Page:The Aeneid of Virgil JOHN CONINGTON 1917 V2.pdf/17

 INTRODUCTION

When Rome, torn and bleeding from a century of civil wars, turned to that wise judge of men, the second Cæsar, and acquiesced as, through carefully selected ministers, he gathered the reins of power into velvet-clad fingers of steel, she did wisely. Better one-man power than anarchy! It became the part of true patriotism for the citizen and of statesmanship for the politician to bring to the aid of the First Man of the state all the motives that could harmonize the chaotic elements, and start Republican Rome on the path of a new unity—the unity of the Empire.

For already "far away on the wide Roman marches might be heard, as it were, the endless, ceaseless monotone of beating horses' hoofs and marching feet of men. They were coming, they were nearing, like footsteps heard on wool; there was a sound of multitudes and millions of barbarians, all the North, mustering and marshalling her peoples." In his great task Augustus, with the aid of Mæcenas, very cleverly drew to his help writers whose work has since charmed the world. We can almost pardon fate for destroying the Republic—it gave us Virgil and Horace.

Pleasant indeed had it been for Virgil to sing in emulation of his great teacher Lucretius! "As for me," he says, "first of all I would pray that the charming Muses, whose minister I am, for the great love that has smitten