To Hell with Aeneas: looking backwards and forwards in Aeneid 6

The word tandem (‘at last’) near the very beginning of Aeneid 6 carries its full meaning. Finally the Trojans reach Italy, their fated destination, but not before five books’ worth of adventures in Carthage and around the Mediterranean since the capture and destruction of Troy. This arrival marks the transition from the Odyssean wanderings of the first half of the epic to the lliadic war which the Trojans must win in order to found their new city. It is here in Italy, and especially in the underworld, that Aeneas pauses to reflect on his past before he is free to lay the foundations of a Roman future. Here Fiachra Mac Gorain explores some of the ways in which both hero and poet build on the past and look to the future in this pivotal book

Introduction. Dionysus and Rome: accommodation and resistance

This introductory chapter provides a wide-angle history of the presence of Dionysus/Bacchus/Liber on Italian soil from the archaic to the early Christian periods, covering archaeological and literary sources. In parallel, it surveys the main scholarly trends on the Italian versions of Dionysus, and emplots the contributions to this volume in a history of scholarship. The main focus of the chapter, which is programmatic for the volume, is the interface of Greek and Roman cultures, and whether it is possible to identify and define (an) Italian version(s) of Dionysus. It posits two aspects to the Romans’ reception of Bacchus, which may be termed ‘accommodation’ and ‘resistance’. The interplay between these two levels of response will inform an analytic narrative that assesses the relationship between the Greek Dionysus and the Roman Liber, embracing interpretatio and religious polymorphism, and addressing some of the most important Dionysian manifestations in Roman culture: the founding of the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera; the Bacchanalia; the Liberalia; Roman leaders’ uses of Dionysus; the poets’ references to Bacchus; and a brief glance at the Bacchic-Christian interface

Dinneen's Irish Virgil

This chapter discusses the cultural and political reception of Virgil by the nationalist scholar, cleric, and Irish-language expert Patrick Dinneen. Dinneen forges connections between classical antiquity and the Irish experience, seeing himself as a latter-day Virgil, similarly dispossessed of his lands but engaged in the production of a national literature. Among his domesticating receptions of Virgil to the Irish context, he read the Georgics as a model for calling a people back to the land after civil strife. In Dinneen’s reading of Aeneid 6 as recommending a benign form of empire, however, the chapter pinpoints a tension between his favourable view of the Roman Empire as spreading civilization and Christianity, on the one hand, and the potential of empire for injustice and oppression, on the other

Apollo and Dionysus in Virgil

This article examines passages in Virgil’s Eclogues and Aeneid in which the two gods Apollo and Dionysus are paired or found in close proximity. It offers an interpretation of these passages in light of the relations between Apollo and Dionysus in antiquity, with particular focus on the religious propaganda of triumviral and early Augustan Rome. The article is framed in terms of the influence on classical studies of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Two conclusions are that Nietzsche cannot be entirely bypassed in a modern study of Apollo and Dionysus in antiquity, and that Bacchus/Dionysus/Liber is more important to Octavian-Augustus than is sometimes appreciated.Questo articolo esamina alcuni passi delle Ecloghe e dell’Eneide in cui le due divinità Apollo e Dioniso compaiono affiancate o strettamente associate. L’interpretazione di questi passi è condotta alla luce dei rapporti tra Apollo e Dioniso nell’antichità, con particolare attenzione alla propaganda religiosa degli anni del triumvirato fino alla prima età augustea. L’articolo è impostato tenendo conto dell’influenza che La nascita della tragedia di Nietzsche (1872) ha esercitato sugli studi classici. Due conclusioni sono che Nietzsche non può essere trascurato del tutto in un moderno studio su Apollo e Dioniso nell’antichità, e che Bacco/Dioniso/ Libero è per Ottaviano, poi Augusto, una divinità più importante di quanto talora si valuti

The Mixed Blessings of Bacchus in Virgil’s Georgics

A certain Augustan ‘rehabilitation’ of Bacchus may be traced in Virgil’s Georgics, in response to the god’s role in the self-presentation of Mark Antony, especially with reference to the movement on the worship of Bacchus in Book 2. An analysis of the ritual elements is offered here. Nonetheless, certain references to Bacchus in the Georgics suggest that he is a volatile symbol, difficult to control: some of these reside in Virgil’s allusions to Eratosthenes’ Erigone

Foreword

For we were wandering around and lost like visitors in our own city, and it was as if your books led us home, so that we could finally recognize who and where we were. You revealed the age of our homeland, the chronology of our history, you revealed the laws of the rites and the laws of the priests, you revealed our civic and military institutions, you revealed the topography of our districts and places, you revealed the names, kinds, functions, and origins of all things divine and human. Indeed you have shed a flood of light on our poets and in fact on the whole of Latin language and literature. (Cic. Acad. 1.9: editors’ translation