Fulminat Euphraten bello, victorque volentis Per populos dat iura, viamque adfectat Olympo. Illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope, studiis florentem ignobilis oti, 6 Saturnia Iuno," while they are engaged in the obsequies, Juno has sent Iris,' the whole being viewed from the present moment. Hence it is extended to cases where the verb in the leading proposition is in the pluperfect, as E. 7. 6, 7 (note), the construction being a mixture of the present and past forms of narrative, such as frequently occurs in prose as well as in poetry. The combination in this passage ofdum' with the present, and a verb in the imperfect in the leading proposition, is an instance of a similar mixture. The imperfect in formulas, like those noticed in the note on the preceding line, is intended, as is well known, to place the writer at the time when his work will be perused by the reader. If the present is to be explained in conformity with this usage, we must say that it is meant to imply that the successes of Caesar were still going on when the composition of the Georgics was finished, and, in the poet's view, would still be going on when his work should be in the reader's hands. Or we may say that canebam' being regarded as a conventional synonyme for the present, the present is used of a time intended to be coextensive with it. In the passage from Livy 21. 7, quoted by Voss, "dum ea Romani parant consultantque, iam Saguntum summa vi oppugnabatur," the inconsistency of the tenses has a rhetorical force, the point being to fix the mind on the late date to which the consultations extended, and on the early date at which the siege began, so that what is present in the former is placed in juxtaposition with what is past in the latter. 561.] Fulminat,' like "fulminat Aeneas armis," A. 12. 654, where the image is that of Jupiter hurling his thunderbolts on the world. So the Scipios are called "fulmina belli," A. 6. 842, Lucr. 3. 1034. Comp. Aristophanes' well-known description of Pericles (Ach. 531), HOTраTT', ἐβρόντα, ξυνεκύκα τὴν Ἑλλάδα, though the fulmination there was of a different kind. 'Bello,' instrumental or modal, like "armis," A. 12, 1. c. The war is the war with Egypt, just closed, the submissions those which Octavianus afterwards received, Egypt being reduced to a province, while the claimants of the Parthian throne sought his arbitration, and Herod was confirmed by him in his kingdom. See Merivale, Hist. vol. iii. pp. 358, 359. 562.] 'Dat iura' is here used loosely of governing, as in Livy 30. 32 "Roma an Karthago iura gentibus daret ante crastinam noctem scituros," Hor. 3 Od. 3. 43 'triumphatisque possit Roma ferox dare iura Medis," passages cited by Lersch, Antiqq. Vergg. § 2. It is very common in the Aeneid, where it generally has the sense of legislation, though the notion of administering justice seems sometimes to be included. See A. 1. 293 (where I have gone too far in excluding the sense of 'ius dicere "), 5. 758, 7. 246, 8.'670. Adfectare viam' or "iter" is a phrase. Ter. Phorm. 5. 8. 71, "Hi gladiatorio animo ad me adfectant viam." The sense is apparently nearly "ingredi viam," though in one or two passages it seems to denote rather purpose than even an early stage of accomplishment. Caesar is apparently here described as working his way actual immortality (1. 503), not as making himself a god on earth, which Virg. has declared that he is already (ib. 42). Olympo,' like "it clamor caelo," A. 5. 451. to 564.] Parthenope,' the other old name of Naples (Neapolis), from the grave of one of the Sirens of that name. "Sirenun dedit una suum memorabile nomem Par thenope muris Acheloias," Sil. 12. 33 quoted by Emm. Oti,' peace: see or E. 1.6. Weichert's argument, mentioned on v. 559, from the form of the word is no conclusive, as though the genitive "ii," from "ium," may not have come in till th latter part of Augustus' reign, a question on which see Lachmann on Lucr. 5. 1006 the form "i" seems not entirely to hav died out afterwards. "Palati" is found Carmina qui lusi pastorum, audaxque iuventa, 565 of bucolic poetry, not as compared with other kinds of poetry, but with reference to its own standard, with some such feelings as those embodied E. 9. 32. foll. Heyne comp. "audacibus adnue coeptis," above, 1. 40. [The Berne scholia read "auxique iuventa," mentioning ‘audax' as a variant. Juv. 4. 31. 'Studiis oti' then is opposed 565.] Carmina pastorum' is not "carmina pastoralia," but refers to the actual songs of shepherds in the Bucolics. 'Lusi' E. 1. 10. Audax iuventa:' he is thinking 566.] E. 1. 1, which shows that 'sub tegmine fagi' here refers to Tityrus. Rom. has cecini patulae,' which perhaps might make the sense clearer, but it is more probable that Virg. should have wished to reproduce his first line as closely as possible. ON THE LATER DIDACTIC POETS OF ROME, HAVING spoken of the Latin Pastoral writers who came after Virgil, I may naturally be expected to say something of his successors in Didactic Poetry. It is true that the two cases are not precisely parallel: in the one not only the kind of poetry, but the subject, was the same as Virgil's own in the other the similarity merely affects the form, and does not extend to the matter. Like Virgil, Calpurnius and Nemesianus sang of the contests, the loves, the laments of shepherds: unlike Virgil, Manilius, Gratius, Nemesianus, and Serenus Sammonicus, sing of astronomy and astrology, of the chase, and of the cure of diseases. Here, however, as in the Introductory Essay to the Georgics, I am addressing those who, like myself, are students of Roman poetry, not students of Roman agriculture, so that I shall need no apology for devoting a short time to the examination of writers whose works resemble the Georgics, as the Georgics themselves resemble not the treatises of Cato and Varro, but the poems of Lucretius. These writers of course will be themselves considered simply with reference to their form to discuss their matter is a task which is fortunately beyond my purpose, as it is certainly beyond my ability. : The most considerable Latin Didactic poem subsequent to the Georgics is unquestionably the Astronomica1 of Manilius. It is divided into five books, consisting respectively of 926, 970, 682, 935, and 745 lines, so that its length is nearly double that of Virgil's work. Its date is still an unsolved problem. No allusion to it occurs in any ancient writers: it is not even quoted by a single grammarian: indeed, there is no trace of its existence till the eleventh century, which also happens to be the probable date of its earliest MS.; while, on the other hand, its own internal evidence, as estimated by the most competent critics, would seem to refer it to the reign of Tiberius. Professor 66 1 I have adopted the forms "Astronomica," "Cynegetica," &c., rather than Astronomicon," "Cynegeticon," which seem to be merely genitives belonging to the omitted substantive "liber" or "libri," as the Latin title of the Georgics shows. Similar mistakes were made by early English writers, who talked about Virgil's "Aeneidos," and are not uncommonly made by modern English bookbinders. Pliny however (H. N. 32. 11) seems to regard "Halieuticon" as a neuter singular. Ramsay, to whose article in the Dictionary of Biography those who are desirous of further information may be profitably referred, reconciles these apparently conflicting facts by supposing that the poem, bearing, as it does, marks of incompleteness, may never have been published, but that a copy or two may have got into private circulation, and so may have been accidentally preserved. I do not pretend to have given the work such an examination as would qualify me to form an independent opinion; nor would I venture to decide whether, as some have supposed, his language would not lead us to believe him to have been a foreigner. The work is apparently written with that average command of the hexameter which, after the example set by Virgil, became almost a matter of course for a Roman poet, and the language has much of that elaboration and point which after the Augustan age was exacted as a necessity, while it almost ceased to be a merit: but there is no genuine energy or felicity of diction: the expressions are frequently forced, and the thoughts, where not obvious, are apt to degenerate into conceits. I propose to justify this character of a poem. which numbers the younger Scaliger and Bentley among its editors, and Creech, not the worst versifier of Dryden's contemporaries, among its translators, by a few extracts from the more professedly poetical passages, and afterwards to give some notion of the general mode of treatment by an analysis of the First Book. Each of the five books is introduced by a long exordium, in which the author was evidently anxious to display his powers as a poet. The first book has an introduction of 117 lines, the second of at least 59, the third of 42, the fourth of 121, the fifth of 29: and similar haltingplaces are furnished by the conclusions of the first and third books. In the opening of the second book Manilius elaborates the same thought which is enforced by Virgil at the beginning of the Third Georgic, the difficulty of finding a subject which had not been exhausted by previous treatment: but it is easy to see how far the rhetorician is removed from the poet. After speaking of Homer in lines of which the text is too uncertain to make them worth quoting, he comes to Hesiod. "Proximus illi Hesiodus memorat divos divomque parentis Atque arbusta vagis essent quod adultera pomis, The first remark which occurs to the mind is on the needless frigidity of this enumeration of Hesiod's works and their various subjects, when a line or two, mentioning the poet and indicating the character of his poetry, would have been quite sufficient: the second is on the equally gratuitous conceits with which the details are embellished, as in the lines about the creation, about Jupiter, and about Bacchus. In entering upon the third book he tells us that he is undertaking a new and difficult part of his subject, and prepares himself for the extraordinary effort by proclaiming what he is not going to sing. "Non ego in excidium caeli nascentia bella Fulminis et flammas, partus in matre sepultos; Yet, if these lines are frigid in their conception and affectedly obscure in their expression, we need not refuse the praise of ingenuity to those which immediately follow, in which he contrasts the ease of writing on such hackneyed themes with the mechanical difficulties of his own subject. "Facile est ventis dare vela secundis, |