VIRGIIIIIIS (or, as it is more accurately spelled, VERGILITIS) NA'RO, Pum.rus, after Homer, the greatest epic poet of antiquity, was born in the consulship of Crassus and Pompey, Oct. 15, 70, B.c., at Andes, a village not far from Mantua. It is probable that his father was the proprietor of a small estate which was farmed by himself. Virgilius was liberally educated, and is believed to have studied successively at Cremona and Mediolanum (Milan). In philosophy, lie was instructed by Syron, an Epicurean, and one of his fellow-students was that Varus to whom his sixth eclogue is dedicated. Greek he learned at Neapolis (Naples) from the grammarian Parthenius. If we are correct in supposing that, in the first eclogue Virgilius relates his own experience in the person of Tityrus, he first visited Rome 41 B.C., in his 30th year, for the purpose of reclaiming his lands, which were occupied by the soldiery of Octavianus, at the close of the war against the republicans. At Rome, he was introduced to Octavianus, through the influence of Follio, or of some other patron, and further formed the acquaintance of his great pro tector, _Maecenas. He continued to compose his eclogues--the tenth and last of which is dedicated to Gallus, and referred to the poet's 33d or 34th year. At the instance of Maecenas, he commenced his Georgics in his 34th year, according to the grammarians, who also assign 7 years as tile time lie spent in the composition of the work, which was carried ou principally at Naples. The yl:neid was his last performance, and must have occupied many of the latter years of his life. He went in 19 B. C. to Greece, where he meant to subject his great poem to a thorough process of revision and refinement; and his voyage to Athens was made by Horace the occasion of the ode (book i, 3) commenc ing with " Sic to diva potens Cypri." At Athens, Virgilius met Augustus on his trium phal return from the east, and the poet was iuduced to go hack to Rome in his company. Ile had only got as far as Megara, however, when he was seized with illness, which became worse on his voyage to Italy. On landing at Brundisium, or, according to
another account, at Tarentum, he was unequal to the fatigue of traveling; and after lingering for a few days, he died, in the 52d year of his age, 19 B. C. In compliance with his dying wish, his body was removed to Naples, and buried at the second mile-stone from that city, on the Puteolan Way. Pliny the Elder and Aulus Gellins are among the writers who say that on his deathbed Virgilius desired his epic poem to be burned, rather than that it should see the light in its imperfect state; but that the injunctions of Augustus to his executors, or, according to others, the interposition of his friends Tueca. and Varius, who persuaded him to bequeath it to them on the understanding that it should remain unaltered, were the means of preserviiig it. This incident is quite in keeping with all that we know of Virgilius's modesty of character. The liberality of his patrons had endowed him with considerable property. He had a house on the Esqui Jim!, near the gardens of Mreeenas, where he lived with an elegant simplicity, while he allowed the public free access to his excellent library. He was tall of stature, dark of complexion, and had the appearance of a farmer. His most finished poem is the Georgics, in which the various departments of agricultural concern are described with great clearness, and illustrated by episodes of the finest poetry. His 2E'ne2d shows rather what he might have been than what he was as an epic poet. Unfinished as it is, however, its merits have always secured him a place in the front rank of epic writers; while, more than any similar work of antiquity, it has furnished a model to the epic and narrative poets of modern Italy. He has been edited and translated by scholars of nearly every country and period. The best English translation is that of the ,2L'n eid by William Morris (1875), which is on the whole superior to Dryden's, before unequaled. Coning ton's in some features highly successful. The best editions are those of Heyne, Wagner, Forbiger, and Coniugton.