The association between Rome and Fate, an overarching force or structure to the universe that cannot be countermanded, is inherent throughout the course of the Aeneid. It is heavy with pre-deterministic language and just as it recounts the tale of the founder of the Roman race so too does it set a teleological conception of the destiny of his descendents, in prophecy, in allusion and in ecphrasis. That this should be the case regarding an Imperial power, or at least one man’s allegory of it is telling for teleological views of the universe stress the design and purpose that rules over nature, men and nations and as such it is the abstracted ideal of Imperialism.
In addressing the manner in which the Aeneid elucidates a teleological view of Roman history, that is, the devices it utilises in describing an inexorable rise in Roman power in line with an underlying structure of the universe be that the decrees of fate or the plans of the gods or both, it is vital to understand the characteristics of Roman imperialism, the cultural and philosophical understandings of the time and the historical realities of Roman power. In judging how successful these attempts may have been it will be necessary to consider the literary aspects of their depiction and how Virgil utilised or exploited the Homeric, Hellenistic and Latin traditions that preceded him in order to communicate the message that Roman imperial history had developed not through accident and chance but through a predetermined plan.
There are three passages which specifically spell out the future history of the Roman people. These prophetic moments coming in the form of a speech from Jupiter to his daughter Venus in Book I, in the speech of Anchises and the Pageant of heroes during Aeneas’ descent into the Underworld in Book VI and finally in the ecphrasis depicting the Shield of Aeneas in Book VIII. The descriptions of Roman history in the Aeneid are not limited to these three scenes, forward looking moments occur in Book VIII as Aeneas, seeking aid from Evander, passes the future site of the Roman forum which is filled with lowing cattle, in Book V when fire is seen on the walls of Carthage, in Book IV when Dido curses Trojan and Carthaginian to internecine conflict. These are just some of the more prominent and notable moments of hindsight masquerading as prophecy there are many more and there is more that could be written than could be included in this essay about the various references and allusions littered throughout the poem, indeed it could be said that it is difficult to find a line in Virgil that wasn’t charged with significance. For the sake of expediency it will be necessary to concentrate more fully upon the previously mentioned prophetic passages since they are most closely and obviously linked with the historicity of the Roman state. Since Virgil was writing a history of Rome viewed from the perspective of a character who lived nearly half a millennia before the city was founded, this history will of course be the future for Aeneas’ descendents; I shall thus refer to the ‘future history’ of Rome and trust that this will make sense.
The first prophecy comes from Jupiter in response to a complaint from Venus, which articulates a very human despair at the perceived injustice of the tribulations of the Trojans; “hic pietatis honos? Sic nos in sceptra reponis?”[1] Jupiter’s calm response to his daughter is definitive and unambiguous “manent immota tuorum fata tibi…neque me sentential vertit”[2] and so immediately we see the Trojan (and therefore Roman) aims allied with the interests and the plans of Jupiter be he the author of the Scroll of Fate or merely its executor. What of Juno and her furious opposition to the Trojans? Jupiter is careful to include her relinquishment of her hatred, her submission to the will of fate and her reconciliation with both him and her former enemies “consilia in melius referet, mecumque fovebit, Romanos, rerum dominos”[3]. In this way the Aeneid begins with the assurance that the gods favour Rome and even those wayward and recalcitrant gods who are intent on inflicting as much suffering as possible onto the Roman people will eventually renounce their opposition. This is important in that Rome was what could be termed a ‘gods fearing’ state which sought to mollify the gods with regular state rituals and the steady rise of Roman power was inevitably seen as a result of this piety leading Cicero to state that “Nostrae civitatis, quae nunquam profecto sine summa placatione deorum immortalium tanta esse potvisset”[4]. There is also a pleasing juxtaposition between Jupiter and Juno which also describes further elements of Roman self-identification as well as Imperial attitudes. Jupiter remains a figurehead of order and calm twice he is described by the participle olli subridens[5] a gesture of magnanimity concomitant with the notion of benevolence whilst Juno is more associated with the qualities of ira and furor. Equally there is a noticeable difference between this cool-headed Jupiter of the Aeneid and the irate, furious Zeus of the Iliad. Where Jupiter tenderly kisses Venus in Book I of the Aeneid, Zeus threatens to throttle the life from his wife Hera, terrifying the gods on Olympus[6]. Virgil appears to have included a rewrite of Jupiter’s somewhat volatile personality and in doing so has created a picture of a benign overlord of the gods who unlike his immediate subordinates acts through the mysterious will of fate rather than on behalf of selfish, personal motives; again a feature of the Homeric Zeus. This was a concept in line with the Stoic philosophy of the time which “conceived the whole world as subject to a single controlling purpose, benign in its nature, and admitted separate divinities only as aspects of this or subordinate agents”[7]. That this should be allied with Roman destiny is an excellent device for portraying Roman power as parallel to the ius or nomos, the underlying law of the universe for Jupiter represents reason in an individual in accordance to that which is natural and fated to be. As Schofield suggest “right reason in an individual is in harmony with universal nature insofar as universal nature is simply reason at work”[8] and it is not only that Jupiter represents the perfect stoic individual he also represents Roman Imperialism, which was at least in the eyes of its apologists, the political embodiment and realisation of this underlying, benevolent reason. Jupiter then goes onto to describe the ultimate future of the Roman people unequivocally stating “his ego nec metas rerum nec tempora pono: imperium sine fine dedi”[9] and later “aspera tum positis mitescent saecula bellis”[10].
Thus it can be suggested that the telos of Roman history was peaceful order and control of the world through the subjugation of warring individual states into a unified empire and that “Italy is the mother of sturdy warriors, Rome’s empire is divinely ordained, and her wars ultimately bring peace to her subject nations.”[11] Furthermore it may be said that this telos was structured along the lines of stoic philosophy, divine favour and dutiful religious observation (divine favour not being guaranteed by propitiation as can be seen in the case of Dido, it remained nonetheless a sensible precaution) it is necessary to determine what the path to this end goal would entail.
A much more detailed exposition of the future history of Rome occurs in the next prophetic passage which appears in Book VI. Here Aeneas has journeyed into the Underworld to see his father Anchises, an act of filial duty characteristic of the ideal pius Roman citizen. It is in the Elysian fields that he is presented with a parade of souls whose lives are yet to be lived and this Pageant of Heroes outlines in quite explicit detail the process by which Rome grew from a city state into empire by acting as a catalogue of notable figures in the future history of Rome. The very concept that before Rome has been founded those figures which will feature so prominently in her future are named and their deeds by which they will become known predestined, is an effective method of emphasising the teleological aspect of Roman history.
The pageant of hero’s sticks to a loose chronological order interrupted by two notable discrepancies that of the mention of Augustus Caesar alongside Romulus and that of Julius Caesar and Pompey interjected between Camillus and the more chronologically correct L. Mummius, conqueror of Corinth. The initial chronology begins with Silvius, the first king of Alba Longa and then continues with the mention of various small Italian towns that would be among the first to fall under the influence of Rome, this is a reflection of the gradual expansion of the Roman city state as it sought to influence its immediate neighbours. Anchises then goes onto to present Aeneas with the shade of Romulus, the founder and first king of Rome and the man under whose auspices Rome will expand her empire. The interjection of Augustus into this so-far steady chronological depiction of Roman individuals is somewhat jarring and it is an easy conclusion to reach that it owes more to political posturing than the narrative of Rome’s rise to power. Augustus is being placed in the same context as Romulus in that he is being portrayed as a founder of Rome the question may be asked if this weakens a teleological view of Roman imperial history. It is not so much a case that “chronological order is essential to create an impression of growth and expansion on both the historical and cosmic levels.”[12] Jupiter has already described to Venus that the limits upon the Romans include neither time nor space, matters have been predetermined and as a result there is no reason why chronology has to be adhered to once the character has stepped beyond the physical limits of time and space. Individuals such as Romulus and Augustus may co-exist since timescales no longer have to be religiously followed. Indeed it is the setting of the Underworld that gives greater artistic licence to such a portrayal for Pluto’s realm is characteristically supernatural and the stream of time seems to not so much flow steadily but curl and eddy. Seeing Romulus and Augustus together arguably strengthens the teleological nature of Roman history in that it suggests not only a pre-determinism but that time is merely the manner in which these things are articulated to man. Beginnings and endings may exist concurrently for they exist outside of any physical limits or bounds, recalling the words of Sophocles’ Antigone “ού γαρ νυν γε χάχθες, άλλ’ άει ποτε ζη ταυτα.”[13] Virgil in a sense depicts Roman history at one with universal diktat.
Another individual represented in the Pageant is the Brutus who will overthrow Tarquinius Superbus the last King of Rome but it his later action that further explicates the nature of Roman imperialism. Brutus subordinates his personal investment and executes his own sons for fomenting rebellion against Rome, a particularly utilitarian calculation and yet as Virgil then describes “utcumque ferent ea facta minores: vincet amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido”[14] history will prove that this man made the right decision, however savage and violent it might have been. This certainly emphasises the idea that the actions which took place on the way to Rome’s supremacy stood outside the boundaries of right and wrong in any normative sense but instead were to be judged via a consequentialist school of ethics. As I have attempted to demonstrate Rome is being placed not only alongside the workings of fate but as one with it and therefore will prove to be inexorabile and ineluctabile. Virgil effectively communicates an attitude that the Roman ruling class, in accordance with stoic dogma, are likely to have taken to Rome’s past cruelties hereby justifying them as being in accordance with the underlying machinations of the universe. This ‘end justifies means’ argument wraps itself in grandiose connections with destiny and fate and indeed is suggestive that there should be a goal or telos to the many savageries of history. Such glorification of Imperial rule and its various self-definitions of what is just and what is right is best summarised by Thucydides during the Melian dialogue when the Athenians assert to the hapless Melians “you know as well as we do that when we are talking on the human place questions of justice only arise when there is equal power to compel: in terms of practicality the dominant exact what they can and the weak concede what they must”[15]
It is at the end of the pageant of heroes that Virgil presents the reader with the ‘Roman mission’ “pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellere superbos”[16] almost a summary of Rome’s actions since its inception in 753BCE and if the end has been established then these are the means by which it is to be achieved. Virgil effectively describes the very real process by which Rome comes to rule its empire by contrasting the arts of ‘others’ with the arts of the Romans. These ‘others’ are the Greeks with their dominance in the fields of Art, Jurisprudence and Science (notably Virgil does not include literature within their sphere of supremacy) and it is true that it was not through cultural supremacy that Rome conquered the Mediterranean. She actively subsumed cultures into her empire, mimicked or stole their arts and tradition and nowhere is this more apparent than in the conquered provinces of Epirus, Achaea and Macedon where Rome plundered an ancient cultural heritage. Virgil outlines a brute truth regarding the nature of Roman imperialism in that its art was the securing of control and the maintenance of control a quality that distinguished her from the perennial squabbling of the Greek city states or the sudden, short-lived Hellenistic empire of Alexander.
The third great prophetic passage comes in Book VIII with the construction of the Shield of Aeneas, a literary device with a very notable precedent in that of the Shield of Achilles in Book XVIII of the Iliad. Virgil would have been as aware as his audience of the parallel between these literary shields and it is vital for this consideration to be used as a foundation block in any exegetical exercise. It is necessary to compare and contrast the two shields but first it has to be noted that the Shield of Aeneas, like that of Achilles, is constructed and delivered by a divine agent and so corresponds to what has already been discussed, that is an ‘expression of divine protection and sanctioning of Roman conquest”[17] again the theme of divine favouring of Rome and her destiny is expounded.
The shield prophecy is a description of ecphrasis rather than a delivered speech or a parade of soul, which if I may venture forth a theory, sits with the teleological development of the prophetic elements in the Aeneid. First there is the idea of imperium raised in a speech, then there is the display of those who will bring it about and finally there is the presentation of a monument, a concrete representation of Rome’s achievements. This seems to follow the chronology of human endeavour in that a great notion finds its agents and then reaches a stage of apotheosis in which it becomes a solid reality. Rome’s future history has by the point of Book VIII become so definite that it has taken physical form allowing Aeneas “attollens umero famamque et fata nepotum”[18] to shoulder its burden and undertake his role in its founding. It is however the content of the shield which contains more regarding Roman imperialism and its historical development. As stated before, the shield must be contrasted with that of Homer’s Achilles and Hardie points out that “the Shield of Achilles, with its abundance of scenes is an image of the whole universe, an allegory of the cosmos. The Shield of Aeneas is also an image of the creation of a universe, but of a strictly Roman universe”[19] and if the Shield of Achilles functions as a κοςμον μιμημα then this certainly suggests that Rome’s domination of Aeneas’ shield merges cosmos and imperium into one heterogeneous whole. Roman history underpins the shields imagery indeed it is simply the “illic res Italas Romanorumque triumphos”[20] and Virgil effectively uses the preconceptions of the reader, that is their expectation of a cosmological subject, to great effect and I would side with Hardie’s suspicion “that the learned reader of antiquity, with his knowledge of the Homeric shield and the exegetical tradition attached to it, would have started with an expectation that this too would prove to be a cosmic shield”[21] and once again the idea that Roman power and the universe itself were, if not in close alliance, simply one and the same is brought to the fore. Unlike the pageant of heroes the shield maintains chronological order, which may be to do with its aforementioned physical nature; Roman history is not so much set in stone but rather cast into iron and bronze.
All the scenes upon the shield describe elements of the rise in Roman power, they remain teleological in that they are important junctures which make Rome what she is, thus the rape of the Sabine women is depicted as well as the miraculous rescue of Rome from Gallic invaders and there is a notable logic of events running from Romulus and Remus being suckled by the She-Wolf through to Augustus’ victory at Actium and it is these two key scenes that I will discuss below. That these scenes depict a beginning and an ‘end’ is strongly suggestive that they “form the extreme limits of the Roman cosmology”[22]; from inauspicious beginning to glorious end the teleology of Rome’s rise is given its bounds. With Romulus and Remus and their depiction upon the shield the line “corpora fingere lingua” is used to describe the mothering actions of the she-wolf toward her charges and this has some telling connotations. For the concept of being licked into shape suggests a formation of shape from chaos, design from abstraction is a very teleological value in itself. The image also reflects upon the ongoing, sometimes rough and uneven process by which Roman power expanded. What was ‘Rome’ was forever being altered as it grew, the she wolf is representative of a bestial nurse and her savagery as a wolf is inimical to the idea of strife, conflict and combat favouring Rome for she is mothering them rather than turning upon them. As Romulus was brought up tough so too will Rome’s upbringing be a rough process of licking into shape order from anarchy as gradually from the chaos of warring nations comes imperium and pietas. A more detailed understanding can be found in the she-wolf scene for Romulus and Remus, as is known, did not rule in tandem. One had to die and almost implicit in this is the idea that otherwise Rome would have not have existed; the city’s name derives from the victor of the struggle between the two brothers. This not only acts as a reminder that Roman power was founded upon the crushed remains of her enemies, a “recurrent theme of the Aeneid”[23] but also references the previous mention of Romulus and Remus in Book I. A Jupiter tells Venus that in the time of peace established by Augustus “Remo cum fratre Quirinus iura dabunt”[24]; a confusing statement given that the relationship between the brothers was one of violence and death. However it is likely that this is an elaboration upon the theme of Roman attitudes toward defeated enemies. That is, once an enemy in accordance with the Roman mission was warred down the “proper policy towards vanquished peoples [was], where possible, magnanimity and mercy.”[25] In other words Romulus and Remus are symbolic of Rome’s Imperial duty to establish peace through war, which stresses the Roman self-justification for her control over her former enemies-for the good of all there would come a time when humanity would acknowledge one ruler and like Remus would stand by their conqueror in alliance. Virgil describes skilfully the process of Roman growth but includes within this an unsettling comment upon the nature of Imperialism for this is an act of fratricide in the name of power. This effect, the slightly jarring note between the grandiose conception of Roman imperial power and the violent methods employed to attain it, is described by Parry as “the continual opposition of a personal voice, which comes to us as though it were Virgil’s own, to the public voice of Roman success.”[26]
From Romulus and Remus the wheel of Roman history revolves until it reaches its telos in the form of Augustus’ victory at Actium and this is described in explicit detail. The appearance of Augustus upon the shield is a culmination of the imperial values that make up Roman history it is in a sense the apotheosis of Augustus as he crushes his enemy Anthony and establishes himself as the unchallenged ruler of Rome. Particular aspects of the portrayal of Actium reveal an interesting commentary upon the Imperial values of the time and one of these is “its capacity to project a foreign ‘otherness’ upon the vanquished enemies of Augustus and of a Rome identified exclusively with her new master.”[27] Augustus is described as “Augustus agens Italos in Proelia Caesar cum patribus populoque”[28] whereas Anthony is pictured as “hinc ope barbaric variisque Antonius armis”[29] there is no doubt that Augustus is portrayed as leading ‘Rome’ and all that she represents whereas Anthony is leading the armies of the East, that is, ‘Anti-Roman’ forces. This is not the first time that such “a series of binary oppositions”[30] has been imposed upon the confusion of civil war since in Book VI Pompey is described as “gener adversis instructus Eois!”[31] This does not reflect a particularly correct version of history but it does speak volumes about the aims of Roman imperialism. Such simplification is to gloss over the reality that the Civil wars had been caused, not by the raucous hordes of the East but by social tensions within Roman society, poverty, discontent and political domination by the Patrician class. The depiction of Actium as a titanic clash not just between the armies of West and East but of the very gods that represent each culture communicates the manner in which Imperialism was being employed as method of social control the enemy was not within Roman society herself but outside her borders. After Actium the shield depicts Augustus riding in triple triumph passing through the walls of Rome, his triumph brings the conquered people of trailing in subjection behind him. The image of ‘the nations of the earth” in the train of Augustus and paraded through Rome is of particular interest as regards the sense of Imperial history and its teleological nature. Rome here is triumphant and people from across the earth are included within her walls “thus the walls of Rome figuratively enclose the Roman empire.”[32]These people enter Rome in defeat of course but as Badian describes of Roman imperialism it operated a ‘hegemonial policy’[33] reflective of the nature of ruling class relationships to one another and to the subjected, the patron-client structure of social organisation was the basis of Roman foreign policy rather than any hypothetical egalitarian approach. As Badian continues; “The obedience of the weak to the strong was, to Roman aristocrat, nothing less than an eternal moral law.”[34] To refer this back to the conceptions of Roman rule being at one with universal law, it’s power defined by teleological blueprints we are perhaps seeing Rome in the manner in which her ruling classes saw her. Schofield outlines the notion that the Stoics defined a city as “a morally admirable group or organisation of human which is administered by law”[35] he also suggests that “what stoicism advocated was a world state, a political system in which the unity of all mankind would find expression”[36] and whilst he casts doubt on this I disagree with his notion that Chysippus used words like ‘city’ and ‘law’ in such a manner as to make them devoid of political context. A city, being an organisational structure, is possessed with meaningful political context and identification of a city with a universalizing mission as appears to have been the case with Rome would make great sense for it legitimises Imperial values.
If there can be a conclusion drawn from the above discussion then it will suggest that the Aeneid does indeed attempt to describe a teleological view of Roman imperial history and it does so via the medium of prophetic passages within the text, which pay close attention to the various landmarks in Roman history. It is the depiction of this history as a ‘future’ to the characters of the Aeneid that immediately evokes a sense of pre-determinism and the skilful use of philosophical thought, namely that of the stoic school of philosophy, and theological values which help to explicate what the ends and the means of this teleological historical view might have been. Equally Virgil makes use of the literary tradition and the preconceptions of his audience. In assessing how well this view is communicated it a fair suggestion to say that it is expressed and transmitted with a considerable degree of success for it imposes a teleological structure upon a confused and disparate history rife with wars, upheavals and disaster. Whilst Virgil portrays the teleological view artfully this is not to say that it is correct, we know full well that the ultimate telos for Rome was decline and destruction and its grandiose claims to being the embodiment of the will of fate speaks more of a ruling class that was quite simply out of control than divine selection, as is usually the way with nations that come across more power than they know what to do with, claims to be at one with some kind of indubitable truth or law of the universe act as justifications for some of the most barbaric acts Man is capable of carrying out and ends will be used to justify means no matter what the crime.
[1] Virgil, I,253
[2] Virgil, I,258f
[3] Virgil, I, 281f
[4] Cicero, 3.5
[5] Virgil, I, 254 and XII, 829
[6] Homer, I, 683f
[7] Camps, pg 47
[8] Schofield, pg 451
[9] Virgil, I, 278f
[10] Virgil, I, 291
[11] Gale, pg 241
[12] Hardie, pg 347
[13] Sophocles, 456
[14] Virgil, VI, 823f
[15] Thucydides, V, 89
[16] Virgil, VI, 852f
[17] Hardie, pg 338
[18] Virgil, VIII, 731
[19] Hardie, pg 339
[20] Virgil, pg 626
[21] Hardie, pg 363
[22] Hardie, pg 349
[23] Hardie, pg 348
[24] Virgil, I, 291f
[25] Lyne, pg 316
[26] Parry, pg 111
[27] Quint, pg 23
[28] Virgil, VIII, 678f
[29] Virgil, VIII, 685
[30] Quint, pg 23
[31] Virgil, VI, 831
[32] Hardie, pg 365
[33] Badian, pg 14
[34] Badian, pg 15
[35] Schofield, pg 457
[36] Schofield, pg 453
Bibliography
Badian. E, Roman Imperialism in the Late Republic, 1967
Camps. W. A, An introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid, Oxford University Press, 1969
Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Oxford Classical Texts, Oxford University Press
Gale. M, Virgil on the Nature or Things, Cambridge University Press, 2000
Hardie. P, Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium, Oxford, 1986
Homer, The Iliad, Trans. Fagles. R, Penguin Books, 1990
Lyne. R.O.A.M, ‘Vergil and the Politics of War’ in S J Harrison ed. Oxford Readings in Vergil’s Aeneid, Oxford 1990
Parry. A, ‘The two Voices of Virgil’s Aeneid’, in Commager.S, Virgil, a collection of critical essays
Quint. D, Epic and Empire, Princeton, 1993
Schofield. M, ‘Epicurean and Stoic Philosophical Thought’ in Rowe. C and Schofield. M, The Cambridge history of Greek and Roman Political Thought, Cambridge University Press, 2000
Sophocles, Antigone, Oxford Classical Texts
Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, trans. Hammond. M, Oxford University Press, 2009
Virgil, Aeneid, Oxford Classical Texts,Oxford University Press, 1969
