With these words a disguised Venus explains the accessories of her costume to Aeneas and Achates shortly after the Trojan landing in North Africa. Even detailed commentaries on this passageFootnote 1 overlook an important feature: the lines contain a reference to Julius Caesar, who claimed descent from Venus and made a political point of wearing red boots during his dictatorship. This allusion to Caesar connects in significant ways to adjoining passages of the first book of the Aeneid.
Venus explains that her quiver (pharetra) and red-purple boots (purpureus cothurnus) are typical accessories for Tyrian maidens. The colour purpureus in its visual similarity to puniceus underlines the Carthaginian setting of the scene, while the cothurnus brings to mind the buskin, the boot of the tragic actor.Footnote 2 The theatrical significance of the cothurnus seems appropriate given Virgil's description of the Trojan landing site on the North African coast as a scaena, or stage (Aen. 1.164). But the cothurnus also had a political connotation: because it could be worn on either foot, it could indicate a politician who aligned himself with popular opinion to further his own agenda, the most famous example being the Athenian Theramenes.Footnote 3
The political connotation is significant, since no Roman in the first century b.c.e. could have forgotten that Julius Caesar had worn high red leather boots as a means of political legitimation. The report comes from Cassius Dio (43.43.2–3):
τῇ τε γὰρ ἐσθῆτι χαυνοτέρᾳ ἐν πᾶσιν ἐνηβρύνετο, καὶ τῇ ὑποδέσει καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐνίοτε καὶ ὑψηλῇ καὶ ἐρυθροχρόῳ κατὰ τοὺς βασιλέας τοὺς ἐν τῇ Ἄλβῃ ποτὲ γενομένους, ὡς καὶ προσήκων σφίσι διὰ τὸν Ἴουλον, ἐχρῆτο.
For he [Caesar] would dress effeminately among everyone in his loose-fitting clothing, and later on he wore footwear which was both high and red in colour after the fashion of the kings who had once ruled in Alba Longa, on the grounds that he was related to them through Iulus.
While Dio is the only author to mention the boots, several other sources attest that the costume of Caesar's dictatorship featured the regal red-purple colour.Footnote 4 Caesar also passed legislation that restricted the wearing of purple garments (conchyliatae uestes) to certain people on certain days; as he wore the colour more, he ordered others to wear it less.Footnote 5 Festus confirms the Alban kings’ use of the boots, which he calls mullei; according to Isidore of Seville, the mulleus resembled the cothurnus in certain respects and was also red in colour.Footnote 6
In Dio, Caesar justifies his choice of footwear by claiming descent from the kings of Alba, of whom Iulus, the son of Aeneas and the grandson of Venus, was the first.Footnote 7 The author's next sentence emphasizes Caesar's total devotion to Venus, a reverence that is evident in other sources as well.Footnote 8 The connection helps explain why Virgil's Venus appears in red boots. A major component of Caesar's self-presentation at Rome was his promotion of Venus as his ancestor and patron goddess, a claim he advanced through coins, art and building projects.Footnote 9 It was above all his putative descent from Iulus, Aeneas and ultimately Venus herself that gave Caesar the right to wear the boots of the Alban kings. While other Roman aristocrats had cultivated their own versions of Venus, Caesar broke new ground in encouraging public worship of Venus as genetrix, an epithet that, while not unprecedented, showcased his special relationship to the goddess.Footnote 10 As she speaks to her son Aeneas, Virgil's Venus wears the boots of the man who venerated her beyond all others as mother.
Nor was it only in Alba Longa that red boots indicated royal power. The footwear was also attributed to Romulus, who as Rome's first king furnished Caesar with an important monarchical model.Footnote 11 The boots might have functioned as a sign of kingship in a Greek context as well, for the Hellenistic dynast Demetrius Poliorcetes had worn purple boots as part of his kingly costume.Footnote 12 Like Caesar, Demetrius was celebrated as a descendant of Venus: an Athenian hymn preserved in Athenaeus calls him the son of Aphrodite.Footnote 13 Caesar's red boots might therefore have advertised his claims to descent from Venus to a wide audience, both at Rome and in the Greek East.
Such evocation of Venus, the Alban kings and Caesar's identification with them at this point in the poem is fitting, given that these are the topics of Jupiter's prophecy to Venus in the immediately preceding passage. Here Jupiter prophesies that, after Aeneas’ death, Iulus will reign for thirty years and found the kingdom of Alba Longa (1.267–71). Special emphasis is placed on his assumption of the name ‘Iulus’ (1.267–8):
The new name is further highlighted when Jupiter mentions a ruler of Virgil's own day (1.286–8):
The question of whether these lines refer to Caesar or Augustus cannot be settled here.Footnote 14 But if Virgil had wanted the text to point unambiguously to Augustus, he could have expressed the emperor's name in a different way. The name Julius Caesar—even when clearly in reference to Augustus—cannot have failed to bring the former dictator to mind. This echo is surely important if one recognizes Venus’ costume as an allusion to Caesar's footwear.
Another aspect of Caesar's legacy is on display when Aeneas enters Carthage. Virgil's description of the construction of a theatre (1.427–9) anachronistically recalls Roman Carthage, since there was no stage during the earlier Punic period.Footnote 15 It was Julius Caesar who refounded Carthage as a Roman city in 44 b.c.e. Footnote 16 The extent to which he was able to execute his vision for the city is a matter of debate among scholars,Footnote 17 and there is no archaeological evidence for a theatre at Carthage before the reign of Augustus.Footnote 18 But the impetus at any rate came from Julius: Appian claims that Augustus began settling Carthage ‘directly upon finding the plans of his father’.Footnote 19 What Aeneas witnesses upon his arrival, then, is the realization of not Augustus’ but Caesar's vision for Carthage.
The poem draws on the traditions concerning Caesar's physical appearance, as Aeneas, his beauty enhanced through Venus’ arts, reveals himself to Dido (1.588–91):
It is surely not a coincidence that the three features the text highlights—Aeneas’ hair, his youthful glow and his eyes—are traits for which Caesar, too, was supposed to be renowned.Footnote 20 Virgil's lumen iuuentae purpureum recalls Caesar's claim of having received the ‘bloom of youth’ from Venus.Footnote 21 Ancient authors saw an etymological connection between Caesar and caesaries, especially in light of the tradition that Caesar had been born with a full head of hair, so they surely would have seen the pun here.Footnote 22 Equally striking is the poet's use of the word genetrix to refer to Venus: whereas Sulla's Venus was Venus Felix and Pompey's was Venus Victrix, Caesar specifically cultivated Venus Genetrix in keeping with his claims of descent from the goddess.Footnote 23
Virgil calls the glow of youth that Venus imparts purpureum. The colour has a different nuance here than at 1.337; it is a corporeal quality, a sign of the radiance of beauty and health.Footnote 24 As in the earlier passage, however, the word occurs at the beginning of the line. The goddess’ boots were purpurei when she revealed herself to her son; she has now made Aeneas himself purpureus as he stands before Dido. Both scenes draw on Caesar's self-presentation as a descendant of Venus and as a ruler worthy of wielding the power she conferred.
