88


Virgil's  "  Gathering  of  the  Clans

"Florentes  acre"  is  therefore  not  "splendentes,fulgentes
acre,"  as  Servius  and  some  German  commentators  ex-
plain it,  and  as  he  describes  Pallas  and  his  men  in
viii. 593,"fulgentes  acre"  but  in  the  very  different  sense
of  blooming,  charming  with  "aes"  [I  would  add  that
while  words  like  "  fulgentes  "  or  "  splendentes  "  give
the  effect  produced  without  a  hint  of  what  produces  it,
"  florentes  "  suggests  life  and  beauty,  young  life  and
fresh  beauty,  as  the  organic  cause.]  Thus,  he  says,
it  is  specially  applicable  to  women,  and  in  the
Aeneid  it  is  used  only  of  Camilla  and  her  troops,
here  and  in  xi. 433,  though  in  Georg. iv. 563  he  uses
it  of  himself  in  his  youth  :

"  illo  Vergilium  me  tempore  dulcis  alebat
Parthenope  studiis  florentem  ignobilis  oti,"

thus  suggesting  that  their  "  florere,"  when  coupled  with
bronze,  their  bloom,  their  finery,  was  not  the  ordinary
bloom  or  finery  of  their  sex,  but  the  manly  martial
bloom  or  finery  of  "  aes  " ;  [to  which  I  would  add  that
the  bronze  armour  seems  to  call  for  a  new  word  to
express  it  when  worn  by  beautiful  and  youthful
women.]  *  But  if  the  reader  of  these  pages  can  come
by  Henry's  "  Aeneidea,"  let  him  ponder  well  pp. 616^.,
and  judge  for  himself  whether  he  has  not  here  found
another  example  of  "all  the  charm  of  all  the  Muses
often  flowering  in  a  lonely  word."

1  That  the  immediate  companions,  if  not  the  troops  as  a
whole,  of  Camilla,  were  women,  is  proved  by  xi. 655  ff. :  "  At
circum  lectae  comites,  etc."  I  think  it  is  also  suggested  by
the  fact  that  the  crowd  which  gazes  on  her  as  she  rides  away
to  the  war  (vii. 