In keeping with Theophrastus’ requirement that epic should portray gods as well as men and heroes, the Aeneid features divine, supernatural and theological elements throughout its full course. It is highly likely that the inclusion of such metaphysical constructions was not only a necessity in accordance to the literary tradition that Virgil drew upon but a reflection upon some of the beliefs or conceptions that Virgil was either sympathetic to or held to be true. It seems likely that Virgil does indeed structure the Aeneid around the considerations of a particular worldview or philosophy and that this is closely linked to the school of stoicism that came to be the dominant system of thought in Imperial Rome. Whilst stoicism had been a philosophical tradition since its foundation by Zeno of Citium c.313BCE, it was still not universally accepted nor indeed universally popular during the years of the Late Republic as can be glimpsed in Cicero’s paradoxa stoicorum when he describes Cato as “a perfect specimen of a Stoic [who] holds opinions that by no means meet with the acceptance of the multitude.” [1] The philosophy put forward by Virgil within the Aeneid does not appear to be a simple exposition of Stoicism but rather a collection and synthesis of schools of philosophy ranging from the Epicurean to the Platonic; Virgil is “drawing upon the entire range of ideas and expressions available to him.”[2] His influences may include the didactic poem De Rerum Natura composed by Lucretius, the religious traditions of the Roman state, possibly the philosophy of Zeno, Plato, Empedocles and so forth and just as he succeeded in taking various pieces from the literary tradition, combining them and creating something new so too did he perform an equal feat with the philosophical tradition that had preceded him. This essay is an examination of how Virgil combined various philosophical, religious and theological precepts and an investigation into what the resulting worldview may have been.
The conception and role of fatum or fate within the Aeneid is perhaps what differentiates it so drastically from the philosophical implications of its Homeric predecessors, for whilst the Homeric equivalent of μοιρα certainly plays a role within the Iliad it appears to have a much smaller remit than the fatum described by Virgil. For the Homeric hero, fate may determine when a man dies death being the lot of mortal men, such an event is inevitable, where and how it takes place is much more uncertain and, importantly, seemingly without great implications regarding the future. Achilles himself is given the choice of a fate which will see him die young but with everlasting fame or a life of unnoticed mediocrity that will nonetheless provide him with happiness, security and a peaceful old age. Whilst his fame will never die there is no implication that there will be any great consequence should he opt for the quiet life. He is, for all purposes, free of all responsibilities other than his commitment to the Homeric heroic code. Fate does not dog his footsteps and the only two occasions at which he bends to divine will are in his retreat from the river god Xanthus and his acquiescence to Zeus’ command that the body of Hector be returned to the Trojans. Other than that fate is an uncertain, mysterious force that seems to have much less influence over the lives of men, and indeed gods, than it does throughout the Aeneid. Equally the role of Jupiter and his relationship with fate differs from that of the Homeric Zeus and this too is telling as regards any worldview that can be ascertained from Virgil’s work. One of the axiomatic beliefs of Stoicism is that the universe is imbued with divine reason (logos) and that it develops in accordance with a plan “providentially ordained by fate”[3] and it is through Jupiter and his access to or authorship of the Scroll of Fate that this belief is illustrated. Heinze is of the opinion that “Virgil leaves us in no doubt that fate is really nothing else but the will of the highest god”[4] in other words Jupiter is Fate and hence determines what it is and if this is true then it fits neatly with Stoic philosophy in that Jupiter is the logos of the universe, the ultimate arbiter of physical and metaphysical phenomena and he is portrayed as being benevolent, wise and unaffected by some of the more selfish motives that seem to characterise those gods beneath him. Nonetheless there is some room for doubt that Jupiter and Fate are one and the same thing. In the council of the gods that takes place in Book Ten Jupiter, beset by the squabbling of Juno and Venus and facing a clearly divided house (cunctique fremebant caelicolae adsensu vario[5]) appears to relinquish control of the situation, sit back and allow Fate to take its course.
“sua cuique exorsa laborem
fortunamque ferent. Rex Iuppiter omnibus idem.
fata viam invenient.”[6]
Here Jupiter would appear to distinguish between himself and the fates and not only that but allow events be determined by the free will of individual men and the fates themselves. Such a reading is not fatal to the idea that what is being expressed is a Stoic conception of fate for the Stoics believed that free will and determinism were not incompatible conceptions hence men are still morally responsible for their actions.[7] Jupiter however is not one with fate even if perhaps he knows what lies in store and is merely claiming a non partisan position to avoid disruption on Olympus (possibly evidence of a Stoic moderation of judgement and action within the character of Jupiter himself) Even if we were to consider the possibility that Jupiter is lying and deliberately distancing himself from fate so as to avoid taking responsibility for the slaughter that is due to take place on the mortal plane the result remains the same as that of Jupiter being separate from fate. Divine providence has been removed from human events and men and lesser gods will be responsible for the ensuing war. Jupiter will not act and in this absence of providence the chaos of civil war will reign. This relinquishment of control has notable parallels within the Aeneid that of Aeolus’ freeing of the storm winds and Latinus’ withdrawal to his city to proverbially bury his head in the sand. Feeney, commenting on the storm unleashed by Aeolus states, “the storm caused by Juno and Aeolus is no freak event, but a sign of a fundamental dislocation in the providential natural order; one of the world’s constituent elements is running amok”[8] and it is no coincidence that this storm should be calmed by Neptune who is transformed by manner of the famous simile in book one 142-156 into the strong statesman who calms a riotous crowd.[9] These three scenes, Aeolus, Latinus and Jupiter all seem to suggest the same thing, strong leadership is required for providence or natural order to be maintained should it be removed, all hell will break loose. Virgil appears to comply with the Stoic conception of fate and divine providence but he stresses via these examples the lack of absolute determinism within the world of men. Order would not arise naturally and divine providence could not realise its ultimate goal or telos without the participation and control of free will. The worldview being put forth is a justification for Authoritarian Imperialism in order that the telos of divine providence may be realised. Maintaining that the simile between Neptune and the Statesman induces the reader to read the Aeneid in an allegorical manner, Jupiter may be associated with Augustus or any other strong leader that may take his place, the lesser gods are as Lyne describes “powerful but wilful gods, acting not in concert, not apparently concerned with what we could call justice, but motivated by love, hate, status.”[10] Whilst this could be read symbolically, that is the lesser gods represent vying human emotions or whether it is again allegorical and the lesser gods are a representation of the bickering aristocratic families who had torn the Republic to pieces with their own vicious self interest, the message remains the same. Control and order was necessary and individuals had to be harnessed to the interests of the State. As part of a wider worldview it was enough to rely upon divine providence showing the way, men had to participate in its workings even if that meant sacrifice.
If Jupiter represents or at least is aligned with the divinae mentis or divine intelligence which runs though the inner workings of the universe then we may consider Aeneas as a representation of the stoic individual who faces the repeated fluctuations of fate in a chaotic cosmos struggling to find structure and order. Aeneas’ actions as an individual correspond to the stoic ideal in as much as he remains impassive towards Dido in his departure from Carthage and willingly sacrifices a life of pleasant decadence in order to fulfil his duty to found the roman people, equally this Stoic ideal can be witnessed in his religious devotion and his journey to the Underworld to comply with the wishes of his father. Nonetheless there is some considerable deviation from this ideal in his fury upon learning of the death of Pallas and his actions in the final scene of the poem. Stoic or not, Aeneas as the eponymous hero of the Aeneid can help in determining what worldview, if any, Virgil may have structured his poem around. It is this dichotomy of character, the wild, tempestuous, and often ill prepared Aeneas who joins his fellow Trojans in their act of folly as they haul the Wooden Horse into Troy and who becomes swept up in panic and confusion as his city falls contrasted with the Stoic ideal of moderation found in Aeneas’ resolute determination to abandon Dido and resume his quest for Rome or in his steady and often accurate observance of religious ritual, that presents such a curious clash of characteristics within this single character. Even a reading which tracks Aeneas’ development of character in keeping with the Stoic belief that “virtue was impossible without trial”[11] may meet with difficulty when it is equated with Aeneas’ almost psychotic rage in the latter half of the poem, his sacrifice of the sons of Sulmo and his cold-blooded execution of Turnus, put simply how stoic can such a character be said to be? Nevertheless whilst later stoic thinkers such as Aurelius may have condemned anger and rage as definitively un-stoic characteristics…Hellenistic readings of Stoicism did not provide absolute rules for what Bowra describes as the ‘Augustan circle’ and when Aeneas’ bloodthirsty actions are compared with those of Augustus avenging the death of Julius Caesar there can be seen some common ground between two. Aeneas’ sacrifice of the sons of Sulmo can be paralleled with Augustus’ purported sacrifice of three hundred prisoners of war after Perusia at the altar of Julius and the brutality with which he hunted down the killers of his adoptive father was not entirely alien to the implacable violence which Aeneas metes out to his opponents in the course of his own vengeance on behalf of the dead Pallas. Augustus in his actions was following a sense of duty to his adoptive father in the destruction of his assassins and just as “Aeneas’ killing of Turnus is an act of ‘frenzy’ (furor) or of ‘duty’ (pietas)”[12] so too could Augustus’ actions be viewed either way. This raises the notion that rather than upholding a stoic ideal in any absolute philosophical sense, Aeneas’ character contains strains of a particularly Roman reading of stoicism, his rage may be at odds with central tenets of Hellenistic stoicism but it remains comfortable if the Stoic ideal is combined with the Roman characteristic of pietas. Equally so he maintains the Stoic (Roman) motive for combat and war and that is the imposition of peace, he is very much the Roman Stoic of his time untainted by notions of Christian compassion of pity and whilst on occasion he displays an almost overwhelming pity, such as when he sheds tears for the dying Lausus, it is a peculiarly Roman sense of pity which does not prevent him from continuing with his war. It is in the character of Aeneas that we see Stoic ideals co-mingle with traditional Roman ideals he is not a purely philosophical construct but a political, martial, cultural one also. He is the exemplary Roman man who has by the repeated ordeals of fate learned the self-control and discipline necessary to carry out a war of pacification, he does not pause, he does not doubt and in his violence he is implacable. This gives rise to the idea that the Stoicism inherent in the Aeneid is very much in a Roman form and violence is in accordance to the demands of duty.
The religious aspects of the Aeneid appear to be accordance with Stoic values in that action is generally preceded by indication from the heavens that such action is in accordance with the will of Fate. The involvement of the gods and the use of religious ritual throughout the Aeneid strongly separate it from any Epicurean separation of gods and men. The gods act upon the physical world and can be approached for favours no matter how small these favours may be, consider the request from Cloanthus for divine aid in the ship race of Book Five and the fulfilment of this request by Father Portunus, god of harbours. That the favour of Juno is sought by the Trojans despite the clear evidence that she wishes them nothing but harm is a tacit admission that success was likely to be limited if the goddess were not ‘on side’ and this appears to be in agreement with the idea that “from the second century or even earlier, the Roman nobility had proclaimed that Roman greatness was a reward sent by the gods for Roman piety.”[13] There is almost no progressive action within the Aeneid that is not preceded by or contemporaneous with a portent sent by the gods. Divination of these portents and omens is carried out by Aeneas, by Anchises, by Dido and, however incorrectly, by Turnus, as well as a host of other characters and there is certainly a sense of importance in the correct understanding of signs sent by the gods. Liebeschuetz views public divination within the Roman world as fulfilling a particular function in that “it instilled the belief that the gods cared for what happened on earth”[14] a Roman religious tradition rather than a Stoic or Epicurean axiom. There is also a noticeable lack of foreign gods within the Aeneid; their only real representation is upon the Shield of Aeneas as a malevolent and degenerate rabble who have sided with the fleet of Anthony and Cleopatra. One reason for this and one that would make sense is that “one of the purposes of Augustus’ religious reforms was to exile these ascetic and orgiastic Oriental cults and re-establish the full worship of the Graeco-Roman deities.”[15] From the lack of religious plurality in Virgil’s Aeneid it seems a fair conclusion to draw that he did not dissent with this policy in any great measure and joined with men who had preceded him such as Cicero, Caesar and Varro who “all favoured the full performance of traditional ritual.”[16] Virgil’s theology is fully in accordance with Orthodox Roman state religion, that is, the gods favour Rome and must continue to be propitiated in order for such favour to continue ritual and tradition must be maintained. There is much here that could be said about the function of religion as a prop or pillar for the authority of the State but it will suffice to simply note that Virgil’s theology was that of traditional Roman religion rather than be sidetracked into Marxian or Nietzschian comments on the political or social roles of religion other than it played a functional role in the maintenance of order and control.
With Aeneas as a form of “Proto-Stoic” albeit a Roman Stoic there is some room for discussion regarding what Turnus may represent, what Aeneas’ killing of him may stand for and how this correlates to the story recounted by King Evander about Hercules and Cacus. The parallel between Aeneas and Hercules is apparent from the outset of the Aeneid; Aeneas is a man who suffers hardships and trials Iunonis ob iram, a man who descends to the Underworld and returns alive, a man of divine parentage. Galinsky investigates the parallels in some depth in his essay Hercules in the Aeneid and develops a link between Hercules’ labours and the stoic principle of tonos, ‘strain’ or ‘effort’. There is little doubt that the stories of both Aeneas and Hercules concentrate on the overcoming of hardship on the way to a form of apotheosis and this is something that has already been discussed as regards the philosophy of the Aeneid, ordeal makes the man. With Aeneas being associated with Hercules the parallel between Turnus and the monstrous Cacus becomes clearer and the retelling of the myth further illustrates Aeneas’ conflict with his Rutulian rival. Cacus is a terrifying creature, a fire breathing monster who hangs the heads of the men he has killed on the door of his underworld lair and it appears that his raison d’être is to cause havoc.
at furis Caci mens effera, ne quid inausum
aut intractatum scelerisue dolive fuisset[17]
Compelled by this anarchistic nature he steals four bulls from Hercules’ herd an action which precipitates a rampage of almost elemental force from Hercules. The violence is extreme, Hercules assaults Cacus’ mountain stronghold and eventually gains entry by tearing a crag out by the roots. He then stones the panicking Cacus, gouges out his eyes and then eventually chokes him to death with his bare hands, which was probably a relief for the wretched beast after such rough treatment. Clearly at this point Hercules is at odds with any form of Stoic moderation, his rage seems uncontrollable, merciless, terrifying and there is a direct parallel here to that manic anger of Aeneas already discussed. Nonetheless this violence is being directed to a Cacus who, considering the grim trophies upon his door, is no stranger to violent methods himself, Hercules meets force with force and overcomes his opponent and he does so, perhaps somewhat selfishly, with a notion of justice as his overarching goal-to right the wrong of Cacus’ theft, whereas Cacus uses force chaotically and criminally. The site of their battle is the site of the future Rome just as it will be on the fields of Latium that Aeneas and Turnus will battle for supremacy and here too with direct consequence for the future Romans and their city it is the man waging war for the ‘greater good’ who wins out over the man who wages war on behalf of his own pride, “like Pindar’s Herakles, Aeneas must overcome force with force because Jupiter commands him ‘to bring the whole world beneath his laws(4.231).”[18] This conflict between Aeneas and Turnus will see both men descend into murderous rampages, both will make use of terrible force but Aeneas does so in order to impose peace, whereas Turnus does so with no real motive other than his own selfish desire for Lavinia. It is interesting to note the importance of the ‘fire breathing’ Cacus, Hardie draws a connection between Cacus and the monster Typhoeus and stresses that the “elemental quality of the struggle follows from the nature of the monster Cacus conceived as a demon of fire.”[19] Turnus wears upon his armour a fire breathing Chimera and as well as help develop the links between him and Cacus this notion of fire has important philosophical connotations. There is a possible allusion to Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura in the appearance of the Chimera in relation to Turnus for in Book Two of his didactic poem Lucretius uses the ‘Chimeras breathing flame from hideous mouths”[20] as an example of what would occur if atoms of all kinds could be linked in all manner of combinations, in short the Chimera is an aberration of natural order, an abhorrent deviation from physical laws. That Turnus should wear this as an emblem against the ordered and structured future history of Rome emblazoned upon Aeneas’ shield is telling. The manner in which Virgil describes Cacus or the Chimera appears to correlate with Stoic physics in that Stoic thought held fire to be the basic substrate from which all else is created, thus Cacus, the Chimera and Typhoeus are all emblematic of a primal baseness, the chaos of unordered, unstructured nature. Aeneas continues the ethos of Hercules, that of monster slaying and in doing so making the world a safer and more civilised place and his continuance or acceptance of this role can be seen in his raking of the embers on the altar of Hercules in the home of Evander. Additionally the role played by Vulcan in this Book is interesting in that he is both the father of the monster Cacus and the blacksmith who creates the Shield of Aeneas, this may fit with the idea that from chaos structure can be formed and given that at the beginning of the book Vulcan is the father of a monster and by the end he is associated with a physical expression of Roman destiny could be viewed as an example of primal forces falling into line in accordance to divine providence.
Lastly the concept of sacrifice within the Aeneid is of some importance, the ritual of sacrifice was one familiar within the Roman world although human sacrifice was not generally practiced and viewed with some trepidation, animals were fair game. Sacrifice according to Morgan is a form of ‘constructive destruction’ or to put it in other words destruction for the sake of progress. In the combat between Hercules and Cacus and Aeneas and Turnus one element must be destroyed in order for progress to be made. To propitiate the gods animals were offered up as sacrifice and in one poignant scene in Book Five Entellus, having beaten Dares close to unconsciousness, brutally sacrifices the bull given to him as a prize as a form of payment to the spirit of Eryx with the words
“hanc tibi, Eryx, meliorem animam pro morte Daretis”[21]
Disconcertingly Entellus offers up the life of the bull instead of that of Dares and implicit in this is the notion that if the fight had not been broken up he would have indeed given Dares’ life up as a sacrifice or that the defeated Dares is now of less worth than a sacrificial animal. The idea is that the defeated is offered up to the gods by the victor and this corresponds to the religious idea that Rome owed her success to the gods and not simply to her own strength of arms. Like Entellus, Rome’s success and stature came about through the destruction of an enemy and acts of sacrifice appear to have been a nod or payment to the gods or spirits that aided them. The sacrifice was not one sided of course for the payment included the loss of many, many Roman lives and this destruction is likely to have left an indelible mark upon the Roman psyche, that is, nothing was without its price. Virgil’s use of sacrifice and reference to sacrifice including the tale woven by Sinon in Book Two would appear to suggest that all great endeavours come at cost to State and Individual but that sacrifice was a necessary precondition to developing both.
In conclusion the worldview that is put forward by Virgil is one in which “Roman teaching and Roman national cult join with Homeric myth”[22] to create a form of pragmatic, Roman Stoicism, one which holds that there is order and structure to the universe but which rejects any dogmatic reliance upon order winning through without effort, toil and sacrifice. It advocates the use of violence against violence but stresses that the end goal must not be lost and must always be just, Virgil’s humanism breaks through to point out the reality that war makes monsters of us all and in keeping with Stoic moral considerations relies upon motive to differentiate men who commit similar crimes. Moderation is combined with the Roman characteristic of pietas to justify revenge and rage. The gods exist but rather than be the sublime creatures of Epicurean theology they, like the constituent parts of the physical world, need to be reined together by a strong, single leader in order to avoid chaos. If anything Virgil creates a worldview which could be labelled Imperial Roman Stoicism and I would agree with Johnson’s view that “it would be more nearly correct to say that the Aeneid created the Augustan age than to say that the Augustan age produced in any way, the Aeneid”[23] for its central place within the educational institutions of Imperial Rome affected Roman identity to such an extent that “even in the Greek-speaking provinces conceptions of Roman identity were tied to Virgil’s epic.”[24] As a worldview or philosophy it remains coherent in that it justifies war, conquest and control without justifying internecine conflict for the sake of itself, it provides a steady theodicy for Jupiter, the national god of Rome, in that evil takes place not through his actions but by the actions of wrongdoers and that Jupiter “allows it to continue, such that fatum will nevertheless find its way, until things reach a point where they threaten to clash with fatum.”[25] In a similar theodicy to that of the later Irenaus, it seems apparent that toil made the Romans what they were and that without the adversity they had faced in the past they would not have the strength of will that was necessary to rule the world. This in itself remains consistent with Stoic doctrines. Despite some variations the Aeneid upheld a coherent Stoic philosophy which would form a foundational stone within Roman conceptions of the self during its Imperial age.
[1] Cicero, Preface, 2
[2] Braund, pg 210
[3] Audi, pg 881
[4] Heinze, pg 236
[5] Virgil, X, 96-97
[6] Virgil X, 111-13
[7] Hornblower, pg 691
[8] Feeney, pg 134
[9] It is also interesting to consider the Stoic implications of this passage if it is a reference to the actions of the younger Cato
[10] Lyne, pg 65
[11] Bowra, pg 366
[12] Braund, pg 214
[13] Liebeschuetz, pg 1
[14] Liebeschuetz, pg 8
[15] Bailey, pg 182
[16] Liebeschuetz, pg 31
[17] Virgil, VIII, 205-6
[18] Galinsky, pg 291
[19] Hardie, pg 114
[20] Lucretius, II, 705
[21] Virgil, V, 483
[22] Heinze, pg 236
[23] Johnson, pg 136
[24] Syed, pg 14
[25] Heinze, pg 238
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