CHAPTER SIX

THE DIDO EPISODE AND THE WAR IN LATIUM

In the first six books of the epic Vergil is concerned with the prob­ lem of Aeneas' internal struggle und ultimate success in attaining pietas. In Books 7 through 12 pius Aeneas must fight against the impii. The second half of the epic presents in most general terms an in­ verted pattern of the first. While the first half of the poem is episodic in the diversity of its narrative, if not in its structure, the second half concentrates on one event with its manifold ramifications, the war with Turnus and Latinus. At the beginning of Book 7 Latinus ap­ pears as the pious man. Omens and oracles have informed him of the divine will that his daughter marry a stranger and that the off­ spring of this marriage exalt the Latin race into the position of rulers of the world. When Aeneas arrives, Latinus sees in him the fate-appointed man, follows the dictates of pietas, and offers him a political alliance and his daughter Lavinia in marriage-at the ex­ pense of alienating Turnus. Personal desires and ambitions con­ spire to shatter an easy accomplishment of fate's design. 1 The queen's vehement support of Turnus, Turnus' own insistence on the honoring of his claims, and the resentment of the people at the intrusion of the foreigners force the weak and ineffectual Latinus to betray his promises to Aeneas and enter a war against him. There is in all of this a keen irony. We are meant to see in the narrative of the war an inversion of the pattern of the Dido-Aeneas alliance. Aeneas is a victim of a betrayal of trust as he himself had victimized Dido. At the beginning and the end of the second half of the epic Vergil draws parallels between the narrative of the war in Latium and the Dido episode. Book 7 recapitulates in an elaborate chiasmus the events of Book 1. The first book opens with the tur­ bulence of the winds unleashed by Juno. When the shipwrecked Aeneas has reconnoitered the place, he views under the protective covering of Venus' magical cloud the petition of the Trojan Ilioneus to Queen Dido for hospitium. With the acceptance into hospitium, the book ends in the serenity of the banquet at the royal palace. Sereni­ ty is the mood of the opening of Book 7. The scene is one of the 84 THE DIDO EPISODE AND THE WAR IN LATINUM tranquility of nature. Aeneas' fleet glides over a dead-calm sea to the mouth of the Tiber (A. 7.27-28). The river flowsjluvio amoeno (30-32) through a grove. Birds fill the air with their songs (32-34). 2 After reconnoitering, Aeneas sends an embassy headed by Ilioneus to seek an alliance with King Latinus. This hospitium, however, leads to the paroxysms of violence caused again by a cosmic force. Juno unleashes the fury of hell to infect the Latins with war madness. Beyond Vergil's obvious intention of fashioning sym­ metrical introductions to the two major divisions of his poem, it is clear that specific reference is made to the reciprocal relationship of the embassies to Dido and Latinus. Each is the focal point of the se­ quence of events of which it forms a part; each mediates between the polar opposites of tranquility and violence around which the books are constructed. As we examine the parallelism between the two passages, it becomes obvious that we are dealing not merely with an inversion of pattern, but as well with a controversion of the expectations which the poet arouses. Dido and Latinus both sit in temples as they conduct their audiences. The pictures on Dido's temple glorify the war at Troy; Latinus' temple celebrates res ltalae. Troy and Italy appear throughout the first half of the epic as antinomous forces, the one representing a distraction of Aeneas' will from the god­ imposed mission, the other the future to which pietas leads. The relationship with Dido is prefigured in the evocation of Troy and the past as a misstep; the relationship with Latinus appears as the attainment of a goal. In the audience with Dido, Ilioneus' assump­ tion is that Dido is a barbarian queen whom he must school in the ways of civilization. Civilized behavior is itself formulated in the terms of a specific cultural ideology. The suspicion with which Ilioneus views Dido merely heightens a mood of uncertainty which Vergil deliberately strives to create. 3 Contrary to the expectations elicited, Dido proves herself an adherent of the benign social values which Ilioneus espouses. On the other hand, Vergil manipulates the opening of Book 7 to create the opposite mood of security. The civility of manners which the Latins enjoy corresponds to the tran­ quility of nature which is conveyed in the narrative of Aeneas' arrival in Latium. The Latins seem to live in a kind of Isles of the Blessed.