476 Sclievill — Studies in Cervantes. 



of Aeiieas's adventurous Avanderings ; tliey could read an Aeneid 

 done into Spanish in the true spirit of the Renaissance, and their 

 ignorance of real antiquity would readily allow theiu to see in its 

 characters and episodes many of the elements peculiar to a con- 

 temporary roman d'aventure. It contained long and striking voy- 

 ages over unknown seas, shipivrecks and strange encounters, fierce 

 and bloody combats, timely escapes, projects and schemes subject at 

 every turn to ill fortune, but crowned at last by a successful issue; 

 it had, above all, an episode of love and passion in the tragic story 

 of Dido, which has awakened interest in all ages. So the excellence 

 of Virgil's romance was bound to be recognized at a time when its 

 peculiar sentiments must have been widely intelligible; when its 

 martial passages would appeal to those fond of the romances of 

 chivalry, and its pathos to those w^ho favored the sentimental love- 

 story. 



Virgil had come down through the centuries Avith undiminished 

 fame; in the schools of the Roman Empire he had been considered 

 the foremost Latin classic, a rank which his perfection of diction and 

 his charm of genuine and deep sentiment had assured him from the 

 outset. During the dreary stretch of the Middle Ages, grammarians, 

 scholastics and rhetoricians found in him a fruitful source for their 

 numerous but dissimilar teachings; even at the very ebb-tide of 

 learning, during the dark ages, he continued to be a large factor in 

 whatever culture was left in the schools, all of which was no doubt 

 due to the fact that his name and fame had been handed down as 

 a tradition among all the peoples who had inherited Roman civiliza- 



notably of the fourth book, on the Greek romances would be difficult to 

 trace and Rohde does not consider it in his great work, Der grierhische 

 Roman (Leipzig, 1900). But there can be no doubt that Aeneas and Dido 

 were generally included in the list of loving couples, and as such may 

 have become known through the scenic presentations of tragedy, or through 

 wall or vase paintings; cf. Rohde, op. cit., pp. 39-40, 42. It is, therefore, 

 very likely that Heliodorus knew Virgil's version of the Dido legend. 

 The following similar features in Virgil and Heliodorus deserve attention: 

 the heroine falls in love with the hero at first sight; his physical beauty 

 is very striking, cf. Rohde, op. cit., pp. 158, 162, n. 1 ; the description 

 of the hero, p. 164, n. 3; description of heroine's beauty, p. 165; lie is 

 like a god, pp. 165 IT.; love-sickness, p. 167 ff. ; the love-sick heroine has 

 no repose at night; ll)c victims' passion is proclaimed in the dark of night 

 or when wandering alone, and their thoughts are visualized in dreams. 



