1 00:00:04,820 --> 00:00:09,960 With Aeneas having got himself out of Troy he now starts on his wandering adventures. 2 00:00:10,136 --> 00:00:15,043 We obviously know this well from Odysseus' tales of Book nine through, in Books nine 3 00:00:15,043 --> 00:00:19,132 through twelve of the Odyssey. Oh, Homer sorry, Virgil's are quite 4 00:00:19,132 --> 00:00:22,112 different. And for us to focus on those differences 5 00:00:22,287 --> 00:00:26,844 is really pays off great dividends. First of all, as we said when we were 6 00:00:26,844 --> 00:00:31,576 talking about the rationalizing impulse that Virgil brings to his myths these 7 00:00:31,576 --> 00:00:35,314 stories are all mappable. These are specifically located on real 8 00:00:35,314 --> 00:00:40,558 geographical places that we can point to. Let's start off with this place, Troy. 9 00:00:40,558 --> 00:00:45,581 We know exactly where that is. The legendary place of it helped guide 10 00:00:45,581 --> 00:00:50,346 where we should have looked. So there was a location on a map back then 11 00:00:50,346 --> 00:00:54,789 about what Troy was all about. The first place they go and stop after 12 00:00:54,789 --> 00:00:59,232 their escape from the burning of Troy is this place called Thrace. 13 00:00:59,426 --> 00:01:05,543 Thrace up in northern part of the area of the, the great extent of Greece it's well 14 00:01:05,543 --> 00:01:10,630 known for being a little bit wild and strange in Greek custom and the first 15 00:01:10,630 --> 00:01:15,553 adventure that they have leads them to rather spooky scene at Thrace which is 16 00:01:15,553 --> 00:01:19,003 right near Troy. Aeneas locates the body of Polydorus. 17 00:01:19,003 --> 00:01:23,819 You'll recall, or you'll recall from reading, that the suggestion is talked 18 00:01:23,819 --> 00:01:28,961 about, about where Polydorus comes from. He was Priam's son who was entrusted to 19 00:01:28,961 --> 00:01:32,931 the King of Thrace during the Trojan War with a hefty ransom. 20 00:01:32,931 --> 00:01:37,620 Well, after Troy fell the king just decided go ahead and take the ransom and 21 00:01:37,620 --> 00:01:40,943 kill the kid. So poor Polydorus is there under awful 22 00:01:40,943 --> 00:01:45,069 circumstances buried in the ground. And he starts spouting up oracles. 23 00:01:45,069 --> 00:01:50,053 Oracles that come from the dead, so called necromancy are things that are well known, 24 00:01:50,053 --> 00:01:53,319 but very, understood to be very spooky in Ancient Rome. 25 00:01:53,319 --> 00:01:57,903 It's not a normal way of getting oracles. When they hear this, that it's time for 26 00:01:57,903 --> 00:02:02,773 them to move on, this is not a good place to get their city started Aeneas and the 27 00:02:02,773 --> 00:02:07,401 boys hop on the ship and off they go. The next place they go is Delos. 28 00:02:07,401 --> 00:02:11,908 Now Delos is well known as a famous place for Apollo's oracle. 29 00:02:11,908 --> 00:02:16,481 It's not, though, quite as Greek invented in Greekness as Delphi is. 30 00:02:16,879 --> 00:02:20,921 Let me just clarify that. Delphi has a very rich tradition. 31 00:02:20,921 --> 00:02:24,699 Delos has one too. Both of them are anchored in the Greek 32 00:02:24,699 --> 00:02:27,151 past. Delphi's, though, is more central. 33 00:02:27,350 --> 00:02:32,785 Delos is by no means peripheral but I don't think that Virgil could have quite 34 00:02:32,785 --> 00:02:37,690 had his hero go find out the truth of what he needed to find at Delphi. 35 00:02:37,690 --> 00:02:42,506 That would have been too Greek too connected with what we know the Greeks to 36 00:02:42,506 --> 00:02:45,094 have expected. So instead we go to Delos. 37 00:02:45,094 --> 00:02:49,911 Again, a very well famous, a very famous and well-respected Greek place and, an 38 00:02:49,911 --> 00:02:53,282 oracular shrine. But not the main one of Apollo which in 39 00:02:53,282 --> 00:02:57,978 long tradition turns out to be Delphi. We know Delos of course from our Homeric 40 00:02:57,978 --> 00:03:01,399 hymn to. Apollo, so the oracle there tells them 41 00:03:01,399 --> 00:03:05,344 they should seek where the Trojans first came from. 42 00:03:05,344 --> 00:03:11,456 The idea is that there is some early ancestral land out there where Troy needs 43 00:03:11,456 --> 00:03:16,948 to be reestablished. Now the story that Delos tells, makes this 44 00:03:16,948 --> 00:03:22,436 new home that Aeneas is seeking actually. And earlier home, a primer home. 45 00:03:22,660 --> 00:03:26,770 It just so happen in the story such as Virgil tells it. 46 00:03:26,770 --> 00:03:32,672 Actually, it's not just that the Romans come from the Trojans, actually, yeah the 47 00:03:32,672 --> 00:03:37,902 Romans come from the Trojans. But the Trojans originally came from the 48 00:03:37,902 --> 00:03:41,637 Romans. Virgil's giving us a story in which the 49 00:03:41,637 --> 00:03:47,988 ancestral home of Troy is actually Rome. So it has the, the, the roll of being, 50 00:03:48,212 --> 00:03:52,321 originary the actual, originary spot of this whole race. 51 00:03:52,321 --> 00:03:58,000 So when Dylos says, go find your, background, he saying to, Virgil's saying. 52 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,250 Through that message then what happening here is a refounding of an originary 53 00:04:02,250 --> 00:04:05,628 kingdom Rome is. From Delos they head off to thinking that 54 00:04:05,628 --> 00:04:10,041 they're looking for an ancient place that could have been the background of Troy. 55 00:04:10,041 --> 00:04:11,948 They head off to Crete. Makes sense. 56 00:04:11,948 --> 00:04:16,471 Crete was well known, as we've mentioned, mythologically as a very ancient place and 57 00:04:16,471 --> 00:04:20,230 if we're looking for some ancestral home, it may well have been there. 58 00:04:20,230 --> 00:04:23,608 So they go and they start and they get started their building. 59 00:04:23,608 --> 00:04:27,423 They're building their walls. Notice how many times we're going to see, 60 00:04:27,423 --> 00:04:31,782 during this book of fits and starts in book three we're going to see Aeneas and 61 00:04:31,782 --> 00:04:34,121 his. Mates, getting started building a city. 62 00:04:34,121 --> 00:04:36,466 They'll build walls, they'll lay out plans. 63 00:04:36,633 --> 00:04:40,709 And then something bad happens. So at Crete, they're getting started on 64 00:04:40,709 --> 00:04:44,226 the building of the city and there's a pestilence that appears. 65 00:04:44,226 --> 00:04:47,297 A awful plague that visits the men. They fall down sick. 66 00:04:47,464 --> 00:04:51,931 And then the household gods appear to him in a dream, as we mentioned earlier on, 67 00:04:51,931 --> 00:04:54,666 talking about the rationalizing spirit in Virgil. 68 00:04:54,666 --> 00:04:58,686 These gods tell him it's time for you not to be here, but somewhere else. 69 00:04:58,686 --> 00:05:01,198 You've got to move on. It's actually in Italy. 70 00:05:01,366 --> 00:05:04,213 Go there. So at this point now, Virgil and his mates 71 00:05:04,213 --> 00:05:09,579 know what to do and off they head. They have a stop at the island of the 72 00:05:09,579 --> 00:05:15,602 harpies, in the Strophades showing up here on the western edge of, of Greece. 73 00:05:15,819 --> 00:05:22,615 These harpies are nasty well-known beasts. They show up in some famous freezes and 74 00:05:22,615 --> 00:05:27,821 other artistic representations. They're things with wings that come down 75 00:05:27,821 --> 00:05:32,423 and just spoil your food. Those who have try to have a picnic near 76 00:05:32,423 --> 00:05:35,050 flocks of pigeons might have some people to relate. 77 00:05:35,050 --> 00:05:38,016 A little bit to what this kind of experience was like. 78 00:05:38,016 --> 00:05:40,762 So it was, they were unable to get any nourishment. 79 00:05:40,762 --> 00:05:45,156 They also hear a nasty oracle there from the mean Harpy Celaeno that they won't 80 00:05:45,156 --> 00:05:49,550 found Rome until they eat their tables. They're going to be apparently so hungry 81 00:05:49,550 --> 00:05:53,285 that they eat their tables. This prophecy is fulfilled in book seven 82 00:05:53,285 --> 00:05:57,515 when they realize that their bread platters that they're using to hold their 83 00:05:57,515 --> 00:06:00,371 food up is actually what the Harpy was referring to. 84 00:06:00,371 --> 00:06:03,886 They then go right past Ithaca. This shows up on page 75 in your 85 00:06:03,886 --> 00:06:06,138 translation. Not much mention of it, right. 86 00:06:06,138 --> 00:06:09,050 Hello to Odysseus but we're not going to spend a lot. 87 00:06:09,050 --> 00:06:13,380 I'm worrying about you, it's almost like a kinda like a kiss off to, 88 00:06:13,380 --> 00:06:18,257 To Ithaca where he's not going to spend a lot of time talking about it. 89 00:06:18,257 --> 00:06:23,889 We then go to Chaonia in Northern Greece on the Adriatic side to this town that's 90 00:06:23,889 --> 00:06:29,659 there and we hear the story of Andromache, who was Hector's wife, abducted by a Greek 91 00:06:29,659 --> 00:06:34,811 man named Pyrrhus, a son of Achilles, after the Trojan War and taken back to 92 00:06:34,811 --> 00:06:38,933 this land of Chanoia. Then Pyrrhus dies and Helenus, who is a 93 00:06:38,933 --> 00:06:43,879 son of Priam and another one of Pyrrhus's captains, inherits the kingdom. 94 00:06:43,879 --> 00:06:48,360 Now we have a kind of new Troy that's been found here Chanoia by. 95 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:53,295 Great Trojan aristocrats, Helenus together with Andromache, Hector's wife, and this 96 00:06:53,295 --> 00:06:56,646 would seem like it would be a good place to found Troy. 97 00:06:56,646 --> 00:07:00,241 But it turns out no, it isn't. We can't have a new Troy here. 98 00:07:00,241 --> 00:07:02,983 Aeneas, you've got to move onto another place. 99 00:07:02,983 --> 00:07:07,370 A famous prophecy then comes out. Helenus is well know for his prophetic 100 00:07:07,370 --> 00:07:11,696 acumen in the Trojan materials. He then tells them that they have to go 101 00:07:11,696 --> 00:07:15,291 talk to the Sibyl. He gives them a further clarification of 102 00:07:15,291 --> 00:07:20,288 the prophecy. Yes, it's going to be Italy but in order to find what to do, they have 103 00:07:20,288 --> 00:07:25,138 to go find the Sibyl and she will give them specific directions on where to go. 104 00:07:25,138 --> 00:07:30,416 That's going to require, yes, indeed, a trip to the underworld, something we'll 105 00:07:30,416 --> 00:07:34,931 see in book six. They then make their way aross the, the 106 00:07:34,931 --> 00:07:41,603 sea between, Greece and Italy and over to, the, over to the land of Aetna where they 107 00:07:41,603 --> 00:07:46,080 see this belching volcano, and they hear discussion of the Cyclops. 108 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:50,185 Now on their way there notice what they don't do is go through the Scylla and 109 00:07:50,185 --> 00:07:52,816 Charybdis. It's possible that they could have gone 110 00:07:52,816 --> 00:07:57,237 through this little narrow isthmus between the tall Italy and the island Sicily but 111 00:07:57,237 --> 00:08:00,027 they avoid it. This is Virgil, I think, telling us that 112 00:08:00,027 --> 00:08:04,237 Aeneas is a different kind of captain. Remember what Scylla and Charybdis forced 113 00:08:04,237 --> 00:08:07,132 Odysseus into. Well, he's going to have to choose one or 114 00:08:07,132 --> 00:08:09,869 the other. If he chooses Charybdis he could lose all 115 00:08:09,869 --> 00:08:14,027 his men so he's just going to sacrifice some of his men and go past Scylla and 116 00:08:14,027 --> 00:08:16,606 have them be eaten. Well, Aeneas finds another way. 117 00:08:16,606 --> 00:08:20,080 Rather than try to go through there let's go round the outside of Sicily. 118 00:08:20,261 --> 00:08:25,028 That outside path there around the southern edge moving his way westward in 119 00:08:25,028 --> 00:08:28,227 that way. So he avoids altogether the tough choice 120 00:08:28,227 --> 00:08:33,175 that Odysseus found himself with, and it is the wisdom here and respect for all of 121 00:08:33,175 --> 00:08:38,727 his peers, all of his, all of the men in his crew that I think Virgil is making a 122 00:08:38,727 --> 00:08:44,170 strong point of pointing out to us. So we get to this land of Aetna, and on 123 00:08:44,170 --> 00:08:49,722 that land we meet the Cyclops. We hear about him and the way we get into 124 00:08:49,722 --> 00:08:54,311 the Cyclops's tale is, again, interestingly from this figure 125 00:08:54,311 --> 00:08:58,456 Achemenides. Achemenides is someone who was abandoned 126 00:08:58,456 --> 00:09:02,452 by Odysseus. On page 87 to 89 we hear his story, and he 127 00:09:02,452 --> 00:09:07,190 talks about how my shipmates left me here. So we're going to get. 128 00:09:07,190 --> 00:09:12,585 Odysseus' famous example of him being a grand hero and defeating the Cyclops we're 129 00:09:12,585 --> 00:09:17,786 going to get a window on what that's all about via one of the men that Odysseus 130 00:09:17,786 --> 00:09:21,102 abandoned. So what we're learning about Odysseus so 131 00:09:21,102 --> 00:09:26,628 far from the episode that we saw with Cynon the abandoned man here, the sort of 132 00:09:26,628 --> 00:09:31,698 brush off to Ithaca is that Odysseus is a conniving liar and he's someone who 133 00:09:31,698 --> 00:09:36,639 doesn't get all his men home safe. So the different values that are emerging 134 00:09:36,639 --> 00:09:42,570 in this story are contrasted specifically with the kind of values were, we were used 135 00:09:42,570 --> 00:09:45,587 to seeing Placed front and center in Homer's story. 136 00:09:45,587 --> 00:09:49,165 A different kind of hero here. We're going to focus on that in a coming 137 00:09:49,165 --> 00:09:52,541 lecture but notice what's happening with the legend of Odysseus. 138 00:09:52,541 --> 00:09:56,724 He has been recast now in something that is fair enough but a different kind of 139 00:09:56,724 --> 00:09:59,143 casting. He's a nasty liar and someone you can't 140 00:09:59,143 --> 00:10:01,612 trust. The, the Romans are not going to embrace 141 00:10:01,612 --> 00:10:05,619 that figure at all. So after we hear the tale of the Cyclops, 142 00:10:05,619 --> 00:10:10,550 we make our way around Sicily avoiding again, so and Charybdis, 143 00:10:10,745 --> 00:10:16,650 We've could have gone there right after our right after our meeting on Aetna with, 144 00:10:16,844 --> 00:10:21,192 with Achaemenids But instead, we go around and we get to Drepanum. 145 00:10:21,386 --> 00:10:25,604 From there, we know that, the father and Kysis passes away. 146 00:10:25,604 --> 00:10:28,913 Sad thing for Aeneas, but a kind of necessary thing. 147 00:10:28,913 --> 00:10:33,715 The past now needs to be inhabited and carried forward by, by Aeneas. 148 00:10:33,715 --> 00:10:36,570 It's no longer going to be up to his father. 149 00:10:36,570 --> 00:10:40,492 Other to carry traditional it's now passed down to the next generation. 150 00:10:40,658 --> 00:10:45,133 There are some that have looked at this set of journey that, that goes one and 151 00:10:45,133 --> 00:10:49,646 talk about yes, there is a. Definitely an Odyssean character to them, 152 00:10:49,646 --> 00:10:53,377 and quality to them. But there's also, not only Odysseus's 153 00:10:53,377 --> 00:10:57,114 journey is being. Captured here but also some of Telemachus' 154 00:10:57,114 --> 00:11:01,387 journey is being capture here. Aeneas is referred to as a young man by 155 00:11:01,387 --> 00:11:05,721 the Trojans as he runs into them. Some of them school him and bring him 156 00:11:05,721 --> 00:11:10,482 along, especially Helenus and Andromache. He's being raised and nurtured in the 157 00:11:10,482 --> 00:11:15,244 adventures he has, in some ways parallel to the way Telemachus is in books one 158 00:11:15,244 --> 00:11:19,455 through four of the Odyssey. Now that's not to say that Telemachus is 159 00:11:19,455 --> 00:11:22,996 the only parallel. Odysseus is there too but it's a way of 160 00:11:22,996 --> 00:11:28,001 seeing how Aeneas, or Virgil always takes elements from Homer and puts a different 161 00:11:28,001 --> 00:11:30,810 spin on. And twist them just a little bit, and, and 162 00:11:30,980 --> 00:11:34,830 comes up with something entirely new in his way of treating them. 163 00:11:34,830 --> 00:11:40,154 So after we buried or after we've left the father of Drepanum. We are on our way now 164 00:11:40,154 --> 00:11:44,946 to Carthage we're going to pick back up with the story where Virgil start had 165 00:11:44,946 --> 00:11:47,608 Aeneas take it over at the close of Book one. 166 00:11:47,785 --> 00:11:52,755 We're going to learn about some events that happen there in Carthage focusing on 167 00:11:52,755 --> 00:11:54,730 what happens with. Dido, especially. 168 00:11:54,901 --> 00:11:59,570 Before we do, let's talk a little bit more about what we've learned about this new 169 00:11:59,570 --> 00:12:01,620 Roman hero this figure of Aeneas.