Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium

424 Pages·1986·51.4 MB·English

by  Philip R. Hardie

Virgil's
Aeneid
COSMOS A ND IMPERIUM
P H I L IP R. H A R D IE
C L A R E N D ON P R E SS • O X F O RD
1986
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hardie, Philip R.
Virgil's Aeneid: cosmos and Imperium
1. Virgil. Aeneid
I Title
873'. 01 PA 6825
0-19-814036-3
f Bayerisch» ]
I Staatsbibliothek |
I Mün ) n J
Set at the University Press, Oxford
Printed in Great Britain
at the University Press., Oxford
by David Stanford,
Printer to the University
Acknowledgements
I AM grateful to the President and Fellows of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, for electing me for four years to the P. S. Allen
junior Research Fellowship, without which this book would
not have been conceived and written. Robin Nisbet and Donald
Russell gave generously of their time and scholarship in reading
through drafts of the work; I also profited from the comments of
Denis Feeney, Stephen Harrison, Elizabeth Rawson, Nicholas
Richardson, Bert Smith, and Michael Vickers. John Swannell
and Julia Swannell read through the completed typescript;
their contributions were not limited to points of style. Finally,
I owe a more general intellectual debt to John Bramble, a
scholar of rare insight, without whose teaching and con-
versation over the years this would have been a very different
book.
Parts of chapters 3 and 4 are a reworking of material first
published in Hermes, 111 (1983).
P.R.H.

Contents
LIST OF PLATES vii
ABBREVIATIONS viii
INTRODUCTION I
1. P O E T RY AND C O S M O L O GY IN A N T I Q U I TY 5
< I. Poetry and cosmology 6
II. Epic and cosmology 22
2. C O S M O L O GY AND H I S T O RY IN VIRGIL 33
I, Cosmology and national epic in the Georgics
¡Georges 2.458-3.48) 33
II. Natural philosophy in the Aeneid 51
Appendix: The Song of Clyinene (Georgics 4.345-347) 83
3. G I G A N T O M A C HY IN THE AENEID: I 85
I. The tradition of political Gigantomachic imagery 85
II. The storm in Aeneid 1 90
III. The Shield of Aeneas: Actium 97
IV. Hercules the giant-slayer: the fight with Cacus 110
V. Typhoeus and Turn us 118
4. G I G A N T O M A C HY IN THE AENEID: II 120
1.1 he Shield of Aeneas: the Gauls on the Capitol 120
II. Pergamene and Augustan ideology and political
imagery 125
III. Gigantomachy in the last four books of the Aeneid 143
5. L U C R E T I US AND THE AENEID 157
I. Imitation of Lucretius in the Georgics 158
II. Lucretius and applied cosmology 167
III. Cosmological themes in the Aeneid 176
IV. Epic themes in the De Rerum Natura 193
V. Levels and imagery 219
CONTENTS
vi
VI. Virgil's imitation of Lucretius 233
Appendix: Lucrctian parallels for Virgil's Cave of the
Winds {Aeneid 1.52-63, 81-83) 237
6. HYPERBOLE 241
I. The functions of hyperbole 242
II. Hyperbole in the Aeneid 254
Appendix: Sky-reaching in Homer 291
7. UNIVERSAL EXPRESSIONS IN THE AENEID 293
I. Distribution over two terms 295
II. Distribution over three terms 313
III. Distribution over four terms 325
IV. Conclusions 329
8. THE SHIELD OF AENEAS: THE C O S M IC ICON 336
I. Criticism of the Shield since Lessing 336
II. The ancient tradition of commentary on the
Shield of Achilles 34°
III. The Virgilian Shield 346
IV. The Shield as physical object 366
V. The shouldering of the Shield [ Aeneid 8.729-731) 3^9
Appendix: The Burdens of the Shield and of Anchises 375
EPILOGUE 377
INDEX OF PASSAGES DISCUSSED 3^7
GENERAL INDEX 393
List of Plates
facing p.:
1. Relief of the Apotheosis of Homer, signed by Arche-
laus of Pricne 1 18
Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum
2. Gaul and Dead Wife: Pergamene Victory Monument
(Roman copy). Rome, Museo delle Terme 119
Photo: Mansell Collection
3. Group of Athena and Ge: Altar of Zeus at Pergamum.
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 1 ^o
4. Gemma Augustea. Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna 151
5. Augustus between Venus and Mars: Cup from
Boscoreale 182
From Monuments Piot 5 (1899), pi. 31.1. Photo: Ashmolean
Museum
6. Reconstruction of Sundial of Augustus 183
E. Buchner, RM 83 (1976), p. 353, figs. 13 & 14. Photo: Ash-
molean Museum
7. Aeneas and Romulus: Wall-paintings from Pompeii 2 14
Spinazzola, Pompeii alia luce degli scavi nuovi di Via delVAbbundanza
(1953), PP- I5I f-( pis. 183 & 184. Photo: Ashmolean Museum
8. Statue of Augustus: Villa of Livia at Prima Porta
(detail). Vatican Museum 21 5
Photo: Mansell Collection
Abbreviations
FOR periodicals the abbreviations of L'Année philologique have been
used. The following works are referred to by the author's name or by
name and abbreviated title.
Binder G. Binder, Aeneas und Augustus: Interpretationen zum
8. Buch der Aeneis (Beiträge zur klassischen Phi-
lologie 38, Meisenheim am Glan, 1971)
Buchheit, V. Buchheit, Vergil über die Sendung Roms: Un-
Sendung tersuchungen zum Bellum Poenicum und zur Aeneis
(Gymnasium Beiheft 3, Heidelberg, 1963)
Buchheit, V. Buchheit, Der Anspruch des Dichters in Vergib
Anspruch Georgika: Dichtertum und Heilsweg (Impulse der
Forschung 8, Darmstadt, 1972)
Buffière F. Buffière, Les mythes (THomère et la pensée grecque
(Paris, 1956)
Christ F. Christ, Die römische Weltherrschaft in der antiken
Dichtung (Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumswiss.
31, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1938)
Gernentz W. Gernentz, Laudes Romae (diss. Rostock, 1918)
Heinze R. Heinze, Virgils epische Technik3, (Leipzig and
Berlin, 1915)
Heitsch E. Heitsch, Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der
römischen Kaiserzeit2 (Abhandlungen der Aka-
demie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen,
philologisch-historische Klasse, 3e Folge, 49, Göt-
tingen, 1963)
Henry J. Henry, Aeneidea, or critical, exegetical, and aes-
thetical remarks on the Aeneis, i (London and Edin-
burgh, 1873), ii (Dublin, 1878), iii (Dublin,
1889), iv (Dublin, 1889)
Hunziker R. Hunziker, Die Figur der Hyperbel in den Gedichten
Vergib (diss. Zurich, 1896)
Knauer G. N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer: Studien zur
poetischen technik Vergib mit Listen der Homerzitate in
der Aeneis (Hypomnemata 7, Göttingen, 1964)
Nisbet/Hubbard R. G. M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard, A commentary
on Horace: Odes Book 1 (Oxford, 1970), Book 2
(Oxford, 1978)
ABBREVIATIONS IX
Norden E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch I76
(Stuttgart, 1976)
Otto A. Otto, Die Sprichwörter und sprichwörtlichen Re-
densarten der Römer (Leipzig, 1890);
Schrijvers P. H. Schrijvers, Horror ac divina voluptas: études sur
la poétique et la poésie de Lucrèce (Amsterdam, 1970)
Skutsch O. Skutsch, Studio Enniana (London, 1968 )
West M. L. West, Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford, 1966)
M. Wigodsky, Vergil and early Latin poetry (Hermes
Wigodsky Einzelschrift 24, Wiesbaden, 1972)
A. Wlosok, Die Göttin Venus in Vergils Aeneis (Hei-
Wlosok delberg, 1967)