developing organism.[1] But, taken in conjunction with the poems of Virgil and Horace, they show their real character as outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. It is true that Horace at times attributes the disasters from which his countrymen have suffered to their disregard of the ancient religious ceremonies; to their neglect of the templa ædesque labentes deorum et fœda nigro simulacra fumo;[2] but in the six famous Odes which stand at the head of Book III he emphasizes the national necessity of chastity, fidelity, mercy, loyalty to duty; and he utters not less emphatic warnings against the general danger from avarice, ambition, luxury. The essentially religious character of the Æneid is evident to every reader. That is no mere formalism which inspires with moral vigour the splendid melodies of the Sixth Book.[3] Although the Poet uses the conventional machinery of Elysium and Tartarus to emphasize the contrast between Virtue and Vice by contrasting the fates that
- ↑ The basis of the work of Augustus, and of the religious reforms inaugurated or developed by him, is laid in the recognition of a fact noted by Balbus in Cic., De Nat. Deorum, lib. ii. 3. "Eorum imperiis rempublicam amplificatam qui religionibus paruissent. Et si conferre volumus nostra cum externis, ceteris rebus aut pares aut etiam inferiores reperiemur; religione, id est, cultu deorum, multo superiores." Cf. Horace: Od., iii. 6, vv. 1-4; Livy, xlv. 39.
- ↑ Hor: Od., iii. 6.
- ↑ See Boissier: Religion Romaine, vol. i. cap. 5.—Le Sixième Livre de l'Enéide. St. Augustine must surely have felt the religious influence of the Æneid when he experienced the emotion which he describes in the well-known passage in the First Book of the Confessions—plorare Didonem mortuam (cogebar), quia se occidit ob amorem: cum interea meipsum morientem, Deus Vita mea, siccis occulis ferrem miserrimus. (Lib. i. cap. xiii.)
