[495, 496] In Hom. the conqueror sets his foot on his fallen enemy in order to draw out his spear Il. 5. 620 &c.): in one passage however. Il. 13. 618, we read ὁ δὲ λὰξ ἐν στήθεσι βαίνων Τεύχεά τ᾽ ἐξενάριξε καὶ εὐχόμενος ἔπος ηὔδα, &c. Is this a mark of insult, such as the feeling of later Greece condemned (see the commentators on Soph. Aj. 1348), or merely done for the convenience of stripping off the spoils? ‘Inmania pondera baltei’ would seem to show that Virg. here intended the latter. In 12. 356 the foot is put on the neek that the weapon may be driven into the throat. ‘Rapiens’ &c.: comp. Il. 13. 527, πήληκα φαεινὴν Ἥρπασε (Cerda): so above, vv. 449, 462. ‘Inmania pondera’ accounted for by ‘multo auro’ v. 499.
This text is part of:
John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of. Virgil. , with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. and Henry Nettleship, M.A. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane;. George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1876.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.