[448] The commentators remark on the pathetic situation, the Trojans being forced to destroy their most precious things in self-defence. Cerda quotes on the preceding line a passage from Quinct. Declam. 368: “Ipsorum sepulchrorum ruina, si possem, hostem repellerem: tecta in subeuntis, et sacra, quin etiam templorum fastigia, desperantium tela sunt: certum est omnia licere pro patria,” apparently an allusion to Virg., and on the present line one from Tac. H. 3. 71, “Ambustasque Capitolii fores penetrassent, ni Sabinus revulsas undique statuas, decora maiorum, in ipso aditu vice muri obiecisset.” ‘Decora alta’ as in 1. 429. Here ‘alta’ is omitted or erased in two or three MSS., while others, including fragm. Vat., have a various reading ‘illa,’ which is the text of Pal., and adopted by Ribbeck. It has very considerable probability, as ‘alta’ may very well have arisen from a recollection of the passage in A. 1 (see on 1. 668., 4. 564., 6. 808, where as here Med. supports the reading which is apparently due to recollection): but the words of Stat. Theb. 5. 424, cited by Forb., “Magnorum decora alta patrum,” look as if he had read ‘alta:’ and so it is quoted by Priscian, p. 772 P.
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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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