Even the composite character of the legend and the heterogeneous elements out of which it was composed, if unfavourable to unity of impression and simplicity of execution, conduced to the poet's purpose of concentrating in one representation, of a Roman vastness of compass, whatever might enhance and illustrate the greatness of Rome and of its ruler. The Rome of the Augustan Age no longer exhibited the political and religious unity of an old Italian republic; it was expanding its limits so as to embrace in a much wider unity the various nations that had played their part in the past history of the world. As the glory and wealth of Asia, Greece, Carthage, etc. had all gone to swell the glory and wealth of Rome, so all the traditions, historic memories, and literary art of the past were to be made tributary to her national representative poem. The first great epic poem of the ancient world is buoyant with the mighty promise of the life which was to be; the last great epic is weighty with the accumulated experience of all that had been. The stream of epic poetry shows no longer the jubilant force and purity of waters-'exercita cursu Flumina' which rise in the high mountain-land separating barbarism from civilisation; it moves more slowly and less clearly through more level and cultivated districts; its volume is swollen and its weight increased by tributaries which have never known the 'bright speed1' of its nobler sources. III. Composite character of the Aeneid illustrated by an These considerations lead to the conclusion that the legend of Aeneas was better suited than any other which he could have selected for the two objects which Virgil 1 'Oxus forgetting the bright speed he had In his high mountain cradle in Pamere.'-Sohrab and Rustum. had before his mind in the composition of the Aeneid; first, that of writing a poem representative and commemorative of Rome and of his own epoch, in the spirit in which some of the great architectural works of the Empire, such as the Column of Trajan, the Arches of Titus and of Constantine, were erected; and, secondly, that of writing an imitative epic of action, manners, and character which should afford to his countrymen an interest analogous to that which the Greeks derived from the Homeric poems. The knowledge necessary to enable him to fulfil the first purpose was contained in such works as the ceremonial books of the various Priestly Colleges, the Origines' of Cato, the antiquarian treatises of Varro, and perhaps the 'Annales' and 'Fasti1' which preserved the 'record of national and family traditions. In giving life to these dry materials his mind was animated by the spectacle of Rome, and the thought of her wide empire, her genius, character, and history; by the visible survivals of ancient ceremonies and memorials of the past; by the sight of the great natural features of the land, of old Italian towns of historic renown, or, where they had disappeared, of the localities still marked by their name :locus Ardea quondam 6 Dictus avis; et nunc magnum tenet Ardea nomen. As poetic sources of inspiration for this part of his task Virgil had the national epic poems of Naevius and Ennius; and of both of these he made use of the first, in his account of the storm which drives Aeneas to Carthage and of his entertainment there by the Carthaginian Queen; of the second, by his use of many half-lines and expressions which give an antique and stately character to the description of incidents or the expression of sentiment. For Virgil's other purpose, his chief materials were derived from his intimate familiarity with the two great Homeric 1 Cf. Hor. Od. iii. 17. 2—4:— Quando et priores hinc Lamias ferunt Per memores genus omne fastos, etc. poems: but he availed himself also of incidents contained in the Homeric Hymns, in the Cyclic poems, in the Greek Tragedies, as for instance the lost Laocoon of Sophocles, and in the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius. His own experience of life, and still more the insight which his own nature afforded him into various moods of passion, affection, and chivalrous emotion, enabled him to impart novelty and individuality to the materials which he derived from these foreign and ancient sources. A minute examination of the various books of the poem would bring out clearly that these two objects, that of raising a monument to the glory of Rome and of Augustus, and that of writing an imitative epic reproducing some image of the manners and life of the heroic age, were present to the mind of Virgil through his whole undertaking. It will be sufficient in order to show this two-fold purpose to look at the first book, and at some of the more prominent incidents in the later books. In the opening lines of the poem Arma virumque... multa quoque et bello passus— we find, as in the Odyssey ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε ... πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν an announcement of a poem of heroic adventure, of vicissitudes and suffering by sea and land, determined by the personal agency of some of the old Olympian gods ('vi superum). The scope of the Aeneid as explained in. these lines is however wider than that of the Odyssey, as embracing the warlike action of the Iliad as well as a tale of sea-adventure. But in the statement of the motive of the poems a more essential difference between the two epics is apparent. The wanderings of Odysseus. have no other aim than a safe return for himself and his companions. He acts from the simplest and most elemental of human instincts and affections, the love of life and of home, ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων. Aeneas, like Odysseus, starts on his adventures after the capture of Troy, Troiae qui primus ab oris ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν — but he starts, 'fato profugus,' on no accidental adventure, but on an enterprise with far-reaching consequences, determined by a Divine purpose. While actively engaged in the personal object of finding a safe settlement for himself and his followers in Italy, he is at the same time a passive instrument in the hands of Providence, laying the foundation, both secular and religious, of the future government of the world: Multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae. The difference in character of the two epics is perceptible in the very sound of their opening lines. While the Latin moves with stateliness and dignity and is weighty with the burden of the whole world's history, the Greek is fluent and buoyant with the spirit and life of the ‘novitas florida mundi.' The greatness of Aeneas is a kind of 'imputed' greatness; he is important to the world as bearing the weight of the glory and destiny of the future Romans Attollens humero famamque et fata nepotum. Odysseus is great in the personal qualities of courage, steadfastness of purpose and affection, loyalty to his comrades, versatility, ready resource; but he bears with him only his own fortunes and those of the companions of his adventure; he ends his career as he begins it, the chief of a small island, which derives all its importance solely from its early association with his fortunes. The double purpose of the Aeneid, and its contrast in this respect with the Homeric poems, are further seen in the statement of the motives influencing the Divine beings by whose agency the action is advanced or impeded. As in the opening paragraph Virgil had the opening lines of the Odyssey in view, in the second, which announces the supernatural motive of the poem Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso he had in view the passage in the Iliad beginning with the line τίς τ ̓ ἄρ σφωε θεῶν ἔριδι ξυνέηκε μάχεσθαι; In the Iliad the supernatural cause of the action is the wrath of Apollo, acting from the personal desire to avenge the wrong done to his priest Chryses in the Odyssey, it is the wrath of Poseidon acting from the personal desire to avenge the suffering of his son whom Odysseus blinded : ἀλλὰ Ποσειδάων γαιήοχος ἀσκελὲς αἰεί : The gods in both cases act from personal passion without moral purpose or political object. So too the powers which befriend Odysseus act from personal regard to him and acknowledgment of his wisdom and piety: ὃς περὶ μὲν νόον ἐστὶ βροτῶν, περὶ δ ̓ ἱρὰ θεοῖσιν In the Aeneid, Juno, by whose agency in hindering the settlement of Aeneas in Italy the events of the poem are brought about, acts from two sets of motives; the first bringing the action into connexion with one of the great crises in the history of Rome, the second bringing it into connexion with the Trojan traditions. Prominence is given to the first motive, in the announcement of which the deadly struggle between Rome and Carthage, 'when all men were in doubt under whose empire they should fall by land and sea1,' is anticipated : Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni, hoc regnum dea gentibus esse, Lucret. iii. 836. |