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.