thus agmen, crepito, horreo, tremulus, are all illustrated from Ennius; so lychnus and aethra; daedalus and reboo, petulcus and liquidus, from Lucretius: arcitenens and silvicola from Naevius.

These facts alone might fairly lead us to suspect that Macrobius is drawing upon glosses or philological works of respectable antiquity. But the suspicion becomes something stronger when we find that some of the notes are traceable to Verrius Flaccus (daedalus, camurus, petulcus, auritus, and perhaps reboo), that others are common to Macrobius and Nonius, and others again to those two writers, with Servius and other later commentators. For I have endeavoured to show further on (p. lxviii. foll.) that the Virgilian notes which are common to Nonius and the later commentators cannot be assigned to a later date than the age of Trajan. And the conclusion to which we are led in the case of the scholia, whose origin we can directly or indirectly trace, it is natural to extend to those of whose sources we are ignorant.

NOTE.

It was not until after these sheets had been sent to press that I was able to procure two pamphlets, by Drs. Linke and Wissowa, “De Macrobii Saturnaliorum fontibus," Breslau, 1880. Dr. Linke, who goes much more fully than Dr. Wissowa into the question of the sources of the Virgilian criticisms in Macrobius, has come to the conclusion (1) that the additional notes in Daniel's Servius are ancient interpolations (2) that the Servius of our commentary stands in no relation of dependence to the Servius of the Saturnalia; (3) that the ancient interpolators of Servius borrowed, in a great many instances, directly from Macrobius; (4) that there are some cases, nevertheless, where this cannot have been the case: (5) that Macrobius 3. 1-12 is taken from two different manuals, of uncertain date, each of which probably contained information borrowed ultimately from Verrius Flaccus.

With regard to (1) and (3) I would observe that the additional notes in Daniel's Servius may be interpolations, but that whether they are so or not, they are, in my opinion, taken not from Macrobius, but from a continuous commentary. For (1) they often extend without a break over continuous lines; (2) they sometimes give information which is not found in Macrobius; (3) they sometimes, in a very striking way, ignore what is to be found in him, as notably in the case of his sixth book (see p. xlvii.-lx.). I entirely agree with Dr. Linke as to the relation between our Servius and the Servius of the Saturnalia; with regard to Macrobius 3. 1-12 I am not convinced that he is right, as chapters 10, 11 and 12 may come from the Aeneidomastix.

THE ANCIENT COMMENTATORS ON VIRGIL.

Ir was not long before the poems of Virgil began to afford matter for discussion to lexicographers, grammarians, and writers on antiquity. The first scholar who actually lectured upon Virgil was Quintus Caecilius Epirota, for information about whom we are entirely dependent upon Suetonius (De Grammaticis, 16). He was, it appears, a freedman of Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero, and was born at Tusculum. His cognomen suggests that he may have been the child of Epirot parents, brought over, perhaps, from the estates of Atticus in Epirus. The daughter of Atticus was married to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and Caecilius was tutor to this lady. On account of a suspicion which arose against him with regard to his conduct in this relation he left the family of Agrippa, and lived henceforth on terms of intimate friendship with the poet Cornelius Gallus. His character was so unfavourably regarded by Augustus that this intimacy was the occasion of one of the gravest charges brought against Gallus by the emperor. After the condemnation and death of Gallus, Caecilius opened a school for a few young men, to whom he lectured on Virgil and other contemporary poets. Whether this was before Virgil's death or not there is no evidence to decide. A verse written upon him by Domitius Marsus

"Epirota, tenellorum nutricula vatum,"

seems to be pointed at the real or supposed effeminacy of his character. Verrius Flaccus, the compiler of the first Latin lexicon ever written, must have paid a great deal of attention to Virgil. His work De Verborum Significatu has, as is well known, survived only in the abridgments of Festus and Paulus. Even in these, a considerable number of quotations from Virgil is to be found; and I am inclined to think that several of the original glosses of Verrius may be partially reconstructed from later writers, notably from Nonius and Macrobius, who seem to have preserved them in a fuller form than Paulus or even Festus. Thus Paulus has preserved the following gloss on daedalus (p. 68, Müller), Daedalam a varietate rerum artificiorumque dictum esse apud Lucretium terram, apud Ennium Minervam, apud

Vergilium Circen, facile est intellegere. Macrobius 6. 4. 2 remarks that Virgil says daedala Circe because Lucretius had said daedala tellus. It seems from this that Verrius must have had an article in which the daedala tellus of Lucretius and the daedala Circe of Virgil were quoted together. The case was probably similar with Verrius' article on camurus. Fest. p. 43 says camara and camuri boves a curvatione ex Graeco κáμm dicuntur. Nonius, p. 30, has the following note: camurum obtortum, unde et camerae tecta in curvitatem formata. Vergilius Georgicorum lib. III. (v. 55), "Et camuris hirtae sub cornibus aures." Commenting on this line Macrobius 6. 4. 23 says camurus peregrinum verbum est, id est in se redeuntibus. Et forte nos quoque camaram hac ratione figuravimus. Servius, in his note on the passage of the third Georgic, says, camuris, id est curvis. Unde et camerae appellantur, and Philargyrius brings us very near to the gloss in Paulus, camuri boves sunt qui conversa introrsus cornua habent. I conjecture that these remarks all represent parts of a full note in Verrius Flaccus, in which camuri boves, camurae aures, and camera were discussed together.

On p. 206 Festus has a note on petulcus which he illustrates from Virgil's fourth Georgic (haedique petulci), from Lucretius, and from Afranius. It is instructive to find that Macrobius, in his comment on the line in the fourth Georgic, also quotes the same line of Lucretius in illustration of the word.

I have little doubt that had the work of Verrius De Verborum Significatu been preserved in its original extent, it would be possible to multiply these examples of comments drawn from articles in his lexicon in which Virgil was quoted. It is much easier to collect instances in which the De Verborum Significatu was used by late commentators for general purposes of illustration. Take for instance the note in Festus p. 298 on the word summussi. Summussi dicebantur murmuratores. Naevius: " Odi, inquit, summussos; proinde aperte dice, quid siet quod times." Ennius in sexto Annalium: "Intus in occulto mussabant," et Ennius in Andromache . . . Mussare silere est: nam [Iuventius in Anagnorizomene], "quod potes sile cela occulta tege tace mussa mane." Philargyrius on Georg. 4. 188, mussant: hic murmurant. Quae vox ponitur in tacendi significatione, ut apud Ennium in XVII., "non possunt mussare boni qui facta labore Nixi militiae peperere." Interdum autem pro dubito, ut (A. 12. 657) "mussat rex ipse Latinus, Quos generos vocet." Mussant autem murmurant. Ennius in X. sic ait, " Expectans si mussaret quae denique pausa Pugnandi fieret." Serv. A. 12. 657 mussat, modo dubitat; Dan. adds, . . . Veteres mussat pro timet. Ennius mussare pro tacere posuit. Clodius Tuscus : mussare est ex Graeco; comprimere oculos

Graeci voa dicunt." And Nonius, p. 427, distinguishes mussare and

murmurare.

Paulus, p. 368, on vescus. Vescus fastidiosus. Ve enim pro pusillo utebantur. Lucretius vescum dixit edacem, cum ait nec mare quae impendent vesco sale saxa peresa. Gellius 16. 5. 6 has words to the same effect, but Nonius, p. 186, seems to preserve a better form of this gloss, in which it is clear that Paulus or Festus have confused quotation and interpretation: Vescum minutum, obscurum. Lucilius lib. XXVI. "quam fastidiosum ac vescum cum Falcidio videre." Vergilius Georgicorum lib. III. (175) nec vescas salicum frondes." Afranius in Sororibus, "At puer est vescis imbecillus viribus.” Turning

66

now to Philargyrius on Georgic 3. 175, we find Vescas: teneras et exiles. Nam vescum apud antiquos significabat macrum, et quasi quod escam non reciperet. Afranius in Sororibus, "At puer est vescis imbecillus viribus." Sed vide ne vescas appetibiles dixeris. Lucretius certe pro edace posuit, ut " vesco sale saxa peresa.' Serv. G. 3. 175, vescas frondes, siccas et teneras. Nam vescum hoc est proprie, unde et telae aranearum vescae nominantur, comp. Serv. G. 4. 130.

Paulus, p. 321, pagani a pagis dicti. Pagi dicti a fontibus, quod eadem aqua uterentur. Aquae enim lingua Dorica mayai appellabantur. Serv. G. 2. 381: primi ludi theatrales ex Liberalibus nati sunt: ideo ait veteres ludi... Pagos et compita circum: id est, per quadrivia, quae compita appellantur, ab eo quod multae viae in unum confluant, et villas, quae pagi åñò тŵν πnyŵν appellantur, id est a fontibus, circa quos villae consueverant condi. Unde et pagani dicti sunt quasi ex uno fonte potantes.

Did space permit I could give many more examples of this phenomenon, the existence of which was first revealed to me by a minute comparison between Festus and Paulus on the one hand, and Servius, Philargyrius and the Verona scholia on the other. But to pursue this question into all its details is a task which hardly falls within the scope of the present essay: and I proceed therefore to speak of another eminent scholar of the same period who gave some attention to Virgil, C. Inlius Hyginus.1

Hyginus was, as we know from Gellius 16. 6 and 1. 21, the author of a special work upon Virgil: commentarii in Vergilium, or libri de Vergilio facti, as Gellius calls it. There is no evidence that this work was a regular continuous commentary on Virgil; and had it been of this nature, there can hardly be any doubt that Hyginus' name would have appeared far more frequently than it has in the commentaries of Servius or Philargyrius, or the Verona scholia.

We may conveniently divide the remarks of Hyginus which have been preserved by Gellius and the later commentators into those which

1 Suetonius De Illustribus Grammaticis, 20.

refer (1) to the text, (2) to interpretation of language, (3) to history and antiquities, religious or political.

(1.) In Aen. 12. 120 he defended from Virgil's own manuscript the reading "velati limo:" and in Georgic 2. 247 amaror, appealing in like manner to a good MS. Gellius, 1. 21. 5, who gives us this information, remarks, "non enim primus finxit hoc verbum Vergilius insolenter, sed in carminibus Lucretii inventum est, nec est aspernatus auctoritatem poetae ingenii et facundiae praecellentis." An observation for which he may be indebted either to Hyginus or to Verrius Flaccus, in whose works it is probable that there was a not inconsiderable

amount of common matter.

(2.) Gellius 16. 6. 15 preserves a note of Hyginus upon the word bidens, which he interprets as meaning a sheep with the two prominent teeth which mark its full growth. Whether this interpretation was due to Hyginus or to Verrius Flaccus, whether either of them borrowed it from the other, or both adopted it independently, cannot be ascertained with certainty: but it is worth notice that the explanation adopted by Hyginus is identical with that given in Paulus p. 33, s. v. bidental. In Aen. 6. 15, he found fault with the expression praepetibus pennis. His objection is not expressly noticed in the commentary of Servius, who, however, appears to be tacitly replying to it. And in 7. 187, he criticised the zeugma lituo et succinctus trabea.3

(3.) Hyginus, who had made considerable studies in Roman history, was not slow to observe the error by which Virgil in the sixth Aeneid (837) confuses the conquerors of Macedonia and of Greece. Servius, again without mentioning Hyginus, is at the pains to attempt a solution of the difficulty which cannot be called successful. The same is the case with Hyginus' remark on Aen. 6. 359, that Velia was not founded at the time when Aeneas is represented as coming thither; 2 and with his observation that Theseus is spoken of at one time as remaining in hell for ever, and in another as an instance of a hero who had returned thence (Aen. 6. 122, 617). As the name of Hyginus is not mentioned in these cases by Servius, it is natural to infer that his criticisms were only known to the later commentator at second or third hand. There are instances, however, in which Servius mentions Hyginus by name. Thus he is quoted on Aen. 1. 277, 530, on points connected with the early history of Rome and Italy; and so on Aen. 2. 15, and 7.47. His work De Urbibus Italicis is mentioned in general terms by Servius on Aen. 7. 678, and that De Familiis Troianis on Aen. 5. 389. Both works were probably much used by the later commentators on Virgil, and much of their contents may have found their way into the notes of Servius.