ZEUS'S REW ARD AND THE AMBIGUITY OF EASTERN DECADENCE IN VIRGIL'S AENEID Drew Mannetter Virgil's Aeneid was one of the most studied and imitated classical epics in the Middle Ages. A school text used to teach Latin, the poem also spurred various literary responses ranging from epics like Walter of Chiitillon's Alexandreis and Dante's Commedia to comic poems and romances like Chaucer's House ofFame and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Virgil held a central place in the medieval imagination. His use in the epic of the topos of eastern decadence, largely unremarked by critics, particularly underscores his view of punishment and reward­ the topic of this collection-a view that comes most into focus at the poem's end. In this article, I explore the theme of Aeneas's eastern lineage and the resulting dispensation by Zeus of punishment and reward for Aeneas and Tumus. By the final book of the Aeneid, book 12, the decisive duel between the Trojan Aeneas and the Rutulian Tumus for dominance in Italy and marriage with Latinus's daughter Lavinia is imminent. The entire scene is long, a little over 250 lines, and heavily modeled on the duel between Hector and Achilles in book 22 of Homer's Iliad. In this final scene, Aeneas vanquishes Turnus on the battlefield and kills him in anger after noticing the belt around his shoulders, a spoil taken by Turnus from Aeneas's dead protege, Pallas. Turnus's soul speeds to the underworld with a groan ("gemitu ... indignata") and the epic abruptly concludes. Thus, it would seem that Aeneas is the winner and reaps the rewards while Turnus is the loser who is punished for daring to impede the inevitable foundation of Rome. Although this ending is normally read as the climax of the epic, it is not; it is actually the anticlimax. The climax is the reconciliation scene between Juno and Jupiter embedded in the final duel wherein Juno names the terms and conditions allowing for the appeasement of her wrath against Aeneas and the Trojans (12.791-842). The price for Juno's abandonment of Turnus and acceptance of Fate is steep, amounting to a complete rejection of any Trojan contribution to the Roman national character in favor of Latin primacy. She says, Mannetter "cum iam conubiis pacem felicibus ( esto) component, cum iam leges et foedera iungent, ne vetus indigenas nomen mutare Latinos neu Troas fieri iubeas Teucrosque vocari aut vocem mutare viros aut vertere vestem. sit Latinum, sint Albani per saecula reges, sit Romana potens Itala virtute propago: occidit, occideritque sinas cum no mine Troia." ( 12.821-28) Seeing as now they will make peace through favorable marriages (let it happen!), seeing as they will now share in common their laws and custom, do not order the indigenous Latins to change their ancient name or become Trojans and be called Teucrians or order the men to swap their language or alter their dress. Let Latium be as is, let the Albans rule as kings through the ages. Let the Roman race be powerful through Italic excellence. Troy has fallen and allow her to be erased along with her very name. 1 Juno's requirements necessitate a complete rejection of all Trojan traditions and full acceptance of the Latin identity: the retention of the Latin name, ethnic identity, language, dress, leadership, and character. There will be no new Troy; indeed, hardly a Trojan element will survive at all. If Jupiter accepts this divine settlement, the physical struggle between the two men and Aeneas's eventual triumph on the battlefield shall have been rendered inconsequential since the war's outcome has already been settled on the divine level. Jupiter immediately agrees to all these conditions without any protest and even additionally promises future reverence for her divinity, saying, "do quad vis, et me victusque volensque remitto. sennonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt, utque est nomen erit; commixti corpore tantum subsident Teucri. morem ritusque sacrorum adiciam faciamque omnis uno ore Latinos. hinc genus Ausonio mixtum quod sanguine surget, supra homines, super ire deos pietate videbis, nee gens ulla tuos aeque celebrabit honores." (12.833-40) 44 Mannetter I will grant what you ask, and, both because I have been persuaded by you and of my own volition, I concur with you. The Ausonians wi11 retain the speech and customs of their fathers, their name will remain as it is. The Teucrians will subside once they have contributed their blood line alone. I will add a standard of conduct and the rites for the divine and will unite the Latins under one language. And from the Latin stock a new race will arise, one mixed with Ausonian blood; you will see it go beyond men and even the gods in devotion nor will any other people show you respect with equal zeal. Jupiter's complete, almost gleeful ("victusque volensque") acquiescence to Juno's demands is puzzling as one does not expect at the end of the epic a rejection of"all things Trojan." The reader knows that Aeneas's triumph on the battlefield is predetermined, and this interchange between Jupiter and Juno contrasts starkly with the reader's expectation built up at the end of the narrative of the duel's importance; indeed, it is jarring. In this scene, it is clear that Tumus is rewarded and Aeneas, while not punished, is at least not the real victor. Hence, this pivotal scene invites a natural question: what then is the Trojan contribution to the Roman national character? The answer to this question is complex. "arma virumque cano" 'I sing the arms and man' (l.l): these four words that initiate Virgil's Aeneid are pregnant with meaning and literary allusion. The terms "arms" and "man," reinforced by the dactylic hexameter, announce that the poem will be a heroic epic, and certain literary assumptions associated with that genre naturally ensue. The literary reference invokes the great epics of Homer, arma recalling Achilles from the Iliad and virum recalling Odysseus from the Odyssey. From this foundation expectations are built concerning the epic. The poem will be heroic in nature, with the protagonist, the Trojan Aeneas, being a combination of the two great Homeric heroes. Further, in the first seven lines of the poem we are informed of Aeneas's mission in the Aeneid: "multa quoque et hello passus, dum conderet urbem I inferretque deos Latio; genus unde Latium I Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae" 'and many thing also he endured in war until he might found a city and carry his gods into Latium; from this source arises the Latin race, the Alban fathers, and even the walls of lofty Rome' (l .5-7). Hence, the Aeneid will chronicle the escape of the hero, "pius Aeneas," who dutifully flees with divine sanction from the 45 Mannetter wreckage of Troy with the remnants of his family to found Rome and the Roman race after defeating the indigenous prince Turnus. As traditionally read, Virgil meant the Aeneid to be a nationalistic poem of unqualified praise of the Roman empire and the "princeps" Augustus, the literary patron of Virgil. Thomas Chase sums up this vision of the Aeneid and Aeneas as follows: "A valiant warrior and pious worshipper of the gods, Aeneas represents Virgil's ideal of the Roman people. Indirectly, the object of the poem is to gratify the pride of the Romans, to quicken their patriotism, to heighten their regard for religion, and to exult their monarch, Augustus" (281 ). However, as I argue here, it was not Virgil's intention to write a simple, heroic, nationalistic poem in praise of Rome and Augustus, but instead an etiological poem explaining the contradictory nature of both empire and Augustus by utilizing the topos of eastern decadence. In the actions of all empires and strongmen both good and evil lurk. Rome, the empire that brought the "Pax Romana" to the Mediterranean basin, also brought conquest and bloody civil wars as strong men vied for power and domination. The emperor Augustus himself ended nearly a hundred years of civil war, but at the price of massive civil conflict, bloody proscriptions, and the final demise of the Republican form of government. Virgil himself suffered the confiscation of his farm (later restored by Augustus) and no doubt witnessed worse incidents, either through personal experience or second hand reports. The Aeneid is more than a simple glorification of the end result of these tumultuous times, but an answer to the question of how an empire and a man so great could also be capable of such appalling atrocities. I will propose that the Aeneid offers a unique, yet very Roman, solution to this question. Virgil, like many other Roman authors, employs the topos of the decadent East to explain the excesses of empire and character flaws of Augustus. Virgil's epic presents the initial amalgamation of nationalities, cultures, and traditions, with two being central: the Latins under Tumus and the Trojans under Aeneas. Each bloodline will establish qualities in the national character: Tumus and the Latins the hardihood and valor that will make Rome great, and Aeneas and the Trojans the decadence inherent (at least in a Roman's mind) in the East. The dominant strain will be the Latin character; however, the Trojan eastern element is submerged just below the surface and at times emerges at the national and individual levels. 46 Mannetter I. Traditional Nationalistic Reading: the Aeneid and Aeneas There are numerous problems with the traditional interpretation of the epic as nationalistic panegyric, and we can interpret many scenes, both major and minor, as critique of empire and Augustus rather than praise.