to Vergil directly from a reading of
Lucretius, Catullus, or Cicero's letters. This is especially true of the
Oriental proskynesis found in the very first _Eclogue_ and developed into
complete "emperor worship" in the dedication of the _Georgics_. This
language, here for the first time used by a Roman poet, is not to
be explained as simple gratitude for great favors. It is not even
satisfactorily accounted for by supposing that the young poet was
somewhat slavishly following some Hellenistic model. Catullus had
paraphrased the Alexandrian poets, but he could hardly have inserted a
passage of this import. Nor was it mere flattery, for Vergil has shown
in his frank praise of Cato, Brutus, and Pompey that he does not merely
write at command. No, these passages in Vergil show the effects of the
long years of association with Greeks and Orientals that had steeped
his mind in expressions and sentiments which now seemed natural to him,
though they must have surprised many a reader at Rome. His teachers at
Naples had grown up in Syria and had furthermore carried with them the
tradition of the Syrian branch of the school that had learned to adapt
its language to suit the whims of the deified Seleucid monarchs. As
Epicureans they also employed sacred names with little reverence. Was not
Antiochus Epiphanes himself a "god," while as a member of the sect he
belittled divinity?

Naples, too, was a Greek city always filled with Oriental trading folk,
and these carried with them the language of subject races. It is at
Pompeii that the earliest inscriptions on Italian soil have been found
which recognize the imperial cult, and it is at Cumae that the best
instance of a cult calendar has come to light. It is a note, one of the
very few in the great poet's work, that grates upon us, but when he wrote
as he did he was probably not aware that his years of residence in the
"garden" had indeed accustomed his ear to some un-Roman sounds.[6]
Octavian was of course not unaware of the advantage that accrued to the
ruler through the Oriental theory of absolutism, and furtively accepted
all such expressions. By the time Vergil wrote the Aeneid the Roman world
had acquiesced, but then, to our surprise, Vergil ceases to accord divine
attributes to Augustus.

[Footnote 6: Julius Caesar began as early as 45 B.C. to invite
extraordinary honors for political purposes, but Roman literature seems
not to have taken any cognizance of them at that time.]