Historische Studien zu den "Bucolica" Vergils

Virgil’s Bucolics are known as one of the masterpieces of Latin poetry. It is generally accepted that the collection was published in 39 or 35 B.C. Since antiquity, the famous 4th Eclogue in which Virgil announces the birth of a divine child and the beginning of a golden age, has been the object of learned analysis and scholarly research. Although it seems that the atmosphere depicted in the ten poems is that of a timeless pastoral world, we find several allusions to contemporary events. On the one hand Virgil mentions real persons as the Roman Consul of 39 B.C., Asinius Pollio, and Cornelius Gallus, the well-known elegiac poet. He also alludes to the confiscation of land in Italy conducted by Octavian the triumvir (who was known subsequently as the Emperor Augustus) around 41 B.C. On the other hand scholars have tried to discover „hidden allusions“ to reality. So, to mention only the most important one, it has been a matter of dispute for centuries if the divine child of the 4th Eclogue is a metaphor for a real person and, if so, who is alluded to. In the present contribution the author makes a fresh attempt to analyze the evidence for contemporary history in Virgil’s Bucolics, especially in Eclogues 1, 4, 9, and 10. It is argued that the 30s B.C. (i.e. the period immediately before the founding of the principate by Octavian/Augustus), do not provide a suitable background for the publication of the Bucolics. It seems rather that the collection as we know it today was published in the first half of the 20s B.C.