Vergil - Tenney Frank
At Rome there was no such cataclysm during the centuries of the Republic.
Here the old stock though somewhat mixed with Etruscans, survived. The
ancient aristocracy retained its dominant position in the state and
society, and its mores even penetrated downward. They were not stifled
by new southern customs welling up from below, at least not until the
plebeian element won the support of the founders of the empire, and
finally overwhelmed the nobility. At Rome during the Republic there was
no question of social inequality between the sexes, for though in law the
patriarchal clan-system, imposed by the exigencies of a migrating group,
made the father of the family responsible for civil order, no inferences
were drawn to the detriment of the mother's position in the household.
Nepos once aptly remarked: "Many things are considered entirely proper
here which the Greeks hold to be indelicate. No Roman ever hesitates to
take his wife with him to a social dinner. In fact, our women invariably
have the seat of honor at temples and large gatherings. In such matters
we differ wholly from the Greeks."
Indeed the very persistence of a nobility was in itself a favorable
factor in establishing a better position for women. Not only did the
accumulation of wealth in the household and the persistence of
courtly manners demand respect for the _domina_ of the villa, but the
transference of noble blood and of a goodly inheritance of name and land
through the mother's hand were matters of vital importance. The nobility
of the senate moreover long controlled the foreign policy of the empire,
and as the empire grew the men were called away to foreign parts on
missions and legations. At such times, the lady in an important household
was mistress of large affairs. It has been pointed out as a significant
fact that the father of the Gracchi was engaged for long years in
ambassadorial and military duties. The training of the lads consequently
fell to the share of Cornelia, a fact which may in some measure account
for the humanitarian interests of those two brilliant reformers. The
responsibilities that fell upon the shoulders of such women must have
stimulated their keenest powers and thus won for them the high esteem
which, in this case, we know the sons accorded their mother. One does
not soon forget the scene (Cicero, _Ad Att_. XV, II) at which Brutus and
Cassius together with their wives, Porcia and Tertia, and Servilia, the
mother of Brutus, discussed momentous decisions with Cicero. When Brutus
stood wavering, Cicero avoiding the issue, and Cassius as usual losing
his temper, it was Servilia who offered the only feasible solution,
and it was her program which they adopted. Is it surprising that Greek
historians like Plutarch could never quite comprehend the part in Roman
politics played by women like Clodia, Porcia and Terentia? In sheer
despair he usually resorts to the hypotheses of some personal intrigue
for an explanation of their powerful influence.
It is in truth very likely that had Roman literature been permitted to
run its own natural course, without being overwhelmed, as was the Italian
literature of the renaissance, it would have progressed much farther on
the road to Romanticism. Apollonius was far more a restraining influence
in this respect than an inspiration. As it is, Vergil's first and fourth
books are as unthinkable in Greek dress as is the sixth. They constitute
a very conspicuous landmark in the history of literature.
Vergil does not wholly escape the powerful conventions of his Greek
predecessors: in his fourth book, for instance, there are suggestions of
the melodramatic "maiden's lament" so dear to the music hall gallery of
Alexandria. But Vergil, apparently to his own surprise, permits his Roman
understanding of life to prevail, and transcends his first intentions
as soon as he has felt the grip of the character he is portraying. Dido
quickly emerges from the role of a temptress designed as a last snare to
trap the hero, and becomes a woman who reveals human laws paramount even
to divine ordinance. Once realizing this the poet sacrifices even his
hero and wrecks his original plot to be true to his insight into human
nature. The confession of Aeneas, as he departs, that in heeding heaven's
command he has blasphemed against love--_polluto amore_--how strange a
thought for the _pius Aeneas_! That sentiment was not Greek, it was a new
flash of intuition of the very quality of purest Romance.
The _Aeneid_ is also a remarkably religious poem to have come from one
who had devoted so many enthusiastic years to a materialistic philosophy.
Indeed it is usual to assume that the poet had abandoned his philosophy
and turned to Stoicism before his death. But there is after all no
legitimate ground for this supposition. The _Aeneid_ has, of course, none
of the scientific fanaticism that mars the _Aetna_, and the poet has
grown mellow and tolerant with years, but that he was still convinced of
the general soundness of the Epicurean hypotheses seems certain. Many
puzzles of the _Aeneid_ are at least best explained by that view. The
repetition of his creed in the first _Aeneid_ ought to warn us that
his enthusiasm for the study of _Rerum natura_ did not die. Indeed the
_Aeneid_ is full of Epicurean phrases and notions. The atoms of fire are
struck out of the flint (VI, 6), the atoms of light are emitted from the
sun (VII, 527, and VIII, 23), early men were born _duro robore_ and lived
like those described in the fifth book of Lucretius (VIII, 320), and
Conington finds almost two hundred reminiscences of Lucretius in the
_Aeneid_, the proportion increasing rather than decreasing in the later
books.[3]
[Footnote 3: Servius, VI, 264, makes the explicit statement: ex majore
parte, Sironem, id est, magistrum Epicureum sequitur.]
It is, however, in the interpretation of the word _fatum_ and the role
played by the gods[4] that the test of Vergil's philosophy is usually
applied. The modern equivalent of _fatum_ is, as Guyau[5] has said,
_determinism_. Determinism was accepted by both schools but with a
difference. To the Stoic, _fatum_ is a synonym of Providence whose
popular name is Zeus. The Epicurean also accepts _fatum_ as governing the
universe, but it is not teleological, and Zeus is not identified with it
but is, like man, subordinated to it. Again, the Stoic is consistently
fatalistic. Even man's moral obligations, which are admitted, imply no
real freedom in the shaping of results, for though man has the choice
between pursuing his end voluntarily (which is virtue) or kicking against
the pricks (which is vice), the sum total of his accomplishments is not
altered by his choice: _ducunt volentern fata, nolentem trahunt_. On the
other hand, Vergil's master, while he affirms the causal nexus for the
governance of the universe:
nec sanctum numen _fati protollere fines_
posse neque adversus naturae foedera niti
[Footnote 4: The passages have been analyzed and discussed frequently.
See especially Heinze, _Vergils Epische Technik_, 290 ff., who interprets
Zeus as fate; Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, pp. 11-26, who denies the
identity; Drachmann, Guderne kos Vergil, 1887; MacInnis, _Class. Rev_.
1910, p. 160, and Warde Fowler, _Aeneas at the Site of Rome_, pp. 122 fF.
For a fuller statement of this question see _Am. Jour_. Phil. 1920.]
[Footnote 5: _Morale d'Epicure_, p. 72.]
(Lucr. V, 309), posits a spontaneous initiative in the soul-atoms of man:
quod _fati foedera rumpat_
ex infinite _ne causam causa sequatur_.
(Lucr. II, 254). If then Vergil were a Stoic his Jupiter should be
omnipotent and omniscient and the embodiment of _fatum_, and his human
characters must be represented as devoid of independent power; but such
ideas are not found in the _Aeneid_.
Jupiter is indeed called "omnipotens" at times, but so are Juno and
Apollo, which shows that the term must be used in a relative sense. In a
few cases he can grant very great powers as when he tells Venus: Imperium
sine fine dedi (I, 278). But very providence he never seems to be. He
draws (sortitur) the lots of fate (III, 375), he does not assign them at
will, and he unrolls the book of fate and announces what he finds (I,
261). He is powerless to grant Cybele's prayer that the ships may escape
decay:
Cui tanta deo permissa potestas? (IX, 97.)
He cannot decide the battle between the warriors until he weighs their
fates (XII, 725), and in the council of the gods he confesses explicitly
his non-interference with the laws of causality:
Sua cuique exorsa laborem
Fortunamque ferent. Rex Jupiter omnibus idem.
Fata viam invenient. (X, 112.)
And here the scholiast naively remarks:
Videtur his ostendisse aliud esse fata, aliud Jovem.[6]
[Footnote 6: Serv. _ad loc_. MacInnis, _Class. Rev_. 1910, p. 172, cites
several other passages to the point in refutation of Heinze.]
Again, contrary to the Stoic creed, the poet conceives of his human
characters as capable of initiating action and even of thwarting fate.
Aeneas in the second book rushes into battle on an impulse; he could
forget his fates and remain in Sicily if he chose (V, 700). He might also
remain in Carthage, and explains fully why he does not; and Dido, if left
_nescla fati_, might thwart the fates (I, 299), and finally does, slaying
herself before her time[7] (IV, 696). The Stoic hypothesis seems to break
down completely in such passages.
[Footnote 7: See Matthaei, _Class. Quart_. 1917, p. 19.]
Can we assume an Epicurean creed with better success? At least in so far
as it places the _foedera naturae_ above the gods and attributes some
freedom of will and action to men, for as we have seen in both of
these matters Vergil agrees with Lucretius. But there is one apparent
difficulty in that Vergil, contrary to his teacher's usual practice,
permits the interference of the gods in human action. The difficulty is,
however, only apparent, if, as Vergil does, we conceive of these gods
simply as heroic and super-human characters in the drama, accepted from
an heroic age in order to keep the ancient atmosphere in which Aeneas had
lived in men's imagination ever since Homer first spoke of him. As such
characters they have the power of initiative and the right to interfere
in action that Epicurus attributes to men, and in so far as they are
of heroic stature their actions may be the more effective. Thus far an
Epicurean might well go, and must go in an epic of the heroic age. This
is, of course, not the same as saying that Vergil adopted the gods
in imitation of Homer or that he needed Olympic machinery because he
supposed it a necessary part of the epic technique. Surely Vergil was
gifted with as much critical acumen as Lucan. But he had to accept these
creatures as subsidiary characters the moment he chose Aeneas as his
hero, for Aeneas was the son of Venus who dwelt with the celestials at
least a part of the time. Her presence in turn involved Juno and Jupiter
and the rest of her daily associates. Furthermore, since the tale was of
the heroic age of long ago, the characters must naturally behave as the
characters of that day were wont to do, and there were old books like
Homer and Hesiod from which every schoolboy had become familiar with
their behavior. If the poet wished to make a plausible tale of that
period he could no more undertake to modernize his characters than could
Tennyson in his _Idylls_. The would-be gods are in the tale not to
reveal Vergil's philosophy--they do not--but to orient the reader in the
atmosphere in which Aeneas had always been conceived as moving. They
perform the same function as the heroic accoutrements and architecture
for a correct description of which Vergil visited ancient temples and
studied Cato.
Had he chosen a contemporary hero or one less blessed with celestial
relatives there is no reason to suppose that he would have employed the
super-human personages at all. If this be true it is as uncritical to
search for the poet's own conception of divinity in these personages as
it would be to infer his taste in furniture from the straw cot which he
chooses to give his hero at Evander's hovel. In the epic of primitive
Rome the claims of art took precedence over personal creed, and so they
would with any true poet; and if any critic were prosaic enough
to object, Vergil might have answered with Livy: Datur haec venia
antiquitati ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augustiora
faciat, and if the inconsistency with his philosophy were stressed he
could refer to Lucretius' proemium. It is clear then that while the
conceptions of destiny and free-will found in the _Aeneid_ are at
variance with Stoic creed at every point, they fit readily into the
Epicurean scheme of things as soon as we grant what any Epicurean poet
would readily have granted that the celestials might be employed as
characters of the drama if in general subordinated to the same laws of
causality and of freedom as were human beings.
What then are we to say of the Stoic coloring of the sixth book? In the
first place, it is not actually Stoic. It is a syncretism of mystical
beliefs, developed by Orphic and Apocalyptic poets and mystics from
Pythagoras and Plato to a group of Hellenistic writers, popularized by
the later less logical Stoic philosophers like Posidonius, and gaining in
Vergil's day a wide acceptance among those who were growing impatient of
the exacting metaphysical processes of thought. Indeed Vergil contributed
something toward foisting these beliefs upon early Christianity, though
they were no more essential to it than to Stoicism.
Be that as it may, this mystical setting was here adopted because the
poet needed for his own purposes[8] a vision of incorporated souls of
Roman heroes, a thing which neither Epicurean nor orthodox Stoic creed
could provide. So he created this _mythos_ as Plato for his own purpose
created a vision of Er.[9] The dramatic purpose of the _descensus_ was of
course to complete for Aeneas the progressive revelation of his mission,
so skilfully developed by careful stages all through the third book,[10]
to give the hero his final commands and to inspire him for the final
struggle.[11] Then the poet realized that he could at the same time
produce a powerful artistic effect upon the reader if he accomplished
this by means of a vision of Rome's great heroes presented in review by
Anchises from the mount of revelations, for this was an age in which Rome
was growing proud of her history. But to do this he must have a _mythos_
which assumed that souls lived before their earthly existence. A Homeric
limbo of departed souls did not suffice (though Vergil also availed
himself of that in order to recall the friends of the early books). With
this in view he builds his home of the dead out of what Servius calls
much _sapientia_, filling in details here and there even from the
legendary lower-world personages so that the reader may meet some
familiar faces. However, the setting is not to be taken literally, for of
course neither he nor anyone else actually believed that prenatal spirits
bore the attributes and garments of their future existence. Nor is the
poet concerned about the eschatology which had to be assumed for the
setting; but his judgments on life, though afforded an opportunity to
find expression through the characters of the scene, are not allowed to
be circumscribed by them; they are his own deepest convictions.
[Footnote 8: No one would attempt to infer Stephen Phillips' eschatology
from the setting of his _Christ in Hades_.]
[Footnote 9: Vergil indeed was careful to warn the reader (VI, 893) that
the portal of unreal dreams refers the imagery of the sixth book to
fiction, and Servius reiterates the warning. On the employment of myths
by Epicureans see chapter VIII, above.]
[Footnote 10: See Heinze, _Epische Technik_, pp. 82 ff.]
[Footnote 11: This Vergil indicates repeatedly: _Aen_. V, 737; VI, 718,
806-7, 890-2.]
It has frequently been said that Vergil's philosophical system is
confused and that his judgments on providence are inconsistent, that in
fact he seems not to have thought his problems through. This is of course
true so far as it is true of all the students of philosophy of his day.
Indeed we must admit that with the very inadequate psychology of that
time no reasonable solution of the then central problem of determinism
could be found. But there is no reason for supposing that the poet did
not have a complete mastery of what the best teachers of his day had to
offer.
Vergil's Epicureanism, however, served him chiefly as a working
hypothesis for scientific purposes. With its ethical and religious
implications he had not concerned himself; and so it was not permitted
in his later days to interfere with a deep respect for the essentials of
religion. Similarly, the profoundest students of science today, men
who in all their experiments act implicitly and undeviatingly on the
hypotheses of atomism and determinism in the world of research, are
usually the last to deny the validity of the basic religious tenets. In
his knowledge of religious rites Vergil reveals an exactness that seems
to point to very careful observances in his childhood home. They have
become second nature as it were, and go as deep as the filial devotion
which so constantly brings the word _pietas_ to his pen.
But his religion is more than a matter of rites and ceremonies. It has,
to a degree very unusual for a Roman, associated itself with morality and
especially with social morality. The culprits of his Tartarus are not
merely the legendary offenders against exacting deities:
Hic quibus invisi fratres, dum vita manebat,
Pulsatusve parens et fraus innexa clienti,
Aut qui divitiis soli incubuere repertis
Nec partem posuere suis, quae maxima turba est.
The virtues that win a place in Elysium indicate the same fusion of
religion with humanitarian sympathies:
Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi,
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat,
Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artis,
Quique sui memores aliquos fecere merendo:
Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta.
His Elysium is far removed from Homer's limbo; truly did he deserve his
place among those
Phoebo digna locuti.
Before he had completed his work the poet set out for Greece to visit the
places which he had described and which in his fastidious zeal he seems
to have thought in need of the same careful examination that he had
accorded his Italian scenery. Three years he still thought requisite for
the completion of his epic. But at Megara he fell ill, and being carried
back in Augustus' company to Brundisium he died there, in 19 B.C. at the
age of fifty-one. Before his death he gave instructions that his epic
should be burned and that his executors, his life-long friends Varius and
Tucca, should suppress whatever of his manuscripts he had himself failed
to publish. In order to save the Aeneid, however, Augustus interposed
the supreme authority of the state to annul that clause of the will. The
minor works were probably left unpublished for some time. Indeed, there
is no convincing proof that such works as the Ciris, the Aetna, and the
Catalepton were circulated in the Augustan age.
The ashes were carried to his home at Naples and buried beneath a
tombstone bearing the simple epitaph written by some friend who knew the
poet's simplicity of heart:
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
Parthenope; cecini pascua rura duces.
His tomb[12] was on the roadside outside the city, as was usual--Donatus
says on the highway to Puteoli, nearly two miles from the gates. Recent
examination of the region has shown that by some cataclysm of the middle
ages not mentioned in any record, the road and the tomb have subsided,
and now the quiet waters of the golden bay flow many fathoms over them.
[Footnote 12: Guenther, _Pausilypon_, p. 201]
INDEX
Acestes
Aeneas
_Aeneid_, the
_Aetna_, the
Alexandrian poetry
Alfenus Varus
Allegory
Ancestry of Vergil
Animism
Annius Cimber
Antiquarian lore in the _Aeneid_
Antony, Mark
Antony, Lucius, at Perugia
Apollodorus, the rhetorician
Apollonius of Rhodes
Archias, the poet
Asianists, the
Atticists, the
_Auctor ad Herennium_
Augustus, cf. Octavius.
Avernus, Lake
Birt's edition of the _Catalepton_
Brutus, M. Junius
_Bucolics_, the, see _Eclogues_.
Burial-place of Vergil
Caecilius of Caleacte
Callimachus
Calvus, C. Licinius
Capua
Cassius, Longinus
_Catalepton_
Catullus, C. Valerius
Celts, the
Child, of the fourth _Eclogue_
Cicero, M. Tullius
Cinna, C. Helvius
_Ciris_, the
Cisalpine Gaul
Civil War, the
Classicism
Cleopatra and Dido
Clodia
Confiscation of Vergil's lands
_Copa_, the
Cornificius, the poet
Cremona
_Culex_, the
Cumae
Cytheris (Lycoris)
Daphnis
Death of Vergil
Diction, purity of
Dido
Diehl, _Vitae Vergilianae_
_Dirae_, the
Donatus, the _Vita_ of
_Eclogues_, the;
No. I
No. II
No. IV
No. V
No. VI
No. VIII
No. IX
No. X
Education of Vergil
"Emperor Worship"
Ennius
Epic, an early effort at
Epicurean philosophy
Epidius
Epigrams of Vergil
see _Catalepton_.
Epyllia
Ethics in the _Aeneid_
Etruscans
Evictions by the triumvirs
Evolution
Fate, in the _Aeneid_
Fowler, W.W., Studies of
Freedmen
Fundanius
Gallus, Cornelius
"Garden," the, near Naples
_Georgics_, the
Golden Age, the
"Grand Style," the
Greeks, in the _Aeneid_
Hades
Herculaneum
Homer
Horace
Imperial Cult, the
Julius Caesar
Law, the study of
Literary theory
Lucretius
_Ludus Troiae_
Lycoris (Cytheris)
Lydia, the
Lysias, as model of style
Maecenas, C. Cilnius
the literary circle of
Magia, Vergil's mother
Mantua
Maro, meaning of
Martial, on the _Culex_
Materialism
Meleager of Gadara
Melissus
Messalla, M. Valerius
Messianic prophecy
Metrical technique
Milan
Mountain scenery in the _Eclogues_
Naples
Nationalism in the _Aeneid_
Nature, observation of
"New poetry," the _neoteroi_
Nicolaus Damascenus
Octavius, or Octavianus
see Augustus.
Octavius Musa
Oracles, the Sibylline
Orientals at Naples
Ovid
Parthenius
parody, Vergil's in _Catalepton_, X
Pasiphae, the myth of
Pastoral elegy
Pastoral poetry
"Pathetic fallacy," the
Patriotism in the _Aeneid_
Peace of Brundisium
Perusine War, the
Pharsalia, the battle of
Philippi, the battle of
Philodemus
Philosophic study
Piso, Calpurnius
"Plain style" the
Plato
Plotius Tucca,
Politics of the Epicurean group
Pollio, C. Asinius
Pompeii
Pompey, the Great
Porcia
Portraits of Vergil
Posilipo
_Priapea_, the three
Probus, the _Vita_ of
Propertius
Purity of diction
_Purpureus pannus_
Quintilius Varus
Rand, _Young Virgil's Poetry_
Realism in the _Eclogues_
in the _Aeneid_
_Res Romanae_ of Vergil
Rhetoric
Romantic poetry
Romanticism
Scholiasts, on Vergil
Scylla
Servius
Siro
Skutsch, _Aus Vergils Fruehzeit_
Sorrento
Spenser's _Gnat_
Stoicism
Syrians at Naples
Theocritus
Thucydides, as a model of style
Tibullus
Tityrus
Tucca, see Plotius
Turnus
Valerius Cato
Valerius Messalla, see Messalla
Valgius
Varius Rufus
Varus, see Alfenus Varus, and Quintilius Varus
Ventidius Bassus
Venus Genetrix
Vergil, see Table of Contents
Vessereau, on the _Aetna_