Vergil' s influence during his life and immediately following his death (and even in the centuries that followed) was enormous. Having concentrated the last ten years of his life solely on the Aeneid, Vergil died before he could complete his masterpiece. On his deathbed he asked that his epic poem should be destroyed, but Augustus, named in Vergil's will to inherit the second largest share of his estate,50 commissioned Varius and Tucca (two friends of the poet) to edit the work without adding anything to it, and the result of their work was published as theAeneid we are familiar with today.
On its publication, theAeneidwas hailed as a state poem and was subsequently adopted as a textbook and source of inspiration for poets, critics and thinkers alike. As little as eighty years after his death, Vergil was read all over the Empire,5Jand he was adored like a god.52 Vergil succeeded in reflecting the very political views Augustan propaganda had been circulating in the years before and after Actium, and there is no evidence to suggest that Vergil contradicted that invective aimed at Antony and Cleopatra. However, Vergil's Aeneid was as much a child of Augustan propaganda (and Augustan peace) as it was the child of the literature of the past: Homeric epic, Greek tragedy, the post-classical Alexandrian tradition and the Latin literature of Ennius and Catullus.53 His literary contemporaries Livy, Horace (a friend ofVergil), and Propertius all acknowledged in their work their admiration for Vergil and his influence upon their work. 54
Perhaps the greatest feat of theAeneid was to show both the greatness of Rome and its human cost - a contradiction which was reflected in Vergil' s own life and human experience.55 Williams (1987:34) argues that while Vergil succeeded in his aim to use theAeneidto glorify Rome, and while he was in love with the history of his country and his idealistic vision of what was yet to come, he also succeeded in creating that tension which exists between the actual and potential greatness of Golden Age Rome, and the voice of sympathy and sorrow over the fate ofthe tiny and private world
50 White (1993:258-59).
51 Levi (1998:2).
52 ibid., 125.
53 WiIliams (1987:11-23).
54 Livy 1.29; Hor.Sat. 1.5.40; Prop. 2.34.61-66.
55 Griffm (1985:196).
of the lonely individual. Unfortunately there is no unambiguous evidence in Vergil' s writing to suggest that Cleopatra was one such individual to whom he offered sYmpathy. She is only ever portrayed as the final obstacle to be overcome on Rome's path to exalted honour and glory. Thus as Hardie (1986:98) reminds us, while the final scene on the shield of Aeneas offers an image ofthe Empire under thepax Augusta - the continuance of which was sustained by divine patronage of the Princeps - Vergil' s interest in Cleopatra was limited simply to her existence as an enemy of Rome, the victory over whom served to glorify the Age of Augustus.
2.3. Horace
As with Vergil, it is necessary to be aware of Horace' s personal and political climate and context in order to understand his poetry. Born in Venusia, a town in Apulia, in 65 RC. Horace was five years younger than Vergil and two years older than Augustus, but belonged to a social circle vastly different from both. Roman society was, inthe first century RC., highly stratified on the basis of birth and wealth, with wealth being the prime criterion in the assigning of individuals to the various status groups (ordines) in Rome.56As the son of a freedman, Horace never enjoyed the same social and political opportunities as did Vergil, Propertius or Tibullus, and for the duration ofhis life he was to remain painfully conscious of his social position and lack of political ambition:
'Now I revert to myself, a freedman's son, carped at by everyone because I'm a freedman's son...,57
Yet despite his humble background and social standing, Horace' s was an age of considerable social mobility, and the sacrifices his father made on his behalf meant that Horace was afforded the opportunity to study philosophy in Athens. While there, during a visit of Marcus Brutus, he was attracted to the Republican liberation cause. Following Caesar's assassination in44 RC., Brutus and Cassius had been received in Greece as liberators, and had come to persuade young men like Horace to join their cause. Thus at the age of twenty-two, Horace enjoyed a good promotion for a freedman's son, becoming a military tribune in Brutus' army.58 From the Battle ofPhilippi, at which the Republican cause was snuffed out with the deaths of Brutus and Cassius, Horace managed to escape, whereupon he returned to Rome under the amnesty offered by Octavian. Nisbet and Hubbard (1978: 106-7) assert that Horace had joined the Republican army out of youthful idealism, and the defeat of its cause had left the young man angry. Itis likely that, when chosen by Brutus for his exalted position in the Republican forces, Horace was greatly flattered. However, favourable references to the late Republic in his writings are not easy to find and when Horace later referred to his involvement in the Philippi campaign, his tone reflected a mixture ofapology, evasiveness, irony and pride. However, Griffin (1993:2) suspects that, 'for what such guesses are worth, ...Horace
56 Goodman (1997:10-11).
57 Sat. 1.6.45-46 (Ogilvie, 1980).
58 Griffm (1993: 1); the position of military tribune was usually reserved for men of equestrian rank.
would have been no less responsive to a similarly fleeting call from Antony to join Caesarean armies, had events put him in a place to receive it.'
On his return to Rome, Horace did not pursue a career in the military or politics (partly because his social position did not allow it), but instead, at the age of twenty-five, purchased a position as the keeper ofthequaestor'srecords. However, between 42 and 39 RC., Horace fell on hard times. The Rome to which he had returned was characterized by the settling of old scores by proscriptions and legal murders, by food riots, the enrichment ofamoral prosecutors and their sycophants, brigandage and general lawlessness; and all this against a backdrop of fear for what lay ahead and the constant threat of war between generals.59 With the confiscation of his property, Horace's destitution and disillusionment deepened, and the recklessness of poverty drove him to compose verses.60 Griffin (1993: 11) explains that 'Horace really was angry. What had looked like the beginning ofa dazzling career had led to humiliation, loss of status and ofproperty. A proud and self-conscious man found himself in a humdrum occupation, without glamour or prospects, and surrounded by profiteers, arrivistes, and people suddenly and dramatically enriched by civil war, proscriptions and the spoils of office. He, by contrast, was poorer than he had been, and much poorer than he had hoped to be.
He saw, or imagined, sneers and satisfaction at his fall. He sought ways of expressing his anger and distrust; but did not forget the risks of speaking up in such a period. '
His early poetry attracted the attention of Vergil, a member of Maecenas' literary clique. Vergil arranged for Horace to meet with his patron, and eight months later Horace was invited to join the coterie. Through Maecenas, who became and remained Horace's friend right up until their deaths a few weeks apart from one another, Horace received not only employment but, in 34 RC., a small Sabine farm, to which Horace increasingly retreated towards the end of his life.61 Furthermore, the acceptance into this esteemed patron's company, coupled with the financial assistance that came with his new estate, began to assuage Horace' s anger and resentment ofthe political institutions governing Rome.62 Through Maecenas, Horace was also introduced to Augustus, who eventually asked him
59 Griffm (1993:3).
60 ibid., 2.
61 Rayor and Batstone (1995: 136) state that after Maecenas' fall from Augustus' favour, Horace, disillusioned again perhaps, retired more and more frequently to his farm, his books and his friends.
62 Griffm (1993:13).
to be his personal secretary, a position Horace declined.63
Under Maecenas, Horace's creative output in diverse genres and styles was extraordinary, including as it did epodes, satires, odes and epistles.64 But unlike Vergil, who had 'set out to create a single masterpiece which should do justice to the whole of the complex phenomenon ofRome, her history and empire,' Horace' s aim was to achieve perfection within each poem, even if that meant that his attitudes towards life, love and politics might seem inconsistent from poem to poem.65 Horace had been vastly impressed by Vergil, who had composed hisEclogues before Horace was known as a poet at all. However, even though he alludes to theAeneid in his own Carmen Saeculare, Aeneas' supreme quality (hispietas) is mentioned in Horace's own work three times in a negative light,66 Griffin (1993:20) remarks that 'these devices, of self-contradiction and irony, and of seeing inconsistency not as a political failing, ...but as the loveable characteristic of Horace's varied personality: these are at the heart of Horace's poetry.'
By the age of thirty, Horace had published his Epodes, a trivial genre of artificially-acrimonious attacks on individuals. As was the case with most of the literature published after Actium, Horace's first three books of theOdes, published in23 RC., reflected something of the optimistic change of mood that the outcome of Actium had ushered in. Through a range oflove poems, party poems, and poems about politics and religion, Horace expressed a growing sympathy with the ideals of Augustus,67 and it was in this compilation that his famous'Cleopatra Ode' was included. The public response to hisOdes was lukewarm - Horace implies that apart from his own circle of friends, the public was hostile to his new work. Horace consequently abandoned the ode form until he was asked by Augustus to compose theCarmen Saeculare for the Secular Games of17 RC., and hereafter, he was encouraged to write a Fourth Book ofOdes.
The influence of Horace in his own lifetime was nothing like that of Vergil. During the early years ofAugustus' regime, Horace, like Vergil, displayed considerable enthusiasm for that legislation and
63 Rayor and Batstone (1995:135).
64 Ogilvie (1980:141).
65 Griffm (1993:19).
66 ibid., 14.
67 Ogilvie (1980:147-49).
those moral values the Princeps was trying to impress upon Roman society. While his tone or manner was sometimes jesting, Horace never undermined the Empire's moral ideology. However, Horace was no sycophant and was never too comfortable writing political poetry. As one scholar comments, 'one gets the impression that Horace was interested in the spiritual revival ofItaly but that his heart was not in the role of poet laureate. ,68
Seager(1993 :39)contends that over the next decade, Horace became increasingly disillusioned with the imperial government, seemingly vexed by the constraints put on his (and others') freedom.
Although Augustus and Maecenas would have become aware ofhis disapproval, they allowed Horace to continue writing: after all, Augustus was not a tyrant, and it did not really matter what Horace said. For one who gave recitations only when obliged, and to friends,69 his influence was limited and the more important members were not likely to have had their opinions of Augustus and his administration moulded by Horace. Or as Seagar(1993 :39)explains, 'for most of his career, he did at least show a lively and intelligent interest in what, for Augustus, were the burning issues ofthe day, even ifhis attitudes at times left something to be desired....And when he became more disgruntled and subversive, he was clever enough to cover himself well. Itis hard to see how Augustus could have found plausible grounds for suppressing any poem that survives, even had he wished to do so.
But nobody asked Horace to compose a fifth book of Odes. '