[446] Comp. E. 6. 9 foll., where Virg. similarly promises a conditional celebrity to Varus, though more modestly, as is natural in a young poet.
[447] Comp. Prop. 4. 1. 63, “At non ingenio quaesitum nomen abaevo Excidet,” though there ‘falling from time’ means ceasing to live (as in Il. 24. 725, ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος νέος ὤλεο, Babrius 12. 4, ἄωρον ἐκπεσόντα τῆς ζωῆς), here ‘memori’ is emphatic, as if it had been “memoria aevi.”
[448] Domus Aeneae 3. 97. Heyne inquires whether it refers to the Julian family or to the Roman people. It really includes both, the former as the crown and flower of the latter. ‘Inmobile’ suggests that the house and its empire will be as permanent as the rock. ‘Saxum,’ as Prop. 4. 10. 45 talks of “Tarpeio saxo.”
[449] It is singular, as Gossrau remarks, that Serv. does not comment on ‘pater Romanus.’ Three explanations of it have been proposed: by Turnebus 22. 15, taking it of Augustus and his successors; by Niebuhr, Rom. Hist. 1 note 831, who makes ‘pater’ = “civis,” a name derived from the old days when citizens and patricians were coextensive, improving on a view mentioned by Wagn., which understands it of the senate; and by Heyne, who thinks Capitoline Jove is meant. The third seems unlikely, as even a Roman would hardly have estimated the duration of Jupiter by the duration of his connexion with Rome, though it might perhaps receive some support from Hor. 3 Od. 5. 8, “Incolumi Iove et urbe Roma.” The first and second, taken together, seem to represent the truth. The emperor is doubtless intended, as the head of the Roman aristocracy, gathering up in himself all the titles which had been held in honour in Rome, the head of the “patres” as “princeps senatus,” and the representative of that principle of “patria potestas” which was characteristic of the Roman family. This Roman feeling has doubtless much to do with Aeneas' own title of ‘pater,’ which may be called an indirect compliment to the emperor.
[450-458] ‘The body of the Latin leader is carried into the camp, and the carnage there discovered.’
