or VERGI'LIUS MARO, was born on the 15th of October, B. C. 70 in the first consulship of Cn. Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus, at Andes, a small village near Mantua in Cisalpine Gaul. The tradition, though an old one, which identifies Andes with the modern village of Pietola, may be accepted as a tradition, without being accepted as a truth. The poet Horace, afterwards one of his friends, was born B. C. 65; and Octavianus Caesar, afterwards the emperor Augustus, and his patron, in B. C. 63, in the consulship of M. Tullius Cicero. Virgil's father probably had a small estate which he cultivated : his mother's name was Maia. The son was educated at Cremona and Mediolanum (Milan), and he took the toga virilis at Cremona on the day on which he commenced his sixteenth year in B. C. 55, which was the second consulship of Cn. Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus. On the same day, according to Donatus, the poet Lucretius died, in his forty-first year. It is said that Virgil subsequently studied at Neapolis (Naples) under Parthenius, a native of Bithynia, from whom he learned Greek (Macr. 5.17); and the minute industry of the grammarians has pointed out the following line (Georg. 1.437) as borrowed from his master :
Glauco et Panopeae et Inoo Melicertae.
(Compare Gellius 13.26; and PARTHENIUS).
He was also instructed by Syron an Epicurean, and probably at Rome. Virgil's writings prove that he received a learned education, and traces of Epicurean opinions are apparent in them. The health of Virgilius was always feeble, and there is no evidence of his attempting to rise by those means by which a Roman gained distinction, oratory and the practice of arms. Indeed at the time when he was born, Cisalpine Gaul was not included within the term " Italy," and it was not till B. C. 89 that a Lex Pompeia gave even the Jus Latii to the inhabitants of Gallia Transpadana, and the privilege of obtaining the Roman civitas by
It is merely a conjecture, though it is probable that Virgilius retired to his paternal farm, and here he may have written some of the small pieces, which are attributed to him. the Culex, Ciris, Moretum, and others. The defeat of Brutus and Cassius by M. Antonius and Octavianus Caesar at Philippi B. C. 42, gave the supreme power to the two victorious generals, and when Octavianus returned to Italy, he began to assign to his soldiers lands which had been promised them for their services (D. C. 48.5, &c.). But the soldiers could only be provided with land by turning out many of the occupiers, and the neighbourhood of Cremona and Mantua was one of the districts in which the soldiers were planted, and front which the former possessors were dislodged. (Appian, App. BC 5.12, &c.) There is little evidence as to the circumstances under which Virgil was deprived of his property. It is said that it was seized by a veteran named Claudius or Clodius, and that Asinius Pollio, who was then governor of Gallia Transpadana, advised Virgil to apply to Octavianus at Rome for the restitution of his land, and that Octavianus granted his request. It is supposed that Virgilius wrote the Eclogue which stands first in our editions, to commemorate his gratitude to Octavianus Caesar. Whether the poet was subsequently disturbed in his possession and again restored, and whether he was not firmly secured in his patrimonial farm till after the peace of Brundusium B. C. 40 between Octavianus Caesar and M. Antonius, is a matter which no extant authority is sufficient to determine.
Virgil became acquainted with Maecenas before Horace was, and Horace (Sat. 1.5, and 6. 55, &c.) was introduced to Maecenas by Virgil. Whether this introduction was in the year B. C. 41 or a little later is uncertain; but we may perhaps conclude from the name of Maecenas not being mentioned in the Eclogues of Virgil, that he himself was not on those intimate terms with Maecenas which ripened into friendship, until after they were written. Horace, in one of his Satires (Sat. 1.5), in which he describes the journey from Rome to Brundusium, mentions Virgil as one of the party, and in language which shows that they were then in the closest intimacy. The time to which this journey relates is a matter of some difficulty, but there are perhaps only two times to which it can be referred, either the events recorded in Appian (App. BC 5.64), which preceded the peace of Brundusium B. C. 40, or to the events recorded by Appian (App. BC 5.78), which belong to the year B. C. 38. But it is not easy to decide to which of these two years, B. C. 40 or B. C. 38, the journey of Horace refers. It can hardly refer to the events mentioned in Appian (App. BC 5.93, &c.) which belong to the year B. C. 37, though even this opinion has been maintained. [HORATIUS FLACCUS.]
The most finished work of Virgil, his Georgica, an agricultural poem, was undertaken at the suggestion of Maecenas (Georg. 3.41), and it was probably not commenced earlier than B. C. 37. The supposition that it was written to revive the languishing condition of agriculture in Italy after the civil war, and to point out the best method, may take its place with other exploded notions. The idea of reviving the industry of a country by an elaborate poem, which few farmers would read and still fewer would understand, requires no refutation. Agriculture is not quickened by a book, still less by a poem. It requires security of property, light taxation, and freedom of commerce. Maecenas may have wished Virgil to try his strength on something better than his Eclogues; and though the subject does not appear inviting, the poet has contrived to give it such embellishment that his fame rests in a great degree on this work. The concluding lines of the Georgica were written at Naples (Georg. 4.559), but we can hardly infer that the whole poem was written there, though this is the literal meaning of the words,
- Haec super arvorum cult pecorumque canebam.
We may however conclude that it was completed after the battle of Actium B. C. 31, while Caesar was in the East. (Compare Georg. 4.560, and 2.171, and the remarks of the critics.) His Eclogues had all been completed, and probably before the Georgica were begun (Georg. 4.565).
The epic poem of Virgil, the Aeneid, was probably long contemplated by the poet. While Augustus was in Spain B. C. 27, he wrote to Virgil to express his wish to have some monument of his poetical talent; perhaps he desired that the poet should dedicate his labours to his glory as he had done to that of Maecenas. A short reply of Virgil is preserved (Macr. 1.24), in which he says, " with respect to my Aeneas, if it were in a fit shape for your reading, I would gladly send the poem; but the thing is only just begun; and indeed it seems something like folly to have undertaken so great a work, especially when, as you know, I am applying to it other studies, and those of much greater importance." The inference that may be derived from a passage of Propertius (Eleg. 2.34, 5.61), in which he speaks of the Iliad as begun and in progress, and from the recent death of Gallus, also mentioned in the same elegy, is that Virgil was engaged on his work in B. C. 24 (Clinton, Fast. B. C. 24). An allusion to the victory of Actium in the same elegy, compared with the passage in Virgil (Aeneid, 8.675 and 704) seems to show that Propertius was acquainted with the poem of Virgil in its progress; and he may have heard parts of it read. III B. C. 23 died Marcellus, the son of Octavia, Caesar's sister, by her first husband; and as Virgil lost no opportunity of gratifying his patron, he introduced into his sixth book of the Aeneid (5.883) the well-known allusion to the virtues of this youth, who was cut off by a premature death.
- Heu miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas,
- Tu Marcellus eris.
Octavia is said to have been present when the poet was reciting this allusion to her son and to have fainted from her emotions. She rewarded the poet munificently for his excusable flattery. As Marcellus did not die till B. C. 23, these lines were of course written after his death, but that does not prove that the whole of the sixth book was written so late. Indeed the attempts which modern critics make to settle many points in ancient literary history, are not always mauaged with due
appears to allude to Augustus receiving back the standards taken by the Parthians from M. Licinius Crassus B. C. 53. This event belongs to B. C. 20 (D. C. 54.8); and if the passage of Virgil refers to it, the poet must have been working at his seventh book in B. C. 20.
- Auroramque sequi Parthosque reposcere signa,
When Augustus was returning from Samos, where he had spent the winter of B. C. 20, he met Virgil at Athens. The poet it is said had intended to make a tour of Greece, but he accompanied the emperor to Megara and thence to Italy. His health, which had been long declining, was now completely broken, and he died soon after his arrival at Brundusium on the 22d of September B. C. 19, not having quite completed his fifty-first year. His remains were transferred to Naples, which had been his favourite residence, and placed on the road (Via Puteolana) from Naples to Puteoli (Pozzuoli) between the first and second milestone from Naples. The monument, now called the tomb of Virgil, is not on the road which passes through the tunnel of Posilipo; but if the Via Puteolana ascended the hill of Posilipo, as it may have done, the situation of the monument would agree very well with the description of Donatus.
The inscription said to have been placed on the tomb,
we cannot suppose to have been written by the poet, though Donatus says that it was.
- Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
- Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces.
Virgil named, as heredes in his testament, his half-brother Valerius Proculus, to whom he left one half of his property, and also Augustus, Maecenas, L. Varius and Plotius Tucca. It is said that in his last illness he wished to burn the Aeneid, to which he had not given the finishing touches, but his friends would not allow him. Whatever he may have wished to be done with the Aeneid, it was preserved and published by his friends Varius and Tucca. It seems from different extant testimonies that he did express a wish that the unfinished poem should be destroyed.
The poet had been enriched by the liberality of his patrons, and he left behind him a considerable property and a house on the Esquiline Hill near the gardens of Maecenas. He used his wealth liberally, and his library, which was doubtless a good one, was easy of access. He used to send his parents money every year. His father, who became blind, did not die before his son had attained a mature age. Two brothers of Virgil also died before him. Poetry was not the only study of Virgil; he applied to medicine and to agriculture, as the Georgica show, and also to what Donatus calls Mathematica, perhaps a jumble of astrology and astronomy. His stature was tall, his complexion dark, and his appearance that of a rustic. He was modest and retiring, and his character is free from reproach, if we except one scandalous passage in Donatus, which may not tell the truth.
In his fortunes and his friends Virgil was a happy man. Munificent patronage gave him ample means of enjoyment and of leisure, and he had the friendship of all the most accomplished men of the day, among whom Horace entertained a strong affection for him. He was an amiable good-tempered man, free from the mean passions of envy and jealousy; and in all but health he was prosperous. His fame, which was established in his life time, was cherished after his death, as an inheritance in which every Roman had a share; and his works became school-books even before the death of Augustus, and continued such for centuries after. The learned poems of Virgil soon gave employment to commentators and critics. Aulus Gellius has numerous remarks on Virgil, and Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, has filled four books (iii--vi.) with His critical remarks on Virgil's poems. One of the most valuable commentaries of Virgil, in which a great amount of curious and instructive matter has been preserved, is that of Servius [SERVIUS]. Virgil is one of the most difficult of the Latin authors, not so much for the form of the expression, though that is sometimes ambiguous enough, but front the great variety of knowledge that is required to attain his meaning in all its fulness. To understand the Aeneid fully requires great labour and every aid that call be called in from the old commentators to those of the present day.
Virgil was the great poet of the middle ages too. To him Dante paid the homage of his superior genius, and owned him for his master and his model. Among the vulgar he had the reputation of a conjurer, a necromancer a worker of miracles ; it is the fate of a great name to be embalmed in fable.
[G.L]