The Scholia Bernensia B and Fronto (ΣBB in Verg. georg. 4.283)

Abstract

At the end of the fourth book of Virgil’s Georgics we are told of the marvellous deed of Aristaeus, the invention of the bugonia. Yet we learn from the Scholia Bernensia B on the Georgics that this story was also known from a lost work of a poet named Fronto. A careful scrutiny of the relevant passage in the light of the manuscript tradition of the Scholia Bernensia B proves that this name has in fact been interpolated into the text of the scholion. A hypothesis is put forward as to the origin of this addition.