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Virgil. Aeneid.


133 BC. Tiberius Gracchus. Popular Tribune. Patricians accuse him of wanting to be a tyrant, assassinate him.
124 BC. Gaius Gracchus follows brother. Also assassinated.

Marius

  111-105 BC. Fights Jugurtha in North Africa

104-100 BC.  Germans invade.  Marius made dictator.  Reorganizes Roman Legions.  Changes weapons somewhat.

Most important innovation was to change the military oath.  Before Marius, swore loyalty to Rome.  Now swear oath to the commander of the Legion.

From now own, Legionaries see each other as brothers, leader as father.

Produces an esprit de corps on the positive side.  The general / father looks after his troops. 

Pater very imp in Rome
Patria = fatherland

Killing father is bad.  Betraying fatherland is a variation on that.  Jupiter (Ius Pitar) is the father of the gods

Epithets for Aeneas - pius is one, pater is another.  He is very concerned for his father and his son.  Patrilineal system of thinking.  Pater patriae (father of the fatherland) is a title applied to him and other Romans as a great honor.  We translated it as Father of his country and applied it to George Washington, as in the portrait Patriæ Pater by Rembrant Peale.

Patriae Pater

Marius change means the commander looks after his men like his own children.  Not unnecessarily risky, gets booty & other rewards for them.

From now on, first allegiance is to commander, not to Rome. It's a political disaster for Rome

Marius returns to Rome as a hero of the lower classes. Marries the aunt of Julius Caesar, becomes hero of Julius Caesar.

90  Sulla against the Allies in the Social War--Latins wanting to be citizens.  eventually get it.

86 Marius dies.  Sulla persecutes the Marians.  Young Julius Caesar barely escapes.  A civil war of patricians vs plebians.

78 Sulla retires to farm.  Political vacuum.

Marius and Sulla now gone.

70 Pompey & Crassus are the consuls.  Pompey rises through military.  Defeats Sparticus & his slave revolt.  Crassus rises through his wealth.

Senate distrusts Pompey.  He goes to Asia Minor.

Julius Caesar allies with Crassus. 

First Triumvirate. Crassus, Pompey, Caesar

Pompey conquered east,

58-54 BC, Caesar conquered Gaul, makes inroads in Britain

Crassus wanted military glory, went to fight Partia, got wiped out.  He should have stuck to being rich.

Pompey & Caesar try to ally.  Pompey marries Caesar's daughter, and the men got along.  But she died, ending their trust of each other

Civil war follows.  Pompey goes to Greece, Caesar follows & defeats him.  Caesar takes many prominant Romans prisoner, pardons them, including Horace.

Pompey flees to Egypt.  Cleopatria was fighting her brother/husband for power.  Pompey arrives now.  Young Pharoah asks what to do.  Advisors get him to execute Pompey & behead him

Caesar arrives.  Upset they have killed a Roman consul.

Myth of the carpet--Cleopatria rolled in it.  Caesar falls in love with Cleopatria.

Patricians hate Caesar as a turncoat on his class.  Accuse him of wanting to be rex.

Caesar stays in Egypt.  Arranges for grain shipments to Rome--helps lower classes. 

Cleopatria gives birth to a child.  Roman custom for Roman father to lift up child to show it's his.  Officers beg Caesar not to raise child; he does so anyway.

Caesar marries Cleopatria under Egyptian law.  She's queen, he's Pharoah.   Angers Romans--he's setting up a dynasty. He argues that what happens in Egypt stays in Egypt.

Need a squeaky-clean public image.  Caesar is ruining his. 

Caesar returns to Rome.  Gets named Dictator.  Carries some Legions along.  Has Senate pass a number of laws that seem reasonable & responsible.  Help poor

Threatens the privileges & wealth of rich

Things going ok until Cleopatria comes to visit.  Has a hugh parade through Rome.  Before, only a military commander got such a parade when VOTED a triumph.

Cleopatria brings all kinds of people and animals.  Cleopatria is riding on a big float with their children. 

The patricians have had enough, assassinate Caesar.
Brutus & Cassius lead the assassination.  Chose not to kill Mark Antony also. 

Antony aroused the mob at the funeral.  Mob burns houses of patricians.

Antony takes over legions.
Octavian joins Antony.  Caesar's adopted nephew.

Antony & Octavian defeat the Republicans in Greece.
Antony takes over Eastern Empire
Octavian takes over West--Italy, Greece, Gaul, etc.

Cleopatria fled to Egypt.  Antony finds her in Asia Minor.  Falls in love with her, stays in Egypt & they have children.

He becomes easternized

They have a final showdown.  Octavius wins; Antony & Cleopatria die

Octavius becomes Caesar Augustus, 1st Emperor.

Civil War is a bellum impium.  Shouldn't be fighting within a family.

  1. Marius vs Sulla
  2. Caesar vs Pompey
  3. Octavian & Antony vs Brutus & Cassius
  4. Octavian & Antony

Octavian needed land to settle his troops.  Took Virgil's land.

Virgil appealed to Octavian; got land back.

Land reform.  Ordered young men to spend time out of city looking after rural estates.  Don't party every night--marry and produce children.

Augustus saw this stuff as enormously important.  A major part of his reforms.

Rome has conquered a good part of the world.  Soldiers have had many casualties.  Need more legionaries.  Need soldiers to come from farms.  Backbone of Rome was its family farm. 

No Roman farmers, must recruit foreigners. 
Augustus wants Roman farmers. 

Roman farmer is used to doing heavy labor.  A key element in the Augustan reform movement. 

Wants to build a society of decent, ordinary citizens.  Not partiers in city.

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Virgil

Virgil from northern Italy.  Nearest city was Mantua.

October 15, 70 BC - 19 BC

Celtic & Latin ancestors.

40 BC Maecenus his patron introduced him to Augustus

Major works

Modeled on Greek poet Theocritus' Idylls from the 3rd cen BC Alexandria, Egypt.  Alexandria, Egypt a big city.  Lots of learning and art.  Most sophisticated city in the world for a time. All the good, all the bad of the big city.  World's greatest library.

Poets made a school there.  Wrote for each other.  Were very obscure and erudite.

Preferred short poems.  Callimachus says "a great book is a great evil."  Poems extremely learned.

Theocritus grew up in Greek Sicily, writes little snapshots of lives of minor gods, sheperds, etc.

Virgil give us the name pastoral - pastor = shepherd

Names his area Arcadia.  Idealizes his rural youth.  Bucolic

Pastoral is not produced by a farmer.  Always by a city dweller who idealizes the farm life.  Farmer doesn't romanticizing waking in dark & slopping hogs. 

These shepherds care for flocks, sing to them, pursue country girls.

Virgil makes the pastoral and allegory.   The songs allegorize political and philosophical debates.

Virgil wrote pastoral elegy on death of ideal shepherd Daphnis.  Animals, plants, trees, and rocks mourn his death. 

Virgil is writing about the recent assassination of Caesar

Aligning himself with Octavian & Antony against the repubicans (optimates).

Backs Octavian against Antony later.

Virgil's writing always has multiple layers of meaning.  Political, social, philosophical, religious, etc.

Shepherds are associated with Epicureanism.  Virgil presents Epicureanism in the pastorals.  Shepherds retire from city life

Lentus in umbra - at ease in the shade (vs working in the sun). 

Catullus & Lucretius are his models during his Epicurean period.
Lucretius - De Rerum Natura

  1. Cereal crops
  2. vines and olives
  3. animals
  4. bees

Hesiod wrote in the later part of the 8th cen bc.  Very different world from Homer.  Hesiod describes the life of his own day, not of ancient heroes.

Hesiod examines morality of work.  Gods want us to work; good person does work the gods assign him.  Each person does his own work. Don't seize another person's land.  Don't go to court to get your brother's land, he tells his brother. 

Hesiod describes Greek agricultural life. 
For every day of the year, there is an appropriate work

  • Spring plow
  • Summer sow
  • Fall reap
  • Winter repair equipment, hunt.

From Hesiod to Plato/Socrates
  • Socrates - at birth, we're given a soul.  Gods want us to cultivate it.  The soul is a small farm.  Every good thing improves the soul/farm; every bad thing makes it worse.  Gods hold us accountable.

Must take care of soul, morally speaking.

Plato - soul has three parts.

  1. Rational soul reasons - should govern the others
  2. Animal soul - perception and motion
  3. Vegetable soul - growth and reproduction, food and sex

Reason should govern your passions, as the horseman governs the horses pulling the chariot

Chariotier     = reason
chariot          =     body
horses           =     animal & vegetable souls.

Virgil is really talking about taking care of your soul.

There is work to do on your soul every day.

LABOR shows up over and over in Georgics
Farmer spends all his time minding the farm. 

If farmer slacks off, farm goes to pieces.
If you slack off your soul, it deteriorates also.

Farmer doing his incessant work is like a soldier doing his daily work

Miles = soldier.

Becoming a good farmer is like becoming a good soldier.

Virgil's ideas run parallel to Augustus'

Virgil was close to Augustus.  Had dinner with him a couple of times a week.  Read from his poems to Augustus & his other guests, his think tank.

Virgil is sometimes dismissed as a parrot for Augustus' political policies. 

But while Augustus is brilliant, but perhaps Virgil is supplying Augustus with ideas.

They were so close, Augustus was his heir and executor.  Wanted Augustus to destroy the unfinished Aeneid.  Augustus went against his wishes.

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