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Virgil's Location of Corythus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. L. Harrison
E. L. Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Extract

In a recent article JRS (1973), 68 f. Nicholas Horsfall sought to demonstrate that Corythus, which Virgil makes the original home of Dardanus (Aen. iii, 167 f.), should be identified with Tarquinii, some 50 miles north-west of Rome, on the coast of Etruria, rather than with Cortona, roughly twice as far away, to the north, and inland. In doing so he expressed surprise that the Virgilian evidence should have been completely ignored by previous writers on the subject (p. 68): and, using the Aeneid as the main source on which his own argument was based, he supported his conclusion with a careful examination of several other aspects of the problem.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , December 1976 , pp. 293 - 295
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

1 On the question of Corythus' location add: McKay, A.G., Vergil's Italy (1970), p. 81 and n. 2, p. 326.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Iris' story about Cassandra (5. 636 f.) or Juno's string of distortions in the Assembly (10. 67 f.). Iris' lying speech here takes the typical Virgilian form, with its initial basis of veracity (viz. the reference to Aeneas' mission to Evander). Cf. how Sinon begins the first section of his lying speech with a reference to the death of Palamedes (2. 81 f.), the second by describing the war-weariness of the Greeks (2. 108 f.) and the third with an account of the stealing of the Palladium (2. 163 f.), in each case proceeding thereafter to his persuasive fiction.

3 It is important to note here that ‘collector’ (line 11) must be referred to Aeneas for its agent and is as false as ‘armat’. That both these pieces of information are false is clear, as we already can assume on the basis of Evander's account (8. 493 f.) and will have confirmed for us later, in the narrative (10. 148 f.) All Aeneas has to do is establish contact with Tarchon, conclude a formal agreement, and set out forthwith (cf. 10. 153 ‘haud fit mora’). The mustering and the arming have already been done for him: that is the whole point of Virgil's use of Mezentius.