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HYGINUS criticizes Fr. 7, Fun. a passage in Virgil's sixth book and thinks that he would have corrected it. Palinurus is in the Lower World, begging Aeneas to take care that his body be found and buried. His words are: Aen. vi. 365 ff. O save me from these ills, unconquered one; Or throw thou earth upon me, for you can, And to the port of Velia return. How, said he, could either Palinurus know and name 'the port of Velia,' or Aeneas find the place from that name, when the town of Velia, from which he has called the harbour in that place 'Veline' was founded in the Lucanian district and called by that name when Servius Tullius was reigning in Rome, 578—534 B.C., traditional chronology. more than six hundred years after Aeneas came to Italy? For of those, he adds, who were driven from the land of Phocis Phocis, a district of Greece west of Boeotia, was confused by Hyginus with Phocaea, a city on the western coast of Asia Minor. by Harpalus, Probably an error for Harpagus. prefect of king Cyrus, some founded Velia, and others Massilia. Most absurdly, then, does Palinurus ask Aeneas to seek out the Veline port, when at that time no such name existed anywhere. Nor ought that to be considered a similar error, said he, which occurs in the first book: Aen. i. 2. Exiled by fate, to Italy fared and to Lavinian strand, and similarly in the sixth book: Alen. vi. 17. At last stood lightly poised on the Chalcidian height, since it is usually allowed the poet himself to mention, kata\ pro/lhyin, 'by anticipation,' in his own person some historical facts which took place later and of which he himself could know; just as Virgil knew the town of Lavinium and the colony from Calchis. But how could Palinurus, he said, know of events that occurred six hundred years later, unless anyone believes that in the Lower World he had the power of divination, as in fact the souls of the deceased commonly do? But even if you understand it in that way, although nothing of the kind is said, yet how could Aeneas, who did not have the power of divination, seek out the Veline port, the name of which at that time, as we have said before, was not in existence anywhere?
