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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The idea of structural analysis of the Aeneid has been attacked recently by some who believe that too complicated mathematics are involved in line totals involving a golden mean. The object of the present article is to investigate whether simpler numerical effects are discernible in the poem, and whether these effects were deliberately inserted by Virgil.
The significant numbers to be examined in this connexion are 3, 7, 12, and 30. The first three of these are among the ritualistic numbers whose use in the Aeneid was discussed by C. P. Clark, while 30 is among other things part of the series 3, 30, 300 (total 333) which we encounter in Aen. I. 261–96.
page 322 note 1 Duckworth, G. E., Structural Patterns and Proportions in Vergil's Aeneid (University of Michigan, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reviewed by (among others) Getty, R. J., Vergilius 9 (1963), 56–22Google Scholar ; Lloyd, R. B., AjPh 85 (1964), 71–77Google Scholar ; Williams, R. D., CPh lviii (1963), 248–51Google Scholar ; Zell, A. Dal, Phoenix 17 (1963), 314–16Google Scholar ; Dilke, O. A. W., Notes and Queries 210 (1965), 318–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Professor Duckworth has kindly read through the present article and made helpful suggestions. I am greatly indebted also to my colleague Mr. J. D. Christie for his help. The views expressed in the article are of course my own responsibility and are not necessarily shared by those who have discussed it with me.
page 322 note 2 Clark, Clifford P., Numerical Phraseology in Vergil, diss. Princeton, 1913. Clark did not discuss the historical aspect of the 3, 30, 300 series, and wrongly thought that 30o years was established as the duration of Alba. Only Virgil and Justin (see p. 323) have this num ber of years.Google Scholar
page 323 note 1 This, however, conflicts with 5. 626 ff., on which see below, and the line total does not tally with septima here.
page 323 note 2 Plato, , Rep. 546, deals with 3 x 4 x 5 = 60 and its square 3600, and the Pythagoreans were interested in such multiples.Google Scholar
page 323 note 3 Cauer, F., ‘Die römische Aeneassage…’, jahrbücher f. class. Philol., suppl. xv (1887), 95–182Google Scholar; d'Anna, G., Il problema della composizione dell'Eneide (Rome, 1957), p.111.Google Scholar
page 323 note 4 This rather than the battle of Actium (as Sordi, see next note) is the culminating point, 8. 714 ff. Actium is on its own in the centre of the shield, with the rest grouped round.
page 323 note 5 Sordi, Marta, ‘Virgilio e la storia romana del IV sec. a. C.’, Athenæum, N.S. xlii (1964), 80–100.Google Scholar
page 324 note 1 Brown, E. L., Numeri Vergiliani, Coll. Latomus lxiii (1963), pp. 13–15Google Scholar; cf. Grelle, G. Le, ‘Nombres virgiliens…’, LEC xxxiii (1965), 52–63. But from the point of view of paragraphing one might suggest for the 365 lines 43–203 (as given), 257–460 (instead of 259–463 dabit).Google Scholar
page 324 note 2 Hieatt, A. K., Short Time's Endless Monument: the Symbolism of the Numbers in Edmund Spenser's ‘Epithalamion’ (New York, 1960)Google Scholar ; cf. Fowler, A., Spenser and the Numbers of Time (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1964Google Scholar; Brown, E. L., op. cit., Appx. IV.Google Scholar
page 324 note 3 The date was variously given as 390 B.c. (Varro), 387–6 (Polybius), 386 (Diodorus).Google Scholar
page 324 note 4 Diodorus 7. 5. 4–5; Euseb. 4.6. 3.
page 324 note 5 The alternative suggestion of thirty Latin colonies would apply rather to Alba.
page 324 note 6 Knight, W. F. Jackson, in his careful translation, gives for this passage ‘near the sea shore’; but Tiberinus is presumably speaking of his own river banks in the phrase litoreis …sub ilicibus (8. 43, cf. his oris 51). If litus can be used of a river bank, presumably litoreus can too, though there may be no parallel.Google Scholar
page 325 note 1 See Williams, R. D., introd. to Aen. V, pp. xxviiiff.Google Scholar
page 325 note 2 The symbolism of the number seven, some of it too remotely connected with this passage, is given by Cruttwell, R. W., Virgil's Mind at Work, (OxfordBlackwell, 1946), pp. 88 ff.Google Scholar
page 325 note 3 Perhaps another line was intended to take the place of the existing I.46 (see above).
page 326 note 1 The usually given recípient is Jupiter Feretrius. The deified Romulus, who in his lifetime was the legendary first winner of spolia opima, reminds us of his victory, which Virgil regards as starting an epoch (see above).
page 326 note 2 Cf. Conway, R. S., ’The Architecture of the Epic’, Bull. Rylands Libr. ix (1925), 497Google Scholar; id., Harvard Lectures on the Vergilian Age, Harvard U.P., 1928, pp. 145–6Google Scholar; Otis, B., Virgil: a Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford, 1963), PP. 38f.Google Scholar