[12]
[Footnote 11: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 64.]
[Footnote 12: Vita Probiana, _milia passuum_ XXX is usually changed to
III on the basis of Donatus: _a Mantua non procul_.]
Again, however, there is little reason for the supposition that Vergil's
_Eclogues_ in honor of Gallus have any reference whatever to this affair.
The sixth followed the death of Siro, and the tenth seems to precede the
days of colonial disturbances, if it has reference to Gallus as a soldier
in Greece. If the sixth _Eclogue_ refers to Siro, as Servius holds, then
Vergil and Gallus had long been literary associates before the first and
ninth were written.
The student of Vergil who has once compared the statements of the
scholiasts with the historical facts at these few points, where they
run parallel, will have little patience with the petty gossip which was
elicited from the _Eclogues_. The story of Vergil's tiff with a soldier,
for example, is apparently an inference from Menalcas' experience in
_Eclogue_ IX. 15; but "Menalcas" appears in four other _Eclogues_ where
he cannot be Vergil. The poet indeed was at Naples, as the eighth
_Catalepton_ proves. The estate in danger is not his, but that of his
father, who presumably was the only man legally competent of action in
case of eviction.
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