[416] Laeta probably to be contrasted with “tristior” v. 228. Heyne and Wagn. take it as having reference to her love for Paphos. Serv. suggests that ‘laeta’ is the fixed epithet of Venus; and φιλομμειδὴς actually occurs in the passage quoted immediately below, from which this is verbally imitated. Virg. however cannot have meant ‘laeta’ for a fixed epithet, though it is possible that he may have mistaken the character of the fixed epithet, and supposed that it was meant to have a special reference to the context, like some of the critics on Homer. Henry (Class. Mus.) once thought it more poetical to make ‘calent’ the verb to ‘templum’ as well as ‘arae’ than to understand ‘est’ with ‘templum.’ But the words are clearly imitated from Od. 8. 362, Ἡ δ᾽ ἄρα Κύπρον ἵκανε φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδίτη Ἐς ΙΙάφον: ἔνθα δέ οἱ τέμενος, βωμός τε θυήεις, where θυήεις answers to ‘calent’ and ‘halant’ here. How Virg. came to develope the single altar of Hom. into a hundred does not appear: probably it arose from his turn for amplifying, as in G. 3. 18, A. 4. 199. The commentators observe that sacrifices of blood were not offered to Venus, citing Tac. H. 2. 3 (in Catull. 64 (66). 90 foll. the reading and interpretation are doubtful). Horace however, 1 Od. 19. 16, and 4 Od. 11. 7, refers to a different practice. ‘Sertis,’ festoons.
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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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