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Virgil, Aeneid 7.620–2
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Virgilian scholars appear not to have appreciated the full dramatic significance of this passage, which provides a further example of Virgil's use of divine intervention in events which he wishes to mark as particularly significant in the course of the poem. These three lines signal the onset of the war with which the remainder of the Aeneid will be concerned; since line 607, Virgil has been working towards them by means of a detailed description of the gates of war themselves and of the tradition attached to them. But at this point in Italian history there is an ominous departure from the traditional procedures regarding the declaration of war. Latinus, who according to what Virgil depicts as the already well-established tradition was bound to open the gates in order to mark the beginning of war against the Trojans, has refused in horror to carry out his duty, opposed as he is to the turn recent events have taken in Latium. At this point Juno intervenes dramatically, as she had intervened before to sow the seeds of the ‘horrida bella’ (6.86, 7.41) between the Trojans and the indigenous population (323ff.). Virgil depicts her as sweeping down from heaven in person in order to push open the gates. The reader is shown how at her touch the gates burst open (‘rumpit’) without the involvement of any human or visible agency. It is an action which apparently has only a supernatural explanation, clearly described to the reader as the work of Juno.
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References
1 This is even more obviously the case with such episodes as the storm which drives Aeneas and his ships onto the shores of Africa and the awakening of Dido's love for Aeneas in Book 1, and Aeneas' decision to leave Troy at the end of Book 2.
2 Cf. Williams, G., Technique and Ideas in the Aeneid (Yale University, 1983), 137–8Google Scholar.
3 Virgil's use of Juno for this momentous action may be compared with a similar picture to be found in a fragment of Ennius, where it is the personification Discordia who opens the gates of war:
postquam Discordia taetra
Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit (Ann. 225–6 Skutsch).
It is noteworthy that Virgil decided not to make use of either Allecto or Discordia here, presumably because they were only minor daemonic forces whose intervention at this point would be less dramatically effective than that of the ‘regina deum’ herself; also, the opening of the gates of war is not as appropriate to the character of Allecto as is the task of inflaming the passions of Amata, Turnus and the rural population, for she is not to be simply identified with Discordia. Cf. Otis, B., Virgil. A study in civilized poetry (Oxford, 1964), 326–7Google Scholar; Williams op. cit. 24; Klingner, F., Virgil (Zurich, 1967), 511–15, 523–6Google Scholar.
4 This may be the only instance in the Aeneid of divine intervention which cannot be given an alternative, ‘natural’ explanation, unlike, for example, the sudden onset of the storm in Book 1.
5 Weinreich, O., in ‘Türöffnung im Wunder-, Prodigien- und Zauberglauben der Antike, des Judentums und Christentums’, Tüb. Beitr. zur Altertumswissenschaft 5 (1929), 267 n. 22Google Scholar, strangely denies that the opening of the gates of war in the Aeneid can be classed as a Wunder because it is stated which god is responsible: he contrasts it in this respect with Claudian, , De Raptu Proserpinae 2.6ff.Google Scholar
6 Ogle, M. B., ‘The house door in Greek and Roman religion and folklore’, AJP 32 (1911), 251–71Google Scholar.
7 Cf. Cicero, , De Div. 2.67Google Scholar; Suetonius, , Div. Iul. 81Google Scholar and Ner. 46.
8 Similarly, Amata and Turnus are unable to recognise Allecto: she reveals her hellish origin to Turnus when provoked, but he does not identify her of his own accord.
9 Such sinister hints are also evident in Juno's monologue (Aen. 7.293–322) when she says ‘sanguine Troiano et Rutulo dotabere, virgo’ and ‘funestaeque iterum recidiva in Pergama taedae’.
10 2.242–3; cf. Heinze, R., Virgils epische Technik (4th ed.Stuttgart, 1957), 316–17Google Scholar.
11 Cf. for example the baleful implications of the simile at Aen. 10.272–5 and the comments of Williams op. cit. 65: here, under cover of the simile, the reader is given information about Aeneas which is not available to Turnus in his misguided interpretation of the situation.