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Virgil's Roman Chronography: a Reconsideration1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Nicholas Horsfall
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Extract

Jupiter, in his prophetic speech to Venus (Aen. i. 257 ff.) foretells that Aeneas will rule for three years in Italy, that Ascanius will complete the thirty years of rule at Lavinium, and that he will then found Alba, under whose kings' rule 300 years will elapse until the birth of Romulus. The sequence 3–30–300 is unmistakeable: tertia (265) and temaque (266) … triginta (269) … ter centum (272); no effort is required to see that the total of these numbers is 333 and the total is clearly more significant than the antiquarian associations of the individual numbers

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , May 1974 , pp. 111 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1974

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References

page 111 note 2 Apoc. 13. 18 has no place in this discussion: it is explicable within the tradition of gematria, the assigning of numerical values to the letters of the alphabet; cf. Dornseiff, F., Das Alphabet in Mystik u. Magie (Leipzig, 1925Google Scholar), 106 ff. Maury, P. (Claims Lettres d' Humaniti iii [1944], 144) that in our passage 333 conceals KAICAPA: in terms of gematria this is quite correct; Boll (Aus der Offenbarung Johannis [repr. Amsterdam, 1967], 26 ff.) and Dornseiff have demonstrated the wide diffusion of this lore in antiquity, but its application here is clearly inappropriate.Google Scholar

page 111 note 3 Cf. Plut. Mor. 382 A, Theon Smyrn. 19, van den Bergh, Ztschr. f. neutest. Wiss. xiii (1912), 295 ff.

page 111 note 4 Cf. H. A. Sanders, C.Ph. iii (1908), 317 ff., Cato Origines 1, ed. W. A. Schroder, pp. 76 ff.

page 112 note 1 Cf. Jacoby, Comm. on F.G.H. 566 F 125–6, Clinton, H. Fynes, Fasti Hellenici ii: (Oxford, 1834), 490 note x.Google Scholar

page 112 note 2 Cf. Jacoby, Commentary, pp. 565, 575 Gabba, E., Entretiens Hardt xiii (1966), 142.Google Scholar

page 112 note 3 Rom. 3. I; cf. Gabba loc. cit., Momigliano, A.Terzo Contributo (Rome, 1966), 62 f., Quarto Contributo (Rome, 1969), 489.Google Scholar

page 113 note 1 Lyd. Mag. I. 2, alleging that the date given is that of Cato and Varro. Since the date given is wrong for Cato, there is no good reason why it should be right for Varro.

page 114 note 1 Holzapfel, 268 f. ingeniously points out that when Eutropius gives 294 years as the average (ut qui plurimum minimumque tradunt, I. I) for the lapse of time between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome, this figure is in fact the average of Virgil's 333 (though 358 would be more accurate!) and the 455 years implied by Cincius Alimentus fr. 4 P.

page 114 note 2 Cf. Wilkinson, L. P., The Georgics of Virgil (Cambridge, 1969), 316 ff. But one is grateful for Dilke's firm rejection (323 f.) of M. Sordi's hypothesis (Athen. N.s. xlii [1964], 83) that V. has transferred his 333 from the lapse of years between the capture of Veil and the birth of Augustus.Google Scholar

page 114 note 3 Cf Holzapfel, 277, Mommsen, 158 n. 311, and particularly Leuze, 289.

page 114 note 4 Cf. Heyne exc. iii on Bk. xii videtur etiam secutus esse arcanum quid, Maury, 144 f., Schwegler, i. 344, Mommsen, 158.

page 114 note 5 This was known to Varro (de genie fr. 2 Fracc. = Aug. C.D. 22. 28). Cf. too Mommsen, 135, who took Cincius Alimentus' foundation date of 729/8 as presupposing a duration of two 110-year saecula for the monarchy, and identified C. in consequence with the late republican antiquary (G.R.F., 371 f.); cf. however, Holzapfel, 234, Peter, H.R.R. i. cxiii f. Note too that Cic. Rep. 2. fr. 93 Heck ( = Non. p. 526. ro) gives as 220 years the period during which the constitutio Romuli … firma mansisset: the work of chance?