Virgil's Georgics: A New Interpretation

Virgil’s Georgics

Virgil’s Georgies

A New Interpretation

Gary B. Miles

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY «LOS ANGELES · LONDON

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 1980 by The Regents of the University of California

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Miles, Gary B

Virgil’s Georgies.

Bibliography: p.

I. Vergilius, Maro, Publicus. Georgica. L Title.

PA6804.G4M5 871’.01 78-64460

ISBN 0-520-03789-8

for Peggy

Contents 1

Contents 1

Abbreviations and Short Titles

Preface

CHAPTER I The Roman Context

CHAPTER II Georgic 1

Georgic 2

CHAPTER IV Georgic 3

CHAPTER V Georgic 4

A Bibliographical Note

Abbreviations

and Short Titles

Titles of ancient works are abbreviated as in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, with slight modifications. Journals and other frequently cited works are abbreviated as follows:

Preface

Modern criticisms of Virgil’s Georgios have generally proceeded on the basis of two assumptions, whether stated or implied. The first is that, notwithstanding the dramatic addresses to the new Caesar and other prominent references to contemporary social and political conditions, the poem is an exposition or, more recently, an idealization of rustic life. The second is that, despite the shifts of tone, emphasis, and perspective which casual readers and critics alike often find bewildering and disorienting, the various parts of the poem all contribute to the elaboration of a single vision of rustic life—that is, that the poem is coherent only if the separate descriptions of rustic life can all be shown to be consistent with each other, complementary aspects of a single vision. My own approach to the Georgios is different on both counts.

As I argue in my introductory chapter, changing life-styles, the influence of Hellenistic culture, and the disruptions of the Roman civil wars all contributed to the elaboration not of a single myth, but of several quite different myths about rustic life. Rustic life might variously be associated with the origins of Roman civilization and evoked as the source of those austere yet essentially public-spirited virtues by which the governing aristocracy of Rome characterized themselves, or, to the contrary, it might be seen as offering one or another alternative to the chaos of the city and of politics. The countryside seemed to promise the opportunities both for enjoyment of unprecedented luxury and, equally, for the return to a life of simple tastes and simple virtues. By the time of the Georgios representations of rustic life had become a major literary mode of commentary on contemporary events and the larger speculations they provoked about the nature of civilization and the human condition. Therefore, even though Virgil’s primary concerns in the Georgios were political and philosophical, not agricultural, his choice of a treatise on agriculture as a vehicle for communicating them to the new ruler of the civilized world was neither particularly idiosyncratic nor oblique, but rather fully appropriate to the times.

Appreciation of the diverse, often conflicting interpretations of rustic life in contemporary Roman literature provides an insight into the structure of the Georgios. Successive books of the poem may be seen as elaborating and critically examining quite different versions of rustic life, each with its own implications for understanding the nature of civilization and the task of reconstruction that faced the new leader of Rome. Recurrent motifs help to provide a common background against which the distinctive qualities of the different points of view in the poem stand out clearly. Those same recurrent motifs define the irreduceable realities with which all efforts to characterize rustic life or to define the nature of civilization must come to terms. They emerge gradually as the underlying basis for a view of the human condition that cannot be identified with any one description or combination of descriptions of the farmer’s world in the Georgios—a view of the human condition that is only developed directly and fully in the concluding myth of Aristaeus.

Several considerations have prompted me to keep my references to scholarly interpretations of the Georgies to an absolute minimum. My own discussion, although it follows the sequence of the poem, is primarily concerned with what I see as the interplay of different perspectives in the poem and how they effectively comment on one another. Thus, inasmuch as I am concerned with concatenations of passages and their resonances throughout the poem, it has seemed to me that it would be largely superfluous and distracting to become embroiled in controversies about the interpretation of specific passages. My hope is that my readings of individual passages will be confirmed by their consistency with the larger thematic developments of the poem as I elaborate them. I do define the place of my interpretation of the Georgies in relation to previous modern criticism in the final section of my introductory chapter, The Roman Con text. I also include a short bibliographical essay at the end of the book. For the rest, I have attempted to present my interpretation in as straightforward a way as possible.

A second reason for minimizing discussions of contemporary scholarship is that I have tried in organization and style to make my argument broadly accessible. To that end I have not only avoided footnotes where I could, but also have translated all Greek and Latin quotations and have tried to make as explicit as possible all references to the literature, events, or thoughts that defined the context of the Georgies for its Roman audience. My hope and intention was to have something of interest and value to say to specialists in my field, but I have also tried to be intelligible to scholars in related fields, to undergraduates, and to all who may have some interest in Virgil and the intellectual history of classical Rome. Because the greater part of this book is devoted to an interpretation that focuses quite narrowly on the Georgies and because my own arguments tend generally to follow the sequential development of the poem, I have felt that an index would serve little purpose and accordingly have not supplied one.

Since the preparation of this book has extended intermittently over a period of some nine years, it now reflects the generous advice, assistance, and stimulation of several friends and colleagues. Adam Parry, late Professor of Classics at Yale University, introduced me to the Georgies in a course devoted to that poem and subsequently both encouraged and challenged me in my first imperfect efforts to come to terms with the Georgies in my Ph.D. dissertation. It was from him that I learned to think of the poem as a profoundly ambitious work of philosophical speculation; and without his unusual literary sophistication and his sympathy for my determination, more often than not unsuccessful in those years, to develop an approach to the poem that might begin to make sense of its elusive and bewildering shifts of tone and perspective, the interpretation I have since elaborated would have been unthinkable. When I arrived in California, still not satisfied with my efforts to understand the Georgies, conversations with Harry Berger, Jr. and Thomas Vogler, friends and colleagues in Cowell College, University of California, Santa Cruz, stimulated new approaches to the problem. With their encouragement I began to think of the Georgies more as structurally and conceptually analogous with the Eclogues. More recently, my friend John Lynch, also a colleague in Cowell College, commented on the first chapter of the manuscript with a perceptiveness and candor for which I am most grateful. His suggestions not only improved that chapter but were of considerable assistance to me in the revision of subsequent chapters as well. To the editors and readers of the University of California Press I am indebted both for their encouragement and for their constructive criticisms. I have been extremely fortunate in being able to call upon typists of the University of California, Santa Cruz, most notably Charlotte Cassidy, Elaine Dilts, and Phyllis Halpin of the Cowell College Steno Pool, and Judy Burton, manuscript typist for the Division of Social Sciences. Their conscientiousness, good judgment, and impeccable professionalism have been an inspiration and a real cause for pleasure. It is perhaps fitting that I should have to thank at the end of this project the man who introduced me to Greek and Latin and by his excellence as a teacher induced me to become a classicist, Archibald W. Allen. He read the final typescript version with great care and thoughtfulness, saved me from innumerable small embarrassments—as well as a few not so small—and made patient suggestions for the improvement of my style. In light of the very generous assistance I received, it must be clear that whatever errors or shortcomings remain can only be due to the oversights, misjudgments, or obstinacy of the author himself.

I would like also to express my appreciation of the Public Library of Santa Cruz, California, for the attractive and peaceful setting in which I drafted the greater part of this book.

I regret that I did not have the benefit of Michael Putnam’s new book, Virgil’s Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgies (Princeton 1979) before my own book was already at press. However, I am much encouraged to find that we are in basic agreement on the larger design of the poem and in our new readings of severed specific passages, even though our approaches and styles of interpretation are quite different.

Above all I am indebted to my wife Peggy, who has borne with me in the frustrations and has shared with me the joys of this labor. It is as a small token of my gratitude and love that I have dedicated this book to her.

CHAPTER I

The Roman Context

I

We can be quite confident of the kind of audience Virgil had in mind when he composed the Georgies. His Eclogues, written earlier, contain many references to historical personages, so many, in fact, that scholars have been encouraged to regard even some of the fictitious characters of these pastorals as representations of still other historical figures, including the poet himself.1 The Fourth Eclogue is addressed to a consul, Pollio, and to a newborn child whose birth and growth to maturity will usher in a new Golden Age. In addition to being an influential politician, Pollio was a man of letters and an important patron of literature, responsible for the first library and first public recitations of poetry at Rome.2 The identity of the child and his parents is disputed; but if they are, in fact, historical and not symbolic figures, then in the absence of external evidence to the contrary the context suggests that we regard them as social equals of the distinguished statesman to whom the poem is dedicated. The principal figure of the Tenth Eclogue is Gaius Cornelius Gallus. Although not of an aristocratic Roman family, he rose under Octavian to the rank of Eques and after the young Caesar’s defeat of Cleopatra was honored with the prefecture of Egypt, a position of special trust which he held until he fell from favor in 29 B.C. Gallus was also one of the distinguished young poets who were introducing new forms and attitudes into Roman literature under the stimulus of the Hellenistic poetry of Alexandria. Other poets who seem to have shared Gallus’ tastes are also named in the Eclogues, Varius Rufus and Gaius Helvius Cinna in Eclogue 9, for example.3 Virgil’s own poetry reveals clearly that he shared many, if not all, of their aesthetic predilections.4

The Georgies itself offers evidence that, although perhaps less varied than that of the Eclogues, points no less emphatically to the same kind of audience. The poem is dedicated to Maecenas, a dilettante rather than a distinguished poet, but the most important patron of the arts in his age, the center of an important group of poets, friend and confidant of the young Caesar, and a man whose ancestry was aristocratic, no less so for being Etruscan rather than Roman.5 But pride of place in the Georgies is reserved for the young Caesar himself. He is the subject of two extraordinarily enthusiastic invocations, of which one introduces the poem and looks ahead to the young hero’s deification; the other introduces the third Georgie (and, thus, the second half of the poem) and contemplates the prospect of Caesar as conqueror of the entire world. The poem concludes with yet another address to Caesar and a reference to his triumphant progress. However mundane the subject of the Georgios may at first appear, the poem was written for the political, social, and intellectual aristocracy of Virgil’s day.

Examination of the Georgios itself, of course, offers the most obvious means of coming to terms with the paradox of a poem that purports to offer instruction in the practical technicalities of farming to such an audience. But before turning to the poem, it is essential to consider the relationship of Rome’s aristocracy to the countryside, since their attitudes as much as or perhaps even more than the actual practice of agriculture defined the context within which Virgil wrote the Georgios. The intensity of interest in the countryside and the possibilities of country life was never greater in any period of Roman history than in the years preceding and during Virgil’s composition of his poem on rustic life. It would have been impossible for anyone of his age to read the poem except in the context of the varied attitudes toward country life that were current among the contemporary Roman and Italian aristocracy. Inevitably, the distinctive vision offered in the Georgios would have had interest not only in its own right but also as a commentary on other contemporary attitudes.

II

A number of quite different, often conflicting, circumstances contributed to the making of those attitudes. To begin with, Rome was a traditional or archaic society. The concept of social progress was not important among Romans. Rather, they looked back to an ideal past, the era of Rome’s founding and early rise to power. Efforts to recreate the past or to retrieve the spirit of the past were more urgent than efforts to realize a utopia in the future.6 Res novae (new things) referred to seditious attacks on established ways and institutions.7 However much Romans may have changed their ways in fact, they continued to justify their own actions and to judge those of others by the examples of the past. The highest sanction— the standard to which Cicero, for example, appealed repeatedly in his orations—was the mos maiorum (the way of our ancestors). The oldest examples were the most venerated. Writing at the beginning of the second century B.C., the poet Ennius asserted that moribus anti- quis res stat Romana virisque (the Roman state is what she is because of her ancient customs and her men).8

As a consequence, Romans never forgot their rustic origins. Rather, they glorified and idealized them. Vitruvius (2.15) tells of old-fashioned huts including the hut of Romulus, which were kept as reminders of the past. In a description of the huts that the earliest Latins inhabited, Dionysius of Halicarnassus also refers to Romulus’ hut and its preservation as a kind of national monument (1.79):

There remained even to my day [c. 30 B.C.] on the flank of the Palatine Hill that faces toward the Circus a certain [hut] said to be that of Romulus. Those who are charged with such matters guard it as holy. They add nothing to make it more stately, but if any of it should fall into disrepair on account of a storm or time, they restore the damage completely and make it as much like it was before as they are able.

A report in Cassius Dio (54, 29) indicates that the hut was maintained at least until 12 B.C. when, allegedly, crows dropped burning meat from an altar on its roof and set it ablaze.

Central to worship of the past was a tradition that the source of Roman greatness as a nation lay in the virtues of ancestors whose chief occupation was either to work the land themselves or to supervise the management of their own farms. Livy’s story of L. Quinc- tius Cincinnatus, the farmer-statesman who was called from his plow to save the Republic and returned to his plow again after the crisis had passed, is but one of several versions involving different Quinctii.⁹ It may reflect Livy’s own biases; but the ideal of the farmer-statesman was a matter of legend, not Livy’s own creation, and reflects a tradition that must have been maintained orally for generations before it was first committed to writing.10

Such traditions had considerable force, especially for the ruling aristocracy who identified themselves most closely with Roman tradition and were expected to be worthy of it in their own lives. The classic assertion of the privileged position of agriculture in Roman tradition occurs about 150 B.C. in the preface to Cato the Elder’s De Agricultura-.

Et virum bonum quom laudabant, ita laudabant, bonum agricolam bonumque colonum. Amplissime laudari existimabatur qui ita laudabatur. Mercatorem autem strenuum studiosumque rei quaerendae existimo, verum, ut supra dixi, periculosum et calamitosum. At ex agricolis et viri fortissimi et milites strenuis- simi gignuntur, maximeque pius quaestus stabilissimusque consequitur minimeque invidiosus, minimeque male cogitantes sunt qui in eo studio occupati sunt.

And when [our ancestors] praised a man, they praised him thus: good farmer and good settler. One so praised was thought to be very fully praised. The merchant I regard as energetic and eager to acquire wealth; but, as I said above, he is exposed to danger and disaster. It is from farmers, however, that both the bravest men and the most energetic soldiers come, there follows from them the most pious livelihood, one least likely to provoke envy; and those engaged in that pursuit are least dissatisfied.

One may be inclined to regard Cato’s enthusiasm with some reserve. He was distinguished among his contemporaries and later Romans alike for his almost fanatical harping on the value of traditional ways, an insistence inspired, in part, perhaps, because he was himself a newcomer to Rome’s ruling aristocracy. Eccentric he may have been, but he struck a responsive chord among his peers. A hundred years later Cicero recalled (De Off. 2.25.89)

illud est Catonis senis; a quo cum quaereretur, quid maxime in re familiari expediret, respondit: bene pascere; quid secon- dum: satis bene pascere; quid tertium: male pascere; quid quartum: arare. et cum ille, qui quaesierat, dixisset quid faenerari? turn Cato: quid hominem, inquit, occidere?

that famous saying of Cato when he was an old man. When he was asked by someone what was most profitable in managing property, he replied, Raising livestock well. What was next best? Raising livestock satisfactorily. What was third best? Raising them poorly. What was forth? Plowing. And when the person who questioned him said, How about lending money at interest? then Cato said, How about killing someone?

Cicero did not quote Cato merely because he was colorful. He made his own clear and revealing statement on the subject (De Off. 1.42,151):

Mercatura autem, si tenuis est, sordida putanda est; sin magna et copiosa, multa undique apportans multisque sine vanitate im- pertiens, non est admodum vituperanda, atque etiam, si satiata quaestu vel contenta potius, ut saepe ex alto in portum, ex ipso portu se in agros possessionesque contulit, videtur iure optimo posse laudari. Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid acquir- itur, nihil est agri cultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius.

Commerce, moreover, if on a small scale, is to be regarded as sordid. But if it is great and on a large scale, importing many things from many places, and serving many without dishonesty, then it is not so objectionable. Indeed, if the merchant turns from the port to lands and possessions satisfied or, better, content with his profit, just as he often turns from the sea to port, then he seems really to deserve praise. However, of all things from which there is some profit, nothing is better than agriculture, nothing more fruitful, nothing more satisfying, nothing more worthy of a free man.

The Roman sense of identification with and indebtedness to rustic life received particular impetus from exposure to Hellenistic civilization during the second century B.C. Romans were aware that their own culture was rather narrow by the standards of the Hellenistic world. At the same time, they were able to contrast the stability of their own society and their martial preeminence with the political confusion and military weakness of the Hellenistic nations whom they conquered. One important consequence of their ambivalence about their relation to the Hellenistic world was that it encouraged them to make virtues of the very characteristics that caused them to appear backward by Hellenistic standards. They had come to regard the refinement and luxury that were so impressive in the East as both symptoms and causes of its weakness, effeminacy, degeneration.11 By contrast, in mastering the world Romans felt that they had proved their superiority in the qualities that mattered. They attributed those qualities to the very simplicity and hardiness of their ancestors’ way of life.

It is probably no coincidence that the same Cato who affirmed the values of Rome’s agrarian traditions in De Agricultura wrote at the time when the influence of Hellenistic culture was first beginning to permeate Roman life. And although he undoubtedly took an interest in it and learned from it,12 he was staunchly and volubly opposed to the general adoption of Hellenistic ways. Cicero’s introduction to the Tusculanae Disputationes (45/44 B.C.) offers one of the clearest examples of the way in which Romans came to define themselves by contrast to Hellenistic culture (TD 1.13):

hoc mihi Latinis litteris inlustrandum putavi, non quia philo- sophia Graecis et litteris et doctoribus percipi non posset, sed meum semper iudicium fuit omnia nostros aut invenisse per se sapientius quam Graecos aut accepta ab illis fecisse meliora, quae quidem digna statuissent, in quibus elaborarent. Nam mores et instituta vitae resque domesticas ac familiaris nos pro- fecto et melius tuemur et lautius, rem vero publicam nostri maiores certe melioribus temperaverunt et institutis et legibus.

Quid loquar de re militari? in qua cum virtute nostri multum valuerunt, turn plus etiam disciplina. 1am ilia, quae natura, non litteris adsecuti sunt, neque cum Graecia neque ulla cum gente sunt conferenda. Quae enim tanta gravitas, quae tanta Constantia, magnitude animi, probitas, fides, quae tarn excellens in omni genere virtus in ullis fuit, ut sit cum maioribus nostris comparanda? Doctrina Graecia nos et omni litterarum genere superabat, in quo erat facile vincere non repugnantes … Sero igitur a nostris poetae vel cogniti vel recepti. Quamquam est in Originibus solitos esse in epulis canere convivas ad tibicinem de clarorum hominum virtutibus.

I thought that I ought to elucidate [philosophy] in Latin, not because [it] can’t be learned from Greek literature and teachers, but my judgment has always been that our people on their own have discovered all things more wisely than the Greeks or, on receiving discoveries from the Greeks, have improved on them —at least those things that they regarded as worth the effort. As to customs, ways of life, and domestic and economic affairs, surely we see to them better and with more distinction; and our ancestors without a doubt organized the state with better institutions and laws. What need I say about military activity, in which our people are strong not only in courage but also in discipline? Now, those things that are achieved by nature, not by literary theory, are beyond compare either with the Greeks or with any other people. What dignity, what constancy, breadth of vision, honesty, loyalty, what virtue in every area has been so outstanding that it could be compared with that of our ancestors? Greece surpassed us in learning and in every branch of literature where it was easy to conquer those who did not resist. … Therefore, among us, poets were either received or acknowledged late. And yet according to [Cato’s] Origines guests at banquets used to sing to the flute about the virtues of famous men.

Inevitably, the vision of Rome’s unique excellence that emerged from such contrasts with the Hellenistic world was projected back upon Rome’s past and influenced the interpretation of it.

Rome’s backwardness and her rustic origins need not be causes for embarrassment or apology. Far from it, they were, paradoxically, the very basis of her greatness. That idea became a major theme of Augustan literature during and shortly after the time that Virgil was composing the Georgies. Cicero himself seems rarely to miss an opportunity to insist on the wisdom of the early Romans at the expense of the Greeks. Even in his earliest orations he contrasted Greek and Roman responses to the crime of parricide (Pro S. Roscio Am. 70):

prudentissima civitas Atheniensium, dum ea rerum potita est, fuisse traditur; eius porro civitatis sapientissimum Solonem — dicunt fuisse, eum, qui leges, quibus hodie quoque utuntur, scripsit: is cum interrogaretur cur nullum supplicium constituis- set in eum, qui parentem necasset, respondit se id neminem fac- turum putasse. Sapienter fecisse dicitur, cum de eo nihil sanxerit, quod antea commissum non erat, ne non tam prohi- bere quam admonere videretur. Quanto nostri maiores sapien- tius? Qui cum intellegerent nihil esse tam sanctum, quod non aliquando violaret audacia, supplicium in parricidas singulare excogitaverunt.

The state of Athens is said to have been very clear-sighted so long as it was independent. They say, moreover, that Solon was its wisest man: he wrote the laws which they still use today. When he was asked why he had set up no punishment for the person who had killed a parent, he replied that he thought no one would do that. He is said to have acted wisely since he created no sanction against a crime that had not previously been committed, not wanting to seem as though he were suggesting the crime rather than prohibiting it. How much wiser were our ancestors. Since they understood that nothing is so sacred that audacity does not at some time or other violate it, they thought up a special punishment against parricides.

Here, the wisest of the Athenians, the man who by his laws could almost be regarded as the father of the state, is shown to be inferior to his Roman counterparts, men who, unlike Solon, were so undistinguished that their names are unknown.

The paradoxical idea that the wisdom of the maiores was due to the rustic simplicity of their lives underlies Cicero’s celebration of Rome’s founders in De Republica. Cicero has the interlocutors of that dialogue express their fulsome admiration for the extraordinary perspicacity of Romulus, who founded Rome on such principles that it endured and became great beyond any other nation. Romulus is shown to be worthy of comparison with the most distinguished lawgivers and philosophers of Greece (2.1-12). In comparing Romulus and the Greeks, moreover, Cicero places great emphasis on the relative antiquity and development of Greek civilization and on how young and primitive the society was from which Romulus came. He makes that comparison not to illustrate Roman dependence on Greek models or to apologize for the inadequacies of Roman civilization, but rather to insist on the extraordinary wisdom of Rome’s humble founders, men whose only schooling was their way of life. The eulogy of Romulus begins with a brief summary of the myth of his exposure, suckling by a wolf, and rustic upbringing (De Republica 2.4):

quo in loco cum esset silvestris beluae sustentatus uberibus pas- toresque eum sustulissent et in agresti cultu laboreque aluissent, perhibetur, ut adoleverit, et corporis viribus et animi ferocitate tantum ceteris praestitisse, ut omnes, qui turn eos agros, ubi hodie est haec urbs, incolebant, aequo animo illi libenterque parerent.

There, when he had been suckled at the udder of a wild beast, and shepherds had rescued him and brought him up in the way of life and work of the fields, he so far surpassed others in strength of body and fierceness of spirit as he grew up, that all people who then inhabited the fields where this city is today willingly and gladly obeyed him.

Romulus’ anonymous followers shared something of his wisdom (De Republica 2.24):

quo quidem tempore novus ille populus vidit tamen id, quod fugit Lacedaemonium Lycurgum, … nostri illi etiam turn agrestes viderunt virtutem et sapientiam regalem, non pro- geniem quaeri oportere.

Even then [during the royal period], that new people nonetheless perceived what escaped the Lacedaemonian, Lycurgus. … Our distinguished ancestors, rustics even at that late date, perceived that regal manliness and wisdom, not royal ancestry, were what ought to be sought after.

The founders of Rome were exceptional by any standards. Although their way of life was not enough in itself to explain their character or achievements, the repeated emphasis on it suggests that it was not incidental either. If rustic life did not make such men inevitable, we are left with a sense that it served to reinforce their distinctive virtues—their manliness, their prudence, their unerring common sense.¹³

In the oration in defense of Sextus Roscius of Ameria, delivered some years before publication of the De Republica, Cicero had explicitly ascribed Roman greatness to rustic life (Pro Sext. Rose. Am. 50):

At hercule maiores nostri longe aliter et de illo [the farmerstatesman, Atilius] et de ceteris talibus viris existimabant; itaque ex minima tenuissimaque re publica maximam et florentissi- mam nobis reliquerunt; suos enim agros studiose colebant, non alienos cupide appetebant: quibus rebus et agris et urbibus et nationibus rem publicam atque hoc imperium et populi Romani nomen auxerunt.

Certainly our ancestors thought quite differently of that man [the farmer-statesman Atilius] and others like him; and so instead of a very small and insignificant nation, they left us one that was great and prosperous. For they busily worked their own land and did not push for that of others. In this way they augmented with territory and cities and nations this republic, this empire, and the fame of the Roman people.

Such an explicit statement of the value of Rome’s agrarian past, however, reveals a striking dilemma: the highest value of rustic virtues lies in their contribution to the rise of Roman civilization, the city of Rome, and her empire. That dilemma cannot be explained away by reducing rustic virtues to the status of means to a higher end, since the end they make possible is that very society which now alienates Romans from the rustic source of their virtues. We must, therefore, see their attitudes toward their rustic origins as ambivalent.

13. Cf. Livy’s assessment of Numa (1.18): Suopte igitur ingenio temperatum animum uirtutibus fuisse opinor magis instructumque non tam peregrinis artibus quam disciplina tetrica ac tristi ueterum Sabinorum, quo genere nullum quondam incorruptius fuit (Therefore, I believe that his spirit was tempered with virtues by his native character and was instructed not so much by foreign techniques as by the fearsome and dour discipline of the ancient Sabines: no people were ever more upright than they).

Likewise, even though the sophistication and grandeur of the Hellenistic world provoked Romans to an aggressive glorification of their own past, those qualities exercised a considerable, ultimately irresistible, attraction. Romans were particularly receptive to new relationships to the countryside that were exemplified in Hellenistic culture, because exposure to them coincided with significant social and economic changes in their own traditional way of life. As the business of governing Rome and her dependencies became more demanding and complex, the ruling elite were drawn more and more from the countryside to the City. During his year as governor of Cilicia, Cicero’s longing for Rome, his anxiety that his term of office might be extended, and his dependence on correspondence for all the major news of the day reveal clearly how frustrating and politically inconvenient absence from Rome had become for someone who was committed to a political career.13 Since the nobiles were among the wealthiest of Romans and stood at the pinnacle of Roman society, their move to the City made it the center of social as well as political life.

The tremendous influx of wealth into Rome as a consequence of military conquests during the second century and an escalating standard of living created new economic possibilities which greatly exacerbated the separation of Rome’s elite from the countryside. Moneylending and various forms of speculation provided the means to quick and sometimes immense personal fortunes. Even more directly relevant to the character of rustic life was the availability of capital and of cheap slaves, which led to the acquisition of larger and increasing numbers of farming properties by private individuals. The time when an important Roman would actually contribute to the physical work of his farm had largely passed by the second century B.C., as slaves became an increasingly important part of the agrarian economy. By the first half of that century, in fact, many prominent Romans had even given up the gentlemanly task of managing their estates and utilized the services of a slave or freedman vilicus (steward). It was for such absentee proprietors that Cato wrote his De Agricultura in the middle of the century. Surveying the most fundamental aspects of husbandry, Cato’s treatise is a dramatic indicator of how far removed from rustic life the Roman aristocracy had become. The City was now