ndidate into the (true) Mysteries. So that it
does not follow by any means that he meant an actual baby born in
that year; he may have intended, and probably did intend, some
Adept then born into his illumination,--or that, according to
Virgil's own ideas, might be thought likely soon to be. One
cannot say; he was a very wise man, Virgil. At least it
indicates a feeling,--perhaps peculiar to himself, perhaps
general,--that the world stood on the brink of a great change in
the cycles, and that an Adept Leader might be expected, who
should usher the new order in.

His eyes may have been opened to the possibilities of the young
Octavian. It is possible that the two were together at school in
Rome, studying rhetoric under Epidius, in the late fifties; and
certainly Virgil had recently visited Rome and there interviewed
the Triumvir Octavian; and had obtained from him an order for
the restitution of his parental farm near Mantua, which had been
given to one of the soldiers of Philippi after that battle. Two
or three of the Eclogues are given to the praises of Octavian;
whom, even as early as that, Virgil seems to have recognised as
the future or potential savior of Rome. The points to put side
by side are these: Virgil, a Theosophist, expected the coming of
an avatar, an Initiate who should save Rome;--H.P. Blavatsky
speaks of Augustus as an Initiate;--Augustus did save Rome.

When did he become an Initiate? Was there, at some time, such a
change in his life that it was as if a new Soul had come in to
take charge of that impersonal unfailing personality? There are
tremendous mysteries connected with incarnation; the possibility
of a sudden accession of entity, so to say,--a new vast increment
of being. As Octavius and Octavian, the man seems like one
without will or desires of his own, acting in blind obedience to
impersonal forces that aimed at his supremacy in the Roman
world. As Augustus, he becomes another man altogether, almost
fathomlessly wise and beneficient; a Master of Peace and Wisdom.
He gave Rome Peace, and taught her to love peace. He put _Peace_
for a legend on the coinage; and in the west _Pax,_ in the east
_Irene,_ became favorite names to give you children. He did what
he could to clean Roman life; to give the people high ideals;
to make the empire a place,--and in this he succeeded,--where
decent egos could incarnate and hope to progress; which,
generally speaking, they cannot in a chaos.