Fifty Years at the Sibyl's Heels Selected Papers on Virgil and Rome

Nicholas Horsfall was one of the most recognizable and influential Latinists of his generation. His main legacy is his work on Virgil and the five erudite commentaries on the Aeneid, but he was also a prolific writer of papers, both Virgilian and non-Virgilian. A number of Horsfall's papers, including the important 'Camilla', are translated in this volume for the first time.

Stretching from 1971 to 2015, the papers are drawn from his entire output demonstrating his unparalleled ability to connect Roman poetry with history, antiquarianism, and Realien. While showcasing his unique analysis of Virgil, it also highlights Horsfall's work as both a Latinist and a Romanist, illuminating the coherence in his approach. This volume includes many Virgilian papers that have become classics--on Aeneas the colonist, and on the Aeneas-legend, for example. This does not detract from the value of the non-Virgilian papers, many of which--on the collegium poetarum, and on discussions of reading and libraries at Rome, for example--have become standard treatments of their subjects. Throughout all these works there is an astonishing degree of connection, with glimpses in many papers of his other research interests.

'Nicholas Horsfall needs to be approached through his short papers, typically fresh, innovative and stimulating, and he has been so productive that nobody can claim to have had a full view of his scholarship. When it comes to placing a literary text in the frames offered by material culture, documents, landscapes, history, and by religious, legal, military and antiquarian studies, he was unrivalled.' Professor Alessandro Barchiesi, Professor of Classics, New York University.

Nicholas Horsfall, formerly Honorary Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History, Durham University, UK

Nicholas Horsfall (1946-2019) was formerly Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University.

Abbreviations
1. Numanus Remulus: ethnography and propaganda in Aen. 9.598ff.
2. Dido in the light of history
3. Turnus ad portas
4. Virgil's Roman chronography: a reconsideration
5. The collegium poetarum
6. Virgil, history and the Roman tradition
7. Some problems in the Aeneas-legend
8. Doctus sermones utriusque linguae?
9. Virgil, Varro s Imagines and the Forum of Augustus
10. From history to legend: Manlius and the geese
11. Some problems of titulature in Roman literary history
12. Virgil and the conquest of chaos
13. The structure and purpose of Virgil s parade of heroes
14. The Caudine forks: topography and illusion
15. Illusion and reality in Latin topographical writing
16. The Aeneas-legend and the Aeneid
17. Non uiribus aequis: some problems in Virgil s battle-scenes
18. Camilla, or the limits of invention
19. The Uses of Literacy and the Cena Trimalchionis
20. Chloreus' trousers
21. Barbara tegmina crurum
22. Aeneas the colonist
23. Virgil and the illusory footnote
24. Externi duces
25. The Aeneid and the social structures of primitive Italy
26. Virgil and the poetry of explanations
27. Empty shelves on the Palatine
28. Cicero and poetry: the place of prejudice in literary history
29. The prehistory of Latin poetry: some problems of method
30. Rome without spectacles
31. The cultural horizons of the Plebs Romana ( MAAR (1996) 101 118)
32. The geography of the Georgics
33. The unity of Roman Italy: some anomalies
34. The unity of Roman Italy: anomalies in context
35. The legionary as his own historian
36. The Moretum decomposed
37. Fraud as scholarship: the Helen Episode and the Appendix Vergiliana
38. Excudent alii
39. Virgil and the Jews
40. Poets and poetry in Virgil's Underworld
41. Exempla in Virgil's Underworld
42. The poetics of toponymy
Nicholas Horsfall, a bibliography
Index