Sources of our knowledge of Virgil's Life

The sources of our knowledge of the lives, social relations, and characters of the eminent writers of antiquity are of various kinds. Our most valuable evidence consists of direct personal statements in their own works. There is, however, a considerable difference in the amount and kind of information which the Roman poets afford about themselves. Thus while the works of Horace contain almost a complete autobiography, no single circumstance of the life of Lucretius, except his intimacy with Memmius, can be learned from his poem. But in those instances in which Latin authors have written much about themselves, their vivid power of realising things in which they were interested has enabled them to paint their own portraits in distinct and lasting colours. Though the Romans cared little for speculative truth, yet they appear remarkable for a straightforward veracity and frank communicativeness of disposition. There are no men of equal distinction whom we seem to know so intimately as Cicero and Horace; and, though they are less interesting men, we have similar facilities for reading the characters of Catullus, Propertius, and Ovid. They are unreserved and trustworthy witnesses of their own weaknesses as well as of their better qualities.

Their frankness of nature and their vivid sense of life enable us also to interpret the indirect and unconscious self-revelations of Latin authors with more confidence than in the case of Greek, or even of many modern men of letters.