10—
Rhetoric
This is the most suitable place for a few words on the relationship of Virgil's art to
rhetoric; 'a few' because the studies which have been made so far do not provide
sufficient basis for a comprehensive survey. Moreover, the most interesting aspect,
the amount that Virgil and Horace and their fellow-writers owed to rhetorical train-
ing, lies outside our scope: I mean the art of oratory, which consists of care and tact
in the selection and placing of words, clarity and precision, brevity or fullness of
expression, freedom and regulation of the sentence-structure – all matters which we
can now begin to appreciate since Norden has opened the path to this study.[94] As for
432 description, presentation and composition, the influence of rhetoric on the early
Augustans has, in my view, been exaggerated rather than understated.[95] It is custom-
ary to include under the heading 'Rhetoric' everything which a comparison with
other poets and prose-writers shows to be standard usage, and which could therefore
be attributed to the observation of precise rules of rhetoric: it is possible to find
plenty of examples, particularly among the rhetors of the imperial period, if you set
about it in this way. However, at the same time one would find a great deal which
could equally well, or perhaps better, be attributed to the rules of poetics, which did
draw on the fount of rhetoric but also went its own way, often in advance of rhetoric.
I should not trouble to object to this simplistic mode of categorizing it, were it not
that wherever 'rhetorical' influences are perceived, one has the feeling that poetry
has been estranged from its own nature: whereas a poet who uses observations and
poetic rules drawn from classical poetry does not leave his own proper ground.
Moreover, scholars frequently undervalue the influence of the poetic tradition,
which could lead to technical devices being repeated without the imitator being
aware that he is following any 'rules'. Finally, if one takes rhetorical theory as one's
starting point, it is easy to suspect its influence whenever a poetic motif more or less
fits a rhetorical rule which is known to us, whereas the poet may have been led to it
by necessity, from the nature of his material. If we consider all this and whittle down
accordingly the number of features in Virgil which might at first glance be claimed
433 to be 'rhetorical', not very many examples of rhetorical technique will remain.
Virgil may appear to be influenced by the schemata [figures] of certain genres of
rhetoric when he touches on the field of epideictic oratory. Thus, after Marx per-
ceived in the 4th Eclogue the schema of the 
[birthday greeting],
Norden tried to show that the great epideixis [display] of Anchises in the visit to the
Underworld refers to the 
[commonplaces] of the 
[pane-
gyric] in the eulogy of Augustus (6.791ff.), of the 
[funeral speech]
in the lament for Marcellus (868ff.), and of the 
[eulogy of Rome]
in the epilogue to the Pageant of Heroes (847ff.).[96] Further, in, say, the words of
farewell which Aeneas addresses to Helenus (3.494ff.), one may find the rules of the
[departure speech] observed much better than in the Homeric
example cited by the rhetors ( Od . 13.38ff.); the strange interjection with which
Turnus interrupts himself in a cohortatio [exhortation] (sed periisse semel satis est
[9.140] [a single destruction of their race is enough]) and proceeds to rebut, may be
traced back to a not altogether timely memory of the 
[purging of pity]
required by the rhetors; indeed, one could perhaps apply these observations to more
than epideictic oratory, and to find, for example, in Anna's persuasive reply to Dido
the of a suasoria [persuasive speech], find parallels in the Roman senate for
the speeches in the Latin assembly in Book 11 (p. 325 above), and analyse Sinon's
great speech (2.77-144) as a prime example of a purgatio [justification] and depre -
catio [prayer for pardon]: but one will not get very far in applying these technical
terms to Virgil if instead of aping the later Latin rhetors, who illustrate rhetorical
devices with examples from Virgil, one proceeds in the reverse direction, trying to
explain Virgil by means of the doctrines of rhetoric.[97] More important than these
details, and more indicative of the influence which his childhood schooling and the
434 rhetoric-soaked life of his time had on Virgil, it seems to me, is the general nature of
his speeches: almost everything which I pointed out in the earlier sections of this
chapter as characteristic of Virgil, particularly when compared with Homer, brings
them closer to the oratio [formal speech] of the rule-book: avoidance of dialogue
which develops by means of brief speeches and replies; refraining from deliberate
digressions; exhausting all possible arguments; calculation of the effect on the
listener; and well-considered, lucid disposition. These are all qualities which are in
complete harmony with Virgil's total technique, and which the example of poets or
historians may have inspired him to cultivate, but they will certainly have received
some of their final polish as a result of these rhetorical influences.
However, Virgil remained well aware of the boundaries between poetry and
prose; he was not like Ovid, who did not hesitate, in fact was proud, to show at
every opportunity that he was a poet who had been trained in rhetoric. Virgil does
not seek out excuses to parade his rhetoric, and the poetic shell which he has built up
over his epideictic 
[speeches] allows only the sharpest eye to perceive the
schema [formulaic character] of his invention; also, as we have seen, he veils the
structure of his speeches, rather than emphasizing it. Whereas at the time that Virgil
was working on his Aeneid the young Ovid was listening passionately to the siren-
tones of the modern declamatio [declamation], and inaugurating in his Heroides the
genre of poetic declamatio , Virgil remained untouched by this latest trend in
rhetoric: as a youth he had already felt irritated by the inanes rhetorum ampullae
[empty mouthings of the rhetoricians]. Compared with the hysterical pathos of those
declamatores [declaimers], even compared with Ovid's rather more tasteful tirades,
Virgil's pathos even seems moderate to us, although it does go further than we like
435 our modern poets to go – Schiller's time felt differently –, and surely Virgil is, here
too, revealing his rhetorical training: that is where he developed the ability to play
upon the feelings of his Roman audience like a familiar instrument, so that he
always had effortlessly to hand the right form in which to cast his emotion so that it
would arouse the emotions; for the arousing of 
[pathos], a chief aim of his
epic poetry, was also one of the chief aims of trained prose oratory. However, we
must be careful not to overvalue the 'rhetorical' element here too: I do not doubt that
Virgil's treatment of pathos, far though he was from striving to be realistic or true to
nature, nevertheless comes a good deal closer to real life than is acceptable to the
modern (particularly North European) reader. Virgil's heroes are ancient Italians,
easily moved by emotion of every kind, and not accustomed to bear it in silence but
to express it in an easy flow of words. Where that is habitual, certain forms of
speech naturally develop and are available at all times to the emotionally excited
person, helping him to express his feelings with a completeness, strength, order and
clarity which can seem unnatural to a listener who hardly ever lets himself be moved
to express an emotion in words. We may be sure that Virgil's public thought they
were hearing the natural, if somewhat ennobled, expression of true feeling, in places
where modern critics shake their heads over unnatural, unrealistic 'Rhetoric'.