Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-j4x9h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-07T02:56:10.853Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

HERMES IN BOOK 1 OF THE AENEID

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2026

James J. Clauss
James J. Clauss*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
*
jjc@uw.edu
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This short note argues that at Aen. 1.487, in the midst of Virgil’s ekphrasis of the paintings on the temple of Juno in Carthage, the phrase tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermis alludes to the name of Hermes, the god who escorted the unarmed Priam from Troy to Achilles’ tent where he ransomed the body of Hector. This wordplay aligns with other instances in which the poet invites readers to observe his dextrous paronomasia, especially involving names.

Keywords

AeneidHermesekphrasishidden namesparonomasiaAchillesPriamacrostics

Information

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 4
Check for updates
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

The detailed ekphrasis of the paintings on the temple of Juno provides one of the most memorable scenes in Book 1 of the Aeneid as we get to observe Aeneas’ highly emotional reflection on the tragic demise of Troy before his personal and equally moving account in Book 2. Virgil divides the description into four balanced pairs: (1) the Greeks and Trojans fleeing; (2) the deaths of Rhesus and Troilus; (3) supplications by the Trojan women and Priam; (4) the post-Iliadic interventions of Memnon and Penthesilea.Footnote 1 I would like to focus on the third pair (Aen. 1.479–87):

interea ad templum non aequae Palladis ibant
crinibus Iliades passis peplumque ferebant
suppliciter, tristes et tunsae pectora palmis;
diua solo fixos oculos auersa tenebat.
ter circum Iliacos raptauerat Hectora muros
exanimumque auro corpus uendebat Achilles.
tum uero ingentem gemitum dat pectore ab imo,
ut spolia, ut currus, utque ipsum corpus amici
tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermis.

Meanwhile, the Trojan women were going to the temple of hostile Pallas, their hair undone, and, as suppliants, were bringing a robe, disconsolate and beating their breasts with their hands: the goddess, turned away, directed her gaze toward the ground. Achilles had dragged Hector three times round the Trojan walls and was exchanging his lifeless body for gold. At that moment from the bottom of his chest he lets out a huge sigh as he caught sight of the spoils, the chariot, the body of his friend, and Priam stretching out unarmed hands.Footnote 2

In the first half of the pairing, the Trojan women supplicate the goddess Athena, but the reason for their prayerful action is left unstated: the devastation wrought by Diomedes in Book 5 of the Iliad during his aristeia; Diomedes had recently been mentioned explicitly in the slaughter of Rhesus (Aen. 1.471). In the second part of the diptych, Virgil calls out the Greek warrior responsible for even far more numerous deaths, including that of Hector: Achilles. Unmentioned, like Diomedes in the first half, is the god who played a critical role in bringing about Priam’s supplication of Achilles and ransom of the body of his son in Book 24 of the Iliad. If we look carefully, however, together with Aeneas, we can see this god hidden in plain sight.Footnote 3 The hero experienced significant distress as he saw the spoils, the chariot, the body of his friend, and also Priam as he was stretching out unarmed hands (tendentemque manus Priamum conspexit inermis). The god who led Priam from Troy and through the Greek camp to the hut of Achilles and back was, of course, Hermes (Il. 24.349–694). In this context, then, the collocation of the verb of seeing and a word, inermis (‘unarmed’), that contains the unaspirated name of the god prompts our reading between the lines, as it were.Footnote 4 The striking parallelism between gods, named and unnamed, one hostile and the other supportive, and heroes, named and unnamed, in scenes of supplication involving Trojan women and a Trojan man supports the paronomastic presence of Hermes in the second part.

Examining the episode in Iliad Book 24, we observe that there is no mention of Priam being armed on his journey to Achilles’ hut, a fact that makes him inermis. More importantly, there is a focus on hands throughout the event.Footnote 5 Hermes takes Priam’s hand to allay his fear (Il. 24.361); in his function as guide, Hermes grasps the reins of Priam’s chariot with his hands (Il. 24.441); Priam grasps Achilles’ knees with his hands and then kisses Achilles’ hands, something that no one has ever done (Il. 24.477–9, 506); reminded of his father, Achilles grasped Priam’s hand to move him away from himself (Il. 24.508) and after giving into lamentation he raised Priam up by his hand (Il. 24.515); at the meal Achilles offers, all reached with their hands (Il. 24.625–7); Priam said that he had not slept since Achilles slew Hector with his hands (Il. 24.637–8); when Achilles agrees to the truce for the funeral of Hector, he clasped Priam’s right hand (Il. 24.671–2). The episode ends when Hermes returns to get Priam back to Troy safely (Il. 24.679–81).Footnote 6 While Hermes identified himself to Priam before departing (Il. 24.460–1), Achilles recognized that Priam could only have come to his hut through the intervention of a god (Il. 24.563–7), about whose identity the hero can only wonder. We on the other hand have the opportunity to see for ourselves who the helper god is. I would add that Priam and Achilles gaze at each other, marvelling at what they see (Il. 24.629–33 ἐς ἀλλήλους ὁρόωντες), something we are implicitly invited to do with regard to the painting in the passage discussed above and earlier at Aen. 1.453–6 (lustrat … miratur, uidet; cf. also Aen. 1.464–6). To sum up, the focus in Virgil’s text on Priam’s hands, the climactic moment of gazing and the critical presence of Hermes in the ransom episode encourage us to hear in inermis the name of the god. As for the embedded name ermīs (Ἑρμῆς), the presence of a verb of seeing invites the reader to look and so the rough breathing would not be represented with a letter or a sound. In addition, the Greek letter eta likely began to be pronounced as iota at least by the first century b.c.e., so this would be how people of Virgil’s time would likely have heard the last syllable of the name.Footnote 7

That Virgil likes to employ verbs of seeing when engaged in verbal pyrotechnics finds parallel in his signature acrostic in the first book of the Georgics (1.424–37).Footnote 8 In that passage, similar to what I argue Aeneas’ gaze accomplishes in the Aeneid (conspexit, 1.487), the poet calls attention to his wordplay by inviting us to have a look, respicies.Footnote 9 Moreover, there are other examples of gods in hiding, as it were, in the Aeneid. Don Fowler famously called our attention long ago to the Mars acrostic at Aen. 7.601–10.Footnote 10 James O’Hara observed that Virgil refers to Mercury as interpres diuum twice at Aen. 4.356 and 4.378.Footnote 11 The Greek analogue of interpres is, of course, ἑρμηνεύς.Footnote 12 So the reader who knows Greek will encounter the name of Hermes in a way similar to what I am arguing above.Footnote 13

Why might Virgil deploy his remarkably broad knowledge of literature and language like this? One reason is contained in the subtitle of O’Hara’s book True Names. He was fully imbued with the Alexandrian tradition of etymological wordplay, especially as found everywhere in one of Virgil’s preferred models, Callimachus.Footnote 14 But in the case of hiding gods I wonder if their subtle presence through acrostics and paronomasia might enact their numinous distance from mortal experience. As in life, so in literature: while the gods may surround us, it sometimes takes a uates to point them out.

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Stephen Hinds and Jim O’Hara for reading an earlier draft of this paper as well as the two referees who read and commented on this note; I am also grateful for the assistance of Bruce Gibson, the editor of Classical Quarterly, and Clare Roberts, the managing editor.

References

1 As noted, for example, by R.G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus (Oxford, 1971), 158 and R.D. Williams, The Aeneid of Virgil, 2 vols. (Basingstoke and London, 1972), 1.192. The bibliography on this passage is considerable. Since my point is limited to the interpretation of one word, I will be highly selective.

2 The translation is my own.

3 As A. Barchiesi, ‘Rappresentazioni del dolore e interpretazione nell’Eneide’, A&A 40 (1994), 109–24, at 116 notes, this is the first time in ancient literature that we observe a work of art together with a character, an observation which underscores our participation in the event. For other discussions regarding the fact that we are experiencing the pictures through Aeneas’ eyes, see e.g. R.D. Williams, ‘The pictures on Dido’s temple’, CQ 10 (1960), 145–51, at 150–1 and D. Beck, ‘Ecphrasis, interpretation, and audience in Aeneid 1 and Odyssey 8’, AJPh 128 (2007), 533–49. M.J.C. Putnam, ‘Dido’s murals and Virgilian ekphrasis’, HSPh 98 (1998), 243–75, at 253 describes this scene as ‘the only other instance in the ekphrasis where the responsive immediacy of Aeneas as viewer is also strongly felt’.

4 As one of the referees kindly pointed out, we find the phrase aspexit inermem at Aen. 12.734 and conspectu in medio … inermis at Aen. 2.67. In neither case, however, is there any evidence of the presence of Hermes as in the instance discussed here.

5 Note that Virgil has Aeneas marvel at the hands of the artists in the introduction to the ekphrasis, as observed by Putnam (n. 3), 243. Putnam (n. 3), 247 also states with regard to the phrase en Priamus (Aen. 1.461): ‘For a brief moment Priam is the special focus of Aeneas’ own empathy which will be confirmed by his prominence in the larger ekphrastic design.’

6 For an elegant description of the actions of reaching and touching, especially with regard to hands in this episode, see A.C. Purves, Homer and the Poetics of Gesture (Oxford, 2019), 160–80. This reference was kindly suggested by the second referee.

7 S.-T. Teodorsson, The Phonemic System of Attic Dialect 400–340 BC (Göteborg, 1974), 286–99 argues for almost complete itacism (ι, ει, η, ῃ, υ, υι) by c.350 b.c.e.; however, if G. Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers (Oxford, 20102), 163–5 is correct in moving this forward a century or more, η was still likely pronounced ī during late Republican Rome. We find a comparable vocalization of the name Isaiah (Greek Ἠσαΐας) in the acrostic ISAIA AIT in Verg. G. 4.450–66, as observed by J.D. Hejduk, ‘Was Vergil reading the Bible? Original sin and an astonishing acrostic in the Orpheus and Eurydice’, Vergilius 64 (2018), 71–102, at 79 with further references to itacism in n. 8.

8 As first observed by E.L. Brown, Numeri Vergiliani: Studies in «Eclogues» and «Georgics» (Brussels, 1963), 102–3.

9 See D. Feeney and D. Nelis, ‘Two Virgilian acrostics: certissima signa?’, CQ 55 (2005), 644–6 and J. Farrell, Vergil’s Georgics and the Traditions of Ancient Epic (Oxford, 1991), 79–83. Other instances of Virgilian-signature acrostics have since been identified. See C. Castelletti, ‘Following Aratus’ plow: Vergil’s signature in the Aeneid’, MH 69 (2012), 83–95 and J.T. Katz, ‘Another Vergilian signature in the Georgics?’, in P. Mitsis and I. Ziogas (edd.), Wordplay and Powerplay in Latin Poetry (Berlin and Boston, 2016), 69–85.

10 D.P. Fowler, ‘An acrostic in Vergil (Aeneid 7.601–4)?’, CQ 33 (1983), 298.

11 J.J. O’Hara, True Names. Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 20172), 79–81.

12 O’Hara (n. 11), 67 notes the allusion to the Greek word in this context, but Servius does not. Rather he merely identifies the interpres diuum as Hermes and notes that interpres is used pro nuntio.

13 For other examples of suppressed divine names in Virgil, see e.g. O’Hara (n. 11), 158 (Hecate), 169 and 171 (Charon), 226–7 (Juturna).

14 See, most recently, J.J. Clauss, ‘The Near Eastern background of aetiological wordplay in Callimachus’, in J.J.H. Klooster, M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (edd.), Callimachus Revisited: New Perspectives in Callimachean Scholarship (Leuven and Paris, 2019) (= Hellenistica Groningana 24 [2019]), 65–96, J.J. Clauss and S. Noegel, ‘Near Eastern poetics in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo’, HSPh 113 (2023), 141–99.