7—
Slanting of Speeches
When Magus and Turnus (12.933) try to reach Aeneas through his love for his
father, when Anna believes that she can round off her speech most effectively with a
reference to Carthage's splendid future, when Latinus, in the warning which we
have just mentioned plays down the danger which Turnus himself is in, all these and
related cases demonstrate a clever regard for the personal qualities of the one
addressed; this is one of the main traits of Virgilian speech: it reveals the character
not only of the speaker but also of the listener. It is certainly a deliberate contrast
when Pallas reminds his Arcadians, the earliest Romans, of their martial honour, but
Tarchon in the same position has to throw biting scorn at his Etruscans to goad them
into holding their position (11.732); and when, on the other hand, Androgeus, in
order to urge his loitering compatriots to make haste, reminds them that the others
are getting all the best plunder ( alii rapiunt incensa feruntque Pergama [2.374] [the
rest are looting and pillaging Pergamum which is in flames]), the poet regards both
him and all the Greeks as condemned by this trait.
This accurate adaptation of each speech to suit the character of the person ad-
dressed is merely one particularly clear illustration of the extremely calculated
nature of each speech as it strives to achieve a particular goal. The masterpiece in
this kind is the great speech by Sinon, which we analysed above (p. 7f.). Further
detailed examples are unnecessary: the alert reader of, for example, Venus' various
requests (1.229; 5.781; 8.374, to which 387f. should also be added) cannot help
noticing the numerous individual artificia [artifices]. But perhaps we should men-
tion how even in the prayers, with many variations, there are attempts to move the
gods to grant the requests by specially adjusting the briefly indicated arguments: an
example of this – apart from the oaths (5.235; 9.625 etc.) – is when Aeneas is praying to
the Magna Mater and refers to himself and his men as Phryges (10.255),[67] and when
421 he reminds Apollo that he has followed his guidance until now (6.59); when Nisus
the hunter reminds Luna the huntress of the hunting-trophies he has dedicated to her
(9.407), and Pallas reminds Hercules of the guest-friendship he has enjoyed in
Evander's house (10.460), and on the other hand Turnus (12.777) tries to win over
Faunus by accusing the Trojans of cutting down his sacred tree which the natives
had always revered. Likewise it is intended to characterize the boastful king Iarbas
with his barbaric conceptions of a god when he uses accusations, containing veiled
threats, against Jupiter, the king of Heaven, to try to make an impression (4.206ff.).
A naïve speaker explains the situation as it appears to him, trusting that the
person addressed will then see it in the same way and draw the same conclusions
which he himself draws and would like to see drawn by others. A calculating
speaker does not start by thinking how he can most clearly express his own feelings,
but he considers what will move the other person away from their own standpoint to
act in the desired way. He therefore tries to present the situation, not in the way that
it appears to him, but in the way that he wants it to appear to the other. He is easily
led to omit facts, to change them or invent them, if he thinks it will help him to
achieve his end.[68] Virgil's speakers are good at such sly insinuations: naturally they
are most used by advocates of a poor cause, i.e. in this case by the enemies of the
Trojans. The masterpiece of this art is, as is only right, Allecto's speech to Turnus
(7.421ff.): how, in a few words, the whole situation is distorted, so that Turnus
appears as the one who is being cheated out of the well-deserved reward of his
efforts which he has been promised, and Latinus as the unprincipled egoist who is
making use of the unsuspecting Turnus and laughing at him afterwards! – that is
422 worthy of the demon from hell. Amata's words inspired by Allecto (7.359ff.) nearly
match it: in both cases any direct untruth is skilfully avoided, and yet the result is
one big lie. How dangerous this weapon can be in political warfare Virgil had been
able to observe only too frequently; it almost goes without saying that Drances, the
very type of the political party leader, will use it against Turnus (11.343): with great
skill he casts him in the role of inconsiderate, egoistical tyrant, who lets no voice be
heard except his own, who is ready to quash by force any resistance, and who scorns
the people as a worthless mob: one knows how often in the battles between parties
in Rome this insult was hurled back and forth, to the annoyance of good republicans.
Turnus defends himself most indignantly against this very formidine crimen acer -
bare (407) [sharpening an accusation with fear]. Such poisoned weapons are
allowed even in the gods' partisan skirmishes. It is true that Venus is only trying to
arouse pity for the Trojans when, against her own better judgement, instead of
crediting Diomedes with an attempt at helping the Latins, she presents Diomedes'
repeated rebellion against the Trojans as fact (10.28); when she then renounces any
prospect of a Trojan empire in Latium, acknowledges Carthage's dominion in Italy
and asks only to be allowed to remove Ascanius to a quiet life without fame, this is
all sly misrepresentation intended to make Jupiter realize the point to which Juno's
hatred has already brought the situation. She goes as far as to end with the request
iterum revolvere casus da pater Iliacos Teucris (10.61) [allow the Trojans to trace
once more the whole cycle of Troy's misfortunes].[69] But when Juno hints in her
reply that the forecast given to the Trojans consisted only of the predictions of mad
423 Cassandra,[70] that is malevolent distortion, just as it is when she presents the Trojans
as wicked thieves, who only pretended to have peaceful intentions and really desired
war (77-80); and when she holds Venus responsible for the metamorphosis of the
Trojan ships into nymphs, that could only have been invented by a poet who in his
youth had stood by the orators' platform every day listening to the coarsest of
calumnies against political opponents – and had seen them take effect. We know
that distortion and veiling of the truth were not even condemned in the theory of
rhetoric, so long as they served one's purpose,[71] even if the fact was not expressed as
crassly as it once was by Servius (in fact in an inappropriate context): in arte
rhetorica tunc nobis conceditur uti mendacio , cum redarguere nullus potest [in
rhetoric we are allowed to tell lies when no-one can contradict].[72] In the last example
the accusation of deception is not really applicable in so far as the true events during
the transformation are in fact as well known to the whole assembly of the gods as
they are to Juno herself: she lets herself be carried away by her feelings, and be led
involuntarily to distort and to exaggerate.[73] When Dido is most agitated she even
believes that she has not only rescued the Trojans from death but also saved their
fleet from being destroyed (4.375); she even believes that she had recognized Ae-
neas as a wicked liar as soon as she met him (597), and as happens here in Dido's
424 case, so too in others: facts appear distorted to the agitated senses, without there
being any intention to impress anyone else. The revenge wrought by Minerva upon
the Greeks takes on vast dimensions for Juno,[74] because it feeds her rage over her
own powerlessness; here Juno is, as it were, her own audience, se suscitat ira [she
rouses herself to anger].