Yesterday I was lecturing on these lines, which we all know by heart:
excudent alii spirantia mollius aera
(credo equidem), uiuos ducent de marmore uultus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
describent radio et surgentia sidera dicunt:
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(hae tibi
It's those exceptions, oratory and poetry, that give me pause. It's easy to be modest about poetry when you have something else to fall back on, such as a political career. So far as we know, Virgil didn't pursue that. He wrote about power, buthe didn't seek it. Of course,he did get influence,
