Rome as its centre, that the unchanging future of the world is anticipated Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum 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. 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 1 Cp. the application of 'pater' as an epithet of Aeneas, and Horace's line in reference to Augustus Hic ames dici pater atque princeps. 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, The spectacle of the fall of Troy acquires new grandeur from the representation of Troy, not, as it appears in Homer, as a city with many allies, but as the centre of a wide and long-established empire Postquam res Asiae Priamique evertere gentem The tragic splendour of Dido's death is enhanced by her proud sense of a high destiny fulfilled and of queenly rule exercised over a great people Vixi, et, quem dederat cursum Fortuna, peregi: Thus although the necessities of his position and his own 'inscitia reipublicae' prevented Virgil in his representation from appealing to the generous political emotions of a free people, he was able not only to gratify the pride of empire felt by his countrymen, but to sustain among them the sense of imaginative reverence with which the sovereignty of the State over its individual members deserves to be regarded. But there is another class of political facts which interest 1 vii. 170-6. 2 iii. 1-3. 3 ii. 363. 1 ii. 554-7. 5 iv. 653-5 the mind as much as those which arise out of the play of conflicting forces within a free commonwealth,-viz. the relations of independent powers with one another. And of this class of facts both Homer and Virgil make use in their representations. In Homer we see the spectacle, never realised in actual Grecian history at least till the days of Alexander, of the many independent Greek powers united under one leader in a common enterprise, and of the various powers of the western shores of Asia combined in defence of their leading State. The antagonism between the Greeks and Trojans is, in point of general conception, more like the hostile inter-relations of nations in modern times, than like the wars of city against city, with which the pages of later Greek history are filled1. The union of the Italian tribes and cities under the command of Turnus, and that of Trojans, Arcadians, and Etrurians—all foreigners recently settled in Italy-under Aeneas, may be compared to the union of independent Greek powers under Agamemnon, and that of 'the allies summoned from afar,' who, while following their own princes, yet submitted to the command of Hector. Yet in Virgil's conception of the great powers of the world, and even of cities most remote from one another, as having an intimate knowledge of each other's fortunes,-in the idea of what in modern times would be called a 'foreign policy' and 'the balance of power,' which dictates the mission of Turnus to Diomede, and the appeal of Aeneas to the Etrurians to take part with him in averting the establishment by the Rutulians of a sovereignty over the whole of Italy, we meet with a condition of international relations and policy, which, if based on the experience of any period of ancient history, might have been suggested by the memory of the time when Hannibal's great scheme of combining the fresh vigour of the western barbarians, the smouldering elements 1 The Peloponnesian war, which united the Dorian and Oligarchical States of Greece under the lead of Sparta against Athens and her allies, admits, as is indicated by Thucydides in his Introduction, of the best parallel to the Trojan war, as represented by Homer. of resistance in Italy, and the military power and prestige of the old monarchies of Macedonia and Syria, was defeated not more by the irresolution and disunion among those powers, than by the traditional policy through which Rome had made her dependent allies feel that her interest was identified with their own. But this aspect of the world, though an anachronism from the point of view either of the time when the poem was written, or of that in which the events represented are supposed to happen, enhances the dignity of the action, by exhibiting the enterprise of Aeneas as a spectacle attracting the attention and involving the destinies of the great nations of the world. The state of material civilisation exhibited in the Aeneid must be regarded also as a poetical compromise between the simplicity and rude vigour of primitive civilisation and the splendour and refinement of the age in which the poem was written. Thus Acestes, the friendly king and Sicilian host of Aeneas, welcomes him on his return from Carthage in the rough dress of some primitive hunter Horridus in iaculis et pelle Libystidis ursae. Evander receives him beneath his humble roof, stratisque locavit Effultum foliis et pelle Libystidis ursae. The Arcadian prince is roused in the morning by the song of birds under the eaves, and proceeds to visit his guest accompanied by two watchdogs which lay before his door. On the other hand the description, in the account of the building of Carthage, of the foundation of the great theatre hic lata theatris Fundamenta petunt alii, immanisque columnas the picture of the great Temple of Juno Aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina nexaeque of the rich frescoes and bas-reliefs adorning it- Bellaque iam fama totum volgata per orbem3 ; 1 i. 427-9. 2 i. 448-9. 3 i. 455-7. of the great dome under which the throne of Dido is placed media testudine templi, etc.; the description of the Temple of Apollo at Cumae,—the account of the banquet in the palace of Dido with its blaze of 'festal light' dependent lychni laquearibus aureis Incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt, (a picture partly indeed, like that in Lucretius Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes, etc., suggested by the imaginative description of the banquet in the Palace of Alcinous)-appear to owe their existence to the impression produced on the mind of Virgil by some of the great architectural works of the Augustan Age-such as the Theatre of Marcellus, the Pantheon, the Temple of the Palatine Apollo, and by the spectacle of profuse luxury which the houses and banquets of the richer classes at Rome exhibited. The class from which the personages of the Aeneid are taken is almost exclusively that of those most elevated in dignity and influence. Virgil does not attempt to bring before us the rich variety of social grades, which adds vivacity and verisimilitude to the spectacle of life and manners presented by Homer, Chaucer, and Shakspeare. It does not enter into Virgil's conception of epic art to introduce types of the class to which Thersites, Irus, Eumaeus, Phemius, and Eurycleia belong. If he makes any exception to his general practice of limiting his representation to the class of royal and noble personages, it is in the glimpse which he affords of devoted loyalty in the person of Palinurus and of affection and grief in that of the bereaved mother of Euryalus. Where, after the example of Homer, he introduces various figures belonging to the same class, he fails to distinguish them from one another by any individual trait of character or manners. Thus Dido has her suitors as well as Penelope; but the former produce no life-like impression of any kind, like |