Ancient, Curious, and Famous WillsHarris, Virgil M. (Virgil McClure)
History
Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills
Harris, Virgil M. (Virgil McClure)
Wills
“I recommend to their guardians, and to Nicanor, to remember for my sake
the affection Herpylis has always borne me, taking care of me and of my
affairs. If after my death she should wish to marry, they will see that
she does not marry any one below my condition. In that case, besides the
presents she has already received, she is to have a talent of silver,
three slaves besides the one she has, and the youth Pyrrhæus. If she
wishes to live at Calchis, she can have the suite of rooms communicating
with the garden; if at Stagyra, she can occupy the house of my fathers,
and the curators will suitably furnish whichever of these residences she
may select.
“Nicanor will take care that Myrex is sent back to his parents in a
respectable and suitable way, with all that I have belonging to him.
“I give Ambracis her liberty, and assign to her, as a marriage portion,
500 drachmæ or five mines and a slave.
“I bequeath to Thala, besides the bought slave she has, a young female
slave and 1000 drachmæ.
“As regards Simo, besides the money already given him to buy another
slave, let one more be bought for him or let him have the value in
money.
“Tacho is to have his freedom when my daughter marries. Philo, and
Olympias with his son, shall also be made free at the same period. The
children of my slaves shall pass into the service of my heirs, and, when
they become adults, they shall be freed if they have deserved it.
“Let the statues I have ordered be finished and placed as I have
instructed Gryllo, viz. those of Nicanor, Proxenes, and the mother of
Nicanor; also that of Arimnestes to serve as a monument for him as he
left no children.
“Also let the Ceres, belonging to my mother, be placed in the Nemea. Let
the bones of my wife, Pythias, be placed in my tomb, even as she
desired. I further wish the four stone animals, promised by me as votive
offerings for the preservation of Nicanor, to be placed at Stagyra to
Jupiter and Minerva. They are to be four cubits high.”
WILL OF VIRGIL
(10 B.C.)
A singular trait in the character of this great poet was that which
appeared by the clause in his will which ordered the Æneid to be burnt:
“Ut rem emendatam imperfectamque.” Tucca and Varus, however, his
executors and friends, and, we may add also, the friends of literature
and of the civilized world, assured him Augustus would never consent to
this barbarous behest. On this he bequeathed to them his Mss., but on
the express condition that if he should die before he had time to revise
and finish them, and they should think proper to publish them, they
should change nothing and should leave the imperfect and incomplete
verses just as they were.
He ordered his body to be “carried to Naples, and there interred near
the road to Puzzuoli, by the second milestone.” The epitaph which was
engraved on it was written by himself:
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
Parthenope: cecini pascua, rura, duces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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