[4]
[Footnote 4: Cassius Dio, 43, 22; Appian, II. 102. There is independent
proof that _Catalepton_ XIV is earlier than the _Georgics_. In _Georgics_
II, 146, Vergil repeats the phrase _maxima taurus victima_, but the
phrase must have had its origin in the _Catalepton_, since here _maxima_
balances _humilis_. In the _Georgics_ the phrase is merely a verbal
reminiscence, for there is nothing in the context there to explain
_maxima_. On the order of composition of the Aeneid, see M.M. Crump, _The
Growth of the Aeneid_]
Was not this the act that prompted the happy idea of writing the epic of
Aeneas? Vergil was then living at Naples, and we can picture the poet
fevered with the new impulse, sailing away from his lectures across the
fair bay for a day's brooding. Could one find a more fitting place than
Venus's shrine at Sorrento for the invocation of the _Aeneid_?
How far this first attempt proceeded we shall probably not know. Vergil's
own words would imply that his early effort centered about Aeneas' wars
in Italy; the sixth _Eclogue_,
Cum canerem reges et proelia,
is rather explicit on this point. Furthermore, the erroneous reference of
Calaeno's omen to Anchises in the seventh book (l.
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