Virgil, Aeneid 3: A Commentary

This is the first detailed commentary on Aeneid 3, being some three times the size of that by R.D.Williams(1962), and aimed at the scholarly public. It treats fully the thorny problem of book 3's place in the growth of the poem, matters of linguistic and textual interpretation, metre, prosody, grammar, lexicon and idiom, as well as Virgil's sources and the literary tradition in which he writes. Full attention is given to matters geographical and nautical. New critical approaches and recent developments in Virgilian studies have been taken into account, with more attention to their spirit than to their language. A text, with translation, and three indices are included.

Introduction, text and translation, detailed commentary and indices to Aeneid 3 are here offered on a scale not previously attempted and in keeping with the author's previous Virgil commentaries (Aeneid 7 and 11); the volume is aimed primarily at scholars, rather than undergraduates.

Nicholas Horsfall (DPhil. Oxon. 1971) taught for sixteen years at University College London and has been a private scholar for rather longer. He lives in Wester Ross and this is his fifth book on Virgil.