River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1889-08-29
vRelL.s MAsTER-woRKs.
Some Speculations Concerning the Back
ground of Roman History.

When Virgil, in the Eneid, had fin
ished the Odyssey of his first six
books, where he had necessarily made
use for the most part of Homeric ma
terial. and addressed himself to his
.'majus opuS,n the Iliad of the Latin
war, we know that he contrived to
fuse with consummate art his old and
new material; but how much did he
himself. and his first readers or audit
ors. believe of the latter? How real,
to him and them, was the tale which
he told in the last six books of his
epic with so fresh an inspiration, such
kindlcd fire and heightened poetry. with
a depth and breadth of human sympa-
thy unmatched elsewhere by the most
sympathetic poet Of all time? We
speak of the modern spirit of Virgil.
1t has become a commonplace. ~ 3
devine," says Sainte-Beuve, "a
une heure decisive du monde
ce qu'aimerait ravenir." Did
he also appear modern to the
men of his own time?" He makes his
demigods intensely human, filing
their tale with life, stepping their fate
in tears. The deepest student and
worthicst heir of his method in our
own day has done the same for the
heroes of the Round Table. Did Virgil
feel as free to do what he would with
Eneas and Turnus and Evander as
Tennyson did with Arthur and with
Launcelot?
We may, think, take it for granted
that in the Augustan age the main in
cidents of the Trojan war were still re-
garded, quite simply, as historical. OF
/ the events which followed its close
many different versions already exist
ed. The poet might select his subject
here, might devise episodes and estab-
fish pedigrees, as Virgil did for Au-
gustus-as man may write an histor-
ical novel tO-day-but it would not
answer for him TO invent too widely,
or deviate too far from the
recognized line of tradition. The
supposed date of the Asian city's fall
was no more distant from the men of
that period than the earliest of the
dark ages are from ourselves-a little
less remote, in fact, than the mythic
events of the Arthurian cycle. The
proof is plain, even yet. that primitive
Italy was peopled by a succession OF
colonists from the East, who fought for
their fair territory, and were dispos-
sessed in turn of her favorite sites. In
the historic times of Rome such proof
must have been visible and palpable.
on every hand, to an extent which it
is difficult for US now to conceive. The
final struggles of confederate Latium
taxed to the utmost the resources Of
kings and early consuls, and great
Etruria had hardly hreathed her last
Il the century when Cicero Numbered,
and Caesar fell. and Virgil sang.
Moreover, while thu whole historic
vista was actually mi ch shorter then
than it is now, it had entered no Ro-
man mind as yet-save that of Lucre-
titus, or some such dark and audacious
Enthusiastically to question that the
beginning of all things are divine. A
hero's at-grandfather might well be
the ''Sdngu5nfS UtttmUs Guct0r," in the
heavens, of his illustrious race: the
earlier the generation, the more free
and familiar must needs have been,
men thought, its intercourse with the
gods, and it was still currently be-
lieved that certain spots Of earth had
been selected from the origin of all
things by the favor of divinity and
sanctitied by its frequent visitation.
Even a man like Cicero. born a critic
and bred lawyer, will not have his
friend too brutally inquisitive about
the antiquities of his own native town.
1t is best, dear Atticus. in case like
this, to accept the poets version of
truth, and not insist upon that of an
eyewitness Atlantic.