Note 48 — II DANTE AND POLITICAL LIBERTY
Reading edition
Cf. especially his quotations from the Aeneid in Conv. IV, iv. (Bemp., 252) and Mon. II, vii. 70 sqq. (Bemp., 381); the Divine injunction is taken by Dante, almost as though the Aeneid were ‘Scripture’!
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, momento, Hae tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem; Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. —Aen. vi. 852-4.