Virgil's Ascanius: Imagining the Future in the AeneidAscanius is the most prominent child hero in Virgil's Aeneid. He accompanies his father from Troy to Italy and is present from the first book of the epic to the last; he is destined to found the city of Alba Longa and the Julian family to which Caesar and Augustus both belonged; and he hunts, fights, makes speeches, and even makes a joke. In this first book-length study of Virgil's Ascanius, Anne Rogerson demonstrates the importance of this character not just to the Augustan family tree but to the texture and the meaning of the Aeneid. As a figure of prophecy and a symbol both of hopes for the future and of present uncertainties, Ascanius is a fusion of epic and dynastic desires. Compelling close readings of the representation and reception of this understudied character throughout the Aeneid expose the unexpectedly childish qualities of Virgil's heroic epic. |
Contents
| 1 | |
The Heir and the Spare | 15 |
Old Names and New | 37 |
Andromache and Dido | 57 |
Trojan Games | 78 |
Trojan Fire | 101 |
Protecting Ascanius | 123 |
Growing Up | 145 |
Relegating Ascanius | 168 |
Conclusion | 190 |
| 204 | |
| 225 | |
| 230 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adulthood Aeneas Aeneid Alba Longa Anchises Andromache Andromache and Dido Andromache’s Apollo Ascanius in Book Astyanax atque Augustus battle Book Five Book Nine Book Seven Book Three Book Twelve Buthrotum Caesar Carthage child Creusa Cupid cura descendants description of Ascanius destiny Dido Dido’s divine echoes emphasises episode erotic fate father fire flames further gens Iulia glory haec Hardie Hector Helenus helmet hero heroic hints hopes Horsfall Idalium Iliad Ilus Italian Italy Iulus Julian Juno Jupiter Latin Lavinia lusus Troiae name Iulus narrative Nisus and Euryalus Numanus Remulus nunc O’Hara omen Ovid Pallas passage Pentheus pietas portent potential promise Propertius puer reference reminder role Roman future Rome Rome’s Romulus scene Servius Servius Tullius Silvius son’s spes stag Statius story stressed suggests survival symbol table-eating Trojan Games Trojan women Troy Troy’s fall Turnus underlined Venus Virgil’s Ascanius Virgil’s epic young prince young Trojan