Vergil's Empire: Political Thought in the Aeneid

369 Pages·2003·19.74 MB·English

by  Eve Adler

Vergil’s Empire
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Vergil’s Empire
Political Thought in the Aeneid
Eve Adler
ROWMAN & I,ITTLEFIEI,D PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham Boulder New Oxford
York
ROWMAN & LITLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
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Copyright 0 2003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Adler, Eve.
Vergil's empire : political thought in the Aeneid / Eve Adler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7425-2166-4 (alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7425-2167-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Virgil, Aeneis. 2. Political poetry, Latin-History and criticism.
3. Epic poetry, Latin-History and criticism. 4. Aeneas (Legendary
character) in literature. 5. Virgil-Political and social views. 6.
Politics and literature-Rome. 7. Imperialism in literature. 8.
Rome-In literature. 1. Title
PA6825 .A68 2003
873'.014c21
200201423 1
Printed in the United States of America
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
ix
Part I: The Foundations of Carthage and of Rome
Chapter 1 The Theme of the Aeneid 3
Chapter 2 The Song of Iopas and the Song of Vergil 9
Chapter 3 The Carthaginian Enlightenment 17
Chapter 4 Was There a Roman Enlightenment? 41
Chapter 5 Lucretius’ Teaching 53
Chapter 6 Furor 77
Chapter 7 Dido in Love 103
Part 11: The Greater Order of Things
Chapter 8 The Theme of the Aeneid Again 137
Chapter 9 The Golden Age 147
Chapter 10 Aeneas’ Founding of Rome 167
Chapter 11 World Empire 193
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vi Contents
Part 111: Pietatis Imago
Chapter 12 Piety and Heroic Virtue 219
Chapter 13 Aeneas and the Heroes 233
Chapter 14 The Education of Aeneas: I 253
Chapter 15 The Education of Aeneas: I1 281
Notes 301
Bibliography 335
Index 343
Passages Index 347
m
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of
Government at Harvard University, for his princely support and encourage-
ment in bringing this work to publication. Middlebury College gave me the
leave from teaching that enabled me to complete the writing of this book.
vii
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Introduction
The most controversial question in contemporary interpretation of Vergil’s
Aeneid may be said to be the question whether Vergil in this poem is pro-
Augustan or anti-Augustan, pro-imperial or anti-imperial, pro-Roman or
anti-Roman.’ The argument of the following study claims for Vergil an in-
tention that goes far beyond the terms of this controversy: Vergil aims nei-
ther to advocate nor to oppose Augustus’ Roman Empire, but to found his
own empire; Vergil‘s poem is a “foundation poem” not because its subject
matter is the Aenean first foundation or the Augustan refoundation of Rome,
but because it itself claims to be the foundation of an altogether new and
greater order of things, maim rerum ordo (Aeneid 7.44). The political problem
that animates Vergil‘s founding ambitions is the conflict between scientific
enlightenment and religion. The specific form in which this problem was
given to Vergil was the form of Lucretius’ poem De Rerum Natura, in the the-
oretical argument of the poem on the one hand, and in the literary or polit-
ical fact of its publication on the other.
Lucretius teaches that we human beings are accidental, mortal, and alone
without gods-without gods to provide for us, to protect morality, to reward
and punish us, to govern nature or guide the government of cities, to pre-
serve our country, our posterity, our world itself from inexorable dissolution
and oblivion. According to Lucretius, full knowledge of our unprotected sit-
uation in the universe, bitter or frightening as it may appear at first, is the
source of the highest and most secure happiness attainable by a human be-
ing. Lucretius’ astonishing project, his presentation in beautiful poetry of
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