Dear Andre'-Paul,
P.Virgilius Maro of Toulouse (fl.ca.A.D. 630) is mentioned a few times
in Helen Waddell's "The Wandering Scholars" (1936, 7th ed. rev.):
p.30 "It was a low tide [in Latin letters] on the Continent of Europe,
except for one deep pool at Toulouse where the grammarian Virgilius Maro
agitated strangely on the secret tongues of Latin, and told his story of
the two scholars who argued for fifteen days and nights without sleeping
or eating on the frequentative of the verb "to be", till it almost came
to knives, rather like the monsters one exspects to find stranded in an
ebb." (Waddell refers to a Epist.de Verbo (Teubner, p.138) and "De
Catalogo Grammaticorum ",( pp.88-90).)
p.40-41,n.3 "The style of Martianus Capella is thoroughly vicious, and
Virgilius Maro of Tolouse with his secret Latin known only to the
initiate sets just the kind of riddle to intrigue the barbarian mind."
Domenico Comparetti in his "Vergil in the Middle Ages"(p.124 ,Eng
.trans) describes Virgilius Maro in the following bravura passage :
". . . that enigmatical monstrosity, at once comic and tragic, the
Vergil of Tolouse, who considered in respect of his surroundings and
origin, gives the impression of little else than a grim joke. He is
perhaps the only medieval grammarian who deserves to be called original,
but his originality takes a strange turn. Ideas, facts, names of
authors, words and rules are all alike invented by his fertile brain,
which ends by distinguishing twelve different kinds of Latin, and
putting Vergil in the time of the Flood. This strange writer, with his
claims to great grammatical authority and his adoption of the name of
Vergilius Maro to enforce those claims, reminds one irresistibly in the
squalor of his time (6th-7th century) of those hideous and putrid fungi
which are generated in the rotting leaves of autumn . . ."
Comparetti refers (p.124,n.9) to a complete edition of Virgilius Maro's
works: I. Huemer(ed.)(1886) "Virgilii Maronis Grammatici Opera" Lipsię:
Teubner.
Incidentally, Ennodius (ca.A.D.473-521) was angry that the name of
Virgil had been adopted by worthless men. He addressed such a one thus:
"In tantum prisci defluxit fama Maronis,
ut te Vergilium sęcula nostra darent.
si fatuo dabitur tam sanctum nomen homullo
gloria maiorum curret in opprobrium, etc"
[Carm. ii.118 ff quoted by Comparetti p.71 Eng. trans.]
As far as I know P.Virgilius Maro Grammaticus of Tolouse is the only
one to have adopted the whole of Virgil's name ! I have only ever come
across a few men named Virgil: (1)Vergilius Romanus, a friend of Pliny
the Younger; (2)Virgilianus, the son of Vibius Sequester (the author of"
de Fluminibus Fontibus Lacubus etc" which preserved a line by Cornelius
Gallus on the river Hypanis);(3) one of Alcuin's fellow scholars who
adopted it as a pen name ;(4) Polydore Vergil; and its American use as a
first name is exemplified by (5) the composer Virgil Thomson, and (7) a
television character in "McHale's Navy". Are there any others, I wonder?
Best wishes
Peter JVD BRYANT
Perth
Western Australia
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
P.S. Your quotation of the First Eclogue pleases me: it is one of my
favourite passages from Virgil.
A.P.H. Itel wrote:
>
> I am sorry to ask a question that may not have a
> direct connection with Virgil, and I apologize to
> everyone that may be not happy with that.
>
> Does someone know about a philosopher or grammarian
> called « Virgilius Maro » who was living in the 7th
> century? I would like to read something about this
> author, his life, his works.
>
> Thank you for your help.
>
> ===
> Andre-Paul Itel
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem
> Fronde super viridi. Super nobis mitia poma,
> Castaneae molles et pressi copia lactis;
> Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant,
> Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.
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