Note 67 — Chapter III · TRADITIONARY AND POETICAL AGES OF THE WORLD.

Here Virgil, by a Poetic licence, melts the Iron age and the Cumæan age into one. This was natural for him to do, as a Roman; for no doubt he was aware that the ascendancy of the Roman Power had been predicted in ancient prophecy under the figure of Iron Rule: and he might hope that the Fifth Monarchy would spring from the same source.