128 ASTER HISTORY; VERGIL 
simply unwooded, clear and open, which is less natural. La 
Cerda, Ruaeus, and Trapp interpret ¢onsis as mown, which is 
better, but has less general and less poetic value than shorn. 
One suspected line —One line and one only in the cited passage 
about Amellus, has been doubted by some commentators. This 
is the line “ Saepe deum... arae.” It is retained by Burmann, 
though he thinks the metre a little limping, and inserts /inc after 
aeum. The line is retained also by Wagner, though he thinks it 
crept into the text from the margin but from Vergil’s own hand. 
The challenger of its authenticity is Weichert,+ who notes ‘its 
needlessness, its languor, and the change of tense, and doubts if 
the word “orgues could be properly used of garlands of flowers.” 
Jahn and Forbiger agree with Weichert ; Keightley and Ribbeck 
incline to him also, the latter adding the argument that the commen- 
tators Servius and Philargyrus do not notice the line. But there 
are many undoubted lines which Servius and the fragments of 
Philargyrus do not notice. 
I should also defend the line for several other reasons. It is 
not needless, but adds an important touch of dignity to Vergil’s 
flower. It is not excessively languorous, but has the movement 
characteristic of mild reminiscence so frequent in Vergil. Its use 
of dorgues, a collar, as an encircling band of flowers, is not in the 
least unnatural to a poet, and is scarce more remote from the 
original sense than Vergil’s use for it again in the Georgics for an 
ox-yoke, or Pliny’s for a band of color around a bird’s neck. 
F urthermore the verse is found in all the MSS. of the Georgics, 
including the esteemed Codex Vaticanus, and the Palatine and the 
Mediceus, all of which date back to the fourth or fifth century. 
It should require much stronger reasons for rejection of lines on 
which all these MSS. agree. 
Whether the line was written by Vergil or an ancient Roman 
interpolator, it shows that to the mind of the Latin writers, as to 
the Greek Nicander, the aster was a flower fit to decorate the . 
altars and was actually so used. 
commentators, some of whom with Servius* interpret ¢onszs as 
: 
4 
n 
| 
*¥e ete ee ar iA Sh ON OEE a - ee 
mervius interprets Zomsis as non sélvosis, and explains that the poet used it in con 
With wooded mountains which he had called intonsi, or shaggy. But to make 
oe Sument from supposed contrast valid the two usages should have been in juxt@- 
position. ; 
1 ‘‘ De vers. injur. Suspect.,’’ p. 63 as quoted in Keightley’s Vergil, p. 3U- 
