1

VIRGIL AND

A lecture to the Society, January 1978

by

R.D. Williams

Virgil's tells the story of events more than a thousand years before the poet's own time: was a contemporary of the Homeric heroes whose deeds are told in the and the Odyssey - a contemporary of Agamemnon and Achilles, of Priam and Hector, of Odysseus: indeed his voyage through the Greek seas took place about the same time as that of Odysseus. Yet the poem itself was always regarded as a patriotic exposition of the greatness of the which came into being in Virgil's lifetime. In this lecture I should like to consider the methods which Virgil uses to make his poem operate on two time-scales, the dramatic date of (say) 1184 B.C. and the Roman date of between 30 and 20 B.C. And I shall want to consider also the impression which Virgil aims to give of what the Roman Empire was all about, whether it was really going to inaugurate a new Golden Age or whether it had inherent flaws which were bound to vitiate the idyllic image.

I shall talk about the Romanness of this Trojan story under three headings: first, prophecies of the future given in speeches by the gods or by in the underworld or in pictures on the divinely-made shield of Aeneas; secondly, references to the beginnings or the causes of well-known aspects of Roman life in Virgil's time; thirdly, the adumbration in Trojan times of Roman virtues. Aeneas has to step out of the old heroic world into a new world which will lead eventually to the Roman Empire. How must you behave to be the first Roman?

Under my first heading - divine prophecies etc. - come the four most explicitly national and patriotic passages of the poem, as well as many other shorter indications of Rome's future glory. The first of these is 's prophecy in Bk 1. 257f., delivered to his daughter when she complains that things Eire going very badly for Aeneas, contrary to what she had understood was fated. Jupiter unfolds the book of fate for her, giving a serene picture of Rome's great future - his ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono: imperium sine fine dedi. 'To them I set no bounds in space or time; I have given them rule without end'. He briefly sketches the events at and Alba Longa which will lead to the foundation of Rome by , and from Roman history proper he selects only two events: the first the conquest of Greece, of Agamemnon's Mycenae, by the Romans, and the second the advent of a Caesar whose empire will be bounded only by Ocean and whose fame will reach the stars. This is Caesar (not as some commentators have wrongly thought - see my 2 edition of Aeneid 1-6, note on 1.286), and under him war will be a thing of the past and the personified figure of Wicked Discord (Furor impius) will be for ever enchained.

There are two particular points to be noticed about this happy prophecy of Rome's future greatness: the first is that it comes very early in the poem, in the midst of narrative filled with disasters, narrative based very closely on Homer's Odyssey 5-8 - it is the first completely unHomeric part of the poem; and the second is that unlike many prophecies later in the poem it does not form part of the plot, it does not guide or motivate Aeneas for the simple reason that he does not hear it - it is delivered in heaven to Venus. These two aspects put enormous stress on the passage; firstly it embodies the principal difference between Homer and Virgil, illustrating the non-Horaeric concept of a fixed long­ term destiny for mankind based on the will cf fate; and secondly,,as there is no structural need for it, its presence is all the more noticeable. The passage is here entirely because Virgil wanted it here, not at all because it serves the plot of events. And the reason why he wanted it here was so that its serene optimism should be remembered through the trials and dangers of the subsequent narrative, when so many disasters occur that we wonder whether the Roman mission is possible, or even - as when kills herself - whether it is desirable. This passage lingers in the memory through all the tragedies of the poem.

I pause a little longer on this passage: what does Jupiter promise in addition to world-wide dominion? First and foremost, peace - peace after conquest, after the wars to end wars - aspera turn positis mitescent saecula bellis. He says that the Romans will be rerum dominos gentemque togatam: 'lords of the world' and then ’a nation of peace', wearing the toga, an emblem of civilian life. Secondly Aeneas will have founded for his Trojan exiles not only a city (moenia) but a way of life (mores: that is to say, a civilised - a moral - way of life). Thirdly justice will be administered by Fides (Good Faith), (Goddess of the family) and together, the brothers united again after their fratricidal strife. Fourthly Augustus will eventually be deified. These ideas give us already, thus early in the poem, a picture of the nature of the Roman mission - first to conquer the world and then civilise it - that is to say spread a civilised way of life (mores), justice (jura), good faith, (fides), a respect for family life (Vesta) among those whom she conquers. And all this is to be achieved because of right relationship with the gods, because of a proper relig­ ious attitude which will eventually lead to the acceptance of Augustus after his death as a god himself.

So much for my first passage: my next.is the longest patriotic exposition of all, the description by Anchises of the ghosts of future Roman heroes waiting in the underworld to be born - if, and only if, Aeneas fulfils his mission. This time the passage is closely linked with the plot: structurally it is made possible because of the theory of reincarnation expounded just before it, and its effect upon Aeneas is of the most decisive kind. During his journey through the underworld before it he had been gloomy, backward-looking, regretful; after it Anchises has 'fired him with a love for the glory to come1 - incenditque animum famae venientis amore (6.889). It provides the impetus for Aeneas1 much greater resolution and confidence j.n the second half of the poem. We see first the kings of Alba, then as a climax Romulus, then as a further climax - out of chronological order - Augustus himself. At this point Anchises breaks off to ask his son whether there will be any more hesitation: Aeneas does not reply, but we can reply for him. In the second half of the pageant we return to chronology with the Roman kings after Romulus, and there follows a roll-call of famous Roman names - Brutus, Camillus, Caesar and Pompey, the Scipios, Cato, and many more. The general tone of this list of people is still triumphant and optimistic, but as is so sypical of Virgil there are disquieting moments, very markedly with Caesar and Pompey, as Romans destroy each other in civil war, but also with Brutus, who puts his sons to death for conspiring against the state. In (2.5) this is presented as a triumph for Roman discipline and devotion to duty, but in Virgil it is seen as tragic and Brutus is described as infelix. This note of disquiet continues in the pendent to the pageant when the ghost of the young Marcellus is portrayed; he was marked out as a probable successor to Augustus, but died in his teens. Roman glory has its sorrows too, and the malevolent power personalised in Juno in the poem will continue to operate long after Juno has been won over.

What else do we learn from this passage of Virgil's conception of Rome's mission? It is summed up by Anchises in perhaps the most famous lines of the Aeneid (847-853) where he concedes to the Greeks supremacy in sculpture, oratory and pure science but retains for the Romans the art of government - tu regere imperio populos Romane memento; and again the twofold nature of the mission is stressed in the phrase pacique imponere morem: 'to crown peace with civilisation'. I do assure you that paci is the right reading, not pacis (see Austin's edition of Aeneid 6 , a d l o c .).. Morem is in the sense of the plural mores, rather unused in but Virgil has the same meaning in the singular in Aen. 8. 316 quis negue mos neque cultus erat - a barbarous people who had 'no moral way of life nor culture'. To this is now added the idea of mercy - parcere subiectis: one thinks of how Julius Caesar prided himself on his dementia. Other qualities which are praised in the course of this pageant (apart from military ones which are frequent) are pietas (the special Roman virtue, as I shall illustrate later from Aeneas) - this is a quality given to the Alban king Aeneas and to Marcellus; religion (Numa, sacra ferens), leges (Numa), simplicity (Fabricius, parvo potentem; 4

Regulus, sulco serentem), fides (Marcellus, prisca fides).

What I have been wanting to emphasise to you is that in these previews of Rome set within the Homeric plot Virgil aims not merely to convey glory, but also some idea of what he considered glory to consist in: military might, certainly - how could any Roman think otherwise? - but also mores, leges, iura, dementia, fides, religio, pietas.

A passage almost as sustained as the pageant at the end of Book 6 is the description of the pictures on the shield which Vulcan at Venus’ instigation made for Aeneas (end of Book 8). This passage similarly serves the plot of the poem, but in a rather special way. It is based on Homer's description in Iliad 18 of the new shield which Hephaestos made for Achilles. In Homer the motivation for the new shield is very plain - Achilles had lent his shield to Patroclus, and Hector had now got it. There is no such logical motivation for Aeneas to have a new shield, but there is a very strong thematic motiyation; the full-scale fighting is about to begin, the blood is about to flow, and it is essential that Aeneas, and the reader, should be reminded what is at stake. Otherwise the horror of the fighting would be intolerable - as it is, it still may be thought intoler­ able, but Virgil had to reiterate what it was all for.

In the pictures the qualities on which the Romans prided themselves are strongly evident - indeed the illustration of these qualities is one of the guiding principles in the selection of the scenes. The scene of the Sabines illustrates reconciliation after war; Mettus is an example of breaking faith, Codes and Cloelia represent bravery, the scene on the Capitol illustrates religio; Cato is administering justice in Elysium (dantem iura); finally the centrepiece of the battle of Actium strongly stresses how the gods aided the righteous Romans - Augustus stands on his ship cum patribus populoque penatibus et magnis dis (689), 'with the senate and the people, the gods of the family and the great gods'; and against the monstrous Egyptian deities of Cleopatra stand Neptune and Venus and Minerva, with Apollo in support. Finally (7l4f) Augustus makes the proper sacrifices after his victory. Again we see how strong a moral tone runs through the patriotic description.

Finally let us consider the scene in heaven in Book 12 where Juno is recon­ ciled with Jupiter. Jupiter at last forbids her to aid the any more, and she accepts this, asking for three conditions for her Latins - in the fusion of Trojans and Latins from which will come the Roman race that the Latins shall keep their name, their language and their dress; she summarises this by asking that the Romans should have their power because of Italian qualities and that should be forgotten (828). Jupiter grants these conditions, actually extending them so that 'dress' becomes mores (834). The Trojans will be recessive in the 5

great alliance. Jupiter himself will give them their religious rites morem ritusque sacrorum, and they will surpass men and gods in pietas (here I think used mainly in its religious sense). Here we have an important aspect of Roman values: they will be those of the Italians (whose virtues had been so sympathet­ ically portrayed in the catalogue of their forces at the end of Book 7)j not those of the Trojans (essentially in Virgil's time thought of as Eastern, lacking the tough simplicity which the Romans always associated with themselves - qualities described already in the Aeneid by Numanus as Italian qualities (9o98f.). And their religion - including the worship of Juno who had so persecuted the Trojans - is to be determined by Jupiter himself: what has happened to the penates brought by Aeneas from Troy? Roman religion in Virgil's time was strongly based on old Italian beliefs (as we see so clearly in the Georgies), and this is his device for emphasising the fact.

These are the four salient passages I wanted to talk about: there are many minor passages, especially in Book 3, where prophecy is used to help to guide or encourage Aeneas by reference to future glory - but I shall only mention one where a more specific aspect of Rome’s future than simple glory is mentioned. This is in Aeneid 4, a part of the poem where we are further away from the vision of Rome than at any other time, as Dido - prototype of the great enemy, the Carthaginians wins so much of our sympathy. Jupiter sends Mercury to warn Aeneas that he must leave - Venus had promised that he would be the one to rule an teeming with empire and clamorous with war, produce a stock of noble Trojan descent, and bring the whole world beneath the sway of law - totum sub leges mitteret orbem (4.231). This is not far from what we, looking back, might well regard as the greatest Roman achievement of all - the concept of universal law, the jus gentium which the Stoics so strongly stressed, which led the Romans to give citizenship to those she had conquered and to rule a stable empire for many centuries.

So what does the patriotic message of the Aeneid add up to? Was it wholly genuine? Did it wholly convince Virgil? Does it convince us? For many critics, especially in the Romantic period, and again in the last twenty years, the answer has been no. They found the greatness of the Aeneid to reside in the non-Roman parts: they found to be the 'true hero of the poem', they felt that the death of Dido as a price for the foundation of Rome was a price too great to pay, they felt that Aeneas was either wholly unacceptable as a person or acceptable only in his private capacity which was desecrated and corrupted by the concept of imperial rule. For my part I think Virgil was genuine enough in his love of Rome and his hopes for a glorious future - as I think Horace was genuine enough in his Roman Odes - but he wrote his poem to explore his ideas, not to proclaim them dogmatically, and as he explored them he became increasingly aware that the Roman mission in itself was insufficient to explain all the perplexities of the human 6

condition: the imperial light burns dim at the end of Book 4 and the end of Book 12. But the vision and ideal never faded away altogether - and if you press the question 'So is the Aeneid a patriotic poem?' I reply 'Yes'. If you give me time, I make qualifications - but I still reply 'Yes'.

Prophecies and visions of the future then are one way in which Virgil brings Rome into his Trojan poem: another is what is called the aetiological method, that is to say reference to the origins in the Aeneid of familiar aspects of Roman life in Virgil's time. A simple example will illustrate the point: in Aen. 6. 69f. Aeneas promises that he will found a temple and games in honour of Apollo and a priesthood for the Sibylline books; all of these were in Virgil's time well-known aspects of Roman religion, in this case very specially so because Augustus had just built a splendid new marble temple of Apollo on the Palatine and removed the Sibylline books there.

Another religious example is from Helenus' speech in 3«405f. where Aeneas is instructed to cover his head when sacrificing (the Romans always did this, the Greeks did not), and this is pointed by Helenus' following remark that his descendants are to continue the custom. The same comment is made after Virgil's elaborate description in Book 5 of the lusus Troiae - an equestrian cavalcade very popular in his own day - where he says (596f.), intervening in the narrative in his own person, that this ceremony was continued by and the people of Alba Longa and is now a tradition in Rome itself. Other examples at random are the games the Trojans celebrate at Actium (3.280), looking forward to the Actian games which Augustus held in celebration of his victory; the sacrifices for Aeneas' father Anchises (5«59f«) adumbrating the Roman ceremony of the Parentalia. A favourite type of this aetiological association is concerned with names (lulus and Ilium, 1.267, 288, Acestes and Egesta, 5.718, Misenus and the promontory called after him, 6„234, Palinurus and the cape of that name, 6.381, Caieta and Aeneas' nurse, 7.2, the ship captains in 5.H7f)» Examples of this aetiological type of association could be greatly multiplied, but I'll mention only one more and this is the extended account in Book 8 (280f«) of the celebrations for Hercules which Evander is holding; these look forward to Hercules' worship at the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium, and are immediately followed by a tour of unbuilt Rome in which Virgil often speaks in his own person to indicate what buildings are destined to arise on the empty sites which already have their famous names.

My final heading is much less definite, but no less important: it concerns the adumbration in the characters (particularly in Aeneas) of Roman qualities. One of the most subtle ways in which Virgil has used his Homeric models is by presenting both heroic-age behaviour and proto-Augustan behaviour side by side in order to explore the relationship between them. He had admired, as we all do, 7 the straight-forward behaviour of Homer's heroes: they stand out from the page as vivid individuals. We may have reservations about Achilles, but from all of us the directly-portrayed Hector wins sympathy and admiration; and Odysseus seems to be the kind of man we would all wish to be - the resourceful and much-enduring individual whose personal qualities prevail over every kind of danger. But Virgil's question is whether these Homeric heroes would be appropriate in a Roman context, in a much more elaborate world, complex and confused like our own. Let us consider how he presents this problem; I will take three examples.

The earliest part of the Aeneid chronologically is the account of the sack of Troy in the flash-back in Book 2. In this we see the earliest Aeneas, and I think it is fair to say that he is entirely Homeric - as he should be: he is still a Trojan enduring the final destruction of his city. He shows all the brave impetuous behaviour of an Achilles: he is on fire with his determination to sell his life dearly - arma amens capio ... furor iraque mentem praecipitat (2.314-7). He seeks the glorious end - he is consumed by the heroic gesture: and this after Hector had told him he must escape to found a new city. He ignores the prophecy of his mission; he is not at all Roman, wholly Homeric. He wants to sell his life dearly - pulchrumque mori succurrit in artnis (317); moriamur et in media arma ruamus (353). It needs an intervention by his mother Venus to remind him of his obligations to his family - and when he is trying to rescue them and loses his wife Creusa he again rushes into the thick of things, risking the life which was not his to risk. He has in no way learnt yet that his obligations forbid him from throwing his life away.

During the seven-years wandering in Book 3i helped by his father Anchises, he learns more of his mission and the demands it makes upon him: he begins to realise that he is no longer free to act as he might personally have wished. And in Book 1, when we first meet him, seven years older than in Book 2, he has begun to face the implications of the demands upon him.

This is my second example. The whole of Aeneid i is based very closely on Homer's Odyssey 5-8: in both poems the hero is shipwrecked because of an angry divinity, he escapes to an unknown shore, he is guided by a goddess in disguise, he is taken to a famous city, given a banquet, the minstrel sings, and he is asked to tell his story: Odysseus does so in the next four books, Aeneas in the next two. We are made to feel that this passage in Virgil is a replay of the Odyssey. And this makes us pause, and then we realise some of the differences. Odysseus was returning to his old home - Aeneas has to go to a new one (his old home is burned to ashes): Odysseus, as the great individualist, gets through safely having lost all his other ships and all the other men on his ship. But this would be no good to Aeneas - he must get through with his company safe. He must look after them as Odysseus was not able to look after his comrades; he must be the group hero, the social man. This is the quality he must learn, a quality which the Romans called pietas and which Aeneas tries to learn all through the poem, being frequently given the epithet pius, but not always living up to it.

Generally in the poem Aeneas strives after the Roman Virtues of pietas, of iustitia, of dementia: generally he tries to control wild passion (furor) in himself and others by means of intellectual control. For example at the beginn­ ing of Book 8 he cannot sleep because of his worry about imminent warfare which he would prefer to avoid; in Book 11 (HOf.) he grants the request for a truce to bury the dead, saying he would have preferred to grant peace to them while still alive; in Book 12 (311f.) he tries to stop the outbreak of war, going out bareheaded and telling his men to control their passion - _o cohibete iras. Generally, I say, he does not like war or violence, and he tries to avoid it (as Turnus does not: he is at his best on the battle-field). But Aeneas is not always successful in seeking this gentler way of life - not by any means. When Pallas is killed he goes berserk, when he himself is wounded he rages madly in battle fury, and at the end of the poem he behaves quite differently from what we expected. I shall dwell for a moment on this, but first Id; me say that throughout the poem we have been led to feel that Aeneas is learning how to live a different kind of life from the heroes in Homer - a less spectacular one, a less individual one, dedicated and devoted to ideals which he is vaguely trying to understand.

So it is that at the end of the poem (this is my third and final example) we expect to see the consummation of his different, more civilised approach to life - after all, in a thousand years should men not have learned something? As in Book 1 we are made very aware of the similarity in situation with Homer, and we wait to see the difference. In Homer Achilles’ great friend Patroclus has been killed by the enemy leader Hector, and therefore Achilles goes forth to exact vengeance: he wounds Hector, and, as Hector prays for mercy, in a savage speech he refuses it. In Virgil Aeneas' protege Pallas had been killed by the enemy leader Turnus, and in the between Turnus and Aeneas which is to decide the war Aeneas wounds Turnus, and as Turnus begs for mercy we realise what is going to be the difference between Homer and Virgil. Our man, a more humane character than Achilles, will grant mercy - we feel sure of it. It therefore comes as a savage shock when he does not. He kills Turnus in hot passion for vengeance, just as Achilles had killed Hector. We are left on a note of con­ fusion; in the end our non-Homeric hero is Homeric after all. But when Virgil portrays him so, he does not do it triumphantly: the ending of the Aeneid is deeply sad, and the last line dwells on the unhappy lot of Turnus, not the triumph of Aeneas. After seven years of perseverance and struggle you might have thought Aeneas deserved some congratulation; but Virgil does not give it. 9

So what do we make of this? Do we conclude that the act of vengeance was necessary, called-for and acceptable? No, we do not, not the way Virgil has told it. Do we conclude that Aeneas has shown himself inhumane and horrible? No, we do not, not the way Virgil has told it. All that we can conclude is that human nature does gradually change in some ways (Aeneas is really a much more civilised character them Achilles), but not necessarily in all ways: and in the end Virgil did not know whether some of the old Homeric characteristics that seemed so savage were perhaps inevitable after all in a Roman context. He invites us, by his moving and dramatic portrayal of Turnus1 death, to share his dilemma.