221. montis, the Aventine; aetherii is poetic exaggeration, the highest point of the hill being about 100 feet above the Tiber.

223. turbatum oculis, troubled in his eyes', a perfectly natural expression; there is no need to doubt the reading.

226. ferro quod et arte paterna pendebat, which hung by iron and his father's skill'. Vergilian for by iron links his sire had forged', pater being Volcanus, the original iron-worker of the gods. The mixture of abstract and concrete is quite Vergilian, cf. 263, 463.

227. fultos, strictly 'propped', here by a stretch "blocked'.

228. Tirynthius, name of Hercules, because he lived for years at Tiryns in Argolis, where he served Eurystheus.

(Observe the metrical license of the que elided before next line.)

231. Aventini, gen. of equivalence, as it is sometimes called, common with names, as urbs Patavi, I. 247, urbs Mycenae, V. 52, flumen Himellae, VII. 714, mons Cimini, VII. 697, &c.

235. 'fit home for the eyrie of foul birds', vultures or eagles.

236. This, as it leaned from the ridge to the river on the left, pushing full against it from the right, he loosened, and bore it free from its roots', &c.

The peak is on the river side; it forms the back (dor so insurgens) of the cavern; and Hercules pulls it bodily out.

242. regia, royal home', not in mockery (as G. thinks), else ingens would be out of place; the whole description is in the stately heroic style.

245. super, loosely, 'from above'.

246. trepident, rather more impressive without que (which has also less authority). 'And as if from above were seen the vasty gulf, the shades were startled with the shaft of light'.

250. advocat, 'calls to his aid'.

instat, 'plies', 'harasses'.

251. super, is left'; the verb easily supplied. 256. non tulit, 'endured it no more', fond of.

an expression Vergil is

257. qua plurimus undam fumus agit, characteristically elaborate expression, where the smoke streamed thickest'.

261. clings and chokes his starting eyes and throat drained of blood'. A very bold but effective phrase, meaning of course 'throttles till his eyes start and his throat is dry of blood'. [elisos, regular word for 'strangled', 289; so here itself rather strained in sense.]

siccum sanguine, the abl. of separation, as after vacuus, careo, &c., from which this constr. is imitated.

263. 'the stolen cattle and the theft forsworn', i. e. the cattle which he had stolen and then denied: a good instance of this effective presentment of combined abstract and concrete.

265. corda is most likely acc. after expleri (cf. expleri mentem, I. 713), 'Men cannot sate their souls', the accus. being the same as that after passive partic.

267. extinctos faucibus ignes, the fire, quenched in (or from) his throat', a variation for 'fauces extinctis ignibus'.

268.

ex illo, 'thenceforth' (like ex quo, of time).

269-70. Livy, I. 7, tells the story thus: 'the Potitii and Pinarii, two chief families, were invited to the banquet; the Pinarii came late, and so were afterwards forbidden to share the exta'. In IX. 29, the same writer tells us the tradition that the censor Appius Claudius, 312 B. C., purchased the knowledge of the rites from the Potitii, and entrusted them to public slaves, at which the gods were so angry that they made him blind, and caused all the Potitii to die within the year.

272. nobis, dat. agent, 169.

et erit quae maxima semper. Observe the stately effect of the repetition, which Greatest ever shall be called and shall be Greatest ever'. 273. in munere, 'in honour', as we say, though the phrase is less common in Latin.

275. 'invoke one god with us, pour wine with willing hearts'. volentes, the proper and necessary feeling in a religious service.

276. Herculea...populus umbra. The poplar is called elsewhere by Vergil Hercules' tree (Ecl. vII. 61), though the ara maxima we are told was always crowned with laurus or bay, perhaps because the rite was derived from Greece, as Livy (I. 7) tells us.

bicolor, because the poplar leaves are so white underneath.

278. scyphus (Greek word for 'cup'): a large cup was used in the rites of Hercules.

[280-305. Evening falls, and the festival is renewed, and the two bands sing the praise of Hercules.]

280. devexo Olympo, prob. best taken abl. as heaven sinks down', a poetical expression for the day sinking. This is better than making it dat. after propior, which gets a worse sense out of devexo.

285. The Salii in historic times were the 12 priests of Mars Gradivus, and kept the 12 sacred shields (ancilia) in the temple of Mars on the Palatine. Their festival was March 1, the old New Year's day. They were one of the oldest and most typically Roman institutions, and Vergil here (following no doubt old tradition) makes similar priests take part in the worship of the hero Hercules.

287. Note that Vergil gives Hercules two bands of Salii; Mars had only one.

288. ut, 'how'; oblique question.

་

novercae: Iuno (his stepmother', because Iuppiter was his father by Alcmene) in jealousy sent two snakes to kill the infant Hercules, who crushed them in his cradle.

291. Troiam. Neptune had sent a sea monster to ravage Troy; but Hercules for promise of reward killed it being defrauded of his pay he sacked Troy. This story was placed by tradition of course before the Trojan war.

Oechaliam in Euboea, city of Eurytus, who promised Iole his daughter as a prize for the winner in a contest of shooting. Hercules won, but being refused the maiden, sacked the town and carried her off. mille. The earlier traditions gave a large indefinite number, the later twelve.

292. Eurystheus was the king of Tiryns (228) whom Hercules had to serve for twelve years by divine decree.

AEN. VIII.

4

293. Observe the effective change to the 2nd person, as though the poet was carried away, and addressed the god directly. Cp. vII. 389.

Then follows allusion to various labours.

nubigenas, 'the twy-formed cloud-born' Centaurs, so called because descended from Ixion and a cloud (in the shape of Iuno). The story was that Hercules was drinking with the Centaur Pholus, when he was beset by the others, and chased them away, killing several, Hylaeus being one.

294. Cresia prodigia. Minos, king of Crete, had kept a splendid bull, which he was told to sacrifice to Poseidon (Neptune): the god drove the bull mad, and to save Crete the aid of Hercules was called in, who caught the bull and carried it away on his shoulders.

295. Nemea, a valley in Argolis, was devastated by a lion, which Hercules was sent to kill: he tried arrows and club in vain, and finally strangled it.

296. Stygii. Styx, a river of Hades or Orcus, the lower world (called after the various names of its ruler Pluto). Hercules was set to fetch the three-headed dog Cerberus from the lower regions; the hardest of all his tasks.

297. semiesa, 3 syll., cf. 194 (-ie- coalescing).

298. Typhoeus, hundred-headed fire-breathing monster, who fought Iuppiter and all the gods, and was buried beneath Aetna. There is no mention of a fight between him and Hercules in tradition : but probably Vergil fancies Hercules taking part in the struggle of the gods with Typhoeus. [This is better than supposing nec te ullae facies...tenens to refer to Hercules' journey to Hades, for arduus arma tenens clearly describes battle.]

299. rationis egentem is the predicate, and emphatic: 'Naught wert thou bewildered when round thee stood', &c.

300. Lernaeus.

At Lerna near Argos dwelt the Hydra, a snake or dragon with nine heads, which grew two for each cut off, till Hercules at last burnt them off. So turba capitum='swarm of heads'. The tale is alluded to VI. 803.

304. adiciunt, lit. 'they add', i. e. 'they tell'.

[306-368. Euander escorts Aeneas over the place, and tells him of the former state of Latium: the early savages, the golden age of Saturn, the Ausonii and Sicani, and his own conquest. He shews him the Asylum, Lupercal, Argiletum, Capitol, Ianiculum, and leads him into his own humble palace. ]]

307. obsitus, 'overgrown' with years, a forcible metaphor.

311. capitur, 'is charmed'.

313. Romanae conditor arcis, 'founder of the Roman fortress', a stately phrase giving a majestic association to the Palatine hill, where Augustus had his palace.

314. Fauns were rustic deities, originally Latin, but afterwards identified with the Greek satyrs, just as Faunus was with Pan.

315. The notion was not an uncommon one that the aborigines of a country came out of the trees or stones.

316. 'No rule nor art of life', cultus being used probably in its more general sense.

317. aut parcere parto, 'or spare their hoard', i. e. they had no forethought like rational beings.

318. asper victu venatus, 'rude-faring chase', forcible but very expressive phrase.

319. Saturnus, originally Latin deity of agriculture [SA- 'sow'], afterwards identified with Kronos, father of Zeus. So here the Greek story how Zeus drove out his father is woven into the Latin tradition of the reign of Saturn in Latium in the golden age.

322. composuit, 'settled', i. e. both gathered (dispersum) and civilized (indocile) (as Con. remarks).

323. maluit, 'chose', unusual Vergilian use.

latuisset. Subj. because of oratio obliqua introduced by maluit. It was the reason Saturn alleged.

The etymology is of course purely fanciful, as they always were with the ancients: in days before the study of language the origin of words was not felt to be a question of fact, but a fair subject for fancy. (So Ovid derives Vesta from vi-stando; Plato pws from eppwuévos, &c.)

324. aurea quae perhibent, the golden age they tell of', lit. 'which they call so'.

326. decolor, faded', an expressive word, referring probably to aurea: the splendid glow was gone.

328. Ausonia: the Ausones were originally a tribe on the W. coast of S. Latium and Campania. Vergil is following a tradition according to which they were spread over the land at one time.

Sicanae. Thuc. VI. 2, writing about Sicily in the fifth century, tells us that the Sicani came from Spain to Sicily in very early times: and later came Siculi (Zikeλol) from Italy. In Vergil's tradition the two names seem identified, for he calls Sicani those whom Thuc. calls Siculi.

329. posuit, 'lost', i. e. 'changed'.

331.

a quo, 'from whom', cognomine, 'by name': the order of the

words makes it easier to take it thus.

Notice that Euander is made to say 'We Italians' in a strangely loose way.

332. Albula. Liv. 1. 3 tells us that Tiberinus, king of Alba, descended in direct line from Aeneas, was drowned in crossing the Albula, which thenceforth was called Tiber.

333. extrema. Euander speaks as a primitive Greek, to whom a voyage from Greece to Latium would seem 'exploring the ends of the sea'.

Observe the Vergilian use of sequi.

336. Carmentis, an Italian prophetic nymph or deity, who is woven into the local tradition about Euander the Greek.

deus auctor, predicative, 'Apollo's divine behest'.

337. aram. This altar was close to the Carmentalis porta, just under the S. W. angle of the Capitol. The name of the gate was afterwards changed to Scelerata, because the Fabii passed through it to go to the fatal fight of Cremera (Ov. Fast. II. 201).

339. honorem, acc. in apposition, rather to the whole idea of 'calling the gate Carmentalis' than to the word portam.

342. Asylum. Livy (1.8) says that Romulus, to increase the population, opened at Rome a refuge [Asylum, Greek word a-σvλov, meaning 'inviolable refuge'], and that multitudes flocked thither from neighbouring towns indiscriminately.

Its place was traditionally supposed to be on the level of the Capitoline hill between the two summits.

343. rettulit, plainly used in a rather strained sense, either for 'declared' or more likely 'produced', 'made' (like reddidit, or Greek ἀπεδείξατο).

Lupercal was the sanctuary of the old Latin shepherd god Lupercus (lupus- arc- 'wolf-repeller'); it was a cavern at the N.W. corner of the Palatine, and there was an altar and a grove near.

When the ancients identified the Greek and Roman gods, Lupercus was held to be the same as the Arcadian deity Pan Lycaeus (called so from the Arcadian mount Lycaeus), since Xúkos lupus; and thus the Lupercal became interwoven with the Euander-tradition.

344. Parrhasio de more, according to Arcadian custom', Parrhasia being an ancient Arcadian city.

dictum Panos, 'called of Lycaean Pan' (M) i. e. 'bearing Pan's name'. Observe Greek form Panos: and the possessive gen. after dictum.

345. Argiletum [clearly from argilla 'white clay', and meaning 'the clay-pits', a derivation confirmed by modern geological inquiry, cf. Burn, p. 75], a part N.E. of the Forum. The name being misunderstood gave rise to the story alluded to here, that a certain Argus, guest of Euander, was detected in treachery to the king, and killed on the spot.

346. testatur, probably best (as Con., W., G. &c.) 'calls the place to witness' that he was rightly slain.

347. Tarpeiam sedem, 'the Tarpeian dwelling', meaning the Capitol itself, the sedes of many gods, especially Iuppiter Iuno and Minerva in the great temple. Strictly speaking, Tarpeia was the name of the precipitous southern or rather S.W. face.

348.

aurea, the roof was gilt of the Capitoline temple of Iuppiter. 349. iam tum, 'even then'.

religio dira, awful sanctity'.

352. ipsum...Iovem: it is a skilful touch to increase the sanctity of the Capitol by the fancy that Jove himself had chosen it for his seat long before there was any temple.

353. cum saepe concuteret, 'when oft he shook', compressed expression for 'when he shook, as oft he did'.

354. nimbos cieret, 'gathered the clouds': for the Homeric Zeus is regularly called the 'Cloud-gatherer'.

358. An old tradition, that on the Ianiculum (hill just over the Tiber) was the remains of an old city, and another on the Capitol (Saturnia).

360. pauperis, cf. inopes, 100.

lautis Carinis, 'the rich Carinae', a quarter on the W. end of the Esquiline hill (Mons Oppius), called 'rich' because in the later days of