Classics 301B
February 28, 2024

Paper #1 (due Sunday, March 3 @11:59pm in D2L) *Topics* [>>>>Please submit in MSW (docx)<<<<]



Michelangelo, Cumaean Sibyl (Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512)

• Aeneid 6: (Janus-like) ekphrasis at the temple of Apollo in Cumae (Daedalus, Cretan labyrinth, Pasiphae, Theseus & Ariadna); katabasis (Sibyl), Vergil's complex underworld
  
  
• Dido: "Fields of Mourning" ("those whom heartless love consumed / with cruel pining", 6.440ff.): reaction to Aeneas ("as hard flint or a rocky crag of marble . . .", 6.471ff.); cf. Odysseus snubbed by Ajax, "Only the soul of Telamonian Ajax stood off / at a distance from me", Odyssey 11.543)
  

• Aeneas & Anchises review parade of future Romans waiting to be born (Pythagorean metempsychosis, 6.756ff.); the Roman mission revealed
  
  Remains of Theater of Marcellus (Rome, 13 BCE )
  
  Aeneid 6.847-68 (the Roman mission, Marcellus) READER: NORA
  "Others, I believe, will beat out bronze that seems
  to breathe and chisel living faces out of marble.
  They'll excel in pleading lawsuits, and they'll trace
  the heavens' paths and chart the rising stars
  You, Roman, remember your own arts: to rule
  the world with law, impose your ways on peace,
  grant the conquered clemency, and crush the proud in war."
  
  [6.853, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos; cf. civil war clementia & end of Aeneid]
  
  They were struck with awe. Anchises added:
  "See Claudius Marcellus, marked by splendid spoils? [Second Punic War hero]
  Victorious, he strides along, the tallest there.
  This horseman will steady Roman power
  in a time of chaos, trample rebel Gaul and
  Carthage, and for the third time offer captured arms
  to Romulus." Aeneas saw a handsome young man
  near Marcellus, in bright armor, but his face
  showed little joy, and his eyes were downcast. [nephew of Augustus, d. 23 BCE]
  He asked Anchises: "Who is that who goes with him?
  A son? A son's son from this noble stock?
  How his comrades cheer! What a fine impression!
  But black night flaps around his head with her grim shadow."
  Then tears welled in Anchises' eyes. "My child,
  don't ask about the great grief of your people.
  The fates will offer us the merest glimpse of him:
  they won't let him live long . . ."
  
  Tailasson, Vergil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia (1787)
  

• exiting the underworld via gates of horn & ivory: cf. Penelope's unambiguous dream of 20 geese & 1 eagle (ivory gate for deceptive dreams, "their message is never accomplished . . . dreams that come into the open through the gates of the polished / horn accomplish the truth for any mortal who sees them", Odyssey 19.562ff.)
  
  Aeneid 6.893-8 (clash of Aeneid's optimistic/public & skeptical/private voices?)
  There are twin Gates of Sleep. One, they say, is made
  of horn, and lets true visions pass through easily.
  The other gleams with complex work in ivory,
  but through its shades send lying visions to the light.
  Anchises and the Sibyl brought Aeneas
  to this gate and sent him through.
  
  
  Waterhouse, Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses (1891)
  

• Aenied 7: transition from Odyssey (Aeneid 1-6): "They grazed the shores of Circe" (7.10); mouth of Tiber = promised land; Latinus, Lavinia & prophecy (Trojans' gift of Priam's scepter & diadem?); intervention of Juno ("But I can put off these great happenings", 7.315) & Allecto
  
  
  Lorrain, Landscape with Ascanius Shooting Silvia's Stag (1682)
  

• proximate cause of war = Silvia’s stag; catalogue of Italian warriors; Trojans as colonialists & invaders of pastoral (Italian) world
  
  Aeneid 7.750-60 (death of Marsian priest Umbro foreshadowed; pastoral lament)
  Next, priest Umbro of the Marruviï,
  bravest of men, sent by King Archippus,
  his helmet decked with fronds of fertile olive.
  He has the skill to sprinkle sleep on venom-breathing
  snakes and vipers by his spells and touch.
  With his art, he charms their anger, heals their bites.
  But he can't cure a wound from Trojan iron;
  his mesmerizing chants, the herbs he picked
  on Marsian hills, will not help his wounds.
  Umbro, how Angitia's forests and Fucinus'
  glassy waters and clear lakes will weep for you.
  
  Vergil's triple apostrophe (cf. Roman funeral lament):
  
  te nemus Angitiae, vitrea te Fucinus unda,
  te liquidi flevere lacus. [half-line]    
  
  ("For you the grove of Angitia wept, for you 
  The crystal swells of Fucinus Lake, for you 
  The clear quiet pools", trs. R. Fagles)

• Aeneid 8: River Tiber appears to Aeneas in dream (8.31ff.) & urges alliance with Evander at Pallanteum; tour; Pallas entrusted to Aeneas
  
  
  R: Nefertari, wife of Ramesses II, holding a sistrum (13th century BCE)
  

• shield of Aeneas: historical threats to Roman security ("Roman triumphs, all the generations of / Ascanius's line, and their wars in sequence", 8.628-9); cf. Achilles' shield
  
  
• revisionist Augustan propaganda (i.e. history's deceptive/dishonest narrative): middle of shield, Battle of Actium (cf. Augustan teleology) misrepresented as cosmic & cultural battle of West ("Western Civilization") vs. East ("The Other"; "Orientalism"); Octavian/Augustus' triumph (29 BCE) at center of shield; cf. catalogue of Italians (Aeneid 7)
  
  

  Aeneid 8.675-706 READER: Atticus
  In the center sailed bronze warships: they fought
  the sea battle of Actium. Cape Leucas, its waves
  bright with gold, frothed with the armada.

  Here Augustus Caesar led all Italy
  to war: the Senate, people, gods of sky and hearth.
  From high on the stern, his bright brow poured [cf. Aeneas @ 10.260]
  twin flames; his father's comet rose above.
  Tall Agrippa steered the fleet, with gods and winds [Octavian's general at Actium]
  behind him. He wore a naval crown; on it gleamed
  bright images of prows, a martial honor.
  Antony was opposite, with Asian wealth
  and hodgepodge troops, victor over Eastern hordes
  and the Red Sea. He brought Egypt, Eastern might,
  distant Bactra—and (for shame!) a wife from Egypt.
  The forces smashed together and the whole sea frothed,
  torn by oars and three-spiked beaks of boats.
  The crews made for the open. Massive ships rammed towering
  sterns—you'd think the Cyclades, torn up, were free
  to roam the waters, or that mountains smashed together.
  Flaming flax and flying spears rained from their hands,
  and just-spilled blood turned Neptune's fields red.
  In the thick of it, the queen called to her fleet [not to be named in Augustan poetry!]
  with her native rattle—not seeing the pair of snakes
  behind her. Monstrous mongrel gods and barking
  Anubis turned weapons against Venus, Neptune,
  and Minerva. Iron Mars was in their midst, mad
  for battle. Awful Furies swooped in from the sky,
  and Discord in her tattered cloak joined gladly.
  Bellona followed with her bloody whip.
  Apollo saw this from his shrine, and aimed his bow.
  At that, every Indian and Egyptian,
  every Arab and Sabaean, cut and ran.
  
  [cf. "The queen . . . The lord of fire made her pale with future death" (707ff.) and Dido, 4.664]

• end of Aeneid 8: "He hoists the fame and fate of his descendants" (cf. end of Aeneid 2)
  
  
  Jean-Baptiste Roman, Nisus & Euryalus (1827)
  
  
• Aeneid 9: attack against Trojan camp; Nisus & Euryalus = Aeneid's love story – eroticized death/devotion (cf. successful night raid of Odysseus & Diomedes, Iliad 10)
  
  Aeneid 9.431-49 READER: Leah
  But as he spoke, the sword plunged violently
  through Euryalus' ribs, ripping open
  his white chest. He crumpled, dying. Blood
  ran down his lovely body; his neck slumped
  like a purple flower cut down by the plow,***
  bending as it dies, like a poppy's drooping
  neck when heavy rain drags down its head.
  Nisus rushed at them. But among them all,
  he aimed at Volcens only, took time for him alone.
  The soldiers crowded him, jabbing with spears
  to drive him off. He fought on still. His sword
  swung round like lightning till he shoved it into
  Volcens' shouting face. He killed him and died,
  pierced through and through, flinging himself
  on his friend's corpse, finding peace at last in death.
  
  Lucky pair! If my song has any power,
  no day will steal you from time's memory, while
  Aeneas' people settle by the Capitol's
  unmoving stone, and a Roman father rules.
  
  [cf. "And let her not look to return to my love, as before,
  a love that has been cut down by her failings
  just as a flower, in bloom on the edge of a field,
  is grazed and falls as the plow passes by. "(Catullus 11.21-4)]
  
  
  Spencer Finch, Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning (9/11 Memorial Museum, 2014)
  
  Aeneid 9.447: nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo (lit., "No day will ever remove you from unforgetting time")
  

World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial inscription debate (NYT 4/3/2014)

• Aeneid 10: aristeia of Pallas & Turnus’ pursuit & vaunting over body ("Bracing his left foot / against the corpse, he ripped away the massive weight / of Pallas' sword-belt, carved to show a wicked crime: / a band of husbands murdered in their bloody beds / on a single night, worked by Clonus / with much gold" (10.494-9; 50 daughters of Danaus = Danaids, 50 sons of Aegyptus); cycle of violence & death ensues
  
  
  Gigantomachy Scene, Parthenon Frieze (5th century BCE)
  

• vengeance of Aeneas: (1) human sacrifice (after Achilles) of four youths (10.517ff.); (2) the slaughter of the suppliant Magus (521ff.); (3) taunting of beheaded Tarquitus (557ff.); (4) slaughter of Liger begging for his life & vaunting over corpse (595ff.); (5) impious giant Aegeon simile (566ff.)

• battle with Mezentius (cf. Evander's story, 8.481ff.); death of Lausus – Aeneas' humanity restored (10.815ff.)
  
  
  L: Girodet-Trioson, The Mourning of Pallas (ca. 1790); R: Sablet, The Death of Pallas (ca. 1790)
  

• Aeneid 11: return of Pallas’ body; guilt of Aeneas; Evander’s call to Aeneas for revenge; Trojan offensive at Latinus' Laurentum (11.446ff.): mothers & children watch from walls > Camilla
  
  Diana the Huntress (Tunisia, 2nd century CE)
  
  
• Camilla’s epyllion ("mini-epic"): Vergil's creation; Camilla the "Amazon" – powerful warrior (ax & spear)
  
  
• epyllion framed by Diana: Camilla’s pastoral history before tragedy – boundary-crossing story (11.535ff.)? "Many mothers in the Tuscan towns were keen / to wed her to their sons, in vain. She was happy / with Diana, and nursed an endless love of weapons / and virginity, untouched" (11.581-4)
  
  
• Chloreus (priest of Cybele, in red, purple, and gold Phrygian garb spotted – Vergil's non-binary, queer epic?), Camilla’s wounding – "Wedged below / her naked breast, it drank deeply of her blood" (11.803-4); death – "Her head / and neck drooped down in death; her weapons fell. Her soul / fled with a groan of protest to the shades below" (11.829-31)
  
  [11.831: vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras; cf. 12.952]
  
  
• Opis avenges Camilla's death; Latin married women (transgressively?) inspired by Camilla ("On the walls, trembling mothers strained to rain down / weapons on the Trojans, mimicking Camilla, / spurred by love of country . . .", 11.890ff.)
  
  
• Aeneid 12: failed duel, final settlement (Jupiter & Juno) & final combat
  
  Aeneid 12.500-4 (narrator highlights senselessness of – "civil"? – war)
  What god can help me sing of so much horror,
  the great slaughter and slain generals, the men
  whom Turnus, then the Trojan hero, drove over
  the plain? Jupiter, did you want nations fated
  for eternal peace to clash so violently?
  

• Aeneas pursues Turnus: cf. Achilles pursuing Hector (Iliad 22.188ff.)
  
  
  Achilles & Hector (Athenian red-figure vase detail, ca. 490 BCE)
  
  
  
• final shift to Olympus & divine compromise (Juno/Jupiter): Latin language & dress preserved, Italian contribution to Roman character, Troy expunged (12.808ff.)
  
  
  Trajan's Column (detail, 106-113 CE)
  
  
• the finale duel: clementia ("mercy") or vengeance?
  
  Aeneid 12.926-52 READER: Heather
  His legs folded, and huge Turnus crumpled
  to the ground. The Rutulians leapt up groaning.
  The hills and forests echoed their cry far and wide.
  Humbly, Turnus raised his eyes, his hands,
  and begged: "I deserve this. I don't ask for mercy:
  use your chance. But if a parent's grief can touch you,
  have pity for old Daunus (you had such a father
  in Anchises) and return me to my people,
  as a corpse if you prefer. You've won,
  the Ausonians have seen me stretch my hands out
  in defeat. Lavinia's yours; give up your hate."
  Fierce Aeneas stood there, armed, his eyes
  roaming restlessly, holding back the death-blow.
  And now more and more, Turnus' words began
  to move him and he hesitated—when high on Turnus'
  shoulder, he saw the fatal sword-belt of young Pallas,
  the strap flashing with its well-known studs—Pallas,
  whom Turnus killed when down, and took that emblem
  of the enemy to wear upon his shoulder.
  Aeneas drank in this reminder of his savage
  grief. Ablaze with rage, awful in anger, he cried,
  "Should I let you slip away, wearing what you
  tore from one I loved? Pallas sacrifices
  you, Pallas punishes your profane blood"—and,
  seething, planted his sword in that hostile heart.
  Turnus' knees buckled with chill. His soul fled
  with a groan of protest to the shades below. [cf. Camilla]

• mercy (clementia) vs. revenge? Anchises' instructions to Aeneas ("You, Roman, remember your own arts: to rule / the world with law, impose your ways on peace, / grant the conquered clemency, and crush the proud in war", 6.847ff.)?
  
  [Augustus, Res Gestae 3.1-2 (ca. 13 CE): "I often undertook civil and foreign wars by sea and land throughout the world, and as a victor I spared all citizens who asked for pardon. The foreign peoples that could safely be pardoned I preferred to save rather than kill."] 
  
  
• Aeneas as prototype of Roman imperial hero (Augustus Caesar?)?
  
  
• Aeneid as reconstruction text/healing Vergil's post civil-war world? hope for Vergil's post civil-war world, healing cultural trauma & altering memory?
  

• Vergil's public/optimistic vs. private/skeptical voice?
  
  
  
  "classic" epic duels in film:
  
  Finale of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdK0jaLuJL8
  
  Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRwCPUEND1U
  
  Ben Kenobi vs Darth Vader, Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope (1977): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kpHK4YIwY4
  
  Subway fight in The Matrix  (1999): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GSgWzmR_-c
  
  Maximus vs. Tigris in Gladiator (2000): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ToyjG0Du2Y
  
  Jen vs. Shu Lien, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf0reiFb3ks
  
  Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EajaioMj-NA
  
  Dumbledore vs. Voldemort, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBWkAHAjXWo