Like Lucretius, he hopes to find in philosophy an ideal serenity of life (cp. G. ii. 490-492); but the last four lines show that the desire of his heart and the bent of his genius are for poetry-the 'dulces ante omnia Musae' (ib. 475), to whom his life was to be devoted. Traces, however, of the early longing for philosophy, here first expressed by him, and never altogether forgotten, appear afterwards in such passages as the song of Silenus in Ecl. vi; the description of the ideal aim of poetry in G. ii. 475 sqq.; the song of Iopas, Aen. i. 742-746; and the exposition of the 'Anima Mundi' vi. 724 sqq.

Of the four other poems assigned to Virgil, the 'Moretum' (Salad) and 'Copa' (Hostess) might be, but are not proved to be, productions of his boyhood: while the 'Culex' (Gnat) and 'Ciris' (?Woodpecker) are now generally recognised as not by him, despite the tradition as to the former vouched for by Suetonius.

3. How long Virgil remained at Rome is uncertain. We find him in 43 B. C. living at Mantua and engaged on the Eclogues: and it is probable that the outbreak of the Civil War in 49 B. C. would have interrupted his stay in the capital. During this period he must have learned to admire the writings of Lucretius, of the epic poet Varius, and of the tragedian and historian Asinius Pollio: but the statement of Suetonius that he began a poem on the history of Rome, after the example of Ennius and other early poets, is perhaps too strong an inference from the confession in Ecl. vi. 2–5 of his youthful ambition to write epic poetry. We gather also that Varus (Ecl. vi. 6–12) and Pollio (Ecl. viii. 6 sqq.) pressed him to give a poetical account of their own and Caesar's exploits; but that for the time he put all such work aside for the sake of pastoral poetry. It is, however, noticeable, as Professor Sellar points out1, that afterwards in the 'Aeneid' he combined the revival of ancient traditions about the origin of Rome and the celebration of the

1 P. 116.

great deeds of his own time. It is by the capacity 'of forecasting some great work, and dwelling on the idea till it clears itself of all alien matter, and assimilates to itself the impressions and interests of a life-time, that the vastest and most enduring monuments of genius are produced':--such, for example, as the

6 Paradise Lost,' and the 'Divina Commedia.'

Aeneid,' the

4. In the year 41 B. C. Virgil was ejected from his paternal farm by one of the soldiers to whom the Triumvirs Antonius, Octavianus, and Lepidus had assigned grants of land in Cisalpine Gaul. To this trouble Eclogues i and ix refer. Ecl. i speaks of a journey to Rome and restitution of the farm; Ecl. ix only alludes to ejection from it. If therefore Ecl. i is the earlier poem, it is necessary to suppose that he was a second time turned out, and that Ecl. ix refers to this second ejection. But probably Ecl. ix, containing a complaint of injury, was written earlier than Ecl. i, expressing gratitude for the redress of the injury. Ecl. iv and viii are complimentary to Pollio and Gallus, two friends, who, holding important offices in the district, had backed the poet's application to Octavianus for the restitution of his farm; and Ecl. vi was perhaps a mark of gratitude to Varus, who had also assisted him. Ecl. v, which alludes to the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, may have been written 43-41 B. C.; and it must be later than Ecl. ii and iii, which are alluded to in it (Il. 86–7). Tradition connects Ecl. ii with Pollio, and Ecl. iii speaks of him (1. 84) as encouraging the poet : and one or both of these poems may have been written in 43 B. C., the year of Pollio's term of office as 'legatus' in Cisalpine Gaul. Ecl. ix (according to the view just given) was written in 41 B. C. ; Ecl. i, iv, and perhaps vi, in 40 B. C., after the restitution of Virgil's farm; and Ecl. viii in 39 B. C., the year of Pollio's return in triumph from Illyria; Ecl. x, written about 38-7 B. C. when Agrippa was commanding an expedition into Gaul and across the Rhine, being the last of the series. The composition of the Eclogues thus falls between the years 43 and 37 B. C.: their order being presumably ii, iii, v, ix, i, iv, vi, viii, x. Ecl. vii gives no indication of date; but Propertius seems to speak of it as being written by the river Galaesus near Tarentum :

'Tu canis umbrosi subter pineta Galaesi

Thyrsin et attritis Daphnin harundinibus' (iii. 26. 67).

Virgil himself in G. iv. 125 implies familiarity with that neighbour

hood:

Namque sub Oebaliae memini me turribus altis,

Qua niger umectat flaventia culta Galaesus,

Corycium vidisse senem

Horace in the 'Journey to Brundisium' (Sat. i. 5. 40) 37 B. C. says, that Virgil joined the party at Sinuessa. And it has been remarked that some of the descriptions of scenery in the Eclogues, which are unsuitable to Mantua, and are generally regarded as Sicilian, would suit the country about Tarentum. Al, however, that can be inferred is that Virgil may have spent some time there during this period.

5. In a quarrel with some soldier or soldiers, arising out of his ejection from his farm, Virgil had been assisted by C. Cilnius Maecenas, the famous patron and friend of his after years, in compliment to whom, and under whose encouragement, he undertook the Georgics': his attention being now turned to the didactic poetry of Hesiod, Nicander, and Aratus, as it had hitherto been to the pastoral poetry of Theocritus. The Georgics, we know, were read by Virgil and Maecenas to Augustus on his return from the East in 29 B. C. Suetonius tells us that the poet was engaged upon them for seven years, which would give 36 B. C for their commencement; a date intrinsically probable from the completion of the Eclogues in 37 B. C., and incidental y confirmed by the allusion in G. ii. 161 to the Julian harbour constructed in 37-the earliest reference in the Georgics to any contemporary event 1.

The composition of the Georgics thus falls between the years 37 and 29 B. C.: but they can hardly have been written continuously as we now read them. From Virgil's own statement at the end of G. iv. (559-561) 2—

Haec super arvorum cultu pecorumque canebam

Et super arboribus, Caesar dum magnus ad altum
Fulminat Euphraten bello . . . etc., etc.,

We gather that the bulk of G. i-iii was written at Naples during the settlement of Eastern affairs 31-29. Some passages, however, may have been written independently of the context in which they now stand-e. g. G. i. 466–488, on the death of Julius Caesar; G. ii. 458492 (the praise of a country life and his own longings for philosophy); and perhaps the episode of Aristaeus in G. iv. 315 sqq. The

1 The line at the end of G. i. (509), Hinc movet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum, which has usually been referred to the events of 37 B. C., is referred by Professor Nettleship (Ancient Lives of Vergil' pp. 54-55) to those of 33-32 (see note ad loc.).

2 As these lines make no mention of the subject of G. iv, their more appropriate place would seem to be at the end of G. iii.

introductions to G. i and iii were probably not written before 29 B. C., the year in which Augustus celebrated his triple triumph; and were perhaps composed expressly for the recitation. These passages are full of exultation at assured success and restored order but the end of G. i. (498 sqq.), in which 'Caesar' is spoken of, not as yet victorious, but as the only hope of a falling country, must have been written before the success at Actium-possibly at the beginning of the civil war 1 in 33-32 B. C.; its tone corresponding with that of Horace, Odes i. 2, Epodes vii, xvii. The end of G. ii seems to contain allusions to the same troublous time,— e. g. coniurato descendens Dacus ab Histro (497), which must allude to the support given by the Dacians to Antonius: while ii. 171-172 can only refer to the settlement of the East after Actium, 31 B. C. It is possible that before writing iii. 10 sqq. he had actually visited Greece. Such a visit would agree with Hor. Od. i. 3, alluding to the visit to Attica of one Vergilius, a dear friend; an ode which cannot well refer to Virgil's only recorded visit to Greece in 19 B. C., four years after the latest probable date2 for the publication of Odes i-iii.

6. The remaining ten years of Virgil's life (29-19 B. C.) were devoted to the 'Aeneid,' the most enduring monument not only of his own fame, but of the fortunes of Rome: the epic, as it has been well called, of the Roman empire; the sacred book of the Roman religion, as summed up in the conception of 'Fortuna Urbis' with its visible embodiment in the Emperor; the expression of all the varied beliefs of the time-national, religious, historical, mythological; the Gesta Populi Romani,' as some called it on its first appearance. The idea of such a poem was not altogether new to him (above § 3), but can hardly have assumed definite shape in his mind before the year 29 B. C., in which year probably he writes (G. iii. 46-48) that he intends to

1 The lines Vicinae ruptis inter se legibus urbes Arma ferunt; saevit toto Mars impius orbe must refer to troubles in Italy, and to civil war: while the expression movet Euphrates bellum is most naturally explained of the raid made by Phraates upon Media and Armenia, on the withdrawal of Antonius from the frontier.

2 23 B. C.; fixed by the allusion to Marcellus in Od. i. 12, 45–48, which cannot be a complimentary allusion to one already dead.

3. However variously expressed or shrouded, the religion of the Romans was Rome,' F. W. H. Myers in the 'Fortnightly Review' for February, 1879, p. 185. This brilliant and suggestive article, instinct with the feeling of a poet rather than of a critic, deserves to be enshrined in some less ephemeral form than the pages of a magazine.

celebrate Caesar's exploits'. Once begun, the poem must have proceeded steadily, if not rapidly (Quintilian, I. O. x. 3. 8 says, on the authority of Varius, that Virgil wrote very few lines in a day); for in the year 26 B. C. we find Augustus, then absent on a campaign in Spain, writing to ask for a sight of the first draft of the Aeneid or any passage out of it. Virgil's reply is characteristic of the modesty and lofty standard of perfection which marked his own appreciation of his work :

'De Aenea quidem meo, si mehercule iam dignum auribus haberem tuis, libenter mitterem; sed tanta inchoata res est ut paene vitio mentis tantum opus ingressus mihi videar, cum praesertim, ut scis, alia quoque studia ad id opus multoque potiora impertiar.'

Friends, however, of the poet began to spread reports that a great work was coming to light; one of them being Propertius, whose often quoted lines—

'Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii;

Nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade.' (iii. 26. 65, 66)— though dictated by friendly partiality, scarcely exaggerate the estimate which was actually formed of the Aeneid upon its appearance. Three or four years after Augustus' letter, Virgil consented to read three books (iv, vi, and another) to the Emperor; the date being approximately fixed by the death of young Marcellus B. C. 23, to whose memory the famous passage vi. 860-886 was inserted. According to Suetonius, Virgil first drafted the story in prose, and then wrote different parts in no certain order, as the fancy took him; the division into twelve books being part of his original plan. Internal evidence bears out this statement; thus, e. g. Book ix must have been finished before v, Nisus and Euryalus being there introduced as though for the first time, while in v they take a leading part in the games. Book iii, again, was probably written before ii, at the end of which (776 sqq.) Creusa appears to Aeneas after her death with a prophecy which is wholly unnoticed in Book iii. Books iv and vi, as we have seen, were in a finished

1 Professor Nettleship thinks that this cannot refer to the Aeneid, but to some other projected work, of which the description of the battle of Actium (Aen. viii. 675 sqq.) may have been intended to form part. That description, however (see notes), is essentially in harmony with the scope of the Aeneid, which may well, from one point of view, be regarded as a poem in honour of Augustus.

2 Preserved by Macrobius, Sat. i. 24. II.