The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 25

Sed fore, qui gravidam imperiis belloque frementem Italiam regeret, genus alto a sanguine Troiae Proderet, ac totum sub leges mitteret orbem(499).

In the famous pa.s.sage in the sixth book the mission of Rome is summed up, in contrast to the artistic glories of Greece, in the lines-

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (Hae tibi erunt artes), pacisque inponere morem, Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos(500).

The oracle of Faunus thus announces to Latinus the great future which awaited the race destined to arise from the union of the Trojans and Italians:-

Externi venient generi, qui sanguine nostrum Nomen in astra ferant, quorumque ab stirpe nepotes Omnia sub pedibus, qua Sol utrumque recurrens Aspicit Oceanum, vertique regique videbunt(501).

In the ninth book Virgil for once breaks through the impersonal reserve of the epic singer to claim for Nisus and Euryalus an eternity of fame,-

Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum Accolet imperiumque pater Roma.n.u.s habebit(502).

In several of these pa.s.sages it is not merely the pride of conquest and dominion which is expressed, but the higher and humaner belief that the ultimate mission of Rome is to give law and peace to the world. Thus the initiation of Iulus into war is accompanied by the declaration put into the mouth of Apollo-

iure omnia bella Gente sub a.s.saraci fato ventura resident(503).

In this way Virgil softens and humanises the idea of the Imperial State, representing her as not only the conqueror but the civiliser of the ancient world, and the transmitter of that civilisation to the world of the future. And while he invests the thought of ancient and powerful sovereignty with imaginative a.s.sociations, and describes acts of heroism with the glow of martial enthusiasm, yet the crowning glory which he ascribes to the Romans is the piety inherited from their Trojan ancestors.

The final appeas.e.m.e.nt of the rancour of Juno is secured by the declaration of Jupiter-

Hinc genus Ausonio mixtum quod sanguine surget, Supra homines, supra ire deos pietate videbis, Nec gens ulla tuos aeque celebrabit honores(504).

The national idea of Rome was a.s.sociated also with the thought of the divine origin, the great antiquity, the unbroken tradition, and the eternal duration of the State. Universal empire, uninterrupted continuity of existence, were the claims of the ancient Imperial as of the modern Ecclesiastical Rome. And this idea, by the strong hold which it had on the minds first of the Romans themselves and afterwards of other nations, went far to realise itself. The confidence of the Romans in themselves was intimately connected with their belief in their origin. Ennius had impressed on their minds the belief in the miraculous birth of their founder and in his miraculous elevation after death, and in the protection afforded by the 'augustum augurium' by which the building of their city had been consecrated. Among no people did ancient customs and ceremonies, of which in many cases the origin was altogether forgotten, survive with such vitality. In no other people did the memory of their past history, whether of triumph or disaster, exercise so potent an influence on the present time. In no Republic have the pride of birth and the reverence felt to ancestors been so powerful and prevailing sentiments: no State has ever been more loyal to the memory of the men who at successive crises in its history had served it or saved it from its enemies: and no great secular power ever felt so strong an a.s.surance of an unbroken ascendency in the future, and of the dependence of the fate of the world on that ascendency.

The Aeneid appealed to all these sentiments even with more power than the epic of the Republic and than the various national histories in which Roman literature was peculiarly rich. Virgil, while still leaving to his countrymen the pride of their descent from Mars, made them feel the charm of their relation to a more gracious divinity, and even the hereditary claim which they had to regard themselves as special objects of care to the Supreme Ruler of Heaven(505). The a.s.sociation of their destiny with the fortunes of Aeneas enabled them to look back to a remoter and more famous epoch of antiquity than the legends of their origin which had satisfied the fancy of the older Romans. Various pa.s.sages in the poem enable Virgil to invest impressive ceremonies, existing in his own time, with the a.s.sociations of an immemorial past. The three great prophetic pa.s.sages in the first, sixth, and eighth books enable him to revive, as Ennius had done, the thought of the great men and families of Rome, and of the great events both of earlier and more recent history. The march of Roman conquest during one hundred and fifty momentous years enabled the younger poet to evoke greater, though in some respects less happy, memories than those evoked by his predecessor. And the security of the Empire established in his day justified him in looking forward to the future with even a more a.s.sured confidence, though perhaps in a less sanguine spirit.

The national sentiment manifesting itself in the pride of empire and deeply rooted in the past, was combined with strong local attachments and the attribution of a kind of sanct.i.ty to the great natural features of the land or to spots a.s.sociated with historic memories which had impressed themselves on the hearts of successive generations. Virgil was, as we saw in examining the Georgics, peculiarly susceptible of such impressions.

There is no pa.s.sage in any ancient writer which makes us feel so vividly the 'religio loci' which has for more than two thousand years invested the very site of Rome as that in the eighth book of the Aeneid, in which Evander conducts Aeneas over the ground destined to be occupied by the temples and dwellings of Rome. The feeling which the sight of the Capitoline hill and of the Tarpeian rock calls forth is one rather of religious awe than of any more familiar sentiment. The feeling, on the other hand, with which the Tiber is introduced-

Caeruleus Thybris, caelo gratissimus amnis-

is one rather of proud affection than of religious veneration. The aspect of the great city itself awed the imagination rather than called forth the affections of her citizens. But these affections were given to the rivers and streams, the lakes, and mountain-homes of Italy. Patriotism in the Augustan Age was as much an Italian as a Roman sentiment. The military greatness of Rome was even more identified with the discipline and courage of the Marsian and Apulian(506) soldier than with that of the Latin race(507). Her moral greatness is more often identified by the poets with the virtues of the old Sabellian stock than with those of the 'populus Roma.n.u.s Quiritium.' While the Georgics celebrate the peaceful glory and beauty of Italy, the Aeneid evokes the memory of its old warlike renown-

quibus Itala iam tum Floruerit terra alma viris, quibus a.r.s.erit armis(508).

The first omen(509) which meets the Trojans on approaching Italy marks it out as a land 'mighty in arms' as well as 'in the richness of its soil.'

The speech of Remulus in the ninth book identifies the ancient rural life of Italy with the hardihood and warlike apt.i.tude of the people, as the Georgics identify it with their virtue and happiness:-

Durum ab stirpe genus natos ad flumina primum Deferimus saevoque gelu duramus et undis; Venatu invigilant pueri, silvasque fatigant; Flectere ludus equos et spicula tendere cornu.

At patiens operum parvoque adsueta iuventus Aut rastris terram domat, aut quat.i.t oppida bello.

Omne aevum ferro teritur, versaque iuvenc.u.m Terga fatigamus hasta; nec tarda senectus Debilitat vires animi mutatque vigorem: Canitiem galea premimus, semperque recentis Comportare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto(510).

In the account of the gathering of the Italian clans in the seventh book, and of the Etruscans and the Northern races in the tenth, the warlike sentiment of the land is appealed to in a.s.sociation with the names of ancient towns, mountain districts, lakes, and rivers:-

Quique altum Praeneste viri, quique arva Gabinae Iunonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis Hernica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit, Quos, Amasene pater(511);

and again:-

Qui Tetricae horrentis rupes montemque Severum Casperiamque colunt Forulosque et flumen Himellae; Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt, quos frigida misit Nursia, et Hortinae cla.s.ses populique Latini; Quosque secans infaustum interluit Allia nomen(512);

and also:-

Qui saltus, Tiberine, tuos, sacrumque Numici Litus arant, Rutulosque exercent vomere collis, Circaeumque iugum, quis Iuppiter Anxurus arvis Praesidet et viridi gaudens Feronia luco; Qua Saturae iacet atra palus, gelidusque per imas Quaerit iter vallis atque in mare conditur Ufens(513).

This union of patriotic sentiment with the love of Nature and with the romantic a.s.sociations of the past, Virgil has in common with the most distinctively national of the poets of the present century, from whom in the other characteristics of his art and genius he is widely removed.

The national sentiment to which Virgil and the other contemporary poets give expression is thus seen to be the sentiment of the Italian race(514).

For two centuries the princ.i.p.al members of that race had looked to Rome as their chief glory, rather than as their old rival and antagonist. The thought of Rome as their head had become to the other Italian tribes their basis of union with one another and the main ground of their self-esteem in relation to other nations. To that self-esteem and sense of superiority Virgil was fully alive. He is not altogether free from the narrowness of national prejudice. He has not the largeness of soul which enables Homer, while never losing his sense of the superiority of the Greeks over the Trojans, yet to awaken feelings of admiration and of generous pity for Hector and Sarpedon, for Priam and Andromache. Yet if Virgil has not this largeness of soul he has the tenderness of human compa.s.sion:-

Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt(515).

He might have maintained a stronger sympathy for his hero, and have gratified a sentiment still fresh in the minds of his countrymen, by attributing to Dido the shameless licence as well as the dangerous fascination of Cleopatra; or he might have painted the Carthaginians in traditional colours of cruelty and treachery, in which Roman writers represented the most formidable among the enemies of Rome. But Virgil's artistic sense or his humaner feeling saved him from this ungenerous gratification of national prejudice. Yet while more just or tolerant than other Roman writers to the Carthaginians, and especially to the memory of their greatest man, he indicates something like antipathy to the Greeks.

The triumph of Rome over her Greek enemies is made prominent in the announcement of her future glories:-

Veniet l.u.s.tris labentibus aetas, c.u.m domus a.s.saraci Phthiam clarasque Mycenas Servitio premet ac victis dominabitur Argis(516);

and again:-

Eruet ille Argos Agamemnoniasque Mycenas, Ipsumque Aeaciden, genus armipotentis Achilli(517).

The bitterness of national animosity is especially apparent in his exhibition of the characters of Ulysses and Helen. The superiority of the Greeks in the arts and sciences is admitted not without some touch of scorn ('credo equidem') in contrast with the superiority of Rome in the imperial arts of conquering and governing nations. It may appear strange that the only race to which Virgil is unjust or ungenerous is the one to which he himself, in common with all educated Romans, was most deeply indebted. But it is to be remembered that there was a dramatic propriety in the expression of this hostility in the mouth of Aeneas and of Anchises. The champions.h.i.+p of the cause of Troy demanded an att.i.tude of antagonism to her destroyer. The Greek tragedians had themselves set the example of a degraded representation of two of the most admirable of Homer's creations; and Virgil's mode of conceiving and delineating character is much nearer to that of Euripides than to that of Homer. The original error of Helen and the craft in dealing with his enemies, which is one of many qualities in the versatile humanity of Odysseus, gave to these later artists the germ, in accordance with which the whole character was conceived. They did not adequately apprehend that the most interesting types of n.o.bleness and beauty of character as imagined by the greatest artists are also the most complex, and the least capable of being squared with abstract conceptions of vices or virtues. The full truth of Homer's delineations of character was apparently not recognised by the most cultivated of his Roman readers. It is enough for Virgil that Ulysses is 'fandi fictor,' as it is for Horace that Achilles is 'iracundus, inexorabilis, acer:' although the worldly wisdom of the last-named poet makes him comprehend better Homer's ideal of intelligent than his ideal of emotional heroism:-

Rursus quid virtus et quid sapientia possit, Utile proposuit n.o.bis exemplar Ulixem(518), etc.

Juvenal exhibits the virulence of national animosity towards the Greeks of his time, as well as a well-founded scorn of the moral baseness of character exhibited by many of them. The contempt of Tacitus is shown for their intellectual frivolity, combined with their a.s.sumption of intellectual superiority ('qui sua tantum mirantur(519)') based on the renown of their ancestors. The deference which Virgil and Horace might pay to the genius of early Greece was not due to the shadow of that genius as it existed in their own time. But the contemporary Greek _litterateurs_ were not likely to resign their claim of precedence in favour of their new rivals. Neither Greek art(520) nor Greek criticism seems ever to have made any cordial recognition of the literary genius of Italy. The light in which Virgil represents the Greek character may thus perhaps owe something to the wish to repay scorn with scorn.

II.

The confidence which the Romans felt in the continued existence of their Empire and in their superiority over all other nations was closely connected with their religious feeling and belief(521). Horace has expressed the national faith in this connexion with Roman force and conciseness in the single line,

Dis te minorem quod geris imperas(522).

And it was Virgil's aim in the Aeneid to show that this edifice of Roman Empire, of which the enterprise of Aeneas was the foundation, on which the old Kings of Alba and of Rome and the successive generations of great men under the Republic had successively laboured, and on which Augustus placed the coping-stone, was no mere work of human hands, but had been designed and built up by divine purpose and guidance. The Aeneid expresses the religious as it does the national sentiment of Rome. The two modes of sentiment were inseparable. The belief of the Romans in themselves was another form of their absolute faith in the invisible Power which protected them. This invisible Power was sometimes recognised by them under the name of 'Fortuna Urbis,'-the spiritual counterpart of the city visible to their eyes. The recognition of this divinity was not only compatible with, but involved the recognition of, many other divinities a.s.sociated with it in this protecting office. But to these numerous divinities no very distinct personality was attached. It was the awe of an ever-present invisible Power, manifesting itself by arbitrary signs, exacting jealously certain definite observances, capable of being alienated for a time by any deviation from these observances, and of being again appeased by a right reading of and humble compliance with its will, and working out its own purposes through the agency of the Roman arms and the wisdom of Roman counsels, that was the moving power of Roman religion.

The Jove of the Capitol in early times, the living Emperor under the Empire, were the visible representatives of this mysterious Power. But its influence was acknowledged throughout all Roman history in the importance attached to the great priestly offices, and especially to that of Pontifex Maximus, which became inseparably united to the office of Emperor; in the scrupulous regard paid to the auspices through which this Power was believed to communicate its will; in the ominous interpretation put on all appearances of departure from the ordinary course of Nature; and in the reference to the Sibylline books in all questions of difficulty. This impersonal Power is to the Romans both the object of awe and the source of their confidence. They seem never to distrust the steadfastness of its favour. They rather feel themselves its willing instruments, co-operating with it, blindly sometimes and sometimes remissly, and for every failure of intelligence or vigilance, punished by temporal calamities.

The word by which Virgil recognises the agency of this impersonal, or perhaps we should rather say undefined, Power, is 'Fatum,' or more often in the plural, 'Fata.' It is by the 'Fates' that the action is set in motion and directed to its issue. The human and even the divine actors in the story are instruments in their hands; some more, some less conscious of the part they are performing. Even Jupiter is represented rather as cognisant of the Fates than as their author. Sometimes indeed they are spoken of as 'Fata Iovis;' and to the a.s.surance given by him to Venus 'manent immota tuorum Fata tibi,' he adds the words 'neque me sententia vert.i.t(523).' But again, while his will is suspended in a great crisis of the action, their operation is persistent and inevitable:-

Rex Iuppiter omnibus idem: Fata viam invenient(524).

The original relation between this impersonal agency and the deliberate purpose of Jupiter is left undefined. But there is no collision between them. While the prayers of men are addressed to a conscious personal being, 'Iuppiter omnipotens,' the sovereignty of an impersonal Power over the fortunes of nations is acknowledged, as in the line-

Fortuna omnipotens et ineluctabile fatum(525).

Every reader of the Aeneid must feel the predominance of this idea in the poem, and the constantly recurring and even monotonous expression of it.