Vergil

ENEA O IL DISAGIO DELL'EROISMO 1 1. Una lettura del personaggio Enea non può, oggi, non procedere sulla strada dell'analisi del suo statuto letterario. Un tale approccio apre la via a diverse prospettive critiche, a seconda che si sottolinei la funzione del protagonista in rapporto al tessuto narrativo, che lo si studi in relazione a certe tipologie (sia formali sia so stanziali), che si privilegi la competenza del lettore o che si guardi alle ra gioni culturali di cui esso è portavoce e che contribuiscono a determinare lo scarto nei confronti della tradizione del genere. In ogni caso, l'ottica di cui parliamo può aiutare a evitare i rischi insiti sia nella permanente tendenza a certo biografismo sia nella ricerca di una 'ideologia' del l'autore che non passi attraverso l'analisi della concreta costruzione dell'o pera. Anche nel caso di Enea il personaggio vive solo all'interno del testo poetico; anche nel suo caso «il problema del personaggio è innanzitutto lin guistico», ed esso «non esiste al di fuori delle parole», è «un essere di carta» 2 .

Vesta and the Vestal priestesses represented the very core of Roman cultural identity, and Augustus positioned his public image beside them to augment his political legitimacy. Through analysis of material culture, historiography, and poetry that originated during the principate of Augustus, it becomes clear that each of these sources of evidence contributes to the public image projected by the leader whom Ronald Syme considered to be the first Roman emperor. The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Res Gestae Divi Augustae embody the legacy the Emperor wished to establish, and each of these cultural works contain significant references to the Vestals. The study of history Livy undertook also emphasized the pathetic plight of Rhea Silvia as she was compelled to become a Vestal. Livy and his contemporary Dionysius of Halicarnassus explored the foundation of the Vestal Order and each writer had his own explanation about how Numa founded it. The Roman poets Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Tibullus incorporated Vesta and the Vestals into their work in a way that offers further proof of the way Augustus insinuated himself into the fabric of Roman cultural identity by associating his public image with these honored clerics.

Virgil composed the Eclogues (42–38 bce), Georgics (37–29) and Aeneid (29–19) during the period covering such events as Caesar's deification in 42, the civil wars, Octavian and Antony's defeat of Brutus and Cassius at the battle of Philippi in 42, the land confiscations in Italy in 41, Octavian's defeat under Agrippa of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31, and his award of the title Augustus in 27. The concept of geopolitics – the association between geography, nature, and contemporary politics – is articulated throughout the Virgilian corpus. The persistent intrusion of political issues, themes, and events in the geographical setting of Italy constitutes a political and ideological statement.

... In addition, I am thankful for my friends during this journey. My friends back in New Mexico–Chris and Alicia Chavez, Zack Herrera, and Rachael Miltenberger–have patiently ... like to be present at Cannae. Another author, Adrian Goldsworthy has published two books ...

This paper explores how Aeneid 6 might reflect and inform ancient audiences’ responses to Augustan architecture. Aeneas’ encounter with Daedalus’ temple at Cumae and vision of future Romans in the Underworld, as narrated by Vergil, raise questions of aesthetic and historical judgment. These episodes also model interpretive strategies that encourage Vergil’s readers to revisit contemporary monuments, notably the Palatine Temple of Apollo and the Forum Augustum, with a critical eye toward their presentation of Roman history. In my reading, audiences exercised considerable interpretive power over the physical city as well as the epic’s literary landscape, questioning the extent to which the princeps was able to turn Rome into a coherent urban narrative that controlled their paths and perceptions.

Cupid morphs into Ascanius in Aeneid 1 and I argue that this transformation invests Ascanius with erotic qualities that are essential to understanding the boy's role in the Aeneid. Vergil deliberately blurs the distinction between Ascanius and Cupid, inviting the readers to draw a parallel between Aeneas' son and Aeneas' brother. Ascanius' Cupid-like features generically enrich Vergil's epic with the language and motifs of elegiac poetry. The intrusion of Cupid, the patron deity of Roman love elegy, into Vergil's epic opens an intriguing dialogue between two genres that are supposedly mutually exclusive.

A reading of passages of the Aeneid that involve acts of vision, analyzed in terms of ancient optics and active/passive dynamics, with a focus on language and poetic background. Three main sections: vision and knowledge, vision and desire, vision and power.

Zusammenfassung:

"In dieser Arbeit wird die (Kultur-)Geschichte zweier antiker libyscher Volksgruppen behandelt, die, im Saharagebiet lebend, als bedeutendste Grenzvölker an der Geschichte Nordafrikas in römischer Zeit Anteil nahmen. Tatsächlich lebten nomadische gaetulische Stämme im nördlichen Saharagebiet außerhalb der römischen Provinzgrenze, aber es waren ebenso zahlreiche gaetulische Stämme innerhalb des römischen Nordafrika wohnhaft. Diese Stämme waren es auch, welche etwa seit trajanischer Zeit teilweise romanisiert werden konnten. Die Garamanten bewohnten hauptsächlich eine Landschaft in der Sahara, die uns heute als Fezzan bekannt ist. (...) Diese Arbeit stützt sich (...) auch auf die archäologischen Ergebnisse, hat ihren Schwerpunkt jedoch im historisch-politischen und kulturgeschichtlichen Bereich. So wird zunächst das geographische Verbreitungsgebiet der Gaetuler und der Garamanten dargestellt. Dann werden die ersten Beziehungen beider Völker zu anderen Mittelmeerkulturen (Phöniker, Griechen), welche sich nachweisen lassen, besprochen. Auf die anthropologische Herkunft der beiden Völker wird ebenso eingegangen. Nachdem verschiedene kulturelle Aspekte (Religion, Siedlungsformen u. a.) abgehandelt werden, beginnt die historische Darstellung in chronologischer Form. So wird erklärt, wie Gaetuler und Garamanten im Laufe der Geschichte Nordafrikas seit dem 3. Jh. v. Chr. auftraten. Dabei wird der Schwerpunkt im Bereich der militärischen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen beiden Völkern und den Römern liegen, weil erst seit römischer Zeit die Quellen ausführlicher werden."

Summary:

"In this work, the (cultural) history of two ancient Libyan ethnic groups is treated who lived in the Sahara region as the most important border peoples in the history of North Africa in Roman times. In fact, nomadic Gaetulian tribes lived in the northern Sahara region outside the Roman provincial border but there were as many Gaetulian tribes within Roman North Africa living. These tribes were also partially romanized during the reign of Emperor Trajan. The Garamantes inhabited mainly a landscape in the Sahara, which is known to us as Fezzan today. (... ) This work is based (...) on archaeological results, but focuses in historical-political and cultural-historical things. So initially the geographical area with living places of Gaetulians and Garamantes is displayed. Then, the first relations between the two peoples to another  Mediterranean cultures (Phoenicians, Greeks) are also be shown. On the anthropological origins of the two peoples is also written. After several cultural aspects (religion, settlements, etc.), the historical account begins in chronological form. So it will be explained how Gaetulians and Garamantes ocurred in the history of North Africa since the 3rd century. B. C. The focus will be in the range of military conflict between the two peoples and the Romans, because only since Roman times, the sources are detailed. "

"Ovid's well-known innovations in the use of personification allegory combine closely with those of Virgil, to form a distinctive 'Augustan' phase in the development of allegory in classical literature. Both Ovid and Virgil make fictional abstractions concrete and ontologically ambiguous. Innovations common to both the Aeneid and Metamorphoses constitute an important stage in the emergence of 'compositional allegory', in the wake of the Roman adoption of Stoicising interpretative reading practices in the course of the first century BC. Both epics involve Furies as models for their major personified abstractions, both in narrative role and in concrete detail. Uniquely in and to Roman literature, Furies changed from supernatural beings into personified abstractions. This change, enabled by the semantic replacement of proper names such as Erinys or Eumenis with the word Furia ('frenzy'), produced new depth and complexity in the form and metaliterary function of personifications in Roman epic and later literary traditions.

French abstract (from l'Annee Philologique):
Mise en valeur d'une phase « augustéenne » dans le développement de l'allégorie dans la littérature classique, à partir de l'analyse croisée des innovations d'Ovide et de Virgile. Ces transformations du style épique vont de pair avec la vulgarisation à Rome des pratiques de lecture stoïciennes des textes allégoriques, au cours du 1er s. av. J.-C. ; un exemple privilégié est celui du traitement des Furies, qui passent du statut d'êtres surnaturels à celui d'abstractions personnifiées."

There has been an increasing awareness in recent scholarship that Augustus’ new political regime creates space for an unprecedented rivalry between poets and rulers. Hardie (1997, 182) notes: “Ovid’s final triumph is to reverse the expected dependence of poet on princeps, as chronicler and panegyrist. In an ineluctable collusion between artist and ruler we finally see the prince of poets foist on his master a poetics of principate.” (cf. Feldherr 2010, 7).

My paper examines Augustus’ and Ovid’s conflicting attempts of appropriating the Aeneid as a case study for the antagonism between poet and prince. By ignoring Vergil’s wish to have the Aeneid burned after his death, Augustus claims Vergil’s epic for himself. In his letter to Augustus, Ovid slyly calls Vergil “the author of your Aeneid”, only to continue with a tendentiously Ovidian reading of Vergil’s epic (Tr. 2.533-6). Through a parallel examination of Ovid’s and Vergil’s careers (cf. Farrell 2004; Krevans 2010), I focus on the rivalry between Ovid and Augustus in manipulating, censoring, and silencing literary traditions. In the end, neither Ovid nor Augustus is able to destroy poetic works which transcend the powers of physical destruction. Reception of poetry exceeds authorial intentions and imperial gestures.

Works Cited
Farrell, J. 2004. “Ovid’s Virgilian Career”, MD 52: 41-55.
Feldherr, A. 2010. Playing Gods. Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Politics of Fiction. Princeton, NJ.
Hardie, P. 1997. “Questions of Authority: The Invention of Tradition in Ovid Metamorphoses 15”, in T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro (eds.) The Roman Cultural Revolution. Cambridge, 182-98.
Krevans, N. 2010. “Bookburning and the Poetic Deathbed: The Legacy of Virgil”, in P. Hardie and H. Moore (eds.) Classical Literary Careers and their Reception. Cambridge, 197-208
McGowan, M. 2009. Ovid in Exile: Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Mnemosyne Supplements 309. Leiden/Boston

Virgil's opinion about love is influenced by the rising Gallus' love elegy and by the literary dialogue with that poet, as is revealed by some 'elegiac' characters in ecll. 2, 8 and -of course- 10. Love is also in the Georgics a painful passion, in the excursus at III, 209-283 and in the tragic Orpheus' story. In the Aeneid it is even more ruinous, because is a self-centered feeling and diverts from duties to the community.

This article takes its cue from Gérard Genette’s 'Paratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation', to examine the liminal phrase 'arma uirumque' in the 'Aeneid' and in its reception. In response to some recent publications, the article explores the validity and relevance of paratextuality to the study of Latin literature; the status of 'arma uirumque' as a quasi-title in the reception of Virgil; and finally the meaning and resonances of 'arma uirumque' throughout the 'Aeneid' itself. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/699706?mobileUi=0

ISBN 978 88 9366 036 5 www.lelettere.it enrico reBuffat PERCHÉ MORÌ LA VERGINE CAMILLA? QUATTRO VITTIME DELLA «ANTICA LUPA» NELL'ENEIDE 94 ENRICO REBUFFAT nio Apollinare alla fine dell'evo antico, 7 sostanzialmente il mito resta confinato nel testo dell'Eneide per otto secoli, senza che nessuno dei numerosi autori impegnati sul tema dell'avaritia lo utilizzi. 8 Cosicché, quando Dante gli conferisce il massimo rilievo facendogli aprire la serie degli exempla purgatoriali di avidità («Noi repetiam Pigmaleon allotta, / cui traditore e ladro e paricida / fece la voglia sua dell'oro ghiotta», Purg. xx 103-05), quello dantesco deve essere considerato un originale recupero di un tema morale contenuto nel testo virgiliano, se non una vera e propria riscoperta. C'era già stato, in verità, un autore che prima di Dante aveva riflettuto attentamente sulla storia di Pigmalione: Tiberio Donato, che nelle sue Interpretazioni virgiliane le dedica diverse pagine di commento. 9 Ed è interessante osservare che, vuoi per autonoma elaborazione vuoi per influsso dell'uno sull'altro, tra l'interpretazione donatiana dell'episodio e quella dantesca corre un'evidente analogia. 10 Donato s. v. «auri sacra fames», dove si rinvia erroneamente a Eneide i, non iii); del resto anche in Dante la «voglia ghiotta» di Pigmalione risente della «fame» di Polinestore. 7 giuStino, Epitome delle storie di Pompeo Trogo XVIII iv 8: «Qua incensus Pygmalion, oblitus iuris humani, avunculum suum eundemque generum sine respectu pietatis occidit». Il doppio rapporto di parentela (avunculus è il fratello della madre, gener qui il marito della sorella) non risulta da altre fonti; cfr. poco prima «Elissa […] Acherbae avunculo suo […] nubit». Sidonio, Epistola vii: «et fidem Polymnestoris et pietatem Pygmalionis», ironicamente; poi citato da PetruS cantor, Summa quae dicitur Verbum adbreviatum, ed. BoutrY, CCCM vol. 196A, p. 297 («Polinestoris […] Pigmalionis»). 8 Questo almeno si ricava dagli archivi digitali, che restituiscono solo l'interessante carme monostico in adoni attribuito dubitativamente a san Colombano (Columbanus Fidolio fratri suo, in G. S. M. walker, Scriptores latini Hiberniae, vol. ii, S. Columbani opera, Dublin, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1957, pp. 192-96, a p. 194, vv. 53-56): «impia quippe / Pigmalionis / regis ob aurum / gesta leguntur». La prima parte della composizione è un catalogo di antichi miti sul tema dell'avidità d'oro che genera delitti («saepe nefanda / crimina multis / suggerit auri / dira cupido», 29-32), a partire dal vello d'oro e dai pomi delle Esperidi; la menzione di Pigmalione è seguita da quella di Polinestore («sic Polidorum / hospes avarus / incitus auro / fraude necavit», 57-60). 9 Vedi pp. 72-80 dell'ed. georgii, paragrafi 345-64. 10 La questione dell'accessibilità, nell'Italia del primo Trecento, del testo delle Interpretationes travalica le nostre competenze e i limiti di questa ricerca; ma anche se esse «furono scarsamente divulgate nel Medioevo, e limitatamente ad aree culturali specifiche e particolari (Francia, Svizzera, Reichenau)» (G. Brugnoli, s. v. «Donato, Tiberio Claudio» in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, ii, Roma, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1985, pp. 127-28), e probabilmente «non furono copiate oltre la prima metà del IX secolo» per essere poi «riscoperte nel XV» (P. Pellegatta, Edizione critica del commento Testatur Servius alle Bucoliche di Virgilio attribuito a Ilario d'Orléans, tesi di dottorato, Università di Venezia, 2014, p. 18), sarebbe immetodico sottacere le analogie riscontrate con l'assunto che Dante non potesse conoscere l'opera di Donato né direttamente né indirettamente. Così come le terrae incognitae del mondo medievale, i libri riscoperti dagli umanisti non furono necessariamente libri non più visitati da alcuno sino alla loro riscoperta: si ha notizia di manoscritti medievali delle Interpretationes poi andati perduti, tra cui uno bobiense, e

"This indispensable anthology gathers texts and translations that cover major aspects of the Virgilian tradition from the Roman poet's own lifetime to the year 1500. Unprecedented in scope, the book presents a vast compendium of materials that illuminate how poets, teachers, students, and common folk responded to Virgil and his poetry. The volume offers a brief commentary on each text, many of which are translated into English for the first time."

Throughout the whole of Aeneid 3, Aeneas' account of his wanderings after the fall of Troy is modeled on Odysseus' version of his wanderings in Odyssey 9-12. Near the end of the book, the Trojans find themselves on Sicily. There, they encounter a Greek left behind by Odysseus at the moment of his flight from the Cyclops (Aen. 3.588-654). Despite the fact that this man, who is named Achaemenides, is nowhere mentioned by Homer, the two texts are here operating in strikingly close interaction (Knauer 1964a, 187-96). And so, when the Trojans sail away from Polyphemus and make their way westward around the southern coast of Sicily, Achaemenides is able to act as a guide, since he had only recently sailed in the opposite eastward direction with Odysseus: ecce autem Boreas angusta ab sede Pelori missus adest: vivo praetervehor ostia saxo Pantagiae Megarosque sinus Thapsumque iacentem. talia monstrabat relegens errata retrorsus 690 litora Achaemenides, comes infelicis Vlixi.

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Cet article, écrit pendant ma thèse, plaide l’idée selon laquelle l’identité des cités antiques pouvait influer sur les pratiques philosophiques qui s’y déroulaient. En l’occurrence, le lien bien connu entre la baie de Naples et l’épicurisme romain est relié à l’identité de Naples comme cité plane graeca aux yeux de Romains, être épicurien étant pour eux synonyme de plane Graecus (p. 515-520). Les p. 520-536, sur Philodème et Pison, ont été reprises et révisées dans ma thèse. Les p. 536 (fin)-543 portent sur le rapport entre Virgile, Naples et l’épicurisme et n’ont pas été reprises dans ma thèse.

This paper reads the victor Hercules in Aeneid 8 as a metonym for the Republican triumphal tradition onto which Vergil ultimately grafts Augustus. I first identify an allusion in book 8 to the Forum Boarium’s Temple of Hercules Victor ad portam Trigeminam, arguing that the allusion recalls the temple’s possible dedicator, L. Mummius Achaicus (cos. 146 BCE), triumphator over Corinth. Mummius and his temple, therefore, serve as triumphal counterparts to Augustus and his temple of Apollo. I then examine how the allusion speaks to larger questions about the place of Rome’s Republican monuments in Vergil’s vision of Augustus’ Rome.

Published version available here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/looking-edgeways-pursuing-acrostics-in-ovid-and-virgil/269DC39A17ADB2BBC6E7916EE8235D89/share/1912470be86a9432b51addd60c477fe5f3c254c0

The article available for download on Academia.edu is the prepublication version.

In the article I propose a reading practice whereby we actively seek out acrostics in the same way that we actively seek out allusions. I then apply this approach to the key moments in the Aeneid and Metamorphoses, and find it to be a productive one, revealing several new acrostics and telestics, and shedding light on some previously discovered ones. These include an Ovidian authorial signature NASO in telestic form at the moment that Amor is introduced in the Metamorphoses; the acrostic NITIDO in the middle of the Metamorphoses, picking up on the opening of Book 8 and continuing Ovid's competitive engagement in the Met with Horace's Ars Poetica; the acrostic AUSUM in a middle (there are several) of the Aeneid, looking back to the use of audeo and its cognates to describe Vergil's scholarly activity in the Georgics; Vergil's reproduction of Aratus' LEPTE acrostic (and an ARATEA anagram) in his own mini-cosmos, the Shield of Aeneas, at a moment of intense metapoetic self-reference; and two acrostic links between Dido, Lavinia and Ajax and their shared sense of shame.

This is a very integral paper to human history. It is not only a history detailing the reason for the fall of the Republic (and thus the Empire), it is a complete history of Rome itself. Moreover, it represents Cicero's view of the evolution of consciousness, of which the history of Rome is an integral part, and has it's place in the historiography set out by Ken Wilbur and many more. Look for a follow-up paper on these topics, which I am currently working on, "Simulacrum and Singularity."

This paper examines how stories of deceit in Aeneid 2 and 3 influence perceptions of the relationship between Aeneas and Dido. Aeneid 1 explicitly addresses Dido's being deceived by Venus but also raises the possibility of Dido's deceiving Aeneas with the help of Juno. Deception scenes in Aeneas's account of the fall of Troy and of his subsequent wanderings keep the framing deceptions in mind, propose ethical evaluations for them, and generate suspense by suggesting that Aeneas and Venus will succeed in deceiving Dido one moment and that Dido and Juno will deceive Aeneas the next. * I would like to thank TAPA's editor and anonymous readers for their help in preparing this article.

This article argues that the end of Apollonios of Rhodes' Argonautika provides a hitherto unrealised parallel for the pendant Homeric ending of Vergil's Aeneid. As Apollonios suggests a future failure on Jason's part, in his closing allusions to Odysseus' successes on Ithaka, so does Vergil (who engages constantly with the Argonautika) remind his audience of that failure, embodied this time in the person of Aeneas and his failure to respect the suppliant Turnus.

The only smile of Aeneas occurs in Aeneid 5. The smile identifies Aeneas with Jupiter and is one indication that he briefly occupies a position analogous to the king of the gods in administering the funeral games for Anchises. But this identification merely sets the stage for the games' broader examination of how Aeneas differs from Jupiter in the distribution of honors to his men. In its playful conjuring of a world governed by smiling Aeneas, the episode of the games imagines an alternative to the world in which the hero must ordinarily live, which is governed by immutable Fate.

Lo scopo primario del presente lavoro consiste nell‟individuazione e nell'analisi dei principali filoni di interesse che caratterizzano nella sua peculiarità l'esegesi serviana alle Georgiche. Nonostante il carattere collettaneo del commento di Servio nelle sue due redazioni, recenti analisi hanno dimostrato che ciò non sembra precludere la possibilità di rintracciare e seguire interessi specifici all'interno di un lavoro esegetico che non è affatto privo di una sua continuità e di una sua coerenza interna. Tuttavia, a fronte del rifiorire generale degli studi su Servio che ha caratterizzato gli ultimi decenni, scarsa attenzione ha suscitato proprio quest'ultima parte del suo lavoro esegetico. Il presente lavoro di tesi si propone di colmare, almeno in parte, proprio questa lacuna negli studi serviani.

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The sensual bedroom epiphany of the Fury Allecto, by which Amata is driven into a Bacchic frenzy, resembles the initiation ritual of the cult of Sabazius, a "sacred marriage" in which a metal snake was dropped down the front of the initiand's clothes. This Thraco-Phrygian deity had a small but persistent presence in the Roman empire (attested in the army as early as the first century BC, and also at Pompeii), and was frequently identified with Dionysus. Virgil seems to have known of this cult and integrated it into the symbolic economy of the poem, in which feminine, sensual, oriental (including Phrygian) and ecstatic elements are opposed to the masculine self-control of the protagonist and his descendants.

Didone, esule regina fenicia, fonda Cartagine, accoglie Enea, profugo da Troia, se ne innamora follemente e, abbandonata, si toglie la vita per aver tradito la fedeltà alla memoria del marito Sicheo. Questa è la storia che racconta Virgilio nel IV libro dell’Eneide: una commovente tragedia incastonata nell’epos, forse il testo più celebre e fortunato della letteratura di Roma. Esisteva però un’altra Didone,  l’eroina del mito – precedente all’Eneide – che si gettava tra le fiamme proprio per non venir meno al primo vincolo nuziale. Di qui il paradosso della sua fama: da eroina della fedeltà coniugale, Didone diviene, grazie a Virgilio, protagonista di una tragedia di amore e di abbandono. Ma, nelle riscritture del mito, il dialogo allusivo tra le “due Didoni” riaffiora, a partire da Ovidio, ogni qual volta un autore vorrà scontrarsi con Virgilio (e con la tradizione culturale “ufficiale” che si identifica con la sua poesia). Exemplum morale in Boccaccio, tormentata eroina intertestuale nelle rinnovate forme tragiche del Rinascimento, amante moderna che inaugura la rivoluzione del melodramma settecentesco, straziante simbolo o allegoria nello sperimentalismo della poesia del Novecento: infinite e sempre nuove le sfumature nelle quali Didone si rivela nei testi di questo volume. Poiché inesauribile è la ricchezza della poesia da cui proviene, e universale la sua tragedia d’amore.

L’incontro tra Enea e Didone nell’oltretomba è denso di modelli epici. Il personaggio di Didone trova certamente un modello in Aiace, campione omerico di virilità ed eroismo e modello tragico di eroe trattato ingiustamente;  ma il  confronto  con Odisseo in Iliade 3.217 finisce  inevitabilmente  per  complicare  il facile parallelismo Enea/Didone = Odisseo/Aiace più volte sottolineato dalla critica. Didone è non solo Aiace ma anche Odisseo, al pari di Enea; forse anche un Odisseo migliore, dato che l’eloquente silenzio di Aiace e Didone rappresenta una risposta senza dubbio vincente alle parole di Odisseo ed Enea 17. Il silenzio di Didone, paradossalmente, sembra portare all’estremo l’abilità oratoria dimostrata da Odisseo stesso nell’Iliade. Codici epici ed elegiaci contribuiscono ambedue a determinare il comportamento di Enea e Didone, in modo tale da creare una situazione del tutto particolare che enfatizza il pathos della scena: da una parte Didone, pur rivitalizzando modelli di varie eroine tragiche, fa mostra di una durezza virile ed eroica, mentre dall’altra l’emozionalità tipica degli eroi epici è ulteriormente sottolineata in Enea dall’influenza di quella che Harrison definisce la “unconventional gender-characterization of elegy, whose male lovers were often seen as soft and effeminate”.
Il mutismo di Didone offre a sua volta un modello contrastivo e paradossale alla loquace Cornelia di Properzio 4.11. Cornelia incoraggia il marito a pensare a lei in termini del tutto opposti a Didone: non l’imago di una regina africana suicida, che non ha saputo restare fedele al marito defunto e si è lasciata prostrare da una Fortuna avversa, ma la facies/simulacrum di una nobildonna romana orgogliosamente uniuira, discendente dei grandi generali romani che sottomisero l’Africa, che ha regolato la propria vita solamente secondo i valori trasmessi a lei dagli antenati; e, soprattutto, un’ombra che – almeno nei sogni notturni del marito – promette di non restare muta quando lui le rivolge la parola.

This article interprets the figure of Daphnis in Vergil’s Eclogues as a sustained allegory for the poet Lucretius. I show how a Lucretian interpretation of his character unifies the diverse appearances of the living, dying, and deified Daphnis in Eclogues 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9. I examine how Virgil sets up parallels between the Lucretian Daphnis, the deified iuuenis of Eclogue 1 (Octavian?), and the deified Julius Caesar in Eclogue 9, but also how he ultimately distinguishes the peaceful Daphnis from the destructive forces of the Caesars.

William Dominik’s chapter on Vergil examines the concept of "geopolitics," which he refers to generally as constituting the relationship between political and geographical features of the text. Maintaining that “green politics” function as an essential component of the Vergilian narrative, Dominik asserts that political events frequently are treated in terms of the physical world in which they occur. The focus upon the natural environment reveals its vulnerability to the politico-military and urban worlds and the sympathy of the narrator for the environment and its denizens. The conflict that arises in all three poems is attributable to the attempts of man to establish hegemony over the landscape. Through a holistic and intertextual reading of the “book” of Vergil—the Eclogues, Georgics, and the Aeneid—a picture of the natural world emerges in which the “forces of history” and the poet’s sympathetic response to the victims of Rome’s imperial past are emphasized over the “political teleology” of the individual poems.

Lee Frantantuono, reviewing Blackwell version in CJ Online 5.10.2012 (posted on Rogueclassicism): “Indeed, Lowrie’s paper is, I would venture to say, a new classic of Aeneid criticism, one which blends the best of old and new tools of literary study, a provocative study whose implications go beyond the geographic and temporal boundaries of this section of the collection.”