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A note on Virgil, Aeneid 5.315–19
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The meaning of the expression simul ultima signant in Virgil's description of the foot race in the memorial funeral games for Anchises has been controversial since ancient times. The interpretation implied by R. A. B. Mynors's Oxford text printed above is that the word simul in line 317 is a conjunction and that the expression refers to the final section of the race. The sense presumably is: ‘As soon as they trod the last stretch’ Nisus came out in front, whereas previously the runners had all been in a bunch, pouring forth like a storm cloud from the start. This interpretation, which requires a full stop in the middle of line 317, was proposed by F. H. Sandbach in response to problems generally acknowledged in the line as traditionally punctuated, that is, with a lighter pause after similes and a full stop at the end of the line—as, for example, in F. A. Hirzel's Oxford text: effusi nimbo similes: simul ultima signant. With this punctuation the last three words of the line have been taken to mean either that the runners fix their eyes on the finish, which gives a meaning to the verb which is difficult in the absence of any reference to the eyes, or that other people apart from the runners mark out the finishing line, which gives unexceptional sense to the verb but an implausible timing to the operation: it is odd indeed to leave the marking of the finish until after the race has started. These and other suggestions are discussed by Sandbach and R. D. Williams, who believe that they are untenable.
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References
1 F. H. Sandbach, CR 7 (1957), 102–3.
2 R. D. Williams P. Vergili Maronis AENEIDOS liber quintus (Oxford, 1960), pp. 105‘8. Williams supports Sandbach but prefers to take simul ultima signant as meaning ‘As soon as they came in sight of the finish’, referring to A. 2.423 (ora sono discordia signant) for signare in the sense of discernere. So also in his The Aeneidof Virgil i419. But the reference to sound (sono) is important and there is nothing to correspond in 5.317; if Williams's translation is acceptable, it is hard to see why he objects to the traditional ‘they fix their eyes on the goal’. For this reason I treat Sandbach's translation as the proper interpretation of the text as he punctuates it.
3 For comparable care in recording the earlier sections of a race see Stat. Theb. 6.405–68 and 593–615; Sil. It. 16.317–75 and 482–7; Quint. Smyrn. 4.194–8, 512–24, and 530–62. One case where the early stages are not mentioned is Theb. 4.638–41, but this brevity is a rerun in which no incidents of any sort occur.
4 
is ambiguous and is used at Od. 8.121 to indicate the start and at II. 23.332 and 338 the turning post. Williams (p. 108 n. 2) suggests that II. 23.758 (
), the first description of any part of the foot race, may have been understood by Virgil to mean: ‘They went full out once they had passed the turning point’. It is always possible that Virgil so took it, but the interpretation seems to me to be entirely unlikely, in that it would leave the Homeric race without even a start (‘they stood in line and Achilles indicated the finish/turn; once they had passed the turning point …’). Support for the more obvious interpretation may be found in Quintus Smyrnaeus, whose foot race at 4.1 85fF. is closely dependent on Homer: the two contestants come forward, 
(193) … Eris urges them… 
… (195–6). It is clear that Quintus took 
as the end of the race and vvaaa as the starting line, and the latter word is indisputably understood likewise in the chariot race (4.507) and very probably so in the horse race (4.550–51).
5 C. G. Heyne, P. Virgilius Maro 4ii, ed. G. P. E. Wagner (London, 1832), p. 768.