Note 118 — BOOK III (continued 4)

Like the De raptu Proserpinae, the Gigantomachia was probably never completed. S. Jerome in his commentary on Isaiah (viii. 27) quotes from a Gigantomachia, not giving the name of its author. It is possible that the lines, which do not occur in Claudian’s poem as we possess it, belong to a final portion which has been lost. But it is more likely that they come from some other poet’s work and that the abrupt end of Claudian’s poem is due not to loss but to the poet’s sudden death.