ABSTRACT
Line 129 is the only half-line in the Seventh Book. Among editors exitiis has much support: Rivero et al., Conte, Geymonat, Goold, Perret, Paratore, Fordyce, but not Williams. Horsfall is the latest scholar to defend exitiis on the basis of a weakened sense of the word ('disasters'), but younger manuscripts either made the obvious conjecture independently or got hold of exiliis as an existing variant from somewhere. Exiliis can be supported with reference not only to 2. 780 as seen in the above apparatus criticus quoted from the Teubner edition, but also to 10. 850 (Mezentius): heu, nunc misero mihi demum / exilium infelix, nunc alte vulnus adactum! R.D. Williams2 and Harrison support exiliis. At 7. 129 the manuscript support for exiliis is admittedly somewhat weaker, but as to content it is by far the better alternative. A dreadful irony would come to the fore with exitiis: Iulus is soon to provoke the most tragic disaster of all by shooting Silvia's stag (7. 496ff.).
