s
with Maecenas, whom he accompanied in the journey from Rome to
Brundusium, which forms the subject of one of the Satires of Horace. His
most finished work, the _Georgics_, was undertaken at the suggestion of
Maecenas.[76] The poem was completed after the battle of Actium, B.C. 31,
while Octavian was in the East.[77] The _AEneid_ was the occupation of
his latter years. His health was always feeble, and he died at
Brundusium in B.C. 19, in his 51st year. His remains were transferred to
Naples, which had been his favorite residence, and placed on the road
from Naples to Puteoli (_Pozzuoli_), where a monument is still shown,
supposed to be the tomb of the poet. It is said that in his last illness
he wished to burn the AEneid, to which he had not given the finishing
touches, but his friends would not allow him. He was an amiable,
good-tempered man, free from the mean passions of envy and jealousy. His
fame, which was established in his lifetime, was cherished after his
death as an inheritance in which every Roman had a share; and his works
became school-books even before the death of Augustus, and continued
such for centuries after. He was also the great poet of the Middle Ages.
To him Dante paid the homage of his superior genius, and owned him for
his master and model. The ten short poems called Bucolics, or Eclogues,
were the earliest works of Virgil, and probably all written between B.C.
41 and B.C. 37. They have all a Bucolic form and coloring, but some of
them have nothing more. Their merit consists in their versification, and
in many natural and simple touches. The Georgics is an "Agricultural
Poem" in four books. Virgil treats of the cultivation of the soil in the
first book, of fruit-trees in the second, of horses and other cattle in
the third, and of bees in the fourth. This poem shows a great
improvement both in his taste and in his versification. Neither in the
Georgics nor elsewhere has he the merit of striking originality; his
chief excellence consists in the skillful handling of borrowed
materials. The AEneid, or adventures of AEneas after the fall of Troy, is
an epic formed on the model of the Homeric poems. It was founded upon an
old Roman tradition that AEneas and his Trojans settled in Italy, and
were the founders of the Roman name. In the first six books the
adventures of Ulysses in the Odyssey are the model, and these books
contain more variety of incident and situation than those which follow.
The last