The eighth Eclogue claims to have been written at the invitation of Pollio, who had apparently learned thus early that Vergil was a poet worth encouraging.  That the poem has nothing to do with the confiscations, in so far at least as we are able to understand the historical situation, has been suggested above.  It is usually dated in the year of Pollio’s Albanian campaign in 39, that is a year after his consulship.  Should it not rather be placed two years earlier when Pollio had given up the Cisalpine province and withdrawn to the upper Adriatic coast preparatory to proceeding on Antony’s orders against the Illyrian rebels?  In the spring of 41 Pollio camped near the Timavus, mentioned in line 6; two years later the natural route for him to take from Rome would be via Brundisium and Dyrrhachium.[1] The point is of little interest except in so far as the date of the poem aids us in tracing Pollio’s influence upon the poet, and in arranging the Eclogues in their chronological sequence.

[Footnote 1:  Antony’s province did not extend beyond Scodra; the roads down the Illyrian mountain from Trieste were not easy for an army to travel; if the Eclogues were composed in three years (Donatus) the year 39 is too late.  Finally, Vellius, II, 76.2, makes it plain that in 41 Pollio remained in Venetia contrary to orders.  He had apparently been ordered to proceed into Illyria at that time.]

Finally, we have the famous “Messianic” Eclogue, the fourth, which was addressed to Pollio during his consulship.  By its fortuitous resemblance to the prophetic literature of the Bible, it came at one time to be the best known poem in Latin, and elevated its author to the position of an arch-magician in the medieval world.  Indeed, this poem was largely influential in saving the rest of Vergil’s works from the oblivion to which the dark ages consigned at least nine-tenths of Latin literature.

The poem was written soon after the peace of Brundisium—­in the consummation of which Pollio had had a large share—­when all of Italy was exulting in its escape from another impending civil war.  Its immediate purpose was to give adequate expression to this joy and hope at once in an abiding record that the Romans and the rulers of Rome might read and not forget.  Its form seems to have been conditioned largely by a strange allegorical poem written just before the peace by a still unknown poet.  The poet was Horace, who in the sixteenth epode had candidly expressed the fears of Roman republicans for Rome’s capacity to survive.  Horace had boldly asked the question whether after all it was not the duty of those who still loved liberty to abandon the land of endless warfare, and found a new home in the far west—­a land which still preserved the simple virtues of the “Golden Age.”  Vergil’s enthusiasm for the new peace expresses itself as an answer to Horace:[2] the “Golden Age” need not be sought for elsewhere; in the new era of peace now inaugurated