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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
The second implication of the Trojan legend may be stated briefly by saying that the Romans were descended from the vanquished, and not the victors, in the Trojan war. Most writers completely ignored this implication. Some rode majestically above it and pointed to the contemporary greatness of Rome, which they regarded as Troy's final triumph. Other writers, meditating, as was frequent in the ancient world, on the rise and fall of great cities, contrasted the rise of Trojan Rome with the fall of Greece, as though the balance disturbed by the sack of Troy had been restored by a consequent reversal of fortunes. In certain cases one feels that the author is simply reflecting as a philosopher, and citing Greece and Troy as examples of the fulfilment of a natural law; but usually the tone is not disinterested, and one has the impression that Roman writers are primarily concerned in extolling Rome, while Greeks lament the wretchedness of Greece. Typical of the latter are the poems of the Greek Anthology which speak of the deserted place where Mycenae once stood. Alpheios of Mytilene, for example, writes thus:
Ἄργος, Ὁμηρικὲ μῦθε, καὶ Ἑλλάδος ἱερὸν οὖδας,
καὶ χρυσέη τὸ πάλαι Περσέος ἀκρόπολι,
ἔσβεσαθ' ἡρώων κείνων κλέος οἵ ποτε Τροίης
ἤρειψαν κατὰ γῆς θειόδομον στέφανον.
ἀλλ' ἡ μὲν κρείσσων ἐστὶν πόλις' αἱ δὲ πεσοῦσαι
δείκνυσθ' εὐμύκων αὔλια βουκολίων.
page 72 note 1 Although direct lineage was traced only in the Julian gens and perhaps a few other gentes (cf. Virgil, , Aeneid v. 116–23)Google Scholar the Romans in general were considered to be descendants of the Trojans and called Aeneadae: cf. Lucret. i. 1Google Scholar; Virgil, , Aeneid viii. 648Google Scholar; Ovid, , Fasti iv. 161Google Scholar, Metam. xv. 682, 695, etc.Google Scholar
page 72 note 2 E.g. Tibullus, ii. 5. 19 ff.Google Scholar; Propertius, iii. 4. 19 ff.Google Scholar; Pervigil. Veneris 69–74Google Scholar. Cf. Sallust, , Cat. vi.Google Scholar
page 72 note 3 Horace, , Odes iii. 3Google Scholar; iv. 6. 21–24; iv. 15; Carm. Saec. 40 ff.Google Scholar; Propertius, iv. 1. 39 ff.Google Scholar; Ovid, , Metam. xv. 439 ff.Google Scholar, Fasti i. 523 ff.Google Scholar; Statius, , Silvae i. 2. 188–93Google Scholar. Cf. Appian, , Bell. Civ. i. 97 (oracle delivered to Sulla).Google Scholar
page 72 note 4 In reading some of these passages one is reminded of Anaximander's view that ‘creation and destruction give each other requital and compensation for their encroachments in the ordered sequence of time’—Simplicius, , Phys. 24. 13Google Scholar (Diels, , Frag. der Vorsokratiker 6, 12 B 1).Google Scholar
page 72 note 5 Anth. Pal. ix. 104Google Scholar; cf. ibid. 101, 103.
page 73 note 1 Ibid. 102; cf. 28.
page 73 note 2 Alexandra 1226 ff.Google Scholar
page 73 note 3 Metam. xv. 420 ff.Google Scholar
page 73 note 4 Lines 428–30 are certainly an exaggeration in the case of Sparta and Athens, and are often, with good reason, regarded as spurious:
uile solum Sparte est, altae cecidere Mycenae,
Oedipodioniae quid sunt nisi nomina Thebae?
quid Pandioniae restant nisi nomen Athenae?
page 75 note 1 Norden, (Vergilius, Aeneis Buch vi, p. 325)Google Scholar describes it as ‘ein rhetorisches ψεῦδος'.
page 75 note 2 Livy, , Per. lii.Google Scholar
page 75 note 3 Strabo, viii. 6. 23Google Scholar; Polybius, xxxviii. 1. 3 (Büttner-Wobst).Google Scholar
page 76 note 1 Anth. Pal. ix. 151.Google Scholar
page 76 note 2 Ibid. vii. 493. Gow, A. S. F., C.R. N.S. iv (1954), 2, n. 2Google Scholar, attributes this poem to Antipater of Sidon, because ‘it seems also likely to be by the Sidonian’.
page 76 note 3 Cicero, , Tusc. Disp. iii. 22Google Scholar. Cicero's own attitude is ably discussed by Feger, R., ‘Cicero und die Zerstörung Korinths’, Hermes lxxx (1952), 436–56Google Scholar. The reaction of some contemporary Romans to the sack of Corinth may well have been unfavourable; as Feger observes (p. 440), ‘Auch ist es höchst unwahrscheinlich, dass Korinth unter den Gebildeten Roms kein Fürsprecher entstanden sein sollte, den doch selbst Karthago in P. Scipio Nasica gefunden hat’.
page 76 note 4 Anth. Pal. vii. 297.Google Scholar
page 77 note 1 Cicero, , Verr. ii. 1. 21. 55Google Scholar, Imp. Cn. Pomp. 5. 11.Google Scholar
page 77 note 2 Plutarch, , Lucullus 19Google Scholar. Even if the authenticity of this story and the attribution of the saying to Lucullus are called into doubt the fact that the story was told at all is sufficient to prove that such a δόξα had become attached to the name of Mummius in some quarters. How anyone, even a fervent admirer, could congratulate Sulla on his moderate treatment of Athens, is another matter; cf., however, Plutarch, , Moralia 202 E.Google Scholar
page 77 note 3 iii. 5. 6.
page 77 note 4 Silvae iii. 1. 142.Google Scholar
page 78 note 1 Anth. Pal. ix. 284.Google Scholar
page 78 note 2 For the hostile feelings of subject nations towards Rome, cf. in general, Schnayder, G., ‘De infenso alienigenarum in Romanos animo’ (Eos xxx (1927), pp. 113–49)Google Scholar. Schnayder does not, however, include this poem of Krinagoras in his wide survey. The poem was not unique in its hostile tone, as can be seen from the speech which Tacitus puts into the mouth of Cordus, Cremutius: ‘non attingo Graecos, quorum non modo libertas, etiam libido impunita; aut si quis aduertit, dictis dicta ultus est’ (Annals iv. 35. 1)Google Scholar. The latter part of the sentence also makes clear the attitude adopted by Augustus.
page 78 note 3 Aeneid vi. 851, 853.Google Scholar
page 78 note 4 The superbia of Carthage is first mentioned by Ennius, frag. 205 (Baehrens). For Augustan expressions of the same notion cf. Horace, , Odes iv. 4. 69–70Google Scholar; Epodes vii. 5–6Google Scholar; and for similar notions—id., Odes iv. 4. 46 ff.Google Scholar; 8. 17, Epodes xvi. 8.Google Scholar
page 79 note 1 Livy, xxxix. 49–50Google Scholar. For the attitude of contemporary Romans to Philopoimen, cf. Plutarch, Philopoimen 21. In later Republican times the Romans tried to justify their action against Corinth and adopted an attitude of condemnation to the Corinthians, which is reflected in certain passages of Cicero (cf. Feger, in the article mentioned above, note 15). This attitude, however, is not found in writers of the Augustan age.
page 79 note 2 i. 285. Sallust, who had no illusions about such matters, represents Mithridates as writing, in a letter to Arsaces, , Graeciae dempsi graue seruitium (Histories, ed. Maurenbrecher, , iv. 69. 11)Google Scholar. Although this appears in a supposedly ex parte argument, it is a realistic point of view, which agrees remarkably well with Virgil's line. Similarly Tertullian, writing at a much later date, poured great scorn on the notion that the Romans obtained empire as a reward for their religiositas (Apologeticus xxv): ‘Peregrinos enim deos non putem extraneae genti magis fautum uoluisse quam suae, et patrium solum, in quo nati, adulti, nobilitati sepultique sunt, transfretanis dedisse. Viderit Cybele, si urbem Romanam ut memoriam Troiani generis adamauit, uernaculi sui scilicet aduersus Achiuorum arma protecti, si ad ultores transire prospexit, quos sciebat Graeciam Phrygiae debellatricem subacturos.’ As is clear from other allusions and from actual quotations in this and the following chapter, Tertullian must have had Virgil in mind. Even the word debellatrix, although applied to Greece instead of Rome, is a Virgilian echo.
page 79 note 3 i. 479–536, esp. 523–4.
page 80 note 1 Polybius, xxxviii. 2. 8 ff.Google Scholar
page 81 note 1 Cicero, , Pro Murena 14. 31Google Scholar; cf. Vell. Pat. i. 13, ii. 38.
page 81 note 2 Strabo, viii. 6. 28Google Scholar σχέδον δέ τι καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀναθημάτων τῶν ἐν Ῥώμῃ τὰ πλεῖστα καὶ ἄριστα ἐντεῦθεν ἀφῖχθαι τινὰ δὲ καὶ αἱ κύκλῳ τῆς Ῥώμης πόλεις ἔσχον. For examples, cf. C.I.L. i 2. 626–8, 630, 632Google Scholar. What percentage of the dedications in Rome survived the Civil Wars cannot, of course, be known.
page 81 note 3 Cf. Ausonius, , Monosticha de ordine xii Imperatorum 5–6,Google Scholar
…post quem Nero saeuus,
ltimus Aeneadum …;
id., Tetrasticha a Iul. Caes. usque ad tempora sua vi. 1–2,Google Scholar
Aeneadum generis qui sextus et ultimus heres,
polluit, et clausit Iulia sacra Nero.
page 81 note 4 Suetonius, , Nero 39Google Scholar. Further jesting allusions were made by Juvenal, (i. 100Google Scholar; viii. 56, 181; xi. 95). In a poem of Caesar, Germanicus (Poetae Latini Minores, ed. Baehrens, iv, p. 102, no. 109)Google Scholar the notion of revenge is still implicit, but Hector, not Aeneas, is the Trojan hero. A Greek version of the same poem (Anth. Pal. ix. 387)Google Scholar generally attributed to Hadrian, must, if genuinely the work of Hadrian, have been written from mere antiquarian interest.