By Meghan Reedy
The Aeneid obviously begins at the beginning of Book 1 with Arma virumque cano, but those words are introductory—they begin the poem, but not the story. The story begins in 1.34 with the huge storm Juno arranges. But then again, is this really the beginning of the story? The Trojans are in the middle of their journey already. The storm is just the first event we hear about. What kind of a beginning is that?
At the beginning of Book 2 everybody quiets down (1–2), and Aeneas begins to speak. The first thing he mentions is that the evening is at an end (8–9): iam nox umida praecipitat suadentque cadentia sidera somnos; the dew is falling already and the stars are setting—it is very late and time for sleep. The beginning and the middle of the evening happened at the very end of Book 1 (723–55). After a feast (723), Dido has sent around a libation cup to initiate the after-dinner drinking and conversation (724–40); a bard, Iolpas, has already sung a long song explaining the beginnings of many things (740–46): he tells the story of where the human race and animals come from, as well as rain and fire (unde hominum genus et pecudes, unde imber et ignes, 743).
Iolpas’ song cannot have been short, but even after this Dido draws the night out with conversation, vario noctem sermone trahebat … Dido (748–49). She asks Aeneas all sorts of things about Trojan war, and then she asks Aeneas for more: ‘Immo age, et a prima dic, hospes, origine nobis / insidias,' inquit, 'Danaum, casusque tuorum, …’ (753–54). Aeneas is right to mention that it’s bedtime already,but notice how Dido wants the story of their ending, casus tuorum … starting from the very beginning, a prima … origine.
So, to sum up: at the end of Book 1, at the end of the evening, Dido asks to hear the story of an ending told from the very first beginning. She asks this shortly after hearing a song about the beginning of humankind, which gently raises the question: how far back ought one go to start at the very beginning?
Thus, at the beginning of Book 2, when Aeneas gets around to saying he’s beginning—incipiam (13)—where does he start? At the end. The Trojan war has already worn everyone down, … fracti bello fatisque repulsi / ductores Danaum, tot iam labentibus annis … (13-14).
The first thing that happened was the building of the horse, instar montis equum … aedificant (15–16), and the rumor about it, votum pro reditu simulant (17), and its belly full of soldiers, uterumque armato milite complent (20). From here, the story moves quickly at first: the Greeks pretend to leave (21–24), and the Trojans really think they have left, nos abiisse rati (25), and this assumption alters the Trojans’ behavior: ergo omnis longo soluit se Teucria luctu (26). However, right away they are divided about the horse: the first opinion, primus (32), is that it should be taken inside the walls whatever it is; the better opinion, melior (35), is that it should be destroyed. They can’t agree: scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus (39). Then, a tiebreaker arrives: Laocoon, who is ‘first ahead of everyone,’ primus ante omnis (40). He is all fired up, ardens, and he runs down from the citadel, decurrit ab arce (41), and he sees that this is insanity: o miseri, quae tanta insania, ciues? (42). How, he asks over several lines (43–49), can they possibly believe that (a) the Greeks are really gone and (b) the horse is anything but a trick?! He goes to prove it by throwing his spear at the horse – and sure enough it makes a big, hollow sound … (52–53)
At this point, there is a pause in the swift-paced story. Aeneas says (54–56):
et, si fata deum, si mens non laeua fuisset,
impulerat ferro Argolicas foedare latebras,
Troiaque nunc staret, Priamique arx alta maneres.
If this situation – the trick-horse full of soldiers, the Greeks faking a departure, arguments among the gullible Trojan crowd, and an influential and charismatic Trojan leader with his head on his shoulders – had played out, Troy would still stand, Troia nunc staret. Laocoon would have set everybody straight in short order, and they would have destroyed the horse and its bellyful of soldiers one way or another. The Greeks’ big trick would have failed – and so these initial events are not really the beginning after all; they are groundwork, prelude, and setup.
When Aeneas begins the story again, it is with a bang: Ecce, Look. Some Trojan shepherds are dragging in a Greek they don’t know – a Greek who has let himself be caught, who has committed himself utterly to tricking the Trojans or dying: in utrumque paratus, / seu versare dolos seu certae occumbere morti (61–62). Then, after the flashy parts of the story are already told (the horse is already built, the Greeks have already pretended to leave), now that he is already 50 lines in to telling the story, he invites his listeners to pay attention: accipe nunc Danaum insidias et crimine ab uno disce omnis (65-66). Now learn about Greek treachery, he says, learn the whole range from this one crime. This is the real beginning of the treachery.
Thus, what we’re looking for the beginning of matters a great deal when we are looking for beginnings. Even then, it turns out that beginnings and endings remain intertwined, endings begin and beginnings end and then it all begins again…
Further Reading
Anderson, W.S. The Art of the Aeneid 2nd ed. (Wauconda, IL, 2005) 32-37
Gransden, K.W. ‘The Fall of Troy’ in Virgil. Greece & Rome Studies, eds I. McAuslan and P. Walcot (Oxford, 1990)
Harries, B. ‘Back to the horse: symbol and narrative in Aeneid 2’ Liverpool Classical Monthly 14 (1989) 136-41
Hexter, R. ‘What was the Trojan horse made of?: interpreting Vergil’s Aeneid’ The Yale Journal of Criticism 3 (1990) 109-31
Johnson, W.R. ‘Dis aliter visum: self-telling and theodicy in Aeneid 2’ in Reading Vergil’s Aeneid: An Interpretive Guide, ed. C. Perkell (Norman, OK, 1999) 50-63
Jones, J.W. ‘The Trojan horse: timeo Danaos et dona ferentis’ Classical Journal 65 (1970) 241-7
Lynch, J.P. ‘Laocoön and Sinon: Virgil, Aeneid 2.40-198’ Greece and Rome 27 (1980) 170-9
Nagle, B.R. ‘Open-ended closure in Aeneid 2’ Classical World 76 (1983) 257-63
Smith, R.M. ‘Deception and sacrifice in Aeneid 2.1-249’ American Journal of Philology 120 (1999) 503-23