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The Sacrifice of Iphigeneia: An Example of ‘Distribution’ of a Lucretian Theme in Virgil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. R. Hardie
P. R. Hardie
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

In his discussion of Virgilian imitations of Lucretian phraseology Cyril Bailey examines the phenomenon of what he terms the ‘doublet’, that is, the procedure whereby Virgil imitates separate elements of a Lucretian phrase at different points in his own work. Take, for example, De Rerum Natura 1. 210–12:

esse videlicet in terris primordia rerum,

quae nos fecundas vertentes vomere glebas

terraique solum subigentes cimus ad ortus.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 406 - 412
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1 Bailey, C., ‘Virgil and Lucretius’, PCA 28 (1931), 21–39, esp. p. 26Google Scholar.

2 Cf. also 2. 399, glaebaque versis…frangenda bidentibus; DRN 1. 212 is echoed at Geo, 1. 125, subigebant arva.

3 A thorough analysis, along these lines, of Virgilian adaptation of Lucretius might also provide a rigorous control for the once-popular pastime of reconstructing lost Ennius out of Virgil.

4 Most of the parallels are noted by Merrill, W. A., ‘Parallels and Coincidences in Lucretius and Virgil’, Univ. Calif. Publ. Class. Philol. 3 (1918), 138 fGoogle Scholar.

5 The use of placare of religious appeasement of the winds is probably found at Lucr. 6. 48 f., though the text is incurably corrupt.

6 Heinze, R., Virgils epische Technik 3 (1915), p. 9Google Scholar.

7 The reference of virginis is obviously not that of the Virgilian virgine; Virgil in fact extracts from the word a pathos not found in Lucretius, a typical improvement of his source. Virgil's use, in the context of the wooden horse, of the phrases ductores Danaum (Aen. 2. 14) and delecta virum (18), both echoes of Lucr. 1. 86, possibly hints at the wicked deceitfulness of the Greek generals.

8 Cf. ficto pec tore, Aen. 2. 107: it is the fiction of a fiction, in Lucretian terms, that is the undoing of the Trojans.

9 For further details on the working out of this ironical device see Kenney, E. J., in Woodman, and West, (edd.), Quality and Pleasure in Latin Poetry (1974), pp. 24 ff., 139Google Scholar. It perhaps has its origins in the use of προτ⋯λεια at Aesch. Ag. 227 (see Fraenkel ad loc.). On the more general topos of the ‘wedding as funeral’ see Bramble, J. C., PCPS n.s. 16 (1970), 31 n. 2Google Scholar; Ovid, Bömer ad, Met. 6. 428 fGoogle Scholar.

10 The theme of the sacrificer struck down may owe something to the scene at Soph, Trach. 760 ff.Google Scholar, in which Heracles succumbs to the poisoned shirt while he is sacrificing; but Sophocles does not use the specific conceit of the sacrificer turned into the sacrificed. With Trach. 770 f., (εἷτα φοιν⋯ας|⋯χθρ⋯ς ⋯χ⋯δνης ἰ⋯ς ὣδα⋯νυτο, compare Aen. 2. 221, perfusus sanie villas atroque veneno; cf. also depascitur, 215.

11 The equivocation between human and animal victim also finds a parallel (in reverse) in Lucretius, at 2. 352 ff., where the emotions of the cow, the mother of the sacrificed vitulus, are described in almost human terms (nee minus atque homines, 351). As in the case of Iphigeneia, religio is responsible for the ‘murder’ of a child. Line 353, turicremas propter mactatus concidil aras, may be echoed in Aen. 2. 202, taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras.

12 On vittae see Austin, ad Aen. 2. 133Google Scholar; Beringer, L., Die Kultworte bei Vergil (diss. Erlangen 1932), pp. 53 ffGoogle Scholar. The vitta is worn by a sacrificial animal at Geo. 3. 487 (in a passage with echoes of the Lucretian sacrifice of Iphigeneia). Virgil enjoys playing on the ambivalence of the vitta or infula: at Aen. 10. 538 ff. the vitta and infula of the priest Haemonides also turn out to be those of a victim:immolat is the word used to describe his death, 541 (Serv. ad loc.: IMMOLAT quasi victimam ut ille consueverat: nam hoc verbo ad sacerdotis nomen adlusit). At 7. 352 Allecto's snake, which, like the serpents that kill Laocoon, successfully attacks its ‘victim’, is itself turned into the vitta of the victim Amata; this vitta may be understood either as an innocent item of adornment, like the tortile aurum of the preceding clause, or, more sinisterly, as the attribute of the victim. (Cf. 6. 281, [Discordia] vipereum crinem viltis innexa cruentis, for the combination of snake, vittae, and blood.) Another example of reversal of sacrificial role occurs at Aen.2. 501 f., Priamumque per aras / sanguine foedantem quos ipse sacraverat ignis; this irony is not found in the Ennian model, sc. 98 f.V, Priamo vi vitam evitari, / Iovis aram sanguine turpari, although the simple idea of human sacrifice contained in these lines seems to have influenced Lucretius, 1. 84 f., aram / Iphianassai turparunt sanguine. The conceit is imitated in Petron. sat. 89, 51, iacet sacerdos inter aras victima (Laocoon).

13 Tremere: DRN 5. 1222; turbare: 1. 106; 3. 38.

14 These two lines seem also to echo DRN 5. 1165–7,unde etiam nunc est mortalibus insitus horror | qui delubra deum nova toto suscitat orbi / terrarum et festis cogit celebrare diebus. o miseri are the very first words that we hear Laocoon utter, Aen. 2. 42. In Lucretian terms one might say that Laocoon offers wretched man (the Trojans) salvation through revelation (the uncovering of the Greeks in the horse), but does not succeed. Cf. also Aen. 1.215, miseros morsu depascitur artus: miserae is used of Agamemnon's child at DRN 1. 93.

15 DRN 5. 1222 ff.

16 At Aen. 7. 435 ff. Turnus scoffs at a vates (compare esp. 438, ne tantos mihi finge metus, with Lucr. 1. 104 ff., quippe etenim quam multa tibi iam fingere possunt / somnia quae vitae rationes vertere possint /fortunasque tuas omnis turbare timore), but it does not help him. The vates is usually respected and revered in Virgil, and the dream is a reliable vehicle of communication (cf. e.g. 8. 43, ne vana putes haec fingere somnum).

17 On the historiographical topos of the prodigy preceding the fall of a city see Kleinknecht, H., ‘Laokoon’, Hermes 79 (1944), 83 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Both omens are introduced by ecce (Aen. 2. 203; 682).

19 See Knox, B. M. W., ‘The Serpent and the Flame (The Imagery of the Second Book of the Aeneid)’, AJP 71 (1950), 379–400Google Scholar. Knox fails to note the further echoes of the serpent image in the gliding star of the omen impetrativum (Aen. 2. 692 ff.); nor does he note the important Lucretian parallel for the association of fire, serpent, and the human body, at Drn 6. 660 f. (describing a disease), existit sacer ignis et urit corpore serpens / quamcumque arripuit partem, repitque per artus (a passage imitated by Virgil at Geo. 3. 565 f.). With sacer ignis compare the sanctos…ignis of the lulus omen (Aen. 2. 686).

20 It is particularly appropriate that Anchises should be the one to interpret the fire-omen, since he had first-hand experience of the effects of divinely-sent fire, in the form of the thunderbolt (Aen. 2. 648–9). The following verbal echoes would seem to indicate that there are associations of the thunderbolt in the innocuous flame that attaches itself to lulus: Aen. 2. 683 f., tactuque innoxia mollis / lambere flamma comas: cf. 649, contigit igni (Anchises and the thunderbolt); Lucr. 6. 394, volvitur inflammis innoxius (of one struck by lightning).

21 Cf. Geo. 4. 476 f. = Aen. 6. 30 f., pueri innuptaeque puellae, | impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum (the juxtaposition of innuptae puellae and ante ora parentum possibly indicates a subdued reminiscence of the Lucretian Iphigeneia). Cf. also Aen. 10. 840, maesti…parentis, of Mezentius waiting for news of his (dead) son; significantly there are verbal echoes of the Iphigeneia passage in the immediately preceding lines: (831 f.) et terra sublevat ipsum/sanguine turpantem comptos de more capillos; cf. Lucr. 1. 84 f., Aulide quo pacto Trivial virginis aram Iphianassai turparunt sanguine foede: 95, nam sublata virum manibus. A remoter echo of the Lucretian passage is possibly to be found at Aen. 10. 522, at tremibunda supervolat hasla; immediately preceding we have been told of the prisoners taken by Aeneas for human sacrifice. Is it simply coincidence that we have the fairly rare tremibundus: cf. Lucr. 1.95, tremibundaque ad aras | deductast I suggest that the mention of human sacrifice brought with it a recollection of the language used by Lucretius to describe such an event, and that this recollection spilled over into the description of the flying spear; but it would be wrong to look for thematic significance in this echo.

22 ad Aen. 2. 683.

23 Cp. also the instances of ảκμ⋯ in the sense ‘point (of fire)’, LSJ s.v. I.

24 Henry, J., Aeneidea, II (1878), pp. 321 fGoogle Scholar.

25 Austin loc. cit.

26 TLL ii. 227, 27 ff.

27 The two exceptions are Stat. Theb. 3. 596, 5. 88, both referring to volcanic activity; in the first case the sense ‘peak’ is also possible.

28 For another example of this phenomenon see my ‘Atlas and axis’, CQ n.s. 33 (1983), 220–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Servius, ad Aen. 2. 683Google Scholar, ‘apex’ proprie dicitur in summoflaminispilleo virga lanata…: quod primum apudAlbam Ascanium statuisse. This does not look like the sort of note which is invented out of the text of Virgil, but it represents a tradition otherwise lost. There appears to be no basis for Mackail's, J. W. assertion (The Aeneid [1930, pp. 82 f.)Google Scholar that the worship of Jupiter Latiaris by the cities of the Latin League at Alba Longa was instituted by Ascanius, and that he was the first flamen dialis (followed by Austin). An interest in the aetiology of priestly institutions is manifest elsewhere in the Aeneid: cf.Rose, H. J., Aeneas Pontifex (Vergilian Essays, II [1948])Google Scholar. (I am grateful to Dr N. M. Horsfall for advice in these matters.) Quinn, K., Virgil's Aeneid: a critical description (1968), pp. 388 f.Google Scholar, also argues that apex here is ambiguous, but only as a way of expressing the difficulty of describing an unfamiliar phenomenon.

30 circum tempora, 684, is also the location for vittae at 133 (Sinon). In all three cases, Sinon, Laocoon, and lulus, the symbol of sacrificial role is an item of equipment for the head. Varro, LL 5. 84 interestingly derivesflamen from the woollen ftlum or fillet wound round the flamen's cap; cf. Paul, ex Fest. p. 23 Mull., apiculum,filwn, quoflamines velatum apicemgerunt; Serv. auct. ad Aen. 10. 270.

31 The lulus omen is echoed in the flames that shoot from the head of Augustus at Actium, Aen. 8. 680 f., and in the description of Aeneas returning to Latium, 10. 270 f., ardet apex capiti cristisque a vertice flamma|funditur, where the literal flames are compared to comets, thus repeating the sequence of 2. 679–98, of (i) miraculous flame on earth, (ii) flame in the heavens as a sign. The whole passage picks up and reverses themes from the destruction of Troy; it is now the Trojan fleet that glides to shore like snakes (adlabi 269), its leader putting forth flames (cf. the fire of the snakes that swim towards Laocoon, 2. 210; and the more natural fire raised from the Greek flagship as a signal at 2. 256 f).

32 For a particularly stark example see Aen. 8. 349 ff.