Classics 301B
February 25, 2025

Portrait of Vergil ("Vergilius Romanus", 5th century CE illustrated manuscript)

Key to Exam #1

Paper Topics

Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil): reinterpreted & reinvented throughout European & American literature, central in humanist discussions of western culture

• Vergil's poetry & western preoccupations: individual/society; colonialism, imperialism, ideology of empire; what constitutes "civilization"? poet of tragedy of human suffering & mortality
  
  
  
• biography: Mantua (70 BCE-19 BCE), father a landowner & farmer; Rome & Naples (Epicureanism), no public career; family-land confiscated by Octavian after defeat of Brutus & Cassius (Battle of Philippi, 42 BCE); farm returned on appeal (cf. Tityrus in Eclogue 1)
  
  
• poetic career: Eclogues (42-39 BCE): 10 pastoral/buccolic poems on model of Theocritus’ Idylls (3rd century BCE) in sophisticated Alexandrian style – nostalgic poems of idyllic rustic world of shepherds, their loves, simple daily lives, (meta)poetic singing contests
  
  Illustration of "Vergilius Romanus" (5th century CE manuscript)
  
  
• Eclogue 1: dialogue of Meliboeus & Tityrus; Roman contemporary politics invade pastoral world (post-Philippi & land grants, Second Triumvirate – Octavian, Antony, Lepidus); shepherds' respective fates & personal & political implications
  
  Eclogue 1.1-35 READER: Spencer
  Meliboeus
  Tityrus, lying there, under the spreading beech-tree cover,
  you study the woodland Muse, on slender shepherd's pipe.
  We are leaving the sweet fields and the frontiers of our country:
  we are fleeing our country: you, Tityrus, idling in the shade,
  teach the woods to echo 'lovely Amaryllis'.
  Tityrus READER: Tana
  O Meliboeus, a god created this leisure for us.
  Since he'll always be a god to me, a gentle lamb
  from our fold, will often drench his altar.
  Through him my cattle roam as you see, and I
  allow what I wish to be played by my rural reed.
  Meliboeus
  Well, I don't begrudge you: rather I wonder at it: there's such
  endless trouble everywhere over all the countryside. See,
  I drive my goats, sadly: this one, Tityrus, I can barely lead.
  Here in the dense hazels, just now, she birthed twins,
  the hope of the flock, alas, on bare stones.
  I'd have recalled that this evil was prophesied to me,
  by the oak struck by lightning, if my mind had not been dulled.
  But, Tityrus, tell me then, who is this god of yours?
  Tityrus
  Meliboeus, foolishly, I thought the City they call Rome
  was like ours, to which we shepherds are often accustomed
  to drive the tender young lambs of our flocks.
  So I considered pups like dogs, kids like mothers,
  so I used to compare great with small.
  But this city indeed has lifted her head as high among others,
  as cypress trees are accustomed to do among the weeping willows.
  Meliboeus
  And what was the great occasion for you setting eyes on Rome?
  Tityrus
  Liberty, that gazed on me, though late, in my idleness,
  when the hairs of my beard fell whiter when they were cut,
  gazed yet, and came to me after so long a time,
  when Amaryllis was here, and Galatea had left me.
  Since, while Galatea swayed me, I confess,
  there was never a hope of freedom, or thought of saving.
  My hand never came home filled with coins,
  though many a victim left my sheepfolds,
  and many a rich cheese was pressed for the ungrateful town.
  
  Augustus of Prima Porta (1st century CE)
  
  
• Eclogue 1 & civil strife: Tityrus' appeal to Octavian-like, god-youth of ruler-cult ("There, Meliboeus, I saw that youth for whom / our altars smoke for six days twice a year", 42-3); Julius Caesar deified by senate (42 BCE), "freedom" (libertas) Octavian's political slogan
  
  
• fate of Meliboeus ("An impious soldier will own these well-tilled fields, / a barbarian these crops", 70-1)?
  
  
• deceptively simple drama of loss & gain (Italian land confiscations); poem's last word umbrae, "shadows"
  
  
  Illustration of "Vergilius Romanus" (5th century CE manuscript)
  

• Georgics (38-29 BCE): didactic poetry on agriculture – cf. Hesiod, Alexandrians, Lucretius (beatitude,"Happy is he who’s been able to learn the causes of things, / and has set all fear, and unrelenting fate, and the noise / of greedy Acheron, under his feet", Georgics 2.492) + manuals of Cato, Varro
  
  
• learned agricultural poetry: 4 books on tilling fields, arboriculture, livestock, beekeeping; politics permeate agrarian world & broad conception of human experience/"civilization" – Georgics celebrates farmer as culture-hero & orderer of nature, but tragic & pessimistic effort, e.g. plague following detailed account of raising healthy livestock (end of Georgics 3)
  
  
  
  Claudius as Jupiter (42-43 CE)
  
  
• Vergil in poetic circle of Maecenas (later Octavian-Augustus' "minister of culture"): opening hymn to agricultural deities (Bacchus, Ceres, et al.), climax with Octavian (written post-Battle of Actium, foreshadowing of imperial panegyric & apotheosis)
  
  Georgics 1ff.
  I'll begin to sing of what keeps the wheat fields happy,
  under what stars to plough the earth, and fasten vines to elms,
  what care the oxen need, what tending cattle require,
  Maecenas, and how much skill's required for the thrifty bees . . .
  
  (invocation of various agricultural deities follows)
  
  . . . and you too, Caesar, who, in time, will live among a company
  of the gods, which one's unknown, whether you choose
  to watch over cities and lands, and the vast world
  accepts you as bringer of fruits, and lord of the seasons,
  crowning your brows with your mother Venus's myrtle . . .
  
  (further speculation on Octavian's possible apotheosized roles)
  
  . . . grant me a fair course, and agree to my bold beginning*,
  pitying the country folk, with me, who are ignorant of the way:
  prepare to start your duties, and even now, hear our prayer.
  
  
  L: ANNUIT COEPTIS, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM; R: Insurrectionist in US Senate Chamber (January 6, 2021)
  
  *audacibus adnue coeptis, 1.40 (adnuo, of a god's approval/"nod"; cf. magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo, "a great line/order of the ages is born anew", Eclogue 4.5)
  
  
  Bernard Hoyes, Dying Bull (Rag Series, 1979)

• plague at end of Georgics 3 (cf. end of Lucretius): farming's false optimism (unfulfilled promise & hope, tragedy)
  
  Georgics 3.517-30 (quasi-Epicurean bull mourns his brother's death)
  The ploughman goes sadly
  to unyoke the bullock that grieves for its brother’s death,
  and leaves the blade stuck fast in the middle of its work.
  No shadows of the deep woods, no soft meadows
  can stir its spirits, no stream purer than amber
  flowing over the stones, as it seeks the plain: but the depths
  of his flanks loosen, and stupor seizes his listless eyes,
  and his neck sinks to earth with dragging weight.
  What use are his labour and his service? What matter that he turned
  the heavy earth with the blade? And yet no gifts of Massic wine
  or repeated banquets harmed these creatures:
  they graze on leaves and simple grass, for sustenance,
  their drink is from clear fountains, and rivers racing
  in their course, and no cares disturb their healthy rest.
  
  
• Georgics forecasts epic, "Soon I’ll gird myself to speak of Caesar’s fiery battles, / and take his name forward . . .", 3.46-7)
  
  
  Livia (wife of Augustus) as goddess Pietas (22-23 CE)
  
  
• Aeneid: begun ca. 30 BCE, unfinished at Vergil’s death (19 BCE; includes 58 unfinished lines); project to eclipse Ennius’ Annales as Roman national epic & rival Homer as the epic poet of antiquity

  Aeneid 1.1
  arma virumque cano (“My song is of war and a man . . .”)
  

• Vergil's Odyssey & Iliad: nature of the hero’s journey?; nature of hero (vs. Achilles & Odysseus)?
  
  
• hero & epic of trauma – personal (e.g. Aeneas wishes he had died like Hector at Troy, 1.94ff.) & Rome's cultural trauma – national epic to support idea of unified community in traumatic aftermath of Roman civil wars (mending social fabric of 1st century BCE Rome)
  
  
  
  
• Aeneas as hero of pietas/"duty" & fate/history (Rome): epic's Augustan teleology – foundation story of Lavinium to reign of Augustus (fall of Troy ca. 1200 BCE & Italian foundation myths involving Trojan exiles, foundation myth of Rome by Romulus in 753 BCE via "Alban Kings" descended from Ascanius; Battle of Actium, 31 BCE & beyond)
  
  
• Octavian named Augustus (27 BCE) as Aeneid a work-in-progress; Augustus Caesar (63 BCE-14 CE) first emperor "refounding" Rome, propaganda denies civil war with Antony, heralds "golden age" of peace/prosperity (emperor's post-civil war remake)
  
  Aeneid 1.257ff. (Jupiter's optimistic & reassuring prophecy to Venus)
  "Let go your fear, Cytherea. Your people's fate
  remains unchanged: you'll see Lavinium and
  its promised walls, you'll raise great-souled Aeneas
  to the stars. I haven't changed my mind.
  Since this worry gnaws at you, I'll tell you more,
  and unroll the secrets of the fates. Your son
  will wage wide war in Italy, subdue
  ferocious tribes, and give them walls and customs . . .
  
  (Jupiter describes events down to Rome's founding by Romulus)
  
  . . . On them [future Romans] I set no boundaries of time or space.
  I've granted empire without end. Even cruel
  Juno, terror of the land and sea and sky,
  will change her plans and (like me) favor Romans:
  people of the toga, rulers of the world.
  So I've decreed. As years slip by, an age
  will come when Assaracus' house will conquer
  Argos and crush Phthia and famed Mycenae.
  Trojan Caesar will be born, of lovely Venus' line,
  whose rule will reach all shores, his fame the stars
  —Julius, a name passed down from the great Iülus.
  Freed from worry, you'll greet him in the skies.
  He'll come laden with Eastern spoils, and men will pray
  to him; harsh centuries of war will cease.
  Ancient Trust and Vesta, Remus and Quirinus [Romulus]
  will set down laws; the awful iron Gates of War
  will close. Inside, impious Rage, crouched on
  brutal weapons, tied up with a hundred knots
  of bronze, will roar from blood-stained jaws."
  
  [Temple of Janus closed in absolute peacetime (29 and 25 BCE)]
  
  
  Janus (god of doors, gates, new beginnings)
  
  
• Aeneas as spectator at Juno's temple in Carthage: ekphrasis (Carthaginian building project); Trojan suffering & loss – compensation through art, memory, memorialization
  
  Aeneid 1.446-65 READER: Nicholas
  Here, Dido of Tyre was building a huge
  temple, rich in gifts, rich in her godly presence.
  At the entry rose bronze stairs, the doorposts too
  were bronze, the door creaked on bronze hinges.
  In this grove first, a sight appeared that eased
  Aeneas' fear and let him dare to dream
  of safety, to have more hope in troubled times.
  As he scanned each detail of the giant temple,
  waiting for the queen, and admired the city's
  fortune and its craftsmen's skill and work, he saw
  the stages of the Trojan War, the battles blazoned
  by their fame across the world, Atreus's
  sons, King Priam, and Achilles cruel to both.
  He stopped in tears: "Achates, what place on earth,
  what land isn't steeped in what we've suffered? Look:
  the world weeps, and mortal matters move the heart.
  Let go your fear. This fame will bring some safety."
  He spoke, and fed his soul on empty images,
  sighing heavily. Tears streamed down his face.

  Aeneid 1.485-8 (Hector's death – an Alexandrian nod to alternate story?)
  Aeneas groaned deep in his heart, when he saw
  the spoils, the chariot, the very body of his
  friend, and Priam stretching out defenseless hands.
  He saw himself as well, mixed in with the Greeks . . .*
  
  *Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.48.3-4
  But Menecrates of Xanthus​ [4th century BCE historian] says that Aeneas betrayed the city to the Achaeans out of hatred for Paris and that because of this service he was permitted by them to save his household. His account, which begins with the funeral of Achilles, runs as follows: "The Achaeans were oppressed with grief and felt that the army had had its head lopped off. However, they celebrated his funeral feast and made war with all their might until Ilium was taken by the aid of Aeneas, who delivered it up to them. For Aeneas, being scorned by Paris and excluded from his prerogatives, overthrew Priam; and having accomplished this, he became one of the Achaeans."
  

• Dido and Aeneas, commonalties: Venus's tale to Aeneas – Tyre, Sychaeus, Pygmalion, Dido’s vulnerability?
  
  Aeneid 1.627-30 (Dido to a moved and grateful Aeneas)
  ". . . Fortune once
  harassed me with hardship like your own. At last,
  the fates let me settle in this land. Knowing
  pain, I can learn to help the pain of others."
  
  
  Dido's banquet ("Vergilius Romanus", 5th century CE illustrated manuscript)
  
  
• Dido's banquet, end of Aeneid 1; Aeneid 2, Aeneas as narrator (cf. Odysseus among the Phaeacians, Odyssey 9-12)
  
  Google Map of Aeneas' Journey