Le egregiae urbes nella lettura dei commentatori tar- doantichi

Vergil represents Italy in highly rhetorical terms, in order to support the political line set by Augustus. The praise of ‘Italianness’, which fully conforms to the Augustan ideology and to its use in Vergil’s work, is strongly reasserted and even amplified by late antique commentators; their work can be dated between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th century A.D., when the principles of the Augustan age became a point of reference and a key to reinterpret the present. The analysis of Servius’ exegesis to some telling passages shows how the commentator enriches Vergil’s narration with mythical and historical information that adds evocative power to the texts.