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Romulus Tropaeophorus (Aeneid 6.779–80)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Michael C. J. Putnam
Michael C. J. Putnam
Affiliation:
Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
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Extract

A general consensus has emerged among twentieth-century commentators on the Aeneid that pater ipse…superum must be taken together and understood as referring to the father of the gods and not to Mars, sire of Romulus. What remains a subject of debate is the meaning of honor here and its particular association with Jupiter. Does it betoken the abstraction itself or a concrete manifestation of it? Austin, following Donatus, opts for the former alternative (‘probably no more than “majesty”’), Norden and R. D. Williams for the latter. Of these the first finds a reference to the Zeus-given sceptre of kings, the second to Jove's thunderbolt.

The language of the passage argues in favour of metonymy for two reasons. First, we expect Anchises, when showing off Romulus, to adhere to the pattern he has already set in the two portions of his parade which have preceded. In the case of the initial hero, Silvius, we attend largely to genealogical background (760–6). The second segment, a group made up of Procas, Capys, Numitor and Aeneas Silvius, elicits from Aeneas' father a series of exclamations on the valour of their res gestae (767–77). Yet each also has a tangible symbol of martial virtus that distinguishes him.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 237 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 P. Vergili Maronis: Aeneidos Liber Sextus, ed. Austin, R. G. (Oxford, 1977), on line 780Google Scholar. His comments are in the tradition of La Cerda and Heyne-Wagner, who see the line as proof of Romulus' apotheosis.

2 Norden, E., P. Vergilius Maro: Aeneis Buch VI (Stuttgart, 1957), on lines 779 f.Google Scholar, citing Homer Il. 9.98, Pindar P. 1.6 and the imitation at Ciris 269 (quem [Nisus] pater ipse deum sceptri donavit honore…). He offers Dion. Ant. Rom. 3.61 and Lydus de Mag. 1.7 as evidence for Romulus as sceptre-bearer, but Dionysius associates the Roman adoption of regalia (including the sceptre) from the Etruscans with Tarquinius Priscus and only connects' Rome's use of the twelve axes explicitly with Romulus.

3 The Aeneid of Virgil: Books 1–6, ed. Williams, R. D. (London, 1972), on 779–80Google Scholar.

4 A. Rosenberg summarises the evidence (RE 2.1.1103–4, s.v. Romulus).

5 CIL 1.12 (p. 189); Degrassi, A., ed., Inscriptiones Italiae XIII (Rome, 1937)Google Scholar; Fasti et Elogia, fasc. 3 (Elogia), no. 86 (p. 70).

6 The picture is illustrated and discussed in CAH, volume of plates iv (Cambridge, 1934), 176 f. (fig. a); Spinazzola, V., Pompei alla luce degli scavi nuovi di via dell' Abbondanza (anni 1910–1923) (Rome, 1953), 151 ff. and 922 ffGoogle Scholar. (notes 132 and 137), on images of Romulus; Steiger, R., ‘Gemmen und Kameen in Römermuseum Augst’, Antike Kunst 9 (1966), 29 ffGoogle Scholar., especially 35 and notes 58–61; Zanker, P., Forum Augustum (Tübingen, n.d. [1968?]), 17 and 32 (notes 81–2)Google Scholar, and fig. 41. Schefold, K., Die Wände Pompejis (Berlin, 1957), 194, 196, 280 and 289Google Scholar, lists other possible appearances of Romulus tropaeophorus in Pompeii.

7 F. 5.565 f. Ovid echoes Aen. 6.780 at line 551, where the phrase ad suos honores refers to the honours due to Mars, just as the spolia opima are due to Jupiter.

8 Rom. 16.8 (and 16.6, for Romulus himself and the trophy).

9 See, e.g., Cohen, H., Médailles impériales ii 2 (Paris, 1882)Google Scholar, for Hadrian (nos. 1315–20) and Antoninus Pius (nos. 704–6), and iii2 (Paris, 1883), for Commodus (no. 662); Mattingly, H. and Sydenham, E., The Roman Imperial Coinage ii (London, 1926)Google Scholar, for Hadrian (nos. 266, 370, 376, 653,776), and iii (London, 1930), for Antoninus Pius (nos. 624, 665) and Commodus (no. 204). In all cases the figure of Romulus, with the legend Romulo Conditori or Romulo Augusto, is on the reverse of coins with the emperors' portraits on the obverse. At least in the second century a.d. Romulus, as founder of Rome and august taker of her initiating auspices, is depicted as tropaeophorus. This symbolism lends further point to Virgil's careful juxtaposition of Romulus and Augustus as Aeneid 6 continues.

The relationship of Romulus to Augustan propaganda has been treated in detail by Gagé, J., ‘Romulus-Augustus’, Mél. d'Arch. et d'Hist. 47 (1930), 138 ffGoogle Scholar. (140–5 on Romulus tropaeophorus) and Alföldi, A., ‘Die Geburt der kaiserlichen Bildsymbolik: Kleine Beiträge zu ihrer Entstehungsgeschichte: 2. Der neue Romulus’, MH 8 (1951), 190 ffGoogle Scholar., especially 193 f. and n. 9. For the Republican background see Classen, C., ‘Romulus in der römischen Republik’, Philologus 106 (1962), 174 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar., especially 181 and 195.

10 Ogilvie, R. M., A Commentary on Livy: Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965), 70 ffGoogle Scholar. (on Livy 1.10), discusses in detail, with full bibliography, the meaning of Feretrius, the cult of Jupiter Feretrius, and its connection with the spolia opima. For citations on the original dedication of the temple by Romulus and its restoration by Augustus see Platner, S. and Ashby, T., A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (London, 1929), 293Google Scholar (s.v. Iuppiter Feretrius). Propertius 4.10 is witness that the subject of Romulus and the spolia opima was in the air in the decade after Virgil's death. At line 17 the elegist styles Romulus urbis virtutisque parens. That Augustus is to be seen as the renewer of both the city and her virtus Virgil makes clear in the lines that follow in Aeneid 6.

11 On Cossus, the spolia opima and Livy's famous digression on Augustus' interest in their award, see Ogilvie, op. cit. 563 f. (on 4.20.5–11).

12 It is possible that there is a connection between the programme of statuary in the Forum Augustum and the procession of heroes in Aeneid 6. Though the forum was only dedicated in 2 b.c, Frank argues, T. (‘Augustus, Vergil and the Augustan elogia’, AJP 59 [1938], 91 ff.)Google Scholar that the intellectual ‘plan’ of the forum was conceived by Augustus as early as 27, and his reasoning is strongly supported by Rowell, H. (‘Vergil and the forum of Augustus’, AJP 62 [1941], 261 ff.)Google Scholar. Degrassi, (‘Virgilio e il foro di Augusto’, Epigraphica 7 [1945], 88 ff.)Google Scholar counters this view by observing that construction of the forum could not in all likelihood have begun before 12 b.c. at the earliest. But, other practical considerations aside (the emperor's impatience, for instance, at the delay in building, Macr. Sat. 2.4.9), there is still no reason why Augustus and his artists, poets included, should not have had the contents of the forum under consideration for many years before the actual work on it began.