The eager
offering of flowers and a many-hued statue of Cupid reminds one rather of
the youth who in the _Ciris_ begged for inspiration with hands full of
lilies and hyacinths.
However, we are not entirely left to conjecture. There is indubitable
evidence that Vergil began an epic at this time, some fifteen years
before he published the _Georgics_. It seems clear also that the epic was
an _Aeneid_, with Julius Caesar in the background, and that parts of the
early epic were finally merged into the great work of his maturity. The
question is of such importance to the study of Vergil's developing art
that we may be justified in going fully into the evidence[3]. As it
happens we are fortunate in having several references to this early
effort. The ninth _Catalepton_, written in 42, mentions the poet's
ambition to write a national poem worthy of a place among the great
classics of Greece (l.62):
Si patrio Graios carmine adire sales.
The sixth _Eclogue_ begins with an allusion to it:
Prima Syracusio dignata est ludere versu
Nostra, nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia.
Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem
Vellit et admonuit, pastorem Tityre pinguis
Pascere oportet oves, deductum dicere carmen.
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