Staley 1990 On Aeneas First Act

Aeneas' First Act: 1.
180-194
Author(s): Gregory A. Staley
Source: The Classical World, Vol. 84, No. 1 (Sep. - Oct., 1990), pp. 25-38
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Classical Association of the
Atlantic States
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4350717
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AENEAS' FIRST ACT: 1.180-194
Aeneas scopulumintereaconscendit,et omnem
prospectumlate pelago petit, Anthea si quem
iactatumvento videat Phrygiasquebiremis
aut Capyn aut celsis in puppibusarma Caici.
navem in conspectunullam, tris litore cervos
prospiciterrantis;hos tota armentasequuntur
a tergo et longum per vallis pascituragmen.
constitit hic arcumquemanu celerisquesagittas
corripuitfidus quae tela gerebatAchates,
ductoresqueipsos primumcapita alta ferentis
cornibusarboreissternit, tum vulgus et omnem
miscet agens telis nemorainter frondeaturbam;
nec prius absistit quam septem ingentiavictor
corpora fundat humi et numerumcum navibusaequet.
hinc portumpetit et socios partiturin omnis.'
Victor Poschl has taught us to read very carefully the opening

scenes of the Aeneid because "they contain in essence all the forces
which constitute the whole." 2 It is surprising,in light of this now
widely-acceptedpoint of view, that Aeneas' first act in the Aeneid, his
shooting of seven stags, has not been closely analyzed.3It is an act
which, in various forms, recurslater to punctuateevents at important
turning points, in Aeneas' "wounding" of Dido, in Ascanius' hunt
which precipitates war, and in Aeneas' final confrontation with
Turnus. Surely Vergil did not choose lightly to give Aeneas' stag hunt
such a prominentplace at the opening of the epic.
Coming as it does betweenAeneas' first words in the epic, his wish
to have died at Troy (O terquequaterquebeati, 1.94), and his speech
l Citations of Vergil are from the OCT edition, ed. by R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford
1969). Citations of Homer are from the OCT editions, ed. by D. B. Monro and T. W.
Allen: Iliad (Oxford 19203), Odyssey (Oxford 1917 192).
2 The Art of the Aeneid, trans. by Gerda Seligson (Ann Arbor 1962) 24.
3John Arthur Hanson first led me to think about the passage which is the focus of
this paper in a seminar on Vergil at Princeton. I dedicate this article to his memory, as
a small token of appreciation for a prodding but gentle teacher and a loyal and constant
friend. I have chosen the title "first act" to characterize Aeneas' hunt because up to
this point in Book One he has only spoken and reacted; the hunt is the first major
action which he initiates in the epic. It was only after choosing this title that I read Art
Hanson's chapter on Vergil in Ancient Writers: Greece and Rome (New York 1982)
2:669-701. It seems appropriate, somehow, that there I found my title echoed in Art's
own words: "Aeneas' first act in the poem. . .is to shoot down seven tall stags. .
(699).
At different stages of its development, this paper was presented orally to the Classical
Association of the Midwest and South (Minneapolis, April 11, 1985) and in substantially
revised form to the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (Princeton, September
25, 1987).
25
26 GREGORY
A. STALEY
of encouragement to his men (O socii. . . , 1. 198f.), the stag scene has
generally been interpreted as a sign of Aeneas' leadership and
resistance to despair.4 Although Poschl does not focus on Aeneas'
hunt, it is clear how he would interpretit. The opening scenes of the
epic (1.8-296) present, in Poschl's view, a strugglebetweenthe forces
of order and the forces of chaos, culminatingin the victory of order.
As such, they foreshadowthe movementand messageof the Aeneid as
a whole. This "idea of regulation"is portrayedin Neptune'scalming
of the storm, in "Aeneas' reaction to fortune's blow," of which the
hunt is a part, and in Jupiter'sreassuranceto the troubledVenus that
the fates of the Trojans manent immota (1.257).
I intend to show that such an understandingof Aeneas' hunt
presents a one-sided reading of a complex event. The "optimistic"
and "pessimistic"traditionsof Vergiliancriticismeach emphasizebut
one component of what is in reality an ambiguousblend. Througha
comparative analysis of Vergil's transformation of his Homeric
sources, a New Criticalreadingof Vergil'slanguage,and a structural-
ist interpretationof the symbolic uses of hunting, I would argue that
Aeneas the hunteris both a Jupiterand a Juno, both a force for order
and a force for chaos. As an agent of civilization, he must combine
both of these roles; for all creation involves destruction,an insight
implicitin Rome's birth from the ashes of Troy.'
II.
Any detailed assessment of Aeneas' hunt must begin with a

backward glance to Homer. Poschl has noted how closely Vergil
models Aeneid 1 in general on the Odyssey.6Aeneas' first act in
particular is based on Odyssey 10.142-70, where Odysseus, newly
landed on Circe's island, sets out to scout the territoryand turns to
hunting when a stag fortuitouslycrosses his path. W. R. Johnson has
4 For example, William S. Anderson, The Art of the Aeneid (Englewood Cliffs 1969)
25 ("Still refusing to yield to weariness or discouragement, he locates a herd of deer,
kills seven, and brings back rich meat to his men."), and Roger A. Hornsby, Patterns
of Action in the Aeneid (Iowa City 1970) 2 ("He finds and slays seven deer with which
he feeds and refreshes his men after their harrowing escape from the storm. His
intention is clearly beneficent and so is the result."). The very fact that Aeneas is not
expressing his real emotions in this speech, as Vergil immediately tells us (spem vultu
simulat, 1.209), should make us cautious about using the speech as our explanation of
the acts which precede it. Moreover, the hunt and the speech may not be as intimately
linked as they have been seen to be. Aeneas does not mention food during his speech;
perhaps this would not be surprising except for the fact that Odysseus, in his much
shorter speech (Od. 10.174-77), says, in essence: "We are not dead yet, so let us eat and
drink." The successful hunt is explicit cause for encouragement in the Odyssey; it is not
so in the Aeneid.
s For a summary of the "optimistic" and "pessimistic" approaches to Vergil, see
W. R. Johnson, Darkness Visible (Berkeley 1976) 11 and footnote 10. If it seems in
what follows that I favor one-sidedly the pessimistic school, the reason is my desire to
correct the overly optimistic readings of this episode which have prevailed.
6
p. 25; cf. also R. D. Williams, "Vergil and the Odyssey," Phoenix 17 (1963) 271.
AENEAS'FIRSTACT: 1.180-194 27
shown how the detailed realism of the Homeric scene has been
condensed and abstracted in Vergil's account.7 Homer carefully
describes how Odysseus manages to carry his one stag back to the
ship; but Vergil, even though Aeneas has seven with which to contend,
simply reports: hinc portum petit. . . (1. 194).
It is surprising, given his fidelity to (yet condensation of) his
Homeric model, that Vergil has nonetheless transformedOdysseus'
hunt in telling ways. First of all, Vergil has conflated two of
Odysseus'hunts, both the stag hunt on Circe's island and a goat hunt
at Odyssey9.152-60. From the goat hunt Vergil borrowsthe idea that
the object of the hunt is not a solitary animal but a herd and that its
results are shared equally among the ships. Why, in the face of the
obvious "logistical" problems it creates, does Vergil have Aeneas
confront not a single stag but a herd?
In part the answeris that Vergilwishes to presentAeneas as the just
providerwho kills a stag for each of his survivingships; but this, I
believe, is not all of the answer. Like Odysseus, Aeneas does not
consciously set off to hunt for food.8 He is concerned about his
comrades lost at sea; the verb used to describehis ascent to a rocky
lookout, conscendit, reinforcesthat motive, since conscendereis often
used to mean "to board ship." 9 It is as if Aeneas were still at sea,
climbing high in his ship to look for the remainderof his fleet. His
heart, in other words, is not on land with his men who are dining but
at sea with those who may be dying. Vergil emphasizesthe thorough-
ness of his search (omneml prospectum late. . .) and his desire to spy
even one of his comrades (Anthea. . .aut Capyn . . .aut. . .arma
Caici). '0
Note 5, above, 36.
8 Both R. G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus (Oxford 1971) and
the TLL VII.1.2183, 67f. interpret interea in 1.180 to mean that the narrative is turning
to a new subject. In other words, Aeneas' departure from his men does not suggest that
he has missed his meal nor that his expedition grows out of the desire to find food to
augment the meal then in progress. In the passage from the Odyssey which is Vergil's
immediate model, there is no meal preceding Odysseus' hunt. Vergil perhaps derived the
idea for the meal from an earlier scene in the Odyssey (10.56-60) where Odysseus,
driven back by the winds to Aiolia, has a midday meal before setting off to meet
Aiolos.
9 Vergil uses the verb with this specific meaning at Aeneid 1.381 and 10.155; the
equivalent verb in the Odyssey (10.146), "aneion", lacks this connotation.
'0 Vergil heightens the pathos of Aeneas' search, in contrast with Odysseus', by
substituting the particular for the general. Odysseus was searching only "for sight or
sound of human labor," whereas Aeneas is searching for comrades whom he knows by
name and whose situation he can visualize in detail because he has experienced it
himself as well. He images Antheus as being iactatum vento, a phrase which recalls the
description of Aeneas himself in the opening lines of the epic, et terris iactatus et alto
(1.3). He pictures to himself the arms of Caicus as celsis in puppibus, a phrase used of
Aeneas at 4.554 and 10.261. Cf. Theodore M. Andersson, Early Epic Scenery: Homer,
Virgil and the Medieval Legacy (Ithaca 1976) 60: "Another significant feature of the
psychological portrait is Aeneas' seaward gaze. . . .The psychological model is not so
much the exploratory gaze of Odysseus among the Laestrygonians or on Aeaea as his
forlorn gaze into the empty sea from Calypso's island (5.158)."
28 A. STALEY
GREGORY
Aeneas can see none of these three; but, as his attention shifts
abruptly, he catches sight of three stags on the shore. In every sense
these deer are presented as a contrasting parallel to the Trojans
themselves. The three stags are "leaders" who have behind them their
"entire herd." The three commanders for whom Aeneas has been
searching are apparently lost, and their men along with them. The
deer "feed throughout the valley," while those Trojans who have
survived the storm are eating only salvaged grain. The three stags are
"wandering" along the shore; errare is Vergil's and Aeneas' own verb
to describe the Trojans in Book One." In a passage which is otherwise
a pared-down version of Homer's precise description, those details
which are Vergil's own must have special significance. Here, it seems
to me, Vergil has modified the Homeric episode in a way clearly
intended to present the deer as a counterpart to the Trojans
themselves. 12
Vergil has made Homer's stag not just a herd, but also an army, for
the language of the scene is clearly not that of the hunt but of the
battlefield. The herd of deer follow the three stags (hos tota armenta
sequuntur) just as elsewhere in the poem soldiers are said to follow
their commanders (10.799: socii magno clamore sequuntur; 9.54: socii
fremituque sequuntur; and 9.162: .. .ast illos centeni quemque se-
quuntur/purpureicristisiuvenes. . .). Armentum,as Servius perceived,
is a surprising word to use of deer: Armenta videtur nove de cervis
dixisse, cum proprie boum sint vel equorum vel ceterorum quibus in
armis utimur. Vergil's choice of it here may in fact have something to
do with its link to arma and the military connotations of that word.'3
Deer, which are proverbially timid animals, have here been presented
as if they were prepared for war.'4 This interpretation is reinforced by
Vergil's use of agmen to characterize the line of stags in 1.186.
Although in its root sense this word simply means "something that is
driven," it is most generally used to mean "an army on the march"
and this latter sense is the one most prevalent by far in Vergil. Even
when the word is applied to insects and animals, it is usually because
" Cf. 1.32 (multosque per annos/errabant acti fatis maria omnia circum) and 1.333
(erramus vento huc vastis et fluctibus acti).
12 Homer's stag is described as coming down from his pasture (ek nomou hules,
10.159) to the river to get a drink; Vergil has expanded this description by placing the
leaders of the herd on the shore (presumably they, too, have come down to drink) and
by adding a herd behind them which is feeding in the valley.
3 As the TLL 11.611.7-8 suggests, armentum and arma may perhaps be linked
through a common ancestry with the Greek verb ararisk6, "to fit on." Servius' use of
the phrase in armis to explain the correct usage of armenta is but another suggestion of
the possible link between these two words. Vergil himself shows his awareness of the
link when he makes a pun in Aeneid 3.540: bello armantur equi, bellum haec armenta
minantur. Another possible etymology, the one favored by Varro (LL 5.96), links
armentum with arare, "to plow."
14 In Georgics 3.265 Vergil speaks of cervi as imbelles and in Aeneid 4.158 deer are,
in Ascanius' eyes, pecora. . inertia. In Seneca's Phaedra 341-2, deer only fight when
their marriages are threatened: si coniugio timuere, poscunt timidi proelia cervi.
they are acting like armies.'5 This agmen has its ductores, whom
Aeneas "lays low" (sternit).16 The military language in which this
entire event is described is crowned by an Homeric formula always
used on the battlefield:17
nec prius absistit quam septem ingentiavictor
corpora fundat humi. . . 1.192-3
alla kai empes
ou lexo prin Troas haden elasai polemoio.
Iliad 19.422-3
Troas d' ou prin lexo hyperphialousenarizon
prin elsai kata ast... Iliad 21.224-5
At the end of the hunt Aeneas is characterizedas a victor, an epithet
applied to him on six other occasions, all but one of them martial.'8
Some would argue that language of this sort is appropriatefor a
hunt. After all, hunting was regularlyseen in the ancient world as
training for war.'9 The more relevantissue, however, is whetherepic
poets shared that assumption and reflected it in their diction. As
Edward Schmoll has recently pointed out, the equivalentepisode in
the Odyssey likewise has a martial tone.20Since Odysseus is himself
the narratorof his hunt, he is, Schmoll argues, using martialterms in
order to convey to the peaceful Phaeaciansa sense of what war is like.
But the hunt also meets his own need to play the warriorin a world
where there are now few opportunitiesto do so. Clearly Vergil found
the startingpoint for his diction in Homer, but his purposescan not
be entirely the same as Homer's. For it is not Aeneas who describes
's E.g., in 1.393 Vergil speaks of an agmen of swans, but, as we shall see shortly, the
swans are an omen representing Aeneas' fleet. In 4.404 and 406 the departure of
Aeneas' men from Carthage is compared to an agmen of ants as they plunder a heap of
grain and bear it away to store it up for the winter; the action of these ants is
appropriately compared with that of an army carrying away booty (praeda) from a
captured city. In the famous bee simile at 1.430f., an agmen of bees protects the hive,
but again their defensive function makes the military language appropriate.
16 Vergil uses ductores in Georgics 4.88 to characterize two bees fighting for
supremacy in the hive; otherwise he always uses the word to describe men. Even in the
Georgics, the word is applied to bees because they are venturing out into the battlefield,
in human fashion, to fight a duel. Sternere, in the sense "to lay low", is used most
frequently by Vergil to describe the killing of a warrior on the battlefield.
17 Cf. Iliad 5.287f., 8.473f., 21.294f., 21.340f.; the formula is found once in the
Odyssey (22.63-64), where Odysseus says, oude ken h6s eti xeiras emas lexaimi phonoio/
prin pasan mnesteras huperbasien apotisai.
18 Victor is used to characterize Aeneas as a victor by prayer over Juno in 3.439.
Elsewhere it is used to characterize him as a victor in battle in 5.261, 8.50, 8.61, 10.569,
and 11.4.
19See. J. K. Anderson, Hunting in the Ancient World (Berkeley 1985), chapters one
and five.
20 "Odysseus and the Stag: The Parander," Helios 14.1 (Spring 1987) 22-28.
Schmoll's article, which only came to my attention after this article was completed,
looks at Odysseus' hunt in much the same way in which I look at Aeneas'.
30 GREGORYA. STALEY
his hunt in this way but the poet himself; moreover,the audienceis
not Dido and her Carthaginiansbut we the readersof the poem. Is
Vergil trying to impressus with Aeneas' prowessas a warriorjust as
Odysseus was trying to impress the Phaeacians? In a poem which
begins with the hendiadysarma virumque,such a purposewould seem
only natural.21
Before we conclude too readily, however, that Vergil is glorifying
both Aeneas and war, we need to consider yet another feature of
Vergil's language: the parallel it suggests between what Aeneas does
to the deer and what Juno has, through the storm, alreadydone to
Aeneas himself. Juno, angry that she has been unable to impede
Aeneas' progress toward Italy, calls upon Aeolus and his winds to
attack Aeneas' fleet. Juno models her action on that of Minerva,who
had snatchedup corripuit(1.45) Ajax and impaled him on a rock. It
is this same verb of swift and emotional action which Vergil uses to
describe Aeneas' snatching up corripuit (1.188) of his weapons to
attack the stags. Juno's orders to Aeolus are to scatter Aeneas' fleet
and to cast out his men into the sea: age diversos et dissice corpora
ponto (1.70). Aeneas' attack on the stags has a similar disruptive
effect: miscet agens telis nemora inter frondea turbam (1.191). Mis-
cere is used on two occasions to describethe effect of Aeolus' winds
magno misceri murmurepontum (1.124); miscere et tantas audetis
tollere moles? (1.134); Aeneas' attack, miscet agens telis, is matched
by that of the wind-stirredwave which torquet agens circum (1.117).
Juno's command, dissice corporaponto, is paralleledin the outcome
of Aeneas' hunt: corporafundat humo (1.193). Just as Aeneas' attack
on the agmen of stags is presentedas an act of war, so too the winds'
attack on the Trojans is likened to an army besieginga city: ac venti
velut agmine facto,/ qua data porta, ruunt. . . (1.82-3).22
As if these verbal parallels were not enough, Vergil confirms the
link between Juno's and Aeneas' actions through an omen which
2' The closest parallel I can find to the military imagery of Aeneas' hunt comes in the
opening of Seneca's Phaedra, where Hippolytus issues orders for a hunt, orders which
characterize the hunt as a military expedition. Of this Senecan passage A. J. Boyle ("In
Nature's Bonds: A Study of Seneca's 'Phaedra'," ANR W 32.2 119851 1293) has
commented: "The military imagery of the monody is telling in this regard-the victor
(52), the spoils (praeda, 77), the triumph (triumpho, 80)-imagery which, drawing an
analogy between Hippolytus' confident aggression, his worship of destructive power,
and that of Rome's military, underscores the former and intimates its contemporary
relevance." In a similar way, the military language of Aeneas' hunt might well suggest
the tools by which Rome will ultimately be built. But I doubt that Aeneas' hunt has
quite the contemporary relevance which D. L. Drew, The Allegory of the Aeneid
(Oxford 1927) 67 wishes to give it: "I would urge that Vergil is alluding to the series of
disasters, some of them due to bad weather, suffered by Augustus in the protracted
naval war waged against Sextus Pompeius, 38-36 B.C., in general and to the great storm
of the first year's operations, in particular...."
22 The parallel here is not symmetrical, because the winds, the attacking force, are the
agmen in the storm, but the stags, the victims in Aeneas' attack, are the agmen in the
hunt.
FIRSTACT: 1.180-194
AENEAS' 31
Venus interprets for us later in Book One. Venus, disguised as a
huntress,seeks to assureAeneas that the remainderof his fleet is safe
(1.393-6):
aspice bis senos laetantisagminecycnos,
aetheriaquos lapsa plaga lovis ales aperto
turbabatcaelo; nunc terrasordine longo
aut capere aut captas iam despectarevidentur.
Aeneas' men are like the agmen of swans who have been thrown into
disarray (turbabat) by the bird of Jove, which here representsthe
anger of Juno.23 Now they have regrouped (ordine longo) and are
safely reaching land again. The parallel which the omen suggests
between the Trojans and an agmen of birds was already at work in
Vergil's mind, I submit, in the stag hunt as well. There the
longum.. .agmen (1.186) of stags is a parallelto the situation of the
Trojansbefore Juno's storm has struckand ultimatelyafter it as well,
a situation which the omen compares to that of laetantis agmine
cycn os.24 Aeneas' effect on the stags (et omnem/miscet
.turbam, 1.190-1) is likewise that which Juno, through the storm,
has had on his fleet, an effect which the omen compares to that of
Jupiter's bird on the swans: "quos. . .turbabatcaelo." Aeneas' first
act in the poem, then, however beneficent its results may be for the
Trojans, presents him as a victim of Juno who acts in the ways of
Juno herself.
III.
In applying Poschl's general thesis specificallyto Aeneas' first act,
J. Roger Dunkle has argued that "hunting in this context represents
an act of civilization, a bringing of order out of chaos. . .." 25 The
very fact that what Aeneas does here, on the most literal level, is not
to create order out of chaos, but chaos out of the previouslyordered
herd of deer, should make us cautious about this symbolic equation
between hunting and civilized order. In fact, C. Grier Davis, in
conscious opposition to Poschl, has arguedthat "Vergildescribeswith
tragic irony the victory of the forces of order over the forces of chaos
within his poetic universe,and the motif of the hunt stands as a fitting
symbol for the paradoxesof such a world." 26 Although Davis does
23
See Michael C. J. Putnam, The Poetry of the Aeneid (Cambridge, MA 1965) 166.
24
The omen's specific reference is to the Trojans after the storm, when they will be
reunited again. But implicitly such a link would also have been appropriate before the
storm had done its damage as well. During the hunt itself, however, the fact that the
stags are an agmen all together seems not a parallel to the situation of the Trojans but a
contrast to it, as emphasized by Aeneas' failure to find his comrades lost at sea.
25
"The Hunter and Hunting in the Aeneid," Ramus 2 (1973) 128.
26
"The Motif of the Hunt in Vergil's Aeneid," in Landmarks in Western Culture,
ed. by Donald N. Baker and George W. Fasel (Englewood Cliffs 1968) 213-214.
32 GREGORYA. STALEY
not look closely at Aeneas' hunt in Book One, his generalthesis about
hunting in the Aeneid accords with what our readingof that hunt has
just suggested: as hunter, Aeneas is a Junonianfigure. From the very
beginning of the Aeneid, Davis argues, Juno is characterizedas a
huntresswith the Trojans as her prey. But Juno does more than just
hunt Aeneas; she also indirectlymakes Aeneas turn hunter himself.
Aeneas hunts in Book One becauseJuno's storm has drivenhim to an
unknown shore. In Book Four Juno uses Aeneas' hunt with Dido to
serve her own purposes. It is Allecto, workingat Juno's behest, who
drives Ascanius' hounds in Book Seven to attack Sylvia's pet deer;
and it is because of Allecto's influenceas well that Turnusis brought
into conflict with Aeneas, only to be, in Vergil's simile (12.749-51),
"hunted down" in the end.
Aeneas does not, however, play the role of Juno consciously in
Book One. Vergilis silent about his motives, but Serviuswas probably
correctwhen he remarkedthat necessitatisenim est haec venatio, non
voluptatis. Aeneas' men are short of food and Aeneas acts deliber-
ately, not indiscriminately,in limiting himself to one stag for each
ship. But the "necessity" of which Serviusspeaks is a harsh teacher.
Aeneas' thoughts are on his lost comradeswhen he turns toward the
stags, who appear to have what he has now seemingly lost: a
community which is together, with the people following behind its
leaders. Both the vigor of his attack and the violence which it does to
the previouslypastoral scene suggest that the hunt grows out of the
pain and suffering which the storm and, through it, Juno have
inflicted on Aeneas. Having been so long a victim, at last Aeneas
has-through the hunt-obtained the chance to be a victor. During
both the collapse of Troy and the storm at sea, Aeneas had wantedto
pick up his arms, to fight back. The hunt representshis first chanceto
do that, as its languageof war makesclear.27Huntedby Juno, Aeneas
emerges "victorious" by turning hunter himself. In the process, just
as his first hunt destroysthe orderlyand pastoralcommunityof deer,
so his later hunts will bring destructionto Carthage and Latium.28
Hunting, then, is here not just the symbolicequivalentof civilization,
of order, of Neptune calming the waves; it also parallels,in Poschl's
own terms, the storm and all it represents:violence and destruction.29
27
Schmoll (note 20, above) 25 argues for a similar motive in Odysseus' hunt: "So
this combat, proffered by the god, serves to bolster the waning self-worth of the hero in
terms of the archaic standards to which he still clings, a temporary but necessary fillip
for a hero beleaguered by the press of anonymity and oblivion."
28 Davis (note 26, above) suggests (205) that the victory of order in history is coupled
with a tension or chaos on the level of personal relationships. But it is not only on the
individual level that such disorder exists. Rome's victory in history requires national,
not just individual victims. Davis might well have seen this when he argued that there is
a parallelism between the fall of Troy and Dido's death at Carthage. Dido's personal
tragedy, in its links with Troy's, takes on a broader scope, foreshadowing the national
tragedy which Rome will bring to Carthage.
29 In fact, of the three later hunts in the epic, two are accompanied, either literally or
figuratively, by a storm. A storm, again sent by Juno, strikes during Dido's and
AENEAS'
FIRSTACT: 1.180-194 33
This ambiguityin the symbolismof Aeneas' first hunt is reinforced
by the parallels between that hunt and the first simile in the poem,
which comes but a few lines earlier. Neptune, in stilling the waves, is
likened there to a leader who seeks to calm a crowd: ille regit dictis
animos et pectora mulcet (1.153). Critics have rightly suggested that
this simile announcesthe role which Aeneas himself, like Augustus, is
intendedto perform: that of the political leaderwho restoresorder in
a strife-torn world. Vergil emphasizesthat Aeneas has assumed this
role by using almost the same words (dictis maerentiapectora mulcet,
1.197) to characterizeAeneas' famous speech to his men as he had
used in the earlier simile to describe the effect of a political leader
upon the angry masses. In the hunt itself, however, the hunt which
immediatelyprecedes the calming speech, Aeneas does not play the
same role which is assignedto the political leader in the simile. For in
the simile it is the masses which are violent (saevitqueanimis ignobile
vuigus, 1.149) and the leader who restoresorder. But in the hunt, the
masses, the "vulgus" of deer, are peaceful and Aeneas is the one who
attacks and confuses them: tum vulgus. . ./miscet agens telis...
(1.190-1).3?If Vergil intends us to use his first simile as the point of
referenceby which to measure his hero, then Aeneas in his first act
only partiallysucceeds: he restoresorder for the Trojans but he also
createschaos for his victims.
IV.
In arguing that Aeneas as hunter is "an image of civilized man,"
Dunkle seems to suggest (his note 4) that Vergil derivedthis equation
from the Greek tragedians. It is certainly true that Aeschylus
portrayedPrometheusas a hunter in his quest to give men the use of
fire; hunting was regularly included in lists of man's civilizing
achievements such as Sophocles' "Ode to Man" (Antigone 332-75).31
Aeneas' hunt: 4.160-61: Interea magno misceri murmure caelum/ incipit. This line is a
clear echo of the storm in book 1.124-5: Interea magno misceri mumure pontuml
emissamque hiemem sensit Neptunus... When in book 12.746-55 Aeneas is compared
to a huntingdog who has corneredhis prey, the descriptionof the battle likens it to a
storm: 12.756-7: tum vero exoritur clamor ripaeque lacusquel responsant circa et
caelum tonat omne tumultu.
30 Vergil uses vulgus on two other occasions to describea group composedof other
than men: in Georgics3.469 of sheep, in Georgics4.69 of bees. In the lattercase, the
word is clearlyused becausethe bees are acting like a humancrowd about to watch a
duel.
31 On huntingas a part of man's progresstowardcivilization,see Eric Havelock, The
Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (London 1957). It is worth noting that the examples
cited by Dunklemostly show how man as hunteris a failureat civilization(Creonin the
Antigone, Pentheus in the Bacchae: "But as in Sophoeles' Antigone man's effort to
conquernatureas representedin the Bacchaeby Dionysusends in completefailureand
in even more terribledestruction"[p. 1411).The one positiveexamplecited by Dunkle
is the Prometheusof Aeschylus'PrometheusBound, who is presentedas hunterin his
search for civilizing fire. But as Walter Moskalew, FormularLanguage and Poetic
Design in the Aeneid (Leiden 1982) 166, note 69 points out, a more likely source for
34 A. STALEY
GREGORY
Recent studies of hunting in Greek literature,however, have shown
the inherentambiguityof huntingvis-a-viscivilization:
Hunters and shepherds.. .are also felt as ambiguousthroughout
classicalGreekliterature,from Homer to Theocritus.Literallyand
metaphorically,they inhabit the borderlandbetween savage and
civilized realms: they journey between mountain and plain,
country and city, and live in intimate contact with the wild. .32
Such a conception of the hunter and his role fits well the circum-
stances of Aeneas as hunter in Aeneid 1, where Aeneas is in the
borderlandbetween savage and civilized and on a journey between
country and city. If we examine Aeneas' huntingthroughthe eyes of
the structuralist,we can, I believe, better understandthe complexand
ambiguous process by which man seeks to move from Nature to
Culture,a processwhich Aeneas undertakesin his first act in the guise
of the hunter and which, in a broader sense, is the subject of the
Aeneid as a whole.33
When Aeneas and his men are finally blown to shore after the
storm, they enter a harbor whose primitive rockiness is emphasized
(hinc atque hinc vastae rupes geminiqueminantur/ in caelumscopuli,
1.162-3;fronte sub adversa scopulis pendentibusantrum, 1.166). As
Eugene Vance has nicely argued, the storm has driven Aeneas back to
a primitivestage of human existence, where man must again use flint
Vergil's use of the image of hunting "is not Aeschylus' PrometheusBound.. .but
ratherthe Oresteia,where huntingexpressesthe chaotic cycle of blood vengeance."I
agree with Moskalewand wonder, in fact, whetherVergil, in choosing a stag hunt as
Aeneas' first act, was not recalling Agamemnon'sstag hunt and its painful conse-
quences. Sophocles' account (Electra 558f.) of that hunt parallelsVergil's in several
ways: Agamemnonwas not intendingto hunt but surpriseda full-antleredstag and was
triumphantover his success.
32 Charles Segal, Tragedy and Civilization (Cambridge, MA 1981) 31.
33 Schmoll(above, note 20) 24 finds a similardichotomyin Odysseus'hunt: "While
endeavoringto be heroic, Odysseusbringsforth in his tale elementswhich indicatethat
his archaicheroismis beingtemperedwith civilizedvalues."The functionof the episode
is thus to show the transitionwhichOdysseusmust undergoin orderto returnfrom the
warriorcultureof the Iliad to the domesticworldof Ithaka.
In suggestinga structuralistapproachto huntingin the Aeneid, I am awarethat the
procedureis not, strictlyspeaking,applicable.The structuralistseeks to find similarities
betweenpatternsof thought in a text and those in the structureof the society which
producedthat text. With regardto huntingand its ambiguity,such a correlationexists
for the Greeks but not so clearly for the Romans. Following the example of the
HellenisticGreeks,aristocraticRomanscame to see huntingas a sport compatiblewith
civilizedlife. The huntswhich JuliusCaesarstagedfor the peopleof Romeenhancedhis
career, and Augustusencouragedathletic activitieslike huntingfor their moral value.
Consequently,I would not arguethat Vergil'streatmentof huntingis a reflectionof its
meaningin his own culturebut ratherpart of the traditionwhich he derivesfrom the
Greeks.If one were to approachthe issue from the perspectiveof audienceresponse,it
seemslikelythat Vergil'sRomanaudiencewould have seen Aeneas'huntingin an heroic
light.
to make fire.34Aeneas' hunting is another mark of his status now as
primitiveman. But even in this naturalsetting, Aeneas emphasizesthe
civilizedgoal of the city (tendimusin Latium, 1.205) toward which he
journeys. In a narrative sense, Aeneas' hunt leads from the rocky
harborto the city of Carthage(Venus' guise as a hunter as she steers
Aeneas there reinforces this function). Paradigmatically,the hunt
partakes both of the primitivewildness and the civilized city. By its
very nature, hunting is a primitive activity, one which takes place
spatially outside of the city and chronologicallybefore the city, since
the city arises only when man, having discoveredthe art of growing
grain, abandonsthe nomadiclife of the hunter. But Aeneas' hunt also
reflects, in its systematicprocess (as Vance has suggested)and in its
civilized values (Aeneas shares the meat equally with all the ships and
comrades),the arts which make the city possible.35Aeneas' speech to
his men reiterates this contrast between wilderness and city, and
re-enactsthroughwords what the hunt has accomplishedin deeds: the
movement from Nature to Culture. In recallingthe hardshipswhich
the Trojans have endured in the past, Aeneas lays emphasis upon
rockiness: vos et Scyllaeam rabiem penitusque sonantis/ accestis
scopulos, vos et Cyclopia saxal experti (1.200-2). But there is still
reason to be encouraged,becauseper tot discriminarerum/tendimus
in Latium, sedes ubi fata quietas/ostendunt(1.204-6). In Aeneas' first
act, hunting facilitates this passage from the rocks of nature to the
city of culture.
The ambiguities of that passage are most notable in the way in
which hunting mirrorsthe actions both of Jupiterand of Juno. Like
Jupiter, Aeneas looks out over the storm-tossedsea (Aeneas, 1.181:
prospectum. . .petit, [cf. 1.185J; Jupiter, 1.223-4: Juppiter. . .de-
spiciens mare. . .; likewise Neptune, 1.126-7: et alto/prospiciens. ..
[cf. 1.155]) and stops abruptly at what he sees (constitit Aeneas,
1.187, Jupiter, 1.226). Aeneas then proceeds to soothe his troubled
men with words just as Neptune had calmed the waves and as Jupiter
will console Venus.36Yet in the hunt Aeneas, like Juno and the winds
34"Sylvia's Pet Stag: Wildnessand Domesticityin Virgil'sAeneid," Arethusa 14.1
(Spring1981) 127-138.
3S In the story which Protagorastells in Plato's dialogue of that same name, the
ability to make war on animals is a sign that man has mastered the art of
politics: "Thus provided for, they lived at first in scatteredgroups; there were not
cities. Consequentlythey were devouredby wild beasts, since they were in every respect
the weaker, and their technicalskill, though a sufficient aid to their nurture,did not
extend to makingwar on the beasts, for they had not the art of politics, of which the
art of war is a part" (322a-b, trans. by W. K. C. Guthrie).When Hermes, at Zeus'
instruction,bestowson men the civic arts, men acquire"qualitiesof respectfor others
and a sense of justice, so as to bring order into our cities and create a bond of
friendshipand union" (322c). Both Aeneas' abilityto make war on the animalsand his
sense of justice in sharingthe meat suggest that this hunt illustratesthe political arts.
Vance(above, note 34) sees a contrastbetweenAeneas' rationaland organizedhunt and
the sort which primitivemen conduct,as describedin Georgics 3.371-75.
36 Charles Segal, "Art and the Hero: Narrative Point of View in Aeneid 1,"
Arethusa 14.1 (Spring1981)71, notes this link betweenAeneasand Jupiterand further
36 A. STALEY
GREGORY
she summons, uses violence and war to create chaos where there had
been a natural sense of order and community.Hunting here, then, is
like a storm and a war; but it also serves to restore peace and calm.
Since the hunt serves to provide food, it clearly is linked to the
culinarycode. When the Trojansare washedashore, their only food is
Cererem corruptam (1.177). Grain is paradigmaticallylinked with
civilization;but here, driven back into a primitivesetting, the Trojans
have only "ruined" or "spoiled grain." It is a sign of their movement
back toward civilization that the Trojans set out to transform this
"spoiled" food through cooking. The language which describesthis
process, however, has savage overtoneswhich are reflectedin the hunt
as well. The utensils by which the cooking is done are Cerealiaque
arma (1.177).37 Cooking, then, is an act of "war" and equally
destructive:frugesque receptas/ et torrereparantflammis et frangere
saxo (1. 178-9).38 To be nourished, the language suggests, we must
compares it with Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 2.1-10: "We are reminded of the
philosopher's godlike removal and distanced prospect in the introductorylines to
Lucretius' second book." My reading of Aeneas' first act, however, suggests that
Aeneas is quite differentfrom Lucretius'god:
Suave, mari magno turbantibusaequoraventis,
e terramagnumalteriusspectarelaborem;
non quia vexariquemquamstiucundavoluptas,
sed quibusipse malis careasquia cerneresuave est.
suave etiam belli certaminamagnatueri
per campos instructatua sine partepericli.
sed nil dulciusest, bene quam munitatenere
edita doctrinasapientumtemplaserena,
despicereunde queas alios passimquevidere
errareatque viam palantisquaererevitae. . .
(}) We first should see that Aeneas, unlikethe god, is not withdrawnfrom the stormy
strife of the sea. That is what is foremost in his mind as he stands on the rocky
overlook: he is worriedabout his comradeslost in the storm. Thus it is certainlynot
suave for him to look at the troublesof another,becausehe sees those troublesas his
own. (2) Aeneasdoes not look down on certaminamagnaand rejoicethat he is not part
of them (sine parte pericli, De Rerum Natura 2.6). Rather,as the imageryof the hunt
makes clear, he is eager to join in strife and battle. (3) In looking down on the
wandering(errantis, Aeneid 1.185) herd of deer, Aeneas does not, as does Lucretius'
god, see people wandering(errare, De Rerum Natura 2.10) in searchof a way of life,
but animalswhose condition is secure, in contrastwith his own uncertainone. These
contrastswith Lucretius'god are one measureof Aeneas'likeness,not just with Jupiter,
but with Juno as well.
37 Robert Seymour Conway, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos I (Cambridge 1935) 50
suggests that arma is used here in an archaic sense meaning "fittings, tools" and is
possibly derivedfrom an older poet. To see any militaryconnotationin the word, he
seems to suggest, is to overlook the originaletymologyof the word and to read into it
connotationsassociatedwith its Englishderivatives.But BrooksOtis, Virgil:A Study in
CivilizedPoetry (Oxford 1963) 158, in discussingVergil'suse of arma in the Georgics
(1.160) to describethe farmer'simplements,concludesthat Vergilconsciouslyplays on
the militaryassociationsof the word: "But even in [Georgics,book 11,Virgil'sattitude
towardcivilizationis anythingbut optimistic.. .His [i.e., the farmer's]implements(the
plough, waggon, winnowingfan, etc.) are but his weapons in a hard fight."
38 Serviusexplainsthis procedureas due to the fact that the Romanslacked a grain
mill.
AENEAS, FIRST ACT: 1.180-194 37
destroy. This is precisely the message and function of the hunt as well.
Burning and breaking transforms grain into food just as scattering
and shooting transforms animals into food. The primitiveness of the
process is highlighted in the description of the cooking of the
venison: tergora diripiunt costis et viscera nudant;/ pars in frusta
secant veribusque trementia figunt (1.211-12). Cooking, hunting, and
warfare are here parallel processes. All three seek to transform nature
into culture, but they do so in ways which are violent and destructive.
In presenting Aeneas' first act as a hunt, Vergil has shown the
terrible duality of human existence: in order to live, man must kill. In
order for Rome to be born, for the city and civilizationto be made
possible, other peoples and cities must fall as victims. Readingsof the
poem which are optimisticor pessimisticmay well miss the inherently
ambiguous nature of human and societal development. In the very act
of creating the "civilized" city, Aeneas must act in ways which link
him with the "natural," with violence, storm and animal.
V.
Poschl characterized the opening lines of the Aeneid as the

''overture" to the work in which the themes which are to occur
throughout are introduced. But critics from Servius on have viewed
hunting as a theme repeated only through substantial variations.39
Still, there remains a unity which links Aeneas' first act with all the
hunts which follow. We should remember that Aeneas' stag hunt is his
first act in North Africa; the disruptive effect which the hunt visits
upon the leaders of the stags and their "peaceful" community
foreshadows the equally disruptive effect which Aeneas will have on
Dido and Carthage. Ascanius' hunt in Book Seven (7.475f.) has much
the same effect as well. The martial imagery of Aeneas' first hunt
foreshadows the war which Ascanius' hunt will initiate, a war which
will culminate in Aeneas' "hunt" of Turnus (12.749-51). It can be no
accident that Vergil chooses to present Aeneas' hunt, his first act in
book 1, as an act of war and his act of war in Book Twelve, his last
act in the epic, as a hunt. The death of Turnus, like Aeneas' killing of
the stags, grows out of a concern for and loyalty to Aeneas'
comrades. But the implicitly Junonian violence of Aeneas' first hunt is
explicit and far more vivid in his last. If hunting is an act of
39 For example, Dunkle (note 25, above, 133) says of the hunt with Dido in book
4: "The necessitas of civilization is furthest from (Aeneas') mind. The motif of hunting
now refers to Aeneas' frivolous love rather than to his serious duty of civilization."
Roger Hornsby (note 4, above) 3 sees a similar contrast between Aeneas' hunting in
book I and that of Ascanius in book 7: "Vergil invites his audience to compare the two
actions, for they represent an antinomy which is resolved in the final appearance of the
hunting motif in book Xll, when Aeneas hunts and slays Turnus. . ."
38 A. STALEY
GREGORY
civilization,we are left to wonderwhetherthe journeyfrom Natureto
Culture, from arma virumqueto the altae moenia Romae, reallytakes
us very far.40
Universityof Maryland GREGORYA. STALEY

CW84.1 (1990)
40 This articlewas first draftedwhile I held a fellowshipat the AmericanAcademyin
Rome. I wish to thank the Academyand the NationalEndowmentfor the Humanities,
which funded the fellowship, for their support. At the AcademyI benefitedfrom the
critical but helpful advice of KatherineGeffcken and CharlesHenderson,Jr., and I
wish to expressto them my appreciation.
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Staley 1990 On Aeneas First Act

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Aeneas' First Act: 1.

Victor Poschl has taught us to read very carefully the opening

Any detailed assessment of Aeneas' hunt must begin with a

Arethusa 14.1 (Spring1981)71, notes this link betweenAeneasand Jupiterand further

Poschl characterized the opening lines of the Aeneid as the

Universityof Maryland GREGORYA. STALEY

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