The PROCEEDINGS o f the VIRGIL SOCIETY

VOLUME 27 2011 The PROCEEDINGS o f the VIRGIL SOCIETY

VOLUME 27 2011 Copyright ©2011 The Virgil Society

ISSN: 0968 2112

Edited by

Daniel Hadas e-mail: [email protected]

Published by

The Virgil Society, c/o Jill Kilsby, Treasurer, 8 Purley Oaks Road, Sanderstead, Surrey CR2 ONP UK

Typeset and Layout by

Fraser Thompson, 37 Sinclair Street, Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute G84 8SR UK Tel: 07917 564523

Printed in the U K by

Hill and Hay Ltd 56-60 Rogart Street, Glasgow G40 2AA UK tel: 0141 554 2205 e-mail: [email protected] website: www.hillhay.co.uk

Cover illustration:

Gillian Cooper

The Virgil Society is a Registered Charity (no. 313768)

ii Contents

Keith Maclennan Humour in Virgil 1

C . J. I. Butler Virgil in the Classroom 14

John Davie Reflections of Virgil in Milton 26

J. S. C. Eidinow Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 38

Robert Cowan Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 56

Dunstan Lowe Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the Aeneid 99

Helen Lovatt Aeneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 130

Jean-Michel Hulls Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 156

J. F. G. Powell Aeneas The Spin Doctor:

Rhetorical Self-Presentation in Aeneid 2 185

D. W. Blandford Deiphobe or What’s In a Name? 204

The Virgil Society is very grateful to Fraser Thompson for his advice, patience and diligence during the development of a new format for PVS.

iii Humour in Virgil

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 21 October 200(6

I have no philosophical row to hoe. I start from the point that we can say there is humour wherever there is a smile. There are, of course, very many different sorts of smile. This short article, which covers very familiar ground, will deal with a number of different smiles, and perhaps consider a little of what Virgil is doing by raising them.

Routine Humour

Virgil is an epic poet, and there are some smiles which are de rigueur. That is routine humour.

Iliad 23 provides a certain amount o f slapstick at the funeral games. For all his accomplishment in running, the lesser Ajax slips in the muck and loses his first place to Odysseus; he looks ridiculous but he still wins a prize. In Virgil’s running race (5.315-61) Nisus contrives Euryalus’ victory, falling in blood and dung himself, but deliberately tripping Salius as he does so. Aeneas laughs at Nisus’ dung-covered features (358). His laughter is kindly (he is described as pater optimus as he laughs) and he gives Nisus a consolation prize. Previously, in the boat-race (5.114-285), Captain Gyas has become enraged with his cautious steersman Menoetes who is giving the turning-rock too wide a berth. He chucks him into the water and thinks he can do better himself (172-82). Menoetes is a comic sight as he flops into the water, swims to safety, and coughs up salt water. The Trojans certainly think so. They laugh loudly and insistently (risere, 180; rident, 181).

Gallows humour is part of the fighting. In Iliad 16.645-50 Patroclus, killing Cebriones, knocks him out of Hector’s chariot in a manner which invites mockery. The episode is recalled in Aeneid 10.592-94, where Lucagus suffers a similar fate.

1 Acknowledgements: Theo Zinn who taught me a few years back. The late Stephen Instone for his essay on ‘Humour in Virgil’ (P. G. M. Brown, T. E. H. Harrison, S. Instone (eds), Θεφ Λώρον: Essays by past pupils in honour of Theo Zinn for his 84th birthday, 2006, Leominster, 63-72); R. Coleman, Virgil: Eclogues, 1977, Cambridge; R. Thomas, Virgil,: Georgics, 1988, Cambridge. For unpublished constructive suggestions David West, James Morwood and Jonathan Foster himself, who was a graduate at Oxford when I was an undergraduate, and we were colleagues and victims of Fraenkel’s seminars. 2 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

In these instances the poet tells us that his characters find humour in events. Does he himself? The context can offer clues: Menoetes in the water is an entertaining sight, but the laughter o f the Trojans is a little excessive, and reminds us that Menoetes is not a young man, that Gyas has in fact made a mistake.

Georgics

Does playfulness count as humour? If so, the Georgics are full o f it, perhaps first, as Instone observes, in the complicated consideration of Octavian’s catasterism at 1.33-35: “There is a gap between Virgo and the chasing Claws: in fact blazing Scorpio is pulling his arms together and leaving you more even than your fair share of heaven”.2

It is fun also to contemplate creatures having a good time, as birds do when bad weather is imminent. 1.385-87: “You can see rivalry as they soak their shoulders with masses of water, now pushing their heads into the stream, now running into the waves, taking delight in the joy o f bathing for its own sake”.3 It is entertaining to think o f the crane as engaged in a plot on the farmer’s crops: the adjective improbus turns birds into conspirators in 1.119-121: “M uch damage is done [to crops] by the sly goose and the crane”.4 The exiguus mus o f 1.181 is presented by Instone as Psicharpax king o f the mice in the Batrachomyomachia, on the grounds that monosyllabic line endings in Virgil convey majesty,5 — which is nice, and so they can — but in fact of some 30 monosyllabic endings in Virgil you could only make this point strongly about three of them,6 and just about the only general point to be made is that they disrupt the rhythm and often call attention to the monosyllable — so that the mouse is there, small word for small person, rather as in Hor. Sat. 2.6.80 rusticus urbanum murem mus paupere/fertur accepisse cavo, (“A country mouse, they say, welcomed a town mouse in the poverty o f his hole”) where the little mice are sheltered in mid-sentence by big words around.

In 3.219-36 we find two bulls fighting in the Sila. An agricultural commonplace is amusingly elevated to an epic scene: (proelia; bellantis; victor; signa movet; the human emotions, the training programme). The narrative style plays its part: we are building up

2 Cf. Instone (n.1 above) 68. 3 certatim largos umeris infundere rores, nunc caput obiectare fretis, nunc currere in undas, et studio incassum videas gestire lavandi. 4 nec tamen ... nihil improbus anser Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris officiunt. 5 Instone (n. 1 above) 67. 6 hominum rex, Aen. 1.65, 2.648, 10.2, 743; restituis rem, Aen. 6.846; magnis dis, Aen. 3.12, 8.679. Keith Maclennan - Humour in Virgil 3

to a terrific climax: the bull charges signa movet praecepsque oblitum fertur in hostem: 7 the rumble of his charging gallop is reflected in the coincidence of ictus and accent almost throughout the line - and then - a simile intervenes and we never discover what the result is. The story is also potentially an epic: do the iuvenca and the bulls represent Helen, Paris and Menelaus? 219 might suggest that the heifer is coyly indifferent. Or is she like Lavinia, never revealed as having any preference? There is an obvious similarity between 220 and Aen. 8.452: is the humour one way — the Cyclopes in the divine forge are savage like the

bulls, or the other - the bulls are superhuman like the Cyclopes?8

3.349-66 is a passage about the Ukrainian winter. Does Virgil expect us to believe these tales? A discriminating audience might be entertained by travellers’ tales but not taken in by them: compare Alcinous’ response to Odysseus in Od. 11.363-68. Stories may be told without the expectation that they be believed, like Caesar’s version of how to catch

an elk (BG 6.27). There is a market for stories about the northern winter.9 Here, “no blade of grass on ground or a leaf on tree” (353); “they take an axe to slice the liquid wine” (364); “bronze pots split everywhere apart” (363); and the marvellous onomatopoeic line (362) describing wagons crunching over frostbound water: puppibus illa prius, patulis nunc

hospita plaustris. 10 The account is surely given for the frisson and the fun.

Eclogue 2

The origin for Corydon is Theocritus’ Cyclops (11), a youngster in a muddle. His muddle is externalised: he has to make the best of a rather odd appearance. He is a land creature who has yet to learn to swim (60); she is a sea-creature. Yet the distinction is blurred: Polyphemus wishes he could have gills to go and visit Galatea — but this doesn’t seem to mean that Galatea herself has gills, especially since he first met her picking apples with his mum. It’s left open to us to think that Polyphemus represents every teenage boy who thinks he needs to look totally different from his present dreary self, and is worried by girls who giggle — is it because they want me or because they want to make me look a fool?

7 “He advances and hurtles headlong on the foe who has forgot him” (trans. Day Lewis). Unacknowledged translations are the author’s. 8 The bulls of Sila appear again in Aen. 12.715-22, and here they do represent Aeneas and Turnus as they engage in their final combat. That passage is half the length of the bull-narrative here, and there is little of the hyperbole or of the romantic comedy by which the fair maiden is seen as the prize of victory — an interesting example of Virgil using similar material for different purposes. 9 Hor. C. 1.22.17-20; Ov. Tr. 3.10, 23-24: nudaque consistunt formam servantia testae vina, / nec hausta meri, sed data frusta bibunt — a typical Ovidian expansion of a Virgilian idea, rather than the exile’s personal experience? 10 “(Water) harbours broad-beamed waggons, that once was a home for ships” (trans. Day Lewis). 4 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Corydon’s poem is “unpolished” (4). His passion is “idle” (5). Nobody is there when he sings his song. W e know that Alexis is “fair o f face and o f form” (candidus, 16; formose, 17), and the pet of someone else. That is all. We hear about some of the other characters in Corydon’s life: Thestylis, Amaryllis, Menalcas, Damoetas, Amyntas. We end up knowing more about all these (except Menalcas) than we do about Alexis; as Coleman points out11 , Corydon does more to praise himself than to praise Alexis. In his self-absorption, he makes absurd claims for himself: “I own a thousand she-lambs wandering the mountains of Sicily” (21). His confidence in his music is expressed in an astonishing line Amphion Dircaeus in Actaeo Aracyntho (24):12 four Greek names; a four syllable ending, two recondite epithets, a hiatus and a very irregular caesura. It stands out from its context so strikingly as to make one think of Cicero: hunc σπονδειάζοντα si cui voles τών νεωτέρων pro tuo vendito (Att.7.1.1).13 Amphion moved rocks by his singing (Hor. C. 3.11.2), and Corydon has evidently been trying to play Amphion to Alexis’ rock. But Dircaeus, although a traditional epithet for Thebans and used of course by Horace in describing Pindar as “the swan of Dirce” (C. 4.2.25), is distinctly mal trovato in the context o f Amphion: Dirce was his evil aunt, and he arranged for her to be dismembered by a bull. We gather what Alexis’ reaction was from l. 25. Poor Corydon is unhappy: “I’m not as hideous as all that” — nec sum adeo informis. He has seen himself in the water o f the sea. Now at this point you may think me altogether too fanciful. There are two other occasions where individuals checked their own appearance by using the sea or a pool as a mirror: Narcissus when he admired himself a little too much, and Athena when she found that playing the flute was a disfiguring pursuit. The perfect infinitive trivisse (34) may suggest that Corydon has actually given Alexis a music lesson on the pipes so emphatically associated with Pan.14 Evidently it did not go very well: Alexis complained “it ruins my looks” or perhaps just “my lip’s sore”, threw the pipes down and ran off, leaving Corydon to console himself with the divine precedent.

Corydon is demented. His love is doomed from the start. He lives in the country, Alexis in town; he can offer nothing but things which will seem sordida (28, 44) to Alexis, while Alexis’ master Iollas can offer real presents, no doubt like the narrator in Petronius Sat. 86. Corydon overestimates himself to the point o f fantasy. He composes an imaginary bouquet for Alexis15 o f plants which could not be in flower together (and does not yet, as Theocritus’

11 n.1 (above) 108. 12 “(... all that was once sung by) Dircaean Amphion on (Mount) Aracynthus in Attica”. 13 If σπονδειάζοντα may be permitted to stand for “self-advertising Alexandrian line”. 14 Compare the gently erotic music-lesson ‘Pan and Daphnis’ from Herculaneum (Naples Museum 6329). 15 48-55, with Coleman’s notes (n.1 above). Keith Maclennan — Humour in Virgil 5

Polyphemus does (58), recognise and laugh at himself for the impossibility). His dementia reaches a climax in 60, the point where he actually attributes dementia to Alexis. Gods have lived in woods, and so has Paris, the ultra-successful, but doomed, lover. He sets up a contrast between Pallas Athena, the archetypal city-dweller—and the country dweller—himself. He then sets up a bizarre sequence o f pursuit which is a parody o f its original. Polyphemus is distressed when Galatea runs from him like a sheep which has seen a grey wolf (24). In Corydon’s wolf the desire to eat and the longing for love seem not to be distinguished (63-64).

At last in 69 Corydon, acknowledging that the madness is his, turns to basket- making. In Theocritus, Polyphemus’ appeal is framed within a conversation between the poet and the doctor Nicias, and one of the ironies is that the expression of love-sickness is its own treatment. At the end of Theocritus, it is that point on which we focus, and there is a sting in the tail — “at least if one’s a poet one can avoid paying the bills you doctors charge” (81). In Virgil there is no narrator to conclude. Corydon has understood his own absurdity. We have laughed at him, but as he ends with a rueful invenies alium, we are laughing with him too.16

There are other passages in the Eclogues which advertise themselves as humorous. There is the altercation of Menalcas and Damoetas in 3, a spiteful conversation reminiscent o f Horace Sat. 1.5.51-70. Here too music and poetry seem to play a reconciling part, if the participants do in fact accept Palaemon’s verdict that each is as good as the other. There is the whimsy where life by the Rhine in winter intrudes into the Arcadian setting and Gallus prays for Lycoris that the sharp ice should not cut her tender feet (10.49). But you may think that to represent a Roman’s mistress as an Arcadian shepherdess would hardly attract attention in a society where Octavian dresses up as Apollo at a Banquet of the Twelve Gods, Sextus Pompeius parades himself as “son of Neptune”, and Antony has himself portrayed on the gemstone of a ring as a naked Hercules.17

Intertextual Humour

I have not given much time to intertextual humour, but I suspect there is a great deal to be done in this area. Here are one or two examples o f how the question could be approached. One instance I have already mentioned — Corydon’s multi-seasonal bouquet

16 Theocritus 11 and Eclogue 2 are very different in tone. The narrator’s frame distances the subject. We know from the start that the Cyclops cures himself of his infatuation — by singing his song. The lover and his loved one are totally incompatible. The Cyclops is early on aware of his own absurdity. The humour is lighter: Theocritus is Belloc to Virgil’s Chekhov. 17 Apollo: Suet. Aug. 70; “son of Neptune”: Dio Cass. 48.19; Hercules: Naples, Mus. Naz. 25218. 6 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(2.45-55) whose impossibility he doesn’t acknowledge, though Polyphemus his original does. Also, Corydon’s nervous confidence in his own good looks (25) acquires a little extra with the knowledge that Polyphemus shares his concern and recognises that one eye stretching from ear to ear (31-33) is not much o f a recommendation. In Aen. 4 there is a famous simile (404-07) where the Trojans, active once more after the long pause in Carthage, are compared to a nest o f ants. The description begins it nigrum campis agmen. On this phrase Servius comments that it had previously been used by Ennius to refer to elephants.

The Aeneid

It might be thought that there was not much place for humour in the Aeneid, when the subject matter is so loaded with seriousness and the events so full of tragedy. But let me start in mediis rebus with book 6, Aeneas at the crossing of the Styx. Charon is introduced. The first word to refer to him (298) is portitor.118 It is not a word from elevated language: it is at home in comedy and the world of administration. Portitores are jumped-up interfering jobsworths. At the beginning of the Menaechmi Menaechmus I is fulminating at his wife (115): “whenever I go out, you stop me, haul me back, question me, where I’m off to, what I’m up to what my business is, what I’m looking for, what I’m bringing back, what I did when I was out — I have to go through such an interrogation that I might just as well have married a portitor ’. Cicero (Rep. 4.7) creates a bathetic contrast: “I don’t want to see the same nation as the world’s imperator and its portitor”. There is of course more to Charon — he may be a portitor and squalidly dressed too, but he is a terrifying one. Still, when he speaks, he does so in the language of an underpaid, uncared-for night-watchman. “Stop right there; don’t come any nearer” (389), as if Aeneas’ human weapons were a source of alarm to him. He is scared that Aeneas might be Hercules come back again. Hercules had been after Cerberus — and a fat lot of good Cerberus had been as a guard dog anyway. He had evidently (396) scuttled off to his master’s rooms and hidden there trembling under Pluto’s throne. It hadn’t been Charon’s fault, but Charon had caught it good and proper, chained up for a year.19 But now the sight of the golden branch placates

18 The word occurs three times in Virgil (Ge. 4.502; Aen. 6.298, 326). On its first appearance (portitor Orci) it should be understood as referring to Charon as Pafkontroll not as ferryman. In the Aeneid the two functions are conspicuously united. Later writers take over the idea of Charon as portitor and use the word to mean “ferryman, carrier”. In Columella, Rust. 10.155 the ram with the golden fleece is portitor Helles. Petronius and Juvenal seem to use porthmeus as a metrically tractable substitute for oblique cases ofportitor, so clearly the “ferryman” idea has taken root by then. What did they originally call a man who rowed people across the Tiber? Simply navita? But portitor used by Virgil of Charon seems to indicate that he is taking over an Aristophanic approach to the character. 19 nec sum laetatus 392; Servius ad loc. Keith Maclennan — Humour in Virgil 7

him. Grumpy to begin with, he is now too ready to please. He is half way across with a cargo of souls. They will just have to wait. He brings them all back to this side and bundles them unceremoniously out. One hopes for their sake that deturbat laxatque foros (412)20 is a hysteron proteron. As Aeneas steps into the boat it is impossible not to think of Dionysus in Frogs. Virgil does not altogether discourage us, as we are made vividly aware of the frail, barely adequate construction of the boat (413-14). From one thing only he holds back: Charon does not ask for a fare — but perhaps the branch counts as a complimentary ticket.

The Sibyl plays her own part in this sequence. This part seems to come not from comedy but rather from satire or the law courts. Casta licet patrui servet Proserpina limen (402). “We have no designs on Proserpina’s modesty: let her continue in her relationship with her uncle and keep what decency she can claim”. Humour, if of a black sort. She has already been established as a somewhat schoolmistressly sort of character, except when engaged in her formal responsibilities as priestess. The Trojans are admiring the carvings on the temple door when she first sees them, and her opening words are designed to make them feel in the wrong: “This is no time for standing and staring like that” (37). Then praestiterit, perfect subjunctive, the tense and mood of polite (but perhaps somewhat patronising) suggestion: “I rather think it would be better ...” She maintains this austere demeanour throughout their underworld journey, and calls Aeneas sharply to order when he seems to be spending too much time talking to Deiphobus: “It will be dark in no time” (539); and in Deiphobus’ response we get an idea of the aggressive tone in which this is delivered: “D on’t be angry” (544). There is humour here, and it arises out o f the fact that the Sibyl has been given a well-marked personality. She is as dignified as her august office requires, but she is surely just a touch bossy.

It is in fact something of a surprise to find the Sibyl such a personage. In instructing Aeneas to visit her (3.441-52), Helenus speaks o f“the mad prophetess, who sings her songs o f destiny deep under a cliff. She puts names and marks on leaves and files them carefully away in her cave. But whenever the door is opened and a breeze blows through the cave, they are all scattered, and she never then bothers to put them back in order. People go away without getting an answer, thoroughly discontented with the Sibyl’s establishment”. Helenus’ word for “without getting an answer” is inconsultus. This word is piously glossed by the OLD thus: “poetic word: ‘not having received advice at a consultation’”. No other

20 “He bundles them out and lowers the gangways” 8 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

instance o f its use in this sense is to be found in L& S, OLD or TLL.21 I am reminded, perhaps with no good reason, of Plautus Aul. 368, where the slave contemplates saving the day by having dinner cooked at the bottom of a well ... but then what if the cooks eat the dinner themselves down there? The result will be superi incenati sunt et cenati inferi (“the high-ups will be dinnerless and the low-downs dinnered”). The comic association is not inconsistent with Helenus’ description. The Sibyl here is presented as a scatterbrain.22

You may not altogether go along with me in these readings. But we can surely agree that there is no need to read Virgil solemnly. I f David West is to be believed, there is even a touch of lightness about the parade of heroes: quo fessum rapitis, Fabii (6.845), as the Fabii, last in the line, bundle along poor old Cunctator, hesitant as his name suggests, in their eagerness to keep up with the rest.

Where does this begin? Very early in book 1, when that dishonest schemer Juno gets together with a creep called Aeolus. This Aeolus is not a sociable character like Odysseus’ Aeolus, who lives a pleasant family life with his wife and six sons married to six daughters, managing the winds only in a brief two-line parenthesis (10.21-22). In Virgil Aeolus is a prison governor — and, in case we should forget this, we are told it twice (54, 141). He governs on his own. Juno appears in front of him (65-75) and makes him an offer he can hardly refuse — an offer of perpetual marriage to her loveliest nymph, using the same words (“I shall join you in a secure marriage and declare her your own”, (73) as when she proposes a perpetual marriage between Dido and Aeneas in 4.126. Even here, the cozening tone (she is described as supplex — “begging”, 64) of her words invites scepticism. Aeolus’ response is the functionary’s flattery to his superior. “Ma’am, you just decide what you like best. That’s all the hard work you need to do. My sacred duty is to obey orders” (76-77). (I am making a lot of the stressed positions of optes, labor and fas est). We have just heard from Juno that Aeolus receives his responsibility direct from Jupiter, so it is a surprise now to hear him in flattering tones attributing it all in a long tricolon to Juno herself, with a suitable expression of modesty — “This little kingdom of mine” (78). Are we intended to think that he subsequently received his nymph and that the “fair offspring” which Juno promised him (75) consisted of those who helped to entertain Odysseus?

21 TLL refers to the usage as “rather bold” (audacius). 22 Both presentations of the Sibyl raise a smile. Why does Virgil offer us both? Is her demeanour in 6 a corrective for the impression given in 3, Virgil having felt the need to give the Sibyl the status appropriate to the Augustan restoration of Cumae as a sacred site? Keith Maclennan — Humour in Virgil 9

If so, I can include it in the intertextual humour. It’s probably an irrelevant entertainment that the last person to have been described as “mighty ruler of storms” (80) was Caesar Octavian himself in Ge. 1.27. But do you not think that this scene has some of the characteristics of ‘Yes, Minister’, and that Virgil’s skill is such that it is possible to smile at the intrigue and then immediately get caught up by the tremendous power of the storm which Aeolus lets loose?

If gods in discussion are a source of high comedy, it is worth considering their other conversations, perhaps most obviously in 8.370-406, when Venus persuades Vulcan to make Aeneas the arms he needs. The first point is another intertextual one. On the face of it, the scene is a replay of the very chaste little conversation (Il. 18.428-67) in which Hephaestus agrees to Thetis’ request to make arms for Achilles. But there is also, in the Odyssey, the story of how Hephaestus employed his skill at the expense of Ares and Aphrodite (8.266-366); here we have a story of Venus employing her skill to persuade Vulcan to do something for herself — and, in the end, for her own and Mars’ common descendants. Her speech is artful in the extreme, beginning with a captatio benevolentiae — “I was so good as not to trouble you when I might well have done”, and continued by a combination of beautiful-girl-in-tears with a little spicing of jealousy (“you did for her, and her”). Vulcan is reluctant (cunctantem, 388) but a hug persuades him, and all o f a sudden he, the fire-god, is on fire himself, full of reasons why of course he would have done what Venus asked anyway, had she simply taken the trouble to ask. There follow three scenes: two charming quiet little domestic ones — the midnight wool-worker first (407-13), Evander getting out of bed to the sound of birdsong third (453-56) — and in the middle the din, heat and sweat of the giants’ metalworks. I don’t know quite where you do smile at this sequence, but smile you surely must, and that is why I mention it. When Vulcan reaches his workshop, there is a scene of amazing productivity, but the old god is so much under his wife’s spell that work commissioned by Jupiter, Mars, Minerva (could you conceive of any clients more important?) all goes out of the window (tollite cuncta, 439) to satisfy her and her son — who is, on top of it all, not even his.

Juno appears again in conversation in 4.90, this time with Venus. She wants to bring Venus in on her scheme to unite Dido and Aeneas. But she cannot be bothered to make a serious effort to persuade her. Her tone to Venus throughout this conversation is patronising and contemptuous, very much, one thinks, as a patrician grande dame might treat the wife of a newly-arrived senator. (94-95: egregiam laudem, spolia ampla, a vitriolic chiasmus; puer tuus: not filius, not natus, but “your brat”). She ju st manages politeness in 98-103. But she is on form again with the insulting epithet Phrygio for 10 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Aeneas and the description of the relationship as servire (103). If Venus had not already made up her mind to do some such deal, she could hardly have accepted an approach in these terms. But Uriah Heep could do no better than Venus here. “O f course you are more important than I am. But I do have this one little worry: will the fates and Jupiter let us get away with it”?23 She knows very well that they won’t. But “you are the queen; I’ll just follow along”. Juno’s response is wonderfully lordly: Mecum erit iste labor (115). Particularly pointed is the phrase iste labor, “what you seem to think bothersome”. Venus laughs in 128, and it is not a pleasant sound. But there is a strong enough hint of Roman social mores for us to sense a whiff of satire and be amused even as we sympathise with Dido, the victim of the plot.

Events take their course: Rumour brings her news to Iarbas and Iarbas makes his appeal to Jupiter, whose words to Mercury are direct, confident and clear. But even Jupiter is not above a little rhetorical distortion. Non illum nobis genetrix pulcherrima talem promisit ... (228). (“This is not the sort of son his mother told us she had”). If the reference is to the conversation between Jupiter and Venus in book 1, it was not Venus who made the promise to Jupiter, but Jupiter to Venus. Mercury undertakes to convey this message. He delivers it in a rather different tone. Where Jupiter is direct, Mercury is plain rude: pulchram ... uxorius ... rerum oblite tuarum (266-67). Jupiter tells Mercury quite firmly that he is to indicate that his message comes on the highest possible authority (nostri nuntius esto, 237). Mercury lays this on thick over three lines, with a repeated ipse (the second occasion suggests the colloquial ipse: “the boss”). It is as if Mercury has to boast of the fact that he has rather an important master. To finish with, where Jupiter has concluded naviget! haec summa est (237), in Mercury’s words there is nothing at all to correspond to this crucial word naviget, he departs having said nothing beyond words which will make Aeneas feel in the wrong. Is this humour? It would probably be going too far to suggest that there is a reminiscence of Mercury’s use or misuse of his father’s authority in Plautus’ Amphitryo. But there is at least a sense of incongruity which is very near humour, when one god feels the need to behave like an inferior among humans, being insolent beyond his brief and making much more play of his superior’s authority than has that superior. The whole sequence is even more obviously humorous in its Homeric original, Od. 5, 97-115. Hermes has come on his mission to Calypso reluctantly, the journey being so tedious. He has not even bothered to listen to Zeus very carefully, because he has forgotten Odysseus’ name when he speaks

23 Paraphrase of 107-12. Keith Maclennan — Humour in Virgil 11

to Calypso, and the story he spins about the homecoming of the Greeks from Troy is irrelevant to Odysseus’ experiences.

Is it then possible to approach the great debate in heaven at the beginning ofbook 10 (1.17) in anything like the same spirit? It is clear that we are not necessarily to take what gods say solemnly or au pied de la lettre. The setting for the debate is one which would have been unfamiliar in Rome until recent times, but Cicero’s speeches for Ligarius, Marcellus, Deiotarus make familiar even to us the idea of the appeal for justice to the single ruler. Reports of senatorial meetings under Augustus make it clear that there was no shortage of members prepared to speak their mind forcefully: I think my favourite is the account of the meeting where Augustus told the senators that they would simply have to make rules for their wives and get them to obey them. The response was “Please, Augustus, tell us what your rules are for Livia”.24 The location in Aen. 10 is not as clearly a Palatine-transferred-to-Olympus as is Ovid’s setting for the meeting in Metamorphoses 1,25 but the balance of contributions between presiding officer, paper speakers, and crowd noises seems familiar. Both Venus’ and Juno’s speeches are marvellous, not to say outrageous, tours de force of rhetoric, and I quote Williams.26 “The rhetoric is not used in order to involve the reader deeply with the speaker, but in order to produce an intellectually satisfying display of verbal dexterity”. If we smile at all, it will be because we have some such reaction as: “The cheek of it! How can she get away with it?”.

There are plenty of opportunities for such a reaction. Right from the beginning, Venus strains truth: “They are fighting within the walls; a hostile army is on its way from Arpi”. Very soon she offers (threatens?) to go down to the battlefield and shed her own blood. We are surely being reminded of Il. 5.336-430 and the wound inflicted on her by Diomedes: what had Aphrodite’s reaction been? to scuttle back to Olympus and have her mother kiss it better. She moves on to play the part of resigned disappointment: “I am not influenced by thought of empire. That was a hope for past days, when fortune smiled on us”: (42-43; wonderful use of the perfect tense speravimus''). She will retire to those pleasant resorts of hers with Ascanius, leaving Aeneas to sink or swim. Jupiter may as well even allow the Carthaginians to invade Italy for all the opposition they will encounter from the residents. (A breath-taking point, this: even if Carthage has not burned to the ground, there is no-one in all Italy whom the Carthaginians will be remotely concerned with except Aeneas, who is being, ex hypothesi, dumped).

24 Dio Cass. 54.16.3-5. 25 168-252. 26 R. D. Williams, The Aeneid of Virgil: Books 7-12, 1973, Basingstoke, on 10.16f. 12 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Juno’s response is magnificent: “I have remained in profound silence so far” (63) (really?), “would never have spoken unless provoked” (63-64) (sic nota??) Aeneas is suffering the consequences of his own aggression (65: quisquam ... subegit) and his foolish insistence on believing what Cassandra said (what? he must be the first person ever!) She entirely ignores the charge of having prompted Allecto to exacerbate the quarrel. Her allegations against the Trojans are barely founded: “ploughing the fields of others, marching off with the plunder, and stealing brides from their mother’s breasts” (78-79; splendid plural). She has a gloriously alliterative line to present the Trojans’ efforts to defend themselves as hypocritical and aggressive: pacem orare manu, praefigere puppibus arma (80). The conclusion is that Juno poses as the True Friend of Troy: “It was Venus’ fault that the war happened in the first place. It’s too late to complain now that you have driven them to ruin yourself”.

Are political cartoons humorous? I think they would not be published unless someone thought they were. This scene, surely, is a political cartoon. Augustus brought peace to the Roman world. We hear in the conventional sources some of the methods by which he did so — ruthlessness to some individuals, clemency to others, shilly­ shallying with yet others. What I think we hear very little of is what must have been an endless chore: trying to reach some compromise in disputes between parties with entirely irreconcilable positions. After thirty years conspicuously “without law, without principle”,27 the Roman state must have been full of the sort of issues which surfaced after communism: whose is this patch of land? Is the debate between Juno and Venus a debate between Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, and does it prepare us for the end of book 12, where it becomes clear that, if a conflict is genuinely to be resolved, no-one will ever get everything they wanted. Nonetheless Augustus, acting as Jupiter does here, has succeeded in bringing peace where none might have been expected.

The smile which these arguments prompt is not a very happy one. This is not the only occasion where humour is used in painful circumstances. In 10.592-601 Aeneas killed Lucagus and his brother Liger. Over Lucagus he commented, as I mentioned, on the dying man’s quaint gymnastics. Liger begs for mercy. Aeneas will have none of it: “Brother must not abandon brother” (600). We are sharply reminded of a similar piece of gallows humour in 2.547-49, at the death of Priam, when Pyrrhus gloats “You shall be my messenger, informing my father Achilles of this. Tell him straight of my dreadful deeds; be sure to say Neoptolemus is not the man his father was”. Pyrrhus was inhuman

27 Non mos, non ius (Tac. Ann. 3.28.2). Keith Maclennan — Humour in Virgil 13

in victory, and Aeneas is not immune from the same savagery — there is a foreshadowing o f the last lines o f the poem.

The humour in tragic circumstances is not all savage. In D ido’s realm, when we first come to know it, all is brightness and joy. Traces of this last into book 4, until the hunt. High spirits abound, and none is more high spirited than Ascanius. In fact Ascanius is a teenager and a brat, as he takes advantage of his day out on a good horse (when did he last enjoy one?) to prove to everyone how fast he can ride (“outriding now the goats, now the stags”, 157) and to make impossible boasts of what he can do (“He longs for a tawny lion to come down from the mountain”, 169). The high spirits and humour, I think, extend to Dido herself: “The queen is late; she is still in her room while the Carthaginian princes are waiting at her door. Finally she appears” (133-36). We think of Milo in Cicero, who “came home, changed his clothes and shoes, hung around a little waiting (as one does) for his wife to get ready”.28 It is all a short-lived and doomed replay of that other scene of happiness, the banquet at the end of book 1. Dido here is overflowing with generosity and good spirits. We have seen her thoroughly in charge of her kingdom, and her welcome to Aeneas is full of confidence, dignity and generosity. At the climax of the feast, Dido takes a great and ancient wine bowl. After suitable prayers she puts it to her lips but, as a lady and a queen, she barely touches it. She passes it to her Carthaginian table-companion Bitias with the marvellous word increpitans (738): a mocking challenge — drink this if you can. He accepts this huge draught: “He readily drank it down; the golden bowl was brimful and he soused himself in the wine” (739). I doubt if there is a scene better designed to bring out a smile of sheer pleasure. And that is true, in spite of what comes next.

Afterthought

Virgil can use humour to draw us towards his characters (Dido at the end o f Aen. 1, Corydon in Ecl. 2) or to make us stand away from them (Juno and Venus in Aen. 4). He can use it to create ambiguity (the Charon scene: is the underworld a place o f real terrors or sham bogeymen?) or to underline by the Olympus debate in book 10 the urgent question he put at the beginning o f book 1: “Can gods feel anger such as this?” Humour can appear in unexpected places (the Sibyl in book 6), contributing to the uncertainty which plays such a part in any reading of Virgil. Another paper might approach the question from a different angle: which elements ofthe Aeneid are never touched by humour? Aeneas, it might conclude, hardly ever, and Augustus himself, never. Might Ovid have learned something from this?

KEITH MACLENNAN

28 Mil. 28. Virgil in the Classroom

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 20 January 2 0 0 7

Virgil’s presence in the classroom has been more or less constant from as early as the 20’s BC. Even now, despite the eclipse of that other evergreen stalwart of the curriculum, Caesar, he continues to hold up his hoary head as a permanent feature, albeit an optional one, of the GCSE and A level syllabus. For countless generations of schoolchildren, a book of the Aeneid provides the first — and, in the majority of cases, only — encounter with an original Latin text, and anecdotal evidence suggests that that encounter is seen as integral to their experience of the subject.

The reasons for this are fairly straightforward. Classicists are, if I may be forgiven the generalisation, a pretty conservative bunch, and once Virgil had established himself at the centre of the canon it was difficult to dislodge him. Moreover, whole-hearted endorsements by such giants of modern literature as Milton and Dante acted as buttresses to an already towering presence; equally, those responsible for instructing the young were firmly of the view that impressionable schoolboy minds could not fail to be guided and inspired by the apparent moral instruction contained particularly in the Aeneid, with its exhortations to filial and religious piety, to a martial valour which nonetheless required self-control, its support of an imperialistic ethos, and its warnings against the power of women to derail men from their true destiny.

In the course of the last fifty years or so, of course, there have been immense changes in education, in our approach to the literary canon and in society as a whole. The classics are no longer at the heart of the curriculum, and those who do study them are no longer solely white middle-class males. In this context, the concept of imperium sine fine is far from unproblematic, and even the advice debellare superbos may seem uncomfortable when one views, for instance, the invasion of Iraq. Modern readers find it difficult to view Dido as a mere distraction, while the abandonment of Creusa seems positively callous. At the same time, educational theory and the public examination system tend heavily towards “accessibility” — ensuring that pupils of all abilities are able to engage with a subject and to be rewarded in examinations — and “relevance” — teaching in a way C. J. I. Butler - Virgil in the Classroom 15

that enables pupils to connect the subject-matter with their own lives and experience, and teaching material that will be of direct “use” in adulthood.

The impact of these cultural shifts on the study of the Classics has been significant. Greek has dwindled away to an A level entry o f some two hundred; the number o f comprehensive schools offering Latin is steadily falling; verse composition has disappeared from schools, and the writing o f continuous prose is examined only as an option at A level, where it is taken by approximately half the entry. Moreover, the classical languages, with their need for careful learning of grammatical forms and for analytical and logical thinking, are universally perceived as “difficult” — indeed a 2006 study at the University of Durham found that GCSE Latin was approximately a grade “harder” than other subjects.1 Partly in response to this perceived difficulty, the defined vocabulary for GCSE Latin was recently cut to 450 words; but calls remain for the examination to be made still easier. In the Times on January 3rd 2007, Bob Lister, director of the PGCE course in Classics at Cambridge, was quoted as saying that he would like to see “less translation from the original and more about the cultural aspects of Roman civilisation”.2

Virgil’s position appears precarious indeed. To those not involved with Latin teaching in schools, it may well seem inconceivable that pupils with the limited range of linguistic equipment required by recent GCSE unseen translation papers should be expected to tackle Virgil; and there are strong arguments in favour of this view. At the same time, however, the orthodoxy that decries translation into and out of the language as irrelevant and inaccessible sees “literature” as the primary purpose of the study of the Latin, and hence the set texts remain an integral part of the GCSE syllabus, making up 50% of the total marks.

The situation for teachers might seem impossible. On the one hand the syntax and vocabulary prescribed for the examination are very basic, and becoming more so; on the other, teachers are expected to guide their pupils through one of the most gloriously complex works ofWestern literature, written not only in a foreign language, but one no longer spoken, containing ideas which are both culturally unfamiliar and expressed in the highest poetic style, with an enormous wealth of historical, mythological and literary allusion, none of which can be claimed to be particularly “accessible” to today’s sixteen- year-olds. At AS level, the examination taken by most pupils a year after GCSE, the

1 As reported in e.g. the Daily Mail, 25th June 2006: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-392445/Pupils-told-avoid-latin-hard.html 2 A. Blair, ‘Classics in schools are “facing extinction”’. 16 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

situation is not significantly better; only in the second part of the A level syllabus (A2) do linguistic and literary demand begin to come together.

There are those who are willing to throw in the towel, who argue that Virgil is simply too subtle and too mature a writer to speak to young minds, and that to teach him at GCSE is only to harm the classical enterprise. For these colleagues there exists an alternative set text: a collection of shorter, usually personal, poems by a range of authors, together with a longer, narrative, extract, the whole neatly packaged in the form of published anthologies with helpful vocabulary and explanatory notes on the facing page.

There are others who adopt an entirely pragmatic approach. Believing that Virgil’s Latin is utterly unapproachable by their pupils, and often with very limited time at their disposal, they study the text essentially in translation, sometimes matching up the Latin words to the English, sometimes merely handing out a translation to be committed to memory, and ensure that the pupils are given sufficiently copious notes to enable them to answer questions on alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc. This approach is often regarded by the pupils themselves — and their parents — as the “right one”: I have all too frequently listened with gritted teeth while a parent tells me proudly how they have been testing their child on their Virgil until he knows it all by heart. “O f course”, they add cheerfully, “we don’t have a clue about the Latin!”

A new publishing initiative was recently brought to my attention which to a great extent formalises this approach.3 It consists of a text of the GCSE and A level prescriptions of a range of set texts, together with a literal translation, running vocabulary, analysis of verb forms, literary notes, and a “quick-start” guide which rewrites the text in natural English word order. Such an approach certainly integrates the text with the translation, making it more likely that the pupil will have some acquaintance with the Latin; on the other hand, it encourages the belief that there is only one translation, and that that translation is an exact and perfect equivalent to the Latin; it negates the possibility of ambiguity, and it makes largely redundant the role of the teacher in explanation and discussion.

One has to ask, first, is it possible to study Virgil at this level in a way which involves pupils actually engaging with and analysing the Latin text? And second, is it worth it? Are the world and language of Roman epic too far removed from the orbit of today’s

3 David Carter, Classical Workbooks, http://www.bluevalleys.com/we/classicalworkbooks/default.asp C. J. I. Butler — Virgil in the Classroom 17

sixteen-year-olds for them to gain any intellectual, spiritual or aesthetic enrichment from the study of a book of the Aeneid? Can Virgil, in short, truly be brought into the classroom?

My answer to these questions is “yes”, and I shall devote the remainder of this paper to explaining why that should be the case. While not denying the difficulty of Virgil’s Latin, I am utterly convinced that the beauty of his poetry, the depth of his humanity, and his fearless confrontation of fundamental and universal issues, enable him to speak and be heard at an immense variety o f levels. Certainly, in my own teaching career, where I have taught Virgil at G CSE in virtually every year, and frequently at A level also, I have never encountered a group who failed to be excited by the drama of the Aeneid and the questions it raises.

First of all, then, the “how”. At this point I must apologise if what follows seems either tediously laborious or blindingly obvious: in the light of what I have said above about possible approaches to the text, I felt it right to explain in detail precisely how I go about it. I should also acknowledge that my own teaching career has been spent in highly selective schools, though I very much believe that the study of Latin as a genuinely academic discipline in no way need be confined to the very able.

In the study of any foreign language, the jump from a textbook of specially-written and carefully-graded material to the study of literary authors is a considerable one, and this is particularly the case in Latin as currently taught, where the two courses most commonly used in schools — the Oxford Latin Course and the Cambridge Latin Course — both give considerable editorial help alongside their reading passages. Moreover, in the case of Virgil, or indeed any verse author, the word order means that pupils will be utterly at sea without a really solid knowledge of accidence, which is not necessarily acquired through a course whose emphasis is on reading. It is remarkably easy for pupils to make rapid progress through a course where assistance from the textbook and the teacher, coupled with their own common sense, enables them to translate apparently accurately despite a lack of knowledge of accidence and syntax. But commitment from teachers to genuine preparation of their pupils for the reading of original texts entails a really systematic teaching of linguistic fundamentals which often seems at odds with the direction of the textbook.

Central to the enterprise must be preparation of the text by the pupils themselves. At G CSE level I would expect about twelve lines to be prepared per forty-minute lesson; twenty at AS and twenty-five to thirty at A2. Armed with a good school edition and 18 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

with their own knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, my classes prepare by looking up and writing down vocabulary — with genitives, genders, principal parts, etc. — prior to working out a translation as fa r as they can. They may, if they wish, write a translation themselves, but they are not allowed to bring it to the lesson, where their sole focus must be the Latin text itself, with their vocabulary list, and perhaps some notes they have made during preparation, as an aide-memoire.

In the lesson itself, the text is projected onto an interactive whiteboard4 which I annotate with linguistic and literary points as they arise. I will read out two or three lines, and then choose someone to translate. The level of translation typically varies from the virtually flawless to the frankly ropy, in which latter case I might ask to see the pupil’s vocabulary list to ensure that he has done the preparation. However weak the group, and however excruciating the process, I will never simply translate the text for them: while I will offer help over difficulties, for example an historic infinitive, or an omitted part of sum, and will on occasion resort to telling them what word to translate next, I believe it essential that translation should come from the class, not the teacher. It is immensely helpful to use the whiteboard for, say, highlighting a noun and adjective pair, or bracketing off a relative clause, when analysing the Latin. The material from the whiteboard is saved and made available to the pupils when they come to revise at the end o f the year.

After between thirty and fifty lines, instead of preparing a new passage of text, the pupils are asked to write up a translation, which they then bring to class. We read through the text for a second time, with pupils correcting or annotating their translation as we go. They then revise the lines for a consolidation test, which will be in the format of a GCSE question.

The emphasis is thus on very close reading of the Latin text, something which enables pupils to experience Virgil’s magnificent verse at first hand without the mediation of a translation. The reading aloud of every line means that some, at least, will hear for themselves the sound-picture as the serpents in book 2 make for Laocoon and sibila lambebant linguis vibrantibus ora (2.211), and feel the great maw of the cave at Avernus in 6.237 — spelunca alta fuit vastoque immanis hiatu. Recently my current GCSE set encountered the hypermetron at 4.629: while I am not quite sure how many of them

4 An interactive whiteboard displays the screen of a computer to which it is linked, and can be annotated with a special stylus. C. J. I. Butler — Virgil in the Classroom 19

— myself included — felt, with Austin,5 that “Dido seems to leave the two peoples locked for ever in their enmity”, we were able to feel the metrical oddity and sense that Virgil was Up To Something.

Moreover, pupils are much more alert to Virgil’s choice of vocabulary, something inevitably blurred by translations, where a Latin word may need to be rendered by a whole range of English words in order to create idiomatic translation in its varied contexts. An excellent example of this is the crucial word culpa in book 4; another is furor / furius / furere in book 12; while the phrase arma amens capio (2.314) simply cannot be rendered into English in a way which replicates the concision and euphony of the Latin. Thus pupils begin to understand that Latin is a language, not a code, that culpa means culpa, not “guilt” or “sin” or “fault” or “blame”, an understanding which is the beginning of real fluency in a language. A stimulating exercise is then to give pupils a passage from a literary translation ofVirgil — Dryden is a favourite — and to ask them to examine how an English reader’s understanding of the text is enhanced or undermined by it.

There is no doubt that this approach makes considerable demands of the pupils. In anticipation of writing this paper, I asked my current GCSE set, who are reading book 4, to write — anonymously — a brief paragraph on Virgil — what they liked, what they disliked, what they found difficult, what they felt they had gained from it. Most commented on the difficulty of the language, though some felt that it became easier with practice; one, somewhat alarmingly, wrote that Virgil’s vocabulary was “not that more [sic] advanced”. Several wrote that they appreciated the opportunity to read some unadapted Latin. “As it is written by a native Latin speaker”, wrote one, “it is more interesting and idiomatic, but also harder. It is the first Latin verse I have read, and I enjoyed seeing the Latin in this context”. “I found some vocabulary and grammar difficult but once they had been explained I felt it made me a better classicist”. I also spoke to an AS class about their experience of Virgil at GCSE. All commented on the difficulty, but all were unanimous that it had been the best part of the course, one remarking, “I know it’s a cliche, but you really do get out what you put in”.

This of course is hardly a scientific study, and the AS group in particular were in gender, demographic and ability largely unrepresentative of those studying Latin in schools today. Nor would I pretend that all come to lessons ready to rattle off an accurate and idiomatic translation: my pupils are as capable as any o f telling me that the tense

5 R. G. Austin, P Vergili Maronis Aeneidos, Liber Quartus, 1955, Oxford (ad loc.) 20 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

of a verb is dative, or translating ira Iovis as “the angry Jupiter”. But these boys at least appreciated that rising to the challenge of attempting to read Virgil for themselves had given them a genuine experience of Latin poetry.

I remain convinced, then, that it is possible for schoolchildren to engage with the language of Virgil. But what do they take from it beyond the code-breaking, problem­ solving satisfaction of puzzling out a tricky bit of syntax? At the simplest level, there is much to be enjoyed in a narrative and dramatic sense: the death of Priam, the hunt in book 4, Turnus and Aeneas’ single combat, the Sibyl’s invocation of the powers of the Underworld — all work as story-telling in a way which is easy to forget when one reads Virgil as an adult immersed in highly intellectualised and sophisticated contemporary scholarship. Virgilian simile works well, too: particular favourites have been the wounded deer at the beginning of book 4, the fall of Troy compared to the chopping down of a great tree in book 2, and Turnus as a hungry w olf in book 9.

Second, pupils are often surprisingly interested in Roman history: book 2, of course, is particularly fertile ground, but my current set wrote approvingly of Virgil’s references to the Punic Wars in book 4, and, fresh from viewing the BBC series Rome, have been quick to enjoy possible references to first-century events: does Dido’s wish that Aeneas cadat ante diem mediaque inhumatus arena (4.620) evoke Pompey? How is our picture o fpius Aeneas affected by the fact that in dallying in Carthage with Dido he is behaving much more like Mark Antony with Cleopatra than like Augustus, the austere servant of the Res Publica? “I like the way Virgil is writing for a ‘modern’ Roman audience”, wrote one. Another, rather ambitiously: “It sort of feels like you can relate both to the story and see what a Roman reader may have felt”.

Virgil’s constant use of mythology and of earlier literature adds depth to pupils’ experience of the text, even at their necessarily rudimentary level. When one looks at the characterisation of Dido in the second half of book 4, for example, the reference to Medea’s dismemberment of her brother in lines 600-01 (non potui abreptum divellere corpus et undis / spargere?) helps pupils to see her transformation from queen and leader to vengeful witch, as does discussion of the motif of child-eating in Greek mythology. Similarly, the story of Phaedra provides helpful parallels in understanding a woman who is an innocent victim of a divine plan and whose subsequent actions have dire consequences. (Ironically, this approach becomes more dangerous at A level. As a former A level examiner myself, I know that the prescriptive nature of mark schemes can make it difficult for candidates to gain credit for material not “directly” related to the text. We see this particularly in the later books of the Aeneid, where knowledge of C. J. I. Butler — Virgil in the Classroom 21

Homer, despite Virgil’s constant dialogue with the concepts of Homeric warfare and the Homeric hero, cannot be required by the examination given that he is a Greek author and this is a Latin exam).

It can also be possible to give pupils a glimpse of Virgil’s influence on Western literature and culture, or for them to bring to Virgil their own reading. My GCSE set’s study in French of Anouilh’s Antigone has led to some interesting discussion of the relationship between sisters, with reference to Dido and Anna and Antigone and Ismene. Sometimes surprising insights are elicited. In book 9 (433-37) Virgil compares the drooping head of the dead Euryalus to a purple flower cut down by a plough or to poppies with their heads weighed down by rain. I asked the class — a moderate- ability GCSE set — what emotional response the simile provoked in the reader. One boy commented that it was impossible for us to respond as a Roman audience, because for the modern reader the poppy is inextricably associated with the First World War and with the tragedy of young lives lost in battle. The richness of this personal response, the intuitive, if unconscious, grasp of intertextuality and reception theory, encapsulated the heightened aesthetic sensibility and critical awareness that must be the goal of reading great literature.

Inevitably, there are limitations to the demands that can be made even of the very able at this level. A GCSE or A level text consists merely of a portion of a book: 175 lines at GCSE, 300-350 at A level; and these are not consecutive lines but “highlights” selected by the examination board. A candidate who read only the lines prescribed for GCSE would gain the impression that book 4 was concerned exclusively with Dido, omitting — as the prescription does — the entirety of Mercury’s visit to Aeneas, his reaction, and his final encounter with Dido. I have been lucky in having a generous allocation of time and highly able and motivated students, so that a certain amount of non-prescribed text can be read; but it would be foolish to pretend that it is possible to achieve a thorough knowledge of an entire book, let alone a working knowledge of the Aeneid as a whole.

A second limitation, interestingly, concerns Virgil’s relationship with Maecenas and the Augustan regime, a problem particularly apparent in reading books 6 and 8, and it is here above all that the relative immaturity of the constituency makes itself felt. For schoolchildren, the romantic image o f the poet as a soul-searching free spirit is very strong, and once Maecenas’ patronage of Virgil is explained, there is a powerful inclination to dismiss the poetry as “Augustan propaganda”. A certain amount of 22 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

headway can be made by judicious distribution of Lyne’s Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid (1987, Oxford), but in most cases the idea of the Aeneid as being in dialogue with the Augustan regime is very difficult to grasp — perhaps not too surprisingly, given the broad variation on this issue in contemporary scholarship!

One also has to grapple with ideas of authorial intention and autobiographical writing. Fortunately the latter is not as problematic with Virgil as with Ovid and — especially — Catullus, where pupils want everything to be “true”; but I am constantly accused of “reading too much into it” or asked whether Virgil really “meant” something. To quote a pupil: “I think too many lines are made out to be onomatopoeic and it’s easy to say a line sounds like a bolt of lightning or raging fire for example, when it isn’t clear that Virgil originally intended it that way”. In practice, though, the majority can be persuaded that what matters is not what Virgil thought but what the text says; and reminding the class of the Aeneid’s rate of composition proves helpfully persuasive.

Reading the Aeneid in class constantly stimulates discussion of wider contemporary issues. In the autumn of 2001 I was reading Aeneid 12 with a GCSE group: questions of the justice of war, of furor and clementia, evolved in step with the destruction of the Twin Towers and the invasion of Afghanistan. Can one fight a war with pietas? Does even a just war inevitably dehumanise and decivilise? The simile comparing the cornered Turnus to a hunted stag, or the final description of Aeneas glimpsing the plundered sword-belt of Pallas evoke a complex range of responses to warfare, which on that particular reading added a further dimension to discussion of the events which were unfolding around us.

Central to the way I teach Virgil, or indeed any literary text, is the idea that the class and I are reading it together. Inevitably my knowledge is greater than theirs, and their responses will be shaped in discussion by my more extensive experience of classical language and literature, but every time I read a book of Virgil (and this is not the case with every author) the prism through which I read is altered by the response of the group. To quote from the set: “The open and collaborative approach we adopt to studying the text is excellent, as it allows us to discuss different translations and interpretations”.

To illustrate the fruits of this “open and collaborative approach”, I shall devote the remainder of this paper to looking at the reading which a recent class has produced of the central issue of Dido’s culpa. I should emphasise that what follows represents the genuine fruits of our class discussion, of the ideas which the pupils have produced, filtered and refined (I hope) through my professional expertise. I hope that it will demonstrate the C. J. I. Butler — Virgil in the Classroom 23

extent to which a quite sophisticated response to Latin literature is possible in students who have been taught to approach a text through close linguistic reading.

Part-Medea, part-Phaedra, Dido is to a great extent presented as a tragic figure. Like Medea, she is abandoned by the hero she has helped, and driven to black magic in pursuit o f revenge (see e.g. 4.509-16); like Phaedra, she is the unwitting pawn of the gods, assailed by an unconquerable and unsuitable love engendered by the goddess Venus herself. For Dido, the fact that Venus works in collusion with Juno, the goddess whom Dido has every right to expect to be on her side, adds a further bitter twist. The scene between Dido and Aeneas at 4.304-87 recalls Medea’s confrontation with Jason in Euripides (Medea, 446-626); her relationship with Anna echoes, though not uncomplicatedly, the role of sisters such as Ismene and Chrysothemis; her suicide on the bed she shared with Aeneas echoes Deianeira and Jocasta. Unlike Medea, however, she is destroyed; unlike Phaedra, what destroys her is a culpa.

Niall Rudd has dissected the issue in his 1976 discussion of ‘Dido’s culpa’ ,6 but my pupils have devised another view. Their reading is that Dido’s culpa is her denial o f her femininity, or rather her delusion that she can be both a leader and a woman. Once she has allowed the consummation of her love for Aeneas, she surrenders her position as a ruler: the spell, as it were, is broken and the only resolution can be in her death.

In book 1, we first learn about Dido from Venus, who tells Aeneas of her unhappy past (longa est iniuria, longae ambages, 341-42). Sympathy is evoked, then admiration as we learn (357-69) of her flight with her people which so strikingly parallels Aeneas’ own, and are told dux femina facti (364). But we meet the Tyrians before we meet Dido. Like ants or bees when viewed from Aeneas’ vantage point at the top of the hill, they are busy laying out the new city (419-38). o fortunati, quorum iam moenia surgunt! cries Aeneas, in a great spondaic sigh. When Dido finally appears, she does not disappoint. We see her through the eyes of the gobsmacked Aeneas: literally first and foremost, she is regina (495), forma pulcherrima (496), magna iuvenum stipante caterva (497). Then comes the resplendent Diana simile, before Dido laeta (503), saepta armis solioque alte subnixa resedit (506), proceeding to get on with the business of government (507 — but do our antennae twitch a little when she iura dabat legesque viris?) This is a queen at the height of her power, beautiful, unmarried, stately, utterly at home with the trappings of royalty, happily taking as her due the deference of her subjects. Her welcome to Aeneas has all the poised graciousness of Arete greeting Odysseus in Odyssey 6.

6 ‘Dido’s Culpd in N. Rudd, Lines of Enquiry, 1976, Cambridge, 32-53. 24 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Significantly, it is Dido’s frustrated maternal instincts that bring all this crashing down. Venus chooses to work on her by disguising Cupid as Ascanius. Dido pariter puero donisque movetur (714) and gremio fovet (718). At the same time, Virgil makes explicit that this will be her downfall (infelix, pesti devota futurae ... ardescitque tuendo, 712-13; inscia, 718; miserae, 719). By acknowledging her womanhood Dido makes vulnerable her position as queen, an idea underlined by her heart-rending cry at 4.327-30, where she claims that the opportunity to be a mother would be adequate compensation for her loss of pudor and fama prior. Tormented by love, she embraces Ascanius, trying to deceive infandum amorem (4.85), as though she can convince herself that she loves the child rather than his father, despite the fact that love for either, as an expression of femaleness, disqualifies her for her role as queen.

So when Dido, slowly poisoned by her love for Aeneas (4.1-5) says to Anna that, were she not pledged irrevocably to her dead husband Sychaeus, huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpae (19), she refers to the dereliction of duty and diminution of status that would result from her acknowledging her female limitations in taking a husband who would be her natural superior. Like Penelope, she can rule only in the absence of an appropriate male, hence her rejection of Iarbas; like Penelope, in the presence of an appropriate male, she resigns her power (sceptra dabas, 597) and the building of the city, her work as queen, is abandoned (86-89), to be taken up by Aeneas, discovered by Mercury fundantem arces ac tecta novantem (260). And once resigned, this power cannot be resumed, hence her acknowledgement of her impia facta (596) and the loss offam a prior. In placing her own needs above those of her people, she of course acts in exactly the opposite way to pius Aeneas, who from book 4 onwards increasingly realises that his personal fulfilment must take second place to his destined role as leader of the Trojan exiles and founder of the Roman race.

But what of the marriage? Coniugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam (172); nec coniugis umquam, says Aeneas, praetendi taedas aut haec in foedera veni (338-39). Without a doubt, Virgil builds up to the scene in the cave as though anticipating a wedding. As the Trojans and Carthaginians gather for the hunt, they wait for the queen, thalamo cunctantem (133) — Dido herself has used thalami as a metonym for marriage in line 18; Dido’s glorious attire, her purple robe embroidered with gold, the golden clasps in her hair and on her robe, are lavishly described; Aeneas himself, ante omnes pulcherrimus, is compared to Apollo in a simile which closely parallels the Dido-Diana simile in book 1, with references to the spring and to joyous, noisy dancing; and he infert se socium atque agmina iungit. Hunting itself is of course closely associated with courtship, and the C. J. I. Butler — Virgil in the Classroom 25

erotic imagery of the storm, with the rushing rivers, is clear. Juno, goddess of marriage, acts as pronuba, and gives the sign; the aether acts as the witness necessary at a Roman wedding ceremony. And yet, say Virgil and Aeneas, this is not a true marriage. Enacted at a cosmic scale though the wedding is, its lack of firm grounding in the human sphere prevents its being legitimate: although Dido may comfort herself with the belief that she has acted properly in taking a royal consort to whom her power may be duly resigned, in fact she knows well that this is not a formally sanctioned political union, and that no good can come of it. Again, her culpa is to yield to her biological female desire for a husband and a family and to place this above her duty as queen.

This may appear a bleakly misogynistic reading, and I would be the last to deny that reading book 4 with a group of sixteen-year-old boys has foregrounded particular issues in the text. In fact, the class began by finding Dido self-indulgent and irritating, and much of our discussion has involved my leading them to an appreciation of her traumatic past, her very real achievements as queen of the Tyrian exiles, and the callous way in which she is treated by the gods. At the same time, I would argue that the text o f the Aeneid is not generous towards women who stand in the way of destiny: Creusa, arguably Aeneas’ soul-mate, is simply removed by the gods so that Aeneas will be free to take a Latin bride, while that bride, Lavinia, appears largely as a cipher, little more than a valuable piece of goods. It is difficult to imagine her forming with Aeneas either the partnership he shares with Creusa or the intense bond he has with Dido

We have come a long way from our starting position of asking how the study ofVirgil could be a worthwhile exercise at GCSE. I very much hope that I have demonstrated that it can be, given motivated pupils and determined teaching, and that, despite the blandishments of “relevance” and “accessibility”, Virgil remains as powerful a presence in the classroom as ever.

Colfe’s School C. J. I. BUTLER Reflections of Virgil in Milton

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 19 January 2008

The poetry of John Milton has never lacked admirers, and it seems appropriate, four hundred years after his birth, for someone who teaches at his old school to examine some of the ways in which the most classical of English poets was influenced by the most classical of Roman poets. There are reasons for thinking the two men may have been similar in nature. Both were of a scholarly and reflective disposition, if biographers are to be believed, and Horace speaks of Virgil as an anima candida, possessing what is molle atque facetum. (Sat. 1.5.41; 1.10.44). This would accord with the qualities that led the young Milton to be admired for his intellectual sensibility and to be called in his Cambridge days, “the Lady of Christ’s”. Both were serious students, more concerned with literature and philosophy or, in Milton’s case, with Scripture, than with laying the foundations of a professional career. We know that Milton was especially drawn to Virgil in his time at St. Paul’s School. His facility in the classical languages was outstanding, and for years afterwards he corresponded with his school friend, Charles Diodati, in Latin, at one time contemplating writing Paradise Lost in that language. Both poets lived in turbulent times, experiencing the horrors of civil war, but strove not to let these horrors dispel their essential faith in humanity. It is also significant that, in the year of Milton’s death, a change in the form of Paradise Lost was instigated by his publisher: the 1667 version of the poem had been published in ten books, but seven years later, the poem appeared in twelve books, reflecting Milton’s own deliberate modification of its architecture, and so transferring the epic model from Lucan’s Pharsalia to the Aeneid.

Virgilian influence may be seen early in Comus, the masque M ilton wrote for performance at Ludlow Castle in 1634, when he was 26 years old. He there describes the people of Ludlow as “an old and haughty nation proud in arms” (l. 33), recalling Jupiter’s and the Sibyl’s description of the Latins whom Aeneas must face in Italy (Aen. 1.263; 6.83-94; cf. 7.45; 8.5-6). One can see Milton feeling his way towards a role as poet in his invocation of Meliboeus, the vocational shepherd who is both pastor John Davie - Reflections of Virgil in Milton 27

and poeta (ll. 820-22). We know Milton abandoned his early intention of entering the church, and we find in Comus, and even more explicitly in Lycidas three years later, the notion that a learned poet could serve the Protestant nation just as well as a learned priest. This makes one think of the Augustan notion of the poet as “priest of the Muses”, in Horace’s phrase, no longer merely a poeta but a vates (C. 3.1.3), an inspired bard who could put his poetry at the service of his country: in Milton’s own phrase, “furnishing things doctrinal to the nation”.1

Before we look at specific examples of Virgilian influence in Milton’s poetry, the question may be put: what, if anything, is to be gained by the modern reader from an awareness of this particular literary tradition Milton so consciously places himself in time and again? Are we really impoverished by ignorance of the tradition, or is it the case, as some teachers of English literature would argue, that nothing is sacrificed by ignorance of Milton’s Virgilian subtext, as an equivalent understanding can always be achieved by some other way of reading him? Oliver Lyne, the late lamented scholar of Balliol, has shown admirably in his Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid2 how Virgil in his own use of allusion establishes a fruitful dialectic with earlier authors that does indeed yield a deeper response to his text in the alert reader. I hope to illustrate with some examples a similar process in Milton’s use of Virgil.

So, for instance, there is the famous passage in Aeneid 2, where Hector’s ghost appears to Aeneas in a dream, telling him of the sack of Troy by the Greeks. Aeneas stares in disbelief at his bloodstained kinsman:

quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore qui redit exuvias indutus Achilli (Aen. 2.274-75)

Satan’s first words in Paradise Lost echo this passage. As he lies beside Beelzebub in the flood of Hell and examines his chief ally, he struggles to recognise him:

I f thou beest he; but oh how fallen! How changed From him, who in the happy realms o f light Clothed with transcendent brightness didst outshine Myriads though bright (P.L. 1.84-87)

1 Preface to the second book of The Reason of Church-Government, 1642. 2 1987, Oxford. 28 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Gilbert Highet shows persuasively that Milton has here a purpose similar to what Lyne describes in Virgil: we recognise the Virgilian allusion which colours Satan’s words, but more than this, by making us view Beelzebub as in some way parallel to Hector (and by implication Satan to Aeneas) Milton gives his picture of the fallen angels far more emotional depth. To quote Highet, we are made to feel “the anguish and foreboding and defeat” of persons who may be conquered but still retain heroic qualities and passions that are recognisably human.3 So this is no mere parade of learning, a sort of Alexandrian jeu d ’esprit, as Ovid might occasionally practise, but a genuine attempt by Milton to enlarge our sensibilities in considering the nature of Satan and his following. Are we perhaps intended to extend some sympathy to these creatures at war with God? It is as if, by placing this speech so early in his epic, Milton is deliberately reversing Virgil’s own outburst against Juno at the start of the Aeneid, questioning how gods can show such rancour (tantaene animis caelestibus irae? Aen.1.11); Milton’s Satan here invites the question: “How can devils show such humanity?”

In this context I would like to focus on the character of Satan in Paradise Lost. He is, arguably, the most interesting figure in the epic, and among the various literary influences on his portrayal, Virgil unquestionably has a part to play. Although, from the time of Dryden, critics have admired the “high, superior nature” of Satan, a view intensified by the Romantics, who claimed him as the true hero of the poem, it has been shown by John Carey that a fairer approach is to acknowledge the genuine ambivalence within Paradise Lost and to find in this ambivalence a major factor in the poem’s success.4 Here we may think of recent conflict in Virgilian scholarship between rival schools of interpretation as to Virgil’s pessimistic or optimistic outlook in the Aeneid, and reflect on how ambivalence is central to both poets’ art.

We know from Milton’s notebook of 1640 that he was thinking of composing a “great work” modelled on the Greek tragedians and Shakespeare. This work may never have come to fruition, but the remnants of these dramatic impulses are clearly apparent in Satan’s great monologues in Paradise Lost. It is difficult for us with our post-Romantic sympathy for anti-heroes not to find something splendidly defiant in Satan’s exclamation to his followers: “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” (P. L. 1.263). This is itself a conflation of two classical passages, Achilles’ famous words to Odysseus in the underworld about preferring to work on earth as a hired serf than to be king of all the

3 The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature, 1949, Oxford, 156-70. 4 J. Carey, ‘Milton’s Satan’, in D. Danielson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Milton, 1989, Oxford, 131-45 (132). John Davie - Reflections of Virgil in Milton 29

dead (Od. 11.489-91), and Juno’s threat to stir up Acheron if the gods of Olympus are deaf to her wishes (flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo. Aen. 7.312). As Virgil had worked from the Iliad and Odyssey in tracing the fortunes of his Roman hero, so Milton examines the question of heroism against the background of the Homeric epics of strife and quest, and of the fusion of the two in Virgil’s poem. At first Satan appears as a debased form of Achilles, sharing with Homer’s hero a harshness and refusal to compromise. We are told of his “fixed mind / And high disdain, from sense of injured merit” (P. L. 1.98). But from the first description of Aeneas’ Rutulian opponent in the Aeneid, by the Sibyl, our minds turn also to that “second Achilles”, Turnus, and, as we shall see, this is a far more potent model for Milton’s Satan. It can also be argued that, paradoxically, Satan in some respects recalls Aeneas: like Virgil’s hero, Satan escapes from a flaming city to seek a better kingdom elsewhere, and the Aeneid pattern is continued by his adventures and successful victory in Eden. But we must not press things too far. Aeneas is, after all, for most of the time a model ofpietas, and Satan, who allows his diabolic nature to triumph over his natural instinct to love, is the very embodiment of impietas. Aeneas succeeds in finding a new home in Italy, but for Satan, who brings hell with him wherever he goes, there can be no finding of a new homeland.

The Aeneid is also partly an epic of anger, as shown in Juno’s relentless hatred for the Trojans and in the furor she inspires in Dido and Turnus, the principal obstacles to Aeneas’ success. In Paradise Lost this theme of anger culminates in Satan’s return to hell in book 10, when he liberates his wife, Sin, and his son, Death, from captivity. While this triumph is longer-lasting than that of Turnus when he carries all before him after the death of Pallas, Turnus is at least given some measure of dignity by Virgil before his end. Nonetheless his humiliation is still palpable in the final appeal he makes to Aeneas, if not as extreme as that of being turned into hissing serpents that suffer the thirst of Tantalus, the fate of Satan and his followers.

It is typical of Virgil not to present his hero’s enemies as unmitigated villains, and certainly the characterisation of Turnus in the closing books of the Aeneid is complex. The violent warrior who gloats over the fallen Pallas with all the apparent heartlessness of Priam’s killer, Neoptolemus, never wholly eclipses the romantic young prince whose wedding hopes are dashed by the Trojans’ arrival in Italy. Indeed, with the murderous fury of Aeneas after Pallas’ death, Virgil reinstates Turnus in our affections by showing him as the gallant young patriot defending his country, like Homer’s Hector, against impossible odds. This sympathetic portrayal is enhanced by the heartlessness of Jupiter scaring off Turnus’ last ally with a frightful fiend, a D ira (Aen. 12.853-86), just as 30 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

another creature from hell, Allecto (Aen. 7.415-66), had sent him out of control at the outset of the war. Virgil’s sympathy extends even to the monstrous tyrant Mezentius who loses his son and dies with heroic dignity after communing with his beloved horse, Rhaebus, in words of great nobility (Aen. 10.861-908). It may be that Milton, when he came to portray Satan, was partly influenced by this typically Virgilian refusal to see things in black and white.

Certainly, Satan becomes a far more interesting figure when it is hinted that his natural instinct is to love, not to hate, as in the passage where he feels he could love Adam and Eve because they so strongly resemble God (P.L. 4.362-64); or again, when he weeps angelic tears at the sight of his fallen followers. (1.619-20). This recalls the passage where Turnus learns the tide of battle has turned against the Latins and the Latin queen, his chief supporter, has died by her own hand. It is a moment worthy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and Virgil, like Shakespeare, finds heroic greatness in the man whose cruelty we have come to deplore:

obstipuit varia confusus imagine rerum Turnus et obtutu tacito stetit; aestuat ingens uno in corde pudor mixtoque insania luctu et furiis agitatus amor et conscia virtus. (Aen. 12.665-68J

A clear correspondence between the Aeneid and Paradise Lost has been pointed out

by K. W. Gransden in his commentary on the eighth book of the Aeneid,5 namely the use of a double time-scale that has to be synchronised by the reader. In the Aeneid we are aware of a narrative past, the Aeneas story itself, and of a future, made known to Aeneas through prophecy, which corresponds to the Augustan present. So in the Underworld Aeneas is told that the splendid young prince he sees will one day restore to Italy her lost Golden Age, an echo of Jupiter’s consolation to Venus in book 1, itself Virgil’s celebration of the Augustan settlement: aspera tum positis mitescent saecula bellis (291). Jupiter’s promise to the Romans exhausted by war is echoed by Milton’s God when he prophesies the destiny of mankind, who will:

And after all their tribulations long See golden days, jruitful o f golden deeds, With joy and love triumphing, and fa ir truth. (P.L. 3.336-38J

5 Aeneid, Book VIII, 1976, Cambridge, 14-20. John Davie - Reflections of Virgil in Milton 31

Milton, then, follows Virgil in using the double timescale to unfold history as a moral process. This becomes clear when we look at the words with which the Archangel Michael ends his prophecy of the royal dynasty of Israel, culminating in the person of Christ:

he shall ascend The throne hereditary, and bound his reign With earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the heavens. (P.L. 12.369-71)

The Virgilian reflection here is a conflation of Jupiter’s prophecy about Augustus in his speech to Venus:

imperium Oceano, fam am qui terminet astris (Aen. 1. 287)

and Anchises’ words to Aeneas on Rome:

illa incluta Roma imperium terris, animos aequabit Olympo (Aen. 6.781-82).

So Milton is inviting us on one level to see Adam and Aeneas as parallel figures, both men destined to shoulder the burden of setting in motion the fated sequence of history. The toil and suffering of Aeneas will result in the glory of the Roman empire, but the Fall from God’s grace means no such empire being established on earth and the City of God, a true imperium sine fine, will exist only in Heaven.

Related to this use of temporal structures by both poets is, of course, the flashback. Milton is clearly aware of Virgil’s narration of the fall of Troy by Aeneas when he incorporates into his own poem the angel Raphael’s narration of the Fall of Satan’s angels (Aen. 2; cf. P.L. 6).

Milton was quite prepared to defend his use of blank verse as against the rhyming couplet favoured by Dryden, pointing out that neither Homer nor Virgil had the need of “such jingling sound of like endings”, and claiming that he was restoring to heroic poetry its “ancient liberty” by rescuing it from “the troublesome and modern bondage of Riming”.6 There is more to this, I think, than Milton vindicating his own blank verse against the vulgar taste of the present: that taste was, after all, that of Charles’s

6 Notes to the first edition of P.L. quoted in S. N. Zwicker, ‘Lines ofAuthority: Politics and Literary Culture in the Restoration’, in K. Sharpe & S. N. Zwicker (eds), Politics of Discourse: The Literature and History of Seventeenth Century England, 1987, Berkeley and Los Angeles CA, 230-70 (249). 32 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

court with its lionisation of Dryden, and there is even, arguably, a subtext that the only restoration that really interested Milton was that of English liberty from Stuart tyranny. Indeed, there was always going to be an inherent problem for Milton in worshipping too fervently at Virgil’s shrine. As a convinced republican he can hardly have warmed to the Virgilian model which celebrates the founding of the line of Caesars that terminated forever the Roman republic. Far more to his political taste must have been the republican epic of Lucan with its celebration of Pompey and the great Cato, last of the republicans. Spenser and Shakespeare were widely admired in Milton’s day, but from his considerable reputation among English poets Abraham Cowley would also have been familiar to Milton. In 1656 Cowley had published his own attempt at a modern biblical epic, the Davideis, and in his preface he had nailed his political colours to the mast, by declaring himself a defeated royalist who had accepted the new order and given up his earlier intention to write an epic on the civil war, since “it is ridiculous to make Laurels for the Conquered”. It was also true that Royalist poets and pamphleteers had usurped the Virgilian heroic model even before the Restoration, and once Charles II had reclaimed his father’s throne, poets explicitly celebrated the new era in Virgilian terms as a restored Golden Age, with Charles as a new Augustus. Foremost among these was Dryden with his Astraea Redux, which is clearly inspired by the Fourth Eclogue. But Milton was too principled to sail so obviously with the wind. He may have lost faith in the English government ever becoming an aristocratic republic, but the opening lines of Paradise Lost make it clear that no English Augustus will bring about the true Restoration, but rather a divine hero, the Christ of Paradise Regained.

Both Virgil and Milton unite politics and religion, and Milton’s hostility to monarchic power is always to be seen in its religious context within the poem. Satan has usurped a kingship that belongs only to Christ, and while the surface associations of his monarchy are with the Stuarts, particularly with Charles I and his love of Catholic ceremony and pomp, few Englishmen ofthe day would dispute that Cromwell in the final years ofthe Protectorate had behaved in an increasingly monarchical fashion, promoting rebellion as a cloak for ambition and using republican rhetoric to justify his position o f eminence in the state. In these respects Cromwell, not Charles or his restored son, provides the model for Satan. It is also true that Jupiter in no sense has the spiritual authority for Virgil that God provides for Milton, and so his apparent underpinning of Aeneas and the Roman empire ultimately lacks the binding moral imperative at work in Milton’s epic. As Servius pointed out, in commenting on the famous passage in the Aeneid where Jupiter contradicts himself (Aen. John Davie - Reflections of Virgil in Milton 33

10. 8-9), Virgil’s Jupiter is politic and will say what the occasion requires; he is, in fact, as Stephen Harrison has pointed out in his Oxford commentary on this book,7 no less capable of cunning than any other god in the Aeneid. To suggest this of Milton’s God is plainly absurd. It is also perfectly possible that Virgil, while not blind to his violent record, thought Augustus represented the best possible hope for Italy and that the great prayer o f the first Georgic, asking the gods to let “this young man at least” repair his shattered country comes straight from the poet’s heart: that innocuous little word, saltem, immediately following upon hunc iuvenem, lends an authenticity to the poet’s prayer (Ge. 1.498-501). Still, there is ambivalence within the Aeneid itself, which ends with the hero going directly against his father’s famous injunction, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos (Aen. 6. 853). Virgil may have shown Renaissance poets how to write encomiastic epic which honours a nation state and its prince, but he also showed how this can be done without sacrificing a sense of political unease. M ilton’s republicanism was naturally attracted to this, and it is significant how much he seeks to undermine imperial conquest in his own poem. Empire, as we have seen, is consistently portrayed as a divine prerogative alone, and as falsely appropriated by Satan, the embodiment of fraudulence. When at the end of Paradise Lost the fallen Adam and Eve quit paradise “with wandering steps and slow” (12.648), the mood is reminiscent, not of triumphant vengeance but of the Trojans resignedly abandoning their conquered city as the morning star rises above Ida.

On this reading, then, Milton is deliberately seeking to exploit the uncertainties implicit in Virgil’s treatment of his imperial theme. A connection between the republicanism of both poets may be seen in the way Aeneas and Satan are shown to be in a stranded situation at the start of both epics. Certainly, a striking fact about the Aeneid is the way its hero is introduced to us as helpless and afraid, his loss o f his helmsman Palinurus emphasising how rudderless he is in his voyage towards his fate. This, as editors have pointed out, is reflected in the first sight we have of Milton’s Satan, also engaged in a stormy, perilous voyage through a disordered cosmos. But while Aeneas clearly expects to die at sea, and has no hopes, as his language shows, of imperial conquest to be gained in Italy, Milton’s Satan is made to aspire hubristically to heroic success within a world governed by an omniscient and provident God. This is a bold reworking of Virgil’s poem, that treats his text as Virgil had treated his own sources, perhaps the most complimentary way in which a poet can imitate a predecessor.

A further example of Milton’s delicate and ingenious transformation of Virgil can be found in comparing Virgil’s treatment of Dido and Milton’s of Eve. By 1660 Virgil

7 Vergil, Aeneid 10, 1991, Oxford, 59-60. 34 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

had become entrenched firmly within the tradition of Christian epic, and part of this assimilation was his perceived resistance to the charms of women. But, whereas Aeneas successfully resists Dido and pursues his Roman destiny of imperialism, Milton’s Adam falls because of his bond of sympathy with Eve, and the heroic figure in pursuit of empire is the devil. Again, in this context, there is the obvious correspondence between Satan and Virgil’s Juno, who, until Aeneid 12, when the goddess ceases to oppose fate and becomes a Roman deity, is the main model for Milton’s arch-fiend. Milton boldly presents us with the antithesis of the divine reconciliation scene at the end ofVirgil’s poem by transforming Satan, his parody of a classical epic hero, into a serpent. (It is interesting also that, when Nahum Tate reworked the Dido story for the libretto of Purcell’s famous opera, the notion o f Juno inspiring the characterisation o f the devil lives on in the chorus o f witches and their mistress Hecate, who replace Virgil’s imperious daughter of Saturn).

I end with a final example of Milton’s debt to Virgil, in which I offer a close reading of one of his greatest sonnets, On his Deceased Wife:

Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the Grave, Whom Jove’s great son to her glad Husband gave, Rescu’d from death by Force though pale and faint. M ine as whom wash’d from Spot o f childbed Taint Purification in the old Law did save, And such, as yet once more I trust to have Full Sight o f her in Heav ’n without Restraint, Came vested all in white, pure as her M ind: Her Face was veil’d, yet to my fancied Sight, Love, Sweetness, Goodness in her Person shin’d So clear, as in no Face with more Delight. But O as to embrace me she inclin’d I wak’d, she fled, and Day brought back my Night.

This sonnet, Milton’s last, is justly famous. Scholarly dispute over which wife’s death is being commemorated — Katharine Woodcock’s (1658) or Mary Powell’s (1682) — cannot be entirely resolved, but it seems more fitting for a husband who had never seen his wife’s face to know her, despite her wearing a veil. His hope o f seeing her in heaven “without restraint” further suggests he is thinking of the woman he married after becoming totally blind, Katharine Woodcock. More difficult to gauge is the mood of the sonnet. Is this a happy poem or a sad one? On a first reading it seems to contain John Davie - Reflections of Virgil in Milton 35

both grief and joy. There is little doubt that the poem has a strong Christian vision which argues for optimism: the poet’s wife, now a “Saint”, appears to him all in white, reflecting her purity of mind and body, the physical purification of the “old Law” of Moses being an image of how her spirit has been cleansed by Christ. Milton senses, rather than sees, love emanating from her face, and he is confident of being reunited with her finally in heaven, and enjoying the “full sight” of her denied him on earth. The allusion to Alcestis, the wife in Euripides’ play rescued from death by Hercules and restored to her husband Admetus, conjures up the paradox of the play — that tragedy, however harrowing, can end with tears of joy.

But there is no real parallel here: his wife is not restored to him, except to his “fancied sight” in a dream — cold comfort indeed. The physical rapture of Euripides’ Admetus in holding his lost wife once more is conspicuously denied to Milton as day brings back his night. Further doubts arise when we consider another, less explicit influence on this poem — book 2 of the Aeneid. Milton has conflated two passages from Virgil’s account of the sack of Troy. The first is Aeneas’ vision of his goddess mother in all her divine radiance, illuminating the darkness of that terrible last night:

talia iactabam et furiata mente ferebar cum mihi se, non ante oculis tam clara, videndam obtulit et pura per noctem in luce refulsit alma parens, confessa deam qualisque videri caelicolis et quanta solet, (Aen. 2.588-92)

Dryden’s translation into rhyming couplets is as much Dryden as Virgil but captures the immediacy of the verse:

Thus while I rave, a gleam o f pleasing Light Spread oe ’r the Place, and shining Heav ’nly bright, My Mother stood reveal’d before my Sight. Never so radiant did her Eyes appear; N ot her own Star confess’d a Light so clear. Great in her Charms, as when on Gods above She looks, and breaths her Self into their Love.

Venus’ purpose is to prevent her frenzied son from killing Helen, the apparent cause of all Troy’s woes. Significantly, she achieves this end by enabling Aeneas to see what no other mortal combatants can, that the gods themselves, not the Greeks, are the 36 Proceedings o f the Virgil Society 27 (2011)

real agents of the city’s destruction. The question of sight, so central to Milton’s sonnet, reminds us that the poet’s vision of a state of bliss is in the future, not, as in Virgil, the gift of a god removing the scales from mortal eyes, and that what is clearly built around an allusion may also be for Milton an illusion: “Methought I saw .. . ”

How real is this experience? Milton “trusts” to have full sight of his wife eventually, but does this imply certainty or hope? If the latter, Milton’s deep knowledge of Greek tragedy would have conjured up the sober warning of Sophocles’ Ajax: “No merit has he in my eyes, the man who warms himself with empty hopes” (Aj. 477-78). There may well be a tension here between Milton’s Christian understanding of hope as a theological virtue and the classical notion of hope as a deceiver of man (Aesch. Supp. 97; Thuc.5.103; Men. Mon. 42).

The second Virgilian allusion is closer still to Milton’s imagined experience here. Aeneas, frantically searching Troy for his lost wife, is suddenly confronted by her ghost, the first indication to him that Creusa is dead (Aen. 2.771-94). She offers the cold comfort that he has a higher destiny to pursue, in which she cannot share, that she will be spared the degradation of captivity in Greece, and that she has been chosen to serve “the great mother of the gods” as a favourite acolyte. Like Milton’s wife, she has passed on to a higher spiritual plane. Her final word to Aeneas is love (amorem) but it is not their love she means, but the love they share for their son, who now has no mother. Aeneas might well have been haunted for the rest of his life by the last word she had spoken to him while still alive: relinquor (“I am being abandoned”, Aen. 2.678). Virgil then underlines the pathos of their parting:

haec ubi dicta dedit, lacrimantem et multa volentem dicere deseruit, tenuisque recessit in auras. ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, p ar levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno. (Aen. 2.790-04).

Dryden’s version reads:

I strove to speak, but Horror ty’d my tongue; And thrice about her Neck my Arms I flung; And thrice deceiv’d, on vain Embraces hung, Light as an empty Dream at break o f Day, Or as a blast o f wind, she rush’d away. John Davie — Reflections of Virgil in Milton 37

Creusa leaves him “in tears, wanting to say many things”, having earlier told him to banish his tears for the Creusa he “had loved” (lacrimas dilectae pelle Creusae, 784), where dilectae is surely the most eloquent past participle in Latin: she is a ghost and their love now belongs in the past. In Milton’s poem the dead wife does not speak but shows her love, or rather is about to, when there is a sudden reversal of the rising mood of happiness, as the blind man wakes and any further contact is denied: the final, haunting line evokes not only Creusa’s farewell but the tale of that other tragic wife, Eurydice: “I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night”. Despite the Christian vision that informs the sonnet, this is hardly a happy ending, with its frustration of the loving couple’s approaching reunion, and the image of the poet plunged back into solitary darkness as the world around him wakes up to the light of day. His only fault, if fault it be, was to wake, and here he can be no more blamed than the Orpheus of the Fourth Georgic, betrayed by his heart on the verge of blissful reunion with his wife. The pathos of Virgil’s telling of the familiar tale is striking and memorable, but there is an obvious and crucial difference with Milton: neither Virgil nor his narrator, Proteus, is personally affected by loss, but for Milton the loss is all too personal. All the more remarkable, then, is the way the English poet expresses this loss without a trace of self­ pity, showing true classical restraint. The poem attains a balance between Christian optimism and classical pathos, no easy task. Milton’s vision may not achieve perfect harmony between the claims of heaven and the grave, but it is this honesty, and not just the formal beauty of expression, that makes the sonnet so impressive. It enables Milton to make sense of an extraordinary experience and at the same time to give us a poem of true Virgilian sensibility.

St. P aul’s School JOHN DAVIE Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere

An Introduction

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 23 February 2008*

In 1860, as a reward for his contribution to the end of Bourbon rule in the Kingdom ofthe Two-Sicilies, Alexander Dumas was appointed by Garibaldi Director ofExcavations and Museums, and held the post, in the teeth of public opposition, for several months.1 The fact that Dumas had so impressed on Garibaldi his interest in the excavations as to stimulate the appointment is intriguing. But Dumas was fascinated by Antiquity, and particularly by Rome,2 and made this fascination part of his public persona:

“Si j’aime la mer comme une maitresse, j’aime Rome comme une a'ieule. Combien de fois ai-je ete a Rome? Je n’en sais rien; je ne compte plus ... Oh! ce que je fais a Rome, c’est bien facile a dire: je vais voir la via Appia; je vais regarder couler le Tibre; je vais m’asseoir sous une arcade du Colisee, et je dis a part moi: ‘Il faut pourtant que je fasse une histoire de Rome’. — Pourquoi ne la faites-vous pas, alors? — Parce qu’elle serait trop amusante; personne ne la lirait. Vous ne ferez jamais accroire au public qu’Herodote, Suetone et Walter Scott sont des historiens”.3

As the tone of the passage suggests, Dumas understood the dangers of engaging with the ancient world in literature. His own novels and plays about the ancient world were not, on the whole, a contemporary success. The fashion in literature, as Aziza observes, was for the medieval; classical antiquity in literature was too much associated with the

*A.M.D.G. I am very grateful to the Virgil Society for having given me an opportunity to offer them some of the thoughts expressed in this paper, and for the helpful comments of those who were present. I am also very grateful to the editor for his comments on an earlier draft. 1 Viva Garibaldi! Une Odyssee en 1860, 443-44; Collet (1994) 139-71; Aziza (2003) 22. 2 See Aziza (2003) 19-24. 3 Viva Garibaldi! Une Odyssee en 1860, 69-70. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 39

ancien regime.4 Dumas’s tragedy Caligula (performed at the Theatre-Franfais in 1837) gave birth to a new expression on the Boulevards: “Tu me caligules”, “You’re boring

me” ;5 and neither Acte (1839), set in Neronian Rome, nor Catilina (1848), was greeted with enthusiasm.6 The anticipated “seconde partie” of his Memoires d ’Horace ecrits p ar

lui-meme never appeared,7 and a publisher only took the risk of printing it as a book almost 150 years after it had first appeared as a feuilleton in Le Sieclef Auguste (1857) has never been published as a book. Even in the initial notice for the Memoires d ’Horace, the editor of Le Siecle seems to have anticipated the lukewarm appreciation of his readers and, at the same time as describing it as “une esquisse tres piquante et tres curieuse”, promised them that its publication would be interrupted by the publication of romans

9

Against the background of apparent public indifference, if not hostility, to Dumas’s theatrical and novelistic explorations of the ancient world, the constant presence of classical authors, especially Virgil, in his writing is all the more intriguing.

As we would expect, Virgil appears as a character in the Memoires d ’Horace, although, regrettably, Dumas does not make him speak. Horace meets Virgil and Varius when they are all three class-mates in the Epicurean school of “Syronus”, which Dumas appears to locate in Rome. The difference in age prevents them from becoming friends immediately, but soon Virgil and Varius are close enough to Horace to be part of the party when he assumes the toga virilis.10

4 Aziza (1984) 8. He notes as exceptions the success of Bulwer Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834) and novels with a biblical or Christian theme (such as Wiseman’s Fabiola (1854)). On the medieval fashion see also Durand-Le Guern (2003) 26-33, 38. 5 Aziza (1984) 7. 6 A modern critical assessment of Acte is more generous : Aziza (1984) 8. 7 It is not clear, however, whether Dumas really intended to write this: “si je donne une seconde partie a ces Memoires ...” (Memoires d ’Horace, 356). But see also Fucecchi (2009) 69, n.17. 8 Between February and July, 1860. It was published in book form in 2006. On the original publication see Fucecchi (2009) 67. 9 “Nous commen^ons aujourd’hui la publication d’un nouvel ouvrage de l’auteur de Monte-Cristo et des Mousquetaires; c’est une esquisse tres piquante et tres curieuse de la societe romaine au temps de l’illustre poete latin, a qui, par une ingenieuse fiction, M. Alexandre Dumas laisse la parole. Comme cet ouvrage tient de l’etude de moeurs autant que du roman, nous le ferons paraitre par series de feuilletons seulement, dans l’intervalle des romans proprement dits que nous continuerons d’offrir regulierement a nos lecteurs”. Memoires d ’Horace, 1. Among these “romans proprement dits” was Dumas’s own Le pere la Ruine (Aziza (2006) XIII). 10 Memoires d ’Horace, 93-96. 40 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Dumas devotes several pages o f the Memoires d ’Horace to a description of Virgil’s life

and habits;1 1 we are therefore able to see that his principal source, directly or indirectly, was the version o f Donatus’ Vita Vergilii which was current in contemporary French editions of

the poet.12 So Virgil’s route to favour with Octavian is through a dispute with Bathyllus over the authorship o f the couplet nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane: / divisum imperium

cum love Caesar habet, which he proves by writing sic vos non vobis.13 Similarly, he is in love with Varius’ wife, but refuses to allow Varius to divorce her so that he can take her; and he

has a delicate physical constitution and chaste habits.14 Dumas’s reliance on the older version of Donatus can also be confirmed from elsewhere in his oeuvre. In La Dame de Monsoreau, Henri III illustrates a warning to the Duc d’Anjou with sic vos non vobis, helpfully attributing it to Virgil, for the sake o f his readers: “Prenez garde, Franfois, ce n’est pas un homme a etre

victime du Sic vos non vobis ... vous connaissez Virgile, nidificatis, aves”.15 In ‘Ah! Qu’on est fier d’etre franfais’, one o f his Causeries, Dumas refers to the 10,000 sesterces which Octavia is said to have paid Virgil for writing Tu Marcellus eris1 And in Paris a Cadix: “Eh bien! Il a

plu toute la nuit: Nocte pluit tota, comme dit Virgile”.17

What is absent from Dumas’s projection of Donatus’ Virgil, however, is any reference to the rumour eum libidinis pronioris in pueros fuisse or to his love for Cebes and Alexander in particular. He gives him Plotia Hiera as his mistress, a rumour which Donatus reports immediately after dealing with the boys: Vulgatum est, consuevisse eum cum Plotia Hiera, says Donatus; “ce qu’il y a de certain, c’est qu’il avait pour maitresse

Plotia Hiera”, says Dumas-Horace.18 It appears, therefore, that Dumas thought it best to limit what the readers of Le Siecle needed to know. A subsequent description ofVirgil was, perhaps, as far as Dumas could safely go:

“Dans une autre epoque, cent cinquante ans avant l’ere des Cesars, Virgile eut passe pour un homme sensible, pour un voluptueux charmant, peut-etre meme pour un debauche; mais a la cour d’Auguste, ou plutot d’Octave, il passait pour un homme range”.19

11 Ibid. 272-77. 12 E.g. Donatus (1823), the Vita included in the Delphin edition ofVirgil reprinted at Lyon in 1823. It is worth noting that the editor, Charles de la Rue S.J., was himself sceptical of the value of the Vita (see his comment at Donatus (1823) 28). For a modern edition of the Vita see Hardie (1957) 2-14. On Dumas’s probable sources for the life of Horace, see Fucecchi (2009) 69-71. 13 Memoires d ’Horace, 273-74; Donatus (1823) 24-25. 14 Memoires d ’Horace, 276-77; Donatus (1823) 16. 15 Le Dame de Monsoreau (vol. 2), 110. 16 Causeries, 18-19; Donatus (1823) 20. 17 De Paris a Cadix, 407; Donatus (1823) 24. Cf. Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, 423. 18 Donatus (1823) 16; Memoires d’Horace, 277. 19 Ibid. 277. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 41

If we turn to consider the employment of Virgilian quotations or references in Dumas’s works, we can discern certain distinct strands.

When he places a quotation in the mouth of one of the characters of his novels, the purpose seems most often to be to provide that character with a source of quasi- proverbial wisdom or reflection. Thus, as we saw above,20 in La Dame de Monsoreau Henri III offers sic vos non vobis as a proverb from which his brother can draw a warning. In Les Louves de Machecoul,

“Le voyageur regardait avec admiration ces beaux cheveux et ces beaux yeux noirs, . et cette allure ferme et degagee qui sembler reveler la deesse. Il murmura avec un sourire, en se rappelant son Virgile, cet homme qui, lui-meme, est un sourire de l’antitiquite: Incessu patuit dea!’11

In Ange Pitou, Pitou hears the sound of pursuing horsemen:

“Tout a coup, son oreille ... lui transmit le bruit d’un fer de cheval sonnant sur le pave. Oh! Oh! fit Pitou, scandant le fameux vers de Virgile: Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum. Et il regarda. Mais il ne vit rien”.22

And in Le Chevalier d ’Harmental, our hero watches from his window in Paris, as a neighbour tends his roof garden:

“D’Harmental admira l’active industrie du bourgeois de Paris qui parvient a se creer une campagne sur le bord de sa fenetre, sur le coin d’un toit, et jusque dans le sillon de sa gouttiere. Il murmura le fameux vers de Virgile: O fortunatos nimium, et puis, la brise etant assez froide ... il referma sa croisee”.23

D ’Harmental’s quotation is not just a passing comment on his neighbour’s quasi-rustic beatitude: our hero is getting himself into the deep waters of conspiracy, and is in danger o f losing sua bona for good.

Even from so small a sample, we can begin to see how Dumas proceeds: the phrases are short and memorable and he identifies their Virgilian provenance to the reader, even when it would be natural not to do so. The same procedure is also generally followed

20 At n.15 (above). 21 Les Louves de Machecoul, 243. See also at nn. 42-44 below. 22 Ange Pitou (vol.1), 102. Cf. Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, 347: “Plusieurs cavaliers les suivaient avec le bruit si bien imite par les vers cadences de Virgile”. Elsewhere he introduces a distancing tone of scepticism towards schoolmasters’ professional admiration of the line: “C ’etait le bruit de ce lointain galop d’un cheval si bien imite dans la langue latine, au dire des professeurs, ebahis, depuis deux mille ans, d’admiration devant le vers de Virgile: Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum”. (Le Page du Duc de Savoie (vol. 2), 66). 23 Le Chevalier d ’Harmental (vol. 1), 188. 42 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

when he introduces direct Virgilian references as narrator. A poignant (if melodramatic) example can be given from Le Collier de la Reine:

“Marie-Antoinette s’approcha vivement d’un miroir: elle eblouissait. Son col fin et souple autant que celui de Jeanne Gray, ce col mignon comme le tube d’un lis, destine comme la fleur de Virgile a tomber sous le fer, s’elevait gracieusement avec ses boucles dorees et frisees du sein de ce flot lumineux”.24

Another example can be found in Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, when d’Artagnan visits the home of the Comte de La Fere (Athos) to see the corpse of his friend, and finds also the corpse of his friend’s son:

“D’Artagnan fut frappe de voir deux cerceuils ouverts dans ce salon; il . vit dans l’un d’eux Athos, beau jusque dans la mort, et, dans l’autre Raoul, les yeux fermes, les joux nacrees comme le Pallas de Virgil”.25

The reader who has read the Aeneid will feel his pathos for the dead Raoul de Bragelonne intensified by the intertext. But Dumas’s identification of Pallas here as le Pallas de Virgile gives his less knowledgeable reader what is required for a superficial appreciation of the comparison: the reader who does not know who Pallas is can pass on, knowing that Dumas has in mind a pale boy or man (and quite probably a dead boy or man) from one of Virgil’s poems.

Not all of Dumas’s Virgilian allusions resonate quite so well. There is a certain boiler-plate element to some of his references and quotations. Coquettish women, for example, are like the Galatea of Eclogue 3: “Une petite fille, comme la Galatee de Virgile, ne se cachait que pour etre vue” (Le Caucase);26 “Decidement, la Galatee de Virgile, qui fuit vers les saules et qui desire d’etre vue avant que d’y arriver, est de tous les pays, meme du Maroc” (Le Veloce);27 “Manette [Thierry] ... toujours chantant pour faire entendre sa voix, toujours riant pour montrer ses dents, toujours courant pour laisser voir son pied, sa cheville, ses mollets meme; la Galatee de Virgile, qu’elle ne connaissait pas de nom, fuyant pour etre poursuivie, se cachant pour etre vue avant d’etre cachee” (Mes Memoires).28 The same reference can also be prompted, just as automatically, but

24 Le Collier de la Reine (vol. 6), 123. Cf. the description of Louise de la Valliere’s fainting: “Elle tomba pliee en deux, pareille a cette fleur dont parle Virgile et qu’a touchee le faux du moissonneur”. (Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, 418). 25 Le Vicomte de Bragelonne, 799. (A reference to Aen.11.39, caput nivei fultum Pallantis). 26 58. 27 62. 28 vol. 1, 388. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 43

rather less aptly, by the description of a boy escaping from and then ambushing his pursuing tutor (Mes Memoires).2

Other phrases or Virgilian tropes become familiar to Dumas’s readers. O fortunatos nimium, which we have already seen quoted by the Chevalier d’Harmental, recurs several

times.3 0 Facilis descensus Averni may be used as a teasing warning (as in the conversation between Mlle. de Launay and d’Harmental in Le Chevalier d ’Harmental),51 or in a

local description in a novel (as in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) 3 2 or in one of Dumas’s

travel-writings (as in Le Caucase).3 3 In a conversation, the participants may be said to

alternate comme “deux bergers de Virgile” (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo);3 4 in a naval punishment, “l’execution commenfa, les deux aides operant chacun a leur tour avec

la regularite des bergers de Virgile”;3 5 Virgil’s shepherds are even brought to mind by two men pursuing a pig as each tries to catch it (“qui alternaient a sa queue avec une

regularite digne des bergers de Virgile”).3 6 Cups may also recall those “que les bergers de Virgile se disputaient par leurs chants” (En Suisse)?1 A woman may look at a man “comme Didon regarda Enee aux Champs Elyseens, farouche et terrible” (Le Vicomte

de Bragelonne),3 8 or “de travers, comme Didon regardait Enee pret a partir” (Joseph

Balsamo),3 9 or may continue, “comme Didon, a tenir ses yeux fixes sur la terre” (Olympe de Cleves).40 A woman who walks with dignity may recall Venus in Aeneid 2: we have

already seen one example from Les Louves de Machecoul;41 in the Memoires, Dumas

29 vol. 5, 402: (of the young Eugene Sue): “Il avait un repetiteur a domicile, le pere Delteil ... qui, pour remplir son devoir de repetition, n'hesitait pas a soutenir des luttes corps a corps avec son eleve, lequel fuyait dans le jardin, mais fuyait a la maniere de la Galatee de Virgile, pour etre poursuivi. Une fois dans le jardin, l’ecolier rebelle se trouvait a la fois dans un arsenal d’armes defensives et offensives”. 30 The Chevalier d’Harmental at n.23 (above). Cf. also AngePitou (vol.1), 52: “ ‘Oui, mais vous, monsieur Billot, vous n’etes pas abbe, vous etes cultivateur, agricola, comme dit Virgile. O fortunatos nimium ...”’; and Les Quarante-cinq (vol. 3), 135 at n.58 (below). 31 90. 32 112; cf IsaacLaquedem (vol. 4), 237. 33 34. 34 25. 35 Le Capitaine Pamphile, 145 36 Georges, 202. 37 vol. 2, 60. 38 39. A man may also be “farouche et terrible” like Dido (ibid. 704): “- Je n’avais pas d’armes, murmura [Aramis], farouche et terrible comme l’ombre de Didon”. 39 vol. 3, 262. 40 vol. 1, 163. 41 At n.21 above. 44 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

recounts how the actress, Mlle. Raucourt, took a liking to Mlle. George Weymer, “en

voyant le pas de la deesse se reveler en elle, comme dit Virgile”;4 2 Haydee, leaving the court after witnessing the disgrace of the Comte de Morcerf, “sortit de ce pas dont

Virgile voyait marcher les deesses” (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo);4 3 another woman is “celle qui ne m’etait apparue qu’un instant et qui, comme la mere d’Enee, m’avait par sa seule demarche revele sa divinite” (Les Aventures de John Davys).44

As can be seen in the examples above, it appears that Dumas does not need to identify Aeneas or Dido (unlike the fleeing Galatea) as characters in a poem by Virgil; indeed, as in the final citation above, reference to Aeneas can replace reference to Virgil as a means of identifying the source of Dumas’s comparison. This suggests that Dumas felt he could expect his readers to know who Dido and Aeneas were, at least in the sense of knowing the story and being able to associate them with Virgil.

Elsewhere, Dumas’s use of the name “Virgil” may sometimes be little more than a label, giving distinction by way of circumlocution: Latin thus becomes “la langue de

Virgile” (Isaac Laquedem).4 5 The circumlocution can be padded with names, so that the inclusion of Virgil becomes even less significant, except as a further demonstration of Dumas’s general knowledge of the ancient world: so a visit to Italy is “notre excursion sur la terre de Virgile, d’Horace et de Tacite” (Le Corricolo)·46 and Sicily is identified as “le vieux monde d’Horace, de Virgile, d’Ovide et de Theocrite” (Le Speronare).47 In Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, however, Dumas’s use of Virgil’s name seems intended to demonstrate specific knowledge and thus his authority in the field: he points out that

Virgil describes garlic as a plant useful to harvesters;4 8 he traces the history of the plate

by reference to Aen. 7.107-17;4 9 he informs his readers that Virgil and Horace speak of

cheese, but not of butter;50 and he observes that Virgil and Horace particularly praised

wines from Psara in Chios.51

42 MesMemoires (vol. 2), 210. 43 310. 44 vol. 2, 154. 45 vol. 1, 22: “se jetant des fadaises dans la langue de Virgile”. 46 388. 47 259. 48 s.v. “ail”, 21; Virgil, Ecl. 2.10-11. 49 s.v. “assiette”, 61. 50 s.v. “beurre”, 90. 51 s.v. “vins”, 690: “les vins de Chio etaient les meilleurs de Grece; Virgile et Horace les trouvaient excellents, tous deux les ont chantes vantant particulierement celui du quartier de Psara”. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 45

Dumas’s introduction to Virgil is described in his Memoires. After his schoolmaster lost his licence to keep a pension, the young Alexandre had lessons at home:

“L’abbe Gregoire venait tous les jours, a onze heures du matin; la le^on durait deux heures; j’avais a moi a peu pres le reste de la journee, et voici comment:

Mon professeur, pour se donner moins de peine, avait un Virgile et un Tacite avec la traduction en regard. Or, pour ne pas apporter et remporter chaque jour ces deux volumes, il les laissait a la maison, enfermes dans une petite cassette.

Cette petite cassette, il en emportait la clef avec soin; car il savait la tentation grande pour un paresseux comme moi.

Malheureusement, j’avais decouvert que la boite avait des charnieres exterieures. A l’aide d’un tourne-vis, j’entre-baillais les charnieres, et, a l’aide de l’entre-baillement, je tirais, selon mes besoins, ou le chantre d’Enee, ou l’historien des Cesars; grace a qui, aide de la traduction fran^aise, je faisais des versions qui surprenaient mon professeur lui-meme”.52

Although in the Memoires Dumas remarks that he judged it prudent not to change his tactic for securing good marks in translating Virgil, not least because those good marks meant he could go shooting, he also takes pains to emphasise that his familiarity with the poet was not limited by this. He explains that for his “satisfaction personnelle” he would learn two or three hundred verses of Virgil (by which he seems to mean here the Aeneid), and he uses this explanation as the springboard for an account of what Virgil means to him:

“Si mauvais latiniste que je sois, j’ai toujours adore Virgile: cette compassion des exiles, cette melancolie de la mort, cette prevoyance du Dieu inconnu qui sont en lui, m’ont des l’abord souverainement attendri; la melodie de ses vers, leur facilite a etre scandes me charmaient surtout, et parfois me bercent encore dans mes demi-sommeils. J’ai su par creur des chants entiers de l’Eneide, et, aujourd’hui, je crois que je pourrais dire d’un bout a l’autre le recit d’Enee a Didon, quoique je ne sois pas capable de construire une phrase latine sans faire trois ou quatre barbarismes”.53

Two themes can be identified in Dumas’s description of himself as a reader of Virgil, which demand particular attention. The first is his emphatic claim to familiarity with Virgil (or at least with the Aeneid); the second is his careful rejection of any claim to be learned. Critics have recognised the strategies of self-fictionalisation that Dumas

52 Mes Memoires (vol. 1), 268-69. 53 Ibid. (vol. 1), 317. 46 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

employs in his autobiographical writings,54 and it is important to be alert to them. He wishes to portray himself as educated enough to know and love Virgil - albeit for reasons which are easily explicable and have nothing to do with scholarship; and he does not wish to be thought of as (and could not claim to be) a savant. The fact that his Memoires were first published as a serial in La Presse and Le Mousquetaire provides essential background for understanding Dumas’s approach.55 He was addressing himself to a newspaper audience which had only recently expanded, as a result of a deliberate policy of price-cutting, to include less affluent members of the bourgeoisie and the franges populaires dependent on the bourgeoisie,56 and he seems to be deliberately minimising (but certainly not eradicating) the distance between himself and his average reader.

In ‘Ah! Qu’on est fier d’etre franfais’, Dumas attributes to Virgil the Horatian line nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro, and seems also to attribute to him another phrase, bimarii (sic) Corinthi, from the same Ode.57 The reader is therefore forced to address the question of how to analyse the implications of Dumas’s misquotations. In the case of ‘Ah! Qu’on est fier this question is complicated by the fact that the whole essay, an attack on the latinity of the inscription composed by the Institut for Napoleon’s column in the Place Vendome, is (or at least is probably) tongue-in-cheek: a slip might therefore be a deliberate subversion of the voice making such an attack; on the other hand, in remembering the line, it is possible he took Teucro duce to refer to Aeneas, and was confirmed in his error by the hexameter. Similarly, when in Les Quarante-Cinq Henri III attributes a line from the Georgics to the Bucolics while talking to his fool Chicot, this might be Dumas nodding, or it might deliberately undermine the King’s casual claim to learning.58 It is certainly possible that these misattributions are deliberate. Dumas claims (in the Preface to Le Capitaine Paul) that when he was unable to remember whether a particular half-line (habent sua fata libelli) was or was

54 “Si l’on examine attentivement ses ouvrages d’apparence ‘autobiographique’ ... on remarque que partout il est question d’une ‘autofictionalisation du moi’ qui lui est propre”. (Net (1997) 12). 55 Mes Memoires first appeared in La Presse between 16th December, 1851, and 26th October, 1853 and in Le Mousquetaire between 12th December, 1853, and 21st April, 1855. (For the history of their publication, see the introduction by P. Josserand in Mes Memoires (vol. 1), 16-20). 56 Queffelec (1989) 31-34. On the expansion of the newspaper-reading audience, see also the other literature cited at n.72 (below). 57 Causeries, 19-20. Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro and bimarisve Corinthi are to be found at Hor. Carm. 1.7.27 and 1.7.2, respectively. 58 “- Chicot, nous en revenons a Virgile. - A quel endroit de Virgile? - Aux Bucoliques. O fortunatos nimium! - Ah! tres bien ...” (Les Quarante-cinq (vol. 3), 135). Chicot’s response is so deliciously laconic as to make it unlikely that he and Dumas have not noticed the King’s error. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 47

not Horatian: “chercher dans les cinqs or six mille vers d’Horace, c’etait bien long, et je n’ai pas de temps a perdre”.59 His solution is a letter to Joseph Mery,60 which yields the response that the phrase is half of a line by Terentianus Maurus. The picture of Dumas thus drawn is of a busy practical man, yet one in touch with the world of scholarship, whose own head contains recondite classical material but not in such a way as to distract him from the occupations o f daily life.

The distinction between acceptable learning and scholarly pedantry is found repeatedly in his writing. An excellent example is to be found in Le Speronare:

“Je dis Cocalus sur la foi de Diodore de Sicile: entendons-nous bien, car avec les savants ultramontains il faut mettre les points sur les i. Une erreur de date, une faute de typographie, ont de si graves inconvenients dans la patrie de Virgile et de Theocrite, qu’il faut y faire attention. Un pauvre voyageur inoffensif met sans penser a mal un a pour an o ou un 5 pour un 6; tout a coup il disparait, on n’en entend plus parler; la famille s’inquiete, le gouvernement informe, et on le retrouve enseveli sous une masse d’in-folios, comme Tarpe'ia sous les boucliers des Sabins. Si on l’en tire vivant, il se sauve a toutes jambes, et on ne l’y reprend plus; mais pour le plus souvent il est mort, a moins que, comme Encelade, il ne soit de force a secouer l’Etna. Je dis Cocalus comme je dirais autre chose, sans la moindre pretension a faire autorite”.61

Similarly, after being introduced to Auguste Maquet, the collaborator with whom he later publicly and spectacularly fell out,62 he wrote that he was “a la fois un esprit severe et pittoresque dans lequel l’etude des langues antiques a ajoute a la science sans nuire a l’originalite”.63

The examination made thus far is perhaps best to be understood in relation to Dumas’s claim to have a vocation as a vulgarisateur: “Lamartine est un reveur, Hugo est un penseur; moi, je suis un vulgarisateur”.64 The construction of pedantry as an

59 Le Capitaine Paul, I-III. 60 Identified as “l’antiquite incarnee”. In another letter to Mery, he describes their relationship as being like that of Virgil and Varius: “s’il existe une fraternite litteraire depuis Virgile et Varius, c’est bien la notre”. (25th January, 1863, quoted in Schopp (1985) 500-01). 61 Le Speronare, 407; Pouget (2003) 386 well sums up the effect of this passage: “il sait tourner en derision l’erudition excessive”. 62 On Dumas’s relationship with Maquet see Fillaire (2002). The title of Fillaire’s book is clearly intended to recall that of Mirecourt’s pamphlet. 63 De Paris a Cadix, 19. 64 Causerie in Le Mousquetaire, journal de M. Alexandre Dumas, 5th December, 1853, 1. Dumas subsequently took up the idea in almost the same words in a famous letter to Napoleon III dated 10th August, 1864: ‘il y a encore trois hommes a la tete de la litterature fran^aise: Victor Hugo, Lamartine et moi . Quoique je sois le moins digne des trois, ils m’ont fait dans les cinq parties du monde, le plus populaire des trois ... parce que l’un est un penseur, l’autre un reveur, et que je ne suis, moi, qu’un vulgarisateur”. (quoted in Fucecchi (2009) 76). 48 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

unacceptable opposition to sensibly calibrated knowledge (especially his own sensibly calibrated knowledge) is, in part, the reaction of the vulgarisateur against the tendency of scholarship to hide knowledge from the people. (“Qu’on me pardonne de dire Clovis. Je le disais alors, je le dis encore aujourd’hui mais, de 1833 a 1840, j’ai dit Hlode-wig. Il est vrai que personne ne me comprenait, c’est pour cela que je suis revenu a dire Clovis, comme tout le monde”).65 But, as Sarah Mombert has argued,66 it is also both a reaction to criticism of his own learning and a way of negotiating the fact that, by comparison with most of the inhabitants of the French literary world, his education was weak. He certainly realised this, describing at one poignant moment his terror at not knowing when he was thirty things that other men had learned when they were twelve.67 And notwithstanding the profession he makes in the Memoires o f his youthful devotion to Virgil, it is striking that the reading-list drawn up for his improvement as an aspiring writer by Esperance-Hippolyte Lassagne, with whom he shared a room in the Private Office of the Duc d’Orleans when he first arrived in Paris, included Virgil as an author he needed to read.68

Dumas’s claim to be a vulgarisateur also needs to be seen in the context of the vigorous (indeed, sometimes brutal) nineteenth-century French debate which set “proper” books against “la litterature industrielle”,69 or as one trenchant critic of Dumas put it, his “fabrique de romans”.70 Although this is not the place to examine the development of literature and reading in nineteenth-century France,71 two points are particularly significant here. First, as we have already noted, there was a revolutionary expansion in the reading public created by the foundation of newspapers which depended not principally on income from subscriptions, but on income from advertising, and which attracted that advertising by employing writers such as Dumas to write serialised

65 Mes Memoires (vol. 5), 100. 66 Mombert (2003) 600: “La vocation de vulgarisateur de Dumas nait de l’experience traumatisante de sa propre ignorance ... La faiblesse de son instruction, a une epoque ou les hommes de lettres sont encore massivement formes aux humanites, lui sera constamment reprochee”. 67 Mes Memoires (vol. 5), 103-04 68 Mes Memoires (vol. 2), 160. See also Schopp (1985) 68. 69 Key texts in the early phase of this debate are reprinted in Dumasy (1999a), including Sainte- Beuve’s essay, ‘De la litterature industrielle’ (Sainte-Beuve (1999)). See also Mombert (2003) 590­ 93. 70 Mirecourt (1845); cf. Nettement (1846) 305-07: “Les uns veulent que M. Alexandre Dumas ait, dans quelque quartier recule, une manufacture litteraire ou des manreuvres sont employes a equarrir des sujets ... En tout cas ... il met, pour parler la langue du commerce, sa marque sur les produits de ses manufactures”. 71 Lyons (2001) is a convenient starting-point for this. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 49

novels.72 Secondly, we should take note of the opposition constructed by the enemies of “industrial literature” between literature which educated its readers and the romans- feuilleton which depraved them.73 A barb aimed at Dumas himself, both as dramatist and novelist, by the Baron de Chapuys-Montlaville in the Chambre des deputes in 1847 gives the flavour:74

“Nous sommes en proie, a cette heure, a une bande noire . qui demolit a son tour les grands monuments de notre histoire, ne respectant rien, ni les traditions nationales, ni la verite historique; et a ce propos j’adresserai un reproche serieux a M. le ministre de l’Interieur ... pour avoir permis aux feuillonistes de faire parader sur les treteaux les personnages menteurs de leurs pretendus romans d’histoire”.

The eulogy in the Memoires reveals some of the qualities Dumas professed to find in Virgil’s poetry, seen from his personal perspective as a reader; elsewhere we find him addressing Virgil the poet more obviously from the standpoint of a narrator of historical fiction and vulgarisateur. In Isaac Laquedem he purports to set Virgil in the context of the readers for whom he claims Virgil originally wrote: “. a ces jeunes gens aux tetes legeres, a ces femmes aux coeurs frelates, a ces fils de familles qui laissent leur sante dans les lupanars et leurs bourses dans les tavernes ... C’est pour ces jeunes gens, pour ces femmes, pour ces fils de famille, pour ce peuple que Virgile, le doux cygne mantouan, le poete chretien de creur, sinon d’education, chante le bonheur champetre, maudit l’ambition republicaine, fletrit l’impiete des guerres civiles, et prepare le plus beau et le plus grand poeme qui aura ete fait depuis Homere, et qu’il brulera, le trouvant indigne, non- seulement de la posterite, mais encore de ces contemporains!”75

The absence of adult men as a separate class among Virgil’s given readers is striking, and the similarity of Virgil’s audience, young people, women, fils de famille,

72 See Queffelec (1989) 4-56, de la Motte (2000) 340-346, Lyons (2001) 10-11. The first newspapers to be operated on this basis were Le Siecle and La Presse, both founded on 1st July, 1836. In 1844 one critic wrote: “Aujourd’hui, le nombre des lecteurs s’est demesurement augmente. Tout le monde lit et veut lire beaucoup . et, en tout cas, nous sommes persuades que si l’envie nous prenait de descendre dans l’echoppe du dernier artisan parisien pour y raisonner sur Le Juiferrant, nous trouverions a qui parler”. (Gobineau (1999) 88). Le Juiferrant, a roman-feuilleton by Eugene Sue, appeared in Le Constitutionnel in 1844. 73 Queffelec (1989) 35 on the speeches of the Baron de Chapuys-Montlaville in the Chambre des deputes in the 1840’s; see de Chapuys-Montlaville (1999a), (1999b), (1999c) for the speeches themselves; and Desnoyers (1999) 121-56 for a journalist’s reply in Le Siecle. 74 de Chapuys-Montlaville (1999c) 110. Reference shortly afterwards to the Theatre-Historique, which Dumas opened in February 1847, makes it clear that Dumas is the particular target here, as Dumasy (1999a) 110, n.5 points out. 75 Isaac Laquedem (vol.1), 34-35. 50 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

to contemporary constructions of the readership of the roman-feuilleton is surely not accidental.76 Nor is the conclusion that Virgil was writing for the people, just as Dumas claimed that the roman-feuilleton as a genre, which he also claimed to have invented,77 “apprenait l’histoire aux historiens et au peuple” .78 This portrait of Virgil’s audience, drawn in such a way as to make it like contemporary views of the typical audience of the novel in which it appears, seems to be an attempt by Dumas to assimilate the two audiences, and may be seen as a claim to be performing the same role in French society as Virgil performed in his own. Virgil speaks to the people through his writing and teaches them; so does Dumas. Dumas appears, therefore, to be appropriating Virgil as an ally in the contest over the moral and educational value of his own work.

Previously Dumas had offered what seems to be a commentary of contrast between himselfand Virgil. In Le Corricolo, a narrative of his travels in the Bay of Naples published ten years before Isaac Laquedem, Dumas used the excuse of a visit to Virgil’s Tomb to meditate on the changing nature of Virgil’s poems, taking as his theme the idea that “la litterature n’est jamais l’expression de l’epoque, mais tout au contraire, et si l’on peut se servir de ce mot, sa palinodie” .79 Thus

“apres cette supreme bataille de Philippes, ou le genie republicain vient de succomber sous le geant imperial; apres cette lutte . qui a ebranle le monde, que fait Virgile? Il polit sa premiere eglogue. Quelle grande pensee le poursuit dans ce grand bouleversement? Celle de pauvres bergers qui . sont obliges de quitter leur doux champs et leur belle patrie. ... Peut-etre les grands evenements qui vont se succeder vont-ils arracher le poete a ses preoccupations bocageres. Voici venir Actium; voici l’orient qui se souleve une fois encore contre l’occident ... que fait Virgile, que fait l’ami du vainqueur, que fait le prince des poetes latins? Il chante le pasteur Aristee, il chante les abeilles perdues, il chante une mere consolant son

76 See the summary in Dumasy (1999b) 19: “La figure du lecteur de roman-feuilleton dessinee par ses detracteurs est essentiellement feminine, enfantine (voir le topos du peuple-enfant) et en position de dependance ... Elle se definit par la passivite, l’absence de jugement politique, esthetique et meme plus souvent moral, l’attrait pour la jouissance immediate, la passivite. Par opposition se dessine la figure du sujet politique: homme, adulte, cultive”. On women as holders of “une place de choix parmi les lecteurs des textes de vulgarisation”, see Mombert (2003) 603, and Lyons (2001) 81-85 (quoting, inter alia, comments by Stendhal on novel-reading as the great preoccupation of French provincial women). 77 Le Capitaine Paul, xxxvi: “Cependant, vers 1835, je crois, La Presse s’etait fondee, et j’y avais invente le roman-feuilleton”. (La Presse was in fact founded in 1836: see n.72 above). 78 La Comtesse de Charny (vol.1), 11: “il est vrai que cela apprenait l’histoire aux historiens et au peuple, il est vrai que cela creait quatre millions de lecteurs a la France et cinquante millions de lecteurs a l’etranger”. 79 Le Corricolo, 316. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 51

fils de ce que ses ruches sont desertes, et n’ayant rien de plus a demander a Apollon, comment avec le sang d’un taureau on peut faire de nouveaux essaims. ... Mais aussi que Cesar ferme le temple de Janus, qu’Auguste pour la seconde fois rendu la paix au monde, alors Virgile devient belliqueux”.80

Even if the context of Dumas’s remarks is the way in which literature offers its contemporary readers aesthetic refreshment from the experiences of their lives, it is difficult not to hear a criticism, albeit muted, of what he appears to see as Virgil’s failure to engage with the events which were shaking the Roman world when he was writing. Whereas in the previous passage, Virgil and Dumas shared the same vocation as educators, here Dumas seems to contrast the political engagement that marked his own life with what he sees as the poet’s quietism.

Alfred Nettement remarked in 1846, “M. Alexandre Dumas oppose a la critique un obstacle qu’il n’est pas facile de surmonter; c’est la fecondite redoutable d’un talent qui permet, en ce moment, au Siecle, de promettre au public ses reuvres en deux cents volumes” .81 Without wanting to adopt the rest of Nettement’s views, it must be admitted that the critic quails before the vastness of Dumas’s output. It is for that reason that I have subtitled this paper “An Introduction”. Some attempt should nonetheless be made to draw conclusions, understood as provisional.

While we should acknowledge the self-creation of his autobiographical works and references, Dumas allows himself to project a particular anxiety about his own education and therefore also about his own suitability for a conventional literary career. The validity of that anxiety is borne out to some degree by the attacks of his critics on an “erudition vulgaire que l’on peut acquerir en quelques heures, mais qui impose cependant a la foule” .82 The creation of the roman-feuilleton and the discovery of his vocation as a vulgarisateur permit him to address an audience which can be impressed by his demonstrations of his knowledge of Virgil; and those same demonstrations themselves warrant his authority as an educator.

Dumas claimed to have created four million readers in France; one measure of his popularity is that his works were cited in 23 out of 30 responses by prefects to a Ministry of Education questionnaire circulated in June 1866 to discover books which were popular

80 Le Corricolo, 317-18. 81 Nettement (1846) 305. Returning to the theme later he remarks (1846, 307): “On analyse un roman, trois romans, six romans, mais comment s’y prendre pour analyser une bibliotheque?” 82 Nettement (1846) 310. 52 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

among rural readers;83 within two months of its foundation Le Mousquetaire, journal de M. Alexandre Dumas had 4,000 subscribers and was selling 6,000 copies in Paris alone;84 and in the winter of 1897 more than 12 percent of readers asked for something by Dumas at the municipal library in Lyons.85 To the extent that women had a particular place in his audience,86 it should also be borne in mind that they had practically no access to classical education in nineteenth-century France.87 It is significant, therefore, that in the works so far surveyed the speakers of Virgil in Dumas (and I include Dumas himself whether as narrator or protagonist) are, with the exception of Mlle. de Launay in Le Chevalier d ’Harmental, men. What is more, Dumas draws attention to the exception by having d’Harmental himself express his surprise at Mlle. de Launay’s ability to cite Virgil and by having her identified by another character as “notre savante” .88 The ability to quote easily from Virgil is to be seen as a badge not only of the authority of learning but particularly of the authority of masculine learning.89

There is no reason to doubt that Dumas loved Virgil’s poetry; but no less significant is the authority that demonstrations of familiarity with the ancient poet conferred on him as a writer. His techniques of quotation from and reference to Virgil are deliberately not off-putting, and the quotations and references themselves are a badge of a learning which, while decent and unpretentious, nonetheless confirms his right to educate a popular audience while entertaining them.90

St Benet’s Hall, Oxford J. S. C. EIDINOW

83 Lyons (2001) 144-49, 164-65. Robinson Crusoe (28 mentions), the Fables of La Fontaine (24 mentions), and Loudun’s Victoires de l’Empire (also 24 mentions) were ahead of him. 84 Audebrand (2002) 116. 85 338 readers o f2757: Mombert (2003) 590, citing the figures from Louis Maigron, Le Roman historique a l’epoque romantique. Essai sur l’influence de Walter Scott, 1898, Paris, 382. 86 See n.76 (above). 87 De Bellaigue (2007) 192 surveys the curriculum offered in 113 private girls’ schools in France between 1800 and 1880, and finds that none of them offered either Latin or Greek. 88 Le Chevalier d ’Harmental, 74. 89 Mombert (2003) 603 suggests that female readers of the roman-feuilleton should be understood as “pretes a accepter la domination de l’homme qui sait”. 90 On Dumas’s attempt to reconcile “les fonctions antagonistes de plaire et d’instruire” see Mombert (2003) 593. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 53

Bibliography

W orks by Dumas

These are referred to in the text above by title (and where appropriate volume- number) without the author’s name, and the editions I have had available to me and used are given below. A date in square brackets is the date of first publication in book- form, if I have not used that edition. The absence of a uniform critical edition of Dumas’s works is to be regretted (although the work entailed in trying to achieve that cannot be underestimated).

Ange Pitou (1851, Paris).

Les Aventures de John Davys (1861, Paris) [1840].

Le Capitaine Pamphile ([n. d.] Paris, Calmann-Levy) [1839].

Le Capitaine Paul (1895, Paris) [1838].

Le Caucase (1907, Paris) [1859].

Causeries (2001, Paris) [1857].

Le Chevalier d ’Harmental (1842, Paris).

Le Collier de la Reine (1849, Paris).

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1854, Paris) [1845-46].

La Comtesse de Charny (1852, Paris).

Le Corricolo (ed. J.-N. Schifano, 1984, Paris) [1843].

La Dame de Monsoreau (1856, Paris) [1846].

De Paris a Cadix (1989, Paris) [1847-48].

En Suisse (1899, Paris) [1851].

Georges (1848, Paris).

Le GrandDictionnaire de Cuisine (1958, Paris) [1873].

Isaac Laquedem (1853, Brussels).

Joseph Balsamo (1872, Paris) [1846].

Les Louves de Machecoul (1860, Paris) [1859].

Memoires d ’Horace ecritspar lui-meme (ed. C. Aziza, 2006, Paris). 54 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Mes Memoires, vol.1 (ed. P. Josserand, 1954, Paris) [1852-54].

Mes Memoires, vol. 2 (ed. P. Josserand, 1957, Paris).

Mes Memoires, vol. 5 (ed. P. Josserand, 1968, Paris).

Olympe de Cleves (1872, Paris) [1852].

Le Page du Duc de Savoie (1866, Paris) [1855].

Le Speronare (ed. J.-P. Pouget, 2 0 0 2 , Paris) [1842].

Les Quarante-cinq (1888, Paris) [1847-48].

Le Veloce ou De Cadix a Tunis (1990, Paris) [1848-51].

Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (1876, Paris) [1848-50].

Viva Garibaldi! Une Odyssee en 1860 (ed. C. Schopp, 2002, Paris) [1862].

Secondary material

M. Arrous (ed.) (2003) Dumas, une lecture de l ’histoire, Paris.

P. Audebrand (2002) ‘Le Mousquetaire, journal de M. Alexandre Dumas’ (an extract from P. Audebrand, Alexandre Dumas a la Maison d ’Or. Souvenirs de la vie litteraire, 1888, Paris), in C. Schopp (ed.), Alexandre Dumas en bras de chemise, Paris, 113-27.

C. Aziza (1984) Introduction to A. Dumas, Acte (ed. C. Aziza), Paris, 7-12.

C. Aziza (2003) ‘L’Antiquite’, in Arrous (2003), 19-24.

C. Aziza (2006) Preface to A. Dumas, Memoires d ’Horace (ed. C. Aziza), Paris, I-XLII.

A. Collet (1994) Alexandre Dumas et Naples, Geneva.

C. de Bellaigue (2007) Educating Women: Schooling and Identity in England and France 1800-1867, Oxford.

B.-M. de Chapuys-Montlaville (1999a) ‘Discours a la Chambre des deputes, 13 juin 1843 (extrait)’ in Dumasy (1999a), 80-86.

B.-M. de Chapuys-Montlaville (1999b) ‘Discours a la Chambre des deputes, 14 mars 1845 (extrait)’, in Dumasy (1999a), 95-103.

B.-M. de Chapuys-Montlaville (1999c) ‘Discours a la Chambre des deputes, 6 avril 1847’, in Dumasy (1999a), 104-116.

A. de Gobineau (1999) ‘Essais de critique. Esther, Splendeurs et miseres des courtisanes’ (reprinted from Le Commerce, 29 October 1844) in Dumasy (1999a), 87-94. J. S. C. Eidinow - Virgil in the Works of Alexandre Dumas pere - An Introduction 55

E. de Mirecourt (1845) Fabrique de Romans. Maison Alexandre Dumas et Compagnie, Paris.

D. de la Motte (2000) ‘Making News, Making Readers: The Creation of the Modern Newspaper Public in Nineteenth-Century France’, in L. Brake, B. Bell, and D. Finkelstein (eds), Nineteenth-Century M edia and the Construction o f Identities, Basingstoke & New York.

L. Desnoyers (1999) ‘Un peu d’histoire a propos de roman’ (reprinted from Le Siecle, 5 September, 28 September, 29 September 1847), in Dumasy (1999a), 121-154.

Donatus (1823) in C. Ruaeus (C. de la Rue S.J.) (ed.), P. Virgilii Maronis opera interpretatione et notis illustravit Carolus Ruaeus, jussu Christianissimi Regis, ad usum Serenissimi Delphini. Editio novissima, accuratius ac mendis purgata. Tomus Primus, Lyons, 2-28.

I. Durand-Le Guern (2003) ‘Lecture et ecriture du Moyen Age chez Alexandre Dumas’, in Arrous (2003), 25-39.

L. Dumasy (ed.) (1999a) La querelle du roman-feuilleton. Litterature, presse et politique, un debat precurseur, Grenoble.

L. Dumasy (1999b) ‘Introduction’, in Dumasy (1999a), 5-21.

B. Fillaire (2002) Alexandre Dumas et associes, Paris.

M. Fucecchi (2009) ‘Biographica (e storia) antica in feuilleton. Memoires d ’Horace di Alexandre Dumas’, CentoPagine 3, 66-76.

C. Hardie (ed.) (1957) Vitae Vergilianae Antiquae, Oxford.

M. Lyons (2001) Readers and Society in Nineteenth-Century France: Workers, Women, Peasants, Basingstoke & New York.

S. Mombert, ‘«Apprendre l’Histoire au peuple»: Alexandre Dumas vulgarisateur’, in Arrous (2003), 589-608.

M. Net (1997) Alexandre Dumas: le pays ou il fa it mort. Une exercise de lecture, Vienna.

A. Nettement (1846) Etudes Critiques sur le Feuilleton-roman (Deuxieme serie), Paris.

J.-P. Pouget (2003) ‘L’art d’un prodigieux conteur ou quand Alexandre Dumas conte l’un de ses voyages (la Sicile en 1835)’, in Arrous (2003), 379-99.

L. Queffelec (1989) Le Roman-feuilleton Frangais au XIXe Siecle, Paris.

C.-A. Sainte-Beuve (1999) ‘De la litterature industrielle’ (reprinted from La Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 September 1839), in Dumasy (1999a), 25-43.

C. Schopp (1985) Alexandre Dumas: Le genie de la vie, Paris. Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 10 May 2008

The image o f the solitary hero who rushes into the midst o f the enemy and, by immolating himself, brings death and destruction upon them, has for obvious reasons become a less straightforwardly positive one in Western culture over the last decade.1 Yet numerous popular books and films still testify that, perhaps on the principle that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, the pervasive figure o f the villainous suicide bomber has not succeeded in totally obliterating that o f the lone hero who stays behind to give up his life for his buddies, taking as many o f the faceless enemy as he can along with him.2 In Roman culture, this image has, o f course, a further, religious dimension as a result o f the rite o f devotio ducis? The ritual, particularly associated with the figure or figures o f P. Decius Mus, in one, two or three generations, involved a leader o f the Roman army’s consecration of himself and the enemy to the gods below, rushing unarmed into the said enemy, and as a result bringing confusion and defeat upon them, as well as death upon himself.

*Versions of this paper were delivered to the Virgil Society in May 2008 and the Classics and Ancient History Departmental Seminar, University of Sydney, in September 2010. I am very grateful to all the helpful questions and suggestions from those two audiences, in particular those from Chris Malone, Anne Rogerson, Paul Roche, Andy Stiles, and Kathryn Welch. I am also extremely indebted to the editor of PVS, Daniel Hadas, for his penetrating comments, which have improved the final version immeasurably, though its many defects remain entirely my responsibility. The article is dedicated, with Bloomian affection, to Matthew Leigh. All translations are my own. 1 For the place of devotio in the pre-history of “terrorism”, see Chaliand & Blin (2007) 368-89. 2 For a more complex example, where the heroes are more explicitly depicted as suicide bombers, see Goulyart & Joe (2008) 181-82. 3 Extensive discussion in Versnel (1976), (1981); Leigh (1993). More recently, see also Barton (1995) 40-46; Feldherr (1998) 85-92; Dyck (2004); Hill (2004) 189-90; Edwards (2007) 19-45, esp. 25-28; O ’Gorman (2010). Robert Cowan - Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 57

In a paper published in PVS in 1993, Matthew Leigh traced Virgil’s evocations of devotio throughout the Aeneid, responding in particular to critics such as C. Bennet Pascal, who disputed the validity of Turnus’ claims to be a devotus, and asserting that the rite’s symbolic power and ideological associations in Roman culture are more significant than the niceties of ritual orthopraxy:

“What we see [Turnus] doing in giving his own inevitably inexact and yet substantial sense to the devotio is not so strange. It is what successions of Roman writers did when they described a heroic self-sacrifice with the formula for the rush to death. When they did so, they understood the devotio ducis less as a ritual, a votum with payment in anticipation of success, than as the ultimate expression of a military code which expected courage from a general, and heroism in

defeat”.4

This article, despite its title’s antiphrastic allusion to Leigh’s, does not intend to counter this argument in favour of the pervasive and resonant use of such motifs in the Aeneid. It will indeed examine instances in the poem and in other Roman texts where the act of self­ sacrifice is problematized. However, the problematization in these cases will not be based on a narrow conception of the orthopraxy or efficaciousness of a non-standard devotio. Nor, as might be tempting in a post-9/11 context, will it derive from the perspective o f the enemy or of neutrals, whose moral evaluation of such an act of heroism-cum-terrorism might be expected to differ from that ofthe devotus’ compatriates., Rather, it will be based on a Roman perspective, but one where the general’s ostensibly noble and self-sacrificing decision to die is shown to be paradoxically damaging to the common good, and where the superficially cowardly and selfish choice to survive is represented as the more beneficial. Indeed, just as Leigh shows that the loose and symbolic evocation of devotio is frequently used to represent a set of military values, I shall argue that it is also by evoking devotio in similar terms that those same values are questioned and challenged. The factors which determine whether it is more in the interests o f the respublica for a general to live or die are complex, based partly on very practical considerations, partly, as I shall argue, on an ideological shift whereby the survival of the important and irreplaceable individual begins to outweigh his duty to die with his men. Several of the texts which I shall discuss not only reflect but explore that shift from, crudely speaking, the collective ideology of the Republic to the monarchic Principate, in which the invaluable synecdochic hero must not be hopelessly devoted, but

hopefully survive.5

4 Leigh (1993), quoting from 104-05, contra Pascal (1990). Nicol (2001) 190-91, like Pascal, downplays the importance of devotio. 5 For the synecdochic hero, see Hardie (1993). 58 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Go tell the Romans ... Paulus and Varro at Cannae, part I

We begin where we shall also end, on the field of one of Rome’s worst defeats, at Cannae in 216 BC. No formal devotio took place at this battle, but the death in the field of one of the consuls, L. Aemilius Paulus, who had tried to prevent the battle but been overruled by his hot-headed colleague (in the traditional version of events), C. Terentius Varro, though it brought no immediate or perceptible victory to the Romans or defeat to the Carthaginians, nevertheless reflects what Leigh describes as a related “range of secular military values: the responsibility of the general to his men; the pursuit of the mors pulchra

per vulnera; the challenge to the aristocrat’s virtus”.6 More specifically, Paulus refused to escape on horseback when the opportunity was offered to him, so that his remaining in the throng when he might have fled to safety approximates to the devotus’ charge from safety into the throng. Indeed, the last words which Livy gives to Paulus allusively set him in a very distinguished tradition of heroic self-sacrifice (22.49.10): abi, nuntia ... privatim Q. Fabio L. Aemilium praeceptorum eius memorem et vixisse adhuc et mori. (“Go, give this message in private to Quintus Fabius, that Lucius Aemilius both lived up to this point and died mindful of his instructions”). Paulus is here aligned with Fabius Maximus’ policy o f cunctatio, as against the rash engagement with Hannibal which has resulted in the disaster at Cannae, but, aside from the content, the formulation surely cannot but evoke Simonides’ famous epitaph on Leonidas and the Three Hundred Spartans who died at Thermopylae (AP 7.249 = Hdt. 7.228.2): Ώ ξεΐν', άγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ότι τήδε / κείμεθα, τοΐς κείνων ρήμασι πειθόμενοι. (“Stranger, tell the Spartans that here we lie, after obeying their instructions”). The heroic resistance to Xerxes’ Persians not only parallels the Roman devotio but, according to John Marincola, was

depicted, by Diodorus Siculus at least, in those very terms.7 In a similar manner to that in which the Spartans held up the Persians, Paulus and the Roman army at Cannae, according to Livy, delayed the victory of the Carthaginians, who were so infuriated they

had to slaughter those they could not drive off.8 Livy also contrasts the situation at Rome’s other great defeat, the Allia, when the army, by its flight, saved itself but betrayed the city; he notes how few fled Cannae and leaves the reader to supply the antithesis about

6 Leigh (1993) 105. 7 Marincola (2007) 117. 8 equitum pedestre proelium, quale iam haud dubia hostium victoria, fuit, cum victi mori in uestigio mallent quam fugere, victores morantibus victoriam irati trucidarent quos pellere non poterant. (“There was an infantry battle of cavalry, such as when there is already no doubt of the enemy’s victory, when the defeated preferred to die in their tracks than to flee, the victors in rage slaughtered those delaying their victory whom they could not drive off”). Liv. 22.49.4. Robert Cowan - Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 59

the effect this had in saving the city.9 Paulus’ self-sacrifice does, in this narrative, save the community and, in an extended sense, represent a true devotio.

Yet other interpretations of such a death are possible, especially those which, unlike Livy’s, do not stress or even mention any efficacious aspect of Paulus’ “self-sacrifice”. It is suggestive to consider how Nathan Rosenstein, in his superb study of defeated generals in the Roman Republic, comments on Paulus’ decision:

“In some ways ... dying in the midst of calamity could seem attractive to a defeated general. He might achieve a measure of glory to enhance his memory and increase the honor of his family, whereas the very fact that he had come back alive could become a potential source of danger if questions were raised about how he had managed to survive when so many others had died”.10

Although I do not think it Rosenstein’s main purport, there may be read without too much difficulty a mild accusation of cowardice and solipsism into this analysis of the motivation of the general who chooses to die with his men. Certainly the loss of one’s life is no trivial matter, but in Roman values, the avoidance of the shame of survival and indeed the achievement of the precise opposite, glory for oneself and one’s gens, might easily outweigh mere death. Yet this acquisition of personal glory must be weighed against the usefulness of, even the necessity of, one’s life for the safety and flourishing of the res publica. One need only note, as skilfully elucidated elsewhere in Rosenstein’s book, the elaborate means employed by the Romans to rehabilitate defeated generals and send them back into service,11 to realize how such highly-trained commanders and proven leaders were not expendable, and how, regardless of the aristocratic military code, it was more useful for the res publica to have such men alive than for them to acquire purely personal glory in death.

Such an interpretation of Paulus’ death might also be found in a tendentious — or perhaps a straightforward — reading of his entry among the men whom Horace might praise in Odes 1.12: animaeque magnae /prodigum Paulum superante Poeno (“and Paulus prodigal o f his great life when the Carthaginian conquered”). As Nisbet and Hubbard point out, prodigus is “normally pejorative” though of course it “is here used in a good sense”. Porphyrio is more neutral, saying that the phrase must be understood as “despising his

9 fuga namque ad Alliam sicut urbem prodidit, ita exercitum servavit: ad Cannas fugientem consulem vix quinquaginta secuti sunt, alterius morientisprope totus exercitus fuit. Liv. 22.50.1. 10 Rosenstein (1990) 123. 11 I am grateful to Kathryn Welch for reminding me about this aspect of Rosenstein’s analysis. 60 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

life”, prodigi being, etymologically, those who throw their goods away from themselves.12 Certainly the reception o f the phrase tends to give it an at worst neutral sense, as in Ovid’s Gallus, Statius’ Maeon, and Silius’ euthanasia-practising Spaniards, but even here, as the TLL shows, there is that suggestion of prodigality, not of counting life as cheap because cheap it is, but o f undervaluing it and throwing it away, even though you owe it to others.13 The characteristic Horatian pregnancy of the ablative absolute superante Poeno also suggests further meanings; not only might it diminish the grandeur of Paulus’ careless gesture, since he made it in a context where he was already defeated (OLD s.v. supero, 4) but it also, perhaps, hints he threw his life away while the Carthaginians survived (OLD, 7b), a continuing threat to Rome which perhaps Paulus ought to have lived on to face. These are, of course, secondary meanings, but they are not inconsistent with the unsettling catalogue which notoriously includes Tarquinius Superbus and Cato. Glancing ahead to Silius Italicus’ treatment of Paulus, with which I shall conclude this discussion, they are available for Silius to activate by his tendentious reception of them, both on the large canvas of his narrative of Cannae and in the small detail of having Voluptas claim that Virtus prodigally threw away Paulus’ life.14

Something of the same message may be read, at the very least between the lines, in Frontinus’ synkrisis of Paulus and his surviving colleague, Varro, as exemplars of constantia (Strat. 4.5.5-6):

12 animae ergo prodigum ‘contemptorem vitae’intellegendum prodigi enim dicuntur proprie, qui bona sua a se dispergunt, quasi porro ea ab se agentes. (“Therefore prodigum must be understood as ‘contemptuous of life’, for they are properly called prodigi who scatter their goods from themselves, as if driving them off from them”). Porphyr. ad Hor. Carm. 1.12.37. Cf. Nisbet & Hubbard (1970) ad loc. 13 TLL 10.2.1613.3-20: speciatim respiciuntur qui vitam impendunt, se periculis offerunt sim. Ov. Am. 3.9.64, Stat. Theb. 3.69 (vitae for animae), Sil. 1.225. TLL ibid. hic illic sublucet respectus perdendi, though the prime example given, Macrob. 7.3.21, has quite the opposite sense, since it describes the ironic, bantering criticism which chaffs a brave man for holding his life cheaply and dying for others, but of course implies the opposite. Cf. TLL ibid. 26-42: qui perdunt, male consumunt vel contemnunt. Sen. Dial. 10.1.4 (non accipimus brevem vitam, sed facimus, nec inopes eius sed prodigi sumus) refers to wasting life as a finite and usable length of time, rather than as a single entity which can be preserved or wasted, but it does suggest a witty manipulation of the Horatian motif. 14 This witty variation has Voluptas argue to Scipio that Virtus has wastefully sent his father and uncle, Paulus, and the Decii down to the underworld: haec patrempatruumque tuos, haec prodiga Paulum, / haec Decios Stygias Erebi detrusit ad undas, / dum cineri titulum memorandaque nomina bustis /praetendit nec sensurae, quod gesserit, umbrae (15.42-45). Her (upper and lower case) Epicurean contrast is, of course, of the courageous, but futile and very final death, with the life of pleasure, rather than with the courageous life, preserved to serve one’s country, but the colouring of its Horatian intertext does show how Paulus’ prodigality with his life, just like Virtus’, can be interpreted, not as gloriously indifferent, but perniciously wasteful. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 61

L. Paulus, amisso ad Cannas exercitu, offerente equom Lentulo, quo fugeret, superesse cladi quamquam non per ipsum contractae noluit, sed in eo saxo, cui se vulneratus acclinaverat, persedit, donec ab hostibus oppressus confoderetur.

Varro, collega eius, vel maiore constantia post eandem cladem vixit gratiaeque ei a senatu et populo actae sunt, quod non desperasset rem publicam. non autem vitae cupiditate, sed rei publicae amore se superfuisse reliquo aetatis suae tempore approbavit: et barbam capillumque summisit et postea numquam recubans cibum cepit; honoribus quoque, cum ei deferrentur a populo, renuntiavit, dicens felicioribus magistratibus rei publicae opus esse.

(“Lucius [Aemilius] Paulus, when he had lost his army near Cannae and Lentulus offered him a horse on which to flee, was unwilling to survive the disaster, even though it had not been brought about through him, but continued to sit on that rock on which he had propped himself when he was wounded until he was overwhelmed and run through by the enemy.

Varro, his colleague, with even greater steadfastness lived on after the same disaster and he was thanked by the senate and people because he had not despaired o f the res publica. That he had survived not from a desire for life but from love o f the res publica he proved in the remaining period o f his life: he let both his beard and hair grow long and never afterwards ate reclining; magistracies too, when they were assigned to him by the people, he refused, saying that the res publica needed luckier magistrates”).

Frontinus is explicit in praising Paulus for his constantia and there is even a telling antithesis between his determination to die and his lack of culpability for the disaster; this antithesis carefully differentiates him from generals whose deaths might be taken as expiation for the defeat they had caused, and especially from those who would prefer death to the repercussions of such tactical incompetence. Cannae was not Paulus’ fault, so these were not his motives. There is no explicit criticism of the consul here, and not even anything implicit, except in the juxtaposition with Varro. For Frontinus cannot write that the latter was more steadfast in surviving, in choosing precisely the opposite course of action, without implicitly suggesting that Paulus was in some way less steadfast, that all the praises heaped on Varro cannot be applied to him. Paulus, presumably, did despair o f the res publica and his love for it was in some way less than that which prompted Varro to live on. Varro too is carefully differentiated from those with baser and more conventional motives for survival. Indeed it is notable that Frontinus does not underline, that, unlike Paulus, Varro (according, again, to the dominant tradition) was responsible for the defeat. As a result o f this, he might have been expected to owe his life as expiation 62 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

for his culpability, but more significantly he might reasonably have chosen to die rather than face the consequences of that culpability. One might read Frontinus’ omission of this detail about Varro’s responsibility as active suppression or even tacit correction of the usual version; less radically one might take it as a decision not to foreground something which all his readers would know anyway, but which might diminish the rhetorical force of his exemplary point. Either way, it is clear that, regardless of the consuls’ differing levels of responsibility and the way in which that impacted upon their decision, Frontinus represents Varro, unlike Paulus, as deciding that his survival was more important for the res publica than his glorious death.

This is the notion which I shall endeavour to trace in Virgil and subsequent Roman epicists, finally drawing the two strands together in considering Silius Italicus’ epic depiction of Cannae. Before turning to the Roman epic tradition, however, it will be instructive to consider one example which is distant in time and place from the very Roman notion of devotio, but which nevertheless stands as a significant parallel in structural and also as an important antecedent in intertextual terms: the decision of Hector to face Achilles in Iliad 22.

Hector’s choice

Hector in the Iliad is the defender o f Troy, the synecdochic hero who keeps the city standing by his very existence. The flip side o f this is, o f course, that his death entails the destruction of Troy, and any decision which leads — directly or indirectly — to that death makes him culpable — directly or indirectly — for that destruction. This idea is most clearly expressed by Hector himself in his great monologue, waiting for Achilles outside Troy (1l. 22.104-07):15

νΰν δ' έπεί ώλεσα λαόν άτασθαλίησιν έμήσιν, αίδέομαι Τρώας καί Τρφάδας έλκεσιπέπλους, μή ποτέ τις εΐπησι κακώτερος άλλος έμεΐο· Έκτωρ ηφι βίηφι πιθήσας ώλεσε λαόν.

(“But now, since I have destroyed my people by my acts of recklessness, I am ashamed towards the Trojans and Trojan women whose gowns drag, in case at some point

15 On this speech, see Redfield (1975) 157-58; Fenik (1978) 81-85; Sharples (1983); Schofield (1986) 20-22; Taplin (1992) 233-35; Gill (1996) 81-93; Haubold (2000) 92-94. Haubold intriguingly differentiates between Hector protecting (or neglecting) the city, and his doing the same for the people (λαός). As reviewers have commented, this distinction is less than clearly made. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 63

someone of less merit than me may say ‘Hector trusting in his own might destroyed his people’”).

O f course, the destruction to which Hector here refers is principally that already caused by his ignoring the advice of Polydamas to retreat within the walls, but it is in striking juxtaposition to his determination not to retreat himself now. Here we have a very close correspondence to the Roman general whose misjudgement or recklessness causes disaster and who hence decides that it is less shameful to die than to return, partly in recompense for his mistake, partly to avoid the disgrace which will be heaped on him back in the city. Indeed, Hector is quite explicit about his motivation, a sense of αίδώς towards the Trojans and a fear of his status’ being diminished by the criticism of someone of lower status. This establishes that Hector’s reasons for standing firm are primarily selfish and have little to do with a desire to reverse the effect o f his earlier recklessness, for all that he deludedly holds out the remote possibility that he might win (personal) glory by actually defeating Achilles.16 Yet it does not in itself establish that his decision to remain outside the walls and in all probability die has actively negative effects and is the opposite o f the duty he owes to Troy and the people of Troy. That point is established by Priam.

Priam’s plea to his son to come inside the walls (Il. 22.56-58, 71-76) is, of course, immensely powerful, but it is also extremely complex in its representation o f the (lack of) justification, symbolic meaning, and repercussions of Hector’s decision:

άλλ' είσέρχεο τείχος έμον τέκος, οφρα σαώσης Τρώας καί Τρφάς, μη δε μέγα κΰδος όρέξης Πηλεΐδη, αύτος δε φίλης αίώνος άμε ρθης ...... νέφ δέ τε πάντ' έπέοικεν

άρηϊ κταμένφ δεδαϊγμένφ όξέϊ χαλκφ κείσθαι· πάντα δε καλά θανόντι περ οττι φανήη· άλλ' οτε δη πολιόν τε κάρη πολιόν τε γένειον αίδώ τ' αίσχύνωσι κύνες κταμένοιο γέροντος, τούτο δη οίκτιστον πέλεται δειλοίσι βροτοίσιν.

(“But come inside the walls, my son, so that you may save the Trojan men and Trojan women, lest you provide great glory for the son of Peleus, and you yourself be deprived of your dear life ... [a description of the horrors which will occur at Troy’s sack and in particular Priam’s own death] ... and everything is seemly for a young

16 Il. 22.108-09. It is also worth remembering that, in the final crisis, Hector does flee after all and only turns to face Achilles as a result of Athena’s trick (22.214-95). 64 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

man when he lies is killed in war, cut down by sharp bronze; everything appears beautiful for him, even though he is dead. But when dogs disgrace the grey head and grey beard and shameful parts of a slain old man, this is the most pitiable thing for poor mortals”).

Since Hector is the synecdochic hero, the embodiment o f Troy, whose death will seal the city’s doom, Priam vividly foresees the destruction which that death both entails and symbolizes (and which, of course, as the scholia note, the scope of the poem does not permit the poet to describe).17 Priam is explicit that, far from his death’s saving the city, it is by coming inside the walls, specifically by not throwing his life away, that Hector will achieve that goal. As Christopher Gill elegantly puts it, “as his father, Priam, underlines, there is a case for seeing retreat as the proper exercise of Hector’s role as a son and as Troy’s defender ... What prevents him doing so is his sense of shame at having to retreat into Troy under such circumstances” .18 Yet Priam’s argument is not simply a judicious balancing of the different courses of actions and their different outcomes. He inverts the conventional military code that death in battle on behalf of one’s people is the warrior’s duty. In particular the idea that such a death was “beautiful”, the antecedent of the Roman mors pulchra, is undercut by being reduced to purely physical terms: to be sure everything is glorious, καλά, pulchra, for the hero who dies, but the selfishness of that act is shown by the contrast with what happens to those left behind, the old men who suffer, not the mors pulchra of battle, but the shameful, ugly death associated with the sack of the city. That Priam is inverting a topos and the ideology which underlies it seems to have occurred to, and somewhat puzzled, the writers of the scholia. They note of lines 71-73 that δοκεί τούτο προτρεπτικόν είναι μάλλον έπί θάνατον η άποτρεπτικόν· καίτοι φαίνεται βουλόμενος πείθειν τόν Έκτορα είσιέναι είς τό τείχος καί μη ύπομένειν τόν Α χιλλέα. (“This seems to be an exhortation to death, rather than an exhortation against it; and yet [Priam] clearly wants to persuade Hector to come into the city and not to wait for Achilles”).19 The similarity to Tyrtaeus fr. 10.21-30 West, which urges the young to protect the old in battle by fighting in the front line, has even led

17 προαναφωνεί την Ιλίου αλωσιν. (“He describes in advance the sack of Troy”), Σ A ad Hom. 11. 22.61-65; έναργώς πέφρακε τά τών πορθήσεων, ... καί μη γράψας δε την Ιλίου πόρθησιν όμως έδήλωσεν αύτης τά παθήματα, πάσαν ηλικίαν την έν π ολέμφ τι πάσχουσαν παραλαβών. (“He has clearly described the events related to the sacking of cities ... and, while not writing about the sack of Ilium, nevertheless shows what was suffered during it, taking in every group that suffers something in war”), Σ bT ad loc. 18 Gill (1996) 82. 19 Σ bT ad Hom. Il. 22.71-73. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 65

Neoanalysts to suggest that Homer has adapted a similar exhortation from a common epic source to a different context, or that a late intrusion into the 1liad is indebted to Tyrtaeus himself.20 Whether it derives from an earlier text or from the stock of traditional formulae, Priam redeploys language suited to urging soldiers to die in battle to urge his son not to die in battle but to flee and live to fight another day.21 Already in this scene, the conventional military decorum is inverted.

Aeneas, Hector and the Old Lie: dulce sed non decorum

Finally, we turn to the Aeneid and specifically to book 2, where Aeneas’ response to the sack of Troy is marked both by the imagery of devotio and by the quality o f despair. Leigh’s comments on Aeneas and Priam are suggestive:

“Priam and Aeneas are the leaders ofTroy, and their actions are a direct response to the destruction of the city. In this, they conform to the conditions identified by Versnel as necessary for patriotic self-sacrifice, namely ‘an all-pervading crisis challenging the continued existence of society as a whole’”.22

Certainly Priam’s courageous, if futile, reaction to Pyrrhus’ killing of Polites and Aeneas’ exhortation of his desperate band both match Leigh’s notion of a sort ofsublimated devotio, the surrendering of one’s life from a sense of obligation without the particulars of ritual correctness or, it would appear, the functional effectiveness which is, one might consider, the rite’s raison d ’etre. Yet it is not as clear that they “seek to sacrifice themselves out o f a sense of responsibility to others” ,23 since it is hard to see what aspect of that responsibility their deaths, actual or intended, fulfil. The quotation from Versnel is particularly telling, since it is surely not a strained interpretation of it to imagine that the devotio is not an undirected response to the “all-pervading crisis” but rather an attempt to ensure “the continued existence of society as a whole”. Priam’s action might be considered neutral, achieving nothing, but causing no harm. Aeneas, however, in a much clearer and more marked way than Paulus, has a positive duty towards the community to survive and not to throw his life away from despair or the quest for personal glory.

20 Discussion by Richardson (1993) adloc. See also von der Muhll (1952) 333; Griffin (1976) 171. 21 It is worth noting that the scholia suggest that Priam’s inversion of these conventional values may be a rhetorical ploy aimed at appealing to Hector’s φ ιλοτιμία (Σ bT ad11. 22.56-57): φιλότιμον αύτόν είδώς ύπήλλαξε την λέξιν, πρός εύκλειαν καί κοινην σωτηρίαν αύτφ την φ υγην είνα ι λέγω ν. (“Knowing that [Hector] loves honour, he slightly alters his speech, saying that, for him, flight would lead to glory and the common salvation”). Yet this does not diminish the validity of Priam’s argument, since his rhetorical strategy coincides with the truth of the situation. 22 Leigh (1993) 95, quoting Versnel (1981) 143. 23 Leigh (1993) 95-96. 66 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Virgil’s problematization of Aeneas’ attempted devotio emerges most clearly from his hortatio to the rag-tag band of desperate Trojans whom he has assembled (Aen. 2.347-55):

quos ubi confertos ardere in proelia vidi, incipio super his: ‘iuuenes, fortissima frustra pectora, si vobis audentem extrema cupido certa sequi, quae sit rebus fortuna videtis: excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis di quibus imperium hoc steterat; succurritis urbi incensae. moriamur et in media arma ruamus. una salus victis nullam sperare salutem sic animis iuuenum furor additus.

(“When I saw that they were gathered and burning for battle, I began in these words: ‘Young men, bravest of hearts in vain, if you have a sure desire to follow one who dares to the very end, you see what fortune our affairs have: all the gods have left the abandoned shrines and altars, the gods through whom this empire had stood; it is a city on fire that you are running to help. Let us die and rush into the middle o f battle. The one salvation for the defeated is to hope for no salvation’. In this way frenzy was added to the hearts o f the young men”).

It is a cliche o f Virgilian scholarship at all levels from school essay to monograph that Aeneas in the early part of the narrative displays the qualities and values of a Homeric hero, before developing into a different, more Roman, more Augustan kind of hero, and that his behaviour at Troy is particularly marked with a martial ethic o f personal glory. Yet in this passage, the language is very Roman and suffused with a sense of responsibility towards the community, but in a notably perverted fashion. In particular, as Leigh notes, the “death- rush formula . has no place in the world of the Iliadic warrior, who is not accustomed to charge the line of the enemy with the deliberate intention of getting killed” .24 We might observe that, for all the resonances with devotio narratives which were detected in the depiction of Hector’s choice in Iliad 22, he still asserted the faint hope of victory over Achilles, so that, for all that the probabilities of the situation rendered his decision an effective self-immolation, that was not its unambiguous aim.

In contrast, it is unambiguously devotio which is evoked by Aeneas’ exhortation to “rush into the middle o f battle”, but it is a devotio which he himself emphasizes will be futile. Repeatedly, Aeneas undercuts the conventional topoi of epic pre-battle hortationes,

24 ibid. 93. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 67

stressing that his men’s hearts are brave in vain; he teeters on the brink o f paradox by emphasizing that the city to whose aid they are running is burning, and hence beyond that or any other aid; then plunges headlong into it with the notorious line about the only salvation for the defeated being to hope for no salvation. Even the topos o f the city’s being abandoned by its gods (a recurrent feature of urbs capta narratives)25 might have further point in undermining any sense that the devotio could deflect the gods’ hostility from Troy onto the Greeks. Capping everything is the reflection o f Aeneas the narrator that these words added furor, the irrational, destructive principle of chaos against which the forces of order are constantly struggling, to the hearts of the young men.

Furor also appears a little earlier in Aeneas’ narrative, where it is coupled with ira, and the two passions, almost paradoxically, spur him to seek a glorious death (Aen. 2.316-17):

furor iraque mentem praecipitat, pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis.

(“Frenzy and rage send my mind headlong, and it occurs to me that it is a beautiful thing to die in the midst o f arms”).

Hans-Peter Stahl, in his salutary but somewhat overstated defence of Aeneas’ behaviour at the sack o f Troy, takes these lines as indicating that furor and ira cannot be intrinsically negative, since they can inspire such patriotic feelings: “It appears impossible that Virgil should condemn a frenzy that leads to noble death for one’s country” .26 Certainly there is considerable complexity in Virgil’s depiction of the passions, including furor and ira, and much important work has been done in recent years to try to contextualize in particular Aeneas’ frenzied killing of Turnus within Aristotelian and Epicurean conceptions of anger.27 However, rather than assuming that a “noble death for one’s country” is such an unambiguous good that any connection with it can render otherwise negative passions positive, we might consider it at least as likely that the negative passions throw into question whether such a death is indeed an unambiguous good, or more precisely whether in this case Aeneas is indeed dying “for his country”. As we have seen, Aeneas makes no suggestion that his death, for all its resemblance to a formal devotio, will do anything to save Troy. In fact, he explicitly denies the possibility of anyone or anything doing so. furor, ira and despair may drive a leader to seek a mors pulchra which has the secular features o f a

25 For the belief in general, there is a useful survey and list of examples at Pelling (1988) 303 ad Plut. Ant. 75.4-5. 26 Stahl (1981) 166. 27 e.g. Fowler (1997); Wright (1997); Gill (2003); Indelli (2004). 68 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

devotio which Leigh identifies, but the presence of those passions (along with the absence o f the crucial hope o f saving the city) underlines the limits o f such a devotio.

This is not to join those who harshly condemn Aeneas’ actions in book 2. The case has been frequently and convincingly made that the situation on that dreadful night, at least as Aeneas himself depicts it, more than justifies his failure to heed or even comprehend the instructions of Hector, Venus and Creusa, his despairing determination to die in his dying city, and his risk o f everything to find his lost wife. In evaluating Aeneas’ actions at the sack of Troy, we must of course take into account that they are described from his perspective and to serve his rhetorical aims, and we shall return to some reflections on the implications o f this for devotio motifs at the end o f this section. However, for now, it is important to note that the narrators, both epic and intradiegetic, Virgil (if the author is not dead) and Aeneas, problematize not the character of Aeneas but the value-system which leads him to pursue a death which, so far from being “for his country”, is in fact very much to its detriment. Devotio has its limits and Aeneas finds them in burning Troy.

The flip-side of the coin which depicts self-sacrificing death as inglorious and unpatriotic is, of course, the depiction of conventionally ignoble flight as courageous, dutiful, and in the interests of the community. In terms of our central antithesis between the consuls at Cannae, any criticism of Paulus’ action entails approbation of Varro’s. Moreover, in purely spatial terms, flight is also the antithesis of the death-rush, since it too involves rapid motion, but away from the enemy. We have already seen how Homer’s Priam tries to convince Hector that flight into the walls is his duty to Troy, and it is surely no coincidence that it is the ghost of Hector who instructs Aeneas not to make the same mistake, but to flee (Aen. 2.287-95):

ille nihil, nec me quaerentem vana moratur, sed grauiter gemitus imo de pectore ducens, ‘heu fuge, nate dea, teque his’ait ‘eripe flammis. hostis habet muros; ruit alto a culmine Troia. sat patriae Priamoque datum: si Pergama dextra defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent. sacra suosque tibi commendat Troia penatis; hos cape fatorum comites, his moenia quaere magna pererrato statues quae denique ponto ’.

(“He made no response, and did not delay over my asking pointless questions, but heavily heaving groans from the bottom of his chest, ‘Alas, flee, goddess-born, and Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 69

snatch yourself’ he said, ‘from these flames. The enemy holds the walls; Troy is collapsing from its lofty pinnacle. Enough has been given to homeland and to Priam: if Pergamum could be defended by a right hand, even by this one it would have been defended. Troy entrusts its sacred objects and household gods to you; these take as companions of your destiny, with these seek the great walls which you will eventually build after wandering all over the sea’”).

We are told by Aeneas himself that the ghost of Hector is not a spruced-up, funeral- parlour “Hector as I’d like to remember him”, but rather the bloody, dusty, mutilated corpse dragged round the walls by Achilles (2.272-73). While this image has many resonances with Hector as the symbol of falling Troy,28 it also binds him closely to the Hector of Iliad 22, who was in a similar position to Aeneas and who received similar advice. Unlike Priam’s call to come inside and prevent the horrific sack, Hector’s speech to Aeneas emphasises that the sack is already in irrevocable progress and hence that any defence by Aeneas is in vain. It is notable that, for all that Aeneas ignores most of Hector’s instructions, there are close parallels between their assessments of Troy’s desperate situation. When Aeneas addresses his band of brothers, he takes Troy’s doom as reason for a desperate and futile pseudo-devotio, but Hector more radically interprets the impossibility of saving Troy as justification for flight. His assertion that, if Troy could have been saved, he would have done it, also recalls his failure to heed Priam’s advice, to flee and hence to save Troy. Aeneas’ duty is also to flee, not to save Troy, but to carry the sacred objects and penates which she entrusts to him.

The call to flee is Hector’s first command and would be his first word were it not qualified by heu, a poignant interjection which expresses his distress, not simply at the general horror of Troy’s sack, but also more at the necessity of urging on his kinsman and fellow-warrior a course of action which is the antithesis of their military code and which he himself had notoriously rejected. Servius’ comment on this passage provides one of his more insightful readings (Serv. a d Virg. Aen. 2.288):

GEMITUS. nec enim parvus dolor est viro forti fortem virum fugam suadere. et nota, omnes suasoriae partes hoc loco contineri.

(“g r o a n s : for it is no small anguish either for a brave man to urge a brave man to flight. And observe that all the elements o f an exhortation are contained in this passage”).

28 Kragellund (1976) 11-39; Fuqua (1982); Hershkowitz (1998) 86-90. 70 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

However, Hector’s paradoxical command to flee is not a simple overriding ofthe conventional military exhortation to stand, fight and die. Just as the scholiast noted on the Iliadic Priam’s speech to Hector, so Servius here points out that all the elements o f an exhortation (προτρεπτικός / suasoria) are present. Yet they are inverted so as to advocate flight, not as a countercultural, self-consciously antiheroic act in the Archilochean mould,29 but rather as an almost paradoxical redefinition of the proper exercise of άρετή / virtus. Aeneas is urged to snatch someone to safety, but the object of that heroic rescue is, perhaps unexpectedly, himself: teque h is... eripe flammis. The choice of eripere is perhaps even more striking because, despite its common sense of “saving” (TLL V.2.794.10-42), it retains strong physical overtones of picking someone up and snatching them from the very jaws of danger. As such, reflexive uses of it are relatively uncommon, and the reader here might expect it to be Anchises or the penates which are the object of Aeneas’ rescue. That Hector casts self-preservation in terms more conventionally used of the heroic saving of others emphasizes that the two are ethically equivalent.

Before leaving Aeneas and his companions on Ida, let us briefly glance at three other references to fu g a in his narration. The first comes in Venus’ address to her son accompanying the terrifying apocalypse of the gods destroying Ilium (Aen. 2.617-20):

... ipse pater Danais animos virisque secundas sufficit, ipse deos in Dardana suscitat arma. eripe, nate, fugam finemque impone labori; nusquam abero et tutum patrio te limine sistam

(“‘The father himself supplies courage and victorious strength for the Danaans, he himself rouses the gods against the Dardanian arms. Snatch, son, flight and put an end to your effort; at no point shall I be absent and I shall set you safely on your father’s threshold’”).

Again the emphasis is on the hopelessness of the situation, but again the response is to urge not despairing self-annihilation but hopeful survival. Venus’ formulation recapitulates Hector’s exhortations to flight and rescue, but combines them to form an even more radically arresting phrase. Horsfall notes the echo and offers a range ofpossible explanations: “V[irgil] may be reworking material, or creating links between Hector’s words and Venus’, or indeed both” .30 There can surely be little doubt that Virgil is not only creating links

29 On this motif in the new Archilochus fragment (POxy. LXIX 4708), see Barker and Christenson (2006). 30 Horsfall (2008) 445 ad loc. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 71

between the two speeches, but marking a progression from Hector’s to Venus’. The bold collocation eripe... fugam cannot be simply smoothed out to mean, as Brandt’s TLL entry glosses it, raptim capesse3 and certainly not when it recalls the two concepts discretely expressed in Hector’s speech. It was incongruous and paradoxical enough for Hector to urge that Aeneas snatch himself away from the flames in parataxis (verging on hendiadys) with the command to flee. Here, flight, shameful resort of the coward and tergiversator, is promoted to the level of the cherished and vulnerable object which must itself be rescued and snatched away.

Newly obedient to the commands of the supernatural forces ranged beside him, Aeneas does indeed go to his father’s threshold, where it is now Anchises who (initially) resists the call of destiny and threatens to derail Jupiter’s teleological plan (Aen. 2.638-40):

vos o, quibus integer aevi sanguis ’, ait, ‘solidaeque suo stant robore vires, vos agitate fugam

(“‘O you, for whom blood with the health of youth’ he said, ‘and firm strength stand in their own m ight,you undertake flight’”). fuga here has strong overtones of its other (closely related) sense of “exile”, especially since Aeneas has just mentioned in oratio obliqua that Anchises’ complaints included saying that he could not endure exile (exilium ... pati, 2.638). However, he is referring at least as much to the flight which will lead to exile as to the exile itself, and it is notable that such flight is set apart as being appropriate to the young and strong, as opposed to the old and feeble. Once more we have an echo o f the topoi o f exhortations to glorious death in battle as something sweet and appropriate to brave, strong youths, but here it is flight which is not merely defended as an acceptable course of action, but taken for granted as the sort of thing which is only suited to the young and strong, because they are young and strong. The notion o f flight as courage reaches its climax.32 Its climax, but not its last appearance.

31 TLL V.2.791.63-64. An indication of how bold a collocation it is may be given by the only other occurrence, at Sil. 1.330-31, where the Saguntines are circumvallated by Hannibal and in a still striking but more conventional sense “see their [means of] flight snatched away [from them]” (stat dura iuuentus / ereptamque fugam et claudi uidet aggere muros). 32 We might, even more briefly, note further exhortation to flight. Anchises’ fateful panic, which leads to the loss of Creusa — ‘nate’, exclamat, ‘fuge, nate’(“‘My son’, he shouts, ‘flee, my son’”, 2.733) — could be construed as symbolically expressing the destined necessity of leaving Creusa, as well as Troy, behind. For Creusa as a synecdoche for Troy, see Syed (2005) 140-41. 72 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

In book 3, the Trojans round Actium and set up a shield as a trophy. Yet this trophy is not in celebration o f a victory in battle, but to mark a successful flight. The institution o f the Actian Games, victory games, which the victor of Actium would also celebrate centuries later, are held in memory o f their glorious “flight” — this refers principally to their sea- journey westwards from Troy, but surely also evokes the escape from the city (3.282­ 83): iuvat evasisse tot urbes / Argolicas mediosque fugam tenuisse per hostis (“We are glad to have escaped so many Argive cities and to have held our flight through the middle of the enemy”). Note how the devotio motif of rushing to one’s death in the midst of the enemy is transformed into achieving flight through their midst.33

It is by now probably clear that the discourse of Aeneid 2 exploits the imagery of devotio to suggest that, in some circumstances at least, the conventionally heroic death- rush can in fact be futile, detrimental to the common good, and motivated by selfish and irrational motives, while the conventionally disgraceful act of flight and self-preservation can be not only expedient but positively heroic and in the best interests of the community. It remains to consider why this inversion takes place. As with all the problematizations o f devotio discussed in this article, one o f the most important (if perhaps one o f the least interesting) reasons is that it is simply the case that in certain circumstances, the continued survival of a leader is of greater utility to his community (because, say, of his ability to rally, organize and motivate it in crisis, or govern it more generally in stability) than a superficially heroic death which, in those specific circumstances, might achieve nothing other than the preservation or enhancement of his personal reputation. Yet even here, we should perhaps be wary of saying that anything is simply the case, since such complex weighing of advantages, and in particular their depiction and perception, must always be underpinned by ideological considerations. We must therefore situate the limits of devotio within Aeneas’ narrative, within the Aeneid, and within Augustan Rome.

Aeneas’ escape from Troy was problematic. There is no need to join Menecrates of Xanthos and the other conspiracy theorists (possibly including Dido) who believed that Aeneas had betrayed Troy to the Greeks, or at least cut a deal to be allowed to escape, for the reader to feel a certain unease.34 If one wishes to adopt a psychologising approach, however broadly conceived, it is not difficult to imagine that Aeneas suffers from survivor’s guilt and

33 The paradox of this victorious defeat is perhaps best summed up by the inscription on the Argive shield they dedicate: AENEAS HAEC DE DANAIS VICTORIBVS ARMA (“AENEAS [SET UP] THESE ARMS [TAKEN] FROM THE VICTORIOUS DANAANS”, 3.288). On the significance of its being Abas’ shield, see Miller (1993). 34 FGrH 769 F 3. On the tradition that Aeneas betrayed Troy, see Ussani (1947) and Casali (1998), the latter of whom detects an allusion to it in Dido’s reference to facta impia at Aen. 4.596. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 73

needs to justify his failure to die with so many others, including his king and his wife, to himself. If this seems anachronistically psychological — the Aeneid is not a William Styron novel — then the more externalizing need for self-representation and self-assertion on the part o f the wandering hero is less problematic. Whatever he may feel himself, if indeed Virgil and his readers are interested in such matters, it is undeniable that he must justify to the various communities o f which he is leader, vulnerable guest, ally, or future ruler, the fact that he did not follow the conventional heroic or military code, that he did flee and, for whatever reason, survive. To pan out one level further: the poet must also, at least up to a point, justify his hero’s escape in terms which, while they might redefine the conception o f heroism, at least do not expose him to accusations o f cowardice or treachery (or at least not too blatantly). These three related approaches are valid, but they are all predicated on an implicit assumption that, in the final analysis, Aeneas’ flight from Troy was problematic and did need justification by something verging on special pleading. On this reading, the underlying heroic and military code remains basically intact, with the assumption that Aeneas ought really to have died heroically in Troy (as o f course he repeatedly tried to) and that the justifications for his flight have at best a rhetorical validity.

Perhaps more interesting is the approach which takes the redefinition o f duty seriously, but locates it in an ideological shift concerning the relationship between the leader and the community. There is no room here for a detailed analysis o f the shift from, crudely- speaking, the collective ideology o f the republic (if indeed it ever existed in those terms) to the monarchical ideology o f the Principate (whose existence is, I hope, uncontroversial, even if it is less certain at what point it became fully developed). Nevertheless, it is not difficult to detect the affinities between, on the one hand, the former and the values represented by devotio, and on the other, the latter and the redefined emphasis on hopeful survival. Two passages from Horace’s fourth book of Odes nicely illustrate the contrasting views, and their juxtaposition in successive odes might suggest a deliberate antithesis. In the first, Hannibal laments over the death o f Hasdrubal at Metaurus and reflects upon the Romans’ ability to regroup and rise from defeat, like the hydra or the spartoi (C. 4.4.61-64):

non hydra secto corpore firmior vinci dolentem crevit in Herculem, monstrumve submisere Colchi maius Echioniaeve Thebae.

(“The hydra when its body had been cut did not grow stronger against Hercules who grieved to be defeated, nor did the Colchians or Echion’s Thebes plant a greater monster”). 74 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

For all that this ode celebrates Drusus through his great Claudian ancestor, this is a clear statement of republican ideals. The death of one general, whether in heroic self-sacrifice or otherwise, does no lasting harm to the collective o f the Roman res publica, since there will always be countless other generals and soldiers to spring up, like heads from the hydra’s neck or sown men from the dragon’s teeth, to take their place. This being so, the service done to the collective by devotio-like death far outweighs the harm caused by the loss of one leader among many, who can so easily be replaced. In contrast, Ode 4.5 stresses the homeland’s devotion to and reliance on the unique and irreplaceable figure of Caesar. The patria’s longing for him is like that of a mother for her sea-faring son (9-16), and it is contingent on his individual safety (incolumi Caesare, 27) that Italy’s land will be fertile, Rome’s institutions sound, and both safe from their enemies. It is only when the whole safety and even continuing existence of the community depend upon the safety and continuing existence of one individual, the synecdochic hero (a precise reversal of the devotio, where it is the substitutional sacrifice of that individual which ensures the community’s safety and continuing existence), only in these circumstances and on this ideological basis, that it can be considered “simply the case” that it is in the community’s best interests for a leader like Aeneas to rush away from the enemy in flight rather than into them to devoted death.35 It is a matter for debate how far the Aeneid interrogates as well as representing this ideological position, but that question can be illuminated by examining its reception in two of Virgil’s best readers, Lucan and Silius Italicus.

A Big Man, But in Bad Shape: Lucan’s Pompey

Devotio takes its place among the other aspects of Roman ideology which are twisted and perverted in Lucan’s twisted and perverted poem about a twisted and perverted world.36 Cato offers him self as a devotus in the explicit tradition of the Decii, longing to take the guilt of all Romans, and their destruction, upon himself.37 Yet, even if one sees Lucan’s Cato as heroic paragon rather than hilarious parody, he aspires merely to prevent

35 One might also situate Virgil’s critique of Aeneas’ despair within an Augustan and Tiberian discourse of spes, a positive attribute far removed from the destructive έλπ ίς of Hesiod and Thucydides. On Augustan spes, see Clark (1983); on despair in association with Germanicus’ death, see Versnel (1980). I am grateful to Andy Stiles for these references. 36 I am indebted to Paul Roche for reminding me of the extent of references to devotio in the Bellum Civile, and to Anne Rogerson for noting how, like so many Roman values, and especially military ones, those associated with devotio become meaningless or at least problematic in civil war (and indeed in The Civil War). On devotio in Lucan, see esp. Leigh (1997) 128-43. 37 Luc. 2.306-19. On Cato’s devotio, see Rudich (1997) 122-23; Hill (2004) 230; D ’Alessando Behr (2007) 156-58; Stover (2008) 573-75. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 75

bloodshed rather than to save the Roman people from the yoke of servitude to which they are already resigned and even enthusiastic. With his imagined death, in all its hyperbolic grotesquery, the last defender of the laws would die, but not in such a way as to save them: he would merely open the way for the peace which comes with a master, as foreseen by Nigidius Figulus (1.670). More grotesque and futile still is the mutual slaughter of Vulteius’ men, who prefer freedom (albeit the “freedom” to be Caesar’s “slaves”) to defeat by the Pompeians and who are depicted as a devota iuuentus (4.533). Here is a microcosm of civil war, as Romans slaughter each other in a misguided act of conventional valour, valour which has and can have no place in the perverted world o f the Bellum Civile.3 Finally, we might note briefly a figure to whom we shall return, Caesar’s centurion Scaeva, who single-handedly prevents Pompey’s army from breaking the blockade at Dyrrachium, a heroic act of the one against the many, except that, for all the gruesomely hyperbolic wounds which he sustains, he fails to die, and the result of his self-sacrificing virtus is, as the narrator points out, that he readies a master for himself.39 However, I wish to focus here, not on the perversion of devotio in general, but specifically on its inversion, as in the series of passages which we have already noted problematising self-destruction and valorising flight. This motif arises in the Bellum Civile when Pompey flees from Pharsalus.

Pompey’s flight, and the epic narrator’s assessment o f it, are among the most intensely debated parts o f the Bellum Civile.4 Already in Caesar’s commentaries on the civil war, it was used to denigrate his predecessor, and many, most influentially Marti, have seen Lucan’s depiction of the flight as a direct corrective, not only rehabilitating Pompey but actively heroizing his retreat.41 It has been widely noted that the general’s spurring on of his horse to a gallop evokes the death-rush of the devotus (7.677-79):

tum Magnum concitus aufert a bello sonipes non tergo tela paventem ingentisque animos extrema in fata ferentem.

38 4.402-581. On Vulteius, see Leigh (1997) 259-63; Esposito (2001); Eldred (2002); D ’Alessandro Behr (2007) 36-45. 39 6.118-262, esp. 262: infelix, quanta dominum virtute parasti! (“Unlucky man, with what valour you got ready a master!”) On Scaeva, see esp. Rutz (1960) 462-66; Marti (1966); Conte (1974); Ahl (1976) 117-21; Saylor (1978) esp. 250-53; Henderson (1987); Johnson (1987) 57-60; Fantham (1995); Leigh (1997) 158-90, 243-46; Hershkowitz (1998) 214-16, 243-44; Gorman (2001) 277­ 79; Sklenar (2003) 45-59, 149-51. 40 7.647-711, with esp. Leigh (1997) 110-57; Bartsch (1997) 79-82. 41 Marti (1945). 76 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(“Then a spurred-on charger carried Magnus away from war, not fearing weapons in his back and carrying his great courage to his final destiny”).

It has also been noted, of course, that this is an inverted devotio, since the general is riding not into but away from the enemy. Moreover, there is a potential irony in his fearlessness concerning weapons in his back: unlike most heroes who share this lack o f fear, it is not because his front is the only part the enemy can see, but because he has rapidly ridden out of range! Yet, as we have seen with a number of other devoti manques, an inverted devotio need not be interpreted straightforwardly as a bitter parody contrasting cowardly flight with the heroic death-rush which the general ought to be undertaking. Rather such inversion of the physical externals of the devotio may also serve to invert the system o f values which underpins it. In assessing Pompey’s actions, we must also assess his motivations, and in addition the motivations of Lucan’s uniquely engaged narrator.

The situation is clarified, or in all likelihood further complicated, by Lucan’s explanation of why Pompey fled (7.652-58):

tot telis sua fata peti, tot corpora fusa ac se tam multo pereuntem sanguine vidit. nec, sicut mos est miseris, trahere omnia secum mersa iuvat gentesque suae miscere ruinae; ut Latiae post se vivat pars maxima turbae, sustinuit dignos etiamnunc credere votis caelicolas, vovitque, sui solacia casus.

(“He saw his own death aimed at by so many weapons, so many bodies strewn and himself dying in so much blood. And he did not, as is the way o f the wretched, decide to pull everything down with him and drown it, or to mix the nations up in his own fall; he managed to believe that the sky-dwellers even now were worthy o f his prayers, and prayed that the greatest part of the Latian crowd should live after him, a solace for his own fall”).

Though this is clearly doubly focalized through Pompey and the facet ofthe narratorial voice which is so fanatically devoted to him,42 if taken at face value, it presents Pompey

42 “due versi emblematici dello stato d’animo di Pompeo, ormai in preda al panico”, Gagliardi (1975) ad Luc. 7.652-63; “the idea of the synecdochic hero is present first in the imaginings of Pompey, second in the suggestive figurations of the narrator”, Leigh (1997) 153; cf. Bartsch (1997) 80: “A strange devotio that saves the sacrifice and offers up the beneficiaries, but this noble flight instils not the least bit of discomfort in our narrator, who now addresses Pompey in rapturous terms and for some fifty lines”. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 77

with the dilemma of Hector. He is the one who stands for the many and whose death will take those many down with him. Yet he chooses not, as is the way of the wretched, to drag everything down with him but, unlike Hector, to live and, unlike Hector, to try to save his people. His is an inverted devotio, not merely because he does not ride to a glorious death, but because (in his perception at least) such a glorious death would not save but destroy his people.43 As Sklenar puts it, “Pompey evinces an essential component o f Stoic virtus, a concern for the commonwealth of humankind” .44 The situation does not appear to call for a Decius, but for a right-thinking Hector. Yet this assumes that Pompey (along with his partisan narrator) is correct in his interpretation of the situation. If, as many have argued, most forcefully Leigh, Pompey is deluded by his own egomania, so that he does not see “the part standing for the whole, the hero for his people, but rather the whole standing for the part”, then the inverted devotio is a parody after all.45 Is there a way of interpreting Pompey’s flight as inverted devotio other than simply preserving the quintessentially Lucanian paradox of the situation, as Johnson does with characteristic (and Lucanian) irony, referring to Pompey’s “gallant desertion” ?46

Simple condemnation of Pompey’s action misses something of the point. Pompey is megalomaniacal and egomaniacal, monarchical rather than Republican, in his equation of the many with the one, but almost everything we are told in the epic suggests that he is correct in his assessment of the situation. The criticism is not so much of Pompey himself as of the world-turned-upside-down in which he operates, in which a single synecdochic figure can drag everything down with him. Pompey is to be criticized only inasmuch as he is a product, a part (and no doubt something o f the cause also) o f this world in which the collective values o f the republic have all but disappeared. If the republic which the narrator so nostalgically and unrealistically longs for still existed (as it does briefly in the aftermath of Pompey’s flight, when the dying Senate shows that it fought for itself),47 it would make

43 A similar finesse is used by Cicero to figure his exile as a devotio to prevent bloodshed, on which see May (1988) 97-99 and Dyck (2004). 44 Sklenar (2003) 120. Cf. Lintott (1971) 501: “Pompey bears his misfortune with calm dignity and leaves the field to put an end to the slaughter”; Radicke (2004) 422: “Lucan hingegen [i.e. unlike historiographers] macht die Flucht des Pompeius, der sein Heer fuhrerlos dem Untergang preisgab, zu einem bewuEten Ruckzug aus Humanitat und wertet den negativen Vorgang in einen positiven um”. 45 Leigh (1997) 155. Cf. adnot. super. Luc. ad 7.653: nam exercitus corpus est imperatoris. On this undermining of Pompey’s depiction more generally, see Ahl (1976) 167-68; Bartsch (1997) 79-80; Edwards (2007) 35. 46 Johnson (1987) 99. 47 teque inde fugato / ostendit moriens sibi se pugnasse senatus. (“When you had fled from there, the senate dying showed that it had fought for itself”), Luc. 7.696-97. 78 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

sense for a republican general to perform a true devotio, to die, and to save his people. In the world o f civil war and o f The Civil War, such actions, like the values on which they are based, make no sense, or rather are perverted. Pompey’s death would have caused more destruction rather than salvation, and his flight does reduce the bloodshed. Yet the change to devotio is not just the result o f the category-confounding nature o f civil war; it is the monarchical ideology of the Principate, and of the preceding decades, with its proto- monarchical dynasts such as Pompey and Caesar, which makes devotio redundant and even counterproductive. When individuals become more important than the community, then their destruction is indeed destructive and their preservation does indeed preserve the community. Yet, whereas Virgil depicted this shift and its embodiment in Aeneas as (on the surface at least) a neutral or even positive one, in Lucan it is clearly negative. Pompey does the best he can in the worst of possible worlds. That his best is so poor is the ultimate condemnation of that world.

Little Big Man: Paulus and Varro at Cannae, part II

There are two sustained engagements with devotio in Flavian epic. The suicide of Menoeceus in Thebaid 10, though it o f course has its origins in the Greek tradition, most notably Euripides’ Phoenician Women, is clearly depicted in terms of a devotio. Many interpret it as an unambiguously positive action on Menoeceus’ part, as he selflessly saves the city by giving up his life, in contrast to the self-consciously impious assault on the walls by the contemptor divum, Capaneus.48 However, Alan Heinrich has persuasively shown how, in terms both of Menoeceus’ self-serving and competitive motivation, and especially of the futility of the act, which leads not to salvation or resolution, but to an obsessive repetition of the same crimes to which Thebes and her people are doomed, the devotio is pointless, if not impious.49 In a manner which is parallel to, but distinct from, Lucan’s depiction of a world out of joint, Statius’ nefastic universe, or at least “guilty Thebes” within it, renders all positive values and actions at best meaningless and at worst as criminal as itself. However, for all its problematization o f both the motivation for and the efficacy of self-immolation, Statius’ Menoeceus episode does not fall into the category of inverted devotio upon which we are focusing, in which the death-rush is deprecated and flight valorised. For an instance of that motif in Flavian epic, we must return to our starting point, the contrasting decisions and fates of the two consuls at Cannae, not as depicted in Livy’s history or Frontinus’ book of stratagems, but in Silius Italicus’ Punica.

48 e.g. Vessey (1971). 49 Heinrich (1999). Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 79

The motif of devotio can be detected elsewhere in the Punica, though I would disagree with Raymond Marks’s argument that the deaths of various hot-headed Roman generals at the sites of Hannibal’s early victories constitute some sort of virtual devotio which eventually contributes to Rome’s victory.50 However, devotio is unquestionably central to Silius’ depiction of Paulus’ death at Cannae, which constitutes an intertextual tour deforce of incredible complexity, alluding to and commenting on the devotiones (actual, virtual, or inverted) of Aeneas, Priam, Turnus, Hector, Scaeva, and Pompey, at least, in addition to their situation in the historiographical and exemplary tradition about Paulus himself. We have examined in some detail the examples of Hector, Aeneas, and Pompey, but it will be worth reminding ourselves of the circumstances leading to Turnus’ devotio, which, while it is not in itself part of the epic problematization of devotio, is an important intertext for that of Silius’ Paulus’, which is, and links it to the other epic devotiones.

In Aeneid 12, Turnus has been led by his sister Iuturna, disguised as his charioteer Metiscus, to the edges of the battle, where he is safely and futilely scything down sword- fodder. He hears the cry from the city which arises when Aeneas attacks it and Amata commits suicide, while Latinus, like Priam, throws dust on his hair in grief.51 Virgil skilfully combines Priam’s supplication of the living Hector (itself a form of pre-emptive mourning)52 with his mourning for his death, but it is Amata’s death which symbolizes the destruction of the city, and — though the juxtaposition of the scenes makes the connection — Turnus himself is not addressed. The city, like Troy, is falling, but Turnus is not there, and it is another’s death which is equated to that fall.53 The contrast underlines the difference between Hector and Turnus, that, while Hector’s duty is to save himself and hence save the city, Turnus — though also a synecdochic hero — must die to save the city.

In place of Priam and Hecuba’s supplications, Virgil synthesizes all the advice, supplications, divine deceptions, and self-debate which Hector receives and indulges in — Andromache, Priam, Hecuba, Polydamas, Athena-Deiphobos, and his own great monologue — and then splits them again into two contrasting figures giving contrasting advice. Iuturna, like Athena, impersonates a comrade o f the hero, but, instead o f a false sibling tricking him to his death, a true sibling tries to trick him to safety.54 The shadowy

50 Marks (2005b). 51 Turnus on the fringes: Aen. 12.614-21; Latinus and the people of Latinus: 12.608-11; Priam: Hom. Il. 22.33-35, cf. 408-09. Knauer (1964) 429 only notes the second parallel. 52 Cf. Alden (2000) 282 on the hair-tearing at Hom. Il. 22.77-78. 53 Cf. Hershkowitz (1998) 82: “The fall of Troy is mirrored by the siege of Latinus’ city”. 54 In many ways, Iuturna-Metiscus combines half (i.e. two quarters) of the functions of the Homeric Athena in (epiphanizing to and) aiding Achilles and deceiving (and destroying) Hector. 80 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

figure of Saces, perhaps an externalization of Turnus’ own conscia virtus, urges him to come and fight and save the city. Suggestively for both Hector and Paulus, safety for Turnus, which will leave the city to its fate, as advocated by Iuturna-Metiscus, requires him to stay where he is, while death and the salvation of the city (Saces’ exhortation) can only be achieved through motion towards the city. There is also a distinction on the related issue of whether or not Turnus is a synecdochic hero: according to Iuturna-Metiscus, he can stay where he is because “there are others to defend the city” (sunt alii qui tecta manu defendere possint, 12.627). Saces, however, like Priam, asserts that Turnus is the synecdochic hero, in whom is the “final chance o f safety” (suprema salus, 653), the one man to whom all eyes and faces are turned (in te ora Latini, / in te oculos referunt, 656-67); the difference is that, whereas Priam used this as an argument for Hector to flee and live, for Saces, it means Turnus must fight, which all the narrative’s signals make clear means also that he must die. We might note here that Iuturna-Metiscus’ claim is drawing an intertextual parallel with Homer’s Idomeneus, who (in the opposite direction) tells his charioteer, Meriones, that there are others to defend the Greek ships while they seek glory on the left wing;55 the irony of the intertext is that, whereas Idomeneus can point to the two Aiantes and Teucros as credible defenders, for Turnus (and for Hector) there is no one else. From this dense intertextual debate, the question will emerge for Silius’ reader as to whether Paulus is a sole defender, like Hector and Turnus, or whether, like Idomeneus, he can point to others, Fabius, Lentulus, and the inhabitants of the city, who can defend Rome.

Turnus responds to both figures with the same decision: Iuturna-Metiscus urges him to slaughter as many Trojans as he can to even up numbers, but he refuses and determines to face Aeneas; Saces urges him to come and save the city, to which he agrees and determines to face Aeneas. Peter Schenk, consistent with his unrelentingly negative interpretation of Turnus’ character throughout the poem, argues here that it is primarily his sense of shame and the fear of dishonour which drives him to face Aeneas, and even to save the city.56 This is certainly supported by the references in his reply to Iuturna-Metiscus to giving the lie to the words of Drances and in his refusal to let this land see him in flight (12.643-45). We might consider this a slightly harsh and over-simplified account of Turnus’ motivation, even if we take it as only part of that motivation, yet it tellingly both parallels and contrasts

55 νηυσ'ι μεν έν μέσσησιν αμύνειν είσί καί άλλοι / Α’ίαντές τε δύω Τεΰκρός θ', ος άριστος Αχαιών I τοξοσύνη, αγαθός δε καί έν σταδίη ύσμίνη (Il. 13.312-14). The parallel is noted by Knauer (1964) 430. 56 Schenk (1984) 177-85, esp. 178: “Das entscheidende Stichwort dieser Rede [12.632-49] ist dedecus, das bei Turnus stets mit dem Todesgedanken verbunden ist. Einen fluchtenden Turnus, der es zulaEt, daE die Stadt der Zerstorung anheim fallt, wird die Welt nicht sehen”. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 81

with Hector’s. As we have seen, Hector’s sense of shame, especially for rejecting the good counsel of Polydamas, leads him to face his enemy, just like Turnus;57 yet Hector’s shame leads him to put that personal value above the safety of his city, whereas Turnus’ shame that he has endangered the city leads him to give his life to save it. There may be an element of truth in Heinze’s general claim that Aeneas fights for his people, but Turnus for himself, but here at least it is for the city that Turnus will fight.58

As we shall see, unlike that o f Hector and Paulus, who resemble him but resemble each other more, Turnus’ choice, though painful, is relatively simple and even conventional: flee and save himself, or fight and save the city. In comparing his situation to Paulus’, it is instructive to consider the parallels Debra Hershkowitz has drawn between Saces and the ghost of Hector in Aeneid 2.59 Both Aeneas and Turnus experience the sudden appearance and exhortations of Hector and Saces in a dream-like state, which contributes to the sense that they are simultaneously external figures and expressions of the heroes’ psychological state. The visitations not only report but embody the destruction o f the city, as “like Hector’s wounds, Saces’ wounds reflect the destruction he describes” .60 Hershkowitz’s paralleling of the scenes is insightful but, in the context of the debate between fight and flight, we might wish to nuance her analysis a little. She claims that “Hector admonishes Aeneas, telling him to flee the hopeless ruin of his city; similarly, Saces admonishes Turnus, telling him to fight in the hopeless battle for his city” .61 Here is the familiar contrast between flight and fight, but are both situations truly hopeless? The fall of Troy in Aeneid 2 is genuinely a hopeless situation, inevitable defeat and destruction ordained by the gods, as Venus reveals to Aeneas; in these circumstances, as we have seen, Aeneas’ duty, like Hector’s, is to flee and save the city — not Troy, which cannot be saved, but the new Troy which he will carry with him to the west; instead he repeatedly tries to embrace a conventional, despairing, “heroic” mors pulchra, like Hector, but repeatedly supernatural interventions — beginning with Hector’s ghost — insist that he follow the unconventional heroic duty which the circumstances demand: flight. The attack on Latinus’ city, on the other hand, is not a hopeless cause; in the most literal and short-term sense, Turnus’ action

57 “Beide Helden erkennen, daE die von den Ratgebern prophezeite Situation eingetreten ist, und ihr Ansehen ihnen gebietet, den bisher vermiedenen Kampf auszufechten”. Schenk (1984) 178. 58 “Vor allem kampft er nicht wie Aeneas fur sein Volk und dessen Zukunft, sondern, wie ihm mit Recht vorgeworfen wird, fur seine eigenen Anspruche, und ihre willen einen Krieg zu entfachen, ist frevelhaft”. Heinze (1915) 211. 59 Hershkowitz (1998) 86-90. 60 ibid. 88. 61 ibid. 87. 82 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

saves the city as Aeneas turns away from it to face him; it is clear that in another, hard- to-define sense, the sacrifice o f Turnus — for all its negative connotations — is essential to save the city that is to come.62 The connection between Hector’s ghost and Saces, Aeneas and Turnus, is therefore partly parallelism — the synecdochic hero must save the city — but partly contrastive — Aeneas must achieve this by fleeing and surviving, Turnus by fighting and dying.

Like Turnus in the Aeneid, Paulus in the Punica is visited by two advisers. Like Turnus’ advisers, one of Paulus’ is a deceptive, disguised divinity (albeit a hostile one unlike the benign Iuturna) and the other a positive representative of normative military values. However, unlike Turnus’ two advisers, both o f Paulus’ urge the same course o f action: flight to save himself and, by so doing, to save Rome. It will be worth looking at the arguments of both figures side-by-side before analysing them further. The first adviser is Juno, enemy of Rome (despite all that business with Jupiter in Aeneid 12), partisan of the Carthaginians and especially of Hannibal. Juno is anxious lest Paulus might meet Hannibal in battle and kill him. She therefore disguises herself as L. Caecilius Metellus (who will reappear as the leader of a cowardly band who advocate abandoning Rome after the defeat at Cannae)63 and tries to persuade Paulus to retire from the field (Sil. 10.47-58):

in faciem pavidi luno conversa Metelli ‘quid vanos, ’ inquit ‘Latio spes unica consul, incassumque moves fato renuente furores? si superest Paulus, restant Aeneia regna; sin secus, Ausoniam tecum trahis. ire tumentem tu contra iuvenem et caput hoc abscidere rebus turbatis, o Paule, paras? nunc Hannibal ipsi (tam laetus bello est) ausit certare Tonanti. et iam conversis (vidi nam flectere) habenis evasit Varro ac sese ad meliora reservat. sit spatium fatis, et, dum datur, eripe leto hanc nostris maiorem animam: mox bella capesses’.

62 On constructive destruction in the Aeneid, especially as represented by imagery relating to sacrificial violence, see Morgan (1998). 63 Plan to leave Rome (and Scipio’s foiling thereof): 10.415-48 (cf. Liv. 22.53.4-13; Val. Max. 5.6.7). His only other contribution to the narrative is to be punished for this by demotion to the rank of tribunus aerarius, after Marcellus’ victory at Nola: 12.304-05; Silius gives no more details than punitur, but the punishment is described at Liv. 24.18.6. On the appropriate choice of Metellus: Niemann (1975) 222, n.2 Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 83

(“Juno, transformed into the likeness of the cowardly Metellus, said ‘Why, consul and sole hope for Latium, do you exert your frenzy in vain when fate is opposed? If Paulus survives, the kingdom of Aeneas survives; but if not, you drag Ausonia down with you. Are you making ready, O Paulus, to march against a cocky youth and to cut off this head from a state which is already in turmoil? At this moment Hannibal would dare (so exultant is he in war) to fight the Thunderer himself. And now Varro, has turned round his reins (for I saw him change course), escaped and preserved himself for better times. Let fate have room and, while the opportunity is presented, snatch from death this soul greater than ours: later you will take up war’”).

The second adviser is Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, whose attempt to rescue Paulus is also attested in the historiographical tradition (and depicted in a dramatic painting by the American Revolutionary artist John Trumbull), and who urges Paulus to the same course of action using almost precisely the same arguments, but for innocently patriotic motives (Sil. 10.260-75):64

ecce, Cydonea violatus harundineplantam, Lentulus effusis campum linquebat habenis, cum videt in scopulo rorantem saxa cruore torvoque obtutu labentem in Tartara Paulum. mens abiit, puduitque fugae. tum visa cremari Roma viro, tunc ad portas iam stare cruentus Hannibal; Aetoli tum primum ante ora fuere sorbentes Latium campi. ‘quid deinde relictum crastina cur Tyrios lux non deducat ad urbem, deseris in tantis puppim si, Paule, procellis? testor caelicolas, ’ inquit ‘ni damna gubernas crudelis belli vivisque in turbine tanto invitus, plus, Paule, (dolor verba aspera dictat) plus Varrone noces. cape, quaeso, hunc, unica rerum fessarum spes, cornipedem. languentia membra ipse levabo umeris et dorso tuta locabo

(“See, wounded in the foot by a Cydonean arrow, Lentulus was leaving the field with slackened reins, when he saw on a spur, bedewing the rocks with blood, slipping

64 Liv. 22.49.6-13; the incident is also reported in Plut. Fab. 15.7-9/183e-f. On the Silian scene, see von Albrecht (1964) 121-22; Niemann (1975) 241-44; Ahl-Davis-Pomeroy (1986) 2535-36; Ripoll (1998) 61. 84 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

down to Tartarus with fierce gaze Paulus. His intention left him, and he was ashamed o f his flight. Then it was that Rome seemed to him to be on fire, then it was that Hannibal seemed to stand blood-soaked before the gates; then first were the Aetolian plains [of Cannae] sucking down Latium before his eyes. W hat reason then is left why tomorrow’s light should not lead the Tyrians to the City, if you are abandoning the ship, Paulus, in such storms? I call the heaven-dwellers to witness’, he said, ‘unless you steer the losses o f a cruel war and live on in such a whirlwind, Paulus, though you don’t mean to be, you are more (anguish prescribes harsh words) more guilty than Varro. Take, I beg you, sole hope of our exhausted state, this horse. I myself shall lift your drooping limbs on my shoulders and place them safe on its back’”).

Lentulus, like Juno-Metellus, urges Paulus to leave because he is the one hope for Rome, and, like Juno-Metellus, he fails. The only differences are in the persona o f the persuader and in Paulus’ reaction. Karl-Heinz Niemann succinctly states the problem, but only partially solves it:

“Both situations represent a temptation for Paulus to be untrue to his character. The contrast between the two scenes lies in the fact that Metellus’ makes a negative impression on Paulus, and Lentulus, in contrast, a positive one. That has its deeper reasons in the different character of Juno- Metellus’ and of Lentulus’ speeches: while in the first case it is an enemy of Rome, disguised as a Roman, who speaks, in the second, it is a real Roman who speaks; what one means insincerely, the other means sincerely”.65

This is well-observed and nicely summed up, but it leaves the troubling question as to how the same advice, expressed (pace Niemann) in very similar terms, can be given by an enemy of Rome in the persona of a light-heeled coward and by a courageous Roman hailed as the hope o f the city. M ost pointedly, how can Paulus upbraid one as degener altae / virtutis patrum (10.68-69) and laud the other, for making the same suggestion, with the exclamation macte o virtute paterna (277)? The question posed is not merely “how can Juno-Metellus and Lentulus give the same advice?” but “what are the rights and wrongs of courageous self-sacrifice as against cowardly flight, or of futile, despairing, glory-seeking self-destruction as against enduring, hopeful survival?” That these rights and wrongs are far from obvious is underlined by the fact that the same course of action can be advocated

65 “Beide Situationen stellen fur Paulus eine Versuchung dar, seiner Gesinnung untreu zu werden. Der Konstrast zwischen beiden Szenen liegt darin, daE sich ,Metellus’ dem Paulus negativ, Lentulus dagegen positiv darstellt. Das hat seinen tieferen Grund in dem unterschiedlichen Charakter der Juno-Metellus- und der Lentulusrede: Wahrend im ersten Fall ein als Romer getarnter Feind Roms spricht, spricht im zweiten Fall ein echter Romer; was der eine unaufrichtig meint, meint der andere aufrichtig”. Niemann (1975) 243. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 85

from such different motives. Much of Silius’ discussion of the question is constituted by complex intertextual engagements with his epic predecessors, which takes us back to Turnus, Iuturna and Saces.

The parallels between the Virgilian and Silian advisers are clear. Juno-Metellus is a disguised divine protector (albeit o f Hannibal rather than Paulus) and even the name of Metellus, perhaps etymologized as a diminutive of metus through the glosses metuens (10.44), pavidi (46), and pavidissime (65), recalls Metiscus, also a diminutive and which Paschalis

has seen as suggesting both metus and μήτις.66 Lentulus’ kinship with Saces is even more clearly expressed as the reader is commanded to behold, ecce, each o f them as they ride, both wounded, Saces in the face, Lentulus in the foot. Yet the crucial difference is that the consul’s two advisers are not giving him conflicting advice, but urging him to do the same thing — flee; or, to be more accurate, they are both giving the advice o f both Turnus’ advisers: you must save the city and, in order to accomplish that, you must save yourself. This further combinatorial and divisive imitation — blending Iuturna-Metiscus’ and Saces’ messages into one, and then duplicating it — is signalled by cross-echoes, so that Juno-Metellus uses Saces’ reproach that the hero is wasting his time on futile fighting, while Lentulus inverts Iuturna-Metiscus’ claim

that others can save the city by insisting that only Paulus can save it.6 7 The contrast with Turnus derives from the fact that, painful though it is, Turnus’ choice appears on the surface to be at least simple: Iuturna-Metiscus’ claim that remaining in the field while others defend the city will bring victory seems a transparent equivocation to justify self-preservation; Turnus can save either himself or the city. In this respect, he is in a diametrically opposite position to Hector, who must choose between, on one side, his honour and, on the other, the mutually dependent preservation o f his life and the city. Paulus too is presented with the choice of saving himself and the city, or dying, with all that might entail.

This conflict over the rights and wrongs o f the general leaving the battle evokes another figure whose complex relationship with devotio we have noted: Lucan’s Pompey. Silius evokes Pompey as a literary predecessor (and historical successor) o f Paulus in various ways. There is a consistent play on their names — Paulus, “the Small”, antiphrastically recalling

66 Paschalis (1997) 390. 67 ‘quid vanos’, inquit, ‘Latio spes unica consul, / incassumque moves fato renuente furores’ (“Why, consul and sole hope for Latium, do you exert your frenzy in vain when fate is opposed?”) Sil. 10.48-49 ~ tu currum deserto in gramine versas. (“You take your chariot for a spin in deserted grassland”), Aen. 12.664. quid deinde relictum / crastina cur Tyrios lux non deducat ad urbem, / deseris in tantis puppim si, Paule, procellis? (“What reason then is left why tomorrow’s light should not lead the Tyrians to the City, if you are abandoning the ship, Paulus, in such storms?”) Sil. 10.267-9 ~ sunt alii qui tecta manu defendere possint. (“There are others who can physically defend the houses”), Aen. 12.627. 86 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Pompey “the Great”, Magnus being not only his cognomen but his most common designation in the Bellum Civile, where there are innumerable, mainly ironic, plays on it.68 Silius’ wordplay on Paulus is most clearly foregrounded in Mago’s narration o f Cannae to the Carthaginian senate, when he describes the two consuls taking the field (11.511-12): hic Varro et magnum Latia inter nomina Paulus / nomen (“Here were Varro and, a great name among Latian names, Paulus”). N ot only does this contrast the greatness o f Paulus’ nomen (reputation) with the smallness o f his nomen (the literal meaning o f his name), but it evokes Lucan’s famous description o f Pompey as the mere shadow o f a name: magni nominis umbra6

We shall examine later the ways in which Paulus’ death triangulates with those of Pompey (in his Lucanian, historical, and other manifestations) and Priam, but let us return to Juno-Metellus’ temptation of Paulus. The terms in which Paulus’ importance is couched closely echo those which we have seen Pompey use to justify his flight from the battle of Pharsalus. In particular, Juno-Metellus’ claim that, by dying, Paulus will “drag Ausonia down” with him (Ausoniam tecum trahis, 10.51) closely recalls the narrator’s (or the focalizer Pompey’s) assertion that Pompey decided not “to drag everything down with him” (trahere omnia secum, Luc. 7.654), as is the way of the wretched. She goes on to urge him to snatch from death his maiorem animam (58), his life which is more important than that o f the masses, more magnus than that o f Magnus;70 the suggestion is that Paulus, by his intransigence, will bring about precisely what he claimed before the battle that his colleague Varro was doing by his rashness: trahit omnia secum (8.232). Yet, as we noted, this assumes that Lucan’s Pompey is correct in his interpretation of his situation. If we accept the stress laid on Pompey’s egomania by Leigh and others, then the intertextuality with Paulus might affect the reader rather differently. Juno-Metellus tempts Paulus not with the equivocating, self-justifying rhetoric of Iuturna-Metiscus (“there are others to save the city”), but with the monarchical, self-aggrandizing discourse of Pompey (“only you can save the city, and only by fleeing”).71 It is worth noting again, as mentioned above, that the exegetic tradition of the Iliad already hints that Hector, like Paulus, is the

68 See esp. Feeney (1986); cf. Henderson (1987) 149-50. Hor. C. 1.12.37-38 (discussed above) may also have this wordplay: animaeque magnae /prodigum Paulum. 69 1.135, on which, again, see Feeney (1986), esp. 239-40. 70 Cf. Marpicati (1999) esp. 197-98, on the contrast between the flight of Pompey and the steadfastness of Paulus. 71 Note also Paulus’ repeated insistence on not showing his back to the enemy (10.7-8, 286-87), rejecting Pompey’s ironic lack of fear that he be wounded in the back (non tergo tela paventem, “not fearing weapons in the back”, Luc. 7.678, with Leigh (1997) 137-39) and indeed imputing such cowardice to Juno-Metellus for suggesting Pompeian flight (non hostica tela / excipias tergo, superos precor. — “I pray to the gods that you may not be hit by enemy weapons in your back”, 10.62-63). Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 87

object of flattery, and that perhaps both he and the reader / audience should be cautious about accepting that he is indeed a synecdochic hero. Perhaps both inversions of the rule of heroism are merely rhetorical ploys, Priam’s tailored to Hector’s weaknesses, Juno- Metellus’ to Paulus’, both unsuccessfully.

Yet, to return to Paulus, the same “temptation” which Juno-Metellus presents is offered by the entirely positive Lentulus, so that, as we have seen, the advice to flee and save the city is given the authority o f both the enemy o f Rome and its embodiment. In rejecting it from each, Paulus simultaneously assumes the mantle of an honour-obsessed, despairing, self- (and city-) destructive Hector, but also asserts the Republican ideal that the city is more than one man; he destroys the city and he saves it, and he does this, not simply for positive and negative reasons, but for reasons which are simultaneously both positive and negative. The paradox is quintessentially Silian, and finds perhaps its closest parallel in the mass-suicide of Saguntum.72 There the self-immolation is simultaneously inspired both by Fides, sent by Hercules to bring his colonists glory, and by Tisiphone, sent by Juno to destroy them;73 it is simultaneously both a glorious, pseudo-Stoic, final, desperate means o f maintaining their sacred faithfulness to Rome and a hideous, fratricidal, suicidal simulacrum o f civil war.74 Any attempt to separate or privilege one side is to miss the point.

Paulus’ death scene constitutes the same paradoxical combination of failed, perverted, and successful devotio: he is compared to a mortally wounded tiger opening its flagging jaws for futile bites (vanos morsus), just like the futile bouts of rage of which Juno-Metellus accused him .75 The introduction to the scene, asserting that Paulus did not allow what remained ofhis life to go unavenged (292-93), sets up a deliberately false expectation—shared by Paulus — that he will achieve some great feat before dying; in fact, he surprises the spear- fodder non-entity, Iertes, who thought he was dead, but, before he can achieve his desired Zweikampf with Hannibal, he is killed by a shower of spears.76 The model of the epic hero,

72 On this most widely-discussed of episodes in the Punica, see von Albrecht (1964) 57-62, 181-83; Vessey (1974a); KiEel (1979) 97-99; Kuppers (1986) 107-70; McGuire (1989) 33-41, (1997) 207­ 19; Feeney (1991) 307-08; Hardie (1993) 81-82; Dominik (2003), (2006). 73 Cf. Feeney (1991) 308: “In effect, Fides and Tisiphone are collaborators”. In contrast, von Albrecht (1966, 56), Vessey (1974, 28-29), KiEel (1979: 97-8), Kuppers (1986, 123-25), and Schenk (1989, 360) all focus overwhelmingly on fides. 74 On the civil war colouring of the fall of Saguntum, see esp. McGuire (1989) 37-41, revisited and expanded at (1997) 211-19; cf. Hardie (1993) 82; Dominik (2003). 75 Simile: 10.293-97; futility: 10.294~10.48-49. “The fact that he dies with his ira unable to achieve its aims is ominous for the Roman cause in general”. Braund-Gilbert (2003) 263. 76 Iertes, or a character of the same name, kills Nomius at Trasimene (5.259-60). Since Liv. Per. 89.6 refers to King Hiertes (or Hierta — he only occurs here in the accusative Hiertam) of Numidia 88 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

the Hector or Turnus, to be killed by or (as he always vainly hopes) kill his heroic enemy, is set up only so that it can be rejected. Yet the death of Paulus is not a complete anti-climax,

though it stops short of the very Decian rush into the enemy described by Plutarch.7 7 The shower of spears is taken from Livy, but there they are thrown by the indistinct hostes and the consul suffers the ultimate indignity of being killed amongst a crowd of men in flight

without even being recognized.7 8 Silius says nothing to suggest that the enemy do not kill Paulus deliberately and in full knowledge of his identity, but the more marked departure is the sheer variety of peoples involved, described with polysyndetic plenitude (304): et Nomas et Garamas et Celtae et Maurus et Astur, (“Numidians and Garamantians and Celts and Moors and Asturians”). Contingents from the African South, the Gallic North, and the Spanish West: every corner of the Carthaginian alliance is involved, making this an effective representation of the whole of Hannibal’s army killing Paulus. The many have

killed the one, as in a devotio, where the shower of missiles is also a common feature.79

Yet this is not a devotio, nor even an inverted devotio o f the kind we have seen earlier in this article. Paulus’ refusal o f Lentulus’ offer o f a horse constitutes a refusal to perform a

Pompeyesque inverted devotio by galloping away from the enemy,80 but his determination to die represents an inversion o f devotio all the same, one which preserves its external features but which brings destruction on the wrong side. To compare the case o f the elder Decius, who devoted himself at the battle o f Veseris against the Latins in 340 BC, three important aspects o f the narrative are inverted by Paulus. Firstly, Decius devotes himself and the enemy army to the Dei Manes and Mater Tellus, but the despairing Paulus — while bursting into

the midst o f the enemy and drawing all weapons to himself, like a true devotus81 — asserts that

as being killed in Pompey’s African expedition of 80 BC, it is tempting to suspect some play with Paulus’ role as a Pompey-figure, but the surviving evidence does not allow more than suspicion. 77 αύτος δε ρίψας έαυτον εις τούς φονευομένους άπέθανε. (“But he died throwing himself into those who were killing him”). Plut. Fab. 16.9. 78 Liv. 22.49.12. No details beyond περιπεσών βιαίοις πληγαΐς έν χειρών νόμψ μετήλλα ξε τον βίον (“falling under violent blows, he quit his life in the midst of the action”) at Polyb. 3.116.9. 79 e.g. Liv. 8.9.12. 80 Paulus’ refusal could be interpreted as a normalizing re-inversion of Pompey’s cowardly inversion of the devotio in riding headlong away from the enemy. Riding headlong: Liv. 8.9.9, 10.28.18, with further examples and discussion at Versnel (1981) 152-56, Leigh (1993) 95-96, and, including Pompey’s flight, (1997) 128-31. 81 in medios fert arma globos seseque periclis / ingerit atque omni letum molitur ab ense. (“He bears arms into the middle of the throng and waged himself against dangers, and contrives death from every sword”). 10.4-5. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 89

he will lead his own army down to the Manes.82 Secondly, the immediate effect o f Decius’ devotio is to demoralize the enemy, who are struck by fear and confusion; Paulus’ death immediately leads to the demoralization and panic o f the Roman army.83 Finally, Decius’ body is, after some time, eventually found — significantly and symbolically — under a pile o f enemy corpses, the many whom this one has destroyed. Paulus, in contrast, appears to be buried — just as significantly and symbolically — under a pile of Roman corpses; Silius does not specify that they are Roman corpses, but that is surely the default assumption if it is not otherwise specified, and moreover, they are described using Silius’ favourite, perhaps overused metonymy: arma virumque, the mangled corpses o f the descendants o f Aeneas.84

The image of one man against an army must inevitably make the reader think of another deuotus manque, Lucan’s Caesarian centurion Scaeva, who single-handedly prevents Pompey’s army from from escaping from the blockade at Dyrrachium.85 This

82 Decius: legiones auxiliaque hostium mecum Deis Manibus Tellurique devoveo. (“I dedicate the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy along with myself to the gods below and the Earth”), Liv. 8.9.8; cf. Liv. 10.28.13. Paulus: ‘perstate et fortiter, oro, / pectoribus ferrum accipite ac sine vulnere terga / ad manis deferte, viri. nisi gloria mortis, / nil superest. idem sedes adeuntibus imas / hic vobis dux Paulus erit’. (“‘Stand, I beg you, and bravely receive the sword in your breasts and carry your backs, free from wounds, down to the gods below. Nothing is left except the glory of death. You will have the same general, Paulus, as you go to your dwelling places in the depths”). 10.6-10. 83 ita omnis terror pavorque cum illo latus signa primo Latinorum turbavit, deinde in totam penitus aciem pervasit. evidentissimum id fuit quod, quacumque equo invectus est, ibi haud secus quam pestifero sidere icti pavebant; ubi vero corruit obrutus telis, inde iam haud dubie consternatae cohortes Latinorum fugam ac vastitatem late fecerunt. (“In this way the fear and panic which were borne with him first threw into confusion the front ranks of the Latins, then spread deep into the whole army. That was most clear because, wherever he was borne on horseback, there they panicked exactly as though struck by a plague-bearing star; indeed when he fell, overwhelmed by weapons, the cohorts of the Latins, already beyond doubt in total dismay, fled from that spot and gave it a wide berth”), Liv. 8.9.11-12; cf. Liv. 10.29.1-2.postquam spes Italum mentesque in consule lapsae, / ceu truncus capitis, saevis exercitus armis / sternitur, et victrix toto fremit Africa campo. (“After the hope and spirits of the Italians had collapsed in the collapse of their consul, the army, as though decapitated, is laid low by the cruel arms, and Africa rages victorious over the whole plain”). 10.309-11. Panic is also a more widespread and long-lasting effect of the defeat at Cannae. 84 inventum inter maximum hostium stragem, coopertum telis, (“found in the midst of a very large heap of the enemy, covered with weapons”), Liv. 8.10.10;permixta ruina / inter et arma virum et lacerata cadavera Pauli / eruerant corpus media de strage iacentum. (“Among weapon mingled in a heap and the mutilated corpses of men, they had dug out the body of Paulus from the middle of a pile of those lying dead”). 10.504-06. On the use of arma virumque as metonymy for epic, see Bloch (1970) and in Silius: 1.132, 241, 364, 519; 2.675; 3.526; 4.98, 253; 5.325; 6.6; 7.8; 8.272, 661; 9.100, 597; 10.505, 554; 12.168-69, 189; 17.102, 279, 442-43, 516. We might also note that Livy’s Paulus tells Lentulus me in hac strage militum meorum patere exspirare, (“Let me breathe my last in this heap of my own men”), 22.49.11. 85 See n.39 (above). 90 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

image is most succinctly expressed in lines which also parallel Paulus’ attempts to draw all weapons to himself at the opening of Punica 10 (Luc. 6.189-92):

illum tota premit moles, illum omnia tela, nulla fu it non certa manus, non lancea felix; parque novum Fortuna videt concurrere, bellum atque virum.

(“It is upon him that the whole mass weighs, upon him all the weapons, there was no hand which was not sure, no lance which was not lucky; Fortune sees a new gladiatorial pair clash, an army and a man”).

The parallel is further reinforced by the incidental detail o f Paulus’ killing o f Iertes, who thought he was dead, just as Scaeva’s simulated surrender enables him to dispatch the gullible Aulus.86 Intertextuality with Scaeva has complex resonances. Scaeva’s devotio is itself a paradox (quite apart from his survival), because it is simultaneously successful in bringing victory to his own (Caesarean) side but also, in the paradox that is civil war, brings defeat, in the form of the slavery of the Principate, to his greater (Roman) side.87 Silius challenges us to assess the likeness and unlikeness of Paulus’ situation: does his apparently glorious end have a similarly destructive effect on Rome, or does, in an inversion o f Scaeva’s, its short­ term effect o f defeat lead to a longer-term victory? Cannae is not part o f a civil war, despite many elements which liken it to one. Yet the central Silian paradox o f greatness in defeat and the perils o f victory (since Rome’s military triumph will lead to her moral decline) is very similar to the Lucanian world, where the victor in civil war is guilty and the loser not only innocent but even great.88 Perhaps Paulus might be unaware, in this war, as Scaeva was unaware in the civil war, quam magnum virtus crimen ... esset (Luc. 6.148).

In one sense, at least, the relationship with Scaeva is a contrastive one: Scaeva succeeds in his one-man battle against the (enemy) many to save the many; Paulus dies. This is particularly relevant to our analysis in that Scaeva is depicted as a wall, stat non fragilis pro Caesare murus, standing for Caesar, but also for the wall, the camp, the surrogate city, which protects him .89 As Conte and Leigh point out, this image is also used of Hector

86 10.298-30 ~ Luc. 6.236-9. 87 Summed up in the capping sententia: quanta dominum uirtute parasti! Luc. 6.262. 88 Guilty winners and lucky losers: Luc. 7.123, 701-08; on this as a result of “moral luck”, see now Long (2007) 192-93. 89 Luc. 6.201. On Scaeva as a wall, see Marti (1966) 247-48, comparing Bitias at Virg. Aen. 9.704; Saylor (1978); Leigh (1997) 185-90. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 91

in Seneca’s Troades.90 Since Scaeva is a wall, he must be attacked with siege engines and rocks for battering walls (muralia), an image used, as Conte notes, for the spear with which Aeneas fells another of our city-defenders, Turnus.91 When Paulus’ body is found, so different (like Hector’s ghost) from what he once was, his teeth have been smashed by the hurling of a saxum murale. This is the saxum ingens which felled him at 10.235-37, a successful reassertion of the symbolic defeat of Troy, which Virgil had reversed by having Turnus fail to replicate the Homeric Diomedes’ felling of Aeneas.92 Thus, while Scaeva the wall stood firm, Paulus the city-wall has been breached

This imagery of the death of the defender not merely entailing but symbolizing the fall of the city is, of course, part of Paulus’ association with Hector, who is mourned as if Troy had fallen.93 We recall Lentulus’ vision of the sack of Rome which is effectively embodied in the sight of the dying Paulus (10.264-66). Yet it is not only Hector who represents the fall of Troy: the death of Priam in Aeneid 2 even more clearly embodies, by synecdoche rather than prolepsis, the sack of his city (Aen. 2.557-58):

haec finis Priami fatorum ...... iacet ingens litore truncus, avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus.

(“This was the end of Priam’s destiny ... There lies on the shore a great trunk, the head wrenched from its shoulders and a body without a name”).

The allusion to the death of Pompey in the description of Priam’s headless corpse on the shore both made and enabled later writers, most notably Lucan, to make the connection

90 Sen. Tro. 126, with Conte (1974) 56, Leigh (1997) 186-87. 91 Luc. 6.198-201, Marti (1966) 248; Virg. Aen. 12.921-22, Conte (1974) 55. 92 saxum ingens: Virg. Aen. 12.896-97; see Quint (1993) 68-72 on this as a Freudian “repetition- as-reversal” (51), whereby Turnus both fails to replicate Diomedes (Il. 5.302-10) and replicates the failure of Aeneas (Il. 20.283-91), before Aeneas’ spear, through the simile, successfully replicates Diomedes. The author of the Ilias Latina seems to point the allusion by likewise calling Diomedes’ rock saxum ingens (460); cf. Scaffai (1997) 474 on “Baebius’” modelling of his Achilles-Hector duel on Aeneas and Turnus. Cf. also Stat. Theb. 10.856, where the Thebans hurl ingentia saxa at Capaneus, not qua wall or city, but qua besieging army. 93 Hom. II. 22.408-11. The simile can be interpreted in terms either of cause and effect — “This emphasized similarity comes very close to saying that by killing Hector, Achilles has in effect burned Troy”, Taplin (1992) 250 — or of symbolism — “the fall of Troy is not depicted, but that Hector’s demise symbolises it is made clear”, Bowie (1990) 470-71 — or even of identification: “Hector is Troy, in a way that no Achaean, even Achilles, stands for the Greek side”, Ross (1998) 121. 92 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

between the fall of Priam and Troy and that of Pompey and, in some sense, Rome.9 4 As for the death of Paulus, it clearly evokes, not only those of Priam and Pompey, but the symbolic interpretation to which they were susceptible (Sil. 10.305-11):

hic finis Paulo. iacet altum pectus et ingens dextera, quem, soli si bella agitanda darentur, aequares forsan Fabio. mors addidit urbi pulchra decus misitque viri inter sidera nomen. postquam spes Italum mentesque in consule lapsae, ceu truncus capitis, saevis exercitus armis sternitur, et victrix toto furit Africa campo.

(“Here was the end for Paulus. He lies, a lofty breast and a huge right hand, which, if the wars had been given to him alone to wage, perhaps you would have matched to Fabius. His beautiful death added honour to the city and sent his name up among the stars. After the hope and spirits of the Italians had collapsed in the collapse of their consul, the army, as though decapitated, is laid low by the cruel arms, and Africa rages victorious over the whole plain”).

The verbal echoes are clear,95 even if the reader had not been prepared for them by a series of allusions to Priam’s epitaph in the deaths of the Phorcys and Curio, the latter of which is wittily followed, in a new sentence, by a further echo, ingens, referring to Paulus and

marking the transition into the narrative of his death.9 6 Further preparation is furnished by the way that Viriathus kills Servilius before Paulus’ eyes, like Pyrrhus killing Polites

before Priam.9 7 After Lucan’s allusion to Virgil, who may in turn have been alluding to the Historiae ofAsinius Pollio, the reader is primed to recognize allusions to this scene and,

moreover, to recognize them as allusions and repetitions, like Lucan’s frenzied matrona.98

94 Virg. Aen. 2.557-58, with Serv. adloc. Pompei tangit historiam; “come nella fine di Priamo si rispecchiava quella di Troia, cosi nella morte di Pompeo si riflettono il crollo di Roma e la fine della liberta”, Narducci (1973) 323; cf. id. (1979) 44. See also Ahl (1976) 184-89 (also comparing the simile of Dido’s death); Bowie (1990); Hinds (1998) 8-10. Cf. Ov. Met. 13.404: Troia simul Priamusque cadunt (“Troy and Priam fells together.”) 95 Briefly, Spaltenstein (1991) ad loc, cross-referencing to 5.328; for more detail, see Marpicati (1999) 195-97. 96 iacet ingens Phorcys ab antris, (“There lay huge Phorcys from the caves”), 10.173; Curio: Hadriaca iacuitsine nomine mortis harena. (“He lay on the Adriatic sand without the glory of his death)”. 10.214). Silius’ wit is again evident, since the identified Curio is not, like the unrecognizable Priam and Pompey, without a name, but, because he drowned rather than falling in battle, without glory in his death. 97 10.219-25; Paulus’ reaction is similar to Priam’s, but more successful as he kills Viriathus. 98 Luc. 1.685: Narducci (1973). Hinds (1998) 8-10 further interprets the matrona’s recognition as “dramatizing our own realization, as readers, that we too have seen this decapitated trunk before: in the second book of the Aeneid\ On Pollio, see Moles (1982-83); Morgan (2000). Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 93

Paulus, of course, unlike Priam and Pompey, is not himself beheaded, but Silius skilfully elucidates the allegory of their deaths. Priam and Pompey simultaneously symbolize the city deprived of its political head and constitute that head itself. By applying the word truncus, not to Paulus himself, but to the Roman army deprived of him, their head, Silius performs an allusive exegesis on the symbolism of Virgil and Lucan’s headless leaders. Paulus’ death parallels those of Priam and Pompey in many ways, but Silius translates their literal beheadings into a simile (ceu truncus capitis) which — in a manner which might be considered pedestrian but which is undeniably insightful — makes their the symbolic connotations entirely clear.99 Such “commentaries” on Virgil and others, translating symbolic narrative into explicit simile or metaphor (and sometimes vice versa), are characteristic of Silius. In the case of Paulus, Virgil and Lucan’s allegorical narratives of the headless man as the city without its leader are turned into the simile o f the leaderless city as “headless”. It is clear that, just as dead, headless Priam represented the fall o f Troy, just as dead, headless Pompey in some way represented the fall of Rome, so dead Paulus, with his headless army, the city wall felled by a saxum murale, in some way represents the fall o f the city, but not the ultimate fall o f Rome, which will survive this crisis to become the caput rerum, even though it costs her her soul.

We are left, then, with a complex and ultimately ambivalent depiction of devotio in Silius, and hence an ambivalent interpretation of the motif in earlier epic. Paulus is urged to flee both by an enemy and by a defender o f Rome, but resists each. His decision to die is certainly detrimental to the Roman cause, and its immediate result is in fact the precise opposite of that which a true devotio would have. Yet there is also the sense that the republican Paulus is reacting against the monarchical tendencies which underpin the decision of his epic predecessors, Aeneas and Pompey, not to die in battle and that, for all the short-term negative impact which his death has for Rome, other figures arise to save the city and ultimately to carry her to victory. The final irony is that that victory will be achieved by a synecdochic hero and proto-princeps, Scipio Africanus.100

University o f Sidney ROBERT COWAN

99 Cf. Manil. 4.64; Luc. 1.685; 8.722; 9.53; Marpicati (1999). Ovid likewise unpacks the allegory by applying a different part of the image to the city rather than its leader: iacet Ilion ingens, Met. 13.505. 100 Critics generally agree that Scipio is depicted as a proto-princeps ushering in the shift from Republic to Principate, but differ as to whether that shift is portrayed as a positive or negative one. The most important advocate of the positive is Marks (2005a). Among those who interpret it as negative, see esp. Ahl-Davis-Pomeroy (1986). My preferred interpretation is to see here instead the characteristically Silian attitude of ambivalence. 94 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Bibliography

F. M. Ahl (1976) Lucan. An Introduction, Ithaca NY.

F. M. Ahl, M. A. Davis, and A. Pomeroy (1986) ‘Silius Italicus’, ANRW II.32.4, 2492-561.

M. von Albrecht (1964) Silius Italicus. Freiheit und Gebundenheit romischer Epik, Amsterdam.

M. Alden (2000) Homer beside himself: Para-narratives in the Iliad, Oxford.

E. T. E. Barker and J. P. Christensen (2006) ‘Flight club: the new Archilochus fragment

and its resonance with Homeric epic’, MD 57, 19-43.

C. A. Barton (1995) The Sorrows o f the Ancient Romans: The Gladiator and the Monster, Princeton.

S. Bartsch (1997) Ideology in Cold Blood: A Reading of Lucan’s Civil War, Cambridge MA.

A. Bloch (1970) ‘Arma virumque als heroisches Leitmotiv’, MH 27, 206-11.

A. M. Bowie (1990) ‘The death of Priam: allegory and history in the Aeneid, CQ 40, 470-81.

S. Braund, G. Gilbert (2003) ‘An ABC of epic ira: anger, beasts and cannibalism’, YCS 32, 250-85.

S. Casali (1999) ‘Facta impia (Virgil, Aeneid4.596-9)’, CQ 49, 203-11.

G. Chaliand, A. Blin (2007) The History o f Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda,, Berkeley.

M. E. Clark (1983) ‘Spes in the early imperial cult. The hope of Augustus’, Numen 30, 80-105.

G. B. Conte (1974) Saggio di commento a Lucano, Pharsalia V I118-260: l’Aristia di Sceva, Pisa.

F. D ’Alessandro Behr (2007) Feeling history: Lucan, Stoicism, and the Poetics o f Passion, Columbus OH.

W. J. Dominik (2003) ‘Hannibal at the gates: programmatising Rome and Romanitas in Silius Italicus’ Punica 1 and 2 ’ in A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (eds), Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, Leiden, 469—98.

W. J. Dominik (2006) ‘Rome then and now: linking together the Saguntum and Cannae episodes in Silius Italicus’ Punica’, in H.-J. van Dam and R. Nauta, H. Smolenaars (eds), Flavian Poetry, Leiden, 115—27.

A. Dyck (2004) ‘Cicero’s devotio: the roles of dux and scape-goat in his post reditum rhetoric’, HSCPh 102, 299-314. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 95

C. Edwards (2007) Death in Ancient Rome, New Haven.

K. O. Eldred (2002) ‘This ship of fools: epic vision in Lucan’s Vulteius episode’, in D. Fredrick (ed.), The Roman Gaze. Vision, Power, and the Body, Baltimore, 57-85

P. Esposito (2001) ‘Paradosso ed esemplarita nell’episodio di Vulteio (B.C. IV 402-581)’, Vichiana 3, 39-63.

E. Fantham (1995) ‘The ambiguity of Virtus in Lucan’s Civil war and Statius’ Thebaid, Arachnion. A Journal o f Ancient Literature and History on the Web 3, http://www.cisi.unito.it/arachne/num3/fantham.html.

D. C. Feeney (1986) ‘Stat magni nominis umbra. Lucan on the greatness of Pompeius Magnus’, CQ 36, 239-43.

D. C. Feeney (1991) The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics ofthe Classical Tradition, Oxford.

A. Feldherr (1998) Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History, Berkeley.

B. Fenik (1978) Homer, Tradition and Invention, Leiden.

D. P. Fowler (1997) ‘Epicurean anger’, in S. Morton Braund and C. Gill (eds), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, Cambridge, 16-35.

C. Fuqua (1982) ‘Hector, Sychaeus, and Deiphobus: three mutilated figures in Aeneid 1-6’, CPh 77, 235-40.

C. Gill (1996) Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue, Oxford.

C. Gill (2003) ‘Reactive and objective attitudes: Anger in Virgil’s Aeneid and Hellenistic philosophy’, in S. Braund and G. W. Most (eds), Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen, Yale Classical Studies 32, Cambridge, 229-49.

V. B. Gorman (2001) ‘Lucan’s epic aristeia and the hero of the Bellum Civile’, C J 96, 263-90.

J. Griffin (1976) ‘Homeric pathos and objectivity’, CQ 26, 161-87.

W. Goulyart, W. Y. Joe (2008) ‘Inverted perspectives on politics and morality in Battlestar Galactica’, in D. M. Hassler and C. Wilcox, New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction, Columbia SC, 179-97.

P. Hardie (1993) The Epic Successors o f Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics o f a Tradition, Cambridge.

J. Haubold (2000) Homer’s People. Epic Poetry and Social Formation, Cambridge.

A. Heinrich (1999) ‘Longa retro series: sacrifice and repetition in Statius’ Menoeceus episode’, Arethusa 32.2, 165-95. 96 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

R. Heinze (1915) Virgils epische Technik3, Leipzig.

J. Henderson (1987) ‘Lucan / The word at war’, Ramus 16, 122-64.

D. Hershkowitz (1998) The Madness o f Epic: Reading Insanity from Homer to Statius, Oxford.

T. D. Hill (2004) Ambitiosa Mors: Suicide and the Self in Roman Thought and Literature, New York.

S. Hinds, (1998) Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics o f Appropriation in Roman Poetry, Cambridge.

N. Horsfall (2008) Virgil, Aeneid2: A Commentary, Leiden.

G. Indelli (2004) ‘The vocabulary of anger in Philodemus’ De ira and Vergil’s Aeneid’, in D. Armstrong, J. Fish, P. A. Johnston, and M. Skinner (eds), Philodemus, Vergil and the Augustans, Austin TX, 103-10.

W. R. Johnson (1987) Momentary Monsters: Lucan and His Heroes, Ithaca NY.

H. Juhnke (1972) Homerisches in romischer Epik flavischer Zeit, Munich.

W. KiEel (1979) Das Geschichtsbild des Silius Italicus, Frankfurt am Main.

G. N. Knauer (1964) Die Aeneis und Homer: Studien zur poetischen Technik Vergils, Gottingen.

P. Kraggelund (1976) Dream and Prediction in the Aeneid Copenhagen. J. Kuppers (1986) Tantarum causas irarum. Untersuchungen zur einleitenden Bucherdyade der Punica des Silius Italicus, Berlin.

M. Leigh (1993) ‘Hopelessly devoted to you: Traces of the Decii in Vergil’s Aeneid, PVS 21, 89-110.

M. Leigh (1997) Lucan: Spectacle and Engagement, Oxford.

A. W. Lintott (1971) ‘Lucan and the history of the Civil War’, CQ 21, 488-505.

A. Long (2007) ‘Lucan and moral luck’, CQ 57, 183-97. D. T. McGuire Jr. (1989) ‘Textual strategies and political suicide in Flavian epic’, Ramus 18, 21-45. D. T. McGuire Jr. (1997) Acts o f Silence: Civil War, Tyranny, and Suicide in the Flavian Epics, Hildesheim.

J. Marincola (2007) ‘The Persian Wars in fourth-century oratory and historiography’, in E. Bridges, E. Hall, and P. J. Rhodes (eds), Cultural Responses to the Persian Wars: Antiquity to the Third Millennium, Oxford, 105-26.

R. D. Marks (2005a) From Republic to Empire. Scipio Africanus in the Punica o f Silius Italicus, Frankfurt am Main. Robert Cowan — Hopefully Surviving: Despair and the Limits of devotio in Virgil and Others 97

R. D. Marks (2005b) ‘Per uulnera regnum: self-destruction, self-sacrifice and deuotio in Punica 4-10’, Ramus 34,127-51.

P. Marpicati (1999) ‘Silio ‘delatore’ di Pompeo (Pun. 5, 328 ss.; 10, 305 ss.)’, MD 43, 191-202.

B. M. Marti (1945) ‘The meaning of the Pharsalia’, AJPh 66, 352-76.

B. M. Marti (1966) ‘Cassius Scaeva and Lucan’s inventio’, in L. Wallach (ed.), The Classical Tradition: Literary and Historical Studies in Honor of Harry Caplan, Ithaca, N Y 239-57.

J. M. May (1988) Trials of Character. The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos, Chapel Hill NC.

J. F. Miller (1993) ‘The shield of Argive Abas at Aeneid 3.286’, CQ 43, 445-50.

J. L. Moles (1982-83) ‘Virgil, Pompey and the Histories of Asinius Pollio’, CW 76, 287-88.

L. Morgan (1998) ‘Assimilation and Civil War: Hercules and Cacus’, in H.-P. Stahl (ed.), Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context, London, 175-97.

L. Morgan (2000) ‘The autopsy of C. Asinius Pollio’, JRS 90, 51-69.

P. von der Muhll (1952) Kritisches Hypomnema zur Ilias, Basel.

E. Narducci (1973) ‘Il tronco di Pompeo (Troia e Roma nella Pharsalia)’, Maia 25, 317-25.

E. Narducci (1979) Laprovvidenza crudele. Lucano e la distruzione dei miti augustei, Pisa.

W. S. Nicoll (2001) ‘The death of Turnus’, CQ 51, 190-200.

K.-H. Niemann (1975) Die Darstellung der romischen Niederlagen in den Punica des Silius Italicus, Bonn.

R. G. M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard (1970) A Commentary on Horace: Odes, Book 1, Oxford.

E. O ’Gorman (2010) ‘History as group fantasy’, Cultural Critique 74, 117-30

C. B. Pascal (1990) ‘The dubious devotion of Turnus’, TAPhA 120, 251-68.

M. Paschalis (1997) Virgil’s Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names, Oxford.

C. B. R. Pelling (ed.) (1988) Plutarch, Life of Antony, Cambridge.

D. Quint (1993) Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton, Princeton.

H. Raabe (1974) Plurima mortis imago. Vergleichende Interpretationen zur Bildersprache Vergils. Zetemata 59, Munchen.

J. Radicke (2004) Lucans poetische Technik: Studien zum historischen Epos, Leiden.

L. Ramaglia (1952) ‘La figura di Giunone nelle Punica di Silio Italico’, RSC 1, 35-46.

J. M. Redfield (1975) Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy o f Hector, Chicago.

N. Richardson (1993) The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 6 : Books 21-24, Cambridge.

F. Ripoll (1998) La morale heroique dans les epopees latines d ’epoque flavienne, Louvain. 98 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

N. Rosenstein (1990) Imperatores Victi: Military Defeat and Aristocratic Competition in the Middle and Late Republic, Berkeley CA.

D. O. Ross Jr. (1998) ‘Images of fallen Troy in the Aeneid in P. Knox and C. Foss (eds), Style and Tradition. Studies in Honor ofWendell Clausen, Stuttgart, 121-29.

V. Rudich (1997) Dissidence and Literature under Nero: The Price ofRhetoricization, London.

W. Rutz (1960) ‘Amor Mortis bei Lucan’, Hermes 88, 462-73.

C. F. Saylor (1978) ‘Belli spes inproba: the theme of walls in Lucan, Pharsalia VI’ TAPhA 108, 243-57.

M. Scaffai (ed.) (1997) Baebii Italici Ilias Latina2, Bologna.

P. Schenk (1984) Die Gestalt des Turnus in Vergils Aeneis, Konigstein.

P. Schenk (1989) ‘Die Gesange des Teuthras (Sil. It. 11, 288-302 u. 432-482)’, RhM 132, 350-68. M. Schofield (1986) ‘Euboulia in the Iliad, CQ 36, 6-31.

R. W. Sharples (1983) ‘But why has my spirit spoken with me thus? Homeric decision­ making’, G&R 39, 1-7. R. Sklenar (2003) The Taste for Nothingness. A Study o f Virtus and Related Themes in Lucan’s Bellum Ciuile, Ann Arbor, MI.

F. Spaltenstein (1991) Commentaire des Punica de Silius Italicus (livres 9 Λ 17), Geneve.

H.-P. Stahl (1981) ‘Aeneas: an ‘unheroic’ hero?’, Arethusa 14, 157-86.

T. Stover (2008) ‘Cato and the intended scope of Lucan’s Bellum Civile’, CQ 58, 571-80.

Y. Syed (2005) Vergil’s Aeneid and the Roman S e lf: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse, Ann Arbor MI. O. Taplin (1992) Homeric Soundings: The Shaping ofthe Iliad, Oxford.

V. Ussani Jr. (1947) ‘Enea traditore’, SIFC 22, 109-23 H. S. Versnel, (1976) ‘Two types of Roman devotio’, Mnemosyne 29, 365-410.

H. S. Versnel (1980) ‘Destruction, devotio and despair in a situation of anomy. The mourning for Germanicus in triple perspective’, in Perennitas. Studi in onore di Angelo Brelich, Rome, 541-618

H. S. Versnel (1981) ‘Self-Sacrifice, compensation and the anonymous gods’, in Le Sacrifice dans L ’Antiquite (EntretiensFondation H ardt27), 135-94.

D. Vessey (1971) ‘Menoeceus in the Thebaidof Statius’, CPh 66, 236-43. M. R. Wright (1997) 'Ferox virtus·, anger in Virgil’s Aeneid, in S. Morton Braund and C. Gill (eds), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, Cambridge, 169-84. Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the Aeneid

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 18 October 2008

Although there is nothing surprising about the close attention to trees in Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics, their continued prominence in the Aeneid — in forest settings, as individual landmarks, and in similes — demands interrogation. According to one recent commentator, “It makes strange sense ... to read the Aeneid on arboricultural lines ... it is well known that Virgil presses arboreal imagery especially hard throughout his poem” .1 Trees would of course have earned a place in the Aeneid through their Greek epic pedigree alone. In Homer, individual trees are significant elements o f the scenery, and the felling o f a tree is a simile for warriors’ deaths.2 However, a far stronger impulse towards tree-reverence came from the nationalistic focus of the poem itself. The ancient forests of the Italian landscape were deeply implicated in Rome’s sense of its own rustic past and therefore present identity. Roman poets, when describing ancient groves, often specify that nobody has cut them (there are several “virgin” forests in Ovid);3 this guarantees both their

* I am grateful to various members of the Virgil Society for stimulating discussions which benefited this article, and especially to the editor of PVS for suggesting numerous improvements. All translations are my own. 1 Gowers (2011). Gowers’s article shows that arboreal imagery was applied to human fates and genealogies both in the Aeneid and in Roman culture more generally. 2 Significant Homeric trees include the wild fig-tree past which Achilles chases Hector (II. 22.145) and that to which Odysseus clings after shipwreck by Charybdis (Od. 12.103, 432); on the patriarchal significance of the orchard in Od. 24, see Henderson (1997). For the “felling” of warriors see Il. 4.482-87; 13.289-91; Virgil compares the Cyclopes (Aen. 3.677-81), Pandarus and Bitias (9.672-82), and Aeneas himself (4.441-46) to trees; cf. Roux (2008) 44. Tree-felling is described at Il. 23.108-26 without special emphasis, but becomes a Latin topos (Enn. Ann. 175-79 Skutsch; Aen. 6.176-82; 11.133-38; Luc. 3.440-45; Stat. Theb. 6.84-117). 3 nulla violata securi (Ov. Met. 3.28); adituque carentia saxa (3.226); quam nulla ceciderat aetas (8.329); nec equo loca pervia silvas (8.377); multis incaeduus annis (Fast. 2.436). 100 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

antiquity and their strangeness. In the Aeneid, Virgil creatively adapts many elements of antiquarian lore, for aesthetic as well as ideological purposes. I will argue that in a number of key episodes he contrives to portray archaic Rome as a tree-worshipping society, based on the traditions of his day. Several scenes take place in supernatural groves, individual sacred trees appear in significant locations, and archaic Italy is made out to be thickly covered in ancient forests.4 More strikingly, Virgil creates new histories for distinctive Roman traditions. Not only did he reinvent the figure of Faunus, already emblematic of the connections between Latin poetry and archaic religion, but he adapted other traditions, including the use o f the tropaeum as war memorial and the suspension o f votives in groves, to emphasise the importance o f tree-reverence in Rome’s earliest history.

Tree-worship (or Baumkultus) claimed a significant place among the grand new theories of pagan religion in the Victorian era, thanks to the magisterial study of Karl Botticher.5 Ambitiously claiming that tree-worship was the origin of all Greek religious practice, Botticher traced the origin of the tropaeum, a victory monument decked with a suit of enemy armour erected on the battlefield, to what he called the Waffenbaum (“weapon-tree”), one of the most primitive representations of a god.6 Others have used the tree-worship theory in arguing that anthropomorphism evolved from the veneration of trees and other unshaped or crudely-hewn objects; the herm, the tropaeum, and the cult of Jupiter Feretrius have all been identified as transitional forms.7 These views seem simplistic by current standards, but might have found some agreement among the ancient Romans, who considered forests as the oldest sites of cult. For my part, I shall argue that, although tree-worship was scarcely practiced in Virgil’s day, it had a considerable claim on the imagination of Roman poets and of their society. It symbolised the piety and rusticity of a primitive past thought to have left an indelible stamp on the national character.

1. Sacred Groves and Roman Primitivism

I propose that there are two aesthetic models for the sacredness o f trees in ancient Rome. On one hand is the “monumental tree”, a single tree notable for its size, beauty,

4 For an extended discussion of trees in Virgil’s Italy see Maggiulli (1995), esp. 120. 5 See Botticher (1856); Mannhardt (1875); Jennings (1890); Philpot (1897). Botticher’s influence is also reflected in Frazer (1890) 56-108 and Cook (1904). Weniger’s revival of the focus on tree-worship (1919), which concentrates on the four types of tree used for wreaths in panhellenic cult sites, was clearly inspired by contemporary Olympic idealism. 6 Botticher (1856) 71-76. 7 Visser (1903) is the key exponent of this once widespread theory. In recent times it has been contested by Donohue (1988) and Gaifman (2005; 2010). I thank Emma Aston for these references. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 101

or location; on the other is the “dark mass”, a grove notable for its age, density, shade, or silence. Virgil stresses the age o f the various consecrated trees o f the Aeneid, partly because revering “monumental trees” was considered a throwback to archaic religious practice, found mainly in rural areas; a pious rustic might consecrate any isolated or beautiful tree.8 (Virgil locates trees within royal courtyards, just as the Roman villas of his day could enclose either artificial groves or large sacred trees).9 The “dark mass” was even more potent, since sacred groves were associated with civic cult and designated as ritual spaces all over the known world, including within the city o f Rome itself. They maintained a strong claim upon the spiritual sensibilities of Roman authors, which the Aeneid arguably helped to assert. The mere sight of old, dense trees could provoke religious awe, indicating that a numen resided there: Ovid says so when creating a suspenseful atmosphere; Seneca claims the same phenomenon as evidence for Stoic pantheism; and according to Pliny, the very silence of groves inspires as much reverence as chryselephantine statues.10 Sometimes there is no sharp distinction between the monumental tree and the dark mass, since an especially colossal tree becomes a self-contained grove.11 In every case, venerability appears to be cumulative and age comes before beauty. This is borne out by ancient images of suspended votives, both Greek and Campanian, in which the trees are small and wizened, their foliage scant, their branches often broken.12 Size, shade or beauty mattered only as symptoms of hardihood, which in turn embodied long tradition, with its attendant values of piety and simplicity. The sacred tree betokens the mos maiorum.

8 veneror, seu stipes habet desertus in agris (Tib. 1.1.11); prisco ... ritu simplicia rura etiam nunc deo praecellentem arborem dicant (Plin. HN 12.3). Calpurnius’ herdsman Idas promises to consecrate at least one tree to any god who brings Crocale to him: decernamque nemus dicamque: ‘sub arbore numen / hac erit' (Ecl. 2.54-55). 9 Virgil’s vast elm, in which Dreams roost, stands in a courtyard within the palace of Dis (Aen. 6.282-84), just as laurels stand within Priam’s and Latinus’ palaces (2.513-14; 7.59-63). Sumptuous houses might contain grove-like gardens (Hor. C. 3.10.5-7; [Tib.] 3.3.15). The Sabine villa owned by the Flavii contained an oak sacred to Mars (Suet. Vesp. 5). At C. 3.22.5-8 there is a pine tree looming over Horace’s own villa, which he consecrates to Diana. 10 fons sacer - hunc multi numen habere putant - / quem supra ramos expandit aquatica lotos, / una nemus (Ov. Her. 16.158); stat vetus et densa praenubilus arbore lucus; adspice - concedas numen inesse loco (Am. 3.13.6-7); lucus Aventino suberat niger ilicis umbra, / quo posses viso dicere ‘numen inest’ (Fast. 3.295-96); Sen. Ep. 41.3; Plin. HN 12.3; cf. lucos ... vetusta/ religione truces et robur numinis instar (Claud. Cons. Hon. Cons. Stil. 229-30). 11 Pliny describes an (impossibly) enormous holm-oak near the grove of Diana at Aricia as “a wood by itself’ (silvam ... sola faciens, HN 16.242); Ovid describes a holm-oak (Met. 8.743-50) and a lotus-tree (Her. 16.159-60) as groves unto themselves. 12 See Botticher (1856) 56-100, esp. figs 1-13. De Cazanove (1993) has contested Botticher’s case for tree-worship, at least in Campanian art, arguing that trees are interchangeable with other items of scenery in sanctuaries (columns etc.) as supports for ex-votos. 102 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Roman poets’ portrayals of grove religion reflect a widespread presumption that archaic Italy (including Latium) had two sets of characteristics. On one hand, it enjoyed moral superiority and close contact with the gods, thanks to its rural lifestyle and strong sense o f religious awe. On the other, it was wild, unkempt, and so primitive as to seem barbarian by later standards. These characteristics of the Italians and Romans were also embodied in the trees among which they dwelt. They also evolved into a suite of metaphors for archaic Latin culture in general, and above all for its poetry, which had its own strong connection with ancient groves via the link between prophetic voices and “vatic” inspiration. This should affect our understanding of sacred woods both in Roman verse in general, and in several key episodes in the Aeneid.

The grove (lucus or nemus),13 always potentially sacred, was a distinctive feature of Roman poetry.14 For example, the “grove ofM ars” is one ofthe scenes which Juvenal knows all too well among the litany of epic recitations.15 Indeed, Virgil’s attribution of numinous properties to ancient groves did much to establish them as a regular feature of subsequent Roman epic. His reverent attention to trees can in part be found already in the Georgics, where repeated allusions to divine powers when introducing wild trees imply that they are all numinous.16 Even the supernatural climax of that poem, Aristaeus’ near-necromantic

13 Some, including Scheid (1993) and Dowden (2000) 91, sharply distinguish nemus as a forest from lucus as a clearing within it. In the present discussion I refer to both lucus and nemus as “grove”, since by the late first century they often appear together (e.g. Virg. Ecl. 6.72-73; 8.86; Aen. 7.82-83; 8.597-99; Prop. 4.9.24; Ov. Fast. 6.755-56) and the semantic distinction is weak. Distinctions between luci, nemora and silvae were already blurred by the late first century (cf. Maggiulli (1995) 116-17) and became progressively more so. In late antiquity, one authority claims that a silva produces fruit but a nemus is shady and infertile (Isid. D iff 1.44), another that a nemus is a pleasant type of silva (nemora significant silvas amoenas, Paul.-Fest. 159.2 L). Servius’ differentiation between nemus, lucus and silva (ad Aen. 1.310) is inadequate. I use the term “grove” to include any especially atmospheric wooded place, whether explicitly consecrated or not. 14 This has been acknowledged by Fantham (1996) 147-49 and Newlands (2004) 139, among others. Santini (1999) and Leigh (1999) 172 rightly identify the lucus horridus as a distinct Roman trope, though the label was lacking in antiquity. 15 lucus /Martis, Juv. 1.79. This location points towards distant mythic pasts: Juvenal may be sick of the grove of Ares / Mars containing the Golden Fleece (Ap. Rhod. Argon. 2.404; Val. Flacc. Argon. 5.228; [Apollod.] Bibl. 1.109; Hyginus, Fabulae 188; the serpent which attacks Cadmus also inhabits the grove of Ares at Ismene: Paus. 9.10.5; [Apollod.] Bibl. 3.22), or possibly that in which Romulus and Remus were conceived (extant authors all agree that the rape of Ilia / Rhea Silvia (usually by Mars) took place in a grove, but only Fabius Pictor and the mysterious “Vennonius” spelt out that this was the grove of Mars: Origo Gentis Romanae 20). Virgil’s “son of Arcens” was born in a grove of Mars by the Symaethus in eastern Sicily (Aen. 9.584, though some editors emend MS Martis to Matris). 16 Virg. Ge. 2.9-21, with Wilkinson (1969) 86. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 103

revival o f his bees from dead cattle, takes place in a grove in his native Thessaly (frondoso ... luco, 4.543). Forests usually feature in Virgil’s accounts of humankind’s primeval past, providing bountiful sources of food in soft primitivism and objects of hard labour in hard primitivism (Taylor, 1955). Several minor characters in the Aeneid passed their childhood in groves,17 as if emerging from this same primitive origin. In the landscape of regional cult sites from which the Italians march to war in Aeneid 7, there are numerous sanctuaries featuring sacred groves.18 Actual descriptions of groves in the poem provide not only an eerie atmosphere, but also a venue for the effective presence of the gods (supernatural epiphanies in books 6, 7, 8 and 9 all take place in groves).19 They are usually consecrated to specific deities with a bearing on the action of the poem. To find Dido in book 1, Aeneas must navigate one territory of the hostile Juno with the help of Venus, coastal Africa with its dark grove; in book 6 he must navigate another, this time Juno’s very own dark grove, to find the Golden Bough. At Albunea, Latinus receives divine guidance in the grove o f his father Faunus; when Turnus receives divine guidance from Juno via Iris, he is in the grove of his father Pilumnus.20 When the Trojans first approach Pallanteum, Evander is performing sacrifice in a grove of Hercules, whose significance for Aeneas (and Augustus) is well known. Venus gives Aeneas his divine weaponry in a grove sacred to Silvanus; later she assists him in using this weaponry at the site o f a tree sacred to another rustic deity, Faunus.21 Virgil also has a tendency to speak, either literally or figuratively, of voices and sounds in groves, as pathetic fallacy or in other contexts.22 In the Georgics, one of the sinister portents of Caesar’s imminent assassination is “a huge voice heard by many hrough the silent groves”.23 In the Italian portion of the Aeneid, invocation by prayer is

17 For the “son of Arcens” see n.15 above; the Cretans Pandarus and Bitias were born in a grove of Jupiter (9.672-74); the Volscian Camilla was raised in the wild as an acolyte of Diana, “goddess of the grove” (nemorum cultrix, 11.557). 18 arva Gabinae / Iunonis (782-83); lucosque Capenos (697); nemus Angitiae (759); Egeriae lucis umentia circum / litora (763-64); viridi gaudens Feronia luco (780). 19 The Golden Bough is revealed to Aeneas in a dark grove; Faunus speaks to Latinus in the grove of Albunea; Venus appears to Aeneas in a grove of Silvanus; and Iris appears to Turnus in a grove of Pilumnus. Hardie (1994) 65 lists the latter three examples, noting that they all occur at or near the beginning of a book. Isidore derives the word nemus itself from numina (nemus a numinibus nuncupatum, qua pagani ibi idola constituebant, Or. 17.6.6). 20 Carthaginian grove: Virg. Aen. 1.441-52; Golden Bough: 6.138-39 (cf. 185-96); Albunea: 7.81-106; Turnus in grove of Pilumnus: 9.34. 21 Aeneas and Evander in grove of Hercules: Aen. 8.102-4; Aeneas and Venus in grove of Silvanus: 8.597-616; Aeneas and Venus at tree of Faunus: 12.766-87. 22 formonsam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas (Ecl. 1.5); te nemus omne canet (6.11); nemorum increbrescere murmur (Ge. 1.359); vox adsensu nemorum ingeminata remugit (3.45); omne nemus strepitu collesque resultant (Aen. 8.305); vocem late nemora alta remittunt (12.929). 23 vox ... per lucos vulgo exaudita silentis/ ingens (1.476-80). 104 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

at least as important as spontaneous epiphany, and groves are a means o f resorting to the supernatural.

The Romans of the Augustan era were well aware that their land was covered with trees o f enormous antiquity, and firmly convinced that their ancestors always revered them. Pliny mentions ilexes that are older than the founding o f Rome — three in Tibur and one on the Vatican hill. A bronze inscription in Etruscan letters upon the latter indicated not only how long it had stood, but how early it had been venerated.24 A number of landmarks within the city o f Rome, including several o f its hills, were thought to derive their names from trees.25 Italy’s “astounding forests”, more than anything else, made Dionysius understand why the Romans believed Italy to be sacred to Saturn.26 Latium was a patchwork of groves inhabited by the most ancient divinities.27 When Romulus himself founded his asylum in the heart of Rome, between the Capitol and the citadel, it was known as “the place between two groves”.28 The longevity of trees provided an awe­ inspiring link to the past. Evander’s tour of the future site of Rome, with its dark woods and brambles, is a vision o f that nation’s past as well as o f its future.

In a range o f contexts in Roman society, including the late first century BC, reverence for groves provided the moral high ground. Thomas’s classic study (1988) has shown that tree-violation was not only a central concern in the Aeneid, but also had sacrilegious overtones in historical contexts, in Greek but especially in Roman society. Cato’s famous all-purpose prayer for cutting down trees, in which one apologises to the unidentified god or goddess of the thicket, shows that all forests were by default sacred, whether or not a specific god was known to dwell there.29 Even the unnamed farmer in the Georgics who frees up good soil by destroying “idle” ancient groves does so in a state of anger (iratus),

24 Plin. HN 16.6-7, 237. 25 [Roma] silvarum certe distinguebatur insignibus (Plin. HN 16.37). The Caelian was supposedly once called mons Querquetulanus because it was covered in oak woods (Tac. Ann. 4.65; Plin. HN 16.37); the Viminal was where osiers grew (vimina, Plin. HN 16.37). The Aventine was thought to have once been covered by various trees, explaining why one place was called the Lauretum, “Laurel Grove”, even though it was built over (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 3.43.1; Plin. HN 15.40); the Aesculetum, “Winter-Oak Grove”, lay on the Campus Martius (Varro LL 5.152; Plin. HN 16.37); the southern spur of the Esquiline known as mons Oppius had once been called the Fagutal, “Beech Place” (Plin. HN 16.37). The goddess Lucina herself was named after an ancient lucus standing in front of her temple in Rome (Ov. Fast. 2.449; Plin. HN 16.85). 26 o l δρυμοί θαυμασιώτατοι (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.37-38). 27 See Ulback (1934); Coarelli (1993). 28 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.15; Liv. 1.8.5-6. Cf. Cic. Att. 4.3.4; Virg. Aen. 8.342-43. 29 Cf. si deus, si dea es (Cato, Agr. 139). See Thomas (1988) 263-64. Dunstan Lowe — Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 105

as if propelled beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour.30 Jordan and Perlin (1984) attest various legal strictures against harming sacred groves in ancient Greece, although they consider resource management a significant factor, especially since Greek and Roman generals plundered groves for timber in time of war.31 In late republican political invective, grove-violation was apparently on the set menu of wicked men’s sins, alongside pathic promiscuity and drunkenness.32 Horace says that uncut woods are ploughed up to satisfy the desires of self-indulgent people.33 Harming sacred groves was disapproved in historical instances too: Sulla was criticised for desecrating a grove to get wood for warfare, and when Octavian executed Antony’s friend Turullius in 30 BC, this was seen partly as punishment for his despoliation of Asclepius’ grove on Cos in order to build a fleet.34 Gowers has assembled numerous anecdotes in which the health of individual trees at Rome was believed closely bound to the fortunes of its citizens or emperors.35 A pious reverence for trees bespoke the oldest native virtues, as shown by an anecdote in Livy (3.25.7-8). An Aequian general, who does not want to hear the demands of the senate’s envoys, tells them to give their orders to a nearby oak tree. As they depart, one o f them prays for the sacred oak, and any gods present, to hear that the Aequi broke the treaty and to favour the Roman army when they take revenge. History of course proves them right and implies that tree-reverence is a valid expression of Roman solemnity and piety.

Virgil enhanced this established Roman virtue by connecting it with concrete cult practices, both historical and imaginary. In the heroic past of the Aeneid, the veneration of trees is represented as a universal phenomenon, and Aeneas’ progress is punctuated by a series of encounters with sacred trees which betoken various cultural pedigrees. In Troy, he sees an ancient, sacred laurel tree standing in King Priam’s palace, which foreshadows the laurel planted by King Latinus in his own palace, after which Laurentium was named.36 The foundation-spot of Carthage, where Dido builds her temple to Juno and Aeneas receives his first comfort, is in the middle o f a grove (1.441-52). Other trees connected

30 iratus silvam devexit arator / et nemora evertit multos ignava per annos, / antiquasque domos avium cum stirpibus imis / eruit; illae altum nidis petiere relictis, / at rudis enituit impulso vomere campus (2.207-10); on this passage, see Thomas (1988) 272. 31 See Meiggs (1982); Hughes (1983). 32 Leigh (1999) 183 cites Cic. Rab. Perd. 6, Inc. Or. fr. 4 Puccioni, and Mil. 85, in which Clodius has allegedly destroyed altars and groves to build his mansion. 33 incultae pacantur vomere silvae (Hor. Ep. 1.2.45; cf. silvestrem flammis et ferro mitiget agrum, 2.2.186). 34 Sulla: Plut. Sull. 12.3; AppianMith. 30; Turullius: Dio 51.8.3. 35 Gowers (2011). 36 Virg. Aen. 2.513-14 (ingens ara fuit iuxtaque veterrima laurus/ incumbens arae atque umbra complexa penatis); 7.59-63 (esp. 59: laurus erat tecti medio in penetralibus altis). 106 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

with gods and venerated by generations of ancestors include the cypress near a temple of Ceres where Troy’s fugitives gather, the oleaster sacred to Faunus felled to make a duelling-ground for Aeneas in Latium, and Cybele’s pine-grove on Ida from which Aeneas

cut the timber for his fleet.3 7 The tree-marked cultures in the Aeneid are called antiqua,38

just as the trees themselves stand untouched per annos (“through the years”).3 9 The Italians have the longest and most intimate relationship with their trees: Aeneas’ first glimpse of

Latium is a “huge grove”, and the first men there, says Evander, were born from oaks.4 0

Seeing the Italians, with Virgil, as virtually forest-dwelling is fully compatible with the above-mentioned stereotypes about early Romans, which Virgil helped to establish. While vigorous in their piety, nationalism and moral rectitude, they were also coarse, primitive and rustic in their dress and diet; the outward signs and the inward character created one

another.41 The entire package then furnished a metaliterary language for describing early Roman authors, whom later critics praised for their mores and criticised for their cultus.

The Romans wore beards before the Hellenistic period,4 2 but from then until Hadrian’s time beards were a sign of rusticity or squalor, associated with ragged clothing and body odour; according to Livy, the “rusticated” Marcus Furius Camillus was ordered to shave

as well as wash before re-entering the senate-house.4 3 Critics of prose accordingly saw

Cato the Elder’s Latin as admirably forceful but rough, hairy, and unkempt,4 4 and for 37 Virg. Aen. 2.714-15; 7.5-63; 9.85-87. Many of my observations here are drawn from Gowers (2011). 38 Troy (Aen. 1.375; 2.137, 363); Carthage (Aen. 1.12-13; 4.670); Italy in general (1.531; 3.96, 164; 11.253) and Latium in particular (7.38). 39 This phrase is used of the “idle groves” at Ge. 2.208, the tree of Ceres (Aen. 2.715), Laurentium’s laurel (7.60) and Cybele’s pine-grove (9.85). 40 Aeneas ingentem ex aequore lucum /prospicit (Aen. 7.29-30); gens ... virum truncis et duro robore nata (8.315). On the genealogical symbolism of old trees in the Aeneid, see Gowers (2011). 41 Diet is at least as important an indicator of archaic rusticity as dress. Examples include the turnips eaten by Romulus (Sen. Apoc. 9; Mart. 13.16) and the boiling vegetables awaited by the Scipiones (Hor. Sat. 2.1.71-74); on the extensive symbolism of diet in Roman culture see Gowers (1993). The locus classicus for stereotypes of early Italian hardiness is of course the speech of Numanus Remulus (Aen. 9.598-620). 42 Liv. 5.41; Cic. Cael. 14; Varr. Rust. 2.11; Plin. HN 7.59. Early Romans were thought to grow their hair long too: in Juvenal, a rare wine was “pressed when the consuls had long haif’ (5.30, capillato diffusum consule). 43 Liv. 27.34. On the rusticity of beards, cf. Mart. 7.95; 12.59. 44 orationes illae ipsae horridulae Catonis (Cic. Orat. 152); antiquior est huius sermo et quaedam horridiora verba (Brut. 68); imitations of Cato’s vocabulary will become horridi (Quint. Inst. 2.5.21); his habit of calling a rough hill a “wart” (verruca, Gell. NA 3.7.6) certainly implies this. Some enjoyed early Roman oratory for the “shadow and colouring of shady antiquity” (umbra et color quasi opacae vetustatis, Gell. NA 10.3.15-16). In Gellius’ metaphor, the shade of oVirgrown foliage offers a cool retreat. Whether physically, stylistically or metaphorically, Cato was intonsus (Hor. C. 2.15.11). On hirsuteness as stylistic metaphor, see Leigh (2000) 288. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 107

critics of poetry, his close contemporary Ennius was hirsutus and wrote among goatish­ smelling men.45 Stephen Hinds46 points out that these goatish men resemble the half-goat Fauni (discussed below) thought to haunt the countryside; Ennius himself, along with his early readers, is identified with the half-bestial population of Italy’s prehistoric wilderness. Archaic poetry, like archaic fashions and personal hygiene, reflected the cultural values and aesthetic standards of its time. Quintilian hits the nail on the head by likening Ennius to an oVirgrown forest:

“We ought to revere Ennius for his antiquity, like sacred groves in which the huge ancient oaks are now more hallowed than they are beautiful”.47

As symbol of Rome’s cultural past, Ennius is a gnarled oak, uncouth but powerful, whose power may indeed come from his hoariness. It was already true in antiquity that “the obscurity surrounding early Roman religion is profound”.48 Homegrown Italian poets are like sacred groves in the Italian landscape. Both provide access to ancient numinous powers, and both possess the same brutish alien splendour, which is the antithesis of cultus in all its senses.

2. Sacred Poetry, Oracular Verse, and Faunus

Before exploring Virgil’s portrayals ofgroves and their gods in the Aeneid, particularly Faunus, it will be useful to outline what beliefs and ideas existed about them, especially in connection with tree-worship and with poetic theory. A surge of antiquarian interest in the late first century influenced Augustus’ programme of religious and social reform in various ways. One of these is that Latin literature was traced back to primitive religious practices involving prophetic utterances, a phenomenon often located in sacred groves.

Thus, the home-grown Latin verse form, the so-called Saturnian metre, was extinct as an art form, but carried a heavy cultural freight which attracted new interest.49 The name may have been thought to recall the prehistoric reign of Saturnus, a sacro-idyllic golden age when mortals and deities communed in the Italian landscape. Saturnians

45 Ennius hirsuta corona (Prop. 4.1.62); nihil est hirsutius (Ov. Tr. 2.259-60); inter hircosos (Sen. apud Gell. NA 12.2.11); Musa rudis ferocis Enni (Stat. Silv. 2.7.75). 46 Hinds (1998) 73-74. 47 Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem (Quint. Inst. 10.1.88). Hinds (1998) 14 notes the connection of this passage with the use of ancient trees to symbolise ancient poetry. 48 Smith (2007) esp. 31; cf. de Cazanove (2007). 49 For a full edition of the Saturnian inscriptions with commentary, see Kruschwitz (2002). For Livius Andronicus’ and Naevius’ Saturnian fragments see Warmington (1936). 108 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

themselves had faded into respectable security: In the earliest days of Roman literature, Livius Andronicus used Greek metres for his plays but “the old Latin meter of hymns, epitaphs, and incantations”, for his epic.50 Its defeat by the Greek hexameter is dramatised by Ennius’ oft-quoted lines: “others have written their subject in those verses which Fauni and bards of old once sang”.51 This quotation, which linked the hoary rustic metre with hoary rustic gods, was evidently well known in the late first century BC. It appears thrice in Cicero, from whom we know that these lines were a criticism o f a rival poet, Naevius, for using old-fashioned Saturnians,52 and once in Varro, who claims that Fauni delivered their mysterious woodland prophecies in Saturnian metre.53 According to Festus, there was a solitary Faunus who uttered oracular Saturnian verses.54 Since Festus’ source was the Augustan grammarian Verrius Flaccus, the first century association of Saturnians with Faunus’ oracles goes beyond Varro. This sheds light on Horace’s comment in Epistle 2.1 that Ennius’ criticism did not stick and Naevius was read with similar reverence: “so sacred is every ancient poem”.55 A few dozen lines later, he says that although the “bristly” Saturnian metre faded, traces of the Italian countryside lingered on in Latin poetry of his own day.56 Horace reaffirms the push-pull tension between rejecting Saturnians as primitive, and claiming them as purely, pungently Roman. By the late republic, despite the confusion and mystery that had arisen, the bardic Saturnian verse was the pedigree

50 Goldberg (1995) 46-47. 51 scripsere alii rem / vorsibus quos olim Faunei vatesque canebant (Enn. Ann. 7, fr. 206-07 Skutsch). On the significance of these words, see Habinek (2005) 79-80; Wiseman (2006). 52 Cic. Brut. 75. Cf. Hinds (1998) esp. 56-58, Wiseman (2006) 13-14. 53 Cic. Brut. 71; Orator 171; Div. 1.114; Varro LL 7.36. Pasco-Pranger (2002) takes Varro’s comment as an inference made from Ennius. On the disembodied voices of Fauni, see Cic. Div. 1.101; Nat. D. 2.6; Lucr. 4.577-94. Other Roman traditions of prophetic voices in groves include the following: Cic. Div. 1.101 records that a disembodied prophetic utterance from the otherwise unidentified Aius Loquens emerged from the grove of Vesta. Gellius mentions a nameless Vaticanus deus with an altar in the same vicinity (infima nova via), whose name Varro derived a vaticiniis (16.17) because the altar commemorated a disembodied utterance. The two may be identical. Among omens of Caesar’s forthcoming assassination, a huge voice is heard by many through the silent groves (lucos, Virg. Ge. 1.476-80). Ov. Fast. 2.436-40 sets a grove of Juno as the scene for an aetiology of the festival of the Lupercalia, in which she makes a disembodied pronouncement. 54 versus quoque antiquissimi, quibus Faunus fata cecinisse hominibus videtur, Saturnii appellantur (Festus 432 L; cf. Origo Gentis Romanae 4.4-5: is [i.e. Faunus] solet futura praecinere versibus quos Saturnios dicimus; quod genus metri in vaticinatione Saturniae primum proditum est. 55 adeo sanctum est vetus omne poema (Ep. 2.1.54). 56 sic horridus ille / defluxit numerus Saturnius et grave virus / munditiae pepulere; sed in longum tamen aevum / manserunt hodieque manent vestigia ruris (Ep. 2.1.157-60). Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 109

through which Roman poetry ultimately derived from oracular voices in sacred groves, especially that of Faunus.

Faunus’ role in the Aeneid as an oracular god has no obvious Greek model. Nevertheless, he held special attraction for Virgil because, although aboriginal and ancient, he was also mysterious and highly malleable. He possessed no iconography whatsoever that may be securely identified,57 and by the time of the earliest literary sources he had already been conflated with Pan.58 The plural Fauni mentioned by Ennius, Lucilius and Varro were concurrently identified with Greek satyrs, probably via Paniskoi.59 Indeed this provided a fresh link between Fauni and poetry for Horace, who associates wine with poetic inspiration.60 Yet before they became Satyrs the plural Fauni were, just like Faunus, grove-dwelling spirits who uttered prophecies.61 They are also frequently situated at the

57 Pouthier & Rouillard (1986); Dorcey (1992) 34. Virgil wittily acknowledges Faunus’ lack of visual representation by omitting him from the rank of statues in Latinus’ palace. 58 The identification of Pan with Faunus was well established by the Augustan period (cf. Hor. C. 1.17.1-2; Ov. Fast. 2.267-80, 424). In the Fasti, Ovid progressively adapts Faunus from a lecherous and comical Pan on Greek soil to a more authoritative deity in Italy (Parker, 1993). Calpurnius’ Faunus usually resembles Pan, and at one point (Ecl. 1.33-35) becomes a jolly prophet of a golden age, like the vatic Silenus of Virgil’s own Eclogues, whose topics include the Saturnia regna (6.41). It is worth remembering that the grounds for identification included not only country haunts and disembodied voices, but also a sense of lurking menace. Virgil follows a tradition, dating back at least to the second century BC, that Faunus was also the god of the Lupercalia (Acilius FGrH 813 F2 = Plut. Rom. 21.7; Virg. Aen. 8.343-44); in the Greek translation of the Res Gestae, “Lupercus” is rendered as “Pan” (Res Gestae 19.1, with Cooley (2009) 186). Cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.32.3 on the Arcadian origin of the Lupercalia. See discussion in Wiseman (2008). 59 Roman poets regularly conflated grove-dwelling Fauni with playful Satyrs. Lucretius accuses rustics of pretending that there are Fauni in the countryside, frolicking to the music of Pan (4.581-90). Horace speaks of woodland Fauni on the stage (Ars P. 244-47), an unparalleled suggestion which, unless highly metaphorical, probably refers to Satyr-plays or something like them. Virgil often represents Fauni as frolicking in the woods (Ecl. 6.27-28; Ge. 1.11; Aen. 8.314-15). For Calpurnius, Fauni are indistinguishable from Satyrs. A crucial difference thus elided is that Satyrs were not indigenous nature-spirits; images and texts had them roam in Dionysus’ entourage, or indulge in rustic work or play, but unlike Fauni they never resided in groves, least of all dark and eerie ones. Statius, identifying Fauni as Satyrs, even says that such a place is not for them (Stat. Theb. 2.519-23). 60 ut male sanos / adscripsit Liber Satyris Faunisque poetas, / vina fere dulces oluerunt mane Camenae (Ep. 1.19.3-5). Horace also puts Satyrs (and Nymphs) in the icy grove (gelidum nemus, C. 1.1.30) which separates him and the Muses from the common mortals. 61 Varro says that Fauni are male and female Latin gods, who are traditionally said to speak (fari) in woodland places, hence their name (LL 7.36. Cf. Serv. ad Aen. 7.47, 81, Serv. Auct. ad Ecl. 6.27, with Bettini, 2008). The female name Fauna was a title of the Bona Dea, herself a prophetic deity, in the pontifical records (See Wiseman (2008) 42 for references). See also Segarra Crespo (2007) on Fauni and the role of prophetic utterances in Roman religion. 110 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

origin o f the Latin race, and even o f the earth itself. Ovid puts them among a confused mixture of countryside beings at the beginning of the Iron Age (Met. 1.192-95); other sources, including of course Virgil himself, mingle Fauni with the earliest Latins.62 As Newman63 suggests, Virgil responds to Ennius by locating “indigenous” Fauni at the site of Rome, reasserting the place of primitive poetry in Rome’s heritage.

Indeed by the Augustan age, Faunus’ name had become a floating signifier of native cultural heritage which accumulated various identities: “Faunus as king of the Latins, Faunus as one o f a race o f Fauni, Faunus as Pan and the Fauni as Satyrs, and the oracular Faunus or Fauni”.64 In fact, outside the shrine he shared with Jupiter on Tiber Island, Faunus was not a prominent recipient of cult (see Dorcey 1992, 33-38). Cicero’s Cotta probably speaks for the majority when he accepts that Faunus might be heard, but remains cautious: “what Faunus might be I have absolutely no idea”.65

When Virgil integrated Faunus into the Aeneid, he blended separate traditions together, creating not only a consistent genealogy for the Latin kings, but also a harmonious mythology for Rome which integrated Italic traditions into a largely Hellenic age of heroes. The link between early Latin poets and Fauni, which Ennius made in the passage discussed above, is significant to Virgil’s treatment of Faunus. Three generations after Ennius, Lucilius scoffs at naive superstitions about “Lamiae and Fauni” that “Numa Pompiliuses” instituted.66 The plurals deride old-fashioned beliefs, just as Ennius’ term vates did. Ironically, Augustan poets would redefine both Faunus / Fauni and the concept o f the vates as quaint yet authoritative voices. Virgil prefers to make Faunus a native Italian deity, rejecting the obvious identification with Pan. He links Faunus with Latinus and the Latins rather than with Evander and Arcadia (contrast Ov. Fast. 6.91-102), splicing together two separate traditions. In one, Faunus was a mortal link in the chain of descent from the gods to the Latin kings.67 In the other, he was a mysterious oracular god, a

62 Virg. Aen. 8.312-15 (Fauni, Nymphs and oak-born men); Lucilius, Satires 15.490-91 Krenkel (“Fauni and Numa Pompiliuses”); Gell. NA 5.21.7-8 (Fauni and Aborigines); Suet. Vit. 1.2 (Faunus and Aborigines). 63 Newman (1967) 41. 64 Babcock (1961) 15. For a more recent exposition of the Faunus/ Fauni problem, see Wiseman (2008) 42-44. 65 ... etsi Faunus omnino quid sit nescio (Cic. Nat. D. 3.6.15); cf. Briquel (1993) 80. In a catalogue of divinities, Silius shelves Faunus between two other obscure figures, the Di Indigetes and Quirinus the Sower (Pun. 9.294). 66 terriculas, Lamias, Fauni quas Pompiliique / instituere Numae, tremit has, hic omnia ponit (Lucilius, Satires 15.490-91 Krenkel = Lactant. Div. inst. 1.22.13). 67 Aen. 7.47-49; Dion. Hal. 1.31.2; Justin 43.1.6; Origo gentis Romanae 5.1-3. On Latinus’ genealogy, see Rosivach (1980) with Moorton (1988). Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 111

disembodied voice dwelling in an eerie grove.68 Faunus was an ancient, prestigious and versatile ingredient for Virgil’s new national myth.

Roman poets and authoritative speakers followed Greek precedents in calling themselves oracles of divine inspiration.69 In the republican era, no poet is known to have styled himself vates, and the word seems to have still meant “bard” in a ritual context.70 But the semantic shift of vates merely reflects a longstanding association of poets with bards; “song” and “singing” (carmen and canere) had always been regular words for poetry of various kinds, and even Ennius still called poets sacred.71 Horace credits Orpheus with distracting the primitive silvestris homines (“woodland men”) from slaughter, and divini vates (“divine poets”) with taming the savages and introducing civilization (Ars P. 391­ 400). When he says that all ancient poems are holy (Ep. 2.1.54), he is being sarcastic, but building on a widespread trope frequently found in his own self-descriptions. He says that the poet who commemorates great men is a sacer vates (C. 4.9.28); he also calls himself a vates, a poeta by Apollo’s own appointment, and a sacerdos!1 Ovid strikes the same pose, parodically perhaps, but with extraordinary frequency. He too calls himself a vates and a sacerdos!3 He claims that poets are favoured by the Muses and other gods, that they are sacri and their writings sacra, that they possess a numen, and even that they are potentially, or actually, mantic.74 Newman75 argues that Ovid misunderstands the concept of the vates. Given the number and extremity of his claims, it seems better to say that he takes

68 Rosivach (1980) esp. 141 argues that there were two Faunuses: the little-known oracular version, and the rustic recipient of cult identified with Pan. The Faunus who fathered Tarquitus is a hybrid: a forest-dweller, he became part of a human genealogy by sleeping with a dryad (silvicolae Fauno Dryope quem nympha crearat, Virg. Aen. 10.551). 69 Among those identified as soothsayers and prophets are Socrates (Pl. Phdr. 292c), Pindar (Pind. fr. 150 Maehler), and all archaic poets (Xenophanes fr. 11 D-K). Cf. Lucretius on Epicurus as a deus (5.8, 51) with divina mens (3.15). 70 Newman (1967) 17, followed by Bettini (2008) 362. 71 On carmen and canere, see Habinek (2005), esp. 75-79; Ennius ‘sanctos’ appellat poetas (Cic. Arch. 18). 72 Horace as sacer vates: C. 4.9.28; as vates: 2.6.24, 20.3; 4.3.14-15, 6.44; Ep. 1.7.11; 2.2.94; as Apollo’s poeta: 4.6.29-30; as sacerdos: 3.1.3-4. 73 Ovid as vates: Tr. 5.9.10; Ib. 244-5; Pont. 2.5.58; 3.4.65-7; 4.8.43; as sacer poeta: Rem. Am. 812-13; as sacerdos: Am. 3.8.23; Tr. 2.1.3056; 3.2.3-4; Ib. 95. 74 Poets divinely sponsored, sacer, and containing a numen: Am. 3.9.17-18; Ars Am. 3. 539-40, 547-48 (cf. Pont. 3.4.93, deus est in pectore nostro). Poetry as sacra: Ars Am. 3.616; Tr. 4.1.87; Pont. 2.5.72, 9.64, 10.17; 4.2.49-50, 13.43. Poets as prophets: Tr. 4.10.129 (si quid habet igitur vatumpraesagia veri); Pont. 1.1.47 (vaticinor); 2.1.55 (sunt quiddam oracula vatum); 3.4.89 (praesagia vatum), 94 (praedico vaticinorque); 4.2.25 (impetus ille sacer, qui vatum pectora nutrit). 75 Newman (1967) 100-14. 112 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

outrageous liberties with it, or even that it had become a regular idiom for the personal voice in Augustan verse.

Roman poets could themselves tap into the state of mind, perhaps even the divine help, which led to great poetry, by spending time alone in groves (nemora et lucos). There was a long Greek pedigree for this idea, more Dionysiac than oracular, to judge by Plato’s Socrates when he jokes that standing in a grove is affecting him supernaturally, mutating his speech into inspired dithyrambs and even hexameters.76 Horace, also with tongue in cheek, claims that authors prefer the grove to the city because they are the clientes o f Bacchus, lover of sleep and shade.77 A century later, the prose authors Tacitus and Pliny the Younger profess an outdoorsmanly spirituality reminiscent of Thoreau. In Tacitus’ Dialogus de oratoribus both Aper and Maternus acknowledge the inspiring quality of the silent grove; Pliny does likewise in a defensive letter to Tacitus, protesting that shallow leisure in carriages and villas only facilitates frivolous verse.78 Here, the scorn of the urban and superficial in favour of the rural and wholesome, as a moralising stance, intersects with actual Roman beliefs about the primacy o f grove-cult in Roman religion. According to the antiquarian Varro, Romans had originally worshipped the gods without representing them with statues: (“If this had continued until today ... the gods would be honoured more purely”).79 This vision of a purer piety towards disembodied numina has been debunked as a misty-eyed fantasy: Varro probably wanted the earliest Romans to be too sophisticated for anthropomorphic gods, like Hellenistic philosophers,80 but we may also presume he imagined these imageless cults taking place in groves instead of temples. Tacitus manifests a similar idealism in his ethnography of Germania. He claims that German religion was aniconic, even pantheist, the names of gods being mere labels for the mystic secretum only encountered during worship in sacred groves.81 Varro and Tacitus both admire the alleged primitive reverence for unseen powers, which helps to explain why Virgil, as a Roman intellectual, emphasised the role of grove religion in his vision of the heroic age.82

76 Pl. Phdr. 238d, 241e. On various divine powers in Greek verse, including the Dionysiac and Apollonian, see Sperduti (1950). 77 scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbem, / rite cliens Bacchi somno gaudentis et umbra (Ep. 2.2.77). 78 Tac. Dial. 9.6; 11.1; Plin. Ep. 9.10. 79 quod si adhuc... mansisset, castius dii observarentur (Varro fr. 18 Cardauns = August. Civ. D. 4.31). 80 Feeney (1998), esp. 92. 81 lucos ac nemora consecrant deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident (Tac. Germ. 9). 82 Fantham (1996) reads Lucan’s Massilian grove as a displacement of the atmospheric religio which Virgil properly located at the site of Rome. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 113

For the Romans, groves could be pleasant retreats providing shade, water, game, and privacy. Both in Campanian frescoes and in Horace’s Odes, they are accessible and inviting places where piety is combined with peace and pleasure.83 In the Georgics, Virgil calls the whole countryside “divine” (divini gloria ruris, 1.168), giving a pantheistic spin to the presence of deities in its landmarks. Thomas (1988, 262) observes an “animism” in which “vines, trees, beasts and bees, even the soil, are all sentient”. However, in Virgil as in Roman culture in general, there is a darker side: the landscape is filled with largely anonymous and potentially rancorous powers that must be treated carefully. The most likely place to encounter such beings is a grove, where unknown gods and hidden dangers lurk. Servius famously records the derivation o f the word lucus by opposition from lux, lucere, because it is a dark place.84 This etymology is o f course false, yet suggestive. In the Aeneid, King Evander’s tour o f the wild land where Rome will be built illustrates the menace o f groves very clearly. The future site o f the Capitol, bristling with thorns (silvestribus horrida dumis, 8.348), is a grove haunted by an unidentified god, where strange earthquakes happen (8.349-54):

iam tum religio pavidos terrebat agrestis dira loci, iam tum silvam saxumque tremebant. ‘hoc nemus, hunc’ inquit ‘frondoso vertice collem (quis deus incertum est) habitat deus; Arcades ipsum credunt se vidisse lovem, cum saepe nigrantem aegida concuteret dextra nimbosque cieret’.

If this god is indeed Jupiter (Evander and his Arcadians are uncertain), he is an unfamiliar version who summons dark clouds from within the darkness of the trees.

Another dwelling o f a mysterious god, which bears more directly upon Aeneas’ fate, is the grove of Faunus at Albunea visited by Latinus. It is a forbidding place (Aen. 7.81-84):

at rex sollicitus monstris oracula Fauni, fatidici genitoris, adit lucosque sub alta consulit Albunea, nemorum quae maxima sacro fonte sonat saevamque exhalat opaca mephitim.

83 Hor. C. 1.1.30-31, 7.13-14, 17.5-9, and esp. 3.4.6-8 (videor pios / errare per lucos). Even the grove and altar of Diana (lucus et ara Dianae, Hor. Ars P. 16) inspired some poets to write over- indulgent “picturesques”. On Campanian art, see Bergmann (1992) esp. 303. 84 dictae sunt Parcae κατά άντίφρασιν, quod nulli parcant, sicut lucus a non lucendo, bellum a nulla re bella (Servius ad Aen. 1.29; cf. ad Aen. 1.441, lucus autem dicitur quod non luceat). Servius’ “antiphrasis” is apparently a form of euphemism: a grove is a hazardous thing, like death and war. 114 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Latinus’ consultation of the oracle o f his father, the late King Faunus, deviates from mainstream Roman religion both in its primitivism and in its novelty. Faunus himself is neither manifest god nor underworld shade, but merely an utterance: “a sudden voice came out of

the deep grove”.85 The details o f the incubation have Greek parallels and probably reflect local

historical practice,86 although historical accuracy is not Virgil’s primary concern. Latinus had received the Trojans in a vast, ancient palace “bristling with woods and with the religion of

generations past”.87 With its hundred columns, wooden statues, forest surroundings and long tradition o f cult, this building is an architectural version o f Albunea and a fitting residence for the son o f a grove-god. Virgil reminds us seven times that the oracular deity is also Latinus’ own father, which was probably his own invention (the Greek tradition was that Latinus was

fathered on Circe by Odysseus or Telemachus).88 As stated above, Virgil distances the grove- god Faunus from Greece, in order to keep the Roman reverence for trees aboriginal. He ages him through a form o f chronological sleight o f hand used elsewhere in the poem: the nascent Carthage is already an “ancient city”; the grove newly added to Anchises’ tomb is instantly “sacred far and wide”; and the Arcadian cult o f Hercules “recognises the ancient gods”, even

though it was founded within living memory.89 Faunus is likewise vetus and his oleaster in Book

12 was sacred “from o f old” (olim).9 0 However geriatric Latinus is, Faunus has only been dead during his lifespan: Virgil proleptically endows him with the prestige o f long antiquity. But Virgil’s Faunus, “always-already” ancient though he may be, is also very novel in function. As Eric Orlin has recently argued, pronouncements on the future by Virgilian deities, especially

Faunus and Jupiter, reflect an Augustan tendency to state divine opinions explicitly.91 So the venerable Faunus in fact breaks with Roman tradition, which minimized the role o f oracles in the dictation o f religious practice.

85 subita ex alto vox reddita luco est (7.95). 86 The priests of Zeus’ oracle at Dodona slept on the ground (Il. 16. 235), and to consult with Amphiaraus, a man had to sleep on the skin of a sacrificed ram and await enlightening dreams (Paus. 1.34.5). 87 Aen. 7.171. 88 Faunus as Latinus’ father: Virg. Aen. 7.47-48, 82, 97, 102, 213, 254, 368. Odysseus: Hes. Theog. 1011-13 (cf. Serv. ad Aen. 7.47). Telemachus: Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.72; Plut. Rom. 2; cf. Ferenczi (2000) 97. In the Aeneid Faunus is still the son of Circe, but now by a native Italian, Picus. See Moorton (1988). 89 urbs antiqua fu it... Karthago (Aen. 1.12-13, with Reed (2007) 129-30); lucus late sacer (Aen. 5.759-61), a phrase re-used for the arguably much older grove of Silvanus at Caere, where Aeneas finds Vulcan’s shield: lucus ... / religione patrum late sacer (8.597-98); non ... vana superstitio veterumque ignara deorum / imposuit (8.185-88). 90 veteris Fauni ... sortem (Aen. 7.254); olim venerabile lignum (12.767). 91 Orlin (2007). Briquel (1993), by contrast, suggests that unorthodox divine communications via disembodied voices point back to a pre-civilised condition. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 115

A counterpoint to Faunus is provided by another native rustic deity, Silvanus, who appears momentarily in the poem as the patron ofanother gloomy grove, where Aeneas receives Vulcan’s magic armour from Venus. The ancient Pelasgians are said (fam a est) to have given this patron o f woodland and shepherds a grove and a festival (8.597-602). Venus leaves the divine arms for Aeneas beneath a quercus (the tree o f choice in Roman Baumkultus), just as Livy’s Romulus dedicates the first spolia opima beneath another quercus sacred to shepherds.92 Silvanus is rather different from Faunus, since he had a clear iconographic tradition as a humanlike shepherd and was not considered menacing, but both inhabited uncultivated woodland and had obscure origins. Perhaps already in the late first century, as by late antiquity, the two gods were closely identified; Dionysius tells a story about a disembodied voice from a grove about Silvanus and Livy tells the same story about Faunus.93 According to Dorcey’s extended study, poets say far less about Silvanus than about Faunus because he was “evidently a bit too mundane for lofty bucolic poetry”, yet he does appear a few times in Horace’s lyrics and even here in the epic Aeneid?4 Silvanus certainly introduces another Italian cult into the age o f Aeneas, but he remains mute and invisible. He is easily over-written by a Greek goddess bearing Iliadic gifts (cf ll. 19.1-19), and does not interfere with Aeneas, unlike Faunus, whose tree-stump endangers him in the final duel (discussed below). In Silvanus’ grove, Aeneas himself is able to rest and recuperate (8.606-07), as well as experience both privacy and a divine encounter. Silvanus offers all o f the advantages o f Roman tree-reverence, and with them a promise o f cultural harmony.

3. Suspended Votives and the Tropaeum

After killing Mezentius and winning a battle, Aeneas sets up an oak-trunk and decks it in Mezentius’ spoils as an offering to Mars.95 On the face o f it, this is a straightforward retrojection of the battle memorial, or tropaeum, into the age o f heroes, as a precedent for an established Roman military tradition. Since the spoils are those of an enemy general, it also suggests, as I shall argue, the dedication o f the ferculum which was traced back to Romulus. Yet Virgil uses the Mezentius monument as a key element in the broader pattern o f tree-reverence in the world o f the Aeneid, inventing the Roman Waffenbaum in the process, which became an ahistorical but symbolically potent tradition in later Latin epic.

92 arma sub adversa posuit radiantia quercu (Aen. 8.616); cf. ad quercum pastoribus sacram (Liv. 1.10); glandiferi maxime generis omnes, quibus honos apud Romanos perpetuus (Plin. HN 16.6-7). 93 Faunus: Liv. 2.7.2, followed by Val. Max. 1.8.5. Silvanus: Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.16.2-3. 94 Dorcey (1992) surveys all of the available literary references to Silvanus. 95 Aen. 11.5-16. The standard work on the tropaeum is Picard (1957). On the tropaeum in the Aeneid, see Dyson (2001), chapter 10, where she argues that the Mezentius monument contributes to Virgil’s theme of the sacrificial king of the wood, the Rex Nemorensis. 116 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

The suspension of military votives was frequently practised at Rome, although not in groves. Poetic sources imply that it was common for victorious Roman generals to hang up votives on the inside or outside of temples, usually inside the cupolas (tholi) or on internal or external walls.96 For example, the clutter of votives which Lepidus removed from the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus to improve its appearance included numerous shields and standards fixed to the columns.97 Such practices are foreshadowed by Aeneas’ suspension of a golden shield at the future site of Actium, and by the large and numerous military souvenirs on the doorposts of Latinus’ palace.98 Although the dedication of military equipment had been practiced by the Greeks,99 it came to define triumphal ostentation at Rome, both literal and metaphorical. Gallus envisions Octavian’s spoils adorning many temples; Propertius, within an extended metaphor of amatory conquest as military triumph, plans to affix votives to the column ofVenus’ temple with an inscription beneath them.100

However, historically, the tropaeum was not an adornment ofa living tree; it is important to recognise this in order to appreciate Virgil’s treatment o f the motif. Evidence that the Greeks identified the tropaeum with a living oak-tree is slight. There is scant evidence from the visual arts,101 and written sources provide only one example o f military votives suspended on a tree, which is not on a battlefield. An ancient sacred oleaster stood in the Megarian agora, and after it was cut down the city fell, in fulfilment o f a prophecy. Theophrastus cites it as evidence

96 tholi: Virg. Aen. 9.408; Stat. Silv. 1.4.32; Theb. 2.734; Val. Flacc. Argon. 1.56; doorposts of houses: Aen. 2.504; 5.393; facades of temples: 3.287; 5.360; 8.721; 11.778, Hor. C. 3.5.16-17; 4.15.6-8; Ep. 1.18.56. The dedicant need not be a soldier: Propertius’ Arethusa proposes to display her husband’s arma ... votiva at the Porta Capena (4.3.71-72) and Horace’s Veianius fixes his gladiatorial sword to the posts of Hercules’ temple on retirement (Ep. 1.1.4-5). Basto (1984) plausibly argues that Dido hangs Aeneas’ sword in her bedroom (4.494-96) to represent her conquest over him. 97 signa amovit clipeaque de columnis et signa militaria adfixa omnis generis dempsit (Liv. 40.31.3). 98 Aen. 3.286-88; 7.183-86. 99 The Aetolian league had supposedly dedicated fifteen thousand suits of armour in the porticoes of Thermus (Polyb. 5.8.9); Plut. De Pyth. Or. 15 = Mor. 401c-d implies that temples were filled with inscribed booty in classical Athens. 100 postque tuum reditum multorum templa deorum /fixa legam spolieis deivitiora tueis (Gallus fr. 2.4-5 Courtney); magna ego dona tua figam, Cytherea, columna (Prop. 1.14.25-28). 101 One of Botticher’s best sources is a “hero-relief’ (1856, 75, fig. 63), now in the Athens Archaeological Museum, in which a warrior feeds a large snake entwining an oak-tree, which is dressed in a sword, spear, shield and breast-plate. A boy is even bringing a helmet. However, the “warriof’ has now been identified as Polydeukion, heroised in the second century AD by the Roman senator Herodes Atticus after a premature death, and is not a reliable representative of Greek military or religious practice. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 117

that trees can absorb objects; in Pliny’s account it was found, when felled, to have swallowed greaves and helmets hung upon it long ago by “brave men”.102 Like the tree o f Faunus in the Aeneid, this was a humble oleaster, a living tree, which became a strange imitation o f a tropaeum through an accumulation o f votives. In fact, the Greek tropaeum was at first made from timbers lying to hand,103 then later replaced by sturdier monuments o f metal or stone.

The best evidence for battlefield tree-worship comes from Latin epic, and the monument to Mezentius is in fact the earliest example. As a tree-trunk shorn o f its branches and decked with a suit of armour, it is a battlefield tropaeum which resembles the triumphal ferculum, yet as a massive oak mounted upon a hill, it resembles the monumental trees found elsewhere in the poem. Virgil implies that such fabrications were regular in the heroic age, by having Aeneas, Mezentius and Turnus all refer to the practice.104 In fact

the historical origin of the tropaeum (and indeed the word itself) was Greek, so Aeneas’ monument is a literary invention.105 As a huge felled oak (ingentem quercum) representing Mezentius, it inverts the epic comparison o f mighty men to mighty trees. Likewise, when Pallas vows that if he successfully kills Halaesus, a quercus sacred to Tiber will “receive” the spoils, Virgil invites us to compare the practice of the battlefield tropaeum with his many examples of the veneration of living trees.106

It will be helpful at this point to demonstrate how far the symbolic value o f tropaea exceeded the historical reality, and how rarely they were made o f wood, let alone from trees. M ost tropaea set up “in the field” by Roman generals were permanent memorials,

102 Theophr. Hist. pl. 5.2.4; Megaris diu stetit oleaster in foro, cui viri fortes adfixerant arma, quae cortice ambiente aetas longa occultaverat . ocreis galeisque intus repertis (Plin. HN 16.199). 103 διά δε των τυχόντων ξύλων ίστάναι τά τρόπαια (Diod. 13.24.5-6). 104 Aeneas claims that had Pallas been full-grown, Turnus would now be a tree-trunk (tu quoque nunc stares immanis truncus in arvis, Aen. 11.173). Mezentius impiously vows that the tropaeum clad in the spoils of Aeneas will be his son Lausus (10.774-76), rather than an offering to a god. Turnus claims to have dotted the countryside with tropaea (11.383-86). Serestus carries off the spoils of Haemon’s son in order to make a tropaeum for Mars (10.541-42), which would presumably also be made from a tree. The Trojans collaborate in fashioning several tropaea for the funeral procession of Pallas (11.83-84). 105 Flor. 3.2; cf. Strab. 4.1.11. Florus comments that early Romans did not make monuments on the battlefield, but mounted enemy spolia upon walls, as Aeneas does at 3.286-88. 106 haec arma exuviasque viri tua quercus habebit (Aen. 10.423). Virgil is less concerned than Ennius with accurately representing Roman cult (Feeney, 1998, 141); a putative Waffenbaum sacred to a river god, like the veneration of Faunus by sailors, reflects his blending of cult practices. 118 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

built shortly after the fact.107 Greek ones had been made from durable materials as early as the fifth century B C .108 Most if not all o f those seen in Rome, which could stand alone as monuments, be carried in procession, or decorate the tops o f victory arches, were permanent replicas in metal or stone.109 Historical references to the genuine ad hoc monument decked with enemy spoils, which we may call the tropaeum armatum, are very rare. By the late republic, the word tropaeum had expanded to mean any kind of victory monument or trophy; Cicero uses it metaphorically (e.g. tropaeum necessitudinis, Verr. 2.2.115). The term gained currency among Augustan poets, but they normally use it to refer to architectural monuments.110 The uses o f the tropaeum armatum were primarily iconographic: it remained a private and public symbol of success from the third century BC onward.111 Its symbolic resonance was often independent of any actual victory monument;112 variants could even be employed to rouse shame rather than pride in Roman onlookers.113

107 Tropaea were routine markers of victories (totidemque tropaea / quot loca, Manil. 4.622-23); they were set up e.g. by Sulla (Plut. Sull. 19; De fort. Rom. 3.18c-d; Paus. 9.40.7), Piso (Cic. Pis. 92), Pompey (Plin. HN 3.18), Julius Caesar (Dio 42.48.2) and Augustus (Dio 51.1). All of these were supported by earthwork or masonry and many, including those of Augustus, were in fact architectural monuments or shrines. 108 Bronze (Plut. Alc. 29), marble (Paus. 1.33.2). 109 Freestanding: known examples include those of Germanicus (CIL 16.32, 33), Nero (Tac. Ann. 15.18), and Marius (Plut. Caes. 6.1-2); these last, at least after Caesar restored them in 65 BC, were actually a sculptural group featuring images of Nikes carrying tropaea armata. In procession: Manilius knows of “tropaea wearing Mithridates’ face” (Mithridateos vultus induta tropaea, 5.510) made out of gold, probably relics of Pompey’s lavish third triumph in 61 BC; Ovid may have these in mind when he imagines golden tropaea in Germanicus’ triumph (Pont. 2.1.41-42); later he imagines tropaea accompanying prisoners of war (stentque super vinctos trunca tropaea viros, Pont. 3.4.104); later reliefs indeed often represent captives chained to them. Decorating victory arches: Plin. Pan. 59.2; Tac. Ann. 15.18; Suet. Cl. 1.3; Serv. ad Aen. 11.6. 110 Gow (1895). 111 The victoriatus, a coin issued between the late third and late second centuries BC (see Crawford (2001) 44-168), always featured a Victory crowning a tropaeum on the reverse; Greek speakers called it the tropaikon. Both Sulla and Pompey had tropaea on their signet rings (Dio 42.18.3); one of Pompey’s coins (Crawford no. 426) features three of them, one for each triumph. The tropaeum reappeared on many later coin issues (see Crawford nos 281, 415, 427, 439, 452, 460, 468, 482, 503-06, 510, 519, 536. The tropaeum is often carried by Victoria, and less frequently by Mars, Minerva and Hercules). A gem representing Victory and trophy is mentioned at Suet. Galb. 10. See also Mackay (2000). 112 A denarius of Sextus Pompey (Crawford 511) translates the tropaeum into a strange maritime version assembled from unreal objects: the top end is a trident, the bottom an anchor, the miniaturised rudder and prow of a ship are attached to the arms, and Scylla’s dog heads emerge from the waist. 113 The Lusitanian Viriathus set up tropaea dressed in Roman state robes and fasces (Flor. 1.33), and at the head of Julius Caesar’s funeral procession was a tropaeum decked in the clothes he was wearing when he died (Suet. Jul. 84). Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 119

Allusions to tropaea armata on the battlefield, which are always in the plural, do not connect them with oaks or with enemy generals as Virgil does. In visual sources they are clearly imagined as made from a smooth pole or post (stipes), which is in a sense

“lopped” (trunca), but does not resemble a whole trimmed trunk (truncus).114 As an explicit precedent for later generals, Livy’s Romulus dedicates the spoils of the king of the

Caeninenses on the Capitol “at an oak held sacred by the shepherds”,1 15 though he brings them upon a ferculum (probably a stretcher borne on the shoulder, as shown in a relief on the Arch of Titus). Marcellus’ tropaeum (made in imitation of Romulus’) consisted of a slender felled oak, dressed in his enemy’s armour and carried in procession to the temple

of Jupiter Feretrius.116 This is as close as the tropaeum comes to a full tree in historical sources, but even here it was an ad hoc portable frame (the donor was able to carry this

object, at least in theory, upon his own shoulder)117 and not a living tree. Tacitus refers to battlefield monuments made from enemy spoils, but their precise form is unclear. Drusus and Germanicus both built earthen mounds and heaped captured arma upon them “in the manner o f a tropaeum”, although the second time Germanicus does this it is clearly a heap (congeries) o f equipment, as often represented in reliefs (e.g. on the base o f Trajan’s

column), rather than anything anthropomorphic.118 The sole historical occasion on which tropaea are fashioned from living trees occurs in an anecdote about Caligula. After a feigned skirmish with some Germans, he and his companions cut the branches from some trees

and decked them as tropaea, after which he invented a new military decoration.119 I would argue that the Virgilian portrayal of living tropaea was not inspired by historical reality, represented solely by Caligula; instead, this whimsical historical “reality” was itself inspired by the Virgilian portrayal.

However, the suspension of votive offerings from trees has been attested in various eras from antiquity to the present day, and (as shown by Dafni, 2002) in diverse regions

114 Cf. spolia capta fixa in stipitibus (Varro Bimarcus fr. 61 Bucheler). 115 ad quercum pastoribus sacram (Liv. 1.10). 116 Plut. Marcell. 8 (cf. Romul. 16). 117 In the Forum Augusti, the statue of Romulus bore the tropaeum of Acron in the same way that Aeneas’ statue bore Anchises (Ov. Fast. 5.565). A denarius of P. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus in 50 BC (Crawford no. 493/1) shows Marcellus holding out his tropaeum to Jupiter Feretrius. 118 Drusus: Marcomannorum spoliis et insignibus quendam editum tumulum in tropaei modum excoluit (Flor. 2.3); Germanicus: in modum tropaeorum (Tac. Ann. 2.18); congeriem armorum (22). Juvenal describes the battlefield tropaeum (10.33) as the pitiful fruits of the soldier’s labour, though this does not necessarily reflect contemporary reality. Picard (1957) sharply distinguishes the upright tropaeum from heaps or other arrangements of arms. 119 truncatisque arboribus et in modum tropaeorum adornatis (Suet. Cal. 45). 120 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

including Siberia, West Africa, Russia, Japan, Mexico and much of the Middle East. In Patagonia in 1843 Charles Darwin saw a tree growing on a hill in prominent isolation, which the locals considered sacred. Countless threads were tied onto it, either on their own or for suspending offerings of bread, meat and cloth.120 There is some evidence for such treatment of sacred trees in ancient Greece, though the role of suspended votives in early cult is difficult to judge.121 In the Odyssey, Aegisthus gives thanks for his success both by burning offerings on altars and by “hanging up” gold and fine cloths. Unless this contradicts the well-known lack o f temples elsewhere in Homer, the hanging was probably done in a grove.122 Herodotus says that when Xerxes encountered a plane-tree in Lydia that he considered especially beautiful, he not only adorned it with gold robes and ornaments but appointed a hereditary custodianship. In Apollonius, the Golden Fleece was hung upon a huge oak in a grove of Ares.123 These Greek sources, though scant, imply a folkloric topos of splendid golden objects being hung on trees. It is tempting to see some such image behind Virgil’s golden bough.

The decoration of sacred trees was a historical reality in Rome, though not in military contexts, and probably underlies the many references to votives on trees in Latin poetry. The most famous grove, that of Diana at Aricia, contained longas ... saepes that were covered in threads, as well as many votive tablets.124 Ovid’s description of the imaginary ancient oak cut down by Erysichthon as clad in votive ribbons, tablets and garlands probably reflects Roman practice.125 An imperial visitor to the grove at Aricia fed one particularly fine tree draughts of wine.126 Such offerings seem to have been conventional but not obligatory. Probably the only exception is a tradition associated with the Vestal Virgins, whose ritual actions were strictly prescribed rather than voluntary. A very ancient lotus known as the Capillata / Capillaris (“Hairy Tree”) got its name because the Vestals hung their hair upon

120 Suspended offerings were the main, but not the only, form of votive: drinks could be poured into a hole or cigar-smoke blown into the branches, and the bones of sacrificed horses lay all around (Darwin, 1913 [1860], 98). 121 One late source (Philostr. Imag. 2.33) explicitly says that the oracular oak at Dodona in Greece was dressed with garlands and sacred fillets, but this is of doubtful value. 122 Od. 3.273-74, with Dowden (2000) 115-16. 123 Hdt. 7.31; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.123-66. 124 licia dependent longas velantia saepes (Ov. Fast. 3.267). On votive tabellae, see n.134 (below). On the nature and importance of this cult site, see Green (2000, 2007). 125 vittae mediam memoresque tabellae / sertaque cingebant, voti argumenta potentum (Ov. Met. 8.744-45). 126 This was Nero’s stepfather Passienus Crispus, who loved the tree so much that he kissed it, hugged it, and gave it wine (Plin. HN 16.91). A liquid offering also seems to be meant at Hor. C. 3.22.5-8, where Horace promises to offer boar’s blood every year to Diana’s pine tree. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 121

it.127 The tying ofritual tokens normally worn on the body (vittae, licia, capilli) might suggest anthropomorphism, since the sacred tree is dressed or adorned.128 Another tokenistic or symbolic form of suspended offering, which more explicitly evokes the ancient piety of a simpler past, is the spoils of the hunt.129 This caught the imagination of Roman poets, who imagine hunters, especially in rural and primitive societies, as hanging pelts and antlers in temples or upon sacred trees.130 Statius (Theb. 9.585-92) invents a famous quercus consecrated by Diana for worship, which was laden with hunting weapons and animal trophies. In pastoral poetry and art, suspended votives belonged to the picturesque piety of rural cult, as did the shade of dense trees.131 By choosing to portray the tropaeum as a form of tree-reverence, Virgil combined military triumphalism with much the same rustic and archaic qualities which he saw in grove-cult. This in turn helped to make the Aeneid an aetiology for Rome’s virtuous character.

4. Faunus’ Oleaster

The most important sacred tree in the Aeneid, and the most enigmatic object of tree-reverence, is the oleaster of Faunus which intrudes upon Aeneas’ climactic duel with Turnus. The Trojans had destroyed it, but the remaining stump clings to Aeneas’ hurled spear as Turnus prays it will. This would have cost Aeneas the duel, if an outraged Venus had not plucked the spear out again. This incident is significant for tree-reverence in the Aeneid for two reasons. One is the apparent conflict between native and Olympian supernatural powers; the other is the cult formerly paid to the oleaster.

The tree-stump episode is usually interpreted as dramatising the usurpation o f the native Italian gods by the more powerful Olympian pantheon.132 More than two opponents are involved: Turnus prays not only to Faunus, but also to “the most excellent Earth” (optima ... Terra, 12.677-78), recalling Virgil’s nationalist assertions in the Georgics that Italy’s soil is the best. Furthermore, when Venus intervenes on behalf of her son, she does so out of

127 Capillata: Plin. HN 16.85; Capillaris: Fest. 50.12 L. 128 On the treatment of trees as images of gods, see Botticher (1856) 101-06. 129 It was customary to nail up stags’ horns in temples of Diana (Plut. Quaest. Rom. 4 = Mor. 264c); the one on the Aventine contained an ancient set of cow’s horns instead (Liv. 1.45). 130 si qua tuis umquam pro me pater Hyrtacus aris / dona tulit, si qua ipse meis venatibus auxi / suspendive tholo aut sacra ad fastigia fixi (Aen. 9.406-08); Statius likewise presumes that Moorish hunters would hang up the pelt of a lion either from a roof or in an ancient grove (seu iam sub culmine fixus / excubat, antiquo seu pendet gloria luco, Theb. 9.194-95). 131 In Theocritus, Spartan maidens promise to hang a garland of flowers and pour oil on a plane- tree inscribed “Worship me: I am Helen’s tree” (σέβευ μ'· Έ λένας φυτόν είμι, Id. 18.43-48). 132 e.g. Putnam (1965) 89-90; Thomas (1988) 269-70; Maggiulli (1995) 135; Skinner (2007) 87-88; Fantham (2009) 61-62. 122 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

irritation because the Italian nympha Juturna has intervened on behalf of her brother (786­ 87). Thomas notes that Aeneas is only able to pluck his spear from the stump after initial resistance, as with the Golden Bough. The spear, as part o f Vulcan’s arma, is the stuff of epic, whereas Faunus’ oleaster asserts Italian roots (We might even see them as replaying the defeat of native Saturnians by Ennian hexameters). Whereas Silvanus had provided a venue for Venus to help Aeneas spontaneously, Faunus presents an awkward and undignified obstruction, requiring Venus to help Aeneas overcome it. Yet once extracted, the spear which strikes Turnus a crippling blow is ingens, arboreum (“huge and tree-like”, 888), as if Aeneas has now claimed the supernatural might of the sacred stump, just as Jupiter has promised that Aeneas’ descendants will take on native religious traditions and bloodlines.

Virgil tells us that the felled oleaster had been paid cult by locals, but in an unexpected form. Sailors who escaped drowning would hang their clothes and other offerings upon it (Aen. 12.766-72):

forte sacer Fauno foliis oleaster amaris hic steterat, nautis olim venerabile lignum, servati ex undis ubi figere dona solebant Laurenti divo et votas suspendere vestis; sed stirpem Teucri nullo discrimine sacrum sustulerant, puro utpossent concurrere campo. hic hasta Aeneae stabat .

It would be interesting to know whether Virgil knew of the speech of Lysias in which the occupying Spartan army was blamed for the removal of a sacred olive-stump.133 Yet the obvious question, which has plagued commentators, is why survivors of shipwreck at sea should hang offerings on a tree for Faunus, a god of the grove. Roman shipwreck survivors did commonly offer tokens of themselves in temples and shrines, including the clothes from their backs, but these were deposited in temples.134 Servius ad loc. guesses

133 Lys. 7.7. Virgil’s Trojans are actually said to have “removed” the “base” or “root” (stirpem ... abstulerant, 770-71), like Lysias’ Spartans, even though the stirps is present at line 781. 134 On Roman shipwrecks, see Huxley (1952). Sailors offered their clothes (Hor. C. 1.5.13-16; Virg. Aen. 12.768-69), their hair (Petr. Sat. 103; Juv. 12.81-82), or votive paintings (tabulae / tabellae pictae) which probably depicted the shipwreck (Cic. Nat. D. 3.89; Juv. 12.27-28; the non-votive pictures often kept as begging aids (Phaedr. 4.22.24-25; Pers. 1.88-90; Juv. 14.301­ 02) certainly showed the survivor in his crisis. Votive paintings also commemorated survivors of grave illness (Tib. 1.3.27-28) or of childbirth (Ov. Fast. 3.268, where the tabella may also have been written texts), and later authors imagine painted memorials for other happy endings ([Virg.] Catalepton 14.5-6; Apul. Met. 6.29). The medium of the portable painting probably gained exultant overtones from being used for self-promotion in sacred spaces (e.g. Plin. HN 35.3-4, 52) and in the various forms of pompa. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 123

that the sailors give votives to Faunus because they prayed to him, as their deus patrius, to bring them home. However, Faunus was never a civic deity and all other known offerings to him, including the sheep slaughtered by Latinus, were rustic. Dyson (2001) prefers to see the association of shipwreck with Faunus, who had a shrine on Tiber Island, as a token of Aeneas’ eventual death by drowning in the river Numicus. This does not explain why Faunus is chosen as the deity of the tree-stump rather than, for example, Tiber or Numicius.

The offerings to the oleaster are enigmatic, since there is no nautical Faunus. On the dramaturgical level, nautical votives are attached to the tree because the whole battle between the Trojans and Italians in book 12 is set on the seashore near the Tiber estuary,135 and we are thereby reminded that Aeneas’ journey in the poem ends on the shore of Latium, just as it began on the shore of Libya. Although there has been no better answer to Servius’ question, we may move beyond it onto a more symbolic level, in view of Virgil’s keen interest in tree-reverence itself. Ferenczi has observed that Faunus’ oleaster is introduced by a reworked line from the Georgics, and furthermore that it is almost the sole indication that Virgil’s Latins knew of sailing, an activity sometimes considered post-lapsarian. (The native Italians may not inhabit the idyllic Golden Age of Saturnus, but they do share several features with it).136 Ferenczi argues that the oleaster betokens the idyllic agrarian simplicity of Latinus’ world, now perverted into the world of war. On this reading the Trojans, who are survivors of stormy seas, with grim irony destroy what they should have revered.137 I agree that Virgil uses the oleaster as an anchor of ancient tranquillity amidst the new turbulence of international warfare (represented by the Trojan War, the conflict between Aeneas and the Latins, and finally between Aeneas and Turnus). Moreover, while Faunus and the sailors are incompatible, they share the same function of establishing religious continuities between the Italy of Aeneas and that of Augustus. In his equivalent of Homer’s duel scene, Virgil transforms an ordinary wild fig tree into a sacred wild olive possessed by Faunus and Tellus. Somewhat arbitrarily, he recasts a form of votive offering well known in his own day (those of shipwreck survivors) to resemble tree-worship, just as he did with military votives in his adaptation

135 There are seagulls overhead (litoreas ... aves, Aen. 12.248) and sand underfoot (fulva ... harena, 276; spargit . ungula rores / sanguineos mixtaque cruor calcatur harena, 339-40; fulva . harena, 741). 136 See Moorton (1989). 137 forte sacer Fauno foliis oleaster amaris (Aen. 12.766); cf. infelix superat foliis oleaster amaris (Ge. 3.314); Ferenczi (2000). 124 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

o f the tropaeum. More fundamentally, Faunus’ oleaster reinforces the myth of the cult of the living tree, which the Trojans disregard at their peril. Despite the disappearance of the actual tree, the root lives on, just as traces of tree-cult (according to Virgil) live on in modern Roman culture.

Tree-cult certainly lived on in Roman epic, since Virgil’s successors enthusiastically take his cue in “naturalising” the equipment-laden tropaeum by identifying it with the cult o f the living tree. Where it recurs in later poems, it is cast as deriving from the worship o f a quercus oak dedicated to one of the gods. After Virgil, these Waffenbaume appear in Lucan, Statius and Claudian.138 Virgil and Claudian probably mean felled tropaea, but Lucan and Statius definitely do not. Lucan compares Pompey to a tottering oak, clinging to life; its glory days are gone forever. But it remains an object of cult, bedecked with “the spoils of an ancient people and the sacred gifts of generals”.139 The spoils on the Pompey-oak make it a hybrid: on the one hand, it resembles the tree-trunk tropaeum erected on the battlefield; on the other, because it is ancient and still living, it is also an ancient cult-object, a monumental tree. Statius’ Tydeus, on the battlefield itself, bedecks an ancient quercus growing on a hill with a quantity of his enemies’ broken arm a; when Claudian’s Proserpina enters the grove containing the remains of the defeated Giants, every tree is a living tropaeum dressed in the panoply of a fallen monster.140 Virgil and his successors connect the tropaeum with tree-worship in all the various ancient places and peoples they describe. Even though this was an antiquarian fantasy, divorced from historical Roman cult practice, it provided an evocative blend of military grandeur and rugged, primitive piety: the living heritage of the landscape literally covered in glory. As a consequence of Virgil’s emphasis on tree-worship in his anthropology of early Rome, the Waffenbaum claimed a place both in Latin epic and in the Roman national myth.

DUNSTAN LOWE

138 Botticher (1856) 71-76. At Aen. 10.423 Pallas promises to hang spoils on oak of Tiber; at Luc. 1.136-38 Pompey is described as an arms-hung oak; at Stat. Theb. 2.707-12 Tydeus hangs arms on an oak; at Claud. In Rufin. 1.338-39 Stilicho promises to dedicate a spoils-hung oak. 139 qualis frugifero quercus sublimis in agro / exuvias veteris populi sacrataque gestans / dona ducum (Luc. 1.136-8); sola ... colitur (143). 140 Stat. Theb. 2.704-12 ; Claud. De Rapt. 3.344-52. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 125

Bibliography

C. L. Babcock (1961) ‘The Role of Faunus in Horace, Carmina 1.4’, TAPhA 92, 13-19.

R. G. Basto (1984) ‘The Swords of Aeneid 4’, AJPh 105, 333-38.

B. Bergmann (1992) ‘Exploring the Grove: Pastoral Space on Roman Walls’, Studies in the History o f Art 36, 21-46.

M. Bettini (2008) ‘Weighty Words, Suspect Speech: Fari in Roman Culture’, Arethusa 41, 313-75.

K. Botticher (1856) Uber den Baumkultus der Hellenen undRomer, Berlin.

D. Briquel (1993) ‘Les voix oraculaires’ in O. de Cazanove and J. Scheid (eds), Les bois sacres: Actes du Colloque International du Centre Jean Berard, Naples, 77-90.

O. de Cazanove (1993) ‘Suspension d’ex-voto dans les bois sacres’ in O. de Cazanove & J. Scheid (eds), Les bois sacres: Actes du Colloque International du Centre Jean Berard, Naples, 111-26.

O. de Cazanove (2007) ‘Pre-Roman Italy, Before and Under the Romans’ in J. Rupke (ed.), A Companion to Roman Religion, Malden MA, 43-57.

F. Coarelli (1993) ‘I luci del Lazio: la documentazione archeologica’ in O. de Cazanove and J. Scheid (eds), Les bois sacres: Actes du Colloque International du Centre Jean Berard, Naples, 45-52.

A. B. Cook (1904) ‘Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak (Conclusion)’, CR 18, 360-75.

A. Cooley (2009) (ed. & comm.), Res Gestae Divi Augusti, Cambridge.

M. Crawford (2001) Roman Republican Coinage, Cambridge.

A. Dafni (2002) ‘Why are Rags Tied to the Sacred Trees of the Holy Land?’, Economic Botany 56, 315-27.

C. Darwin (1913 [1860]) A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World, London.

A. A. Donohue (1988) Xoana and the Origins o f Greek Sculpture, Atlanta, GA.

P. F. Dorcey (1992) The Cult of Silvanus: A Study in Roman Folk Religion, Leiden.

K. Dowden (2000) European Paganism: The Realities o f Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, London. 126 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

J. T. Dyson (2001) King ofthe Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil’s Aeneid, Norman OK.

R. E. Fantham (1996) ‘Religio ... dira loci: Two Passages in Lucan de Bello Civili 3 and Their Relation to Virgil’s Rome and Latium’, MD 37, 137-53.

R. E. Fantham (2009) Latin Poets and Italian Gods, Toronto.

D. C. Feeney (1998) Latin Literature and Religion, Cambridge.

A. Ferenczi (2000) ‘The End of Latinus’ World: The Wild Olive Episode of the Aeneid (12.766-790)’, AAntHung 40, 93-100.

J. G. Frazer (1890) The Golden Bough1, vol. 1, London.

M. Gaifman (2005) Beyond Mimesis in Greek Religious Art: Aniconism in the Archaic and Classical Periods (PhD thesis), Princeton.

M. Gaifman (2010) ‘Aniconism and the Notion of “Primitive” in Greek Antiquity’ in J. Mylonopoulos (ed.), Divine Images and Human Imaginations in Ancient Greece and Rome, Leiden, 63-86.

S. M. Goldberg (1995) Epic in Republican Rome, New York.

J. Gow (1895) ‘Horatiana’, CR 9, 302-04.

E. Gowers (1993) The Loaded Table, Oxford.

E. Gowers (2011) ‘Trees and Family Trees in the Aeneid, ClAnt 30, forthcoming.

C. M. C. Green (2000) ‘The Slayer and the King: Rex Nemorensis and the Sanctuary of Diana’, Arion 7, 24-63.

C. M. C. Green (2007) Roman Religion and the Cult ofDiana at Aricia, Cambridge.

T. Habinek (2005) The World of Roman Song, Baltimore.

P. R. Hardie (1994) (ed. & comm.), Virgil: Aeneid Book IX, Cambridge.

J. Henderson (1997) ‘The Name of the Tree: Recounting Odyssey XXIV 340-2’, JHS 117, 87-116.

S. Hinds (1998) Allusion and Intertext, Cambridge.

J. D. Hughes (1983) ‘How the Ancients Viewed Deforestation’, Journal o f Field Archaeology 10, 435-45.

H. H. Huxley (1952) ‘Storm and Shipwreck in Roman Literature’, G&R 21, 117-24. Dunstan Lowe - Tree-Worship, Sacred Groves and Roman Antiquities in the A eneid 127

H. Jennings [anonymously] (1890), Cultus Arborum: A Descriptive Account o f Phallic Tree Worship, London.

B. Jordan, T. Perlin (1984) ‘On the Protection of Sacred Groves’ in A. Boegehold et al. (eds), Studies Presented to Sterling Dow: Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies Monographs 10, Durham NC, 153-59.

P. Kruschwitz (2002) (ed. & comm.), Carmina Saturnia Epigraphica: Einleitung, Text und Kommentar zu den Saturnischen Versinschriften. Hermes-Einzelschriften 84, Stuttgart.

M. Leigh (1999) ‘Lucan’s Caesar and the Sacred Grove: Deforestation and Enlightenment in Antiquity’ in P. Esposito and L. Nicastri (eds), Interpretare Lucano, Naples, 167-205.

M. Leigh (2000) ‘Primitivism and Power: The Beginnings of Latin Literature’ in O. Taplin (ed.), Literature in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Oxford, 288-310.

C. S. Mackay (2000) ‘Sulla and the Monuments: Studies in His Public Persona’, Historia 49, 161-210.

G. Maggiulli (1995) Incipiant Silvae Cum Primum Surgere: Mondo Vegetale e Nomenclatura della Flora di Virgilio, Rome.

W. Mannhardt (1875) Wald- und Feldkult Vol. 1: Der Baumkultus Der Germanen Und Ihrer Nachbarstamme: Mythologische Untersuchungen, Berlin.

R. Meiggs (1982) Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Oxford.

R. F. Moorton (1988) ‘The Genealogy of Latinus in Virgil’s Aeneid’, TAPhA 118, 253-59.

R. F. Moorton (1989) ‘The Innocence of Italy in Virgil’s Aeneid’, AJPh 110, 105-30.

C. Newlands (2004) ‘Statius and Ovid: Transforming the Landscape’, TAPhA 134, 133-55.

K. Newman (1967) The Concept o f Vates in Augustan Poetry. Collection Latomus 89, Brussels.

E. Orlin (2007) ‘Augustan Religion and the Reshaping of Roman Memory’, Arethusa 40, 73-92.

H. C. Parker (1993) ‘Romani numen soli: Faunus in Ovid’s Fasti’, TAPhA 123, 199-218.

M. Pasco-Pranger (2002) ‘A Varronian Vatic Numa? Ovid’s Fasti and Plutarch’s Life of Numd in D. S. Levene and D. P. Nelis (eds), Clio and the Poets: Augustan Poetry and the Traditions o f Ancient Historiography, Leiden, 291-312.

J. H. Philpot (1897) The Sacred Tree, London. 128 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

G. C. Picard (1957) Les Trophies romains, Paris.

P. Pouthier & P. Rouillard (1986) ‘Faunus ou l’iconographie impossible’ in L. Kahil, C. Auge, and P. Linant de Bellefonds (eds), Iconographie classique et identities regionales, Paris, 105-09.

M. C. J. Putnam (1965) The Poetry ofthe Aeneid: Four Studies in Imaginative Unity and Design, Cambridge MA.

J. D. Reed (2007) Virgil’s Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid, Princeton.

V. J. Rosivach (1980) ‘Latinus’ Genealogy and the Palace of Picus (Aeneid 7.45-9, 170-91)’, CQ 30, 140-52.

N. Roux (2008) ‘The Virgilian Tradition in Lucan’s Representation of Italy’, Virgilius 54, 37-48.

C. Santini (1999) ‘Lucus horridus e codice etimologico in Lucano’ in P. Esposito and L. Nicastri (eds), Interpretare Lucano, Naples, 207-22.

J. Scheid (1993) 'Lucus, nemus: Quest-ce qu’un bois sacre?’ in O. de Cazanove and J. Scheid (eds), Les bois sacres: Actes du Colloque International du Centre Jean Berard, Naples, 13-20.

D. Segarra Crespo (2007) ‘El Silencio de los Faunos’, Revista de ciencias de las religiones 19, 143-53.

M. Skinner (2007) ‘Venus as Physician: Aen. 12.411-19’, Virgilius 53, 86-99.

C. Smith (2007) ‘The Religions of Archaic Rome’ in J. Rupke (ed.), A Companion to Roman Religion, Malden MA, 31-42.

A. Sperduti (1950) ‘The Divine Nature of Poetry in Antiquity’, TAPhA 81, 209-40.

M. E. Taylor (1955) ‘Primitivism in Virgil’, AJPh 76, 261-78.

R. F. Thomas (1988) ‘Tree-Violation and Ambivalence in Virgil’, TAPhA 118, 261-73.

E. Ulback (1934) ‘The Sacred Groves of Latium and Their Divinities’, CJ 29, 658-62.

M. W. Visser (1903) Die nicht menschengestaltigen Gotter der Griechen, Leiden.

E. H. Warmington (1936) (ed. & trans.), Remains o f Old Latin vol. 2, Cambridge, MA.

L. Weniger (1919), Altgriechischer Baumkultus, Leipzig.

L. P. Wilkinson (1969) The Georgics ofVirgil: A Critical Survey, Cambridge.

T. P. Wiseman (2006) ‘Fauns, Prophets, and Ennius’s Annales’, Arethusa 39, 513-29.

T. P. Wiseman (2008) Unwritten Rome, Exeter. Aeneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the C arlias of Ugolino Verino

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 22 November 2008*

There are more Latin epics surviving in the world than most people ever imagine. When Virgil is more or less disappearing under a flood of publications and even Statius has inspired four monographs in English in the last five years, it is hard to believe that there exists such a huge number of poems often unappreciated and unread. As Hofmann’s survey, stretching over five centuries and three continents, shows, Neo-Latin epic is a vast field.1 To choose among these epics must almost inevitably be arbitrary and personal: for me in particular the choice of studying Ugolino Verino’s Carlias is a deeply personal one. Legend, in the shape of an unpublished and unattributed type-written document, allegedly produced by great-aunt Marguerite, has it that Ugolino Verino is one of my ancestors.2 What you are reading represents the beginning of a long-term project: I have begun a rough English translation of Nikolaus Thurn’s 1995 text, which, along with his 2002 commentary, makes the Carlias a serious candidate for study for the first time.3 In the long run, I hope the Carlias will become well known: it is a fantastic, rich, allusive and complex text from a fascinating period. My aim in this paper is to provide a brief introduction to the poem and focus on a case study of the first book’s reception of Virgil. In line with my current work on vision in epic, the paper focuses on the arrival of Charlemagne and his companions at the court of King Justinus in Epirus, and Verino’s re-reading of the visuality of Virgil’s first book, as he turns hidden viewing into open

*I would like to thank Andy Fear, Anna Mastrogianni and members of the Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies for encouraging me in this new direction and Nikolaus Thurn for sending me his text and commentary; audiences in Cambridge, Keele and London offered much helpful advice and constructive criticism. Philip Hardie read and immensely improved this: I lack a sufficiency of panegyrical tropes through which to convey my gratitude. 1 Hofmann (2001). 2 Verini (unpublished). 3 The text in this paper is from Thurn. I apologise for the roughness of the translation, which is my own and very much unpolished and with no literary pretensions. 130 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

spectacle and the ekphrasis of inner sorrow about the past into an appropriation of Greek history to reflect on the text’s present.

First, some background. Ugolino Verino (1438-1516) was writing in Florence at the end of the fifteenth century; according to his biographer, Lazzari, Verino was the third- best poet of quattrocento Florence, after Landino and Poliziano, and the only one who wrote an epic.4 He was the pupil of Cristoforo Landino.5 The Carlias, which is Verino’s Hauptwerk according to Thurn, is an epic extolling the exploits of Charlemagne, dedicated to King Charles VIII of France.6 Verino was part of the flourishing literary circle of Florence at this time; a literary exchange between him and Poliziano is extant; Marsilio Ficino wrote him a letter of consolation on the death of his son.7 He was perpetually struggling for patronage in his attempt to support a large family: as well as writing prolifically, he taught various Medici offspring, probably including the future Pope Leo X, and also held down an administrative job.8 In his Herculean struggles to obtain patronage, he wrote a poem on the death of Cosimo de’ Medici, a panegyric for Ferdinand and Isabella on the expulsion o f the Moors from Spain, the Carlias, optimistically aimed at King Charles VIII of France, who unfortunately died before it was completed, and a set of epigrams for King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, for which he actually obtained some money. Tragically, when his brother Salvestro was bringing the money back, he was captured by the Venetians who were helping Pisa to besiege Florence; the money was lost and his brother was condemned to the galleys.9 Verino did, however, produce a great deal of poetry.

The Carlias is an epic in fifteen books written in Latin hexameters, an intriguing mixture of classical allusion, with many similarities to Petrarch’s Africa and other Christian epic,10 Italian poetry (he includes what is essentially the whole of Dante’s Divine Comedy) and medieval romance; Christ is cheek to cheek with Calliope; the first crusade meets the Chanson de Roland. Six different versions o f the poem or parts o f the poem exist; the first full version was produced in 1480; the changes between versions are themselves fascinating, but for now I shall concentrate on the later revised version (R), the “finished” text, as Thurn (1995) presents it.

4 Lazzari (1897) 211. Lazzari’s work draws on the seventeenth century biography of Bartolozzi, as well as independent research in the libraries of Florence. 5 Lazzari (1897) 34. 6 Thurn (2002) 13. 7 Lazzari (1897) 44. 8 Thurn (1995) 11; Lazzari (1897) 99-100. 9 Lazzari (1897) 106. 10 Although Petrarch’s Africa was relatively unknown at this point, Verino refers to him in Epigrammata 3.27. Thurn (2002) 100. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 131

In his prose preface to the Carlias, Verino makes a specific claim to be following in the footsteps of Homer, Virgil and Dante: huius sum gesta heroico carmine prosecutus, poetarum principes Homerum, Virgilium compatriotamque meum Dantem immitatus (“I have followed the deeds of this man in a heroic song, imitating those princes among poets, Homer, Virgil and my compatriot Dante”).11 Lazzari, writing in 1897, dismisses this as a “conventional paying of tribute at the shrine of Virgil” and is keen to play up Verino’s originality, sincerity and Christianity.12 However, the proem in fact sets Christ up as a Muse, not using Christianity to reject classical literary values, but fusing the two:13

Proelia magnanimi canimus victricia Carli armaque Francorum nullis impervia terris edomitumque orbem Longobardosque feroces impiaque horrendis miserorum Tartara poenis Elysiumque nemus civesque ardentis Olympi. insuetum per iter ferimur, nullisque priorum orbita currenti monstrat vestigia signis. Christe, potens rerum, aeterni sapientia patris, aspira coeptis, vatem nec, diva, precantem, Calliope, spernas (res ardua), pande recessum Parnasi memorans breviter compendia rerum. (1.1-11)

(“We sing the victorious battles of great-hearted Charlemagne and the weapons of the Franks unfelt in no land and the earth tamed and the fierce Longobardi and impious Tartarus with the horrific punishments of the wretched and the Elysian grove and the citizens of burning Olympus. We are carried on an unaccustomed road, and by no marks of former men does the path show tracks to the runner. Christ, powerful over all things, in the wisdom of the eternal Father, breathe inspiration into my beginnings, and, divine Calliope, don’t spurn your poet (a difficult thing) who prays to you; open the secret places of Parnassus, relating in brief an abridgement of huge things”).

11 Preface, 7-9. 12 For instance Lazzari (1897) 152, on the panegyric to Ferdinand and Isabella. 13 The Carlias follows in the footsteps of many Latin poems which melded together Christianity and the appropriation of antiquity. For a sense of this tradition see Green (2006) and Gregory (2006). 132 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Structurally, this proem has much in common with the proem o f the Aeneid: a seven line statement o f subject matter, followed by a four line request for inspiration. The first word o f the Aeneid, arma, is put in place at the beginning o f the second line, clearly expressing a Virgilian agenda. Thurn takes this further by suggesting that proelia Carli in the first line is the equivalent o f virum.1 Virgil’s invocation is not to Apollo but to an unnamed Muse: Musa, mihi causas memora (Aen. 1.8) and Verino’s Calliope is also memorans. Christ becomes a sort of Ovidian god, breathing inspiration into his beginnings, and consubstantial with the Holy Spirit (Ovid’s inspiring gods are unnamed; Ovid Met. 1.2-3).

Even if we take only a brief look at the plot of the Carlias, it becomes clear that the Aeneid was a very important model, and that other classical literature is mixed in with elements from the tradition of stories about Charlemagne and the crusades. To briefly summarise the plot o f the Carlias: Satan stirs up a storm which wrecks Charlemagne’s fleet at Buthrotum, where he is welcomed and invited to tell his story (book 1). He narrates his crusade and the storming of Jerusalem, the conquest of Egypt, Babylon and Persia (books 2-4). Stuck at Buthrotum, the Franks mend their fleet, go hunting, and celebrate games (book 5). Charlemagne goes down to the underworld where he briefly recapitulates Dante, travelling through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise (books 6-8). He then undertakes a military campaign against the Longobards in Italy and Spain, including a river-battle for the hero Rinaldus (10.526-615), heroes called Hector and Ajax, a battle of Cannae, a battle with the Moors, whose general is called Hasdrubal. Finally, Charlemagne is crowned king in Rome and returns to Aachen to celebrate a triumph.

Let us look in more detail at the correspondences between the first book o f the Aeneid and the first book o f the Carlias:

Aeneid 1 Carlias 1

Proem (1-11). Proem (1-11).

Juno’s anger; she stirs up a storm (12-80). Satan’s Anger; he stirs up a storm (12-58).

Storm; Aeneas’ despair; storm calmed Storm; Charlemagne’s prayer; storm calmed by Neptune (81-156). by Christ (59-124).

The Trojans land; Aeneas encourages The Franks reach land; Charlemagne them (157-207). encourages them. (125-64).

14 Thurn (2002) 102. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 133

Aeneid 1 Carlias 1

They eat (208-22). They eat and sleep (165-79).

Venus supplicates Jupiter (223-304).

Aeneas meets Venus in disguise; she Charlemagne and Orlando meet a hermit explains the situation (305-417). who explains the situation (180-246).

Aeneas enters Carthage in concealment Exchange of messangers between and watches the busy building work Charlemagne and Justinus (247-76). (418-40).

Aeneas looks at the pictures of the Trojan The women of Buthrotum watch war on the walls of the temple of Juno Charlemagne and his men approach (ekphrasis) (441-93). (teichoscopy) (277-301).

Aeneas watches Dido and Ilioneus Description of central square and mosaics exchanging diplomatic speeches (ekphrasis) (302-34). (494-578).

Encouraged by Achates, Aeneas reveals Charlemagne and Justinus exchange himself to Dido (578-642). greetings (335-360).

The substitution of Cupid for Ascanius (643-94).

The banquet (695-722). The banquet (361-395).

Libation and song of Iopas (723-47). Song of Amon (396-447).

Dido asks for Aeneas’ story (748-56). Justinus suggests that Charlemagne tells the story of his conquests the next morning after a good night’s sleep (447-58).

From the table it is clear just how closely the structure ofthe Carlias follows the Aeneid in book 1. There is a sense in which Verino is concerned to correct the Aeneid, both in the flow of the wider narrative and in the details. His re-working gives us a fascinating insight into how he read the Aeneid: given that the Carlias is a panegyrical work and we have external evidence (e.g. the prose preface) that he hoped for concrete and financial reward 134 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

from its dedicatee, his corrections of Virgil’s complexities remove the elements which cause problems for a straight panegyrical reading of the Aeneid. Charlemagne cannot even be tainted by the faintest suggestion of defeat; in the storm he prays but does not despair:

Heroum postquam vires rectoris et omnem imperiosa maris tempestas vicerat artem, Francorum princeps geminas ad sydera palmas substulit ac nudo supplex ita vertice fatus: (1.97-100)

(“After the imperious tempest of the sea had conquered the strength o f the heroes and all the skill o f the helmsman, the leader o f the Franks raised twin palms to the stars and spoke thus in supplication with his head bare”).

The phrase geminas ad sydera palmas /substulit clearly links Charlemagne’s prayer to Aeneas’ despair at 1.94-101:

extemplo Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra; ingemit et duplicis tendens ad sidera palmas talia voce refert: ‘o terque quaterque beati (1.92-94)

(“Immediately the limbs of Aeneas are dissolved in cold; he groans and raising his twin palms to the stars speaks in this way: ‘O three times and four times more blessed .. .’”).15

As is well known, the phrase solvuntur frigore membra is also used to describe the death of Turnus in the second last line of the poem (12.951) and Aeneas’ speech is a lament that he did not die at Troy. Only the demonstration ofpietas remains in the Carlias (1.101-13). For the same reason there is a narrative not of defeat but success in books 2-4. Much also is changed by the Christian context: Satan simply causes the storm himself; the political machinations of Olympus are gone; the ambivalence of Neptune’s intervention, for instance, in which he is concerned with reinforcing his own power over his realm, rather than helping Aeneas, becomes Christ answering a prayer, clearly taking responsibility for calming the storm and blaming Satan for starting it:16

15 The text of the Aeneid is from Conte (2009) and the translations are my own. 16 Gregory (2006) explores this phenomenon in other epics, leading up to Milton’s Satan. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 135

Ecce adsum; depone metum; confide! Vetamus ulterius rapidis Sathan sevire procellis. (1.119-20)

(“Behold, I am present; put aside your fear; trust! We forbid Satan to rage any further with swift storms”).

Both panegyric and Christian agendas coincide in the matter of Dido and the love story o f Aeneid 1; the complexities of gender and sexuality in Aeneid 1 are entirely effaced. Venus’ appearance as an attractive and disguised woman is replaced with a hirsute monk; Dido’s problematic status as female ruler is transformed into a stately alliance between men. Two smaller examples will show how Verino goes about “correcting” Virgil. First the reaction of Charlemagne himself to the feast provided by Justinus brings out the implicit Virgilian criticism of Carthaginian luxury in such a way as to securely distance the hero from involvement in it:

Ipse throno residens Carlus sublimis in alto tanta laboratae damnat miracula cenae et tacitus carpit tanti ludibria luxus. sublatis promunt primis bellaria mensis, nec biferi tot habent florentia culta Damasci Hesperidumque horti vigilataque mala dracone. (1.386-91)

(“Charlemagne himself, sitting sublime on a high throne, condemns the great miracles of the hard-toiled dinner and silently criticises the mockery of such great extravagance. When the first courses have been removed they offer dessert, Nor did the flourishing plots of twice-bearing Damascus possess so much, nor the gardens of the Hesperides, with their apples watched over by a dragon”).

In the Aeneid there is a simple description of the luxury of Dido’s preparations but no explicit authorial comment or suggestion of Aeneas’ reaction to it:

at domus interior regali splendida luxu instruitur, mediisque parant convivia tectis: arte laboratae vestes ostroquesuperbo ... (1.637-39) 136 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(“But the splendid interior of the house was drawn up with royal luxury, and they prepared banquets in the central hall: there were covers worked with skill and proud purple . ”)

Most emphatic, however, is the end of book 1 where the beginning of the hero’s narrative is displaced from an all night affair, obsessively absorbed by an already love-sick Dido, to a sensible project for the next day: sopierat mortale genus, cum ductor Achivum, ‘tempus’, ait, ‘placidae, rex optime, fessa quieti membra dare insomnem nec totum ducere noctem. crastina puniceis cum lux invecta quadrigis lampade Phoebea caelo discusserit astra retuleritque diem, procerum miranda tuorum gesta renarrabis nobis tantosque labores Europa atque Asia domitis terraque marique undique permenso spatio victricibus armis primaque foelicis repetes exordia pugnae’. (1.446-58)

(“The mortal race was sound asleep, when the leader o f the Achivi said: ‘It is time, O best of kings, to give our tired limbs to peaceful rest and not spend the whole night unsleeping. Tomorrow when the light, brought in on scarlet chariots, will have scattered the stars from sky with its Phoebean lamp and brought back the day, you will tell again to us the wondrous deeds of your leaders and the labours so great, with Europe and Asia tamed, both on land and at sea and everywhere that space measured out by conquering arms, and you will seek again the first beginnings of that fortunate fight’”).

Verino regulates time and measures it in the ordered arrangement of his books and his characters, contributing to the sense of an ordered cosmos ruled over by God and the beneficent king. The universal success and victory of Charlemagne’s conquering labours is set in opposition to Aeneas’ sufferings and defeats. Compare the end of Aeneid 1:

nec non et vario noctem sermone trahebat infelix Dido longumque bibebat amorem, multa super Priamo rogitans, super Hectore multa; Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 137

nunc quibus Aurorae venisset filius armis, nunc quales Diomedis equi, nunc quantus Achilles. ‘immo age et a prim a dic, hospes, origine nobis insidias’ inquit ‘Danaum casusque tuorum erroresque tuos; nam te iam septima portat omnibus errantem terris et fluctibus aestas’. (1.748-56)

(“Unfortunate Dido was drawing out the night with varied talk and drinking long of love, asking much about Priam, and about Hector much; now she asks what arms did the son of the Dawn wear when he came, now what sort of horses Diomedes had, now how great was Achilles. ‘Come now and tell us from the first beginning, my guest, the traps of the Greeks and the disasters of your people and your wanderings; for now the seventh summer carries you wandering through all the lands and waves’”).

infelix Dido compares to the fortunate fights ofCharlemagne (foelicis pugnae); Charlemagne’s great labours (tantosque labores) in conquering most of the known world look back to Virgil’s proem and the labores which Aeneas suffers at the hands of Juno (1.10).

The relationship of the present to the past is an important theme for both the Aeneid and the Carlias: that there is no simple way of reading Verino’s attitude to Virgil becomes clear from the choice of Buthrotum to replace Carthage. Justinus is king of Epirus and his capital is Buthrotum; he is inhabiting the landscape not of Aeneid 4 but Aeneid 3. There Buthrotum is the site of Helenus and Andromache’s empty replica of Troy which Aeneas visits, only to reject it in favour of a new start in Latium.17 Here Buthrotum is represented as in some senses a “new Rome”; look briefly, for instance, at the speech of the monk:

rex est lustinus Romanae stirpis alumnus: nam lachrymosa Gethes cum ferret bella Latinis milliaque Hesperiam decies centena Gelonum impeterent quassisque ruens Concordia muris barbarico preberet iter cursumque furori, misit in has furtim tunc Caesar Honorius oras

17 For more detail on Aeneid 3, see Bettini (1997). 138 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Archadium natum, qui post successit Aminctae Aepiri regi. generum nam legerat illum lustinae natae, soboles cum nulla virilis esset; et ex isto iusti fluxere nepotes. (1.227-36)

(“The king is Justinus, sprung from Roman roots: for when Gethes bore tearful war against the Latins and ten times a hundred thousand of the Gelones attacked Hesperia and Concordia was destroyed along with the shaken walls, and opened a way and a route for barbarian rage, Caesar Honorius then furtively sent Arcadius his son to these shores, who after that succeeded king Aminctas of Epirus. For he had chosen that man as a son-in-law, married to his daughter Justina, when he had no male offspring. And from that union flowed legitimate descendants”).

Buthrotum has sprung from the ruins of Rome destroyed by the barbarians in the same way that Rome sprang from the ruins of Troy destroyed by the Greeks. The narrative of escape, marriage and the acquisition of a kingdom is Aeneas’ story as much as Arcadius’. There is a suggestion, then, that Charlemagne is the founder of a new Roman empire which significantly breaks from the old, that the attempt to reproduce classical literature in the same form is as empty as Helenus’ attempt to rebuild a miniature Troy in exile. Just as Virgil creates himself in the image of a Roman Homer, yet distances himself and his characters from Homeric and Greek qualities and attitudes, so Verino fashions himself as a Florentine Virgil, yet distances Charlemagne from a straightforward acceptance of Romannness.

The ekphrasis and teichoscopy of Carlias 1 similarly re-work the Aeneid and I hope the comparison will reveal interesting insights into power and vision in both poems. I want to begin with some thoughts about looking and being looked at. To simplify a complex subject, the theory of “the gaze”, as described in Laura Mulvey’s seminal article ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, holds that the viewer is in a position o f power over the object o f his gaze.18 Gender is also central: to look is male and to be looked at is female. The cinematic spectator, hidden in the darkness of the cinema, watches through the mediation of the camera and in doing so turns what he watches into an object. Responses to Mulvey

18 Mulvey (1975). Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 139

have emphasised female spectatorship, the importance of race and class, even questioning the psychoanalytic basis of the theory, but theories of “the gaze”, whether Mulveyan or from other discourses, originating with thinkers such as Sartre and Foucault, have been extraordinarily influential.19 Vision has become a hot topic in the study of the Aeneid: Syed (2005) uses the gaze to think about audience identification and Roman identity; Smith (2005) has convincingly shown the importance of vision in the Aeneid, though I am less convinced by his argument that this is in opposition to a distrust in the power o f words and reflects the movement of Augustan society away from oratory and towards the Power o f Images, the title of Zanker’s seminal discussion of Augustus’ visual propaganda.20 Most recently Reed (2007) has brilliantly explored the legacy of the Hellenistic Epitaph on Adonis by Bion of Smyrna and the visual dynamics of our engagement with the death of young heroes in the Aeneid.

As part of my current project on vision in epic, I have explored the phenomena of teichoscopy and ekphrasis. Both form an important part of my conception of the epic gaze: the former (viewers, often women, looking from the walls at heroes) often offers a feminine, oppositional perspective, while the latter is associated with the authorising divine gaze.21 The perspective of the viewers on the walls is similar in some respects to that of the divine audience: they look down from above, and see the grand narrative unfold. Unlike the gods, though, they are disempowered and passive watchers. It is no surprise then that they are largely female: old men and those too young to fight are also there, but the viewpoints of women are often privileged. Do they offer an anti-epic agenda, a feminine perspective? Tragic concerns with death, abandonment and family bonds meet elegiac tendencies to look at the bodies of heroes in quite the wrong way. Yet do they ultimately reinforce the masculine code o f epic, providing the necessary audience to create kleos and validate virtus? Teichoscopy is a key narrative tactic, a visual catalogue and an exploration of internal viewing (and narrating) which has not been studied in the obsessive detail spent on other ways of visualising epic, in particular ekphrasis.

An important angle on ekphrasis which has been less thoroughly explored, at least in ancient epic, focuses on ekphrasis and the other, the way that ekphrasis brackets off and objectifies women, places, stories, and the interactions between the ekphrastic mode and the imperial gaze, such as that of Silius’ Hannibal as he looks at Rome, operating the

19 For a lucid introduction see Fredrick (2002) 1-30. 20 Zanker (1988). On Smith see Rogerson (2007). 21 Lovatt (forthcoming) is an exploration of the theme of vision in epic from Homer to Nonnus, with chapters on the divine gaze, the mortal gaze, the prophetic gaze, teichoscopy, ekphrasis, heroic bodies, the assaultive gaze and monumentality. 140 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

penetrative gaze of the would-be conqueror. This imperial gaze is particularly important in the Carlias. As a text that produces the conquest of the infidel East and brings it back West, the Carlias can make uncomfortable reading in a multicultural society. Can this approach offer a new perspective on the linked episodes of teichoscopy and ekphrasis at Carlias 1.277-339?

The hallmark of the visual narrative in Aeneid 1 is concealment. When Aeneas enters Carthage, he takes on the role o f the viewer rather than the viewed. Venus hides him in a cloud:

at Venus obscuro gradientis aere saepsit, et multo nebulae circum dea fudit amictu, cernere ne quis eos neu quis contingere posset molirive moram aut veniendi poscere causas. (1.411-14)

(“But Venus hedged them as they went with dark mist, and the goddess poured a great veil of cloud around them, so that no one could see them or touch them or create delay or ask the reasons for their coming”).

From the cloud he watches the people of Carthage building their city and Virgil continues to emphasise the fact that he cannot be seen:

infert se saeptus nebula (mirabile dictu) per medios, miscetque viris neque cernitur ulli. (1.439-40)

(“He bore himself onwards hedged by cloud (miraculous to say) through the middle, and mixed with the men and was not seen by anyone”).

He next finds his way to the temple of Juno in which he gazes at the pictures of his own Trojan past, and then watches the arrival of Dido from the temple. When Ilioneus and the other Trojans arrive they want to break out o f the cloud but are still too uncertain:

obstipuit simul ipse, simul percussus Achates laetitiaque metuque; avidi coniungere dextras ardebant, sed res animos incognita turbat. dissimulant et nube cava speculantur amicti quae fortuna viris . (1.513-17) Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 141

(“Aeneas himself is struck dumb, Achates simultaneously stricken by joy and fear; they eagerly burn to join right hands, but unknown things disturb their minds. They pretended and watched from the hollow veil of cloud to see what the fortune o f the men would be ...”)

Finally, when they hear Dido’s friendly response, Achates suggests that Aeneas leave the cloud and reveal himself:

his animum arrecti dictis et fortis Achates et pater Aeneas iamdudum erumpere nubem ardebant. prior Aenean compellat Achates: ‘nate dea, quae nunc animo sententia surgit? omnia tuta vides, classem sociosque receptos. unus abest, medio in fluctu quem vidimus ipsi submersum; dictis respondent cetera matris’. vix ea fatus erat cum circumfusa repente scindit se nubes et in aethera purgat apertum. restitit Aeneas claraque in luce refulsit os umerosque deo similis; namque ipsa decoram caeseriem nato genetrix lumenque iuventae purpureum et laetos oculis adflarat honores: quale manus addunt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo argentum Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro. (1.579-93)

(“At these words brave Achates and father Aeneas, who had been burning to break out o f the cloud now for a long time, were eager in their minds. First Achates addressed Aeneas: ‘Child o f the goddess, what feelings rise in your mind now? You see that everything is safe, that your fleet and allies have been welcomed. one ship is not here, which we saw ourselves sunk in the middle o f the sea; the other things fit with your mother’s words’. Scarcely had he said these things when suddenly the cloud poured around cut itself and dissolved into the open sky. Aeneas stood out and shone in the clear light and his face and shoulders were like a those of a god. For his mother herself 142 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

had breathed grace upon the hair of her son and the bright light of youth and joyful honours on his eyes: just as when hands add grace to ivory, or when silver or Parian stone is surrounded by yellow gold”).

At this moment Aeneas makes the transition from subject to object of the gaze, from being hidden in a cloud to being a literal source of light. Smith22 reads this Aeneas as a voyant-visible, in the phenomenological theory of Merleau-Ponty, someone who both sees and is seen, is both voyeur and spectacle. He brings out the similarities between Aeneas’ concealment and revelation and Venus’ earlier disguise and epiphany, and the strong erotic undertone in both. To quote Smith (31): “Aeneas’ sudden appearance transforms him from invisible voyeur to voyant-visible, and his attractiveness evokes a compassionate gaze that will lead to an emotional connection with Dido . The power of vision and visual deception seen here will characterise and qualify the relationship of these lovers, just as deception and vision are aspects of Aeneas’ relationship with Venus”. The gulf between divine and human vision is mirrored by the gulf between readers and characters, while Aeneas takes on a semi-divine, semi-readerly role as he watches Carthage, hidden, like the viewer in the cinema, seeing but not able to be seen. There is scale of viewing power which starts with Jupiter and works down through Venus, and Aeneas, to Dido, the object of all our gazes. Dido, it seems is ultimately vulnerable, while Aeneas is protected. Yet when Aeneas appears, he is objectified even more clearly by the image which compares him to a work o f art, an artefact created by his mother (as well as the poet). Now Dido looks at him, and the wound that he carries away from his encounter with Dido leads to her averting her gaze like a polluted god in their encounter in Aeneid 6, and, I would argue, ultimately to his over-identification with the dead Pallas, and too-passionate killing of Turnus. The viewer is both powerful and vulnerable.

Let us turn now to the arrival of Charlemagne at Buthrotum and the operation of the gaze in this very different passage:

lamquepropinquabant portis, cum protinus omnis visendi studio pubes sese extulit urbe. ipsae etiam matres innuptaque turba, puellae, velato vultu plenis procul ora fenestris extendunt Carlumque oculis digitisque secuntur, ostenduntque senes pueris et nomina pandunt

22 Smith (2006) 26-31. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 143

heroum, ut seri possint meminisse nepotes: ‘En Namus, eloquio qui Nestora vinceret! Ille est Clarus, alter Diomedes. Alter Ulixes ille est Uggerius, nisi quod procerior aequo est. ille autem, cuius sevis innitibus auras implet et horrendos efflat de naribus ignes, - stat sonipes pictus radiantia tergora guttis Pestanis acrique ortus de gente Pironis perque viam obliquus saltat cervice superba, - Amonis soboles, alter Telamonius Aiax: non animo minor est, non robore corporis impar. cuius parva latent sub torva lumina fronte, Ponterius rector Ganus Magantius astus. en ille Orlandus, Francorum magnus Achilles alter et Alcides et regi proximus armis! sed longe ante omnes maiestas regia Carlum ornat, et ex ipsis celestis fulgurat ignis luminibus, miramque auget reverentia formam, Phoebeoque acies hebetat splendore videntum ’. (1.277-301)

(“And now they were approaching the gates, when straightaway all the young men brought themselves out of the city with their keenness to see. Even the mothers themselves and that unmarried crowd, the girls, with their faces veiled, stretch out their heads far from the full windows, and follow Charlemagne with their eyes and their fingers and the old men show the heroes to their boys and reveal their names, so that their descendants to come might be able to remember: ‘Behold Namus, who conquered Nestor in eloquence! That man is Claron, another Diomedes. Another Ulysses is that man, Uggerius, except that he is taller than average. But he, whose horse fills the air with his savage neighing and breathes horrendous fire from his nostrils - the loud-hoofed horse stands with dapples painted on his glowing back, risen from the fierce race of Paestan Piro, and leaps obliquely through the street with his head proud - 144 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

is the offspring of Amon, another Telamonian Ajax: nor is he less in courage, nor is he unequal in strength of body. The man whose small eyes lie hidden under fierce brows is the Ponterian ruler, cunning Ganus Magantius. There, behold, Orlando, the great Achilles of the Franks, both another Hercules and nearest to the king in his weapons. But far above all, royal majesty adorns Charlemagne, and celestial fires shine from his eyes themselves, and reverence increases his marvellous shape, and with the splendour of Phoebus he blunts the gaze of those looking’”).

So, far from hiding his hero in a cloud, Verino evokes the tradition of the epic teichoscopy to achieve the greatest possible impact o f display. Gender is clearly important; the young men can leave the city but women must remain hidden; in their enthusiasm to see they lean out o f the full windows, like Valerius’ Medea protruding only too far from the walls as she watches Jason ever more greedily; even so, the girls remain veiled so that the approaching heroes cannot see them. Epic heroism is here very much a spectacle. Yet despite their fascination, these women nevertheless have power over the heroes through description and memorialisation: they preserve the glory of heroism both for their own listeners and descendants, and for a more general posterity in the shape of the readers of epic: “the old men [and by implication also the women] show the heroes to their boys and reveal their names, so that their descendants to come might be able to remember”. It is significant that the internal audience is envisaged as male: the mothers are not telling their daughters in order to make them fall in love with epic heroes, but their sons in order to display exempla for them to follow. From the content of the mothers’ description, comparing the heroes to various Homeric heroes, it is clear that the primary intertext for this passage is lliad 3.161-242.23 In Iliad 3, too, a knowledgeable woman identifies the heroes for men: Helen is called to the walls to watch the duel between Paris and Menelaus, and Priam calls her over to point out the leaders of the Greeks. Helen points out Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax and Idomeneus. Here Helen has power over the representation of the war; further, at the

23 Thurn (1994) 952 comments on the various identifications: that of Orlando with Achilles, Rinaldo with Ajax, and Namus with Nestor are easily understood; Uggerius (Oggiero) as Odysseus he explains through comparison with the vernacular Oggiero romance. Thurn (2002) also points out that Verino could have read the well-known translation of the Iliad by Politian, though he may have read Greek in any case. There is little similarity here to the extended Callimachean narrative of Antigone’s guardian in the Thebaid. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 145

moment when she is called away to the walls by Iris, she is busy weaving a tapestry o f the events o f the war:

ή δε μέγαν ιστόν ύφαινε, δίπλακα πορφυρέην, π ο λέας δ' ένέπασσεν άέλθους Τρώων θ' ίπποδάμων καί Αχαιών χαλκοχιτώνων, ους εθεν εϊνεκ' επασχον υπ' Άρηος παλαμάων. (3.125-28)

(“She found her weaving in the women’s hall a double violet stuff, whereon inwoven were many passages of arms by Trojan horsemen and Achaeans mailed in bronze - trials braved for her sake at the war-god’s hands”). (trans. Fitzgerald)

However, unlike with the women in the Carlias, her account is not allowed to stand on its own: Antenor corroborates her identification of Odysseus, bringing in another early episode of the Trojan war when he and Menelaus went to Troy to attempt to negotiate Helen’s return. The comment that Uggiero is like Odysseus except that he is taller than average (nisi quod procerior aequo est) alludes to Priam’s and Antenor’s comments in the Iliad about the height of Odysseus (Il. 3.193-94 and 209-11). Like Statius’ Antigone, and Valerius’ Medea, Helen, too, displays deeply personal concerns in her watching: desire for Menelaus, regret that she left her former life, as well as worries about her brothers Castor and Pollux whom she cannot see (the narrator points out that this is because they are dead). She is clearly separated from the narratorial voice by her lack of up-to-date knowledge. Verino’s impersonal multiple narrators, on the other hand, are more clearly identified with the narrator and with epic tradition itself in their concern to create lasting

24 memories.24

There is a strong contrast between the movements of the Homeric teichoscopy and that of the Carlias. While Homer’s begins with Agamemnon (with Achilles absent, undisputably the most powerful) and tails off on Idomeneus and the absent Castor and Pollux, Verino’s builds up to a clear climax with the figure of Charlemagne. The Homeric comparisons peak with Orlando as Achilles, and Charlemagne seems to go beyond the Iliadic teichoscopy: he is literally above comparison (sed longe ante omnes). He stands

24 Thurn (2002) 143-52 is more interested in the tactics of using Homeric equivalence than in issues of viewing. This passage opens up Homeric intertexts for the rest of the poem, equating knights with heroes, and acting as an interpretive key to later Homeric allusion. 146 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

on his own as a figure who goes beyond the Homeric scheme, becoming more like Turnus in the catalogue of Italians (Aen. 7.783-802).25 And far from being vulnerable in his position as object o f the gaze, he blazes like the sun and bedazzles his viewers; in Verino’s extraordinarily striking imagery, he is like a powerful natural force, a thunderbolt (fulgurat) or the sun (Phoebeo splendore) and blunts the gaze of the viewers (acies hebetat videntum).26 This is a more active and threatening version of Aeneas revealed to Dido, who is surrounded by the light o f youth (claraque in luce refulsit, 1.588; lumenque iuuentae purpureum ... adflarat, 1.590-91). Thurn (2002, ad loc.) points out that there are an extra four lines added to this description in the earlier version L:

Quin toto heroas collo supereminet omnes, Qualis Amicleos fratres ipsumque Pelasgae Aesonidem navis rectorem et Thesea magnum corporea mole Alcides superabat et armis. (1.301b-e)

(“Indeed he towered above all the heroes by a head, Just like Hercules used to outdo the Amiclean brothers, the son of Aeson himself, leader of the Pelasgian ship, and Theseus great, both in the size o f his body and with his weapons”).

Here a sidestep into the Argonautic tradition (possibly inspired by the rediscovery of Valerius Flaccus, first edition in 1474) sets up a different dynamic to the Achilles / Agamemnon contrast between Orlando and Charlemagne, casting the latter rather as the truly old-style heroic Hercules. It also brings us back to the end of the lliad 3 passage, through the mention of Castor and Pollux, the last poignantly absent figures of Helen’s teichoscopy. But the reference to Dido as Diana (Aen.1.501) in supereminet omnes perhaps complicated these lines, turning our Aeneas on display rather into a Dido figure to be watched.27 Instead the later version ends with the blazing visual power of Charlemagne,

25 Virgil’s catalogue has already been evoked by the resonance at 1.277-78 of Aen. 7.812-13, in which the Latins pour out to wonder at Camilla. I am grateful to Philip Hardie for this point. 26 This whole passage is almost certainly drawing on the tradition of describing the adventus of the emperor in the Panegyrici Latini. Rees (forthcoming) reads this tradition in conjunction with the discourse of epic spectacle. For instance, there is sun imagery: sed neque Sol ipse neque cuncta sidera humanas res tam perpetuo lumine intuentur quam vos tuemini. (“But neither the sun itself nor all the stars gaze on human affairs with such perpetual light as you gaze”). Pan. Lat. 8(4).4.3; see also ibid. 11 (3).11. 27 Thurn (2002) 150-52 insists this is the primary reference, arguing against Ratkowitsch, who prefers to see a link to the earlier Charlemagne poem known as the Aachener Karlsepos. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 147

which Thurn ad loc. suggests is a cosmic allegorical allusion. However it ties in equally well with the blazing visual power of both Achilles, when he turns the tide of battle around the Patroclus at Iliad 18.202-29, and Aeneas, when he returns to battle at Aeneid 10.260-75. In neither case is the hero compared to the sun as such (Aeneas is Sirius, while Achilles is a flare or a watch-fire). But this display o f visual power portrays Charlemagne as a hero returning to battle, about to have an aristeia, rather than an Argonaut just setting out on his voyage. In contrast to this, the reference in acies hebetat to the moment in Aeneid 2 when Aeneas is about to kill Helen, and Venus intervenes and allows him to see like a god, suggests Charlemagne’s semi-divine status, while drawing out a further contrast between Aeneas, who fails, flees and despairs, and Charlemagne who dazzles and conquers.

By splitting the visual games of Aeneid 1 into teichoscopy and ekphrasis, the Carlias interrogates the relationship between Homer and Virgil. The Virgilian ekphrasis itself gives a Trojan take on the Homeric material; it has been shown how the scenes are focalised through Aeneas, how he interprets the display of Trojan defeat as representative of sympathy for his suffering:28

sunt hic etiam sua praemia laudi, sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fam a salutem. (1.461-63)

(“Here already are the rewards o f praise and the tears o f things; mortal suffering touches the mind; lose your fear; fame will bring some safety for you”).

Verino’s teichoscopy looks rather to the tactics of the Sibyl’s prophecy in Aeneid 6 in its explicit mapping of the heroes in the current text onto archetypes from the Homeric poems:

non Simois tibi nec Xanthus nec Dorica castra defuerint; alius Latio iam partus Achilles, natus et ipse dea; nec Teucris addita luno usquam aberit, cum tu supplex in rebus egenis quas gentis Italum aut quas non oraveris urbes! causa mali tanti coniunx iterum hospita Teucris externique iterum thalami. ______(6.88-94) 28 For a summary of scholarship on the passage see chapter 1 in Putnam (1998). 148 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(“You won’t lack a Simois or a Xanthus or a Greek camp; another Achilles has already been born in Latium, also born of a goddess; nor will Juno be absent anywhere, added to the Trojans, when you as a suppliant in desperate circumstances will beg for the help o f all the tribes o f Italy and all the towns! The cause of such great evil for the Trojans will again be a stranger bride, and again a foreign marriage bed”).

If Buthrotum is a Roman version of false Troy, the Franks stand in for the Iliadic Greeks as well as the Trojans o f the Aeneid, complicated by the fact that Epirus is also Greek. The Carlias avoids identifying the Franks with the defeated Trojans by giving the material of Virgil’s ekphrasis a Greek twist, eliminating the Trojan references and putting the Homeric connection into the separate teichoscopy. The ekphrasis remains, an inset narrative, with important interpretive connections to the wider story, but the viewer is the reader o f the text, not Charlemagne himself; it provides a model for Charlemagne’s conquests, but there are fewer possibilities for conflicting interpretation based on different focalisers. Let us look at the passage:

Dum sic alternis pubes Butrotia dictis Belgarum signat proceres, ad limina ventum est regia. campus erat medio latissimus urbis marmoreis stratus tegulis, ac plurima circum buxus erat platanusque virens Daphneaque laurus, et late vernis mulcebant questibus auras assuete volucres circumque supraque volare; quin etiam aurato nitidae de fornice lymphae Hippocrinei stillabant fluminis instar. Editiore loco nascentis lampada Phoebi regia marmoreis spectabat nixa columnis, undique quam Pario cingebat porticus ingens marmore suffulta et paries emblemate pictus: a leva Xerxem frenantem Nerea ponte atque Athon effossum siccoque haerentia fundo flumina et exhaustos Persis potantibus amnes Palladaque iratam subversis pinxit Athenis Tuscus Alexander, Choi successor Apellis, Cecropidasque feros pelago pensare ruinas, Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 149

pulsus ut invidia (populus sic premia reddit) hostilem Graius ductor migravit in urbem. a dextra magnus Pellei seminis heros Persepoli capta flammis ultricibus aulam Persarum urebat; mox fulminis instar ad Indos pervolat affectans ortum transcendere solis. parte ferox alia super atri tergore barri squamosa tectus serpente in bella ruebat Porus et in pugnam extremos ductabat Eoos. nec procul Euphrates mediam Babylona secabat. pro foribusque aulae liventi corpore princeps exanguis fedabat humum: sine honore iacebat, cui victus quondam bellanti cesserat orbis. Haec mira Etruscus depinxerat arte Philippus. (1.302-34)

(“While thus the young of Buthrotum pointed out the leaders of the Belgae with their exchanged words, the procession arrived at the royal threshold. There was an extremely broad square in the middle of the city, laid with marble tiles, and around were many box trees and flourishing plane trees and the laurel o f Daphne, and widely the resident birds were soothing the breezes with their spring-time complaints and around and above they flew; yes, even shining waters were trickling from a golden arch, the image o f the Hippocrene river. From a higher place, the palace looked towards the torch of rising Phoebus, resting on marble columns, and a huge portico surrounded it on all sides, supported on Parian marble, and a wall coloured with mosaic. On the left, Tuscan Alexander, the successor of Choan Apelles, depicted Xerxes reining in the sea with a bridge, M ount Athos dug up, rivers sticking with a dry bed, waters drained by the Persians drinking, Pallas angered by Athens overturned, the fierce Cecropians atoning for the ruins at sea, how the Greek leader, expelled by envy, 150 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(thus the people rewarded him) migrated to a hostile city. On the right, the great hero o f the seed o f Pella was burning the palace of the Persians at captured Persepolis with avenging flames; soon like a thunderbolt he flies across to the Indies, aiming to climb beyond the rising of the sun. In another part, fierce Porus, covered with a scaly serpent, was rushing into battle on the back of a black elephant, and was leading the men of the extreme East into the fight. Not far away, Euphrates was cutting through the middle of Babylon. The bloodless prince with his livid body was befouling the ground before the doors of the palace; he was lying without honour, now to whom once as he fought the whole conquered world had yielded. These things the Etruscan Philippus29 had depicted with wondrous skill”).

Charlemagne is not represented as looking at the images at all: in fact the only viewer in this passage is the palace itself which watches (spectabat) the sun-rise, even if only metaphorically. The ekphrasis substitutes two images for Virgil’s one: each mixes defeat and victory; first Xerxes is set up for a fall when Pallas takes vengeance for the destruction of Athens; Themistocles is responsible for victory at the battle of Salamis, but then his victory is soured by exile, with the ultimate irony that he ends up in Persia. In the other panel, the Greeks conquer the world, with the sack of Persepolis and another oriental leader about to be defeated in the person of Porus (complete with elephant). However, Alexander’s attempt to become a living god, as in the image o f a thunderbolt, leads only to death at Babylon (is this a reference to his too enthusiastic assumption o f the trappings of Persian kingship?) The despotism ofXerxes who turns the world upside down is set against Alexander, called magnus heros (323); the representation of Alexander as a thunderbolt going beyond the Eastern limit of the world (mox fulminis instar ad Indos /pervolat affectans ortum transcendere solis, 325-26) links back to the imagery at the end of the teichoscopy of Charlemagne as both thunderbolt and sun. The narrative is one of West versus East, which clearly foreshadows Charlemagne’s conquests in books 2-4 of Jerusalem, Egypt and Babylon. The Greeks defeated and then coming back for vengeance are an image for Christendom evicted from the Holy Land and then retaking it, and taking the battle

29 There are clearly many other things going on in this passage; due to lack of time and space I have not been able to explored Walter de Chatillon’s Alexandreis or other works in the voluminous Alexander tradition. On this see Stoneman (2008). Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 151

to the heartland o f the infidel.30 While Virgil’s ekphrasis gives us a taste o f the sorrow to come in Aeneas’ tale, Verino’s provides a historical model for the fantastic world conquest achieved by his Charlemagne, but one tempered by corruption and death. It is no surprise then that he should figure his Franks as Greeks, given that the Trojan war can also be read as a victory of West over East. The names of the artists, called Alexander (319) and Philip (334), also make an equation between art and image, between the creator and the conqueror, which presumably suggests that his own conquest of both the Roman and Greek past is equivalent to Charlemagne’s success in subduing the known world. These names also (almost certainly) refer to Alessandro Botticelli and Filippino Lippi respectively, identifying Verino’s own conquest of Greco-Roman epic with the fame and success of Florence’s best known painters. The anachronism of the Florentine artists set amongst the heroic furniture of the problematic imperial conquest suggests an identification of Florentine art and culture as an alternative to military success, perhaps even evoking an association between Florence and those defeated by Rome, who instead achieve their own cultural victory: as Anchises says at Aeneid 6.847-48: excudent alii spirantia mollius aera / (credo equidem), vivos ducent de marmore vultus (“Others will strike out breathing bronze more softly (for so I believe), others will lead out living faces from marble”).

Thurn (2002, ad loc.) suggests that this ekphrasis is not modeled on Virgil, but instead on Silius Italicus 6.653-716, in which Hannibal views the temple at Liternum, decorated with images of the First Punic War; he destroys the images and plans to replace them with his own images of victory and revenge from his current campaign.31 While Silius offers us victory and revenge, the second ekphrasis is only in Hannibal’s mind; Verino literalises these competing images and complicates them with competing messages. Fowler points out the way that the ekphrasis of the First Punic war is viewed both from a Roman and a Carthaginian perspective. From a Roman perspective, we know that Hannibal’s erasure o f the images will remain futile; Carthage, like Troy, will fall (and on the negative reading of Silius these implications carry over to Rome). Thurn suggests that the moral message of Verino’s ekphrasis is one of the futility of victory and the triumph offam a (158-59). As with Achilles in Ovid, Alexander’s greatness comes to nothing; his remains are as small as

30 This sort of two-way conquest and recapture is rather unstable as panegyric. However: it is worth remembering that Alexander’s empire only lasted as long as he lived, and the Crusader kingdom was also long gone by the time of Verino. Contemporary political resonances may well be at play: Thurn suggests Cosimo de’ Medici’s exile in 1433 as a potential referent for Themistocles’ exile. 31 See Fowler (2000). 152 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

anyone else’s.32 But this passage does have strong Virgilian overtones: not just the frescos in the temple o f Juno are at play, but the body o f Priam read as Pompey in Aeneid 2:

haec finis Priami fatorum, hic exitus illum sorte tulit Troiam incensam et prolapsa videntem Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum regnatorem Asiae. iacet ingens litore truncus, avulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus. (2.554-58)

(“This was the end o f the fate o f Priam, this allotted death removed him, as he watched Troy burnt and Pergama overturned, once the proud ruler of Asia with so many peoples and lands. He lies a huge trunk on the shore, the head torn away from his shoulders and a body without a name”).

The dead body of Alexander is the figure of Pompey conquered by Caesar. There is a clear echo in sine honore iacebat, / cui victus quondam bellanti cesserat orbis. (“He was lying without honour, now, to whom once as he fought the whole conquered world had yielded”). Perhaps Verino underscores the ultimate irrelevance of military achievements, by drawing a correspondence between the successful Alexander and the defeated Priam. Another way to think about these paired images of defeat and victory might be to set against one another the frescos in Aeneid 1 showing the defeat of Troy and the description o f the battle o f Actium in Aeneid 8, climax of the shield of Aeneas, and showing the victory of Rome over the East, the victory ofAugustus. This implicates Augustus as Alexander (and Hannibal), another ruler, whose empire is destined to come to an end. Is Charlemagne ultimately the same? Or is the difference at stake that between Greece and Rome? Epirus is a Greek state, but Justinus a Roman king; even so his luxury is represented as too oriental for the taste of Charlemagne. More positively, in the context of panegyric, perhaps the passage suggests that Greece, the kingdom of ratio, nevertheless needs the military strength and vigour of the Franks.

These ekphrases capture and objectify defeated foreign enemies and successful victors alike. The cosmic tradition exemplified by both the shield of Achilles and the shield of Aeneas is evoked by Xerxes’ attempts to overturn the world order and Alexander’s

32 Thurn (2002) ad loc. mentions Juvenal Satires 10.173 but Ovid Metamorphoses 12.615-17 seems even more apposite. Helen Lovatt - A eneid 1 and the Epic Gaze in the Carlias of Ugolino Verino 153

transformation into an image of a thunderbolt, aiming to transcend the world, but coming only too literally down to earth. Hand in hand with panegyric goes prescriptive praise. W e are given no sense o f the audience response to these ekphrases: they are simply the backdrop for the meeting of Charlemagne and Justinus.

Conclusion

We have begun to look at the visual and intertextual play ofVerino’s teichoscopy and ekphrasis in Carlias 1 in some detail. Perhaps the two scenes work against each other: Greek victory evoked in the Iliadic teichoscopy; victory mixed with defeat in the ekphrases; heroes glorified and semi-divinised in the teichoscopy; the hubris of ambition and imperial rule on display in the ekphrases. The combination of the two offers an uncomfortable reading o f the Aeneid and at best prescriptive praise for the object of the panegyric. Or perhaps Epirus is an empty Greece (or indeed an empty New Rome), obsessed by defeat and futility, dreaming only about the past, just like Virgil’s Buthrotum, which the conquering Franks will transcend like Aeneas transcends Carthage.

This engagement with the Carlias is the beginning of a long journey for me. Thurn’s commentary, a learned and extraordinarily rich collection of material, is nevertheless one volume on fifteen books of epic. My tentative investigation of these passages suggests that the Carlias is an extremely complex reading of Virgil, even before you take into account all the other influences at play. Just as Flavian epic has gone beyond its epigonal status as material only read for its reworkings of Virgil, to meet a growing fascination with the texts in their own right, I hope that this brief introduction to Verino will encourage others to explore new territory in Latin epic.

University o f Nottingham HELEN LOVATT 154 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Bibliography

M. Bettini (1997) ‘Ghosts of Exile: Doubles and Nostalgia in Virgil’s parva Troia (Aeneid 3.2 9 4 ffJ, ClassAnt 16, 8-33. G. B. Conte (ed.) (2009) P. Virgilius Maro, Aeneis, Berlin. D. Fowler (2000) ‘Even better than the real thing: A tale o f two cities’, in D. Fowler (ed.), Roman constructions, Oxford, 86-108. D. Fredrick (ed.) (2002) The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power and the Body, Baltimore. R. Green (2006) Latin Epics ofthe New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator, Oxford. T. Gregory (2006) From Many Gods to One: Divine Action in Renaissance Epic, Chicago. H. Hofmann (2001) Von Africa uber Bethlehem nach America: Das Epos in der neulateinischen Literatur’, in J. Rupke (ed.), Von Gottern und Menschen erzahlen: Formkonstanzen undFunktionswandel vormoderner Epik, Stuttgart, 130-82. A. Lazzari (1897) Ugolino e Michele Verino, Turin. H. V. Lovatt (forthcoming) The Epic Gaze: Vision, Gender and Narrative in Ancient Epic, Cambridge. L. Mulvey (1975) Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, Screen 16.3, 6-18. M. C. J Putnam (1998) Virgil’s Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid, New Haven CT. J. D Reed (2007) Virgil’s Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid, Princeton. R. Rees (forthcoming) ‘The look of praise: ekphrasis and the emperor in Late Antique panegyric’, in H. V. Lovatt and C. Vout (eds), Epic Visions. A. Rogerson (2007) Review of Smith, The Primacy ofVision in Virgil’s Aeneid, CR 57, 389-91. R. A Smith (2005) The Primacy ofVision in Virgil’s Aeneid, Austin, TX. R. Stoneman (2008) Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend, New Haven. Y. Syed (2005) Vergil’s Aeneid and the Roman Self: Subject and Nation in Literary Discourse, Ann Arbor MI. N. Thurn (1994) ‘Die Carlias des Ugolino Verino und ihre volksprachlichen Vorbilder’, in R. Schnur (ed.), Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Hafniensis: Proceedings o f the Eighth International Congress o f Neo-Latin Studies, Copenhagen, 12 August to 17 August 1991, Binghamton NY, 947-55. N. Thurn (1995) Ugolino Verino Carlias: Ein Epos des 15. Jahrhunderts erstmals herausgegeben, Munich. N. Thurn (2002) Kommentar zur ‘Carlias’des Ugolino Verino, Munich. M. Verini (unpublished) The Family ofVieri of Verini. P. Zanker (1988) The Power o f Images in the Age o f Augustus, Ann Arbor MI. Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 17 January 2009

“A poet, I argue ... is not so much a man speaking to men as a man rebelling against being spoken to by a dead man (the precursor) outrageously more alive than himself. A poet dare not regard himself as being late, yet cannot accept a substitute for the first vision he reflectively judges to have been his precursor’s also”.

Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (1975, 19).

For Bloom, the poet is (any) one of the English Romantic poets; the precursor is Milton. Yet Bloom’s analysis ofthe belatedness of Romantic poetry is deliberately presented as one which might apply to any poetic system, including classical ones. In this paper, I would like to change Bloom’s terms of reference; for Milton, read Virgil; for the Romantic poets, read the Flavian epicists.1 However, I do not wish here to explore this belatedness entirely on Bloom’s Freudian terms, exploring the twin drives towards imitation and originality prompted by response to a factitious author (although that might be interesting and profitable),2 but rather to think of the relationship between Flavian ephebes and their Augustan precursor in more general terms of reception. In particular, I would like to examine the way in which two of the Flavian poets, Statius and Silius Italicus, negotiate their relationship with Virgil and Virgilian poetry, and more specifically I want to try to

1 In reality the scope of this paper will be even narrower, so that Virgil means, more or less, Virgil’s Aeneid and the Flavians will be limited to Statius and Silius Italicus. Furthermore, analysis of Statius will be limited to the Thebaid and Silvae. However, I would contend that the principles of this paper could be extended chronologically forwards and backwards within the Flavian period to encompass Valerius Flaccus and the Achilleid. Implicit in this is a strong contrast in intertextual character between Flavian epic and Neronian poetry; see below, ‘Refusing the challenge’. 2 For the concept of “facticity”, see Bloom’s later work, e.g. Bloom (1989). 156 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

confirm the notion that both of these Flavian poets are shaping the Virgilian tradition in quite idiosyncratic and distinct ways.

But first, some words ofwarning. We must acknowledge that this is pretty well trodden ground these days. Since the publication o f a number o f ground-breaking pieces in the early nineties, there has been an enormous amount o f work done on Flavian epic and especially on the relationship between such poetry and Virgil.3 Earth-shattering revelation in this field no longer seems a possibility: rather this paper will hope to build on the work of its predecessors, perhaps rather in the manner o f a Statius or a Silius, and offer a different, nuanced way of looking at Virgilian reception in the Flavian period. We should offer a further caveat: it is in the nature o f Statius and Silius as epic poets to look back to the Aeneid in particular. Therefore it will become apparent in this discussion that the words “A en e d and “Virgil” will become near synonyms. Perhaps more could (or should) be done to highlight the importance ofVirgil’s earlier poetry for the Flavians, but that is a challenge that will be side-stepped here. Whilst reducing “Virgil” to his Aeneid seems naive, it is a tactic encouraged by the Flavian poets themselves, for whom such a reduction sometimes has distinct advantages.4

So to begin with, I offer a brief and recent history of scholarship on Flavian epic and its reception of Virgil. The long-standing and traditional point of view for the reader of Virgil was that Statius and Silius were slavish imitators o f the Augustan master. Anything good that one found in the work of either was stolen from Virgil (or possibly from another canonical author), but rarely employed with the same degree o f sophistication; everything else was not worth reading. Two passages from Statius’ Thebaid were regularly adduced to underscore this point o f view. The first follows Statius’ account o f the deaths o f Hopleus and Dymas, an episode so closely modelled on Virgil’s Nisus and Euryalus that at its climax, the Flavian poet hopes that the Virgilian heroes will not scorn his Thebans in the Underworld:

vos quoque sacrati, quamvis mea carmina surgant inferiore lyra, memores superabitis annos. forsitan et comites non aspernabitur umbras Euryalus Phrygiique admittet gloria Nisi. (Theb. 10.445-48)

3 The most important landmarks in this scholarly tradition are Hardie (1993) and Hinds (1998); for specific treatment of the relationship between Statius’ Thebaid and the Aeneid, see Ganiban (2007) passim; for the relationship between Statius’ Achilleidand Virgil, see Heslin (2005), esp. 101-09; for the connection between Silius and Virgil, see Ganiban (2010). For more general analysis of Virgilian reception in the ancient world, useful starting points are Tarrant (1997); Thomas (2001); Ziolkowski and Putnam (2008). 4 Indeed, Virgil’s earlier poetic oeuvre is regularly equated with his Culex; see n.43 (below). Jean-Michel Hulls - Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 157

(“You too will outlive the mindful years, consecrate, though my songs rise from a lesser lyre, and perhaps Euryalus shall not scorn your attendant shades and Phrygian Nisus’ glory shall grant you entry”).

A similar attitude of self-deprecation and deference informs the coda with which the epic concludes:

vive, precor; nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta, sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora. (Theb. 12.816-17)

(“Live, I pray; and essay not the divine Aeneid, but ever follow her footsteps from afar

in adoration”). 5

In both passages, so the line of argument runs, Statius acknowledges his own inadequacy in the face of that overwhelmingly dominant master-text, the Aeneid. If Statius cannot claim, with the arrogance of an Ovid or a Lucan, to be a worthy successor to Virgil, why should we take him seriously? For poor old Silius, the opposition was (and until very

recently, remained) even stronger.6 Silius’ Punica offers itself as a sequel to the Aeneid and,

as such, as a subordinate within the poetic canon.7 Such opinions are heavily informed by the infamous (to readers of Silius, at any rate) comment of the younger Pliny that, as a poet, he scribebat maiore cura quam ingenio (Ep. 3.7.5, “he wrote with greater care than inspiration”). Negative readings of this phrase are not difficult to construct, and remain a

popular starting point for discussion of the Punica.8 Silius’ cura has often been quantified by the scale of his debt to Virgil, whom, we are told (Mart. 7.63; 11.48; 11.50; Pliny Ep. 3.7.7-8), Silius venerated. His care in composition, in other words, rendered him little more than a mechanical and unthinking imitator of Rome’s greatest poet. Silius’ reputation as a poet has suffered ever since. Despite the consistency of such readings in the last century of classical scholarship, we will re-examine these interpretive ideas below and seek to tease out some alternative approaches.

5 Text and translations of Statius are taken from Shackleton Bailey (2003). 6 2010 is a bumper year for publications exclusively or largely focused on Silius. See now, Augoustakis (2010a), (2010b); Tipping (2010) plus a forthcoming monograph by R. W. Cowan. 7 See Tipping (2010) 51 for the three moments in the Aeneid which “inspire” Silius’ poem. 8 See e.g. Henderson (2002), 108 and n.65; Tipping (2010) 1 n.1. On Pliny’s portrayal and its importance for Silius, see Spaltenstein, vol. 1 (1986) xx. Quintilian’s assessment ofVirgil at Inst. 10.1.86 provides an interesting counterpoint. 158 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Indeed, these points of view have, especially with regard to Statius, become increasingly outmoded, as modern scholars have read both poets with generous and open minds and attempted to approach their poetry on its own terms.9 I suspect that there is a hard core of unbelievers who still need converting by the fundamentalist Flavians, but, by and large, the academic community has in the last couple of decades embraced the richness of at least Statius’ poetry with open arms. A central reason for this considered re-assessment of our Flavian poets is the acknowledgment that both are working within a tradition that involved something significantly more complex than simply looking back at Virgil.

It has been argued with increasing vigour that Flavian epic is possessed of an universalising quality in its use of intertextual allusion to earlier literature.10 Whilst Valerius Flaccus, Statius and Silius Italicus all undeniably regard Virgil’s Aeneid as the most important intertext (indeed, all three play on this inevitability o f Virgil-as-master-text), they are also keen to include as complete an array of intertextual allusions to as wide a variety of texts as possible within any given textual space. It is not only the most important exemplars of the epic genre that are included in this process, but also more recherche allusions to texts that might not initially strike a modern reader as having especial importance for epic writing.11 I would argue that such displays of virtuosity and erudition carry as much, if not more, intellectual capital as the more obvious or over-arching invocations of Virgil or Homer.12 A recent commentary on Statius’ Thebaid is able to speak of the “encyclopaedic ambition” of the poet in his attempts to compress a huge range of allusion to material both Greek and Roman, and from a wide variety of genres (principally epic and tragic) into a dense literary space (in this instance an epic catalogue).13 This process of multiple allusion creates a complex overlaying of intertexts, woven into the fabric of epic discourse at the levels of diction, detail, situation or structure, and often a combination of some or all of these.

The more old-fashioned attitude towards the Flavians’ relationship assumes a quiet and meek deference towards their Augustan predecessor, with which I am always uncomfortable, not least because it takes those complex, imagistic, autobiographical, metapoetic statements, such as we have just seen in Statius’ Thebaid, entirely at face value.

9 See the bibliography in n.1 (above) for countless examples. 10 See, e.g. Tipping (2007). II e.g. for an account of Hellenistic literature’s influence, especially that of Callimachus, on Statius’ Thebaid, see McNelis (2007). 12 See Stat. Silv. 5.3.146-61 with Gibson (2006) ad loc. 13 Micozzi (2007) 6. Micozzi’s concept of “memoria diffusa” also has an important potential application, beyond Statius’ relationship with Lucan, to all kinds of Flavian epic discourse. See Micozzi (1999) 343-87 and (2004) 136-52. Jean-Michel Hulls - Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 159

Further interrogation of the balance between master-author and epic successor is always merited in my view. Deference is clearly an element in that balance, but there are other forces at work in shaping these Flavian epic texts. The Thebaids first two words, fraternas acies, display the text’s affiliation to Lucan, whilst the epilogue (12.810-19) from which that latter statement of deference is taken is strongly Ovidian in its ambitions.14 These conflicting associations have long been acknowledged, so there is no need to go into further detail here, and we should merely note that it does seem simplistic to think purely in terms of an uncomplicated subordinate relationship with Virgil.

There is perhaps more of a case to be made with regards to Silius, whose poem, after all, is constructed as a sequel to the Carthaginian events in the Aeneid. In the first book, the sense of continuation on from the Aeneid is embedded in the prologue (ordior arma, quibus caelo se gloria tollit / Aeneadum; “here I begin the war by which the fame of the Aeneadae was raised to heaven”, 1.1-2)15 and then foregrounded by the characters of Juno and Hannibal in the opening book (Pun. 1.21-139). Yet I would suggest that Silius displays a breadth of intertextual affiliation that is routinely underestimated or ignored. Moreover, while the Punica leads us on from the Aeneid, it has also been noted how the poem depicts a mid-point between that Virgilian world and Lucan’s shattered republic in the Bellum Civile.16 To assert a purely deferential attitude is, I suspect, to underestimate the complexity of the Punica.

The Modern View of the Relationship

A more aggressive reading of the connections between Augustan and Flavians casts the later poets as more than merely deferential. For example, we can read Statius not as the dutiful successor, but as competitive, fighting against (however unsuccessfully) the oppressive shackles of the Virgilian master-work. This is certainly a highly politicised way of looking at such a relationship, and it carries with it a certain Marxist flavour, as we watch the Flavian poetic proletariat struggle to overthrow the bourgeois Augustan regime. Although such a reading of Virgilian reception is more than a little on the stylised side, nonetheless it chimes in quite nicely with the shift, for example, in social status that is always so much at the forefront of Statius’ oeuvre; unlike his predecessor, Statius is very much the jobbing professional writing for clients. Juvenal’s well-known depiction of Statius as a pimp (7.82-87) relies on such a characterisation of our epic poet.

14 Henderson (1991) 38-39; Hardie (1993) 110-11. 15 Text of Silius is taken from Delz (1987), translation from Duff (1934). 16 See Tipping (2007) and (2010) 35-40 on Silius’ self-positioning with respect to Lucan. 160 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Furthermore, I think that such narratives of (paradoxically futile yet hugely productive) resistance to the overwhelming influence of the Aeneid can be read in the opening lines o f the Thebaid:

Fraternas acies alternaque regna profanis decertata odiis sontesque evolvere Thebas Pierius menti calor incidit. unde iubetis ire, deae? gentisne canam primordia dirae, Sidonios raptus et inexorabile pactum legis Agenoreae scrutantemque aequora Cadmum? longa retro series, trepidum si Martis operti agricolam infandis condentem proelia sulcis expediam penitusque sequar, quo carmine muris iusserit Amphion Tyriis accedere montes, unde graves irae cognata in moenia Baccho, quod saevae lunonis opus, cui sumpserit arcus infelix Athamas, cur non expaverit ingens Ionium socio casura Palaemone mater. atque adeo iam nunc gemitus et prospera Cadmi praeteriisse sinam: limes mihi carminis esto Oedipodae confusa domus, ... nunc tendo chelyn; satis arma referre Aonia et geminis sceptrum exitiale tyrannis nec furiis post fata modum flammasque rebelles seditione rogi tumulisque carentia regum funera et egestas alternis mortibus urbes, caerula cum rubuit Lernaeo sanguine Dirce et Thetis arentes adsuetum stringere ripas horruit ingenti venientem Ismenon acervo. quem prius heroum, Clio, dabis? inmodicum irae Tydea? laurigeri subitos an vatis hiatus? urguet et hostilem propellens caedibus amnem turbidus Hippomedon, plorandaque bella protervi Arcados atque alio Capaneus horrore canendus. (Theb. 1.1-17, 33-45)17

17 On this passage and its affiliations, see Ganiban (2007) 44-50. Jean-Michel Hulls - Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 161

(“Pierian fire falls upon my soul: to unfold fraternal warfare and alternate reigns fought for in unnatural hate, and guilty Thebes. Where do you command me to begin, goddesses? Shall I sing the origins of the dire folk, the rape Sidonian, the inexorable compact of Agenor’s ordinance and Cadmus searching the seas? Far back goes the tale, were I to recount the affrighted husbandman of covered soldiery hiding battle in unholy furrows and pursue to the uttermost what followed: with what music Amphion bade mountains draw nigh the Tyrian walls, what caused Bacchus’ fierce wrath against a kindred city, what savage Juno wrought, at whom hapless Athamas took up his bow, wherefore Palaemon’s mother did not fear the vast Ionian when she made to plunge in company with her son. No; already shall I let the sorrows and happy days of Cadmus be bygones. Let the limits of my lay be the troubled house of Oedipus ... For now I but tune my lyre; enough to recount Aonian arms, sceptre fatal to tyrants twain, fury outlasting death and flames renewing battle in the strife of the pyre, kings’ bodies lacking burial, and cities emptied by mutual slaughter, when Dirce’s blue water blushed with Lernaean blood and Thetis was aghast at Ismenos, as wont to skirt dry banks he came on in a mighty heap. Clio, which of the heroes do you offer first? Tydes, untrammelled in his wrath? Or the laurelled seer’s sudden chasm? Stormy Hippomedon too is upon me, pushing the river his enemy with corpses. And I must mourn the fight of the overbold Arcadian, and sing Capaneus in consternation never felt before”).

Although these opening lines are explored again and again by critics of Statius, we often underestimate the essential component of surprise that underpins them; here Statius is emphatically un-Virgilian in his expression (in stark contrast to Silius). These kinds of introductory passages are places where poets mark out their intentions and express their affiliations. Statius opens with his Lucanian heart on his sleeve, his amplification of Lucan’s famous cognatas acies sets up this poem as very much a post-Virgilian epic. Virgilian arma (the second word o f the Punica, by contrast) are delayed for 33 lines. As Statius debates where he might start his Theban narrative in lines 4-16, he expresses his bond with Ovid’s Metamorphoses; his longa retro series is almost a summary of books 2.836-4.603, the Theban section of Ovid’s epic. It is a very Ovidian way of signalling one’s debt to Ovid.18 Yet it is also a very strong statement as regards Statius’ relationship with Virgil and Virgil’s Aeneid. The Thebaid assumes the mantle of “anti-Aeneid” from the get go, and the poem itself celebrates those disquieting aspects of Virgil’s writing, those aspects which display an

18 For this observation and details of Statius’ relationship with Ovid, see Keith (2002), (2004-05). 162 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

uneasiness about the origins and the nature of power, both divine and political. Moreover, the sense of surprise is also encoded in the series of plot- and character-catalogues which Statius summarises and weighs up before plumping for his Oedipal theme; as Ganiban notes, such explicit and detailed foregrounding of a text’s plot is familiar within the theatrical genres of comedy and tragedy, but startling at the beginning of an epic poem.19 These competing processions of potential epic (anti-) heroes have a metaliterary function as well; Statius parades competing intertexts vying for his poetic attention. That emphasis on Ovid’s Metamorphoses encodes a sense of transformation within the fabric of the poem. So here is a sweeping generalisation for us to pick at: Statius’ Thebaid rejoices in, develops and foregrounds those darkest aspects of the Virgilian corpus, those moments where Virgil can be read as playing the political antagonist. Statius programmatically signals his status as poetic deviant by diverging from the fons et origo o f his own poem’s ethos.

O f course, this kind o f reading suits Silius much less comfortably. After all, Nero’s last consul could scarcely be described in the same socio-economic terms as his professional Neapolitan contemporary. Silius’ Punica is unashamedly Virgilian in form and content, from its opening ordior arma onwards. The opening phrase blends Virgil and Livy in a new historio-epic whole which has left a sour taste in the mouth o f many a critic. It is all a bit too unsubtle, and those opening words set a pattern for the epic as a whole, where Silius re­ hashes Rome’s greatest poet and her greatest historian. There is a different mode of political resistance entailed in Silius’ armchair poetics, ones which reject contemporary imperial values (implicitly degenerate in comparison to the moral apogee that dominates during Hannibal’s invasion of Italy, of course) in favour of wistful glances back to better bygone days of the Roman republic.20 But Silius’ rather obvious double allusion to Virgil and Livy masks a greater subtlety in his composition, which most readers fail to appreciate.

The Punica regularly employs systems of multiple intertextuality, alluding to a variety of intertexts simultaneously, in intricate ways that enrich a literary tradition habitually characterised as suffocating or overdetermined. Such an assessment is typical of current trends of scholarship on imperial Latin literature, yet recent articles have also noted genuinely novel ways in which Silius uses intertextual allusion. Manuwald discusses the appearance of earlier epicists as characters within the Punica as a unique strategy for signalling and controlling intertextual relationships with earlier epic.21 Meanwhile, Wilson

19 Ganiban (2007) 46-47. 20 See Tipping (2010) 45-50. 21 Manuwald (2007) 71-90. I am very grateful to Dr. Manuwald for showing me a draft of this piece. Jean-Michel Hulls - Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 163

has noted how the Punica does not consistently signpost its intertexts through verbal “quotation”, but “prefers to signal the intertextual connection by alternative means, in particular, by coincidence of situation and detail rather than wording and, occasionally, by more explicit hints”.22

We are only scratching the surface of a series of complicated and interrelated problems, but it is possible to demonstrate that both Silius and Statius are, despite their belatedness, working with the Virgilian tradition in ways which are anything but mechanical, predictable and straightforward. However, this brings us back to the central focus of this paper and to the problem that has exercised me so much in thinking about these poets, and the ways in which they use and represent Virgil. All the modes of reading Flavian epic that we have summarised have one thing in common, and that is the manner in which they portray Virgilian poetry. Virgil is a constant, a static, immutable, monolithic presence. All poets display their negotiation of their place in the canon by reference to this one solid object.

That is not to say that the poem to which the Flavians refer is not open, plural, complex or playful, but rather that references by poets like Statius and Silius to the Aeneid portray the poem as closed, singular and authoritative. Such a depiction of the master- poet is a construction, however universally it is applied. As a construction it is reductive of the realities of Virgilian poetry (we have already alluded to the many voices within the Aeneid) and I believe that this reduction is indicative of the ways in which imperial writers think about poetry, inspiration, composition and tradition, but also indicative of deliberate strategies of self-positioning within these poetic traditions. Ganiban’s recent monograph, Statius and Virgil, comes up against precisely this complication in setting up its own reading of Statius’ intertextual practices:

“there can be no doubt that the Aeneid has an ‘Augustan’ (‘optimistic’ or ‘public’) voice ... this reading had clearly dominated the poem’s reception since antiquity ... whether Statius read the Aeneid ambivalently or as an Augustan poem, we simply cannot know. What is clear, however, is that the Thebaid explores and expands those troubling elements that challenge the Aeneids Augustan voice”.23

22 Wilson (2004) 226. 23 Ganiban (2007) 8-9. Two caveats suggest themselves: firstly, without addressing the notion of authorial intention, we can form our own readings of the Thebaid which construe the poem as exploiting both reading strategies, i.e. that the poem, depending on what suits it purposes at that point in the text, can interpret the Aeneid as an “Augustan” text, in Ganiban’s formulation, and as an ambivalent text; secondly, Ganiban’s reading of the Aeneid tends to depict the challenges to the “Augustan” voice as external to the poem (e.g. as seen in Lucan) whereas I would foreground the ways in which Statius exploits ambivalent elements within the Aeneid itself. 164 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

The M onolith and its M akers

The monolithic attitude towards Virgil is one which we ourselves as modern readers of Virgil generally do not share, but it is one which is pushed forward by imperial readers of Virgil and especially, it seems, by those imperial authors for whom Virgil is most influential. The idea of Virgil as some of kind of unchangeable object is particularly clear in the younger Pliny’s portrayal of Silius Italicus:

Multum ubique librorum, multum statuarum, multum imaginum, quas non habebat modo, verum etiam venerabatur, Vergili ante omnes, cuius natalem religiosius quam suum celebrabat, Neapoli maxime, ubi monimentum eius adire ut templum solebat. (Ep. 3.7.8)

(“He had quantities of books, statues and portrait busts, and these were more to him than possessions — they became objects of devotion, particularly in the case of Virgil, whose birthday he celebrated with more solemnity than his own, and at Naples especially, where he would visit Virgil’s tomb as if it were a temple”).24

Pliny makes the process of reification very obvious. While Silius has a number of books, statues, and busts in his collection, he comes to venerate these as though they were objects of religious significance. Virgil’s birthday assumes greater importance than Silius’ own; we note the overtones in the choice o f word religiosius. Moreover, Silius visits Virgil’s tomb as though it were a temple. Here, if you like, is the dutiful obeisance of the Flavian poet laid bare for all to see. Yet I should prefer to emphasise the slight vagueness in Pliny’s expression which encourages us to see Silius not merely venerating a portrait of Virgil, but also his books. Thus the texts of Virgil also become set in stone.25 Martial’s own poetic portrayal of Silius’ veneration further associates such quasi-religious fervour with poetic practice:

Iam prope desertos cineres et sancta Maronis omina qui coleret, pauper et unus erat. Silius optatae succurrere censuit umbrae, Silius et vatem, non minor ipse, colit. (11.50)

24 Text and translation are taken from Radice (1969). 25 This contextualisation is one which Martial encourages us to adopt by his own characterisation of Silius as one who is defined by his scrinia, (has nugas ... quas et perpetui dignantur scrinia Sili; “these trifles ... which even the bookcases of immortal Silius deem worthy”, 6.64.8-10). Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 165

(“There was now only one man, a poor man, to honour Maro’s almost forsaken ashes and sacred name. Silius decided to come to the rescue of his destitute shade, and honours the poet, no lesser poet he”).26

The end result of Silius’ philanthropic gesture of monumental renewal is a surprising one; he ends up the poetic equal ofVirgil (non minor ipse). The restoration ofVirgil’s tomb becomes a metaliterary trope, the equivalent of Silius’ poetic activity when he cries, ordior arma. Yet just as Silius’ physical act of restoration becomes the equivalent of his poetic production, so Virgil’s poetic production becomes, as these Flavian poets present it, the equivalent of his monument, his tomb. So, whilst it is tempting to take Pliny’s epistolary literary criticism at face value, his depiction of Silius as a Virgilian worshipper becomes even more loaded when we see Statius promoting a very similar set of images surrounding his own relationship with Virgil:

en egomet somnum et geniale secutus litus ubi Ausonio se condidit hospita portu Parthenope, tenues ignavo pollice chordas pulso Maroneique sedens in margine templi sumo animum et magni tumulis adcanto magistri. (Silv. 4.4.51-55)

(“Look! Pursuing sleep and the genial shore where stranger Parthenope found refuge in Ausonian haven, I idly strike the slender strings; sitting on the verge of Maro’s shrine, I take heart and sing at the tomb of the great master”).27

There is a odd mixture o f deference and assertiveness in this. This is the temple of a magnus magister, and Statius is only sedens in margine2 Yet, much like his image of following in footsteps at the end of the Thebaid, Statius’ marginal position also contains a suggestion of autonomy; he is not too much under the thumb. Amusingly, perhaps, Statius visits Virgil’s tomb, but seems to be singing very much with Horace’s voice. Moreover, the

26 Text and translation are taken from Shackleton Bailey (1993). 27 Statius continues his self-presentation as a poetic outsider through Parthenope, the Siren who was washed ashore and founded the city of Naples; see Coleman (1988) ad loc. Parthenope principally stands for the Bay of Naples as the location of Virgil’s tomb and of Statius’ leisurely song, but Naples is also Statius’ home town and Parthenope’s status as hospita reminds us that Statius (a Greek, professional, lower class, pseudo-exile) is, too, an outsider. 28 This phrase almost gives Statius a peritextual quality; if Virgil’s tomb is a text, then Statius is a lemma scrawled around that text, a single item of a wider commentative discourse on Virgil. For the term peritext, see Genette (1997); for the commentary tradition on Virgil up to the 4th century AD, see Ziolkowski & Putnam (2008) 626-28. 166 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

quality of Statius’ own poetry is affirmed by the Callimachean tenues chordas. We can also see the way in which Virgil the poet and Virgil the poetry are elided very much as they were in Pliny’s and Martial’s accounts of Silius’ worship; it is difficult to separate the act of singing from visiting a tomb near Naples. Furthermore, this is a poem where Statius will later speak confidently, not diffidently, of the Thebaids success (87-92); it is only the task of epicising his emperor that really daunts Statius — Virgilian song is a trifle, the work of an idle thumb, ignavo pollice. Virgil himself is safely contained, dead and buried, there for the Flavian poet to manipulate as he will.

So we notice then a sense of reification, or even ossification, that goes hand in hand with the veneration ofVirgil and his works as religious objects. Virgil poet and text becomes assimilated into a single monimentum or tumulus. This conscious recasting ofVirgil and his Aeneid as a species of monument underpins the way in which Statius and Silius operate at an intertextual level. The monument is something unchanging, except when “restored” by a later, venerating poet who, despite his subservient identity, now maintains exclusive control over the presentation of the monument. As Riffaterre puts it: “Monumentality is that constant authority or guarantee that the intertext offers for the text. Intertextuality bespeaks the indissoluble union of scandal and conformity, rule and rule-breaking, norm and anomaly. Because there cannot be an aberrant text without its corresponding ad hoc intertextual norm, the peculiarities of literary discourse, however extreme they may be, do not appear gratuitous ... The text cannot cancel or upset the intertext without compelling the reader to refer back to that intertext’s authority and to acknowledge its pertinence”.29

For Flavian authors, therefore, the monumentality of Virgil as it appears in their intertextual practice is expressed through a literalisation of the architectural or sculptural metaphor. The reasons for this way of viewing and portraying Virgil may well be found in the “reading systems” of the early empire.30 A salient example of such a “reading system” might be the Virgilian cento. The cento was a poem, usually bawdy or vulgar in content, which was composed entirely of small units culled from the text of Virgil and placed in a new order.31 Although this literary tradition flourished in the later empire, the earliest surviving example of a cento is found in Petronius:

29 Riffaterre (1997) 175. 30 Here I distinguish between the “reading practices” of allusive poets producing their own epic poetry, to which I referred earlier, and the “reading systems” of a wider audience, those who have read (e.g. as part of their education) but not written, or only copied Virgil verbatim, or written only in less sophisticated and complex ways than have Statius and Silius in their epics. These two categories clearly overlap and Flavian poets clearly do both kinds of reading and potentially can do both simultaneously. 31 On the Virgilian cento, see Ziolkowski & Putnam (2008) 471-85. Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 167

illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat, nec magis incepto vultum sermone movetur quam lentae salices lassovepapavera collo. (Sat. 132 = Virg. Aen. 6.469-70; Ecl. 5.16; Aen. 9.436)

(“It stayed there turned away with eyes fixed on the ground and at this unfinished speech its looks were no more stirred than pliant willows are or poppies on their tired stalky necks”).32

This genre o f poetry provides us with a hugely important illustration o f the ways in which imperial readers might use Virgil; the original “meaning” o f Virgil’s text (Dido in the Underworld, the death o f Euryalus) is re-appropriated in favour o f a new satirical and comic narrative o f Encolpius’ impotence. The original context ofthe Virgilian lines is preserved only as an object o f satire. Placing Flavian readings ofVirgil in this context opens up the possibility of a monolithic Aeneid whose lines become “building blocks” in poetic production.

Another prominent “reading system” which enforces this process of reification is the role that Virgil plays in Roman education in the imperial period. Again, we are scratching the surface of a vast and unwieldy topic, the exact particulars of which are often contentious, not least because much of our best and most detailed evidence for Virgil’s role in education comes after the first century AD.33 The evidence confirms, however, that Virgil was read as an educational text from an early age, was re-read many times in the course of a Roman education, and was learnt in a repetitious fashion. Another Flavian, Quintilian, confirms that Virgil was introduced to young students and that repetitious reading was a feature o f his use:

Ideoque optime institutum est ut ab Homero atque Vergilio lectio inciperet, quamquam ad intellegendas eorum virtutes firmiore iudicio opus est: sed huic rei superest tempus, neque enim semel legentur. (Inst. 1.8.5)

(“It is therefore an admirable practice which now prevails, to begin by reading Homer and Virgil, although intelligence needs to be further developed for the full appreciation o f their merits: but there is plenty o f time for that since the boy will read them more than once”).34

32 Text and translation are taken from Heseltine (1975). 33 See Mair (2008) 33. 34 Text and translation of Quintilian are taken from Butler (1920-22). 168 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Elsewhere, Quintilian confirms that students should begin with Homer and Virgil (Inst. 12.11.26).35 Now, although we should not get bogged down in any assessments of Virgil’s use in the schoolroom, it is worth reminding ourselves that however sophisticated our poets became in the way they read and used Virgil in their own poetry, it was in this rather unimaginative and repetitious manner that both Statius, presumably from his grammaticus father, and the aristocratically educated Silius Italicus, first encountered Virgil, learnt Virgil and assimilated Virgil into their own poetic psyches. For one thing, to think of Virgil as a master-author, or the Aeneid as a master-text, assumes a slightly different and perhaps less awe-inspiring significance when viewed in this context. This remarkable shift in attitude towards Virgil seems to be one which happened very early in the history of his reception. Caecilius Epirota is famously recorded by Suetonius as having taught Virgil as a school text within the poet’s own lifetime:

primus dicitur Latine ex tempore disputasse primusque Vergilium et alios poetas novos praelegere coepisse, quod etiam Domitii Marsi versiculis indicatur: Epirota tenellorum nutricula vatum. (Gram. 16)

(“He is said to have been the first to hold extempore discussions in Latin and the first to begin the practice of reading Virgil and other recent poets, a fact alluded to by Domitius Marsus in the verse: Epirota, fond nurse of fledgling bards”).36

The grammarian was teaching in the 20’s BC, before the publication of the Aeneid and using only the Eclogues and the Georgics (hence Marsus’ tenellorum). Yet the inclusion o f the Aeneid in exciting new curricula cannot have been long delayed, and even if Epirota was a pioneer in the history of Virgilian education, given that Virgil’s pre-eminence as a poet was undisputed within his own lifetime (see Prop. 2.34.66), his central place in Roman education must have been assured within a generation or so of his death.

Furthermore, I would suggest that the texts ofVirgil, when approached in the manner which I outlined above, undergo a distinct change; we are used to thinking of Virgil

35 Such a system of Virgilian education seems to have persisted in essence until St. Augustine’s time: Nempe apud Vergilium, quemproptereaparvuli legunt, ut videlicet poeta magnus omniumque praeclarissimus atque optimus teneris ebibitus animis non facile oblivione possit aboleri, secundum illud Horatii: ‘ Quo semel est inbuta recens servabit odorem / teste diu ’. (St. Aug. De Civ. D. 1.3, quoting Hor. Ep. 1.2.69-70). Moreover, Macrobius tells us of the way which the text of Virgil was read out by the magister, learnt and then chanted back by his pupils, Sat. 1.24.5. Cf. SHA Clod. Albin. 5.1-2. 36 Text and translation of Suetonius are taken from Rolfe (1939). Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 169

as slippery, malleable, contentious, difficult and rewarding, but these texts may under the strictures of a Roman education have become read, chanted, repeated, mastered, and ultimately may have coalesced into a fixed whole. If this seems a little preposterous then maybe it is worth remembering that Statius refers to Virgil as his magister (Silv. 4.4.55).

There is a natural tendency in the Roman mind, therefore, to view Virgil as a rather more immutable entity than we might ourselves do. But where sophisticated, highly educated and experienced poets such as Silius and Statius and critics like Pliny are concerned, I do not believe that it is enough to see a certain unconscious slippage in reading patterns towards the static Virgil we encountered above. Rather it seems that writers in this period are actively mobilising the statuesque representation of Virgil and using this for their own purposes. In addition, it is worth pushing the sculptural metaphor entailed in this a little harder. We have already seen in the Plinian letter on Silius how text and sculpture were blended into one artistic whole. Given the associations that this letter, 3.7, has with the one that precedes it, which discusses Pliny’s statue, I suspect that Pliny may be doing something quite complex. The full range of responses available to letter 3.6 in particular, but to Book 3 of Pliny’s letters as a whole, was brilliantly unpacked in a recent monograph by Henderson.37 Safe to say, Pliny has brought the language and values of artistic criticism to bear on his subject in 3.7, which I quote more fully here:

doctissimis sermonibus dies transigebat, cum a scribendo vacaret. scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio, non numquam iudicia hominum recitationibus experiebatur. novissime ita suadentibus annis ab urbe secessit, seque in Campania tenuit, ac ne adventu quidem novi principis inde commotus est: magna Caesaris laus sub quo hoc liberum fuit, magna illius qui hac libertate ausus est uti. erat φ ιλ ό κ α λο ς usque ad emacitatis reprehensionem. plures isdem in locis villas possidebat, adamatisque novispriores neglegebat. multum ubique librorum, multum statuarum, multum imaginum, quas non habebat modo, verum etiam venerabatur, Vergili ante omnes, cuius natalem religiosius quam suum celebrabat, Neapoli maxime, ubi monimentum eius adire ut templum solebat. (Ep. 3.7.4-8)

(“He passed his days in cultured conversation whenever he could spare time from his writing. He took great pains over his verses, though they cannot be called inspired, and frequently submitted them to public criticism by the readings he gave. Latterly his increasing age lead to his retirement from Rome; he made his home in Campania

37 Henderson (2002). 170 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

and never left it again, not even on the arrival o f the new Emperor: an incident which reflects great credit on the Emperor for permitting this liberty, and on Italicus for venturing to avail himself of it.

He was a great connoisseur; indeed he was criticised for buying too much. He owned several houses in the same district, but lost interest in the older ones in his enthusiasm for the later. In each of them he had quantities of books, statues and portrait busts, and these were more to him than possessions — they became objects of devotion, particularly in the case of Virgil, whose birthday he celebrated with more solemnity than his own, and at Naples especially, where he would visit Virgil’s tomb as if it were a temple”).

So let us ourselves unpack this series o f artistic interpretations as Pliny presents them. Silius is making an object of veneration of Virgil and, as we have mentioned, the Punica performs a function towards the Aeneid in many ways identical to that o f its author towards Virgil. The language of artistic criticism is pervasive in this passage; the quality of Silius’ poetry is revealed in public performance, meanwhile Silius the rapacious philokalos is also subject to criticism for his acquisitiveness. Pliny makes a connection between the collector of busts, statues and books and the writer of careful, uninspired poetry. For Pliny, Silius approaches the physical object that is Virgil — his bust, his tomb, his poetry — much as a Roman schoolboy would do. In his naivety, Silius treats his Virgil’s texts as he would his statue. The result is carmina written maiore cura quam ingenio. Pliny implies that the Flavian poet treats the act of writing Virgilian epic and collecting works of art as one and the same process. The Punica becomes a monumental collection of Virgilian language in epic form. Silius’ is a schoolboy’s approach to Virgil.

We will return once more to Pliny’s letter, and possibly demonstrate ways in which reifying Virgil may be a beneficial strategy for Silius. But before that, we should look briefly at ways in which this play on the language and criticism of plastic arts informs Statius’ relationship with Virgil. In Silvae 4.2, Statius describes a banquet he attended in Domitian’s Palatine palace. From the beginning, Statius positions himself firmly in the tradition of Homer and Virgil:

regia Sidoniae convivia laudat Elissae, qui magnum Aenean Laurentibus intulit arvis; Alcinoique dapes mansuro carmine monstrat, aequore qui multo reducem consumpsit Vlixem. (1-4) Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 171

(“He that brought great Aeneas to the fields of Laurentum extols the feast of Sidonian Elissa, and he that wore out Ulysses with much seafaring portrays Alcinous’ repast in immortal verse”).

The Virgilian theme of this banquet becomes more explicit when Statius comes to describe the astonishing size of the palace within which the banquet takes place, as Statius alludes to Latinus’ palace in Virgil’s Aeneid:

tectum augustum, ingens, non centum insigne columnis, sed quantae superos caelumque Atlante remisso sustentare queant. (18-20)

(“An august edifice, vast, magnificent not with a hundred columns but as many as might support the heavens and the High Ones were Atlas let go”).

tectum augustum, ingens, centum sublime columnis urbe fu it summa, Laurentis regia Pici, horrendum siluis et religione parentum. (Aen. 7.170-72)

(“towering over the city, its huge roof raised by a hundred columns, august and sublime, stood the palace of Laurentine Picus, eerie with bristling forests and old superstitious traditions”).38

The near quotation of the Virgilian line explains the difference between the palaces of Domitian and Latinus. The imperial palace in Rome seems almost limitless in scope; Virgil’s hundred columns (itself an artful variation on that cliched topos, of “countless tongues”) are trumped by Statius’ own expression of boundless size. From the point of view of a reader looking for Virgilian reception, this passage does not look especially fruitful. Statius is, after all, anything but subtle in his invocation o f Virgil in this poem. It looks as if that robotic knowledge of the Aeneid gained in the schoolroom has come to the fore in Statius’ extemporising poetry.

However, a recent reading of Silvae 4.2 by Malamud has identified greater complexity in Statius’ allusive technique.39 She notes the absence of imagines depicting ancestors in Domitian’s palace — a key feature in the palace of Latinus and in Statius’ other re-working

38 Translations of the Aeneid are taken from Ahl (2007). 39 Malamud (2007). 172 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

of that passage in the depiction of Adrastus’ palace in Thebaid 2. Malamud reads both the passage from Aeneid 7 and Silvae 4.2 as alluding back to Virgil’s depiction o f the cave o f Polyphemus in Aeneid 3:

domus sanie dapibusque cruentis, intus opaca, ingens. ipse arduus, altaquepulsat sidera (di talem terris avertite pestem!) nec visu facilis nec dictu adfabilis ulli. (Aen. 3.618-21)

(“It’s a filthy home for a banquet of blood. He’s gigantic, high as the stars (gods, keep earth free o f such pestilent creatures!) Looking at him isn’t easy; conversing is out o f the question”).

Polyphemus’ cave, like both royal palaces, is astonishingly huge; the word ingens sits in the same metrical sedes in all three passages. Like the Cyclops’ cave, Domitian’s palace is enormous and its occupant astounding in size; there is a close connection made between the scale of building, dining room and inhabitant:

tanta patet moles, effusique impetus aulae liberior campi multumque amplexus operti aetheros, et tantum domino minor; ille penates implet et ingenti genio iuvat. (Silv. 4.2.23-26)

(“so wide the pile, such the thrust of the hall, freer than a spreading plain, embracing much o f heaven within its shelter; he fills the household and weighs it down with his mighty being”).

Malamud paints a dark picture of Domitian’s palace; this is a political tale which casts Statius’ emperor in the role of monstrous protagonist and poet as a Ulyssean resistance fighter, subtly undermining his honorand’s power with Virgilian poetics. Malamud depicts a complex, slippery poem that admits of multiple readings and which is informed by a multifaceted Virgilian poetics. Yet reading Domitian’s light, sophisticated, airy palace as an equivalent to Polyphemus’ dark, blood-stained cave (as it is depicted in Virgil’s version in contrast to the Homeric) seems a little forced, to say the least.40 Unlike the unspeakable Virgilian monstrosity (nec dictu adfabilis ulli), Statius renders

40 Pace Malamud (2007) 233-37. Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 173

Domitian’s palace entirely effable; the palace stretches Statius’ poetics to its limits but not to breaking point. Polyphemus strikes against the heavens in a kind of gigantic assault (ipse arduus, altaquepulsat / sidera), whilst Domitian embraces the heavens (multumque amplexus operti /aetheros). Better perhaps to emphasise the unrestricted aspect ofDomitian’s palace and the stress that Statius places on light, colour and transparency in contrast to Polyphemus’ dark, forbidding hovel:

aemulus illic mons Libys Iliacusque nitet, multa Syene et Chios et glaucae certantia Doridi saxa; Lunaqueportandis tantum suffecta columnis. longa supra species: fessis vix culmina prendas visibus auratiqueputes laquearia caeli. (Silv. 4.2.26-31)

(“Here contend the mountains of Libya and the gleaming stone of Ilium, dark Syene too and Chios, and rocks to rival the grey-green sea, and Luna, substituted only to support the columns. Far aloft extends the view; your weary eyes could scarce attain the roof, you would think it the gilded ceiling of heaven”).

The metonymic quality of the palace’s marble — different colours and different stones from different geographical locations all standing for the Roman empire — has been noted before.41 However, I would like to go one stage further and read this poem with allusive Virgilian eyes rather than simply from a Flavian, political point of view. It is possible to see this poetry as metapoetic as well as metonymic, with Statius constructing his palace as a monumental, ekphrastic example of that allusive process. Despite the apparent straightforwardness of Statius’ Virgilian allusions, this way of reading pushes our understanding of Virgilian reception still further. Virgil retains, in Statius’ hands, that monolithic, statuesque quality. There is development from the Virgilian homes of Polyphemus and Latinus to Statius’ Domitianic super-palace; we move from a grotesque, blood-stained grotto, to a majestic, if primitive, palace, to something altogether greater. The columns which supported Latinus’ roofbecome the very building blocks of Domitian’s palace, yet Statius alludes to the real complexity ofhis allusive practice itselfthrough the variety of marble with which he builds his poetic palace. This is an open-ended, “sky-is-the-limit” poetics; Virgilian language becomes oddly subordinated in Statius’ hands. Despite situating himself so firmly and explicitly in the Homeric-Virgilian tradition and so patently alluding

41 Cf. Newlands (2002) 267-71, where coloured marble is read as a metonymy for competitive court politics; Zeiner (2005) 87-90; Bradley (2006). 174 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

to the Aeneid in the ekphrasis of Domitian’s house, Statius takes control of his dominant predecessor by playing the role of architect, using Virgil as nothing more than a poetic bricks and mortar. As we saw in his depiction of his tomb, Statius has a playful, subversive, if ultimately deferential relationship with Virgil. This is the pupil teasing the schoolmaster, the modern architect building with borrowed tools. There is no Statius without Virgil, and this is something the Flavian poet readily acknowledges. There is, however, a power that derives from treating source-text as so basic an element in one’s own composition; Statius becomes the innovator, the artist, the sculptor, the architect.

Refusing the Challenge

Another poem from the Silvae may suggest something further about Statius’ relationship with Virgil. The final poem of book 2 is a Genethliacon in hendecasyllables given to Polla, the widow of the Neronian poet Lucan, in honour of the dead man’s birthday.42 As we noted earlier, Lucan was a dominant influence on Statius’ Thebaid, and he plays a similar role here. Lucan is portrayed by Statius as the model o f what he might have been had he really taken up the challenge of rivalling Virgil. The poem provides extraordinary praise for Lucan’s poetic skill as Statius depicts the Muse Calliope taking the infant Lucan in her lap and predicting his great future. Statius, through Calliope, portrays Lucan as a poet first and foremost:

nocturnas alii Phrygum ruinas et tardi reducis vias Ulixis etpuppem temerariam Minervae trita vatibus orbita sequantur: tu carus Latio memorque gentis carmen fortior exeris togatum. (Silv. 2.7.48-53)

(“Let others pursue the night of Phrygian downfall, the returning travels of tardy Ulysses, and Minerva’s temerarious vessel: born of Latium and mindful of your race, you shall be bolder, unsheathing a song of Rome”).

Lucan’s role in life is to surpass the great epic poets o f the past, here Homer and Apollonius. Indeed, there is a nationalistic flavour to these lines, pitting Lucan’s toga- wearing song against the best the Greeks can offer. Calliope then goes on the narrate Lucan’s own (future) poetic career, culminating in a detailed description of the Bellum

42 Cf. Malamud (1995); Lovatt (1999). Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 175

Civile. All this he will accomplish at an extraordinarily young age, and Lucan will surpass the greatest Roman epicists so far that even the Aeneid will revere him as he sings:

Baetim, Mantua, provocare noli.

haec primo iuvenis canes sub aevo, ante annos Culicis Maroniani. cedet Musa rudis ferocis Enni et docti furor arduus Lucreti, et qui perfreta duxit Argonautas, et qui corpora prima transfigurat. quid? maius loquar: ipsa te Latinis Aeneis venerabitur canentem. (35, 73-80)

(“Mantua, challenge not Baetis ... All this you shall sing as a young man in early life before the age of Maro’s Gnat. Bold Ennius’ untutored Muse shall yield, and the high frenzy of skilled Lucretius, and he that led the Argonauts through the seas, and he that transforms bodies from their first shapes. Nay a greater thing I shall utter: Aeneis herself shall do you reverence, as you sing to the men o f Latium”).43

Hand in hand with the portrayal o f poetic dominance goes Lucan’s role (here subordinated to his poetic exploits) as political freedom-fighter against the tyrannical Nero. Lucan will narrate the fire o f Rome and ultimately commit suicide in opposition to the emperor:

dices culminibus Remi vagantis infandos domini nocentis ignes.

sic et tu (rabidi nefas tyranni!) iussus praecipitem subire Lethen, dum pugnas canis arduaque voce das solacia grandibus sepulcris, (o dirum scelus! o scelus!) tacebis. (60-61, 100-04)

43 Again, Virgil’s early career is represented exclusively by the Culex. Cf. Suet. Vit. Luc., esp. et quantum mihi restat ad Culicem? The picture created by Aeneis venerabitur surely evokes and reverses both the close of the Thebaid, with which this poem is roughly contemporaneous, and the veneration by Silius. 176 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(“You shall tell o f the monstrous fires o f a guilty ruler at large over the roofs o f Remus ... And so even you (outrage of a crazy tyrant!) bidden plunge into Lethe as you sang of battles and with lofty utterance gave solace to grand sepulchres (O foul crime, O crime!) shall be silent”).

The image of Nero “at large over the roofs” of Rome provides us with another neat contrast with the safely contained Domitian of poem 4.2. Lucan’s own poetry seems to transgress reasonable bounds; his utterance is much more than “lofty”. arduus is the epithet accorded by Virgil to his gigantic Polyphemus and by Statius to his own gigantic hero, Hippomedon (Aen. 3.619; Theb. 4.129; 5.560; 6.654; 9.91. The latter is an ambivalent figure to say the least). Lucan seems to be contaminated by association with Nero; it is he who takes up the challenge of Polypheman poetics. The connection between Lucan as writer and Lucan as political opponent of Nero is made in similar by terms in Suetonius’ biography o f the poet (see Suet. Vita Lucani,passim), while Tacitus simply sees competition in poetry as the cause for Lucan’s personal animosity:

Lucanum propriae causae accendebant, quod fam am carminum eius premebat Nero prohibueratque ostentare, vanus adsimulatione. (Ann. 15.49)

(“Lucan’s animosity was personal. For Nero had the impudence to compete with Lucan as a poet, and had impeded his reputation by vetoing his publicity”).44

Yet in neither prose author is Lucan’s gigantic poetic ability quite so much at the forefront, nor does it drive his political activism in quite the same way as it does in Statius. Lucan’s rivalries with Nero and Virgil are paradoxically successful and unsuccessful; Lucan surpasses his adversaries and destroys himself in the process. It is for Statius to pick up the pieces and provide the appropriate veneration. Writing this kind of praise as a genethliacon hammers the point home — Lucan will never celebrate his own birthdays. That is an activity reserved for the Flavian poets, and both tellingly celebrate the birthdays of their poetic predecessors, Statius that of Lucan and Silius Virgil.

Statius lionises Lucan not least because the Neronian poet achieves all of those measures of independence which Statius fails to attain for himself. Statius casts himself, once again, in the ranks of the unworthy, although next to Lucan these ranks have become remarkable indeed:

44 Translation of Tacitus from Grant (1989). Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 177

Lucani proprium diem frequentet quisquis collibus Isthmiae Diones docto pectora concitatus oestro pendentis bibit ungulae liquorem. ipsi quos penes est honor canendi, vocalis citharae repertor Arcas, et tu Bassaridum rotator Euhan, et Paean et Hyantiae sorores laetae purpureas novate vittas, crinem comite, candidamque vestem perfundant hederae recentiores. docti largius evagentur amnes, et plus Aoniae virete silvae, et, si qua patet aut diem recepit, sertis mollibus expleatur umbra. centum Thespiacis odora lucis stent altaria victimaeque centum, quas Dirce lavat aut alit Cithaeron. Lucanum canimus, favete linguis; vestra est ista dies, favete, Musae, dum qui vos geminas tulit per artes, et vinctae pede vocis et solutae, Romani colitur chori sacerdos. (Silv. 2.7.1-23)

(“Lucan’s own day let him attend whosoever on the hill of Isthmian Dione has quaffed the water o f the flying hoof, heart stirred by poetic frenzy. You yourselves, to whom belongs the grace of poetic song, Arcadian finder of the vocal lyre, and Euhan, whirler of the Bassarids, and Paean, and the Hyantian sisters, joyfully put on new purple fillets, dress your hair, and let fresher ivy stream down your white robes. Let poetic rivers wander more copiously, and woods of Aonia be greener; if anywhere your shade opens letting in the sun, let soft garlands fill the gap. Let a hundred fragrant altars stand in Thespiae’s groves, and a hundred victims that Dirce bathes or Cithaeron feeds: Lucan we sing. Be silent all. This is your day, Muses, be propitious while he is honoured that bore you through both arts, o f free speech and o f fettered, priest of the Roman choir”). 178 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Apollo, Bacchus and the Muses will celebrate Lucan’s birthday, as should anyone who has drunk from the Hippocrene or whose heart has been stirred to poetic frenzy. Statius himself falls remarkably short of this Lucanian challenge: the phrase docto pectora concitatus oestro is reminiscent o f the opening o f the Thebaid, but of a passage where Statius anticipates an occasion when he might be sufficiently inspired to sing an epic of Domitian’s exploits:

tempus erit, cum Pierio tua fortior oestro facta canam: nunc tendo chelyn. (1.32-33)

(“A time will come when stronger in Pierian frenzy I shall sing your deeds. For now I but tune my lyre”).

These two poems from the Silvae show us a Flavian poet who is unworthy o f the great inheritance which Lucan supplies, one who might aspire to the heady heights of Lucan’s political independence but who falls short, and falls short in his attempts to become a more authoritative and independent epic poet as well. Statius still relies all too heavily on his predecessors. Yet with that lack of independence in comparison to Lucan we can see a Statius who remains confident in working with, rather than against, the big names of the epic tradition. The repetition offavete (2.7.19-20) is telling; all will be silent (favete linguis), except Statius. The Flavian uses Lucan’s heavyweight cachet to win his own inspiration from the Muses (favete Musae). Furthermore, Statius’ desire to situate himself directly in the Homeric and Virgilian tradition that we saw in Silvae 4.2 is also expressed in the epistolary preface to the opening book of the collection:

sed et Culicem legimus et Batrachomachiam etiam agnoscimus, nec quisquam est inlustrium poetarum qui non aliquid operibus suis stilo remissiore praeluserit.

sed apud ceteros necesse est multum illis pereat ex venia, cum amiserint quam solam habuerunt gratiam celeritatis. nullum enim ex illis biduo longius tractum, quaedam et in singulis diebus effusa. quam timeo ne verum istuc versus quoque ipsi de se probent! (Silv. 1 praef.)

(“But we read the Gnat and even recognise the Battle ofthe Frogs; and none of our illustrious poets but has preluded his works with something in lighter vein ... But with the general public they must necessarily forfeit much of its indulgence since they have lost their only commendation, that of celerity. For none of them took Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 179

longer than a couple of days to compose, some were turned out in a single day. How I fear that the verses themselves will testify on their own behalf to the truth of what I say!”)

Although Statius advertises his first book of Silvae to his patron Stella as lightweight, this nonetheless contains lightweight poetry in the manner of Homer or Virgil and lightweight poems that at least match those early steps of Lucan. What is more, Statius states that the speed of their composition is their best feature, a feature lost on the reading public. Juxtaposing these two important features of Statius’ self-presentation suggests that the notion of the Virgilian building block that I posited in relation to poem 4.2 may not be entirely fanciful. Moreover, the manner of composition and the style of poetry, “commissioned” by a series of heavyweight Flavian patrons and produced at speed, seems very different to the frenzied, inspired, super-poetry that Statius and Calliope depict in poem 2.7. Whether we choose to take the poet’s profession of speedy composition at face value or not, there is a sense that the Virgilian basis of Statius’ extemporising poetry has more to it than meets the eye — Statius manipulates Virgil for his own ends whilst simultaneously professing his own weakness in the face of Virgilian tradition.

With these Statian party tricks in mind, let us return for the third and last time to Pliny’s Silius, and to Pliny’s Silius’ Virgil. We have seen how that portrait of Silius constructs his relationships with epic predecessors through portraits of Virgil, and we have seen what Pliny gets from the art critic’s perspective by sculpting this construction. But let us assume that Pliny’s Silius has a solid basis in reality and that this veneration of Virgil in paper and in stone was indeed a genuine and conscious system employed by Silius Italicus himself. From Pliny’s point of view, Silius plays Toad of Toad Hall, collecting anything and everything, forgetting about his old villas when he buys a new one, buying art like it is going out of fashion. Yet despite the slow and painful death which Pliny narrates at the beginning of the letter, Silius’ lifestyle brings him a long life of relaxed tranquillity and Pliny himself is brought to philosophise on the brevity of human life in contemplation of Nero’s last consul:

in hac tranquillitate annum quintum et septuagensimum excessit, delicato magis corpore quam infirmo ... quod me recordantem fragilitatis humanae miseratio subit. quid enim tam circumcisum tam breve quam hominis vita longissima? an non uidetur tibi Nero modo modo fuisse? cum interim ex iis, qui sub illo gesserant consulatum, nemo iam superest. {Ep. 3.7.9, 10-11) 180 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(“In this peaceful atmosphere he completed his 75th year, delicate rather than unsound in body ... The thought o f this fills me with pity for human frailty; nothing is so short and fleeting as the longest o f human lives. It must seem to you only the other day that Nero died, yet not one of those who held consulships in his time is alive today”).

There is a connection to be made between this biographical set ofstatements by Pliny and his portrayal of the retired consul and epic poet’s pseudo-religious fervour before Virgil. While Pliny himself records accurately the number of old Silius’ years, Silius himself ignores the passing of time, preferring to celebrate Virgil’s birthday and renovate Virgil’s tomb. The comparative phrase, delicato magis corpore quam infirmo, inevitably recalls Pliny’s pejorative critical response to his writing (maiore cura quam ingenio), but here Silius’ physical substance acquires the classic characteristic of Callimachean poetry, delicacy and fragility. The poet measures the passing of the years by reference to his precursor’s tomb and in the process ties his own sense of self inextricably to Virgilian monumentality. Silius derives a sense of timelessness both in life and in poetic production through his conscious decision to subordinate himself to a Virgil of his own construction. It is no coincidence that Martial choose to accord Silius the epithet perpetuus (cf. Mart. 6.64.10):

Perpetui numquam moritura volumina Sili qui legis et Latia carmina digna toga Pierios tantum vati placuisse recessus credis et Aoniae Bacchica serta comae ? (7.63.1-4)

(“Reader of the everlasting volumes of immortal Silius, poems worthy of the Latin gown, think you that only Pierian retreats and Bacchic garlands for Aonian locks have pleased the bard?”)

Silius was, as Martial reminds us (7.63.5-12) a senior advocate and consul before turning his hand to Virgilian arts. Martial depicts the epic poet as a kind ofpater patriae in his own right, one who epitomises the ancient male value set of Rome. There is a sense of seniority and completeness in his career. Nero’s last consul embodies an alternative set of poetic and political responses to overwhelming authority to those symbolised by Lucan (in Statius’ poem). Lucan’s frenzied poetics do not simply entail violent opposition to Nero but an equally powerful rejection of Virgilian influence. As a result, Lucan attempts, as Riffaterre might put it, to “cancel the intertext” that is Virgil. This is, Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 181

of course, another poetic fiction, but a powerful one mobilised by Statius in Silvae 2.7. Yet this Lucan’s attempt to erase his precursors is an ultimately self-destructive strategy, one which results in his own “erasure” in a very literal sense, as Nero wipes him from the face of the earth.45 Lucan loses that sense of monumentality so central to Virgil; he is all scandal and no conformity. Silius, by contrast, takes a more careful, studied route that results in his own “perpetuity”. Silius ultimately becomes, in Martial’s panegyric epigram and Pliny’s epitaphic epistolary memorial, another incarnation of Bloom’s “dead man”; through careful poetics and carefree consumption of cultural goods, Silius transcends the gulf between ephebic imitator and paternal precursor. Silius creates his own sense of monumentality, and he and his poetry evoke, mimic and in due course acquire that monolithic trait of Virgil’s poetry.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated ways in which Statius and Silius use particular metaphorical methods of looking back at Virgil and Virgilian poetry, methods which involve a process of subordination on the part of the Flavian poet and a careful construction of Augustan poet as being akin to a lapidary work of art, whether sculptural or architectural. The basis for such reductive readings of Virgilian poetry can be found in the wider reading systems of the early imperial period, in particular those which involve Virgil as an educational text and those which involve systematised parody of Virgil. Lapidary language and motifs filter through into more sophisticated and complex readings of Virgil and inform the intertextual practices of poets such as Statius and Silius. Overt competition with Virgil is avoided, and Statius constructs Lucan as a rival to Virgil (and object of veneration in his own right), but one whose poetics is ultimately self-destructive. For Silius, the result of this process is reassuring rather than competitive, creating a timeless authority for the author of the Punica. Silius allows himself to be drawn into the sculptural process, moulding himself into his own lasting cultural monument. For Statius, in his Silvae in particular, Virgilian poetry doubles as an inspirational foundation, but also as a poetic short­ hand, a means to a greater end. Statius undeniably plays pupil to Virgil’s master, but his self-portrayal as dutiful follower is disingenuous; complex poetic material yields increasingly multifaceted and intricate allusive qualities. There is a hint of confidence, not only in the manner by which he appropriates Virgil, but also in manner by which he sculpturally supersedes him.

Downside School JEAN-MICHEL HULLS

45 Tacitus’ prohibuerat ostentare can be read in this way. 182 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Bibliography

F. M. Ahl (ed.) (2007) The Aeneid /Virgil, Oxford.

A. Augoustakis & C. E. Newlands (eds) (2007) Statius’ Silvae and the Poetics of Intimacy, Arethusa 40.2.

A. Augoustakis (2010a) Motherhood and the Other: Fashioing Female Power in Flavian Epic, Oxford.

A. Augoustakis (ed.) (2010b) Brill Companion to Silius Italicus, Leiden.

H. Bloom (1975) A Map of Misreading, Oxford.

H. Bloom (1989) Ruin the Sacred Truth: poetry and belief from the Bible to the present, Cambridge MA.

M. Bradley (2006) ‘Colour and marble in early imperial Rome’, CCJ 52, 1-22.

H. E. Butler (1920-22) The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, 2 vols, Cambridge MA.

J. Delz (ed.) (1987) Sili Italici Punica, Stuttgart.

J. D. Duff (ed.) (1934) Silius Italicus: Punica, Cambridge MA.

P. Esposito and E. Ariemma (eds) (2004) Lucano e la tradizione epica latina, Naples.

P. Esposito and L. Nicastri (eds) (2004) Interpretare Lucano: miscellanea di studi, Naples.

R. Ganiban (2007) Statius and Virgil, Cambridge.

R. Ganiban (2010) ‘Virgil’s Dido and the Heroism of Hannibal in Silius’ Punica’ in Augoustakis (2010b), 73-98.

G. Genette (1997) Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation. Trans. J. E. Lewin. Cambridge.

B. Gibson (ed.) (2006) Statius. Silvae, Oxford.

M. Grant (trans.) (1989) Tacitus. The Annals of Imperial Rome, Oxford.

P. Hardie (1993) The Epic Successors ofVirgil, Cambridge.

J. Henderson (2002) Pliny’s Statue: The Letters, Self-portraiture, and Classical Art, Exeter.

M. Heseltine (ed., revised E. H. Warmington) (1975) Petronius & Seneca Apocolocyntosis, Cambridge MA.

P. J. Heslin (2005) The Transvestite Achilles, Cambridge.

S. J. Heyworth, P. G. Fowler, and S. J. Harrison (eds) (2007) Classical Constructions, Oxford.

S. Hinds (1998) Allusion and Intertext, Cambridge.

A. Keith (2002) ‘Ovidian Personae in Statius’ Thebaid, Arethusa 35, 381-402. Jean-Michel Hulls — Re-casting the Master: Further Faces of Virgil in Imperial Rome 183

A. Keith (2004-05) ‘Ovid’s Theban Narrative in Statius’ Thebaid, Hermathena 177, 178, 177-202.

H. Lovatt (1999) ‘Competing Endings: Re-Reading the end of the Thebaid through Lucan’, Ramus 28, 126-51. J. Mair (2008) ‘Some Glimpses of Virgil in Late Antiquity’, PVS 26, 32-40.

M. Malamud (1995) ‘Happy birthday, dead Lucan: (p)raising the dead in Silvae 2.7’, Ramus 24, 1-30. M. Malamud (2007) ‘A Spectacular Feast: Silvae 4.2’, in Augoustakis & Newlands (2007), 223-44.

G. Manuwald (2007) ‘Epic Poets as Characters: On Poetics and Multiple Intertextuality in Silius Italicus’, RFIC 135, 71-90.

C. Martindale (ed.) (1997) The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge.

C. McNelis (2007) Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War, Cambridge.

L. Micozzi (1999) ‘Aspetti dell’influenza di Lucano nella Tebaide’ in Esposito and Nicastri (1999), 343-87.

L. Micozzi (2004) ‘Memoria diffusa di luoghi lucanei nella Tebaide di Stazio’ in Esposito and Ariemma (2004), 136-52. L. Micozzi (2007) Il catalogo degli eroi: saggio di commento a Stazio Tebaide 4, 1-344, Pisa.

B. Radice (1969) Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus, 2 vols, Cambridge MA.

M. Riffaterre (1997) ‘The Interpretant in Literary Semiotics’ in R. Capozzi (ed.), Reading Eco - An Anthology, Bloomington IN, 173-84. J. C. Rolfe (1939) Suetonius, 2 vols, Cambridge MA.

D. R. Shackleton Bailey (ed.) (1993) Martial. Epigrams, 3 vols, Cambridge MA.

D. R. Shackleton Bailey (ed.) (2003) Statius, 3 vols, Cambridge MA.

F. Spaltenstein (ed.) (1989) Commentaire des Punica de Silius Italicus, 2 vols, Geneva.

R. J. Tarrant (1997) ‘Aspects of Virgil’s Reception in Antiquity’ in Martindale (1997), 56-72.

R. F. Thomas (2001) Virgil and the Augustan Reception, Cambridge. B. Tipping (2007) ‘Haec tum Roma fuit. Past, Present, and Closure in Silius Italicus’ Punica’, in Heyworth et al. (2007), 221-41. B. Tipping (2010) Exemplary Epic, Oxford.

M. Wilson (2004) ‘Ovidian Silius’, Arethusa 37, 225-49. N. K. Zeiner (2005) Nothing Ordinary Here, New York.

J. M. Ziokowski & M. C. J. Putnam (2008) The Virgilian Tradition, Yale. Aeneas the Spin-Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in Aeneid 2

Revised from a paper given to the Virgil Society on 23 M ay 2009

The notion that Aeneas’ narration in book 2 of the Aeneid has the nature of a rhetorical self-defence is prominent in ancient criticism o f Virgil, but in modern times it has not on the whole received much attention from scholars. It is here argued that, far from being outdated or eccentric, this approach clarifies many passages in the text. It can be broken down into three interrelated points. First, that readers ought to take seriously Aeneas’ own position as a character who is giving an account of himself: he is more than just an alternative narrative voice to that o f the author.1 Second, that Aeneas has to give that account before an audience that cannot be automatically assumed to be well-disposed towards him (this is as true of Aeneas’ imagined Carthaginian audience as it is of Virgil’s real Roman audience). Scholars have drawn attention to the alternative versions o f the Aeneas story, some quite discreditable to the hero, that circulated in antiquity,2 and have occasionally pointed to features o f Aeneas’ narrative in book 2 which seem designed to rebut elements o f one or another o f those versions.3 Some readers may not be happy with interpretations o f this kind,4 which may be thought to depend too heavily on material

1 Though of course he is that as well: see A. Bowie, ‘Aeneas narrator’, PVS 26 (2008), 41-51. My approach is on the whole different from (and largely complementary to) that of Bowie, though at one stage (43) he refers to Aeneas’ “concern for his audience’s view of himself’, which is precisely the point that I develop further. 2 See e.g. M. Reinhold, ‘The Unhero Aeneas’, C&M 27 (1966), 195-207; G. K. Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily and Rome, 1969, Princeton, 46-51; N. Horsfall, ‘Some Problems in the Aeneas Legend’, CQ 29 (1979), 372-90. Much useful material also in J. Perret, Les Origines de la legende troyenne de Rome, 1942, Paris. 3 See e.g. H.-P. Stahl, ‘Aeneas — An “Unheroic” Hero?’, in Virgil: 2000 Years, Arethusa 14 (1981), 157-77 (165-68); S. Casali, ‘FactaImpia (Virgil, Aeneid4.596-9)’, CQ49 (1999), 203-11, argues convincingly that the facta impia referred to by Dido are those of Aeneas, recounted in the alternative tradition (i.e. escape from Troy by stealth or treachery, desertion of Creusa, etc). 4 Perhaps (though it is not quite clear) this is what lies behind N. Horsfall’s comment on 2.432 (Virgil, Aeneid2, 2008, Leiden, 337): “Not so much an answer to the old charge ... of treason, or collusion laid against Aen., which surfaces slightly too often in ancient and modern discussions of the Sack ...”, although H. himself mentions it at p. 248 (on lines 289-95). J. F. G. Powell - Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 185

outside the Virgilian text. But even if one confines oneself to the story as Virgil has explicitly set it up, Aeneas must somehow explain his presence as a refugee and survivor of the captured city — a fact with which the Italians explicitly taunt him and his Trojans later in the epic (9.599: bis capti Phryges; 12.15: desertorem Asiae)? The third point, the most important for this paper, is that analysis o f the narrative itself reveals numerous features, quite specific and detailed, which have the rhetorical functions o f exonerating Aeneas from blame for the events he describes and o f presenting his actions in the best possible light. These details have often either gone unnoticed or been interpreted in a contrary sense, because, as I argue, insufficient attention has been paid to the rhetorical context. The more general points are familiar if sometimes neglected; but I have not so far seen another discussion in print that gives a detailed and sustained account ofAeneas’ self-justifying rhetoric.6 * * *

On his arrival at Carthage, Virgil’s Aeneas faces an immediate problem. Before he can get his ships repaired and supplied so that he can eventually put to sea again, before he can weigh the rights and wrongs of settling in the region, he has to solve the simpler question of how to ensure survival. He has arrived in unknown and possibly hostile territory. For all he knows at the beginning, before he has seen anything o f D ido’s reactions to his arrival, he cannot assume that that he and his companions will not be either killed or detained indefinitely as enemy aliens. Even after the initially friendly welcome by Dido, Aeneas cannot assume that her positive feelings will be shared by the rest of her people, nor that the Carthaginians as a whole (especially given their proverbial reputation among Virgil’s readers) can be relied on. Hence Virgil, in writing the narrative of this scene, has set himself the task of managing the arrival in such a way that it is plausible for Aeneas and his followers to be, and to continue to be, treated kindly. Divine intervention plays a part, and of course Virgil could have written the whole episode differently (e.g. as a

5 See R. G. M. Nisbet, ‘Aeneas Imperator: Roman Generalship in an Epic Context’, PVS 18 (1978­ 80), 50-61: “At the fall of Troy Virgil must establish three things about Aeneas. In the first place it must be made clear that the disaster was not his fault ... though Aeneas uses first person plurals to describe what the Trojans did, he does not seem to admit any individual responsibility . Secondly, Virgil must emphasize Aeneas’ courage. It could be held against him that he had survived his city, and Turnus touched a sore point when he called him desertorem Asiae (12.15). That is why Virgil makes him organize resistance, though only at a local and subordinate level: he takes up arms without regard for consequences (314 . ) , if he had been fated to fall he deserved it by his actions (433f. . ) , he emphasizes several times his own furor or loss of control (316, 588, 595) ... Thirdly, Virgil must confirm the legitimacy of Aeneas’ imperium”. See also Horsfall (n.4 above) 248-50 on ll. 289-95, and 337 on l. 432. 6 Apart from the introductory paragraph, this is a revised version of the paper delivered to the Virgil Society on 23 May 2009. I am grateful to David West and Daniel Hadas for their comments. 186 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

straightforward story of escape from a hostile power). But once the main outlines of the story as we have it were in place, and if plausibility is to be achieved on the human level, Aeneas has to be made to maximise his own chances of a good reception and not to take too much for granted.

This may seem an obvious and elementary point o f narrative technique; but critics have not always found it obvious that Virgil either tried to make Aeneas present himself favourably, or succeeded in the attempt. The standard commentary on book 2 by Roland Austin, for example, analyses the character-presentation ofAeneas in that book, and finds the character as presented significantly wanting.7 The narrative is held to show up Aeneas’ failings as a Homeric hero, initially unable to adapt to changed circumstances, and only at the end of the book growing little by little into a more mature role o f leadership. This account probably reflects a wider view o f the epic as a whole, which has been fashionable for many years and to some extent remains so, whereby Aeneas’ character is seen as gradually developing and maturing throughout the poem from impulsive Homeric hero to Roman imperial leader.8 Now is not the time for a full consideration o f that issue. What is immediately clear is this: if one assumes before one starts that the Aeneid is a story o f character development, it follows that Aeneas’ character as displayed in the early books must be relatively undeveloped. This notion may, if we are not careful, prejudice our reading o f the text.

Take, for example, a well-known passage like 2.314-17. Aeneas has had his nightmare vision of the dead Hector, and is awakened by the sound of wailing and the clash of weapons, to find that the nightmare is a reality. His neighbours’ houses are on fire and there is fighting in the streets outside. Here he describes his reaction:

arma amens capio, nec sat rationis in armis, sed glomerare manum bello et concurrere in arcem cum sociis ardent animi: furor iraque mentem praecipitant, pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis.

7 R. G. Austin, Virgil: Aeneid II, 1964, Oxford, xiv-xv. 8 The idea of a development in Aeneas’ character was brought to the fore by R. Heinze, Virgils Epische Technik 3, 1915, Leipzig and Berlin, 271-80, and has become commonplace. It is convincingly rebutted (with references to earlier literature) by T. Fuhrer, ‘Aeneas: A study in character development’, G&R 36 (1989), 63-72. C. J. Mackie, The Characterisation ofAeneas, 1988, Edinburgh , 45-60 (cf. 211-15) shows that Aeneas’ character as portrayed in book 2 is broadly consistent with his later behaviour (see also B. J. Gibson, ‘Aeneas’ Story’, Omnibus 34 (1997), 28­ 31, at 29). For a concise assessment of the current state of the question see M. Schauer, Aeneas dux in Vergils Aeneis: Ein literarische Fiktion in augusteischer Zeit, Zetemata 128 (2007), esp. 126, n.10 and 143, n.348. J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 187

One might argue that the text implies strong criticism ofAeneas’ behaviour. He is out ofhis mind (amens) and he takes up arms hastily in blind fury (furor iraque mentem praecipitat) without any thought of prudence or strategy (nec sat rationis in armis). These can easily be taken as signs of an immature character: an unregenerate Homeric warrior who has some way to go before he can be allowed a place at the top table.9

But wait a minute. This passage comes from book 2, and the second and third books o f the Aeneid consist of first-person narrative. As Andrew Laird has pointed out,10 studies o f “speeches in the Aeneid” tend to leave out this one, which is the longest o f all (about 1,500 lines); but there is no reason why this speech should not also be subjected to the same kind of rhetorical analysis. At the very least, it seems unpromising to take the words put in Aeneas’ mouth as expressing a straightforward, presumably unfavourable, judgement by the author on his character. W hat we have here, rather, is the poet’s conception of how Aeneas himself would present his own character and his own story. In the passage just referred to, amens and furor et ira and nec sat rationis are not the author’s comments on Aeneas’ behaviour: they are Aeneas’ own comments, with hindsight, on his own past actions.

Is Aeneas therefore being made to criticise his own past actions? This would, I think, be a hasty interpretation. It seems rather unlikely, on reflection, that Aeneas is here telling Dido: “I was irrational and impulsive at that time, but now I have developed further along the road from Homeric hero to mature Roman leader, and if I were in the same situation now, I would act differently and more rationally”. After all, what more rational course of action, consistent with his status as any kind of epic hero, was open to him in that situation? Here, Servius auctus (adAen. 2.314) is alive to the rhetoric of the situation: NEC SAT RATIONIS IN ARMIS ... ostendere vult, primam ei cogitationem fuisse de patria, sed subveniendi ei armis nullam fuisse rationem ardente iam patria; quomodo enim incensam civitatem defenderet? Aeneas, in fact, is presenting himself as having acted bravely and patriotically, and with no thought for his own safety. He is narrating the event in a way that is calculated both to heighten the narrative excitement, and to appeal to the Carthaginian audience’s sympathy. His use of words like amens need not be read as self-condemnation, but rather has at least three positive rhetorical functions: first, to emphasise with hindsight the desperate nature of the situation Aeneas was in; secondly, to excuse his ultimate failure

9 Horsfall (n.4 above) 249-50 (on lines 289-95), citing a range of modern opinion, rightly disputes the “widespread vituperation of Aen. for his furious return to battle”. 10 A. J. W. Laird, Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power: Speech Presentation and Latin Literature, 1999, Oxford, 199-205, esp. n.88. 188 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

to defend Troy effectively, since the situation was obviously hopeless; and thirdly, to show the hero as suitably modest, i.e. not boasting inappropriately about exploits that did not, in fact, turn out too well. One could paraphrase as follows: “Looking back on it, I was mad to think I could fight my way out of that desperate situation. I had no strategy available to me; I was impelled by anger and rage, but my only thought was to fight and, if necessary, to die fighting”. In short, Aeneas present his own reactions in that situation as one might expect a hero to present them. In such a narration, it would not have been so satisfactory to claim to have acted with rational calculation, especially given the disastrous outcome.11

This passage is just one of many in which Aeneas is made to put a positive “spin” on his own character and his own experiences at Troy and later. Virgil has put his Aeneas into a delicate diplomatic situation, where he has to give an account of himself to an audience not certainly sympathetic. The narrative put into Aeneas’ mouth is not just a recital of facts, but also (I would argue) a persuasive apologia.

On general grounds, this is not unexpected. Admittedly, Aeneas is not the greatest spin-doctor of the Homeric world; that palm undoubtedly goes to Odysseus. Rather, he is presented (both in the Iliad and in the Aeneid) as a plain honest Trojan, and it is no part ofm y purpose to suggest that the text should lead us to see duplicity or deception in Aeneas’ self­ presentation.12 Spin — or, if you prefer, rhetoric — may be defined as the art o f manipulating the message without actual misstatement. Nevertheless, on a literary level we know that Aeneas’ narration is modelled on that of Odysseus in Homer, and the Odyssean precedent is never far away (much of Aeneas’ behaviour in book 1 is after all based on that of Odysseus, including a capacity to disguise his real feelings: 1.209). Even an honest Trojan may be expected not to let himself down by a bungled self-presentation. The rhetorical techniques o f captatio benevolentiae were well understood among Virgil’s contemporaries; but even if it were assumed that the techniques were here applied unconsciously by the author for the benefit o f the characters he created, it would still be legitimate to analyse them.

Certainly, at least one Roman reader of Virgil in the next generation was aware that Aeneas’ narrative could be taken as a rhetorical artefact. The cynical Ovid makes Dido write as follows (Her. 7.79-82):

11 It has been remarked that Aeneas in the Iliad is presented as notably level-headed: see Galinsky (n.2 above) 36-38. Virgil seems to have made him more impulsive, perhaps in an effort to present him (or have him present himself) as a more clearly first-class hero in the mould of Achilles or Hector. 12 Casali (n.3 above) 210-11 suggests precisely this: “The narrator’s voice never guarantees that Aeneas is telling the truth”. J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 189

sed neque fers tecum, nec quae mihi, perfide, iactas, presserunt umeros sacra paterque tuos. omnia mentiris: neque enim tua fallere lingua incipit a nobis, primaque plector ego.

Ovid’s Dido accuses Aeneas of lying outright: he never carried his father on his shoulders; he never rescued the Penates from Troy. As for Creusa (she continues), he just left her behind, in the same way as he is now abandoning Dido. O f course, Ovid’s Dido could not be made to refer explicitly to the text o f the Aeneid, but surely it is strongly implied here, for an audience familiar with Virgil, that Aeneas’ account of the loss of Creusa in Aeneid 2 could be seen as a whitewash. * * *

As a matter of fact, when Virgil began to conceive the Aeneid, it seems very likely that Aeneas needed a good deal of whitewashing, if he was to appear as a respectable epic hero and a worthy ancestor for the Julian house.

Doubtless, the core o f Virgil’s picture is already there in the Iliad:13 Aeneas is the son of Aphrodite, and on two occasions (in Iliad 5 and 20) he owes his survival to her intervention. He is a cousin of Priam, apparently given the cold shoulder by him (Il. 13.461): this feature does not appear explicitly in Virgil, but may possibly help to explain why, in Aen. 2, Aeneas seems to have no control over public events in Troy: a situation that seems inherently unlikely given his status, however necessary for the narrative (as we shall see later). The Homeric Aeneas has considerable heroic credentials, in so far as he is the only Trojan to fight Achilles and survive (although with non-human assistance); and Poseidon famously prophesies that he is the person who will carry on the Trojan royal family and be king.

The Homeric picture contains nothing discreditable about Aeneas; but as in the case of some other Homeric heroes, once one moves outside Homer to what can be gleaned of the treatment ofAeneas in the Cyclic epics, in tragedy and in Greek historians, the picture becomes a good deal more ambivalent. In much of this tradition, it seems, Aeneas appeared as distinctly unheroic.14 Three different versions circulated. According to one, in the Iliou Persis of Arctinus and in a lost play of Sophocles, Aeneas and his family escaped from Troy some time before the end. The escape was prompted by the death of Laocoon, which,

13 For the Iliadic characterisation of Aeneas see further Galinsky (n.2 above) 11-14. 14 See nn. 2 and 3 (above). Most of the information about the alternative accounts is, of course, owed to Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities. See G. Vanotti, L ’altro Enea: la testimonianza di Dionigi di Alicarnasso, 1995, Rome. 190 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

before Virgil reworked the story, apparently had nothing to do with the Wooden Horse, but happened some time before, and was interpreted as a portent o f the fall o f the city. According to this account, Aeneas moved his household to Mount Ida, where he remained safe during the remainder of the siege. A second version makes Aeneas, usually together with Antenor, stay in Troy to the end but then leave the city under Greek protection: this version is found in Virgil’s near contemporary Livy. The third version makes Aeneas part o f a plot, with Antenor, to betray the city to the Greek army: this is found in earlier Greek historical sources (Menecrates ofXanthus, perhaps 4th cent. BC), though it reaches its full development in the much later romances which bear the names of Dictys of Crete and Dares of Phrygia, and from there enters the main stream of medieval literature.

The proliferation of alternative accounts is, of course, typical of the majority of Graeco-Roman legends; until the story became the subject of a major work of literature such as the Aeneid, the question which version was right or canonical or generally accepted is simply the wrong question to ask. But whichever account one favoured, Virgil faced a problem. Why did Aeneas survive at all? W hy did he not fall in the defence o f his city, as a good hero should?15 The explanation might be cowardice, or treachery: Virgil could hardly allow either of these possibilities to obtrude itself explicitly,16 but because they were there in some versions of the tradition, it might be wise for him to rebut them by implication.

Now if Virgil had been a historian like Livy or Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he would have been free to choose, or construct for himself, a historically plausible version of events, in which Aeneas was shown as actuated throughout by considerations of prudent policy. Such a version was given by the Greek historian Hellanicus (cited by Dionysius), and Austin comments on it as follows:17 “Here, then, is an Aeneas who is a resolute, resourceful, and formidable military leader, poles apart from Virgil’s hesitant, frustrated, uncertain figure”. Austin wonders why Virgil did not make more use of this tradition: a story of orderly evacuations, negotiations from positions of strength, safe-conducts for the transportation of valuables, and time-limits for leaving the Troad. I, for my part, wonder whether even Virgil’s genius could have made high epic poetry out of that.

Whether or not Virgil seriously considered that option (and I can hardly imagine that he did so for more than a few minutes), in the end he went for a different one, undoubtedly more satisfactory from the point of view of heroic epic in the Homeric manner: Aeneas represents himself as having no regard for his own safety, and his escape from the fighting

15 See n.5 (above). 16 Horsfall (n.4 above) 248: “. cowardice, inebriation and gross somnolence are excluded”. 17 n.7 above (xv). J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 191

is shown to have been due entirely to the intervention o f the divine powers. There was ample precedent for this, not least in that the Homeric Aeneas is already consistently under special divine protection. It was, however, wise ofVirgil to portray Aeneas as having no real knowledge o f this at the time. An Aeneas who, throughout the story, was conscious of his specially protected status could easily have become insufferable. Rather than detract from his own heroism in this way, Virgil’s Aeneas prefers to run the risk o f seeming obtuse in the face of admonitions from above. For example, in the dream in 2.268-97, Aeneas is warned by Hector that it is hopeless to try to defend Troy; then he wakes up — and tries to defend Troy. The narrative goes on as though the dream had never happened. Here the poet again had a choice: the dream could have been remembered immediately and acted upon; but Virgil chose to make Aeneas ignore it, partly perhaps for realism (this is after all how nightmares are often treated in real life), and partly because to make him heed the warning would have detracted from his bravery. * * *

What I have so far said implies nothing about what I think Dido and the Carthaginians, in the story, knew about Aeneas before he started to narrate the fall of Troy. Ovid’s Dido certainly seems to imply that her offer of a share in the kingdom was made on inadequate evidence (Her. 7. 89-90):

fluctibus eiectum tuta statione recepi, vixque bene audito nomine, regna dedi.

In vix bene audito nomine, Ovid probably alludes to the fact that in Aeneid 1.572-74 the offer was made, before Aeneas appeared, to the band of Trojans led by Ilioneus, just twenty-eight lines after their first mention of Aeneas’ name. This may not imply that Dido had no previous knowledge of the hero and his reputation; and in Virgil, in fact, it is clear that she already knows a good deal about him. According to her at 1.565-66, she has not only heard of Aeneas and his family, but has heard the news of the sack of Troy (tanti incendia belli) and also knows where Aeneas is bound for (569: Hesperiam magnam Saturniaquearva, or at least Sicily). In 615-26, it turns out that she has heard about the fall of Troy from Teucer, son of Telamon, who had been assisted by Dido’s father in founding his city of Salamis on Cyprus. Though a Greek by allegiance, Teucer had strong family connections with the Trojans (being Priam’s sister’s son) and spoke well of them, though they were enemies (625). Partly because of this, and partly because of her own position as an exile (628-30), Dido claims to be friendly and sympathetic to the Trojans. Yet Aeneas cannot tell whether this favourable attitude will be shared by the rest o f the Carthaginians, whether it will last, or even whether it is genuine. He still has to be careful what he says. 192 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Before these revelations, there is another indication that the name of Aeneas is known at Carthage: the famous mural of the Trojan War described in lines 456-93. At the risk of adding to the discussion on a passage that has received more than its share of attention,18 I shall venture to suggest that this scene is crucial in preparing for the narrative of book 2, in a way that has not, I think, always been noticed.19

Aeneas’ reactions to the work of art can, I think, be divided into three stages. First, and obviously, he immediately concludes that, because the Trojan story is known in Carthage, he is likely to get a sympathetic hearing there (463): solve metus; feret haec aliquam tibi fam a salutem. Then, he examines the pictures more closely, and especially those that record the sufferings of the Trojans; these reach their climax in the ransoming of the body of Hector. Here his reaction changes realistically to one of nearly uncontrollable grief. In the third section, he finally sees a representation of himself (488), se quoque principibus permixtum agnovit Achivis, together with the arrival of reinforcements for the Trojan side from Memnon and the Amazons. Aeneas’ emotional reactions seem to shut off abruptly at this point. All we are told is that he stupet obtutuque haeret defixus in uno (495): he is in a daze, staring fixedly at the picture. Has something about this scene puzzled or disturbed him?

In the commentary of Servius, here and on 1.242, we find that there was a difference o f opinion in antiquity as to the meaning o f line 488. Some took it as I have done since schooldays and as I suspect most readers do: Aeneas saw himself in the midst ofthe fighting, heroically ill-matched against several of the Greek champions. David West’s translation provides an explicit gloss to this effect: “in the confusion of battle, with the leaders of the Greeks all round him”.20 Yet “battle” is not explicit in the Latin, and there was an alternative interpretation. Aeneas might have seen himself represented in the middle of a group of Greek chieftains, not fighting them, but negotiating with them, as in some of the other versions of the story mentioned above. It seems, in fact, that the wording is ambiguous and could support either interpretation. Usage alone does not solve the problem; one may note, however, that in classical Latin in general, the word often has a

18 See for example R. O. A. M. Lyne, Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid, 1987, Oxford, 210; D. P. Fowler, ‘Narrate and describe: the problem of ekphrasis’, JRS 81 (1991), 25-35; N. Horsfall, ‘Dido in the light of history’, PVS 13 (1973-74), 1-13, repr. in S. Harrison (ed.), Oxford Readings in Vergil’s Aeneid., Oxford, 1990, 127-44. 19 See also Casali (n.3 above) 208-09. 20 D. West, Virgil: The Aeneid, a New Prose Translation, 1990, London, 19. David West (private communication) cites OLD s.v. misceo 3b and 4b, permisceo 3b and 4b for these verbs used in battle contexts. J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 193

pejorative tinge: what is permixtum is often in some sense out o f place (see esp. OLD s.v. permisceo 4, 5). Perhaps, then, the effect is that Aeneas thinks to himself: “Hello! What am I doing there among the Greek leaders?”

Now if that is so, the corollary becomes clear: from the point of view of Virgil’s Aeneas, the Carthaginians have, or may have, got hold of the wrong story.21 At best, they have shown Aeneas negotiating with the Greeks to leave Troy, even before the arrival of the Amazons (and hence well before the end of the siege); at worst, they have followed the version that made him a traitor to his city, fraternising with the enemy. No wonder, in that case, that he is taken aback, as he surely is, in lines 494-95; though usually taken as such, this does not read to me quite like a continuation o f his reaction to the rest o f the picture. This new reaction may be not just personal interest or emotional involvement, but shock at thinking that one has been libelled. If this is the sense, it is conveyed by the lightest of touches; and yet it goes a long way towards explaining why Aeneas is later so anxious to defend himself in book 2, as indeed Servius ad Aen. 1.488 notes: latenter proditionem tangit... ut excusatur ab ipso in secundo, ‘Iliaci cineres’ et cetera.

The passage Servius refers to is 2.431-44:

Iliaci cineres et flamma extrema meorum, testor, in occasu vestro nec tela nec ullas vitavisse vices, Danaum et, si fata fuissent ut caderem, meruisse manu.

If this passage is not rhetorical self-defence, it is difficult to know what rhetorical self-defence would look like.22 It marks an important break in the narrative, although not usually marked as such in editions; West’s Penguin translation gets it right.23 The first battle scene (303-430) is over and the second battle, at Priam’s palace, has not yet begun. Aeneas and his followers have had their first encounter with Greeks in battle inside the city, and he has had some temporary success, partly because of his local knowledge (370-83). Then Coroebus, Cassandra’s husband, has the disastrous idea of making use

21 As argued by Casali (n.3 above) 209-10. Aliter Horsfall (n.18 above) who talks of an ironical contrast between Aeneas’ “warm reactions” (throughout) to the pictures and the Carthaginian reality. But if stupet and haeret do not register some change from Aeneas’ initial reaction, they seem to be a pointless amplification of miranda in the previous line. 22 Here, at any rate, there is little disagreement among scholars. See esp. Stahl (n.3 above) 168: “The verb testor implies the situation of the accused”. More material to similar effect in Horsfall (n.4 above) 337 ad loc. 23 West (n.20 above) 43. 194 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

of the armour stripped from the Greeks they have killed, in order to disguise themselves. The consequence o f this is that they are mistaken for Greeks and attacked by their own side (410-12); then the main Greek force arrives, discovers that they are Trojans (because of their dialect, 423) and all those named up to that point except for Aeneas himself are killed. Aeneas is thus left alone apart from two companions (one elderly and one wounded) and the implication is that one would expect him to be killed as well. N o real explanation is offered at this point as to how he managed to survive. But the narrative gap is covered over by this eloquent apostrophe, in which the ashes of burning Troy are called to witness that Aeneas made all reasonable efforts to court death in battle, but that his fated time had not yet come.

It would not be hard to find parallels for this type of thing in actual defence oratory: one thinks immediately of Demosthenes’ famous oath by the dead of Marathon in the speech on the Crown, and I offer also one Ciceronian example, Pro Rab. perd. 30, where he calls the departed spirits o f Marius and other brave citizens to witness that his client Rabirius was right to take up arms against Saturninus: .

quapropter equidem et C. M ari et ceterorum virorum sapientissimorum ac fortissimorum civium mentes, quae mihi videntur ex hominum vita ad deorum religionem et sanctimoniam demigrasse, testor, me pro illorum fam a gloria memoria non secus ac pro patriis fanis atque delubris propugnandum putare.

To return now to the end of book 1: it is worth noticing that when Dido asks Aeneas to tell his story, she seems discreetly to omit mention of his own part in it. Her questions are initially directed to characters she already knows from the mural. She enquires about Priam and Hector, showing a polite interest in Aeneas’ relatives. She asks about the arms of Memnon and the horses of Diomedes, showing a professional interest in military matters and horse-breeding. Then she asks just how big Achilles was: male physique is an interest of hers as well. Finally she asks Aeneas for the story of the fall of Troy: insidias ... Danaum casusque tuorum / erroresque tuos (754-55). Although by this stage Dido is far gone in love, the phrasing shows the same care as before on the part of Virgil as scriptwriter. The enquiries are tactful. They presuppose nothing as to Aeneas’ involvement in the last hours of Troy, beyond the assumption that he will be able to give an account of what happened.

For all we know at this stage (leaving aside for a moment the expectations set up by the Odyssean parallel), the answer might have been that he watched it all from a safe distance on Mount Ida. But as a matter of fact we all know the answer (2.3-6): J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 195

infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem, Troianas ut opes et lamentabile regnum eruerint Danai, quaeque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pars magna fui.

Aeneas establishes a good deal of positive “ethos” just in these three and a half lines. He is not only a narrator of events but an important participant in them: this immediately rebuts the notion that he had escaped from Troy before the bitter end. His situation as an eyewitness naturally implies that his story will be reliable. Like Odysseus, he is reluctant to begin the story of these traumatic events,24 and his emotional involvement adds to the impression of honesty. Altogether, this is as convincing an exordium as one will find in any orator: it even continues with the customary protestation of brevity.

* * *

The main part of Aeneas’ narrative, as I have suggested, has as one of its functions that of proving that he was neither treacherous nor cowardly, but that he was as much a victim of deception as the rest of the Trojans; that he fought bravely and several times nearly got killed; and that he refused to leave Troy until he was commanded to by unmistakable omens. This rhetorical strategy, however, carried risks of its own. In implicitly rebutting the accusation of collusion in the Wooden Horse stratagem, Aeneas ran the risk of casting himself as a foolish victim. In telling the story of his desperate last stand, he risked appearing as irrationally impulsive and foolhardy, and forgetful of his duties towards his fellow-Trojans. There was also the unfortunate incident of the loss of Creusa, which could easily make Aeneas appear foolish and negligent, or worse. It is these qualities that have been picked out by Austin in his criticism of the character of Aeneas as depicted in book 2. However, closer analysis of the narrative can, I believe, show that Virgil has in fact made an effort to exonerate Aeneas on all these counts.

A brief typology of self-justificatory techniques may suggest itself. There are two main types: (1) comments by Aeneas as narrator, and (2) expressions of identification with or dissociation from those around him.

(1) Aeneas’ comments on the narrative may be divided into four sub-types:

(a) expressions o f regret or reluctance; (b) references to the role of fate;

24 As noted by Laird (n.10 above) 203-04. 196 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

(c) references to unexpected divine interventions;

(d) references to Greek trickery.25

The last three o f these are all examples o f the strategy o f shifting the blame, which the rhetoricians called the status translativus.

(2) The degree of identification between Aeneas and the rest of the Trojans is often shown in the verb-forms. At times when he wants to show himself as part of the crowd, he uses the inclusive first-person plural “we”. Where he wants to dissociate himself from the collective action of the Trojans, he uses the third-person plural “they”; and when he wants to avoid assigning responsibility either way, he relies on passive or impersonal narration.26 I shall take the first part of the book, the Wooden Horse narrative, as an example of how this type of variation is deployed.

At the beginning, Aeneas associates himself with the Trojans’ initial reaction: nos abiisse rati et vento petiisse Mycenas (25). But he detaches himself from what follows, using third-person verbs, passives and impersonals: ergo omnis longo solvit se Teucria luctu; / panduntur portae, iuvat ire et Dorica castra / desertosque videre locos. He takes no responsibility for the initial foolishness of the Trojans. He continues by dividing the population into two, a well-known technique characteristic of historical narratives, which again emphasises Aeneas’ detachment: pars stupet innuptae donum exitiale Minervae (31). With hindsight, he taxes his fellow-citizen Thymoetes with the suspicion of treachery: primusque Thymoetes / duci intra muros hortatur et arce locari, / sive dolo seu iam Troiae sic fa ta ferebant. Here is another characteristic narrative feature, the pair of alternative explanations: perhaps Thymoetes was in on the Greek plot, or perhaps it was just the fate of Troy, in which case it was nobody’s fault. By expressing ignorance as to the true explanation, Aeneas renders more convincing the notion that he himself had nothing to do with it (otherwise, of course, he would have known). Then Aeneas turns to the wiser half of the population, led by

25 On this point see Horsfall (n.4 above) 95, on ll. 57-76, with particular reference to the rhetorical plausibility of Sinon’s speeches, designed to exculpate the Trojans for having believed him. 26 The point is adumbrated by Nisbet (n.5 above) and N. Horsfall, A Companion to the Study ofVirgil, 1995, Leiden, 110 (“The interplay of first and third person verbs and the use of (e.g.) cuncti and omnes in [book] 2 seems to require further analysis”) but not taken further; cf. also Bowie (n.1 above, 42-43), who draws a somewhat different conclusion about the “objectivity” of Aeneas’ narrative. J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 197

Capys,27 who distrusted the horse; but again the narrative is detached; Aeneas at this point avoids identifying himself with either party.

Laocoon appears, issues his warning, and the trick is nearly revealed: it would have been, si fata deum, si mens non laeva fuisset (54). Discussion will continue as to whether the mens laeva is that of the gods or that of the Trojans.28 At this point Aeneas is treading a tightrope: on the one hand he cannot afford to let it appear that he could himself have prevented the disaster; on the other hand, he needs to show his own solidarity with the Trojans. It is precisely at such points that Virgil makes his Aeneas resort to ambiguous phrasing, and there seems to me little doubt that the unclarity is deliberate.

The action is interrupted by the appearance of Sinon, whose speech is introduced with the words accipe nunc Danaum insidias, echoing Dido’s question at 1.754. The Trojan reaction is first expressed impersonally at line 73: quo gemitu conversi animi, compressus et omnis / impetus. But then Aeneas changes to the first person plural: hortamur fari. Now Aeneas is himself involved: there was no discredit in showing generosity towards a captive. The first part of Sinon’s speech is deliberately designed to arouse curiosity, and the collective reaction continues (105): Tum vero ardemus scitari et quaerere causas; the Trojans are now explicitly characterised as ignorant of Greek wiles, ignari scelerum tantorum artisque Pelasgae. To claim ignorance of this kind is of course to claim to be on a superior level of moral uprightness. After Sinon finishes his account o f himself, the first person plural verbs continue: vitam damus et miserescimus ultro (145); again, no shame in showing mercy. But after Sinon has given his account of the Horse, the verbs become passive again: credita res (196), “the thing was believed”. As modern politicians tend to say, “mistakes were made”.

27 Servius ad Aen. 2.32, quoting Euphorion, comments that Thymoetes may have had a legitimate grudge against Priam and thus a reason to betray the city; see Horsfall (n.4 above) 73 on l. 32. The names of Thymoetes and Capys recur later in the narrative. Both defend the Trojan camp in Aeneas’ absence in 10.120-45 (at 123 and 145 respectively); but their eventual fates differ, perhaps by way of poetic justice. Thymoetes falls off his horse (12.264), whereas Capys kills his man (9.576) and survives to become the eponymous hero of Capua (10.145); a namesake appears in the royal line of Alba (6.768). It may be better not to raise the question whether both Capys and Thymoetes are imagined to be present at Aeneas’ narration. If so, his reference to Capys may come over as a graceful compliment, but the reference to Thymoetes seems tactless: a slip on Virgil’s part, or an intrusion of the authorial narrative voice (of the kind envisaged by Bowie, n.1 above)? Or is it a different man of the same name, perhaps a younger member of the family (cf. the index to Mynors’s OCT)?. 28 Horsfall (n.4 above) 91-92 (on l. 54) devotes a page of discussion to the issue, with an appropriately Delphic conclusion: “It seems in the end that the line refers only to the gods ... though the existence of a reference to human mind(s) in mens ... is perhaps not entirely to be ruled out”. 198 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

The Trojans were deceived, precisely because of their virtues of honesty and generosity; Aeneas associates himself more closely with their virtues, less so with their gullibility.

The story ofLaocoon then resumes with these words: Hic aliud maius miseris multoque tremendum / obicitur magis, atque improvida pectora turbat (199-200). The adjective miseris and the phrase improvida pectora hang in mid-air. There is no noun or pronoun to which we can attach miseris, nor are we told directly whose are the “unforeseeing breasts”. We know the Trojans are meant, but the impersonal phrases again have the effect of creating narrative detachment. As the snakes appear, Aeneas participates in the general panic: diffugimus visu exsangues (212): no shame in being scared by as horrific a divine portent as this. Then, after the snakes have done their work, the crowd’s reactions are narrated again in the third person: scelus expendisse merentem / Laocoonta ferunt (229-30), and ducendum ad sedes simulacrum orandaque divae / numina conclamant (232-33).

It is missing a trick to read this as though Virgil had temporarily slipped back into third-person authorial narrative and had forgotten that Aeneas was speaking; or even that we have here a trace of an earlier, unrevised third-person version of the narrative (for which one might cite the half-line at 233). Even in a revised version, there is no reason to suppose that Aeneas would have been made to present himself as one of those drawing mistaken conclusions from the death of Laocoon or calling for the horse to be brought within the walls. Rather, the third person verbs, if one keeps the context clearly in mind, make for a strong sense of dissociation of the narrator from what he narrates, and are clearly in place.

In the next section the first-person verbs resume: dividimus muros et moenia pandimus urbis (234); instamus tamen immemores caecique furore / et monstrum infelix sacrata sistimus arce (244-45); nos delubra deum miseri, quibus ultimus esset / ille dies, festa velamus fronde per urbem (248-49). Now that the fateful decision is made, Aeneas takes his part with the rest in these actions, again showing solidarity. There is a further point in associating himself with the crowd at this stage. This was not, in fact, Aeneas’ last day, though it was the last day of Troy. But it is in Aeneas’ interests to link himself closely with the fate of the city, so as to obviate suspicion that his escape was planned in advance.

Thus Aeneas exculpates himself — I would say successfully — from any blame for the success of the Wooden Horse stratagem. After the interlude with the vision of Hector, the next part of the narrative, as already suggested, is devoted to demonstrating how Aeneas made a desperate last stand and by rights ought to have got himself killed; his J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 199

survival is thus shown to be in no way planned by himself, and at several points it is stressed that there was no possibility of his saving the city or his companions in arms.

* * *

There follows the scene of the death of Priam (of which Aeneas is merely a witness), Aeneas’ encounter with Venus in the palace and his return home under her protection, and the scene with his family leading to the decision to leave. The rhetorical presentation in these scenes would also repay closer analysis, but I must now jump to the end and look at the last scene o f all, the disappearance o f Creusa.

This event is obviously indispensable to the legend. Creusa had to be got out of the way somehow: Aeneas must be an eligible widower by the time he gets to Carthage and, of course, free to marry Lavinia once he arrives in Italy. Virgil takes as much advantage o f this as he reasonably can. Aeneas’ return to the city to search for her intensifies the pathos o f his departure; it gives us a last view o f the captured city (757-67); it allows time for Aeneas to acquire some new followers (796-800). It may be that these narrative advantages, in Virgil’s mind, outweighed the problems he faced in explaining how it all happened; certainly any alternative method of dispatching Creusa (such as making her die of an infectious illness) would have involved sacrificing them. Nor, perhaps, would he have been willing to sacrifice the impressive effect of the speech made by Creusa’s imago.29 She explains that she was not fated to go with Aeneas. He is to shed no more tears for her, because she has been saved from going to Greece as a captive. Specific gods are named as responsible — Jupiter himself, and Cybele, the Great Mother: one could hardly ask for higher authority than that. Then she makes the famous prophecy to Aeneas that he will come to “the land of Hesperia”, and find there res laetae regnumque et regia coniunx. We are not, of course, told Dido’s reaction to this, but the reader must inevitably speculate as to what she thought of the promise of a “royal bride” for Aeneas in a place whose identity might not have been quite clear to her (even if the description did not seem to fit Carthage).

29 See Horsfall (n.4 above) 533-35, 542-44, on ll. 772-89, for the scholarly debate as to whether Creusa is actually dead, or transported to a new life as attendant of Cybele; H. notes her absence from book 6 (p. 544, even remarking on the embarrassment of an encounter between Creusa and Dido in the Underworld). Hence I try not to prejudge the issue. But I observe that (a) there must be no doubt that Aeneas’ marriage to her is dissolved; (b) Virgil’s language in 772-73, infelix simulacrum ... umbra ... nota maior imago, strongly suggests a ghost; (c) Creusa’s failure to explain her own disappearance (whether as death or otherwise), or to define the exact capacity in which she is “detained” by Cybele, is a function of the oracular style of the speech as a whole, designed exactly to leave us guessing. 200 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

The problem that Virgil has set himself in this passage is encapsulated in Austin’s comment: “He forms for one moment a cool plan of action, only to lose his wife by some unexplainable muddle”.30 However, a closer look at the text shows that there is no part of Aeneas’ narrative fuller of rhetorical excuses than this one. I have counted seventeen in the passage leading up to (but not including) Creusa’s speech.31

Excuse 1: It was dark (725).

Excuse 2: Aeneas was not just barging ahead regardless, but treading carefully, with a heightened sense of danger (726-29).

Excuse 3: Nevertheless Aeneas was taken by surprise by the apparent presence of Greek soldiers in hot pursuit (731-32 and 734).

Excuse 4: He took flight under orders from his father (7 32-4).32

Excuse 5: It was an unfriendly supernatural power that robbed Aeneas of his wits (735-36).

Excuse 6: He had lost his way (737).

Excuse 7: Creusa was snatched away by fate (738).

Excuse 8: Or perhaps she herself wandered off the path (739).

Excuse 9: Or perhaps she couldn’t keep up, and sat down to rest (739). (7, 8 and 9 are alternatives).

Excuse 10: He didn’t look back or realise she was missing until they reached the meeting point (741-43).

Excuse 11: Aeneas was not the only one who hadn’t noticed that she was missing. Her companions hadn’t noticed either; nor had Iulus (744). (So everyone else was just as much to blame as Aeneas).

Excuse 12: Aeneas started blaming everyone for what had happened (745). This was the worst thing that had happened to him (746). (His reactions at the time prove that he didn’t do it on purpose).

30 n. 7 (above) xiv. 31 A further excuse is found in line 711, longe servet vestigia coniunx: Creusa is to follow at a distance, and Aeneas took all reasonable precautions to ensure her safety (see Horsfall (n.4 above) 503-04 ad loc, rejecting alternative interpretations and emendations). 32 Horsfall (n.4 above) 514 on line 732: “It could even be argued that Anchises bears a share of the practical responsibility for the loss of Creusa”. J. F. G. Powell — Aeneas The Spin Doctor: Rhetorical Self-Presentation in A eneid 2 201

The items which follow, nos 13-17, could be seen as one unit; the separation into five “excuses” is meant here just as a tool of rhetorical analysis, and is not of course intended to detract from the tragic quality of the narrative or from its further rhetorical function in exciting the audience’s feelings of sympathy or pity.

Excuse 13: He left the rest of his family, put his armour back on and went back to the city to look for her (747-49). (He did everything he could to find her).

Excuse 14: He went over every inch of ground they had covered, regardless of danger and fear (750-55).

Excuse 15: He even went back to his own house, just in case (si forte breathlessly repeated) she might be there, but found it occupied by the enemy (756-57) and just about to be set on fire (758-59).

Excuse 16: He went to search Priam’s palace as well (760): all he found was Odysseus and Phoenix guarding the plunder — the treasure, the women and children. (The question is not explicitly raised whether Creusa had been taken prisoner, but this is the obvious inference for Aeneas to have made; the gap after 767 might, in revision, have been filled with some words to that effect).

Excuse 17: Aeneas even dared to call Creusa’s name, three times (768-70). He was still searching and rushing round the city when the vision of her appeared (771-73).

In Heroides 7.83-85, Ovid made Dido write:

si quaeras ubi sit formosi mater Iuli, occidit a duro sola relicta viro. haec mihi narraras: sat me monuere.

Ovid’s Dido would have none of Aeneas’ excuses: from her point of view, Aeneas had simply abandoned Creusa, and was about to do the same again; Dido ought to have taken heed when she heard this part of the story. Undeniably, Virgil had set himself a tough task to make Aeneas defend himself effectively on this point, and it is always open to readers to take a different view, as Ovid did. But at least we ought to acknowledge that Aeneas is here making heroic efforts to explain his actions.

* * *

I am aware of the risk that a “rhetorical” approach to the Aeneid, such as I have taken in this paper, may be seen as an artificial resuscitation of the methods of the ancient commentators and even as devaluing the poetry. However, such an approach is surely 202 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

justified to some extent in the present case, simply by the fact that Aeneas in book 2 is making a speech; and the topic of Aeneas’ character-presentation is one where there is, in point of fact, a significant convergence between the interests of the ancient critics and some of their modern counterparts.33 I argue that an analysis of the rhetoric can enhance our appreciation ofVirgil’s drama and realism and of the subtlety of his character-presentation. If my analysis is correct, he has characterised his Aeneas in a way that is exactly right for that situation, in full consciousness o f the effect that his choice o f words might have. Virgil’s Aeneas, in the narrative of book 2, makes as good a job of his self-presentation as one would expect a character created by a top-class dramatist and spin-doctor to do — while at the same time also speaking in top-class poetry. It may be precisely because of the poetic qualities of Aeneas’ narrative that many readers have lost sight of the dramatic situation in which it is delivered; but a renewed appreciation of the dramatic context need not in the least impair appreciation of those qualities, and may enhance it by counteracting the effects o f over-familiarity.

One final thought. Virgil chose to make Aeneas’ rhetoric succeed, enough to ensure his survival and thus the continuance o f the story. Witness D ido’s reaction to it at the beginning o f book 4:

credo equidem, nec vana fides, genus esse deorum; degeneres animos timor arguit. heu, quibus ille iactatus fatis! quae bella exhausta canebat!

Dido is persuaded of his divine parentage; she has failed to detect any trace of cowardice in him. She is full of amazement and sympathy for all he has been through. She is obsessed not just with his looks but also with his words (verba, 4.5). Aeneas’ narration evidently did its job successfully. But the success came at a price.

Royal Holloway, University o f London J. G. F. POWELL

33 See esp. Tiberius Claudius Donatus, Interpretationes Virgilianae ad Aen. 1, p. 2ff. Georgii: Purgat ergo haec mira arte Vergilius, et non tantum collecta in primis versibus ut mox apparebit, verum etiam sparsa per omnes libros excusabili assertione, et quod est summi oratoris, confitetur ista quae negari non poterant, et summotam criminationem convertit in laudem ... simulque partitur quid fato, quid extra fatum perpessus sit, subtiliter monstrans quae accidunt fato nullis posse virtutibus superari, perindeque non esse illius crimen, si expugnare fata non valuit; illa vero quae extra fatum imponebantur ... patientia et virtute animi transmisisse. The passage is available in English translation in R. Copeland and I. Sluiter (eds), Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric: Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300-1475, Oxford, 2009, 143-47 (144). Especially for non esse illius crimen cf. Nisbet (n.5 above): “the disaster was not his fault”. Deiphobe or What’s In a Name?

A brief note on the Sibyl

Uniquely, Virgil calls the Cumaean Sibyl “Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus”:

Phoebi Triviaeque sacerdos, Deiphobe Glauce (Aen. 6.35-36).

According to the Enciclopedia Virgiliana (s.v. “Deifobe”), no other ancient author calls her by this name (she has various aliases, e.g. Amalthea, Herophile, Demophile, Phemonoe, Melanchraina) and this is the only occurrence in Virgil himself. So why did he choose Deiphobe, which seems to be his own invention, and what does it mean?

Commentaries point out the Sibyl’s possible Trojan origins and her Euboean connections: Glaucus came from Anthedon in Euboea, while Cumae was founded partly by settlers from Chalcis in Euboea. Hence:

(a) Euboicis ... oris (Aen. 6.2), (b) Chalcidica ... arce (Aen. 6.17), (c) Euboicae ... rupis (Aen. 6.42).

But this does not explain or account for the name Deiphobe.

In a recent light-hearted article (Classical Association News 40, June 2009, 16-17) reprinted by the Virgil Society (VS Newsletter, September 2009) it suited my purpose to assume that the name Deiphobe meant “fear of god”, as if it were derived from dei — φόβος. But there are objections to this:

(a) it involves a hybrid Greco-Latin derivation, which (like “television”) is acceptable, but deplored by purists. (b) it reverses the quantities o f the first two syllables. Dei (“o f god”) = Dei, whereas Deiphobe = Dei. 204 Proceedings ofthe Virgil Society 27 (2011)

Another possibility (based on Aen. 6.35) is that Deiphobe comes from Dei Phoebi ... sacerdos. This avoids the mixture of Greek and Latin words, but adds to the change of quantities, making three in all: from Deiphoebi to Deiphobe.

We could pursue this etymological line of enquiry (cf. Enc. Virg. s.v. “Deifobo”) but I am inclined to think that the meaning is irrelevant, and we should concentrate on the name itself.

I believe that Virgil chose Deiphobe simply as the feminine equivalent of Deiphobus. This is common practice in Greek nomenclature (e.g. Hedylos, Hedyle) and in Latin (e.g. Sempronius, Sempronia). But why should he do this? What is the connection between Deiphobus and Deiphobe? Obviously, if the name is Virgil’s invention, there is no genealogical or mythological link.

The answer, I think, is that at the end of book 6 (494-547). These lines record a long encounter between Aeneas, Deiphobus, and the Sibyl (Deiphobe). It is finally cut short by some harsh words from Deiphobe, and apologies from Deiphobus. I suspect that this a quiet joke on Virgil’s part — he is not averse to “playing with names” (paronomasia). In book 1, for example, we have a reference to an “old city”, urbs antiqua (12), which turns out to be Karthago (13) — a Punic word meaning “new city”.

To put this in perspective: When the supporters of Handel and Bononcini almost came to blows over their respective merits, the composers themselves were characterised (or caricatured) as Tweedledum and Tweedledee:

Strange that all this difference should be ’Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

I suggest that this little “spat” between Deiphobus and Deiphobe is Virgil’s proleptic version of Tweedledum and Tweedledee and perhaps another manifestation of his comic muse (nostra Thalia, Ecl. 6.2).

D. W. BLANDFORD