The ground of Vergil's authority 241 



I can discover no ground for thinking 1 that Vergil was ever him- 

 self a farmer. That Pliny and Columella cite him as an authority is in 

 my opinion due to the predominance of his works in the literary world. 

 As writers of prose dealing with facts often of an uninspiring kind, it 

 would seem to raise the artistic tone of heavy paragraphs if the first 

 name in Latin literature could be introduced with an apposite quotation 

 in agreement with their own context. Vergil-worship began early and 

 lasted long ; and indeed his admirers in the present day are sometimes 

 so absorbed in finding 2 more and more in what he said that they do 

 not trouble themselves to ask whether there may not be some signi- 

 ficance 3 in his silences. Rightly or wrongly, I am persuaded that this 

 question ought at least to be asked in connexion with the Georgics. 

 I have reserved till the last a passage 4 of Seneca, in which he challenges 

 the authority of Vergil in some points connected with trees, speaking 

 of him as Vergilius noster y qui non quid verissime sed quid decentissime 

 diceretur aspexit^ nee agricolds docere voluit sed legentes delectare. Now 

 Seneca was devoted to the works of Vergil, and is constantly quoting 

 them. He has no prejudice against the poet. The view of the Georgics 

 set forth in these words implies no literary dispraise, but a refusal to 

 let poetic excellence give currency to technical errors. Seneca is often 

 tiresome, but in this matter his criticism is in my opinion sound. In 

 the matter of labour my contention is not that the poet has inadver- 

 tently erred, but that he has for some reason deliberately dissembled. 



XXX. THE ELDER SENECA AND OTHERS. 



The comparatively silent interval, between the Augustan circle and 

 the new group of writers under Claudius and Nero, furnishes little of 

 importance. The one writer who stands out as giving us a few scraps 

 of evidence is the elder Seneca, the earliest of the natives of Spain who 

 made their mark in Latin literature. But the character of his work, 

 which consists of examples of the treatment of problem-cases in the 

 schools of rhetoric, makes him a very peculiar witness. When he tells 

 us how this or that pleader of note made some point neatly, the words 

 have their appropriate place in the texture of a particular argument. 

 Often they contain a fallacious suggestion or a misstatement useful for 

 the purpose of ex parte advocacy, but having as statements no authority 



1 Keightley (1846) says the same. 



2 With much respect and regret, I cannot accept the views of Prof Con way in his inau- 

 gural lecture of 1903. 



3 The absence of reference to Cicero has of course been noted. But this was general in 

 the Augustan age. 



4 Seneca epist 86 15. 



H.A. l6 



