Seeking New Auspices: Interpreting Warfare and Religion in Virgil's Aeneid (original) (raw)
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Fluctus Irarum, Fluctus Curarum: Lucretian Religion in the Aeneid
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. (De Rerum Natura 1.101) Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem. (Aeneid 1.33) More than formal SIMILARITY unites these lines.1 Lucretius points out the folly of religio, epitomized in Agamemnon's sacrifice of his own daughter to appease an indifferent goddess; Virgil emphasizes the hardship of founding Rome in the wake of a goddess's very real persecution. That is, what Lucretius derides as foolish fantasy, Virgil weaves into the fabric of his epic.2 I argue here that Virgil continually brings to life Epicurean caricatures of religio?that the vengeful gods and fearful mortals whom Lucretius ridicules become the chief actors in the Aeneid. One of Lucretius' most "revolutionary" inversions of conventional language and assumptions is his paradoxical assertion that religio and pietas are opposites (see Summers 1995, 33). This paradox underlies his philosophical system: men are unhappy and wicked because of their superstitious fear of the gods {religio), and to free them from the "constricting knots of religion" {artis religionum nodis, 4.6-7) is his passionately stated purpose. He asserts that the gods are sublimely indifferent to human affairs and defines pietas as the equanimity that comes from recognizing this indifference, that is, from seeing the folly of conventional religio: O genus infelix humanum, talia divis cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas! quantos tum gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis vulnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu' nostris! nec pietas ullast velatum saepe videri iCurrie (1988, 96) notes that the lines are "two of a kind" and details their similarities, but does not interpret the allusion. 2For bibliography on Virgil's Kontrastimitation (so called by Buchheit 1972) see Far-
Classical World, 2017
Copyright © 2017 The Classical Association of the Atlantic States. These are uncorrected page proofs of an article to appear in CLASSICAL WORLD, Volume 111, Issue 1, Fall 2017, pages 7–25. Please consult the final version once published, available on Project Muse. Abstract: Long before the Harvard School, the earliest audiences of Vergil’s Aeneid were conditioned to hear “two voices” in the epic. Vergil’s Eclogues had already illustrated and evoked dialogic interpretations; the epic’s ekphrases, including the Trojan War frieze at Carthage, show the subjective nature of all aesthetic response; and the ancient vita tradition framed the text of the Aeneid, like Pallas’ baldric, as an object of political contestation. In tying the epic’s publication to the death of its author, the Aeneid’s object history continues to implicate all readers, from Augustus to the designers of the 9/11 Memorial in New York, in a struggle for interpretive control. CORRIGENDA to the attached proofs include the following: p. 9, line 7, read c. 39 BCE; p. 10, Aen. 1.b, strike comma after coegi; p. 10, second paragraph, add silvestrem to Ecl. 1.2 quotation; p. 10, second paragraph, read Calp. Sic. Ecl. 4.158-163; p. 11, 11th line from bottom, read 11-13; p. 13, inset translation, read “Dionean”; p. 14, translation at top of page, read “even the mind” and “these things of yours”; p. 16, first line after inset quotation, remove umlauts on “naïve”; p. 17, midway down page, “wedlock, [and] veils,” Aen. 4.172; p. 17, second line from bottom, read Georgics 3.16-39; p. 18, first line of Section III, delete initial “But” and clarify pronouns in quotation below; p. 22, third paragraph: references should read Pliny HN 7.114 and Tr. 1.7.22-30; p. 23, second line, read Vit. Verg. 33-34; throughout, organize references chronologically and do not hyphenate Harvard School when used as a compound modifier.
Exemplaria Classica, 2022
McGill's commentary on Aeneid 11 replaces K.W. Gransden's 1991 green-and-yellow. Gransden's book included 76 pages of commentary; McGill's 214 pages of commentary, pages that are moreover much denser than those of 1991. Already this mere numerical figure makes us understand how McGill's commentary constitutes a huge step forward compared to his predecessor. But it is not just a matter of quantity: McGill's work is better in quality from every angle. It is an excellent work, and, as regards the overall judgment on it, I agree with what Fiachra Mac Góráin says in his review, and in particular with his final words: "this is a welcome and enriching addition to the scholarship on Aeneid XI and will be widely consulted by readers at all levels". 1 This is also the first green-and-yellow dedicated to a book of the Aeneid that had already been commented on by Nicholas Horsfall (415 pages). McGill manages to make excellent use of Horsfall's commentary, always remaining independent in his choices and judgments, and thus producing a commentary that will be of fundamental help to both students and scholars. The green-and-yellow series, unlike Horsfall's commentaries, is in fact intended primarily for university students. While fully aware of this fact, and while fully aware of the fact that the series has precise limits in terms of length, in this paper I would like to deal with some passages of book 11 where I really wished it had been possible for McGill to be able to find the space to add a sentence or two to his notes, or not to omit something from his apparatus. The areas to which I will turn my attention are the history of exegesis, the textual-critical discussions, and the contribution that the history of exegesis can make to a better understanding of Virgil's text. I will often find myself saying, "McGill should have added… XYX". I want to clarify that when I say "should", it is understood that I mean if he were writing for a series with a more expansive scope. It is true that sometimes I really want to say that McGill, in this green-and-yellow, would have done well to add a sentence or two, or not to omit something from his apparatus. But in general, my main intent is to demonstrate how a particular attention to the exegetical tradition can be useful for a better understanding of the text of the Aeneid. In other words, as I speak of McGill, I am addressing above all those future commentators of the Aeneid who will find themselves having more space at their disposal.
ACROSTIC REFLECTIONS ON DIVINE VIOLENCE IN THE AENEID
From killings at an altar to episodes where one is given for many, the Aeneid is replete with sacrificial deaths. This article focuses on the interpretive rewards of discerning a series of acrostics linked by the theme of divine violence. Its itinerary includes multiple authors and some surprising stops: it begins by connecting Horace's reflections on wine with sacrifice in the Aeneid, passes through erotic violence done to Vergil's Sibyl figures, turns to Ovid's association of his Myrrha with Vergil's Amata, and ends with Vergil's sacrifice of Turnus. It shows that far from being mere jeux d'esprit irrelevant to the poets' larger aims, acrostics were a form of serious play that could be a significant source of meaning. Becoming aware of the vertical "conversations" within and between poems brings the excitement of discovery to texts that have been pored over for thousands of years, and with it an even deeper appreciation of the ancient poets' complex reflections on such universal topics as art and wine, sex and sacrifice.
Reworking the Aeneid: Vegio's Supplementum and the Twelfth Book of the Aeneid
When Vegio wrote his Supplementum, he intended his work to complete what he believed to be an unfinished Aeneid. In accordance with Renaissance tradition, Vegio believed an epic should praise virtue and disparage vice. Accordingly, he wrote the Supplementum in such a way as to erase the ambiguities present in Virgil's Twelfth Book. This paper studies the effect of Vegio’s additions on three instances in Book Twelve of the Aeneid: the sudden conclusion, the use of ira and furor in the final scene, and the characterization of Turnus. In these instances, Vegio attempts to influence the text according to the standards of his time.