“Such deeds are too great for my song.  I shall be satisfied if I can but praise your verses.”

The most significant passage is the implied comparison of Valerius Messalla with the founder of the Valerian family who had aided the first Brutus in establishing the republic as he now was aiding the last Brutus in restoring it.  The comparison is the more startling because our Messalla later explicitly rejected all connection with the first Valerius and seems never to have used the cognomen Publicola.  The explanation of Vergil’s passage is obvious.[2] The poet hearing of Messalla’s remarkable exploit at Philippi saw at once that his association with Brutus would remind every Roman of the events of 509 B.C., and that the populace would as a matter of course acclaim the young hero by the ancient cognomen “Publicola.”  Later, after his defeat and submission, Messalla had of course to suppress every indication that might connect him with “tyrannicide” stock or faction.  The poem, therefore, must have been written before Messalla’s surrender in 42 B.C.

[Footnote 2:  The argument is given in full in Classical Philology, 1920, p. 36.]

The poet’s silences and hesitation in touching upon this subject of civil war are significant of his mood.  The principals of the triumph receive not a word:  his friend is the “glory” of a triumph led by men whose names are apparently not pleasant memories.  Nor is there any exultation over a presumed defeat of “tyrants” and a restoration of a “republic.”  The exploit of Messalla that Vergil especially stresses is the defeat of “barbarians,” naturally the subjection of the Thracian and Pontic tribes and of the Oriental provinces earlier in the year.  And the assumption is made (1. 51 ff.) that Messalla has, as a recognition of his generalship, been chosen to complete the war in Africa, Spain, and Britain.  Most significant of all is Vergil’s blunt confession that his mind is not wholly at ease concerning the theme (II. 9-12):  “I am indeed strangely at a loss for words, for I will confess that what has impelled me to write ought rather to have deterred me.”  Could he have been more explicit in explaining that Messalla’s exploits, for which he has friendly praise, were performed in a cause of which his heart did not approve?  And does not this explain why he gives so much space to Messalla’s verses, and why he so quickly passes over the victory of Philippi with an assertion of his incapacity for doing it justice?

To the biographer, however, the passage praising Messalla’s Greek pastorals is the most interesting for it reveals clearly how Vergil came to make the momentous decision of writing pastorals.  Since Messalla’s verses were in Greek they had, of course, been written two years before this while he was a student at Athens.  Would that we knew this heroine upon whom he represents the divinities as bestowing gifts!  Propertius, who acknowledged Mesalla as his patron later employed