Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself - College of Stoic Philosophers

xc INTRODUCTION SECT.
In the earlier phases of this Grgeco-Roman literature,
so far as it survives, the borrowing is too direct and
crude, and the moral intention too unreflective, to give
but as soon as the national con-
materials for judgment ;
sciousness finds play in poets of Italian stock, and the
yield of literature becomes full and representative, we see
the whole national ethos reshaping itself upon the lines
of Greek philosophy. Rome showed the same docility
in borrowing its moral, as its poetical formulas from
Greece. If Lucretius swings the blade of Epicurus in
his fierce onset against the timid formalisms of the
national religion, Vergil throughout conveys his national
ideal in tones modulated from Stoicism.
Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentes
lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra
spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.
inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum
et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus.
bine metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque. 1
God is not banished to fenced paradises of far
Intermundia,
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred, everlasting calm
but reigns as that
fortuna omnipotens et ineluctabile fatum
which irresistibly controls the destinies of nations.
1 Aen. vi. 724-733-