mystical, and philosophical modes of thought which he strove to combine into a single representation. Perhaps if he had lived longer and been able to carry further the 'potiora studia' on which he was engaged simultaneously with the composition of the Aeneid, he might have effected a more specious reconcilement of what now appear irreconcileable factors of belief. Or, perhaps, in the thought which induces him to dismiss Aeneas and the Sibyl by the gate through which

falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes1

we may recognise a trace, not certainly of Epicurean unbelief,
but of that sad and subtle irony with which the spirit of man
inwardly acknowledges that it is baffled in its highest quest.
The august spectacle which is unfolded before Aeneas, that,
too, like the vision of Er the son of Armenius, is but a μôðos,-
a symbol of a state of being, which the human imagination,
illuminated by conscience and affection, shadows forth as an
object of hope, but which it cannot grasp as a reality. In the
grandeur of moral belief which inspires Virgil's shadowy repre-
sentation, in his recognition of the everlasting distinction between
a life of righteousness and of unrighteousness, of purity and of
impurity, he but reproduces the profoundest ethical intuitions of
Plato. But in the indication of that trust in a final reunion
which has comforted innumerable human hearts-

the Roman poet is moved by the tender affection of his own nature, and follows the light of his own intuition.

Ancient commentators have drawn attention to the large place which the account of religious ceremonies occupies in the Aeneid, and to the exact acquaintance which Virgil shows with the minutiae of Pontifical and Augural lore. It is in keeping with the character of Aeneas as the hero of a religious epic, that

1 'The Manes send unreal dreams to the world above.'

2 Where her former husband Sychaeus sympathises with all her sorrows and loves her with a love equal to her own.'

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the commencement and completion of every enterprise are accompanied with sacrifices and other ceremonial observances. M. Gaston Boissier 1, following Macrobius, has pointed out the special propriety of the offerings made to different gods, of the peculiar use of such epithets as 'eximios' applied to the bulls selected for sacrifice, of the ritual application of the words 'porricio"' and 'porrigo,' and of the words addressed to Aeneas by the River-Nymphs 3,—'Aenea, vigila,'—which would recall to Roman ears those with which the commander of the Roman armies, on the outbreak of war, shook the shields and sacred symbols of Mars. Other passages would remind the readers of Virgil of the ceremonial observances with which they were familiar, as for instance that in which Helenus prescribes to Aeneas the peculiarly Roman practice of veiling the head in worship and sacrifice

Quin, ubi transmissae steterint trans aequora classes,

Et positis aris iam vota in litore solves,
Purpureo velare comas adopertus amictu;
Nequa inter sanctos ignis in honore deorum
Hostilis facies occurrat et omina turbet *.

There are traces also of a worship, which from its wider diffusion, and its late survival, seems to belong to a remoter antiquity than the peculiar ceremonial of Rome,—as in the prayer offered to the god of Soracte

Summe deum, sancti custos Soractis, Apollo,
Quem primi colimus, cui pineus ardor acervo

1 Cp. 'Un Poëte Théologien,' in the Revue des Deux Mondes. 2 Cf. Aen. v. 236:

viii. 273

Vobis laetus ego hoc candentem in litore taurum
Constituam ante aras, voti reus, extaque salsos
Porriciam in fluctus, et vina liquentia fundam.

Quare agite, O iuvenes! tantarum in munere laudum
Cingite fronde comas et pocula porgite dextris.

3 Created out of his ships.

4 Nay when thy fleet, after crossing the seas, shall have come to anchor, and, after raising altars, thou shalt pay thy vows upon the shore, then veil thy head with a purple robe, lest, while the consecrated fires are burning in the worship of the Gods, the face of some enemy may meet thee, and confound the omens.' iii. 403-7.

Pascitur, et medium freti pietate per ignem
Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna'.

The desire to infuse a new power into the religious observance, belief, and life of his countrymen thus appears to have acted as a strong suggestive force to Virgil's imagination. This is apparent in the importance which he attaches to the offices of Priest or Augur, to the dress, ornaments, or procedure of the chief person taking part in prayer or sacrifice, to the ceremonies accompanying every important action, to the sacred associations attaching to particular places. Amid all the changes of the world, Virgil seems to cling to the traditions of the religious and spiritual life, -as Lucretius holds to the belief in the laws of Nature, as the surest ground of human trust. He has no thought of superseding old beliefs or practices by any new

Vana superstitio veterumque ignara deorum2,

but rather strives to reconcile the old faith with the more enlightened convictions and humaner sentiments of men. His religious belief, like his other speculative convictions, was composite and undefined; yet it embraced what was purest and most vital in all the religions of antiquity, and, in its deepest intuitions, it seems to look forward to some aspects of the belief which became dominant in Rome four centuries later.

III.

While the various religious elements in Virgil's nature find ample scope in the representation of the Aeneid, his apathy in regard to active political life is seen in the tameness of his reproduction of that aspect of human affairs. In the Homeric Bovλý and ảyopά we recognise not only the germs of the future

1 'Highest of Gods, Apollo, guardian of holy Soracte, in whose worship we are foremost, in whose honour the heaped-up pinewood blazes, while we, thy worshippers, with pious trust, even through the midst of the flame plant our steps deep in the embers.' xi. 785-8. Cp. the Beltane fires which are said to be still kept up among remote Celtic populations, and which seem to be a survival of a primitive Sun-worship.

2 Idle superstition, which knows not the ancient Gods.'

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political development of the Greeks, but the germs out of which
all free political life unfolds itself. To the form of government
exhibited in the Aeneid, the words which Tacitus uses of a
mixed constitution might be more justly applied,—'it is one
more easily praised than realised, or if ever it is realised, it is
incapable of permanence 1.' And even if the Virgilian idea
could be realised in some happy moment of human affairs, it
does not contain within itself the capacity of any further de-
velopment. The difficulties of the problem of government are
solved in Virgil by the picture which he draws of passive and
loyal submission on the part of nobles and people to a wise,
beneficent, and disinterested ruler and legislator 2. The idea of
the ruler in the Aeneid is the same as that of the 'Father.'
is under such a rule, exercised from Rome as its centre, that the
unchanging future of the world is anticipated—

Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum
Accolet, imperiumque Pater Romanus habebit 3.

It

The case of Mezentius does indeed show that Virgil recognised the ultimate right of rebellion when the paternal king passed into the tyrannical oppressor; but such an instance affords no scope for representing the manifestation of political passions. and virtues. The free play of conflicting forces in a community has no attraction for Virgil's imagination. He suggests no thought either of the popular liberty realised in the best days of the Roman commonwealth, or of the sagacity and steadfast traditions of the Roman Senate. The only trace of discussion and opposition appears in the debate within the court of Latinus.

1 Ann. iv. 33.

2 It is true, as Gibbon remarks in his Dissertation on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, that the expression 'dare iura' is only once applied to Aeneas —but it is the regular expression used of a ruler of a settled community, as for instance of Dido. It is applied at the end of the Georgics to Augustus, per populos dat iura.'

3 While the house of Aeneas shall dwell by the steadfast rock of the Capitol, and the fatherly sway of a Roman shall endure.' Cp. the application of 'pater' as an epithet of Aeneas, and Horace's line in reference to Augustus

Hic ames dici pater atque princeps.

But the antagonism between Drances and Turnus is one of personal rivalry, not of political difference; and the only limit to the sovereignty of Latinus lies in his own weakness of will and in the opposition of his household.

But besides the ideals of popular freedom and senatorian dignity which were realised in the Republic, the Roman mind was impressed by another political ideal, the 'Majesty of the State.' The one political force that remained unchanged, amid the various changes of the Roman constitution from the time of the kings to the time of the emperors, was the power of the executive. And this power depended not on material force, but on the sentiment with which the magistrate was regarded as the embodiment for the time being of that attribute in the State which commanded the reverence of the people. The greatest political offence which a Roman could commit under the Republic was a violation of the 'majesty of the Commonwealth;' under the Empire of the majesty of the Emperor.' The sentiment out of which this idea arose was felt by Virgil in all its strength. Thus although the actual government of Latinus is exhibited as a model neither of wisdom nor of strength, it is invested with all the outward semblance of powerful and ancient sovereignty

Tectum augustum, ingens, centum sublime columnis,
Urbe fuit summa, Laurentis regia Pici,

Horrendum silvis et religione parentum.
Hic sceptra accipere et primos attollere fasces
Regibus omen erat; hoc illis curia templum,
Hae sacris sedes epulis; hic, ariete caeso,
Perpetuis soliti patres considere mensis'.

The spectacle of the fall of Troy acquires new grandeur from the representation of Troy, not, as it appears in Homer, as a

1

'A palace, august, vast, propped on one hundred columns, stood in the highest place of the city, the royal abode of Laurentian Picus, inspiring awe from the gloom of woods and old ancestral reverence. Here it was held

auspicious for kings to receive the sceptre and first to lift up the fasces: this temple was their senate-house, this the hall of their sacred banquets; here after sacrifice of a ram the fathers used to take their seats at the long unbroken tables.' vii. 170-6.