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Aeneas and Octavian: The Sharing of Epic Identity

  • Frederick Ahl
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Antike Erzähl- und Deutungsmuster
This chapter is in the book Antike Erzähl- und Deutungsmuster

Abstract

Vergil, like Livy, narrates Italy, its wars and treaties (arma), over centuries not the life span of one individual (uirum). Aeneas slips in and out of historically different eras, made synchronic by merging of narrative planes. Dido’s Carthage is, architecturally, the Roman city Octavian was rebuilding, not the Punic city Scipio destroyed. Dido’s nightmares of looking in vain for her people in her city are the ‘reality’ she is constructing, long after her traditional death, alongside a hero from centuries earlier. Vergil following Roman epicists, makes Dido Aeneas’ lover, but repositions Anna, his lover in Varro, as the sister Aeneas continues to see, after breaking with Dido. Vergil finds a place for most variants, including Aeneas’ betrayal of Troy. He situates it on (hostile) Juno’s Temple in (hostile) Carthage, only partially accessible to readers, and lets Aeneas deconstruct it, with mixed success. He then gives Dido cause for adding her charges of perfidy - an inversion of the Roman tradition of Carthaginian perfidiousness. Aeneas’ dilemma in Carthage mirrors Vergil’s in Rome: both must deconstruct, without confronting, an already officially monumentalized narrative by the ruler who asks them to narrate: in Vergil’s case, the man the emperor Julian called Oktabianós, chameleon-like in his changing coloration. Vergil’s Aeneas changes with his frequent changes of armour; and so does the background against which he moves. Vergil incorporates and neutralizes Augustan propaganda without direct confrontation: he foreshadows the militarization and deforestation of Avernus during Octavian’s wars with the never-named Sextus Pompey and ends Anchises’ parade of Rome’s future with the funeral of Octavian’s successor. Yet Vergil’s authorial political edge is just part of the picture. He gives us an Aeneas so traumatized by the loss of his prized horses to Diomedes in the Iliadic past that he fights as an infantryman throughout the Aeneid. Vergil’s complex, self-scrutinizing Aeneas far transcends the sum total of elements incorporated into the arms and the man.

Abstract

Vergil, like Livy, narrates Italy, its wars and treaties (arma), over centuries not the life span of one individual (uirum). Aeneas slips in and out of historically different eras, made synchronic by merging of narrative planes. Dido’s Carthage is, architecturally, the Roman city Octavian was rebuilding, not the Punic city Scipio destroyed. Dido’s nightmares of looking in vain for her people in her city are the ‘reality’ she is constructing, long after her traditional death, alongside a hero from centuries earlier. Vergil following Roman epicists, makes Dido Aeneas’ lover, but repositions Anna, his lover in Varro, as the sister Aeneas continues to see, after breaking with Dido. Vergil finds a place for most variants, including Aeneas’ betrayal of Troy. He situates it on (hostile) Juno’s Temple in (hostile) Carthage, only partially accessible to readers, and lets Aeneas deconstruct it, with mixed success. He then gives Dido cause for adding her charges of perfidy - an inversion of the Roman tradition of Carthaginian perfidiousness. Aeneas’ dilemma in Carthage mirrors Vergil’s in Rome: both must deconstruct, without confronting, an already officially monumentalized narrative by the ruler who asks them to narrate: in Vergil’s case, the man the emperor Julian called Oktabianós, chameleon-like in his changing coloration. Vergil’s Aeneas changes with his frequent changes of armour; and so does the background against which he moves. Vergil incorporates and neutralizes Augustan propaganda without direct confrontation: he foreshadows the militarization and deforestation of Avernus during Octavian’s wars with the never-named Sextus Pompey and ends Anchises’ parade of Rome’s future with the funeral of Octavian’s successor. Yet Vergil’s authorial political edge is just part of the picture. He gives us an Aeneas so traumatized by the loss of his prized horses to Diomedes in the Iliadic past that he fights as an infantryman throughout the Aeneid. Vergil’s complex, self-scrutinizing Aeneas far transcends the sum total of elements incorporated into the arms and the man.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Inhalt VII
  3. Vorwort XI
  4. Laudatio XIII
  5. Kurzvita XVII
  6. Schriftenverzeichnis von Christiane Reitz XIX
  7. Tabula gratulatoria XXVII
  8. Autorenverzeichnis XXXIII
  9. Teil I: Die Tradition der epischen Dichtung von Homer bis Milton: Ambivalentes Heldentum und der epische Raum
  10. Einleitung 3
  11. Phoinix über die Verblendung des Helden 7
  12. Aeneas and Octavian: The Sharing of Epic Identity 37
  13. Resonantia saxa – Scylla und die Mauern von Megara (Ov. Met. 8.6–154) 71
  14. Iterum Philippi. La ‘doppiezza di Filippi’ da Virgilio a Lucano 91
  15. „Zweimal Emathien“: Das Proöm zu Lucans Bellum Ciuile und die Georgica Vergils 121
  16. Killed by Friendly Fire. Divine Scheming and Fatal Miscommunication in Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus Episode 145
  17. La mort de Tydée dans la Thébaïde de Stace 181
  18. Regulus and the Inconsistencies of Fame in Silius Italicus’ Punica 201
  19. The Vertical Axis in Classical and Post- Classical Epic 219
  20. Teil II: Literarische Autorität: Dichter, Gattungskonventionen und Erneuerung
  21. Einleitung 241
  22. Numerosus Horatius. Metren und inhaltliche Bezüge im ersten Odenbuch des Horaz 245
  23. The Po(e)ts and Pens of Persius’ Third Satire (The Waters of Roman Satire, Part 2) 267
  24. Schlaflos mit Kallimachos. Eine Interpretation von Stat. Silv. 5.4 285
  25. Enthüllte Göttinnen. Der Blick des Dichters (Ovid und Kallimachos) 311
  26. Macht und Übermacht der Tradition. Dichterkataloge in der lateinischen Literatur von Ovid bis Sidonius 335
  27. Der Mythos von Orpheus und Eurydice bei Ovid und Boethius 359
  28. Apuleius in France: La Fontaine’s Psyché and its Apuleian Model 385
  29. Rote Schafe, Goldene Zeit. Ein märchenhaftes Motiv bei Homer, Vergil und Voltaire 401
  30. Eduard Mörikes Roman von Cerinthus und Sulpicia 419
  31. Teil III: Wissensvermittlung in Text und Bild: Rhetorische Exemplarität und didaktische exempla
  32. Einleitung 449
  33. nempe exemplis discimus. Tradition und Beispiel bei Phaedrus (3.9) 455
  34. The Poetry of Animals in Love. A Reading of Oppian’s Halieutica and Cynegetica 473
  35. Beyond the Fence. Columella’s Garden 501
  36. Zur Vereinbarkeit von ratio und reuerentia in Columellas Umgang mit Vergil 515
  37. A Lesson from the East: A New Pattern of Virility in Ovid’s Fasti 547
  38. Mit Alexander dem Großen und Albinovanus Pedo am Ende der Welt 575
  39. The ‘Controversial’ Continence of Scipio in Literature and Art: Gellius’ Noctes Atticae and Nicolò dell’Abate 595
  40. Titi summa clementia. Unbeachtete Zeugen für ein sprichwörtliches Herrscherbild 617
  41. Disertus vel desertus (Aug. Conf. 2.3.5) 637
  42. The Endeavours and exempla of the German Refugee Classicists Eva Lehmann Fiesel and Ruth Fiesel 655
  43. Bibliography 689
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110612516-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Inhalt VII
  3. Vorwort XI
  4. Laudatio XIII
  5. Kurzvita XVII
  6. Schriftenverzeichnis von Christiane Reitz XIX
  7. Tabula gratulatoria XXVII
  8. Autorenverzeichnis XXXIII
  9. Teil I: Die Tradition der epischen Dichtung von Homer bis Milton: Ambivalentes Heldentum und der epische Raum
  10. Einleitung 3
  11. Phoinix über die Verblendung des Helden 7
  12. Aeneas and Octavian: The Sharing of Epic Identity 37
  13. Resonantia saxa – Scylla und die Mauern von Megara (Ov. Met. 8.6–154) 71
  14. Iterum Philippi. La ‘doppiezza di Filippi’ da Virgilio a Lucano 91
  15. „Zweimal Emathien“: Das Proöm zu Lucans Bellum Ciuile und die Georgica Vergils 121
  16. Killed by Friendly Fire. Divine Scheming and Fatal Miscommunication in Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus Episode 145
  17. La mort de Tydée dans la Thébaïde de Stace 181
  18. Regulus and the Inconsistencies of Fame in Silius Italicus’ Punica 201
  19. The Vertical Axis in Classical and Post- Classical Epic 219
  20. Teil II: Literarische Autorität: Dichter, Gattungskonventionen und Erneuerung
  21. Einleitung 241
  22. Numerosus Horatius. Metren und inhaltliche Bezüge im ersten Odenbuch des Horaz 245
  23. The Po(e)ts and Pens of Persius’ Third Satire (The Waters of Roman Satire, Part 2) 267
  24. Schlaflos mit Kallimachos. Eine Interpretation von Stat. Silv. 5.4 285
  25. Enthüllte Göttinnen. Der Blick des Dichters (Ovid und Kallimachos) 311
  26. Macht und Übermacht der Tradition. Dichterkataloge in der lateinischen Literatur von Ovid bis Sidonius 335
  27. Der Mythos von Orpheus und Eurydice bei Ovid und Boethius 359
  28. Apuleius in France: La Fontaine’s Psyché and its Apuleian Model 385
  29. Rote Schafe, Goldene Zeit. Ein märchenhaftes Motiv bei Homer, Vergil und Voltaire 401
  30. Eduard Mörikes Roman von Cerinthus und Sulpicia 419
  31. Teil III: Wissensvermittlung in Text und Bild: Rhetorische Exemplarität und didaktische exempla
  32. Einleitung 449
  33. nempe exemplis discimus. Tradition und Beispiel bei Phaedrus (3.9) 455
  34. The Poetry of Animals in Love. A Reading of Oppian’s Halieutica and Cynegetica 473
  35. Beyond the Fence. Columella’s Garden 501
  36. Zur Vereinbarkeit von ratio und reuerentia in Columellas Umgang mit Vergil 515
  37. A Lesson from the East: A New Pattern of Virility in Ovid’s Fasti 547
  38. Mit Alexander dem Großen und Albinovanus Pedo am Ende der Welt 575
  39. The ‘Controversial’ Continence of Scipio in Literature and Art: Gellius’ Noctes Atticae and Nicolò dell’Abate 595
  40. Titi summa clementia. Unbeachtete Zeugen für ein sprichwörtliches Herrscherbild 617
  41. Disertus vel desertus (Aug. Conf. 2.3.5) 637
  42. The Endeavours and exempla of the German Refugee Classicists Eva Lehmann Fiesel and Ruth Fiesel 655
  43. Bibliography 689
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