Parthenope. I have sung shepherds, the country, and wars."
Publius Vergilius Maro (October 15, 70 BC - September 21, 19 BC), commonly referred to as Vergil or Virgil, was a Roman poet, contemporary of Augustus and Ovid and admirer of Catullus. He composed The Eclogues (circa 42–39 BC),The Georgics (circa 37–29 BC), and The Aeneid (circa 29–19 BC), setting out how Trojan refugees founded the greatest Rome or, rather, founded the tribe that would later give birth to the founders.
Virgil was born on October 15, 70 BC, in Mantua to parents of humble origin; his father was said to be a potter, while others say that he was the hired man of a Magus, an attendant of the magistrates, became his son-in-law due to his diligence, and increased his property by buying woodlands and raising bees. His mother dreamt that she gave birth to a laurel branch, which grew to the size of a full-grown tree when it touched the ground. The following day, she was on the way to a neighboring part of the country when she gave birth to Virgil on the side of the road. Virgil did not cry at birth but rather had a serene expression as if to assure that he had an unusually happy destiny.
Virgil spent his early life at Cremona in the consulship of two men who had been consuls since his birth until his 15th birthday (he noted that this is also the day when Lucretius, the author of the Epicurean poetical tract On the Nature of Things, died), then moved to Mendiolanum, then to Rome, where he studied rhetoric, medicine, and mathematics. He was already grown up when he lost his parents and two brothers: Silo, who died in childhood, and Flaccus, who lived to grow up, and whose death Virgil laments under the name of Daphnis. He also was called "Parthenias" (the Maiden) because of his mousy demeanor; he was very modest in thought and speech, and he would flee to the nearest house whenever others recognized him. He also was very indecisive when Augustus offered him some property that once belonged to an exiled man.
His first foray into poetry was a couplet about a schoolmaster named Ballista, who was stoned to death because of his reputation as a brigand: "Under this mountain of stones Ballista is covered and buried; / Wayfarer, now night and day follow your course without fear." Some other poems he wrote include the "Priapea", "Catalepton", and "Culex", the last of which he wrote when he was 16. The "Culex" was about a shepherd who, exhausted by the heat, fell asleep under a tree when a snake crept along and a gnat stung the shepherd between the temples; the shepherd killed both the gnat and the snake, then made a tomb for the gnat with the couplet: "Thee, tiny gnat, well deserving, the flock's grateful keeper now offers / For the gift of his life due funeral rites in requital."
Virgil's first major poetic effort is The Eclogues (or the "Bucolics"), which he began around 42 BC and finished around 39–38 BC. The Eclogues is a collection of 10 pastoral poems in praise of Asinius Pollio, Alfenus Varus, and Cornelius Gallus, because these men saved Virgil from ruin during the time of the assignment of the lands beyond the Po, which were divided by order of the triumvirs among the victorious veterans of Philippi. These poems were so successful that people sang them on the stage. His second poetic effort was The Georgics (circa 37–29 BC), written in honor of Maecenas, because he intervened after Virgil and a veteran had a nasty quarrel about his farm that would have turned deadly. When Augustus was returning from a victory at Actium and stayed at Atella to treat his throat, Virgil read the Georgics to him for four days, with Maecenas taking over for reading when Virgil had to rest his voice. Finally, Virgil wrote The Aeneid (circa 29–19 BC), mirroring the epic poems of Homer and implementing into it an account of the origin of the city of Rome and of Augustus. In fact, Augustus jocosely demanded that Virgil read something from the Aeneid to him, and Virgil read the second, fourth, and sixth books, which he completed to his satisfaction. He also gave readings to a select few, often selecting verses that he felt were iffy so that his audience could critique them.
When Virgil was 52 years old, he set out to Greece and Asia, hoping to further refine the Aeneid; his plan afterward was to retire and dedicate his life to philosophy, and before leaving Italy, Virgil instructed Lucius Varius to burn the Aeneid just in case anything befell him, even though Varius emphatically objected. However, at Athens, Virgil met Augustus, who was returning to Rome from the Orient, and nixed his plans and sought to return. When he visited the neighboring town of Megara in the scorching sun, Virgil was seized by a fever, and upon arriving at Brundisium his condition took a turn for the worse. As he was deathly sick, he called for his book-boxes, intending to burn the Aeneid himself, but when no one brought them to him, he relented somewhat. Rather, he jointly left it in the care of Varius and Plotius Tucca, trusting that they would publish nothing that Virgil would not have given to the world. Virgil eventually died on September 21, 19 BC, and his ashes were taken to Naples and buried on the via Puteolana, in a tomb for which Virgil wrote his epitaph: "Mantua gave me the light, Calabria slew me; now holds me / Parthenope. I have sung shepherds, the country, and wars." He left half of his estate to Valerius Proculus, his half-brother, one-fourth to Augustus, one-twelfth to Maecenas, and the rest to Varius and Tucca.
For Varius and Tucca's part, they edited the Aeneid to the best of their abilities and left the half-lines untouched, as they are all complete in sense and meaning. They eventually published the Aeneid at the insistence of Augustus.
Virgil was one of the few Roman poets who remained popular and greatly admired throughout the Christian Middle Ages because one of his Eclogues was interpreted as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. Because of this, he was considered something of a seer and a mediator between pagan Antiquity and Christianity. In this function, Dante Alighieri admired Virgil so immensely he famously featured him in The Divine Comedy as his guide through Hell and Purgatory.
Not to be confused with the other Vergil. Or that one. Though they were both named after him.
Major Works:
- The Eclogues
- The Georgics
- The Aeneid
Virgil provides examples of:
- Call to Agriculture: The Georgic, a cycle of poems about agriculture and pastoral life.
- To Hell and Back: His story of Orpheus and Eurydice in The Georgics is about a man going into the underworld to save his true love. His hero Aeneas also makes a trip to the underworld in The Aeneid guided by the Sybil. In The Divine Comedy, Virgil himself guides Dante through Hell.
- Historical Domain Character: Most famously he serves as the guide for Dante in the first two parts of The Divine Comedy. He's also the protagonist of Hermann Broch's 1945 novel The Death of Virgil and the Alternate History Fantasy book series Vergil Magus by Avram Davidson.
- Nature Lover: Virgil held a strong love for nature, the woodland, and animals (especially bees and oxen) which is obvious in reading any of his works, but especially so in the Georgics. According to Warde Fowler, "there is no other Latin poet who felt in the same degree the beauty and the mystery of animals."
- The Power of Love: Expressed in "Eclogue X": "All-conquering is Love—no use to fight against him."
