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Two Implications of the Trojan Legend
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Extract
The second implication of the Trojan legend may be stated briefly by saying that the Romans were descended from the vanquished, and not the victors, in the Trojan war. Most writers completely ignored this implication. Some rode majestically above it and pointed to the contemporary greatness of Rome, which they regarded as Troy's final triumph. Other writers, meditating, as was frequent in the ancient world, on the rise and fall of great cities, contrasted the rise of Trojan Rome with the fall of Greece, as though the balance disturbed by the sack of Troy had been restored by a consequent reversal of fortunes. In certain cases one feels that the author is simply reflecting as a philosopher, and citing Greece and Troy as examples of the fulfilment of a natural law; but usually the tone is not disinterested, and one has the impression that Roman writers are primarily concerned in extolling Rome, while Greeks lament the wretchedness of Greece. Typical of the latter are the poems of the Greek Anthology which speak of the deserted place where Mycenae once stood. Alpheios of Mytilene, for example, writes thus:
Ἄργος, Ὁμηρικὲ μῦθε, καὶ Ἑλλάδος ἱερὸν οὖδας,
καὶ χρυσέη τὸ πάλαι Περσέος ἀκρόπολι,
ἔσβεσαθ' ἡρώων κείνων κλέος οἵ ποτε Τροίης
ἤρειψαν κατὰ γῆς θειόδομον στέφανον.
ἀλλ' ἡ μὲν κρείσσων ἐστὶν πόλις' αἱ δὲ πεσοῦσαι
δείκνυσθ' εὐμύκων αὔλια βουκολίων.
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References
page 72 note 1 Although direct lineage was traced only in the Julian gens and perhaps a few other gentes (cf. Virgil, , Aeneid v. 116–23)Google Scholar the Romans in general were considered to be descendants of the Trojans and called Aeneadae: cf. Lucret. i. 1Google Scholar; Virgil, , Aeneid viii. 648Google Scholar; Ovid, , Fasti iv. 161Google Scholar, Metam. xv. 682, 695, etc.Google Scholar
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page 73 note 2 Alexandra 1226 ff.Google Scholar
page 73 note 3 Metam. xv. 420 ff.Google Scholar
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uile solum Sparte est, altae cecidere Mycenae,
Oedipodioniae quid sunt nisi nomina Thebae?
quid Pandioniae restant nisi nomen Athenae?
page 75 note 1 Norden, (Vergilius, Aeneis Buch vi, p. 325)Google Scholar describes it as ‘ein rhetorisches ψεῦδος'.
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page 77 note 3 iii. 5. 6.
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page 79 note 2 i. 285. Sallust, who had no illusions about such matters, represents Mithridates as writing, in a letter to Arsaces, , Graeciae dempsi graue seruitium (Histories, ed. Maurenbrecher, , iv. 69. 11)Google Scholar. Although this appears in a supposedly ex parte argument, it is a realistic point of view, which agrees remarkably well with Virgil's line. Similarly Tertullian, writing at a much later date, poured great scorn on the notion that the Romans obtained empire as a reward for their religiositas (Apologeticus xxv): ‘Peregrinos enim deos non putem extraneae genti magis fautum uoluisse quam suae, et patrium solum, in quo nati, adulti, nobilitati sepultique sunt, transfretanis dedisse. Viderit Cybele, si urbem Romanam ut memoriam Troiani generis adamauit, uernaculi sui scilicet aduersus Achiuorum arma protecti, si ad ultores transire prospexit, quos sciebat Graeciam Phrygiae debellatricem subacturos.’ As is clear from other allusions and from actual quotations in this and the following chapter, Tertullian must have had Virgil in mind. Even the word debellatrix, although applied to Greece instead of Rome, is a Virgilian echo.
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