Virgil At Odds Essays - Julio-Claudian Dynasty, Epic Poets, Iulii

Virgil At Odds While on the surface the Aeneid could be seen as a Roman epic meant to glorify Rome and rival those of the ancient Greeks, the author was engaged in a struggle. Virgil had to satisfy the cultural demands of his work, the political demands of his time, and his own personal demands as an artist. In tackling his problem, Virgil is revealed to be slightly reluctant of embracing fully the still young regime of Octavian but still proud of Rome and his ancestry, and concerned with the moral issues of civil war. When considering the style with which Virgil composed the Aeneid, it is important to look at the time in which he lived and exactly what was going on around him when it was written. Virgil was born in 70 BC and died in 19 BC. This places him in the very beginning of what was to be a long and relatively stable existence of the Roman Empire. Further, it was during the poet's lifetime that Rome made citizens of all Italians, allowing a huge community to share in Rome's growing heritage. People who formerly may have felt like outcasts under the oppression of Rome could now call Rome their own. This included Virgil because he came from a provincial Italian town far outside Rome. W.A. Camps cites that while Virgil was still a young man, his family's estates were confiscated by Caesar to be given to veterans of the battle of Philippi (1). Caesar was eventually assassinated and the next twenty years of the poet's life are shaded by bloody struggles for power among heirs and military leaders. Eventually Caesar's adopted son Octavian defeats Marc Antony and Cleopatra's forces and brings all Rome under his rule, in about 30 BC. This is important because Virgil had been fond of Octavian, although it is not known if he publicly supported anyone during the conflict. It is known that Virgil came to enjoy first the friendship then the patronage of Octavian and his minister Maecenas, both of whom bestowed a small fortune upon him (Freeman 389). While Virgil accepted their patronage he was still wary of capitulating the new emperor and sacrificing any integrity. Charles Freeman writes that Virgil's contemporary, Horace also reflects these feelings. Octavian, now known as Caesar Augustus, took a liking to Horace just as he did Virgil, endowing him with gifts and money. Eventually Augustus asked Horace to be his secretary, and Horace refused, citing the need to protect his integrity as a poet. (391) Virgil felt great gratitude towards an emperor who vigorously supported the arts and brought the Empire much stability but at the same time faced a moral dilemma. Augustus was looking for a poet to write a national epic about him and his rise to power. In a letter Augustus wrote to Maecenas he says, If I had any talent for the heroic epic, I'd not waste my time on stories from mythology . . . I'd write about Caesar's wars and achievements (qtd. in Quinn 27). This sheds light on the morality issue Virgil faced as an artist. There were plenty of epic poets available in Rome at the time, and plenty were approached with this daunting task of writing an epic with Augustus as the hero. Nearly all declined, and even Virgil was reluctant. That says something about the attitudes of the poets of his time. They were not interested in art for art's sake. They wanted to create of their own accord something that came from within. Kenneth Quinn points out that they wrote with very high standards of integrity, and wrote not for widespread popularity of their works but for approval of their literary peers (30). Poets were writing of their own personalities; their own views and ideas of right and wrong. They were not to be leased out for purposes of glorifying Rome's leader. In a widely known of reply to Augustus' letter inquiring as to Virgil's progress, the poet writes that he thinks he may have been out of his mind to have undertaken the task in the first place (Freeman 387). He was obviously struggling to balance his need to satisfy himself artistically without sacrificing