Note 102 — IX. TO PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARO

St. Jerome, Chron., (Migne, Vol. XXVII, coll. 453, 454): “M. Annaeus Lucan of Cordova, a poet, having been detected as participating in the conspiracy of Piso, held out his arm to the physician that his veins might be opened.” This statement was taken from Suetonius (Rel., p. 299, ll. 10-12 [Teubner]), who gives the further detail that Lucan committed suicide at the close of a splendid banquet—“epulatusque largiter” (op. cit., p. 300, ll. 3, 4; Reifferscheid, Rel., p. 52, ll. 1, 2). The statement of the commentator Vacca on the subject—“venas sibi praecidit” (Reiff., op. cit., p. 78, l. 6)—cannot be considered the source of Petrarch’s “arterias medico dedit ille cruento” (Vol. III, p. 291, l. 2), because the word “medicus” does not appear therein, as it does in the passage cited from St. Jerome (Suetonius).