Aeneid VI and X commentary

Reference to Cumae

Cumae founded in seventh century BCE since Aeneas arrives 5 centuries earlier the reference is anachronistic

‘Rapit’

·      ‘Rapit’, suggests a violent attack upon the woodlands

Temple of Apollo

·      Temple of Apollo anachronistic because Apollo was not established at Cumae until 410BCE, prior to that the sight was sacred to Hera

Description of the labyrinth

Note chiastic arrangement in description of the labyrinth

‘Bis…bis’

‘Bis…bis’ also links to Aeneas’ loss of Creusa

7

 Number 7 had special significance in the cult of Apollo

‘Troius tenus fuerit fortuna’

·      Note alliteration of ‘Troius tenus fuerit fortuna’

indebita fatis

Note non indebita fatis here and fatis debitus when of Arruns

Temple named by the Sibyl

·      The temple named by the Sybil is the one according to Servius built I n28BCE by Augustus to Apollo on the Palatine Hill to commemorate the Battle of Actium

Festos dies

The festos dies of Apollo were actually instituted in 212BCE during the Second Punic War

Sibylline books

Pentralia: the Sibylline Books were originally kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus but were later moved into the penetralia of Augustus’ new temple

The river Tiber

Virgil regularly uses the Greek spelling for the river Tiber except in Aen. 7.715

Sibyl’s prophecies

Her prophecies are obscure as the labyrinth itself

Descensus

Descensus is a rare noun in Latin poetry

Phrases describing the golden bough

Phrases describing the golden bough are placed in emphatic arrangements

Auricomus

·      Auricomos is a striking oxymoron not used before Virgil’s time

Consulta

·      a rare word except in the phrase senatus consultum, where it means decree, here it means advice

Aeneas’ discovery of Misenus’ corpse

·      recalls Odysseus’ encounter with the shade of Elpenor, who had fallen off Circe’s roof unnoticed and descended to Hades. But whereas Elepenor’s death was an accident anticipating Odysseus’ descent to the underworld, Misenus’ boldness was responsible for his death like Palinurus

Figit

·      Note ‘figit’ instead of ‘ponit’ (plants rather than places)

Misenum…Misenum

Misenum…Misenum – epanelepsis for emotional effect

Auri…aura

The assonance of the phrase auri…aura heightens its strangeness

Misenus’ funeral

Details from Roman funeral rights have been added from model of Patroclus in Iliad 23: the averted faces, the meal prepared for the rites, the funeral procession, and the conclusion of the rite

Felix

Felix of olive bough signifies good omen as well as fruitfulness

Lake Avernus

Virgil seems to have blended Lake Avernus and the Acherusian Swamp

Whole carcass

Whole carcasses is by no means usual; the ordinary practice was to burn only inedible portions of the victim

Underworld painting

Painting of underworld by the 5th century CE artist, Polygnotus, which would have been in existence in Virgil’s time – described in great detail in Pausanias’ Description of Greece

268 line

Line 268 consists of slow, heavy spondees, while the lightness of 269 suggests the insubstantiality of these domos vacuas

House of Orcus

House of Orcus described as if it were a Roman house

Scylla and centaurs

Scylla and the Centaurs are not traditionally found in the UW before V

Eriphyle

Eriphyle (killed by her son because she had been bribed by the gift of a necklace to persuade her husband Amphiarus to join the expedition of the seven against Thebes where he perished)

Greeks and their ships

Through Aeneas, Virgil gives the impression that the Greeks were regularly driven back to their ships, whereas in Homer, the Trojans are represented as having been penned up in their cities for 10 years

Deiphobus

Neither Deiphobus’ death or his marriage to Helen is explicitly mentioned in Homer – here it is intensely so!

Helen

“From the top of the citadel” – this is inconsistent with the “Helen episode” where Helen has taken refuge in the temple of Vesta

Virecta’

reen places the word is coined by Virgil from virere

Vitta

Vitta the garlands usually mark the sanctity of priests or poets but note the victims cruelties of Discordia in 281

Odyssey 11

Strong contrast with Odyssey 11 where the past not the future is focused on

Metempsychosis

Orphic and Pythagorean concepts of the purification and transmigration of souls, and their rebirth into other bodies, including in the bodies of Aeneas’ descendants

Bee simile

·      In the Iliad the Greeks hurrying to council are also described as bees and in the Argonautica the Lemnian women gather like bees around the departing Argonauts

Plato

·      Ethical conception derived from Plato that soul is infected by the body

Lucretius

·      Vergil expresses these beliefs and explanations often with a pointedly Lucretian diction and style, though Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura had only scorn for the entire notion of the afterlife

Principio

·      In the first place, a Lucretian term for beginning the sequence of a philosophical argument

Augustus

·      Anchises points out Augustus who appears out of chronological order immediately after Romulus, making him the “second founder” of Rome

Torquatus

·      Torquatus put his own son to death for engaging in combat with the enemy contrary to orders

M. Furius Camillus

M. Furius Camillus recovered the gold paid to the Gauls to ensure their withdrawal from Rome in 390BCE. Vergil modifies the story so that Camillus recovers not the gold but the Roman standards. May reflect recovery of the standards from the Parthians achieved in 20BCE

Pompey vs Caesar

·      Vergil presents the conflict between Pompey and Julius Caesar as a clash between East and West

Magne Cato

·      Magne Cato – M. Porcius Cato; he was famous for his bellicosity towards Carthage

Duo fulmina belli

Duo fulmina belli: P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major defeated Hannibal at Zama during the second Punic War; his adopted son P.C.Scipio Africanus Minor destroyed Carthage in the third Punic War

Serrane

Serrane – Virgil gives what was no doubt the popular etymology of his name, namely that he was found sowing (sero) when summoned to be consul

Parvoque potentem

Parvoque potentem: powerful with little – the contrast between the greatness of Fabricius’ public services and the smallness of his private means. Fabricius and Serranus are types of old Roman generals who left the ploughshare to lead an army and then returned to it again

Maximus

Maximus: Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator (“the Delayer”) was appointed dictator after the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene and wore out Hannibal by delaying and continually hampering his movements while avoiding a pitched battle

846

This line is based on Ennius’ often quoted ‘unus homo vobis cunctando restituit rem’

870-1

A mixed condition, with the implied future tense of the apodosis overwhelmed by the contrary to fact protasis

Gotoff

Gotoff argues that this fulfills the dramatic need for Aeneas to not remember his experiences in the UW during the second half of the epic

Atque Alpis immittet apertas

·      Hannibal’s remarkable crossing of the Alps in 218BC

Non pauca

Non pauca, suggests stereotype of female loquacity

Venus description of Turnus

Venus mentions the havoc created by Turnus within the Trojan camp at the end of Book 9 but naturally omits that he was let in by the overconfident Trojans Pandarus and Bitias

Mea vulnera

Mea vulnera Venus pathetically envisages a repetition of the flesh wound inflicted on her by Diomedes at Troy under the guidance of Athene

What kind of rhetorical speech is this?

Miseratio (rhetorical speech)

Exustas…classis

Exustas…classis implies complete combustion and classis large numbers – exaggeration

Quid repetam

A formula of rhetorical praeteritio

Speravimus ista

The perfect tense like that of fuit refers to what has been irrevocably lost, here a rhetorical exaggeration

Si nulla est regio

If x is not to be then y is a common rhetorical request

Swearing on Troy

High rhetoric

65-6

65-6 Aenean put to the front as the supposed mover of the war

What does Juno accuse Aeneas of that he did not do?

Arva aliena iugo premere atque avertere praedas. Aeneas is guilty of neither of these charges in the Aeneid, having been granted lands and gifts by Latinus, though in other accounts of Aeneas’ arrival in Italy the Trojans do seize land and plunder Latium

Soceros legere,

·      plunder Latium

Soceros legere, the plurals here and in the following phrases are rhetorical, exaggerating the supposed acts of the Trojans into nefarious new principles

What is interesting about them talking about causae?

·      An interest in motivating or ultimate causae is a concern of ancient historians occasionally adopted by poets

Deum domus

High epic language

Iussis gens Lydia divum

·      the Etruscans going into action are appropriately enclosed in the word-order by the divine orders which back their alliance with Aeneas

Externo commissa duci·  

·      the phrase recalls the prophecy 8.503 ‘externos optate duces’ stressing that it is now fulfilled (‘fulfilment echoes’ in the Aeneid Moskalew 114-116)

Lions on the ship

·      The lions seem to be placed above the rostrum and below the prow and the depiction of mount Ida appearing to draw the ship; they symbolise Cybele, closely connected with Troy and the Trojan cause In the Aeneid, indicating her civilising power in taming wild beasts

Parallels for the catalogue

·      The notion of a catalogue of ships and captains is clearly drawn from the Greek catalogue of Iliad 2, while the idea of a shorter catalogue to balance a preceding list of the other side (here the Latin catalogue of Book 7) also owes something to the catalogue of Trojans later in Iliad 2. But perhaps the most interesting Homeric parallel is that with the short list of Myrmidons in Iliad 16 which is similar in function in describing reinforcements to the ultimately victorious side which enter the battle late and at a crucial point, but which do not contain outstanding individuals

What names in the catalogue appear to be poetic inventions?

Abas and Cunerus appear to be poetic inventions

What other oddities are there in the catalogue?

·      Why is the non entity Massicus given first place, exclusion of Tarchon who has just been mentioned as chief king of the Etruscans, might endanger heroic primacy of Aeneas

How does Virgil show his learning in the catalogue

The identification of contingents by their arms is a piece of catalogue technique often showing a poet’s learning, gorytus is Homeric, que…et echoing te…kai is a poetic archaism usually linking a pair of nouns

What feature of Popuolonia is a feature of Virgil’s catalogue language not found in Apollonius or Homer?

Sescentos illi dederat Populonia mater, the personification of the city is a feature of Vergil’s catalogue-language not found in Apollonius or Homer

Generosa

·      Generosa, a Virginian invention derived from genere meaning productive

What myths about fathers narrated on the appearance of their sons are there?

·      Myths about fathers narrated on the appearance of their sons, links to the myth of Hippolytus in the Latin Catalogue, both are prefaced with the reporting device ferunt and both are followed by an abrupt return to the figure of the son marked simply by the word ‘filius’

velatus harundine glauca

Artistic representations of river gods were common at Rome, especially when carried in triumphal processions

Hunc vehit immanis Triton

·      Vergil’s detailed description may also be connected with the use of a Triton with a conch-shell trumpet in sculptures celebrating Octavian’s sea-victory at Actium

(Neque enim member is dat cura quietem)

·      (Neque enim member is dat cura quietem): c.f. 4.5 (of Dido) ‘nec placidam membris dat cura quietum’. Such wakefulness is a traditional characteristic of good generals

Who argues what about the Cybele cult?

·      A.J.Woodman and D.A. West (1984) plausibly argue that her prominence in the Aeneid (Cybele) reflects the revival of her cult under Augustus, and Vergil is probably the first to connect her with the Aeneas legend

Aequor

Aequor is an archaic poetic and Vergilian favourite for sea

How is Cybele usually depicted

Cybele traditionally the protectress of cities, is frequently depicted in art and literature as wearing the corona muralis, or turreted diadem

Inter

‘Inter’ placed between noun and verb may echo Homeric diction

Edicit

·      the verb technical for proclamations of Roman magistrates has a solemn and legalistic flavour

Stans celsa in puppi

·      This last passage has been used to draw a close analogy with Aeneas here and Augustus at Actium: both are sailing to the decisive battle which is to establish peace and civilisation, and the shield which Aeneas raises in the next line has Augustus’ ‘stans celsa in puppi’ depicted on it. Further support for this view comes from 270-1 where the omen of the flame from Aeneas’ head matches that from Augustus’ head at Actium

Manu’

·      seems to be used retundantly inheritance from Ennius

Homeric models for line 270-1

·      Two Homeric models underlie the description of 270-1. The first is Athene’s preparation of Diomedes as he begins his great aristeia (Il.5.4-7), secondly is the brief vignette of Achilles as he is similarly prepared by Athene (Il.18.205-6)

In Homer who has blazing armour?

he comparandum in Homer is Achilles’ shining armour, while in Vergil it is the miraculous fire emanating from Aeneas, but both similes are clearly seen from the subjective viewpoint of an enemy; thus Aeneas is once again implicitly compared with the returned Achilles

Aerea suta

·      Aerea suta The phrase seems to refer anachronistically to the sewn rings or platelets of chain-mail not known in Homer but worn by the Roman troops of Virgil’s own day

Cohors’

·      which usually refers to the tenth of a Roman legion is anachronistic and hyperbolical

Curibus…Clausus

·      ancestor of the gens Claudia; Vergil has put him back into the legendary period, modifying the usual view that the original Clausus came from the Sabine country to Rome at the beginning of the Republic, Clausus’ appearance in the Aeneid compliments the gens Claudia and particularly Augustus’ consort Livia, whose father and first husband were both Claudii

pugnator

·      The impersonal passive ‘pugnator’ recalls the language of military historians

Natura loci

·      Natura loci – matter of fact term of the historians

Mactare’

·      Mactare’ is archaic and Ennian

Homeric model for prophetic man killed?

·      Homeric model is Il.2.831-4 for son of prophetic man killed. Vergil shares this interest but by making the son obedient to the father during his lifetime adds an element of Roman pietas as well as the further pathos of the old man’s death

spolia opima

·      The spolia opima were the highest military achievement at Rome, gained by commanders who killed enemy generals in single combat and therefore appropriate to the duel of two leaders Pallas and Turnus. Interest was revived in this dormant institution in Virgil’s own time, when M. Licinius Crassus, the grandson of the triumvir, claimed them unsuccessfully in 29BC, and Vergil may allude to it here for that reason

Who similar dismounts for their duel in Homer?

·      Both Patroclus and Hector similarly dismount for the parallel duel in Iliad 16. 733ff.

What is the second model of this duel (486-7)?

·      486-7 Modelled on Patroclus over the body of Sarpedon (il.16.503-5). Ille echoes Homer’s o de refers to Palllas, who like Camilla at 11.816-17) pulls out the fatal spear in a vain attempt (frustra) to save himself, a pathetic modification of Homer, where the victor Patroclus extracts it