We know something of the poet's personal appearance from the description of Donatus. According to him Virgil was large of frame and dark complexioned, and had a certain .air of rusticity. This description tallies with the authentic portraits which we possess, which form a very small part of the great number which bear his name. The best are two mo saics, one disoovered at Trier in 1884, the other at Susa in Africa in 1896. In .character he was gentle and lovable and so extremely modest, that he is said to have taken refuge in the nearest shop or doonvay to avoid notice.
Although Virgil, hire nearly all of the great vrriters of his nation, was born outside of Rome, he is .one Of the most patriotic and intensely Roman of all his countrytnen. He belongs with Horace to the national school; for, though, unlike his friend, he was strongly influenced by the Alexandrine Greek writers, to whom he was introchiced by Parthenius during his studies at Naples, he drew from them only what was best in their work and •avoided their defects. He awes to them the cosmopolitan tone which has made him popular with all nations and all ages, and his mastery in the treatment of the passion of love. He is not an. Alexandrine in the seise in which that term is ordinarily used, but like Cicero developed a characteristic style of his own.
The first undoubtedly genuine work of Via- gil which has been preserved is a collection of 10 pastoral poems, called variously the 'Eclogues' (Eclogce) and the (Bucolics' (Bucolica). These were probably composed between the years 43 and 37 and are the first Roman representatives of that branch of poeti cal literature. They were, however, far from being an original creation, but on the contrary are rnodeled on the (Idyls) of Theocritus with a clo.seness of imitation which is rare even among Roman writers. The names of the char. acters are in most cases taken from the Greek original and the landscape has nothing which suggests the scenes amid which Virgil passed his early life, but is throughout Sicilian; and yet the genius of the poet succeeded in pressing itself on this early work and it has always justly been given a high rank in the history of Roman literature. The (Eclogues) fall into two distinct classes, each repre.sented by five poems, the purely pastoral pieces, which smg of various phases of the life of the ideal ized thepherd, especially contests in song, and the allegorical poems, which introduce the poet himself and his contemporaries in' the guise of shepherds. The latter are naturally the more original and they are also by far the more diffi, cult of interpretation. The most widely known of all is probably the 4th Eclogue, which cele brates the birth of a child, about whose identity there is a difference of opinion, who is to bring back the Golden Age to Italy. It owes its re nown in a great measure to the belief, which became current in the Middle that it was a prophecy of the coming: of ArMessiah.
Virgil's next work dealt also with the cam. try life with which he was so familiar and loved so much. Ma-cenas and Augustus are said to have suggested to him the writing of a poem on agriculture, in the hope of making farm life more attractive to the people of Italy, but the poet must have required little urging to induce him to take up a subject so con genial. He had an abundance of material at hand to draw on among the Greek writers and the topic had been a favorite one with the Romans as well, though it had not as yet been treated in verse. Virgil expressly aclutowledges his obligations to Hesiod, but he owes more to the Alexandrine writers Nicander and Ara tus. In four books he writes of the manage ment of fields, the growing of trees, the rear ing of horses and cattle and bee-keeping. He avoids with great skill the dryness of a didac tic work by the introduction of such digressions as the praise of spring and by a general light ness of touch which gives an attractive form even to the most commonplace details. He composed slowly and with loving care and polished his language and versification to the highest degree of refinement The (Georgics) have justly been called the most finished poems in the Latin langtrage and Addison even calls them the most finished of all poems.
After the publication of the (Georgics) in 29, Virgil set about the greater task of writing a national epic. This was a plan which he seems to have formed early in life and for which he had been preparing for many years.
He was force(' against his ovrn judgment to take it up thus early by urgent requests from Augustus and Ma-cenas. In this field he had not the advantage of being a pioneer, for Nye vius, in his 'Belli= Punicum,) and more par ticularly Ennius in his (Annales> had treated of the early history of Rome in this way. The latter had connected the destiny of Rome with that of Troy and his epic was regarded as a great athievement Virgil could hardly depart radically from the phui of his great predecessor, though he surpassed him tiat only in finish of style, but aho by introducing the philosophical reflection and the breadth of treatment which distinguish history from mere chronicle. He made very free use of the works of his prede cessors, and among the Greeks not only of the (Iliad' and the (Odyssey,' but of the Cyclic poets and of Apollomus of Rhodes. The proud boast of Propertius, nescio quid mains nascitur Iliade, as well as the subject of the epic, at once challenged a comparison with the Homeric poems which was freely accepted in antiquity; but in modern times this has been detrimental to Virgil's fame. The comparison is unfair, because the (2Eneid) and the Homeric poems really represent different types of the epic.
The primitive epic, of which the (Iliad' and the (Odyssey> are unrivaled specimens, is not represented in Roman literature and is foreign. to the Roman national character. The wor, of Nnvius *and Ennius, as well as those of Vir gil and the later Roman epic writers, are of the historical type and in this field the supremacy of Virgil is alinost universally recognized. While the Homeric poems represent the gradual accumulations of generations of singers, the ()End& was composed as a complete work of art, with a definite purpose, the glorification of Rome and of the Julian house. The introduc tion of the gods of the Greek pantheon is in the nature of (epic machinery,>> since Virgil's generatton had no faith in them, and the hiinself was doubtless too much influencerifyt Lucretius and by his philosophical studies in general, to be an exception to the prevailing skepticism. At the same time his nature was reverent and religious, and a desire to effect a revival of the old Roman piety doubtless formed part of his plan and was thoroughly in accordance with the wishes of his patrons. The (.2Eneid) describes the wanderings and adven tures of dEneas from the time of the fall of Troy until the establishment of his destined empire in Latium. In accordance with the regular rule of epic composition the poet plunges at once in medias re:, and begins his tale with the sixth year of the voyage of his hero. The story of the earlier years is told graphically by dEneas himself at Dido's court in Carthage. While the greamess of the poem can only be fully appreciated when it is studied as a whole, it is more generally known in part; the last six books, though full of beautiful episodes, are less generally read because of the numerous and somewhat monotonous battle scenes which epic tradition demanded of the poet, in which he is not at his best Probably the most widely known part of the poem is the episode of Dido, which forms a complete epic tragedy and bears witness to the poet's familiarity with the mas terpiece.s of Greek drama. The unhappy Car thaginian queen, like /Eneas, had her mission to perform and her empire to establish, but her plans were forced to give way before the might ier destiny of Xneas. Through the wiles of Venus, which even Juno's power cannot thwart, she falls in love with the Trojan hero and strives to detain him in Carthage. He finally leaves her in obedience to the conunand of Jupiter, and Dido slays herself as his ships are passing out of sight A˘ she dies, she prays that there may be eternal hatred between Car thage and Rome and the long and bloody strug gle which ended in the destruction of the city which she founded forms the sequel to the tragedy. These wars furnished a motive for a great historical epic, which, however, found no worthier poet than the painstaking but in sipid Sifts Italiens, of the time.of Nero and his successors. The desertion of Dido by rE neas finds little sympathy with the modern reader, and the (pious &fleas* appears in many respects a somewhat pitiful hero, but frotn the andent point of view his action was justifiable and even praiseworthy due as it vras to sub mission to the will of 'the gods. Virgil intends Xneas to be the representative of the old Roman virtues, steadfastness of purpose, en durance, fidelity to a trust, courage and rever ence for the gods. It is to the last quality especially, together with his devotion to his father, that he owes his epithet of piss. To the Roman reader he was the champion of civilization against barbarism,. represented by Turnus and his godless associates. So far as the form of the poem is concerned, we see in it VirgiYs growing mastery of the heroic hexa meter and the results of his long years of study and training and we may note an advance even in the progress of the work itself. It is the hexameter of the (./Eneid) which deserves above all others the praise, (the stateliest meas ure ever molded by the lips of man.* But Virgil himself was conscious that he had not rmiized the ideal of his youthful days. In a letter to Augustus of the year 26, in answer to a request to see the poem or at least some part of it, he writes that he feels that he has been mad to undertake so great a task. A few years later, however, he was ready to read three books to the emperor including the 6th, in which he inserted the nib: ute to the young Marcellus, contained in verses 860-886. It is said that Octavia, who was present, fainted as Virgil finished his effective rendering of these beautiful lines, and after ward presented the poet with 10,000 sesterces (about $500) for each verse of the memorial to her son. This story confirms in a general way the statement of Suetonius about VirgiYs method of composing the (tEneid.' He is said first to have written a version in prose, and to have turned it into verse in no special order; and he seems to have followed the same plan in putting the finishing touc.hes to his work. That he never completed the latter process is evident from various inconsistencies which ap pear in the poem, and more particularly, since absolute consistency is not demanded of a poet, from the numerous incomplete and less polished lines. It is shown also by his project of a three years' tour amid the scenes of his earlier books, and by the fact that on his death bed he gave directions that the (fEneid) should be destroyed. This rattiest was fortunately not granted, but Augustus had the work published, with only such revision as was absolutely neces sary, by the poet's friends Varius and Tucca.