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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
This article is an attempt to throw light on Virgil's narrative of the death of Turnus by comparing it to Homer's narrative of the death of Hector. It will begin with a summary of these two episodes.
page 23 note 1 So Heinze, R., Virgils epische Technik (Darmstadt, 1957), 235, 386.Google Scholar
page 24 note 1 Conway, R. S., Bulletin of the John Rylands Library xiii (1929), 272CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the Virgilian version is preferable in that it heightens the suspense. This looks like special pleading—like his general contention that the contest in Virgil is more even. Knauer, G. N., Die Aeneis und Homer (Göttingen, 1964), 288Google Scholar, believes that Virgil deliberately stops short because he is so close to Homer that his readers will take the Homeric conclusion for granted. But surely if we assume in a highly imitative literature that omissions are to be sous-entendu, chaos will supervene. If an element is omitted in imitation, we should rather assume that it was not wanted. For Kühn, W., Götterszenen bei Virgil, Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften N.F. 2. 41 (Heidelberg, 1971), 159Google Scholar, the point of the weighing episode is its finality. We now know that this is the moment of truth. The fates are sanctioning the cause of Aeneas. This is a valid comment on the episode of the balance, but no explanation of the omitted decision. See Heinze, , 296 n. 2.Google Scholar
page 24 note 2 Pulgram, E., The Tongues of Italy (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 264–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 25 note 1 On such pejorative evaluations of Latin hyperbole E. Norden has some cautionary words in his commentary on Aeneid vi. 959 ff.Google Scholar For numerical increases see his note on 625 f.
page 26 note 1 West, D., Philologus cxiv (1970), 267–72.Google Scholar Since that article contains a detailed comparative analysis of the relevant similes, these are not studied here.
page 28 note 1 Fama is the standard warning for tall stories, e.g. in the third book 165, 294, 551, 578, 694.
page 29 note 1 See Heinze, , 205–8.Google Scholar
page 29 note 2 For such contrasts in Horace see D. West in Horace (London, 1973), edited by C. D. N. Costa, 29–58.
page 29 note 3 A word on anti-Aeneanism. ‘It is Aeneas who loses—leaving Turnus victorious in his tragedy, submitting to the forces of violence and irrationality which swirl around him, failing to incorporate the ideal standards proper for the achievement of empire’ (Putnam, 193). ‘We must condemn the sudden rage that causes Aeneas to kill Turnus. The killing of Turnus cannot be justified: this is beyond doubt the judgement expected of us’ (Quinn, 273). These views represent a morality wholly foreign to heroic and to Augustan politics. Virgil evinces a pity for the victims of fate, but this does not mean that he disapproves of its instruments. Sensible assessments may be read in W. S. Anderson, The Art of the Aeneid (New Jersey, 1969), 90–100, and Binder, G., Aeneas and Augustus (Meisenheim, 1971), 146.Google Scholar
page 31 note 1 Sellar, W. Y., The Roman Poets of the Republic: Virgil (Oxford3, 1897), 324.Google Scholar The shivering Sassenach is Fowler, W. Warde, The Death of Turnus (Oxford, 1919), 50.Google Scholar