Nunc quoque erat in urbe Roma, hæc prodente me, equitis Romani cornix e Boetica *. Cn. Matius.. Divi Augusti amicus, invenit nemora tonsilia intra hos LXXX annos V. Eighty years before U. C. 830, or U. C. 829, would be U. C. 749, or U. C. 750, when Augustus was still alive. Qui mea ætate legati ex Arabia venerunt ". Ita sunt longinqua monumenta Tiberii Caiique Gracchorum manus, quæ apud Pomponium Secundum vatem civemque clarissimum vidi annos fere post cc.x Compare with this passage xiv. 6. Interiit nuper incendio-Septimo hinc anno 2. Hisce xx annis mercato rus... intra octavum annum ...intra decimum fere curæ annum a*_Intra xxx annos reperta b-Intra centum annos inventa Græcanica c-Hæc observatio triginta jam fere annis non congruit d Separatim toto tractatu sententia ejus (Catonis sc.) indicanda est, ut in omni genere noscamus quæ fuerint celeberrima anno sexcentesimo urbis, circa captas Carthaginem ac Corinthum, quum supremum is diem obiit, et quantum postea ccxxx annis vita profecerit o. This is a very plain indication of the age of the work; for it makes 230 years' interval between U. C. 600 and the time of the writer: and it is confirmed by another equally plain; Ea omnia approbantibus octingentorum triginta annorum eventibus: with which we may compare also, L. Opimio consule... natali urbis DCXXXIII (vide xiv. 16.) durantque adhuc vina ducentis fere annis f_Hæc nunc circiter annum CCCCL (referred to U. C. CCCLXIX) habet %. If the reading here is not corrupt, the time of the allusion becomes U. C. 819. But Harduin reads in the one case U. C. 379, as well as in the other 450: which makes the time of the allusion U. C. 829. Utpote quum tota Asia exstruente quadringentis annis peractum sit (aliter 220. compare xxxvi. 21)— Et jam quadringentis prope annis durare h Uticæ... ita ut positæ fuere, prima urbis ejus origine, annis mille centum octoginta octo1 (ad marginem LXXVIII. *) If the date of the work was U. C. 829, A. D. 76, the foundation of Utica would thus be placed B. C. 1113, only seventy years later than the commonly received date of the capture of Troy. Utica was a Phoenician colony, as well as Carthage; and it is not an improbable conjecture that many of the dates assigned to the foundation of the latter, especially those which place it within the first century after the capture of Troy, are really dates of the foundation of Utica. Theophrastus cuncta cura magna persequutus cccxc. (aliter ccccxc.) annis ante nos k. Now, xiii. 30, and xv. 1, Theophrastus' age is placed U. C. 440 : so that the time of this allusion is U. C. 440 + 390 or 830. Quo duo consulares obiere, condentibus hæc nobis, eodem anno, Julius Rufus, et Quintus Lecanius Bassus1. Bassus was consul U. C. 817, and Rufus U. C. 820. In hisce xx annis "-Milium intra hos decem annos ex India in Italiam invectum est" Id eo ipso anno quum commentaremur hæc etc.-Estate .. proxima Valerius Marianus — Et paulo ante Julium Vin dicem adsertorem illum a Nerone libertatis - Annæum Serenum præfectum Neronis vigilum - Sicut proxime Annæum Gallionem fecisse post consulatum meminimus — Etas nostra vidit in Capitolio, priusquam id novissime conflagravit, a Vitellianis incensum t. Again, the dedication of the Capitol, or of the Temple of Peace, is alluded to in all the following places: xii. 42. xxxiv. 19. §. 24. xxxv. 36. §. 6. 20. xxxvi. 5. §. 8. 11. 24. §. 1; allusions so much the more valuable, because they prove that no part of the work between lib. xii. 42. and lib. xxxvi. 24. could have been composed earlier than U. C. 828, at which time, but not before, Dio " shews that the dedication in question took place. The nineteenth book, which contains the mention of the death of Lupus, comes between these extremes; and therefore must have been written between U. C. 828 and U. C. 830. It is some argument also of the date of the Natural History, that we find in it no mention of the story of Sabinus, and his concealment in a cave for nine years; a story otherwise so remarkable, that had Pliny known of it, he would not have failed to notice it. Tacitus, Historiæ, iv. 55, Sabinus was at large, and implicated in the rebellion of Civilis in Gaul, U. C. 823. ineunte; and this being the first of the nine years in question, U. C. 831, or U. C. 832, was the last. Confer Dio, lxvi. 3. ad U. C. 823, and Ibid. 16. ad U. C. 831: also the Amatorius of Plutarch, Operum ix. 86-89. The story therefore did not come to light, (though it did in the reign of Vespasian,) before the Natural History had been written and published *. It is also to be observed that Pliny the younger, Epistolæ, 4 xx. 57. iii. v. in his list of the works of his uncle, enumerates his Natuu lxvi. 15. r xxii. 47. s xxxi. 33. t xxxiv. 17. Lastly, there is an allusion in the Natural History to the death of Virgil, which I have purposely reserved for this place: Atque hæc Virgilii vatis ætate incognita, a cujus obitu xc. aguntur anni. The MSS. exhibit no variation in the reading here: so that it is a gratuitous supposition to assume the incorrectness of the number in the text; or to propose to alter it for XCIV. or Xcv. It is the opinion, therefore, of Harduin, in loc. that the common date for the death of Virgil, U. C. 735, is wrong; and should be superseded, on the authority of this passage, by that of U. C. 739, or U. C. 740. The time when Pliny was writing, especially in this part of the Natural History, being U. C. 830, ninety years before that time cannot be earlier than U. C. 739, or U. C. 740. The received date of the death of Virgil rests on the credit of his biographer, the Pseudo-Donatus, four hundred years posterior to the beginning of the Christian era; whereas Pliny was writing only seventy-six or seventy-seven years after it. So long as the soundness of the present reading, XC, remains unquestioned, I do not see how we can avoid the conclusion that Virgil was alive five years later than the supposed year of his death. The consideration of this point at full length would require more time and space than I should be justified in bestowing upon it. I will mention, however, one or two arguments, which induce me to concur in Father Harduin's opinion, as above stated. First, and chief, the twelfth ode of the fourth book of Horace, beginning, ral History last of all. This is an argument that he had not finished it before U. C. 830. So laborious and productive a writer, it might be supposed, would have written something elsehad he finished this work ear. lier-before his death, in September U. C. 833. x xiv. 3. Jam veris comites, quæ mare temperant, is addressed to Virgil. This book, as we are told by Suetonius, in his short memoir of the Life of Horace, was not published until a long time after the three preceding ones; and it contains internal evidences that it was published, U. C. 738, or U. C. 739. The first ode itself proves that Horace was fifty when he published it, or nearly so: (i. 4, 5, 6:) and he was fifty complete, Dec. 8, U. C. 739. I have had occasion to refer to several of the odes collected in this book; and to shew, from contemporary history, that they could not have been written before this year, or the preceding. Thus ode ii. 33-36: iv. xiv. the reduction or expected reduction of the Sicambri, the actual reduction of the Rhæti and Vindelici by Tiberius and Drusus, are distinctly referred to, and placed fourteen or fifteen years after the capture of Alexandria, U. C. 724: that is, U. C. 738, or U. C. 739. The latter of these statements Strabo and Dio prove to be historically true*. Compare the Consolatio ad Liviam, a piece written U. C. 745, in the year of Drusus' death. 15. Ille modo eripuit latebrosas hostibus Alpes, Ille genus Suevos acre, indomitosque Sycambros, And also, 311. Nec tibi deletos poterit narrare Sycambros, Ensibus et Suevos terga dedisse suis. Fluminaque et montes, et nomina magna locorum: Et si quid miri vidit in orbe novo. In like manner, Horace, Carminum Lib. iv. ode v. beginning, Divis orte bonis, optime Romulæ *The reduction of the Sycambri was not fully completed before U. C. 743. See Dissertation xiv. vol. ii. 481. Nor does Horace allude to it here as a past event, but only as an expected one. |