Review

Reviewed Work(s): Virgil's Augustan Epic by Francis Cairns

Review by: John F. Miller
Source: Vergilius (1959-) , 1990, Vol. 36 (1990), pp. 137-139
Published by: The Vergilian Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41592525

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 Reviews

Francis Cairns. Virgil's Augustan Epic. Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle
Melbourne, and Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1989. pp. xi + 280.

The word "Augustan" in the title refers not only to the Aeneid's polit
or ideological orientation as Cairns sees it, but also to the literary developme
of Virgil's age. As regards the former issue, Cairns supports the traditiona
imperial interpretation of the epic, as does Philip Hardie in his recent book
Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford 1986). But where Hardie explores the poe
cosmological perspective, Cairns takes as his focus ancient kingship the
applying it especially to Aeneas' kingly status. He draws particular attention
positive views of kingship among the Romans, and deems it hardly surprising
in spite of the Princeps' own caution, such a view were thought applicable
Augustus himself. For, "any repeated attribute of Aeneas must to some ex
have reflected on Augustus" (4). One may doubt that ancient works on kings
of the sort noted in Chapter 1 ("Divine and Human Kingship") had a dir
influence on Virgil. (Similar problems involving the application of theoret
works to literature occasioned controversy at the appearance of Cairns' influ
tial Generic Composition in Greek and Latin Poetry.) Nonetheless, Cairns d
underscore a genuinely important strand in the poem's thematics.
After a survey of the stereotypical good king's virtues, Cairns turns
Aeneas and his major foils (Chapters 2-3: "Kingship and the Love Affai
Aeneas and Dido," "Kingship and the Conflict of Aeneas and Turnus"). Book
portrays Aeneas as a 'good king' (Cairns' quotation marks), but carefully om
from the presentation two of the cardinal and royal virtues, self-control and wis
dom. This modification of the stereotype prepares for the encounter with D
Virgil further varies the stereotype by casting his hero as "a toiling and sufferin
ideal monarch" (32). A Stoic inspiration for this idea is rejected as too rigid
and the new view advanced that Aeneas is a Cynic king, i.e., one who
develop morally step by step through his experience and 'training'" (38). Th
affair with Dido is certainly a lapse, yet not as serious a lapse as Dido's destr
tive amor, which brings about the dissolution of her own regal virtues. Aen
is amans, but not amator. Mercury exaggerates Aeneas' fall from the ideal
good kingship to spur him to action. And when the hero decides to dep
secretly, this is not cowardice, but rather a resumption of his proper kingly
of taking thought for his people. He does intend to tell Dido (or so he says
291-94).
Unlike Dido, Turnus is from the start essentially a bad king. Thus Virgil
delays calling him rex until 8.17. His only royal virtue is bravery; more promi-
nent are his unkingly vices: furor, ira; lack of pietas, "causing him to be con-
stantly deceived and maltreated by hostile gods" (72); rejection of good advice;
amor. Is Aeneas subject to some of the same defects? Like G. K. Galinsky in a

Vergilius 137

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 Reviews

recent article (AJP 109 [1988] 321-48), Cairns argues for a morally justifia
anger in the case of Aeneas. Cairns gives special prominence to Peripatetic
cussions of the issue. In treating the crucial final lines of the poem, he ad
new argument in support of the view of an utterly blameless Aeneas in the
ing of Turnus. Th e furiae of Aeneas on that occasion are not to be equated w
furor, which is always negative. The former word, along with furo/furens,
be condemnatory, but need not be" (83; e.g., 8.494 funis . . . iustis). W
applied to Turnus (12.101), "furiae is apparently the equivalent of furor" (
note the qualification), but in Aeneas' case a distinction is to be m
However, given the possible, if not dominant, negative sense of furiae in
poem and its obvious linguistic kinship with furor and furibundus, and in spite o
the admitted gulf between pius Aeneas and the perpetually raging Turnus, I
find it hard not to see in 12.946-47 furiis accensus et ira / terribilis a sense of d
quiet of the sort arising from the parallel passage 2.316-17 furor iraque mentem
praecipitant, which describes behavior of Aeneas condemned by himself. F
Cairns a better parallel would be Hercules at 8.219-20 furiis exarserat atro /
dolor.
The next pair of chapters broadens the perspective of these discussio
In Chapter 4, a study of the thematic nexus of concord and discord, Cairns c
tinues to explore the conflict with Turnus: an additional reason for ending
poem with his death is to show the champion of concord removing the emb
ment of discordia. Likewise, Chapter 5 ("Geography and Nationalism") trea
the conflict in yet another thematic sphere. Cairns expertly examines Vir
strategies for asserting Italian nationality for the Trojan Aeneas and for 'alie
ing' Turnus. The analyses of various similes in Book 12 which evoke these as
ciations (109-12) are among the best in the entire study. On the much discu
speech of Numanus, Cairns follows and expands upon N. Horsfall's read
( Latomus 30 [1971] 1108-16), which suggested a Virgilian qualification of b
the praise of the primitive Italians and the charge of effeminacy hurled at
Trojans.
The final four chapters have a literary historical orientation, but are at
the same time grounded in the previous chapters' moral and political concerns.
First, an exploration of two of the Aeneid's female characters. Cairns marshals
the evidence for Dido as a specifically elegiac lover, while being fully aware of
the complications (e.g. features shared by elegy and the admittedly important
model Apollonius: 137 n. 25). A contemporary Roman elegiac background for
Dido's character would underscore both the opprobrious and sympathetic
qualities of her amor. On a more strictly literary level, it would help confirm
that Virgil was attempting to reabsorb all the various forms of literature into
epic as an "inverse emulation of Homer" (150), whose epics were regarded as
having generated all literary genres. In Chapter 7, Cairns would add to the list

138 Vergilius

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 Reviews

the partheneia of archaic lyric, which he argues (on fairly shaky ground
vided Virgil with the pattern for Lavinia. Though extremely speculative
chapter does offer an excellent treatment of Lavinia herself.
The book's most stimulating chapter is the eighth, which seeks "to a
at a new foundation of Virgil's homérica imitatio " (177) by positing the O
as the chief model for the entire poem , not just its first half. Among th
important Odyssean features of the last six books, Cairns argues, are the
with civil war and the eventual prevalence of concord, even though the
does not fully obtain on the human level until after the time of the poem
rative. What about the Iliadi Cairns entertains the theory that Virgil "l
through" the Iliad to the Odyssey , i.e., that the Odyssean influences consi
mediate or color Virgil's imitation of the Iliad . Here he applies a perspect
recent scholarship on Hellenistic and Augustan allusion - grounded, as C
shows, in the ancient scholia - , the revelation of the model behind a m
While this phenomenon is clearly visible in the Georgics and in the Aen
allusions to Apollonius, the application to Homer necessitates readin
Odyssey as an imitation of the Iliad. (Alternative approaches would b
tamination' and 'double imitation', which would not require in every ins
the privileging of one Homeric epic over the other.) Again, there are imp
consequences for Cairns' overall interpretation of the poem. For exampl
Virgil at the end of the Aeneid is indeed "looking through" the evil suitors of
Odyssey to the Iliadic Hector (thus emphasizing the Odyssean model), th
further moral justification to Aeneas' dispatch of Turnus. This approach
tinued in Chapter 9, "The Games in Homer and Virgil," which suggests
Aeneid 5 looks through the games of Odyssey 8 to the ultimate source, Il
Cairns here also proposes that Virgil's games were stimulated in no sma
by archaic and Hellenistic epinician poetry.
In the polemical atmosphere of current Virgilian studies, Cairns' b
will be branded "neoconservative." However, its positive assessment of A
and the poem's Augustan background hardly merits such an implicitly dis
label. Even where Cairns is off the mark, or goes too far in his assertio
learned discussions are stimulating and challenging. There is much here
enhances our understanding of the Aeneid . All students of Virgil will c
away enlightened - even those who disagree on fundamental points - fr
reading of this book.

John F. Miller
University of Virginia

Vergilius 139

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