The Aeneid (4 page)

Italy was a crucial part of Augustus’ power base, and at 8.678 Virgil visualizes Augustus leading the men of Italy against the forces of the East under Antony and Cleopatra. ‘Of its own free will,’ claims the Julian Augustus himself in his official obituary (
Res Gestae
25), ‘the whole of Italy swore allegiance to me and demanded me as leader for the war in which I was victorious at Actium.’ Although the Italians go to war against the Julian Aeneas, they are never slighted in the
Aeneid
. At the end the stock of Rome is to be ‘made mighty by the manly courage of Italy’ (12.821–7). At a political level this catalogue of the peoples of Italy is a hymn to the indigenous peoples of Italy, and it accords with the stated policy of Augustus.

With the blessing of the god of the River Tiber, Aeneas goes to the village of Pallanteum, on what is later known as the Palatine, one of the seven hills of Rome. Here King Evander describes how Hercules had saved them from the ravages of the monster Cacus and tells the story of Mezentius, a brutal Etruscan despot who has been dethroned by his subjects and is being harboured by Turnus. Evander tells Aeneas of a prophecy which forbids the Etruscans to be led by an Italian, and advises him to go with a detachment of cavalry led by his son Pallas, to claim leadership of all the armies opposed to the Latins. Venus, concerned for her son’s safety against these formidable enemies, persuades Vulcan to make new armour for Aeneas, including a prophetic shield depicting the future wars of Rome.

This is not a book of intense dramatic incidents or heroic deeds, but it is vital to the argument of the
Aeneid
. On the face of it the Trojans are invaders in a foreign country, seizing land and power from the rightful inhabitants. But these aggressors are the ancestors of the Romans, and their leader Aeneas is the founder of the Julian family. A vital part of Augustus’ policy was his claim to be the beneficent leader of Italians as well as Romans against the barbarian East, and yet here at the dawn of Roman history his ancestor Aeneas is leading Orientals, that is the Trojans, against the native peoples of Italy. Book 8 tackles this difficulty and provides justification not only for Aeneas but also for Augustus’ rule over Italy.

The Romans loved their river, and Virgil’s first step is to show Father Tiber welcoming Aeneas to Latium. The opening of the book makes it clear, on the evidence of the god of the river, that Latium, in the centre of Italy, is the home decreed by the gods for Aeneas and his people. The second step is to provide historical warrant for the presence of the Trojans on Italian soil. This is achieved when Aeneas visits the future site of Rome, Pallanteum, a settlement of Greeks from Arcadia, and points out to its king, Evander, that Dardanus, father of the Trojan people, had been born in Italy, and that Evander and himself were both descended from the god Atlas. Evander in turn recognizes Aeneas as the son of Anchises whom he had known and admired in his youth, and explains that the two families are therefore linked by the sacred tie of guest-friendship. Hence the lengthy genealogical discussions when Aeneas first meets Evander (
pp. 296
–
7
).

We have seen that Virgil expresses contemporary issues in his legendary tale by means of prophecies and visions, but there is another subtler technique at work in this book. Hercules had saved the settlement of Pallanteum from the ravages of the monster Cacus and had deigned to accept Evander’s hospitality. Now, on the very day of Hercules’ festival, arrives Aeneas who has also saved his people, will also stoop to enter that same little hut and will go on to found a city which will move to Pallanteum
and become the city of Rome. There is a third saviour involved in this story. Rome was again saved, in Virgil’s day, by Augustus, who returned to Rome after the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium on 12 August 29
BC
, the first day of the Festival of Hercules, and who now lives simply and modestly in his house in what was Pallanteum and is now the Palatine Hill. ‘You…must have the courage to despise wealth,’ says Evander as he invites Aeneas to enter his simple little hut. ‘You must mould yourself to be worthy of the god’ (364–5). The god is Hercules. Aeneas himself will become a god. But now Augustus, famed for the simplicity of his daily life and another saviour of Rome, is dwelling on that same spot, and he, too, will be a god.

An important part of the story of Rome is the long series of wars by which she subdued the peoples of Italy, culminating in the fierce and bloody Social War of 90–88
BC
. Just as the defeat of Cacus is a pre-enactment of the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, and the arrival of Aeneas at Pallanteum is a pre-enactment of the return of Augustus, so the war in Italy in the second half of the
Aeneid
is a pre-enactment of the Social War. This is why the Latins who confront Aeneas are presented as courageous and virtuous peoples, eventually defeated but never disgraced. This why they are put in the wrong not for any vices of their own, but by the malice of Juno and the fact that Turnus, prince of the Latin city of Ardea, is harbouring Mezentius, a tyrant whose vices would attract adverse comment even in our own day. The other Etruscans are baying for his blood, but they are waiting for a leader and a prophecy has said that they must not be led by any man of Italy. So the scene is set. Aeneas has an ancestor who came from Italy; he has a guest-friend and relative in Evander to justify his presence in Italy; he has allies in Etruria who have just cause to go to war and need a leader. Aeneas’ presence and position in Italy are therefore legitimated. This has implications for the whole Julian family, and in particular for its contemporary representative who rules Italy and the whole known world from his house on the hill which had been Pallanteum.

This discussion has moved into the politics of the epic, but the first thing to grasp about the
Aeneid
is its humanity. In this part of the poem we may be struck by two recurring motifs: the beauty of youth and the depth of the love between parent and child. Pallas, son of Evander, is an important figure. We meet him for the first time when the masts of Aeneas’ ships are seen gliding through the trees on the banks of the Tiber, and we can gauge his ardour and courage as he leaps up to confront these formidable strangers. Evander in his young days had known Anchises, and the joy with which he recognizes his old friend’s son testifies to the warmth of his admiration. Then later, when he explains that he is too old to go to war, and gives Aeneas charge of young Pallas on his first campaign, we are left in no doubt of the intensity of Evander’s love for his son and the solemnity of the responsibility he lays upon Aeneas.

There is another very different manifestation of parental affection, when Venus, alarmed by the formidable Italians whom Aeneas is about to confront in battle, persuades her husband Vulcan, the god of fire, to make a shield for the son she bore to her mortal lover Anchises. When Venus persuades, she seduces. Vulcan then sleeps and rises early to go to work in his foundry, and his rising is compared to the early rising of a virtuous peasant woman who goes to work in order to keep chaste her husband’s bed and bring her young sons to manhood. It is impossible to feel secure about the tone of this astonishing episode. It is probably a contribution to the comedy of the divine in the
Aeneid
, but it certainly is also a demonstration of Venus’ motherly concern for her son, and a tribute to the courage and prowess of the people of Italy, and therefore a part of the politics of the
Aeneid
.

There never was such a shield as Virgil describes, but he does his best to make us believe in it. There are repeated references to colours, like the silver geese in the golden portico and the
golden torques on the milk-white (does that suggest ivory?) necks of the Gauls scaling the Capitol in their striped cloaks. There are suggestions of texture in the she-wolf bending back her neck to lick the twin babies into shape, in matrons in cushioned carriages, in blood dripping from bramble bushes or reddening the furrows of Neptune’s fields. There are vivid scenes: the rape of the Sabine women, Augustus at Actium with the Julian Star shining over his head, the River Araxes furious at being bridged. There are sound effects, as so often in descriptions of works of art in classical epic: when we hear at the Battle of Actium the barking of the dog-headed god Anubis; the cracking of the bloody whip of Bellona; the babel of all the tongues of the earth in the triumphal procession in Rome. There is also serial narration depicting successive episodes of a narrative all within the same frame, as when Cleopatra’s fleet advances, Apollo draws his bow, Cleopatra pays out the sail ropes for flight, runs before the wind for Egypt, and at the last the Nile, with grief in every lineament of his body, beckons his defeated people into his blue-grey breast and secret waters.

This is a vivid description of an imaginary work of art. It is also praise of Augustus. Three-fifths of this depiction of ‘the story of Italy and the triumphs of the Romans’ (626) are devoted to Augustus’ defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, and in line with Augustan propaganda the name of Antony is never mentioned. Civil war is presented as though it were a conflict between the barbarian East and the civilized world of the West. Augustus also received a shield, the Shield of Valour, presented to him by the Senate and People of Rome to honour his courage, clemency, justice and piety.

For an explanation of the details of the Shield of Aeneas, see
Appendix II
.

When Aeneas and Pallas are on their mission to the Etruscans, the Trojan camp is attacked by Turnus and his Rutulians. In accordance with the strict instructions given by Aeneas, the
Trojans close the gates and decline battle. Nisus and Euryalus die on a night foray and Ascanius kills Numanus. The siege continues and Turnus breaks into the Trojan camp. In his fury and folly he slaughters Trojans instead of opening the gates, and eventually is forced to withdraw and swim the Tiber fully armed to return to his men.

Virgil was moved by the glory and the grief of the deaths of the young in battle. His story of Nisus and Euryalus is also a delicate portrayal of the passionate love between two young men. Less obviously, it is a negative example. By their blunders and their impetuosity, by their neglect of the disciplines of war and above all by their failure to show respect to the gods, they are standing exemplars of what Aeneas is not.

The crucial mistake by Nisus is to take young Euryalus with him on this perilous mission. In a similar situation in Homer’s
Iliad
, Diomede chose as his companion Odysseus, the cleverest of the Greeks–‘the skill of his mind is with out equal’–and Odysseus justified the choice. Here Nisus does not want Euryalus to go with him, but allows the younger man to take the crucial decision. It is Euryalus who wakes sentries to keep guard for Nisus and himself when they go to tell the council of their plan.

The council of chosen Trojan warriors is also at fault. The original plan suggested by Nisus was to take a message to Aeneas, but now the young heroes propose to set an ambush, kill large numbers of the enemy and come back laden with booty. Aletes, though ‘heavy with years and mature in judgement’ (246), approves this madcap scheme, and young Ascanius enthusiastically welcomes it, promising all manner of extravagant rewards, including the horse of Turnus, the enemy leader.

They set out, enter the Rutulian camp and slaughter their sleeping enemies where they lie. Nisus eventually realizes that daylight is coming and checks Euryalus, but still allows him to put on armour he had plundered from the dead – medallions, a gold-studded belt, a helmet with gorgeous plumes. The helmet is their undoing. A passing detachment of three hundred cavalry catches sight of it glinting in the moonlight. Nisus escapes but
Euryalus is captured, hampered by the booty he is carrying. Nisus sees him being carried off by the enemy and breaks cover in a hopeless attempt at rescue. Whenever Aeneas begins an undertaking, he prays to the great gods, to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Mars or to his mother. But here Ascanius swears by his own head, and Nisus by chance, Vesta, his household gods, the sky and the stars. At the end, when his beloved Euryalus is in mortal danger, Nisus prays at last, but prays only to Diana, the moon goddess, who had just betrayed them.

There are no doubts about their ardour or their courage or their love, and Virgil steps out of his role as anonymous narrator to salute them and rejoice in their immortality, but he has already made it plain that the weaknesses of youth, lack of judgement, of discipline and of piety are not the stuff of which Roman leaders are made. Aeneas is a different kind of man.

Before his return Ascanius will have had his baptism of fire. A young Latin warrior, husband of the sister of Turnus, Numanus Remulus speaks up for the Latins against these effeminate incomers from the East. The Latins are a race of hardy sons of toil, and these ‘Phrygians’ from Troy are effete, with their saffron and purple robes and their sleeved and beribboned bonnets. They are women, not men, playing tambourines and flutes in their dubious women’s rites on Mount Ida. This is the case against the Trojans and it has to be answered because the Trojans are the ancestors of the Romans. Ascanius gives the only possible answer, and Apollo instantly withdraws him from the battle, but not before prophesying the glory of his descendants. ‘This is the way,’ he tells Iulus, ‘that leads to the stars. You are born of the gods and will live to be the father of gods’ (642), and Virgil’s audience would have taken the point. At Caesar’s funeral games a comet appeared, which was hailed by the common people as proof that Caesar had been received among the gods. We have already had sightings of this Julian Star at critical moments in Julian history, at 2.694 when Anchises consents to leave Troy and at 8.681 on Octavian’s helmet at Actium. It was also generally understood in the twenties
BC
that
Augustus, his adoptive son, would be deified. Finally, the peace which Apollo proceeds to prophesy is the
Pax Augusta
, the peace which Augustus was promising to bring to the whole Roman world, coming not from Troy, but from a much greater city. As Apollo says, ‘Troy is not large enough for you’ (644). The honour of the Julians is thus vindicated by Ascanius Iulus, and his descendants are cleared of the imputations levelled by Numanus.