anecdote is related.

Having written a distich, in which he compared Augustus to Jupiter, he
placed it in the night-time over the gate of the emperor's palace. It
was in these words:

Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane:
Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet.

All night it rained, with morn the sports appear,
Caesar and Jove between them rule the year.

By order of Augustus, an inquiry was made after the author; and Virgil
not declaring himself, the verses were claimed by Bathyllus, a
contemptible poet, but who was liberally rewarded on the occasion.
Virgil, provoked at the falsehood of the impostor, again wrote the verses
on some conspicuous part of the palace, and under them the following
line:

Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honorem;
I wrote the verse, another filched the praise;

with the beginning of another line in these words:

Sic vos, non vobis,
Not for yourselves, you----

repeated four times. Augustus expressing a desire that the lines should
be finished, and Bathyllus proving unequal to the task, Virgil at last
filled up the blanks in this manner:

Sic vos, non vobis, nidificatis, aves;
Sic vos, non vobis, vellera fertis, oves;
Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis, apes;
Sic vos, non vobis, fertis aratra, boves.

Not for yourselves, ye birds, your nests ye build;
Not for yourselves, ye sheep, your fleece ye yield;
Not for yourselves, ye bees, your cells ye fill;
Not for yourselves, ye beeves, ye plough and till.

The expedient immediately evinced him to be the author of the distich,
and Bathyllus became the theme of public ridicule.

When at any time Virgil came to Rome, if the people, as was commonly the
case, crowded to gaze upon him, or pointed at him with the finger in
admiration, he blushed, and stole away (173) from them; frequently taking
refuge in some shop. When he went to the theatre, the audience
universally rose up at his entrance, as they did to Augustus, and
received him with the loudest plaudits; a compliment which, however
highly honourable, he would gladly have declined. When such was the just
respect which they paid to the author of the Bucolics and Georgics, how
would they have expressed their esteem, had they beheld him in the
effulgence of epic renown! In the beautiful episode of the Elysian
fields, in the Aeneid, where he dexterously introduced a glorious display
of their country, he had to