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Aeneas as hospes in Vergil, Aeneid 1 and 4*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Roy K. Gibson
Roy K. Gibson
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, [email protected]
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Extract

In the opening section of Ovid's Ars Amatoria 3 the poet, in an attempt to gain favour with his female addressees, lists a number of legends where it is men who are the deceivers. In this list he includes Aeneas, et famam pietatis habet, tamen hospes et ensem I praebuit et causam mortis, Elissa, tuae (39–40). The terms in which Aeneas' guilt is cast are striking. Aeneas is criticized not for his lover's faithlessness, but for his shattering of the rules of hospitium. At the heart of hospitium, in as much as it is friendship between strangers, lay the ideals of duty, loyalty, reciprocity, and the exchange of services, pietas (39) includes, in this context, a reference to the guest's sense of, or actual fulfilment of, the duty to pay a proper return on the hospitality received. Aeneas had a reputation for doing his duty as a hospes, i.e. as someone who was conscientious about his duty to make an appropriate return. But, according to Ovid, the return which he actually made was diametrically opposed to a proper return, and consisted of a sword and a reason for Dido to kill herself with it. Ovid's decision to frame Aeneas' guilt in terms of hospitium reflects and emphasis adopted both in his own earlier epistle from Dido to Aeneas (Heroides 7), and (what will concern us more) in the Aeneid itself. The erotic relationship between Dido and Aeneas in Book 4 of the Aeneid evolves out of the hospitium relationship established between them in Book 1. When Aeneas leaves Dido he asserts that their relationship is that of host and guest rather than of husband and wife, and that he has acted and will act well in this hospitium relationship (Aen. 4.334–9). 9). Dido, for her part, even after she has been forced to drop the argument that she and Aeneas are married (Aen. 4.431), continues to attack Aeneas and the Trojans as bad or faithless hospites (Aen. 4.538–41, 4.596–8), and ends by renouncing hospitium with them (Aen. 4.622–9).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , May 1999 , pp. 184 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1999

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Footnotes

*

Versions of this paper were delivered most recently in St Andrews and to the Virgil Society. My thanks to the audiences on both occasions for helpful suggestions. Thanks are also owed to the following for invaluable help and observations (silently incorporated below): F. Cairns, M. Haslam, P. Hardie, S. Heyworth, C. Kraus, D. Nelis, R. Rees, and the anonymous CQ referee. Particular thanks must be offered to John Moles for the rigour of his stimulating observations and criticisms. None of the above should be presumed to agree with the argument.

References

1 See Konstan, D., Friendship in the Classical World (Cambridge, 1997), p. 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Monti, R. C., The Dido Episode and the Aeneid, Mnemosyne Supplement 66 (Leiden 1981), pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

3 However, Vergil does issue an editorial comment on the relationship of ‘marriage’ which evolves out of their hospitium relationship, at 4.171–2 nec iam furtivum Dido meditatur amorem: I coniugium vocat. hoc praetexit nomine culpam.

4 Cf. e.g. Plut. Ant. 53–5.

5 Although my emphases and conclusions differ from those of Monti, my debt to his work is obvious.

6 Of course guest-friendship is an issue outside the Odyssey too, and is often seized upon by abandoned women as a way of publicly expressing their sense of betrayal, for example by Medea and Ariadne; see further Farron, S., Vergil's Aeneid: a Poem of Grief and Love, Mnemosyne Supplement 122 (Leiden 1993), pp. 97–9.Google Scholar Cf. also the only surviving fragment of Callimachus’ treatment of the myth of Phyllis and Demophoon, fr. 556 Pfeiffer νυμΦίε ΔπμοΦóων, äδικε ζένε (compare Ov. Epist. 2.1). For the latter myth, see especially Corte, F. Della, ‘Perfidus hospes’, in Hommages a Marcel Renard (Collections Latomus 101, 1969) 1.312–21 = Opuscula IV (Genova, 1973), pp. 29–38.Google Scholar

7 The obvious danger here is that Vergil's scenes and characters have so many Homeric and other forebears and parallels as to threaten to frustrate the possibility of coherent reading; see Hexter, R., ‘Sidonian Dido’, in R., Hexter and D., Selden (edd.), Innovations of Antiquity (London, 1993), pp. 332–84, at pp. 338–42.Google Scholar

8 Athene-Mentes in Ithaca; Telemachus in Pylos; Telemachus in Sparta; Hermes and Calypso; Odysseus and the Phaeacians; Odysseus and Polyphemus; Odysseus and Aeolus; Odysseus and the Laestrygonians; Odysseus and Circe; Odysseus and Eumaeus; Telemachus and Eumaeus; and Odysseus' homecoming.

9 The embassy to Achilles; Nestor and Odysseus in Phthia; Thetis and Hephaestus; and Priam and Achilles.

10 Demeter in the home of Celeos, and Aphrodite and Anchises.

11 For a brief review of the major hospitality episodes in the Aeneid, see Wiltshire, S. F., Public and Private in Vergil's Aeneid (Amherst, 1989), pp. 83–105.Google Scholar

12 See e.g. Schlunk, R. R., The Homeric Scholia and the Aeneid (Ann Arbor, 1974).Google Scholar

13 See Horsfall, N., PVS 13 (1973–4), 4–6.Google Scholar

14 See Foster, J., PVS 13 (1973–4), 29–30.Google Scholar

15 See Horsfall (n. 13), p. 4 and cf. Venus' references to her fear of Iunonia hospitia (1.671–2). The uncertainty which Vergil manages to create here about the Carthaginians as hosts may be compared to the doubt cast in the Odyssey on just how willing the Phaeacians will turn out to be to help Odysseus (for which see Most, G., ‘The structure and function of Odysseus’ apologoi’, TAPA 119 [1989], 15–30, at 27).Google Scholar

16 Odysseus and Arete and Alcinous; Odysseus and Polyphemus; and Priam and Achilles.

17 But information is revealed by Odysseus to Nausicaa at 6.170ff. It might be objected here that circumstances force Ilioneus to be more open. He has arrived as the spokesman of shiploads of warriors, whereas the arrival of, for example, the unaccompanied Odysseus is considerably less threatening, and so requires less explanation. Note, however, the ‘Homeric’ reception given to Jason and his men at Colchis, at Ap. Arg. 3.299ff.

18 The victory scenes on Juno's temple, which depict Trojan suffering, also signal potential hostility. The interpretation of this episode is, however, controversial. For other views, see most recently Lowenstan, S., ‘The pictures on Juno's temple in the Aeneid’, CW 87 (1993), 37–49Google Scholar, at 48–9, also Hexter (n. 7), pp. 353–7.

19 Konstan (n. 1), p. 36.

20 Ilioneus is no doubt depending on Dido accepting the viewpoint reported by D. Servius, litus enim iure gentium commune omnibus fuit.

21 This threat is later validated rhetorically by Ilioneus through the implicit contrast between the pius and iustus race of the Trojans and their king (1.526, 543–4), and the Carthaginians with their infandi ignes (1.525).

22 Monti (n. 2), pp. 11–12.

23 For officium and its place in the vocabulary of reciprocity, see Saller, R. P., Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 15–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The striking use of this vocabulary in an epic poem such as the Aeneid will receive further comment below.

24 Ilioneus implies that the Trojans are worthy guests also because Aeneas is the equal, if not the superior of Dido in the matter of iustitia (contrast 4.523–4 and 544–5).

25 However, Dido's knowledge of the Trojans, as reflected on the walls of the temple of Juno, may be read as disquieting.

26 Later, at the end of the relationship, Dido claims to be reduced herself to the level of suppliant, whether towards her former African suitors or the departing Trojans, at 4.534ff.

27 This relationship established by such active assistance is distinguished from the one that exists, for example, between innkeeper and guest. The latter is a commercial relationship and not hospitium, as money changes hands instead of gratia and officia. Cf. e.g. Sen. Ben. 1.5.4f., 1.14.1, 3.9.3, 3.35.4, 4.11.3, 4.37f.

28 Herman, G., Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 47ff., 122.Google Scholar

29 On theoxeny, see further Hollis, A. S., Callimachus: Hecale (Oxford, 1990), pp. 341–54.Google Scholar

30 A bath, from which the visitor often rises with enhanced appearance, is another standard element of Homeric reception scenes; see Reece, S., The Stranger's Welcome (Ann Arbor, 1993), pp. 33–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Echoes of it can be detected here.

31 1.585ff. (Achates) ‘ …dictis respondent cetera matris.’ I vix ea fatus erat cum circumfusa repente I scindit se nubes et in aethera purgat apertum.

32 Cf. 7.212ff. (Ilioneus in the embassy to Latinus); 9.501 (Ilioneus’ high position in the camp during the absence of Aeneas).

33 Despite the apparent egalitarianism of 1.572 mecum pariter, this is the implication of 1.574 Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur. I am conscious of a debt in my discussion to Murnaghan, S., Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (Princeton, 1987), pp. 91–103.Google Scholar

34 For the reader who knows Homer, it is also significant that such offers are characteristic of hosts who turn out to be obstructive. In the Spartan episode in the Odyssey, Menelaus’ affectionate wish to resettle a returned Odysseus in the Peloponnese (in return for all the services performed by the latter for Menelaus) eventually turns into a desire to detain Telemachus for as long as possible in Sparta. Similarly the offer of Nausicaa's hand eventually becomes an obstacle to Odysseus’ return home, from which the hero must contrive to extricate himself (cf. Most [n. 15], pp. 27–9). Such offers once made, even when their nature is apparently understood by all parties, become increasingly difficult to ignore. In the Aeneid, Dido's offer of a place in her kingdom ominously foreshadows Aeneas’ apparent acceptance of a role as consort to Dido.

35 See Reece (n. 30), p. 25. The issue of the guest's willingness to return the hospitality appears explicitly later at Aen. 4.537ff.

36 Cf. Sen. Ben. 4.11.3.

37 Cf. Sen. Ben. 2.22 qui grate beneficium accipit, primam eius pensionem solvit.

38 Cf. Sen. Ben. 2.22 quam grate [sc. beneficium] ad nos pervenisse indicemus effusis adfectibus, quos non ipso tantum audiente sed ubique testemur.

39 However Roger Rees points out to me that, even in the Augustan era, the distinction between grates and laudes was rather hazy, and it was conventional for the gratiarum actio to be panegyrical in nature (cf. e.g. Ov. Pont. 4.4.35–9). As a result, in offering enthusiastic thanks, Aeneas may also be acting as a proto-Roman.

40 For these standard elements in Homer, see Reece (n. 30), pp. 20–31, 51–3, 62.

41 For the similarity also to Greek initiation rituals surrounding ξενία, see Herman (n. 28), pp. 22–3, 58–69, 69ff.

42 Cf. Athene-Mentes at Od. 1.318; Laertes at 24.283ff.

43 Dido doubts whether the Trojans will remember all her gifts and services to them, at 4.537ff. This is of course a serious attack on the Trojans’ reputation for returning services.

44 See Reece (n. 30), p. 35 and S. West on Hom. Od. 1.318 (Oxford, 1988).

45 Cf. Liv. 30.15.11 (Scipio and Massinissa); Tac. Ann. 4.26 (the Senate and King Ptolemy of Mauretania). On the immediate exchange of gifts within ritualized friendship in the Greek world, see Herman (n. 28), pp. 60–3.

46 Reece (n. 30), p. 36.

47 For the issue in ancient society of the relative values of services, see Saller (n. 23), pp. 16–17.

48 Other elements in the final sections of Aeneid I evince a similar concern with reciprocity. According to Homeric convention, news and information from the guest might act as a form of recompense for the host's hospitality; see Reece (n. 30), pp. 28, 55–6. Information is asked of Aeneas at 1.748ff. and provided by him in the form of the second and third books of the poem. Dido's demands for information become importunate later at 4.78f. Alcinous is a similarly over-demanding host in the Odyssey.

49 For the Trojans as good hospites in Aeneid 3, even when under pressure or provocation, see Khan, H. A., ‘The Harpies episode in Aeneid 3’, Prometheus 22 (1996), 131–44.Google Scholar

50 See Most (n. 15).

51 Reece (n. 30), pp. 67–9.

52 Hom. Od. 15.68ff. The scenes where Menalaus detains Telemachus in Sparta in fact provide a rich context for the interpretation of Aeneid 4.1–330. On Menelaus’ hospitality, see further Reece (n. 30), pp. 88–98.

53 For the relationship between Anna and Dido, see further D. P. Nelis, The Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (forthcoming).

54 On the issue of the ‘marriage’, however, see especially Green, R., ‘Conubium in the Aeneia’, in C., Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 4 (Collections Latomus 196, 1986), 393–421.Google Scholar

55 For the right hand of hospitium, cf. e.g. Hom. Od. 1.121; Verg. Aen. 2.83 (Anius on Delos) iungimus hospitio dextras et tecta subimus; Monti (n. 2), 3–8; Reece (n. 30), p. 20. It is interesting to note that when Aeneas and Dido meet, host and guest do not take one another by the hand, as is often the case in the Homeric poems (e.g. Telemachus grasps the right hand of Athene-Mentes at 1.121). Reece (p. 20) suggests that for a man and woman to clasp hands suggests seduction, where the man is about to lead the woman off to bed. Vergil instead shows us Aeneas grasping the hands of Ilioneus and his fellow Trojans (1.610ff.).

56 Monti (n. 2), pp. 41–2.

57 On this speech, see especially Feeney, D., ‘The taciturnity of Aeneas’, CQ 33 (1983), 204–19.Google Scholar Feeney sums up well the implication of Aeneas' speech for the issue of the rhetorical appeal to the emotions in public discourse: ‘What Aeneas is telling Dido here is that her words are a reckless incitement of passion, by which both of them are being made to suffer for no purpose: with remonstration and passionate protest alone nothing can be achieved but torture’ (p. 210).

58 For memor and mereo and cognates as part of the language of reciprocity and obligation, see Monti (n. 2), p. 44, also Saller (n. 23), pp. 20–1.

59 For Juno, Jupiter, and hospitium, see Bolchazy, L. J., Hospitality in Early Rome: Livy's Concept of its Humanising Force (Chicago, 1977), p. 27.Google Scholar

60 See Monti (n. 2), pp. 39–40, 57; Saller (n. 23), p. 15.

61 Saller (n. 23), p. 70. For the tension which could arise in such situations, cf. Tac. Ann. 4.18 nam beneficia eo usque laeta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse: ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur.

62 For such ‘unrepayable’ debts, see also Herman (n. 28), p. 122.

63 Furthermore is she confusing her personal hospitium relationship with Aeneas, with the political and more statutory relationship of alliances between states?

64 Herman (n. 28), p. 126.

65 See Gibson, R. K., ‘How to win girlfriends and influence them: amicitia in Roman love elegy’, PCPS 41 (1995), 62–82, at 72–3.Google Scholar

66 Phil. 2.3 …de amicitia quam a me violatam esse criminatus est, quod gravissimum crimen iudico, pauca dicam.

67 This is also an excuse (retrospectively) for Aeneas.

68 Konstan (n. 1), p. 127. Similar accusations were made in the propaganda war between Octavian and Antony-Cleopatra.

69 Cf. Cic. Off. 1.59 haec igitur et talia circumspicienda sunt in omni officio, ut boni ratiocinatores officiorum esse possimus et addenda deducendoque videre, quae reliqui summafiat, ex quo, quantum cuique debeatur, intellegas. In practical terms this is unrealistic, in as much as the services exchanged in Roman society were often different in kind and their relative value could not easily be reckoned (see Sailer [n. 23], pp. 15–17). Nevertheless, the passage is witness to the pressure exerted on participants in social relationships to be seen to reciprocate services adequately.

70 In my formulation here I follow closely Herman (n. 28), p. 118. See also Konstan (n. 1), pp. 36–7.

71 However, note that the narrator calls Aeneas pius directly following Dido's last speech to him (4.393).

72 On the ancient etymological relation of hospes and hostis, see Bolchazy (n. 59), pp. 19–20, and Reece (n. 30), p. 19.

73 For gratia, see Saller (n. 23), pp. 21–2 and Monti (n. 2), pp. 57–8.

74 Cf. esp. 7.27f. ille quidem male gratus et ad mea munera surdus, l et quo, si non sim stulta, carere velim; 89ff. fluctibus eiectum tuta statione recepi l vixque bene audito nomine regna dedi. l his tamen officis utinam content afuissem, l et mihi concubitus fama sepulta foret; 167f. sipudet uxoris, non nupta, sed hospita dicar, l dum tua sit, Dido quidlibet esse feret; 177f. pro meritis et siqua tibi debebimus ultra, l pro spe coniugii tempora parva peto. On the ‘pessimistic’ reading of the Aeneid implicit in the epistle, see, briefly, Knox, P E., Ovid, Heroides: Select Epistles (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 201–2.Google Scholar

75 In a more public and national poem, the Fasti, Ovid may adopt a less incriminatory view of Aeneas. See C. Newlands, ’Ovid's narrator in the Fasti, Arethusa 25 (1992), 33–54, at 42.

76 Cf. also the famous discussion at Ben. 7.25 of Dido's appeal to her favours to Aeneas (Aen. 4.317–18) and of her later accusing list of services (Aen. 4.373–4).

77 Cf. e.g. N.E. 1164a22ff. ‘But which has the better right to assess the value of the service, the man who proffers it, or the one who has actually received it? The latter, because the man who makes the offer virtually leaves the decision to him’; 1164a33ff. ‘When no contract for service is made …the return should be made in proportion to the intention of the benefactor (for it is the intention that counts both in friendship and in virtue)…for the value of this is not measurable in money, nor could such a service be balanced by a gift of honour. Presumably it is enough if (as in the case of the gods or one's parents) the beneficiary makes such a return as lies in his power' (trans. J. A. K. Thomson).

78 Cf. the famous passage in the Confessions: cogebar …et plorare Didonem mortuam, quia se occidit ob amorem …quid enim miserius misero non miserante se ipsum et flente Didonis mortem, quae fiebat amando Aeneam…? (Aug. Conf. 1.13).

79 This issue is sensitively raised and discussed by Vergil, in passages where Aeneas attempts to control the emotions within himself or avoid them when they are of no use to either party; cf. 4.293f., 4.331f., 4.393–5, 4.438ff., 4.447ff.; also Vergil's editorial comment on Dido's emotions at 4.412ff.

80 Ars 1.631–58, where the exceptional nature of the lovers' ethical world is strongly and explicitly marked.

81 This makes the writing of Roman love poetry possible. The love elegists, conditioned to the expectation of reciprocity in their civic relationships with men, are denied this in their erotic relationships with women. The writing of love elegy—in the mode of complaint—is the result.