69. #heroas#: used as an adjective. --#sensus#: 'sentiments.'
--#adferre#: 'parade,' 'bring on parade.' On the Inf., see 3, 64.
70. #nugari graece#: 'dabble in Greek verses,' a phase of fashionable
education, no more peculiar to Nero than to Horace (Sat. 1, 10, 31).
--#ponere lucum#: 'put before our eyes,' 'paint,' 'describe.' _Lucus_,
a favorite poetic theme. Jahn thinks of the grove in which Mars and Rhea
Silvia met, Juv., 1, 7. Perhaps young poets tried their skill on groves,
as young draughtsmen on trees.
71. #artifices#: With _artifices ponere_ comp. _artifex sequi_, Prol.,
11. --#rus saturum#: 'lush, teeming country.' --#corbes-- focus--
porci#: all 'properties' of country life.
72. #fumosa Palilia faeno#: The festival called _Palilia_, in honor of
Pales (from the same radical as _pa-sco_), was celebrated on the
anniversary of the founding of Rome, April 21st. It was a day reeking
(_fumosa_) with bonfires of hay (_faenum_), over which the peasants
leaped, doubtless 'to appease the evil spirit by a pretended sacrifice'
(Pretor). The dictionaries will furnish the _loci classici_. The other
form, _Parilia_, is due to 'dissimilation.' Comp. _meridies_ for
_medidies_.
73. #unde#: 'the source of;' loosely used to show connection. --#Remus#:
not unfrequently takes the place of his longer brother, whose oblique
cases do not fit well into dactylic verse. So _turba Remi_, Juv., 10,
73; _reddat signa Remi_, Prop., 4, 6, 80; and the other examples in
Freund. --#sulco#: '_with_' and '_in_ the furrow.' See Prol., v., 1.
--#terens#: 'wearing bright' (Conington), 'furbishing.' König compares:
_#sulco attritus# splendescere vomer_, Verg., Georg., 1, 46.
--#dentalia#: 'share-beams,' Verg., Georg., 1, 171, with Conington's
note. --#Quinti#: Cincinnatus, Liv., 3, 26.
74. #cum dictatorem induit#: So Jahn (1843). Decidedly the easiest
reading, but the best in connection with _terens_. In his ed. of 1868,
Jahn reads _quem dictatorem_. Hermann objects to the expression, and
insists on _dictaturam_, appealing in his preface to Plin., H. N., 18,
3, 20, for _dictaturam_ in the sense of _vestem dictatoriam_. Surely, to
'robe dictator' and to 'robe with the dictatorship' are not far apart,
and the former is the more striking expression. --#trepida#: 'flurried.'
See v. 20. --#ante boves#: is supposed to give local coloring, and to
bring before us the 'slow, bovine gaze' of the astonished cattle.
75. #tua aratra#: Poetic plural. --#euge poeta#: Here the applause comes
in. Mr. Pretor considers the words from _corbes_ to _tulit_ 'a
quotation, perhaps from one of Nero's poems.'
76. #est nunc#: Persius attacks the _antiquarii_ in imitation of Horace.
The older Latin poets have long been restored to their rights. Accius
and Pacuvius hardly need defenders. Hermann makes the sentence
interrogative. --#Brisaei#: 'Bacchic.' _Brisaeus_ was an epithet of
Bacchus, transferred to the poet of Bacchus, who was perhaps too devoted
a worshipper of the god. There was a famous saying of Cratinus, who was
in like manner called +taurophagos+, a surname of Bacchus: +hudôr de
pinôn ouden an tekoi sophon+, fr. 186 (2, 119 Mein.). Comp. Hor., Ep.,
1, 19, 1. --#venosus#: For the figure, comp. Tac., Dial. 21. The
'standing out of the veins' refers not so much to the 'shrinking of the
flesh in old age' (Conington), as to the scrawniness of the person. So
Tacit. uses _durus et siccus_ of Asinius Pollio (l.c.), Gr. +ischnos+.
'Angular,' 'hard-lined,' is about what is meant. Others prefer
'thick-veined,' 'turgid.' --#liber#: of a play, Quint., 1, 10, 18;
Prop., 4 (3), 21, 28 (Jahn). --#Acci#: also written _Atti_ (584-650?
A.U.C.). Cicero calls him _gravis et ingeniosus poeta, summus poeta_
(pr. Planc., 24, 59; Sest., 56, 120); Hor., _altus_ (Ep., 2, 1, 56);
Ov., _animosi oris_ (Am., 1, 15, 19). Pacuvius said that the
compositions of Accius were _sonora quidem et grandia sed duriora paulum
et acerbiora_.
77. #Pacuvius#: nephew of Ennius (534-622 A.U.C.). His great model was
Sophocles. --#verrucosa#: 'warty,' intended to be a climax of ugliness.
--#moretur#: 'fascinates,' 'enthralls.' _Fabula-- valdius oblectat
populum meliusque #moratur#_, Hor., A. P., 321.
78. #Antiopa#: imitated from a lost play of Euripides. The fragments
have been collected by Ribbeck, _Tr. Lat. Reliq._, p. 62; comp. p. 278.
Antiope, as the mother of Amphion and Zethus, and the victim of Dirce,
is famous in literature and in art (the _Toro Farnese_). --#aerumnis cor
luctificabile fulta#: 'who props her dolorific heart on teen' (Gifford).
Jahn defends the conception as truly poetical, apart from the obsolete
language. 'The only stay of her sad heart is sorrow.' The words are
doubtless taken from the play itself, of course in different order.
_Aerumna_ was out of date as early as the time of Quintilian (8, 3, 26),
who protests against the use of it. As to _luctificabile_, if we go by
the fragments, it is Accius, rather than Pacuvius, that indulges in such
formations as _horrificabilis_, _aspernabilis_, _tabificabilis_,
_execrabilis_, _evocabilis_.