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AENEAS DESPAIRING

Aeneas' first appearance, at line 92 of the opening book of the Aeneid, and the despairing speech which he makes upon that occasion (I, 94-IOI) have, both in antiquity and since, caused considerable discussion. The presence of the hero is of course felt by the reader (or listener) before this point, not only in the statement of theme made by the poet at the beginning of the work arma virumque cano, -but also in the sudden narrative start with which Virgil plunges in medias res at 11. 34-35:

vix e conspectu Siculae telluris in altum vela dabant laeti et spumas salis aere ruebant;

but it is not until 1. 92 that his name is given. The joy of these unnamed sailors is quite general and, as it were, impersonal; we can only assume that Aeneas shares it. The storm which intervenes between lines 35 and 92, however, occasions a shift in focus. Although we first see the tempestuous elements through the eyes of the Trojans as a group (I, 88-9I):

eripiunt subito nubes caelumque diemque Teucrorum ex oculis; ponto nox incubat atra. intonuere poli et crebris micat ignibus aether praesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem,

the perspective is suddenly narrowed and we find ourselves sharing the inmost thoughts of the hero, who is now named and individualized (I, 92-IOI):

extemplo Aeneae solvuntur frigore membra; ingemit et duplicis tendens ad sidera palmas talia voce re/ent: o terque quaterque beati, quis ante ora patrum Troiae sub moenibus altis contigit oppetere! o Danaum fortissime gentis Tydide! mene Iliacis occumbere campis non potuisse tuaque animam hanc efundere dextra, saevus ubi Aeacidae telo iacet Hector, ubi ingens Sarpedon, ubi tot Simois correpta sub undis scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit!

The first impression which Aeneas makes upon the reader is not an attractive one. Servius is careful to point out that fear reaches Aeneas last of the Trojans:

AENEAE servavit To zcp rov, ut Aeneam ultimum territum dicat1.

1 Ad loc. Quoted from the Harvard Servius, vol. II (Lancaster, I946).

Hermes, 105. Band, Heft 2 (1977) ? Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, D-6200 Wiesbaden



Aeneas Despairing 225

But he also reports the view, with which he seems to agree, that Virgil's transference of these verses from the Odyssey is unsuitable and that the hero has suffered unbecomingly in the process:

reprehenditur sane hoc loco Vergilius quod improprie hos versus Homeri transtulerit xcx& tOT' 'O&auaor6o X&-o youvocTa xocl (PEDov HTrop, OXOaaxq 8' &px elt- tpOq 8v tzycX?Topoc Oup6v. nam 'solvuntur frigore membra' longe aliud

est quam X&To youtvaro, et (93) 'duplices tendens ad sidera palmas talia voce refert' molle, cum illud magis altum et heroicae personae 7cp6k ov ,symXropot Oup6v 2.

Then, after complaining that Aeneas' words, though delivered in the proper stance of prayer do not, in fact, form a prayer, Servius asserts that Odysseus was at least sufficiently heroic to endure his fears in silence, while Aeneas voices his aloud in the presence of his men:

et ille intra se, ne exaudiant socii et timidiores despondeant animo; hic vero vocileratur 3.

The evident weakness of the hero of the poem in his very first appearance has continued to trouble and exercise critics of the Aeneid, who, like Servius, seem to feel that it is unsuitable and unbecoming. HEINZE makes every attempt to defend the nobility of Aeneas:

)>Er sieht den Tod unmittelbar vor Augen, er weiB, daB keine menschliche Kraft mehr helfen kann: aber er darf nicht, wie Achill ((D 273) und Odysseus (e 299) in gleicher Lage, Furcht vor dem Tode auBern oder den Wunsch, am Leben zu bleiben - das ware, wie auch der Schriftsteller vom Erhabenen (IX io) empfand, des Heros unwuirdig .. .( 4

POSCHL is more concerned with the art of Virgil's adaptation of Homeric material, but he, too, is defensive:

))Der Verzweiflungsmonolog uberbietet also den Homer an Form und seelischem Gehalt. Er ist durch die innere Verflechtung mit der Bildsphare des Seesturms kunstvoller, und in gewisser Weise auch seelenvoller und inniger. Aber er ist auch weniger 'natuirlich' als die Worte des Odysseus... ((5

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. For references concerning ancient awareness of the imitativeness of this passage,

see Antonie WLOSOK, Die Gottin Venus in Vergils Aeneis, Heidelberg, I967, I5, n. 7. 4 Richard HEINZE, Virgils epische Technik, Berlin, 19I5 8, 487. 5 Viktor PbSCHL, Die Dichtkunst Virgils, Innsbruck, I950, 6o.

Hermes 105, 2 15



226 W. W. DE GRUMMOND

More recently a former student of POSCHL, Antonie WLOSOK, has given us the most thorough and thoughtful examination of the 'Verzweiflungsmonolog' yet published6. In her study of Virgil's adaptation of his models, however, she considers only the problem of the relative importance of three Homeric passages (Od. e 297 ff., Od. ? 406ff., and I1. D 272ff.); I should like to suggest, first, that the weakness of Aeneas is real, not, as HEINZE implies, only apparent, and, second, that Virgil's most important source in the larger view is not Homer at all, but Apollonius.

The idea that Aeneas is, and is intended by Virgil to be, something less than a complete hero in the earlier portion of the poem is, of course, not a new one. Such a view, though it is not acceptable to him, is inherent in the remarks of Servius quoted above. HEINZE explores the thought at several points in his astonishingly rich and wide-ranging book and refers to it in his discussion of the very passage at hand, just before the lines already cited:

)>Aeneas vollends pragt diesen Typus des Erhabenen, je mehr er in seiner Lauterung zum vollkommenen Helden vorschreitet, um so reiner aus; ... (K7

WLOSOK, too, appreciates the importance of this monologue as an illustration of Aeneas' human weakness8. Yet none of the discussions of the passage, it seems to me, sufficiently stresses the fact that Virgil is quite carefully and purposefully presenting his hero, in his first appearance in the poem, at the very nadir, not only of his fortunes, but of his heroism as well. The delaying of the hero's name, as HEINZE has demonstrated9, is only one, though the most important, of a number of instances in which Virgil uses this device to create emphatic suspense. By the time the celebrated warrior - and it is as a warrior that he is first brought to our attention: arma virumnque cano - does appear in person, the reader's expectations are high. The storm at sea, too, as POSCHL has pointed out, not only contributes to the mounting tension, but also serves as preparation for epic action:

))Er versetzt die Seele des Lesers in den Zustand groBgestimmter Erregung, der sie zur Aufnahme des gewaltigen Geschehens bereit macht, das an ihr vortiberziehen wird<10.

6 WLOSOK (n. 3 above) I3-20. 7 HEINZE (n. 4 above) 486. 8 WLOSOK (n. 3 above) I3-I4, especially n. 2, with its reference to FUNAIOLI and to

LIEBING. 9 HEINZE (n. 4 above) 376-377. 10 POSCHL (n. 5 above) 23.




The reader is shocked. The reaction of Servius, dismay, perhaps even indignation, is, I think, the one intended by Virgil"1. The reader is filled with astonishment that Aeneas, the great epic hero, the father of Romans, the warrior whose mighty deeds are to be celebrated in this poem as those of Achilles were celebrated in the Iliad and those of Odysseus in the Odyssey, is first set before our eyes in imminent danger and, more importantly, in despair as he looks upon his awful situation. The relatively bolder reactions of Odysseus and, somewhat less so, of Achilles, in parallel circumstances are, of course, quite pertinent, and I agree with WLOSOK that it is important to compare the Virgilian and Homeric passages in detail and to examine carefully, as she has done, even minute differences.

Yet such a procedure cannot, I think, in this case, adequately illuminate Virgil's use of his sources. WLOSOK claims:

))Ganz allgemein bedeutet diese Art der imitierenden Zitierung, zumal an exponierter Stelle, daB Vergil seinen Helden in Entsprechung zu Odysseus vorstellen will, und zwar, wie die Wahl der Situation an- zeigt, als den Heimatlosen, Herumgeworfenen, Leidenden und Ver- lassenen<412.

It seems obvious, however, that it is the depth of Aeneas' despair and the sense of utter helplessness which he feels that set the dominant tone of the entire passage, and these elements, as Servius saw, are not really drawn from the Odyssey. That Virgil portrays his hero as despairing and helpless in his first presentation of him indicates, I think, that these traits are intended to be looked upon as characteristic of the man at that stage of the narrative. They are surely never characteristic of Odysseus. WLOSOK has perceived that the comparison produces only superficial similarities; she has shifted emphasis from the Odyssey to the Iliad:

)>Eine weitere Bestatigung gewinnen wir aus dem Vergleich mit der oben erwahnten Iliasstelle. Sie steht in der inneren Problematik der vergilischen naher als die aus der Odyssee, denn auch Achill erfahrt seinen Widerspruch zwischen SchicksalverheiBung und scheinbarer Wirklichkeit (413.

11 Though, as I suggest below, the reader familiar with the Alexandrian writers' examination of heroes and heroism would be less surprised. He need not, however, be less indignant. Virgil's Aeneas, though not a reaffirmation of Homeric heroism, is yet a reaffirmation of the possibility of heroism of a different sort, more complex, more human and humane. For the sophisticated Augustan reader the surprise would come, not in Aeneas' unheroic appearance in the first half of the poem, as it does for Servius, but rather in the more heroic second half.

12 WLOSOK (n. 3 above) I5. 13 WLOSOK (n. 3 above) I9.

15*




The gain is real, yet once more the objection arises: despair and helplessness are no more characteristic of Achilles, despite his brooding sulkiness, than of Odysseus; thus a passage in which they are made the keynote cannot have been inspired in the first instance by either Homeric hero.

Despair and helplessness do not seem suitable characteristics for any epic hero; it is precisely this conviction which makes the passage objectionable in Servius' eyes. And since he is comparing the reaction of Aeneas with that of Odysseus, who he thinks is Virgil's model, he cannot understand why the Roman poet should have introduced these weaknesses into the makeup of his hero. But Aeneas, of course, is not a Homeric hero. He is far more complex and far more liable to human inconsistencies than the Homeric heroes. It would perhaps be an equally great exaggeration in the other direction to say that Virgil is an Alexandrian poet: Aeneas is certainly not simply an Alexandrian hero. Yet the fact that the Alexandrian writers had intervened between Homer and Virgil is of essential importance in understanding the Augustan poet's concepts of epic, of poetry, of literature, of art'4. The Greek writers of the third century B. C. had examined heroism in a new, a more sophisticated, light'5, and to them it appeared considerably less glamorous on the one hand, or, alternatively, considerably less believable. Virgil was influenced, of course, by the ideas of Callimachus, Theocritus, and other Alexandrians, but his reexamination of the narrative and psychological possibilities of the epic hero was inevitably stimulated chiefly by Apollonius. Had Servius thought of the A eneid more as an Alexandrian epic and less as a Homeric one, he could not have been surprised by Aeneas' first scene.

Apollonius' Jason is anything but a traditional epic hero. POSCHL under- scores this well in his denial of the influence of Apollonius on the very scene we are discussing and, by implication, on the poem as a whole, at least in any very deep way:

)>Das hellenistische Epos des Apollonius vollends, das in beilaufigem Erzahlerton mit dem anekdotischen, fast das Komische streifenden Orakel von dem 'Mann mit dem einen Schuh' anhebt, hat nichts von

14 For a brief but helpful statement of the effect of Euripides and of early Hellenism upon the older currents of thought in Greece, see U. v. WILAMOWITZ-MOELLENDORFF, Die hellenistische Dichtung, Berlin, I962 [1924] I, 68 ff. The context here is religious, but the point holds equally well for the artistic. dn und nach dem langen unseligen Kriege, der so viele Verstole gegen alles gbttliche und menschliche Recht gezeugt hatte, war ein neues Geschlecht herangewachsen, das euripideisch dachte. Der Glaube nicht nur des Pindar, sondern auch des Aischylos war dahin (p. 7I). If Apollonius cannot be viewed as a simple continuator of Homer, how much less can Virgill For a fuller and narrower discussion of this point, see Brooks OTIS' chapter 'From Homer to Virgil: The Obsolescence of Epic' in: Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry, Oxford, i963, 5-40.

15 The impulse is not original with them, of course; they were nourished upon the works of Euripides, Thucydides, Aristophanes, etc.




dieser symbolischen Kraft. Es ist entgegen der landlaufigen Meinung erheblich weiter entfernt von der Kunstauffassung Virgils als die Epen Homers (16.

It is as the man with one shoe who is to bring a harsh destiny upon Pelias that Jason is first mentioned - like Aeneas, without being named - in the statement of theme at the opening of the poem (I, 6-7):

-oa3' &v?poc, 6vrLv' o0Lro &%t6t'v OL0oT0XOV.

Jason lacks the dignity of the traditional epic hero"7, a dignity which Aeneas undeniably possesses. Yet I do not hesitate to say that in this instance P6SCHL is wrong and >die landldufige Meinunge right; and I must point out that although the influence of Apollonius on Virgil has been demonstrated or commented upon many times18, no one has, so far as I am able to tell, connected it with this particular scene (despite POSCHL'S implication) or, in general, with Virgil's presentation of a despairing and helpless hero'9. Yet Jason is the despairing and helpless hero par excellence.

Ironically enough, it is on Jason's first entry into the narrative, conversely to Aeneas, that we see Jason at his most courageous - comforting his mother (I, 26I-268, 292-294):

TR 8 - ail ohqTC 7OXZLq &)aOL T &Y&POVTO CrXp oc'L apap' v GCTO rOX!iN 0 '?XTV

MuV 6vyoq CFaV U aCPL 7rTa-p 6Xo6 1)7r

eVtU7raOq eV x eca XO ,CV4VOq yoo&oaxev. cxar&p 0 T'CV [LeV e7reLOCr XTaTcp-nUvrvV avLoq

,5CpaUpvOv, a[Ldcdaat 8' a r uxe X?LpetM

7CeppoceV ot U Tr aLyoc XOCTjCP6e TeLpOVTO.

Q5ye aTrevoZ1oam XLVVpeTo -oct a? yuvcxtxg aplroPoLt Y&oMaaxov raL6Ca6v OC&rap O6 ye j1e&LkXL'OLq &7t6naa 7rMpjyOp6&v npOG6ek&reV.

16 POSCHL (n. 5 above) 24. 17 Objections to Jason as an epic hero have often been voiced; see, for example, George

W. MOONEY'S edition of the Argonautica, London, I9I2, 39; F. A. WRIGHT, History of Later Greek Literature, London, I932, IOO; E. A. BARBER, in the entry on Apollonius, Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford, 1949, 70.

18 Markus HYGI, Vergil Aeneis und die hellenistische Dichtung, Bern, 1952, 9-I09; MOONEY (n. I7 above) 30, 43-45; CONINGTON'S commentary on Virgil, II, London, i8768, 20-24; HEINZE (n. 4 above) in his index, p. 494, lists some thirty references to Apollonius, most of which deal in one way or another with his influence on Virgil.

19 HEINZE (n. 4 above) in n. 2 on p. 76 does touch upon the passage of the Aeneid in question. There he compares i, 9I (ptaesentemque viris intentant omnia mortem) with both Homer (Od. E 305, I1. 0 628) and Apollonius, 2, 580, where the Greek in question is utdp xeyoa,q yap a,u.xocog Qv 6X,,poq; in most twentieth-century editions of the Argonautica this is line 578.




Here it is Alcimede, the hero's mother, who wishes that she had already died, at a certain time in the past (I, 278-282):

'MA 6b?XoV X?LV t[iocp, &T Keu7OtVTOg &xouao Lx=C eyc6 JMCxO xocx'v cCX-O4q eP?vt,

OcUYtLX X7r0 VtJUV JIS tV, XY?O&V r xa9CFac,

,, , , ,,E &P ocUp rO6q Ve re-a TEOa rPxUaOC xepaLv., 'rsxvov iov . . ."

Thereafter almost any appearance of Jason, chosen at random, will serve as an illustration of the despairing and helpless hero; despair and helplessness are constant characteristics in his makeup, ever near the surface and ready to reveal themselves: they are essential to the poet's concept of his hero. I select four instances, one from each book:

I, 460-462: ev,' cxu' AIaov'La7 ~te' Ms>7A)OC ELV ?0L OUWTC

7CopCpupe6xev exca- xaTrcp6V-n ?OLX6o.

-rov 8'ap' oCppCa6ts ,Leyo&CXf Ok VSX[aeV "JaCX

2, 408-4IO:

OQ ap' ? oUs 8' eO ap e 6?V Eoq elaoctovTaoc. 8NV 8'?aXV M&pxa6? O?rF30?VOCv 0t? 8'??Ct?v

5pco ALaovoq u6o& aoc vcov xOCxOrjny. 3, 422-425:

Q p ?a 'c 0 ae MyOCOV 7r&pOq OLLOCTOC Ma

odau-toq &8oyyo4 &a,uxavcOv xOCxO6rzyn. fouXSv 8'0a4L 7ro?Uv a-rpcPOC ZPOVOV, O'U8 7CI ZXX?V

pa?CXSOq 67COUNXaOL, e7 teYO C?OCLVeTO 'pyOV.

and 4, I3I6-I3I8:

a?X l4 ov a s,auv 0'490upov olov t?LeLx[ZOLq e7reCF6LV CTV4O0LeVOV 7rpOeet7rov,

"Ko,u sUope, T'L7c-'s 7rLrOao OCS609 xavb Pep0Xkqro; . .. 121

Jason's weakness, then, is clear. Apollonius' reasons for making him so are perhaps less clear22, but in any case the Greek poet has surely made no

20 The witty intent of such a presentation seems to me evident. Jason is an ironical hero, almost an anti-hero. Detractors of the poem (cf. the quotation from POSCHL above) have generally missed this point, or denied it. For an excellent appreciative essay, see E. V. RIEU'S introduction to his English translation of the poem (Harmondsworth, 1959). Since this interpretation is not essential for my point in this paper, I shall press it no further.

21 Other instances, if they are desired, are at i, I286; 2, 885; 3, 1221; 4, I49; there are yet others. 22 Cf. n. 17 above.



Aeneas Despairing 23I

attempt to integrate this weakness, with all its psychological potentialities, into the makeup of a true epic hero. Virgil, on the other hand, intent upon portraying a good, serious man who successfully overcomes human obstacles in his struggle to achieve pietas, has seen the possiblities offered by the explora- tion of the tendency to despair and helplessness within the context of, and in the person of, a truly worthy epic hero. As always, Virgil has combined and disguised his sources - by transforming them. The words of Odysseus and Achilles in the face of disaster are poetically more memorable than those of Jason, and it is not surprising that Virgil has chosen to recall the Homeric texts rather than that of Apollonius. The physical situation of Aeneas, likewise, is closer to those of the older poet's heroes than to any in the Argonautica. Neither of these points should be allowed to obscure the fact that at the more profound psychological levels, it is upon Apollonius, more than upon Homer, that Virgil is building. Here, as in other places, Aeneas is an Alexandrian hero; he is Jason strengthened. Aeneas turns out to be a stronger hero than Jason because he is a better man. Through his pietas he accomplishes feats which are beyond the ken of Jason, who is a mere Alexandrian sophisticate and no epic hero at all. But psychologically Aeneas has more than a touch of kinship with Jason - and little indeed with Odysseus or Achilles. It is not rare for Virgil to use different sources for external and internal (i. e., physical and psychological) models in the same scene. An interesting example, one in which the proto- types are both found in Apollonius but in different episodes, is the Dido and Aeneas story. The psychological study of Dido is clearly founded upon that of Medea in book III of Apollonius' poem, but the narrative apologue for the story is just as clearly the stay of the Argonauts at Lemnos in book I, relating the amour of Jason and Hypsipyle 23. Virgil's historical sources, of course, lie entirely elsewhere.

WLOSOK, aware that the similarities between the passage in the Odyssey referred to by Servius and that in the Aeneid are only superficial, turned to the Iliad for a more searching elucidation of )>die innere Problematik 24. This stress upon the resemblance between Achilles and Aeneas, illuminating in some particulars, has led her astray, I think, in her discussion of one other point in this passage. Aeneas, in his very first words in the poem, wishes that he might have died at Troy under the eyes of his elders. Then he becomes more specific: he wishes that he had fallen at the hands of Diomedes, boldest of the Greeks (I, 96-98):

o Danaum fortissime gentis Tydide! mene Iliacis occumbere campis non potuisse tuaque animam hanc effundere dextra... /

23 Cf. HEINZE (n. 4 above) ii8. 24 N. I3 above.




Why Diomedes? Why not Achilles? It is obvious that this question was ponder- ed, but not resolved, in antiquity, for Servius says (ad loc.):

sane quaeritur cur Diomedem fortissimum dixerit, cum post Achillem et Aiacem ipse sit tertius; unde et Sallustius ait 'primum Graecorum Achillem'. multi dicunt ideo fortissimum, quia iuxta Homerum et Venerem vulneravit et Martem. alii ad gentem referunt, quod Achilles Thessalus fuit, Aiax Graecus, Diomedes Danaus. multi ad excusationem Aeneae volunt fortissimum dictum, a quo eum constat esse superatum, ut luvenalis 'vel quo Tydides percussit pondere coxam Aeneae' [Juvenal, I5, 66].

Later commentators have, as WLOSOK says 25, been content to point to II. Z, 98, against which she quotes I1. EL, 2I. She adduces two new arguments:

)>Erstens kommt es Vergil an dieser Stelle auf die Parallele zwischen Aeneas und Achill an... Die Absicht wiirde verdunkelt, wenn gleichzeitig an den friiheren Gegensatz erinnert wiirde. Zweitens verbindet Vergil die Rettung des Aeneas durch Poseidon im Gegen- satz zu Homer nicht mit der Schicksalsbestimmung, sondern laBt sie an der einzigen Stelle, wo darauf Bezug genommen wird, in der Antwort des Neptun an Venus V 799ff., mehr als ordnungstiftende MaBnahme erscheinen, da er das Wiiten des Achill in den troischen Flulssen eigens voranstellt. Die Rettung durch Venus hingegen wird IV 227ff.... ausdrticklich in den Dienst der Fata gestellt und mit der Mission des Aeneas motiviert. Und eben darum geht es im vor- liegenden Zusammenhang. Hinter der Beschw6rung des Diomedes verbirgt sich somit auch ein indirekter Aufschrei zur gottlichen Mutter (vergleichbar dem aus Aen. II 664f.), der den Auftritt der Venus vor Juppiter vorbereitet26.((

Both of these objections fall, however, if it is Jason and not Achilles who is Virgil's internal model in this scene. The second, somewhat tenuous in any case, becomes wholly irrelevant 27. The first is more important because it raises more directly an issue which affects the reading of the poem as a whole. For one thing, the error here rests upon the practice of interpreting Virgil too exclusively in the light of Homer. Virgil is stimulated by and draws upon a bewildering array of sources, Greek, Roman, and probably others as well. These sources, in turn, are likely to be concealed by Virgil's own originality,

25 WLOSOK (n. 3 above) i8, n. I5. 26 Ibid. 27 WLOSOK'S last sentence in the passage quoted is, of course, valid, but it does not

affect the question of Virgil's model.




for he not only combines and reshapes them, but also redirects them, turns them to his own ends - and these ends can often be understood, not by any examination of the source, no matter how thorough, but only through study of the structure and thought of Virgil's poem. His purposes in having Aeneas speak of Diomedes rather than Achilles and give him precedence over all other Greek heroes in martial valor are, I think, positive, not negative, and can be elucidated only within the context of the Aeneid itself. Far from avoiding mention of Achilles, Virgil is introducing Diomedes into the poem as early and as emphatically as he reasonably can - for both symbolically and structurally Diomedes is important in the Aeneid, far more important than Achilles28. Virgil saw that Diomedes, and Diomedes alone of the great Greek heroes, offered the possibility of development beyond the point to which he had been brought by the Homeric poems and by recognized later Greek tradition. The need for a character who could be so expanded and altered was crucial in Virgil's intent to demonstrate that Troy, not Greece, represented the side of righteousness and that, in the end, its cause was destined to triumph. For the Roman poet wished to show that experience would lead any reasonable man, even one who had believed deeply in the Greeks' undertaking, to see that the Trojans (i. e. the Romans) were right and to accept the path that was destined inevitably to lead on to the greatness of Augustan Rome. The number of Greek warriors whose authority was sufficiently great to make the symbolism effective was limited. Achilles was dead and thus not believably or usefully to be develop- ed further. So too Agamemnon. Odysseus' postwar adventures occupied the time span of the A eneid and were too well known to be ignored; the same is true of Menelaus. Besides this, neither Odysseus nor Menelaus is one of the really great fighters on the field of battle; Virgil required a warrior whose conversion to peace, to the Augustan Peace as it were, would be striking. Ajax, too, was dead - and lacked imagination in any case. This left Diomedes: there was no other.

The tradition that Diomedes settled in Italy existed, of course, independently of Virgil 29. This is only one more instance of Virgil's perceiving unseen possibilities in the already existing tradition and developing them to the full within the context of his own work. The homage to Diomedes placed in the mouth of Aeneas in his very first speech in the poem, then, is a foreshadowing of important events to come. It is Diomedes, not Achilles, to whom Aeneas is comparable. Though as despairing, as helpless as Jason when he first appears

28 For a brief study of the portrayal of Diomedes in the Aeneid, - see my article *Virgil's Diomedes , Phoenix 2I, I967, 40-43.

29 It was known to Timaeus more than two centuries before the A eneid. For a discussion of the sources see BETHE, RE V, i, Stuttgart, I903, coll. 820-822. Cf. also HEYNE'S

'Excursus I ad librum XI' in his edition of the Aeneid, vol. IV, Paris, I8203.



234 ROBERT E. COLTON

in the poem, Aeneas, like Diomedes, will, in the course of the Aeneid, found a new life in Italy for himself and his people, a stable life dedicated to peace and understanding and achieved through heroic pietas.

Florida State University W. W. DE GRUMMOND

ECHOES OF MARTIAL IN JUVENAL'S FOURTEENTH SATIRE

The theme of Juvenal's Fourteenth Satire is the power of parental example'. The poem may be divided into two main parts. In the first part (i-io6), Juvenal warns that children imitate the vices of their parents. If a father gambles, or is a glutton, or treats his slaves cruelly, or is addicted to the building of villas, or belongs to a narrow religious sect, his son will follow his bad example. If a mother shamelessly commits adultery, her daughter also will become an adulteress. It is the duty of parents, then, to bring up their offspring in homes that are morally stainless; the greatest reverence is owed to children.

In the second part of the poem (I07-33I), Juvenal preaches vehemently against the one vice in which parents actually give their children systematic instruction: greed (avaritia). This vice, he declares, has two sides, stinginess and acquisitiveness. He goes on to show that the insatiable craving for wealth is a form of madness. In order to amass wealth, men engage in dangerous and degrading occupations, and do not hesitate to commit crime, even the crime of murder. The amassing of wealth, however, leads only to unhappiness, since wealthy men live in constant dread of losing their possessions.

In the present paper we shall point out those passages in Juvenal's Four- teenth Satire which owe something to the epigrams of Juvenal's friend Martial2.

In the first part of the poem, three passages are of interest to us. The first has to do with gambling (4):

1 On the Fourteenth Satire see G. HIGHET, Juvenal the Satirist, Oxford I954, I45-I48, 282-284; A. SERAFINI, Studio sulla satira di Giovenale, Florence I957, 60-62; E. N. O'NEIL, The Structure of Juvenal's Fourteenth Satire, CP 55, I960, 25I-253;

W. S. ANDERSON, Anger in Juvenal and Seneca, University of California Publications in Classical Philology i9, I964, I90-I9I; J. P. STEIN, The Unity and Scope of Juvenal's Fourteenth Satire, CP 65, I970, 34-36. For an early American version of the poem see L. M. KAISER, An Unpublished Translation of Juvenal I4 by John Quincy Adams, CJ 65, I970, 3IO-3I6.

2 On the literary relationship of the two poets see H. NETTLESHIP, The Life and Poems of Juvenal, Journal of Philology i6, i888, 4I-66; H. L. WILSON, The Literary Influence

Hermes, 105. Band, Heft 2 (1977) ? Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, D-6200 Wiesbaden



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