Vergil's Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context

356 Pages·2009·8.148 MB·English

by  Hans-Peter Stahl

The Aeneid may be considered a test case for diverging modern methods of criticism. stahl
Does the epic stand for the subordination of the individual in a hierarchically ed.
structured state, or is there below the imperial surface a cross-current of wider human Vergil’s
appeal? Does the poet skilfully channel his readers’ sympathies in directions helpful
to the political authorities of his time, or did he devise human messages which are all-
embracing and non-partisan? is it misguided even to seek to discover intentions of the
poet in his work?
The contributors include many of the world’s leading authorities on Vergil. each Aeneid
has selected a passage of the Aeneid to demonstrate his or her general approach. The
examination of political references is to the fore. And each contributor uses their chosen
passage to address the question of the Aeneid’s message.
V
The editor e
Augustan epic
Hans-Peter stahl is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classics at the University of r
Pittsburgh. He is author of Propertius: ‘Love’ and ‘War’. individual and state under Augustus g
(1985) and of Thucydides: Man’s place in history (2003; original german edition 1966).
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Political Context

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Distributor:
Oxbow Books, Hans-Peter stahl
10 Hythe Bridge Street,
Oxford OX1 2EW
The Classical Press of Wales Distributor in the U.S.A.: The
15 Rosehill Terrace, The David Brown Book Co. Classical
Swansea PO Box 511, Press
SA1 6JN Oakville, CT 06779 of Wales
VERGIL’S AENEID
Augustan Epic and
Political Context
Editor
Hans-Peter Stahl
Contributors
Elaine Fantham, Don Fowler, Reinhold F. Glei,
Gunther Gottlieb, Philip Hardie, Stephen Harrison,
Egil Kraggerud, Eckard Lefèvre,
Alexander G. McKay, Llewelyn Morgan,
Anton Powell, Hans-Peter Stahl,
Richard F. Thomas, David West
The Classical Press of Wales
First published in hardback in 1998
Paperback edition 2009
The Classical Press of Wales
15 Rosehill Terrace, Swansea SA1 6JN
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© 2009 The contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978–1–905125–33–3
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
CONTENTS
List of Contributors and Chapter Summaries vii
Preface xiii
Editor’s Introduction xv
1. Vergil Announcing the Aeneid. On Georg. 3.1–48 1
Egil Kraggerud (Oslo, Norway)
2. Religion in the Politics of Augustus 21
(Aen. 1.278–91; 8.714–23; 12.791–842)
Gunther Gottlieb (Augsburg, Germany)
3. Political Stop-overs on a Mythological Travel Route:
from Battling Harpies to the Battle of Actium 37
(Aen. 3.268–93)
Hans-Peter Stahl (Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.A.)
4. The Peopling of the Underworld (Aen. 6.608–27) 85
Anton Powell (Swansea, U.K.)
5. Vergil as a Republican (Aen. 6. 815–35) 101
Eckard Lefèvre (Freiburg, Germany)
6. The Show Must Go on: the Death of Marcellus and the
Future of the Augustan Principate (Aen. 6.860–86) 119
Reinhold F. Glei (Bochum, Germany)
7. Allecto’s First Victim: a Study of Vergil’s Amata 135
(Aen. 7.341–405 and 12.1–80)
Elaine Fantham (Princeton, N.J., U.S.A.)
8. Opening the Gates of War (Aen. 7.601–40) 155
Don Fowler (Oxford, U.K.)
9. Assimilation and Civil War: Hercules and Cacus 175
(Aen. 8.185–267)
Llewelyn Morgan (Dublin, Republic of Ireland)
v
Contents
10. Non enarrabile textum? The Shield of Aeneas and
the Triple Triumph in 29 BC (Aen. 8.630–728) 199
Alexander G. McKay (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)
11. The Sword-Belt of Pallas: Moral Symbolism and
Political Ideology (Aen. 10.495–505) 223
Stephen Harrison (Oxford, U.K.)
12. Fame and Defamation in the Aeneid: the Council of Latins 243
(Aen. 11.225–467)
Philip Hardie (Cambridge, U.K.)
13. The Isolation of Turnus (Aeneid, Book 12) 271
Richard F. Thomas (Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.)
14. The End and the Meaning (Aen. 12.791–842) 303
David West (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U.K.)
Index 319
vi
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS AND
CHAPTER SUMMARIES
ELAINE FANTHAM, Giger Professor of Latin at Princeton since 1986, was
educated at Oxford, and taught for many years at the University of
Toronto. Besides a number of articles on Roman epic from Vergil to
Statius she has published commentaries on Seneca’s Trojan Women, on
Lucan’s Civil War Book 2, on Book 4 of Ovid’s Fasti (forthcoming), and
most recently Roman Literary Culture (Johns Hopkins UP 1996).
This re-examination of Amata takes its starting point from one pre-
Vergilian tradition which presented the queen as murderer of Latinus’
sons. Vergil suppressed this legend to make Amata a matriarch mis-
guided by a conception of family that refused to accept Latinus’ divine
imperative: as with Turnus, her resistance seems reasonable if one
does not accept Aeneas as the hero whose success is fated. It is argued
that Vergil has shaped Amata’s role to echo the passion and self-
destruction of Dido, but has also, as the poem approaches the tragedy
of Turnus in Book 12, colored her behavior with elements of both
Hecuba in Iliad 22, and Vergil’s own Juno in her insubordination to
Jupiter’s divine purpose.
DON FOWLER is Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford,
and University Lecturer in Greek and Latin Literature. He has a
particular interest in critical theory, and is currently writing a book on
the book in Roman poetry.
In this paper, Don Fowler examines the passage in Book Seven of
the Aeneid where Juno opens the ‘Gates of War’ in the light of the
imagery of opening and closing in the rest of the Aeneid and more
generally in Roman culture. In particular, the paper suggests that her
action encodes an energy which is essential to the very idea of being
Roman and highlights the complexity and ambiguity at the heart of
Roman cultural self-definition.
REINHOLD F. GLEI is Professor of Latin at the Ruhr-Universität
Bochum, Germany. His scholarship interests focus on Vergil and his
later reception; on ancient and medieval philosophy; the Argonaut
myth; and the dialogue between Christianity and Islam in the Middle
Ages and in the Renaissance.
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List of Contributors
In the Aeneid, the future of the Augustan principate appears to be
overshadowed by the death of Marcellus (23 BC). There are however
indications that Vergil viewed this event not as endangering the
principate but took it as a ‘warning’ by the gods, to which Augustus
reacted in an appropriate fashion both politically and personally.
Beyond this aspect, the role of the nepotes, repeatedly emphasized in
the Aeneid, possibly points to a concrete dynastic background (the birth
of C. Caesar in 20 BC).
GUNTHER GOTTLIEB has been since 1975 Professor (Chair) for Ancient
History at the University of Augsburg (Germany); 1993–5 vice rector;
Dr. h.c. (University of Osijek, Croatia); representative for the partner-
ship between the Universities of Augsburg and Osijek. Main fields of
research: Herodotus, Roman Empire and Christian Church, religious
politics in general, southern Germany in Roman times, reception of
Greek and Roman historiography in early modern times.
Based on three passages from Vergil’s Aeneid the author analyzes the
fundamental positions of Augustus’ religious politics in the following
aspects: the use of symbols in politics, political propaganda and its
function, political community and cult community.
PHILIP HARDIE is a University Lecturer in Classics in the University of
Cambridge, and a Fellow of New Hall. He is the author of Virgil’s
Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford, 1986), The Epic Successors of Virgil
(Cambridge, 1993), and a commentary on Aeneid 9 (Cambridge Greek
and Latin Classics, 1994). He is currently working on Ovid and a book
on Fama.
In the debate between Drances and Turnus in the Council of Latins
may be heard echoes of the heated political debate of the late Republic.
This paper examines the relationship between the persuasive goals of
the rhetoric of deliberation and invective in this episode and the
authority of the epic narrator’s voice, in order to raise wider questions
about the place of rhetoric within the Aeneid.
S.J. HARRISON is Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, and University Lecturer in Classical Languages and Litera-
ture. He is author of a commentary on Vergil, Aeneid 10 (1991), and
editor of Oxford Readings in Virgil’s Aeneid (1990) and Homage to Horace
(1995).
The Danaid iconography of Pallas’ sword-belt at Aeneid 10.497–9 has
a significant moral and narrative function in the poem; it looks back to
viii
List of Contributors
the death of Pallas as well as forward to the death of Turnus, and
stresses the tragedy of their early deaths rather than the criminality of
their killings. It is related to the Danaid iconography of the sculptural
decorations of Augustus’ contemporary Palatine temple, which ex-
presses triumph over Egypt and Cleopatra, a propaganda statement
very different from the Vergilian meditation on the tragedy of war.
EGIL KRAGGERUD has been Professor of Classical Philology since 1969 at
Oslo University. Areas of particular interest: Augustan literature
(Vergil and Horace), medieval Latin and Neolatin from Norway –
translations of classical literature: Greek tragedy, Vergil, Boethius.
In his line-by-line comment on the proem to Georgics 3.1–48
Kraggerud holds that the poem honouring Caesar (Octavian) alluded
to was an Aeneid in largely the same form as we have it. The idea that
Vergil changed his plans from a contemporary epic on Caesar to a
mytho-historical epic on Aeneas cannot be built safely on an analysis of
the proem. In the author’s view the presence of Aeneas is tangibly close.
ECKARD LEFÈVRE has been a Professor of Classics and Head of the
Classics Department of Freiburg University since 1977. In his research
he mainly deals with Greek and Roman drama (tragedy and comedy)
and with Augustan literature.
In Professor Lefèvre’s paper Aeneid 6.815–35 are thoroughly ana-
lysed. Thereby Vergil is shown to be a ‘Republican’ to some extent,
since he presents the heroes of the old Republic remarkably favour-
ably, but displays a critical attitude to Caesar, the ‘forerunner’ of the
Principate.
ALEXANDER G. MCKAY, Professor Emeritus of Classics at McMaster
University, Hamilton, Ontario, Honorary President for Life of The
Vergilian Society, has written extensively on Vergil, on Roman Lyric
and Satiric Poetry, and on the topography and monuments of Cumae
and The Phlegraean Fields.
Professor McKay’s paper sets the scenes of Vulcan’s shield into the
perspective of the pompa triumphalis and of monuments and landmarks
along its route, thereby anchoring the shield’s panegyric message in
Rome’s present-day environment and in the context of thep ax Augusta.
LLEWELYN MORGAN is Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Classics,
University College Dublin. He has published on Vergil, Gallus, Caesar
and Domitian, and his particular interest is in civil conflict as the
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List of Contributors
context, theme or determinant of literary production. He is currently
completing a monograph on the politics of Vergil’s Georgics.
Morgan analyses certain recent political interpretations of the
Hercules and Cacus episode in Aeneid 8, and in particular that of Lyne,
who argues that the propaganda superficially presented in Hercules
and Cacus is undercut by disquieting ‘further voices’: Vergil is thus
politically ambivalent. Morgan suggests, however, that in the light of a
more sophisticated notion of propaganda the disquieting elements
identified by Lyne can after all be shown to serve the requirements of
the Augustan regime.
ANTON POWELL was the founder and is now the Director of the Univer-
sity of Wales Institute of Classics; author of Athens and Sparta (1988);
editor of Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (1992) and
The Greek World (1995).
Powell examines Vergil’s choice of offenders to portray in Tartarus.
He argues that Vergil uses his mythic underworld to point implicitly at
historical enemies, opponents of Octavian’s faction and of Augustan
values. Powell traces, amid the sins to which Vergil refers, a pattern of
significant omissions which served Augustus’ personal interest.
HANS-PETER STAHL is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classics at the
University of Pittsburgh. Emphasizing close structural analysis, he has
published on planning and outcome in Herodotus and Thucydides;
Euripidean dramaturgy; Plato’s propositional logic; Horace’s Satires;
Propertius (“Individual and State under Augustus”); political aspects
of Vergil’s Aeneid.
Aeneas’ stop-overs around Greece legitimize his descendant Augustus
as the heir to the kings of Troy. Potential rivals are eliminated (King
Priam’s sons Polydorus and Helenus). Any Cretan priority claims on
Pergamon are obviated (Aeneas the founder of Pergam[e]a on Crete).
Augustus’ Actian propaganda is fatefully prefigured in his ancestor’s
victory memorial. Physical remains help to verify the politically moti-
vated action line of Aeneid 3.
RICHARD F. THOMAS is Professor of Greek and Latin at Harvard Univer-
sity, where he writes and teaches on Hellenistic Greek poetry and
Latin literature, chiefly of the late Republican and Augustan periods.
He is interested in a variety of critical approaches (chiefly philological,
intertextual, narratological), and in literary history, metrics and prose
stylistics, genre studies, and the reception of Classical literature and
culture, particularly as relates to Vergil.
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List of Contributors
Richard Thomas’s article, ‘The Isolation of Turnus’, begins by tak-
ing issue with certain strongly Augustan readings of Turnus, which
inevitably see him from the perspective of Aeneas, and judge him in
terms of the impediments he raises to the mission of Aeneas; Thomas
proposes instead to explore, with equal emphasis, the way the world
looks through the lens of Turnus.
DAVID WEST is Emeritus Professor of Latin in the University of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and author of Reading Horace (1967), The Im-
agery and Poetry of Lucretius (1969 and, with additional chapter, 1994),
Vergil’s Aeneid: a New Prose Translation (1990) and Carpe Diem: Horace
Odes I (1996).
Recent work on the gods in the Aeneid has concentrated on theologi-
cal questions. This study draws attention to the humour in the final
conversation between Jupiter and Juno and sees the episode as
Vergil’s means of shaping the end of the plot in order to support the
Augustan message of the poem.
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