[87] Of the various explanations devised by the commentators to account for the mention of the poverty of Sinon's father, the most natural seem to be that some specification was to be expected in a plausible tale, and that poverty, while increasing the pathos of the story, would account for Sinon's dependence on a superior. So in the case of Achemenides, 3. 615. ‘In arma,’ to war, Lucan 3. 292. ‘Primis ab annis’ can only mean ‘from my early youth,’ as in 8. 517, in spite of the difficulty to be noticed v. 138. It is probable, as Cerda suggests, that Virg. may have been thinking of the early age at which the Romans were sent to war; and this perhaps may lead us, with Heyne and Wagn., to extend a similar reference to ‘pauper,’ war in Virgil's time being a lucrative calling. Weidner attempts to connect ‘primis ab annis’ with ‘comitem,’ which would be intolerably harsh.
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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