The Death of Turnus and Roman Morality

Author(s): Peter Burnell

Source: Greece & Rome , Oct., 1987, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Oct., 1987), pp. 186-200
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/642946

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

By PETER BURNELL

Is Aeneas right or wrong to kill Turnus at the end of the Aeneid?

Virgil himself has raised the issue by creating Aeneas' dilemma. In
the equivalent scene of the Iliad the first wound which Hector receives
in combat with Achilles is fatal, and so the possibility of sparing his
life does not arise; but Turnus is not mortally wounded, he asks for
mercy, begins to be successful, and then is killed after all.' About
this moral question all the logically possible opinions have been
recently asserted by scholars: that the killing is right, that it is wrong,
and that it is morally neutral. One of these must, of course, be right.
Typically of our time, many of the most recent interpretations deny
the moral question. R. Jenkyns,2 arguing that the poem is optimistic,
ignores the fact of Turnus' plea for his life: 'Turnus begins by de-
claring that he has deserved to die and does not beg for life ... he
then asks Aeneas to pity his father Daunus, to return the body. ...
The words equidem merui, nec deprecor (931), 'indeed I have deserved
it; I do not protest' are presumably those understood as Turnus' claim
not to be begging for life, but since Turnus then begs for life, their
most likely reference is to the defeat he has just suffered (this is how
the passage is commonly understood3): 'I have deserved to lose; I do
not protest at giving up Lavinia.' In any case, he first pleads for his
life, and his request for surrender of his body after death is only an
alternative, which Aeneas might prefer:
Dauni miserere senectae
et me, seu corpus spoliatum lumine mavis
redde meis.

'Pity Daunus' old age, and return me, or, if you prefer, my body deprived of light,
my people.'

Aeneas, moreover, answers only the plea for life, saying nothing ab
the alternative. These features of the text should not have been
ignored.
K. W. Gransden4 explicitly argues that the killing is morally
neutral. He gives first an emotional, then an 'existential' explanation
for it. First, Turnus is the vicarious object of a Roman audience's
desire for vengeance on Achilles: 'The foul deeds which Homer
himself says Achilles devised for noble Hector are now requited' (p.
212). It is difficult to see how one could conclude this. It might have
been a possibility if Turnus had been a Greek, though even then

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 187

revenge upon Helen - a Greek and even a gui

by Venus and shown to be inappropriate (2.589-622).s In Book 3
Achaemenides is a Greek and a warrior - a perfect scapegoat, and
expecting to be treated as such - but the Trojans welcome him aboard.
Gransden's more important point, however, is his existential one:
'The hesitation at the end is the hero's and the reader's, for an ex-
istential choice is made for all, and sets a certain stamp upon human-
ity' (p. 215). The influence, direct or indirect, of French Exist-
entialism is detectable here: moral norms are left behind; the act
stands in its own right. This means that the significance of the scene
is essentially amoral.
G. Williams,6 too, regards the text as deliberately constructed to
be morally inconclusive: 'What the poet has done is to show ... two
totally incompatible points of view and to understand but not pass
judgment on them.'
W. R. Johnson7 blames the gods: 'What Virgil chooses to em-
phasize at the close of his poem is a moment when Aeneas gives way
to an anger which, however perfectly justified, is directed against a
man who is ... though Aeneas cannot know this, a victim of a
mindless, evil design.' 'However perfectly justified' is ambiguous, but
Johnson's main point is, once more, that the scene is metaphysical,
not moral, and Virgil is not interested in leading us to a decision on
the moral question.
Can these contemporary amoralistic interpretations stand up against
the fact that the text is strongly moral? For Virgil at the end of the
poem emphasizes the fact that Turnus accepts that he has deserved
defeat (931), the question whether Aeneas should pity Daunus (932-
34), the idea that killing Turnus has no practical justification (936-
37), the idea that Aeneas should not push his hatred any further (938),
the question whether Aeneas should spare Turnus or at least his dead
body (935-36), and the idea that the duty of revenge is not being
ignored (947-49) - all moral matters. It is still arguable (and G. Wil-
liams does so argue) that Virgil raises these moral issues but does not
expect us to arrive at a definite position about them. Whether the
poem as a whole leads us in that ultimately amoral direction, and how
liable Romans would have been to be so led are matters that will
concern us here.
Other commentators (most of them writing rather earlier) claim
perceive a moral direction in this scene, but there is diametric
diversity of views. For Brooks Otis8 and M. A. Di Cesare9 Aeneas
does his duty in killing Turnus, though for Di Cesare his vindic-
tiveness makes him less human, for Otis more so. R. Heinze10 and
V. P6oschltt also wave aside the claims of mercy, though more

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188 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

breezily: compassion would have been 'undutifu

widrige Schwdche (Heinze), and Aeneas at the
ion experiences a conflict between his 'heart a
Servius apparently takes a similar position, th
every intention (omnis intentio) redounds to A
important is apparently motive in each case. Bu
would have been quite as pius if he had first in
and then after all spared Turnus out of clemen
Servius says that Aeneas bears the mark of pi
considers sparing Turnus, and then because he
quod eum interimit). This would be in line wit
The scholars who justify the action nearly al
Why does the obligation of revenge 'greatly o
(Otis)? Why not vice versa? Does Aeneas 'nee
(Di Cesare)? Turnus, at any rate, has argued th
Only Otis offers substantial evidence from th
lying on three arguments concerning book 10
takes the belt from Pallas' body 'his inhumanit
b) that Aeneas' motives are 'pietas toward Ev
toward Pallas' (357), and c) that Aeneas' fightin
his wrath takes over. But in a) it is pushing thi
trophy from an enemy warrior's body is inhu
one (Book 11 init.); b) is a correct statement ab
but motives are not enough to justify acts: wron
can be done from pious motives; c) rightly poin
energy, but we cannot take that as justifying an
a warrior in such a condition might do, least of
is beaten and effectiveness is no longer needed.
K. F. Quinn12 condemns the action as a 'final
Virgil's tragic hero', and gives some support f
that changed Aeneas' mind was simply 'unluck
sign of guilt; Aeneas not merely took in, but
sight of the belt, showing a violent predisp
design depicted the murder of Aegyptus' sons
venge, and the sight of it affected Aeneas emot
judgement.
These arguments, though striking, are not con
to the belt as cause of Turnus' sad plight, not n
significance comprehensively. The points ab
emotional effect and Aeneas' violent predisposit
from Di Cesare: 'to be the proper instrument o
he also needed the brutality of vis.' The bruta
(Di Cesare admits that), but, being necessary

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 189

right. It is true that Pallas' belt depicts a famo

another's (Danaus') instruction (a revenge emulated
Aeneas), and that Virgil in his initial description
that mythical deed a nefas. But killing husbands
night (contrast the behaviour of the Sabine wo
ously a nefas than killing a vanquished warrior
Quinn, admittedly, has shown that the vengeful a
obsolescent 'heroic impulse'. But that does not est
also take its place as part of an otherwise very dif
pietas - Otis's and Di Cesare's position.
How are we to decide among the three main posi
establishes four large issues as the main ones: 1) r
why Aeneas kills Turnus - Evander had laid that
2) loss of self-control because of rage, for that is
is actually in, 3) compassion, and 4) practicality, f
reasons Turnus gives - reasons that almost prevail
stand the significance of these four issues in this
to see how the rest of the poem deals with them,
they had in the wider Roman moral tradition.
1) The other major instance in the Aeneid of
solemnly requesting revenge is Dido's curse (4.607-629): part of a
piece of black magic, Dido having sunk into sheer and everlasting
hatred, which includes in its purview the descendants of Aeneas, the
readers of the poem. The similarity with Evander's request is only
partial (Evander is not talking mass hatred for the rest of time), but as
far as it goes it does not reflect favourably on the old man's desire for
blood in revenge. As for what Di Cesare calls 'the act appropriate to
the Chief of State','4 Anchises at the end of Aeneas' vision instructs
him that a Roman's duty is 'to spare those in his power and to fight
down the recalcitrant' (parcere subiectis et debellare superbos). Turnus,
when he makes his final supplication, is humilis supplexque, 'lowly and
suppliant', humilis the opposite of superbus, and supplex involving the
concept of subiectus. Conversely, Anchises' principle explicitly asserts
the righteousness of the sort of treatment the Trojans have given to
the suppliant Achaemenides.
These points by themselves, however, do not necessarily mean that
Evander's solemn request for severity might not have a special priority
over Anchises' statesmanly principle. To deal with this problem let
us turn to Roman attitudes outside the poem.
Augustus in Res Gestae 2 claims to have avenged Julius Caesar.
Might not that principle be applied to the end of the Aeneid? But
Augustus says first that his revenge was by due process of law,
secondly that the conspirators were exiled (proscriptions and deaths

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190 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

not being mentioned), and thirdly that later

attacked the state, he defeated them in battle
mentioned, and indeed, revenge itself has been
by defence of the state. Killing for revenge,
from Augustus' actions, at least from his cla
and supplication on the part of the punished
of moderation and legal propriety. His claims
Julius Caesar are therefore too different from t
justify it by analogy in the minds of Virgil's a
hand, severity was a traditional Roman virtue
heroes such as Romulus, L. Brutus, Torquatus,
famous for it. These examples must have less
Virgil's Roman audience to condemn Aeneas' a
Yet they do not provide justification in the f
patterns. Romulus was avenging not injury to
the majesty of Rome (Livy 1.7.2) - always an
for the Romans.
L. Brutus choked back private affection, and executed his own
sons.16 P6schl similarly describes Aeneas in the last scene as torn
between 'heart and duty'. But there is a marked contrast. Brutus is a
chief judicial officer, and so must be severe in defending the state.
This is capital punishment, then, but not primarily revenge. No such
official public duties are there to settle the issue at the end of the
Aeneid, and Aeneas' severity is not to defend the state even in its
incipient form. Also, for both Virgil and Livy, Brutus, the killer of
his son, is surrounded more by pathos than by anything else.17 In a
sense he avenged Lucretia; in Livy that is what she appears to hope
for (1.58.10); but Livy's Brutus speaks not, at least, explicitly, of
avenging Lucretia, but of liberating Rome, (1.59.1), and that is how
the revolution is usually referred to by Cicero.18 Here, too, then, the
principal motive is not revenge.
Torquatus' great harshness (execution of his own son merely for an
insubordinate act of bravery) is, as with Brutus, portrayed as an
assertion of Roman law (in this case of a consul's imperium) rather
than as revenge; and, again, the admiration for it is mixed.19 This
example, too, therefore, offers no clear justification for Aeneas'
action.
P. Horatius, fighting the Curatii of Alba, 'avenges his brothers'
shades' (Livy 1.25.12). His last opponent, on the point of being killed
by him, is so exhausted from loss of blood that he can hardly hold up
his shield: it was not a fight at all, says Livy. The two men are now in
much the same position as Aeneas and Turnus in their final scene.
Yet Livy's account at the last moment veers significantly away from

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 191

that similarity: Horatius proclaims that having k

opponents to avenge his two brothers he will
'so that Rome may rule over Alba'. The vengea
in the heat of combat (we realize that he would have had to kill
them anyway); when Horatius has the last one at his mercy and has
time to think, he is no longer actively vindictive, but practical and
patriotic. It is in that spirit that the killing of the helpless man is
done.
Thus these myths, at least as Livy tells them, steer us away from
associating even Rome's sternest antique heroes with thoroughgoing
vindictiveness.
Cicero in his philosophy specifies a moral position that is in lin
with that: the proper 'limit to revenge and punishment' (ulciscend
puniendi modus) is established by repentance in the wrongdoer (O
1.11). This is close to Anchises' principle. Cicero, then, on this co
at any rate, would if he could have read the last scene of the Aen
('I have deserved defeat; I do not protest') have condemned Aenea
action. He does make allowance for harsh punishment of exception
brutal enemies; yet, despite Aeneas' claim at one point (10.532-33
Turnus has done little or nothing more than what an enemy could
expected to do: he has kept the armour, but he has not even trie
keep the body (contrast the Trojans over Patroclus' body in th
equivalent scene of the Iliad). Not Turnus, but Mezentius is the
exceptionally brutal enemy.
Most revealing of all for traditional Roman morality on the mat
is Cato the Censor, for unlike Cicero or Livy he was free from th
special ethical propaganda of the first century B.C., and was
renowned for being not only old-fashioned but severe (delenda est
Carthago). His example is another reminder that we need not expect
Aeneas to be pleasing to a twentieth century liberal mentality. Yet
Cato argued strongly in the senate for clemency towards Rhodes
(Gellius 6.3).20 Gellius, who quotes some of the speech, says that
Cato nunc clementiae, nunc mansuetudinis maiorum, nunc utilitatis
publicae commonefecit ('drew attention now to the clemency, the gentle-
ness of our forefathers, now to the public interest'). Thus clemency,
too, was an early Roman tradition. Cato associates ferocity with
softness and arrogance - a product of easy times, and something that
tends to arise 'in the generality men', plerisque hominibus: that is, not
great Romans. The Rhodians had not, it is true, provoked harshness
as Turnus had (they had offended only with words), but Cato's bold
assertion is a general confirmation of the Romanitas of Cicero's posi-
tion in De Officiis.
We can conclude that the Roman moral tradition, though it admired

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192 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

severity to a degree, was against very harsh de

venge.
2) Aeneas in the closing scene is not merely vengeful but out o
control. The words furiis accensus, 'on fire with madness', establ
that. The same phrase was used to describe the Laurentian matron
in book 7 (392) - women possessed by a Fury. We must not, theref
treat the final scene (as Di Cesare does) as though Aeneas were act
judiciously and deliberately.
With such loss of self-control both the Aeneid and the Roman moral
tradition are much concerned. Though the Laurentian matrons are
not out of control with wrath, Turnus (and this is Allecto's next piece
of work) is, and as a result his initial inclination to be reasonable is
perverted (7.435-474). But the most important such passage for our
purposes is Aeneas' untrammelled battle-fury (10.510-819) - a pre-
cedent (with the same cause) for his wrath at the end of the poem.
Not surprisingly, there is similarly wide controversy about it. For
C. M. Bowra21 Aeneas' fury is part of the Augustan ideal, for Otis22
consistently part of Aeneas' pietas; for J. W. Mackail23 a 'lapse into
barbarism' both on Aeneas' part and on Virgil's (though Mackail
assumes that Virgil means us to admire Aeneas' actions - the 'inten-
tional fallacy' 24). K. F. Quinn says that in this passage 'the justifica-
tion for that anger is put in question'.25
The text of the passage itself guides us firmly in this matter, for it
is sharply reminiscent of Pyrrhus' rampage at the fall of Troy (2.469-
558): both men kill wildly as people flee; each kills by plunging his
weapon capulo tenus into a helpless man (2.553 and 10.536); and each
makes a sick joke over a victim just before killing him: Pyrrhus says
'take a message to my dead father; you are going to see him'; Aeneas,
having just killed one man, says to his brother 'don't desert your
brother', and cuts his chest open (10.600-1) - versions of the same
joke. But Pyrrhus is a monster of brutality: he raves with slaughter
(499), he is like a snake bloated with poison (471-75), he has the
violence of Achilles (491) without the decency (even Achilles had in
the end treated Hector's body well - 542-43, but Priam's head is torn
from his body and both are thrown away, 547-48). Pyrrhus is not the
sort of person one would want to resemble. Aeneas is, of course,
habitually far finer. Yet at this point he acts and sounds unpleasantly
like Pyrrhus. Otis says (357) that even in the midst of this slaughter
Aeneas 'is not driven by battle-lust (caedis cupido).' It is striking that
when Aeneas first sees Mezentius' blood he is 'happy at the sight of
the Etruscan's blood', viso Tyrrheni sanguine laetus (787).
How were the Romans predisposed to view such matters? Obvi-
ously, to a pure Stoic loss of temper was a disastrous fall from im-

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 193

passivity. Most Romans, were, of course, tho

not pure ones. But even after that philosophy had been specially
mitigated for them,26 Cicero defines clementia as that virtue per quam
animi temere in odium alicuius [inferioris]27 concitati comitate reti-
nentur, 'through which minds rashly whipped into hatred of someone
are held back in gentleness' (Inv. 2.54.164) - an aspect of temperantia.
The opposite of clemency, then, is not severity, but the vice of rash
anger. To judge from this passage, Aeneas in the last scene is not
severe, but intemperate.
Perhaps philosophy, even that of Cicero, might be thought too
rarified and theoretical a source. Was the Roman ethical tradition in
general less fastidious? There is no completely simple answer. Of th
many passages that could be mentioned let us take two that represe
quite different viewpoints.
Gaius Gracchus in one of his speeches28 made substantially the
same point as Cicero. A young Roman envoy was so enraged at bei
taunted by a Venusian ploughman that he had the man beaten to
death; which shows, said Gracchus, 'how great the wantonness and
intemperance are in young men', quanta lubido quantaque intempe
rantia sit adulescentium. Such lack of self-control is levitas rather than
gravitas.29 A contrasting passage is Horace's heroic description of a
violent young Roman (Carm. 3.2.6-12), which, says Bowra, shows
that wrath was 'a legitimate part of the Augustan ideal'.30 This youth
has been toughened by a properly austere life; may the queen and the
fiancee of his enemy look down from their battlements;
... et adulta virgo
suspiret, eheu, ne rudis agminum
sponsus lacessat regius asperum
tactu leonem, quem cruenta
per medias rapit ira caedis.

... and let the grown maiden catch her breath31 - alas! - for fear her royal fiance
should provoke the lion violent when touched, which is rushed headlong by
bloodthirsty anger through a welter of killings.'

The situation is exactly that of Amata, Lavinia, Turnus, and Aeneas

in the last three books of the Aeneid. This is a 'Roman Ode', the
passage is about Roman greatness in war, the subjunctive suspiret is
probably jussive,32 and the young 'lion' is a model of Roman aus-
terity. Is this passage, then, a glorification of abandoned and blood-
thirsty wrath, as Bowra suggests? Not clearly so. As Quinn points
out,33 'the simile [metaphor, rather?] graphically represents the
princess's thoughts: for her, the young Roman is a savage lion, about
to attack her fiance.' It is unclear whether we are to regard the entirety

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194 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

of her perception as accurate. What is clear is th

whole is the very opposite of a glorification of unco
second half gravely affirms that virtus consists in s
and forbearance (21-32).34 The Romans were, indeed
of regarding themselves, at least at their best, as c
better able to control their anger than the Greeks
course of an extensive comparison of Alexander the Great with
Papirius Cursor and other Romans (9.17-19) - a comparison greatly
to the Roman advantage - mentions Alexander's 'terrible, boiling
temper', trux et perfervida ira.
It can be seen from these passages, provided they are taken in
context, that the Romans realized how liable the citizens of their
warlike and powerful state were to be provoked into a deadly rage,
but it is also plain that such loss of self-control was morally unac-
ceptable to them, and that they thought themselves capable of rising
above it.
Otis and Servius, then, are wrong to regard Aeneas' deed as an
example of pietas. This in a sense settles the moral question: the deed
has wrongful loss of self-control as part of its essence. But Turnus'
two reasons for mercy should still be considered, for the matters of
priority are still not clear. If those reasons should be considered valid,
Aeneas' action is not compatible with humane principle, and, in the
circumstances, is without even the potentiality for prudential jus-
tification. If Turnus' objections are not sound, however, the killing,
though ill-judged and precipitate, can still be put in the venial cate-
gory.
3) Turnus' first reason for mercy is compassion ('take pity on my
father's old age') - a matter of great importance to Aeneas early in the
poem. Having suffered great trials, he is shipwrecked on the African
coast and left temporarily helpless. Visible evidence (designs on some
temple doors) of compassion in the local inhabitants fills him with
relief: 'We need not be afraid; these people give heroism its reward,
they are touched with the sadness of life, and they have a sense of our
human mortality' (1.461-63). Here are the three essential elements of
compassion: something bad suffered, and sympathy in another,
leading to the impulse to treat the sufferer gently35 (for it is now
clear to Aeneas that he and his men have nothing to fear - solve metus).
An important fourth point is contextually implied; that such com-
passion is essential to full humanity; for not only do the pictures
show a sense of sadness, mortality and heroism, but Dido herself,
who then appears, richly confirms what they have told Aeneas about
her. She is a woman of dignity (496-504), justice (507-8), and
generosity (562-78), who has suffered (563 - the first fact of which

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 195

she informs the Trojans), and who admires heroism (565-66). Her
sympathetic and merciful attitude to the Trojans is part of her general
human excellence.
Nor is this the only passage where compassion is crucial. Aeneas'
flood of tenderness for the dead Lausus (10.821-32) abruptly halts
the great killing-spree. Aeneas now showers the dead youth with care.
Words of compassion fill these lines.36 The three essential compon-
ents of this disposition are all implied, and again they are an important
part of full human excellence; for as Otis points out (p. 359), 'the man
of pietas ... now recognizes a true image of his own pietas in his
enemy'.
Did the Romans in general put a similarly high value on compas-
sion? Terence's Menedemus (Hau. 75-77), concerned about his suf-
fering neighbour, says that, being human, he himself does not regard
anything human as foreign; and he acts with accordant care for his
fellow.37 Here once more is compassion in its full form. According to
St Augustine (Ep. 51), when the Roman actor spoke the homo sum
line, the common people applauded thunderously. Augustine con-
cludes from this that neighbourliness and charity are natural to the
human heart. If his facts about the theatrical event are right (a large
proviso), what he says also indicates the same truth, though in a
special way, about the Romans of the second century B.C., for al-
though the play was based on a Greek one, the reaction was that of a
Roman audience.
In any case, there is a third passage of similar significance: J
15.131-58, which makes explicit the same three features - human
suffering (infants and maidens die), sympathy (we are touched with
pity at an infant's funeral, tears are innate in human beings), and the
resultant impulse to generosity (because of pity we form civilized
communities and come to a comrade's help on the battlefield), to-
gether with the important fourth notion - without compassion we are
incomplete (tears were nature's first gift, compassion is our greatest
impulse and separates us from lower animals, making our souls in-
trinsically sacred).
Thus for three major Roman writers compassion is fundamental to
humanity. Although it is possible that this idea was borrowed from
the Greeks,38 and thus one might question how deeply it went in the
Roman mind, St. Augustine has raised the possibility that the idea
was generally accepted by the Romans.
Latin usage will be helpful here, in particular the connotations of
humanitas and pietas. The radical meaning of humanitas is 'the quality
of being human', and so its connotations will indicate what the
Romans regarded as particularly important to being human. It has

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196 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

two connotations: 'civilization' and 'kindness', 'humane character',

depending on the context. The dictionaries refer to these as two differ-
ent meanings. Aulus Gellius (13.17.1) accepts only the former as
correct usage: more precisely, 'cultural refinement', for to man alone
is that given; but in vulgar speech it is used to mean 'indiscriminate
benevolence to all men'. As L. A. Moritz and M. L. Clarke have
pointed out,39 this snobbish disjunction made by a late wr
incorrect, and in Cicero the word covers both Gellius' defini
Even Gellius' benevolentiam erga omnes homines promiscam
vague a definition of the word's charitable connotation ('being
humane'), for sometimes it suggests compassion specifically, not
merely general philanthropy. Cicero talks (Flac. 11.24) of assisting a
distressed poor citizen 'according to the law of common humanity
and compassion', communis humanitatis iure ac misericordia, and
elsewhere admits (Amic. 13.48) that grief of soul comes over a wise
man, 'unless we consider that all humanity has been eradicated from
his soul', nisi ex eius animo exstirpatam humanitatem arbitramur (the
context being the admissibility of opening one's heart in friendship) -
a significant departure (no doubt conscious) from Stoic absolutism.
In sentiment this is close (though in a less developed form) to
Juvenal's disquisition on tears.
Pius, too, connoted gentleness, if not compassion specifically. The
dictionaries give 'dutiful' as its primary meaning. This is misleading,
though it has Cicero for authority (Inv. 2.22.66). As piare ('to honour
sacredly, to purify religiously') shows, the basic meaning of pius is
'pure in the eyes of the gods'. Hence the arva piorum (Ov. Met. 11.62)
or piorum sedes (Cic. Phil. 14.12) are the habitations of the shades of
those who have lived properly pure lives. 'Dutiful (to the traditional
gods, to family, to Rome)' is usually, though not always, the word's
principal connotation. This can rightly be taken as a sign that for the
Romans loyalty to those relationships was a fundamental condition of
living a pure life. The other important connotation, however, of pius
and its related words is 'gentle', which provides further information
about what was of primary importance for a pure life. The earliest
Latin poet uses impius to translate Homer's UoXeros, 'ungovernable',
hence 'savage' (Livius Andronicus, frg. 32: impius Cyclops). (Thus
plius would suggest harmlessness, forbearance.) The same notion
remained clearly part of the pius words in colloquial Latin. One of the
Bacchides in Plautus' play (5.2.57) familiarly says to old Nicobulus
sine, mea pietas, te exorem ..., 'allow me, my gentle friend, to beg
you...', and Horace in the playful ode to his wine-pot says (Carm.
3.21.4) that sometimes 'O gentle jar - pia testa - you bring on easy
sleep'. Not that notions of loyalty are necessarily quite absent from

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 197

these passages; but by far the main application is to the idea of

compliancy or kindness. The connotation is not, however, restricted
to colloquial Latin. In the Georgics 'brutal Mars', Mars impius, rages
all over the earth. The connotation is also found in tragic and epic
Latin of a later period (Sen. Her. F. 1287, Stat. Theb. 11.489). Pius,
then, is used not with the connotation precisely of compassion, but
with the closely related one of gentleness, absence of brutality.40
Thus 'compassion' and 'gentleness' obtrude themselves into the
meanings of Latin words denoting basic human goodness, showing
that the Romans regarded those qualities as so basic.
4) Are there, in spite of that, overriding practical considerations
that would have led even an Aeneas in a judicious mood to kill
Turnus? If so, then Aeneas might be doing the right deed, albeit for
the wrong reason and in the wrong state of mind. Turnus in effect
points out that there is no need to kill him, for everyone has seen his
gesture of supplication and Aeneas will now have his bride. He shows
not that Aeneas would damage his own cause by killing him, but that
he would in no way advance it and that therefore other considerations
(in particular, compassion) apply. Aeneas does not contradict him on
that head, nor does Virgil put anything into the text that leads us to
do so. How important is this absence of practical justification?
Refusing in the cause of Roman destiny to swerve from the path of
duty is a principle of priority that Aeneas has been learning from the
beginning. His mother has shown him at the fall of Troy that taking
revenge is, at least in those circumstances, pointless (2.594, 601-2).
Let him attend to his duty. And Aeneas constantly learns, particularly
in books 3-6, to grasp with precision what needs to be done (as
opposed to merely human inclinations) and to do it.
Practical service to the state was one of the Roman master-virtues.
Q. Fabius Maximus sacrificed immediate glory to that consideration
(Ennius Ann. 363, Skutsch). The Romans could, of course, be in-
flexibly legalistic; yet even one famous for that quality, M. Atilius
Regulus, is portrayed by Horace (Carm. 3.5.21-40) as arguing against
ransoming himself and his fellow prisoners-of-war, on the grounds
that no good to Rome would come of such softness. Thus even a
famous piece of absolutism takes a pragmatic form.
At times, however, in the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D., Cato the
Younger and his ideological descendants the Stoic Opposition blankly
ignored expediency and even practicability, and were in some circles
regarded as heroes.41 Even Cicero admits this of Cato. Nevertheless
he sighs ruefully: Cato is not in Plato's republic but among the dregs
of Rome (Cic. Att. 2.1.8). Tacitus actually sneers at those who in
later times got themselves an easy glory by 'a self-serving death',

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198 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

ambitiosa morte (Tac. Ag. 42.4). The earlier

man from his great-grandson) 'drew attenti
seen, 'to the public interest', in his speech f
Rhodians, thus connecting practicality with
this connection a clear principle of behaviou
government every punishment must 'have
the state', ad rei publicae utilitatem referri
Rome in her great past had always made sur
with gentleness or, when they did not, nece
bellorum aut mites aut necessarii (ibid. 2.8.26). This is in essence
Turnus' point: gentleness where possible, severity where necessary.
Removing stubborn obstacles in the way of what needs to be done
would, no doubt, have priority over compassion. Turnus shows that
he can see that. As it is, compassion should have free play.
There is one further consideration. Clemency came to be seen as an
instrument of imperial statesmanship. The notion is already implied
by Cato's speech. P. Scipio Africanus Maior was regarded as ex-
emplary in this respect: according to Livy statesmanly clemency
greatly increased his effectiveness.42 Aeneas, too, is a statesman, and
in his case, too, we have seen the powerful effect of his clemency
upon his enemies (11.120-32). His last action in the poem lacks that
quality of statesmanly restraint.
The Aeneid is not woodenly moralistic, and we have been led to be
understanding towards the hero, with his great emotional pressures
and changing duties, but his action at the end cannot escape moral
scrutiny. As a piece of vengeance it is, albeit not without cause, in-
appropriate; as an act of wild fury it is understandable but regrettable;
as a withholding of compassion it is a falling away from full humanity,
and as an act without practical purpose it lacks the remaining possible
justification raised by the text. A Roman reader could be expected
with slight reservations to condemn it.

NOTES

1. See G. Williams, Technique and Ideas in the Aeneid (New Haven a

92.
2. 'Pathos, Tragedy and Hope in the Aeneid,' JRS 75 (1985), 74.
3. E.g. by both V. P6schl and R. D. Williams, despite their differences concerning this
passage.
4. Virgil's Iliad. An Essay on Dramatic Narrative (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 211-217.
5. It is assumed here that the 'Helen' passage (567-88) is genuine, on the grounds
Venus in the passage immediately after (whose authenticity is accepted) remonstrates w
Aeneas about his 'uncontrolled anger', indomitas iras, but in the lines preceding the disp
passage (lines which if that passage were not genuine would come immediately before Ve
speech) Aeneas is not angry.
6. Op. cit., pp. 224-25.

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 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY 199

7. Darkness Visible (Berkeley, 1976), p. 133.

8. Virgil. A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford, 1964), p. 380.
9. The Altar and the City (New York, 1974), pp. 238-39.
10. Virgils Epische Technik (Leipzig and Berlin, 1915, repr. S
11. Die Dichtkunst Virgils, Eng. ed., The Art of Virgil (Ann A
12. Virgil's Aeneid. A Critical Description (London, 1967), p.
13. Two other scholars generally on Quinn's side are R. D. W
T. S. Pattie in Virgil. His Poetry through the Ages (London,
Putnam in The Poetry of the Aeneid (Cambridge, Mass., 1965
goes to the extreme: Aeneas leaves Turnus 'victorious in his tr
would suit an interpretation of Lucan's Pharsalia better than on
14. Op. cit., p. 238.
15. This is not to deny the general similarity of this scene
deeds, as opposed to his words.
16. A deed given prominence by both Virgil (A. 6.817-23) a
17. For Virgil he is infelix, and for Livy a man who when he sh
present had to preside over the executions. Cicero betrays doubt e
action when he says nemo reprehendit about it (Sul. 11.32). If t
been thought morally dubious, he would not have needed to say
18. Phil. 1.6.13, 2.11.26, 2.44.114, etc., de Orat. 1.9.37, 2.55.2
19. Livy (8.7) says that Torquatus' orders were a thing of terr
precedent' (exempli ... tristis) for posterity. Thus Livy contr
exemplary and part of Roman tradition, while asserting that still
20. The passage is a detailed discussion of Cato's speech, def
thus we can assume that what he gives us is closely based on th
21. 'Aeneas and the Roman Stoic Ideal,' G&R 3 (1933-34), 8-21.
22. Op. cit., p. 357.
23. The Aeneid (Oxford, 1930), p. lxvi.
24. See W. K. Wimsatt, Jr. and M. C. Beardsley, 'The Intentional Fallacy', Sewanee
Review 54 (1946), 468-88.
25. Op. cit. 227.
26. See M. Pohlenz, Antikes Fiihrertum (Leipzig and Berlin, 1934) passim, but in particular
pp. 143-45. Cf. J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (London, 1969), p. 193, where it is pointed out that
Cicero further adapted the Stoic ideas.
27. Editors usually delete inferioris.
28. Quoted by Gellius 10.3.5.
29. This is not to suggest that Turnus' offence is minor, as was the Venusian's. The point is
simply that the aspect of the young envoy's offence to which Gracchus takes particular exception
is his lack of self-control.
30. Op. cit., 17.
31. The choice of phrase is Kenneth Quinn's (Horace, The Odes (London, 1980), ad loc.).
32. See Kiessling-Heinze, Horatius, Oden und Epoden (Berlin, 1960), p. 257, ad loc.
33. Loc. cit. See also Kiessling-Heinze, ad loc.
34. Similarly, in 1.19.9-10 Horace allows a heroic tone to run through a description of anger,
'which neither the Norican sword scares off, nor the shipwrecking sea'; but the poem as a whole
is a recantation of anger, though Nisbet and Hubbard do not take that view.
35. According to St. Augustine (Civ. Dei 9.5) there are the three specific elements of mis-
ericordia: alienae miseriae (suffering) in nostro corde compassio (sympathy), qua utique, si possumus,
subvenire compellimur (consequent impulse to generosity towards the sufferer).
36. Miserans (823), miserande (825), infelix miseram solabere mortem 'in your misfortune you
shall have consolation for your pitiful death' (829).
37. This principle is the basis of the whole plot: Menedemus makes sure that his neighbour
is supposedly fooled, for so great is that man's remorse that in reality he would give his son
anything. This, Menedemus knows, would damage his neighbour's way of life if the son knew
about it; hence the complicated plots and double plots of the play.
38. It is, for example, the moral basis of Sophocles' Philoctetes. Neoptolemus against his
conscience (86-95) has helped to deceive Philoctetes, but when he sees that hero writhing in

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200 THE DEATH OF TURNUS AND ROMAN MORALITY

agony his heart is touched, he is converted, chooses the part

(and, by extension, all the Greeks). Cf. Eur. (Ino) frg. 407 (Nau
39. L. A. Moritz, Humanitas (Cardiff, 1962), pp. 9-15; M. L. Clarke, The Roman Mind
(London, 1956), p. 135.
40. Improbus shows the same tendency. Its basic meaning is simply 'lacking in virtue'; but
in A. 9.47-68, Turnus is like a wolf which when haunting a fold 'rages, harsh and bad with
anger, asper et improbus ira saevit. Similarly in Hor. (C. 3.9.22-23) a girl describes her errant
lover as 'more subject to anger than the bad Adriatic', improbo iracundior Hadria. In both the
word connotes 'lacking in gentleness'. Cf. A. 10.727, 12.687, Stat., Theb. 4.319.
41. By Lucan, for example, in the Pharsalia.
42. It is said enthusiastically among the enemy that Scipio has been carrying all before him
cum armis tum benignitate ac beneficiis, 'not only by arms but by kindness of mind and of action'.

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