Page images
PDF
EPUB

the object of which seems to be to assign function and personality to the gods of Olympus and of Italy, the influence of the Stoic theology was recognised in ancient times in the identification of the sun and moon-'clarissima mundi lumina’— with Liber and Ceres'. The rhythm of the lines 5-7 can leave no doubt whatever as to this identification, notwithstanding the appeal to Varro's example, who distinguishes the various deities whom he invokes. It is characteristic of Virgil's art to introduce such a variation in any passage which he imitates, and also to suggest a thought which he does not distinctly develope. In the lines 95-96,

neque illum

Flava Ceres alto nequiquam spectat Olympo 2,

he reproduces a thought which Callimachus had expressed in his hymn to Artemis 3

Οὓς δέ κεν εὐμειδής τε καὶ ἴλαος αὐγάσσηαι

κείνοις εὖ μὲν ἄρουρα φέρει στάχυν 4.

The flava Ceres' of Virgil's description seems to call up before our mind a picture of the harvest-moon looking down on the corn-fields of the prosperous husbandman.

The national religion of Rome was something distinct both from the rustic Paganism of Italy, and from that aesthetic amalgamation of Greek and Roman beliefs and that semiphilosophical rationalism which art and literature made familiar to the Romans of the Augustan Age. The great symbol of that national religion was the Temple of Jove on the Capitol 5.

1 Servius has the following note on the passage:-'Stoici dicunt non esse nisi unum deum, et unam eandemque (esse) potestatem, quae pro ratione officiorum nostrorum variis nominibus appellatur. Unde eundem Solem, eundem Liberum, eundem Apollinem vocant. Item Lunam, eandem Dianam, eandem Cererem, eandem Iunonem, eandem Proserpinam dicunt; secundum quos, pro Sole et Luna, Liberum et Cererem invocavit.'

2 Nor is it without good result that golden-haired Ceres beholds him from Heaven on high.'

3 Quoted by M. Benoist.

But on whom she gazes with bright and favourable aspect, for them the field bears the ear of corn abundantly.'

5 Cf. Incolumi Iove et urbe Roma.' Hor. iii. 5. 12. Cf. also iii. 3. 42; iii. 30. 8.

Cf. also 'Sedem Iovis Optimi Maximi auspicato a maioribus pignus im

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

That religion was based on the idea that the wide empire and eternal duration of Rome had been appointed by Divine decree. As distinguished from the national religion of Greece, which expressed itself in new and varied forms of art, Roman religion was one which adhered to ancient rites and expressed itself in the pomp of outward ceremonial and other impressive symbols. It acted on the imagination through the sense of vastness, pomp, stateliness, and solemnity; that of Greece through the sense of life, joy, beauty, and harmony animating its ceremonial and embodying itself in its symbols. The objects of Roman worship were almost innumerable. In addition to the greater divinities which it shared with the Greek worship, and besides the various native divinities common to it with the religion of other Italian races, Roman religion had erected temples to various abstract qualities, such as Peace, Faith, Concord, and the like. This tendency to multiply their deities, to deify mere abstractions, and to recognise a distinct deity as presiding over every common act and process of life, weakened or destroyed the sense of the personality of the gods, and thus indirectly promoted that advance to Monotheism which philosophy had made in a different direction. While the Greeks conceived of each local god or hero as a distinct person, endowed with his own human qualities and his own visible shape, and thus naturally adapted for the representations of dramatic poetry or plastic art, the Romans worshipped rather one Divine impersonal power with many attributes and functions. The need which the popular imagination feels of some personal embodiment of the idea of Godhead probably explains the readiness with which, in the dissolution of older faiths, the worship of the Emperor became the chief symbol of the national faith.

perii conditam,' etc. Tac. Hist. iii. 72; and 'Sed nihil aeque quam incen-
dium Capitolii, ut finem imperio adesse crederent, impulerat,' iv. 54.
The Capitol is the symbol of the eternal duration of the Empire to Virgil
also:-

Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum
Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit.
Aen. ix. 448-9.

So far as the conceptions of the national religion of Rome, which have a powerful influence on the action of the Aeneid, enter into this Invocation, it is in the recognition of the divinity of Caesar. But here he is associated with the rural gods, who listen to the prayers of the husbandman, rather than, as elsewhere both in Horace and Virgil, with the majesty of the Roman State. The passage probably, as is suggested by Ribbeck, owes its origin to the decree of the Senate in 36 B. C., -after the naval victory gained by Agrippa over Sextus Pompeius, by which the worship of Caesar, inter municipales deos,' was established. There is probably no passage in Virgil, scarcely any in Latin poetry, which must strike the modern reader as so unreal as this, or so untrue to the actual convictions of educated men. There is none in which the language of adulation appears so palpably, or in which the love of mythological allusion, as one of the conventional ornaments of poetry, appears to exercise so unfortunate an influence on the truthful feeling of the poet. It seems strange that a man of the commanding understanding of Augustus should have derived. any pleasure from the supposition that he might become the son-in-law of Tethys, from the statement that the glowing Scorpion was already beginning to make room for him in the sky, or from the appeal made to him to resist the ambition of supplanting Pluto as the future ruler of Tartarus. In contrast with this state of feeling we learn to respect the masculine sense and dignity with which Tiberius disclaims the attribution of divine honours: 'I, Conscript Fathers, call you to witness and desire posterity to remember, that I am but a mortal, and am performing human duties, and consider it enough if I fill the foremost place1. But though it is not possible that the lines from Tuque adeo' to 'adsuesce vocari' should ever appear natural to us, or that we should ever read them without some feeling that they are unworthy of the manliness of a great poet, we may yet recognise some symbolical meaning in them

6

1 Tac. Ann. iv. 38.

$3]

INVOCATION OF CAESAR

225

beyond the mere expression of overstrained eulogy. In such expressions as

Auctorem frugum tempestatumque potentem1,

Virgil associates the idea of the power of Caesar with the main subject of his poem; and probably, as is pointed out by Ribbeck, he suggests the thought of the dependence of Rome and Italy for subsistence on the vigilance of their ruler 2. In the mention of Tethys there is a reference to recent naval successes; and in the 'tibi serviat ultima Thule' there may be an allusion to the contemplated expedition to Britain, and certainly, as in so many other passages of the poetry of the age, there is a recognition of the wide empire of Rome. In the lines

Anne novum tardis, etc.,

we recognise the idea which connected the apotheosis of Julius Caesar with the appearance of the 'Iulium Sidus' (see Ecl. ix); while the lines

Nam te nec sperant Tartara regem, etc.,

read in connexion with those at the end of Book I,

Hunc saltem everso iuvenem succurrere saeclo
Ne prohibete, etc.,

are evidently prompted by the conviction that the well-being and security of the world are dependent on a single life.

In this apparent acceptance of new and old modes of belief, -in this neopaganism of art,—it is difficult to say how far we are to recognise the representations of fiction, conscious that it is fiction, as in the mythological art of the Renaissance, or how far we are in the presence of a temporary revival of a faith which satisfied a simpler time, in inconsistent conjunction with incompatible modes of modern thought. Probably not even the poets themselves, and least of all Virgil, could have given an

1 'Giver of fruits, and lord over the seasons.'

2 Cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 54. At Hercule nemo refert quod Italia externae opis indiget, quod vita populi Romani per incerta maris et tempestatum cotidie volvitur. . . . Hanc, Patres Conscripti, curam sustinet princeps, haec omissa funditus rem publicam trahet.'

VOL. I.

[ocr errors]

explanation of their real state of mind. The dreams of an older faith were still haunting them, though its substance was gone. The traditions of the Greek mythology survived, endowed with what, in the absence of any new creed, might seem immortal life, in the pages of poets, and in the paintings and other works of art which afforded a refined pleasure to educated men. The national faith of Italy and Rome still kept the outward show of life in many visible symbols, and still retained a hold over the mass of the people. The herds and flocks were still believed to flourish under the kindly protection of Pales and Faunus. The festive pleasures of country life at the harvest-home or the vintage season were enjoyed on old religious holidays, and formed part of ceremonies handed down from immemorial antiquity. The pomp and ceremonial of what was peculiarly the Roman worship still met the eye on all great occasions within the walls of the city :

Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges et maxima taurus
Victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,
Romanos ad templa deum duxere triumphos1.

The magnificent temples of deities blending the attributes of native Italian gods with those of the gods of Olympus seemed to preside over the tumult and active business of the Forum; and the majesty of the Capitoline Jove was still recognised as the manifestation of the stability and power of the State. But the Roman imagination was at the same time beginning to be impressed by a new symbol of Divine agency, which was felt in all national concerns. The ideal majesty of Jove was merging, as an object of veneration, in the actual majesty of Caesar, regarded as the vicegerent of the Supreme Power. All these phases of religious belief, Greek and Italian, old and new, some appealing to the popular, some to the educated mind, meet in the poetry of the Augustan Age, and nowhere in more close conjunction than in this Invocation. They appear in still

1 From this land thy white herds, Clitumnus, and the bull, most stately victim, after bathing often in thy sacred stream, have led the procession of the Roman triumphs to the temples of the Gods.'

« PreviousContinue »