VIRGIL’S NEW AGE OF JUSTICE AND PEACE.
The slow but steady rise of an obscure inland Italian town, first to the
rule of all Italy, and finally to imperial sway over the whole
Mediterranean world, is as full of problems for the intellect as of
fascination for the imagination. Whence the extraordinary vigour and
practical genius of this city? What gave it so much capacity in
comparison with any other Italian town? Does the secret lie in the Roman
character, the Roman intellect, or in the constitution of the republican
city itself? But other questions still more serious press for answers:
How did the Roman government affect the subject provinces? How did it
react upon the Roman character and upon the life of the capital? Could a
single city furnish men of character and ability in sufficient numbers
for such a prodigious task?
The answer to these grave questions must be sought in the history of the
last century of the existence of the republic. From about 145 B. C. to
about 48 B. C. Rome was never at rest: violent political strife,
faction, proscriptions and civil wars eclipse everything else in the
internal history of the imperial city during these years. The old state
machinery was getting worn out; the old families, corrupted by the
immeasurable success of the Rome which was their making, were grinding
the provinces by their cruelty and greed, and would not budge an inch
from their privileges, nor indeed lift a finger, to save Rome and Italy
from the moral and economic ruin with which they were threatened. The
wrongs of the slave, the Italian and the provincial cried aloud for
redress; scarcely less urgent was the need for the introduction of a
great deal of fresh blood into the governing classes; but the latter
were bitterly hostile to every change. Hence the violent struggles
throughout the century between the Government and the other classes. The
empire had proved too much for the old Roman character.[158] The only
force that remained really efficient was the army.
Who shall describe the ruin, bloodshed, misery, desolation, wrought by
these years? The national character suffered a frightful fall also:
corruption in public, immorality in private, became all but universal.
The weariness and the hopelessness generated by the seemingly unending
strife made men forget their old passion for freedom and sigh even for
tyranny, if only it would bring peace.
Relief came when Julius Cæsar crushed Pompey at Pharsalus in B. C. 48.
There was fighting here and there for two years more, but it was of
little consequence. Pharsalus made Cæsar the monarch of Rome. He lived
barely four years after his victory; for the daggers of the conspirators
found his heart on the 15th of March, 44 B. C.; yet by a series of
masterly administrative and legislative acts he laid in great broad
lines the foundation of the new empire and set in motion the healthy
forces that were needed for the regeneration of Rome and Italy. His work
is Titanic both in conception and execution. Seldom has such a great man
executed such a mighty task.
But his murder loosed all the old fiends again, and they worked wilder
woe than ever. For now the whole gigantic empire was drawn into the
whirlpool, and the provinces were only a little less miserable than
Italy. During Cæsar’s own struggle his mighty genius and his magnanimity
had thrown a glory upon the murky clouds of the storm; but now that the
sun was set, black darkness settled over the unhappy empire.[159]
There was a pause in the strife, when, in B. C. 40, a treaty was drawn
up between Octavian and Antony at Brundisium and confirmed by the
marriage of Antony to the sister of Octavian. Men hoped that the end had
come at last and that the world would enjoy a lasting peace.
It was during this bright moment that Virgil, who later was to write the
_Aeneid_, and so earn for himself a very great name in European
literature, composed a short poem, which finds a place among his
Pastorals, and is named _Pollio_. Here is a translation of lines four to
twenty-five, which will be found quite sufficient to bring the main
ideas of the poem before us:—
“The last epoch of the Sybil’s prophecy has come at length; the
great series of the ages is being born anew; at length the virgin,
Justice, is returning, returning too the reign of Saturn; at length
a new race of men is being sent down from heaven high. Do thou,
Lucina, but smile thy chaste smile upon a boy with whose coming at
last ceases the iron race and the golden springs up throughout the
world; do so, Lucina: it is thine own Apollo that now reigns. It is
in thy consulship, Pollio, that this glorious age will come in, and
the months of the great year will begin their march. Under thy
leadership all traces that remain of Roman crime in civil strife
shall pass away, and passing, free the lands from constant fear.
“He shall receive the life of the gods, and shall behold gods and
heroes mingling together; and himself shall be beheld by them; and
with his father’s virtues he shall rule the world at peace.
“Unasked the earth shall shower upon thee, sweet boy, thy first baby
gifts, the gadding ivy with the fox-glove, and lily-bean entwined
with smiling bear’s-foot. The goats shall bring home uncalled their
milk-filled udders; the harts shall no longer fear great lions; and
flowers shall spring to caress thee where’er thou liest down. The
asp shall perish; the treacherous, poison herb shall perish too; and
everywhere shall spring Assyrian balm.”[160]
The Greeks and Romans had a great system of cycles and ages, not unlike
the Hindu Kalpas and Manvantaras. One cycle follows another, the
beginning of each being marked by the sun, moon and stars all occupying
their original positions. The Roman phrase for cycle is “great year.”
Each great year is subdivided into “months,” that is ages. The first age
of each great year is the golden, when Saturn reigns, and a divine race
of men occupies the earth; the last is the iron age, when Apollo reigns,
and men are sinful.
Virgil declares, then, that the end of the old cycle has come, and that
the new cycle is about to begin with all the splendour of the golden
age. Saturn will reign; Justice and Peace will return to the earth; a
god-like race of men will spring up all over the world; nature will be
redeemed; and primitive simplicity and innocence will reappear. Idyllic
scenes of peace and plenty—trade and manufacture all forgotten—give the
poem a wonderful charm.
The most outstanding idea of the prophecy, however, is that the new age
opens with the birth of a boy, who is to receive special divine help,
and is to be at once the pattern and the prince of the new time. Who the
boy was that Virgil had in mind, the critics have not been able to
decide.[161] Clearly he was a son born in 40 B. C. to one of the leading
Romans; but we can say no more. Evidently Virgil believed that the civil
wars were over, that a new era of peace had begun, and that this boy
might be looked forward to as the ruler who should effectively transform
the empire, revive primitive virtue and simplicity, and banish the foul
demon war forever.
His prediction was not verified: no boy born in 40 B. C. became a
world-ruler and regenerator; and, besides, nine long years of doubt and
fear, horror and blood, had to be endured, before Octavian became, by
the battle of Actium, the acknowledged master of the Roman world; and,
while he completed the task of Cæsar, and succeeded in doing the work of
a great ruler in a marvellous fashion, no one would dream of saying that
he fulfilled the ideal of this poem.
It is an unfulfilled prophecy; yet it is not without interest and value
for men to-day. First of all it is of interest as a revelation of the
ideas and the hopes that filled men’s minds in Virgil’s time. “The
anticipation of a new era was widely spread and vividly felt over the
world; and this anticipation—the state of men’s minds at and subsequent
to the time when this poem was written—probably contributed to the
acceptance of the great political and spiritual changes which awaited
the world.”[162] But it is of still greater interest as a revelation of
what Virgil himself thought, Virgil, who was perhaps the purest and most
interesting personality in the Græco-Roman world then. Men generally
were looking for a regeneration of the world; we have here Virgil’s own
thoughts on the great subject. He shared with others the idea that the
world was on the verge of the dawning of a new day, a day of renewed
justice and peace; but he had an idea of his own, that of a great
personality, a man of high moral character, specially endowed by the
gods for his great task as leader and ruler of the new time. Scarcely
less prominent is his idea of the nobler race of men that shall spring
up in the new era. It is no picture merely of good government such as
Augustus gave the world that we have here; but a prophecy of the moral
regeneration of mankind under the influence of a divinely prepared
leader.
Footnote 158:
Froude, _Cæsar_, 12-19.
Footnote 159:
For the whole picture _see_ Mommsen, especially the very last page of
his history.
Footnote 160:
Virgil, _Eclogues_, IV, 4-25.
Footnote 161:
Sellar, _Virgil_, 146; Simcox, _Latin Literature_, Vol. I, 257.
Footnote 162:
Sellar, _Virgil_, 145. _Cf._ Boissier, _La Religion Romaine_.