ller pieces, which bear marks of
juvenile taste. Among those that have been assigned to this early part
of his life, is one of considerable interest to Americans, for in it
occurs our national motto, "_E pluribus unum_." The short poem--it
consists of only one hundred and twenty-three lines--describes how a
negro serving-woman makes a dish called _Moretum_, a kind of salad, in
which various herbs are blended with oil and vinegar, till "out of
many one united whole" is produced. To the same period critics have
assigned his poem on a "Mosquito," and some epigrams in various
metres. The home in the country had, however, soon to experience, like
thousands of others, a sad change. The battle of Philippi took place,
and Marc Antony and Octavius Caesar, the future emperor, known to later
ages as Augustus, were masters of the world. We have no hints that
Virgil had been, like Horace, engaged in the civil war in a military
or any other capacity, or that his father had taken any part in the
struggle, but the country in which his property lay was marked out for
confiscation. The city of Cremona had strongly sympathized with the
cause of Brutus and the republic, and in consequence, the doctrine
that "to the victors belong the spoils," having a very practical
application in those days, its territory was seized and divided among
the victorious soldiers, and with it was taken part of the territory
of its neighbor, Mantua, including Virgil's little farm. According to
report the new occupier was an old soldier, named Claudius, and it was
added that by the advice of Asinius Pollio, the governor of the
province, Virgil applied to the young Octavius for restitution of the
property. The request was granted, and Virgil, in gratitude, wrote his
first "Eclogue," to commemorate the generosity of the emperor. These
facts, if at all true, indicate that the young poet had already become
favorably known to men of high position and great influence. Pollio
was eminent not only as a soldier and statesman who played an
important part in politics, but as an orator, a poet, and an
historian, and above all as an encourager of literature. It was a
fortunate day when a governor of such power to aid, and such taste to
recognize talent, discovered the young poet of Andes, and saved him
from a life of struggling poverty. Virgil's health was always feeble,
and his temper seems to have been rather melancholy; he had had little
experience of life except in his rem