218 



Vergil 



period are for the most part not worth citing. Tibullus speaks of the 

 farmer 1 who has had his fill of steady ploughing, but this is in an ideal 

 picture of the origins of agriculture. His rural scenes are not of much 

 significance. In one place, speaking of hope 2 that sustains a man in 

 uncertainties, for instance a farmer, he adds * Hope it is too that com- 

 forts one bound with a strong chain : the iron clanks on his legs, yet 

 he sings as he works/ A rustic slave, no doubt. But that his hope is 

 hope of manumission is by no means clear : it may be hope of escape, 

 and the words are indefinite, perhaps left so purposely. That Ovid 3 

 refers to the farmer statesmen and heroes of yore, who put their hands 

 to the plough, is merely an illustration of the retrospective idealism of 

 the Augustan age. Like Livy and the rest, he was conscious of the 

 decay of Roman vitality, and amid the glories and dissipations of 

 Rome recognized the vigour and simplicity of good old times. For 

 him, and for Manilius, speculation 4 as to the origins of civilization, 

 imaginings of a primitive communism, had attraction, as it had for 

 Lucretius and Vergil. It was part of the common stock : and in con- 

 nexion with the development of building it forms a topic of some 

 interest 6 in the architectura of Vitruvius. 



Vergil. All readers of Vergil's Georgics are struck by the poet's 

 persistent glorification of labour and his insistence on the necessity and 

 profit of personal action on the farmer's part. Yet on one very important 

 point there is singular obscurity. Is slave-labour meant to be a part of 

 his res rustica, or not? When he bids the farmer do this or that, is he 

 bidding him to do it with his own hands, or merely to see to the doing of 

 it, or sometimes the one and sometimes the other? So far as I know, 

 no sufficient attention 6 has been given to the curious, and surely delibe- 

 rate, avoidance of direct reference to slavery in this poem. To this 

 subject I propose to return after considering the references in his 

 pastoral and epic poetry. For in the artificial world of piping shepherds 

 and in the surroundings of heroic legend the mention of slaves and 

 slavery is under no restraint. This I hope to make clear; and, in 

 relation to the contrast presented by the Georgics, to emphasize, if not 

 satisfactorily to explain, one of the subtle reticencies of Vergil. 



The Bucolics place us in an unreal atmosphere. The scenic setting 

 is a blend of Theocritean Sicily and the poet's own lowlands of the 

 Cisalpine. The characters and status of the rustics are confused in a 

 remarkable degree. Thus in the first eclogue Tityrus appears as a slave 



1 Tibullus II i 51 agricola adsidtio...satiatus aratro. 



2 Tibullus II 6 25-6. 3 Ovid fasti I 207, ill' 779-82, IV 693-4. 

 4 Ovid metam I 135-6, Manilius I 73-4. 5 Vitruvius II i. 



6 I cannot accept Prof. Richmond's view (Inaugural lecture 1919 p 25) of the Georgics 

 as * concerned with every side of husbandry.' 



