Scholarship on Aeneid 8 comes in waves. Lee M. Fratantuono and R. Alden Smith's commentary follows the intermediate student editions of K. Maclennan (2017) and J. J. O'Hara (2018), and anticipates the 2019 conference of the Augustan Poetry Réseau (‘Rome's Future, Rome's Past: the 8th Book of the Aeneid’) and the expected Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries edition of A. Rogerson. Clearly, after their much-needed Aeneid 5 (2015), F. and S. identified another gap in Virgilian scholarship, since a similar enthusiasm for Book 8 was last seen in the mid 1970s, with another range of closely contemporaneous commentaries (P. T. Eden (1975); K. W. Gransden (1976); C. J. Fordyce (1977)).
Undoubtedly the present edition, with its impressive bibliographical and intertextual coverage, will be an indispensable tool, but it can sometimes leave readers with the impression that its cipher is comprehensiveness rather than discernment, and there are traces of haste in its lack of consistency and careful editing. S. (editor and translator) and F. (commentator) provide plenty of material, and indeed a fresh Latin text, but they do not always tell us what conclusions to draw from it. S.'s apparatus notes a plethora of different spellings, misspellings, ancient typos (e.g. mzentius; extimplo; reprscussum) that are extremely valuable for the history of textual transmission, but sometimes distracting in this kind of edition, given their lack of discussion. Confusion also arises in the occasional lack of consistency between apparatus and commentary (e.g. Ribbeck's conjecture quae for quem at 15 or Servius's supplement at 41 are mentioned in the commentary but not in the apparatus), or text and commentary (mostly in punctuation, e.g. 147, 150, 211, 274, 338 — the last problematic, with an equally problematic translation). I generally agreed with the discussion of variants (e.g. 194 tegebat, 205 furis, 211 raptos) but found other cases confusing (e.g. 223 oculis). S.'s translation is sometimes awkward in English, either because too literal (e.g. 407–8 ‘the mid-circuit of driven-off night’, or 185–8, missing the emphasis that ‘it was no idle superstition that …’), careless of the Latin word order (299–300 ‘the Lernaean snake … did not encompass you in want of a plan’; 298–9 ‘towering Typhoeus himself, as he holds his weapons’), adding words (195 ‘too’, 203 ‘even’) or eliding others (631 ubera). There are unexplained inconsistencies within the translation (monimenta as ‘monuments’ at 312 (against the commentary), ‘reminders’ at 356) or with the commentary (194 tegebat as ‘protected’, erasing the point that it is Cacus who is keeping the light from entering the cave; 364 quoque is not translated; 377 opis is ‘succor’ in the translation, ‘resources’ in the commentary).
Similar issues pertain to the commentary, which sometimes compiles more than it comments. While the notes are generally very useful to understand Virgilian usage or metrical patterns, F. tends to list all Virgilian passages where a word occurs, sometimes with no further explanation (e.g. 187 ignarus, 200 optare), and the rationale for adding such lists or else noting the number of times the word occurs in Virgil (e.g. 82 candida ‘occurs 7x in the epic’) is unclear. Scholars are often quoted verbatim without explanations for endorsement. This practice applies to F. himself (375) and includes scholars’ typos (420), petty arguments among commentators (e.g. Henry vs. Heyne on the description of the Capitoline geese), or even a marginal note by a previous owner of F.'s copy of Page (689). The commentary can be vague when attempting to summarise scholarship (686 on Catiline: ‘some’ have ‘seen/argued’), or close to silent when literature review on important scenes would be needed (649–50 on the shield only provide a chronologically ordered bibliography). A number of structural issues make the commentary difficult to navigate: entries are given by line, often breaking the syntax; section divisions are not noted in the text, and their commentary varies from digressions (e.g. on the Hercules and Cacus episode, lines 184–212) to less than two lines (e.g. on the ara maxima, lines 268–79). The lack of digests in section headings can make it hard to retrieve fruitful information (readers interested in the characters of Tiberinus or Pallas will find material scattered in notes rather than collected at their first appearance), and notes are sometimes postponed or misplaced (e.g. the Capitol is discussed at line 349, the Cloelia–Camilla parallel at 649). This lack of careful editing also surfaces in the frequent typos, and in repetitions within the same note.
The commentary makes little intervention in literary criticism beyond inter- and intra-textuality. There are interesting observations on the book's links with Aeneid 5 (the borders of the poem's second triad), or 2 (the two halves’ second books), especially in view of Hercules’ destruction of Troy. There is also useful material on the connections with the Aristaeus epyllion, or the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (more could have been done with Callimachus’ Hymns). The editors intend to shun a simplistic ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ dynamic in reading Hercules and Cacus, and their different attitudes towards Virgil's allegiances (with F. as more pessimistic) can surface in their choices (e.g. Hercules’ animis at 256 is ‘pride’ for S.; ‘rage’/‘fury’ for F.), but the book's introduction makes little attempt at ditching the usual dichotomy beyond a vague blurring of the lines of what remains a twofold conception of morality. There are missed opportunities to discuss relevant themes, such as power and imperialism (in the Cyclopes scene, the commentary focuses on the bees’ and Venus’ amor habendi, with no hint at the uncanny easiness with which bees turn into Cyclopes when discussing the labour of empire) or the dynamics of desire (in the Venus scene, it is unclear why 405 optatos should only refer to her desire to trick Vulcan).
Finally, while some recent bibliographical items are overlooked (e.g. M. Stöckinger's Vergils Gaben (2016) on gift-giving; S. Rebeggiani, CPh 108 (2013), 53–69, on Augustus’ geminae flammae; N. B. Pandey, TAPA 143 (2013), 405–49, on Caesar's comet) and the use of previous scholarship fluctuates between verbatim quotations and mere mentions, the material included in these 800 pages is massive. While a commentary on Book 8 aimed at an undergraduate audience remains a desideratum, there is no doubt that scholars must be grateful to F. and S. for offering us another vital resource for the study of Virgil's Aeneid.
