102.

AENA LOCANT ALII

That AENA here, and in En. I. 217, are λοετρα, vessels to heat water for the purposes of ablution, is I think placed beyond all doubt by the exactly corresponding passage of Apollonius Rhodius (Argon. III. 271, 299, and seq.): “ Τοι μεν μεγαν αμφεπενοντο

Ταυρον αλις δμωες· τοι δε ξυλα καγκανα χαλκῳ
Κοπτον τοι δε λοετρα πυρι ζεον.

Δμώες δ' οπποτε δη σφιν επαρτεα θηκαν εδωδην, Αυτοι τε λιαροισιν εφαιδρυναντο λοετροις” etc. Compare also Soph. Αjax. Flagell. 1420:

« Αλλ' οι μεν κοιλην καπετον

Χερσι ταχύνατε, τοι δ' υψιβατον
Τριποδ αμφιπυρον λουτρων οσίων
Θεσθ' επικαιρον.”

and (APUL. Metam. IV. 7): "In fine sermonis hujus statim se devestiunt; nudatique et flammae largissimae vapore recreati calidaque perfusi, et oleo peruncti, mensas dapibus largiter instructas accumbunt."

118.

INGENTEMQUE GYAS INGENTI MOLE CHIMAERAM
URBIS OPUS

The comparison of a large ship to a city may be excused in a poet, since it has been made even by an historian; see Flor. IV. 11, where speaking of the ships of Mark Antony he says: "Turribus atque tabulatis allevatae castellorum et urbium specie, non sine gemitu maris et labore ventorum ferebantur." For the contrary

66

comparison, viz. that of a city to a ship, see that beautiful passage in Ezekiel, thus rendered in the Vulgate: "O Tyre, tu dixisti: perfecti decoris ego sum, et in corde maris sita. Finitimi tui qui te aedificaverunt, impleverunt decorem tuum. Abietibus de Sanir extruxerunt te cum omnibus tabulatis maris; cedrum de Libano tulerunt, ut facerent tibi malum; quercus de Basan dolaverunt in remos tuos; et transtra tua fecerunt tibi ex ebore Indico et praetoriola de insulis Italiae." EZECHIEL, XXVII. 3.

157.

NUNC UNA AMBAE JUNCTISQUE FERUNTUR

FRONTIBUS ET LONGA SULCANT VADA SALSA CARINA

The simple idea, stripped of its ornament, is that of the two vessels moving on, abreast in front, and side by side in their length; and so, no doubt, it would have been expressed by an inferior poet; but Virgil for the sake of variety, and according to his usual custom (see Comm. En. IV. 73), alters the latter clause, and instead of saying with bows abreast and hulls side by side, says with bows abreast, and furrow the salt waters with their long keels; thus used, the epithlet LONGA is, not only not "otiosum", as it has appeared to Peerlkamp, Wagner, and Heyne ("est LONGA prorsus otiosa vox"), but in the highest degree useful and ornamental; (a) because it serves to place before the mind not only the length of the vessels (with their consequent size and stateliness), but their parallel position with respect to their length (which latter sense appears more evidently on our supplying UNA from the preceding clause, as suggested by Wagner); and (b) because it thus prepares for the succeeding account (vers. 186) of the one vessel passing the other, not by the whole, but only by part of its length: "Nec tota tamen ille prior praeeunte carina" etc.

B

That such is really the use and effect of the epithet LONGA will readily appear on suppressing the term and reading the passage without it; SULCANT VADA SALSA CARINA. Compare En. X. 197, where the same term is applied to the keel of a vessel with the same happy effect; that of suggesting the idea not merely of a long keel, but of a large and stately vessel. Compare also the similiar use, by another faithful observer of nature, of the same 'epitheton otiosum' (!):

"The long keel trembles and the timbers groan."

FALCONER, Shipwreck, c. III. Although nautical men of the present day invariably connect the idea of speed with length of keel ("The length of fast ships must be great, 200 feet of keel being requisite to insure with least power a speed of 18 miles an hour, 300 feet of keel to attain 23 miles an hour," etc. See a paper read by Mr. Scott Russell in the Royal Institution, June 2. 1848, and quoted in the Atheneum of June 24) it is unnecessary to claim a knowledge of this relation for Virgil, the more obvious relation between length of keel and size and stateliness of vessel, affording a sufficient answer to the charge brought against him, that in applying the term LONGA to a vessel's keel he was guilty of a truism.

A strong confirmation of the views just expressed is afforded by the following passage which I met accidentally in C. Nepos, years after the above was written, and which shows that vessels of war, i. e. the largest, finest, and most stately vessels, were specially and technically denominated 'longae' by the ancients; no doubt because proportionally longer than transports, or merchant vessels. Speaking of the fleet with which Xerxes invaded Greece, Cornelius says: "Hujus enim classis mille et ducentarum navium longarum fuit, quam duo millia onerariarum sequebantur." Themist. II. 5; where see Bremi's Annot. So also the same author

in Dion, V. 3: "Imperium munitum quingentis longis navibus," i. e. ships of war; and Justin, II. 4: “Eo igitur profectus longis novem navibus, comitante principum Graeciae juventute, inopinantes aggreditur." So also Caesar (de Bell. Gall. IV. 22) opposes 66 naves longas" to "onerarias". Compare also: "Axvlav... εжεμα προς υμας κατασκευαζοντα μοι ναυς στρογγυλας πεντήκοντα, και μακρας διακοσίας” Epist. Bruti ad Bithyn. in the Epist. Mut. Graecan.

210.

AT LAETUS MNESTHEUS SUCCESSUQUE ACRIOR IPSO
AGMINE REMORUM CELERI VENTISQUE VOCATIS
PRONA PETIT MARIA ET PELAGO DECURRIT APERTO
QUALIS SPELUNCA SUBITO COMMOTA COLUMBA

CUI DOMUS ET DULCES LATEBROSO IN PUMICE NIDI
FERTUR IN ARVA VOLANS PLAUSUMQUE EXTERRITA PENNIS
DAT TECTO INGENTEM MOX AERE LAPSA QUIETO

RADIT ITER LIQUIDUM CELERES NEQUE COMMOVET ALAS
SIC MNESTHEUS SIC IPSA FUGA SECAT ULTIMA PRISTIS
AEQUORA SIC ILLAM FERT IMPETUS IPSE VOLANTEM

PRONA MARIA.

S. 1.

'Pronus', declivis in anteriorem partem; sloping downwards and forwards and therefore (in the case of a fluid) flowing downwards and forwards. Compare Georg. I. 203:

"Atque illum in praeceps prono rapit alveus amni;"

and En. VIII. 548:

Fertur aqua;"

"Pars caetera prona

carried down with the descending stream, or current of the river. Lucan, IV. 429:

"Jamque relabenti crescebant littora ponto;

Missa ratis prono defertur lapsa profundo;"

carried down from the shore towards the deep with the ebbing tide. Also Claudian, in Eutrop. II. 28:

"Pronus et in geminas nutavit Bosphorus urbes;"

the tide flowing in opposite directions at the same time. And Lucan, VI. 473, of a river preternaturally flowing upwards or towards its source:

Non qua pronus erat."

"Amnisque cucurrit

And so in the passage before us, Mnestheus, having reached and rounded the goal, seeks, on his return, to avail himself of the fall in the water towards the land, i. e. of the current or tide setting in shoreward. This interpretation of PRONA is doubly confirmed; (a) by the verb DECURRIT (corresponding exactly to 'defertur' in the first of the two passages above quoted from Lucan), and (b) by the immediately succeeding simile (QUALIS SPELUNCA etc.), in which the pigeon is described as flying, not upwards nor horizontally, but from her nest in the rock downwards towards the fields:

RADIT ITER LIQUIDUM, CELERES NEQUE COMMOVET ALAS;

plainly a description of that downward flight of a bird, in which no flapping of the wings is required or used. Compare Dante's exactly similiar description of the downward flying of pigeons from the upper air toward the nest (Inferno, V. 82):

"Quali colombe dal desio chiamate

Con l'ali aperte e ferme al dolce nido
Volan per l'aer dal voler portate";

and Biagioli's commentary: "Con l'ali aperte e ferme;' tale si e l'atto degli augelli volanti d'alto in basso."

Heyne's explanation of this passage ("PRONA MARIA, in quibus cursus pronus ac celer sine impedimento fit; idem APERTO PELAGO) is doubly unhappy; first, because to explain pronus' by 'pronus' is a mere blinking of the difficulty; secondly, because (see §. III. below)