The reverse side of the dollar bill reproduces the Great Seal of the United States. On the left is the back of the seal. It features two Latin phrases.ย Annuit coeptisย means โHe [i.e., God] has approved our undertakings.โ It is an abbreviation of a line from a prayer in the ninth book of Vergilโs great epic poem,ย The Aeneid. The second phrase,ย Novus ordo seclorum, means โA new order of the ages.โ It is a shortened version of a line from Vergilโs fourth Eclogue.
The Great Sealโs front is on the right side of the bill. It includes the motto โE pluribus unumโโout of many, one. This motto derives from the lineย e pluribus unus, which appears in a Latin poem calledย Moretumย (The Salad or Pesto). Although scholars now believe thatย Moretumย was probably composed by another person, during the Eighteenth Century and for ages before, it also was attributed to Vergil.
Thus, in 1782, when the Confederation Congress adopted legends for the new countryโs great seal, Congress turned to Vergil for all three.
Vergilโs Life and Works
Publius Vergilius Maro was born in 70 BCE near Mantua (Mantova), in northern Italy. This region was agricultural, and the poetโs love for farming and the countryside shines through in his verse.
Vergil was not physically robust, and by nature he was painfully shy. He never married or participated in political or military affairs. He became a celebrity only through his poetry.
Suetonius Tranquillusโthe early-second-century producer of biographies on the first twelve Caesarsโalso wrote a short biography of Vergil. Suetonius tells us that Vergil composed poetry while still a teenager. Some of his early productions may be among those in the collection traditionally called theย Appendix Vergiliana.ย This is the compilation which includesย Moretum.
However, Vergilโs verified output appeared as three major publications: theย Eclogues, theย Georgicsย (Georgicon), and theย Aeneid.
Theย Ecloguesย (also called the โBucolicsโ) were published around 37 BCE. They made their author famous and attracted the patronage of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, the young man who later became Caesar Augustus. Theย Ecloguesย are ten pastoral poems averaging 83 lines each.
Vergil based the pastoral form on the work of the Greek author Theocritis. But theย Ecloguesย were so popular that they became the template for pastoral poetry forever after.
Theย Georgics, likely published in or near 30 BCE, is a single long poem. It consists of four โbooksโ (scrolls) totaling 2,188 lines. The predominant theme is a description and celebration of agriculture, the Italian countryside, and rural life.
Vergil next began theย Aeneid. He never quite completed it to his satisfaction, although its rough edges are insignificant within the scope of the work. It was not published until after Vergilโs death in 19 BCE.
Theย Aeneidย is an epic consisting of nearly 10,000 lines in twelve โbooks.โ Its structure is modeled loosely on Homerโsย Iliadย andย Odyssey, although in reverse order. As one who read it in English as a young man and in Latin years later after learning that language, I can testify that only the reader with Latin competency can grasp the Aeneidโs truly astounding power and beauty.
The epic tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas, who, during the Greek sack of Troy, escaped with his father and his son. They met other Trojan refugees, and together they undertook a much-interrupted voyage to Italyโto a western land promised to them by the gods, who predicted it would be the seat of a great empire. After initial struggles, the Trojan refugees merged with the native Latins, and together they formed the people who would one day found Rome.
Vergilโs Influence on the American Founders
Eighteenth-century schoolingย centered largelyย on the Greco-Roman classics. Boys (and some girls) with educational aspirations typically began studying Latin shortly after their eighth birthdays. Boys headed for college later undertook the study of Greek as well.
Schoolboys read works by a variety of Latin authors: Caesar, Cicero, Horace, Livy, Ovid, Sallust, Tacitus, and others. But among writers of prose, Cicero seems to have made the deepest mark, and among poets, Vergil.
Hence, in 1782, the Confederation Congress decided to base all three slogans in the Great Seal on lines by Vergil.
Leading Foundersโ personal correspondence frequently contained adaptations of Vergilian lines, often unattributed. To cite only three examples:
- On September 5, 1783, John Adams wrote from Paris to Elbridge Gerry, urging the preservation of some papers becauseย hรฆc olim meminisse juvabitย (the memory of this will be pleasing [or helpful] in the future)โa line from theย Aeneid.
- In a letter dated April 6, 1784 to John Witherspoon, John Jay responded to Witherspoonโs request that he narrate the events of a particularly difficult sea voyage with the exclamation,ย jubes renovare doloremย (you order me to relive the pain). This was a shortened version of Aeneasโ reply when asked to recount the fall of Troy.
- On November 12, 1788, Virginia Federalist Francis Corbin wrote to his ally James Madison about the Anti-Federalist group headed by Patrick Henry. Corbin referred to โHenry & his packโ as โMyrmidonum DolopumveโโAeneasโ characterization of the Greek armies attacking Troy.
The lateย Jasper Griffin, the famous Oxford classicist, wrote aย short bookย on Vergilโs works that I recommend to all people educated or seeking to be such. Professor Griffin observed that theย Eclogues, although consisting of ten freestanding poems, actually follow a tight organizational scheme. Perhaps among the others who noticed it was Gouverneur Morris. Morris seems to have followed similar principles in constructing the Constitutionโsย Preamble. (Like other leading Founders, Morris quoted Vergil fromย timeย toย time.)
Vergil was a popular source for participants in the 1787-1790 debates over the ratification of the Constitution. For example, when opposing the Constitution at the Virginia ratifying convention, George Mason warned that if the documentโsย Ex Post Facto Clausesย were interpreted to include civil as well as criminal laws, courts might dispossess people who had purchased and settled on vacant land: โOur peasants will be like those mentioned by Virgil [sic],โ he said, โreduced to ruin and misery, driven from their farms, and obliged to leave their country.โ Mason recited the relevant line from the firstย Eclogue:ย Nos patriam fugimusโet dulcia linquimus arva.ย (We flee from our homeland; we abandon our sweet country.).
Incidentally, the subsequent New York ratifying convention took Masonโs warning seriously. It announced that New York ratified only on the assumption that the Ex Post Facto Clauses were limited to criminal cases, and in 1798, the Supreme Courtย so ruled.
There are many other instances of participants in the constitutional debates citing, or borrowing from, Vergilโs works. Here are a few:
- A Maryland Antifederalist writing as โA Farmerโ (probably John Francis Mercer) warned that the Constitution could bring heavy federal taxation. He employed a line from the thirdย Eclogueย about a greedy shepherd who milks his sheep twice every hour, thereby robbing baby lambs of nutrition.
- Another Antifederalist warned about the Constitution with a now-common metaphor from theย Eclogues: โA snake lies in the grass.โ
- Still another, borrowing from theย Aeneid, quoted lines from the story of how the Trojans dragged the fateful wooden horse into their city:
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย โInstamus tamen immemores caecique furore
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย โet monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce.โ
โYet we push forward, unmindful, blinded by madness,
and erect the ill-omened monstrosity within our sacred citadel.โ
- A Federalist writer borrowed from theย Aeneidย to highlight the sad state of the Union under the Articles of Confederation:ย Sunt lacrimae rerumโ โThere are tears for things.โ
- Another resorted to theย Aeneidย to lament the hardship that state paper money loaded on responsible savers:ย Hic labor, hoc opus estโโThis is the toil, this is the task.โ
- Marylandโs Charles Carroll of Carrollton quoted lines from theย Aeneidย to predict that, just as the universal spirit animates the world, under the Constitution, the federal government would re-animate the union:
ย ย ย ย ย โSpiritus intus alit: totamque infusa per artus
ย ย ย ย ย โMens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.โ
The spirit nourishes, the limbs infused, the mind sways the mass and mixes with the great body.โ
While the issue of ratification was still undecided, impatient Federalists could only state their case and endure. Several recited theย Aeneidโsย verse which is referred to in John Adamsโ letter, quoted above: โPerhaps one day it will be pleasant (or helpful) to remember even this.โ
As state after state ratified, pro-Constitution newspaper editors rejoiced with lines from the most famous eclogue, the fourth or โMessianicโ one:
โIncipient magni procedere menses
โRedeunt Saturnia regna.โ
โThe great months [i.e., ages] will now go forth.
ย ย ย ย ย ย โThe Golden Age returns!โ
Why Vergil?
Why did the founding generation feel such an affinity for Vergil? As an apologist for the Augustan regime, he was hardly a republican stalwart. On this subject, we are limited to informed speculation.
There was, first, Vergilโs commanding position within the educational canon. Moreover, some (including, famously, Thomas Jefferson, in whose correspondence the poetย frequently appears) were attracted to the agrarian virtues celebrated in theย Georgicsโvirtues that Vergil claimed were the basis for Romeโs great success. And some Founders likely could relate to Aeneas: a military hero rather than a ruffian like Achilles. He was reverent and dutiful (pius), a man sincerely committed to doing the right thing. He was a leading force in the foundation of a new nation. A George Washington sort of hero.
Then there was the plot of theย Aeneid: Abuse from abroad forced the Trojans to flee, just as abuses by the British ministry induced the Founders to leave the British Empire. Aeneas survived the fire of Troy (read: the Revolution) to wander for years (the Confederation period) before establishing a new and great nation.
For these or other reasons, Vergil was a favorite of the founding generation: the source of poignant lessons, powerful language, and political inspiration.
This essayย first appearedย in the University of Texas websiteย Civitas Outlookย on May 2, 2025.
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