Rhetorical Influences in the Aeneid

M. L. Clarke

doi:10.1017/S0017383500010366

Rhetorical Influences in the Aeneid

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009

M. L. Clarke

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At the beginning of the fifth book of his Saturnalia Macrobius makes his characters all agree that Virgil is to be considered an orator no less than a poet; such is his mastery of eloquence and his careful observance of the rules of rhetoric. Are we to dismiss this as an example of a type of criticism now fortunately outmoded, or is there something in it? Was Virgil to any important extent influenced by rhetorical precept, and, if so, how did this influence work? These are the questions which I propose to discuss in this paper.

Let us begin with a comparison. Let us first imagine ourselves sitting in a village schoolroom eighty years or so ago. The occasion is a ‘penny reading’, and the rector has chosen for this evening's reading the poet laureate's recently published Enoch Arden. The tale draws to its close, and we reach the last three lines:

So past the strong heroic soul away.

And when they buried him the little port

Had seldom seen a costlier funeral.

Now we transfer ourselves to the year 23 B.C. and the palace of Augustus. Virgil himself is reciting, and the company includes Augustus and Octavia. The poet is reciting from his yet unfinished Aeneid, and he comes to the passage in the sixth book where Anchises shows Aeneas the young Marcellus among the souls yet to be born.

quantos ille virum magnam Mavortis ad urbem

campus aget gemitus! vel quae, Tiberine, videbis

funera, cum tumulum praeterlabere recentem.

Type: Research Article
Information: Greece & Rome , Volume 18 , Issue 52 , January 1949 , pp. 14 - 27

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500010366 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1949

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^{page 1 note 1} This paper was read at the General Meeting of the Classical Association, 16 April 1946.

^{Page 1 note 2} Aen. vi. 872–4.

^{page 2 note 1} It should, however, be said that there is a faded personification in Tennyson's use of the word ‘seen’.

^{page 2 note 2} Arist. Rhet. 1. i. 14, ii. 1.

^{page 2 note 3} Cic. Inv. i.6; de Or. i. 138.

^{page 2 note 4} Quint, 11. xv. 34.

^{page 2 note 5} Cic. de Or. i. 70.

^{page 4 note 1} Catalepton v.

^{page 4 note 2} Suet. Rhet. iv.

^{page 5 note 1} Sen. Contr. i, Pref. 12. I hope I may be forgiven for interpreting rather freely a confused passage.

^{page 5 note 2} Aen. iv. 569.

^{page 5 note 3} Ibid. ii. 354.

^{page 5 note 4} Ibid. iv. 323–4.

^{page 5 note 5} Ibid. iv. 659–60.

^{page 6 note 1} Inv. i. 9.

^{page 6 note 2} Virgil (ed. 1908), p. 395.

^{page 6 note 3} Serv. on Aen. ii. 289 f.

^{page 6 note 4} Billmayer, , Rhetorische Studien zu den Reden in Virgils Aeneis, p. 12.Google Scholar

^{page 7 note 1} Aen. ii. 77 f.

^{page 7 note 2} Ibid. xi. 336 f.

^{page 7 note 3} Ibid. xi. 380.

^{page 7 note 4} Ibid. x. 17 f.

^{page 7 note 5} Ibid. iv. 305 f.

^{page 8 note 1} Neue JahrbOcher, i. (1898).

^{page 8 note 2} On Aen. vi. 788 f. and 854 f.

^{page 8 note 3} Ad Her. iii. 10 f.; Cic. de Or. i. 43 f.

^{page 8 note 4} Quint. 111. vii.

^{page 9 note 1} Quint. 111. vii. 15.

^{page 9 note 2} Aen. vi. 847 f.

^{page 9 note 3} Rhetores Graeci (Spengel), iii, p. 359 f.

^{page 9 note 4} Quint. 111. vii. 26.

^{page 9 note 5} Rhetores Graeci (Spengel), iii, p. 435; cf. Norden onAen. vi. 854 f.

^{page 10 note 1} Cic.de Or. iii. 148.

^{page 10 note 2} Quint. x. i. 28.

^{page 10 note 3} Id. viii. iii. 75.

^{page 10 note 4} Ov. Her. iv. 21.

^{page 10 note 5} Aen. iii. 490.

^{page 10 note 6} Ibid. vii. 219.

^{page 11 note 1} Od. iii. 109 f.

^{page 11 note 2} Aen. iv. 43.

^{page 11 note 3} Ibid. vi. 122.

^{page 12 note 1} Aen. iv. 305 f.

^{page 12 note 2} Ibid. x. 63 f.

^{page 12 note 3} Ibid. ii. 701 f.

^{page 12 note 4} Inv. i. 100 f.

^{page 12 note 5} Op. cit., p. 34 f.

^{page 13 note 1} Subl. xvii. 2.

^{page 13 note 2} Or. 130.

^{page 13 note 3} Aen. iv. 323.

^{page 13 note 4} Serv. ad loc.

^{page 13 note 5} Virgils Epische Technik, p. 424.

^{page 14 note 1} Pensées, tr. Trotter (1931), p. 6.

^{page 14 note 2} Subl. xvii. 1.

^{page 14 note 1} Indian Exhibition, No. 967.

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