1ⓢ2. Sculpting a perfect Homeric moment

1§8 The notion of a stop-motion picture at the moment of death brings me finally to the Homeric example I have in mind. As we set out to visualize the picture, however, it is essential for me to reiterate: I am not saying that Homeric poetry is rigid. I am saying only that it can idealize itself as absolutely rigid. Here, then, is my example from the Iliad. It is a passage where Homeric poetry pictures itself in terms of absolute rigidity. The operative metaphor, this time, is that of petrifaction:

1ⓣ1 Iliad II 299-332

1§12 Calchas the seer instantly responds to the vision with this formulation: just as surely as the serpent, who is the tenth and last part in the ten-part sequence of the vision, has devoured the nine birds, so will the Achaeans destroy the city of Troy in the tenth year of the ten-year sequence of the story of the Trojan War (326-329). Responding to the petrifaction of the serpent in Iliad II, the voice of the seer Calchas is being quoted by Odysseus, and, ultimately, by Homeric poetry, and this prophetic voice equates the petrified serpent with the Troy story all told. At the moment of the equation, however, that Troy story is still in the process of being narrated. The narration is in progress, it is current, and it will not be over until it is over. Once it is really over, then and only then will the narration become rigid like the petrified serpent- and permanent. The storytelling itself is animated or live – in the parlance of modern technology – and it must remain animated until the story is fully told. The petrified serpent is a prophecy of this fulfillment, and it too is animated and life-like in the sense that it predicts the live performance of the narration all the way to the very end, which is the outcome of the narration. {79|80} And the word that conveys the idea of reaching an ending or outcome is teleîn (325, 330), which I have been translating so far as ‘reach an outcome’.

1§13 So the portent of the nine birds and the serpent in Iliad II is a prophetic vision of the Troy story. Just as the vision of the seer Calchas concentrates on the ending of the vision, which is the tenth part of a ten-part sequence of nine birds and a serpent, so also the Troy story concentrates on the tenth year of its own sequence of ten years, and on a particular moment of terror and pity in that tenth year, the capture of the city. The tenth year marks the moment when the action is arrested. And the serpent – as the tenth part of the visionary sequence – marks the moment when the motion is arrested. The climactic moment of terror and pity in the vision of the serpent and the birds is marked by the petrifaction.

1ⓣ2 Iliad XII 228

1§16 In the passage about the nine birds and the serpent, it is essential that Calchas speaks as a theopropos ‘seer’ when he interprets the vision:

1ⓣ3 Iliad II 322

1§18 This idea of unchangeability is conveyed by the words of Odysseus that frame what he had just quoted. I focus on the verse featuring the verb teleîn, which is derived from the noun telos ‘outcome’ and which I have been translating as ‘reach an outcome [telos]’:

1ⓣ4 Iliad II 330

1ⓣ5 Iliad II 318

1ⓢ3. Variations on a perfect Homeric moment

1§20 Aristarchus, the premier Alexandrian commentator on Homer, athetizes the next verse:

1ⓣ6 Iliad II 319

1§21 Aristonicus, an Aristarchean scholar who flourished in the age of Virgil, well over a century after Aristarchus, has this to say about the verse, in the scholia A for Iliad II 319 (a1): ἀθετεῖται ‘it is athetized’ – that is, this verse is athetized by Aristarchus. Such an athetesis by Aristarchus should not be misunderstood to mean that verse 319 of Iliad II is a substandard verse. From the standpoint of the history of Homeric textual transmission, as surveyed in the Prolegomena, it is just the opposite: this verse, like the many hundreds of other verses athetized by Aristarchus, belongs to the standard version of Homer, the Koine. Moreover, Aristarchus featured this verse in the text of his own edition of Homer. This verse would have looked like any other verse in the edition of Aristarchus – except for one small detail. Aristarchus placed a mark in the left-hand margin next to all verses that he athetized. That sign is the obelos (–).

1§22 Here I return to the conclusions I formulated in the Prolegomena concerning the editorial policy of Aristarchus. In cases where this editor was {82|83} uncertain whether a given Homeric verse was genuinely Homeric, he had two choices, in terms of his own editorial system:

(1) If he found the given verse only weakly attested in the available manuscripts, he would omit the verse from his base text.

(2) If he found the given verse strongly attested, then he would keep the verse in his base text, marking that verse with an obelos (–), the sign of athetesis, in the left-hand margin.

As I argued in the Prolegomena, the base text of Homer as established by Aristarchus was designed to reflect as accurately as possible the standard version of Homer, the Koine. Aristarchus confined to his hupomnēmata ‘commentaries’ whatever information and opinions he had about non-Koine variant readings, which in many cases he thought were more likely to be Homeric than the readings he featured in his own base text.

1§23 Applying what I formulated in the Prolegomena about the editorial policies of Aristarchus, I reaffirm what I just said about the verse at Iliad II 319 as I quoted it. To put it in the most simple terms, this verse stems from the base text of Aristarchus. And, like all other verses in that base text, verse 319 of Iliad II stems from the Koine tradition.

1§28 Next I turn to the argumentation of Aristarchus. The basic meaning of a-ïdēlos / a-ïzēlos as ‘invisible’ helps explain why Aristarchus was interested in the variant reading ἀίζηλον ‘invisible’ as an alternative to ἀρίζηλον ‘most visible’ at verse 318 of Iliad II. Even in their abridged form, the Homeric scholia show clearly what Aristarchus said in his hupomnēmata about the meaning of this variant. I give here the wording of scholia A: λέγει μέντοι γε ὅτι ὁ φήνας αὐτὸν θεὸς καὶ ἄδηλον ἐποίησεν ‘he [= Homer] says that the same god that had made it [= the serpent] visible [= phainein] also made it invisible [a-dēlos]’ (scholia A for Iliad II 318 1). The point is reinforced by the wording of scholia T for verse 319: ἀθετεῖται· πιθανώτερον γὰρ αὐτὸν καθάπαξ πεποιηκέναι ἀφανῆ τὸν καὶ φήναντα θεόν ‘[This verse] is athetized [by Aristarchus]: for it is more plausible that the same god who made it [= the serpent] visible [= phainein] should straightaway make it disappear [= make it a-phanēs ‘invisible’].

1§29 So the variant verse at Iliad II 318 would look like this:

1ⓣ7 Iliad II 318 (variant reading attested by Aristarchus)

1§30 This version of Iliad II 318 is evidently incompatible with II 319 as we have it, which tells about the petrifaction of the serpent. The theme of making the serpent disappear is evidently incompatible with the theme of making the serpent into stone:

1ⓣ8 Iliad II 318-319

1§33 Elsewhere too, Aristarchus reacts in a comparable way to a scene of petrifaction. A relevant case in point is the myth of Niobe as retold in another most memorable passage of the Iliad. Although it is important for my short-term argumentation to consider this passage right away, those readers who are more interested in my long-term argumentation may prefer to postpone what follows here in §§33-36 for another occasion and to shift forward to §37 in their reading. For those readers who prefer to stay on course with the short-term argumentation, I now proceed to consider the passage about the myth of Niobe:

1ⓣ9 Iliad XXIV 601-620

1§35 In this Koine version as it comes down to us by way of the medieval manuscript tradition, we see at verse 611 that all the people in the realm of Niobe were turned into stone after her sons and daughters were destroyed by Apollo and Artemis, so that they could not bury Niobe’s children; then, at verses 614-617, we see further that Niobe herself was turned into stone. {89|90} Commenting on all five of these verses in his hupomnēmata, Aristarchus argues that verse 611 is genuinely Homeric while verses 614-617 are not, and he athetizes all four of these supposedly non-Homeric verses (scholia A for Iliad XXIV 614-617a 1). It would be a mistake to infer, however, that verses 614-617 had no prehistory of their own. Aristarchus reports that there was indeed a version of the story where Niobe herself became petrified, and he ascribes this version to poets later than Homer, referring to them as the neōteroi ‘newer ones’; by contrast, according to Aristarchus, the supposedly older poet Homer did not have such a version (scholia A for Iliad XXIV 613a 1).

1§36 I postpone till Chapter 2 my examination of Homeric textual variations where Aristarchus assigns one variant to Homer as the older poet and the other variant or variants to poets whom he considers to be neōteroi ‘the newer ones’. As we will see, the Koine tends to include and accommodate variants that Aristarchus ascribes to the neōteroi, whereas Aristarchus isolates such variants as non-Homeric and even post-Homeric accretions – though he continues to include and accommodate them in his base text, which as I showed in the Prolegomena is meant to correspond as closely as possible to the Koine as he understood it.

1§37 I return to the standard or Koine version of the vision of the nine birds and the serpent. The petrified serpent at verse 319 of Iliad II, like some splendid statue sculpted by natural forces, radiates a permanent vision matching the permanent words that give it meaning. Such words provide the permanent response to the question posed by the permanent vision. It is this kind of definitive response that we see conveyed by the word hupokrinesthai, conveying the idea of prophetic words responding to prophetic visions.

1ⓢ4. Metaphors of unchangeability

1§39 I describe the Homeric vision of the petrified serpent as a statue sculpted by natural forces. That is because I see a metaphor at work in the sculpting of real statues that is comparable to the metaphor inherent in the vision of the {90|91} petrified serpent. The unchangeability of the petrified serpent is a metaphor for the notional unchangeability of the verbal art that reports it. We can see a comparable notion of unchangeability in the sculpting of real statues. I give two examples.

1§40 The first example has to do with the wording inscribed on a bronze statue dated to somewhere between 490 and 480 BCE. The statue has disappeared, but the base and its inscription have survived. Here is the inscription:

1ⓣ10 CEG 286 [IG I³ 533]. Inscription for a bronze statue dedicated by Antiphanes

1§43 In this case, then, the unchanging response is notionally spoken by the dedicated art object, the statue, who is the ‘I’ that responds to all the questions that come from all those who engage with the vision of the statue. Yes, the mentality of unchangeability is reinforced by the writing down of these words. Still, notionally, these words of response would be constant even without writing, since they are predicated on the overall vision of the statue.

1§44 The usage of hupokrinesthai in Homeric Greek, as also in the inscription we have just read, helps explain the meaning of the classical Greek word hupokritēs ‘actor’, derived from hupokrinesthai. This theatrical word can be better understood by juxtaposing it with another theatrical word, theatron ‘theater’, composed of verb-root thea- ‘have a vision’ and noun-suffix –tron, indicating an instrument; thus the whole word can be interpreted etymologically as ‘instrument for having a vision [thea-]’. The etymological implications of these two words, theatron and hupokritēs, can be interpreted together. The audience of theater, of theatron, which is the instrument for achieving thea, or vision, literally sees a vision of a character, such as the Antigone of Sophocles in the drama that is named after her, and this vision of Antigone can then speak for itself. Moreover, the word for ‘audience’ is theatai ‘spectators’. Thus the mask-wearing actor who is the visualization of, say, Antigone is a hupokritēs of the theatrical vision of Antigone and of the whole drama that is the Antigone of Sophocles. Such an interpretation of the two words theatron and hupokritēs taken together is illustrated in this striking turn of phrase concerning the acting of the character of Antigone by the noted actors Theodoros and Aristodemos: {92|93}

1ⓣ11 Demosthenes 19.246

Ἀντιγόνην δὲ Σοφοκλέους πολλάκις μὲν Θεόδωρος, πολλάκις δ’ Ἀριστόδημος ὑποκέκριται

1§45 Just as writing is not a necessity for expressing a fixed message emanating from a fixed mental image, so also the physical reality of a work of art is not a necessity for achieving such a fixed image. In other words, you don’t need a painting or a statue to express a fixed mental image any more than you need letters to write down what it looks like.

1§46 I now turn to my second example illustrating the notion of unchangeability in the sculpting of real statues. As in the case of the petrified serpent in the standard version of the Homeric narrative, we are about to see a freeze-frame of a perfect moment. In this case, however, the moment is one of happiness, not of terror and pity. Such a perfect moment is captured by Herodotus in his retelling of a story told by Solon about two young men, Kleobis and Biton, who performed a superhuman feat at the Heraia, the festival of the goddess Hera in their native city of Argos:

1ⓣ12 Herodotus 1.31.3-5

ταῦτα δέ σφι ποιήσασι καὶ ὀφθεῖσι ὑπὸ τῆς πανηγύριος τελευτὴ τοῦ βίου ἀρίστη ἐπεγένετο, διέδεξέ τε ἐν τούτοισι ὁ θεὸς ὡς ἄμεινον εἴη ἀνθρώπῳ τεθνάναι μᾶλλον ἢ ζώειν. Ἀργεῖοι μὲν γὰρ περιστάντες ἐμακάριζον τῶν νεηνιέων τὴν ῥώμην, αἱ δὲ Ἀργεῖαι τὴν μητέρα αὐτῶν, οἵων τέκνων ἐκύρησε. Ἡ δὲ μήτηρ περιχαρὴς ἐοῦσα τῷ τε ἔργῳ καὶ τῇ φήμῃ, στᾶσα ἀντίον τοῦ ἀγάλματος εὔχετο Κλεόβι τε καὶ Βίτωνι τοῖσι ἑωυτῆς τέκνοισι, οἵ μιν ἐτίμησαν μεγάλως, τὴν θεὸν δοῦναι τὸ ἀνθρώπῳ τυχεῖν ἄριστόν ἐστι. Μετὰ ταύτην δὲ τὴν εὐχὴν ὡς ἔθυσάν τε καὶ εὐωχήθησαν, κατακοιμηθέντες ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ ἱρῷ {93|94} οἱ νεηνίαι οὐκέτι ἀνέστησαν, ἀλλ’ ἐν τέλεϊ τούτῳ ἔσχοντο. Ἀργεῖοι δέ σφεων εἰκόνας ποιησάμενοι ἀνέθεσαν ἐς Δελφοὺς ὡς ἀνδρῶν ἀρίστων γενομένων.

Figure 2. [Poly]medes of Argos, “Kleobis and Biton.” Marble, free standing, height approx. 2.2 m. Archaic, ca. 580 BCE. Delphi, Archaeological Museum, 467 and 1524.

1§51 In the context of the Herodotean narrative, a perfect moment of happiness was experienced by all who took part in the festival of Hera, and this moment became concretized in the form of the statues. In the context of the Homeric narrative, by comparison, a perfect moment of terror and pity is experienced by all who take part in the narrative about the capture of Troy, and it becomes concretized in the form of the petrified serpent.

1ⓢ5. Homeric poetry as visual art

1§53 Here I return to the actual wording of the poetic visualization in this Homeric passage, drawing attention again to the epithet arizēlos describing the marvel of the petrified serpent:

1ⓣ13 Iliad II 318

1§54 That the petrified serpent is a work of art is made explicit by this epithet arizēlos. To back up this formulation, I compare a detail from the City of War as pictured on the Homeric Shield of Achilles in Iliad XVIII. In this detail we see a visualization of the gods Ares and Athena: {97|98}

1ⓣ14 Iliad XVIII 516-519

1§56 This Homeric passage, showing the gods Ares and Athena in all their golden radiance, has given me the first opportunity to view the Homeric Shield of Achilles. The Shield, a verbal picture that claims to show a perfect {98|99} world of visual art, the work of the god Hephaistos himself, will be an essential point of interest in Homer the Classic – as well as in Homer the Preclassic. Much has been said about the Shield, and there is surely a universe of things still waiting to be said, so vast is the subject. And yet, the vastness of it all should not deter me from attempting to capture the essence of the Shield as a form of visual communication. For me an ideal point of entry into the world of images radiating from the Shield is the epithet arizēlō ‘radiant’, which shows the gods Ares and Athena in their golden state of perfection.

1§57 It is important that the same epithet applies to the petrified serpent, likewise arizēlos ‘radiant’, in Iliad II 318. Zeus had sent it as an epiphany, ephēne (318), and, once the serpent is petrified, it becomes arizēlos ‘radiant’ (318). This epithet marks the petrified serpent as a permanent vision, pictured by the poetry as a perfect work of art, not only a perfect work of nature. The petrified serpent may seem like a natural rock formation, but it is at the same time a work of art, made by Zeus himself – by the god who had produced the vision in the first place, ephēne. The verbal art of Homeric poetry captures this concretized vision, signaling the petrified serpent as arizēlos.

1§58 Now I go one step further by arguing that the petrified serpent in Iliad II is a concretized three-dimensional visualization of the telos of composition-in-performance. So far, I have translated telos as the ‘outcome’ of the story in the making, of the composition-in-performance. As we will see, however, such a telos is more than an outcome. It is a perfect outcome. And, as we will also see, it is perfection itself.

1§59 The petrifaction of the serpent in Iliad II, as a three-dimensional visualization, is made to seem natural as well as artificial – to the extent that it cannot be equated explicitly with artifacts produced by the art of sculpture or metalwork or other three-dimensional handiwork – not to mention the two-dimensional handiwork of painting and the like. But there remains an implicit equation of petrifaction with divine art pure and simple, in that the petrified serpent is a product of a verbal art that re-creates the divine art. In its depiction of the petrified serpent, verbal art can claim to be natural as well as artificial, since it bypasses the referential world of artifacts hand-made by human artisans. The petrified serpent may seem like a three-dimensional work of art, but the artistry is conveyed purely by verbal art.

1§60 The question remains: how can there be such a thing as arrested motion within the medium of performance, which is to be understood as continuing motion? In a performance medium, after all, poetry is in the making. It is alive and in motion. This motion can be seen as static only after {99|100} the story is told. What, then, is the answer? It is to be found in the vision of the petrified serpent: its arrested motion, within the motion that is the performance, is a prophetic vision of the notionally unchangeable ‘outcome’ of the performance, its telos.

1§61 As I observed earlier, the notion of an unchangeable ‘outcome’ is conveyed by the words of Odysseus that frame what he had just quoted. I highlight again the verb teleîn, derived from the noun telos:

1ⓣ15 Iliad II 330

1§62 We may compare this wording with the wording of the prophecy itself:

1ⓣ16 Iliad II 324-325

1§64 By contrast with the petrified serpent in Iliad II, the Shield of Achilles in Iliad XVIII is an explicit, not implicit, equation of three-dimensional artwork – in this case, metalwork – with the artwork of poetry. The divine creativity that produced the petrified serpent was overtly natural; by contrast, the divine creativity that produces the Shield is overtly artificial, since it is seen as an artistic product achieved by the divine artisan himself, Hephaistos the metalworker. The Homeric gods, in their artistic creativity, are not confined to the natural world. As ultimate masters of the artistic world, not just the natural world, the gods can express the world of nature as a work of art in its own right. For the Homeric gods, all nature is a work of art. Moreover, the Shield of Achilles, as a masterpiece of metalwork created by the divine artisan Hephaistos, expresses the whole world as a work of art.

1§65 In the history of literature, the Shield of Achilles is considered the premier example of ecphrasis. For a working definition, I say that ecphrasis is an act of verbal art shown in the act of depicting non-verbal art – such as painting, sculpting, or, as in this case, metalwork. Verbal art is different from the visual art of artisans. As a specific example, I take the art of metalworkers who make bronze shields that have pictures on them made of bronze – or of even more precious metal, such as gold. Of course, verbal art cannot produce real bronze shields that have real pictures on them, but it can indeed produce an idealized shield, and the pictures on such a shield will of course be idealized as well.

1§69 The central thesis of Lessing’s essay is that painting (in his generalized sense of painting), as a vehicle of the imagination, concentrates on a unique moment in any action, while the verbal art of poetry expresses the given action as a continuum. I aim to extend the formulation of Lessing by arguing that verbal art as well, being a vehicle of the imagination, can concentrate on a unique moment – without depending on painting as a point of reference.

1§71 Words like snapshot or even picture imply only images that are two-dimensional, but I mean to include the three-dimensional as well when I speak of the power of verbal art in Homeric poetry. From here on, I will use picture {102|103} to refer to three-dimensional as well as two-dimensional images. This kind of usage requires some effort. Whenever you use the noun image in everyday English, you may have noticed that you tend to picture in your mind images that are only two-dimensional. You have a better chance of imagining three-dimensionally when you use the verb imagine, in a concentrated effort to keep from lapsing back into a two-dimensional frame of mind.

1§74 All this is not to say that a two-dimensional object of art, as produced by the fine arts, is less imaginative than a corresponding three-dimensional object. It can even be said that a two-dimensional work of art actually requires more imagination than a three-dimensional one. Along this line of thinking, in any case, verbal art requires the most imagination. And the greater the imaginative power, the greater the art.

1§75 Here is an example taken from the medium of film. In a work by the French auteur Jean-Jacques Beineix, Betty Blue (1986), the character Zorg wants to capture ‘all of it’ for the character Betty. He tries to use his words, a verbal {103|104} art of sorts, to make things three-dimensional – to break out of the filmy two-dimensionality of the film screen that defines his existence. Here are the words used by the character Zorg in his attempt to break into the three-dimensional:From Betty Blue (1986, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix), Zorg shows ‘perfection’ to Betty…

Z: Look! See the little wall?

B: The little Wall of China?

Z: The one that stands at the lake. And that big rock, see?

B: That big thing?

Z: Yeah. And isn’t that little house over there nice?

B: But what are you driving at?

Z: I love this place. [J’adore ce coin.]

B: You’re right. It’s perfect. Everything in its place. Fantastic.

Z: It’s all for you, all of it! It starts at the wall and goes beyond the rock. And the house is in the middle.

B: But…

In Zorg’s attempt to show perfection to Betty, we see an ironic contrast between the ideal three-dimensional macrocosm desired by Zorg and by his director-filmmaker and the all-too-insubstantial and “filmy” two-dimensional microcosm of the “silver screen.” The words and the camera angles keep trying to push out of the two-dimensional frame.

1ⓢ6. A rethinking of terms for artistic imagination

1§76 I now restate my ongoing argument, rethinking it in terms that suit the poetics of imagination. My thesis is that the imaginative power of Homeric poetry is essential for understanding the reception of Homer the Classic in the poetic world of Virgil. {104|105}

1§77 Before I proceed to read carefully an example I selected from Virgil’s poetry, I need to set up two signposts:

A) First, I offer a long-term observation on the Latin word pictura ‘picture, painting’ and on related words. When Virgil and other Augustan poets say pictura, we do not need to worry whether this word refers to the two-dimensional art of painting or to the three-dimensional art of sculpture. As with Lessing’s usage of Malerei (Mahlerey), the Latin word pictura can refer to the visual arts in general – not only to painting or sculpture. Later on in this chapter, I will show examples taken from the Aeneid of Virgil. So also in Greek poetry, the word poikilia, meaning ‘variety, patterning’, refers to all visual arts, even though its root poik-, related to the root pic- of Latin pictura, is associated mostly with the art of painting. Before we even get to see the examples of Greek poikilia and Latin pictura, I need to stress here, already at this early point in my argumentation, that I will be including metalwork – especially bronzework – within the general category of sculpture.

B) The second signpost is about another essential form of visual arts. Besides painting and sculpting – including all manner of metalwork – there is weaving. As we will see, both Latin pictura and Greek poikilia can refer to weaving.

1ⓢ7. Virgil’s sculpting of a perfect Homeric moment

1§78 Moving past these two signposts, I proceed to search for a place where the poetry of Virgil most clearly imagines itself as a single moment. My intended point of comparison in the poetry of Virgil is something as close as possible to what we have seen in the poetry of Homer, that is, the way in which the whole Iliad – in its etymological sense of ‘Troy story’ – imagines itself as a single moment, through the image of the petrified serpent. What makes my attempt to compare Virgil and Homer different from most other attempts is that I see comparable levels of artistry in both. I am ready to say that whatever artistry we admire in Virgil the Classic is already at work in Homer, considered a classic in Virgil’s age. In other words, I choose not to say that Virgil has accomplished an artistic feat that he thinks Homer has failed to accomplish. Rather, he is trying to accomplish something that he knows has already been accomplished by Homeric poetry. This proposition is difficult to accept only for those who {105|106} refuse to appreciate the Homeric accomplishment in the first place. Here I take the opportunity of criticizing those who think there must be some kind of unintended or unconscious genius in Homer, just waiting to be systematized by later poets. I hold that the poetic systematization was in fact already in place and at work in Homer. Homeric poetry already had its own poetics.

1§81 We see in this scene not just an opportunity for rivalry between Virgil and Homer. The newer classic complements and thus validates the older classic, and that is part of the rivalry. Homeric poetry as an oral poetic tradition {107|108} stems from a comparable principle of poetic rivalry: the performance of the moment rivals all previous performances because it fulfills them in the here and now. Virgil the Classic clarifies this aspect of Homer the Classic.

1§82 The rival passages in Aeneid 2 and Iliad II both center on a moment when a ritual goes wrong – when the master-plan of the ritual is interrupted. In both the Virgilian and the Homeric passages, that same moment of interruption activates another master-plan, which is the overarching plot of the master-narrative. Let me test this formulation by taking a second look at the passage about the nine birds and the serpent in Iliad II. This time I focus on this question: how was the epiphany of the serpent introduced into the narrative? Here again is my translation of the relevant verses I have already quoted:

1ⓣ17 Iliad II 299-310 (once again: enter the serpent …)

1ⓣ18 Arctinus of Miletus Iliou Persis plot summary by Proclus pp. 107-108 ed. Allen

1§88 Such variations are characteristic of Homer the Classic in the age of Callimachus and earlier, not Homer the Classic in the age of Virgil. One variant detail stands out, because it turns out to be indispensable for Virgil’s Aeneid: Aeneas and his followers must not depart from Troy immediately after the portent of the twin serpents, but only after the city has already been set on fire. Some might think that Virgil invented the postponement of Aeneas’ departure. I see no such invention, and I am about to argue that this detail in the Aeneid derives from a genuine epic tradition, involving a sacred statue of Athena, known as the Palladium, situated on the acropolis of Troy.

1ⓢ8. A statue of Athena in the epic Cycle and beyond

1§89 A most remarkable thing about the Palladium is that we find it mentioned nowhere in our text of Homer, either in the Iliad or in the Odyssey. Moreover, it is hardly ever mentioned in modern Homeric and Virgilian studies. The reasons are easy to appreciate. The Palladium seems non-Homeric – at least, on the surface – and the surviving information about it seems confused. The confusion stems from the vast number of variant myths and rituals surrounding the Palladium. The sheer variety, in its vastness, bewilders the modern mind. I maintain that this variety, in and of itself, is an important historical fact – and it can help provide an explanation for the absence of the Palladium in Homer as we know Homer – and as Virgil knew Homer. I also maintain that the Palladium is in fact not absent but very much present in {113|114} Homeric poetry – as an absent signifier. As we will see, Virgil was aware of such an absent signification and wove it into his Aeneid.

1§92 For purposes of validating the possession of the Palladium, the myths and rituals connected with it had to keep evolving to fit the ever-evolving {114|115} cultural politics of the here and now. The burning question, in the ongoing competition to appropriate this statue, centered on the last days of Troy before it was captured and set on fire by the Achaeans. So let us return to this question: who took the Palladium from Troy and where did they take it?

1§94 According to the local mythology of the city of Athens, which rivals the local mythology of the city of Argos, the final resting place of the Palladium was not Argos but Athens. Here is a summary of this Athenian mythology as reported by a variety of sources:

1§101 For background, I start by focusing on three alternative versions of the myth of the Palladium as it was current in the age of Virgil. These three are made explicit in the relevant wording of Ovid’s Fasti (6.433-435): it was Diomedes or Odysseus or Aeneas – one of these three – who took possession of the Palladium (seu genus Adrasti seu furtis aptus Ulixes | seu pius Aeneas eripuisset eam | auctor in incerto, res est Romana…). The first two heroes would have done so as an act of theft, while the third hero did it out of piety. The third of these three versions, according to which Aeneas ‘snatched’ the Palladium from destruction (eripuisset), is based on a preconceived notion: the Palladium that had been taken earlier by Diomedes or by Odysseus or by both from the acropolis of Troy must have been something other than the real thing. It must have been false.

1§103 As we have just seen from the retelling of Dionysius, the story about the Palladium in the Iliou Persis of Arctinus of Miletus claimed that a false copy had been stolen by the Achaeans while the real thing remained in a secret place on the acropolis of Troy. The outcome of this story in the retelling of Dionysius is that the Palladium stayed on the acropolis of Troy until the city was about to be captured:

1ⓣ19 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.69.3

Ἀρκτῖνος δέ φασι ὑπὸ Διὸς δοθῆναι Δαρδάνῳ Παλλάδιον ἓν καὶ εἶναι τοῦτο ἐν Ἰλίῳ μέχρις ἡ πόλις ἡλίσκετο κεκρυμμένον ἐν ἀβάτῳ.

It is of special interest here that the original recipient of the Palladium is specified as Dardanos, not Ilos.

1§105 But where did Aeneas take the Palladium in the version of the myth as narrated in the Iliou Persis of Arctinus of Miletus? Dionysius does not say. The dichotomy of the false and the real Palladium in the narrative of the Iliou Persis indicates that its own version of the myth of the Palladium conflicted with other versions. The variety of conflicting versions in the archaic period is evident from the examples given by Strabo (13.1.53 C608). {119|120}

1§106 In reporting about the plot of the Iliou Persis of Arctinus of Miletus, Dionysius mentions a telling detail that provides an answer to my question about the destiny of the Palladium in that epic. In the Iliou Persis, as we saw a moment ago, it was Dardanos rather than his son Ilos who had been given the Palladium by Zeus. The significance of this variation is obviously political as well as poetic: though only Priam could be traced back genealogically to Ilos, son of Dardanos, both Priam and Aeneas could be traced back to Dardanos. So the possession of the Palladium by Aeneas as the descendant of Dardanos could qualify him to rule a “New Troy,” just as he had been qualified to rule the “Old Troy” if it had not been for the genealogical superiority of Priam.

1§107 A place that figured as such a “New Troy” was the city of Scepsis, located in the highlands of Mount Ida. According to Demetrius of Scepsis as mediated by Strabo (13.1.52 C607), this city was ruled by Aeneas after the Trojan War; then it was ruled jointly by Ascanius the son of Aeneas and by Scamandrius the son of Hector; then it was ruled by their descendants, who were an ‘oligarchy’; and then it was ruled by a ‘democracy’ that included immigrants from the city of Miletus.

1§108 The city of Scepsis was the rival of another “New Troy,” a city that was actually named New Ilion. According to the Trōïka of Hellanicus (FGH 4 F 31) as mediated by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities 1.45-4-1.48.1), the city of New Ilion was ruled jointly by Ascanius the son of Aeneas and by Scamandrius the son of Hector; then it was ruled jointly by their descendants; and then, as we learn from the scholia T for the Iliad (XX 307-308a1), it was ruled exclusively by the descendants of Scamandrius the son of Hector after the descendants of Aeneas were expelled.

1§109 The epic of the Iliou Persis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, evidently validates the “New Troy” of Scepsis at the expense of the “New Troy” called New Ilion. As we have seen, the Palladium in the Iliou Persis is linked with Dardanos, not with Ilos. This link is decisive, since a link with Ilos would have favored only the descendants of Priam whereas a link with Dardanos favors not only the descendants of Priam (by way of Hector) but also the descendants of Aeneas.

1§111 Let us look again at the moment in the narrative of the Iliou Persis of Arctinus of Miletus when Aeneas along with his followers withdraws from Troy and moves to the highlands of Mount Ida (Proclus summary p. 107.25-26). By taking this action, Aeneas is responding in two ways to the portent of the death of Laocoön: he not only avoids the pollution that leads to the destruction of Troy but he also sets the stage for the founding of a “New Troy.” In the logic of this narrative, Aeneas must relocate the Palladium from the “Old Troy” to the “New Troy” that is Scepsis.

1ⓣ20 Odyssey viii 504-512

1§123 The story of the Wooden Horse in Virgil’s Aeneid affirms not only the tradition of the epic Cycle but also the tradition of Homer the Classic – as represented by Odyssey viii 509. This affirmation was made possible by the portent of the twin serpents that killed Laocoön. And the narration of this portent in Aeneid 2 is a moment that connects Virgil the Classic with Homer the Classic.

1§124 But the question is, can we really say that Virgil’s narration is a moment? Here we return to the central thesis of Lessing’s essay, Laocoön. We have seen Lessing argue that Malerei or painting, in his generalized sense of the word as a vehicle of the imagination, concentrates on a unique moment in any action, while the verbal art of poetry expresses that given action as a continuum. To repeat, my aim is to extend the formulation of Lessing by arguing that verbal art too, as a vehicle of the imagination, can concentrate on a unique moment – without depending on ‘painting’ as a point of reference. In the case of Homeric poetry, I have found such a moment in Iliad II, where we see the portent of the nine birds and the serpent. In the case of Virgilian poetry, I argue for a comparable moment in Aeneid 2, where we see the portent of Laocoön and the twin serpents. But the question remains: is the Virgilian narration really a moment?

Figure 3. Cover of a modern paperback edition of Ephraim Gotthold Lessing’s seminal Laocoön: an essay on the limits of painting and poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984).

Featured on the cover: The Laocoön group. Roman free standing marble copy, perhaps after Agesander, Athenodorus, and Polydorus of Rhodes. 1st century CE. Marble. Vatican Museums.

1§126 As we contemplate the image, I stress the essential: we behold here a unique moment of terror and pity. The question is, how do we compare this moment with the poetic visualization of Laocoön and the two serpents in Virgil’s Aeneid and, ultimately, with the visualization of the nine birds and the serpent in the Homeric Iliad? {128|129}

Figure 4. Relief sculpture: Athena Parthenos defeats the giant Alkyoneus. From the Great Altar of Zeus, Pergamon. Marble, ca. 180 BCE. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Pergamonmuseum.

Figure 5. Relief panels from square column bases: anguiped Giants battle with the Olympian gods. Marble, ca. CE 200. From a temple in the Severan Forum, Lepcis Magna (Libya). Tripoli, Jamhariya Museum, 225.

Figure 6. Marble sarcophagus: Gigantomachy, with anguiped Giants. From Rome, Porte Pignattara, probably 2nd century BCE. Vatican, Museo Pio-Clementino, 549.

Figure 7. Attic red-figure calyx krater: Giants repelled from Olympus by the Olympians. The panorama is based on a masterpiece of metalwork by Pheidias, situated inside the concave interior surface of the gigantic shield of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon of Athens. Attributed to the Pronomos Painter, ca. 425-375 BCE. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 815.

1§133 In this light, I need to take a second look at the Vatican group sculpture of Laocoön’s death, capturing the moment when this ad hoc priest of Poseidon is being punished for unwittingly resisting the will of Athena by {132|133} opposing the penetration of the Wooden Horse within the walls of Troy. The coils of the twin serpents intertwining with his own legs make him look like some earth-born giant struggling in vain against the overriding will of the Olympians (Figure 8, as Figure 3 above).

Figure 8 (as Figure 3 above).

1§134 For Lessing, the representation of Laocoön’s death in sculpture becomes a perfect example of the ways in which “painting” has the power to capture a single moment, as opposed to poetry. All along, I have been arguing that poetry has that same power. So I come back to my question: does Virgil’s poetry in his description of Laocoön’s death possess that kind of imaginative power? If it does, then Virgil the Classic has indeed validated Homer the Classic in the age of Virgil.

1§135 To answer my own question, I need to start with another question. After the twin serpents kill the priest of Poseidon / Neptune in Aeneid 2, I ask: what happens to them? At the very next sighting, the twin serpents are seen heading for the acropolis of Troy, up to the sacred precinct of Athena that looms over the city; one mighty leap, and the next thing you know they have {133|134} slipped inside the temple on high, and now we see them nestled at the feet of the goddess – that is, at the feet of the statue of the goddess.

1ⓣ21 Virgil Aeneid 2.225-227

1§137 Essential for such a vision is the surviving testimony about the statue of Athena Polias on the acropolis in Athens. According to the testimony of Phylarchus (FGH 81 F 72), the goddess was attended by two serpents. Our immediate source for this testimony is Photius (Lexicon s.v. οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν), who observes that other sources like Aristophanes (Lysistrata 759) and Herodotus (8.41.2) indicate a single serpent (οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν· τὸν τῆς Πολιάδος φύλακα· καὶ Ἡρόδοτος, Φύλαρχος δὲ αὐτοῦ δύο). As for the tradition about two serpents, it is reported also in the ancient lexicographical tradition as subsumed under the name of Hesychius:

1ⓣ22 Hesychius s.v. οἰκουρὸν ὄφιν

τὸν τῆς Πολιάδος φύλακα δράκοντα. καὶ οἱ μὲν ἕνα φασίν, οἱ δὲ δύο ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ τοῦ Ἐρεχθέως. τοῦτον δὲ φύλακα τῆς ἀκροπόλεώς φασι, ᾧ καὶ μελιτοῦτταν παρατίθεσθαι {135|136}

1§139 Unlike the linking of the old statue of Athena Polias with the oscillating figure of Erekhtheus / Erikhthonios, the newer statue of Athena Parthenos was linked exclusively with Erikhthonios. This newer statue, made by the Athenian master sculptor Pheidias, was inaugurated in the Parthenon, the new temple of Athena Parthenos, in 438 BCE. While we have conflicting reports about two serpents or a single serpent attending the statue of Athena Polias in her old temple on the acropolis of Athens, it is clear that only one serpent attended the statue of Athena Parthenos in her new temple, the Parthenon. In his eyewitness account of the statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon, Pausanias identifies the statue of the single serpent attending the goddess as Erikhthonios himself:

1ⓣ23 Pausanias 1.24.5-7

αὐτὸ δὲ ἔκ τε ἐλέφαντος τὸ ἄγαλμα καὶ χρυσοῦ πεποίηται. μέσῳ μὲν οὖν ἐπίκειταί οἱ τῷ κράνει Σφιγγὸς εἰκών […] καθ’ ἑκάτερον δὲ τοῦ κράνους {6} γρῦπές εἰσιν ἐπειργασμένοι. […] καὶ γρυπῶν {7} μὲν πέρι τοσαῦτα εἰρήσθω· τὸ δὲ ἄγαλμα τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ὀρθόν ἐστιν ἐν χιτῶνι ποδήρει καί οἱ κατὰ τὸ στέρνον ἡ κεφαλὴ Μεδούσης ἐλέφαντός ἐστιν ἐμπεποιημένη· καὶ Νίκην τε ὅσον τεσσάρων πηχῶν, ἐν δὲ τῇ χειρὶ δόρυ ἔχει, καί οἱ πρὸς τοῖς ποσὶν ἀσπίς τε κεῖται καὶ πλησίον τοῦ δόρατος δράκων ἐστίν· εἴη δ’ ἂν Ἐριχθόνιος οὗτος ὁ δράκων. ἔστι δὲ τῷ βάθρῳ τοῦ ἀγάλματος ἐπειργα σμένη Πανδώρας γένεσις. πεποίηται δὲ Ἡσιόδῳ τε καὶ ἄλλοις ὡς ἡ Πανδώρα γένοιτο αὕτη γυνὴ πρώτη·

The statue [agalma] itself is made of gold and ivory. In the middle of the helmet is placed a likeness of Sphinx. [Pausanias here gives a cross-reference to a later excursus on the Sphinx.] On each side of the helmet there are griffins worked in. [Pausanias here gives an excursus on griffins.] Enough said about griffins. The statue [agalma] of Athena is standing, wearing a khiton [khitōn] that extends to her feet. On her chest is the head of Medusa, made of ivory. She has [in one hand] a [figure of] Nike, around four cubits in height, and she holds in her [other] hand a spear. A shield [aspis] is positioned at her {137|138} feet. And near the spear is a serpent [drakōn]. Now this serpent [drakōn] would be Erikhthonios. And on the surface of the base of the statue is a relief of the genesis of Pandora. The story of the genesis of this first woman Pandora is told by Hesiod in his poetry as well as by others.

1§140 The wording makes it clear that Pausanias is well aware of the highly charged mysticism of what he was saying when he says that the serpent who attends Athena Parthenos is none other than the autochthonous hero of Athens, Erikhthonios. The potential optative, which I translate as ‘would be’, marks the speaker’s self-awareness at a sacral moment of contemplation. He is touching on a matter of the greatest importance.

1§141 To help visualize the goddess Athena and her serpent attendant, I offer some reconstructions of the statue of Athena Parthenos, in the company of the statue serpent (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Plaster model: Reconstruction of Pheidias’ chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos on the acropolis of Athens, with serpent. Reconstruction by G. P. Stevens and Sylvia Hahn, ca. 1970. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Royal Ontario Museum.

1§142 The question arises, how did Virgil imagine the statue of Athena on the acropolis of Troy? Since this statue was attended by the two serpents who killed Laocoön, I propose that it resembled the old statue of Athena Polias in the old temple of the goddess. In one version, as we saw earlier (Phylarchus FGH 81 F 72), Athena Polias was attended by two serpents.

1§143 It still remains to ask, however, how these two serpents were visualized as statues. In a search for answers, I start here by drawing attention to a detail clearly visible in the reconstructions of the single serpent attending Athena Parthenos: both in the Toronto reconstruction and in the surviving miniature copies of Athena Parthenos, you can see a statue serpent at the feet of the goddess, standing erect near the inside of her shield. You can see how this serpent, stationed at the feet of the goddess, is literally being shielded by the Shield of Athena, finding cover there. In describing the reconstructed modern serpent this way, I have in mind the image shown by Virgil, who sees the twin serpents finding cover under the orb of Athena’s shield.

Figure 10a. Attic red-figure pyxis lid: panorama of all three goddesses arriving in their chariots drawn by customized chariot-teams. Unattributed, ca. 425-375 BCE. Copenhagen, National Museum, 731.

Figure 10b. Copenhagen pyxis: detail, Athena riding on chariot drawn by two serpents.

1§148 Besides the grand ceremonial entrances, by chariot, of the three goddesses involved in the Judgment of Paris, there are other such scenes as well. {One striking example is the grand ceremonial entrance of the combatant gods in iconographic representations of the Gigantomachy: the Olympians are shown pulling up in their personal chariots at the scene of battle.} In Homeric poetry, the most spectacular of all such chariot-powered {141|142} arrivals is the grand ceremonial entrance of the god Poseidon on the battlefield in Iliad XIII. He is shown riding in his horse-drawn chariot, skimming effortlessly over the surface of the sea as he heads for the scene of battle in Troy:

1ⓣ24 Iliad XIII 23-31

1§149 I suspect that a grand ceremonial arrival of Athena in the Iliou Persis of Arctinus of Miletus could have been expressed in words that matched closely the words expressing Poseidon’s arrival here in the Homeric Iliad. In the version as shaped by Virgil, however, the divine chariot-rider and her chariot are invisible. Only the twin serpents, the team that draws her chariot, are visible to the Trojans. Athena produces an epiphany that keeps her out of the picture, as an absent signifier. In fact, the goddess is not really absent: she is only hidden, invisible. It is her agency that sends the twin serpents, who are then reunited with her after their deed is done, after they destroy Laocoön. The goddess Athena is invisible as she drives her chariot drawn by twin serpents, but she is visible as the statue that forms an ensemble with the twin serpents that become statues that attend her. Athena is invisible at the moment of her agency in killing Laocoön, just as she is invisible at the moment of her agency in preventing the killing of Agamemnon by Achilles in Iliad I. But the instruments of her agency are visible as live serpents at the moment of this agency – and as statues of serpents after the moment is over. Similarly, Athena herself is a statue when the moment of her agency is over.

1§150 Given the fragmentary state of the epic Cycle as we have it today, we have no way of being certain whether Virgil was following the Iliou Persis when he imagined the twin serpents petrified as statues at the foot of Athena’s own statue in her sacred precinct on top of the Trojan acropolis. It remains a question whether Virgil’s poetic imagination captured a moment that corresponds to a moment that comes from the Iliou Persis. Such questions, in any case, are secondary for my argumentation. The primary question centers on Virgil’s rivalry with Homeric poetry. My point remains that the petrifaction of the twin serpents in Aeneid 2 is a scene that rivals, as an artifact of poetic imagination, the scene of the petrified serpent in Iliad II.

1§151 As an artifact, the petrified serpent of Iliad II is not a creation of the visual art of sculpture: it is exclusively a creation of verbal art. The petrified serpents of Aeneid 2 seem at first glance different in this regard: they are juxtaposed with the sculpture of the goddess, and, to that extent, they must become part of the sculpture as an artistic ensemble. On second thought or, better, at second glance, however, the vision is blurred. The artificial and the natural are no longer readily distinguishable: even the sculpture of the goddess is pictured in Virgil’s words as the goddess herself, not as a piece of artwork in and of itself. What notionally animates the art is the {144|145} creative impulse of the artist – whether that artist’s medium is sculpture or poetry or both. There is a paradox here: animation is realized in the absolute rigidity of a single moment captured by the art. This absolute rigidity of the moment, of a single eternity, embodies the perfect self-expression of the art.

1ⓢ9. Ovidian variations on a theme of rigidity in art

1§152 The paradox of animation, as realized in the absolute rigidity of artistic perfection, is illuminated by the poetry of another artist of Virgil’s age. I have in mind the story of Pygmalion in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This poet’s use of the Latin words rigidus ‘rigid’ and rigor ‘rigidity’ captures the metaphor of absolute rigidity as perfection.

1ⓣ25 Ovid Metamorphoses 10.238-297

1§153 In these verses of Ovid, we see distinctions being made between art and nature, between the artificial and the natural. The rigidity of petrifaction is imagined as natural, to be distinguished from the rigidity of sculpture, which is seen as artificial. And the artificial rigidity of sculpture is being ostentatiously distinguished from the natural softness of the living body.

1§155 By contrast with Ovid’s false Athena Parthenos, a playful challenge to the paradoxical idea of rigidity as animation, I view Virgil’s image of the true Athena at Troy attended by her twin serpents as a serious effort to elaborate on this same idea of rigidity and to link it with the making of poetry. This true Athena resembles not the Athena Parthenos of the Parthenon but the {151|152} Athena Polias of the Erekhtheion or Erechtheum. In Virgil’s imagination, this true Athena is the Palladium.

1ⓢ10. A poet’s lasting response to permanent beauty

1§156 I return to the metaphor of absolute rigidity as a sign of perfection in art. This metaphor, as we have seen, is alive in Virgil’s poetry. And the model is to be found in Homeric poetry. It is the perfect and permanent mental image of the petrified serpent in Iliad II. This image is to be visualized forever in the same way, reflecting on the perfection that is the story of Troy, in a single gloriously beautiful moment of terror and pity. Such an exquisite moment is brought back to life once again in the poetry of Virgil. The depiction of the death of Laocoön in Aeneid 2 demonstrates Virgil’s own appreciation of Homer the Classic.

1§157 In Homeric poetry, a perfect and permanent mental image demands a response worthy of a seer, of a poet. In Iliad II, as we have seen, such a response is conveyed directly by the seer Calchas, and, indirectly, by the poet who narrates what the seer had seen and had said. The word that expresses such a response, as we have also seen, is hupokrinesthai.

1§160 The responsiveness of Homeric poetry, as conveyed by hupokrinesthai, is parallel to the responsiveness of theatrical poetry, as likewise conveyed by the same word hupokrinesthai. Earlier, I argued for the relevance of theatrical contexts of hupokrinesthai in the sense of ‘act’, as in ‘act the role of a persona’, and of hupokritēs in the sense of ‘actor’. Now I am arguing that Homer himself is such a ‘persona’ in his own right. In that sense, Homer is the embodiment of theater.

1§161 I will postpone till Chapter 3 an examination of contexts where the concept of performing the ‘persona’ of Homer is explicitly analogized with the concept of acting in theater, and I concentrate here simply on the analogies implicit in theatrical usages of relevant words. Besides hupokrinesthai ‘act’ and hupokritēs ‘actor’, I recall here a third relevant word, which I have already analyzed at an earlier stage of my argumentation. It is the ancient Greek word for ‘theater’, theatron, composed of the verb-root thea- ‘have a vision’ and noun-suffix –tron, indicating an instrument. Etymologically, the word can be interpreted as meaning ‘instrument for having a vision [thea-]’.

1ⓢ11. Virgil as theatrical spectacle

1§162 The relevance of the Greek word theatron to Homer is comparable to the relevance of the Latin word spectaculum to Virgil. Earlier, I said that Homer, as a master of visualization, is the embodiment of theater. I am now ready to argue that the same can be said of Virgil, as a master of visualization in his own right.

1§164 Next I turn to the staging of Virgil in the verbal arts. In the passage I am about to quote from the Dialogus of Tacitus, Virgil himself has just been spotted in a crowd. He is in the midst of an audience of spectators attending a theatrical performance. The spectators have just been listening to the sound of Virgil’s verses being performed, and then, suddenly, there is a sighting of Virgil himself amidst the crowd of spectators. The crowd’s reaction is instantaneous. The spectacle of the theater becomes instantly transformed into the spectacle of Virgil himself. The sound of Virgil has become the sight of Virgil in person. Virgil has become the embodiment of theater:

1ⓣ26 Tacitus Dialogus 13.1-2

Ac ne fortunam quidem vatum et illud felix contubernium comparare timuerim cum inquieta et anxia oratorum vita. licet illos certamina et pericula sua ad consulatus evexerint, malo securum et quietum Virgilii secessum, in quo tamen neque apud divum Augustum gratia caruit neque apud populum Romanum notitia. testes Augusti epistulae, testis ipse populus, qui auditis in theatro Virgilii versibus surrexit universus et forte praesentem spectantemque Virgilium veneratus est sic quasi Augustum.

1ⓢ12. Virgil’s imperial poetry

1§165 In this passage taken from the Dialogus of Tacitus, the private and reclusive figure of the poet Virgil stands in sharp contrast to the public and dominating figure of the emperor Augustus. And yet, the public reacts to the poet as if he were the emperor. The emperor is not the only public figure. So too is the poet. The private sphere of the poet is just as imperial as the public sphere of the emperor. Why? It is because the poet’s poetry has the same imperial prestige as the emperor’s power – in terms of a codependency claimed by both sides. The word for this codependency, as we saw in the passage taken from the Dialogus of Tacitus, is gratia, which I translate for the moment as ‘favor’.

1ⓣ27 Tacitus Dialogus 13.5

Me vero dulces, ut Vergilius ait, Musae, remotum a sollicitudinibus et curis et necessitate cotidie aliquid contra animum faciendi, in illa sacra illosque fontes ferant. …

As for me, may the Muses sweet to the taste, as Virgil says, carry me away, far away from the worries and cares and obligations of performing each and every day something that goes against my spirit – far away to those sacred places, to those sacred springs. …

The speaker here is referring to the words of Virgil’s Georgics, where the poet is pictured as the main participant in the sacred rites of the Muses, celebrated at their sacred spring:

1ⓣ28 Virgil Georgics 2.475-477, 485-486

1§168 Although the speaker in the Dialogus seems to be referring to the passage I just quoted from the Georgics, Virgil himself is referring to the Muses in his own Eclogues. Moreover, he is referring to the Muses of his Eclogues in poetic terms that suit most closely the Muses of the Hesiodic Theogony. I offer here an overview of those parts of the Theogony that are relevant to Virgil’s allusion in the passage I just quoted.

1§169 The Hesiodic Theogony begins with the naming of the Muses local to Mount Helicon (verses 1-2), who are pictured as dancing (3-4) around the source of a sacred spring (3), next to which is an altar of Zeus (3-4). These local Muses of Mount Helicon are pictured as a choral ensemble (7-8) who are both dancing (8) and singing with a beautiful voice (10). The Muses proceed to teach Hesiod their song (22), enjoining him to perform it (33). In order to get this song started, the poet is told that that he must begin with the Muses and end with the Muses (34), and in fact we have already heard at the beginning of the song that Hesiod has indeed already begun with the Muses (1-2). These Muses of Mount Helicon, as they perform their song, are heard by Zeus himself in the heights of Mount Olympus (37). There is an emphasis on the ‘voicing’ of the Muses’ song (39 φωνῇ and αὐδή, 41 ὀπί, 43 ὄσσαν) and on the ‘sweetness’ of this voice that literally ‘flows’ from their mouths, as if from a spring (39-40): τῶν δ’ ἀκάματος ῥέει αὐδὴ | ἐκ στομάτων ἡδεῖα ‘inexhaustible is the sweet voice that flows from their mouths’.

1ⓣ29 Hesiod Theogony 83-84

1§171 Whereas the authority of kings flows from Zeus, the authority of poets flows from the authority of the Muses, and of Apollo as their choral leader:

1ⓣ30 Hesiod Theogony 94-97

1§172 As in the previous passage that I quoted from the Hesiodic Theogony (35-45), we see in this passage as well the metaphor of fluidity: the voice of the Muses, sweet as it is, literally ‘flows’ from their mouths (97).

1§175 Virgil’s poetry accepts the reality of the Roman empire, but it also presupposes an ideal that transcends this reality. As I just said, Virgil’s imperial poetry was meant to be seen as a humane and civilizing force. So the poetics of terror and pity, and the compassion evoked by such poetics, can be seen as a hallmark of Roman imperial poetry.

1§176 As I have observed in this chapter, the poetics of terror and pity can also be seen as a hallmark of Homeric poetry. And, as I will argue in Chapter 4, Homeric poetry too became imperial in its own right. The Athenian empire, in appropriating Homeric poetry, will make it imperial. In the process, the poetics of terror and pity will become a hallmark of Athenian imperial poetry, and here I mean not only Homer but also classical tragedy. This Athenian hallmark, as I will also argue in Chapter 4, is in fact a model for Virgil. In using the term terror and pity, I have in mind a passage about these emotions in the Poetics of Aristotle (1449b24-28). Although Aristotle in this passage is thinking of tragedy, not of Homeric poetry, we must keep in mind that he thinks of Homeric poetry as a prototypical form of tragedy in its own right (Poetics 1459a37-b16). I will have more to say about this topic when we reach Chapter 3, but I must highlight already now the word used here by Aristotle in observing the emotions of terror and pity. That word is pathos, in the sense of ‘emotion’. The emotions of terror and pity are captured by that single word as it is used today, pathos.

1§177 So far, I have concentrated on two epic scenes of pathos – of terror and pity. One scene was a stop-motion picture of the serpent who turned into stone in Iliad II and the other scene, of the serpents who turned into statues in Aeneid 2. The petrified serpent in Iliad II is viewed by the seer – and by the poetry of the Iliad – as a generalized metonym for all the pathos of the Trojan War. A similar view is achieved in Virgil’s epic vision of the petrified serpents in Aeneid 2. From here on, I will refer to all this pathos as the sorrows of the Trojan War. {159|160}

1ⓢ13. Sunt lacrimae rerum

1§178 Virgil’s epic vision extends further. As I will now argue, he views the sorrows of the Trojan War as a foundation for comprehending the genesis of the Roman empire. I begin with a passage showing a general scene of the Trojan War as pictured by Virgil. I mean literally pictured. The actual medium of the visual art that is being represented in this passage is not precisely specified, but it is in any case called pictura. This picture, as we are about to see, is a veritable panorama of the Trojan War as a spectacle to end all spectacles:

1ⓣ31 Virgil Aeneid 1.441-493

1§179 The composite picturing of the sorrows of the Trojan War, as conveyed by the word pictura at verse 464, is described here as inanis or ‘insubstantial’. This epithet, as I read it, conveys the idea that the picturing is not the actual ‘substance’ of the real things that happened at Troy. This is not to say, however, that the picturing is not real or that the things being pictured are {165|166} not real. They are very much for real. The decisive word is pascit ‘nourishes’ in the same verse: the viewer is said to be ‘nourishing’ his mind or animus by virtue of looking at the pictura, by feasting his eyes on what is being pictured. The viewer is forming a mental picture, and that picture derives from the substance of the real things that happened at Troy, as mediated by the pictura. The pictura is the act of mediation, not the mediated thing itself. As the mediation, that is, as the medium, the pictura can be said to lack the substance of the real things it mediates, which are exterior. Nevertheless, the use of the verb pascit ‘nourishes’ makes it clear that the mental ‘nourishment’ of feasting the eyes on the pictura comes from exterior stimuli that are quite real. Those real exterior stimuli can even be invisible, as we see from the following passage, taken from Lucretius, where the eye ‘feasts’ on atoms that convey pleasant visions as contrasted with atoms that convey unpleasant ones:

1ⓣ32 Lucretius De rerum natura 2.418-420

1ⓣ33 Lucretius De rerum natura 3.136-144

1§182 Like animus at verse 464 of Aeneid 1, the word mens at verse 462 there designates the mental faculty that perceives reality by distinguishing it from the unreal. And, at verse 462, the reality of the Trojan War and all its sorrows {167|168} are making contact with the mind of Aeneas. I quote again the overall context of verses 462 and 464:

1ⓣ34 Virgil Aeneid 1.459-465

1§183 The particular things that Aeneas sees ‘here’ (461) in the artwork of artisans bear out, ‘once again’, a universal formula, that ‘things requiring praise have their own reward’ (again, 461). In other words, real things that happen in our universe deserve and demand to be credited by the artwork of artisans. This universal formula is then extended by way of a parallel universal formula, which says that the reality of the universe is somehow connected with the shedding of tears (462). The neuter plural mortalia, which I translate as ‘things that happen to mortals’, is a universalizing reference to the res ‘things’ (as in rerum) in the real world that connect with the shedding of tears, {168|169} and these realities are further connected with the mental faculty of the mens or animus. The mental connection here is a matter of genuine contact with things that are real. These real things literally touch the mens. The mind is touched by these real things mediated through the art of the artisans (462), and it feasts on this reality (464). In the poetic world inherited by Virgil, the experience of touching, like feasting, cannot be insubstantial. If something touches and is touched, it must be substantial, real. What is substantial may be either visible or invisible, like the atom, but it must be a corpus ‘body’:

1ⓣ35 Lucretius De rerum natura 1.304

1§184 So the cause of the tears of Aeneas is real, substantial, even though the real Hector and the real Priam and all the other Trojans he mourns are absent from the medium of the pictura, which is thus sadly inanis ‘insubstantial’. The hero’s loved ones are sadly missing from the vehicle of the pictura.

1§185 The pathos of desiring what is not there is subjectively replicated in the inner world of the pictura that is being scanned by the eye of Aeneas: at verse 476, the beautiful Troilus has just been struck down by Achilles and falls from his chariot, which is pictured as rushing onward but now inanis, that is, sadly deprived of its beautiful rider. Troilus is now pathetically absent or missing from the vehicle. The void left by Troilus in the vehicle of the chariot is comparable to the void left in the metaphorical vehicle of a picture that conveys realities sadly no longer inside the picture. The real men and women who suffered and died at Troy are no longer present in a picture that is now sadly inanis ‘insubstantial’ because it lacks their presence. Enhancing the pathos is the understanding that the imagined temple of Juno, picturing the destruction of Troy, will likewise no longer exist once Carthage itself is destroyed by the Roman empire of the future.

1§186 Although the pictura of Troy’s destruction is described as insubstantial in the Aeneid, the tears of Aeneas are substantial and therefore not at all in vain, since the sorrows of the Trojan War have made real contact with his mind, that is, with his animus or mens. In other words, the mind of the hero is moved with genuine emotion in this context. This emotion is contrasted in a later context with another emotion experienced by Aeneas. In that later context, the hero’s mind will remain unmoved by the tears of the queen Dido, and so his tears will now be insubstantial, not substantial: {169|170}

1ⓣ36 Virgil Aeneid 4.449

1§187 Though the tears of Aeneas reveal a deeply felt response to the reported tears of Dido, they are nevertheless inanes ‘insubstantial’. This time, the hero’s feeling comes implicitly from his anima, not from his animus or mens. The part of Aeneas that is his mens ‘mind’ is in this instance not moved. It fails to make contact with the alluring sorrows of the beautiful queen.

1§188 We can find a reason for this failure in the poetic formulation of Lucretius, for whom the mens or animus is only a part of the anima. It is the part that resides in the pectus ‘chest’, which is the seat of emotions controlled by reason. Those emotions are real, and that is why they can literally touch the mind that is lodged in the heart, that is, in the middlemost part of the pectus ‘chest’. An example of such real emotions is what a father feels when he is kissed by a loving son:

1ⓣ37 Lucretius De rerum natura 3.896

1§189 By contrast with such real emotions, the part of Aeneas that is so deeply moved by the reported tears of Dido is not the mind that is lodged in his heart. The anima of Aeneas is moved, but not his controlling animus. Being moved by this deluding emotion causes Aeneas to weep just as intensely as he had wept before, but the emotion he now feels is caused by something insubstantial, not substantial, and so the tears he now sheds are inanes ‘insubstantial’, not substantial. The hero’s tears for Dido are thus in vain, whereas his tears for Hector and Priam and all the other doomed Trojans were not in vain.

1§190 Like the tears of Aeneas, the tears of Andromache, another survivor of Troy’s destruction, are not in vain. The first time we see her in the Aeneid, Virgil pictures her in the act of weeping for her lost husband Hector and her lost infant son Astyanax, both killed in the war:

1ⓣ38 Virgil Aeneid 3.303-305

1§191 The causa ‘cause’ of the tears shed by Andromache is substantial, real, in contrast with the tomb of her loved ones. That tomb is literally an ‘empty tomb’, a cenotaph. That tomb is sadly inanis ‘insubstantial’, since the beloved bodies of Hector and Astyanax are absent, missing, from this place made sacred by Andromache’s rituals.

1§193 The causation of the tears is only implicit, not explicit, in the syntax of the expression sunt lacrimae rerum ‘there are tears [lacrimae] that connect with the real world’ at verse 462 of Aeneid 1. The genitive case of rerum, the plural noun referring to the ‘real things’ that are the cause of the tears, expresses merely the idea of a connection between the cause and the effect. The actual causation is then made explicit by the universalizing thought that follows in the same verse, namely, that ‘real things’ suffered by mortals make contact with the mind: et mentem mortalia tangunt ‘and things that happen to mortals touch the mind’. Then and only then are the cause and the effect to be understood as exactly that, cause and effect.

1§194 What makes this universalizing formula apply to the here-and-now of Aeneas as he awaits his audience with the queen of Carthage is the pictura that nourishes his eye with the sorrows of the Trojan War (464). It is the medium of this pictura that makes possible the mental contact between the {171|172} universalizing formula and the specific situation. It is the pictura that mentally connects the reality of human suffering with the reality of the tears that respond to this suffering. Only after the mental connection is made can the controlling mind finally release the flood of tears that respond to the countless sufferings of humankind.

1§195 I continue to focus on the word inanis ‘insubstantial’ describing the pictura of the Trojan War at verse 464 of Aeneid 1, corresponding to inanis ‘insubstantial’ describing the tomb of Hector and Astyanax at verse 304 of Aeneid 3. Just as the material substance of the human body is sadly missing from the tomb of Hector and Astyanax, so also the material substance of the artwork that supposedly created the pictura seen by Aeneas is sadly missing from the artwork of Virgil’s poetry, which is of course what really created the pictura in the first place. Pointedly, there is no specific indication of the material substance that is being used in the art of creating the pictura seen by Aeneas. Moreover, as I noted earlier, the material substance of this imagined pictura in the imagined temple of Juno would in any case no longer exist once Carthage is destroyed by Rome.

1ⓢ14. The sorrows of Andromache

1§197 The verbal art of Virgil pictures the sorrows of the Trojan War not only in the pictura seen by Aeneas at the temple of Juno in Aeneid 1. In Aeneid 3, Virgil’s words picture these sorrows again. This time, however, the medium of the picturing is different. This time, Virgil’s words achieve a theatrical restaging of a single scene of terror and pity in the Homeric Iliad. That scene pictures Andromache at the dramatic moment of hearing the news of Hector’s death in Iliad XXII. As we will see, the centerpiece of that scene is a piece of {172|173} fabric that Andromache is weaving when she hears the news. So also in the scene restaged by Virgil in Aeneid 3, the centerpiece is a piece of fabric that is woven by Andromache, and the artistry of her weaving is expressed by way of a word derived from pictura.

1§198 In what follows, then, I will be looking at a scene in the Aeneid that centers on the sorrows of Andromache. In each of the four chapters of Homer the Classic and in each of the two parts of the twin book Homer the Preclassic, I focus on one such scene.

1ⓣ39 Virgil Aeneid 3.303-305

1§200 The description inanis that applies here to the tomb of Hector and Astyanax is metonymic, since it applies also to the whole setting of the scene. That setting, the city of Buthrotum in Epirus, is a replica of the original Troy. Buthrotum is a virtual New Troy, featuring the same landmarks and the same names attached to the landmarks: like the original Troy, this new version features the rivers Xanthos (350) and Simoeis (302), the citadel called Pergamon / Pergama (350), the Scaean Gates (351), and so on, though the new setting seems miniature in comparison to the greatness of the old setting (349-350). In fact, this New Troy cannot be the real Troy, since it is devoid of the Trojans and therefore inanis, just as the tomb of Hector and Astyanax is {173|174} inanis, that is, devoid of their bodies. The only Trojans in this New Troy are two survivors of the original Troy, Andromache and Helenos. They had been brought to Buthrotum as captives enslaved by Neoptolemos, destroyer of Troy, who is also known as Pyrrhos. After the unexpected death of Pyrrhos, Andromache and Helenos become the queen and king of a New Troy, which can now become a restaging of the real Troy. And the centerpiece of the whole scene will be the weaving of Andromache herself, as expressed by the word pictura. Besides the pictura seen by Aeneas in the temple of Juno, Andromache has created her own pictura of all the sorrows of the Trojan War. As Aeneas and his retinue prepare to leave the New Troy, they are offered parting gifts by Helenos and Andromache, including the following gift of Andromache to the son of Aeneas, Ascanius (whose alternative name is Iulus):

1ⓣ40 Virgil Aeneid 3.482-491

1§202 These vestes ‘fabrics’ woven by Andromache would have clothed Astyanax, son of Hector and Andromache, if he had lived to grow up to manhood as had Ascanius, son of Aeneas and Creusa. The clothing that will never fit Astyanax will now fit Ascanius, just as it had once fit Hector, who is called the avunculus ‘uncle’ of Ascanius (Aeneid 3.343). This relationship {175|176} with the Trojan kinfolk is at the heart of a mother’s need to give ‘these final gifts’ to a maternal nephew, who will thus become reconnected to his own people. By implication, the vestes ‘fabrics’ that had been picturatae ‘pattern-woven’ by Andromache for Hector and then for Astyanax to wear are now to be worn by the maternal ‘nephew’ Ascanius, who will take the place of Astyanax in wearing monimenta ‘reminders’ that connect with the epic past of the Trojan War. By way of this gift of textiles woven by Andromache, a gift so generous that its sheer weight almost overburdens the recipient (495 onerare ‘weigh down’), Ascanius has received a direct connection with this epic past. Andromache’s onerous gift of textiles to Ascanius is Virgil’s metaphor for the burden of this epic past, which is the poet’s own onerous gift to the notional descendant of Ascanius (whose alternative name is Iulus), that is, to Caesar Augustus, who is the ultimate patron of Virgil’s Roman epic.

1§203 This Virgilian usage of picturatae vestes ‘pattern-woven fabrics’ as a metaphor for the poetic burden of the epic past is an evocation of Homeric poetry. I quote here the relevant Homeric narrative in Iliad XXII, starting from the moment when the lamenting Hecuba announces the news of Hector’s death to Andromache. At that moment, Andromache is weaving a fabric:

1ⓣ41 Iliad XXII 437-515

1§204 In the age of Virgil, this picturing of Andromache weaving her fabrics is understood as a Homeric metaphor for epic narration, as revealed by Virgil’s reference in his own epic to the picturatae vestes ‘pattern-woven fabrics’ of Andromache. This reference, as we have seen, is a metaphor for the burden of the epic past.

1§206 Virgil’s epic poetry is returning to the picture of Andromache at that Iliadic moment by evoking what Andromache herself pictures. The weaving of Andromache is her way of picturing her own world. It is her way of not losing sight of the picture. She pictures herself inside that picture, which is a picture of returning to the picture. It is an act of infinite regression, infinite retrospection.

1§207 I see an analogy in another picture, based on a historical moment in the formative stages of imperial Rome. It is a picture of a doomed couple, Brutus and Porcia. We are about to see, in infinite regression, a picture looking back at a picture of another doomed couple, Hector and Andromache:

1ⓣ42 Plutarch Brutus 23.2-5

ὅθεν ἡ Πορκία μέλλουσα πάλιν εἰς Ῥώμην ἀποτραπέσθαι, λανθάνειν μὲν ἐπειρᾶτο περιπαθῶς ἔχουσα, γραφὴ δέ τις αὐτὴν προὔδωκε, τἆλλα γενναίαν οὖσαν. ἦν γὰρ ἐκ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν διάθεσις, προπεμπόμενος Ἕκτωρ ὑπ’ ᾿Ανδρομάχης, κομιζομένης παρ’ αὐτοῦ τὸ παιδίον, ἐκείνῳ δὲ προσβλεπούσης. ταῦτα θεωμένην τὴν Πορκίαν ἡ τοῦ πάθους εἰκὼν ἐξέτηξεν εἰς δάκρυα, καὶ πολλάκις φοιτῶσα τῆς ἡμέρας ἔκλαιεν.

1§208 The story goes on to compare Porcia with Andromache, who was sent back to her weaving after her own final farewell to Hector:

1ⓣ43 Plutarch Brutus 23.5-6

Ἀκιλίου δέ τινος τῶν Βρούτου φίλων τὰ πρὸς Ἕκτορα 
τῆς Ἀνδρομάχης ἔπη διελθόντος·

μειδιάσας ὁ Βροῦτος “ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐμοί γ’” εἶπε “πρὸς Πορκίαν ἔπεισι φάναι τὰ τοῦ Ἕκτορος·

σώματος γὰρ ἀπολείπεται φύσει τῶν ἴσων ἀνδραγαθημάτων, γνώμῃ 
δ’ ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς ἀριστεύσει.” ταῦτα μὲν ὁ τῆς Πορκίας υἱὸς ἱστόρηκε Βύβλος.

And when Acilius, one of the friends of Brutus, quoted the verses spoken by Andromache to Hector,

Brutus smiled and said: “But it does not even occur to me that I should say to Porcia the verses spoken by Hector: {185|186}

Even if she may not be physically up to performing deeds of valor that equal those of men, when it comes to her powers of mind, she can perform the greatest deeds of valor just like me.” This story about Porcia was told by her son Bibulus [HRR 2.51].

1§209 The idea of being sent back to your weaving is being equated in this story with the idea of being sent back, again and again, to the original picture. We see here a poetics of retrospection, which is already at work in Homeric poetry. In an exquisite moment, we see Andromache herself returning again and again to the original picture of her last farewell to Hector:

1ⓣ44 Iliad VI 496

1§211 Just as Andromache is shaping her last mental image of her last parting with Hector, so also the poetry of epic is shaping the last mental image of Andromache in its own act of retrospective, of returning to the fixed image. Every time Homeric poetry is performed, it can return once again to the picture of Andromache in the act looking back to see if she can capture one last glimpse of Hector. It is a world of tears, and there is a world of beauty in these tears. To quote Virgil once again, sunt lacrimae rerum. To look back on this world is to look back on perfection, in all its frozen beauty. Homeric poetry is like that: it looks back on its own crystallized perfection. {186|187}

Footnotes