This commentary, ‘the first moderately full one in any language devoted to book 12’ (p. 43), is in many ways a splendid success. It offers rich and dependable information on the text, Virgil's often deceptively difficult Latin, and the many intertexts and facts about Roman realia that readers need. It is ‘designed to be accessible to students at the university level and in the upper classes of schools, but also to contain material of interest to professional classicists’ (p. 44), but though it will be wonderful in the classroom and should inspire courses on Aeneid 12, I often felt as though T. were writing more for me than for my students. He acknowledges (p. 44) the drawback of ‘the lemmatized commentary’ as ‘a vehicle of literary interpretation’, but really the problem is that he does not have quite enough space for exploring and explaining all the ideas with which he wrestles. This of course also means that the commentary will stimulate further work.

The full introduction treats ‘Structures and Themes’, ‘Turnus and Aeneas’, ‘The Final Scene’, ‘Sequels and Continuations’ (chiefly Maffeo Vegio), ‘Afterlife’ (especially opera), ‘Some Aspects of Vergil's Metre’, ‘About this Commentary’ and ‘The Text’. My only complaint is to want more on the Homeric background, and on how earlier epics and their reception might or might not have prepared readers for the Aeneid's sudden ending. T.'s text includes about 130 divergences from Mynors and Conte, but only 14 that really ‘affect the text or the sense’; he brackets non uiribus aequis at 218, and 882–4 in Juturna's speech, both times without convincing me. For 218, Conte agrees; for 882–4, it does not help to cite the interpolation-happy Zwierlein, rightly criticised elsewhere (p. 47).

On interpretative matters T. is extremely ambitious about not being reductive, about meeting the challenge of Virgil's ambiguous and complex presentation of the issues involving Turnus and Aeneas. He ‘advocat[es] an “ambivalent” reading of the poem, in which ambivalence is to be understood neither as a gentler name for pessimism nor as a compromise position, but rather as a continuing tension of opposites’ (p. 17). But though he often displays an excellent tolerance for ambiguity, at times he opts for simple solutions, for example the unattractive claim (p. 16) that Aeneas kills Turnus while in the grip of furor because ‘it would seem that in Virgil's world madness and disorder can only be treated homeopathically; that is, they are not overcome by their opposites, but by like forces’. I detect here the assumption that if Aeneas does it, it must be good, rather than genuine ambivalence. Elsewhere too the ambitious attempt to be fair to Turnus does not quite succeed. The introduction makes little reference to Allecto's filling Turnus with furor in 7.406–66, mentioning only the implausible and discredited idea (Feeney, The Gods in Epic [1991], pp. 168–80, Horsfall on 7.341–72) that the Allecto scene, and the sending of the Dira in 12, ‘can also be understood symbolically (the first as reflecting T's bloodlust and the second his fear of death)’ (p. 12). With no explicit reference to the idea that Allecto maddens Turnus, the student using the commentary is in a sense offered Hamlet without the ghost. This impoverishes several notes, for example on 3 implacabilis (‘there may be a suggestion that T's ardour for battle has a more than human intensity’ – but why?), on the intratextuality of 46 exsuperat and 7.466 nec iam se capit unda, and even T.'s excellent comments on Turnus' moment of crisis at 614–96 (‘T's noblest moment in the poem’), where mentioning Allecto on 667 pudor mixtoque insania luctu would help. On 669 discussae umbrae T. does not mention the idea that Turnus might be shaking off Allecto's influence; cf., for example, G. Thome, Gestalt und Funktion des Mezentius bei Vergil (1979), p. 263.

On 669 discussae umbrae T. suggests a connection with Lucretius on the fear of death, ‘which is just what T is now trying to dispel’. Numerous links to Lucretius are noted, especially on 887–918 where ‘[l]anguage recalling Lucretius is … frequent’. But T.'s explanation, on 931–8, that ‘T exemplifies the harmful effects of timor mortis’, does not make sense to me. There is an opportunity here for someone to build upon T.'s observations. On 498 there is no mention of, and I cannot find in print any discussion of, the echo, in every word of terribilis saeuam nullo discrimine caedem, of the description of animals used in warfare at Lucr. 5.1313–15 caede calentes / turbabant saeui nullo discrimine turmas, / terrificas capitum quatientis undique cristas; the intertext is confirmed in 499 when Aeneas irarumque omnis effundit habenas (cf. frenis in Lucr. 5.1317).

T. also got me thinking with his observation on 593–611 that ‘in realistic terms Amata's suicide would more naturally follow T's death rather than precede it’. I wonder whether Amata's suicide after she thinks Turnus is dead made Romans think of Cassius' suicide at Philippi after he thinks Brutus has died. Appian B.C. 4.14.110 says that Antony turns on Cassius' camp ‘in rage and fury’ (σὺν ὁρμῇ τε καὶ ὀργῇ), with tools and ladders (cf. scalae 576). Such contemporary resonance could also explain Aeneas' somewhat puzzling, as T. notes, o ciues (572).

On 221 pubentesque genae et iuuenali in corpore pallor, T. notes that ‘the formidable warrior suddenly seems very young and vulnerable’, but see M. Petrini, The Child and the Hero: Coming of Age in Catullus and Vergil (1997, not in the bibliography) and P. Hardie, Aeneid Book IX (1994), p. 25 on the theme of young men in the Aeneid who die before marriage. T. says that ‘pallor’ here suggests fear of death, but Turnus' paleness is no simpler than Lavinia's blush, and can suggest youth (iuuenali in corpore), sickness (aegrescit 46) and love (Prop. 1.1.22, 1.9.17, 1.13.7, etc.), as well as fear. On 435–40 on disce, puer T. is mostly excellent but again could benefit from Petrini. There is nothing here on labor as a major theme in the poem. On 504 aeterna gentis in pace futuras, T. says that after ‘the terrible present reality … the peace that is destined to follow is no less real’, but the recent Social and Civil Wars complicate the narrator's claim here. On 722 hasta … stabat T. notes etymologising found in Varro and noted by La Cerda but not in recent scholarship. On 727, when Jupiter weighs the fates of Turnus and Aeneas, I now understand for the first time why both halves of Virgil's line refer to Turnus' fate, unlike in the Homeric model: this balances 719, ‘where both indirect questions refer to the victorious bull’. On 801–2 ne te tantus edit tacitam dolor et mihi curae / saepe tuo dulci tristes ex ore recursent, T.'s interesting claim that ‘Jupiter … speaks like an elegiac lover to his distraught mistress’ does not convince. He cites the use of edo with amor in Catullus and Virgil, but Homer uses eating words for Bellerephon's distress at Il. 6.302, and of course often of Hera. Of dulci … ex ore, T. notes that dulcis appears often in elegy and is applied to speech (e.g. dulcia uerba), but it may not be true that ‘the combination dulce os … is not attested elsewhere before Ovid Met. 12.577’. Gellius 19.7.13 attributes to the preneoteric poet Laevius the epithet dulciorelocus (frag. 9 Courtney), applied to Nestor as in Met. 12. Jupiter seems to be referring to Juno's troublesome gift for gab rather than her sweet kisses.

On 938 T. says that readers would not expect Aeneas to spare Turnus, citing Hainsworth's observation that ‘there are no successful suppliants on the battlefield in the narrative of the Iliad’. But Hainsworth's prepositional phrases are important: cf. Il. 21.100 for Achilles' prior practice of sparing captives, and see F. Naiden, Ancient Supplication (2006), p. 273 on how ‘two angry supplicandi, Agamemnon and the Achilles of Iliad 20, draw criticism from the narrator of the Iliad’ at Il. 11.137 and 20.467. Should not there also be mention of Iliad 24?

From countless rich and full notes I have found a few to cavil with, but the whole commentary, and especially the treatment of the poem's final scene in the introduction and in the extremely full and stimulating notes, are a remarkable resource for scholars and students.