La musa ritrosa di Foca

This paper examines the portrayal of the Muse Clio in the Prologue of Phocas’ Vita Vergili, composed in Sapphic stanzas. Clio, who flees the hubbub of the forum, appears to be based on the character Virgil, as described in Suetonius-Donatus’ Vita and generally in the late antique biographical tradition. Indeed, Phocas’s Clio may be regarded as the alter ego of the biographed poet, representing an original approach analogous to that employed by Macrobius in the Saturnalia concerning the character of Servius, marked by the same verecundia as that shown by Virgil, his favourite auctor.