ery
definite Messianic hopes of the Hebrew people. It may well be, therefore,
that a stray image whose ultimate source was none other than Isaiah came
in this indirect fashion into Vergil's poem, and that the monks of the
dark ages guessed better than they knew.

[Footnote 2: Sellar, _Horace and the Elegiac Poets_, p. 123. Ramsay,
quoted by W. Warde Fowler, _Vergil's Messianic Eclogue_, p, 54.]

To attempt to identify Vergil's child with a definite person would be a
futile effort to analyze poetic allegory. Contemporary readers doubtless
supposed that since the Republic was dead, the successor to power after
the death of Octavius and Antony would naturally be a son of one of
these.

The settlements of the year were sealed by two marriages, that of
Octavian to Scribonia and that of Octavian's sister to Antony. It was
enough that some prince worthy of leadership could naturally be expected
from these dynastic marriages, and that in either case it would be a
child of Octavian's house.[3] Thus far his readers might let their
imagination range; what actually happened afterwards through a series of
evil fortunes has, of course, nothing to do with the question. Pollio is
obviously addressed as the consul whose year marked the peace which all
the world hoped and prayed would be lasting.

[Footnote 3: See _Class. Phil_. XI, 334.]

We have now reviewed the circumstances which called forth the _Eclogues_.
They seem, as Donatus says, to have been written within a period of three
years. The second, third, seventh and sixth apparently fall within the
year 42, the tenth, fifth, eighth, ninth and first in the year 41, while
the _Pollio_ certainly belongs to the year 40, when Vergil became thirty
years of age. The writing of these poems had called the poet more and
more away from philosophy and brought him into closer touch with the
sufferings and experiences of his own people. He had found a theme after
his own heart, and with the theme had come a style and expression
that fitted his genius. He abandoned Hellenistic conceits with their
prettiness of sentiment, attained an easy modulation of line readily
responding to a variety of emotions, learned the dignity of his own
language as he acquired a deeper sympathy for the sufferings of his own
people. There is a new note, as there is a new rhythm in:

_Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo_.

XIII

THE CIRCLE OF MAECENAS

Julius Caesar had learned from bitter expe