PART I
1—
The Fall of Troy
3 The fall of Troy had been depicted in literature and art for centuries; it was a subject
that no age, no genre had failed to use. The ancient epic was succeeded by lyric and
drama; Hellenistic poetry had plucked new fruit from this part of the saga in its own
distinctive manner; in the visual arts, too, the most moving scenes, from Laocoon's
ordeal to the flight of Aeneas, were familiar to all from the numerous different
versions created by the great masters. The task of retelling this well-known story
must have seemed particularly attractive to a poet who felt no compulsion to explore
untrodden paths, and who made it his ambition, not to astonish with novelties, but to
achieve greatness in the familiar. Indeed, it is precisely here, in this most frequently
trodden area, that Virgil's art is most apparent. It would be altogether easier for us to
evaluate the true meaning of this art of his, and to establish his unique intentions and
means, if only we possessed just one or other of the earlier versions in full; though
even the little that has survived will prove useful for our purpose. But first we must
gain a broad, general impression of the nature of Virgil's undertaking.
Ilium and brought me to the Cicones]: this is how Odysseus begins his tale. That is
also the real beginning of the story of the Odyssey . The story of the Aeneid begins
with the destruction of Troy, for the hero's mission is to carry the Trojan Penates to
Latium, and here is the origin of the mission; therefore the Iliu Persis [sack of Troy]
had to be included in the poem. Putting the narrative into Aeneas' own mouth seems
4 to us nowadays a straightforward imitation of the technique of the Odyssey . But we
ought to be aware how new and bold this device must at first have appeared to the
poet. The events of Odysseus' homeward journey nearly all involved Odysseus
himself, and putting them into the first person instead of the third entailed few
changes in the presentation. But for Virgil it was a matter of presenting the ebb and
flow of the nocturnal battle through all the streets, palaces and shrines of Troy, and
the deeds and sufferings of a whole series of people, as the experiences of one single
man. It is easy to see what difficulties this caused; but it also offered the outstanding
artistic advantage of concentrating the action: in this way, and in this way only,
could a jumbled sequence of unconnected scenes be made into a unity that would
satisfy Virgil's ideals of poetic construction. And this conception of his task also
opened up a totally unexpected path, which no narrator of the Sack of Troy had ever
trodden before: these events had never previously been presented as a continuous
narrative by a Trojan . Admittedly the dramatists, notably Euripides in his plays
concerning the sack of Troy, had put themselves inside the minds of the vanquished,
but in a drama they could only portray single episodes, or give a general impression
of the night of terror. But Virgil gives us the story, not of just any Trojan, but of the
father of the Roman people. This fact immediately determined the ethos of the
narrative and the major values which it would enshrine. For straightaway there
emerged new rocks, that could only be avoided by careful navigation; rocks, it is
true, which only existed for a Roman, and which it is difficult for us to envisage.
The ancestors of the Romans are conquered and cave in; they renounce the chance
of taking revenge and continuing the fight; Aeneas has survived the fall of his native
city, has deserted its ruins in order to establish a new city in a strange land. A
Roman would inevitably feel deeply ashamed at the thought of such behaviour.
Rome for him is what Troy was for Aeneas: how could a Roman choose to turn his
back on his own city in her hour of defeat, taking his wife, child and household with
him, rather than stay and perish too? How could he think of carrying the gods of his
city into a foreign land?
In order to understand the attitude of a Roman, we must read the speech which
Livy puts into the mouth of Camillus in the debate about moving from the site of
Rome to Veii (5.51ff.). I quote just a few sentences:
5 This, too, is a struggle for our fatherland, and, as long as life lasts, to withdraw
from it would be a disgrace for others, but for Camillus an abominable
impiety . . . . Our city was founded on the basis of good auspices and good
auguries; there is not a place in it to which sacred duties are not attached, in
which gods do not dwell; the solemn sacrifices have not only their set days but
also their set localities. Do you intend to abandon all these gods of state and
family? . . . We will be regarded not as conquerors who are leaving their city,
but as defeated men who have lost their city; people will say that the defeat at
the Allia, the conquest of the city, the siege of the Capitol drove us to desert
our Penates and to flee into exile from a place that we are not able to
defend . . . . Would it not be better to live in huts like shepherds and rustics
among our sacred places and our Penates, than for the entire people to go into
exile? Does the soil of our fatherland, and this earth that we call Mother, have
no hold on us? Is our love for our fatherland merely an attachment to façades
and roof-beams?
Later on in the course of the Aeneid the objections embodied in this attitude are
removed in part. It turns out that the Penates are not migrating to some strange
country but returning to their original home.[1] There is no such comfort in the
Ilioupersis : there, Troy is the native land, and Aeneas is driven from it. Virgil had to
make it his aim, above all, to avoid any sense of disgrace, to defend the Trojans in
general, but above all his hero, from accusations of cowardice or weakness, timid
6 despondency or disloyalty towards his fatherland.[2] Sympathy for the vanquished
grows when that for the conqueror is withdrawn, so his second concern had to be to
strip the Greeks of the glory of victory, while taking the greatest care to avoid any
appearance of malice. The outlines of the narrative were firmly fixed in tradition;
the poet had to be very sparing in his invention of new episodes to serve his purpose,
in case his readers should fail to recognize the Fall of Troy . Thus, as far as content
was concerned, his art was necessarily one of selecting from the rich treasury of the
traditional story whatever was suitable for his purpose and omitting all the rest
unless it was impossible to do so.
These simple considerations clearly imply that it is highly unlikely that Virgil
used only one of his predecessors as his sole or main source, for none of them had
been pursuing the same aim as Virgil, either as regards content or form. Nor in
writing the Aeneid did Virgil feel constrained in any way: there was no single earlier
version of the Sack of Troy which was regarded as canonical to the extent that any
deviation would meet with disapproval. Nor should we imagine that his knowledge
of the tradition was in any way narrow or restricted. It is obvious that either person-
ally or with the help of educated Greek friends he drew on all the relevant accounts
that were available at that time.
Virgil's Sack of Troy consists of three parts: the introduction, during which the
wooden horse is taken into the city (lines 13-249), the battle at night (250-558), and
Aeneas' flight (559-803). As we can see, these sections are roughly equal in length,
which suggests that the poet regarded them as of equal importance. Merely from the
point of view of form, he would not have been happy with a type of composition
such as we find in Tryphiodorus, where some 500 and 200 lines correspond with
Virgil's first two sections. For the same reason he would have regarded it as totally
inadmissible to devote a mere handful of lines to the departure of Aeneas, which for
the Romans was the most important event of all. In drama, intensity of action can
perhaps compensate for brevity of treatment, but not in epic.
We will follow the course of the narrative.
7
I—
The Wooden Horse
1—
Sources
Troy had been besieged by the Greeks for ten long years, to no avail. Finally they
hid in a wooden horse, which the Trojans themselves pulled into their city. In the
night, the soldiers left their hiding-place and overwhelmed the sleeping Trojans . . . .
This ancient story must have given rise to adverse comment at a very early date:
how could the Trojans be so unsuspecting and foolish as to pull the agent of their
own destruction into the city? Some have believed it possible to trace the stages by
which these criticisms resulted in increasingly elaborate versions of the story; how-
ever, it can be no more than a purely hypothetical exercise to arrange the versions
according to this principle since most of the surviving versions cannot be securely
dated. According to the narrative in the Odyssey (8.502ff.), which Proclus tells us
corresponds with Arctinus' Sack of Troy , and which also forms the basis of the
version in Apollodorus, the horse is pulled to the acropolis without a moment's
thought: it is only then that they wonder what to do with it, and decide – according
to Proclus – to dedicate it to Athena. Sinon is not mentioned in the Odyssey , and in
the mythographers he is only the man who is assigned the task of giving the
fire-signal to the Greek ships. In fact, in Apollodorus' version he does this from
Achilles' tomb, in Proclus' from the city itself. Sinon must have known not only that
the horse was in the city, but also that the Trojans were asleep. To discover this he
must have crept in using some kind of disguise.[3] We learn from the Tabula Iliaca
that he had a more important rôle in the Little Iliad : he enters the city walking in
front of the horse; from the later versions of the story we may draw the conclusion
that he persuaded the Trojans to accept the treacherous votive offering. It is clear that
in this version the Trojans' suspicions were aroused from the start, then lulled by the
Greeks' falsehood and deceit; the Little Iliad gives an explanation of the actions taken
by the Trojans, and their gullibility is contrasted with the cunning of their enemies.
Sophocles may have written a play about Sinon, and Aristotle certainly lists Sinon as
one of the subjects for tragedy drawn from the Little Iliad , and it is reasonable to
suppose that Sinon's deception of the Trojans in fact formed the nucleus of this play.
But later even this motivation seems to have been regarded as no longer sufficient. It
8 may well have seemed strange, judging ancient legends by the standards of their own
time, that a common cheat was able to delude wise Priam and his wise elders. Some
Hellenistic writer will then have taken the step of introducing the legend of Laocoon,
and presenting it in a bold new version as the definitive explanation of how the
Trojans had been deceived. It is true that it had already been associated with the fall
of Troy, but not with the story of the horse. Laocoon is the embodiment of their
justifiable mistrust. When the gods send the serpents to kill his sons, the Trojans take
this to be divine confirmation of Sinon's words, and this is enough to make their
decision quite comprehensible to any reader who believed in divine signs. This last,
most elaborate form of the legend has also left traces in the accounts in the mytho-
graphers.[4] Quintus of Smyrna took it over wholesale, though in a form superficially
contaminated with another version; his source was probably some mythographic
work.[5]
Virgil must have had no hesitation in choosing this final version of the tradition.
Not only was it the richest and artistically most rewarding, it was also the version in
which the behaviour of the Trojans was shown in the most favourable light.
2—
Sinon
Let us look at the Sinon scene, leaving aside for a moment its connection with the
Laocoon scenes. We know from Tryphiodorus that Virgil's poem was not the first in
which Sinon spoke to Priam himself and Priam listened graciously and even asked
him to explain the significance of the gigantic horse. Moreover we learn from
Quintus that Sinon's lie, that it was to be dedicated to the gods so as to ensure a safe
voyage back to Greece, was not Virgil's invention either. Much of the manner in
which this material is narrated also stems from Virgil's source. Quintus seems to
have had only a bare outline before him. The whole construction betrays its late date
by the way that it is pieced together from motifs that were already well known.
Sinon plays the rôle that Odysseus himself plays in Euripides' Philoctetes . In order
9 to win the confidence of Philoctetes, who was suffering from a mortal wound on
account of the behaviour of the Greeks, and above all of Odysseus himself, Odys-
seus pretended that he himself was a Greek who had been maltreated by his own
people and exiled as a result of the machinations of Odysseus:[6] so in Euripides the
deceiver blames himself, and this motif seems to have been invented for this con-
text. But in both passages it is the unjust condemnation of Palamedes that is said to
have led to the misfortune of the liar, who claims to have been a friend of the dead
Palamedes; and it has therefore been suggested that the echo of Euripides' lines can
be heard in Virgil's.[7] But Virgil was not the first to make use of the device derived
from Euripides. This can be seen from the fact that Quintus' version agrees in its
main outlines with Virgil, suggesting that they had an earlier common source.
Furthermore, Calchas' proposal, based on his interpretation of divine will, that
Sinon should be sacrificed to ensure a safe journey home is, as Virgil himself
reminds us (116f.), modelled on the sacrifice of Iphigenia; we will, of course, also
recall Achilles' threat (Quintus 14.216) that he will send a storm to prevent the
Greeks leaving unless Polyxena is sacrificed to him: Calchas was also involved in
the sacrifice of Polyxena. On the other hand, we may consider that the rhetorical
working-out of the
ian. Sinon's deception surely started life as a stratagem worthy of Odysseus himself,
brilliantly revealing the superiority of the versatile Greek over the barbarian Priam.
Now, in Virgil's hands, this famous exploit becomes a scandalous piece of behaviour, a
despicable lie, corroborated by a false oath (154ff.; periurus [195] [perjured]), com-
pounded by the abuse of a most noble trustfulness, helpfulness, sympathy, piety and
hospitality, and designed to destroy those who practise such virtues. It is only
because the Trojans themselves are so totally incapable of deviousness, indeed
ignorant of it (186), that they do not even expect to meet it in an enemy. But Sinon is
10 not the only crafty one: Aeneas now suddenly realizes that Sinon is only a typical
representative of the general depravity of the Danai: crimine ab uno disce omnis
(65) [from this one proof of their perfidy you may understand them all], scelerum
tantorum artisque Pelasgae (106) [to what length of wickedness Greek cunning
could go], dolis instructus et arte Pelasga (152) [adept in deceit, and with all the
cunning of a Greek]. This is the voice of Virgil the Roman; the conventional Roman
ideal is the upright, sincere man of honour, incapable of any deviousness, who
therefore easily falls victim to the deviousness of a foreigner. An excellent parallel with
this Trojano-Roman view of Sinon's deception is provided by the patriotic view of the
disaster at Cannae, as it appears in Valerius Maximus[8] (7.4 ext 2): according to Vale-
rius, before the battle 400 Carthaginians claiming to be deserters were welcomed by the
Romans and then proceeded to draw their swords, which they had concealed, and to
attack the army in the rear. The narrator concludes: haec fuit Punica fortitudo , dolis et
insidiis et fallacia instructa . quae nunc certissima circumventae virtutis nostrae
excusatio est , quoniam decepti magis quam victi sumus [this was the bravery of the
Carthaginians, full of tricks and snares and deception: this is the most convincing excuse
for the eclipse of our brave soldiers, since we were cheated rather than beaten].[9] So in
fact it is to the credit of the Trojans to have been defenceless against the wiles of Sinon,
that typical representative of his loquacious, cunning, perfidious race,[10]
11 quos neque Tydides nec Larisaeus Achilles,
non anni domuere decem , non mille carinae .
[men whom neither Tydeus' son nor Larissaean Achilles could subdue, for all their
ten years of war and a thousand keels.] The reader's sympathy is mixed with
admiration; the admiration which Sinon's artfulness might have aroused in him is
swamped by indignation.
The more sophisticated Sinon's lying becomes, the more powerfully this effect is
achieved. Virgil has done his utmost here. His main concern was to arrange his
material so as to be convincing both artistically and in its content. Sinon's speech
taken as a whole falls into three almost equal sections: the first narrates the events
leading up to the proposal to kill him, the second the proposal itself and his flight,
and the third reveals the secret of the votive offering. Corresponding with this, again
in a truly Virgilian way, is an intensification of the emotions on the Trojan side.
Sinon's introductory remarks had aroused their curiosity – he seems not to be a
Greek – and they no longer feel any hostility towards him. The first part of his
narrative with the reference to the prophet Calchas towards the end, awakens their
burning curiosity; the second, pity; when it comes to the third part, they are no
longer thinking of Sinon – it is a question of saving Troy ( servataque serves Troia
fidem [160]) [if Troy is preserved, may she honour her word]. Thus before our very
eyes the arrogant lack of concern initially shown by the Trojans gradually changes
to deep sympathy and earnest foreboding. I will not discuss the individual artful
devices employed by Sinon since most of them were pointed out long ago by the
ancient interpreters,[11] but will restrict myself to pointing out how in the course of the
speech Sinon reveals himself, gradually and apparently quite unintentionally, as char-
acterized by a whole range of the very noblest qualities, as well as caught up in
circumstances that call for deep compassion: steadfastness in misfortune and
unshakeable honesty (80), poverty (87), loyalty towards his friend (93), suffering and
humiliation on his friend's account (92), an inability to cheat or deceive (94), revul-
sion against the war (110) which he had not become involved in of his own accord
(87), isolation amongst his fellow Greeks (130), pietas (137) [a sense of duty] to-
wards his home-country, his children and his father, religio (141) [reverence towards
12 the gods]: he even seems to feel that he has somehow wronged the gods by escaping
sacrifice ( fateor [134] [I admit]). In spite of all the injustice he has suffered, he does
not scorn his compatriots, the impius Tydides [sacrilegious son of Tydeus] and the
scelerum inventor Ulixes [Ulysses, quick to invent new crimes], until he has gone
over to the Trojan side and has solemnly dissociated himself from the Greeks, at
which point he expresses pious revulsion from the wicked behaviour of these two.
Only then does he wish for the destruction of those who intended to do him such
mortal injury[12] (190). It is clear that all these devices arouse sympathy for Sinon, and
strengthen the inclination of the Trojans to believe his story. This plausibility
which answers any sceptical questions before they are asked, and by the abundance of
details which seem to well up from Sinon's excited memory, allaying any suspicion that
it might all be a fiction.[13] In short, Virgil has aimed not merely at rivalling Homer in the
art praised by Aristotle ( Poet . 24), that of making one's heroes tell lies, but at outdoing
him.
The inevitable consequence is that Sinon succeeds totally in convincing the
Trojans. For all these skilful devices would be valueless if they did not achieve the
fundamental and indeed the only aim of the speech, to convince the audience. It is
essential that not even a shred of doubt should remain. That would mean that Sinon
had made a poor speech. And so – talibus insidiis periurique arte Sinonis credita res
[we gave Sinon our trust, tricked by his blasphemy and cunning]. How does this
connect with the function which Laocoon had to fulfil in the version of the story
outlined above?
3—
Laocoon
A crowd of Trojans are standing around the wooden horse and arguing about what
to do with it when Laocoon makes his first appearance:
Primus ibi ante omnis magna comitante caterva
Laocoon ardens summa decurrit ab arce .
[but there, in front of all, came Laocoon, hastening furiously down from the citadel
13 with a large company in attendance.]
In highly emotional language he warns them of the cunning of the Greeks and
flings a lance at the horse's belly, which resounds with a roar. Apollodorus tells us
that Laocoon warned the Trojans, but, except for Virgil, only Tzetzes ( Posthom .
713) says that he reinforced his words by hurling his spear. Since that is the only
detail for which it would be necessary to assume that Virgil was Tzetzes' source, it
is more likely that this too is derived from an earlier tradition.
The way in which Laocoon is introduced has been judged to be so ill-adapted to
the context[14] that some have concluded that in lines 35-56 Virgil originally had in
mind the earlier version in which it was only after the horse had been pulled into the
citadel that Laocoon gave his advice; and that he later incorporated these lines into
the new version, with some slight changes, which were not sufficient to obliterate
their original character. The same problem arises with the second Laocoon scene: it
has been argued that it presupposes the version of the story in which Laocoon was
killed by the snakes during the joyful sacrifices in the city not as a punishment but as
an omen sent by friendly gods in order to warn the Trojans. I am not convinced by
any of the criticisms that have been made of the present position of the lines. Quite
apart from practical considerations, it is the dramatic character of Virgil's narrative
that is responsible for the way in which Laocoon is not envisaged as one of the
group arguing around the horse, but is brought on purely to give a warning, and this
is a technique which we shall notice again and again. Imagine the scene on the stage.
First Thymoetes, then Capys would make his proposal; some of the citizens would
support one, some the other. During the confusion Laocoon would come rushing
onto the stage, just as he does in Virgil. This is the only way to give an audience the
impression that he is not just another character with something to say, but that
something with important consequences is happening. And – still in terms of our
imaginary stage production – Laocoon would already have been briefed about what
had been going on. A dramatist scrupulous about motivation would perhaps have
sent one of those quorum melior sententia menti [who judged more wisely] to fetch
14 him, to help his group to win the argument. But in fact an audience would hardly
notice if a motivation of this kind were omitted. The dramatist could make Laocoon
enter without saying where he had come from. Virgil says not simply accurrit
[rushes to them], but summa decurrit ab arce [rushes down from the citadel]. In
other words, he had remained in the city. Some have believed that this contradicts
the earlier description panduntur portae : iuvat ire etc. (26ff.) [we flung the gates
open, and we enjoyed going etc.]. But did Virgil give us his word that every Trojan,
man, woman, child and mouse, had come out of the city? And even if he did say
omnes [all], he could have left Laocoon in the city. He also says nos abiisse rati
. . . ergo omnis longo solvit se Teucria luctu [we thought they (i.e. the Greeks) had
sailed . . . so all the land of Troy relaxed after its years of unhappiness]. But after-
wards we hear that Laocoon does not believe that the enemy has sailed away
(creditis avectos hostis? [Do you really believe that your enemies have sailed
away?] he asks), that is, his anxiety is by no means totally allayed. Even the most
recent and most acute commentators have not criticized the poet for any contradic-
tion here; it would have been very pedantic to do so; in that case, they ought not to
have objected to the other apparent difficulty that we have mentioned. Laocoon
takes no part in the general rejoicing; he has his suspicions about the apparent retreat
of the enemy; so it is quite reasonable that he would not be amongst the inquisitive
crowds that come swarming out exultantly onto the plain that the Greeks have left
empty. The poet tells us that Laocoon was not there with incomparable brevity:
summa ab arce [from the height of the citadel]. But why summa [height]? We
should translate 'coming down from the citadel on high',[15] where summa perhaps is
intended only to indicate the long distance that Laocoon had to cover, and together
with ardens , primus ante omnis , d e c u r r i t , and procul [furious in front of all,
hastening down, far off] add to the effect of violent excitement. But perhaps the real
reason why the poet had the idea of making Laocoon run down was because from
the heights of the citadel, unde omnis Troia videri[16] et Danaum solitae navis et
Achaica castra (461) [whence we used to look out over all Troy and see the Greek
camp and fleet], he could have seen the excited crowds around the horse – he might
also have looked across the sea to discover whether any suspicious sail was visible.
But even so, how would Aeneas have known of it? Let us merely note that Virgil
15 allows Aeneas to say something that, strictly speaking, he could not have known at
the time and could hardly have discovered later. We shall find other places where
Virgil does not stay scrupulously within the confines of the first-person narrative.
When Laocoon is introduced in the older tradition, he is said to be a priest of
Apollo; Virgil, however, does not characterize him in any such way. This omission
is deliberate (Virgil names his own priest of Apollo, Panthus [319]), since the divine
protector who guards Troy so faithfully cannot abandon his priest to such a grue-
some death. So Laocoon is simply an aristocrat, like Thymoetes or Capys. We
gather immediately from magna comitante caterva [with a large company in attend-
ance] that he does not belong to the vulgus [ordinary people]: he is not accompanied
by a random crowd of Trojans who, like him, happen to have remained in the city,
but with a group of his comites [attendants];[17] driven by burning impatience, he has
rushed on ahead of them. The rumbling echo from the horse's armoured load is not
heard by the Trojans, whom the gods have stupefied (54); we are not told anything
else about the effect produced by Laocoon's appearance. This is quite natural be-
cause – again in a very dramatic way – immediately after or even during his speech
(ecce . . . interea [57] [suddenly . . . meanwhile]), the Trojans' attention is diverted.
Sinon is dragged on, and at this point a captured Greek is understandably more
interesting than anything else.
Virgil is not quite as successful in the second Laocoon scene as in the first in
overcoming the technical difficulties that arise from his method of composition.
Sinon has finished his speech. As at the first break in the narrative (54), Aeneas, the
narrator, interposes a few words from his own point of view (195ff.). The Trojans
are convinced, and that seals their fate. It only remains for them to act on their
conviction, to come to a decision and carry it out. Then something new, unexpected
and ghastly happens: the serpents come across the sea, and Laocoon and his sons
suffer a most excruciating death. And now, under the impression that this is an act of
16 divine judgement, the decision is indeed made without further ado, and executed
without the slightest hesitation.[18] The most recent critics are certainly right to say
that, from a logical point of view, no further motivation was necessary. Once the
Trojans had been convinced by Sinon, then they were bound to proceed to their
decision and its execution, though perhaps not with so much haste and with such
unanimous enthusiasm – that is, provided that nothing else happened to make them
reconsider. But we have already seen that Virgil could not follow his source here,
and we have also seen why. His source (as we may deduce from Quintus) had used
Laocoon's death in order to dispel any reservations that the Trojans may still have
had after Sinon's speech. Why did Virgil not omit Laocoon's death completely? In
the first place, it would in that case have been necessary to omit the first appearance
of Laocoon as well, and the whole scene centred on the wooden horse would have
lost much of its dramatic impetus. But this technical problem is not the most
important point. Laocoon's death would only be superfluous to the narrative if it
were a second motivation that came from the same sphere as the first. But beside
mortal deception, and at a higher level, comes the sign from the gods. And I would
even say that if Virgil had not found this episode in the tradition, it would have been
necessary for him to have invented a similar motive. For in the whole of the Aeneid ,
no great event ever occurs without Virgil reminding us that it is the will and work of
the gods. And this is the greatest event of all, the act which brings about the
destruction of Troy; is it to be the sole exception? Whenever Aeneas does anything
for the salvation of his people, and for the Rome of the future, the poet piously gives
the glory for it to the gods of Rome. The great men of this world are merely their
tools. But the gods are also responsible for disaster: it is they who send storms and
destruction upon ships, and enemies and death upon armies; it is they, not the Greek
forces, who destroy Troy; therefore they too must have been responsible for allow-
ing the fatal horse to enter the city. That is taken for granted by Virgil and by anyone
who is in sympathy with his thought. And indeed there is also another reason to
believe in the power of the gods: it is the only way to silence the reproach that the
Trojans were stupid. Laccoon's death thus also serves the special viewpoint which,
17 as I have explained above, Virgil had to keep in mind throughout his narration of the
Sack of Troy.[19] And he achieves his aim for every impartial reader; everyone
realizes that the Trojans are overcome by a higher power which no mortal could
understand, for what good would it have done them if they had remained uncon-
vinced by Sinon's lies? Now, in the light of this divine judgement they hesitate no
longer.
I now wish to refer briefly to the purely artistic advantage which Virgil gained by
introducing the Laocoon scene; it is something quite distinct from the pathetic
nature of the scene itself, and was not consciously sought after by the poet. I referred
above to the very gradual intensification of the mood of the Trojans, and the skilful
way in which it is represented. One must imagine them as being deeply impressed
by Sinon's final words. It is only after the intervention of the terrifying and
astonishing omen that the crowd is seized with enthusiasm: those whom we should
imagine as having listened in silence up to this point, now eagerly set to work,
everyone is busy, festive hymns fill the air. Thus begins the ecstatic festival of joy
which is to lead Troy to destruction. In every drama, and in narrative too, it is much
more effective when a significant change is brought about by a sudden violent
action rather than by a gradual development.[20] It would have been extemely diffi-
cult, in my view, to create the artistically necessary shock of excitement from
Sinon's long-drawn-out narrative.
Enough on the justification for the whole scene. The motivation of details, for
example, the transition, is, however, open to criticism. We are told that Laocoon is
performing a sacrifice on the shore, mactabat [was sacrificing]. We have to assume
that this is already taking place during Sinon's speech. But how could Laocoon have
18 left before a decision had been reached about the fate of the horse? Had he, too,
been convinced by Sinon? That is hardly credible, in view of the evidence we have
already had of his farsightedness. And why should he be making a solemn sacrifice
to Neptune before the horse had been pulled into the city – for that would appear to
be the most urgent task? Admittedly, the sacrifice to Neptune seems to have been
given a motivation in Virgil's source, or in his own mind, and this may lead to an
answer to our other questions. There can only be one reason for sacrificing to
Neptune at this point, to implore him to destroy the Greek fleet, which is now in his
power. Here it seems to me that there is an undeniable point of contact with an
incident invented by Euphorion. According to Servius ad loc ., Euphorion related
that, before the beginning of the war, the Trojans had stoned their priest of Neptune
to death because he had not performed any sacrifice or made any vow to the god to
prevent the Greek expedition from crossing the Aegean to Troy. Now, the sanctuary
of the gods was on the shore; during the war the cult had therefore lapsed[21] and there
had been no need to replace the priest. I suggest that this explains Virgil's remark-
able phrase ductus Neptuno sorte sacerdos [chosen by lot to be a priest of
Neptune].[22] There was no time to lose if they were not to miss the opportunity to do
19 what they had failed to do at the beginning of the war. The enemy ships might
already have completed the greater part of their short journey. Therefore – I am
following the idea through in order to show that it entails nothing implausible –
while Sinon was still telling his tale, Laocoon could have heard that the preparations
for the sacrifice were complete. Chosen by lot to offer the sacrifice, he goes to
perform his sacred duty, accompanied by his two sons.
No doubt you will ask in astonishment, 'Are we supposed to "understand" all
this? Why does the poet say nothing about all this? Why is he satisfied with a brief
allusion?' In my opinion, Virgil has not completely overcome the technical difficul-
ties at this point. He could not allow Sinon's narrative to be interrupted with the
apparently unimportant news that Laocoon had left; nor could he allow time to
elapse after the end of the speech so that Laocoon could start the preparations for the
sacrifice; nor, finally, could he weigh down the account of the appalling death of
Laocoon with details that might well interest a conscientious critic who was scruti-
nizing the text from a logical point of view – for details of this kind would have
interrupted the process of transporting the excited listener, involved heart and soul,
to the scene at the point where everything is aimed at putting him into the frame of
mind of the Trojans as they are carried from one astonishing event to another. So
Virgil sacrificed absolutely correct motivation, and said only exactly as much as was
necessary to allow the reader to gather what must have happened. He was relying on
the fact that his reader, overcome by the pathos of the situation, would not painstak-
ingly smooth out every fold of the story to see whether he could find any holes in it;
in my view, the successful effect that he achieves proves once again that his instincts
were right.
Virgil finds himself in all these difficulties only because he has separated the first
Laocoon scene from the second. Why did he not do what Quintus does, and have
Laocoon making his first appearance after the Sinon scene, so that his punishment
follows immediately after? That would have made everything run smoothly, and
there would be no problem about a transition. Nor would there be any difficulty
from the point of view of the narrative; on the contrary, it is surely more natural for
the punishment to come immediately after the crime, than for the serpents to wait
until the precise moment that Sinon completes his lengthy speech. So Virgil must
have been led to remodel the scene by considerations of a formal or artistic nature,
20 and these can be easily reconstructed. First, the effect of Sinon's speech would have
been weakened if Laocoon had expressed his doubts after it and it would inevitably
have thrown the Trojans back into a state of indecision; whereas with the introduc-
tion of the Laocoon scene, the impression made by Sinon's speech is greatly
enhanced. Secondly, the first Laocoon scene forms the artistic motivation for the
entry of Sinon, because it has the greatest effect at this point: he appears at the very
moment at which Laocoon's advice and action are on the point of exposing the
cunning Greek ruse. At the height of the action the counter-action supervenes: that is
characteristic of the structure of Virgil's narrative.
Quintus, writing a straightforward narrative, is able to say that Athena sent the
serpents: the Muse has revealed it to the poet. In Virgil, Aeneas narrates as an
eye-witness; we have to be told how he and his fellow-Trojans discovered who sent
the punishment. Of course, there could be no doubt in anyone's mind in antiquity
that it was a manifestation of divine anger; but Virgil wanted to indicate that it was
specifically Athena who was responsible, and that the injury to her votive offering
had injured her. He had come across a tradition in which the serpents, having
accomplished their deed, disappeared into the sanctuary of Apollo,[23] and he trans-
ferred it to the temple and statue of Athena:
delubra ad summa dracones
diffugiunt saevaeque petunt Tritonidis arcem
sub pedibusque deae clipeique sub orbe teguntur. (225-7)
[the pair of serpents now made their retreat, sliding up to the temple of heartless
Minerva high on her citadel, where they vanished near her statue's feet behind the
circle of her shield]. Although Aeneas narrates this, he does not do so as a direct
witness. The Trojans on the plain could not see into the citadel, and it would be
ridiculous to imagine that they ran along beside the serpents. They could only have
seen what direction they took and, at most, have learnt from others afterwards where
they had hidden. Virgil will hardly have thought all this through in detail in his
mind, but this is another passage where he has not felt restricted by every implica-
tion of the first-person narrative, for two reasons: not to burden the narrative with
wearisome diffuseness, and not to be obliged to lose the benefit of a motif which is
so important for the story.
21
4—
The Horse enters Troy
In the description that follows, I single out Virgil's brevity for comment: he does not
describe the journey to the city (Tryph. 304-35), nor does he give more than the bare
fact of Cassandra's unheeded warning (Tryph. 358-445, Quintus 525-85), and this is
simply to produce an effective contrast with the activity of the unheeding Trojans; it
is clear that he avoids writing episodes just for the sake of it. Instead, he lingers over
the moment at which the horse crosses the encircling wall: this fateful moment
deserves emphatic treatment. This is not (as in Quintus and Tryphiodorus) followed
by a detailed description of the joyful festivities, the music, dancing and general
intoxication;[24] the narrator could not recall these hours without shame and remorse,
nor could his audience hear about this infatuated celebration without feeling con-
tempt and pity. Instead of a description we have only the lines:
nos delubra deum miseri , quibus ultimus esset
ille dies , festa velamus fronde per urbem , (248-9)
[ . . . we, poor fools, spent this our last day decorating with festal greenery every
temple in our town], two lines which are certainly calculated, but in which the art of
calculation comes close to genius.
II—
The Battle
1—
Preliminaries
The second section, the Night Battle ( Nyktomachia ), opens with a short account of
the events that occurred before Aeneas awoke: the Achaean fleet returns, Sinon
opens the horse, which disgorges its occupants, who disperse through the sleeping
city, slay the watchmen at the gates and open the city to their comrades. This is
exactly the way in which Aeneas, at the beginning of the first part of his story
(2.13-24) had spoken of the actions of the Greeks, before he started on his full
account. At that stage, confining himself strictly to his own experiences, he was only
able to say that the Greeks sailed away and left the wooden horse behind on the
shore. It was only later that he discovered their destination and their plans. Now,
22 however, when these events are mentioned a second time, we are also told, in its
proper place, how Aeneas learnt what he had anticipated in his first account: Pan-
thus comes down from the citadel and tells him about what has happened (328ff.).
Because this is narrated twice, it has been suggested that one of the two passages is a
later addition;[25] but that is certainly not so. When, in the course of an action narrated
by the hero himself, he has to deal with events which he did not hear about, or
realize the importance of, until later, there are two possibilities open to the poet. He
can make the narrator keep very strictly to the order in which he experienced the
events, and that means that, for the time being, the audience will be as much in the
dark about those events, or their significance, as he had been at the time. This
technique can create a feeling of restless excitement of the kind that modem novel-
ists are particularly eager to achieve, but which is alien to the aims and conventions
of an ancient epic. The other possibility is that the narrator tells the events in the
order in which they actually happened, drawing on his later knowledge: that is the
naïve technique such as is used in the stories told by Odysseus. Odysseus narrates
the experience of his companions in Circe's palace in complete disregard of the fact
that he himself only learnt of them later, from Eurylochus, and some of them even
later than that, from his other ship-mates; he tells us what his comrades did on
Thrinacia while he was asleep, what Eurylochus said, etc., just as if it were not
himself, Odysseus, but the poet speaking. When they come to Polyrphemus' cave
(Od . 9.187), he tells his audience what it was like and how it was laid out, instead of
doing what a sophisticated narrator would do, start by arousing vague misgivings in
his audience, and then make them share the feeling of horror which gripped the men
waiting in the cave when they caught sight of the monster. Virgil proceeds in the
same way, but he is just a little more sophisticated about it. He is not interested in
creating tension, any more than Homer was; rather, he wants his audience to grasp
the whole situation from the very start. This can only be achieved by a narrative that
anticipates later knowledge. On the other hand, we also need to be told when and
how the situation was explained to Aeneas: that is why Panthus' speech is essential.
But Panthus certainly does not tell Aeneas everything that Aeneas has told us;[26] in
23 fact, once our attention has been drawn to it, we might well ask where exactly
Aeneas has got all these details from: that it was the king's ship that gave the fire
signal,[27] which heroes were inside the horse,[28] that they slid down on a rope,[29] and so
forth, and the same is true of his first account, where he says that the heroes were
picked by lot, etc. An ancient solver of literary problems
have explained that Aeneas was told all this afterwards, years later, by Achae-
menides, the companion of Odysseus. I am myself quite sure that Virgil never
bothered himself with such possibilities, but once again was not confining himself
24 strictly to the stand-point of the first-person narrative; he wanted to give his audi-
ence not merely a bare outline of the essential facts, but a vivid picture. Every
Trojan must have got a general idea of what had happened only too soon; the details
came along with it. Nevertheless, the description is sufficiently short and concise to
give the effect of an actual spoken account, contrasting sharply with the return to
Aeneas' own narrative, which is resumed with the phrase tempus erat quo prima
quies [it was the time when rest first comes]. This is very different from Odysseus'
account of the adventures on Thrinacia, where we still get a full and detailed
narrative even when Odysseus himself was not present.
One detail of Panthus' account should be emphasized, since it is of some signific-
ance for the visual aspect of the scenes that follow: the Greek fleet sails towards the
shore tacitae per amica silentia lunae (255) i.e. through the calm night by the
friendly light of the moon.[30] The moon has played a role in depictions of the Fall of
Troy from the earliest times: 'It was midnight, the bright moon rose', says the Little
Iliad .[31] Understandably enough: if it had been a pitch dark night, it would have been
necessary to provide some source of light for each scene. So Virgil, too, mentions
the moonlight again when some of Aeneas' companions gather round him, oblati
per lunam (340) [looming through the moonlight]. On the other hand, an impression
of the darkness of the night is necessary for the Androgeus scene: the Greeks
25 mistake Aeneas and his men for their own compatriots and only become suspicious
when the expected answer to their greeting does not come (376); afterwards the
Trojans make further use of the darkness when they put on the armour of the slain
and are thus able to storm unrecognized amongst the enemy troops. That would have
been impossible in daylight, when faces might be recognized. That is why Virgil
mentions the 'shadows of the black night' several times in these scenes;[32] of course
he can say this, in spite of the moonlight, because these scenes take place in the
narrow streets of the city. There 'lights bright as day and dark night-shadows form
great opposing masses'.[33]
2—
Hector's Appearance
Up to this point, Aeneas had been recounting events which he and his fellow-
citizens had experienced together, in which he had not himself played a leading rôle.
In the scene centred on the wooden horse and in those that follow, he is generally no
more than just one of the Trojans, included whenever they are mentioned. During
the night of terror, however, every man is thrown on his own resources, and now
Aeneas embarks on the account of his own personal experiences, and does not
digress from them thereafter.
The appearance of Hector to Aeneas in a dream (268-97) has no immediate
consequence, and is never alluded to again. From a superficial point of view, it
might therefore appear pointless; whereas in reality it is of great significance in
preparing for the following scenes. This is not only because it begins the description
of the night of slaughter with a scene full of pathos that graphically summarizes the
26 essentials of what is to follow, and at one stroke puts the reader into the right frame
of mind for hearing about these events.[34] Perhaps even more important than this
artistic purpose is the need to present Aeneas' attitude to these events in the right
light from the beginning. Even before the hero is in a position to act, he, and still
more the reader, needs to be convinced that the fate of Troy has been decided, and
therefore that not even Aeneas with all his energy and courage can avert this fate. It
is also necessary to prepare the reader to accept the way in which Aeneas deserts his
city, instead of staying to perish with it; and this desertion needs to be presented not
as the faint-hearted flight of a man concerned only to save his own skin, but as a
way of carrying out an act of pious duty towards the sacred images, the Penates of
Troy, for whom he must provide a new, secure home. I am inclined to believe that
Virgil started from this abstract requirement. It would be impossible to meet this
requirement more successfully than Virgil has done by introducing the vision of
Hector. Hector is able to fulfil this function better than any man alive, better than
any other of the Trojan dead. If Hector advises Aeneas to give up all attempts at
resistance, we know that resistance really is of no avail. If Hector urges flight, flight
cannot be dishonourable. It is possible that Virgil was influenced by the memory of
the appearance of Achilles in the
the fleet set sail; moreover, it is certain that in the details of the description Virgil
was purposely echoing the appearance of Homer at the beginning of Ennius' Annals ,
the most famous dream vision in Roman literature, and at the same time Paris'
words to Hector's corpse in Ennius' tragedy; but these borrowings do not in any
way mar the unity of his conception. And it is characteristic of Virgil's creative
method that he was not satisfied with attaining the abstract goal that he had in mind,
27 but that the scene has blossomed into a significance of its own, and developed
motifs not required by the action, but poetically valuable in themselves: the pathos
in the appearance of Hector, intensified by the memory of his days of splendour,
Aeneas' pity and the dream-like confusion of his thoughts. In this way the scene
gains significance over and above its value within the context.[35]
Hector's words are short and clear, as befits the man. He releases Aeneas from
his duty towards his former fatherland, points him towards his new duty and his new
homeland; fuge [flee], the heart of the message, is practically his first word. But
when this fuge is followed by teque his eripe flammis [and escape from these
flames], then that too must somehow be significant. In the whole course of the
narrative from now on, it is striking how deliberately Virgil emphasizes the burning
of the city: the houses of Deiphobus and Ucalegon are already on fire (310), Panthus
speaks excitedly of the incendia (327, 329) [fires], as does Aeneas (353) and the
Greek Androgeus (374);[36] everywhere there are the flames as well as the enemy to
terrify them (337, 431, 505, 566, 600, 632, 664, 705); scarcely have Aeneas and his
family left their house when it flares up in a sheet of flame (758-9). In short, the
reader's imagination is constrained again and again to envisage the conquered city
of Ilium as a sea of flames: it is burning as soon as the Greeks have broken in, it
collapses at the moment that the city is finally captured (624), and it is from the
smoking rubble of the sanctuaries that the plunderers loot whatever is left for them
to pillage. This does not correspond at all with the traditional version: in that, the
Greeks do not set fire to the city until just before their departure;[37] in Euripides (Tro .
1260) Talthybius orders men to go into the city to start fires while the captured
women make their way to the ships. This is comparable with Aeschylus' version,
where Clytaemnestra imagines the victorious Greeks no longer starving in the damp,
28 cold camp on the plain but resting their weary limbs in the comfort of the palaces of
Troy (Agam . 334). I do not know who was the first to paint this striking picture of
the battle among the flames of Troy; it may have been the man who first made the
flames retreat before Aeneas as he fled.[38] This was, in my opinion, invented merely
for the sake of effect; the earlier version is the more probable, since, if you think
about it, the Greeks had no reason to start a fire which might be as disastrous to
themselves as to their enemies, and which would consume not only houses and
temples but also the booty.[39] This innovation (probably Hellenistic) suited Virgil's
purpose admirably; that is why he has deliberately emphasized it, preparing for it in
Hector's words, not primarily for the sake of effect (although the splendid, terrifying
picture of the burning city must have appeared vividly before his eyes)[40] but above all
for the sake of the story. As a result the Trojans have to fight not only against mortal
enemies but also the power of the elements, against which all resistance is in vain;[41]
this means that it is not the sacred city of Pergamon, with its mighty towers, that
Aeneas has to leave, but a smoking heap of rubble and ashes. That is why, when he
returns to the conquered city, he has to see his own house, from which he rescues his
father and son, in flames (757), and has to see the sacred adyta (764) [shrines], whose
gods he carries with him, on fire. Fuit Ilium [Ilium is finished]: this is intended to make
his departure easier, and to enable the patriotic reader to sympathize with his decision.
3—
Aeneas in the Battle
Aeneas survived the fall of Troy. That was a tradition that was established, and
already to be found in the famous prophecy in the Iliad (20.307). However, when it
comes to the detailed circumstances of his escape, the tradition splits into countless
branches. The earliest, that used by Sophocles in his Laocoon , had Aeneas leave
29 Troy before it was captured. Later, the view prevailed that he fled the captured city,
rescuing his aged father and the gods of his household. Indeed, he succeeds in
escaping only because he is protected by Aphrodite, who shields him from both the
fire and the enemy's weapons. We do not know the source of this mythical version;
Virgil makes use of it, as we shall see,[42] but cannot employ it in his account of the
actual departure from Troy. For this, there were other versions available, which
managed without any miraculous element and explained his escape as the result of
natural means. Aeneas was said to have fallen into the hands of the Greeks, but to
have been spared by them as a reward for betrayal, or, to use a kinder expression, in
gratitude for offering guest-friendship to Odysseus, and for his efforts to restore
Helen (Livy 1.1). But the most popular version seems to have been a legend which
can be traced back to Timaeus, according to which Aeneas held the citadel to the
last, and then capitulated on condition that he should be allowed to depart un-
harmed, and chose to take with him, not gold or silver, but his frail old father;
granted a further choice in recognition of his virtue, he chose to take the images of
the gods. At this, the Greeks, disarmed by such piety, not only allowed him to depart
unharmed with all his worldly possessions and all his household, but even supplied
him with ships in which to sail away.[43] Naturally Virgil retained the piety
of Aeneas that is glorified in this version, but he could not make use of any of the
rest of it: he could not allow Aeneas to be indebted in any way to the generosity of
the hated enemy. And there was in fact another tradition which also had Aeneas
holding the citadel, but had him departing without any help from the enemy.[44]
Hellanicus, who narrated the fall of Troy as if it were an episode of contemporary
military history, omitted those parts of the Aeneas tradition which were in any way
legendary or difficult to believe. It is Aeneas who is credited with the rescue of most
of the Trojans: he sees in good time that the Greeks have broken in, so that while the
Greeks are swarming through the city he and his men can occupy its strong fortified
30 citadel which offers shelter for the fugitives. When he realizes that it cannot be held
for ever, he resolves to rescue at least the people, sacred objects and as many
possessions as possible, and so, while the enemy is devoting its entire attention to
the attack on the citadel, he sends the whole baggage-train out along the road to
Mount Ida. When that is safe, he and the others who have been occupying the citadel
(part of which has already been captured by Neoptolemus) withdraw from it and
catch up with those who have been sent on ahead, and are not pursued by the enemy,
who are totally absorbed in looting.
It is perfectly possible that Virgil had this very pragmatic account in front of
him,[45] when he was plotting Aeneas' adventures in the night of terror. In Virgil, too,
Aeneas is warned in good time, so that he is not surprised by the enemy. His first
thought is to occupy the citadel; he gathers a resolute band around him, then helps,
successfully for a while, in the defence of the citadel, until Neoptolemus succeeds
in forcing his way in. The rendezvous which he arranges with his household and
comrades at a point on the road to the mountains may also have been taken by Virgil
from Hellanicus, and in both versions a large group of men, women and children
have gathered there (797-8). But there the resemblance ends. It is noticeable that
Aeneas cuts a much more splendid figure in the historian's account than in Virgil,
although the latter certainly had no desire to keep silent about the meritorious
actions traditionally ascribed to his hero. Virgil, unlike Hellanicus, does not have a
walled citadel rising up above the city like, for example, the Acropolis at Athens. In
his version, the battle is concentrated on the palace of Priam, although this should be
imagined as an extensive range of buildings, protected like a fortress by towers and
battlements. But Aeneas and his men do not succeed in reaching this fortification
and making defensive preparations before the enemy reaches it. The handful of
fighting men that he has collected has been wiped out on the way. Almost alone ,
31 with only two men, both incapable of fighting, he reaches the palace, which has now
become the centre of the most furious part of the fighting. He takes part, certainly, in
the defence of the palace, but he does not succeed in rescuing anyone or anything.
Still alone , he returns to his own house, with divine help; and, not in any orderly
military retreat with closed ranks, but in anxious flight, accompanied only by his
closest relatives, he finally escapes from the city.
The warlike, heroic virtues of Aeneas, his swift and energetic resolve, his circum-
spect, tenacious courage, are certainly displayed much more splendidly in
Hellanicus. But the stronger and more organized the resistance in that version, the
more the reader gains the impression that it was armed force that decided the issue: a
strong walled citadel is occupied by a considerable body of troops under Aeneas'
command, but they cannot hold it against enemy attack; finally, most of the Trojans
retreat unmolested by the enemy; only a minority fall during the attack. And that
was just what Virgil was so anxious to avoid: giving the impression that there had
been a serious battle with one side winning, the other losing. He wanted to present
Troy as having fallen to Sinon's false oath, not to the sword of the enemy.[46] That is
why it is emphatically brought to our attention, again and again, that Ilium's fate had
been decided even before Aeneas awakes. And it is not in the course of the battle
that the hero himself realizes this for the first time; Hector has already told him in
his dream, and when, awakened by the noise of battle, he sees from the roof of the
32 house the raging firestorm, he realizes with lightning speed that it is too late to
rescue anything. When he nevertheless snatches up his weapons, it is not with the
hope of being able to ward off destruction, but rather in the rage of despair and with
certain death before his eyes:
arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis:
sed glomerare manum bello et concurrere in arcem
cum sociis ardent animi: :furor iraque mentem
praecipitant pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis .[47]
[out of my senses, I grasped my arms: not that I had any plan for battle, but simply a
burning desire to muster a band for fighting, and rally with my comrades at some
position of defence. Frantic in my fury I had no time for decision; I only remem-
bered that death in battle is glorious]. This mood would surprise us if we, and
Aeneas too, had not already been prepared for it by the vision of Hector, which is
still affecting Aeneas, though he is not conscious of the fact. And, before he can
come to his senses, Panthus, too, runs up to him and confirms that things could not
be worse. The will of the gods ( numine divom [336]) is thus the only explanation for
Aeneas' decision to plunge into the fighting after all; but to his companions who
crowd around he cannot promise victory, only death, as the reward for the struggle
(333);[48] so too the last defenders of the stronghold of Priam see death already before
them (446f.), and although it is the desire to help them that drives Aeneas up onto
the battlements, he knows very well that all he is doing is bringing reinforcements to
men already vanquished ( vim addere victis [452]). So there is no question of resist-
ance by powerful, organized troops. It is only by chance that a few men gather round
33 their leader Aeneas, and in other passages too the poet takes pains to make us see his
hero as an isolated figure: standing as a helpless onlooker on the roof of the palace,
he has to behold the murder of Priam; then he looks round in despair and sees that he
is alone; at that moment the rage of despair seems to overwhelm him once again,
and his divine mother has to save the lives of him and of his family. Aeneas'
narrative mentions no heroic deeds; the only thing he boasts of is that he made no
attempt to avoid death (431ff.). The tradition knew of no particularly spectacular
deeds performed by Aeneas during the night-battle, and it would have been in bad
taste to have introduced any invented ones. On the other hand, the first-person form
of the narrative came as an advantage for the poet in this passage. When a narrator
says nothing to his own glory, the reader can interpret this as modesty, and fill in the
gaps out of his own imagination. For Virgil, more important than any successful
feats of arms was the act of pietas which constituted Aeneas' chief claim to fame:
his rescue of his father from the burning city. This might have been combined with
Hellanicus' account, but not very easily: it would have been difficult to explain why
the son was carrying his father on his own shoulders if they were leaving together
with baggage-carriers, soldiers and a whole crowd besides. The transformation
made by Virgil led quite naturally to the image which, more than anything else in
the entire story of Aeneas, has imprinted itself deeply in every reader's mind.
4—
Panthus and the Penates
Panthus is called arcis Phoebique sacerdos , that is, as commentators have rightly
explained, the priest of the sanctuary of Apollo on the citadel.[49] We know from a
tradition mentioned first by Servius ad loc . that Virgil was not the first to make him
the priest of Apollo. Indeed, the Iliad already assumes a close connection between
Panthus and Apollo, when the god (15.521) protects Polydamas, son of Panthus, and
the poet explains 'Apollo did not allow the son of Panthus to fall amongst the
fighters in the front rank'. It may have been this very line which generated the
legend. In Virgil, Panthus comes down from the citadel and is thus able to give
Aeneas the most reliable news; but that does not exhaust the significance of his
entrance.
34 Virgil there was no doubt that Aeneas rescued the Trojan Penates from the
vanquished city. They are the gods of the hearth of the Roman state, as they had
previously been the gods of the states of Alba and Lavinium. Every Roman doubt-
less believed that they were also the Penates of the Trojan state, not simply the
household gods of Anchises. Virgil, at any rate, does not allow us to doubt that this
is his conception of them, from the moment that he first mentions them: sacra
suosque tibi commendat Troia penates (293) [Troy entrusts to you her sanctities and
her Guardians of the Home], said Hector to Aeneas in the dream, and, also in the
dream, Aeneas saw him carry Vesta and the sacred flame from the adyta penetralia
[inner shrine] as representatives of the sacra penatesque [sanctities and Guardians
of the Home]: these penetralia[50] were the equivalent of the Roman penus Vestae
[sanctuary of Vesta]. Furthermore, whenever the Penates are mentioned later in the
poem, they are never spoken of as the family-gods of Aeneas, but only as the gods
of Troy. If Aeneas is to rescue these national Penates from Troy, he must first get
hold of them. Where were they? According to Hellanicus (Dion. Hal 1.46) the
citadel; Virgil too accepts this as a traditional datum. Now, Aeneas could have
carried these sacra [sacred objects] with him when he comes down again from the
citadel, but this solution is prevented by the same religious considerations which
later (717) make it necessary for Anchises to carry them, since Aeneas himself is
bloodstained and must not touch them. So too the worst sacrilege committed by
Diomedes and Odysseus was considered to be that they had dared to lay blood-
stained hands on the image of the goddess (167). Thus one tradition, known to us
only from the Tabula Iliaca , proved very convenient for Virgil. On this, a man
whose name can unfortunately no longer be established,[51] gives Aeneas a casket, the
sacred aedicula [small shrine], which is shown again later as they leave the city.
Virgil transfers this rôle to Panthus the priest of Apollo: sacra manu victosque deos
parvumque nepotem ipse trahit (320-1) [leading his little grandson by the hand and
carrying his sacred vessels and figures of his defeated gods]. I believe that there can
be no doubt that these sacra victique dei [sacred vessels and defeated gods] are not
intended to be the single simulacrum [image] of Apollo but the very objects which
Hector had described a few lines before as sacra suosque penates ;[52] the two lines
35 even echo each other in their form, in that sacra comes in the same position in the
line each time, and the victi dei are the same as the victi penates , as they are called at
1.68 and 8.11. Panthus rescues these sacra from the citadel and brings them down to
Aeneas, in whose pious and courageous care he knows they will be safest. The
dream is thus promptly confirmed. Panthus then follows Aeneas into the fight and
falls (429);[53] there was no need for Virgil to state explicitly that he did not take the
sacred objects and his little grandson with him, but left them in Aeneas' house.
Consequently Aeneas takes over the duties of the priest: he asks his father to carry
the sacra patriosque penates as they leave, and immediately afterwards calls them
Teucri penates (747). It would be excessively pedantic, and an insult to the intel-
ligence of his readers, if at this point the poet were to emphasize explicitly that these
are the same as the sacra Troiaeque penates and the sacra victique dei that he had
mentioned before.[54]
36
5—
Coroebus
Virgil deliberately chose not to give a general description of the night of slaughter
such as we read in Quintus and Tryphiodorus. His need to concentrate the action
forbade any such attempt. All that we learn of the Night Battle is what Aeneas and
his men experience on the way to the citadel and on the citadel itself; and this brings
the events into sharper focus than if we saw the whole panorama from a bird's eye
view. We go with Aeneas through the narrow streets of the ancient city, past the
houses that have been forced open and the shrines that have been violated, and see
the corpses of the slain strewn everywhere, lying where the enemy overtook them
unaware (363ff.), and we become witnesses of what is perhaps the Trojans' only
piece of good fortune, and then of its inevitable unfortunate outcome. It was prob-
ably Virgil himself who introduced into the story of the sack of Troy the stratagem
of exchanging armour – though doubtless there were historical precedents;[55] it is
also natural that the Trojan would be able to tell the story of an incident which does
not appear in the Greek accounts of the victory; only an excess of invention would
have been a misjudgement.
Virgil placed Coroebus in the foreground here, and to good effect. In the later
tradition he is represented as a suitor of Cassandra, succeeding Othryoneus ( Iliad
13.363) when he is killed by Idomeneus. The significance of his proverbial stu-
pidity, allegedly invented by Euphorion (Serv. on 341), cannot be established.
37 Perhaps it developed from the foolish boasting of Othryoneus (13.366) and was
transferred to him by Quintus (13.175); perhaps it was also based on the reckless-
ness with which he cast his bride's warnings to the four winds. Virgil justifies him
with a single word and calls on the listener's pity: infelix , qui non sponsae praecepta
f u r e n t i s audierit (345) [it was disastrous for him that he had not heeded the wild
warnings of his princess] – that was divine destiny. But it seems that he did not wish
to obliterate his traditional characteristics altogether: it is Coroebus who, excited by
his first lucky success, immediately feels renewed hope and attempts to stave off
inevitable destiny by means of a ruse (unobjectionable in itself).[56] The younger men
are caught up by his plan. Significantly, Aeneas here mentions only the others ( hoc
omnis iuventus laeta facit [394] [all our company followed his example in high
spirits]); he himself is not to be thought of in borrowed arms.
At first the trick has the desired success. It is a well-known dramatic device,
which Sophocles is particularly fond of using, to make an apparently successful
early achievement increase the effect of the subsequent disaster. At the same time,
this successful phase of the battle serves to strengthen the emphasis of the whole
narrative. Where before we saw only the Trojans conquering or dying, now we see
the Greeks too, fleeing in masses; no wonder Aeneas dwells on the memory (399-
40; 421). But Coroebus gives Virgil the opportunity he desired to weave the pathetic
fate of Cassandra into the action (rather than mention it in a separate episode, which,
as we have said, he generally avoids):[57] Coroebus falling in battle for the sake of his
38 bride is a very happy invention which, in my opinion, we should credit to Virgil.[58]
The young hothead forgets the caution required by his disguise and flings himself
upon her captors; his companions do not desert him; the noise of the fighting attracts
the enemy, who gather from all directions; the ruse is discovered:[59] Coroebus falls,[60]
39 and once again Cassandra has to see her own prophecy fulfilled before her very
eyes. But it is true tragic irony that it is the very attempt to avert the ruinous destiny
that leads to ruin: the Trojans, disguised as Greeks, fall at the hands of their own
compatriots.
6—
On the Citadel
During the fighting, which wipes out nearly all his followers,[61] Aeneas and two men
unfit for battle who cling to him for protection are separated from the others. They
hear the noise of the fighting raging around Priam's palace; one has to imagine it as
being not far from the temple of Athena, which also stands on the arx . Now the last
act of the drama begins: the fall of Troy culminates in the death of King Priam. This
symbolic use of the poetic architecture appears so obvious to us now that, as far as I
am aware, no interpreter has commented on this example of it in Virgil as being
anything special. But here, as so often, it is one more triumphant success for the poet
that he has made us take his innovation for granted. We know of no tradition which
represented Priam's death as the crowning event of the sack of Troy. In Polygnotus'
Sack of Troy at Delphi, Priam lies slain while Neoptolemus, striding over Elasos,
whom he has just killed, swings a deadly blow at Astynoos; Pausanias informs us
that, according to Lesches, Neoptolemus killed Priam 'in passing' (10.27.2). Thus,
even in the accounts which give only the major episodes of the sack of Troy, in
Apollodorus ( epit . 5.10) and Tryphiodorus (634), the death of Priam is certainly not
placed in the final, most emphatic position, and in Quintus, although it is shifted so
that it comes last among Neoptolemus' deeds (13.220), it is followed not only by the
death of Astyanax and other episodes but also by the fall of Deiphobus and general
descriptions of the fighting. Indeed, narrative in early epic was essentially concerned
with conveying information about events; from that point of view the death of Priam
was certainly an important occurrence in its own right, and indeed it was one of the
40 major episodes of the sack of Troy that were depicted in archaic art, but it was not
presented as being of particular significance for the fall of Ilium. The aged king was
a weaker obstacle than Elasos and Astynoos, even though they were no more than
ordinary soldiers. But for a poet arranging his material from an artistic viewpoint, it
was impossible that Priam should be killed 'in passing'. Instead, his death becomes
an image that represents the fall of Troy. It forms the chief climax of the book, and
its effect is not to be weakened by the addition of trivial or less important material.[62]
But Virgil's art is too discreet to compel us to feel this by the use of some high-
sounding phrase. The best way to achieve this effect is for the final battle to take
place around Priam's palace, and for the last opponent whom Neoptolemus en-
counters to be the king himself; and when Aeneas turns back at this point and
abandons the struggle, this is not because he reasons 'now Priam is dead, so it is all
over' (which might be artistically satisfying but would not be true); the peripeteia is
motivated, again in an apparently very simple way: Aeneas, who has seen the
ignominious death of the aged Priam, is suddenly seized with anxiety about the fate
of his own aged father.
Aeneas' position during these last scenes is quite clear. The palace is under attack
from the front. To help defend it, Aeneas needs to reach the roof by means of a rear
entrance; but from the roof it is only the immediate threat that can be fought off, the
attempt by the Greeks to storm the battlements by using a testudo [a shelter of
shields, resembling a tortoise]. When Neoptolemus succeeds in breaking down the
gate and forcing his way into the vestibulum , across it and then into the atrium , the
defenders on the roof are reduced to the condition of helpless spectators. And, of
course, from the roof they can see everything that is going on in the atrium . Virgil
imagines it as having a large central opening, perhaps more in the style of a Greek
Penates[63] to stand in its centre, nudo sub aetheris axe (512) [bare to the heavens], as
41 Virgil expressly emphasizes. The women and Priam have taken refuge by this altar.
While Neoptolemus and his men are rampaging inside the palace, the Trojans
remaining on the roof disappear one by one. Some try to escape by jumping down
from the roof onto the ground outside, others fling themselves in despair into the
flames. When Aeneas looks round, he finds he is alone.
For the reasons given above, we might have expected Priam's death to have been
described in some detail, with a formal speech and reply in accordance with the
conventions of epic. There is something painful, almost comic, if one has to vis-
ualize Aeneas witnessing all these tragic happenings as an inactive spectator on the
roof. Virgil has made use of an original device to tone down this effect. First Aeneas
states quite briefly (499-502) that he has seen with his own eyes how Neoptolemus
and the Atridae stormed through the palace, and how Priam fell at the altar; then the
thalami [bed-chambers] collapse; wherever there is no fire stands the foe.[64] And now
(506) the narrative makes a fresh start with the ultimate fate of Priam, forsitan et
Priami fuerint quae fata requiras [you may also want to know how Priam met his
end], but this is described in such a way that the narrator vanishes from our field of
vision. We have no impression that we are listening to an eye-witness. Indeed we
might be justified in doubting whether Aeneas himself could possibly have observed
the whole sequence of events, as he describes Priam putting on his armour, what
Hecuba said, etc. Thus here, too, Virgil does not adhere strictly to a first-person
narrative, but sacrifices it to the higher artistic economy of the work.[65]
42
7—
The Death of Priam
The mythographic tradition says that Neoptolemus killed Priam at the altar of Zeus
Herkeios. Quintus and Tryphiodorus appear to have had no other version in their
sources. Quintus does not let the king perish in total silence but gives him one more
speech pleading for death, which is welcome to him after all his sufferings,[66] to
which Neoptolemus replies that he was going to kill him anyway and had no
intention of sparing an enemy's life, 'since men love nothing so much as their own
lives'. Tryphiodorus gives no details; he only stresses the cruelty of Neoptolemus,
who would not allow himself to be moved either by pleas or by the white hairs of
the king, which once moved Achilles himself to pity. Here the atmosphere surround-
ing Neoptolemus is quite Virgilian: both writers base their material on the
Hellenistic poets.
In Virgil the scene is enriched with a series of subsidiary motifs: Priam arming
himself, the presence of Hecuba, the death of Polites, the feeble attack by Priam. We
know of no poetic version of the tale that corresponds to this; but can all of it be
Virgil's invention, transforming the dry bones of the traditional narrative into a
scene of dramatic movement? I think not, since more or less close analogies for
almost all the individual incidents can be found elsewhere.[67] Priam's arming and his
attempt to fight: Polygnotus painted a breastplate lying on the altar of Zeus (Paus.
43 10.26.5); Robert (Die Iliupersis des Polygnot 67) interprets this as showing that
Priam was about to put on his armour when he was surprised by Neoptolemus.
Robert also refers to a sarcophagus relief on which the aged king is dropping a
sword with which he had been fighting. The presence of Hecuba: the Tabula Iliaca
and other representations[68] show her sitting on the altar beside Priam; in Euripides
she says that she was an eye-witness of his death ( Tro . 481). Polites' death at the
hand of Neoptolemus: Quintus 13.214, admittedly not related to Priam; but the death
of the son before his father's eyes reminds us that on the earlier Attic vases the death
of Astyanax was generally associated with that of Priam, in that they show the body
of the slain child lying in the lap of his grandfather as his grandfather himself is put
to death.[69] The poetic tradition does not associate them in this way. I do not dare to
contradict Robert, who attributes the spontaneous appearance of this motif in ar-
chaic art to the desire to show as much as possible in one picture; but it would be
strange if the poets had not taken up this effective motif once it had been created.
But if, say in Hellenistic times, the son Polites was substituted for the grandson
Astyanax,[70] that can easily be explained by the overwhelming importance that the
tragic poets in particular had meanwhile conferred upon the version of Astyanax's
death with which we are familiar.
In considering all these separate components, we have not yet touched on the
most important thing: the action and the motivating mood; yet it is precisely this that
will be Virgil's own, for the whole scene bears the unmistakeable imprint of his
genius. Priam's death is not that of a passive victim of the fighting; nor does death
come to him as a welcome release; nor again does he whine like a coward or plead
for his life. He wished to die as a warrior, and although at first he yields to the
prayers of his aged wife, his old heroic blood surges up when he see the death of his
son; and he does die a warrior's death. This arouses in the listener not simply pity
but also respect and admiration, and tempers the dreadful anguish of the events with
44 a trace of sublimity. From the point of view of technique, the old man's throw of the
spear and his last angry speech are of the utmost significance. Blow follows upon
blow, as required by the dramatic mode of composition, and each blow is motivated
by the one that precedes it. If Priam had been murdered while he was just sitting
there quietly, it would have seemed an unprepared, almost accidental occurrence,
hanging in the air. Hecuba's intervention is necessary, so that she may become an
active character instead of a passive one, and also to bring Priam to the altar in spite
of the fact that he is armed. Finally, it is true that Neoptolemus is cruel and heartless,
and also that he commits a most dreadful outrage against the gods, not only by
killing a man at the altar, but because he himself drags the old man in the most
brutal manner to the altar in the first place, as if to butcher him for a sacrifice (here
Virgil goes further than any of our other accounts); however, he is not simply a
bloodthirsty butcher who kills everything that stands in his way. He is inflamed by
his aged opponent's scornful words and by his attack, and the brutal deed can thus
be seen as the result of an upsurge of an angry desire for vengeance. He still
commits a brutal act, but Virgil avoids giving the effect of an unmotivated atrocity.
The closing words with their reference to the contrast between Priam's former
greatness and his pitiful death would seem superfluous if it were not that the style
demands an epilogue of this kind, to underline as it were the significance of the
narrated events. This is not the poet's objective account, but the speech, let us say
the
45
III—
The Departure
1—
Helen and Venus
The death of Priam forms the turning-point. It puts an end to the battle for the city,
and it instigates Aeneas' flight. For the first time, Aeneas is seized by shudders of
fear. Up to this point he had been carried along by a wild fury of despair. Now the
fate of the house of Priam and his family seems to him to be an image of what will
happen, or has already happened, to his own household. He immediately looks
around – he has been oblivious to his surroundings during the final grim drama –
and finds himself alone.
This is where the Helen episode (567-88) begins. The lines survive only in
Servius. In my opinion there cannot be the slightest doubt that they are not the work
of Virgil. The facts concerning their transmission and the way that they offend
46 against Virgilian linguistic usage would alone suffice to prove this.[72] There are also
other reasons for doubting them. Two of them were pointed out as early as Servius,
to explain why Varius and Tucca deleted the lines: et turpe est viro forti contra
feminam irasci , et contrarium est Helenam in domo Priami fuisse illi rei , quae in
sexto dicitur , quia in domo inventa est Deiphobi , postquam ex summa arce vocave -
rat Graecos [it is unbecoming for a brave man to be angry with a woman, and,
besides, the presence of Helen in Priam's palace contradicts the statement in Book 6
that she was found in Deiphobus' house after she had summoned the Greeks from
high on the citadel]. Both these reasons are valid although they require modification.
It is not irasci which would dishonour Aeneas; but I am convinced that Virgil could
never have allowed his pious hero to think even for a fleeting moment of killing a
defenceless woman (it is not as if she were Camilla, exulting in battle), above all
when it is a woman who has sought protection at the altar. How could such an idea
be consistent with the deep revulsion with which he has just narrated the violation of
the sanctity of an altar? And this time it is at the altar of Vesta, that is, of the very
goddess who had been entrusted to Aeneas' protection together with the Penates.
Moreover, it is only later that Aeneas learns of Helen's treachery, from Deiphobus
in the Underworld; the events of the past few years might well give him reason to
curse Helen as the cause of the whole war, but would hardly put into his head the
insane notion of killing her. Moreover, the passage obviously contradicts the ac-
count in Book 6 on several points: a Helen who had given the fire-signal to the
Greeks, who had delivered Deiphobus defenceless into their hands, did not need to
fear their revenge. This contradiction, like so many others that occur in the Aeneid ,
might be attributed to the unfinished state of the work; but if my interpretation
above (n. 27) is correct, Virgil had this episode of Book 6 in mind when he was
composing Book 2, so that this explanation is impossible in this case. Moreover, if
Venus' words non tibi Tyndaridis facies invisa Lacaenae etc. (601) [you must not
blame the hated beauty of the Spartan Tyndarid] refer to this intention of Aeneas to
attack Helen, what justification can there be for the following phrase, culpatusve
Paris [nor is Paris to blame], for Aeneas cannot have given him a single thought
during the whole of this scene? Finally a technical argument which, as far as I am
aware, has not been advanced before. The words scilicet haec Spartam incolumis
patriasque Mycenas aspiciet etc. ['So!', thought I, 'shall she unharmed, again see
47 Sparta and Mycenae the land of her birth?'] would be the only soliloquy by Aeneas[73]
in his accounts of adventures in Books 2 and 3. It is obvious what an unnatural and
frigid effect is created by any such soliloquies in a first-person narrative, let alone
lengthy ratiocinations of the kind that occur in this example; they belong to the
world of some mannered late Greek romance. We would have to accept this as a
lapse of taste on Virgil's part if the passage were not open to objections on other
grounds, but, in my view, Virgil would have been at pains to avoid anything of this
kind, perhaps strengthened in his attitude by Homer's example. We should remem-
ber that Odysseus never once represents himself as delivering a soliloquy
throughout the entire course of his adventures.[74] It is conceivable that the ancient
commentators on the Odyssey pointed this out and showed how very different it was
from the extended soliloquies in Odyssey 5 and 6; in that case, Virgil would have
been aware of this contrast and it would have come naturally to him to adhere to the
convention.
In short, I take the spuriousness of these lines to be proven. But I am inclined to
believe that there was in fact a lacuna at the point where they were inserted. For,
even if we are prepared to accept the fact that line 589 is connected by cum for no
good reason, and that the allusion to Helen and Paris by Venus in her speech is not
directly motivated or prepared by anything that has gone before – and that would not
be totally impossible – yet when the goddess takes the hero by the right hand and
restrains him, dextra prehensum continuit (592), we certainly ought to be told what
he is being restrained from; but there is nothing at all about that in the lines of Virgil
that have survived. That Virgil should have written Venus' speech without giving
any explanation of what had led up to it, namely Aeneas' intentions, seems as
incredible to me as it did to Thilo (loc. cit.); in that case we must agree with Thilo's
conclusion, that Virgil did indeed originally write some lines, which are now
missing because he struck them out and did not put anything in their place. What
was in these lines? What decision had Aeneas taken?
In the first place, it can not have been the decision to return to his family. For in
that case Venus' admonition would have been superfluous. The argument that she
might not have known his unspoken intentions is not worth refuting. Moreover the
48 poet has made every effort to establish that it is only because of the goddess that
Aeneas is reminded that he must turn back to look for his family. Not that he is
deficient in love and piety; but we should remember the situation: Aeneas is stand-
ing alone on the roof of the palace; fire and foe all around; it seems impossible to get
through, nor does there seem to be any hope that his forsaken household could have
escaped the twofold raging death. His own escape and the safety of his household
are both expressly attributed to the miraculous intervention of the deity. Since
Aeneas cannot count on this in advance, it is understandable that he has no thoughts
of flight when the reward if he succeeds in getting through – highly improbable in
itself – would be to see the ghastly scene that he has just witnessed enacted even
more horribly in his own house. This explains one part of Venus' exhortation: she
has protected his household so far, she will lead Aeneas himself through unharmed;
he may follow her commands without fear (606ff.). It is completely in character for
Venus, who in Virgil, even in serious moments, is almost always something of a
tease, that she did not go to the heart of the matter immediately, but pretends to be
surprised that Aeneas is in a furious rage instead of worrying about his family
(which is also her family, quo n o s t r i tibi cura recessit [how can your love for us
have passed so far from your thoughts?]); it is as though she wishes to take pleasure
in his astonishment first, before she gives him her comforting assurance.
Neither the goddess' allusion to Helen nor her revelation of the hostile gods has
any direct connection with her exhortation. Both would obviously tend to dissuade
him. Some ancient editor invented the Helen episode in order to motivate the
dissuasion. He was not an uncultured man; not a poet, however, even if he did know
how to imitate Virgil's style if need be; but he was familiar with epic tradition and
poetry; it was the Menelaus and Helen episode in the Iliu Persis that gave him his
idea – Menelaus, too, is prevented by Aphrodite from wreaking vengeance; in
writing the scene he borrowed from the scene in Euripides' Orestes , in which
Pylades incites Orestes to murder Helen.[75] Thus his technique of imitation is very
49 similar to Virgil's own; the whole conception, however, is un-Virgilian, as I have
shown above. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that Aeneas should have considered
taking up the fight again in the hope of achieving a victory. Indeed, the poet has
made his despair clear from the beginning, with all the means at his disposal.
Besides, this would not explain the reference to Helen.
Aeneas has come face to face with death, and there is only one decision that he
can have considered: to go to meet death rather than remain passively waiting for it.
His choice was between the quickest way, putting an end to his own life by his own
hand,[76] and seeking death among the dense ranks of the enemy, perhaps in the hope
of first wreaking his revenge on Neoptolemus for Priam's death. Although the first
alternative would have provided splendid dramatic tension and a good motivation
for the intervention of his divine mother, yet her own words[77] seem to recommend
the latter. We can see why Virgil eventually rejected the idea. It would have de-
veloped into a repetition of what Aeneas had said at the beginning of the battle –
furor iraque mentem praecipitant pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis (316) [fran-
tic in my fury I had no time for decisions; I only remembered that death in battle is
glorious] – and would have infringed a fundamental rule of Virgil's technique, that a
climax should be approached gradually. But the second alternative would provide a
complete explanation for Venus' intervention and her speech. She offers the des-
pairing hero a means of escape by her divine assistance (note that at this stage she
50 says nothing about fleeing from the city), she gives him the opportunity to fulfil the
claims of pietas towards his family; but she does more than this, she shows him that
his furor and ira (594f., cf. 316) [frenzy and anger] are directed not against the
consequences of human action, but against a decree of the gods. That is the meaning
of the lines
non tibi Tyndaridis facies invisa Lacaenae
culpatusve Paris , divom inclementia , divom
has evertit opes sternitque a culmine Troiam .
[you must not blame the hated beauty of the Spartan Tyndarid, or even Paris. It was
the gods who showed no mercy; it is they who are casting Troy down from her
splendour and power]. Her revelation of the hostile gods serves the same purpose,
and is not intended to show, for example, that further resistance is in vain. She
mentions Helen and Paris, not Sinon and Neoptolemus, because Virgil is employing
the well-known convention, of which the tragedians were particularly fond, whereby
one refers back to the first causes of misfortune. In this case he follows the usage of
tragedy very closely[78] In Aeschylus the nuptials of Paris, 'destroyers of friends', are
cursed (Agam . 1156), and in Sophocles Paris is cursed by Ajax's men. But it is
Euripides who is particularly rich in gruesome imprecations and bitter accusations
against Helen as the original cause of the war. Trojans[79] and Greeks[80] alike hate her,
hold her responsible for all their miseries, and wish her to suffer and perish; the
mood in which we have to imagine Aeneas is matched most closely by the words of
the Trojan women ( Hec . 943) as they go into slavery, 'cursing Helen, sister of the
Dioscuri, and the shepherd of Ida, unfortunate Paris; for their wedding has driven us
to miserable exile'. And yet she had been exonerated of all responsibility by the one
who had most reason to curse her. In Homer, Priam spoke these immortal words in
reply to her self-reproaches: 'I do not recognize you as guilty; it is the gods who are
to blame. It is they who sent me the war which has caused so much weeping' ( Iliad
51 3.164). That vexed Euripides; in order to counter this pious yet sacrilegious toler-
ance, he composed the debate between Helen and Hecuba in the Troades , and when
Helen puts the blame on the gods, he makes Hecuba tear her case to pieces with the
utmost scorn. Virgil, of course, knew this scene. His own kind of piety causes him to take
sides, and Aeneas hears from the mouth of his divine mother that Priam had spoken the
truth. But if the gods desire Troy's fall, a pious man should behave with quiet resigna-
tion, not rebellion or despair. Aeneas is brought by Venus to this state of resignation.
It is probably, though in my opinion not absolutely necessarily, to be assumed
that when Venus mentions Helen and Paris it is because Aeneas had blamed them
either in words or in his thoughts. I do not know in what form Virgil gave, or
intended to give these thoughts; a brief exclamation could have been enough, which
need not have been expanded into a soliloquy; or there might have been simply a
description of the emotions which made Aeneas wish to go to his death.
2—
Vision of the Gods
The vision which Venus unveils to Aeneas has a much more powerful effect on him
than her mere words. He sees with his own eyes what is hidden from mortals, and no
mortal had yet ever seen. Sometimes one deity grants a favoured mortal the privi-
lege of seeing him or her with his own eyes. But in this vision the veil which screens
from mortal sight the whole world of the gods and their sway on earth is pulled
aside. The motif is borrowed from the Iliad (5.127) but it is developed very much
more powerfully. In the Iliad , Athena gives Diomedes supernatural powers of sight,
so that he can distinguish gods from men on the battlefield and avoid fighting with
them; however, that means that he recognizes only those gods with whom he comes
into contact himself. Virgil's inspiration, too sublime even for the poet's words to do
it justice, almost too vast for the imagination to grasp, arouses misgivings for that
very reason. We might easily believe it if the poet himself described it; but, as it is, it
is narrated by Aeneas as an eyewitness. We therefore feel entitled to clear, tangible,
concrete images. Neptune, for example, capable of uprooting the whole city from its
foundations, is represented in a way that almost goes beyond our powers of visuali-
52 zation. Jupiter, who imbues the Greeks with courage and strength and incites the
gods themselves to fight against Troy, is a figure that completely baffles any attempt
that might be made to imagine him in physical terms, and even if in this case Virgil
tactfully allows Venus not to draw Aeneas' attention to him explicitly, as she does
with the other gods, yet Jupiter must be among the numina magna deum [giant
powers of gods] that Aeneas sees.[81] Juno stands as
Scaean Gate and summons the Greeks from the ships – what, still? one asks in
amazement; for it was long ago that Androgeos had rebuked the men he took to be
his companions for coming so late from the ships; we had been under the impression
that there were no more left to come by the time that Priam's citadel fell. If it were a
matter of a panorama of the whole sack of Troy, we could understand what Juno
was doing. She does not put her hand to the task herself, for that would hardly be
seemly for the regina deum ; but, as far as she is concerned, the city she hates cannot
be overwhelmed by the enemy soon enough; so she stands at the gate and calls
furiously across the plain, and her cry spurs on the Greeks to make haste with the
destruction of the city.
The starting-point of Virgil's conception can be traced with the help of Tryphio-
dorus. He too depicts the participation of the gods (559ff.), but as part of his general
description of the night of terror. Enyo rages through the streets all night, accompa-
nied by the gigantic Eris who inflames the Argives to battle, and finally Ares arrives
to grant them victory. From the citadel terrifying shouts are heard from Athena as
she shakes her aegis. Hera's tread makes the aether rumble; the earth trembles,
shaken by Poseidon's trident; Hades leaps up in horror from his throne. All this is
simply a copy of the picture that introduces the Battle of the Gods in Homer,[82] with
only a few changes in detail to fit the new situation: Ares too is on the Greek side
now, Athena no longer stays on the shore but stands on the citadell as she does in
Virgil, and as Ares does in Homer.[83] The other divergences from Homer, which
53 Tryphiodorus and Virgil have in common, are unimportant. They both mention
Hera, both give Athena her aegis and Poseidon his trident. As we can see, there is no
reason at all to suppose that Tryphiodorus knew Virgil's description and made use
of it. In every essential he keeps closer to Homer than to the Roman poet, except that
Zeus does not appear in his account, whereas in Homer he sends peals of thunder
from on high, and Virgil shows him doing something altogether different. Every-
thing that Virgil adds in order to make the scene more vivid and to present in visible
symbols the enmity of the gods towards Troy is absent from Tryphiodorus. But
surely no one will doubt that the scene in the Iliad is the direct or indirect model for
Virgil's scene; indirect, in my view, since Tryphiodorus also made use of it, and
both of them made the same minor changes. Any famous version of the Sack of
Troy, we may assume, will have included a scene showing the hostile gods taking
part in the final struggle of the great war, on the lines of Homer's Battle of the Gods;
but now there is no god fighting on the side of the defeated. Virgil realized that this
would make a magnificent finale for his Sack of Troy, and reshaped it for his own
special purposes. First it had to be changed into narrative in the first person; conse-
quently the scene had to become visible to Aeneas.
Virgil found a means of achieving this in Venus' intervention, and was thus able
to make the thrilling scene into an integrating component of the entire action: it is
indispensable in that it convinces Aeneas through the evidence of his own eyes. But
the scene has not completely lost its original purpose, that of concentrating the
mighty struggle into one magnificent symbol. In the case of Jupiter, Virgil does
without the concrete representation of his actions required by the new context, and
he is not afraid to introduce an anachronism into his portrayal of Juno. Other
singularities can easily be explained by the particular nature of his poem. Mars, the
ancestor of the Romans, cannot appear as one of the inimica Troiae numina [powers
not friendly to Troy]. Athena does not shout – no goddess shouts in Virgil – and
consequently there is something rather insipid about the simple phrase summas
arces insedit [sits on the citadel's height]. Jupiter supplies the crowning touch: it is
only when the Almighty himself supports the enemies of Troy that all hope is lost.
3—
Venus' Protection
Venus' warnings, instructions and promises refer only to the immediate problem,
54 how Aeneas is to get from the citadel to his father's house. Perhaps this is not
obvious at first hearing, but it is if you consider it carefully; we would expect Venus
to say something about what is to be done after that: that Aeneas is to leave Troy,
together with his household, that he will be able to leave it safely, and so forth. But
the words eripe nate fugam . . . nusquam abero (619) [son, make your escape . . . . I will
be near you everywhere] are not to be taken in this sense; that is made clear by the
addition of the explicit et tutum patrio te limine sistam [and set you safe at your
father's door]. The economy of the epic (one might almost say the economy of the
drama) requires that the effect of the Venus scene should be limited to this much;
otherwise the scenes that follow could not be presented as the poet intended. Venus
could not promise her protection for the departure – for in that case the loss of
Creusa and Aeneas' anxious confusion would be impossible; nor could she recom-
mend the departure at all, since this would exclude in advance the possibility of
Anchises' refusal and everything that goes with it. But there was a version of the
story in which Aeneas and his family are guided out of Troy by Venus; it has
survived in pictorial art,[84] it is in Tryphiodorus,[85] and was also known to Quintus
(13.326ff.); indeed the detail mentioned both by him and by Virgil, that the fire
retreated before Aeneas, and the enemy's missiles were unable to injure him, allows
us to conclude that there was an established tradition about the nature of the goddess'
guidance.[86] Sophocles, who in his Laocoon shows Aeneas and his family leaving
Troy before it fell, cannot have said anything about divine guidance of this kind, but
in his version Anchises, who urged the departure, acts in accordance with warnings
from Aphrodite. Thus Virgil has made as much use of this tradition as he could
without prejudice to his intentions for the rest of Book 2. It is only when we
remember the original version that it seems remarkable that Venus should protect
the way from the citadel to Aeneas' house, and then disappear, when, as she herself
points out, the house was surrounded by swarms of enemy troops.
55
4—
Anchises and the Auspicium Maximum
The scenes in Anchises' house before the departure are significant in several re-
spects. The piety of the hero towards his father, the main feature of Aeneas in
popular tradition, first comes to the forefront here. It is not enough that Aeneas
should carry his father out of the burning city on his own shoulders: he is also faced
with his father's refusal to allow himself to be rescued, and is prepared to lose his
wife and child and his own life together with his father rather than abandon him to
face the merciless enemy on his own. Anchises himself, Creusa and Iulus are
introduced; this was particularly necessary in Creusa's case, since the listener has to
know something about her if he is to feel any interest in the story of her miraculous
disappearance. The artistic effect of Anchises' refusal is to hold up the action and
create tension; immediately before Aeneas and his family succeed in escaping, there
is serious doubt that they will ever manage to get away.
To all this Virgil added something new and absolutely essential. The departure
from Troy, the beginning of their new life and their new foundation, had to proceed
auspicato [after the auspices had been taken]. The usual view was that the whole
system of augury on which the Roman state religion rested was based on the
auspices of Romulus, the omen of the birds described by Ennius, which gave him
the precedence over Remus; or on the prototype of all magistrates' auspices, the
signs from heaven, which Romulus prayed for to confirm his right to the monarchy.
However, another tradition went back even further and claimed that the auspicium
maximum [greatest omen], lightning from the left out of a clear sky, first appeared in
favour of Ascanius in his battle with Mezentius (Dion. Hal. 2.5.5); others mentioned
not Ascanius but Aeneas himself in this context (Plutarch Qu . R . 78). Later on in the
poem, Virgil mentions both traditions,[87] without giving any impression that the
auspicium was something as yet unknown, or that belief in auspices began on these
occasions. In his view, the decisive moment, which above all demanded an authori-
tative indication of the approval of the gods, is the turning-point which led to the
foundation of the new Troy, and he introduces a sign here that corresponds to the
auspicium maximum , but differs as much from all the later ones as an original does
56 from its copies.[88] Instead of a flash of lightning, a star crosses the night sky, leaving
a long, shining trail, but it comes with all the phenomena that accompany lightning,
thunder on the left out of a clear sky, and sulphurous smoke. However, all the
attendant circumstances correspond so closely with the rites of augury and yet arise
so entirely from the situation that we may be justified in calling it an aition [tradi-
tional explanation]: for this is the nature of such aitia , that a practice, which is
constantly repeated in later times, is explained in all its details by the particular
circumstances of a unique situation. The gods send a sign: a flame plays around
Iulus' head.[89] Aeneas and Creusa are terrified and hastily attempt to smother the
flame. Only Anchises suspects that the sign may be a good omen. But it is perfectly
understandable in this situation that he should ask the gods for an unambiguous
confirmation; after all, until now he had believed that the destruction of Troy was a
divine sign that meant that he should remain behind. He turns to Jupiter, for he was
the god whose lightning, he thought, had indicated that he no longer had any right to
live (648); we know that the Romans believed that all auspices were sent by Jupiter.
However, to ask for an unambiguous sign is technically impetrare auspicia ; the
auspicium impetrativum [auspice in response to a request] serves to confirm the
auspicium oblativum [an unsolicited auspice] or the omen , as Anchises says: da
deinde augurium , pater , atque haec omina firma [give us now your message and
confirm this sign], apparently using a solemn formula, since it tallies exactly with
what Cicero says in the, De Divinatione of the confirmation of the auspicium oblati -
vum by the impetrativum , the lightning from the left: sic aquilae clarum firmavit
Iuppiter omen [so Jupiter confirmed the clear omen of the eagle].[90] Moreover, it
arises naturally from the situation that it is Anchises who prays and receives the sign
57 at this point: just as here it is the head of the house, so later it is always the head of
the state, that is, the magistrate, who takes the auspices. Furthermore, details of the
rite are prefigured here. It is night time and already near dawn; that is the time
ordained for taking auspices.[91] Anchises, because he is lame, is seated; likewise the
magistrate who watches the skies.[92] He rises after the appearance of the sign (699),
because he now wishes to set out without delay; the magistrate had to do the same
immediately after he had seen the sign, before another sign could cancel out the
first: on se tollit ad auras [he rose] Servius explicitly says verbum augurum , qui
visis auspiciis surgebant e templo [a word applied to augurs, who rose from the
temple when they had seen the auspices]. Virgil, in my opinion, does not draw the
parallel explicitly, as he does in similar cases elsewhere, since he could not put such
an explanation in Aeneas' mouth here, but he could expect his reader to recognize
the course of events as the original model for the whole rite of taking the auspices.
I need only add a brief word concerning the dramatic composition of the scene.
Aeneas hardly behaves like a dramatic hero, in that he takes no initiative of his own,
but acts merely as the central figure of the whole; action and counter-action come
from Anchises and Creusa; their behaviour creates a knot which can only be untied
by divine intervention, a veritable deus ex machina . It is Aeneas' men who take the
part of the chorus in this scene; their presence is indicated briefly but very effec-
tively by the words arma , viri , ferte arma (668) [quick comrades! Bring me arms].
We are like spectators: not only do we hear speeches, we also see action and
movement: Anchises' words (651) are followed by the entreaties of the weeping
household; Aeneas arms himself to go to his death, after announcing his decision; on
the threshold of the house we see the pathetic group of parents and son, as Creusa
beseeches her husband to stay. In a word,
hearer's
5—
Creusa
In the ancient tradition, Aeneas is accompanied on his flight by his wife Eurydice.[93]
58 In Virgil, Aeneas loses his wife Creusa[94] during the departure, while they are still
within the city, and learns later from her shade that it was Jupiter's will that she
should not accompany him to distant lands, nor did she have to suffer enslavement
by the enemy either, for the mother of the gods was keeping her there in her native
country (788). The representation on the Tabula Iliaca , taken together with a tradi-
tion recorded by Pausanias, makes it reasonably certain that Virgil's version of the
story had existed in its essential outlines before him.[95] Why he chose it is obvious:
otherwise Creusa would have had to die during the journey, and that would have
produced a doublet of the death of Anchises. As it is, it gives him the opportunity to
create an effective final scene for his Sack of Troy.
Virgil, apparently intentionally, has left us somewhat in the dark about the pre-
cise details of Creusa's disappearance. Aeneas only learns that the Great Mother his
detinet oris (788) [is keeping (her) in this land]; this allows us to deduce that she is
not dead (although the expressions simulacrum , umbra and imago are in fact appro-
priate to and commonly used only of the appearance of the departed, whose real self
59 has perished) but has been removed to a higher and immortal existence – for which
again nota maior imago (773) [in her ghostly form larger than life] is suitable[96] –
which means, no doubt, that she has become one of the attendants of the Mother of
the Gods:[97] Creusa's fate is the fate that Diana intended for Camilla, when she
wanted to take her up to become one of her attendants.[98] Aeneas can infer this, and
so can we; Creusa herself does not mention it, as though she were afraid to reveal a
mystery connected with the worship of Cybele; and certainly from the artistic point
of view there is no need, nor indeed would it be desirable, for the veil of secrecy to
be drawn back completely from miracles of this kind.
But there is one fact that the poet wishes to make clear beyond all doubt: that it
had already been determined in advance, either by fate or by the decision of Jupiter,
that Creusa was not to accompany her husband on his wanderings: non haec sine
numine divom eveniunt , nec te comitem hinc portare Creusam fas aut ille sinit
superi regnator Olympi (777-9) ['what has happened is part of the divine plan. For
the law of right and the supreme ruler of Olympus on high forbid you to carry
Creusa away from Troy']. These are the words of the shade of Creusa; she repeats
60 the idea emphatically so as to allay Aeneas' 'senseless grief'.[99] This grief, she says,
should give way to quiet resignation, exactly the same kind of resignation that
Venus had demanded when she revealed the destruction of Troy as the work of the
gods. At the same time this exonerates Aeneas from any charge of guilt that he
himself or anyone else might bring against him; even if it was his senseless flight
that had resulted in the loss of Creusa, he had only been a tool in the hands of the
gods. He is comforted by the thought that Creusa does not have to suffer as a captive
of the Greeks, but remains in her native land, though removed to a higher existence;
this is of secondary importance but it makes it easier for him to submit to the gods'
will. But now a problem arises. In the previous scenes Virgil has done his utmost to
motivate the loss of Creusa as naturally as possible: she has to be following her
husband (with, it seems to us, an excess of caution) alone and at some distance;
Aeneas, alarmed by his father's warning cry (733), has to turn off the road in his
anxiety to escape the approaching enemy; later, and even when he is telling the story
to Dido, he does not know whether Creusa went the wrong way, or had stopped
(because she had lost sight of her husband and did not know which way to go) or
was so exhausted that she had sat down because she could go no further – whichever
of these she had done, she might easily have fallen into the hands of the enemy. We
ask ourselves why the poet has motivated her disappearance in such a circumstantial
way, when the Magna Mater could have simply taken Creusa to herself.
It might be thought that a satisfactory answer is that Virgil was simply following
the tradition according to which Creusa was in danger of being taken captive, and
was rescued by the Great Mother; there had to be some motivation for that danger. It
is true that Virgil has introduced a new motif, that the separation of Creusa from
Aeneas had been decreed by the gods from the start, and consequently he could have
shaped the narrative in such a way that there was no mention of any danger or of the
events connected with it. But imagine what the scene would have been like in that
61 case. Creusa would have been walking in front of Aeneas (as she is often repre-
sented as doing in the visual arts) and would have suddenly disappeared
warrior who is taken away by the hand of a god out of the reach of an enemy spear.
Aeneas, with Anchises on his shoulders, would have stood there dumbfounded and
amazed; a voice from heaven would have explained what had happened, and the
group fleeing from the city would have continued on their way. The whole scene
would have been incomparably duller and poorer in content, not only because
Aeneas would have had no opportunity to show his love for his wife: the meeting
with the shade of Creusa would have been impossible; the position of Aeneas during
her disappearance would have bordered on the ridiculous; the scene would have had
no tension or dramatic movement. Thus it is easy to understand why Virgil adhered
to the traditional version in spite of the fact that he was providing a new reason for
what happened. It is true that Creusa's separation from Aeneas is now determined
by fate, and Aeneas' frantic flight is caused by the gods so as to bring it about; but
the poet has conceived it in such a way that the Great Mother alleviates the harsh-
ness of fate by taking Creusa to herself, out of the hands of her enemies – the danger
is the opportunity for her helpful intervention, exactly as later in Book 9 (77ff.) the
danger with which the Trojan ships are threatened gives her the opportunity to make
use of Jupiter's permission to give them an immortal form. In order to carry out the
new plan, the most important thing was that Creusa should be isolated so that
Aeneas would notice only later that she was missing. Virgil took considerable pains
over the motivation; the only thing which seems improbable is the excess of caution
which we mentioned earlier. Furthermore, Virgil prepares the way for Aeneas'
confusion by the description of how the hero, who a moment before was not afraid
of the thick swarms of the Greek troops, is now startled by every breeze, every
sound, full of anxiety about his son and his father (726-9): in this state, what an
effect his father's cry of alarm must have had on him: nate . . . fuge , nate ; propinquant
(733) [Son, you must run for it. They are drawing near]. The outward situation is
perfectly clear: Anchises believes that he can see enemy troops advancing along the
street towards them: Aeneas cannot go back; therefore he has to turn aside into a
pathless, unfamiliar area. Since Creusa had been behind him, he is not immediately
aware of her disappearance in the confusion of his flight; he does not know why she
is not following him, but there are many possibilities: he lists them: substitit –
erravitne via – resedit (739) [did she stop . . . or stray from the path . . . or just sink
62 down in weariness?]. Finally, it makes perfectly good sense that Aeneas should tell
the earlier part of the story as if he still knew nothing about the revelation that he
received later; that is necessary from an artistic point of view, so that the scenes that
follow will not be deprived of their effect, and it is justified in practice by the
vividness with which the narrator relives the terror of the discovery and his own
despair.
Creusa not only allays Aeneas' worries about what has happened; at the same
time she also predicts the future to him and allows us to understand why Jupiter does
not permit her to follow her husband: after a long journey to the land of Hesperia, he
will find by the bank of the Tiber a new happiness, a new kingdom and a king's
daughter for a wife. This prophecy is extremely suitable as a conclusion for Virgil's
account of the sack of Troy: the reader learns in broad outlines the final result of the
events which have passed before his eyes. There is something very similar in the
poem about Oenone which Quintus introduced into his 10th Book, when Hera tells
her handmaidens all the effects that the death of Paris will entail for Troy (344ff.). A
conclusion of this kind was an artistic necessity as long as Virgil was composing his
Sack of Troy as a separate poem, intended to stand alone. As soon as this separate
poem was incorporated into the larger context of the epic, there was no longer a
need for any prophecy at this point, or at least no more than the prospect of a regia
coniunx [royal bride] awaiting Aeneas in a distant land. Indeed, when Virgil later
decided that Aeneas was to learn only gradually and step by step the destination of
his travels, the precise references that Creusa had made to Hesperia and the Tiber
created a contradiction and ought to have been deleted. This would not have affected
the essential message of Creusa's speech.
6—
Conclusion
Aeneas must not leave Troy as a solitary refugee, accompanied only by his father
and son and a handful of servants. Creusa had prophesied a new kingdom for him,
and for this reason he must be represented from the outset as leader of a host,
capable of forming the nucleus of a new nation. In Hellanicus that was provided for
by the course of events (see above pp. 18ff.). It is difficult to reconcile it with
Virgil's new version. Aeneas' return to the city, together with the description of
what he sees there, forms a very effective conclusion to the Sack of Troy,[100] and it is
63 this that Virgil uses to conceal the resulting improbability: when Aeneas returns, he
finds that a large crowd has gathered, ready to follow him wherever he goes. This
gives him the rôle of the leader of a colony – he himself was not able to explain why
this crowd has gathered ( invenio admirans [797] [I was surprised to find them]), but
this is not the time for detailed explanations. A rapid ending is necessary not only
from the artistic point of view; it is also required by the course of events. The
morning star has risen over Ida, and there is no time to lose. One more glance back
at his native city: the gates are in the hands of the enemy, no help can be expected
from any direction;[101] then start they must on their way into exile: cessi et sublato
montis genitore petivi (804) [in resignation I lifted my father and moved towards the
mountains].
Excursus:
Virgil, Quintus and Tryphiodorus
In the discussion above I have treated the versions of Quintus and Tryphiodorus as
independent representatives of a tradition concerning the fall of Troy quite distinct
from Virgil's. This conflicts with the widespread belief that they were both depend-
64 ent on Virgil.[102] It is therefore necessary for me to justify my approach here. I admit
in advance that there is nothing that can be said a priori against the assumption that
the two Greek writers were familiar with the Roman epic, since we know nothing at
all about them except that they lived at a time when a knowledge of Latin among
educated Greek writers is a reasonable assumption. The verdict must depend on the
comparison of parallel passages, and this is the method that I propose to follow.
I—
Quintus
In Quintus the relevant passages in the Sack of Troy, if we disregard unimportant
details, are the account of the wooden horse, Sinon and Laocoon, and the departure
of Aeneas; also in Book 14 the description of the tempest and the scene with Aeolus
that introduces it. I begin with the Sack of Troy.
1—
The wooden horse
In Virgil, all that Aeneas knows about the wooden horse is that it was built divina
Palladis arte (18) [with the divine craftsmanship of Minerva] by Epeos (264); Sinon
says that it was built at the behest of Calchas (176f.), who had interpreted the omens
sent by Minerva. In Quintus we find in great detail the version derived from the
Odyssey (8.492ff.), which was also known to Virgil:
made] the horse
the deception is Odysseus (25ff., 74ff.); this, it is true, is not explicitly stated by
Homer (he says only
with men] but it was interpreted in this way in the mythographic tradition also:
65 Apollod. epit . Vat . 5.14:
it to Epeios]. At the same time Quintus has also given Calchas a rôle which is
significant at least for the outward action: he gathers together the princes for the
decisive assembly, advises them on the basis of a bird-omen to abandon the siege
and to devise a trick, and finally announces that there are favourable omens which
show approval of Odysseus' suggestion; when Neoptolemus and Philoctetes oppose
the deception and want to fight on, Zeus' thunderbolt frightens them and confirms
Calchas' words. There is no reason to believe that Calchas owes his rôle in Quintus
to his prominence in Sinon's lying tale in Virgil, since Quintus frequently introduces
him as a character elsewhere: in accordance with the tradition (Apollod. epit . Vat .
5.8) it is Calchas who announces that Philoctetes is indispensable (9.325); earlier he
had prophesied the capture of Troy in the tenth year of the war (6.61); it is also he
who urges that Neoptolemus should be fetched (6.64), so that Helenus loses his
traditional rôle; and it is he who, in a passage which is certainly free invention on
the part of Quintus, makes sure that Aeneas departs unharmed (13.333) and gives
the order that Hecuba should be carried across the Hellespont after her metamor-
phosis (14.352).
2—
Sinon
In the Sinon scene, the following is all that our two epics have in common: 'When
the Greeks have sailed away, leaving Sinon behind, the Trojans rejoice and hasten to
the shore.[103] They gaze in amazement at the huge horse. Sinon, who is not known to
the Trojans, tells them in reply to their question that Odysseus had planned to
sacrifice him to ensure the army's safe voyage home, but that he had escaped. The
Greeks had been ordered by Calchas to dedicate the horse to Athena, to appease her
anger.' In every other respect the treatment is as different as it could be. In Virgil,
Sinon's story is that he has run away and hidden in the reeds. In Quintus (less
happily) he says that he placed himself under the protection of the sacred votive
offering. In Virgil, the unsuspecting Trojans are easily deceived by Sinon's lies, in
Quintus they torture the Greek like a slave to extract the truth from him. In Virgil,
all the emphasis is laid on Sinon's perjurious slyness, in Quintus on the steadfastness
66 with which he sticks to his version despite all the tortures.[104] Virgil also gives us the
whole of the story that Sinon makes up about what had happened previously,
Priam's part in the events,[105] the assertion that the fate of Troy depends on the horse
and where it is to go, and that the Greeks will be returning soon; Quintus has
nothing of all this. Despite that, could he have had Virgil's narrative before his eyes
and deliberately changed it in this way, above all by abbreviating it? It is perhaps
possible that Virgil, who narrated the events from the Trojan point of view, had
directed all the light onto them and left the Greeks too much in the shadows for his
taste, and that he was hoping to redress the balance by changing the sly deceiver
Sinon into the hero, and representing the unsuspecting, pious Trojans as cruel and
suspicious (although he does not take this line in, for example, the Laocoon story
which follows, or indeed anywhere at all in his poem); but this would still leave
unexplained his concision and brevity by comparison with the leisurely exposition
in his model. Would he not have made full use of the rich material which lay before
him, as is his custom in other parts of his poem? Above all, would he have passed
over such an important motif as the significance of the horse for the destiny of Troy,
thus deliberately dispensing with an admirable way of explaining why the Trojans
actually pulled the horse into the city? He leaves this important point almost totally
67 obscure.[106] I believe that this is a particularly clear indication that Quintus knows no
more than he tells us, in other words that those features which are common to
Quintus and Virgil were ultimately derived from a common source; there is nothing
among them that could not have been found in a prose epitome.[107]
The same applies to the last part of the story of the horse: a rope is flung around
it, it is pulled into the city to the sound of singing or of the playing of flutes, part of
the wall had to be torn down – none of these are things which Quintus need in fact
have taken from Virgil.[108] On the other hand, Quintus says that Epeios had laid
'smoothly rolling logs' under the feet of the horse beforehand (425). Virgil, more
thoughtful than Tryphiodorus (100), showed better judgement in omitting this detail
from his version of Sinon's tale. What would be the point of the wheels if the
builders intended the horse to stay where it was? So in Virgil the Trojans fetch the
rollers later (235).
3—
Laocoon
And now Laocoon. Quintus tells us the following about him: when Sinon had told
his lying tale, some believed him, others agreed with the advice given by Laocoon,
who saw through the deception and suggested setting the horse on fire to see if there
was anything hidden inside. And they would have followed his advice and escaped
destruction if Athena had not been angry and made the earth shake under Laocoon;
and dreadful pain and disease attacked his eyes; when he still persisted in giving the
same advice, she blinded him. That was decisive: the Trojans pulled the horse into
68 the city. Laocoon persevered with his warning, but the Trojans took no notice of
him, for fear of the gods' rebuke (says Quintus). Then Athena devised harm for the
sons of Laocoon: she made two serpents come over the sea from Calydna; they
devoured the two boys and disappeared beneath the earth; people still point out the
place in the sanctuary of Apollo. The Trojans erected a cenotaph to the dead boys, at
which the unhappy parents mourned.
How does this version stand in relation to the tradition? After the detailed ana-
lyses of the transmission of the story that have been made by Robert and Bethe,
there is no need to go through the facts of the case at any great length. It seems clear
to me that Quintus combined two versions of the tale. According to one version,
Apollo sent the serpents; they came from the island of Calydna and killed the two
sons of Laocoon in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus. That was either as a punish-
ment for an offence that the priest of Apollo had committed previously, or as a
presage of the destruction that threatened Troy. According to the other version,
which we find elsewhere only in Virgil, Laocoon had uttered a warning about the
wooden horse; then two serpents come from Tenedos and kill Laocoon together with
his sons on the sea-shore; the Trojans regard this as a divine punishment and
proceed to pull the horse into the city. From the first version, Quintus has taken the
island of Calydna, the location of the events inside the city, and the temple of Apollo
Thymbraeus (which, however, is mentioned only as the place where the snakes
disappear) the death of the sons only, and not of the father, and the time when the
incident occurs, after the horse has been brought in. On the other hand, he agrees
with Virgil on two points, that Laocoon warns the Trojans not to bring it in while
they are still on the shore, and that the serpents are sent by Athena as a punishment
for his warning. In order to combine the two versions he is obliged, first, to make
Laocoon give his warning twice, and secondly, so that his punishment may lead to
the decision about the horse, to invent a second punishment, which happens straight
away, while they are still outside the city, the blinding, which he, like, for example,
the seer Phineus, suffers because of his untimely prophecy. As usual, the author has
to pay for combining the two versions: the death of Laocoon's sons has no conse-
quences whatever and appears as pointless cruelty on the part of Athena, and why
the serpents have to make for the sanctuary of Apollo is left totally unexplained.
Quintus, then, knew the Virgilian version of the story; but did he know it from
Virgil? There are no important details on which they agree: no one will regard it as
69 significant that they both have the sea roaring, the serpents flicking their fangs and
the Trojans running away in terror. On the other hand there is a large number of
characteristic differences which show that Quintus is independent of Virgil. In
Virgil Laocoon thrusts his spear into the side of the horse; in Quintus he contents
himself with mere words, although one would think that an imitator must have
realized how much more serious Laocoon's 'impiety' would seem if he actually
struck the horse. In Virgil the serpents pursue their course with terrifying determina-
tion, so that it is clear to everyone that they are obeying instructions from the gods;
in Quintus everyone runs away, and only Laocoon and his sons stay behind –
bound], says the poet, which shows that he was looking for a motive although a
much better one was available to him in Virgil. The most important difference,
however, is that in Virgil Laocoon's warning comes before Sinon appears, and his
death occurs later so as to confirm Sinon's false story, for which the Trojans have
already fallen (this order of events is not without its problems, but I have attempted
to explain it above as the result of Virgil's particular standpoint). In Quintus
Laocoon's punishment follows on the heels of his warning and serves to tip the
scales, as after Sinon's story the Trojans were still not sure what to do, and Laocoon,
who here enters the action for the first time, would otherwise have gained the upper
hand in the argument. It is obvious, in my opinion, that Quintus has preserved the
original version.
And do we really have no trace of the 'Virgilian' version anywhere else, other
than in Virgil and Quintus, the version, that is, where the essential point is the
connection of the miraculous serpents with Laocoon's warning? Indeed, Robert
must have believed that it was only in Virgil's version that Laocoon had anything to
do with the horse, and that was indeed so remarkable that we can understand how he
arrived at his conclusions. But since then we have learnt from the epitome of
Apollodorus (5.17) that Laocoon's warning about the horse does not appear only in
Virgil. What might be the purpose of inventing this episode, which is a doublet of
the old tradition whereby it was Cassandra who gave the warning?[109] I have already
70 pointed out that Apollodorus mentions the warning: nevertheless the Trojans decide
not to destroy the horse, which they have already pulled into the citadel, and they
turn their attention to sacrificing and feasting. 'But Apollo sends them a sign: two
serpents . . . devour the sons of Laocoon'. Is it possible to combine both versions?
Bethe has attempted to do so: 'During the sacrifice (or in Apollodorus rather during
the
warning, after the voices of his prophets have fallen on deaf ears, by sending a sign
from heaven'.[110] I consider that impossible. On what grounds? Is the prophet who
gave the warning on Apollo's behalf now himself to serve as a terrible warning, by
the loss of his sons and the extremely horrible nature of their death? Surely every
ancient spectator would more probably have taken it as a condemnation of the
warning. I am convinced that when the death of Laocoon's sons is reported after the
warning, the post hoc must also be apropter hoc .[111] Why is it not in Apollodorus?[112]
Because of the nature of our epitome, we are unable to come to a firm conclusion;
but we should note how Laocoon is first introduced:
there is an armed contingent inside, some thought they should burn it]. In my
opinion that is patched together very badly. Apollodorus, who is recounting
Laocoon's death as a
71 have taken from another source, which represented it as a punishment for the
warning, only the warning itself; or he may have simply combined the two versions
from his mythographic sources; that would be characteristic of his method.[113] If that
is so, we can reconstruct Quintus' mythographic source as follows: 'Laocoon's sons
were killed, according to some authors, because he offended against Apollo; accord-
ing to others it was a sign presaging the fall of Troy; others again say that he advised
against taking in the wooden horse and that he, together with his sons, was therefore
killed by serpents sent by Athena. Frightened by this, the Trojans trusted Sinon and
pulled the horse into the city'.
4—
Aeneas' Departure
Aeneas' departure is narrated by Quintus (13.300ff.) as follows: Aeneas had fought
bravely and killed many Greeks; now as he saw the city in flames, people and
possessions being destroyed, wives and children being carried into slavery, he des-
paired at the fate of his ancestral city and thought of escaping, just as the steersman,
when the ship is lost, climbs into the little lifeboat. Carrying his feeble old father,
and leading his little son by the hand, he made his way over the corpses: Cypris
guided him, protecting the husband, son and grandchild from harm (328):
[as he hurried along, the fire gave way under his feet everywhere: the blasts of
strong Hephaestus parted around him, and the swords and javelins which the
Achaeans hurled at him in the tearful war all fell harmlessly to the ground]. Then
Calchas held his men back and ordered them to refrain from attacking them (338),
for it was divinely decreed that by the Tiber this man should:
[found a holy city, a marvel to men of the future, and rule over far-scattered peoples:
from him a race to come would rule as far as the rising and the setting sun. Indeed he
is entitled to dwell with the immortals since he is the son of fair-tressed Aphrodite.]
His life should be spared in any case because he had chosen to carry with him not
gold and possessions, but his father and his son, which showed him to be an
72 admirable son and father. The Greeks obeyed, and marvelled at him as at a god, but
he went on, wherever his hastening feet should carry him.
It is clear that Quintus has combined two versions of the story with some degree
of skill: according to one, Aphrodite rescued her own from the burning city; accord-
ing to the other the Greeks were so impressed by Aeneas' piety that they allowed
him and his family to depart unharmed. The first version is also the one used by
Virgil, but he remodelled it to suit his purposes: Venus does not escort her son out of
the city, but only from the citadel to his house.[114] Thus here, too, Quintus gives us
the original version, not Virgil's remodelling. In the light of this, it proves nothing
that the lines quoted above (328ff.) have an admittedly striking resemblance to the
following lines in Virgil (632-3):
ducente deo flammam inter et hostis
expedior , dant tela locum flammaeque recedunt .
[with the goddess guiding me I won my way between the flames and the foes. The
weapons let me through; the fires drew back from me.] This is an obvious way to
make vivid the idea that they both had to express: 'to go in safety through the
burning city and the enemy hosts'. In the second passage, Quintus has remembered
Odyssey 22.255:
[they all threw their lances with all their might as he instructed: but Athena rendered
them all fruitless].[115] But it has also been suggested that Calchas' prophecy must be
derived from the Aeneid . There is in fact no doubt that it is based on Poseidon's
famous prophecy at Iliad 20.307:
[but now the mighty Aeneas will rule over the Trojans and his children's children
who will come after him]. This was amplified by Quintus to suit his context; he
knew the story of the foundation of Rome and he knew of the apotheosis of Aeneas.
He does not need to have had any further information; indeed one may say with
certainty that he did not have the Aeneid before him as he wrote; of course he has
Aeneas as the founder of Rome (for how can
73 we might perhaps take this to be a vague utterance in the style appropriate to
prophecy, if we did not know that this tradition did in fact exist, and indeed persisted
alongside the official Roman version until quite a late period.[116] Moreover, Quintus
knows nothing about Anchises having been lamed by Zeus' lightning; he has to be
carried
ing old age]. Finally, the fact that Quintus (together with other accounts, see n. 95)
mentions neither the rescue of the Trojan sacra and Penates nor Aeneas' wife
cannot, in my opinion, be interpreted as a deliberate deviation from Virgil.
5—
The Night Battle
The comparison of these individual episodes needs to be complemented by an
overall comparison of the two accounts. If Quintus had indeed read Virgil's work, it
left no impression on him. Unlike Virgil, he makes no attempt to bring any kind of
unity to his depiction of the sack of Troy. All we find in Quintus is an attempt at a
kind of grouping: general descriptions of battles and destruction (13.78-167 and
430-95) frame the individual episodes: the actual fighting is represented in these
episodes by the deeds of Diomedes (168-210) and Neoptolemus (213-50), between
which the Greek heroes are dealt with in a mere two lines; then comes an uncon-
nected series of the five best-known scenes in the sack of Troy (251-429). The
relatively broadly-drawn general descriptions and the rather feeble speeches that are
inserted indicate that here too the poet is short of material. In that case would he
have ignored the Androgeos scene, apparently invented by Virgil (370-401), and the
fight for the citadel? Would he have discarded the link between the death of Coro-
ebus and the rape of Cassandra, and the combination of the deaths of Polites and
Priam into one effective episode?[117] That would have been a remarkable example of
restraint on the part of a compiler who in other parts of the poem uses whatever
comes his way!
6—
Aeneas and the Storm at Sea
74 Virgil (1.50ff.), Juno, wishing to destroy the Trojan fleet with a storm, goes to
Aeolia, the home of the winds. Because they would otherwise carry away the land
and sea with them in their violence, Jupiter has shut them away in dark caves, piled
a huge mountain on top of them and given them Aeolus as their king, who sits there
enthroned on a high citadel and rules over the raging winds. At Juno's request he
thrusts his spear[118] into the mountain, and immediately all the winds come storming
out and hurl themselves upon the sea and the land.
In Quintus (14.466ff.), Athena, wishing to punish the Greeks with a destructive
storm, sends Iris to Aeolus, in Aeolia, where are the caves of the raging winds,
enclosed all around with rugged cliffs, and close by, the home of Aeolus. There she
meets him and his wife and his twelve children; at her request he goes outside, rips
open the high mountain with a blow from his trident; the winds storm out, and
hardly waiting to hear his instructions, they chase over the sea to the cliffs of
Caphereus.
It is undeniable that there is a connection between these two accounts; so either
Quintus drew on Virgil, or both go back to a common source. The latter possibility,
in my view, can be raised to the status of a certainty.
The version which we find in Quintus is obviously derived from Homeric ideas
and is still very close to Homer in many ways. According to Odysseus' account
(10.1ff.), there lives on Aeolia, an island surrounded by a wall of bronze, rising up
like a smooth cliff, Aeolus, a friend of the immortal gods, with his wife and their
twelve children; Zeus has put him in charge of the winds, to lull them or to restrain
them, whichever he wishes. This is precisely the picture of Aeolus and his powers
which Quintus has in mind – but there is one new element in his version. The story
in the Odyssey does not concern itself with the way in which Aeolus controls the
winds. Perhaps they are held in by the bronze wall, or perhaps the leather bag which
Odysseus is given is their usual container. Even in antiquity, literary critics found
75 this leather bag too vulgar,[119] and possibly also too difficult to visualize. But other
sources said that the winds lived in caves,[120] so it was an obvious move to transfer
these caves to Aeolia, and since they have to be enclosed, to locate them in the
depths of a mountain. To let the winds out all at once, Aeolus has to rip open the
mountain, and to do this he is given a trident like Poseidon the earthshaker.[121] This
sets the scene; the action, the despatch of Iris to the winds, comes from Book 23 of
the Iliad (198).
In Virgil, the representations of the winds and of Aeolus are developed still
further, in a very individual way. For artistic reasons, which will be discussed later,
he is intent on arousing the listener's interest in the winds from the beginning; he
therefore takes longer to describe them when they are introduced. Moreover, since
the storm is to be depicted as one of supernatural violence, he wants to tell the
listener beforehand just what it means to unleash the winds. Finally, since for the
scene with Neptune he requires the winds to appear as persons , he needs to give an
impression of them as powerful individuals from the beginning. He portrays them as
prisoners, who have to be kept in a gaol, fettered, so that they will not destroy the
whole world; who storm against their prison in violent rage, and who, as soon as a
fissure is opened up, without needing any command, fling themselves with dreadful
violence upon land and sea. Corresponding with this transformation of the material
onto the grand scale, and this new personification of the winds, is the change in the
rôle of Aeolus. He is no longer simply the 'friend of the immortals', put in charge of
the winds, but a ruler and the governor of a prison, raised to this responsible position
by Jupiter, who, as Guardian of the Universe, has to keep the powers of nature
within bounds. As a king, Aeolus does not live in a mere 'house" as he does in
Homer and Quintus, but sits on a lofty citadel and wields the sceptre as a sign of his
76 rank. There is no more talk of his cosy family life; instead he is presented as a
bachelor, as is shown by the fact that Juno offers him a pretty wife, liberum pro -
creandorum causa [for the procreation of children]. His weapon is not the trident of
a god in a folk-tale, but the lance of a hero.
If Quintus had derived his description from this description in Virgil, he would
have been displaying a very delicate poetic tact in restoring the naïve Homeric traits
without yielding even once to the temptation offered by the nature of his source to
build up the scene in a heroic, grandiose and elevated manner. Those who know him
will hardly think him capable of such an achievement; those who know Virgil will
realize how characteristic of his art is the process of transformation that we have
been able to identify here.[122]
A comparison of the descriptions of the sea-storm, which follow the Aeolus
scene in Quintus and Virgil, confirms our conclusion and brings us one step nearer
to their common source. The relationship of the two authors to Homer is reversed in
this instance. Virgil's intention is not to give a depiction but a narrative of events,
and therefore he gives only a brief general description of the storm and the distress
of the ships – just as he had previously used only two lines (34-5) to describe the
safe part of the voyage – and narrates instead the progress and intensification of the
destruction. For the details he relies as far as possible on Homer, the model for all
such narratives, combining elements of the relevant descriptions in Homer in order
77 to make up his own.[123] The storm is chiefly modelled on the storm in Book 5 of the
Odyssey , where the situation is closest to the present one; Apollonius has also
supplied some details. Apart from the necessary changes in such details as the
names of places and persons, there are only two lines which do not correspond with
passages in Homer and Apollonius, namely 106-7:
hi summo in fluctu pendent , his unda dehiscens
terram inter fluctus aperit ; furit aestus harenis .
[some hung poised on wave-crests; others saw the waves sink before them to dis-
close, below seething water and sand, the very bottom of the sea]. However, it is
precisely these lines which correspond remarkably closely with Quintus' description
of the storm, 14.492ff.:
[now a high wave carried the ships through the air, and again they were carried
rolling down a steep slope to the murky depths: and always an irresistible force
belched up sand as the sea opened up.] Virgil's lines are distinguished by energetic
brevity; the content of the two passages is identical, and even if the details are not
exceptional in themselves[124] the fact that they occur in the same context indicates
that there must be some connection. Otherwise, Quintus proceeds in a completely
different way. After giving a detailed description of the departure of the Greeks and
the safe earlier part of the voyage (370-418), he dwells at length on the general
description of the storm and the distress of the ships (488-529), and then goes on to
depict the shipwreck and the death of Ajax in just as much detail (530-89) and
finally returns once more to the misfortunes of the other Greeks (590-610), culmi-
nating in Nauplius' revenge (611-28). Here we are miles away from the simplicity
of the early epic. Quintus seems to have deliberately avoided any reminiscence of
the well-known lines of the Odyssey ; instead we are given an ecphrasis in the best
style of Hellenistic and Roman poetry. It is quite obvious that in this passage
Quintus is not expanding the narrative himself on the basis of brief mythographic
memoranda, but is following a detailed description in an earlier poem: this is con-
firmed by comparing it with Seneca's description of the same sea-storm in his
78 Agamemnon , which, in spite of some major differences – Seneca was no mere
translator – shares so many characteristic details with Quintus that it is quite clear
that ultimately they reflect a common source.[125] There is not the slightest reason to
suppose that Quintus borrowed from Virgil the one short passage quoted above. We
ought rather to conclude that both poets made use of one and the same description of
the disastrous voyage home from Troy, and that Quintus took over the essentials,
expanding them to some extent, whereas Virgil drew the inspiration for his Aeolus-
scene from his source, but as far as the sea-storm was concerned, he borrowed only
a single detail, while in other respects avoiding the mass of pictorial detail in his
Hellenistic source in favour of the narrative simplicity of earlier epic. Who was the
author of that common source I cannot say; we should not forget that more than one
famous poet tried his hand at this very subject.[126] But Virgil himself has hinted at his
source, as he tends to do elsewhere by means of his similes,[127] in that a description
of the death of Ajax which he incorporates into Juno's speech (lines 39-45) is more
detailed than is necessary for his immediate purpose.
II—
Tryphiodorus
1—
Helen
79 I can be considerably briefer in discussing Tryphiodorus. One important point, the
participation of the gods in the destruction of Troy, has already been discussed
above on p. 31, where I demonstrated that Virgil cannot have been Tryphiodorus'
source. Another point can be settled by a different method: the detail that Helen
summoned the Greeks with a torch, which, in all the accounts of the sack of Troy
known to us, occurs only in Tryphiodorus (512-21) and Virgil (6.518), is not, as we
might imagine, an invention of Virgil's, but is derived from Greek poetry,[128] and
perhaps appeared already in Stesichorus.[129] Once we know that, it is easy to see that
Virgil's account is a more elaborate version of the simple description in Tryphio-
dorus: so as to be able to raise the huge torch on the heights of the citadel without
arousing suspicion, Helen persuades the women of Troy to form a chorus and
perform a Bacchic dance, which she leads, carrying the torch like a maenad. It is
clear that this detail was inserted to answer the question: how could Helen give the
torch-signal without being noticed and without attracting attention to herself in the
city? The earlier version, in which Sinon gave the torch-signal from Achilles' tomb
outside the city, did not require special motivation.
2—
Sinon
This leaves only the Sinon scene, and here there are similarities which at first sight
might appear surprising. In Tryphiodorus, however, Sinon's entrance is quite differ-
ent from the version in Virgil: naked and with his flesh torn by whip-lashes, he
throws himself at Priam's feet; he pretends that his fellow countrymen have inflicted
this punishment on him because he was unwilling to take flight with them and urged
them to stay; then they left him behind in the enemy's land. Now he warns Priam
not to offend
will please the Greeks.[130] Priam reassures him:
[Stranger, you need not be afraid any more, now that you are: among Trojans: you
have escaped the implacable violence of the Achaeans, You will always be our
friend, and sweet longing for your country and its rich palaces will not sieze you],
80 then he asks him what he is called and where he came from as well as about the
significance of the horse. This is certainly very reminiscent of Priam's speech in
Virgil:
quisquis es amissos hinc iam obliuiscere Graios ,
noster eris ; mihique haec edissere vera roganti (147-8)
['Whoever you are, there are no Greeks here; forget them quickly and become one
of us. Now answer my questions truthfully', etc.] But is there anything in Tryphio-
dorus that might lead us to suppose that his version is a derivative reworking of
Virgil's? How simply and naturally the events unfold in Tryphiodorus! Sinon ad-
vised the Greeks not to leave – thus he deliberately shows himself to have been
anti-Trojan, and this causes them to trust what he goes on to say; his fellow
countrymen treated him badly and left him behind in enemy territory – with cruel
irony, for that was just what he had wanted; because of this harsh treatment he turns
to the enemy for protection – the old motif of the traitor who deserts, like Zopyrus
etc. – and claims the right of a suppliant: Priam grants him this right and admits him
to the community of the Trojans. In Virgil, Sinon is a prisoner, not a suppliant, and
his reception is motivated to a lesser degree by Priam's compassion for him; so just
before Priam's speech Sinon has to bewail the loss of his native country (137ff.):
this makes the virtue of the Trojans appear greater – and that was part of Virgil's
intention – but Tryphiodorus' version certainly seems closer to the original.
Sinon then gives away the following information about the horse:
['If you allow it to remain here in your land, it is fated that the sword of the
Achaeans will capture the city of Troy: but if Athena receives it as a sacred gift into
her temple then the Greeks will flee with their task unaccomplished']. So here we
have the Virgilian alternative that we found was missing from Quintus' version; but
in Virgil all the motifs are developed and strengthened; we are aware of the trouble
that he took to make the Trojans feel that it was absolutely essential to bring the
horse into the city: the horse is the substitute for the stolen Palladium, and will
protect the city in its place; the
with the Achaeans], which is only an alarming possibility in Tryphiodorus, is very
81 much a reality in Virgil: the Greeks will return as soon as they have propitiated the
gods in their own county; instead of the promise in Tryphiodorus that if they take
the horse into the city the Greeks will be put to flight again, Virgil makes Sinon
offer a greater promise, that the descendants of the Trojans will themselves invade
the country of the Greeks; finally, Tryphiodorus has only 'if you let the horse stand
here'; whereas Virgil has 'if you should harm it'; that is just what Laocoon had
already done, which makes it appear more urgent than ever to atone for his act and
to pull the horse into the city. Everything, in my view, points towards the conclusion
that Tryphiodorus' account is not a simplified and shortened version of Virgil's, but
rather reflects the earliest source, and that Virgil's version is not an original creation,
but an enhanced remodelling of an earlier source. And a little thought should show
that it never was very likely that Virgil was the first to invent this alternative; if it is
not to be found in the scanty mythographic epitomes that have survived, and
Quintus did not find it either in his mythographic source, no one would wish to draw
the conclusion that it did not exist before Virgil. What we have learnt from the story
of Helen's torch-signal can, where necessary, serve as a warning against conclusions
of such a kind.
Otherwise one looks in vain in Tryphiodorus' work for any echoes of Virgil
which are not drawn from the common stock of the tradition; there is no trace in him
of anything that may reasonably be claimed as Virgil's in the way of individual
touches, motivation, ethos or composition. His artistic standpoint, diametrically
opposed to Virgil's, is not one that is concerned with drama or pathos, and if he did
know Virgil he certainly did not like him. Nor is he in the least interested in
encyclopaedic completeness; what he enjoyed, and what he had a natural talent for,
was decorating his grand material with graceful and interesting arabesques and orig-
inal ornamentation. As a basis for this, all he needed was the traditional material that
we may imagine was easily available to him and to his educated contemporaries.
2—
The Wanderings of Aeneas
It has often been felt, and stated, that Book 3 of the Aeneid is a work of considerably
less artistic merit than Book 2. The reason for this cannot be that Book 2 recounts
only one single great event, whereas Book 3 deals with a loose sequence of adven-
tures; this is also true of the books of the Odyssey in which Odysseus narrates his
adventures, and they have never been accused of having less poetic value for that
reason. But it is precisely this obvious comparison that has had a fatal effect on
Virgil's narrative. Indeed, the reader almost feels that, for once, Virgil has set out to
rival Homer without much pleasure or self-confidence. This may explain why he
kept postponing work on this book; it is, as we shall see, among the last parts of the
Aeneid to have been written. Whereas the abundance of poetic material that was
already in existence for the sack of Troy proved an invaluable advantage to the poet,
here he found himself in precisely the opposite position: he had, as far as we know,
not a single poetic predecessor. There was no shortage of source-material for the
actual events, but this took the form not of a tradition that had grown up over the
centuries, but of artifically cobbled-together history; his sources were not poets but
antiquarians; it was all wretchedly monotonous. We are fairly well informed about
the nature of the traditional material that was available to Virgil, because it is obviously
the same as that which formed the basis for Dionysius of Halicarnassus' account
(Antiquities 1.48ff.); we may therefore attempt to trace the way in which Virgil
transformed this intractable material into poetry so as to make it into a work of art.
1—
Unity of the Narrative:
Foundations of Cities
The historian who first assembled the numerous traditions about settlements, cults
and temples founded by Aeneas along the coasts of the Mediterranean into a co-
83 herent and connected narrative must have been at a loss to motivate the frequent
interruptions of his voyage and the innumerable foundations of cities. For the for-
mer, as we gather from Dionysius, he generally used one of two motives: either
Aeneas lingers to renew old friendships – for example in Delos (1.50), Arcadia,
Zacynthos – or adverse winds force him to wait or to take another course (49.3:
weather was unsuitable for sailing]: thus he waits in Thrace until the season is
suitable for sailing (49.4), is forced to wait longer than he had intended in Zacynthos
(50.3) and is forced to sail around Sicily (52.1). A city is founded in Thrace (49.4) to
provide a dwelling-place for those who do not wish to travel any further, similarly in
Sicily (52.4) – here, according to other sources, because some of the ships had been
burnt, and the diminished fleet could no longer carry all the Trojans. The direction
of the voyage, towards the west, was either revealed to them by the Sibyl of
Erythrae before they left their native land, or else only when they reached the oracle
at Dodona; they will recognize the end of their journey, when it comes, by the omen
of 'eating their tables' (55.4). Anything that does not fit into this westward journey
Dionysius either omits completely, as in the case of the episode on Crete, or ex-
plains by one of the causes that we have mentioned.
Hence it is only the direction of the voyage that gives this narrative any unity; all
the individual episodes are only chance interruptions to the journey, delays to their
final arrival – some welcome, some unwelcome – that are unrelated to one another;
some of them could easily be omitted, or others added, without the course of the
action being affected. To give some inner unity to the action, to make the compo-
nent episodes seem necessary to it, was the first task that faced Virgil. A loose series
of landfalls and foundations of cities, friendly encounters and
ments to the safety of a harbour] was, in his view, no
worthy nor capable of representation in poetry. Virgil chose for his narrative thread
the gradual, progressive revelation of the destination of his voyage.[1]
This revelation takes place in five stages: (1) Aeneas leaves his native land
because of auguries that tell him to seek a new home abroad. (2) In Delos he
receives the oracle that refers to the antiqua mater [ancient mother]. (3) In Crete he
84 learns from the Penates that this means Italy. (4) On the Strophades he receives from
Celaeno the prophecy of the portent of the tables. (5) In Buthrotum he receives from
Helenus directions on how to reach the west coast of Italy, and the prophecy of the
portent of the sow, together with the advice that he should ask the Sibyl at Cumae
for further information about the future. This indicates the place where the new
settlement is to be founded as clearly as can be without actually mentioning the
name of the place, and Aeneas would now have followed the course prescribed by
Helenus, and reached his goal without any more mistakes or wanderting – if Juno in
her anger had not prepared a new obstacle for him on the coast immediately oppo-
site the promised land, an obstacle that combines the two motifs that are familiar
from Dionysius: adverse winds and seductive hospitality. Most of the individual
components of this development in the story existed already in the tradition, either
actually or potentially: the oracle in their Trojan homeland, the two prodigia , the
Sibyl, the encounter with Helenus combined with the oracle of Dodona, the
prophecy by the Penates. Virgil's contribution lay in arranging them in a progressive
development, above all by the gradual disclosure of Fate, and in the major role that
he allots to Apollo. In both cases Virgil was using themes suggested to him by
Greek foundation-legends.
Apollo is not mentioned in any of the pre-Virgilian accounts of Aeneas' wander-
ings, or in any of the later ones that are independent of Virgil; he has only an
indirect influence on the Trojans' travels in so far as the Sibyl is his prophetess. At
the same time, there was a tradition mentioned by Varro, according to which Venus
guided the voyage by her star (Serv. on 2.801). Virgil says nothing of this, but sets
Apollo very emphatically in the central position. Virgil not only stresses that it is
Apollo who inspires the Cumaean Sibyl; it is Apollo to whom Aeneas addresses his
prayer for an oracle (6.56); how Apollo's priestess is possessed by the god is
described in detail at 6.77ff.; Aeneas is honoured at Delos, by hearing Apollo's very
own voice; it is at Apollo's command that the Penates speak (3.155); it is from
Apollo that the Harpy has obtained her knowledge (251); it is in Apollo's temple
that he hears Helenus, the priest of the god, tell him that Apollo will protect him in
the future too (395). The decisive stimulus for this emphasis on the services per-
formed by Apollo may have been Augustus' predilection for him as the god of the
85 Julian family; but the idea comes originally, as I have said, from Greek foundation-
legends. The rôle played by Apollo, and particularly by his Delphic oracle, in the
sending out of colonies is well known;[2] more significant still than the numerous
surviving accounts of the consultation of the oracle is the great number of colonies
that bear the name Apollonia. Amongst the foundations in which Apollo played an
important rôle were two of the most important cities on the west coast of Italy:
Rhegium[3] and Cumae.[4] Virgil represents the
city alongside these two.
The initial obscurity of the oracle, and its gradual clarification, also has its origin
in Greek ways of thinking. Of the foundation-legends known to me, it is that of
Cyrene which provides the closest parallels (Herod. 4.150). The king of Thera is
advised by the Pythia at Delphi to found a colony in Libya. However, he does not
know where Libya is, and therefore fails to send out a colony. Thera then suffers a
severe drought (analogous with the crop failure that afflicts the Trojans in Crete
[3.141f.]), and when the oracle is asked for help, it tells them again to go to Libya.
So they decide to risk the attempt, and a Cretan called Korobios, who promises to
show them the unknown land of Libya, leads them to the island of Platea, which is
situated off Libya. They settle on this island, but without success. And they hear
again from the Pythia that they are still not in Libya. Then they finally cross over
onto the mainland.[5] Just as in this case a drought reminds the Therans of their
instructions, so too drought and infertility are elsewhere often the reason for sending
out a colony, or are a sign that the god's plan has not been fulfilled by the settle-
ment: the foundation of Rhegium goes back to an
(Strab. 6.257); and
Ainios, at the command of the oracle, leave Kirrha where they have just settled
(Plut. Qu . Gr . 26).
86 Finally, with regard to the two portents that indicate the end of the journey, Virgil
was able simply to follow the tradition. Even if we accept that these stories are based
on local legends, their connection with Aeneas doubtless goes back to Greek histor-
ians, who in turn were constructing their narratives on the analogy of Greek
foundation-legends. To mention only a few examples, I recall the Etruscan children
from Brauron, who were to settle where they lost their goddess and their anchor
(Plut. Virt . Mul . 247e), or the Spartan Phalanthus, who was promised a permanent
residence by the Delphic oracle 'when he felt rain'
(Paus. 10.10.6) where the double meaning of
name was Aithra) and 'blue sky' – corresponds with that of mensae ; even more
frequent, as is well-known, are the cases where an animal, such as the sow in this
case, indicates the site for a new foundation.
Thus Virgil has turned the story of Aeneas' wanderings into a unified
the motifs of these legends much more comprehensively than can have been the case
in any one of these legends, either genuine or spurious.
2—
Relationship to the other Books
The idea of drawing the wanderings of Aeneas into the tightly organized form that
we have described came to Virgil only after much of the Aeneid had been written in
87 the form in which we have it.[6] It is worth devoting some time to this matter, as it
leads to valuable insights into Virgil's working methods. Let us first examine what
we are told outside Book 3 about the plan of the voyage and the Trojmans' knowledge
of their destination.
According to 2.781, before Aeneas left Troy he was told by Creusa that he will
come to the 'Hesperian land, where through rich pastures with gentle current the
Lydian Thybris flows.'
According to 4.345, 'Grynean Apollo and Lycian oracles' have commanded him
to go to Italy.
According to 1.382, he put to sea because of an oracle, in which 'his divine
mother showed him the way.'
According to 1.205 and 554, 4.432, 5.731 and 6.67, the Trojans know Latium to
be the destination of their journey; at 5.83 Thybris is mentioned by Aeneas and
again at 6.87 by the Sybil.
Thus when Virgil was writing 1, 2, 4 to 6, he imagined Aeneas as knowing the
name of the land and its river during his journey, and according to the references in
2 and 4, which are not contradicted by anything in the other books listed above, he
already had this knowledge before he sailed. It is uncertain what rôle Virgil had
intended the two portents to play in all this; it is quite conceivable that he had not
made any firm decision about it; on the other hand, 5.82f.
non licuit finis Italos fataliaque arva
nec tecum Ausonium , q u i c u m q u e est , quaerere Thybrim ,
[it was not granted to me to have you at my side as I quested for Italy's boundaries
where fate has given us lands, or for Ausonian Tiber, wherever that river may be ].
This seems to suggest that Virgil considered, at least in passing, the possibility of
using the motif from Greek foundation-legends that we have discussed above, in
88 which the name of the destination is known but not its whereabouts;[7] in that case,
one or both portents might serve to let them know that they had come to the end of
their journey.
This conception is totally inconsistent with the basic idea of the composition of
Book 3 that we have outlined above: the only question is which version is the result
of curae posteriores [afterthoughts]. If we assume that Virgil wrote Book 3 first, it is
very difficult to see any reason at all that might have prompted him at a later stage to
ruin the unity that characterized his version, by which the whole book stands or
falls. This would not only have invalidated the individual prophecies, but, more
importantly, Virgil would have had to invent some entirely new motivation for the
foundations in Thrace and Crete, unless he scrapped them altogether, or else have
reverted to a disconnected narrative of the kind that we get in Dionysius. However,
there is no indication in the other books of any new unified plan which might have
replaced the old one; there are three successive episodes – the guidance by Venus,
Creusa's prophecy, and the 'Lycian' oracle – that would need to be brought together
in some context: but they would not have produced material for the new Book 3;
these episodes however had obviously been invented not as parts of a single unified
conception, but because of the immediate requirements of each situation; and none
89 of them is in itself so important that Virgil might reasonably have altered his
original plan for their sake.[8] On the other hand, if we think of Book 3 as still to be
written, each reference is quite plausible in its context as a provisional explanation;
and furthermore it is quite natural that before Virgil had decided on the plan of Book
3 he might find it more congenial to work with specific names, such as Latium and
Thybris, rather than with some unknown destination: however, these names are
nowhere essential to his purpose.[9]
The conclusion that Book 3 was composed at a later stage will become even
clearer if we go on to examine the treatment of the two portents in Books 7 and 8.
The portent of the tables is, according to tradition, the fulfilment of a prophecy
which was given to Aeneas by the Sibyl of Erythrae or the oracle at Dodona, and
will indicate to Aeneas and his men that they have reached the end of their journey.
This is exactly the purpose it serves Virgil in Book 7; here the prophecy is traced
back to Anchises, who bequeathed it to his son ( fatorum arcana reliquit [123] [he
left the secret of destiny]) – apparently not in the underworld, but during his life-
time, perhaps on his deathbed, when the power of prophecy is usually enhanced. It is
clear from the manner in which it is introduced, and above all from the fact that it is
quoted verbatim , that Virgil is not referring to some earlier passage in which it was
mentioned: the oracle is introduced without any preparation, just like Apollo's
90 promise at 6.343 and Venus' at 8.534; when Aeneas says nunc repeto (7.123) [now I
remember] we may assume, as so often when oracles are introduced, that he has
suddenly remembered something long forgotten; the prophecy of Lycophron's Cas-
sandra, which refers to this portent,
will remember ancient oracles] ( Alexandra 1252), is fulfilled in exactly the same
way. We might expect that, continuing the motif hinted at earlier, Aeneas would
now joyfully realize that this is the promised land of Latium and the promised
Thybris; but this is not what Virgil does: instead, Aeneas prays to the adhuc ignota
flumina (137-8) [the rivers which as yet they did not know], and the next day when
he learns the names Numicius, Thybris and Latium, it does not seem that they come
as an answer to any existing expectations. This is not completely outweighed by the
fact that in Ilioneus' speech to Latinus, just as in the earlier books, Virgil seems to
assume some previous knowledge of the localities which they seek.[10] It may be that
Virgil came to realize during the composition of his work that if the names are
known the portent becomes basically meaningless: the names might be identified
with the localities in perfectly natural ways. To sum up: the version of the portent of
the tables in 7 is derived almost entirely from tradition; it is in no way tied up with a
unified plan of Aeneas' wanderings, but is quite independent of it.
In Book 3 we find instead a highly individual new version, probably invented by
Virgil: the portent is not a sign promised by a friend or a benevolent divinity to show
them when they have reached the end of their wanderings, but a punishment
announced by their enemy Celaeno; not a favourable sign, but a horror which seems
to cast doubt on the happy outcome of the enterprise. Not only is there a threat of
terrible starvation, but the apparently unambiguous and negative words, 'You will
not establish a city until hunger forces you to eat your tables' (255-7), seem to lay
down an impossible condition. Phalanthus, who was to found Tarentum when he felt
rain
believed that the god had imposed an impossible condition on him.[11] However,
91 Celaeno's prophecy does not only come as the splendid climax of the adventure of
the Harpies; it also plays an important part in the plot of the book: after the Penates
seem at last in Crete to have indicated their destination, and the Trojans are steering
westwards full of hope, this comes as a severe setback. The unexpected threat seems
to throw everything into uncertainty again. Then Aeneas meets Helenus and ques-
tions him with renewed anxiety about the future; not only does he receive
reassurance from him, but he is saved from another vain attempt to found a settle-
ment, this time on the nearest part of the coast of Italy, which otherwise he surely
would have done.
Thus the appearance of the portent has been prepared for, the reader is waiting
for it, and the effect of the happy solution is immeasurably increased by the anxiety
which has prevailed from the start. If we compare this version with that in Book 7,
there cannot, in my opinion, be any doubt as to which was intended to supersede the
other.[12]
92 According to the older traditions, the portent of the sow indicated either the site
of Alba Longa and the period of thirty years which will elapse before its founda-
tion,[13] or the site of Lavinium together with the name and foundation-date of Alba.[14]
Understandably, Virgil was unwilling to reject a firmly established part of the
tradition, but he was unable to make the portent indicate any specific site, either for
Alba, that is perfectly clear, or for Lavinium, whose foundation lies outside his
narrative, since, in contrast to the versions of Dionysius and others, it was not to take
place until after the agreement with Latinus. This meant that it was only possible for
the portent to refer to the name and foundation-date of Alba; and it is these, there-
fore, that Virgil kept in the narrative of Book 8. As a result, the introduction of the
portent had to be remodelled, and Virgil resorted to an expedient that is not al-
together satisfactory: Aeneas, anxious about the coming battle, has fallen asleep on
the bank of the Tiber; the god Tiberinus appears to him and gives him courage: he
really has arrived at the place where he is destined to found his city, and he need not
fear the battle. 'And', he continues, 'so that you will not think when you awake that
93 you have been deceived by an idle dream (let this be a sign to you): beneath the oaks
on the riverbank you will find an enormous sow with thirty newborn piglets' (8.45–
8):
alba , solo recubans , albi circum ubera nati
ex quo ter denis urbem redeuntibus annis
Ascanius clari condet cognominis Albam .
[a white sow, stretched on the ground, with her white piglets at her teats; within thirty
circling years from this time, Ascanius shall found a city of illustrious name, Alba].
He goes on to advise him to ask Evander for help. Thus, as in the tradition, Aeneas
receives the information about the foundation of Alba from a vision in a dream;[15]
what is new in Virgil is the context in which the information is given. The immedi-
ate rôle of the portent here is only to corroborate the words of Tiberinus; the
foundation of the city is mentioned only in passing without any intrinsic connection
with the purpose in hand; the portent has no significance whatever as a means of
identifying the site.[16] And if we were given the impression in the case of the portent
of the tables in Book 7 that the reader was hearing of it for the first time, so here it is
absolutely impossible that it had been prepared for in earlier parts of the narrative or
that it had played any rôle in the scheme of Aeneas' wanderings.
In Book 3 Helenus predicts the portent, and here it is firmly embedded in the
scheme of the wanderings. Because the name of the promised land is not disclosed
to Aeneas until the very last moment, he has to be given a sign by which he can
recognize it: this sign will be the portent of the sow. That is why here in Book 3,
after the description of the portent, which is word for word identical with that in
94 Book 8, it is explicitly stated that is locus urbis erit , requies ea certa laborum (393)
[this spot shall be the place for your city, and there you shall find sure rest from your
toils]. This does not mean that the city is to be founded exactly where the sow will
be resting – for neither Lavinium nor Alba lies secreti ad fluminis undam [by the
waters of a secluded stream], where according to 3.389 they will find the sow, nor
can the camp by the river be termed requies certa laborum [a sure resting-place
from their toils] – but only that the promised land will be recognized by this sign;
previously, too, in Helenus' speech, the prophecy was concerned only with this land
(ante . . . quam tuta possis urbem componere terra : signa tibi dicam [387-8] [before
you can settle your city on safe soil: I shall give you a sign]). Thus the portent of the
sow is given the significance which the portent of the tables had had in the tradition:
the latter is given a new meaning in its turn: it no longer indicates the site, but the
time; it becomes a condicio sine qua non [necessary pre-condition]. From this we
may divine how Virgil intended to combine the fulfilment of the two prophecies:
after landing on the bank of the Tiber, Aeneas would find the sow and thus recog-
nize the promised land; however, he still anxiously awaits the starvation predicted
by the Harpy; before he realizes it, at their very first meal, this prophecy too is
fulfilled.
In the case of the portent of the sow too the version in Book 3 is the later one; this
could in any case be deduced from the fact that it is not introduced here, as it is in
Book 8, without any preparation and with awkward motivation, but has a firm place
in the arrangement of the whole. However, it is clear that the identical lines that
appear in both books (3.390-2 = 8.43-5) were originally written for Book 8: there
the exact description of where and how makes good sense, for the more precisely the
details are predicted, the more convincingly their literal fulfilment proves that the
vision was trustworthy. For the oracle in Book 3 the circumstantial details have no
significance and are quite uncharacteristic of such prophecies. Above all, the heavy
emphasis on the colour white is important in Book 8, since the reference to Alba
follows, but not important in Book 3, where Alba has not yet come into the picture.
From the situation in Book 8 the detail sollicito secreti ad fluminis undam [in an
anxious time, by the waters of a secluded stream] has crept into Book 3. On the
assumption that Book 3 was written first, such a precise description of a situation in
the distant future would be quite uncharacteristic of Virgil's style.
Because of all this, I am convinced that the unified plan of the wanderings
95 presented in Book 33 was not created until at least two-thirds of the poem had been
written. Thus, instead of starting by erecting the scaffolding, as it were, Virgil put
this off until a much later stage and began to work on separate sections, making
provisional assumptions as the situation called for them, without letting them have
much influence on the general outlines of each section; he introduced the two
portents in Books 7 and 8 without any presuppositions whatever, so that the two
books could be read as an independent work, without the reader feeling that any-
thing was missing. It was only later, when he was filling in the gap between Troy
and Carthage, that he created the unified structure of prophecies and portents,
without considering what he had already written, primarily because it was necessary
to impose some unity and progressive development on Book 3. He never got as far
as working out the consequences of his new conception: he would have had to delete
much in the other books, and change many details, and in Book 7 he would have had
to rewrite the whole story of the landing. It is indeed possible that a few traces of the
earlier version might have escaped his notice; but I have no doubt that he would
have achieved a unity as far as the essentials were concerned.
There is no reason to doubt that, right until the end, Virgil regarded the scheme of
the wanderings, in the form in which we have it, as the definitive version. It is true
that in Book 10 (67ff.) there is yet another motif that one might be tempted to regard
as an indication that Virgil intended to make a further change: according to this
passage, Aeneas sought Italy Cassandrae impulsus furiis [actuated by Cassandra's
raving]. But these are the words of Juno, which contradict Venus' statement that the
Trojans had sought their new homeland tot responsa secuti quae superi manesque
dabant (34ff.) [led by all those oracles from the High Gods and the Nether Spirits];
and it is clear that Juno is spitefully trying to devalue the significance of these
responsa [oracles] by mentioning only one prophecy, that given by a crazed woman:
in fact, according to 3.183, a passage already composed, which the poet doubtless had
before him when writing Book 10, it was from Cassandra that Anchises – though he
had not believed her – had first heard of Hesperia and the kingdom in Italy.
3—
Juno and Venus
No ancient reader will have asked the impertinent question, why Aeneas was sub-
96 jected to these years of wandering: for Apollo, who certainly had Aeneas' interests
very much at heart, might surely have spared him a lot of trouble by giving him an
unambiguous oracle before his departure; but who would dare to call the god to
account for what he sees fit to reveal to mortals or to conceal from them, when every
message, even when it is wrapped in the desperately ambiguous obscurity of oracular
language, deserves most humble thanks as an act of the purest grace, condescension
and compassion.
However, anyone who has read the opening of the Aeneid before reading Book 3
will perhaps expect to find a particular motivation for Aeneas' lengthy wanderings.
For the proem suggests that they are to be blamed on Juno's thirst for vengeance: it
was she who drove the pious hero into so many travails and dangers, she who
pursued the Trojans over all the seas and kept them away from Latium, as the poet
says;[17] indeed the queen of the gods herself speaks of the plan she embarked on to
turn the Trojan king away from Italy, a plan which she does not wish to abandon,[18]
and of the war which she has been waging for so many years with that one race.[19] In
fact from this moment onwards she is active enough: the tempest which drives
Aeneas to Carthage is her work, she causes the union with Dido; later it is her
intervention that leads to the burning of the ships, which results in the foundation of
Segesta; she stirs up war in Latium by means of Allecto and never ceases to support
the enemies of the Trojans. But until that moment we have just mentioned, in other
words, during the years between the departure from Troy and the departure from
Sicily, throughout the events treated in Book 3, we hear nothing of Juno's interven-
tion; and yet this period covers by far the greatest part of the errores [wanderings]
and labores [toils]. The contradiction seems blatant, and yet I do not believe that it is
a case of an inconsistency arising from different plans, or that Virgil would have
smoothed over this contradiction. When he wrote the proem to Book 1, he had most
97 probably not yet created the scheme for Book 3 as it now stands, and it is conceiv-
able that at that stage he was intending to allot an active role to Juno in the period
that preceded the beginning of the action of Book 1. In my view it is more probable
that he was thinking only of the events that followed and, with these in mind,
proceeded to model his proem on that of the Odyssey . Then, when he composed
Book 3, there was no opportunity for an open and obvious intervention by Juno; but
if the poet had any doubts about whether this was compatible with the words of the
proem he would have been able to feel reassured by the precedent of his model,
Homer. For in the proem to the Odyssey , even less ambiguously than in the Aeneid ,
the exhausting wanderings of the hero are blamed on an angry deity (Poseidon in
this case); and yet here, too, as far as we know, Poseidon plays no part in Odysseus'
destiny until after the beginning of the action, during the sea-storm in Book 5; in
Odysseus' own narrative we hear nothing in his various unhappy adventures of
anything that might have been caused by Polyphemus' prayer to his father; and in
the case of Odysseus' longest sojourn, the seven years spent with Calypso, it is even
clearer than in the Aeneid that it cannot have been the result of the work of Posei-
don. Any reader who noticed this would have to assume that Odysseus had never
been told that his sufferings were due to the enmity of the god, and Virgil could
count on the same assumption. It is clear from the single passage in Book 3 which
points to Juno's enmity that he was well aware of the parallel: Helenus urgently
advises Aeneas (435ff.) that the most important thing is to win Juno's favour by
prayers, vows and sacrificial offerings: only if he succeeds in this will he reach Italy
98 safely from Sicily.[20] Aeneas acts according to this advice at the time of the first
landing in Italy (3.546), and this single mention of his obedience to it must also
count instar omnium [on behalf of all] for the future. Nevertheless he did not
succeed in calming the wrath of Juno, as is shown by the fact that the crossing from
Sicily to Italy does not go smoothly: thus Helenus' words of warning refer to the
sea-storm narrated in Book 1. However this is itself clearly modelled on the words
of Teiresias, Odyssey 11.100ff.: he too warns of Poseidon's future anger, and pro-
ceeds (121ff.) to point out the way to appease him: he says no more of the earlier
results of this anger than Helenus says of Juno's previous hostile activities.
Just as the hostile goddess remains in the background, so too does the goddess
who favours him. According to Aeneas' own narrative, Venus seems never to have
appeared to him, either to guide him, or to advise or to assist him, throughout the
greater part of the period of his wanderings. Yet Virgil must have had different
intentions about this matter when he was writing Book 1, since he makes Aeneas say
to Venus that he had begun his journey matre dea monstrante viam (382) [shown the
way by my divine mother], and makes him complain at her departure quid natum
totiens , crudelis tu quoque , falsis ludis imaginibus (407-8) ['Ah, you too are cruel!
Why again and again deceive your own son with your mocking disguises?']. But
there is no reason to suppose that at that stage this intention had taken any particular
form, and when he was writing Book 3 Virgil left Venus completely out of the
picture; here too there is an analogy with the Odyssey . Odysseus in his own account
of his adventures knows nothing of Athena's protection and support, and is still
99 complaining about this neglect after he has landed in Scheria ( Od . 6.325, cf.
13.318), without realizing that it was Athena who had made this very landing
possible for him, providing him with active help at this point for the first time as far
as we know: the poet himself felt it necessary to explain her previous absence on the
grounds that she had been unwilling to oppose her father's brother (13.341, cf.
6.329). When Virgil was creating the relationship between Venus and Aeneas he
clearly had the relationship between Odysseus and Athena in his mind, though he
may not always have been aware of it, and I venture to suggest that in the phrase
totiens falsis ludis imaginibus [again and again you deceive with mocking disguises]
he was not thinking of particular appearances of Venus, but of the changing forms in
which Athena manifested herself to Odysseus, who for his part, though admittedly
without Virgilian pathos, half-reproachfully complains to his divine protectress
the definitive reshaping of Book 333, Aeneas' complaint would admittedly seem
meaningless to the reader, and we must assume that Virgil would have excised it
once he realized that it was now irrelevant.
4—
Compression of the Material
If we compare Virgil's version with other accounts of the wanderings of Aeneas, it
is immediately obvious that Virgil has greatly condensed the material. Instead of
aiming at academic exhaustiveness, he picked out the incidents that suited his
artistic purpose. His positive criterion for selection is the one that we have already
discussed: the landmarks of the journey were to be the points at which he is granted
further knowledge of his final destination. The most important negative criteria
were, first, avoidance of tedious repetition of motifs, and, secondly, avoidance of all
material that was of merely scholarly interest and could not somehow be made to
appeal to the listener's feelings. The material is much more severely abridged in
Book 3, and particularly in the parts that precede the arrival in Italy, than in the later
sections of the journey that are spread over Books 5 to 8. There was more room in
these books for fuller treatment of the available material, since the details were not
crowded together in a small space and, above all, since the books were dealing with
localities well-known to every person in the audience, places in which Virgil him-
self took a greater interest, and which he could assume had a greater interest for
others.
100 Only six stops in Greek waters are mentioned: Thrace, Delos, Crete, the Stro-
phades, Actium and Buthrotum. With the single exception of Actium, they are all
harnessed to Virgil's new scheme. The first, the failure to found a settlement in
Thrace, leads Aeneas to turn to Apollo on Delos for further directions. He has learnt
that the gods do not approve of just any site for the new Troy; they must therefore
have a definite destination for him in mind.[21] In Crete the second negative ex-
pression of divine will is immediately followed by another positive one: the
adventure with the Harpies on the Strophades brings a third gloomy prediction,
apparently the worst of all, since it applies to all future time. As a counterweight,
Helenus' prediction provides the clearest and strongest positive assurance. Thus
hindrance and assistance appear alternately until the very moment that the coast of
the promised land comes into view for the searchers. For the prodigia [portents],
Virgil has only once, in the case of Crete, made use of a traditional motif; the other
two give the impression of being traditional but are in fact original inventions. For
the prophecies, Virgil again went his own way. The tradition knew of a prediction
by the Sibyl of Erythrae and a consultation of the oracle at Dodona. The Sybil had to
be omitted so that the Cumaean Sibyl should not have a rival; the oracle at Dodona
101 was unsuitable because it had no connection with Apollo and would therefore have
destroyed the unity of Virgil's new conception. Instead, we have Helenus, whom,
according to tradition, Aeneas met in Dodona; he was all the more suitable because,
like Teiresias-Circe and Phineus, as an inspired mortal exegete of the god, he was in
the best position to give the detailed and careful instructions that were necessary for
this stage of the journey; it is easy to understand why Virgil shifted the meeting
from Dodona to the coast, at Buthrotum, since the tradition had Aeneas stopping
there in any case. There were also sources for the visit to Delos and the guest-friend-
ship of Anius; since the latter appears in the tradition as a reliable prophet, Virgil
must at least have considered giving him the prediction, but this would have dupli-
cated the Helenus motif. So Virgil has Apollo himself speaking from his holy of
holies to Aeneas when he asks for an oracle – it is, to say the least, very doubtful
whether Apollo of Cynthus had an oracle, and Virgil's words do not suggest that a
regular oracle was established there: da pater augurium atque animis inlabere nos -
tris (3.89) [grant us an augury, father, and come into our hearts] seems to be asking
for some inspiration that is not precisely definable, and when in response the inner
shrine opens, and the sound of the god's voice comes from the tripod within, this
seems to be an unexpected and therefore an all the more valuable favour. Apollo's
words are interpreted as referring to Crete and so Aeneas attempts to found a
settlement there. Here too Virgil connects his narrative with traditional material, for
the foundation of Pergamos on Crete was not only attributed to Trojans but also
linked with Aeneas himself (Serv. on 3.133). Admittedly, it did not feature among
Aeneas' most famous foundations, and Dionysius does not mention it at all; but it
suited Virgil's purpose because it gave ambiguity to the oracle's statement and also
because it made the wanderers turn southwards, right away from the direction of
their journey, just as the Libyan sea-storm does later, whereas the voyage as de-
scribed by, for example, Dionysius, apart from the detour to Thrace, keeps more or
less to the normal route from Troy to Italy, and therefore does not really correspond
to the concept of 'wandering around'. In Crete it is the Penates who speak in
Apollo's name, appearing to Aeneas as an image in a dream or a vision. Thus Virgil
has changed the location of this episode, since in the traditional version it comes at a
later point: in Latium, when the army of the Latins lay encamped opposite the
102 Trojans, the Penates are said to have advised Aeneas in a dream not to fight but to
come to a peaceful agreement.[22] This had been omitted in Virgil's treatment of the
story in Book 7, so that the motif was available for him to use at this point, where it
fits the situation quite naturally; after all, on the matter of the new homeland the
Penates are the ones who can speak with the greatest authority. Finally, Virgil has
put the prophecy of the prodigium of the tables into Celaeno's mouth, which was
surely his own original idea, as we have already said. In addition to these four
prophecies there are prophecies by Creusa, the Sibyl, and Tiberinus in other books;
and in a wider sense the 'pageant of heroes' in the underworld and the description of
the Shield also belong in this context; we can see how careful Virgil was to vary the
way in which the motif was presented.
The stop at Leucas-Actium is the only one that is not connected with the main
scheme.[23] The tradition knows of sanctuaries of Aphrodite founded by Aeneas on
Leucas, at Actium, and in Ambracia. Virgil mentions none of these; just as, out of
all the
selected just one, the one that was most important to Rome, that of Venus Erycina
(5.760), here, too, he is careful to avoid duplication. In the case of Actium, in total
conformity with the standpoint of the whole narrative, Apollo is named, even though
it is not explicitly stated that it is in his honour that Aeneas orders the games to be
celebrated on the Actian shore as a thanksgiving for the safe voyage through a
103 hostile region.[24] It is obvious that the whole episode is inserted because of the
significance which Actium had gained for Virgil's generation. That is why it is only
here that Virgil mentions a dedicatory gift by Aeneas, although according to the
tradition he offered them in many places. For example, Aeneas is said to have
dedicated a shield at Samothrace (Serv. on 287), as he does here.
The passages that I have cited are the sum total of the material that Virgil took
from the tradition for his narrative of this part of the journey. It is only a small part
of what was available to him; he was able to draw on a richer tradition than is
known to us from Dionysius, and even he tells us a great deal that Virgil disdained
to use: apart from numerous stopping-points and foundations of temples, there are
Aeneas' relationship with Launa, the daughter of Anius; the death of Cinaethus, who
was buried on the promontory now called after him; the sojourn in Arcadia, where
Aeneas left behind two daughters; the games established in honour of Aphrodite on
Zacynthus; and the detour to Dodona, which we have already discussed. It would
have been necessary to give all these events their own significance by inventing
motivation, which would have expanded the narrative out of all proportion and
would have overshadowed the principal theme in a most undesirable way, or, nar-
rated in Apollonius' annalistic style, it would have been of merely academic interest,
which had no value for Virgil. We can readily understand why he simply dispensed
with this surplus material. Nor does he record with antiquarian precision the local
traditions of South Italian cities which claimed traces of a visit by Aeneas.[25] Aeneas
puts in only at Castrum Minervae, to fulfil the vow which he made for a safe
crossing; for the rest, the reference in Helenus' prophecy to Greek settlements along
the coast explains why the Trojans do not put in to land at any point; this maintains
the impression that the voyage is perilous and like a flight. The only omission that
we might find surprising is the meeting with Diomedes, which, according to a
respectable legend, took place in Calabria. Of course, Virgil could not use the story
that Diomedes took Anchises' bones from the tomb and returned them to Aeneas;
but there was another tradition, according to which Diomedes came up to Aeneas
while he was sacrificing, to return the Palladium of Troy, possession of which had
brought him misfortune. In order not to interrupt the sacrifice, Aeneas turned away
104 with his head covered, and so Nautes received the sacred object instead, which
explains why the cult remained in the hands of his descendants, the Nautii.[26] Virgil
retained the
and he also knows of Nautes as a favourite of Pallas (5.704); but he motivates the
covering of the head as being due to fear of seeing an enemy while sacrificing, and
omits Diomedes completely; and yet one would have thought that Virgil would have
welcomed the opportunity for Aeneas to take the Palladium, and thus complete the
number of pignora imperii [tokens of empire] in his care; as it is, the Palladium is
mentioned only in Sinon's account of its theft (2.166). It is possible that he believed
that this tradition was open to objections on factual grounds;[27] it is also possible that
he considered it too novelistic that Aeneas and Diomedes should meet in person, and
therefore chose to refashion the motif so as to create a new episode, which we now
read in Book 11, the unsuccessful attempt by the Latins to obtain help from
Diomedes: here, too, Diomedes comes to realise that the misfortune that dogs him is
due to the fact that his fight against Troy was a fight against gods.
5—
Poetic Re-shaping
When Virgil selected material from the tradition and arranged it to accord with the
dominant theme of his new scheme, he always started with the bare bones of the
action. For all the rest, for the clothing of these bones with the flesh of living poetry,
he had to rely on free invention. But his free invention is not a matter of new
creation, it is a reshaping of existing motifs, working in features borrowed from
other legends. He used three cycles of legends: the various versions of the tale of the
destruction of Troy; the Odyssey ; and the voyage of the Argonauts.
105 The legend of Polydorus comes immediately after the sack of Troy. Virgil used it
in a highly original way, to motivate the Trojans' abandonment of their first attempt
to found a city in Thrace. The spears which the treacherous Thracians rained down
upon Polydorus grew roots and now cover his burial-mound with a thicket of myrtle
and cornel cherry. When Aeneas tears a young tree out of the earth, blood flows
from the roots; this happens again when he tries a second time; at the third attempt
Aeneas hears from the grave the pitiful groan of the dead man and learns for the first
time that he had been murdered. For the account of Polydorus' fate which Aeneas
proceeds to give, Virgil seems in all probability to have used Euripides' Hecuba ;[28]
but his version of the way in which Polydorus was killed, and the fate of his corpse,
is completely different from that of Euripides. The ancient commentators were not
able to identify any source for Virgil here.[29] Servius felt that it was necessary to
defend Virgil against the charge of having invented an implausible falsehood by
reminding us of the cornel cherry which had grown out of Romulus' spearshaft on
the Palatine, but it is a far cry from that story to Virgil's invention. I prefer to believe
that Virgil transferred to Polydorus something which he found in a narrative about
someone else.[30] Given the nature of the relationship between Polydorus and Poly-
mestor, it is highly improbable that he died in the manner narrated here. It is more
likely that it was some hero who could not be beaten in close combat who was
106 overcome from a distance by a shower of spears [31] I do not believe that Virgil
invented the whole episode, primarily because there is no motivation in the present
context for the miraculous transformation of the spearshafts into live saplings,
whereas it would be easy to imagine that in the original story some god who was
favourably disposed towards the murdered man covered the corpse in this way and
thus made sure that it received a kind of burial. The idea that blood could still flow
from the wounds of a man murdered long before will have been modelled on
legends where bleeding from damaged plants and trees reveals that a metamorphosis
has taken place. This motif may have been more common than it is possible for us to
establish; the only example that I can recall is the metamorphosis of Lotis (Ovid
Met . 9.344).[32] But it may have been precisely this detail of bleeding which led Virgil
to take over the whole motif in the first place; as the expression monstra deum[33] (59)
[divine omen] clearly shows, the gruesome event is intended to serve as a prodi -
gium , warning the Trojans that the gods forbid the new foundation. However, it is
well known how frequently blood plays a role in prodigia : sometimes it rains blood,
sometimes blood appears in wells, rivers and lakes, or on images of gods; sometimes too
– and this is closest to our example – the com bleeds when it is reaped (Livy 22.1; 28.11).
More important than the question of Virgil's source, which cannot be answered
with certainty at present, is the manner in which he narrates the whole episode. This
deserves careful attention. The foundation of the city, which for an Alexandrian poet
would be something of considerable importance, is dismissed in two lines; the name
Aeneadae leaves us in doubt whether Virgil means Aineia in Macedonia or Ainos in
Thrace;[34] indeed, Aeneas' account actually implies that no settlement took place,
107 since all the Trojans depart again from the scelerata terra (60) [wicked land].
Moreover, we are not told anything about their relations with the Thracians who
own the territory, or the hospitium mentioned in line 61; similarly we are left
completely in the dark about what Aeneas believed concerning the fate of Poly-
dorus, until the moment that the prodigium tells him the truth. We might easily
assume that Aeneas had landed on a desolate coast, as in Latium, had immediately
marked out the lines of the city walls, and that the sacrifice on the shore was the first
to be offered by the Trojans in their new home, and that they then left again as
quickly as they could – except that other phrases[35] seem to indicate that the Trojans
spent the winter on the Thracian coast, which agrees with the tradition known to us
from Dionysius. In a word, the poet deliberately puts all this to one side, perhaps
salving his conscience with the thought that Aeneas, as narrator, would not expect
his listeners to be interested in it, whereas the real reason was that the poet himself
did not think it worth including. The only thing that he does think important is the
emotional episode at the burial-mound, and while a writer more attracted by the
gruesome than Virgil might have put all the emphasis on this aspect of the incident,
Virgil imbues it with a different emotion: pity for the poor victim, who is still
suffering pain even after death, and whose body is still being torn as if he were still
alive.
The encounter with Helenus was one of the few motifs capable of poetic develop-
ment which Virgil was able to take from the tradition (Dion. Hal. 1.32). We have
108 already discussed the prediction. Virgil treated the scenes of greeting and departure
in great detail, so as to develop all the pathos which the situation contained, espe-
cially that created by the presence of Andromache. The poet's interest is centred on
her rather than on Helenus, who remains a colourless figure. Here, too, he took his
inspiration from tragedy: he has Euripides' unhappy Andromache in mind; not the
mother worrying about her little son (Molossus, son of Neoptolemus, does not
appear; he would have destroyed the concentration of the interest on a single figure,
and just imagine how Aeneas would have regarded the son of the man he loathed so
much!), but the uncomforted, endlessly sorrowing widow of Hector and mother of
Astyanax: Virgil does not permit the comparatively happy situation in which she
now finds herself to have any effect on her nature. Thus her sorrow for her past
losses is not tempered by joy in her living son and her Trojan husband, but only
increased by the tormenting shame that she has had to share the bed of the arrogant
victor. When she catches sight of Aeneas, her first thought is of Hector; she turns all
her attention to Ascanius, overwhelms Aeneas with a host of questions about him,
gives him parting gifts, for she seems to see Astyanax in him; this is one of the most
moving passages in Virgil's poem.[36] Just as she is reminded of the death of
109 Astyanax, so too Andromache thinks of the sacrifice of Polyxena. Thus two of the
most important episodes of the sack of Troy, of which Aeneas himself could not
give an eye-witness account, are treated to some extent at this later point.[37]
110 Virgil made use of the Odyssey in many ways. First, as we have already observed
in many instances, he has transferred the situations of Odysseus to Aeneas: this
includes Helenus' prediction, which combines Teiresias' prediction with the instruc-
tions of Circe;[38] also the sojourn at Dido's court, which reminds us in more than one
respect of the reception of Odysseus by the Phaeacians, and in another way of the
Calypso story, although its main motif is borrowed from elsewhere; the slaughter of
the cattle of the Harpies, in which he plays around very freely with the motif of the
cattle of the Sun; the tempest in Book 1, where not only are the whole situation and
important details in the description borrowed from the Odyssey , but also the words
of the hero, though they are characteristically remodelled;[39] and finally, the Nekyia.
111 Secondly, Virgil introduced into his poem the places mentioned by Odysseus,
together with their fabulous inhabitants. In doing so, he had a predecessor in Apollo-
nius, who brought the Argo back home along the whole of the same route as
Odysseus, most of this of course not by his own invention. The dangerous voyage
through the Planktai (4.922) had already been mentioned in the Odyssey itself
(12.59ff.); Scylla and Charybdis are also mentioned (Ap. 4.823, 920). The tradition
followed by Apollonius also included the purification by Circe (659) and the visit to
the Phaeacians (980); and the Sirens (889) had also already been given their place in
the tale of the Argonauts through the introduction of the story of Boutes. For erudite
philological and geographical reasons, Apollonius links Calypso's island, about
which he tells us nothing except its location (572) and the cattle of the Sun which
they see and hear as they sail by (963), with Thrinacia. Finally, Aeolus is ruler of the
winds but does not come into direct contact with the Argonauts, a rôle similar to that
which he plays in Virgil (762, 775, 817). Virgil's task was considerably more
difficult: the legend had not covered the same ground before, and if he wanted his
hero to undergo any experiences in the wake of Odysseus, he was obliged to depend
entirely on his own free invention; and in so doing, in order to remain true to his
principles, he had to avoid an episodic style as far as possible. The Phaeacum arces
(291) [citadels of the Phaeacians] are mentioned only in order to indicate the lo-
cality, and so too is the Sirens' island (5.864), where the poet refers to its former
terrors with the utmost brevity. Aeolus had been dealt with in the scene in Book 1:
and only in this instance does Virgil depart from Homeric tradition and follow a
different source.[40] Scylla and Charybdis however are given greater proiminence; they
are not an episodic addition, but the reason for the detour round Sicily. Aeneas does
not see them himself, but only hears the mighty roar of Charybdis from afar
(3.555ff.); but he has heard about the horrific creatures from Helenus (420ff.), in
whose speech there is an excellent reason for their detailed description: it is the only
way to give his warning the emphasis that is required. In the case of Circe, too, the
Trojans only sail past (7.10-24): it is night, the reflection of moonlight trembles on
the surface of the sea; a fire is blazing there on the shore in front of the enchantress'
lofty palace; the roaring of wild beasts sounds through the stillness of the night. This
is the last danger which threatens Aeneas and his men before they reach their
112 destination; Neptune is merciful, and carries them past. The poet lingers rather
longer over this descriptive passage; not only because Circe alone of all these
fabulous creatures was also involved in Latin legend; Monte Circeo, familiar to
every Roman, had to be mentioned as a landmark, quite apart from its significance
in legend; even today, anyone describing a voyage along that coast mentions it.
There remains the only purely episodic insertion in Book 3, the scene on the shore of
the Cyclopes. Virgil wanted to depict Polyphemus in all his frightfulness,[41] but
without exposing Aeneas to the same kind of danger that Odysseus had to undergo,
since he was taking care not to create an episode in rivalry with the incomparable
adventure in Homer. That is why he introduces Achaemenides, whom he can use as
a mediating figure to link the voyage of Aeneas directly with the most famous of all
voyages: tradition did tell of a meeting between Aeneas and Odysseus himself,[42] but
here Odysseus is replaced by one of his companions. However, Virgil was able to
imbue this invented figure[43] and his fate with an emotional interest which transcends
the monstrous element in the adventure: the unfortunate man who has to beseech his
mortal enemy to rescue him from a fate that is even worse than dying – this is an
invention that is entirely typical of Virgil's art.[44] Virgil emphasizes rather than
113 conceals the similarity with the Sinon scene. Indeed, the Trojans' humanity cannot
be better demonstrated than here in this scene, where those who had once them-
selves been plunged into disaster because they trusted and took pity, nevertheless
show mercy again towards a suppliant enemy. And here, where no divine power is
plotting misfortune for the pious, the nobility of their nature is rewarded: they owe
their own rescue to the man they have rescued. Thus the bold cunning of Odysseus
is implicitly matched by the pietas of the Trojans.
In the adventure with the Harpies on the Strophades various legendary motifs
have been fused together. Apollonius had recounted in detail how the Boreads free
Phineus from the Harpies and, at Iris' command, cease pursuing them at the islands
which for this reason are known as the Strophades; the Harpies then disappear into a
cave on Crete. In Virgil they continue to live on the Strophades, which are even
called their patrium regnum (249) [hereditary kingdom]; he also gives them rich
herds of cattle and goats, which hardly accords with their reputation as creatures that
are always hungry and stealing food (in Virgil they still have pallida semper ora
fame [217-18] [faces always pallid with hunger]). This device serves to introduce an
adventure which is analogous with that of Odysseus on the Island of the Sun: the
Trojans, like the companions of Odysseus, steal from herds which belong to immor-
tals. When Aeneas' men proceed to fight the monstrous creatures, this may be a
reminiscence of the Argonauts' fight with the birds of Ares, although the outcome is
different (2.1035ff.). But the purpose of all this is only to provide the poet with the
groundwork for his restructuring of the prodigium of the tables, which was an
established part of the Aeneas legend. We have already discussed (p. 72 above)
what was new in Virgil's interpretation of the oracle. The artistic value of the scene
lies principally in the steady increase in tension; here the aim of the poet is to arouse
not pity but terror, to raise an incident that is merely gruesome and repulsive and to
114 invest it with grandeur and terror: the poet's intention is that Celaeno, as Furiarum
maxima [greatest of the Furies] and the one who delivers Apollo's prophecy, shall
appear as a mythically heroic creature instead of an eerie monster.
The Trojans do not actually run into any danger on the Strophades, but at least
they have an opportunity to reach for their weapons; in the other adventures they do
not even do that. They run away from Polyphemus before he can get hold of them;
Scylla and Charybdis, like Circe, are only seen and heard from a distance; so too
with the Sirens, and from them there is nothing else to fear. It is only in the
sea-storm in Book 1 that Aeneas is in any real danger of losing his life; and even
there he is rescued without any effort on his part. But even though Aeneas' trials
during his wanderings do not demand the boldness, energy and endurance that were
required of Odysseus, who again and again had to overcome difficulties at risk to
life and limb, Virgil certainly did not intend to give the impression that his hero had
an easier lot. What he has to suffer is emotional pain, with which the poet can
involve himself to a much profounder degree than with physical pain and mortal
danger: the loss of his native land, the bitterness of exile, hopes dashed again and
again, the years of seeking an unknown destination: these are the sufferings of
Aeneas; his fame, and his heroism, lie in his perseverance, in spite of everything, in
the task which a god has imposed on him, and which he owes to the gods of his
native land. Such emotional suffering and activity are of course much more difficult
to depict than visible, physical events, and particularly difficult when they are
described by the voice of the hero himself;[45] the poet is relying on the reader
identifying so closely with the hero that he will himself feel the emotions which
must have engulfed Aeneas. It is this, perhaps, rather than the impact of the individ-
ual adventures, which provides the emotional effect that Virgil strives after in his
account of the wanderings of Aeneas.
3—
Dido
History told of the voluntary suicide of Queen Dido, whereby she kept faith with her
husband Sicharbas beyond the grave. When she saw no other escape from an en-
forced marriage with Iarbas, she mounted the funeral-pyre. Some poet, perhaps
116 Naevius,[1] freely reworked this story in the style of Hellenistic love-poetry, and sent
to the funeral-pyre not the ever-faithful widow but the woman that Aeneas has loved
and abandoned. Virgil has adopted this version, and consequently it has become
famous, but the consciousness that it is a poetic fiction has not been lost; no
historian, as far as we know, has granted it so much as a mention.[2] Even in Virgil the
original picture of Dido shines through beneath his new over-painting; not only in
the importance that Virgil still assigns to the motif of her loyalty to her dead
husband: when Dido laments that she has allowed her sense of shame to die and has
ruined her reputation, the one thing by which she had been hoping to gain immor-
tality (4.322), there is a memory – no doubt unconscious – of that Dido who went to
her death for the sake of loyalty, and so won for herself immortal fame.
Thus when Virgil incorporated Dido into his epic, it was certainly not because he
was forced to do so by the strength of established tradition.
Nor was he constrained to do so for technical reasons, such as the need to provide
someone to listen to Aeneas' story; Acestes, for example, could have fulfilled this
function. It was simply that Virgil regarded a love story as an integral part of an
epic. Circe and Calypso, Hypsipyle and Medea urgently demanded a counterpart if
Aeneas' experiences were not to look jejune in comparison with those of Odysseus
and Jason; moreover, Virgil's ideal was the greatest possible richness and the utili-
117 zation of all possible epic motifs. As soon as Virgil's attention was drawn, by some
earlier poetic version, to the woman who founded Carthage, we can imagine how his
gaze will have lingered on her, spellbound; she was indeed ideally suited to the
poet's purpose. History knew, of course, of other liaisons of Aeneas: he is said to
have fathered a son by the daughter of Anius (Serv. on 3.80), and in Arcadia they
knew of two daughters born to him by Codone and Anthemone (Agathyllus cited by
Dion. Hal. 1.49); but what were these unknown girls compared with the most
powerful queen known in the history of the west, the founder of the only city which
was to threaten Rome? And what a perspective this struggle between Rome and
Carthage, a struggle that was to affect the history of the entire world, gave to the
encounter, first friendly, then hostile, of their two founders! But as soon as Virgil
had envisaged the possibility of including Dido, then she was the obvious person to
listen to Aeneas' tale – possibly Naevius suggested this idea too.[3] Virgil was doubt-
less proud of having discovered new and fruitful developments of the Homeric
device of recounting adventures: Dido's burgeoning love impels her to her urgent
questioning, and Aeneas' narrative of his deeds and disasters vastly intensifies her
love, which thus becomes the motivation of the action.[4]
The tragic outcome of this love was taken over by Virgil from his predecessor. If
it was Naevius, he can hardly have provided more than the barest skeleton of events;
118 the treatment is entirely Virgil's. There is probably no part of his epic where he
stands at a further remove from Homer than here; and he seems to have been fully
aware of what he was doing. If it was indeed his ideal to come as close as possible to
early epic without losing those improvements and new developments of later times
which he valued, then here he was entering a world which had really only been
discovered since Homer's time: the portrayal of love as a passion which both floods
the soul with rapture and at the same time destroys it. Homer does not say much
about love; goddesses may not send their beloved hero on his way gladly, but
nevertheless they do so with the carefree spirit that is characteristic of Homer's
divinities: Calypso provides food for the journey, Circe gives directions for the
journey, there are no fond words of farewell.[5] Apollonius, who is quite modern in
his portrayal of Medea's vain struggle against overwhelming passion, nevertheless
does not go far beyond the restrained tone of the ancient epic in his account of the
episode on Lemnos, even though in itself it is analogous to the tale of Dido. We are
given the farewell words of Hypsipyle and Jason, it is true, and there is talk of tears
and the clasping of hands; but the couple seem to understand each other perfectly.
Hypsipyle never counted on holding her beloved guest captive for ever; it does not
occur to her to chide him for leaving her. The essential thing here is the event;
Apollonius hardly even touches on the emotions involved. Virgil had chosen to use
the form of the epic because he valued it above all for the opportunity that it gave
him to create strong emotional effects. There was no lack of models and precedents:
in no area was the last flowering of Greek poetry more inventive than in searching
out all the dangers and misfortunes of consuming passion, love unknown or love
deceived or unlawful love, which drove its victim through sorrow, shame and
despair to suicide. Such themes, admittedly, had hardly ever yet formed the subject
of an epic: the Hellenistic period had created for itself a new vehicle, the epyllion,
119 that was ideally suited to the new material. Virgil's poem about Dido, complete and
self-contained, certainly had some kinship with that classical miniature form of
narrative: but it is quite clear that, despite the subject-matter, the poet was striving to
achieve and maintain the heroic tone of the epic. In this he was given invaluable
help by drama: there he could learn how to treat his material in an elevated style,
and he did not scorn this help.[6] The analysis which follows is an attempt to unravel
the technique of Virgil's tragic epyllion into its component parts.
1—
Scene setting:
Love
The fourth book is devoted to Dido. She dominates the scene to such an extent that
the epic hero plays a secondary role. At the beginning of the book we find her
caught in the toils of love. She attains her heart's desire; then comes the peripeteia
of the drama, leading to a rapid plunge from the heights of happiness and to the fatal
conclusion. The ground for this tragedy is laid in Book 1 in the full detail which is
one of the advantages that an epic poet has over a dramatist.
Dido's entrance is prepared in two ways. First, Aeneas hears about her from
Venus; the narrative is ingeniously contrived so that it not only informs us but also
120 wins our sympathies.[7] The listener is moved first to pity, then to admiration: here is
a princess wounded to the depths of her soul, who pulls herself together, and whose
misfortune gives her the strength to overcome her feminine frailty, to perform deeds
of masculine daring – dux femina facti [the enterprise was led by a woman] – and, a
mere woman, to venture to found a city amongst barbarian tribes, a city whose
beginning prefigures its future greatness. Secondly, Aeneas sees Dido's achieve-
ment, the city itself, and is astonished by its magnificent lay-out and the swarming
activity of the builders, in which the spirit of their queen is reflected (1.420-36); her
humanity, which honours the greatness of another race, and pities their sufferings, is
shown by the paintings in the temple, which also tell him that his own name and
achievements are not unknown to the queen (456ff.).
Only now does Dido herself appear, and her appearance fully lives up to the
expectations that Virgil has aroused in us: she enters in regal majesty with a royal
retinue, with royal dignity.[8] So far, Aeneas has only admired her works, but now he
sees her in action; so far, he has been hoping that she will show a sense of humanity
and nobility, and now these hopes are fulfilled by the reception which she accords to
the Trojan suppliants. Thus everything conspires to prepare the ground most propi-
tiously for the long-awaited personal encounter between Aeneas and the queen,
which now ensues.
All this is a piece of scene-setting which I believe to be without parallel in
ancient narrative literature. Individual details are borrowed from Odysseus' recep-
121 tion by the Phaeacians: just as Venus tells Aeneas about Dido, so Athena tells
Odysseus about Arete; Aeneas is astonished by the sight of Carthage, as Odysseus is
by the harbours and ships, squares and walls in the city of the Phaeacians ( Od .
7.43ff.). But it is easy to see how much more significant the two motifs have become
in Virgil, since they both prepare the way for what is to come: Aeneas is to fall in
love with the princess whom Venus praises so highly to him, and he is to take up
and continue her work of building the city whose greatness and progress he so
admires. Everything that he sees and experiences in the temple of Juno is calculated
to make Aeneas, and with him the reader, admire Dido more and more, and this has
no parallel in the Odyssey; Virgil's inspiration is a truly dramatic one: the poet
transforms everything that he has to tell us about his heroine into action, which is
carried forward by Aeneas. Thus not only has he already been won over to Dido
before he has even exchanged a single word with her; the reader, too, receives an
impression at her first entrance comparable to the impression that we experience in a
drama at the first entrance of a principal character, about whom intense expectations
have been aroused by an ingenious exposition – think for example of Tartuffe or
Egmont – and Virgil can count on the reader's ready acceptance of what the Fates
have in store for Dido in Book 4, since they have already begun to spin their thread.
Dido, too, for her part, has long and gradually been prepared for the appearance
of Aeneas. It was from Teucer, after the fall of Troy, that she had first heard his
name, and it had been from the lips of an enemy that she had first heard his praises
(1.619ff.); she knows that he is the son of Venus. The battles around Troy and the
part that Aeneas played in them are known to her in every detail. She has used a
representation of them to adorn the principal temple of her new city, the temple in
which she herself is accustomed to sit upon the throne. And now she hears the king
praised by his own men, and hears of their unconditional trust in him; no wonder
that she is moved to wish to see him for herself. Scarcely has she uttered this wish
than he is suddenly standing before her like some divine apparition,[9] in a state of
122 exaltation brought about by his pride in what he has just heard, his joy that his
companions and he himself have escaped death, and his admiration for Dido's regal
manner: 'his divine mother had breathed the splendour of youth over him' is how
Virgil, in truly Homeric fashion,[10] explains this enhancement of his nature at that
moment, and the effect which his appearance will have on Dido.
Since the ground has been prepared on both sides, we might expect that mutual
love will flare up at first glance. In Hellenistic love poetry, the sudden arousal of a
passion, as quick as lightning, is actually a 'rule of artistic representation',[11] and this
rule is also obeyed by the narrative of Apollonius' epic, at least as far as Medea's
passion is concerned: she is struck by Eros' arrow as soon as she sets eyes on Jason,
and her whole being is immediately overwhelmed by love (3.275ff.), while Jason
ignores her completely at first, and it is only much later, during their secret conver-
sation, that he himself is inflamed by the tears of the woman (1077f.). Medea is won
over by the mere sight of him, by the heroic beauty of the man; indeed, in all the
Hellenistic love poets that is the only reason why people fall in love. We have seen
how Virgil has prepared the way for the mutual attraction of Dido and Aeneas by
much subtler psychological means; similarly he does not ascribe the power to ignite
123 a brilliant flame to a mere glance, despite the careful way in which he has assembled
the flammable materials. It is true that these two are not to be compared with those
youths and maidens who know nothing of Eros and, unprepared, fall victim to an
unfamiliar passion. Virgil has completely avoided all mention of Aeneas' feelings of
love. It is only at their separation that we are explicitly shown by means of small
touches how deeply in love he has been. For the rest, the poet allows the facts to
speak for themselves, after he has prepared the emotional ground as thoroughly as
possible: Aeneas' feelings of admiration, and his sympathy and pity for Dido's
former sufferings are combined with gratitude, which he expresses in extravagant
words (597ff.). Dido's subsequent behaviour, her heartfelt and obvious attraction to
the supposed Ascanius, and her passionate involvement with Aeneas' own fortunes
are enough to do the rest. Later, there is no longer any need to state explicitly that
her love is reciprocated: if a hero like Aeneas can forget his divine mission for the
sake of a woman, even for a short time, how overwhelming his passion must be![12]
124 Dido, too, has to forget, before she can open her heart to the new emotion: she is still
attached to Sychaeus, the husband of her youth, and feels that it is her duty to remain
faithful to him, and she fears that if she forms a new attachment she will be doing
wrong to her first husband. So it would be inappropriate for her, too, to be suddenly
pierced by an arrow shot at her by Eros, in the way that many other poets,[13]
including Apollonius, had depicted the onset of love. Virgil follows the traditional
technique of Hellenistic love-poetry in so far as he characterizes overwhelming love
as the result of an intervention by Amor in person; but he chooses a form which
contrives to portray the rapid but gradual invasion of this new love;[14] throughout the
125 first night, while Aeneas talks of his deeds and sufferings, and, as we saw above,
talks his way into Dido's heart, Amor lingers between the two in the guise of
Ascanius. But Virgil has also taken care that this intervention by the divinity appears
necessary. It is not only a matter of conquering a woman's heart, which would
probably not have withstood the heroic appearance of an Aeneas in any case, but it
is a matter of Venus taking precautions against Juno's wiles (1.671ff.), since Juno
could have used Dido as a means of expressing her hatred: and the only sure defence
against the hatred that springs from the will of one god is love hat is sent by
another.[15]
2—
Dido's Guilt:
Anna:
Passion
Dido's love has first to fight against her sense of duty. Her conversation with her
sister (4.9ff.) allows us to witness that struggle, and the victory of love. Virgil has
used her traditional faithfulness to her first husband to create a conflict within Dido
herself which is of the greatest importance for the action. If Dido's death is to give
the impression of poetic justice, she must be burdened with some form of guilt. This
guilt lies in her deliberately violating the duty of fidelity which she herself regards
as binding.[16] It is pudor [a sense of shame] which makes the new marriage im-
possible for her, and which, only too easily persuaded by Anna's specious
126 arguments, she proceeds to disregard. Similarly, in Apollonius, it is
of shame] that at first restrains Medea; but in her case it is only maidenly decorum
that prevents her from entering into a relationship with a strange man without her
parents' knowledge; when she has freed herself after a long struggle, she says of it
hand, is something very different: it is a power which she acknowledges to be divine
and under divine protection. This is a specifically Roman way of thinking: a
woman's pudicitia corresponds as a moral ideal to a man's virtus , and of all our
evidence of the high regard in which the univira [a woman faithful to one husband]
was held,[17] none is more characteristic than the information that only 'matrons of
known modesty in their first and only marriage'[18] could make sacrifices at the altars
of Pudicitia. We know very well how far practice in Virgil's time fell short of this
ideal, but we may deduce from Virgil that, at least in the circles which still upheld
something of the old Roman values, the requirement as such was maintained. One
would dearly like to know the feelings with which Augustus heard these lines; he
was Livia's second husband and had been Scribonia's third;[19] but to judge by the
general tendency of his politics, and the way in which he kept his politics distinct
from his own private life, it is not at all unlikely that he took a sympathetic view of a
requirement which could only promote the reinstatement of the sanctity of marriage
which he strove after so passionately. In any case, Virgil intended to show that Dido
was a woman of the highest moral character by making her feel that this requirement
was a moral and religious duty; she fails in this duty after its basis, her love for her
first husband, has disappeared; but she does not escape the torture of a repentant
conscience (4.552) and she pays for her guilt by her death (457ff.); and she is
reunited with Sychaeus in the Underworld (6.474).
Tradition provided Dido with a sister, Anna. Virgil entrusts her with an important
127 rôle, important, however, for his narrative technique rather than for the development
of the action: the rôle of confidante. At first one is inclined to make comparisons
with Medea's sister, Chalciope, in Apollonius' poem, but she is a character who is
required by the action, and Medea does not confide in her: on the contrary, she hides
her personal feelings from her, and at the decisive moment, when she flees from her
country, she acts quite independently, without consulting her sister. Here, too, Apol-
lonius adheres strictly to the epic style. The confidante is a technical device,
invented for the purposes of the theatre, taken over as a stock figure by classicizing
tragedy from ancient tragedy ( Medea , Phaedra etc.). Her function is to allow the
audience to discover things which only one character can and does know; in this
way the author can share her hidden feelings with the spectator, and create and
overcome objections, without continually falling back on the device of the mono-
logue.[20] The epic poet can use narrative instead of monologue, or alternate the two, a
technique which Apollonius himself uses with great success. Virgil reserves mono-
logue for the emotional climaxes of his narrative; in the earlier stages of the Dido
episode he makes use of the confidante to transform epic narrative into dramatic
action. Virgil's confidante is not the trusty nurse or maidservant who stands at the
heroine's side in drama and who so often acts as the go-between in the romantic
literature of the Hellenistic age,[21] serving her mistress' passion with blind obe-
dience, taking no heed of duty or honour. There is usually something rather vulgar
about this figure, and anything of that kind would be inconsistent with Virgil's
concept of the elevated style that epic demands. He may on one occasion send the
nutrix [nurse] (Barce 4.632) on an errand, but her status is too inferior to that of the
128 queen for her to have any influence on her decisions, or to receive her humiliating
confessions and convey her requests to Aeneas: but Anna, the unanima soror [like-
minded sister], is ideal for all these purposes. Virgil also makes use of her to raise
the emotional level of the final scene, and to portray the effect of the terrible event,
something that he regarded as very important in every emotional scene: here the
grief of the deceived and forsaken sister (675ff.), in whose arms Dido is dying,
intensifies the effect that her death has on the reader. Of course, it is possible to
imagine what Book 4 would be like without the figure of Anna; it would not affect
the action to any great extent; but from an artistic point of view she is of great
importance, and it can hardly be true that it was only at a later stage that Virgil
added the scenes in which Anna appears;[22] since Virgil envisaged the action in
dramatic form from the very beginning, the confidante too had a place in it from the
very beginning.
Dido has confided in her sister in order to unburden her anxious heart. She feels
the power of new love growing within her, but she feels that it is wrong to yield to it,
and with a fearful oath she affrms her apparently steadfast resolve to resist it, as if
to give herself something to cling to; thus she herself pronounces judgement on
herself in advance. Anna, the unanima soror , knows very well what is really going
on in her sister's mind, and seeks to dispel her scruples, principally by representing
the fulfilment of her heart's desire as politically advantageous, indeed her royal
duty. But in view of Dido's religious scruples, she first suggests that she should
assure herself of Juno's approval by seeking her venia [pardon], or pax [peace], as
129 Virgil calls it a few lines later;[23] this then becomes the sisters' first concern. Once
the favourable outcome of the sacrifice has released Dido from religio [religious
scruple], she is freed from her doubts and scruples, and is able to work with a clear
conscience towards the fulfilment of her desires, and in the first place to seek to gain
time: then the rest will come about of its own accord. We now hear (56ff.) that Dido
follows her sister's advice with the utmost eagerness, and is insatiable in her praying
and sacrificing; she turns above all to Juno, cui vincla iugalia curae [who is con-
cerned with the bonds of marriage], who is able to dissolve the bonds of a former
marriage and validate a new one. She tries to read the will of the gods in the entrails
of the sacrificial animals.[24] But what is the result of these sacrifices? Are the entrails
favourable or unfavourable? Virgil does not tell us, and so his interpreters have
maintained both views with equal conviction and with equal justification. The fact is
that Virgil has evaded a difficulty at this point in a rather radical way. We know
from the final outcome that the sacrifices cannot have been favourable; otherwise
the gods would have been deceiving Dido, or the seer must have been mistaken. On
the other hand, if Juno is prepared to go straight ahead and ratify the marriage about
which they were consulting her, then the poet cannot possibly say that she refused to
130 accept the sacrifice. So he deliberately leaves the question unresolved. It does not
matter what the vates [seers] announce; they have no idea what is really agitating
Dido's mind,[25] and they no doubt believe that prayers and vows can calm her down,
when in fact she has been seized by the frenzy of love, and the flames of love are
consuming the marrow of her bones (65-7).
The symptoms of this passion, which are described in lines 68ff., are familiar to
us from the romantic literature of the Hellenistic period: torment and restlessness;
pretexts for being at least in the company of her beloved;[26] she stammers in his
presence;[27] she cannot hear enough of his voice; even when he is absent she still sees
and hears no-one but him; [28] even at night she can find no rest;[29] and all the time she
neglects the completion of her newly-founded city, to which her days have pre-
viously been devoted.[30] But Virgil is careful to avoid anything which might reduce
this heroic passion to the level of the sentimental and bourgeois, and he scorns
details which are better suited to the miniature technique of the epyllion than to the
131 broad strokes of the epic. Nor does the action stand still while Dido's symptoms are
described, for we hear what else is taking place in Carthage, how Dido's subjects
cannot remain unaware of her passion, and how her reputation is beginning to be
sullied (91); Juno therefore, in order to prevent anything worse and at the same time
to serve her own purposes, forms the plan of ratifying the marriage.[31]
The cave in which Aeneas and Dido seek shelter from the storm had its predeces-
sor in the famous cave on Corcyra, which served Jason and Medea as a bridal
chamber. There, too, according to Apollonius 4.1141ff., the nymphs sent by Hera
enhanced the glory of the celebration. This passage may have been the source of
Virgil's inspiration;[32] his mastery can be seen in the natural way in which he
motivates what comes about because of the will of the gods, in the vivid descriptions
of the splendid hunt and of the storm, and above all in the few lines (166-8) devoted
to the fateful wedding, at which flashes of lightning serve as torches and the joyful
cries of the nymphs high up on the wooded mountains serve as the wedding song.
As Virgil describes the hunt in detail and in magnificent colours, we might imagine
that he is merely using the resources of epic style, which glories in description for its
own sake; but the passage also has a deeper meaning: the pair are riding forth as if in
a wedding-procession, regally attired, glowing as though with youthful desire, with
a splendid retinue, and Virgil has sensed the tragic contrast, that Dido appears to us
in radiant happiness for the last time on the day which will fulfil her heart's desire
but which will also prove to be 'the first day of her death' (169).
132
3—
Dido's Journey Towards Death:
Her Character:
Conclusion
Virgil describes Dido's journey towards death with all the artistry at his command.[33]
The peripeteia occurs immediately after the climax of the narrative which we have
just dealt with; the poet passes rapidly over the period during which the two lovers
live peacefully together, as though he were afraid of showing his hero neglecting his
duty. We only hear what Fama says (173ff.): she distorts the truth when she depicts
the pair as indulging in a life of luxury, unmindful of their duty as rulers; it is only
later that we discover that this is untrue, when Mercury finds Aeneas busy with the
work of building the city. The gossip reaches Iarbas, Jupiter listens to him and
dispatches Mercury, Aeneas immediately obeys his command; Dido hears about his
first secret arrangements for departure again from Fama, who thus completes her
fatal work. From this point onwards, we accompany Dido along the short path she
has yet to tread, which leads her to her death by way of every torment of the soul.[34]
133 Virgil had no need, nor did he consider it his duty, to display originality in the
way in which Dido expresses her feelings. Despite the fact that much ancient
literature has not survived, there is hardly a single essential feature in Virgil's
depiction of her emotions that we cannot find in his predecessors. Here, too, the poet
was borrowing his material; his personal contribution was the art by which he
transformed it, and this art was so great that Dido is the only figure created by a
Roman poet who was destined to have a place in world literature.
The material that was available to Virgil was rich enough. The grief of a forsaken
woman had again and again been the subject of Greek poetry of every genre and
style. From this mass of material, Virgil from the very first rejected anything which
was inconsistent with the dignity of his style as being either too realistic or not
realistic enough. Tragedy supplied the earliest example of the figure of the forsaken
woman in Medea. During the Hellenistic period there were many such characters of
the more dignified love-poetry, more at any rate than we know of today; but we can
name Ariadne, whose lament at the loss of her love had been made familiar to the
Roman public by Catullus;[35] Phyllis, well-known through Callimachus' poem; Oe-
none, whose unhappy fate is certainly known to us at any rate from a Hellenistic
version (that of Quintus of Smyrna), to say nothing of numerous other comparable
poems whose artistic merits have been totally obliterated because of the inadequate
information that we have about them. Of these, two, like Dido, committed suicide:
Phyllis hangs herself all alone (Ovid Rem . Am . 591), Oenone throws herself in the
flames of the funeral-pyre which is consuming the body of Paris. But Greek poetry
had also often enough recounted the story of unfortunate characters who commit
suicide for reasons other than disappointment in love, and Virgil drew upon at least
one of these figures, perhaps the most famous of all, the Ajax of Sophocles.
Virgil has made as much use as possible of the abundance of available motifs,
intent as ever on the enrichment of his portrayal. But he does not describe a gloomy,
134 irregular oscillation of the emotions: his Dido is not tossed this way and that by the
conflict of her passions. On the contrary, the tragedy strides to its conclusion in a
clear and controlled fashion. Here too, Virgil strives as far as possible for dramatic
effect. He narrates only the observable action; he does not describe emotions but
almost always lets the heroine herself express them. Indeed, he always directs his
attention above all to linking the progressive heightening of these emotions closely
with the development of the observable action. Each new phase in the outward
course of events leads to a new phase in her inner development; and each of these
phases represents as purely as possible one particular state of mind, uncontaminated
by any other. Her first words to Aeneas (305ff.) express painful surprise at his lack
of loyalty;[36] she has not yet entirely given up all hope of awakening his pity and
sense of obligation towards her. When she realizes from his words that everything is
now over, she says farewell in words of scornful hatred .[37] She cannot maintain this
135 iron façade for long. When Aeneas' preparations for departure begin to be made
openly, she abandons her pride – and the poet makes us realize what this means to
someone like Dido – she gives way to humble renunciation and begs for at least a
short delay so that she will not collapse in the pain of parting (429ff.).[38] This
136 extreme measure does not work: Aeneas remains unmoved; horrifyinlg omens of all
kinds appear and Dido decides on death. The preparations for it begin; Dido herself
takes part in them; we hear the thoughts that torture her on a sleepless night as her
hard-won repose is lost in the storm of her emotions, and these thoughts lead her to
the conclusion that death is really the only way out of her sorrow: she has finally
come to despair about her future.[39] And now, in the grey light of dawn, she sees her
fate sealed: the fleet is sailing away. The sudden sight rouses her to extreme anger ,
137 which is accompanied by a thirst for revenge :[40] what her vengeful hand cannot
achieve, the curse shall do. But Dido cannot end her life like this, in demented fury.
She makes her last arrangements, ensures that her sister will be the first to find her
body,[41] and mounts the pyre. Gazing at the silent witnesses of her shortlived happi-
ness she discovers the sublime peace of renunciation and takes stock of her life:[42] in
138 full consciousness of her own greatness and of the height from which she has fallen,
she takes her leave, unreconciled with her murderer, but reconciled with death.
All this is presented to us as vividly as possible in Dido's own words; only the
linking text is supplied by the poet. From the point of view of technique, it is worth
noting how Virgil has sought (deliberately, it seems) to avoid, or disguise, the
monotony of constant monologues. She confesses her love to her sister. The peripe -
teia is followed by her two speeches to Aeneas, then she entrusts the mission to her
sister. The considerations which lead to her final decision (534ff.) are presented not
in a monologue but as an account of her thoughts ( secum ita corde volutat [she
communed with herself in her heart]). The sight of the ships sailing away throws her
into a demented fury, in which she breaks out into wild cries. She comes to herself,
horrified to find that she is talking to herself: quid loquor? aut ubi sum? quae
mentem insania mutat? (595) ['What am I saying? Where am I? What mad folly is
distorting my mind?']. The monologue develops into the prayer and mandata
[orders], which are naturally spoken aloud. Her final monologue also begins with an
apostrophe, as in tragedy.[43]
Virgil will hardly have found individually characterized female characters in his
Hellenistic sources; nor can his heroine be compared in this respect with her great
tragic predecessors, Deianeira, Medea or Ajax. She is not depicted with any realistic
touches that might lead us to think that she was modelled on some living person, nor
does she have any peculiar trait of character. On the other hand she is certainly not
like some inert musical instrument from which, although it has no feeling, the poet
can coax sounds full of pathos. The listener is expected not only to be interested in
the state of her emotions, but also to feel personal sympathy for her, as the poet
himself unmistakably did. In short, Dido is an ideal portrait of a heroic woman as
conceived by Virgil. She therefore has to be portrayed in a way that is essentially
negative: she must not be represented as girlishly naïve or timorous;[44] or humble
(like so many of Ovid's portrayals of women), or sly, spiteful or barbarically savage
139 (the idea of physically attacking Aeneas to punish him for his faithlessness only
occurs to her when she is in a demented state of delirium);[45] moaning and lamenta-
tion, sentimental wallowing in her own misfortune, useless regrets that things have
happened like this and not turned out differently – Virgil uses all these standard
features of tragic monodies and melodramatic Hellenistic scenes extremely spar-
ingly;[46] only at one point, as we have seen, does Dido forget her pride. In contrast to
these negative characteristics, Dido is given what seemed to Virgil a truly regal
attitude: the deepest humanitas [sense of humanity] combined with magnanimitas
[greatness of soul], displayed magnificently in her last words. Otherwise he dis-
penses altogether with devices that might have appealed to a poet striving to
characterize his heroine – for instance, he could have transformed the masculine
firmness of purpose and energy which she had displayed after Sychaeus' death into
a dominating trait which she still possessed even in her misfortune; or he could have
developed her humanitas in accordance with contemporary[47] ethical ideas into a
generous forgiveness which would put her enemy to shame; or yet again, he could
have brought her consciousness of her royal duty, to which Anna appeals, into the
centre of her existence, so that everything else would seem unimportant by compari-
son: as it stands, we find, somewhat to our surprise, that the dying queen has no
concern at all for the future of her city.
Virgil's renunciation of detailed characterization is consistent with the way that
he does not attribute Dido's voluntary death to one single motive, but heaps up
every imaginable one; sorrow at the loss of her beloved is by no means the motive
that predominates. Here Virgil, whether consciously or unconsciously, is under the
spell of tradition. For, strangely enough, although poets, particularly of the Hellenis-
tic period, frequently described the suicide of young people who are unhappy in
love,[48] and although on the other hand Greek epic and Greek poetry in general
140 frequently described the faithful wife who voluntarily followed her husband to
death,[49] there are very few examples of girls or women inflicting an injury on
themselves purely because they are disappointed in love, or their love is unrecipro-
cated.[50] Rather, in the majority of cases, the hero or heroine suffers from a sense of
shame because of some wrongful or humiliating deed: the threat of dishonour, or
horror at their own action makes life unendurable.[51] We have seen that Virgil also
introduced a motive of this kind: non servata fides cineri promissa Sychaei (522)
[the vow which I made to the ashes of Sychaeus is broken] is the thought which sets
the seal on Dido's decision. But that is not all: there is also shame at the insult she
has suffered (500ff.), the loss of her reputation for chastity, her greatest claim to
fame (322); fear of being abandoned to the enemies who surround her, now that she
has even lost the trust of her own subjects (320ff., 534ff.); the horrifying omens of
every kind, which increase her fear (452ff.) the voice of her dead husband (457ff.).
All these rage within her, and she succumbs to their combined onslaught, not to one
single sorrow. Was Virgil seduced here too by the sheer richness of the motives
available to him? Or did he think that it was impossible to accumulate too many
causes to account for the death of his heroine, to outweigh such a heroic life? Here,
too, he has taken care to preserve unity within this multiplicity: the whole of this
disaster arises from one deed, and it is one man who has turned this deed from a
blessing to ruin. We can only admire the skill with which we are made to see the
far-reaching consequences of Aeneas' act, one after the other, without being wearied
by any longwinded narrative. And this very skill, which allows a situation which has
been brought about by a single deed to unfold in every direction like some growing
141 plant – this skill irresistibly but imperceptibly convinces the listener of the necessity
of the tragic ending, whereas other great poets achieve this effect by letting it
emerge from the growth of a deeprooted and individually depicted character .
It still remains for us to look at the way in which Dido prepares and accomplishes
her death. There was a traditional version of the final scene, which Virgil must have
had in his mind's eye:[52] Dido has had a funeral pyre constructed for her on the
pretext that she intended to dissolve her former ties by means of a sacrifice to the
dead; and on this pyre she kills herself by the sword.[53] Virgil needed only to
substitute another pretext that was connected with Aeneas in order to make it
convincing. He replaced the sacrifice to the dead with a magic one, that was still
142 suited to the Underworld, so that it could serve as a preparation for her own descent
into that realm.[54] But, to the Roman mind, there was something mean and vulgar
about magic; they knew of the old witches and wizards who carried on their disrepu-
table trade with love-charms.[55] Virgil must therefore have felt it necessary to
transform the whole scene into something great and heroic. The maga [witch] is no
common witch, but one who has 'guarded the temple of the Hesperides,' and knew
how to tame the dragon (483-5);[56] this helps to convince us that she also possesses
143 the other powers of which she boasts: love-magic comes first, but this is followed by
magical powers which go beyond those that are normally mentioned and begin to
suggest an almost divine omnipotence. The magic ceremony is then performed in a
style that is correspondingly elevated: for this occasion no ordinary altar will suf-
fice, but a funeral-pyre, surrounded by altars, is constructed; Erebus and Chaos are
invoked, as well as Hecate, the goddess of magic; 'in a voice like thunder' she calls
up three hundred gods from the depths. And the sacrifice is so sacred that Dido
herself is not too proud to participate as the servant of the gods.[57] For the rest, the
magic rite brings about exactly what Dido intends: a death amidst all the mementos
of the brief period of joy that her love had brought her.
In tragedy we do not normally witness a death on the stage, but are only affected,
like the hero's nearest and dearest, by the impact of the terrible event. So too in
Virgil.[58] We do not see Dido plunge the sword into her breast.[59] Virgil's narrative
144 passes over the decisive moment: her handmaidens see her collapse under the mortal
blow. Lamentation resounds throughout the halls, and spreads like a raging fire
through the streets and houses of the city: we are made to feel the full significance of
the death of a woman like Dido, and it is made explicit in Anna's words: exstinxti te
meque , soror , populumque patresque Sidonios urbemque tuam ['Sister, you have
destroyed my life with your own, and the lives of our people and Sidon's nobility,
and your whole city too'].[60]
4—
The Games
1—
Introduction and Motivation
The funeral games in honour of Patroclus are generally recognized to be one of the
finest parts of the Iliad ; the Greeks' obsession with competition would have ensured
the popularity of this Book even if it were not such a splendid piece of poetry. There
were many descriptions of similar games elsewhere in ancient epic. The late epics of
Quintus and Nonnus represented a return to this tradition; in the same way, Virgil
intended from the start that his work should include a description of funeral games
that would be comparable with Homer's, since the Aeneid was to be a treasury
containing every jewel of the epic and, at the same time, it would supply an ancient
precedent for an important Roman institution, the ludi funebres [funeral games].
Obviously, it had to be Aeneas who held the games. But this still left the question, in
whose honour they were to be performed; and again, where should they occur in the
work, at what time and at what place; finally they had to be fitted into the action so
that, in spite of the fact that they would have to form an episode within the narrative,
they would still appear to be an integral part of it and not a piece of decoration
arbitrarily stuck on to it afterwards. We can reconstruct with some confidence the
considerations that must have led Virgil to the solution of these problems that we
find in the poem as we read it today.
The person in whose honour the games are to be held must be someone of
considerable importance, who has already appeared in the poem, and who stands
close to the hero. These requirements stem from the nature of the institution. For
Virgil, it was Anchises, amd Anchises alone, who satisfied all these requirements. A
casualty of the Latin war, Pallas for example, was out of the question, since this
would have seriously disrupted the sequence of the final events as they gathered
146 momentum towards the end of the epic. Anchises on the other hand, the ancestral
head of the house of Aeneas, famous not only because he had been the beloved of
Venus, but also because his son had rescued him from Troy, was ideally suited to
provide the focus for a magnificent ceremony, which would at the same time also
serve as yet another proof of Aeneas' filial pietas . Chronologically, Virgil had to
place the ceremony after the Carthaginian episode, once he had decided that the
events preceding the arrival of the Trojans in Sicily should be narrated by Aeneas
himself in Carthage. The alternative would have been to put this episode at the very
beginning of his work; this would have had a highly unfortunate effect, since it
would have deflected attention away from the hero and on to subsidiary characters,
and as a result, the opening of the poem would not have been lively, full of emotion,
and fast-moving, but completely static. Moreover, what poet, conscientious and
mature in his technique, would ever begin his poem with an interlude? And it is
equally unlikely that it ever occurred to Virgil to make Aeneas give an account of
these games to Dido, not even a moderately detailed one; these peaceful activities
would not have fitted very well into the framework of casus [events] and errores
[wanderings]. They might have been mentioned very briefly, if, as in the case of the
Actian games at 3.280ff., they involved something that was important for its own
sake and for historical reasons, but they were not at all suitable for detailed descrip-
tion in Aeneas' speech to Dido, least of all at the end of his narrative, where they
would have had to appear.[1]
147 However, if Aeneas has to celebrate games in honour of Anchises after the
episode in Carthage, this leads to the rather awkward consequence that it is not an
actual funeral ceremony at the grave of a man who has just died as in the Iliad , but a
memorial service. For Anchises has to have died before Aeneas reaches Carthage; if
his father had still been with him, his love-affair and the neglect of his divine
mission would have been unthinkable. I call this consequence rather awkward be-
cause it inevitably weakens the motivation of the ceremony. It no longer arises
directly from the context, nor is it a unique occasion, since it might be repeated at
any time. In order to make the motivation slightly less weak, it is necessary that the
ceremony should at least take place at the grave itself, where Aeneas happens to find
himself exactly a year after the funeral, a fact which can be interpreted as a sign
from the gods (5.56).[2]
148 This question of momentum was decisive when it came to the choice of the place
where Anchises should die. There were various traditions: his grave was shown to
visitors in Aineia, in Arcadia and in Epirus; Roman legend said that he came to
Latium with the others and was buried there by Aeneas. Let us suppose that Virgil
had placed his death in Epirus. In that case, the story could have unfolded exactly as
we now have it; the funeral ceremony and the games in his memory could still have
taken place in Sicily – indeed, Aeneas himself says that he will commemorate the
date of his father's death wherever he finds himself, but it is obvious how much this
would have weakened the motivation. So it is a question of finding somewhere that
Aeneas could visit twice with some degree of plausibility. Geographically, the most
convenient place was the western point of Sicily, and there were many other import-
ant considerations which made it suitable. For artistic reasons Virgil could not
celebrate the games at just any point on the coast between, say, Calabria and
Lucania; it had to be a place of some significance. And, in fact, of all the many
places visited by Aeneas in his westward wanderings, the sojourn in Sicily was by
far the most important from a Roman point of view. The Aeneas legend played an
integral part in the beginnings of Roman rule in Sicily, and the sanctuary of
Aphrodite Aineias on Mount Eryx, the cradle of the Roman cult of Venus, must
have been regarded as a place of the greatest sanctity, especially during the Augus-
tan period. It is therefore easy to understand why Virgil, who deals with the large
number of other settlements founded by Aeneas by omitting some and passing
quickly over others, should spotlight this one place, which was important because of
Rome's relations with Sicily, the foundation of Segesta, and the sanctuary on Eryx.
He used the traditional version to explain the reasons for landing there and founding
the city: the storm, and the burning of the ships.[3] But as far as we know, it was his
own idea to give a new reason for Aeneas' assocation with this sanctuary, a tie of
kinship, by situating Anchises' grave there. The unity of place and time thus created
enabled Virgil to combine into a single narrative two quite separate incidents, the
historically important fact of Aeneas' sojourn in Sicily and the foundation of a city,
with the artistically important description of the funeral games. But, not content with
this, he wanted to establish an inner link as well. In order to achieve this, he had to
create an organic connection between the games and the burning of the ships by the
149 Trojan women, which was the cause of the foundation of the city. This presented
him with no difficulties at all. The games are just what is required to allow the
women to perform their action, so much so in fact that the reader might well suspect
– though he would certainly be wrong – that this was why they were introduced. The
women have to be left alone, and not merely for a short time, since in that case the
fire would not have developed into a real danger. Therefore the men must be given
some occupation that will keep them well away from the ships. Naturally, all the
men would have been eager to attend the games; the lusus Troiae [Game of Troy]
means that the adolescent boys leave the camp as well; only the women remain
behind, as decent Roman women were expected to do.[4] This provides an occasion
better suited to Juno's intrigue and Iris' mission than perhaps any other in the whole
of the voyage. It is now or never that an attempt must be made to destroy the Trojan
fleet, and thereby obstruct once again the fulfilment of fatum [destiny].
2—
Composition
The description of the Games themselves is of exceptional importance for our
purposes, since it is an obvious imitation, not to say re-working, of a book of
Homer. It should therefore provide us with a great deal of information about Virgil's
own artistic principles. Taken as a whole, the major difference between Virgil's
narrative and Homer's is the greater attention paid to the proportions of the compo-
sition, and the smaller number of competitions. Homer describes eight, one after the
other, apparently without arranging them according to any kind of artistic principle
that might have bound them all together in some kind of unity; when the last
competition is over, the spectators simply disperse. Virgil restricts himself to half
the Homeric number, and finishes with an event which is not really a contest at all,
the lusus Troiae . In Homer, more lines are devoted to the first contest, the chariot
race, than to all the other games put together, some of these are described in more
detail than others, but the accounts generally get shorter and shorter as they go on.
The last description takes up only 14 lines, as opposed to 389 for the first. Virgil,
150 too, describes the first contest in the greatest detail, as befits its importance; but the
third is also treated at considerable length, whereas the second and the fourth are
about half as long, so that, twice, a long section is followed by a short one. This
creates an impression not of a mere succession of a series of separate events, but of a
structured whole.[5] In Homer, the interest falls off more and more towards the end;
the last competition is not even held: Agamemnon rather than Meriones is given the
first prize, on the grounds that everyone knows that he is the best at javelin-throw-
ing. We may assume that this event is placed last so as to give it special emphasis,
and because it sets the final seal on the reconciliation between Achilles and
Agamemnon; but the poet fails to do justice artistically to the importance of this
occasion. In Virgil, the fourth and final event is clearly distinguished from the others
by the miraculous sign that occurs when the last shot leaves the bow. This imbues
the final contest with the highest possible aura.
In other ways, too, Virgil sought to avoid the weakening effect of frequent
repetition, by making the descriptions of the contest as different as possible. First, he
varied the nature and the numbers of the competitors. There is only one contest that
involves two persons; there is only one in which a large number of men (some
named and some not) take part; four heroes compete for the prize in the first and the
last event, but in the first they do so together with their ships' crews. These four are
the ancestors of Roman familiae Troianae [Trojan families], and commanders of
ships; in other words, they are next in rank to Aeneas. The next competition, the
foot-race, is for young boys ( pueri [349]) who have not yet achieved fame, and it is
won by the youngest of all; the veteran Entellus wins the boxing-match; the fourth
event is distinguished from the first, which in other ways it resembles, by the fact
that Acestes takes part in it; the lusus Troiae is performed by the boys and youths
who are still too young to bear arms.
In Homer, each event is introduced in a stereotyped manner: first the kind of
contest is specified, then the prizes; Achilles
after the speech:
151
repeated every time with only a few slight variations, except that in the case of the
last event the introduction is considerably shortened. In the introductions, too, Virgil
varies the treatment as much as possible; in the first contest the event is mentioned
and then the contestants are enumerated; the prizes are not named until they are
distributed after the contest. In the second event, we are told in reported speech of
Aeneas' announcement of a foot-race; after the contestants have been listed, the
prizes are described in direct speech. For the third event, he uses direct speech to
announce the boxing match; we are then informed about the prizes and the contest-
ants in reported speech. For the fourth, Virgil again resorts to reported speech for the
announcement of the contest; we discover the names of the contestants as they draw
lots for the order in which they are to compete; Aeneas says nothing in direct speech
until after the event; and only the first of the prizes is described, by Aeneas himself.
The results of the contests also show the same striving to achieve variety. Only in
the first does everything go according to rule (as in most of the competitions in
Homer); in the second there is a dispute about the result because of Nisus' unfair
trick (as in the chariot-race in Homer); in the third, the contestants are separated
before the final decision (as in Homer's wrestling-match and armed combat); in the
last one, the result is unexpectedly decided by the divine omen. This is the only new
element added by Virgil; in other respects his artistic principles are revealed by the
fact that he uses the possibilities provided by Homer once each.
3—
Characters
It is clear that Book 23 of the Iliad is a late addition to the poem, because of the
author's careful use of characterization, something that is alien to the earliest epic
poetry. Next to the technical description of the competitions, this is his main aim: to
show the Greek heroes displaying in ceremonial games the same skills that bring
them success on the battle-field. The sharp light thrown in this book on, for
example, Odysseus and the younger Ajax, by means of careful little touches; the
characterization of Achilles by means of a wealth of detail; the allusions that reach
out beyond the frame of the Iliad in the descriptions of people who are important in
post-Homeric epic, such as Epeius; and above all Antilochus, who is given quite
exceptional treatment and built up into a three-dimensional figure with the highest
degree of artistic skill – all these are extremely attractive characteristics individual
to this poet, and the significance of their contribution to the effect of the whole book
152 could not fail to be observed by a perceptive reader such as Virgil; yet at the same
time it must have made it very much more difficult for Virgil as his follower to rival
the achievements of his model. The enormous advantage that the Homeric poet
possessed was that his readers already knew his characters. He makes use of well-
known individual traits or endows well-known characters with new traits. In both
cases he can be certain that the listener will happily follow. Virgil, on the other
hand, first of all has to create the characters who take part in the games, and make us
interested in their rivalry. During the actual contests he has to compensate for the
advantages already possessed by the Homeric poet, and if he fails in this he has
failed altogether to compete with him.
The commanders of the ships who take place in the naval race are shown to be
men of importance, for, as they are introduced, three of them are explicitly said to be
ancestors of well-known Roman families. In this way, Virgil built a bridge between
the remote past and his own time, which brought the proceedings closer to the
Roman reader; but it did not do anything to help him visualize them as individual
persons, since, even leaving aside Gyas, whose Roman descendants are not men-
tioned at all (Servius tells us that he was the ancestor of the Geganii), neither the
gens Memmia nor the gens Cluentia played such an outstanding rôle in Roman
history that the reader's imagination would immediately have been able to supply
the characteristic features of their ancestors, as it could have done for the ancestors
of the Fabii or Appii, and which may indeed have been true in the case of Sergestus
as the representative of the gens Sergia : in so far as L. Sergius Catilina was by far
the most notorious member of this family, then every Roman who heard its name
would immediately have thought of him. And indeed it may well be that Virgil
intended to underline this connection when he depicts Sergestus as the man who is
wrecked in the fury of the race: furens animi [wild with excitement] he tries to take
the shortest course near the cliffs and runs his ship aground on the rocks[6] (202ff.).
As in this case, so also in others: the decisive factor is not so much the quality of the
ships as the character of their commanders. Gyas would have won if he had not
thrown his own steersman overboard in a mad fit of anger (172ff.); Mnestheus,
153 himself driven on by burning ambition, knows how to make an energetic speech to
his men so as to inspire them to make the greatest possible effort (189ff.), and he
very nearly snatched the victory from Cloanthus, who had overtaken the rest by
skilful steering, even though his ship was clumsier; but at the last moment (153-4)
Cloanthus persuades the gods of the sea to help him, and with their assistance his
ship the Scylla glides like an arrow into the harbour (225ff.). In the races in Homer,
as in reality, the decisive factor is above all the quality of the horses; in second
place, again as in reality, comes the element of chance, or as the poet prefers to say,
the intervention of the gods, each of whom helps his own favourite and hinders his
rival; the character of the hero himself comes only third in importance. It is only
Antilochus who owes his victory over Menelaus to his own unaided human skill and
audacity. Virgil, however, keeps this third factor well to the fore; and here we have a
clear example of something that can be observed time and time again in his work,
his predilection for giving an inner meaning to the action. This is one of the most
important differences between the later, more reflective poet and the naïve nature of
his Homeric model, which deals only with the perceptible world. However, the
result is that this contest becomes not a description of a single historical event, but a
'typical' contest, something that transcends the individual event and takes on a
universal significance. Not that I believe that Virgil consciously had this intention.
He was not intending to create an allegory, but a straightforward narrative. But his
whole way of thinking is grounded in a universal morality, and it follows inevitably
that the individual event carries the mark of the universal, and very easily adapts
itself to a universalizing viewpoint. Thus, this narrative is a typical one, which
expresses the general truth that leaders and commanders come to grief because of
blind, reckless audacity and because of passionate immoderation and wilfulness,
whereas well-considered, steady effort, combined with skilful leadership, brings a
man to the front; but that, in the end, the highest prize goes to the man who
remembers to ask the gods to help him. We have only to think of the generals and
statesmen of the Republic as they appear in the well-established tradition used by
Livy to realize the truly Roman nature of this whole way of thinking.
In the foot-race, the Homeric poet again makes the result depend on 'luck', which
depends on the gods: Ajax slips and falls, so that he is overtaken by Odysseus, to
154 whom, moreover, Athena has given extra strength ( Iliad 23.758ff.). Furthermore,
considerable importance is assigned to the ability of the contestants: Antilochus
comes in last despite Ajax's accident. Virgil takes over this fall from Homer, and
assigns it, as Homer does, to the runner who is winning; but more important than the
fall itself is what follows, where Virgil again makes the really decisive factor a
psychological one: Nisus, in spite of his sudden accident, remembers his tender
friendship with the youthful Euryalus and assures him of victory by a really very
unsporting manoeuvre (334ff.). These two main characters reappear in Book 9,
where the strength of their friendship is attested by the dangerous enterprise and by
the death that they share. However, in Homer the games are a lighthearted epilogue
to the serious fighting; but in Virgil the games form a prelude to it: and this order
undermines the effect.[7]
The lacrimae decorae (342) [appealing tears] which Euryalus sheds when his
victory is disputed – he does not complain in words – are a very compact way of
telling us that he is still little more than a child; though the half-lines 294 and 322
suggest that Virgil intended to add further detail eventually. As for Nisus, it is clear
from his performance in the race and from his act of friendship, and again by his
behaviour after Aeneas' decision, that he is a clever, cheerful character, rather like
Antilochus, but with a greater skill and ingenuity in speaking.[8]
Virgil took over from Homer the way in which the contestants for the boxing-
match are presented (368ff., cf. Iliad 23.664ff.). First, the acknowledged champion
steps forward and defiantly claims the prize. Only after some delay does anyone
challenge him. The self-confident boasting of Homer's Epeius – 'that's what I say
and that's what I'll do: I'll tear his skin to shreds and I'll break his bones' – is toned
down in Virgil: Dares is less brutal, in keeping with Virgil's sense of propriety, but
155 this makes him less vivid as a character. On the other hand, the rôle of the challenger
is considerably enriched and goes much more deeply psychologically: it is neither
ambition nor desire for the prize that prompts the aged Entellus to enter the appar-
ently unequal match; Acestes' words and his own feelings have roused his sense of
honour; in the name of the god Eryx, of whom he is proud to have been a pupil, and
to show that he is not lying and merely boasting of a reputation that he does not
actually possess, and finally as a representative of Sicily against Troy (417), he
dares to fight against an opponent much stronger than himself; a fall early in the
match rouses his spirits still further, and his sense of shame, and his consciousness
of what he had been and still is ( pudor et conscia virtus [455]) doubles his strength
and brings him a splendid victory.
In describing the final event, Virgil dispenses with all characterization. Mnes-
theus, already familiar to the reader from the ship-race, appears again; Eurytion is
introduced as brother to Pandarus, who is already familiar to us; Hippocoon is a
mere name; but the reader's attention is immediately aroused when Acestes appears.
We already know enough of Virgil's artistic principles to expect that something
special is going to happen; and our expectations are fulfilled, for his bow-shot
provides the climax not only of this contest but of the whole games.
The individual characters have not been assigned arbitrarily to the various com-
petitive events. Augustus is known to have taken an extremely lively interest in
every type of contest ( agon ); apart from the fact that he personally enjoyed them,
and wished to satisfy the appetite of the plebs for displays, it is possible that more
idealistic reasons were involved. It is clear that he made an attempt to revive
something of the noble agonistic spirit of the ancient Greeks. He founded a new
'sacred' contest (on Greek soil, admittedly), the Actian Games, and this inspired the
institution of regular games in a great number of provincial cities (Suetonius Aug .
59). In Rome itself the ludi pro salute divi Augusti [games for the well-being of the
divine Augustus], dedicated to Actian Apollo, were celebrated regularly from the
year 28 BC , and, as in the great Greek games, men and youths from noble families
entered the arena as contestants;[9] on other occasions, too, Augustus had youths from
156 the most noble families driving chariots and horses in the Circus, or fighting against
animals (Suet. Aug . 43); thus, in the games which he instituted when the temple to
Caesar was dedicated in 29 BC , patricians competed for prizes in chariot-racing (Dio
51.22). That must have seemed just as much prisci decorique moris [an example of
ancient and glorious custom] to the emperor as the public appearance of noble
youths in the lusus Troiae (Suet. Aug . 43); after all, according to learned tradition, in
ancient times the citizens themselves took part in competitions in the circus (Pliny
N .H . 21.7). But the appearance of respectable men in an athletic contest was still felt
to be incompatible with Roman notions of propriety. Already under Augustus, it was
necessary for the Senate to pass decrees forbidding senators and equites to appear as
actors, or even as gladiators; but there seems to have been no need for decrees to
discourage respectable men from pummelling each other naked in front of the
plebs.[10] These attitudes are reflected in Virgil. If there is nothing disgraceful about
respectable men driving chariots in public, it is even less shocking for the ancestors
of Roman families to race their ships in order to gain a prize. But it would never
have occurred to Virgil to present Mnestheus and Sergestus as boxers. On the
contrary, he is careful to avoid any historical implications, and strongly emphasizes
the mythical aspect: Dares has already beaten the Bebrycian Butes at Hector's
funeral games; Entellus has learnt his skill from the deified Eryx, who once fought
against Hercules on the Sicilian shore; also, the boxing-leathers made from the hides
of seven oxen (404) are intended to strengthen the impression that in this contest the
shadow of a bygone semi-divine age still looms over the present. It would have been
just as unsuitable for men of the upper class to take part in the foot race as in the
boxing, but it is no disgrace for youths, even respectable youths ( regius egregia
Priami de stirpe Diores [297] [Diores, sprung from the blood royal of Priam's
exalted line]) to match their strength by taking part in a foot race before a crowd of
spectators; Augustus himself once not merely permitted this, but actually arranged it
himself (Suet. Aug . 43). An amusing accident, such as that of Nisus, can be taken
lightly by the young, for they can bear being laughed at; but if it had happened to a
hero comparable in stature to Homer's Ajax ( Iliad 23.774), Virgil and his public
157 would have perceived it as detracting from his dignity. On the other hand, there was
no need for even the aged Acestes, the offspring of a god, to hesitate to take part in
the – entirely mythical – archery competition.
Virgil's gaze lingers with exceptional tenderness on the youngest surviving
generation of ancient Troy, the Troianum agmen [Trojan regiment], the contempor-
aries of Aeneas' own son, Iulus. A cheerful, splendid spectacle, a juvenile prelude to
the serious battles in which the boys will take part when they reach maturity – there
could be no better finale to the serious adult contests, bringing them to a close on a
note of peace. Certainly Virgil was consciously writing with an eye to Augustus'
own tastes – the emperor was known to be particularly fond of the lusus Troiae ; the
book was written before a series of accidents and the bitter complaints of the
peevish Asinius Pollio, whose grandson was injured in this ceremonial procession,
spoilt the emperor's pleasure in this spectacle, so that it was eventually discontinued
(Suet. Aug . 43). But the passage gives a powerful impression that when Virgil was
writing it, he was not merely doing so as a loyal member of Augustus' court, but had
thrown himself heart and soul into the spectacle which he paints with such cheerful
colours. And this is true not only of this scene; the same joy in the growing maturity
of boys pervades the whole of the Aeneid : it is one of the most individually Virgilian
features of the work. It is not only Iulus whose portrayal is enriched in this way. The
idea of making Amor appear in his form, his child-like pleasure at the splendour of
the hunt, and his boyish desire to match himself against really wild animals; his
extravagant gratitude towards Nisus and Euryalus, who want to fetch his father for
him, and to whom, with the generosity of a child offering everything under the stars,
he promises every imaginable magnificent gift (9.252-80); his abundant delight in
battle, inflamed by his opponent's scornful speech (9.598-620): all these features are
splendid innovations, and peculiarly Virgilian too; there is very little to match it in
his characterization of grown men.[11] It is clear that in this passage he was also
158 endeavouring to give Iulus as important a rôle as possible, since he was destined to
become the ancestor of the Julian gens , and the allusions that Jupiter makes to Iulus'
destiny in his first great prophecy (1.267ff.) are part of this same endeavour.[12] But it
159 is more than a matter of the official glorification of a genealogical fiction: it is
Virgil's love of youth that has created the life-like figure of Iulus. And beside Iulus
stand those boys, somewhat older, already capable of bearing arms, but still imbued
with all the first flush of youth, who go to meet their death: Euryalus, Pallas and
Lausus. The pain felt at their premature passing comes like an echo of the grievous
and genuine pain that was felt at the early death of M. Claudius Marcellus; these are
figures the like of whom were not found by Virgil in Homer, nor in all probability
anywhere else. Nor is it a coincidence that here too Virgil reflects Augustus' atti-
tude. Numerous features of the emperor's private life as well as his public measures
indicate how deeply he cared about the moral and physical welfare of adolescents,
and how deeply he cared about the youth of Rome as a means of perpetuating his
life's work.[13] This is very understandable: he yearned so passionately to see a new
generation spring up from the blood-sodden battlefields of the civil wars, a gener-
ation which, innocent of the guilt of their fathers, would be able to reap the fruits of
decades of slaughter. This longing should not be underrated simply because it was
not destined to be fulfilled. This is the frame of mind in which Virgil had once
written his poem to celebrate the birth of the little son of the consul Pollio; it is also
the frame of mind which underlies the description of the lusus Troiae .
Aeneas himself appears in the foreground far less than Achilles in the games in
the Iliad ; there are no particular little touches of characterization of the kind that the
Homeric poet employed to ensure that the hero who organizes the games should not
be overshadowed by the contestants. His ingenuous boasting about his own horses
(Iliad 23.276ff.), his unconcealed pleasure at Antilochus' praise of him as the best
160 runner (795ff.), and the way in which he extols the prizes that he himself is offering
(832ff.) – all this is out of keeping with the more refined sense of what was proper
that was characteristic of Virgil's time, as indeed it would be with our own. Achilles
quickly and decisively calms down the outbreak of a quarrel (492ff.), whereas
Aeneas has no opportunity to do so: Virgilian heroes do not quarrel.
Again, Virgil was unable to devise anything corresponding to the magnanimity of
Achilles, when he praises his erstwhile opponent Agamemnon most generously
(890ff.), or the delicate attention that he pays to the aged Nestor (616ff.): in place of
this latter episode Virgil describes the honours given to Acestes, though this incident
is of course treated in quite a different manner, and is motivated by considerations
external to the games. The princely generosity of Aeneas radiates with a similar
light; like Achilles, he is impelled by his sense of justice to make allowances for
undeserved mishaps, though unlike Achilles (536ff.) this does not make him over-
look all other considerations; but it means that the poet misses the opportunity to
make use of the characteristic touch whereby his hero momentarily yields to justi-
fied objections. Aeneas' intervention in the boxing match (465), which is motivated
by his anxiety that the game is developing into a deadly combat, combines the
intervention by the Achaeans in the hoplomachy [fight in armour] when they are
anxious about what will happen to Ajax (822), and the ending of the wrestling-
match by Achilles, who allows it to remain undecided so that there will be time for
other competitions (735). We can see that in this episode Virgil has essentially
merely sifted through the material provided by Homer, accepting what he could use,
changing the emphasis in some places, and omitting what did not suit his narrative
or his taste. The result in this case is that Aeneas comes across as a much weaker
character than Achilles.
4—
Structure of the Action
Virgil himself may perhaps have felt that his characters were not as interesting as
Homer's, and that he had not wholly succeeded in compensating for those advan-
tages of the Homeric poet that we have already mentioned. On the other hand, he
could rest assured that he had surpassed his predecessor in the construction of the
book as a whole, above all in his handling of the action . We may summarize the
improvement for which Virgil was aiming as the achievement of concentrated dra -
matic effect .
In Homer, the chariot-race is preceded by the detailed instructions given by
161 Nestor to Antilochus. This brings out the character of the old, experienced man, and
will please any of the audience who have been trained in competitive sports and can
appreciate his good advice. However, it has no significance for the action that
follows; we are not told whether Antilochus made any attempt to follow Nestor's
advice, and Nestor's prediction that the race will be decided by the driver's skill at
managing the turning-post (344ff.) is not borne out by events. During the race, our
attention is drawn away from the contestants to the spectators, with the interlude
involving Ajax and Idomeneus. Virgil felt that both these episodes were disruptive,
and omitted them. The chariot-race in Homer falls into two distinct sections: first
Diomedes overtakes Eumelus, who drops out when his yoke breaks; then Antilochus
overtakes Menelaus. No link is made between the two pairs; it is as though two
separate races were being described. Finally, the fifth contestant, Meriones, hardly
gets a look in; there is nothing to be said about him except that his horses are very
slow and he himself is the least competent driver. Virgil's treatment is entirely
different. Five competitors are too many to cope with; he therefore restricts himself
to four. But our attention is on all four until the decisive point, which in this case
really is the meta , the turning point. First we are told their relative positions as they
approach the turning-post: Gyas in front, then Cloanthus; then Mnestheus and Ser-
gestus, either neck and neck or alternately getting ahead of each other. Then, by
means of a skilful manoeuvre, Cloanthus pulls ahead of Gyas, and the latter loses his
steersman, so that the two behind begin to have hopes of overtaking him: Sergestus
is less than one length ahead of Mnestheus, while the latter, in last place, urges his
oarsmen to do their utmost: and before they have caught up with Gyas, Sergestus
runs onto the rocks, Mnestheus gets ahead, first of him, then of Gyas, and only
Cloanthus is still in front. Now the second part begins: two ships are completely out
of the race, and the two others have to compete against each other over the rest of
the course: the rowers increase their efforts, and the spectators become more ex-
cited. The tension mounts right up to the very end; it is only just before the harbour
that Cloanthus' promise to the gods gives him the decisive victory. Homer, as we
have seen, shifts our attention for a while from the chariots to the spectators'
benches; to move from place to place is the epic poet's privilege. In Virgil the
spectators are part of the overall scene; we do not lose sight of them when we are
watching the competitors: at the start, each shouts encouragement to his favourite, at
162 the climactic moment of reversal of fortune they laugh merrily at the steersman's
accident; they shout encouragement to Mnestheus as he makes his final effort, and
pour scorn on the shipwrecked Sergestus when he eventually limps home with
broken oars. This is not the first time[14] that we have observed Virgil's skill in
making the reader feel that he is experiencing the events himself, and achieving the
maximum
witness it, a technique derived from drama. It is worth drawing attention to one
almost imperceptible deviation from Homer, since it is another consequence of
Virgil's vivid presentation of the event. In Homer the prizes are not distributed until
all the competitors have assembled. A considerable amount of time has to pass
before Eumelus, pulling his broken chariot himself, catches up with the others at the
finishing-line; but we are aware of this interval only on subsequent reflection.
Homer possibly hints at it with
back after the victor has been proclaimed and crowned, and after the prizes have
been distributed to the captains and their crews; they are all decorated with purple
ribbons and rejoicing in their prizes; this emphasizes Sergestus' disgrace much more
strongly.
For the foot-race there are three prizes: Homer has three runners, and again the
real contest is between only two, Ajax and Odysseus; Antilochus is left a long way
behind. The two former are almost evenly matched: Odysseus is always just at
Ajax's heels, and finally wins the race, with the help of Athena; in other words,
there is only one decisive moment. The equivalent in Virgil is Nisus' fall, but this
leads to a second decisive event, the fall of Salius; and the completely unexpected
result is that the third runner, Euryalus, is the winner; the spectators express their
joyful surprise by applause and shouts of admiration (338). Thus, instead of a
decision between two competitors, in which victory would inevitably have gone to
one or the other, there is an unforeseen peripeteia [reversal of fortune].
Boxing matches had been described often enough in post-Homeric literature:
163 there are the accounts of the famous fight between Polydeuces and Amycus in
Apollonius (2.1ff.) and Theocritus (22), both known to Virgil and both used by him
as sources for some of his details. Homer's account is very straightforward. Victory
goes to Epeius, who confidently challenges all comers, and not to Eurylus, who has
to be encouraged by Diomedes to enter the competition; this is just how we would
expect things to turn out. The fight is described very briefly; with one quick blow
Epeius catches his opponent off guard and knocks him out. Apollonius gives a very
much longer account, but avoids technical details, since he was not particularly
interested in such things; the preparations for the fight are narrated at greater length
than the fight itself; and again in the actual account similes play an important part, to
compensate for the comparative lack of action. However, Apollonius gives an unex-
pected and individual version of the conclusion of the match: Polydeuces skilfully
avoids a violent blow and then immediately takes advantage of the fact that his
opponent is momentarily off his guard to strike him so violently on the temple that
he collapses. Theocritus tried to improve on this: if we are going to have a descrip-
tion of a boxing-match, then it should be a real one, just like those that could be seen
in the stadium. He therefore describes the various blows and feints, the spitting of
blood and the ripping off of the skin and so forth, with great technical expertise, and
he presents his account of the final stage, which takes the same course as in Apollo-
nius, in full and faithful detail just as a sports reporter would. Theocritus' version
was available to Virgil, and it would have been easy for him to have imitated it; he
decided not to, but to give an overall picture of the whole course of the fight instead,
much as Apollonius had done, which would allow him to contrast the characteristic
attitudes of the two fighters. But Virgil's own contribution, in which he differs from
all his predecessors, is the introduction of an unexpected peripeteia , which changes
the simple straight line into a broken one, and gives the narrative a dramatic momen-
tum. Entellus, who is aware that he is less agile than his opponent, and until now has
stayed put in the same place to resist the swift attacks of his opponent, tries to punch
him, misses, falls, and gets up a changed person: irresistible in his rage, driven to the
extreme of fury by shame and anger, he now rains blow upon blow on his opponent,
forcing him backwards, and would have done him serious injury if Aeneas had not
164 intervened. It is extremely unlikely that in real life a boxer who starts as the equal, or
in many respects the superior, such as Dares, could ever allow himself to become so
helpless and defenceless against a sudden outburst of fury on the part of his oppo-
nent. This did not worry Virgil; he was more concerned with increasing the
excitement, and, in fact, in his version the decisive factor is not greater muscle-
power but the psychology of Entellus.
There is no such psychological motivation in the last contest, the archery compe-
tition; nevertheless, this passage also displays features that are characteristic of
Virgil's art. Homer gives us the entertaining story of two archers: the first misses the
dove, but by chance he cuts through the cord by which it is tied – which would be
more difficult to do deliberately but still counts as a miss; everyone thinks that the
bird has got away and that there is no winner; but with a swift, sure shot the other
competitor hits the bird as it flies free. It is clear that the Homeric poet did not invent
this story himself, since he spoils it by making Achilles say beforehand that the
second prize will go to anyone who cuts the cord, a most unlikely eventuality. Virgil
very sensibly discarded the speech.[15] In other respects, once again he surpasses his
predecessor by building up excitement[16] – at the beginning he inserts a third shot, which
only hits the mast of the ship, and at the end a fourth, apparently a mere display shot;
but, amazingly, this has the greatest effect of all, since it is singled out for a
miraculous sign from the gods, which we will discuss in more detail in a moment.
165 The reason for placing the miracle at this point is to raise the spectators' excite-
ment to its highest point at the very end of the whole competition. It is obvious that
it could not have been followed by a wrestling-match, or anything of that kind,
without producing a sense of anticlimax. However, after the extreme tension, some
sort of relief is required for artistic reasons, to allow the accumulated floods of
emotion to run off in a different direction by diverting the reader's interest. This
artistic effect is achieved by the lusus Troiae , and that is why it runs its course
without any exciting incidents, an uninterrupted delight for the hearts and eyes of
the assembled crowds. Now at last the atmosphere is sufficiently calm for an excit-
ing new event to make its full impact – the Trojans learn that the ships are on fire.
5—
The Supernatural
The significance of the miracle of the burning arrow is by no means immediately
clear; in recent years many have accepted Wagner's interpretation, according to
which it is an allusion to the comet which appeared in the year 43 BC during the
games held by Octavian in honour of Venus Genetrix, and was hailed by the people
as the star of the deified Caesar (Pliny N .H . 2.94). This interpretation is highly
implausible, in my view, for a number of reasons.[17] First, Virgil describes unam-
biguously a meteor shooting across the sky and immediately disintegrating in the
air, whereas the comet appeared on seven consecutive days, and remained visible on
each occasion for a considerable time. The resemblance between the two is thus
much less specific than is required. The essential thing about the comet is that a new
star appears in the heavens, which increases their total number – just as Caesar, the
new god, increases the total number of immortals. Yet this essential factor is pre-
cisely what is lacking in the case of Virgil's meteor. The comet was itself a sign
from heaven; when has one sign ever been heralded by another? Certainly, if Virgil
had described something that really was analogous to the phenomenon of his own
times, such as for example the appearance of a new star representing the apotheosis
166 of Anchises, it would have been immediately obvious that it was intended to allude
to it and to prefigure it. As it is, however, we would have to suppose that Virgil has
deliberately obscured his meaning. He calls the seers who prophesy the fulfilment of
the omen in years to come terrifici [arousing terror]; yet Caesar's comet brought no
terror. Virgil connects the sign closely with Acestes and makes Aeneas link it
exclusively with Acestes; but Acestes has nothing whatever to do with Caesar's
comet. This brings us to my strongest objection, an objection on artistic grounds.
The apotheosis of Caesar, or in more general terms, the elevation of the Julian gens ,
has no connection with the person most closely concerned with the miracle, and
similarly it has no essential connection with the time at which the miracle occurs. It
could equally well have occurred at any moment in the whole course of the Aeneid ,
and would have been smuggled in at this point by Virgil merely on the superficial
grounds that games were in progress both now and when the omen is fulfilled. He
would have based his decision only on the formal and technical consideration that
this part of the story should have a splendid and effective finale. In that case it
would merely be a device on the artistic level of the sunrise in Meyerbeer's Le
Prophète which Richard Wagner used so aptly as an illustration of the nature of
operatic effect.
Any interpretation that is to do justice to Virgil's artistic principles must in my
opinion be based on the character of Acestes and the time at which the miracle takes
place. Aeneas accepts the extraordinary phenomenon as a sign from heaven[18] and
treats it as such when he grants Acestes the honour of victory: te voluit rex magnus
Olympi talibus auspiciis exsortes ducere honores (533-4) [for the supreme Olympian
king had surely ordained, when he sent this potent sign, that you must carry away
special honours]. However, we are intended to think not only of this immediate
result, but also of the future: that is what the poet tells us in the lines that introduce
the sign. What then is the chief significance of these games for Acestes? Immedi-
ately after the games comes the burning of the ships; and the immediate result of the
167 burning of the ships, which occurred in accordance with the will and command of
Jupiter (726, 747), is kingdom and kingly power for Acestes. Too little attention has
been paid to the fact that the events portrayed in 746ff. signify more than merely the
foundation of one more city just like all the others. Virgil has taken great care
throughout the book to avoid calling Acestes 'king', or to speak of a city of
Acestes.[19] That is why we hear nothing of where the Trojans are accommodated
when they arrive in Sicily; apparently they simply camp on the shore (43). We are
intended to envisage Acestes and his people as country folk, living in the mountains
(35), without any advanced urban culture,[20] and Acestes is not their king – they do
not constitute a state – but merely one of their number, though famous and distin-
guished by his divine descent (38, 711). But now a city is founded, and Acestes
becomes ruler of the new kingdom: gaudet r e g n o Troianus Acestes (757) [Trojan
Acestes, who welcomed the thought of this kingdom ]. This immediately endows him
with exsortes honores [especial honours] far more substantial than those that he had
won in the games, and the omen could be regarded as fulfilled; but when the seers
sera omina cecinerunt[21] (524) [prophesied the late-fulfilled omens] they must have
168 looked even further into the future. The poet must be intending us to think of the
future of Acestes' kingdom. Any Roman who heard this would inevitably be re-
minded of the time when Segesta played a role in the history of Rome; and that was
during the first Punic War, when Segesta was the first of all the cities of Sicily to
come over to the side of Rome, on the grounds of their common descent from Troy,
and consequently to fight doggedly in the struggle against Carthage side by side
with their new allies. Those were terrifying but great and glorious days; and it is to
these, in my view, that the seers' prediction referred. The miracle occurs while the
Sicilians and the Trojans are taking part as brothers in joyful games; it occurs on the
day on which a new Trojan kingdom is founded in Sicily; it points to the man who is
to become the first ruler of that kingdom; it presages, in a way that is simultaneously
frightening and comforting, the distant times when the curse that the dying queen of
Carthage called down on the departing Trojans will be fulfilled. In my opinion, this
meets all the requirements necessary for the interpretation of a miracle which is a
good deal more than a mere operatic effect.
From an artistic point of view, it is entirely right that the most manifest example
of divine intervention should come here, at the end of the whole episode. The way in
which the supernatural is handled reveals another difference between Virgil and
Homer. In the latter, Apollo and Athene take an active part: Apollo strikes
Diomedes' whip from his hand, Athene immediately gives it back to him and breaks
Eumelus' yoke in revenge; in answer to Odysseus' prayer, Athena strengthens his
feet and knees, and causes Ajax to slip in the dung (this clearly forshadows the
disaster which the goddess is later to bring down upon Ajax); in the archery contest,
Teucer forgets to promise a hecatomb to Apollo, which so infuriates the god that he
makes him miss the target and gives the victory to the more pious Meriones instead.
Virgil could not reconcile these actions with his conception of the majesty of the
gods: at Actium, Apollo might stand on Augustus' flag-ship, and, in the slaughter of
combat, the gods might ensure that no harm comes to their favourites; but to trip up
a runner in a race is an act that is beneath their dignity. That is why even in the most
important competition, the boat-race, where the prayer to the gods is answered and
169 produces a real, and almost unfair, effect, it is not Neptune who intervenes, but the
lesser deities of the sea; the successful archer Eurytion addresses his brief prayer not
to Apollo but to the hero Pandarus, who was both his brother and a master of the
bow; the boxer Entellus fights and wins in the name of Eryx, the deified son of
Venus (391,412, 467, 488). But the accidents which befall Sergestus and Gyas and
Nisus are caused by their own errors, not by the malevolence of a divine opponent.
6—
Atmosphere
One last and very important difference between Virgil's account of the games and
that of Homer can perhaps best be summed up in one short phrase: Virgil is inter-
ested in emotional moods . The poet has steeped himself in the feelings of his
characters, and strives to convey to the reader the emotional frame of mind in which
each of them finds himself. It is difficult to know to what extent this is a question of
conscious effort, and to what extent it arises spontaneously from the poet's own
mood. But every reader who allows the book to make its full impact on him will
undoubtedly feel that he is taking part in a joyful celebration: joy is the keynote of
the whole description.[22] The mood of the festival itself is prepared for by the
happiness of both sides when the Trojans return unexpectedly to Acestes (34, 40)
and the obviously favourable omen during the libation at Anchises' grave, which
turns the offering to the dead into a joyful sacrifice (100). In joyful mood (107) the
people gather on the shore in the bright light of dawn on the festive day, and this
mood remains unbroken throughout the celebrations, rising to a climax during the
last spectacular event, the splendid procession of youths, radiant with happiness
(555, 575, 577). Virgil lingers lovingly over the depiction of the bright splendour of
this procession, and seizes every opportunity to enliven his picture with bright,
cheerful colours: the green of the boughs and garlands (110, 129, 246, 309, 494,
539; cf. 134, 556), and of the grass-clad natural amphitheatre (388) and the grassy
stadium (287, 330); the purple of the victory ribbons (269), the gold on the edges of
the commanders' mantles (132) and the prize garments (250), the gleam of the
170 costly weapons and ornamented pieces (259 etc.) – all this forms the visible counter-
part, so to speak, of the happy mood of the joyful and excited spectators, the richly
rewarded contestants and proud victors (269, 473), of Aeneas who celebrates the
games, and of his guest-friend Acestes who quite unexpectedly wins the highest
prize with the final shot. Virgil does his utmost to create the mood that he desires,
not only through the events that he selects and the way in which he depicts them, but
also by straightforward description of the feelings of his characters: laetus is the
word which recurs time and time again,[23] so that the note, once struck, resounds
again and again. Monotony is avoided by the more serious developments of the
boxing-match; the moral motivation which Virgil introduces into this episode miti-
gates the effect of the bloody outcome and prevents the mood from being broken.
Mood-painting of this kind is quite alien to the spirit of the ancient epic. The bard
who relates the funeral games takes more care than most of his fellows to tell us
what effect each event had on the spirits of the competitors, and we hear a great deal
about emotions both joyful and sad, but all these touches of local colour are not
brought into relationship with each other or fused into any kind of predominant
tone; and the poet makes no attempt to produce any overall emotional effect on the
mind of the listener. We need only look at the prosaic and matter-of-fact way in
which the games are introduced –
arena] (Iliad 23.257-8) – and compare it with the elevated mood in which Virgil
introduces his festival; or contrast the abrupt conclusion of the agon [contest] in
Homer with the brilliantly-lit tableau in which Virgil unites the mood of all the
participants so as to create a resounding finale. So far we have only been concerned
to establish what is peculiarly Virgilian in his narrative. It is particularly easy to do
this in the case of the Funeral Games, as they can be compared with their model. In
the systematic section of our investigation (Part II), we will set this individual
example in its context.
5—
Aeneas in Latium
The first part of Virgil's work deals with the events that begin with the capture of
Troy and lead up to Aeneas' arrival in Latium. The second part covers the events
that begin with that arrival and end with the moment when he finally secures his
kingdom in Italy. The two parts might appear to be equal in importance, but the poet
considered the second half to have greater spiritual significance, as he says in the
second proem: maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo , maius opus moveo (7.37f) [a graver
sequence of events open before me, and I now begin a grander enterprise]. The
predominantly peaceful experiences of the first half contrast with the predominantly
warlike ones of the second – dicam horrida bella [I shall tell of a ghastly war]; to
describe such things is the noblest task of the epic poet, in the same way that war is
the most important thing in the life of the individual and of the nation, and – we
should add – in the same way that the ancients regarded the Iliad as Homer's
outstanding masterpiece. And it was with the Iliad that Virgil had to compete in this
part of his epic.
I—
General Survey
1—
Condensation of the Material
Virgil's first task was to construct from the traditional material an overall scheme of
events, and to divide them into books. We have already discussed the form which he
gave to the story of the prodigia (ch. 2.2 above); now we must deal with his main
theme, the relations between Aeneas and the native population, and the battles. First,
however, we must briefly remind ourselves of the traditional version[1] so that we can
establish the principles according to which Virgil reshaped, developed and arranged
it.
172 Of the older versions of the story only that of Cato has survived to any extent. In
his account the events unfold as follows: (1) Latinus allots a portion of land to the
newcomers (Serv. on Aen . 11.316; fr. 8 Peter). (2) Trojan encroachment leads
to war, in which the Rutulians under Turnus are allied with the Latins; Latinus is
killed during the first encounter. (3) Turnus revives the war with the support of
Mezentius; Aeneas vanishes, Turnus is killed. (4) During a third battle, Ascanius
kills Mezentius in a duel (Serv. on 1.267; 4.620; 9.745; frr. 9, 10 Peter). In the later
versions, the Latins and Rutulians do not unite to fight the Trojans, nor is Latinus
killed as an enemy of Aeneas; rather, they stress the marriage of Aeneas with
Lavinia[2] and play down the opposition between the Trojans and the Latins as much
as possible. The most extreme example of this tendency is represented by the
tradition which is followed by such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus: this is his
schema (1.57f.):[3] (1) Aeneas settles without Latinus' permission on what is to
become the site of Lavinium, but makes friendly alliance with him, marries his
daughter, and helps him and his native troops to vanquish the Rutulians; the city of
Lavinium is completed. (2) After two years the Rutulians rise up again under the
leadership of the Latin aristocrat Turnus; they are beaten, but botlh Turnus and
Latinus are killed in the battle so that Aeneas now becomes sole ruler of the Trojans
and the native population. (3) After another three years comes a second war against
the Rutulians, who are supported this time by the Etruscans under Mezentius: Ae-
neas is killed, Ascanius succeeds as ruler. (4) Ascanius successfully continues the
war, Mezentius makes peace after the death of his son Lausus. Livy's account
173 (1.1-2) is very much the same: (1) Latinus, full of admiration for Aeneas' nobility
and spirit, allies himself with him (there is a brief mention of a variant, that the
alliance was preceded by a battle); Aeneas marries his daughter, and Lavinium is
founded. (2) Turnus, King of the Rutulians, who is betrothed to Lavinia, attacks the
allies and is beaten, but Aeneas is killed; from then on, peace reigns; nothing is said
of what becomes of Turnus and Mezentius. And there may have been other histor-
ians and antiquaries who put the scanty events that had become established in
tradition into a somewhat different pattern and order; the essentials will have re-
mained basically unchanged.
The first thing that Virgil needed to do was to condense his material. He com-
bines the three or four battles of the traditional version into one battle, which does
however include several clashes, and he compresses the events of several years into
a few days. The events follow closely one upon another without any interruption
that might divert the reader's attention. In the same way the author of the Iliad had
compressed a great deal of material which had originally been spread over several
years into the few days of the
Unity of time involved unity of action. In the traditional versions, the Trojan
successes are sporadic: first the Latins are won over and Lavinium is built, then the
Rutulians are beaten and Turnus is killed, then finally the Etruscans are beaten, and
Mezentius is either killed or surrenders; only then is the safety of the new settlement
assured. Virgil concentrates all this: Aeneas faces the Latins, Rutulians and Mezen-
tius simultaneously; the death of Mezentius, which in defiance of tradition occurs
before that of Turnus, is only a prologue to the duel in which Turnus is killed and
whereby all resistance is extinguished; Virgil takes care to let us know that from
now on the Latins too will be submissive to Aeneas' rule. Only at this point, that is
after Turnus' death, does Aeneas marry Lavinia and found his city: here too Virgil's
account is unique. This new chronology was the result of the need for concentration,
as was Virgil's conversion of the Latins into allies of the Rutulians, a detail in which
he departs from later tradition and returns to Cato; so, too, the alliance with the
native population occurs at the same time as the final consolidation of Trojan gains;
both are the prizes of the victory of Aeneas in the duel which brings the epic to its
end.
174 Thus on the relationship of the Latins with the Rutulians and the Trojans Virgil
agrees with Cato; he differs from him in that he separates King Latinus from his
subjects and does not involve him in the fighting. He needed to do this because,
unlike Cato, he made everything culminate in the marriage of Aeneas to Lavinia.
Virgil did not want Aeneas to drag his bride from her father by force of arms, let
alone make his way to her over her father's dead body. Instead, the king himself
gives his daughter to Aeneas in marriage, in obedience to a divine command, and
Aeneas is defending a just claim when he insists on the fulfilment of this contract.
Nor could Latinus be shown to break his word; but despite this Aeneas had to win
his bride in battle. That presented a real problem, and even if the solution which
Virgil chose is not perfect, we should at least realize that it is the result of careful
and mature consideration.
When the passionate lust for war runs amok and rages all around the aged king
Latinus so that he can no longer control it, he calls the gods to witness that he is only
yielding to force (7.591ff.); he allows the wild hordes to have their will, but he
himself refuses to have anything to do with the crime, foreseeing the vengeance that
it will bring: saepsit se tectis rerumque reliquit habenas [he barred himself within
his palace and resigned the reins of government]; Juno herself has to fling open the
gates of war, since the king refuses to do so, although it is normally his function. Of
course this does not mean that he totally abdicates his power – in that case he would
have had to appoint a successor, but there is no mention of this; nor does he
withdraw from his own people when he speaks to Aeneas, so Aeneas is quite
justified in considering him to have broken his promise ( rex nostra reliquit hospitia
et Turni potius se credidit armis [11.113] ['it was your king who abandoned his
guest-friendship with me and chose instead to rely on the arms of Turnus'], and
Latinus, for his part, as soon as he believes that the time has come to put an end to
war, summons a council of state and lays the proposals for peace before it
(11.234ff.). It is diplomatic acumen that makes him begin his speech by expressing
regret that he had not summoned his council before (302), and which leads him,
both in the presence of his nobles at this meeting and in the presence of Turnus later,
to take the responsibility for the war upon himself. This is constitutionally correct, in
so far as he did not persist in exercising his veto to the very end but allowed the
others to have their way; because he was still king while his people were fighting a
war, he can say of himself arma impia sumpsi (12.31) ['I wickedly went to war'],
175 although strictly speaking he had neither done so himself nor ordered the others to
do so, but had merely been too weak to impose his will. Psychologically it is exactly
right that at the crucial moment he is painfully convinced that it is impossible to
resist the pressure of the war-party (7.591), and that nevertheless he reproaches
himself afterwards for his weakness (11.471). But in fact it is such an extraordinary
state of affairs – an entire nation waging a war against the will of its king and
without his participation – and so difficult to portray in detail, that the precise nature
of the situation is of necessity less clear than it might be.[4] This also affects Latinus'
relationship with Turnus, particularly his attitude towards Turnus' claims to Lavinia.
These seem well-grounded at first glance: Turnus has commended himself both by
his personality (7.55) and by his services in the war against the Etruscans (423f.),
and he was under the protection of Amata – Virgil took this motif from tradition
(Dion. Hal. 1.64) and made good use of it; Latinus himself has shown no opposition
to the idea, so that his wife, although in deliberately ambiguous phrases (7.365) and
with a woman's carelessness for objective truth, can state that the king has already
entered into an agreement with Turnus. Before the warning omens the alliance had
seemed a safe prospect, as is clear from the words of Faunus thalamis neu crede
paratis (7.97) ['put no trust in any wedding which lies ready to hand']; but it is
176 equally clear that a formal bethrothal had not taken place, and that Latinus himself
does not feel that he was bound by one.[5] That is why, when Latinus thinks that
Aeneas' arrival is the event predicted by the oracle,[6] he does not hesitate to offer his
daughter to him: Aeneas sees this as the fulfilment of Creusa's prophecy. Turnus, on
the other hand, his senses confused by Allecto, feels it to be a shameful breach of
promise; the main purpose of war for him was to win back Lavinia. But since
Latinus, as we have just explained, has allowed the war to take place since he is too
old and weak to prevent it, it inevitably follows that he has allowed Turnus to court
his daughter again, and in these circumstances Turnus does indeed claim Lavinia as
his right (11.359), and, on the assumption that he is her suitor, he calls her father
socer (440) [father-in-law], as was the custom after a betrothal. Latinus himself is
conscious of the fact that by allowing the war to go ahead he has broken his promise
to Aeneas that he should marry Lavinia:[7] promissam eripui genero (12.30) ['I stole
177 the promised bride from her betrothed']; and yet, as things stood, he was in no
position to give either a negative answer to Aeneas, or a positive answer to Turnus.
The fact, which is tacitly recognized by both sides, that Lavinia will be the prize of
victory, is not explicitly stated until the foedus (12.192) [pact] that is concluded
178 before the decisive duel. All this would be much simpler and clearer if Latinus had
openly opposed Aeneas from the start, or if he had openly broken an earlier promise.
We are now in a position to see how difficult it was for the poet to get around these
two problems, and what sacrifices he had to make in his efforts to do so.
2—
Expansion
As we have seen, Virgil regarded the condensation of his material as one of his
principal tasks; on the other hand, there is one episode that is considerably ex-
panded. There were artistic reasons, and practical reasons too – i.e. political and
patriotic ones – for introducing everything that could be discovered about the ear-
liest period of Italian history into the framework of the Aeneid . One simple way of
doing this was for both sides to call upon all available allies and auxiliary troops.
The neighbouring communities could easily be represented as allies of the Latins
and Rutulians, and this provided Virgil with an opportunity to weave in many
legends about origins and foundations. But it also made it possible to include the
saga of Diomedes, still very much alive in South Italy, which could be used not only
to increase the prestige of the Trojans but also to introduce the particularly attractive
character of Camilla. The same device made possible Aeneas' alliance with Evan-
der, which is so very important for the political message of the poem, and his visit to
the future site of Rome, and, what is very significant symbolically, his assumption
of command over the original population of Rome's territory. Since Evander's
character, which was already well-established, was unsuitable for a heroic warrior,
and since he could hardly be presented as Aeneas' subordinate, his place was taken
by Pallas. According to a legend invented to explain the name of Palatium, Pallas
was a grandson of Evander (the son of his daughter Launa and Hercules) who had
died very young and was buried on the Palatine (Dion. Hal. 10.32.43); for obvious
reasons, Virgil turns him into Evander's son, and gives him a Sabine mother
(8.510); thus he represents the fusion of Greek and Italian stock. His early death,
taken from the legend, provides the poet with further useful motifs. Aeneas' journey
to visit Evander was important to Virgil in its own right; at the same time he has
worked it most skilfully into the narrative, using Aeneas' absence as a vital piece of
motivation corresponding to the wrath of Achilles. Less obvious, but still percep-
179 tible, are the reasons which led him to include the Etruscans among Aeneas' troops.
In Virgil's own time, the predominant tradition knew only of a battle fought by
Aeneas and Ascanius against the Etruscans under Mezentius; however, an earlier
tradition, reported by Timaeus, which unfortunately is preserved only in the obscure
phraseology of Lycophron,[8] said that Aeneas stayed at Agylla-Caere and made an
alliance with Tarchon and Tyrrhenus. Virgil combined the two: Mezentius remains
the Trojans' enemy, whereas the Etruscans are their allies, but – and this reveals
Virgil's pragmatic intention (i.e. using myth as historical propaganda) – they are
represented not as allies of equal standing but as under the command of Aeneas,
gens externo commissa duci (10.156) [they trusted themselves to the care of a
foreign leader], a leader who had been assigned to them by the will of the gods, as
revealed by the prophet. Thus in those ancient times fate had already decreed a
situation which was only to come about in reality after hard struggles throughout
many centuries, the subordination of Etruria to the control of the descendants of
Aeneas. From the point of view of the verisimilitude of the narrative it is an
advantage that the introduction of this episode considerably increases the forces at
Aeneas' disposal, so that we are not faced with the improbable story that a handful
of Trojans and Arcadians were able to overcome the united opposition of all the
other peoples of Italy. From an artistic point of view, Virgil makes full use of the
situation to enrich his narrative with new motifs. There is the catalogue of Etruscan
forces, which, as in the Iliad , follows that of their opponents, and is in form like the
catalogue of ships; Aeneas' journey by sea; the figure of the bold and resolute
cavalry-commander Tarchon; but above all there is the highly original charac-
terization of Mezentius and his relationship with his former subjects, a new creation
that results from the fusion of the two traditions, which necessitated separating
Mezentius and his son Lausus (whom Virgil also took over from the tradition) from
their fellow-countrymen.
The main source for the material in the battle-scenes was the Iliad . Virgil's
ambition was to create a new work by reshaping Homer's most effective motifs to
suit his purposes, and by enriching it with new situations, such as those in the
Camilla episode.
180
3—
Arrangement
If the second part was to be equal in length to the first, the poet had six books at his
disposal. In deciding what material should go into each book, he was mainly con-
cerned to avoid two pitfalls: shapelessness and monotony. He felt that these were
two major faults in the construction of the Iliad : on the one hand, the poet handles
the chronology quite recklessly, and the action darts here and there, apparently
following no set plan; on the other hand, the endlessly drawn-out descriptions of
fighting with their mindless repetitions which had held Homer's archaic Greek
audience spellbound would certainly have appealed to very few in Virgil's day.
Virgil gave the second part of his work a well-defined shape by using the same
methods that he had used in the first part: he allotted one self-contained piece of the
action to each book. Thus Book 7 covers the period from the arrival up to the
declaration of war; Book 8 contains Aeneas' visit to the site of Rome; Book 9 the
events that take place during his absence; Book 10 the first major battle; Book 11
the armistice and the cavalry battle; Book 12 the decisive battle. The books also fall
into three groups of two: 7 and 8, the preparations for the fighting; 9 and 10 leading
up to the first great conflict; 11 and 12 the events which culminate in the decisive
duel. Moreover, the division into books corresponds as far as possible with units of
time: 8 and 9 depict simultaneous events, centred on Aeneas in 8, on the Trojan
camp in 9; while 10, 11.225 to the end, and 12 each contain the events of one day.
The danger of monotony was greatest in Books 9 to 12, which contain the actual
battles. The conclusion and outcome of these battles were obvious as soon as Turnus
had been given the rôle of Aeneas' main opponent; his death had to be the decisive
event, and artistic logic demanded that he could not simply be killed 'in battle' as in
the tradition, but must be slain by the hand of Aeneas himself. The
[slaying] of Hector by Achilles was the model that must inevitably have imposed
itself on Virgil. Everything that preceded this crucial event could only serve to delay
it – the poet's problem was to elevate this series of delays into incidents that were
significant and interesting in their own right. The shaping of the whole of the second
half so that it would reach its climax in the duel between Aeneas and Turnus
entailed only one essential change: regardless of the tradition, Mezentius had to die
before Turnus; in all other respects Virgil was free to do as he wished. First, he took
181 advantage of the absence of Aeneas to allow the heroic figure of Turnus to shine
forth in all its unclouded glory, in this, too, taking on the rôle of Hector: the attempt
to burn the ships, the fighting at the wall, and the fighting at the camp – that is, the
three most important phases of the battles described in Books 12 to 15 of the Iliad –
provide the opportunity for this in the case of Hector, and while the spotlight is on
Turnus, the description of the general mêlée of the two armies is restricted to the
minimum, in order not to anticipate the later books. The incident in Book 10 of the
Iliad is skilfully adapted: the ill-fated venture of Nisus and Euryalus interrupts the
description of Turnus' exploits, which occupy the beginning and end of Book 9.
Before the fighting begins again in Book 10 the assembly of gods provides relief
(10.1-117): similarly, there are scenes with the gods at the beginning of Books 4, 8,
13, 15 and 20 of the Iliad . There follows in Book 10 the first actual battle, in which,
on the Trojan side, Pallas is killed by Turnus – this feat is eventually to cause his
own death, just like Hector's greatest achievement in Iliad 16 – while on the enemy
side, Lausus and Mezentius are killed; the fight between Aeneas and Turnus is
postponed by the phantom sent by Juno: this motif is taken from the end of Iliad 21.
Book 11 also begins with peaceful scenes in the camp and in the city; then comes
the second day of battle, in which Aeneas and Turnus play no part whatever; the
unique figure of Camilla appears in the foreground; the cavalry battle takes its own
distinctive course, and thus provides a contrast to Book 10.
Book 12 does not begin with scenes of battle either; the preparation for the duel
by negotiations in the city, the solemn treaty and its violation (these come from Iliad
3 and 4), then one more battle, which at last proves decisive (from Iliad 20 to 22).
Here, too, only a short section (257-310) is devoted to the general mêlée; Aeneas'
wound gives Turnus another opportunity for an aristeia (324-82); when Aeneas has
been healed (like Hector in Iliad 15) and appears on the battlefield, seeking Turnus,
Juturna's intervention causes another delay; only the attack on the city and Saces'
urgent appeal brings Turnus to face the enemy. Before the final scene, the resistance
of Juno on Olympus is at last overcome (791-842); then comes the decisive duel.
In this way Virgil did indeed succeed in keeping repetitions to the minimum, in
intermixing the inevitably similar scenes of battle wherever possible with scenes of
a different type, and in maintaining the tension right up to the end. He did so by
selecting and rearranging the traditional motifs, not one of which, however, was
simply retold: all of them, as we shall see, were refashioned in Virgil's own charac-
teristic manner.
182
II—
Allecto
1—
Allecto Personifying Discord
Virgil introduces the period of renewed sufferings that await Aeneas in his struggle
for Latium with scenes which deliberately parallel the corresponding scenes at the
beginning of the first part of the Aeneid . In each case, Juno is amazed and furious to
see the good fortune that her enemy enjoys, and pours out her emotions in a
soliloquy; in each case, she uses a minor divinity to destroy her enemy; in each case,
her command is immediately obeyed and disaster strikes. But because it is necessary
to increase the tension, and because this second and final attempt at revenge has to
have a more powerful effect, her plan has to be introduced in a way that is more
striking in every respect. This is ingeniously achieved in Juno's monologue: hatred
of the Trojans, disappointment at previous failures, her conviction that she has been
wronged and humiliated – all this is expressed in stronger terms than ever before.[9] It
is precisely because she foresees that her plans will inevitably come to nothing that
there are no bounds to her overwhelming desire to exact the greatest possible
vengeance while she still has the chance to do so. With the splendid antithetical
phrase flectere si nequeo superos , Acheronta movebo ['if I cannot change the will of
Heaven, I shall release Hell'], she enlists a more powerful ally than before. Instead
of the ruler of the winds, the peaceful Aeolus, who had been a guest at the table of
the Olympian gods, she summons a monster from the Underworld, hated not only by
the Olympians but even by the gods of the world below: Allecto, the Fury who
drives men mad. Instead of unleashing the powers of nature she unleashes furious
passion, the insanity of mortal men, which causes so much more harm than the
183 powers of nature ever can. It is war that is going to flare up, and Virgil and his
contemporaries knew very well what that meant. Hell knows no more fearful
plague; anyone who wants to shatter the sanctity of peace must be out of his mind.
Only those who share the total abhorrence of war felt by Virgil's contemporaries
can fully understand why the poet made it the work of Allecto. Thus the queen raves
lymphata (377) [in a reckless frenzy]; her companions have furiis accensae pectora
(392) [hearts ablaze with hysterical passion]; Turnus' lust for battle is scelerata
insania belli (461) [the atccursed lunacy of war]; and Tyrrhus reaches for his axe
spirans immane (510) [panting with savage rage]. So the mad tumult breaks out
almost simultaneously in three different places: Virgil has created a unity out of a
haphazard juxtaposition or unconnected series of events by means of the figure of
Allecto, so that they are converted into a carefully arranged sequence brought about
by the machinations of a single will.
However, Allecto is not really the personification of madness, but of discord, cui
tristia bella iraeque insidiaeque et crimina noxia cordi (325) [Allecto, who dearly
loves war's horrors, outbursting wrath, treachery and recriminations with all their
harms] and tu potes unanimos armare in proelia fratres , atque odiis versare domos
(335f.) ['You know well how to set brothers, united in love, at armed conflict one
against the other. You can wreck homes by hate']; her real work is the dissolution
and destruction of peaceful agreements: disice compositam pacem [shatter the pact
of peace which they have made] and when she has done her work she announces
perfecta tibi bello discordia tristi : sic in amicitiam coeant et foedera iungant (545–
6) ['Behold, you have your quarrel, and it has been securely ratified by horrors of
war. Now see if you can join them in friendship again and make them agree to
peace!']. Thus she is to a large degree the counterpart of Eris, who similarly appears
in Hesiod ( Theog . 225f.) as one of the daughters of Night (cf. virgo sata Nocte [331]
[maid, daughter of Night]), and whose destructive swarm of children may have been
in Virgil's mind when he wrote line 325 (quoted above). So she does not really
appear as a vengeful or punishing daimon : she is an Erinys to the extent that if she
succeeds in her work then madness will result (447, 570), and she is one of the deae
dirae (324) [dread goddesses], the sorores Tartareae (327) [Tartarean sisters], of
whom she is the most loathsome. Like the Erinyes, she carries whips and torches
(336), and has snakes for hair (cf. Discordia demens vipereum crinem vittis innexa
cruentis [6.280] [Strife the insane, with bloody ribbons binding her snaky hair].
Virgil may have drawn his inspiration for this creature from tragedy, in which, from
Aeschylus onwards, Erinyes and other such daimons had frequently appeared: thus
an author as early as Macrobius, in the remarkable passage in which he mocks all
these scenes, writes sparguntur angues velut in scaena parturientes furorem (5.17.3)
[there are snakes everywhere, as on the stage, giving birth to madness]. In surviving
tragedies, it is the figure of Lyssa in Euripides' Herakles who comes closest to
Allecto;[10] an even closer parallel may well have appeared in the attempts of post-
184 Euripidean tragedians to outdo Euripides. They will have supplied Virgil with the
basic colours for his picture: but the concept itself came from another source.
Postquam Discordia taetra Belli ferratos postis portasque refregit [when hideous
Discord burst apart the iron-bound doors and gates of War] wrote Ennius in his
Annales; Virgil deliberately echoes this in Belli ferratos rumpit Saturnia postis
(622) [the Saturnian queen burst apart the iron-bound gates of War]. It may well be
that Ennius also described how Discordia prepared the way for war, and that Virgil
is trying to outdo that description; but Discordia was too abstract for his taste, and he
preferred to use the well-established and graphically developed figure of the Erinys.
2—
Amata
Allecto's first victim is Queen Amata, who is driven insane by poison injected by
one of the snakes from Allecto's head. The snake, which is elsewhere no more than
a horrible attribute of the Erinyes, here becomes, as a poisonous reptile, a symbol of
consuming madness; it injects its poison in many different guises, just as Allecto
herself tot sese vertit in ora (328) [assumes so many countenances]. The immediate
result of Amata's madness is that she tries to induce her husband to act against the
will of the gods by means of a sophistic interpretation of the oracle. When this
attempt fails, and madness like a consuming disease forces its way even deeper into
her very spirit, the queen's collapse into insanity becomes clear to all: in crazed
delirium she rages through the cities of the land. And in her ecstatic state she roams
even further afield: she becomes a maenad and flings herself into the woods, taking
her daughter with her. It is not easy to say in what sense Virgil wishes his portrayal
of this
chi . . . evolat et natam frondosis montibus abdit quo thalamum eripiat
Teucris . . . 'euhoe Bacche ' fremens , solum te virgine dignum vociferans [she went out
into the forests in her flight, pretending that the power of Bacchus was upon
her . . . and she hid her daughter among leaf-clad mountains . . . to rob the Trojans of
their wedding. 'Ho, Bacchus!' she shouted, and 'None but you' she shrieked,
'deserves the maiden!']. Two things are clear, firstly that Amata is truly in the grip
of madness, not acting in a cold, calculating way and feigning madness after careful
consideration. Previously she had already been truly lymphata [frenzied], then maio -
rem orsa furorem [seized by an even wilder madness], and finally Virgil writes
185 talem . . . reginam Allecto stimulis agit undique Bacchi (404) [so fared it with the
queen, as Allecto goaded her now this way, now that and drove her by the Bacchic
power]. On the other hand, it is equally certain that in spite of this last phrase, and in
spite of the fact that the women are later said to be attonitae Baccho (580) [under the
shock of Bacchus], it is not a question of true Bacchic ecstasy: for how could
Allecto bring that about? After all, the Bacchi stimuli [goads of Bacchus] are not
hers to command. But Virgil does say explicitly s i m u l a t o numine Bacchi (385)
[pretending that the power of Bacchus was upon her], and just as the description that
follows is in many respects unmistakeably dependent on Euripides' Bacchae ,[11] so
too this phrase is very reminiscent of Pentheus' suspicion that the women are
gadding about
Dionysus] in the mountains: except that what was a false supposition in the Bacchae
is actually the case here. And in fact the words that Virgil uses, especially the
addition of her intentions in silvas evolat . . . quo thalamum eripiat Teucris taedasque
moretur (387f.) [she went out into the forests in her flight . . . to prevent the marriage
ceremony and to rob the Trojans of their wedding], support the view that Amata is
pretending to be acting in obedience to the command of Bacchus, rather than that
Allecto drove her to the delusion that she was possessed by Bacchus. Later, Virgil
writes stimulis agit undique Bacchi (405) [drove her now this way, now that, by the
goads of Bacchus]; this must be a case of
frenzy] here ascribed to the Fury from the Underworld, just as in Euripides' Trojan
Women (408) Apollo is said to
frenzy].[12]
Virgil's creation is quite idiosyncratic and can only be explained as an amalga-
mation of several concepts. At first, Allecto plays a rô1e similar to that of Lyssa in
Euripides' Bacchae (977), when she is called on by the chorus to incite the maenads
against Pentheus. There, too, madness sent by the powers of the Underworld is
involved in the action.[13] In Virgil, the god plays no part, although the rites are
186 performed in exactly the same way as, for example, in Euripides' Bacchae and in
the cult of Dionysus generally. In Virgil, Roman sensibilities are very evident: the
god Liber himself cannot desire any kind of dissolute maenadism, in which respect-
able upper-class matrons forget all morality and decency; that would be an abuse of
the name of the god, which would be a serious offence – hence maius adorta
n e f a s (386) [venturing a still graver sin] – which could only have been prompted
by insanity sent from Hadles. In a very similar way, the Bacchanalia, where genuine
ecstasy certainly did play a rôle, were once regarded in Rome as a criminal decep-
tion and banned by the magistrates.[14] But if the intention of Amata with her thiasi
[troops of Maenads] is to make it impossible for her daughter to marry, on the
grounds that she is dedicated to the god – taedas morari (388) [to prevent the
marriage ceremony] – this is reminiscent of another heroine who falsely claims to be
dedicated to the cult of Bacchus, and for much the same reasons: Laodameia, who in
Euripides' famous drama tried to evade marriage by a similar pretence: her thiasi
dolosi [groups of fraudulent maenads][15] may well have been in Virgil's mind.
Amata, however, does not persist in her deception; when the other matrons, in the
grip of the same madness, join her and she swings the pine-torch in their midst, in
her confused mental state she believes that she is carrying the marriage-torch in the
bridal procession, and she sings the marriage-song for her daughter and Turnus.[16]
187 But in the middle of her song (this is surely how repente [suddenly] in line 399 is to
be understood) she breaks off and calls on the women of Latium to join her in
resisting Latinus who is guilty of showing contempt for a mother's rights. The result
achieved by Amata, or rather by Allecto through Amata is twofold: first, Lavinia,
frondosis montibus abdita (387) [hidden amid leaf-clad mountains] and allegedly
dedicated to the gods, is temporarily taken out of Latinus' hands, and secondly, all
the women of the land have been mobilized in opposition to the marriage that he has
proposed, and this in its turn affects the male population: quorum attonitae Baccho
nemora avia matres insultant thiasis . . . undique collecti coeunt Martemque fatigant
(580) [from all sides there gathered the relatives of those women who, under the
shock of Bacchus, had gone prancing in frenzied bands about the trackless
forests . . . and they too clamoured incessantly for an appeal to Mars]. Possibly Virgil
was borrowing a Greek motif here and toning it down, with the result that it does not
achieve its full effect: it is conceivable that in some Greek work, an ecstatic move-
ment took hold of the women and they yielded to it
total abandon][17] and thereby provoked their menfolk to embark on a war. This would
be a development of the idea which Aristotle put forward to explain the remarkable
behaviour of Odysseus in Iliad 2.183: he ignores good manners so that the popula-
tion will be astounded and will turn to him, 'as they say that Solon behaved when he
wanted to gather the people together to persuade them to fight for Salamis'. The
incident to which Dümmler ( Kl . Schr . II [Leipzig, 1896] 405f.) rightly refers in this
context, the
have come even closer to the motif as we may suppose it was presented by Virgil's
source. Virgil himself seems to imply that the men are anxious to fight in order to
put an end to the women's disorderly and giddy behaviour. He has thus found an
ideal way of making the mad lust for war spread all over Latium; the women, who
are more susceptible to this infectious mania, are the agents whereby the men, who
are slower to be moved en masse , are all individually inflamed to resist Latinus'
plans. We can only regret that this ingenious piece of motivation is not treated very
clearly and fails to achieve its full effect.
3—
Turnus
Allecto has begun her fiendish work with the action which has the least immediate
impact, which needs the longest time to develop, and which at first only briefly
188 thwarts Latinus' plan by delaying its execution.[18] She now turns to Turnus, the real
motivating force behind the war. While he is asleep she comes to him in the guise of
the priestess of Juno, and goads him with words calculated to touch his sense of
honour and his manly pride; she herself mentions Juno, and claims that she is acting
on her orders. Turnus refuses; then the Fury is filled with anger, appears in her true
form and plants her torch in his chest: he wakes up, bathed in sweat, and from that
moment on the fire of hell burns in him. In this episode, too, Virgil has blurred the
clarity of the one motif by combining it with too many others. The appearance of the
dream-figure is based in the first instance on the dream of Penelope in the Odyssey
(4.795ff.), in which she is consoled by an
Athena and takes the form of her sister Iphthime. Penelope replies to her in her
dream, just as Turnus does (and that is what distinguishes this dream-narrative from
the others in Homer) and tells her about her worries: then the
been sent by Pallas Athena, the personal protectress of Telemachus, and that puts
Penelope's mind at rest.
[Pallas . . . who has sent me now to tell you these things]: Virgil has incorporated this
straightaway in Allecto's first speech to Turnus, with ipsa palam fari omnipotens
Saturnia iussit [the Saturnian Queen, the Almighty, had herself commanded me to
say this openly to you], and, in fact, Calybe, as Juno's priestess, could indeed have
received instructions from her in a dream:[19] though it does appear rather awkward
when we find that Turnus rejects this revelation and proceeds to appeal directly to
Juno himself, confident that she will not forget him. These lines have not been
completed, as is shown by the half-line 439; Virgil probably intended that Turnus
should go on to say that he did not believe in Juno's alleged warning, on the grounds
that she would not permit events to proceed as far as allowing his bride to be
withheld from him. This is followed by the mocking rebuke that inflames Allecto
189 with blazing anger. Formally, the final lines of Turnus' speech (443-4) are modelled
on Hector's farewell speech in the sixth book of the Iliad (490-2);[20] however, the
motif of rejecting a divine warning, and suffering a divine anger in consequence, is
derived from another source. In his Hymn to Demeter (42), Callimachus describes
how Demeter takes on the form of her priestess Nikippa,[21] and gives a friendly
warning to Erysichthon, who wants to fell her sacred tree; he dismisses her scorn-
fully, and then she reveals herself in her divine form and stature –
touched the heavens] – and utters fearful threats. Either Callimachus himself or
some very closely related source supplied Virgil with the motif. It probably goes
back to the dialogue between Helen and Aphrodite in Book 3 of the Iliad (386ff.),
although there are no close echoes of the Homeric passage in Virgil. However, the
result of the goddess' angry speech is the same in each case: Turnus, like Helen,
immediately does what he had at first refused to do. It is this reversal and the
increase in dramatic tension that it creates which caused Virgil to combine the motif
of Penelope's dream with the motif of Helen or Erysichthon, yet it cannot be denied
that the latter motif has no true psychological justification in this context. Whereas it
certainly contributes a good deal to the characterization of Helen, and of Erysich-
thon, that the former at first tries to avoid Paris, and that the latter very coarsely
repudiates the priestess' reprimand, this is not true in the case of Turnus: at most,
Virgil perhaps hoped to show that to start with he had been a peaceable character,
who had had no inclination whatever to enforce his claims with a mailed fist; but
that possibility seems to be excluded by the fact that he rejected the message simply
because he did not believe the truthful account given by Calybe.
190
4—
Ascanius:
War Breaks Out
Turnus commands his Rutulians to take up arms, in order to give Latinus a strong
warning against the newly-made alliance. However, a peaceful settlement was still
perhaps possible; Allecto knows that a breach can be healed if blood has not yet
been spilt, so she puts the finishing touches to her work by means of a third
intervention: Trojans and Latins are to come to blows. At the same time, there were
two reasons why the Trojans had to be made responsible for starting the dispute.
First, everything is arranged so as to pile as much tinder as possible around the
throne of Latinus, since that is where the flames of war are eventually to flare up and
blaze forth. However, Latinus' subjects can only demand that their king should
declare war if they feel that they themselves have been injured; if they were to begin
the war themselves, they would have no occasion or reason to be angry with the
foreign settlers and they would be in no position to come before the king demanding
revenge. Secondly, Virgil could not be indifferent to the fact that this gave him the
opportunity to respect the tradition, in so far as it existed, according to which the
casus belli was some form of encroachment by the new settlers, such as looting or
other incursions into Latin territory. Virgil is operating very skilfully when he makes
the offence committed by the Trojans as slight as he can, yet serious enough to
motivate the anger of the Latin country-folk. The country-folk: that is explicitly
emphasized several times (504, 521, 574), and apparently they are very different
from the city population that is stirred up by Amata (384); they are the uncivilized,
191 undisciplined[22] bands, who are always prepared to rush to help each other at the call
of the shepherd's horn, to drive off robbers and wild animals; it is these men, who
act on the impulse of the moment, passionately, and without mature reflection, who
are to strike the first blow.[23] But the injustice which incites them to retaliate in this
case is not any theft or wrongful raid, but an offence by an innocent offender,
Ascanius. Allecto brings it about that Ascanius, while out hunting, fatally wounds a
tame stag, which is the household pet of Tyrrhus' large and highly respected family,
although of course Ascanius has no idea that it is a privileged beast. It is significant
that Allecto does not dare to lay a finger on the boy himself, the darling of the gods;
she puts his hounds on the scent of the stag after she has 'flung madness upon them',
(rabiem obiecit [479-80]), as Artemis had once done to the hounds of Actaeon.
Ascanius, who is passionately devoted to hunting (which was regarded as a thor-
oughly Roman pursuit in Virgil's day), catches sight of the magnificent stag, and
possessed by an understandable longing for glory ( eximiae laudis succensus amore
[496]) takes aim. Tyrrhus' daughter Silvia is the first to see the wounded creature;
she immediately breaks into a loud lament and calls on the country-folk for help;
thus events are set in motion by a woman, who is much more liable to give way to
mindless grief than a man. Allecto then sees to it that the affair spreads far and wide
(505, 511). All this is undoubtedly Virgil's own invention. We ought not to look for
the motif of the ill-starred hunt in any historical version of the legend, since it is far
too Hellenistic in spirit. But the tame stag and its accidental death were perhaps
borrowed by the poet from the story of Cyparissus, which he knew from a Hellenis-
192 tic poem, as we learn from the combined evidence of Ovid[24] and Pompeian paintings
(especially Helbig 219 cf. Ovid Met . 10.113). I might almost go as far as to say that
we cannot fully comprehend Silvia's sorrow and anger and the other consequences
of the fatal arrow unless we know the sad outcome of the Cyparissus story: the
Hellenistic poet will have used every one of the many artistic devices at his disposal
to touch the reader's heart with the story of the boy's mortal grief. Virgil had to
respect the laws of epic and restrict himself to allusions, but he was still censured for
it: one ancient critic found the whole motif leve nimisque puerile [lightweight and
too childish] (Macrob. loc . cit .).
How first Silvia's menfolk come running in answer to her call, how Tyrrhus,
armed with his axe from his tree-felling, summons his troops, and how someone – it
must have been the Fury herself – raises the alarm by a blast on her horn – and
immediately men come pouring in from every direction – all this is vividly
described by Virgil; and, since Ascanius is apparently in danger, it is also clear why
the Trojan warriors immediately march out armed for battle – if it had been some
Trojan of no particular significance who was in danger, it would have been necess-
ary to supply some additional motivation to produce this effect. After that,
bloodshed is inevitable, and it comes as no suprise that the inadequately armed
country-folk are overcome by the Trojans, who are experienced fighters. Blood now
cries out for vengeance.
Thus Allecto brings her work to a climax, and Virgil has plotted its progress with
calculated artistry: Juno had pronounced sere crimina belli , arma velit poscatque
simul rapiatque iuventus (339f.) [sow in recriminations the seeds of war: in one
breath let their manhood want, demand and grasp their arms], and she can now
ascertain to her own satisfaction that stant belli causae (553) [motives for a war are
established]. Now that disaster is on its way, there is no need for further help from
the powers of darkness. Once discordia has sprung up between men, its own inner
nature forces it to erupt into war. The three separate streams of war-fever unite in
Latinus' palace, and the weak old man tries in vain to stem their flood; Allecto has
seen to it that he will be alone in his resistance, and the waves pass over him and
onward. The actual outbreak of war however still needs to be embodied in some
public action; Virgil therefore creates an episode out of something which may have
been no more than a figure of speech in Ennius (see above p. 149f): the opening of
the Belli portae [Gates of War]. By means of the descriptions of the temple, and a
solemn reference to the custom that is still observed (601ff.), the event is given the
importance that it requires; and since it is not Discordia (as in Ennius) but Juno
herself who flings open the gates, we are given the impression that, despite Allecto's
help, the war has been brought about by the goddess herself.[25]
193
III—
The Battles
Four books of the Aeneid , a third of the whole work, are devoted to descriptions of
fighting. The economy of the work required that they should be allotted a consider-
able amount of space. Aeneas has to be given an opportunity to display his heroism,
particularly because he needs rehabilitation after the defeat at Troy. Also, quite apart
from Aeneas himself, the history of Rome is one long story of battles and victories,
so Rome's prehistory must also tell magnificent tales of battles and victories. The
Iliad provided the prototype for heroic battles; Virgil could not even consider mak-
ing changes to this model, let alone rejecting it in favour of one of a quite different
type. However, the Iliad had also exhausted virtually every possible variation on this
theme (apart from a cavalry battle), and any attempt to think up new forms could
only have led to eccentricities. That is why Virgil keeps closer to Homer in these
descriptions than in any other part of his poem with the exception of the Funeral
Games. At the same time these descriptions are Virgilian through and through.
The difficulties that faced him are not to be underestimated. Virgil found vir-
tually no hints in the threadbare tradition to help him in his characterization of
individual warriors and had to rely almost entirely on his own imagination, although
he had to take care that his own inventions should not be recognizable as such. A
bold departure from the repertoire of characters established in the mythical tradition
would have clashed with the overall style. Any obtrusive fictions, or any introduc-
tion of obviously contemporary situations, would have spoilt the illusion that all this
was age-old material, hallowed by tradition. As for the action itself, that is, the
motivation and incidents of the battles, this could easily be adapted from Homer,
194 although great care had to be taken in so doing. Homer's audience loved battles and
could never hear enough about heroic single combat. It is clear that the poet himself
had a lively technical interest in the vicissitudes of spear-fights and sword-fights, the
wounds and different forms of death, and he could presuppose the same interest in
the audience for which he was reciting. Virgil's contemporaries had also lived
through wars enough, and the style in which they were fought was still comparable
with that described by Homer – we should remember that in Roman tactics, too, the
decisive factor was still the proficiency of the individual, not of the whole army; but
how few of those who heard or read Virgil had ever themselves carried a sword!
Above all, how remote Virgil himself was from the cut and thrust of the battlefield!
He thus found himself faced with the enormously difficult task of having to invent
his own characters, characters who moreover were designed with only one end in
view, namely to perform deeds to which neither Virgil's mind nor that of his public
could relate in any real way, except insofar as they aroused their general sympathy
for humanity.
Confronted with these difficulties, Virgil decided on the following guidelines: he
would concentrate the interest on the smallest possible number of characters, and by
careful use of Roman and national material, make the battle scenes as graphic as
possible and emphasize the overall human interest or psychological aspect of the
events. As for the composition, he decided to maintain the listener's interest by
means of constant variety and an energetic, dramatic pacing of the action.
1—
Types of Battle-Scenes
If we classify the types of battle scenes under various headings, we see at once that
the
man, is by far the largest category. Thus Book 9 is almost exclusively the aristeia of
Turnus; in Book 10 we have Aeneas in 310-44, Pallas' deeds and his death at the
hand of Turnus in 362-509, Aeneas again in 510-605 (606-88, the removal of
Turnus, is a later addition), Mezentius in 689-746, and his death from 755 to the end
(908), the latter being Aeneas' first decisive achievement. The battles in Book 11
(597-895) are for the most part (647-724, 759-867) the aristeia and death of Ca-
milla, interrupted by an exploit of Tarchon (725-58), and concluded by a description
195 (868-95) of the consequences of Camilla's death: the flight of the Latins and their
pursuit up to the walls of the city. Finally in Book 12 Tolumnius and the spear, and
the subsequent hand-to-hand fighting at the altar (257-310), is followed by the
wounding of Aeneas (311-23), and another aristeia of Turnus (324-82) and the
healing of Aeneas (383-440): then his sortie with his faithful companions, which
includes a few lines about their deeds (458-61), the attack by Messapus on Aeneas
and what might be described as a combined aristeia of Aeneas and Turnus (500-53),
up to Aeneas' attack on the city, which then leads to the decisive duel (554-696) that
rounds off the work (697-952). Thus the interest is concentrated on five characters:
Turnus, Aeneas, Pallas, Mezentius, Camilla; of these, only Turnus and Aeneas
appear in more than one book; two books (9 and 11) have only one main character
each. If we disregard the episodes concerning isolated feats performed by other
characters – Nisus and Euryalus in 9.176-502, Ascanius in 9.590-671, Tarchon in
9.725-59 – and if we ignore the few characters whose only function is to oppose the
main heroes and who are given some importance in order to magnify their aristeia –
Lausus in 10.791-832, Aunus in 11.699-724, Arruns in 11.759ff., and to a lesser
degree Pandarus and Bitias in 11.672-716, Halaesus in 10.411-25 – all that is left is
a few not very extensive passages which serve to give an impression of the general
fighting by naming the victors and the vanquished; and we may observe that Virgil
inflicts such a 'butcher's list' on his readers only once in each book: 9.569-89
(though 573-5 makes it belong in part to Turnus' aristeia ), 10.747-54 (also 345-61,
though this is rather different), 11.612-47 (though this includes the very general
description of the ebb and flow of battle in 618-35), and 12.458-61. And indeed, it is
only exceptionally that Virgil expands his narrative so as to give an account of an
actual duel (for example in Book 11, and again in 9.576-89, and in 12.287-310,
though that passage is not strictly comparable); otherwise it is merely a case of
listing names as in Iliad 6.29-36, followed on one occasion (9.576ff.) by a slightly
more detailed description of two fights, rather like Iliad 14.511ff., where the list is
followed by the very sketchy description of the killing of Hyperenor. On the other
hand, what is completely absent in Virgil, but fairly common in Homer, is what we
might call the 'chain of combats', where the poet tries to bring several single
196 combats fought by various heroes into some sort of relationship with one another –
as for example in Iliad 5.533ff.: Agamemnon kills Deikoon, the comrade of Aeneas,
and then his two brothers, who had joined the expedition against Troy out of loyalty
to the Atridae; Menelaus, later joined by Antilochus,
Menelaus and Antilochus then kill two Trojans; Hector
he avenges their death with that of two of the enemy; Ajax
them and strikes Amphius (cf. also, for example, 13.576-672, 14.440-507, 15.518–
91). Such series have a more tiring effect than plain, rapid lists, unless, at least,
famous heroes appear in them to lend interest; and few such heroes were available to
Virgil.
2—
Differences between Homeric and Roman battles. Cavalry. Chariots.
The Virgilian battle-scene, built up from a description of tactics and types of
weapon, is modelled faithfully on its Homeric prototype in all essentials, but con-
tains occasional touches which would give the Roman reader the feeling that these
are descriptions of battles fought by his own ancestors. There are many passages
where it is clear that Virgil has applied these touches above all in connection with the
native troops. Military ensigns are mentioned only in such phrases as signa sequi [to
follow the standards], while Turnus proclaims the beginning of the war by flying the
vexillum [flag][26] from the citadel. Virgil had introduced Misenus as trumpeter in
Books 3 and 6, in accordance with the tradition; he also explicitly says that he had
stood at Hector's side in that capacity (6.166f.). During the fighting the classica
[signals for battle] are often mentioned, given by tuba , bucina or cornu [trumpet or
horn], but without exception in passages which refer to Etruscans or Latins:[27] Virgil is
aware that trumpets were thought to have been invented by the Etruscans, and were
therefore unknown to Homeric warriors.[28]
197 Perhaps the most important difference between Virgil's battle-scenes and
Homer's is Virgil's introduction of cavalry. He did not hesitate to provide even the
Trojans with cavalry, probably because without it the lusus Troiae could not have
been presented as a tradition derived from their former homeland. Unfortunately we
do not know how the Roman antiquarians squared this with their knowledge that
there were no cavalry battles in Homer. It is for this reason that only isolated Trojan
cavalrymen are mentioned (Glaucus and Lades, 12.343; Thymoetes, 12.364;
Amycus 12.509), and none of them are generals, or come from the aristocracy.
Although Aeneas himself is depicted as riding on the march (8.552), he never
appears on a horse in battle. The actual cavalry in Aeneas' army are provided by his
allies,[29] Evander's Arcadians (8.518; 10.364) and Tarchon's Etruscans, who appear
again later in Book 11 as the real opponents of Camilla ( Tyrrhenos equites [504]
[Etruscan cavalry], Etruscique duces equitumque exercitus omnis [598] [Etruria's
chieftains and all the cavalry], Tusci [629] [Tuscans], Tyrrheni [733] [Tyrrhenians]),
although isolated Trojans also appear in this context (Orsilochus and Butes 690,
Chloreus 768). The Etruscan king Mezentius also used to ride away from the wars
on his battle-horse (10.859), and his son Lausus is called equum domitor (7.651)
[horse-tamer]. On the Latin side, too, it is the allies who constitute the main contin-
gent of cavalry, although the Rutulians (9.48 but cf. 7.793) and Latins (11.603) do
have a certain number. Turnus himself only rides, accompanied by selected compan-
ions, when he needs to reach the enemy camp as quickly as possible (9.47); he does
not ride into battle. Other mounted warriors include the Faliscans under Messapus,
son of Neptune and tamer of horses, whom the poet wishes to impress on our
imaginations as the cavalryman par excellence , in the same way that Turnus is the
outstanding chariot-fighter (10.354; 11.464, 518, 692; 12.295; equum domitor
[tamer of horses], one of Virgil's few stock epithets, is applied to him at 7.69; 9.523;
12.128); also the men of Tibur under Catillus and Coras (11.465, 519, 604), which,
as Servius on 7.675 rightly points out, is why they are compared with centaurs;
finally, and most strikingly, the Volscians led by the maiden warrior Camilla (7.804;
198 11 passim ), who eventually commands the combined Latin cavalry in the battle in
Book 11 (519).
As we have already said (p. 148), Virgil inserted this cavalry-battle between
Books 10 and 12 so as to vary the character of the fighting as well as that of the
combatants, and thus avoid the danger of monotony. The reader does indeed come
to the decisive battle in Book 12 with keener interest than if it had come immedi-
ately after the one in Book 10, which is of exactly the same kind and which involves
exactly the same people. However, so that Book 10 shall not anticipate the cavalry-
battle, Virgil has to invent the story that the Arcadians, because of the difficult
terrain, were compelled to fight on foot, and this also explains their initial defeat
(10.364); no similar motivation is necessary in the case of the Etruscans, since
obviously they cannot think of disembarking their horses during the fight to secure a
beachhead. Furthermore, the fact that their first task is to attack the enemy camp
may explain why the Latin cavalry, and Camilla, do not appear in Book 10,[30]
although it is not at all certain that Virgil himself deliberately motivated their late
appearance in this way.
For the cavalry-battle itself Virgil could no longer rely on his constant guide,
Homer. His account is none the worse for that. Of course we should not auto-
matically assume that everything is Virgil's free invention, for, just as there were
many paintings of Amazonomachies, so too there must have been many poetic
descriptions which included motifs which could be borrowed for Camilla's en-
counters: in 659ff. Virgil himself mentions the Amazons by the river Thermodon,
and Hippolyta and Penthesilea. However, it is unthinkable that Virgil used the
archaic epic, the Amazonis or the Aithiopis , as a source for his cavalry-battle; it is
improbable, in any case, that he had read these epics, as is shown by the fact that he
knows of Penthesilea, not as a horsewoman, but only as a woman who fought from a
chariot (seu cum se Martia curru Penthesilea , refert [11.661] [or else when martial
Penthesilea drives back in her chariot from war]), a conception which he must have
199 derived from mythographic compendia and illustrations; and this is further evidence
that the Amazons did not ride horses in the archaic epics.[31] But already in the
archaic period, certainly by the sixth century BC, the idea of the mounted Amazon
had been introduced and was never to disappear; but in the iconographic tradition
the opponents of the horsewomen, to the best of my knowledge, are always hoplites,
not horsemen as in Virgil; and it is this circumstance which gives his description its
individual colour. How the two armies first approach each other in orderly ranks,
then, when they are only a spear's cast apart, suddenly break ranks, and the leaders,
Tyrrhenus and Aconteus, charge each other's horses, so that one crashes to the
ground as if struck by lightning – that is described in as vivid and lively a manner as
the subsequent ebb and flow of the armies which leads up to the actual hand-to-hand
fighting. We see a wounded horse rear up and beat the air with its front hoofs (638);
a rider struggling to stay mounted on a wounded steed as it plunges to the ground,
and scrabbling for control of the reins; his companion tries to stop him falling, but
both receive fatal wounds (670); by skilful manoeuvring of her horse, Camilla
pursues an attacker (694); Tarchon pulls an opponent down from his steed, and,
holding him in front of him, tries to kill him with his own spear-point (741); here we
see an Etruscan, clad in animal skins and carrying a lightweight spear like a hunts-
man (677), there an armoured Trojan on an armoured steed (770); and scenes of
pursuit and flight of many different kinds (760, 780, 783, 814)[32] Thus our imagin-
ation has been carefully guided to visualize all the warriors as mounted, even when
this is not explicitly stated (666, 673, 675), and on the one occasion when Camilla,
tricked by the cowardly Ligurian, dismounts from her horse to answer a challenge to
200 fight on foot, then every reader who has been alert to the poet's intention will take it
for granted that she remounts her horse, which her companion has been holding
meanwhile (710), after this encounter (as is implied by 827), without this being
explicitly stated; on the contrary, if Camilla had continued to fight on foot, Virgil
would have had to say so explicitly.[33]
The war-chariot plays a much smaller part in the Aeneid than in the Iliad , partly
because it is used only on the Latin side. Virgil confines the chariot strictly to them,
presumably on the grounds that Aeneas and his followers will not have brought
chariots across the sea with them, whereas the auxiliary troops, the Arcadians and
Etruscans, form substantial chariot contingents. But even on the Latin side the
chariot is a distinction which the common soldier never enjoys; particularly in
Books 10 and 12 it is invariably linked with Turnus.[34]
Turnus leaps down from his chariot when he goes to confront Pallas (10.453),
drives to a duel the brilliant white horses, a gift from a goddess (12.83), mounts his
chariot when the fighting is renewed (326), and fights on, sometimes standing on the
platform of his chariot, sometimes getting off to confront his opponent (12.226-340,
355, 370-83); with the help of his swift horses, Juturna, who takes the place of
Metiscus as charioteer (468), takes him out of range of Aeneas, and he is able to
fight on for some time in the same way (511, 614ff.) until the news of the threat to
201 the city makes him leave his chariot at last so as to go and meet Aeneas face to face
(681). Thus the poet takes care that the picture of the king fighting from his chariot
is firmly impressed on our minds; he makes this effect more powerful by restricting
the use of chariots by others: for whereas his description of the Italian auxiliaries
leaves no doubt that he believed that the ancient Italian leaders normally made use
of chariots (7.655 Aventinus, 724 Halaesus, 782 Virbius, cf. also 9.330 Remus), in
Book 12 no chariot is mentioned other than that of Murranus, who is descended
from a long line of kings; in Book 10 the quadriga[35] (570) [four-horse chariot] of
Niphaeus and the pair that belong to Lucagus and Liger (575) bring variety into the
list of Aeneas' opponents; and Rhoetus fleeing in his chariot (399) interrupts the
enumeration of the warriors who fight Pallas on foot. Otherwise, no chariot can
compete with Turnus'. In these four exceptional cases, the chariot is not mentioned
arbitrarily, but serves to give an individual touch to the description of each man's
death.
3—
Weapons
The weapons in Homer are similar to those which Virgil attributed to early Rome. In
fact the weapons of Virgil's own time, too, were still basically the same, although by
then there had been great developments in the form of individual items. In his
descriptions of battle, Virgil was thus able to equip his men with the offensive
weapons of the Homeric warrior. For attack from a distance there were the long,
heavy throwing-lances and, if necessary, stones picked up from the ground (10.381,
415, 689; 12.531, 897); and for close combat the sword. In the parade of troops in
Book 7 he named a large number of weapons that were especially characteristic of
early Italy; but neither pilum , dolones , veru Sabellum [javelin, pikes, Sabine spit],
which are characteristic of Aventinus' men (7.664) nor the Oscans' aclydes (730)
202 [small clubs], thrown from leashes, nor their sickle-shaped swords, nor the Campa-
nians' cateiae (741) [boomerangs] are mentioned when it comes to the actual battle.
That is all the more remarkable when we consider the care which Virgil took to
achieve variety, at least in vocabulary, as for example in the great number of
synonyms that he uses for hasta [spear].[36] The only weapon which is really different
from the hasta is the hunting spear, sparus , which is mentioned only once (11.682).
Nor, while we are on this subject, are the peculiar pieces of armour and clothing that
are described in Book 7 ever mentioned again: the wolfskin galeri (688) [caps] and
the leather leggings (690), the Oscan cetra (732) [short shield], the Campanian cork
helmet and the crescent-shaped shield (742). Thus what we have here is antiquarian
material about ancient Italy juxtaposed with narrative based on the Homeric epics,
and Virgil makes no attempt to reconcile them, just as he felt no need to bring the
military leaders mentioned in Books 7 and 10 into the main body of his narrative.[37]
During the Latins' preparations for war, axes are sharpened (7.627, cf. 184); they
are not used in the fighting (for in 12.306 the axe that Alsus snatches up is the one
intended for slaughtering the sacrificial beast). Only Camilla and her companion
Tarpeia carry battle-axes (11.656, 696), like Amazons in the poetic tradition, and
similarly the sons of Hercules' companion Melampus are equipped with clubs.
There is only one occasion in the fighting where a non-Homeric, native Roman
weapon is mentioned: the falarica [heavy missile], with which Turnus kills the giant
Bitias (9.705); this illustrates at one and the same time the strength of the attacker,
who is able to hurl such a gigantic missile which is probably normally dropped from
above – like pila muralia [defensive pikes] – and also the gigantic size of his victim,
who could only be felled by a missile of this kind; the weapon itsellf had already
been given a place in epic by Ennius ( Ann . 544 Vahlen); the lightly aimed Praenes-
tines generally carry slings (7.686), like the Locrians of Ajax in Iliad 13.716;
archers are frequently mentioned (9.572; 10.754, Camilla 7.816; cf. 11.654,
Chloreus 11.773, Clusium and Cora 10.168); in the description of the battle both
203 slings and arrows, as in Homer, are mentioned in only a very few isolated passages
(the arrow shot at Aeneas, 12.319, modelled on Pandarus' arrow in Iliad 4.104f., an
arrow-wound, 12.651). But during the storming of the camp, Mezentius carries a
sling, since even the Roman legions resort to slings in such circumstances;[38] in
attack and defence the legionaries will have used bow and arrow, too, like Capys
(9.578) and Ascanius (9.621), Ismarus (10.140) and other defenders (9.665; 10,131).
When we come to protective armour we find the same situation. The complete
panoply of plumed helmet, breastplate, greaves and shield (as for example Aeneas'
armour 8.620, 12.430; and Turnus' 11.487) resembles both the Homeric, or Ionian,
and the Roman. If anything, as far as details are concerned, Virgil keeps rather
closer to the Homeric model, merely introducing one or two Italian national fea-
tures. The shield is carried on the left arm in battle; if this is cut off, it falls to the
ground (10.545); when Aeneas has finished looking in amazement at his new shield
and prepares to march out to battle, he lifts it onto his shoulder ( attolit umero , 8.731)
which must mean that he carries it by a strap across his back like the Roman
legionary on the march, and like Odysseus in Iliad 10.149:
[he put the shield around his shoulders]. The shield is round ( clipei orbem [10.545,
783; 12.925] [the circle of the shield]), and protects a man down as far as his groin
(10.588) or to mid thigh (12.926), and is large enough for its owner to be able to
crouch behind it ( se collegit in arma poplite subsidens [12.491] [he gathered himself
behind his armour, dropping down on one knee]) so as to allow a threatening spear
to hurtle past; Virgil must have imagined the shield of Idomeneus in Iliad 13.405 as
being a heavy, round shield of this kind:
body crouched]. Virgil does not generally distinguish between clipeus and scutum [a
round and oblong shield], and we must think of the scuta of the Trojans (8.93) as
including the so-called Argive round shields (for even the cavalry of Volcens are
called scutati [9.370] [equipped with scuta ]): but when the companions of Pallas
carry his body from the battlefield on a scutum (10.500) it must be a long shield (cf.
8.662 the scuta longa of the Gauls), for which this is the correct term, and it is worth
remembering that according to tradition (Plut. Romulus 21) it is a weapon of Sabine
204 origin. However, wooden shields are never mentioned by Virgil; he mentions bronze
as a material (10.336; 12.541); the shields of Aeneas (8.448: bronze, gold and iron)
and of Turnus (12.925) consist of seven layers of metal, just as the shield of
Homer's Ajax (
Achilles' marvellous shield at least five layers of metal. Homer's bull's hides (
Bitias (9.706) and the composite shields of leather and metal that belong to Pallas
and Mezentius: clipeum , tot ferri terga , tot aeris , quem pellis totiens obeat circum -
data tauri (10.482) [Pallas' shield, with all its layers of iron and bronze and the
many dense-packed coverings of bull's hide] (=
hide upon it], Iliad 20.276) and per orbem aere cavum triplici , per linea terga
tribusque intextum tauris opus (10.783) [through the shield's domed circle of triple
bronze, the layers of linen and the texture of three bull's hides]: Virgil's shields,
with their extra layers of iron and linen, are even tougher than Homer's, and, while
the iron needs no special explanation, perhaps scholars are right to remind us in
connection with the linen that this material was used in early Roman scuta [shields]
(according to Polybius' description, 6.23)[39] As for the bronze breastplate, lorica or
thorax (7.633; 10,337; 12.381), Virgil found no precise information in Homer; he
visualized it as the breastplate constructed of chain-mail and linked metal scales
(11.488) of his own time, which was strengthend by doubling the layer of scales
(duplici squama loricafidelis et auro [9.707] [the trusty corslet with its double layer
of golden scales]) or doubling, or even tripling, the chain-rings: bilicem loricam
(12.375) [two-leashed cuirass], loricam consertam hamis auroque trilicem (3.467)
[a corslet of hooked chain-mail and three-leash golden weave]. Such a triple chain-
mail tunic is so heavy that only a hero of extraordinary strength could wear it
(5.263): it is no doubt a story-teller's exaggeration.
Besides the warriors in full panoply, Virgil also has lightly-armed men, the
counterpart not of Homer's archers and slingers ( Iliad 13.716) but of the Roman
velites [light armed troops], i.e. they have no defensive armour, and the light parma
[buckler] instead of the clipeus , but they do carry a sword: thus the Trojan Helenor
ense levis nudo parmaque inglorius alba (9.548) [went lightly armed, with only a
bare sword, and with no tale of glory on his still unblazoned buckler], and the
Etruscan king's son Lausus, who, not yet strong enough for a full suit of armour,
wears only a tunic stitched with gold threads and likewise the parma , levia arma
minacis (10.817) [buckler, too light an armament for his defiant temper]; such a
tunica squalens auro (10.313) [tunic stiffened with gold] is elsewhere worn under
the breastplate just as the Homeric
plate]; however it is unlikely that Virgil realized that Homer too has inadequately
armed men who wear only a chiton and no breastplate. More frequently than Homer,
205 Virgil describes the special armour of individuals, not merely for the sake of a vivid
pictorial effect, but generally so as to add a particular touch of colour to the nar-
rative. We are told that the youthful Helenor (9.545) is equipped with only ense
nudo parmaque alba [a bare sword and unblazoned shield] so as to intensify our
sympathy for the despair which drives him to plunge into the midst of the foe a qua
tela videt densissima [where he saw the weapons cluster thickest]; again, we admire
Lausus' self-sacrificing action still more when we know how inadequately armed he
is to fight against an opponent clad in bronze armour (10.817). On the wall of the
camp stands the son of the Sicilian Arcens, wearing a richly embroidered purple
robe (9.582); he is killed and immediately Numanus mocks the Trojans by shouting
out a scornful phrase about their effeminacy: vobis picta croco et fulgenti murice
vestis [your garments are embroidered with saffron and ablaze with purple dye].
With purple crest and purple robe Acron towers above his men; his bride has
adorned him, and her love is the cause of his death: Mezentius sees the purple
splendour from afar and plunges into the midst of the foe, to kill the conspicuous
warrior (10.719). Haemonides, the priest of Apollo and Diana, wears, even in battle,
his priestly ribbons and his long priestly robe of gleaming white (10.537): just as
Haemonides is accustomed to sacrifice beasts to the gods, so Aeneas now sacrifices
[immolat ] him, but only after he has fled all over the battlefield forgetful of his
priestly dignity, and has stumbled and fallen. The gigantic Herminius, who is so sure
of his own invincibility that he leaves his blond head and his upper body unpro-
tected, is punished for his pride: his bare shoulder is struck by a spear (11.644).
Ornytus fights in hunter's garb, almost insolently, as if he were slaying wild ani-
mals; he pays with his own life for provoking Camilla's anger (11.677); but as for
Camilla herself, it is the splendidly colourful, gold-encrusted trappings of Chloreus'
horse, which she covets, that bring about her downfall (11.768). Virgil was writing
for a public which knew how to read between the lines; he never pedantically spells
out the implications of these subtle touches.
4—
Wounds, Death and Spoils
As for types of wounds, Homer provided Virgil with more than enough material;
indeed he very nearly exhausted every possible variation. Originality, of course, was
206 not Virgil's aim, but he does not abandon his independent approach even here. For
his first description of a wound in battle he invents something unusual:[40] Privernus is
lightly wounded, and throws aside his shield in a moment of foolish anxiety, to put
his hand to the wound; whereupon an arrow pins his hand to his left side and fatally
buries itself in his body (9.576). Several times (9.762, 10.700) hamstrings are cut,
something which, as it happens, is not found in Homer, although we do know that
poplites succidere [cutting of the hamstrings] was a wound which the Roman
legionaries particularly dreaded. But these unconventional details are much less
important than the general nature of Virgil's descriptive technique. The first dif-
ference from Homer to be observed is that Virgil as far as possible avoids describing
complicated wounds, and confines himself to the simplest and most obvious types.
One example will suffice to make this clear: let us compare their descriptions of
wounds to the head, which, with the chest, is the main target for an attacker. In
Virgil, helmet and skull are hewn through, so that the warm brain spatters over the
victim's face (11.696); forehead and jaws are split open with the stroke of a sword
or the blow of an axe (9.750; 12.307); a spear is driven through the helmet into the
temple (12.537) or the temple is hit by a sling-bolt (9.588); an arrow (9.633) or a
spear (9.418) goes right through the head, entering at the temple; a rock hits a man
full in the face (10.698) or smashes the head in from the front, so that splinters of
bone, with brain and blood adhering to them, fly around (10.415); spear (10.323) or
sword (9.442) enters a mouth opened wide in a shout. It is clear that Virgil was
seeking variety but avoiding detailed description as far as possible. Everything is
207 very much the same in the Iliad too, except that there a sword slashes the forehead
above the nose (13.615) or a stone shatters the eyebrows (16.734), so that the skull
breaks and the eyes fall out, or the spear pierces the nose by the eye, goes through
the teeth, cuts the tongue off and comes out under the chin (5.290), or goes into the
mouth and knocks out the teeth, so that blood is forced into the eyes and spurts out
of the mouth and nose (16.346), or under the eyebrows, so that the eyeball falls out,
and out through the nape of the neck (14.493), or, conversely, into the nape and out
through the teeth, cutting the tongue (6.73); also, by the ear (11.509), into the ear
(20.473), above the ear (15.433), beneath the ear (13.177), under the jaw and ear
(13.677 etc.). In some parts of the Iliad (specifically Books 5, 13 and 14 and to some
extent Book 16), the poet seems almost to enjoy describing these complex wounds,
as if it were some kind of sport. Virgil no doubt took offence at these detailed
accounts on the grounds that they were too much like technical medical descriptions
for the elevated style of epic. On the other hand, he often made an effort to make a
wound more interesting, not anatomically but from the point of view of ethos ; for
example, when Pharos opens his mouth to utter vain boasts, and a javelin comes
flying into it (10.322; cf. 9.442; 10.348); or when Alcanor has his right arm pierced
by the spear with which he was about to support his falling brother (10.338), or
when Hisbo, mad with rage over the death of his friend, leaps on Pallas, and Pallas
tumido in pulmone recondit (10.387) [buried his sword in his swelling lung]. A
brave warrior scorns to kill an enemy in flight, but meets him face to face, haud
furto melior , sed fortibus armis (10.735) [to prove himself a better man not by
trickery but by true valour]; this is why Camilla overtakes the steed of the fleeing
Ligurian, grabs his bridle, and faces him as she slays him (11.720). That is why the
noble warriors themselves are also killed through the chest (Turnus and Pallas,
Euryalus, Lausus and Camilla); but cruel Mezentius is deservedly wounded in the
groin first (10.785f.) and then stabbed in the throat (907). However, we are not told
where the treacherous arrow strikes Aeneas (12.318), nor does any song name the
archer; mortalin decuit violari volnere divom? (12.797) [was it fitting that a deity
should be outraged by a wound from a mortal man?]. To make it possible for
warriors in full armour to be wounded, Virgil, like Homer, often says that a power-
208 ful spear-thrust pierced through both shield and armour (10.336, 485) or, again like
Homer, that a careless movement left a man's chest or flank exposed (10.425;
12.374; cf. 11.667; 10.314), or that the enemy's weapon penetrated the gap between
helmet and armour (11.691; 12.381): it is not surprising that, since he is no more of a
pedant than Homer, he did not spell out every detail, and sometimes mentioned the
shield but not the armour. However, when Virgil describes Turnus' first wound
(12.924) and says that both shield and cuirass were pierced at the thigh, and then
Aeneas proceeds to plunge his sword into his breast (950) with no apparent diffi-
culty, we remember how carefully Homer dealt with an equally important event, the
death of Hector, making Achilles search out a vulnerable point: he strikes between
the helmet and the cuirass, where the shoulderbone meets the throat, in the gullet,
yet he does not sever the windpipe, so that, as the poet naïvely adds, the dying man
could still speak to his victorious foe ( Iliad 22.319ff.). To Virgil's mind, details of
this kind at such a moment would have robbed the incident of its pathos: therefore,
with the utmost simplicity and grandeur, he writes ferrum adverso sub pectore
condit (12.950) [he buried his blade full in Turnus' breast].
In that passage the fatal wound is described as briefly as possible. In other cases
it is not even mentioned. Of the two Trojans who escape with their lives when the
tower on the wall collapses (9.545), Helenor plunges into the midst of the foe, while
Lycus is attempting to climb the wall with the help of friends within when he is
pulled down by Turnus together with the parapet; obviously both men are killed and
the poet does not bother to say so; he was only interested in the two situations and
the contrast between them. Similarly, there is the incident where Tarchon pulls
Venulus off his horse, puts him in front of himself on his own horse, breaks off the
point of his spear and tries to find an unprotected place where he can thrust it home,
while his victim tries to fend off his right hand (11.741): the outcome of this struggle
is in doubt, but the poet loses interest in it at this point, because he was attracted
only by the opportunity that it gave him to describe an unusual situation. If Homer
had described any of these incidents he would have given much more factual detail;
his audience will have wanted to be satisfied that the foe was really dead, the one
thing which matters in an actual battle.[41]
209 The victor strips the weapons from the body of his opponent and regards these
spolia [spoils] as his greatest claim to fame. This practice is described both by Virgil
and by Homer: in this instance the national Roman tradition corresponded with the
Homeric one, and it was a Roman tradition to take the spolia opima (10.459) [spoils
of honour] from an enemy commander. Thus Arruns, who flees after he has mortally
wounded Camilla, forfeits both the spoils and the renown (11.790) and Diana carries
away her body and all her weapons with it; on the other hand, Euryalus takes spoils
from Rhamnes (9.359), the Rutulians take spoils from Euryalus and Nisus (450), and
there are many more scenes of this kind in the other battles. But here too what is
really important is something new, the poet's ethical sensibility: to adorn oneself
with plundered weapons is at best childish folly, as in the case of Euryalus, who
meets his death as a direct result of this folly, or else it is a matter of female vanity,
as in the case of Camilla (11.779); for a man it is wanton hybris (10.501) which will
be followed by well-deserved nemesis: it is Pallas' sword-belt that makes Aeneas
kill Turnus (12.941ff.). By contrast Aeneas, with humble pity, dedicates the spoils of
Haemonides (10.542) to Mars,[42] and constructs a tropaeum (11.5) [trophy] for Mars
out of Mezentius' weapons; he honours the proud spirit of Lausus by leaving his
weapons by the side of his body (10.827). Pallas vows to father Thybris that he will
hang the spoils of Halaesus on a holy oak (10.423). Perhaps Camilla intended to
dedicate Chloreus' gold weapons in the temple (11.778). Mezentius is too proud to
adorn himself with booty, and he despises the gods, so when he has killed Pallas, he
gives his weapons to Lausus (10.700); and Lausus is to be equipped with the
weapons that he expects to take from Aeneas, which the impious Mezentius envis-
ages as a kind of trophy to the god whom he invokes, his own right hand (10.773).
In any case, Virgil's warriors do not neglect their other duties for the sake of taking
210 spoils; they do not fight over them, as Homeric warriors so often do, nor does Virgil
think it seemly that a great hero should strip an enemy's body and carry off the
spoils himself. Aeneas delegates the job to Serestus (10.541), Messapus to his
soldiers (12.297). But the most important item of booty – and here Virgil differs
from Homer – is the balteus , the decorated sword-strap or sword-belt, strung across
the shoulder and richly decorated with phalerae [studs] and bullae [bosses]; this is
the only item which is mentioned when Rhamnes and Pallas are stripped of their
arms, and these are the two most significant instances in the poem.[43] Virgil's pref-
erence for a decorative piece of equipment rather than an actual weapon – for in
both these cases, the hero does not give a passing thought to the sword itself – surely
reflects contemporary attitudes.
5—
Characters
Homer's heroes do not really differ very much from each other on the battlefield;
they have no special traits of character. One may be stronger or more skilful or
quicker or braver than another: all these are attributes that affect the outcome of the
battle; it is exceptional for Homer to think of presenting a warrior as a human being
with his own individual character. But this was precisely what Virgil regarded as
important: even on the battlefield it is the purely human element that concerns him
most of all. Much that is relevant here has already been discussed: let us recapitu-
late. Aeneas is the ideal Roman man and Roman fighter: he is quick to acknowledge
magnanimity in an enemy (10.825), he can feel clementia (12.940) [clemency] even
towards his most bitter foe, he is a model of Roman virtus [manly valour] (and, in
true Roman fashion, prides himself on this, 12.435) and of moderatio [avoidance of
excess] (above p. 165), of fides (12.311) [honouring of solemn agreement] and of
iustitia (11.126) [justice], of pietas [dutifulness] towards the gods, and towards
Pallas, whose father has entrusted him to him, and who is his ally and his guest-
friend (10.516). It is only when he has to avenge the death of Pallas that the depth of
his sorrow makes him harsh, even scornful, towards his victims;[44] the thought of him
211 stifles any idea of mercy, and in the fury of his grief he kills Turnus despite all his
pleas. To have shown mercy on this occasion would have been a cowardly failure to
do what duty demanded.
His opponent Turnus[45] is his equal in strength and courage; but Aeneas has vis
temperata [controlled strength] while Turnus has vis consili expers [strength unac-
companied by judgement]; the gods deprive him of their support, although he, too,
piously respects them (9.24; 12.778). Above all, he is not fighting on behalf of his
people and their future, as Aeneas is, but is justifiably reproached for fighting to
defend his own personal claims, and it is immoral to provoke a war for reasons of
that kind.[46] It was Allecto who drove him to war: possessed by the Fury, he has lost
that clarity of vision and that self-control, without which boldness becomes mad-
ness; this works to the advantage of the Trojans, as we can see most clearly when he
is besieged in his camp and is so crazed with his rage to kill that it does not occur to
him to open the gate for his own men (9.760). He is animated by a lively sense of
honour (10.681; 12.645, 670), but this too expresses itself as an unhealthy type of
extravagance. The plain words spoken by the self-assured Aeneas contrast with
Turnus' loud boasts about his own strength and heroism (9.148; 11.393, 441;
12.360). He, too, respects the courage of the warrior he has slain (10.493); but he
does not possess the moderatio [self-control] to refrain from decorating himself with
spoils, and his elation in victory turns to crude barbarity when he cuts off the heads
of the men he has slain and decorates his chariot with them while they are still
dripping with blood (12.512). He does not stop to think before charging after Aeneas
(10.645), and declares himself ready for a duel as soon as he is challenged (11.434);
then, when he is taken at his word, he does not go back on it, in spite of the urgent
212 pleas of Latinus and Amata. However, it is not with calm resolve, but in a mood of
savage violence ( violentia [12.9], furiae [101] [madness]), that he prepares for the
fight, and it is a finely observed touch that immediately after this burst of feverish
excitement his courage ebbs away when he faces the decisive conflict (220).[47] The
danger is scarcely over when his rage for battle flares up again (325), but, not
altogether unwillingly and not altogether unconsciously, he allows his divine sister
to draw him away from Aeneas, until his former sense of honour slowly reawakens,
and he realizes that it is his duty to avenge his own people's suffering; this, together
with Saces' urgent appeal (653ff.), finally forces him to confront Aeneas: but now
his passions are running twice as high ( amens [622, 742] [crazed], amens formidine
[776] [crazed with fear], mixto insania luctu et furiis agitatus amor [667] [madness
and misery blending, love tormented by passion for revenge], hunc sine me furere
ante furorem [680] ['First, let me do this one mad deed before I die']) – and his fate
is sealed. As his enemy is already poising the fatal spear, Turnus snatches up a huge
rock, an ancient boundary stone, to fling at his opponent – Virgil here makes very
effective use of the Homeric contrast between the strength of his heroes, and
heavy, his knees give way as he tries to run, and the blood freezes in his veins – and
the stone falls short of its target. A striking symbol of Turnus' fate: he has set
himself a task which was too great for him, despite his enormous strength. He had
not been able to go calmly to meet his enemy in the final duel; neither can he face
death with a steady mind now. He does not sink so low as to beg for his life ( nec
deprecor [931] [I make no appeal]), but his last words express a fervent desire to
live, and to save his skin he is even prepared to give up his claim to Lavinia (936):
Virgil implies that anyone capable of that, has never been worthy either of her or of
the throne.[48]
213 The figure of Mezentius stands in sharp contrast to Turnus. According to the
tradition, he was contemptor divom (7.648) [scorner of gods]: he is said to have
demanded from the Rutulians the first-fruits which were usually dedicated to the
gods; this led the Latins to pray to Jupiter to grant them victory if he wanted the
first-fruits for himself, as hitherto, instead of letting Mezentius have them.[49] The
tradition also said that Mezentius' son Lausus fell in battle, and that this was the
essential reason that led the king to urge that peace should be made. Virgil was not
able to make use of the traditional example of the Etruscan king's godlessness –
because there was no occasion for Mezentius to make such a demand in the scheme
of his poem – but he adapts the motif skilfully to his own ends. Traditionally,
Mezentius demanded that the honours due to the gods be paid to himself. In Virgil
(10.773) his only gods are his strong right arm and the weapon it bears.[50] It is to
these that he addresses his prayers: he wants to adorn his son with the armour of his
dead enemy and thus erect as it were a tropaeum [trophy] to himself, which the
pious Aeneas eventually dedicates to the gods instead (see above p. 165); other
blasphemous utterances also characterize him as contemptor divom [scorner of
gods].[51] However, in his account of the Lausus incident, Virgil portrays a particu-
larly close relationship between father and son, and it was easy to develop this
relationship so that Mezentius' love for his son becomes the only vulnerable spot in
an otherwise granite character, and also to represent this love as reciprocal, and to
214 transform Lausus' death in battle into a voluntary self-sacrifice undertaken for the
sake of his father. So as to increase our pity for Lausus, the poet portrays him as a
shining, heroic figure, and thus he stands in sharp contrast to his father (7.654).
Moreover, Virgil, who had decided to introduce the Etruscans as Aeneas' allies (see
p. 146 above), had to present them as independent of Mezentius: he achieves this by
inventing the story that he is a cruel tyrant who has been expelled by his subjects
because of all his brutal acts. Virgil attributes to him stories which Aristotle, and
Cicero after him, had told about the cruel behaviour of Etruscan pirates (8.485).
Virgil further exploits the split between Mezentius and his own people by using it as
the third motif in the combats in which he takes part: they begin with the tyrant
being attacked in hate and fury by his own subjects (10.691f.) – this gives new life
to the Homeric simile of the boar encircled by huntsmen; they culminate in Mezen-
tius' cry of misery when he realises that Lausus' death is the punishment for his own
actions and for the first time regrets them because they have brought shame and
destruction upon his son (851); and they end when he is defeated and begs that his
body should be protected from the wrath of his own people (903ff.): here too we
have a characteristically Virgilian contrast with Hector's plea that his body should
be returned to his own people. It may perhaps seem surprising that Virgil has
refrained from illustrating Mezentius' cruelty by making him perform some atrocity
during the battle – that would have been easy for him, but effects of this kind were
alien to his artistic ideals, which completely rejected
viour]; it makes a difference whether the poet puts accounts of such behaviour in the
mouth of, for example, Evander or Achaemenides, or narrates it himself, thus setting
it directly before the reader's eyes. Nevertheless, it is no mere accident that Mezen-
tius plants his foot on his fallen foe while he is still alive, leaning on the spear which
has pierced the dying man (10.736); and certainly, although the plot does not
demand that Mezentius should order his men in the midst of the battle to raise the
paean that the Achaeans sang when they returned to camp after the death of Hector,
the picture of the triumphal song reaching the ear of the dying man has a powerful
emotional effect (10.738). Similarly, there is a deliberate contrast between Aeneas,
who does not take Lausus' weapons as spoil, and Mezentius, who threatens to ride
215 away from the battlefield with Aeneas' severed head on display among the bloody
spoils on his horse (862). Furthermore, Virgil has carefully contrasted what we
might call the nervous courage of the youthful Turnus with the unshakeable iron
calm of this giant with his grey hair and his long beard, who withstands attacks from
every side like a rock which remains steadfast amidst the storms that rage around it
(693), who has no fear even of Aeneas and prepares to confront him et mole sua stat
(771) [solid in his own great bulk], and who can be thrown off balance only by the
death of his beloved son. And whereas Turnus at the moment of his death is afraid
of dying and is prepared to concede defeat in exchange for his life, Mezentius
himself calls on his enemy to strike the fatal blow: life is not worth living if he is
vanquished, and even his battle-steed would scorn to submit to a Trojan master
(865).
Camilla, the maiden who rejoices in battle, swift of foot, tireless, resolute, with a
pride that is easily inflamed (11.686, 709) and an innocence in the face of cunning,
fearless and conscious of her duty even at the moment of her death (825), makes a
stronger impression on our imagination than perhaps any other character in Virgil.[52]
The clearest indication of her irresistible strength is that her enemies do not dare to
confront her face to face in open battle: one tries to escape from her by a ruse,
another kills her by throwing his javelin at her from the safety of a hidden position
and does not even dare to go near her after he has wounded her. But for all her
heroism she remains a woman, and feminine weakness brings her death:[53] coveting
the gleaming armour of Chloreus she forgets everything else and so falls victim to
216 Arruns, who has been lying in wait for her after trying in vain for so long to find a
weak spot: she is so completely intent on acquiring the dazzling prize that she is the
only one who does not see and hear the fatal javelin hurtling towards her; her
faithful Volscians see disaster approaching but cannot prevent it, and she sinks to
the ground before her women can catch her in their arms.
The counterpart of Aeneas, the ideal of the mature warrior, is Pallas the ideal
youth. We see his achievements; we see how by word and example he makes his
wavering troops stand firm; we recognize in the words that he utters his sense of
honour (10.371) and his habitual piety (421ff., 460f.) which relies on supernatural
help; at one and the same time we admire and deplore the youthful boldness of spirit
which leads him to accept Turnus' challenge, though Turnus is a warrior of over-
whelming strength, and he knows very well how much weaker he is (459, cf.
11.153, 174). For him the highest good is not life but victory and a glorious death
(450); he himself says so, Jupiter comforts the sorrowful Hercules with the same
idea (467ff.), and the same thought is enough to make his grief-stricken father pull
himself together (11.166ff.); better to die in victory than to live on in shame: it is
this conviction that assuages Aeneas' pity for Pallas' father (55). Pallas, sent out to
battle from the future site of Rome, is the first great sacrifice made on Italian soil in
the sacred name of Rome; he was fighting not only against the ancient enemies of
his native city (8.474, 569), but also for the sake of its glorious future (11.168). His
lifeless body is brought back to his father, dolor atque decus magnum (10.507) [a
source of bitter pain and of high pride] as the poet puts it with the brevity of a
graven epitaph; times without number Rome's sons will fall in battle, and she will
look on them with the same bitter pride. The lamentations which now rise up around
the body of Pallas are lamentations for the generations to come; so too is the solemn
pomp of his funeral; anyone who is not aware of this is welcome to make cheap
criticisms of the poet for his sentimentality.
Pathos of a very different kind is evoked by the story of Nisus and Euryalus. Here
again it is instructive to compare it with its source, the Doloneia (Book 10 of the
217 Iliad ). It is quite clear that both the broad outline and the details[54] are derived from
Homer; but it is equally clear that Virgil always tends to reshape his material into
something new. Instead of a long and tedious exposition – Homer takes 200 lines to
bring his commanders together for a consultation – Virgil concentrates on the main
characters:[55] the narrative begins with them and remains with them, while the coun-
cil of the Trojan leaders, to which they wish to gain admittance, is described in a few
lines only (9.224-30). Whereas in Homer we have an epic narrative that unfolds in
one steady sweep, in Virgil we find lively pathos, dramatic movement, a peripateia
[reversal of fortune] at the peak of success, an increase in tension leading to the final
revenge and death of Nisus. But the greatest contrast is between Homer's portrayal
of the deed performed by two bold and cautious heroes, where the reader is charmed
by the deed itself and its success, and Virgil's emphasis on the psychological
development to which the outward events are a mere accompaniment. It is in Nisus'
ambitious and adventurous spirit that the plan for the enterprise is born (186, 194);
Euryalus agrees with it (205f.) and his determination overcomes his friend's reserva-
tions. But it is precisely this ambition, which is the driving force for their bold
enterprise, that leads to their downfall. Even before they set out, they are already
intending not simply to perform their mission but also to return cum spoliis ingenti
caede peracta (242) [with spoils, after wreaking a havoc of slaughter]; they have
chosen a route which will bring them safely through the enemy's lines, but they give
way to the temptation to turn the enemy camp, where all are asleep, into a blood-
218 bath.[56] The bold deed is successful: Nisus is intelligent enough to restrain Euryalus'
childish lack of foresight (354), but not intelligent enough to deny him the pleasure
of adorning himself with booty from the men he has killed. As a result, he escapes
the enemy cavalry himself, but Euryalus pays the price of his hybris : the shining
helmet betrays him, the weapons he has looted weigh him down (384), and he falls
into enemy hands. When Nisus loses him and then sees that he has been captured by
the Volscian cavalry, his only thought is his desire to rescue his friend; he tries to
give him an opportunity to escape by throwing his spears to create a diversion, but
this is unsuccessful; when he sees his friend in mortal danger, he loses his head: he
throws himself forward amens (424) [madly] and begs them to kill him and spare his
friend. In vain: he can only avenge his friend's death and then, mortally wounded,
219 cast himself onto his body. Thus they both meet their deaths not because of external
circumstances, or because of their hatred of the gods, but because of their own
passions: sua cuique deus fit dira cupido? (185) [or do we all attribute to a god what
is really an overmastering impulse of our own?], as Nisus himself had said with
unconscious prescience. Their mistake[57] was that they both allowed themselves to be
carried away and gave precedence to other passions over their immediate duty; but
this mistake arose from noble impulses, and they paid for it with their lives. Who
will find fault with Virgil because he does not add a narrow-minded moralizing
epilogue,
deed], but gives full rein to sorrow and admiration?
6—
Structure
It only remains to look at the structure of the four great battle-descriptions. We shall
see that Virgil's main concern in the arrangement of the material in the individual
acts and scenes was the same as in the overall plan of the whole narrative of the war
(see pp. 146f. above): namely, above all to avoid what annoyed him even more than
us in so many comparable passages in the Iliad – the lack of organization, and the
arbitrary to-ing and fro-ing. His main aims at this level too were clarity of structure
and clarity of purpose.
First, where a large number of persons have to be listed, it will help the reader if
they are divided into groups. Virgil found precedents for this device in the Iliad[58]
220 and developed it systematically. This can be seen most clearly in the battle for the
camp in Book 9: first come the contrasting fates of two Trojans (545-68); then a
'scene of butchery'; when the first pair is mentioned each is allotted a single line,
which begins with his name:
Ilioneus saxo atque ingenti fragmine montis
Lucetium portae subeuntem ignisque ferentem (569-70)
[Ilioneus with a stone like some huge crag from a mountain (brought down)
Lucetius, equipped for fire-raising, advancing on a gate]; and then two pairs, with
only the victors characterized:
Emathiona Liger , Corynaeum sternit Asilas ,
his iaculo bonus , hic longe fallente sagitta (571-2)
[and Liger slew Emathion and Asilas Corynaeus; Liger had a sure aim with the
javelin and Asilas with the arrow flying from afar unseen]; then two more pairs,
without any characterization, but one is first victorious, then beaten:
Ortygium Caenens , victorem Caenea Turnus (573)
[next Caenus slew Ortygius, and Turnus Caeneus, in his moment of victory]; the
poet lingers on Turnus; first there are two pairs in one line:
Turnus Ityn Cloniumque , Dioxippum Promolumque (574)
[and Turnus slew Itys also, and Clonius, Dioxippus, Promolus – ]; thus up to this
point the account has become progressively more compressed[59] but now it expands
again with yet another pair, whose names come at the beginning and end of the line:
et Sagarim et summis stantem pro turribus Idan
[Sagaris and, as he stood in defence at the top of the turreted wall, Idas], and finally
221 two more detailed descriptions, the death of an attacker (576-80) and of a defender
(581-9). The Ascanius episode follows (590-671); then the pair Pandarus and Bitias
appear: they kill four men (864f.); their action is then avenged by Turnus killing
four in turn (696-702), and in addition Bitias and Pandarus themselves (703-55);
then Turnus, rampaging through the camp, kills first Phaleris and Gyges, Halys and
Phegeus; then four who are named in one line (797); finally, four more (768-79),
until at last the Trojan pair Mnestheus and Serestus put an end to the flight of their
men. We can see that throughout the entire account, with a few exceptions, there is
an emphasis, sometimes greater, sometimes less, on groups of two or four. The one
example that we have examined may suffice; the principle is not, in fact, carried
through so consistently in the following books. Rather different, although equally
striking in its symmetry, is the structure of the section from 12.500 onwards, which
narrates the achievements of Aeneas and Turnus in different parts of the battlefield:
the introductory lines (500-4) are followed by Aeneas (505-8), Turnus (509-12),
Aeneas (513-15), Turnus (516-37) – in other words the pattern is ABAB. Then
comes a simile illustrating the raging fury of the two heroes (521-8); then Aeneas:
Turnus (529-37), Turnus: Aeneas (538-41), i.e. the pattern is ABBA. The detailed
description of the death of a Trojan (542-7) (at whose hand is not stated) leads into a
brief general description of the battlefield (548-53), with which the section comes to
an end.
The pace of the narrative is different in each of the four books; but although
Virgil avoids monotony, he follows the same artistic principles in each case. This
will become evident from a rapid survey.
The storming of the camp in Book 9 begins with a general description (503-24),
in which the great contingents appear first: the Volscians, Trojans, Rutulians are
named, then other contingents are referred to by the names of their leaders Mezen-
tius and Messapus without any further details. These two provide the transition to
Turnus, who is placed emphatically in the foreground by means of the poet's appeal
222 to the Muses (525-9). Turnus begins by destroying one main tower; two Trojans
escape from the collapsing debris, of whom he captures one and pulls down part of
the wall in doing so (530-66). This leads to a fiercer onslaught by the attackers,
which is countered with equal energy by the defenders. This is where Virgil places
the scene of butchery that we have just discussed (p. 171); it reaches its climax with
Turnus' exploits (up to 575) and concludes with two accounts of individual incidents,
of which the last, as we have seen on p. 171 above, prepares the way for the
Ascanius episode (up to 658). Ascanius' success and the manifest support of the
gods gives new heart to the opposing Trojan forces (to 671), among whom Pandarus
and Bitias are the boldest: they open the gate, and kill the men who rush in; the
Trojans even advance out into the open (to 690). In doing so, they disobey Aeneas'
explicit orders (42): and at this point, the moment of the Trojans' greatest success, a
vigorous reversal begins with Turnus' assault. Those who have advanced furthest
from the camp fall at his hand; then he kills Bitias at the gate itself. The Trojans
retreat, Turnus is shut inside the camp as a result of the carelessness of Pandarus,
whom he kills (the combat between the two is given prominence by Parndarus'
attack and by their two speeches; it is depicted as the culmination of Turnus'
exploits); blind panic seizes the camp. But Turnus (see p. 166 above), in his mad
thirst for slaughter, misses his chance to destroy the entire Trojan army, and al-
though he does kill large numbers as they retreat or are taken by surprise, yet he
cannot keep going for long single-handed. As soon as the Trojan leaders hear of the
situation, and Mnestheus' speech brings the panic-stricken men to their senses, they
attack him with closed ranks (788). He is finally forced to retreat, although reluc-
tantly and making further assaults as he does so. Juno withdraws her support, which
had protected him at the moment of greatest danger (745) and until now had in-
creased his strength. When he leaps fully-armed into the Tiber and is safely reunited
with his own men, his retreat constitutes another heroic achievement.
To summarize: the narrative leads gradually towards Turnus; it first shows him
performing an important feat, after which it leaves him occasionally, only to return
to him in a most natural way each time, and finally is totally concentrated on him.
He is the centre of interest, and yet we are given not just a picture of him, but of the
whole battle. Moreover, Virgil devotes the greatest care to maintaining the conti-
223 nuity of the narrative. One of the best ways of achieving this is to mention how the
exploits of some individual hero affect the army as a whole, and how this in turn
gives rise to further brave deeds by individuals. Furthermore: the narrative does not
progress in a straight line, as for example if Turnus had been shown gaining an
uninterrupted series of successes; on the contrary, his first successes provoke a
counter-offensive from the Trojans, which he has to overcome, and the conclusion is
brought about by another counter-offensive. Finally: the narrative is not related at
one constant pitch, nor does it rise and fall arbitrarily, but in a carefully planned
series of crescendos; and every time that the action reaches a climax, there is a
peripeteia . Because of the nature of the plot, the most powerful effect cannot be
reserved for the final scene, so Virgil gives the end of the episode an unusual form,
and avoids a serious anticlimax by creating a final upsurge of interest. There is no
repetition whatever of any individual motifs or incidents. One passage which is
really a digression, and is characterized as such by the mass of detail lavished on its
telling, is Ascanius' shot (9.590ff.); but this treatment is justified by its importance
for the plot[60] and it is integrated into the main narrative by many fine threads that
link it to what has gone before and what is to come.
These qualities stand out even more clearly if we compare this scene with the
corresponding section of the Iliad , although the Battle at the Wall ( Teichomachia ,
Book 12) is one of the most unified and self-contained parts of the work. It begins
with a very detailed account of Hector's strange plan to drive his chariot across the
ditch in front of the wall, until he is dissuaded by the sensible advice of Polydamas.
The whole scene merely serves as a preparation for Asios' exploit: for he drives his
224 chariot, not however over the ditch to the wall, but to an open gate, which he could
obviously have reached just as easily had he been fighting on foot. This gate is
defended by the two Lapiths who were taken over by Virgil and integrated into the
main action. In Homer we leave this part of the battlefield without learning what
becomes of Asios. The other Trojans swarm over the ditch, after Hector has over-
ridden Polydamas' scruples arising from his interpretation of the portent of the
eagle. Sarpedon's attack on the wall is described in detail, and Homer says that
without him the Trojans would not have succeeded in forcing an entry into the
camp. However, we do not see them doing so: instead, after Sarpedon has pulled
down part of the parapet and tried in vain to climb the wall, Hector uses a boulder to
smash the wall open in a completely different place – something that he could have
done anyway at the start. In the following books, 13 and 14, Homer's narrative is
much more disjointed. Virgil was compelled by the nature of his subject-matter to
invent and to compress. He could not allow the enemy to rush in all at once, as in
Homer, since the Trojans' movements are always restricted by the fact that there are
too few of them to risk an open battle. Besides, he wanted to avoid anticipating the
large-scale fighting that he will have to describe several times later on; so, since
Aeneas is absent, he uses this episode as an opportunity to establish Turnus' charac-
ter from the start in its true light. He therefore depicts him as the only one to enter
the camp and escape from it again unscathed.[61] It was not possible to combine this
episode with an attack on the ships: Virgil has separated the Battle at the Wall from
225 the Battle at the Ships ( Epinausimache ) and made the incident which corresponds to
the latter occur on the previous day.[62]
The structure of the battle-scenes in Book 10 is a good deal more complicated.
Here Pallas and Mezentius have to fall in battle, Turnus and above all Aeneas have
to take their proper place in the foreground, but they cannot be allowed to meet in
combat, since that would anticipate the decisive duel. Virgil begins with the
renewed attack on the camp and the desperate plight of the few defenders within
(122); then he describes Aeneas' voyage and the Etruscan ships, including a cata-
logue of them; Cymodocea informs Aeneas about the situation of his men, and we
learn at the same time that the Arcadian cavalry and some of the Etruscans have
advanced by land and have already taken up their appointed position.[63] Our attention
is focussed on the situation on land, so that we can fully appreciate the effect of
Aeneas' arrival. The Trojans are the first to catch sight of him, the enemy are
bewildered by their joyful cries and fresh courage until, turning round, they see that
the ships have already reached the shore. Turnus is not discouraged, but now (285)
he has to form a second front with the greater part of his troops. Then Aeneas and
his men disembark, and there is a battle at the ships, which, as is only to be
expected, involves a series of daring deeds performed by Aeneas. Virgil feels that he
should explain why Aeneas does not encounter Turnus in battle immediately; it must
however be admitted that his motivation seems somewhat contrived.[64] While Aeneas
226 is engaged in his successful encounters,[65] the enemy commanders, Clausus, Ha-
laesus and Messapus, arrive. The fighting comes to a standstill, and then ebbs and
flows indecisively for a long time ( anceps pugna diu [359] [the fight is long in
balance]): this allows us to leave this part of the battlefield.
The poet takes us to another position, to the aforementioned Arcadians and
Pallas:[66] here begins the action which leads by a logical progression to the final
catastrophe of Book 10. In the first place, Pallas has to die. To kindle our sympathy,
he is given his own aristeia , which, apart from its immediate consequences, causes
the Arcadians to call a halt to their retreat (397, 402f.) and even to force their way
forward again (410): here the action begins to turn against Pallas, with the successes
of Halaesus, whose defeat forms the climax and crown of Pallas' aristeia , and who
therefore needs to be characterized as a heroic figure by being given a series of
successes. This is the ideal moment to introduce Lausus in a neat piece of plot-con-
struction
one of his victims to be mentioned by name, but all that is needed is that Lausus
should bring the struggle against Pallas to a halt again (431) – he would not, of
course, be able to maintain his position for long without Turnus, who at this point
strikes down Pallas, after all his great deeds; in an epilogue (501-9) the poet gives
this event special emphasis and refers to the effects that it will have on the distant
future, since it is an exception to Virgil's usual practice in having no immediate
consequences for Turnus. The news of Pallas' death sets Aeneas' anger most furi-
227 ously ablaze. We left him engaged in an inconclusive struggle; now he forces his
way forward in victory. The second list of his feats, which starts at this point,
represents a higher level of achievement than the first (as we have already pointed
out, p. 166 above). It comes to a close with the most detailed account, that of the
death of the two brothers Lucagus and Liger. The result is that the Trojans have
broken through the encircling ring of besiegers, and relieved Ascanius and his men
(604). Aeneas' next task ought to have been to wreak vengeance on Turnus (514);
the duel could not be postponed any longer, but it would have served no purpose had
it been described here. That is why Turnus is lured away from the battlefield by a
mirage of Aeneas sent by Juno, and carried back to his native city. In his place,
Mezentius steps into the foreground and performs a succession of feats which brings
the counter-offensive to the height of its success; his last feat, the killing of Orodes,
which is celebrated by the paean, concludes the description of his achievements. In
the scene of butchery that follows (747-54) it is almost always the Latins who are
the victors, and they seem to have more or less equalled Aeneas' achievements ( iam
gravis aequabat luctus et mutua Mavors funera [755f.] [now Mars pressed heavily
on both sides and gave equal share of anguish and equal exchange of death to both]).
The moment for the decisive duel between Aeneas and Mezentius has arrived. A
new start with a new description of the terrifying Mezentius prepares us for the
importance of this last combat (762). The episode does not develop in a straightfor-
ward manner. When Lausus sacrifices himself, and thus allows his wounded father
to retreat in safety, a decisive outcome seems to have been frustrated; but it is
Lausus' death that brings Mezentius back into the battle. Melancholy and tired of
life, he mounts his trusty steed, and when it collapses, mortally wounded, he is
trapped under it and is at the mercy of his opponent's sword. This is the most
effective scene in the book, and it brings it to an end; there is not another word about
the further course of the battle or of the day. Every sympathetic reader will of course
realize that once the chief commanders of the Latins, Turnus, Halaesus, Lausus and
Mezentius have all been removed from the scene and the beleaguered Trojans have
broken out, then the fate of the day has been decided; but Virgil would have stated
this explicitly only if he had been a historian, or a poet who cared more about factual
accuracy and the satisfaction of pedantic readers than the effect that his work would
have on his readers' emotions.
The complex structure of this first great battle stands in sharp contrast to the
simple cavalry intermezzo of Book 11. This is basically Camilla's aristeia ; but, in
228 order to provide a general engagement of the troops as a background for her
exploits, this is described, first in detail as it gradually breaks out, then with em-
phasis on individual figures – Orsilochus on the Trojan side, Catillus on the Latin
side; and this provides the transition to Camilla, the most distinguished of the
warriors. But she too appears first within a general description (648-63), to allow the
reader to imagine the context in which her individual exploits will take place in the
following scenes: two introductory lines (646f.) arouse our attention. There follows
her actual aristeia , which ends with her boldest and mightiest deed, which further-
more is described in the greatest detail: it is the crown of her success. In the manner
now familiar to us, the counter-offensive then supervenes: Tarchon's speech and
bold action,[67] and the consequent revival of the fallen morale of his men (758), one
of whom, Arruns, now conceives the plan of slaying Camilla without facing her in
the open. Her own carelessness, the causes of which have already been discussed
(p. 169), gives him his opportunity: Camilla is slain (759-835). The action up to this
point, that is, the whole of the battle in which Camilla is involved, is framed by two
scenes in which the gods appear. Beforehand, Diana presents Opis with a bow and
arrow, to avenge the death of her beloved Camilla (533-96); afterwards, Opis carries
out the mission by laying Arruns low (836-67). Clearly this framing arrangement
deliberately marks off the story of Camilla as a separate section, although it does
contain threads that link it with what has gone before and what is to come. For, of
course, the poet cannot end at this point, with the death of Camilla. We still need to
be told what has happened to Turnus since Juno lured him from the battlefield. His
rapid return (which rescues Aeneas from great danger) is motivated by the success
of the Trojans, and the greater their success, the more plausible is this motivation.
There follows an extremely lively description of the pursuit of the Latin cavalry,
229 their annihilation beneath the city walls, and the battle at the gates (868-95). This
also forms an effective counterpart to the description of the arrival of the armies at
the beginning (597-607). Furthermore, the arrival of the armies was immediately
preceded by the account of Turnus' departure from his camp (522-31); so too the
final scene of the battle is immediately followed by the account of Turnus' return to
his camp (896-902). A description of the new situation brought about by the cavalry
victory brings the book to a close. The Trojan camp is no longer far away on the
bank of the Tiber, but under the city walls. The Trojans have moved from defence to
attack.
The last book begins with Turnus' decision to fight a duel, and ends with this
duel and Turnus' death. The poet uses all the means at his disposal to delay this
outcome and at the same time maintain the interest of the reader. The first retarda-
tion is brought about by Latinus and Amata, and – unintentionally – by Lavinia; it is
soon overcome and it is irrevocably decided that the duel shall take place (1-112).[68]
But already, while the people are gathering where the oaths are to be sworn, Juno's
230 speech to Juturna paves the way for another retardation; and when the oaths have
been sworn Turnus' own behaviour[69] and its effects on the Rutulians who are
standing near him cause Juturna to intervene; she causes the restlessness to spread to
the Laurentines and the Latins;[70] the ambiguous omen of the eagle transforms hostile
feelings into action; Tolumnius, the augur,[71] throws the first spear and strikes one of
nine brothers; the other eight are understandably eager to avenge him, the Lauren-
tines advance against them, while the Trojans, Etruscans and Arcadians come to the
aid of the brothers. Thus gradually everyone finds himself in the grip of the re-
kindled rage for battle, and a tumultous struggle develops around the altar. Aeneas
still believes that he can control it, but he is wounded by an arrow from the bow of
an unidentified archer. Now that Aeneas has withdrawn, there is nothing to prevent
the battle beginning.
It is certainly true that Pandarus' shot in Book 4 of the Iliad is the prototype of
Tolumnius' shot. Modern Virgilian critics agree on this, but seem to think that this
leaves nothing more to be said about Virgil's use of his model. On the contrary, I
think that this incident provides an unparalleled opportunity to gain a true under-
standing of the nature of Virgil's skill in adapting the work of his predecessor. In
Homer, Aphrodite removes Paris from the field of battle when he is at the mercy of
Menelaus; Menelaus searches everywhere for him, in vain; and none of the Trojans,
231 even, can say what has become of him; they wish that they could, since they all
loathe him as much as grim death itself. Agamemnon then demands that the duel
shall be regarded as concluded, and the condition satisfied (end of Book 3). Mean-
while, however, Athena has come disguised as Laodocus to Pandarus (there is a
detailed description of the scene in Olympus that leads up to this), and has advised
him to shoot at Menelaus: this would earn him the gratitude and respect of all the
Trojans, and of Paris above all. The foolish Pandarus is soon ready: there are
extremely graphic descriptions of the bow, the preparations for the shot, and of the
shot itself. Thanks to the intervention of Athena, Menelaus is only wounded, not
killed; we are told in great detail exactly how he is wounded. Then comes a long
speech by Agamemnon to Menelaus, but the latter reassures him and says that he is
in no real danger, the herald is sent to the doctor and delivers his message; the
doctor arrives, extracts the arrow from the wound, and applies healing herbs which
his father had been given by the friendly Cheiron. Meanwhile, the Trojan troops are
advancing. Agamemnon, for his part, goes round the troops to give them advice and
encouragement (his great
lines), then the armies meet in battle. How vividly and vigorously Homer describes
all the external aspects of this narrative, both visible and audible! He gives us
enough details to try to reconstruct Pandarus' bow and Menelaus' intricate armour;
we hear the vibration of the bow, the twang of the string, and the arrow whistling
through the air; we see it strike its target and the blood stain Menelaus' thigh, shin
and calf with its purple flow; but how little about the emotions and -– Virgil would
no doubt have added – how tediously the narrative drags itself forward, and how
badly its details are motivated! Homeric critics of our own day [1903] have been
driven to the hypothesis that originally the
[duel between Paris and Menelaus] had nothing to do with the
[violation of the truce], and that many other inconsistencies are to be attributed to
later authors and redactors. Virgil, however, was a practical critic, not a critic of
history. In Homer, all the Trojans and their allies, including Pandarus and his
Lycians, hate Paris like hell itself, and yet, in order to gain Paris' gratitude, Pandarus
is prepared to shoot his treacherous arrow, and the Lycians are prepared to protect
him with their shields while he does so. And once the shot has hit its mark, no-one
thinks for another moment of honouring the truce; instead of stoning Pandarus, the
232 Trojans advance in battle-order, and Agamemnon, instead of trying to appeal to his
troops' sense of honour, orders them to fight against them. The assembly on
Olympus, the conversation between Agamemnon and Menelaus, the treatment by
the doctor, Agamemnon's tour of the camp to encourage his men, are, according to
modern literary theory, delaying devices characteristic of early epic, but in Virgil's
view they disturbed and interrupted the main flow of the narrative. That is why he
placed the decisive scene on Olympus before this episode, and the healing of Aeneas
and the advance of the Trojan leaders and their troops after it. He is most careful to
describe the motives which led to the actual breaking of the truce.[72] We see the
Latins becoming gradually more and more antagonistic towards the duel, until the
interpretation of the omen by an apparently well-qualified augur brings their emo-
tions to a head; we see the stages which lead gradually to the outbreak of fighting,
and Aeneas trying in vain to enforce the terms of the treaty, until his absence
inspires Turnus, too, with fresh courage; after which, of course, it is impossible to
call a halt. Thus in Virgil all the emphasis is placed on the dramatic development of
the action, and its psychological motivation. Virgil has retained only two lines out of
all the detailed descriptions in Homer, those which describe the exact place where
Gylippus was hit by Tolumnius' spear.
While Aeneas is away from the battlefield, it is important that the action should
not stand still. The gap is occupied by Turnus' deeds (324-82), recounted in an
elevated style which is suitable for the heightened emotional mood of the narrative
as it approaches its conclusion. Whereas in Book 9 we saw Turnus fighting on foot,
against heavy odds, and in Book 11 emerging victorious from a duel, now he drives
his chariot across the field like the God of War himself, destroying all before him.
The structure of the scene is somewhat different from those which we have exam-
ined so far. The main stress is laid on the single combat in the middle of the scene
(346-61), which is given special prominence by the speech of Turnus – en agros et
quam bello Troiane petisti Hesperiam metire iacens ; haec praemia qui me ferro
ausi temptare ferunt : sic moenia condunt (359-61) ['See Trojan! Lie there, and
measure your length in the fields of our Western Land which you sought to gain by
war. This is the prize which they win who dare to make test of me by the blade; this
is how they establish their walled city'] – words addressed to Eumedes, but in fact
aimed at Aeneas. This combat is framed by two lists of names (341-5 and 362-4),
233 which in turn are framed by two general descriptions of the irresistible force of
Turnus as he storms against the foe (328-40 and 365-70): the death of Phegeus, who
throws himself in vain against Turnus' horses, and is dragged along and finally
crushed by the chariot (371-82), serves as an illustration of Turnus' triumphal
progress.[73] There is no climax leading up to the end in this case, because Virgil
cannot begin to describe the reversal of Turnus' fortunes so early in the book.
While the exploits of Turnus keep the action moving, Virgil is able to describe
the treatment of Aeneas' wound without giving the impression of holding up the
narrative. Virgil has combined the situation of Hector in the Iliad (15.236ff.), whose
strength is renewed by Zeus and Apollo so that he is able to return to the battle, and
motifs taken from the healing of Menelaus by Machaon in Iliad 4.192ff., of Eurypylus
by Patroclus in 11.842ff. and of Glaucus by Apollo in 16.508ff., and has combined
them in such a way that here too the simple epic narrative becomes excitingly
dramatic. Iapyx tries in vain to pull the arrow from the wound: all the skills at his
command seem ineffectual; already the roar of the battle is coming closer, clouds of
dust are darkening the air, enemy missiles are already falling into the midst of the
camp: then Aphrodite comes to his aid – not with her own hands, but by pouring
drops of the sap of a miraculous herb into the water, and now Iapyx, who bathes the
wound with this water, unaware of its new quality, suddenly succeeds: the arrow
comes away in his hand, the blood clots and the pain vanishes; there is now nothing
to prevent Aeneas from returning to the fight, and his reappearance on the scene
together with his faithful friends immediately changes the nature of the situation
(447,463). His mind is fixed on Turnus – it looks as if the duel is going to take place
immediately, but then comes the final retardation, Juturna's attempt to take Turnus
away where Aeneas cannot reach him, by assuming the appearance of his charioteer
Metiscus. Still Aeneas pursues him, and him alone – for he still cannot bring himself
to disregard his side of the foedus [treaty] – until Messapus' attack makes it im-
possible for him to observe it any longer (496). Then come the interwoven aristeiai
of Aeneas and Turnus which we have already analysed (p. 172). The artistic purpose
of this unusual structure is clear. From the beginning of the fighting until the end,
the two main opponents are gradually brought closer to each other. In Books 8 and 9
234 they had both been in action in totally different areas. In Book 10 they were fighting
in the same battle, but did not meet or have anything to do with each other, apart
from their mutual longing to fight. In Book 12 we have been hearing about Aeneas
and Turnus alternately, first at fairly long intervals, but now in rapid succession. All
this conspires to create the illusion of an ever stronger magnetic attraction between
the two heroes, which must inevitably lead them to a final collision.
The poet handles the action in such a way that Turnus is spared the humiliation of
being overtaken by Aeneas and therefore compelled to fight, or simply being slain
by him. Strong motivation needs to be provided to lead him to the decision to fight
the duel that he has avoided for so long – Virgil takes this opportunity to dispose of
Amata, the chief opponent of the new alliance, something which, for artistic reasons,
had to occur before the end of the work – but finally Turnus' better self gains the
upper hand, he goes forth to meet his opponent of his own free will, and the great
final scene of the epic can at last begin.
The duel between Hector and Achilles in Iliad 22, which was the prototype for
the final duel in the Aeneid , is described in three scenes; first, Hector's flight and
pursuit; second, after the weighing of their souls and as a result of Athena's inter-
vention, each hero throws his spear but misses; third, the close combat: Hector
attacks with his sword, Achilles wounds him fatally with his spear. The first scene
also includes the conversation between Zeus and Athena which decides Hector's
fate. (This, of course, grossly contradicts the weighing of the souls.) Virgil has
preserved the individual elements of this narrative, but he has changed their order
and transformed them in many ways – although in this case, of course, where his
predecessor had created a magnificent and unified composition, disfigured only by
trivial interpolations, Virgil could not give his art as much free rein as elsewhere.
Virgil, like Homer, presents the duel in three phases, after he has brought the
scene vividly before our eyes by describing the mood of the spectators (704-9).[74]
First, after each hero has cast his spear once,[75] we have a long, indecisive sword-
fight; then the interlude, which contains Jupiter's weighing of their fates (725-7).[76]
235 The second phase begins when Turnus' sword breaks,[77] so that there is nothing he
can do but take to his heels; this guarantees his safety for a while, since, because of
his wound, Aeneas cannot run as fast. While Aeneas is struggling in vain to pull his
spear out of the tree-trunk, Juturna returns Turnus' sword to him, Venus helps
Aeneas with his spear, and they come face to face again, armed for another fight. So
the decision has been deferred yet again. But then, because Juturna has returned
Turnus' sword, Jupiter intervenes: his remonstrations cause Juno to renounce her
enmity at last, and peace between Trojans and Latins is decreed in heaven. It is
remarkable that in this passage Virgil uncharacteristically interrupts the course of
the action with a long interlude on Olympus, although he is careful to mention a
motive for this passage, which relieves the tension of battle – adsistunt contra
certamina Martis anheli (790) [they stood facing each other again, panting, but
ready for combat under the rule of Mars] – and is essential for another reason too:
the assuagement of Juno's anger has to be postponed until the last possible moment,
since once this final cause of delay – which is in fact the only one left – has been
overcome, the action must inevitably come to a close. Juno's anger opened the
poem, and her reconciliation has to end it; what follows, the death of Turnus, is only
her resignation made manifest in the world of mortals. But Virgil has taken care to
make it clear that this intermezzo is no mere technical necessity, but that it is also
essential for the furtherance of the plot: up to this point, all the prophecies have
spoken only of the rule of Aeneas and his family: now we hear that not only Troy
but Latium too will come into its own within the new alliance: we gain the im-
pression that Juno's efforts and struggles have not after all been completely wasted.
The despatch of the Dira [dread Daimon] begins the third and final scene. Juturna
leaves her brother; Turnus freezes with fear; he realizes that the gods are against
him. He no longer dares to fight with the sword: Juturna's final attempt to help her
brother has been in vain. Finally, he tries to hurl the great boulder, and fails; while
236 he looks about him in desperation, he is struck by his opponent's spear and thrown
to the ground. Hector speaks his last words as he dies, and he is concerned only with
the disposal of his body: but Virgil does not cease to strive for dramatic tension to
the very end of the poem: there is one more glimmer of hope for Turnus as Aeneas
considers the possibility of sparing his life. But that glimmer is extinguished when
the sight of Pallas' sword-belt reminds the victorious Aeneas of his duty to avenge
his death – ast illi solvuntur frigore membra , vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub
umbras (951-2) [and Turnus' limbs relaxed and chilled; and the life fled, moaning,
resentful, to the shades].