Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [71]
The young poet could recognize reality when he saw it. Whatever emotional scars his brush with triumviral power left him with, he made his peace with the regime. In these days before print, a professional writer without a personal fortune had no large middle-class market to provide him with an income from book sales. He needed rich patrons to supply his means—in the form of money or gifts of property and slaves—and to pay for the laborious copying out of his books. In the first instance, then, Virgil probably attached himself to Octavian’s cause for the sake of financial security. However, he also acted from political conviction, for the triumviral regime promised stability and prosperity. The two men became fast friends.
Virgil wrote that the Golden Age had returned to Italy, and with a curious infantine addition. This was the messianic theme of his fourth eclogue:
The Firstborn of the New Ages is already on his way from high heaven down to earth.
With him, the Iron Age shall end and Golden Man inherit all the world. Smile on the Baby’s birth, immaculate Lucina [goddess of childbirth]; your own Apollo is enthroned at last.
What exactly is Virgil getting at? Who is this baby? Is he a metaphor for something, or is a real person being denoted? Some detective work is needed to unravel the mystery.
The poem is addressed to Gaius Asinius Pollio; he was a friend of Antony and had assisted him in the recent negotiations with Octavian. A man of principle in an age of turncoats, he was about to leave politics and write his History of the Civil Wars describing the period from the First Triumvirate to Philippi (sadly lost).
Pollio had a dry sense of humor and a reputation for straight talking. When Octavian once wrote some lampoons about him, Pollio only observed: “For my part I am saying nothing in reply; for it is asking for trouble to write against a man who can write you off.”
Some commentators have wondered whether the child could be Pollio’s son, but it is hard to see why Virgil should have imagined such a boy as savior of the world. A more likely candidate would be the predicted offspring of Antony and Octavia, whose union presaged peace after long years of war. Indeed, she was soon pregnant. Some scholars even believe that the poem was written as a wedding hymn.
However, we should not forget that Octavian, too, was a newlywed, albeit somewhat unsuitably. It was known that Scribonia was carrying a child. A detail from the eclogue suggests that the answer to the conundrum may lie here. This is the reference to Apollo “enthroned at last”; just as orientalizing Antony favored the dionysiac Dionysus, so throughout his life Octavian appropriated the logical, severe god of light, Apollo. It is rather more likely that Virgil had Octavian’s unborn child in mind than Antony’s.
In the event, the issue turned out to be academic. In 39 B.C. both women bore daughters, Julia and Antonia.
For all the poet’s fine words, optimism was fading. Before the Treaty of Brundisium, Sextus Pompeius had attempted to help Antony against Octavian, only to be called off at the last moment. He was angry and threatening.
Sextus employed two admirals, ex-slaves and former pirates called Menodorus (or Menas) and Menecrates. Perhaps they had been taken prisoner and enslaved by Pompey the Great during his highly successful campaign in 67 B.C. against the pirate fleets that used to dominate the Mediterranean. Having secured control of Sardinia and Corsica, they maintained the blockade of Italy.
At Rome, the price of goods soared. For once Octavian lost touch with public opinion, which wanted him to restore peace by coming to an understanding with Sextus.