In 1805, after a career participating in both the American and French revolutions, the swashbuckling international adventurer Francisco de Miranda approached the then president Thomas Jefferson, seeking US support for a military expedition to liberate his home country of Venezuela from Spanish rule. He appealed to Jefferson as a fellow American revolutionary, emphasising their shared hopes for the hemisphere, by quoting him Virgil:
The last great age foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finished course; Saturnian times,
Roll round again, and mighty years began,
From this first orb, in radiant circles ran.
Miranda chose this passage as a reference to the Age of Saturn, described in ancient Roman mythology as a golden age of peace and abundance. The fall of monarchy and the rise of republicanism, Miranda told Jefferson, would mark ‘the revival of that age the return of which the Roman bard invoked in favour of the human race.’ His use of such classical imagery would have been instantly recognisable to Jefferson, not only as a demonstration of Miranda’s erudition but, even more importantly, as a gesture of solidarity in an international struggle for liberation.
Read Full Article »
