The Date of the Helen Episode

Abstract

CONTROVERSY continues concerning the authenticity of Virgil Aen. 2.567-588. Missing from the early Mss of Virgil, the lines survive only through quotation by Servius, who claims that the lines were originally composed by Virgil, but were left out by Tucca and Varius in the first edition. In general, textual critics, on grounds of the suspect quality of the tradition and of the language and style of the passage, deny authenticity,1 while literary critics maintain it.2 The latter