232 Revival, not Reform 



of the new Emperor, who posed as Restorer and Preserver rather than 

 Reformer, finds a sympathetic or obedient expression in this tendency. 

 For it is delicately conveyed that the reform of an evil agricultural 

 present virtually consists in the return to the ways of a better past. 

 And the poet, acting as poet simply, throws on this better past the 

 halo of a golden age still more remote. The virtues of the Sabines of 

 old 1 are an example of the happiness and honour attainable by a rustic 

 folk. But to Vergil, steeped in ancient legend, the historic worthies 

 of a former age are not the beginning of things. They come * trailing 

 clouds of glory' from the mythical origin 2 of mankind, from a world 

 of primeval abundance and brotherly communism, a world which he 

 like Lucretius pauses to portray. Thirdly, the reaction of Augustus 

 against the bold cosmopolitanism of Julius Caesar has I think left a 

 mark on the Georgics in the fact that the poem is, as Sellar says, so 

 thoroughly representative of Italy. Roman Italy was not yet ready 

 to become merely a part of an imperial estate. If people were to 

 acquiesce in a monarchy, it had to be disguised, and one important 

 disguise was the make-believe that the Roman people were lords of 

 the world. A very harmless method of ministering to Roman self- 

 complacency was excessive praise of Italy, its soil, its climate, its 

 natural features, its various products, its races of men and their works, 

 and all the historic associations of the victorious past. It is a notable 

 fact that this panegyric 3 breaks out in the utterances of four very dis- 

 similar works that still survive : for beside the Georgics I must place 4 

 the so-called Roman Antiquities of Dionysius, the Geography of Strabo, 

 and the de re rttstica of Varro. These four are practically contempo- 

 raries. It seems to me hardly credible that there was not some common 

 influence operative at the time and encouraging utterances of this tone. 

 The actual success or failure of the attempt to revive Roman 

 agriculture on a better footing is not only a question of fact in itself 

 historically important: its determination will throw light on the cir- 

 cumstances in which Vergil wrote, and perhaps help somewhat in 

 suggesting reasons for his avoidance of certain topics. If we are to 

 believe Horace 5 , the agricultural policy of Augustus was a grand suc- 

 cess : security, prosperity, virtue, good order, had become normal : 

 fertility had returned to the countryside. I had better say at once 

 that I put little faith in these utterances of a court poet. Far more 

 significant is the statement, preserved by Suetonius 6 , of the evils dealt 



1 ii 53*- 2 i 125-8, ii 336-42. 3 ii 136-76. 



4 Dionys Hal I 36-7, Strabo vi 4 i, p 286, Varro RR I 2 1-7. 



5 Horace Odes iv 5, 15, published about 14 BC. So Martial v 4 declares that Domitian 

 has made Rome pudica. 



6 Sueton Aug 32 (cf 7Y 8), and the elder Seneca contr x 4 18. Even in the second 



