Classics 301B
March 4, 2025

Paper #1 (due Friday, March 7 @11:59pm in D2L) *Topics* (Please submit as MSW doc)


Aeneid 6

• Trojans reach Italy (Cumae): ekphrasis (Daedalus & Cretan labyrinth – Pasiphae, Theseus & Ariadna) of temple doors of Apollo (Sibyl)
  
  Aeneid 6.14-33 (narrative sculpture, narrative transitions – Dido)
  It's said that Daedalus, fleeing Minos' kingdom,
  trusted himself to the sky on sweeping wings,
  taking the usual passage to the frosty
  North. At last he floated down on Chalcis' peak.
  Back on land, he pledged Phoebus his wings—
  his oars for flight—and built a lofty shrine.
  On its doors he carved Androgeos' death [son of King Minos, killed in Athens]
  and the Athenians who who paid an awful price,
  seven sons each year: an urn holds the lots.
  Facing this, the land of Crete soars from the sea.
  Here's Pasiphae's ruinous passion for a bull, [wife of Minos<>bull>Minotaur]
  their stealthy coupling, and their son, the hybrid
  Minotaur, a monument to awful lust.
  Here's his lair, the labyrinth of no return.
  But its builder Daedalus took pity on
  a princess' love, and solved the tangled turns, [Ariadna, daughter of Minos, helps Theseus]
  guiding Theseus' blind footsteps with a thread.
  Icarus, you'd be here too, if grief allowed.
  Twice your father tried to carve your fall in gold,
  twice his hands fell from his work.
  
  
  Michelangelo, Cumaean Sibyl (Sistine Chapel, 1508-1512)
  
  
• Sibyl's prophecy: "I see brutal wars / and bloody torrents frothing in the Tiber . . . In Latium you'll find a new Achilles . . . Juno . . . so much trouble for the Trojans . . . a foreign bride, a foreign wedding" (6.86ff.)
  

• Aeneas's first test: golden bough/branch for Prosperina/Persephone (magical talisman, "He snapped it eagerly / as it held on", 6.210-11)
  
  
  Cerberus & Hercules (black-figure hydria, ca. 530 BCE)
  

• typical elements of heroic journey to underworld/world of the dead (katabasis):
  
  (1) hero given a charge/sent on quest
  (2) boundary is crossed (often water)
  (3) hero has a guide
  (4) underworld has a powerful guard
  (5) labyrinthine landscape is navigated (dystopia)
  (6) hero brings gift/benefit/knowledge back to land of living
  
  
  Remains of Riverside Hospital, North Brother Island
  
  Abbi in Broad City (2014-2019) retrieves a package on North Brother Island
  
  Journey to Staten Island in Girls (2012-2017)
  
  
  Charon the boatman (Attic lekythos, 500-450 BCE)
  
  
• Aeneas's complex katabasis  (Homer,  Odyssey 11, etc.): Charon, Cerberus, various regions of underworld > Anchises in Elysium
  

• Dido in "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, Odyssey 11.543)
  

• Aeneas & Anchises review parade of future Romans (kings, military heroes, Romulus next to Augustus) to be born (metempsychosis, 6.756ff.); the Roman mission revealed, death of Marcellus, nephew of Augustus
  
  Remains of Theater of Marcellus (Rome, 13 BCE )
  
  Aeneid 6.847-68 READER: Morgan
  "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."*
  
  They were struck with awe. Anchises added:
  "See Claudius Marcellus, marked by splendid spoils?
  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.
  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 . . ."
  
  *parcere subiectis et debellare superbos, 6.853; cf. end of Aeneid
  
  Tailasson, Vergil reading the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia (1787)
  

• exiting the underworld via gates of horn & ivory: adaptation of 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); new invocation (Iliad), "Come, Erato . . . I'll call / to memory the incidents that started war . . . A greater series of events begins, / a greater task for me", 7.37ff.)
  

• mouth of Tiber = promised land; King Latinus (Latium), Lavinia & prophecy, ancestral connections (Dardanus) – Trojans' gift of Priam's scepter & diadem?
  
  
• intervention of Juno & Allecto ("You cause loving brothers to seize swords, you wreck / families with feuds", 7.335-6) > Amata, Turnus
  
  Aeneid 7.313-16 (Juno's malicious plan)
  "Granted: I can't keep him from his Latin kingdom,
  I can't change Lavinia's destined marriage.
  But I can delay crucial events! I can
  destroy their nations!"
  
  
  Lorrain, Landscape with Ascanius Shooting Silvia's Stag (1682)
  

• proximate cause of war: Silvia’s stag, conflict erupts
  
  
• Latinus ineffective: gate of Janus's Latin temple opened by Juno (7.601ff.), "The honor due to / plow and sickle, all their love of farming—gone. / They recast their fathers' swords" (7.634-6)
  
  
• catalogue of Italian warriors: names, background, lives, personal histories of indigenous peoples (cf. Vergil's Italian origins) – Trojan invaders/colonialists in idyllic Italy
  
  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)
  
  
  Tiberinus, 2nd century CE (Capitoline Museum, Rome)
  
  Aeneid 8: Tiberinus, river god (Tiber) appears to Aeneas in dream (8.31ff.) & urges alliance with Evander at Pallanteum
  

• Evander (Greek immigrant with Trojan ancestral connections): tour of future site of Rome, e.g. Great Altar of Hercules (slaying of Cacus, festival), "Rome's strength has since raised these to the heavens, / but at that time Evander's state was poor indeed" (8.99-100); alliance struck, elderly Evander entrusts Pallas to Aeneas ("my late and only / joy. May no painful news come to these ears", 8.581-2)
  
  
• Venus has Vulcan forge arms for Aeneas
  
  
  L: Elizabeth Taylor, Cleopatra (1963); R: Nefertari, wife of Ramesses II, holding a sistrum (13th century BCE)
  

• shield of Aeneas: defeated historical threats to Roman security featured ("Roman triumphs, all the generations of / Ascanius's line, and their wars in sequence", 8.628-9); cf. scenes on Achilles's shield
  
  
• revisionist Augustan propaganda: middle of shield, Battle of Actium (+ Octavian/Augustus's triumph of 29 BCE; cf. Augustan teleology) misrepresented as cultural battle of West ("Western Civilization") vs. East ("The effeminate & decadent Other" – "Orientalism")
  
  
  Augustus of Prima Porta (1st century CE)
  
  

  Aeneid 8.675-706 READER: Spencer
  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
  twin flames; his father's comet rose above.
  Tall Agrippa steered the fleet, with gods and winds
  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
  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.
  

• end of Aeneid 8: "He hoists the fame and fate of his descendants" (cf. end of Aeneid 2)