Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/375

Rh Lines 241, 243.Now Sacred Sisters, open all your Spring, The Tuscan Leaders, and their Army sing;

The Poet here begins to tell the Names of the Tuscan Captains who follow'd Aeneas to the War: And I observe him to be very particular in the description of their Persons, and not forgetful of their Manners: Exact also, in the Relation of the Numbers which each of them Com­mand. I doubt not but as in the fifth Book, he gave us the Names of the Champions, who contended for the several Prizes, that he might oblige many of the most Ancient Roman Families, their Descendants; and as in the 7th Book, he Muster'd the Auxiliary Forces of the Latins, on the same Account; so here he gratifies his Tuscan Friends, with the like remem­brance of their Ancestors; and above the rest, Mecænas his great Patron: Who being of a Royal Family in Etruria, was probably represented un­der one of the Names here mention'd, then known among the Ro­mans, though at so great a distance, unknown to us. And for his sake chiefly, as I guess, he makes Aeneas (by whom he always means Au­gustus) to seek for Aid in the Country of Mecænas, thereby to indear his Protector to his Emperour; as if there had been a former Friendship be­twixt their Lines. And who knows, but Mecænas might pretend that the Cilnian Family was deriv'd from Tarchon, the Chief Commander of the Tuscans.