[361] Crudele seems to mean ‘fierce,’ or ‘savage.’ Serv. and others call it a hypallage, and probably the juxtaposition of ‘tyranni’ partially accounts for the epithet. ‘Metus acer’ occurs again 3. 682, of the Trojans escaping from the Cyclops. The epithets here are emphatic. The word ‘tyrannus’ in Virgil sometimes seems to bear a neutral sense, but more frequently it occurs in connexions which imply the notion of arbitrary if not of abused power. Here the circumstances of the story rather remind us of Greeks flying from a τύραννος.
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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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