fiction--where classic tradition had insisted upon keeping it--into the
immediate and personal song. The hint for this procedure had, of course,
come from Catullus, but it was Gallus whom succeeding elegists all
accredited with the discovery. Vergil at once felt the compelling force
of this adventuresome experiment. He gave it immediate recognition in his
_Eclogues_, and Tibullus, Propertius, and Ovid became his followers.

The poems of Gallus, if the Arcadian setting is real, were probably
written soon after Philippi. Vergil's _Eclogue_ of recognition may have
been composed not much later, for we have a right to assume that Vergil
would have had one of the first copies of Gallus' poems. If this be true,
the first and last few lines were fitted on later, when the whole book
was published, to adapt the poem for its honorable position at the close
of the volume.




XI

THE EVICTIONS


The first and ninth _Eclogues_, and only these, concern the confiscations
of land at Cremona and Mantua which threatened to deprive Vergil's father
of his estates and consequently the poet of his income. There seems to be
no way of deciding which is the earlier. Ancient commentators, following
the order of precedence, interpreted the ninth as an indication of a
second eviction, but there seems to be no sound reason for agreeing with
them, since they are entirely too literal in their inferences. Conington