<< message forwarded by listowner >> Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 07:51:17 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time) From: "Donald Connor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Aeneas says in 2.458 that he has climbed to the roof of Priam's palace, from which vantage point he has a view of the events unfolding before him. As he emphasizes in 2.499 (picking up his assertion in 2.5), he was an eyewitness to the fall of Troy. I don't think that Vergil or Aeneas imagined being cross-examined by a lawyer as to what he actually did see and what he heard from others. Vergil's purposes are of course different from Aeneas', and here I believe the emphasis is on pathos and on the transfer of power from the line of the family represented by Priam to that represented by Anchises and his divinely-born son. 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. Donald Connor Trinity School New York City ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
