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.)