythological 1 While charmed with the love of it, we travel round each detail.' 2 To invest these poor interests with a new glory.' |