[22] Venire excidio, like “venire auxilio” and “subsidio,” ‘Libyae’ being probably the dative, as ‘Dardaniae’ seems to be 2. 325. But there is room for doubt in both instances. It is hard to fix the precise meaning of ‘volvere.’ The passage 3. 375, “sic fata deum rex Sortitur volvitque vices,” is equally obscure; and we are left to choose between the ideas of a cycle of events (which is recommended by “is vertitur ordo” in the passage in A. 3), an urn in which lots are shaken, the threads of a spindle (which is the view of Serv.), and a book. I have returned to the common orthography ‘excidium,’ as being apparently the only one known to the MSS. of Virg.: but the word must be derived from “exscindo,” as “discidium” from “discindo,” unless, deriving it from “excīdo,” we pronounce it as a trisyllable by synizesis. “Excidio” on the other hand seems clearly to come from “excido,” like “occidio” from “occido,” so that we must suppose a synizesis in Plaut. Curc. 4. 3. 2, “Sed eapse illa qua excidionem facere condidici oppidis.”
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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