ABSTRACT
Translators and commentators are equally at a loss how to understand et in line 139. R.T. Ganiban (2008) writes: "the et is a delayed connective" (which I do not quite understand). Horsfall (2008) states rightly that et "has nothing to do with et culpam hanc . . . and probably not with et = etiam either . . . Perhaps best taken as old parataxis, 'there is a chance and [i.e. 'that'] . . . '. Austin takes it as 'even'. So does Williams ("from whom perhaps they will even exact a penalty for my escape") and Ussani while Conington-Nettleship and Page reckon fors et as an archaism like Horsfall. Heyne believed that et should be corrected to ad, a reading found in Tiberius Donatus and some medieval mss.2 In view of the double accusative at A. 7. 606 (Parthosque reposcere signa) nobody would recommend this today. Wakefield's forsan poenas (1796) has rightly been ignored, but he was nonetheless on the right track. Forbiger (41873) concludes: "Utut autem locum capis, significatio Part. et eadem manet et sententia est: Non solum spes nulla est liberos videndi, sed etiam timendum, ne illi pro me puniantur." Logic becomes strained by taking et as etiam: "they will even punish/kill them" (i.e. Sinon's children and his father) would most naturally be understood in contrast to some milder form of reaction, for instance contemptuous treatment or social degradation, associations of dubious relevance here. If Vergil had said "they will punish even them", which, however, is not borne out by word order, it would probably have been somewhat better. But the conclusion is anyway that the sentence does not require et (= etiam), but fares better without.
