Vergil (P. Vergilius Maro)

Vergil vs. Virgil

Life & Works
o 70 born near Mantua (Cisalpine Gaul)
o ?39/38 Eclogues: 10 pastoral poems,  modelled on Theocritus (3d c. BC)
o Maecenas as patron
o 29 Georgics: 4 books on farming < Hesiod, Works & Days (c. 750 BC)
o 27 -> works on Aeneid
o 19 dies; Aen. published after death

Unfinished State
o Incomplete lines
o Placeholders or "Waiting stones"

Twelve Books (= scrolls)
o vs. 24 for Homer
o 2 x 6 or 3 x 4

The Aeneas Myth & the Aeneid

Basic Legend
o Livy
o Dionysius of Halicarnassus
o Servius

+ Hercules & Evander (Aen. VIII)

Virgilian Innovations
o Dido (Aen. IV)
o Underworld (Aen. VI)

Literary Models

"Primary" vs. "Secondary" Epic

Odyssey -> Bks. I-VI
o Odyssean wanderings (esp. III)
o Flashback (II-III, cf. Od. 9-12)
o Descent to underworld (VI, cf. Od. 11)

Iliad -> Bks VII-XII
o Battle-scenes
o Funeral Games (V, cf. Il. 22)
o Epic catalogue (VII, cf. Il. 2)
o Description of shield (VIII, cf. Il. 18)
o Aeneas/Turnus <-> Hector/Achilles

Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica
o Jason/Medea —> Aeneas/Dido

Republican Epics
o Livius Andronicus, tr. of Odyssey
o Naevius, Punic War
o Ennius, Annals

The Aeneid as Political Poem

Aeneas * Augustus (or Caesar etc.)

Reverberations
o Aeneas/Dido <-> Antony/Cleopatra
o Civil War betw. husband & father

Historical foreshadowing
o Parade of Roman history (VI)
o Roman history on Aeneas' shield (VIII)

Pietas (* piety)  Pius Aeneas
o Acceptance of obligations
 (to gods, family, fellow-citizens ...)

Violence & Reintegration

Grief & Loss
o Dido
o Palinurus
o Nisus/Euryalus; Pallas
o Camilla; Turnus