Vergil History of Roman Literature

Drances, [56] the brilliant orator whose hand was slow to wield the sword, is a study from Cicero; and so the other less important characters have historical prototypes. But there is even less to be said for this view than for the other. It is altogether too narrow, and cannot be made to correspond with, the facts of history, nor do the characters on a close inspection resemble their supposed originals. [57] Beyond doubt the stirring scenes Virgil had as a young man witnessed, suggested points which he has embodied in the story, but the Greek maxim that "poetry deals with universal truth," [58] must have been rightly understood by him to exclude all such dressing-up of historical facts.

There remains the view to which many critics have lent their support, that the _Aeneid_ celebrates the triumph of law and civilization over the savage instincts of man; and that because Rome had proved the most complete civilizing power, therefore it is to her greatness that everything in the poem conspires. This view has the merit of being in every way worthy of Virgil. No loftier conception could guide his verse through the long labyrinth of legend, history, religious and antiquarian lore, in which for ten years of patient study his muse sought inspiration. Still it seems somewhat too philosophical to have been by itself his animating principle. It is true, patriotism had enlarged its basis; the city of Rome was already the world, [59] and the growth of Rome was the growth of human progress. Hence the muse, while celebrating the imperial state, transcends in thought the limits of space and time, and swells, as it were, the great hymn of humanity. But this represents rather the utmost reach of the poet's flight after he has thrown himself into the empyrean than the original definitely conceived goal on which he fixed his mind. We should supplement this view by another held by Macrobius and many Latin critics, and of which Mr. Nettleship, in a recent admirable pamphlet [60] recognises the justice, viz. that the _Aeneid_ was written with a religious object, and must be regarded mainly as a religious poem. Its burning patriotism glows with a religious light. Its hero is "religious" (_pius_), not "beautiful" or "brave." [61] At the sacrifice even of poetical effect his religious dependence on the gods is brought into prominence. The action of the whole poem hinges on the Divine will, which, is not as in Homer, a mere counterpart of the human, far less is represented as in conflict with resistless destiny, but, cognizant of fate and in perfect union with it, as overruling all lower impulses, divine or human, towards the realization of the appointed end. This Divine Power is Jupiter, whom in the _Aeneid_ he calls by this name as a concession to conventional beliefs, but in the _Georgics_ prefers to leave nameless, symbolised under the title Father. [62] Jupiter is not the Author, but he is the Interpreter and Champion of Destiny (_Fata_), which lies buried in the realm of the unknown, except so far as the father of the gods pleases to reveal it. [63] Deities of sufficient power or resource may defer but cannot prevent its accomplishment. Juno is represented doing this--the idea is of course from Homer. But Jupiter does not desire to change destiny, even if he could, though he feels compassion at its decrees (_e.g._ at the death of Turnus). The power of the Divine fiat to overrule human equity is shown by the death of Turnus who has right, and of Dido who has the lesser wrong, on her side. Thus punishment is severed from desert, and loses its higher meaning; the instinct of justice is lost in the assertion of divine power; and while in details the religion of the _Aeneid_ is often pure and noble, its ultimate conceptions of the relation of the human and divine are certainly no advance on those of Homer. The verdict of one who reads the poem from this point of view will surely be that of Sellar, who denies that it enlightens the human conscience. Every form of the doctrine that might is right, however skilfully veiled, as it is in the _Aeneid_ by a thousand beautiful intermediaries, must be classed among the crude and uncreative theories which mark an only half-reflecting people. But when we pass from the philosophy of religion to the particular manifestation of it as a national worship, we find Virgil at his greatest, and worthy to hold the position he held with later ages as the most authoritative expounder of the Roman ritual and creed. [64] He shared the palm of learning with Varro, and sympathy inclined towards the poet rather than the antiquarian.

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