The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 23

In the opening lines of the poem-

Arma virumque ... multa quoque et bello pa.s.sus-

we find, as in the Odyssey-

??d?a ?? ???epe ... p??e? ???ea ?? ?at? ????-

an announcement of a poem of heroic adventure, of vicissitudes and suffering by sea and land, determined by the personal agency of some of the old Olympian G.o.ds ('vi superum'). The scope of the Aeneid as explained in these lines is however wider than that of the Odyssey, as embracing the warlike action of the Iliad as well as a tale of sea-adventure. But in the statement of the motive of the poems a more essential difference between the two epics is apparent. The wanderings of Odysseus have no other aim than a safe return for himself and his companions. He acts from the simplest and most elemental of human instincts and affections, the love of life and of home,-

????e??? ?? te ????? ?a? ??st?? ?ta????.

Aeneas, like Odysseus, starts on his adventures after the capture of Troy,-

Troiae qui primus ab oris- ?pe? ?????? ?e??? pt???e???? ?pe?se?

but he starts, 'fato profugus,' on no accidental adventure, but on an enterprise with far-reaching consequences, determined by a Divine purpose.

While actively engaged in the personal object of finding a safe settlement for himself and his followers in Italy, he is at the same time a pa.s.sive instrument in the hands of Providence, laying the foundation, both secular and religious, of the future government of the world:-

Multa quoque et bello pa.s.sus, dum conderet urbem Inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae(471).

The difference in character of the two epics is perceptible in the very sound of their opening lines. While the Latin moves with stateliness and dignity and is weighty with the burden of the whole world's history, the Greek is fluent and buoyant with the spirit and life of the 'novitas florida mundi.' The greatness of Aeneas is a kind of 'imputed' greatness; he is important to the world as bearing the weight of the glory and destiny of the future Romans-

Attolens humero famamque et fata nepotum.

Odysseus is great in the personal qualities of courage, steadfastness of purpose and affection, loyalty to his comrades, versatility, ready resource; but he bears with him only his own fortunes and those of the companions of his adventure; he ends his career as he begins it, the chief of a small island, which derives all its importance solely from its early a.s.sociation with his fortunes.

The double purpose of the Aeneid, and its contrast in this respect with the Homeric poems, is further seen in the statement of the motives influencing the Divine beings by whose agency the action is advanced or impeded. As in the opening paragraph Virgil had the opening lines of the Odyssey in view, in the second, which announces the supernatural motive of the poem-

Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso-

he had in view the pa.s.sage in the Iliad beginning with the line-

t?? t' ?? sf?e ?e?? ???d? ??????e ??es?a?;

In the Iliad the supernatural cause of the action is the wrath of Apollo, acting from the personal desire to avenge the wrong done to his priest Chryses: in the Odyssey, it is the wrath of Poseidon acting from the personal desire to avenge the suffering of his son whom Odysseus blinded:-

???? ??se?d??? ?a?????? ?s?e??? a?e?

?????p?? ?e????ta?, ?? ?f?a??? ????se?(472).

The G.o.ds in both cases act from personal pa.s.sion without moral purpose or political object. So too the powers which befriend Odysseus act from personal regard to him and acknowledgment of his wisdom and piety:-

?? pe?? ?? ???? ?st? ??t??, pe?? d' ??? ?e??s??

??a??t??s?? ?d??e, t?? ???a??? e???? ????s??(473).

In the Aeneid, Juno, by whose agency in hindering the settlement of Aeneas in Italy the events of the poem are brought about, acts from two sets of motives; the first bringing the action into connexion with one of the great crises in the history of Rome, the second bringing it into connexion with the Trojan traditions. Prominence is given to the first motive, in the announcement of which the deadly struggle between Rome and Carthage, 'when all men were in doubt under whose empire they should fall by land and sea(474),' is antic.i.p.ated:-

Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni, Karthago ...

hoc regnum dea gentibus esse, Si _qua fata sinant_, iam tum tenditque fovetque.

Progeniem sed enim Troiano a sanguine duci Audierat, Tyrias olim quae verteret arces; _Hinc populum late regem belloque superb.u.m_ Venturum excidio Libyae; sic volvere Parcas(475).

In two other pa.s.sages of the Aeneid this great internecine contest for the empire of the world, which left so deep an impression on the Roman memory, is seen foreshadowing itself, viz. in the dying denunciation and prayer of Dido,-

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor,-

and in the speech of Jupiter in the great council of the G.o.ds in the tenth book-a pa.s.sage imitated from Ennius:-

Adveniet iustum pugnae, ne arcessite, tempus, c.u.m fera Karthago Romanis arcibus olim Exitium magnum atque Alpes inmittet apertas(476).

But to this motive are added other motives, both political and personal,-the memory of her former enmity to Troy arising out of her love to Argos, of the slight offered to her beauty by the judgment of Paris, and of the occasion given to her jealousy by the honour awarded to Ganymede:-

manet alta mente repostum Iudicium Paridis spretaeque iniuria formae, Et genus invisum et rapti Ganymedis honores(477).

These two sets of motives bring out distinctly the two-fold character of the action of the poem, its inner relation to the future fulfilment of the Roman destiny, its more immediate dependence on the past events forming the subject of the Homeric poems. The prominence in Virgil's mind of the Roman over the Greek influences, in which his epic had its origin, is indicated by the position and weight of the line of cardinal significance-

Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem;

just as the dominant influence under which Lucretius wrote his poem is indicated by the position and weight of the line-

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

In entering on the detailed narrative, which forms the main body of the poem, Virgil at once attaches himself to Homer. The action, like the action of the Odyssey, is taken up at that stage immediately preceding the events of most critical interest, after which it advances steadily to the final catastrophe. The slower movement of the story in the years between the fall of Troy and the departure from Sicily is presupposed, and, like the adventures of Odysseus before his departure from the Isle of Calypso, the adventures of Aeneas are subsequently narrated by the princ.i.p.al actor in them. The storm which drives the Trojan fleet to the Carthaginian coast was an incident in the epic of Naevius; but the original suggestion and the actual description of it are due to the account of the storm raised by Poseidon in the fifth book of the Odyssey. Juno, in availing herself of the instrumentality of Aeolus, bribes him by a promise similar to that made to Sleep in the fourteenth book of the Iliad. The description of the harbour in which the Trojan ships find refuge is imitated from that of the harbour to which the Phaeacian ship brings Odysseus; and the success of Aeneas in the chase is suggested by two pa.s.sages in the Odyssey, ix. 154 _et seq._ and x. 104 _et seq._

The speech of Aeneas (198207) again reminds us of the ultimate object of all the vicissitudes and dangers which he encounters:-

Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum Tendimus in Latium, sedes ubi fata quietas Ostendunt(478).

Immediately afterwards we come upon one of the three great pa.s.sages of the poem in which the action is prophetically advanced into the Augustan Age.

These three pa.s.sages (i. 223296, vi. 756860, viii. 626731), like the greater episodes of the Georgics, draw attention directly to what is the most vital and most permanent source of interest in the Aeneid. They serve, along with the opening lines of the poem, better than any other pa.s.sages to bring out the relation both of dependence on the Homeric epic and of contrast with it which characterise the Virgilian epic.

The pa.s.sage before us, the interview between Jupiter and Venus, owes its original suggestion to the scene in the first book of the Iliad in which Thetis intercedes with Zeus, to avenge the wrong done to her son. The object of this intercession is a purely personal one; the result of it is the whole series of events which culminates in the death of Hector. The object which Venus claims of Jupiter is the fulfilment of his promise that a people should arise from the blood of Teucer-

Qui mare, qui terras omni dicione tenerent(479);

the result of her prayer is that Jupiter reveals to her not only the immediate future of Aeneas and the founding of Lavinium and of Alba, but the birth of Romulus, the building of Rome, the ultimate triumph of the house of a.s.saracus over Pthia, Mycenae, and Argos, the peaceful reign on earth and the final acceptance into heaven of the greatest among the descendants of Aeneas, who is there called, not by his later t.i.tle of Augustus, but by the earlier name which he inherited from his adoptive father-

Iulius a magno demissum nomen Iulo(480).

In this pa.s.sage we note (1) Virgil's relation to the earlier poem of Naevius, who had sketched the outline of the scene which is here filled up; and also the reproduction of the diction of Ennius in the pa.s.sage-

Despiciens mare velivolum terrasque iacentis Litoraque et latos populos(481);

and in this-

Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum Voltu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat(482);

and (2) we note a reference to the closing of the gate of Ja.n.u.s in the line-

Claudentur Belli portae;