1. On the pessimism of the Eclogues see my ‘A Reading of Virgil’s Eclogues’ in Boyle, A. J. (ed.), Ancient Pastoral: Ramus Essays on Greek and Roman Pastoral Poetry (Berwick, Victoria, 1975), 105–21Google Scholar.

2. Detailed analysis and presentation of the Georgics’ thematic movement and its predominant pessimism will appear in my forthcoming book on Virgil. All that is possible here is the briefest sketch of what I shall document and enlarge upon later. My concern in this essay is primarily with the interpretation of the poem’s politico-historical frame and its relationship to the poem proper. The translations in this essay are my own.

3. Throughout the first half of Georgic 1 husbandry is seen in terms of militaristic behaviour: discipline and training (99, 210, 220, 268), being at one’s post (99), launching attacks (104f., 155), leading troops (106, 269), leading enemies away in triumph (114), subjugation (125), conquest (145), control (157), defence (270), ambush (271), putting to the torch (271). For instances of military imagery in other books see especially 2.279–83, 369f., 407; 3.11, 46, 220ff., 346–48; 4.4f., 67ff., 107f., 165ff., 217f., 313f.

4. As the famous proclamation at 1.145f. declares, labor is essentially improbus (‘unremitting, ‘relentless’). And even Wilkinson, L. P., The Georgics of Virgil: A Critical Survey (Cambridge 1969Google Scholar), who argues that Virgil’s overall attitude to labor and to man’s existential context is providential, agrees that improbus ‘is an epithet which is always pejorative’ (p. 141). Wilkinson’s further contention that the word merely ‘represents what the individual Boiler would say about his work at the time’, i.e. that improbus has no objective force, not only ignores the climactic force of lines 145f., and their relationship to the initial premiss of the colendi hand facilis uia (‘uneasy path of husbandry’, 1.12If.), but would force upon the reader a similarly relativistic thesis of duris in rebus (‘in hard circumstances’, 1.146) which would be clearly absurd. The emphasis in Georgic 1 on the difficulties, frustrations and unremitting nature of man’s toil – its objectively unremitting nature – undermines the Wilkinson interpretation. On improbus see also Henry, J., Aeneidea (London and Dublin 1873-79), II 175Google Scholar; Altevogt, H., Labor Improbus: Eine Vergilstudie (Münster 1952Google Scholar); and Otis, B., Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford 1964), 157 n. 1Google Scholar. Significantly perhaps Wilkinson in his earlier study, ‘The Intention of Virgil’s Georgics’, G&R 19 (1950), 19–28Google Scholar, took improbus in a good sense. Interesting remarks on Virgil’s alleged ‘providential’ outlook are contained in La Penna, A., ‘Esiodo nella Cultura e nella Poesia di Virgilio’, Fondation Hardt Entretiens 7 (1960), 238fGoogle Scholar. – ‘Se si guarda attentamente, la giustificatione prowidenziale in Virgilio o non c’è o è molto debole’, p. 238 – and the ensuing discussion, pp. 258–61.

5. Useful comments on the pessimistic import of Book 1 can be found in B. Otis’ excellent review of Wilkinson (The Georgics of Virgil – n.4 above), Phoenix 26 (1972), 50–52Google Scholar.

6. The notion of labor as a generative ingredient of the second georgic’s climactic vision of rural life is cardinal. The Saturnian golden age referred to in the book’s finale (2.536–40) – with which this vision is linked – is not, as Wilkinson (The Georgics of Virgil – n.4 above, I44f.) claims, one of ‘soft primitivism’. This would not be in keeping with the labor motif of 2.513ff., with the attribution of hardiness to the rustics (corpora praedura, 2.531; cf. 2.472), or with the role of Saturn in Georgic 2 as the Italian god of agriculture, credited at 2.406 with the introduction of the falx or pruning-knife (on Saturn as agricultural god see Macrobius, Sat. 1.7.19–26, and Dion.Hal., Ant. Rom. 1.38). Virgil’s vision at the end of Georgic 2 seems in fact to owe much to Araitus, who saw ploughing as a constitutive feature of the golden age (Phaen. 112), and who seems clearly to have influenced Virgil elsewhere in this finale. Otis (n.4 above), 169, observes the thematic importance of the finale – ‘It sums up … the morality of Book II’ – but seems to ignore the significance of the labor motif in the finale’s rural vision. Other influences on the second georgic’s finale include, of course, Lucretius, whose descriptive contrast (DRN.2.23S.) between urban artifice, excess and fear and rural simplicity, ‘naturalness’, sufficiency and joy affected Virgil’s presentation here imagistically, verbally and thematically. It is to be observed that Lucretius’ later depiction of rural joy (DRN.5.1390ff.), which repeats lines from the famous passage in Book 2(DRN.2.29–33 = with a few alterations 5.1392–96), follows immediately upon a description of nature-led and nature-concordant labor (DRN.5.1361–78), productive of ploughland, crops and ‘joyous vineyards’ (uineta laeta, 5.1372), and a world resplendent ‘with varied beauty’ (uario … lepore, 5.1376). The influence on the second georgic’s labor-based rural vision seems manifest.

7. On this passage and its role in posing ‘the Job question’ see Wender, D., ‘Resurrection in the Fourth Georgic’, AJP 90 (1969), 425ffGoogle Scholar.

8. On the bees as model of a human, social ideal see Dahlmann, H., ‘Der Bienen. staat in Vergils Georgica’, Akad. der Wiss. Mainz, Abhand. Geistes und Sozialwiss. Klasse (1954) No. 10, 547–62Google Scholar. The parallels noted by Dahlmann (pp. 555–56) – both verbal and thematic – between the description of the bee community of Georgic 4 and the presentation of rural life at the end of Georgic 2 connect the apian community specifically with the second georgic’s idealising vision.

9. Contrast Otis (n.4 above), 213, for whom the Aristaeus epyllion shows ‘man … at the centre of a vast network of cosmic sympathy and moral law. There is both iustitia and humanitas at the heart of things.’ Otis in fact recants this ‘Augustan moralism’ interpretation in his review of Wilkinson’s book (n.5 above, 56f.).

10. On the Orpheus saga as human paradigm see Segal, C. P., ‘Orpheus and the fourth Georgic: Vergil on Nature and Civilization’, AJP 87 (1966), 311fGoogle Scholar.: ‘Vergil means us to sympathize deeply with Orpheus as we do not with Aristaeus. It is not just that tragedy is more moving than success, but that the sufferings of Orpheus touch upon the greater complexities of the human condition and hence raise deeper questions.’

11. See Boyle (n.l above), 113ff.

12. Paradigm of agricultural toil, Aristaeus, like the farmer in Book 1 (e.g. magna ui, 1.169, uis humana, 1.198), achieves success through the employment of violence on nature. Not to speak of the slaughter of the bulls and heifers, note the emphasis on the necessity to use violence on the nature god, Proteus: ui, 4.398, uim duram, 4.399, ui … multa, 4.450. Contrariwise, Orpheus and Eurydice are victims of violence from nature and man (4.456–59, 511–13, 520–22).

13. On Hesiod as illustration of Virgil’s poetic ideal, viz. didactic efficacy, see Boyle (n.l above), lllf. and – more reoently – ‘Virgil’s Pastoral Echo’, Ramus 6 (1977), 122fGoogle Scholar. In concentrating on Hesiod I do not, of course, wish to minimise the immense influence of Lucretius – both formal and substantive – upon the Georgics, personally acknowledged by Virgil in the finale to Georgic 2 (2A75S.) and apparent to all. Anyone who needs reminding of this has only to read W. Y. Sellar’s long chapter on the subject, The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil (3rd edition, Oxford 1897), 199–260Google Scholar. Virgil, however, clearly intends the Hesiodic allegiance to be of especial importance: hence his description of the poem itself as Ascraeum carmen. The explanation is to be found not only in the formal and substantive influence of Hesiod upon the Georgics but in the role of Hesiod in Virgil’s poetic ideology.

14. Hence A. Parry’s thesis (‘The Idea of Art in Virgil’s Georgics’, Arethusa 5 [1972], 50–52Google Scholar), that to Virgil in the Georgics the function and value of art/song lie in its ability to confer beauty and immortality upon its subject-matter and thus overcome human misery and impotence in the face of the absolute of death, misdirects. Virgil does of course view the nominal immortality arising from song as one of its possible functions (see G.3.46–48, cf. E.6.9ff.), and song’s aesthetic creative power, its ability to give poetic, even beautiful form to reality, including human suffering, as another (cf. E.6.62t.). It is, however, clearly an error to regard these, as Parry does, as constituting Virgil’s ‘idea of art’ in the Georgics or even as constituting its central ingredients. Even apart from the Ascraean claim, the personal section of the finale to Georgic 2 (475–89) confirms Virgil’s primary poetic aspiration as didactic – as does the whole poem’s indebtedness to Lucretian didacticism and fervour.

15. Wilkinson (The Georgics of Virgil – n.4 above), 163f.

16. See Boyle (n.l above), 119 n.20.

17. Note, however, that Antony is not directly mentioned. Octavian’s successes in the east are represented in accordance with his own propaganda as victories over ‘orientals’. Cf. his repulsion of the imbellem Indum (‘war-worthless Indian’, 2.172) at the end of the Laudes haliae. Antony is mentioned in the Actian engravings on the shield of Aeneid 8.

18. It is difficult to read 3.26–31 without seeing a reference (presumably anticipatory) to Octavian’s triple triumph of 29 B.C.: for victories in Illyricum, at Actium, and at Alexandria.

19. The victories over the Morini on the English Channel and the Bastarnae on the Black sea were not actually won by Octavian but accredited to him as now sole imperator.

20. The image of the temple not only figuratively ‘enshrines’ Octavian but seems to allude to two historical temples particularly associated with him and thus suggestive of his divinity/divine favour: the temple to the deified Julius Caesar, Octavian’s own father-god, dedicated by Octavian in 29 B.C., and the temple soon to be dedicated on the Palatine to Apollo, the victory-god of Actium. The material ingredients of Virgil’s poetic temple – marble, doors of gold and ivory – make the reference to the temple of Palatine Apollo (itself of marble, with ivory doors and a ‘golden’ portico) especially compelling.

21. Indeed some proposed that the title, ‘Romulus’, be awarded to Octavian: Suet., Aug. 7; Dio 53.16; Floras 2.34. For the association between Octavian/Augustus and Romulus/Quirinus see also Horace Odes 3.3 and Propertius 4.6.2Iff.

22. Exemplified in the four cardinal virtues commemorated on the golden shield presented to Augustus by the Senate and People of Rome in 28/27 B.C.: uirtus, clementia, iustitia and pietas (Res Gestae 34).

23. Cf. Ennius’ famous self-epitaph uolito uiuus per or a uirum (‘alive I fly across the lips of men’, quoted in Cic, Tusc. 1.34); for Pindar’s chariot of song: O 6.22ff., 9.81, P. 10.65; N. 1.7; I. 2.1f., 5.38, 8.61; fr. 124a. Virgil’s poetic temple seems indebted to Pindar’s visualisation of poetry in terms of architecture and sculpture: O. 6.1ff.; P. 6.5ff., 3.113, 4.81; N. 1.8. See L. P. Wilkinson, ‘Pindar and the Proem to the Third Georgic’, in Wimmel, W. (ed.), Forschimgen zur Römischen Literatw (Wiesbaden 1970), 286–90Google Scholar.

24. Cf. luis (‘you atone’, 4.454) with hmmis (‘we have atoned’, 1.502) – there are no other instances of this word in the Georgics. As Otis (n.4 above), 213, remarks, ‘Aristaeus’ story seems to suggest the sinful self-destruction, atonement and revival of the Roman people’. Otis, however, misses the relevance in this connection of a number of obvious parallels between Aristaeus and Caesar: divine descent (4.315ff., 3.35f.) and association with Apollo (4.323, 3.36 – and see n.20 above); divine aspiration (4.325, 4.562); conquest/success through violence (e.g., 4.398ff,, 450, 3.26ff., 4.560ff.); youth (4.423, 445, 1.500); fame (4.332, 3.46ff.). Importantly both figure in the proem to the Georgia, invoked as deities to assist the poet in his task (1.14f., 24ff.). No allegorical equation between Aristaeus and Caesar is, of course, thereby entailed – just sufficient points of coincidence to suggest (together with the other matters mentioned above) the relevance of the Aristaean saga to more immediate, more historical realities. Interestingly the political import of bugonia seems to be carried over into Aeneid 1, in which Carthage is presented as literally ‘bugonic’ (having originated from the tied strips of a bull’s hide, taurino … tergo, A.1.368) and its people compared to the apian community in the organisation and fervour of their labor (A.1.430–36; cf. G.4.162ff.). See E. W. Leach, ‘Sedes Apibus: From the Qeorgics to the Aeneid’, Vergilius 23 (1977), 2–16, esp. 11. Worth noting also re the connection between Caesar and the Aristaean bugonia is the imagistic link between ‘huge’ apian ‘clouds’ (immensas nubes, 4.557; cf. 4.312) and Caesarian “thunder” (fulminat, 4.561).

25. This, of course, is not to say with Miles, G. B., ‘Georgics 3.209–294: Amor and Civilization’, CSCA 8 (1975), 192Google Scholar, that Virgil is concerned to prepare his audience to ‘accept’ the ‘great social and political disasters of the Late Republic’ and the devastation wrought by amor as ‘a part, however undesirable, of the larger rhythm of things’. ‘Rhythm’ implies harmony and balance, a measured interplay between positive and negative elements of experience. The Georgics asserts no such thing.

26. Attested by Greek authorities (including Nicarader), bugonia was nevertheless treated with less than total credibility by Roman writers. It is mentioned in Varro (R.R.3.16.4) – in a speech by one of the characters of the third book, Appius Claudius – as one of two ways in which bees are born (nascuntur); but after ‘support’ is adduced in the form of two quotations from Archelaus, the second of which maintains also that ‘wasps are generated from horses’, the matter is duly forgotten. Bugonia is conspicuous for its absence from the ensuing discourse on practical beekeeping by Lucius Merula (R.R.3.16.10–38), for whom the actual business of ‘reviving− (reuiuescunt) bees – afflicted by rain or cold – calls for a method more practical and mundane (R.R.3.16.37–38). The other allusion to bugonia in Varro is perhaps even more interesting. At R.R.2.5.5 it is included in a list of (otherwise?) mythological stories associated with the ox (Jupiter changed into the animal; it protected the sons of Neptune; it spoke in Latin). Nor is Columella any more convincing on the subject: at 9.14.6 he mentions the bugonic method only to decline to deal with it (on the grounds that there is never such mortality among bees). For bugonia occasioning scepticism among the ancients, see Perkell, C. G., ‘A Reading of Virgil’s Fourth Georgic’, Phoenix 32 (1978), 211–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for whom ‘The effect of crediting Aristaeus, the culture hero, with this uncertain and ambiguous process of contriving life out of death is … to question, to place in doubt the value or validity of cultural achievements’ (p. 219).

27. ‘A pale compensation’ is Otis’ more recent judgment: n.5 above, 56.

28. Nethercut, W. R., ‘Vergil’s Be Rerum Natura’, Ramus 2 (1973), 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, takes ‘lord of storms’ to be the overt meaning of tempestatum potentem in G.1,27. This seems mistaken. Elsewhere in the Georgics tempestates (pace Nethercut) never means ‘storms’ (see 1.252, 311), and even the singular, tempestas, certainly does not mean ‘storm’ in two of its four occurrences (1.417, 3.479). The conjunction with auctorem frugum (‘author of crops’) and the welcoming reception by the maximus orbis (‘mighty world’, 1.26) seem to settle the matter as to its meaning in context. However, the epilogue’s picture of thundering Caesar does infuse the expression with ambiguity in retrospect and thus in retrospect increase the ambivalence of the first book’s proem. It is true that tempestatum potentem has the sense ‘lord of storms’ at A.1.80 (of Aeolus), but there it is conjoined with nimborum (‘stormclouds’) which elicits that sense.

29. Nethercut (n.28 above), 44 and 50 n.5, sees only the negative side of fulmmat, omitting the thunderbolt’s role as instrument of just suppression (1.281–83).

30. Efferuere does not occur elsewhere in the Georgia (or in Virgil); liquefacta only once elsewhere in the Georgics: 4.36 (of honey).

31. The phrase caesis/os itmencis/os (‘slaughtered bullocks’) does not occur elsewhere in the Georgics; its sole use is in connection with post-Saturniao impiety, Caesarian triumph and bugonic generation. Interestingly it is also used in the Aeneid in association with Caesarian triumph (A.8.719).

32. For these aspects of the Eclogues’ ‘world’, see Boyle (n.l above), esp. 105–07, 110–15.

33. On the ‘echoic Muse’ of the Eclogues and its role in indicating Virgil’s fear that his own poetry may be simply the internal resonance of his own Active world, ‘condemned to triviality by its inability to reach beyond the boundaries of private experience or private vision so as to affect the world of action, events, history’, see Boyle (n.13 above), 121 and passim.

34. For a recent, vigorous and important investigation of ambivalence in the Laudes Italiae see Putnam, M. C. J., ‘Italian Virgil and the Idea of Rome’, Janus: Essays in Ancient and Modern Studies, ed. Orlin, L. L. (Ann Arbor 1975), 171–99Google Scholar. Putnam takes the case for negativity much further than I would, raising what I see as latent paradox to the level – it seems to me – of severe criticism.

35. On indignatum see Putnam (n.34 above), 185–87.

36. ‘Covert irony’ and ‘perhaps’ are important. Putnam (n.34 above), 175, seems to exaggerate and mislead when he says: ‘Virgil reserves his severest irony for the word imbellem. Octavian, the mighty victor, warding off Rome’s enemies from her heights, is expending his efforts on someone who is innately unwarlike’ (my emphasis). lmbellis = 1. ‘war-worthless’, lacking in military prowess and strength (used of women, children, old men: Ovid, Ep. 1.97; Livy 28.23.2); 2. ‘unwarlike’, sometimes pejorative = ‘timid’, sometimes ameliorative = ‘peaceful’ (Sallust, Jug. 20.2). Since the Indians and Parthians were generally recognised to be only too keen to make war (G. 1.509: hinc mouet Euphrates … bellum, ‘Here the Euphrates stirs up war’) and not unproficient at it – the standards lost at Carrhae had yet to be regained –, the sense of ‘innately unwarlike’ cannot be the primary meaning of imbellis here. It seems likely in fact that the word is being used in the senses of ‘war-worthless’ and/or ‘unwarlike = timid’ either to denote the consequences of Octavian’s victories in the east (= ‘shown to be war-worthless’, ‘rendered unwarlike/ timid’ – so Servius ad loc, and note the juxtaposition, uictor in oris / imbellem) or as ‘a mere epithet of national contempt for the vanquished’ (Conington ad loc). However, in a context redolent with ambivalence the possibility of taking imbellem as ‘innately unwarlike’ (perhaps even ‘innately peaceful’) may not be without its function. What would be generated would be covert, latent, not severe irony.

37. So Putnam (n.34 above), 176f.

38. On these and related issues in the Aeneid see my ‘The Meaning of the Aeneid: A Critical Inquiry’, Ramus 1 (1972), 63–90, 113–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.