[9] Quae discordia = “cur haec discordia?” See on 1. 237. ‘Vetitum’ a prohibition, correlativo to “iussum” a command: “iussa ac vetita populorum” Cic. Legg. 2. 4. 9. Here the prohibition stands alone as being the essence of the command: a figure of speech which may be paralleled by Thuc. 1. 77, ἤν τι παρὰ τὸ μὴ οἴεσθαι χρῆναι . . . ἐλασσωθῶσι, ‘if they are thwarted against their notions of what is wrong:’ their notions, that is, of what is right. ‘Discordia’ as below (vv. 105, 106) includes the quarrels of the gods as well as of men, the two being closely connected. ‘Quis metus’ &c. If ‘hos’ refers not to the gods but to the men, ‘metus’ will mean mutual suspicion or terror, an agency constantly attributed to supernatural causes: see especially 7. 552, 578. Schrader ingeniously but unnecessarily conj. ‘quis deus’ (comp. v. 73 below). If ‘hos’ are the gods, as is possible but not so likely, Jupiter speaking rhetorically of their interference as if it had been direct action, ‘metus’ may be comp. with “metu” 1. 280 note. ‘Suasit’ governs the accus. and infin. ‘hos sequi’ as an object clause: ‘who was the adviser of their following arms?’ So Lucr. 1. 143 foll. “Sed tua me virtus . . . quemvis sufferre laborem Suadet:” so perhaps also in the difficult passage ib. 3. 83-4 (timor, odium vitae) “hunc vexare pudorem, hunc vincula amicitiai Rumpere et in summa pietatem evertere suadet,” where ‘suadet,’ altered by Lambinus into ‘fundo,’ and by Lachmann into ‘fraude,’ is now recalled by Munro (3rd edn.). Comp. 12. 813.
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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. and Henry Nettleship, M.A. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane;. George Bell and Sons, York Street, Covent Garden. 1876.
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