The following three lectures will examine the impact of Hellenism on Roman literature, beginning with epic first. It's the oldest surviving literary genre, yet also had a higher status than any other genre. Some of the greatest works in both Latin and Greek are epic, yet the genre underwent a complete transformation when adopted by the Romans. So it remained essentially true to its Greek roots in purely formal ways.

When we say it's the oldest surviving literary genre, we don't mean just in terms of Greek literature, but in terms of the entire Mediterranean culture. We're thinking of the so-called epic of Gilgamesh, the first evidence for which, dates to the early 2nd millennium.

Our word epic comes from the Greek epos, which in the plural, epea, means epic poetry. When we use epic today, as a noun, it's usually prefaced by the word Hollywood. When used as an adjective, it's often followed by the word struggle, challenge, or the like. In antiquity however, it's only used in literature.

We're going to concentrate primarily on Virgil's Aeneid from 30-19 BCE, and on the epics from which it drew, notably Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Yet we'll have something to say later about Roman epic as well. We've chosen the Aeneid since it's not only one of the most spectacular achievements of Greco-Roman culture in any artistic medium, but because it also happens to provide us with the most candid expression of Roman identity that has come down to us in any literary genres.

We know nothing definite about Homer, not even whether he was blind, as is always suggested. We don't actually know whether he was a single person, or whether Homer was the name for the many singers who composed oral epic around 700 BCE. To begin with we'll identify ten characteristics regarding both the form and subject matter of the epics we're discussing.

First, an epic is a very lengthy narrative poem, several hundred thousand lines in length. The Iliad for instance is over 15,000 lines long, the Odyssey over 12,000 lines, and the Aeneid over 10,000. Length is important because it allows the working through of a grand theme over a period of time.

Second, epic is written in a meter known as the dactylic hexameter. The dactyl is a metrical unit consisting of a long syllable, followed by two short syllables (long-short-short). The hexameter line contains six dactyls.

That would get awfully monotonous were it not for the fact that the two shorts could be resolved into a long syllable so that instead of long-short-short, you get the option of long-long (a spondee). This meant that there could be all manner of variations between one line and the next, for poetic or dramatic effects. There was also a system of stresses which introduced further variation. The opening line of the Iliad runs as follows:

"Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Achilles the son of Peleus"

"Menin aeide thea, Peleia d'o Akhileos"

ME nin a (dactyl)
EI de the (dactyl)
A, PEL (spondee)

E i a (dactyl)
D'O a khil (dactyl)
E OS (spondee)

The opening line of the Aeneid runs thus:

"I sing of arms and the man who was the first to arrive from the shores of Troy."

AR ma vir (dactyl)
UM que ca (dactyl)
NO, TROI (spondee)
AE QUI (spondee)
PRI mus ab (dactyl)
OR IS (spondee)

It's an incredibly stately line, and it was an incredible achievement of the Romans to adapt it to their language.

Thirdly, epic adopts a self-consciously elevated style. It's difficult to define exactly what this boils down to, but since the subject is serious, the diction has to be serious too. There are no colloquialisms for instance, so the language in inherently serious.

Fourth, epic uses an abundance of similes. The latter are a way for the poet to say, "I don't know how to put what I'm about to tell you, in words that will make it easy for you to understand, so let me compare it to something you do know well." These often extend the scope of the action into the natural world, as when Virgil likens the workers to building the new city of Carthage to bees. As such, they make the poem more universal.

Fifth, epic appropriates elaborate speeches. There are relatively few exchanges of brief dialog.

Sixth, the theme is truly "epic" in scale and intensity. It's about great events, great men, great achievements, and sometimes as well, great mistakes.

Seventh, there's usually a journey that is undertaken by the hero, the central figure in the story. Odysseus has to get home to Ithaca, Aeneas has to find a new homeland.

Eighth, the hero has to make discoveries about himself and about the world around him, discoveries that can be very painful. So he goes on an internal journey, as well as an external journey. Achilles learns that sticking by your ideals, without compromising, may carry a very heavy price tag with it. In his case, this is the life of Patroclus, his dearest friend.

Ninth, the gods play a major part in the action. They don't actually run the entire show, but they are interested in the final outcome, and they repeatedly, if somewhat sporadically, assist or hinder the hero in his objectives.

Tenth, epic says something profound about man's place in the universe. This includes his relationship with the gods, about human frailty and ignorance, and about human courage and determination. In so doing, it raises difficult questions about the value and purpose of heroism.

Greek epic probably originated as hymns to the gods. Even by the time of Homer, or the group of singers who went under that name, the genre had been in existence in the Greek world for a very long time. Homer's subject is the Trojan War, and his earlier work, the Iliad, is the poem about Ilion, the Greek word for Troy. It covers a period of about 10 days in the 10th and final year of the Trojan War. The Odyssey, the poem about Odysseus, was written a generation later and describes the return home of Odysseus at the end of the Trojan War.

Other epic poets, known as the Cyclic poets, also used the Trojan Wars, but only fragments of their work has survived. The reason for this is that Homer was simply too good. He effectively killed off all the competition, which means that nobody bothered to transmit their poems to further generations.

The other epic poet contemporary with Homer, whose work we do have now, is Hesiod. The Theogony is on how the Olympian gods come to possess their power, and Works and Days focuses on how the peasant farmer should structure their year. Yet this didn't hold much appeal to the Romans, so their influence was minimal.

The epic lost its dominance in the Greek world as literacy gain sway. Homer's popularity remained undiminished and in fact he led the field in the number of literary papyri found in Egypt. These are the papyri containing scraps of his poetry. Only Egypt with its hot sands has left us this kind of evidence from antiquity.

After Homer there's a gap of 400 years before the next surviving epic, a highly sophisticated poem entitled the Argonautica, by Apollonius of Rhodes writing in Hellenistic Alexandria of the 3rd century. The subject was the quest of Jason and the Argonauts for the golden fleece.

The Argonautica greatly influenced Virgil, notably in the portrayal of the passionate sorceress Medea, who provided the model for equally passionate Dido, queen of Carthage. Roman epic was greatly indebted to Greek models right from the word go, beginning with the translation of Homer's Odyssey into Latin by the Roman poet and dramatist Livius Andronicus 280-205 BCE.

We recall he came to Rome as a slave where he taught, before earning his freedom and turning his talents to literature. Only a few fragments of his poem have survived. It was written in the 6 foot iambic, the so-called Saturnian meter. This is a shorter meter than the hexameter, since its iamb is meterical unit with just a short and long syllable.

Livius' slightly younger contemporary Gnaeus Naevius 270-201, a Roman dramatist and epic poet, wrote an original historical Roman epic called Bellum Poenicum (The Punic War) in 7 books. This is the conflict between Rome and Carthage between 264-241 BCE, and the book influenced Virgil in a number of ways. Gnaeus gave particular prominence to Aeneas, whose story he told in the form of an extended digression.

A generation later, the epic poet and dramatist Quintus Ennius 239-169, wrote a poem he finished around 180 called the Annales, or Annals. Enniusis was a fascinating individual from Messapia, so was not a Roman by birth at least. These Italian peoples inhabited the heel of Italy. They served largely as auxiliaries in the Roman army, and it was through this service that Ennius met Pliny the Elder, a celebrated Hellenophobe.

Like Livius Andronicus, Ennius was a teacher and dramatist. He also wrote in a number of other genres as well. So there's a sort of career path emerging here of an immigrant from southern Italy, familiar with Greek literature, comes to Rome, teaches, and eventually makes a name for himself in the world of letters.

Ennius' Annales was in 18 books, and comprised 20,000 lines, although we only have 600. Yet this is enough to indicate he is a very considerable poet. In fact, he's credited with achieving the separation of colloquial Latin from literary Latin. Virgil was steeped in his poetry, and if the Annales had survived, we probably would have observe many echoes of it in the Aeneid, as we do of the Iliad and Odyssey.

His poem covered the whole of Rome's history from the fall of Troy, down to his own day. In the last two centuries of the Republic, it became central to a Roman education, in much the same way the works of Homer were central to the education of the Greeks. As Horace tells us, he was alter Homerus, another Honer. In fact, Ennius himself claims to be the recreation of Homer.

Well that's going a bit far, and if he were alive today, we'd probably regard it as a shameless plug to gain media attention. What's important for us is first that Ennius saw himself in direct political descent from Homer. Second, that his claim to be the very embodiment of his great poetic predecessor is evidence of just how high Homer's reputation was in Roman circles during the second century BCE. Ennius was in fact the first to abandon Saturnian meter and put Latin into hexamter:

Quis potis ingentis oras evolvere belli?

Who can unroll this great war from end to end?

There is a sort of cragginess, even an awkwardness to this verse. Yet it's extremely powerful nonetheless. One might almost say that the awkwardness contributes to its monumentality, as if Ennius is shift around very large boulders that haven't yet been cut into ashlar blocks.

There are other reasons why we should salute Ennius as an innovator. It was he who adapted the genre into a useful vehicle for the expression of national sentiment. Homer had focused on individual act of heroism and on the individual's quest for self-glorification.

Ennius however focused upon Romanitas, Rome's traditional values and her military achievements. The Iliad by contrast, is not the least individualistic. It was the Trojan War, from as much of the perspective of the Trojans and it was the Greeks. It was very sympathetic in fact to the Trojans.

Since Ennius played a major part in the education of Roman citizens, it's fair to say that he influenced how the Romans looked back at the past and how they thought of themselves as a nation. His poem maintains its place in the curriculum for a century and a half. Ultimately it's replaced by the Aeneid, which Virgil composed 30-19 BCE at the request of Augustus, which he left unfinished at his death in 19 BCE. We don't mean he didn't get to the last line, so to speak, although the poem does end somewhat dramatically.

It's rather that he intended to make revisions to what was already written. He was reportedly so unsatisfied with it, that he requested on his deathbed that it be burnt. Augustus was probably hoping for a poem that would glorify his achievements, acclaiming his victory at the Battle of Actium. yet instead, he got something far greater indeed.

Virgil borrowed heavily from Ennius, adapting and incorporating several of his lines. For instance, his line:

"Et mec' ingentis / oras evolvite belli"

This imitates the line of Ennius we quoted a moment ago:

Quis potis ingentis oras evolvere belli?

Who can unroll this great war from end to end?

The debts we can detect most easily though, are from Homer, both the Iliad and Odyssey. These are the opening words of the poem:

"Arma virumque cano"

I sing of arms and the man"

They actually evoke both poems, since the Iliad is about war and its destruction, while the Odyssey is about the wanderings of a man on his way home from war. What Virgil does is to incorporate the themes of both epics into his poem. Yet he does so by reversing the Homeric order, as ancient critics were the first to point out.

Book 1-6 are the Odyssean half, which describe the Aeneas' search for a new home, following the destruction of Troy, whereas books 7-12 are the Iliadic half, which describe the war that ensues in Italy when Aeneas eventually arrives in his distant homeland. The poem is in fact a completion of the Iliad's theme from the perspective of the Trojans. Virgil takes over many episodes from Homer, like his description of funeral games, the hero's visit to Hades, the and the foraging of divine armor by Hephaestus, Vulcan.

Yet what's really fascinating about the Aeneid for our purposes, is that it's entirely Roman and un-Greek, since the poem is anything but a revival of Greek legend in Roman drab. In fact, the Aeneas, perhaps more than any other literary work, demonstrates how different the Romans conceived of their place in the universe, and how different they saw the world.

Let's explain that a bit more. First, the poem is infused with what were the quintessential Roman values of fides and pietas. The former is fidelity, faithfulness, sticking to one's ideas and seeing them through. Pietas is translates as piety, a rather stuffy concept in today's world. What it means in Roman terms is doing the right thing, to one's parents, one's country, to the dead, and for the gods. Aeneas epitomizes piety in the Roman sense.

"Sum puis Aeneas"

I am pious Aeneas"

This, his opening line when introducing himself to Dido, on whose shore he has been shipwrecked. Talk about a good one-liner for a girl! One of the most remarkable images which Virgil is that of Aeneas fleeing from the land of Troy with his father Anchises on his back, while hand in hand with his little son Ascanius. Anchises is grasping an image of the penates, the household gods which they take with them so that they can start a new home elsewhere.

All of that is distinctly Roman, because only a community with a strong sense of duty could have dedicated itself to the public good in the way that the Romans did. The Aeneid is therefor an intensely moral poem. By contrast, neither the Iliad or Odyssey is in the business of promoting values, at least in promoting any values that are specifically Greek.

Second, although the divine pantheon is the same, Zeus is Jupiter, Hera is Juno, Virgil's gods are very different from Homer's gods, particularly of the Iliad. They acknowledge at times, the pointlessness of involving themselves in human affairs. In the Aeneid by contrast, the gods are utterly determined, in pursuit of their personal goals, and are far more formidable in consequence.

The exception is Jupiter, who has a cosmic plan for the foundation of Rome. In the Iliad, as he promises to assist the Trojans in order to give honor to Achilles, in other words, to make the Greeks realize they're hopeless without him. We're told that it's a pla, but in actual effect, he's repaying a debt to Achilles' mother Thetis. In addition, several otehr gods, including Hera, Athena, Poseidon, and Apollo, have a personal animus against Troy.

In the Aeneid by contrast, Jupiter's plan, which is to settle the Trojan refugees in Italy, has implications not only for Aeneas, but also for all future generations, or at least for that vast part of the human race that will come under Roman rule. In other words, Jupiter comes close to orchestrating human destiny. As he says in the poem to the Romans, I set no limits in either time or place. I have given them an empire that has no end.

Third, the Aeneid exhibits an profound sense of historical perspective. Though it's set at a precise moment in time, it constantly extends its arc beyond the present moment, into the future, or rather, into the Roman readers' presence. Now this comes out particularly strongly in book 6 when Aeneas descends to the underworld and meets with his father Achises, now dead, who reveals to him the future course of human history. He describes the seven kings, the establishment of the Republic, and of the Augustinean princeps that followed.

What makes this episode extremely poignant is that Aeneas can hardly understand any of this, except in the most general terms. So it means next to nothing to him, though he realized he is an important part of it in some vague way. The most poignant moment of all is when Anchises points out to him a young man named Marcellus, who is Augustus' nephew, then says:

"Tu Marcellus eris" (You will be Marcellus)

Yet Marcellus was already dead by the time Virgil was writing. He'd been adopted by Augustus in 25 BCE, and had died just 2 years later, at the age of 19. He'd been regarded as a possible successor to Augustus, and his death made a profound impact on the Roman people, as well as the imperial family. So we see the past, which is to say, the time of the action of the poem, looking at Rome's future, which is already to the reader, its past.

By contrast the Iliad and Odyssey hardly ever look outside the legendary present in which they are set, other than in instancing the fate of Aeneas. According to Poseidon in the Iliad, Aeneas will survive the war to rule the Trojans, the prophesy of course that is adopted by the Romans.

Fourth, the Aeneid is infused with a pervasive sense of melancholy. Aeneas himself is defined, one might say, almost by loss. In the course of the poem he loses his wife, his father, and his mistress Dido, when she commits suicide after he abandons her in order to follow his destiny. Dido never forgave him when they meet in Hades.

Loss is the price Aeneas must pay for being marked out for the instrument of Jupiter's plan. It's also the price Virgil seems to be saying that the Roman people must pay for being the world's sole superpower. Aeneas will live only three years after the final episode in the poem, so he won't live to see the foundation of Rome's greatness laid.

There's much sadness in Homer as well, yet the grief of Achilles for instance, and the death of his dear friend Patroclus, does not color the entire poem as does Aeneas' sadness. First, because Patroclus dies 2/3 of the way through the Iliad, and second, because Achilles' response is as much anger as it is of grief. In the Odyssey, Odysseus is reunited with Penelope at the end of the epic.

Fifth, there's the extraordinary ending when Aeneas, the personification of piety and self obedience to duty, kills his enemy Turnus on the battlefield in a sudden burst of rage, just as Turnus is pleading fro his life. Aeneas does this because he sees Turnus wearing a sword belt which he had stripped from a young Trojan who was very dear to Aeneas when Turnus killed him. The incident is clearly reminiscent of Achilles' refusal to show any mercy to Hektor, the killer of his friend Patroclus, when Hektor begs him to accept a ransom for the return of his dead body to his parents.

Yet this is a profound difference with the Iliad, which nearly ends on a note of redemption. Achilles and Priam, the king of Troy, weep together when Priam comes to beg for the return of son's body. Achilles' anger, in other words, has by the poem's conclusion, dissipated itself. The Aeneid by contrast, ends with Aeneas' thoroughly uncharacteristic outburst of anger.

Most educated Romans would have picked up on the Homeric references and reworkings, since they would have been familiar with Homer's verse. Some Roman thought Virgil had even beaten Homer at his own game. For instance, the elegist Peopertius c.55 BCE - 15 CE, wrote that something greater than the Iliad was being born. We see from the remark that the Romans were deeply conscious of the fact that they were placing themselves inside a tradition beginning with that Greeks, similar to what Ennius had done earlier. Yet Virgil himself was profoundly deferential, memorably observing:

"it was easier to rob Hercules of his bow, than Homer of his verses."

Yet epic poetry didn't come to a grinding halt after Virgil. Ovid 43 BCE - 17 CE, was a generation younger, and a poet of a different stamp. His Metamorphoses, meaning transformations in Greek, where the transformations in question are the shape shiftings that occur in mythology. Gods assume the shape of humans, beasts, or rivers, while humans are transformed into animals, trees, stars, and so on.

The poem begins with the creation of the human race, and ends with the recent history of Julius Caesar being transformed into a god, however ironic it may be. It's a patchwork of more than 200 tales, taken mainly from Greek myth. In fact, Ovid is one of our principal sources for our knowledge of Greek mythology.

Lucan 39-65, wrote an epic poem during the reign of Nero r.54-68, called On the Civil War (Bellum civile), also known as Pharsalia. The civil war in question is the one between Pompey and Caesar which took place in the early 40s. The atmosphere of Lucan's poem is worlds removed from that of the Aeneid however.

Although it's heavily dependent on the Aeneid in a number of ways, including scenes which Lucan took over and reworked, and also in its emphasis on the pathos of war, whereas Virgil celebrates Rome's refoundation under Augustus, Lucan deals with what he perceived to be the los of liberty resulting from the demise of the Roman Republic, which became particularly acute under Nero. In fact, Lucan's poem has been described as an anti-Aeneid, because of the negativity and pessimism which pervades it. Thre are no gods overseeing the action.

Lucan was forced to commit suicide by Nero, accused of being involved in a plot against his life. Yet he'd lost favor long before that, perhaps because his poem was seen as a personal attack on Nero,even though it contains a panegyric to the emperor. Conceivably too, he was seen as an artistic rival by Nero himself. Whatever the true motives for eliminating Lucan were, later poets stuck to safer subjects!

The Latin epic poet Silius Italicus 26-102, wrote an epic about Second Punic War, entitle Punica, in which the again play a major role. Hannibal become the instrument of Juno's wrath.

A generation later, Statius 45-96, who grew up in Neopolis, a very Greek city, as we've seen, wrote an epic called Thebais, aka Thebaid (Story of Thebes). It deals with the succession to the throne of Thebes, which broke out between the sons of Oedipus on their father's death. It's theme was universal however, civil war and inter-familial madness! They were also part on the political landscape of the day, we might add. Although the poem was clothed in the legendary past,

The last epic poet to write in Latin was actually a Greek call Claudian c.370-c.404, born in Alexandria and moved to Rome in 394. His epic was entitled The Gildonic Revolt, dealing with an unsuccessful revolt in 397, therefor contemporary. Led by a former ROman officer called Gildo, he sought to establish a breakaway kingdom in North Africa.

The last epic poet to write in Greek was Nonnus f.5th century, living a full century later than Claudian, and who wrot a work called the Dionysiaca, which dealt with the opposition to the establishment of the cult of Dionysis. Interestingly he also wrote an epic poem based on the gospel of St. John, called Metabole. This shows that epic, later in its life, was serving a Christian agenda.

So epic had a pretty good run for its money, for at least 1200 years in antiquity. To conclude, nothing is more remarkable in the history of Latin literature than the extraordinary flowering of the epic genre, one that is cumbersome, portentous, and cluttered with all manner of literary devices. The Romans might well have taken a look at it and decided to give it a wide berth, yet they didn't. They embraced it and made it their own.

In consequence, nothing in the field of Latin literature demonstrates better the Roman genius for refashioning an existing model. The fact too that the epic genre was of equal importance to both the Greeks and Romans, is a measure of how the two cultures in formal terms at least, thought alike.

The next lecture looks at drama, with which the Romans had a much more complicated relationship.