>In a message dated 11/18/99 4:10:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, >[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > ><< Along with the problem > of how Aeneas saw what he claims goes the sight of Priam's body lying on > the shore, headless and some distance from the city. Unless Aeneas had > binoculars with night vision, one must examine why Aeneas and Vergil > include this detail. >> > >I have always loved this passage, but I and many others have taken it to mean >that Troy has lost its leader rather than Priam his head. It is difficult >for me to conceive that Priam could be described in (II.557) as ... iacet >ingens litore truncus when Vergil has just shown us a Priam weak and long >past his prime (II.507-511). The head, Priam, has been torn from the >shoulders of Troy, which now lies, after its destruction, sine nomine. I >suppose that Neoptolemus could have cut off his head and hauled him a few >miles down to the seaside, prefer the symbolic interpretation.
Whatever else is going on here, there is surely an allusion to another headless body lying on a shore--that of Pompey (hence 'ingens,' hinting at 'magnus'). So Servius ad loc. "Pompei tangit historiam," continuing "quod autem dicit 'litore', illud ... respicit quod in Pacuvii tragoedia continetur: Priami corpus ad litus tractum." DS adds a couple of less plausible interpretations of 'litore,' which obviously bothered ancient readers too. ++++++++++++++++++++++ Gregory Hays Dept. of Classics, 401 Cabell Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 http://members.aol.com/greghays ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
