Vergil - A Biography by Tenney Frank
page 99 of 156 (63%)
page 99 of 156 (63%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
|
[Footnote 9: See _Suffenus and Alfenus, Classical Quarterly_, 1920, p. 160.] [Footnote 10: On _Eclogue_. VI. 6.] The quotation from the speech of Gallus also lends support to a statement in Servius that Gallus had been assigned to the duty of exacting moneys from cities which escaped confiscation.[11] For this we are duly grateful. It indicates how Alfenus and Gallus came into conflict since the latter's financial sphere would naturally be invaded if the former seized exempted territory for the extension of his new colony of Cremona. In such conditions we can realize that Gallus was, as a matter of course, interested in saving Mantua from confiscation, and that in this effort he may well have appealed to Octavian in Vergil's behalf. In fact his interpretation of the three-mile exemption might actually have saved Vergil's properties, which seem to have lain about that distance from the city.[12] [Footnote 11: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 64.] [Footnote 12: Vita Probiana, _milia passuum_ XXX is usually changed to III on the basis of Donatus: _a Mantua non procul_.] Again, however, there is little reason for the supposition that Vergil's _Eclogues_ in honor of Gallus have any reference whatever to this affair. The sixth followed the death of Siro, and the tenth seems to precede the days of colonial disturbances, if it has reference to Gallus as a soldier in Greece. If the sixth _Eclogue_ refers to Siro, as Servius holds, then Vergil and Gallus had long been literary associates before the first and |
|


