to Vergil 269 



Rhetoric. True, the cases are not really parallel. Whatever preexistent 

 material may have served to build up the Homeric poems, they are at 

 least not didactic poems, made up of precepts largely derived from 

 technical writers, and refined into poetic form with mature and labo- 

 rious skill. To quote the Georgics, not only for personal observation 

 of facts but for guiding precepts, is often to quote a secondary authority 

 in a noble dress, and serves but for adornment. But in such a consider- 

 ation there would be nothing to discourage Roman literary men. To 

 challenge Vergil's authority on a rustic subject remained the preroga- 

 tive of Seneca. 



Additional note to page 263 



Varro de lingua Latino, vn 105 says liber qui suas operas in servitutem pro pecunia 

 quadam debebat dum solveret nexus vooatur^ ut ab aere obaeratus. This antiquarian note is of 

 interest as illustrating the meaning of oferae, and the former position of the debtor as a 

 temporary slave. 



