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VIRGIL'S MESSIANIC ECLOGUE
VIRGIL'S
MESSIANIC ECLOGUE
ITS MEANING, OCCASION, & SOURCES
"
5
THREE STUDIES f(}^K
BY
JOSEPH B. MAYOlL^.
W. WARDE FOWLER
R. S. CONWAY
WITH THE TEXT OF THE ECLOGUE,
AND A VERSE TRANSLATION
BY
R. S. CONWAY
il
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1907
PREFACE
Of the three Essays which follow, that by-
Mr W. Warde Fowler appeared in the
Harvard Classical Studies for 1903 (vol. xiv.),
that by Professor Conway in the Hibbert
Journal for January 1907, that by myself in
the Expositor for April 1907. They were
written without reference to one another,
the last indeed without any knowledge of
the existence of the other two. This makes
it all the more remarkable that they should
fit so well into the scheme already provided
for them in the first written Essay, where
Mr Warde Fowler distinguishes three main
questions arising out of the study of the
poem. (1) What was Virgil's purpose in
writing it and in connecting it with the
consulship of Pollio? (2) Who or what
was the child whose birth it celebrates?
v b
VI PREFACE
- Whence did Virgil draw the very peculiar
ideas and imagery of the poem? The first
question, expanded here into an enquiry as
to the Messianic ideas which are to be
found in Virgil's writings generally, is that
to which Professor Conway has devoted his
attention ; while Mr Warde Fowler is chiefly
occupied with the second question, Who or
what was the child? and I have myself
treated of the third question in a paper
which was originally entitled, "Virgil and
Isaiah : an Enquiry into the Sources of the
Fourth Eclogue." Such being the relation
of the Essays to each other, it was thought
that they would be more interesting and more
effective if combined in one volume, than if
they were left stranded in separate periodicals
which might not always be easily accessible.
Each Essay has undergone a certain amount
of revision, as the result of mutual discus-
sion, which has brought us closer together on
some points ; but, speaking generally, it is
surprising how little alteration was needed
to fit each separate Essay for taking its place
as a part of a new whole. It will, of course,
PREFACE Vll
be understood that each writer still remains
responsible only for his own Essay.
Professor Conway's verse translation was
completed by him at the request of the other
two writers, and I, as the senior member
in our partnership, have been similarly
asked to write and sign this prefatory
explanation of our common purpose.
I have only to add the expression of our
thanks to the Editors of the different
periodicals, in which the papers first
appeared, for consenting to their republica-
tion in the present form.
JOSEPH B. MAYOR.
P.S. — Since the above was written, two
papers dealing with the same subject have
been published by Professor W. M. Ramsay
in the Expositor' for June and August. In these
he strongly supports Professor Conway's argu-
ment as to the spread of Messianic ideas in
Italy during the latter half of the first century,
B.C., and also agrees with me in tracing these
VI 11 PREFACE
ideas to a Jewish source, which he has no
hesitation in identifying with the prophecies
of Isaiah himself. On the other hand, he
entirely repudiates the opinion accepted in
these Essays, and apparently now in favour
with most foreign as well as English
scholars, that the object of the poem was to
celebrate the birth of the looked-for child
of Octavianus and Scribonia.
CONTENTS
THE FOURTH ECLOGUE OF VIRGIL, with a
Rendering into English Verse, p. i.
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
Modern and Mediaeval views of the Fourth Eclogue,
ii ; its contents, 13; the dedication to Pollio, 14; the
Child, 15 ; the Sibyl, 16 ; astrological beliefs of the
time, 16; the wonderful Infancy, Youth and Manhood,
18; the final greeting to the unnamed infant, 21.
The ecclesiastical interpretation, 22 ; Constantine,
23 ; Augustine, Dante, 24 ; Pope and Johnson, 27 ;
the identity of the child, general agreement of modern
scholars in Mr Warde Fowler's view, 29.
The Messianic Idea in Virgil's other writings, 30 ;
its growth and constituent conceptions, 31 ; a prophecy
in the truest sense, 32 ; the perpetuus terror of the
last century B.C., 33 ; reflected in the Georgics and the
Aeneid, 35 ; the new possibilities of the Empire, 37 ; the
poet's vision of regeneration, 39 ; his new ideal, 40 ;
the characters in the under-world, 40 ; Elysium, 41 ; the
prophecy of Anchises, 42 ; the character of ^Eneas,
the ideal ruler, 43 ; the end of the Aeneid and its
significance, 46.
ix
CONTENTS
THE CHILD OF THE POEM
Recent criticism of the Eclogue, 49; Mr Mackail's
view that there is no special mystery in it, 49 ; Prof.
Cartault, and other critics, 51 ; the three main questions
suggested by the poem, 52 ; the particular object of
this essay, to answer the question who was the
child? 53; Prof. Ramsay's view that the child is an
abstraction, explained and criticised, 54 ; importance of
the last four lines in the interpretation of the whole,
57 ; M. Reinach's attempt to prove that the child is
Dionysus and the poem mystical and mythological, 59 ;
disproved by the last four lines, 67 ; the poem a
prophetic carmen sung by a vates fatidica during the
actual birth of a child, 69 ; an examination of the last
four lines shows that the child is a real child, 70 ;
the question who the child was, 79 ; not a son of
Pollio, 81 ; this ancient conjecture explained by a
story of Asconius, 81 ; probably the expected child of
Octavian and Scribonia, which turned out to be a
girl, 84.
SOURCES OF THE FOURTH ECLOGUE
Virgil derived his conception of a coming Golden Age
from a Sibylline oracle, 87 ; the Sibylline oracles
known to Roman tradition were those purchased by
Tarquin, 90 ; what we know of their nature from
Livy and others, 91 ; Heraclitus and Plato on the
CONTENTS XI
Sibyl, 93 ; Alexander's conquests brought Jew and
Greek into close communication, 98 ; Schiirer's account
of the extant Sibylline Books, 98 ; the old Roman
oracles perished in the conflagration of 83 B.C., their
place being taken by new oracles collected from all
parts in 76 B.C., 99 ; the oracle to which Virgil refers was
probably brought from the East between the years 64
and 47 B.C., 103 ; objection, Roman pride would have
prevented Virgil from making use of a Jewish source,
106 ; resemblances between Isaiah and the Fourth
Eclogue, 107 ; the new era begins with a wonderful
birth, in; Munro on the meaning of Iovis incrementum,
112; this language compared with that of Isaiah and
with Greek and Roman ideas, 114 ; the divine birth
regarded as imminent both by Isaiah and Virgil, 117 ;
ambiguity arising from the nature of prophecy, 118;
connexion between the child's growth and the stages of
the new Age, 120 ; other details of the Virgilian picture
illustrated from Jewish and Gentile sources, 121 ; the
Eclogue approaches more nearly to the language of
Isaiah than to that of any extant Sibyllines, 131 ; the
language of Heraclitus and Plato partly accounted for
by their wish to gain support from revelation, 133 ;
Jewish prophecy may have found its way into Ionia
through Egypt and Tyre before 500 B.C., 135 ; biblio-
graphy, 137 ; appendix on incretiteniitm, 139.
Index .... p. 140
VIRGIL'S FOURTH ECLOGUE
WITH A VERSE TRANSLATION
The following rendering is mainly the work of Professor
Conway, but he is deeply indebted to the criticisms and
suggestions of his colleagues, and even more to his
former pupil, Miss F. E. Bevan, Headmistress of the
South Liverpool School for Girls, who generously put
into his hands a draft version in the same metre, from
which were taken 1. 26, most of 11. 75-79, and not a
few other words and phrases, especially in the Child-
hood passage.
P. VERGILI MARONIS
ECLOGA IV
Sicelides Musae, paulo maiora canamus.
Non omnes arbusta iuvant humilesquc myricae;
si canimus siluas, siluae sint consulc dignae.
Ultima Cumaei uenit iam carminis aetas ;
5 magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
Iam redit et uirgo, redeunt Satumia regna ;
iam noua progenies caelo demittitur alto.
Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum
desinet ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,
10 casta faue Lucina : tuus iam regnat Apollo.
Teque adeo decus hoc aeui, te consule inibit,
Pollio, et incipient magni procedere menses ;
te duce, si qua manent sceleris uestigia nostri,
inrita perpetua soluent formidine terras.
15 Ille deum uitam accipiet diuisque uidebit
permixtos heroas, et ipse uidebitur illis,
pacatumque reget patriis uirtutibus orbem.
TRANSLATION
Muses to whom Sicilian shepherds sang,
Teach me a loftier strain. The hazel copse
And lowly tamarisk will not always please.
If still the wild, free woodland note be heard,
Our woodland song must suit a consul's ear. 5
Lo, the last age of Curare's seer has come !
5 Again the great millennial aeon dawns.
Once more the hallowed Maid appears, once more
Kind Saturn reigns, and from high heaven descends
The firstborn child1 of promise. Do but thou, 10
Pure Goddess, by whose grace on infant eyes
Daylight first breaks, smile softly on this babe ;
The age of iron in his time shall cease
And golden generations fill the world.
E'en now thy brother, Lord of Light and Healing, 15
10 Apollo, rules and ends the older day.
Thy office, Pollio, thine, shall mark the year
Wherein this star begins his glorious course.
Under thy banner all the stains of ill,
That shame us yet, shall melt away and break 20
The long, long night of universal dread.
15 For the child's birthright is the life of gods,
Heroes and gods together he shall know,
And rule a world his sire has blessed with peace.
1 Nona progenies denotes the expected child who is
to be the first of the new and better generation.
4 KCLOGA IV
At tibi prima, pucr, nullo munuscula cultu
errantes hederas passim cum baccare tellus
20 mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho.
Ipsae lacte domum referent distenta capellae
ubera, nee magnos metuent armenta leones.
Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores ;
occidet et serpens, et fallax herba ueneni
25 occidet ; Assyrium uolgo nascetur amomum.
At simul heroum laudes et facta parentis
iam legere et quae sit poteris cognoscere uirtus,
molli paulatim flauescet campus arista,
incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uua,
30 et durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella.
Pauca tamen suberunt priscae uestigia fraudis,
quae temptare Thetim ratibus, quae cingere
muris
oppida, quae iubeant telluri infindere sulcos.
Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quae uehat
Argo
35 delectos heroas ; erunt etiam altera bella,
atque iterum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles
TRANSLATION 5
For thee, fair Child, the lavish Earth shall
spread 25
Thy earliest playthings, trailing ivy-wreaths
And foxgloves red and cups of water-lilies,
20 And wild acanthus leaves with sunshine stored.
The goats shall come uncalled, weighed down with
milk,
Nor lions' roar affright the labouring kine. 30
Thy very cradle, blossoming for joy,
Shall with soft buds caress thy baby face ;
The treacherous snake and deadly herb shall
die,
25 And Syrian spikenard blow on every bank.
But when thy boyish eyes begin to read 35
Rome's ancient prowess and thy sire's great story,
Gaining the power to know what manhood is,
Then, league by league, the plain without a
sower
Shall ripen into waves of yellow corn ;
On every wild-thorn purple grapes shall cluster, 40
30 And stubborn oaks yield honey clear as dew.
But in men's hearts some lingering seed of ill
E'en yet shall bid them launch adventurous keels,
And brave the inviolate sea, and wall their towns,
And cut earth's face with furrows. Then behold 45
Another Tiphys take the helm and steer
Another Argo, manned by chosen souls
Seeking the golden, undiscovered East.
35 New wars shall rise, and Troy renewed shall see
Another great Achilles leap to land. 50
O ECLOGA IV
Hinc, ubi iam firmata uirum te fccerit aetas,
cedet ct ipse mari uector, ncc nautica pinus
mutabit merces : omnis feret omnia tellus.
40 Non rastros patictur humus, non uinea falcem ;
robustus quoque iam tauris iuga soluet arator;
nee uarios discet mentiri lana colores,
ipse sed in pratis aries iam suaue rubenti
murice, iam croceo mutabit uellera luto;
45 sponte sua sandyx pascentes uestiet agnos.
' Talia saecla ' suis dixerunt ' currite ' fusis
Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae.
Aggredere o magnos, aderit iam tempus, honores,
cara deum suboles, magnum Iouis incrementum.
50 Aspice conuexo nutantem pondere mundum,
terrasque tractusque maris caelumque pro-
fundum :
aspice, uenturo laetantur ut omnia saeclo.
O mihi tarn longae maneat pars ultima uitae
spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta,
55 non me carminibus uincat nee Thracius Orpheus,
nee Linus, huic mater quamuis atque huic pater
adsit,
Orphei Calliopea, Lino formosus Apollo.
Pan etiam, Arcadia mecum si iudice certet.
Pan etiam Arcadia dicat se iudice uictum.
TRANSLATION 7
At last, when stronger years have made thee
man,
The voyager will cease to vex the sea
Nor ships of pinewood longer serve in traffic,
For every fruit shall grow in every land.
40 The field shall thrive unharrowed, vines unpruned, 55
And stalwart ploughmen leave their oxen free.
Wool shall not learn the dyer's cozening art,
But in the meadow, on the ram's own back,
Nature shall give new colours to the fleece,
Soft blushing glow of crimson, gold of crocus, 60
45 And lambs be clothed in scarlet as they feed.
" Run, run, ye spindles ! On to this fulfilment
Speed the world's fortune, draw the living thread."
So heaven's unshaken ordinance declaring
The Sister Fates enthroned together sang. 65
Come then, dear child of gods, Jove's mighty heir,
Begin thy high career ; the hour is sounding.
50 See how it shakes the vaulted firmament,
Earth and the spreading seas and depth of sky i
See, in the dawning of a new creation 70
The heart of all things living throbs with joy !
Oh, if but life would bring me days enough
55 And breath not all too scant to sing thy deeds,
Not Thracian Orpheus should outdo the strain,
Nor Linus, though his mother aid the one, 75
His sire the other, sweet Calliope
And beautiful Apollo, Lord of Song.
Nay, even Pan, his own Arcadia judging,
Should, by Arcadia's judgment, own defeat.
8 ECLOGA IV
60 Incipe, parue puer, risu cognoscere matrem ;
matri longa decern tulerunt fastidia menses.
Incipe, parue puer : cui non riscre parentes,
nee deus hunc mensa, dea nee dignata cubili est.
Note. — Cui non risere parentes. In spite of Mr
Warde Fowler's weighty plea (p. 71) for Quintilian's
reading qui non risere parentes, I still feel that the
balance of authority, in the MSS., in Servius and
Nonius, is on the side of the traditional text ;
and I prefer its hunc even to Dr Postgate's hinc.
Quintilian took his reading to mean " Si quis infans
parentibus non adridet." But is it not less difficult
to believe in the accidental corruption of C to Q
in Quintilian's copy, than to ascribe to Virgil, in the
climax of such a poem, three such bewildering
lapses into everyday diction as (1) the transitive
use of ride re ; (2) the meaning "smile upon" instead
of " deride "; and (3) the change (on which Quintilian
comments) from the plural qui to the singular /tunc?
Such solecisms as (2) and (3) occur, of course, in
conversation and careless writing, as Quintilian and
Scaliger knew ; but I am not yet persuaded to find
them in Virgil.
The conjecture qui non risere parenti removes
only one of the difficulties and supposes a larger
corruption in Quintilian than the MS. reading of
our passage implies in Quintilian's text of Virgil.
The translation I have adopted gives the essential
TRANSLATION 9
60 Come, child, and greet thy mother with a
smile ! 80
Ten weary waiting months her love has known.
Come little Child ! Whoso is born in sorrow
Jove ne'er hath bidden join the immortal banquet,
Nor deathless Hebe deigned to be his bride.
meaning which is common to all the three read-
ings.
On the precise meaning of the last line see Mr
Warde Fowler's discussion on p. 74, and my note
on p. 21. But it is best to add here the alter-
native rendering which Mr Warde Fowler suggests
for the last four lines.
R. S. C.
Where is thy first sweet smile, my babe, to give
Thy mother joy, long months of suffering past ?
Where is the smile, my little one ? Ah there !
Who greets not so his mother must not seek
From guardian god or goddess, board or bride.
B
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
R. S. CONWAY
Professor of Latin in the University of Manchester
Few things are more characteristic of the
spirit of modern criticism than the complete
decay of the reverence with which Virgil's
Fourth Eclogue was once regarded. That
beautiful, playful, mysterious poem celebrated
the expected birth of a child, by declaring it
to mark the advent of a new Golden Age.
For fourteen centuries this declaration was
interpreted in only one way. From the first
establishment of Christianity in the Roman
empire, down to the days of Pope and
Johnson, the title of this Essay would have
been at once understood to refer to the Fourth
Eclogue, and no one would have thought it
natural to connect it with any other part of
the poet's writings. Some scholars, indeed,
might state more carefully than others the
ii
I 2 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
degree of consciousness of the meaning of
the Eclogue which they attributed to its
author ; but that the poem was an inspired
prediction of the Christian Messiah seemed
both clear and good to every Christian eye.
Modern commentators, however, protest with
one voice that the child — if it existed at all —
was some Roman infant of Virgil's own day,
and they lament over a belief which one of
the most judicious of them describes, with
quite theological warmth, "the ridiculous,
and if it were not sincere, I might have said
blasphemous, notion that the Eclogue
contained an inspired Messianic prophecy."
We find, then, the critics of a particular
epoch, though by no means clear as to what
the poem does mean, at least confident in
declaring that all their predecessors were
wrong ; and they do not pause even to
exempt from their censure the greatest student
ever drawn to Virgil's poetry — so that a living
and distinguished Oxford scholar accuses
Dante of " ridiculous " if not " blasphemous "
conduct. Under these distressing circum-
stances it may seem worth while to look into
the poem for ourselves, to separate its central
idea from the rest, and to ask what place that
POLLIO 13
idea holds in other parts of Virgil's writings.
For it can hardly, I think, be denied, that in
both the Georgics and the Aeneidwe. continually
meet with a conception which in many ways
is parallel to the Jewish expectation of a
Messiah ; that is to say, the conception of a
national hero and ruler, divinely inspired,
and sent to deliver not his own nation only,
but mankind, raising them to a new and
ethically higher existence. So far as I know,
no attempt has been made to examine this
question in the light of our present know-
ledge of Virgil.
The Fourth Eclogue is addressed to the
Consul Pollio — at least if we are content, as
honest persons1 must be, to accept the read-
ing of 1. 12 which is given by all the manu-
scripts. Gaius Asinius Pollio, soldier, states-
man, and poet, was a distinguished member
of the Caesarian party, in whose consul-
ship, towards the end of the year 40 B.C.,
1 The desperate emendation of Schaper, who (in
the leading edition for schools in Germany) changes
Pollio into orbis without the faintest critical warrant,
has the beautiful (though unnoticed) result of making
Lucina a consul ; for she is the only person to whom
te consule in 1. 11 could then possibly refer, as the reader
may see from the quotations below.
14 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
was expected the birth of the child which
is the subject of the poem. Of the position
of Roman affairs at that time we must take
some note later on ; here let us simply observe
that Pollio was one of the friends to whom,
a year sooner, Virgil owed the restoration of
his father's farm, which for a time had been
handed over to one of the countless " veterans "
of Octavian's army "settled" on other men's
lands. After invoking the muses of pastoral
poetry to help him in higher strains than
heretofore, Virgil turns at once to his double
theme, the return of the Golden Age, and
the birth of a particular child. Through a
not uncommon feature of language a the only
1 Based on what I suppose may be regarded as an
almost universal human feeling, at all events in the
ancient world, and by no means extinct ; witness a
playful passage (which it grieves me to mutilate) from
one of the most delightful chapters of .Air De Morgan's
Joseph Vance (London, 1906, p. 288) :
"And then I sit and think of that dear wife of mine
that I lost a quarter of a century ago — I think of the
happy weeks we passed after our happy wedding, in the
summer of '64, chiefly at old French towns, on the
coast or inland ; of happy wanderings on the endless
sands. . . . And as something always stands out clear,
the most vivid thing of all is one particular rosy fat
fishwife, and the sweet candour with which she asked
when Janey expected her fds. No such party was in
THE SIBYL AND THE COMET 1 5
Latin word for "child" is one that is
masculine in form, namely puer ; and hence
it is natural, indeed almost inevitable, that
the poet should write as if it were certain
that the child would be a boy. And it is
well to notice now that the lines which
invoke Lucina, the Goddess of Birth, and
the concluding prayer that the mother's
weary months of waiting may be happily
ended, make it quite certain (to every reader,
at least, whose sense of humour is not some-
what in abeyance) that it is not of some
mystical moral emblem, but of an actual
mother and child, that we are meant to think.
One of the sacred books of the Roman
state -religion was a selection of rhymes
and rubrics attributed to an ancient Wise
sight, but Marie Favre, or whatever her name was, took
him for granted, sex and all "
To Virgil it would have seemed a discourtesy to the
parents, and more an ill omen, to speak as if there
was any doubt of the sex of the child to be ; and it
was clearly essential to the whole scheme of a poem
which linked a great reformation of humanity to the
personality of the child, that the poet should " take for
granted," the sex of his Prince of peace.
I cannot help hoping that these considerations may
do something to modify Prof. Ramsay's strange but re-
iterated belief (see p. 58) that "a poet could not work
under such conditions," i.e., before the child was born.
l6 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
Woman or Sibyl, though the official book
of Virgil's day had in fact been compiled
no earlier than S2 r>.c, after a more ancient
document had been burnt in the Sullan
tumults. According to tradition, this Sibyl
lived at Cumas ; one of the "Sibylline"
rhymes seems to have improved on the
familiar doctrine1 of the four ages of the
world — gold, silver, bronze, and iron — by
declaring that the golden age, in which
Saturn was king, and which ended when
the Maiden Justitia (AUti or Astraea) left the
earth, was soon to begin over again. The
Roman astrologers, too, fired by the marvel-
lous portent of the Iulium sidus, the comet
which appeared soon after the murder of
Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., had been unusually
busy ; and, among other items of popular
instruction, they had spread the belief that
Caesar's death had fallen in the "last month
but one" of the "great year," or stellar
cycle of the Etruscans, at the close of which
the whole world was to begin its course
anew. Such were some of the current con-
1 Hesiod, Works and Days, 180. But the reader will
find a full account of the Sibylline oracles and their
sources in Dr Mayor's Essay.
THE WONDERFUL CHILDHOOD 1 7
ceptions that helped to mould the form of
the prophecy l to which the reader's attention
is now invited.
"Lo, the last age of Cumae's seer has come :
Again the great millennial aeon dawns.
Once more the hallowed Maid appears, once more
Kind Saturn reigns, and from high heaven descends
The first-born child of promise. Do but thou,
Pure Goddess, by whose grace on infant eyes
Daylight first breaks, smile softly on this babe ;
The age of iron in his time shall cease
And golden generations fill the world.
E'en now thy brother, Lord of Light and Healing,
Apollo, rules and ends the older day."
The lines thus roughly2 rendered supplied,
as we shall see, what may be called the
kernel of the mediaeval view of the poem.
The reference to Apollo is due to the
Etruscan doctrine that the last period or
"month" of the magnus annus was under
his lordship ; and the same bright deity
had been chosen by Augustus for his
special protector.
Virgil then turns to the patron to whom
the ode is offered, and from whose consul-
1 Lines 4-10.
2 And literally, except for the attempt to express the
meaning which the proper names conveyed to the Latin
reader.
C
l8 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
ship the year of the child's birth will be
dated : l—
"Thy office, Pollio, thine, shall mark the year
Wherein this star begins his glorious course.
Under thy banner, all the stains of ill,
That shame us yet, shall melt away and break
The long, long night of universal dread."
The rest of the poem pictures three stages
in the unfolding of the new era, corre-
sponding to the childhood, youth, and
manhood of the boy himself. Upon the
infant, earth lavishes unwonted gifts ; flowers
spring untended, and such flowers as make
the fairest contrasts, crimson foxgloves on
a background of wandering ivy, the soft
leaves of water-lilies,2 and the glistening,
pointed foliage of the acanthus. "The
she-goats unbidden shall bring home their
full udders, the cattle shall no longer fear
great lions ; . . . the serpent shall perish,
poisonous plants shall perish too ; the balm
of Assyria shall grow by the wayside."
The second stage comes when the child
is "old enough to read of the prowess of
ancient heroes and the great deeds of his
1 Lines n-14. The meaning of this "night of dread "
will appear clearly later on.
- Such seems to be the meaning of colocasia.
THE KINGDOM OF PEACE 19
father, and to learn what manly valour
means." Nature will then double her bounty,
and add corn, wine, and honey to the
flowers, without human toil. But men will
not yet have understood their new blessings ;
"there will still remain within them a few
traces of their ancient evil " {Pauca tamen
suberunt priscae uestigia fraudis) which will
bid them seek adventures over sea, build
city walls, and plough the fields as of old.
Again a band of heroes shall sail, like the
Argonauts, to seek treasure in the unknown
East, "another Achilles shall attack another
Troy." There cannot be a great leader of
men, thought Virgil, with nothing to con-
quer, at least in his youth. The picture of
the new age is not all fairyland. Men will
still have enough "original sin" (so
Augustine understands the phrase1) to lead
them into bold adventure. Or — if we may
leave the allegory for a moment — the new
ruler of the Roman world still has realms
to subdue; the Parthians2 and Indians will
give scope to his youthful ambition.
1 Civ. Dei, 16, 27.
2 The Parthians were in arms at the moment Virgil
wrote, and Mark Antony had undertaken to conquer
them ; but afterwards he had found more congenial
20 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
But Virgil cannot stop there. His dream
would be left incomplete if it ended with
the shout of triumph. "When sturdy age
has made the child a man," mankind will
have learnt to accept earth's bounty, and
to force her gifts no longer ; the ground
shall no longer suffer the harrow, nor the
vineyard the pruning hook ; the merchant
shall no longer trouble the sea. Every
man's needs shall be satisfied in his own
land ; instead of dyed stuffs from Tyre,
there shall be rams with purple and saffron
hair, and lambs with scarlet fleeces. And
with these playful colours1 the picture is
complete. The imagery, indeed, covers a
quite serious thought2 — the contrast between
the natural labour of the farmer and the
frauds and cruelties of trade (at a time
when every merchant ship had slaves for
a part of her cargo). But its main purpose
is to bring the reader back to the magical
occupations. If his eye ever lighted on the poem, he
no doubt interpreted the "new Achilles" as a compli-
ment to himself; but I must confess that I find it very
hard to think that Virgil even dreamt of intending this.
1 Far less strange to an Italian eye than to ours, as
every traveller knows.
This is worked out later on in one of the noblest
passages in the Gcorgics (ii. 496-531).
THE PRAYER AT THE END 21
flowers beside the cradle, a cradle still
waiting for its child. And so the poem
closes with a greeting to the infant, rising
to a higher note as the poet bids him enter
upon a more than human course. Glories
shall be his such as rewarded Hercules,1 the
1 In the last line of the Eclogue Mr Warde Fowler,
following the Servian commentary, sees an allusion to
the custom observed in noble Roman houses by which,
when a child was born, a mensa was dedicated to
Hercules and a lectus to Juno, as to the two presiding
deities of wedlock. This suggestion notably enriches the
meaning of the line, and I accept it very gladly on its
positive side. But I cannot help feeling that here, as
so often, Virgil transcends and glorifies the particular
point of usage or myth which was the occasion of what
he is writing ; and that he definitely means to suggest for
the young deliverer a career and a reward like that of
Hercules, with whom Augustus himself is continually
compared. " If ' Oftly he is born amid smiles (that is, safely
and with good omens), honour from men and love of
woman shall be his, but in far higher degree than even
the guardian deities we now invoke are wont to bestow.
Hercules shall be his dispensator, funo his pronuba, but
the board and the bride to which they call him shall be
as glorious as those won by Hercules himself? I cannot
quite feel with Mr Warde Fowler that the tone of the
passage is " simple and unconventional," though it is
certainly " real and tender." The " interwoven " order of
hunc and dignata, distributed over the two clauses, is
always, I think, a mark of serious and careful diction
(see Class. Rev., Oct. 1900, p. 357).
Such a double meaning as I suggest, will hardly, I
think, seem strange to any lover of Virgil. But to those
22 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
toiling servant of mankind, — a seat at the
table of the gods, a goddess for his bride.
Only let the mother's prayers be speedily
answered and her weariness crowned with a
baby's smile.
But who is the child? Why is the poet
so strangely reticent of the name of its
father? Why, indeed, said the early Christian
Church, but that he was speaking greater
things than he dared give a name to ; that
he and the Sibyl he is quoting were inspired
to predict the advent of the Christ. The
earliest recorded attempt (so far as I can
find) to interpret the poem in this sense
was that of the Emperor Constantine the
Great. His biographer, Eusebius, the con-
temporary historian and bishop, attributes
to him a "Speech to the Assembly of the
to whom this feature of his style is unfamiliar, may be
submitted as one case out of many, the meliorem animam,
the bull slain by Entellus in place of Dares whom he had
spared (Aen. v., 483). This means, as Servius saw, not
merely the melior viclima, which custom demanded
when an intended victim escaped, but also the non-
human sacrifice which the poet's humanity knew to be
"better" to the divine eye than the death of Dares.
Further examples are given in my lecture published in
The Proceedings of the Classical Association for 1906
{Manchester Meeting).
CONSTANTINE AND EUSEBIUS 23
Saints," which contains (cc. 19-21) an
elaborate exposition of Virgil's Eclogue
(Eusebius' record is, of course, in Greek).
It is sincere and interesting, if not entirely-
edifying. The Emperor was very glad
to connect his newly recognised1 religion
(313 a.d.) with the great traditions of the
pagan empire. After quoting and expound-
ing a "Sibylline" oracle (which is in part
of Christian date2) on which he supposed
Virgil's poem to be based, he proceeds from
Virgil's opening prediction of a new genera-
tion and an unknown infant, and declares
that the poet knew that he was writing of
Christ, but wrapped the prophecy in an
allegory in order to escape persecution. The
chief figures of the poem are interpreted
with somewhat appalling ingenuity. The
Virgo is, of course, the Virgin Mary ; 3 the
1 Here and in one or two other points of later history
I owe some not unimportant corrections to the learning
and kindness of my colleague, Professor T. F. Tout.
2 See on this Dr Mayor's Essay, pp. 98, 131.
3 The Greek rendering given for lam redit et Virgo,
redeunt Saturnia regna is "EU-et Trapdivos aWis dyovcr' iparbv
pao-iXija, the latter half of which at first sight reads like
a deliberate falsification. But a glance at the description
of Saturn's descent to reign on earth given in Aen. viii.
319-321 (cf. p. 124 below) will, I think, be enough to
24 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
"lions," who are no longer to be feared,
are the persecutors of the Church ; the
serpent who shall perish is the serpent who
betrayed Eve ! The imperial commentator
felt no hesitations ; and he has at least
given us an excellent example of the way
in which poetry should not be interpreted.
One may be thankful that he has not laid
hands on the saffron-coloured rams.
From Constantine and Eusebius we turn
with relief to more thoughtful readers of
Virgil. Augustine is never tired of quoting
him,1 and regards him with unbroken venera-
tion, but ascribes2 the actual prophecy of
Christ in this Eclogue only to the Sibyl,
and supposes that Virgil himself had no
knowledge of the person to whom the predic-
tion referred. He even acknowledges 3 that
he would have been unwilling to believe that
defend the translator from the suspicion of conscious
fraud. The knots of the last two lines were all cut by
putting only a comma at pitcr and a full stop at parentes !
1 See, for instance, the lemma Vergilius in any
index to the Civitas Dei.
2 Civ. Dei, x. 27.
3 Epistolae ad Romanos inchoata Expositio, lib. i. c. 3.
" Fuerunt enim et prophetae non ipsius (dei) in quibus
etiam aliqua inueniuntur quae de Christo audita
cecinerunt, sicut etiam de Sibylla dicitur : quod non
AUGUSTINE AND DANTE 25
the Sibyl had spoken of Christ (even by
repeating "prophecies that had been heard")
had not Virgil referred to her in this Eclogue,
— for the reference of the Eclogue to Christ
was to his mind too patent to admit of any
reasonable doubt. So it came about that the
Dies irae (whatever its date) ranks the Sibyl
side by side with David.
Such, too, was the belief of the poet Dante.
Every one is familiar with the unique position
of honour which Virgil holds in the Divina
Commedia as the interpreter of the Divine will
and the poet's guide through two-thirds of
the unseen world. Nor is this due merely
to reverence for Virgil as a poet. Explicitly
and many times Dante ascribes to him the
power of converting men to a knowlege of
divine truth.1 At the outset, when Dante
facile crederem, nisi quod poetarum quidam in Romana
lingua nobilissimus antequam diceret ea de innouatione
saeculi quae in Domini nostri Jesu Christi regnum satis
concinere et conuenire uideantur, praeposuit uersum,
dicens, Ultima Cumaei tarn carminis aetasP Augustine's
wording has the caution of a true scholar.
1 On Dante's representation of the relation of Virgil
to Christianity, I cannot do better than refer the reader
to the very interesting and scholarly Excursus (to which
I am not a little indebted), in Notter's Dcmte's Gottliche
Conwdie iibersetzt u. erldutcrt^ Stuttgart, 1871 (vol. i.
P- 517).
D
26 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
was lost in the selva oscura, the dark forest
of worldly ambitions, it was Virgil who came
to "lead him home" (a ca riduce mi —
Inf. xv. 54) by a marvellous way ; and it is
Beatrice herself, the impersonation of divine
grace, who has sent Virgil on his errand.
As she commissions him l she declares,
"When I stand before my Divine Master,
I will often speak thy praise to Him." And
in a passage2 on which a flood of light has
been recently thrown by Dr Verrall, Dante
makes the poet Statius, whom he thought3
to have been a Christian, attribute to Virgil,
and to the Fourth Eclogue in particular, his
own first interest in Christianity.
" What sun or what candles," asks Virgil,4
"so dispelled thy darkness that thou didst
direct thy sails to follow the Fisherman "
{i.e. St. Peter)? And Statius replied :
"Thou it was that first leddest me towards
1 Inferno, ii. 73, and indeed the whole speech from
1.55-
2 Purg. xxii. 61.
3 The origin of this belief on Dante's part has been
set beyond doubt by Dr Verrall's brilliant article,
"To follow the Fisherman" (Indep. Rev., i., 1903,
p. 246).
4 I quote from Mr Arthur Butler's admirable prose
translation, with only occasional modifications.
DANTE, POPE, JOHNSON 27
Parnassus .... and next didst light me on
the road to God. Thou didst as one who
goes by night, who bears a light behind
him and helps not himself, but after him
makes the people wise, when thou saidst,
'The world renews itself: justice returns
and the first age of man ; and a new offspring
descends from Heaven.' Through thee I
was a poet, through thee a Christian. . . .
Already was the whole world teeming with
the true belief, sown by the messages of
the eternal realm : and thy word .... was
in harmony with the new preachers, wherefore
I began to visit them. And at last they
came to seem to me so holy that when
Domitian persecuted them, their plaints
were not without tears from me. And so
long as [I was] in the world I aided them,
and their righteous manners made me hold
all other philosophies of small price. . . .
Thou then .... didst lift the covering that
hid from me so much good."
In our own country it is scarcely two
hundred years1 since Pope published his
Messiah, in the preface to which he accepts
the view of Augustine, namely, that the
1 1709 is the date of the Pastorals.
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
prophecy of an unnamed child was taken by
Virgil from the Sibyl, and in her lips had
been a prediction of Christ. Pope followed
the tradition of his own church ; but even
his Protestant critic, Samuel Johnson,1 does
not seem for a moment to demur.
In all this, then, we see that the outstanding
reason for the Christian interpretation of the
Eclogue was the fact that the child was not
1 Lives of the Poets (ed. M. Arnold), p. 419.
Pope made an interesting contribution to the criticism
of the Eclogue by collecting the six or seven passages in
it, and the Fifth Eclogue (which, as we now know, relates
to the deification of Julius Caesar) in which the poetical
imagery resembles that of the similar prophecies of
a regenerated world in Isaiah. Now it is true that
Virgil's snake and lions do not behave quite like
Isaiah's ; true also that similar parallels can be found
without difficulty, as the commentators show, in Greek
and Latin poets ; but their combination in one poem
renders at least possible, though perhaps not very
probable, the ingenious theory of Mr H. W. Garrod
{Class. Rev., 1904, p. 37), that they were taken by Virgil
from some poem of I'ollio's own — since from Josephus it
appears that Pollio had Jewish connexions, and it is
possible that a Pharisee named Pollio (Jose/>/ius, xv. 1. 1)
was actually related to him. The literary problem,
which seems to me distinct from the general question
of Virgil's attitude towards Messianic doctrine, is
discussed in the third of these Essays, which demonstrates
the existence of many other links in the chain between
Virgil and Jewish prophecy.
WHO WAS THE CHILD? 29
named. I have already expressed my con-
viction that Virgil had in mind a real child
whose birth was expected. On the question
what child it was whom Virgil meant, I can
hardlv do more1 than state the conclusion
to which I was led some time ago ; but I do
so with confidence, because I find that it
has been reached by several distinguished
scholars independently of one another —
Henry Nettleship, Mr Warde Fowler, and
one of the first of living German Latinists,
Professor Skutsch 2 of Breslau.
The plain fact is, that the "father" who
has given peace to the world can be no one
but Octavian ; the child who is to rule the
world can have been in Virgil's mind no
other than the heir to the empire, whose birth
was expected in the latter half of 40 B.C.,
but who, in fact, was never born. To
Octavian's bitter disappointment the child
1 As to the theory that the child was a son of Pollio
see Mr Warde Fowler's paper, p. 80, foil. Who can
believe that Pollio was the father of the child when
Virgil only calls him the consul in whose year the child
is to be born ?
2 Aus VergiPs Friikzeit, pp. 148-160. Professor J. W.
Mackail tells me, too, that he has now reached the same
conclusion.
30 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
whom Scribonia bore him early in 39 b.c.
was a girl, the Julia whose happiness was
to be so deeply chequered by her father's
dynastic designs. Scribonia was divorced
upon the same day, having lost the one
strong claim she might have possessed to
the Emperor's gratitude.1 But Virgil's
Eclogue had been already published, and
was itself, as an ante-natal ode must always
be, more concerned with the father than
the child, more indeed with the hopes of
the world than with either father or child.
To cancel the poem later on would have been
to draw men's attention to Scribonia's mis-
fortune and the Emperor's greatest perplexity,
his want of an heir; it was therefore allowed
to stand, enigma though it had become.2
Who could possibly have foretold the extra-
ordinary influence upon the history of the
world with which this wise and gentle silence
was destined to endue the poet?. Or that the
authority derived from it would be great
1 Dio Cassius, xlviii. 34. There can be no doubt that
this is the true interpretation of the divorce ; it was
given first, I believe, by Mr Warde Fowler in 1903.
2 Dr Rothstein pointed out to Skutsch a precise
parallel, an unfulfilled prophecy (of an heir to Domitian)
which still survives in Martial (vi. 3).
THE GROWTH OF THE IDEA 31
enough to model for many centuries, if not
for all time, the whole Christian conception
of the after-world upon the Vision of ^Eneas
in the Sixth Book of the Aeneid?
If, then, we may at last leave behind us
the controversies which have gathered round
this particular fragment of Virgil's poetry,
we come to a rather wider question. Do
Virgil's other writings show anything like
the hope of a Messiah? and if so, what
kind of a Messiah do they foreshadow? We
have seen that certain external coincid-
ences with Christian tradition were merely
accidental : is there beneath these any real
harmony?
My contention may be briefly expressed
in a few statements, some of which will
be, I think, admitted at once. I believe
that we may and must attribute to Virgil
the conscious possession of certain ideas
which may be roughly enumerated as
follows : —
1. That the guilt of mankind had grown
to be unendurable, so that the world was
pitiably in need of regeneration.
2. That the establishment of the Empire
was an epoch strangely favourable to some
32 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
such ethical movement, and intended by
Providence to introduce it.
3. That it was part of the duty of Rome
to attempt the task.
4. That one special deliverer would be
sent by Providence (or in the Aeneid, that
a deliverer had already been sent) to begin
the work.
5. That the work would involve suffering
and disappointment ; and that its essence
lay in a new spirit, a new and more humane
ideal.
Now if we can show that these were
among the thoughts which moved Virgil,
the admission will surely imply that, in the
deepest and truest sense of the word, Virgil
did "prophesy" the coming of Christianity.
We should be justified in maintaining that
he read the spiritual conditions of his time
with profound insight, and with not less
profound hope declared that some answer
would be sent to the world's need. How
much more than these two gifts of insight
and faith men may take to be involved in
the conception of a prophet we need not
consider ; for we shall all agree that no great
religion will ever be content with less ; no
THE LAST CENTURY B.C. 33
mere mechanical foreknowledge has ever been
or will ever be enough to make a man a
great teacher of his fellows. In enquiring,
therefore, into Virgil's teaching upon such
points as have been suggested, we are not
following some curious by-way of literary
study ; we are at the very heart of the
central movement of history, and touching
the deepest forces that have made and are
making mankind.
Of the points enumerated, only the last
(if even that) can be called in any sense
new. The others hardly need to be justified,
save that we must examine the first a little
more closely if we wish to realise what kind
of a world it was in which Virgil lived and
wrote.
No one who is even superficially acquainted
with the terrible century before Augustus (say
from 133-31 B.C.) will doubt that the sufferings
caused to the world by the "delirium" of its
rulers1 had reached an unbearable pitch. In
that period of time Italy had seen twelve
separate civil wars,2 six of which had involved
1 Hor. Epistles, 1, 2, 14.
2 Bellum Sociale ; Bellum Octauianum ; the return of
Sulla ; the wars of Lepidus, Sertorius, Spartacus,
Catiline, Julius Csesar, the Triumvirs; in 41 B.C., the
E
34 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
many of the provinces ; a long series of
political murders, beginning with the Gracchi,
and ending with Cassar and Cicero ; five
deliberate, legalised massacres, from the
drum-head court-martial,1 which sentenced
to death three thousand supposed followers
of Gaius Gracchus, to the second proscrip-
tion dictated by Mark Antony.2 Men still
spoke with a shudder3 of the butchery of
seven thousand Samnite prisoners in the
hearing of the assembled Senate, and the
boy Virgil would meet many men who had
seen the last act of the struggle with
Spartacus and his army of escaped gladiators
— six thousand prisoners nailed on crosses
along the whole length4 of the busiest road
in Italy, from Rome to Capua. And the
long record of the oppression of the provinces
year by year under every fresh governor is
year before the Fourth Eclogue, the Bellum Perusinum ;
and after that, before the Ceorgics were published, the
naval war with Sextus Pompeius and the final conflict
with Antony.
1 Orosius, v. 12.
2 The three others were those of Marius and Sulla,
and the execution of the followers of Spartacus.
s Caesar, ap. Cic, Ad Att., ix. yc. i.
4 About one hundred and fifty miles ; Appian, Bell.
Ciuil. i, 120.
THE BURDEN OF GUILT 35
hardly less terrible. The chief causes of
this chaos were the complete decay of civil
control over the military forces of the
empire ; the growth of capitalism and the
concentration of capital in the hands of the
governing class at Rome ; and the economic
disorder springing from the methods of
ancient warfare, especially the enormous
growth of slavery and the depopulation of
Italy. They are all summed up in that
tremendous Ergo in the conclusion 1 of the
First Georgic, which attributes the miseries
of mankind directly to the just wrath of
heaven.
"Therefore it was that twice Philippi saw
The clash of Roman swords in Roman hands ;
Nor did high heaven disdain twice to enrich
The broad Thessalian plain with Roman blood."
And the same evils have their place in the
famous contrast between the peaceful toil of
the farmer and the corrupt, reckless ambitions
of political life, which closes the Second
1 G. i. 489 :
Ergo inter sese paribus concurrere telis
Romanas acies iterum uidere Philippi.
Nee fuit indignum superis bis sanguine nostro
Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere campos.
36 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
Georgic. Hardly even Cicero, and certainly
no other man of that generation, felt the
shame of that corruption as did Virgil. With
burning scorn he points to the roads by which
the greatest men x of his age had won their
way to power.
"Some fret with labouring oars the treacherous sea
Eager to trade in slaughter, breaking through
The pomp and sentinels of ancient kings.
This man will storm a town and sack its homes,
To drink from alabaster, sleep in purple.
His rival hoards up gold and broods alone
On buried treasure. That man's dream is set
On power to sway a crowd by eloquence,
Or so command the acclaim of high and low
That vast assemblies at his coming vie
To fill his ears with plaudits. Here the victors
March proud of brothers' blood upon their hands ;
There steal the vanquished, torn from home and
children,
To seek new fatherlands in alien skies."
And in the Aeneid, who can forget the
picture of the fall of Troy, with the con-
centrated pathos of its central scene, the
1 G. ii. 503-512. Every Roman reader must have felt
the indictment which these lines framed against the
first triumvirs, though not against them only : the
oriental triumphs of Pompey with his enormous force :
the cruelty of Caesar's Gallic Wars (especially, perhaps,
the siege of Alesia) ; and the miser's wealth of their
partner Crassus may well have been in the poet's mind.
THE ADVENT OF PEACE 37
butchery of Polites before his father's and
his mother's eyes, and of Priam himself
upon the steps of the altar? And what is
the tremendous machinery of punishment
after death which the Sixth Book describes
in the most majestic passage1 of all epic
poetry but the measure of Virgil's sense of
human guilt?
That the advent of the Empire, with the
possibility which it offered of universal peace,
seemed to Virgil the providential forerunner
of even greater blessings, is clearly stated all
through the Aeneid. Not less clear is the
part which he deemed the temporal power
of Rome was to play in the new growth of
society ; and almost equally clear is the
function he assigns to the idealised Augustus.2
In other words, few readers of Virgil will
doubt the truth of the next three steps in
my argument One comment only may be
here permitted, though it is so simple that
at first sight it may seem almost trivial. Free
communication between different parts of the
1 ii. 506-558 ; vi. 548-627. To see how far, at his
greatest, Virgil towers above the thought of the
Homeric age, compare this passage with Odyssey, xi.
576-600.
* E.g., G. i. ad fin. Aen. i. 289-296.
3§ THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
world was made possible by the new roads,
the new postal system, and the complete
suppression of war by land and of piracy
by sea ; and these things, which marked the
accession of Augustus, lasted through the
first three centuries of the Empire — precisely
the period in which Christianity grew to be
a world-religion. Has such freedom of travel
ever been known again, I wonder, in any
other three centuries of history? We may
repeat a saying of Pope Leo the Great1
(440-461 a.d.), which anticipated many
eloquent pages of Professor Freeman :.^J±Xo
the end that the fruit of God's unspeakable
grace might be"~diffused throughout the
world, the Divine Providence created before-
hand the dominion of Rome."
We come now to my chief and last point,
the character of the change that Virgil
prophesied, and the spirit in which it was
to be sought. And this will explain what
may have seemed an inconsistency in the
argument hitherto. How can you, it may
be objected, see in Virgil's writings any
1 Quoted by Notter, I.e. p. 526. Ut enarrabilis gratiae
per totum mundum diffunderetur effectus, Romanum
regnum divina providentia praeparavit.
THE POET'S NEW IDEAL 39
anticipation of a spiritual Messiah, when
Virgil declares that Augustus is the deliverer
he celebrates, that Augustus' work is to bring
the great reformation ? If Virgil was in the
end content to accept as the Deliverer a
personality so full of blots, can we interpret
seriously his loftier predictions? But such a
criticism is based on a misconception. Virgil
was not content with the past or present
weaknesses of the particular human being
called Octavian ; he condemns roundly, as
we have seen, the violent deeds linked with
his earlier career ; what Virgil extols is the
vast service l which Augustus was visibly
rendering to mankind, and the still higher
service which seemed to lie in the new ideal
of the Empire. In the passage devoted to
Augustus in Aeneid vi., there is no mention
of his triumphs in war ; his first glory is
the recall of the Golden Age of Justice;2
1 This conception of service to humanity marks all the
praise of Augustus in Virgil, as I have shown elsewhere
(in the Proceedings of the Classical Association for 1906),
and separates it somewhat widely from the tributes of
Propertius, Tibullus, and even of Horace ; and by a great
gulf from the abominable flatteries of Domitian in Martial.
2 vi. 792. Aurea condet
Saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arua
Saturno quondam.
40 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
the last, his journeying in peace through the
Empire, like the traveller Hercules who
tamed the wild beasts of the forest, like
Liber who yoked his tigers to the chariot
of harvest-rejoicing.
What, then, was the new ideal? It was
the conception of peace by forgiveness, of
conciliation instead of punishment, — in a
word, the ideal of mercy. It was indeed
for a part of this, that is, for just and humane
government, that Cicero had lived and died ;
and from him Julius Caesar had learnt, ere
the end of his stormy career, the great
political secret of forgetting offences ; but the
deeper ethical note, the human synTpathy and
tenderness of Virgil's appeal to the world, is
all his own. In his great picture-gallery of
Roman heroes,1 nothing surely is more strik-
ing than the faint praise or open censure
which he bestows on those who were merely
great warriors, like KingTullus, theTarquins,
or Torquatus " of the cruel axe." Of Brutus,
the first consul, who sentenced his own son
to death for conspiring against the republic,
Virgil's kindest word is infelix. Of Julius
Caesar we have nothing but a lament for his
1 Aen. vi. 756-846.
THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT 41
share in the Civil War,1 and a prophetic
entreaty to him (in the lips of Anchises) to
be the first to throw away the sword ; and
in this delicate, poetic homage to the great
dictator, who shall say if there is more praise
than regret?
Among the characters with whom he
peoples Elysium, Virgil sets the faithful
warriors only at the beginning ; 2 in the
climax come the virtues of peace and human
affection :
"Whoso through life kept priestly honour pure,
Or found new arts and made the world more fair,
They whose good service made their memory loved,
These all are crowned with wreaths of snowy wool.''
1 Aen. vi. 832-835. After prophesying the war between
Caesar and Pompey, Anchises continues : —
Nepueri, ne tanta animis adsuescite bella,
Neu patriae ualidas in uiscera uertite uires.
Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo,
Proice tela manu, sanguis meus.
2 Hie manus ob patriam pugnando uolnera passi,
Quique sacerdotes casti dum uita manebat,
Inuentas aut qui uitam excoluere per artes,
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo,
Omnibus his niuea cinguntur tempora uitta.
Aen. vi. 662-665. And the warriors are only admitted
because they " have suffered wounds in defending their
country" {ob patriam, not merely pro patria).
It is impossible to translate words like excoluere, which
F
42 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
And in the same vision of Anchises we
have the famous description of the duty to
which Rome is called:1 —
" Others I well believe with finer touch
Shall kindle breath in forms of bronze, and carve
Faces of marble all aglow with life ;
Others shall plead with greater eloquence,
Make chart of Heaven and tell the rising stars ;
But choose thou, son of Rome, the imperial task
Of ruling peoples ; this shall be thy art,
Show mercy to the humble, crush the proud,
And make the nations learn the law of peace."
But the fullest embodiment of this con-
ception is in the second half of the Aeneid.
The story gives us a dramatic picture of
the ideal ruler in conflict with the concrete
forces of selfishness, passion, and ignor-
suggests turning a wilderness into a garden ; artes, which
includes philosophic, artistic, and poetic creation as well
as mechanical inventions : and merendo, which includes
every form of service rendered to one's fellows ; nor can
the golden simplicity of the whole passage be conveyed
by any translation.
1 Acn. vi. 847-853.
Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, —
Credo equidem, — uiuos ducent de marmore uoltus :
Orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
Describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent :
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento ;
Hre tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.
THE IDEAL EMPEROR 43
ance ; a picture more profound than any
that the art of Homer ever essayed to draw,
and for that reason losing something of the
fresh, boyish delight in stirring action that
rings all through the battles on the Trojan
plain. The whole fabric of Virgil's narra-
tive, we can hardly doubt, is woven out of
the impressions made upon him by the
history l of his time ; but we can trace here
only its central thread, a thread of gold.
The thought that shines through the story
is that no such warfare ought to be ; that
it is not the natural but the unnatural, or
as Virgil calls it, the "impious" way of
settling human questions ; that reasonable-
ness and pity are the greatest prerogatives
of power.
For observe that ^neas enters Italy not
1 We can only note in passing how closely the enemies
of /Eneas resemble the leaders of strife in Rome. The
likeness of Turnus to Antony, of Mezentius to Catiline
(both Etruscans, by the way— this is shown in Catiline's
case by the form of his name, one of the masculines in
-a), of Latinus to Pompey, cannot be accidental. And
is it wholly by chance that the half-plebeian Drances
represents with such eloquence the humane and law-
abiding patriotism of Cicero, but, like Cicero, cannot
resist the temptation to spoil a noble plea by one bitter
shaft of invective (the word pulsus, in Aen. xi. 366) ?
44 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
as an invader, but as a friend ; no freebooter,
but a pilgrim, seeking only to execute divine
commands. The war is created by the powers
of evil.
" Mischief, thou art afoot ; take thou what course
thou wilt."
cries Shakspere's Antony, as the mob he
has excited rush off to murder the innocent
Cinna. It is the same cruel, unscrupulous
passion which Virgil portrays when Juno1
sends the Fury to incite the Latins to break
faith with yEneas. Mark her commission.
" Thine is the power to embroil kind brothers' hands,
Sink homes in hatred, light the father's pyre,
And make his freeborn children dread the lash.
A thousand names, a thousand mischiefs thou !
Wake all thy cunning : break their solemn treaty,
Sow slanderous seed that blood may be the harvest,
And fill at once hearts, voices, hands with war."
To this spirit the brave, patient humanity
of ^neas is in perpetual contrast. In words
1 Aen. vii. 335-34Q-
Tu potes unanimos armare in proelia fratres,
Atque odiis uersare domos, tu uerbera tectis
Funereasque inferre faces. Tibi nomina mille,
Mille nocendi artes : fecundum concute pectus,
Disiice compositam pacem, sere crimina belli ;
Arma uelit poscatque simul rapiatque iuventus.
THE CHIVALRY OF ^NEAS 45
it is expressed clearly in his speech to the
Latin envoys ; l but the most striking, and,
as one is tempted to say, the most un-Roman
example, is his conflict with Lausus. /Eneas
is pressing Mezentius hard : his young son
Lausus rushes in to save his father, and
proudly insists on continuing the combat
himself when Mezentius has retreated. In
vain ./Eneas warns and tries to spare him ;
the Etruscans gather in support of Lausus,
who will not be stayed until the spear of
/Eneas has pierced his heart. How does
./Eneas regard him then?2
" But when he saw the dying look and face,
The face so wondrous pale, Anchises' son
Uttered a deep groan, pitying him, and stretched
His right hand forth, as in his soul there rose
The likeness of the love he bore his sire.
' Poor boy ! What guerdon for thy glorious deeds,
Say what, to match that mighty heart of thine
Shall good /Eneas yield thee ? Those thine arms
Wherein thou gloried'st, keep them ; and thyself,
1 Aen. xi. 108- 119.
2 Ibid. x. 821-832. The version is that of Mr James
Rhoades, save that, greatly daring, I have made one
or two slight changes at the end, where Mr Rhoades'
beautiful lines seemed perhaps to have sacrificed some
fraction of the strength of the Latin. I should perhaps
add that this is the only one of the renderings of Virgil
in this paper which I have ventured to borrow.
46 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
If such desire can touch thee, to the shades
And ashes of thy fathers I restore.'
Then calls he the lad's followers, chiding them
For laggards, and uplifts their fallen lord,
His comely boyish hair all stained with blood."
There is no such scene in Homer, nor,
unless I mistake, in any other poetry before
that of Christian chivalry. And it is thrown
into high relief by the contrast with the
savagery of Turnus,1 who allows no one
but himself to slay the young prince Pallas,
and cries, "Would that his father were
here to see him fall."
In the crowning scene of the Aencid this
cruelty recoils on Turnus himself. As he
lies defeated and begs for mercy, ^Eneas
stays his hand and is about to spare even
Turnus. But his eye falls on the baldric of
Pallas which Turnus had taken for himself,
and his grief for Pallas rouses again the
temper of the warrior and the judge. Turnus
must die. "Pallas," he cries, "Pallas
slays thee," and plunged his sword full in
Turnus' breast. "The chill of death relaxed
his frame, and moaning his spirit fled
1 Aen. xi. 443.
THE FURTHER SHORE 47
indignant through the darkness."1 Moan-
ing and indignant, the defeated rebel ends
his course : pitiful and indignant, Virgil ends
the story. The ruthless Turnus could not
be trusted to live in the new era ; but oh,
the pity of his fall, the pity of his punish-
ment ! Nowhere more exquisitely does Virgil
"stretch out his hands in longing for the
further shore," nowhere more touchingly
express his sense of the incompleteness
of the greatest human triumph, than by
this last line of the Aeneid, his last word to
mankind. His hero has fought, has suffered
long, -hasxunqireTed-;--yetrtifs~conque'st~ltself
is cause for sorrow, because it shows that
"the deeper enemy, the wilfulness of human
passion, has yet to be destroyed. Surely,
if more than human breath ever moved in
human utterance, some whisper at least of
-divinainspiration must be heard in such an
ending to such a poem as this._ In Dante's
wor^_^^_think_ of Vii^_isZof_lione who
1 Aen. xii. 952. Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata
per umbras. The Homeric warrior dies " moaning over
his own fate," but not "indignant." Only Virgil has
room for this touch. Observe that the ethical colour
of the word is even stronger in Latin than in English
because of its close association with digmis and dignari.
48 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN VIRGIL
goes by night and bears a light behind him,
and after him makes the people wise." It
was what we call an accident that gave to
the author of the Fourth Eclogue such
authority among Christians that his teaching
was studied as almost an integral part of
the Christian revelation ; but it was not an
accident that his teaching was so profound,
so pure, so merciful. Understood in the
only way possible to the mind of the early
centuries, that Eclogue made him a direct
prophet, and therefore an interpreter of
Christ ; and it is not the deepest students
of Virgil who have thought him unworthy
of that divine ministry.
THE CHILD OF THE POEM
BY W. WARDE FOWLER
It is now some years since Mr Mackail
warned us, in his admirable and suggestive
volume on Latin literature,1 that there is
no great mystery in the Fourth Eclogue,
and that it is in reality only a poem of
nature. "The enchanted light which lingers
over it is hardly distinguishable from that
which saturates the Georgics. ... It is not
so much a vision of a golden age as Nature
herself seen through a medium of strange
gold." We have been led astray, he tells
us, by ancient misconceptions of its ideas
and imagery ; the Sibylline verses which sug-
gested these "were really but the accidental
grain of dust round which the crystallisation
of the poem began."
1 Latin Literature (1895), p. 94.
49 G
50 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
This is not so much the judgment of a
student as of a scholar and a man of letters ;
it is the carefully expressed opinion of one
who has the true Virgilian feeling, and who
knows the poet through and through, as
his translations of all the poems of Virgil
amply testify. Even if we call it one-sided
or paradoxical, it is at least wholesome for
the student; for the training of the modern
"philolog" is not apt to produce that feeling
for a poet's mind without which, after all, the
best criticism of poetry is unattainable.
More than a warning, however, it cannot
be, in spite of the truth contained in it.
There are some literary works about which
the diva cupido of scholars will always con-
tinue to exercise itself, and this little poem
is one of them ; and as it happens fortunately
that its poetry is not of the very highest
order, and that the speculations it suggests
are so various as to lead the student into
many by-paths of ancient life and literature,
we may assume that Virgil has here suffered
no great hurt from his commentators, while
they have gained something by their labours.
There is certainly no sign that they are
giving up those labours as useless. In the
RECENT CRITICISM 5 1
voluminous study of the Eclogues published
in 1897 by M. Cartault, Professor of Latin
Poetry at Paris, may be found some account
of a vast number of discussions which have
appeared on the subject during the last thirty
or forty years, in France, Germany, Italy,
England, and America.1 Since the publica-
tion of his book yet more have been added
to the number ; and two of these are among
the most interesting I have seen. A paper
by Professor Sir W. M. Ramsay on "the
meeting of Horace and Virgil," containing
some most instructive remarks on our poem,
was published in 1898 in the Proceedings of
the Franco- Scottish Society, and only came into
my hands through the kindness of its writer.
Since then again, in the Revue de Phistoire
des Religions (November, 1900), the dis-
tinguished French savant, M. Salomon
Reinach, has written an essay of very curious
interest, suggesting an entirely new inter-
pretation of the Eclogue. And now I, too,
am under the impression, or delusion, that
I have something worth saying in the
debate.
It is not my purpose, however, to discuss
1 Etude sur les Bucoliques de Virgile, pp. 210 foil.
52 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
the poem in detail ; I propose to deal chiefly
with the last four lines of it, and with their
bearing, as I understand it, on the rest of
the poem. I shall also hope to show how
they may serve as a useful touchstone to
distinguish false criticism from true, and
how some good critics have been misled,
as I think, by failing to give them their
due weight. Among these I am compelled
to reckon both Professor Ramsay and M.
Reinach ; and as it is not likely that many
scholars have become acquainted with the
contributions of either of these, owing to
the character of the periodicals in which
they were published,1 I will start with a
brief account and criticism of their sugges-
tions. It may be as well, however, just
to remind the reader that there are three
main questions arising out of a study of
the poem, apart from certain obscurities of
detail. These are: i. What was Virgil's
purpose in writing it, and in connecting it,
as he clearly did, with the consulship of
Pollio in 40 B.C.? 2. Who or what was
the child whose birth it celebrates and whose
fortunes it foretells? 3. Whence did Virgil
1 See below, p. 95 note.
MAIN QUESTIONS 53
draw the very peculiar ideas and imagery
of the poem? These questions have been
variously answered ever since the age of
the earliest Roman commentators : but I
suppose that the views most generally held
both in ancient and modern times have
been — (i) that the poet sought to celebrate
the consulship of Pollio, and the peace of
Brundisium, by describing a golden age
now again to appear on earth in the course
of a cycle of ages, under the united auspices
of Octavianus and Antonius : (2) that the
child who was to see, inaugurate, and typify
the new age, was a real infant, born or
expected in 40 B.C., and probably a son
of Pollio himself: (3) that the poet drew
his ideas and imagery from Sibylline verses
now lost, from Hesiod, from Orphic poets,
possibly even from Hebrew prophets, and to
some extent from his Roman predecessors.
Let us go on at once to compare these
familiar explanations with the views of
Professor Ramsay and M. Reinach.
Professor Ramsay was led to his con-
clusions in the course of working out the
subject of his paper — the intercourse of
Horace and Virgil. Assuming that the
54 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
sixteenth Epode of Horace was published
separately, or rather, as we may perhaps
say, was known to literary circles before the
book of Epodes as a whole, and probably at
the time of the Perusian war in 41 B.C., he
explains its obvious likeness to the Fourth
Eclogue by supposing that the latter was in
some sense an answer to it. Horace, in
despair at the new outbreak of civil war,
had fancifully suggested that the Italian
race should migrate like the Phocaean of
old to the far west, where, as Sertorius had
been told in Spain, lay the islands of the
blest. Virgil answers him thus (I quote
Professor Ramsay's words): "Seek not the
better age in a fabled island of the west.
It is here and now with us. The child
already born in Italy will inaugurate it and
live in it. The period upon which Italy is
now entering more than fulfils in real life
the dream of a Golden Age perpetuated in
a distant or fabulous island. The marvels
which are told of that island are being
realised now in Italy under the new order,
through the influence of peace and prudence
and organisation. The new Roman genera-
tion will in this way destroy every noxious
prof, ramsay's view 55
plant and animal, and will make the land
sufficient for its own people by the good
agriculture that grows all products in
abundance ; it will improve the natural
products, and make the thorn-tree laugh
and blossom with flowers.1 By naturalising
the best that grows in foreign lands, it will
render Italy independent of imports, and
put an end to the too daring art of naviga-
tion. The Eclogue was, like Locksley Hall,
'a vision of the world and all the wonders
that should be,' after the new empire of
Rome should have had time to show men
what science and government, working in
unison, could do for Italy."1
Thus there was no need to ask who the
fortunate child was that should see and
inaugurate such bliss. "In the vision of
the coming age the scenery is Italian, and
the new-born child is the representative
of the new Roman generation." On this
point Professor Ramsay expresses himself
dogmatically: "it is a total misconception
of Virgil's intention, to look for any
1 Professor Ramsay has now repeated these views
in the Expositor (May and Aug. 1907) ; but I may
be allowed to retain the passage as it originally stood
56 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
reference to an actual human child. . . .
The child of whom Virgil sings is the
representative of the new Rome, bearer of
its majesty and power, favoured of the gods,
shielded by them from all evil, guided by
them to greatness and empire." And follow-
ing the phases of the prophetic poem, he
shows that though this child must be
educated to war,1 yet the arts of peace are
his real inheritance : and that in aiming at
the honores which are the summit of a
Roman's ambition, he is but fulfilling his
mission, — the mission of giving lasting
happiness to the world.
These sentences are so full both of
historical and poetical feeling that I am
almost tempted to adopt them as a whole ;
and indeed if I could understand them to
mean that Virgil was taking some individual
child unknown to us to represent the com-
ing Italian generation and its happiness, I
1 Professor Ramsay sees in the puzzling lines 34-36
{Alter erit turn Tiphys, etc.) an allusion to the Parthian
expedition upon which Antony was about to set out ; and
this seems to me also the simplest and most natural
explanation of them, seeing that the defeat of Parthia
might well seem, at the moment of the peace of
Brundisium, the only thing wanting to the peace of the
world and the hopes of Italy.
HEYNE S VIEW 57
should do so without scruple. But Professor
Ramsay most explicitly forbids me so to
understand him (p. n). To him the child
is an abstraction, an idealised generation now
beginning. This idea is not indeed wholly
new ; it was long ago suggested by Heyne,
whose explanation is adopted by Merivale
in his account of the events of this year.1
But as I understand Heyne, he did not
altogether exclude the idea of the birth of
an individual child ; he rather thought
that the first and representative child of the
new era, though unknown both to Virgil
and to us, was yet some real infant of flesh
and blood : deflexit itaque orationem in puerum
ilium qui primus in saeculi huius auspiciis est
nasciturus. If so, he had, I think, entered
even more fully than Professor Ramsay into
the spirit of the poem : he had taken account
of its last lines, of which Professor Ramsay
makes no mention at all. We may accept
in full the view that the hope in Virgil's
mind was a regenerate and well-tilled Italy ;
that Italy was foremost in his mind here as
ever there can be no doubt, but we must
1 Ed. Heyne- Wagner, i, 128. Merivale, Hist. vol.
iii. p. 231.
H
58 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
add the conviction that no mere abstraction
can be the object of such lines as these :
Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere mat rem ;
Matri longa decern tulerunt fastidia menses.
Incipe, parve puer : qui non risere parenti
Nee deus hunc mensa, dea nee dignata cubili est.
We may read through the poem up to
this point and find little seriously out of
harmony with Professor Ramsay's interpre-
tation— unless indeed it be the preference
for the tangible and the concrete which was
natural to the Roman and to Virgil himself;
but when we come to this curiously realistic
termination we are suddenly brought up, and
forced either to reconstruct our idea of the
child, or to let these lines drop out of sight
altogether. Professor Ramsay has adopted
the latter alternative.1
1 Professor Ramsay in the Expositor (p. 108) has
stated his view even more positively than in his former
paper. He says that there is no idea in the poem of
deifying either Augustus personally or a son of his who
might hereafter be born, and adds in a footnote that
the opinion which 1 myself hold (as will be seen later
on) that the poem celebrates the birth of an expected
son, who, unfortunately for the poet, turned out to be
a daughter, is " too ludicrous for anyone but a con-
firmed literary and 'higher' critic. A poet does not
work so ; even a poet laureate could not work under
REINACH S VIEW 59
I now turn to a very different and far more
eccentric explanation ; one which is extremely
interesting and incidentally useful, but hardly,
I think, the work of a man of strong poetic
feeling or thorough knowledge of Virgil. M.
Reinach1 emphatically denies that the poem
contains any kind of historical allusion, or
stands in any sort of relation to the events
of Virgil's age. " Je me propose," he writes,2
"d'etablir qu'il n'ya pas d'allusions histori-
ques ou politiques dans la IV Eglogue, qu'il
n'y est question ni du fils de PolliOn, ni
du fils d'aucun autre person nage du temps,
enfin que la caractere du poeme tout entier
est exclusivement religieux ou mystique."
He adds, with some force, that if Virgil had
not addressed the poem to Pollio, and placed
the birth of the child in Pollio's consulship,
such conditions." I am sorry to differ from an old
friend, for whom I have the profoundest respect ; I can
only say that I would ask him to re-consider the poem
in the light of the last four lines. I look on it as
the celebration, in mystical, and as the writers of
these Essays believe, Messianic language, of the actual
birth of a real child, who is destined to initiate a new
era of happiness for Italy and the world.
1 Revue de Fhistoire des Religio?ts, vol. xlii. p. 365
fol.
2 Ibid. p. 372.
60 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
no one would have dreamt that its subject
was the birth of the consul's son. Certainly :
but in the first place, we are not compelled
to believe the child to have been a son of
Pollio : in the second, why did Virgil put
the birth so manifestly in this year, 40 B.C.?
M. Reinach does indeed answer this last
question, but vaguely and feebly: "without
doubt it was on the authority of a current
prophecy or of a mystical calculation of
which we know nothing." The idea of a
historical allusion is in his view simply the
creation of foolish scholiasts, and only proves
the ignorance of the ancient grammarians,
" qui forgeaient a plaisir, pour expliquer les
textes, des explications tirees de ces textes
eux-memes " (p. 373). Here he seems to
approach the point of view of Mr Mackail ;
both look on the poem as deeply overlaid
with rubbish by the perversity of human
learning. But the difference between them
is this : Mr Mackail clears the rubbish away,
and asks us to look at a beautiful original
without asking questions about it, while M.
Reinach, though equally at pains to get rid
of the old deposits, proceeds — if I may
venture so to express it — to provide us with
reinach's view 6i
a fresh supply from a new and unexpected
source.
I doubt if he would have been led to
this source if he had not happened on an
idea dropped by the German mythologist,
O. Gruppe,1 and abandoned by him. M.
Reinach picked up this idea, was greatly
attracted by it, and has most ingeniously
worked it out. First, he observes that the
infant of the poem is the son of Jupiter. But
is this really so? Can magnum Iovis incre-
mentum (line 49) bear this meaning? Incre-
mcntum is a rare and rather vague word,
and seems chosen, in careful keeping with
the general tenor of the poem, to express
some less direct relation than actual sonship.
When not so many years afterwards Ovid
used the word in his MetamorpJioses (iii. 103),
he could hardly have failed to remember
Virgil's famous use of it : yet he has given
1 Griechische Kulte tend Mythen, i. 637 fol. ; a passage
of value for the student of the Jewish Sibylline oracles
and their relation to the literature of the last century B.C.
In comparing Sibyll. III. 787 fol. and Isaiah xi. 6, he notes
the essential difference between the idea inherent in both
of these and the language of our poem, 18-30. On these
Sibyllines see also Schurer's/<?w/^ People in the Time of
Christ, Div. ii. vol. iii. p. 271 fol. (Eng. trans.).
62 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
it quite a different meaning from that claimed
by M. Reinach. In the line Vipereos dentes,
populi incrementa futnri, it is used to express
the active power of the dragon's teeth to
produce a human crop; and so in our
poem it has generally been taken to mean
that the child will actively carry out in his
life the work of Jupiter.1
But having settled it that the child is the
son of Jupiter, M. Reinach goes happily on
his way. This son of Jupiter is to rule a
world restored to peace by his father's virtues :
pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orb em (line
17). Now it was Jupiter who restored the
universe to peace when he conquered the
Titans : and thus, though orbis does not
usually mean the universe,2 and though many
Virgilian scholars will take patriis virtutibus
1 See Dr Mayor below, pp. m-114 and 138. Heyne
explained it as alumnus et nutricius, dpe/x/xa Aids, dcorpe^s.
M. Cartault (op. tit., p. 224, note), though without quoting
Ovid's line, explains Virgil's words thus : "Jupiter sera
grandi par la naissance d'un tel enfant."
2 Orbis, as M. Reinach says (p. 373, note), may now
and again be used for mundus {e.g. Ov. Fasti, i. 85) :
but I cannot for a moment believe that it can have that
meaning here. To me the connexion of Pollio's consul-
ship with the government of the universe seems simply
grotesque.
reinach's view 6
o
with reget rather than with pacatum, what
Virgil means is that the cycle of events will
recur, and that a new son of Jupiter is to
arise — a new divine dynasty. This idea,
M. Reinach tells us, Virgil found in the
Orphic poetry and mysteries. This must be
so (so he appears to me to argue), because
he certainly found another idea there, which
is also prominent in the poem — viz. that
of original sin and its purgation : Si qua
manent sceleris vestigia nostri, Inrita perpetua
solvent formidine terras (lines 13-14). "Les
hommes descendaient des Titans, qui avaient
tue et depece le jeune Dionysus Zagreus ;
ils portaient le poids de ce crime et ne
pouvaient s'en affranchir que par l'initiation
aux mysteres."1 As in this initiation the
worshipper partook of the nature of the
god — became in fact a young Dionysus,
so Virgil prophesies a divine nature for
his infant — llle Deum vitam accipiet (line
15). Such verses are cast in the language
of Orphic initiation, says M. Reinach,2 and
find their exact analogy in that of the
Petelian tablet and others from Sybaris,
surviving from the Orphic rites of Magna
1 P. 375- 2 P. 375 fol.
64 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
Graecia.1 It would have been well, I think,
if he had stopped here, and contented himself
with pointing out a possible and as yet un-
noticed source of the peculiar language of
the poem.
But we are thus only prepared for a start-
ling conclusion as to the character and
identity of the marvellous child. It is a new
Dionysus whose approach the poet announces.
"Dionysus has suffered, died, risen again,
but these events belong to a cycle which is
expiring ; the coming age of gold is to
witness the new epiphany of Dionysus, as
the new beginning of all things." This is
the secret which it has taken nearly two
thousand years to discover. The child is
Dionysus, son of Jupiter : the language and
ideas are Orphic, with a large infusion of
Hebraism from Jewish Sibylline verses : and
the still youthful Virgil has chosen to introduce
a poem of Dionysiac mythology among his
1 C. I. Graec.-ltal. 638 (from Petelia in S. Italy : in
the British Museum) : *ai tot' hrett* &[\\o«n fieO'] rjpweffaiv
av&$(i[s] : cp. divisque videbit Permixtos heroas et ipse
videbitur Mis (lines 15, 16). So too 641 (from Thurii) :
debs 5' £(rr?t avrl fiporolo reminds us of Ille deum vitam
accipiet. On these tablets see the Journal of Hellenic
Studies^ vol. iii. ill fol. (Comparetti).
CRITICISM OF REINACH 65
simple Theocritean Eclogues. Well indeed
might he herald it with the high-sounding
line Sicelides Musae, paulo maiora canamus !
It does not indeed seem to me impossible
that Virgil, whose tendency to mysticism and
Pythagoreanism are sufficiently attested by
the Sixth Aeneid, who must have been familiar
with the writings of his elder contemporary,
Nigidius Figulus (the most learned Neo-
Pythagorean of the age), and who had pro-
bably already spent some time at Tarentum,1
may have been acquainted with the language
of the mysteries of Magna Graecia, and used
it for his own purposes. So much, I think,
we may say that we have gained by M.
Reinach's interesting essay. But for a sense
of sin we need not go so far ; it was in the
air when the poem was written. From the
death of Julius to the complete settlement
of Augustus' power we find it continually
recurring. Virgil himself, Sallust, Livy,
and Horace, all express it in one way or
another : the failure of the national pietas
lay heavily on the Roman mind, and it was
the great merit of Augustus as a ruler that
1 Nettleship, Ancient Lives of Virgil, p. 49 ; cp.
Georg. iv. 125.
I
66 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
he came fully to understand this, and sought
by every means in his power to lighten the
burden. I do not see that the prisca fraus
and sceleris vestigia nostri need any more
recondite explanation than that which has
always been given them, — the wickedness of
the civil wars, the Mars impius of the first
Georgic,1 the individual selfishness in high
places which our poet afterwards portrayed
in the Turnus of his Acneid, and the moral
and physical ruin of the Italy which he loved
so well. If, following the best canon of all
poetical criticism, we interpret Virgil by him-
self, there is, I am convinced, but one con-
clusion to be drawn. Italy regenerate after
a period of darkness and wickedness, — this is
the one great idea that animates the poet's
mind throughout, and may be traced onwards
from this Eclogue to the last scene of the
Aetieid.2
But there is another objection to M.
Reinach's theory, and as I think, a fatal one.
If the child were Dionysus, could a poet
of Virgil's taste and feeling have reverted,
1 Georg. i. 511 ; cp. 468.
2 Compare Prof. Conway's expansion of this idea,
P- 33ff-
CRITICISM OF REINACH 67
at the end of a purely mystical and religious
poem, to such unguarded realism as we find
in the last four lines? One may well ask,
if the infant is Dionysus and the father
Jupiter, who is the mother whom the child is
to recognise by smiling on her? M. Reinach
confesses that he cannot discover her. She
cannot be Semele : "she can never have
possessed, in the eyes of the poet, a precise
mythological character, for she only appears
in the last four lines and in terms which
would suit any mother. It is best to admit
that Virgil, discarding the horrible history
of the incest of Zeus with Persephone, has
adopted a tradition, perhaps neo-Orphic in
origin, which made some nymph or other
(une nymphe quelconque) the mother of
Dionysus-Zagreus, or one of the numerous
mortals loved by the chief of the gods. If
we admit this hypothesis, all the details still
obscure seem to clear themselves up."1 If
we could admit it ! I should not have quoted
these sentences if I had not wished to show
how greatly we are in danger, in these days
of scientific criticism, of applying wrong
methods which can only lead to absurd
1 Op. tit. p. 379.
6S THE CHILD OF THE POEM
results. You cannot safely deal with a poet
like Virgil as if he were a historian or a
mythologist.1
Once more then these last four lines,
applied as a touchstone to the interpretation
of the poem as a whole, put us instantly on
our guard, and save us from extravagances.
They seem to bring us back to Virgil, to
Italy, and to common sense ; and no one
has a right to deal with the Eclogue who will
not give them their due place in it. But they
present more than one serious difficulty, and
I must now proceed to examine them in detail.
First, let us notice that there is here (after
line 59) clearly a pause in the sense, and a
change of mood ; and these lines should in
my opinion be always printed with a space
between them and those which precede them,
so as to indicate this pause and change ;
or at any rate they should begin, so to speak,
1 M. Cartault {pp. cit. p. 234) quotes from a paper
in the Ncnc JahrbiicJicr fitr Pliilologic, 1877, by Th.
Pliiss, another writer who laid stress on the Bacchic
elements in the poem, a still more absurd conclusion :
" Es fragt sich noch, wer war die Mutter? Ich denke,
wenn der Vater Liber ist, ist die Mutter Libera." But
M. Cartault seems to have no sense of humour — another
requisite, if I may venture to say so, of good criticism —
and does not betray a smile.
THE LAST FOUR LINES 69
a new paragraph, like the last eight lines
of Milton's Lycidas. In the language of
music, the resounding tones of the full organ
here come to a close, and the movement ends
piano, in a gentle and homely cadence : we
are again in touch with the homely Italian
life. The effect of this pause and change
can best be appreciated if, after reading the
poem once, we let the mind dwell on these
last lines, and then turn back to the beginning
and go over it once more. Then, to me at
least, it becomes clear that the bulk of the
poem is a prophetic carmen conceived as sung
by a vates fatidica, with whom Virgil half
identifies himself, during the actual birth of
a child ; and that when the carmen comes
to an end, the birth has actually taken place,
and the vates turns to the. new-born infant,
and dropping the character of prophet, speaks
to it in the language and in the tender tones
of an Italian nurse.1 A minute ago she
was praying Lucina to be gracious at the
birth — Tu modo nascenti puero . . . casta fave
1 M. Cartault (p. 225 fol.) troubles himself a good deal
with the question whether at the moment of the poem
the child was already born or about to be born : and
affirms that " on ne peut guere admettre que la com-
position de la IV Eglogue coincide justement avec la
70 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
Lucina : and then again, as the fateful moment
approaches, she cries, Aggrcdere O magnos,
aderit tarn temp us, honores ; now the child
lies before her, and the sight brings her back
to the human and the present. It seems
to me that the poem gains immensely in
truth and beauty, showing us the true
Virgilian tenderness and pity, if we look at
it in this clear and undistorted light.
I have said that the vates now uses the
language of the Italian nurse. No one has
seen this so clearly, I think, as Mr R. C.
Seaton, in a short paper contributed to the
Classical Revietu in 1893 (p. 199) ; and he
has also come near to reaching what I believe
to be the true meaning of the last line of all,
which has baffled the commentators ever since
it was written. But I shall be saving space
if for the present I only make reference to this
sensible little paper, and quote the lines once
more, as they stand in the new Oxford text
of Virgil edited by Mr F. A. Hirzel :
Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem :
Matri longa decern tulerunt fastidia menses :
Incipe, parve puer : qui non risere parenti
Nee deus hunc mensa, dea nee dignata cubili est.
naissance de 1'enfant." I hope my next few pages will
settle this point.
THE LAST FOUR LINES 71
Here there are two difficulties : first, the
old controversy, known to every Virgilian
scholar, whether the smile is that of the
mother which the child recognises, or that
of the child, by which it owns its love for
the mother. If it is the mother's smile,
then we must read with the MSS., Servius,
and Nonius, in the third line, cut non risere
parentes, in order to make the third line
answer intelligibly to the first : if, on the
other hand, it is the child's smile, then we
can safely go back upon the earliest reading
which we possess, that quoted by Quintilian,1
qui non risere parentes, or as it has been
corrected by editors, "qui non risere parentis
For my own part I unhesitatingly adopt the
second alternative ; for not only is the picture
more natural if the smile is the child's,2 but
to my mind it is impossible that Virgil should
not have been thinking of the exquisite
1 ix. 3, 8. Halm, in his critical note, suggests that
Quintilian's copy may have been a "vitiosum exemplar."
But surely we may trust Quintilian to have been careful
in such matters.
2 I do not know that any one has quoted in this context
the following passage from Suetonius' Life of Virgil
(ch. iv.) : "Ferunt infantem {i.e. Virgil) ut sit editus neque
vagisse et adeo mitt vicltu fuisse ut haud dubiam spem
prosperioris geniturae {i.e. horoscope) iam turn daret."
72 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
passage of Catullus x to which all editors
refer or should refer us :
Torquatus, volo, parvulus
Matris e gremio suae
Porrigens teneras manus
Duke rideat adpatrem
Semihiante labello.
I believe that Quintilian correctly copied his
MS., which had qui non risere parentes, and that
the qui became cui'xn later copies through a mis-
understanding of the sense and the grammar,
from which Quintilian, who makes it perfectly
clear that he understood the plural qui to be
followed grammatically by the singular hunc
in the next line,2 was saved by his good taste
and poetical feeling. Further, I believe that
Virgil really wrote "qui non risere parentes "
— not parenti — and I take parentes as the
object of risere, understanding it as some-
what colloquial Latin, as in Plautus, Captivi
1 Catull. lxi. 216 fol.
2 " Ex illis enim 'qui non risere,' hie, quem non
dignata." I cannot follow Dr Postgate in his account
of these words {Class. Rev., Feb. 1902), nor in his
suggestion of hinc for hunc. Quintilian had just written
Est figura et in numcro, vcl cum singulari pluralis
subjungitur. But Dr Postgate contends that Quintilian's
copy of Virgil was a bad one.
THE LAST FOUR LINES 73
(iii. i, 21),1 and thus suited to the simple and
unconventional tone of the lines. It was not
till long after I had formed this opinion,
which has not found favour among my friends,
that I had the pleasure of discovering that it
was the opinion, very clearly expressed, of
J. J. Scaliger himself, who in commenting
on Catullus' duke rideat ad patrem quotes
this passage, and adds,2 " Virgilius sine
praepositione — qui non risere parentes. Mani-
festo enim hortatur puerum ut ad matrem
rideat, non contra, ut illi parentes. . . . Nam
* risere parentes ' pro i ad parentes ' dictum ; ut
Catullus loquitur." The note is a remarkable
one, and I shall refer to it again directly ;
at present it will be sufficient to show that
the oldest reading of the passage which we
possess may, in the opinion of the greatest
of scholars, stand just as it is. But this is
by the way ; I am here chiefly concerned
with the sense, which is the same whether
we read parentes or parenti ; I merely desired
to point out that if Virgil really wrote parentes
it is much easier to explain the subsequent
corruption (as I take it to be) into " cui non
1 Ed. Lindsay, p. 237.
2 Castigationes in Catirf/um, etc., 1577.
K
74 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
risere parentes," and the resulting false notion
that the smile was the mother's and not the
child's. As regards the sense, no doubt it
is harshly expressed : ridere with the accusa-
tive meaning to smile on, and qui followed
by Jiunc, are between them quite enough to
frighten timid scholars : but where Quintilian
and Scaliger did not hesitate to go, we need
hardly fear to follow.
But there is a still more serious difficulty
in the last line of all, Nee dens hunc mensa
dea nee dignata cubili est. It is wonderful
how far afield interpreters have gone for
explanations of these words. It has been
thought that Virgil is here alluding to a
passage in the eleventh Odyssey,1 where
Herakles is described as having joy at the
banquet {mensa) among the deathless gods,
and having to wife Hebe of the fair ankles
{cubili). As Mr Seaton truly says, this
explains nothing at all. Servius has more
than one pompous explanation from Greek
mythology, quite out of keeping with the
true Virgilian tone of the passage : e.g.
Hephaestus, being born lame, was not
smiled on by his mother Hera, and had
1 Od. xi. 602.
THE LAST LINE 75
in consequence to put up with various mis-
fortunes and disabilities. But recently Mr
Seaton has suggested very happily that it
was perhaps " no more than a high-flown
way of expressing an old nurse's saw, that
a dull infant comes to a bad end " ; and I
am disposed to think that he was not very
far from the truth.
It is in the Danielian additions to Servius'
commentary x (if indeed they are additions,
and not part of Servius' own notes), which
have the merit of preserving the memory
of many old Italian ideas and customs, that
I have found what I believe to be the real
clue to this mysterious allusion ; it is a
passage which I have already had reason
to quote in my book on the Roman Festivals
(p. 143 fol.), but without perceiving its full
bearing upon Virgil's line : Proinde nobilibus
pueris editis in atrio domus Iunoni lectus,
Herculi mensa ponebatur.'2 I cannot say that
I am quite clear as to the exact meaning
1 Ed. Thilo and Hagen, vol. iii. p. 53.
2 Servius, ed. Thilo and Hagen, vol. iii. p. 53, note.
The words are also found in Philargyrius and the
Bernensian Scholia, and probably formed part of an
ancient gloss, afterwards rejected for the more high-
flown explanations to which I have alluded above. For
76 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
of these words, e.g. whether the commentator
supposed that at the birth of a child mensa
and kit us were spread for the two deities in
each case, or whether, in a case of a boy's
birth, Hercules alone had his table, while
in the case of a girl's Juno alone had her
lectus (in which sense it was understood by
Scaliger) ; but I have little doubt that in
the custom to which he is alluding, both
deities were concerned at the birth of every
child. For they were the di couiugalcs ; they
were the representatives in the old Roman
religion of the male and female principles
respectively : their combined influence had
produced the child. We are now practically
certain that the name Hercules became
attached, we cannot tell how, to the Roman
conception of Genius, and that the corre-
sponding numcu of women was called by
the familiar name Juno. The names them-
selves are of no great account, as any one
will understand who is conversant with
the history of the Roman religion ; the
numina, the spirits affecting human life, had
the value of the Scholia first printed by Daniel in 1600,
see Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, p. 339 ;
Teuffel, Hist. 0/ Roman Literature, ii. 397.
THE LAST LINE 77
often no names, or only acquired them in
the course of time by strange processes,
only too common in a land where both
the form and the terminology of religion
became a curious concrete of Greek, Etruscan,
Sabine, and Latin elements. Now Juno and
Hercules are found together both in Italian
literature and art in ways that can leave no
doubt as to their peculiar relation and char-
acter. A full account of these will be found
in Roscher's Mythological Lexicon, vol. ii.
pp. 2258 fol. (s.v. Hercules), compiled from
the oral teaching as well as the writings
of Reifferscheid of Breslau, who first dis-
covered and published this curious feature
of old Italian religious thought.1
I hope that scholars will now agree with me
1 Since the above was written, I have been astonished
to find that in his note on Catullus quoted already,
Scaliger, with the habitual acuteness which he added to
his learning, had cast to the winds the explanations from
Greek mythology and adopted what is practically the one
I have given. ATascentibus putabanl adesse, mart Genium,
qui est Deus ?nensae, feminae Junonem, quae est dea
cubilis. Qui, inquit, non risere ad parentes nee Genius
ilium accipit mensa nee Dea hatic cubili. But Scaliger
did not know the Danielian Servius' comment, or he
would have quoted it ; nor did he know Hercules =
Genius : hence he thinks of Genius apparently only as
the numen of the festive board.
;S THE CHILD OF THE POEM
that we have in these lines nothing more than
an allusion, in the true Virgilian manner, to
an old Roman or Italian practice, still at that
time preserved in some aristocratic families,
though already no doubt bereft of its original
significance, and by no means clear to the
mind of Virgil himself;1 an allusion quite in
keeping with the picture that the poet brings
before us in these tender lines : The child that
will not smile on his mother is not worthy of
notice from the deities presiding over his parent's
union — that is all. And we may now thus
paraphrase the whole passage : " Begin,
little one, to recognise thy mother with a
smile : she deserves it of thee, for her travail
has been long : begin, little one, for babes
who do not thus own their mothers' love,
cannot expect the favour of her guardian
deities."
The passage thus explained, I can hardly
believe that any one will still contend that the
1 By Virgil's time, still more in that of Servius, the
custom and its meaning may have been imperfectly
understood, only surviving in the "nurse's saw," as
Mr Seaton calls it. It is impossible for us to recover
them exactly, and unwise to press the words of poet
or commentator too closely. But as to the deus and dea
there should be no doubt.
A REAL CHILD 79
child of the poem was not a real one. How
could Virgil have used such language of an
abstraction, or of a Greek god Dionysus?
How could he have ventured on such an
allusion ? To my mind, at least, the lines
are too real and tender to be applicable to
any child but one definitely expected, and
poetically conceived by the poet as born when
the carmen comes to a close. The mother
was a real mother, the child a real child.
The latter is doubtless, as Professor Ramsay
says, the representative of a new and better
generation ; but to be that in Roman eyes
he must be, as every Roman scholar after-
wards understood him to be, an individual
infant of flesh and bone.
After expressing so strong a conviction
that the parvus pner was a child actually
born or expected to be born, I may fairly
be called on to express an opinion as to
who he was. On this question I do indeed
hold a decided opinion, but more than an
opinion it is not possible for any one to
give, nor is it a vital matter, as far as
the poem itself is concerned, whether or
no the secret can be discovered. But I
wish to draw attention in this connexion
8o THE ChILD OF THE POEM
to one point which has not, I think, been
sufficiently considered.
The earliest information we have about the
question is contained in a note of Servius,
which seems to come directly from the great
Roman scholar Asconius, who lived and
wrote a generation or two later than Virgil
himself. Asconius was told by Asinius
Gallus, son of Pollio, that he himself (Gallus)
was the parvus puer of the Eclogue. Asconius
a Gallo audisse se refert hanc eclogam in hotiorem
cius factam} Now the value of this informa-
tion seems to me to consist, not in the
statement of Asinius Gallus, which is open
to grave suspicion, but in the implied fact
that the identity of the child was not known to
Asconius. Gallus, we may note, was a
candidate for the Principate at the end of
Augustus' reign, and actually thought of
by him as a possible successor, though con-
sidered ambitious and unequal to the position.2
When Tiberius succeeded, Gallus made him-
self for many years as unpleasant as he could
1 This is also in the Uanielian Servius ad Eel. iv. II,
and in the Scholia Bernensia. Thilo. and Hagen's
Servius, iii. 46.
2 Tac. Ann. i. 13.
ASCONIUS' STORY 8 1
to that unlucky Emperor, whose wife Vipsania
he had married after she had been divorced
by order of Augustus ; and it would suit
both his purpose and temper to spread about
such a story, especially if no one knew who
the child of the poem really was. Clearly
Asconius did not know, or Gallus would
not have confided the secret to him ; and
if Asconius did not know, we may be sure
that no one else knew, and may well wonder
why the family of pollio had kept the secret
so long.
This story of Asconius and Gallus, with
the fact that the child was to be born in
Pollio's consulship, was in my opinion what
gave rise to the tradition, which has more
generally found favour than any other, that
the child was a son of Pollio. This paper
has been occupied with more important
matters than the question whether Pollio
had one or two sons born at this time, and
whether either of them was born in the year
of his consulship, and I have not now space
to go into these details. But apart from
the fact, if we may call it so, that Asconius
knew nothing of the identification until Gallus
told him of it, I find it impossible to read
L
Si THE CHILD OF THE POEM
this Eclogue, and to compare it with the
language used of Pollio in the third, and
still to accept the conclusion that the mar-
vellous child was his son.1 Pollio is in the
Eclogues an ordinary human being, as he
was to Horace and to every one else at the
time ; and neither his consulship nor the
part he took in negotiating the peace of
Brundisium could make him into anything
more. Mr Sidgwick is hardly right in
claiming that the consul in 40 B.C. still
controlled the empire;2 the great office had
not yet recovered from the eclipse of its
glory under Caesar, and it is significant
that at the close of this very year Pollio and
his colleague had to resign their offices, and
that one of their successors for the short
remainder of the year was the useful political
agent, Cornelius Balbus of Gades, whose
1 Eel. iii. 84-88. I may add that personally I can never
get over the awkwardness, if not absurdity, of line 11
of our poem {teque adeo decus hoc aevi, te consule, inibit),
if the child was Pollio's : conceive a poem addressed
on the birth of his son to a President of the United
States without any allusion to his fatherhood ! But for
the arguments adduced for the Pollionic hypothesis,
see Cartault, pp. 229 fol.
2 See the Introduction to his notes on this Eclogue,
p. 18.
CONCLUSION 83
very civitas had been attacked in a Roman
court of law but a few years earlier. I
confess that I cannot think of the son even
of Pollio the consul as cara deum soboles,
magni Iovis incrementum. My own feeling —
I will not say conviction — is that, if Virgil
is to be interpreted by his own poems, the
evidence a priori is overwhelming that the
new age and the hopes of Italy could only
be personified by him as a member of the
family of the Cassars. Pollio, Varus, Gallus
are helpful human friends in these early
poems, and then disappear ; but Augustus
is ever in Virgil's mind from the First
Eclogue onwards, not merely as a human
friend and helper, but as the son of the
divine Julius, and as the pacificator and
regenerator of the world. Well indeed
might the child of such a man — a man
himself not far from the gods — be hailed
in the lofty language of our poem.1
1 Some excellent remark on Virgil's relation to Julius
and Augustus will be found in H. Nettleship's Aneient
Lives of Virgil, p. 39 fol. But I trust that readers of this
paper will refresh their recollection of the following
passages of our poet : Eel. ix. 47 fol. (I do not mention
the Fifth Eclogue, where the identification of Daphnis
with Julius is uncertain); Georg. i. 24 fol., 466 fol., especially
S4 THE CHILD OF THE POEM
This strong Virgilian evidence, which led
my old teacher and friend, Henry Nettleship,
to adopt the view that the child was the one
which, in the year 40, Scribonia, the wife of
Octavianus, was expected to bear, inclines
me also in the same direction. I think it
highly probable that Virgil wrote the poem
before the birth, and put it aside when
Octavianus was deceived in his hope of a
son ; 1 that he eventually published it with
the other Eclogues, feeling, as a young poet
might feel, that it was worthy of him and
expressed some of his tenderest hopes for
Italy — nay, that he had spent infinite pains
to clothe his feeling in lofty verse, and drawn
for his diction on a great variety of sources ;
and I believe that he intentionally left it
wrapped in obscurity and surrounded by
appropriate mystery. Its real object was to
line 500; Georg. ii. 170 fol. ; Acn. i. 257 fol., vi. 788 fol.,
viii. 678 and 714 fol. The most striking of these is of
course the famous one in Aeti. vi., where Augustus, the
golden age, and the regeneration of Italy are all brought
together in glowing verse ; the passage is discussed in
this sense by Prof. Conway (pp. 39-42).
1 The child actually born (in 39 r..C.) was a girl,
the famous or rather infamous Julia, and Scribonia was
divorced the same day (Dio Cass, xlviii. 34). The view
expressed above has been stated with great force by
CONCLUSION 85
hail the coming Better Age rather than to
salute the expected infant ; and it might
remain, as it has remained, a bone of con-
tention for expositors. This is my own
feeling about the matter ; each of us will
judge for himself according to his own
historical and poetical feeling.
Let me end as I began, with a reference
to Mr Mackail's remarks. I cannot agree
with him that there is no mystery in the
poem at all ; but I am entirely at one with
him in claiming that it should be treated
essentially as a poem and not merely as a
puzzle, and that it should be interpreted
as far as possible by reference to the poet's
own life and works. As a poem it should
be learned by heart and meditated on as
a whole, not merely put upon the dissecting-
board as a corpus vile for criticism.
Professor Skutsch in his book Aus VergiPs Friikzeit,
p. 148 fol. : cp. his Gallus u)id Vergil, 127 note, where
he alludes to this essay as independent of his own con-
clusion. On p. 159 of the former work he points out that
Martial wrote a poem (6.3) to celebrate the birth of a
child of Domitian, and published it, though the child was
never born.
SOURCES
OF THE FOURTH ECLOGUE
BY JOSEPH B. MAYOR
The editors of Virgil seem content for the
most part to regard this poem as merely a
hyperbolical expression of the hope that the
agreement made at Brundisium between
Antony and Octavius in the year 40 B.C.
might put an end to the civil strife from which
Rome had so long suffered. The few who
have made any attempt to account for the
special features of the new era foretold by
the poet have usually assumed without proof
that these features were capable of explanation
out of the commonplaces of Greek or Roman
literature, there being, in their opinion,
nothing to justify Merivale's assertion * that
"the glowing language in which the reign
of happiness is depicted appropriates almost
every image, and breathes some portion of
the spirit, of the Messianic predictions."
1 Hist, of the Empire, vol iii. p. 231.
87
S8 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
I propose to consider in this paper how
far it is true that parallels for these images
are to be found in pagan literature, and, if
they are not to be found, whether it is
possible to trace them back to a Jewish
origin ; and I will begin with an examina-
tion of the line in which Virgil appears to
disclose to his readers where he found his
materials —
Ultima Cumaei venit iani carminis aetas.
Two of the ancient scholiasts, followed by
the learned Fabricius, in his BibliotJieca Graeca,
vol. i. p. 181, and by J. Geffcken, the latest
and in some respects the best editor of the
Oracula Siby/lina, maintain that we have
here an allusion to the Ages of men described
in the Works and Days of Hesiod, whose
father migrated from Cyme in Asia Minor
to Bceotia, and who might therefore be him-
self styled Cumaeus. But is this a natural
interpretation? Is there any other example
of the epithet Cumaeus being applied to
Hesiod? We should gather from Hesiod's
own words (1. 650) that he was born after
the removal to Bceotia, as he tells us that
the crossing from Aulis to Eubcea was the
CUMAEUM CARMEN 89
longest voyage he had ever made. In any
case he wrote his poems at Ascra, near
Mount Helicon, and is accordingly referred to
by Virgil as " Ascraeus senex" (Eel. vi. 70),
by Propertius (iii. 32. 77) as "Ascraeus
poeta," by Ovid (Am. i. 15. 11) as
"Ascraeus" simply, while the phrase
"Ascraeum carmen" is used as a synonym
for pastoral poetry in general in Georg. ii. 176.
On the other hand, Virgil's thoughts were
much occupied with the Sibyl of the Italian
Cumae, a city in the neighbourhood of which
he resided for some years of his life,1 and
which is said to have been the oldest of the
Greek colonies of Italy, founded jointly by
the Eubcean Chalcis and the Aeolian Cyme.
In the Aeneid, yEneas is twice bidden
to consult this Sibyl, once by Helenus
{A en. iii. 441-460), and again by Anchises
(Aen. v. 730-736), while the Sixth Book
gives us the story of the actual visit to the
Sibyl's grotto. So Ovid speaks of the
"Virgo Cumaea" (Met. xiv. 135), of the
"Cumaeae templa Sibyllae " (Met. xv. 712),
of " Cumaeos annos," referring to the
longevity of the Sibyl (Ex Ponto, ii. 8. 41) ;
1 G. iv. 563.
M
90 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
so Valerius Flaccus of the "Cumaea vates"
(i. 5), and Lucan of the "vates Cumana"
(v. 183). I think, therefore, there can
be little doubt that, in using the phrase
"Cumaeum carmen," Virgil refers to the
Sibyl, not to Hesiod.
Postponing for the present the enquiry
how far Virgil may have been indebted to
Hesiod for any part of his description of
the golden age, we enter on the difficult
question, What was the Sibylline song to
which he here alludes as foretelling such an
age, the world's crowning era of virtue and
happiness? We can hardly suppose that it
is the poet himself who is "rapt into future
times" and utters his own visions under the
mask of the Sibyl. More than any other
of the great poets Virgil depends upon his
predecessors. It would seem, therefore, that
he must have had in his mind some distinct
Sibylline utterance when he used the phrase
"Cumaeum carmen."
The first thing which this phrase would
suggest to any Roman would be the Sibylline
Books, called also Libri Fatales, or simply
Libriy which were believed to have been
purchased by Tarquin and preserved with
THE OLD LIBRI FATALES 91
scrupulous care, first by the Duumviri,1 and
finally by the Quindecimviri, until they were
burnt in the conflagration of the temple
of Jupiter Capitolinus in the Social War,
B.C. 83. Constant references are made to
these books in the pages of Livy. According
to Dion. Hal. (A. R. iv. p. 792) they were
consulted, upon the order of the Senate, in
any serious trouble, whether of foreign war
or civil discord, and also on the occurrence
of any prodigy, to ascertain how the wrath
of the gods was to be appeased. In accord-
ance with this is Marquardt's statement {Rom.
Staatsvertvaltung, vol. iii. p. 43) that their
purpose was not to reveal the future, but
to provide counsel and help in calamities,
where the ordinary rites were of no avail.
These books came originally from the neigh-
bourhood of Troas, and pointed to the help
of gods who were either themselves foreign
or to be worshipped after some foreign ritual.
Their introduction, aided by the intercourse
with the Greek colonies of southern Italy,
brought into Rome the knowledge of various
Graeco-Asiatic deities ; and we are expressly
1 For the origin of this form see Roby, Introd. to
Justinian., p. ccxxi. Mommsen prefers the form duoviri.
Q2 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
told that the inauguration of the Lcctistcrnia
and Supplicationes was due to directions con-
tained in the Sibylline Books (Liv. v. 13,
vii. 27). As these books were only to be
read by the official interpreters, the Quin-
decimviri,1 upon the order of the Senate,
and could not be promulgated, after being
read, until the Senate had given their con-
sent,2 it is plain that very little could be
known of their contents to the ordinary
citizen beyond the ceremonial rules published
from time to time, of which Livy gives so
many examples;3 rules which have certainly
very little in common with Virgil's prophecy
of the golden age.
If we turn, however, to the original home
of these oracles in Asia Minor, they appear
1 They seem to have had the assistance of two
officials skilled in the use of the Greek language : see
Alexandre, Excursus ad Sibyllina, vol. ii. p. 197.
2 This is shown by the general disapproval of C. Cato's
action, when, as tribune, he compelled the Quindecimviri,
without the sanction of the Senate, to publish the Sibylline
oracle as to the restoration of King Ptolemy with an
armed force : see Cicero's letters to Lentulus {ad Fam.
i. 1, 2, 5) ; Dio Cass, xxxix. 1 5. Justin (Apol. i. 44) states
that those who read them (without permission, we may
suppose) were liable to be put to death.
3 A synopsis of these is given by Alexandre, I.e.
pp. 198 foil.
HERACLITUS ON THE SIBYL 93
in a different light in the famous
saying of the great Ephesian philosopher,
Heraclitus, towards the end of the sixth
century (i.e. about the time of the expulsion
of the Roman kings). In Fragment xii. of
Bywater's edition we read the striking words
— "EifivWa Se v-cuvojuevo) crrofxari ayeXaara kcu
uk aWco7r terra ical a/xvpicrra (pQeyyojuevt] v^AtW
erewv egiKveercu ry <f>a>Vfl Sta, rov deov, " the
Sibyl with frenzied lips uttering things un-
mirthful, unadorned and unperfumed, reaches
by her voice through a thousand years by
the will of the god." 1 Plato gives an equally
lofty idea of the Sibyl in the Phaedrus,
p. 244, where, after speaking of the many
benefits public and private bestowed on man
through the divine madness of the prophetess
at Delphi and the priestess at Dodona, he
1 The genitive is used with <?£t/cmo-0cu by Xenophon,
Anab. iii. 3, 7, ol aKovTiaral Ppaxtrepa t)k6vti'£ov 7} ws
i^ixve'iadai tQv a(pev5oi'i)T£>i>, " the range of the javelins was
too short to reach the slingers." In other passages the
word is better translated "to hit," "to cover." The
meaning of Heraclitus would thus be " covers with her
voice a thousand years," i.e. utters truth bearing on far
distant ages. We may conjecture, however, from Ovid's
" Cumaeos annos " quoted above, as well as from other
references, that some understood them as attributing long
life to the Sibyl herself, "attains a thousand years."
94 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
adds that it would take long to tell of the
good wrought by the Sibyl and others oaoi
/xai'TiKtf ypwfxevoi evdetp 7roAAu Si] iroWoh
irpoXeyoi'Teg e7r) to fieXXov opvwuav.
What do we gather from these, the most
ancient testimonies to the fame of the Sibyl P1
1 n the first place, there is only one Sibyl. Later
ages speak of four or ten, or even more, the
number being increased partly through the
rivalry of competing cities, partly perhaps
through the influx of a new strain of prophecy,
as in the case of the Jewish, the Babylonian,
and the Egyptian Sibyls. The inspiration,
according to both Heraclitus and Plato, is a
literal possession, such as that of Cassandra
and of the Cumaean Sibyl in the Aeneid
(vi. 45-51, 77-80). The utterances themselves,
according to Heraclitus, are limited to words
of warning and of woe (ayeXacrra) ; they are
harsh and uncouth, with no smooth flattering
phrases (a/caAAa>7n<xTa koi a/wpia-ra) ; they fore-
tell the distant future; and Plato adds that
their effect has been to bring about reform
in nations and individuals. There seems to be
a special significance in "the voice sounding
1 The Aristophanic parodies will come in for con-
sideration later on.
THE SIBYL IN VIRGIL 95
on through a thousand years," for Ovid
records the complaint of the Sibyl who has
still to live three hundred years out of the
destined thousand, during which she will con-
tinually dwindle away till nothing remains
but a voice {Met. xiv. 143) —
Voce tamen noscar, vocem mihi fata relinquent.
Virgil, on the other hand, states that the
oracles were usually written down on leaves,1
which were liable to be scattered in disorder
by the wind when the door of the cave was
opened, and which, when once scattered, the
Sibyl took no pains to rearrange. Hence
those who apply to her for advice —
Inconsulti abeunt sedemque odere Sibyllae.
For this reason Helenus warns ^neas to
implore the prophetess to utter the oracles
with her lips, instead of writing them down
{Aen. iii. 448-457). The disordered leaves
were no doubt intended to signify the inco-
herence and the sudden transitions of the
oracular books.
Far different from this is what Livy tells us
of the Libri Fatales. It is of course possible
1 See also Varro, quoted by Servius on Aen. iii. 444.
96 SOURCES OF FOURTH FXLOGUE
that the oracles known to Heraclitus may
have included ritual matters, which were of
little interest to him, but which had a special
charm for the prosaic Romans ; and the
methods employed by the Quindecimviri may
have been such as to leave large scope for
the interpreters, like the sortes used in other
Italian oracles.1 But it is also quite possible
that the visions of the future, which so much
impressed Heraclitus, may have been too
revolutionary for Roman conservatism ; and
for this and other reasons the Capitoline copy
of the oracles may have differed from the
Asiatic original both in the way of omission
and addition.
Can we think of any class of writings which
would agree better than the Libri Fatales (so
far as we can conjecture their nature from
the facts mentioned by Livy), with the hints
dropped by Heraclitus? There are books
1 So Virgil, where he makes /Eneas promise the Sibyl
that her oracles shall be held in high honour in Latium
and be deposited in the temple of Apollo, uses the words
(Aen. vi. 71) —
Te quoque magna manent regnis penetralia nostris :
Hie ego namque tuas sortes arcanaque fata,
Dicta meae genti, ponam, lectosque sacrabo,
Alma, viros.
THE SIBYL AND HEBREW PROPHECY 97
dating from a hundred years before his time,
which speak of another voice "crying in the
wilderness." The prophets, of whom they
tell us, profess to speak in the name of God
and under His inspiration. The larger part
of their prophecies consists of threats of judg-
ment. They deal with the fate of nations and
of individuals reaching on to the end of time.
They are often confused, apparently self-con-
tradictory, difficult to understand, mixed up
of blessing and cursing in an inexplicable
way. Yet they have been signally successful
in raising the moral standard both in nations
and individuals. In one point they depart
from the old type as described by Heraclitus.
They appeal to hope as well as to fear ; they
hold out the prospect of a final reign of
righteousness and peace. As to the style in
which these books are written, in so far as the
original Hebrew is concerned, they might be
characterized in a good sense as uKahXdcinuTa
koi a/xvpia-ra ; but, if we think of later Greek
translations, we should have to apply these
words in the same depreciatory sense as that
in which they seem to have been used by
Heraclitus of the Sibylline verses current in
his time.
N
98 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
The conquests of Alexander initiated a
period of growing intercourse between Greeks
and Jews. Before the end of the third cen-
tury B.C. a large part of the Old Testament
had been translated into Greek, and the
Jews were beginning to interest themselves in
the literature of Greece. In this literature
nothing would be more likely to attract
their attention than the Sibylline oracles, which,
if we may judge from the earliest mention of
them by Greek writers, had so many features
in common with their own prophecies, and
which offered them such a good opportunity
of winning fresh proselytes by surreptitiously
introducing to the Gentiles the religious ideas
of the Hebrews. This work had been already
commenced in the second century B.C. by the
insertion of longer or shorter sections of
Jewish history or prophecy into the acknow-
ledged oracles, to which whole books were
subsequently added by Jewish, and then by
Christian forgers. In the words of Schiirer
{Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Eng.
tr. , vol. iii. p. 276), "The collection as we
have it is a chaotic wilderness. . . . Even the
single books are some of them arbitrary
aggregates of single fragments. . . . Every
THE NEW LIBRI FATALES 99
reader and writer allowed himself to complete
what existed after his own pleasure, and to
arrange the scattered papers now in one,
now in an opposite manner. Evidently much
was at first circulated in detached portions,
and the collection of these, afterwards made
by some admirer, was a very accidental one.
Hence duplicates of many portions are found
in different places."
I return now to Rome and to the measures
taken by the Roman Government to replace
the Libri Fatales destroyed by fire in B.C. 83.
After the rebuilding of the temple of Jupiter
Capitolinus by Sulla, the Senate, in B.C. 76,
at the instigation of the Consul C. Curio,
sent envoys to the different places which were
supposed to possess collections of Sibylline
writings, whether public or private ; and,
after careful sifting, about a thousand verses
were deposited in the vaults of the restored
temple.1 It is evident from the writings of
the time that there was a widespread interest
1 A maioribus decretum erat post exustum sociali bello
Capitolium, quaesitis Samo, Ilio, Erythris, per Africam
etiam ac Siciliam et Italicas colonias carminibus Sibyllae,
una seu plures fuere, datoque sacerdotibus negotio
quantum humana ope potuissent vera discernere (Tac.
Ami. vi. 12, cf. Lact. Inst. i. 6).
IOO SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
in this search for oracles, and in the question
of their authenticity,1 and fresh oracles -were
continually making their appearance down
to the reign of Tiberius and later, many of
which were manufactured to further political
intrigues. Thus Lentulus, the conspirator,
in 63 B.C. affirmed,2 "ex falsis sibyllinis
haruspicumque responsis, se esse tertium
ilium Cornelium, ad quern regnum huius
urbis atque imperium venire esset necesse ;
Cinnam ante se et Sullam fuisse . . . fatalem
hunc esse annum ad interitum huius urbis
atque imperii, qui esset decimus annus
post Virginum absolutionem, post Capitolii
autem incensionem vicesimus." Similarly
the authority of the Sibyl was invoked in
support of the proposal to give the title of
king to Julius Qesar (Cic. De Divin. ii.
no). " Sibyllae versus observamus, quos
ilia furens fudisse dicitur ; quorum interpres
nuper falsa quadam hominum fama dicturus
in Senatu putabatur, eum quern re vera
Regem habebamus, appellandum quoque
1 Varro (d. 28 B.C.) treated of the Sibylline Oracles in
the fourth book of his Antiquitates Rerum Divinaruni,
fragments of which are given in Merkel's edition of
Ovid's Fas//, p. cxvi. foil.
2 Cic. Cat. iii. 9.
SPURIOUS ORACLES IOI
Regem, si salvi esse vellemus. Hoc si est
in libris, in quern hominem et in quod
tempusest? Callide enim qui ilia composuit
perfecit, ut quodcunque accidisset praedictum
videretur, hominum et temporum definitione
sublata " ; and a similar story is told by
Suetonius {Jul. Caesar, 79): "Fama per-
crebuit . . . proximo senatu L. Cottam,
quindecimvirum, sententiam dicturum, ut,
quoniam libris fatalibus contineretur Parthos
nisi a rege non posse vinci, Caesar rex
appellaretur."
One method of distinguishing between
true and false prophecies appears to have
been the use of acrostics in the latter. Thus
Cicero (De Div. ii. in) argues that such an
artificial form of composition is inconsistent
with the divine frenzy ascribed to the Sibyl,
and Varro is quoted to the same effect by
Dion. Hal. (A. R. iv. 62), as saying that
the spurious oracles may be detected by the
so-called acrostics.1
The continued multiplication of books
1 Possibly the use of acrostics may be derived from
the Jews, as something resembling it is found in some of
the Psalms and in the Book of Lamentations. It occurs,
however, in the Prologues to the Plautine Comedies,
written about 50 E.c. (see Teuffel's Rom. Lit. § 88. 2), and
102 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
claiming to be oracular is further shown by
the action of Augustus in the year 12 B.C.,
when he succeeded Lepidus as Pontifex
Maximus, and called in all the unauthorized
oracles, whether Greek or Latin, which were
in circulation. Suetonius tells us1 that he
destroyed upwards of two thousand volumes,
retaining only a selection of the Sibylline
books, which he moved from the Capitol
and deposited in the vaults of his new temple
of the Palatine Apollo, thus fulfilling, as
Servius says, the promise made by ^Eneas
to the Sibyl of Cumae (Aeu. vi. 69 foil.).
We learn from Dio Cassius (lvi. 17) that he
required even these, since they were getting
illegible from age, to be replaced by new
copies, made by the priests with their own
hands, in order that no one else might read
them. As the existing copies had been
placed in the Capitol only about sixty years
before, it seems probable that this was merely
a pretext for the omission of any passages
is said to have been used by Ennius (Cic. Divin. ii. ill).
There is a famous example in Orac. Sib. viii. 217-250.
1 Oct. 31. Quidquid fatidicorum librorum Graeci
Latinique generis nullis vel parum idoneis auctoribus
vulgo ferebatur, supra duo millia contracta undique
cremavit.
HEBREW ORIGIN OF VIRGIL'S ORACLE IO3
which might be thought dangerous. For
the same reason Tiberius, when excitement
was caused, in reference to the feud between
Piso and Germanicus, by the supposed
discovery of an ancient prophecy of the
Sibyl, declaring that in thrice three hundred
years Rome was doomed to perish by
internal strife, ordered a re-inspection and
fresh sifting of the oracular books, kcu ra /uev
ft)? ovSevos a£ia airiKpive, to. Se evinpive (Dio
Cass. lvii. 18).
I think we are now in a condition to answer
with some confidence the question where
Virgil found his " Cumaeum carmen." (i) It
was evidently impossible for him to have any
knowledge of the old Roman books which
perished in 83 B.C., some years before his
birth. (2) There is no ground for supposing
that, in the year 40 B.C., when he wrote this
Eclogue, he could have had any knowledge
of the books which replaced them in the
restored temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. We
have seen how strict were the conditions
under which the Libri Fatales might be
inspected. Even the keepers were not
allowed to consult them, far less to publish
their oracles, without the express order of
104 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
the Senate. (3) We have no reason for
thinking that Virgil was acquainted with any
collection of oracles preserved in Erythrae
or elsewhere out of Italy. Cumae is the one
place in Italy where one might expect to
find such, and we learn from Pausanias (x. 12)
that there were none there in his time (xpwfJ-^v
Se 01 Kvfiaioi r>js yui'<uKos tcwt>]s ovdeva elxov
e-TriSei^aaOtu). (4) We seem driven therefore
to the conclusion that Virgil's "Cumaeum
carmen " was either one of the many oracles
which, having been imported from Asia
Minor about the year 76 B.C., had not been
thought worthy of admission to the Capitol,
but were apparently still in circulation in
Rome at the time when the Eclogue was
written ; or it may have been one of those
which found their way to Rome between the
years 76 and 40 B.C., a time in which
Roman armies were so busily employed in
Syria and Egypt.1 (5) In either case it is
1 Mr Warde Fowler writes : "Why should it not have
been picked up in Alexandria, the chief workshop of
Jewish Sibyllinists ? When Tacitus {Attn. vi. 12)
mentions Africa among the other places which yielded
new carvu'na, he doubtless includes Egypt, or chiefly
means Egypt. And there had been plenty of opportunity
for Romans to pick up such verses in Egypt in Virgil's
HEBREW ORIGIN OF VIRGIL'S ORACLE 105
probable that this carmen was of Jewish
origin. No other people had such strong
reasons for composing such oracles ; no
others could make them so interesting ; no
others had such opportunities of pushing
the sale of them as the ubiquitous Jew. We
may even indulge the fancy that the interest
which Virgil had shown in the Sibylline
poems may have led to his being consulted
by Augustus and Maecenas in the selection
of Oracles for the Palatine temple, which
was dedicated in 27 B.C. It is true that
Augustus did not succeed to the office of
Pontifex Maximus till the death of Lepidus
in 12 B.C., seven years after the death of
Virgil, but he had taken a leading part in
the restoration of the national religion ever
young days. Roman soldiers were in Egypt for several
years before Caesar went there. We read of Gabiniani
milites in Alexandria (Caes. Bell. Civ. iii. 4). Moreover,
Caesar's soldiers were chiefly from Virgil's own country,
Cisalpine Gaul, and they were with him in Alexandria for
many months. Then Cleopatra and her suite came to
Rome and stayed some time. Thus there was much con-
nexion between Italy and Alexandria ; and we probably
underrate the facility with which such things as prophetic
verses might get about among the learned and pseudo-
learned alike. Further, the idea of the golden age was
more likely to be to the front in Virgil's time than in
76 B.C., or at any rate more likely to attract attention."
O
106 sources or fourth eclogue
since he became supreme by the battle of
Actium ; and Virgil (as we have seen) was
aware of his intention to transfer the Sibylline
Books to the Palatine, when he wrote the
Sixth Book of the Acneid. Possibly the actual
Jewish source of his Eclogue may have found
a place in the new Libri Fa tales.
It may be well to notice here Forbiger's
objection (see his edition of Virg. vol. i.
p. 6.3) to the idea that a Roman poet could
have condescended to borrow from a Jewish
writing. " Quis vero scriptorum Latinorum
superstitiones Judaicas, nisi illas deridere
vellet, adsciscere vel tractare dignatus est"?
In the first place, it is not necessary to
suppose that Virgil was aware of the Jewish
origin of the Sibylline oracle which he follows.
It may have professed to come from Erythrae,
or Egypt, or from the East generally, like the
prophecy afterwards applied to Vespasian.1
In the next place the tender-hearted and
widely sympathetic Virgil was just as little
likely to share the hard Roman contempt
for the Jew, as he was to share the bitter
prejudice against Carthage. If he could take
the Carthaginian Queen for his heroine, if
1 Suet., Vesp. 4.
forbiger's objection answered 107
in her story he dared to reverse the old ideas
of Roman and of Punic faith, why should we
suppose him to be less sensitive than was
Longinus afterwards1 to the sublimity of
the sacred books of the Hebrews? Besides,
we have plenty of evidence to show that, in
this time of the breaking up of old faiths,
more than one Eastern religion exercised an
extraordinary attraction in Rome.
If we suppose, then, that such a vision
as we have in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah
had been made the subject of a Sibylline
poem, are there any allusions in the Fourth
Eclogue which would correspond with and
might be explained by this?
We will take first the general idea of a
golden age still to come. So far as Greeks
or Romans in general knew or dreamt of
a golden age, it belonged to the infancy
of the world, corresponding to the Garden
of Eden among the Hebrews. Hesiod,2
1 De Sublim. ix. 9.
2 Opera, 109. — Goettling thinks that Hesiod looked
forward to an improvement after the iron age, because he
utters the wish that he might either have died before it,
or been born afterwards ; but there is nothing to support
such an interpretation, and it is better to take the words
as Paley does, as merely expressive of strong dislike
IOS SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
Aratus,1 Ovid,- all start with this, descending
to their own generation by a gradual decline
from golden to silver, from silver to brazen,
from brazen to iron, except that Hesiod
interpolates an age of Heroes between the
brazen and the iron. Still more plainly is
this principle of degeneration expressed by
Horace {Carm. iii. 6. 45) —
Damnosa quid non imminuit dies?
Aetas parentum peior avis tulit
Nos nequiores, mox daturos
Progeniem vitiosiorem ;
and by Juvenal (xiii. 28) —
Nona aetas oritur peioraque saecula ferri
Temporibus, quorum sceleri non invenit ipsa
Nomen et a nullo posuit natura metallo.
But, it may be asked, may not this imagina-
tion of a golden age in the future be derived
from the Stoic doctrine of the periodic renewal
of the world, a irttkiyyevea-la or airoKa.Ta<TTa<Ti<i 3
— "better any age than this." paley even holds that
vv. 180-201 are descriptive of a sixth and still more
degenerate age.
1 Phaenomena, no foil. Aratus omits the iron age.
2 Metam. i. 89 foil.
3 For these words compare Varro ap. Aug. Civ. Dei.
xxii. 28, Sext. Emp. adv. Math. v. 105, Anton, xi. 1.
Both terms were borrowed by Christian writers, see
Acts iii. 21, Matt. xix. 28.
THE GOLDEN AGE 109
at the end of the cosmic year, the magnus
annus of Virgil ? This very phrase, as well
as the belief in the recurrence of the past,
described in the lines which follow —
Alter erit turn Tiphys et altera quae vehat Argo
Delectos heroas ; erunt etiam altera bella,
Atque iterum ad Troiam magnus mittetur Achilles,
leave no doubt that Virgil was familiar with
the teaching of the Stoics on this point.
It is true that the "magnus annus " was
originally an astronomical conception, not
confined to the Stoics, but shared by all men
of science. As the solar year was complete
when the sun returned to his original position
in the heavens, so we are told that, "cum ad
idem, unde semel profecta sunt cuncta astra
redierint, eandemque totius caeli discriptionem
longis intervallis rettulerint, — (then the great
year is completed), turn ille vere vertens annus
appellari potest, in quo vix dicere audeo quam
multa hominum saecla teneantur" (Cic. De
Republica, vi. 22). 1 The Stoics connected this
with their doctrine of the periodical conflagra-
tion of the universe, and also with their
astrological views. Since the life of man was
1 See the passages quoted in my note on Cic. N. D.
ii. 51, and Zeller, Die Phil. d. Griechen, vol. iv. p. 154.
IIO SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
determined by the aspect and influence of
the stars, when the stars returned to their
original position, there must be a recurrence
of human history.1
But though Virgil adds to his sketch of
the golden age some colours from the Stoic
natural philosophy, he says not a word of the
most important part of it, viz. the universal
conflagration which precedes the new world,
and the hopeless outlook of predestined decline
which follows after each cosmic renovation, —
that thought which called forth Shelley's
famous protest —
Cease ; drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past,
Oh ! might it die, or rest at last.
Here then we find one main feature of
Virgil's vision, a feature which is alien to
1 See Orig C. Cels. v. 20 : <paal £77 oi dwb rrjs 2roas Kara
ireplooov HxTrupucriv rod wavrbs yive<rdai, Kal e^s avrfi diaKdcr/ATjixtv
iravr' aTra.pdWa.KTa exovaav ws irpbs rr)i> Trportpav dtaKbafirjaiv
. . . Kal "ZuKpar-qv fj.tv wakiv 2w<f>poi>c<TKOv vibv Kal 'AOijvatov
tcrecrdai . . . Kal "Avvtos 5£ Kal MeX^ros avaaTqaovrai ttoXiv
ZuKparovs Kar-qyopoi. So Servius on Eel. iv. 4 : " Quod si
est idem siderum motus, necesse est ut omnia quae
fuerunt habeant iterationem. Universa enim ex astrorum
motu pendere manifestum est."
INAUGURATED BY A DIVINE BIRTH III
Greek and Roman thought, but which per-
vades and dominates the whole literature of
the Hebrews : Man's true perfection lies in front
of him, not behind him.
A second remarkable feature is that this
perfect state is to be brought about by the
birth of a wonderful child.
lam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto.
Aggredere O magnos, aderit iam tempus, honores,
Cara deum suboles, magnum Iovis incrementum.
The exact force of the last line has been
much disputed. Munro has an important
note on it in the Journal of Classical and Sacred
Philology, iv. 290 fob, in which he says that it
is usually taken to mean "Dear offspring of
gods, great fosterling of Jupiter," but he
contends that " offspring of gods" is here
unmeaning, as the "father, whoever he was,
whether Pollio, as I think, or another, was
a living, mortal man " ; and he would there-
fore give to suboles its other sense of tl breed "
or "stock," understanding the phrase of " a
child with the nature and qualities which
gods have." Later critics, as is shown in
the preceding Essays, have generally come
to the conclusion that the child referred to
112 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
is the hoped-for child of Augustus and
Scribonia ; and as Augustus and Julius, and
indeed the whole Julian race are regarded
as divine1 by Virgil, there is no reason
why the expected infant might not be called
"cara deum suboles," the affectionate word
"cara" being especially suited to the child
of the poet's great benefactor, Augustus.
But though Munro does not seem to me to
have proved his point in regard to suboles, I
think he is right in translating Iovis i?icre-
mentum, " promise of a Jove to be." He even
doubts whether incrementum can ever mean
"child," and points out that it is sometimes
"used with a genitive to denote the first
rudiments, germs, beginnings of something
which is afterwards to grow up." He com-
pares Ovid, Met. iii. 102 (probably imitated
from this passage) "iubet supponere terrae
1 See Eclog. i. 6, 7. Deus nobis haec otia fecit.
Namque erit ille mini semper deus, illius aram
Saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
(v. 56.) Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis.
/v. 65.) Deus, deus ille, Menalca !
Sis bonus, O felixque tuis ! en quattuor aras :
Ecce duas tibi Daphni, duas altaria Phaebo.
(ix. 47.) Ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris astrum.
{Aen. vi. 835.) Tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo.
MAGNUM IOVIS INCREMENTUM 113
vipereos dentes populi incrementa futuri,
where he understands the words in italics
to mean "the germs or seeds which are to be
developed into a future people." He supports
this by Apul. Met. v. 28, where " Venus in a
great passion says of Cupid, nimirum
incrementum istud lenam me putavit, meaning
apparently something like that little abortion " ;
and by a passage in Q. Curtius, v. 6.42 : Idem
Amyntas adduxerat quinquaginta principum
Macedoniae liberos adultos ad custodiam
corporis. Quippe inter epulas hi sunt regis
ministri, idemque equos ineunti praelium
admovent venantemque comitantur et vigili-
arum vices ante cubiculi fores servant, mag-
norumque praefectorum et ducum haec x
incrementa sunt et rudimenta, "These
youths are the first beginnings and rudi-
ments, have in them the making of great
governors and commanders." Munro adds
in reference to the application of the line to
1 Cf. for the attraction of the pronoun Cic. Phil. v. 14 :
Pompeio patre, quod imperio populi Romani lumen
fuit, extincto, interfectus est patris simillimus Alius.
Miitzell, in his note on the passage from Curtius, gives
what I think a truer explanation : " Diese Geschafte unci
Verrichtungen konnten gleichsam als Bildungsmittel fur
die kiinftigen Herrfiihrer angesehen werden."
P
114 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
the Tyndaridae in the Ctris, 398: "With
what meaning, if indeed with any meaning
at all, the author of the Ctris in its present
form has introduced his parody, I am quite
unable to say." l
Nettleship questions Munro's interpreta-
tion on the ground that "the thought would
be extravagant, expressing flattery which
Virgil does not bestow elsewhere, even on
Augustus,"2 and I think all must agree that
to speak of the new-born child as "the promise
of a Jupiter to be" is a very startling phrase,
something quite unexampled in classical
literature. Not unexampled, however, in
Jewish literature, for we read in Isaiah ix. 6,
"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son
1 See below, Appendix on Incrementum. Professor
Skutsch in his Gallus unci Vergil gives strong reasons
for thinking that the Ciris was written by Virgil's friend
and patron Gallus, and that the phrase in our Eclogue was
borrowed from him. Skutsch notes that the spondaic
hexameter is characteristic of Gallus, who uses it fifteen
times in the 541 lines of the Ciris, while it occurs only
three times in the 850 lines of the Eclogues.
2 Skutsch (Aus Vergil's Friihzeit, p. 152) goes so far
as to speak of its "Enormitat." Cartault's explanation,
"Jupiter sera grandi par la naissance d'un tel enfant"
seems to me a poor equivalent to the weighty expression
"Iovis incrementum," as interpreted by the context in
Virgil.
FEATURES BORROWED FROM ISAIAH 115
is given, and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Ever-
lasting Father,1 Prince of Peace"; and again
in chap. vii. 14 "the2 virgin (or damsel) shall
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his
name Immanuel, God with us" (cf. viii. 8).
See also Jer. xxiii. 5, 6 : " Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto
David a righteous branch, and he shall reign
as king ; . . . and this is his name by which he
shall be called, The Lord our righteousness."
What Virgil in his own person would not
have dared to say, Virgil, the interpreter of
the Sibyl's song (that is, as we have seen,
of Jewish prophecy), no more shrinks from
writing than Tennyson shrinks from the
phrase "Ring in the Christ that is to be,"
both looking forward to a higher and purer
order, a deeper sense of religion, about to
establish itself in the world.
But while we are bound, as I think, to
recognise the influence of Jewish writers in
1 This is very inadequately rendered in the LXX. :
teal KctAetTcU to 6vo/J.a avrov ~Meyd\ys j3ov\rjs &yye\os' a£w yap
elprji'-qv iirl rods apxovras /cat vyieiav ai/ry, omitting the two
clauses which might cause offence.
2 Does the article refer to the promised " seed of
the woman" (Gen. iii. 15)?
I 1 6 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
this phrase of Virgil's, we are not thereby
precluded from recognising in it the social
and religious influences of his own time and
country. We cannot forget that the highest
ideal of the Stoics was embodied in the
shape of a human or half-human champion
of right, who, as Horace tells us {C. iii. 3, 9),
was believed to have attained to divinity
by his self-sacrificing labours in behalf of
humanity.
Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules
Enisus arces attigit igneas,
Quos inter Augustus recumbens
Purpureo bibit ore nectar.
Even ordinary mortals were honoured as
Lares of the family after their death, and
the Greek kings of Egypt received divine
honours during their lifetime. Nor was the
astounding thought of another Jupiter to
replace the present ruler of the gods, as he
had replaced his father, one altogether un-
familiar to those who knew the story of
Prometheus, and of the fateful marriage of
Thetis, described by Catullus in a poem
which was certainly in the mind of Virgil
when he wrote this Eclogue. I do not, of
course, mean that Virgil took such stories
THE BIRTH IMMEDIATELY IMPENDING 117
literally, but he may have regarded them
as typifying the advent of a new and higher
manifestation of Divinity, an exhibition of
wisdom and righteousness, above all, of a
compassion for mankind, unknown in the
hard rule of the past.
Another feature of this birth, which is found
alike in Virgil and Isaiah, is that it is im-
mediately impending. According to Virgil
it is to take place in this very year, the year
of Pollio's consulship ; according to Isaiah
vii. 14 the child is shortly to be born ; in
ix. 6 he is already born ; in vii. 16 and
viii. 4 reference is made to his growing
intelligence ; in xi. the glory of his kingdom
is described. In both writers the question as
to the identity of the child is left in vague-
ness, and is therefore variously answered by
interpreters. In the Fourth Eclogue he has
been identified as one of the sons of Pollio,
either Saloninus or Asinius Gallus, or as
Marcellus, the son of Octavia and nephew
and subsequently son-in-law of Augustus
(but this is inconsistent with the fact that
he was born three years before the consul-
ship of Pollio), or as the expected offspring
of Scribonia, or finally as the type and repre-
IlS SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
sentative of the rising generation, which
was destined to witness the coming of the
golden age. So in Isaiah the child has been
regarded as either the son of the prophet him-
self (cf. viii. 3), or as Hezekiah, son of Ahaz
(but this seems inconsistent with chronology),
or as a miraculous virgin-birth of the time,
or finally (according to the view which has
always prevailed among Christians, and
which does not necessarily exclude any one
of the preceding narrower references), as re-
presenting the Messianic hope of the future,
foreshortened in the prophet's vision, and
therefore destined to immediate disappoint-
ment (as Virgil's hope was disappointed in
the Julia of history), but receiving its full
accomplishment when the appointed time
came round.1 Where there is a fervent
1 This is the view of the commentators of every school.
Thus Cheyne on Isa. ix. 6 says: "The prophet is
designedly vague ; we are told nothing about the origin
of the Messiah ; it is only an inference that he was
expected to come from the Davidic family. Isaiah is
entirely absorbed in his wonderful character and
achievements. He conceives of the Messiah some-
what as the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians
regarded their kings, as an earthly representative of
divinity." Bp. Wordsworth, on Isa. vii. 14, after
quoting from Bacon's Adv. of Learning, "Divine
DOUBLE MEANING OF PROPHECY 1 19
aspiration after better things, springing
from a strong feeling of human brother-
hood, and a firm belief in the goodness and
righteousness of God, such aspiration carries
with it an invincible confidence that some
how, some where, some when, it must receive
its complete fulfilment, for it is prompted by
the Spirit which fills and orders the universe
throughout its whole development. But if
the human organ of inspiration goes on to
fix the when, the how, and the where, and
attributes to some nearer object the glory of
the final blessedness, then it inevitably falls
prophecies have springing and germinant accomplish-
ments throughout many years, though the height or
fulness of them may refer to some one age," goes on to
say that the birth of Maher-shalal-hash-baz, the child of
the prophet and prophetess, and the routing of the two
foes of Ahaz soon after that birth, were a pledge and
earnest of the future accomplishment of the prophecy
in the birth of Messiah. Rawlinson, on the same
text, explains the words "The virgin shall conceive,"
as meaning that before a newly conceived infant should
grow up to years of discretion, the enemies of Judah
would be destroyed ; and that this child may have
received from his pious mother the name Immanuel in
witness of her faith that, whatever dangers threatened
Israel, God was still with His people." Prof. E. Johnson,
in the Pulpit Commentary, says that no more is known
about' any youth to whom the prophecy could lefer than
about the boy of the Fourth Eclogue.
120 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
into such mistakes as Virgil's, and finds its
golden age in the rule of the Cassars (which
was indeed an essential factor in the triumph
of Christianity), or perhaps, as in later days,
in the establishment of socialism or im-
perialism. Well for the seer if, like Virgil
and Isaiah, he remembers that the kingdom
of God is within us, and that the true golden
age must have its foundation in penitence for
past misdoing, and be built up in righteous-
ness and loving-kindness.
Still another feature common to both writers
is the connexion between the years of the
child's life and the fortunes of the world
around. Virgil tells us of the circumstances
which attend his infancy (v. 18), his youth
(v. 26), his manhood (v. 37), and he denotes
the stage of youth by the remarkable
expression
At simul heroum laudes ct facta parentis
lam legere et quae sit poleris cognosccre virtus,
a phrase which corresponds closely with
Isaiah's words twice repeated, "Before the
child shall }now to refuse the evil and choose
the good, the land whose two kings thou
abhorrest shall be forsaken " (vii. 16), and
"Before the child shall have knowledge to
GROWTH MARKED BY WORLD-CHANGES 121
cry, My father and my mother, the riches
of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria
shall be carried away" (viii. 4). Indeed
Virgil himself repeats the latter words in
the line
Incipe parve puer risu cognoscere matrem.
We go on now to consider the other details
of the new age depicted by Virgil, and, if
possible, to find out where they are taken
from. It is not necessary to fix on some
one authority to the exclusion of all others,
nor need we expect to find perfect consistency.
Virgil is a poet, writing at the most critical
epoch of human history, with a heart and
mind open to all influences ; and in this
poem he embodies the half-conscious hopes
and forebodings of his time. The Sibyl
was never supposed to be logical, and Virgil
here makes no attempt to reconcile the rival
claims of Apollo, Saturn and Jupiter, who
are all named as presiding over the new
age.
I take first the phrase "ultima Cumaei
carminis aetas." Servius, in his note on
Ed. ix. 47, l quotes the Memoirs of Augustus
1 Vulcatius haruspex in contione dixit cometem esse
Q
122 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
to the effect that the soothsayer Vulcatius
had interpreted the appearance of the comet
at the funeral games held in honour of
Caesar, as denoting the end of the ninth
age and the beginning of the tenth. Plutarch
| / '//a Sullae, 7), speaking of the signs which
foreboded the rise of Sulla, mentions in
particular the piercing and terror-striking
sound of a trumpet which came from a clear
sky, and was understood to announce the
end of the eighth stage of the great year.
Censorinus (De Die Natali, 17) adds that
the Etruscan soothsayers believed that, when
the tenth stage was completed, there would
be an end of the Etruscan name. Servius,
in his note on this line, says that, according
to the Sibyl, the last age is the tenth, the
age of the Sun or Apollo. In the existing
Sibylline books {e.g. iv. 20, 47, viii. 199)
the tenth age is also mentioned as the con-
cluding age of the world's history. In the
Old Testament the age of the Messiah has
no number attached to it (except in the book
qui significant exitum noni sacculi et ingressum decimi ;
sed quod invitis dis secreta rerum pronuntiaret, statim
se esse moriturum ; et nondum finita oratione in ipsa
contione concidit. Hoc etiam Augustus in libro secundo
de memoria vitae suae complexus est.
OTHER FEATURES OF THE GOLDEN AGE I 23
of Daniel), but it is constantly spoken of as
the "last time," as in Isaiah ii. 2.
1. 4. "lam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia
regna." Compare A en. vi. 791 foil. :
Hie vir, hie est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis,
Augustus Caesar, Divi genus, aurea condet
Saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva
Saturno quondam.
There is no doubt that "Virgo" here is to
be explained by Georg. ii. 474 :
Extrema per illos
Iustitia excedens terris vestigia fecit ;
and by Seneca, Octavia, 423 :
Astraea virgo siderum magnum decus.
Justice driven from earth by the wickedness
of man was enshrined in heaven as the
constellation Virgo. The story is borrowed
from Aratus {Phaen. 96-136), by whom
it was expanded from Hesiod {Op. 200). It
is just possible, however, that Virgil may
have identified the Hesiodic figure with
the "virgin" of Jewish prophecy as con-
cerned in the coming epoch. The happy
reign of the Latin god Saturnus was com-
memorated in the Saturnalia, the festival
1^4 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
of equality and peace. In later times he
was identified with the Greek god Kronos,
who was believed to have held supreme
authority in the golden age (Hes. Op. in),
and also to preside over the dead Heroes
in the Isles of the Blest {ibid. 169; Pindar,
Olymp. ii. 123 foil.). Virgil combines the
two in Acn. viii. 319 :
Primus ab aetherco vcnit Saturnus Olympo
Arma Iovis fugiens et regnis exul ademptis.
See also Gcorg. i. 125, ii. 536.
1. 7. " lam nova progenies caclo demittitnr
alto.''' We may compare with this and the
tenth line some words from the third and
oldest book of the existing Sibylline Oracles
(1. 652) :
koX rbv <x7r' yekioio Geos Trefixpn [icurikrja
os iracrav yaiav 7rav(rei 7roAepno kolkoIo.
It must be confessed, however, that the
Sibyl here, like her predecessor of the sixth
century, still prefers to dwell on the sadder
Side of life, ayeXaa-ra (/iOeyyo/ixevr].
" Tuus iam regnat Apollo." We have
already seen (p. 122) that — according to
the Sibyl— Apollo, brother of Diana, here
OTHER FEATURES OF THE GOLDEN AGE 1 25
identified with Lucina, was to preside over
the tenth age. Another feature of the
golden age is the recovery of pristine
innocence, denoted by the return of the
virgin Astraea, and expressly declared in
11. 13, 14—
Te duce si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,
Inrita perpetua solvent formidine terras.
Hesicd does not actually mention the virtue
of the first men, but it stands out by con-
trast with the corruption of their successors.
On the other hand, in Jewish prophecy
righteousness is the most prominent note of
the final reign of blessedness. Virgil's
meaning here is much the same as in Georg.
i. 500, where he prays that the young
Augustus may be permitted " everso suc-
currere saeclo . . . ubi fas versum atque
nefas, tot bella per orbem, tarn multae
scelerum fades."
I. 15. " I lie deum vitam accipiet divisque
videbit Permixtos heroas" taken from Hesiod
{Op. 112): wcrTe Oeol 0' e^wov atctjSea Ovfxov e'xorre?.
Compare Aratus, Phaen. 102 (of Astraea) :
v\pyiTO S' dvdpioTTtov Kar^vavTLiy ovScttot' avSptov,
ovSe7roT' dp-^aiwv rjvrjvaTO <jivXa yvvaiKiov k.t.X.
126 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
Catullus, lxiv. 385 foil. :
Praesentes namque ante domos invisere castas
Saepius et sese mortali ostendere coetu
Caelicolae nondum spreta pietate solebant,
and the story of Baucis and Philemon.1 It
was also in accordance with Jewish belief,
as shown in Isaiah's use of the name
Immanuel, and in Exodus xxix. 45, Leviticus
xxvi. 11, 12.
11. 18, 19. " Ar/t//o munuscula cultu tellus
. . . fundet." So Hesiod (1. 117): Kapirbv
6" effiepe £el3(*>po$ apovpa auro/xar?; 7roWov t€
Kai a<p6ovov. The same idea is repeated in
lines 29 and 30, and with far more grandeur
in Isaiah xxxv. 1 : " The wilderness and the
solitary place shall be glad, and the desert
shall rejoice and blossom as the rose," ibid.
lv. 13 : " Instead of the thorn shall come
up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall
come up the myrtle tree." Compare also
Sib. Orac. iii. 743-759 : 2
Yr) yap Trayytveretpa fipoTois Swcrei rbv apurrov
K.o.p-ov uTreipeu-LOV ctltov oiVOV ko.I 4^.aiov,
avrap d~' ovpavoOev //eAcros yXvKepov ttotov ?}Su
Sci'Spea T'ciKpoS/u'cuv Kapirbv xal ir'iova. p.fj\a
1 See above, p. 64 note.
2 This is generally assigned to the second century B.C.
OTHER FEATURES OF THE GOLDEN AGE 1 27
kcu /3oas, e/c t'oiW apvas atywv Te ^ipaipas'
Trrjyds tc f>'ij£ti yXvKepds Xcvkoio yaAa/cros-
irXiypet-s o' avre 7rdAeis dyaOwu /cat Trioves dypoi
kfDTOVT'' ovSe pd^aipa Kara %9ov6s ov&e KvSoipos'
ov$e fjapv crrevdyovaa. craAeucreTou ovKeri youa*
ov 7rdAe/ios, ov8' avre Kara x&ovbs av^p.b<s It' earou,
ov Xtpbs Kapwuv T€ KaKopptKTeipa ^aAa^a"
aAAa ^ev elprjvr] peydXi] Kara yaiav aTracrav k.t.A.
1. 22. "Nee magnos metuent armenta hones."
The same idea is repeated in ZjV/. v. 60.
There is no parallel in Hesiod, but in
Isaiah xi. 6 we read, "The wolf shall dwell
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down
with the kid, and the calf and the young lion
and the fading together, and a little child shall
lead them. . . . They shall not hurt nor
destroy in all my holy mountain," which is
nearly reproduced in Sib. Or. iii. 787-794.
'Ei' <rol 8' olkyjo-Uj vol 8' ecro-eTcu dOdvarov <£ws*
i]8e Xvkoi Te ko.1 dpves kv ovpecrtv dppiy' zSovtoli
yoprov, irapftdXits t' lpt<£ois dpa j3o<TKij<rovTai'
dpKTOt avv /xdcr^ots vo/zaSes avXt-o-dycrovrai'
<rapKo(36pos Te Aecov <£uyeTcu d^vpov -rrapd cfidrvq
d)S /Sous' Kat 7raiSes /xaAa vrj7rtoi lu Seo-polcriv
d£ovo-iw wrfpov yap Iri "xOovl 9?]pa 7TOH)o"ef
o"dv /3pe<^€crtV T€ SpaKOVTes dp? do-irlo-L koi/a7/o~ovtcu,
KOUK aSlK'^O-OUCTlV X6'/5 y<V ^COV £0-CT€t' €7r' aUTOUS.
1. 24. " Occidet et serpens et fallax herba
I2S SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
mi." This again is not Hesiodic, but
resembles Isaiah \i. 8, "The sucking child
shall play on the hole of the asp, and the
weaned child shall put his hand on the
basilisk's den." In Georg. i. 129 the same
thought recurs ; after the dethronement of
Saturn, Jupiter "malum virus serpentibus
addidit atris."
I. 30. " Durae que reus sudabunt roscida mella."
This is named among the rewards of the
righteous in Hes. {Op. 230), and in Sib. Orac.
(iii. 745). So Canaan is a land flowing with
milk and honey.
II. 38 foil. " Cedet ct ipse mari vector"
In this and the following lines we have a
curious feature of the new age. Naviga-
tion, agriculture, the life of towns, the
arts of civilization generally, are spoken
of as marks of a falling away from that
primaeval perfection the restoration of which
is described as the hope of humanity. No
scope seems to be left for human effort
and skill. There is no more place for com-
merce, since "omnis feret omnia tellus";
the dyer's hand is idle, since wool of every
colour is produced by nature. Compare
Hor. C. i. 3. 20-24 and the contrast between
OTHER FEATURES OF THE GOLDEN AGE 120,
the reign of Saturn and Jupiter in Georg. i.
125 foil., especially
Mellaque decussit foliis ignemque removit,
Et passim rivis currentia vina repressit,
Ut varias usus meditando excuderet artes.
This part of the Eclogue is an elaboration
of Hesiod {Op. 236) —
OdWovcriv 8' uyadoicn Sta/x7T€yoes' ov8' iirl vrjuv
vicnrovTai, Kapirov 8e <f>ep€t £ei8(opos apovpa.
We may also compare it with the "Sabbath
rest" of Israel, the promised peace which is
to mark the reign of the Messiah (Isa. ix. 7).
There are, moreover, occasional suggestions
to be found in Hebrew writings which denote
a high esteem for a life of Arcadian simplicity,
such as the ascription of inventions to the
fallen angels (Enoch vii., viii.) and to the
descendants of Cain (Gen. iv. 20), and again
the disappearance of the sea from the new
heaven and earth (Rev. xxi. 1).
1. 36. " Iterum ad Troiam niagnus mittetur
Achilles.'''' It has been shown above that
this is taken from the Stoic doctrine of the
cnroKaTdcTTaartg. It may also have been sug-
gested by Hesiod's interpolation of the Heroic
age, with its battles and adventures, in his
R
I3O SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
picture of the four world-ages, possibly also
by Jewish pictures of the Millennium, which
was to be followed by a fresh outbreak of
the powers of evil ; or it may merely reflect
the sudden transitions from good to evil in
the visions of Isaiah and the other prophets.
The interruption to the triumph of good is
in any case merely a passing phenomenon,
whether we are intended to see in it the
last struggle of evil, or a necessary part of
the training of the Conqueror1 for the high
office to which he is appointed by
Concordes stabili fatorum nuniine Parcae,
a line which reads like a protest on the part
of the poet against the sad never-ending
round of which the Stoics dreamt.
11. 50-52. " Aspice, venturo laetantur ut omnia
saeclo" cf. Eel. v. 61 foil. A not unworthy
echo of such passages as Isaiah xliv. 23,
"Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath
done it ; shout, ye lower parts of the earth :
break forth into singing, ye mountains, O
forest and every tree therein : for the Lord
hath redeemed Jacob, and will glorify Him-
self in Israel" ; see also xlix. 13, lii. 9, lv. 12.
1 Compare above, p. 19.
NEARER TO ISAIAH THAN TO THE SIBYL 131
I think the above comparison between
Virgil and Isaiah naturally leads us to the
conclusion that the thoughts and expressions
of the prophet must have somehow filtered
through to the poet ; and the poet's own
confession leads us to the Sibyl as the actual
organ or medium of communication reaching
through 500 years. But such a view is not
without its own difficulties. The Eclogue
is in some respects nearer to the original
prophecy than to the subsequent paraphrase,
so far as that is to be found in the still extant
Sibylline Oracles. We must remember, how-
ever, that these extant oracles contain only
an infinitesimal portion of the oracles exist-
ing in the time of Virgil. The great mass
of our Sibylline books are of Christian origin,
retaining no doubt something of the character
of the older books, whether Jewish or Pagan :
and we are probably justified in suppos-
ing that the existing books owe their form
and preservation to the feeling of Judaistic
Christians, who valued them as the voice of
prophecy among the Gentiles, confirming the
prophets of Israel1 by confuting the errors
of polytheism and idolatry, and setting forth
1 See Augustine quoted in the footnote on p. 24.
[32 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
the terrible punishments in store for un-
believers. The bitterness engendered by
persecution solaced itself by imaginations of
the still heavier woes stored up by righteous
vengeance for the persecutors. This, I think,
will account for the prevailing tone both of
the Sibylline passages cited by the Fathers,
and of the body of Sibylline writings which
have come down to us, though the parallels
which I have quoted above show that the
future happiness in store for the righteous was
not left entirely unnoticed. I think, however,
that a careful examination of Virgil's Eclogue
suggests that he must have had before him,
if not an actual translation from Isaiah, at
least some closer paraphrase of Messianic
prophecy than we now possess.
Another interesting question is how Hera-
clitus could have spoken so highly of the
Sibylline Oracles of his time. Judging from
the parodies in Aristophanes,1 as well as
from what are regarded as the most ancient
of the extant oracles, we should hardly have
1 Aristoph. Eg. 61 : &8ei S£ xP'W-o1'*' ° Si ytpvv (rifivWlq..
The oracles given in 11. 1015, 1030, 1037, etc., are
generally ascribed to Bacis, but we may suppose them
to represent the Sibylline type. Compare also Pax 1095.
See Alexandre, p. 140 foil.
HERACLITUS, PLATO, PORPHYRY 1 33
thought they could have deserved the en-
comiums passed on them by him and by
Plato.
It may help to explain this high apprecia-
tion, if we call to mind the words of Simmias
in the Phaedo (p. 85 d), where, discussing the
question of the immortality of the soul, he
says it is man's duty to find the best and
most irrefragable of human words, and trust-
ing himself to this, as to a raft, to set forth
on the hazardous voyage of life, unless it were
possible to find a surer and less dangerous
way on board a stronger vessel, some word
of God (ei jul7] tl? Svvmro acr<fia\e(rT€pov Km
aKivSwotepov €7r( (3e(3aioTepov oxv/u-aTos, Xoyou
Oelov Tii'69, SicnropeuOfjvai). So, at a later
period, Porphyry justified the publication of
his treatise on the " Philosophy to be derived
from Oracles," on the ground that the use
of such a collection of the divine responses
would be understood by all who had felt the
painful craving after truth, and had some-
times wished that, by receiving the mani-
festation of it from the gods, they might be
relieved from their doubts by information
not to be disputed {ocroi irep\ rhv aX/jOeiav
wSlvavTes rju^avTO irore tt}? €k Qeow eirKpaveias
134 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
Tv\(»re<: avairmxriv Xafteiv t>}<? airopids 8ia t>/i
riov \eyovru>v aj-ioirtrrrov SiSao-KaXiav.)1 If we
suppose something of this feeling in Heraclitus
and Virgil, it would make it easier to under-
stand the interest they took in the Sibylline
Oracles.
On the other hand, nothing could be more
appropriate than the words of the Ephesian
philosopher, if they were meant to describe,
say, the last prophecy of Balaam, or the
first five chapters, or any of the "Burdens"
of Isaiah. Can we conceive any way in
which these could have come to the know-
ledge of an Ephesian of 510 B.C. ? We
know that Psammetichus had encouraged
the residence of Ionians in Egypt, and sur-
rounded himself with a bodyguard of Greeks,
about the middle of the seventh century. He
and his successors, Necho and Psammuthis,
were engaged in wars in Syria and Palestine,
and we read of Jewish settlements being
established in Egypt during their reigns
(Jer. xliv. 1). Amasis (B.C. 569-525) was
even a wanner philhellene than his pre-
decessors, and received the honour of a visit
from Solon. It was perfectly possible, there-
1 Euseb. Praep. Evang. iv. 7.
LINKS BETWEEN JUDAEA AND GREECE 1 35
fore, for Greeks and Jews to fraternise in
Egypt, and a native of Ephesus might thus
bring back with him from Egypt some know-
ledge of Jewish prophecy, or a Greek soldier
might get hold of some sacred scroll in an
invasion of Judaea. Possibly future explora-
tion in the tombs of Egypt may supply definite
information on these points.1 Another channel
of communication between the Ionians and
the Jews may be found in the sale of Jewish
children as slaves to the sons of Javan by
the Phoenicians (Joel iii. 6). Ephesians, no
less than Syrians, might learn from "a little
maid " the existence of prophets in Israel.
So we find Isaiah speaking (xi. n) of the
return of Jewish exiles, not only from Assyria
and Egypt, but also from the islands or
coastlands of the sea. And even as early as
the time of Solomon, Israelites took part in
the mercantile expeditions of the Tyrians.
We may well believe that not Jewish
exiles only but philosophers and statesmen of
1 Since this was written my attention has been called
to the recent discovery of the Assuan Papyri, which
supply interesting information as to the interior of one
of these Jewish colonies in the fifth century B.C. (cf.
J. of Theol. Studies, vol. viii. 615 foil.).
136 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
Ionia would read with interest the announce-
ment in the latest oracle from the East,1 that
the conqueror of Crcesus was also the destined
instrument in the hand of God for the delivery
of the nations from the yoke of Babylon and
the restoration of the Jews to their native
land.
But how are we to account for the use
of the name S//3i/XXa by Heraclitus in con-
nexion with Jewish prophecy. Perhaps the
note of Servius on Acn. iii. 445 may help
us here. Discussing the etymology of the
word, he says, " Aeoli a-lov? dicunt deos ;
/3oiA>} autem est sententia : ergo 2i/3u'XXa?
quasi crlov (Oeov) (3ou\dg dixerunt " ; see
Alexandre (pp. 1, 2), where this etymology
is accepted and defended.2 If the word
1 See Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1.
2 Baunack, Studien auf dem Gebiete der griechischen
und arise/ten Sprachen, i. p. 64, upholds the same
etymology. [It must be confessed that the phonetic
conditions of this etymology are scarcely defensible from
our present knowledge of the phonetics of any one Greek
dialect. When did the 6 become cr, or the o dis-
appear? Such a contraction would be far more natural
for Italian, than for Hellenic lips. On the other hand,
foreign names suffer many things which are grievous
to the student of the regular phonetic changes of any
one language. No one can yet say precisely where or
when it was that IloXuSaVr?? became Pollux, 'Odvcrcreut
BIBLIOGRAPHY 137
a-i/3uWa meant originally the "counsel or
will of God," we can see how it might be
used for the utterance not only of the
Greek prophetess, but also of the Jewish
prophet declaring that will.
P.S. — To those who desire further informa-
tion on this abstruse and interesting subject
I would especially recommend Alexandre's
exhaustive Excursus ad Sibyllina, containing
624 pages (unfortunately without an index),
which constitutes the second volume of his
first edition of the Oracula ; and next to that,
Klausen's sEneas und die Penaten, pp. 203-
312 ; Marquardt's Romische Staatsverwaltung,
vol. iii. pp. 42-54 and 336-344 ; Schiirer's
History of the Jewish People, div. ii. vol. iii.
pp. 270-292, containing a full bibliography ;
and Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire de la Divina-
tion, vol. ii. 93-199. See, too, Hastings'
D. of B. vol. v. p. 66 foil, under " Sibylline
Oracles." It may be worth while to com-
pare the old edition of the Sibylline Books
Ulixes, QeppeQaTTo. TieptxeQovq and Proserpina. And it
must be remembered that a Sybil or witch is wont to
be a foreigner ; see a notice of Wiinsch's Sethianische
Verfluchungstafel 'in Class. Rev., 1899, p. 226. R. S. C]
S
I38 SOURCES OF FOURTH ECLOGUE
by Gallaeus (a.d. 1689) which is followed
by an Appendix containing a collection by
Opsopceus of other ancient Oracles.
APPENDIX
ON INCREMENTUM
Munro's translation is confirmed by an inscrip-
tion in Corp. Inscript. vol. x. par. i, pp. 580,
581, ex quorum reditu quotannis daretur pueris,
curiae increment's, cruslulum, which I suppose means
"boys who would hereafter constitute (or 'compose')
the Town Council," on which Mommsen notes
Decurionum filii ipsi dicuntur ificrementum curiae.
Georges in his Lexicon gives the same meaning to
crementum in two passages of Isidorus. On the other
hand, there is a sepulchral inscription (Orelli 2685,
Wilmanns 269), in which " incrementum " is inter-
preted "puer vel alumnus": Niceratus . . . coniugibus
fecit et sibi et Ulpio Vitali et Donato servo fidelissimo
et Aiteianis Succesae et Primitivae et duobus incrementis
Victori et Chrysomello, where Atteianis is explained to
mean "formerly slaves of Atteius." See also the
Vulgate (Num. xxxii. 14), speaking of the children of
the generation which had perished in the wilderness,
et ecce inquit, vos surrexistis, pro patribus vestris,
incrementa et alumni hominum peccatontm, ut augeretis
furorem Domini contra Israel, where both A. V. and
139
140 APTENDIX ON INCREMENTUM
R. V. have "an increase of sinful men," but Delitzsch
explains "increase" as equivalent to "brood." Tille-
mont {Mem. Eccles. iv. p. 740) considers the use of
incrementum in the sense of son, a proof of the late
date of the Acta S. Sebastiani. [Partly taken from
Marini's note on the Atti dei Fratelli Arvali, p. 425
foil.]
Professor Robinson Ellis, whom I consulted on
this passage, illustrates it from Aen. x. 641 fol. : Macte
nova virtute puer : sic ilur ad astra, Dis genite et
geniture deos. He thinks the nearest English
equivalent to incrementum is "embryo." The child
is begotten by Jupiter (dis genite) and is also the
parent stock of gods (geniture deos). In the Ciris
he understands the word in the former sense, meaning
little more than "child." Skutsch (I.e. p. 82), on the
other hand, gives the following explanation : Incre-
mentum m it suboles durchaus nicht identisch ist.
Geboren sind die Dioskuren als Sonne des Zeus :
zum incrementum des Zeus, d. h. seiner Schaar ("an
accession to his court"), der Gotter, werden sie erst
durch das alternas sortiti vivere sortes — sie steigen
erst nachtriiglich zum Olymp auf. So kann ich
zwar die Feinheit bewundern mit der Vergil den
Vers auf das Menschenkind, den Gottersohn und
kiinftigen Gott ubertragen hat." That is to say,
incrementum keeps its prospective force (like semen
in semen ecclesiae) in both passages, as contrasted
with the retrospective force of suboles.
INDEX
Achilles, the new, 19
Acrostics, 101
^Eneas, his humanity, 44 ;
Christian view of his vision,
31
Age, the last or tenth, I2if.
See Golden
Alexandre, Sibyllina, 137
Anchises, prophecy, 41 ; on
duty of Rome, 42
Annus magnus, 17, 109
Antony, 34, 43, 44 ; his Par-
thian expedition, 56 note
diroKaTatrracrfs, icSf. See
Stoic
Apollo, 121, 122, 124; his
magnus annus, 17
Apuleius, Met. v. 28, his use
of incrementum, 113
Aratus, 108, 123, 125
Aristophanes, on Sibylline
oracles, 132 note
Asconius, his storv of Asinius
Gallus, 8of.
Ascraeus, 89
Asinius Gallus, claimed to be
the child of the poem, 80
Astraea, 16, 123
Augustine, his Civ. Dei,
quoted, 19 ; his view of
Virgil's Messianic predic-
tion, 24 ; and the Sibyl, 25
Augustus, as a religious re-
former, I05f. ; his care for
the oracles, 102 ; deified by
Virgil, 112; his memoirs,
1 2 if. See Octavianus
Baunack, on the word aLfivWa,
136
Brundisium, peace of, 53, 56
note
Cartault, Prof., study of the
Eclogue 51, 62 note 1, 68
note, 69 note, 82 note, 114
note
Catiline and Mezentius, 43 ;
his Etruscan name, 43 note
Catullus, Ixi., quoted, 72 ;
Scaliger's comment on, 73 ;
lxiv. , 116, 126
Censorinus, on the last age,
122
Cheyne, 1 iS
Child, the divine, 11 iff. See
Isaiah
Church, early Christian and
Virgil, 22
Cicero and Drances, 43
on forged oracles, ioof. ;
on the magnus annus, 109
Ciris, Munro and Skutsch
upon. 114, 139
I4I
I42
INDEX
Constantinc, 22, 23
Cumaeum carmen, SSfT.,
io^f. : probably of Jewish
origin, 105
Curtius, v. 6-42, interpreta-
tion, 113
Dante, 12 ; his view of Virgil,
25, 26
Dares, 22
Degeneracy, progressive, the
belief of the ancients, 108
De Morgan, 14 note
Dies irae, 25
Dio Cassius, xxxix. 15, p.
92; hi. 17, p. 102;
lvii. 18, p. 103
Dionysius Halicarnensis on
the Sibylline Books, 96,
101
Dionysus, Zagreus, 63 ; his
epiphany, 64
Domitian and his expected
heir, 30 ; and Martial, 39
Drances, 43
Duumviri, 91
Eclogue, the Fourth, para-
phrased, 17-21
Ellis, Robinson, on incremoi-
tum, 140
Empire, as forerunner of
Christianity, 38
Entellus, 22
Etruscan, names in -a, 43 note
Etruscans, stellar cycle of, 16
Eusebius, 22, 23
i^iKvctuOat, c. gen., 93
Fabricius on the word
Cumaeus, 88
Forbiger, his view of Roman
attitude to Jews, 106
Gallus wrote the Ciris, 114
note
Garrod, II. W., 28
Gcffcken, 88
Golden Age, Christian con-
trasted with Hellenic view,
io7f; its moral character,
125 ; its effect on nature,
animate and inanimate,
I26ff. ; Arcadian simplicity,
128 ; passing intrusion of
evil, 130
Gruppe, O., his Griechische
Kulte und My then, 61
note 1
Heraclitus on the Sibyl, 93f.,
97, 132, i34ff.
Hercules, as dispensator, 21 ;
dens conjitgalis, 7 5^-
Heroes, age of, interposed by
Hesiod, 108, 129
Hesiodj 16; notCumaean, 88;
Goettling and Paley on,
107 ; his golden age differs
from Virgil's, 108, 127,
128; quoted 123, 124, 125,
126, 128, 129
Hexameter, spondaic frequent
in Ciris, 114
Heyne's view of the child,
57
Horace, C. iii. 6. 45, p. 108 ;
C. iii. 3. 9, p. 16: C. i. 3.
20-24, p. 128
Ep. i. 2. 14, 33 ; on
Augustus, 39 note
EjK.de, 16, 54
Incrementwn, 61, 111-115,
i39f-
India, 19
Interwoven order in Latin, 21
Ionia and Palestine, early
links between, 134m
Isaiah, parallels in, 28 ; com-
pared with Virgil on the
golden age, 97, III, which
INDEX
143
Isaiah — continued.
is inaugurated by a divine
birth, H4f., immediately
impending, 117; various
interpretations of his pro-
phecy, 118 note; the child's
growth marked by corre-
sponding world - changes,
120; remarkable phrase to
denote his youth, i2of.
Italy, regeneration of, the
subject of the poem, 54,
66
Iulium sidus, 16
Jew and Gentile, growing
intercourse between, after
the conquests of Alexander,
98 : literary borrowings, 98,
105
Jewish Colonies in Egypt,
I34f-
Jews early settled in Asia
Minor, 135
Johnson, on Pope's view of
the Eclogue, 28
Julius Caesar, deification of,
28, 112; and the consulship,
82 ; in Fifth Eclogue, 83
note
Juno, 75f. ; as pronuba, 21
Jupiter, 61, 62; father of
Dionysus, 63
Juvenal, xiii. 28, on degene-
racy, 108
Last four lines of Eclogue,
discussed, 58, 68f.
Last line of Eclogue, variously
explained, 21, 74f.
Latinus, King, 43
Libri Fatales, 9of. ; destroyed
by fire, 83 B.C. 99 ; replaced
76 B.C. 99. See Sibylline
Books
Livy, on the Sibylline Books,
92, 95f-
Longinus, 107
Lucina, 15
Mackail, Prof., his view of
the Eclogue, 29, 49f.
Main questions arising out of
the poem, 52f.
Marquardt, on the Sibylline
Books, 9 if.
Martial on Domitian, 39 note
quoted, 85 note
Melior anima, victima, 22
note
Merivale, quoted, 57
Messianic conception denned,
13
Mezentius, 43
Munro on sit botes and in-
crement am, 1 1 1- 1 14, i38f.
Nettleship, H., his opinion as
to the child, 29, 84
v. Munro, 114
Nigidius Figulus, Neo-
Pythagorean, 65
Notter on Dante and Virgil,
25 note
Octavianus, 53, 58 note I (as
Augustus) ; always in
Virgil's mind, 83 ; father
of the expected child, 29f.,
84. See Augustus
Orbis, meaning of, 62 note
Origen, on the Stoic awoKard-
crracns, I IO note
Orphic poetry, 63 ; initiation,
63. Cf. 64, 67
Ovid, Metamorphoses, quoted,
61 ; Fasti, quoted, 62 note 2
uses "Ascraeus," of
Hesiod, "Cumaea" of the
*44
INDEX
Ovid i ontinued,
Sibyl, S9, 93 note ; the Sibyl
shrinks into a mere voice in
old age, 95 ; human degene-
racy, 108 ; his use of in-
crement um, 1 i2f.
jrciktyyeviffla, io8f., no note
Papyri, Assuan, 135 note
Parthians, 19
Petition tablets in British
Museum, 64 note
Plato, Phaedrus p. 244 on
the Sibyl, 93f. ; Phaedo
p. 85 on the need of
revelation, 133
Plutarch, Vita Sullae 7 on the
signs foreboding the end of
an age, 122
Pollio, his place in the Eclogue,
13 ; Jewish relations, 28 ;
consulship, 52, 53, 59, 62
note, 81 ; in the Eclogues
generally, 82 ; not the
father of the child, 29 note,
82 note
Pompey, 36, 43
Pope, Messiah, 27 ; on Fifth
Eclogue, 28
Porphyry on the value of
oracles, 133
Postgate, Dr, in Classical
Review, 8, 72 note 2
Propertius, 39 note
Prophecy, human and divine
factors in, 118- 120
Quindecimviri, 91, 92 note,
96
Quintilian, on last two lines,
71 and note, 72 and note
Ramsay, Prof. W. M., 15 note ;
in Proceedings of Franco-
Scottish Society, 1898, 51 ;
quoted, 54f. ; in Expositor
for 1907, viif., 55 note, 58
note 1 : his view of the child
of the poem, 55f.
Rawlinson on Isa. vii. 14,
p. 119
Redeemer, pagan anticipa-
tions of, 116
Reifferscheid, his doctrine of
the di conjugates, 77
Reinach, M., his view of
the poem, 59/. ; criticised,
65f.
Revelation, yearning for, by
Plato and Porphyry, I33f.
Ridere, with accusative, 8,
75f-
Righteousness, a mark of the
New Age, 123, 125
Roby. on the form duumviri,
Roman connexion with the
East in Virgil's time, 104
note
Rome, the decay of republican
morals in, 31, 33 ; causes of
anarchy, 34
Samnite prisoners butchered,
34
Saturn, in golden age, 16 ; in
Aen. viii., 23
Saturnus, 121, I23f., 129
Scaliger, J. J., commentary on
Catullus, 73, 77 note
Schaper, emendation by, 13
SchiArer, on the extant
Sibylline oracles, g8f.
Schiirer's Jewish people in
the time of Christ, quoted,
6 1 note
Scribonia, 30, 84
Seaton, Mr R. C, in Classical
Review, 70, 75
Septuagint version of Isa. ix.
6, p. 115
Servius, on the Melior vie-
tima, 21, 22 ; comment on
last two lines, 71, 7$f. ;
quoted, 95, 102, 1 10 note,
121, 122, 136
Shelley, protest against Stoic
irakuyfevecrla, no
2i'/3uA\a, etymology, 136
Sibyl, 16, 25, 28 ; in Virgil,
89f., 94C, 102 ; in Heraclitus
and Plato, 93f., 133; her
age, 93 note, 95 ; her oracles
written or spoken, 95
Sibylline Oracles, Tarquin's,
their nature, 90-92 ; differ-
ently described by Livy
and by Heraclitus, 91-93 ;
probably of Jewish origin, 61
note, 97, 104, io6f., i34f. ;
extant Sibylline Books, 981.,
131, 132; spurious oracles
distinguished by the use of
acrostics, 100, 101 ; quoted,
102 note, 124, 126, 127;
bibliography, 137
Skutsch, Prof., 29 ; his opinion
as to the child, 84 note 1 ;
quoted, 114 note, 139
Spartacus, 34
Statius, in Dante, 26, 27
Stoic doctrine of airoKaTcitr-
■ Tains, 108-IIO, 130
Suboles, inf., 139
Suetonius, Life of Virgil, 71
note; Julius, 79; Vesp.,
4, p. 106 note; Octav., 31,
p. 102 note
INDEX 145
Turnus, his savagery, 46 ;
death, 47 ; compared to
Antony, 43
Varro, 95 note, 1 00 note,
108 note, 136
Verrall, on Statius, 26
Veterans settled on Italian
lands, 14
Virgil, indebted to Pollio, 14;
as prophet, 32, 48 ; on cor-
ruption of Rome, 36 ; hopes
of Empire, 37 ; compared
to Homer, 37, 43 ; new
ideals in, 4of ; his teaching
in harmony with Christi-
anity, 48 ; his sympathetic
nature, io6f. ; deifies the
Julian family, 112. See
Sibyl and Isaiah
Aeneid quoted : i. 289
296, p. 37 ; ii. 506-558, p
37 ; iii. 441, p. 89; 448
p. 95; v. 730, p. 89; vi
45. P- 94 5 7i> PP- 96, 102
548-627, p. 37 ; vi. 662
665, p. 37 5 vi- 79i» P
123; 792, p. 39; vi. 756
846, p. 40 ; vi. 832-835, p
41; 835, p. 112; vi. 847
853, p. 42; vii. 335-340
p. 44; viii. 319, p. 124; x
641, p. 139; x. 821-832
p. 45; xi. 108- 1 19, p. 45
xi. 443, p. 46 ; xii. 952, p
47
Eclogue i. 6, p. 1 12 ; iv
Tacitus, Ann., vi. 12, search
for oracles in 76 B.C., 99
note, 104 note
Tennyson, quoted in illustra-
tion of Iovis incremetilum ,
"5
Tout, Prof. T. F., 23 note
4, pp. 88-90, 104-106, 121
123 ; 5, p. I09f. ; 6, pp
123, 124; 7, pp. ill, 124
10, p. I24f.; 11, 12, p. 117
13, p. 125, cf. 1. 31 ; 15
p. I25f. ; 18, p. I26f. ; 22
p. 127 ; 24, p. 128; 27
p. i2of., cf. 1. 60 ; 30, p
128; 31, pp. 125, 128; 36
146
INDKX
Virgil — continued.
I29f. ; 3s. P- 12${- « 47, P-
no; 49, pp. m-117, I38>
139; 52, p- 13°; v- 56> P-
112, 130; ix. 47, p. 112
Gcorg. i. 125, p. 124;
ii. 176, p. S9; 474. P- I23 5
iv. 563, p. 89
Georgia, describing trade
cruelties, ii. 496-531. P- 20>
on disorders of Rome, i.
4S9, p. 35; ii. 503-5 12,
P-36
Virgo. See Astraea
Vulcatius on the tenth age,
121 note
Wordsworth, Bp., on ha.
vii. 14, pp. u St.
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