By the end of this lesson, you will understand Virgil's biography and position in Augustan Rome, recognise the nature of patronage, and appreciate the complex relationship between poet and emperor.
The OCR specification explicitly requires understanding of "Virgil's relationship to Augustus." This is a key exam topic: you must be able to discuss how this relationship shapes the poem and how scholars have interpreted it differently.
Publius Vergilius Maro was born in 70 BC near Mantua in northern Italy—technically Gallia Cisalpina, not yet fully Roman. His family had some property but were not aristocratic. He was educated in Cremona, Milan, and Rome, studying rhetoric and philosophy.
Virgil's first major work, pastoral poems influenced by Theocritus. Eclogue 1 thanks a "young god" (probably Octavian) for saving the poet's farm from confiscation after Philippi. This begins Virgil's connection to the future Augustus.
A poem on farming, dedicated to Maecenas. It celebrates Italian agriculture, rural virtues, and the blessing of peace. The famous ending thanks Augustus for giving leisure for poetry while he "thunders in war by the Euphrates." The poem established Virgil as Rome's leading poet.
Virgil spent his last decade on the Aeneid, travelling to Greece to research sites. He died in 19 BC at Brundisium, returning from Greece, reportedly asking that the unfinished poem be burned. Augustus overruled this request and had the poem published.
Gaius Maecenas was Augustus's friend and cultural minister. He gathered poets—Virgil, Horace, Propertius, Varius—into his circle, providing financial support and social access. His name became proverbial for literary patronage.
Patronage provided poets with resources to write (Virgil had a house in Rome and estates). In return, patrons expected work that served their interests. This was not crude censorship but cultural guidance: certain themes were encouraged.
Augustus took direct interest in the Aeneid. He wrote to Virgil asking for drafts. Virgil refused to send complete books but eventually recited Books 2, 4, and 6 to Augustus and his family. The emperor wanted this epic—but that doesn't mean he controlled its meaning.
The question is: how much freedom did Virgil have? Probably more than pure propaganda would allow. Augustus wanted great poetry, not mere flattery. Great poetry has complexity, ambiguity, depth. Virgil could serve the regime while maintaining artistic integrity—if we assume he wanted to.
Augustus wanted a Roman national epic. The Aeneid provides it: Rome's origins, divine mission, Julian ancestry. But Virgil chose his subject and approach. He made Aeneas (not Romulus or Augustus directly) the hero—enabling complexity that a direct Augustus-epic would not allow.
Virgil researched meticulously: consulting sources on Italian antiquities, Greek geography, religious ritual. He composed slowly, reportedly writing in the morning and revising all day, comparing himself to a bear licking cubs into shape.
Virgil's reported request to burn the poem is mysterious. Was it unfinished (some lines are incomplete)? Did he consider it flawed? Or did he have deeper doubts about its message? We cannot know—but the request invites speculation about the poet's final view of his work.
Augustus's preservation of the poem served his interests: the Aeneid became Rome's founding epic, taught in schools, quoted for centuries. But he preserved it complete, including passages that complicate triumphalist readings. Perhaps he understood that great literature serves through complexity.