UNIVERSITY OF CA RIVERSIDE UBRABY 3 1210 02004 6247 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE l^ ^^ -^^ '^'^tJ'-t, J^ -.e--«J^ H ^h ^_ > -/.e^^ y^^^^-^'/c THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. THE RIVIERA: Ancient and Modern. By Charles Lentheric. Translated by Charles West, M.D. With Maps and Plans. ROME AND POMPEII: Archaeological Rambles. By Gaston Boissier, of the French Academy. Translated by D. Havelock Fisher. With Maps and Plans. THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL BY GASTON BOISSIER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY TRANSLATED BY D. HAVELOCK FISHER WITH MAPS AND PLANS LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1896 T ^ ^ SI ^ CONTENTS. \ CHAPTER I. PAGES Horace's Country House . . . .1-58 I. How Horace came to know Maecenas — Char- acter of Maecenas — Life in his house — The palace of the Esquiline 5-15 II. Was Horace really a lover of Nature ? — The second E2')ode — How residence in Rome became unbearable to him — The consequences for him of his intimacy with Maecenas — Beggars and Bores — The joy he must have felt when Mcecenas gave him the estate in the Sabine Hills . . . 15-24 III. Journey to the house in the Sabina — The Temple of Vacuna — Roccagiovine — Fontc deW Oratmi — Probable position of the house — Extent of Horace's domain — Pleasantness of the site . 24-37 IV. Renown of Horace's country house among the poets of Rome— Position of poets in Rome — Relations of Horace and Maecenas to each other — How the poet made the great lord respect him . 37-48 6 VI CONTENTS. PACES V. How Horace lived at his country house — His journeys — He begins to regret Rome no more — His last years 48-58 CHAPTER 11. The Etruscan Tombs at Coiineto . . . 59-115 I. How Tarquinii disappeared — Corneto — Relics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance at Corneto — The Etruscan tombs — General aspect 62-72 II. Importance of sepulture among the Etrus- cans — The paintings in the tombs — Few scenes of sadness found among them — How it is that they 80 often represent banquets and games — The exactness of these paintings — The costume of the personages is that of the ancient Romans — The small number representing mytliological subjects, and the conclusions to be drawn from this — The Etruscans accept the fables of Greece — Tomba del' Oreo — "What happens to these fables among the Etruscans — Charun 73-91 III. The paintings in the tombs the only means we have of becoming acquainted with Etruscan civilization— Ancient tombs — They do not difl'er from those of other Italian races — The period in wliich we find amber, and why we cease to find it a little later — Vasi di hucchero Nero — Influence of the Carthaginians — At what moment it must have CONTENTS. Vll PAGES begun — Have we a riglit to iufer from the presence of Phoenician objects in the tombs of Etruria the Eastern origin of the Eti'uscans ?— The influence of Greece — At what epoch was it exercised I — Can it be said that Etruscan art never possessed origin- ality ? — Paintings at Coere — Decadence and end of Etruscan art ....... 91-115 CHAPTER III. The Country of the ^^neid .... 117-171 I. The Legend of ^neas ..... 119-171 I. The legends — Why they deserve to be studied — The legend of ^neas — How it arose — jEneas in the Iliad — Homer supposes the race of the iEneides to have been established on Mount Ida — The journeys of .lEneas — How it came to be supposed that he left Asia — The worship of Aphro- dite, the mother of iEneas — Genesis of the legend 119-132 II. How the legend of ^neas penetrated into Italy — Opinion of Niebuhr — It does not replace the Italian legends, but rather overlaps them — It is connected with the origin of Lavinium — Hypothesis of Schwegler — The process of assimila- tion by which ^neas came to assume an Italian physiognomy — How the Greeks came to communi- cate the legend to the Italians — In what manner it was received — The Romans not hostile to foreign ideas and usages — The influence of Greece on Rome in early times 133-145 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGES III. At what moment did the legend first be- come known to the Romans 1 — It is first mentioned at the time of the war with Pyrrhus — The import- ance it takes after the Punic Wars — The legend among the poets, Nfevius — The legend among the historians and scholiasts, Cato, Varro — The legend among the artists — Why was it more spread among the Romans than amon's the Greeks ? . . 146-160 IV. What reason had Virgil to choose the legend of -tEneas for the subject of his poem ? — The his- torical epic and the mythological epic — The JEneid is both a mythological and an historical epic — Why did Virgil prefer ^neas to Romulus ? — In what sense may the JE)ieid be said to have been popular ? 160-171 11. ^NEAS IN Sicily ...... 171-236 I. How Virgil came to know Sicily — Pollion counsels him to imitate Theocritus — By what qualities Theocritus must have pleased Virgil — The Moretum — Why Virgil did not continue to write realistic poems — Sicily in the jBttcofo . 172-180 II. Sicily in Virgil's time — Character of the Greeks of Sicily — Why they were attached to Roman rule— Sicily ruined and pillaged by Roman governors — What travellers went to seek in Sicily — Marvels of nature — Marvels of art — The monuments of that time— Public temples — CONTENTS. IX PAGES Private galleries — Shrine of Heiiis — Taste of the Romans of that time for works of art — The por- trait of Verres drawn by Cicero — Attractions of Sicily for Virgil 181-198 III. The Third Book of the jEneicl — ^neas in Epirus— He touches at Italy — Tarentum — He passes into Sicily — ^Etna — The isle of Ortigia — The fountain of Arethusa — Agrigentum — What Virgil's feelings must have been on going over the ruins of Greek cities in Sicily — Drepanum — Death of Anchises 198-216 IV. Return of J^neas to Sicily — Fifth Book of the JEneid — Mount Eryx — Temple of Venus Erycina — Funeral games in honour of Anchises — Course of the ships — Burning of the fleet— Segesta — Departure of Jllneas for Italy . . 216-236 III. OsTiA AND Lavinium 236-289 I. The two parts of the yEneid — Character of the last six Books — Virgil is here in the heart of his subject — Perfection of style — The poet's aim comes out better — Virgil's patriotism — How he has grouped all Italy around his work . . 236-245 II. .iEneas lands on the shore of Ostia — Virgil's description of it — Its aspect in our days — How -^neas knows that he has reached the end of his voyage — Miracle of the eaten tables — The white sow and her thirty little ones — Original meaning of this legend, and the changes it underwent . 245-259 CONTENTS. PAO ES III. Laviiiium — Its decadence under the Empire — Worship of the Penates — Vestiges of the ancient city — Pratica — Outlook from the Borghese Tower — Tlie phiin of the Latium — Latin and Sabine elements in the Roman citv . . 259-275 IV. iEneas goes to see Evander at Pallanteum — The Trojan camp at Ostia — It is besieged and almost taken in the absence of the chief — Burning of the ships — Episode of Nisus and Euryalus . 276-289 IV. Laurentum 290-346 I. Tenth Book of the Mneid — Assembly of the gods — Return of ^neas — War in Virgil's poem — His portrayal of the different Italic races — Why he did not paint them more distinctly . . 290-301 II. Laurentum — How the old town disappeared —Where could it have been situated? — Canal of the Stagno di Levante — The Selva Laurentina — The boars of Laurentum — Aspect of the shore — Pliny's villa 301-310 III. Tor Paterno — Character of the ruins found there — The villa of Commodus — March of JEneas on Laurentum — Ambush of Turnus — Probable situation of Laurentum 310-322 CONTENTS. XI PAGES IV. The palace of Latinus — How Virgil com- poses his descriptions — Why he does not exactly reproduce those of Homer — Mixture of different epochs — Unity of the whole .... 323-337 V. Combat of ^Eneas and Turnus — Artifices used by Virgil to defer it — The battle-field — Difference between the fight of ^Eneas with Turnus and that of Achilles and Hector . 337-346 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. CHAPTEE I. hokace's country house. One cannot read Horace without longing to be acquainted with that country house in which he was so happy. Can we know exactly where it was ? Is it possible to find again, not the very stones of his villa, which time has doubtless scattered, but the charming spot he has so oft described — those lofty mountains which " sheltered his goats from the summer fires ; " that spring by which he was wont to stretch him- self in the day's hot hours ; those woods, those rivulets, those valleys — in fine, that landscape which he had before his eyes during the longer and better portion of his life ? People have been asking themselves this question ever since the Eenaissance, and its solution might have been early foreseen. Towards the end of the sixteenth century some learned men, who had started in search of Horace's house, surmised the place where it should be looked for, but their indications being vague, and not always based on solid proofs, they failed to produce a A 2 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. general conviction. Besides, there was no lack of per- sons who did not wisli to be convinced. In every corner of the Sabine Hills some village sage vocifer- ously claimed for his district the honour of having sheltered Horace, and would not liear of its being bereft of it. And this is how liis house came to be located at Tibur, at Cures, at Eeate — everywhere, in short, but where it ought to be. The problem was definitely solved in the second half of the last century by a Frenchman, Abbe Capraartin de Chaupy. He was one of those who go to Eome to spend a few months, and remain there all their lives. When he had once resolved to find the site of Horace's house, he did not spare himself trouble.^ He went over nearly the wliole of Italy, studying monuments, reading inscriptions, questioning the people of the country, and personally investigating the sites which best answered to the descriptions of the poet. He travelled by short stages on a horse, which, if we are to believe him, by dint of being taken to so many antiquities had almost become an antiquarian itself. This animal, he tells us, went to ruins of his own accord, and his fatigue seemed to vanish directly he found himself on the pavement of some ancient way. Capmartin de Chaupy wrote three large volumes of nearly five hundred pages each ^ about ^ It must be mentioned that Capmartin de Chaupy was passionately fond of Horace, and found reasons for everything in his favourite author. He lived long enough to witness the French Revolution, and it is said that it did not take him by surprise. Horace had taught him to foresee it, and he willingly pointed out the places in his works where it was predicted in express terms. 2 Dtcouvertc de la maiscm de, campagne d^ Horace, par 1' Abb6 Capmartin de Chaupy, Rome, 1767-1769. Horace's countky house. 3 his journeys, and the results to which his indefatigable labours had led hiin. His subject — the site of Horace's house — could not be expected to fill so many pages, and the author often turns aside to speak on other matters. He writes how he travelled, stopping at each step, and often leaving the highroad in order to plunge into byways. He spares us nothing, but elucidates, in passing, obscure points of geography and history, notices inscriptions, finds lost towns again, and fixes the direction of ancient roads, This manner of proceeding, then much in vogue among the learned, nearly deprived Chaupy of the honour of his dis- covery. De Sanctis, a Eoman savant, who had heard his labours spoken of, started on the same track, and easily out-stripping him, published a little dissertation on the same subject which was favourably received.^ This was a great grief to the poor Abbe, who com- plained bitterly. Happily, his three volumes, which appeared almost immediately afterwards, brought over public opinion to his side, and few now deny him the glory of having found Horace's country house, of which he was so proud. Eoughly speaking, this is how he sets to work- to prove to the most incredulous that he is not mistaken. He first establishes the fact that Horace had not a plurality of domains, since he himself tells us that he possesses only the Sabine estate, and that this estate is enough for him : satis beatus unicis Sabinis? It follows therefore that all his descriptions must refer to this estate and be applicable ^ Dissertazione sopra la villa di Orazzio Flacco, dell' abbate Dominico de Sanctis. * CarJtt., II. 18, 14. 4 THE COUNTRY OF HORA.CE AND VIRGIL. to it. This basis fixed, Chaupy visits in turn every spot on which it lias been sought to place the poet's house, and has no difficulty in showing that not one of them quite agrees with the pictures he has drawn of it. It can only be to the east of Tivoli and near Vicovaro, as this district alone corresponds exactly with the lines of Horace. More striking and more conclusively convincincj still is the fact that all the modern names here have kept their likeness to the ancient ones. We know from Horace that the most important town in the vicinity of his house, whither his farmers repaired on every market-day, was called Varia. The table of Peutinger also speaks of Varia, placing it eight miles from Tibur. Well, eight miles from Tivoli, the ancient Tibur, we to-day find Vicovaro, which has kept its ancient name (Vicus Varia) nearly unaltered. Again, at the foot of Vicovaro flows a little brook called the Licenza : it is, with very slight change, the Digentia of Horace. He tells us also that this brook waters the small town of Mandela. To-day Mandela has become Bardela, which is almost the same, and to make assurance doubly sure, an inscription found there comj^letely restores to it its ancient name.^ Lastly, the high Mount Lucretalis, which shaded the poet's house, is the Corgnaleto, called Mons Lucretii in the charts of the Middle Ages.- It cannot be chance alone that has brought together in the same locality all the names of places mentioned by the poet; neither is it chance that lias made this canton of the Sabine Hills to 1 Orelli, Inscr. lat., 104. *"Vie d'Horace," par Noel des Vergers, p. 27, in Didot's Horace, HORACE S COUNTRY HOUSE. 5 correspond so perfectly with all his descriptions. It is certain, then, that his house was in this region, watered by the Licenza, on the slopes of the Corgnaleto, not far from Vicovaro and Bardela. It is thither we must send the worshippers of Horace (if any yet remain) if they would make a pious pilgrimage to his villa. I. HOW HORACE CAME TO KNOW MAECENAS — CHARACTER OF M^CENAS — LIFE IN HIS HOUSE — THE PALACE OF THE ESQUILINE. Before taking them there, let us briefly recall how he became its owner ; for this is an interesting chapter of his history. We know that after having fought at Philippi as a military tribune in the Eepublican army, he returned to Eome, where the gates were opened to him during an amnesty. This return must have been most sad. He had lost his father, whom he tenderly loved, and had been deprived of his estate. The great hopes he cherished when, at twenty years of age he had seen himself distinguished by Brutus and put at the head of a legion, were rudely dissipated. He said " they had cut his wings." ^ He fell from all his ambitious aims into the miseries of an embarrassed existence, and, in order to live, the late military tribune had to buy himself a government clerkship. Yet poverty was not without its use, if, as he asserts, it gave him the courage to write ^ Decisis humilempcnnis — Epist.jW. 2, 50. 6 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. verses.^ These verses met with great success ; he had adopted the right way to attract public notice : he spoke ill of persons of credit. His Satires, in which he expressed himself freely in an age when nobody dared to speak, having made a noise, Maecenas, who was curious, wanted to see him, and had him introduced by Varius and by Virgil. These facts are known to all: it is need- less to insist on them. Maecenas was then one of the most important person- ages of the Empire, and shared with Agrippa the favour of Octavius. But their behaviour was very different. While Agrippa, a soldier of fortune, born in an obscure family, loved to adorn himself with the first dignities of the State, Mitcenas, who belonged to the highest nobility of Etruria, remained in the shade. Only twice in his life was he ofHcially charged with the exercise of public authority : in 717, during the embarrassments caused by the war in Sicily against Sextus Pompeius ; and in 723, when Octavius went to fight Antony. But he bore a new title which left him outside the hierarchy of ancient functionaries.^ But he would accept no more honours. He obstinately refused to enter the Senate, and remained to the end a simple knight, humbly tak- ing a place below all those sons of great lords, who were quickly raised to the highest offices through family influence. It is not easy to understand this dis- interestedness, as rare then as it is now. His contem- ^ Paupertas impulit andax Ut versus facercm — Epist. II, 2, 51. ' It is generally tliought that he was named by Octavius Prefect of Rome (prce/edus urbi), but a commentator of Virgil, discovered at Verona, calls him priefcct of the prrctorium, and M. Mommscn thinks this was really the title he bore, and that it was created for him. HOEACE S COUNTRY HOUSE. 7 poraries, while loading him with praises, have omitted to tell us the reason of it. Perhaps they themselves found it difficult to fathom it. So refined a politician does not readily reveal the motives for his conduct. It has usually been attributed to a kind of natural idleness or indolence, which made him dread the stir of business, and this explanation is near enough to the mark if not exaggerated. An impartial historian tells us that he knew how to shake off his torpor when action was necessary : Uhi res vigilantiam exigeret, sane exsomnis, providens atquc agendi sciens? But he kept himself in reserve for certain occasions, and did not deem everything in human affairs worthy to occupy him. He had indeed both talent and taste for politics, and that he never entirely weaned himself from them is proved by the circumstance that Horace one day felt it necessary to say to him : " Cease to let thy repose be troubled by the cares of public business. Since thou hast the happiness to be a simple private person like ourselves, do not concern thyself too much with the dangers that may threaten the Empire." ^ He busied himself with them, then, too zealously to please his Epicurean friends. Although without a political office, he had his eyes open to the manoeuvres of poli- tical parties, to the preparations of Parthia, of Cantabria, and of Dacia, He liked to speak his mind touching the great questions on which depended the peace of the world ; but his opinion once given, he withdrew, and left to others the care of putting it into execu- tion. He reserved himself for things that asked but a single effort of thought. To prepare, to cora- 1 Velleius Paterculus, II. 87, 2. ^ Carm., III. 8. 8 THE COUNTRY OF IIOUACE AND YIKGIL. bine, to reflect, to foresee the consequence of events, to surprise the intentions of men, to direct towards a single end contrary wills and opposed interests ; to create circumstances and turn them to account — this, assuredly, is one of the highest applications of the intelli- gence, one of the most pleasurable exercises of the mind. The charm of this speculative statecraft is so great that, in passing from counsel to action, one seems to lower oneself. The execution of great projects calls for tedious precautions, and bears in ^ts train a crowd of common- place cares. Yet a statesman is only complete when he knows both how to conceive and how to act ; when he is capable of realising what he has imagined ; when he is not content with taking broad views of things, but can descend to details. It seems to me then that the friends of Maecenas, who praised him for avoiding all these petty troubles and choosing only to be the most important adviser of Augustus, honoured him for being, in reality, merely an imperfection. They are mistaken, too, I think, when they represent him as a sage who fears turmoil, who loves silence, and who seeks to escape from applause and glory. There was, perhaps, less modesty than pride in his resolve. He disliked the crowd, and took a kind of insolent pleasure in setting himself at variance with general opinion and in not thinking as everybody else thought. Horace tells us that h.e braved the prejudice of birth, wliich was so strong around him, and that he never asked his friends of what family they came.^ He feared death, and, what is more common, he dared to own it.^ But, on the other 1 Sat., I. 6, 7. ' The lines iu whicli iLxceuas owned that he feared death are HORACES COUNTRY HOUSE. 9 hand, he felt but little dread for that which follows death. ' The cares of sepulture, the torment of so many, left him quite indifferent. " I don't bother about a tomb," said he, " if you neglect to bury anyone, nature sees to it." *^ Nee tumidum euro : sejJelit natnra relictos."'^ This line is certainly the finest he has left us. It is in the same spirit of haughty contrariety that he affected to disdain all those honours which his friends used to run after. He well knew that this contempt of opinion was not a thing to mar his renown. The crowd is so constituted that it does not love, but cannot help admiring, those who differ from it ; hence there are people who hide themselves in order to be sought, and who think that one is sometimes more conspicuous in retirement than in power. Alaecenas was perhaps of the number, and it may be suspected that his attitude was not entirely devoid of coquettish calculation. Not only did he suffer little loss from the voluntary obscurity to which he condemned himself — he might even think that it conduced to his glory more than the most brilliant dignities. When nothing remains of statesmen but a great name, and one thinks they have done much without knowing exactly what it is they have done, one is often tempted to attribute to them known to all, thanks to the translation which La Fontaine has made of them in his Fables : — " Mcccnasfut un galant homme: II a dlt quelque part : ' Qu'on me rend imjiotent, Cul-de-jatte, gouttcux, manchot, pourvu, qu'en sommc, Je vive, c'est assez ; je suis plus que content.^ " ' Son., EpisL, 92, .35. 10 THE COUNTRY OF IIOEACE AND VIRGIL. that which does not belong to them, and to believe them to be more important than they are. This is precisely what has happened in the case of Maecenas. Two centuries afterwards, Dion Cassius, an historian of the Empire, attributed to him a long speech, in which he is supposed to suggest to Augustus all the reforms which that prince afterwards carried out. According to this, the lionour of those institutions, which through so many centuries have governed the world, is due, not to the Emperor, but to the Eoman knight. We see then, that if M^cenas remained in the shade from calculation, this calculation was completely successful, and that his clever conduct at the same time assured his tranquillity during life, and has increased his reputation after death. Whatever might have been the reasons which led him to shun public life, it is sure that, while refusing honours, he did not mean to doom himself to solitude. He certainly was not one of those philosophers who, like the sage of Lucretius, have no other distraction tlian to look from " the height of their austere retreat upon men groping along the road of life." He intended to lead a joyous existence, and, above all, to gather round him a society of choice spirits. But he would not have found tliis so easy had he busied himself more with public affairs. A politician is not free to choose his friends as he pleases. He cannot shut his doors to important person- ages, bores though they sometimes are. The position which Maecenas had made for himself allowed of his receiving only clever people. At his house he gathered round him poets and great men. Tlie poets came from all ranks of society ; the great lords were gleaned hokace's countky house. 11 from every political party. Side by side with Aristius Fuscus and the two Viscus, friends of Octavius, were seen Servius Sulpicius, son of the great jurist so highly praised by Cicero, and Bibulus, who was probably the grandson of Cato. It may be asked whether that fusion of parties, which brought about the oblivion of past hatreds, that union of politicians of every shade of opinion upon a new ground, which made the honour and strength of the rule of Augustus, did not begin at Maecenas' house ? Among the poets whom he had drawn to him are found the two greatest of that age. He did not wait to attach them to him until they had produced their masterpieces ; but foretold their future greatness by their maiden efforts. This does honour to his taste. Certain details of the Bucolics of Virgil had caused him to foresee the great touches of the Georgics and the uEneid, and through the imperfections of Horace's Epodes he forecast the Odes. And thus it was that this house, so obstinately closed to so many great personages, was early opened to the Mantuan peasant and to the son of the Venusian slave. These men of letters and great lords passed a very pleasant time together. Msecenas' fortune allowed him to gratify all his tastes, and give those who surrounded him a liberal existence. The Eoman quidnuncs would have dearly liked to know what went on in that distin- guished but exclusive company. So should we, and we often long to imitate the bore who, to Horace's great annoyance, one day followed him all along the Sacred Way, to make him talk a little. We should like to get from him some particulars about those clever men with whom he used to forecfather, and we search his works to 12 THE COUNTRY OF HOKAGE AND VIRGIL. see whether they will not tell us something about life in Maecenas' house. Unfortunately for us, Horace is discreet, and only lets fall from time to time a few confidences, which we hasten to gather. One of his shortest and weakest tSatircs, the eighth of the First Book, offers us a sample of this kind, because it was com- posed when Maecenas took possession of his house on the Esquiline. This was an event of importance both to the master and his friends. He desired to build a house worthy of his new fortune without paying too dearly for it. The problem was difficult, yet he solved it admirably. The Esquiline was then a wild desert hill where slaves were buried and capital punishment carried out. No one in Rome would have consented to dwell there. Maecenas who, as we have just seen, took pleasure in doing nothing like anybody else, bought large grounds there, getting them very cheap, planted magnificent gardens, whose reputation lasted nearly as long as the Empire, and had a large tower built, commanding all the horizon. It was doubtless a great surprise for Eonie when these sumptuous buildings were seen rising in the worst-famed spot of the city; but here the spirit of contradiction, already remarked in Ma3cenas, served him well. The Esquiline, rid of its filth, turned out to be healthier than the other quarters ; and we are told that when Augustus caught a fever on the Palatine he went to live for a few days in Maecenas' tower, in order to treat and cure it. Tliis afforded the poet an opportunity to compose his eighth Satire. In it he celebrates this marvellous change, which has turned the cut-throat Esquiline into one of the most beautiful spots in Rome : — Horace's country house. 13 '■'Nunc licet Esquilus hahitare saluhrihus, atque Aygere in ajmco spatiari." And that the charm of these wardens and the magni- ficence of these terraces may be the better appreciated by contrast, he recalls the scenes that used to take ■ place in the same spot, when it was the try sting-place of robbers and witches, I suppose this little work must have been read during the feasts given by Msecenas to his friends when he inaugurated his new house, and as it had at least the merit of timeliness, it was probably much appreciated by them. It may there- fore give us some idea of what was liked and applauded in that elegant society. Perhaps those who read the Satire to the end, bearing in mind the occasion for which it was composed and the people who were to listen to it, will feel some surprise. It ends with a rather strong pleasantry, which it would be difficult for me to translate. Here then is what amused the guests at the table of Maecenas. Here then is what those clever men liked to listen to at Maecenas' feasts.^ Do not let us be too much astonished. The great classic ages we admire are generally the outcome of rude epochs, and often in their first years they retain some- thing of their origin. Beneath all their delicacy there remains a substratum of brutal vigour which easily mounts to the surface again. What broad things were said in the conversation of people of the seventeenth ' Let us not forget that it is the same society who, in the journey to Brindisi {Sat., I. 5) took so much pleasure in the insipid dispute of two buffoons. It is very difficult to understand how, after listening to these gross pleasantries, Horace can tell us, "We passed quite a charming evening." 14 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. century, nobody feeling alarmed, which could not be heard to-day without a certain embarrassment ! How many customs there were which to us seem coarse, but which then appeared the most natural things in the world ! It was later on that manners acquired their final polish, and language became scrupulous and refined. Unfortunately this progress is often paid for by decad- ence, and the mind, during the process of polishing, risks becoming enfeebled and savourless. Let us then not complain of these few outbreaks of a nature not yet entirely reduced to rule. They are witnesses at least to the energy abiding at the root of characters by which art and letters profit. The age of Ovid always comes soon enough. We see that at the moment in question Horace held an important place in this society. That he did not attain to it immediately we know from himself. He tells us that when Virgil took him to Maecenas for the first time, he lost countenance, and could only say a few disconnected words to him.^ The reason is that he was not like those fine talkers who have always some- thing to say. He was only clever with people whom he knew. As for Maecenas, he was one of those silent ones " to whom belongs the world." He answered but a few words, and it is probable that they parted not very well pleased with each other, since they remained nine months without wanting to meet again. But this first coolness over, the poet showed what he was. Once intimate, he made his protector admire all the resources of his mind, made him love all » Sat., I. 6, 56. HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 15 the delicacy of his character. So Maecenas loaded him with kindness and benefits. In 707, a year after he became acquainted with him, he took him on that journey to Brindisi, whither he was going to conclude peace between Antony and Octavius. A few years later, probably about 720, he gave him the estate in the Sabine Hills. II. WAS HORACE REALLY A LOVER OF NATURE — THE SECOND EPODE — HOW RESIDENCE IN ROME BECAME UNBEAR- ABLE TO HIM — THE CONSEQUENCES FOR HIM OF HIS INTIMACY WITH M^CENAS — BEGGARS AND BORES — THE JOY HE MUST HAVE FELT WHEN M^CENAS GAVE HIM THE ESTATE IN THE SABINE HILLS. The circumstances which led Maecenas to make his friend this handsome present are not well known to us ; but a clever man like him doubtless possessed that quality which Seneca required before all in an intelligent benefactor — he knew how to give season- ably. He thought, then, that this estate would please Horace very much, and he certainly was not mistaken. Does this mean that Horace was altogether like his friend Virgil, and that he was only happy when among the fields ? I do not believe it. Without doubt Horace also liked to be in the country ; he liked the fields and knew how to portray them. Nature, discreetly drawn, holds a great place in his poetry. He uses it, like Lucretius, to give more force and clearness to the exposition of his philosophical ideas. The recurrence of the seasons shows him that one must neither cherish 16 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND YIRGIL. hopes too vast, nor too enduring sorrows.^ The great trees bowed by the winds of winter, the lightning- smitten mountains, teach him that the highest fortunes are not safe from unforeseen accidents.^ The return of spring, "trembling in the zephyr-shaken leaves,"^ serves him to restore courage to the desperate by showing them that evil days do not last. When he desires to counsel some sad spirit to forget the miseries of life, in order to teach his little moral he leads him to the fields, near the source of a sacred fount, at the spot " where the pine and the poplar mingle together their hospitable shade." * These pictures are charming and the memory of all men of letters has preserved them, yet they have not the depth of those offered to us by Virgil and Lucretius. Horace will never pass for one of those great lovers of Nature whose happiness is to lose themselves in her. He was too witty, too indifferent, too rational for that. I add that up to a certain point his philosophy turned him from it. He several times rebelled against the madness of those mor- bid minds who are forever running about the world in search of internal peace. Peace is neither in the repose of the fields nor in the bustle of travelling. It may be found everywhere when the mind is calm and the heart healthy. The legitimate conclusion of this muial is that we carry our happiness within us, and that when one lives in town it is not necessary to leave it in order to be happy. It seemed to him then that those people who pre- 1 Carm., II. 9, 1. - Ibid., II. 10, 9. " Ibid., I. 23, 5. * Ibid., II. 3, 6. HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 1^ tended to be passionately fond of the country, and who affected to say that there alone one can live, went much too far, and on one occasion he very slyly laughs at them. One of his most charming Epodes, the work of his youth, contains the liveliest and perhaps the most complete eulogy of rustic life that was ever penned. " Happy," he tells us, " he who, far from affairs, like the men of old, ploughs with his own oxen the field his fathers tilled : " and once launched, he never stops. All the pleasures of the country are reviewed one after another. Nothing is wanting ; neither the chase, nor fishing, nor seed-time, nor harvest, nor the pleasure of seeing one's flocks graze, nor of slumbering on the grass, " while the water murmurs in the brook and the birds moan in the trees." One would think he meant to reconstruct in his own manner and with the same sincerity the beautiful passage of Virgil : " fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint. Agricolas ! " But let us wait till the end : the last lines have a surprise in store for us ; they teach us, to our amaze- ment, that it is not Horace we have been listening to. "Thus spoke the usurer Alfius," he tells us; "immediately resolved to become a countryman, he gets in all his money at the Ides. Then he changes his mind, and seeks a new investment at the Kalends."^ The poet, then, has been laughing at us, and what adds cruelty to his pleasantry, the reader only perceives it at the end, and remains a dupe down to the last line. Of all the reasons that have been given in explanation 1 Epode 2. B 18 THE COtNTIlY OF HORACE ANt) VIRGIL. of this Epodc, only one seems to me natural and probable. He was irritated at seeing so many people frigidly admiring the country. He wanted to laugh at the expense of those who, having no personal opinion, thought themselves obliged to assume every fashionable taste and exaggerate it.^ And we too have to suffer these empty enconiums on the beauties of Nature from those who go to visit the glaciers and the mountains solely because it is " the thing " to have seen them, and we can understand the ill-temper these conventional enthusiasms must have aroused in an honest and accurate mind that cared only for the truth. But if Horace did not possess all the ardour of the Banker Alfius for the country, if he lived willingly in Eome, it was because he did not remain there always. Then, as now, people took good care not to stay there during those burning months " which made so much work for the undertaker of funeral pomps and liis black lictors." "^ From the moment Aitstcr, " heavy as lead," 2 began to blow, all who could do so went away. So did Horace. While the rich dragged a numerous attendance in their train, were preceded by Xumidian courtiers, and accompanied by gladiators to defend and philosophers to amuse them, he, being poor, jumped upon the back of a short-tailed mule, put his scanty baggage beliind him, and went gaily on his way.* The goal of his journeys was probably not always the same. In the mountains of Latium and the ^ Some critics would see in this Epodc a parody of the Gcorgics. I do not believe it. At most, Horace's raillery could only reach those who thought thuni.srdves obliged to exaggerate the ideas of Virgil. » EpisL, I. 7, 5. ^ Sat., II. 6, 18. * Ibid., I. 6, 105. Horace's cotJNTRY house, 19 Sabina, "along the slopes of the Appenines, by the borders of the sea, there is no lack of pleasant and healthy spots. Thither go the Eomans of to-day, to pass the time of the malaria." ^ Horace doubtless visited them also ; but he had his preferences, which he expresses with great vivacity, putting before all the rest Tibur and Tarentum, two places very distant and very different from each other, but which seem to have had an equal share of his affection. He probably often returned to them, and although tastes change with age, we have proof that he remained faithful to the last to this affection of his youth. Despite these yearly rovings, which sometimes took him to the extremities of Italy, I cannot help thinking that Horace long remained but a lukewarm friend of the country. He had not yet a villa of his own, and perhaps he was not sorry. He took a willing part in the distractions of the great town, and, as we have seen, only left it during the months when it is unwise to stop there. Yet a moment came when these journeys, from being a mere amusement, a passing pleasure, became for him an imperious necessity ; when Eoman life was so wearisome and hateful, that, like his friend Bullatius, he felt a craving to hide himself in some lonely townlet, and there " forget everybody and make himself forgotten." This feeling is very apparent in some parts of his works, and it is very easy to see how it arose. A wise man, instead of uselessly bewailing the mischances that happen to him, seeks to turn them 1 EpisL, I. 2, 9. 20 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. to good account, and his past troubles serve him as a lesson for the future. So I think it was with Horace. The years first following his return from Philippi must have been for him very fruitful in reflections and resolutions of every kind. He has represented himself at this epoch upon his little couch, musing on the things of life, and asking himself, " How must I conduct myself ? What had I best do ? " The best thing for a man to do who had just suffered so sad a disillusion was surely not to expose himself to a fresh one. The disaster of Philippi had taught him much. Henceforth he was cured of ambition. He had come to know that honours cost dear, that in undertaking to bring about the happiness of one's fellow-citizens one risked one's own, and that there is no lot more happy than his who keeps aloof from public life. This is what he resolved to do himself, this is what he recommended without ceasing to others. Doubtless his great friends could not quite renounce politics or abandon the Porum. He counselled them to take occasional distraction from them. To Quintius, to Maecenas, to Torquatus, he said : " Give yourselves then some leisure ; let your client dance attendance in the ante-chamber and get away by some back door. Forget Cantabria and Dacia : don't always be thinking of the affairs of the Empire." As for him, he promised himself faithfully never to think of them. Far from complaining that he no longer had any part in them, he was happy that their cares had been taken from him. Otliers accused Augustus of having deprived the liomans of their liberty ; he found that in freeing them from the W(jrry of public afl'uirs lie had restored it to them. To belong entirely to himself, to study him- Horace's country house. 21 self, to know himself, to make for himself, as it were, an inward retreat in the midst of the crowd — in short, to live for himself ; such for the future was his only thought. But one seldom regulates one's life as one would. In this as elsewhere, chance rules supreme. Events delight to play havoc with the best-concerted resolu- tions. The friendship of Maecenas, of course a very happy thing for Horace, was not long in causing him much embarrassment. It brought him into contact with great personages whom he was obliged to treat affably, although he often found it difficult to esteem them. He was forced to associate withaDallius, called "the acrobat of the civil wars " (desultor hellorum cixilium), because of his skill in playing from one party to another; witli Lucinius Mur.iena, who was levity itself, and who finished by conspiring against Augustus ; with Munatius Plaucus, the former flatterer of Antony and the buffoon of Cleopatra, said to be a traitor by temperament (morho pi^oditor). All wanted to be thought intimate with him. They asked him to address to them one of those little pieces which did honour to him who received them. They wished their names to be found in the collection of those works which men thought predestined to im- mortality. Horace did not like it ; it was doubtless repugnant to him to appear the vulgar singer of the court and the prince. So, even when obliged to yield, he did not always do so with a good grace. For instance, he only writes once to Agrippa, and it is to tell him that he will not sing his praises, and to pass him on to Varius, the successor of Homer, and alone worthy to handle so fine a subject. He does not wish to busy himself 22 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. with Augustus either. He pretends to be afraid of com- promising his hero's glory by singing his praises badly, and does not claim to have genius enough for so great a work. But Augustus was not to be put off with this excuse ; he pressed and prayed the too modest poet again and again. " Know," he wrote to him, " that I am angered at thy not yet having thought to address one of thy epistles to me. Dost thou fear that in the after- time it will be shameful for thee to seem to have been my friend ? " ^ After these amiable words, Horace could no longer resist, and from compliance to com- pliance he found himself led against his inclination to become the official poet of the dynasty. Being seen allied with so many important men, the familiar of Maecenas, the friend of the Emperor, he could scarcely fail to be considered as a sort of personage. He did not, it is true, fill any public office ; the most they had left him was his knight's ring, won in the civil wars ; ^ but, in order to have authority, it was not necessary to wear the jpretcxta. Maecenas, who was nothing to him, passed for the counsellor of Augustus : might not Horace be suspected of being the confidant of Mtecenas ? See- in*' him drive out with him, and sit in the theatre beside him, everybody said : " What a happy man ! " ^ If the two talked it was imagined they were debating the fate of the world. In vain Horace affirmed upon his honour that MaBcenas had only said to him : " What o'cloclc is it ? It is very cold this morning ; " and otlier secrets ^ Suetonius, Vita Horatii, p. 46 (Reifferscheid). "■Sat., II. 7, 53. ' All the following details are taken from the sixth Satire of the Second Book, and the ninth of the last. HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 23 of the like importance ; people wouldn't believe it. He could no longer walk as formerly in the Forum and the Field of Mars, listening to the quacks and fortune- tellers, and asking the dealers the prices of their wares ; he was watched, followed, approached at every step by the unfortunate anc| the inquisitive. A newsmonger wanted to know the situation of the armies ; a politician asked him for information concerning the projects of Augustus, and when he answered that he did not know anything about these matters, they congratulated him on his statesmanlike reserve and admired his diplomatic discretion. He met on the Sacred Way an intriguer, who begged him to introduce him to Maecenas : they brought him petitions, they requested his support, they put themselves under his protection. Envious people accused him of being an egotist who wished to keep for himself alone the favour he enjoyed, and enemies re- called the story of his birth, triumphantly repeatino- everywhere that he was only the son of a slaye. It is true that this reproach did not afl'ect him, and what they threw in his face as a disgrace, he boasted of as a title of honour ; but meanwhile the days were passing. He was no longer his own master, he could no longer live as he liked, his dear liberty was being stolen from him every moment. Of what use was it to have kept aloof from public functions if he had all its plagues without en- joying its advantages ? These worries maddened him, Ptome became unbearable, and he doubless sought in his mind some means of escaping from the bores who beset him, and of regaining the peace and liberty he had lost. It was then that Maecenas gave him the estate in the Sabina — that is to say, a safe asylum to shelter him 24 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. from the troublesome, where he was to live for himself alone. Never was liberality more seasonably bestowed or welcomed with such joy. The timeliness of the benefit explains the warmth of his gratitude. III. JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE IN THE SABINA — THE TEMPLE OF VACUNA — EO GO AGIO VINE — FONTE DELU ORATINI — PROBABLE POSITION OF THE HOUSE — EXTENT OF HORACE'S DOMAIN — PLEASANTNESS OF THE SITE. We now know how Horace became possessed of his country house ; it remains for us to become acquainted with its neighbourhood, and to ascertain whether it deserves what the poet has said about it, and why it pleased him. It was, as we have seen, near Tivoli. The road thither is the ancient Via Valeria, one of the most important Roman routes to Italy, leading into the territory of the Marsians. It follows the Anio and traverses a fertile country surrounded by high mountains, on whose summits stand some villages, true eagles' nests, that from afar seem unapproachable. Now and again one meets with ancient monuments, and one treads beneath one's feet fragments of that Eoman pavement, o'er which so many nations have passed without being able to destroy it. In three or four hours we reach Vicovaro, which, as I have already said, was formerly Varia, the important town of the neighbourhood. There we must leave the main road, VALLEY OF THE LICENZA Horaces Country House. K e«y ^ ,' ^ r , JIoj acx^s ^TJa 5^|i 'h^i M^ih^ \ih ^ I 'fWv-' V\^ '^. . u o\ liu o y^ ^5' ^ i* f 1/ yl ' Scale 2Kil HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 25 and take to the left one which follows the banks of the Licenza.i On the other side of the torrent, a little higher than Vicovaro, we see Bardela, a large village, with a castle that from a distance looks very well. It was a village where Horace tells us one shivered with cold : rugosus frigore pagus? Abbe Capmartin de Chaupy remarked that the place really is sometimes invaded by cold fogs descending from the adjacent mountains. He tells us that one day when drawing, " he felt himself seized from behind by a cold as piercing as it was sudden," but as he is accused of partiality to Horace, and wants all the assertions of his dear poet to be verified to the letter, he may be suspected of having put just a little goodwill into his shiver ! I went that way in the month of April, about noon, and found it very hot. After passing Bardela, at a turn of the road, Eoccagiovine is seen to the left. It is one of the most picturesque villages in the neighbourhood, being perched upon a pointed rock that seems to have become detached from the mass of the mountain. The way up to it is rough, and while fatiguing myself in the ascent, the expression used by Horace came home to me ; he tells us that to get home again he has to " scale his citadel." ^ There occurs a landmark which will serve to direct us. In a charming epistle addressed by Horace to one of his best friends to tell him how much he loves the country, and that of all the good things of Rome he only ^ The map of the Licenza valley here given was designed from a very detailed and exact topographical plan kindly furnished me by JI. Tito Berti. ^Epist., I. 18, 105. ^Sat., II. 6, 15. 26 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. regrets to have no longer the pleasure of seeing him, he ends his letter by saying that he has written it behind the ruined temple of Vacuna: Hcec tibi dictaham fanum jjost putre Vacuncc} Vacuna was a goddess much honoured among the Sabines, and Varro tells us that she was the same as the one called " Victory " in Eome. Near the village a fine inscription has been found, from which we learn that Vespasian has rebuilt at his own expense the Temple of Victory, which was almost destroyed by age : JJ!dem Victoricc vetustate dilapsam sua impcnsa resiitnit. The coincidence has led it to be thought that the edifice re- built by Vespasian was the same that was falling into ruin in the time of Horace. In restoring the temple the Emperor gave the goddess her Eoman name, in lieu of the other, which was no longer understood. To-day the inscription is set in the walls of the old castle, and the square hard by has been named by the inhabitants Piazza Vacuna. Horace, then, is not quite forgotten in the place he lived in eighteen centuries ago. If you want to know to the life what Sabine villages are like, you must climb up to rtoccagiovine. Nothing is more picturesque so long as one is content to look at them from a distance. Catching sight of them from the valley, crowning some high mountain and pressing round the church or the castle, one is delighted with them. But all changes as soon as one gets inside. Tlie houses now are only tumbledown hovels, the streets infected alleys paved with dung. One cannot take a step without meeting pigs walking about. In all ' EpisL, I. 10, 49. HORACE'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 27 the Sabiua the pigs are the masters of the land. They are aware of their importance and do not disturb them- selves for anybody. The streets belong to them, and sometimes the houses. It must have been just the same in the time of the Eomans. Then also they formed the chief wealth of the country, and Varro never speaks of them but with the greatest respect. I saw one there in the piazza, wallowing with an air of delight in a black stagnant pool, and immediately called to mind this charming passage of the great farmer : " They roll in the filth, which for them is a way of refreshing them- selves, as for men to take a bath." But one finds antiquity again everywhere. The women we meet are nearly all beautiful, but with a vigorous malculine beauty. We recognise those sturdy Sabine women of old, burnt by| the sun, accustomed to the heaviest tasks.i At the end of the valley I see a railway in course of construction ; women are mingled with the workmen, and, like them, carry stones upon their heads- There are scarcely any men in the village at the hour we pass through it, but we are surrounded by a crowd of robust children with eyes full of fire and intjelligence. They are curious and troublesome — their usual fault, but at least they do not hold out their hands, as at Tivoli, where there are so many beggars. In this out-of-the- way spot, the blood has been kept pure. These are the remains of a strong proud race that bore a good part in the fortunes of Eome. If, as we may believe, Roccagiovine is built on the site of the Fanum Vacunce, here Horace's estate must ^Carm., III. 6, 37. 28 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. have begun. So, bearing to the right, we continue the ascent by a stony road shaded here and there by wahiut trees and oaks. Before us, on the mountain sides, cultivated fields are spread out, with a few rustic dwell- ings. Nothing appears on the horizon like the ruins of an ancient house, and at first we are in doubt as to whither we ought to wend our steps. But we remember that Horace tells us there was close to his house a spring which never dried up, an uncommon quality in southern countries, and which was important enough to give its name to the rivulet into which it fell. If the house has disappeared, the spring, at least, must still be there; and when we have found it, it will be easy to fix the place of the rest. We follow a little path skirting an old church in ruins — the Madonna delta Casa — and a little lower we come upon the spring we are seeking. The country people call it Fonte dell 'Oraiini or Fonte de' Ratini; is it by chance that it has kept a name so near akin to that of the poet ? ^ In any case it is very diffi- cult not to believe it to be the one of which he has spoken to us. There is not a more important one in the vicinity ; it gushes abundantly from the hollow rock, and an old fig-tree covers it with its shade. I know not whether, as Horace asserts,^ "its waters are good ^ F5 it was the legend which came and sought them out. It is believed now that they held it from the Greek navigators, and that it came to them along with many others, which ended by modifying their religious beliefs, From the moment we do not accept the hypothesis of Xiebuhr, we have to solve the problem which he avoids. "We have, then, to look for the reasons which permitted the Latins so readily to accept the ancestors presented to them by the Greeks. I imagine, to start with, that if they did not feel much enthusiasm for the legend the first time that it was related to them, it did not, on the other hand, inspire them with one of those repugnances which habit does not overcome. This was the essential point: before being accepted, it had to be listened to. It is probable that it would not have been listened to, but would have been rejected at once, had it pretended to substitute itself for any of the ancient traditions of the country. But it was not so audacious or so clumsy. The Eomans related the foundation and the first years of their city in a certain way. They recounted the miraculous history of the twins, that of the king- pontiff, that of the conqueror of Alba, etc. ^Eneas took care not to meddle with Eomulus, Xuma, the kings of Eome, or to appropriate their exploits. He was merely made the ancestor of the first of them, and placed in those remote times to which the most ancient Latin traditions did not reach back. The popular traditions were therefore not interfered with, and the history of Ecme was only made to begin a little earlier, which could not wound its pride. Thus, the new legend hav- ing taken care to fix itself in a void, had sheltered itself 136 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. from all objection. But it was not enough for it to be listened to without ill-will ; it had to gain foothold in a land where it had no roots. A legend is by its nature light and volatile. If it remains in the air, it is liable to be blown about by all the winds, and, after a few years, to be dispersed and lost. In order to live, it must lean on something lasting. Either it must be incorporated in certain religious rites, and become a sort of explanation of them, when the persistence of the rites preserves the memory of the legendary narrative ; or it must become connected with a town, and insinuate itself among the fables related concerning its origin, which assures it the longest duration. But with regard to Eome, there was nothing to be done, the ground having been taken up long since; so they contented themselves with Lavinium,and ^neas passed for its founder. It remains to be seen why this town was chosen in preference to others, and what special facility it offered for the establishment of the legend. An ingenious hypothesis of Schwegler ^ renders the task easy. Lavinium was the holy city of the Latins. Each town, each state, like each family, had its protecting gods, which were placed in a consecrated spot, and to which great homage was rendered. Those of the Latins dwelt at Lavinium. This town was therefore for the entire confederation what the shrine of the Lares was for the house of a citizen, and the Temple of Vesta and of the Penates were for Eome — that is to say, the religious centre and spiritual capital of the league. Schwegler concludes, from some particu- 1 In liis excellent History of Rome, which death prevented him from fmuhing. THE LEGEND OF yENEAS. 137 lars furnished by the ancient scholiasts, that it was built especially for the part it was destined to play, and that round about the abode of the common Penates the entire confederation sent a certain number of colonists, charged to honour the gods of the country. It resembled one of those improvised centres which formed themselves in Asia Minor near the theatres and the temples where the festivals of the federated cities were celebrated.^ We may say, then, that it had no particular founder, since it was founded by a federation of cities ; and as such artificial creations do not favour the growth of legends, probably none were related concerning its origin, and so that of ^neas met with no competition. It had the advantage of furnishing a fabulous past to a city devoid of one ; why should it find a bad reception ? Besides, was not so wise, so pious a hero, the son of Venus, the favourite of the Olympian gods, completely fitted to figure as the founder of a holy city ? Here then is ^neas established at Lavinium as its acknowledged founder. But the Latins still had among them an alien by birth, and as such it was difiicult for him ever to become popular in his new country. We are about to see how this disadvantage, without quite disappearing, which was impossible, was at least mitigated in the sequel. It has been remarked that in young races the memory of facts is generally more ^ Does not the sight of these cities, founded expressly to be the religious centres of confederated peoples, remind one of Washington, which owes its birth to analogous reasons 1 Politics have done in the United States what religion did among the confederations of antiquity. 138 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. tenacious than the memory of names ; that they do not forget the marvellous incidents they heard related in their youths, but that they seldom remember to whom they were attributed ; so that these tales, gradually becoming detached from the personages to whom they were at first attributed, end by floating in the air, ready to fall again on all who successively occupy public atten- tion. Several generations of legendary heroes are thus often seen to inherit the same adventures in turn. There was a certain number of these roving legends among the Latins, as elsewhere. These settled upon ^neas, and a whole history was composed for him, of which Greece, most certainly, had no idea. It was doubtless still said that he came from Troy ; he was still the same wise, religious hero of whom Homer had sung ; and he was still represented, according to usage, bearing off his father and his gods upon his shoulders, to save them from the conflagration. Then comes the first serious change. In the Latin legend, the gods he carries off are no longer the same. The Greeks supposed him to have saved the Palladium, the miraculous statue involving the destinies of Troy ; the Latins substituted the Penates for the Palladium. These were especially Italian gods, quite peculiar to the race, and bearing its mark. All the nations of antiquity imagined protecting gods of the family, and made them according to their idea. Those of the Romans were gods of " alimentation and nourish- ment," and they received their name from the very place where the household food was kept (pemis). Such are the gods which the brilliant son of Aphrodite, the protected of Apollo, carries away with him, and for which he desires to build a city. He only builds this THE LEGEND OF yT^.NEAS. 1?>9 city in accordance with the formal behoof of Fate ; but whereas among the Greeks destiny is expressed by the voices of the priests of Delphi and Dodona, the Latins substituted for these predictions the oracles of the country, which are far from being so poetic. Thus, in the new legend, Mneas is told that he will not succeed in his enterprise until he has immolated the white sow with her thirty little ones, and when his companions, in their voracity, have devoured even their tables. These are fables which, by their great simplicity, betray a Latin origin, and have nothing at all in common with Greece. The death of ^neas, like his life, conformed to the legends of Latium ; and what is told of the old kings of the country when they die is repeated of him : one day he disappears and suddenly ceases to be seen (non coviparuit), and it is supposed that he plunged into the waters of the Numicius, a sacred river. Thenceforth he is honoured as a god, by the name of the very divinity in which he was lost, and is no longer called ^neas, but Jwpitcr indiges. This is not how the Greeks deified their heroes. They openly placed them in Olympus, preserving their human features, and honour- ing them by their names. But ^neas was to become quite Latin ; and from the moment he touches Italian soil, his new country takes possession of him. She gives him adventures, she gives him a legend, she ends by even taking from him the name by which Greek poets sang of him. This was the only way the legend could become acclimatized in the country where it was to be definitely fixed. It had to assume its spirit and its character, and to lose, little by little, all, whether in the personage or his history, that might be repugnant 140 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. to the Eomans, It would, of course, be a great mistake to believe that all these changes were meditated and thought out ; that they were the fruit of deep combina- tions. Such processes are not at all suited to primitive epochs. But while admitting that, on the whole, the work was done by chance and unconsciously, it is none the less true that the fegend must have profited by the facilities it found, and that it followed the natural paths which lay before it in order to penetrate into the heart of the country. Doubtless we cannot hope, at this distance of time, to distinguish very exactly how things happened ; yet the knowledge we possess of the manners and customs of different peoples allows us to form some very probable conjectures. For example, it will not cost a very great effort of the imagination to picture to ourselves what usually took place when Greek navigators touched at these coasts six or seven centuries before our era. They almost always found the place taken. The Phoenicians had preceded them, and had long since been masters of the commerce. But the Greeks possessed advantages over them which they well knew how to use. The Pha-nician was before everything a greedy merchant, who only thought of selling his carpets, his stuffs, and his cups of chiselled metal, as dearly as possible. Of course the Greek did not disdain good profits ; there never was a more heed- ful and adroit merchant ; but he took with him into the countries he visited something more than the products of his industry. Roving the world for his pleasure, almost as much as for his profit, when business was over he was not always in a hurry to lock up his money and be off. He was already that " little Greek " whom THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 141 the Eomans so often laughed at — supple, curious, chatty, insinuating ; soon at ease in the homes of others, and knowing how to make himself necessary there. Like his great ancestor Ulysses, he loved, when visiting cities, " to know the customs of the peoples." While selling his goods, he looked and observed. Being sharp and perspicacious, he was not long in remarking that these peoples, whom he treated as barbarians, had beliefs and usages much resembling his own. When he heard them talk, he seized words and phrases that recalled his own tongue. In these days such re- semblances no longer surprise us ; for everybody knows that all these peoples belonged to the same race of men, that after living long together they separated with a common stock of words and ideas, and that it is not astonishing that this stock should be recognised in their civilizations and their idioms. But this was un- known to the Greeks and unsuspected by all around them. There was only one means of explaining every- thing, and they made great use of it. They supposed that their ancestors, or, if not a Greek, at least one of the Trojans celebrated by Homer, had been to these shores and perhaps founded a colony. Henceforth there was no longer room for surprise that the inhabitants of the country should have retained ways of speaking and act- ing which recalled Greece ; it was a heritage that had come to them, without their knowledge, from these old travellers. But the Greeks were not people to stop at a vague hypothesis : in such fertile brains suppositions soon became realities. As generally happens to the self-confident, everything served to convince them of the truth of their conjectures ; and the adventures of 142 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. the hero of Troy, of which their memory was full, recurred to their thoughts a proj^os of everything. The names of persons and places met with on their road suggested unexpected connections to them at every moment. They made their hosts talk, scarcely listened to them, and always found in their narratives some detail that set them thinking of their own legends. Having received from heaven over and above every- thing the charming gift of invention, they added much to what was told them, and from all these different elements, to which they gave a uniform colouring, they excelled in manufacturing amusing fables, which they were never tired of relating. Let us go further. Can we, after imagining how these fables must have come into being, picture to our- selves the manner of their reception ? No one has told us ; but there is something which brings it to our knowledge more surely than if anybody had been at the pains to instruct us. They were rcmemhered, and those who heard them told gave them a place beside their national traditions, which they sometimes sup- planted. This is the victorious proof of the success obtained by them. This success should not surprise us. "We know a little better now in what state of civilization were the nations of antiquity when the Greeks began to visit them. In various parts of Italy deep excavations have been made, which brought to light some very ancient tombs. The objects found in them are exceedingly rough. They are usually vases fashioned by hand, of impure clay, imperfectly polished, and with their grey or blackish surface ornamented merely with lines and circles — that is to say, the first THE LEGEND OF .ENEAS. 143 decoralion men ever thought of. Evidently those who used those vases and possessed no others were still almost barbarians. But those barbarians were not people to acquiesce in their barbarism, and they asked nothing better than to leave it. The proof of this is, that near this primitive pottery were found pieces of amber from the North Sea, scarabei and cups brought by the Phoenicians, and, in more recent tombs, cups with archaic figures of Greek origin. Those people then, so rough and savage in appearance, were never- theless endowed with the taste for a more exalted art. They did not disdain its products, but welcomed the merchants who introduced it to them, and probably paid them highly. This characteristic is striking among the most ancient Romans. As we have just seen, Niebuhr states that Eome in her pride " despised all foreign elements." The truth is just the contrary. She doubtless had a great opinion of herself, and early foresaw the part she was to play in the world ; but this legitimate pride never degenerated into ridiculous vanity. She did not despise her enemies even after they were vanquished, knew how to acknowledge what was good in them, and when necessary she appropriated it, " Our ancestors," said Sallust, " were people as wise as bold. Pride did not prevent them from borrowing the institutions of their neighbours when they saw any profit in them. Their arms are those of the Samnites, and to the Etruscans they owe the insignia of their magistrates. Whenever they found among their allies or their enemies anything worth taking, they sought to intro- duce it among themselves. They preferred rather to 144 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. imitate others than to envy them." ^ This is the true character of the people. If they sometimes appear vainly self-complacent, and impertinently disdainful of the foreigner, it is mere comedy. The attitude a Eoman thinks himself obliged to assume in public, the way he talks when others are listening, his manner of acting when looked at, are not always in conformity with his true sentiments. This is remarked in his dealings with the Greeks. He doubtless affects to laugh at them in public, but he cannot do without them ; and we may be certain that the very first day he saw them he submitted, without being able to help himself, to the ascendency of that witty and insinuating race who brought him such beautiful works and told him such good stories. When speaking of the introduction of Greek civiliza- tion into Eome, the mind is generally carried back to a precise date, and thinks of the day in the year 514 B.C., when a captive of Tarentum caused a regular drama imitated from the masterpieces of Greece to be played in a theatre which had hitherto only been used for Etruscan dancers and Italian buffoons. It is, in truth, a decisive moment in the history of Eome. That day the door was for the first time flung wide open to Greek literature, and by the way which had been thus prepared for her, she soon passed bodily through. But when this species of coup d'etat took place, Greece had long since gradually and noiselessly penetrated Eome, and what she had done in those few centuries was more important than what remained to be accomplished. To ^ Catiline, 51. I THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 145 give Rome a literature was doubtless a great under- taking ; but was it not a much graver one yet to modify the manners of the city, and by a secret and continuous process to introduce a new spirit into it ? She gained this result in that first intercourse of which history has not preserved the memory. Above all, the national religion came out quite changed. We know what was the essential character of the old Eoman religion. The gods it honoured had scarcely taken human form ; they still lacked individuality and life, and behind them were seen the forces and phenomena of the nature they faintly personified. It is from Greece that the Eomans learned to make entirely animate beings of them, to give them passions, and to attribute adventures to them. They doubtless went about it in earnest. Prof. Hild bids us remark that those vague divinities, which a father of the Church calls " incorporeal and intangible shadows," offered but meagre food to the imagination of the crowd. Having once beheld the living figures of the Hellenic Pantheon, it would have no others. Thus was introduced into Pome the Greek mythology, which, in creating a history for all these stiff and inanimate gods, gave them life ; and thus was established the worship of the heroes, sons of the gods, a sort of inter- mediate being between divinity and manhood, from which the poetry of the Greeks had drawn such great advantages. jiEneas entered with the others, and, like them, met with a good reception. 146 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. III. AT WHAT MOMENT DID THE LEGEND FIRST BECOME KNOWN TO THK ROMANS ? — IT IS FIRST MENTIONED AT THE TIME OF THE WAR WTIII PYRRHUS — THE IMPORTANCE IT TAKES AFTER THE PUNIC WARS — THE LEGEND AMONG THE POETS, NyEVIUS — THE LEGEND AMONG THE HISTORIANS AND SCHOLIASTS, CATO, VARRO— THE LEGEND AMONG THE ARTISTS— AVHY WAS IT MORE SPREAD AMONG THE ROMANS THAN AMONG THE GREEKS ? Only one point remains to be cleared up ; but it is perhaps the most obscure. Can we ascertain at what moment the legend of vEneas became known among the Romans ? We do not hope to attain to a precise date, as may well be imagined. We must not be exacting, but content ourselves with little, when so distant an age is in question. First of all, it is indisputable that the first inter- course of the Romans with the Greeks goes back very far. It is no longer a matter of doubt that they received the art of writing from them ; for in the most ancient Latin inscrij)tions the form of the letters is that of the Eolo-Dorian alphabet. This alphabet was doubtless communicated to them by one of the Greek colonies established in Soutliern Italy or in Sicily. It probably came to them from Cumea, whose vessels did a great trade along the Italian coasts. But when did they begin to use it ? When the ideas of Niebuhr upon the beginnings of Roman history were dominant, THE LEGEND OF ^KEAS. 147 it was customary to make this epoch as late as possible, in order to leave the field the longer free for the formation of primitive epics, and it was even asserted that the Eomans did not learn to write until the time of the Decemvirs. These are ideas which have now been exploded. It is certain that writing was known to the Eomans at a very early date, and in a recent publication M. Louis Havet has tried to show that their alphabet was fixed before the time of the Tarquins.^ We must admit, then, that the Greeks frequented the markets of Eome from the day of its foundation. This opinion, a prediction of philology, has been confirmed by the archaeologist. In the excavations made on the Viminal, tombs were reached under what is called the Wall of Servius, and which must consequently be more ancient. These tombs contained, among other objects, Chalcidian vases, which doubtless came by way of Cumea. From the moment the Greeks knew the road to Eome, they ^ See M. L. Havet's opening lecture at the College de France, 7th December 1882. The consequences of the fact pointed out by them do not lack importance, and he does not shrink from them. After estab- lishing the fact that writing was known in the time of the Eoman kings, he adds : " But," it will be asked, " did those old kings really exist ? " And why not ? If the Eomans could write at that time, why should they not have transmitted a few authentic names to posterity ? It is very remarkable that with regard to these facts, formerly so much contested, French, Italian, and even German criticism seems to have become conservative again. At the same time that M. L. Havet's pamphlet appeared, M. Gaston Faiis published in the Ilomania a very important ai-ticle on the legend of Roncevaux. This article ends with the following words: "While following up these studies of critical analysis, now only in their beginning, we shall become more and more convinced that in being distant and anonymous the epic is not differently circumstanced than other births of human poetic activity ; 148 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. brought the products of their industry thither, and with them their ideas, their civilization, and their legends. But must we believe that the legend of ^neas was already among them ? Upon this point the learned are divided, and the most opposite opinions are offered. While some believe it to be as ancient as Eome herself, others will not admit it to be anterior to the Punic Wars. On which side does the truth seem to be ? To those who would take it back to the very beginning of Eome, it has been rightly replied that, had it existed at the time when the Eoman religion was formed, it would hold some place in it.^ Denys of Halicarnassus, in expounding it, says " that it is con- firmed by what takes place in the sacrifices and ceremonies " ; but he must have been mistaken. The most ancient festivals of Eome are known to us, and Prof. Mommsen thinks we can reconstruct the calendar of Numa. There is no mention of J^neas in it. He is first heard of in history in connection with Pyrrhus. that it is only developed by a series of individual innovations, doubtless marked in the corners of their respective epochs ; and which have nothing unconscious or populai' in the almost mystic sense sometimes attached to the word. Everything here, as elsewhere, has its explana- tion, its cause, its reason to be and to cease." Here we'are, then, very far from the assertions which made the glory of Wolff, Lachmann, and Niebuhr. It is curious to realise, just at the end of this century, that after having run through a whole cycle of seductive hypotheses, and of audacious destructions and reconstructions, the evolution is finished, and brings us back very nearly to the point of departure. But we return to it with more exact ideas, and with a clearer view of the past ; and if all those great systems which reigned for a few years were only errors, they were at least fertile errors, which have renewed criticism and history. ' Aniiq, rom., I. 49. THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 149 We are told that the king of Epirus was induced to declare war against the Eomans by the memory of his ancestor Achilles, there being a family quarrel between him and the Trojans of Rome, which he desired to settle.^ So the legend existed at that time, and a contemporary historian, Timteus of Tauromenium, tells it nearly in the same way that it is known to us. Is it probable that it was quite recent at this moment, or that the war with Pyrrhus gave rise to it ? I find it difficult to believe. Prof. Hild is right in saying " that a belief or a worship is never implanted all at once by hasty adoption or violent annexation." It must then have been working its way, and insinuating itself into Rome for some time past; but it only began to assume a certain authority there shortly before the war with Pyrrhus. What also leads me to the same con- clusion is, that about this time I see it accepted in an official manner by the Roman authorities. When a State is wise, it does not give in too soon to contested novelties ; and in order that a sort of public consecra- tion should have been accorded to the legend of .^neas at Rome, it must have been pretty widely spread at the time and accepted by many people. In 472, according to Prof. Mommsen, and, according to Nissen,^ fifty years later, the Acarnanians being engaged in a struggle with the ^tolians, asked Rome to help them. Their ground of appeal was that of all the Greeks their 'This is at least what Pausanias says, although his sources are not known. ^'SisscTi, Zur Kriiik des ^-Eiieassage {Jahrb. fur class. Phil.), 1S65, p. 375, et seq. 150 THE COtrNTRV OF HORACE AND VIRGIL ancestors aloue had taken no part in the Trojan War. They doubtless thought that this motive would suffice to soften the Senate, and that the heirs of the Trojans would not decline to pay their ancestors' debt. From that time texts abound to prove that belief in a Trojan origin had become among the Romans a maxim of State, alleged without hesitation, even in diplomatic docu- ments. When, after the disasters of the Second Punic War, Rome asked the inhabitants of Pessinoute to let them have the statue of the Mother of the Gods which was to restore their fortunes, she did not forget to remind them that her ancestors were Phrygians by birth, and, consequently, their countrymen. A little later, in treating with Antiochus, king of Syria, whom she had vanquished, she takes care to stipulate that he shall set free the inhabitants of Ilion, who are related to the Roman peo|jle. During the wars in Asia, the generals who passed by the ancient town, are careful to stop there and make sacrifices, ^neas, thenceforth, has taken his place among the ancestors of the Romans; he figures at the head of the list, and public honours are rendered to him. In the Forum of Pompeii, along a monument which ornaments one side of the square, four niches are distinguished, which used to contain statues, now destroyed, ^neas and Romulus occupied the two first ; while Signer Fiorelli supposes the two others to have contained Casar and Augustus. These were the four founders of the Roman State. Some fragments of the inscription graven below the image of ^neas still remain. They recall all the legend in a few words : the flight of the hero carrying with him his gods and his father; his arrival in Italy; the foundation of THE LEGEND OF iENEAS. 151 Lavininm ; his miraculous death ; and his apotheosis as Jupiter Indigos.^ Latin poetry also takes early possession of ^neas. "We know that he figured in the first orational epic Eome possessed. When the rough plebeian Ncevius, so ardent for the glory of his country, undertook to sing the First Punic War, in which he had been a soldier, he began by going back to the Trojans. At this moment the history of ^neas is enriched by a new incident on which Virgil was afterwards to shed an immortal brightness. N?evius imagines -^neas to have been driven by the wind from Troy to Carthage, where he was received by Dido. He was not, I think, the first to bring together these representatives of two races, and this is how they come to be connected On the western coast of Sicily, on the summit of Mount Eryx, there rose one of these temples of Aphrodite to which allusion has already been made. The position of Eryx between Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Italy, made it one of the spots where merchants of all countries came together. The Phoenician was constantly meeting the Greek there. Each of the two peoples brought with it its national traditions, and in their reciprocal communications, when one told the story of yEneas, the other replied with that of Dido. And so by dint of talking about them, they came to join them in the same legend. Allied together so long as their nations were united, they became ^ It is true that among the paintings at Pompeii there exists one which is a kind of parody of the official legend. It represents a monkey, clad in a coat of mail, carrying an old monkey on his shoulders and dragging a young monkey by the hand. iEneas, Anchises, and Ascanius are meant. 152 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. mortal enemies as soon as the war broke out between Carthage and Eome. Then the hatred of the children is made to go back to that of the ancestors, and the meeting of the queen of Carthage with the Trojan hero takes tragic colours. It is doubtless Nsevius who gave this new character to the ancient legend. To account for the animosity of the two races, he supposes that they had ancient grudges to avenge, and that their enmity began with their very existence. Ennius also thinks he must take up Eoman history at the fall of Troy, as is seen in the short fragments of the First Book of his poem whicli remain to us. We have especially the verse in which he begins to relate the adventures of -^neas : ^\Cum veter occuhuit Priamus sub marie Pelasgo." The remainder took up very little place, and half a Book sufficed Ennius for the narration of what occupies twelve in Virgil. The malicious said that while laugh- ing at his predecessor Na3vius, whom he accused of writing in a barbarous rhythm and having no care for elegance, he avoided repeating what the rough poet had done, in order not to clash with him, and that he was like certain heroes of Homer, who shout all kinds of nonsense to their enemy, and let fly an arrow or two from afar, but withdraw as soon as he advances. How- ever this may be, it is curious to remark that the first time the Latin Muse tackles the epic, she goes straight to the subject which Virgil was to handle. Is it not to the point here to recall Sainte Beuve's remark with reference to Homer ? He says there was a sort of unconscious conspiracy among all these ancient writers THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 153 to prepare the matter on which their illustrious successor was afterwards to work. From the hands of the poets the legend fell into that of the chroniclers and scholiasts. It had no reason to rejoice thereat. The moment that the learned seize upon these old legends, and undertake to make them clearer and wiser, is a crisis for them. The learned are not light-handed. They want everything to be rational and sensible, which is surely a most legitimate desire ; yet, somehow or other, from the moment you try to put reason into popular fables, and take too much trouble to make them probable, they become ridiculous. Virgil had afterwards much ado to restore to his hero the poetic tinge of which his prolonged sojourn among scholiasts and chroniclers had deprived him. Yet they rendered him a signal service, since their minute researches and learned labours contributed to establish the authority of the legend more solidly. So long as it was only found in the verses of the poets, it might be suspected of having no other foundation than those thousand Greek fables which no one took in earnest. But from the moment serious people, who did not make it their trade to amuse the public, took the trouble to busy themselves with it, in books where they studied the laws and religion of their country, it seemed to deserve more confidence. Cato, a consul, a censor, an enemy of the Greeks, related it without hesitation in all its details, and did not hesitate to give, respecting the exact extent of the territory ceded by Turnus to the Trojans, and the different struggles which ^neas and Ascanius sustained against Turnus, details as precise as if contemporary events had been in question. Varro, 154 THE COUNTRY OF HOMCE AND VIRGIL. " the most learned of the Eomans," who was a man of war as well as a scholar, and commanded the fleet of the Adriatic while Pompey was tracking the pirates, profited by a little leisure to follow up /Eneas, do his journeys over again, and visit with his galleys the different ports at which he had touched. He was so convinced of the reality of his adventures that he thought he found indisputable traces of his sojourn everywhere. We see in the fragments of his works still extant that he speaks of these distant events in a tone of extraordinary assurance. " Is it not certain," he says, " that the Arcadians, under the leadership of Evander, came into Italy, and settled on the Palatine ? " ^ It seems really a crime to doubt it. I know that to these reasons, which induced us to believe that the legend was then very widely spread and generally believed in, it has been objected that it was utterly unknown to Eoman Art. How is it possible to admit that, being so popular as is asserted, it so rarely tempted sculptors and painters ? It is certain that no fresco or bas-relief of any importance is known anterior to the Empire, having the history of iEneas for its subject. M. Brunn thought he had found one on one of those metal coffers called cists, which come to us from the tombs of Pneneste. He fancied that he recognised on one of the sides the battles of the Eutuli and the Trojans, while on the plaque in the cover he saw ^Eneas presenting the old Latin king with the spoils of Turnus whom he has just killed. Beside him is Lavinia, who is about to be delivered to her husband, ^ Severus, in ^n., VIII. 51. THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 155 while Amata, her mother, retires, furious, in order not to witness this marriage.^ This is quite the subject of the ^7ieid, and, as M. Brunn supposes this work of art to be anterior to the First Punic War, he admits that the legend was then fixed in its most minute details, and that Virgil only translated faithfully the popular fables which existed more than two centuries before his time. Unfortunately, M. Brunn's explanation is now strongly contested, and it is questioned whether the coffer does not belong to a more recent epoch, or whether the subject represented is really what M. Brunn imagines it to be. But on the other hand, since the time when M. Brunn, erroneously or not, placed the adventures of ^neas on the cista prmnestina, they have been found, and this time indubitably, in a Eoman tomb. In 1875 excavations were undertaken by an Italian Society at the extremity of the Esquiline, in the space extending between Santa Maria Maggiore and the little monument known as the Temple of Minerva Medica. Here lay one of the important roads of Eome — that leading to Praeneste. Along the Koman roads one is always sure to find tombs. One of those excavated contained frescoes which had unfortunately suffered much when, in the third century, the custom of burying the dead having replaced that of burning them, alterations were made to the tomb in order to adapt it to this new practice. However, enough remains of the paintings to enable one to grasp their subject quite clearly. It is the early history of Ptome from the arrival of ^ueas in Italy. We first see him founding Lavinium and ^ Ann. de I'Inst. de corrcsp. arch., 1864, p. 356, et seq. 156 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. lighting Turniis. In the pictures, which follow each other without being separated, like those on the column of Trajan, all the phases of the great battle fought on the banks of the Numicius can be followed. Then comes the foundation of Alba by Ascanius, and lastly, the story of Ehea Silvia and the twins.^ What adds value to these paintings is that they must be con- temporary with Virgil's works, and as they do not reproduce exactly the tradition followed by him, and were probably not executed under his influence, they show how the events sung by the poet were understood by people round about him. But whatever importance may be attached to them, it must not be forgotten that they are the only work of art of any value anterior to the ^neid treating of ^neas and Lavinium ; and it must therefore be owned that down to the time of Virgil, the journeys of the Trojan hero, which had inspired so many poets, had busied sculptors and painters but little. Does this justify us in stating that the legend was but little known at that time ? I do not think so. Let us remember that the arts were in the hands of the Greeks, and that the Greeks only liked to busy themselves with themselves. It has been remarked that they hardly ever reproduced events of Eoman history in bas-reliefs or frescoes. It is true that having created the .^nean legend, as we have seen, they might have been expected to feel more taste for the work ; but ^ This monument was first described by M. Brizio in his work entitled Pitture e sepolcriscopcrti sulV Esquilino. The subject was treated afresh by M. Robert in the Annales de Vlnstitut ax:h6ologiqtie de Rome (1878, p. 234, ct scq.). I have followed M. Robert's explanations. THE LEGEND OF iENEAS. 157 unfortunately this legend had come into existence but recently, when their imagination was beginning to tire of reproducing fables. Besides, it is obviously less rich in poetic details, more sombre and dry than others. Nor had it enjoyed the good fortune to please a great poet, and be transfigured in his song. These were depreciating circumstances which little recommended it to the choice of artists. In conclusion, they had a special reason for forsaking it, on which I must for a moment dwell ; because in teaching us why it was neglected by the Greeks, it at the same time shows us one of the reasons, and perhaps the strongest, which attracted the Eomans to it. "When the legend of ^neas began to spread among the Greeks, Eome, too feeble as yet to cause them un- easiness, was yet powerful enough to inspire them with a desire to attach her in some way or other to their country, and thus take part in her glory. A century later all was changed. She had subdued Greece, she had just invaded the East, and she openly coveted tk ? empire of the world. The Greeks, vanquished and humiliated, no longer felt the same alacrity to adorn with poetic fables the origin of a people who oppressed them. This legend — although their own work — seemed to give their rivals a too advantageous past. They began by speaking less and less of it, and ended by forgetting it. Denys of Halicarnassus states that in his time there was hardly anybody left in Greece to whom it was known. Its place had been taken by quite contrary fables. There existed then, at the courts of the little Asiatic princes and of the bar- barian kings, quite a school of historians who made it 158 THP! COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. their business to say as much ill as possible of the Eomans, and as much good as possible of their enemies. They naturally shared the fate of those whose cause they championed, and it is conceivable that the con- queror whom they insulted should not have been soli- citous to preserve their works. We possess Polybius, who wrote the history of the Punic Wars in the Eoman interest; but we scarcely know the name of that Philinus of Agrigentum who extolled the Carthaginians, and turned everything to their glory. The usual tactics of all these enemies of Eome consisted in ridiculing the baseness of her origin. They said that she had been an asylum for bandits ; that she owed her birth to wretches, vagabonds, and slaves. These cal- umnies made Halicarnassus indignant, and he under- took to reply to them by writing his homan Antiquities. In order to show their falseness and victoriously refute them, he related the legend of ^neas in all its details. Addressing his countrymen at the commencement of his book, he says : " Trust not at all those lies (with regard to the foundation of Eome) ; they only spread fables. I will show you that those who founded her were not vagabonds snatched by chance from among the most contemptible nations. They were Trojans, following a famous chief, whose deeds were sung by Homer. Or rather, since the Trojans are of the same origin as we, they were Greeks." ^ Denys well knew that this conclusion was quite to the taste of the Eomans, and that it flattered the secret ^ All these ideas are developed in the Preface to the Eoman Anti- ijuiiics of Denj's of Halicarnassus, THE LEGEND OF .TINEAS. 159 instincts of their vanity. They had long borne without loss of temper the stigma of " barbarians," which the Greeks gave to all who were not of their race. When they better understood the worth of letters and of arts, they disliked to be put thus summarily and with a word beyond the pale of civilization. They wished to re-enter humanity, and in some way connect themselves with Greece, if only by their distant origin. The legend of ^neas gave them the means, and they grasped it with alacrity. The great lords delighted to imagine themselves descended from the most illustrious companions of ^neas; and there was even a certain num- ber of families for whom this origin was not contested. These were called " Trojan families "; and Varro, desirous to please everybody, wrote a book in support of their chimerical genealogies. Simple citizens could not have such exalted pretensions ; yet though they did not dare to claim the honour of having Trojan chiefs among their ancestors, they were still proud to be descended from common soldiers. In the famous prediction announc- ing the disaster of Cannte, the soothsayer Marcius, addressing the Eomans, called them " children of Troy" {Trojugena Bomance)} In giving them this name he evidently meant to please them. A little later the poet Attius, having composed a national piece on the devotion of Decius, of which the Eomans were so proud, entitled it The Sons of ^neas or Decius (^neadce sive Decius). Writers of tragedy or comedy generally seek to give to their works titles attractive to the public. Attius, then, supposed that * Titus Livius, XXV. 12, 160 THE COUNTPtY OF HOKACE AND VIRGIL. the Eomans would like to hear themselves called sons of ^neas. And thus the general vanity became a factor in the success of the old legend. IV. WHAT REASON HAD VIRGIL TO CHOOSE THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS FOR THE SUBJECT OF HIS POEM ? — THE HIS- TORICAL EPIC AND THE MYTHOLOGICAL EPIC — THE JENEIB IS BOTH A MYTHOLOGICAL AND AN HIS- TORICAL EPIC — WHY DID VIRGIL PREFER ^ENEAS TO ROMULUS ? — IN WHAT SENSE MAY THE MNEID BE SAID TO HAVE BEEN POPULAR ? We at length bid adieu to darkness and uncertainties, and emerge into full light: we have reached Virgil. After having sought to discover whence the legend of ^neas came, what were the elements that formed it, and why the Eomans received it so favourably, it re- mains for us to ascertain the reasons that may have induced Virgil to make it the subject of his poem. We run no risk of committing an error when we assert that he did not do so without reason, and that, in the conception of his works, he left nothing to chance. Voltaire relates that when, at the age of twenty, he took it into his head to compose an epic, he scarcely knew what an epic was. Virgil would not have displayed such levity. He was not one of those poets of impulse of whom Plato tells us that they do not know what they are about. He meditated and reflected long before writing. He was a sad and timid man, and had not a sufficiently good opinion of THE LEGEND OF /EJJEAS. l61 himself to think he was capable of improvising masterpieces. All his works bear traces of patient labour and obstinate effort. The wonder is that in his case toil never hampered inspiration. We may be certain that after deciding to write an epic poem, he first of all asked himself what the subject of this poem was to be. The reply to this question would be different, according to the school the poet belonged to. There were two at the time disputing and dividing public suffrage. The one clung to the past, and wished simply to continue it. It was com- posed of admirers of the old Latin poets, and counted especially among its ranks those wise and ripened minds to whom innovations are unpleasing. The other had chosen new models, and professed to rejuvenate poetry by imitating the younger poets. As always happens, these had the young people and the women on their side. Each of the two schools looked upon the epic differently. The old school was especially partial to the historical poem — that is to say, the poem which relates the deeds of our ancestors ; and it must be owned that its taste was in conformity with the peculiar genius and natural aptitudes of the Eoman race. This race was, above all, military and practical, and only loved literature on condition of its containing lessons for the conduct of life. The ideal and fanciful, by which the Greeks were moved^ left it somewhat indifferent. It had little inclination for legends in which imagination has so great a place, and the poetry of its preference was that dealing with real facts and personages. So the Latin poets, as soon as their wings had strength to bear them, turned L 162 TliE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VlRGlL. in that direction. Nrevius sings the First Punic War; while Ennins, giving his work the very Iloman title of the Annales, relates all the history of Home, emphasizing the events he has himself seen, and can speak of as a witness. The success of his work was very marked. Rome recognises herself, and for a century epic-makers followed in his tracks. Even in Virgil's time, and round about him, poems were com- posed on the defeat of Vercingetorix and the death of CtBsar. Lucretius, the greatest poet of the age, also holds to the author of the Annales, and although he did not write an epic tale, he proclaims liimself the disciple of Ennius, and congratulates him on having brought from Helicon "a crown whose laurel leaves shall never fade." The other school sought its inspira- tions among the Alexandrian poets. In spite of the reputation they enjoyed in the Greek world, Eome had remained long without knowing and applying them. She liked to keep to the classic epoch ; but when her conquests had brought her into more frequent contact with Asia, her generals, her proconsuls, her merchants, who frequently visited the large towns, read these poets with whom everybody around them busied them- selves, and were charmed. They did not find it difficult to communicate their feelings to their friends ; for there was then at Eome a polite and refined society which was beginning to tire a little of the old writers and to seek new objects for admiration. These grace- ful and delicate works, where care for form is pushed so far; where so many learned allusions, so many surprises of expression and imagery are found ; where the mode of speech is so ingenious that it stimulates THE LEGEND OF /ENEAS. 163 the mind and makes it pleased with itself when it has grasped its retinements, were well made to captivate. Naturally, after admiring, Rome imitated. The first to write verses in the Alexandrian style were at the same time young men of talent and heroes of fashion — Licinius Calvus, Cornelius G alius, and above all, Catullus, the greatest among them. They obtained much success. One of their usual methods was the frequent employment of mythology. Some were content to make use of it in short allusions in their elegies, while others spread it out in epic poems. The histories of the gods and the heroes, the adventures of Hercules and Theseus, the war of Thebes or that of Troy, the conquest of the Golden Fleece, furnished them in abundance epic subjects, which they preferred to all others. Between these two schools Virgil had to choose. Each had its merits and its advantages. The historical poem, preferred by the old school, most pleased the greater number, and had the better chance of becoming popular. Rome was always proud of her past, and she lent a willing ear to those who celebrated her glory. But this style also presents great diffi- culties of execution. It is always awkward for Poetry to have to compete with Histor}*. If she reproduces facts exactly as they have happened, she is accused of sinking into dryness, and being nothing but a chronicle ; if she attempts to mingle a little fiction with it, serious people find that the truth prejudices the fable, while the fable discredits the truth ; that one does not know on what ground one is walking, and that this uncertainty spoils all the pleasure of the 164 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. work. The mythological epic is not exposed to this danger. All in it is of the same nature, and from the first verse it introduces the reader into a world of fancy and invention which he leaves no more. The genre once accepted, the mind is at rest, and does not experience the unpleasantness of being hauled backwards and forwards between fiction and reality. It is a kind of dream, to which it can confidently abandon itself; and it is at least sure of following it to the end without any rough incident coming to dissipate it. But, on the other hand, the public to which this kind of poetry appeals is limited, since it does not possess what attracts the crowd. In order to understand it one must have the delicacy of an artist and the learning of a scholar. Above all, at Rome, where artists and learned men were rare, it would have to resign itself to the indifference of " the profane vulgar," and be the charm of a few refined natures. Virgil did not servilely adhere to any school, and in this he shows his originality ; his taste, broad and free, sought its inspirations everywhere. He began by a liking for Theocritus, an Alexandrian, while in his last work he so closely imitated the ancients tliat Seneca calls him an Ennianist down- right, which in his mouth is a grave reproach. In order to create the language, at once so firm and supple, which he used with such admirable effect, he did not scruple to join together the two great repre- sentatives of the opposed schools, Lucretius and Catullus. From the one he borrowed more especially the vivacity of his turns, and the energy and brilliancy of his expressions, while from the other he took his THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 165 neater phrasing, and his easier, more flowing rhythm. From this combination arose that marvellous poetic language which Eorae spoke without much change until the end of the Empire. The same mind is found again in Virgil's choice of a subject. It is of a kind to satisfy everbody, and holds a middle place between the historical and the mythological epic. It has been supposed, with sufficient probability, that he hesitated some time before deciding. We know that when he finished his Georgics, he read them to the Emperor in the retreat at Atella, whither Augustus had gone to take a little rest and nvirse his throat complaint. Was it on this occasion that he composed the brilliant prologue with which the Third Book opens ? It is natural to believe so. In this prologue he announces the ^neid ; but it has obviously not yet taken in his mind its definitive form. At this moment he seems quite disgusted with mythology. The young Eoman poets had made such an abuse of it that in a few years it had lost all its freshness. " Who does not know," says Virgil, " pitiless Eurystheus and execrable Busiris ? Who has not celebrated young Hylas, and Delos, dear to Latona, and Hippodamia, and Pelops, the fiery rider with his ivory shoulder ? " All these subjects, fitted to please idle minds, seem to him exhausted {omnia jam vulgata). He desires to walk far from the crowd, and try new roads that will lead to glory. There are moments when, fashion having run for some time in a different direction, the old becomes new again. It would seem then, thnt Virgil intended to return to the tradition of the old Latin poets, and compose an entirely historical 166 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. epic. In fact, he announces to Augustus that he is about to sing his combats : " Moz tamen ardentes accingar dicere pvgnas CcBsaris." He fortunately changed his mind. In taking for his subject the wars against Brutus and Antony, he would have found himself contending with the difficulties which Lucian, in spite of his genius, failed to overcome. He did well to go back further, to the very beginnings of Eome. His poem has not the less remained thoroughly historical, not only because of the constant allusions made to historical events and personages, but from the very nature of the subject, which is the glorification of Eome, and from the grave and sustained tone of the narrative. And yet it is mythological too, since gods and goddesses are the principal actors in the drama, and Olympus and the earth are spoken of in the same breath. By placing his fable in an epoch when legend and history are confounded together, he has suppressed their antagonism, and has thus been able to combine the advantages of both schools without incurring their disadvantages. But may it not be objected that he went back too far ? It may appear that, since he wished to glorify Eome in her foundation, it was not ^neas he should have chosen, ^neas only founded Lavinium, and is for the Eomans but a very distant ancestor. The ancient chroniclers made him the father or the grand- father of Eomulus, which brought him near enough to the birth of Eome ; but later on, in order somehow or other to bring the legend into harmony with clironology, THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 167 it was found necessary to intercalate between them the interminable series of Alban kings. It is indeed strange that a poet who desired to celebrate Rome should have chosen an epoch when it did not yet exist, and a hero who lived more than four hundred years ere its foundation. Virgil would have apparently done better to stop at Eomulus, for he would have found himself in the very heart of his subject. Eomulus was then much more popular than ^neas. Everybody knew his name ; on the Palatine, the cabin where he lived was shown ; and the little grotto, shaded by a fig- tree, where it is said the wolf had nursed him, was an object of devotion. Poetry had seized on these relics at a very early date, and in singing them had lent them splendour and force. The passages of the First Book of the Annates of Ennius, where he relates the dream of the vestal, the birth of the son of Mars, and his struggle with Remus, were in the memories of every educated Roman ; and all repeated with emotion those beautiful lines, at once so strong and tender, express- ing the gratitude of all the Romans to him who gave their city its life : — " Eomule, Romule die Qualem te patrioi c^istodem di yenuerunt ! fater, gcnitor^ sanguen dis oriundum ! " Nevertheless Virgil preferred -^neas to Romulus, and he had many reasons for doing so. One of the chief was certainly a desire to please the Emperor. Among all the families who boasted of a Trojan origin, the Caesars held the first place. While the Memmii, the Sergii, and the Cluentii were content to have for ancestors lieutenants of ^neas, the C.Tsars boldly 168 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. connected themselves with ^neas himself, and claimed descent from his son lulus. In singing the father of the Eomans, Virgil celebrated the ancestor of the Julii. This was a means of giving the Emperor's power an appearance of legitimacy, and of making him, across the centuries, the natural heir of the kings of Rome. He thought then to serve his country, while paying to the prince his debt of personal gratitude. At the same time he fulfilled the promise he had made him in the Georgics, to raise him an immortal monument. It was, of course, no longer an historical poem devoted to a recital of the Emperor's exploits ; but he was easily recognised under the features of the chief of his race. The glory of the ancestor illumined the descendant, and although the name of ^neas was inscribed on the pediment of the building, it might be said that Augustus was its centre, and that, in reality, he occupied it all : "7?i medio mihi Ccesar erit, tevijilumqne tenehit ! " Virgil had yet another reason for preferring ^neas to Eomulus and the others, which must have seemed to him important, -^neas already figures in the Iliad, and his name recalls both the battle in which he took part and the warriors whom he knew. To speak of him, then, was a natural occasion to multiply allusions to the Homeric poems and re-animate the heroes of the Trojan War. This is a pleasure which Virgil indulges in as much as he can. Although he knows the danger there is of provoking disadvantageous comparisons, he exposes himself to it at every moment. He seeks every means to connect his poem with that of Homer ; THE LEGEND OF ^NEAS. 169 he imitates the chief incidents, and causes the person- ages to live again. Hector is re-born in the words of Andromache; Diomedes is found again in Southern Italy, and does not want much pressing in order to talk of his old deeds ; Ulysses is traced in the enchanted palace of Circe, and in the isle of the Cyclops, while Hecuba, Helen, and Priam are seen once more during the last night of Ilium. For Virgil, as for us, Homer was not only a great epic poet ; he was the Epos personified. So he must have deemed himself happy to draw as near to him as possible, both by the subject and the personages of his poem. And this completes our understanding of his reasons for choosing the legend of ^neas. Was he right or wrong in doing so ? May it bo said, with certain critics, that in the J^neid the choice of the subject has prejudiced the success of the work — that a poem whose hero was a foreigner and a stranger was doomed in advance never to become popular and national ? After the long study just read, the reply to this seems easy. Doubtless the legend of ^neas is of Greek origin ; but we have seen that it soon became acclimatised in Eome, that it took a Roman colouring by its mixture with the legends of the country, and, finally, that the State, far from combating, at an early date officially adopted it. When Virgil took possession of it, it had been related by the historitins and sung by the poets for more than two centuries. We cannot then regard it as one of those frivolous fables which the poet invents at his fancy, and pretend that ^neas, son of Venus, was as indifferent to Romans of the Augustan epoch as was Francus, son of Hector, to Frenchmen of the sixteenth century. 170 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. Does this mean that it was as popular in Eome as the stories of Achilles and Ulysses were in Greece ? To suppose this were to forget the radical differences between the two countries. In the Greek cities the disdain for foreigners, the dominating passion of the Hellenes, maintains the race in its purity. There may be diversities of rank and fortune between the citizens ; but they have all the same origin. The national tradi- tions are a treasure belonging to all, and which none allow to be lost. The poet who undertakes to celebrate them is understood by every one ; he sings for the poor and for the rich, for the lettered and for the ignorant ; and when he succeeds, his success is truly popular, since there is no one in the whole nation who does not take pleasure in listening to him. It could not be thus in a city like Eome, formed of a mixture of different races. A population constantly renewing itself, and composed of heterogeneous elements, has few common traditions, and quickly forgets them. I suppose that the plebeians, whose recollections did not go back very far, knew indeed but little about all these ancient fables collected by the learned, and that they left them very indifferent. Nor was it for them that Virgil wrote. He knew that he would have lost his time, and that it was not possible to interest the entire people from base to summit in his work, as could be done in the case of the Greeks. He only addressed the en- lightened classes — the noble by birth or fortune, the upper citizen circles, and persons of education. All these people — some from aristocratic vanity and others in order to imitate those above them — willingly recurred to the past. They preserved its memory and ^NEAS IN SICILY. 171 liked to hear it spoken of. It is in this class of society that Virgil was popular ; and as it was educated, so it had read the Homeric poems, and knew the Annates of Ennius and the works of the Latin chroniclers, therefore the legend of ^Eneas was quite familiar to it. In choosing it for the subject of his poem, Virgil was certain neither to surprise nor displease the public for whom he wrote. II. ^NEAS IN SICILY. It would be a very charming journey to accompany ^neas from Troy to Laurentum, vid Thrace, the Cyclades, Crete, and Epirus, stopping at Carthage to receive the hospitality of Dido. But, unfortunately, everybody has neither the time nor the means to undertake so long a jaunt, and one must know how to limit oneself. Furthermore, these ports and isles are for ^Eneas merely stages where he touches, and Virgil does not take the trouble to describe them. He scarcely tells us anything even of Africa itself, where his hero remains longer than he ought to do. This is not the true country of the u^Encid ; we must reserve this title for Sicily and Italy. Those are the lands known and loved by the poet, whither he likes to lead ^Eneas, and which he is happy in describing. We are about to try and go over them with him. 172 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. HOW VIRGIL CAME TO KNOW SICILY — POLLION COUNSELS HIM TO IMITATE THEOCRITUS — BY WHAT QUALITIES THEOCRITUS MUST HAVE PLEASED VIRGIL — THE MORETUM — WHY VIRGIL DID NOT CONTINUE TO WRITE REALISTIC POEMS — SICILY IN THE BUCOLICS. We learn from Virgil's biography that he was very fond of Campania and Sicily, and that he often lived there. Born at the foot of the Alps, where the winters are often rainy and rough, he doubtless felt the kind of instinct which impels people of the north towards southern countries. Perhaps he found, too, that warm climates better suited his health, which was always bad. He did not like Eome, although he possessed a house on the Esquiline, near the palace of Majcenas. It was too noisy and busy a town for him, and he could only write amid calm and silence. In order to give the last touch to his Gcorgics, he ran away to Naples ; and when the u^neid was in question, he felt it necessary to go further still. We are told that he composed a part of it in Sicily. He probably owed his first revelations with regard to Sicily to the idylls of Theocritus, and learned from them to know and love it. Well, we know at what moment and in what manner his attention was first drawn to the Sicilian poet. He was twenty-five years old, and lived on the farm of his fatlier, a well-to-do peasant, who had given him the education of a great ^NEAS IN SICILY. 173 lord. He had returned thither after the conckision oi: his studies, and probably did not think of leaving it again. While he was leading an indolent, dreamy existence in that beautiful country " where the Mincius rolls its lazy course," poetry fermented in him, and sought an outlet. His imagination, still imperfectly regulated, drew him in every direction. He seemed not to know himself, and could not settle. Sometimes he composed little occasional pieces on the trivial events spoken of round about him ; at others he raised his voice, and, passing from one extreme to the other, sketched the beginning of an epic. The verses he wrote thus at haphazard were read to his friends, and made him a certain repu- tation in the neighbourhood. PoUion then governed Cisalpine Gaul. He was a clever man, who devoted liis leisure to history and poetry, and always delighted to patronise literature. He doubtless divined the young man's talent, and regretting the indecision in which so fine a genius was tarrying, he resolved to put him in a regular way, and pointed out a model for him to follow. That model was Theocritus, whom the Eomans seem liitherto to have neglected. The study of Theocritus charmed Virgil so much that for at least three years he did nothing but imitate him. Although no ancient critic has told us by what qualities this author must have chiefly pleased him, it does not seem to me diffi- cult to guess. I imagine that in this confusion of his first years, when the component elements of his genius were not yet united and welded together, he must have felt two different tendencies drawing him in contrary directions. He had, in fact, received two different 174 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. educations, whose impress lie kept to the end. Nature had tirst been the master whose lessons had charmed him, and whom he ever passionately loved. His child- hood was passed in the fields, and for him who under- stands them, the fields are a school of nature and simplicity. They give a taste for the true, the artless, the sincere, and a hatred for the affected and the mannered. Such must have been the lesson learnt from this first contemplation of Nature, and which remained at the very root of his talent. But he also began early the study of books. At Cremona, at Milan, at Eome, he frequented the scholiasts, the rhetoricians, and the philosophers, and he also became acquainted with Greek literature, reading Homer, Socrates, and Plato. It was another intoxication, and his soul, which felt nothing by halves, gave itself up entirely to this admirable poetry. The masters charged with the ex- planations of its beauties were generally ingenious, refined minds, who above all sought to imbue their pupils with a feeling for its delicacy and grace — that is to say, for its literary merits. Virgil, like a docile pupil, prized these charming qualities highly, yet without losing sight of the others ; and it was doubt- less from the two educations which he had successively received that he imbibed both the sentiment of the simple grandeur which rural life teaches us to love, and the more artificial beauties learnt in the schools ; that, in short, he became an artist and remained a country- man. If, as I think, he was in this frame of mind when he read Theocritus, I am not surprised that he should have been so impressed by him ; for it is just this quality of .^NEAS IN SICILY. 175 uniting Art and Nature which the Sicilian poet possesses in a wonderful degree.^ At heart he is an exquisite, a friend of the poets of Alexandria ; mused, like them, " in the aviary of the Muses ; " but this does not prevent him from choosing as the usual heroes of his verses goat-herds and drovers. To descend to them while remaining himself does not cost him an effort. He makes them sing under the great trees, " while harmonious bees hum around the hives, the birds warble under the leaves, and the heifers dance on the thick turf," ^ and their songs have at one and the same time a rustic accent and all the refine- ments of laborious art. They sometimes coarsely attack each other ; like villagers, they revile their masters, they insult their rivals ; and all this abuse is composed of the most exquisite sounds, which sing to the ear like music. It is a succession of complicated rhythms, that, calling and answering each other, contrast and combine according to learned laws, of which a herdsman certainly never had an idea. The shepherds of Theocritus are gener- ally simple, superstitious, credulous folk, who spit three times in their bosoms to escape witchcraft,^ and who think their mistress is about to return when they feel a twitching in their right eye."^ But they are also artists who understand and who enumerate all the beauties of a vase whose sides are covered with delicate carving, and skilful singers, who draw harmonious sounds from the syrinx, and who find " that summer and springtime ^ On Theocritus, see M. Girard's two studies in the Revue des Deux Moiules of March 15th and May 1st, 1882. M. Couat also treats of the Sicilian poet in his Poesie Alexandrine. 2 VI. 45. 3 Yi. 39 4 ni. 31. 176 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. are not so sweet as the Muse." ^ All are amorous, yet their manner of loving is not the same. While some impress their passion in a few words of deep and simple truth, others describe it with ingenious refinement, like clever people on their guard, as one had to be in the court of Ptolemy or Hieron. When deserted by their mistresses, some moan and complain gently, as becomes well-bred people, while others are less enduring and less proper. There are even some who unceremoniously give the faithless one a blow on the nape of the neck, soon followed by a second.^ There is the same variety in their pleasures. One thinks it the greatest bliss of all to watch in winter the beech log burning on the hearth, and " the smoking tripe cooking on the fire." Others are not so easily satisfied ; they are only pleased when couched on thick beds of odorous mastic or new-cut vine, while the poplars and young elm-trees wave above their heads, and a sacred stream flowing from a nymph- haunted grot harmoniously murmurs at their feet. To bring together and unite these contrary elements re- quired all the suppleness of the Greek genius ; but no poet ever so perfectly blended them as Theocritus. With him all contrasts are merged in the charm of light and shade enveloping the whole. Trom his entire work, composed of such different parts, results a singular impression, which gives to the refined the illusion of Nature, and enables the simple to define the seduction of Art. Virgil, as we have just seen, was both. He loved Art and Nature equally, and found in Theocritus the wherewithal to gratify both his passions 1 IX. 28. ' XIV. 34. ^ ^NEAS IN SICILY. 177 at once. This is why he was so happy to read and so eager to imitate him. Among the works attributed to him is a piece one would fain think his, since it is very charming, and seems to have been composed in his youth. It is a picture of country life, very different in character from those he drew in the Bucolics. Here his only aim is to paint exactly a vulgar truth. It is what in our days we should call a realistic piece. Although very ancient, it seems composed according to all the rules of the new school. The author has not been prodigal of invention or style ; he merely contents himself with reproducing what he has before his eyes, without pretending to change anything. He describes the morning of a peasant, from the moment he rises to the hour he goes to work. Let us first remark that the man is not called Tityrus or Menalcus, as in an idyll, but " the flat-nosed " (Simulus), which is quite a Eoman name.^ We see him slowly rise from his couch. The night is black, and, half asleep, he gropes with his hands before him towards the hearth. When he gets to it he says, " Here I am." Then he lights his lamp with all kinds of precautions, " stretching his hand towards the east wind to prevent the light going out." He soon wakes an only servant, an old negress, of whom he draws us a striking portrait. " She has frizzled hair, a thick lip, a large bosom, hang- ing breasts, a flat stomach, thin legs, and a foot which spreads at ease : " — " Pectore lata, jacens vutvimis, conipressior alvo, Crunbus exilis, S2Mtiosa jjrodirja planta." ^ When speaking of a flat-noseJ girl, Lucretius calls her " Simula." M 178 THE COUNTRY OF HOllACE AND VIKGIL. Helped by his servant, Simulus bakes his bread, and prepares the dish which he is to carry away for his dinner. It is a national dish called morchim, from which our poem takes its name. The author is careful to give us the recipe, which does not much tempt us to imitate it. It consists of garlic, onion, celery, rue, and cheese. All these ingredients are put into a mortar, and while Simulus pounds them, an acid odour seizes his nostrils, his brows wrinkle, and anon with his hands he wipes his weeping eyes. When the pestle no longer jumps, he passes his two fingers round the mortar, in order to bring to the centre what covers the sides. The opera- tion finished, he puts on his strong boots, claps his galerus upon his head, goes out to his work — and here our little poem ends. The work is piquant and curious in its rusticity ; nor would it surprise me if, with our present bent and the taste prevalent among the public, it were at the present time preferred to the Bucolics. It will certainly be asked why Virgil, supposing him to be its author, did not continue to describe country life in this manner ? Why did he change his method, and having begun to walk in a new path, abruptly leave it to follow in the steps of Theocritus ? We must believe him less satisfied than ourselves with his work, and that these servilely exact pictures did not appear to him the perfection of art. Perhaps he thought that our every- day existence being usually so mediocre and flat, it is really not worth while to live it twice — in reality and in dreamland ! Being sad by nature and inclined to look at things from their worst side, to escape for a moment from real life seemed to him sweet : and he must have ^NEAS IN SICILY. 179 clung more than any one to that imaginary existence in which we can at least correct the miseries of the other, and find help to bear them. The perusal of Theocritus revealed to him a kind of literature in which reality is spiced with a flavouring of the ideal. This was what suited his tastes, and thenceforth he knew no other. Here, then, he is plunged into imitation of the Greek poet. At the same time his Muse must become in some sort expatriated and wander from the spots it first frequented. Tityrus and Menalcus cannot, like Simulus, be dwellers on the banks of the Po ; for never did such shepherds lead their flocks in the plains of Cisalpina. In order to admit their being, it is needful to imagine them to have come from far. Theocritus places them in Sicily, an admirable country in which to house fancies partaking at once of reality and the ideal. Virgil had nought better to do than to leave them there. Sicily therefore became for him the land above all others of the eclogue, and at times even Arcadia scarcely disputes with it this privilege. When he wants to draw shep- herds playing on the syrinx and making rustic songs, he dreams of Sicily. The land enthralls his fancy ; it is everywhere recurring in his verses, and when about to sing new songs, the Muse he invokes is a Sicilian one : " Sicelides Musce, faulo majora canavius" ' Eural poetry calls up in him the memory of Syracuse, and he begins his last eclogue by saluting the ^ ^n., IV. 1. 180 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. charming fountain of Ortygia, of which poets relate so many legends : ^^Extremum hunc, Arethnsa, mihi concede lahorem." '■ When Corydon wishes to dazzle his friend by a picture of his wealth, he renders him an account of his sheep which feed on the pastures of Sicily : " Mille mete siculis erant in montibus agwje." '^ Although suspected of being a Cisalpian, and of scarcely ever having quitted Mantua, he tells us, like Polyphemus, that he has seen his form in the placid sea, and did not find himself ugly : " Nee sum adeo informis ; nuper me in littore vidi. Qnum jjlacidum ventis staret mare." ^ That sea, let us doubt not, is the one in which the heights of Taorminus or the slopes of ^tna are seen to sparkle in the sun — the sea spoken of in those divine verses of the shepherd of Theocritus : " I crave not to possess the fields of Pelops, or pile up heaps of gold ; nor would I fly more swiftly than the winds ; but may 'neath this rock but hold thee in mine arms, and, look- ing on my feeding sheep, launch forth my songs towards Sicilia's sea." * 1 ^n., X. 1. ^ Ibid., II, 21. 3 Jbid., II. 35, 4 IbuL, VIII. 53. .TINEAS IN SICILY. 181 11. SICILY IN Virgil's time — character of the greeks of SICILY — WHY THEY WERE ATTACHED TO ROMAN RULE — SICILY RUINED AND PILLAGED BY ROMAN GOVERNORS — WHAT TRAVELLERS WENT TO SEEK IN SICILY — MARVELS OF NATURE — MARVELS OF ART — THE MONUMENTS OF THAT TIME — PUBLIC TEMPLES PRIVATE GALLERIES — SHRINE OF HEIUS — TASTE OF THE ROMANS OF THAT TIME FOR WORKS OF ART — THE PORTRAIT OF VERRES DRAWN BY CICERO — ATTRACTIONS OF SICILY FOR VIRGIL. It was thus Virgil became acquainted with Sicily, and as he at first only knew it from the idylls of Theocritus, it was difficult for him not to become enraptured with it. We must believe that when later on he visited it himself, his pleasure was as intense, and that the reality confirmed all his dream illusions. Sicily is one of these beautiful countries where deceptions are not to be feared, and which fulfil everything that is expected of them. We have the somewhat rare good fortune to know approximately in what condition Virgil must have found it. As a rule, the condition of Eoman provinces is but little known. Nobody tells us of them, all eyes being turned towards the capital, from which they are not wont to be diverted towards the surrounding country. But in consequence of a certain event some years previous to the Augustan epoch, general attention was for a moment fixed on Sicily. A great lord who ruled 182 THE COUNTRY OF HOE ACE AND VIRGIL. it in the name of the lioman people, having as usual treated it very harshly, the Sicilians attacked him before the tribunals of Eome. They were supported by the democratic party, who wished, in the person of the extortionate prietor, to discredit all his caste, and Cicero was charged to prosecute him. Causes of this kind were very common at the time, and once decided, they were soon forgotten. Thanks to the orator's talent, that of Verres became immortal. The orations of Cicero have fortunately been preserved, and they abound in curious details on the condition of Sicily. Let us draw from this inexhaustible source, and ascer- tain what it was at that moment, and the effect it must have produced on Romans who went to visit it. "We are told, to start with, that although the popu- lation of Sicily was very mixed, one of the elements composing it had nearly absorbed all the others, and that a single tongue — the Greek — ruled in the entire island. The Romans were surprised to see that the Greeks of this country did not quite resemble those they met elsewhere. They had, like their countrymen, much delicacy and charm of mind as well as their taste for argument, and, above all, their liking for raillery. " In their greatest trials," says Cicero, " they always find some occasion to jest." ^ But they were also sober and laborious, two qualities not met with in a like degree among the inhabitants of Greece proper or the Greeks of Asia.^ Cicero adds that the Roman domina- tion had been well received by them. They willingly associated with the merchants of Rome who brought 1 II., Ferr., IV. 43. - Ibid., II. 3. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 183 them their capital and their industry, and they worked their lands conjointly with them, as they afterwards did their vines and their sulphur with Germans and Englishmen. This does not mean that they had a particular liking for the Eomans, but that they felt it impossible to do without them. They reckoned on their help to escape a danger from which they could not defend themselves alone. The cultivation of cereals was the great industry of Sicily, and the peasantry having become scarce there as elsewhere, it was necessary to replace them by slaves. We know that rich persons possessed several thousand. These slaves were not settled in the villages or scattered over the farms, as field labourers are with us, since Sicily could not then possess more villages and isolated farms than she does in our days. They were assembled in great troops, like those labourers we see perform the sowing or the harvest in the plains of Southern Italy. Ill-fed, ill-clad, hardly treated, they were led to work by villid, who must have borne a strong likeness to the caporali of to-day. They worked with shackled feet, and during the daytime the superintendence of the villiais prevented them from communicating with each other. But at night, in their temporary camps, it was easy for them to concert together. It is thus that, within a few years, two revolts broke out which terrified the world. A Syrian and a Cilician, at the head of more than sixty thousand herdsmen and labourers, were seen holding Eoman generals in check, devastating the provinces, and spilling the blood of freemen in torrents. From that moment the Sicilians lived in a sort of perpetual terror. Laws were made forbidding slaves l84 THE COUNTRY OF IIORACn AND VinCIL. ever to carry arms about them, on pain of death, and these laws were observed with the utmost rigour. ** One day," says Cicero, " an enormous boar was brought to Domitius the pnetor. Surprised at the animal's size, he wanted to know who had killed it. They told him the shepherd of a Sicilian, and he ordered him to be sent for. The shepherd came in. haste, expecting praise and rewards. Domitius asked how he had slain this formidable beast. 'With a boar- spear,' he replied. And instantly the prretor had him put on the cross." ^ To this ever-menacing scourge, another had of late years been added. Fleets of pirates from Cilicia covered the Mediterranean. Their light vessels passed through the squadrons sent to watch them, and laughed at the heavy Koman galleys. One day they were seen to enter in bravado the port of Syracuse itself, and after going the round of the quays, quietly leave it, without anybody daring to follow them.2 Against all these dangers the Sicilians needed the support of Eome, and thus, since the Punic Wars, they had always shown themselves submissive subjects. They were continually paying court to their conquerors, and Cicero remarks, with some surprise, that many among them took lioman names, which appeared to show a desire to renounce their ancient nationality and accept that of their new masters.^ The two races were 1 II., Verr., V. 3. "' Ibid., V. 37. 3 Ibid., Y. 43. It was Antony who, after the death of Caesar, gave the right of Roman citizenship to all Sicily. He pretended to have found the decree, which he published in the Dictator's papers ; but Cicero thinks the Sicilians had paid him to fabricate it. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 185 therefore beginning to mix together, unci that assimila- tion of Sicily with Italy which in our time has become so complete was already in preparation. Not that Eome always afforded the Sicilians very efficacious protection. She sometimes chose to govern it people who performed their functions very badly, and who pillaged those they should have defended. Verres, by keeping for himself the money destined for the support of the fleet, and by placing it under the command of his mistress's husband, whose incapacity as an admiral equalled his marital complacency, had delivered it to the pirates. He himself, during the two years of his prretorship, had only been solicitous to fill his coffers and his galleries. He had put up all the municipal offices of the province for sale, had made the peasantry pay twice as much as they ought, and, uiider pretence of imaginary crimes, had confiscated the fortunes of the richest and most distinguished persons. " Sicily," said Cicero, " is to-day so enfeebled and forlorn, that she will never more regain her ancient prosperity. " ^ This was a prediction, and it was accomplished to the letter. The Empire doubtless gave to Sicily, as to the rest of the world, peace without and security within. For nearly three centuries the pirates were no longer heard of. There were a few more revolts of slaves — for example, that of Selurus, who was called " the son of ^tna," because he for a long time overran and devastated the environs of that mountain. Strabo saw him devoured alive by the beasts in the great circus of Eome, after a combat of 1 Ferr., I. 186 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. gladiators. " They put him," he says, " on a very high scaffolding representing JFAna,. Suddenly the scaffold- ing came to pieces and fell in, and he was hurled into the midst of cages filled with wild beasts that had been placed beneath."^ As we see, these attempts were vigorously repressed, and they never assumed the terrible character of those of Eunus and Athenion. Yet, in spite of the calm enjoyed by the province under the Empire, it never recovered.- Is it not strange that the peace, which it had so longed for and so little known, could not give it back for a moment that prosperity, that brilliancy, that intensity of life, that glory of letters and of arts, which had favoured it so wonderfully while struggling amidst fearful disorders? There happily remained to it what it held from nature, and nothing could take away : the riches of an inexhaustible soil, in a small space an astonishing variety of sites, picturesque mountains, wastes well outlined, and a climate of admirable serenity which struck even Italians with surprise. " It is affirmed," said Cicero, " that at Syracuse there is no day so dull but the sun shines some few moments."^ Add to this all those volcanic phenomena so complacently mentioned by Strabo, and which excited wonder in proportion to the impossibility of explaining them : those burning fountains gushing from the earth ; those 1 Strabo, VI. 2-5. - The Emperors seem to liave become discouraged from busying themselves about Sicily. It is one of the few provinces where no milestones, so frequent elsewhere, have been found, which seems to show that there were no great highways, or that they were not kept in repair by the public authorities. See Mommsen's reflections on the subject {Corp. insc. IcU., X, p. 714). 3 II., Far., V. 10. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 187 mountains flinging torrents of fire or mud ; those flames running capriciously over the waters ; those islands rising suddenly from the sea and sinking into it again ; in short, all those extraordinary sights which, their reasons being unknown, were accounted for by legends, and gave Sicily the reputation of being a land of wonders. But it was not this which chiefly attracted travellers. The author of a poem on ^tna complains that people trouble themselves but little to admire the great sights of Nature, whilst they traverse countries, cross seas, and give themselves a thousand pains for the sake of contemplating celebrated pictures or old monuments.^ So the curious went to Agrigentum or Syracuse, as they went to Athens or Corinth, to visit the masterpieces of Greek art. It is certain that their expectation was not deceived, and that they did not regret their journey. Let us remember that all those buildings whose ruins astonish us, although we have only their skeletons left, were then intact and complete. The temples still had their pediments and sculptured friezes ; the wind and the rain had not worn the fluting of the columns. These were covered with a coating of stucco strong enough to protect them, yet sufficiently thin not to appear heavy, like those transparent draperies which so perfectly show the forms of ancient statues. The Metopes produced their full effect, placed above columns in the very spot for which they had been made, instead of being ranged along the walls of a museum, as we see them to-day. It must be added ' u^tna, .563, et seq. 188 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL, that all this Doric architecture, which seems to us so majestic and so grave, was then set off and brightened, as it were, by colours long since effaced by time. It is now known that the Greeks used to apply to marble and stucco paintings which at first served to correct the crudeness of the natural tones, and later, as the monuments grew old, prevented them from assuming those varieties of tint so destructive to the unity of the whole. Let us make an effort of the imagination, and strive to picture to ourselves the aspect those fine edifices must have presented. The great exterior parts are usually painted light yellow, a colour less dazzling in the sun and less crude than white, which comes out better against the clouds, and contrasts more pleasantly with the verdure. On this uniform ground the decora- tive details are picked out in livelier tints. The triglyphs are painted blue, the background of the Metopes and the pediments red, while the columns spring lightly from a darker basement. Sometimes delicately traced lines indicate the jointing of the stones. Pliny, speaking of a temple of Cyzicus, says that " the gold seemed only a pencil-mark as fine as a hair," and that " nevertheless it produced marvellous reflections." Towards the top, along the friezes and above them, the ornaments are more numerous, and the colours more varied and lively, as if to form a sort of crown to the edifice.^ So much for the outside. We ^ I licre use M. Hittorflf's ideas, and often his very expressions. As is well known, it was he who, not witliout raising violent disputes, first maintained that Greek monuments were covered with colours, and it was his studies on the temples of Segestes and Selinonte which revealed this truth to him. His great work. The Ancient Archi- iENEAS IN SICILY. 189 see how greatly it differed then from what it is to-day. As for the interior, we have nothing left of it. The walls of the cella — that is to say, of the very dwelling of the god — have disappeared almost everywhere, and this is a great pity, for they were often covered with fine paintings. At Syracuse, in the temple of Minerva, there were a series of pictures representing the incidents of a cavalry battle fought by Agathocles. " There is not," says Cicero, " a picture more famous, or which attracts a larger number of strangers." ^ In the same temple they also went to see sculptured doors, as we visit those of Ghiberti, at Florence. They were con- sidered an admirable work, and critics of Greek art had composed many treatises to set forth their beauties. What appeared more curious yet was to see ranged along the walls the gifts that had been offered to the gods. Pliny the Younger relates that, having received an inheritance, he had ventured to purchase a statuette of Corinthian bronze, representing an old man, standing, which seemed to him a fine work. " I do not mean to keep it for myself," he tells us. " I wish to offer it to Como, my birthplace, and place it there in some fre- quented place, preferably in the Temple of Jupiter. It is a gift which seems to me worthy of a temple, worthy of a god." In truth, fine statues are not out of place tedure of Sicily, which he left incomplete, was finished by his son, M. Chas. Hittorff, and published in 1870. M. Chas. Hittorff sought to efface himself before his father, of whom he was a most devoted fellow- worker, and would not put his name to the first page ; but this filial piety must not deprive him of the share of credit justly due'to him for his part in a common work, 1 II., Ferr., IV. 55. 190 THE COUNTEY OF IIOKACE AND VIRGIL. there, even when they do not represent the divinity one comes to pray to ; but there was much besides. Only to speak of the temples of Sicily, Cicero reports that tables of marble were seen there, bronze vases, ingots of gold, with ivory tusks of extraordinary size ; and hang- ing from the walls were helmets and cuirasses tastefully wrought, as well as wooden pikes, which had doubtless served the ancient kings of the country as sceptres.^ The temples, then, were not merely museums, as has been often said, but genuine storehouses of curiosi- ties. It must have sometimes been difficult for the inex- perienced traveller to find his way in the midst of all these heaped-up riches. Happily he could apply to zealous and obliging persons, w^hose race is not extinct in Italy, and who made it their profession to guide strangers and make them admire the ancient monu- ments. They were called " mystagogues " or periegetes. There were many of them in Sicily, as well as in all Greek countries visited by the curious, and Cicero describes them as very much perplexed after Verres h^d cleared out all the temples. He says : " Being no longer able to show the precious objects, they were reduced to pointing out the places they used to occupy," - which is not quite the same thing. Independent of the public monuments, gymnasiums, theatres, or temples, which contained so many remark- able works, there were in Sicily many galleries belong- ing to private persons, which strangers were per- mitted to visit, as is still the case in Rome and ' II., Kerr., IV. 56. -Ibid., IV. 59. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 191 other important towns in Italy, Cicero speaks of many of these rich collections, which, to their misfortune, excited the covetousness of the Verres. But there are two which he especially praises : that of Stenius, at Thermcc Himcrenses (now Termini), and that of Heius, at Messina, It had occurred to Heius to bring together the masterpieces of his gallery in a room expressly arranged for the purpose, a thing that was done long after- wards in the Tribuna of Florence, and is being imitated in nearly all the museums of Europe, He possessed a little chapel, very quiet, very retired, with altars before which to pray to the gods, and had adorned it only with four statues, four marvels : the Cupid of Praxiteles, the bronze Hercules of Myron, and two canephora3 of Polycletes. The Cupid had made the journey to Eome. The eedile, C. Claudius, had borrowed it of his friend Heius to embellish a festival which he gave to the Eoman people. This was told without fail to visitors, just as, in our days, the value of a picture is thought to be increased by relating that it was among those taken away by the French, and placed in the Louvre. The chapel of Heius was open every day, and strangers who visited Messina did not fail to go and see it. " This house," says Cicero, " did no less honour to the town than to its master." So people went to visit Sicily then for the same reasons that they go now. Above all, she attracted artists, connoisseurs, or those who deemed themselves such, and admirers of Greek art, who knew her to be at the least as rich in ancient monumants as Greece or Asia. The journey was doubtless not so convenient and rapid as to-day, although perhaps easier to perform than it 192 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. was a few years since. Cicero states that when he had to draw up the indictment against A^erres, he went over the whole island in fifty days, " so as to collect all the com- plaintsof the towns and private persons," ^ which supposes somewhat easy meanS of getting from place to place. And indeed many Konians visited Sicily. In the VerrincSy every time the orator speaks of some important city, or of some famous monument, he seems to suppose that there are persons among his audience who know them. This is precisely what excites in us a certain surprise. We are astonished that there should be so many people at Eouie who took the trouble to go so far to see fine build- ings and rich museums. The Eomans had long ostenta- tiously pretended to have a sovereign contempt for the arts, and officiating magistrates and orators who desired to appear serious affected never to have heard of the great artists of Greece. But this was a comedy. In reality the very men who took pleasure in mangling the names of Praxiteles or Polycletes in the tribune were beginning to pay very high prices for their works, and at Uomo a middle-sized bronze had just been sold for 120,000 sesterces (or alu)ut £960), the price of a farm.^ Yerres happened to be one of those liomans whom Greek art had captivated ; but as he put himself above prejudices, and prided himself on not practising the ancient virtues, he had the courage to own his tastes, and was not squeamish as to gratifying them. His being sent to Sicily was a great misfortune for him. The sight of the masterpieces of which that country ^ l^'err., jrrima act,, 2. - II., Verr. IV. 7. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 193 was full inflamed his passion and goaded it to every excess. I imagine that, before our tribunals, the kind of fury that had seized him for objects of art would have earned him some indulgence, — at Eome, on the con- trary, it contributed greatly to his ruin. Had he con- tented himself with taking the money of the provincials, he would have created less scandal, since it was then a very common crime, and people were used to it ; but to see a Eoman compromise himself so for the sake of stealing statues and pictures was not at all a usual thing, and indignation was increased by surprise. So extraordinary a crime seemed unworthy of pardon. The portrait drawn by Cicero of Verres must be a faith- ful one, and I have remarked that certain details of the figure have not ceased to be true. It is an original of which we have copies. It is not enough to say that he had a taste for works of art — he had a mania for them. Cicero reports that a few days before his suit was tried, he assisted at a feast given by Sisenna, a rich Eoman, and in order to do honour to the guests, all the curio- sities possessed by the master were brought out. Verres had a great object in appearing indifferent to this sight, since it was important for him to hide his folly in order not to prove his accusers in the right. But it was impossible for him not to approach these paraded riches, to see them nearer, to touch them, to handle them — to the great fright of the slaves, who knew his reputation, and did not lose sight of him.^ When an object pleased him, he could no longer do without it — desire of possession became mania. He asked to take it 1 II., Verr., IV. 15. 194 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND YIRGlL. away for a few days and did not return it. Often he proposed to buy it, and at first the owner refused. " The G-reeks," says Cicero, " never willingly sell the precious objects they possess."^ But Verres was absolute master of the province, and had a thousand means of ruining those who did not show themselves willing to oblige him. After begging, he threatened, and the poor wretches ended by resigning themselves, groaning all the while. This is how he came to give only 6500 sesterces (about £52) for four fine statues, and to pay 1600 sesterces (about £12, 16s.) for the Cupid of Praxiteles.^ It was a manifest theft; but Verres only called it a bargain. This is a good word to disguise a doubtful business, and collectors like to use it. Nothing pleases them so much as not to pay its proper price for a thing. They thus at one and the same time gratify their love of economy and their vanity. When it was a question of despoiling the public monuments, Verres met with still less resistance. They were more directly under his hand, besides which each of us is usually less eager to defend wliat belongs to all. Once, however, he was obliged to give way. His agents arrived by night in Agrigentum to take away a statue of Hercules, honoured by the inhabitants with a particular worship. " The chin and lips," says Cicero, " were quite worn away with its adorers' kisses."^ Unfortunately for Verres, the slaves who guarded the temple gave the alarm, and the Agrigentines assembled from all quarters of the town, and put the robbers to flight with stones. 1 II., Ferr., IV. 59. ^ ji^^^^^ g, s j^^^^^ 43_ ^NEAS IN SICILY. 195 But he was not accustomed to find himself face to face with such determined adversaries, so he had no need to restrain his passion, which had indeed nothing to hamper it. He not only sought after statues of bronze or marble, Corinthian vases, famous pictures — all those objects, in short, which the curious contended for at immense prices — his mania included everything. He also collected jewels, carpets, furniture, and plate. All the rich families of Sicily possessed 'paUra, incense pans, and precious vases used in the worship of their domestic divinities. When Verres had the discretion not to take them, he at least removed the metal ornaments in which they were enclosed, and which were generally remarkable works of art. Then he fixed these ornaments on gold cups, and thus manufactured sham antiques. At Syracuse there were studios where skilful artificers worked for him, and there he passed entire days, dressed in a l)rown tunic and a Greek mantle.^ This is again a very common fancy among collectors. They imagine that by these repairs and restorations — by allowing themselves to finish and modify the works of the masters, they become their collaborators, and their love increases for works into which they have put something of themselves. Cicero adds, as a last touch to the picture, that Verres was at bottom very ignorant, and little capable of appreciating all these works of art which he amassed. He had at his orders very experienced Greek artists, whose duty it was to inform him. " He sees with their eyes," says Cicero, " and takes by their hands." ^ » II., Verr., IV. 23. - Rid., IV. 15. 196 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. Amateurs are not always connoisseurs, which, how- ever, does not prevent them from passionately loving objects whose full value they do not understand ; for it is well known that the least enlightened passions are sometimes the strongest. That of Verres was increased by the spice of violence and coarseness usually existent in the Eoman soul. They were still soldiers and peasants, Greece had not succeeded in destroying the foundation of barbarism and brutality derived from nature, and they still occasionally united outbursts of savagery with the delicate tastes of civilized beings. Let us suppose an amateur of this character to possess unlimited authority, that he is in a conquered country with submissive subjects at his feet, and assidu- ous flatterers around him ; he will soon lose his head and think everything allowed him. It was this intoxication of absolute power in an odious nature, joined to an unwholesome admixture of the Roman and the Greek, which, under the Empire, produced Nero. Verres was a sketch for Nero under the Eepublic. Happily for Sicily, the Eomans who came to settle there were not all like Verres. To return at last to Virgil, whom we have left too long, there is no doubt that he also was sensible of the beauties of Greek art. Let us be assured that he did not pass through such towns as Selinus, Agrigentum, or Syracuse without lively emotion. He certainly visited their theatres and their temples, and admired the statues and pictures remaining in them after the thefts of the terrible prsetor : but he, at least, was content to admire. We may believe that the memory of the monuments he has seen in Sicily recurred to his thoughts when he 1 ^NEAS IN SICILY. 197 had to describe similar edifices. Has he not Agrigentum or Segesta in mind when he talks to us of those temples " that rise upon an ancient rock, with pinnacles upborne by a hundred columns " ? ^ Does not his mind go back to the rich colouring to which I alluded just now when he describes those magnificent roofs sparkling with gold {cmrca teda) ? ^ Yet I am tempted to think that having come to Sicily chiefly to seek repose, he was still more touched by the charms of the climate and the beauties of nature. I imagine that he must have chosen somewhere in a pleasant place, on these mountains sloping to the sea, a solitary dwelling where he could work without distraction at his great epic. Sicily had for him the merit of recalling Greece. While still young, he had expressed in celebrated verses the happiness he should feel in traversing the beautiful valleys of Thessaly or of Thrace, and in seeing the young Spartan maidens bound on the heights of Taygeta : "0 uhi eampi Sperchiusque, et inrginibus haccata Laccenis Taygeta!" 3 It is most astonishing that he should not have undertaken this longed-for journey till the last year of his life. Probably Sicily inspired him with patience — Sicily was Greece too, but a Greece nearer to him, more within his reach, and, above all, almost Italian. This was for Virgil a great reason for loving it. Indeed he makes great efibrts to join it to Italy entirely. He ^ ^n., III. 84 : " Saxostruda vetusto " ; VII. 170 : " Contum sublime columnis." ^Ibid., VI. 13. ^Georg.y II. 487. Ids tHE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. affirms that it originally formed part of Italy, and that in reality it belongs to the country, although Greek in appearance and in language. " These parts," he tells us, " were formerly shaken and overwhelmed by deep convulsions. The two lands formed but one, when the furious sea forced itself a passage between them and divided them with its waves. It was thus they became violently separated one from the other, and that a narrow channel ran between these towns and fields, formerly united." ^ Hence Virgil found himself authorised to confound them in his affection, and treat Sicily like the rest of Italy. The origin of the two countries being the same, he could well give it a place in the national poem, which was to contain all the traditions and all the glories of the Italian fatherland. This place, as we are about to see from his poem, was very large, and only Latium has a greater one. Sicily fills one entire Book of the yEneid, and nearly half of a second. III. THE THIRD BOOK OF THE JENEW — ^NEAS IN EPIRUS — HE TOUCHES AT ITALY — TARENTUM — HE PASSES INTO SICILY — ^TNA — THE ISLE OF ORTIGIA — THE FOUNTAIN OF ARETHUSA — AGRIGENTUM — WHAT VIRGIL's FEEL- INGS MUST HAVE BEEN WHEN HE WENT OVER THE RUINS OF GREEK CITIES IN SICILY — DREPANUM — DEATH OF ANCHISES. The Third Book of the j^neid shows us ^neas seek- ing a new abode. The poet tells us that after escaping » .En., III. 414. i*:NEAS IN SICILY. 199 from Troy, he took refuge in the high valleys of Ida, where he passed a season in resting from his fatigues and preparing for his voyage. He then starts, without well knowing whither he is going. He has resolved to be guided by the oracles, but oracles, as we know, are not always very clear, and it is not easy to understand them. They advise ^neas to withdraw to Hesperia, that is to say, the regions of the west. This is a very vague expression, which shows him approximatively the direction he is to follow, but does not tell him the precise spot he must stop at. Even when the prophetess Cassandra talks to him about Latium and the Tiber, their names, quite unknown to an inhabitant of Asia Minor, do not teach him much. As for the other direction, that he must return to the land whence came his forefathers, it would have been necessary, in order that it should suffice him, for him to thoroughly know the history of his most remote ancestors, and we see that the memory of them was lost. It is not surprising that having so imperfect a knowledge of the country whither the gods ordered him to go, he should have so often lost his way. Thus it happens that, after many mistakes, a wind sent by Providence blows him into the Adriatic, opposite Italy, and then impels him into the Gulf of Leucate; that is to say, to the very spot where the battle of Actium was fought. One might be tempted to think that Virgil had invented this incident, which allowed him to connect the fortunes of -^neas with those of Augustus. But this is not so, for the legend was much older than those of Augustus or Virgil, since Varro had related it. But of course the poet turns it to great account. He is happy to take 200 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. the Trojan hero to the shores where his great descendant is to gain the victory that will make him master of the world, to show him to us stopping there with satisfaction, foreseeing confusedly, and by a kind of divination, the great destinies for which these places are reserved, and already celebrating with his followers games that seem to foreshadow and prepare those which the great Emperor will establish after the defeat of Antony. From Actium ^neas repairs to Epirus, where he finds Andromache again, with Helenus, her new husband. Helenus is a very skilful seer, and as JEneas never misses an occasion to inquire the will of the gods, he takes great care to consult him. It is from him he learns with some clearness the road he must follow. The Fates order him to bear his gods into Italy, but the part of Italy in which he must settle is not that seen opposite Epirus. He must skirt the coasts of Calabria, " his oars nmst beat the waves of the Sicilian sea," he must visit Campania, and he must see closely the rock of Circe, before he can reach that peaceful shore where he is to fix his dwelling. This time --rEueas is very clearly directed, and " when he spreads the wings of his sails to the breath of the winds," he knows where he is going and the road that will take him to the goal of his enterprise. It is on this journey that we are about to follow him. But, it may be asked, are these poetic fictions to be taken seriously ? Must we accompany the hero of a legend step by step, try to find places to which he never went, and take the trouble to draw up a regular plan of his wanderings, as if real travels were in ques- tion ? Why not ? Ancient poets love to put reason ^NEAS IN SICILY. 201 into fancy, and give to fable the colouring of truth. When we read them, good sense has only a single concession to make. It must accept the fictitious per- sonage presented to it, and the marvellous premises of the tale it is about to hear ; that done, we enter the domain of reality, and do not leave it again. This imaginary hero will now, on the whole, only do reason- able things, and his existence will usually unfold itself under the ordinary conditions of human life. This manner of introducing truth into the legend, and satisfy- ing imagination and good sense at the same time, is one of the greatest charms of ancient poetry. Let us then follow ^neas without repugnance, and be convinced that Virgil is about to describe perfectly real landscapes to us, and that the greater part of the time he will only depict what he has himself seen. J^neas must first pass from the shores of Epirus to those of Italy. There is a narrow arm of the sea to cross, a few hours' passage, which would be mere child's play for a vessel of our days. But then pilots did not dare to leave the shore. We must see the precautions taken by the pilot of ^neas before risking himself amid the floods, and daring to lose sight of the land. " Night, led by the hours, had not yet reached the middle of the sky, when watchful Palinurus rises, inquires of all the winds, and lends his ear to the least breath. He observes the stars which glide through silent space : Arcturus, Hyades, the two Bears, Orion, with his sword of gold. Then, when he sees that all is calm in the tranquil sky, from the height of the poop he gives the signal of departure." ^ The voyage is accomplished ' ^En., III. 512. 202 THK COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. without accident. At the first rays of morn, the Trojans see before them a promontory crowned by a temple, and at the foot of the hill a natural port open towards the east, where they shelter their ships.^ Here it is that yEneas for the first time touches Italian soil. He piously salutes it, but, true to the orders received from Helenus, he only remains there a few hours, and then continues his way, skirting the coast. " Then," he adds in his rapid recital, " we arrive at the entrance of the Gulf of Tarentum. From the other side rises the temple of Juno Sacinia ; further on Gaulon and Squalan are seen, fruitful in wrecks."^ That is all, and three lines suffice him to depict all the coast of Apulia and Calabria — that is to say, one of the most beautiful landscapes of Italy. I think it must have cost him something to be so moderate. Had he not resolved to sacrifice everything to the unity of his work, he would have found it difficult not to dwell with pleasure upon this beautiful land, and his Muse would willingly have lingered there awhile ; but he belonged to a severe school, who made it a law to abridge needless descrip- tions. So he resigned himself to saying nothing of the famous cities that decked this coast ; nothing of Sybaris, whose luxury was so renowned in antiquity; nothing of Crotona, where lived Pythagorus ; nothing of ]\Ieta- poutum, where he died. He has only made an excep- tion for Tarentum, and even here he only mentions its name, which is strange, if one remembers the im- ^ The description is so exact that the place meant by Virgil was recognised without difliculty. It is the little village of Castro, a few leagues from Otranto, not far from the promontory of Japagia, now called Santa Maria di Leuca. - j-En., III. 550. JlNEAS IN SICILY. ^05 portance it then had, and the place it held in the life of some rich Eomans. Tarentum had become one of the summer haunts they preferred, although it had the inconvenience of being at a great distance from Eome. But when a generation of the bored is attacked by a mania for travelling, and feels a need to leave home and business during a part of the year, it does not usually long remain faithful to the spots wherein it goes to seek repose. Like all remedies, they soon cease to be efficacious, and no longer cure it of tedium. Others must then be sought, possessing the charm of novelty ; and it generally chooses them farther off, and less accessible than the others, in order that they may render the pleasure of changing place more keen. For a loner time the great lords of Eome were content to reside at Tusculum or Veii, when they desired to refresh themselves from the fatigues of political life. Then they went a little further — to Praneste, to Tibur, and afterwards, when all Italy was conquered, to Naples, to Baia, to Cuma3, to Pompeii, which was indeed a journey. At the point of time we have arrived at, Baia seemed to many of these disgusted ones a spot too hackneyed, and almost vulgar ; and in order to get further off, they fled as far as Tarentum. It must be owned that " soft Tarentum " deserved the pains people took to get to it. Horace was right when he said that nothing in the world seemed to him prefer- able to this corner of earth : — " Ille terrarum mihi j)rKter omnes Angulus ridet." ^ ^ Carm., II. 6, 19. 204 THE COtJNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGTL. It was a town of delights, made as if expressly to be the favourite sojourn of an Epicurean/ and which, rocked by the waves and perfumed by the odour of its gardens, had for the last century been finally and gently dying out in idleness and pleasure. It is placed between two seas. On the one side is the gulf bearing its name which ^]neas crossed when sailing towards Sicily ; on the ^ other, a vast interior lake, 50 kilo- metres round, only communicating with the gulf by a narrow cutting, and which the tongue of land the city is built on shelters from tempests. In bad weather nothing is more interesting than the contrast between the troubled and the tranquil waves. While in the direc- tion of the high sea one beholds storm-beaten ships, in the interior sea little tishing-boats go quietly about, casting or raising their nets.^ A little further on a vast plain lies spread out, devoid of great landscape fea- tures, but rich and smiling, such as the ancients loved. It rises little by little towards the mountains that shut it in to the north, and whence descend the little streams which throw themselves into the sea, after scattering a little freshness on their way. One of these is the Galesus, sung by Virgil in his Gcorgics — for Virgil, like Horace, was a frequenter of Tarentum. It is impossible to forget the picture he draws us of that good old man wlio, in happy spots " where black Galesus winds through meadows gold with grain," ^ 1 Cicero, Ad/am., VII. 12. - Even in antiquity the Marc piccolo had the character of an incom- parable fishing-ground. Horace tells us that gourmets held the shell- fish of Tarentum in high esteem : PecHnibtis paiulis jactat se inolle Tarentum. — Sat. II. 4, 34. ^ Gcorcj., IV. 126. iENEAS IN SICILY. 205 clears a few acres of abandoned land. After sowing there amid the brambles squares of vegetables, sur- rounded by a border of lilies, vervain, and poppies, and planted a few elms and plane trees to shelter his rustic table, he thinks himself equal to a king, because he culls first of all men the rose in spring, and fruits in autumn. It is in this charming passage of the Georgics that we must seek the impression made on Virgil by Tarentum. In the u^neid, as his hero does not stop there, he has not thought fit to stop there either, and contents him- self with mentioning the name. But he was quite sure that the name would suggest to his readers memories which I would fain recall by the way. In the meantime ^neas continues to skirt the coasts of Calabria. Having reached the extremity of the peninsula, and passed the last promontory, " Capo Spartivento," he suddenly perceives a magnificent spectacle. It is Sicily, whose coasts he beholds receding in the distance, and, above all, ^tna rising before him. ^tna holds a great place in the admira- tion and curiosity of the ancients. It is known, how- ever, that they were not very sensible to the beauties of wild sites. The glaciers dismayed them, and they seem never to have brought themselves to examine the Alps closely, so loath are they to speak of them. But .^tna, placed in the very heart of a country they loved to visit, forced itself on their atteuLion. It too often met their sight, and was the theatre of phenomena too terror-striking for them possibly to be silent about it. And this is why, in spite of their preference for calm and reposeful landscapes, they busied themselves a great deal about the terrible mountain. There were 206 THE COUNTIIY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. then, as in our clays, very many tourists who risked the ascent ; Strabo, who tells us so, invoked their testimony several times.^ They started from the little town of ^tna, as we do now from Nicolosi. They rose pain- fully through a desolate region, across cinders and snow, to the approaches of the summit. Along the way they sometimes witnessed singular spectacles. Priests bending over the mouths of the volcano made sacrifices, or, by the aid of various practices, sought to divine the future. Nearly arrived at the end of the journey, some superstitious persons stopped, seized by a kind of sudden terror. They feared, by finishing the journey, to surprise secrets whose knowledge the gods reserved to themselves. Others, more daring, went for- ward as far as it was possible to go. The more truthful relate that it was almost impossible to reach the brink of the crater, to which access was barred by smoke and flame. However, their accounts seldom agree. Strabo infers from that that the top of the volcano must not always wear the same aspect, and that, doubtless, each eruption changes its form. The testimony of modern travellers quite confirms this opinion. Another kind of curiosity very conceivable in people who were so often the witnesses or the victims of the fury of yEtna was to inquire, and, if possible, discover, its cause. How can it be that at certain moments showers of cinders cover the mountains, and rivers of lava flow down to the sea ? As was natural, the reasons first given were borrowed from mythology. It was the vanquished of the great battles of Olympus, whom the ^ Strabo, VI. 2, 8, aud the poem of JEtna. .BNEAS IN SICILY. 207 triumphant gods had hurled into the abyss. It was Typhon, it was Enceladus, it was the fabled giants pressed down by the heavy mountains, aod whose breasts, crushed'by the weight, vomited flames. " Every time," says Virgil, " they turn their weary sides, the whole of Sicily trembles and roars, and the sky is veiled in smoke." ^ These poetic and childish explana- tions, with which ^neas contents himself, did not always suffice. A century after Virgil, a writer, appar- ently belonging to the bold school of Seneca, an enemy of the ancient traditions, sought to give another reason more serious and more learned.^ He supposes that the waters of the sea engulf themselves in the depths of -^tna by underground cavities, while the wind pene- trates it by other openings. Once in, they naturally meet in these narrow passages, and, clashing together, have terrible struggles which make the earth tremble, and when at last they find some issue they escape in a tempest of flames. Such is the system somewhat heavily expounded by the poet in a poem of more than 600 lines. He does not quite guarantee its certainty, and more often gives it as an hypothesis. However, he is very pleased to develop it, since it exonerates him from believing in the mythological fictions. He is a freethinker, very proud of being so, who abuses his unfortunate brethren much, when they venture to talk of Enceladus or of Vulcan, and who for his part pro- i III. 581. - It is thought, although it is not certain, to have been Lucilius, to ■n-hom Seneca addressed his famous letters. He was intendant of Sicily, and while sojourning there bad an opportunity of studying MtUA, 208 THE COUNTKY OF IIOEACE AND VIRGIL. fesses only to care for the truth, in vero mihi cura} But in spite of this bragging, he is at heart only a timid freethinker, ill weaned from those fabulous stories he laughs at, and who commits the very weaknesses with which he sternly reproaches others. Before beginning his poem he invokes Apollo, under the pretext that " this god heljis us to walk with more assurance in unknown ways ; " - and in order to make us understand the terrible beauty of the eruptions of -^tna, he seriously tells us that " Jupiter himself admires from afar the jets of flame, and fears that the giants are thinking of taking the field again, or that Pluto, dis- contented with his share, desires to exchange hell for heaven." ^ This poet, so well pleased with himself, seems to me the faithful image of the society in the midst of which he lived, and which was wrought by contrary instincts. Sceptical and believing, at the same time mocking and devout, it laughed at the old gods and looked around everywhere for new ones. However rapid the voyage of ^neas, it was impos- sible for ^tna not to arrest his attention for a moment. Virgil was therefore obliged to describe it. He does so in a few lines, in which he represents it at times launching into the air clouds of smoke mixed with burning cinders, and flames that touch the stars, and at others vomiting calcined stones and melted rocks, while the mountain boils down to the deepest of its abyss : " Horrificis juxta tonat ^'Etna minis, Interdumque atram 'prorumjnt ad ccthera mcbem. Turbine fumantem 2nceo et candente favilla, ' ^t7ia, 90. ■■^ Ibid., 8. » Ibid., 200. J^NEAS IN SICILY. 209 Aitollitque globos flaminarum et sidera lambit : Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis Erigit eructans, liquefadaque saxa sub auras Cum gemitu glomerat, fundoque excestuat imo." ^ These sonorous and brilliant lines were from the very first appreciated by connoisseurs, and cited in the schools as a finished model of description, so much so that Seneca, not a partial judge, declared that he had nothing to find fault with in it or to add to it.^ Yet a critic of the second century, usually very respectful of established reputations and received opinions, took it into his head to protest against this general admiration. He pointed out many weaknesses in this so - called masterpiece, and concluded that it was one of those passages which the author would have recomposed if he had had time, and whose imperfection tormented him on his death-bed. This is doubtless a great exag- geration, and Scalager had no trouble in proving that the famous passage contains many fine lines. For my own part, I might be tempted to think them per- haps too fine. One perceives that the poet seeks effective expressions and piles up hyperboles. If I must say all I think, I, like Aulu-Gelle, find a little verbosity and eftbrt in it.^ It is not Virgil's fault, but .^tna was here in question. The poet felt himself grappling with an important, difficult subject that absorbed people's imaginations, and overdid himself a little, in order to fulfil public expectation. ^neas is too prudent to remain long at the foot of JEtna. Besides, he has to avoid the anger of the 1 III. 571. ■ Sen., EpisL, 79, 5. 3 Aulu-Gelle, XVII. 10 : In strepitu sonituque verhorujn laborat. 210 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. Cyclops, who are the inhabitants of the country," and of Polyphemus, their chief, who would like to avenge upon him the harm done him by Ulysses. So he starts again as soon as possible. The Trojan ships pass quite close to these immense blocks of lava near Aci Castello, which were flung into the sea by the volcano. The people call them " scugli de' Ciclojn," and suppose them to be fragments of rock hurled by Polyphemus after the escaping Ulysses. For my part, when I viewed their dark mass covered by white foam from afar, and domi- nating the waves by more than 60 metres, I thought I had the Cyclops themselves before my eyes, advanc- ing into the sea in pursuit of ^Eneas. " We see them erect," says Virgil, " threatening us with their fierce eyes, and raising their proud heads to the heavens. Fearful assemblage ! {concilium liorrendum !) " ^ ^neas escapes, thanks to his oars. ^Etna recedes little by little on the liorizon ; Pantagia is passed ; the Gulf of Miegara and of Thassus " prostrated to the sun ; " ^ and they only stop a little further on, " at the spot where an island advances into the sea of Sicily, opposite Plem- myrium, watered on all sides by the waves. This isle bears a name illustrious in history ; the first inhabitants called it Ortygia." It is here that Syracuse began. Later on, the immense town overflowed upon the con- tinent. It advanced, without stopping, into the plain as far as the heights of the P^pipohe, and to the fort of Eury- alus; but the island always remained the lieart and centre of the great city. Hieron had built his palace there; Denys crowded it with magnificent monuments; 1 . ^ .^Sn,, III. 688. ^ Ibid., 689 : Thapsumqw jacenlem. .^NEAS IN SICILY. 211 and it was the residence of the Homau prtetors. Now the entire city, like Tarentum, is included within its ancient acropolis. There, imprisoned on all sides by the waves, defended by the bastions of Charles the Fifth, with its narrow streets, its old houses, its monu- mental windows, it carries the traveller some centuries backward, and gives him the pleasure of forgetting for a moment the trivialities of modern towns. Of all these curiosities, Virgil only mentions one — that which Syracuse owes to Nature, and which must have been with her from all time. This is the fountain of Arethusa, about which the Greeks told so many wonderful tales. We may well think that pious ^neas, hurried though he be, stops on this shore to offer his prayers at the sacred spring. Modern travel- lers do as he did, nor fail in passing to go and see Arethusa. A few years since they underwent a great disillusion in visiting it. It was then very much neglected, and the women of the town, who did not at all resemble Nausicaa, used to come without ceremony and wash their clothes there. It has since been repaired and we see it in about the same condition as it was in the time of Virgil. It is a semicircular basin, in which papyrus grows, and which a narrow jetty separ- ates from the sea. It is filled with limpid water, and contains fish of all kinds and aquatic birds of every colour in abundance. The day I visited it the sirocco blew violently, and the waves broke foaming against the shore. I had truly a legendary scene before my eyes : Neptune, furious against a poor nymph who resisted him, trying to force the quiet refuge whither she had retired. I must say that Arethusa 212 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. did not appear at all troubled by this uproar. While the sea raged, the fishes continued to swim after the bits of bread which children threw them, and the swans sailed gravely among the tufts of papyrus. Yet when I heard the dull noise of the billows, and saw the plumes of foam rising above the jetty, I could not help fearing that the sea would prove the stronger. Looking at the narrow tongue of land by which the sacred spring is protected, I trembled for it, and was tempted to repeat the cry of Virgil : " Doris amara suam non intermisceat undam ! " ^ On leavnig Ortygia, Virgil passes the promontory of Pachinum, one of the three which give Sicily its form. He then skirts all the coast parallel to the shores of Africa, on which the Greeks had planted their colonies. It was a country illustrious among all, and had held a great place in the history of humanity. But yEneas passes quickly by it. He tells us he is impelled by a favourable wind, and he must profit by it to go whither the gods send him. He has only time to point out a few of the towns he sees in passing. There is Camarina, Gela, Agrigentum, " which rises on the height, and shows the traveller its vast ramparts " ; there is Selinus, with its belt of palms ; there, finally, is Lilybteum, " which liides beneath its waves perfidious rocks." In these rapidly composed lines, I see notliing to retain but the picture of Agrigentum : ^^ Arduus inde Acrctgas ostcntat maxima longc Mcenia." - Kuins still remain of those immense walls that sur- 1 Egl, X. 5. = ^n., III. 703. .ENEAS IN SICILY. 213 prised Virgil ; and beside large blocks of stone overthrown by time we may see a series of temples, half destroyed, which, when they were intact, formed a sort of crown to the ramparts. The effect must have been striking when there were seen from below : first a line of temples and walls, and then the town, with its admirable edifices mounting stepwise to the rock of Minerva (Btipe Athence) and to the acropolis. Virgil's verse gives us a sufficiently good idea of this spectacle, and the precision of his description shows us that he had Agrigentum before his eyes when he wrote. He seems to have cared little to know whether at the time of the Trojan War it was as he described it. This was a point to trouble an historian or an archaeologist, and touched him little. Some rigorous critics have blamed him for this, while others have sought to defend him, by saying that, in fact, Agrigentum was not founded until several centuries after the voyage of -^neas ; but that there was already, upon the spot where the Greek city was to rise, a little town of Sicilians, and that the poet means to speak of the latter, though he gives them the name of the former. This dispute is of little importance ; but here we are at any rate certain that Virgil visited what in his day remained of the Greek cities along the African sea. They could not have been in quite the same state as that in which we see them to-day. Camarina and Gela had not entirely disappeared, and the columns of the Temple of Selinus did not strew the ground. Yet Strabo plainly states " that the coast extending from Cape Pachinum to Lilybseum is deserted, and that one finds but few remains of the settlements which the Greeks established there." We should like 214 TliE COUNTRY OF HORACE AN^D VIRGIL. to know the effect they produced upon Virgil, and the thoughts that arose in his mind as he passed through the streets of these abandoned cities, and wandered in those large empty spaces whence life had witlidrawn. He has nowhere told us so, yet I do not think it would be rash to imagine them. He called up before his eyes the history of these unhappy cities, torn by factions, passing from extreme liberty to the hardest servitude, always ready in their domestic quarrels to invoke the aid of the foreigner, and destroying each other without pity. He doubtless said to himself that a nation is not made solely to build admirable monu- ments, to have musicians, sculptors, painters, poets ; that, above all, it must be capable of wisdom, modera- tion, and discipline, and that it must know how to con- duct itself, to keep peace within, and live on terms of amity with its neighbours. Then his mind reverted to his own country, so poor in art and literature ; and I suppose that he must have felt reconciled to this inferiority when he saw it possess in such a high degree the political qualities whose absence had ruined the Greeks : respect for authority, the acquiescence in leadership, forgetfulness of private quarrels in face of a public enemy, and strict union of the citizens for a common purpose. ■■ It seemed to him then that, however great the glory of Greece, Eorae in other respects could bear comparison with her, and that it was surely a great nation which, by knowing how to govern itself, had be- come worthy to govern the world. This is the sentiment expressed by him with admirable brilliancy in those lines of the Sixth Book, which some critics, I know not why, have reproached him with. " Others will ^NEAS IX SICILY. 215 know better how to animate bronze and make it supple, to cut living figures in marble ; and they will speak more eloquently. Thou, Eoman, remember that it is thy glory to command the universe, to force the nations to keep peace, to spare the vanquished, to humble the proud — these are the arts which thou must cultivate." ^^ Exctident alii sjnrantia mollivs cera .... Tu regere imperio pojndos, Romane, memento !" > I cannot but think that, in visiting the ruins of the Greek cities of Sicily, the contrast between the two countries, between their contrary qualities and their different destinies, must have struck Virgil more forcibly, and that it inspired these beautiful lines. We have now come to the end of Eneas' first voyage in Sicily. From Lilybaeum he directs his course " towards the sad shore of Drepanum," ^ and there, at the moment when he thinks the end of his labours is approaching, he loses his father. The legend fixed the burial-place of Anchises in different spots, and his tomb was shown in almost all the countries where the Trojans 1 ^71. , V. 848. - III. 707 : Drepani illcetabilis ora. Does he only call it so because he lost his father there ? Commentators bid us remark that this coast is marshy and sterile. For the ancients it had been a desolate country ever since the combat between Eryx and Hercules, and it long kept this appearance. Now everything is in a state of transformation. In the lower part, salt-pits have been established which seem very flourishing, and the surrounding plain is becoming covered with new houses. Near the port of Trapani an attempt has even been made to plant a garden, whose trees coiffageously resist the north-west wind which bends their heads. 216 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. had stopped. Virgil was therefore free to make him die as he liked. It was to his purpose to let him accompany his son as long as possible, since it suited him to place at the side of the pious ^neas a kind of interpreter of the gods, to explain their oracles and communicate their will. But he could not keep him any longer without serious inconvenience. We have just got to the moment when a tempest is about to throw ^neas on the coast of Africa, where he will meet with the hospitality of Dido, and pass the whole of a long winter in pleasure.^ AVhat kind of a tigure would the virtuous Anchises have made in the midst of this amorous adventure ? He could not have prevented it, since the gods consented, nor permitted it witliout com- promising the dignity of his character : so it was better for him to be absent. Virgil therefore lets him opportunely vanish. After his father's death, ^neas leaves Sicily, though not for ever. He is to return a few months later, on his flight from Carthage, and sojourn there during the whole of the Fifth Book. IV. RETURN OF .TINEAS TO SICILY — FIFTH BOOK OF THE jENEID — MOUNT ERYX — TExMPLE OF VENUS ERYCINA — FUNERAL GAMES IN HONOUR OF ANCHISES — COURSE OF THE SHIPS — BURNING OF THE FLEET— SEGESTA — DEPARTURE OF ^NEAS FOR ITALY. It has often been remarked that the Fifth Book of the yEneid is not very closely connected with the rest of , * * JEn., IV. 193 : Hiemen luxtt, quamlonga fovere. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 217 the poem. It might be suppressed without loss, if not to the charm of the work, at least to the development of the action. We have nothing but ceremonies and spectacles, and the desperate struggle of a man to accom- plish a divine mission against adverse divinities, which is the subject of the ^neid, seems to rest for a while. -/Eneas, obeying the orders of Jupiter, has just abandoned Dido, and is steering towards Italy. Suddenly the breeze freshens, and the pilot, who soon gets frightened, declares that he dares not continue his course with so threatening a sky. The prudent ^neas easily allows himself to be moved by these misgivings, and consents to stop on his way. Sicily is near. It is a beloved country, ruled over by a Trojan, old Acestus, and contains the tomb of Anchises. It is nearly a year since Anchises died; and as the opportunity is offered of celebrating this anniversary, it must be taken advantage of. Here then is the Trojan fleet returned to the port of Brepanum. The part of Sicily where ^-Eneas stops has not had quite the same lot as the rest of the isle. It early escaped the Greek domination, and was occupied by the Carthaginians, who were its masters for more than two centuries. It is clear that this long sojourn of the Semites must have exercised some influence over the ancient inhabitants, although it is now difficult to distinguish it. After the first resistance, the Greeks of this part of the country had to come to an understanding with the conquerors, in spite of the differences of manner and of race, and it was arranged to live together, as the Sicilians and Arabs agreed to do in the Middle Ages. A tepera 218 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. preserved in the museum of Palermo represents on one side two hands clasped together, and on the other bears an inscription which informs us that Imilcon Hannibal, son of Imilcon, has made a pact of hospitality with Lison, son of Diogenetes, and his descendants.^ Contracts of this kind could not have been uncommon between the two peoples. It is also probable that the conquerors, although their minds were not turned that way, did not entirely resist the seduction of Greek art. When they took Segesta, they carried off a bronze statue of Diana which passed for a masterpiece. "Transported into Africa," says Cicero, "the goddess only exchanged altars and adorers. Her honours followed her into this new abode, and thanks to her incomparable beauty, she found again among the enemy the worship she had received at Segesta." ^ Carthage dominated in all the western part of Sicily ; but in order not to weaken herself by scattering her forces, she had fixed herself strongly in three important cities : at Lilybieum (Marsala), at Drepanum (Trapani^, and at Panormos (Palermo). Above Drepanum, in the centre of the coast occupied by the Carthaginians, rises Eryx (now Monte San-Juliano), which they had made one of their chief citadels. We must first go over it and describe it, for all the action of the Fifth Book takes place around this mountain. The reputation of ]\Iount Eryx was very great in ancient tiroes. Altliough it barely rises 800 metres above the sea, and although there is in Sicily many a peak, ' Salinas, Ouida del irivsen di Palermo, p. 40. - II., Verr., IV. 83. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 219 without counting ^tna, greatly exceeding it in height, it is of so fine a form, so regularly cut, so well posed, and is seen from all sides to so much advantage, that its name occurs of itself to Virgil when he wants to give us the idea of a high mountain : Quantus Athos aut quantus Eryx ! ^ Access to it is now easy. A fine winding road leads to Trapani, and the summit is reached in three or four hours. One is surprised to find there certainly one of the most curious little towns that can be seen. Shut in by solid walls which go back to the most remote times, defended by towers and bastions, San Juliano contains nearly four thousand inhabitants within its gates. The town has an antique and severe look, and very little has been done to improve it. As we pass through these narrow steep streets, bordered by little houses with low doors and few windows, we feel the bitter north-east wind that blows even on the finest days, and reflect that in winter the weather here must often be very rigorous, and we ask ourselves how men could have been tempted to place their dwellihg so high. Yet this spot must have been peopled very early in the world's history, for remains of flint weapons have been found here, proving that it had inhabitants before the use of metals was known. An isolated mountain, easy to defend, whose foundations are planted in the sea, and which is provided at its summit with inexhaustible springs of water, offered a sure asylum to those who wished to place their lives and fortunes beyond danger of sudden attack. Later on i^n., XII. 701. 220 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. it served as a fortress to all the conquerors of Sicily, and the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Piomans disputed its possession with fury. Its inhabitants were more numerous tlian ever amidst the violence of the Middle Ages, and it is then that, in order to make room for them, the houses had to be crowded together one upon the other, as we see them. Now, when men can live without danger in the plain, the mountain is gradu- ally becoming depopulated, and the time is not far distant when the almost deserted little town will only be frequented by the curious who visit the country in search of memorials of antiquity. What chiefly draws them hither is the renown of the famous Temple of Venus which formerly crowned the mountain. They will no longer find it. The temple has perished entirely, and it is scarcely possible to do more than recognise its site. A little above San Juliano extends a broad plateau, reached by a small walk planted with trees and bordered with flowers. This plateau must originally have been very narrow. It was increased in extent by enormous Substructions, which sometimes sink very low, and rest on projections^ of the rock. Works of this kind were frequent among the ancients, who did not recoil from any labour in order to fix the bases of their edifices solidly. But this one struck even the ancients themselves by its vast propor- tions, and, not knowing its architect, they attributed it to Dsedalus, the legendary artist, just as we sometimes talk about monuments being Cyclopean. These kinds of expressions teach nothing, but they are convenient to disguise ignorance. We are now farther advanced than the ancients, and we can say what people built at least .ENEAS IN SICILY. 221 the lower layers of these immense walls. M. Salinas, a distinguished Palermitan archteologist, has discovered that the large blocks of stone on which the walls rest bear letters, and that these letters are Phoenician.^ We have thus a proof that the first works to fix the founda- tion of the temple and of the town were carried out by the Carthaginians. But we have just seen that Mount Eryx was peopled long before their arrival in Sicily, and there is nothing to prevent us from believing that on the site on which they raised their sumptuous buildings, there already existed a modest sanctuary built by the old inhabitants. And this confirms Virgil's account in every respect. He shows, on the approach of ^neas, the people of the country, who from the top of the mountain have their eyes fixed upon the sea, observing from afar the unknown guests whom the waves are bringing them. He depicts them as rough and half savage, as they must have been, "holding javelins in their hands, and covered with the skin of a Libyan bear." 2 As for the old sanctuary which preceded the Phoenician temple, he attributes its foundation to iEneas himself. At the moment of leaving, "the hero," he tells us, " on the crown of Eryx raises to Venus, his mother, a sacred habitation near the stars." The divinity of Eryx had the advantage of being recognised and honoured by all the peoples who navi- gated the shores of the Mediterranean. Under differ- ent names, the Phoenican, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman sailors paid homage to a goddess of the sea, whom they ^ Salinas, Le murafenicie di Erice, an extract from Notizie degli scavi April 1883, - ^n. , V. 35, et seq. 222 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. called on iu times of danger, and to whom they believed they owed their safety. Whether they named her Astarte, Aphrodite, or Venus, she was in fact the same for all. They gave her the same attributes ; they acknow- ledged in her the same power. In her sanctuary on Eryx there were found, side by side with Greek and Latin inscriptions, ex-votos in which Phoenicians or Carthaginians put themselves under the protection of Astarte, " who gives long life." As all equally honoured the goddess, it came to pass that, in spite of their furious rivalries, her temple was never laid waste, and went un- harmed through these terrible wars in which the com- batants allowed themselves every license. This happy fortune augmented the credit enjoyed by it among the devout. It was the more extraordinary from the circum- stance that the Temple of Eryx was considered i3ne of the richest in the world. Thucydides relates that the inhabitants of Segesta took the Athenian envoys thither when they wished to deceive them as to the resources at their disposal, and that they made them believe they were the masters of all the treasures deposited there.^ Among the gifts presented to the goddess, Elienus particularly mentions rings and earrings,^ which reminds us of the Madonna di Trajiani, whose church is just at the foot of Mount Eryx. She is a miraculous Virgin, in whose favour many women of fashion have despoiled themselves of a portion of their ornaments. She is a overladen with diadems, necklaces, bracelets, jewels, which sparkle in the light of the tapers, and even wears, hooked to the bottom of her dress, a number of 1 Thucydides, VI. 46 - De Anima, X. 50. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 223 watches of every age aud style, that would fill a collec- tor's heart with joy. According to the report of Elienus, I suppose that something similar must have been found in the Temple of Venus Erycina, so it was thought that the goddess was well pleased with so rich a dwelling- place, and loved to abide there. It was one of her favourite residences. Theocritus says, in invoking her : " thou who dwellest in Golgos, Idalia, or on high Eryx." 1 The people of the country asserted that she only left it once a year, in order to make a tour in Africa. Her absence was known by the sign that not a single dove was seen around Eryx. She took them all with her on her journey. Nine days afterwards she came back, and the doves with her. Her departure and her return were the occasions of brilliant ceremonies. The worship of Venus Erycina had the sensual and voluptuous character usual in the religions of the East. The goddess was served by young and beautiful slaves, called in Greek hierodules. In the Temple of Aphrodite, at Corinth, there were a thousand of these, who, when ships' captains tarried there a few days, made them forget the weariness of their long voyages. It must have been the same at Eryx. Passing sailors came there to celebrate Venus with those transports and excesses which heighten the joys of life in people always in danger of death. On one of the slopes of the mountain a great heap of broken amphorce has been found, whose handles bear Greek, Latin, and Carthaginian inscriptions. It is likely that the mariners 1 XV. 100. 224 THE COUNTPY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. of all couutries who climbed Eryx brought their wine with them, and drank it up there in merry company. The heirodules helped them to spend the money they had laboriously amassed in the course of their dangerous voyages. Thus some of these women soon managed to make a fortune. Cicero speaks of one of them, named Agonis, first a slave, and then a freedwoman of Venus, who became very rich, and who possessed, in particular, slave musicians who were a source of envy, and were at last taken away from her.^ These pleasures of all kinds which were found on Eryx make it easy to understand the renown it must have enjoyed among seafaring people all over the Mediterranean. The temple, poised on the top of the mountain, was seen from afar, like a beacon. I suppose that the pilot or the captain who had just made a long voyage full of fatigues and perils felt his heart beat with joy when, coming from Africa or Italy, he saw this place of delights appear on the horizon, where he was about to forget his hardships for a moment, and that when he left Drepanum, he must have kept his eyes long fixed upon the mountain which called up in him such pleasant memories. However, it was not only people of this sort who came to honour Venus Erycina in her sanctuary ; for sometimes visitors of more importance were seen there. Diodorus tells us that the most important magistrates of the Eoman people, consuls, and prretors, when their functions called them this way, mounted to the Temple of Eryx. He adds that their forgetting their gravity for a moment, and rendering ^ Divin. in Ccccil., 17. .ENEAS IN SICILY. 225 homage to the goddess by lending themselves to the pleasantries and games of the women who served her, was appreciated. They found it an easy manner of performing their devotions.^ Now the plateau of Eryx is deserted. The temple of Venus, the residence of the hierodules, all those edifices consecrated to pleasure, have disappeared. These spots, where for so long festive songs resounded, have become silent. Wliat remains to them is the admirable view enjoyed from the top of the mountain, the series of smiling plains and hills following each other to beyond Cape San Vito, that immense extent of sea rolling out before us as far as the coasts of Africa. Yet do not let us look so far, but content ourselves with a more restricted horizon. For we must keep our eyes fixed upon this narrow strip of land stretching at our feet between the mountain and the sea. It was chosen by Virgil for the scene of his Fifth Book, and from the heights on which we are standing we are about to follow its different incidents without trouble. We have seen, higher up, that what determined >^neas to stop a second time in Italy was the oppor- tunity offered to visit the tomb of Anchises, and render him fresh honours. As soon as he has disembarked, he assembles his soldiers, and from the top of a mound, ^The women of Eryx are considered the most beautiful in all Sicil}', and this is all that the country retains of the protection of Venus. They already had this reputation in the Middle Ages. The Arab traveller, Ben Djobair, who makes this statement, adds: "May God make them captives of the Mussulmans ! " P 226 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. like an emperor, makes them one of those solemn harangues so pleasing to lioman gravity : '■^ Danianidce magni, genius alto a sanguine divum,"^ etc. In this speech he announces to them the series of festivals he is preparing in honour of his father's memory, and everything is carried out in acccordance with his word. First they visit the tomb of Anchises, to scatter flowers there, and pour out libations of milk, wine, and blood. The ashes of him who was honoured with the love of Venus, and who is the father of ^neas, are not those of an ordinary being. He is a god, and makes the fact well known to his son by calling up the serpent which issues from his tomb, and comes to taste the meats consecrated to him. iEneas does not at first grasp the meaning of this marvellous apparition, and asks himself whether he has just seen the familiar genius of the place, or whether it is a kind of domestic demon who serves his father in the other life. At last he understands, and sacrifices sheep, swine, and bulls to him, whom he regards as a new divinity. This is a timid and somewhat confused sketch of aj)otheosis. A few years later, when Augustus died and was proclaimed a god by the Senate, the ceremonies of his funeral were minutely regulated, and the ritual of imperial apotheosis was fixed. "Soldiers with their arms, and knights with their insignia, running round the funeral pyre, threw into it the rewards they had received for their valour. Then centurions approached and set fire to it. While it burned, an eagle rose, as if" to carry with 1^71., V. 45. ^NEAS IN SICILV. 227 it the soul of the prince. These ceremonies, it must be owned, seem grander than the libations of milk and wine poured by ^neas on the tomb of his father, and the mysterious serpent gliding from the mausoleum ; but Virgil did not foresee what would be done after him, and contented himself, as was his wont, with appropriating the ancient practices of the national religion to new circumstances. The funeral games, announced in advance to the soldiers by ^neas, take place nine days after the sacrifice. Such was the usage, as Servius tells us.^ The trumpet gives the signal ; the Trojans and the people of the country hasten to assemble in order to assist at them, and the poet employs more than five hundred lines, nearly the whole of the Fifth Book, in their description. In order to understand why he gives them so great a place in his work, we must recall that which they held in the lives of the Eomans of his time. Since politics had become indifferent to them, they had grown to be their chief interest, and the amphitheatre or the circus occupied the time left free by the forum. lu order to please them, it had been necessary to multiply their games without measure, and in the first century of the Empire, when those which seemed useless had been suppressed, they still took up one hundred and thirty -five days of the year. So Virgil was certain of charming his readers by entertaining them with that which was their most ardent passion. He also found in them the advantage of being able to imitate Homer, ^Servius, in ^ii., V. 64 : Uiide ctiam ludi qui in honorem mortu- orum celcbrantur novemdiales dicuntur. 228 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. who had also taken pleasure in describing at length the games instituted by Achilles at the funeral of Patroclus. This part of Virgil's work is chiefly copied from the Iliad ; but here, as elsewhere, he knows how to maintain an air of independence, even in the midst of the most exact translations. He assimilates what he reproduces, and, in spite of the empire exercised over him by his great predecessor, he preserves the character of his own genius. There are, however, two of these pictures which belong to him entirely. Firstly, he has replaced the chariot race by that of the ships. It is easy to see how the idea of this change was suggested to him. The Trojans, who had been sailing about for seven years, could not have had many horses ^ at their disposal, and, in any case, they had not had opportunities of practising their management. As they have only applied themselves to the handling of their ships, it is in this species of exercise that it was natural to make them contend with each other. The chariot races were common ground, which Greek poetry had hackneyed ; ship races had been described less often, and they might furnish some new descriptions. The other spectacle which Virgil did not borrow from Homer is what is called the " Trojan game " {ludus Trojanus), a kind of carrousel in which the youth took part in games of skill and strength, and to which a very venerable antiquity was attributed. These evolutions of the young folk before the eyes of their fathers had in themselves something oraceful and ^Virgil is very careful to say that the horses ridden hy the youths ill the Indus I'rojanus were furnished by Acestes. yENEAS IN SICILY. 229 touching which must have pleased Virgil. He knew, moreover, that in describing them he was seconding the designs of Augustus, who brought them into repute again, doubtless in order to make his grandchildren shine in them, and show the people, in the midst of ancient pomps, the future masters of the Empire. The poet is here faithful to his usual system, which consists in connecting the present with the past, and restoring life to these old tales by animating them with the passions of his own time. I will not analyse these accounts, which could not have the same interest for us that they possessed for the contemporaries of Virgil. Let it suffice to say that here, as everywhere, the poet has exactly described the scene of his drama. From the height of Eryx, one can fancy one sees the various games by which ^neas honoured the memory of his father, and enjoy the spectacle of them. There is first the ship race, by which the festival begins. The starting-point is not given, but is doubtless some mooring stage near the port of Drepanum, where they had taken refuge during the bad weather. But, on the other hand, the place towards which they are to steer is indicated very clearly. " Amidst the waves, facing the surf-beaten shore, stands forth a rock, by raging billows scourged and hid, when winter storms obscure the sky. Silent in calm it sways the placid flood, and sea-birds love to rest there in the sun." ^ I perceive it a few kilometres from the beach, and Virgil's descrip- tion has helped me to recognise it. It is now called 1 u^n., V. 124. 230 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. the Isola d'Asinello. The vessels must round this little island, decorated for the occasion with oak branches. This is certainly the rock where Sergestus broke his oars and his prow. I think I see him trying painfully to advance with his remaining sails, " like a snake o'er which a waggon wheel has passed in the middle of the road, which exhausts itself in useless efforts, and bends upon itself, without being able to progress a single step," while the vessel of Mnestheus, with its panting rowers bent to the oar, passes before it like lightning. This first contest over, ^neas, who has witnessed its varying fortunes from the neighbourhood of the port of Drepanum, proceeds, skirting the shore, " to a meadow surrounded by a belt of hills shaded by forests." It would be easy to find, along the slopes of Eryx, more than one spot answering to Virgil's description. Eryx does not descend towards the sea with a uniform slope ; but undulates to right and left in advancing ridges that enclose little verdant valleys nestled to the mountain side. To use the poet's expression, these little valleys closely resemble the circular part of an ancient theatre, and appear made expressly for crowds desirous to assist conveniently at some spectacle. Let us picture to ourselves ^Eneas sitting at the end of this species of circus, upon a more elevated seat. Round about him, the Trojans and Sicilians place themselves as they can upon the slopes of the hills, and thence all watch the foot race, the palestra, and the archery.^ But while all are engrossed ^ The spot where these different games take place is the same where Anchiscs was buried. Virgil says so, i)Ositively, in lines 550 and 602. Probably there was some old monument there, which the people of the country called the Tomli of Anchiscs. ^.NEAS IN SICILY. 281 in the pleasure they derive from the complicated evolu- tions of the Trojan game, the spectacle is cut short by an unforeseen incident. A messenger hastens up to announce that the women, who had been left at Dre- panum, desperate at the prospect of having to start again, and yielding to the bad advice of Juno, have set fire to the ships. From the spot where he is, the port is hidden from /Eneas, and it is not possible to see the burning fleet ; but above the heights the smoke is seen rising into the air like a cloud. lulus first, and then all the Trojans after him, rush to quench the conflagration. Despite the promptness of the aid and the help of Jupiter, all the ships cannot be saved. Some are quite destroyed, or too much damaged to be repaired, so it is no longer possible for iEneas to take away the whole of his people with him, and he must make a selection. The bravest, the most resolute, will alone accompany him ; as for those " who feel not the want of glory," 1 they will stay in Sicily. He leaves the women there, too, who are worn out by seven years of exhausting adventures. But, before departing, he sets to work to build them a town, whose boundary he traces in the Italian manner, with a plough, and which he places under the authority of good Acestus. This town is Segesta, important in its time, and which, in order to conquer its rival Selinus, called the Athenians and the Carthaginians to its aid. It had already much declined when the Eomans became masters of Sicily. It then remembered at the right time that it was said to have been founded by ^neas, and tried to make ^ JEii., V. 751 ; Animos nil magncc laudis egentes. 232 THE COUNTRY OF HOEACE AND VIRGIL. capital out of its Trojan origin. In support of the tradition, it showed an ancient chapel which it had raised to its founder, and recalled that two little brooks which flow at the end of the valley had received the names of Simois and Scamander. The Eomans received its advances favourably, and looked on it as an allied and kindred town. They affected to treat it lionourably, and exempted it from taxation, while Virgil celebrated its birth in his poem. But these honours did not sta}'- its decadence ; under the Empire it became more and more impoverished and forlorn, and in the Middle Ages it had entirely disappeared. Yet people still go to view the site it occupied ; for if the town exists no more, two monuments of it remain — a temple and a theatre — which preserve its memory and attract the curious. The temple is not, perhaps, the most beautiful of those still possessed by Sicily, but there are none which more deeply impress travellers. In order to enjoy and appreciate it at its full merits, it is well to view it from a little distance, it being a characteristic of Greek monuments that they are made for the place they occupy, and that their position is one of the elements of their beauty. Here the temple rises upon a height, and the very hill on which it is built serves it as a pedestal. It is one with it, it is its crown, and to isolate were to dis- member and mutilate it. Its aspect changes entirely according to the point of view. Coming from Calatafimi, it is caught sight of suddenly at a turn of the road, through a break in the rocks, and the view is marvellous. It appears in profile, and its columns stand out against the sky with wonderful clearness. ^NEAS IN SICILY. 233 From the foot of Monte Barbaro, we have a front view. Its pediment is outlined against a fine mountain, rising behind and serving it as a background. It thus appears more substantial, more powerful, more severe. This is the quality which prevails as one approaches. When we are quite close, the whole may even appear heavy and ungraceful. The columns, as in all Sicilian temples, are very near each other, less slender and more massive than in the buildings of Greece proper. But let us reflect that here the architects had a difficult problem to solve. They built with inferior materials upon an agitated and moving soil, and they had to sacrifice lightness to solidity. They succeeded, since their monuments still exist. It is, moreover, a defect to which one soon becomes accustomed. The first surprise over, we admire without reserve this noble Doric architecture — so sober, so vigorous, so clear, so rational ; where there is no ornament without its explanation, not a detail but conduces to the effect of the whole, and which is a satisfaction to the mind as well as a feast for the eye.^ The Temple of Segesta was not finished. The fluting of the columns is scarcely begun, and the friezes were never ornamented with sculpture. Very likely the building was in progress when Agathocles took Segesta by assault. It is known that he ruthlessly massacred ten thousand of its inhabi- ^ In connection with these qualities of the Gothic order, the first pages of Burckhardt's Cicerone may be read. This excellent book, found so useful to serious travellers desirous of forming a true judg- ment of the masterpieces of art, is now entirely at our disposal, having been translated into very elegant French by M. Auguste Gerard (Paris, Firmin Didot). 234 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. tants and sold the rest. Since that terrible event, the city did nothing more than vegetate, and never found resources to complete the temple begun by her on so large a scale in the time of her prosperity. It had to be adapted to worship as best it might, and was used in this condition for centuries. This is what has since happened to many Gothic cathedrals overtaken by the Renaissance or the Eeforni before their completion. As for the town itself, it was situated on a neigh- bouring hill, Monte Barbaro. We climb up to it with difficulty, amid fallen rocks; and in the ascent we come across a few fragments of wall, a few thresholds of the Eoman epoch, and this is all we have left of Segesta. One of the things that most astonish us, while roving the world in search of relics of the past, is to see important towns, like this which resisted Syracuse, perish so completely that scarcely a trace of them is left. Only the theatre, cut into the rock, has survived the common ruin. The orchestra and the stage may be distinguished, while the rows of benches, with the steps by which the spectators reached their places, are nearly intact. If we except that of Taormina, which is a marvel, I do not believe there is another in Sicily whence a more extensive or more varied view is enjoyed. It is bosomed '.in the midst of a circle of picturesque mountains, whose tops sometimes form great majestic lines, and at others fantastic, intricate zigzags. Before it, the plain extends as far as the sea, seen on the horizon in a frame of hills, with the little town of Castellamare, which without doubt formerly served as a port to Segesta. Looking down below us, we are struck by the variety of different aspects the country ^NEAS IN SICILY. 235 presents at its various heights. At a glance we may pass in review all the different cultivations forming its wealth. Below, near the streams, are orange and lemon trees, whose yellow fruit stands out upon the dark -green leaves. A little higher, half-way up, we have corn, the vine, the olive — all those products which made Sicily, as Cato said, the granary of Italy. Higher yet, along the abrupt slopes, are seen dwarf palms, aloes, a vigor- ous vegetation reaching nearly to the top of the hills, and cropped by sheep and goats. But in spite of the admiration this sight produces, it is impossible not to feel intense surprise. As far as sight can penetrate, neither village, farm, nor cottage is to be seen ; and w4th the exception of a few wild-looking herdsmen, not a human form. The workmen only come here when they have to sow or reap. Their labour done, they return home, and this fertile country, for a while so full of life, once more becomes a desert. The solitude is then so profound, that one finds it very difficult to picture to oneself that these spots, where no human sound reaches the ear, were once so well peopled and so animated ; and did one not see at one's feet the seats of a theatre, and on a neighbouring hill the temple with its empty cella and sunken roof, one would never imagine one was standing on the site of a great town. After ^neas has founded Segesta, and settled the Trojans there whom he is not to take with him, nothing- more remains for him to do in Sicily. So he takes leave of Acestus, sacrifices sheep and bulls to the gods, and orders the cables which hold the ships to the shore to be cut. " Himself erect upon the prow, his head encircled with an olive wreatli, and raising the cup he holds in 236 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. his hand, he flings into the salt sea the entrails of the victims, and pours libations of wine upon the waves." i The wind blows from the poop, and bears him to Italy, where he must fulfil his destiny. III. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. I. THE TWO PARTS OF THE ^iN'lE'/Z'— CHARACTER OF THE LAST SIX BOOKS — VIRGIL IS HERE IN THE HEART 01 HIS SUBJECT — PERFECTION OF THE STYLE — THE POET'S AIM COMES OUT BETTER — VIRGIL'S PATRIOTISM — HOW HE HAS GROUPED ALL ITALY AROUND HIS WORK. The u^neid, as we know, is very exactly divided into two equal parts, of six Books each. The first portion contains the adventures of ^neas up to the moment when he disembarks at the mouth of the Tiber. The other relates how he manages to establish himself in the country assigned him by the Fates. These two parts have not quite the same character. It was long since remarked that the one more resembles the Odyssey, the other the Iliad. The first is most generally preferred by amateurs and critics, who find it more interesting, more agreeable, and more varied. They find the second ^n., V. 774. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 237 greatly inferior, some even suspecting that Virgil felt this inferiority, and that this is why, when dying, he wished to destroy his work. " It is not vouchsafed to men to be perfect," says Voltaire, alluding to this. " Virgil exhausts all that the imagination has of greatest in the descent of ^neas to hell ; in the loves of Dido he has said all that can be said to the heart ; terror and compassion cannot go further than in the description of the ruin of Troy. From this high elevation which he had reached in the midst of his flight, he could only descend." Chateaubriand was, I think, the first among us to protest against the opinion of Voltaire. In that part of the Genius of Christianity/, where he treats of literary criticism, and where, in spite of his defective knowledge, he has cast so many new ideas, he makes the curious remark that the most touching lines of Virgil, those whose memory has lingered in all hearts, are found in just the last six Books of the ^ncid. He infers from this that in drawing near to the tomb the poet put something more celestial into his accents, "like the swans of Eurotas, consecrated to the Muses, who, accord- ing to Pythagoras, before expiring had a vision of Olympus, and expressed their ravishment by harmonious songs." What is true above all, and impossible to contest, is that in these six Books we are really in the heart of the subject. Virgil has taken care to tell us this himself. At the moment when his hero disembarks upon the coast of Italy, he interrupts himself, in order to invoke the Muse, and ask her aid, for he needs it more than ever on account of the importance of the events he is about to sino; ; 238 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. "Major rerem mili nascitur ordOy Majlis ojms vioveo " ' We see that, far from believing, as Voltaire would have it, that at this moment " his subject declines," he proclaims that he has reached the culminating point of his work. There are even some critics who, taking advantage of his avowal, reproach him with having got there too late. They find that it is much to spend six Books out of twelve in the narration of preliminary adventures, and that it is surprising that in a poem whose fine ordering everybody extols, half of the work should be beside the real action. But it seems to me that people who so reason do not take Virgil's aim into account. He wants to relate how ^neas brought his gods into Latium and built them an asylum there, so that the action begins at the moment when Hector confides them to him. All the dangers he dares by land or sea are equally part of the subject ; and if Virgil seems to have chosen to multiply them at pleasure,'^ it is because they fore- shadow the great destinies of the city that is about to come into being. The hostile gods would not rage against her with such cruel obstinacy did they not know that she is to be queen of the world. This is why, after having recalled all the obstacles that oppose its birth, and which appear to liim the gauge of its glorious future, the poet concludes his enumeration with this triumphant line : 1 .En., VII. 44. - Heyne (yE7i. III., excursus II.) lias shown that while the ordinary traditions suppose the voyage to have lasted three years, Virgil makes it last seven. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 239 " Tantce molis end Romanam condere gcntem." ^ Thus the trials of all kinds infiicted by the auger of Juno on pious ^neas are included in the subject of the u^ncid, and Virgil was within his right in relating them to us ; but as the adverse duties must redouble their efforts in proportion as the hero nears the goal, it is natural that his last struggle should also be the most perilous. Before gaining a decisive victory, he must brave his most inveterate enemies and fight the most hazardous battles. Virgil was therefore right in saying, at the moment when he was about to begin the narration of these last combats, " that a vaster career was opening before him, and that he had arrived at the most important part of his work." It was also the most difficult part. In the remainder he is supported and sustained by Homer and the other poets, epic or lyric, who sang the adventures of the Greek heroes returning home after the fall of Troy. Thanks to these poets, all the isles of the Archipelago, all the shores of the Ionian Sea, were peopled with charming fancies which they had sown in the path of their heroes. Virgil had only to choose ; to what- ever spot he led J^neas, he was sure to awaken poetic memories in every mind. Homer, Sophocles, Pindarus, and the others thus became his fellow-workers, and he gave his poem the advantage of the admiration inspired by their works. But once alighted in Italy, all these resources fail him. On this ungrateful soil, which Poesy has not touched with her wing ; which, instead of the treasure of Greek fables, ouly offers him a few 1 j^n., T. 33. 240 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. meagre and prosaic legends, he must draw upon him- self for almost everything. I will not pity him too much on this account ; since if from this moment his work becomes less easy and pleasant, it gains in originality, and belongs to him more. It is this indeed which gives us his true measure. Whatever admiration one feels for the marvels he has crowded into his first six Books, there is in the others more invention and veritable genius, and it is by them he should be judged. In the first place, their style is perfect. The efforts the poet must have made to impart beauty to matter in itself sufficiently arid, and to put something of variety into a rather monotonous theme, are not perceived. The incidents are so skilfully introduced, and seem to arise so naturally from the subject, that it is difficult to realise how much imagination and artifice were needed to weld them together. This merit does not strike one in reading a good poem. Order and connection are such natural qualities that one does not think of remarking them. In order to appreciate their value, we must read those devoid of them. From this point of view, it may be said that the perusal of the epic poets of the decadence, who took so much trouble to be interesting, and succeeded so poorly, redounds much to Virgil's credit. Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, and, above all. Statins, that man of so much refinement and talent, whose poem is only a mass of brilliant episodes, laboriously brought together without being united, makes us duly appreciate in the ^Jneid the simplicity of the action, the dexterous joining of the OSTIA AND LAYINIUM. 241 parts, and the harmony of the whole. But we shall be more sensible of these merits if we compare different parts of Virgil's work. In the first Books of his poem, the narrative sometimes wanders ; and there is even one, the Fifth, which, strictly speaking, might be omitted. Nothing of the kind is found in the second part of the work. There everything is connected and linked, and the author walks straight on without ever straying from his road. The action, urgent and swift, lingers not for a moment. It is so simple that it may be taken in at a glance, and nothing is easier than to sum it up in a few words. Throughout three Books Fate is adverse to the Trojans. Juno succeeds in frustrating the alliance they were about to make with Latinus ; all the Italian peoples take arms against them ; and while ^neas is gone to obtain the support of Evander and the Etruscans, Turnus besieges his camp and almost succeeds in taking it. In the Tenth Book ^neas returns with fresh troops, and on his arrival fortune changes. He begins by beating back thfe Latins, who attack his soldiers ; then he in his turn pursues them as far as Laurentum, and ends the war with the death of Turnus. This arrangement is nearly the same as that of the Iliad, where we see Hector advance nearer and nearer towards the vessels of the Greeks, and then retire before Achilles as far as the walls of Troy, where he is slain. But in Homer events are so crowded that the wealth of detail does not always allow of a just conception of the whole. In "Virgil, who is more sober and terse, the general plan is better seen, the double movement constituting the progress of tlie Q 242 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. action is better understood, and the unity of the work being more apparent, the interest seems to be more lively. I also find that in these last Books one is more struck by the poet's aim, and that the idea which animates the work is more visible here than elsewhere. This thought, it may be said, is found everywhere ; for there is not a verse of the JEneid in which Eome is not glorified, and just at the end of the Sixth Book there is an admirable summary of its history. Virgil's patriotism is so ardent that he everywhere seeks and finds occasion to display it. One feels some surprise at this, when one reflects that this poet who sings of Kome with such passion was not quite Roman by birth. For a long time the aristocratic party had obstinately refused to grant the right of complete citizenship to the inhabitants of Cisalpina. These vain great lords took pleasure in making them feel, by every kind of outrage, that they were still subjects and a conquered people. Virgil, in his youth, must have heard the story of the decurion of Como, whom Marcellus one day caused to be beaten with rods, in order to prove to him that he was not a citizen. It was not until 712, after the battle of Philippi, that the inhabitants of Cisalpina, who had received from Ciesar the right of citizenship, were placed upon quite the same rank as other Italians. Virgil was then twenty-eight years old, and a Roman at heart. Rome must truly have exerted an extraordinary attrac- tion over people, for her former enemies so soon to have become her faithful allies and devoted citizens. She is usually represented as an object of execration to the vanquished ; this is a great mistake, at least OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 243 SO far as the West is concerned. She knew how, in a few years, to make her conquest forgotten. It is remarkable that those who loved her most, who served her with the greatest zeal, and celebrated her with most affection, did not belong to her by birth, and were descended from peoples she had roughly subdued. Virgil, then, was a patriot, almost before he was a citizen, only his patriotism is not quite like that of the old Eomans of the Eepublic. The latter only saw Eome, and the great town was all in all to them. ' Virgil also admires it much ; but he does not separate it from Italy, The country, for him, is not entirely included within the wall of Servius ; it includes the lands contained by the Alps and the sea. And he is tenderly attached to this great country, which had been so unhappy during the civil wars, and which he saw so rich and flourishing under Augustus.^ He had already sung it in admirable lines in his Georgics : — '■^ Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellies, Magna virum ! " ^ "When, later on, in response to the wish of the Emperor and the desire of all the Eomans, he resolved to write his epic, he quite intended to associate all ' The scholiast Servius tells us: "It is well seen that Virgil was very much interested in all that concerned Italy" {^n., I. 44). Although his history is not well known, it may be affirmed that he had often visited it, admiring its beautiful spots and its fine views, and inquiring into the ancient history of all the towns he passed through. " Georg., II. 173. 244 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. Italy in the glory with which he meant to crown Eome. He started with this thought, but could only quite realise it in his last six Books. The action, which hitherto had travelled all over the world, then centres in the plains of La.tium. The theatre in which this great drama is jjlayed is really very limited, and does not extend beyond four or five square leagues ; but in this little plain reaching from Ostia to Laurentum, and from the hills to the sea, Virgil has had the skill to group all Italy. There are in the army of Turnus, Latins, Sabines, Volsci, Marsci, Umbrians, and even Campanians — that is to say, representatives of all those noble races of Central Italy that furnished so many soldiers to the Eoman armies, ^neas joins to his Trojans the Greeks of Evander, and the Etruscans of Tarchon ; and as at this time Etruria extended her dominion as far as the Alps, the poet takes occasion to ])ut Ligurians and Cisalpians among the troops of ^Eneas, and to say something by the way of his be- loved Mantua. Only the point of Southern Italy, then in the hands of the Greeks, remained outside his subject ; but he finds means of some sort to connect it. He imagines that Turnus sends an embassy to Diomedes, who reigns over those parts, in order to ask his alliance. Thus, although Diomedes refuses to take up arms, bis name and those of the towns he governs are not quite absent from the jEiieid. And so the poet caused all the races of Italy to figure in it, creating for them common memories in the past, at the moment when they had just been united under the hegemony of Home, and interesting them all in the success of his work. MARITIME LATIUM \ ' ENVIRONS OF OSTIA. A L vSiig OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 245 These general reflections ended, let us enter at length upon the study of the chief events narrated in Virgil's last six Books, and follow them, as far as possible, over the country which was their theatre. II. ^NEAS LANDS ON THE COAST OF OSTIA — VIRGIL'S DESCRIPTION OF IT — ITS ASPECT IN OUR DAYS — HOW ^.NEAS KNOWS THAT HE HAS REACHED THE END OF HIS VOYAGE — MIRACLE OF THE EATEN TABLES — THE \VHITE SOW AND HER THIRTY LITTLE ONES — ORIGINAL MEANING OF THIS LEGEND, AND THE CHANGES IT UNDERWENT. In the course of his long voyage ^neas has more than once approached Italy. On quitting Epirus, where Helenus and Andromache had just given him such a good reception, he perceived in the distance before' him low lands and misty hills. It is Italy. " Italy ! " exclaims first Achates. " Italy ! " join in all his companions, saluting it with a joyous cry. The heart of ^neas beats with pleasure on first nearing the country promised him by the Fates, and which his race is to make so glorious. But he is not to enter on this side. The soil before his eyes is all Greek, and peopled with enemies. He contents himself with secretly passing a night there, and continues his way along the Gulf of Tarentum. Later on, after liis sojourn in Carthage and in Sicily, where Acestus, another fugitive from Troy, affords him hospitality, he stops at Cum?e to consult the sibyl and descend into Hell. But 246 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. this is not yet the spot where he is to settle ; he must re-embark and turn towards those Latian lands " which seem ever to flee before him." Finally, after touching at Misenum, at Palinurus, and at Caieta, to bury there the companions he has lost, he doubles the promontory where the enchantress Circe holds her court, and arrives at the mouth of the Tiber. " The sea was already becoming tinged with the rays of dawn, and Aurora clomb to the horizon on her rosy car. Suddenly the winds fall, the breeze ceases to blow, and we must wrestle with the oar against the passive wave. Then J^neas sees upon the shore a tufted wood, and in the midst the Tiber winds his smiling course, bearing his yellow sands, and flinging himself with rapid whirlings into the sea. Along and above his waters birds of varied hues, the wonted dwellers of the wood and stream, enchant the air with their accents, and flutter amid the trees. ^Eneas orders his sailors to direct their course on that side, and turn the prows towards the shore, and then he enters joyously the shady bed of Tiber," ^ I have more than once gone over this coast where, one spring morning, the pious iEneas landed ; and I own that the spectacle I had before my eyes is not quite what Virgil drew. The Tiber continues to flow noiselessly, fretting its banks, and rolling its yellow waters towards the sea ; but trees are rare on this desolate shore, and I never heard birds sing there. In lieu of this idyllic picture, one has before one a monotonous and silent landscape that awakens in the » yEn., VII. 24. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 247 soul an impression of sadness and of grandeur. It was otherwise in Virgil's time ; and if he adorned his picture with such cheerful colours, it is because he drew these spots as he saw them. Near the Tiber's mouth rose Ostia, the old port of Eome, growing each day in importance, as the relations of Italy with foreign countries became more frequent. The moment was approaching when the great city, unable any longer to feed herself, would be forced to ask neighbouring lands for her food — oil from Spain, corn from Africa and Egypt. All the merchandise of the world was beginning to pass through Ostia, which grew more and more populous every day. It is at this time that Virgil visited it, and he saw the Tiber as those enriched merchants, who came thither to enjoy a little freshness and repose upon its banks after the fatigues of the day, had made it. All this part of the country had then a very different aspect from that which ten centuries of desertion and solitude have given it. The sacred isle between Porto and Ostia has become a desert where a few wild oxen graze, and which the traveller hardly dares to cross, was then a much-frequented place, whither the Prsefeci/ of Eome came with a part of the Roman people to cele- brate brilliant festivals. We are told that throughout the year the ground formed a veritable carpet of verdure, and that in spring so many roses and flowers of all kinds grew there that the air was perfumed, and it was called " the abode of Venus." ^ The banks of the Tiber, ^ See what Wernsdorif says in the Preface of Pervigilium Veneris about these festivals which used to be celebrated at Ostia {Poetce Lat. minores, Lemaire's edition, II. p. 485). 248 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. as far as Rome, were covered uninterruptedly with fine villas. " He alone," says Pliny, " has more than all other rivers together." ^ Near the immense city it was bordered by delicious gardens, where the great lords loved to assemble their friends of both sexes for joyous feasts, during which they amused themselves by watching the boats pass up and down the stream.^ One cannot doubt but that Virgil assisted more than once at these amusements of the Eoman aristocracy, and he must have had them in mind when describing in the Eighth Book the journey undertaken by ^neas to the town of Evander. It would be impossible to imagine a more pleasant voyage : " The vessels glide upon the waters, the river is astonished, the forest looks with surprise at this new spectacle of gleaming bucklers and brightly-coloured ships that swim upon the waves. The rowers work without ceasing, and advance through the long windings of the Tiber ; they pass beneath a thick vault of trees ; and their prow seems to cleave the forest whose image is reflected on the placid water." ^ Except the sinuosities of the sluggish river, nothing is now left us resembling this seductive picture. An old writer, a century earlier than Virgil, and who doubtless lived at a time when the work of man had not yet transformed this thankless nature, speaks very differently from him. He describes -ZEneas as seized with sadness at the sight of this country which Latinus makes over to him, and where he must henceforth live. " He was very ill pleased," he tells us, " to have fallen upon so arid and sandy a soil : cegre » Hut. XoJ., III. 5 (9). - I'ropertius, I. 14. ^ ^.^'„_^ yju. 91. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 249 patiebatur in eum devenisse agrum macerrimum litorosis- simumque." ^ This energetic sentence represents admirably the aspect of the country as we see it to-day. When from the height of one of these mounds, formed by the accumulation of ruins, we cast our eyes around us, it is impossible not to pity the poor Trojan chief who has just left the rich fields of Asia, and whom the gods have made pay with so many toils and perils for the possession of a few leagues of sand. Virgil attributes other feelings to him. He re- presents him as enchanted at the spectacle before him, and overjoyed at touching this unknown shore. For he hopes that he has at last reached the end of his journey, and that the soil he is about to tread is the land whither the Fates have led him. But when we know pious -^neas, we shall be certain that he will not lightly trust to his hopes. Before beginning to found a stable settlement, he will wait until the gods have shown him by manifest signs that he is not mistaken ; and in order that he may have full confidence, they must prove to him twice, by successive prodigies, that he is in the land where he is to remain. These wonders, related by Virgil circumstantially, have in his work a particular character. They already astonished the critics of antiquity ; they still more surprise modern readers,^ and have given rise to great dis- ^ Servius, in ^n., I. 7. These are the words of the historian Fabius Maximus. ^ Voltaire is so afraid they may be found ridiculous that he finds it necessary to excuse Virgil for having related them. " Is it not true," he says, "that we should allow a French author who took Clevis for his hero to talk about the holy ampulla brought by a dove from heaven into the city of Rheims to anoint the king, and which 250 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. cussions. Since we are just upon the spot where they took place, let us occupy ourselves with them for a moment. We know what a great part religion plays in the jEneid, and that this religion in its essence is the religion of Homer. I cannot here relate how it happens that the gods of Greece and Rome, which originally did not resemble each other, finished by being confounded. The friends of Greek literature doubtless helped much in this confusion ; in any case, it was very advantageous to them. When they composed some poetical work, they allowed themselves to make Jupiter and Minerva talk like Zeus or Athene, and to freely imitate those master- pieces with which their imaginations were charmed. There can be no doubt but that Virgil also accepted it very willingly. He loved Homer too much not to seize with alacrity all opportunities of drawing near to him. It is, however, clear that he endeavoured somehow to preserve for his mythology a national character, and this stamps his originality among his country's poets. In the first place, we see that when he borrows a fable from the Greeks, he takes care to place the scene of it in some corner of Italian ground. Instead of calling up the dead on a field of asphodels, on some unknown isle of the ocean, like Ulysses, iEneas descends into Hell near Lake Avernus, at the spot where the people is still preserved with faith in that town ? It is the fate of all those ancient fables to which the origin of every nation goes back, that their antiquity is respected while their absurdity is laughed at. After all, however excusable it may be to use such tales, I think it would be better to reject them entirely. One sensible reader whom these things offend deserves more to be considered than the ignorant vulgar who believe in them." OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 251 of the country place an entrance to Tartarus. The abode where Vulcan forges the arms of the gods is no longer at Lemnos, but near Sicily, in one of those volcanic isles " whence fires are seen to gush like those of ^tna." 1 When Tisiphone has finished her work of discord and wishes to leave the earth, she plunges into the Lake of Amsactus, which exhales pestiferous vapours.2 Finally, Juno, desiring closely to watch the last combats of Turnus and JEneas, quits Olympus and stations herself on the heights of Mount Albanus, where, later on, the famous and national Temple of Jupiter Latialis rose.^ It was a way of connecting this foreign mythology with Italy, and of interesting all Romans in attaching it more closely to them. But he had still more in view. The introduction of the Hellenic religion had not suppressed all the ancient fables of the Italian races. Some survived in con- nection with towns or temples, whose birth they ex- plained. They were rude, like the people who had created them ; and men of the world, who found that they recalled the rusticity of their forefathers, took pleasure in laughing at them. Virgil treated them with more respect. Their antiquity endeared them to him, and he thought that, having cradled the infancy ^ j^n., VIII. 416. 2 ji^id,^ VII. 563. 3 Ibid., XII. 134. It is curious, in this connection, to note in what degree Horace and Virgil have contrary tendencies. While the patriot Virgil, who would fain impart a Latin colouring to the Greek fables, seems to wish to confound Olympus with Mount Albanus, Horace, very indifferent to such a care, laughs at those who would identify Mount Albanus with Parnassus, and who pretend to make it the abode of the Muses : Diditet Albano Musas in monte locutas {Epist., II. 1. 27). 252 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. of the Eoman people, they had a right to figure in a poem telling of its foundation. It was doubtless not an easy task to place them beside the Homeric fables, usually so elegant and so graceful, and they ran a great risk of making but a sorry figure there ; but this danger did not stay the poet, whose aim it was that ^neas, on setting foot in Latium, should be welcomed and greeted, as it were, by an old Latin legend. The Trojans, he tells us, had just fastened their ships to the green banks of the Tiber, ^neas, with the principal chiefs and handsome lulus, are resting beneath the branches of a high tree. They prepare their repast. First, among the food they are to eat they place cakes of pure wheat (it was Jupiter himself who suggested this idea to them), and then they load this table, formed of the products of Ceres, with wild fruits. It happened that when all their food was exhausted, their hunger, still unsated, obliged them to attack those light cakes. " Ah ! " exclaimed lulus, jesting, " here we are eating our tables as well." He said no more ; but this saying was enough to announce to the Trojans the end of their ills, ^neas at once receives it from the mouth of his son, and struck by the accomplishment of the oracle, he meditates upon it in silence. Then, suddenly, " Hail ! " lie cried, " land which the Fates did promise me ! And you also hail, faithful Penates of Troy. Here is your dwelling, here is your country. My father Anchises (I remember him to-day) revealed to me in times gone by the secrets of the future. ' My son,' he said, ' when arrived on unknown shores hunger shall force thee, after eating all, to devour also thy tables, hope then for a fixed abode. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 253 and remember to trace on tliat spot the boundary of a new town.' Here, then, is that terrible hunger that was foretold to us. Yes, we have just borne the last trial which was to put an end to our uncertain wanderings."^ Heyne, who passed his life in commenting on Virgil, and usually professed a great admiration for him, can- not help being scandalised here. This legend of the eaten tables seems to him quite ridiculous, and unworthy of the majesty of an epic poem. It must be owned that it bears the character of a peasant's fable. Tliey are very fond of telling these tales, which at first seem terrible, but end almost amusingly. The one in question was doubtless ancient, and had been repeated for a great length of time in the cabins of Latian husband- men.2 Virgil sought it there, and, far from blaming him for it, like Heyne, I think he must be congratu- lated on having had the courage to introduce it into his poem, and the more so that he was not unaware that it would shock many of his readers. He also knew those railers and sceptics whom Ovid addressed when, being about to talk of old Janus and his ridiculous surnames, he says to them, " You are going to laugh." He has 1 ^n., YII. 107. 2 Probably certain rites in the worship of the Penates had given rise to it. It was customary to offer those little gods the first fruits of the repast, and these were presented to them on slices of bread called mensce panicea^. Naturally they were sacred, and only in case of a terrible famine would anyone dare to touch them. To eat the panicecB would therefore simply mean to suffer from one of those scarcities which force one to respect nothing. Such must be the origin of the prediction made to the Trojans, and which frightened them so much. The good-humoured ingenuity of the Latian peasantry found the means related by Virgil to fulfil the oracle at small cost. 254 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. even made visible attempts to disarm them, and lias obviously tried to prepare these malicious wits for this rustic story, and familiarise them with it. In order that they may be less surprised on hearing it told, he has it announced several times in advance. With this task he charges the Harpies, old Greek divinities — coarse, a little grotesque, and quite suited for the office. As for the narrative itself, I have just qupted it in full, and the skill with which it is managed is obvious. There are none of those little jokes, as in Ovid, designed to show that the poet is not taken in by the tale he is telling ; all is simple and serious. Yet we must remark the part given to lulus in this matter. It is he who perceives that they have eaten their tables, and who says it. In another mouth the thing might surprise ; it is becoming in a child, to whom such little remarks are natural. Without apparent design, therefore, Virgil has set about making us accept this simple legend with great cleverness.^ The other was more important, and enjoyed a much greater popularity in the country. The first adventure, just related, assured -iEneas that he had at length set foot upon the ground that had been promised to him, and ordered him to make a first settlement at the very spot where he had disembarked. But this was not the 1 We have just seen in Virgil's narrative that iEneas only speaks of Anchises. It is he alone who predicted that he would be reduced to eat his tables. It is therefore likely that the prediction of the Harpies was added by the poet later on. I do not think it rash to suppose, as I have just said, that Virgil only did so because he feared the bad effect his narrative might produce on some readers, and wished tO' justify it, and prepare them for it in advance. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM, 255 end of his fortune. The Trojans will not remain in this kind of intrenched camp which they are about to construct at the mouth of the Tiber. They must leave it, in order to advance to greater conquests, plunging deeper and deeper into the interior of the country, and building a new town each time they stop. This march, with Eome for its goal, must be known to ^neas. He deserves to be admitted to the secrets of the future, since he has had so much trouble in preparing it. Were he only working for himself, he would long since have been fixed on some quiet spot of earth, there to end his troubled existence in peace. But he belongs to his descendants, and must not deprive them of the country over which they are called to reign, or of the glory that awaits them. Is it not just that, to console him for the toils and perils he suffers, he may at least know what is to happen after him, and foresee the great destinies in the preparation of which he is working so hard ? This is how the gods reveal the future to him. When ^neas can no longer doubt the hostility of the Latins, he is anxious about the war that threatens him, and a prey to a thousand cares. As evening falls he stretches himself upon the river bank, " beneath the fresh vault of the skies," ^ and only goes to sleep after the others, late in the night. During his slumbers, a god appears to him, " clad in a light purple tunic with azure folds, his head covered with a crown of reeds." He introduces himself. It is the river-god himself, by whose brink the hero is resting, the Tiber, beloved of heaven, who flows with full banks through fertile plains. 1 ^n., VIII. 26. 256 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. "Ego sum, j^leno quern Jluviine cernis Stringentem rijios et xnnguia culta secantem, CcRTuhus Tibris, coelo gratissimus amnis." He begins by repeating to iEneas, who cannot know it too well, that this land is indeed the one where he must settle : " Thy promised home is here ; and here must thy Penates dwell." And that he may not think himself the dupe of a dream, a manifest sign of the divine will is announced to him : " Under the oaks that cover this shore, thou shalt find an enormous sow outstretched, which has just brought forth thirty little ones. She is white, and her little ones, white like their mother, hang from her teats. This is the spot where thou must raise the city thou art to build (Lavinium) ; it is the end of all thy toils. Thence, later on, after thirty years have come round, shalt start thy son, Ascanius, to go and found Alba, the noble city, whose name shall recall its origin {Alba, the white). 'Be sure that my predictions do not deceive thee." And indeed, on awakening, iEneas finds the white sow lying on the bank with her thirty little ones, and sacrifices them to Juno. This legend, like the preceding, is a peasant's tale. The word-play forming its essence, and which explains the name of the town of Alba, sufficiently shows its origin. Those peasants, moreover, are inhabitants of Latium, a country whose swine form its chief wealth. Varro the Elder speaks with vanity of those which he raises in his domains, and calls his countrymen " pig- raisers " by way of compliment {porculatores italici). Strictly speaking, it may be said that these animals figure more advantageously on a farm than in an epic OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 257 poem. Homer doubtless spoke of them without repugnance ; yet when, in the Iliad, Jupiter wishes to restore courage to the combatants by a favourable omen, he usually sends them an eagle rending a serpent, or hold- ing a fawn in his talons. An eagle, it must be owned, looks better than a pig or a sow. It has been remarked that Virgil himself, in his Georgics — that is to say, in a work in which he sang of Italian agriculture — did not give these animals quite the place they deserved to filL He only speaks of the pig two or three times ; and again in one of these passages he has thought fit to lend him an almost heroic attitude entirely out of keeping with its nature : " Ipse ruit dentesque sabellicus exacuit sus, Et pede prosubigit terrarn.'' ^ We no longer find the same timid precautions in the JEJneid. He did not hesitate to introduce the white sow and her little ones into it, nor did he ask himself what the fastidious would think about it. Here again we must in some degree approve his courage. All agree that when Virgil reproduced the legend it had been greatly modified by time ; but even his own narrative of it admits of its being brought back to its primitive form. Whatever he may pretend, it was not created to explain the rise of Lavinium. Those who first imagined this artless fable had Alba, then the metropolis of the Latin League, in mind. They related that they were one day assembled at the foot of Mount Albanus, their sacred mountain, consulting the gods as 1 Georff., III. 255. R 258 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. to the spot where they shoukl build their capital. Suddenly, during the sacrifice, the pregnant sow they were about to immolate escaped towards the mountain. They followed her at a distance, and at the place where she stopped to give birth to her young ones, they founded their city. Legends of this kind were not uncommon in the ancient mythology of the Aryan races. At Bbvillte it is a bull, at Ephesus a boar, which, escaping from the hands of the sacrificers, indicated the spot where the town was to be raised. Here the sow was preferred, because it is the animal which it was customary to immolate on the occasion of treaties of alliance, and the thirty little ones represented the thirty cities composing the Confederation. As we see, everything is simple and natural in the primitive story, and we do not need an augur or an aruspice to ■enable us to grasp its meaning. Later, when the legend of .^neas was implanted in Eome, and the Trojan hero was made the founder of Lavinium, the sacred city of the Penates, it was •desired to transplant the marvellous tale, which had been invented for the ancient capital of the Latin League, to the new one. But it could not be adapted to its new purpose without undergoing some changes. It was supposed that the white sow stopped where JLneas built Lavinium ; but at the same time it was still admitted that it had given its name to Alba, so the prodigy found itself relating to two cities at once, which is difficult to understand. Moreover, it was imagined that the thirty little ones meant tlie thirty years separating the foundation of the two cities. Virgil was forced, hj the very subject he had chosen, OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 259 to adopt this last form of the legend, which was not, as we have seen, the most simple and most natural. But what mattered those little obscurities of detail in the narration of a miracle ? The substance of the adventure remained ; it was still a question of the sow and her little ones, and people whose youth had been charmed by these wonderful tales were happy to find them again in Virgil's poem.^ III. LAVINIUM — ITS DECADENCE UNDER THE EMPIRE — WOR- SHIP OF THE PENATES — VESTIGES OF THE ANCIENT CITY — PRATICA — OUTLOOK FROM THE BORGHESE TOWER — THE PLAIN OF THE LATIUM — LATIN AND SABINE ELEMENTS IN THE ROMAN CITY. By the prediction of the Tiber, we are now led to speak of Lavinium. This town is often mentioned in the yEneid, although it does not yet exist. This is because in reality it forms the only link connecting the legend of ^neas with the history of Eome. In itself a small ^ Virgil has even introduced a new obscurity and inaccuracy into the legend. Admitting the white sow to have been found, as he says, on the banks of the Tiber, it should have been supposed that she fled to the spot where Lavinium was to rise^ But he thought it would be a ridiculous sight to show ^neas aud his soldiers running for nearly eight kilometres after a sow, so he once more bravely made up his mind, and had her immolated on the spot where she was found. But then one no longer understands the expression "/s locvs urbis erit," for Lavinium is six miles from the banks of the Tiber. Servius says we must translate as if there were " m ca rcgione " — that is to say, in the country, in the environs — which is very vague and arbitrary. 260 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND YIRGIL. hamlet in the midst of a solitary plain, it must be very indifferent to the masters of the world. Virgil several times made a point of reminding them of the right it had to their respect and their affection. At the very beginning of his work, Jupiter, consoling Venus for her son's misadventures, unveils to her the future reserved for his descendants. He first shows her iEneas founding Lavinium, in order to establish his homeless gods there. It is the starting-point of those glorious destinies. Later, from Lavinium will issue Alba, and Alba in its turn will give birth to Rome, so that all the greatness of Eome is referable to the founding of the city of ^neas. The Penates, for whom he must build a dwelling on a hill of Latium^ are the pledge of the eternal empire promised by the gods to the nation who wear the toga : " His ego nee metas rerum nee temjwra pono ; Imiierium sine fine dedi." ^ In Virgil's day the little town must already have been half deserted. Such, indeed, was the common lot of most of those he speaks of, and which make so great a figure in his poem. He himself tells us, with regard to Ardea, the capital of the Eutuli, " it has still a great name, 1 nit its fortune is past." - I picture to myself that Ardea was then, as now, a village of a few houses surrounded by old walls, upon a steep hill. Strabo, who went over the whole of this country in the time of Augustus, tells us that, after the ravages of the Samnites, it could not raise itself from its disasters, Vi'«., I. 278. -Ibid., VII. 412. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 261 and that, of the ancient and illustrious cities dating from ^neas, only vestiges remained. A hundred years later Lucan bears witness to the same abandon- ment. He says : " The sites of Veii, Gabii, and Cora are marked by ruins. Where Alba rose, or the Penates of Lavinium had their temple, nothing but uninhabited fields are any longer seen." ^ He adds that everywhere the walls of cities are too vast for their inhabitants ; that the fields lack husbandmen, and that a single city suffices to contain all the Eomans. He doubtless means that this town has ended by absorbing Italy .^ Eome was already making a vacuum around her, and from the Augustan age it might be foreseen that she would end by encircling herself with a desert. It is therefore likely that most of the Latin towns, when Virgil knew them, had already begun to assume the desolate look they wear in our days. It was a reason for him to love them more. They must have even pleased him by their very sadness and their solitude ; and rich, flourish- ing, populous, they would have inspired him with less affection. His biographers relate that he felt ill at 1 Lucan, Phars., VII. 391. 2 Bonstetten, describing the state of this part of the country iu 1804, speaks very much like Lucan : " Some of the fifty-three nations that formerly existed in Latium are represented by a single house. The great city of Gabii is now merely the abode of a herd of cows. Fidenae, where so many thousand men perished by the fall of an amphitheatre, is a broken-down sheep-stall ; and Cures, the illustrious country of Numa, an inn. Antemn?e, with its superb towers, Collatia, Cenina, Veii, Crustumerium, and so many other towns which proved the flourishing state of Latium, were swallowed up in a few years by infant Rome, already taught to devastate the earth, and we are still searching for the spot where they existed." 262 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. ease in large, populous towns, and shunned them as much as he could. On the other hand, he must have visited these poor abandoned cities willingly. The striking contrast between their ancient fortune and their present wretchedness the more endeared them to him, and one feels that he never speaks of them without emotion. Among all these half-ruined and deserted ancient cities Lavinium had a particular importance. " Here," said Varro solemnly, " liere are the Penates of the lioman people " {ibi dii Penates nostri)} They had shown in an important circumstance that they would not dwell elsewhere. It was related that Ascanius having tried to take them with him to the town which he had built, they twice left their temple at Alba, although the doors had been carefully shut, and returned by night to Lavinium. They had to be left there, since they would not leave their old home ; and as they would have been angry had they lost all their worshippers, six hundred inhabitants were sent, who were forced to dwell there and offer them sacrifices.^ Thence- forth Lavinium was entirely consecrated to their wor- ship. It was a kind of holy town, like a few that are still left in Italy, containing nothing but churches and convents, and where only monks are met with. There was no dearth of priests in Lavinium either, if we are to believe the inscriptions, which mention a great number, and even bid us observe the very characteristic circum- stance, that they kept the ancient costume in all its 'Z)c Ling. Lat., V. 144. "DcnyB of ihilicarnassu.s, A)U, Rom., I. 67. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 263 rigour, whereas at Eome it had been modified, in order to make it more convenient.^ The Temple of the Penates was doubtless the most important in the country. It was much visited, but it not being allowed to penetrate into the sanctuary, considerable uncertainty existed as to what these gods might be. Some stated that they were represented under the form of small seated statues with spears in their hands, and others that they were merely pieces of iron or bronze, not even formed in the human shape. The devout Denys of Halicaruassus, very much perplexed between these contrary assertions, gets out of the difficulty by saying one must not speak of that which the gods do not allow one to know.^ However, it was not neccesary to know in order to respect them, since they had worked miracles that proved their power. It is said that two young maidens, doubtless two vestals, having come to sleep in their temple in order to be relieved of certain reproaches of which they had been the object, one of them, who was not quite stainless, was in the course of the night struck by a thunderbolt, while the other slept at her side with- out awaking.^ There were also at Lavinium other religious edifices, which naturally claimed to go back to the time of ^neas, and in their neighbourhood his tomb was shown. " It is," says Denys, " a little mound, about which have been disposed trees in admirable order, and worthy to be seen." * In the Forum of the city statues of bronze recalled some of the legends that ' Servius, in ^^lu, VIII. 661. " Antiq. Rom., I. 67. 2 Servius, in ^En., III. 12. ^ Antiq. L'om., I. 6-1. 264 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. had announced his prowess. As may be imagined, the famous sow with its thirty little ones was not forgotten. It was often in question in Lavinium. It was thought they possessed the cabin where ^neas had immolated it ; and what is still more surprising, the priests showed the sow herself to visitors, preserved in brine."" We thus see that the worship of relics is of ancient date in Italy. Holy towns are usually dull ones. People are so busied there with sacred interests that worldly pleasures are neglected, and so there is generally a lack of anima- tion and gaiety. Lavinium could not have been an exception to the common rule. Yet the old town had its days of festivity. Every year, at fixed dates, priests came there from Eome to celebrate ancient ceremonies, and the first magistrates of the Republic, dictators, con- suls, prfL'tors, came there to sacrifice to the Penates, when they took office.- A general would not have undertaken a great military expedition without having first gone there to consult the gods. It is related that when the consul Hostilius Mancinus went thither to consult the augurs before leaving for Spain, the sacred chickens fied into the woods. The consul paid no heed to the warning, but went and got beaten by the Lusi- tanians.^ But beyond these solemn occasions which from time to time enlivened the town, it is probable that life then was very monotonous, and that it declined day by day. It is not known at what date and in con- sequence of what events it was joined to its neighbour ' ^'ilrl•o, Dcrc rust., II. 4, 18. -Scrviiis, in ^L'n., III. 12. '' \'aluiiii() .\Iiixinii;.-s, I. 6, 7. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 265 Laurentium, the ancient city of Latinus, which was drawing its last breath beside it. Thenceforth its citizens took the name of Laurentes Lavinatcs, and the town itself was sometimes called Laurolavinium. In- scriptions show us that the Emperors made a few efforts to arrest its decadence. It was naturally those most zealous for the worship of the gods, or most friendly to the ancient traditions, who chiefly cared to busy them- selves about it ; for example, good Antoninus, who all 3 lis life showed so much respect for the old memories of Kome, or Galerius, the ardent persecutor of the Chris- tians. We still find in the correspondence of Symmachus, the last of the pagans, a mark of affection towards this town, which he calls " rcligiosa civitas." At this moment Christianity was victorious, invasion was approaching, and Lavinium was about to vanish entirely, with the worship of the Penates. Nothing now remains of the ancient town, and its name is no longer found upon the map. Its situation, however, may be given with accuracy. The learned agree in believing that it was replaced by Pratica, and everything proves that they are right. Like Lavinium, Pratica is 16 miles (24 kilometres) from Eome, at 24 stadia (4 kilometres) from the sea, and about half-way between Ostia and Antium. In turning up the soil at haphazard many ancient remains have been found, proving that on this spot must formerly have risen a town of some importance; and as these remains are some- times fragments of vases belonging to ancient buildings, and sometimes pieces of marble and porphyry which jecall the most sumptuous periods, Nibby concludes that this city must go back to the most ancient times. 266 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. and that it still existed under the Empire. Finally, numerous inscriptions have been found at Pratica or in the vicinity, some of them bearing the name of Lavinium, which definitively settles all doubts. Pratica occupies a plateau of slight extent, rising on nearly every side precipitously from the plain. When we have been round it, and seen how difficult of access are the houses of the village, firmly supported as they are by the rock, we easily understand the reasons iEneas may have had for building his town in this place. He found himself safe there against the unforeseen attacks of the Eutuli or the Volsci, of all those peoples whose habit and pleasure, according to Virgil, was to live by rapine : " Sempei-que recentes Convedare juvat prccdas ct vivere rapto.'^ ' On the other hand, the narrowness of the plateau ex- plains that it could not long suffice a population which, in the beginning, was continually on the increase.^ "We have only to glance at Pratica in order to understand the account of Livy, who tells us that Ascanius, seeing that his father's town could not spread, resolved to quit it and found a new one on Mount Albanus, between the mountains and the lake. Pratica can only be entered by one road, which is ^jEn., VII. 759. ^Pratica only occupies the site of the citadel of Lavinium. The town itself probably extended into the plain, towards Ardea. Many remains of w.'ills have been found in this direction, which may have been the city's boundary. In any case it was small, and hampered in its development by accidents of the ground. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 267 probably the one followed by the procession of consuls and prjstors when they came to perform some sacred ceremony at the Temple of the Penates. The roadway, after circling the village for a short distance, rises to it abruptly by a somewhat rude causeway, and enters it beneath a gate which might be easily defended. All here is evidently well j)repared to offer a safe asylum to a few husbandmen desirous to protect themselves from pillage. The same cause explains the founding of Lavinium and Pratica. The people who, after the ruin of the ancient town, assembled anew on this narrow table- land, wished to find safety from the incursions of the Barbary pirates who, until the taking of Algiers, never ceased to infest these shores. When night fell, the husbandmen hastened to quit the plain, climbed into their little fortified enclosures, and the door once well secured, they could at least sleep in peace. It is thought that the village of Pratica,^ whose name is first heard in the ninth century, was in the course of the Middle Ages several times abandoned and rebuilt. As it stands, it is not more than two or three centuries old. It contains but one piazza and a few streets somewhat less dirty than those of other Italian villages. The piazza, regular and sufficiently large, has been decorated with a few fragments of antiquity. These are the little village's titles of nobility.^ There are capitals of ' The primitive form of this word seems to have been "Patrica." Nibby thinks this name must be derived from tha.t oi Pater Indiges — that is, of ^neas — who was chiefly honoured at Lavinium, By its modern name it woukl be the City, ^neas civitas Patris, "The statues and inscriptions have been lately placed in the court" yard of the Borghese Chateau. 268 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. columns, fragments of statues, inscriptions in honour of Antoninus and Galerius, and lastly, a sort of pedestal bearing the words " Silvius ^Eneas, son of ^neas and of Lavinia." If this monument was not the work of an amateur of the sixteenth century, as it very possibly may be, it is perhaps the base of some statue which ornamented the Forum of Lavinium. One side of the Piazza is formed by the front of a large house, devoid of any architectural pretensions. This is the Palazzo of the Borghese family. Pratica has belonged to them for nearly three hundred years, and constitutes one of their most important baronies. This does not imply that the village is very populous. It numbers but the seven or eight families who dare to remain there all the year round. TJie rest of the population is nomadic, and consists of peasants who in the winter descend from the mountains, and return home as soon as the heat approaches and the malaria begins to be dangerous. It is much the same from one end of Italy to the other, wherever marsh fever rages. Francois Lenormant, when travelling in Grecia Magna, found the custom again there.^ The colours in vvliich he painted the miseries of those poor Calabrian peasants, who come every year to work in tliis unwholesome soil, have not been forgotten ; and I bear witness that the pictures he drew of them produced the liveliest emotion in the country itself : so true is it that one becomes indifferent to spectacles which one has daily before one's eyes, and that it is good for a stranger now and then to tell us what happens in our own home. Not long since, ^ La Grande Grice, by Francois Lenormant. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 269 M. de la Blanchere, who made a stay at Terracina and courageously explored the Pontine marshes, had an opportunity of observing and describing the same cus- toms. There, too, the fields are deserted during half the year — the emigrants arriving in the month of October. Generally the same persons settle in the same spots. They descend the Apennines and the Abruzzi together, and come to resume their work. "Each," says M. de la Blanchere, "goes to find his ledra — that is to say, a clearing made by himself or a predecessor — often by an ancestor — for families are perpetuated during centuries upon the same soil. A staccionata, or rough fence of brambles, contains the beasts ; hive - shaped cabins shelter the people. On his own account, or that of another, the occupant carries on one or many of the thousand vocations of the macchia — shepherd, cowherd, swineherd, for the most part ; sometimes a woodcutter, and always a poacher and a prowler, using the macchia without scruple, like a savage of the virgin forest, he lives, and by his work makes a revenue for his own and the soil's master, who has confided his beasts to him — that is to say, when they are not his personal property. Thus six or seven months pass. June comes, the marslies dry up, the pools of the forest are exhausted, the children tremble with fever, the news from the country is satisfactory, and in a fortnight the roads are covered with people going back to the mountains again. Family by family, lestra by lestra, the macchia empties. Only men exhorting their horses, asses, or their women, laden with what is to be brought away, are met with ; and those whom July surprises in these regions are few indeed. The forest 270 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. is abandoned to twenty species of gad-flies and insects, which make life there impossible." ^ This is what happens on almost all the coast of Latium. I own, however, that at Ostia the picture seemed to me sadder than M. Blanchere represents it. There the immigrants are all husbandmen who come to sow the ground and get in the crops. At night they crowd together in cabins made of old planks covered with straw. I visited one, narrow and long, which resembled a passage. It had no windows, and was only lighted by the doors placed at each extremity. The arrange- ments were of the simplest ; in the middle the sauce- pans in which the soup is made ; on eitlier side, in dark recesses, men, women, and children lie pell-mell on heaps of straw that are never renewed. Directly you enter the cabin a foetid odour seizes you by the throat. As you pass on, eyes unaccustomed to this darkness can make out nothing. You only hear the moa?is of the sick whom the fever holdi co their straw, and who lean forward to ask the passer-by for alms. I should never have believed that a human being could live in such a hole. At Pratica there are at least houses decent enough in appearance. They are empty half the year, and much too full the rest of the time ; but the immi- grants who crowd them have not to suffer like those who wallow in the barracks at Ostia. The little village, moreover, does not look very miserable. It even possesses a great luxury in the shape of an ostcria con cucina, which remains open during all the winter season, and does not seem to lack customers. In spring the land- ^ De la Blanchere, 2'crracinc, p. 11. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 271 lord takes flight like everybody else, only leaving a wretched servant, a victim to the malaria, to take care of the house. I found myself there with some people of the country one day when it poured with rain ; for want of anything better to do, they played at cards. They were caporali, or labour-masters, and their dignity was seen in their costume. They wore under their large green-lined brown mantles a gallooned waistcoat. These insignia, together with their short breeches and pointed hats ornamented with feathers, gave them a melodramatic air, of which they seemed very proud. Looking at them, I thought that certainly no village inn in France could offer a collection of such types. The French peasant does not care to assume theatrical poses, or to attract the attention of strangers. On the contrary, he is so timid and cunning that he will rather give himself an air of sim- plicity and innocence in order that he may not be mistrusted. One has to be careful not to judge him quite by his appearance, or think him as foolish as he looks. The peasantry of these parts have not the same character. Nature has given them a ferocious look, and to nature they willingly add. One would thiuk they desired to inspire fear, and to appear more brigand-like than they really are. But, however this may be, vulgar faces are rarely found among them, and a glance at them suffices to convince one that they belong to an energetic and intelligent race. Since they all come from the Appenines and the neighbouring heights, I have no difficulty in beheving that I have before my eyes descendants of the Marsi, the Equi, and the Sam- nites, of all those rough mountaineers whom Rome had 272 THE COUNTRY OF HOUACE AND VIRGIL. SO much difficulty in subduing, and who afterwards helped her to subdue the world. One of the curiosities of Pratica is the tower rising from the middle of the Borghese l*alace. It is seen from every direction, and serves to direct shepherds and travellers in a country where beaten roads are not always found. It was doubtless built to overlook the vicinity at a period when unforeseen piratical attacks were to be feared, and it enables one to penetrate all the windings of the valleys, and observe all the shore from Ostia to Porto d'Anzio. From the uppermost storey the view is marvellous, but I will not proceed to describe its beauties. However great the desire in these high spots to cast one's eyes afar, and although the spectacle of these beautiful lines of mountains that close the horizon is incomparably grand, I own that I feel rather tempted to look down at my feet. I am absorbed by an entirely historical interest. I think of Eome, whose belfries and houses I can distinguish, and I endeavour to follow hence the phases of her budding fortune. This ground which surrounds me oa every side is Latium — " Old Latium " as it was called (Latium vctus Prisci Latini). It is here, according to a celebrated expression, " that Kome struck her first roots'*^ {ex hac tenui radice erevit imperium ) ; it is in this little corner of the land that the llomans must have become imbued with their fundamental qualities. I take it in entirely, and while carefully examining it, I ask myself whether there is anything in the configuration of the soil and the nature of the country to account for the character of the inliabitants. Prom this height at which the inequalities of the OSTIA AND LAYINIUM. 273 ground disappear, Latium seems to be a vast uniform plain. On looking at it, a reflection of Schwegler's, from which he drew important conclusions, occurs to my mind.^ He bids us remark how easy to traverse and how accessible to the stranger this plain appears to be at first sight. Towards the south I see neither mountains nor river separating it from the Volsci ; to the north it is bathed by a navigable stream, the sea bounds it to the west, and it possesses a long line of coast. The ancients had already observed that the countries bordering the sea are those which most quickly attain to a brilliant civilization ; but that, in general, they pay for this rapid progress by an early decay. " They are prompt to change," says Cicero^ "and greedy of novelty. They like to listen to all those travellers, who bring them their ideas and their customs with their wares. They end by resembling those isles of Greece, more troubled and unstable in their institutions than the wave that beats their shores." ^ Happily, Latium is not quite what it seems when viewed from aloft and from afar. This plain, at first sight apparently quite unbroken, hides undulations of ground, heights and valleys, which sometimes render circulation sufficiently inconvenient. This navigable river is not easy of access, on account of its shifting sands ; this long coast has no natural ports. It follows that the visits of the foreigner did not produce all their usual effects. External influence doubtless made itself felt, but it was tempered by a groundwork of natural 1 Ii67n. GeshicJde, I. 4. ^Cicero, Be Hep., II. 4. S 274 THE COUNTRY OF HORA.CE AND VIRGIL. qualities which nothing would quite destroy. I do not know how ; but the taste for novelties and the love of tradition blended. Commerce and industry did not replace agriculture. Nature and the soil had made the Latins husbandmen, and field-work was always the most honoured of all vocations among them. But these husbandmen do not remain isolated in their farms ; they possess a certain intelligence of political life, and feel the want of a national existence. Families group together to form cities, and cities unite in a common alliance to form a nation. It is not quite the same among the people who were their nearest neighbours, almost their brothers — the Sabines. I see before me their mountains, forming a sombre line on the horizon. In that country, scarcely accessible to people from without, there dwelt an almost savage population of husbandmen and shepherds, resolutely attached to their old customs and their ancient beliefs, and resolved not to change them. With regard to political organisation, they remained faithful to patriarchal rule. Their ideal form of government was family government, and they did not, like the Latins, get so far as to establish veritable cities. *' Their towns," says Strabo, " are scarcely hamlets." ^ So Schwegler thinks that in the union of the two peoples which formed the Roman nation, each had its share and played its part. The Latins represent that love of progress, those broad views, those humanitarian instincts, which are the characteristic and the honour of the Plebeians, while the Sabines, a race energetic but narrow, severe to hardness, devout even to superstition, 1 Stral.o, V. 3. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 275 brought into the mixture that love of ancient usages, that respect for old maxims, that spirit of resistance and conservatism which animated the Patricians. The struggle between these two opposite tendencies lasted, under different forms, for six centuries, and explains the whole of Eoman history down to the time of the Empire. Many sages and patriots who were witnesses of it or its victims deplored it bitterly. They believed and have said that Eome would have been much happier and greater could one of these two elements of discord have disappeared. I think this a mistake, and that, in combating, they restrained and tempered each other. Their opposition prevented stability from becoming routine and reform revolution. It may have rendered progress slower, but it made it more sure ; and, thanks to it, everything was done with order and in its due time. The very struggle of the two hostile principles, far from being a cause of weakness to Rome, is perhaps what gave it most spring and motion. In these daily assaults of which the Forum was the scene, characters took that energetic temper, that ardour of generous rivalry, that mettle, and that vigour, which, turned against the stranger, conquered the world. But we have wandered very far from our subject. Eoman history is full of attraction, and if we give way to the reflections suggested by the sight of the plains of Latium and the mountains of the Sabina, we shall not be able to stop. It is high time to descend from the Borghese tower and return to the camp of ^'Eneas. 276 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. IV. ^NEAS GOES TO SEE E\^ANDEU AT PALLANTEUM — THE TRO- JAN CAMP AT OSTIA — IT IS BESIEGED AND ALMOST TAKEN IN THE ABSENCE OF THE CHIEF — BURNING OF THE SHIPS — EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS. The god of the Tiber, in his prediction which kept us so long just now, is not content to announce to ^neas the destinies of his race, and give him exphana- tions regarding the foundation of Laviniuni and Alba. After busying himself with the future, he thinks of the present, and teaches him how to escape from the dangers that threaten him. All the Italian people unite against him, and he cannot oppose them without soldiers, so Tiber tells him how to find them. He must implore help from the enemies of the Latins, and he will be enabled to resist Turnus by the help of Evander and the Etruscans. In order to procure these precious alliances, and obey the orders of the gods,. ^■Eneas leaves his camp, embarks on the Tiber, and proceeds to visit King Evander in his little town of I'allanteum. This is an ingenious means found by Virgil to get out of one of the greatest difhculties of his subject. His aim is to sing the glory of Rome ; and Rome, at the time in which he places his epic, does not yet exist ; she only figures there by means of the predictions unceasingly made of her greatness and her glory. To render her more present in this epic of which she is the soul, the poet has had the happy idea to send his hero to the very spot where she is one day to rise. If he cannot sec, he must at least divine and OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 277 foreshadow her. On this predestined soil there is some- thing of her already. At the foot of the Aventine, the worship of victorious Hercules is celebrated, Salian priests sing around the ara maxima ; on the slope of the Palatine the sacred grotto of the Lupercal is shown, and when the Arcadian shepherds pass before the bushes which cover the rocks of the Palatine they think they hear Jove shake his thunder, and take to flight, terrified. Virgil's Eighth Book is one of those written by him with most ardour and passion. This first view of Rome before her birth entranced him, and the picture he drew of it was of a nature to enrapture his contemporaries, who loved to contrast this town of marble which Augustus flattered himself with having built, not only with the brick Rome of the Republican period, but with the straw houses of the age of the kiugs. I wish I had time to follow ^^neas in this excursion, in which he salutes in advance the city destined to be the world's marvel (rerum pulcherrima Roma) ; and I should like also to accompany him to Coere, where the enemies of Mezentius await him with their alliance. It would be interesting to see how he speaks of the Etruscans, and the impression which this strange race makes upon him, but I must limit myself, for the journey would take us too far. Let us be resigned, then, to allow him to start alone, and not leave the camp where he has placed his soldiers. All who wrote the history of these ancient events have spoken of the camp of ^neas, and agree in calling it Troy {Troja, castra Trojana) ; but they place it at different spots. Many supposed that ^neas stopped between Lavinium and Ardea, near tlie temple 278 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. raised to Venus, where a statue of the goddess was shown, said to have been brought thither by himself.^ Virgil decided for another part of the shore. Faithful to his custom of connecting the present with the past, he chose to consecrate his beginnings of an important town by a great memory, and placed the camp of -^neas at the very place where King Ancus Marcius was afterwards to found Ostia. We have seen the Trojans arrive at the mouth of the Tiber, and penetrate into the " shady bed of the river." After advancing a little way along its banks, they stop and disembark. It is there that recent excavations have brought to light the foundations of vast magazines that encroached upon the Tiber, and still contain large corn jars in which the food of the Eoman people was placed in reserve. Ostia is now about four kilometres from the sea; but we know that at the time of its prosperity it was quite close to it. In the Ociavius of Minucius Felix, tlie first work written by a Christian in Latin, the author and his friends leave Ostia one morning for a walk on the shore, and it seems from the * Aiiotlier reason they had for making ^neas come to this spot was that the sacred river Numicus or Numicius was generally placed here. Danys of Halicarnassus and Pliny seem indeed to say that it flows near Laviniiini, and it is usually identified with the Rio Torto, or some other of these rivulets found between Pratica and Ardea. But Virgil puts it quite close to Ostia. When on their arrival the Trojans seek to tind out where it is they have landed, they send peojile to explore the neighbourhood, and these rejJOit that they have just seen the marshes where the Numicius rises {Fontis staqna Numici), which would seem to point to a rivulet issuing from the Stagno di Levantc and flowing towards the sea. However, it was said that this rivulet had dried up, which explains the discussion as to its position. OSTIA A^"D LAVINIUM, 279 narrative of Miimcius that tliey only have^to go a few steps. They soon arrive at their goal, and find them- selves on a kind of carpet of sand, which the tide seems to have spread at their feet to make an agreeable walk. A century and a half before, when Virgil went over this shore, it must have been in nearly the same state ; and in accordance with his custom, he supposes that it had not changed since the time of ^neas. Wishing to do for Ostia what he had done for Eome, he has reverted to the time when cabins of straw held the place of marble palaces. His fancy, in love with simplicity and fond of contrasts, has delighted to place the poor shelters of an im- provised camp where he saw wide streets bordered by porticoes and full of the most sumptuous merchandise, and to assemble a few frightened soldiers in the very places animated in his time by the movement and noise of business. This camp of ^neas is a kind of little town, imagined by the poet on the model of the castra stativa in which the Eoman legions were wont to retrench themselves when they had a rather long stay to make. The boundary, according to an ancient usage, is traced with the plough, a deep ditch is dug all around, and the earth drawn from it serves to form an entrenchment furnished with battlements and loopholes. In front, like advanced sentinels, rise wooden towers, joined to the fort by drawbridges, to be lowered or raised according to the needs of the defence. The town (as Virgil calls it) is only provided with a rampart on the left side ; the right being built upon the river, the poet supposes that it does not want pro- tecting. This circumstance affords him the d^noudment of one of his most brilliant episodes. He relates that 280 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIUGIL. Turnus, pursuing the fugitive Trojans, enters their camp with them, unperceived. The fugitives' first care is hurriedly to close their gates, and they thus shut within their walls the very man they would have avoided. On recognising the tuft of red feathers that waves upon his head, and the lightnings flashed by his shield, they are seized with unspeakable terror. Turnus chases and slays them " like a tiger surrounded by timid cattle." They end, however, by seeing that he is alone ; and having united, they gradually force him to retire from the combat. Before this crowd, every moment increased by the timid who are taking heart again, he withdraws little by little and step by step, holding them all at bay, but exhausted by the unequal contest. "The sweat rolls in black waves over his body. He can no longer breathe, and his pantings shake his breast." Borne back at length against the Tiber, as there is neither retrenchment nor wall on this side, he flings himself into the river, " which raises him softly on its waters, and gives him back to his companions cleansed from the soils of the fight.'' This combat, which takes place while -^neas is absent, fills the whole of the Ninth Book of the JEneid. In the course of it, the Trojans, bereft of their chief, are very badly used by Turnus, and besieged in their camp, which is on the point of being taken. Of all this struggle, which it would be of slight interest to study in detail, I only give two episodes, not because they are finer than the rest, but because they seem to me to become somewliat clearer when read upon the spot, and because they fit themselves better into the land- scape, as it were. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 281 The first is that in which the poet tells us of the metamorphosis of the Trojan vessels into sea-nymphs. When ^neas landed on Italian soil, his first care was to place his ships in safety. He could not think of leaving them in the river. The famous port of Ostia, before the works of Claudius and Trajan, was not a port. Strabo tells us that the shoals caused by the sand carried by the Tiber did not allow vessels of heavy tonnage to approach the coast. " They cast their anchors and remained at large, exposed to all the roughness of the open sea. Meanwhile, light craft came to take their merchandise and bring them other, so that they left without having entered the river." ^ ^neas, in order to avoid these dangers and place his vessels in safety from the sands and the waves, has them drawn up upon the shore. This custom, already existent in the time of Homer, was not abandoned in the second century of the Empire. Minucius Felix tells us that while walking about Ostia (at the very place where the Trojan fleet must have been) he met with " ships taken out of the water, and resting on wooden stays, in order to prevent them from being soiled by the mud." ^ The vessels of ^neas were placed on the left bank of the Tiber, in the space of four stadia (720 metres) which separated the Trojan camp from the sea. They had been hidden as well as possible, and, like the camp itself, they were defended by a sort of entrenchment on the side where the river did not protect them. But they did not escape Turnus. Going before the main body of his 1 Strabo, V. 3, 5. - Octavius, 3. 282 THE COUNTRY OF HOKACK AND VIRGIL. soldiers, who did not march fast enough, the chief of the Eutuli, with a few chosen horsemen, turns on the Trojan camp " like a famished wolf around a well- filled, well-shut sheep-fold, when, through the night, mid wind and storm, he hears the lambs bleat peace- fully beneath their dams."^ While looking on all sides for some opening through which to strike his foes, who will not come out, he espies the vessels, and prepares to hurl blazing torches against them. But at this moment Cybele, mother of the gods, steps in and saves them. Since they were built with trees of the sacred forest of Ida, she will not have them perish lil^e ordinary craft, and obtains from Jupiter leave to change them into goddesses of the sea. She has only to say a word. " At once the vessels break the bonds that held them, and like plunging dolphins sink in the abyss. Soon after, on the surface of the waves, as many youth- ful nymphs were seen to rise as prows of bronze had been along the shore." ^ Naturally this miracle does not please Voltaire, and we must believe that it caused some surprise even in ancient times, since the poet feels it necessary to defend it. Like the authors of the chansons dc gestc, who, after relating anything incredible, never fail to state that they read it in the Latin work of some well-informed monk, Virgil invokes tradition. " It is a very old story," he tells us, " but its fame has been preserved throughout the ages." ^ This precaution shows us that he foresaw some objection. He well felt that in his work the tale he was about to tell bore quite a new 1 yEn., IX. 59. - Ibid., 117. ' IbicL, 79. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 283 character. In Homer's poems and in his own the gods very frequently intervene ; but for the most part it is not to disarrange the regular order of the world, and produce effects contrary to good sense. The super- natural, as they understood it, is usually a very natural thing. In those primitive times which we are depict- ing, men were accustomed to attribute all that happened to them to a divine influence. Wlien they watched some violence of the elements, or when they felt some furious ardour arise in their hearts, they were tempted to think that the divinity could not be a stranger to it. " Is it true," says one of Virgil's heroes, " that the gods inspire in me a great design ; or does not each of us make a god of the passions of his soul ? " ^ It is in consonance with this idea that the ancient poets so often represent Mars, Minerva, and Apollo going about the field of battle, and at the critical moment appearing to a combatant to stir up his ardour or suggest some enterprise to him, and it almost always happens that they only advise him what should have occurred spontaneously to his own mind. When Virgil shows us Alecto inspiring the Italians with anger on the coming of Jjlneas, we cannot help thinking that the Italians must of themselves have felt very irritated at seeing a stranger land among them, and without more ado come to settle on their lands, under pretext that the gods have given them to him. Elsewhere he shows us Juno, Venus, and Cupid plot- tins together to make Dido fall in love with ^neas. Do we need the intervention of so many divinities to 1 jEn., IX. 184. 284 THE COUNTKY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. explain to us that a woman, young, beautiful, and who has loved much, one day takes a fancy to a hero who relates his misfortunes and his adventures to her in so touching a manner ? We are not surprised that ^neas, when he begins to love Dido, forgets for her that Italy which the Fates promise him ; and we also understand tliat when he has nothing more to desire, in the first weariness of sated love, he begins to think of it again. Was it absolutely necessary to trouble Mercury in order to remind him of it ? It were possible, then, in the examples I have just given, to suppress the marvel- lous without grave damage to the action ; for it is only a means of better explaining natural incidents which, strictly speaking, could explain themselves. But the legend we are studying has not quite the same character. It is a downright miracle altering the laws of nature. It was imagined to amuse the mind for a moment by the unexpectedness and strangeness of the invention, and is indeed a wonder of fairyland, foreshadowing Ovid's Metamorphoses. Of the other story I will say scarcely anything, for fear of not saying enough ; it is the episode of Nisus and Euryalus. Virgil has put all his soul into it, which does not prevent everything in it from being exact and pre- cise, so that on the spot the least details can be followed and understood. In a purely imaginative narration the poet gives us the complete illusion of truth. Here is the camp of yEneas as we have just described it, between the Tiber, the plain of Laurentum, and the sea. We first assist at the military vigil of the Trojans, in face of a threatening enemy. They are uneasy OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 285 about the absence of their chief, and fear to succumb on the morrow beneath the attacks of Turnus. Nisus, who guards a gate with Euryalus, reveals to him that he has formed a plan to cross the encampment of the Eutuli, and go and inform ^neas of the danger which his soldiers are exposed to. In lines impossible to forget Virgil relates the conversation of the two friends and their noble struggle, a dispute between tenderness and heroism, in which heroism finally triumphs. He then takes them to the assembly of the cliiefs. While the soldiers sleep, the chiefs standing in their midst, leaning upon their long lances, seek some means to warn ^neas, when the two friends come to announce that they have undertaken the enterprise. Nisus knows the way that must be followed in order to reach him. Beneath that hill which he points out to the right, he is sure to find a road that in a few hours will bring him to Pallanteum, the nearest houses of which he has seen from afar in his adventurous hunting excursions.^ Accompanied by the good wishes of lulus and the Trojan chiefs, they start. Here our topographical knowledge enables us to follow them step by step. Virgil tells us •' they left by the gate nearest to the sea," and we are at first rather surprised at this. It is just the contrary road to the one they might have been expected to take, since by following this direction they turn their backs on Pallanteum. Are we to believe, with Bonstetten, that the course of the Tiber then approached the large marsh known as the Stcigno di Levantc ; that, towards ^ u^n., IX. 244. Bonstetten calls attention to the fact that from Castel Decimo the houses of the Roman outskirts are plainly seen. 286 THE COUNTKY OF HORACP: AND VIRGIL. Rome the morass and the river joining, formed, as it were, a boundary to the camp of xEneas, and that there was no issue on this side ? Or is it not more simple to suppose that Nisus and Euryalus cliose the way skirting the sea, because it was least defended ? Nisus, in fact, has remarked that the liutuli, who have passed the night in playing and drinking, do not keep guard. Hardly any fires shine in their camp. Plunged in sleep and drunkenness, some are stretched on the grass, while others are more softly couched on heaped-up carpets ; all are sleeping with a will. So the two friends easily effect a great slaughter. They even tarry longer than they should over this easy victory, and, tempted by the rich booty they have won, lose time in carrying it off. Poor Euryalus, quite a youth, with the vanity of his age, cannot refrain from covering himself with brilliant arms, which, struck by a moonbeam, will presently betray him and cause his death. They at last perceive that day approaches, that they have got to the extremity of the Rutuli camp, and that they must hasten to leave it. They now change the direction of their way. The poet has told us that at starting they found two roads before them : one doubtless leading straight to the sea, the other turning to the left, skirting the shore, and holding the place of the Via Severiana, constructed by Severus, from Ostia to Terracina. As long as they were traversing the camp of Turnus, Nisus and Eury- alus followed the latter road. On leaving it, they turn to the left, their intention doubtless being to take the end of the Stagno di Levantc, and thence proceed in a straight line to the city of Evander. In order now to OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 287 go from that spot to Eome, we should have to make I\talafede or Castel Decimo by some cross-road, and take the Via Ostiensis or the Via Laurentina, which would quickly bring us there. So we can very clearly picture to ourselves where the unfortunate youths were when the Volscians, coming from Laurentum to bring Turnus part of his troops, perceived them. They must have been close to that fine park of Castel Fusano one never fails to go and see when visiting Ostia, at the spot where the Selva Laurentina begins. Virgil thus de- scribes the forest they tried to cross : " Silvafuit late dumis atque illice nigra. Horrida, quam densi complebant undique sentes ; Rara inr occultos Inrehat semita calks." ^ Bonstetten bids us remark that this description has not ceased to be true. Now, as in the time of ^neas, the whole of this region abounds in impenetrable thickets where bushes and brambles interlace, and it is impossible not to lose one's way. I remember a little wood between Castel Fusano and Tor Pateruo which I was so imprudent as to enter, and from which I only escaped with much diflficulty and many scratches, very far from tlie place whither I desired to go. Evidently, liad Volscians pursued me with 300 horsemen, I should not have saved myself. Yet Nisus manages to get off. The poet, bent on being precise above all things, tells us he had got to that spot called later " the Alban field," ^ ' ^n., IX. 381. * I have some difficulty in understanding how this passage of the ^neid could have given interpreters so much trouble. It is clear that neither the town founded by Ascanius, nor, as Heyne supposes, the lake situated at the foot of Mount Albano, is here in question. 288 THE COUNTKY OF IIOKACE AND VIRGIL. when lie saw that he was alone. Euryalus, less skilful and resolute, and encumbered by the spoil with which he had loaded himself, had lingered on the road Nisus does not waver ; he plunges into the forest, and returns to die with his friend. I will not be so imprudent as to relate their death when Virgil has so ably done so. I prefer to leave the reader the pleasure of going over the entire episode again in the jtEneid. This pleasure will be complete if he have the •T^ood fortune to read this admirable narrative at Castei Fusano itself — that is to say, in the place that inspired it. I can imagine none in the world where the soul could better yield itself up to this grand poetry. In our bustling towns it is very difficult to abstract one- self from the present ; it seizes on us, and holds us fast on every side. At Castei Fusano nothing draws u& away from the memories of antiquity. In order to belong quite entirely to Virgil, I would rather'not have before my eyes even the stern palace of the Chigi, as much like a fortress as a country house. I would place myself opposite the avenue paved with the slabs of the Via Severiana, and leading to the sea, beneath the shade of those great parasol pines, the most beauti- ful found in the Eonian Campagna. " This shade,"^ says Bonstetten very happily, " is like no other. You These are much too far from the shore, and it would have taken Nisus a long day's journey to go and return, whereas he must have been much less than an hour on his way. Virgil means some spot on the territory of Lanrentum to which, for reasons unknown to us, had been named loci Albani, and was so called in his day. The care he takes to point it out well shows the desire he had to be precise, and connect the scene with a definite spot. OSTIA AND LAVINIUM. 289 walk between the gigantic trunks of these trees as between columns, and although in a wood you see the sky and the horizon all round. The eye reposes gently, as if under a gauze veil, in a light having neither the darkness of shadow nor the brightness of the sun. In order to be aware of the light parasol spread out in the air between the sky and earth, you must raise your head." Certainly, as T have already said, Virgil's verses may be understood and enjoyed everywhere ; but it seems to me that in this solitude and this great silence, in the midst of this fine park surrounded by a desert, and among all these relics of the hoary past one finds in them one charm more. Perhaps, too, seeing how exactly places have been described and scenes narrated, we better understand how it is that a work of imagination, a creation of the poet, should have become for us more living and more true than many a real story, and how the prediction of Virgil was accomplished, who announced to his person- ages that nothing could efface their names from the memories of men : " Fortunati avibo, si quid mea carmina j^ossunt ! Nulla dies ujiquam memori vos eximet mvo." ^ 1 u^7i., IX. 466. 290 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. IV. LAUKENTUM. I. TENTH BOOK OF THE ^NEID — ASSEMBLY OF THE GODS — RETURN OF ^NEAS — WAR IN VIRGIL'S POEM — HIS PORTRAYAL OF THE DIFFERENT ITALIC RACES — WHY HE DID NOT PAINT THEM MORE DISTINCTLY. An the end of the Ninth Book of the JEndd, the Trojans are besieged in their camp during the absence of their chief. The attempts made by them to warn him have failed ; they have lost their bravest soldiers, and their afiairs seem desperate ; but fortune is about to come back to them with the return of vEneas, and thenceforth their success will continue to grow until the end of the poem. We have arrived, then, at one of those decisive moments when events are about to take a new turn. So Virgil abruptly breaks off his narrative, and transports us from the earth to the sky, in order to assist at an assembly of the gods. It is a very brilliant episode, and very carefully worked out, which is the more remarkable from its being the only one of the kind in the yEneid. If Virgil did not imitate Homer, who so often represents the gods assembled and debating together, it is doubtless because he felt some embarrassment as to doing so. It is in such scenes that the Homeric gods most willingly give way to all the violence of their humours ; and this Adolence is little in keeping with the idea formed by a more enlightened age of divine majesty. Virgil, while LAURENTUM. 291 on the whole retaining the old divinities, aimed at making them more grave and decent, and this attempt was attended with some dangers. We can only accept the Homeric gods by allowing our imagination to go back to the age of Homer. In order that the simplicity of certain details may not wound, it must abandon itself entirely to the past, and believe itself to live therein ; but when we imprudently ask their acceptance in connection with the present time, the imagination at once becomes more fastidious, and, the illusion once dissipated, contrasts irritate, and the corrections we try to apply to the original figure, with the new features we add, only serve to cast the strangeness of the rest into higher relief. In the assembly of the gods in the Tenth Book, although Jupiter has become more majestic and dignified, we are less inclined to congratulate him on the progress he has perhaps made than struck by the extent to which he falls short of the divine idea. Brought into a less unsophisticated medium, we find that the speeches of Venus and Juno contain outbursts of language, subtleties of reasoning, and a whole rhetorical mechanism which seems to us very much out of place in Olympus. We are above all displeased to see that all this discussion leads to nothing. Jupiter, who begins by appearing very angry, and w^ho seems to say that he is about to form the most serious resolves, ends by declaring, amid thunder and lightning and invoking the Styx to witness his words, that he will do nothing at all, and that he lets events take theii* course {Fata viam invenient)} It was not worth while 1 ^11., X. 113. 292 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. to call together the whole of the celestial body for so little. This celebrated scene, then, which opens the Tenth Book in so brilliant a manner, seems to me to have only one result ; it indicates with great solemnity that we have got to one of the chief crises of the action.^ It is, in fact, directly after the assembly of the gods that fortune changes. Very early in the morning, Turuus, hoping to carry the Trojan camp before succour arrives, resumes the attack. The unfortunate soldiers, who were so hardly treated the day before, and who had little hope of escape, " look sadly down from the towers, and their thinned ranks can scarcely man the ramparts." ^ Turnus redoubles his efforts, attacks all the gates at once, throws flaming torches on the towers, and thinks himself sure of success, when suddenly a cry rings out upon the walls, a cry of joy and deliver- ance. It is ^neas who is coming with the thirty vessels of the Etruscans. The sun, rising at this moment above the Alban mountains, strikes his shield, and the flashes are easily seen from the Trojan camp, situated, as we know, four stadia from the sea. Read in the poem, the events that follow appear ^ The only positive result of tins assembly of Olympus is that Jupiter, in his opening speech, prohibits all the gods from meddling in the quarrel of the Trojans and the Latins, and undertakes in his last not to meddle in it himself. In the upshot, neither the gods nor Jupiter abstain from taking part in the fight. I am therefore greatly tempted to believe that Virgil composed this brilliant digression separately, and added it, so that he had no time to harmonise it well V. ith the rest. - yEn., X. 121. LAURENTUM. 293 somewhat confused, but they develop themselves, on the contrary, with great clearness when studied upon the spot. xEneas had caused the cavalry given him by Evander, and reinforced by that of Tarchon, to take the land route, while he himself brought the Etruscan fleet to the mouth of the Tiber. The road to be followed by the cavalry and the spot where it was to await him were settled in advance. All has been carried out exactly, and the cavalry has passed the Tiber some- where between the Trojan camp and the Pallanteum. In order to escape Turnus, who keeps upon his guard, and wishes, above all, to prevent help from being brought to the besieged, it has been obliged to go a rather long way round, and has perhaps even skirted the Stagno di Levante. The poet tells us nothing of all these movements ; but lets eachimai^ine them accordina: to his fancy. But it is certain that the cavalry has also arrived quite close to the sea, since Pallas, Evander's son, who has come in the ship of ^neas, manages to join it and put himself at its head. This, then, is the situation of the combatants when Turnus, still besieging the Trojans, without seeming to suspect what threatens him, hears their cry of joy and the distant salutation they address to their chief. Then he, too, turns to the ocean, and sees the Etruscan fleet nearing the shore. Hereupon, leaving a few soldiers around the walls, he rushes to make a furious attack on the newcomers. The combat goes on in two places, at once — towards the mouth of the Tiber, where yEneas has just disembarked with the Etruscans, and a little farther on, towards Castel Fusano, where Evander's cavalry, commanded by Pallas, find themselves for a 294 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRCxIL. moment very much embarrassed among trunks of trees, and large stones rolled down by the waters of a torrent.^ After a bloody struggle, the Latins give way, Turnus being withdrawn from the combat by a stratagem of his sister. The Trojan youth leave the camp where they were shut up, and all the troops of ^neas unite under his hand. This Book and the two following, like the one pre- ceding them, are almost entirely taken up with descriptions of battle. A certain monotony results, which explains the severe judgment sometimes passed against the end of the JEneid. It was unfortunately a necessity of the subject chosen by Virgil, and he could not escape it. Since ^neas must conquer by arms the country where he is to settle, of course the poet had to sing of war. He did not love it, however, and always remembered that it had troubled his youth. At twenty-six years of age, when he was given up to the pleasures of country life and the love of the Muses, he had seen with terror the undisciplined legions of Antony and Octavius pass, ravaging all upon their way. They returned soon afterwards, made more insolent by victory, and claiming from their chiefs the rewards they had been promised, and he had nearly lost his life in defending his little field from them. We must ^ This seems to Boiistetten very improbable. "The Tiber," he says, "never rolled rocks." I add that the Arcadian horsemen do not fight ou the banks of the Tiber, but a little farther on. The mountains are very far from the spot where they are placed, and the water flowin;? from them would fall into the Sfagno di Lcvaiitc, which bars the way. So it is very difficult to understand what Virgil means in this passage. LAURENTUM. 295 not be astonished that he should have retained a sort of horror of war. Peace was his ideal and his dream. He loved to foresee it in the future, and hailed in advance a happy time when differences would no longer be settled by arms, when all old quarrels would be for- gotten, and when concord and justice would at length reign over the world. " Aspera turn positis mitescent scecula bellis. Cana Fides et Vesta, Remo cum frate Quirinus Jura dabunt,"^ and among the reasons he had to love Augustus — the strongest, certainly — was his having closed the Temple of Janus and bidden the Empire be at peace. At the very moment when forced by the necessity of his subject to tell of battles, he never ceases to load war with the hardest epithets (horrida, insana iella ; lacrimahile helium). He puts himself on the side of the mothers who curse it, and, in a deathless line, shows them at the first noise of battle pressing their children to their breasts : " Et pavidce matres pressere ad pectore natos." ^ Nor could he help communicating this feeling of his to his hero, ^neas makes war as Virgil sings it — very much in spite of himself. It may indeed be said that Homer sometimes talks like Virgil. It also happens to him to be deeply touched by the ills inflicted on men by war. When a young man dies, he pities him " for sleeping a brazen sleep far from his wife, of whom he has received but 1 ^n., I. 291. "^n., VII. 518. 296 THE COUNTRY OF HOR.VCE AND YIRGIL. few caresses." ^ He has words full of melancholy on the fate of poor mortals carried off, like the leaves of trees,^ but it is only a flash. Once plunged into the scrimmage, he is seized with the intoxication of combat. He triumphs with the victor, he strikes the vanquished without ruth, he is full of violent insults and cruel ironies, and it seems natural to him for a warrior to threaten his enemies " to eat their quivering flesh, to spill their brains like wine, and to reach the infant even in its mother's womb." ^ He finds no greater happiness for Jupiter than " to sit apart from the other gods and rejoice in his glory, while he watches the glint of the bronze and the warriors who slay and are slain." * How strange is the mature of the poet ! He understands everything, and everything enchants him ! He describes contrary sights with a like pleasure, feels opposed sentiments with the same force, and puts himself equally into all that he does without showing a marked preference for anything. This is doubtless one of the reasons which have caused his existence to be doubted, although it is of course impossible to imagine a work without an author. A man's personality is shown by the qualities which dominate him, and it is usually the absence of some among them that throws the others into relief. So Homer, who seems to have all in the same degree, appears to us less living and less real than Virgil, whose character is drawn and defined as much by what is lacking in him as by what he possesses. It must be owned tliat the incomparable gentleness of ' Iliad, Xr. 210. "-Ibid., VI. 147. ^Ibld., XX. 346; YI. 9. * Ibid., XI. 75. LAUEENTUM. 297 soul, which is its chief feature, little predisposed him to be the bard of battles. He has done his best to imitate his great predecessor ; he, too, represents in- solent, implacable warriors, cutting off arms and legs, insulting the enemy before fighting him, jeering at him when vanquished, and treading upon him when he is dead. But do what he will, his heart is not in all these horrors, and we always feel that the gentle poet has to do himself a violence when he must be cruel. Whatever talent he exhibits in these descriptions, he is no longer quite himself in them, and they give us little pleasure. Yet it seems there was a means of introducing a little variety into the accounts of these combats. This was to profit by the diversities existing among the Italic races before Eome united them under her dominion, and describe each of them with its peculiar manners and distinguishing features. He has exactly tried to do so, and this effort deserves the more to be remarked, because it was an innovation. In Homer, the Greeks nowise differ from the Trojans, and exactly resemble each other. The famous catalogue of the Second Book of the Iliad contains scarcely anything but proper names and a few general epithets. This long enumeration of nations that took part in the Trojan War is, in itself, of but small interest.^ What gives it its importance is that later on Greek cities considered it a title of nobility to figure there. But no difference appears between them. Virgil, too, 1 See the enumeration of the Italian warriors in the Seventh Book, line 647 to the end. 298 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. when he placed at the end of the Seventh Book of the jEneid a list of the Italic peoples allied to Turnus, chiefly desired to glorify their past, and give them an antiquity that would do them honour ; but he does not content himself with drily enumerating them, he adds to their names some mention of their histories, curious particulars concerning their usages, with descriptions of their costumes and arms. He shows us, for example, the Volsci, the Hernici, and the people of Praeneste and Anagnia, who wear a wolf-skin upon their heads, and who march to battle with one foot bare and the other with a leather covering; the Falisci and the mountaineers of Soracte, who advance singing the praises of King Messapus, the horse-tamer ; the Marsi, whose chief is a priest skilled in the art of charming serpents ; the Osci, the Aurunci, and the Sidicii, armed with a short javelin which they launch by means of a strap, and with a curved sword ; the inhabitants of Caprte, of Abella, and of the banks of Sarnus, wearing cork helmets and carrying long lances which they use in the Teutonic manner. All these details of pictur- esque history, not yet hackneyed, must have occasioned the contemporaries of Virgil the liveliest pleasure, and, indeed, he was considered as a great archaeologist and antiquary ; but, in our days, we have become more exact- ing. We have been spoilt by pictures of this kind being heaped upon us, and never have enough of them. Many, instead of being thankful to him for what he has done, are tempted to find that he stopped too soon. It appears to them that he has not painted the various Italic nations in strokes sufficiently marked and distinct, and they especially resent his not having LAUKENTUM. 299 made more of the Etruscans, of whom he speaks still less than of the Latins. If we except a word he says in passing about their taste for gaudy costumes and glittering arms, he indeed only emphasizes one side of their character — their passion for good cheer and women. Tn the midst of a battle, their chief Tarchon, who sees them fleeing before Camillus, re- proaches them " with loving only to sit at a well- furnished table beside a full cup, and with only having courage for Venus and her nocturnal combats." ^ These are vivid strokes, it is true, but they would not have sufficed a modern poet. He would have given greater relief and a more original attitude to this strange people, of whom an ancient author already said that in its language and mode of life it resembled no other nation in the world.^ Virgil did not choose to do so, and for this he doubtless had some reason. The writers of antiquity, historians as well as poets, were above all artists, and their first care was the unity of their works. They did not treat the various parts irrelatively, but held that each of them should add to the general effect. Our authors have not exactly the same cares. In the romance of Salammho, where Flaubert seems to have undertaken to remake with realistic treatment the prose epic of Chateaubriand, he is brought, like Virgil, to enumerate the different peoples who form the army of Carthaginian mercenaries. This method is very simple. He merely gathers from everywhere, without choosing, all the archteological curiosities he can find, to dress up his characters in. "* jEn., XI. 735. -Denys of Halicarnassus, I. 30. 300 THE COUNlTtY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. He describes successively "the Greek with his slim waist, the Egyptian with his high shoulders, the big- calved Cantabrian, the Libyans daubed with vermilion and looking like coral statues, the Cappadocian bow- men, who with the juice of plants paint great flowers on thin bodies," etc. Each of these traits may be striking in itself, but the whole forms the most incon- gruous and bizarre picture possible to imagine. It is not an army, or even a crowd ; it is a masquerade. It is hard to understand how men, wdiom we know to have differed so utterly from each other, could have been brought to combine in common action, to become the instrument of a single will, and, under Hannibal's leadership, to bring about the destruction of the Eoman legions. In his striving after absolute accuracy of detail, Flaubert seems to have failed to impress us with an idea of the truth of the whole ; he gives us a series of geMre pictures instead of composing a great historical masterpiece, as was his original intention. It is a serious fault ; and wlien we come to see the bad effects produced in his work by over-colouring, I think we shall be less tempted to reproach Virgil with the sobriety of his descriptions. The battles in the yEneid are treated in the same manner as the battles in the Iliad : they are given their proper value. Virgil, like Homer, alternates general melees with hand-to-hand fights ; and it is not to be denied that after a time this proceeding becomes some- what monotonous. His description of the single encounters is sometimes very fine. We take great pleasure, for example, in carefully studying the struggle between Turnus and Pallas, between ^neas and Lausus LAURENTUM. 301 and Mazentius ; but we take less interest in the accounts of the general skirmishes ; that is to say, in descrip- tions of warriors who slay and are slain, without always being able to make out to which side they belong : " Cccdicus Alcathoum obtruncat, Sacrator Hijdaspem. Partheyiiumque Rapo." On this account I spare the reader all the details of the battles which were fought around the Trojan camp. It will- be enough for him to know that, at the end of the Tenth Book, the Eutuli are completely vanquished and pursued by ^neas as far as Laurentum, whither we are about to follow him. 11. LAURENTUM — HOW THE OLD TOWN DISAPPEARED — WHERE COULD IT HAVE BEEN SITUATED ? — CANAL OF THE STAONO DI LEVA NTU— THE SELF A LAURENTINA — THE BOARS OF LAURENTUM — ASPECT OF THE SHORE — PLINY'S VILLA. This is not too easy an undertaking, for nothing remains of Laurentum. It was said that the ancient town built by Faunus, where King Latinus dwelt with Amata his wife and his daughter Lavinia at the time when ^neas set foot in Italy, was later on abandoned for Lavinium, as Lavinium was for Alba, and Alba for Eome. It continued, however, to live on obscurely, while Eome was accomplishing her great destiny, although so well forgotten, that in 565, during the 302 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. fcrice Latino:, they forgot to apportion it part of the victims, as was customary for all the members of the confederation. Happily the gods remembered the town, showing their displeasure by numerous prodigies, and the sacrifice was recommenced.^ It certainly deserved greater consideration on the part of the Eomans, for it had remained faithful to them at a serious crisis, when the Latin League took up arms against them, and they were deserted even by Lavinium.2 The war over, it had been decided that, in recognition of this fidelity, the treaty between Rome and Laurentum should be renewed year by year, on a fixed day. AVe may well believe that in this country, where nothing was lost, some vestige of the ancient ceremony would still remain in the time of the Emperor Claudius. At Pompeii an inscription of that period has been found, in which a certain Turranius a vain and pedantic personage, who seems to have been very solicitous of religious dignities, tells us that he has been appointed by the inhabitants of Laurentum to renew the old alliance with the Iioman people.^ 1 Titus Livius, XXXVII. 3. ^ The conduct of the people of Lavinium on this occasion is very racily told by Titus Livius. After long wavering between the two parties, they had at last sent forces to help the Latins, but scarcely had the first troojjs passed the gate when they learnt that the Latins had been beaten. The general, while getting his men in again as fast as possible, could not help saying: "This is a little journey which will cost us de&r" (Pro paulida via magnam mcrccdcm esse llomanis solvcndam). And, in fact, the Romans sternly punished Lavinium for the intention the town had had to harm them. — Titus Livius, VIII. 2. 'Prof. Mommsen has lately found another inscription of this same Turranius at Patrica, the ancient Lavinium. LAURENTUM. 303 But these memories of a glorious past did not prevent the town from becoming depopulated, and we have seen that it was at last united to Lavinium, which proves that it had then no longer much importance. The precise moment of its final disappearance is unknown. Since the Eenaissance, the learned have at different times turned their attention to it, and endeavoured to discover where it could be. It has most often been placed at two spots situated not far from each other, namely, the farm of Tor Paterno and at Capo Cotta. Let us take up the question in our turn, and go over the country with a view to discovering which spot best agrees with the descriptions of the ^neid. This little journey in itself is not without its charm ; the country is curious, not much known, and full of great memories, and I think we need not regret having ventured into it, whatever the success of our re- searches. Our best plan to avoid losing our way is strictly to follow Virgil. He supposes that the first care of ^neas, on landing on the banks of the Tiber, is to win the friendship of the people of the country. For this purpose he chooses a hundred of his companions, whom he sends under the leadership of prudent Ilioneus to greet King Latinus and ask his alliance. They leave for Laurentum on foot, accomplish their embassy, and return within the day. This proves that the town of Latinus is not very far off; and we are set at rest, at starting, as to the length of the journey we have before us. Here we are, then, starting from Ostia, like the embassy of -^neas, and following the shore. At about 4 kilo- 304 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. metres distance our way is barred by a tolerably broad canal, which carries the waters of the Starjno di Levante into the sea. In ancient times, as now, this canal was passed by means of a bridge, and near here an inscription has been discovered, stating that certain emperors (probably Diocletian and Maximian) have repaired this bridge, which was falling into ruin, and that they have done so in the interests of the inhabitants of Ostia and of Laurentum (Fontem Laurentibus atque Ostiensibus vetustate conlcqjsum restiticcrnnt). The canal, then, formed the boundary between the territory of the two towns, and we are certain, when we pass the bridge, to set foot in the domains of Laurentum. A little further on we discover another relic of the old city, which proves that we are, indeed, on the road that must take us to it. On leaving Castel Fusano, we enter a large forest which to the left extends as far as Decimo, and is called in modern maps Selva Lau- rentina, the name it bore in antiquity. The forest of Laurentum, with its dense thickets and quagmires covered with reeds, was much frequented by Eoman hunters. They found there plenty of very wild boars, which showed good sport, Virgil, in order to describe the energetic resistance of Mezentius, surrounded by enemies who harass him, compares him to a boar of Laurentum, whom the hounds have driven into the toils. When he sees himself shut in them, he quivers with rage and sticks out the bristles of his flanks. None dare approach him. It is from far, and sheltered from danger, that the hunters press him with their darts and their cries. The fearless beast stands at bay on every side, grinding his tusks and shaking LAURENTUM. 305 the darts fixed in his back.^ Horace tells iis, how- ever, that " he wasn't worth the pains he cost and the dangers he made his captors run." " As he lives in the marshes and among the reeds, his flesh is flabby and insipid ; he is far from equalling that of Umbria, which feeds only on acorns."^ It must be remarked, how- ever, that Horace does not here express his own opinion ; the person he makes speak is a professor of gastronomy whose niceties he desires to ridicule. As a rule, folk were not so fastidious, and Martial, when he sends one of his friends " a boar of Laurentum, weighing a good weight," 2 thinks that he makes him a handsome present. The excellent Pliny the Younger, though by nature neither a warrior nor a sportsman, nevertheless yielded to the fashion, and when at his country house near the sea went like the rest to await the boar in the woods — but his was a peculiar mode of hunting. " You are going to laugh," he writes to his friend Tacitus, " and I allow you to do so willingly. I, that hero whom you know, have taken three boars, and the fattest in the forest. ' Eh, what ! Pliny ? ' you will say. Yes ; Pliny himself. But I managed everything so as not to break with my ordinary tastes and my love of repose. I sat quietly near the nets, and had at hand not a pike or a spear, but the wherewithal to write. I reflected and took notes ; for I wanted to be sure, in case I might return empty-handed, at least to bring away full tablets. Don't despise this way of working. It is wondrous to see how bodily movement enlivens and stimulates the mind. The forests that surround us — the solitude, the ^^n.,X.707. ^ Sat., 11. i, i2. 3 Martial, IX. 49, 5. U 306 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. silence, makes thoughts dawn within us. I advise you, then, when you go hunting, to take writing tablets with your stores, and you will find, from experience, that not only Diana walks the woods, but that Minerva, too, is sometimes met there." ^ Things have not much changed in the Selva Laurentina since Virgil and Pliny's time. Boars still abound there, and the king of Italy has no more favourite relaxation than to leave his austere Eoman residence and go and hunt there from time to time. Along the shore, between the forest and the sea, there stretches a sandy plain, fringed by a chain of dunes, called by the people of the coimtry " Tumoletti." It is quite uninhabited, and from Castel Fusano to Tor Paterno, for more than 9 kilometres, one finds not a house, and rarely meets a human being. Yet formerly this was one of the most populous and most agreeable places in the world ; nowhere, perhaps, were so many rich country houses found so close together. Pliny tells us : " They followed each other, sometimes separate, often contiguous, and seemed to form so many little towns." ^ Does this mean that the nature of the soil and the conditions of the climate have changed, and that in former times one was not ex- posed there to the terrible fever scourge ? We are bound to think so, since this country, once so densely peopled, has become a desert. But the change has not been so great as is usually asserted, and we may suspect that, even then, one could not live there quite free from peril. Pliny says in so many words: 1 EpisL, I. 6. '^Ibid., II. 17, 27. LAUKENTUM. 307 " The coast of Etruria in all its length is dangerous and pestilential ; " ^ and we know from Strabo that the soil of Terracina, Setia, and Ardea, and all this coast in general, was marshy and insalubrious. Yet the evil was clearly much less grave than it is now, for Strabo immediately adds : " But it is nevertheless pleasant to live there, and the ground is not seen to be worse cultivated." ^ It was doubtless this cultivation that rendered the soil more wholesome, and, without quite subduing the malaria, made it less offensive. Probably there, as at Eome, " the first fig brought a few fevers, and opened a few successions " ; ^ but little heed was paid to this, and we shall see that the doctors them- selves ended by recommending their patients to live at Laurentum. The Eomans had managed to make it a place of rest and pleasure. For them it had the advantage of being far enough from Eome to enable them to escape the importunate, and yet sufficiently near to enable them to get there in a few hours. " I need only start," says Pliny, " when I have finished my business, and my day is ended." * So this neighbour- hood had early begun to be fashionable. Scipio already used to come here with liis friends and taste that pleasure, so fraught with charm, of making one- self young for a moment, when one feels oneself on the ■eve of ageing altogether. Tradition loved to show Lselius and him playing like children with shells on the sea-beach.^ The orator Hortensius also joossessed a celebrated villa at Laurentum, of which Varro speaks 1 EpisL, V. 6, 2. ' strabo, V. 3, 12. ^ Horace, EpisL, I. 7, 5. 4 Epist., II. 17, 2. ^ Valerius Maximus, VIII. 1. 308 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. with admiration. It comprised a wood of more than 50 jugera (12 hectares, or nearly 30 acres), in which there were a great number of animals that had been accustomed to come together at the sound of a trumpet. This enabled the proprietor to offer his guests, while dining, a very curious entertainment. The repast was served on a hill ; an artist, clad as Orpheus, with a long robe and a cithern, was introduced ; and on a signal, to complete the illusion, the artist sounded a trumpet, when stags, boars, and all the beasts of the forest were seen running up. Varro says : " It was a spectacle as fine as that one in the Great Circus during the games given by the iEdiles, or the hunts that are made with the beasts of Africa." ^ But of all these country houses, where the great lords of Eome passed a good half of their lives, none is so well known to us as that of Pliny. Under pretext of inducing his friend Gallus to come and see it, he gives him, in a celebrated letter, a detailed description of it which places it quite before our eyes. The perusal of this letter is of the greatest interest to all who would have some idea of the magnificent Eoman villas. It shows us to what degree everything was arranged in them for the comfort of life. To our taste, nothing is wanting but a park and grounds. Such a fine house would have needed a better surrounding. But perhaps the very reason Pliny prefers it to all his other villas is because he is not harassed there with the cares of property — is freer, more at his ease, and, being 1 Dc re rust., III. 13. LAUEENTUM. 309 distracted by nothing, can work better than elsewhere. " Here," he says, " I hear no one speak evil of others and myself speak evil of none, if not of myself when ill content with what I have done. Here I escape from fear and hope, and laugh at all that may be said ; I only hold converse with myself and my books. sweet and good life ! Pleasant repose, worth more than what is honoured with the names of work and business ! sea, shores, my true study-rooms ! Wliat a source of inspiration you are to me ! " ^ We know, as surely as possible, where Pliny's villa must have been. He has taken the trouble to indicate its site with such exactness that there is no possibility of mistake. He tells us it is on the sea-shore, 17 millia (a little more than 15 J English miles) from Piome ; that one can get there by the Via Ostiensis and the Via Laurentina ; but that one must leave the former at the eleventh, and the latter at the fourteenth mile. With a compass, then, on a well-made map, we can mark the place exactly. It is at a little distance from Castel Pusano, towards the spot called " La Palombara," where it is usually located. As for thinking that some ruins of it may be found by excavating the soil here, this is an illusion and a chimera. The dwellings of private persons are not made to last for ages. That of Pliny, from Trojan to Theodosius, must have often changed owners, and as each of its new owners doubtless desired to accommodate it to his taste and his fortune, it is probable that, even if it still existed at the end of the Empire, it was no longer the same house. Nibby was right, then, in saying that 1 Pliny, EpisL, I. 9. 310 tup: country of Horace and virgil. nothing now remains of it but the pleasant description left us by Pliny. III. TOR PATERNO — CHARACTER OF THE RUINS FOUND THERE — THE VILLA OF COMMODUS — MARCH OF iENEAS ON LAURENTUM: — AMBUSH OF TURNUS — PROBABLE SITUA- TION OF LAURENTUM. After traversing this desert for several kilometres, we at length descry before us a vast habitation, with strange and massive forms. It is Torre di Paterno, or, in common parlance, Tor Paterno, a very large farm belonging to the King of Italy. It is situated not far from the sea, to which we are brought by an avenue of trees, ending in a little pavilion built in the midst of the sands of the shore. "N-N^iat gives this its importance in our eyes is that nearly all the learned consider it built on the site of Laurentum. The illustrious antiquarian Fabretti was, I believe, the first to pronounce this opinion.^ In connection with an inscription he had found in this vicinity, and was studying, he related that he had seen considerable ruins at Tor Paterno, and did not doubt but that they were the last remains of the town of Latinus. He added that, being eighty years of age, he much feared that he had neither the strength nor the time to prove this. In fact, he has nowhere done so ; ^ Fabretti, Inscr., p. 752. LAURENTUM. 311 but he has been believed upon his word, and his opinion has gained ground. On reaching Tor Paterno, a fine modern inscription first meets our eyes, informing us that we are indeed at Laurentum, the very place which v/as the cradle of Eome. LAVRENTVM ROMANS VRBIS INCVNABVLA. The inscription then records that, on 14th October 1845, Pope Gregory XVL, an ardent lover of antiquity, visited this spot, and that the very fields trembled with joy at the honour done them by the Sovereign Pontiff. This noble visit seemed officially to consecrate the right of Tor Paterno to identify itself with Laurentum. At Tor Paterno, and in its vicinity, considerable ruins have certainly been found ; and one is at first inclined to think that a spot where antiquity has left so many relics must have held a certain place in history. This is the basis of Fabretti's opinion, and what gave it so much credit down to our days. But is it possible for a moment to admit that these are the ruins of a town ? This is the whole question, and it seems to me that a rapid examiuation will suffice for its solution. They are chiefly accumulated about the farm. The modern house has lodged itself in their midst anyhow, leaning its little rough-cast and whitened shell, against huge walls of red brick, that domii-iate it on every side. In order to understand the extent and grandeur of the ancient monument, we must go over the habitation. For the present edifice, it has only been possible to 312 THE COUNTRY OF IIOHAGK AND VIRGIL. Utilise a part of them. Beliiiid, iu a sort of enclosure contiguous to the farm, rise great fragments of wall, higher and more massive than those of the facade, and sometimes supported by buttresses. Long study is not needed in order to recognise the kind of edifice to which these remains belonged. It is impossible to see them without thinking of the great buildings on the Palatine, and, above all, of the villa built by Hadrian at Tivoli. Although in a worse condition alid of more modest dimensions, they are of the same family and nearly of the same period. AVe have before us a palace of the Imperial epoch ; and it is easy to recognise the great halls with their arched doorways and the vaults which decorated their interiors. Outside the farm, in the fields extending towards the right, ruins are met with everywhere. These are usually masses of cement and brick from some fallen wall or vault, with, from time to time, fragments of walls in better preservation, and even halls of which we can distinguish the ground-plan. At every turn there are pieces of marble or stucco ; capitals and shafts of columns, and I even found a headless bust, whose drapery was carefully done, and which appeared to belong to the time of the Antonines. On the other side, we can trace the remains of a large aqueduct reaching out into the country. Pliny remarks that this neighbourhood has the disadvantage of possessing no springs. In his time people were content to dig wells there, which, although very near the sea, yielded limpid and pure water.^ It is therefore probable that the aqueduct 1 EpisL, II. 17, 25. LAUEENTUM. 313 which brought water at great expense from the mountains was only built after Trajan's time. Our walk ended, it is easy for us to solve the problem we set ourselv^es just now. Surely these are not the ruins of a town that we have just visited. A town, especially when ancient, like Laurentum, contains monuments of various epochs, and, further- more, the dwellings of both rich and poor are found there. Here everything seems to be of the same age ; brick constructions of the Antonine period predominat- ing almost throughout, and, mutilated though they be, retaining an air of power and grandeur which forbids us to think they were the hovels of poor people. We have then, before us, the dwelling of a rich man — probably the palace of a prince. Let us push our conjectures further, and seek to ascertain what emperor could have had his residence here. It is not a difficult task. In 189, Eome was ravaged by a plague which filled its inhabitants with the most terrible dismay. " One met nothing," says Herodian, " but people filling their nostrils and ears with the most powerful scents or unceasingly burning perfumes." The doctors pre- tended that these odours, by occupying the passages, prevented the bad air from entering, neutralised its powers by their own, and stopped its effect.^ These remedies were of course useless, and, as they did not prevent people from dying, the Emperor Commodus, as cowardly as he was cruel, sought a more efficacious means of escape from the scourge — he left Eome. His physicians, among whom was perhaps Galen, coun- i Herodian, I. 12. 314 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. selle'I him to take refufie at Laurentum. The reason they had for recommending this town was that it was built in a very bracing country, and was surrounded by laurel woods which had given it the name it bore. They doubtless attributed to the laurel some of those qualities we assign to the eucalyptus. It was certainly not in the town of Laurentum itself that the Emperor came to ask an asylum. He probably possessed some country house in the neighbourhood, which he had built or embellished, and went there to pass all the time that the malady lasted. Nothing then prevents us from supposing that the great walls of Tor Paterno are what remains to us of the villa of Commodus.'^ But the problem is not yet quite solved. Supposing, as seems to me certain, that the ruins we have just visited are those of a palace and not of a town, it may be admitted that the town was near the palace, and Laurentum may still he placed, if not at Tor Paterno itself, at least in the vicinity. Bonstetten quite refuses to believe this, and it seems to him that the place in no wise fits in with Virgil's narrative. Tor Paterno, he says, is only 500 metres from the shore : Laurentum must have been much further. In none of the battles that took place round the town of Latinus is the sea mentioned, whereas Virgil constantly spoke of it while they were fighting before the Trojan camp. ^ Gell, in his Topography of Home, calls attention to certain analogies of construction between the ruins of Tor Paterno and those found on the Appian Way, and to which the name of Roma Vecchia is given. These latter belong to a villa belonging to Commodus, and which he had repaired. The architecture of the two edifices seems to him to be of the same time. LAURENTUxM. 315 This reasoning quite convinced Nibby, and is what decided him to withdraw Laurentum inland, as far as the Casali di Capocotta, where he had discovered some ancient remains. Let us take up the question again in our turn, and see whether they have both well inter- preted what Virgil tells us. First of all, is it true that he makes no allusion to the neighbourhood of the sea, in the two last Books of the j^neid ? Bonstetten says so, and Nibby repeats it after him, but I think they both go too far. King Latinus, in the sacrifice preceding the combat of Turnus and ^neas, begins by calling the earth, sea, and sky to witness that he will be true to his promises : Caelum, mare, sidera juro} Well, we know that the Eomans were very precise and circumstantial people, who liked, above all things, to be perfectly well under- stood by those with whom they had to do. So in addressing the gods, they were in the habit of touching or showing the things whose names they pronounced, in order that no confusion might be possible. I there- fore think the sea must have been pretty close to the spot from which Latinus spoke — that it could at least be seen — and that his hand stretched towards it at the moment when he invoked it in witness of his sincerity must have added precision and solemnity to his oath. A little further on, when the combat has begun, he alludes to a wild olive, dedicated to Faunus, rising in the midst of the plain. " It was a tree venerated by sailors. When they were saved from the wreck, they came to bring it their offerings, and hung their '^yEn., XII. 196. 316 THE COUNTIiY OF HORACE AND YIKGIL. clothes upon its branches." ^ I own my inability to suppose that " the tree venerated by sailors " grew inland. Catullus tells us that in their dangers they are accustomed to address " the gods of the shore ; " ^ so it must have been to some tree near the shore that they came to hang their soaking garments when delivered from peril and safe on dry land. It is natural that they should be in haste to return thanks to the gods for their protection, and that they should do so in the very face of the floods by which they had nearly perished. Thus we see that in ancient pictures representing the sea-shore, the artists love to paint little chapels decked by the gratitude of sailors with garlands and festoons. These are a few reasons for thinking that Laurentum could not be far from the sea, but it is true there are others which might prevent us from thinking it could have been very close. The Eleventh Book of the JEneid contains an account of a military incident deserving close study. I said just now that Virgil's battles quite resemble Homer's ; but we must make a reservation. War in the ^neid appears less primitive, more intricate, and more learned than in the Iliad. In Homer, each fights for himself and follows no in- spiration but his courage, whereas, among the soldiers of ^neas and Turnus, there is more discipline and concert. The meUe still remains sufficiently confused ; but, with the exception of these furious encounters, where every one presses forward and has no other fixed idea than to go as far and hit as hard as he can, one i.i";;., 766. ^ Catullus, 4, 22. LAURENTUM. 317 feels a little more art and tactics in their manner of fighting. Turnus, for example, conducts the siege of the Trojan camp with a certain skill. Messapus, whom he chooses to blockade the enemy, commands fourteen Rutuli chiefs, and each of them has a hundred soldiers under him. Guard is mounted, too, or relieved, and bivouac fires are lighted. Preparatory to giving the assault, the wall is beaten with a ram, and then the troops advance tortoise fashion — that is to say, raising their shields above their heads to protect themselves from the enemy's missiles. These are devices of which Homer's heroes never thought. But more remarkable than all the rest is the way in which ^neas sets to work to take Laurentum. The Latins, beaten on the banks of the Tiber, have just fled, and have sought refuge in the town of Latinus, which is about to become the centre of the final combats, -^neas decides to follow them. May I be permitted to say that, in order to insure success, he imagines a "turning movement " ? The term is very modern ; but there is no other so exactly expressing the process he is going to put in practice. Placed as he is at Ostia, and having before him the great pond called Stagno di Levante, he can get into the country facing him by both banks of it. He divides his army into two bodies, causing them to take two different ways. The horse- men under Tarchon advance along the sea-shore. The foot and the bulk of the army turn in the other direction ; but, instead of following the edge of the pond, and not leaving the plain, they rise to the left and plunge among the hills. The poet does not tell us the reason that induces ^neas to undertake this delicate 318 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. operation. Does he fear that the sandy roads of the plain will prove inconvenient for people heavily armed ? It may be thought so, but it is more probable that he hoped by debouching upon Laurentum by a road that was not the shortest and most natural, to be less expected, and have more chance of surprising the enemy. In that case he is mistaken, for Turnus, who possesses scouts, has discovered his designs, and is preparing to frustrate them. " There is," says Virgil, " in the recesses of the mountain, a deep valley, fit for surprises and the ruses of war, and surrounded on all sides by heights covered with thick M^oods. One gets there by a narrow path and by a close gorge, difficult of access. Above, towards the highest summit, is hid a plateau, which they do not know of ; a safe and convenient post, whether it be wished to rush upon the enemy, or whether it be preferred to remain upon the height and roll down huge rocks. It is thither the Itutuli chief proceeds by unknown roads. He seizes the position, and first finds himself in the perfidious forest." 1 But all his projects are crossed by unfore- seen events. "While he is awaiting his enemy, and hop- ing to crush him in his passage, they come in hot haste to tell him that Tarchon's horsemen have beaten his, and that, meeting no serious resistance, they are approach- ing Laurentum, in order to take it. He must, of course, hasten as fast as possible to defend his allies. " He leaves the liill M'hich he occupied, and quits the impenetrable woods." - Scarcely is he lost from view and entering the plain, when ^neas, penetrating the ^^En., XI. 522. '^ Jhid., 896. LAUEENTUM. 319 defile, henceforth free, crosses the heights and issues from the thick forest. Thus both march rapidly towards the town, and are only separated by a short interval. It seems to me that, from this incident, the site of Laurentum may be deduced with some probability. The town was situated in the plain, but close to the mountain ; close enough to the shore for the sea to be visible, yet so near the hills that one came upon it on issuing from the forests and the heights. Neither Tor Paterno nor Capocotta seem to me quite to fulfil these conditions. The first of these two places is too near the sea and too far from the hills. If it is where Laurentum stood, we no longer understand the man- oeuvre of ^neas, and to go round the mountain in order to reach it is a ridiculously circuitous proceed- ing. The other, being in the mountain itself, and situated a little above Pratica, is somewhat too far from the shore. Strabo, relating that ^neas left Laurentum for Lavinium, says that he plunged into the country. If we place Laurentum at Capocotta, the expression is no longer accurate, since, on the contrary, from Capo- cotta to Lavinium one descends for several miles. Thus Capocotta no more satisfies those who would find the ancient town of Lavinium than does Tor Paterno.^ But where could it have been, then ? Of course there is no question here of exactly designating its site and pointing out its ruins. It is very probable that. ^ The luap in Cell's Topography of Rome gives Capocotta ijuile an inexact position. 320 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. in the words of tlie poet, " even those ruins have perished " ; and, in any case, if they still lie hid under some lieap of rubbish, a passing traveller cannot flatter himself that he will discover them ; but he may get relatively near them. Let us try to do so, and, at the risk of tiring the reader, start again, for the purpose of approximatively settling the situation of the town. Just now, it will be remembered, we left Ostia and skirted the coast. Let us this time take a new road. Virgil's account, which we have just read, proves that we shall not do wrong to ascend a little towards the heights. In going from Eome to Tor Paterno, we pass through three regions that have not the same character. First there is the vast undulating plain called the Campagna, by which Eome is surrounded on all sides ; then a series of hills covered with woods ; and, lastly, the plain beginning again and extending uninterruptedly to the sea. The intermediate zone is the one that most strikes the traveller. It begins at Decimo, a kind of fortified farm, recalling the days when in this land one could only sleep behind strong walls. There the ground rises, the aspect of the country changes, and one enters what remains of the wood of Laurentum. I went through it in the month of May, when all the bushes were in flower ; and what in my eyes made this journey most charming, was that at every step the incidents of the way awakened in me some memory of the JEncid. Passing beneath the shadow of the great trees, I recollected that hither the Trojans and the Latins had come after the battle to cut wood for the funeral pyres. " In virtue of the truce," says the poet, " they start for the forest and walk about the mountains LAUEENTUM. 321 together. The ash resounds under the blows of the axe ; they fell the pines, whose head touched the sky ; the wedges cease not to rend the oak and the sweet- smelling juniper ; and the waggons groan beneath the weight of the young elms." ^ As in the time of Virgil, the road is still bordered by ashes, elms, oaks, and pines. The savage-looking woodcutters and charcoal- burners, whom I from time to time saw issue from some dark alley, reminded me that ^ueas already met robust peasants there, armed with knotty sticks, and I felt as if, at some turn of the road, I was about to see the terrible Tyrrhus, " emitting cries of fury, and bran- dishing his hatchet against those who passed." ^ As we get deeper into the wood, the road becomes more varied, rising and falling continually, and hills succeed- ing hills, cut sharply by somewhat deep valleys. It is the only spot where the ambuscade of Turnus can be placed with some probability. ^Eneas doubtless got there by following the bottom of the valley, and upon one of these summits covered with trees his enemy silently awaited him. The landscape, I own, is less gloomy and terrible than Virgil represents it, but in poets one must overlook a few exaggerations. It is natural, too, that on quitting the monotonous plains of the Campagna the least hills should appear mountains and the smallest valleys assume the proportions of veritable precipices. Here we are then, about to leave what Virgil calls " the deep forests." At this moment we come upon Castel Porziano, a handsome chateau, formerly belonging to a noble Eoman family, which the 1 ^n., XI. 134, ' Ibid., VII. 509. 322 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. King of Italy has repaired and much embellished, and turned into a hunting-box. This chateau, in its present state, resembles a little village. Besides the King's house, which is of modest appearance, it contains dwellings for the servants, barracks for the soldiers, an osteria, and a sali e tdbacci store. It is so placed as to offer good views from all sides. A few minutes ere getting there, while following the avenue of pines, we have before us, on turning round, the mass of the Alban Hills, and in the immense plain, bounded by Soracte and the Sabine mountains, Eome, with a mul- titude of towns and villages bearing glorious names. Directly on leaving it we catch sight of the sea, including a vast extent of coast. While I stop to enjoy this sight a memory of Virgil occurs to my mind. It is doubtless along these last heights that Queen Amata must have taken refuge when, in order to withdraw her daughter from ^neas, she called the women of Laurentum to celebrate the orgies of Bacchus with her. From below, their savage cries must have been heard, and they must have been seen passing through the trees with bare shoulders and floating hair, waving their thyrses crowned with vine, or furiously shaking their blazing torches. From Castel Porziano the descent becomes rapid, and the plain is soon reached. It is at the place of egress, at the foot of the hills, two or three kilometres from the sea, a little lower than Capocotta, a little higher than Tor Paterno, and about half-way between Ostia and Pratica, that I should be inclined to locate Laurentum. The place quite agrees with the descriptions of the yEncid, and Virgil seems to take us by the hand and lead us thither. LAURENTUM. 323 IV. THE PALACE OF LATINUS — HOW VIRGIL COMPOSES HIS DESCRIPTIONS — WHY HE DOES NOT EXACTLY RE- PRODUCE THOSE OF HOMER — MIXTURE OF DIFFERENT EPOCHS — UNITY OF THE WHOLE. It is not the only service he renders us, for, after point- ing out the site of the town, he helps our imagination to reconstruct it. He depicts it, not as it was in his time, half deserted and ruined, but as he supposes it must have been in the days of good King Latinus. It will be remembered that scarcely had ^neas landed in Italy when he sent deputies to solicit the friendship of the Latins, and whom we followed some time in the beginning of their journey. After marching along the sea, they turn to the left, and arrive at Lauren- turn. Here Virgil describes the sight depicted before them. In a large plain, before the ramparts, all the youth are assembled. " The lads, and those in the prime of life, are engaged in breaking a horse, and guiding a chariot through the dust. Others are striving to bend a resisting bow, launch with nervous arms flexible javelins, or contend together in speed or strength." ^ The town is situated near a large marsh and defended by strong walls. Upon a height rises the King's palace. This edifice, majestic and immense, is supported by a hundred columns, and surrounded by a gloomy wood, which has from all times inspired the i^/i., VII. 160. 324 THE COUNTUY OF IIOUACE AND YIKGIL. Latins with a religious awe. It is a temple as well as a palace. Assemblies of the Senate are held there, and on festivals the chiefs of the natiun come tliither to sit down to solemn- repasts. It is there the kings receive the sceptre on their accession, and the fasces are borne before them for the first time. In the vestibule rich statues of cedar-wood represent the king's ancestors. Each is in its place : Italus ; the venerable Sabinus, who planted the vine, still holding his bent sickle ; and Saturnus ; Janus with the double face ; and all the kings since the beginning of the nation, and the warriors who received glorious wounds fighting for the fatherland. There are also seen, hanging from the roofs of the sacred porticoes, the arms and chariots of the vanquished, axes, casques, the gates of conquered towns, shields, and beaks taken from ships. Picus himself — King Picus, tamer of horses — is seated, covered with the trabant, bearing in his hand the augur's wand, and in the other the slanting shield of the Salian priests. " ^ This is the idea which Virgil gives us of the palace of Latinus. Could it have been quite thus, and is the poet's description of a nature entirely to satisfy a rigor- ous historian and antiquary ? In order to ascertain this, let us consult the curious book just published by Dr Helbig, in which he seeks to elucidate Homer's epic by means of monuments.^ We have, in fact, to-day, two means of going back to those remote times. The lirst consists of the faithful picture drawn of them in the ^yEn., VII. 170. - The exact title of Dr Helbig's book is : Das Ilumcrischc Epos aiis den Denkvidlfirn erlduleri. LAURENTUM. 325 Homeric poems. Antiquity lives in them, and in order to live in it, we might be content to read them ; but the excavations undertaken in late years in Greece and Italy furnish an additional source of information not to be despised. After exhausting the first layers of the soil, the explorers of our day decided to go lower. The depths they penetrated to will probably never yield us many masterpieces ; but they preserve the memory of very ancient epochs, and from time to time they give us a few remains of them. These are arms of stone, of bronze, or of iron, pottery with rough designs, and, some- times, in tombs rather more modern, jewellery, metal coffers, rough paintings representing battles or feasts — those two pleasures of young nations. Dr Helbig thinks that these remains, nearly contemporary with Homer, may serve as a commentary and an illustration to his verses. They bring into relief what is often masked by the charm of his poetry, namely, that he lived in the midst of a barbarous society. From the very first this society had in Greece attained perfection in poetry, but the other arts did not proceed so quickly. In reading the Iliad or the Odyssey, we are tempted to think that but little way remained for it to make ; but on seeing the arms and utensils it used, we soon recog- nise that it was still making its first steps. Virgil, in composing the yEneid, found himself in a difficulty unknown to Homer. He could not, like his predecessor, give the heroes of his poem the manners of the people of his time. Had the Trojans of Jj^neas and the Latins of Turnus quite resembled the people of the court of Augustus, he would have been laughed at. He was therefore obliged to age them, and, as far as possible. 326 THE COUNTUY OF HORACE AND YIIIGIL. carry tliem back to their epoch. He could, it is true, lighten this work by being content to copy Homer, and this he has often done ; but he has also not unfrequently departed from his model. It is patent, for example, that the palace of Latinus, of which we have just read the description, is more majestic and more sumptuous than the dwellings of the kings of the Iliad or of the Odyssey. Homer, speaking of the house of Ulysses, tells us that it is the finest in Ithaca, and that it first attracts all eyes, because it possesses a court surrounded by walls with folding gates, which shut well ! This is the magnificence that distinguished it from others ! In the royal houses there is no question of statues filling the vestibule, and of columns supporting the roof, as in that of Latinus. It is much if the faqade is ornamented with great polished and shining stones, on which the king comes to sit and administer justice to his people. Manners, we see, are very simple, and we are at the b3ginning of a civilization. What proves it still better are certain details drawn by Dr Helbig from the Homeric poems, and which depict the time. In those great apartments, where the suitors of Penelope and the fiower of the Achasan nobility feast all day, the remains of the repast bestrew the floor, and sheep or ox bones lie about, which the revellers sometimes fling at each other's heads. The hall where they eat is the same in which the feast was prepared, and it is nnich that a small hole has been left in the roof to let out the smoke. The smell of broiled meat, however, does not seem to have been thought unpleasant in those days. On the contrary, for the people of the period, a good house was one where the grease was smelt (Kiwrtriyei' Soj/^ia), and one's LAURENTUM. 327 opulence was even gauged by the intensity of this snielL Let us add that before the palace of Ulysses a heap of dung was spread, which served the poor dog Argus as a bed, and that some is also found in the court of Priam's house. " Here is quite enough," says Dr Helbig, " to prove that the atmosphere then breathed in royal dwellings would have singularly irritated the nerves of our exquisites." To-day, when we like crude colours and expressive details, these are, perhaps, the traits which an author would choose in preference, in order to give an idea of life in ancient times. If Virgil has neglected them, the timidity of his taste is not solely to blame, since he has occasionally risked bold delineations which to some fastidious critics have seemed gross. It has been com- plained that in describing battles he is seen to insist with too much complacency upon the brains that gush out, or the blood and pus which flow from the wounds ; and when he describes to us the gulpings of an old pilot who has fallen into the sea and vomits salt water, Heyne gets angry with him, and reproaches his testa- mentary executors, Varius and Tucca, with not having had the courage to suppress these unpleasant lines. Nor must it be thought that if Virgil usually gives his lines a more modern air, it was because he had no understanding and love for antiquity. No one among his contemporaries loved it more or understood it better. Not only did he not shrink from exactly reproducing the manners of Homeric times — he has even, now and then, gone further back. Vestiges are found in him of a more distant past than the age of the Iliad. When yEneas goes to visit King Evander in his little townlet 328 TIIR COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. on the Palatine, he is shown, on the sides of the Janiculum and the Palatine hill, masses of fallen wall covering the soil. These are the remains of the towns of Janus and Saturn. So there were ruins, already, in the time of the Trojan War. In these towns which have been destroyed, there lived a generation of men now vanished, and of whom Virgil tells us. He speaks of this primitive race, " born of oak trunks, and as hard, who had neither customs nor laws." He tells us that they knew neither how to harness oxen, to cultivate the fields, nor how to gather the wealth of the earth ; that they thought not of the morrow, but lived from day to day, shaking the trees to gather their fruits, or pursuing the beasts in the forests.^ Of these first inhabitants of Italy we have now recovered the trace. The depths of the soil, the waters of the lakes, have given us back their arms of stone or bronze, their utensils of clay or wood, and even the remains of their food ; but we may say that Virgil, who knew them not, divined, and was in- tuitively conscious of them. We see, in M. Breal's study on the legend of Cacus, how, under his hand, this fable has reassumed its antique air. He has restored to it its first aspect, and made it live again, " like those springs which for a moment give back to dried flowers their brilliancy and brightness — he has rejuvenated it, yet not for a moment, but for all ages." It is above all in the short invocation of the Salian priests, by which the narrative ends, that he seems to have found again the tone of the poetry of the first ages. M. Brcjal shows that nothing can give a more exact idea of the poetry ^.En., VIII. 314. LAURENTUM. 329 of the Vedas than this short passage, and that there is not a line in it that cannot be connected with certain verses drawn from them. " Is it not interesting," he adds, "to find in the masterpiece of learned poetry, a fragment that would hold its place among the creations of the most spontaneous poetry that has ever existed ? It is the privilege of genius. It can re-awaken echoes that have slumbered for centviries." ^ It is certain, then, that Virgil could at times go back to the most remote antiquity, but the end he had in view in his work did not allow him to remain there long. Let us remember that he did not write solely for the pleasure of the curious. He had other pretensions than to satisfy a few pedants who would have liked to hold him strictly to Homer. He addressed all, and desired to find readers for whom his poem was a living work, as low down as letters could descend. Instead, then, of losing himself in the distance of the ages, whither few persons would have followed him, and con- structing at great pains an arch;pological creation that would have only interested a few scholars, he strove to put before the eyes of his contemporaries a world in which they should feel at home. In carefully studying his last books, where the action takes place on Italic soil, it will be seen that he almost everywhere intro- duces the usages of his country and of his period.^ Those who read the JEneid were charmed to come ^ Breal, Melanges de Mythologie, ]». 145, et scq. -Thus, to cite but a single example, the Latins, before beginning the war with .^neas, solemnly open the Temple of Janus (VII. COl), and take care to raise a large standard, as was done on the Capitol at Rome in similar circumstances (VIII. 1). Nor do they fail to ad- 330 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. across customs familiar to them, and they felt them- selves brought nearer to these characters whom they saw in action round about them. Thus the poet was enabled to reach that deep mass of readers who only take an interest in what touches them, and do not easily risk themselves in a land which they would find quite new. Virgil's work, then, is not one of those air-built constructions that float in a vacuum. In it the narra- tion of the past rests upon the present, and imagination leans upon reality. These fables, stepping every mo- ment into history, give the reader an illusion of truth and life. To this advantage was joined another, not less precious to Virgil. Like his friend Horace, and all the other poets of that time, he had made himself the collaborator of Augustus. He worked with ardour at the strengthening of his dynasty and the durability of his reforms, thinking this the best means of serving his country. Augustus was at this moment carrying out a difficult undertaking. He was endeavouring, as far as possible, to reconcile the present with the past ; and it was a point with him to retain as much of the govern- ment which he had just destroyed as could suit with the order of things he had founded. In order to save the ancient institutions from the ruin with which they were threatened, it was useful to show that they were of ancient date. With a people conservative by nature minister an oath to those who present themselves to take up arms, while new soldiers, in order to give themselves courage, strike with their swords upon their shields (VIII. 2, 5). This is a usage still practised in tlie Roman army in the time of Ammianus Marcellinus. LAURENTUM. 331 like the Eomans, to have existed long was a reason to exist for ever. By ageing them, Virgil rendered them more venerable and sacred. This was especially his aim in representing the young people of Laurentuni practising in the management of chariots, in throwing javelins, in running, in contending together round the town. Custom imposed these occupations on the Eoman youth, and the wise attached great importance to them. It seemed to them that they could not be neglected without risking a loss of vigour, bodily and mental. Horace, who in his verses always puts himself on the side of virtue and the ancient customs, harshly reproaches Lydia with inspiring a young man with a mad passion that makes him forget his duties. " Tell me, in the name of the gods, Lydia, why thou burnest so to cause his ruin ? How comes it that he shuns the labours of the field of Mars, and can no more bear the dust and sun ? Why leaves he his companions when they tame a stubborn horse ? Why fears he now to plunge in the Tiber's yellow waves, nor longer proudly shows us his arms, all blackened with the bruises of the the disk ? " ^ Evidently there were then many young Eomans who, instead of going to the field of Mars, passed the morning with Lydia. Horace wishes to shame them out of their softness. Virgil attains the same result by a roundabout way. He ages these customs in order to give them more authority, and render those who abandon them more criminal. How dare to discard exercises respected by so many cen- turies, and practised in the time of King Latinus ? ^ Horace, Cariii., I. 8. 332 THF, COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. Unfortunately it was not an easy task thus to bring together the present and the past. Virgil had great difficulties to contend with in placing the usages of his time in the uEneid. What figure would the usages of a recent epoch make transferred to such ancient ages ? Did he not, in introducing them, expose himself to dis- pleasing inconsistencies ; and could he hope to give to such a patchwork production an appearance of unity ? He succeeded in- doing so by a very simple process. With a view to mingling ancient and modern, he rejuvenates the one and ages the other, so that they end by meeting half-way. He has thus managed to create a sort of medium antiquity, where fable and fact, legend and history, the ancient and the modern, may live together side by side without our being shocked by the mixture. In order that the poet's skill may impress as it deserves to do, and full justice be done him, his work must be viewed very closely. At a certain distance, a uniform tint envelops his narratives, all seems of a piece and flows like a stream ; but on approaching one becomes conscious of the touching-up, and we can count the diverse details and incidents that concur to form this beautiful whole. This is a critical work which may sometimes appear trivial, but has the advantage of making us better understand the divine art of Virgil. Only to mention the town of Laurentum and the palace of Latinus, with which we are at this moment busied : of how many distinct elements is not this learned picture formed ? How many different ages meet in it! The palace is supported by columns, like a Eonian edifice of the imperial epoch ; but at the same time it is surrounded Ijy a thick wood, like a Druidic LAURENTUM. 333 dolmen.^ The vestibule is decorated with statues of cedar- wood - — a grave anachronism, since we know from Varro that Eome remained more than two centuries without raising any in her temples. Is it credible that such existed at Laurentum three hundred years before the foundation of Eome ? Virgil, it is true, tries to give his statues a Roman look and an air of antiquity. It is Janus with his two faces, Picus in the costume of an augur, the curved wand in his hand, as Eomulus was represented. In these costumes one is less shocked at seeing them in the house of Latinus. But here we go back further still. In the middle of the atrium, a few steps from these statues, is found what preceded the statues themselves in the veneration of the nations — one of those large trees which were honoured as the image of the gods ere men had learned to give the divinity a human form. It is a laurel, with its sacred foliage respected by all, and which causes a sort of superstitious fear to those who pass beneath its shadow." Tlie religion of Latinus is somewhat like his palace, being composed of practices borrowed from different epochs and countries. When he desires to consult an oracle on the subject of his daughter's marriage, he retires to the vicinity of an Albanian spring, " whence exhale pestiferous vapours,"^ immolates a hundred sheep, and, lying on their fleeces, waits for the god to make his will known in the course of the night. This is a species of divination very celebrated among the Greeks, and was still used in the time of Aristophanes. 1 yEii., VII. 170-3. 2 jiid^ i77_ ^ Ibid., 59, * Ibid., 81. 334 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. But Latinus also practises the most ancient rites of the Roman religion. He has his daughter to serve him at the altar when he sacrifices, as the vestal serves the pontiff/ and a voice issuing from the depths of the forests instructs him what he is to do, " the voice that speaks " — aius locutius, as the old Romans called it. The figure of the king at first sight appears a copy of that of Nestor ; and, like him, he is fond of old stories and likes to relate them.^ Yet Virgil had given him a physiognomy of his own. Certain touches make us feel that he is a Latin, and that he reigns over this people, " virtuous by nature and needing not the laws to force it to be just." ^ There is in his character some- thing more honest, more gentle, and more pacific. He is not a despot who decides alone and takes nobody's advice : he has his council, which he assembles on grave occasions.* However, so does Agamemnon, who omits not to consult the Greek chiefs, whenever an important decision is to be come to. In these assem- blies there is a good deal of talking, and the Greek and Latin heroes, like those of our own chansons de gcste, are inexhaustible orators. As Homer says, " they have been bred to be speakers of words and doers of deeds." There are among them some who support authority and others who oppose it. In tlie Iliad, the opposition is represented by Thersites. Homer, who loves the kings, sons of the gods, has drawn a very unflattering portrait of this rebel : " Of all the warriors^, assembled under the walls of Troy, there was none more frightful. He ^.•7i;?i., VII. 72. -IbuL,9!,. ^ Ibid., 203. * Ibid., XI. 2M. LAUKENTUM. 335 was bandy-legged, and with one foot he limped. His high shoulders contracted his chest, and on his pointed head floated a few scattered hairs." ^ Clearly, a man thus moulded must have a grudge against the entire human race for his ugliness. Drances, Virgil's Thersites, has quite another look. He is a rich, important man, a good speaker whom people like to listen to, and who knows how to cloak his personal resentments with the finest pretexts. As Thersites detests Agamemnon, so he is the mortal enemy of Turnus. His motives for disliking him are of those that are not pardoned. He is old, and the other is young ; he is accused of faint-heartedness in battle, and naturally loves not those who have a reputation for bravery ; he possesses fortune, but not consideration, for although connected by his mother with the greatest houses, his father's family is unknown. He belongs, then, to the category of people whom we now call d4class6s, from whom malcontents are usually recruited. I cannot help finding that this portrait has a modern appearance. A person like Drances can only be imagined and made to speak well if we have lived under a free rule, and have found out by experience what importance jealous mediocrities can assume, and the means they use in order to lower brilliant merit. In creating this type, Virgil surely thought of the obscure struggles and base discords in which the last years of the Eepublic were worn away." We see that many loans have here been made from different epochs and societies ; but they are guessed at 1 Homer, Iliad, II. 217. ^ ^En., XI. 336. o3(i THE COUNTUY OF IIOliACl,; AND VIRGIL. rather than clearly disceniahle. In order to bring out the various tints of which this picture is formed, I have been obliged to exaggerate tlieni. In reality, they blend into a uniform colouring. The marvel is that they could have been so well united that the joining is scarcely distinguishable. Virgil has succeeded in this nearly throughout, and if we except a few passages where the mixing is less skilful and the joins more apparent, it may be said that, taking the poem altogether, the component parts are so ingeniously put together that they end by malcing an harmonious whole. The elements composing the work are taken a little from everywhere, but the poet only owes to himself the connecting-band which holds them together, and the medium in which he has placed them. This is his true originality. In order to frame his stories and group his personages, he has created a conventional antiquity, at once broad and elastic, a sort of twilight age in which men and things of all times may meet without surprise, and has succeeded in giving to his creation an astonish- ing appearance of truth and life. This is what other writers of his time did not always manage to do. Many of those about him who professed to love antiquity scarcely understood it, and he almost alone of his age possessed understanding and taste for it. Varro the elder, so enamoured of the past ; Titus Livius, whose mind, as he says, felt so much pleasure in making itself antique — when they tried to write the history of those primitive times, could not make them live again. On the other hand, pictures which Virgil has traced of them, althougli often fancy ones, have taken forcible possession of all memories ; and whatever discoveries LAUEENTUM. 337 Archaeology may have in store for us, I think it may be positively asserted that the imagination of the learned will always picture Laurentum and the palace of Latinus as he has drawn them for us. COMBAT OF ^NEAS AND TURNUS — ARTIFICES USED BY • VIRGIL TO DEFER IT — THE BATTLE-FIELD — ^DIFFER- ENCE BETWEEN THE FIGHT OF ^NEAS WITH TURNUS AND THAT OF ACHILLES AND HECTOR. But if we would assist at the last scene of the JEneid, we must leave Laurentum and this palace, where it will perhaps be found that we have tarried too long. The concluding drama of the poem takes place outside the town, in the plain extending from the mountains to the sea. The fight between JEneas and Turnus is announced in advance and prepared with care, j^neas first suggests to the Latin envoys, who come to ask a truce of him, this easy means of quite terminating the difference.^ Drances, one of them, hastens to report to Turnus his enemy's challenge, and the latter has too much courage 'not to accept it at once. But the gods who watch over his days take care to retard as much as in them lies a struggle in which he must succumb, and protect him more than he would have them to do. Iti the first combat, which takes place about the Trojan camp, as Turnus seeks ^neas with ^jEn ,XL 115. Y 338 THE COUNTKV OF HOKACE AND VIRGIL. fury, and the latter does not fly him, one might think the meetino- inevitable. Yet Juno finds a means to separate them. " She forms of a light vapour a shadow without consistence, resembling ^neas ; she clothes it in Trojan arms, lends it vain words, sounds without ideas, and gives it the bearing of the hero. Such, they say, are the phantoms that flit about after death, such the dreams which sport with our drowsy senses." ^ Turnus, deceived by the resemblance, pursues the false ^neas to a ship, in which he takes refuge. As soon as he is in it, the goddess breaks the cable which attached the vessel to the shore, and the poor champion, in spite of his prayers, is carried by the waves far from the field of battle where his companions seek, and his enemy awaits him. Another time, circumstances seem more grave and more pressing yet. All is ready for the single combat, and the final conditions are about to be arranged. An altar rises in the midst of the plain, on which ^Eneas and King Latinus agree, by solemn vows, to respect what has been agreed on, and the two armies are assembled to assist at the decisive struggle of their chiefs. At this moment, Juturna, sister of Turnus, who has been beloved by Jupiter and in exchange received immortality, excites the Eutules not to let their king expose himself for them. Pity seizes them when they see this young man measure himself against an adversary who appears to them more redoubtable, and it occurs to them to avoid by all means a struggle whose issue they foresee. An arrow, suddenly let fly from their ranks, strikes one of the i^?i., X. 636. LAURENTUM, 339 Trojan chiefs, and the meUe begins afresh.^ This unfore- seen and improvised combat is certainly one of the most original in all the ^neid. Both sides are carried away by fury, and use as weapons anything that comes to hand. They fight around the altar which they have just sworn to respect, and one of the combatants even seizes a flaming brand used in the sacrifice, and hurls it in the face of an advancing foe. " His long beard catches fire," says the poet, " and the odour it exhales in burning is smelt from far." ^ These various incidents not only serve to delay the end of the poem, and allow it to attain a proper length ; they are very skilfully handled so as to increase our impatience. When this combat, so often expected and so many times deferred, at last takes place, all minds will be excited by ex- pectation, and will follow its varying fortunes with a more passionate interest. Virgil gives this great struggle a setting worthy of it. Let us imagine in this now deserted plain, on one side Laurentum with its high walls, and on the other the Trojan camp, with its gates and its retrenchments. On the ramparts of the town and on the tops of the towers press women, country people, and children, looking on. The two armies surround the field of battle, each keeping its ranks, as if from one moment to another they might be forced to resume the interrupted struggle. Meanwhile the spears, for the moment useless, are stuck into the ground, and the shields rest against them. The chiefs flit about in the midst of the soldiers, resplendent with gold and purple. All eyes ^^Eii., XII. 216, et seq. ^Ibid., 300. 340 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. are stretched towards that empty space, where the fate of the two peoples is about to be staked. Heaven is not less intent tlian earth on this great spectacle. Juno, in order to be nearer to it, has alighted on the heights of Mount Albanus, whence the town of Latinus and the two armies may plainly be seen, while Jupiter, in his heavenly abode, holds in his hands the scales in which he weighs the destinies of mortals. The account of this combat is one of the most dramatic and engrossing descriptions in the jEncid. In reading it, one well sees that the poet was not exhausted by his long journey. , He arrives at the end of his work with his mind as vigorous and his talent as fresh and youthful as when he began it. Death took him by surprise at the age of fifty-one, in the full possession of his genius. Had he continued to live, not only would he have given the finishing touches to the ^ncid, and left it more perfect, but we should doubtless also have possessed that philosophic poem of which it is said he thought in the leisure moments left him by the composition of his epic, and which was to have been the ripened and serene work of liis last years, I think it needless to resume and analyse this beauti- ful narrative here. All readers of Virgil have it before their eyes. Let it, then, suffice me to point out in a few words what seems to me its distinguishing character- istic. The last combat of Achilles and Hector in the Iliad has certainly a very great importance, and one feels very well that it is to decide the fate of Troy ; but after all, the fall of the town is not its immediate LAURENTUM. 341 consequence, and it survives the death of its staunchest defender for some time. Nor can it be said that the combat is premeditated : the two opponents do not seek each other, and they encounter merely by chance. After a defeat of his side, Hector would not flee like them, but stopped before the gate to await the enemy. In reality, he is so little resolved to fight with Achilles, that he takes to flight on perceiving him. In Virgil, on the contrary, everything is perfectly arranged and decided beforehand. Turnus has taken leave of Amata and Lavinia, and ^neas has bidden adieu to his son, while judges have chosen and prepared the spot where they are to encounter. It is a large plain, smooth and bare, and in order to leave no advantage of which the one might profit to the detriment of the other, any few trees that grew there have been levelled. A solemn sacrifice precedes the signal of the struggle. While the priests immolate a young swine and a white sheep, the chiefs of the two armies turn toward the ris- ing sun, whose first rays colour the mountain tops, and, holding in their hands cakes of salted flour, invoke all the gods, and engage to respect the issue of the combat as a decree of Destiny. According as ^neas or Turnus shall win the victory, the Trojans or the Latins will be definitively masters, and the fate of the two peoples is bound up in the fortune of their champions. A sort of judgment of God is therefore in preparation, and it is impossible to follow Virgil in all the details of this fight in the lists without thinking of similar narratives found in old chansons de geste. There, too, knights engage in combat in the presence of an assembled people, and before fighting we see them worshipping relics, 342 THE COUNTRY CF HORACE AND VIRGIL. taking solemn oaths, and giving gages of battle. What completes the illusion is that here, as in many tourna- ments of chivalry, a woman is the pretext and prize of the struggle. " In this arena," Turnus proudly says, " we must win the hand of Lavinia." ^ " Illo quceratur conjux Lavinia campo." However great the emotion we feel in reading the combat between Achilles and Hector in the Iliad, it contains certain incidents at which we cannot help feeling somewhat surprised. For example, the sight of Hector flying when he sees Achilles, " like a trembling pigeon before the hawk," and his only deciding to fight when he has no other means of escape, grates upon us. Of course we are wrong, and nothing is more natural and more true than these sudden timidities and momen- tary hesitations in the face of a great peril ; but in spite of all, in the present day they seem to us out of place in a hero. "We are therefore grateful to Virgil for having spared us them. Of course Turnus flees, like Hector, but only when the weapon he is using is broken in his hand, and he remains without defence. " Then he runs hither and thither, and makes a thousand uncer- tain turns " ; ^ he approaches his soldiers, whom terror renders motionless ; he calls them by their names, and urgently begs them to give him his sword, and the moment he receives it, bravely recommences the struggle. What also shocks us in the narrative of Homer is the part the gods take in the fight. In reality, the victory is theirs. Minerva never wavers in ' .Ln., XII. 80. '^ Ibid., 7 iS. LAURENTUM. 343 her aid to Achilles, who is the stronger, and brings him back his javelin, which he has flung unsuccessfully, and she basely deceives Hector, who is the weaker, by making him think that his brother Deiphobus is going to fight at his side. It is only when the struggle has begun, and Hector wants his brother's help, that he perceives he is alone, and that the pretended Deiphobus has disappeared. In Virgil, the gods neutralise each other by dividing. If Juturna gives Turnus back his sword, Venus allows ^neas to draw out his javelin, which has stuck in the trunk of a wild olive. Thus the inter- vention of divinity does not annul the merit of the men ; the victory is their personal work, and the final success is decided by their own valour. It is also curious to note that between the date of the two poems the senti- ment of honour has become refined, and that Virgil already knows and respects certain delicacies, or, if you will, certain prejudices still prevailing among us at the present time. His personages, when compared with those of Homer, give rise to the same observations. Although ^neas plays nearly the same part as Achilles, and the poet at moments has chosen to lend him his character, he never- theless differs from him very widely. In his combat with Turnus, he pushes respect for plighted faith to excess. When the Latins, violently breaking the truce, begin the struggle again, he does not at first think that their perjury authorises him to break his vow. Un- armed and bareheaded, he would stay his people, who are trying to defend themselves ; and while preventing them from returning the enemy's blows, is himself wounded. More remarkable yet, the poet has managed 344 THE COUNTiiY OF HORACE AND VIKGIL. to make him keep his humanity and gentleness, even in the bloody scene at the end. There, especially, we remark the difference between his character and that of Achilles. In reading the Iliad our hearts fails us at the last violences of the Greek hero. Not only does he slay Hector without ruth, but he replies to his touching supplications merely by regretting that " he cannot eat his quivering flesh." Pious ^neas, on the contrary, allows himself to be softened by the prayers of Turnus. He is even about to forgive him, when he perceives the baldrick of his young friend Pallas, whom Turnus did not spare, in spite of his youth, and whose spoils he has appropriated. We understand that his anger should be stirred up again at this sight, and we forgive him for giving way to a just resentment. It is not .lEneas, but Pallas, who avenges, and strikes Turnus by the hand of a friend. " Pallaf! te, hoc vulnere, Pallas Immolat." ^ Turnus resembles Homer's heroes more nearly, and is made upon their model. Yet he has certain features of his own, and which are stamped with the epoch of Virgil. Above all, he seems sensitive to what we call the point of honour. When, deceived by his sister, who would save him at all costs, he has followed the false yEneas, and the ship into which he lias imprudently thrown himself carries him far from the battle, his grief is intense, and nothing is more touching than his laments. " Mighty Jupiter ! " he exclaims, " have you then found '^n., XII. 918. LAURENTUM. 345 me worthy of such infamy ? What will all those brave men say of me, who have followed me, and whom I have delivered up to death without accompanying them ? What is to be done ? What abyss deep enough will open itself under my feet ? You, at" least, winds, have pity on me. Carry this bark against the cliffs. Turnus himself conjures you. Break it on these rocks, where the reproaches of my friends and the cry of my remorse may reach me never more ! " ^ Do we not seem to hear certain heroes of our dtansons ch geste .? It is the same generous ring, the same chivalric ardour, the same scrupulous care for honour. Turnus is concerned, above all things, for his reputation ; does not wish any one to be able to accuse him of disloyalty, and would willingly have taken his device from the words of Eoland : " Que mauveise chan<;un de nus chantet ne sett ! " If I have made a point of dwelling on the resemblances observable between the ^neid and the poems of the Middle Ages, it is because they seem to me to have some importance. It is useful to show how Virgil, who loves to connect himself with the past, sometimes stretches out a hand to the future. When we know what is ancient and what modern in him, we better under- stand the part he has played in the history of letters. Placed at the meeting-point of two ages, and by a happy chance partaking of both, he has served as an inter- mediary between them. It is through him that we reach Anticpiity ; it is he who opens it up to us, he who ^ ^^n., X. 668. 346 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VIRGIL. leads and guides us to it. Between it and us he forms a kind of connecting-link, and in this sense Baillet was right in saying that " he is the centre point of all the poets who came before and after him." Such are the reflections that forced themselves upon me while trying to picture to myself the combat of ^neas and Turnus in the plain of Laurentum. I fear they have carried me very far. My readers will doubt- less find that I have kept them too long on that desert shore, searching for lost towns of which no trace remains. But travelling with Virgil, one delights to linger by the way, and he is a companion from whom 'tis hard to part. THE END.