Appendix Vergiliana
The Appendix Vergiliana is a collection of Latin poems traditionally ascribed as being the juvenilia of Virgil.
Many of the poems in the Appendix were considered works by Virgil in antiquity. However, recent studies suggest that the Appendix contains a diverse collection of minor poems by various authors from the 1st century AD.
Scholars are almost unanimous in considering the works of the Appendix spurious, primarily on grounds of style, metrics, and vocabulary.
Authorship
Besides the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, a collection of minor works attributed to Virgil certainly existed by the reign of Nero. These poems were not included in the edition of Virgil's works published after his death by Varius Rufus and Plotius Tucca and are not found in any of the major Virgilian codices, nor is there any allusion to them in the vita prefixed to the 1st century commentary of Valerius Probus. The vita which preceded the 4th century commentary of Donatus, which is generally supposed to be heavily dependent on the 2nd century Suetonius, enumerated the Catalepton, ''Priapea, Epigrammata, Dirae, Ciris, and Culex as early works of Virgil; yet as two 15th century manuscripts omit the Catalepton and Ciris, but insert the Moretum, Henry Nettleship suspects that Suetonius referred only to the Culex, of which he goes on to give a brief account, and the rest of the list is interpolated. Suetonius adds, however, that "he also wrote the Aetna, about which there is some controversy." The phrase "about which there is some controversy" is lacking in some manuscripts, and believed by some critics to be interpolated. The life given by Servius contains the statement, "he also wrote these seven or eight books: Ciris, Aetna, Culex, Priapea, Catalepton, Epigrammata, Copa, Dirae."The Culex is quoted as Virgilian by Statius and Martial, and in Suetonius' Life of Lucan. Quintilian quotes Catalepton 2 as the work of Virgil. The Elegiae in Maecenatem cannot possibly be by Virgil, as Maecenas died eleven years after Virgil in 8 BC. The poems are all probably by different authors, except for the Lydia and Dirae which may have a common author, and have been given various, nebulous dates within the 1st century AD. The Culex and the Ciris are thought to have been composed under the emperor Tiberius. Some of the poems may be attempts to pass works off under Virgil's name as pseudepigraphia, such as the Catalepton, while others seem to be independent works that were subsumed into the collection like the Ciris which is influenced more by the late Republican neoterics than Virgil.
Emil Baehrens theorized that the poems of the Appendix already constituted a single collection in antiquity. This theory is generally rejected by modern scholars, and there is no evidence of a collected edition of the poems prior to an entry in a mid-9th century catalogue of the library at Murbach Abbey, which lists under Virgil the following item: "Dire; Ciris; Culex; Catalapeion; Ethne; Priapeia; Copa; Moretum; Mecenas." Some manuscripts containing these poems also include three 4th century compositions, De viro bono, Est et non, and De rosis nascentibus, of which the first two certainly, and the third probably, were written by Ausonius. It has become conventional to refer to the poems collectively as the Appendix Vergiliana since the 1573 edition of Joseph Scaliger.
Charles de la Rue, S.J., suggested that although Virgil had indeed written a poem called the Culex, it had been lost at an early date, and a writer of a later era had composed the Culex which we now possess as a fictitious replacement of it; he likewise judged the Ciris to be the work of an author later than the time of Ovid., S.J., made the first serious attempt to prove the spuriousness of the Culex in 1729. Oudin was the first to draw attention to the seeming discrepancy between the extant poem and the abstract of Virgil's Culex given by Suetonius.
Though the authenticity of the Appendix was once generally accepted, 19th century criticism judged these works unworthy of Virgil, and therefore spurious; Alfred Gudeman expressed the general verdict of the age when he wrote that "their spuriousness is established by incontrovertible proofs." Controversy over the date and authorship of these poems was revived by Franz Skutsch, who argued in his work Aus Vergils Frühzeit that parallels between the Aeneid and the Ciris demonstrate the influence of the Ciris upon the Aeneid and not the reverse, and that the Ciris'' is a work of Virgil's friend Cornelius Gallus. The discussion is ongoing.
Contents
''Culex'' ("The Gnat")
This is a pastoral epyllion in 414 hexameters which evokes the world of Theocritus and employs epic conventions for comic effect in a parody. The poem opens with an address to the young Octavian, a promise of more poems, an invocation of Apollo, and a prayer for Octavian's success. The poet has a priamel in which he rejects the Battle of the Gods and Giants and historical epic. It is noon, and a poor but happy shepherd, who lacks the refinements of classical luxury, is tending his flocks when he sees a grove of trees, a locus amoenus, and lies down to rest. The mythical metamorphoses of the trees in the grove are described. As he sleeps, a snake approaches him and is ready to bite when a gnat lands on his eyes. Reflexively killing the gnat he awakes, sees the snake and kills it. That night, the gnat appears to the shepherd in a dream, laments its undeserved fate, and gives a long description of the underworld and the souls of the dead mythological heroes there, allowing it to digress. The gnat especially focuses on the story of Eurydice and the Trojan War. The gnat goes on to describe famous Roman heroes and then his audience before Minos to decide his fate. When he awakes, the shepherd constructs a heroön to the gnat in the grove and the poet has a flower-catalogue. The shepherd inscribes it with the inscription "Little gnat, to you deservedly the guard of the flock repays his funeral duty for your gift of life."The Culex cannot be one of Virgil's juvenilia because it alludes to the full body of his work; thus, it is usually dated to sometime during the reign of Tiberius. However, Suetonius in his Lives of the Poets writes, "the Culex... of his was written when he might have been sixteen years old", so it is possible that the extant version which has come down to us may be a later copy that had been modified. The poem has been variously interpreted as a charming epyllion or as an elaborate allegory in which the shepherd symbolizes Augustus and the gnat Marcellus.
Recent graphometric analysis by Stephan Vonfelt supports Virgilian authorship. Glenn Most writes, "the problem of the authenticity of the Culex, like the corpse of its heroic flea, simply will not die. It returns to complain of ill-treatment and to haunt those who thought they had killed it."
''Ciris'' ("The Egret")
The Ciris is an epyllion in 541 hexameters describing the myth of Nisus, the king of Megara and his daughter Scylla of Megara. The epyllion was a popular style of composition which seems to have developed in the Hellenistic age; surviving examples can be found in Theocritus and Catullus. The poet begins his hundred line prologue by invoking the Muses and Sophia, despite the fact that he is an Epicurean, and describes his poem as a gift to Messalla like the robe given to Minerva in the Panathenaia. The poet differentiates the Scylla of his poem from the sea-monster Scylla and describes the monster's birth and metamorphosis. He starts by describing Minos' siege of Megara and the lock of purple hair on the head of Nisus which protected the city. While playing ball, Scylla is shot by Cupid and falls madly in love with Minos. As a prize for Minos, she tries to cut the lock of her father, but her nurse, Carme, asks Scylla why she is upset. After Scylla tells her she is in love with Minos, Carme says that Minos earlier had killed her daughter Britomartis and convinces Scylla to go to bed. In the morning, Scylla tries to talk Nisus into making peace with Minos, and the nurse brews a magical potion, but nothing works and Scylla cuts off the lock. The city falls and Scylla, lamenting Minos' refusal to marry her, is taken prisoner on the Cretan ships which sail around Attica. The poet describes her metamorphosis in detail; by the pitying Amphitrite she is transformed into the ciris bird, supposedly from the Greek keirein. Jupiter transforms Nisus into a sea-eagle, which pursues the ciris like Scorpio pursues Orion.The poet's description of himself as a retired politician now dedicated to philosophy excludes Virgil's authorship. He appears to have imitated all three canonical Virgilian works, as well as Ovid and Manilius, but a date later than Messalla's death creates a problem identifying the poet's addressee. A Tiberian date seems likely for its composition, probably roughly contemporary with Ovid's ''Metamorphoses.''