Mrs. Eddy Mentioned Them April 13, 1957 Issue

Publius Virgilius Maro, 70–19, B.C.

[Mentioned in Science and Health, p. 82]

Virgil , greatest of Roman poets, had the advantages of a fine education and of travel. After attending school in his birthplace, Mantua, he was sent to school at Cremona and from there to Milan. Here, where his studies were comparable to those of a university, he concentrated on literature and probably planned his chief poems.

Rome was his next objective, for his father wished him to prepare for a political career. He actually pleaded one case in a courtroom, but study having impaired his health, which was always delicate, and poetry holding more attraction for him than law, he traveled to Naples to regain his health and to study with Siro, the celebrated Epicurean. Significantly he became acquainted with many Greeks.

His first published poems were the "Eclogues," ten idyls, which showed Greek influence. Through these, a new poetical form—the pastoral—was introduced into western Europe, and through his descriptions of the Italian countryside and of his father's farm, we glimpse his boyhood environment. In one eclogue he speaks of the birth of a remarkable child who will restore the golden age. This was accepted by Constantine as a prophecy of the birth of Jesus. In another, Virgil speaks of a fortunate one whose lands, confiscated at the end of the civil wars, were restored; this was his experience.

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Publius Virgilius Maro, 70–19, B.C.

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