Virgil is addressing the nymph Arethusa, here, I believe (whose profile appears on those famous Syracusan coins by Euainetos, surrounded by dolphins).
I once attended a lecture on Greek topography, especially springs, and seem to remember that the Syracusans believed that the waters of the spring Arethusa flowed from the Peloponnese to Sicily unmingled with the water of the Mediterranean; and so connected the city with its metropolis. -=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ College, the author implied, meant simply years wasted on Latin verbs and calculus. Vergil, and Harvard, were cited regularly with an uncomfortable, if off-hand, reverence for their unnecessary existences. William Gaddis, _The Recognitions_ From: Neven Jovanovic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Dear Mantovani, > >reading Cicero's Verr. 2,4,118 I came across the following: > >_in hac insula extrema est fons aquae dulcis, cui nomen Arethusa est, >incredibili magnitudine, plenissimus piscium, qui fluctu totus >operiretur, nisi munitione ac mole lapidum diiunctus esset a mari._ >(Cicero describes the _insula_ which is a part of the city of Syracuse). > >Now, it brought to mind Verg. ecl. 10,1 (_Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi >concede laborem_)--note the proximity of _extrema/extremum_ and >_Arethusa_. > >How can we use this coincidence to interpret the ecl. 10? > >My contribution: >The article in RE, and Clausens commentary ad loc, read together with >Cicero, make one aware of the fact that the spring of Arethusa is, both >in Theocritus' and Vergil's time, practically _in the middle of the city_ >(and not just any city--something like ancient New York, geographically). > >Neven >Zagreb, Croatia ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
