Philosophical Readings in Virgil's Aeneid

375 Pages·2017·2.57 MB·English

by  Calypso Nash

Philosophical Readings in Virgil’s
Aeneid

Calypso Nash

Balliol College, Oxford

DPhil in Classical Languages and Literature
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Abstract

This study examines how and why Virgil makes reference to philosophy and
engages with contemporary philosophical debate in the Aeneid. Each of the six
chapters has a different philosophical focus, and offers literary analyses of the
poem that are supported and enriched by situating it within its philosophical
context. Cicero and Lucretius are our principal sources for Roman philosophy
during the 1st c. BC, and Stoics, Epicureans and Academics were the most
influential philosophical schools. The topics I explore include: the relationship
between words, especially names, and their referents; the characterization of
fate in the Aeneid as Stoic, and the meaning of F/fortuna; Virgil’s engagement
with Lucretius’ explanation of visual perception, which I argue embodies a
refutation of the materialism integral to Epicurean philosophy; and, given that
Cicero and Lucretius provide the first extant references to ‘free will’
(libera…voluntas Lucr. 2.256-7; voluntate libera Cic. Fat. 20) in Western
literature, the articulation of this concept in the Aeneid. I conclude that Virgil’s
use of philosophy is both politically and poetically motivated: he shows that
poetry and literature are valuable philosophical and political tools by
demonstrating that our experience of reality is fundamentally mediated through
language and texts.

Word count (without translations): 90539
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Acknowledgements

I have benefited enormously from the help and guidance of Dr. Gail Trimble, Dr.
Karen Margrethe Nielsen, Dr. Barnaby Taylor, Dr. Anna Marmodoro and
Professor Llewelyn Morgan. Thanks also to my colleagues and students at Balliol
and St. Hilda’s for providing a happy and intellectually stimulating work
environment, and to my friends and family for their support and (apparent)
enthusiasm for debating philosophical issues in literature.
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Contents

Introduction 1
i. Virgil’s philosophical context 1
ii. The justification for philosophical readings in the Aeneid 8
iii. Methodology 17
iv. Aims 20

1. True and False Names 26
i. Evander and the early name-givers of Rome 30
ii. The origin of language and ὀνόματα μιμητικὰ τῶν πραγμάτων 37
iii. The problem of different languages: Latin and Greek 53
iv. Latin, Italian languages and Punic: the prioritization of a Roman 62
reading
v. The unnameable: Allecto 72

2. Fate, Literature and Narrative 84
i. Stoic and non-Stoic aspects of fate in the Aeneid 86
ii. Determinism and literary precedent 107
iii. Fate as ‘text’ 128

3. Causation and Moral Responsibility 146
i. Narrating causes 150
ii. causae belli: the many causes of the war in Latium 159
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iii. Dido’s culpa and Aeneas’ culpa 172

4. Philosophy, Poetry and Rivers 210
i. Fate, morality and Callimachean poetics: rivers in the Georgics 211
ii. Aeneas, Turnus and the Tiber 242

5. F/fortuna, Religion and Philosophy 255
i. fortuna in philosophy 257
ii. Fortuna in religion 268
iii. F/fortuna in book five 282

6. inania verba, visual perception and materialism 294
i. Relational seeing 298
ii. Phenomenal seeing a) the imagination 311
iii. Phenomenal seeing b) mythical beings and ghosts 321
iv. Phenomenal seeing c) dreams 329

Final Conclusion 344

Bibliography 349
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Abbreviations

CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
D-K DIELS, H. and KRANZ, W. (1962), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker:
griechisch und deutsch (6th ed.), Berlin.
DDG DIELS, H. (1879), Doxographi Graeci, Berlin.
FGrH JACOBY, F. (1923ff.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, Leiden
HRR PETER, H. (1914), Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae, Leipzig.
L&S LONG, A. A. and SEDLEY, D. N. (1987), The Hellenistic Philosophers:
Volumes 1 and 2, Cambridge.
LSJ LIDDELL, H.G. and SCOTT, R. G. (1996), A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed.),
Oxford.
OLD GLARE, P. G. W. (2012), Oxford Latin dictionary (2nd ed.), Oxford.
RIC MATTINGLY, H. and SYDENHAM, E. A. (1926), The Roman Imperial
Coinage. Vol. 2, Vespasian to Hadrian, London.
RRC CRAWFORD, M. H. (1974), Roman Republican Coinage, London.
SVF ADLER, M. and VON ARNIM, H. F. A. (1903-5, 1924), Stoicorum Veterum
Fragmenta, Leipzig.
TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae

References to Latin and Greek texts follow the Oxford Classical Dictionary, with
the exception of references to the Aeneid, which are given simply by book and
line number. Translations, unless otherwise marked, are my own.
Introduction

In this thesis, I argue that an understanding of the philosophical context in which
Virgil was writing can complicate and enrich our reading of the Aeneid. I aim to
show that Virgil is not only making reference to philosophy, but also doing
philosophy: he engages with, tests, and responds to philosophical ideas in a
productive and challenging way.

By way of introduction, I will give an outline of Virgil’s philosophical context, and
a justification for the general enterprise of philosophical readings in the Aeneid. I
will then explain my methodology (what do I look for as a basis for individual
philosophical readings, and what do these comprise?), and the aims of my study.
I finally offer suggestions as to what this sort of analysis can contribute to
Virgilian scholarship, and possible areas for further research.

i. Virgil’s philosophical context

Cicero and Lucretius are the principal sources for Roman philosophy in the 1st c.
BC. The works of these two authors can be combined with other more limited
literary and papyrological evidence to gain a reasonable picture of the
philosophical climate during Virgil’s lifetime: the period when Cicero and
Lucretius were active, despite being several decades before the composition of
the Aeneid, coincided with Virgil’s youth and education.
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By this point, philosophy embraced a very broad range of topics, some of which
we might now group under different academic disciplines.1 Natural philosophy
was a central component: in his brief history of philosophy in the fifth book of
Tusculanae Disputationes, Cicero claims that philosophy is at heart the study of
rerum natura (Cic. Tusc. 5.9), which is also the title that Lucretius gave his
Epicurean poem.2 This comprised enquiries which we might label ‘scientific’,
such as cosmology, physics, meteorology, and astronomy, as well as theology and
religious speculation.3 Socrates, according to Cicero, was the first to summon
‘philosophy down from the heavens and set her in the cities of men… and compel
her to ask questions about life and morality and things good and evil’ (Cic. Tusc.
5.11, trans. King). Judging from the subjects and issues treated in the Platonic
dialogues, this human focus entailed not only moral and political philosophy, but
also eschatology, psychology, epistemology and the beginnings of philosophy of
language.4 Importantly, ethics and natural philosophy were not considered
discrete disciplines, but remained closely intertwined: Lucretius, for example,
uses an atomistic explanation of the universe to underpin ethical arguments as to
why humans should not fear death, and the dangers of passionate love. Cicero’s
Topica, following Aristotle’s treatise of the same name, additionally reflects the
fact that certain philosophical schools (though not the Epicureans) also studied

1 Cicero called philosophy omnium mater artium (Tusc. 1.64).
2 Following Greek philosophical works titled Περί Φύσεως, such as the poem of the pre-
Socratic Parmenides, as well as Epicurus’ prose treatise of the same name.
3 On ‘science’ in Lucretius see also Lehoux, Morrison & Sharrock (2013). Cicero explicitly
introduces his De Natura Deorum as a philosophical rather than a religious dialogue (Cic.
Nat. D. 1.1).
4 E.g. Plato’s Cratylus, a dialogue discussing the theory of the ‘correctness of names’,
which I will discuss in chapter one (True and False Names).
3
logic and dialectic. He accordingly divides the broad range of topics embraced by
philosophy into three groups (Cic. Tusc. 5.68-9):

‘unus in cognitione rerum positus et in explicatione naturae; alter in
discriptione expetendarum fugiendarumve rerum et in ratione vivendi;
tertius in iudicando quid cuique rei sit consequens, quid repugnans, in
quo inest omnis cum subtilitas disserendi tum veritas iudicandi.’

‘one centred in the knowledge of the universe and the disentanglement of the secrets of
nature; the second in distinguishing the things that should be sought out or avoided and
in framing a rule of life; the third in judging what is the consequence to every premise,
what is incompatible with it, and in this lies all refinement of argument and truth of
judgment.’ (trans. King)

Philosophy was largely studied through Greek teachers with allegiance to certain
philosophical schools.5 The evidence of Cicero and Lucretius suggests that the
sects with the most influence at Rome in the 1st c. BC were Stoics, Epicureans,
and Academics. Stoicism and Epicureanism seem to have been particularly
prominent, perhaps in part due to the fact that their philosophies were holistic
and comprehensive systems, which meant that it was easier to clearly identify
Stoics and Epicureans than the more nuanced and eclectic positions of other
thinkers.6 Some upper class young men travelled to Athens or Rhodes to learn

5 Sedley (1989: 97) underlines the strength of this allegiance: ‘what gives philosophical
movements their cohesion and identity is less a disinterested common quest for the
truth than a virtually religious commitment to the authority of a founder figure.’
6 Long & Sedley (1987(1): 6): ‘there is little point in trying to supply summaries of
Academic and Pyrrhonian scepticism. Neither school would even have welcomed the
attribution of a ‘system’.’
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directly from esteemed Greek philosophers as part of their education.7 However,
there were also philosophers and philosophical texts circulating in Italy and
Rome.8 For example, Epicurean philosophers such as Philodemus and Siro made
a base in Campania, and their circle of students and friends comprised many of
the Roman elite, including poets such as Virgil.9

Both Cicero and Lucretius were anxious about Romanizing philosophy, which
was still largely written in Greek and associated with the Greeks.10 Perhaps
related to this, there was also some experimentation as to the best medium or
genre for the exposition and discussion of philosophy during this period. In the
DRN, Lucretius united the metre, style and language of Ennian epic with
Epicurean content and themes. This was a striking move: despite Ennius’
canonical status as a poet amongst Romans (the Annales was a school-text),

7 Both Cicero and his son travelled to Athens to study philosophy and rhetoric (Cic. Off.
1.1-2). He assumes that his anonymous pupil in Tusculanae Disputationes will have done
the same (Cic. Tusc. 2.26).
8 Wealthy and highly educated Romans had libraries, which evidence suggests would
have included philosophical works. The philosophical texts discovered at the Villa dei
Papiri in Herculaneum date from this period and include many works of the Epicurean
philosopher Philodemus as well as a copy of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (PHerc 1829,
1830, 1831; see Sider (1997: 68-9)). When Sulla returned from sacking Athens in 86 BC,
he brought with him a library of Peripatetic philosophy, including works of Aristotle and
Theophrastus (Strabo 13.1.54). Cicero himself had a large library of philosophical texts
(Cic. Top. 1.1), and describes himself borrowing Lucullus’ copy of Aristotle’s
commentarii (Cic. Fin. 3.10).
9 Siro is named twice in the Catalepton (5.9, 8.1), which may have been written by Virgil
during his youth. Even if the poems are not Virgil’s own, it is likely that they drew on
true and widely-known biographical information. PHerc. Paris 2, and PHerc. 1082 col. xi,
identified as fragments of Philodemus’ On Vices, name Virgil along with a ‘coterie of
poetically minded Romans’ (Blank 2014) such as L. Varius Rufus, Plotius Tucca, and P.
Quintilius Varus. For a critical survey of the evidence for Virgil’s association with
Philodemus, see especially Gigante (2004). On Philodemus and his milieu more
generally see e.g. Rawson (1985: 295-7), Sedley (1989: 103-117), Obbink (1995), Sider
(1997), and Armstrong, Fish, Johnston & Skinner (2004).
10 E.g. Cic. Acad. 1.4-5, 2.6; Tusc. 1.1-6; Lucr. 1.136-145.