gates, and eventually is forced to withdraw and swim the Tiber fully armed to return to his men.
Nisus and Euryalus
Virgil was moved by the glory and the grief of the deaths of the young in battle. His story of Nisus and Euryalus is also a delicate portrayal of the passionate love between two young men. Less obviously, it is a negative example. By their blunders and their impetuosity, by their neglect of the disciplines of war and above all by their failure to show respect to the gods, they are standing exemplars of what Aeneas is not.
The crucial mistake by Nisus is to take young Euryalus with him on this perilous mission. In a similar situation in Homer’s
Iliad
, Diomede chose as his companion Odysseus, the cleverest of the Greeks–‘the skill of his mind is with out equal’–and Odysseus justified the choice. Here Nisus does not want Euryalus to go with him, but allows the younger man to take the crucial decision. It is Euryalus who wakes sentries to keep guard for Nisus and himself when they go to tell the council of their plan.
The council of chosen Trojan warriors is also at fault. The original plan suggested by Nisus was to take a message to Aeneas, but now the young heroes propose to set an ambush, kill large numbers of the enemy and come back laden with booty. Aletes, though ‘heavy with years and mature in judgement’ (246), approves this madcap scheme, and young Ascanius enthusiastically welcomes it, promising all manner of extravagant rewards, including the horse of Turnus, the enemy leader.
They set out, enter the Rutulian camp and slaughter their sleeping enemies where they lie. Nisus eventually realizes that daylight is coming and checks Euryalus, but still allows him to put on armour he had plundered from the dead – medallions, a gold-studded belt, a helmet with gorgeous plumes. The helmet is their undoing. A passing detachment of three hundred cavalry catches sight of it glinting in the moonlight. Nisus escapes butEuryalus is captured, hampered by the booty he is carrying. Nisus sees him being carried off by the enemy and breaks cover in a hopeless attempt at rescue. Whenever Aeneas begins an undertaking, he prays to the great gods, to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Mars or to his mother. But here Ascanius swears by his own head, and Nisus by chance, Vesta, his household gods, the sky and the stars. At the end, when his beloved Euryalus is in mortal danger, Nisus prays at last, but prays only to Diana, the moon goddess, who had just betrayed them.
There are no doubts about their ardour or their courage or their love, and Virgil steps out of his role as anonymous narrator to salute them and rejoice in their immortality, but he has already made it plain that the weaknesses of youth, lack of judgement, of discipline and of piety are not the stuff of which Roman leaders are made. Aeneas is a different kind of man.
Ascanius Kills Numanus
Before his return Ascanius will have had his baptism of fire. A young Latin warrior, husband of the sister of Turnus, Numanus Remulus speaks up for the Latins against these effeminate incomers from the East. The Latins are a race of hardy sons of toil, and these ‘Phrygians’ from Troy are effete, with their saffron and purple robes and their sleeved and beribboned bonnets. They are women, not men, playing tambourines and flutes in their dubious women’s rites on Mount Ida. This is the case against the Trojans and it has to be answered because the Trojans are the ancestors of the Romans. Ascanius gives the only possible answer, and Apollo instantly withdraws him from the battle, but not before prophesying the glory of his descendants. ‘This is the way,’ he tells Iulus, ‘that leads to the stars. You are born of the gods and will live to be the father of gods’ (642), and Virgil’s audience would have taken the point. At Caesar’s funeral games a comet appeared, which was hailed by the common people as proof that Caesar had been received among the gods. We have
Nisus and Euryalus
Virgil was moved by the glory and the grief of the deaths of the young in battle. His story of Nisus and Euryalus is also a delicate portrayal of the passionate love between two young men. Less obviously, it is a negative example. By their blunders and their impetuosity, by their neglect of the disciplines of war and above all by their failure to show respect to the gods, they are standing exemplars of what Aeneas is not.
The crucial mistake by Nisus is to take young Euryalus with him on this perilous mission. In a similar situation in Homer’s
Iliad
, Diomede chose as his companion Odysseus, the cleverest of the Greeks–‘the skill of his mind is with out equal’–and Odysseus justified the choice. Here Nisus does not want Euryalus to go with him, but allows the younger man to take the crucial decision. It is Euryalus who wakes sentries to keep guard for Nisus and himself when they go to tell the council of their plan.
The council of chosen Trojan warriors is also at fault. The original plan suggested by Nisus was to take a message to Aeneas, but now the young heroes propose to set an ambush, kill large numbers of the enemy and come back laden with booty. Aletes, though ‘heavy with years and mature in judgement’ (246), approves this madcap scheme, and young Ascanius enthusiastically welcomes it, promising all manner of extravagant rewards, including the horse of Turnus, the enemy leader.
They set out, enter the Rutulian camp and slaughter their sleeping enemies where they lie. Nisus eventually realizes that daylight is coming and checks Euryalus, but still allows him to put on armour he had plundered from the dead – medallions, a gold-studded belt, a helmet with gorgeous plumes. The helmet is their undoing. A passing detachment of three hundred cavalry catches sight of it glinting in the moonlight. Nisus escapes butEuryalus is captured, hampered by the booty he is carrying. Nisus sees him being carried off by the enemy and breaks cover in a hopeless attempt at rescue. Whenever Aeneas begins an undertaking, he prays to the great gods, to Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Mars or to his mother. But here Ascanius swears by his own head, and Nisus by chance, Vesta, his household gods, the sky and the stars. At the end, when his beloved Euryalus is in mortal danger, Nisus prays at last, but prays only to Diana, the moon goddess, who had just betrayed them.
There are no doubts about their ardour or their courage or their love, and Virgil steps out of his role as anonymous narrator to salute them and rejoice in their immortality, but he has already made it plain that the weaknesses of youth, lack of judgement, of discipline and of piety are not the stuff of which Roman leaders are made. Aeneas is a different kind of man.
Ascanius Kills Numanus
Before his return Ascanius will have had his baptism of fire. A young Latin warrior, husband of the sister of Turnus, Numanus Remulus speaks up for the Latins against these effeminate incomers from the East. The Latins are a race of hardy sons of toil, and these ‘Phrygians’ from Troy are effete, with their saffron and purple robes and their sleeved and beribboned bonnets. They are women, not men, playing tambourines and flutes in their dubious women’s rites on Mount Ida. This is the case against the Trojans and it has to be answered because the Trojans are the ancestors of the Romans. Ascanius gives the only possible answer, and Apollo instantly withdraws him from the battle, but not before prophesying the glory of his descendants. ‘This is the way,’ he tells Iulus, ‘that leads to the stars. You are born of the gods and will live to be the father of gods’ (642), and Virgil’s audience would have taken the point. At Caesar’s funeral games a comet appeared, which was hailed by the common people as proof that Caesar had been received among the gods. We have
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