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 Hyrcansive Arabisve parant, seu tendere ad Indos 1 'Whether they are preparing to bring all the woes of war on the Getae, or the Hyrcanians, or the Arabs, or to hold their way to the Indians, and to go on and on towards the dawn, and to claim back the standards from the Parthians.' §3] VIRGIL'S 'INFERNO' AND 'SHIELD of AENEAS' 323 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 1. And the good apart, and Cato giving to them laws.' The Iliad and the Odyssey are thus seen to be essentially epics of human life; the Aeneid is essentially the epic of national glory. The Iliad indeed is the noblest monument of the greatness, as it is of the genius, of the Greeks. And the Aeneid is much more than a monument of national glory. It is full of pathetic situations and stirring incidents which move our human compassion or kindle our sympathies with heroic action. But if we ask what are the most powerful sources of interest in the Greek and in the Roman epic respectively, the answer will be that in the first these spring immediately out of human life; in the second they spring out of the national fortunes. And this distinction is generally recognisable in the art, literature, and history of the two nations. This predominance of national interest and the presence of a large element of living modern interest in the treatment of an ancient legend separate the Aeneid still further from the Alexandrine epic and its later Roman imitations. The compliance with the conditions of epic poetry, as established by Homer and confirmed by the great law-giver of Greek criticism, equally separates it from the rude attempts of Ennius and Naevius, and from the poems which treat of historical subjects of a limited and temporary significance, such as the Pharsalia of Lucan and the Henriade of Voltaire. Though Virgil may be the most imitative, he is at the same time one of the most original poets of antiquity. We saw that he had produced a new type of didactic poetry. By the meaning and unity which he has imparted to his Greek, Roman, and Italian materials through the vivifying and harmonising agency of permanent national sentiment and of the immediate feeling of the hour, he may be said to have created a new type of epic poetry-to have produced a work of genius representative of his country as well as a masterpiece of art. CHAPTER X. THE AENEID AS THE EPIC OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. I. THE Aeneid, like the Annals of Ennius, is a poem inspired by national sentiment, and expressive of the idea of Rome. But the 'Res Romana 1,' the growth of which Ennius witnessed and celebrated, had become greatly extended and had assumed a new form since the epic of the Republic was written. Yet the sentiment of national glory was essentially the same in the age of the elder Scipio and in the age of Augustus, though in the first it may be described as still militant, in the second as triumphant. In each time the Romans had a firm conviction of their superiority over all other nations, and a firm trust in the great destiny which had attended them since their origin, and still, as they believed, awaited them in the future. The ground on which their national self-esteem rested was their capacity for conquest and government; the result of that capacity was only fully visible after the empire over the world was established. The pride of empire is thus the most prominent mode in which the national sentiment asserts itself in the poetry of the Augustan Age. In that series of Odes in which the art of Horace becomes the organ of the new government this sentiment finds expression by the mouth of the old enemy of the Roman race, the goddess Juno: 1 Audire est operae pretium procedere recte And while it animates even the effeminate tones of the elegiac poets to a more manly sound, this pride of empire is the dominant mode of patriotic enthusiasm in the Aeneid. Thus, in the very beginning of the poem, Virgil describes the people destined to spring from the remnant of the Trojans as populum late regem belloque superbum. To them Jupiter himself promises empire without limit either in time or place: His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono, In the same passage he sums up their greatness in the arts of war and peace in the line Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam 3. The earliest oracle given to Aeneas in the course of his wanderings contains the promise of universal dominion : ·- 2 To them I assign no goal to their achievements, no end,--I have given empire illimitable.' i. 278-9. 3The Romans, lords of the world, and the people clad in the gown.' i. 282. |