The fourth book treats of the culture of bees. It contains several passages of singular beauty, one of the most striking of which is the description of the life of the hive.[60] The poem ends with an epic description of the visit of Aristæus, the mythical founder of bee culture, to his mother, the sea-nymph Cyrene. This includes an account of the struggle of Aristæus with the sea-god Proteus and the death of Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus. A tradition exists that the poem originally ended with a passage in praise of Gallus; but before its publication Gallus had died in disgrace, and the present ending was substituted. In its final form the close of the _Georgics_ shows that Virgil was already tending to become an epic poet. [Sidenote: The Æneid.] At the request of Augustus, Virgil began, in 29 B. C., the composition of his greatest work, the _Æneid_, in which he tells of the mythical origin of the Roman race and of the greatness and glory of the Rome that was to arise and reach its height under the leadership of the Julian family, which claimed direct descent from Æneas. As early as the sixth century B. C. the Sicilian poet Stesichorus had sung of the coming of Æneas to Italy. Nævius and Ennius had connected Æneas with the origin of Rome, and had fixed some of the details of the story. Upon the foundations thus prepared for him Virgil erected the splendid structure of his poem. In the _Eclogues_ he had followed, closely for the most part, in the footsteps of Theocritus; the _Works and Days_ of Hesiod had served as the prototype of the _Georgics_, though here Virgil was so far from slavish imitation that his work surpasses the _Works and Days_ in every respect. In the _Æneid_ the imitation of Homer’s _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ is constantly evident, and certain passages are clearly derived from Euripides, Sophocles, and Apollonius of Rhodes; but the _Æneid_ is by no means a mere imitation. In some respects it is far inferior to the Homeric poems. It lacks their simplicity, their rapidity of movement, and their fresh joyousness; it can not be compared with them in narrative power or brilliancy of imagery. In these qualities Homer is unapproachable. But as a national epic, as the expression in prophetic form of the national greatness and of the poet’s deep-seated passion for his country’s glory the _Æneid_ had no prototype, as it has had no successor. Virgil is not Homer; he is reflective, filled with the deep thoughts that centuries of speculation had implanted in the serious minds of his age; and his great poem is more than a mere narrative. In execution the _Æneid_ is uneven. At times it is polished to the highest degree, at other times it falls to a level hardly, if at all, above mediocrity; some passages breathe a poetic fervor unsurpassed, while others might almost as well be written in prose. So conscious was Virgil himself of the unevenness and imperfections of his work that he