man of his age for study through those years. After the battle of Pharsalia in 48, Caesar, aside from the lotus-months in Egypt, pacified the Eastern provinces, then in 46

reparations for the great Parthian expedition which, as all knew, was to inaugurate the new Monarchy. Then came the sudden blow that struck Caesar down, the civil war that elevated Antony and Octavian and brought Cicero to hi

lus, plainly visible all through these brief poems, there was added the example of Philodemus who wrote epigrams from time to time. Several of the Catalepton may belong to this period. The very first,[1] addressed to Vergil's lifelong friend Plotius Tucca, is an amusi

tis est si te

sit amor mut

tnot

bi, venit? sed

culitur limin

i, non venit ad

onge est tanger

i. Sed iam jni

? illi dicit

, Sat. I. 10, 82; Servi

on Ecl.

that accounts for Horace'

les neque

a tu

tion. Vergil, despite his devotion to neat technique, may have had his misgivings about rules that in the end endanger the freedom of the poet. His early work ranged very widely in its experiments in style, and Horace's Ars Poetica written many years later shows that Vergil had to the very

raude, Vari du

si me perdidit

cepta vetant m

d: "me perdid

and twelfth epigrams, we have as yet discovered no clue, and

be a vow spoken before Venus' shrine at Sorrento pledging gifts of

ptum fuerit d

sedes quae c

s Romana per

tecum carmin

do aut picta tu

ris serta fe

ries humilis e

ato sparget

ibi aut mille

ta stabit Am

rea: tuos te

ini litori

not represent the composure of a man who has already published the Georgics. The eager offering of flowers and a many-hued s

in the background, and that parts of the early epic were finally merged into the great work of his maturity. The question is of such importance to the study of Vergil's developing art that we may be justified in going fully into the evide

aios carmine

e begins with an

io dignata es

ubuit silvas h

ges et proelia

nuit, pastorem

oves, deductum

Classical Quart

has the comment: significat aut Aeneidem aut gesta regum Albanorum. Donatus finally in his Vita says explicitly: mox cum res Romanas inchoasset, offensus materia, ad Bucolica transit. The poem, th

hat seems to be a definite key to the date and ci

erea: tuos te

ini litori

s of descent from Venus and Aeneas by dedicating a temple to Venus Genetrix, the mother of the Ju

e phrase maxima taurus victima, but the phrase must have had its origin in the Catalepton, since here maxima balances humilis. In the Georgics the phrase is merely a

and we can picture the poet fevered with the new impulse, sailing away from his lectures across the fair bay for a

know. Vergil's own words would imply that his early effor

em reges

seventh book (l. 122) would indicate that this part at least was written before the harpy-scene of the third

y keeping in mind the fact that the poet had begun the Aeneid before Caesar's death. I

hra Troianus

o, famam qui t

gno demissum

elo, spoliis Or

; uocabitur his

the succeeding reign of Augustus as the poet is ca

l's fifth book, including a restoration of the ancient ludus Troiae. When these were over he dedicated the temple of Venus Genetrix, thereby publicly announcing his descent from Venus, and presently proclaimed his own superhuman rank more explicitly by placing a statue of himself among the gods on the Capitoline (Dio, XLIII, 14-22). Are not the phrases, imperium Oceano and spoliis Orientis onustum a direct reference to this triumph which, of course, Vergil saw? And did not these dedications inspire the prophecy uocabitur hic quoque uotis? Be that as it may, it is difficult to ref

in the first book, and it follows that the passage contains memories of the year 46 B.C.

can be best brought into connection with Vergil's earlier years. It is, for instance, easier to compre

paration for the contest of Book V (11. 392-420). The poet's enthusiasm for the _ludus Troiae is well understood as a description of what he saw at Caesar's re-introduction of the spectacle in 4

unde Atii duxere

6: See Cha

ccount of Nicolaus of Da

f the Greek plays at

Memmii, Sergii, and Cluentii, but insists upon reminding the reader of Catiline's conspiracy in the Sergestus, furens animi, who dashes upon the rock in his mad eagerness to win, and obtrudes etymology in the phrase segnem Menoeten (1. 173). One is tempted to suspect that the whole narrative of the boat-race is filled with pragmatic allusions. If the characters of his

baeum in the winter of 47. We are not told that while there he ascended the mountain, offered sacrifices to Venus Erycina, and ordered his statue to be placed in her temple, or that he gave favors to the people of Segesta who had the care of that temple. But he probably did something of that kind, for as he

Witt, The Arrow of Acestes,

ra,[9] why half the lines of the fourth book are reminiscent of Caesar's dallying in Egypt in 47? Do not the protracted battle scenes of the last book-otherwise so un-Vergilian-remind one of Caesar's never-ending campaigns against foes springing up in all quarters, and of the fact that Vergil had himself recently had a share in the struggle? The young Octavius, also, whose boyhood is so s

of Virgil, 104; Warde Fowler, Religious

The Death of Turnus, pp. 87-92

n the plane of the later work than of the Ciris, written about 47-3 B.C. It is safe to say that Vergil did not in his youth write the sonorous lines of Aen. I, 285-290, just as they now stand. But as

th of learning, its finished artistry, and its wide range of observation. The substantial charact