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Vergil's Furies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Robert J. Edgeworth
Affiliation:
Louisiana State University

Extract

Two decades ago J. H. Waszink proposed in these pages a solution to the puzzle produced by Vergil's use of the phrase agmina sororum of the Furies at Aeneid 6.571–72. His suggestion has received the serious attention which it warranted; but on further reflection his solution to the problem is seen to be unsatisfactory

Type
Notes & Observations
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

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References

1 Waszink, J. H., “Agmina Furiarum,” HTR 56 (1963) 711.Google Scholar

2 E.g., it is cited by Austin, Roland G., P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos, Liber Sextus: With a Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977).Google Scholar

3 Evidence for the Varronian ascription is summarized by Waszink, “Agmina Furiarum,” 9 nn. 6–9. It is not entirely conclusive.

4 Ibid., 7.

5 Trojan Women 457; Orestes 408, 1650.

6 At Theogony 217–22, Hesiod assigns to the Fates (who are three in number) many of the traditional functions of the Furies.

7 For a detailed treatment of the Erinyes in Homer and also in Greek and Etruscan cult, see Dietrich, B. C., Death, Fate and the Gods (London: Athlone, 1965) 91156, 232–39Google Scholar, which provides no grounds for thinking the number of the Erinyes to be fixed.

8 “Agmina Furiarum,” 7.

9 Ibid.; cf. Rapp, “Furiae,” in Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon, 1. 1559–64, here 1564; Waser, “Furiae,” PW 7. 308–14, here 312.

10 Tisiphone guards Tartarus “day and night” (noctesque diesque), Aeneid 6.555–56; the chambers of the Furies are in the Underworld, 6.273–80; cf. 6.605–7.

11 Cf. Aeneid 7.558–59. This is in accord with Aeschylus, Eumenides 365–66: “Zeus has held our blood-stained, hateful race unworthy of his converse” (trans. H. Lloyd-Jones).

12 That the word “apparent” at Aeneid 12.850 must imply continuous service as apparitores of Jupiter is the conclusion of Servius (ad loc.) and of Hübner, W., Dirae im römischen Epos (Hildesheim/New York: Olms, 1970 = Spudasmata 21) 1213.Google Scholar Of course there are many thematic similarities between the Dirae of book 12 and the Furies (especially Allecto in book 7); but these may be explained by their similarity of function in the symmetrical structure of the “tragedy of Turnus.” Cf. Hübner, Dirae, 34–42; Pöschl, V., Die Dichtkunst Virgils (Wiesbaden: Rohrer, 1950) 220Google Scholar = The Art of Vergil (trans. Seligson, G.; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1962) 133.Google Scholar

13 Aeneid 7.331; cf. 6.249–51. This is stressed by Aeschylus Eumenides 321–23, 416, 745, 791–92 = 821–22, 844 = 876.

14 Theogony 211–25; cf. 124–25.

15 Or perhaps half-sisters. In Hesiod, Night's offspring arise from her union with Erebus, while the Erinyes are daughters of Earth, impregnated at the castration of Uranus by Cronus (Theogony 182–85). Vergil makes Pluto the father of the Furies: Aeneid 7.327. But in any case, soror can be used to mean “half-sister”: see Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Glare, P. G. W.; Fair Lawn, NJ: Oxford University, 1982) s.v., l.b.Google Scholar

16 This same broader interpretation could be applied elsewhere, e.g., Aeneid 7.327–2.