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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
These lines from the second book of the Aeneid introduce the night on which Troy falls. They have always been felt to be impressive: rich in allusion, noteworthy for the monosyllabic ending of the first line, and memorable for the majestic zeugma of the last two lines. Line 250 opens by incorporating a half line from Ennius:
vertitur interea caelum cum ingentibus signis (Ann. 211)
and closes with a near-translation of the substance (as well as the rhythm) of a half-line from Homer:
1 All citations from the Aeneid are from P. Vergili Maronis Opera, Mynors, R. A. B., ed. (Oxford, 1972). The only change I have made is the use of ‘V’ for consonantal ‘u’.Google Scholar
2 Cf. Austin, R. G., P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Secundus (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar, ad loc, and Hough, J. N., ‘Monosyllabic Verse Endings in the Aeneid’, CJ 71. 1 (1975), 16–24.Google Scholar
3 Saturnalia 5. 5.5.Google Scholar
4 Nearly all editors of the Aeneid agree with Servius. They include (alphabetically) Austin, Bennett, Conington, Echave-Sustaets Henry, Ladewig, Schaper and Deuticke, Page fapillon and Haugh, Peerlkamp, Pharr, peranza, Thiel, and R. D. Williams; so far I have only found one editor, Heyne, who definitely disagrees. Mackail, in his 1930; dition of the Aeneid, refers to much debate an the subject, but I have not been able to find a trace of it except perhaps in the fact that each editor feels obliged to justify his reading. Translators of the Aeneid also, for the most part, agree with Servius, among them, Copley, Fairclough, Humphries, Lewis Lind, and Mandelbaum in English, Onesti in Italian; only Dryden and Jackson Knight do lot. Wetmore holds the view of the majority but Szantyr, ed., Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik (repr. Munich, 1963Google Scholar) calls Oceano a ‘dativ des Zieles’. The only other supporter of this view that I have been able to find is A. Preuss, Die metaphorische Kunst Vergils (Graudenz, , 1894), who, on p. 23, according to Ladewig, Schaper, and Deuticke, states that Oceano = ‘auf das Meer’. (I have not yet been able to obtain a copy of Preuss's book.) Forcellini's Lexicon cites the passage as evidence of the meaning adventure for ruere. Ruit = ‘celeriter venit, et ideo rait, quia mare altius terra’.Google Scholar
5 Henry, James, Aeneidea, Book 2 (Dublin, 1878), ad loc.Google Scholar
6 I arrived at these figures using Wetmore, M. N., Index Verborum Vergilianus (3rd edn., Hildesheim, 1961) and Mynors's O.C.T.Google Scholar
7 Cf. Mackail, ad loc.
8 Elsewhere Vergil speaks of day rising and uses surgebat:
Postera iamque dies primo surgebat Eoo
umentemque Aurora polo dimoverat umbran (3. 588–89).
9 There is some overlap in categories, as in ‘ruunt de montibus amnes’, quoted above, where the verb is used with a preposition and implies downward motion. Therefore the sum of the totals given before exceeds seventy-two.
10 It is possible that ruebant in ‘spumas salis aere suebant’ (Aen. 1.35) should be taken in the sense ‘they were ploughing up’ and that ‘maerentes altum cinerem et confusa ruebant/ossa focis’ (11. 212–13) means, as Forcellini claims, ‘de cineribus eruebant’.Google Scholar
11 It is, of course, possible that E's reading eruat is right.
12 Cf. Leaf, Walter, ed., The Iliad (2nd edrAmsterdam, 1960), ad loc. on 
‘a bold but vivid metaphor, darkness being regarded as a mantle or cloth which is dragged over the earth by a departing sun.’Google Scholar
13 Henry, James, Notes of a Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in the First Six Books of the Aeneid (Dresden, 1853), p. 57.Google Scholar
14 Henry, , Notes, p. 57Google Scholar. See also his discussion in Aeneidea (London, 1873), i. 856Google Scholar
15 Cf. Aeneid 4. 351–2: ‘ … quotiens umentibus umbris/nox operit terras …’.Google Scholar
16 See Mackail, Appendix A, on the Vergilian ablative.
17 I was hoping to find some confirmation of this in Hough (see n. 2) or in Norden, Eduard, P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (4th edn., Stuttgart, 1957)Google Scholar. Both refer to the line but neither says much about it. On p. 440 Norden, speaking of ‘schliessendes Monosyllabon’, says that in ‘insequitur cumulo praeruptus aquae mons’ (1. 105) ‘wird das (Überhangen der Flutwelle gemalt (der Vers selbst ist gewissermassen “praeruptus”) wie in II 250 ruit oceano nox …’ This may suggest agreement. He also quotes Aeneid 5. 181 f.: ‘sternitur exanimisque tremens procumbit/humi bos’ and says that here ‘wird das plötzlich Niederstürzendes Rindes plastisch zum Ausdruck gebracht.’Google Scholar
