[58] Ceres, Apollo, and Bacchus are propitiated on this occasion as having to do with marriage, as Henry appears to establish by a reference to the Pervigilium Veneris v. 43, where all three are named, Stat. 1 Silv. 2. 219 foll., of Bacchus and Apollo, and Himerius, Orat. 1. 3, of Apollo. Possibly they may also be invoked as gods of the new colony, to further the political union between the Carthaginians and the Trojans. The epithet ‘legiferae’ (a translation of θεσμοφόρος, a title of Demeter, Hdt. 6. 91 &c.) points that way: Apollo again is known to have been celebrated as the founder of cities (Dict. B. ‘Apollo’), and Dionysus like Demeter was called θεσμοφόρος (Orph. H. 41. 1). Heyne goes farther, and attempts to show that these three divinities, like Juno, had a special relation to Carthage. Serv. accumulates a number of heterogeneous reasons for their introduction here, which are not worth quoting: he has preserved however two lines of Calvus, which illustrate the mention of Ceres:
“Et leges sanctas docuit, et cara iugavit Corpora connubiis, et magnas condidit urbes.” There is a tantalizing passage in Macrob. Sat. 3. 12, where one of the speakers asks another whether he does not think Virgil has committed a great mistake here, in first saying ‘mactant—Lyaeo,’ and then as it were recollecting himself and adding ‘Iunoni—curae,’ a question which is followed by no answer or explanation of any sort, so that there is evidently a lacuna. For ‘legiferae’ Rom., fragm. Vat. a m. pr., and other MSS. give ‘frugiferae,’ which would seem to be a correction by some one who knew nothing of Ceres the Lawgiver.This text is part of:
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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