ABSTRACT
A comma after only mecum in order to separate iuvenes from the rest of the line as the addressees of Turnus' exhortation to attack has for a long time been the preference of editors and commentators; I mention Mynors (1969), Williams (1973), Geymonat (1973/2008), and Perret (1980) and Hardie. But to combine mecum with erit, seems, if not impossible per se,2 flat and little distinctive. And, one may ask, to whom would qui refer in today's punctuation, to ecquis or to Turnus himself (mecum)?3 The other instances of the strong interrogative form ecquis in Vergil4 rather suggest erit to belong closely with (is) qui whereas mecum should go with the relative clause. Thus in my opinion the only satisfactory punctuation to guide our interpretation is to put a comma after erit:
