From Sam:

Today's reading was interesting on several levels. The speechlike trailing off of "nunc quoque" in line 307 reminded me favorably of certain effects in Catullus--possibly 10? the one where he's caught lying about his provincial service--as compared to Rutilius' usual, more artificial-sounding syntax. The whole section on Lepidus, in fact, was one of my favorites. The idea of "reweaving" stories of Roman history in the midst of a long-deserted Roman camp had an almost post-classical/Romantic/antiquarian feel that fits with the more pessimistic, elegiac moments of the poem. Even though Rutilius expresses confidence that fama will eventually report similar (unpatriotic!) deeds of his own historical moment--in other words, that Rome will survive to remember those who betrayed it--there is an inescapable sense of loss in these lines that belies the pleas for healing and renewal of the hymn to Roma. On another note, Rutilius is, as ever, vigorously interested in aquatic phenomena both natural and artificial; but his almost Ovidian-sounding bull etiology--"faciem armaque iuvenci" made me think of the "semibovemque virum semivirumque bovum" Minotaur of the Ars--made for more interesting reading than the previous, purely factual description of the harbor.