I, Virgil, page 25
'I had to do it, Gaius.' I had never, I think, used his first name before, and I saw him blink. 'I had to tell the truth somehow. Otherwise there would have been no poem.'
He shook his head, not in denial, but with incomprehension; and said nothing.
'It was the only way,' I said. 'Besides, it won't show.' I might have been talking of a wine stain on a mantle. 'Not if people aren't looking for it.'
'Augustus will have to know,' he said at last. 'I can't keep this from him.'
I nodded. My throat was dry. Maecenas stood up. He did not look at me.
'Do you hate us that much, Publius?' he asked softly. 'And have you so little faith that we're right?'
'I don't hate you,' I said. 'I want to believe in what you're doing, but I can't. Not completely. I've helped you all I can. You have all I can give.'
He turned, as if to say something. Then he thought better of it, and moved towards the door. On the threshold, he paused.
'I wouldn't like to be in your shoes when Augustus hears of this. He doesn't much like traitors either.'
I'm not a traitor! I wanted to shout. I'm only a poet! But the words stuck in my throat, and in any case he had gone.
I shut myself in my study for the rest of the day and wrote a few letters; a long one to Horace, several shorter ones to other friends, and a last – difficult – one to Maecenas. Then I began to put my affairs in order and plan what to do in the little time that remained.
59.
I sailed for Greece three weeks later.
To my friends, I passed the thing off by saying I intended to stay abroad for three years, working on a final draft of the poem. This, in a way, was true. I had decided that I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. If Octavian did not like the Aeneid as it stood, then I would rewrite it to please myself, as a poet; getting rid of much of the pious humbug and placing a greater emphasis on the human drama. Perhaps Octavian would allow me to fade into obscurity, especially since I had signalled my desire to stay away from politics by spreading the rumour that, once the Aeneid was finished, I intended to devote my life to philosophy.
To Horace, however, I told the truth. He is, after all, the better half of myself, and will understand. I also left instructions that, if anything happened to me while I was away, any copies of the work left behind in Italy (and there are some, of the more innocuous books) should be burned. The complete manuscript, of course, I took with me.
Finally, in my will, I left what I have always regarded as Proculus's house on the Esquiline, plus half my estate, to his son Lucius. In a way, it was a sin-offering; totally inadequate but all the return I could make to a man I looked on as my second father. Another quarter went to Octavian: he was always greedy where money was concerned, and I thought that perhaps he would be content with that and allow the other bequests to stand. To my literary executors Varius and Tucca (Octavian's men, both) I gave permission to publish anything that I had previously published, but no more. It would not stop them from publishing the Aeneid in toto should Octavian order them to do so, but I hoped that circumstances would make that impossible.
That hope, I am afraid, is as dead as I soon will be. Octavian has his poem safe, and I wish him joy of it.
Maecenas's letter must have reached Pergamum shortly before I set out, and been specific enough to bring Octavian to Greece on his fastest galley. He was waiting on the quayside at Piraeus when I disembarked. There was no arrest – he did not even have his honour guard with him – but both of us knew that my flight was over.
'Well, Virgil,' he said cheerfully as we shook hands. 'You didn't expect to see me here, did you?'
'No, Augustus. What a pleasant surprise this is.'
His entourage smiled, nodded as we played our parts. Then, the farce played out, Octavian draped an arm round my shoulders and led me to his carriage.
I had expected, when we were alone, that he would allow the mask to slip, but he did not. He made no reference to Maecenas's letter at all. The only reproach to pass his lips was that I had planned to 'deprive him of my company'.
'I'm sorry, Augustus,' I said. 'We great poets need to be alone sometimes. To refresh our spirits and restore our souls.'
'Couldn't you restore your soul a bit closer to home?' he said. 'Hey, you old devil?'
I stayed silent. Outside the curtained carriage windows, the sounds of the port gave way to street cries and the rumble of carts.
'Come on, Virgil! Cat got your tongue? Why the hell did it have to be Greece?'
I have noticed, these last few years, that Octavian's speech has become more and more rustic: he sounds at times like a caricature Sabine peasant swapping pleasantries over the pigsty wall. Perhaps he feels that it makes him more endearing, more democratic. Personally, I find it artificial and extremely tiresome.
'Does there have to be a reason, sir?' I asked.
He frowned.
''Course not,' he said. ''Course not, you beetroot! Why should there be? You can go where you like, as far as I'm concerned.'
'Then I can stay?'
The frown deepened.
'Perhaps some other time,' he said. 'I'm needed in Rome, and I'd appreciate it if you came back with me.'
'Right now?'
He glanced at me, then away again at the closed curtains of the carriage.
'I'm not in a great hurry,' he said. 'A day or two won't make much difference.'
A day or two. When I had planned to stay for three years!
'In any case, the ship's not ready yet,' he went on. 'Sprung a plank on the way over, so the captain tells me. It's nothing serious, but we may as well have it fixed. Can't mock Neptune, eh?'
He turned, and looked me full in the face. And I knew.
I knew that he knew, and was telling me that he knew. At the beginning of my Aeneid, Neptune calms the storm that has wrecked Aeneas's fleet and flung him up on the Carthaginian shore: a reminder (covert, of course) to my readers of Octavian's own shipwreck before Naulochus and his insults to the god's statue at the Games.
'No, Augustus,’ I said.
He grunted.
'It's a dangerous practice, Virgil. Mocking gods. It gets you nowhere. Nowhere at all.'
'Yes, Augustus.'
That was all he said. We finished the journey in silence.
I cannot dignify what I experienced over the next few days even under the term of 'house arrest' – although, of course, I was Octavian's guest at the palatial mansion which the Athenian archon had made available to him. Being free to come and go as I pleased – where could I have run to? – I attended several lectures at the Academy, did a spot of sightseeing, visited old friends and said my tactful goodbyes. It was all very civilised.
On the fifth day, I took a trip to Megara to look at the walls which the Athenians had built during their war with Sparta. It was a hot afternoon, and I had made the mistake of leaving my hat at home. I walked about the town for a while then, feeling thirsty, stopped by a freshet for a drink. The water was icy cold – it must have come from a spring deep underground – and went straight to my stomach. On the way back I felt the beginnings of a chill; and by early evening was shivering uncontrollably. Octavian, uncharacteristically, noticed at once.
'What's wrong with you, Publius? Spot of tummy trouble, eh?'
'Just a slight chill, Augustus,' I said (my teeth were chattering). 'I'll be fine in the morning.'
'Better have Musa take a look at you.' He beckoned a slave over. 'He'll fix you up in no time.'
Musa was a Greek, and one of Octavian's most trusted attendants. He had, by a process of his own involving cold baths and compresses, saved Octavian's life a few years previously. Octavian never travelled without him.
'I'm perfectly all right,' I said. 'I only need a good night's sleep.'
'Nonsense!' Octavian smiled, showing his thin teeth. 'We've got to look after you, Virgil. Anyway, the ship's ready, and we sail tomorrow. Don't want you to die on us before Brindisi, do we?'
I shivered; and it had nothing to do with my chill. I knew then that he had marked me for death.
60.
So what is it, then? The poison Musa is giving me? Belladonna, probably; deadly nightshade, Proserpina's flower. That would, I think, produce the desired symptoms. I may ask him directly – Musa – the next time he comes to give me my 'medicine'. Or perhaps I should ask Octavian himself. It cannot matter now, and I would be interested to see his reaction. If any.
I must be grateful, I suppose, that I have been lucid enough to write. Either Octavian is in no hurry (for all his claims to be urgently needed at Rome, we are dawdling on this voyage) or he is afraid to make the manner of my death too obvious. I suspect the latter.
Why, then, do I not kill myself, you may ask? Cheat Octavian of the fruits of his final hypocrisy – final, at least, as far as I am concerned – in the knowledge that when we reach Italy he will have the embarrassment of unshipping not a living poet but a cold corpse? Or better still throw myself into the sea and leave him with no poet at all to show, living or otherwise? That last, certainly, would be to apply poetic justice to myself with a vengeance – my brother Marcus's vengeance. Oh, yes, I have seen him, these last few nights, with the weed in his hair and his half-gnawed face turned towards me in the light of the cabin lamps. He at least would welcome a death by water, and I would not grudge him it.
The truth is, I do not care any more. To inflict death on myself despite Octavian would be, at best, a small victory, not to say a mean one, like a child who, if he cannot have his way, refuses to eat his dinner although he is hungry. I have no interest in small victories. Compared with the book which you now hold between your palms (if indeed you do hold it), such victories are meaningless.
Besides, even if I wanted to kill myself now this task of mine is done, how could I do it? Not by will-power alone, and I have no other means. I have no dagger like Proculus, or, like Gallus, a razor to slit my wrists; let alone a snake, like the Egyptian queen, to make me immortal with its venom. The cabin door is locked; and if it were not I would be stopped before I reached the thwarts. Epicurus may hold that a man tired of life may choose to leave it like a spectator whom the play has ceased to please; but Epicurus did not have a prisoner in mind. No, let Death come when he comes. At least he will come in his gentlest guise, as he did at Odysseus's ending, or at my father's. And who can ask for more than a gentle death? Not I, certainly: it is more than I deserve.
I have asked, of course, for the manuscript of the Aeneid, so that I can burn it (it disappeared with the rest of my baggage when I docked at Piraeus). Equally of course, the request has been ignored. Never mind. Octavian will find that excisions are not possible without damaging the poem irreparably, and he dare not allow that. He must publish and be damned; or, if not damned, at least slightly singed.
I have only one fear remaining, for, as I have said, I do not fear death: that you, my reader, (if indeed you exist!) are still blinded by the glamour of the Augustan myth. If so, then I have failed, finally and for ever. Octavian may bring in the Golden Age after all (and I pray that he does!), or he may be leading us down yet another of history's blind, blood- spattered alleyways. I do not know, but it makes no difference: he is a great man, and he is great because he is flawed, not because he is perfect. Understand that, and you will understand my poem.
One last thing, before I set this pen down forever. ‘Ah,’ I hear you say, ‘Poor Virgil! Perhaps he was not himself when he wrote this book. He was suffering, by his own admission, from fever. Perhaps the whole work is a product of delirium, of madness, even. Surely he would never have betrayed Augustus so? Surely his Aeneid is what we always thought it was: a hymn to the glory of the Augustan dream?’ In answer, I can only ask you to look at the ending of the last book: the manner of Turnus's death, and my description of it. The Homeric echoes, of course, are deliberate. My Aeneas (who is Octavian), shorn of all the training he has undergone, kills like the flawed Homeric hero he has always been – only, in true Octavian fashion, with the pious, deluding (self-deluding?) words of exculpation on his lips: shifting the blame for Turnus's death onto the nebulous abstract of Duty. Then consider in all its details the legend of the Danaids, that I say was shown on Pallas's belt. The legend mirrors, in its Alexandrian way, Octavian's proper self – he is Danaus – and his relationship with Antony- Aegyptus. It is all there; all I have been saying is there, summed up in miniature, and quite unambiguous if you look closely enough with a necessarily-biased eye. Finally, with that thread's end in your hand, retrace your steps through the whole work, roll the thread into a ball, and see where it leads you.
Quietly now, Virgil. Quietly. Comedy or tragedy, your play is acted out. Bow to your audience, and leave the stage.
I think I will sleep now.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
It’s twenty years since Virgil (the ‘I’ in the title was my original publisher’s doing, not mine) was published; twenty-five since the book was actually written. The original Author’s Note (moved by Hodder, for some reason, to the beginning of the story) was a straightforward summary of the ‘real’ Virgil’s life and poetry; here, I thought it might be better to replace it with a short explanation of how (and why) the book came to be written, plus (ouch!) a much longer mini-essay, Myth, History, and the Belt of Pallas. I wrote this at the time purely for fun (if that’s the right word), without any intention of trying to get it published: as a non-professional-academic, I wouldn’t have dared. However, since it focuses on and expands the proposition which lies at the book’s heart– that Virgil’s Aeneid is not quite the fan letter to the Augustan principate which it appears to be on the surface – I thought that it might be of some interest, both to Latinist readers and to those, like myself, who enjoy a good conspiracy theory. Please do have a look at it, even if you don’t wade through the whole thing: I’ve tried to make it as accessible as possible by putting the translations of the relevant lines quoted in the main body of the text, while giving the original Latin as footnotes so that Latinist readers can check that I haven’t pulled any fast ones. I need hardly say that any feedback via the website would be very welcome.
Virgil really started in the early 1970s, when I was a student of Classics at Edinburgh Uni and one of the essays we were set was on the character of Aeneas’s principal opponent, Turnus.
The Aeneid is a programme poem; in other words, it has a deliberate political purpose. Virgil’s Aeneas begins his career during the fall of Troy as a typical Homeric hero, with all that hero’s virtues: he is brave, fearless, a skilful fighter, very aware of his own honour and what is due to it, and what, as a hero, his obligations are. Together with the virtues, however, come the corresponding flaws: he is driven solely by his emotions, particularly a love of violence; he is dominated by self-interest; and he rarely stops to think about what he is doing, or to question the rightness of his own actions. It is only when Virgil brings him, literally, to a shuddering halt atop a high tower, watching, powerless, the butchering of King Priam beneath, that he realises that Homeric-hero values are insufficient and lead only to a dead and bloody end. To Virgil’s listeners/readers, the parallels with the lead-up to the civil wars would have been obvious.
The rest of the poem traces Aeneas’s evolution from Homeric to Augustan hero. When he arrives in Italy and faces Turnus – who has all the Homeric hero qualities and flaws – he does so as a mature soul, guided by altruism, a sense of duty, and an awareness of what is right, in divine terms...
So why, then, right at the end – Aeneas’s victory over, and killing of, Turnus – should Virgil take him right back to his Homeric hero beginnings? Which is undeniably what he does (see the relevant passage below). It had, I thought when I wrote the essay, and still do now, to be deliberate: Virgil is far too good a poet for things to be otherwise. In effect, in the final thirteen lines, he had consciously undone the work of the whole preceding twelve books.
The puzzle obsessed me for years. Virgil, eventually, was the result.
I hope you enjoyed it.
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Myth, History, and the Belt of Pallas
The duel is over, and the defeated Turnus begs for his life on the grounds of a pietas that is common to both Homeric and Augustan values. Clearly, Virgil cannot allow him to live, either in his own person as Aeneas’s opponent or as his metaphor for Antony and the forces opposed to the future Augustus. He can, however, choose how the killing is done:
Aeneas’s gaze wavered, and he lowered his arm. With Turnus’s words, his doubts were growing, and they might well have deflected him from his purpose had he not spied, slung from the man’s shoulder, its familiar studs glittering, the luckless sword-belt of the young Pallas, whom Turnus had wounded and laid low in defeat. This fatal trophy Turnus now wore across his shoulder. Aeneas’s eyes drank in the sight of this piece of spoil, this reminder of his own savage grief. A blaze of fury caught him and, terrible in his anger, he addressed his fallen foe: ‘Are you to escape me, then, you who are decked with spoils taken from my folk? Pallas it is who strikes this blow. It is Pallas who makes sacrifice of you and extracts the blood-price for your wicked crime!’ So saying, and boiling with rage, he buried his sword in Turnus’s breast; and his enemy’s limbs were loosed in chill death, and his spirit passed from him with a groan and fled moaning and resentful to the shades beneath. (Aeneid XII, 939-952. The translation is mine, and the Latin text is given in Footnote (1). The last two lines are taken directly from Homer).
I find three features of this very interesting: the negative furor (‘blazing, mindless fury’)-imagery applied to Aeneas at this, his supreme moment (in both senses of the phrase) in the poem, which takes him all the way back to the flawed, pre-enlightened, emotion-driven state of Turnus/Antony and his like from which his experiences since escaping from Troy have weaned him; the part played by the Belt; and Aeneas’s disclaimer of personal responsibility for his enemy’s death. Although all of these are, I believe, very closely linked, here I am concerned only with the second.
