Vergil, Æneid
LLT CDXXX
Spring MMXV
P. VERGILIVS MARO
Vergil (70 BC-19 BC)
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Author of the Æneid and other pöms.
Well-off Roman dude who would rather write than fight
Wrote the Æneid at Augustus’s personal request
Æneid: pöm about how Aeneas basically founded Rome
Thinly veiled poem about how Augustus basically saved Rome
Æneid was regarded as historically correct
Æneid was regarded as Rome’s greatest cultural work
His pötry conveyed
His pötry conveyed
His pötry conveyed
Old Epic Tone
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Predates literacy (“illiterate” = misnomer)
Mesopotamians and Egyptians became literate early
Greece largely non-literate until ca. 750 BC
Epic poetry = poetry for non-literate by the non-literate
Requires a good “beat” so people can remember it
Dactylic hexameter – so called from finger
“Made from scratch” every time – lots of improvisation
Heavy on the repetition – grates on the ears of the literate
Necessary for retaining the characters, plot, etc.
About the only type of entertainment back in the day
Greeks supposedly learned how to write because of Homer
Elpenor
'The first ghost that came was that of my comrade Elpenor, for
he had not yet been laid beneath the earth. We had left his body
unwaked and unburied in Circe's house, for we had had too
much else to do. I was very sorry for him, and cried when I saw
him: 'Elpenor,' said I, 'how did you come down here into this
gloom and darkness? You have here on foot quicker than I have
with my ship.’ ''Sir,' he answered with a groan, 'it was all bad luck,
and my own unspeakable drunkenness. I was lying asleep on the
top of Circe's house, and never thought of coming down again by
the great staircase but fell right off the roof and broke my neck,
so my soul down to the house of Hades.
Odysseus and Anticleia
'Then I tried to find some way of embracing my mother's ghost.
Thrice I sprang towards her and tried to clasp her in my arms,
but each time she flitted from my embrace as it were a dream or
phantom, and being touched to the quick I said to her, 'Mother,
why do you not stay still when I would embrace you? If we could
throw our arms around one another we might find sad comfort
in the sharing of our sorrows even in the house of Hades; does
Persephone want to lay a still further load of grief upon me by
mocking me with a phantom only?'
New Epic Tone
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After 800 BC, literacy became far more common
Poetry meant more to be read more than listened to
Still has the good “beat”
But writing forces “completion” on myths and poems
They cannot grow and breathe
Epic poetry especially becomes pompous and stilted
Not meant for Bubbacus and Jethra
Meant more to carry a message – begins to mean “long”
Perfect for creating a BRAND
Vergil falls into this trap
Fortunately, Dante does not
Æneas and Anchises
“Have you come at last, and has the duty that your father
expected vanquished the toilsome way? Is it given me to see
your face, my son, and hear and utter familiar tones? Even so I
mused and deemed the hour would come, counting the days, nor
has my yearning failed me. Over what lands, what wide seas have
you journeyed to my welcome! What dangers have beset you, my
son! How I feared the realm of Libya might work you harm!” But
he answered: “Your shade, father, your sad shade, meeting me
repeatedly, drove me to seek these portals. My ships ride the
Tuscan sea. Grant me to clasp your hand, grant me, father, and
withdraw not from my embrace!” So he spoke, his face wet with
flooding tears. Thrice there he strove to throw his arms about
his neck; thrice the form, vainly clasped, fled from his hands, even
as light winds, and most like a winged dream.
Palinurus
Lo! there passed the helmsman, Palinurus, who of late, on the
Libyan voyage, while he marked the stars, had fallen from the
stern, flung forth in the midst of the waves. Him, when at last
amid the deep gloom he knew the sorrowful form, he first
accosts thus: “What god, Palinurus, tore you from us and plunged
you beneath the open ocean? O tell me! For Apollo, never before
found false, with this one answer tricked my soul, for he foretold
that you would escape the sea and reach Ausonia’s shores. Is this
how he keeps his promise?” But he answered: “Neither did
tripod of Phoebus fail you, my captain, Anchises’ son, nor did a
god plunge me in the deep.
The Roman Republic
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Founded April 21, 753 BC by Romulus and Remus
Rome = small city on hills overlooking a ford on the Tiber
Captured all Italy by 264 BC
100 years = 3 Punic Wars = Carthage as evil empire
By 44 BC included Spain, France, Greece, Ancient Egypt
Got too big to run with republican Roman institutions
Seven civil wars in the first century BC alone!
First Triumvirate = Julius Caesar, Pompey, Crassus
Rise of the warlord with his client army
The Roman world not big enough for all three
By 48 BC, Julius Caesar ruled the whole Roman world
But how could he rule the whole Roman world well?
Rome, 44 BC
The Roman BRAND
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The old Roman ways are the best ways = mos maiorum
Jupiter loves the Romans since he loves the old Roman ways
All Romans, male and female, are bad a55e5
Romans kicked their kings out in 509 BC = mos maiorum
The Roman Republic founded 509 BC = mos maiorum
Republic worked well for running a city-state in 509 BC
Roman empire kept getting bigger and bigger
Republic kept working less and less well
Rise of the warlord with his client army
The Roman world not big enough for all three
By 48 BC, Julius Caesar ruled the whole Roman world
Experimented with making himself king ≠ mos maiorum
The Ides of March, 44 BC
Gaius Octavius in 44 BC
How Octavius Saved Rome
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44 BC to 31 AD = civil war vs. Second Triumvirate
The old Roman ways are the best ways = mos maiorum
Jupiter loves the Romans since he loves the old Roman ways
Romans kicked their kings out in 509 BC = mos maiorum
Julius became a human pincushion in 44 BC = mos maiorum
All the power of a monarchy with the façade of a Republic
Called it the PRINCIPATE – Octavius is merely the prince
PRINCIPATE gave the Roman world 300 years of peace.
Octavius rebrands himself as Augustus Caesar
Augustus = savior of the mos maiorum
Relentless public relations campaigns glorifying Augustus
Augustus = greatest Roman ever. Hands down. No kidding.
Son of the God Julius
Templum Martis Vltoris
Augustus F. Caesar in 20 BC
Augustus Caesar as Pontifex Maximus
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
πράξεις τε καὶ δωρεαὶ Σεβαστοῦ θεοῦ
Res Gestae Divi Augusti
Rome’s PVBLIC AFFAIRS MISSION
Vergil, Æneid 6.847-853
Excudent alii spirantia mollius aera,
credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore voltus,
orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus
describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent:
tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
hae tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
parcere subiectis, et debellare superbos
Others will forge breathing bronzes more smoothly, I believe,
and draw forth living features from marble. They will plead lawsuits better and trace the sky’s movements with a rod and
describe the rising stars.You, Roman, govern the nations with
your power- remember this! These will be your arts – to impose
the ways of peace, to show mercy to the conquered and to
subdue the proud.
Reading the Æneid to Augustus
Anchises, Æneas, Ascanius
Synopsis of the Æneid
• Books 1-VI = “Odyssey” part. Æneas wanders around the
Mediterranean Sea, only dimly aware that he is to found a city
which will eventually lead to the founding of Rome. He stops
for a while in Carthage (destined to be Rome’s enemy) and
has an affair with Queen Dido. Then he has an epiphany and
gets sent on his katabasis.
• Books VII-XII = “Iliad” part. Æneas forms an alliance with nice
king Latinus, but falls into a war with evil king Turnus. Much
less interesting.
Æneas greets the Sibyl
One thing I pray: since here is the famed gate of the nether king,
and the gloomy marsh from Acheron’s overflow, be it granted
me to pass into my dear father’s sight and presence;
show the way and open the hallowed portals! Amid flames
and a thousand pursuing spears, I rescued him on these
shoulders, and brought him safe from the enemy’s midst. He, the
partner of my journey, endured with me all the seas and all the
menace of ocean and sky, weak as he was, beyond the strength
and portion of age. He is was who prayed and charged me
humbly to seek you and draw near to your threshold.
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua ditis
“Sprung from blood of gods, son of Trojan Anchises, easy is the
descent to Avernus: night and day the door of gloomy Dis
stands open; but to recall one’s steps and pass out to the
upper air, this is the task, this the toil! Some few, whom
kindly Jupiter has loved, or shining worth uplifted to heaven, sons
of the gods, have availed. In all the mid-space lie woods, and
Cocytus girds it, gliding with murky folds. But if such love is in
your heart – if such a yearning, twice to swim the Stygian lake,
twice to see black Tartarus – and if you are pleased to give rein
to the mad endeavour, hear what must first be done. There lurks
in a shady tree a bough, golden leaf and pliant stem, held
consecrate to nether Juno [Proserpine]; this all the grove hides,
and shadows veil in the dim valleys.
The Golden Bough
Æneas greets the Sibyl