The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1876-10-20

inence which the author of the Georges
has assigned to the significant monosylla
bic. II is sufficiently evident, both from
the position of the word in the passage re
ferred to, and also from the context anC
from the whole scope and character Of thu
work, that the idea uppermost in his mint
was not so much the satisfaction, the tran
guilty, the security, the freedom, the calm
rational and pure pleasures of rural life
as it was the general want of application
of those advantages on the part of those
who, in his time and in his part of the
world, notwithstanding many drawback:
and discouragements, were, upon the whole
so fortunate as to possess them. Nor j!
there wanting in confirmation of this view
sufficient testimony outside of the work
itself.
We learn that in the time of Virgil there
was in his country great decline of agri
culture, for which there were among others
two causes of especial prominence. The
civil wars of Marius and Sylla, and Caesar
and Pompey, had for more than half cen
fury cruelty ravaged that country and
decimated its population. But amidst the
havoc and desolation which laid waste the
once fertile plains of Italy, the imperial
city of Rome, under the policy of Julius
and Augustus Cesar, presented in dazzling
contrast a spectacle of extraordinary APP
parent prosperity Glutted with the plum.
her supplies from the granaries of Egypt
and the world, Rome had succeeded in eff
fecting the prostration of Italian husband
ry by cheapening breadstuffs through enor-
nous foreign importations, below the point
of honest and profitable consumption at
home Nor was this all. To reconcile the
people to the loss of their liberties, or
rather to bride the abiect and degraded
classes in the interest of the new regime,
public warehouses were established for a
free distribution of bread, and spacious
amphitheatres were thrown open for the
gratutous amusement of the populace. 1t
is amazing, almost incredible, to read that
all the paupers and loafers of a population
estimated at four millions, were thus hab-
itually and Systematically fed at the pub
lie crib. We think it worthy of note that
the Centennial exhibition at Philadelphia
has been visited in one day by 100000
sight seers. But the Circus Maximus was
very far from being the only mammoth
amphitheatre in Rome, and the Circus
Maximus alone, we are told, seated 1856, 900
spectators. Here the very tamest and least
exciting of the sports to which every
Roman rough had dead head pass with
the compliments of the Emperor, was the
original of which your enterprising mana
gers have produced and are to produce a
very spirited representation, the headlong
race of laundering chariots drawn by four
and sometimes by eight Arabian coursers
abreast To this succeeded the bloody
and brutal combats of the arena, when
amidst roars and screeches, and foam and
gore, lions and leopards, tigers and pan
Tiers, wild bulls and wild bears mangled
each other and their human antagonists,
and when the dying gladiator fell, uncon-
1cious Of the hurricane OF applause from
over 100000 pagan Threats, and dreaming,
perhaps, as the lite-blood ebbed away, of
the distant country home, the loved wife
and little ones, and of the green native
hills where "peace was tinklng in the
shepherds bells, and singing with the
reapers." Barbarous and revolving as these
spectacles would appear to us, they APP
pealed most successfully to the atrocious
heather taste of the age. Their fame spread
throughout the surrounding country. The
husbandman, already discouraged by losses
and measuring his poorly requited labor,
compared his daily routine of monotonous
drudgery with the lazy life of city pen
sioner upon the government, with its round
of fascinating spectacles and exciting
amusemcnts. He felt impatient to leave
his pillow, his vines and his groves, and to
plunge into the crowded thoroughfares and
giddy vortex of the metropolis. If he
wanted employment, there was the i'm
mense horde of government office holders.
There was, for one example, police force
of 10000 men, and he might hope to Sc
cure influence enough to crowd him into
its ranks. If he possessed q small inheri-
lance, there were fortunes to be made by
lucky throw of the dice, there was usury
at from five to twenty per cent. month,
there were thousand tempting schemes,
the glittering baubles of plausible project
ors from all the nations under heaven. IfI
he had no money and wanted employment,
there were free rations, the public baths
and the public theatres.
Influenced by such causes, we are not |
surprised to learn that the sturdy race of |
free husbandmen, which during the age of |
the Republic had been the strength and |
glory Of Rome, which had recruited her
conquering legions and had given Gin
cinnatus and Cato, was in the first age
of the Empire threatened with extinction.
They were deserving at once the homes
and the habits of their ancestors, to be.
come the mere hangers-on of absolute pow
Ell. Their patrimonial acres were being
gradually absorbed into the colossal estates
of grandees, who lived in fashionable style |
at Rome, while their lands were occupied |
and titled by slaves.
The growing distaste of the country peo-
pie for the honest occupation of their fore
fathers, did not escape the serious atten-
tion of the Emperor Augustus The mark
ed decline of agriculture, coupled as it was
with the decentralization of the entire fab
ric of society, began to excite his alarm.
We are told,that it was ct the suggestion |
of his favorite, Mecenas, that Virgil COM
posed his Georges, with political view
towards the formation of society, and for
the express purpose of reconciling the
farmers of Italy with their occupation, of
recalling the lost habits of peaceful indus
try and of making rural improvement as
of old the prevailing interest of the people.
His idea was that no method was so like |
ly to contribute to these important Objects
so vital to the public welfare, as " recon-
mendation of agriculture by all the insin-
uating charms of poetry" Dunlop, Hist
Rom. Lit III. 1922
The object certainly was noble one, and
nobly was the inspiring theme developed
If the state could have been saved by song,
the Georges would have reformed and rem
ovated and perpetuated imperial Rome.
But Rome fell, and the poem survived the
constitution it was intended to immortal
ize. The doom of the empire was already
sealed. The rugged race of small landed |
nrnnrietors the back bone of Roman rreat- |