In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Hippolyte
Menshikov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
I would imagine that the main point, then, is not that these place
names denote locations inhabited by barbarians, but that they all point
to places far away (and ones that would have seemed pretty
uninhabitable to an Italian of the time).
I meant that his extremities of the earth cannot be within the Empire,
for then they would be semi-tolerable places for his exile. I am not
sure that an Italian would have thought of the Orient as uninhabitable;
after all Alexander had founded cities there. But it was certainly so
far away that Vergil was shaky on the geographical detail; I take the
portmanteau to be sheer confusion as in Shakespeare. (Roman poets did
not need to pass examinations in geography, and all too often it shows.)
Best wishes
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
--
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Leofranc Holford-Strevens
67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone
Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter?
OX2 6EJ
tel. +44 (0)1865 552808(home)/353865(work) fax +44 (0)1865 512237
email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home)/[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
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