Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/94

Rh assumed by the king.&quot; Such was the aphorism of the man of the world, and in this particular Augustus was a king indeed. The Eomans rushed forward in the course he marked out for them. His word dictated the fashions of the day, not in sentiment only, but in many particulars of external conduct. He was anxious to restore the dignity of the Roman citizen, as one of the conquering race which ruled its subjects as much by the prestige of its character as by its arms, and he resented all relaxation from the strait-laced discipline of the ancients, even to the petty matters of their dress and deportment. *&amp;gt; He marked his sovereign displeasure at the degenerate Romans who indulged in the loose habiliments of Greece. &quot; Are these,&quot; lie exclaimed, in the language of Virgil, &quot; the rulers of the world, the nation of the gown?&quot; And in order to keep up the high distinction of Roman citizenship at a period when provincials from all sides were crowding into it, he reversed, in this single instance, the policy of Cresar, and was very sparing in granting admission to the Roman franchise. He was, indeed, extremely careful in striking a balance between the tendency of the age to a general fusion of castes and privileges and the ancient spirit of exclusion, in which he thought the strength of the republic still really reposed. The policy of Augustus was one, on the whole, of cautious and moderate reaction. He made an effort to stay the process of disintegration, which he found so rife throughout the vital forces of the empire. The lawlessness of his own usurpation did indeed combine with the gross selfishness of his personal character to sap the moral principles of society, and render its ultimate dissolution inevitable ; but he made a vigorous effort to stem the tide, and succeeded in giving the Roman world a period of rest in the downward path which it was generally pursuing.

The character of the period, however, as an epoch of rest for reflection and self-control, was chiefly marked in the literature, which, more than anything else, has con tributed to give it the name of the Augustan Age. The religious sentiment which has been described, resting as it did upon a deep sympathy with historical antiquity, coloured by a bold and vigorous imagination, is reflected in the poetry of Virgil, and more particularly in the spirit of his great epic, the JSneid. No doubt, both depth and tenderness of feeling may be traced even in the eclogues of the same master, however slight fur the most part their subjects, and however imitative their treatment. The Georgics present us with more serious and dignified characteristics, and though these pieces are directed mainly to the practical treatment of practical operations, they admit of high moral as well as religious colouring. They recall the Roman reader to the moral foundations of the national character, its honest simplicity, its love of nature, its devotion to labour, its conviction that industry is the appointed path to virtue and to honour. But this moral feeling is elevated by a sense of the divine within man and around him. The Roman husbandman, the breed of heroes, is never suffered to forget that there is a God and a Providence, or that the favour of the divine power has always fallen upon the industrious and the virtuous. &quot; Thus it is that Etruria of old, and Rome in later times, waxed illustrious and mighty ; thus that the city on the seven hills became the fairest object of creation.&quot; The Georgics are undoubtedly animated throughout with a religious sentiment, and bespeak the high religious purpose of their author. But in the ^Eneid this religious sentiment and purpose are both still more distinctly proclaimed to us. The great epic of Virgil, the national epic of the Roman people, glorifies the divine Providence which founded Rome in the beginning, and carried her through all her triumphs to the consummation of her greatness in the era of Augustus. It begins with the divine ^Eneas, and it leads us on to the divine Caesar. The greatness and the weakness of the hero of the poem equally tend to this one end, the illustra tion of the Providence which has educed strength out of weakness, and overruled everything to the glory of the Roman people. The moral to be deduced from the story of. JEneas is too plain for any Roman to mistake. The divinity which protects Rome is the Lord of heaven and earth and all that is therein. There is no God or Lord like unto Him. Blessed are the Romans who have this Lord for their God. The majesty of the Roman empire, now at the crowning summit of its progress, is the immediate efflux of this sovereign power, and the one ia for ever bound up with the other. If such was the doctrine sung by Virgil, surely none could be more grateful to Augustus, the sovereign ruler of an empire so guided and protected.

The names of Virgil and Horace are familiarly united in every review of the age of Augustus ; yet no two men can stand more in contrast one with the other in their per sonal character, in the scope of their writings, and in the influences they respectively exercised upon their contem poraries. Horace, as is well known, had been a republican in his youth ; he had espoused the cause of Brutus and Cassius, and, while yet a student in the schools at Athens, had obtained a commission in their army. He fought in person in the battle of Fhilippi, and, as he tells us himself, threw away his shield in his rapid flight from the swords of the Caesarians. From that time he abjured the losing cause, and obtained, perhaps without seeking it, the advice of the minister Maecenas, by whom he was taken into favour and introduced to Augustus himself. However agreeable might be his temper and manners, it is not likely that the politic usurper would distinguish a mere upstart with admission to his society without at least tacitly exacting some return. The character of this poet s compositions, both in his lyrics and his satires and epistles, seems pretty clearly to betray the inspiration of the emperor and his astute associates. The most animated and imaginative of his pieces are almost invariably employed in sounding the praises of the Caesar and his family. When he descends from his highest flights of poetry, he finds congenial matter for his muse in delicate flattery of Maecenas and other magnates of the court. But it will be observed that he seldom, if ever, addresses the haughty nobles of Rome except ;in a strain of prudential advice, soothing their pride, but lowering their ambition, and directing them to seek contentment and happiness not in objects of public interest, but in the tranquil enjoyment of ease, which he dignifies with the name of philosophy. The poetry of Horace is full of pleasing sentiments, but it contains perhaps no single strain of generous and ennobling enthusiasm. Such feelings it was the policy of Augustus to discourage, and the policy of Augustus is faithfully represented in the utterances of his courtly flatterer. But there was another task imposed upon him, and! it is to this that his satires and epistles are more commonly directed, namely, to put out of countenance the offensive self-assertion of the &quot; new men&quot; of the empire, the men whom the fortunes of the civil war had suddenly raised from their native obscurity, and enriched or ennobled, notwithstanding the barrenness of their origin and the vulgarity of their breeding. Augustus wanted, no doubt, to tame the aspiring spirits of his genuine nobles, but he shrank from driving them to desperation by swamping them with an inundation of base- born inferiors, perhaps their own former clients and freed- men. It was part of Horace s office, as a gentleman usher at court, to discountenance all such undue pretensions, and shut the door with consummate urbanity upon the most disagreeable or the most importunate of the courtiers. He 