Vergil Part 4

VI

EPIGRAM AND EPIC

The years of Vergil's sojourn in Naples were perhaps the most eventful in Rome's long history, and we may be sure that nothing but a frail const.i.tution could have saved a man of his age for study through those years. After the battle of Pharsalia in 48, Caesar, aside from the lotus-months in Egypt, pacified the Eastern provinces, then in 46 subdued the senatorial remnants in Africa, driving Cato to his death, and in September of that year celebrated his fourfold triumph with a magnificence hitherto undreamed. All Italy went to see the spectacle, and doubtless Vergil too; for here it was, if we mistake not, that he first resolved to write an epic of Rome. The year 45 saw the defeat of the Pompeian remnants in Spain, and the first preparations for the great Parthian expedition which, as all knew, was to inaugurate the new Monarchy. Then came the sudden blow that struck Caesar down, the civil war that elevated Antony and Octavian and brought Cicero to his death, and finally the victory at Philippi which ended all hope of a republic.

Through all this turmoil the philosophic group of the "Garden" continued its pursuit of science, commenting, as we shall see, upon pa.s.sing events.

The _Aetna_--which seems to date from about 47-6--reveals the young philosopher, if it is Vergil, in a serious mood of single-minded devotion to his new pursuit. But as may be inferred from the fifth _Catalepton_ he was not sure of not backsliding. To the influence of Catullus, plainly visible all through these brief poems, there was added the example of Philodemus who wrote epigrams from time to time. Several of the _Catalepton_ may belong to this period. The very first,[1] addressed to Vergil's lifelong friend Plotius Tucca, is an amusing trifle in the very vein of Philodemus. The fourth, like the first in elegiacs, is a gracious tribute to a departing friend, Musa, perhaps his fellow-townsman Octavius Musa.[2] It closes with a generous expression of unquestioning friendship that asks for no return:

Quare illud satis est si te permittis amari Nam contra ut sit amor mutuus, unde mihi?

[Footnote 1: Dequa saepe tibi, venit? sed, Tucca, videre Non licet. Occulitur limine clausa viri.

Dequa saepe tibi, non venit adhuc mihi; namque Si occulitur, longe est tangere quod nequeas.

Venerit, audivi. Sed iam jnihi nuntius iste Quid prodest? illi dicito cui rediit.]

[Footnote 2: See Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 82; Servius on _Ecl_. IX. 7; Berne Scholia on _Ecl_. VIII. 6.]

That is the trait surely that accounts for Horace's outburst of admiration.

Animae quales neque candidiores Terra tulit.

The seventh is an epigram mildly twitting Varius for his insistence upon pure diction. The crusade for purity of speech had been given a new impetus a decade before by the Atticists, and we may here infer that Varius, the quondam friend of Catullus, was considered the guardian of that tradition. Vergil, despite his devotion to neat technique, may have had his misgivings about rules that in the end endanger the freedom of the poet. His early work ranged very widely in its experiments in style, and Horace's _Ars Poetica_ written many years later shows that Vergil had to the very end been criticized by the extremists for taking liberties with the language. The epigram begins as though it were an erotic poem in the style of Philodemus. Then, having used the Greek word _pothos_, he checks himself as though dreading a frown from Varius, and subst.i.tutes the Latin word _puer_,

Scilicet hoc fraude, Vari dulcissime, dicam: "Dispeream, nisi me perdidit iste pothos."

Sin autem praecepta vetant me dicere, sane Non dicam, sed: "me perdidit iste puer."

For the comprehension of the personal allusions in the sixth and twelfth epigrams, we have as yet discovered no clue, and as they are trifles of no poetic value we may disregard them.

The fourteenth is, however, of very great interest. It purports to be a vow spoken before Venus' shrine at Sorrento pledging gifts of devotion in return for aid in composing the story of Trojan Aeneas.

Si mihi susceptum fuerit decurrere munus, O Paphon, o sedes quae colis Idalias, Troius Aeneas Romana per oppida digno Iam tandem ut tec.u.m carmine vectus eat: Non ego ture modo aut picta tua templa tabella Ornabo et puris serta feram manibus-- Corniger hos aries humilis et maxima taurus Victima sacrato sparget honore focos Marmoreusque tibi aut mille coloribus ales In morem picta stabit Amor pharetra.

Adsis o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat.

The poem has. .h.i.therto been a.s.signed to a period twenty years later. But surely this youthful ferment of hope and anxiety does not represent the composure of a man who has already published the _Georgics_. The eager offering of flowers and a many-hued statue of Cupid reminds one rather of the youth who in the _Ciris_ begged for inspiration with hands full of lilies and hyacinths.

However, we are not entirely left to conjecture. There is indubitable evidence that Vergil began an epic at this time, some fifteen years before he published the _Georgics_. It seems clear also that the epic was an _Aeneid_, with Julius Caesar in the background, and that parts of the early epic were finally merged into the great work of his maturity. The question is of such importance to the study of Vergil's developing art that we may be justified in going fully into the evidence[3]. As it happens we are fortunate in having several references to this early effort. The ninth _Catalepton_, written in 42, mentions the poet's ambition to write a national poem worthy of a place among the great cla.s.sics of Greece (l.62):

Si patrio Graios carmine adire sales.

The sixth _Eclogue_ begins with an allusion to it:

Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere versu Nostra, nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia.

c.u.m canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem Vellit et admonuit, pastorem t.i.tyre pinguis Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen.

[Footnote 3: Cf. _Cla.s.sical Quarterly_, 1920, 156.]

This may be paraphrased: "My first song--the _Culex_--was a pastoral strain. When later I essayed to sing of kings and battles, Phoebus warned me to return to my shepherd song." On this pa.s.sage Servius has the comment: significat aut Aeneidem aut gesta regum Albanorum.

Donatus finally in his _Vita_ says explicitly: mox c.u.m res Romanas inchoa.s.set, offensus materia, ad Bucolica transit. The poem, therefore, was on the stocks before the _Bucolics_. We may surmise that the death of Caesar, whose deeds seem to have brought the idea of such a poem to Vergil's mind, caused him to lay the work aside.

Returning to the fourteenth _Catalepton_, we find what seems to be a definite key to the date and circ.u.mstances of its writing. The closing lines are:

Adsis, o Cytherea: tuos te Caesar Olympo Et Surrentini litoris ara vocat.

It was on September 26 in 46 B.C., that Julius Caesar so strikingly called attention to his claims of descent from Venus and Aeneas by dedicating a temple to Venus Genetrix, the mother of the Julian gens. It was on that day that Caesar "called Venus from heaven" to dwell in her new temple.[4]

[Footnote 4: Ca.s.sius Dio, 43, 22; Appian, II. 102. There is independent proof that _Catalepton_ XIV is earlier than the _Georgics_. In _Georgics_ II, 146, Vergil repeats the phrase _maxima taurus victima_, but the phrase must have had its origin in the _Catalepton_, since here _maxima_ balances _humilis_. In the _Georgics_ the phrase is merely a verbal reminiscence, for there is nothing in the context there to explain _maxima_. On the order of composition of the Aeneid, see M.M. Crump, _The Growth of the Aeneid_]

Was not this the act that prompted the happy idea of writing the epic of Aeneas? Vergil was then living at Naples, and we can picture the poet fevered with the new impulse, sailing away from his lectures across the fair bay for a day's brooding. Could one find a more fitting place than Venus's shrine at Sorrento for the invocation of the _Aeneid_?

How far this first attempt proceeded we shall probably not know. Vergil's own words would imply that his early effort centered about Aeneas' wars in Italy; the sixth _Eclogue_,

c.u.m canerem reges et proelia,

is rather explicit on this point. Furthermore, the erroneous reference of Calaeno's omen to Anchises in the seventh book (l. 122) would indicate that this part at least was written before the harpy-scene of the third, for the latter is so extensive that the poet could hardly have forgotten it if it had already been written.

It is, however, in reading the first and fifth books that I think we may profit most by keeping in mind the fact that the poet had begun the _Aeneid_ before Caesar's death. In Book I, 286 ff., occurs a pa.s.sage which Servius referred to Julius Caesar. It reads:

Nascetur pulchra Troia.n.u.s origine Caesar, Imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris, Iulius, a magno demissum nomen Iulo.

Hunc tu olim caelo, spoliis Orientis onustum, Accipies secura; uocabitur his quoque uotis.[5]

[Footnote 5: The following lines (291-6) refer to the succeeding reign of Augustus as the poet is careful to indicate in the words _tum positis-bellis_.]

Very few modern editors have dared accept Servius' judgment here, and yet if we may think of these lines as adapted from (say) an original dedication to Julius Caesar written about 45 B.C., the difficulties of the commentators will vanish. The facts that Vergil seems to have in mind are these: in September 46 B.C., Julius Caesar, after returning from Thapsus, celebrated his four great triumphs over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa, displaying loads of booty such as had never before been seen at Rome. He then gave an extended series of athletic games, of the kind described in Vergil's fifth book, including a restoration of the ancient _ludus Troiae_. When these were over he dedicated the temple of Venus Genetrix, thereby publicly announcing his descent from Venus, and presently proclaimed his own superhuman rank more explicitly by placing a statue of himself among the G.o.ds on the Capitoline (Dio, XLIII, 14-22).

Are not the phrases, _imperium Oceano_ and _spoliis Orientis onustum_ a direct reference to this triumph which, of course, Vergil saw? And did not these dedications inspire the prophecy _uocabitur hic quoque uotis?_ Be that as it may, it is difficult to refuse credence to Servius in this case, for Vergil here (I, 267-274 and 283) accepts Julius Caesar's claim of descent from Iulus, whereas in the sixth book, in speaking of the descent of the royal Roman line, he derives it, as was regularly done in Augustus' day, from Silvius the son of Aeneas and Lavinia (VI, 763 ff.).

We must notice also that in the _Aeneid_ as in the _Georgics_ Augustus is regularly called 'Augustus Caesar' or 'Caesar,' whereas in the only other references to Julius in the _Aeneid_ the poet explicitly points to him by saying 'Caesar et omnis _Iuli_ progenies' (VI, 789).

Servius, therefore, seems to be correct in regarding Julius as the subject of the pa.s.sage in the first book, and it follows that the pa.s.sage contains memories of the year 46 B.C., whether or not the lines were, as I suggest, first written soon after Caesar's triumph.

The fifth book also, despite the fact that its beginning and end show a late hand, contains much that can be best brought into connection with Vergil's earlier years. It is, for instance, easier to comprehend the poet's references to Memmius, Catiline, and Cluentius in the forties than twenty years later.

Vergil's strange comparison of Messalla to the _superbus Eryx_ in _Catalepton_ IX, written in 42 B.C.,[6] is also readily explained if we may a.s.sume that he has recently studied the Eryx myth in preparation for the contest of Book V (11. 392-420). The poet's enthusiasm for the _ludus Troiae is well understood as a description of what he saw at Caesar's re-introduction of the spectacle in 46. At Caesar's games Octavian, then sixteen years of age, must have led one of the troops:[7] in the fifth book Atys the ancestor of Octavian's maternal line led one column by the side of Iulus:

Alter Atys, genus unde Atii duxere Latini (1. 568).

[Footnote 6: See Chapter VIII.]

[Footnote 7: The brief account of Nicolaus of Damascus (9) mentions that Octavius had charge of the Greek plays at the triumphal games.]

Then, too, marks of youth pervade the substance of the book. The questionable witticisms might perhaps be attributed to an attempt to relieve the strain, but there is an unusual amount of Homeric imitation, and inartistic allusion to contemporaries which, as in the youthful _Bucolics_, destroys the dramatic illusion. Thus, Vergil not only dwells upon the ancestry of the Memmii, Sergii, and Cluentii, but insists upon reminding the reader of Catiline's conspiracy in the _Sergestus, furens animi_, who dashes upon the rock in his mad eagerness to win, and obtrudes etymology in the phrase _segnem Menoeten_ (1. 173). One is tempted to suspect that the whole narrative of the boat-race is filled with pragmatic allusions. If the characters of his epic must be connected with well-known Roman families, it is at least interesting that the connections are indicated in the fifth book and not in the pa.s.sages where the names first meet the reader. Does it not appear that the body of the book was composed long before the rest, and then left at the poet's death not quite furbished to the fastidious taste of a later day?

Finally, I would suggest that the strange and still unexplained[8] omen of Acestes' burning arrow in 11. 520 ff. probably refers to some event of importance to Segesta in the same year, 46 B.C. We are told by the author of the _Bellum Africanum_ that Caesar mustered his troops for the African campaign at Lilybaeum in the winter of 47. We are not told that while there he ascended the mountain, offered sacrifices to Venus Erycina, and ordered his statue to be placed in her temple, or that he gave favors to the people of Segesta who had the care of that temple. But he probably did something of that kind, for as he had already vowed his temple to Venus Genetrix he could hardly have remained eight days at Lilybaeum so near the shrine of Aeneas' Venus without some act of filial devotion. If Vergil wrote any part of the fifth book in or soon after 46 this would seem to be the solution of the obscure pa.s.sage in question.

[Footnote 8: See however DeWitt, _The Arrow of Acestes, Am. Jour. Phil_.

1920, 369.]