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The Shield of Argive Abas at Aeneid 3.286

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. F. Miller
J. F. Miller
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

Aeneas' stopover at Actium has struck most readers as an Augustan interlude in the odyssey of Aeneid 3. The scene is conspicuous among the other episodes in the trip for its brevity and for the fact that it does not advance the action toward the Trojan exiles' Italian goal. Instead the accent falls on prefiguring actions of Aeneas' distinguished descendant, Octavian, after he achieved victory over Antony at the same site in 31 B.C. Where the future Augustus dedicated spoils from the battle to Actian Apollo and instituted a festival called the Actian Games, the Trojans celebrate athletic games at Actium and their leader affixes an enemy trophy to the temple of Apollo there. This last act, however, Aeneas' dedicatio, points allusively to the mythical past as well as to the Augustan future. To appreciate the full force of that complex reference, which enriches the thematics of the entire scene, hinges on our recognition of a mythological figure whose identity has been long in doubt. The narrator Aeneas reports that he hung up on Apollo's shrine ‘the bronze shield worn by great Abas’ (3.286 ‘aere cavo clipeum, magni gestamen Abantis’). Who is this Abas, and why is his mention here significant?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , December 1993 , pp. 445 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

1 The Augustan background to the scene is even more extensive: Octavian restored and enlarged the Temple of Apollo at Actium and founded the town Nicopolis at the site of his camp. Dio twice refers to dedications in Apollo's honor from the naval spoils: Octavian offered several ships to Actian Apollo, presumably at the temple (51.1.2), and adorned the structure erected at the site of his camp, which contained a shrine of Apollo, with the beaks of the ships captured in the battle (51.1.3). Since 28 B.C. saw both the inauguration of the Actian Games (in Rome and Nicopolis) and the dedication of the Palatine Temple of Apollo, Virgil's mention of a lustration in honor of Jupiter (3.279) may point toward another major religious event of the same year, the censorial lustratio (see Lloyd, Robert B., ‘On Aeneid, III, 270–80’, AJP 75 [1954], 297–8Google Scholar). The two fullest surviving accounts of Octavian's memorialization of his victory at its site (Suet, . Div. Aug. 18Google Scholar and Dio 51.1.1–3) single out the same four measures (dedications; games; city; Temple of Apollo), to all of which Virgil alludes in this episode (on the city cf. 3.276 parvae succedimus urbi with Williams, R. D. ad loc. [P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Tertius, Oxford, 1962]Google Scholar). It is possible that Aeneas' offering of the shield would have evoked yet another contemporary Augustan event, namely, the senate's vote of a gold shield for Augustus in 27 B.C., which was hung up in theJulia, Curia (Res Gestae 34.2Google Scholar). The referee for CQ suggests that, since this shield is in fact known through a provincial copy from Aries, (CIL 9.5811)Google Scholar, the Temple of Apollo at Actium might have been another suitable repository for another copy, alluded to here by Virgil. Be that as it may, to my mind Virgil's primary Augustan reference here seems to be to the naval dedications.

2 At 1.121 one of the Trojan leaders lost in the great storm; an Etruscan ally of Aeneas in 10.170 & 427. Homer has Abantes in possession of Euboea in the catalog of Greek warriors (Iliad 2.536 & 541 [= 4.464]), and a Trojan named Abas at 5.148. Constituent elements of these three Virgilian references are indebted to the Homeric: the name as Trojan, at Aen. 1.121Google Scholar and Il. 5.148; the listing in a catalog of warriors at Aen. 10.170 and Il. 2.536ff.; Abas as a victim killed in an aristeia at Aen. 10.427 and Il. 5.148.

3 Virgil seems, in fact, to be imitating this passage in our verse: note the close verbal, metrical, and syntactical correspondences between Iliad 2.541 (= 4.464) μεγαθμων ρχς Ἀβντων / and Aeneid 3.286 ‘magni gestamen Abantis’/. But such imitation does not rule out the possibility that, as I argue, Virgil is here referring to a specific individual not mentioned by Homer.

4 Acestes (9.128), Achates (10.344), Achilles (11.438; Ecl. 4.36), Aeneas (9.787, 10.159 & 830), Anchises (5.99, 8.168), Cato (6.841), Caesar, (Georg. 4.560Google Scholar), Diomedes (8.9), Hector (6.166), Hercules (8.103), lulus (1.288), Orion (10.763), Theseus (6.122), Turnus (10.503). The first two named may seem to be exceptions, but both are treated as well-known figures in the Aeneid.

5 Servius, D. on Aeneid 3.286Google Scholar. Servius' comment goes in a different direction, identifying Abas as one of the Greeks killed with Androgeos at Troy in Book 2.

6 This clashes with the usual sorts of anachronism in the Aeneid, for a survey of which see Horsfall, N. in Enciclopedia Virgiliana (Rome, 1984), 1.151–4 s.vGoogle Scholar. ‘anachronismi’, with bibliography.

7 Conington, J. and Nettleship, H., The Works of Virgil (London, 1884)Google Scholar: ‘Virg. can hardly be thinking of this mythical person, whose date would involve an anachronism here’; they do note, however, two striking ‘coincidences’ between Virgil's episode and the legend of Argive Abas, on which see below. Cf. MacKail, J. W., The Aeneid (Oxford, 1930)Google Scholar: ‘Who this Abas was…there are no means of determining; Virgil was presumably following some local legend of which there is no record.’ Rose, H. J., commenting on Servius Danielis' supplement to the story in Hyginus 170, says ‘hunc autem Abantem qui apud ipsum Vergilium quaerunt, operam perdunt’ (Hygini Fabulae [Leiden, 2nd ed., 1963], 120Google Scholar. R. D. Williams mentions Abas of Argos but is noncommittal. An exception is Peerlkamp, P. Hofman, P. Virgilii Maronis Aeneidos Libri I–VI (Leiden, 1893)Google Scholar, ad loc: ‘Nobilissimus autem erat hie Abantis clipeus.’ See also note 9 below.

8 Forbiger, A., P. Vergili Maronis Opera II (Leipzig, 1873)Google Scholar: ‘Alludit autem poeta ad celeberrimum ilium clipeum, quern Abas, antiquissimus Argivorum rex, Lyncei f. Perseique avus, in Iunonis templo affixit, ut ab eo, qui in ludis Argis instituendis victoriam reportasset, in sollemni pompa praemii loco gestaretur…Unum igitur ex posteris huius Abantis Maro ab Aenea in bello Troiano occisum armisque spoliatum esse fingit.’

9 Heyne, C. G. notes, in an excursus devoted to the subject (# IX in P. Vergilii Maronis Opera [London, 1793], 2.436Google Scholar; cf. Heyne-Wagner, [Leipzig and London, 1832], 2.580–81): ‘…fingere tacite potuit, fuisse unum ex Argivis principibus, qui ab Abante ad se hereditate transmissum clipeum gestaret; quern a se caesum Aeneas spoliaverit.’Google Scholar Cf. Page, T. E., The Aeneid of Virgil (London and New York, 1894 repr. 1962)Google Scholar, ad loc: ‘Perhaps Virgil supposes this shield to have been taken by some Argive warrior to Troy and there won by Aeneas’; and on 5.360: ‘…the “shield of Abas”, which Aeneas dedicates, seems to be the famous “shield of Abas” usually kept in the temple of Juno at Argos, and which must have been brought to Troy by some Argive champion from whom Aeneas had won it.’ Note the qualification in each instance. Most recently, D'Anna, G. in the Enciclopedia Virgiliana 1.1–2Google Scholar s.v. ‘Abante’ agrees with Forbiger's suggestion.

10 Hyginus 170 and 273.

11 D. Serv. ad loc.: ‘quidam sane Abantem inventorem clipei ferunt.’ On the sons, Proetus and Acrisius, as inventors of shields, see Apollodorus 2.2.1 and Pausanias 2.25.7; cf. Schol. Eurip, . Orestes 965Google Scholar.

12 Cf. Paschalis, M., ‘Virgil's Actium-Nicopolis’, in Nicopolis I. Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Nicopolis (Preveza, 1987), 65Google Scholar. Henry, J., Aeneidea II (Dublin, 1878), 407Google Scholar thinks of Aeschylus, , Agamemnon 577–9Google Scholar as a focus for the ‘tit-for-tat’.

13 Servius, D. on Aeneid 3.287Google Scholar ‘sciendum tamen hunc clipeum ab Aenea apud Samothraciam in templo consecratura, quod poeta per transitum tetigit.’

14 On the whole subject, see Lloyd, R. B., ‘Aeneid III and the Aeneas Legend’, AJP 78 (1957), 391Google Scholar.

15 See Heinze, R., Virgils epische Technik (Leipzig and Berlin, 1915), 103Google Scholar. Dedications to divinities (erection of shrines and temples, sacrifices and other offerings) occur at eleven of the seventeen stops of the Aeneadae reported in the pre-Virgilian accounts. For the details see Lloyd, , ‘Aeneas Legend’, 383–7Google Scholar.

16 Cf. 278 ‘insperata…tellure potiti/lustramurque Iovi votisque incendimus aras’.

17 Paschalis, op. cit., 65.

18 In Book 2 Virgil exploits the word Danai for another learned effect, etymological wordplay (dona Danaum): see 2.36, 44, 49; Moskalew, W., ‘Myrmidons, Dolopes, and Danaans: Wordplays in Aeneid 2’ CQ 40 (1990), 275–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 An additional link may be that both feature Trojan appropriations of things Greek: in the case of the games, the characteristically Hellenic athletic competitions are termed ‘Iliads…ludis’ (3.280; cf. 281 ‘patrias…palaestras’).

20 Hyginus 273' …σπς ν Ἀργει. quibus ludis qui vicit accipit pro corona clipeum, ideo quod Abas Lyncei et Hypermestrae filius nuntiavit Danaum parentibus perisse, cui Lynceus de templo Iunonis Argivae detraxit clipeum quod Danaus in iuventa gesserat et Iunoni sacraverat, et Abanti filio muneri dedit' (cf. 170). On these games see further Pindar, Ol. 7.83Google Scholar, Nem. 10.22, Hesychius s.v. Ἀγὼν χαλκεῖος, CIG 234, 1068, 2810, 3208, and the bibliography cited by Kelly, Thomas, A History of Argos to 500 B.C. (Minneapolis, 1976), 194 note 51Google Scholar.

21 Zenobius 6.52 ὡς τν ν Ἂργει σπδα καθελὼν σεμννεται (Leutsch, E. L. and Schneidewin, F. G., Paroemiographi Graeci [Göttingen, 1839], 1.175Google Scholar).

22 Zacynthus (Dion. Hal. 1.50.3); see Lloyd, , ‘Aeneus Legend’, 391Google Scholar.

23 Cf. Conington-Nettleship: ‘…the story about the games again seems as if it might be glanced at in the Actian games…, as if Aeneas were bearding the old hero on his own ground’. However, they write off this suggestion as resulting from ‘coincidence’.

24 Cf. Paschalis, op. cit., 65 note 49: ‘The fact that Abas was not a hero of the Trojan war is hardly relevant, since the dedication is a purely symbolic act’. Similarly, Cartault, A. finds the Argive provenience of the shield the most important factor: ‘désigné comme le bouclier argien typique et légendaire’ (L'art de Virgile dans l'Énéide [Paris, 1926], 245 and 283 note 1)Google Scholar.

25 The locus classicus is the boar's tusk helmet of Iliad 10.261–71. In the Aeneid both Pallas and Turnus bear their fathers' swords (10.394, 12.90), paralleling Achilles' use of the spear of Peleus in the Iliad (19.387ff.). At Aeneid 10.317–22 the sons of a companion of Hercules bear the club that they have apparently inherited from their father.

26 Eurip, . Her. 695–9Google Scholar, Livy 24.21 (cf. 22.57), both in a state of emergency; and Arrian, , Anab. 6.9Google Scholar. See Page, on Aeneid 5.360Google Scholar.

27 5.359–60 ‘et clipeum…/Neptuni sacro Danais de poste refixum’. The most convincing explanation of the passage remains that by Page, T. E., ‘Note on Virgil, Aeneid 5, 359’, CR 8 (1894), 300–301Google Scholar and in his commentary ad loc.

28 Valerius conflates the Virgilian reference with Apollonius Arg. 1.77–8. See Lemaire, N. E., C. Valerii Flacci Argonauticon libri octo (Paris, 1824), 1.100Google Scholar.

29 Before the Silver Age only in these two passages, Aeneid 7.246 and Met. 1.457 & 13.116. See TLL 1955.43ff.

30 See Met. 15.431–52 (Helenus) in the light of 422–5 just previous. I discuss both imitations of Virgil at length in a forthcoming paper, ‘The Memories of Ovid's Pythagoras’.

31 I borrow the phase from James O'Hara's discussion of a similar instance in (he Fasti: ‘Naming the Stars at Georgics 1.137–8 and Fasti 5.163–82’, AJP 113 (1992), 61Google Scholar.

32 For another example see Miller, J. F., ‘The Fasti and Hellenistic Didactic: Ovid's Variant Aetiologies’, Arethusa 25 (1992), 20Google Scholar and note 24 (on Fasti 1.327–8 & Callimachus, Aetia fr. 75.10–11)Google Scholar.

33 On this practice, see Harrison, S. J., Vergil, Aeneid 10 (Oxford, 1991) on 388–9Google Scholar and Courtney, E., A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (London, 1980) on 7.234Google Scholar.

34 For several useful comments I am indebted to Professors Hans-Peter. Stahl and James O'Hara and the anonymous referee for CQ.