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Vergil's Res Romanae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Tenney Frank
Tenney Frank
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Extract

Donatus, after enumerating Vergil's early poems, proceeds (Vita Verg. 19): ‘Mox cum res Romanas inchoasset, offensus materia, ad Bucolica transiit.’ We have learned to distrust such statements about Vergil's early life, having discovered that an all too literal interpretation of the Bucolics provided a large part of Suetonius' data. The line quoted above may be nothing but an inference from Eclogue VI. 3:

cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem

uellit et admonuit, etc.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 14 , Issue 3-4 , July 1920 , pp. 156 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1920

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References

page 156 note 1 I have tried to summarize the conclusions in Class. Phil., 1920, Nos. I.–II.

page 157 note 1 See Dio, XLIII. 22; Appian, II. 102; Heinen, , Klio XI. 130Google Scholar, for references.

page 157 note 2 The contrast lies between Vergil's first song and his later attempts at an epic. We cannot, therefore, accept the more usual rendering ‘Mine was the first muse that deigned.’ For the date and nature of the Culex see Class. Phil., 1920, 23.

page 157 note 3 Because of the reference in Propertius (II. 24) and also of internal evidence provided by the Aeneid, many scholars hold that the seventh book was written earlier than the first six; cf. Hirst, G.. An Attempt to Date the Composition of Aen. VII., Class. Quart., 1916, 87Google Scholar.

page 158 note 1 Cf. Class. Phil., 1920, II.

page 159 note 1 1 Cf. Ecl. IV. 47 with Ciris 125; Ecl. IV. 49 with Ciris 398; Ecl. VIII. 41 with Ciris 430; Georg. I. 406–9 with Ciris 538–41; Aen. II. 405 with Ciris 402; Aen. III. 74 with Ciris 474. See Vollmer's edition of the Ciris for these and other references.