[671] Cives reminds them at once of their relation to him and of the city the hope of which they are destroying. Ascanius supposes that they must fancy in their frenzy that they are burning a Greek camp or fleet, as Agave fancied that she was tearing a calf in pieces when she was dismembering her son. But their delusion was of a different kind, as the context shows. Thus it seems out of place to suppose with Forb. that they do not recognize Ascanius, though doubtless he believes that they do not, and takes off his helmet accordingly. ‘Suos mutatae adgnoscunt’ v. 679 need not imply that they were ignorant of the persons of their friends, but that they were ignorant of their true character; that as they now recognize the ships to be what Ascanius here calls them, their hopes, so they see that Aeneas and those who were for continuing the voyage had their true interests at heart. If this seems forced, we must say not that they were not perfectly aware that they were burning their own ships, but that in their frenzied enthusiasm they thought only of their purpose, and were unconscious of the whole world beside.
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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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