212 



DISCOVERY 



The New Evidence 



In 1915 Mr. G. E. K. Braunholtz, in the course of a 

 long study of the inscriptions of North Italy, and 

 especiall}' of the names of places and persons, pointed 

 out that at a place called Calvisano there was an 

 inscription (whose lettering suggests that it was cut 

 in, or soon after, the Augustan period) set up by a 

 member of the Vergilian family ; and that at another 

 village, only seven miles off, there was another inscrip- 

 tion set up by one Publius Magius, that is, by a member 

 of the family of Vergil's mother, or at all events of a 

 family with the same name. The lettering of this 



since he was never married ; she might have been a 

 sister, though his biographers, in their meagre records, 

 mention no such relative ; there is nothing, at all 

 events, to prevent our supposing that she was a niece or 

 cousin who lived near enough to the temple of the 

 MatroncB (mother-goddesses) at Calvisano for that to 

 be the most natural place in which she could offer a 

 vow for the health of another ladv (probably her 

 daughter) as the inscription tells us slie did.' 



Calvisano and Carpenedolo 



The question now before us is clearly this : Does 

 the scenery of Calvisano suit Vergil's description of 





Fig. 4.— roadside stream, south of c.^rpexedolo. 



inscription also belongs to precisely the same period 

 (say from 50 B.C. to a.d. 100). He further pointed 

 out that Calvisano, where the first inscription (on 

 an altar dedicated by a lady called Vergilia) was 

 found, was exactly at the distance from Mantua, 

 namely thirty Roman miles, which, as we know from 

 Probus, Vergil's birthplace, Andes, was. Now these 

 coincidences (of names, time, and place) seem too 

 remarkable to be due to accident : and they certainly 

 indicate the neighbourhood of Calvisano, which lies 

 on the road from Mantua to Brescia, as a neighbourhood 

 in which it is at least possible that members of Vergil's 

 family once lived. Of course the Vergilia mentioned 

 in the inscription could not be the poet's daughter, 



his own home ? In June 1922, and again last February, 

 I did my best to settle this question by visiting the 

 district. Calvisano lies between the rivers Chiese and 

 Mella,'^ five English miles W. of the ridge of Carpenedolo. 



1 It runs thus, on the face of an altar, which itself was the 

 object vowed: Matfonabus Vergilia G{ai) j(ilia) Vera, pro 

 Mnnatia T{iti) /{ilia) Calulla v{otum) s{olvit) l{ibens) m(erito)_ 

 " Vergilia Vera, daughter of Gains, having received an answer 

 to her prayer for Munatia Catulla, daughter of Titus, gratefully 

 pays her vow." If these two ladies were mother and daughter, 

 the husband of the first and father of the second must have 

 been called Titus Munatius. 



- This lovely stream is the only one of the small rivers of 

 North Italy mentioned by Vergil in the Georgics (iv. 278), and it 

 is there mentioned, as Mr. Mackail has reminded me, with a 

 special note of familiarity and affection. 



