But the epic is also an expression of the best religious sentiment of Rome. This great empire had been built up by men who put their trust in the gods; nay, it was the work of the gods themselves. Virgil had a deeply religious nature and fully recognized man's dependence on a supernatural, divine Power. This Power is often designated as Fatum or Fata or Fortuna, and all beings are subject to it, whether men or the gods of popular belief. Of the latter, Jupiter (called omnipotens) appears at times as practically on a par with the Fates, though he is their viceroy, executing their will. Apollo plays a conspicuous part. the spokesman or prophet of Jupiter, and just as he figures prominently in Plato's ideal state, so we find Augustus. paying him special honor in his attempt to put fresh life into the religious ritual of Rome. This effort is reflected in the Aeneid.1 rather to be regarded as Among the other gods He may be regarded as As to many of the gods who figure in the Aeneid, it is not necessary to suppose that the enlightened poet really believed in their positive and individual existence. They were creations of the popular fancy of earlier days. They had figured in all the literature of the past, and for a national poet to disregard them would have been unnatural and indeed impossible. Even Lucretius, whose De Rerum Natura is a protest against superstition, invokes Venus at the opening of his great poem, and the poet who sings the glories of the Julian family could not but give special prominence to the goddess from whom, according to popular tradition, that family was descended. Venus, indeed, and Juno, Neptune, Mercury, and other gods are skilfully 1 As far as Apollo is concerned, the student may note his prominence in Books III. and VI. employed by Virgil in the machinery of his epic, and it should be noticed that, as far as the characterization of these supernatural beings goes, they testify largely to Virgil's originality of conception. But it is certainly not in them that we find the main evidence of the religious character of the epic. "We must never forget, if we would understand Augustus and his age, that the real theme of the Aeneid is the victory of pietas, of the sense of duty and discipline, over wanton barbarism and individual passion. If we ask why the Aeneid may truly be called a great religious poem, the answer is that after generations of crime and civil war a great poet could reflect the feeling of the best men of his time, that the sense of duty to the gods, the State, and the family is the one thing wanting to make Rome once more happy and prosperous." 1 36. The Augustan age is famous for the efforts made by the emperor and his ministers to beautify Rome and make The relation it worthy of its position as capital of the emof the Aeneid pire. Before his death Augustus could boast that he had found a city of brick, but was leaving one of marble, an allusion to the splendid and costly buildings and works of sculpture which were due to him. to art. Many passages in Virgil indicate the poet's interest in this side of the emperor's activity, and we may be sure that, as a thoroughly cultivated man, he was as familiar with the artistic monuments of his time, as he was with the religious ritual and legendary lore which figure so conspicuously in his poems. One of the most beautiful architectural works of Augustus was the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, which was richly 1 W. Warde Fowler, Religion and Citizenship in Early Rome, in The Hibbert Journal, July, 1907. Students may profitably consult Carter, The Religion of Numa (Macmillan). adorned with sculptures. To such artistic embellishments we have a reference in the Sixth Aeneid, where Virgil dwells at length upon the sculptured scenes on the doors of Apollo's temple at Cumae, and in the First Book, where he describes the sculptures of Juno's temple in Carthage. Similar references are found in the Eighth Aeneid and in the Georgics. A vast number of noble productions of Greek art were secured by Augustus to adorn his public buildings. All the great masters of earlier days were represented, and contemporary artists were also employed. One of the latter was Arcesilaus, who made a statue of Venus for the forum of Julius Caesar. This statue, unlike most representations of Venus, was a fully draped figure, and Virgil seems to have been thinking of it when he wrote his most detailed description of the goddess (I. 402 ff.). Note especially the words pedes vestis defluxit ad imos (I. 404). Similarly in I. 315 ff., Virgil has in mind statues of Diana, who is often represented in short hunting attire, with the knees left bare. In the Diana of Versailles the drapery is actually turned back above the left knee, as if to display the latter fully to view (nuda genu, 320). The passage in Aeneid, V. 817 ff., where Neptune, attended by his varied train, glides over the stormy seas and quiets them, and that in the same book (240 ff.), where Cloanthus is heard by the choir of the Nereids and of Phorcys, by Panopea and Portunus, remind us of a famous work of Scopas, which, about 30 B.C., was taken from Bithynia and set up in the temple of Neptune in Rome. This work showed Thetis carrying the body of Achilles over the sea, and attended by Neptune himself, besides Nereids on dol 1 See Fig. 9, p. 27. 2 See Fig. 8. phins, hippocamps, the train of Phorcys, and other sea monsters. In referring to attributes of the gods, Virgil often has his eye upon their forms in art. Thus we have Pallas with nimbus and Gorgon (II. 615); Apollo, Arquitenens (iii. 75), his flowing locks encircled with leafy chaplet and band of gold (IV. 147); Mercury, with golden sandals and caduceus (IV. 239); Iris, with her saffron wings (IV. 700) and bow (V. 609); the winged god Sleep (V. 838); Liber in his car, driving his tigers, the reins festooned with vine leaves (VI. 804); Aurora, with her roseate chariot (VI. 535). Portrait sculpture was very popular among the Romans, and in Virgil's day the central figure in such art must have been Augustus. His giant statue in the Vatican1 is a contemporary work, which furnishes a good commentary on the poet's idealization of the emperor. In this statue the cuirass is adorned with reliefs suggesting heroic and mythological associations, while the accompanying Cupid on a delphin indicates the descent of the Julian family from Venus.2 37. On the subject of Latin versification in general, and the ordinary principles of prosody, the student should consult the school grammars.3 Virgil's ver- The verse used throughout the Aeneid is known as the Dactylic Hexameter, and consists of six feet, the first four of which are either dactyls (—~~) or their equivalent spondees (--). The fifth foot is regularly a dactyl, but occasionally a spondee, in which case the verse is called spondaic. The last foot is always a dissyllable, and the 1 See Fig. 7. 2 On the representations of rivers and mountains in art, see p. 374. 8 A useful little book is Richardson's Helps to the Reading of Classical Latin Poetry (Ginn and Co., 1907). second syllable may be either long or short (syllaba anceps). The following, therefore, is the scheme: The fact that either dactyls or spondees may be used in the verse allows the poet to group these feet with considerable variety, and in this variety of grouping we see one side of the poet's technical and artistic skill. A preponderance of dactyls gives to the verse a comparatively light and rapid movement; one of spondees, a comparatively heavy and slow movement. Contrast, for example, the following verses: (a) fert umero gradiensque deas supereminet omnis (I. 501); (b) iamque ascendebant collem, qui plurimus urbi (I. 419). Rapid movement accords with joy, excitement, and passion, while slow movement harmonizes with solemnity, sadness, weariness, and kindred ideas. Virgil's thought is beautifully reflected in his metrical combinations, and the student is urged to study the most important passages in the poem from this point of view. The hexameter may also be varied by means of the caesurae and diaereses. A caesura is produced when a word ends within a foot; a diaeresis, when the end of a word coincides with the end of a foot. The principal caesura, commonly called the caesura, falls in the middle of the verse, either in the third or the fourth foot.1 Thus: arma virumque cano, || Troiae qui primus ab oris (I. 1); The caesura, again, may be either masculine or feminine, according as it falls after the first syllable of the foot, or after the first short syllable of the dactyl. The principal 1 Technically called penthemimeral and hephthemimeral respectively. |