Triumviri agris dividendis: una leggenda virgiliana

Abstract

The land confiscations adressed by Virgil’s Eclogues have been widely
discussed in the bimillennial history of Virgilian studies. In this respect,
it has often been argued that a committee of triumviri agris dividendis,
consisting of Alfenus Varus, Asinius Pollio, and Cornelius Gallus, was
charged with the distribution of the lands. Different arguments have been
brought against the historical reliability of this account. In this article
I reexamine the topic from the point of view of the history of Virgilian
exegesis. The reconstruction I propose will focus on datable records, in
order to show the evolution of exegesis; later I will focus on non-Servian
scholarship, where the different stages of exegesis are more difficult to
distinguish.