Editing Virgil (section)

==Traditional biography==
===Biographical sources===
Biographical information about Virgil is transmitted chiefly in {{lang|la|vitae}} ('lives') of the poet prefixed to commentaries on his work by [[Marcus Valerius Probus|Probus]], [[Aelius Donatus|Donatus]], and [[Servius the Grammarian|Servius]]. The life given by Donatus is generally considered to closely reproduce the life of Virgil from a lost work of [[Suetonius]] on the lives of famous authors, just as Donatus used this source for the poet's life in his commentary on [[Terence]], where Suetonius is explicitly credited.{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|pp=28–31}}<ref name="Stok_Lives"/> The far shorter life given by Servius likewise seems to be an abridgement of Suetonius except for one or two statements.{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=31}} [[Lucius Varius Rufus|Varius]] is said to have written a memoir of his friend Virgil, and Suetonius likely drew on this lost work and other sources contemporary with the poet.{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=32}} A life written in verse by the grammarian Phocas (probably active in the 4th through 5th century AD) differs in some details from Donatus and Servius.<ref name="Stok_Lives"/> [[Henry Nettleship]] believed that the life attributed to Probus may have drawn independently from the same sources as Suetonius,{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=31}} but it is attributed by other authorities to an anonymous author of the 5th or 6th century AD who drew on Donatus, Servius, and Phocas.<ref name="Stok_Lives"/> The Servian life was the principal source of Virgil's biography for medieval readers, while the Donatian life enjoyed a more limited circulation, and the lives of Phocas and Probus remained largely unknown.<ref name="Stok_Lives">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Stok |first=Fabio |title=Lives |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |pages=751–755 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve1235|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>

Although the commentaries record much factual information about Virgil, some of their evidence can be shown to rely on allegorizing and on inferences drawn from his poetry. For this reason, details regarding Virgil's life story are considered somewhat problematic.<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603">Fowler, Don. 1996. "Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro)." In ''[[Oxford Classical Dictionary|The Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'' (3rd ed.). Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]].</ref>{{Rp|1602}}

===Family and birth===

According to the ancient {{lang|la|vitae}}, Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the [[Ides (calendar)|Ides]] of October in the consulship of [[Pompey]] and [[Marcus Licinius Crassus|Crassus]] (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near [[Mantua]] in [[Cisalpine Gaul]] ([[northern Italy]], added to [[Roman Italy|Italy proper]] during his lifetime).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gottwein.de/latine/map/it_cis01.jpg |title=Map of Cisalpine Gaul |website=gottwein.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528150009/http://www.gottwein.de/latine/map/it_cis01.jpg |archive-date=28 May 2008}}</ref>{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=1}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an [[apparitor]] named Magius, whose daughter he married.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=1}} According to Phocas and Probus, the name of Virgil's mother was [[Magia Polla]].{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=50}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} The [[cognomen]] of Virgil's maternal family, ''Magius,'' and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name (''Magi'') in Servius' life from the genitive ''magi'' of the noun ''magus'' ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Morgan |first=John D. |title=Magius |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |page=781 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve1289|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}

Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers.

====Site of Andes====

A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante,<ref>''Purg.'' XVIII.83</ref> identifies Andes with modern [[Pietole]], two or three miles southeast of Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=194}} The ancient biography attributed to [[Marcus Valerius Probus|Probus]] records that Andes was thirty [[Mile#Roman|Roman miles]] (about {{Convert|45|km|mi|abbr=|disp=or}}) from Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=189}}{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} There are eight or nine references to the ''[[gens]]'' to which Vergil belonged, [[Vergilia gens|''gens Vergilia'']], in inscriptions from [[Northern Italy]]. Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from [[Verona]], and one in an inscription from [[Calvisano]], a [[votive offering]] to the [[Matres and Matronae|Matronae]] (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=190}} A tomb erected by a member of the [[Magia gens|''gens Magia'']], to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at [[Casalpoglio]], just {{Convert|12|km|mi}} from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua,{{sfn|Braunholtz|1915|p=108}} which led [[Robert Seymour Conway]] to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or [[Carpenedolo]], not Pietole, is the site of Andes.{{sfn|Conway|1923|pp=190–4}} [[Edward Kennard Rand|E. K. Rand]] defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that [[Egnazio]]'s 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from [[Bobbio Abbey]] which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading.{{sfn|Rand|1930|pp=123–4, 127–42}} Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that the reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles."{{sfn|Conway|1931|pp=71–5}} Other studies<ref>{{cite magazine
| last        = Nardoni
| first       = Davide
| date        = 1986
| title       = La terra di Virgilio
| language    = it
| magazine    = Archeologia Viva
| edition     = January–February
| pages       = 71–76
}}</ref> claim that today's consideration for ancient ''Andes'' should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of [[Castel Goffredo]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Gualtierotti |first=Piero |date=2008 |title=Castel Goffredo dalle origini ai Gonzaga |location=Mantua |language=it |pages=96–100 }}</ref>

==== Spelling of name ====
By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling ''Vergilius'' had been changed to ''Virgilius'', and then the latter spelling spread to the modern European languages.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Comparetti|first1=Domenico|title=Vergil in the Middle Ages|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691026787|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-6wGE9Ylmj4C&pg=PR7|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=1997}}</ref> This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar [[Poliziano]] had shown ''Vergilius'' to be the original spelling.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wilson-Okamura|first1=David Scott|title=Virgil in the Renaissance|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521198127|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaNUGscVhIC&pg=PA15|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=2010}}</ref> Today, the [[anglicisation]]s ''Vergil'' and ''Virgil'' are both considered acceptable.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Winkler|first1=Anthony C.|last2=McCuen-Metherell|first2=Jo Ray|title=Writing the Research Paper: A Handbook|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1133169024|page=278|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PUMIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA278|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=2011}}</ref>

There is some speculation that the spelling ''Virgilius'' might have arisen due to a pun, since ''virg-'' carries an echo of the Latin word for 'wand' (''uirga''), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the [[Middle Ages]]. There is also a possibility that ''virg-'' is meant to evoke the Latin ''virgo'' ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the [[Eclogue 4|fourth ''Eclogue'']], which has a history of Christian, and specifically [[Messianism|Messianic]], [[Christian interpretations of Virgil's Eclogue 4|interpretations]].<ref group="lower-roman">For more discussion on the spelling of Virgil's name, see Flickinger, R. C. 1930. "Vergil or Virgil?." ''[[The Classical Journal]]'' 25(9):658–60.</ref>

===Childhood and education===

Virgil spent his boyhood in [[Cremona]] until his 15th year (55 BC), when he is said to have received the ''[[toga virilis]]'' on the very day that [[Lucretius]] died.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=2}} From Cremona, he moved to Milan, and shortly afterwards to Rome.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=2}} After briefly considering a career in [[rhetoric]] and law, the young Virgil turned his talents to poetry.<ref>Damen, Mark. [2002] 2004. "[http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320AncLit/chapters/11verg.htm Vergil and 'The Aeneid']." Ch. 11 in ''A Guide to Writing in History and Classics''. [[Utah State University]]. [https://web.archive.org/web/20170216160433/http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320AncLit/chapters/11verg.htm Archived] from the original on 16 February 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2020.</ref> Despite the biographers statements that Virgil's family was of modest means, these accounts of his education, as well as of his ceremonial assumption of the ''toga virilis,'' suggest that his father was in fact a wealthy [[equites|equestrian]] landowner.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Gordon |first=Mary L. |title=The Family of Vergil |journal=The Journal of Roman Studies |volume=24 |issue=1 |date=1934 |pages=1–12|doi=10.2307/297009 |jstor=297009 }}</ref>

He is said to have been tall and stout, with a swarthy complexion and a rustic appearance.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=2}} Virgil also seems to have suffered bad health throughout his life and in some ways lived the life of an invalid. Schoolmates considered Virgil extremely shy and reserved, and he was nicknamed "Parthenias" ("virgin") because of his social aloofness.

===Poetic career===

The biographical tradition asserts that Virgil began the hexameter ''[[Eclogues]]'' (or ''Bucolics'') in 42 BC and it is thought that the collection was published around 39–38 BC, although this is controversial.<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603" />{{Rp|1602}} After defeating the army led by the [[Assassination of Julius Caesar|assassins]] of [[Julius Caesar]] in the [[Battle of Philippi]] (42 BC), [[Octavian]] tried to pay off his veterans with land expropriated from towns in northern Italy, which—according to tradition—included an estate near Mantua belonging to Virgil. The loss of Virgil's family farm and the attempt through poetic petitions to regain his property have traditionally been seen as his motives in the composition of the ''Eclogues''. This is now thought to be an unsupported inference from interpretations of the ''Eclogues''. In ''Eclogues'' 1 and 9, Virgil indeed dramatizes the contrasting feelings caused by the brutality of the land expropriations through pastoral idiom but offers no indisputable evidence of the supposed biographic incident.

Sometime after the publication of the ''Eclogues'' (probably before 37 BC),<ref name="Fowler, pg.1603"/>{{Rp|1603}} Virgil became part of the circle of [[Maecenas]], Octavian's capable ''agent d'affaires'' who sought to counter sympathy for Antony among the leading families by rallying Roman literary figures to Octavian's side. Virgil came to know many of the other leading literary figures of the time, including [[Horace]], in whose poetry he is often mentioned,<ref>[[Horace]], ''[[Satires (Horace)|Satires]]'' 1.5, 1.6; Horace, [[Odes (Horace)|''Odes'']] 1.3</ref> and [[Varius Rufus]], who later helped finish the ''Aeneid''.

At Maecenas's insistence (according to the tradition) Virgil spent the ensuing years (perhaps 37–29 BC) on the long [[dactylic hexameter]] poem called the ''[[Georgics]]'' (from Greek, "On Working the Earth"), which he dedicated to Maecenas.

Virgil worked on the ''Aeneid'' during the last eleven years of his life (29–19 BC), commissioned, according to [[Propertius]], by [[Augustus]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Avery|first1=W. T.|year=1957|title=Augustus and the "Aeneid"|journal=The Classical Journal|volume=52|issue=5|pages=225–29}}</ref> According to the tradition, Virgil traveled to the [[senatorial province]] of [[Achaea (Roman province)|Achaea]] in Greece in about 19 BC to revise the ''Aeneid''. After meeting Augustus in Athens and deciding to return home, Virgil caught a fever while visiting a town near [[Megara]]. After crossing to Italy by ship, weakened with disease, Virgil died in [[Apulia]] on 21 September 19 BC. Augustus ordered Virgil's literary executors, [[Lucius Varius Rufus]] and [[Plotius Tucca]], to disregard Virgil's own wish [[Book burning#Posthumous destruction of works|that the poem be burned]], instead ordering it to be published with as few editorial changes as possible.<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Virgil|volume=28|pages=111–116|last1=Sellar|first1=William Young |author-link1=William Young Sellar |last2=Glover|first2=Terrot Reaveley|author2-link=Terrot Reaveley Glover|last3=Bryant|first3=Margaret}}</ref>{{rp|112}}

==== Burial and tomb ====
[[File:Parco della Grotta di Posillipo3.jpg|alt=Tomb of Virgil in Naples, Italy|thumb|upright=1.3|[[Virgil's tomb|Tomb of Virgil]] in Naples, Italy]]

After his death at [[Brundisium]] according to Donatus,{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=8}} or at [[Taranto]] according to some late manuscripts of Servius,{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=72}} Virgil's remains were transported to [[Naples]], where his tomb was engraved with an epitaph that he himself composed: ''{{lang|la|Mantua me genuit; Calabri rapuere; tenet nunc Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces}}'';{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=8}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=72}} "[[Mantua]] gave me life, the [[Salento|Calabrians]] took it away, Naples holds me now; I sang of pastures, farms, and commanders." (transl. [[Bernard Knox]]) [[Martial]] reports that [[Silius Italicus]] annexed the site to his estate (11.48, 11.50), and [[Pliny the Younger]] says that Silius "would visit Virgil's tomb as if it were a temple" (''Epistulae'' 3.7.8).<ref name="Berenbeim_Tomb">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Berenbeim |first=Jessica |title=Virgil, tomb of |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |page=1361 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve2205|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>

[[File:Parco della Grotta di Posillipo5 (crop).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Modern bust of Virgil at the entrance to his crypt in [[Naples]]]]

The structure known as [[Virgil's tomb]] is found at the entrance of an ancient Roman tunnel ({{lang|it|grotta vecchia}}) in [[Piedigrotta]], a district {{cvt|3|km|order=flip}} from the centre of [[Naples]], near the [[Mergellina]] harbour, on the road heading north along the coast to [[Pozzuoli]]. While Virgil was already the object of literary admiration and veneration before his death, in the Middle Ages his name became associated with miraculous powers, and for a couple of centuries his tomb was the destination of [[pilgrimage]]s and veneration.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_K0UJAAAAIAAJ| title=The Book of Days | publisher=W and R Chambers | author=Chambers, Robert | year=1832 | location=London | pages=366}}</ref> Through the nineteenth century, the supposed tomb regularly attracted travellers on the [[Grand Tour]], and it still draws visitors today.<ref name="Berenbeim_Tomb"/>