VIRGIL'S ARISTAEUS EPYLLlON:

ii Virgil's Georgics has been the subject of a daunting number of articles, studies and commentaries. Of the many problems associated with the work perhaps the greatest difficulty has arisen in assessing the Aristaeus epyllion, G. 4.315-558. Numerous attempts have been made to interpret the passage and to explain its connection with the rest of Book 4 and with the whole of the Georgics. Many opinions have been expressed (quot homines, tot sententiae); however, none has been deemed completely satisfactory and none has been universally accepted. I have chosen not to add to the already vast body of scholarship dealing with these issues but to approach the epyllion from a different perspective. Despite its importance- it is, after all, the only existing extended narrative by Virgil other than the Aeneid, which it predates- the Aristaeus epyllion has not been the subject of a single exhaustive study. I hav