Circaeumque iugum, quis Iuppiter Anxurus arvis 800 praesidet et viridi gaudens Feronia luco; qua Saturae iacet atra palus gelidusque per imas quaerit iter vallis atque in mare conditur Vfens. Hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla agmen agens equitum et florentis aere catervas, bellatrix, non illa colo calathisve Minervae femineas adsueta manus, sed proelia virgo dura pati cursuque pedum praevertere ventos. illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret gramina nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas, 810 vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti ferret iter celeris nec tingeret aequore plantas. illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa iuventus turbaque miratur matrum et prospectat euntem, attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro velet honos levis umeros, ut fibula crinem auro internectat, Lyciam ut gerat ipsa pharetram et pastoralem praefixa cuspide myrtum. And Circe's ridge; over whose fields enthroned Rejoicing in her greenwood; where outstretched To crown them comes Camilla, Volscian-bred, INTRODUCTORY IN the seventh Aeneid Virgil begins the long story of the war which was to plant his hero firmly on the soil of Italy, and thus to open a way for the Roman dominion that was to be. Aeneas lands with good heart and good omens, and at first all goes well with him. His hundred envoys are well received by the King Latinus, who offers him his daughter's hand. Then Juno, ever the enemy of Trojans, fiercely determines to oppose the adventurer; she summons the Fury Allecto, and bids her stir up anger and war against the strangers. This is soon done; Lavinia's mother is driven to take the part of the Rutulian Turnus as a suitor for her daughter, to the exclusion of Aeneas. Turnus himself vows vengeance on Aeneas and the Latins aiding him; and finally Ascanius, Aeneas' youthful son, while hunting near the Trojan camp, kills unknowingly a pet stag belonging to the Latin princess Silvia. All this is done through the wiles of Allecto, at the bidding of Juno; and it succeeds. The wrath of the Italian folk is kindled, and Ascanius has to be rescued from hostile hands. The long struggle begins, and the Italian tribes are summoned. Latinus has to bend to the war-spirit, and retires in grief into the inner chambers of his palace. At this point, line 601, my notes begin. All central Italy has been roused by the war-horn of the Fury, " et trepidae matres pressere ad pectora natos." All is ready for the Gates of War to be thrown open; and then, as if they had passed through them in some mystic sense, the Italian princes and their warriors pass before the reader in a magnificent pageant. It is interesting to compare this pageant with similar episodes in the Iliad, in the eighth book of the Punica of Silius Italicus, who wrote about a century after Virgil, and Milton's Paradise Lost, book i. The comparison will help us to understand Virgil's object here, apart from the mere desire to imitate or surpass Homer. An epic poet would naturally be expected, and would expect it of himself, to follow the Homeric track in the treatment of episodes; but it was inevitable that one of Virgil's quality, a rare poetic soul of true Italian tone, should turn the old expedient, as with the Games and the Descent into Hades, to new and national advantage. Virgil's methods, whether in poetic architecture or poetic expression, were never entirely simple; and in this pageant we find the usual complexity. Here the most obvious motive in the poet's craft is the wish to move the feeling of his Italian reader as he sees the stately procession of Italian warriors passing before him, or perchance to fill his mind with pride and pleasure at finding among them the ancient representatives of his own city or district. Italians have always been curiously proud of the reputation of their birthplace; even in our own time they have searched Mommsen's "History of Rome" for some allusion to their homes, and treasured up the reference with gratitude. "Ha parlato bene dal nostro paese," they would exclaim, as he travelled through their town in later days.1 The Homeric "catalogue "2 doubtless had an object of the same kind, but it is far more a catalogue than a pageant, and it ends with a list of what we should now call enemy cities." Its psychological effect, I imagine, was inferior to that of Virgil's picture, if only because the Roman poet set himself to support with all his gifts the definite Italian policy of Augustus,3 at a time when Italy's need for national satisfaction and hope were greater than they had ever yet been. This, I think, was the poet's primary motive, but in the execution he was confronted by serious difficulties which made his task a complex one. We have to remember that all the peoples of the procession were the enemies of the Trojans, and summoned to resist the establishment in Italy of Aeneas and his host, and therein also to resist the decrees of Fate which were to make Rome eventually the mistress of Italy. Here was a difficulty calling for an artist of con 1 "Theodor Mommsen," von. C. Bardt, p. 8. Berlin, 1903. 2 Iliad, ii. 484 ff. 3 It was from the late Prof. Pelham that we in England first learnt what this meant. I may refer to his "Outlines of Roman History," p. 411, for a brief account of it. Probably Julius had first suggested the idea that Rome and Italy taken together were henceforward to be the centre of civilization. |