[453] The connexion of the tenses is not strictly accurate, as with ‘vidit’ following we should have expected ‘perageret,’ ‘relinqueret:’ but the same latitude which allows the present to be used historically for the past in the indicative is extended to the other moods. A similar confusion is found in prose: “Helvetii legatos ad Caesarem mittunt, qui dicerent, sibi esse in animo iter per provinciam facere, propterea quod aliud iter nullum haberent: rogare ut eius voluntate id sibi facere liceat,” Caes. B. G. 1. 7, quoted by Madv. § 382, obs. 3. Here the irregularity is further justified by the structure of the sentence, the reader thinking, as doubtless the writer thought of v. 451, and so being prepared to find the present continued. ‘Inponeret’ 1. 49 note. ‘Turicremis aris’ is from Lucr. 2.353, as Macrob. Sat. 6. 5 observes.
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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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