Aeneid Book I Discussion Thread

[Peregrine]

*Originally posted by The Sibyl *

If you all dont hear from me in a few days, call in the hounds.

It’s been over a week; who’s in charge of the dogs?
For that matter, what ever happened to LNO, dropzone, The Punkyova, Internaut, Katisha, and amrussell?

Now to some unfinished business:

Originally posted by Humble Servant

Who do you see as the villains of Book I? The Greeks? The Libyans? The Carthaginians? I think the most powerful villain of Book I is Juno.

I think the nastiest character is Pygmalion:
“At the household shrine, impious and blinded by the lust of gold, with stealthy stroke at [sic; as?] unawares he slays Sychaeus, all reckless of his sister’s love.”
He doesn’t care about family, he’s hardly hospitable, and piety is right out the window. Besides all that, he’s sneaky.

A weak attempt to exonerate Juno:
Juno doesn’t violate celestial law. She was wronged. She was entitled to be angry. And so what if she shipwrecked a few sailors. The gods can pretty much do as they please with mortals, so long as they don’t trespass on another god’s territory. They respect each other’s realms most of the time, much as mortals pretend to do. Juno and Venus are allowed equal influence over their favorites. It was the Fates who decreed that Aeneas would prevail. I’d like to suggest that the gods exhibit a kind of meta-piety toward the Fates.

The returning question seems to be, “Why did Vergil rate piety so high?” It was established in the earlier thread that Augustus was trying to revive religion, and Vergil was helping. I suppose the present question is, “How does religion help the state?” I have somehow managed to ignore everything I should have learned by now about political science, so I can only offer a vague notion that religion is a powerful tool for the management of the masses.

Did the Rome of Augustus have any friends? It was the 800-pound gorilla and I think it’s fair to say that it tended to conquer rather than negotiate treaties of mutual assistance.
…since an empire has to have might to hold its land, why shouldn’t it just conquer land in the first place instead of purchasing it?

Surely it would be in the interest of the state to have a people with a law-abiding self-image. Even if the Romans didn’t bother negotiating with neighbors, I expect they would want to be seen to aquire lands by respectable means. Maybe through bargaining, maybe through justifiable hostilities. It sure would be handy to be able to present a plausible story involving various deities.

An unrelated remark:
I’m impressed that Vergil was able to talk up the Pax Romana and the glory of battle in the same chapter.

[Humble_Servant]

*Originally posted by Peregrine *
I think the nastiest character is Pygmalion:
“At the household shrine, impious and blinded by the lust of gold, with stealthy stroke at [sic; as?] unawares he slays Sychaeus, all reckless of his sister’s love.”
He doesn’t care about family, he’s hardly hospitable, and piety is right out the window. Besides all that, he’s sneaky.

Yep, he’s nasty–I do agree that Vergil marks his lowest characters with impiety. I wonder what this side story has to do with the main event? I’m sure I should be able to figure out why Vegil would include it. Why does he care to expand on the origins of Carthage? Maybe to show that the impetus to the founding of Carthage was in disregard of the gods, while Aeneas is serving the gods in founding Rome? This is a pretty weak attempt here–anyone have any better ideas?

** I’d like to suggest that the gods exhibit a kind of meta-piety toward the Fates.

** I really like this idea, because it helps me think about the piety problem. If we can indeed dismiss the gods and think of fate instead, we can read Vergil’s insistence on piety as piety toward the way the world works or respect for the traditional way of viewing the world. If we focus on the “household shrine” wording and on the penates reference we looked at before, perhaps we can twist piety into a respect for family and traditional “family values.” (Roman family values vs. what gets called family values in the US today is actually so cross-cultural that I’m having a hard time thinking of the two together.) I really feel like I’m twisting the meaning to get here though, so I don’t think this problem is licked.

**Surely it would be in the interest of the state to have a people with a law-abiding self-image."

**Absolutely–Roman law predates the emperors and was valued in Republican times too. Was it more a holdover from those times which could not be supplanted by imperial fiat, or was it an administrative tool used in managing the empire (I’m asking–I don’t know the answer)?

An unrelated remark:
I’m impressed that Vergil was able to talk up the Pax Romana and the glory of battle in the same chapter.

I’m not sure that I would agree that Vergil likes battle for its glory–as a means to an end (the Pax Romana), battle may well be necessary and if a thing is necessary it should be done well–but I do not think that Vergil thought that battle and glory for their own sakes were ends. Perhaps this is one of the things he is trying to say to Augustus.

[Maeglin]

Where Vergil perhaps falls short of Homer, IMHO of course, is in not being quite as sensitive to human frailty, in not giving Aeneas enough internal inherent flaws.

Not portraying Aeneas with enough flaws is not the same as insensitivity to human frailty. Two examples of Vergil’s astuteness with which he grasps such frailty leap to mind, though neither of them are in the first book.

Aeneas’ murder of Turnus at the very end of the Aeneid is perhaps his greatest indiscretion. Aeneas’ drastic act directly violates Anchises’ treasured maxim: parcere subiectis, debellare superbos. Spare the conquered, beat down the proud.

Turnus was a suppliant: beaten and disarmed, he begged Aeneas to spare him. In a sudden and totally uncharacteristic fit of rage, Aeneas slew him. Thus the Aeneid ends on a curious note: pius Aeneas finally breaks all the rules.

I would also point to the Palinurus episode, for it is brief but telling. Palinurus, Vergil’s helmsman, is instructed to stay awake through the night and steer the ship. But his determination falters: he falls asleep, and untimately slips from his seat at the tiller and drowns. In no other place does Vergil so neatly deal with those who do not discharge their duties.

Aeneas’ problems with Dido, for instance, are not his fault–he is excused by the imperatives of the gods/fate.)

Was he really? I don’t think that Vergil honestly believes in the imperatives of fate. The tension between Aeneas’ actions and the deus ex machina forgiveness/admonition/sorcery of the gods, in my opinion, reveals a certain tension between Vergil’s understanding of the epic genre, which requires such machinations of the gods, and his views of human nature, ever fluid and free.

Similarly, Oddyseus is more human in this way than Aeneas.

All of Odysseus’ problems can be laid squarely at Poseidon’s door.

Returning briefly to my original question: chivalry had more legs as an idea expressed in the arts than it had success as a method of war–in the Arthurian legends, chivalry was something for the knights to do so that they wouldn’t fight when there weren’t real battles to be fought.

As a medievalist, I would take serious issue with the above. If you can stand the hijack, I would be happy to explain my objections.

Nonetheless, the Roman code was useful in battle in a way that chivalry was not; further, I’m not sure how much of the “code” we can find in Book I alone. Hard work, perseverance, loyalty between commanders and soldiers and vice versa seem to be there (as is that pesky idea of piety)

First, how was chivalry not useful in battle? Can you tell me what your sources for “chivalry” are?

Second, I don’t actually believe that such a “code” exists in the Aeneid. If you read the text looking for some sort of systematization, inevitably you will find it. However, I don’t believe that a straight reading bears out anything more than fundamental, common-sense, straightforward old Roman values. I would be hesitant to call this a code.

Furthermore, I dislike translating pius and pietas as pious and piety, respectively. These are acceptable Christian Latin translations, yet they utterly fail to capture the Roman ideal of secular adherence to duty. Pius Aeneas is thus “dutiful Aeneas,” which I believe represents his character much more accurately than “pious Aeneas.”

I think Seneca best summed up the most important Roman ideal found in the Aeneid: Nothing can prevent a wise man from discharging his duty.

but I would argue that the ideas of generosity and courtesy are actually out of place in the centurian’s code–he’s a soldier, not a host. Certainly what we can find of a code of action in Book I differs from ideas appreciated by the Egyptians and Cleopatra (no luxury for Aeneas on his voyages–except to the extent he is distracted temporarily by Dido)–but, as tisiphone mentions, we do see Rome adopting the eastern concept of emperor worship. Therefore, to try to answer my own question, I would say that there are some interesting similarities between soldiers’/rulers’ codes throughout history, but also important differences

I believe you are correct that there is nothing to indicate a social and ethical “code” in the first book of the Aeneid. There is no idea of cortezia, or courtliness, as found in medieval Occitan literature, from which so much of our knowledge of chivalry is derived. To be dutiful in war and peace is enough for any Roman.

MR

[Humble_Servant]

Nice, juicy post, Maeglin!

Originally posted by Maeglin Not portraying Aeneas with enough flaws is not the same as insensitivity to human frailty.

Fair comment–I’ll amend to say that I meant just that.

**Aeneas’ murder of Turnus at the very end of the Aeneid is perhaps his greatest indiscretion. Aeneas’ drastic act directly violates Anchises’ treasured maxim: parcere subiectis, debellare superbos. Spare the conquered, beat down the proud.

Turnus was a suppliant: beaten and disarmed, he begged Aeneas to spare him. In a sudden and totally uncharacteristic fit of rage, Aeneas slew him. Thus the Aeneid ends on a curious note: pius Aeneas finally breaks all the rules.

**Like Rome, for all its Pax Romana, citizenship and Roman law, is built around a core brutality, a willingness to use violence? This could be Rome’s “fatal character flaw,” but it is very out of character, as you note, for Aeneas himself. Perhaps Vergil did not want to think that Rome’s flaws were inherent; perhaps he preferred to write as if they were an aberration which could be rooted out.

I don’t think that Vergil honestly believes in the imperatives of fate. The tension between Aeneas’ actions and the deus ex machina forgiveness/admonition/sorcery of the gods, in my opinion, reveals a certain tension between Vergil’s understanding of the epic genre, which requires such machinations of the gods, and his views of human nature, ever fluid and free.

Absolutely I agree that this tension is there, and I also agree that the gods are the nominal causes of Odysseus’ problems (a point I like very much because I had not explicitly compared Juno to Poseidon in my mind before–duh). Does your Alexandrian interpretation (now that I know only enough about what Alexandrianism is to be dangerous) of the Aeneid, we have gods because epics must have gods, answer all here? If doing one’s duty is the ultimate goal, shouldn’t Vergil explore the origins of duty and the problem of bad things happening even when duty is done?

I’ve now realized part of the reason I have been having a problem with the piety/gods/religion complex of issues: they are separate issues, to some extent. If we take piety to be dutiful perseverence, then it makes sense as a key element of Aeneas’ character: it is a very Roman trait. Then, looking at the gods separately, we can see them as necessary for epic, or as necessary to parallel the Odyssey or as facets of fate, but disconnected from piety. Finally, we can view the reestablishment of the ancient worship as honoring tradition or, for the cynical, as a tool to control the masses, again separating this from our consideration of the virtue of piety/dutifulness or the usage of the gods. I’m not saying there are no connections between these issues, but I’ve definitely been conflating the different problems raised by each.**

Returning briefly to my original question: chivalry had more legs as an idea expressed in the arts than it had success as a method of war–in the Arthurian legends, chivalry was something for the knights to do so that they wouldn’t fight when there weren’t real battles to be fought.

As a medievalist, I would take serious issue with the above. If you can stand the hijack, I would be happy to explain my objections.**
[/quote]
Absolutely let’s hijack! I’ll get you a virtual beer (Moretti, I think we decided), though, if you can convince me I’m wrong about this–the idea of chivalry in Malory, the Romance of the Rose, the Song of Roland, Dante, etc., is so amazingly powerful and long-lasting that I cannot imagine what mere method of war could trump this–the idea is still alive today in every sword and socerer flick while the method of war is long gone. Everything I know about chivalry I learned from Malory, except there’s also this other book that someone recommended that I’ve been reading recently;):

While knighthood was thus entering a period of staid and responsible respectability, it was also inspiring a literature which influenced conduct and manners in many important respects. The knights of this new literature had perhaps as much relation to the knights of the time as the private detectives of fiction to the policemen of everyday life. But the portrayal of knightly character in verse and song, in sermons and educational manuals, impressed a unity of social ideals on the Latin world. The themes of Charlemagne and King Arthur, of the Crusade and the formation of the Christian ruler, were all sustained by and developed round the character of the knight. From very humble origins the word ‘knight’ became charged with an emotional significance, which outlived the social environment of its birth. The literature in which the ideal of knighthood was set forth had probably little influence on the art of government or the practical life of society at large; its impact was on the individual in his social conduct, in the refinement of his emotions and manners.

**However, I don’t believe that a straight reading bears out anything more than fundamental, common-sense, straightforward old Roman values. I would be hesitant to call this a code.

**Point well taken–this is really all I meant, but I started slinging the word “code” around carelessly as a shorthand.

[Internaut]

Just checking in, fellow symposiasts. My absence has been noted, I note. Be assured that I am following the discussion with great interest; but I have no time to contribute usefully to it right now. I’m working on a major project that consumes my time. I really enjoyed translating (see Humble Servant’s earlier thread on Aeneid book 1), and the to-and-fro that generated. I will probably get back to do some more with book 1 later. But for now, I must take a back seat. Thank you!

[Humble_Servant]

*Originally posted by Internaut *
for now, I must take a back seat.

It’s cool, and feel free to throw in a back-seat driver comment any time.

I left out a sentence in my last post which I see makes it make even less sense than usual.

Does your Alexandrian interpretation (now that I know only enough about what Alexandrianism is to be dangerous) of the Aeneid, we have gods because epics must have gods, answer all here?

should have been followed by the observation that Vergil includes far more gods in far more places than is necessary if his sole purpose is to meet expectations for epic genre.