19

VIRGIL AND THE MONUMENTS

(Lecture given to a joint meeting of the Society and the London Branch of the

Classical Association, on January 12th, 1985).

The title of this talk may sound enigmatic and even provocative; can it be appropriate to echo Miss Lorimer's magisterial work on , when we turn to an epic poet whose awareness of the past was so much more complex than Homer's, and whose purposes were so different? A survey of archaeological sites mentioned in the might have its own fascination, but would it necessarily establish a relation between Virgil and the monuments he chose, or needed, to include in his narrative? The subject is immense. To clarify the scope of this paper I must tell you how it first took shape.

In 1982 I was reading the Aeneid repeatedly, and attending especially to the idea of memory - both personal and collective - as a shaping theme throughout the poem. I was fortunate in being able to do this work in Italy, where I found myself increasingly aware of the natural surroundings and the remains surviving from Virgil's time. The relation between the poem and the material world seemed integral and significant in ways which I could not then attempt to define.

Two years later, when Dennis Blandford invited me to read this paper to the

Virgil Society, the title Virgil and the Monuments was his happy thought and it seemed to me exactly right. I was again in Italy, visiting monuments in and Etruria. These visits were not planned as Virgilian expeditions. The twenty or so people who took part in them wanted to see the most important remains of Roman civilisation, to observe and understand as fully as was possible in ten days whatever material remains 20 might still express its essential nature. Again and again members of this group would raise questions that related these monuments to Virgil. It seemed important to them to ask whether Virgil would have seen this building, this tomb, this statue. If these artefacts were pre-Augustan, what did they mean to Virgil's generation? If post- Augustan, what elements of Augustan and Virgilian consciousness did their makers incorporate into them? These questions occurred to the members of our group because they knew the Aeneid well and could not help recalling it in the places we visited. They believed Virgil's poem to be the quintessential expression of Romanitas. So as we looked at the ruins of Veio and Tarquinia, at the House of or the Shrine of , we were all seeking answers to two questions: can we reach a fuller understanding of the Aeneid by looking at the monuments of Italy? and can the Aeneid throw light for us on these historical monuments themselves?

The word monument will be used today in the widest sense, as Virgil himself uses it, to include movable objects and personal possessions, also even natural features such as a tree or a rock. In Aeneid VIII, when Evander guides over the site of the future Rome, he asks him to survey the veterum monimenta virorum, the "memorials of ancient men" (356), on the walk from the Forum Boarium to the Capitol and Palatine. These monimenta include an altar, a gate, a cave, two oppida, and a sacred grove. Whether constructed by human hands or not, all these are seen as embodying the qualities of the earlier generations, or the individuals, associated with them in the past.

Aeneas' visit to the site of Rome is the most detailed topographical passage in the Aeneid, and this more than any other Book presents the monuments of ancient Italy as charged with significance, one might almost say with creative energy, for the future. An example of such significance occurs in Book VIII, when Virgil describes the hilltop fortress of Tarchon (603-7). In Virgil's time, Etruscan greatness already belonged to 21 the past; it was almost four hundred years since Caere had provided a refuge for Rome's sacred objects and their priests during the invasion of the Gauls. But this historic moment of Caere's saving initiative is unmistakably foreshadowed when Aeneas and his cavalry enter the woodland where Tarchon's stronghold looms above, offering the promise of alliance and future security. This Trojan accord with Tarchon will bring to birth the alliance between Rome and Caere many generations later. This moment, pointing to Rome's coming domination of Italy, prefigures the unified Italy of the Augustan settlement. The gathering of historic momentum in this ancient structure, the fortress of Tarchon, is noted - as so many aspects of historic weighting in Book VIII are noted - in the edition of K.W. Gransden, a work whose wide-ranging perceptiveness will be well known to members of this audience.

The topographical material of Book VIII is full of such prefigurings. We can begin to perceive these more clearly now than was possible in earlier centuries, when so much of pre-Roman Italy was unrevealed by archaeology. Of course, we must still miss a great deal. But in the seventy years since Warde Fowler wrote his Observations on Books VII and VIII, we have realised more fully how precise and selective Virgil was in his descriptions of the monuments surviving from more distant times. Our increased knowledge of ancient Cumae for instance, and of many sites in Latium, enables us to answer very positively the first of our two questions about Virgil and the monuments. Archaeological study does help us to understand the Aeneid better: what Virgil selected, from all he knew of the richly varied Italian past, indicates something of what the cultural history of Italy meant to him, and what the task of Aeneas was to mean. Our second question - does the Aeneid help us to understand the monuments better? - will be best answered by examples, and I hope to point to a few of these which will justify a positive answer to this question too. 22

It is obvious that a single lecture could not attempt any adequate survey of the vast field of Italian topography and archaeology; and others are able to do this much better than I could. What perhaps makes my title's echo of Miss Lorimer into more than a strict impertinence is the reminder it offers of the strongly Greek elements that existed in the pre-Roman past of Italy, continually evoked by Virgil's monuments. Not only Greek, but specifically Homeric.

The presence of Homeric figures on Etruscan pottery, and in some Etruscan painting, is well known. But these Homeric elements are not limited to the Etruscan part of Virgil's Italian world. We may look at one example from the first Book whose action takes place on Italian soil. The palace of King Latinus in Book VII, with its hundred columns, and the venerable laurel tree that stands in the inner courtyard, brings a clear evocation of King Priam's palace at Troy in Book II. The detail of the laurel tree also carries a reminder of the laurels planted, or else hung, at the doorway of Augustus' house in 27 B.C.

The parallel with Troy is not, on the face of it, what we might expect. Latinus was not a Homeric figure. In Hesiod he is supposed to be the son of and Circe; anything but Trojan. As a native-born Italian king he might be imagined as living in a different kind of palace from those of Asia Minor, even if his kinsman Dardanus had travelled to Phrygia and become the ancestor of Priam's line. It is Virgil who makes Latinus Homeric - and Trojan. The link with Dardanus is the first claim that Latinus recognises when he receives Aeneas' embassy with words of welcome; and Dardanus, he informs them, now dwells in "the golden palace of the starry heaven" (210). This line again recalls the palace in Troy, where the screams of the women rose to strike "the golden stars" on the night of Troy's destruction. 23

The identification of with Trojan has often been recognised as a major theme in Book VII. The two peoples share qualities of heroic courage and spontaneity; before doom came upon them they lived sponte sua, in a of unsuspecting openness. Just as the Trojans were trapped by their own gullibility at Troy, and Nisus and Euryalus are trapped by their own recklessness, so the Latin falls through her eagerness and folly, and both peoples can become victims of 's ruthless enmity.

Virgil establishes this identification of Latin with Trojan in several ways. One is the imagery of the flaming torch, brandished by the Fury Allecto and by the Latin queen whom she has driven mad. Lavinia the Latin princess is turned to a living torch by the supernatural fire that kindles in her hair. Juno also recalls the ominous dream in which Hecuba saw herself made pregnant by a flaming torch, before the birth of Paris. This speech of Juno's explicitly makes the association of the torch with the coming of a royal child, Latin or Trojan. In Juno's hands the flames are used to destroy the cities of those she hates.

The saving aspect of this fire-, seen in lulus' flaming hair in Book II, and in the flaming helmet given to Aeneas by in Book VIII, does not concern us here. All the peoples of the epic, and most of the individuals, will move into new roles in the rather intricate narrative development of Books IX - XII. The identification of and Trojans is not simple or final. But in Books VII and VIII it is of central importance. The imagery of a supernatural fire is only a confirmation of the link of genealogy and of the identity expressed through material things such as the robes of Priam and the columned palace with its laurel tree.

The material works which are the principal monuments of Book VII are made to embody the national, or cultural, qualities of the two peoples, in a way that we recognise 24 as peculiarly Virgilian. I mean that Virgil makes these buildings, robes, statues, trees, all these material things, carry the weight of the impulse and will exerted by Latins and Trojans. The gifts exchanged between Latinus and Aeneas show this clearly. When Aeneas sends the king the Trojan treasures that are described as "the poor remains of his former prosperity, remains rescued from blazing Troy" - his father Anchises' gold -bowl, the royal robes of Priam, his head-dress, and sceptre - this is not merely a complimentary gesture or an assurance of friendship; he is transferring to Latinus the authority that belonged to the aged king of Troy. From this moment the role of Latinus does become that of Priam, only too completely; at the first outbreak of conflict threatening his people, he crumples into a feeble old man, "standing within death's door", impotently raging like the Priam of Book II. The robes have changed his personality and his destiny - not acting in a magical sense, like the robe sent by Medea to Jason's bride, but because they bring with them the weight of Trojan doom as well as majesty. The gifts presented by Latinus in exchange are horses and a chariot; the significance of this would take us too far from our main theme today. Like almost every instance in the Aeneid of gifts or spoils or memorial objects transferred from one person to another, their past associations and history go with them, foreshadowing and even shaping what is to come in the future.

The climax of all these "prefiguring" passages in the central books of the epic comes at the end of Book VIII with the long and detailed description of the Shield of Aeneas. This extraordinary work of divine craftsmanship evokes a Homeric model, the Shield of , and it presents an array of figures to come in the future . I mention only one detail. Among the individual heroes recognisable on the Shield are priest of an ancient Order, the dancing Salii. The reader of Book VIII has already seen the Salii assembled around an altar at the festival in honour of celebrated by Evander's people at the site of the Maxima, close to the Tiber. On 25 the Shield, the Salii are dancing in procession, with their shields, which Virgil calls lapsa ancQia caelo, "the shields that fell from heaven" - as did Aeneas' Shield itself, on which these shields of the Salii were embossed.

The Shield of Aeneas thus literally carries the antique tradition of a native Italian priesthood, connected with and (and, since 29 B.C., with Augustus, whose name was added to the Carmen Saliare to honour his victory at Actium). It also carries the image of Augustus on board ship, standing aloft with flames encircling his head. Venus, who gave the Shield to Aeneas, appears on it beside and Minerva who were once the enemies of Troy. The Aeneadae who appear on the Shield as defenders of liberty are not Trojan at all, but Roman. This monumentum presents Rome as superseding both Trojan and Latin identities, taking the role of ruler and leader of Italy.

Yet the artistic medium chosen for this significant object, the Shield, is one whose style and associations are Greek. From the moment he receives the armour from Venus, Aeneas begins to shed his Trojan qualities, moving away from his Trojan past, and taking on the role of a victorous Greek, Achilles. The material artefact has pointed to the course that the final struggle with will take. It also has the power to help determine how this struggle must end. You will remember the moment when Aeneas lifts up the Shield as a sign to his men that the time has come for their decisive encounter with Turnus. He does this in response to the voice of the sea Cymodocea (who was once on one of his own ships). Although he does not understand this supernatural message which comes to him on board ship, he is filled with hope and courage, and it is to convey hope and courage to his followers that he lifts up the glowing Shield for them to see it where they are trapped in camp some miles inland. Lifting the Shield on his left arm, Aeneas takes his stand on the stern of 26 his ship - stans celsa in puppi - and a flame glows on his head; it is the picture of Augustus himself, as he is described in almost identical words, on the Shield, when he leads the forces of Italy and their gods into battle at Actium. It therefore has the power to make Aeneas' men conscious of the future and of the potentialities of their own acts inspired by the lifting up of Venus' gift.

Virgil does not use the word monumentum of the Shield, but he does use it of another work of the metal-worker's art, the baldric of . When Aeneas sees this belt hanging from Turnus' shoulder, at the moment when he has the power to kill his last enemy or to spare his life, the sight of the flashing studs revives ferocity in him as he remembers how Turnus slaughtered the young owner of the belt. This elaborate sword-belt is inlaid with gold and chased with figures from the Danaus legend, scenes of murder and treachery. The scenes are Greek, and Pallas himself by descent is a Greek. It was the father of Pallas, Evander, who offered the "first path of safety" which the Sibyl had promised Aeneas should come from a Greek city on Italian soil. The killing of Pallas destroyed the promise of reconcilliation, and revised the sorrow of past enmities. So when Virgil calls the belt saevi monimenta doloris "a reminder of bitter grief", it is all the pain of the Trojan War as well as the death of Pallas himself that is implied in the words. Because the belt brings all this to Aeneas' mind, the impulse to kill Turnus takes hold of him and he strikes decisively.

Pallas' belt has here acted as a monimentum in the true sense, as a reminder and a warning. It could have warned Turnus at the time of Pallas' death, when he arrogantly took it as plunder from his dead enemy and paid no attention to the embossed scenes from the Danaus legend, a well known instance of crimes punished by divine justice. Virgil marks the reckless pride of Turnus' attitude, his Italian lack of awareness, by a rare judgement addressed in his own person on the actions of his characters: nescia 27 mens hominum fati sortisque futurae "O human mind unaware of fate and of what is to come!" Turnus, he adds, will one day wish he had acted otherwise; "he will hate these spoils, will hate this day". Turnus does not attend to the moirimentum of the belt, but later Aeneas does. The material object does not alter the course of events, except through the responsive wills of those who see or handle it. That is why I suggest Virgil's use of such objects with past associations is different from anything found in Homer or in Greek tragedy.

Throughout the Aeneid, the right handling of objects that have come down from the past, their preservation or destruction or transmission to others, is seen as an important part of religious and moral duty. Right judgements in this can be reached only when the person acting has a clear conscious memory of the past. The precise detail of the past has to be remembered and recorded; this is why, as Viktor Poschl emphasised, Aeneas "is never allowed to belong completely to the moment". His duty is to be conscious always of past and future. The responsibility for preserving the monimenta rests on him, as it rested on a Roman father or priest. The family imagines, the memorial statuary, the meticulous rituals, enshrined historical realities of which future generations would need to be aware.

The identification of Aeneas as a prototype Augustus is nowhere clearer than in this function, as guardian of national memory. When Anchises shows his son the Procession of Roman Heroes in Book VI, he immediately draws from it an admonition for action in the future: virtutem extendere factis (806). Norden compared the vision of these Heroes to the series of commemorative statues erected by Augustus on both sides of the temple he dedicated to Mars Ultor: the function of this array of figures was similarly intended as a spur to national exertion. 28

Part of Aeneas' duty, if he is to build a city, will be to set up his own monuments, as Dido has done in her city of . His tears, when he sees the paintings on the temple walls there, in Book I, are shed not only because their subjects remind him of his own past suffering, but also because he longs to build as Dido has done, and as yet has received no divine guidance of a clear or specific kind. The familiar scenes in these painting are food for his grief, and nothing more: "he fed his spirit on the insubstantial painting" (1.464). To advance from this bewilderment and despair to the understanding he needs for right action, he is going to be required to attend to other monuments and look at them with a different kind of attention. I shall not attempt here any consideration of his encounter with the Sibyl, or the Underworld journey. The rest of this paper will follow one particular image from the paintings in Dido's temple, and look at a number of monuments that are related to it. This image has much to do with the movement of Aeneas from bewilderment to understanding, and much to do also with the founding of Rome.

The attached series of quotations will make it clear that I am talking about Minerva.

The image of Minerva, or Pallas (the names are used interchangeably in Virgil, and of course she is never called Athene) appears among the paintings at Carthage, in the role of Troy's protecting . The women of Troy are seen in the painting, entreating her help: "meanwhile the Trojan women, with hair streaming loose, were on their way to the temple of Pallas, now hostile; they were carrying a robe, in suppliant attitude, and in grief; they beat their breast with their hands. The goddess was still, turned aside, her gaze fixed on the ground". (1) 29

A figure on a height, looking downwards; that is all Virgil says about this statue. The offering of the role inevitably recalls the Panathenaic peplos, and if we visualise the painting we are likely to imagine something rather like the statue - something Greek, at least; and that is what Virgil's first readers also were presumably likely to have in mind.

However, Pallas as protectress of cities was not only Athenian. The protecting figure on an appears in Virgil in Troy, in Calabria, and in Latium. Virgil was able to draw on Italian associations for this image (and we shall consider these shortly) and also Homeric ones. These are more relevant to the Pallas of the Aeneid than the associations of the Panathenaia, which was after all an occasion of national rejoicing.

In the , Hecuba and the Trojan women go in fear to 's temple to offer a peplos worked by Paris' Sidonian slave-women. Virgil's scene is not a mere reproduction of this one. He leaves out much of the Homeric detail - even the Sidonian origin of the robe, which in the setting of the Carthage temple-painting could have carried dramatic force. His scene has only these four lines, with imperfect verbs that suggest an endless stream of worshippers endlessley rejected. The women are seen in disorder and anguish as well as awe; the goddess remains still, passionless, inhuman. Here Virgil modifies the simple statement of Homer, "Pallas Athene refused".

As an example of the kind of Pallas-figure which might be called to mind by this passage, we may take the scripture from the west pediment of the temple known as Aphaia's on the island of Aegina. This dates from 500 B.C. and represents Pallas as armed but not fighting. She was at the centre of groups of men in conflict; these 30 were scenes from the Trojan war. The temple stood on a headland and the Pallas- figure would be visible from a distance.

Pallas here remains aloof from the battle; here Virgil accepts the traditional image. If she chose to exercise her power to protect her people, she would evidently not need to use the material weapons she carries (though of course in Homer she does enter the battlefield). She can ensure the safety of her people by inspiring those she favours with the insight and the will needed for victory. The clearest example of this is the ingenuity and skill she imparts to the maker of the Wooden Horse.

In Homer, Pallas Athene also offers personal protection to individual warriors, above all to Odysseus. What she affords is not only protection, but also encouragement, sudden warnings, intelligent ideas; whatever mental gift Odysseus may need at any crisis in his fortunes. The head of Athene from the Old Temple on the Acropolis at seems to embody this image of the "goddess of good counsel". The head is bent slightly forward, as she takes part in the struggle between Gods and . The figures are fragmentary, and her relation to the other gods, and to the fallen giants, is conjectural. But the angle of the head, and the very human expressiveness of the features, show her involvement in events.

The benevolence of this image accords with the Homeric Athene, whose great powers are used for purposes that men can share. In Homer, the prayers of the Trojan women are rejected, because the time is coming when Troy has to fall; but for the Greeks her help is active and unerring. In the Aeneid, she never intervenes to protect anyone. She does bring help at last to the Trojans, but not in a way that will spare them any suffering. 31

The scene of useless entreaty when the women of a threatened city take offerings to Pallas - Minerva's temple is repeated in Book XI (2). This time the women are not Trojan but Latin:

"So then to the temple, to the height of Pallas' citadel, came the queen with a throng of mothers attending; she was bringing gifts; and with her the maiden Lavinia, the cause of so much distress, her beautiful eyes cast down. The mothers came up and filled the temple with smoking incense. They poured out sorrowful words from the lofty doorway: "O powerful in arms, mistress of war, maiden Tritonia..."

The language of the prayer echoes that used of Pallas-Minerva in Troy, e.g. (3) and (4). The goddess is praeses, presiding over the war, settled aloft; praeses arcis, as Livi calls her, adsidua Minerva, in Tibullus' phrase. The epithet Tritonis or Tritonia we shall consider later.

The words of invocation used by the Latin women were quoted by Ferdinando Castagnoli in his account of the Minerva-statues found in 1977 during the excavations at Pratica di Mare, the ancient Lavinium. These figures were among the material found in a sanctuary to the west of the town; they have been dated between the 5th and the 3rd centuries B.C. There are five statues, all terracottas, varying in size, but all clearly representing Minerva as goddess of war. There are also a great many smaller terracottas, evidently ex-voto representations of birds, fruit, figures of women and infants, and anatomical images. The dedication of the sanctuary is not in doubt. A Minerva cult certainly existed at Lavinium, together with the cult of Aeneas and that of the Di Penates. The ex-voto terracottas prompt speculation about the antiquity of Minerva Medica, worshipped at Rome but so far traceably only in discoveries or Imperial date on the Esquiline. But healing was clearly not the only or even the main 32 function of the Lavinium Minerva; the figures show a warrior goddess, and one associated with animal and forms of an unexpected kind.

What was revealed with astonishing force, when the statues from Pratica were exhibited in 1982 in Rome, was the strangeness of these figures, both in iconographic details and in general character. The attributes of the -head, and (in the case of the largest statue, the supporting , suggest links with Greek religious imagery considerably earlier than had previously been established for Latium. Yet these are not Hellenic figures, and not Etruscan either. Greek and Etruscan elements are present, but assimilated to a Latin cultural tradition in which the Minerva-cult of Lavinium clearly retained a particular and native identity. These finds, Castagnoli suggests, must lead to a re-examination of the widely accepted view that Minerva was of minor importance in archaic Roman religion, until she was introduced from Etruria in the period of the monarchy, as one of the Capitoline .

The five terracottas that have so far been identified or reassembled vary greatly in size, in iconography, and in artistic quality. All have the static frontal pose, and a generally warlike character. The largest statue also has a representation of the Gorgon-head. This has a horrific quality conveyed by heavy features, glaring eyes, and protruding tongue, rather than by the traditional snaky hair. There is, however, a three-headed twined around the body of the goddess, and the shield is encircled by more serpents, animals, and birds; the shield rests on the head of the Triton. The smallest statue - known as "la brutta Minerva" - has no serpents (but the shield is lost); the dress worn by this figure is oddly ribbed and shapeless, and the Gorgon head resembles the face of the goddess herself in its extreme ferocity. 33

The association that Castagnoli makes between these figures from Lavinium and the lines of Virgil describing the Pallas of King Latinus' city has an overwhelming fitness, though one cannot, of course, maintain that these statues enable us to identify the site of that city any more confidently than before. The Minerva-sanctuary fell into disuse probably during the second century B.C., so it is most unlikely that Virgil ever saw any of these statues. But it is also unlikely that images so powerful - can we say 'numinous'? - left no trace in the imagination, the artistic tradition and the religious practice of the people who lived in that part of Italy. Of course, we do not know what else may yet be discovered. But meanwhile, I think we can accept that these images of Minerva do, at the i least, make clearer to us the nature of Pallas-Minerva as she is seen in the Aeneid.

Whether we should in any sense try to connect any of these images with the figure of the Palladium which was supposed to have come from Troy to Rome as a talismanic object has not, so far as I know, been hinted at by Castagnoli. Roman writers such as Cicero and who mention the Palladium do not say what it looked like. The only specific description of it that survives is that of ApoUodorus (5). This is a late and unconvincing account; if any such image had existed, it is hard to imagine that no example at all of a Pallas with both and distaff would have survived. This artificial construct of Minerva-Pallas in both her aspects is evidently what ApoUodorus believed the Palladium ought to have looked like. The most interesting detail is the phrase tois de posi sumbebekps, "with feet joined together". In existing statues of Pallas the feet are often covered by drapery, and if they are visible they are not attached together, but they are placed side by side. ApoUodorus, or whoever supplied this detail to him, did not think of Pallas in motion, or even ready to move; and this is true of existing portrayals of the goddess, except in vase-paintings. She is almost always shown in a static position - with a shield in her left hand, not a spindle 34

or distaff - either standing, in the pose we have seen, or sitting in the familiar pose of /.

Virgil's narrative leaves many obscurities in reference to the Palladium; how much of Sinon's story is to be taken as truth and how much falsehood, for example. The Greek theft of the image, as told by Sinon (6), again uses the name Tritonia, and the picture of her anger is terrifying: "flashes of fire blazed in the statue's open eyes, a salty sweat poured over the limbs, and three times she sprang up from the ground holding her shield and quivering spear". This statue might easily be identified with the inhuman statue on the Acropolis, perhaps on a smaller scale, small enough for the Greeks to carry it off to their camp. By doing this they hoped to gain the gifts of cunning and purposeful skill that could come from Pallas; and indeed they did so, because she then put into their minds the scheme of the Wooden Horse. But they had enjoyed Pallas' favour even before this. Ever since Paris rejected the gifts of Pallas, and of , in favour of 's offer of pleasure and human love, and was not disowned by the Trojans, Pallas had withdrawn her protection from Troy, and the theft

of the Palladium could not make Troy's doom more certain than it was already. ,,;,:

What this action of the Greeks did do was to bring ruin on them as well as Troy, by provoking Pallas' anger, and also to make the Trojan loss of Pallas' favour obvious and final. This was an important aspect of Virgil's interpretation of Pallas-Minerva's role. He did not wish to use the well known version of the story which made Aeneas bring the Palladium with him to Italy. He could have done this, and still kept the theft-incident, because there was a second version bringing in a false Palladium stolen in error. The simple continuity which would have allowed Aeneas to bring the Palladium as Rome's talisman from the beginning was not what Virgil wanted. In the Aeneid all the Trojans, including Aeneas, are deprived of the protective power embodied in the 35 statue. Aeneas is not fit to be the preserver of the Palladium, because (like Laocoon and the rest) at the time of Troy's fall he has lost all the mental powers that are the gift of Pallas-Minerva: reasoning, understanding, clear memory, caution.

In the early Books of the Aeneid, the awe-inspiring power of Pallas-Minerva is released against those who have rejected her, or have lost her favour, in destructive but precisely directed ways. When Ajax committed sacrilege, by the rape of Cassandra in Minerva's temple (7), the goddess struck him down with a thunderbolt, transfixing him to a rock during his homeward voyage (I. 39-45). Again, the snakes that strangle Laocoon when he has attacked the Wooden Horse have the nature of chthonic forces, but forces directed in an exact unerring way which makes them all the more frightening. After killing Laocoon and his sons they touch no one else, but glide away beneath the shield carried by the Minerva-statue standing in the temple of Troy's acropolis.

When Minerva rejects the prayers of the Trojan women, and later those of the Latins, the reason is the same. These peoples have rejected her by choosing a course that is blindly irrational. It should be noted that Minerva is never, in the Aeneid or anywhere else, a goddess who rejoices in war for its own sake; on the contrary, she is the goddess of peacemaking, of the branch, as both Aeneas and Latinus understood when they tried to prevent the outbreak of war-fever in Italy. Minerva uses the elemental weapons under her control only when she is provoked to rage, when she is turbata. Virgil uses this word (VIII. 435) in his account of the making of her armour by the Cyclops, a passage that includes a very hideous description of the Gorgon's head (8). The Latin women who follow their queen in frenzy of hatred for Aeneas are poisoned "with the venom of the Gorgon". 36

The snaky-haired Gorgon can atrophy all the mental and physical powers of those whom Minerva wiahes to destroy; the snakes that strangle Laocoon, and the thunderbolt that strikes Ajax, are also elemental weapons associated with the god Neptune. Two of the Lavinium statues also illustrate this conception of Minerva's powers in a very literal and forceful way, The large terracotta already described shows Minerva armed not only with the Gorgon-head but also with a three-headed serpent. There are serpent- decorations also on the helmet, while her shield has serpents, small animals, and birds around the rim. The Triton supporting the shield has a scaly fish-tail. The second statue, of which only the lower half has been found, shows animal decoration including snakes on the shield; instead of the Triton, a goose sits on the left of the goddess. Both statues show Minerva with arms at rest, with weapons and animal figure under her control.

The Triton is a recurrent figure in the Aeneid; as a kind of marine , he is described in Book X as a figurehead on the ship of Aulestes, the last-named in the Etruscan fleet that comes to support Aeneas. The ship of this name is of huge size, immanis, moving with masterful and slightly uncanny progress along the coast and making the waters afraid. When Tritons appear in the poem they are always exerting decisive physical strength and it is usually in obedience to Neptune's explicit will. It is a Triton who in Book I heaves the Trojan ships off the rocks where Juno's rage has thrown them, and a Triton attends Neptune when he promises (V. 824) to bring Aeneas safely to Italy after Juno has destroyed part of the fleet in Sicily by fire. In all these examples the Tritons are using their strength in a protective way; but they can also destroy men, as the death of Misenus shows. The consistent element is the purposeful use of power for the end chosen by a divine will. Nothing is random. 37

The name Tritonia or Tritonis, used of Pallas five times in the Aeneid, is explained by Servius and related either to terribilis, from the Greek trein, or else from the river Triton in Boeotia, or from Tritonia a lake in , where she is said to have been born. This Note of Servius, as Fraenkel pointed out, clearly derives from the Homeric Scholiast who glosses the epithet Tritogeneia in similar terms. The geographical reference of Tritonia and related names has generally been thought more convincing than etymologies suggesting terror. Tritons would have no connection with either the Boeotian or the African reference. However, the similarity of the names Triton/Tritonia/ has been thought to indicate some early association of Pallas Athene with water. What is more important for Virgil's Minerva is that he does not use the form Tritogeneia at all: he is not concerned with the idea of her birth-place, but with her nature. Four out of the five contexts for the name Tritonis or Tritonia are connected;with her destructive powers. The fifth describes her as teacher of the uniquely favoured Nautes. The suggestion of awe-inspiring power seems inescapable in this name, not for any reason of etymology, but because the image of the Triton must have come along with it as obviously for the Roman reader as it does for us, and Virgil's Tritons are never merely decorative attributes but active servants of Neptune and of his partner Minerva.

When Minerva herself is actually seen in battle in the Aeneid - that is, on the Shield of Aeneas - there is no mention of a Triton, or of the Gorgon head, or any weapon. She stands beside Neptune and Venus (no longer her enemy now), and the chthonic terror is all on the other side, with the barbaric defeated gods of Egypt. In this victory of Augustus, Minerva is not turbata. 38

How has Minerva regained her serenity? or how has Aeneas secured her goodwill? Two passages, between the fall of Troy and the landing in Italy, give us some hints of an answer.

The first is the sign that meets the eyes of Aeneas' men on the morning when the Italian coast first comes in sight - Italiam, Italiam .. and Anchises offers prayers to the sea-gods, stans celsa in puppi, as both Augustus and Aeneas will do at different moments. The temple at Castrum Minervae is seen on the height, and there, primum omen, are four white horses grazing. Anchises interprets the omen, war followed by triumph: they are the horses of the triumphal above the temple of the . Aeneas then offers prayers to Pallas armisona, the goddess of ringing weapons, and rightly takes this as a sign pointing to his Roman future (III. 531-8)

The second gesture from Minerva comes in Book V after the burning of Aeneas' ships he is tempted to forget his destiny and stay in Sicily. Advice comes, unasked, from the old man Nautes, "the one man whom Tritonia Pallas taught and made glorious by his skill. She used to give replies to him about what the gods' anger might forebode, or what the order of the fates required."

Nautes gives advice both general and specific to Aeneas. Leave any who choose to stay in Sicily; and "let us follow where the fates may draw us on, and draw us back; whatever it shall be, every circumstance must be overcome, by enduring it" (V. 709-10).

This is unmistakably the voice of Roman . Much has been written about the Stoicism of Aeneas, who, from this point onwards, constantly makes use of Stoic language as he welcomes hardship and personal sacrifice. Up to this point, his sacrifices 39 have been unwilling ones. He now gives an understanding consent to destiny, taking his ordeals in the spirit of Seneca's wise man, laeto ammo, as a mark of God's special favour.

It is surely significant that these lessons from Minerva were given to Nautes, traditionally the ancestor of the Roman family of Nautii, who claimed to have the Palladium at Rome under their care. (9).

Unlike other oracular deities, Minerva does not strike her prophets into madness or trance. Instead, she teaches. Virgil in this way associates the sapientia of the Stoics, the teachable , with lessons learnt from Minerva. This is the Minerva of the Capitol, who requires Romans to live a life of war for the sake of .

We can see the signs of such a concept of Minerva in the magnificent group - magnificent even in the fragmentary state that now remains - of Minerva and Hercules, from the archaic temple in the Foro Boario region. This temple was destroyed not long after it was built, possibly at the time of the expulsion of the kings. Although it must be at least fifty years earlier than the terracottas of Lavinium, it presents Minerva in a style that appears later, in the sense that it seems to belong to a culture that is more urbane; there is controlled power in it, but less immediacy; this Minerva presents Hercules to the gods as if he were her successful pupil. She is concerned with a human order that depends on the deorum; public affairs are her sphere. Already we can see how she will develop into the official Dea Roma.

Most of the examples we have of this familiar figure are considerably later than Virgil's day, though on the most Virgilian monument in Rome it is generally agreed that this goddess did appear in a relief panel where the detail of her shape can only 40 be conjectured. This monument is of course the Ara Pacis. It was set up only six years after Virgil's death, and we do not know how far it had been planned before that date, and whether Virgil took any part in the planning. It can be called Virgilian because its purpose is so clearly in accord with the purpose of the Aeneid: to celebrate the Augustan Peace as the fulfilment of Roman hopes, the Roman mission to rule and civilise the world. The style of monument is symmetrical and majestic, but not grandiose. The processional figures along the two sides are individuals whose faces and bodies, as they approach the gods, express personal as well as public emotions.

It is in the four panels at the two ends of the Altar that we see the Virgilian inspiration of its design. Flanking the entrance to the alter precinct are the infants and Remus, suckled by the wolf, and on the right, a larger figure, Aeneas, with his head covered, standing in the attitude of a priest about to offer sacrifice. This attitude and the grouping of the figures here (as Jocelyn Toynbee has pointed out) unmistakably echoes those of the Augustan group of figures on the South frieze. Augustus is doing what Aeneas did - or, we could say, Aeneas is doing what Augustus will do. The repetition is like the repetition of action and of phrase in the Aeneid, when Augustus at Actium adopts the stance of Aeneas on board ship and like him becomes a fiery landmark and a glowing sign of hope for his followers.

At the other end of the monument, balancing the image of the wolf and twins, is the maternal goddess who has been identified as Mater, or perhaps as Italia, embracing her children. Again this image became familiar in association with Augustus, on the breastplate of several Imperator statues known to us. In the badly damaged panel to the right of this one, is another figure who has been generally identified as Dea Roma. In this form Minerva, goddess of peace, solemnly presides, as Aeneas solemnly presides in the comparable position at the other end. 41

The passages appended to this paper do not include every appearance or mention of Minerva in the Aeneid, but only those which refer to a statue or other monument relating to her. However, the impression given by this group of quotations, that Minerva is missing from the last four Books of the epic, is largely correct. She does not appear in the later stage of Aeneas' struggle, because she does not need to appear. She shows herself in her terrifying aspect to the Latin women, but the Trojans are now behaving as her disciplined servants and the lessons she imparted to them through Nautes have been thoroughly learned. This is an oversimplification, of course; I have not forgotten the appalling slaughter of Book X, or Aeneas' loss of rationality at the end of XII. But in spite of these I think it is clear that Virgil wanted to show Aeneas as reconciled to Minerva even before he was reconciled to Juno. Without this reconciliation he could not have been victorious against his Italian enemies. One detail from the opening of Book XI, I suggest, offers a hint of this. (10).

Aeneas is erecting a trophy in commemoration and thanksgiving after his combat against Mezentius. "He set up a huge oak with branches stripped away, and he dressed it in glittering armour, the spoils of the leader Mezentius - a trophy for you, mighty one, powerful in war...."

The divinity powerful in war is not named in this passage. The spoils of war were usually dedicated to Mars or , occasionally to . (The contrast between this humble act of dedication by Aeneas and the arrogance of Turnus in wearing spoils taken from Pallas is obviously an important one). Editors have usually assumed that bellipotens here refers to Mars. However the Mediceus and Romanus reading magnae must make us wonder. Magnae of course is translatable, but will not scan. However, magna could lie behind it just as easily as magne could. There are Greek precedents for the offering of spoils to Pallas, notably the passage from Iliad X, where 42

the spoils are indicated by Odysseus. These are spoils taken from Dolon, who was killed through Athene's guidance and help. The passage in Aeneid XI is quite closely imitated by Statius, who applies the adjective bellipotens to Pallas-Minerva and describes her in terms that recall the prayer of the Latin women: diva ferox ... Tritonia virgo ... etc. Statius* attention to Minerva may well have been prompted (as has been suggested) by the special devotion to her which was displayed by ; the word bellipotens is applied to her by Statius' contemporary Valerius Flaccus, but not as far as I know by any earlier poet. The Statius imitation does not therefore make a very strong case for asserting that Minerva is the recipient of the spoils in Aeneid XL I only say that I like to believe this. It would have a fitness more than dramatic, and would seem entirely in accordance with Virgil's treatment of memorials of whatever kind in his narrative.

The monumenta which are associated with Minerva within the poem - shield, statue, temple, perhaps spoils - can reveal their creative potency more fully to us when we have given attention to the material monumenta associated with Minerva in Italy. So it may be with other Virgilian images. The epic narrative of Virgil is indissolubly bound to "historical events - and to topographic actualities. To look at the landscapes and the remains of Virgil's world can bring illumination, not mere illustration, of his work; but the study needs the ready and humble attention which Aeneas gave to Evander as they walked about the Palatine:

miratur facilesque oculos fert omnia circum Aeneas, capiturque locis, et singula laetus exquiritque auditque virum monimenta priorum.

(vra. 310-12) 43

VIRGIL AND THE MONUMENTS; MINERVA

(1) interea ad templum non aequae Palladis ibant crinibus Iliades passis peplumque ferebant suppliciter, tristes et tunsae pectora palmis; diva solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat I. 479-82

(2) nee non ad templum summasque ad Palladis arces subvehitur magna matrum regina caterva dona ferens, iuxtaque comes Lavinia virgo; causa mali tanti, oculos deiecta decoros. succedunt matres et templum ture vaporant....' et maestas alto fundunt de limine voces: 'armipotens, praeses belli, Tritonia virgo ...' XI. 477-83

(3) at gemini lapsu delubra ad sum ma dracones effugiunt saevaeque petunt Tritonidis arcem, sub pedibusque deae clipeique sub orbe teguntur. II. 225-7

(4) iam summas arces Tritonia, respice, Pallas insedit limbo effulgens et Gorgone saeva. n. 615-6

(5) "It was three cubits in height, its feet joined together; in its right hand it held a spear aloft, and in the other hand a distaff and spindle." (ApoUodorus, Library, III. 12 .iii. tr. Frazer)

(6) omnis Danaum et coepti fiducia belli 44

Palladis auxiliis semper stetit. Impius ex quo Tydides sed enim scelerumque inventor Ulixes fatale adgressi sacrato avellere templo Palladium caesis summae custodibus arcis corripuere sacram effigiem manibusque cruentis virgineas ausi divae contingere vittas: ex illo fluere ac retro sublapsa referri spes Danaum, fractae vires, aversa deae mens. nee dubiis ea signa dedit Tritonia monstris. luminibus flammae arrectis, salsusque per artus sudor iit, terque ipsa solo (mirabile dictu) emicuit parmamque ferens hastamque trementem. II. 162-75

(7) ecce trahebatur passis Priameia virgo crinibus a templo Cassandra adytisque Minervae ad caelum tendens ardentia lumina frustra ... II. 404-6

(8) aegidaque horriferam, turbatae Palladis arm a, certatim squamis serpentum auroque polibant conexosque anguis ipsamque in pectore divae Gorgona desecto vertentem lumina collo. VIII. 435-8

(9) "For Nautius, the founder of the line, was one of those who took out the colony (?) with Aeneas, being a priest of Athena Palias; and when he removed from Troy, he brought with him the wooden statue of the goddess, which the family of the Nautii guarded thereafter, receiving it in succession one from another". (Dion. Hal. VI.69). 45

(10) ingentem quercum decisis undique ramis constituit tumulo fulgentiaque induit arma Mezenti ducis exuvias, tibi, magne, tropaeum, bellipotens XI. 5-8

magnae M R

cf. Stat. Theb. n. 716. Horn. n. X. 458-63.