The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 47

522 'Thou rulest the world by bearing thyself humbly towards the G.o.ds.'

523 'The destinies of thy descendants remain unchanged, nor does my purpose make me waver.'

524 'King Jove is impartial to all: the Fates will find their own way.'

x. 1123.

525 'All-powerful fortune and fate from which there is no escape.'

526 'As the doom of the empire was pressing on to its accomplishment.'

i. 33.

527 'Nations were subdued, kings were taken prisoners, and Vespasian made known to the fates.' Agric. 13.

528 'The leadership of Mucia.n.u.s, the name of Vespasian, and the fact that nothing was too difficult for the fates to accomplish.' Hist.

ii. 82.

529 'The irony of human affairs.' Ann. iii. 18; cf. the lines of Lucretius. v. 12335:-

Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam Opterit et pulchros fascis saevasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.

530 'The instability of fortune, which confounds the highest with the lowest.' Hist. iv. 47; Hor. Od. i. 34. 12.

531 'A night bright with stars, as if for the purpose of proving the crime, was granted by the G.o.ds.' Ann. xiv. 5.

532 Ann. iv. 28.

533 Ib. i. 30.

534 Ib. xii. 43.

535 Ib. iv. 1.

536 'All which events happened with such entire indifference on the part of the G.o.ds, that Nero continued his career of empire and crime for many years afterwards.' Ann. xiv. 12.

537 Cf. Tac. Ann. xi. 24: 'Quid aliud exitio Lacedaemoniis et Atheniensibus fuit, quamquam armis pollerent, nisi quod victos pro alienigenis arcebant?' etc.

538 'Her sacred emblems and her G.o.ds Troy commits to thy care-take these as the companions of thy fates.'

539 'With his comrades and his son, the Penates and the great G.o.ds.'

540 Aen. viii. 679.

541 'The rites of religion and the new G.o.ds shall come from me-let the power of arms be with my father-in-law Latinus-let him keep his established rule.' Aen. xii. 1923.

542 'We mark it gliding above the topmost roof of the house, hide itself in a bright stream in the forest of Ida, marking out the way.' Aen.

ii. 6957.

543 'Cease to hope that the determinations of the G.o.ds can be turned aside by prayer.'

544 i. 543.

545 'May the G.o.ds, if any Powers regard the merciful, if righteousness and a pure conscience avail aught anywhere, bring to thee a worthy recompense.' i. 6035.

546 'Almighty Jove, if thou hast not yet utterly hated the Trojans to the last man, if thy mercy as of old still regards human troubles.'

v. 6879.

547 'May the G.o.ds, if there is any pity in heaven to take heed of such things, thank thee as thou deservest and make due recompense to thee who hast made me to behold my son slain before my face, and hast stained a father's countenance with the pollution of death.' ii.

5369.

548 'Here they by whom their brethren were hated, while life was with them, or a father struck, or a client dealt with treacherously, or who brooded alone over some discovered treasure and a.s.signed no share to their kindred-and they are the greatest mult.i.tude-and they who were put to death as adulterers, and they who followed to war an unholy standard, and they who feared not to be false to the fealty they owed their lords, imprisoned await punishment.... Here is one who sold his country for gold, and made it subject to a powerful master; another made and unmade laws for a bribe; another violated a daughter's bed in forbidden wedlock-all men who dared some monstrous deed of sin, and enjoyed its fruits.' vi. 60814, 6214.

549 'Here a company, who received wounds fighting for their country, and they who were pure priests, while life was with them, and they who were holy bards and who spoke in strains worthy of Phoebus, or they who improved life by their discoveries, and who by their good deeds made others keep them in memory.' vi. 6604.

550 Cf. At Tiberius, nihil intermissa rerum cura, negotia pro solatiis accipiens. Tac. Ann. iv. 13.

551 iii. 1327:-

Ergo avidus muros optatae molior urbis Pergameamque voco, et laetam cognomine gentem Hortor amare focos, arcemque attollere tectis,- * * * * *

Iura domosque dabam.

552 'The funeral was most remarkable for the display of ancestral images, as the founder of the Julian house, Aeneas and all the Alban kings, and Romulus founder of the city, and after them the Sabine lords, Attus Clausus, and the other images of the Claudii, in a long line pa.s.sed before the eyes of the spectators.' Ann. iv. 9.

553 'And do we still hesitate to find by our deeds a wider field for our valour, or does fear hinder us from establishing ourselves on Ausonian soil?' vi. 8078.

554 'Then the ages of cruel strife will become gentle, and war be laid aside: h.o.a.ry faith, and Vesta, Quirinus with his brother Remus, shall give laws.' i. 2913.

555 'Augustus Caesar, of descent from a G.o.d: who shall establish again the golden age of Latium over fields where Saturn once reigned.' vi.

7935.

556 'Him hereafter, laden with the spoils of the East, thou shalt welcome in heaven and feel no fear longer; he too will be invoked with prayers.' i. 28990.

557 'By the manners of the olden time and its men the Roman State stands firm.'

558 Il. xx. 105.

559 For an instance of the number of slaves in a single household in the reign of Nero compare the speech of C. Ca.s.sius in Tac. Ann. xiv. 43: 'Quem numerus servorum tuebitur, c.u.m Pedanium Secundum quadringenti non protexerint?' The simplicity of the old Roman life which Virgil idealises in the Georgics, as compared with the luxurious indulgence of the later Republic and the Empire, was in a great measure due to the comparative rarity of slavery in the earlier ages of Roman history.

560 Cf. 'Virgil's Aeneis war der fruheste Versuch in dieser kunstlichen oder phantastischen Fa.s.sung des Epos, das erste romantische Heldengedicht, und machte den Uebergang zu den gleich zwitterhaften Epen der modernen Zeit.' Bernhardy, Grundriss der Romischen Litteratur.

561 It is probably too early to inst.i.tute a comparison between the epic of Virgil and any recent work of imagination, but not too early to indicate adherence to those critics who find a parallel not in art and genius only, but in the simplicity and sincerity of nature revealed in their works, between the author of the Aeneid and the author of the 'Idylls of the King.'

562 This intention was well brought out in an article in Fraser's Magazine, which has since been republished by Mr. Froude in his 'Short Studies on Great Subjects.'

563 'Her robe flowed down to her feet, and she was revealed by her movement as indeed a G.o.ddess.' 'But I who move in state as the queen of the G.o.ds.'

564 'To each man his own day is appointed: brief and irrecoverable is the time of life to all; but to spread one's name widely by achievements, this is the work of valour.' Aen. x. 4679.

565 'Looking forth from the deep he raised his calm head from the surface of the wave.' Cf. Weidner's Commentary on the First Two Books of the Aeneid.