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VENUS’ BOOTS AND THE SHADOW OF CAESAR IN BOOK 1 OF VIRGIL'S AENEID*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2015

Jake Nabel
Jake Nabel*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
*
jtn35@cornell.edu
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Extract

      uirginibus Tyriis mos est gestare pharetram,
      purpureoque alte suras uincire cothurno.
      It is customary for us Tyrian girls to carry a quiver
      and to lace our calves up high in red boots.
    (Verg. Aen. 1.336–7)
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 passage 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.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , December 2015 , pp. 689 - 692
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Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I thank Frederick Ahl, Barry Strauss, Michael Fontaine, Bruce Gibson and the journal's anonymous reader for suggestions that greatly improved this article. All translations are my own.

References

1 See esp. Harrison, E.L., ‘Why did Venus wear boots? − Some reflections on Aeneid 1.314f.’, PVS 12 (1972–3), 10–25 Google Scholar. Cf. Wilhelm, M.P., ‘Venus, Diana, Dido and Camilla in the “Aeneid”’, Vergilius 33 (1987), 43–8Google Scholar; Reckford, K., ‘Recognizing Venus (I): Aeneas meets his mother’, Arion 3.2 & 3 (1995–6), 1–42 Google Scholar; F. Ahl (trans.), Virgil: Aeneid (Oxford, 2007), 330–5.

2 Harrison (n. 1), 20 and n. 52. On the correspondence (close but not identical) between purpureus and puniceus see Varro, Ling. 5.113; J. André, Étude sur les termes de couleur dans la langue latine (Paris, 1949), 88–102; R.J. Edgeworth, The Colors of the Aeneid (New York, 1992), 52–3, 150–1. On Virgil's purples see also Ton, J. Del, ‘De uario purpurae colore apud Vergilium’, Latinitas 1 (1953), 31–7Google Scholar. For the identification in Augustan literature of the cothurnus with the tragic buskin see also J.P. Poe, ‘The cothurnus and Greek tragedy’, in S. Heilen (ed.), In Pursuit of Wissenschaft: Festschrift für William M. Calder III zum 75. Geburtstag (Hildesheim/New York, 2008), 341–50. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 7.32 puniceo stabis suras euincta coturno.

3 Xen. Hell. 2.3.30–1; Isid. Etym. 19.34.5; Poe (n. 2), 345.

4 Cic. Phil. 2.85; Div. 1.119; Nic. Dam. Aug. 21; Val. Max. 1.6.13; Plin. HN 11.186; App. B Civ. 2.117. See the discussion in S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford, 1971), 271.

5 Suet. Iul. 43.1. But note the view of M. Reinhold, History of Purple as a Status Symbol in Antiquity (Bruxelles, 1970), 45–7, that this legislation may have been relatively limited in scope. Dio (49.16.1) says that Augustus later passed a similar law, though—as Reinhold notes—the passage is a problematic one.

6 Festus 128L; Isid. Etym. 19.34.10; cf. H.R. Goette, ‘Mulleus-embas-calceus’, JDAI 103 (1988), 401–67, at 446–7.

7 A. Alföldi, ‘Insignien und Tracht der römischen Kaiser’, MDAI(R) 50 (1935), 1–171, at 30. On the origins of the gens Iulia in Alba Longa, see Weinstock (n. 4), 5–7.

8 Dio 43.43.3 τό τε ὅλον τῇ τε Ἀφροδίτῃ πᾶς ἀνέκειτο. Cf. App. B Civ. 2.76; Suet. Iul. 6.1, 49.3, 49.61, 78.1, 84.1; Nic. Dam. Aug. 28; Cic. Fam. 8.15.2.

9 Weinstock (n. 4), 80–90.

10 Weinstock (n. 4), 85.

11 Dio, fr. 6.1; W. Burkert, ‘Caesar und Romulus-Quirinus’, Historia 11 (1962), 356–76.

12 Athen. 12.535F; Plut. Dem. 41.4; Reinhold (n. 5), 31; Weinstock (n. 4), 325. Demetrius’ boots are called πορφύρα, a red-purple colour associated (like purpureus and puniceus) with Phoenicia, since the dye used to produce it was manufactured there: D.W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Fishes (London, 1947), 209–18; M.C. Astour, ‘The origin of the terms “Canaan,” “Phoenician,” and “purple”’, JNES 24 (1965), 346–50, at 348–50.

13 Athen. 6.253E. On Demetrius and Aphrodite see Müller, S., ‘In the favour of Aphrodite: Sulla, Demetrius Poliorcetes, and the symbolic value of the hetaira’, AHB 23 (2009), 38–49 Google Scholar, at 44–7.

14 See R.F. Dobbin, ‘Julius Caesar in Jupiter's prophecy, Aeneid, Book 1’, ClAnt 14 (1995), 5–40, at 6 n. 1, with references.

15 On the theatre, see Ahl (n. 1), 333. The importance of Carthage's refoundation to the composition of the Aeneid is fully discussed in E.L. Harrison, ‘The Aeneid and Carthage’, in T. Woodman and D. West (edd.), Poetry and Politics in the Age of Augustus (Cambridge, 1984), 95–115.

16 Strabo 17.3.15; Plut. Caes. 57.8; Dio 43.50.3–5; App. Pun. 136.644–5. Gaius Gracchus first proposed the establishment of a colonia at Carthage in 123/2 b.c.e., but the Senate cancelled the project owing to bad omens (Livy, Epit. 60; Plut. C. Gracch. 10–11; App. Pun. 136.644–5; B Civ. 1.24).

17 See Harrison (n. 15), 95–6 and nn. 2–3, with references.

18 Ros, K.E., ‘The Roman theater at Carthage’, AJA 100 (1996), 449–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 484.

19 App. Pun. 136.645–7 ἐντυχὼν ἄρα ταῖς ὑπογραφαῖς τοῦ πατρός. Cf. J. Richardson, ‘Spain, Africa, and Rome after Carthage’, in D. Hoyos (ed.), A Companion to the Punic Wars (Malden, MA, 2011), 467–82, at 480–1.

20 Weinstock (n. 4), 23–6.

21 Dio 43.43.3 πείθειν πάντας ἤθελεν ὅτι καὶ ἄνθος τι ὥρας ἀπ᾽ αὐτῆς ἔχοι. Cf. the claim attributed to Cicero that Caesar had lost his florem aetatis a Venere orti to Nicomedes of Bithynia: Suet. Iul. 49.3; Weinstock (n. 4), 18 and n. 3.

22 SHA, Ael. 2.4 (where the author also mentions Caesar's oculi caesii); Lydus, Mens. 4.102; Festus 50L.; Isid. Etym. 9.3.12. Plutarch (Caes. 4.9) has Cicero remarking on the young Caesar's excessive attention to his hairstyle, though the author views the remark as apocryphal. Given this etymological connection, Caesar's baldness later in life (Suet. Iul. 45.2; Dio 43.43.1) was a particular embarrassment. See F. Ahl, Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca and London, 1985), 74–81.

23 Above, p. 3.

24 See André (n. 2), 98, citing comparable uses of purpureus in Verg. Aen. 11.819; Tib. 3.4.30.