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Gods in the Eclogues and the Arcadian Club The Classical Review http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR Additional services for The Classical Review: Email alerts: Click here Subscriptions: Click here Commercial reprints: Click here Terms of use : Click here Gods in the Eclogues and the Arcadian Club R. W. R. The Classical Review / Volume 22 / Issue 02 / March 1908, pp 40 - 43 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00000913, Published online: 27 October 2009 Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00000913 How to cite this article: R. W. R. (1908). Gods in the Eclogues and the Arcadian Club. The Classical Review, 22, pp 40-43 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00000913 Request Permissions : Click here Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 130.159.70.209 on 17 Mar 2015 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW looks forward in the prayer, is a survival of arrive at some reasonable conclusion as to this same widely spread religious practice, the time of year of which the poet is think- and not merely a children's game within the ing, and the general character of the festivities house. If that be so, then we need not he indicates. w WARDE FOWLER. suppose that he is looking forward to winter revelry, but rather that he is thinking of some Lincoln College, Oxford. local summer festival, otherwise unknown to us, in which the burning of fires and the building of casae and the revelry usual on I am glad to be allowed an opportunity of all such occasions (cp. ii. 95 foil.) were all thanking Mr. Warde Fowler for his valuable found together. The poem and the rustic' contribution to the interpretation of a Latin lustratio it describes belong, as I hope I classic, whose works in England at least are have shown, to the spring: the omens are undeservedly neglected, and of saying that favourable, the lustratio is successful, and the the explanation of the occasion of Tibullus husbandman may look forward to the time II. i. given in the little book to which he has when the crops are no longer in danger, and referred so kindly had already ceased to when he will be able to take his part in the satisfy me. The objection on the score of general rejoicing with a light heart. This is the lamb raised by Herr K. P. Schulze in his as far as I can venture to go: Italy abounded notice of the Selections in the Wochenschrift in different customs, differing in time and f. klassische Philologie (1904) does not indeed character according to the great diversity seem fatal; but on the whole I think the within her limits, of soil, climate, elevation, festival must have been later than the and race; and we must be satisfied if we can Sementiuae Feriae. J. P. POSTGATK. GODS IN THE ECLOGUES AND THE ARCADIAN CLUB. IN nearly all the passages in which Virgil apologises for the obscurity of this Phoebus or Apollo occur in the Eclogues, allegory, G. ii. 45, non hie te carmine ficto\ while the words naturally refer to the Atque per ambages et longa exorsa Unebo. Olympian God there seems to be a further Similar advice was afterwards given to and secondary reference to Octavianus, who Caligula when he meditated assuming a is known to have had a weakness for being crown. He fell in with it, and proceeded regarded as Apollo incarnate, and liked all at once to arrogate to himself divine majesty those who looked at him to lower their eyes in aggravated forms (Suet. Cal. 22). as though dazzled by the brightness of the 1. In E. 1.6. Tityrus, who in this Eclogue sun. Virgil, who was at this time engaged represents Virgil, says that a god, to whom in deifying Augustus, seems in the Eclogues he will always do sacrifice with a lamb to have fallen in half playfully with this offering, had given him security against the humour, although later on, in the opening general eviction then proceeding in the passages of the first Georgic, he, with equal district. The god, though not named, is playfulness, professes uncertainty as to the admittedly Octavianus. exact title under which Caesar should be 2. In E. 5. 64. Daphnis, generally under- worshipped. The inconvenience of two stood to be Julius Caesar, is raised to the Apollos is obvious, and the suggestion there stars by Menalcas (here Virgil as in E. 3 and seems to be that he might take on himself 9): a voice from the woodlands proclaims the heavenly counterpart of any office of Daphnis a god, and Menalcas begs him to state in the functions of any deity, but not be kind and propitious, and promises two the title of king—doubtless meant as a altars to Daphnis and. two to Phoebus—that friendly warning. Nee tibi regnandi veniat is, if rightly interpreted, two to Julius and tarn dira cupido. two to Augustus. THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 3. E. 5. 35. Jpsa Pales agros atque ipse more improbable than that there could be reliquit Apollo may well refer to the absence any secondary reference underlying the word of Octavianus and the interruption of Phoebus, yet Augustus had himself written Caesarian peace and order during the poetry,-probably pastoral, for one, at least,.of troubles consequent on the death of Julius. his compositions was written in hexameters, 4. InE.3.62. Menalcas (here again Virgil and called ' Sicily.' Sicilian Muses, help us as in E. 5 and 9) says that to Phoebus, who now! loves him, he makes appropriate offerings of Where shall we look for the Maronian bay and the sweetly blushing hyacinth—that Arcadia, where for Parnassus and Eurotas, is, to his literary patron Augustus. where for Pan and Silvanus, where for the 5. On E. 4. 10. (Casta, fave, Lucina: sacred choir themselves ? All silently point tuus jam regnat Apollo?) Servius says that to the dwelling of Augustus Apollo, to the some maintain that Octavia, sister of Augus- home of Octavianus, patron of poets and tus, is meant by Lucina, and Augustus inspirer of literature. There let us go. himself by Apollo, inasmuch as he had 9. There are passages in the Eclogues ordered a statue of himself to be made with which imply the presence in Rome of gods the emblems of Apollo. other than Augustus Apollo. 'Nor could 6. E. 4. 49. {Care deum suboles, magnum gods be seen in the flesh or met face to face Jovis incrementutn.) If the child in this so easily anywhere else.' (£. 1. 42.) Eclogue be the .long-expected'never-born son 10- Among the. high privileges of the soon- of Octavianus and Seribonia, as seems cer- to-be-born, yet never-born son of Augustus, tain, this line indicates Jupiter as the grand- was to be that of entering on the life of the sire and Apollo as the sire rather than a long gods and of beholding gods moving in the descent through Aeneas, although it is true society of heroes, and of being beheld by that the Venus legend had already been them, and of ruling the world reduced to adopted by Virgil (Ecce Dionaei processit peace by his father's virtues. What gods on Caesaris astrum). Note: Line 49 cuts out earth does Virgil mean? (£. 4. 15-17.) at a stroke all candidates for the honour of The answer lies beyond the closed doors being the child-herald of the new Golden of a very private dinner party in the residence Age, other than the son of Octavianus him- of Augustus (Suet. Aug. 70), which gave rise self, should he ever be born. No one else to much unfavourable society gossip at the would have the divine descent here indicated. time. It was popularly known as the party 7. E. 6. 3-12. In these lines Virgil of ' twelve gods/ The rumour was that the states that he was going to sing of battles guests took their places in the costume ^for and kings, but Apollo objected and admon- it was -winter) of gods and goddesses, and ished him to confine himself to pastoral that the host himself was arrayed as Apollo. themes; at the same time he says that the Proof of such a banquet was said to be poem is a good one—the one liked best of found not only in now lost letters of Antony, all by Phoebus, that is, Octavianus. At this full of reproach and sarcastic comment on anxious period it is' natural that Octavianus the names of the personators, but also in a should object to Virgil celebrating, the mili- notorious epigram of unknown authorship, tary glory of Varus or any other person than and, lastly, in certain loud expressions of the himself, and should have recommended him people next day—for it happened to be a to commemorate the recent appearance of period of scarcity—and the men in the street Gallus in a pastoral play instead. This is shouted that 'the gods' had eaten all the more likely than that the future author of the bread, and that Caesar was Apollo, but Apollo Aeneid should ever have found any real Torturer (Flayer of Marsyas). The lines run: difficulty in singing of battles and kings. Quum primum istorum condoxit meosa choragum, 8. E. 6. 82 and 83. (Omni'a, quae, Phoebo Sexque deos vidit Mallia, sexque deas; quondam meditante beatus Audiit Eurotas, Itnpia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit, Dum nova divorum coenat adulteria; jmsitque ediscere lauros.) In these concluding Omiria se a terris tune numina declinarunt; lines of the same poem nothing at first seems Fugit et auratos Jupiter ipse thronos.
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