by Octavian the Virgin Justice shall return to Italy and the Golden Age shall come to this generation on Italian soil.  Vergil, however, introduces a new “messianic” element into the symbolism of his poem, for he measures the progress of the new era by the stages in the growth of a child who is destined finally to bring the prophecy to fulfillment.  This happy idea may well have been suggested by table talks with Philodemus or Siro, who must at times have recalled stories of savior-princes that they had heard in their youth in the East.  The oppressed Orient was full of prophetic utterances promising the return of independence and prosperity under the leadership of some long-hoped-for worthy prince of the tediously unworthy reigning dynasties.  Indeed, since Philodemus grew to boyhood at Gadara under Jewish rule he could hardly have escaped the knowledge of the very definite Messianic hopes of the Hebrew people.  It may well be, therefore, that a stray image whose ultimate source was none other than Isaiah came in this indirect fashion into Vergil’s poem, and that the monks of the dark ages guessed better than they knew.

[Footnote 2:  Sellar, Horace and the Elegiac Poets, p. 123.  Ramsay, quoted by W. Warde Fowler, Vergil’s Messianic Eclogue, p, 54.]

To attempt to identify Vergil’s child with a definite person would be a futile effort to analyze poetic allegory.  Contemporary readers doubtless supposed that since the Republic was dead, the successor to power after the death of Octavius and Antony would naturally be a son of one of these.

The settlements of the year were sealed by two marriages, that of Octavian to Scribonia and that of Octavian’s sister to Antony.  It was enough that some prince worthy of leadership could naturally be expected from these dynastic marriages, and that in either case it would be a child of Octavian’s house.[3] Thus far his readers might let their imagination range; what actually happened afterwards through a series of evil fortunes has, of course, nothing to do with the question.  Pollio is obviously addressed as the consul whose year marked the peace which all the world hoped and prayed would be lasting.

[Footnote 3:  See Class.  Phil.  XI, 334.]

We have now reviewed the circumstances which called forth the Eclogues.  They seem, as Donatus says, to have been written within a period of three years.  The second, third, seventh and sixth apparently fall within the year 42, the tenth, fifth, eighth, ninth and first in the year 41, while the Pollio certainly belongs to the year 40, when Vergil became thirty years of age.  The writing of these poems had called the poet more and more away from philosophy and brought him into closer touch with the sufferings and experiences of his own people.  He had found a theme after his own heart, and with the theme had come a style and expression that fitted his genius.  He abandoned Hellenistic conceits with their prettiness of sentiment, attained an easy modulation of line readily responding to a variety of emotions, learned the dignity of his own language as he acquired a deeper sympathy for the sufferings of his own people.  There is a new note, as there is a new rhythm in: