REREADING AENEID 10.702–6

摘要

This passage is part of the aristeia of Mezentius, and commentators often point out nthat one must understand a verb to govern the two accusative objects, Euanthen and nMimanta in line 702. I will return to this point later, but first I want to consider nthe reading of line 705. Most modern editors present Virgil’s text with Paris as nshown above.n1n Paris is, in fact, a conjecture to replace creat, which all manuscripts nand testimonia here show.n2n If one keeps creat and punctuates just after it, then one nmust understand Paris to be the unstated subject of urbe … | occubat (705–6). This, nin fact, is what Servius explicitly suggests (ad Aen. 10.705), and he attributes the lack of subject to metrical necessity.n3n Bentley first suggested changing creat here nto Paris to solve this problem, and modern editions have usually incorporated his nsuggestion.n4n However, as will be seen, there is a simpler solution that will fix the ndifficulty in 705–6 as well as provide a verb for the accusatives in 702. First, nBentley’s conjecture needs closer scrutiny.