The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 24

and apparently to some symbolical representation in the art of the Augustan Age in the words which follow-

Furor impius intus, Saeva sedens super arma et centum vinctus aenis Post tergum nodis, fremet horridus ore cruento(483).

After this digression the action proceeds according to Homeric precedents.

Mercury is sent to Dido, as Hermes is sent to Calypso in the fifth book of the Odyssey. Then follows the meeting of Venus with Aeneas and Anchises, the picturesque and poetical features of which scene are suggested by a pa.s.sage in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, describing the meeting of the G.o.ddess with Anchises. The Trojan heroes pa.s.s on to Carthage concealed in a mist as Odysseus makes his way to the city of the Phaeacians. The pictorial representation of the events of the Trojan war on the walls of the temple of Juno is suggested partly by the pictorial art of the Augustan Age, and partly by the song of the bard in the eighth book of the Odyssey, celebrating the

?e???? ?d?ss??? ?a? ???e?de? ???????.

So too the later banquet in the palace of Dido is suggested partly by the feast in the hall of Alcinous, partly by the magnificence of Roman entertainments in the Augustan Age, such as those referred to in the lines of Lucretius-

Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes, etc.

Finally, the device by which Venus subst.i.tutes Cupid for Ascanius is borrowed from the Argonautics of Apollonius; the introduction of the various suitors of Dido is suggested by the part which the suitors of Penelope play in the Odyssey; and the request of Dido to Aeneas to recount his past adventures owes its origin to the similar request made by Alcinous to Odysseus.

It is in the first book that Virgil adheres most closely to his Greek guides; yet even in it we observe many traces of modern invention, which give a new character to the representation. The thought of Italy in the immediate future-

Est locus, Hesperiam Graii cognomine dic.u.n.t, Terra antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glaebae; Oenotri coluere viri; nunc fama, minores Italiam dixisse ducis de nomine gentem(484)-

and the remoter vision of the 'altae moenia Romae' remind us that we are contemplating no mere recast of a Greek legend, but a great national monument of the race which during the longest period of history has played the greatest part in human affairs. The old G.o.ds of Olympus appear on earth once more, and now with all the attributes of Roman state, as 'princ.i.p.alities and powers' contending for the empire of the world, and as instruments in the hands of destiny for the furthering of the great work which was only fully accomplished by Augustus.

In the recital of the fall of Troy, which occupies the second book, Virgil is said by Macrobius to have adhered almost verbally(485) to the work of a Greek poet, Pisander, the author of a poetical history of the world from the marriage of Jupiter and Juno down to the events contemporary with the poet himself. There seem to have been three Greek poets of that name, and the only one of them who was likely to have treated at any length of the events of that single night recorded in the second Aeneid is said to have lived after the time of Virgil. It seems impossible that any earlier poet could have a.s.signed so much s.p.a.ce as that demanded by the statement of Macrobius to the personal adventures of Aeneas. We are on surer ground in recognising the debt which Virgil owed to the account of the wooden horse in the Odyssey, to some of the lost plays of Sophocles, which told the tale of the treachery of Sinon and of the tragic fate of Laoc.o.o.n, and to some of the lost Cyclic poems and the ????? p??s?? of Stesichorus. The vision of Hector to Aeneas reminds us of that of Patroclus to Achilles; but in this resemblance we recognise also the difference between the poem founded on personal and that founded on national fortunes. The care which summons the shade of Patroclus to the couch of his friend is the care for his own burial; the care which brings Hector back to earth is the care for the salvation of the sacred relics of Troy in view of the great destiny which awaited them. There is more of human pathos in the vision of Patroclus; more of a stately majesty in that of Hector. And as in other pa.s.sages where Virgil wishes to produce this effect, we note that he avails himself here of the language of Ennius,-

Hei mihi, qualis erat.

So too, near the end of the book, where the shade of Creusa gives to Aeneas the first intimation of his settlement in a western land,-

Et terram Hesperiam venies, ubi Lydius arva Inter opima virum leni fluit agmine Thybris(486),-

the same antique a.s.sociations are appealed to(487). So also in describing the destruction of the palace of Priam, Virgil is said to have imitated the description by Ennius of the destruction of Alba(488). And that feeling of ancient state and majesty with which the memory of Troy is invested in such lines as

Urbs antiqua ruit multos dominata per annos(489),

had been first expressed in the 'Andromache' of the older poet.

Among the sources which Virgil used in the third book were probably the prose accounts of the late Greek historians, who rationalised the traditions of the various settlements of Aeneas which grew out of his a.s.sociation with the worship of Aphrodite. But the whole suggestion of sea-adventure, and still more of the incidents arising out of the visit to the land of the Cyclops, is due to the Odyssey, while the events connected with the landing in Thrace and in Epirus owe their origin to the Hecuba and Andromache of Euripides. But, on the other hand, the exact geographical knowledge displayed in it imparts a thoroughly modern character to the book; and one pa.s.sage at least (as has been shown by a writer in the Journal of Philology)-the description of the voyage round the eastern and southern sh.o.r.es of Sicily-is so minutely accurate in detail as to give clear indication of being drawn from the personal experience of the author. Again, the frequent mention of Italy in the book, the speech of Helenus which announces the old traditional omen of the white sow, the direction as to the mode of performing religious ceremonies which the Romans should observe in all future times,-

Hac casti maneant in religione nepotes,-(490)

and the trophy raised by Aeneas on the sh.o.r.es of Actium, help to remind us of the modern meaning which Virgil desired to impart to his representation of antique manners.

The fourth book, in which Virgil deserts the guidance of Homer for that of the Alexandrine epic, is intended to give the most pa.s.sionate human, as distinct from the pervading national, interest to the poem. But the tragic nature of the situation arises from the clashing between natural feeling and the great considerations of State by which the divine actors in the drama were influenced. The death of Dido gives moreover a poetical justification for the deadly enmity which animated the struggle between Rome and her most dangerous antagonist. The fifth book follows the old tradition-as old at least as the time of Thucydides-which represented Trojan settlements as established in Sicily. The account of the foundation of Segesta by the followers of Aeneas, and the story of the burning of the ships by the Trojan women, may have been told by Timaeus; and it was natural to ascribe to her son the building of the famous temple of Venus Erycina. But the greater part of the book is occupied with an account of the funeral games in honour of Anchises, which, with modifications to suit the changed locality, reproduce the games which Achilles celebrated in honour of Patroclus. But the account of these games serves the purpose of giving some individuality to three of the most shadowy personages in the poem by establishing their connexion with three ill.u.s.trious Roman families, and to flatter Augustus by a.s.signing an ancient origin to the Ludus Troiae,-a kind of bloodless tournament of n.o.ble youths exhibited in the early years of his reign,-and also, by the invention of a fabulous ancestor, to add distinction to the provincial family of the Atii, which was more truly enn.o.bled by the great personal qualities of the Emperor's mother, Atia.

With the landing in Italy the narrative a.s.sumes greater independence. The various localities introduced and the traditions connected with them, the usages or ceremonies peculiar to Italy which admit of being referred to an immemorial past, the mere Italian names of Latinus and Turnus, Mezentius and Camilla, are able to evoke national and sometimes modern a.s.sociations.

Thus the introduction of the c.u.maean Sibyl into the narrative affords the opportunity of reminding the Romans of the importance a.s.signed to the Sibylline prophecies in their national counsels; and the impressive ceremony of the opening of the gates of war enables the poet to appeal to the patriotic impulses of his own age, in the lines-

Sive Getis inferre manu lacrimabile bellum Hyrcanisve Arabisve parant, seu tendere ad Indos Auroramque sequi Parthosque reposcere signa(491).

But many of the warlike incidents in the later books-as for instance the night foray of Nisus and Euryalus, the treacherous wounding of Aeneas, the withdrawal by supernatural agency of Turnus from the battle, the death of Pallas and the effect which that event has on Aeneas, and the final conflict between Turnus and Aeneas-show that Virgil was still following in the footsteps of his original guide. The pa.s.sages, however, which bring out most clearly both this relation of Virgil to Homer and his point of departure from him are those which give an account of the descent into h.e.l.l and describe the shield of Aeneas. The sixth book of the Aeneid owes its existence to the eleventh book of the Odyssey: but the shadowy conceptions of the Homeric 'Inferno,' suggested by the impulses of natural curiosity and the yearnings of human affection, are enlarged and made more definite, on the one hand, by thoughts derived from Plato, and, on the other, by the proudest memories of Roman history, from the legends of the Alban kings to the warlike and peaceful triumphs of the Augustan Age. The shield of Achilles presents to the imagination the varied spectacle of human life-sowing and reaping, a city besieged, a marriage festival, etc.; the shield of Aeneas presents the spectacle of the most momentous crises in the annals of Rome, culminating in the great triumph of Augustus. We note too in the latter pa.s.sage the enhancement of patriotic sentiment by the use of the language and representation of Ennius, as at lines 630634, and the lesson taught of the dependence of national welfare on the observance of religious traditions and of the duties of life sanctioned by religion, in the lines which describe the processions of the Salii and Luperci, and which indicate the punishment awarded to the sin of rebellion and disloyalty in the person of Catiline, and the recognition of civic virtue, even when exercised in defence of a losing cause, in the position a.s.signed to Cato in the nether world-

Secretosque pios, his dantem iura Catonem(492).

The Iliad and the Odyssey are thus seen to be essentially epics of human life; the Aeneid is essentially the epic of national glory. The Iliad indeed is the n.o.blest monument of the greatness, as it is of the genius, of the Greeks. And the Aeneid is much more than a monument of national glory. It is full of pathetic situations and stirring incidents which move our human compa.s.sion or kindle our sympathies with heroic action. But if we ask what are the most powerful sources of interest in the Greek and in the Roman epic respectively, the answer will be that in the first these spring immediately out of human life; in the second they spring out of the national fortunes. And this distinction is generally recognisable in the art, literature, and history of the two nations. This predominance of national interest and the presence of a large element of living modern interest in the treatment of an ancient legend separate the Aeneid still further from the Alexandrine epic and its later Roman imitations. The compliance with the conditions of epic poetry, as established by Homer and confirmed by the great law-giver of Greek criticism, equally separates it from the rude attempts of Ennius and Naevius, and from the poems which treat of historical subjects of a limited and temporary significance, such as the Pharsalia of Lucan and the Henriade of Voltaire. Though Virgil may be the most imitative, he is at the same time one of the most original poets of antiquity. We saw that he had produced a new type of didactic poetry. By the meaning and unity which he has imparted to his Greek, Roman, and Italian materials through the vivifying and harmonising agency of permanent national sentiment and of the immediate feeling of the hour, he may be said to have created a new type of epic poetry-to have produced a work of genius representative of his country as well as a masterpiece of art.

CHAPTER X.

THE AENEID AS THE EPIC OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

I.

The Aeneid, like the Annals of Ennius, is a poem inspired by national sentiment, and expressive of the idea of Rome. But the 'Res Romana(493),'

the growth of which Ennius witnessed and celebrated, had become greatly extended and had a.s.sumed a new form since the epic of the Republic was written. Yet the sentiment of national glory was essentially the same in the age of the elder Scipio and in the age of Augustus, though in the first it may be described as still militant, in the second as triumphant.

In each time the Romans had a firm conviction of their superiority over all other nations, and a firm trust in the great destiny which had attended them since their origin, and still, as they believed, awaited them in the future. The ground on which their national self-esteem rested was their capacity for conquest and government; the result of that capacity was only fully visible after the empire over the world was established.

The pride of empire is thus the most prominent mode in which the national sentiment a.s.serts itself in the poetry of the Augustan Age. In that series of Odes in which the art of Horace becomes the organ of the new government this sentiment finds expression by the mouth of the old enemy of the Roman race, the G.o.ddess Juno:-

Horrenda late nomen in ultimas Extendat oras, qua medius liquor Secernit Europen ab Afro, Qua tumidus rigat arva Nilus.

Quicunque mundi terminus obst.i.tit, Hunc tanget armis, visere gestiens Qua parte debacchentur ignes, Qua nebulae pluviique rores(494).

And while it animates even the effeminate tones of the elegiac poets to a more manly sound, this pride of empire is the dominant mode of patriotic enthusiasm in the Aeneid. Thus, in the very beginning of the poem, Virgil describes the people destined to spring from the remnant of the Trojans as

populum late regem belloque superb.u.m.

To them Jupiter himself promises empire without limit either in time or place:-

His ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono, Imperium sine fine dedi(495).

In the same pa.s.sage he sums up their greatness in the arts of war and peace in the line

Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam(496).

The earliest oracle given to Aeneas in the course of his wanderings contains the promise of universal dominion:-

Hic domus Aeneae cunctis dominabitur oris, Et nati natorum et qui nascentur ab illis(497).

The sacred images of the G.o.ds who are partners of his enterprise make a similar announcement to him:-

Nos tumidum sub te permensi cla.s.sibus aequor, Idem venturos tollemus in astra nepotes, Imperiumque urbi dabimus(498).

In the fourth book Jupiter, who appears rather as contemplating the future course of affairs than as actively influencing it, speaks of Aeneas in these words:-