[254] So of the representation of Porsenna on the shield of Aeneas, 8. 649, “Illum indignanti similem, similemque minanti Aspiceres.” ‘Ab Ida’ seems to belong to ‘rapuit,’ as Gossrau thinks, not to ‘praepes.’ It thus answers the purpose of telling us that the scenery is the same as in the former representation. ‘Praepes’ means no more than swift, without indicating whether the motion is up or down. Ovid is fond of using the word as a subst., like “ales” (comp. M. 4. 714, where he calls the eagle “Iovis praepes”), and this may be the meaning here: but the use occurs nowhere else in Virg., and in 9. 564, where part of v. 255 is repeated, ‘Iovis armiger’ is a subst., not an epithet. The story of Ganymede is glanced at in Il. 20. 234, where it is merely said that the gods carried him off for his beauty, that he might dwell with them and be Zeus' cupbearer, and referred to more at length in the Hymn to Aphrodite, vv. 203 foll., where we are told that he was carried away by a storm.
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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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