THE TREES, SHRUBS, AND 

 PLANTS OF VIRGIL 



INTRODUCTION 



By descent and birth Virgil was not an Italian but 

 a Gaul, and at the time of his birth his father was 

 not a Roman citizen. Nevertheless, Latin civiliza- 

 tion was already entirely at home in the plain of the 

 Po, and had brought with it the Hellenic strain 

 which runs through the whole of the Eclogues. 

 Thus Virgil was not afraid to call Italy his own 

 country, even without reference to the share of 

 Tuscan blood which he believed to be possessed 

 by the men of Mantova. Thus, when he came in 

 the second Georgic to celebrate the praises of Italy, 

 it hardly needed the extension of the franchise to 

 justify him in ignoring the boundary made by the 

 Apennines and the little brook of Rubicon. In his 

 encomium of Italian valour the Ligurian takes his 

 place beside the Marsian and the Samnite, and the 

 lakes of Como and Garda are no less Italian than 

 the Tyrrhene surge which sweeps into the haven of 

 Avernus. 



In the youthful Virgil there were two characteris- 



I B 



