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The Purpose of the Aeneid*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

R.D. Williams
R.D. Williams*
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Extract

The ancient critics were not in doubt about the purpose of the Aeneid: it was to glorify Rome and Augustus. In the Donatus-Suetonius life we read (21) ‘Last of all he began the Aeneid, a varied and complicated theme, a sort of equivalent of both Homer’s poems; also it was concerned with characters and events which were both Latin and Greek, while in it (and this was his special interest) there would be contained the origin of the city of Rome and of Augustus’ (… in quo, quod maxime studebat, Romanae simul urbis et Augusti origo contineretur). Similarly Tiberius Claudius Donatus says (Prooem. Aen. i): ‘he had to depict Aeneas as a worthy first ancestor of Augustus, in whose honour the poem was written’ (talem enim monstrare Aenean debuit, ut dignus Caesari, in cuius honorem haec scribebantur, parens et auctor generis praeberetur). And again, Servius (in the introductory note to his commentary on the Aeneid): ‘Virgil’s intention is to imitate Homer and to praise Augustus by means of his ancestors’ (intentio Vergilii haec est, Homerum imitari et Augustum laudare a parentibus); and he quotes a magno demissum nomen Iulo (i 288).

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 1 , 1967 , pp. 29 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1967

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References

1 For a discussion of this passage see Fleischer, U.Hermes 78 (1960), 280f.Google Scholar The passage does not of course necessarily refer to the Aeneid as we have it, merely to an intention to write a poem of a Roman kind. It may well be that one of Virgil’s original plans for his epic was more closely linked with contemporary history; another, according to Servius (on Eel. 6.3 cum canerem reges et proelia …) was for a poem on the Alban kings.

2 Some even deny it; see for instance the remarkable article of Sforza, F. CR 49 (1935), 97–108.Google Scholar But the recent book by Brooks Otis (Virgil: a study in civilized poetry, 1963) presents the Roman ideals of the poem with power and conviction.

3 See my analysis in Proc. Virgil Soc. v (1965–6), 14 f.

4 See Brooks Otis, op. cit., pp. 290 f., and his article in TAPhA 90 (1959), 165 f.; Williams, R.D.‘The Sixth Book of the Aeneid’, G. and R. 11 (1964), 48f.Google Scholar

5 The reading pacisque should now be finally abandoned; it has rested, as Fraenkel, E. (Mus. Helv. 19 (1962), 133) has pointed out, on a misinterpretation of Servius.Google Scholar

6 For example the visions and prophecies of Books 2 and 3 (2 268 f., 679 f., 776 f.; 3 90 f., 154 f., 374 f.), the words of Jupiter to Mercury in 4 227 f., the prophecy to Latinus in 7 96 f., the speech of the god Tiber in 8 36 f., and especially the conversation of Jupiter and Juno in 12 819-40.

7 See Warde Fowler, W.Aeneas at the Site of Rome, pp. 100 f.;Google ScholarBacon, J.R. CR 53 (1939), 97 f.;Google ScholarBecker, C.Wien. Stud, 77 (1964), 111 f.Google Scholar

8 See Parry, A.‘The two voices of Virgil’s Aeneid’, Arion 2. 4 (1963), 66 f.,Google Scholar and Clausen, WendellHSCPh 68 (1964), 139 f.Google Scholar

9 Westendorp Boerma, R.E.H.Acta Classica 1 (1958), 55 f.Google Scholar

10 See my discussion of this in Phoenix 17 (1963), 266 f.

11 Cf. for example 2 314–17 arma amens capio; nec sat rationis in armis,/sed glomerare manum bello et concurrere in arcem/cum sociis ardent animi; furor iraque mentem/praecipitat, pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis; 2 353 f., 355 (the wolf simile), 431 f., 575 (Helen) exarsere ignes animo; subit ira …, 588 talia iactabam etfuriata mente ferebar, 668 f., 745 f.

12 See my edition of Aeneid 3, Intro, pp. 3–7.

13 For Roman examples of these qualities see Valerius Maximus, passim; on the character of Aeneas in these terms see Hahn, E.A.Class. Weekly 25 (1931-2), 9 f., 17 f.;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHeinze, R.Virgils Epische Technik4, pp. 210 f.,Google ScholarBowra, C.M.From Virgil to Milton, pp. 56 f.,Google ScholarOtis, Brooksop. cit., pp. 313 f.Google Scholar The notional contrast between Aeneas and Turnus can be stated in Horace’s terms, vis temperata against vis consili expers; but as the poem unrolls, it does not work out so simply.

14 Cf. Caes. B.G. 2 14, Cic. Verr. 2 5.115.

15 See Anderson, W.S.‘Vergil’s Second Iliad’, TAPhA 88 (1957), 17 f.,Google ScholarSpaeth, J.W.‘Hector’s Successor in the Aeneid’, Cf 46 (1950-51), 277 f.,Google ScholarDuckworth, G.E.‘Turnus and Duryodhana’, TAPhA 92 (1961), 81–8.Google Scholar

16 Cf. for example 10 513 f., 545 f., 569–70, 575 f., 786 f.

17 See Otis, Brooksop. cit., pp. 380 f., 392 f.;Google Scholar cf. also Small, S.G.P.‘The Arms of Turnus: Aeneid 7.783–92’, TAPhA 90 (1959), 243 f.,Google Scholar for an interesting discussion of the symbolism of Turnus’ armour (the Chimaera as an emblem of archaic and barbaric energy); and Agathe Thornton, H.F.‘The Last Scene of the Aeneid’, G. and R. 22 (1953), 82–4.Google Scholar

18 See Mackay, L.A.‘Achilles as Model for Aeneas’, TAPhA 88 (1957), 11 f.,Google Scholar and the works cited in note 16.

19 See Pöschl, V.Die Dichtkunst Virgils, pp. 153 f.Google Scholar

20 See Mackay, L.A.TAPhA 94 (1963), 157 f., especially 165.Google Scholar

21 See Williams, R.D.Vergilius 11 (1965), 11 f.Google Scholar

22 On this see Otis, Brooksop. cit., pp. 323 f.Google Scholar

23 There are other mythological touches in the catalogue, such as the descriptions of Aventinus and Virbius; see Williams, R.D.CQ 11 (1961), 146 f. Cf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar also x 185 f.

24 Heyne (ad loc.) says: ‘Fabulam quae sequitur tamquam absurdam et epica gravitate indignam reprehendere in promptu est’, and again, ‘Nec nos infitiamur a nostris sensibus et phantasmatibus eam nimium quantum abhorrere’. The story does not seem to have been in the general version of the Aeneas legend before Virgil: on the other hand, it is not at all likely that Virgil invented it, as Heinze implies. See Kuiper, K.Mnem. 30 (1902), 277 f.Google Scholar In the legend its natural place would be immediately after Aeneas’ arrival, as a symbol of the end of his voyage; in Virgil’s version (which is influenced by the attack on the Greek fleet in Iliad 15) the emphasis is on salvation from destruction. There is some inconsistency with the earlier narrative, because one ship was lost in the storm off Carthage, and four were burned by the women in Sicily, without any intervention by Cybele to save them.

25 Cf. Geo. 3 391, and cf. Heinze, op. cit., pp. 241–3.

26 See Brooks, R.A.AJPh 74 (1953), 260 f.Google Scholar (for the bough as a dual symbol of life and death); and Segal, C.P.Arion 4 (1965), 617 f.,Google Scholar and 5 (1966), 34 f.