Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1881, by J. B. GREENOUGH, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. J. S. CUSHING, PRINTER, 16 HAWLEY STREET, BOSTON. { NOTE. THE text of this edition follows Ribbeck in the main, adhering, however, to the received reading where he seems to be not fully supported by his own apparatus criticus. Variations are indicated in the margin. It is hoped that the many wood-cuts, all taken from ancient objects of art, will serve to illustrate the poet's conception better than annotations alone could do. The grammatical references are to Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar, and to those of Prof. Gildersleeve and Prof. Harkness. The Botanical Index is derived chiefly from Fée's Flore de Virgile, contained in Lemaire's "Bibliotheca Classica Latina." All the material that was available has been retained from Allen and Greenough's Virgil, including, among other things, the Life of Virgil, the Summaries of the separate books, and the List of Plants. The second volume will contain the remainder of the Eneid, with the Georgics. CAMBRIDGE, November, 1881. THE LIFE OF VIRGIL. B Y general consent, the name of VIRGIL stands first in rank among Roman poets. Others may have excelled him in single respects, - in original vigor of thought, in elegance of diction, in ease of versification, in pure poetry of temperament; but of what is best in the moral and intellectual life of Rome, refined and shaped by what is finest in the culture derived from Greece, combined in one, the poems of Virgil are the recognized and the noblest type. What is peculiar to these poems as literary compositions, their place in the history of literature, and especially their relation to that body of Greek poetry which furnished their model even to minute details, has been treated in the special introductions that accompany the text, and in the notes. A few additional words will suffice to tell what needs to be told of the poet's life. Here PUBLIUS VERGILIUS Maro was born в.с. 70, in Andes, in the municipality of Mantua, in North Italy.* his boyhood and youth were sheltered through the stormy times of the later republic. According to some accounts, he was educated at Cremona, Milan, and Rome; and the earlier doubtful poems, Ciris, Culex, etc., are said to have been written during this time. For poetry and philosophy he showed great aptness; shy, slow, and * Five years before Horace, and seven before Augustus; and on the same day, it is said, that Lucretius died (October 15). |