It's true that Augustus wanted a Latin epic that would reflect his vision of Rome, but he didn't commision the Aeneid in any meaningful sense of the word. Vergil could have refused--Horace, who was even more closely tied to the regime, did so, and the refusal to write an epic became a topos in Latin elegaic poetry. Augustus certainly didn't dictate the subject or treatment of the poem, although Vergil did want Augustus to like it. But it certainly isn't an unrelentingly cheerful view of Roman history and culture. After all, Aeneas is fighting against the Italians, but tota Italia was one of Octavian's slogans. It's a kind of civil war in miniature, and it ends with Aeneas succumbing to furor
(I am not Augustus' biggest fan).
Go you! I'm forever surprised by the number of people who think that Augustus' success means that he must have been right. This is why I prefer Cicero--at least he had some limits.
You might be interested to know that there's a school of interpretation which sees the Aeneid as an anti-Augustan poem, a poem which calls into question the presuppositions on which Augustus' notion of Rome's greatness is based. Part of it is that although the poem does make it clear that founding Rome was a great struggle, it never makes it clear that the struggle was worth the sacrifice. I'm not sure that I buy the full pessimistic reading, because I think that Virgil is essentially optimistic about Rome. But because he doesn't know for sure that everything will work out, a certain amount of doubt creeps in.
Because I'm an academic, I can even give you bibliography: W. R. Johnson, Darkness Visible, which just blew me away when I read it.
Or am I way off base and should stick to analyzing fascist propaganda?
Have you ever read Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution? It's about Augustus' (then, Octavian's) rise to power, and it was written in 1939 and the subtext is all about Fascism--it's Octavian as Mussolini, and although Mussolini would have approved Syme doesn't mean it as a compliment. He sees Octavian's rise as the success of a (failry thuggish) faction within the Roman political class. Anyway, no one ever reads the whole thing, but you might check it out of the library and glance at a couple of chapters if you ever get interested in that kind of thing.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2002-11-13 07:48 pm (UTC)(I am not Augustus' biggest fan).
Go you! I'm forever surprised by the number of people who think that Augustus' success means that he must have been right. This is why I prefer Cicero--at least he had some limits.
You might be interested to know that there's a school of interpretation which sees the Aeneid as an anti-Augustan poem, a poem which calls into question the presuppositions on which Augustus' notion of Rome's greatness is based. Part of it is that although the poem does make it clear that founding Rome was a great struggle, it never makes it clear that the struggle was worth the sacrifice. I'm not sure that I buy the full pessimistic reading, because I think that Virgil is essentially optimistic about Rome. But because he doesn't know for sure that everything will work out, a certain amount of doubt creeps in.
Because I'm an academic, I can even give you bibliography: W. R. Johnson, Darkness Visible, which just blew me away when I read it.
Or am I way off base and should stick to analyzing fascist propaganda?
Have you ever read Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution? It's about Augustus' (then, Octavian's) rise to power, and it was written in 1939 and the subtext is all about Fascism--it's Octavian as Mussolini, and although Mussolini would have approved Syme doesn't mean it as a compliment. He sees Octavian's rise as the success of a (failry thuggish) faction within the Roman political class. Anyway, no one ever reads the whole thing, but you might check it out of the library and glance at a couple of chapters if you ever get interested in that kind of thing.