ntain suggestions from Messalla.

There was, of course, no triumph, and Vergil's eulogy was never sent,
indeed it probably never was entirely completed.[4] Messalla quickly made
his peace with the triumvirs, and, preferring not to return to Rome in
disgrace, cast his lot with Antony who remained in the East. Vergil, who
thoroughly disliked Antony, must then have felt that for the present, at
least, a barrier had been raised between him and Messalla. Accordingly
the _Ciris_ also was abandoned and presently pillaged for other uses.

[Footnote 4: It ought, therefore, not to be used seriously in discussions
of Vergil's technique.]

The news of Philippi was soon followed by orders from Octavian--to be
thoroughly accurate we ought of course to call him Caesar--that lands
must now, according to past pledges, be procured in Italy for nearly
two hundred thousand veterans. Every one knew that the cities that had
favored the liberators, and even those that had tried to preserve their
neutrality, would suffer. Vergil could, of course, guess that lands in
the Po Valley would be in particular demand because of their fertility.
The first note of fear is found in his eighth _Catalepton_:

Villula, quae Sironis eras, et pauper agelle,
Verum illi domino tu quoque divitiae,
Me tibi et hos una mecum, quos semper amavi,
Si quid de patria tristius audiero,
Commendo imprimisque patrem: tu nunc eris illi
Mantua quod fuerat quodque Cremona prius.

It is usually assumed from this passage that Siro had recently died,
probably, therefore, some time in 42 B.C., and that, in accordance with a
custom frequently followed by Greek philosophers at Rome, he had left his
property to his favorite pupil. The garden school, therefore, seems to
have come to an end, though possibly Philodemus may have continued it
for the few remaining years of his life. Siro's villa apparently proved
attractive to Vergil, for he made Naples his permanent home, despite the
gift of a house on the Esquiline from Maecenas.

This, however, is not Vergil's last mention of Siro, if we may believe
Servius, who thinks that "Silenum" in the sixth _Eclogue_ stands for
"Sironem," its metrical equivalent. If, as seems wholly likely, Servius
is right, the sixth _Eclogue_ is a fervid tribute to a teacher who
deserves not to be forgotten in the story of Vergil's education. The poem
has been so strangely misinterpreted in recent years that it is time to
follow out Ser