But there is after all no
legitimate ground for this supposition. The _Aeneid_ has, of course, none
of the scientific fanaticism that mars the _Aetna_, and the poet has
grown mellow and tolerant with years, but that he was still convinced of
the general soundness of the Epicurean hypotheses seems certain. Many
puzzles of the _Aeneid_ are at least best explained by that view. The
repetition of his creed in the first _Aeneid_ ought to warn us that
his enthusiasm for the study of _Rerum natura_ did not die. Indeed the
_Aeneid_ is full of Epicurean phrases and notions. The atoms of fire are
struck out of the flint (VI, 6), the atoms of light are emitted from the
sun (VII, 527, and VIII, 23), early men were born _duro robore_ and lived
like those described in the fifth book of Lucretius (VIII, 320), and
Conington finds almost two hundred reminiscences of Lucretius in the
_Aeneid_, the proportion increasing rather than decreasing in the later
books.[3]
[Footnote 3: Servius, VI, 264, makes the explicit statement: ex majore
parte, Sironem, id est, magistrum Epicureum sequitur.]
It is, however, in the interpretation of the word _fatum_ and the role
played by the gods[4] that the test of Vergil's philosophy is usually
applied.
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