Virgil

or Vergil, ver'jil (70-19 B. C.), a Roman poet, the foremost writer of the Augustan age. Virgil is the English spelling; Vergilius the Latin. He was born near Mantua, Italy, October 15, 70 B. C., and died at Brundisium, September 21, 19 B. C. Accounts of his early life are uncertain. Virgil's father, said by some to have been a potter, by others a farm laborer, married the daughter of his employer and became possessed of a small farm on which he supported himself by farming and by keeping bees. He sent his boy to the best schools at Cremona, Naples, and Rome. Virgil was a diligent student of Greek literature, rhetoric, philosophy, medicine, and mathematics. He was dyspeptic and subject to headache. Unlike ambitious young men, he preferred a quiet life to politics and the army. He appears to have retired to his father's farm and to have busied himself with literature and the care of the estate. He never married. Unlike Byron, Moore, and Burns, he is not known to have engaged in intrigue or in an affair of the heart. He was a shy, modest man, so averse to public attention in the days of his fame that he was known to take shelter in doorways to avoid meeting a party of people who would be likely to insist on complimenting him.

After the battle of Philippi in 42 B. C. he was awakened rudely from his life of seclusion and meditation by the wholesale seizure of lands to reward the veteran soldiers of Octavius and Antony. One report has it that he was rudely handled by the soldiers, being allowed to escape merely with his life. He set out for Rome to plead his cause in person. Here he was fortunate enough to attract the attention of Maecenas, the prime minister, himself a patron of letters. Virgil was granted a new estate nearer Rome, and became henceforth a member of the literary circle to be found in that city.

Among other kindly acts he is said to have introduced Horace to the notice of the court. Maecenas saw to it that Virgil enjoyed a liberal income. In the absence of printing, the poet of that day read his productions from manuscript. Scribes were employed to make copies for the wealthy. We learn that Virgil was a broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned man with a certain rustic air quite delightful in contrast with the forward beaux of the day. He and his poems, therefore, were the leading social attraction at Rome. In 19 B. C. he undertook a journey to Greece and Asia Minor to study more closely the geography of the regions described in his leading poem, the Aeneid. He was not well and went only as far as Athens, turning back to die at Brundisium. He was buried near Naples, but the spot occupied by his tomb is now a matter of uncertainty.

The earliest poems of which we have positive knowledge are ten pastoral poems called Eclogues or Bucolics. The themes and language were supposed to be drawn from the lives of shepherds. The poems were close imitations of the Idyls of Theocritus, the Greek. His next great work, said by Addison to be the most finished and one of the most perfect poems in any language, was the Georgics. It was written apparently to point out the attractiveness of rural life. The cultivation of fields, crops, tree planting, stock raising, and beekeeping are described with lightness of touch, wealth of allusion, and with many a digression. The ancient poets and, no doubt, his own experience are drawn upon freely. The style is delightful. The poet lingers lovingly on his themes after the manner of Izaak Walton in his Compleat Angler. Virgil's masterpiece, however, is the Aeneid, an epic commemorating the fall of Troy and the wanderings of the Trojan prince Aeneas, until, "having compassed land and sea, he laid the walls of lofty Rome." The theme of the poem and many of the incidents are in part the same treated by Homer in the Iliad and in the Odyssey. Virgil was hailed at once as the equal of the Greek poet. He and the Aeneid created a social furore. After the fashion of the time, Virgil brought in the royal family, making out Aeneas as the remote ancestor of Augustus. Virgil was a dramatic reader. In book six he introduced (lines 860-886) a beautiful allusion to the loss of Marcellus, the son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. On the occasion when he read this passage before the reigning family, Octavia is said to have fainted with emotion. On her recovery she sent him a present of $500 (10,000 sesterces) for each line of the passage. The Aeneid was used as a reading book in school. Critics have not failed to point out that Virgil borrowed freely from Homer. He has been accused of lacking originality and strength, but as time goes by his reputation holds well with Dante, Chaucer, and Spenser. The first printed edition of Virgil's poems was issued at Rome in 1469. Up to that time the poems had been preserved in manuscript. This is the basis of present editions. The only complete or nearly complete manuscripts are three, dating from the fourth and fifth centuries. They are preserved in the Vatican Library at Rome.

On the nineteenth centenary of Virgil's birth the citizens of Mantua held commemorative exercises. By request, Tennyson wrote his lines To Virgil to be read on the occasion. See Aeneas; Troy; Dido; Augustus; Maecenas