A study of the text, language and imagery of Vergil’s Aeneid9 176-502

Abstract

This thesis consists of a Commentary on Vergil's Aeneid 9. 176-502, using the OCT, edited by R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1972 reprint). It is made up of two parts: Introduction and Commentary. The Introduction comprises sections on the characters of Nisus and Euryalus (as they appear in the text and the literary precedents that influenced their depiction); the relationship between them and its ramifications; their position in the Aeneid, their 'type' in the Classical Tradition (with particular attention to their characterisation as warriors); the response of a Roman audience to them and what Vergil's own perception of them might have been in the light of his own supposed homosexuality. The Commentary is divided into five Sections: 1: 176-313 — Planning and preparation 2: 314-366 — The Aρίστείαι of Nisus and Euryalus 3: 367-449 — The deaths of Nisus and Euryalus 4: 450-472 —Interlude 5: 473-503 — Epilogue: the lament of Euryalus's mother. Each section consists of a brief introduction and commentary on the text contained in it. As a whole, the Commentary deals with textual criticism, the text’s relation to the rest of the Aeneid and the works of other Classical authors and the significance of these allusions (with particular attention paid to the close parallels with the Homeric Doloneia: Iliad 10). It also deals with the underlying imagery of the homoerotic. elegiac and Platonic ethos of what is essentially an epic and martial setting, and of the influence of divine and external forces on the action of the characters.