others manifesting themselves through great commotion in the kingdom of Nature,--earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, great floods,--
'The noise of battle hurtling in the air,'
lightnings in a clear sky, and the blaze of comets portending doom. These all succeed one another in Virgil's verse according to no principle of logical connexion, but as they might be successively announced to the awe-struck citizens of Rome. The whole passage is pervaded by that strong sense of awe before an invisible Power--the 'religio dira'--by which the Roman imagination was possessed in times of great national calamity. The issue of all these portents appeared in the second great battle in which Roman blood fattened the Macedonian plains. Then by a fine touch of imagination, and looking far forward into the future, the poet reminds us of the contrast, indicated in other passages of the poem, between the peaceful and beneficent industry of the husbandman and the cruel devastation of war:--
Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis Agricola, incurvo terram molitus aratro, Exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila, Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanis, Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris(385).
Next follows the prayer to the national gods of Italy to preserve the life of him who could alone raise the world out of the sin and ruin into which it had fallen, and alone restore their ancient glory to the fields, which now lay waste from the want of men to till them:--
Non ullus aratro Dignus honos, squalent abductis arva colonis, Et curvae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem(386).
In the second of the great episodes this sorrow for the past and foreboding for the future has entirely cleared away. The feeling now expressed is one of pride and exultation in Italy, as a land of rich crops and fruits, of vines and olives, a land famous for its herds and flocks and breed of horses, for its genial climate, for the beauty of the seas washing its coasts, for its great lakes and rivers, its ancient cities and other mighty works of men; famous too for its hardy, energetic, and warlike races,--
Haec genus acre virum Marsos pubemque Sabellam, Adsuetumque malo Ligurem Volscosque verutos Extulit(387),--