roof that Alfenus gave ear to
his plea; at any rate the poet never mentions him again. Servius'
supposition that Alfenus had been of service to the poet[10] seems
to rest wholly on the mistaken idea that the sixth _Eclogue_ was
obsequiously addressed to him. As we have seen, however, Quintilius
Varus has a better claim to that poem.

[Footnote 6: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. IX. 10; ex oratione Cornelii in
Alfenum. Cf. Kroll, in _Rhein. Museum_ 1909, 52.]

[Footnote 7: Servius _Dan_. on _Ecl_. VI. 6.]

[Footnote 8: Vergil, _Eclogue_ IX, 26-29.]

[Footnote 9: See _Suffenus and Alfenus, Classical Quarterly_, 1920, p.
160.]

[Footnote 10: On _Eclogue_. VI. 6.]

The quotation from the speech of Gallus also lends support to a statement
in Servius that Gallus had been assigned to the duty of exacting moneys
from cities which escaped confiscation.[11] For this we are duly
grateful. It indicates how Alfenus and Gallus came into conflict since
the latter's financial sphere would naturally be invaded if the former
seized exempted territory for the extension of his new colony of Cremona.
In such conditions we can realize that Gallus was, as a matter of course,
interested in saving Mantua from confiscation, and that in this effort
he may well have appealed to Octavian in Vergil's behalf. In fact his
interpretation of the three-mile exemption might actually have saved
Vergil's properties, which seem to have lain about that distance from the
city.[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
_Eclogu