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Pastoralem Praefixa Cuspide Myrtum (Aeneid 7.817)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
At the end of the catalogue of Italian troops comes Camilla, the warrior-maid, leading her columns of Volscian cavalry. In a passage reminiscent of ll. 20.226ff. (the powers of the horses of Erichthonios) Vergil illustrates her seemingly superhuman speed and lightness of foot, before passing on to the impression she made upon the watching population who have swarmed out of their homes and fields to mark the finery of her appearance and equipment:
illam omnis tectis agrisque effusa iuventus
turbaque miratur matrum et prospectat euntem,
attonitis inhians animis ut regius ostro
velet honos levis umeros, ut fibula crinem
auro internectat, Lyciam ut gerat ipsa pharetram
et pastoralem praefixa cuspide myrtum.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1989
References
1 Servius Danielis ad loc.: ‘quia hac pugnare pastores solent’, Heyne ad loc.: ‘de iaculo, quo pastores utuntur’, Page ad loc.: ‘“pastoralem” seems to denote that javelins so made of myrtle were commonly used by shepherds’.Horsfall, N., Aeneid vii. Notes on Selected Passages (Oxford D.Phil thesis, 1971)Google Scholarad loc. believes that Servius' comment may be an inference drawn from the text.
2 This interpretation probably developed from an idea in Henry's Aeneida ad loc.: ‘“pastoralem”…because shepherds used to make their crooks of myrtle [on this point, see below note 18]. If they fought with them sometimes, as Statius tells us they did, Theb. 4.300: “hi Paphias myrtos a stirpe recurvant, et pastorali meditantur proelia trunco”, it was only by accident and the myrtle was equally “pastoralis” whether they did or not.'
3 ad loc.: ‘It is not clear whether a pike of myrtle-wood was a pastoral weapon, or whether the meaning is that the pastoral staff (Ecl. 8.16) was pointed with iron for the occasion, to make it available for war.’
4 ad loc.: ‘“and the shepherd's myrtle staff with iron blade set in its head”. This last line brilliantly summarises the ambiguity of Camilla, carrying the myrtle staff from the idyllic pastoral world (cf.Ecl. 8.16) converted to military use by its iron point.’ For the interpretation, in which the adjective ‘pastoralis’ recalls the world of pastoral poetry, compareGrandsen, K. W., Virgil's Iliad (Cambridge 1984), p. 87Google Scholar.
5 Translations: e.g. R.Fitzgerald: ‘and shepherd's myrtle staff, pointed with steel’, the Penguin translation: ‘a shepherd's myrtle staff with a lance's head’. Scholarly works: e.g. Grandsen, op. cit., ‘her pastoral myrtle staff converted into an iron-pointed lance’;Quinn, K., Virgil's Aeneid, A Critical Description (London, 1968), 188Google Scholar ‘a shepherd's staff of myrtle with a spearhead fixed to it’.
6 Myrtle, as well as being the wood from which javelins were made, also has strong poetic associations with Venus. The adjective ‘pastoralis’ may suggest the world of pastoral poetry (note 4), a productive agricultural ‘Georgics’ world, or the harsh world of the contemporary herdsman (note 15). The description of Camilla's weapon as ‘pastoralis’ also adumbrates the strong pastoral associations of her upbringing as narrated by Diana in A. 11.535–94, during which she was trained in the use of the javelin. Her father Metabus, we are told, in exile from his native city of Privernum, fled to ‘the solitary mountains of the shepherds’ where he lived out his life (‘pastorum …solis exegit montibus aevum’, A. 11. 569) and where Camilla was brought up (she herself was weaned on the milk of a brood mare (11.571)) and taught the use of javelin, bow and arrow, and sling (A. 11.573–5).
7 For transhumance in ancient Greece and Italy, seeSkydsgaard, J. E., ‘Transhumance in Ancient Greece’, Cambridge Philological Society, Suppl., 14 (1988), 75–86Google Scholar, and “Transhumance in Ancient Italy” ARID 7 (1974), 7–36Google Scholar. Informative accounts of transhumant life among a moden pastoral community are to be found in Campbell, J. K.. Honour, Family and Patronage (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar, chapter 2, Hoeg, C., Les Saracatsans, une tribu nomade grecque (Paris, 1925)Google Scholar. Compare Var. R. 2.10 passim.
8 ll. 3.10, 4.455, 8.557, 16.353, Od. 9.315, ll. 19.376–7 (the isolated mountain steading). The mountain herdsman is commonplace in Greek literature, e.g. Homeric Hymn to Hermes 491–2, Plato, Timaeus 22d8 (cf. Leg. 677e9), Eur. Rh. 287, Ba. 718–19, Theoc. Id. 20.35.
9 Od. 17.25, I4.372f, 16.27f. CompareHesiod, , Scutum 39ffGoogle Scholar. (with Paley's note). Soph. O.T. 761–2.
10 Skydsgaard, , ‘Transhumance in Ancient Greece’ (note 7 above), 76–7Google Scholar. The pastoral javelin is not mentioned in our usual sources for agricultural practice among the Greeks, namely Hesiod's Works and Days and Xenophon's Oeconomicus, because these authors show next to no interest in animal husbandry per se, but concentrate on life on the home farm (ibid. 77–8).
11 34/5.2.27–30 cf. 34/5.2.1–4.
12 Liv. 39.29.8–9 (perhaps reduplicated at 39.41.6), Tac. Ann. 12.65, cf. Cic. Mil. 26, Tac. Ann. 4.27.
13 Sallust, Cat. 30.2: ‘id quod in tali re solet, alii…nuntiabant… Capuae atque in Apulia servile bellum moved.’ This fear should be considered in the light of the above outbreaks of rebellion and dissent.
14 Vivid proof of this can be shown by the fact that in Sicily, following the first slave war, the praetor, L. Domitius, with a view to establishing peace and order in the island, took the unprecedented step of forbidding herdsmen the use of weapons (no such law was ever imposed upon the Italian herdsman). Cicero records how the praetor, in strict observance of this injunction, crucified a pastor found in possession of a hunting spear (Cic. Ver. 5.7). Herdsmen would, of course, be loath to surrender their arms since these represented their primary defence against marauding animals and stock thieves.
15 ‘Pastoralis’ probably did not have the same literary connotations as our ‘pastoral’. Its general meaning was ‘of or connected with animal husbandry’ and would be as likely to recall the sordid life of the contemporary herdsman as the idyllic world of pastoral poetry. SoHalperin, D. M., Before Pastoral: The Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven, 1983), pp. 8–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 It may be however that the Volscian ‘verutum’ is specifically to be envisaged (so Arrigoni, G., Camilla, Amazzone Sacerdotessa di Diana [Milan, 1982], p. 29)Google Scholar. It is described by Festus as follows: ‘veruta pila dicuntur quod velut verua habent praefixa’ (Paul, , ex Fest. p. 375 Müll.)Google Scholar. Vergil refers to ‘Volscos…verutos’ at G. 2.168. It would, of course, be an appropriate weapon for their queen to carry though it does not, as far as I know, have especial pastoral associations.
17 He also plays upon the use of myrtle wood for shafts (hastilia) in his description of the shrub of cornel and myrtle which grew from the grave of Polydorus in A. 3.23ff.:‘forte fuit iuxta tumulus, quo cornea summo/virgulta et densis hastilibus horrida myrtus.’ See the commentary of R. G. Austin ad loc.
18 Olive is the traditional wood for the herdsman's staff. Cf. Od. 9.319–20, Theoc. Id. 7.18, V. Ecl. 8.16. The passage cited by Henry (note 2) is the exception, not the rule.
19 See TLL X.2.634.63ff.
20 Mulder, H. M., P. Papinii Statii Thebaidos Liber II commentario exegelico aestheticoque instructus (Groningen, 1954), ad 2.598. Compare Servius on Camilla's weapon (ad loc.): ‘non hastam myrteam, sed ipsam myrtum.’Google Scholar