this same motive of celestial adoration in honor of Cynthia (II. 3, 25), but surely Messalla’s herois was, to judge from Vergil’s comparison, a person of far higher station than Cynthia.  Could she have been the lady he married upon his return from Athens?  Such a treatment of a woman of social station would be in line with the customs of the “new poets,” Catullus, Calvus, and Ticidas, rather than of the Augustans, Gallus, Propertius, and Tibullus.  Vergil himself used the motive in the second Eclogue (l. 46), a reminiscence which, doubtless with many others that we are unable to trace, Messalla must have recognized as his own.

The pastoral which Vergil had translated from Messalla is quite fully described: 

  Molliter hic viridi patulae sub tegmine quercus
    Moeris pastores et Meliboeus erant,
  Dulcia jactantes alterno carmina versu
    Qualia Trinacriae doctus amat iuvenis.

That is, of course, the very beginning of his own Eclogues.  When he published them he placed at the very beginning the well-known line that recalled Messalla’s own line: 

  Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi.

What can this mean but a graceful reminder to Messalla that it was he who had inspired the new effort?[3]

[Footnote 3:  Roman writers frequently observed the graceful custom of acknowledging their source of inspiration by weaving in a recognizable phrase or line from the master into the very first sentence of a new work:  cf. Arma virumque cano—­[Greek:  Andra moi ennepe] (Lundstroem, Eranos, 1915, p. 4).  Shelley responding to the same impulse paraphrased Bion’s opening lines in “I weep for Adonais—­he is dead.”]

We may conclude then that Vergil’s use of that line as the title of his Eclogues is a recognition of Messalla’s influence.  Conversely it is proof, if proof were needed, that the ninth Catalepton is Vergil’s.  We may then interpret line thirteen of the ninth Catalepton:

  pauca tua in nostras venerunt carmina chartas,

as a statement that in the autumn of 42, Vergil had already written some of his Eclogues, and that these early ones—­presumably at least numbers II, III, and VII—­contain suggestions from Messalla.

There was, of course, no triumph, and Vergil’s eulogy was never sent, indeed it probably never was entirely completed.[4] Messalla quickly made his peace with the triumvirs, and, preferring not to return to Rome in disgrace, cast his lot with Antony who remained in the East.  Vergil, who thoroughly disliked Antony, must then have felt that for the present, at least, a barrier had been raised between him and Messalla.  Accordingly the Ciris also was abandoned and presently pillaged for other uses.

[Footnote 4:  It ought, therefore, not to be used seriously in discussions of Vergil’s technique.]