[143] Repeated 8. 690. In both passages an unmetrical reading ‘stridentibus’ seems to have got early possession of the text, to the perplexity of the grammarians, who had recourse to various ways of scanning it, a molossus or amphimacer in the fourth foot, the suppression of s as a consonant which the Etruscans scarcely sounded at all, and the shortening of i by the poet ‘auctoritate sua.’ Pierius, who mentions these devices, himself asks “sed quid obsecro magis proprium quam in eo strepitu exprimendo, per eam syllabarum asperitatem, ut vastum nescio quid praeter etiam rationem musicam audiatur, legere ‘convolsum remis rostrisque stridentibus aequor’?” Others, less ready for metrical tours de force, omitted ‘que:’ while others again changed ‘stridentibus’ into ‘sonantibus,’ ‘ruentibus,’ ‘rudentibus.’ The reading ‘tridentibus’ was mentioned to Pierius, apparently as a conjecture, “ab Academia Neapolitana profectam,” by Angelus Colotius. It is found in Med., fragm. Vat. (originally), Pal., and some other copies, and is unquestionably the true one, expressing as it does accurately the shape of the ship's beak (Dict. A. ‘Ships’). It is supported also by an imitation in Val. Fl. 1. 688, “volat inmissis cava pinus habenis, Infinditque salum et spumas vomit aere tridenti.” Rom., Gud., &c. have ‘stridentibus.’
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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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