ANNOTATIONS.

ON THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

PUBLIUS VIRGILIUS MARO.

ALL that is known with certainty respecting the life of Virgil may be very briefly told. He lived in a highly civilized age, when a taste for letters was widely diffused, and active patronage was bestowed upon literary men. The civil history of his time has come down to us in a state of perfect preservation; but biographies of its eminent men were seldom written, except they were distinguished for military exploits, or held a prominent station in the government. The career of our poet was not diversified by many remarkable events either of good or evil fortune, and a memoir of him must be pieced together from casual notices in his own works and those of his contemporaries, and from sketches of very doubtful authority, written in a much later age. The earliest life of him, which we possess, was written by Donatus, a grammarian of the fourth century; and this account, though very imperfect, and stuffed with the most improbable fables, has furnished the chief materials for all subsequent biographies.

Virgil was born on the fifteenth day of October, in the 684th year of Rome, or about 70 years before Christ. His birthplace was Andes, a small village about three miles from Mantua, in the north of Italy. His father was of low extraction and employment; but he had received a small landed estate through his wife Maia, the daughter of an opulent farmer, and he was thereby enabled to give a good education to his son. Virgil was sent to the neighbouring city of Cremona to be educated, and remained there till he assumed the manly gown, in the seventeenth year of his age. He then went to Milan, and afterwards to Naples, where he prosecuted his studies with great perseverance and success. He devoted himself to Greek literature, mathematics, and philosophy, and thus acquired the various and accurate learning, which was one source of his excellence as a poet.

It is probable, that he chose Naples for his residence, because it was less disturbed by the civil wars, that grew out of the death of Julius Cæsar, and which were then desolating the north of Italy. These disturbances at one time threatened to deprive the poet of the small estate in land, which was then his sole dependence. The triumvirate of Octavius Cæsar, Antony, and Lepidus, was formed U. C. 711, and, in the division of the government between the associates, Cisalpine Gaul, as the north of Italy was then termed, fell to the lot of Antony. Wherever the inhabitants, during the preceding struggle, had followed the interests of the opposite party, their lands were taken from them, and bestowed on the veteran soldiers. Great distress ensued, and the ancient proprietors flocked to Rome in the hope of obtaining restitution of their estates by applying to their various patrons. Virgil had

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returned to his farm, and enjoyed it under the protection of C. Asinius Pollio, a distinguished commander, whom Antony had made prefect of the province. He was a rigorous and oppressive officer, but he had a fine taste in letters, in which he had himself achieved some reputation, and he was a generous patron of literary men. Virgil was already known as a poet, and Pollio soon became his friend and protector. But a change took place in the government of the province, and the people of Cremona, who had espoused the cause of Brutus, were compelled to give up their territory. The rapacious soldiery, who were settled upon it, passed the bounds assigned to them, seized the lands round Mantua, and Virgil, among others, was deprived of his farm. He immediately went to Rome, and being recommended by Pollio to some persons in authority, he obtained an order for the restoration of his property. But the rude soldier, who had gained the land, would not quietly yield possession of it, and when the poet returned to claim his estate, he was violently assaulted, and only escaped with life by swimming over the Mincio. Not discouraged, he went again to Rome, and inade poetry the vehicle of his complaint for the wrongs which he had suffered.

In these successive visits to the capital, he acquired the friendship of Varus, who is several times mentioned in the Eclogues, and of Mæcenas, the wise minister and munificent patron of letters. He was assisted also by Cornelius Gallus, who was then high in favor and office, and, as a writer of Latin elegies, was compared by the first critics to Tibullus and Ovid. These active patrons commended the young poet to Octavius Cæsar, who soon became much attached to him, and remained so after the Commonwealth was wholly prostrated, and a servile senate hailed the successful triumvir under the title of the Emperor Augustus. Efficient measures, of course, were taken to restore Virgil's property, and wealth and powerful patronage crowned the remainder of his days. These events furnished occasion for writing most of the Eclogues, which were the poet's earliest efforts. The one entitled Alexis, though usually placed second in his works, is supposed to have been his first production, being written when the poet was twenty-five years of age. Both the subject and the manner of treating it indicate the youth of the writer. The Palamon came next, though after an interval of more than a year; it was an offering of gratitude to Pollio, Virgil's earliest friend. The deification of Julius Caesar took place U. C. 712, and it is supposed, though on very slight grounds, that this event is celebrated in the Daphnis, which was written about this time. Tityrus, which is usually placed first among the Eclogues, was composed the following year, to express thankfulness to Cæsar for the first order to restore the poet's estate. The ninth Eclogue, Maris, was hastily put together, as a poetical complaint, when Virgil returned to Rome after the unsuccessful attempt to gain possession of his farm. The Silenus was next written, in compliment to the author's active friends, Varus and Gallus, probably in compliance with a request from the former. In the year. U. C. 714, Pollio became consul, and took an active share in bringing about the reconciliation between Antony and Octavius, at Brundusium. To celebrate this event and express the happy anticipations, that were formed from it, the magnificent Eclogue, inscribed to Pollio was composed. The next year, this general led a successful expedition against the Parthini, a people of Illyrium, and the Pharmaceutria was written and dedicated to him. It is conjectured, that Melibaus also was published about this time. A Roman army crossed the Rhine, U. C. 717, to quiet an insurrection of the Gauls, and a soldier in this expedition carried off the mistress of Gallus. The last of the Eclogues was written to console the poet's friend for this deprivation, and it was inscribed with his name.

Thus it appears, that Virgil commenced the Eclogues when only twenty-five years of age, and spent about eight years in composing

them. The perfect finish and elaboration of these exquisite poems justify the account, that so much time was employed upon them. The writer had now obtained wealth, reputation, and numerous and powerful friends, and his refined taste and retiring disposition giving him no predilection for public life, he fixed his abode near Naples, where he possessed a delightful villa, and devoted his time to the composition of his second great work. It is supposed, that he had previously dwelt for a year or two at Rome, having a house on the Esquiline hill, near the gardens of Mecenas, whose society he frequently enjoyed. But the climate of the south of Italy was better suited to his delicate health, and the beautiful scenery of Campania gratified his taste, and suggested many an exquisite descriptive passage in his future poems. Naples with its vicinity was then a favorite retreat for statesmen and literary men, and the honor and popularity, which Virgil had enjoyed in the capital, followed him to this abode.

The effect of the civil war, which had now raged for a long time in Italy, was fully manifest in the condition of the country and the character of its inhabitants. Many districts had been laid waste by warlike and predatory excursions, agriculture was generally neglected, the people were harassed by successive exactions from different parties, and were generally in a feeble or destitute condition. Many of the ancient proprietors were deprived of their farms, and the land was given to rude and lawless soldiers, too long accustomed to rapine and violence, to be easily transformed into quiet and industrious cultivators of the soil. There was danger that tillage would be generally neglected, and that famine would be added to the other distresses of the people. The dominion of Octavius was now well established in Italy, though his contest with Antony for the government of the world was far from being ended. Mæcenas, the wise minister of the former, sought to remedy the general distress by encouraging husbandry and inviting the inhabitants to resume the arts of peace. By his express command, as we are told, Virgil commenced writing the Georgics, in which his object was, not only to instruct those who were ignorant of the business of tillage, but to present such a flattering picture of rural life and the blessings of peace, that the whole people, and especially the new proprietors of the soil, might be weaned from their warlike tastes and restless habits, and induced to seek for sustenance and happiness in quiet and constant employment. The design was worthy of the wisdom of the minister, and the humane and amiable character of the poet, and its execution has formed a lasting monument to the reputation of both.

The Georgics were begun as soon as the Eclogues were finished, when the poet was thirty three years of age, and their composition occupied the seven following years of his life. The time of completing the work is indicated by the concluding passage of the fourth book, which seems to refer to the triumphs of Octavius in the East, after the death of Antony and Cleopatra, U. C. 724. That the poem was commenced at least seven years before this period, appears from an allusion in the second book to the work of Agrippa, who formed the Julian harbour by opening a communication between the lakes Lucrinus and Avernus. This harbour was made, U. C. 717, and the poet seems to allude to it as a very recent work. While writing the Georgics, Virgil resided at his villa near Naples, and many passages show his perfect knowledge of the topography of Campania, and of the modes of husbandry which were best adapted to that region. The writer's skill in agriculture, which is attested by the unanimous voice of his contemporaries and by the experience of modern times, must have been gained partly by practice in the management of his paternal estate on the banks of the Mincio, and partly by close observation of the farms in the vicinity of Naples. The didactic character of the work is relieved and ornamented by the splendid passages interwoven with it in praise of rural