[472] Tumidus is not uncommonly applied to serpents (Forb. refers to Ov. M. 1. 460., 10. 313), but it seems scarcely to agree with the state of torpor here mentioned, so that if we do not suppose Virg. to have written loosely, we must assume either that he wishes us to think of the natural violence of the serpent as scarcely subdued by its winter seclusion, or that, unlike Pliny, he holds that the poison is brewing during the winter.
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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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