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