As we have seen, however, Quintilius
Varus has a better claim to that poem.
[Footnote 6: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. IX. 10; ex oratione Cornelii in
Alfenum. Cf. Kroll, in _Rhein. Museum_ 1909, 52.]
[Footnote 7: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 6.]
[Footnote 8: Vergil, _Eclogue_ IX, 26-29.]
[Footnote 9: See _Suffenus and Alfenus, Classical Quarterly_, 1920, p.
160.]
[Footnote 10: On _Eclogue_. VI. 6.]
The quotation from the speech of Gallus also lends support to a statement
in Servius that Gallus had been assigned to the duty of exacting moneys
from cities which escaped confiscation.[11] For this we are duly
grateful. It indicates how Alfenus and Gallus came into conflict since
the latter's financial sphere would naturally be invaded if the former
seized exempted territory for the extension of his new colony of Cremona.
In such conditions we can realize that Gallus was, as a matter of course,
interested in saving Mantua from confiscation, and that in this effort
he may well have appealed to Octavian in Vergil's behalf. In fact his
interpretation of the three-mile exemption might actually have saved
Vergil's properties, which seem to have lain about that distance from the
city.
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