n him (Freeman 389).
             While Virgil accepted their patronage he was still wary of capitulating to the new emperor and sacrificing any integrity. Charles Freeman writes that Virgil's contemporary, Horace also reflects these feelings. Octavian, now known as Caesar Augustus, took a liking to Horace just as he did Virgil, endowing him with gifts and money. Eventually, Augustus asked Horace to be his secretary, and Horace refused, citing the need to protect his integrity as a poet (391). Virgil felt great gratitude towards an emperor who vigorously supported the arts and brought the Empire much stability but at the same time faced a moral dilemma. Augustus was looking for a poet to write a national epic about him and his rise to power. In a letter Augustus wrote to Maecenas he says, " If I had any talent for the heroic epic, I'd not waste my time on stories from mythology . . . I'd write about Caesar's wars and achievements" (qtd. in Quinn 27). This sheds light on the morality issue Virgil faced as an artist. There were plenty of epic poets available in Rome at the time, and plenty was approached with this daunting task of writing an epic with Augustus as the hero. Nearly all declined, and even Virgil was reluctant. That says something about the attitudes of the poets of his time. They were not interested in art for art's sake. They wanted to create of their own accord something that came from within. Kenneth Quinn points
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