[568] Both this and the preceding line are intended to rebut the supposition of ignorance respecting the history of Troy, not of want of feeling; so that the references of the older commentators to the recoil of the sun from the banquet of Thyestes are quite out of place. The notion seems to be ‘we do not lie so far out of the pale of the civilized world—out of the circuit of the sun, and so out of the course of fame.’ Comp. 6. 796, “iacet extra sidera tellus Extra anni Solisque vias.” It would add great force to the passage if we could suppose Virg. to have conceived of the sun as the actual bearer of news to the nations of the earth, as in the well-known passage in the dying speech of Ajax, Soph. Aj. 845—849, and in Od. 8. 270, 302, Aesch. Ag. 632—676. But it is to be observed that in these passages the sun is the only possible witness; and though such a thought may possibly have crossed the mind of Statius when imitating this passage in Theb. 1. 683 (“Scimus, ait; nec sic aversum Fama Mycenis Volvit iter”), it would be hazardous to assume this to have been Virg.'s meaning when the passage can be explained without it, and the simpler view is confirmed by the language of the parallel 7. 225—227. Silius (15. 334) has imitated these words in a way which seems to show that he understood them, like the old commentators, as having reference to the recoil of the sun at a dreadful occurrence. ‘Iungit equos’ seems to imply that the people disclaimed by Dido lie beyond the sun-rising.
