P. Vergili Maronis “Aeneidos” liber undecimus with a commentary

One of the features of modern Virgilian scholarship has been the preparation of commentaries on individual books of the Aeneid. Eduard Norden\u27s 1915 edition of Book 6 was the first volume on a large scale to consider separately one book of the poem. An edition of Virgil\u27s works was planned by Oxford later in the century, with the first half of the Aeneid to be explicated by Roland Austin and Roger Williams and the second half by Christian Fordyce; the deaths of Austin and Fordyce in the autumn of 1974 brought a halt to the project. By then the first five books had been edited, with Austin\u27s Book 6 almost ready for publication and Fordyce\u27s notes on Books 7 and 8 also able to be released (both in 1977). Since then, the desire to prepare commentaries on each book has merged with an interest in studying the second half of the poem more closely. In 1976–7 three editions of Book 8 appeared, and in the last decade several more volumes, especially from Oxford and Cambridge, have addressed the remaining gaps: Harrison\u27s Book 10 (1990), Gransden\u27s Book 11 (1991), Hardie\u27s Book 9 (1994), Horsfall\u27s Book 7 (Leiden, 2000). Richard Tarrant is preparing an edition of Book 12. Regrettably, several of these otherwise excellent volumes have appeared in collections designed primarily for the university undergraduate; the editors have been compelled to abbreviate their comments accordingly. Book 11 in particular has suffered from relatively little critical attention. Yet it is in this book that Virgil lavishes attention on Camilla\u27s cavalry exploits, the great Latin council, and the obsequies for Pallas and the other battle dead. The dissertation will present a fresh text of the poem, not based on any firsthand examination of manuscripts but rather on a study of the editorial tradition of the book; the result is consequently a “new edition.” But the bulk of the thesis will be a full commentary on the book, with special attention paid to the Camilla narrative. Finally, a brief essay on Book 11 and its place in the Aeneid will serve as an introduction to the whole work