Agricultural Scenes, mosaic at Cherchel (Algeria). Early third century A.D. The upper scenes show ploughing and sowing;
the lower the tending of vineyards in the winter. Such operations are referred to in Virgil's Georgics, the first in Book 1 (on
the cultivation of crops), the second in Book 2 (on fruit-growing).
Virgil
Against this background I shall now outline the careers of the individual poets. Virgil's place in the picture must be
adumbrated, but with all brevity since a separate chapter (Ch. 25) is devoted to him. His Eclogues, written in the triumviral
period, show him ambivalent between the aestheticism of the Neoterics and an emerging sense of commitment. Elegant
imitations of Theocritean pastoral glance at the miseries caused by land confiscations. While writing the Eclogues Virgil is