In Aeneid 7. 1–285 Vergil colours his picture of early Latium with a religious atmosphere which can be fully appreciated only if these verses are read with an attentive awareness of Roman religious beliefs and practices. A detailed exegesis of all 285 verses would hardly be possible here, and I will limit myself to two major points, the account of Latinus' ancestry and the description of the royal palace , both because these passages are interesting in themselves for the way (...) they apparently contradict each other, and because they are good illustrations of how Vergil draws on the data of Roman religion, both its folklore and its cult, to fix in his reader's mind certain definite impressions about Latinus and the Latins. (shrink)

To whom is Aeschinus speaking? Editors in general follow Eugraphius and have Aeschinus address his lines to the psaltria. According to this interpretation, it would be the psaltria who anxiously looks back ; since Sannio is the only person on stage whom the girl would have reason to fear, the leno would have to be standing behind her, and hence must have followed the psaltria on to the stage.