[13] Thrace was separated from the Troad only by the Hellespont, so that ‘procul’ is used, as it sometimes is, without any notion of great distance, expressing local separation, and no more. Donatus reminds us that Aeneas enters into detail for Dido's information. The mythological connexion of Mars with Thrace is as old as Hom. (Il. 13. 301). ‘Colitur’ v. 73 note.
[14] ‘Thraces arant’ is interposed like “Tyrii tenuere coloni” 1. 12. ‘Arant’ as in G. 2. 324. ‘Regno’ is not properly a transitive verb: ‘regnatus’ however is used passively again 6. 793 (where, as here, it is followed by a dative), ‘regnandus’ ib. 770. Lycurgus seems to be introduced to keep up the Homeric colouring, his story being told Il. 5. 130 foll.
[15] Socii Penates is another way of expressing ‘hospitium antiquum Troiae.’ ‘Their household gods were friends of ours.’ For the alliance between Troy and Thrace Wagn. refers to Il. 2. 844.
[16] For ‘Fortuna’ see on G. 4. 209. ‘Dum fuit,’ not a very common use of the perf. with ‘dum’ in the sense of ‘while it was.’ Comp. 1. 268, “dum res stetit Ilia regno.” ‘Fortuna fuit’ is said of Fortune past 7. 413. ‘Feror,’ as Gossrau remarks, must not be pressed, as if Aeneas found his way to Thrace involuntarily.
[17] Prima may either mean that this was his first attempt at building the promised city, or that the began to lay the foundation of a city. ‘Fatis ingressus iniquis:’ “bene quid sit futurum praeoccupat.” Serv. Heyne comp. Ammianus 22. 8, “Aenus, qua diris auspiciis coepta, moxque relicta, ad Ausoniam veterem ductu numinum properavit Aeneas.”
[18] There was a place called Aenos (now Enos) at the mouth of the Hebrus, with a tomb of Polydorus (Pliny 4. 11. 18); but as it is mentioned by Hom. (Il. 4. 520) as existing during the Trojan war, the tradition can hardly have been that it was founded by Aeneas. On the other hand there was another town Aenea in Chalcidice on the Thermaic gulf, the inhabitants of which regarded Aeneas as their founder (Livy 44. 10), so that it is supposed that Virg., intentionally or unintentionally, has confounded the two. The name ‘Aeneadae’ was probably given to the people, not to the place, though there are instances where the town bore the name of the inhabitants, as Locri. ‘Aeneadas’ is put in apposition with ‘nomen,’ like “nomen dixere priores Ortygiam” v. 693 below.
[19-46] ‘I was sacrificing in honour of my new undertaking, when I found blood dropping from the roots of some cornel and myrtle branches which I was pulling up for the altars, and a voice came from the soil where they stood, telling me that the murdered Polydorus was buried there, and that they were the spears which had been fixed in his body.’
