As the classic of classics and the bridge between pagan antiquity and the Christian era, Virgil’s Aeneid stands at the center of the humanities’ Great Conversation. Yet this poem of Empire, with its flawed hero and its ambivalence toward divine and temporal power, raises more questions than it answers about the nature of human history. The epic’s true moral complexity, mirroring the insoluble conundrum that is human life, makes it especially relevant in an era whose political polarization resembles civil (...) war. Reflecting on centuries of readers’ deeply personal relationships with the Aeneid, this article discusses how even today the “greatest text” can provide companionship and inspiration on our life’s journey. (shrink)

This article offers a thorough study of Virgil's interaction with the myth of Eteocles and Polynices' war for the throne of Thebes, as represented especially in Athenian tragedy. It demonstrates that allusions to the Theban myth are crucial to the Aeneid's construction of a set of tensions and oppositions that play an important role in Virgil's reflection on the historical experience of Rome, especially in connection with the transition from Republic to Empire. In particular, interaction with Theban stories allows (...) Virgil to explore: the dichotomy between similarity and foreignness in the depiction of Rome's enemies; the tension in differing attitudes towards the state as reflected in antithetical character types—namely, the selfless youth who sacrifices himself for the community and the would-be tyrant prepared to go to any lengths to achieve sole power; and, finally, the dichotomy between opposing notions of time defined by teleology, on the one hand, and circularity and repetition on the other, the two representing the differing temporalities of epic and tragedy, respectively. (shrink)

The supreme Roman epic and the greatest poem in Latin, the Aeneid has inspired many of the great European poets including Dante and Milton. The Trojan hero Aeneas, after surviving the sack of Troy, makes his way to the West, urged on by benevolent deities and following a destiny laid down by Jupiter, but harassed and impeded by the goddess Juno. He wins his way to Italy despite many trials, of which the greatest is the tragic outcome of his (...) love affair with Dido, Queen of Carthage. In Italy Aeneas visits the world of the dead, and is forced to wage a fearful war with the indigenous Italian tribes before he can found his city and open the history of Rome. The Aeneid survives as a poem not only of Roman imperialism but also of the whole world of human passion, duty and suffering. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

At Aen. 6.562–627 the Sibyl gives Aeneas a description of the criminals in Tartarus and the punishments to which they are condemned. The criminals are presented to us in several groups. The first consists of mythical figures, the Titans , the sons of Aloeus , Salmoneus , Tityos and Ixion and Pirithous . Next Virgil turns away from mythical figures to particular categories of criminal. He mentions those who hated their brothers, who assaulted a parent, who cheated a cliens, who (...) gloated over wealth they had acquired without setting aside a part for their family, who were put to death for adultery, and those who, breaking their masters' trust, made war on their country . The reference to the contemporary scene is unmistakable. The mention of a cliens indicates that we have moved from Greece to Rome. Moreover, ‘quique ob adulterium caesi’ brings to mind Augustus' concern over moral standards, the subject of legislation in 28 B.c., 18 B.c. and A.d. 9; the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis gave to fathers of adulteresses the right to put to death both guilty parties. Thirdly, ‘arma...impia’ is an obvious reference to civil war , which as Servius argues is more narrowly defined by ‘nee veriti dominorum fallere dextras’ so as to exclude Caesar and Octavian: undoubtedly the allusion is to the war against Sextus Pompeius, which Augustan propaganda chose to represent as a war against runaway slaves. Virgil continues by sketching the penalties paid in Tartarus by such men . While doing so, however, he retreats once again into the realm of mythology: the punishments he describes are those more normally associated with Sisyphus and Ixion . This reversion is completed at 617–20 where, confusingly, Virgil denies that he has been alluding to events of contemporary significance by naming two mythical personages, Theseus and Phlegyas . Virgil therefore implies, but then denies, contemporary relevance. It is this kind of protean elusiveness which makes the contemporary allusions in Virgil so difficult to pin down. (shrink)

In this article, I offer a new philosophical interpretation of Virgil’s Aeneid, dually centered on the queens of Olympus and Carthage. More specifically, I show how the philosopher-poet Virgil deploys Dido’s Junonian furor as the Aristotelian matter of the unjust Roman imperium, the feminist counterforce to the patriarchal force disguised as peaceful order. The first section explores Virgil’s political and biographical background for the raw materials for a feminist, anti-imperial political philosophy. The second section, following Marilynn Desmond, situates the (...) continuing misogynist condemnation of Virgil’s two goddess-queens in the context of their honored centrality in Roman and Carthaginian culture. The third section reinterprets Virgil’s goddess-queens as agents of furor as (apparently mad) feminist counterforce to the (actually mad) unjust force of the Roman empire and its agents Jupiter and Aeneas. The fourth section translates these poetic philosophical interpretations into prose, arguing that Dido’s Junonian furor is the Aristotelian matter constituting the unjust forms of Roman imperium. And the conclusion applies the latter analysis to Hardt and Negri’s Empire, suggesting Dido as a model for the “multitude” in the fight against the imperial injustice of today’s globalized empire. (shrink)

More than a century after the first appearance of Norden’s classic commentary on Aeneid VI in 1903 the time has come to see to what extent the new discoveries of Orphic materials and new insights in the ways Virgil worked enrich and/or correct our understanding of that text. We will therefore take a fresh look at Virgil’s underworld, but limit our comments to those passages where perhaps something new can be contributed. This means that we will especially concentrate on (...) the Orphic, the Eleusinian, and the, if usually neglected, Hellenistic-Jewish backgrounds of Aeneas’s descent. Yet a Roman poet hardly could totally avoid his own Roman tradition or the contemporary world, and, in a few instances, we will comment on these aspects as well. As Norden observed, Virgil had divided his picture of the underworld into six parts, and we will follow these in our argument.Plus d’un siècle après la publication, en 1903, du commentaire classique de Norden sur le livre six de l’Énéide, il est temps de considérer à quel point les nouvelles découvertes de matériel orphique et les nouvelles idées sur la manière de travailler de Virgile enrichissent et/ou corrigent la compréhension de ce texte. Il s’agit dès lors de porter un regard neuf sur l’au-delà de Virgile, mais en limitant nos commentaires aux passages sur lesquels il est possible d’apporter quelque chose de nouveau. Ce sont les éléments orphiques et éleusiniens, tout autant que l’arrière-plan hellénistique juif – souvent négligé – sur lesquels l’analyse se concentre. En outre, un poète romain pouvait difficilement négliger totalement sa propre tradition romaine ou le monde contemporain, et, à quelques reprises, ces aspects seront également commentés. Comme Norden l’a observé, Virgile a réparti l’image de l’au-delà en six parties, et c’est son parcours que notre analyse épouse. (shrink)

The list of Italian forces1 with which Virgil concluded Aeneid 7 was a piece of the ‘machinery’ of epic, that is to say an expected part of the content of an epic poem, established by Homer and expected of his successors; cf. Apollonius 1. 20–228, Silius 3. 222 f., Statius, Th. 4. 32 f., Milton, P.L. 1. 376 f. The straightforward enumeration of Homer was naturally appropriate in the Iliad both because oral technique sought this kind of directness and (...) because of the immediate relationship of the subject-matter to a heroic community. But Virgil was well aware that the Homeric manner would not fit satisfactorily into the sophisticated and elaborate structure of literary and contemplative epic. Two essential requirements had to be met in the transplanting of such ‘machinery’ into a new milieu. The first was one of function: the piece should blend with the whole intricate pattern of theme and tone which a poem like the Aeneid possesses. The second was one of structure: it must possess within itself artistic symmetries and designs of a carefully organized kind. (shrink)

Discussing different types of metaphor, Isidore of Seville quotes an anonymous fragment that uses agricultural vocabulary to describe the sailing of a ship in order to illustratemetaphorae ab inanimali ad inanimale‘metaphors taken from inanimate objects and applied to inanimate objects’ (Etym.1.37.3 = inc. fr. 63 Blänsdorf):1.

This paper uses the exchanges between the lovers Dido and Aeneas in Aeneid IV to undercut the pretensions of Stoic philosophers to lead a dispassionate, imperturbable life under the sole guidance of “reason.” It takes Aeneas as an example of Stoicism’s lawyer-like, falsified rationality—“I will say just a few words in regard to this matter [pro re]” (IV 336)—and Dido as an example of someone who, though under the sway of furor, nevertheless makes honest, reasoned arguments that are continuous (...) with the feelings she is experiencing. The point is not that one is more at fault than the other but the rather more radical thesis that with his Aeneas character Virgil is showing that Stoicism’s ataraxia and apatheia are inevitably dissimulation, inevitably fake. (shrink)

John Conington was a towering figure in Victorian scholarship, not least because of his remarkably sensitive and literate commentaries on Virgil’s _Aeneid. _The three-volume cloth edition of _The Works of Virgil_, begun by Conington in 1852, has been unavailable for over a century, except in rare second-hand sets. Now, for the first time, the whole of Conington’s work is being reissued in a set of six paperback volumes. Each volume includes a new introduction by an established scholar, setting Conington's commentary (...) in context, as well as a general introduction to Conington’s work by Philip Hardie, who offers a fresh appreciation of the work. (shrink)

uirginibus Tyriis mos est gestare pharetram,purpureoque alte suras uincire cothurno.It is customary for us Tyrian girls to carry a quiverand to lace our calves up high in red boots. With these words a disguised Venus explains the accessories of her costume to Aeneas and Achates shortly after the Trojan landing in North Africa. Even detailed commentaries on this passage overlook an important feature: the lines contain a reference to Julius Caesar, who claimed descent from Venus and made a political point (...) of wearing red boots during his dictatorship. This allusion to Caesar connects in significant ways to adjoining passages of the first book of the Aeneid. (shrink)

In a well-known article, Hodnett pointed out that Virgil emphasizes the peacefulness and quiet of the sea, its immensity and limitlessness, in contrast to the view articulated by the Roman poets of the Republic, which presents the sea as deceptive and fearsome. Among the many terms used in theAeneidto denote the sea,aequorstands out precisely because it is the term most frequently used by Virgil in place of the wordmare.

In a recent article JRS , 68 f. Nicholas Horsfall sought to demonstrate that Corythus, which Virgil makes the original home of Dardanus , should be identified with Tarquinii, some 50 miles north-west of Rome, on the coast of Etruria, rather than with Cortona, roughly twice as far away, to the north, and inland. In doing so he expressed surprise that the Virgilian evidence should have been completely ignored by previous writers on the subject : and, using the Aeneid (...) as the main source on which his own argument was based, he supported his conclusion with a careful examination of several other aspects of the problem. (shrink)

In a recent article JRS, 68 f. Nicholas Horsfall sought to demonstrate that Corythus, which Virgil makes the original home of Dardanus, should be identified with Tarquinii, some 50 miles north-west of Rome, on the coast of Etruria, rather than with Cortona, roughly twice as far away, to the north, and inland. In doing so he expressed surprise that the Virgilian evidence should have been completely ignored by previous writers on the subject : and, using the Aeneid as the (...) main source on which his own argument was based, he supported his conclusion with a careful examination of several other aspects of the problem. (shrink)