The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 1

The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil.

by W. Y. Sellar.

TO E. L. LUSHINGTON, ESQ., D.C.L., LL.D., ETC.

LATE PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

MY DEAR LUSHINGTON,

Any old pupil of yours, in finishing a work either of cla.s.sical scholarship or ill.u.s.trative of ancient literature, must feel that he owes to you, probably more than to any one else, the impulse which directed him to these studies. It is with this feeling that I should wish to a.s.sociate your name with this volume. Many of your former pupils can confirm my recollection that one of the happiest influences of our youth was the admiration excited by the union, in your teaching, of perfect scholarship with a true and generous appreciation of all that is excellent in literature. The intimate friendship of many subsequent years has afforded me, along with much else of still higher value, ample opportunities for verifying these early impressions.

Ever affectionately yours, W. Y. SELLAR.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

This volume has been written in continuation of one which appeared some years ago on the Roman Poets of the Republic. I hope in a short time to bring out a new edition of that work, enlarged and corrected, and afterwards to add another volume which will treat of Horace and the Elegiac Poets. I have reserved for this later volume the examination of the minor poems which have been attributed to Virgil, most of which belong to the Augustan Age.

Besides the special acknowledgments of ideas or information derived from various sources, which are made in notes at the foot of the page where an occasion for them arises, I have to make a general acknowledgment of the a.s.sistance I have received in my studies of the Augustan literature from the earlier volumes of Dr. Merivale's 'History of the Romans under the Empire,' from the 'History of Roman Literature' by W. S. Teuffel, from M.

Sainte-Beuve's 'etude sur Virgile,' and from the Introductions and Notes to Professor Conington's edition of Virgil, and Mr. Munro's edition of Lucretius. In the account given of the Alexandrian literature in Chapter I, I have availed myself of the chapters treating of that subject in Helbig's 'Campanische Wandmalerei'; in treating of the estimation in which Virgil was held under the Roman Empire, I have taken several references from the work by Sr. Comparetti, 'Virgilio nel Medio Evo'; and in examining the order in which the Eclogues were composed, I have adopted the opinions expressed in Ribbeck's Prolegomena. I have also derived some suggestions from the notes in the edition of Virgil by M. E. Benoist, and from the work of M. G. Boissier, 'La Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins.' As the greater part of this volume was written before the appearance of Dr. Kennedy's Virgil, I have not been able to make so much use of his notes as I should have wished: I have, however, profited by them to correct or to ill.u.s.trate statements made before I had seen his work, and, in revising the Virgilian quotations for the press, I have followed his text.

I did not read Mr. Nettleship's valuable and original 'Suggestions Introductory to the Study of the Aeneid' until I had finished writing all I had to say about that poem. I have drawn attention in the text or in notes at the foot of the page to some places in which I modified what I had originally written after reading his 'Suggestions,' to others in which my own opinions are confirmed by his, and to one or two points of divergence in our views.

Since the third chapter was printed off, I have received what seems a confirmation of the opinion expressed there as to the probable situation of Virgil's early home, from a friend who recently visited the district, where I suppose it to have been. He writes of the country which he pa.s.sed through-'The result of my observations perfectly confirms what you had already supposed. The country south of the Lago di Garda for a distance of at least twenty miles is of a gently undulating character, and is intersected by long ranges of hills which gradually sink down towards the lake and the Mincio. The loftiest of these hills may perhaps reach a height of 1000 feet above the lake-level, but that is a point on which I cannot say anything certain.'

EDINBURGH, _Nov. 1876_.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

The only material change which I have made in this edition is that I have added translations of the pa.s.sages quoted, for the convenience of any readers, who, without much knowledge of Latin, may yet wish to learn something about Latin literature. In the translations from Virgil, I have sometimes made use of expressions which I found in Conington's prose Translation and in Mr. Papillon's recently published edition of Virgil. I have also availed myself of Sir Theodore Martin's Translation of the Odes of Horace. In correcting or supplementing some statements made in the first edition, I have occasionally profited by remarks made in criticisms on that edition which appeared shortly after its publication.

EDINBURGH, _March, 1883_.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

I.

The Augustan Age, regarded as a critical epoch in the history of the world, extends from the date of the battle of Actium, when Octavia.n.u.s became undisputed master of the world, to his death in the year 14 A.D.

But the age known by that name as a great epoch in the history of literature begins some years earlier, and ends with the death of Livy and Ovid in the third year of the following reign. Of the poets belonging to that age whose writings have reached modern times-Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid-all were born, and some had reached manhood, before the final overthrow of the Republic at the battle of Philippi. The earlier poems of Virgil and Horace belong to the period between that date and the establishment of the Empire. The age of the Augustan poets may accordingly be regarded as extending from about the death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. to the death of Ovid 17 A.D.

The whole of this period was one of great literary activity, especially in the department of poetry. Besides the writers just mentioned, several others were recognised by their contemporaries as poets of high excellence, though there is no reason to doubt that the works which have reached our time were the most distinguished by original genius and finished execution. These works, though differing much in spirit and character as well as in value, have some common characteristics which mark them off from the literature of the Republic. It seems remarkable, if we consider the short interval which divides the Ciceronian from the Augustan Age, and the enthusiasm with which poetry was cultivated by the younger generation in the years immediately preceding the battle of Pharsalia, that so few of the poets eminent in that generation lived on into the new era. The insignificant name of Helvius Cinna is almost the only poetic link between the age of Catullus and the age of Virgil.(1) Perhaps, also, the Quintilius whose death Horace laments in the twenty-fourth Ode of Book I. may be the Varus of the tenth poem of Catullus. The more famous name of Asinius Pollio also connects the two eras; but in Catullus he is spoken of, not as a poet, but simply as 'a youth of wit and graceful accomplishments(2),' and in his later career he was more distinguished as a soldier, statesman, and orator than as a poet(3). It is remarked by Mr.

Munro that there are indications that the new generation of poets would have come into painful collision with those of the preceding generation had their lives been prolonged(4). This spirit of hostility appears in the somewhat contemptuous notice of Calvus and Catullus in the Satires of Horace:-

Quos neque pulcher Hermogenes unquam legit, neque simius iste Nil praeter Calvum et doctus cantare Catullum(5).

But it is rather in their political feelings and relations, and in the views of life arising out of these, than in the principles and practice of their art, that the new poets are separated from, and antagonistic to, the old. Had Calvus and Catullus survived the extinction of liberty, it would have been impossible for them to have adopted the tone of the poets of the following age. By birth, position, and all their a.s.sociations and sympathies, they belonged to the Senatorian party. If they could have yielded an outward submission to the ascendency of Julius Caesar and Augustus, they never could have become sincerely reconciled to the new order of things, nor could they have employed their art to promote the ideas of the Empire. On the other hand, L. Varius, the oldest among the poets of the new era, seems first to have become famous by a poem on the death of Julius Caesar. Virgil, in the poem placed first in order among his acknowledged works, speaks of Octavia.n.u.s in language which no poet of the preceding generation could have applied to a living contemporary: 'O Meliboeus, it was a G.o.d that gave to me this life of ease.' In the Georgics, planned, and, for the most part, composed before the establishment of the monarchy, the person of Caesar is introduced, not only as the centre of power in the world, but as an object of religious veneration; and the national and ethical teaching of that poem is entirely in harmony with the objects of his policy. And, although Horace in the Satires and Epodes, composed between the years 40 and 30 B.C., is so far true to the cause of his youth as to abstain from any direct declaration of adherence to the winning side, yet he attributes to his adviser Trebatius the counsel 'to celebrate the exploits of the invincible Caesar(6);' and his whole relation to Maecenas is one of the most characteristic marks of the position in which the new literature stood to the State and to its leading men.

Yet, while separated from the literature of the Republic in many of its ideas, and in the personal and political feelings on which it is founded, the poetry of the Augustan Age is, in form and execution, the mature development of the efforts of the previous centuries. Much of its literary inspiration is derived from the age immediately preceding it, and from still older native sources. The thought of Lucretius acted upon the mind of Virgil through the force both of sympathy and antagonism, as a strong original nature acts upon one which is at once receptive of influence and possessed of firm convictions of its own. The national sentiment of Ennius and the censorious spirit of Lucilius reappeared in new forms in the Augustan poetry; while the more humane and social feelings, and the enjoyment of beauty in Nature and art, fostered by Greek studies, as well as the taste for less elevated pleasures, stimulated by the life of a luxurious capital, are elements which the poetry of the early Empire has in common with that of the last years of the Republic.

But the poetry of the new era has also certain marked characteristics, the result not so much of antecedent as of concomitant circ.u.mstances, which proclaim its affinity with great literary epochs of other nations rather than with any period of the national literature. By Voltaire the Augustan Age at Rome is ranked with the Age of Pericles at Athens, that of Lorenzo de Medici at Florence, and that of Louis XIV. in France, as one of four epochs in which arts and letters attained their highest perfection. The affinity between the Augustan Age and those of Pericles and Lorenzo is more superficial than real. They were all indeed periods in which the cultivation of the arts to the highest degree of perfection was fostered by the enlightened patronage of the eminent men who have given their name to their eras. But the position of Augustus, as an absolute ruler, acted more directly and potently, as a modifying and restraining power, on the thoughts and feelings expressed in his age, than that of the leading men of a republic; and the unique position of Rome as the mistress and lawgiver of the civilised world gives to the literature of the Augustan Age an imperial character and interest, which the national literature of no other city or country, even though superior in other respects, can possess. Those who regard all Latin poetry as exotic and imitative have, with some plausibility, attempted to establish a parallel between the Alexandrine poetry of the third century B.C. and that of the Augustan Age.

Nor can it be denied that the relation of the Augustan poets to the Emperor was somewhat parallel to that of the scholars and poets of Alexandria to the Ptolemies. The Alexandrine science and literature were also important factors in Roman culture; and the most eminent poets both of the Augustan Age and of that immediately preceding it, with the exception of Horace and Lucretius, acknowledged, in the form as well as the materials of their art, the influence of this latest development of Greek poetry. The nature and amount of the debt incurred to the learned school of Alexandria will be considered later, and it will be seen that it does not seriously affect the originality of the best Roman writers. The age of Queen Anne and of the first George, again, has been called the Augustan Age of English literature. The parallel between the two eras consists in the relation which poets and writers held to men eminent in the State, and also in the finished execution and moderation of tone common to both. The writers of England in our Augustan Age had the advantage over those of Rome in the freedom with which they could express their thoughts; but, even with this advantage, and with the still greater advantage that the English race, in the long course of its literary annals, has given proof of a richer poetical faculty than any other race except the h.e.l.lenic, the blindest national partiality would scarcely claim as general and as durable an interest for any poetical work of that era as that claimed for the Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil and for the Odes and Epistles of Horace.

On the whole the closest parallel, in respect not so much of the substance and form of composition as of the circ.u.mstances and conditions affecting the lives and tastes of poets and men of letters, is to be sought in the age of Louis XIV. of France. The position and the policy of Augustus and of Louis XIV. were alike in some important features. As absolute rulers, the one over a great empire, the other over the most powerful and enlightened nation then existing, they each played the most prominent part in history during more than half a century. They were each animated by a strong pa.s.sion for national and personal glory, and encouraged art and literature, not merely as a source of refined pleasure congenial to their own tastes, but as the chief ornament of their reigns, and as important instruments of their policy.

And not only the political but the purely literary conditions of the two epochs were in some respects parallel. They were both times, not of growth, but of maturity; not so much of the spontaneous inspiration of genius, as of systematic effort directed in accordance with the principles of art and the careful study of ancient models. In each time circ.u.mstances and mutual sympathies brought men of letters into close and familiar contact both with one another and with men of affairs and of social eminence. And, while the relation of patronage to literature is not in any circ.u.mstances favourable to original invention, and though, except under most advantageous conditions, its tendency is to produce a tameness of spirit, or even an insincerity of tone, yet it has its compensating advantages. It imparts to literature the tone of the world-of the world not only of social eminence, but of practical experience and conversance with great affairs. The good taste, judgment, and moderation of tone which have enabled the Augustan literature to stand successfully the criticism of nineteen centuries, as well as its deficiency in the highest creative power, when compared with such eras as the Homeric Age, the Age of Pericles, and the Elizabethan Age in England, mark the limits of the good influence which this relation between the great in worldly station and the great in genius can exercise on literature.

A further parallel might be drawn between the material conditions of the Augustan Age and those of the Age of Louis XIV. The aspect which the world they lived in presented to the writers of the two eras was that of a rich, luxurious, pleasure-loving city, the capital of a great empire or kingdom.

And this aspect of the world acts upon the susceptible nature of the poet with both an attractive and a repellent force. He may feel the spell of outward pomp and magnificence and the attractions of pleasure; or he may be driven back on his own thought, and into communion with Nature, and to an ideal longing for simpler and purer conditions.

But, instead of tracing these resemblances further, it is more important to observe that, though the outward influences acting upon the poets of the two eras were in many respects parallel, yet in form and substance the poetry of the Augustan Age is quite different from that of the Age of Louis XIV. However striking the parallel between any two periods of history may at first sight appear, the points of difference between them must be much more numerous than those of agreement: and, though outward conditions have a modifying influence upon national temperament and individual genius, yet these last are much the most important factors in the creative literature of any age. The genius of ancient Italy was, in point of imaginative susceptibility, very different from that of modern France; and, though his countrymen recognise in Racine a moral affinity with Virgil, yet the works these poets have left to the world are as different as they well can be, in form, purpose, and character. The conditions indicated in the comparison between the two periods are to be studied as modifying, not as productive, influences. The forms which the highest spiritual life in an age or an individual a.s.sumes, the power of free and happy development which it obtains, or the limitations to which it has to submit, can, to a very considerable extent, be explained by reference, in the case of nations, to the political, social, and material circ.u.mstances of the age, and, in the case of the individual, to his early life and environment, his education and personal fortunes. But the quality and intensity of that spiritual force which manifests itself from time to time in the world, giving a new impulse to thought, a new direction to feeling, and a new delight to life, are not to be explained by any combination of circ.u.mstances. Yet, just as it is desirable to realise all that can be known of the life and fortunes of an individual poet before endeavouring to extract from his various works the secret of his power and charm, so it is desirable, before entering on a separate study of the various books which const.i.tute the literature of any age, to take a general survey of the most important conditions affecting the lives, thoughts, and art of all who lived and wrote in that age. In the Augustan Age these conditions may be cla.s.sified under four heads: (1) the political circ.u.mstances of the Empire and the state of moral and religious feeling resulting from them; (2) the social relation of men of letters to men eminent in the State; (3) the wealth, luxury, and outward splendour which met the eye and gratified the senses, in the great city itself, and in the villas scattered over the sh.o.r.es and inland scenes of central Italy; (4) the intellectual culture inherited from the preceding age and modified by the tastes and conditions of the new generation. These will be reviewed as conditions acting on the imagination, and forming the intellectual atmosphere in the midst of which the productions of poetical genius expanded into various shapes and dimensions of beauty and stateliness.

II.

The battle of Actium marked the end of a century of revolution, civil disturbances and wars, of confiscations of property, proscriptions and ma.s.sacres, such as no civilised state had ever witnessed before. The triumph of Augustus secured internal peace and order for a century. The whole world was, as Tacitus says(7), exhausted, and gladly consented to the establishment of the Empire in the interests of peace. The generation to which Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius belonged had pa.s.sed through one of the worst crises of this long period of suffering. The victors of Philippi, so far from following the example of clemency set to them by the great victor of Pharsalia, had emulated the worst excesses of the times of Marius and Sulla(8). The poets whose works record the various phases of feeling through which that age pa.s.sed had in their own person experienced the consequences of the general insecurity. Virgil, in addition to the loss of his paternal farm, had incurred imminent danger from the violence of the soldier to whom his land had been allotted. The language of Horace indicates that his life had been more than once in jeopardy-at the rout of Philippi, and in his subsequent wanderings by land and sea(9)-till he found himself a needy adventurer, 'humilem decisis pennis,' again at Rome. Tibullus lost the greater part of the estates which his ancestors had enjoyed for generations(10). A similar calamity befell Propertius(11). Their own experience must thus have deepened the horror of prolonged war and bloodshed natural to men of humane and unwarlike temper, as they all were; for Horace, who alone among them took part in the civil war, describes himself, a few years later, as 'weak and unfit for war(12),' and Tibullus pleads his effeminacy and timidity as a justification of a life devoted to indolent enjoyment(13). The works of that age, composed between the dates of the battles of Philippi and Actium, express the deep longing of the world for rest: those written later express the deep thankfulness for its attainment. In Virgil the recoil from the cruel and violent pa.s.sions of the time in which his early manhood was cast draws forth his tender compa.s.sion for all human suffering, and creates in his imagination the ideal of a life of peace-'far from the clash of arms,' the vision of a place of rest after toil and danger-'where the fates hold out to us peaceful dwelling-places;'

just as the recoil from the political anarchy of his own age and from the cruel memories of the Marian times deepens the sense of human misery in Lucretius, and forces on his mind the ideal refuge from the storms of life in 'the high and serene temples well bulwarked by the learning of the wise.' In Horace the feeling of insecurity arising out of his early experience confirms the lessons of Epicurean wisdom, and teaches him not to expect too much from life, but to enjoy thankfully whatever good the pa.s.sing hour brought to him. In all of them the sense of the real miseries from which the world had escaped, and of the real blessings which it enjoyed after the battle of Actium, induces an acquiescence in the extinction of liberty and in the establishment of a form of government which had been for centuries most repugnant to Roman sentiment.

Another influence reconciling men to the great political change which took place in that era was the restored sense of national union. With whatever feelings Octavia.n.u.s may have been regarded in the early years of the Triumvirate, after the final departure of Antony from Rome he was looked upon both as the main pillar of order and as the champion of the national cause, the true representative of Italy, of the 'Senatus Populusque Roma.n.u.s' against the motley hosts of the East, arrayed under the standards of Antony and his Egyptian queen:-

Hinc Augustus agens Italos in proelia Caesar c.u.m Patribus Populoque, Penatibus et magnis Dis.

Hinc ope barbarica variisque Antonius armis, Victor ab Aurorae populis et litore rubro, Aegyptum viresque Orientis et ultima sec.u.m Bactra vehit, sequiturque, nefas, Aegyptia coniunx(14).

With the Romans in the later age of the Republic the feeling of the glory and greatness, the ancient and unbroken tradition, of their State was a more active sentiment than the love of political liberty. The care for the 'Respublica Romana' as a free commonwealth was in the last century of its existence confined to the leaders of the Senatorian aristocracy; the pride in the 'Imperium Romanum' was a feeling in which all cla.s.ses could share, and which could especially unite to Rome the people of Italy, who had been admitted too late into citizenship, and were separated by too great a distance from the capital, to make the exercise of the political franchise an object of value in their eyes. They probably felt themselves more truly in the position of equal citizenship after the establishment of the monarchy than before it. This feeling of the pride of empire a.s.serts itself much more strongly in the poets of the Augustan Age than in the writers of the preceding generation. It is scarcely, if at all, apparent in Lucretius and Catullus. It is only in the idealising oratory of Cicero, who, with all his devoted attachment to the forms of the const.i.tution and the traditions of political freedom, still had a strong sympathy with the imperial spirit of Rome, that we find the expression of the same kind of sentiment which suggested to Virgil such lines as

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento(15),