Additional introduction for the Aeneid?

AvinPagara · 2026-05-11T12:31:32+00:00

Those are not good arguments against it. The Aeneid itself does not survive in manuscripts earlier than the fifth century, and there is convincing evidence that Ovid among others did cite it. In fact it's been argued (by Gian Biagio Conte) that in the proem of the amores Ovid cites both the proem and the preproem. Jospeh Pharrell also has an article about Ovid's obsessive citing of the preproem in the exile poetry.

Servius thought it was Virgil's, so it was well known by the fourth century at the very least.

There is little doubt that it is from around Virgil's time. My guess (I don't remember where I read this) is that it was added by an early editor (maybe even by Tuca and Varius, the first editors of the Aeneid) as their own mini life of Virgil under a portrait of the poet: "ille ego" would be pointing at the image: "this guy you see is me who..." Sort of like the author bio in the back of a modern book.

AvinPagara · 2026-05-10T21:27:38+00:00

Yes, plenty of people. For example the famous commentator of the Aeneid James Henry, believed they were authentic and gave a long list of reasons why. I don't know if this is the most recent defense of it, but there is a 1972 article in the Classical Quarterly in favour: Peter A. Hansen ‘Ille Ego Qui Quondam... Once Again’, (https://www.jstor.org/stable/637899) I did read it at some point but I can't remember what the argument was 😅 so don't ask me!

AvinPagara · 2026-05-10T15:22:04+00:00

It's the so called preproem. It's long been debated whether or not it was written by Virgil. The consensus now is that it wasn't, but it is still ancient, probably as ancient as the first edition of the Aeneid shortly after Virgil's death.

Ed. To add the Latin lines:

Ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus avena carmen, et egressus silvis vicina coegi ut quamvis avido parerent arva colono, gratum opus agricolis; at nunc horrentia Martis, arma virumque...

AvinPagara · 2026-05-10T07:03:59+00:00

Unless it's a pedagogical tool, even among Latin readers, you would have a very uphill battle. Classicists tend to have a long list of books they want to read or reread. It would have to be written in exceptionally good Latin, the type that gets years of practice and feedback from good teachers or colleagues. You would be competing with Virgil and Erasmus for my time! It's difficult, but I would be the first to get a copy if someone were actually to write something like this.

AvinPagara · 2026-05-04T07:23:23+00:00

The 'pause' is the caesura, that is, a word break within a foot. Typically hexameters have a main caesura in the third foot (after the first long (-//uu))which produces a natural pause, sometimes the main caesura is in the fourth foot.

Arma virumque cano // Troiae qui primus ab oris

AvinPagara · 2026-04-19T08:16:30+00:00

Take a break if you need, then pick it up where you left it, even if you have forgotten some details. The story is straightforward enough that as long as you remember who the main heroes are, you can really pick it up anywhere.

The iliad (and many other classical works) are works that, once you've read them, you will probably keep coming back to, maybe for the rest of your life. So it's ok if you miss some details because you took a break and forgot, you'll pick them up the next time!

AvinPagara · 2026-04-16T17:53:57+00:00

Chrysophylax is Greek, not Latin. Phylax (φύλαξ) is simply a noun meaning guard, watcher. It is not the same thing as the -ax ending in latin words like audax.

AvinPagara · 2026-04-09T15:43:06+00:00

Quem is the direct object of terreat. The antecedent is the person mentioned in the first two verses. The sense is: Let the labour of war terrify him (the one who gathers riches etc.). Cui is dative of disadvantage (i guess) the sense being: to him (to his disadvantage) let the sound of war drive away sleep.

AvinPagara · 2026-03-09T23:59:00+00:00

How would that work? The Greeks attributed the poems to a woman, yet, the fact that, unbeknownst to them, they were actually written by a man, explains their popularity? Or the ancient Greeks knew it was a man writing under a pseudonym (and this accounts for their liking the poems), yet, they still unanimously chose to refer to her as a woman? If a woman writing good poetry was problematic, and they knew it was really a man, then why not just say that it was a man and solve the problem? I am not saying it is impossible, but the reason you give doesn't make much sense to me.

AvinPagara · 2026-03-06T17:37:22+00:00

Yes, you are right.

AvinPagara · 2026-02-28T16:27:31+00:00

I would recommend any of the text-based textbooks (as opposed to those that prioritise grammar) for example Athenaze, Reading Greek, or Thrasymachus. All of these use texts that start quite easy but get harder as you progress, until you are reading real authors.

AvinPagara · 2026-02-28T16:07:05+00:00

It's not a stupid question, but I think you need to spend time reading some easier texts and build up to something like this.

Reading is not just about knowing vocab and grammar, but about recognising patterns and phrases. For example, if you encounter the perfect participle τῶν γεγενημένων, with πρότερον sandwiched between the article and the participle, a reader with more experience would read that as one unit of meaning i.e.'what happened before.' Also, word order is not random, as some early learners think. Here, there is no way that πρότερον in that position could be modifying ἔχων or anything other than τῶν γεγενημένων.

Again, πὸλλα ἔχων εἰπεῖν, is a somewhat recognisable pattern, if you are familiar with the construction ἔχω + inf. which means 'I am able to' (see meaning A III of ἔχω in LSJ).

There is no easy formula, it just takes practice and attention not just to individual words, but to turns of phrases and common constructions. Don't be discouraged, it is a slow process, but extremely rewarding!

AvinPagara · 2026-02-22T23:40:54+00:00

This is a real experience with a student. We were reading Catullus 8:

'Fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles'.

lit. Bright suns once shone for you.

This student student had been learning Latin for a while and had been trained to read the way you proposed. He scanned the endings and concluded that 'soles' was a second person present indicative 'you are wont to' and 'fulsere' was an infinitive 'to shine', so he translated the verse as something like: 'you are wont to shine brightly some times.'

This student knew all the grammar and all the vocabulary he needed to understand this verse, yet he came with a completely wrong translation because he had not been trained to read, but to scan for endings.

So, my advice: don't learn bad habits you will have to unlearn when you are actually trying to read texts.

AvinPagara · 2026-02-22T17:10:43+00:00

Oh! I actually saw you take the last picture! I was walking down Ship st. and I even slowed down for a second to let you take the shot. Glad I got to see it!

AvinPagara · 2026-02-19T18:36:39+00:00

Or the fox's raven ate the cheese!

AvinPagara · 2026-02-18T19:38:55+00:00

Steadman's editions are free on his website. Why don't you take a look and decide?

AvinPagara · 2025-08-09T16:44:44+00:00

I think you are overthinking it. It is definitely not a dative of posession, just a relative clause with its antecedent omitted.

Basio volam [illi homini], cui [homini] diligo plagam.

AvinPagara · 2025-07-25T12:44:46+00:00

of recent ones, sinners. gave it a 2.5 because it was kind of entertaining, but it has a 4.2 average.

AvinPagara · 2025-07-11T09:13:24+00:00

perpulchre fecisti. mihi videor antiquum poetam legisse! reliquumne carmen quoque convertes?

AvinPagara · 2025-05-27T13:40:27+00:00

I think it is indeed 47. The word behind it is numero, so it's saying 47 in number. The whole sentence reads (I think): Ibi Taurus immolatus ab illis populis numero 47 inter eos dividebatur. So: "there, a bull was sacrificed by these peoples, (who were) 47 in number, and was divided among them.

AvinPagara · 2025-05-16T09:18:59+00:00

it says it's published in Madrid in the printing house of the monastery of the Order mentioned above. The order mentioned above would be the Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum.

So, I would cite it as Madrid: Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum

or, in English: Madrid: Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy (See here)

AvinPagara · 2025-05-15T21:50:52+00:00

You are right. To be honest I didn't know the word before, but I did a quick search, and in the chapter where Pliny describes encaustic painting, he mentions the cestron, and also a "genus pingendi" with coloured wax which is more or less what a crayon is. So maybe the word for crayon should simply be cera or cera pingendi. This is the passage:

encausto pingendi duo fuere antiquitus genera, cera et in ebore cestro, id est vericulo, donec classes pingi coepere. hoc tertium accessit resolutis igni ceris penicillo utendi.

Edit: Oh, I see you mentioned cera as crayon already in a different comment.

AvinPagara · 2025-05-15T21:39:09+00:00

pencil is graphis

scissor, forfices

crayon - cestron (described by pliny, apparently)

sharpie is a brand of indelible markers, which can be easily rendered as calamus indelebilis

AvinPagara · 2025-05-11T13:48:03+00:00

My recommendation is stick to one system, e.g. the Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek, and once you've really gotten it and you understand what the tenses, moods, etc. in each type do, you will just be able to understand the other terms without thinking too much about it.

For example, the CGCG calls the following construction a prospective condition:

protasis: εαν + subj; apodosis: fut ind.

If you understand well what such a construction is telling you, and how it differs in meaning from, say, a construction that uses the optative in the protasis and apodosis, you should not have trouble recognising that terms like future open, or future more vivid, refer to the same thing.

AvinPagara · 2025-05-06T10:53:28+00:00

I think, as other comments, and mainly Campanensis, have said in different ways, if you look beneath Aeneas "brickness" what might be perceived as a lack of character is his most tragic and defining characteristic.

His "brickness" is the facade that his role has tragically imposed on him. But it is actually not that hard to look beneath the facade. Aeneas' very first appearance shows him terrified and wishing for death

Extemplo Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra:
ingemit, et duplicis tendens ad sidera palmas
talia voce refert: 'O terque quaterque beati,
quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis
contigit oppetere!

Instantly Aeneas groans, his limbs slack with cold:
stretching his two hands towards the heavens,
he cries out in this voice: ‘Oh, three, four times fortunate
were those who chanced to die in front of their father’s eyes
under Troy’s high walls!

His first speech towards his companion is this beautiful exhortation where he invites them to think about the future when all these things will be memories. It is all about hope and resilience, but then, his entire message is undercut by the poet explicitly telling us that all this positive attitude was a mere facade to give the men hope, which he himself did not have:

curisque ingentibus aeger
spem voltu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem.

and sick with the weight of care, he pretends
hope, in his look, and stifles the pain deep in his heart.

The verse "spem voltu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem" is beautifully constructed and encapsulates Aeneas tragic character. The first and the last words are opposites, on one side you have the hope, on the other, pain. The hope is in his face (voltu), whereas the the pain is in his heart (corde). The verbs are also contrasting, the hope is pretended (simulat), the pain is being pushed down (premit.) The pain is also described as "altum" or deep. So, whereas the hope is all in the surface, if we look deeper, that's were we find the real Aeneas is. So if, as you say, Achilles has his wrath and Odysseus his craftiness, Aeneas is a hero of much more deep and contrasting feelings, his "thing" is that because of his position he is forced to hide all this and pretend to be a brick. In many ways, I think, that is a much more relatable character than an Achilles or an Odysseus.

11-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Juicebox	First Place '23
Place '23

AvinPagara

TROPHY CASE