The Roman World
Aeneid and Greek Epic
Homeric epic • Homer Iliad – warfare • Homer Odyssey – journey (home)
Alexandrian epic • Apollonius of Rhodes Argonau ca – journey (mission)
• Aeneid – all of this, plus ROME Early Roman Literature 250 -150 BCE
• Epic & drama • Epic poets Livius Andronicus (Greek, became a Roman) Naevius (Roman) Ennius (S. Italian)
• Literary coloniza on: Livius’ transla on of Odyssey (c. 250)
• 220s Naevius’ epic Punica = Na onal epic
• Ennius Annales - Na onal epic - history of Rome to mid 3rd century BCE Passages which reference the FUTURE
• Jupiter’s speech: Aen. 1.256-297 • Parade of heroes in the Underworld: Aen. 6.756-892 [Appendix I] • Shield of Aeneas: Aen. 8.626-728 [Appendix II] Aeneid 1-6: the body count
• Dido • Palinurus • Anchises • Creusa • Priam • …everyone else who died at Troy
PLAYING WITH TIME: the PAST
• Homeric parallels: • Aeneid 2 & 3//Odyssey 9-12 • loss of helmsman //Elpenor in Odyssey 11 • Hector • Creusa • Polydorus PLAYING WITH TIME: the FUTURE
• profugus fato • 2.780ff. – Creusa’s ghost • Hesperia (Italy) and River Thybris (Tiber) • 3.95ff – Delos, Apollo’s instruc ons • 3.133ff. – Crete: Pergamea • 3.295 Buthrotum: Helenus, Andromache & ‘Li le Troy’ Overview of Narra ve
• Themes throughout the Aeneid: • Book 6 • Descent to the Underworld • Founda on of Rome • Meets his father Anchises Themes throughout the • Points out those souls about to be Aeneid: reborn • Rome within the Mediterranean - Founda on of Rome • Book 7 • Augustus • Aeneas arrives in La um
- Rome within the • Book 8 Mediterranean • Tiber appears to Aeneas in a dream • Alliance with Evander, King of - Aeneas // Augustus? Acadians • Future site of Rome • Receives Shield Figures from Aeneas’ past in the Underworld
• Leucaspis and Orontes • Palinurus • Dido • Brave warriors from the Trojan War including Deiphobus, Priam’s son.
Aeneas at the entrance to the underworld h p://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320Hist&Civ/chapters/03EPIC.htm
THE UNDERWORLD: MEET THE PARENTS
• Anchises: parallels An cleia in Odyssey 11 • Ithaka • nostos
• BUT here: Pythagoreans and Stoics theory: metempsychosis (723 ff.) Future men of Rome: 6.752-886
• Aeneas’ descendants
• Kings of Rome
• Heroes of the Republic
• Figures from Augustan Rome Aeneas’ Descendants and the expansion of Empire “These are the men who will build Nomentus for you, and Gabii, and the city of Fidenae. They will • Silvius set Colla a’s citadel on mountains, and Pome a • too, and Castrum Inui, and Bola and Cora. Procas These, my son, will be the names of places • Capys which are at this moment places without names.” (6.774-77) • Numitor • Silvius Aeneas “Augustus Caesar, son of a god, the man who will bring back the golden years to the fields of • Romulus La um once ruled over by Saturn, and extend Rome’s empire beyond the Indians and the • Augustus Caesar Garamantes to a land beyond the stars, beyond the yearly path of the sun, where Atlas holds on his shoulder that sky all studded with burning stars and turns on its axis.” (6.792-8) Heroes of the Republic & Augustan Rome
• Brutus • Marcellus (younger) 6.860ff.
• Camillus
• Julius Caesar and Pompey the
Great - ‘two spirits’ (6.826)
• Gracchi
• Scipio Africanus h p://www.na onalgallery.org.uk/pain ngs/jean-joseph-taillasson-virgil-reading-the-aeneid-to-augustus-and-octavia
Jean-Joseph Taillasson: Virgil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia. 1787
See Appendix 1 in West’s transla on for full glossary of the Parade of Heroes Forum of Augustus
h p://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/cicero/urbs/urbs_fora.html
h p://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/forumaugplan.html
Roman des ny
• Jupiter 1.278-9: On them I impose no limits of me or place. I have given them an empire that will know no end.
• Anchises 6.847-54: Others I do not doubt it will beat bronze into figures that breathe more so ly. Others will draw living likenesses out of marble. Others will plead cases be er or describe with their rod the courses of the stars across the sky and predict their risings. Your task, Roman, and do not forget it, will be to govern the peoples of the world in your empire. These will be your arts – and to impose a se led pa ern upon peace, to pardon the defeated and war down the proud.