The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 28

But there are traces in the Aeneid of another religious belief and practice more primitive and more widely spread than the worship of the Olympian G.o.ds, or of the impersonal abstractions of Italian theology. The religious fancies which originally united each city, each tribe, and each family into one community(574), had been transmitted in popular beliefs and in ceremonial observances from a time long antecedent to the establishment of the Olympian dynasty of G.o.ds. This brighter creation of the imagination did not banish the secret awe inspired by the older spiritual conceptions. Invisible Powers were supposed to haunt certain places, to protect each city with their unseen presence or under some visible symbol, and to make their abode at each family hearth, uniting all the kindred of the house in a common worship.

These survivals of primitive thought appear in many striking pa.s.sages in the Aeneid. The idea of a secret indwelling Power, identified with the continued existence and fortunes of cities, imparts sublimity to that pa.s.sage in Book VIII. in which the Roman feeling of the sanct.i.ty of the Capitol obtains its grandest expression-

Iam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestis Dira loci; iam tum silvam saxumque tremebant.

Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice collem, Quis deus incertum est, habitat deus: Arcades ipsum Credunt se vidisse Iovem, c.u.m saepe nigrantem Aegida concuteret dextra nimbosque cieret(575).

This belief imparts dignity to what from a merely human point of view seems grotesque rather than sublime, the reception by the Trojans of the 'fatalis machina feta armis' within their walls. The fatal error is committed under the conviction that the protection enjoyed under the old Palladium would be renewed under this new symbol. The construction of the unwieldy ma.s.s is attributed to Calchas, acting from the motive expressed in the lines-

Ne recipi portis aut duci in moenia possit, Neu populum antiqua sub religione tueri(576).

This same belief of the dependence of cities on their indwelling deities pervades the whole description of the destruction of Troy. Thus the despair produced by the first discovery of the presence of the enemy within the town obtains utterance in the words-

Excessere omnis adytis arisque relictis Di, quibus imperium hoc steterat(577).

When Panthus the priest of Apollo appears on the scene, it is said of him-

Sacra manu victosque deos parvumque nepotem Ipse trahit(578).

A kind of mystic glory from the companionship of these 'defeated G.o.ds,'

for whom he was seeking a new local habitation, invests the adventurous wanderings of Aeneas. The preservation and re-establishment of these G.o.ds is the pledge of the revival, under a new form and in a strange land, of the ancient empire of Troy, and of her ultimate triumph over her enemy.

But still more ancient than the belief in local deities indwelling in the sites of cities was the worship of the dead, the belief in their reappearance on earth, and of their continued interest in human affairs.

It is in Virgil, a poet of the most enlightened period of antiquity, that we find the clearest indications of the earliest form of this belief and of the ceremonies to which it first gave birth-

Inferimus tepido spumantia cymbia lacte, Sanguinis et sacri pateras, _animamque sepulchro_ _Condimus_, et magna supremum voce ciemus(579).

The doctrine of the continued existence of the dead, the most ancient and the most enduring of all supernatural beliefs, affects Virgil through the strength both of his human affection and of his religious awe. Both of these feelings are wonderfully blended in that pa.s.sage in which the ghost of Hector appears to Aeneas, and entrusts to him the sacred emblems and G.o.ds of the doomed city. How deep on the one hand is the feeling of old affection mingled with awful solemnity which inspires the address of Aeneas to his ancient comrade-

O lux Dardaniae! spes o fidissima Teucrum!

Quae tantae tenuere morae? quibus Hector ab oris Expectate venis? ut te post multa tuorum Funera, post varios hominumque urbisque labores, Defessi aspicimus: quae caussa indigna serenos Foedavit voltus, aut cur haec volnera cerno(580)?

And how pure appears the love of country still moving the august shade in the world below, in the lines which follow-

Ille nihil, nec me quaerentem vana moratur, Sed graviter gemitus imo de pectore ducens, 'Heu fuge, nate dea, teque his,' ait, 'eripe flammis: Hostis habet muros: ruit alto a culmine Troia: Sat patriae Priamoque datum: si Pergama dextra Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent.

Sacra suosque tibi commendat Troia Penates: Hos cape fatorum comites, his moenia quaere, Magna pererrato statues quae denique ponto(581).'

Under the influence of the same feelings of affection and reverence, Andromache is introduced bringing annual offerings to the empty tomb and altars consecrated to the Manes of her first husband-

Sollemnis c.u.m forte dapes, et tristia dona Ante urbem in luco falsi Simoentis ad undam, Libabat cineri Andromache manisque vocabat Hectoreum ad tumulum, viridi quem caespite inanem Et geminas, caussam lacrimis, sacraverat aras(582).

Similar honours are paid by Dido to the spirit of Sychaeus-

Praeterea fuit in tectis de marmore templum Coniugis antiqui, miro quod honore colebat, Velleribus niveis et festa fronde revinctum(583).

The long account of the 'Games' in Book V., which, from a Roman point of view, might be regarded as a needless excrescence on the poem, is justified by the consideration that they are celebrated in honour of the Manes of Anchises.

The whole of the Sixth Book-the master-piece of Virgil's creative invention-is inspired by the feeling of the greater spiritual life which awaits man beyond the grave. The conceptions and composition of that Book ent.i.tle Virgil to take his place with Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Plato among the four great religious teachers,-the 'pii vates' who, in transmitting, have illumined the spiritual intuitions of antiquity.

The sense of devout awe is the chief mark of distinction between the 'Inferno' of Virgil and that of Homer, the conception of which is due to the suggestive force of natural curiosity and natural affection. The dead do not appear to Virgil merely as the shadowy inhabitants of an unsubstantial world,-?e???? ?e???? ?????a,-but as partakers in a more august and righteous dispensation than that under which mortals live. The spirit of Virgil is on this subject more in harmony with that of Aeschylus than of Homer, but his thoughts of the dead are happier and of a less austere majesty than those expressed in the Choephoroe. The whole humanising and moralising influence of Greek philosophy, and especially of the Platonic teaching, combines in Virgil's representation with the primitive fancies of early times and the popular beliefs and practices transmitted from those times to his own age. But just as he fails to form a consistent conception of the action of the powers of Heaven out of the various beliefs, primitive, artistic, national, and philosophical, which he endeavours to reconcile, so he has failed to produce a consistent picture of the spiritual life out of the various popular, mystical, and philosophical modes of thought which he strove to combine into a single representation. Perhaps if he had lived longer and been able to carry further the 'potiora studia' on which he was engaged simultaneously with the composition of the Aeneid, he might have effected a more specious reconcilement of what now appear irreconcileable factors of belief. Or, perhaps, in the thought which induces him to dismiss Aeneas and the Sibyl by the gate through which

falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes(584)-

we may recognise a trace, not certainly of Epicurean unbelief, but of that sad and subtle irony with which the spirit of man inwardly acknowledges that it is baffled in its highest quest. The august spectacle which is unfolded before Aeneas,-that, too, like the vision of Er the son of Armenius, is but a ????,-a symbol of a state of being, which the human imagination, illuminated by conscience and affection, shadows forth as an object of hope, but which it cannot grasp as a reality. In the grandeur of moral belief which inspires Virgil's shadowy representation, in his recognition of the everlasting distinction between a life of righteousness and of unrighteousness, of purity and of impurity, he but reproduces the profoundest ethical intuitions of Plato. But in the indication of that trust in a final reunion which has comforted innumerable human hearts-

coniunx ubi pristinus illi Respondet curis aequatque Sychaeus amorem(585)-

the Roman poet is moved by the tender affection of his own nature, and follows the light of his own intuition.

Ancient commentators have drawn attention to the large place which the account of religious ceremonies occupies in the Aeneid, and to the exact acquaintance which Virgil shows with the minutiae of Pontifical and Augural lore. It is in keeping with the character of Aeneas as the hero of a religious epic, that the commencement and completion of every enterprise are accompanied with sacrifices and other ceremonial observances. M.

Gaston Boissier(586), following Macrobius, has pointed out the special propriety of the offerings made to different G.o.ds, of the peculiar use of such epithets as 'eximios' applied to the bulls selected for sacrifice, of the ritual application of the words 'porricio(587)' and 'porrigo', and of the words addressed to Aeneas by the River-Nymphs(588),-'Aenea, vigila,'-which would recall to Roman ears those with which the commander of the Roman armies, on the outbreak of war, shook the shields and sacred symbols of Mars. Other pa.s.sages would remind the readers of Virgil of the ceremonial observances with which they were familiar, as for instance that in which Helenus prescribes to Aeneas the peculiarly Roman practice of veiling the head in worship and sacrifice-

Quin, ubi transmissae steterint trans aequora cla.s.ses, Et positis aris iam vota in litore solves, Purpureo velare comas adopertus amictu; Nequa inter sanctos ignis in honore deorum Hostilis facies occurrat et omina turbet(589).

There are traces also of a worship, which from its wider diffusion, and its late survival, seems to belong to a remoter antiquity than the peculiar ceremonial of Rome,-as in the prayer offered to the G.o.d of Soracte-

Summe deum, sancti custos Soractis, Apollo, Quem primi colimus, cui pineus ardor acervo Pascitur, et medium freti pietate per ignem Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna(590).

The desire to infuse a new power into the religious observance, belief, and life of his countrymen thus appears to have acted as a strong suggestive force to Virgil's imagination. This is apparent in the importance which he attaches to the offices of Priest or Augur, to the dress, ornaments, or procedure of the chief person taking part in prayer or sacrifice, to the ceremonies accompanying every important action, to the sacred a.s.sociations attaching to particular places. Amid all the changes of the world, Virgil seems to cling to the traditions of the religious and spiritual life,-as Lucretius holds to the belief in the laws of Nature,-as the surest ground of human trust. He has no thought of superseding old beliefs or practices by any new

Vana superst.i.tio veterumque ignara deorum(591),

but rather strives to reconcile the old faith with the more enlightened convictions and humaner sentiments of men. His religious belief, like his other speculative convictions, was composite and undefined; yet it embraced what was purest and most vital in all the religions of antiquity, and, in its deepest intuitions, it seems to look forward to some aspects of the belief which became dominant in Rome four centuries later.

III.

While the various religious elements in Virgil's nature find ample scope in the representation of the Aeneid, his apathy in regard to active political life is seen in the tameness of his reproduction of that aspect of human affairs. In the Homeric ???? and ????? we recognise not only the germs of the future political development of the Greeks, but the germs out of which all free political life unfolds itself. To the form of government exhibited in the Aeneid, the words which Tacitus uses of a mixed const.i.tution might be more justly applied,-'it is one more easily praised than realised, or if ever it is realised, it is incapable of permanence(592).' And even if the Virgilian idea could be realised in some happy moment of human affairs, it does not contain within itself the capacity of any further development. The difficulties of the problem of government are solved in Virgil by the picture which he draws of pa.s.sive and loyal submission on the part of n.o.bles and people to a wise, beneficent, and disinterested ruler and legislator(593). The idea of the ruler in the Aeneid is the same as that of the 'Father.' It is under such a rule, exercised from Rome as its centre, that the unchanging future of the world is antic.i.p.ated-

Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum Accolet, imperiumque Pater Roma.n.u.s habebit(594).

The case of Mezentius does indeed show that Virgil recognised the ultimate right of rebellion when the paternal king pa.s.sed into the tyrannical oppressor; but such an instance affords no scope for representing the manifestation of political pa.s.sions 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 const.i.tution 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 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, Horrendum silvis et religione parentum.

Hic sceptra accipere et primos attollere fasces Regibus omen erat; hoc illis curia templum, Hae sacris sedes epulis; hic, ariete caeso, Perpetuis soliti patres considere mensis(595).

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 Inmeritam visum Superis, ceciditque superb.u.m Ilium et omnis humo fumat Neptunia Troia(596).

Urbs antiqua ruit, multos dominata per annos(597).

Haec finis Priami fatorum; his exitus illum Sorte tulit, Troiam incensam et prolapsa videntem Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superb.u.m Regnatorem Asiae(598).