non semel Ilios vexata (est): to be interpreted generically: not once only has a Troy been harassed. The reference is not to the various legendary sieges of Troy, but to the infinite possibilities of the unknown past. Many cities have been besieged and destroyed, but their stories are unknown to us because no poet has celebrated them. Cf. Plato, Laws, 676 B, 'and have not thousands upon thousands of cities come into being in this (boundless) time, and as many been destroyed?' Shelley, Queen Mab, II.; the final Chorus in Hellas; and Verg. Ecl. 4. 36.
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Horace. Odes and Epodes. Edited with commentary by. Paul Shorey. revised by. Paul Shorey and Gordon J. Laing. New York. Benj. H. Sanborn and Co. 1910.
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