Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici, 2022
This paper discusses possible responses to deception and exaggeration in Aeneid 8, especially on ... more This paper discusses possible responses to deception and exaggeration in Aeneid 8, especially on the the description of the shield of Aeneas that closes the book, and so it is a supplement to my 1990 book on prophecy in the Aeneid. It discusses statements made by ambassadors or Aeneas acting in that role; what the rivergod Tiberinus says to Aeneas about the anger of the gods; Evander’s odd and perhaps untrustworthy stories about Hercules and Cacus and other Herculean myths, Mezentius, a guest named Argus, and his own history; and at more length the scenes on the Shield of Aeneas, especially the descriptions of the Battle of Actium, and of Augustus’ triumph. For the shield I discuss the association of the shield with the vates (both prophets and poets); the question of whether Ascanius or Silvius Postumus will be the ancestor of the Julians; the two different explanations of the name Lupercal in Book 8; the allusions to the Gauls’ taking the Capitol, and to the downfall of Manlius; who fought at Actium and who is mentioned on the shield despite not being at Actium; whether Antony had been a victor in the East; the mention of Discorda as an allusion to civil war; the odd setting of the triumph of Augustus on the Palatine; the victae gentes who were not actually victae and come from a much wider geographic scope than the peoples actually defeated; and the references to the Euphrates and the Araxes. The lying and exaggeration earlier in Book 8, some of which involve the difference between statements made by the narrator and statements made by characters, provide a new context for the problems on the shield; all of the deception can be looked at in several ways:as appropriate hyperbole, as typical poetic exaggeration or use of incompatible variants, as unreliable history, as excessive exaggeration and inconsistency that undercuts the encomium, as prophecies that mislead here as elsewhere in the poem, or as Vulcan producing what Venus wants to hear. Two problems can be interepreted as related to one another: why so much of the pre-Actium parts of the shield (all but four or so lines) presents material from Ennius, some of it fanciful, and why the depiction of Actium and the triumph feature so many peoples who were not there. Following earlier scholarship suggesting that Augustus himself in his triumph may have exaggerated the geographical extent of his defeated enemies as a way to compete with Julius and Pompey, we can see the shield as largely divided into two parts, one presenting mythical material from Ennius, the second a mythologized and exaggerated version of Actium. Whether Vergil is endorsing this version of Actium, or quoting it but maintaining his distance, is a question different readers will answer in different ways.
Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici, 2022
This paper will discuss possible responses to several different types of lying and exaggeration i... more This paper will discuss possible responses to several different types of lying and exaggeration in Aeneid 8, with more attention to the description of the shield of Aeneas that closes the book. The paper is to some extent a supplement to my 1990 book on prophecy in the Aeneid, which mentions (p. 128) the three great prophecies in the poem, the prophecy of Jupiter to Venus in Book 1, Anchises' Parade of Heroes in Book 6, and Vulcan's shield in Book 8, and talks at length about the first two prophecies, but only briefly (pp. 173-75) about the shield. 1 Here I shall move through Aeneid 8 from beginning to end, but also jump around some in the middle, with some groupings of related material. So I begin at the beginning and end with the shield of Aeneas, and my questions and problems gradually get more difficult and challenging, culminating with the question of how to react to the lies or exaggerations on the shield of Aeneas, where different readers may favor different solutions. These solutions flow in part from decisions a reader must make about how to frame the shield, and whether to see its depictions of early Roman history, the Battle of Actium, and Augustus' triple triumph in terms of rhetoric and encomium, history and the writing of history, the literary tradition, poets' interest in mythological variants, and prophecy. It seems clear that the details of the text call attention to these problems, which many earlier scholars tended to minimize or explain away, but which good recent work has put us in a better position to understand, though questions still remain. 2 Both the survey of deception and exaggeration in the earlier parts of Aeneid 8, and the close reading of a number of passages in the description of Aeneas' shield, will show that lies and ambiguity and exaggeration are more extensive than has been realized, and we will also perhaps better understand the relationship between the shield and both Ennius' Annals on the one hand, and Augustus' actual triple triumph on the other.
This book collects new work on Latin didactic poetry and prose in the late Republic and early Emp... more This book collects new work on Latin didactic poetry and prose in the late Republic and early Empire, and it evaluates the varied, shifting roles that literature of teaching and learning played during this period. Instruction was of special interest in the culture and literature of the late Roman Republic and the Age of Augustus, as attitudes towards education found complex, fluid, and multivalent expressions. The era saw a didactic boom, a cottage industry whose surviving authors include Vergil, Lucretius, Ovid, Horace, Cicero, Varro, Germanicus, and Grattius, who are all reexamined here. The contributors to this volume bring fresh approaches to the study of educational literature from the end of the Roman Republic and early Empire, and their essays discover unexpected connections between familiar authors. Chapters explore, interrogate, and revise some aspect of our understanding of these generic and modal boundaries, while considering understudied points of contact between art and education, poetry and prose, and literature and philosophy, among others. Altogether, the volume shows how lively, experimental, and intertextual the didactic ethos of this period is, and how deeply it engages with social, political, and philosophical questions that are of critical importance to contemporary Rome and of enduring interest into the modern world. Didactic Literature in the Roman World is of interest to students and scholars of Latin literature, particularly the late Republic and early Empire, and of Classics more broadly. In addition, the volume's focus on didactic poetry and prose appeals to those working on literature outside of Classics and on intellectual history.
James J. O’Hara, “Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed in Aeneid 8,” pp. 232-45 in M.C. English a... more James J. O’Hara, “Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed in Aeneid 8,” pp. 232-45 in M.C. English and L.M. Fratantuono (eds.), Pushing the Boundaries of Historia: Routledge 2018.
"Basically I want to argue that there is a consistent portrayal in the Aeneid, produced by noteworthy details that I think have never all been pulled together, of Evander’s extreme fondness for blood, gore, killing, and vengeful punishment, a fondness he shares with no other speaker in the poem....
In this chapter, I shall be making observations about the story of Hercules and Cacus that Evander tells Aeneas, the hymn to Hercules that Evander’s people sing right after the Cacus story, what Evander says about Mezentius and the Etruscans and about himself, and finally, the baldric that Evander’s son Pallas is wearing on his first and last day of battle."
James J. O’Hara, “Genre, gender, and the etymology behind the phrase Lugentes campi at Aeneid 6.4... more James J. O’Hara, “Genre, gender, and the etymology behind the phrase Lugentes campi at Aeneid 6.441,” pp. 51-62 in They Keep it All Hid: Augustan Poetry, its Antecedents and Reception, edited by Peter E. Knox, Hayden Pelliccia, and Alexander Sens. Berlin: De Gruyter 2018.
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Book Reviews by Jim O'Hara
"Basically I want to argue that there is a consistent portrayal in the Aeneid, produced by noteworthy details that I think have never all been pulled together, of Evander’s extreme fondness for blood, gore, killing, and vengeful punishment, a fondness he shares with no other speaker in the poem....
In this chapter, I shall be making observations about the story of Hercules and Cacus that Evander tells Aeneas, the hymn to Hercules that Evander’s people sing right after the Cacus story, what Evander says about Mezentius and the Etruscans and about himself, and finally, the baldric that Evander’s son Pallas is wearing on his first and last day of battle."
https://www.routledge.com/Pushing-the-Boundaries-of-Historia-1st-Edition/English-
Fratantuono/p/book/9781138046320
https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/488547
https://www.amazon.com/They-Keep-All-Hid-Supplementary/dp/3110544172