Virgil
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro) (70–19 BC),Latin poet. The contemporary spelling of Virgil's name was with an e: the first occurrence with an i is on an honorific inscription to Claudian in Greek (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 6. 1710=Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 1. 2949). Virgil is traditional in English, but the slightly historicizing Vergil is preferred by some modern critics. Virgil and his friends in any case punned on virgo, a virgin (G 4. 564, perhaps 1. 430, Donatus' ‘Life’ of Virgil 11). Varius Rufus is said to have written on Virgil (Quintilian 10. 3. 8) and there were other accounts by friends and acquaintances (cf. Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae 17. 10. 2): the extant lives go back in part to Suetonius, De poetis. Much (but not all) of the information in them derives from interpretation of the poems (including the spurious ones in the...
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