The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 34

1 Eclog. ix. 35.

2 'Leporum Disertus puer ac facetiarum.' Catullus xii. 8.

3 The name of Trebatius also, though one a.s.sociated with law rather than literature, may be added as a connecting link between the friends of Cicero and of Horace.

4 Munro's Lucretius, Introduction to Notes, ii. page 305.

5 'These writers your fine Hermogenes never reads, nor that ape, whose whole art is to repeat the songs of Calvus and Catullus.' Hor. Sat.

i. 10. 1719.

6 Hor. Sat. ii. 1. 11.

7 Ann. i. 1; Hist. i. 1.

8 Cf. Juv. ii. 28: In tabulam Sullae si dicant discipuli tres.

9 Od. iii. 4. 28.

10 Cf. Eleg. i. 4142:-

Non ego divitias patrum fructusque requiro Quos tulit antiquo condita messis avo.

11 Cf. v. 1. 129130:-

Nam tua c.u.m multi versarent rura iuvenci Abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes.

12 'Imbellis et firmus parum.' Ep. i. 16.

13 Eleg. i. 1; i. 10.

14 'On the one side Augustus leading the Italians into battle with the Senate and people, the Penates and the great G.o.ds-on the other Antonius with a barbaric and motley host, advancing in triumph from the peoples of the dawn and the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea, bears with him Egypt, and the might of the East, and furthest Bactria, and following in his train,-sin accursed!-an Egyptian bride.' Aen. viii.

678 _et seq._

15 'Be it thine, O Roman, to govern the nations with thy imperial rule.'

16 'Moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque.' Ennius.

17 In the Ancyraean inscription we find the following pa.s.sage (Bergk's reading): 'Legibus novis latis multa revocavi exempla maiorum exolescentia iam ex nostra civitate,' etc.

18 Cf. Ancyraean inscription: 'Templum Apollinis in Palatio c.u.m porticibus, aedem Divi Iulii, Lupercal,' etc. (where we notice the recognition of the divinity of Julius Caesar, along with the old Olympian and national G.o.ds, Apollo, Jupiter Tonans and Feretrius, Quirinus, the Lares and Penates, and with the deified abstractions Libertas and Juventas).

19 A similar influence is attributed by M. Sainte-Beuve to Louis XIV.

After speaking of the freedom and licence of French literature under the patronage of Fouquet, he adds, 'Le jeune roi vint, et il amena, il suscita avec lui sa jeune litterature; il mit le correctif a l'ancienne, et, sauf des infractions brillantes, il imprima a l'ensemble des productions de son temps un caractere de solidite, et finalement de moralite, qui est aussi celui qui regne dans ses propres ecrits, et dans l'habitude de sa pensee.'

20 Aen. vi. 795.

21 Hor. Od. iv. 15. 9.

22 Aen. viii. 678 _et seq._

23 Hor. Od. i. 2. 50.

24 Aen. i. 287; vi. 796; Hor. Od. iv. 15. 15.

25 Aen. i. 288.

26 Georg. ii. 170.

27 Aen. viii. 716.

28 Hor. Od. iv. 5. 20; Ep. ii. 1. 2.

29 'Ad hoc templum divo Claudio const.i.tutum quasi arx aeternae dominationis aspiciebatur.' Tac. Ann. xiv. 31.

30 Tac. Ann. iv. 38.

31 Od. iii. 3. 9, etc.; Ep. ii. 1. 5.

32 Aen. vi. 801.

33 Od. iv. 5.

34 These comparisons may be more naturally referred to Roman 'Euhemerism,' than to the survival of the spirit of hero-wors.h.i.+p, which, although still active in Greece, was a mode of feeling alien to the Roman imagination.

35 Cp. infra, chap. vi.

36 The belief in the divinity of the genius attending on each individual, and also the custom of raising altars to some abstract quality in an individual, such as the 'Clemency of Caesar,' help also to explain this supposed union of the G.o.d and man in the person of the Emperor. The language of Virgil in Eclogue IV. also throws light on the ideas possible as to the union of the divine with human nature.

37 This is indicated by the bare feet.

38 The substance of these remarks is taken from the late O. Jahn's 'Hofische Kunst und Poesie unter Augustus,' published in his 'Populare Aufsatze.' The account of the cameos is given solely on his authority. Several ideas on the whole subject of the deification of the Emperors are derived from the same source.

39 Sueton. De Vita Caesarum, ii. 90 _et seq._

40 'Eloquentiam studiaque liberalia ab aetate prima et cupide et laboriosissime exercuit.' Sueton. ii. 84.

'Augusto prompta ac profluens, quaeque deceret principem, eloquentia fuit.' Tac. Ann. xiii. 3.

41 'Aiacem tragoediam scripserat, eandemque, quod sibi displicuisset, deleverat. Postea L. Varius tragoediarum scriptor interrogabat eum, quid ageret Aiax suus. Et ille, "in spongium," inquit, "incubuit."'

Macrob. ii. 4. 2.

42 Sat. ii. 1. 20.

43 Ep. ii. 1. 248.

44 Essays Literary and Theological, by R. H. Hutton.

45 Cf. Propert. El. iv. 9. 34:-