Draft:Vita Suetonii vulgo Donatiana

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Numbering follows G. Brugnoli and F. Stok, Vitae Vergilianae antiquae (Rome, 1997).

1 P. Vergilius Maro Mantuanus parentibus modicis fuit ac praecipue patre, quem quidam opificem figulum, plures Magi cuiusdam uiatoris initio mercennarium, mox ob industriam generum tradiderunt egregieque substantiae siluis coemendis et apibus curandis auxisse reculam.

1 Publius Vergilius Maro was from Mantua; his parents were of modest background, especially his father who according to some traditions was a craftsman and a potter, but more have related that he was at first the hired servant of a one Magus, a public servant, and then his son-in-law owing to his diligence, and that he impressively increased the yield of his estate by buying up woodland and keeping bees.

2 natus est Cn. Pompeio Magno M. Licinio Crasso primum conss. Iduum Octobrium die in pago, qui Andes dicitur et abest a Mantua non procul.

2 Virgil was born in the first consulship of Pompeius Magnus and Licinius Crassus, on the 15th October in a district called Andes, not far from Mantua.

3 praegnans eum mater somniauit enixam se laureum ramum, quem contactu terrae coaluisse et excreuisse ilico in speciem maturae arboris refertaeque uariis pomis et floribus. ac sequenti luce cum marito rus propinquum petens ex itinere deuertit atque in subiecta fossa partu leuata est.

3 When his mother was expecting him she dreamt that she gave birth to a branch of laurel, which on touching the earth took root and on that very spot grew to the size of a full-grown tree, full of different kinds of fruits and blossoms. The next morning as she was heading with a husband to a country area nearby, she turned from her course and in a furrow by the road was relieved by giving birth.

4 ferunt infantem, ut sit editus, neque uagisse et adeo miti uultu fuisse, ut haud dubiam spem prosperioris geniturae iam tum daret.

4 They say that the infant did not cry at birth and his expression was so peaceful that even then it gave them the firm expectation that his birth was quite auspicious.

5 et accessit aliud praesagium, siquidem uirga populea more regionis in puerperiis eodem statim loco depacta ita breui eualuit tempore, ut multo ante satas populos adaequauisset; quae ‘arbor Vergilii’ ex eo dicta atque etiam consecrata est summa grauidarum ac fetarum religione et suscipientium ibi et soluentium uota.

5 There was a further omen: the sapling of a poplar which, in the custom of that region, was immediately planted in the same spot that a child was born, grew in such a short time that it matched the height of poplars planted long before. On that account it was called ‘Virgil’s Tree’ and it was even the object of great veneration for the pregant or newly delivered women who undertook or fulfilled vows there.

6 initia aetatis Cremonae egit usque ad uirilem togam, quam XVII anno natali suo accepit isdem illis consulibus iterum duobus , quibus erat natus, euenitque ut eodem ipso die Lucretius poeta decederet.

6 He spent his early years in Cremona until he took the toga virilis in his seventeenth year when there were the same two consuls as when he was born, and it so happened that the poet Lucretius died on that very day.

7 sed Vergilius a Cremona Mediolanum et inde paulo post transiit in urbem.

7 Virgil though went from Cremona to Milan, and some time after that moved to the city.

8 corpore et statura fuit grandi, aquilo colore, facie rusticana, ualetudine uaria: nam plerumque a stomacho et a faucibus ac dolore capitis laborabat, sanguinem etiam saepe reiecit.

8 He was of great size and high stature, of dark complexion, with the appearance of a countryman and of uneven health; as he suffered with his stomach and throat as well as from headaches; he often coughed up blood as well.

9 cibi uinique minimi, libidinis in pueros pronioris, quorum maxime dilexit Cebetem et Alexandrum, quem secunda Bucolicorum ecloga Alexim appellat, donatum sibi ab Asinio Pollione, utrumque non ineruditum, Cebetem uero et poetam.

9 He took very little food or wine; he had a readier desire for boys - he was very attached to Cebes and Alexander, whom he calls Alexis in the second eclogue of his Bucolics and who had been given to him by Asinius Pollio. Neither of the two boys lacked education: Cebes was even a poet.

10 uulgatum est consuesse eum et cum Plotia Hieria. sed Asconius Pedianus adfirmat, ipsam postea maiorem natu narrare solitam inuitatum quidem a Vario ad communionem sui, uerum pertinacissime recusasse.

10 It was put about that Virgil consorted with Plotia Hieria. But Asconius Pedianus holds that later when she was of an advanced age she used to recount that Virgil had indeed been invited to associate with her by Varius, but very steadfastly refused.

11 cetera sane uita et ore et animo tam probum constat, ut Neapoli ‘Parthenias’ uulgo appellatus sit, ac si quando Romae, quo rarissime commeabat, uiseretur in publico, sectantes demonstrantesque se suffugeret in proximum tectum.

11 With regard to the rest of his life it is certainly agreed that he was so correct in his speech and mind, that in Naples he was commonly known as ‘Maidenly’, and if he was ever seen in public in Rome where he very seldom travelled, he would flee into the nearest house from those who followed him or showed their admiration.

12 bona autem cuiusdam exsulantis offerente Augusto non sustinuit accipere.

12 Indeed he could not bring himself to accept Augustus’ offer of the property of someone in exile.

13 possedit prope centiens sestertium ex liberalitatibus amicorum, habuitque domum Romae Esquiliis iuxta hortos Maecenatianos, quamquam secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur.

13 He possessed almost ten million sesterces, from the generosity of friends and he had a house on the Esquiline in Rome near the gardens of Maecenas, although he mostly lived in his retreats in Campania and Sicily.

14 parentes iam grandis amisit, ex quibus patrem captum oculis et duos fratres germanos, Silonem impuberem, Flaccum iam adultum, cuius exitum sub nomine Daphnidis deflet.

14 Already a grown man he lost his parents – his father who had lost his sight, and his two brothers, Silo still a child, Flaccus just having reached adulthood: he laments his death under the name of Daphnis.

15 inter cetera studia medicinae quoque ac maxime mathematicae operam dedit. egit et causam apud iudices unam omnino nec amplius quam semel:

15 Amongst his other pursuits, he devoted attention to medicine and especially to mathematics. He also conducted a court case but on no more than one occasion:

16 nam et in sermone tardissimum ac paene indocto similem fuisse Melissus tradidit.

16 and Melissus has passed on that he was also very slow at speaking, almost like someone uneducated.

17 poeticam puer adhuc auspicatus in Ballistam ludi magistrum ob infamiam latrociniorum coopertum lapidibus distichon fecit:

monte sub hoc lapidum tegitur Ballista sepultus.
nocte die tutum carpe, uiator, iter.

deinde Catalepton et Priapea et Epigrammata et Diras, item Cirim et Culicem, cum esset annorum XXVI.

17 He made his first venture in poetry whilst still a boy, a couplet on the schoolmaster Ballista, stoned to death for his notorious robberies:

Under this heap of stones Ballista is buried,
By night or day, traveller, safely make your way.

Next came the Catalepton, Priapea, Epigrammata, and the Dirae, and then the Ciris, and the Culex, when he was twenty-six years old.

18 cuius materia talis est: pastor fatigatus aestu, cum sub arbore condormisset et serpens ad eum proreperet e palude, culex prouolauit atque inter duo tempora aculeum fixit pastori. at ille continuo culicem contriuit et serpentem interemit ac sepulcrum culici statuit et distichon fecit:

parue culex, pecudum custos, tibi tale merenti
funeris officium uitae pro munere reddit.

18 This is its subject: when a shepherd worn out by the hot weather had fallen asleep under a tree and a snake crept up to him from a marsh, a gnat flew out and stung the shepherd between the temples. He straightaway squashed the gnat and killed the snake, and then set up a tomb for the gnat and composed this couplet:

Little Gnat, a shepherd renders to you, as you merit it,
the rite of burial in return for the gift of life.

19 scripsit etiam, de qua ambigitur, Aetnam. mox cum res Romanas inchoasset, offensus materia ad Bucolica transiit, maxime ut Asinium Pollionem, Alfenum Varum et Cornelium Gallum celebraret, quia in distributione agrorum, qui post Philippensem uictoriam ueteranis triumuirorum iussu trans Padum diuidebantur, indemnem se praestitissent.

19 He also wrote the Aetna: about that there is debate. Then since he had embarked upon Roman themes but was put off by the subject matter, he turned to the Bucolics, particularly in order to celebrate Asinius Pollio, Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus, because after the victory of Philippi they had ensured that he was unaffected by the redistribution of lands beyond the Po to veterans by order of the Triumvirs.

20 deinde Georgica in honorem Maecenatis <scripsit> , qui sibi mediocriter adhuc noto opem tulisset aduersus ueterani cuiusdam uiolentiam, a quo in altercatione litis agrariae paulum afuit quin occideretur.

20 Then he wrote the Georgics in honour of Maecenas, who had offered him help when he was still barely known, in the face of violence from a veteran, by whom he narrowly avoided being killed in an altercation about the boundary of his land.

21 nouissime Aeneidem inchoauit, argumentum uarium ac multiplex et quasi amborum Homeri carminum instar, praeterea nominibus ac rebus Graecis Latinisque commune, et in quo, quod maxime studebat, Romanae simul urbis et Augusti origo contineretur.

21 Last of all he began the Aeneid, a varied and manifold story, rather like both poems of Homer, but which also mixed together Latin and Greek names and subjects and in which he he went to the greatest lengths to incorporate the origin of the city of Rome and of Augustus.

22 cum Georgica scriberet, traditur quotidie meditatos mane plurimos uersus dictare solitus ac per totum diem retractando ad paucissimos redigere, non absurde carmen se more ursae parere dicens et lambendo demum effingere.

22 When he wrote the Georgics, the tradition is that it was his daily custom to dictate a very large number of verses in the morning, and to reduce them to a very few after revising them over the course of the whole day, very appropriately remarking that he, like a female bear was bringing forth his poem and licking it into shape.

23 Aeneida prosa prius oratione formatam digestamque in XII libros particulatim componere instituit, prout liberet quidque, et nihil in ordinem arripiens.

23 After he gave the Aeneid its first form in prose and arranged it into twelve books, he set about composing it in bits, taking a part up as he wished and not in any order at all.

24 ac ne quid impetum moraretur, quaedam imperfecta transmisit, alia leuissimis uersibus ueluti fulsit, quos per iocum pro tibicinibus interponi aiebat ad sustinendum opus, donec solidae columnae aduenirent.

24 So that nothing would impede the flow, he set down some uncompleted passages, he set up others, as it were, with very insubstantial verses, which he jokingly said he was inserting as props to hold the work up until the solid pillars arrived.

25 Bucolica triennio, Georgica VII, Aeneida XI perfecit annis.

25 He finished the Bucolics in three years, the Georgics in seven and the Aeneid in eleven.

26 Bucolica eo successu edidit, ut in scaena quoque per cantores crebro pronuntiarentur.

26 He had so much success in publishing the Bucolics that they were even regularly performed by singers on stage.

27 Georgica reuerso post Actiacam uictoriam Augusto atque Atellae reficiendarum faucium causa commoranti per continuum quadriduum legit, suscipiente Maecenate legendi uicem quotiens interpellaretur ipse uocis offensione.

27 He gave a continuous reading of the Georgics over four days when Augustus returned following his victory at Actium to stay in Atella and rest his throat. Maecenas took turns at reading every time the poet’s faltering voice caused him trouble.

28 pronuntiabat autem cum suauitate, cum lenociniis miris.

28 Still, he used to declaim smoothly in a manner that was amazingly seductive:

29 <ac> Seneca tradidit Iulium Montanum poetam solitum dicere, inuolaturum se Vergilio quaedam, si et uocem posset et os et hypocrisin: eosdem enim uersus ipso pronuntiante bene sonare, sine illo inanes esse mutosque.

29 Seneca has put on record that the poet Julius Montanus used to say that he would steal some passages from Virgil, if he could also steal his voice, mouth and technique of delivery: the same verses which sounded so good when Virgil pronounced them, were empty and mute without him.

30 Aeneidos uixdum coeptae tanta exstitit fama, ut Sextus Propertius non dubitauerit sic praedicare:

Cedite, Romani scriptores, cedite Grai:
nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade.

30 The fame of the Aeneid, though it was hardly underway, reached such a pitch that Sextus Propertius had not hesitation in prophesying:

Give way, writers of Rome, give way Greeks
Something greater than the Iliad is in birth.

31 Augustus uero, nam forte expeditione Cantabrica aberat, supplicibus atque etiam minacibus per iocum litteris efflagitaret, ‘ut sibi de Aeneide,’ ut ipsius uerba sunt, ‘uel prima carminis ὑπογραφή uel quodlibet κῶλον mitteretur.’

31 In fact Augustus who happened to be away on his campaign in Cantabria, wrote letters persistently urging with imprecations and even with jocular threats that ‘either the first outline or any suitable section’ (these were his words) of the Aeneid be sent to him.

32 cui tamen multo post, perfectaque demum materia, tres omnino libros recitauit, secundum quartum et sextum; sed hunc notabili Octauiae adfectione, quae, cum recitationi interesset, ad illos de filio suo uersus: ‘tu Marcellus eris,’ defecisse fertur atque aegre focilata.

32 Only long afterwards, once the content of the work was at last completed, did he recite to him three books in total: the second, fourth and sixth – but that one prompted a remarkable reaction from Octavia. It is reported that when she was present at the reading, those verses about her son– ‘You will be Marcellus’ – caused her to faint, and she could only be revived with difficulty.

33 recitauit et pluribus, sed neque frequenter et ea fere de quibus ambigebat, quo magis iudicium hominum experiretur.

33 He also recited to many more people, but not often, and almost always those passages about which he was in doubt to benefit all the more from others’ opinions.

34 Erotem librarium et libertum eius exactae iam senectutis tradunt referre solitum, quondam eum in recitando duos dimidiatos uersus complesse ex tempore. nam cum hactenus haberet: ‘Misenum Aeoliden,’ adiecisse: ‘quo non praestantior alter,’ item huic ‘aere ciere uiros,’ simili calore iactatum subiunxisse: ‘Martemque accendere cantu,’ statimque sibi imperasse, ut utrumque uolumini adscriberet.

34 They say that when he was of advanced age that his freedman and scribe Eros was in the habit of reporting that Virgil on one occasion at a reading completed two half-verses ex tempore. Having got as far as ‘Misenus, son of Aeolus’ he is supposed to have added ‘than whom there is none more outstanding’; again to his phrase ‘they drove the men on with bronze’, in the heat of the moment he came out with what was to be added below ‘and ignited Mars with their song’, immediately bidding him to add both of these phrases to his manuscript.

35 anno aetatis quinquagesimo secundo impositurus Aeneidi summam manum statuit in Graeciam et in Asiam secedere triennioque continuo nihil amplius quam emendare ut reliqua uita tantum philosophiae uacaret. sed cum ingressus iter Athenis occurrisset Augusto ab oriente Romam reuertenti, destinaretque non absistere atque etiam una redire, dum Megara uicinum oppidum feruentissimo sole cognoscit, languorem nactus est, eumque non intermissa nauigatione auxit ita, ut grauior aliquanto Brundisium appelleret, ubi diebus paucis obiit XI Kal. Octobr. Cn. Sentio Q. Lucretio conss.

35 When he was about to put the final touch to the Aeneid in his fifty-second year, he decided to retire to Greece and to Asia for a three-year period with no aim other than correcting the poem, so that the remaining part of his life would be free to devote to philosophy. But when after embarking on his journey he met Augustus as he was returning to Rome from the East, he decided not to leave and even to return together with him, he caught a fever while he was touring the nearby town of Megara in a very hot sun. He worsened it by not breaking his journey, so that he was in a far more serious condition as he approached Brundisium. There he died within a few days, on the eleventh before the Kalends of October, in the consulship of Gnaeus Sentius and Quintus Lucretius.

36 ossa eius Neapolim translata sunt tumuloque condita, qui est uia Puteolana intra lapidem secundum, in quo distichon fecit tale:

Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
Parthenope. cecini pascua rura duces.

36 His remains were borne to Naples and laid in a tomb which is on the road to Puteoli, within two miles of the city. On the tomb is a couplet he composed

Mantua gave birth to me, Calabria snatched me away, now
Parthonope holds me; I sang of pastures, the countryside, and leaders.

37 heredes fecit ex dimidia parte Valerium Proculum fratrem alio patre, ex quarta Augustum, ex duodecima Maecenatem, ex reliqua L. Varium et Plotium Tuccam, qui eius Aeneidem post obitum iussu Caesaris emendauerunt.

37 He appointed his heirs: Valerius Proculus, his brother by another father, had half his estate; Augustus a quarter; Maecenas a twelth part, the rest went to Lucius Varius and Plotius Tucca, who revised the Aeneid after his death on Augustus’ orders.

38 de qua re Sulpicii Carthaginiensis exstant huiusmodi uersus:

iusserat haec rapidis aboleri carmina flammis
Vergilius, Phrygium quae cecinere ducem.
Tucca uetat Variusque simul; tu, maxime Caesar,
non sinis et Latiae consulis historiae.
infelix gemino cecidit prope Pergamon igni,
et paene est alio Troia cremata rogo.

38 On that matter the following verses of Sulpicius of Carthage survive:

The destruction of these verses by consuming flames was bidden by
Virgil: verses which sang of the Trojan leader.
Tucca prohibits it, and Varius; so too do you, greatest Caesar
You do not allow it and so protect the history of Latium
Unhappy Troy almost fell by a second fire
And Troy was almost burnt on a further pyre.

39 egerat cum Vario, priusquam Italia decederet, ut si quid sibi accidisset, Aeneida combureret; at is ita facturum se pernegarat. igitur in extrema ualetudine assidue scrinia desiderauit, crematurus ipse; uerum nemine offerente, nihil quidem nominatim de ea cauit.

39 He had arranged with Varius before he left Italy that if anything should happen to him, that he should burn the Aeneid; but Varius had insisted he would not do it; so at the end of his life he continually asked for his writing tablets, intending to burn them; but when no one brought him anything, he left no specific provision about the poem.

40 ceterum eidem Vario ac simul Tuccae scripta sua sub ea conditione legauit, ne quid ederent, quod non a se editum esset.

40 But he entrusted his writings to the same Varius and to Tucca on the condition that they would not publish anything which he would not publish himself.

41 edidit autem auctore Augusto Varius, sed summatim emendata, ut qui uersus etiam imperfectos, si qui erant, reliquerit. quos multi mox supplere conati non perinde ualuerunt ob difficultatem, quod omnia fere apud eum hemistichia absoluto perfectoque sunt sensu, praeter illud ‘quem tibi iam Troia.’

41 Varius did publish it, on Augustus’ authority, but only glancingly corrected it so that he left even the unfinished verses as they were; many attempted to finish but they did not manage because of the difficulty posed by almost all the half-lines having a complete and self-contained meaning except this one: ‘Whom Troy now for you’.

42 Nisus grammaticus audisse se a senioribus aiebat, Varium duorum librorum ordinem commutasse, et qui nunc secundus sit in tertium locum transtulisse, etiam primi libri correxisse principium, his uersibus demptis:

ille ego qui quondam gracili modulatus auena
carmina et egressus siluis uicina coegi,
ut quamuis auido parerent arua colono,
gratum opus agricolis, at nunc horrentia Martis
arma uirumque cano.

42 The grammarian Nisus used to say he had heard from older people that Varius had switched the order of two books, moving what had once been the second into third place, and also that he had corrected the beginning of the first book by removing these verses:

I am he who once composed poetry in a pastoral strain,
and then coming from the woods I compelled the neighbouring fields
to obey their owner, however demanding. That work
was pleasant for farmers but now of Mars’s bristling
arms and of the man I sing.

43 obtrectatores Vergilio numquam defuerunt, nec mirum, nam nec Homero quidem. prolatis Bucolicis Numitorius quidam rescripsit Antibucolica, duas modo eclogas sed insulsissime παρῳδήσας, quarum prioris initium est:

Tityre, si toga calda tibi est, quo tegmine fagi?

sequentis:

dic mihi, Damoeta: cuium pecus, anne Latinum?
non. uerum Aegonis nostri sic rure loquuntur.

alius recitante eo ex Georgicis: ‘nudus ara, sere nudus,’ subiecit: ‘habebis frigore febrem.’

43 Virgil never lacked detractors, and no wonder: Homer certainly was not short of them either. Once the Bucolics were in circulation, one Numitorius wrote some Anti-bucolics, just two eclogues, but parodied in a very bland way. The beginning of the first one is:

Tityrus, if you have a warm toga, what’s the cloak of a beech tree for?

The start of the second is:

‘Tell me, Damoetas, is cuium pecus Latin?’
‘No but it is our friend Aegon’s – that’s how they talk in the country.’

Another when he was reciting ‘Sow naked and plough naked’ from the Georgics capped it with: ‘And you will catch the death of cold’.

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