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HISTORY
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Virgil's "Georgics"
The Augustan poet's depiction of agriculture, bee-keeping and society provided a wealth of inspiration to Romans departing from the years of Civil War.
By Will Street
Jul. 25, 2019, 11:30 AM
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Introduction
One of the most central poets of Ancient Rome, Publius Vergilius Maro, or better known in English as Virgil, produced three of the most famous poems in Latin Literature. These were the “Eclogues”, “Georgics” and the epic poem, “The Aeneid”. As a writer who grew up in the 1st Century BC and lived a life that spanned the Civil Wars, Virgil would steadily devote his poetry to nation building after the conquest of Rome by Augustus. Conversing with the political literature patron, Maecenas, Virgil gradually cemented his place as one of the central poets of the new Augustan order.
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Although Virgil was primarily supportive of Augustus, escaping away from “The Aeneid” that demonstrated the greatest pride of Rome and its new leader, Virgil also had plenty to say in “The Georgics” in a form of pastoral salute of the future arriving in front of all Roman citizens. This work was divided into four books, combining different pastoral accounts of farming and bee-keeping. Nonetheless, the work would go to be highly extolled by medieval monks and scholars who regarded the “Golden Age” expressed in Book 1 reflected the golden age ushered in by Jesus Christ. Plenty to see within the rustic material therefore, in the analysis below, I explore Virgil’ “Georgics” in more detail.
The Text
Virgil’s “Georgics” was most probably written some time within Augustus’ Principate. Augustus was victorious at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and would have then, whilst establishing his new rule, have encouraged Maecenas to enlist poets and authors to produce the literature for Romans to accept the new regime. The generally accepted date of publication for the poem is 29 BC. The title of the work was chosen after the greek “Georgika”, meaning “agricultural things.”
Indeed, the 2,188 hexamatric verses that amounted to four books, were primarily focused on nature and the different seasons. As for the different seasons, Virgil followed the generally accepted Axial precession known at the time. The books vary between the agricultural activities and the subliminal support of Augustus.
In Book 1, Virgil opens his poem with a dedication to Maecenas, his literary patron. He follows on to give a summary of the four books, and then offer a prayer to various agricultural deities and Augustus himself as well. Adopting the material on farming by Varro, he alters it by adding numerous technical passages in the first book and further later developments. Secondly, when informing of the succession of ages, whose model he ultimately takes is that of Hesoid’s, he describes the age of Jupiter, which is considered the golden age and also the current age of man, which he puts forward with with deliberate tension. Next is an account of the necessity of strenuous labour, farming or whatever discipline. The book finishes with a narration of a great storm in lines 311-350, which casts all man’s creations to shreds. Detailing various signs at the hands the weather, Virgil professes at the end the numerous portents associated with Caesar’s assassination and civil war, lauding Octavian alone as providing salvation.
Book 2 arrives with an image of agriculture as man’s struggles against a hostile world, described vivaciously in violent terms, principally in the ages of Saturn and Jupiter. Virgil does address the divinities associated with the matters about to be discussed such as viticulture, trees and the olive. In a following hundred lines, the poet address the subject of trees and fruit trees. Following this, he extols the land of Italy for its fecundity and farming excellence.
Turning to animal affairs in Book 3, Virgil describes animal husbandry. These revolves around two parts - one on selective breeding and the other on care of sheep and goats, and their by-products. The animal breeding is the most exciting, in which Virgil describes the breeding of cattle and horses, and provides an account of the furore induced in all animals by sexual desire. As for the care of sheep and goat, the account ends with a description of deathly plague in Noricum, which beset breeding with many problems. To announce his two strands, Virgil deploys two proems. These invoke Greek and Italian gods and equally sets forth his intentions to honour both Caesar and Maecenas.
In an Orphic ending, rich with mythology, Virgil pursues a tonal counterpart to Book 2 in Book 4. He both offers offers didactic lessons on bee-keeping - that transcends to human behaviour - and secondly in the later part Virgil explores an elegiac epyllion with several mythological love tales. In the first part, Virgil accounts for the life and habits of bees, which is supposedly a model for human society. Precisely the bees are said to resemble man in the nature of their labours being devoted to a king, sacrificing their lives for the sake of the community, however Virgil imagines that they lack the arts and love. Despite their arduous labours, the bees perish and the entire colony is destroyed. What follows however, is the ritual of bugonia, where the bees are spontaneously resurrected from the carcass of an ox.
And thereupon the tone of the book changes from didactic to epic and elegiac in the following epyllion. The narrative revolves around the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. A character, named Aristaeus, after losing his bees, descends to the home of his mother, the nymph Cyrene, who informs him how to restore the bee colonies - he must capture the seer, Proteus, and force him to reveal the divine spirit that was angered and how these bee colonies can be restored. Eventually, Proteus reveals that Aristaeus angered the nymphs by causing the death of the nymph, Eurydice, wife of Orpheus. He goes on to give a full recounting that Orpheus descended to the underworld to retrieve Eurydice, yet couldn’t through his own ineptitude and eventual died at the hands of the Ciconian women. Finally, Virgil himself extols his poetry and compares himself with the life of Augustus at the end.
Analysis
Virgil’s model for composing a didactic poem in hexameters has its origins with the archaic Greek poet, Hesiod, whose poem “Works and Days” demonstrates same of themes as the “Geogics” in the form of man’s relationship to the land and the importance of hard work. Equally, Virgil’s knowledge of astronomy and other similar fields depends on Greek writers, models and sources for technical information. These included the Hellenistic poet Aratus for astronomy and meteorology, Nicander for information about snakes, the philosopher Aristotle for Zoology and Aristotle’s student, Theophrastus, for botany. There are also some tenuous links with the Hellenistic poet, Callimachus, that Virgil used for his poetic and stylistic considerations. Virgil’s use of mythological detail and digression also stems back to the primordial Greek literary tradition set forth by Homer.
Virgil’s diction also has traces of similarity with Lucretius’ ”De Rerum Natura”, who explored the natural world several decades previously. But, further, Virgil is dependent on Lucretius, along with Ennius, who naturalized hexameter verse in Latin. Indeed, Virgil often uses language characteristic of Ennius as a literary tool to give his poetry and archaic quality. Taking this even further, Virgil may have even incorporated the rustic songs of Italy to cement his work with a distinctive rustic, Italian feel.
What of the political mileu into which Virgil’s work was published? Octavian was clearly establishing himself as the sole ruler of Rome. Virgil’s works were, however, largely pro-Augustan. For example, the poet was said to have recited the “Georgics” before Augustus in 29 BC. Akin to a large proportion of the writers at the time, for instance Horace and Livy, Virgil offered a didactic message of communal labours for a better Rome, yet not blemishing the current regime. Politicised messages are not absent from the “Georgics” such as the famous description of a bee society in Book 4 and the optimist divulgence of a “golden age” in Book 1.
How then was Virgil’s “Georgics” received by his contemporary Romans. His topic, agriculture, had already been studied by a previous publication in the form of Varro’s “Res rusticae”. Virgil relied upon this source - a feature the ancient commentator, Servius, recognised. Seneca, further, commented that “Virgil… aimed not to teach the farmer, but to please the reader.” (Sen., “Moral Letter” 86.15) Ultimately, as a poet, that he did and that he did well in accordance with the wealth of readership he garnered.
Indeed, the text was handed down through late antiquity, the Dark Ages and towards the Medieval Ages, when monastic students wondered at the text and imagined the institution of eras, Virgil describes, and a “Golden Age” were alternatively as a result of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who, they believed, died for a golden age of man. It continued to be transcribed through later generations right up to the modern editions of the 21st Century.
Conclusion
The legendary poet, Virgil, who would go on to produce the original Roman epic, the "Aeneid", a few years later, provided the Romans, who were lugubriously just coming out of civil war, with a quasi-metaphorical yet laid back and readable impetus to cherish their State. His work would be continued to be read and re-transcribed right up to the modern era.