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The Sixth Book of the AENEID1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. D. Williams
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Extract

The sixth book is the focal point of the Aeneid; it completes and concludes what has gone before, and it provides a new impetus for the second half of the poem. It is not an isolated piece of theology; it has its work to do within the design of the poem. It is of vital importance in the development of the main themes of the Aeneid, and it is on three of these that I want to concentrate as we accompany Aeneas on his journey from the cave at Avernus to the Gates of Ivory. We shall be concerned firstly with how a memorable picture—or perhaps two memorable pictures—of the world after death is built up from the rich and tangled heritage of poetry, folk-lore, philosophy, and religion. In the words of T. R. Glover—to whose warm and sensitive appreciation of the poet Virgilian studies are deeply indebted—‘we find here as elsewhere that Virgil tries to sum up all that is of value in the traditions, the philosophies, and the fancies of the past’. It is in the later part of Book vi that Virgil comes nearest to a solution of the problem of human suffering with which the whole poem is so preoccupied, as he gropes towards a conception of the life after death in which sin is purified away and virtue rewarded. Secondly, the golden hopes for the future of Rome and the Roman world are in this book expressed with a patriotic pride more complete than anywhere else; the vision of the temporal destiny of the world follows upon the vision of the spiritual after-life. Thirdly, and this is the aspect which I shall stress most because it is not generally stressed enough, this book (like the rest of the Aeneid) is above all about Aeneas himself, his character and resolution, his experiences, past, present, and future. We must always remember that the aim of the book is not primarily philosophical or theological—and in this it differs from the myths of Plato to which it owes so much; the aim is to present a poetic vision which has special reference to Aeneas and Rome within the design and framework of the total epic poem.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , April 1964 , pp. 48 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

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References

page 48 note 2 Glover, T. R., Virgil (7th ed., London, 1942), 258.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 For a short and clear account of the sources see Butler, 's Aeneid VIGoogle Scholar, Introduction. Fletcher, (Aeneid VIGoogle Scholar, Intro.) gives translations of the passages from Plato.

page 49 note 1 On Orphism see Guthrie, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek Religion (London, 1952), esp. ch. v.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 See Guthrie, , op. cit. 154f.Google Scholar, on the Eleusinian mysteries; see also Constans, L.-A., L'Enéide de Virgile (Paris, 1938) 208f.Google Scholar

page 49 note 3 Ennius, Ann. 15 VGoogle Scholar, a reference to transmigration of souls and Ennius' dream that he was a reincarnation of Homer. Cf. Hor. Ep. ii. 1. 52(of Ennius)Google Scholar, somnia Pythagorea, and Odes i. 28. 9f.Google Scholar

page 49 note 4 Norden, E., Aeneid VI (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1926, reprinted 1957.)Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 Some references are given in my note on Aen. v. 588Google Scholar, where the simile of a labyrinth is applied to the lusus Troiae.

page 50 note 2 Virgil's sources for the talisman of the golden bough are not known. We do not find it in earlier classical literature and its significance in Roman folk-lore cannot be defined with precision. Frazer, in the great work on comparative anthropology and folk-lore to which he gave the title of The Golden Bough, associates it with various kinds of tree magic and particularly with the mistletoe (with which Virgil compares it in a simile, 205 ff.). Servius links it with the worship of Diana at Aricia and the rex nemorensis. See also Brooks, R. A., Am. Journ. Phil. lxxiv (1953), 260f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where the bough is discussed as a dual symbol of life and death.

page 51 note 1 Trans. Am. Phil. Ass. xc (1959), 165ff.Google Scholar

page 51 note 2 See Pausanias, x. 28fGoogle Scholar. for a full description of Polygnotus' picture of the underworld.

page 52 note 1 Op. cit. 168.

page 53 note 1 On this see Putnam, M. C. J., Harv. Stud. Class. Phil. lxvi (1962), 205ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 53 note 2 Cerberus the watchdog occurs in Hom. Il. viii. 366ffGoogle Scholar. and Od. xi. 623ff.Google Scholar, but not yet named. He is first named in Hes. Theog. 311Google Scholar. By Virgil's time he was very much a figure of literary convention; cf. Hor. Odes ii. 13. 33ff.Google Scholar, iii. 11.15 ff.

page 55 note 1 Od. xi. 576ff.Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 Phaedo 113Google Scholare, Gorg. 526b.Google Scholar

page 55 note 3 iii. 978 ff.

page 55 note 4 Plato, , Phaedo 113eGoogle Scholar, Aristoph. Frogs 146ff.Google Scholar

page 55 note 5 Od. iv. 561 ff.Google Scholar

page 55 note 6 e.g. Ol. ii. 61ff.Google Scholar, Fragg. 114, 127 (Bowra).Google Scholar

page 56 note 1 Specially Stoic are the spiritus intus, the igneus uigor; see Bailey, C., Religion in Virgil (Oxford, 1935), 275 ff.Google Scholar

page 59 note 1 As Cicero proudly said (De Off. iii. 47)Google Scholar, ‘plena exemplorum est nostra respublica’; cf. also ibid. i. 61, and the work of Valerius Maximus, which is arranged as a series of exempla.

page 59 note 2 Other pictorial touches are at 722, 779–80, 784 ff., 808, 824–5.

page 59 note 3 There had been a proposal that Augustus should receive the title Romulus (Suet. Aug. 7).Google Scholar

page 59 note 4 Augustus is thus compared with two of the most famous of deified mortals; cf. Hor. Odes 3. 3. 9f.Google Scholar, where Augustus is associated as a god with Pollux, Hercules, Bacchus, Romulus.

page 60 note 1 The suggested punctuation after superbam, so as to give the epithet to Tarquin, is wholly unacceptable. It results in a misplacement of -que in the next line which is totally un-Virgilian. In Virgil's presentation of the tradition about Brutus' sons we are not asked to approve or disapprove, but to sympathize. Necessarily some thought of Brutus the conspirator (another Brutus ultor) occurs to the reader, but Virgil does not here take up any political position. On the attitude of the early empire to the conspirators see the fine passage in Tac. Ann. iv. 34–35.Google Scholar

page 60 note 2 Quoted by Cicero, (De Off. i. 84Google Scholar and De Sen. 10)Google Scholar and by Livy, (xxx. 26. 9)Google Scholar. Seruius wisely says ‘sciens quasi pro exemplo hunc uersum posuit’.

page 61 note 1 e.g. Aen. viii. 316Google Scholar, ‘quis neque mos neque cultus erat’.

page 61 note 2 Museum Helveticum, xix (1962), 133.Google Scholar

page 62 note 1 For a first-rate brief summary of views and an excellent conclusion see Otis, Brooks, op. cit. 173 ff.Google Scholar