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VIRGIL'S AUGUSTAN EPIC
VIRGIL'S
AUGUSTAN EPIC
Francis Cairns
The right of the
University of Cambridge
to print and sell
all manner of books
was granted by
Henry VIII in 1534.
The University has printed
and published continuously
since 1584.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
NEW YORK
PORT CHESTER
MELBOURNE
SYDNEY
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1989
First published 1989
Reprinted 1990
British Library cataloguing in publication data
Cairns, Francis
Virgil's Augustan epic.
1. Epic poetry in Latin. Virgil, Aeneid Critical studies
I. Title
873'.01
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Cairns, Francis
Virgil's Augustan epic / Francis Cairns.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
ISBN 0 521 35358 0
1. Virgil. Aeneis.
2. Aeneas (Legendary character) in literature.
3. Kings and rulers in literature.
I. Title
PA6825.C34 1989
873\01-dcl9
88-203525 CIP
ISBN 0 521 35358 0
Transferred to digital printing 2004
To Robin Nisbet
CONTENTS
Preface
page ix
1 Divine and Human Kingship
1
2 Kingship and the Love Affair of Aeneas and Dido
29
3 Kingship and the Conflict of Aeneas and Turnus
58
4 Concord and Discord
85
5 Geography and Nationalism
109
6 Dido and the Elegiac Tradition
129
7 Lavinia and the Lyric Tradition
151
8 The Aeneid as Odyssey
111
9 The Games in Homer and Virgil
215
List of Modern Works Cited
249
Index Locorum
271
General Index
276
PREFACE
This book explores Virgil's embodiment in the Aeneid of some of the
political and literary ideals of early Augustan Rome, and in doing so
tries to throw new light on the epic characters and action. Writing a
book on Virgil has been, inevitably, a humbling experience. More than
any other ancient writer except Homer, he defies expectation and
generalisation, instantly deflating pretensions to define him.
It is assumed that the reader will have a copy of the Aeneid to hand, so
that quotations from it are restricted to those vital for the immediate
argument. They are based on Mynors (1969), as quotations of ancient
works are generally based on the relevant Oxford Classical Texts,
although I have reserved the right to vary readings and punctuation
where necessary. I am grateful to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press
for permission to use their copyright material in this way. Throughout
Greek (but not Latin) quotations are translated or paraphrased, and my
thanks are due to J.G. Howie for checking these renderings. Greek
proper names are transliterated in the most commonly accepted way.
The terms 'homeric', 'hellenistic', and the names of philosophical
schools are not capitalised.
The almost infinite secondary literature on the Aeneid not only eludes
adequate coverage, for all the sterling assistance given by Suerbaum
(1980-1), but includes eminent contributions which have shaped the
basic and often unrecognised assumptions with which we approach
Virgil. Within this tradition of Virgilian scholarship the older commentators, as well as Heinze (1915), are in fact omnipresent in this
book, although they are seldom cited. Poschl (1977) has in the interval
since its first edition (1950) come to enjoy virtually the same status. In
contrast the frequent citation of Knauer (1964) may show how much
remains to be absorbed of this truly fundamental work, even though it
has already altered radically every modern scholar's perception of the
Aeneid. The (more recent) writings of G.K. Galinsky rank very high too,
and are cited accordingly. I am conscious of having benefited immensely
from these scholars' labours, as from much other secondary literature
on the Aeneid, and of having found particularly helpful among more
PREFACE
recent publications those of G. Binder, V. Buchheit, E.L. Harrison,
N.M. Horsfall, E. Kraggerud, M. Lausberg, P.R. Hardie, D. West, and
A. Wlosok. Many specialist dissertations, monographs and papers,
both of this century and of the last, and both on the A eneid and on other
matters, have also been invaluable; in recent non-Virgilian scholarship I
have been especially aware of influence going beyond particulars from
the writings of M. Dickie, C.W. Macleod, E. Kaiser, F. Millar, O.
Murray, E. Rawson, N.J. Richardson, and W.J. Slater. Some of the
scholars mentioned above have also provided stimulus in personal
discussions, or correspondence; other enlivening factors have been the
Virgilian Bimillenary, with its many conferences and conference
proceedings (on which cf. Wlosok (1985)), and the appearance of some
volumes of the Enciclopedia virgiliana.
I have sought in general to restrict references to secondary literature
by citing only works of substance, and by giving preference to more
recent treatments of longstanding problems, especially if the earlier
bibliography is noted there; but citation has been fuller when necessary.
Only on very large questions is Suerbaum (1980-1) invoked directly.
Citations are usually of material in support of, or coinciding with, views
advanced, although on occasion diametrically opposed views are cited
for completeness. Silence then does not always indicate disagreement,
or citation agreement. I regret any unintentional misrepresentation of
other scholars' views, or failure to give due credit to a predecessor. It
goes without saying that the List of Modern Works Cited (pp. 249-70)
does not claim to offer a comprehensive bibliography on any of the
topics treated. The Index Locorum includes all Aeneid passages cited;
passages from other ancient works are listed only when there is some
discussion. Where more general references to ancient authors or their
works are made, these are covered in the General Index.
Virgil's Augustan Epic was written over the decade 1977-1987, and
attempted to keep abreast with secondary literature appearing up to the
end of 1987. During the period of composition, various chapters formed
the basis of papers given in universities and conferences at Arezzo,
Belfast, Birkbeck College London, Birmingham, Bristol, Calgary,
Cornell, Jena, Ioannina, Leeds, Liverpool, Massachusetts (Amherst),
McGill, McMaster, Newcastle, Ottawa, Pisa and Siena. I once again
thank my hosts for their invitations, and my audiences for their
comments. An abbreviated version of Chapter 4 appeared as Cairns
(1985) and an earlier version of part of Chapter 5 as Cairns (1977).
It is a pleasure to record my warm gratitude to those friends who read
PREFACE
the penultimate draft of the book, saving me from errors and infelicities,
and bettering it in many ways: Ted Harrison, Nicholas Horsfall,
Richard Thomas and David West commented on the whole book with
an abundance of learning and sensitivity; and Oswyn Murray at an
earlier stage brought to bear on Chapters 1-5 his unparalleled
knowledge of kingship and kingship theory in the ancient world.
The referees for Cambridge University Press made some useful points
which I have incorporated, and one referee suggested a better title than
the book originally had. My wife Sandra not only typed and wordprocessed draft after draft but provided the academic summa manus and
compiled the indexes. Robert Peden and Frederick Williams kindly
acted as proof-readers. Despite all the help proferred by those
mentioned above, there have inevitably been points at which I have
resisted advice. I take full responsibility for remaining errors and
inadequacies.
Birkenhead
January 1988
F.C.
DIVINE AND HUMAN
KINGSHIP
A striking and neglected1 feature of the Aeneid, and of its first book in
particular, is the frequency with which references to kingship appear. In
Book 1, royalty is an attribute of several gods, with Jupiter pre-eminent.
He is divum pater atque hominum rex at 65; he is addressed by Venus as
rex magne at 241, and she speaks of him 'ruling' (regis) at 230. His
consort Juno appears as regina deum at 9. She calls herself divum ...
regina at 46; she is addressed by Aeolus as o regina at 76; and at 443 she is
regia Juno. The wind-god Aeolus plays a major role in Book 1 as
proximate cause of the storm which brings Aeneas to Carthage; he is rex
Aeolus in 52 and rex in 62 and 137; he has sceptra in 57 and a regnum and
sceptra in 78; and he receives a command from Neptune regnare in 141.
It is however men who provide the bulk of kingship references in
Aeneid 1. Among minor human characters Ascanius is regius ... puer
(677f.) and he will transfer his regnum to Alba Longa (270f.). Ilia is
regina sacerdos (273) and mention is made of the reges Pelasgi (624).
Pygmalion had the regna of Tyre (346), and Hector's line will 'reign' for
three hundred years at Alba Longa (272f.). Acestes is rex of Eryx at 558
and 570, while the kingdom of Carthage appears at 17 and 338, that of
Libya at 226, of Troy at 268, of the Liburnians at 244, and of Teucer in
620.
But the characters most frequently designated as royal in Aeneid 1
are Aeneas and Dido. Aeneas is Teucrorum ... regent (38) in Juno's
1
Matakiewicz (1930-1) regarded Virgil's emphasis on kingship as essentially a
reflection of Homer. R. J. Murray (1964-5) noted the frequency of rex and related words in
four Augustan poets, Tibullus, Propertius, Horace and Virgil, and correctly concluded
that 'the word "king" can have created little animosity among Romans of the Augustan
age' (244). He also highlighted Virgil's applications of rex to Aeneas and lulus but did not
carry his insights further; and, apart from the dismissal of his paper by Classen (1965) in a
Korrekturzusatz (402 n. 59), his views have been ignored. The importance of the 'good
king' theme in the Aeneid was briefly noted in Cairns (1977) 115; hints of interest in Dido's
kingship appear in Poschl (3rd edn 1977) 94, which goes back to the first edition of 1950
(pp. 116f.), in that of Aeneas in Galinsky (1969) If., in that of both in Thornton (1976) 85,
and in the theme in Paschalis (1982) 344f. and Hahn (1984). The title of Baker (1980)
appears to promise a relevant treatment, but handles Ascanius in general terms. Murray
(1984) 236 notes that Philodemus' treatise 'points the way to the public poetry of the
Augustan poets'.
DIVINE AND HUMAN KINGSHIP
reflections. He will 'reign' over Latium at 265. He is described by
Ilioneus as the king of the fugitive Trojans in 544 (rex erat Aeneas nobis)\
and a little later he is again called rex at 553 and 575. His gifts are regia at
696. The royal status of Dido is even more frequently emphasised. She is
regina eleven times, at 303, 389, 454, 496, 522, 594, 660, 674, 697, 717
and 728. Her royal status is stressed in other ways too: regit, 340; regni
novitas, 563; regnis, 572; regia ... / tecta, 63If.; regali... luxu, 637; and
regalis ... mensas, 686.
One reaction to this stress on royalty in Aeneid 1, and indeed
throughout the epic, might be to try to minimise the meaningfulness of
Virgil's kingship references: its kings and kingdoms could, for example,
be explained away as due to the temporal setting and literary ancestry of
the Aeneid. Its events certainly take place in the heroic age, when
kingship was the normal form of government; and, qua epic, it was
written in conscious imitation of earlier epics, principally Homer's Iliad
and Odyssey and Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, where many of the
principal characters were kings. Thus the frequent references to
kingship in the Aeneid would, on this view, not necessarily reflect a
strong interest in it on the part of Virgil and his readers. It might be
argued further that such interest is in any case unlikely, given the
ingrained Roman dislike of kings, which dated from the regal period.2
Indeed Roman republican sentiment might be thought to guarantee
that kingship references in the Aeneid arc literary reminiscence and not
political comment; and conversely Virgil might seem to have been
protected from any suspicion of fostering the hated notion of'king' by
its very omnipresence in his epic models.
It would be foolish to dismiss this approach out of hand. Virgil's
particularly frequent emphasis on the royal status of Dido does seem to
be linked with the fact that her city, Carthage, was to become Rome's
arch-enemy. Here Virgil may be exploiting the negative associations of
kingship to brand Carthage as a 'royal' city from its inception. But given
the complex ways in which ancient political and moral concepts
operated, this negative exploitation of kingship would not rule out more
positive associations for it when Aeneas is in question, especially if, as I
shall argue in Ch. 2, Virgil regarded Dido as a bad example of the genus
king, and Aeneas as an excellent one. There are, too, several indications
that Virgil and his readers had a more sophisticated attitude to kingship
than is sometimes realised, and that the concept was a living and vital
2
Cf. Wirszubski (1960) esp. 12If., 130-58; M.T. Griffin (1976) 141-8.
DIVINE AND HUMAN KINGSHIP
one in early imperial Rome. To begin with, the first item or section of an
ancient literary work tends to be 'programmatic'. Thus the frequency of
references to kingship in Book 1 (the statistics will be discussed shortly)
implies that it was a significant theme for Virgil and that he expected his
readers to keep it in mind when interpreting situations and personalities
throughout the epic.
Again, the homeric epics certainly do make many references to
kingship. But the frequency in Virgil is significantly greater than in
Homer. Statistics of this sort are of course, on one level, crude and
unsatisfactory tools for literary analysis.3 But, on another level, if they
are properly assembled, their very crudeness prevents the intrusion
of subjective bias. The Iliad (15,693 lines) has 287 literal kingship
references, i.e. uses of the words avai; (king), (JaaiXeuc; (king),
GKfjTtipov (sceptre) and their compounds and cognates;4 the Odyssey
(12,110 lines) has 194. The shorter Aeneid (9,896 lines) has 342 uses of
rex and its cognates and sceptrum.5 8 are parts of regere not referring to
'ruling'. Thus it has 334 kingship references, one per 29.63 lines, as
against one per 54.67 lines in the Iliad and one per 62.42 lines in the
Odyssey. The high concentration in Aeneid 1 also emerges: 56 in its 756
lines, i.e. one per 13.5 lines, more than double the average for the
Aeneid. Iliad 1 (611 lines) has 30, i.e. one per 20.37 lines, also much
higher than the Iliad average. Thus Virgil's kingship interest was
certainly cued by the Iliad. Odyssey 1 (444 lines), with only 9 kingship
references, i.e. one per 49.33 lines, again has more than the average for
3
The principal difficulty is that, to avoid subjectivity, word frequency counts must be
used. But the significance of these totals varies depending on the contexts and
concentration of the key terms. However, as the examples increase in number, this
problem diminishes. The concordances used in the word-counts are: Iliad: Prendergast
(1962); Odyssey: Dunbar (1962); Argonautica: Campbell (1983); Aeneid: Warwick (1975).
The line-counts for the works are taken from the respective Oxford Classical Texts.
4
Because 0p6vo
VIRGIL'S
AUGUSTAN EPIC
Francis Cairns
The right of the
University of Cambridge
to print and sell
all manner of books
was granted by
Henry VIII in 1534.
The University has printed
and published continuously
since 1584.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
NEW YORK
PORT CHESTER
MELBOURNE
SYDNEY
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1989
First published 1989
Reprinted 1990
British Library cataloguing in publication data
Cairns, Francis
Virgil's Augustan epic.
1. Epic poetry in Latin. Virgil, Aeneid Critical studies
I. Title
873'.01
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Cairns, Francis
Virgil's Augustan epic / Francis Cairns.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
ISBN 0 521 35358 0
1. Virgil. Aeneis.
2. Aeneas (Legendary character) in literature.
3. Kings and rulers in literature.
I. Title
PA6825.C34 1989
873\01-dcl9
88-203525 CIP
ISBN 0 521 35358 0
Transferred to digital printing 2004
To Robin Nisbet
CONTENTS
Preface
page ix
1 Divine and Human Kingship
1
2 Kingship and the Love Affair of Aeneas and Dido
29
3 Kingship and the Conflict of Aeneas and Turnus
58
4 Concord and Discord
85
5 Geography and Nationalism
109
6 Dido and the Elegiac Tradition
129
7 Lavinia and the Lyric Tradition
151
8 The Aeneid as Odyssey
111
9 The Games in Homer and Virgil
215
List of Modern Works Cited
249
Index Locorum
271
General Index
276
PREFACE
This book explores Virgil's embodiment in the Aeneid of some of the
political and literary ideals of early Augustan Rome, and in doing so
tries to throw new light on the epic characters and action. Writing a
book on Virgil has been, inevitably, a humbling experience. More than
any other ancient writer except Homer, he defies expectation and
generalisation, instantly deflating pretensions to define him.
It is assumed that the reader will have a copy of the Aeneid to hand, so
that quotations from it are restricted to those vital for the immediate
argument. They are based on Mynors (1969), as quotations of ancient
works are generally based on the relevant Oxford Classical Texts,
although I have reserved the right to vary readings and punctuation
where necessary. I am grateful to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press
for permission to use their copyright material in this way. Throughout
Greek (but not Latin) quotations are translated or paraphrased, and my
thanks are due to J.G. Howie for checking these renderings. Greek
proper names are transliterated in the most commonly accepted way.
The terms 'homeric', 'hellenistic', and the names of philosophical
schools are not capitalised.
The almost infinite secondary literature on the Aeneid not only eludes
adequate coverage, for all the sterling assistance given by Suerbaum
(1980-1), but includes eminent contributions which have shaped the
basic and often unrecognised assumptions with which we approach
Virgil. Within this tradition of Virgilian scholarship the older commentators, as well as Heinze (1915), are in fact omnipresent in this
book, although they are seldom cited. Poschl (1977) has in the interval
since its first edition (1950) come to enjoy virtually the same status. In
contrast the frequent citation of Knauer (1964) may show how much
remains to be absorbed of this truly fundamental work, even though it
has already altered radically every modern scholar's perception of the
Aeneid. The (more recent) writings of G.K. Galinsky rank very high too,
and are cited accordingly. I am conscious of having benefited immensely
from these scholars' labours, as from much other secondary literature
on the Aeneid, and of having found particularly helpful among more
PREFACE
recent publications those of G. Binder, V. Buchheit, E.L. Harrison,
N.M. Horsfall, E. Kraggerud, M. Lausberg, P.R. Hardie, D. West, and
A. Wlosok. Many specialist dissertations, monographs and papers,
both of this century and of the last, and both on the A eneid and on other
matters, have also been invaluable; in recent non-Virgilian scholarship I
have been especially aware of influence going beyond particulars from
the writings of M. Dickie, C.W. Macleod, E. Kaiser, F. Millar, O.
Murray, E. Rawson, N.J. Richardson, and W.J. Slater. Some of the
scholars mentioned above have also provided stimulus in personal
discussions, or correspondence; other enlivening factors have been the
Virgilian Bimillenary, with its many conferences and conference
proceedings (on which cf. Wlosok (1985)), and the appearance of some
volumes of the Enciclopedia virgiliana.
I have sought in general to restrict references to secondary literature
by citing only works of substance, and by giving preference to more
recent treatments of longstanding problems, especially if the earlier
bibliography is noted there; but citation has been fuller when necessary.
Only on very large questions is Suerbaum (1980-1) invoked directly.
Citations are usually of material in support of, or coinciding with, views
advanced, although on occasion diametrically opposed views are cited
for completeness. Silence then does not always indicate disagreement,
or citation agreement. I regret any unintentional misrepresentation of
other scholars' views, or failure to give due credit to a predecessor. It
goes without saying that the List of Modern Works Cited (pp. 249-70)
does not claim to offer a comprehensive bibliography on any of the
topics treated. The Index Locorum includes all Aeneid passages cited;
passages from other ancient works are listed only when there is some
discussion. Where more general references to ancient authors or their
works are made, these are covered in the General Index.
Virgil's Augustan Epic was written over the decade 1977-1987, and
attempted to keep abreast with secondary literature appearing up to the
end of 1987. During the period of composition, various chapters formed
the basis of papers given in universities and conferences at Arezzo,
Belfast, Birkbeck College London, Birmingham, Bristol, Calgary,
Cornell, Jena, Ioannina, Leeds, Liverpool, Massachusetts (Amherst),
McGill, McMaster, Newcastle, Ottawa, Pisa and Siena. I once again
thank my hosts for their invitations, and my audiences for their
comments. An abbreviated version of Chapter 4 appeared as Cairns
(1985) and an earlier version of part of Chapter 5 as Cairns (1977).
It is a pleasure to record my warm gratitude to those friends who read
PREFACE
the penultimate draft of the book, saving me from errors and infelicities,
and bettering it in many ways: Ted Harrison, Nicholas Horsfall,
Richard Thomas and David West commented on the whole book with
an abundance of learning and sensitivity; and Oswyn Murray at an
earlier stage brought to bear on Chapters 1-5 his unparalleled
knowledge of kingship and kingship theory in the ancient world.
The referees for Cambridge University Press made some useful points
which I have incorporated, and one referee suggested a better title than
the book originally had. My wife Sandra not only typed and wordprocessed draft after draft but provided the academic summa manus and
compiled the indexes. Robert Peden and Frederick Williams kindly
acted as proof-readers. Despite all the help proferred by those
mentioned above, there have inevitably been points at which I have
resisted advice. I take full responsibility for remaining errors and
inadequacies.
Birkenhead
January 1988
F.C.
DIVINE AND HUMAN
KINGSHIP
A striking and neglected1 feature of the Aeneid, and of its first book in
particular, is the frequency with which references to kingship appear. In
Book 1, royalty is an attribute of several gods, with Jupiter pre-eminent.
He is divum pater atque hominum rex at 65; he is addressed by Venus as
rex magne at 241, and she speaks of him 'ruling' (regis) at 230. His
consort Juno appears as regina deum at 9. She calls herself divum ...
regina at 46; she is addressed by Aeolus as o regina at 76; and at 443 she is
regia Juno. The wind-god Aeolus plays a major role in Book 1 as
proximate cause of the storm which brings Aeneas to Carthage; he is rex
Aeolus in 52 and rex in 62 and 137; he has sceptra in 57 and a regnum and
sceptra in 78; and he receives a command from Neptune regnare in 141.
It is however men who provide the bulk of kingship references in
Aeneid 1. Among minor human characters Ascanius is regius ... puer
(677f.) and he will transfer his regnum to Alba Longa (270f.). Ilia is
regina sacerdos (273) and mention is made of the reges Pelasgi (624).
Pygmalion had the regna of Tyre (346), and Hector's line will 'reign' for
three hundred years at Alba Longa (272f.). Acestes is rex of Eryx at 558
and 570, while the kingdom of Carthage appears at 17 and 338, that of
Libya at 226, of Troy at 268, of the Liburnians at 244, and of Teucer in
620.
But the characters most frequently designated as royal in Aeneid 1
are Aeneas and Dido. Aeneas is Teucrorum ... regent (38) in Juno's
1
Matakiewicz (1930-1) regarded Virgil's emphasis on kingship as essentially a
reflection of Homer. R. J. Murray (1964-5) noted the frequency of rex and related words in
four Augustan poets, Tibullus, Propertius, Horace and Virgil, and correctly concluded
that 'the word "king" can have created little animosity among Romans of the Augustan
age' (244). He also highlighted Virgil's applications of rex to Aeneas and lulus but did not
carry his insights further; and, apart from the dismissal of his paper by Classen (1965) in a
Korrekturzusatz (402 n. 59), his views have been ignored. The importance of the 'good
king' theme in the Aeneid was briefly noted in Cairns (1977) 115; hints of interest in Dido's
kingship appear in Poschl (3rd edn 1977) 94, which goes back to the first edition of 1950
(pp. 116f.), in that of Aeneas in Galinsky (1969) If., in that of both in Thornton (1976) 85,
and in the theme in Paschalis (1982) 344f. and Hahn (1984). The title of Baker (1980)
appears to promise a relevant treatment, but handles Ascanius in general terms. Murray
(1984) 236 notes that Philodemus' treatise 'points the way to the public poetry of the
Augustan poets'.
DIVINE AND HUMAN KINGSHIP
reflections. He will 'reign' over Latium at 265. He is described by
Ilioneus as the king of the fugitive Trojans in 544 (rex erat Aeneas nobis)\
and a little later he is again called rex at 553 and 575. His gifts are regia at
696. The royal status of Dido is even more frequently emphasised. She is
regina eleven times, at 303, 389, 454, 496, 522, 594, 660, 674, 697, 717
and 728. Her royal status is stressed in other ways too: regit, 340; regni
novitas, 563; regnis, 572; regia ... / tecta, 63If.; regali... luxu, 637; and
regalis ... mensas, 686.
One reaction to this stress on royalty in Aeneid 1, and indeed
throughout the epic, might be to try to minimise the meaningfulness of
Virgil's kingship references: its kings and kingdoms could, for example,
be explained away as due to the temporal setting and literary ancestry of
the Aeneid. Its events certainly take place in the heroic age, when
kingship was the normal form of government; and, qua epic, it was
written in conscious imitation of earlier epics, principally Homer's Iliad
and Odyssey and Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, where many of the
principal characters were kings. Thus the frequent references to
kingship in the Aeneid would, on this view, not necessarily reflect a
strong interest in it on the part of Virgil and his readers. It might be
argued further that such interest is in any case unlikely, given the
ingrained Roman dislike of kings, which dated from the regal period.2
Indeed Roman republican sentiment might be thought to guarantee
that kingship references in the Aeneid arc literary reminiscence and not
political comment; and conversely Virgil might seem to have been
protected from any suspicion of fostering the hated notion of'king' by
its very omnipresence in his epic models.
It would be foolish to dismiss this approach out of hand. Virgil's
particularly frequent emphasis on the royal status of Dido does seem to
be linked with the fact that her city, Carthage, was to become Rome's
arch-enemy. Here Virgil may be exploiting the negative associations of
kingship to brand Carthage as a 'royal' city from its inception. But given
the complex ways in which ancient political and moral concepts
operated, this negative exploitation of kingship would not rule out more
positive associations for it when Aeneas is in question, especially if, as I
shall argue in Ch. 2, Virgil regarded Dido as a bad example of the genus
king, and Aeneas as an excellent one. There are, too, several indications
that Virgil and his readers had a more sophisticated attitude to kingship
than is sometimes realised, and that the concept was a living and vital
2
Cf. Wirszubski (1960) esp. 12If., 130-58; M.T. Griffin (1976) 141-8.
DIVINE AND HUMAN KINGSHIP
one in early imperial Rome. To begin with, the first item or section of an
ancient literary work tends to be 'programmatic'. Thus the frequency of
references to kingship in Book 1 (the statistics will be discussed shortly)
implies that it was a significant theme for Virgil and that he expected his
readers to keep it in mind when interpreting situations and personalities
throughout the epic.
Again, the homeric epics certainly do make many references to
kingship. But the frequency in Virgil is significantly greater than in
Homer. Statistics of this sort are of course, on one level, crude and
unsatisfactory tools for literary analysis.3 But, on another level, if they
are properly assembled, their very crudeness prevents the intrusion
of subjective bias. The Iliad (15,693 lines) has 287 literal kingship
references, i.e. uses of the words avai; (king), (JaaiXeuc; (king),
GKfjTtipov (sceptre) and their compounds and cognates;4 the Odyssey
(12,110 lines) has 194. The shorter Aeneid (9,896 lines) has 342 uses of
rex and its cognates and sceptrum.5 8 are parts of regere not referring to
'ruling'. Thus it has 334 kingship references, one per 29.63 lines, as
against one per 54.67 lines in the Iliad and one per 62.42 lines in the
Odyssey. The high concentration in Aeneid 1 also emerges: 56 in its 756
lines, i.e. one per 13.5 lines, more than double the average for the
Aeneid. Iliad 1 (611 lines) has 30, i.e. one per 20.37 lines, also much
higher than the Iliad average. Thus Virgil's kingship interest was
certainly cued by the Iliad. Odyssey 1 (444 lines), with only 9 kingship
references, i.e. one per 49.33 lines, again has more than the average for
3
The principal difficulty is that, to avoid subjectivity, word frequency counts must be
used. But the significance of these totals varies depending on the contexts and
concentration of the key terms. However, as the examples increase in number, this
problem diminishes. The concordances used in the word-counts are: Iliad: Prendergast
(1962); Odyssey: Dunbar (1962); Argonautica: Campbell (1983); Aeneid: Warwick (1975).
The line-counts for the works are taken from the respective Oxford Classical Texts.
4
Because 0p6vo