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The Shield of Turnus (Aeneid 7.783-92)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

M. R. Gale
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Extract

Much has been written about the lengthy ecphrasis of the shield of Aeneas at the end of the eighth book of the Aeneid. It is less frequently remarked that the ecphrasis balances a shorter – but perhaps no less significant – description of Turnus’ arms at the end of the preceding book. If Aeneas’ shield is emblematic of the imperial destiny which rests upon his shoulders, a similarly symbolic value may also be attributed to the decoration on the armour of his opponent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , October 1997 , pp. 176 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

Notes

1. For earlier discussions, see Small, S. G. P., ‘The Arms of Turnus: Aeneid 7.783–92’ TAPhA 90 (1959), 243–52Google Scholar; Buchheit, V., Vergil über die Sendung Roms (Heidelberg, 1963), 108–15Google Scholar; Putnam, M. C. J., ‘Aeneid VII. and the Aeneid’, AJPh 91 (1970), 408–30Google Scholar; Breen, C. C., ‘The Shield of Turnus, the Swordbelt of Pallas, and the Wolf,’ Vergilius 32 (1986), 63–71Google Scholar; Hardie, P. R., ‘Augustan Poets and the Mutability of Rome’, in Powell, A. (ed.), Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (London, 1992), 59–82Google Scholar.

2. The phrase ‘argumentum ingens’ is suggestive: though argutnentum is the regular technical term of the subject or theme of a work of art, the word can also denote ‘a symbolic representation, symbol’ (OLD s.v. §4; e.g. Pliny, , N. H. 29.54, 35.142)Google Scholar. When Aeneas’ shield is described at the end of the next book, the poet again employs a phrase which seems designed to draw attention to the reader's task of interpretation: the shield is ‘non enarrabile textum’, ‘a fabric that cannot be (fully) described’ (the noun ‘textum’ hints at the act of poetic composition: though it apparently did not take on the meaning ‘text’ until a slightly later period, the metaphor of writing as weaving was well established by the late Republic; see further Scheid, J. and Svenbro, J., The Craft of Zeus (Harvard, 1996), 131–55Google Scholar, and Laird, A. J. W., ‘Utfigurapoesis: Writing Art and the Art of Writing in Augustan Poetry’, in Eisner, J. (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge, 1996), 75–102 (77–81 on Aeneas' shield))Google Scholar.

3. For Hera/Juno as the agent of metamorphosis, see e.g. Aesch, . Suppl. 299Google Scholar, Propertius 2.33.9. A convenient conspectus of different versions of the myth can be found in Irving, P. M. C. Forbes, Metamorphosis in Greek Myths (Oxford, 1990), 211–16Google Scholar.

4. For a modern theory linking metamorphosis with sexual transgression, see Forbes Irving, op. cit., esp. 58–79. Irving notes that stories of females transformed into animals all involve illicit sexual activity, and suggests that they reflect ‘the traumatic effect of an unorthodox or illegitimate change from young girls to sexual objects’ (68). No clear distinction is made between rape and seduction; it is always the female partner who is transformed, whether or not she is represented as compliant. Metamorphosis reflects the ‘wildness’ and dangerous nature of female sexuality: in Io's case, the gadfly is a kind of doubling or repetition of the metamorphosis itself, since the maddening of the heifer separates her still further from civilized society.

5. According to Hesiod, they were punished ‘because of their lustfulness’ (εῑνεκα μαχλοσύνης, fr. 132 Merkelbach-West), though other versions identify their crime as insulting Bacchus or Hera/Juno (Bacchylides 1.43–58, Apollodorus 2.2.1, Probus on Eel. 6.48).

6. The reiterated phrase ‘a! virgo infelix‘ (‘ah! unfortunate girl’, Eel. 6.47 and 52 (cf. Aen. 4.68, 78, 450 etc.) echoes Calvus fr. 9 Courtney, ‘a! virgo infelix, herbis pasceris amaris’ (‘ah! unfortunate girl, you graze on bitter grass’, of the transformed Io). Thomas, R. F. (‘Theocritus, Calvus and Eclogue 6’, CPh 74 (1979), 337–9)Google Scholar also compares ‘pallentds ruminat herbis’ (‘he [Pasiphae’s bull] chews pale grass’) in Eel. 6.54. The meagre fragments of Calvus’ Io give us little to go on, but it is tempting to speculate that the poem was an important intertext not only for Eel. 6 and Aen. 4, but also for several passages of the Georgics (cf. Thomas ad 3.152—4 and 219) and for the depiction of Io's metamorphosis on Turnus’ shield. Ross, D. O. (Virgil's Elements: Physics and Poetry in the Georgics (Princeton, 1987), 162)CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that the Io ‘must have been a poem of a more serious character than our sensibilities can allow, clouded over with animal passion, with divinity, vengeance, madness, and final release and revelation’. Note also that both Pasiphae and Dido wander aimlessly through the mountains/city, displaying behaviour which is characteristic both of unrequited lovers and of cattle (as Thomas points out); both resemble the metamorphosed Io.

7. Pasiphae is also mentioned at the beginning ofAeneid 6, where she figures on the doors of the temple of Apollo. Again, her perverse passion is described with a mixture of pity and horror: it is both ‘crudelis amor tauri’ (‘cruel love for a bull’, 24) and ‘Venus nefanda’ (‘unspeakable love’, 26). The ecphrasis as a whole contains echoes of the Dido episode, as well as looking forward (through its images of death and the mysteries of the labyrinth) to Aeneas' katabasis.

8. The parallel between Turnus and Dido is made particularly clear in the lion simile at the opening of book 12: where Dido was compared to a wounded deer, Turnus is likened to a wounded lion, and the link is pointed by the fact that the scene is set ‘in the lands of the Carthaginians’ (12.4). It might be objected that Turnus’ ruling passion is aggression rather than love; but sexual desire and battle-lust are always closely associated in Virgil, and sometimes barely distinguishable (cf. Eel 10.44, Aen. 9.182–3 (with Hardie's commentary ad loc.) and 12.70f.). All such violent emotions are regarded as furores, and have similarly destructive effects on the individual and society. Turnus’ ‘brutalization’ is discussed further below.

9. Geo.3.242–83. So too Dido is transformed from helpless victim (69–73) to vengeful and implacable enemy (607–29; note also that her first reaction to Aeneas’ desertion is to threaten violence (592–4)).

10. The anaphora ‘quid iuvenis… quid lynces’ (‘what of the young man…? what of lynxes?’, 258/264) helps to create the impression that Leander is simply one item in an undifferentiated list. Cf. Putnam, M. C. J., Virgil's Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgics (Princeton, 1979), 199Google Scholar; and the commentary of Mynors ad loc.

11. The halcyon is associated with the myth of Alcyone and her husband Ceyx, who were both changed into sea-birds, either as a punishment for impiety (Apollodorus 1.52) or because the gods took pity on the couple when Alcyone leapt into the sea on hearing that her husband had been shipwrecked (Ovid, Met. 11.410ff.). On metamorphosis myths in the Georgics generally, see Frentz, W., Mythologisches in Vergils Georgica (Meisenheim am Glan, 1969), 72–108 (86–93 on Nisus, Scylla, and Alcyone)Google Scholar.

12. ‘hunc quoque… arcebis… pecori’ (154–5) – ‘sed non ulla magis industria firmat/quam Venerem et caeci stimulos avertere amoris’ (209–10); ‘nam mediis fervoribus acrior instat’ (154) – ‘vere magis, quia vere calor redit ossibus’ (272); ‘diffugiunt’ (150) – ‘diffugiunt’ (277); ‘furit’ (250) – ‘furias’ (246), ‘furor’ (266); ‘furit mugitibus aether/concussus silvaeque’ (150–1) – ‘reboant silvae et longus Olympus’ (223). There seems also to be an etymological play on ‘asilo’ (‘gadfly’, 147) and the obscure place-name Sila, the setting for the battle of rival bulls in 219: the bulls are ‘goaded’ by love as the cows/Io are goaded by the gadfly (cf. Thomas, R. F., ‘Gadflies (Virg. Geo. 3.145–148)’, HSCP 86 (1982), 84Google Scholar: Ross, , op. cit. (n. 6), 157–63)Google Scholar. The phrase ‘caeci stimulos amoris’ in 210 might also constitute a play on the subsidiary meaning of the Greek οἶστρος (‘gadfly’), which can also have the more abstract sense ‘sting’ or ‘smart of pain’; notably, Epicurus uses the word in this sense, with reference to eros(fr. 483). Thomas (commentary, ad loc.) detects another possible allusion to Calvus in 219, suggesting that Virgil's beautiful heifer is based on a description of the metamorphosed Io; such an echo would provide a further link between the two passages.

13. Though there is no explicit reference to the myth here (the bird's young have been taken by a ‘cruel ploughman’), the nightingale's mournful song had been identified since Homer (Od.19.518–24) as Procne's lament for her murdered child, whom the sisters cooked and fed to his father in revenge for the latter's rape of Philomela. (There is some confusion in the tradition as to which sister is which: for Greek writers, Procne is usually the mother of Itys, and is changed into a nightingale, while Philomela becomes a swallow; at some stage, the names were transposed, so that Virgil's Procne is the swallow, and Philomela is the nightingale and Itys’ mother.)

14. ‘Man and Beast in Lucretius and the Georgics’, CQ 41 (1991), 414–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Virgil's Metamorphoses: Myth and Allusion in the Georgics’, PCPS 41 (1995), 36–61Google Scholar(esp. 48–52).

15. Lucretius' Venus is ‘delight of gods and men’ (1.1), brings to birth ‘every species of animal’ (1.4) and ‘instils desire in the hearts of all’ (1.19): these ideas are condensed in Geo. 3.242–4 (with close verbal parallels), but given a very different tone and emphasis. DRN 1.14–20, where Venus is described as leading eager animals through meadows and rushing rivers, is also closely echoed in the behaviour of Virgil's horses (3.253–4 and 269–70). Hardie, (Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperiwn (Oxford, 1986), 164)Google Scholar puts forward the attractive suggestion that the etymological play on the name hippomanes, which is interpreted by implication as ‘horse-madness’ (‘furor equarum’, 266), recalls Lucretius’ play on amor and umor (‘liquid’, i.e. semen) in 4.1055–60. See further Gale, ‘Man and Beast’, 419–20.

16. Both poets use the metaphors of fire, wound, and madness: these are conventional (particularly in amatory epigram), but the transference from man to animal is striking in view of the highly Lucretian context. Note also that the ‘unseen goads’ and ‘hidden snare’ of love (210, 217) both recall Lucretian metaphors (cf. DKN4.1120, 1153; 1082, 1215; 1059, 1062; 1145).

17. Cf. Reckford, K. J., ‘Latent Tragedy in Aeneid 7.1–285’, AJP 82 (1961), 252–69;Google ScholarSegal, C. P., ‘Circean Temptations: Homer, Vergil, Ovid’, TAPA 99 (1968), 419–42Google Scholar; Putnam, op. cit. (n. 1); Hardie, op. cit. (n. 1).

18. On allegorical interpretation and its influence on the composition of the Aeneid, see Schlunk, R. R., The Homeric Scholia and the Aeneid (Ann Arbor, 1974), 33–5Google Scholar; Hardie, , op. cit. (n. 15), especially 26–32Google Scholar; Feeney, D. C., The Gods in Epic (Oxford, 1991), 10–37 and 132–7Google Scholar. On allegorical interpretations of the Circe myth, Kaiser, E., ‘Odysee-Szenen als Topoi’, MH 21 (1964), 197–208;Google ScholarYarnall, J., Transformations of Circe: The History of an Enchantress (Urbana and Chicago, 1994), 53–98Google Scholar (and 80–6 on Circe in the Aeneid).

19. Homer's Circe keeps lions and wolves as pets (CW. 10.212–19), but it is unclear whether they are metamorphosed humans (as Eurylochus believes, 433) or simply magically tamed animals. Commentators are divided: contrast Heubeck and Hoekstra with Stanford ad loc.

20. Juno: 287, 592; Allecto: 329, 511; Mars: 608. Cf. Segal (op. cit. (n. 17) ), who also points out links between Circe and Allecto established by their use of poison (Circe's ‘potent herbs’, 19 and the poison of Allecto's snakes, 341 and 354) and association with monstrous creatures (monstra,21, 348 and 376).

21. Compare the striking way that Circe's victims are described: ‘quos… induerat Circe in vultus ac terga ferarum’ (‘whom Circe had covered/dressed with the faces and hides of beasts’, 20). Note also ‘fremens’ in 389.

22. Though the pretended rites are consciously undertaken as a ploy to delay Lavinia's marriage or formal betrothal (385–8), the women's mental state resembles the ecstasy of bacchic worship (392–3), and Allecto is described as driving Amata with the ‘goads of Bacchus’ (405). Cf. 4.300–3, where Dido, in the frenzy of love and anger, is compared to a bacchant.

23. For the full story, see Ovid, , Met. 14.312ffGoogle Scholar. It is notable that in Ovid's version, Circe's lustful character is stressed throughout (not just in the Picus story: see also Met. 14.1–74 for the story of Glaucus and Scylla, and 223–307 for her transformation of Odysseus’ companions). The point is made explicitly in 14.25–6, ‘neque enim flammis habet aptius ulla/ talibus ingeniuma’ (‘no other woman has a character so susceptible to the flames of passion’). The influence of the allegorical tradition – still latent in the Virgilian version – has come to the fore in Ovid's reworking.

24. Horses in the Georgics are associated with both war (‘bellator equus’, 2.145; cf. also 3.83, 90–1, 116, 179–86) and lust (266–83). They are also fiery creatures: note especially ‘volvit sub naribus ignem’, 3.85, picked up in the description of Latinus’ horses, ‘spirantis naribus ignem’, Am. 7.281 (also 98–100 and 271; cf. Ross, op. cit. (n. 6), 153). In the Aeneid, horses are associated with war through the omens of 1.443–5 and 3.537–43 (though in the latter case they are also said to offer ‘the hope of peace’); fire is associated with war and passion throughout the poem, especially in books 2, 4 and 7 (cf. Knox, B. M. W., ‘The Serpent and the Flame’, AJP 71 (1950), 379–400Google Scholar; Fenik, B., ‘Parallelism of Theme and Imagery in Aeneid 2 and 4’, AJP 80 (1959), 1–24Google Scholar; and n. 43 below).

25. Hardie, , op. cit. (n. 1), 63–4Google Scholar.

26. Two further examples of metamorphosis relevant to my theme are the transformation of Cycnus into a swan, briefly described in 10.189–93 and referred to as a crimen of Amor; and the fate of the companions of Diomedes, who were changed into birds (11.271–4) as a punishment (Diomedes suggests) for their ‘violation’ of Troy and, more specifically, the ‘madness’ (‘demens’, 276) of the hero's attack on the gods themselves. The other examples mentioned by Hardie (the fate of Polydorus in book 3, Acestes’ portentous arrow in 5, the metamorphosis of the Trojan ships in 9) are not so pertinent here, since they do not involve animals.

27. Cf. esp. ‘nee iam se capit unda’ (‘and now the surging water cannot contain itself) in 466 with line 298 of the Lucretian passage. Turnus also growls (fremit, 460) like Lucretius’ lion (‘fremitu’, 297); and note that fiery Turnus is compared to a lion roused to violence in 12.3–9, while his sparkling eyes in 12.102 (‘oculis micat acribus ignis’, ‘fire flashes from his keen eyes’) recall those of the angry person in Lucretius 3.289 (‘ex oculis micat acrius ardor’, ‘heat flashes more keenly from his eyes’). Cf. also the ‘irae’ of Circe's lions in 7.15.

28. Anger is describe as a smoking torch in DRN 3.303f. (‘irai fax…/ fumida, suffundens caecae caliginis umbra‘, ’the torch of anger, suffusing [the mind] with the shadow of blinding blackness’); the Lucretian phrase is compressed by Virgil into the striking oxymoron ‘atro/lumine fumantis… taedas’ (‘torches smoking with black light’, 7.456f.).

29. See especially 2.700–6 (with the dismissive observation that such things obviously don't happen, 707) and 2.817–25; cf. the dismissal of monstrous or portentous creatures in 1.199–204 and 5.891–4.

30. This principle is particularly clear in the discussion of personality types (3.296–306) which, as we have just seen, Virgil echoes in his account of Turnus’ ‘metamorphosis’. The fixity of animal characteristics is used as the basis for a reductio ad absurdum later in the same book (3.748–53), where Lucretius argues against the doctrine of metempsychosis on the grounds that reincarnation of the same soul in the body of a different animal would necessarily result in aberrant behaviour (dogs would flee from deer, doves would chase hawks, animals would possess the faculty of reason). Cf. also 1.188–90.

31. In Georgics 3, Virgil's engagement with Lucretius is ‘flagged’ by means of verbal echoes: both the references to metamorphosis myths discussed above are preceded by allusions to passages where Lucretius takes an explicitly or implicitly anti-mythological stance. The phrase ‘quorum Graimeminere poetae’ in 90 echoes a Lucretian ‘distancing formula’, used (with minor variations) to reject mythological explanations of various phenomena in 2.600, 5.405, and 6.754; while the fiery nostrils attributed to the ideal horse a few lines earlier (‘volvit sub naribus ignem’, 85) recall the horses of Diomedes as described in the proem to DRN 5 (‘spirantis naribus ignem’, 30), where the poet is ridiculing the exploits of Hercules. Similarly, Virgil's gadfly is ‘asper, acerba sonans’ (149), a phrase which recalls Lucretius’ dragon of the Hesperides, ‘asper, acerba tuens’ (533).

32. See especially 5.878–924; cf. 4.732–48.

33. Feeney (op. cit. (n. 18), 162–72) argues that it is impossible to take Allecto simply as a device for revealing the characters’ psychological state; the incompatibility between different reading conventions (the gods as ‘literal’ participants in the action versus the gods as psychological symbols) is such that we cannot determine for certain whether Amata and Turnus are in control of their actions or not.

34. The link is pointed by the reference to the promontory of Circei in 799, as one of the areas from which Turnus’ followers are drawn. Io's bristly hide (‘saetis obsita’, 790) also recalls Circe's pigs (‘saetigeri sues’, 17).

35. Lion: 9.792–6, 10.454–6, 12.4–9; tiger: 9.730; wolf: 9.59–64, 565–6; eagle: 9.563–4. Cf. Pöschl, V., The Art of Vergil: Image and Symbol in the Aeneid (trans. Seligson, G., Ann Arbor, 1962), 98–9Google Scholar. The monstrous Mezentius is similarly characterized: he is likened to a lion in 10.723 and a boar in 708. Aeneas and his comrades are compared to hungry wolves in 2.355–60, when driven by the frenzy (‘furor’, 355) of despair to seek death in the futile defence of Troy; shortly afterwards, they stoop to the ruse of dressing in Greek armour, which must be seen, in the context of Ulysses’ and Sinon's despicable deceits, as morally questionable (note especially Coroebus’ comment in 2.390). The ploy can also be seen as a kind of metamorphosis: the Trojans ‘put on’ (‘induitur’, 2.393) a new outward form, just as Circe ‘puts the appearance of beasts’ (‘induerat’, 7.20) on her victims; and note also ‘mutemus’ in 2.389. A borderline case is the hunting-dog simile in 12.749–57: while not precisely predatory, the dog is certainly aggressive compared to the deer (Tumus) it is pursuing (contrast the hunted lion in the opening lines of book 12). Compare also 10.565–570, where Aeneas, at his most aggressive after the death of Pallas, is likened to the fire-breathing giant Aegaeon, one of the primeval enemies of Jupiter. Other Trojans are compared to animals only at moments when they are behaving less than honourably (Nisus is like a lion when slaughtering sleeping Italians in 9.339; Arruns slinks away like a wolf after his cowardly attack on Camilla, 11.811).

36. Cf. Cicero, , De Officiis 1.34Google Scholar: ‘Wars should be undertaken to this end, that we may live in peace without injury.’ Attitudes towards warfare and conquest amongst Virgil and his contemporaries are usefully explored by Lyne, R. O. A. M., ‘Vergil and the Politics of War’, CQ 33 (1983), 188–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. also my ‘War and Peace in Lucretius and the Georgics’, PVS 23 (forthcoming).

37. See Hunter, R. L., ‘Bulls and Boxers in Apollonius and Virgil’, CQ 39 (1989), 557–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Cf. note 11 above.

39. The sequence of animal similes spanning book 12 strikingly illustrates Turnus’ increasing helplessness and Aeneas’ increasing aggression: in the opening scenes, Turnus is like a wounded lion which turns on its hunters (4–9), and then a bull working itself up for a fight (103–6); at the end of the book, the heroes are at first evenly matched (both bulls, in the passage under discussion), but Turnus is soon reduced to the role of prey, with Aeneas again playing the part of hunter (note the echoes ‘puniceae’, 750 – ‘Poenorum’, 4; Venator’, 751 – ‘venantum’, 5; but the deer is ‘territus’ (752) where the lion was ‘impavidus’ (8)).

40. Anchises’ exhortation seems in fact to represent a widely held ideal of justice in war: the conquered should be treated with compassion, provided that it is safe to do so (cf. Cicero, De Officiis1.35; Prop. 2.16.41–2 and 3.22.21–2; Horace, , Carmen Saec. 51–2Google Scholar; Augustus, , Res Gestae 3.2)Google Scholar.

41. On the ending, see most recently Galinsky, G. K., ‘How to be Philosophical about the End of the Aeneid, ICS 19 (1994), 191–201Google Scholar, where he defends (with minor modifications) the conclusions reached in his earlier article, ‘The Anger of Aeneas’ AJP 109 (1988), 321–48)Google Scholar. Galinsky invokes contemporary philosophical debate in order to show that anger would not necessarily be regarded as a vice by the Augustan reader, and that Aeneas’ victory is not therefore compromised. The very fact, however, that the nature of anger was the subject of controversy amongst the philosophical schools must surely increase, rather than decrease, the openness of the ending. Virgil's reader was (and is) not obliged to believe anger to be either a good thing or a bad thing and the fact that the emotion has so often been associated with Turnus up to this point should at least give us pause. Aeneas himself is depicted as working up his own anger on the eve of the duel (12.108), suggesting that it is a quality essential to the warrior; but he also tries to restrain the irae of others when the truce is broken (314). Turnus’ final plea ‘ulterius ne tende odiis’ (‘do not carry your hatred further’, 938) echoes, perhaps disingenuously, Aeneas’ own earlier sentiments. Again, we might see a significant contrast between Aeneas’ deliberate manipulation of his own anger and Turnus’ lack of control (contrast the active verbs in 12.108, where Aeneas works himself up into a suitably aggressive state of mind, with the passive ‘agitur furiis’ (‘is driven on by fury’) used of Turnus in 101); but in the final scene it is Aeneas who is in the grip of furiae (‘furiis accensus’, ‘set on fire by fury’, 12.946).

42. The symbolism of the helmet is well analysed by Buchheit, , op. cit. (n. 1), 111–12Google Scholar, Small, op. cit. (n. 1), and especially Hardie, , op. cit. (n. 15), 118–19Google Scholar.

43. Note particularly the opening scenes of book 9, where the ‘fire’ of Turnus‘ anger (66) becomes the literal fire with which he attacks the ships (71–7) and later (535–7) the Trojan camp (cf. Pöschl, , op. cit. (n. 35), 130)Google Scholar. Again at the beginning of book 12, Turnus is ‘fired’ by the thought of the coming duel (3, 55, 71 and especially 101–2; cf. also 325, 670, and 732). It should be noted, however, that fire is an ambiguous symbol throughout the Aeneid, since it may signify greatness or victory as well as destructiveness and passion: note especially the flames which play around the heads of lulus (2.682–6), Augustus at Actium (8.680–1), and Aeneas himself (10.270–1).

44. Hercules’ behaviour in the fight with Cacus has something of the monstrous about it, and in places he sounds disturbingly similar to his opponent: he blazes with anger (‘exarserat’, 219, ‘fervidus’, 230), gnashes his teeth (230), and is afflicted with furious rage (‘furiis’, 219, ‘furens animi’, 228). Similarly, Aeneas, when enraged by his failure to save Pallas, is compared to the firebreathing giant Aegaeon: the simile would not seem out of place if applied to the Chimaera-like Turnus, and implies a startling – if temporary – similarity between the two heroes. On Hercules and Cacus, see further Galinsky, G. K., ‘The Hercules-Cacus Episode in Aeneid 8’, AJP 87 (1966), 18–5Google Scholar; Hardie, , op. cit. (n. 15), 110–18Google Scholar; on Aeneas and Aegaeon, Hardie, , op. cit., 154–6Google Scholar; O'Hara, J. J., ‘They Might Be Giants: Inconsistency and Indeterminacy in Vergil's War in Italy’, Colby Quarterly 30 (1994), 206–32Google Scholar.

45. Cf. Servius on 6.288, where he gives a detailed allegorical interpretation. The volcano is also mentioned by Pliny, N.H. 2.110.

46. Cf. Hardie, op. cit. (n. 15), 85–156, especially 85–90 and 125–43 on the political symbolism of the gigantomachy.

47. The Chimaera itself is dismissed as an absurdity in 5.901–6.

48. The word ‘fornacibus’ (‘furnace’, ‘forge’), however, suggests a rationalization of the other myth connected with Etna, which is sometimes the site of the forge where the Cyclopes make Jupiter's thunderbolts: cf. Hardie, , op. cit. (n. 15), 185–7Google Scholar; Gale, M. R., Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994), 187Google Scholar.

49. On the ambiguity of pre-war Italy and its inhabitants, cf. O'Hara, op. cit.

50. Cf. ‘tegimen… indutus capiti’ (‘a hide which covered his head’, 666–8) with ‘induerat… in vultus ac terga lerarum’ (‘she had covered with the faces and hides of beasts’, 20). The lion-skin also has ‘terrible bristles’ (‘saeta’, 667) like Circe's pigs (‘saetigeri’, 17).

51. The link is pointed by the repetition of the epithet ‘nubigenae’ (‘cloud-bom’) in 7.674 and 8.293.

52. ‘oliviferae Mutuscae’ (‘olive-bearing Mutusca’, 711), ‘vertunt felicia Baccho Massica qui rastris’ (‘those who turn with their hoes the Massic soil, fertile for vines’, 725–6), ‘maliferae… Abellae’ (‘Abella with its apple-orchards’, 740) and especially ‘armati terram exercent’ (‘they work the soil under arms’, 748), which looks forward to the speech of Numanus Remulus in book 9 (esp. 609–13).

53. The relatively lengthy account of Hippolytus son Virbius, who comes between Umbro and Turnus in 761–82, can perhaps also be fitted into this pattern. Hippolytus himself is a victim of furor, destroyed through the wiles of his spurned step-mother Phaedra. He is subsequently revived, thanks to the chaste love of Diana, and lives out his life in pastoral seclusion in the grove of Egeria (with ‘ignobilis’ (‘inglorious’, 776) compare the poet's ‘ignobile otium’ (‘inglorious ease’), contrasted with the active life of the conquering hero Octavian at the end of the Georgics (4.560–4)). But Hippolytus’ son Virbius is apparently oblivious to the destructiveness of passion manifested in his father's death: he rushes eagerly into battle in a chariot drawn (significantly) by ‘fiery’ (‘ardentis’) horses (781–2). We have already explored the associations between fire and destructive passion, and between horses and war; and Virbius’ chariot may remind us of the runaway chariot of war at the end of Georgics 1. We are left to wonder whether Virbius will prove any more able to control his horses amidst Hit furor of war than his father was when confronted by the sea monster called up by Theseus’ curse. On another level, the chariot itself suggests self-control and the possibility of losing it: for the soul as charioteer, see especially Plato, , Phaedrus 246a–57eGoogle Scholar; madness is commonly likened to a chariot out of control by the tragedians (Aeschylus, , Choe. 1021–4Google Scholar, P.V. 882–4; Euripides, , El. 1253Google Scholar, Or. 36, IT. 82–3).

54. This point is developed at length by Putnam, M. C. J., ‘Virgil's Danaid Ecphrasis’, ICS 19 (1994), 171–89Google Scholar, who, however, takes the ecphrasis ultimately to imply a fairly clear-cut condemnation of Aeneas (and Augustus).

55. Conte, G. B. (‘The Baldric of Pallas: Cultural Models and Literary Rhetoric’, in The Rhetoric of Imitation (Ithaca and London, 1986), 185–95)Google Scholar also draws attention to the connexion between the marriage motif and the theme of premature death as developed in sepulchral inscriptions and elegiac poetry: the death of an unwed youth is considered particularly pitiful. Cf. 6.307 and 10.720.

56. Putnam, (op. cit. (n. 54), 178)Google Scholar points out that Turnus' supplication of Aeneas can also be linked with the Danaid myth, in which supplication is an important motif.

57. The arms of Haemonides are similarly taken away for dedication by Serestus, 10.541–2.

58. Aeneas’ action accords with the ideal (often expressed, though perhaps seldom adhered to) that the general's share of war-spoils should be used for public benefaction, rather than selfaggrandizement: see, for example, Cicero, , De Officiis 2.76Google Scholar, where Aemilius Paulus and Mummius are praised for using spoils to ‘adorn’ Italy rather than enrich their own property. For the idea that magnificence in the public sphere should ideally be combined with personal frugality, see also Sallust, , Cat. 9.2Google Scholar, Cic., Flacc. 28Google Scholar, Mur. 75, Hor., Carm. 2.15.13–20Google Scholar.

59. Cf. Kristol, S. S., Labor and Fortuna in Virgil's Aeneid (New York and London, 1990), 224–6Google Scholar, who points out that Turnus relies mainly on past glories (e.g. 7.414, 474; 10.76; 12.649), rather than looking to the future, as Aeneas is encouraged to do.

60. For some important qualifications, see Griffin, J., ‘The Fourth Georgic, Virgil, and Rome’, G&R 26 (1979), 60–80Google Scholar.

61. It is perhaps also significant that Procne the swallow, whose metamorphosis is part of a series of mythological allusions related to the theme of passion and furor, is mentioned as one of the enemies from which the bees must be protected (4.15).