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towns of Latium, being built on the top of a gap in the hills, so altum Praeneste, 682.

679. Volcano genitum. The old comm. give the story at great length; the words of Vergil suggest the main points, that the infant had imperfect eyes (Caeculus), and being found near the fire was believed the son of Vulcan, god of fire.

682. arva Gabinae Tunonis, 'fields of Gabian Juno', i.e. where the town of Gabii (612) afterwards was.

683. Anio comes from the hills by Tibur and falls into the Tiber at Antemnae, 631.

684. Hernici lived in hills of upper valley of Trerus; Anagnia was the largest town (30 m. S.E. of Rome) in those parts.

685. Amasenus was a river of Latium, flowing through Volscian hills and joining the Ufens in the Pontine marshes.

686. glandes, 'balls' for slings.

688. galeros, 'caps'.

689. vestigia, &c., 'they plant the left foot bare-soled; the right is shod with sandal of raw hide'. To have one foot bare for freedom and one covered for protection was common. It seems however that it was the right foot that was bare: and the poet has arbitrarily changed the feet.

690. instituo, unusual (Vergilian) for 'set down'. 694. retractat, 'again handles'.

695. Fescennium, Falerii, and Mount Soracte all near each other in Etruria, a few miles north of Rome. Falisci is adj. of Falerii, and the people were (prob.) called Aequi Falisci as being connected with Aequi.

The meaning is obscure. If the text is right (it may be one of the unfinished passages) it seems to mean 'These form the lines of Fescennium, and the Aequi Falisci these hold the heights', &c., a very violent zeugma, though not perhaps impossible in Vergil.

696. Flavinia, unknown. Servius says naively, 'a place in Italy'. 697. The Ciminian lake and forest lay west of Falerii. Capena, south of Soracte.

698. aequati numero, ' in measured time'; lit. 'keeping time with the beat', numerus being used not of the men, but of the repeated beat of their step.

699. The simile is altered by Vergil from Hom. 77. II. 459. There the gathering hosts are compared to flocks of birds, geese or cranes or swans, on the 'Asian' mead; i.e. Asian in the old strict sense, the valley of the Cayster in Lydia. Here it is the singing host compared to a singing flock, a very characteristic refinement.

The odd thing is, that the second simile, which compares the confused (misceri) sound of the advancing host to the loud harsh (raucarum) cries of a host of birds, is much more like the Homeric simile («λayyndòv προκαθιζόντων... σμαραγεῖ κονάβιζε ὑπὸ ποδῶν...).

It seems highly probable that this passage also is left unfinished, and that Vergil has sketched two different ways of using the Homeric simile; for though he might perhaps have used them both, and worked them harmoniously in, as it is he can scarcely be said to have done so.

702. pulsa, struck' by the sound.

703. Nor would one deem them armed hosts thronging in such deep array, but that a cloud of screaming birds were speeding aloft from the deep waters to the shore'.

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ex agmine, consisting of', a refinement for agmine' simply. 704. misceri, commonly used of confused movements or cries. [706-722. Clausus, followed by his Sabine hosts, as countless as waves in a storm, or corn-ears in a rich plain.]

707. Clausus. Vergil takes the name from the legend which is preserved in Livy II. 16, that Attus Clausus the Sabine having urged his countrymen to peace with Rome, and being attacked in consequence, seceded (B. C. 506) to Rome; they gave him land across the Anio, and the Claudian tribe was called after him.

[The Sabines occupied the hill-country north-east of Rome.]

709. in partem data Sabinis, shared with Sabines', unusual phrase for united' by treaty, referring to the old story (Liv. 1. 13) of the Romans uniting with Sabines under T. Tatius, after the threatened war, averted by the intercession of the Sabine wives of the Romans.

710. Amiternum, large place in the central hills, 60 miles from Rome.

Quirites, acc. the old derivation, men of Cures', Sabine town near Tiber. The real meaning is probably spearmen' (quiris).

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711. Eretum, nearer Rome, under Mount Lucretilis; Mutusca (Trebula) opposite Soracte.

712. Nomentum, 12 miles out of Rome, on the road to Eretum. Rosea. The land near the Veline lake (517) was called 'Roseus ager' for some unknown reason.

713. Tetrica and Severus ['Gloomy Crag and Mount Stern'] are Sabine hills belonging to the main range, and that is all that is known. 714. Casperia in the Tiber valley; Foruli close to Amitiernum (710); Himella runs by Reate into the Nar.

715. Fabaris is another form of Farfar, which flows from Lucretilis into the Tiber westwards.

716. Nursia on the extreme north of Sabine country, on the borders of Umbria and Picenum.

Hortinae, from Horta, just on the Tuscan side of the Tiber; indicating an ancient extension of the Sabines across the river.

classes in its old sense 'armies'; later specialized to mean only naval troops. The word comes from stem CLA- 'to call ', and so orig. is 'muster'.

populique Latini, 'and the Latin peoples', obscure in this connection; but it probably was the technical name of some Latin settlement among the Sabines.

717. 'And these parted by the winding Allia, name of woe', referring to the disastrous defeat of the Romans B. C. 390 by the Gauls under Brennus, which was ever afterwards commemorated on the anniversary, 16th July.

tum.

Allia is a little stream feeding the Anio, rising not far from Nomen

718. Quam multi, a brief way of putting the comparison: 'as many as are the waves that roll', &c.

719. Orion (O short, I. 535); the setting of this constellation in November was accompanied by storms. So Hor. Od. III. 27. 18, pronus Orion tumultu.

720. 'Or when the close-set ears are scorched by the first summer sun', a loose and varied form of comparison; he means, or as thick as the ears which are scorched, &c.'

721. Hermus, river of Lydia, with a very fertile valley.

Lycia in spite of the high Taurus range is a rich and fertile country. 722. C. makes sonat the verb to tellus; but it makes the line run better to take conterrita as the verb.

[723-732. Halaesus, leading the Aurunci, Sidicini, Osci, &c.]

723. Agamemnonius, follower of Agamemnon' is probably the meaning, though some think it means 'son', and Ov., Am. III. 13. 31, perhaps is following that tradition.

724. curru, prob. dat., though abl. is good Latin.

Turno, 'to aid Turnus'.

feroces, brave', its regular sense.

725. mille populos, exaggeration of the common poetic kind, 337. felicia Baccho, teeming with wine', see next line. [This is simpler than C.'s construction making Baccho dat. after verrunt.]

726. Massica, a mountain on the borders of Latium and Campania, celebrated for its wine; the famous Falernian belonged to this district. 727. Aurunci, 206.

Sidicinaque iuxta aequora, i.e. misere, which makes the easiest construction: and those whom the Sidicine plains hard by sent forth'. Teanum Sidicinum was afterwards an important town on the southern side of Massicus (726).

728.

Cales, a few miles south of Teanum, in the Volturnus valley, which in its lower course takes a sudden turn to the west.

729. Saticulus, inhabitant of Saticula, town south of Volturnus; they are called asper, 'rough', 'hardy', as compared with the softer and more luxurious dwellers on the plains of Campania.

730. The Osci are one of the old Italian non-Latin tribes, extending originally from Latium across Campania probably to the Adriatic. Fragments of their language remain.

aclydes (corrupted Greek word apparently), harpoons', some kind of old javelin with a string attached.

731. flagello, properly 'lash'; meaning stretched here to 'thong'. 732. caetra, leather shield, 'targe'.

falcati comminus enses, 'curved swords for close conflict'. All these old-fashioned arms are interesting to Verg. ; and there is skilful brevity in the sentences.

[733-743. Oebalus, leading other companions, &c.]

733. abibis, depart'; he comes, as it were, to the poet for fame, and is judged.

734. Sebethus was a rivulet rising five miles from Naples and flowing into the bay; even this little water had its nymph, it seems.

735. Teleboae (or Taphii) are in Hom. (Od. XVI. 426, &c.) called 'pirates' (occupying islands near Leucas); Vergil's tradition makes them the old inhabitants of Capreae, the beautiful isle of the south end of the bay of Naples.

736. et filius, like the father.

738. Sarnus, little river south of Vesuvius; Sarrastes, presumably an old tribe living there.

739. All these places are unknown to the maps, but are clearly in south Campania.

740. Abella, small town on the edge of the mountains N.E. of Vesuvius.

741. cateia, another old arm, perhaps darts'; used apparently by some wild German tribes (Teutonico ritu). Authorities are not agreed as to what it is.

[744-749. Ufens, leading Aequiculi.]

744. Nersae, somewhere in Aequian hills-unknown.

746. adsueta venatu; adsuesco is used both with abl. and dat. by classic writers; and venatu may be either.

747. Aequicula. The Aequi or Aequiculi lived in the hill-country north and north-east of Latium, a 'rugged' (horrida) race with a 'hard soil' (duris glaebis), i.e. unfertile, compared with the plain. They were in old times a freebooting tribe.

[750-760. Umbro, leading Marsi.]

750. Marruvia. The Marsi lived east of Rome in the hills round Lake Fucinus, on the banks of which was their chief town Marrubium from which this adj. is formed.

751. felici,rich', 'leaf and rich olive' is hendiadys.

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comptus, decked, prop. of 'hair', &c., 'put together' (co-imo) and soarrayed'.

753. Observe the rhetorical repetition vipereo...hydris.

754. 'to shed sleep on snakes with hand and charm' because the Marsi were great in magic and incantation; so Hor. (Epod. XVII. 29) 'caputque Marsa dissilire nenia'.

756. sed non, &c. So the augur 'non augurio potuit depellere pestem', IX. 327. It is a Homeric turn.

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757. iuvere in volnera, availed against wounds'.

759. Anguitia (prob. so called from its snakes) on the west of Lake Fucinus.

[761-782. Virbius, son of Hippolytus; story of Hippolytus' tragic death and restoration.]

761. Hippolytus, son of Theseus, king of Athens, was beloved by Phaedra his stepmother. He, as a votary of the chaste Diana, rejected her love, and she hung herself, leaving a tablet which charged Hippolytus with having tempted her. Theseus, believing this, cursed his son, and in answer to the curse Poseidon sent a bull from the sea, by which the horses of Hippolytus were terrified, ran away, and killed their master.

This is the older version which Euripides follows. Another story (followed here and by Ovid) says that Aesculapius (son of Apollo, Phoebigena 773), the god of healing, restored Hippolytus to life, and

that Diana hid him in the grove of Aricia (on the Appian Way in Latium), under the new name of Virbius.

Vergil imagines a son of this Hippolytus, also called Virbius, sent by 'his mother Aricia', either the place, or a nymph of the place of the

same name.

pulcherrima bello (probably best taken together), 'splendid in war'. 763. eductum, used even in prose (Cic. Liv.) for 'reared'.

Egeria, the Latin nymph, beloved of Numa, who had a sacred grove near Aricia, on the borders of Lake Nemi (see 516), the humentia litora here mentioned.

764. rich and kindly' occur again IX. 585 as epithets of the altar of another power, Palicus; they seem to be generally, not specially, appropriate.

766. patrias explerit poenas, fulfilled his sire's vengeance', explere being used naturally of anger, and by a slight stretch of penalty.

[The subj. is due to orat. obliq.]

767. To rise from the dead is to return to the stars of heaven and upper airs' from the shadowy world below.

769. Paconiis, [like conubiis either 3 syll. or Vergil shortens the o which in Greek is long] from Пav, 'the healer', name of Apollo and his son Aesculapius.

772. medicinae et artis, 'healing and skill', two points of one thing (hendiadys).

774. Trivia, 516.

775. The datives (as often in Vergil of things as well as persons) instead of ad with acc.

776. ignobilis, 'obscure'.

777. exigeret, final subj. after ubi, 'that there he might live out his time'.

781. haud setius, 'none the less', for his father's terrible death by horses.

ardentes, fiery', as we say.

[783-802. Turnus.]

784. vertitur, moves', 'is astir', unusual word, suggested by the ordinary versatur.

785. Chimaera [xiuaipa, meaning 'goat '], a monster described by Homer (77. VI. 179) as 'fore-part lion, hind-part snake, mid-part goat, and breathing dread might of glowing fire'.

787. illa, emphatic use of demonstr. Observe the license of the nom. meaning the Chimaera; for it is far better sense so than to take it of the helmet.

The monster on the helmet is by a poetic effective exaggeration described as 'looking fiercer as the battle more deadly rages'.

788. crudescunt, 'grows grim'; lit. 'raw', a ghastly word.

789. sublatis cornibus, 'with lifted horns', abl. abs. of description. Io, daughter of Inachus king of Argo (pater Inachus, 792), was beloved by Zeus, who to avoid the jealousy of Here changed her into a white cow; Here however set the many-eyed Argus to watch her.

790. auro insignibat, 'marked with gold', an elaborate way of saying that the device of Io was in gold on the iron shield.

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