._ p. 270.

[898] _Commentary on Dante's Divina Commedia_, pp. 615
foll. I am indebted for this reference to Stewart's
_Myths of Plato_, p. 367.

[899] Nettleship remarked most truly that there is no
better way of appreciating the heroic Aeneas of these
last books than by studying carefully the early part of
the eleventh.

LECTURE XIX

THE AUGUSTAN REVIVAL

It is a long descent from the inspiring idealism of Virgil to the cool,
tactical attempt of Augustus to revive the outward forms of the old
religion. It seems strange that two men so different in character and
upbringing should have been working in the same years in the same
direction, yet on planes so far apart. How far the two were directly
connected in their work we cannot know for certain. It is said that the
subject of the Aeneid was suggested to Virgil by Augustus, and it is
quite possible that this may be true; but it by no means follows from
this that the inspiration of the poem came from any other source but
Virgil's own thought and feeling. We also know that Augustus from the
first appreciated the Aeneid, and that he saved it for all time; but it
is by no means clear that it inspired him in his efforts towards moral
and religious regeneration. Perhaps the truth is that both were moved by
the wave of mingled depression and hope that swept over Italy for some
years after the death of Julius, and that each used his experience in
his own way and according to his opportunities. They had at least this
in common, that they utilised the past to encourage the present age, and
that by filling old forms and names with new meaning they set men's
minds upon thinking of the future.[900]

Yet the revival of the State religion by Augustus is at once the most
remarkable event in the history of the Roman religion, and one almost
unique in religious history. I have repeatedly spoken of that State
religion as hypnotised or paralysed, meaning that the belief in the
efficacy of the old cults had passed away among the educated classes,
that the mongrel city populace had long been accustomed to scoff at the
old deities, and that the outward practice of religion had been allowed
to decay. To us, then, it may seem almost impossible that the practice,
and to some extent also the belief, should be capable of resuscitation
at the will of a single individual, even if that individual represented
the best interests and the collective wisdom of t