The compensation to the reader lies not so much in episodical myths, descriptions, and the story at the end, apologetically inserted on Lucretius’ theory of sweetened medicine, as rather in the poet’s contagious enthusiasm for his science, the thrill of discovery and the sense of wonder (1. 251): 

  Divina est animi ac jucunda voluptas!

Men have wasted hours enough on trivialities (258): 

  Torquemur miseri in parvis, terimurque labore.

A worthier occupation is science (274): 

  Implendus sibi quisque bonis est artibus:  illae
  Sunt animi fruges, haec rerum est optima merces.

And science must be worthy of man’s divine majesty (224): 

  Non oculis solum pecudum miranda tueri
  More nec effusis in humum grave pascere corpus;
  Nosse fidem rerum dubiasque exquirere causas,
  Ingenium sacrare caputque attollere caelo,
  Scire quot et quae sint magno fatalia mundo
  Principia.

This may be prose, but it has not a little of the magnificence of the Lucretian logic.  The man who wrote this was at least a spiritual kinsman of Vergil.

VI

EPIGRAM AND EPIC

The years of Vergil’s sojourn in Naples were perhaps the most eventful in Rome’s long history, and we may be sure that nothing but a frail constitution could have saved a man of his age for study through those years.  After the battle of Pharsalia in 48, Caesar, aside from the lotus-months in Egypt, pacified the Eastern provinces, then in 46 subdued the senatorial remnants in Africa, driving Cato to his death, and in September of that year celebrated his fourfold triumph with a magnificence hitherto undreamed.  All Italy went to see the spectacle, and doubtless Vergil too; for here it was, if we mistake not, that he first resolved to write an epic of Rome.  The year 45 saw the defeat of the Pompeian remnants in Spain, and the first preparations for the great Parthian expedition which, as all knew, was to inaugurate the new Monarchy.  Then came the sudden blow that struck Caesar down, the civil war that elevated Antony and Octavian and brought Cicero to his death, and finally the victory at Philippi which ended all hope of a republic.  Through all this turmoil the philosophic group of the “Garden” continued its pursuit of science, commenting, as we shall see, upon passing events.

The Aetna—­which seems to date from about 47-6—­reveals the young philosopher, if it is Vergil, in a serious mood of single-minded devotion to his new pursuit.  But as may be inferred from the fifth Catalepton he was not sure of not backsliding.  To the influence of Catullus, plainly visible all through these brief poems, there was added the example of Philodemus who wrote epigrams from time to time.  Several of the Catalepton may belong to this period.  The very first,[1] addressed to Vergil’s lifelong friend Plotius Tucca, is an amusing trifle in the very vein of Philodemus.  The fourth, like the first in elegiacs, is a gracious tribute to a departing friend, Musa, perhaps his fellow-townsman Octavius Musa.[2] It closes with a generous expression of unquestioning friendship that asks for no return: