In the theory of poetic art there is in many respects a marked difference between the classical ideals of the Roman group and the rather luxurious verses of Philodemus, but he too recognized the value of restraint and simplicity, as some of his epigrams show.  Furthermore his theories of literary art are frequently in accord with Horace’s Ars Poetica on the very points of chaste diction and precise expression which this Augustan group emphasized.  It would not surprise his contemporaries if Horace restated maxims of Philodemus when writing an essay to the son and grandsons of Philodemus’ patron.  However, after all is said, Vergil had questioned some of the Alexandrian ideals of art before he came under the influence of Philodemus, and the seventh Catalepton gives a hint that Varius thought as Vergil.  It is not unlikely that Quintilius Varus, Vergil’s elder friend and fellow-Transpadane, who had grown up an intimate friend of Catullus and Calvus, had in these matters a stronger influence than Philodemus.

There are, however, certain turns of sentiment in Vergil which betray a non-Roman flavor to one who comes to Vergil directly from a reading of Lucretius, Catullus, or Cicero’s letters.  This is especially true of the Oriental proskynesis found in the very first Eclogue and developed into complete “emperor worship” in the dedication of the Georgics.  This language, here for the first time used by a Roman poet, is not to be explained as simple gratitude for great favors.  It is not even satisfactorily accounted for by supposing that the young poet was somewhat slavishly following some Hellenistic model.  Catullus had paraphrased the Alexandrian poets, but he could hardly have inserted a passage of this import.  Nor was it mere flattery, for Vergil has shown in his frank praise of Cato, Brutus, and Pompey that he does not merely write at command.  No, these passages in Vergil show the effects of the long years of association with Greeks and Orientals that had steeped his mind in expressions and sentiments which now seemed natural to him, though they must have surprised many a reader at Rome.  His teachers at Naples had grown up in Syria and had furthermore carried with them the tradition of the Syrian branch of the school that had learned to adapt its language to suit the whims of the deified Seleucid monarchs.  As Epicureans they also employed sacred names with little reverence.  Was not Antiochus Epiphanes himself a “god,” while as a member of the sect he belittled divinity?

Naples, too, was a Greek city always filled with Oriental trading folk, and these carried with them the language of subject races.  It is at Pompeii that the earliest inscriptions on Italian soil have been found which recognize the imperial cult, and it is at Cumae that the best instance of a cult calendar has come to light.  It is a note, one of the very few in the great poet’s work, that grates upon us, but when he wrote as he did he was probably not aware that his years of residence in the “garden” had indeed accustomed his ear to some un-Roman sounds.[6] Octavian was of course not unaware of the advantage that accrued to the ruler through the Oriental theory of absolutism, and furtively accepted all such expressions.  By the time Vergil wrote the Aeneid the Roman world had acquiesced, but then, to our surprise, Vergil ceases to accord divine attributes to Augustus.