The Ancient Roman World
Lecture 12 Vergil’s Aeneid 4: Dido
http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/5960/Roman-4th-century-AD/Mosaic-pavement-from-the-Roman-villa-at-Low-Ham-i Dido and Aeneas • love story in epic poetry • historical • poli cal • amatory – passion of neoterics • tragedy – influence of Greek (and Roman) tragic models ! Dido as tragic vic m ! Tragic love affairs: parallels in tragedy, e.g. Euripides Hippolytus ! Dido as tragic vic m ! ‘So heavy was the cost of founding the Roman race.’ Aeneid 1.33
Other vic ms: • Turnus • Creusa • Pallas • Amata
Dido and Aeneas: a love story in epic poetry Dido - historical parallels: Carthage, Cleopatra
The Mee ng of Dido and Aeneas by Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1766)
h p://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpain ngs/pain ngs/the-mee ng-of-dido-and-aeneas-117768
http://ocw.nd.edu/classics/history-of-ancient-rome/lectures-1/the-last-days-of-the-republic-octavian-antony-and Carthage economic control of the Mediterranean Carthage/Sicily/ Italy Three Punic Wars: 264-241, 218-201, 149-146 BCE
http://www.phoenician.org/carthage_hannibal_barca.htm Punic, Sidonian, Tyrian = Carthaginian
h p://www.uncg.edu/cla/maps/mediterranean.htm Ancient Phoenicia = Lebanon Dido’s death: the personal dimension " Anna:
To think…you could be so cruel as to lay yourself down here to die without me. It is not only yourself you have destroyed, but also your sister and your people, their leaders who came with you from Sidon and the city you have built.
(Aen. 4.682-5) " ! Dido’s death: foreshadowing history
• Dido’s dying curse (Aen. 4.622-29) • ‘You must pursue with hatred the whole line of his descendants in me to come.’ (4.622-3) [pp.100-1) • ‘my unknown avenger’ = Hannibal
• A ermath: panic ‘It was as though the enemy were within the gates and the whole of Carthage or old Tyre were falling " with flames raging and rolling over the roofs of men ! and gods.’ (Aen. 4. 669-71) Dido and Cleopatra, Phoenicia and Egypt Mark Antony & Cleopatra VII
http://ocw.nd.edu/classics/history-of-ancient-rome/lectures-1/the-last-days-of-the-republic-octavian-antony-and Giovanni Ba sta Tiepolo The banquet of Cleopatra (1743–44) h p://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/learn/schools-resources/art-start/image-bank/giamba sta- epolo Na onal Gallery of Victoria Cleopatra’s extravagance
There have been two pearls that were the largest in the whole of history; both were owned by Cleopatra, the last of the Queens of Egypt… [Cleopatra bets Antony that she can spend 100,000 on one meal]… In accordance with previous instruc ons the servants placed in front of her only a single vessel containing vinegar, the strong rough quality of which can melt pearls. She was at the moment wearing in her ears that remarkable and truly unique work of nature. Antony was full of curiosity to see what in the world she was going to do. She took one earring off and dropped the pearl in the vinegar, and when it was melted swallowed it....With this goes the story that, when that queen who had won on this important issue was captured, the second of this pair of pearls was cut in two pieces, so that half a helping of the jewel might be in each of the ears of Venus in the Pantheon at Rome. Pliny Natural History 9.119-121 Cleopatra in the Aeneid
• The Ba le of Ac um: Aeneid 8.685-8, 696-708
• ‘the greatest outrage of all, his [Antony’s] Egyp an wife’ (688) Eastern queens: Dido and Cleopatra
‘But the queen had long been suffering from love’s deadly wound’ (4.1) Dido as regina: 4.133, 283, 295, 334, 504, 586
Cleopatra: ‘In the middle of all this the queen (regina) summoned her warships’ (8.698) Dido as host
• fellow refugee - hospes • hospi um • Dido’s speech to the Trojans:1.562-79 – ‘safe under my protec on…do you wish to se le here with me on an equal foo ng,’ – ‘Trojan and Tyrian shall be as one in my eyes’ Dido as host
– ‘safe under my protec on…do you wish to se le here with me on an equal foo ng,’ – ‘Trojan and Tyrian shall be as one in my eyes’ – Aeneas’ gra tude: 1.597-605 – Poli cal alliance? http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/nov/08/ancient-world-rome Dido as a refugee in North Africa
• Iarbas • -> rela onship with Carthaginians as poli cal alliance: 4.198-219 • Aeneas ‘as master’ breaks alliance Dido - pawn of the gods?
• Cupid’s visit: 1.558-722 • ‘he began gradually to erase the memory of Sychaeus, trying to turn towards a living love, a heart that had long been at peace and long unused to passion.’ • univira • amor and furor - ‘doomed Dido’ (1.748) • Venus and Juno plot ‘marriage’ (4.90-128) • primordial wedding -> Dido’s culpa • loses interest in pudor and fama
http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/didomosaic5.jpg Aeneas the city builder
• Dido creates Carthage • But post-coniugium Dido abandons city • Aeneas as consort and builder (4.259-65) [N.B. ‘Tyrian purple’]
Claude Lorrain Aeneas and Dido in Carthage (1675) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Lorrain_-_Aeneas's_Farewell_to_Dido_in_Carthago_-_WGA05017.jpg Dido and Aeneas
• who can deceive a lover? (4.295) • ‘I beg you by our union, by the marriage we have begun’ (4.317) • ‘Nor have I ever offered you marriage’ • ‘It is not by my own will that I search for Italy’ • 4.393: pius Aeneas • 4.441-49 oak tree in storm simile
h p://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/497298/Roman-4th-century-AD/Dido-and-Aeneas-embracing-from- the-mosaic-pavemen?search_context=%7B%22url%22%3A%22%5C%2Fsearch%5C%2Far st%5C %2FRoman-4th-century-AD%5C%2F19026%3Fpage_num%3D2%22%2C%22num_results%22%3A %22123%22%2C%22search_type%22%3A%22creator_assets%22%2C%22creator_id%22%3A %2219026%22%2C%22item_index%22%3A122%7D Dido’s passion
• What were your feelings, Dido, as you looked at this? (4.409) – direct address in epic • 4.459ff. frenzy – visions, hears voices – ‘She would be like Pentheus in his frenzy…or like Orestes…[with] the avenging Furies’ – ‘overwhelmed by grief and possessed by madness’ (furor 4.501) -> suicide
http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/didomosaic6.jpg Dido’s passion • furor – 91 & 101: Juno describes Dido’s amor - ‘passion’, ‘madness’ – 433: D. begs for ‘respite for my anguish’
– Witchcra (505-21) • invokes gods of Underworld: Erebus, Chaos, Hecate
Dido’s rhetoric and deceit
– 532-53: Weighing up op ons: leave with Aeneas, pact with Numidians, war vs. Trojans? – vocabulary of betrayal: • A betrayed her • D betrayed Sychaeus
• ends with curse • final betrayal: Anna & pyre Dido’s death
• Final, proud speech • difficult death • Anna’s reproach • Juno’s pity (eventually) - sends Iris – ‘since she was not dying by the decree of Fate or by her own deserts but pi ably and before her me’ (4.696-7) • Dido’s death c.f. Turnus (bk.12) • ‘Phoenician Dido’ in the Underworld (6.450-76) – c.f. Ajax/Aias in Odyssey 11.543-67 Dido’s suicide from 5th c. edi on of Aeneid (Va can)
http://library.nd.edu/medieval/facsimiles/learnlat/vervat/39v40r.html