Future of Rome

In the famous lines of Book VI of Aeneid, the spirit of Anchises shows to his son the future of Rome:

"Romans, these are your arts: to bear dominion over the nations, to impose peace, to spare the conquered and subdue the proud."

In 23 Virgil read the second and the fourth books to Augustus personally - the emperor had complained a few years earlier that he had not seen any of the text. When Augustus was returning from Samos after the winter of 20, he met the poet in Athens. Virgil accompanied the emperor to Megara and then to Italy. "Fortune assists the bold," Virgil once said. However, the journey turned out to be fatal and Virgil died of a fever contracted on his visit to Greece. He had instructed his executor Varius to destroy the manuscript of The Aeneid, but Augustus ordered Varius to ignore this request, and the poem was published.

Virgil was buried near Naples but there are doubts that the so-called Tomb of Virgil in the area is authentic. However, it soon became a place of pilgrimage.


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Shepherds and Golden Age

The Eclogues are a series of ten poems that Virgil wrote circa 40 BC.

The majority of these poems deal with shepherds and their various concerns. The fourth Eclogue is decidedly different in this respect. In the poem Virgil makes several statements about a child destined to bring a Golden Age and free the world from fear. Early Christian scholars (such as Saint Augustine) read this poem and concluded that this child that Virgil spoke of had to be the Messiah: Jesus Christ.

Later writers, such as the Italian poet Dante, would also interpret this poem to be a prophecy regarding the Christ.

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Predicted Golden age according to Virgil

In his fourth eclogue, the way Virgil treats the linear motion, or flow, of time further suggests the inevitabilityof the predicted Golden Age.

In particular, the shifts between present and future tenses of verbs create this impression. The birth of the Child under Virgo is announced in present tense:

“iam noua progenies caelo demittitur alto”.

The effects of the new age are foretold in the future tense: “occident et serpens,” and “omnis feret omnia tellus”. However, the Golden Age is not merely in the future: “Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas”. The prophetic poem leaves no question about the approach of the new age; there are no pre-requisite conditions.

The age is both here now and will inevitably continue to fully materialize in the future.

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