Peter Kotiuga, Boston University
Despite the continued efforts to elucidate Homer’s precise influence on Virgil (e.g. Knauer 1964, Barchiesi 1984, Farrell 2021), scholars have overlooked just how literally Virgil translates Homer’s language for divine rescue. In Homer’s Iliad, the verbs σώιζω, “I save,” and ἐξαρπάζω, “I snatch out,” do more than describe a god whisking a hero off to safety: they reflect the traditional fate of that hero. Paris, Hector, and Agenor are extracted with ἐξαρπάζω and likewise die before the Trojan War ends, while Aeneas and Idaeus, son of Dares, are rescued with σώιζω and go on to survive the war. These mutually exclusive verbs make reference to details of the larger tradition, just as “traditional referentiality” is a hallmark of Homeric style (Foley 1991, 1999; Currie 2016). I argue that σώιζω, ἐξαρπάζω, and their Homeric connotations shape how Virgil implements the verbs servo and eripio in his Aeneid.
In the battle narrative of the Aeneid, Juno delays Turnus’ death twice, and Venus saves Aeneas from a deadly wound. In Aeneid 10.606-32, Jupiter taunts Juno about Venus' support for the Trojans. Juno responds by wishing for the authority to return Turnus to his father Daunus unscathed, and she describes that action with servare, “to save” (10.615-6). Unfortunately for Juno, Jupiter is mindful of Turnus’ doom, and he permits only “a delay” (mora, 10.622). Lyne 1989 has noted how caducus, “[he who is] bound to fall” (also 10.622), signifies Turnus’ impending doom, but Juno’s servare contrasts likewise with Jupiter’s proposed alternative: instantibus eripe fatis, “snatch [Turnus] away from the insistent fates” (10.624). Juno fully recognizes Turnus’ approaching death but nevertheless lures him to safety with a ghost of Aeneas. Later, in Aeneid 12, Juno encourages Juturna to break the terms of the duel: si quis modus, eripe morti, “if there is some way, snatch [Turnus] from death” (12.157). Juturna then delays Turnus’ duel with Aeneas for some seven hundred verses. Tarrant 2012 (ad 12.157) refers this instance of eripe to Jupiter and Juno’s conversation in Aeneid 10, concluding independently that Juno’s phrasing “suggests that she knows she is raising false hopes.” Finally, when Aeneas’ lethal wound suddenly heals, Iapyx declares that he has not saved (servat) Aeneas but a great god has (12.427-9). The remaining instances of servo and eripio in the Aeneid likewise adhere to this scheme (e.g. 3.711).
Divine extraction in the Aeneid is less fantastic than in the Iliad in as much as no hero suddenly disappears from battle. Nevertheless, Virgil deploys servo and eripio just as Homer does σώιζω and ἐξαρπάζω. Both authors likewise use verbs such as reduco, “I lead back,” and ἔρυμαι, “I rescue,” to describe a rescue without any necessarily fateful connotations. Most importantly, Virgil demonstrates his awareness of this dichotomy all but explicitly with Jupiter and Juno’s discussion in Aeneid 10. In the end, Virgil does more than calque Homer’s verbs for rescue: he translates their capacity to reference a hero’s traditional fate beyond the confines of a single epic.