t magni quartus [liber] monstrare Lucreti,' where
_partus_, the reading of the oldest edition, was used. This, and other
considerations, show that the _vita_ does not rest on any ancient
sources, beyond those which are still extant.

[33] Memmius wrote love poems (Ovid, _Tr._ ii. 433).

[34] Some ascribe these stories to Lenaeus, a freedman of Pompey,
Sueton. _Gramm._ 15.

[35] Only inferior MSS. give Q., and the reading in c. 67, 12, 'verum
istud populi, fabula, Quinte, facit,' is not to be accepted.

[36] Some critics, without sufficient proof, identify Volusius with
the inferior poet Tanusius Geminus.

[37] Martial, of course, has here forgotten his dates.

[38] The incident has been borrowed from Plutarch by Shakespeare,
_Julius Caesar_, Act iii. Scene 3.

[39] See p. 184.

[40] This appears to us to be an indirect proof that the half lines in
Virgil are often complete as they stand.

CHAPTER III

THE AUGUSTAN AGE.

VIRGIL.

(1) LIFE.

Our chief authority for the life of Virgil, apart from his own
writings and those of his contemporaries, is Donatus, whose work is
probably based on Suetonius' _De Poetis_. Donatus' work, though not
free from romance, is much more valuable than the Life by Probus[41]
or the metrical account given by Phocas.[42] Some important details
are given in the Life wrongly attributed to Servius, and in an account
preserved in a Berne MS. of the tenth century.

The poet's name is correctly given as P. Vergilius Maro in all the
Lives. The balance of authority is decidedly in favour of the spelling
'Vergilius'; it is always so written in the early MSS. and in
inscriptions of the Republic and of the early centuries A.D. The
traditional form in modern literature, 'Virgil,' is here retained.

Virgil was born 15th October, B.C. 70, at Andes (identified
traditionally with Pietole)[43] near Mantua. Donatus, _vit. Verg._,
'Natus est Cn. Pompeio Magno et M. Licinio Crasso primum coss. iduum
Octobrium die, in pago qui Andes dicitur et abest a Mantua non
procul.'

He was of humble extraction, his father being originally either a
potter or a day-labourer.

Probus, _vit. Verg._, 'Matre Magia Polla, patre rustico.'

Donatus, 'Parentibus modicis fuit ac praecipue patre, quem quidam
opificem figulum, plures Magi cuiusdam viatoris initio mercennarium
mox ob industriam generum tradiderunt egregieque substantiae silvis
coemendis et apibus curandis auxisse reculam.' (Cf. Virgil's