Augustus, page 34
Virgil was a perfectionist, choosing each word with such care that he rarely composed more than a couple of lines of the Aeneid in the course of a day. His friend Horace, another of Maecenas’ circle, was at times even slower than this in his composition. Such dedication was not mere affectation or the mark of a dilettante, for these were serious artists of truly extraordinary talent. Horace was universally admired, while Virgil’s poetry was already spoken of as probably the most beautiful expression of the Latin language. Maecenas chose well in selecting poets to join his circle of friends. All of them were probably equestrians, including Horace, the son of a successful freedman, and wealthy enough to possess the education and the leisure to devote themselves to verse. Even if some of them had lost land during the civil wars, they were not dependent on the patronage of Maecenas and Augustus for a livelihood, whose gifts merely added to their comfortable lifestyles. Probably in the aftermath of his illness, Augustus hoped to employ Horace and wrote to Maecenas accordingly: ‘Before this I was able to write my letters to my friends with my own hand; now, overwhelmed with work and in poor health, I desire to take our friend Horace from you. He will come then from that parasitic table of yours to my imperial board, and help me write my letters.’3
The Forum of Augustus
In the event Horace declined the offer, but this did nothing to damage his continuing good relationship with Augustus. The informal, bantering style of this small fragment from the princeps’ letter to his old friend Maecenas was extended to his correspondence with the poets themselves. Literature was an utterly respectable and highly fashionable leisure interest for the Roman elite – the mark of the truly civilised man. Julius Caesar’s staff in Gaul were an especially literary bunch, and Augustus shared Maecenas’ reverence for poets and writers. Such matters were useful – and conveniently neutral – topics of conversation for social meetings with other senators or men of importance. Alongside tradition, literature had formed a major theme in his friendship with Atticus. Both Augustus and Maecenas wrote on their own account, and the former joined Horace and the others in mocking the latter’s efforts at poetry. He was also willing to denigrate his own efforts, joking when he abandoned an attempt at writing a tragedy that his hero had ‘fallen on his sponge’.4
Like everyone else, the poets of Maecenas’ circle cannot have failed to see the reality of Augustus’ dominance or been unaware that it rested ultimately on his military might. Yet they were no more compelled to write than senators were to seek office or a public career. It is a great mistake to dismiss their work as propaganda, or even to suggest that its content and themes were carefully controlled by Maecenas and through him by Augustus. Equally misguided is the quest to reveal carefully veiled subversion or hinted criticism of the princeps and his regime. Augustus prided himself on association with only the finest writers. This was a matter of self-respect, but also good politics. Alexander the Great’s reputation had suffered through accepting overblown praise from mediocre poets.
Men like Virgil, Horace and Propertius could be encouraged and cajoled into writing on certain topics, and would themselves be aware of what was likely to please the princeps. At times they joked of being ‘pressed’ to write, but this was a common enough literary device often combined with false modesty. Cicero, Atticus and their contemporaries often played the same game and urged each other to write on particular themes. Augustus once wrote to Horace gently chiding the poet for not addressing him in any of his works. ‘Are you afraid that your reputation with posterity will suffer because it appears that you were my friend?’ he remarked in his usual bantering tone, and it is hard to see an edge of real menace behind the words. The talk is of friendship – Horace is a familiaris – rather than politics, and although the two were often blurred at Rome, the implication is that any work would be an honour to both of them. Horace responded with the first poem of his second book of Epistles, which talked of the service to the state offered by poets like himself, and included the famous line telling of how ‘captive Greece conquered the fierce victor, and brought the arts to rustic Latium’.5
Compulsion was slight, and most of the subjects congenial to the poets. Caesar’s victory and the peace it brought was something almost anyone who had lived through the civil wars could easily celebrate. The restoration of religious rites, the return of stability and the defeat of dangerous foreign enemies were all unambiguously good things for all Romans, and especially members of the elite, and the poets would have been unusual indeed if they did not share these sentiments. There was no direct intervention in the words they wrote, still less any direct censorship. To have value, men like Virgil, Horace and the others needed to be left to compose in their own way and after their own style.
The result was an outpouring of works of the highest quality that continued to be admired for centuries; it included much that was congenial to the new regime, but also much that spoke more generally to the human experience. This was far more powerful than any controlled propaganda could ever have been, and helped feed the mood of restoration. Augustus’ association with the poets added lustre to his dominance, since this was an entirely proper interest for any senator, and because the poetry produced was so obviously good he did not appear a tyrant nor did the poets seem sycophantic. When Propertius rejected the theme of war against the Parthians and other enemies and turned instead to speak of love it was not an attack on state policy, but a witty and charming device in poems designed to amuse, not to convince readers to abandon public life. Augustus’ dominance created an environment where literature and the arts were encouraged to flourish and poets, writers and artists struggled to make their names, often reinventing well-established styles. There is no good reason to doubt that Virgil and the others were sincere in the views they expressed, even if the modern prejudice is to assume that all great artists must by nature be dissidents, especially if they live under a leader who has fought his way to power. As a comparison, we would do well to think of the many great works of music and art produced under the rule of, and often with the direct patronage of, absolute monarchs in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.6
At one point Virgil talked of writing an epic about Augustus himself, before rejecting that idea. The Aeneid instead was set in the distant past and told the story of Aeneas, the Trojan hero who had escaped from the fall of his city and led a party of exiles to Italy where, several generations later, his descendant Romulus would found Rome. This was the world of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the oldest and greatest of Greek epics, and was a deliberate attempt to match their grandeur in the Latin language. Aeneas was also claimed as the ancestor of the Julii, their name being derived from his son Iulus, and since the Trojan hero was the son of Venus, this gave the aristocratic family their divine pedigree. Virgil devoted himself to the project, and even his trip to Greece was intended as a rest to inspire him to continue reworking and improving the poem. For all his effort and the favourable reception of early recitals of extracts, the poet was not satisfied – he was even known to alter lines during the course of a reading. Less gregarious than the bon viveur Horace, Virgil spent much of his time closeted away on one of his estates, tinkering with the poem and modifying or rejecting line after line.7
The Aeneid was not finished, but whether Greece proved less inspirational than he had hoped or he simply felt obliged to accompany Augustus, Virgil joined the princeps and his entourage as they returned to Italy. During the journey he fell ill, initially with sunstroke and then a bout of fever. Virgil reached Italy, but died at Brundisium on 21 September 19 BC, in his fifty-second year and just two days short of Caesar Augustus’ forty-fourth birthday. Both the princeps and Maecenas were named as heirs in his will, as was Lucius Varius, another of the latter’s circle of poets. Still dissatisfied with the state of the Aeneid, Virgil had begged Varius in the event of his death to burn the manuscripts. The latter refused, and in his final days Virgil implored his attendants to bring the scrolls to him so that he could set fire to them himself. Augustus made sure that they did not obey this command, and the princeps urged Varius and a colleague to tidy up the poem and quickly release it to the world.8
In spite of the wishes of the author, this disobedience was a great service to the world, saving one of the greatest achievements of Roman literature. There was the obvious appeal for Augustus of a grand and beautiful epic written by a famous author, telling inspiring stories of one of his Julian ancestors and of the origins of the Romans, which celebrated both their past and future. Thus his actions were not wholly selfless, although it is clear that he would not have wanted to circulate the poem unless it was substantially finished and of obviously exceptional quality. People soon began to ponder the changes Virgil may have planned – and this speculation continues among scholars to this day – but the Aeneid was universally hailed as a fitting rival to Homer. It quickly became a standard text in Roman education. (A century later two bored military clerks at opposite ends of the empire, in northern Britain and Judaea, scrawled a line from the poem on the back of routine documents which chance later preserved for archaeologists to discover.) The Aeneid was one of the most-quoted works of Latin literature, although it should be noted that these quotations are largely from the early books. Much like Shakespeare, a good deal of the epic was neglected as teachers concentrated on a few familiar selections.9
‘I sing of arms and the man’ (arma virumque cano) runs the first line of the first book – and the use of the first person by the poet was in itself a break with the Homeric tradition. The world of the Aeneid is interwoven with Homer’s world, and many of the characters – most of all Aeneas – came from Homer. The first half mirrored the Odyssey as the Trojan refugees wander the Mediterranean, sometimes crossing the trail left by the Greek hero. Thus they find one of Odysseus’ men who had been left behind when the others escaped from the cave of the cyclops Polyphemus, and then see the blinded monster blundering angrily around. Throughout the gods intervene, Juno vindictively pursuing the Trojans while Venus protects her son.
For all the echoes of Homer and the many allusions to other literature, there are hints alongside the myths of a more modern and complicated world. Aeneas is sometimes afraid, angry or confused, and able at times to feign confidence and enthusiasm to inspire his men while privately despairing. Homeric heroes were utterly self-confident and equally self-centred – the Iliad tells of the anger of Achilles over a personal slight, so that he sulks in his tent until the death of Patroclus moves him to return to the battle and wreak savage revenge. The wider fortunes of the Greek army are almost irrelevant to his personal motivation, as he chooses a short but glorious life instead of living to old age in obscurity. In the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus loses all of his followers during his journeys with little sign of regret, and dallies with nymphs and goddesses before returning home to slaughter his wife’s suitors and any of the household who have accepted them. Personal honour and success are all that really matters to such heroes, which helps to explain why many generations of Greeks and Romans – and especially aristocrats – would see these epics as guides to their own behaviour.
Aeneas is different, for he is always aware of his wider duty. He is pius Aeneas, respectful to gods and his family, especially the father he carried from the ruin of Troy, and aware that he is charged with the destiny of his race, needing to lead them to Italy so that in time Rome may be founded and the Romans rise to the greatness of Virgil’s day and even grander achievements to come. More than once he is shown glimpses of this future glory to inspire him. As well as open enemies he faces temptation, most famously when he and his followers are welcomed by Queen Dido of Carthage. Juno and Venus conspire to make her fall in love with the Trojan hero, and their love is consummated when they both take shelter in a cave during a storm-interrupted hunting excursion. The threat to the future is brief, as Aeneas soon afterwards leaves with all his people rather than settling among the Carthaginians – an alternative which would have led to them and not the Romans becoming the greatest people of the region. The heart-broken Dido kills herself, binding her people to undying hatred of Aeneas’ descendants, and thus providing an ancient grudge for the real clash between Rome and Carthage in the third and second centuries BC.10
Virgil’s epic is a mixture of existing tradition – sometimes choosing one version from several – and of Homer and other epics, as well as a good deal of invention. Allusions to his own day are numerous, but not heavy-handed. Sicily features heavily in the poem – Aeneas visits it twice – which is surely a reflection of its central role in the rise of Augustus. A despairing Dido regrets that her lover has not given her a ‘little Aeneas’ as consolation for his abandonment of her, which must have made contemporaries think of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra and Caesarion. The association of the Carthaginian queen of the epic with the Egyptian queen of recent history was natural, but is never forced. Dido is treated with great sympathy, manipulated by the gods into falling in love and then abandoned. The single appearance of Cleopatra herself later in the story is deeply hostile, but Dido appears more as victim than villain, and only as the poet describes her ghastly suicide is she depicted as unstable and dangerous – a change probably more jarring to modern than ancient sensibilities.11
Pius Aeneas puts the greater destiny of his people before his own feelings and abandons Dido. Later, when he visits the underworld and encounters her spirit, the queen refuses to acknowledge him in a scene more concerned with his sorrow and guilt than her feelings. Time and again Aeneas does the right thing for the future, but at great cost to himself and those around him. When they finally reach Italy, the welcome given by some local kings leads to war with their neighbours that foreshadows in many ways the civil wars of Virgil’s day. Homer’s battles are grim and savage, with detailed descriptions of wounds and death, and Virgil followed in the same tradition. It is tempting to see an even harder edge – one allied king trips over and falls onto an altar, and is killed there, his opponent mockingly calling out, ‘He’s had it [hoc habet – the cry crowds used at gladiatorial fights], this better offering given to the great gods,’ while nearby another man has his beard set alight before he is knocked down and slaughtered. There is certainly more sense of the cost of war, and the sorrow felt by the families of the fallen, than in the Iliad.12
Yet we should not see in this a condemnation of war itself, for although Virgil depicts the fighting as terrible and full of sadness, he does not present it as unnecessary. Aeneas is as implacable in battle as anyone else, carving his way through a long succession of foes, including a man wearing the insignia of a priest. At the end of the story he confronts Turnus, king of the Rutulians, who has already cut down many of the Trojans and their allies, most notably Pallas, son of King Evander. Wounded by Aeneas, Turnus asks to be spared for the sake of his poor father, reminding the Trojan of his own beloved – and now dead – father, Anchises. For a moment the victor is moved and hesitates. Then he notices that Turnus is wearing a belt stripped from the corpse of Pallas, and pity turns into ‘fury and terrible anger’. Calling out that this is just punishment for Pallas, Aeneas thrusts his sword deep into Turnus’ chest, whose ‘limbs fell slack and cold and with a sigh his life fled indignantly to the shadows below’.13
The poem ends with these words, and for all that Virgil had not finished refining his great work, it is doubtful that he planned to change the final scene so that the story culminated in mercy rather than retribution. Turnus had taken up arms against Aeneas, had exulted in the havoc he wrought on the enemy, showing them no mercy whatsoever, and in the final encounter he had broken a truce. He is not depicted as a monster without any virtues, and Virgil extends the same sympathy to him as he does to Dido and his other characters. Such a sympathetic understanding of the human condition is the mark of a great artist, but at no point does Virgil encourage the reader – and even more a first-century BC Roman reader – to equate the characters with Aeneas, or hint that they might be in the right. Many Romans were capable of admiring their enemies and of confessing that their wars of conquest often meant dreadful suffering for subject peoples. Such awareness never seriously challenged the deep-seated belief that Roman expansion was just. Enemies remained enemies, to be defeated and only then treated with kindness. In poetry as in real life, the joys of peace came only as a result of Roman victory.14
Aeneas reflected Augustus in many ways, albeit in the glamorous form of an overtly heroic, handsome and physically strong warrior, and suggestions that this was not a deliberate celebration of the princeps lack conviction. Both men placed duty and piety before their own comfort and interests, enduring great hardships and struggling for many years before the final victory was won and the wider community enjoyed peace and prosperity. At times it was necessary for them to do dreadful things for the greater good and destiny of the Roman – or in Aeneas’ case the pre-Roman – people. Given such a high stake, all those who opposed them had to be destroyed, and calm pietas could give way to justified and passionate rage. Aeneas sometimes even mocked his enemies as he killed them, just as the young Caesar was said to have done after Philippi and at Perusia.15
Caesar Augustus is celebrated in the poem, and is shown at the moment of his great victory at Actium as the centrepiece of the ornate shield forged for Aeneas by the god Vulcan. Sometimes Virgil refers more vaguely to a Caesar – on one occasion a ‘Trojan Caesar . . . laden with Eastern spoils’ – and it is hard to know whether he means Augustus or Julius Caesar. Probably the vagueness is deliberate and he means both, the best of the father reinforcing the achievements and virtues of the son. Similarly when he has a Cato judging the dead in the underworld it is a generic Cato, as much the famous ancestor as the descendant who so bitterly opposed Julius Caesar. Virgil was keen to celebrate the great Romans of the past. The dead Catiline is consigned to terrible punishment, but otherwise there is little hint of political differences. In the description of Rome’s future heroes waiting to be born are two ‘gleaming in matching panoplies’, clearly Pompey and Julius Caesar, who will ‘alas . . . cause battles and bloodshed’, the ‘bride’s father’ against ‘her husband’. They are urged to restrain themselves from civil war. This is surely criticism, but it is mild and directed as much against Pompey the Great as the dictator, and the latter is urged to be first to ‘spare’, which is surely an approving reference to his famous clemency.16
