Copyright by Wolfgang Polleichtner 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Wolfgang Polleichtner certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: AENEAS’ EMOTIONS IN VERGIL’S AENEID AND THEIR LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECT SCENES Committee: __________________________ Karl Galinsky, Supervisor __________________________ David Armstrong __________________________ Thomas K. Hubbard __________________________ Reinhold F. Glei __________________________ Damien P. Nelis AENEAS’ EMOTIONS IN VERGIL’S AENEID AND THEIR LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECT SCENES by Wolfgang Polleichtner, M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2005 familiae ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support and help of many people. I owe more thanks to K. Galinsky, my Doktorvater, than can be expressed here. The members of my dissertation committee commented on many drafts of the following chapters and offered their helpful advice. D. Armstrong let me audit a number of his courses on Philodemus and Plato beyond the normal course work. D. Armstrong, J. Fish, K. Galinsky, and B. Henry provided me with advance copies of some of their forthcoming books and articles. In addition, I would also like to thank A. Barchiesi, W. Beierwaltes, G. Binder, L. Braun, A. Breitenbach, M. Büttner, F. Cairns, R. Dammer, J. Dillon, B. Effe, H. Essler, M. Erler, P. Green, U. Hamm, H. Heckel, N. Horsfall, C. Klodt, E. Lefèvre, T. Lindken, I. Männlein-Robert, G. Morgan, W. Nethercut, D. O’Rourke, T. Paulsen, A. Prieto, K. Sanders, D. Timpe, U. Scholz, C. Ware, and R. Welter for their willingness to answer questions, to help me in various ways, or to read or listen to what I had to say or write about Vergil in general and my dissertation in particular. I gratefully also recall the first Vorlesung that I ever heard in my life as a student. Vergil’s Aeneid was its subject, delivered by S. Koster at Erlangen. T. Baier introduced me to Apollonius who has fascinated me since. I am also grateful to the staff and the librarians of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, of Trinity College, Dublin, of the Fondation Hardt, Geneva, of the Bayerische Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg, and of The University of Texas at Austin, especially to C. Budnj, B. Keyes, V. O’Rafferty, G. Giovannone, J. Sosa, U. Uhlemann, and S. Winchester. Their patience with me especially during the last days before the defense of my dissertation was remarkable. P. Perry and even more so T. Vasquez need to be especially commended for their support over the course of my student career in Austin. The Classics Department of my alma mater with my fellow students and with its faculty, its vast variety of scholarly interests and academic opportunities has become a home and indeed a New World for me over the v last years. I am very much indebted for the financial support my department and its then chair T. Moore provided for me so that I could undertake extended trips to visit and study in Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland. Most of all, however, I would like to thank my brothers, my parents, and my grandparents for being the citadel for all my endeavors. vi AENEAS’ EMOTIONS IN VERGIL’S AENEID AND THEIR LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF SELECT SCENES Publication No. ______________ Wolfgang Polleichtner, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: Karl Galinsky This dissertation consists of nine chapters in which I explore the literary and philosophical background of the emotional profile of Aeneas as it is presented in select scenes of Vergil’s Aeneid. After an introduction I discuss in detail the sea storm of Aeneid 1, Aeneas’ subsequent encounter with his mother, Aeneas’ arrival in Carthage, and Aeneas’ emotions while he contemplates the pictures at the temple of Juno in Carthage. The next two chapters are devoted to the Helen episode and the final scene of the Aeneid. A conclusion rounds out this dissertation. Regarding Vergil’s literary sources, more emphasis is given to the role Apollonius’ works played in shaping Vergil’s work than has been done before. Apollonius’ work is one of the two focal lenses through which Homeric traditions are handed down to Vergil. The tradition of reading Homer’s works and similar stories morally is the other lens. Here, as has been observed before, Vergil pays attention to opinions of all major philosophical schools. In a dialogue particularly with Aristotle, Vergil even develops his own poetics as far as Vergil’s advice on how to read epic poetry is concerned. Looked at from the ancients’ perspective of emotions, Aeneas reacts as can be reasonably expected from somebody in a similar situation. Changes in the way Vergil vii treats the material stemming from his literary predecessors reflect the philosophical thinking of his time in considerable detail. Vergil emerges as a Hellenistic poeta doctus both in regard to literary works as well as in regard to philosophical education who puts his knowledge into practice. viii Table of Contents Abbreviations xi 1 Introduction 1 2 The Meaning of Emotions 9 2.1 Modern Day Views of Emotions 9 2.2 Emotions in Antiquity 25 2.2.1 Plato and the Academy 28 2.2.2 Aristotle and the Peripatos 32 2.2.3 The Stoics 35 2.2.4 The Epicureans 39 2.2.5 Conclusion 42 2.3 Methodological Remarks on Allusions, Intertextuality, 43 and Literary Genre 3 Sea Storm and Landing on the Shore of Africa 60 3.1 How to Enter a Poem and to Suffer Shipwreck Epically 60 3.2 The Sea Storm off Crete: How to Weather a Storm Without 84 Being Afraid 3.3 Facing Death on High Seas: Philosophical Implications 100 3.4 Conclusions: Between Heroism and Cowardice 113 4 Aeneas’ Encounter with His Mother 116 4.1 Meeting Family on Foreign Shores 116 4.2 The Feelings of Young People 133 4.3 Conclusions: The Son and His Mother 137 5 Aeneas’ Arrival in Carthage 139 5.1 Luck and Jealousy 139 5.2 Emulation vs. Envy: Intending also to Have, but not to Take Away 144 What Somebody Else Owns 5.3 Conclusions: Seeing Carthage – Between Jealousy and Inspiration 150 6 The Temple in Carthage 152 6.1 Observing and Reacting to Pictures and Stories 152 6.2 Towards an Implicit Poetics of the Aeneid 164 6.3 How to Read Epic Poetry 179 ix 7 The Helen Episode 185 7.1 Divine Interventions in Times of Dire Emotional Distress 185 7.2 The Apollonian and Vergilian Transformation and Use of 201 This Type of Scene 7.3 Therapy and the Prevention of Acratic Acts 209 7.4 Conclusions: Outside Counselling 216 Appendix to the Helen Episode 218 8 The Final Duel 223 8.1 On the Right Treatment of One’s Enemies and Their Corpses 223 8.2 Keeping the Faith: The Right Kind of Anger 253 8.3 Conclusions: Roman Ethics and Turnus’ False Lessons from Iliadic 268 History 9 Aeneas and His Emotions 274 Bibliography 281 Vita 325 x ABBREVIATIONS The abbreviations for literary works follow LSJ (Greek authors) and ThlL (Latin authors). Titles of journals are abbreviated as in L’Année philologique. LP-V = Lobel/Page (1963), Voigt (1971). LSJ = Liddell/Scott/Jones/McKenzie (1996). SVF = v. Arnim (1903-1924). ThlL = Thesaurus linguae Latinae editus iussu et auctoritate consilii ab academicis societatibusque diversarum nationum electi (Leipzig 1900- ). xi 1 Introduction This dissertation will focus on and combine two aspects of the interpretation of Vergil’s Aeneid that have received major attention in recent years: Vergil’s roots in the tradition of epic poetry and his interest in and use of contemporary philosophy.1 My approach to Vergil’s Aeneid will be similar to the methods Vergil’s contemporaries were most likely to apply to their reading of epic works like the Aeneid. I would like to explain why the time is opportune to avail ourselves of the progress made in these two areas. I will proceed to demonstrate in more detail in chapter 2 why this approach will enable us more easily to escape several fallacies that stem from cross-cultural and cross-temporal differences between our reading habits and ancient reading habits. First, for a long time the opinion prevailed that Vergil’s work rests on Homer and his Latin predecessors. In particular, it has been a common belief that Homer’s influence eclipsed Apollonius’ impact on Vergil’s Aeneid.2 Lately there has been an increased awareness that Vergil’s work reflects a far broader knowledge of the Greco-Roman literary tradition even beyond the epic genre.3 Particularly the opinion that Apollonius’ influence on Vergil was negligble has been significantly challenged 1 Cf. already the general discussion in Rieks (1989) 25-39. 2 Cf. Farrell (1991) 4. Also cf. Gransden (1984) 4. Apollonius also does not play a significant role for Vergilian epic poetry in Kennedy (1997). This list could be continued. Knauer (1979) 56 n. 2 is more cautious and indicates that he is discontented with the state of the scholarship on Vergil’s relationship with Apollonius’ work. Scholarship, however, tended to misunderstand Knauer’s book as an indication that there was nothing more than Homer to Vergil’s reworking of epic poetry. Cf. Kofler (2003) 586. The claim that Apollonius’s impact was eclipsed is of course only true in general. The point has been made by Evans (1969) 62f., for example, that, due to being influenced by Greek lyric poetry and drama, Apollonius and Vergil as Apollonius’ successor focus more on “momentary emotion and instantaneous reaction” than Homer.