(•Jornell MntttWHitjj ffiihrarg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF , ' ^ HENRY W. SAGE Cornell University Library PA 6825.F78V8 3 1924 026 572 804 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026572804 VIRGIL'S " GATHERING OF THE CLANS " Aeneid VII. 601-817. BY W. WARDE FOWLER. Uniform with this Volume: AENEAS AT THE SITE OF ROME. Being Observations on Aeneid VIII. With Text. 4s. 6d. net. Second Edition, Revised. ' Mr.Warde Fowler's notes will come to many lovers of Virgil as something that they have been looking for in vain.'— T'^? Times. In Preparation : A COMMENTARY ON AENEID XII. New York LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., FOURTH AVENUE AND THIRTIETH STREET VIRGIL'S "GATHERING OF THE CLANS" BEING OBSERVATIONS ON AENEID VII. 601-817 W. WARDE FOWLER M.A., Hon. LL.D. 'Edik., etc. " On risque de s'attarder en route quand on voyage avec Virgile; et c'est un compagnon dent on a grand peine de se s^parer."— Gaston Boissier. SECOND EDITION REVISED OXFORD B. H. BLACKWELL BROAD STREET 1918 PREFACE In the darkest year that Europe has known since the tenth century, being too old and deaf to be of any active service to the country, I have found myself invigorated by fresh reading of Homer, Virgil, Milton, Wordsworth, and some other poets who, like these, are very old friends. A chance visit from a scholar who loves his Virgil, and happened to drop an opportune word or two about the " Gathering of the Clans," sent me once more to the seventh Aeneid, which always brings to mind the quiet, conversa- tional, but most valuable lectures of my college tutor, Henry Nettleship, of which I still have the notes. I need hardly say that a fresh reading re- vealed new beauties, new secrets; and especially the " catalogue," as it is sometimes injuriously called, claimed from me a long and enjoyable study, of which the fruits, such as they are, are contained in the following pages. I hope they may be worth the attention of scholars, who will find, I think, that I have not wasted space by setting down anything that can be found just as well in the best-known commentaries. I have used the Oxford text edited by Sir A. Hirtzel in 1904. Preface I have to thank my old friend Mr. James Rhoades for his kind permission to use his excellent verse translation of this part of the seventh book. I have begun at line 60 1, where the supernatural action ends, and man's " scelerata insania belli " begins to rage. It was a bad war: a war against the human agent of the heaven-god and the idea of justice which he represented. Such a war was that of Milton's fallen angels: such in yet another sense is that into which the great German people has plunged Europe, rejoicing in its strength. Insano iuvat in- dulgere labori. W. W. F. November i, 1915. NOTE TO SECOND EDITION The little book brought me many very pleasant letters, and many suggestions and criticisms, of which I have taken full advantage in reprinting. My thanks are especially due to Mr. A. L. Irvine of Charterhouse, the schokr to whom I owe the idea of writing these notes: to Professor Conway of Manchester: to my very old friend Mr. Hastings Crossley: to Mr. H. Broadbent of Eton: to Mr. H. P Cholmeley of Forest Edge, Sussex: to Mr. J. R. Mills of Dundee: to Mr. A. M. Cook: and most of all to Mr. J. W. Mackail, from whom I never 'venture to differ without much misgiving. KiNGHAM, February 9, 1918. VIRGIL'S ^' GATHERING OF THE CLANS " AENEID VII. 601-817 {From the Oxford Text, 1904) 601 Mos erat Hesperio in Latio, quem protinus urbes Albanae coluere sacrum, nunc maxima rerum Roma colit, cum prima movent in proelia Martem, sive Getis inferre manu lacrimabile bellum Hyrcanisve Arabisve parant, seu tendere ad Indos Auroramque sequi Parthosque reposcere signa : sunt geminae Belli portae (sic nomine dicunt) religione sacrae et saevi formidine Martis; centum aerei claudunt vectes aeternaque ferri 610 robora, nee custos absistit limine lanus : has, ubi certa sedet patribus sententia pugnae, ipse Quirinali trabea cinctuque Gabino insignis reserat stridentia limina consul, ipse vocat pugnas; sequitur turn cetera pubes, aereaque adsensu conspirant cornua rauco. hoc et turn Aeneadis indicere bella Latinus. more iubebatur tristisque recludere portas. ' abstinuit tactu pater aversusque refugit foeda ministeria, et caecis se condidit umbris. TRANSLATION (By James Rhoades) There was a wonted rite in Latium's realm Hesperian, holy held from age to age . By Aiba's cities, as to-day by Rome, Earth's mightiest, when they rouse the god of war To battle, whether against Getic foes Intent to launch amain the dolorous fray. Or Arabs, or Hyrcanians, or to march On India's sons, or track the morning-star. And from the Parthian their lost standards claim. There are twin gates of War — so named and known — • By holy fear and terror of fell Mars Made venerable : a hundred brazen bolts Constrain them, and the eternal strength of iron. Nor Janus on the threshold slacks his guard. Here, be the fathers' will on battle bent, . The Consul in Quirinal robe arrayed And Gabine cincture, the harsh-grinding valves Himself unbars, himself invokes the fray. Then all the war-host follow, and with one throat The brazen clarions blare their hoarse assent. Now too on this wise was Latinus bidden War to proclaim against the sons of Troy, Unclose the sullen portals. From their touch The sire recoiled, turned from the loathed task Shrinking, and shrouded him in eyeless gloom. 9 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " factum regina deum caelo delapsa morantis impulit ipsa manu portas, et cardine verso belli ferrates rumpit Saturnia postis. ardet inexcita Ausonia atque immobilis ante ; pars pedes ire parat campis, pars arduus altis pulverulentus equis furit; omnes arma requirunt. pars levis clipeos et spicula lucida tergent arvina pingui subiguntque in cote securis; signaque ferre'iuvat sonitusque audire tubarum. quinque adeo magnae positis incudibus urbes 630 tela novant, Atina pot ens Tiburque superbum, Ardea Crustumerique et turrigerae Antemnae. tegmina tuta cavant capitum flectuntque salignas umbonum cratis ; alii thoracas aenos aut levis ocreas lento ducunt argento; vomeris hue et falcis honos, hue omnis aratri cessit amor; recoquunt patrios fornacibus ensis. classica iamque sonant, it bello tessera signum. hie galeam tectis trepidus rapit, ille frementis ad iuga cogit equos, clipeumque auroque trilicem g loricam induitur fidoque accingitur ense. Pandite nunc Helicona, deae, cantusque movete qui bello exciti reges, quae quemque secutae 10 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Then, gliding from on high, the queen of heaven With her own hand the lingering portals pushed, And Saturn's daughter upon back-swung hinge Asunder burst the iron-bound gates of war. Ausonia, erst supine, immovable. Anon takes fire. Some gird them o'er the plain To march afoot ; some, mounted on tall steeds, Storm through a cloud of dust ; all shout for arms. Some furbish with rich lard the buckler smooth, The javelin bright, or on the whetstone wear Their axes to an edge: with joy they thrill To advance the standard, hear the trumpet bray. Five mighty cities set their "anvils up To fashion arms anew — 'Atina strong. Proud Tibur, Ardea, and Crustumeri, And turret -crowned Antemnae. For head-gear Helmets they hollow, and for the boss of shields Bend wicker-plait; some corslets beat from brass. Smooth greaves from pliant silver. E'en to this The pride of share and hook, to this hath fall'n All passion for the plough: their father's swords r the furnace they re-temper. And now sounds The clarion, speeds the watchword for the war. One in hot haste plucks helm from house-wall; one Couples his snorting coursers to the yoke. In shield and hauberk triple-twilled with gold Arrays him, and girds trusty sword on thigh. Now, Muses, ope the gates of Helicon And wake the song — ^what kings were roused to war. What hosts behind them following filled the plain; Bloomed with what heroes, with what armour burned , II Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " complerint campos acies, quibus Itala iam turn floruerit terra alma viris, quibus arserit armis; et meministis enim, divae, et memorare potestis; ad nos vix tenuis famae perlabitur aura. Primus init bellum T5n:rhenis asper ab oris contemptor divum Mezentius agminaque armat. filius huic iuxta Lausus, quo pulchrior alter 65ononJuit excepto Laurentis corpora Turni; Lausus, equum domitor debellatorque ferarum, ducit Agyllina nequiquam ex urbe secutos mille viros, dignus patriis qui laetior esset imperils et cui pater baud Mezentius esset. Post hos insignem palma per gramina currum victoresque ostentat equos satus Hercule pulchro pulcher Aventinus, clipeoque insigne paternum centum anguis cinctamque gerit serpentibus Hydram ; coUis Aventini silva quern Rhea sacerdos 660 furtivum partu sub luminis edidit oras, mixta deo mulier, postquam Laurentia victor Geryone exstincto Tirynthius attigit arva, Tyrrhenoque boves in flumine lavit Hiberas. pila manu saevosque gerunt in bella dolones, et tereti pugnant mucrone veruque Sabello. ipse pedes, tegimen torquens immane leonis, terribili impexum saeta cum dentibus albis indutus capiti, sic regia tecta subibat, horridus Herculeoque umeros innexus amictu. 12 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " E'en then the nursing soil of Italy : For, being maids immortal, ye both mind And can recount them ; scarcely to our ears Floats through the ages a thin breath of fame. First to the field, despiser of the gods. Speeds fierce Mezentius from the T3m:hene coast. And arms his ranks for battle; hard by him Lausus his son, than whom no goodher youth, Save Turnus of Laurentum. At his back Lausus, steed-tamer, beast-destroyer, leads His thousand from Agylla's town — in vain; Worthy of happier service as a son, And other than Mezentius for his sire. Behind them on the grassy sward displays His palm-crown' d chariot and victorious steeds A hero, sprung from Hercules the fair, Fair Aventinus: on his shield he bears A hundred serpents, his ancestral sign. The snake-encircled Hydra. Him by stealth The priestess Rhea on wood-clothed Aventine, Woman with god commingling, bare to Hght, When the Tirynthian victor, Geryon quelled. Arrived the fields Laurentian, and there bathed His kine Iberian in the Tuscan stream. Javelins and cruel pikes they wield for war. And fight with tapering-tipped SabelUan dart. Himself, swinging a Uon's monstrous fell Shaggy with fearful bristles, o'er his head Flung with its flashing teeth, thus strode on foot Into the palace, grisly-rough, the garb Of Hercules about his shoulders clasped. 13 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " 670 Turn gemini fratres Tiburtia moenia linquunt, fratris Tiburti dictam cognomine gentem, Catillusque acerque Coras, Argiva iuventus, et primam ante aciem densa inter tela feruntur : ceu duo nubigenae cum vertice montis ab alto descendunt Centauri Homolen Othrymque nivalem linquentes cursu rapido ; dat euntibus ingens silva locum et magno cedunt virgulta fragore. Nee Praenestinae fundator defuit urbis, Volcano genitum pecora inter agrestia regem 680 inventumque focis omnis quem credidit aetas, Caeculus. hunc legio late comitatur agrestis: quique altum Praeneste viri quique arva Gabinae lunonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis Hernica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit, quos, Amasene pater, non illis omnibus arma nee clipei currusve sonant ; pars maxima glandes liventis plumbi spargit, pars spicula gestat bina manu, fulvosque lupi de pelle galeros tegmen habent capiti ; vestigia nuda sinistri 690 instituere pedis, crudus tegit altera pero. At Messapus, equum domitor, Neptunia proles, quem neque fas igni cuiquam nee sternere ferro, iam pridem resides populos desuetaque beUo agmina in arma vocat subito ferrumque retractat. hi Fescenninas acies aequosque Faliscos, hi Soractis habent arces Flaviniaque arva et Cimini cum monte lacum lucosque Capenos. 14 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Then brethren twain from Tibur's hold, a folk Called from their brother's name Tiburtus, come, CatiUus and keen Coras, Argive youths. First of the foremost, on they press, where darts Throng thickest : as whenf rom sometall mountain-top Descend two cloud-born Centaurs, Hom'&le Or snow-capped Othrys quitting with swift stride; The mighty forest as they go gives place, And with loud crash the thickets yield them way. Nor lacked the founder of Praeneste's town, King sprung from Vulcan 'mid the pasturing herds. And by the fireside found, as every age Hath deemed him — Caeculus. A rustic band Spread wide attends him, those that dwell on steep Praeneste's height, or Gabian Juno's fields. Chill Anio, or the stream-dewed Hemic rocks; Whom rich Anagnia nurtures, or whom thou, Sire Amas^nus. Arms they have not all, Nor shield, nor sounding chariot. The more part Shng bullets of blue lead. Some,javelLns twain Brandish in hand, with tawny wolfskin cap For head-gear : the left foot bare-soled they plant ; The other a raw buU's hide sandal sheathes. Messapus, the steed-tamer, Neptune's child. Whom none with fire, nor yet with steel, may quell, Tribes long inert and ranks to battle strange Calls suddenly to arms, grasps sword once more, These have Fescennine warriors in their host. And Aequi of Falerium ; these hold high Soracte and Flavinian fields, the lake And hill of Ciminus, and Capena's groves. 15 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " ibant aequati numero regemque canebant : ceu quondam nivei liquida inter nubila cycni 700 cum sese e pastu referunt et longa canoros dant per colla modos, sonat amnis et Asia longe pulsa palus. [nee quisquam aeratas acies ex agmine tanto misceri putet, aeriam sed gurgite ab alto urgeri volucrum raucarum ad litora nubem.j Ecce Sabinorum prisco de sanguine magnum agmen agens Clausus magnique ipse agminis instar, Claudia nunc a quo difiunditur et tribus et gens per Latium, postquam in partem data Roma Sabinis. 710 una ingens Amiterna cohors priscique Quirites, Ereti manus omnis olivif eraeque Mutuscae ; qui Nomentum urbem, qui Rosea rura Velini, qui Tetricae horrentis rupes montemque Severum Casperiamque colunt Forulosque et flumen Himellae, qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt, quos frigida misit Nursia, et Ortinae classes populique Latini, quosque secans infaustum interluit Allia nomen: quam multi Libyco volvuntur marmore fluctus saevus ubi Orion hibernis conditur undiSj 720 vel cum sole novo densae torrentur aristae aut Hermi campo aut Lyciae flaventibus arvis. scuta sonant pulsuque pedum conterrita tellus. 16 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " In measured time they march and chant their king : As snow-white swans that, through the Uquid clouds From food returning, utter forth their full Long-throated strains. The stream and Asia's fen Afar ring smitten. [Nor had one deemed them there A mail-clad army blent in vast array, But rather of hoarse birds an airy cloud, That from the deep mid-ocean shoreward ply.] Lo ! Clausus of old Sabine blood, who leads A mighty host, himself a host in might ! From whom the Claudian tribe and clan to-day. Since Rome was with the Sabine shared, spreads wide Through Latium : and along with them the vast Cohort of Amiternum and old-world Quirites, all Eretum's folk, and they Of olive-rife Mutusca ; men who throng Nomentum's city and the Roseau plain Hard by VeUnus : who the rugged rocks Of TetrJfca, and Mount Severus hold, Casperia's town, and ForuH, and where flows Himella's stream; who drink of Tiber's wave And Fabaris, or whom chilly Nursia sends, With Horta's squadrons and the Latian tribes. And they whom Alha, evil-boding name. Parts with dividing current : numberless As billows that on Libya's sea-floor roll. When fierce Orion sets in wintry wave. Or thick as clustering corn-ears, that beneath The young sun ripen, or on Hermus' plain, Or Lycia's yellowing fields. Their bucklers clang, And the earth quakes for terror as they tread. 17 B Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Hinc Agamemnonius, Troiani nominis hostis, curru iungit Halaesus equos Turnoque ferocis mille rapit populos, vertunt felicia Baccho Massica qui rastris, et quos de coUibus altis Aurunci misere patres Sidicinaque iuxta aequora,, quique Cales linquunt amnisque vadosi accola Volturni, pariterque Saticulus asper 730 Oscorumque manus. teretes sunt aclydes illis tela, sed haec lento mos est aptare flagello. laevas caetra tegit, falcati comminus enses. Nee tu carminibus nostris indictus abibis, Oebale, quem generasse Telon Sebethide nympha fertur, Teleboum Capreas cum regna teneret, iam senior; patriis sed non et fiUus arvis contentus late iam tum dicione tenebat Sarrastis populos et quae rigat aequora Sarnus, quique Rufras Batulumque tenent atque arva Celemnae 740 et quos maliferae despectant moenia Abellae, Teutonico ritu soUti torquere cateias; tegmina quis capitum raptus de subere cortex aerataeque micant peltae, micat aereus ensis 18 Virgil's "Gathering of the Clans" Halaesus next, of Agamemnon's stock, Foe to the name of Troy, yokes steed to car. And whirls a thousand warUke tribes along To fight for Turnus, men who till with hoe The wine-blest Massic region, or sent forth From their high hills by the Auruncan sires, Or Sidiqinie low-dwellers hard at hand; Comers from Cales, and who dwell beside Volturnus' shoaly river, and with these The rough Saticulan, and the Oscan band; Smooth-polished clubs for missiles, 'tis their wont With a tough thong to fit them ; the left arm A leathern target shields; curv'd swords they bear For close encounter. Nor must thou depart Unhonoured of our song, O Oebjalus, Whom, as folk tell, the nymph Sebethis bare To Telon, when now full of years he ruled The Teleboic realm of Caprejae. But with his sire's domain wax'd ill-content. E'en then the son was curbing 'neath his sway The wide Sarrastian peoples, and the plains By Sarnus washed, folk that in Rufrae dwell And B^tulum and Celemna's furrowed fields. And those on whom the battlements look down Of apple-boughed Abella. These were wont In Teuton wise long darts to hurl amain : Peeled cork-tree bark for head-gear, their sUght shields Are glittering brass, and ghttering brass their swords. 19 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Et te montosae misere in proelia Nersae, Vfens, insignem fama et felicibus armis, horrida praecipue cui gens adsuetaque multo venatu nemorum, duris Aequicula glaebis. armati terram exercent semperque recentis convectare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto. 750 Quin et Marruvia venit de gente sacerdos fronde super galeam et f elici comptus oliva Archippi regis missu, fortissimus Vmbro,. vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris spargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat, mulcebatque iras et morsus arte levabat. sed non Dardaniae medicari cuspidis ictum evaluit neque eum iuvere in vulnera cantus somniferi et Marsis quaesitae montibus herbae. te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda, 760 te liquidi flevere lacus. Ibat et Hippolyti proles pulcherrima bello, Virbius, insignem quem mater Aricia misit, eductum Egeriae lucis umentia circum litora, pinguis ubi et placabilis ara Dianae. namque ferunt fama Hippolytum, postquam arte novercae occiderit patriasque explerit sanguine poenas turbatis distractus equis, ad sidera rursus aetheria et superas caeli venisse sub auras, Paeoniis revocatum herbis et amore Dianae. 770 turn pater omnipotens aliquem indignatus ab umbris _ mortalem infernis ad lumina- surgere vitae , ipse repe'rtorem medicinae talis et artis 20 Virgil's "Gathering of the Clans" And thee too, Ufens, from her mountain-perch Nersae sent forth to battle, fame-renowned. And fortunate in war, whose Aequian folk On their stiff clods are rugged beyond all. And to hard hunting in the woods inured. In arms they task the furrow, and evermore Amass new plunder, and by rapine live. Ay, and a priest of race Marruvian came, His head with garland of rich olive dight, By King Archippus sent, Umbro the brave. Who on the viper's brood and water-snakes Of baneful breath, with charm of voice and touch Shed slumber, and assuaged their wrath, his craft Their bites allaying. But stroke of Dardan spear To heal he skilled not, nor his slumberous charms Availed against their wounds, nor herbs with care Culled on the Marsian mountains. Wept for thee Angitia's grove, for thee the glassy wave Of Fucinus, the crystal pools for thee. There Virbius to the war in beauty strode, Son of Hippolytus, whom in flower of fame His mother sent, Aricia; nursed he was In groves Egerian round the humid shores, ^ ^. Where Dian's rich and gracious altar stands .J "^^^T^^ Ay, for Hippolytus, so runs the tale, J By stepdame's treachery done to death, and torn By his scared steeds, to glut a sire's revenge. Came back to daylight and the air of heaven. Called by the Healer's herbs and Dian's love. Then wroth that mortal should from shades of hell Rise to the light of life, the Almighty Sire 21 Virgil's "Gathering of the Clans" fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas. at Trivia Hippolytum secretis alma recondit sedibus et nymphae Egeriae nemorique relegat, solus ubi in silvis Italis ignobilis aevum exigeret versoque ubi nomine Virbius esset. unde etiam templo Triviae lucisque sacratis cornipedes arcentur equi, quod litore currum 780 et iuvenem monstris pavidi effudere marinis. filius ardentis baud setius aequore campi exercebat equos curruque in bella ruebat. Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Turnus vertitur arma tenens et toto vertice supra est. cui triplici crinita iuba galea alta Chimaeram sustinet Aetnaeos efflantem faucibus ignis; tam magis ilia fremens et tristibus effera flammis quam magis effuso crudescunt sanguine pugnae. at levem clipeum sublatis cornibus lo 790 auro insignibat, iam saetis obsita, iam bos, argumentum ingens, et custos virginis Argus, caelataque amnem fundens pater Inachus urna. insequitur nimbus peditum clipeataque totis agmina densentur campis, Argivaque pubes Auruncaeque manus, Rutuli veteresque Sicani, et Sacranae acies et picti scuta Labici ; 22 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " With his own levin-bolt to Stygian wave Thrust down the finder of such craft and cure, The Phoebus-born. But Trivia of her Grace In a dim dwelhng hides Hippolytus, To n3mriph Egeria and her grove consigned, Alone, obscure, in woods of Italy With altered name, as Virbius to live on. Whence too, from Trivia's shrine, and hallowed groves Horn-hoofed steeds are banished, for that they. Frightened by ocean-monsters, on the shore Flung car and warrior. But the son no less His fiery steeds along the level plain Was driving, and rushed charioted to war. Himself, too, Turnus, of surpassing mould. Amid the foremost moving, arms in hand, By a whole head o'ertops them; his proud helm, Tressed with a triple plume, Chimaera bears Out-breathing from her jaws A^etnean fires, The madUer raging with more baleful flames -As deeplier the red field with carnage ran. But his smooth shield lo with lifted horns In gold emblazoned, now with hair o'ergrown, Now turned to heifer, a stupendous sign. And Argus, the maid's warder, and therewith. His flood outpouring from a graven urn. Sire Inachus. Behind the hero comes A cloud of footmen, and o'er all the plain The shielded ranks are thickening, Argive men, The Auruncan musters with the Rutul§ ranks; And old Sicani, the Sacranian host And gay-shielded Labici; who thy lawns, 23 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " qui saltus, Tiberine, tuos sacrumque Numici litus arant Rutulosque exercent vomere coUis Circaeumque iugum, quis luppiter Anxurus arvis Soo praesidet et viridi gaudens Feronia luco ; qua Satura^ iacet atra palus gelidusque per imas quaerit iter vallis atque in mare conditur Vfens. Hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla agmen agens equitum et florentis aere catervas, bellatrix, non ilia colo calathisve Minervae femineas adsueta manus, sed proelia virgo dura pati cursuque pedum praevertere ventos. ilia vel intactae segetis per summa volaret gramina nee teneras cursu laesisset aristas, 8io vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti ferret iter celeris nee tingeret aequore plantas. illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa inventus turbaque miratur matrum et prospectat euntem, attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro velet honos levis umeros, ut fibula crinem auro internectat, Lyciam ut_gerat ipsa pharetram et pastoralem praenxa cu'spide myrtum. 24 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " O Tiber, and Numicius' sacred shore Till, or with ploughshare tame the Rutule heights And Circe's ridge; over whose fields enthroned Rules Jove of Anxur, and Feronia sits Rejoicing in her greenwood; where outstretched Lies the black marsh of Satura, and where Along the valley-bottoms winds his way Cold Ufens, till he plunges in the deep. To crown them comes Camilla, Volscian-bred, Heading her horse-troop, squadrons bright with brass, A warrior-maid, her woman's hands unused To loom or basket of Minerva's wool. But strong to bide the battle, and on foot Outrace the breezes: she might e'en have sped Over the unlopped harvest-blades, nor bruised The tender ears in running, or have skimmed Mid-ocean, poised upon the billows' swell, Nor in the surges dipped her flying feet. At her, astonied youths and matrons all From house and field throngjgazing, as she goes. Agape with wonder at the royal pomp Of purple draped about her shoulders smooth, Her tresses intertwined with clasp of gold — • To mark the Lycian quiver that she bears, And pastoral wand of myrtle tipped with steel. 25 INTRODUCTORY C ^N^t he seventh Aeneid Virgil begins the long story of the war which was to plant his hero firmly on the soil of Italy, and thus to open a way for the Roman dominion that was toTe^ Aeneas lands with good heart and good omens, and at first all goes well with him. His hundred envoys are well received by the King Latinus, who offers him his daughter's hand. Then Juno, ever the enemy of Trojans, fiercely deter- mines to oppose the adventurer; she summons the Fury Allecto, and bids her stir up anger and war against the strangers. This is soon done; Lavinia's mother is driven to take the part of the Rutuhan Turnus as a suitor for her daughter, to the exclusion of Aeneas. Turnus himself vows vengeance on Aeneas and the Latins aiding him; and finally Ascanius, Aeneas' youthful son, while hunting near the Trojan camp, kills unknowingly a pet stag belonging to the Latin maiden Silvia. All this is done through the wiles of Allecto, at the bidding of Juno; and it succeeds. The wrath of the Italian folk is kindled, and Ascanius has to be rescued from hostile hands. The long struggle begins, and the Italian tribes are summoned. Latinus has to bend to the war-spirit, and retires in grief into the inner chambers of his palace, ^t this point, line 6oi, my 26 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " notes beginri All central Italy has been roused by the war-horn of the Fury, " et trepidae matres pres- sere ad pectora natos." All is ready for the Gates of War to be thrown open; and then, as if they had passed through them in some mystic sense, the Italian princes and their warriors pass before the reader in a magnificent pageant. It is interesting to compare this pageant with similar episodes in the Iliad, in the eighth book of the Punica of Silius Italicus, who wrote about a century after Virgil, and Milton's Paradise Lost, book i. The comparison will help us to understand Virgil's object here, apart from the mere desire to V imitate or surpass Homer. An epic poet would natufaUy'Beexpecfed, arid would expect it of him- self, to follow the Homeric track in the treatment of episodes; but it was inevitable that one of Virgil's quality, a rare poetic soul of true Italian tone, should turn the old expedient, as with the Games and the Descent into Hades, to new and national advantage. Virgil's methods, whether in poetic architecture or poetic expression, were never entirely simple; and in this pageant we find the usual complexity. Here the most obvious motive in the poet's craft is the wish to move the feeling of his Italian reader as he sees the stately procession of ItaUan warriors passing before him, or perchance to fill his mind with pride and pleasure at finding among them the ancient repre- sentatives of his own city or district. Italians have always been curiously proud of the reputation of their birthplace; even in our own time they have 27 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " searched Momnjsen's " History of Rome " for some allusion to their homes, and treasured up the refer- ence with gratitude. " Ha parlato bene del nostra paese," they would exclaim, as he travelled through their town in later days.^ The Homeric " cata- logue "2 doubtless had an object of the same kind, but it is far more a catalogue than a pageant, and it ends with a list of what we should now call " enemy cities." Its psychological effect, I imagine, was inferior to that of Virgil's picture, if only because the Roman poet set himself to support with all his gifts t lie definite Jtalian policy of Augustu s.^ at a time when Italy's need for national satisfaction and hope were greater than they had ever yet been. This, I think, was the poet's primary motive, but in the execution he was confronted by serious diffi- culties which made his task a complex one. We have to remember that all the peoples of the proces- sion were the enemies of the Trojans, and summoned to resist the establishment in Italy of Aeneas and his host, and therein also to resist the decrees of Fate which were to make Rome eventually the mistress of Italy. Here was a difficulty calling for an artist of ^ " Theodor Mommsen," von C. Bardt, p. 8. Berlin, 1903. ^ Iliad, ii. 484 ff. See the comparison of the two cata- logues in Macrob., v. 15. 14 j5^. 3 It was from the late Prof. Pelham that we in England first learnt what this meant. I may refer to his " Outlines of Roman History," p. 411, for a brief account of it. Prob- ably Julius had first suggested the idea that Rome and Italy taken together were henceforward to be the centre of civilization. 28 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " consummate skill, who could find no help in his Iliad. Virgil had to hold firmly together the sympathies of Romans and ItaHans. Someone may ask, where was the difficulty ? Surely they were by his time united in feeling. No; if that had really been so, Augustus' pohcy would have been superfluous. Italy is not a country that lends itself easily to unification, as ItaHans know well at the present day; and only twenty years before Virgil was born, the peoples of central Italy had been engaged in deadly strife with Rome, and had forced her to treat them as her equals. The ItaUan pohcy of Augustus was in truth a new one, and I have no doubt whatever that in this episode Virgil believed himself to be aiding it. Thus the poet might not too plainly treat his Itahans as the enemies of the Roman spirit and em- pire, nor on the other hand might he engage the sympathy of his reader too absolutely for Aeneas and the invaders : " dextrum Scylla latus, laevum implacata Charybdis obsidet. . . ." Let US see how h e_ surmounts the difficulty , and ^destiny in nnr Tnindj:^^vh4tpr 4i r. s hnw ft-jifi t]TeJ2l22"^ and vigour of Italy i n a series of splendid pictures.^ 1 The dfficulty was increased by the fact that Italy was practically new ground for an epic poet. Interest in Italy and the Italians must be roused : here the old epic ground is left behind, and the gathering of the clans is an old episode in a new setting. On this point see Boissier, " Promenades Archeologiques," second series, p. 261 j^. 29 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " First, the sixth book, and especially the prophetic close of it, has left the reader in full conviction of the Religious destiny of Aeneas and Ro me, and this de- finite impression cannot possibly be obliterated by any amount of Italian heroism in the rest of the poem.^ Again, in this seventh book, before the pageant opens, it is made plain that this is a bad war, stirred up by the ever-unscrupulous Juno-Hera (of whom more directly) through an offensive and grisly agent, the Fury AUecto: hence " saevit amor ferri et scelerata insania belli :" and " ilicet infandum cuncti -contra omina helium contra fata deum perverso numine poscunt." And when in the following lines Latinus is forced to give way with a deep sigh for rest, this sigh is accompanied by a fierce curse on the head of Turnus : " te Turne nefas, te triste manebit supplicium, votisque deos venerabere serfs." A^ Roman of Aup^nstns' day would think of other bad _. ffiars and-aiaather reckless leader, A ntony. "-- Yet the Italian spirit is skilfully safeguarded, as we shall see as we follow the pageant. Cities, rivers, local deities, and many local touches and legends, combine to delight the Italian municipalis, who will be reminded of the Homeric catalogue he read in 1 The keynote is sounded strongly again just before the pageant begins: " Mos erat Hesperio in Latio, quem pro- tinus urbes Albanae coluere sacrum, nunc maxima rerum Roma colit. ..." {(>oi ff.). 30 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " his youth, and feel that here " nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade." The poet does all he can to secure variety, as I hope to show, to make this city or that, with its surrounding region, stand out clearly in the picture, arid take the right colouring for the delecta- tion of its descendants. Then how splendid and martial is the tone throughout, how perfect the con- summation in the figures of Turnus and Camilla, the hero and heroine of these last books ! It is with the perfection of his artistic resources that Virgil solves his greatest difficulty. At this point I will turn for a moment to the parallel episode in the poem of Silius Italicus. Silius was not a great poet, but one might fancy that he had a good opportunity in the gathering of Italian con- tingents to repel Hannibal. Unluckily there were too many of them, and the conscientious verse-maker, modelling his work on Homer's catalogue rather than on Virgil's pageant, overdoes his detail, bewilders and wearies his reader, without arousing any keen sense of national exultation.-^ His flashlight is a feeble one; the endless procession passes, and we grow stupid and weary. We cannot see the wood for the trees: towns, rivers, mountains, gods and temples, soldiers and their armour, pass before us without making us the least enthusiastic, and I think that even the Italian of the early empire could hardly have been moved to emotion. Almost the only bit of 1 Boissier remarked on the same fault in Flaubert's Salammbo (of the Carthaginian contingents) : " Nouvelles Promenades Archeologiques," p. 321. 31 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " genuine poetry I can find is the allusion to Cicero when Arpinum.is reached : " ille super Gangen, super exauditus et Indos, implebit terras voce, et furialia bella • fulmine compescet linguae, nee deinde relinquet par decus eloquio cuiquam sperare nepotuin."^ And after all this is but a momentary reminiscence of the prophetic end of the sixth Aeneid. Milton, in the first book of Paradise Lost, follows the Virgilian, not the Homeric, method. The heathen gods and devils whom he marshals against the hosts of Jehovah are carefully chosen, limited in number, marked by characteristics familiar to his Puritan readers, and poetically distinct and attrac- tive, e.g.: " Thammuz came next behind. Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded. . . ."^ It is most interesting to notice that Milton had much the same difficulty to face as Virgil, and that he dealt with it victoriously in the very same way. He had to engage the interest, nay, the emotion, of his reader, in these gods and devils, as Virgil had to enlist the admiration of the Roman reader for the 1 Punica, vii. 410 ff. 2 Paradise Lost, book i., '^'\6 ff. 32 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " wrong side in the strife. Each poet achieves his object in his own way, but the method is in the main the same: the secret is in the skilful selection of detail, and in the high dignity and poetic beauty of the language used. In one respect Milton surpassed his model. Virgil ended his pageant most happily with the resplendent figures of Turnus and Camilla ; Milton closes his very quietly among classical allusions, then pauses for a moment to begin again. His own imagination has been kindled, and he has kindled ours, by the pictures of these magnificent fiends, Moloch, Chemosh, Dagon, and the rest, and he cannot halt as yet. With the words, " All these and more came flocking," he braces himself for a new effort, and launches into the full diapason of overwhelming organ sound. We fairly forget that these are the hosts of the Devil fighting against the will of God, as we almost forget, at the close of the seventh Aeneid, that T?Q]Ti e and AprK^q g^ were in the hands of Fate fo r the good of jnankind . But I will return to this subject for a moment when we have finished our task. Before I end this introductory note, I wish to draw attention to an observation made by Dr. Henry in his " Aeneidea," when about to deal with Virgil's pageant.^ I have the greatest reverence for Dr. Henry as a critic, for he is always interesting and instructive, even where, as in this case (so it seems to me) he is manifestly in the wrong; and I have fol- lowed his comments carefully, as wiU be seen through- ^ " Aeneidea," vol. ii., p. 591 ff. 33 C Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " out the following pages. "Nowhere," he says, " not even in the visit to Hades, is the aristocratic spirit of Virgil manifested more plainly than in this account of the Latin armament." He sees the aris- tocratic spirit of Virgil thus strongly manifested, in contrast to Homer's " true spirit of a democrat "; for the Italian gives us successive pictures of the leaders of the tribes, hardly mentioning the rank and file at all, while in Homer the people are described first, and their leaders follow. But what is the general tenor of the Iliad ? Surely not democratic ; it is a story of the deeds of the chiefs and their pro- tecting deities while the people look on or fight un- noticed. If the rank and file come first in Homer, I think it is chiefly because the main object of the list is to glorify the individual Greek cities and their wealth and resources, not to uphold the democratic principle; and if the chiefs come first in Virgil, I think it is because he knew very well what treatment would give his art its best chance. The result is, in Dr. Henry's own words (p. 593), with which I • cordially agree, that " while Virgil enriches the Aeneid with a chapter second in interest and poetical beauty to none in the whole work. Homer encumbers the Iliad with, to say the best of it, a long dry table of statistical details." I think Dr. Henry was led to his views about our poet's anti-democratic mental attitude by the curious omission of a subject to " gerunt " in line 664. After telUng us about the prince or leader Aventinus, Virgil goes on abruptly : " pila manu saevosque gerunt in bella dolones," 34 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " which Dr. Henry explains as an open expression of contempt for the crowd. With all my admiration for Dr. Henry, I am convinced that he is quite wrong here. There are a good many signs in book vii. of unfinished workmanship, though the highly finished parts are as fine as any in the whole poem; and I think this may very well reckon as one of these signs, unless indeed, as I shaU presently suggest, these 'lines are not in their proper place. At any rate I cannot persuade myself that Virgil left out the sub- ject to " gerunt " in order to pour contempt on the Itahan rank and file. It is curious to find Dr. Henry going far to refute his own argument by remarking that Milton, though democrat and regicide, follows Virgil's method and not Homer's. If Milton did so, and made " the promiscuous crowd " stand all aloof, we may be sure that he did so for artistic reasons, not for political ones. He had no use for the pro- miscuous crowd, except, when his Ust of the chiefs is ended, to send up, at sight of the unfurling of the imperial ensign of hell, " A shout that tore Heaven's concave, and beyond, Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night," and thus to introduce a passage of such sublime splendour as is hardly to be found either in Homer or Virgil. The old Puritan was a consummate artist and knew very well where his artistic interest lay; this was his compass all through his long voyage, and beyond all doubt it was Virgil's too. 35 Lines 607 ff. — " The Gates of War " : " Sunt geminae Belli portae (sic nomine dicunt) religone sacrae et saevi formidine Martis; centum aerei claudunt vectes, aetemaque ferri robora, nee custos absistit Umine lanus." There are two or three points in Virgil's treatment of this episode which invite me to dwell on it for a moment. Archseologically he seems to be right on one point and quite wrong on another. This is, on the whole, the right account of what we used once to call the temple of Janus. It was really a double gateway, i.e., a building with two openings to right and left connected by a sohd waU,*- like the Porta Carmentahs in historical times. Whether it was ever reaUy a gate of the city may be doubted; it may have been an archway for rehgious purposes, like the Porta triumphalis, through which the army passed on its return from a war." The double gateway suggests that the host went out through one opening and returned through the other; aii,d as in the story of the Fabii in Liv. ii. 49 the unlucky 1 Wissowa, " Religion und Kultus der Romer," second edition, p. 104. * Josephus, " Bell. Jud.," vii. 5, 4. I have dealt with this matter in an article entitled " Passing under the Yoke," Classical Review, vol. xxvii., p. 49. 36 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " archway of the Porta Carmentalis was the right- hand one, we may perhaps guess that the army went out through the left-hand one; returning by the other, which would then also be on their left hand. Mars, so far as we know, had nothing to do with this gate, and his name is here, I think, hardly more than the synonym for war, with which all Romans were by Virgil's time familiar. Janus is rightly presented as the spirit guarding the gate, not as a deity to whom it served as temple. We know of no sacrifice performed at this gate, nor any rite that could suggest its use as a fanum; the sacrifice of a ram to this numen on January 9 took place in the Regia. So far Virgil is historically right. But when he goes on to describe the opening of the gate, he carries out the unhistorical idea of which he has already given us a hint in the lines quoted above, that it was normally closed, fastened in fact by bolts and bars, a hundred of them, so that the strength of a mortal king or consul could hardly force them open. Virgil knew well enough that till his own age, the era of the Pax Augusta, the Roman Gates of War had only once been closed; but he could afford to defy tradition here, partly because he is not writ- ing of historical Rome but of the city of Latinus, and m ainly because he had already, near the b eginnjBg-of his poem, made Jupiter foretell the day wh en the _ Gates would be perpetually closed, and tSelinholy^ spirit~ot stx^' ( furor~iWii>ius) would be impns onedj withm tfiSn/boun d with a hundr edchains (i. 29 1^.), 37 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " The result of this treatment is magnificent poetry, and it comes from the heart. The world of Virgil's day was thoroughly weary of war; and m entgri ag oii-fehe-s tgr y ot the _ ti prr p. -s tfaggle- for Italy ^^^[bS.^ civilization which was to occupv the rest of the - Aonoid, Tan nm f ihn'Tir es aijai n and agaiB-4he-madne ^s and the wickednes s of w ar. King_Latinus shrank "Tfom theJi orrid"~taslc ar7^ening.jth £^iLtes~(7Qg^a wm istoialLhe fledand hid himself in the dark re- cesses of his palacel Juiio, the cruel enemy of the Draja^alrfetd'EerselfToTindertake the work (620^)- Line 620 — " Regina deum (Juno) ": In Virgil's story the war is wholly due to Juno, with the loathsome Allecto as her agent. This is not simply because the Homeric Hera was the bitter enemy of the Trojans; that alone would not have made it possible for a Roman poet to employ her persistently against the chosen people, and against the decrees of Fate and Jupiter. How determined was her enmity we know from many passages, among which there is none better than v. 781 ff.: Venus complains — " lunonis gravis ira neque exsaturabile pectus cogunt me, Neptune, preces descendere in omnis; quam nee longa dies pietas nee mitigat ulla, nee lovis imperio fatisque intracta quiescit." The fact is that the position of Juno at Rome was a curious one, and at no time a very important one, and 38 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " for that reason a Roman poet might use her with a fair amount of licence. We used of course to think of her as the wife of Jupiter, and my distinguished friend, the author of the " Golden Bough," still, I beheve, holds this opinion. But Roman gods did not have wives in the proper sense of that word, and Juno in the great Capitohne temple was no more the wife of Jupiter than her colleague Minerva. It used to be thought, on no good evidence at all, that the Flamen and Flaminica Dialis were priest and priestess of Jupiter and Juno ; but it is now recognized that both served Jupiter only.^ There is, in fact, hardly any- thing to connect the two deities together except ■ Homer and the wilful identification of Hera and^^ Juno. "-' Rid your mind of this identificatioh, and you will recognize the poet's right to turn Juno to any account he pleases. Remember also that she was the repre- sentative of the female principle at Rome: that women thought of their Juno as men of their Genius. Emphatically we may say that in the Aeneid she represents the feminine temper, or at least some aspects of it which were well known in the last century p. c. Dr. Glover has rightly pointed out that she also in the poem stands for a false idea of empire. " Fate has decreed that one people shall rule the world; she prefers another, and she tries conclusions with Fate. Aeneas, as the agent of Fate, suffers."^ 1 Wissowa, op. cit. 516, note 2. I proved this point in Classical Review, vol. ix., p. 474 ff. 2 " Virgil," p. 141. 39 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " This idea of empire is false, not only because it is backed up by a great female numen, whose temper is irreconcilable with the large masculine benevolence of Jupiter, but because with the aid of that numen, it is embodied in a woman, :Qido^_forfi,sha.dnwing thft- beautif ul dangerous queen of y irgjl'*^ nwri (^ay. Juno in the Aeneid is well worth careful study; even the first fifty hues of book i., well weighed (as seldom happens), will do much to help us. At the outset of his poem, with all the emphasis he can use, Virgil associates her in interest— an interest perverse in the eyes of all Romans^ — -with the most deadly enemy Rome ever had to meet, and with the mythical queen of Carthage, the Cleopatra of his poetical fancy. Dido's tender arts were for Aeneas " lunonia hospitia," and would bring to mind the equally dangerous blandishments of the Egyptian queen.^ This use of Juno in the Aeneid was perhaps made easier and more natural because, as a goddess, she belonged rather to Rome's early enemies than to Rome herself. She was a famihar figure in many or most of the cities mentioned in the pageant- — -on the Aventine, at Tibur Praeneste and Falerii, in southern Etruria (as Uni), and in Campania.^ But at Rome, strange to say, she had no great local name and fame in early times, and thus no feelings could be hurt if a Roman poet made her the deadly enemy of Rome. 1 See my " Religious Experience of the Romans," p. 414 ff. " See article Juno in Roscher's " Lexicon," p. 604; Wissowa, " Religion und Kultus " (second edition), p. 187. 40 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Lines 629 ff. — " The five ' arsenals ' " : " quinque adeo magnae positis incudibus urbes tela novant, Atina potens Tiburque superbum, Axdea Crustumerique et turrigerae Antemnae." Then follows an account of the work done in these cities. Why did Virgil name these cities as arsenals ? Simply as important ones ? But there were others quite as important, and what we should naturally look for is some tradition of metal-working in these centres: but of this I can find no trace, either in history or archaeology. Recently Dr. Cirilli has started a theory that the Salii, or dancing priest- warriors of Mars, represent the introduction of metal- working from Crete ;^ and if this were so it would be - quite like Virgil to select as his arsenals cities in which Sahi were an institution. But the only one of the five where they are known to have existed is Tibur ; and in my opinion Dr. Cirilli's theory is quite unnecessary as an explanation of the Salii, and in- consistent with the evidence of archaeology, which proves that metal-working came into central Italy from the north, with the people of the terremare.^ Of the five towns, Crustumerium and Antemiiae were quite near Rome in the Tiber valley, and Tibur not far off; they may stand for arsenals of the Latins and Aequi. Ardea was the chief town of ^ " Les PrStres Danseurs de Rome " (Paris, 1913), p. 25, and chap. ii. ^ Feet, " Stone and Bronze Age in Italy," chaps, xv. and xvi. Modestow, Introduction, pt. i., chaps, iv. and vii. 41 V/rgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Turnus and the Rutuli. Atina potens, not far from Arpinum, might serve the needs of the hill tribes, described 706 ff. Beyond this I can find no clue to explain their selection. Lines 647 j/".; " primus init bellum Tyrrhenis asper ab oris contemptor divum Mezentius agroinaque armat. filius huic iuxta Lausus, quo pulchrior alter non fuit excepto Laurentis corpora Tumi." Why does Virgil begin the war, and the pageant, with Mezentius and his beautiful son ? There is no geographical reason, and indeed there is no very intelligible geographical order in the show. Mezen- tius was an Etruscan by birth, and in this sense is said to be " Tyrrhenis asper ab oris," but he had been ejected by his Etruscan subjects as a tyrant, and had taken refuge with the Rutuli;^ he was no t5T)ical Etruscan, and, indeed, that people were at this moment making an alliance with Aeneas. Servius suggests that he was chosen to lead the procession because, bejng impiu&^ more jmp'lM^ than any nf hjg comrade ^, it '^^^ fitting t h ni 1 i r nhnn lrl h r fhr fir-it tn attf)r k i)ius Aencas.' Servius is not far wrong, I think, but the real reason is simply an artistic one. Mdzentius must be made prominent as a bad man, and is placed in the forefront, like a strong word at the beginning of a line, to fix him in the reader's mind. In the coming story much is to be made of ^ See book viii., 481 ff. * Servius on line 467. 42 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " these two striking figures; the spoils of the father will be the primitiae of the war for Aeneas, and the death of the boy is to pierce his heart — and the heart, surely, of his poet, too.^ I think that Milton had Mezentius in his mind when he chose Moloch to lead his grisly show of devils; he is impius, contemptor divum, beyond any of his fellows. ' ' Mortua quin etiam iungebat corpora vivis," and the horrible torture that follows — all this is reproduced by Milton: " First Moloch, horrid king besmeared with blood' Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears. . . ." and his impietas too : " The wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple of God On that opprobrious hill. . . ." But in the Unes of the Latin poet there is other matter of pecuHar interest . What is really the mean- ing of contemptor divum? Dr. Henry was, I think, the first to make it perfectly clear that Mezentius was not a blasphemer nor an infidel, appeaUng rightly to X. 743, where he claims to be judged by Jupiter, whose agent for the moment he was (x. 689; cp. his " deus " in x. 773). Such characters were indeed un- known, or almost unknown, in primitive society. But Mezentius was one who had so little regard for the divine laws as to commit the enormities ascribed to him : in this respect he was manifestly contemptor %■- * For the primitiae, xi. 16. Death of Lausus, x. 769 jf. 43 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " divum. The point is fully argued out, to the length of several pages, in Henry's commentary on vi. 620 : " Discite iustitiam moniti et non temnere divos,'' and each of these pages is worth attentive study. I find the argument, with its abundant illustration from Greek and Latin literature, quite conclusive: iustitia is conceived as obedience to the law of heaven: morality is under the protection of the gods. Now this was certainly a Greek rather than a Roman or Italian idea:* and it has often been asserted that the Roman deities and their cult had nothing to do with morality. But this, as I have observed else- where,^ is going altogether too far; we have only to think of the religious sanction of the oath, and of the religious penalties attached to certain crimes, e.g., parricidium or arson, where the criminal was made over, cursed and consecrated, to the deity most immediately concerned, to satisfy ourselves that the connection between morality and religion was in reality very close — so close that they may well have originated in the same layer of human experience^ " Discite iustitiam moniti et non temnere divos " — " set not at naught the divine commandment to be just or righteous." It is satisfactory to find 1 Farnell, " Higher Aspects of the Greek Religion," passim. ^ " Rehgious Experience of the Romans," p. 22.6 ff.; and on the general question see McDougall, " Social Psycho- logy," p. 313. 3 See " The Original Meaning of the Word ' Sacer,' " Journal of Roman Studies, vol. i., p. 57 ff. 44 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Virgil emphasizing this in the Augustan age, in spite of the very different ideas of his great predecessor Lucretius. Mezentius did thi ngs that the gods could not put up wiOi. because t hey violate d the establijhed rules of right and wrong. " Henry aptly refers to another passage of our poet, this time in book i.^ Ilioneus, Aeneas' messenger, having demanded justice of Dido, having required her to deal with him and the Trojans according to the immutable principles of justice, reminds her of the sanction of the gods, and warns her not to despise that sanction, non temnere divos: " si genus humanum et mortalia temnitis arma, at sperate deos memores fandi atque nefandi,"^ where, if I am not mistaken, Virgil is practically inventing a new genitive for " fas " and " nefas," i.e., right and wrong in the sight of the gods.* Lines 655 ff.. — ^Aventinus: " Post hos insignem palma per gramina currum victoresque ostentat equos satus Hercule pulchro pulcher Aventinus, clipeoque insigne paternum 1 Lines 542-543. Cp. 603-605. ' Aen. i., 206-7; Liv. ix. 41. 3 The view taken by Virgil was emphatically put by Cicero in the previous generation: Nat. Deor. i. 2, 3, Hand scio an, pietate adversus deos sublata, fides etiam et socie- tas generis humani et una excellentissima virtus, iustitia, toUatur. Cp. de Off. iii. 28; Fin. iv. 11 ; and other passages quoted by Mayor in his note on Nat. Deor., loc. cit. Servius tells us that by fandum et infandum the poet meant iustitia and iniustitia. 45 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " centum anguis, cinctamque gerit serpentibus Hydram; collis Aventini silva quem Rhea sacerdos furtivum partu sub luminis edidit oras, mixta deo mulier, postquam Laurentia victor Geryone exstincto Tirynthius attigit arva, Tyrrhenoque boves in flumine lavit Hiberas. pila manu saevosque gerunt in bella dolones, et tereti pugnant mucrone veruque Sabello. ipse pedes, teginien torquens immane leonis, terribili impexum saeta cum dentibus albis indutus capiti, sic regia tecta subibat, horridus Herculeoque umeros innexus amictu." My belief is that the Hnes properly referring to this chief are 655-663, and that the six that follow prob- ably belong elsewhere ; but this I will explain directly, merely noting here that nine lines are as much as we might expect to be given to Aventinus, seeing that Mezentius himself has only had eight, and that the • twins of Tibur had to be content with the same num- ber. Caeculus of Praeneste and his following have thirteen, but he was a much more famous personage than the mythical Aventinus, of whom no one seems to have heard till Virgil invented him and his birth-legend.i Why he should have been brought into the pageant I do not quite understand: but it may be that the poet wished to have one chieftain from the site of the future Rome, and keeping the other hills for the next book and the voyage of Aeneas up the Tiber, chose that one which was less truly Roman than the rest. The Aventine was "out- side the ancient pomerium, or sacred boundary, of 1 Merlin, " L'Aventin " (a useful monograph), p. 264. 46 Virgil's " Gatliering of the Clans " the Roman city : it was perhaps wild pasture ground belonging to the people of the Palatine, until it became the home of the " plebs " and of the worships of a new population.^ Virgil paints Aventinus as parading hiS' war- chariot " per gramina," and connects him with the legend of Cacus, to be recounted in the next book, by making him the son of the conqueror of that mon- ster and a priestess Rhea, about whom it is better not to speculate. If we stop at line 663, there is nothing in all this to trouble us ; -but if we go on to read the next six lines as relating to the same man and his followers, we are at once in difficulties. The word " gerunt," as we have already noticed, has no subject, and thus misled Dr. Henry into giving the whole pageant a poKtical meaning. In line 665 the men are armed " vera Sabello " ; but the Aventine had no sort of connection with the Sabines. In the next line, if we still take these lines as a description of Aventinus, we suddenly find that he has got down from his chariot, and wears a new and savage fight- ing garb, which is surely inconsistent with the courtly mien of one who was just now showing off his splen- did horses (satus ~ Hercule pulchro pulcher Aven- tinus) : " ipse pedes, tegimen torquens immane leonis, terribili impexum. saeta cum dentibus albis indutus capiti." 1 Merlin, " L'Aventin," pp. 26-92. " Religious Experi- ence," p. 233 jf. 47 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Surely this is the war-paint of a very rude chief of foot-soldiers: the metamorphosis is too sudden: there is something wrong about the lines, which must be either an unfinished fragment, or in their wrong place. I incline to the latter solution, and will ven- ture to suggest that they really belong to the Sabine Ufens, whose description is very briefly, almost abruptly, told in lines 744-749. Why they should have got out of their place in early copies of the Aeneid I cannot explain, unless possibly the " Hercu- leus amictus " of line 669 was taken by the first editors as belonging to the son of Hercules (Aventi- nus). But if we apply this line to Ufens it fits in quite naturally ; Hercules was well known among the Sabines.' The lion-skin (666) suggests that Virgil had in his mind some figure of Hercules; this may, however, be a detail of Etruscan art, which loved the grotesque and all " f rightfulness." It was apparently an old Italian practice to wear the skin of an animal, often a victim, over the head.^ 1 See " Myth. Lex.,'' vol. ii., p. 3005 ff. 2 Cp. 1. 688 of this book and xi. 680, and Wissowa, " ReUgion und Kultus," p. 499 and reference. On the wearing of .skins in religious rites in general, see Eitrem, " Opferritus," p. 374 ff. The following description of a war-coat of the present day is from " The Pagan Tribes of Borneo," by Hose and McDougall, vol. i., p. 163, but it does not quite include a use of the animal's head as a helmet : " The war-coat is made of the skin of the goat, the bear, or (in the case of distin^ guished chiefs) of the tiger-cat. The whole of the skin in one piece is used, except that the skin of the belly and of the lower parts of the fore-limbs are cut away. A hole for the 48 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " I do not believe that Virgil would have written these six lines of description, the portrait of a savage chieftain in war-paint, to mark the hero of a hill on the site of Rome, and within a stone's-throw of the city of the civilized Evander, to be described in the next book. I will therefore write them here as fol- lowing on the description of Ufens, and leave it to the reader to decide whether or no they may be thought to belong there : " et te montosae misere in praelia Nursae, Ufens, insignem fama et felicibus armis, horrida praecipue cui gens adsuetaque multo venatu nemorum, duris Aequicola glebis. Armati terram exercent semperque recentis convectare iuvat praedas et vivere rapto. pila manu saevosque gerunt in bella dolones, et tereti pugnant mucrone ve'ruque Sabello. Ipse pedes, tegimen torquens immane leonis, terribili impexum saeta cum dentibus albrs indutus capiti, sic regia tecta subibat, horridus Herculeoque umeros innexus amictu." The last two of these lines, I confess, are still far from clear to my mind, and suggest unfinished work- manship. " Sic regia tecta subibat," what can this mean ? If it is the palace of Latinus that he enters, what did he want there ? Merely to greet or cheer warrior's head is made in the dorsal line a little behind the skin of the head, which is flattened out and hangs over the chest, . . . while the skin of back, flanks, and hind limbs, in one large flap, covers the back and hind parts of the warrior as far as the bend of the knees." 49 D Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " the shrinking king ? But none of the other chiefs seem to be anywhere near Laurentum at the moment their portraits are taken : though at the beginning of the next book Turnus takes the lead and gives the war-signal from the walls of that city. On the other hand, the twins of Tibur, who foUow immediately in the procession, " Tiburtia moenia linquunt," " et primam ante aciem densa inter tela feruntur." We may assume then that Aventius stuck to his chariot, as beseemed a great prince setting out for war (cp. 782). But here an interesting question pre- sents itself: is Virgil going on any archaeological knowledge when he makes the war-chariot an early Italian institution ? " post hos insignem palma per gramina currum victoresque ostentat equos. ..." Or is he simply taking it over from Homer ? It is probable, writes Dr. Stuart Jones, that this mode of fighting was learnt by the Romans from the Etruscans: bronze chariots have been found at several sites in Etruria, and early terra-cotta plaques are preserved which show the chieftain mounting his car.|^ There is no need to conclude that Virgil is simply imitating Homer. If this be so, and the war- chariot was an Etruscan institution, as we know that 1 " Companion to Roman History," p. 195. Chariots on terra-cottas have also been found at Rome, belonging to the sixth or early fifth century (see J.R.S., 1914, p. 184), in one of which the driver is about to mount. Cp. p. 188 (sixth century). Mrs. Van Buren, the writer of this article, cites a work on Italian " Rennwagen," which I have not seen. 50 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " the triumph was,^ then the dress and outfit of the triumphaior were probably those of the old Etruscan chieftain. It is commonly asserted (and I have asserted it myself) that these were simply imitated from the statue of Jujiiter in the (Etruscan) temple on the Capitol.^ But the " toga picta," the face painted red, the sceptre, everything except the thunderbolt (and I cannot find that the triumphator carried this), was as natural for a chief as for a god;^ and as chiefs may be supposed to have ridden in chariots before gods did so, I begin to suspect that we have been all wrong, and that when Jupiter first mounted a chariot they dressed him like a sacred chief, and gave him the four horses with which they distinguished such a chief. The four-horse chariot is not simply a mythical property of the Sun or of Jupiter, though it came eventually to be a dis- 1 Miiller-Deecke, " Etrusker,'' ii. 199. 2 Or taken out of his temple. But I cannot find, in the best account of the triumph I know of, Aust's in his luppiter article in Roscher's " Lexicon," p. 726, any satisfactory evidence of this. 3 It is Mrs. Strong who gives him the thunderbolt (" Apotheosis and After -Life," p. 64). She also claims that the triumphator actually was Jupiter; but this does not seem to fit in with the reminder that the slave behind him kept on uttering, " Hominem te esse memento." The face reddened with minium is no argument; it was used, as it is still in many parts of the world, for producing certain effects, religious or warlike, or both, in the human being (Virg. Eel. vi. 22, x. 27; Tibull. ii. i, 55; and " Religious Experience," p. 89, note 46). See CI. Rev., 1916, p. 153 ff., where I have worked out these points. 51 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " tinguishing mark of these deities.^ It occurs in X. 570 and in xii. 162, and in this last passage the poet alludes to its association with the Sun: "ingtiliLi mule LaCmus quadriiugo vehitur curru (cui tempora circum aurati bis sex radii fulgentia cingunt, Solis avi specimen)," but I am inchned to think that it was part of the old Etruscan regal outfit, and so found its way into the Roman triumph. It is worth noting that Jlifljoysiua.^ ma kes Romulus triumph in a quadriga in order that Ee^might maintain th'ekingly dignity .^ And so it became very naturally the attribute of the god of the heaven. Lines 670 ff. — " The Twins of Tibur " : " turn gemini fratres Tiburtia moenia linquunt, Fratris Tiburti dictam cognomine gentem, Catillusque acerque Coras, Argiva inventus. ..." I do not think it has been noticed that the twin- legend, or twin-superstition, was not confined to the Roman twins, but has left its traces in the neigh- bourhood, i.e., in those Latin cities which, Uke Rome, were early affected by Greek influences com- ing from Campania and Sicily. I do not indeed assert that the twin-legend must necessarily have 1 See Aust's article in Roscher, p. 736; Mrs. Strong, ' Apotheosis and After-Life," p. 64. * ii. 34: quoted by Heinze, Virgil's " Epische Technik," p. 197 note. 52 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " come from Greece, where it was especially connected with Sparta and her kings, as we know from Hero- dotus (v. 75) : I think the foundation stories of twins may quite possibly have been indigenous in Italy, and that the legend of the Dioscuri may have fastened itself upon them. In any case we must- reckon all kinds of twin-stories together, whatever be their origin and local colouring, for we now know that they are found in many parts of the world, and are connected with many curious customs and de- lusions.^ But if we find twin-legends at Rome, Tibur, Praeneste, and Tusculum, and also at the lake RegUlus which lay among these cities, all of which were traditionally affected by Greek culture at a very early period (as archaeological investigation tends to prove), we may presume that such Italian basis as there may have been for these tales was prob- ably overlaid with Greek invention. At Tibur, if Virgil rightly presents the legend, I should be inclined to see a foundation-legend over- laid with some story of the Dioscuri. Servius says that three brethren came to Italy and founded Tibur, which took the name of the eldest brother, the two younger being the twins whom Virgil represents as leading the army of Tibur against the Trojans. In the foundation-legend of Praeneste (of which a word directly), twins do not appear, but Servius (line 678) tells us that the mother of Caeculus had two brothers, " qui divi appellabantur "; and these, if I am not » See " Golden Bough " (third edition) , vol. i., p. 48 ff. and p. ■ibiff. (based on the researches of Dr. Rendel Harris). 53 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " mistaken, are the Dioscuri insinuating themselves where they had no particular right to be. At Tusculum the cult of the Dioscuri was in his- torical times well established,^ and with this city the story of the Regillus battle was closely connected. It is interesting to find that the twin-legends are constantly associated with water, just as the Dioscuri had special relation to shipping and its various perils. In some parts of the world twins can pro- cure rain, and Sir J. G. Frazer teUs us that in one part of Africa they are always buried near a lake.^ One may be pardoned for remarking that the battle of the lake Regillus, almost the only one in Roman history which takes its name from a lake, is also the only one associated with the cuilt of the Twins. The story may, however, be a replica of the Greek, legend of the appearance of the twins at the great battle of the river Sagra (again by water) between Lokri and Croton (Cic. de Nat. Deor. iii. iiff-)- Lines 6y^ff.: " ceu duo nubigenae cum vertice montis ab alto descendunt Centauri Homolen Othrymque nivalem - linquentes cursu rapido : dat euntibus ingens silva locum et magno cedunt virgulta fragore." This striking simile has been rather hardly treated by commentators, both ancient and modem. Even Dr. Henry seems to me to be quite at sea about it, though positive that everyone else has totally 1 See Wissowa, " Religion und Kultus " (second edition), p. 268. ^ " Golden Bough " (third edition), vol. i., p. 268. 54 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " misunderstood it. He insisted that silva and virgulia are one and the same thing, and when con- fronted with the epithet ingens attached to silva he translated it " the mighty brushwood, the brushwood considered in respect of its extent." This seems to me to put him out of court, for the picture he suggests is of a mountain clothed with brushwood all the way down, and this was most certainly not what was in Virgil's mind. The real picture is surely one of alpine regions, and cannot be realized [visualized is now the favourite word) any more than Tennyson's idyll in the Princess (" Come down, O Maid ") by anyone who is not famihar with real mountain land- scapes in time of storm and snow. The picture that rises in my mind is that of a mountain range, whose summits are hidden in cloud, below which the snow is visible between the cloud and the pine-forests ; below the broad steep slopes of dark pines, the silva, are the belts of deciduous trees and underwood (virgulta) — the underwood in which I have so often watched the warnith-loving birds of the Alps, the Pied Flycatcher or Bonelli's Warbler. These four stages of the clothing of the mountain seem to me clearly expressed by the poet. First the Centaurs are nubigenae, their lair is up there in the clouds;^ there they were born, and thence they begin 1 Heyne saw this, and Conington quoting him with ap- proval says that such an idea may have occurred to Virgil in the present connection. But most of the tribe simply tell us that the Centaurs were the offspring of Ixion and a cloud in the shape of Juno. Virgil is giving a new and pregnant meaning to the old epithet. 55 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " their swift descent ; the reader is left to imagine that lair for himself, and what they did there. Secondly, they cross and leave behind them the stretches of snow below the cloud : " Homolen Othrymque nivalem Hnquentes cursu rapido." Thirdly, they force their way through the pinewoods, the ingens silva, but not by tearing up the trees or breaking them down, for the trees give way before them — dai euntibus ingens silva locum} Fourthly, once through the broad belts of pine, they come crashing down to the valley through the underwoods {magna cedunt virgulta fragore) — -that is, with noise which those in the valley can now hear plainly. This is the splendid picture in my mind as I read these hnes, and there it will always be in spite of all commentators. That any of these should have set themselves to find fault with such lines seems to me the height of human imbecihty; but they have done so. " This beautiful description is unhappily closed. Nothing can be greater than ' dat euntibus. ingens silva locum.' It should not have been followed by ' magno cedunt virgulta fragore.' "^ Line 678 — " Praeneste and the Caeculus-legend ": Praeneste, the famous city set upon a hiU, or rather a hillside, had just been founded (so the poet imagines), and her founder Caeculus leads her con- 1 Cp. Aen. ii. 633, "dant tela locum." Some see in the Centaurs here the personification of an avalanche. ^ See references in Henry, p. 598 ff. Servius seems to have set the ball rolling; but as a critic of style Servius may be ignored. 56 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " tingent to the war. The Unes 678-681 are interest- ing, as containing the earliest mention of the legend of Caeculus, about whom Servius has more to tell us, though hardly of more value— e.g., how after the foundation he exhibited games, to which the neigh- bouring cities were invited; how he proclaimed him- self son of Vulcan the fire-god; and how sceptics were convinced by the sudden appearance of fire hovering about them. Virgil says nothing of the virgin-birth of Caeculus,^ of which Servius teUs us — viz., that he was born of the virgin sister of the two brethren of Praeneste, and the fire-god in the form of a spark which leapt on her from the hearth. The same type of story was told of the birth of Servius Tulhus, and even of the Roman twins, if we can accept the evidence of a mysterious writer, Proma- thion, quoted by Plutarch in his " Life of Romulus," chap, ii., but never once mentioned by any other author. These stories have been seized upon by the in- genious author of the " Golden Bough," and brought together to support a theory that " the old Latin kings were commonly supposed to be sons of the fire- god by a mortal mother."^ Strange to say, in spite of all his vast collections of legend and ritual. Sir J. G. Frazer is quite unable to parallel these stories 1 " Volcano genitum pecora inter agrestia regem, Inven- tumque focis omnis quem credidit aetas." Pecora agrestia seems only to mean that there was no city on the lofty pastures of Praeneste when Caeculus was bom. 2 " Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship," p. 2l8#. 57 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " from any other part of the world. And even at Praeneste the tale could not have been of great force, for there was another, Servius tells us, according to which the son was called Caeculus because he had sore eyes from sitting too near the fire. Even this has been turned to account by a modern mythologist. M.S. Reinach, in his " Cultes Mythes et ReUgions " (iii. 206), use3 it to explain the- attitude of what he believes to be a figure of Vesta, on a stone altar at Mavilly. (Cote-d'Or, France), holding her hands before her eyes. These local legends, pressed eagerly into the ser- vice of theories, are apt to occupy too much room in mythological discussion. It seems probable that there was in this corner of Latium some story of the hearth-fire and its spirit, of which we cannot honestly say that we possess the real original form. It is by no means certain that it was applied, in the simple society of immigrant settlers from the terremare of the north, to deities or great personages such as kings and chiefs. But as in the case of other rude Italian tales, such as that of Mars and Anna Perenna, it might easily become attached in the telling, often repeated by the winter fireside with endless variation, to figures prominent in the popular fiction of the day. As I wrote in " Roman Festivals " (p. 53), these are only ancient stories of ordinary human beings, based on some rude custom of house or farm ; and they sur- vived simply because in course of time they became attached to the persons of the gods, as these slowly gained personality. Fire-stories seem to have been 58 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " favourites; for in Virgil we have another, told both of Ascanius and of Lavinia, of fire playing round the head of someone destined for a great future.^ " id vero horrendum et visu mirabile ferri: namque fore illustrem fama fatisque canebant igsam, sed populo magnum portendere bellum." (vii. 78-80.) Thus it is eaey to see why, when stories of the founder of a city were in request, the old wine of folklore might be put into new bottles. Lines 681 j^.; " hunc legio late comitatur agrestis: « quique altum Praeneste viri quique arva Gabinae lunonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis Hemica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit, quos, Amasene pater, non illis omnibus arma nee clipei currusve sonant; pars maxima glandes liventis plumbi spargit, pars spicula gestat bina manu, fulvosque lupi de pelle galeros tegmen habent capiti; vestigia nuda sinistri instituere pedis, crudus tegit altera pero." V Caeculus heads a levy from the district round, of hill and valley: the ploughland of Gabii, where is a famous cult of Juno, Anagnia of the Hernici, the' vale of the Anio among the hills, and the Amasenus flow- ing southwards to the sea among the heights of the Volsci. The mention of this last river among the belongings of Praeneste is curious; at its nearest 1 These last belong to the department of portents, and suggest that the others might be treated in the same way. Fire-portents were numerous: for specimens, see Julius Obsequens (Jahn's edition), pp. 27, 41, 44, 47. 59 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " point it is full thirty miles away from that city, and one would expect it to be mentioned later on, when we come to Camilla and the Volsci (see xi. 547) . But Virgil evidently wishes to impress on his reader the early greatness of Praeneste: for it was a great city in his own time, and it is possible that he had some personal reason for celebrating it. It was one of those towns near Rome which Augustus praecipue frequentavit, as Suetonius tells us (Aug. 72 and 82).^ The Praenestine troops are of course on foot, like those of Tibur; their war-dress and equipment are various. Whether the poet had any antiquarian foundation for these we cannot very well know. Long notes have been written about lines 689-690. — Here the fact is oddly expressed, but the meaning is clear; these slingers, as they mostly were (" pars maxima glandes Liventis plumbi spargit "), had the left foot naked, while on the right they wore a boot. And the reason is as plain as the meaning : a right- handed man needs a left foot as free as possible, to grip the ground as he discharges his missile. - One does not need the learning of Macrobius' note on this passage to realize that simple fact, though in other ways the note is valuable (Sat. v. 18, 13 ff.). If, as he says, the Aetolians went into action with the left foot bare, we may guess that, like their neighbours 1 It is possible tliat Verrius Flaccus, who was tutor to the grandsons of Augustus, was a native of Praeneste. At any rate he was intimately connected with it, as the author of the " Fasti Praenestini," of which we still possess a con- . siderable part. (See " Roman Festivals," p. 12.) 60 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " the Acarnanians (Thucyd. ii. 8i), they were mostly sHngers. Anyone who has bowled a cricket-ball with his right hand knows how essential is the grip of his left foot ; and the action of a slinger was much the same as that of a bowler (see a cut of a slinger from the column of Trajan in the " Dictionary of Antiquities," second edition, s.v. Funda). The naked foot would of course give a much better grip than one wearing a ^ero, as was clear to Thucydides (iii. 22). Lines 691 ff. — " Falerii and the region round it " : " At Messapus, equum domitor, Neptunia proles, quern neque fas igni cuiquam nee sternere ferro, iam pridem resides populos desuetaque bello agmina in arma vocat subito ferrumque retractat. hi Fescenninas acies aequosque Faliscos, hi Soractis habent arces Flaviniaque arva, et Cimini cum raonte lacum lucosque Capenos. ibant aequati numero regemque canebant : ceu quondam nivei Uquida inter nubila cycni cum sese a pastu referunt et longa canoros dant per colla modos, sonat amnis et Asia longe pulsa palus. nee quisquam aeratas acies ex agmine tanto misceri putet, aeriam sed gurgite ab alto urgeri volucrum raucarum ad litora nubem." There are many interesting points in these Hnes, but they are not easy to handle. Let us notice, to begin with, how Virgil tries to give variety and in- terest to the " catalogue," wishing no doubt to avoid the flatness of the Homeric one. After treating the forces of the Praenestine clans as more or less wild 61 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " and unkempt {legio agrestis), slingers with wolf-skin headgear, destitute of horses and chariots, he takes flight north-westwards across the Tiber valley and lands us in a region of comparative order and civili- zation. The centre of this region was Falerii, with which Virgil joins Fescennium, no doubt because he wants to emphasize the civiUzation; for whether or not the Roman drama really owed its origin to this city, the tradition was matter of common behef.^ -Both cities were reputed Etruscan, but of Falerii at least we know that the Etruscan element was rather a veneer than a substantial character; recent re- searches and excavations have shown Latin and Hellenic elements as well.^ They have also shown the great size and importance of Falerii and its suburb or appendage known now as Narce. Juno was here a great deity, and her " sacred marriage," described charmingly by Ovid (" Amores," iii. 13), is almost unmistakably Greek, suggesting a penetration of Greek religious rites at a very early period into central Italy.^ The king or chief of this region seems to have no particular business to be there, for he was the epony- mous hero of Messapia or Calabria. Conington noted this, and also that Servius tells us how Ennius claimed to be descended from Messapus; but he did not see that Virgil was here taking advantage of 1 See Schanz, " Gesch. der Rom. Litt.," vol. i., p. 21. 2 The results of excavation were recorded by Barnabei in the " Monument! Inediti," vol. iv., p. i ff. See also Deecke's " Falisker." 3 " Roman Festivals," p. 223. 62 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " another literary tradition (besides that of Fescennium) to give the tone he wanted to this king and his people, or at any rate to suggest it to those who knew. Messapus in these lines seems a very sacred person : he is descended from Neptunus, whose proper Italian home seems to have been in this very district . The deity's son Halaesus was the eponymous hero of Falerii/ and the name of the town of Nepet, quite close to Falerii, strongly suggests some local connec- tion. Then, too, Messapus was inviolable by mortal weapon : " quern neque/as igni cuiquam nee stemere ferro," where it is more important for us to be clear that fas here suggests the sacred personality of the ancient kingship, than to waste time in trying to find out what Virgil meant by ignis. ^ Lastly, the warriors who followed him sang of him as they marched in rhythmical measure [aequati numero), where perhaps Virgil is thinking of the rhythmical movements accompanpng the singing of the Salii. However this may be, Messapus must have been in some sense one of Sir J. G. Frazer's divine kings. As a king of pacific policy he reminds us of Numa ; but now " iam pridem resides populos desuetaque bello agmina in arraa vocat subito ferrumque retractat." 1 Deecke, " Falisker," p. 103. " Roman Fesi;ivals," p. 185, note 3. ^ See ix. 521-522, xii. 298, where (in presence, as it happens, of Messapus) a Trojan seizes a brand from the altar and attacks a Latin with it. 63 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Another word that suggests this character for the king and his people is the aequos applied to the men of Falerii. I have no hesitation in following Servius here/ who adverts to the tradition that the iusfetiale originated at Falerii, and gives aequos the sense of " righteous " (" iustos "). No other suggested ex- planation of the word is so much in harmony with the general colouring of the picture. Mr. Mackail, it is true, translates " the Faliscan levels " ; but Falerii is among the hills, and was built on a strong rocky position falling steeply to the stream that ran down to the Tiber from the Ciminian lake. A word about two other points. In the lines " hi Fescenninas acies, aequosque Faliscos, hi Soractis habent arces . . ." the puzzle has always been to make out what is meant by acies and arces respectively: and acies has often been judged corrupt, owing to the harshness of the zeugma with which it and arces are held together by the verb " habent." True, the passage may have been left unfinished : but there are the two words, and we must make the best of them. What shall we say of arces ? There was no town on Soracte at any time, 1 True, on X. 14 Servius gives a different account, accord- ing to wliich Ancus Martius sent to the gens Aequiculana for the iusfetiale, following Livy, i. 32, who himself followed a tradition suggested by the name Aequi and Aequicoli. Dionysius has another story connecting the ius with A rdea (ii. 71). Undoubtedly it was common to the Italic peoples who migrated from the north and developed their civiliza- tion in the period of the terremare. 64 Virgil's " Gathering of tlie Clans " nor any fortified place that we know of. But is it possible that arces and acies got into wrong lines through a " shp of the pen " (or of the eye), either of the poet himself or an early copyist, and that we should read " Fescenninas arces " and " Soractis acies " ? If so, I should understand " acies " as meaning " sharp edges "—aretes, as they are called in the Alps. " Acies " is not a technical word Uke " arx," and might be used in many different ways. Soracte is about 2,420 feet high, and its outline is a striking one, as all know who have ever been at Rome. But for " acies " in this sense I can find no parallel in the " Thesaurus Latinitatis." The description of Messapus and his men should end, I feel sure, with the imperfect line pulsa palus. ■ Here there is a pause, as in ii. 767, iii. 218, and other incomplete lines,^ and to take up the same subject again with another simile of the same .kind, is quite unlike Virgil. The first one is Homeric and beautifuP (" ceu quondam nivei," etc.) : -it owes 1 See Appendix at the end of this work. " Cp. lUad, ii. 459: a simile perhaps more true to fact than Virgil's, or at least more exact in detail, but hardly so beautiful. It reminds me of what could be seen from the train window of the birds in the marshes of the Cayster, while we were travelling to Ephesus from Smyrna and back again some years ago. Here it is : luv S' S)S ■r' ipvlBwv weTerjvwv IBvea iroWi,, Xyivwv fi yepavai' ij KiKvav Sovh.xoSelpai', 'Acrlif. iv Xei/tfiKi, Kai/(rT/)W d/t^i jiieBpa, 'EvSa Kal lv8a Trarr&imu, ir^alMincva irrepvyeiraiy, K\ayyriSiv wpoKaBi^Si'Ton', ea iroWa veuv, k.t.X. 65 E Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " nothing to ApoUonius Rhodius, though Conington tells us that it does. The second, " Nee quisquam aeratas acies," etc., adds nothing, and is, in fact, an awkward translation from ApoUonius, iv. 238 ff. How it got into its position in the passage I cannot of course explain, but that it has no business there I am clear. The best guess I can make is that it was written as an alternative, and embodied in the text by the first editors, who would not wish to excise it altogether. Let me add that those who may wish to know what the ancients thought and wrote about swans will find it all in Prof: D'Arcy Thompson's " Glossary of Greek Birds," p. 104 jf..- a book of real and even astonishing learning, but far too little known and used, especially on the Continent. Lines yo6 ff. — " The Sabines of the mountains " : " Ecce Sabinorum prisco de sanguine magnum agmen agens Clausus magnique ipse agminis instar, Claudia nunc a quo diffunditur et tribus et gens per Latium, postquam in partem data Roma Sabinis. una ingens Amiterna cohors priscique Quirites, Ereti manus omnis oliviferaeque Mutuscae; qui Nomentum urbem, qui Rosea rura Velini, qui Tetricae horrentis rupes montemque Severum Casperiamque colunt Forulosque et flumen Himellae, qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt, quos frigida misit Nursia, et Ortinae classes populique Latini, quosque secans infaustum interluit AUia nomen : quam multi Libyco volvuntur marmore fluctus saevus ubi Orion hibernis conditur undis, vel cum sole novo d.ensae torrentur aristae aut Hermi campo aut Lyciae flaventibus arvis. 66 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " There is no need to trouble about Virgil's chrono- logy. His Clausus is not the Clausus of Livy, ii. .16, who migrated to Rome in 502 B.C., and founded the gens and tribus Claudia, but an idealized epony- mous ancestor of these, " belonging to an age anterior to the Romans: which indisputably agrees with the spirit of the early ages " (Niebuhr, " History of Rome," vol. i., p. 560). In lines 708-709, Virgil seems to confuse the original amalgamation of Palatine and Quirinal settlements with the immigra- tion of Clausus: but for his purposes this is of no consequence. The region to which he now transports us, the Abruzzi of modern Italy, affords another variation on his theme, and a good contrast with the last group of warriors. The towns here are few and small, Amitemum, Nomentum, Eretum, Nursia : there is no great centre hke Falerii. We are here almost in the backbone of Italy, and hear the names of rivers and mountains rather than of towns; and the fighting men are on foot, as we should expect of mountaineers. This is made plain by the last line (722), " Scuta sonant pulsuque pedum conterrita tellus." Miss Mac- donell, at the beginning of her interesting book, " In the Abruzzi," says that the modern Italian knows less of the Abruzzi than did the ancient Roman : and that the folk of the narrow valleys and lofty townships are often strangers to each other. Virgil himself does not seem quite at home here; he follows no regular geographical order : he begins with Amiternum on one road, and jumps to Eretum on another : and so 67 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " too with Foruli and Casperia. Then he flies to " cold Nursia " in the far north, and back again to the Tiber valley and the fateful stream of the AUia. Here there are two very puzzling names : " Hortinae classes popuUque Latini " : but H. Nettleship pointed out to Conington what is the most likely solution. In PUny's Hst of 53 Latin towns which " interiere sine vestigiis," two follow each other which resemble these two in the sound of their names : Hortenses and Latinienses. And as Latinienses must be from Latinium, I suspect that " Latini " in verse 716 is a genitive. He w Virgil got hold of these names is a mystery which might be explained easily enough if we had a key to it — but this we never can have. Let me just add that this is one among many in- stances of Nettleship' s acuteness in such matters; of which I can bear personal witness. Here for the first time we find Juno missing. Servius says she had a home at Eretum, but this may be only an inference from the name (Hera) . But no deity of either sex is mentioned in these lines, nor is there any religious reference. The fact was that Roma.ns (among whom we may reckon Virgil for literary purposes) did not take an interest in the deities of these wild and distant regions. The great Sabine deity Vacuna is not mentioned either by Virgil or Servius, though the poet was close upon her at Reate and the lacus Velinus;* Rome had no 1 Plin. iii. 109. The best account of Vacuna is still the one in Preller's " Rom. Mythologie " (Jordan's edition), vol. i., p. 408. 68 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " use for her, as she had for Juno Regina of Veii or Diana of Aricia. Line 722, " Scuta sonant pulsuque pedum conter- rita tellus," marks again the contrast of these wild warriors with the cultured men of Falerii, who sang the praises of their king as they marched in measured time. I have Mttle doubt that Henry is right in translating " Their shields resound with the striking of the spears, and the earth with the tramp of their feet." The line would exactly suit the action of the Salii, who were almost certainly a priestly survival of the old Italian warrior. These struck their ancilia with something that cannot quite be called a spear — something that Dionysius, who had seen it, has a difficulty in describing, but hardly a drumstick, as it has recently been called. In the well-known relief of Anagnia, of which a cut will be found in Miss Har- rison's " Themis," p. 195, or in the " Dictionary of Antiquities," s.v. Salii,^ if the figures there are Salii, as I have no doubt they are — Salii that is of the local type-^the staves they carry, with knobs at each end, are much too long to be held in the middle and used Uke kettledrum-sticks. So, too, the Roman pilum, which Virgil knew, was much too long to have its nietal point rattled against the shield : 1 Mr. Marindin's common-sense article in the " Diction- ary " is still the best account of the Salii known to me. Lately the subject has been discussed by Cirilli, " Les Prgtres Danseurs de Rome," p. 95; cf. Mrs. Strong in J.R.S., 1914, p. 150. The Salii did not carry a sword; but the real war- rior did, and may well have used it to make a noise at the beginning of a fight. Cp. Xen. Anab., i. 8-18. 69 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " it was about six feet in length, and meant for hurling. Yet Virgil clearly, here and elsewhere, imagines the shields struck with something: " sangwineus Mavors clipeo increpat " (xii. 332), which (as Conington points out on viii. 3) is imitated by Silius, xii. 683 :^ Turnus, too, in viii. 3, " impulit arma," to frighten the enemy and rouse the spirits of his own men. What was it that they did to make an exhilarating noise ? Perhaps the sword was used : perhaps the centre of the spear, held in the right hand, was rattled against the shield in the left.^ Lines 723-743 — " Samnites of Campania ": Again, clearly for purposes of contrast, Virgil turns southward to the Oscan peoples; but he is going to return immediately (again for the sake of contrast) to the mountains of central Italy. These lines are perhaps the least interesting of the whole pageant, though the poet knew this Oscan country much better than the mountains. Perhaps famili- arity took the edge off his imaginative powers. These peoples fall into two groups: (i) those to the north of the Volturnus, including Cales (where there was a cult of Juno),^ and the Aurunci, on the picturesque coast from Tarracina to Caieta : (2) Campania proper, 1 Silius as usual elaborates the operation: " Rursus in arma vocat trepidos, clipeoque tremendum Increpat, atque armis imitatur murmura caeli." 2 Arrian, " Anab.," i. 6, tells how Alexander made his men strike their spears on their shields to frighten an enemy. 3 C.I.L., X. 4660. 70 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " and the region of Vesuvius, with the little river Sarnus to the south of it, on which Pompeii after- wards stood. Having no special characteristics to bring out, Virgil tries what can be done with ancient weapons, and Servius comments on this without much knowledge. But nothing seems as yet to have been made, even by archseologists and the new " Thesaurus " of Latin, of aclydes^ and cateiae. Falcati enses reminds me that the sickle is a well- known bronze form in S. Italy, ^ and line 743 seems to suggest that Virgil was conscious of a bronze age : " aerataeque micant peltae, micat aereus ensis." The helmet of cork is interesting: " tegmina quis capitum raptus de subere cortex." " Suber " is the Quercus suber of science, and was known in Italy, but did not then grow there, as Pliny proves.^ Cato, 1 Servius tells us that these two weapons were much the same in principle, very ancient; they were said to be clubs a cubit and a half long, studded with points or nails, and fastened with thongs or lines in order to get them back when flung at the enemy. (See Lersch, " Antiq. Vergil," sec. 40.) In the " Pagan Tribes of Borneo," i. 181, we read of " heavy bars of ironwood, sharpened at both ends, which were hurled in the defence of a house so that the bar twirls in the air as it hurtles through it." I should like to know whether this weapon is secured by a line: it seems probable, as otherwise it might be miade use of by the enemy. See Mackail, " Virg. and Rn. Studies," Journal of Roman Studies, vol. iii., p. 3. 2 Peet, " Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy," p. 423. 3 Plin. xvi. 34; Hehn, " Kulturpflanzen," p. 473, who also quotes Plutarch " Camillus," 25 for a story (not in Livy) that Camillus used corks to cross the Tiber when re- lieving Rome from the Gauls. 71 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " de Agric, 120, speaks of cork used for wine-bottling, and Pliny tells us that then, as now, cork was used for ladies' shoes in winter. Line 740 is famous for the curious story that Virgil wrote originally, " Et quos maliferae despectant moenia Nolae," and afterwards changed " Nolae " to " Abellae " (no doubt this should be read, not " Bellae "), owing to a quarrel with the people of Nola. This story first appears in Aulus Gellius (vi. 20), who says that he found it " in quodam commentario." (The date of Gellius is about the middle of the second century of the Empire.) Vergilius, he says, asked the Nolani to let him use a river, which must have been the Clanius, to irrigate certain lands; whether these were his own property or not does not appear, but at any rate the request was refused. Two centurie's later Servius, commenting on this passage, says that the change was made "propter sibi negatum hospitium " : but the Servian Interpolator adds the story about the water, quoting Gellius as his authority. We may accept the tradition of a quarrel, but the story about the water itiay have arisen out of Georg. ii. 224-225 : " talem dives arat Capua et vicina Vesevo ora iugo et vacuis Clanius non aequus Acerris," where " Nola " is said to have been changed to " Ora." The Clanius apparently used to overflow, and might be supposed to have some water to spare for the poet's purposes. It is impossible to get at 72 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " the truth: but the story shows at least how keen was the personal interest in the poet felt in the neigh- bourhood which he loved: he had a house, we are told in the life supposed to be by Suetonius, at Rome, near Maecenas' gardens, quanquam secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur. Line 744^.; Here we return to the hills, beginning with those ,of the Aequi. Conington says that Nersae is not mentioned elsewhere : but PUny writes (N.H. XXV. 86), " Nostra aetas meminit herbam in Marsis repert am . Nascitur in Aequicolis circa vicum Nervesiae, vocatur consiligo." This is probably Virgil's Nersae: if it ever had been a city, it had become a vicus in his and Pliny's time. I have already suggested that the lines 664-669 may belong here — i.e., after line 749. And for " Armati terram exercent " I found a modern parallel in Tristram's " Land of Israel," p. 575, and pubhshed it in the Classical Review, May, 1914. Tristram and his friends, travelling among the wild tribes to the east of Jordan, came suddenly upon a population engaged in husbandry in the fields, with their guns slung across their shoulders ; and were them- selves mistaken for a band of raiders, causing a momentary panic. Lines 750-760 — " Umbro, the priestly snake- charmer of the Marsi " : " Quin et Marruvia venit de gente sacerdos fronde super galeam et felici comptus oliva Archippi regis missu, fortissimus Vmbro, 73 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris spargere qui somnos cantuque manuque solebat, mulcebatque iras et morsus arte levabat. sed noil Dardaniae medicari cuspidis ictum evaluit neque eum iuvere in vulnera cantus somniferi et Marsis quaesitae montibus herbae. te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda, te liquidi flevere lacus." These lines are of peculiar interest. Umbro, the Marsian, snake-charmer and master of medicine, stands out among all the figures in the pageant ; and the eye of the spectator lingers on him, for the poet tells us that none of his arts could save him in the fighting to come. He wears the olive on his helmet, the olive so often c&WedLfelix, and associated with the messengers and the arts of peace ;^ but it will avail him nothing. The tradition and practice of snake-charming has always been confined to the district of the Marsi, from which Umbro came; the shores of the " lacus Fucinus," which has been drained in our own time, and the hills overlooking it. The commentators tell us that the art continued through Roman times, and I need not reproduce their references : but what they 1 Diels, " Sibyllinische Blatter," p. 120, has some inter- esting remark^ on the use of the " mild, peace-suggesting olive." He goes perhaps too far in contrasting the " heavenly " bay (" laurus ") with the " earthly " olive. But his citation of Isyllos of Epidaurus (Wilamowitz " Isyll.," p. 9) is interesting here: kliumw h XeuKot<7t 5d0yas areip&voii iror' 'AirSWia, vol S' X(rK\airiiv Ipveffi iXalas T}nepo^6\Kov ayvm iro/j.reiea', 74 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " do not tell us is that it survived through the Middle Ages, attached itself to a famous local saint, and is by no means extinct at the present day. My informant is Miss Macdonell, whose book on the Abruzzi I have already quoted.^ She does not tell us what species of snake is thus treated by the Marsi; but it is probably the Italian form of the common viper {Vipera aspis), with the harmless ringed snake {Tropidonotus natrix), familiar to us all in England. Quoting the historian of the Marsi, Muzio Febonio, Miss Macdonell tells us that in the parts about Lake Fucino, and especially about the roots of Monte Penna, there is such an abundance of serpents that in the summer heat they are wont to come out of the mountain and go down to the water, and may be seen coiled up like bundles of vine twigs on the stones or resting on the rocky ledges above the lake. Febonio also says of his qwn knowledge that Don Paul Ciarallo, archpriest of Bisignano, of the old race of the Marsi, had, with all his family, the power of catching serpents, and of curing their bites merely with the saliva of the mouth.^ " Charmers from the Marsica," Miss Macdonell goes on, " used till lately to be met with in all parts of the kingdom of Naples. They carried boxes full of snakes, which they played with, etc." Again: " To-day the art is mainly to be met with in religious festivals. At the/este of San Domenico di CocuUo, at Cocullo, at Villalago and elsewhere too, serpent- » " In ,the Abruzzi," p. 182 ff. ' Human saliva is said by Pliny (vii. 15) to be a specific. 75 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " charming forms a main feature of the ceremonial. On the hermit saint who lived in caverns in the rocks, and made friends with the wild things of the moun- tains, has fallen the mantle of the early enchanters." Further on (p. 258) we learn the details of this inheritance. On the great day of the saint, August 22, his statue is exhibited with serpents round his neck and twined about his arms. When it is taken out of the church, the people crane to see the snakes, " and shrink and peer again." " At the end the snakes are let loose among the rocks. They creep away to crevices and holes, and for all that day in Villalago none of them will do any hurt." Line 759 — -The nemus Angitiae. This deity has a name that seems etymologically connected with '' anguis " : unluckily we know nothing of her ritual. She was, however, a real deity, as two inscriptions prove, one from this district of the Marsi, the other not far-away, at Sulmo.^ A local legend at Suhno, where Ovid the magician is still a great hero, tells how he once fled from home and disappeared. At last he was found in the wood of Angizia— that is, in the mystic grove of the sorceress near Luco, on the Fucine lake. There he learnt magic, and did after- wards many marvellous things.^ D'Annunzio has used the name Angizia in his Abruzzo tragedy, " La Fiacola sotto il Moggio," for the daughter of a snake- charmer, the villainess of the piece.* 1 C.I.L., ix. 3074, 3885. ^ " In the Abruzzi," p. 232. s Ibid., p. 183. 76 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Lines 759-760: " te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda, te liquid! Severe lacus." Henry has a strange note on these words — a wil- ful note, which I only mentioft because it raises an interesting question. Comparing these hnes with Moschus " Idyll.," 3, i ff., he asks how Virgil could rival the Greek poet, with his stiff inflexible Latin. " Even had he had a more flexible instrument, he was himself quite toocivilized, too Augusticized . . . to draw such melting sounds out of it. . . . Thera was no such thing as real weeping in Virgil's days, no more than in ours." Henry was for the moment so overwhelmed by the golden beauty of the Greek verse, that his judgment of the Latin was paralyzed. No one felt the magic of Greek words and thoughts more deeply than Mr. F. W.- Myers, yet of these Latin ones he could write that he found in them " that accent of brooding sorrow which mourns over the fate of men, and breathes a pathetic murmur into Nature's peace. "^ To this I do not need to add a word. But is it true, as Henry says, that .Virgil was too civilized and " Augusticized " (I omit two other objectionable expressions) to understand what tears mean ? And is the same true of the Europe of to-day, or of his day, fifty years ago ? Assuredly not : human nature does not really differ from age to age — it is only the surface that is touched by passing ' " Classical Essays " (1911), p. 144. 77 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " gusts of literary fashion, which sometimes fail to bring to active expression the abiding love and tenderness beneath. And indeed it is not true, far from it, that the poetry of Virgil's day failed to express that love and tenderness; nor was it so in Henry's own time. This very accent of sorrow that " breathes a pathetic murmur into Nature's peace " is to be found in the most Virgilian of English poets, writing while Henry was voyaging through the Aeneid : " Unloved, by many a sandy bar. The brook shall babble down the plain, At noon, or when the lesser wain Is twisting round the polar star, " Uncared for, gird the windy grove. And flood the haunts of hem and crake : Or into silver arrows break The sailing moon in creek and cove ; "Till from the garden and >the wild A fresh association blow. And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger's child: " As year by year the labourer iills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades : And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills." We moderns express the feeling in a different way: but the tears are there. Commentators have asked what Virgil means by " lacus " — ^whether the big Fucine lake itself, or small pools in the district. [Perhaps the well-heads of 78 Virgil's "Gathering of the Clans" streams, as in viii. 66-7. — ^J. W. M.]. The reader will do better to let his mind dwell on the four final words, which form one of those pathetic unfinished lines of which I have said something in an appendix. Lines 761-782 — " Diana of Aricia, and Virbius " : " Ibat et Hippolyti proles pulcherrima bello, Virbius, insignem quern mater Aricia misit, eductum Egeriae lucis umentia circum litora, pinguis ubi et placabilis ara Dianae. namque ferunt fama Hippolytum, postquam arte novercae Occident patriasque explerit sanguine poenas turbatis distractus equis, ad sidera rursus aetheria et superas caeli venisse sub auras, Paeoniis revocatum herbis et amore Dianae. turn pater omnipotens aliquem indignatus ab umbris mortalem infemis ad lumina surgere vitae, ipse repertorem medicinae talis et artis fulmii;ie Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas. at Trivia Hippolytum secretis alma recondit sedibus et nymphae Egeriae nemorique relegat, solus ubi in silvis Italis ignobUis aevum exigeret versoque ubi nomine Virbius esset. unde etiam templo Triviae lucisque sacratis cornipedes arcentur equi, quod litore currum et iuvenem monstris pavidi effudere marinis. fiUus ardentis baud setius aequore campi exercebat equos curruque in bella ruebat." If we take this now famous passage and examine it scientifically for some basis of religious fact, what we find is this: (i) There was an altar to Diana at Aricia, in the woods by the lake (of Nemi), much used and full of grace. (2) There was a taboo here on horses, which forbade them to enter the precincts 79 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " of the altar ; which reminds us that the most ancient priest of Latium, the Flamen Dialis, was forbidden to ride on a horse, and may help to assure us of the primitive character of this cult of Diana. Such taboos would arise when the use of the horse was a new practice, and therefore more or less uncanny: and the first traces of this practice are found in the terremare of N. Italy — i.e., before the migration southward of peoples afterwards to become Latins.^ (3) In some mysterious connection with Diana was a divine figure known as Virbius. Here Servius gives us his solitary bit of help: " Re vera autem, Virbius est numen coniunctum Dianae, ut Matri Deum Atys, Minervae Ericthonius, Veneri Adonis." Whether this comes out of Servius' own head or not, it was a natural and reasonable guess, though his analogies, being all Greek, are of no use for an investigator of Italian religion : but even in Italy we find " conjunctions " of male and female " numina," which I have tried to explain elsewhere.^ Now on these simple facts of a cult we find, as so often in Roman literature, a Greek tale engrafted, and in this case the explanation is simple; to explain the taboo on horses someone introduced the horse- legend of Hippolytus, which seems to have been a favourite in Italy. (Virgil boldly breaks the taboo 1 Peet, " Stone and Bronze Age in Italy," p. 363 ; cp. 354. * See Appendix iii. in my " Roman Religious Ex- perience." But in the examples there examined, the female " numina " are merely functional quaUfications of the male ones : here Diana seems the more important of the two. 80 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " "by making Virbius the younger drive his chariot to the war.) This legend, for religious purposes, we must leave out of account altogether. It does not in the least help us to the nature of Virbius or his relation to Diana. A few years ago one might have left the matter here: but a great British wizard, " felici comptus oUva," a friendly Umbro, who uses his powers with- out malignity, has worked wonders with Virbius and his belongings. In the last edition of the " Golden Bough," a summary of these wonders will be found in vol. i., p. 40 ff. I will not now do more than express my gratitude to Virbius and the author of that wonderful work for combining to build up a treasure-house of anthropological knowledge, admired and revered by all the world of learning. But at the same time I would draw attention to a few words in the preface to the last two volumes of the great work, which will serve to caution us in our enthusiasm for its theories, and put us on our guard in the treatment of details like this of Virbius: " It is the fate of theories to be washed away like children's castles of sand by the rising tide of know- ledge, and I am not so presumptuous as to expect or desire for mine an exemption from the common lot. I hold them all very lightly, and have used them chiefly as convenient pegs on which to hang my collection of facts." Lines 783-802. — " Turnus and his multitudinous followers " : 81 F Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " " Ipse inter primos praestanti corpore Tumus vertitur arma tenens et toto vertice supra est. cui triplici crinita iuba galea alta Chimaeram sustinet Aetnaeos efflantem faucibus ignes; tam magis ilia fremens et tristibus effera flammis, quam magis effuso crudescunt sanguine pugnae." Here at last Virgil gives his imagination a loose rSiT: Scr-far-a il his dc s or i pti o ns of warriors hav c- bem n well wiLliiu Lhc I 'aiige-of-th^licnrarpT'possible ; but l urnus is the m igKtte5t~ Df~aH~the-warriors in, tTip4p lQg+ gi'v >»nr.Vc^ iirhn wnn I rl Iv^iro rini'n Apnf^^ a^ him self but for divine interference, and th erefore the helmet at least of Tu mus must be one of supernatur al power. It carries a Chimaera as well as a triple I plume, and the Chimaera breathes out flame like {Aetna, flame that grows fiercer and more grisly j [tristibus effera flammis) as the heroic wearer plunges { further into the fight and the fight grows ever more .bloody. There is no need here to trouble about construction or archaeological accuracy: Virgil is leaving such considerations behind him, and expects you to follow. He may have seen some marvellous helmet painted on an Etruscan vase, which fired his , imagination; but Turnus is here something more than an ordinary man, and his helmet is at this imagi- native moment to seem much~more than an ordinary helmet.^ The shield, with a golden lo engraved on 1 Cp. the marvellous helmet given to Aeneas by his mother, viii. 620. For the Chimaera in Etruria, see Dennis, " Cities and Cemeteries," ii. 39 and 386. When it comes to- actual fighting Turnus does not wear this marvellous hel- met: ix. 50, "crista tegit galea aurea rubra"; xii. 89 82 ' Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " it, seems tame after the Chimaera, and I almost wish it had been struck out of the picture. The back- ground of this picture is filled with the innumerable hosts that followed Turnus out of all the coast towns from the Tiber to the Pomptine marshes among which the Ufens river " searched for a way "; and again to the promontory of Circe and the city of Anxur, home of a youthful Jupiter and of a famous numen of Latium, Feronia. Virgil had already been close upon this region in describing the followers of Halaesus (723 ff.), and returns to it with obvious pleasure : " (Qui) . . . Rutulosque exercent vomere colles Circaeumque iuguin, quis luppiter Anxurus arvis praesidet, et viridi gaudens Feronia luco." Few of us have been travellers on this bit of coast ; but those who chance to have read a deUghtfuI account of it by Dr. James Sully, in the Quarterly Review for 191 1, 377 ff-, will understand how much is compressed into these few words, and perhaps how willingly the poet would have lingered here if his theme had allowed it. The title of the article is " Terracina," which was the later Roman name for the settlement over which luppiter Anxur presided, " rubrae cornua cristae.'"' Nothing can better show the idealizing in this passage. The wild picture of Turnus pre- sented in the pageant by means of this helmet is in contrast with the princely guise and demeanour of Aeneas in the fighting to come; but the weak point in his character, the fact that he fights for his own interest only, is not alluded to here. 83 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " and which bore his name. About this form of Jupiter we really know nothing for certain,^ and excavations have not enlightened us further. In 1894 the ruins of a once conspicuous temple above the town were laid bare, and some " toy^hke leaden imitations of domestic objects " were found {e.g., tables and chairs), and two inscriptions of dedications to Venus. The Italian excavator nevertheless claimed the site for Jupiter Anxur, Venus being otherwise unknown there. But German archaeolo- gists decide dogmatically for Venus. The following reflections of Dr. Sully will be in- teresting at the present time (October, igiiS): " To the outsider the dispute is interesting as illustrating how ruthlessly modern German criticism has attacked the venerable traditions of Italy. There is some- thing pathetic in the brutal disfigurement of so pretty a conception as that of the abode of the beardless Jupiter Anxur; and one cannot but feel a certain ssmapathy with the local archaeologist, when he inveighs against these annihilating attacks of the Teuton, whose mind, he seems to think, is of the Mephistophelean type, ' der Geist der stets verneint.' " Lines 803 to end — " Camilla ": " Hos super advenit Volsca de gente Camilla agmen agens equitum et florentes acre catervas, bellatrix, non ilia colo calathisve Minervae lemineas adsueta manus, sed proelia virgo dura pati cursuque pedum praevertere ventos. ilia vel intactae segetis per summa volaret 1 See " Roman Festivals," p. 226. 84 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " gramina nee teneras cursu laesisset aristas, vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti ferret iter celeris nee tingeret aequore plantas. illam. omnis tectis agrisque effusa iuventus turbaque miratur matrum et prospeetat euntem, attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro velet honos levis umefos, ut fibula crinem auro interneetat, Lyeiam ut gerat ipsa pharetram et pastoralem praefixa cuspide myrtum." The pageant ends with the most beautiful of all Hs figures. Virgil, in describing the hero of these last six books, had already ventured a touch of the supernatural; here he indulges his imagination still more strongly.^ Camilla, who bears a name that should awake the national spirit in every Italian,^ and prepare him for an idealized heroine, is re- vealed more fully in the eleventh book, where the wonderful story of her infancy is told; but in these few lines her portrait is already perfect, without a flaw in thought or expression. One good critic has suggested that she was the poet's ideal woman, rather than the wild and passionate Dido. I should "• He gives her the rare epithet " dia " in xi. 657. ^ The children of noble parents assisted in the religious rites of the household as " camilli " and " camillae " (see " Roman Religious Experience," p. 177 j5^.). This is one of the many indications that Virgil meant to give the figures in his pageant a semi-religious character, quite in conformity with the primitive ideas about the " sacredness " of war (see " Golden Bough," part ii., p. 157 #•). There are plenty of Roman proofs of this sacredness. In his choice of a name Virgil would also be thinking of Camillus, who more than any other in the shadowy annals of early Rome repre- sents the ideal type of Roman warrior. 85 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " not myself go so far as this; but I readily agree that he used all the subtlest resources of his art upon her. Whether he ideaUzed in her some woman whom he loved, or loved her as the creature of his own imagination, we cannot tell. But it seems that certain viri docti took exception to Camilla because she could skim along the surface of the corn or the waves without touching them; and Heyne, the best of all German commentators on Virgil, undertook to defend her by appealing to Iliad, XX. 220 ff. — a bad defence, as Henry justly says. Homer says that the " mares " of Erichthonius did actually perform these miracles; but Virgil, with a subtle subjunctive of potential force, instead of telling us of actual marvels, magically idealizes the human woman. How little, on the whole, have we learnt about Virgil from his commentators ! Servius, I need not say, is most interesting reading, for he reflects the spirit of his own day; he preserves much valuable antiquarian matter, too often hidden away in a mist of mythology, like some ancient inscribed stone con- cealed in a tangle of brambles; and he now and then helps us to the true text, or to the way in which Roman scholars understood their poet. But he uses Virgil as the means to something else, not as an end in himself, so it seems to me, and if that be so, I need say no more about him. The modern com- mentator, German as a rule, and therefore very careful and conscientious, loses such sense of the Virgilian magic as he ever may have had, as a con- 86 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " sequence of these very qualities; for it is intuition rather than toil that should equip him for his task. Line upon line he goes through with his work, and -often word upon word, unconsciously blunting the edge of his mind, and dulling the sensibility of his ear. The Teutonic mind has many valuable quali- ties, but we may doubt if it readily apprehends the true inward poetic value of words and phrases in Virgil; and if that apprehension be absent, the result often is that the Aeneid as a whole fails to appeal to it. Mommsen was never really moved by Virgil, I think, though he was keenly sensitive to some Latin and Italian poetry. Niebuhr is reported to have said in a lecture that it had never occurred to him to place Virgil among Roman poets of the fir'st order ! He added that our poor poet mistook his vocation, which was really that of a lyric poet. " It is sad to think that his mistake, the work which is his most complete failure, has been so much admired by posterity." " The Aeneid is a complete failure: it is unhappy from beginning to end."^ But let us hope that the historian was misreported by some improbus anser sitting at his feet in the lecture-room at Bonn. Line 804: " Agmen agens equitum etjlorentes aere catervas." Henry has a most delightfully instructive note here on the word florentes, which I will reproduce in 1 "Lectures on the History of Rome" (Schmitz's edi- tion), vol. iii., p. 136 jjf. 87 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " part, as Henry is not commonly in the hands of students.^ Servius, he says, took the cream off the word by saying that Ennius and Lucretius used fiorens for anything that is nitidus, and that Virgil followed them. "No: ' fiorere ' is avOeiv, and both words, like our own English ' to bloom, to blow, to flourish,' preserve in their secondary and derived meaning the allusion to their primary smell, if I may use the metaphor, of the flower-garden." (Cp. Plautus Pers. v. i. 23, where Toxilus presents a garland to Lemniselenis with the words. Do hanc tibi florentem florenti.) It is especially used to express {a) the fresh, blooming appearance of youth and beauty, as in Ciris 435 : " me non florentes aequali corpora Nymphae non metus incendens potuit retinere deorum. (cp. Ov. Met. ix. 435); (6) the gay and blooming appearance conferred by new clothes or new arms, as Accius, quoted by Nonius (p. 808, Lindsay's edition) : " aere atque ferro fervere, igni insignibus florere :" (cp. Claudian, Cons. Honor. 133); (c) to any other kind of blooming appearance, as lighted lamps, precious stones; Lucretius, iv. 452: " bina lucernarum florentia lumina flammis; " 1 Henry is not a commentator in the ordinary sense, but a traveller taking notes. He called his work " A Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery." 88 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " and V. 1441 : " turn mare velivolnra florebai puppihus."^ " Florentes aere " is therefore not " splendentes, fulgentes aere," as Servius and some German com- mentators explain it, and as he describes Pallas and his men in viii. 593, " fulgentes aere," but in the very different sense of blooming, charming with " aes." [I would add that while words Uke " fulgentes " or " splendentes " give the effect produced without a hint of what produces it, " florentes " suggests life and beauty, young Ufe and fresh beauty, as the organic cause.] Thus, he says, it is especially appUc- able to women, and in the Aeneid it is used only of Camilla and her troops, here and in xi. 433, though in Georg. iv. 563 he uses it of himself in his youth: " illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem. ignobilis oti," thus suggesting that their " florere," when coupled with bronze, their bloom, their finery, was not the ordinary bloom or finery of their sex, but the manly martial bloom or finery of " aes " ; [to which I would add that the bronze armour seems to call for a new word to express it when worn by beautiful and youth- ful women.]^ But if the reader of these pages can 1 Cp. Aesch. Ag., 658. ' That the immediate companions, if not the troops as a whole, of Camilla, were women, is proved by xi. 655 ff. : " At circum lectae comites, etc." I think it is also sug- gested by the fact that the crowd which gazes on her as she rides away to the war (vii. 812) is largely, composed of 89 Virgil's "Gathering of the Clans" come by Henry's " Aeneidea," let him ponder well pp. (>\6ff., and judge for himself whether he has not here found another example of " all the charm of all the Muses often flowering in a lonely word." The " turba matrum " gazes upon Camilla as she sets out: " attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro velet honos levis humeros, ut fibula crinem. auro internectat, Lyciam ut gerat ipsa pharetrani et pjistoralem praefixa cuspide myrtum." and with these lines the pageant comes to a fitting and beautiful end.^ I said at the beginning that I should return to women {" matres "), and with a most happy touch Virgil makes them mark her dr^ss as well as her weapons — her purple mantle, and the fibula that fastens her hair. 1 It is hard to believe that any editor should have sug- gested that the episode about the infancy of Camilla in xi. 532 ff. was originally intended to follow these lines; but Conington, in his note on xi. 537, tells us that Peerlkamp thought so, supposing that the original editors, Tucca and Varius, placed it where it is now. No doubt its position in the eleventh book is at first sight surprising, and as Heinze remarks (Virgil's " Episphe Technik," p. 409 ff.), it is an exception to the poet's habit of steady and uninterrupted narration. I believe myself that it was inserted there, per- haps after the completion of the book, to relieve the mono- tony of the battle scenes, to take the reader's mind back to the woodland and its wild inhabitants. But by no artistic mind could it ever have been destined to follow this first beautiful glimpse of the warrior maiden. (Peerlkamp it was of whom Orelli said that " Horatium ex Horatio ipso ex- pulit." See Sir John Sandys in " Companion to Latin i Studies," sec. 1289.) 90 Virgil's "Gathering of the Clans" Milton and his ending, which is simple and quiet enough, and leaves us almost cold among the myths of Titan and his " enormous brood." But the chill is only momentary; in another moment we are saluted by a peal of such magnificent sound as seems to lift us right out of ourselves and beyond the reach of even Homer and Virgil. I cannot resist the temptation to transcribe these lines: " All these and more came flocking ; but with looks Downcast and damp, yet such wherein appeared Obscure some glimpse of joy to have found their chief Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost In loss itself; which on his countenance cast Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride Soon recoUeeting, with high words that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised Their fainting courage and dispelled their fears: Then straight commands that at the warlike sound Of trumpets loud and clarions, be up-reared His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed Azazel, as his right, a cherub tall; Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled The imperial ensign, which, full high advanced. Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind. With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed. Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds; At which the universal host upsent A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond B-rfghted the reign of Chaos and old Night. All in a moment through the gloom were seen Ten thousand banners rise into the air With orient colours waving; with them rose A forest huge of spears, and thronging helms Appeared, and serried shields in thick array Of depth immeasurable; anon they move 91 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood Of flutes and -soft recorders; such as raised To highth of noblest temper heroes old Arming to battle, and instead of rage Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved With dread of death to flight or foul retreat; Nor wanting power to mitigate and 'swage With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain From mortal and immortal minds." And from this point, on to the end of the book, nearly two hundred and fifty lines, the great diapason never once ceases to resound. 92 APPENDIX See lines (>ggff.: " ceu quondam nivei liquida inter nubila cycni cum sese e pastu referunt et longa canoros dant per colla modos, sonat amnis et Asia longe pulsa palus. nee quisquam aeratas acies ex agmine tanto misceri putet, aeriam sed gurgite ab alto urgeri volucrum raucarum ad litora nubem." ,^ It is an interesting task to go through all Virgil's unfinished lines (hemistichia) without prepossessions derived from the conclusions of the learned, in order to discover for oneself what the poet meant by them. We may, I imagine, take it as certain that in most of the fifty-five examples he had a distinct objecti, and that not more than one or two can be supposed to be indications of unfinished work.^ But in order to form a fair judgment it is necessary in each case to read the context, twenty or thirty lines at least, and to meditate on it with ear and mind. In the text I said that it was unlike Virgil to re- sume a subject, a fortiori a simile, after one of these broken lines. But to make sure of my conclusion I * Only one (iii. 340), according to Suetonius, " Life of Virgil." p. 41. 93 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " have been through them all, and I can now state that conclusion with even greater confidence. The result is that I am more than ever convinced that lines 703-705 ought to be bracketed, or better still, printed only in an apparatus criticus. The great majority of hemistichia clearly indicate a pause: sometimes at the end of a speech or a narrative, occasionally introducing one. These merely show that the poet was glad of an opportu- nity to rest the reader's (or listener's) ear from that monotony of the hexameter which is more apparent in Latin than Greek, and needs, as Virgil knew only too well, every possible artistic device to secure variety. Examples of this effect are numerous, especially in the highly finished second book — e.g., 233. 346, 468, 640, 720. Sometimes the half-line is used for a pathetic effect, and touches a sensitive ear most tenderly, as in the sack of Troy, ii. 767 : " hue undique Troia gaza incensis erepta adytis, mensaeque deorum crateresque auro solidi, captivaque vestis . congeritur. Pueri et pavidae longo ordine matres stant circum. ausus quin etiam voces iactare per umbram implevi clamore vias. . . ." In ix. 467 there is a pause which is almost a sigh, at the very end of the tale of Nisus and Euryalus: ' ' quin ipsa arrectis (visu miserabile) in hastis praefigunt capita et inulto clamore sequuntur Euryali et Nisi. Aeneadae duri murorum in parte sinistra. ..." 94 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Once or twice Virgil may have left a line unfinished because the whole passage had not worked itself out in his head. Possible examples of this are viii. 536 and ix. 721. But I cannot believe this of the simile of the swans in vii. 702. As I have, said in the text, it is quite perfect to the words " pulsa palus," which form a hemistich. There, according to the evidence of the great majority of hemistichia, there should be a pause in the sense, and a passage to another topic, or to some new aspect of the same topic. So it is in line 760 and in the passage from the second book quoted above (line 767). So again in iii. 218: " virginei volucrum vultus, foedissima ventris proluvies uncaeque manus et pallida semper ora fame. Hue ubi delati portus intravimus. ..." Again, in our own seventh book, line 44, we have an excellent specimen of the same pause : " m.aior rerum mihi nascitur ordo, maius opus moveo," only in this case the poet has chosen to begin the new story with the second part of the verse, instead of beginning a new line. In ix. 166 ff., after describing the scene in the Rutuhan camp, he comes to a close thus: " conlucent ignes, noctem custodia ducit insomnem ludo," and then returns to the Trojans in a new line; " Haec super e vallo, etc." 95 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " It may be worth while also to look at xi. 390, because there the pause occurs in the middle of the impassioned rhetoric of Turnus against Drances, just to allow one bitter taunt to sink in, before he turns to take up another point of Drances' speech: " Imus in ad versos — quid cessas ? an tibi Mavors ventosa in lingua pedibusque fugacibus istis semper erit ? pulsus ego ? aut quisquam merito, foedissime, pulsum arguet. ..." I think I may fairly assume that anyone who examines these passages, to help him in judging of the one more particularly under consideration, will not fail to conclude that the second bird-simile is absolutely inadmissible aftei the hemistich. ^*^ Since this Appendix was written, Mr. MackaU has published some valuable remarks on Virgil's hemistichia in the Classical Review, December, 1915, p. 226. 96 ADDENDA Lines 652-4: " ducit Agyllina nequiquam ex urbe secutos , mille viros, dignus patriis qui laetior esset imperils et cui pater haud Mezentius esset." Mr. Mackail tells me in a letter that he considers these lines questionable on more than one ground. Apart from the awkwardness of " esset . . . esset," and the repetition of the clauses so ending, how could Lausus have brought a thousand men from Agylla, which was in full revolt against Mezentius and had expelled him as a fugitive (viii. 489 ff.) — apparently almost a solitary fugitive? Lines 695-696. — I am by no means sure that I was right in taking " aequi " as meaning just. Mr. Mackail thinks that in both these lines there is a coupUng of hill fortresses and the arable country below them. According to the maps there is a considerable patch of arable land between Falerii and the Tiber, the hills falling back there from the river. Where Fescennium was we do not know. As regards the acies Fescenninas, they may possibly mean, as Professor Slater urged in Classical 97 Virgil's " Gathering of the Clans " Review, 1905, p. 38, sheer rock walls, like our word edge in the north of England, supposing the un- known site of the city to be on the edge of a rocky plateau; thus anticipating my suggestion for the meaning of acies, though without hinting at any transposition of acies and arces. 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