Exploring Epithets with Ms Cebon

In her talk, Ms Cebon used two epithets that are found throughout the poem, saevus (savage, fierce, cruel) and infelix (unhappy, unlucky). She explored how they can arguably prove an anti-Augustan reading of the poem.

The Aeneid is an epic Latin poem written by the poet Virgil, about the Trojan hero Aeneas, and his fated journey from the destruction of the Trojan War to founding a “New Troy” in Italy. Crucially, Aeneas has to conquer and kill inhabitants of the local area in order to found his city. The poem, written between 30 and 19 BCE, is generally thought to have been propaganda for the newly-appointed first Roman emperor, Augustus. Just as conquest (and killing) is crucial to Aeneas’ mission, so too was it necessary for Augustus. Aeneas is usually viewed as a proto-Augustus, and characters on his side of this conquest as proto-Romans. By contrast, his enemies are seen as representatives of those conquered by Rome, in its quest for an empire.

In the poem, the two epithets saevus and infelix are used in almost equal amounts for both pro- and anti-Trojan characters (and are both used more during the latter half of the Aeneid, in which Aeneas fights to conquer the Latins). This implies a similar characterisation of both sides of the conflict. By looking carefully at their usage, we might argue that Virgil does not simply praise Aeneas (and therefore Augustus) in his poem, as scholars assumed for decades. In fact, he was reflecting a great deal of complexity in the expansion of an empire, and showing that cruelty is fundamental to colonialism.

By tracing the pathways of epithets in the Aeneid, we can fundamentally change our perspective on this crucial work of Augustan literature, and more fully understand Roman views on imperialism.