Patria praecepta: Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld

Author(s): John Warden

Source: Vergilius (1959-) , 2000, Vol. 46 (2000), pp. 83-92
Published by: The Vergilian Society

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/41587228

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 Patria praecepta: Lucretius and Vergil in the
Underworld

John Warden

past the hunting and gathering stage. At least since Knauer1 we

The have pasthavestudycomethetocome hunting
look for of to more
something imitation lookmere
than the and collection
for gathering something in Latin stage. poetry more At than has least moved the since mere Knauer1 a collection long way we
of parallel words and phrases: we have learnt that imitation worthy
of the study can be expected in the first place to be sustained and
systematic, and in the second to be "intentional," in the sense that it
carries meaning;2 that is to say, the fact of imitation, and its manner,
are ingredients in the meaning of the poem. In what follows I am
claiming such a relationship, of systematic and meaningful imitation,
between a section in Vergil, Aeneid 6 (719-853) and the conclusion
of Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 3 (1024-94).
We have learnt too that imitation is not necessarily the sincerest
form of flattery. Harold Bloom in his Anxiety of Influence lists a
number of what he calls "revisionary ratios," ways, that is, in which
poets "misread [.. ] one another, so as to clear imaginative space for
themselves." One way is where "a poet antithetically 'completes'
his precursors."3 Such, according to Philip Hardie,4 is Vergil's way

1 G. N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer, Hypomnemata 7 (Göttingen 1964).

2 The other, more common, sense of "intentional" (that is to say, "done with
intent") is also I believe applicable: See J. Farrell, Vergil's Georgics and the
Traditions of Ancient Epic (New York 1991) 21-23, and J. Warden, " Ripae
ulterior is: Structure and Desire in Aeneid Six," С J 95 (2000) 350 n. 7.
3 Harold Bloom. The Anxiety oflnñuence (New York 1973Ï 5 and 14
See especially Philip Hardie, Virgil 's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford
1986) 235: "One of the tactics of this polemic was to adopt the terms of refer-
ence of the opponent but to invert them so that the opposite message
emerges." As Hardie points out, it is the technique that Epicurus - and Lu-
cretius in his footsteps - uses on his adversaries. Vergil turns the tables, us-
ing Lucretius' method against him. This characteristic was first noted (for the
Georgics ) by W. Y. Sellar, Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil (Ox-
ford 1897) 199 (further on the Georgics see Farrell (note 2 above) chapter 5,
esp. 169 and 171-72). On the technique in general see B. Farrington, "Po-
lemical Allusions to the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius in the Works of Ver-
gil," in L. Varel and R. F. Willetts (eds.), Geras: Studies Presented to
George Thomson (Prague 1963) 87-94.

Vergilius 46 (2000) 83-92

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84 John Warden

with Lucretius: he engages in

ner of a philosopher, startin
adopted, then expanding or i
something entirely different
dictory to the original.
This can take the form of a
where Lucretius' reductio ad
surd after all. An example is
Dyson: at 5.1194-95 Lucretiu
tals who ascribe passions to t
diuis / cum tribuit facta et i
view is obviously absurd, Ho
at the beginning of the Aen
irae? Can the gods feels su
reached by the end of the epi
The sixth book of the Aenei
gilian riposte directed in part
est thing in his epic to an un
item of agenda in this book
world: nusquam apparent Ac
a figment created by man's
soul is mortal (and the bulk
this), then one can be rid of
heart (1.146 ff, 2.59 ff., et
men's pain, and torture them

5 Julia Dyson, " Fluctus irarum

Aeneid," AJP 118 (1997) 449-57
of human happiness, so Virgil's
ery" (456). Of course one may vie
the end of the day there is nothin
be born for. Lucretius' moral ph
political quietism. This Vergil sp
social and political commitment.
cal power (ut satius multo iam si
uelle et regna tenere, DRN 5.11
Vergil's pageant of heroes in (tu
Aen. 6.851). Dyson gives anothe
cretius' Epicureanism in "Dido t
6 Hardie (note 4 above) 183 n. 7
occurs at the end of the first halv

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 Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld 85

23). In Vergil's Acheron, on the other hand, all the things that Lu-
cretius thought we should be rid of - the darkness, the dreams, the
monsters - are present.7 And there is truth to be discovered in the
darkness {di... I sit mihi fas audita loqui, sit numine uestro / pander e
res alta terra et caligine mersas, 264-67). 8 What was "demytholo-
gized" in Lucretius is "remythologized."9 The great sinners, "re-
duced" to allegory in Lucretius, are played straight.10 While one
might debate how literally all this is to be understood, we should be
cautious about explaining it away as a series of mental events.11 This
is what Lucretius had done, and what Vergil is undoing. For Vergil, at
the least, sunt aliquid manes.
Aeneas passes through that darkness to a world of light,
sedes. ..beatas (639). It is a world modeled on the sedes... quietae of
Lucretius 3.18 ff., the domain of the gods who live free from any toil
or anxiety (cf. aether / integit et large diffuso lumine ridet, DRN
3.21-22 and largior his campos aether et lumine uestit, Aen. 6.640).
The state of blessedness that is known only to the gods in Lucretius'
philosophy is attainable by mortals; it is not located beyond the

7 A. K. Lake, "Lucretius and the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, " AJP 65 (1944)
135^8; on dreams; B. C. Vestraete, "The Implication of the Epicurean and
Lucretian Theory of Dreams for falsa insomnia in Aeneid 6.896," CW 74
(1980-1981) 7-1 0; on monsters and other matters, Dyson (1997) 452; on the
golden bough, C. Weber, "The Allegory of the Golden Bough," Vergilius 41
(1995) 3-34.
8 Compare in nigr as lethargi mergitur undas, DRN 3.829; rerum náturám
pander e diet is, 5.54.
9 For the terms see Hardie (note 4 above) 178.
10 B. Catto, "Vergilian Inversion of Lucretius in Anchises' Exposition of the
Soul," Vergilius 35 (1989) 68: "Virgil has completely disregarded Lucretus'
allegorical interpretation of the physical punishments suffered by famous sin-
ners in Tartarus."

11 See R. Jenkyns, Virgil's Experience (Oxford 1998) 448-50. For a different

emphasis see, for instance, A. P. Thornton, The Living Universe: Gods and
Men in Virgil's Aeneid (Dunedin 1976) 60-69; G. Williams, Technique and
Ideas in the Aeneid (New Haven and London 1983) 49-58 (Vergil "disclaims
a factual account of 'what really happened'" and the scene at the gates is
"more suggestive of... an experience that is totally mental," 51; "the intellec-
tual organisation suggests more the vivid incoherence of a dream," 53; etc.).
Weber (note 7 above), 32-33, seeks a balance: "Lucretius' abstractions reac-
quire concrete form. Considered from a different point of view, however, Vir-
gil's underworld is seen to preserve Lucretius' allegory intact."

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 86 John Warden

walls of the world, but in the underworld. Aeneas watches the

blessed sipping like bees from the flowers of the meadow (Aen.
6.707-9) as the followers of Epicurus sip like bees from his golden
writings (DRN 3.11-13). Aeneas cannot understand why they
should wish to leave this godlike existence to be born again (719-21).
Father Anchises answers his puzzled question.
In what follows Anchises takes on the role of the philosopher
teacher. In two lines his mode of expression shifts from the conver-
sational to the didactic and philosophical.12 Aeneas is pupil, An-
chises teacher. In accomplishing this shift, Vergil uses Lucretian
phraseology (пес te suspensum tenebo, Aen. 6.723 ~ пес te...plura
moremur, DRN 5.91; cf. 6.245); ordine singula pandit, Aen. 6.723 ~
rerum náturám expandere dictis, DRN 1.126; cf. 5.54). Anchises in
effect is taking on the role of Epicurus. In Bonnie Catto's words,
"Vergil has intentionally and paradoxically modeled his Anchises on
the figure of Epicurus."13 Both are now philosophers, and both are
fathers. "You are our father," says Lucretius at the beginning of book
3 (tu pater es... tu patria nobis / suppeditas praecepta, 9-10). Each
offers his patria praecepta. 14
What is more, the content of Anchises' philosophical teaching is
freighted with Lucretian language.15 The technical terminology of at-
omism and the grand descriptions of the departments of the universe
are not in any sense a parody and are fully respectful of the poetic
tradition, but are used in the service of a metaphysics which Lu-
cretius would have rejected.16 It is this philosophical content that has

12 O. Lucherini, "Echi Lucreziani nel discorso di Anchises," Athenaeum 67

(1989) 297-98: "con due versi lucreziani Virgilio facilmente passa dal tono
di una semplice conversazione a quello di una discussione filosofica in cui
Enea sosterrà il ruolo del discepolo ed Anchise quello del maestro." See R.
G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Sextus (Oxford 1977) 219 (ad
722).
13 Catto (note 10 above) 64.
14 At Aen. 5.724 ff. Anchises appeared to Aeneas in a dream with instructions to
visit him in the underworld: Ditis tamen ante / infernas accede domos Au-
er na per alta / congressus pete, nate, meos (731-33). Such are the cari prae-
cepta parentis (747).
15 See especially the articles, cited above, by Lake (note 7), Catto (note 10) and
Lucherini (note 12).
16 Austin (note 12 above) 221: "[T]he matter would have excited Lucretius'

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 Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld 87

tended to be the focus of any discussion of Lucretius' presence at

the end of Aeneid 6. So striking is the passage, and so remarkable its
use of Lucretian material for non-Lucretian ends, that there is a
temptation to isolate it from its context within the rest of the book. I
believe that, if we look at the concluding sections of both books,
DRN 3 and Aeneid 6, we will find a more systematic relationship be-
tween them than has hitherto been observed.

In Lucretius' argument there are three components: first, the

homily (£>Ä/V 3.1024-52); second, the route to salvation (1053-75).
and third, the question quae mala nos subigit uitai tanta cupido?
(1077). In Vergil the order is reversed. The question comes first:
quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido? (Aen. 6.721); next the route to
salvation (724-51): and finally the homily (756-853). We shall ex-
amine each component in the order of Vergil's arrangement:

1. The question. In Lucretius it is rhetorical, and the point is eristic.

Given all that has been said, how can anyone possibly have this
mala - crazy, illogical, cowardly17 - desire to go on living? No an-
swer is expected. The question forecloses fuller argument. In Vergil
there is a change of order and a change of speaker. The question is
put not in the mouth of the one dispensing knowledge but of the one
seeking it, and it is followed by an answer. Aeneas sees the blessed
living in conditions that resemble the divine ataraxia of the Lucretian
gods and asks, How could they have this insistent, urgent (dira™)
desire to go back to the world with all its suffering? He does not un-
derstand (he is inscius, 711) and wants an answer, He is given one in
what follows.19

2. The route to salvation. Both poets speak of a moles (cf. DRN

3.1056 - Aen. 6.727). For Lucretius this is a metaphorical weight of
ignorance in the mind or heart {pondus inesse animo, 1054; moles in
pectore , 1056); for Vergil it is cosmological, the great body of matter
that constitutes the universe. For Lucretius it is present in the heart

disdain."

17 C. Bailey, Lucretius, De Rerum Natura (Oxford 1947) vol. 2, 1 174.

18 On dira see Warden (note 2 above) 355-56.
19 What is dismissed by Lucretius is entertained by Vergil as a serious ques-
tion. See Dyson (1997) (note 5 above) for a similar pattern.

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88 John Warden

or mind, for Vergil the mind en

molem et magno se corpore m
heaviness or dullness {pondu
Aen. 6.731; hebetant, 732). For
the fears and desires that com
what produces those fears and
lent gaudentque, 733) and i
physical makeup of the wor
himself: for Lucretius, man c
modo fugit, 1068), for Vergil,
he must expiate {quisque suos
sickness to be cured {morbi
3 .1070 « noxia, Aen. 6.731, pe
healing or purification20 is ac
the mind learns to understa
cognoscere rerum (1072). In
and by divine intervention: t
(739-42). Lucretian man is th
aeterni... ambigitur status, 10
the cycle {longa dies perfecto
born. For Lucretius, salvation
for Vergil, in finally ridding th

20 Lucretius uses the language of pu

nisi purgatumst pectus.../ quantae
sollicitum curae quantique perind
gauit pectora dictis / et finem sta
ideal is to live puro pectore, 5.18
sum, Aen. 6.146-41).
"[I]n Lucretius, man's blind ignora
hold him captive and debase his ac
soul is held in blind captivity and
10 above] 67).
This paragraph requires a couple of riders. First, Vergil's moles is not
wholly negative: it may be the source of our desires and woes, but it is also
the stuff out of which the universe is made, and it is described with Lucretian
splendour at Aen. 6.724-25. Second, though the process of purification in
Vergil is described in mythological terms, it emerges from a philosophical,
sc. Platonic, matrix.

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 Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld 89

3. The homily. Lucretius starts from a commonplace that has its

origins in the Iliad (21.106-7): Better men than you have died. He
looks at figures from the past to persuade the readers that they have
no reason to complain about dying: tu uero dubitabis et indignabere
obire? (1045). Vergil looks to the future and to the figures who will
feature in Roman history to help Aeneas understand why they
should desire to be born and to inspire him to contribute to that des-
tiny: dubitamus adhuc uirtutem extendere factis? (806).

Lucretius' list climaxes with philosophers and poets (repertores

doctrinarum et leporum ), Homer (who in a sense belongs to both
these groups22), and then the heroes of Epicureanism: Democritus,
who took his own life, and Epicurus,23 who outshines the stars
(1036^4). In their place, Vergil sets Rome, the Romans, Caesar and
Augustus, whose empire will extend beyond the stars (78 1-805). 24
In his build-up Vergil makes much use of Lucretian material. The
comparison of Rome to Cybele (784-87) recalls the famous Magna
Mater passage in DRN 2 (600^5). The differences are worth ob-
serving. Lucretius is discussing the nature and diversity of the atoms
that make up the universe. To illustrate the diversity he takes the
example of earth (589 ff.) - mother earth, as they call her. Vergil's
emphasis is on the richness and prodigality not of the earth as a
whole but of the city of Rome, felix prole uirum (784) as Cybele is
laeta deum partu (786).25 At lines 801-5, Augustus is compared in
turn to Hercules ( non uero Alcides tantum te lluris obiuit) and to Bac-

22 It is he who explains "the nature of things" to Ennius (rerum naturam ex-

pandere dictis, DRN 1.126) For Ennius, one notes, he is ever-living (semper
florentis , DRN 1.124), but for Lucretius he is dead (s opitu' quietest, DRN
3.1038) like all the rest.
23 The only time in the poem when his name is used (Bailey [note 4 above] ad
loc.).
24 "The story-line of the Aeneid may also be read as a journey to the heavens or
the stars" (Hardie fnote 4 above! 195).
25 Compare Hardie' s point in a different context: "the Lucretian image of the
world as city is inverted in Virgil and preseented in the form of the city
(Rome) as the world (urbs / orbis)" (note 4 above, 190). See R. Wilhelm,
"Cybele: Great Mother of the Augustan Order," Vergilius 34 (1988) 77-101
esp. 92-93. Austin (note 12 above) 241 discusses the role of Cybele else-
where in the Aeneid.

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90 John Warden

chus {пес... Liber)' so too Ep

compared first to Ceres and L
(22-42). Again the differences
Epicurus' achievement is super
ments of Bacchus and Hercu
monsters, are far less import
argues; for man can live with
rebus uita manere, 16), and
whereas only Epicurus can fr
that is, the desires and fears in
tus' superiority to Bacchus a
the importance of their achie
the same thing better. The ex
greater than those of Bacchus
for dicta (50); Vergil claims th
Anchises of course is not ye
gustushe starts again, offerin
vey, this time not only a triu
account that takes note of the
here too Lucretius has set the
the Epicurean "great men," he
view of kings and potentates.
oculis etiam bonus Ancu' rel
Scipio, hero of the Carthagin
{belli fulmen ), terror of Cart
cus stands early in Vergil's h
iactantior, 815). And close to t

26 Hardie (note 4 above) 213-15.

27 It is no "unalloyed panegyric"
tions," in Charles Martindale (ed
(Cambridge 1997) 198; see D. C. F
gil's Underworld," PCPS n.s. 32
Rome New Surveys in the Classics
28 Lucretius is borrowing fromEn
sis oculis bonus Ancus reliquit,
melior.

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 Lucretius and Vergil in the Underworld 91

in language clearly based on, but outdoing, Lucretius: duo fulmin

belli,29 1 cladem Libyae, 842-43). 30
Lucretius uses the example of the Carthaginian wars to show th
irrelevance of history. He argues (DRN 3.832-42) that even though
the whole world was in turmoil at that time and its survival in doub
we, who had not yet been born, were not affected by it in any wa
(et uelut anteacto nil tempore sensimus aegri / ad confligendu
uenientibus undique Poenis, 832-33). So shall it be when we a
dead. The future will be like the past. In Vergil, these events for
seen, the shattered world restored in a magnificent understatemen
(restituis rem, 846), have a direct impact on our lives and our be-
haviour. They tell us who we are and how we should act (hae t
erunt artes, 852). Lucretius makes his point again: The future wil
reflect the past as in a mirror. As the past was nothing to us at th
time it was happening, so when we are dead we will not be affect
by what occurs:

respice item quam nil ad nos anteacta uetustas

temporis aeterni fuerit, quam nascimur ante,
hoc igitur speculum nobis natura futuri
temporis exponit post mortem denique nostram.

DRN Ъ. 912-1 5

Vergil turns this on its head. The past has become Aeneas' future.
As Anchises secures Aeneas' commitment to that future, he elicits
from the reader a commitment to the past. As the past is relevant to
us, so are we relevant to the future. Our lives and our achievements
affect the lives of those unborn.

29 According to O. Skutsch, Studia Enniana (London 1968) 148, the descrip-

tion of the Scipios as fulmina originates with Ennius. If this is so, it is worth
noting the contrasting ways in which the two poets use the allusion. Lu-
cretius borrows it to underline the point that even the greatest do not escape
death. Vergil, by setting it in a parade of heroes not yet born, subverts Lu-
cretius' negative message and reinstates the validity of the historical epic.
cladem Libyae blends mythology and history. In the destruction of Carthage
the unfinished business of the epic is completed. One remembers An-
chises' words to Aeneas when he first sees him in the Underworld: quam
metui ne quid Libyae tibi regna nocerentl (694).

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92 John Warden

Vergil's dialectic is thoroug

every fundamental point: the s
the gods, man's attitude to dea
behaviour, his relationship to
cretius' own materials in const
of the nature of poetic influen
father and son, "Laius and Oed
to kill his poetic father, gently
can be no doubt about his intent.

University of Toron

31 Bloom (note 3 above) 11.

I am grateful for good advice from r

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