Eclogue 9

In 40 BC, the task of distributing the land was given to Alfenus Varus, while Cornelius Gallus was in charge of taxing the northern Italian cities not affected by confiscation.

As Wilkinson points out, we do not know if Virgil himself lost any land in the confiscation, or what the relationship was between himself (represented by "Menalcas" in this eclogue) and "Moeris".

(These words are adapted from Theocritus Idyll 7.37–41, in which the speaker compares himself to the poet Philitas as "a frog amongst crickets".)

But the unhappy Moeris begs him to stop singing and concentrate on their task, until such time as Menalcas will return.

He adheres to traditional beliefs: he mentions the omen of a crow that warned him of coming danger (15) and the wolves which struck him dumb (54).

[15] In Eclogue 8.95–99 a character of the name Moeris (possibly the same person) is described as skilled at doing witchcraft using magic herbs.

In Eclogue 10, in the guise of a cowherd, he consoles the love-sick poet Cornelius Gallus, who is imagined to have retired to Arcadia.

3.16 it is implied that Menalcas is a dominus 'landowner, master', and the same appears to be true in this eclogue, where he acts as champion for tenant-farmers (coloni, line 4) like Moeris.

[17] In the Theocritus lines (Idyll 3.3ff) translated by Virgil, Tityrus is a "dear friend" of the unnamed goatherd who asks him to look after his goats.

In his well-known Satire 1.5, Horace describes how he, Virgil, and Varius all accompanied Maecenas on a journey to Brundisium in the spring of 37 BC.

It is possible that Virgil borrowed the name Bianor from a Greek epigram, an epitaph for a son buried by his mother.

[21] But the name also occurs in Homer, Iliad 11.92, in the same place in the line, where Bianor (or Bienor) is described as "a shepherd (i.e. commander) of the army" (Βιάνορα ποιμένα λαῶν) and is killed by Agamemnon.

Brenk quotes Taplin: "The pathos of the ruthless warrior cutting down the innocent pastoral world is quintessentially Homeric.

[25] In support of this he quotes an epigram from the Greek Anthology (9.51) which Virgil partly translates in line 50: "Age takes away everything (= omnia fert aetas): a long time knows how to change name and shape and nature and fortune."

The letters OCNI (Adkin suggests) might also be read as the Greek word ὀκνεῖ 'he hesitates' or 'he fears'.

This is immediately followed by the line huc ades, Galatea; quis est nam ludus in undis?

[26] The "game" here appears to be that Virgil has placed a goose and some swans (allegorically representing three poets) in line 36, right in the middle of the acrostic UNDIS.

For another possible acrostic, OCNI ('of Ocnus' or ὀκνεῖ 'he/she hesitates') in lines 51–54, see the section on Bianor above.