The country of Horace and Virgil;

Chapter I

I. How Horace came to know Maecenas — Character of Maecenas — Life in his house — The palace

of the Esqniline . 5-15

II. "Was Horace really a lover of Nature ? — The second Epode — How residence in Eome became unbearable to him — The consequences for him of his intimacy with Maecenas — Beggars and Bores — The joy he must have felt when Maecenas gave

him the estate in the Sabine Hills . . , 15-24

HI. Journey to the house in the Sabina — The Temple of Yacuna — Roccagiovine — Fonte delV Oratini — 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

VI CONTENTS.

PACES

V. How Horace lived at his country house — His journeys — He begins to regret Rome no more — His last vears 48-58

CHAPTER 11.

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 Etruscans— The paintings in the tombs — Few scenes of sadness found among them — How it is that they so 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 mythological subjects, and the conclusions to be drawn from this — The Etruscans accept the fables of Greece — Tomha 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 ci\TLlization — Ancient tombs — They do not differ from those of other Italian races — The period in which we find amber, and why we cease to find it a little later — Vdd di hucchero Nero — Influence of the Carthaginians — At what moment it must have

CONTENTS. Vll begun — Have we a right to infer from the presence of Phoenician objects in the tombs of Etruria the Eastern origin of the Etruscans ? — The influence of Greece — At what epoch was it exercised I — Can it be said that Etruscan art never possessed originality ? — Paintings at Ccere — Decadence and end of Etruscan art . . . . . . . 91-115

CHAPTER III. The Country of the jEneid . . . .117-171

I. The Legend OF ^NEAS 119-171

I. The legends — Why they deserve to be studied — The legend of iEneas — How it arose — ^Eneas in the Iliad — Homer supposes the race of the JEneides to have been established on Mount Ida — The journeys of ^Eneas — How it came to be supposed that he left Asia — The worship of Aphrodite, the mother of ^neas — Genesis of the legend 119-132

11. How the legend of JEneas penetrated into Italy — Opinion of Niebuhr — It does not rej^lace the Italian legends, but rather overlaps them — It is connected with the origin of Lavinium — Hypothesis of Schwegler — The process of assimilation by which ^neas came to assume an Italian physiognomy — How the Greeks came to communicate 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.

III. At what moment did the legend first become known to the Romans 1 — ] t is first mentioned at the time of the war with Pyrrhus — The importance it takes after the Punic Wars — The legend among the poets, Nsevius — The legend among the historians and scholiasts, Cato, Varro — The legend among the artists — Why w^as it more spread among

the Romans than among the Greeks ? . . 146-160

IV. What reason had Virgil to choose the legend of ^Eneas for the subject of his poem ? — The historical epic and the mythological epic — The /Eneicl is both a mythological and an historical epic — Why did Virgil prefer ^neas to Romulus ? — In what sense may the JEneid be said to have

been popular ? 160-171

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 Bucolics . 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 teniDles —

CONTENTS. IX

Private galleries — Shrine of Heiiis — Taste of the Eomans of that time for works of art — The portrait of \^erres drawn by Cicero — Attractions of Sicily for Virgil 181-198

III. The Third Book of the u^ncid—JEnesia in Epirus — He touches at Italy — Tarentum — He passes into Sicily — iEtna— 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 ^neas to Sicily— Fifth Book of the u^neicl — Mount Eryx — Temple of Venus Erycina — Funeral games in honour of Anchises — Course of the ships — Burning of the fleet — Segesta — Departure of ^neas for Italy . . 216-236

III. OsTiA AND Lavinium ..... 236-289

I. The two parts of the j^neicl — 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 yEneas 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.

III. Lavinium — Its decadence under the Empire — AVorship 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 . . 259-275

IV. jrEneas 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 . 27(5-289 lY. Laurentum 290-346

I, Tenth Book of the j^neid — Assembly of the gods — Return of /Eneas — 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 /Eneas on Laurentum — Ambush of Turnus — Probable situation of Laurentum 310-322

CONTENTS. XI

IV, The palace of Latinus — How Virgil composes his descriptions — Why he does not exactly reproduce those of Homer — Mixture of different epochs— Unity of the whole .... 323-337

V. Combat of iEneas and Turnus — Artifices used by Virgil to defer it — The battle-field — Difference between the fight of Jj^neas with Turnus and that of Achilles and Hector . 337-346

V

CHAPTEE I.

HORACE'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 himself 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 general conviction. Besides, there was no lack of persons who did not wish to be convinced. In every corner of the Sabine Hills some village sage vociferously claimed for his district the honour of having sheltered Horace, and would not hear of its being bereft of it. And this is how his 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 Capmartin de Chaupy. He was one of those who go to Rome 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 whole 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

1 It must be mentioned that Capmartin de Chaupy was passionatelyfond 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 D^couverte de la maismi de camiiagne d^ Horace, par 1' Abbe Capmartin de Chaupy, Rome, 1767-1769.

hoeace's country house. 3

his journeys, and the results to which his indefatigable labours had led him. 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 discovery. 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 complained 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 sojn-a la villa di Orazzio Flacco, dell' abbate Dominico de Sauctis. '^ Carm., II. 18, 14.

to it. This basis fixed, Chaupy visits in turn every spot on which it has 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 convincinGj 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 Pentinger 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 completely restores to it its ancient name.^ Lastly, the high Mount Lucre talis, 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 has made this canton of the Sabine Hills to

1 Orelli, Inscr. lat., 104.

2 "Vie d'Horace," par Noel des Vergers, p. 27, in Didot's Horace, 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.

L

HOW HORACE CAME TO KNOW M^CENAS — 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

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 needless to insist on them.

Maecenas was then one of the most important personages 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, Maecenas, who belonged to the highest nobility of Etruria, remained in the shade. Only twice in his life was he officially 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 taking 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 disinterestedness, as rare then as it is now. His contem-

^ It is generally thought that he was named by Octavius Prefect of Rome {prce/ectus urbi), but a commentator of Virgil, discovered at Verona, calls him prefect of the praetorium, and M. Mommsen thinks this was really the title he bore, and that it was created for him.

HOKACE 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 atque 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 political 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 execution. He reserved himself for things that asked but a single effort of thought. To prepare, to com-

8 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND VlEGlL.

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 intelligence, 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 its train a crowd of commonplace 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 lie braved the prejudice of birth, which 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

2 The lines in which Maecenas owned that he feared death are

HORACE S COUNTRY HOUSE. VJ

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."

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. Maecenas 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 vokmtary 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 : —

10 THE COUNTRY OF HORACE AND YIRGIL.

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 honour 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 Maecenas 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 than 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 this 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 personages, 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. The poets came from all ranks of society ; the great lords were gleaned from every political party. Side by side with Aristius Fusciis 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 JEneid, and through the imperfections of Horace's Upodes 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. Maecenas' 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 distinguished 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 forecather, and we search his works to 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 Satires, the eighth of the First Book, offers us a sample of this kind, because it was composed 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 Eome would have consented to dwell there. Msecenas 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 Eome when these sumptuous buildings were seen rising in the worst-famed spot of the city ; but here the spirit of contradiction, already remarked in Maecenas, served him well. The Esquiline, rid of its filth, turned out to be healthier than the other quarters ; and we are told that when AuG^ustus caudit a fever on the Palatine he went to live for a few days in Maecenas' tower, in order to treat and cure it. This 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 Eome : —

And that tlie charm of these gardens and the magnificence 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 trysting-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 therefore 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 }'ears they retain something 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 journeyto 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."