ic merit. The _Ciris_ was not yet completed at the time
when Vergil reached the momentous decision to go to Naples and study
philosophy. He apparently laid it aside and did not return to it until he
had been in Naples several years. It was not till later that he wrote the
dedication. As we shall see, the author again laid the poem away, and it
was not published till after his death. The preface written in Siro's
garden is addressed to Messalla, who was a student at Athens in 45-4
B.C., and served in the republican army of Brutus and Cassius in 43-2. In
it Vergil begs pardon for sending a poem of so trivial a nature at a time
when his one ambition is to describe worthily the philosophic system that
he has adopted. "Nevertheless," he says, "accept meanwhile this poem: it
is all that I can offer; upon it I have spent the efforts of early youth.
Long since the vow was made, and now is fulfilled." (_Ciris_, 42-7.)[1]

[Footnote 1: On the question of authenticity, see, Class. Phil. 1920, 103
ff.]

The story, beginning at line 101, was familiar. Minos, King of Crete, had
laid siege to Megara, whose king, Nisus, had been promised invincibility
by the oracles so long as his crimson lock remained untouched. Scylla,
the daughter of Nisus, however, was driven by Juno to fall in love with
Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the
temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when
she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the
dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own
heart, is an interesting attempt at intensive art: 209-219:

cum furtim tacito descendens Scylla cubili
auribus erectis nocturna silentia temptat
et pressis tenuem singultibus aera captat.
tum suspensa levans digitis vestigia primis
egreditur ferroque manus armata bidenti
evolat: at demptae subita in formidine vires
caeruleas sua furta prius testantur ad umbras.
nam qua se ad patrium tendebat semita limen,
vestibulo in thalami paulum remoratur et alti
suspicit ad gelidi nictantia sidera mundi
non accepta piis promittens munera divis.

Her aged nurse, Carme, comes upon the bewildered and shivering girl,
folds her in her robe, and coaxes the awful confession from her; 250-260:

haec loquitur mollique ut se velavit amictu
frigidulam iniecta circumdat veste puellam,
quae prius in tenui steterat succincta crocota.
dulcia deinde genis