Externi venient generi, qui sanguine nostrum Nomen in astra ferant, quorumque ab stirpe nepotes Omnia sub pedibus, qua Sol utrumque recurrens Aspicit Oceanum, vertique regique videbunt(501).
In the ninth book Virgil for once breaks through the impersonal reserve of the epic singer to claim for Nisus and Euryalus an eternity of fame,--
Dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum Accolet imperiumque pater Romanus habebit(502).
In several of these passages it is not merely the pride of conquest and dominion which is expressed, but the higher and humaner belief that the ultimate mission of Rome is to give law and peace to the world. Thus the initiation of Iulus into war is accompanied by the declaration put into the mouth of Apollo--
iure omnia bella Gente sub Assaraci fato ventura resident(503).
In this way Virgil softens and humanises the idea of the Imperial State, representing her as not only the conqueror but the civiliser of the ancient world, and the transmitter of that civilisation to the world of the future. And while he invests the thought of ancient and powerful sovereignty with imaginative associations, and describes acts of heroism with the glow of martial enthusiasm, yet the crowning glory which he ascribes to the Romans is the piety inherited from their Trojan ancestors. The final appeasement of the rancour of Juno is secured by the declaration of Jupiter--
Hinc genus Ausonio mixtum quod sanguine surget, Supra homines, supra ire deos pietate videbis, Nec gens ulla tuos aeque celebrabit honores(504).
The national idea of Rome was associated also with the thought of the divine origin, the great antiquity, the unbroken tradition, and the eternal duration of the State. Universal empire, uninterrupted continuity of existence, were the claims of the ancient Imperial as of the modern Ecclesiastical Rome. And this idea, by the strong hold which it had on the minds first of the Romans themselves and afterwards of other nations, went far to realise itself. The confidence of the Romans in themselves was intimately connected with their belief in their origin. Ennius had impressed on their minds the belief in the miraculous birth of their founder and in his miraculous elevation after death, and in the protection afforded by the 'augustum augurium' by which the building of their city had been consecrated. Among no people did ancient customs and ceremonies, of which in many cases the origin was altogether forgotten, survive with such vitality. In no other people did the memory of their past history, whether of triumph or disaster, exercise so potent an influence on the present time. In no Republic have the pride of birth and the reverence felt to ancestors been so powerful and prevailing sentiments: no State has ever been more loyal to the memory of the men who at successive crises in its history had served it or saved it from its enemies: and no great secular power ever felt so strong an assurance of an unbroken ascendency in the future, and of the dependence of the fate of the world on that ascendency.