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REVIEWS OF OTHER BOOKS BY SEAN GABB “Fascinating to read, very well written, an intriguing plot and I enjoyed it very much.” (Derek Jacobi, star of I Claudius and Gladiator) “Vivid characters, devious plotting and buckets of gore are enhanced by his unfamiliar choice of period. Nasty, fun and educational.” (The Daily Telegraph) “He knows how to deliver a fast-paced story and his grasp of the period is impressively detailed.” (The Mail on Sunday) “A rollicking and raunchy read . Anyone who enjoys their history with large dollops of action, sex, intrigue and, above all, fun will absolutely love this novel.” (Historical Novels) “As always, [his] plotting is as brilliantly devious as the mind of his sardonic and very earthy hero. This is a story of villainy that reels you in from its prosaic opening through a series of death-defying thrills and spills.” (The Lancashire Evening Post) “It would be hard to over-praise this extraordinary series, a near-perfect blend of historical detail and atmosphere with the plot of a conspiracy thriller, vivid characters, high philosophy and vulgar comedy.” (The Morning Star) OTHER BOOKS BY SEAN GABB Acts of the Apostles: A Parallel Text Ars Grammatica The Churchill Memorandum The Column of Phocas Cultural Revolution, Culture War Dispatches from a Dying Country Freedom of Speech in England Literary Essays Radical Coup Return of the Skolli Smoking, Class and the Legitimation of Power Stories from Paul the Deacon Stories from the Life of Christ War and the National Interest The York Deviation WRITING AS RICHARD BLAKE Conspiracies of Rome Terror of Constantinople Blood of Alexandria Sword of Damascus Ghosts of Athens Curse of Babylon Game of Empires Death in Ravenna Crown of Empire Death of Rome I Death of Rome II The Devil’s Treasure The Boy from Aquileia The Tyburn Guinea The Break How I Write Historical Fiction Sean Gabb is a writer and teacher whose books have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Hungarian, Slovak and Chinese. He also directs the Centre for Ancient Studies. VERGIL THE AENEID BOOK SIX LATIN TEXT, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, LATIN AND ENGLISH PROSE VERSIONS, AND VOCABULARIES PREPARED BY SEAN GABB sit mihi fas audita loqui, sit numine vestro pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas. CENTRE FOR ANCIENT STUDIES DEAL MMXIX The Aeneid, Book Six: Latin Text, with an Introduction, Notes, Latin and English Prose Versions, and Vocabularies, Prepared by Sean Gabb First edition published in May 2019 © Sean Gabb, 2019 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. ISBN-13: 9781096888277 The right of Sean Gabb to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted hereby in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by: The Centre for Ancient Studies 73 Middle Street Deal, Kent CT14 6HN England Telephone: 07956 472 199 [email protected] www.seangabb.co.uk www.classicstuition.co.uk CONTENTS ADDRESS TO THE READER 1 The Life of Vergil 1 The Aeneid: An Unrevised Draft 3 A Sudden Death 3 The Circumstances of The Aeneid 4 Rome: From Republic to Empire 4 The Poison of Unearned Wealth 5 The Collapse of Order 6 The Failure of Caesarism 7 The Augustan Settlement 8 The Return of Legitimacy 10 The Aeneid as Legitimising Propaganda 10 Augustus: Imperator Deorum Gratia 11 The Two Gates of Sleep 13 A Reservation 14 A Guide to Latin Scansion 16 The Nature of English Verse 16 The Nature of Quantitative Verse 19 Long and Short Syllables 19 Elision of Vowels 20 Feet as Basic Unit of Verse 21 The Caesura 22 The Sound of Latin Verse 23 Accent and Quantity Distinguished 23 A Conflict between Accent and Quantity? 24 A Forcible Resolution 24 No Need for Resolution 25 Accent and Quantity as Coordinate Rhythms 27 Vergil as Roman Poet 29 The Hellenising of Rome 30 Adapting Quantitative Metres to Latin 31 The Vergilian Synthesis 34 The Reception of The Aeneid 35 The Texts 36 Bibliography 38 SELECT VOCABULARY 39 P. VERGILI MARONIS AENEIDOS LIBER SEXTVS 47 TRANSLATIONS 97 NAMES OF PERSONS AND PLACES 141 MAIN VOCABULARY 155 DEDICATION I dedicate this book to the memory of my dear Mother Hazel Anne Gabb (1937-2019) Semper Memoranda ADDRESS TO THE READER Book VI of The Aeneid can be found in many other editions. The purpose of this edition is to make it as available as I can to the widest audience. I think of school students and undergraduate and graduate students throughout the English-speaking world. I think of young people in home education. I think of adults who are learning Latin by themselves, and who would like to read one of its greatest classics. In this edition, therefore, I offer the following: The Latin text in a large and what I hope is an attractive format. A full set of notes to explain obscurities in the text. A list of all names and places mentioned in the text. A vocabulary that includes all the words found in the text. A separate vocabulary containing all the words that are used more than about eight times in the text. A rewriting of the text as Latin prose. A translation of the main text into English prose. I also try to offer a reasonably full explanation of wider matters than those discussed in the notes. The Aeneid can be appreciated in itself as a most remarkable production. But appreciation of a work is always deepened by some knowledge of its context and of the difficulties overcome in its creation. More to the point, this edition of Book VI has been produced as a text for students. If you are one of these, you will be examined. How you will be examined I cannot say. If, though, you are sitting any examination similar to an A-Level in Latin, you will need to show awareness of the circumstances in which The Aeneid was written, and what influence these circumstances had on its writing. You will need to show an understanding of its technical underpinning as verse. You may also need to discuss its place in both Roman and then, after the end of Antiquity, in Latin literature. All this being said, I pass to the main part of my Address. The Life of Vergil Publius Vergilius Maro, known interchangeably in English as Vergil or Virgil, was born on the 15th October 70 BC in Andes, a village about 1 Aeneid VI 28 miles from Mantua. Now in Northern Italy, Mantua at this time was a city in Cisalpine Gaul. This territory was incorporated into Italy only in 42 BC, though its free inhabitants had been granted full Roman citizenship in 49 BC. There is much doubt regarding Vergil’s background. According to Macrobius, one of the ancient commentators, his father was in humble circumstances. This is unlikely, bearing in mind that Vergil received a long and elaborate education, and education was not free, and there is no evidence of the gratitude we might expect to see in his works had this been paid for by some wealthy patron. It is more likely that he was born into a minor landed family. This being so, he may have descended from Roman or Italian colonists. Little evidence for the Vergilius family, though, is attested in the surviving inscriptions. He attended schools in Cremona, Milan, Rome and Naples. Here, he received the education standard among the higher classes in the Greek classics and in such Roman literature as had by this time been created. He particularly studied Rhetoric, Medicine and Astronomy. According to Servius, another of the commentators, he was notoriously shy, both among the other students and throughout his adult life. He is also said to have suffered consistently poor health, with pains in his head and stomach, and a tendency to spit blood. After briefly considering a career in the Law, he settled on poetry—some evidence here for shyness and ill-health, and much for a family of independent means. He may have written his earliest works while a student in Naples, when he seems to have come under Epicurean influence. He may, in Rome, have fallen under the influence of the New Poetry Movement, which we know mainly in connection with Catullus, and which I will discuss later. But his first known and major work is The Eclogues, which he began in 42 BC and published three or four years later. This is a poem in ten books, or a group of ten poems, that comments on general issues under cover of praising a rural life. It is said to have been composed as a petition for the return of some family property confiscated to pay off the soldiers in the civil war that Octavian and Antony had fought against the assassins of Julius Caesar. But this is only an inference from the contents of the poem. His next major work, The Georgics, Vergil composed under the patronage of Maecenas, who was effectively Minister of Culture in the new régime established by Octavian. The poem is, in its outward form, a treatise on farming. As with The Eclogues, though, it deals cautiously and by implication with many other issues. It was considered a great 2 Aeneid VI success in Latin poetry, and Vergil and Maecenas are said to have taken turns in reading it to Octavian on his return from defeating Antony in the last civil war.