The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 29

The tragic splendour of Dido's death is enhanced by her proud sense of a high destiny fulfilled and of queenly rule exercised over a great people-

Vixi, et, quem dederat cursum Fortuna, peregi: Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago.

Urbem praeclaram statui, mea moenia vidi(599).

Thus although the necessities of his position and his own 'inscitia reipublicae' prevented Virgil, in his representation, from appealing to the generous political emotions of a free people, he was able not only to gratify the pride of empire felt by his countrymen, but to sustain among them the sense of imaginative reverence with which the sovereignty of the State over its individual members deserves to be regarded.

But there is another cla.s.s of political facts which interest the mind as much as those which arise out of the play of conflicting forces within a free commonwealth,-viz. the relations of independent powers with one another. And of this cla.s.s of facts both Homer and Virgil make use in their representations. In Homer we see the spectacle, never realised in actual Grecian history at least till the days of Alexander, of the many independent Greek powers united under one leader in a common enterprise, and of the various powers of the western sh.o.r.es of Asia combined in defence of their leading State. The antagonism between the Greeks and Trojans is, in point of general conception, more like the hostile inter-relations of nations in modern times, than like the wars of city against city, with which the pages of later Greek history are filled(600).

The union of the Italian tribes and cities under the command of Turnus, and that of Trojans, Arcadians, and Etrurians-all foreigners recently settled in Italy-under Aeneas, may be compared to the union of independent Greek powers under Agamemnon, and that of 'the allies summoned from afar,'

who, while following their own princes, yet submitted to the command of Hector. Yet in Virgil's conception of the great powers of the world, and even of cities most remote from one another, as having an intimate knowledge of each other's fortunes,-in the idea of what in modern times would be called a 'foreign policy' and 'the balance of power,' which dictates the mission of Turnus to Diomede, and the appeal of Aeneas to the Etrurians to take part with him in averting the establishment by the Rutulians of a sovereignty over the whole of Italy,-we meet with a condition of international relations and policy, which, if based on the experience of any period of ancient history, might have been suggested by the memory of the time when Hannibal's great scheme of combining the fresh vigour of the western barbarians, the smouldering elements of resistance in Italy, and the military power and prestige of the old monarchies of Macedonia and Syria, was defeated not more by the irresolution and disunion among those powers, than by the traditional policy through which Rome had made her dependent allies feel that her interest was identified with their own. But this aspect of the world, though an anachronism from the point of view either of the time when the poem was written, or of that in which the events represented are supposed to happen, enhances the dignity of the action, by exhibiting the enterprise of Aeneas as a spectacle attracting the attention and involving the destinies of the great nations of the world.

The state of material civilisation exhibited in the Aeneid must be regarded also as a poetical compromise between the simplicity and rude vigour of primitive civilisation and the splendour and refinement of the age in which the poem was written. Thus Acestes, the friendly king and Sicilian host of Aeneas, welcomes him on his return from Carthage in the rough dress of some primitive hunter-

Horridus in iaculis et pelle Libystidis ursae(601).

Evander receives him beneath his humble roof,

stratisque locavit Effultum foliis et pelle Libystidis ursae(602).

The Arcadian prince is roused in the morning by the song of birds under the eaves, and proceeds to visit his guest accompanied by two watchdogs which lay before his door. On the other hand the description, in the account of the building of Carthage, of the foundation of the great theatre-

hic lata theatris Fundamenta petunt alii, immanisque columnas Rupibus excidunt, scaenis decora alta futuris(603);

the picture of the great Temple of Juno-

Aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina nexaeque Aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis(604);

of the rich frescoes and bas-reliefs adorning it-

Artific.u.mque ma.n.u.s inter se operumque labores Miratur, videt Iliacas ex ordine pugnas Bellaque iam fama totum volgata per orbem(605);

of the great dome under which the throne of Dido is placed-

media testudine templi, etc.;

the description of the Temple of Apollo at c.u.mae,-the account of the banquet in the palace of Dido with its blaze of 'festal light'-

dependent lychni laquearibus aureis Incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vinc.u.n.t(606),

(a picture partly indeed, like that in Lucretius-

Si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes, etc.,

suggested by the imaginative description of the banquet in the Palace of Alcinous)-appear to owe their existence to the impression produced on the mind of Virgil by some of the great architectural works of the Augustan Age-such as the Theatre of Marcellus, the Pantheon, the Temple of the Palatine Apollo, and by the spectacle of profuse luxury which the houses and banquets of the richer cla.s.ses at Rome exhibited.

The cla.s.s from which the personages of the Aeneid are taken is almost exclusively that of those most elevated in dignity and influence. Virgil does not attempt to bring before us the rich variety of social grades, which adds vivacity and verisimilitude to the spectacle of life and manners presented by Homer, Chaucer, and Shakspeare. It does not enter into Virgil's conception of epic art to introduce types of the cla.s.s to which Thersites, Irus, Eumaeus, Phemius, and Eurycleia belong. If he makes any exception to his general practice of limiting his representation to the cla.s.s of royal and n.o.ble personages, it is in the glimpse which he affords of devoted loyalty in the person of Palinurus and of affection and grief in that of the bereaved mother of Euryalus. Where, after the example of Homer, he introduces various figures belonging to the same cla.s.s, he fails to distinguish them from one another by any individual trait of character or manners. Thus Dido has her suitors as well as Penelope; but the former produce no life-like impression of any kind, like that produced by the careless levity and gay insolence of Antinous and Eurymachus.

As a painter of manners Virgil adopts the stately and conventional methods of Greek tragedy rather than the vivid realism of Homer. The intercourse of his chief personages with one another is conducted with the dignity and courtesy of the most refined times. Homer's personages indeed act for the most part with a natural dignity and courtesy of bearing,-proceeding from the commanding character which he attributes to them, as well as from the lively social grace of their Greek origin,-which can neither be surpa.s.sed nor equalled by any conventional refinement. But these social virtues can be rapidly exchanged for vehemence of pa.s.sion and angry recrimination. In the manners of Virgil's personages we recognise the influence of refined traditions, and of the habits of a dignified society. His personages show not only courtesy but studied consideration for each other. Thus while Latinus addresses Turnus in words of courteous acknowledgment-of which the original suggestion may be traced to a tragedy of Attius-

O praestans animi iuvenis! quantum ipse feroci Virtute exsuperas, tanto me impensius aequum est Consulere, atque omnis metuentem expendere casus(607);

Turnus replies to him in the terms of respect which are due to his age and position-

Quam pro me curam geris, hanc precor, optime, pro me Deponas letumque sinas pro laude pacisci.

Et nos tela, pater(608), etc.

The element of self-command amid the deepest movements of feeling and pa.s.sion enhances the stately dignity of manners represented in the poem.

Thus in the greatest sorrow of Evander, when he is recalling with fond pride the youthful promise of Pallas-

Tu quoque nunc stares immanis truncus in armis, Esset par actas et idem si robur ab annis, Turne(609),-

he remembers that he is detaining the Trojans, who had come to pay the funeral honours to his son-

sed infelix Teucros quid demoror armis?

Vadite et haec memores regi mandata referte(610).

The queenly courtesy of Dido springs from deeper elements in human nature than conformity to the standard of demeanour imposed by elevated rank-

Solvite corde metum, Teucri, secludite curas.

Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri et late finis custode tueri.

Quis genus Aeneadum, quis Troiae nesciat urbem Virtutesque virosque, aut tanti incendia belli?

Non obtunsa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni, Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol iungit ab urbe(611), etc.

The sea adventures of the Aeneid seem to be suggested rather by the experience of travellers in the Augustan Age, than by the spirit of wonder and buoyant resistance with which Odysseus and his companions encounter the perils of unexplored seas and coasts. The fabulous portents of legendary times appear in the shape of the Harpies, the Cyclops, the sea-monster Scylla, etc., but they do not produce that sense of novelty and vivid life which the same or similar representations produce in the Odyssey. The description of the Harpies is grotesque rather than imaginative. There is a touch of pathos in the introduction of the Cyclops-

Lanigerae comitantur oves: ea sola voluptas Solamenque mali(612),

reminding us of the ???? p?p??, etc. of the Odyssey; and the picture of his a.s.sembled brethren-

Cernimus adstantis nequiquam lumine torvo Aetnaeos fratres, caelo capita alta ferentis, Concilium horrendum(613)-

is conceived with a kind of grim power, showing that the imagination of Virgil does not merely reproduce, but endows with a new life the figures which he borrows most closely from his original. But the life-like realism, the combined humour and terror of Homer's representation, are altogether absent from the Aeneid. These marvellous creations appear natural in the Odyssey, and in keeping with the imaginative impulses and the adventurous spirit of the ages of maritime discovery: but they stand in no real relation to the feelings and beliefs with which men encountered the occasional dangers and the frequent discomforts of the Adriatic or the Aegean in the Augustan Age.

In his conception of these real dangers of the sea, which have to be met in the most advanced as well as the most primitive times, Virgil's inferiority to Homer, both in general effect and in lifelike detail, is very marked. The wonderful realism of the sea adventures in the fifth Book of the Odyssey produces on the mind the impression that the poet is recalling either a peril that he himself had encountered, or one that he had heard vividly related by some one who had thus escaped 'from the issue of death:' and that there was in the poet too the genuine delight in danger, the spirit

'That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine,'

which has been attributed to the companions of his hero's wanderings.

Odysseus, like Aeneas, feels his limbs and heart give way before the sudden outburst of the storm; but, though swept from the raft and overwhelmed for a time under the waves, he never loses his presence of mind or his courage-

???' ??d' ?? s?ed??? ?pe???et? te???e??? pe?, ???? e?????e?? ??? ??as?? ????et' a?t??, ?? ?ss? d? ?a???e t???? ?a??t?? ??ee????(614).

The poet of the Odyssey may have encountered such storms as are described in the pa.s.sage here referred to, and we cannot doubt that in such case he bore his part bravely, 'redeeming his own life and securing the safe return of his comrades.' If Virgil in some unadventurous voyaging ever happened to be 'caught in a storm in the open Aegean,' it probably was in the position of a helpless sufferer that he contemplated the wild commotion of the elements.

On the other hand he shows a keen enjoyment of the pleasure of sailing past famous and beautiful scenes with a fair wind and in smooth water-

Linquimus Ortygiae portas pelagoque volamus Bacchatamque iugis Naxon, viridemque Donysam, Olearon, niveamque Paron, sparsasque per aequor Cycladas, et crebris legimus freta consita terris.

Nauticus exoritur vario certamine clamor(615).