Laudator Temporis Acti

Vergil, Aeneid 4.13 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):

'Tis fear that proves souls base-born.

degeneres animos timor arguit.

Arthur Stanley Pease ad loc.:

13. degeneres: for the thought cf. Pind. Ol. 1, 130-131: ὁ μέγας δὲ κίνδυνος ἄναλκιν / οὐ φῶτα λαμβάνει, but the word degener — a term of poetic and post-Augustan prose usage — has an added meaning of one who lapses from the traditions or standards of his race (Serv. Aen. 2, 549: degenerem non respondentem moribus patris), as seeds and fruits may revert (G. 1, 198; 2, 59), and here acquires especial force from the preceding genus ... deorum . The particular type of deterioration here noted (timor) appears in various passages, of which some were doubtless influenced by the present: Luc. 3, 149: degeneris ... metus; 6, 417: degeneres trepidant animi (cf. schol.); Tac. Ann. 1, 40 (of Agrippina): cum se divo Augusto ortam neque degenerem ad pericula testaretur; 4, 38 (of Tiberius): quidam ut degeneris animi interpretabantur; 12, 36: preces degeneres fuere ex metu; Val. Fl. 7, 430; Sil. 15, 76: degeneres tenebris animas damnavit Avernis; Inc. Paneg. Const. Aug. 14, 2 (Paneg. Lat., 2 ed., 300): degeneris, ut dictum est, animos arguebat; Ambros. De Off. 2, 62: degeneres animos vita arguit; Auson. Ep. 22, 26 (p. 262 Peiper): degeneres animos timor arguit; Firm. Mathes. 1, 7, 28: degeneris animi timore prostratus; Paul. Nol. Carm. 19, 195; degeneres animos (cf. 31, 52); Aug. C. D. 2, 29; Sidon. Ep. 1, 7, 7; Johannes de Altavilla, Architrenius, 4, 136 (p. 297 Wright; cf. p. 351); Alex. Nequam, Novus Avianus, 2, 23 (Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, 3 (1894), 464): ocia degeneres animos languencia reddunt; Gualterus, Alexandreis, 1, 47: ut degener arguar absit; 5, 212: degeneres animi. And with this passage Boissier (La Fin du Paganisme, 5 ed., 2 (1907), 46) compares Juvenc. 2, 37: infidos animos timor inruit. Stephenson, however (ad loc.), somewhat less probably, thinks degeneres is here used of men without a divine pedigree, 'unheroic,' as contrasted with heroes. (The view of Dunbabin (in Cl. Rev. 39 (1925), 112) that Dido is here thinking of herself, rather than of Aeneas, and continuing the thought of line 9, seems impossible to accept.)