Otfried Lieberknecht and Phil Thibodeau are much better versed in this
area than I, but let me hazard a layman's explanation not of the golden
ratio or the Fibonacci sequence themselves, but on the supposed meaning
of these phenomena in Vergil and elsewhere. I see three main
possibilities:
1.
The end of Aen.VIII
Talia per clipeum Volcani dona parentis
miratur, rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet
attollens umero famamque et fata nepotum.
'Such, throughout the shield, were the gifts of Aeneas' parent. He
wondered at them and, though he could not know the reality, was moved by
the image to
