rience that poets were
dangerous enemies. Cicero's innuendoes were disagreeable enough but they
might be forgotten. When, however, Catullus and Calvus put them into
biting epigrams there was no forgetting. This was doubtless Caesar's
chief reason for his constant endeavor to win the goodwill of the young
poets, and he ultimately did win that of Calvus and Catullus. Whether
Octavian, and his sage adviser Maecenas, acted from the same motive we
do not know, though they too had seen in Vergil's epigrams on Antony's
creatures, and in Horace's sixteenth epode that the poets of the new
generation seemed likely to give effective expression to political
sentiments. At any rate, the new court at Rome began very soon to make
generous overtures to the literary men of the day.

Pollio, Octavian's senior by many years, and of noble family, could
hardly be approached. Though gradually drawing away from Antony, he
had so closely associated himself with this brilliant companion of his
Gallic-war days, that he preferred not to take a subordinate place at the
Roman court. Messalla, who had entered the service of Antony, was also
out of reach. There remained the brilliant circle of young men at Naples,
men whose names occurred in the dedications of Philodemus' lectures:
Vergil, Varius, Plotius and Quintilius Varus, three of whom at least were
from the north and would naturally be inclined to look upon Octavian with
sympathy.

Varius had already written his epic _De Morte_ which seems to have
mourned Caesar's death, and, though in hidden language, he had alluded
bitterly to Antony's usurpations in the year that followed the murder.
Before Vergil's epic appeared it was Varius who was always considered the
epic poet of the group. Of Plotius Tucca we know little except that he is
called a poet, was a constant member of the circle, and with Varius
the literary executor who published Vergil's works after his death.
Quintilius Varus had, like Varius, come from Cremona, known Catullus
intimately, and, if we accept the view of Servius for the sixth
_Eclogue_, had been Vergil's most devoted companion in Siro's school. He
also took some part in the civil wars, and came to be looked upon as
a very firm supporter of sound literary standards.[1] Horace's _Ouis
desiderio_, shows that Varus was one of Vergil's most devoted friends.

[Footnote 1: Cf. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 440.]

Vergil's position as foremost of these poets was doubtless established by