Virgil (c. 70-19 BCE), a famous ancient Roman poet, had an interesting relationship with Rome’s authoritarian leader. The ruler in question was, Octavian—great-nephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar—who came to power in the Second Triumvirate of 43 BCE and seized sole rule of the Roman Empire by warring against Mark Antony and Cleopatra between 32 and 30 BCE. A few years after his victory, Octavian took the lofty name Augustus (r. 32/27 BCE-14 CE). No longer consumed by civil war, Augustus and his administration were able to focus on more peaceful pursuits, such as providing patronage to Roman arts and culture. The ruler was famously said to have invited the aforementioned poet, Virgil, to give the ruling family a personal recital of his national epic, The Aeneid, which told the story of the Trojan refugee, Aeneas, going on an odyssey from Troy to Italy, where he became an ancestor to the Roman founders. Although the picturesque imagery of Virgil reading his poetry to Augustus’ family evokes a sense that the relationship between ruler and poet was flawless, the reality of the situation was much more complicated. In fact, Virgil’s family land was nearly seized by the Roman government.
To understand the situation, one must take into account the times in which Virgil lived. He grew up in the province of Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy during the heyday of Julius Caesar. In the year 49 BCE, Caesar gave the people of Cisalpine Gaul, including Virgil, the gift of Roman citizenship. This was the same year that war broke out between Julius Caesar and his rival, Pompey the Great. Virgil and his family admirably distanced themselves from the Roman civil wars, but the same could not be said about the north-Italian cities, in general, where Virgil owned land. The poet’s family operated between Mantua and Cremona, and the latter city, particularly, was not shy about joining sides in the civil war. After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, Cremona was pledged loyalty to Caesar’s right-hand man, Mark Antony. This was a fateful allegiance, for, as was mentioned earlier, it was Octavian—not Mark Antony—who would become master of Italy and then the entire Roman Empire.
To Virgil’s unease, Augustus’ victorious regime saw Cremona as a disloyal region whose lands would be better suited for redistribution in the retirement packages of the loyal warriors who had supported the ruling faction. As such, the lands of Cremona, including Virgil’s properties, were seized by the government to be granted to the veterans of Augustus’ army. Thankfully, there were literature lovers in the administration who learned about the impending land seizure and interceded on the poet’s behalf. In particular, Virgil had by then gained enough prestige to earn the attention of Cilnius Maecenas, Augustus’ Minister for the Arts and a great supporter of poets in his own right. It also did not hurt that Asinius Pollio—the man who was appointed to oversee the land grants in Cremona—was a published writer in the field of history who respected Virgil’s poetry. Thanks to the efforts of influential figures such as these in Augustus’ inner circle, Virgil was able to maintain ownership of his property. Nevertheless, it was a close call.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Virgil Reading the Aeneid to Augustus, Octavia, and Livia, by Jean-Baptiste Wicar (1762–1834), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Art Institute of Chicago).
Sources:
- Georgics by Virgil, translated by Peter Fallon. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, 2006, 2009.
- The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006.
- Plutarch’s Lives edited by Charles W. Eliot in the Harvard Classics series. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909, 1937.
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/de_Poetis/Vergil*.html
