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Laocoön and Sinon: Virgil Aeneid 2.40—198

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

John P. Lynch
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Extract

Aeneid 2 is for the most part a book of action, telling the whole story of the rapid series of events that led to Troy's final destruction. Aeneas' narrative of these events is fast-paced, almost breathless; it has the flavour and emotional intensity of an eye-witness account rather than a retelling of a past experience. But it is noteworthy that Aeneas begins the story very slowly, by recounting in detail an exchange of speeches between Laocoon and Sinon (40—198). A quick summary of Trojan reactions to the horse might have sufficed for Aeneas' purposes. Virgil's model, Demodokos' song in Homer's Odyssey, treats the debate over the Trojan horse by simply summarizing the three positions taken (Od. 8. 499—513). When Odysseus asked the bard Demodokos to sing the story of the wooden horse (487 ff.), there is no suggestion, either in the wording of Odysseus' request or in the summary of Demodokos' response, of a pivotal debate between Laocoon and Sinon; in Homer's version of the story the major debate was internal to the Trojans and took place after the wooden horse was brought into the city. Why did Virgil have Aeneas linger over the exact words of Laocoön and Sinon? What, beyond a report of causes and events, is suggested by the speeches of Laocoön and Sinon? It would seem that the personalities and oratorical styles of these two men, not just their viewpoints in debate or their roles in the story, are important for the reader to understand.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , October 1980 , pp. 170 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

NOTES

1. Cf. the use of ecce in Aeneas' narrative: vv. 57, 203, 318, 402, 526, 673, 682. The interjection occurs twice as many times in Aeneid 2 as in any other book; Aeneid 6, for all its amazing elements, has ecce only four times.

2. Cato was as much the prototype of the old Roman in Virgil's time as he is now. For Cato's well-known energy, see Nepos Cato 3 (‘In omnibus rebus singulari fuit industria’) and Plutarch, Cato Maior 1.3. For Cato's bodily strength and vigour, see Plutarch, , op. cit., 24. 1Google Scholar. Plutarch appears to be one of the first to note that for Cato le style est l'botnme même (7.1). The same maxim may be applied equally well to Laocoön. On the legend of Laocoön there is a wealth of background information in Kleinknecht, H., ‘Laokoön', Hermes 79 (1944), 66–111Google Scholar.

3. For features of archaic Roman oratory I have used Palmer, L. R., The Latin Language (London, 1954), Ch. 5Google Scholar; Norden, Eduard, Die Antike Kunstprosa (Leipzig, 1898) i, pp. 159–293Google Scholar; Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome (London, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leeman, A. D., Orationis Ratio, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1963)Google Scholar. On Cato's oratorical style in particular, there is some good information in Aulus Gellius, who discusses Tiro's criticisms of some speeches of Cato (Noctes Atticae 6. 3). Norden's rhetorical analyses of speeches in Book 6 are very suggestive (P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VI (2nd edn., Leipzig, 1915))Google Scholar; there are also some useful observations, statistics, and bibliography in Highet's, GilbertThe Speeches in Virgil's Aeneid (Princeton, 1972)Google Scholar, though Laocoön's speech is not analysed.

4. Palmer (above, n. 3), pp. 122, 86.

5. Malcovati, M = H., Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta (2nd edn., Turin, 1955)Google Scholar.

6. Palmer (above, n. 3), p. 123.

7. Cf. many of these same features in the opening of Cato's Pro Rhodiensibus (fr. 163, M) and see the comments on this fragment by Norden (above, n. 3), p. 167.

8. On the colloquial basis of Cato's language, see Palmer (above, n. 3), pp. 121–2; on the afterthought in archaic Roman writing, ibid., pp. 79–80; cf. also Highet (above, n. 3), p. 132 and n. 69. For the use of aut introducing questions as a feature of colloquial style and early comedy, see the commentary of Austin, R. G., Aeneidos Liber Secundus (Oxford, 1963), p. 46Google Scholar (on verse 43 of Laocoön's speech, ‘aut ilia putatis/dona carere dolis Danaum?’).

9. Cf. Plutarch, Cato Maior 7.1: in his speeches Cato was apophthegmatikos kai agonistikos. A good example of Cato's censorious rage is fr. 169, M.

10. The remains of Cato's famous sententiae are collected in Jordan, H., M. Catonis praeter librum de re rustica quae exstant (Stuttgart, 1967), pp. 97 ff.Google Scholar; Plutarch, , Cato Maior 8–9Google Scholar, gives a large sample. For Cato's anti-Hellenic sentiments, see Pliny, , N.H. 29.14Google Scholar.

11. Austin (above, n. 8), pp. 46–7 cites these features of Laocoön's speech that are reminiscent of archaic Roman poetry, but does not generalize on the nature of Laocoön's language. Cf. the remarks of Palmer on Cato's speeches (above, n. 3), pp. 122–3.

12. Palmer (above, n. 3), p. 123.

13. Austin (above, n.8), p. 93 (on v. 194).

14. Highet (above, n. 3), pp. 282–90 concludes his study with some suggestive remarks about the suspicion of oratory in the Aeneid as opposed to the high place given to speaking well in the Homeric epics. He also observes some further qualities in Sinon's speech that emphasize its Greekness and serve to make his words suspect, namely the associations of Sinon's language with Greek tragedy and with the character of Odysseus (pp. 16–17 and 247–8).

15. See Leeman (above, n. 3) i. 120–21, a discussion which nicely reveals the degree of kinship between Sinon's speech and the De Inventione rather than the De Oratore.

16. The episode about Achaemenides, the Greek castaway left behind after Ulysses' encounter with the Cyclops, has long been recognized to contain numerous similarities to the story of Sinon (Aen. 3. 588–654). One commentator suggests that this may be due to the unfinished state of the Aeneid: ‘when Virgil was writing the second book he used this passage as a quarry, intending to recast or remove it later on’ (Williams, R. D., Aeneidos Liber Tertius (Oxford, 1962), p. 181)Google Scholar. It is equally possible, however, that the reminiscences in Aeneid 3 are deliberate and thematic. Virgil may be echoing the Sinon story to pick up the theme of the Trojan's naïveté of oratory: even with the paradigm of Sinon fresh in their minds, the guileless Trojans are still not suspicious of Achaemenides. For other views of the significance of this episode see Highet (above, n. 3), pp. 28–9, n. 20.

17. Some commentators have taken deunt in v. 54 with mens as well as with fata, but as Servius (ad loc.) suggests, such a conjunction is difficult to uphold in view of the way in which deumis separated from mens; cf. the discussion in R. G. Austin's commentary (above, n. 8) ad loc, p. 50. According to the interpretation put forward in this essay, mens would be connected with the Trojan's naïveté of rhetoric and would constitute an ex post facto comment hinting at the sentiment in vv. 195—8 (quoted in the text below).

18. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues at the University of California at Santa Cruz who read a draft of this essay and offered useful criticism: Harry Berger, Jr., Norman O. Brown, Gary Miles, and Mary-Kay Orlandi. Special thanks are also due to Professor Bernard Knox, Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., whose encouragement led me to work up these ideas for publication.