CLAS 353
Spring 2021
Exam 1 Key


I. Identifications: 8 pts. each, 64 total

aristeia: an individual epic warrior’s display of valor (lit., "excellence"), usually in the form of a rampage on the battlefield; helps lend structure to epic battle scenes, as often in Aeneid 7-12 (e.g., aristeia and death of Pallas, Camilla)

ekphrasis: description of a work of art, place, etc.; a marked feature of epic style, e.g. Aeneas’ shield in Aeneid 8, Apollo's temple doors in Aeneid 6

katabasis: a hero's descent to the underworld to obtain knowledge, which marks the hero as special (= capable of overcoming death), as Aeneas' trip to consult his father in Aeneid 6

Actium: decisive naval battle (31 BCE) in the civil war between Octavian and Antony, referred to at various points in the Aeneid, most strongly in the propaganda of Aeneas’ shield

Camilla: Amazon-like warrior whose epyllion or "mini-epic" in Aeneid 11 captivatingly interrupts the all-male warfare of the Iliadic half of the Aeneid

Laocoön: the Trojan priest who futilely warns his fellow citizens about the Greeks' wooden horse (in Aeneas' narrative in book 2) and effectively is sacrificed for his efforts

Danaids: daughters of Danaus who (49 of 50) murder their husbands on their wedding night, a scene which appears in an ekphrasis on the belt of Pallas and enrages Aeneas at the epic's end

Andromache: wife of the dead Hector; remarried to Helenus and living in Buthrotum (Aeneid 3), where the pair has created a replica of Troy and remain dedicated to their tragic past.

Umbro: one of the Italian warriors featured in the catalogue of Aeneid 7; a pious priest, his name means "shade/shadow", as he is destined to be tragically killed by the Trojans

Pallas: the son of Evander entrusted to Aeneas; the memory of Turnus' merciless slaughter of Pallas shapes Aeneas' final decision at the epic's conclusion

Lavinia: the daughter of King Latinus, over whom Turnus and Aeneas do battle; she remains a silent, blushing mystery in the Aeneid

Palinurus: Aeneas' helmsman, hypnotized and thrown overboard by Sleep at the end of the end of Aeneid 5, thus signalling the transition to the nocturnal and deadly dreamworld of Aeneid 6

2. Commentary: 22 pts each, 88 total

For each commentary:
(1)-(4) 2pts. each
(5) 14 pts. each

1. [Vergil, Aeneid 6.893ff.]
(1) Vergil
(2) Aeneid
(3) narrator
(4) Aeneas exits the underworld & re-enters the land of the living
(5) some possible talking points for elaboration:

-based on Homer’s (personal) dream of Penelope (geese & the eagle) in the Odyssey, adapted to a very different context here in marking the end of Aeneas' highly Romanized and historicized katabasis
-directly follows Anchises’ revelation of future Roman souls waiting to be born and his statement of how Rome will rule the world: Vergil’s private voice coming through about Roman history/imperialism in general?
-immediately follows tragic description of Marcellus’ death (i.e., the chosen heir of Augustus Caesar) and so perhaps casts doubt on the security of the Roman civil war settlement (= autocracy/empire) itself?

2. [Vergil, Aeneid 9.431ff.]
(1) Vergil
(2) Aeneid
(3) narrator
(4) Euryalus & Nisus are killed during their nighttime raid
(5) some possible talking points for elaboration:

-the passage’s marked eroticization of the pair’s death (manner of death, purple flower/poppy simile)
-the poet's forecast of immortality (power of poetry/poetic memory, expressed in Roman historical terms here); cf. the 911 memorial
-Vergil’s manner of treating the tragic deaths of young warriors in general (deprived of marriage, procreation, etc., by the brutal tragedies of war)

3. [Vergil, Aeneid 6.14ff.]
(1) Vergil
(2) Aeneid
(3) narrator
(4) the Trojans land at Cumae, Italy, and Aeneas views the doors of Apollo's temple (a complex ekphrasis describing Daedalus' artwork)
(5) some possible talking points for elaboration:

-parallels between Daedalus and Aeneas (exile, landing in Italy, father/son relationship, the tragic loss of which is captured in the closing apostrophe to Daedalus)
-parallels looking backward in the Aeneid: Dido's tragic passion (cf. Pasiphae) and abandonment by the hero she has helped (cf. Theseus & Ariadne)
-parallels looking forward in the Aeneid: Aeneas is about to enter the underworld, a labyrinth of death and darkness that is filled with peril

4. [Vergil, Aeneid 12.931ff.]
(1) Vergil
(2) Aeneid
(3) Turnus, narrator, Aeneas
(4) end of the epic—Aeneas decides to kill rather than spare Turnus
(5) some possible talking points for elaboration:

-note Turnus’ complete surrender/humiliation in public before all the Italians and Trojans, including his powerful appeal to Aeneas’ devotion to family and his patriarchal line
-Aeneas’ hesitation and moment of rational thought followed by fury at the sight of Pallas’ belt (with ekphrasis of Danaids engraved on it); the meanings of this emblem of grief?
-implications of Aeneas’ actions here against his father’s prescription in Aeneid 6 that he (as the “father” of Roman imperialism) pardon the defeated/humbled and war down the haughty?

5. [Vergil, Aeneid 8.675ff.]
(1) Vergil
(2) Aeneid
(3) narrator
(4) description of Aeneas’ shield (made by Vulcan)
(5) some possible talking points for elaboration:

-Vergil’s historicizing appropriation of Homer’s very different ekphrasis of Achilles’ shield (seemingly universal human cycles vs. particulars of Roman history featured here)
-the placement of the scene showing Augustus’ victory over Antony at Actium in the middle of the shield > Augustan teleology; the propagandistic representation of Antony and Cleopatra as decadent easterners/foreigners (as if Actium had not ended a civil war!)
-the depiction of Caesar Augustus with flames pouring from his forehead as a sign of the gods’ approval of him, and so of the idea of Roman empire/”manifest destiny”/fate

6. [Vergil, Aeneid 4.397ff.]
(1) Vergil
(2) Aeneid
(3) narrator
(4) from her tower Dido watches the Trojans hastily prepare to leave Carthage
(5) some possible talking points for elaboration:

-powerful example of Vergil’s “subjective” style (vs. largely “objective” Homeric narrative) as the narrator sympathizes with Dido’s personal situation
-narrative focalization of Dido’s alienation as she gazes down from her tower, esp. ant simile (what this means to her emotionally)
-narrator’s apostrophes, both to Dido and to Love personified, and the general creation of sympathy for Dido as a tragic figure in Aeneid 4 (even if, in moralizing tand historical terms, she stands in the way of Aeneas’ duty and destiny)

3. Essay, 60 pts. total 

Some possible talking points for elaboration regarding Vergil’s more public voice, the voice. that propagandistically extends the epic to his own times:

-the use of prophecy (see especially Jupiter’s to Venus in Aeneid 1 about Roman destiny and rule) to move beyond the epic’s mythic time-frame and all the way down to Augustan Rome/Vergil’s time
-the epic’s persistent representation of Roman rule/empire, as it descends from Aeneas and the Trojans, as something fated and sanctioned by the gods (i.e." manifest destiny")
-various other glorifying allusions to Roman historical events and figures, as in the parade of souls in the underworld and on the shield of Aeneas

Some possible talking points for elaboration regarding Vergil’s more private and doubtful voice regarding Aeneas' and the Romans' mission:

- the epic’s powerfully sympathetic treatment of various direct or indirect victims of Aeneas and the Trojans (esp. Dido, Turnus, Camilla, Palla, Juturna), coupled with Aeneas' own frequent reluctance to act as an epic hero
- Vergil’s decision to send Aeneas through the Gate of Ivory (that of “false dreams”) immediately after the vision of future Roman history has been revealed to him in the underworld; doubts about war and empire as "civilizing", productive forces in Mediterranean "civilization"?
-Vergil’s sympathetic depiction of the indigenous Italians as they assemble for battle (Aeneid 7) against the Trojan invaders, who together engage in a kind of civil war
-Aeneas’ direct violation of his father’s instructions on how to treat the conquered when he slays Turnus at the epic's end, as a revengeful strongman vs. another strongman (what does this suggest about the prospects for Roman law and order?)

EXAM TOTAL = 212 pts. (points and grading are based on a standard percentage scale)