Editing Virgil (section)

===Family and birth===

According to the ancient {{lang|la|vitae}}, Publius Vergilius Maro was born on the [[Ides (calendar)|Ides]] of October in the consulship of [[Pompey]] and [[Marcus Licinius Crassus|Crassus]] (15 October 70 BC) in the village of Andes, near [[Mantua]] in [[Cisalpine Gaul]] ([[northern Italy]], added to [[Roman Italy|Italy proper]] during his lifetime).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gottwein.de/latine/map/it_cis01.jpg |title=Map of Cisalpine Gaul |website=gottwein.de |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080528150009/http://www.gottwein.de/latine/map/it_cis01.jpg |archive-date=28 May 2008}}</ref>{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=1}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} The Donatian life reports that some say Virgil's father was a potter, but most say he was an employee of an [[apparitor]] named Magius, whose daughter he married.{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=1}} According to Phocas and Probus, the name of Virgil's mother was [[Magia Polla]].{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=50}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} The [[cognomen]] of Virgil's maternal family, ''Magius,'' and failure to distinguish the genitive form of this rare name (''Magi'') in Servius' life from the genitive ''magi'' of the noun ''magus'' ("magician"), probably contributed to the rise of the medieval legend that Virgil's father was employed by a certain itinerant magician, and that Virgil was a magician himself.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Morgan |first=John D. |title=Magius |encyclopedia=The Virgil Encyclopedia |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |page=781 |doi=10.1002/9781118351352.wbve1289|isbn=978-1-4051-5498-7 }}</ref>{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}

Analysis of his name has led some to believe that he descended from earlier Roman colonists. Modern speculation is not supported by narrative evidence from his writings or his later biographers.

====Site of Andes====

A tradition of obscure origin, which was accepted by Dante,<ref>''Purg.'' XVIII.83</ref> identifies Andes with modern [[Pietole]], two or three miles southeast of Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=194}} The ancient biography attributed to [[Marcus Valerius Probus|Probus]] records that Andes was thirty [[Mile#Roman|Roman miles]] (about {{Convert|45|km|mi|abbr=|disp=or}}) from Mantua.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=189}}{{sfn|Nettleship|1879|p=7}}{{sfn|Brummer|1912|p=73}} There are eight or nine references to the ''[[gens]]'' to which Vergil belonged, [[Vergilia gens|''gens Vergilia'']], in inscriptions from [[Northern Italy]]. Out of these, four are from townships remote from Mantua, three appear in inscriptions from [[Verona]], and one in an inscription from [[Calvisano]], a [[votive offering]] to the [[Matres and Matronae|Matronae]] (a group of deities) by a woman called Vergilia, asking the goddesses to deliver from danger another woman, called Munatia.{{sfn|Conway|1923|p=190}} A tomb erected by a member of the [[Magia gens|''gens Magia'']], to which Virgil's mother belonged, is found at [[Casalpoglio]], just {{Convert|12|km|mi}} from Calvisano. In 1915, G. E. K. Braunholtz drew attention to the proximity of these inscriptions to each other, and the fact that Calvisano is exactly 30 Roman miles from Mantua,{{sfn|Braunholtz|1915|p=108}} which led [[Robert Seymour Conway]] to theorize that these inscriptions have to do with relatives of Virgil, and Calvisano or [[Carpenedolo]], not Pietole, is the site of Andes.{{sfn|Conway|1923|pp=190–4}} [[Edward Kennard Rand|E. K. Rand]] defended the traditional site at Pietole, noting that [[Egnazio]]'s 1507 edition of Probus' commentary, supposedly based on a "very ancient codex" from [[Bobbio Abbey]] which can no longer be found, says that Andes was three miles from Mantua, and arguing that this is the correct reading.{{sfn|Rand|1930|pp=123–4, 127–42}} Conway replied that Egnazio's manuscript cannot be trusted to have been as ancient as Egnazio claimed it was, nor can we be sure that the reading "three" is not Egnazio's own conjectural correction of his manuscript to harmonize it with the Pietole tradition, and all other evidence strongly favours the unanimous reading of the other witnesses of "thirty miles."{{sfn|Conway|1931|pp=71–5}} Other studies<ref>{{cite magazine
| last        = Nardoni
| first       = Davide
| date        = 1986
| title       = La terra di Virgilio
| language    = it
| magazine    = Archeologia Viva
| edition     = January–February
| pages       = 71–76
}}</ref> claim that today's consideration for ancient ''Andes'' should be sought in the Casalpoglio area of [[Castel Goffredo]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Gualtierotti |first=Piero |date=2008 |title=Castel Goffredo dalle origini ai Gonzaga |location=Mantua |language=it |pages=96–100 }}</ref>

==== Spelling of name ====
By the fourth or fifth century AD the original spelling ''Vergilius'' had been changed to ''Virgilius'', and then the latter spelling spread to the modern European languages.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Comparetti|first1=Domenico|title=Vergil in the Middle Ages|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691026787|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-6wGE9Ylmj4C&pg=PR7|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=1997}}</ref> This latter spelling persisted even though, as early as the 15th century, the classical scholar [[Poliziano]] had shown ''Vergilius'' to be the original spelling.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Wilson-Okamura|first1=David Scott|title=Virgil in the Renaissance|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521198127|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WTaNUGscVhIC&pg=PA15|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=2010}}</ref> Today, the [[anglicisation]]s ''Vergil'' and ''Virgil'' are both considered acceptable.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Winkler|first1=Anthony C.|last2=McCuen-Metherell|first2=Jo Ray|title=Writing the Research Paper: A Handbook|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1133169024|page=278|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PUMIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA278|access-date=23 November 2016|language=en|year=2011}}</ref>

There is some speculation that the spelling ''Virgilius'' might have arisen due to a pun, since ''virg-'' carries an echo of the Latin word for 'wand' (''uirga''), Virgil being particularly associated with magic in the [[Middle Ages]]. There is also a possibility that ''virg-'' is meant to evoke the Latin ''virgo'' ('virgin'); this would be a reference to the [[Eclogue 4|fourth ''Eclogue'']], which has a history of Christian, and specifically [[Messianism|Messianic]], [[Christian interpretations of Virgil's Eclogue 4|interpretations]].<ref group="lower-roman">For more discussion on the spelling of Virgil's name, see Flickinger, R. C. 1930. "Vergil or Virgil?." ''[[The Classical Journal]]'' 25(9):658–60.</ref>