Vergil's Aeneid, Book 1

1. Introduction to Augustan Rome

2. Gods and Heroes: Roman Appropriations
3. Vergil as a man: Aeneid as self-conscious art, as a national epic
4. Gods: Disorder and Order: an example of the careful structure of
events in the Aeneid
5. Aeneas, book 1, and Homer's Odyssey: symbolism and intertextuality
1. Introduction to Augustan Rome
• First, the GREEK world we have (sort of) left BEHIND:
◦ This is not the world of Mycene and Bronze Age Greece
◦ This is not the world of Agamemnon and the Greek heroes
◦ This is not the world of Archaic Greece
◦ Nor is this the world of Classical Greece
▪ Not the world of the Parthenon (Athenian Acropolis)
▪ Not the world of the Erechtheion (Athenian Acropolis)
▪ Not the world of the serene, perfect, idealized Apollo
(Apollo of Piombino)
• THIS IS NO LONGER GREECE: THIS IS THE WORLD OF
ROME
◦ Map of the Mediterranean as the Roman World
◦ Map of the Wanderings of Aeneas
◦ Rome has its own style:
▪ in Architecture: the Roman Colliseum, for example (from
later: 80 AD)
▪ in Art: esp. in portraiture:
▪ patrician
▪ Pompey (a great Roman general of the 1st c. B.C.)
▪ puella (girl)
▪ matrona (woman)
▪ another matrona
▪ couple (tombstone)
▪ Note how realistic, unsentimental, these portraits
are: a no-nonsense people
◦ Rome has a foundation myth that situates Rome as a hardy
people, born from the rough, a Rome that built itself up from
raw fields, a people with little who made themselves great
by virtue of their own moral fiber, sense of right and
tradition etc. (does this remind you of anything? yes, our
Founding Fathers saw Rome as their spiritual ancestry: look
 at the architecture in Washington DC!)
▪ Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf
◦ But as Rome evolved, its essence became more and more
military: we indeed think of the Roman empire, and the
central images of Rome are often martial
▪ The Roman emperor Augustus: in military armor
▪ Triumphal Arch: to celebrate victories over the enemies as
the empire grows (here is pictured the Arch of Trajan,
from the second century A.D., much after the time of
Augustus)
▪ Mars: note the Roman helmet, the savage controlling
gesture to Venus: Rome was a culture where military
rape plays a central part in the founding myth (!)
◦ This martial aspect of Rome was inordinately successful from a
fairly early period, resulting in success against the other
major power in the West, Carthage, in the 3rd and 2nd
centuries B.C., and a steadily growing empire. Carthago
delenda est. Sacked and destroyed 146 B.C.
◦ But in the first century B.C., the growing power of the Roman
Republic led to increasing factionalism, and the martial spirit
turned in upon itself: the civil wars
▪ Sulla and Marius: the first set of civil wars
▪ Pompey and Julius Caesar: the second set of civil wars
(first triumvirate) : Rubicon 49 B.C., death of Caesar
44 B.C.
▪ Octavian (later, taking the name Augustus) and Marc
Antony: the third and final set of civil wars (second
triumvirate) : Actium 31 B.C.
◦ Once the dust settled and the blood ceased to run, the winner
was ... Octavian, nephew to Julius Caesar, a Caesar himself,
and the first emperor of Rome (31 B.C. to 14 A.D.), who
soon (27 B.C.) took the name Augustus
▪ Augustus as warrior
▪ Augustus as Pontifex Maximus (the chief priest of Rome)
◦ As peace and prosperity spread around Rome (of course military
 actions continue: but to add to the empire, not to fight in
civil conflict), Augustus is increasingly seen as the
inaugurator of a time of unusual peace and prosperity, the
initiator of a Golden Age in Rome
◦ But -- what is fascinating -- is to see the ways in which
architecture, art, civil programs, religious rites, everything
that is, is deliberately directed by the regime towards helping
to create this explicit sense of a Golden Age (see Paul
Zanker, Power Images in the Age of Augustus)
◦ Julius Caesar: family name is Julius: linked to Aeneas' son Iulus
(=Ascanius), thus Julius Caesar and his nephew and heir
Octavian/Augustus are descended from Aeneas, thus also
from Venus (!)
◦ Interesting in this mix is the figure of Vergil, and his poem, the
Aeneid: how does it intersect with the political environment
of the times?

Map of the Wanderings of Aeneas

2. Gods and Heroes: Roman Appropriations

• (Latin name :: Greek name)
• Jupiter ~ Zeus
• Juno ~ Hera
• Neptune ~ Poseidon
• Venus ~ Aphrodite (Aeneas is son of Venus and Anchises)
• Apollo ~ Apollo
• Diana ~ Artemis
• Mars ~ Ares
• Mercury ~ Hermes
• Minerva (=Pallas) ~ Athena (or Pallas Athena)
• Vulcan ~ Hephaestus
• Ulysses (Ulixes) ~ Odysseus
• Hercules ~ Heracles

3. Vergil as a man: Aeneid as self-conscious art, as a national epic

Dates: 70 B.C. - 19 B.C.
Aeneid : 11 years of work, 30-19 B.C.: at his death, still not quite
finished: he asked that it be destroyed upon his death: fortunately,
Augustus himself is said to have overridden the dictates of the will
Hugely influential: second only to the Bible in the history of Western
Civilization: Middle Ages, Dante, Milton, Goethe etc. etc. look back not
to Homer but to Vergil.
A different kind of epic: epic to be sure: heroic world, gods actively
intervening, large scale, similes, etc. But: very few formulas, more
importantly denseness of texture: Vergil was a man, Homer scarcely
more than a legend: Vergil grew up in a fully literate, indeed
intellectually sophisticated society, Homer in a rough chieftain society
with little or no writing; by Vergil's time Homer was still admired of
course, but epic was not much written: Vergil re-invigorated the form
by constructing a national epic, thus one of meaning for his society (and
interestingly, for many other societies!), weaving a dense texture of
poetry with much allusion both back to Homer (and others), to the
political situation of his day, and to broader reflections on politics,
philosophy, character, and humanity. A resurrection of the Hero from
the almost absurd to the sublime.
How does Vergil do this?

4. Gods: Disorder and Order: an example of the careful structure of

events in the Aeneid
An initial frame: movement in opening scenes from Juno (1.13-18:
symbol of divine wrath and Disorder, irrationality of divine forces) :
Aeolus (unleashes disorder of wind, Juno's instrument, challenges the
natural divine order by intruding on Neptune's realm) : Neptune (calms
sea and wind: note how he controls his anger first: note the striking first
simile-- political! [lines 209ff]) : Jupiter (embodiment of Order: not just
stronger than other gods, but serene: calm, confident, an imposing
paternal figure of quiet authority: no unseemly wrangling with his wife
here! : he seems now firmly to control fate, and confidently predicts the
future of Rome, in which note esp. the chaining of Furor impius by
Augustus, who is immediately established as analogue to Jupiter)
(Viktor Poeschl) "the first unit of the Aeneid is framed by the
appearances of two major divinities. The composition is expression of a
fact...: Human action is embedded in divine action, not only as an
artistic means but also as a statement of fact. To understand this is to
hold one of the keys to the secret of classical composition. Besides
being subject to the autonomous law of beauty, the form is founded on
the subject itself, which through its organization in clear antitheses
appears in its very essence. 'Formal perfection is just another aspect of
mental penetration.' (Curtius)"
Myth and history interlock with a sense of divine world order, &
become the symbol of a cosmic law of destiny revealed in the existence
of the world of man. Three levels to the "reality" of the poem: (1)
Cosmos, sphere of divine order; (2) Myth, the heroic world of poetic
persons and destiny; (3) History, the world of historical and political
phenomena.
#3 seems strange at first, but is part of what infuses the poem with its
depth of meaning: politics and history lie closely under the surface of
the poem, and bubble up constantly, so as to make clear the links
between the world of here and now and that of the heroic world of
yesteryear.

5. Aeneas, book 1, and Homer's Odyssey: symbolism and intertextuality

Proem: "Anger sing, goddess, the anger which possessed Peleus' son
Achilles" (Iliad). "The man describe to me, Muse, the versatile person
who wandered far" (Odyssey). Homer begins with a noun introducing
the main subject. Aeneid: "arms and a man I sing": a combination of
Iliad and Odyssey.
Many Odyssean echoes, both parallel and contrasting. E.g. "long
enduring" hero, leaves Troy (destroyed or victorious), wanders the sea
with comrades, shipwrecked, encounter with pretty lady in a far-off
place to the West, etc. But Od. seeks wife and home; Aeneas seeks to
found a new nation (seeks a new wife and home, vaguely prophecied to
him).
More specific Odyssean echoes. The hunting scenes as an example of
symbolism and intertextual density.
• lines 251ff. (1) pius Aeneas (2) hero (3) but deer are sacred to
Artemis/Diana (cf. Iphigeneia tale!) and reading further...
• lines 444ff. (1) Venus as huntress (!), like Artemis/Diana; (2) "girls of
Tyre" are huntresses (like...), and Dido is their queen; (3) Queen
Dido as victim, as loyal wife [Sychaeus, Pygmalion].
• lines 700ff. Entrance of Queen Dido: (1) Artemis, cf. Nausicaa; (2)
surrounded by a "company of youths": cf. Penelope & suitors
• arrows, love arrows, idea of the victim: note how the intertextual
suggestions make this all extremely complicated, both emotionally
and intellectually
The symbolic theme arising from the deer-hunting becomes
problematic, even ironic. Brings back food for his men: pius Aeneas.
But by so doing makes the first of what will become a series of violent,
destructive acts against the new territory. The symbolism is explicitly
linked to Dido, with a strange and uncomfortably conflicting set of
associations: and Dido, note, will be first "taken" (sexually) by Aeneas
during a hunt, and we will increasingly see Dido as the quarry, and the
wounded victim. So from the first act in Carthage: (1) ambivalence:
Aeneas cannot advance his own cause and that of his men without a
destructive act; and (2) --quintessentially Vergilian-- so also is war and
human society generally: often necessary for order, stability, an act of
violence and destruction that yields an order: duty to gods and country
often means a violent act.
So why does Juno so angrily oppose Aeneas when he seems to
represent something unqualifiedly good (pietas: duty to gods, family,
country)? Aeneas' destiny --as Rome's-- is complex: a tension between
the good, creative forces behind Aeneas' pietas, and the destructive acts
to which he seems forced by that same pietas.
 [Aeneid Books 2-3]

1. More Background: Household gods, ancestor cult, pius Aeneas

2. Book two. Flashback to Troy: why you can never go home again

a. Trojan war from a Trojan point of view: Ulysses, Sinon

b. Centrality of the family: the inner sanctum, death of Priam

3. Book three. Search for a new home

a. Odyssey as backdrop

b. Helenus, Andromache, and "little Troy"

1. More Background: Household gods, ancestor cult, pius Aeneas

 Lares and Penates: "holy things and household gods": house and state
 Masks of the ancestors: ancestor cult
 pietas, pius Aeneas
o Duty to gods, family, state (the three are, to a Roman, more or less inseparable)
o Note how orderly: the cosmos
o Aeneas is a very different kind of hero, one for whom we, perhaps -- a nation of
reckless individualists (or so we like to think) -- have less natural affinity than
for the Homeric heroes ("contrast between the intensely personal preoccupations
of the Homeric heroes and the public responsibility through which Aeneas' sense
of honor finds its expression" - W A Camps, 9)
o Suffering personally, willing to subordinate his own interests and desires to his
duty to state and family
o the State as Family for Romans
 [minor digression: the Palladium: the cult image of the goddess Minerva = Pallas =
Greek Athena, a cult statue said to have descended from heaven, and on which the safety
of Troy depended. Ulysses and Diomedes steal the statue in an escapade towards the end
of the war, thereby insuring the doom of Troy. Supposedly, according to Sinon, they
defiled the statue-- touching it with bloody hands, thus had to build the Trojan Horse in
recompense ... or so the (Greek) story goes.]

2. Book two. Flashback to Troy: why you can never go home again

Context: spoken by Father Aeneas at a banquet to the ever more sympathetic Queen Dido in
Carthage: how is this like, how different from the Odyssey?
a. Trojan war from a Trojan point of view: Ulysses, Sinon

We certainly see a very different side of the Greeks, esp. Ulysses

 Cory Lundberg: "It was nice to hear the story told from a Trojan point of view"
 Joell Molina: "will they constantly be bashing the Greeks making them look like the bad
guys?"

The Sinon episode: Laocoon, snakes, Greek guile, drunken Trojans, attack

Note the snake imagery, which ties in with the major theme of Deception:

o Laocoon, pp. 36f. and the snakes from the sea

 from Tenedos (where Greek fleet hides)
 crests blood-red, eyes ablaze with blood and fire
o Sinon, cf. sinuous: the "coils" of the snake
o Trojan Horse, "fat with weapons" (the Latin suggests pregnant), "glides" and
"winds" up into the city (again, from the Latin: not clearly represented in your
translation on p. 37)
o a ruinous sleep, like a snake, has "wound" its way into the hearts of the Trojans
o When the Trojans in desperation adopt Greek guiles, and they too are compared
to a snake
o Pyrrhus is like a snake (see below)
o Note how Roman is (p. 36) the introduction to the Sinon episode: "Such was the
art of perjured Sinon, so insidious, we trusted what he told. So we were taken in
by snares, forced tears-- yes, we, whom neither Diomedes nor Achilles could
defeat, nor ten long years, a thousand-galleyed fleet." (It's clear that Aeneas and
the Trojans are brave, but dooomed.)

Hector appears to Aeneas as a ghost:

 Geoff Geibel: "In lines 371-385, Aeneas describes the haggard appearance of Hector
after being killed by Achilles. Why does he use such an elaborate description, and what
is the purpose?" (pp. 38-9)

b. Centrality of the family, fall of Troy: the inner sanctum, death of Priam

Note the movement of the image of Troy's fall: from outer to inner, from masses to individuals,
from involvement by Aeneas to helpless watching from afar (like a shepherd on a hilltop
watching a flame rage through crops): repeatedly (as Matt Cottone alertly notices), it's stated
that "weapons are useless for the Trojans" -- why?

Movement also gives a vivid image of the inner sanctum, almost a womb image (cf. Trojan
horse!), certainly one of violation of the "virgin" territory of the inner family:
 pp. 44-45: Pyrrhus - snake (! note phallic associations! violation!) - "inner house is
naked now": but not at all comic like e.g. the Nausicaa episode in the Odyssey

The central event: Death of Priam

 Kathy Chevalier: "Why does Pyrrhus kill Polites in front of his father, Priam? It seems
such an indecent thing to do. Pyrhuss surpasses this horrible act by dragging his father,
Praim, through his son's blood and then stabbing him with a sword into his side. Priam is
also decapitated. [Are these actions of insensitivity and defilement by Pyrrhus meant to
reflect the dragging of Hector's body by his father, Achilles?]"
 Why is this the central event?
o pietas: link to Anchises
o lack of pietas for Greeks (contrast with Trojan-Romans)
o terrible destruction of Troy and all it stands for: need to move on to a new
civilization
o brutal savagery of war: not to be celebrated
o the womb symbol, for Troy, is no longer an image of birth and fertility and
progenation, but of destruction and savagery
o Pompey the Great, and the image of the head on the shore: links back to the civil
wars, to the futile, brutal savagery of war that Vergil and his generation have
known too well: links forward to the peacefulness that such savagery can --
finally, at at great price! -- bring, as Vergil and his generation are experiencing in
the Augustan Age: pp. 46-47: Aeneid links mythological, heroic-age events to
those of the present (and the future)

Escape from Troy (summarize: hidden escape route: flame over Iulus' head)

 Jim Kraly: "Can the scenes with Aeneas' family at the end of book 2 be directly related
to the Hector's scene with Andromache and his son in the Iliad?"

3. Book three. Search for a new home

a. Odyssey as backdrop

Goals and purposes of the voyage, attitude of the hero could not be more different, even though
very similar

 Both search for home: difference?

 Both are "long-suffering" "much-enduring": difference?
 Fantastic, but not the "light fantastic": cf. story of Polydorus, for instance (to which cf.
the auditor, Dido, and her experience with Pygmalion and Sychaeus); lack of hints that
these are "tall tales": not necessarily truebut traditional, to be considered
a unqualified part of the fiction in this heroic journey
  Ryan Bonn: "The journey of Aeneas and the curse from Celaeno is strikingly similar to
Odysseus' journey and curse form Polyphemus. Any resemblance or significance?"
 The love-interest: Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa versus Dido: also contrast internally
Andromache (that is, the one we see in the Aeneid) with Dido
 This "scripting" of the reader to compare and contrast, and thereby to see what is
essentially alike and what is essentially different in this epic is quintessentially
Vergilian

b. Helenus, Andromache, and "little Troy" in Epirus (Buthrotum)

 A "toy Troy", with a miniscule copy of the might citadel of Ilium, a dried-up stream
named after the river Xanthus, and unimpressive gates patterned on Troy's Scaean Gates.
"This pathetic simile has no life or future at all. Its prevailing mood is tears; its attention
is fixed on the dead past; and its symbol is the cenotaph of Hector by which Aeneas
finds Andromache weeping as he approaches the walls. There is no child of
Andromache-- the Greeks killed him at Troy -- ... and Vergil pointedly ignores the
young people of the town. It has no future, only a tragic dead past to stir its feelings."
[W S Anderson, Art of the Aeneid, 41]
 With this as the central event, preceded by two failed attempts to start a "new Troy" we
begin to understand that founding a new Troy is no light task: and one that must focus
on future greatness not past glory: tendency of the Aeneid to use the heroic age to
focus on the relationship between past, present, and future

From these initial 3 books, we come to understand that the Trojans are bound for Italy by divine
command, with the (gradually revealed) promise of a great future for their descendants, and that
they bring certain holy symbols of the continuing vitality of the ancient Trojan civilization

Next time: the Tragedy of Dido, and the problem of Aeneas' character; Fate and Gods in the
Aeneid

Vergil's Aeneid: Books Four through Six

1. Vergil, myth, and history (again!)

2. Book six. Begin at the ending: the gates of horn and ivory

3. "Pessimists" versus "Optimists" debate

4. Dido in the Underworld

 5. Book four. The "Tragedy of Dido"

Vergil, myth, and history

 Vergil's epic, in a sense, can be read as an effort, after 3 generations of civil war, to
establish a national mythology that allows the Romans to look past the dreadful
immediate history of their culture
 Thus, the Romans could see the present Golden Age not as something new and different
from the (horrible) norm, but as a return to the glory of yesteryear; the civil wars then
become, in the sweep of history, a "momentary" blip on the screen, a downbeat time in a
history that is mostly glorious, and extends back to glorious beginnings (not unlike
attempts in our own society to look continually back to our "origins"-- the founding
fathers and beginnings of our democracy; the great Melting Pot, in parts mythologized;
or more recently the Myth of the Single Head of Household, and the Myth of When City
Streets were Safe; that is, we commonly use History as a means to criticize or validate
the present-- in our case, at the moment, mostly to criticize; in Vergil's case, at least on
the surface, to validate)
 The History of Rome is never far from the surface of this heroic epic. Even though set in
the Heroic Age, we are constantly reminded (if we are Romans, or students of Rome) of
the HERE AND NOW, the REAL rather than the MYTHIC: recall the head of Pompey,
suggested by the head of Priam in Book 2; or the town named after Palinurus; or, just
when we think we're safely in that most mythological of territories, the Underworld
(indeed the Elysium fields), the catalogue of Roman Greats, that begins with with the
early Kings of Rome (before the Republic is established), and ends with Marcellus, the
nephew and presumed heir of Augustus, who died unexpectedly in 23 BC (immediately
before Vergil's death in 19 BC!).

Book 6. Begin at the ending: the gates of horn and ivory

 Odyssey parallel: Penelope's dream, Od. 19

 Astonishing: gate of ivory!!
 Odyssey parallel: Od.'s encounter with the Underworld: catalogue of heroines and
heroes: recall the intrusion of Alcinous: the break in the tale serves to remind us
(spellbound by the story!) that this is a STORY, so even while Alcinous (a king of
never-never land) asserts that Od. speaks the truth unlike all those many other strangers
who come in with their stories, we as readers are reminded that story-telling, and thus
perhaps fiction, is going on: and immediately after the Nekyia Od. lands in Ithaca and
we see him spinning his Cretan tales, and hear the appraisal of the common-sensical
swineherd Eumaeus
 Note the context! Here too a catalogue. But: the catalogue is full of real people: to a
Roman, these men: Silvius, Camillus, Fabrius Maximus, Gracchi, Scipio, Pompey,
Caesar, are all as well-known as in American terms a list such as: Washington,
 Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Sherman, Roosevelt, Truman, Patton,
Eisenhower, M L King, Ronald Reagan, George Schultz.
 How can it be here, of all places! that V. has Aeneas exit from the gate of ivory???

"Pessimists" versus "Optimists" debate

 Critics tend to divide between those ("Optimists") who see the Aeneid as necessarily a
celebration of the Augustan golden age, and those ("Pessimists") who see the opposite:
who detect in every seemingly positive statement a deep cross-current, who see Vergil
as, in effect, unable to express openly his criticism of the current regime and thus using
his poem as a veiled way of exploring the horrors of war that led to the current "peace"
(Peace is when you've killed off all your enemies!)
 A central passage for this is the "Tragedy of Dido", and again, let's begin at the ending

Dido in the Underworld

 As we can see from Aeneas' encounter with Dido in the Underworld, "Hell is meeting
your old girlfriend-- ask Bill Clinton" (Karl Galinski)
 Od. parallel? (Ajax (Telamon, the Greater): also a suicide, one who was driven MAD
over an event in some sense important, in some sense rather trivial, and committed
suicide after his loss of HONOR)
 Quickly, then, one part of the debate tends to focus, as Vergil means it to, on the
question of Dido's irrationality versus Aeneas' rationality: but is this sufficient to answer
the questions raised for the reader in book 4?

Book 4. The Tragedy of Dido

 Anderson reading: Is Aeneas a "cad" or is he not? What EVIDENCE can we bring to

argue one way or the other?
o (Discussion) Note esp. the (possible) paradigms of:
 Hector and Andromache: what does that argue about Dido? about Aeneas
and his commitment to "duty"?
 Paris and Helen: Aeneas is called a "second Paris": what does that say
about whether Aeneas is a "good" man; about whether Dido is a "good"
woman?
 Fundamentals:
o "Fate made me do it": Fate = founding of Troy
o Anna, p. 83: "With Trojan arms beside us, so much greatness must lie in wait for
Punic glory!": Remember Carthage is Rome's historic #1 enemy (like imagining
a British mythology whereby the Anglo-Saxons never come to Britain, and
 instead of Britain rising to cultural and imperial greatness, and prevailing in
WWI and WWII, the founding race remains in Germany and Germany becomes
the glorious and dominant European power!)
o So a ROMAN reader seems to be predisposed, coming into book 4, to
sympathize with Aeneas' needs to leave Carthage behind, and get on with the
important business of founding the Roman civilization; and NOT to sympathize
with anyone like Dido who is the ancestor the Carthaginian race
 YET the books seems scripted to lead the reader towards considerable sympathy for
Dido: yes, probably true that we, as modern readers, tend to sympathize perhaps more
than ancient Roman readers, but much of the tale (note!) is told from Dido's perspective:
surely she, though "frenzied", is the victim:
o remember the hunting metaphors, e.g.;
o or think about the introduction of the sister Anna, which makes her the victim of
bad advice;
o or think of the extremely BRIEF was in which the "marriage" and its
consummation is set forth (p. 86), versus the lengthy attention given to Aeneas'
deceit and her agony are played out, esp. the long scene at the end where we see
her commmit suicide: it's hard to imagine any reader reading this without at least
some sympathy for her as a victim of Venus, etc.
 A possible proof: Odyssey parallel: in what ways does she match, in what ways not
match the TYPE CHARACTER from the Odyssey?
o the seductive woman/ruler in a land to the west who takes in the hero in his
journeys, seduces him, tries to keep him for her own.
o but something goes seriously wrong with the paradigm!
o that something seems essentially to have to do with the fact that she is NOT a
nymph, not a figure in a never-never land, but a HUMAN, with links to historical
reality, with therefore links into REALITY, and therefore links into questions of
MORALITY
o (Aeneas' stubborn refusal to consider a compromise: pp.95f: note the simile at p.
96; and cf. p. 92, "there is my love, there is my homeland."
o (That Dido is NOT the paradigm of the irrational revenge figure of myth (such as
Medea or Clytemnestra etc.) is suggested at page 101, where she stops herself
from considering an attack on Aeneas' ships, and points out, "Poor Dido,
does his foulness touch you now [you who] gave him your scepter? So this is the
oath of Aeneas, this the pledge of one who carries with him, so they say, the
household gods of his land, who bore upon his shoulders his father weak with
years. And could I not have dragged his body off, and scattered him piecemeal
upon the waters, limb by limb? Or butchered all his comrades, even served
Ascanius himself as banquet dish upon his father's table?")
 Final lines raise issue of FATE, as well, and very much argue against the idea that
Aeneas has no control over his Fate in the way he claims
o cf. foot race in book 5: in Odyssey, the runner is "pushed by Athena": in Aeneid,
Nisus slips by chance, and then he proceeds to win the race for his friend
Euryalus by tackling the second racer (!)
 o Looking ahead to Book 9: this same Nisus says, to Euryalus (p. 221): "Euryalus,
is it the gods who put this fire [for battle] in our minds, or is it that each man's
relentless longing becomes a god to him?"
o So, is it REALLY that Mercury and the Fates are pushing Aeneas along, or it is
something else: remember e.g. Mercury's remark (if it is Mercury!) in Aeneas'
sleep (p. 90): "Are you now laying the foundation of high Carthage, as servant to
a woman, building her a splendid city here? Are you forgetful of what is your
own kingdom, your own fate?
 If, as seems to be so, the book is scripted by Vergil so as to lead the reader towards
sympathy for the Carthaginian Dido in general, and specifically towards reflections on
the issue of honor: why?
o Recall that for a Roman, honor is EVERYTHING: thus "pious Aeneas", thus the
many examples of Romans who died rather than do something contrary to their
sense of honor. But it doesn't seem too much a modern reading to see Aeneas'
actions as qualified by Dido's death, and qualified in the sense that he's done
something not quite heroic, something indeed not quite even honorable.
o Recall that in Book 3, our hero, like Odysseus, went on a heroic journey, but that
his "feats" were strangely disappointing, not really very heroic at all: he skirts the
great monsters like the Cyclops and Charybdis, recalling the Odyssey, but not
like Odyssey showing his own cleverness or mettle; he does not find any good-
looking nymphs to bed; and his one lengthy contact with the fantastic is with the
Harpies-- hardly a heroic image, of Aeneas and his unsuccessfully trying to fend
off these defecating birds so that they can eat their meal (!)
 So are the Pessimists right? What kind of hero is this Great Man who will found the
Great Race of the Romans? And recall: this is a ROMAN poem, written by a ROMAN
poet, at the height of the GOLDEN AGE of ROME, and was immediately embraced by
the rulers AND the people (at least the elite) of Rome as their NATIONAL EPIC! What
gives?

Aeneid Books six through nine

1. Structure: outline

2. Internal comparisons within the Aeneid

3. More on Intertextuality: external comparisons: the Iliad once again

Preliminary: let's recall where we are:

Book 1: Aeneas encounters a storm and is cast ashore at Carthage.

Book 2: The hero tells Dido of his escape from Troy.

Book 3: The wanderings of Aeneas: Harpies, meeting with Helenus. Death of Anchises.

Book 4: Dido's passion for Aeneas. At Jupiter's command, Aeneas departs. Dido kills herself.

Book 5: Aeneas reaches Sicily. Funeral games for Anchises.

Book 6: Aeneas with the Sibyl at Cumae. He meets Anchises in the Underworld.

Book 7: Aeneas lands in Latium. Latinus promises Lavinia. Juno and Allecto stir up war.
Catalogue of Italian heroes.

Book 8: Aeneas secures the help of Evander and the Etruscans. Story of Hercules and Cacus.
Armor from Vulcan.

Book 9: Turnus attacks the Trojan camp. Nisus and Euryalus. The camp is hard pressed.

1. Structure of the Aeneid

Note that for the Aeneid (unlike the Iliad or Odyssey), the book divisions are original to the
poem: that is, the poet (not a later editor) decided where to put the breaks in the action defined
by the "books". The poem can be analyzed in many different ways. The most popular:

1. Dichotomy:

 Odyssey = 1-6
 Iliad = 7-12

2. Triads:

 Tragedy of Dido (framing the wanderings of Aeneas): 1-4

 Roman orgins and early history: 5-8
 Tragedy of Turnus: 9-12
 [The problem with this schema is the central triad, which doesn't much feel like a
coherent unit: and in any case, there is a strong break between books 6 and 7 which this
scheme ignores]

3. Alternation:

 Odyssean, more expansive books: 1,3,5,7,9,11

 Iliadic, more grave, intense books: 2,4,6,8,10,12
  [This schema does work very well, for me at least, though I think we do notice a general
alternation between books of high excitement, followed by more subdued books (e.g. the
sequence from 2,3,4,5,6, where 2,4,6 are very gripping tales, and 3,5 less so).]

4. Centered (Ring Composition!)

 7 Landing at Rome
 6,8 Roman books
 5,9 Episodic
 4,10 Tragedies of Dido and Pallas
 3,11 Episodic
 2,12 Triumph of Rome, destruction of Troy
 [But here it seems more honest to say that some books have strong links to one another,
in a roughly inverse fashion: 1,7 have strongly links too, for instance, and in a certain
sense also 1,12.]

2. Internal comparisons within the Aeneid

a. Some internal comparisons: Note how Vergil builds up parallels AND contrasts

1. Landing in Latium (book 7) :: landing in Carthage (book 1)

 flourishing city, alive with activity

 ambassadors press towards a central temple which is the place where the ruler handles
political affairs
 Ilioneus is the Trojan spokesman
 Receiving king offers more than Trojans ask for: specifically, offer a wife (!)
 Note the invocation to ERATO, a Muse associated with LOVE POETRY, though this is,
clearly, the beginning of the books on the theme of war (the "Iliadic" part of the Aeneid)
- p. 164
 Juno intervenes with irrational destructiveness: storm in book 1, Allecto in book 7: note
the images of nakes, fire, storm: in book 1 a storm compared to warfare, in book 7
warfare compared to a storm
 [Latinus as descendant of Saturn, Latins as a "race of Saturn needing no laws and no
restraint for righteousness; they hold themselves in check by their own will and by the
customs of their ancient gods." -p. 169f, 7.268ff: cf. "Daughter of Saturn = Juno. From
"golden age" of peace to the "new age" of warfare.]
 But note the inversion of events: in book 1, storm is followed by peaceful meeting with
Dido; in book 7, peaceful meeting with Latinus is followed by the "storm" of Allecto;
also, in book 1, Neptune calms storm like a statesman quieting a mob, but in Book 7,
Galaesus is killed trying to make peace between the Italian mob and the newly-landed
Trojans (p. 180).

b. Allecto: snakes, fire, blood, Bacchante revisited!

  Allecto: p.174ff (3 stages: 1. Amata, 2. Turnus, 3. rural Italians)
 Snakes: Laocoon (irrational, implacable fury of the gods against Troy); Pyrrhus
(irrational, implacable, impius fury of the Greeks against Troy, an image perhaps even
of sexual violation): themes of deception and violation
 Bacchante: Dido, p. 91
 If Aeneas thought that by leaving Carthage he left behind the irrationality and madness
assoc. with women, he's mistaken
 Historical note: woman, madness, war fury, snakes: links in strongly
with Cleopatra: the story of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian's defeat of Antony and
Cleopatra at Actium, 31 BC: the center of Aeneas' shield, pp. 212ff
 What kind of war is described here? Note the complicated relationships: on one side are
Aeneas and Evander and the Etruscans; on the other, the Rutulians (Turnus) and the
Latins (Latinus). But Latinus is Aeneas' friend, sort of, and has offered his daughter's
hand (Lavinia) to Aeneas; moreover, Aeneas WILL marry her, and found Lavinium,
which will eventually lead to the founding of Rome.

c. So, once again, why does Vergil invoke the Muse of LOVE POETRY to start off the second
half of the Aeneid?

d. More images of Disorder: Hercules and Cacus (Book 8, pp. 197f.): this paradigm begins to
suggest Aeneas' role: that of the necessary enforcer of order, and to hint at the ambiguity with
which war is viewed in this epic: not simple heroism, to be sure!

3. More external comparisons: Aeneid and Iliad: INTERTEXTUALITY

i. Nisus and Euryalus, Book 9

 Sets itself clearly against Book 10 in the Iliad (the Dolon episode: Diomedes and
Odysseus)
 What is different between the two tales? Why? What sort of paradigm does this tale set
up? Why might that be an important paradigm (note how much emphasis the story
receives)?

ii. If we think of the "Iliad pattern", it becomes clear that Aeneas has not been acting like ANY
of Homer's heroes

a. A "second Paris" ?

 Juno, p. 173 (425ff)

 Amata, p. 175 top (481ff)
 Turnus, p. 219 bottom, 220 top (181ff)

but Aeneas has never met the princess, much less married her! nor is the princess already
married, or even so sexually provocative, as Helen-- no violation of Zeus Xenios (Jupiter, that
is!) here: no adultery, no seduction: the erotic has been fully consumed in his two "wives":
Creusa and Dido.

this serves to remind us of Aeneas' perfidy (if it is that!) with regard to Dido, but also slowly to
suggest that perhaps this charge by Dido is equally overblown: that Aeneas is in fact dutiful, the
pious one, in a way that Paris was not

b. Hector? or Achilles?

Turnus is first announced (in book 6) as a "new Achilles", as we expect given that Aeneas is a
TROJAN hero; but with the attempt to burn the ships, the storming of the wall, etc. Turner
seems to play more the role of Hector: but at book 9, line 990 (p. 239), Turnus at the height of
his "Aristeia" claims to be the "new Achilles"

But withdrawal from the action and, esp., the arms given by Vulcan/Hephaestus, suggest
Achilles, as well as the association of Turnus with Hector: this is a surprise since

 (1) Aeneas is Trojan and

 (2) Hector is the one associated in the Iliad with pietas

Why then Aeneas as Achilles? Will the real "new Achilles" please stand up? Isn't it because
there is great ambivalence of association with this great warrior, and with the "new Achilles" we
met in Book 2 (Pyrrhus, Achilles' son! the one who murders Polites, Priams' son, in front of his
father!)

I think it begins to push towards the fundamental question of what war is all about, why we
MUST have heroes, and towards our understanding of Aeneas as a RELUCTANT hero, but one
who WILL do his duty when called upon in full heroic fashion.

Aeneid Books six through nine

1. Structure: outline

2. Internal comparisons within the Aeneid

3. More on Intertextuality: external comparisons: the Iliad once again

Preliminary: let's recall where we are:

Book 1: Aeneas encounters a storm and is cast ashore at Carthage.

Book 2: The hero tells Dido of his escape from Troy.

Book 3: The wanderings of Aeneas: Harpies, meeting with Helenus. Death of Anchises.

Book 4: Dido's passion for Aeneas. At Jupiter's command, Aeneas departs. Dido kills herself.

Book 5: Aeneas reaches Sicily. Funeral games for Anchises.

Book 6: Aeneas with the Sibyl at Cumae. He meets Anchises in the Underworld.

Book 7: Aeneas lands in Latium. Latinus promises Lavinia. Juno and Allecto stir up war.
Catalogue of Italian heroes.

Book 8: Aeneas secures the help of Evander and the Etruscans. Story of Hercules and Cacus.
Armor from Vulcan.

Book 9: Turnus attacks the Trojan camp. Nisus and Euryalus. The camp is hard pressed.

1. Structure of the Aeneid

Note that for the Aeneid (unlike the Iliad or Odyssey), the book divisions are original to the
poem: that is, the poet (not a later editor) decided where to put the breaks in the action defined
by the "books". The poem can be analyzed in many different ways. The most popular:

1. Dichotomy:

 Odyssey = 1-6
 Iliad = 7-12

2. Triads:

 Tragedy of Dido (framing the wanderings of Aeneas): 1-4

 Roman orgins and early history: 5-8
 Tragedy of Turnus: 9-12
 [The problem with this schema is the central triad, which doesn't much feel like a
coherent unit: and in any case, there is a strong break between books 6 and 7 which this
scheme ignores]

3. Alternation:

 Odyssean, more expansive books: 1,3,5,7,9,11

 Iliadic, more grave, intense books: 2,4,6,8,10,12
  [This schema does work very well, for me at least, though I think we do notice a general
alternation between books of high excitement, followed by more subdued books (e.g. the
sequence from 2,3,4,5,6, where 2,4,6 are very gripping tales, and 3,5 less so).]

4. Centered (Ring Composition!)

 7 Landing at Rome
 6,8 Roman books
 5,9 Episodic
 4,10 Tragedies of Dido and Pallas
 3,11 Episodic
 2,12 Triumph of Rome, destruction of Troy
 [But here it seems more honest to say that some books have strong links to one another,
in a roughly inverse fashion: 1,7 have strongly links too, for instance, and in a certain
sense also 1,12.]

2. Internal comparisons within the Aeneid

a. Some internal comparisons: Note how Vergil builds up parallels AND contrasts

1. Landing in Latium (book 7) :: landing in Carthage (book 1)

 flourishing city, alive with activity

 ambassadors press towards a central temple which is the place where the ruler handles
political affairs
 Ilioneus is the Trojan spokesman
 Receiving king offers more than Trojans ask for: specifically, offer a wife (!)
 Note the invocation to ERATO, a Muse associated with LOVE POETRY, though this is,
clearly, the beginning of the books on the theme of war (the "Iliadic" part of the Aeneid)
- p. 164
 Juno intervenes with irrational destructiveness: storm in book 1, Allecto in book 7: note
the images of nakes, fire, storm: in book 1 a storm compared to warfare, in book 7
warfare compared to a storm
 [Latinus as descendant of Saturn, Latins as a "race of Saturn needing no laws and no
restraint for righteousness; they hold themselves in check by their own will and by the
customs of their ancient gods." -p. 169f, 7.268ff: cf. "Daughter of Saturn = Juno. From
"golden age" of peace to the "new age" of warfare.]
 But note the inversion of events: in book 1, storm is followed by peaceful meeting with
Dido; in book 7, peaceful meeting with Latinus is followed by the "storm" of Allecto;
also, in book 1, Neptune calms storm like a statesman quieting a mob, but in Book 7,
Galaesus is killed trying to make peace between the Italian mob and the newly-landed
Trojans (p. 180).

b. Allecto: snakes, fire, blood, Bacchante revisited!

  Allecto: p.174ff (3 stages: 1. Amata, 2. Turnus, 3. rural Italians)
 Snakes: Laocoon (irrational, implacable fury of the gods against Troy); Pyrrhus
(irrational, implacable, impius fury of the Greeks against Troy, an image perhaps even
of sexual violation): themes of deception and violation
 Bacchante: Dido, p. 91
 If Aeneas thought that by leaving Carthage he left behind the irrationality and madness
assoc. with women, he's mistaken
 Historical note: woman, madness, war fury, snakes: links in strongly
with Cleopatra: the story of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian's defeat of Antony and
Cleopatra at Actium, 31 BC: the center of Aeneas' shield, pp. 212ff
 What kind of war is described here? Note the complicated relationships: on one side are
Aeneas and Evander and the Etruscans; on the other, the Rutulians (Turnus) and the
Latins (Latinus). But Latinus is Aeneas' friend, sort of, and has offered his daughter's
hand (Lavinia) to Aeneas; moreover, Aeneas WILL marry her, and found Lavinium,
which will eventually lead to the founding of Rome.

c. So, once again, why does Vergil invoke the Muse of LOVE POETRY to start off the second
half of the Aeneid?

d. More images of Disorder: Hercules and Cacus (Book 8, pp. 197f.): this paradigm begins to
suggest Aeneas' role: that of the necessary enforcer of order, and to hint at the ambiguity with
which war is viewed in this epic: not simple heroism, to be sure!

3. More external comparisons: Aeneid and Iliad: INTERTEXTUALITY

i. Nisus and Euryalus, Book 9

 Sets itself clearly against Book 10 in the Iliad (the Dolon episode: Diomedes and
Odysseus)
 What is different between the two tales? Why? What sort of paradigm does this tale set
up? Why might that be an important paradigm (note how much emphasis the story
receives)?

ii. If we think of the "Iliad pattern", it becomes clear that Aeneas has not been acting like ANY
of Homer's heroes

a. A "second Paris" ?

 Juno, p. 173 (425ff)

 Amata, p. 175 top (481ff)
 Turnus, p. 219 bottom, 220 top (181ff)

but Aeneas has never met the princess, much less married her! nor is the princess already
married, or even so sexually provocative, as Helen-- no violation of Zeus Xenios (Jupiter, that
is!) here: no adultery, no seduction: the erotic has been fully consumed in his two "wives":
Creusa and Dido.

this serves to remind us of Aeneas' perfidy (if it is that!) with regard to Dido, but also slowly to
suggest that perhaps this charge by Dido is equally overblown: that Aeneas is in fact dutiful, the
pious one, in a way that Paris was not

b. Hector? or Achilles?

Turnus is first announced (in book 6) as a "new Achilles", as we expect given that Aeneas is a
TROJAN hero; but with the attempt to burn the ships, the storming of the wall, etc. Turner
seems to play more the role of Hector: but at book 9, line 990 (p. 239), Turnus at the height of
his "Aristeia" claims to be the "new Achilles"

But withdrawal from the action and, esp., the arms given by Vulcan/Hephaestus, suggest
Achilles, as well as the association of Turnus with Hector: this is a surprise since

 (1) Aeneas is Trojan and

 (2) Hector is the one associated in the Iliad with pietas

Why then Aeneas as Achilles? Will the real "new Achilles" please stand up? Isn't it because
there is great ambivalence of association with this great warrior, and with the "new Achilles" we
met in Book 2 (Pyrrhus, Achilles' son! the one who murders Polites, Priams' son, in front of his
father!)

I think it begins to push towards the fundamental question of what war is all about, why we
MUST have heroes, and towards our understanding of Aeneas as a RELUCTANT hero, but one
who WILL do his duty when called upon in full heroic fashion.