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WHICH ROMANS PUNISHED THE GREEKS FOR WHAT THEY DID TO TROY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 December 2018

Andrew Lintott
Andrew Lintott*
Affiliation:
Worcester College, Oxford
*
[email protected]
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Extract

      ille triumphata Capitolia ad alta Corintho
      uictor aget currum, caesis insignis Achiuis.
      eruet ille Argos Agamemnoniasque Mycenas
      ipsumque Aeaciden genus armipotentis Achilli,
      ultus auos Troiae, templa et temerata Mineruae. (Verg. Aen. 6.836–40)
      That man will drive his chariot to the lofty Capitol in a triumph over Corinth
      A victor, made glorious by the Greeks he has slaughtered.
      That man will overthrow Argos and Agamemnon's Mycenae
      And the very offshoot of Aeacus, the kinsman of Achilles mighty in arms,
      Avenging his Trojan ancestors and the desecrated temple of Minerva.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , December 2018 , pp. 724 - 725
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

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Footnotes

I am grateful for advice and encouragement to Nicholas Richardson and Peta Fowler.

References

1 Among discussions are Conington, J., P. Vergili Maronis Opera (London, 1884 4), 2.537Google Scholar; Norden, E., P. Vergilius Maro Aeneis Buch VI (Stuttgart, 1957 4), 331–2Google Scholar; Horsfall, N., Vergil Aeneid 6 (2 vols.) (Berlin, 2013), 2.571–2Google Scholar.

2 Polyb. 36.10.5, 38.10–18. See especially Ferrary, J.-L., Philhellénisme et Imperialisme. Aspects idéologiques de la conquête romaine du monde hellénistique (BEFAR 271) (Rome, 1988), 186–209Google Scholar; on the settlement, see Lintott, A., Imperium Romanum (London, 1993), 9–10Google Scholar, 23–4.

3 Sources in MRR I, pages 195, 427, 461. See Livy 44.36–45 for the narrative of Perseus’ defeat at Pydna. For Ennius (Ann. 179), Pyrrhus was Aeacida, but he is not connected with the Greek cities.

4 Prop. 4.11.39; Sil. Pun. 15.291–2.

5 Polyb. 30.13.6–8; Livy 45.31.9–11; Paus. 7.10.11. Horsfall ([n. 1], 571) thinks that Mummius and Aemilius Paulus are fused, but, while one might fuse if disparaging, one does not merge great men in a rollcall of heroes.

6 Polyb. 18.22–7; Livy 33.7–11, 34.22–41; Gruen, E.S., The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (2 vols.) (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984), 1.438–55Google Scholar.

7 Cf. Anth. Pal. 9.152–5 for later epigrams about justice for Troy, also 9.387 (by the Emperor Hadrian), which is closest in sentiment to Virgil here: ‘The Myrmidons perished. Tell Achilles that the whole of Thessaly is under Aeneas’ descendants.’

8 Mycenae, of course, had already suffered destruction and subjection by Argos in 468 (Diod. Sic. 11.65; Paus. 2.16.4), when Sparta failed to aid the city. It figures here as part of Argos.

9 Lintott (n. 2), 177–8. See Badian, E., Titus Quinctius Flamininus: Philhellenism and Realpolitik (Cincinnati, 1970)Google Scholar for a biography of Flamininus.

10 Livy 35.12.6–18, 17.3–9.

11 See Badian, E., ‘Rome and Antiochus the Great’, in Studies in Greek and Roman History (Oxford, 1964), 112–39Google Scholar.