[115] Virg. naturally substitutes the ship-race for Homer's chariot-race, which Aeneas' wandering heroes could not well have conducted: he has kept his eye however on the incidents of the Homeric contest. Wagn. thinks ‘pares’ must refer to swiftness, not to size, supposing the Chimaera to be larger than the rest, being a trireme, while the others are assumed to have been biremes. In v. 153 however the weight of Cloanthus' vessel is said to be the reason why he did not get ahead of Gyas, so that the two ships probably did not differ much in size. It seems more likely that in the following description Virg. as usual has studied variety, calling the Pristis swift and the Scylla sea-coloured without meaning that the others were not swift, or implying any thing about their colour, and thus that in dwelling on the size of the Chimaera he has no intention of disparaging that of the rest. ‘Gravibus remis’ of course does not mark out the ships as adapted for swift sailing, but leads us to think of the difficulty of the feat, while indicating their actual character.
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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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