Virgil and the Confiscations

Author(s): Michael Winterbottom

Source: Greece & Rome, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Apr., 1976), pp. 55-59
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/642915
Accessed: 09-01-2019 04:38 UTC

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 VIRGIL AND THE CONFISCATIONS

By MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM

This brief article tries to make sense of the first and ninth
with as little recourse as possible to evidence from outside th
In particular, it does without the doubtful aid of Servius, wh
arguably knew little more than we about the meaning and ba
ground. Where I give no references (except for the most fam
historical events) I am conjecturing, or adopting the conjec
others. I have cut secondary references to a minimum, becau
doxography of the Eclogues is too vast to be entertaining.
who are new to the problems can easily find their bearings i
books of H.J. Rose, L.P. Wilkinson, and Gordon Williams.
hands will know where I am being original: rarely, of course
for in this field of scholarship more than most it is true tha
iam dictumst quod non dictum sit prius'.

Virgil was born near Mantua in 70 B.c. (Suetonius De po

Jerome, fr. 1 Hardie). He was not ill disposed to Julius Caesar
had granted citizenship to his own Cisalpine Gaul; and wh
was murdered in 44, the youthful Virgil naturally transferr
allegiance to the Julian heir apparent, the even more youthf
Octavian. When a comet coincided with Octavian's games f
dead Caesar (Suet. Jul. 88), Virgil wrote the lines we now r
Ecl.9.46-50: 'Daphni, quid antiquos signorum suspicis ortu
ecce Dionaei processit Caesaris astrum, / astrum quo segete
gauderent frugibus et quo / duceret apricis in collibus uua co
insere, Daphni, piros: carpent tua poma nepotes.' This is cl
part of an early Eclogue, where as later in Ecl. 4, political sup
is clothed in rural metaphor: the new potentate will bring la
peace to the countryside.
During the events leading up to Philippi, Virgil was writin
Eclogues, including perhaps the fifth. Political references hav
suspected there; we cannot be sure of them. But line 40 'sp
humum foliis, inducite fontibus umbras' will be important la
After Philippi, the victors made a division of labour, Antony
the East in order, Octavian, more invidiously, to settle the d
veterans on confiscated Italian lands. Virgil's home region
those affected. He was not himself involved, for he was comf
off, and had for some time been living in central Italy.2 But
the deepest sympathy for the dispossessed. Nor did he nee

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56 VIRGIL AND THE CONFISCATIONS

imagine their anger; their demonstrations took

of Rome (App. B.C. 5. 12). Whether before o
war in 41 (the timing is of no literary import
expressing his distress. It was not addressed to
referred to him in laudatory tones; it called hi
came near to calling him deus. We know the po
Tityrus sits beneath his beech, singing. He ha
buy his freedom, and, receiving it in return f
received also something for which he did not p
the iuuenis to go on working his small farm. I
big enough for Tityrus, but all stone, swamp,
the way in which Virgil would have thanked O
favour to himself.3 Tityrus in any case is an o
proper counterpart for the young Virgil. Yet i
Virgil, for Tityrus is personally unscathed by
of the day. He has enough, and he can court
(2)-just as Virgil is doing in the very act of
For Tityrus, as for Virgil, all is well. Misfortun
others. Meliboeus is wandering to an unknown
have to be Britain. He cannot sing any more
farm is now the property of a soldier, wors
He is bitter, and his bitterness is shared by Vi
echoes the early lines of hope: 'insere, Daphn
poma nepotes' (9.50). That is not true of Me
Meliboee, piros, pone ordine uitis' (1.73). The
will be reaped by another: 'his nos conseuim
can do no more than offer him a lodging for t
he must go on.
The poem balances carefully between eulogy
Octavian. It is not stated that the iuuenis is re
plight in the way that he is responsible for Ti
'en quo discordia ciuis / produxit miseros' (7
to make a discordia.4 Virgil, far from expressi
Octavian, is expressing personal disquiet, perha
conscience. He may sit in his study composing
others life in the country is less idyllic. All is
what of Meliboeus?
The first Eclogue is not addressed to Octavian, and perhaps it was
not sent directly to him. But it is a political comment, of a kind that
rescued Virgil from being a passive Tityrus; and it would have failed
of both its eulogistic and its critical purpose if Octavian had never
read it. But it produced no effect; the confiscations went forward,
and no doubt Virgil never expected anything else. He addressed, or

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 VIRGIL AND THE CONFISCATIONS 57

began to address, a less veiled poem to Va

resents some lines from it: Varus will be pr
poetry 'superet modo Mantua nobis, / Ma
uicina Cremonae'. No bucolic this, perhaps
it too had no effect. Eclogue 9 is the expres
appointment at the failure of his own effo
disappointed even where one has never ha
Moeris and Lycidas are on the way to to
nate to a new landowner; the old has gon
aduena. There has been violence, or threat o
proved fatal both to Moeris and to ipse M
Menalcas', maybe, or just 'Menalcas too'. M
absence Moeris and Lycidas can no more c
could Meliboeus: 'nunc oblita mihi tot car
Menalcas returns will their power of song r
melius, cum uenerit ipse, canemus' (67). L
rumour that Menalcas had saved a tract of c
left unstated whether it was his own estate
if he is Moeris' old landlord). But the rum
tantum / nostra ualent, Lycida, tela inter M
dicunt aquila ueniente columbas' (11-13). P
civil war. Menalcas had discovered this; so h
In this single sense Menalcas is Virgil, just
Tityrus was Virgil. Both Menalcas and Virgi
dispossessions, using the only weapon the
been snubbed. This time, however, Virgil gi
the identification than he gave us in Ecl. 1.
cas, asks Lycidas, 'quis caneret Nymphas?
herbis / spargeret aut uiridi fontis induc
allusion to the fifth Eclogue (40) is unmis
not mean that Virgil lost a farm; all that th
is that Menalcas could not save a farm, and
it was his own.
What Menalcas and Virgil principally have in common is their
trade. And the fragments of Menalcas' poetry7 with which Moeris
and Lycidas beguile their journey are from Virgil's own workshop.
Two, the addresses to Varus and Daphnis, are, we have conjectured,
from earlier political poems. Two are close adaptations of Theo-
critus (23-5 = Id. 3.3-5; 39-43 = Id. 11.42 ff.) of the kind that
Virgil might well have produced at the earliest and most imitative
phase of his bucolic activity. The escapist world of Theocritus and
the world of Roman reality are here consciously juxtaposed. The
lines on the astrum Caesaris are the climax of the group. Their

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58 VIRGIL AND THE CONFISCATIONS

optimism intrudes as sardonically here as t

Meliboeus in the first Eclogue.8
Menalcas has gone. Virgil, that is, despairs
the first Eclogue he displayed his disquiet a
his own good fortune and the ill fortune o
the role of pastoral poet in troubled times.
has reached a crisis. He and his poetry, he n
place in the countryside, 'tela inter Martia'
Virgil regained optimism for a moment; in
Eclogue, with its implication that the cou
after all. But when he came to assemble h
the Tityrus poem first, to proclaim a new
Roman and humane; almost at the end he
with its confession that pastoral is powerle
Only Eclogue 10, where Gallus discovers
nothing in the face of Amor ('tela inter m
separate Eclogue 9 from the end of the rol

NOTES

1. The Eclogues of Vergil (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1942), ch. 3; T

Virgil (Cambridge 1969), ch. 2; Tradition and Originality in Roman P
307-28. It is with this last that I share most, though not all.
2. In any case Williams, 308-9, rightly stresses that El. 1 is not set in
part of Italy; nor, despite the allusion to Mantua, is Ecl. 9 (ibid. 317).
3. At most, it might be thanks for not having lost a farm, or for som
protection; even then the emphasis on the worthlessness of the farm s
the crucial point is that Tityrus shows no sympathy for Meliboeus, bey
temporary hospitality; but Virgil can hardly have wished to represent
placent witness of the sufferings of others. Tityrus is made old and gr
prevent us from identifying him with Virgil, and from transferring hi
the poet. On the other hand, Virgil does show sympathy for Meliboeus
poem. What Tityrus and Virgil do have in common I state in the text.
4. And to be in a position to save is itself in a way invidious; see C
maius est beneficium quam posse debet ciuis ciui dare, ideo a uobis p
tempori tribuatis, quod fecit ipsi.' The stress on the protection of Tity
worse the non-protection of Meliboeus.
5. Virgil seems perfectly happy with Varus in Ecl.6. So perhaps he di
Varus' failure to relieve Mantua was culpable. Or, more radically, the li
imply that Varus was in a position to save the city; see K.Biichner, PW
P. Vergilius Maro, col.218: 'Ebenso aber ist es denkbar, dass nur bei R
der Dichter iusserlich und innerlich in der Lage sein, Varus zu preise
322, whose arguments from 9.27-9 can thus be evaded.
6. This seems to be implied by 'ueteres migrate coloni' (4). But the
altogether clear (Williams, 313-14).
7. The first two extracts are certainly Menalcas'. If 37 'id quidem a
commentators assume, ' 'tis that I am busy with', namely trying to rec
of Menalcas' (Page; but the line is very abrupt on any account after
be his. 46-50 might be Moeris' ('te', 44), but symmetry would suggest
extracts are Menalcas' the fourth should be too. If this is true, Virgil w
that even though Lycidas (33-4) and perhaps also Moeris (51-5) are p
right, they can only, in the new circumstances and the absence of Men
poems of another; and even those they are fast forgetting (38, 45, 53).

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 VIRGIL AND THE CONFISCATIONS 59

8. The pessimistic echo is normally used (though see Wi

ority of the ninth Eclogue. But context matters; there is n
lines addressed to Daphnis in their present position. The ec
poem where 9. 46-50 were originally placed.
9. I have been much helped by the advice and encourag
and by the stimulation of countless pupils, not least Andre

t REVD. C.J. ELLINGHAM

It is with the greatest regret that the editors report the death of the
Revd. C.J. Ellingham, one of the two original editors of Greece &
Rome, and the contributor of an article on the Georgics in the first
issue of the journal. It was only after the June 1953 number, the
last issue but one in the first series, that the Revd. C.J. Ellingham
retired as editor. Much could be said but perhaps it will be sufficient
to repeat the words of T.B.L. Webster, writing in the October 1953
issue, who spoke of our first editor as 'a courageous and vigorous
pioneer'.

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