First pages only of the offprint of “Triumphati magis quam victi? Ways to Respond to Lying and Exaggeration in Aeneid 8 and on the Shield of Aeneas,” MD 89.2 (2022) 67-111; the journal’s rules allow me to share only the typescript and the first pages of the offprint. (original) (raw)

2022, Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici

This paper discusses possible responses to deception and exaggeration in Aeneid 8, especially on the the description of the shield of Aeneas that closes the book, and so it is a supplement to my 1990 book on prophecy in the Aeneid. It discusses statements made by ambassadors or Aeneas acting in that role; what the rivergod Tiberinus says to Aeneas about the anger of the gods; Evander’s odd and perhaps untrustworthy stories about Hercules and Cacus and other Herculean myths, Mezentius, a guest named Argus, and his own history; and at more length the scenes on the Shield of Aeneas, especially the descriptions of the Battle of Actium, and of Augustus’ triumph. For the shield I discuss the association of the shield with the vates (both prophets and poets); the question of whether Ascanius or Silvius Postumus will be the ancestor of the Julians; the two different explanations of the name Lupercal in Book 8; the allusions to the Gauls’ taking the Capitol, and to the downfall of Manlius; who fought at Actium and who is mentioned on the shield despite not being at Actium; whether Antony had been a victor in the East; the mention of Discorda as an allusion to civil war; the odd setting of the triumph of Augustus on the Palatine; the victae gentes who were not actually victae and come from a much wider geographic scope than the peoples actually defeated; and the references to the Euphrates and the Araxes. The lying and exaggeration earlier in Book 8, some of which involve the difference between statements made by the narrator and statements made by characters, provide a new context for the problems on the shield; all of the deception can be looked at in several ways:as appropriate hyperbole, as typical poetic exaggeration or use of incompatible variants, as unreliable history, as excessive exaggeration and inconsistency that undercuts the encomium, as prophecies that mislead here as elsewhere in the poem, or as Vulcan producing what Venus wants to hear. Two problems can be interepreted as related to one another: why so much of the pre-Actium parts of the shield (all but four or so lines) presents material from Ennius, some of it fanciful, and why the depiction of Actium and the triumph feature so many peoples who were not there. Following earlier scholarship suggesting that Augustus himself in his triumph may have exaggerated the geographical extent of his defeated enemies as a way to compete with Julius and Pompey, we can see the shield as largely divided into two parts, one presenting mythical material from Ennius, the second a mythologized and exaggerated version of Actium. Whether Vergil is endorsing this version of Actium, or quoting it but maintaining his distance, is a question different readers will answer in different ways.