Lines 607 ff." The Gates of War": Sunt geminae Belli portae (sic nomine dicunt) There are two or three points in Virgil's treatment of this episode which invite me to dwell on it for a moment. Archæologically he seems to be right on one point and quite wrong on another. This is, on the whole, the right account of what we used once to call the temple of Janus. It was really a double gateway, i.e., a building with two openings to right and left connected by a solid wall,1 like the Porta Carmentalis in historical times. Whether it was ever really a gate of the city may be doubted; it may have been an archway for religious purposes, like the Porta triumphalis, through which the army passed on its return from a war. The double gateway suggests that the host went out through one opening and returned through the other; and as in the story of the Fabii in Liv. ii. 49 the unlucky 1 Wissowa," Religion und Kultus der Römer," second edition, p. 104. 2 Josephus," Bell. Jud.," vii. 5, 4. I have dealt with this matter in an article entitled "Passing under the Yoke," Classical Review, vol. xxvii., p. 49. archway of the Porta Carmentalis was the righthand one, we may perhaps guess that the army went out through the left-hand one, returning by the other, which would then also be on their left hand. Mars, so far as we know, had nothing to do with this gate, and his name is here, I think, hardly more than the synonym for war, with which all Romans were by Virgil's time familiar. Janus is rightly presented as the spirit guarding the gate, not as a deity to whom it served as temple. We know of no sacrifice performed at this gate, nor any rite that could suggest its use as a fanum; the sacrifice of a ram to this numen on January 9 took place in the Regia. So far Virgil is historically right. But when he goes on to describe the opening of the gate, he carries out the unhistorical idea of which he has already given us a hint in the lines quoted above, that it was normally closed, fastened in fact by bolts and bars, a hundred of them, so that the strength of a mortal king or consul could hardly force them open. Virgil knew well enough that till his own age, the era of the Pax Augusta, the Roman Gates of War had only once been closed; but he could afford to defy tradition here, partly because he is not writing of historical Rome but of the city of Latinus, and mainly because he had already, near the beginning of his poem, made Jupiter foretell the day when the Gates would be perpetually closed, and the unholy spirit of strife (furor impius) would be imprisoned within them, bound with a hundred chains (i. 291 ff.). The result of this treatment is magnificent poetry, and it comes from the heart. The world of Virgil's day was thoroughly weary of war; and in entering on the story of the fierce struggle for Italy and civilization which was to occupy the rest of the Aeneid, he emphasizes again and again the madness and the wickedness of war. King Latinus shrank from the horrid task of opening the Gates (foeda ministeria): he fled and hid himself in the dark recesses of his palace. Juno, the cruel enemy of the Trojans, had herself to undertake the work (620-2). Line 620-" Regina deum (Juno) ": In Virgil's story the war is wholly due to Juno, with the loathsome Allecto as her agent. This is not simply because the Homeric Hera was the bitter enemy of the Trojans; that alone would not have made it possible for a Roman poet to employ her persistently against the chosen people, and against the decrees of Fate and Jupiter. How determined was her enmity we know from many passages, among which there is none better than v. 781 ff.: Venus complains " Iunonis gravis ira neque exsaturabile pectus cogunt me, Neptune, preces descendere in omnis; quam nec longa dies pietas nec mitigat ulla, nec Iovis imperio fatisque intracta quiescit." The fact is that the position of Juno at Rome was a curious one, and at no time a very important one, and for that reason a Roman poet might use her with a fair amount of licence. We used of course to think of her as the wife of Jupiter, and my distinguished friend, the author of the "Golden Bough," still, I believe, holds this opinion. But Roman gods did not have wives in the proper sense of that word, and Juno in the great Capitoline temple was no more the wife of Jupiter than her colleague Minerva. It used to be thought, on no good evidence at all, that the Flamen and Flaminica Dialis were priest and priestess of Jupiter and Juno; but it is now recognized that both served Jupiter only. There is, in fact, hardly anything to connect the two deities together except Homer and the wilful identification of Hera and Juno. Rid your mind of this identification, and you will recognize the poet's right to turn Juno to any account he pleases. Remember also that she was the representative of the female principle at Rome: that women thought of their Juno as men of their Genius. Emphatically we may say that in the Aeneid she represents the feminine temper, or at least some aspects of it which were well known in the last century P. C. Dr. Glover has rightly pointed out that she also in the poem stands for a false idea of empire. "Fate has decreed that one people shall rule the world; she prefers another, and she tries conclusions with Fate. Aeneas, as the agent of Fate, suffers.”2 1 Wissowa, op. cit. 516, note 2. I proved this point in Classical Review, vol. ix., p. 474 ff. This idea of empire is false, not only because it is backed up by a great female numen, whose temper is irreconcilable with the large masculine benevolence of Jupiter, but because with the aid of that numen, it is embodied in a woman, Dido, foreshadowing the beautiful dangerous queen of Virgil's own day. Juno in the Aeneid is well worth careful study; even the first fifty lines of book i., well weighed (as seldom happens), will do much to help us. At the outset of his poem, with all the emphasis he can use, Virgil associates her in interest-an interest perverse in the eyes of all Romans-with the most deadly enemy Rome ever had to meet, and with the mythical queen of Carthage, the Cleopatra of his poetical fancy. Dido's tender arts were for Aeneas Iunonia hospitia," and would bring to mind the equally dangerous blandishments of the Egyptian queen.1 This use of Juno in the Aeneid was perhaps made easier and more natural because, as a goddess, she belonged rather to Rome's early enemies than to Rome herself. She was a familiar figure in many or most of the cities mentioned in the pageant-on the Aventine, at Tibur Praeneste and Falerii, in southern Etruria (as Uni), and in Campania.2 But at Rome, strange to say, she had no great local name and fame in early times, and thus no feelings could be hurt if a Roman poet made her the deadly enemy of Rome. 1 See my "Religious Experience of the Romans," P. 414 ff. 2 See article Juno in Roscher's Lexicon," p. 604; Wissowa, "Religion und Kultus " (second edition), p. 187. |