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Tumulum Antiquae Cereris: Virgil’s Ceres and the Harvest of Troy

References to the goddess Ceres in Virgil’s poems have not received much critical attention1. The present study will seek to explicate all of the appearances of the Roman goddess of grain in the Virgilian corpus, with an aim to demonstrating how Virgil employs Ceres as a key divine figure in his poetic reflection on both the death of the old city of Troy and the immortality of the human soul. The Virgilian Ceres will emerge as an important immortal character in the poet’s dramatic presentation of the transition from Troy to Rome, and of the inevitable sacrifices that made such a progression possible2. The first mention of Ceres in Virgil’s works comes at Eclogue V, 79, where the goddess is referenced alongside Bacchus3: ut Baccho Cererique, tibi sic vota quotannis agricolae facient; damnabis tu quoque votis.

(V, 79-80)4

The farmers will pay their vows to Daphnis with each passing year, just as they render liturgical homage to the god of the vine and the goddess of the fields5. 1

Cf. especially I. Chirassi Colombo, Cerere, in EV I, 746-748; D.O. Ross, Ceres, in VE I, 254; and C. Bailey, Religion in Virgil, Oxford 1935, 106-109. For Ross, Ceres “is hardly prominent…In G., where she is named nine times, she is significant only in G. 1. The rustic rites of “great Ceres”…bring to a discordant conclusion the preceding passage on the violence of spring storms…That she plays otherwise so insignificant a role in the poem suggests clearly how little Virgil was interested in divine causation other than as an occasional signpost.” For Ceres’ daughter Proserpina in Virgil, cf. L. Fratantuono, Nondum Proserpina Abstulerat: Persephone in the Aeneid, «REA» 114.2,2012, 423-434. Essential reading (especially on the question of the “competition of views” of the immortals in the poem, 155) is D.C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition, Oxford, 1991. 2 I am grateful to the comments of the anonymous referee that greatly improved this study, and to the assistance of the editor, Professor Giovanni Cupaiuolo. 3 “As the patrons of liquid and solid nutriment respectively…the two deities are frequently coupled” (R. Coleman, Vergil: Eclogues, Cambridge 1977, ad loc.). “Assieme le due principali divinità agricole, collegate anche nel culto (in particolare nei misteri eleusini)” (A. Cucchiarelli, Publio Virgilio Marone: Le Bucoliche, Roma 2012, ad loc.). 4 All quotes from Virgil are taken from R.A.B. Mynors, ed., P. Vergili Maronis Opera, Oxford 1969 (corrected edition, 1972). 5 “Daphnis’ return has brought no grandiose, formal plan of universal order but only a nobler, permanent stabilization of the increased vitality which Ceres and Bacchus once confided to the earth.” (M.C.J. Putnam, Virgil’s Pastoral Art: Studies in the Eclogues, Princeton 1970, 190).

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Bacchus and Ceres represent the balanced progress of the seasons, of the cycles of winter and summer, spring and autumn; the crops and vines develop and shed their bounty in due course and in more or less predictable, regular pattern. The fifth eclogue presents numerous difficulties of interpretation, not least the possible allegorical referents for the divinized, apotheosized Daphnis (whether Julius Caesar or not)6. What matters for the bucolic poet is that Bacchus and Ceres are associated with more or less predictable cycles of nature, patterns of birth and death that call for regular, repeated acts of supplication and veneration. The honors that are to be paid to Daphnis are linked by the poet with both Ceres and Bacchus; the two gods are closely associated with cyclic rebirth and renewal. The same immortal pairing recurs at Georgic I, 7 Liber et alma Ceres, where the poet delineates the divine patrons of the arts of civilization and the culture and cultivation of both drink and food7. Not surprisingly, Ceres is indeed something of a prominent figure in the opening of Virgil’s poem of the fields; at I, 95-96 … neque illum / flava Ceres alto nequiquam spectat Olympo, we are reminded that the farmer’s work is not without its divine recompense. Ceres is a nurturing (alma) goddess, and she is as blonde (flava) as the crops over which she presides8. Ceres and Bacchus are invoked at the start of the Georgics9; soon enough, however, the poet alludes to the goddess obliquely for the only time in his cor6

“The place of honour in Virgil’s central Eclogue, the fifth, is held by a personage who unites in himself all qualities of the ideal shepherd-poet…The Daphnis of Eclogue 5 not only assimilates the characteristics of the Greek Daphnis; he surpasses and transcends them as well. The novelty of Virgil’s conception of Daphnis lies in the harvesting of so many ideas from earlier literary, religious, and mythological traditions into a harmonious whole, the incorporation of several disparate elements into a single symbol which embodies all that is significant in the Virgilian bucolic world.” (W. Berg, Early Virgil, Bristol 1971, 121). Daphnis is “the defining figure for Greek bucolic epos” (J. Van Sickle, Daphnis, in VE I, 337). There is an extensive treatment of the pastoral figure par excellence in B.W. Breed, Pastoral Inscriptions: Reading and Writing Virgil’s Eclogues, London 2006. 7 For the Lucretian (especially) and other intertexts of the passage, see especially M. Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius, and the Didactic Tradition, Cambridge 2000, 26-30. “… in exchanging alma Venus for alma Ceres Virgil also adopts a divinity with a direct influence on human development instead of an electric symbol of creativity…From aloof celestial eminences we turn to two gods who preside over the first and second books of the Georgics, Ceres and Liber.” (M.C.J. Putnam, Virgil’s Poem of the Earth: Studies in the Georgics, Princeton 1979,18-19). On the glossing of the goddess’ name see J. O’Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay, Ann Arbor1996, 51, 253 (with references to Servius, and Ennius). For the punctuation of the opening verses of the Georgics, with reference to the possible equation of Liber and Ceres with the sun and moon, see Luna and Ceres, «CPh» 63.2,1968, 143-145. 8 For the depiction of the tawny haired goddess, with consideration of Virgil’s debt to (inter al.) Hesiodic and Callimachean traditions, see M. Erren, P. Vergilius Maro Georgica, Band 2: Kommentar, Heidelberg 2003, ad loc. (Conflation of archaic and Hellenistic models - R. Thomas, Virgil: Georgics I-II, Cambridge 1988, ad loc.). “The immortals are golden-haired…but we are meant to think also of the gold of ripe grain.” (R.A.B. Mynors, Virgil: Georgics, Oxford, 1990, ad loc.). For the color flavus see especially R.J. Edgeworth, The Colors of the Aeneid, New York 1992, 128-130. 9 R.A. Smith perceptively notes that “Octavian has greater sway than Liber (i.e., Bacchus), and by the late 30s, offers the political stability necessary to secure Rome’s supply of grain (Ceres).” (Virgil [Blackwell Introductions to the Classical World], Malden, Massachusetts 2011, 77.

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pus, in a passage that references the most celebrated myth with which the goddess is associated – the abduction of her daughter by the god of the underworld. The context is the great address to Caesar that provides a climax to the proem of the first book; the reference to Ceres comes in a brief and telling comment on the underworld and its divine apparatus: … (nam te nec sperant Tartara regem nec tibi regnandi veniat tam dira cupido, quamvis Elysios miretur Graecia campos nec repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem.

(I, 36-39)

Tartarus has no expectation that Caesar will rule over its Stygian depths; the poet hopes that Caesar, for his part, would not be so greedy for domination and rule that he would be wish or be willing to reign in hell, as it were. The poet’s subjunctive hope is expressed in part because Greece, after all, is enchanted by the Elysian Fields – and the divine Proserpina, though reclaimed for the upper air, does not care to follow her mother. The underworld would seem to have its attractions, perhaps not least the fabled riches that were associated with its lord. Daphnis is to receive the same yearly offerings as Ceres and Bacchus; Caesar, meanwhile, is not to wish to reign in Avernus. The passage has received some critical attention for its rich layers of implication and meaning10. The reference to the Elysian Fields looks forward to the great eschatological drama of the sixth Aeneid; in the present, briefly sketched vignette of the underworld, Proserpina is more than content to remain with her infernal lord as queen of the dead. In the development of the underworld vision of the Aeneid, the Elysian Fields will be the locus for the great discourse of Anchises on the rebirth of souls and the possibility of reincarnation. In stark contrast to this hopeful reflection on resurrection is the presence of a goddess who wishes to remain forever in the underworld, a daughter who does not wish to revisit her mother every spring and summer in some yearly image of rebirth and renewal11. Proserpina’s wish to remain in the lower realm stands in sharp, contrasting relief to the idea of post mortem rebirth12. In short, the underworld digression of the Georgics proem bears close consideration in light of the later epic drama of the Virgilian underworld. Caesar is admonished not to want to rule in Tartarus, despite the sense of wonder for Ely10

Notably by Richard Thomas; see further his commentary ad loc., especially with reference to Aeneid VI, 719-721 and the question of the dira cupido of entering the underworld. Cf. A.J. Boyle, The Chaonian Dove: Studies in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid of Virgil, Leiden1986, 168-169. 11 The commentators note Lucan, Bellum Civile VI, 699-799 … caelum matremque perosa / Persephone, which may be indebted to the Georgics passage; cf. also the Lucanian fragment preserved in Servius ad Georgics IV, 492, where the ghosts in the underworld rejoice at the return of Eurydice to the realm of the dead. 12 On the tradition that Persephone’s mother may have visited the underworld in search of her, see G. Harrison and D. Obbink, Vergil, Georgics I 36-39 and the Barcelona Alcestis (P. Barc. Inv. No. 158-161) 62-65: Demeter in the Underworld, «ZPE» 63, 1986, 75-81.

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sium that possesses Greece, and despite the fact that the daughter of Ceres wishes to remain there. There is a sense of disquiet that broods over these verses; Virgil confronts his audience with the image of a divine daughter who prefers to remain in the lower world, a young goddess who does not wish to be rescued after all13. Caesar is urged not to want to visit the underworld, dreams of rebirth and renewal notwithstanding14. One clear enough lesson of these mysterious, haunting verses is that not everything that is lost wishes to be found; some things prefer to remain in their new state. There are implications here for the state of the individual human soul, and also for the rise and fall of nations and cities. Ultimately, Caesar is admonished not to wish to remain in the underworld – another destiny beckons, a catasterism that will place him among the stars. But the crown of Virgil’s georgic invocation to the gods (including the future divinity Caesar) comes with the hope that pity may be shown to the poor rustics who are ignorant of the way, the farmers who do not know how to reap the bounty of the earth (I, 41 ignarosque viae mecum miseratus agrestis). Ceres granted to humanity the gift of cultivation, after all, and there are guidelines and rules to be mastered in order to profit from her blessing. Indeed, Ceres is intimately associated with the rescue of humanity from the de facto end of the Golden Age and the failure of nature to shed its bounty without labor: Prima Ceres ferro mortalis vertere terram Instituit, cum iam glandes atque arbuta sacrae deficerent silvae et victum Dodona negaret.

(I, 147-149)

The first georgic is the veritable Book of Ceres; she is the goddess and the metonymical spirit that broods over its verses15. Humanity does not have food without price, but it does have the opportunity to exercise the labor that offers a good chance of reward and the sustenance of life. At high noon, the ruddy grain is cut down, and the ears are threshed on the floor: at rubicunda Ceres medio succiditur aestu, et medio tostas aestu terit area fruges.

(I, 297-298)

And, in due course, the goddess is to be reverenced and propitiated as the immortal governess of the fruit of the earth: in primis venerare deos, atque annua magnae 13

The reference to Ceres and Proserpina serves also to presage the drama of Orpheus and Eurydice that provides a climax to the fourth georgic. 14 The verse quamvis Elysios miretur Graecia campos is a subtly powerful indictment of much of both poetic and philosophical tradition. 15 On the signal importance of the goddess to the book, with consideration of the idea that she virtually replaces Jupiter, see C. Nappa, Reading After Actium: Vergil’s Georgics, Octavian, and Rome, Ann Arbor 2005, 43-45.

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Lee Fratantuono sacra refer Cereri laetis operatus in herbis extremae sub casum hiemis, iam vere sereno. tum pingues agni et tum mollissima vina, tum somni dulces densaeque in montibus umbrae, cuncta tibi Cererem pubes agrestis adoret: cui tu lacte favos et miti dilue Baccho, terque novas circum felix eat hostia fruges, omnis quam chorus et socii comitentur ovantes, et Cererem clamore vocent in tecta; neque ante falcem maturis quisquam supponat aristis, quam Cereri torta redimitus tempora quercu det motus incompositos et carmina dicat.

(I, 338-350)

This extraordinary rubrical description offers a crown to the earlier references to the goddess in the book; at the heart of the passage is a deeply felt awareness of a reciprocal relationship between goddess and devotee16. The Virgilian description of the worship of Ceres is more impressionistic than not; multiple occasions for the veneration of the goddess are subsumed into one stunning coda to what precedes – namely tempest and wind, storm and rain (I, 311 ff.)17. Sometimes, even the most knowledgeable rustic suffers disaster from the workings of nature. Ceres may have granted rich benefits to men, but there is still the price of serious toil and labor, and the harsh reality that sometimes said labor is in vain and without reward. The last mention of the goddess in the Georgics harks back, in a sense, to the first; the context is the poet’s description of the best type of soils for different crops; one type, after all, is better for grain, and another for viticulture: (altera frumentis quoniam favet, altera Baccho, densa magis Cereri, rarissima quaeque Lyaeo)

(II, 228-229)

Here we find a virtual metonymical use of the name of the goddess, and another of the typical associations of Ceres with Bacchus18. The reference closes a neat ring on the mentions of the goddess in the poem; what we are left with is a disquieting detail about the goddess’ loss of her daughter – the one reference to 16

On the difficult question of the sincerity of the poet’s call to pious acts of religious devotion (in contrast to mere adherence to formal conventions of genre and verse – though the two are not necessarily mutually incompatible), see C.G. Perkell, The Poet’s Truth: A Study of the Poet in Virgil’s Georgics, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1989,145. 17 For the Virgilian evocation of the Cerealia of 12-19 April, the Ambarvalia of the later days of May, and the rites surrounding the harvest, see especially L.P. Wilkinson, The Georgics of Virgil: A Critical Survey, Cambridge 1969, 149. On the importance of the Ceres cults in the Roman consciousness of Virgil’s day, see V. Panoussi, Vergil’s Aeneid and Greek Tragedy: Ritual, Empire, and Intertext, Cambridge 2009, 116. On the contrast between storm and religious ritual cf. B. Otis, Virgil: A Study in Civilized Poetry, Oxford, 1964, 160: “It certainly strikes a novel note of cheer but it in no sense alters the general tone and movement of the Book.” 18 Cf. here R.O.A.M. Lyne, Words and the Poet: Characteristic Techniques of Style in Vergil’s Aeneid, Oxford 1989, 10-11.

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Ceres where she is left unnamed – a passage in which we may be surprised to learn that Proserpina wishes to remain in hell. The first appearance of Ceres in the epic Aeneid comes at a rather low moment in the fortunes of the Trojans19. The scene is the aftermath of the landing of Aeneas and his men in North Africa in the wake of the storm that diverted them from their Hesperian course; Aeneas and Achates busy themselves with survival tasks to aid their men: tum Cererem corruptam undis Cerealiaque arma expediunt fessi rerum, frugesque receptas et torrere parant flammis et frangere saxo.

(I, 177-179)

Another personification of the goddess is employed, this time to describe the early efforts of the Trojans to sustain life in the wake of near disaster and ruin20. The Trojans are tired (fessi), but labor is required to enjoy the bounty of Ceres. The repetition of the name of the goddess (first nominally, then adjectivally) underscores her importance to the first moments the Trojans spend in the mysterious new land21; the passage will be echoed near the end of the book, as Virgil describes another African meal, this time in a quite different context: dant manibus famuli lymphas Cereremque canistris expediunt tonsisque ferunt mantelia villis.

(I, 701-702)

The banquet host is Dido, the Carthaginian queen; the guests are Aeneas and his Trojans. Metonymy and verbal repetition (expediunt) recall the earlier description of a less lavish repast. Here, the “Ceres” is contained in canistra; work was required to reap the harvest, as it were, but at this rich repast, there is no need for work. The verb expedire recurs here in a context both similar and different; this time there are servants (famuli) instead of tired Trojans eager for some scrap of bread. The bread that was served on the Carthaginian strand had been corrupted, as it were, by the waters of the storm and shipwreck. The meal in Dido’s palace, in contrast, is marked by the civilizing presence of napkins (mantelia)22. All of the aforementioned occurrences of the name of the goddess in Virgil have some association with grain and the nourishing crops that are protected by Ceres in her capacity as benefactor of man and patroness of agricultural endeavors23. Seemingly different are the two related passages we find in Book II of the 19

For detailed consideration of this passage cf. T. Weber, Fidus Achates: Der Gefährte des Aeneas in Vergils Aeneis, Frankfurt am Main 1988, 43-47. 20 On such uses of the names of the immortals, with reference to Lucretius’ reflections on the practice, see R.G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus, Oxford 1971, ad loc. For sober commentary on the present passage, where “Critics have complained that the wording…is too lofty, and approaches bombast,” see R.S. Conway, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus, Cambridge 1935, ad loc. 21 As we shall explore below, Virgil will reemploy the repetition for the first Trojan meal in Italy. 22 With a hint of luxury. 23 But on how Ceres is one of only three Olympian deities (the other two are Mercury and Diana) “not

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Aeneid, where Ceres is associated with the departure of the Trojans from the doomed city of Priam, and in particular with the loss of Aeneas’ wife Creusa24. The civilizing gifts of Ceres had been bestowed as part of the larger drama of the loss of her daughter; appropriately enough, it is Book II of the Aeneid – the book of the Trojan past – that the poet recalls the loss of Proserpina, the commencement of the sequence of events that would lead to the education of Triptolemus in the works of agriculture. The scene is Troy’s last night, the immediate context the address of Aeneas to his father Anchises as they prepare to leave their home in the wake of the Greek invasion: est urbe egressis tumulus templumque vetustum desertae Cereris, iuxtaque antiqua cupressus religione patrum multos servata per annos; hanc ex diverso sedem veniemus in unam.

(II, 713-716)25

There is a temple somewhere outside Troy, and it is dedicated to the goddess; said divinity has in some way been “deserted”26. Confusion over the exact meaning of desertae dates back to the scholiastic tradition; it is possible that the adjective refers to how the temple has been deserted on account of the long war, and that it is meant to evoke the loss of Ceres’ daughter Proserpina – an appropriate enough evocation, one might think, in the context of the loss of Aeneas’ wife Creusa27. The temple of Ceres is located next to an ancient cypress tree28. The cypress had funereal associations29; certainly the imminent disappearance of Aeneas’ wife is presaged in arboreal omen. The cypress is a harbinger of the mysterious disappearance of the wife who is definitively cast as third in importance in the hierarchy of flight from the flames of Troy30. The cypress is also associated with both hardiness and the construction of houses – a link that make it all the mentioned as protecting and favouring” the future Romans (a point to which we shall return below), see E. Henry, The Vigour of Prophecy: A Study of Virgil’s Aeneid, Carbondale 1989, 122-123. 24 Any possible connection between Ceres/Proserpina and Creusa is not considered by D. Gall, Ipsius umbra Creusae - Creusa und Helena, Stuttgart1993. 25 For sensitive commentary on this passage, note especially M. Paschalis, Virgil’s Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names, Oxford 1997, 97-98. 26 On the range of possible meanings for the crucial adjective desertae, see N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 2, Leiden-Boston 2008, ad loc. 27 On the seriousness of the loss and the subsequent significant prophetic apparition of the Trojan matron’s ghostly image, see J. O’Hara, Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil’s Aeneid, Princeton 1990, 88-91. Regarding the goddess’ loss of her daughter, we might note that Ceres is often paired with Bacchus – a god who traditionally lost his father prenatally, in the Junonian inspired destruction of Semele. 28 See especially here C. Connors, Seeing Cypresses in Virgil, «CJ» 88.1, 1992, 1-17. 29 Cf. J. Sargeaunt, The Trees, Shrubs, and Plants of Virgil, Oxford 1920, 38-39; N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 3: A Commentary, Leiden-Boston 2006, ad verse 64. The only other cypresses in the Aeneid appear at II, 64 (for Polydorus) and VI, 260 (for Misenus) – more dead Trojans. 30 For Aeneas’ relationship with his wife and Virgil’s characterization thereof, see R.O.A.M. Lyne, Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid, Oxford 1987, 149-151.

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more striking that the deserted temple is a feature of the dying, soon to be dead Troy31. The introduction of the description of the temple of Ceres begins with the interesting language est urbe egressis tumulus – there is a grave mound, as it were, for the ones who have departed from the city. Tumulus need not evoke specific associations of the grave, though the other occurrences of the noun in the epic are oftentimes funereal, indeed baleful – and here the loss of Creusa seals the connection32. What are we to make of the association of the goddess Ceres with Troy?33 In the present context, the image of Ceres’ temple is of lonely isolation and even desolation; like Eurydice, Creusa will be lost, and without successful resurrection, and the temple of Ceres – the shrine that is both deserted, and the precinct of the goddess who is deserted – is a physical marker of the death of Troy. The loss of Creusa is a vivid image or even incarnation of the death of Troy; here indeed, at the temple of the goddess, there will be a grave mound and burial marker for the ones who have made their exit from a city. Indeed, if Aeneas’ wife Creusa can be regarded as a Trojan mother figure, then the Trojans will lose their mother before the exile group even arrives at the temple of the deserted goddess: nec prius amissam respexi animumve reflexi quam tumulum antiquae Cereris sedemque sacratam venimus …

(II, 741-742)

Aeneas does not notice the loss of his wife until the arrival at Ceres’ sacred precinct. The passage is rich in complex associations. First, we may note that the goddess has connections to the notion of sustenance and nourishment, indeed of maternity and the raising of children. Creusa’s loss represents the loss of a mother; in the case of Ceres, however, the mother is intimately associated with the loss of a daughter (desertae). That loss is in turn linked to the relentless action of the yearly cycle of the seasons and the coming of winter34. Ceres lost a daughter (at least for part of the year); Aeneas and his Trojans lose a mother (fittingly 31

“The wood is highly resistant to decay, hence its use in housebuilding.” (E. Abbe, The Plants of Virgil’s Georgics, Ithaca, New York 1965, 22). 32 Cf. III, 22, 40, 63 (Polydorus’ grave mound); 304 (Hector’s cenotaph); 322 (the site of Polyxena’s murder); V, 76, 86; 93; 605; 664; 760 (Anchises’ grave); 371 (Hector’s burial mound); VI, 380 (Palinurus’ future monument); VI, 505 (Deiphobus’ marker); XI, 6 (Mezentius’); 103; 233; 594. With the present passage cf. also IX, 195, in the discussion of the route that Nisus and Euryalus will take to Aeneas – another grim localization of a tumulus that serves to presage a loss. 33 “We hear surprisingly little in the Aeneid of divinities that have any peculiarly Trojan quality.” (C. Saunders, Vergil’s Primitive Italy, New York 1930, 124). 34 For the question of when the Trojans left Troy, and indeed of the larger problem of the timeline of the epic (seasonal and annual), see especially R. Mandra, The Time Element in the Aeneid of Vergil: An Investigation, Williamsport, Pennsylvania 1934, 15 ff. Mandra notes the tradition that the Trojans left their ruined city in the warm season, and that the action of the Aeneid commences in the winter.

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enough, given the loss of their native city)35. And the language of “looking back” (respexi) directly evokes the lore of Orpheus with Eurydice. Sacratam is a poignant description for the seat of the goddess; Ceres’ protection will not extend to the salvation of Creusa, any more than the sacer Cereri Polyboetes will be saved36. Virgil places a strong emphasis, too, on the sense of age: the temple of the goddess is old (vetustum), and the cypress that stands near is ancient (antiqua), and it has been preserved by the religious scruple of Trojan fathers for many a year37. The goddess’ precinct is a source of unity out of division; the Trojans come from different directions (ex diverso), but they find one seat and one home with the goddess (sedem veniemus in unam). The description of the goddess as “aged” points also to the fact that in consequence of the ruin of Troy, there will be no future harvests or reaping of the fruits of the earth; the death of Troy spells the end of agriculture on the site. The ghost of Creusa, too, will announce that she is held in the Troad by none other than Cybele, the Great Mother of the immortals (II, 788 sed me magna deum genetrix his detinet oris) – Creusa is a virtual incarnation of the spirit of the old Troy, and as a ghost she is held by the Trojan mother goddess38. But if Ceres’ recovery of Proserpina in the spring and summer represents something of the spirit of resurrection and rebirth, then in the closing movement of the second Aeneid we see a pattern of death (the loss of Creusa), and then the hope of rebirth (the departure of the exiles from Troy to a Hesperian future – a destiny that the umbra Creusae announces to Aeneas)39. What is left unspecified and out of the discussion is how the birth of Rome will necessitate the death of Troy; Trojan rebirth will be limited to the intermingling of Trojan blood with Ausonian in Italy40. Proserpina may wish to remain in the underworld, and Creusa will stay in Troy. It is interesting that in the references to Ceres in Book I of the epic, the Trojan bread that was broken on Carthaginian shores was corrupted by the waters of the long journey to Africa; in contrast, the stored bread in Carthage was associated with no such negative imagery save the question of luxury. The Carthaginians of Book I were compared to bees, as we shall see; the Trojans of Book IV to ants as they sought to store up grain. And in Book II, the allusions to Ceres relate directly to the departure from Troy and the death of Aeneas’ wife. 35

For Aeneas’ emotional relationship to the living versus the dead, with special reference to Creusa, see S. Farron, Vergil’s Æneid: A Poem of Grief & Love, Leiden-New York-Köln 1993, 121-122. 36 Cf. below on VI, 484. 37 Cf. also II, 742 … antiquae Cereris. The goddess is first described as deserted or abandoned, and then (after the loss of Creusa), as ancient – the adjective that had been applied to the mournful cypress now describes the goddess. 38 See further here G. Scafoglio, Noctes Vergilianae: Ricerche di filologia e critica letteraria sull’Eneide, Hildesheim 2010, 110-112. 39 II, 772 ff. 40 Cf. XII, 835-836 … commixti corpore tantum / subsident Teucri.

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Creusa is held back in the Troad; she will not be reborn, as it were, or return to Aeneas41. Like Proserpina in the underworld, she will remain behind – and a prosperous future awaits the Trojans in Hesperia, though significantly Creusa does not predict the forthcoming war in Italy; her prophecy is restricted to res laetae and a future bride (i.e., Lavinia). Soon enough Virgil references yet another temple of Ceres, this one in North Africa. The scene is a series of sacrificial rites and propitiatory offerings made by Dido and Anna; Ceres is associated with Apollo, Bacchus, and Juno as a recipient of liturgical rites and supplicatory drama42: principio delubra adeunt pacemque per aras exquirunt; mactant lectas de more bidentis legiferae Cereri Phoeboque patrique Lyaeo, Iunoni ante omnis, cui vincla iugalia curae.

(IV, 56-59)

Here the Bacchic title Lyaeus may have a certain special sense in context; “Loosener” is an all too appropriate appellation in light of Dido’s decision to abandon her vow to remain faithful to the memory of her dead husband Sycaheus43. In Aeneid I, Ceres was associated strictly with food and the art of the cultivation of crops; now, both in Books II and IV she is encountered via her sacred places in contexts that point ultimately to Aeneas’ own civilized life (Creusa; the imminent relationship with Dido), and, by extension, the civilization of both his Trojan exiles and Dido’s Carthaginians. Dido approaches the immortals with solemn reverence and rubrical precision; ultimately, her sacrifices will be frustrated44. Creusa had mentioned the future marriage of Aeneas (II, 783 regia coniunx); Dido will not exercise the role of the royal bride45. Dido’s invocation of the gods is made at the recommendation of her sister; Anna advises that Dido seek divine pardon (IV, 50 tu modo posce deos veniam) before indulging in reasons to delay Aeneas’ progress to Italy. Ceres, for her part, is identified as legifer or “lawgiver”; the adjective may be a Virgilian coinage to 41

We may compare the image of Proserpina not wishing to return to Ceres – and, throughout, the fact that Aeneas’ wife was Eurydice (cf. Ennius, Annales fr. 36 Skutsch). Creusa predicts that res laetae (II, 783) await Aeneas in Hesperia; the point of the adjective may be agricultural (see further Horsfall’s commentary ad loc.). 42 “… this ritual invocation depends on the notion of expiatory sacrifice to reconcile the gods to a sin not yet committed.” (M.A. Di Cesare, The Altar and the City: A Reading of Vergil’s Æneid, New York-London 1974, 21). 43 On the connection of certain immortals to nuptial rites, see R.G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quartus, Oxford 1955, ad loc. “The Aeneid is the national epic of Augustan Rome, embodying the aspirations, the pride and the self-image of the rulers of the world. Yet of all the aspects of human life, it is centred most clearly on love and marriage.” (F. Cairns, Virgil’s Augustan Epic, Cambridge, 1989, 105). 44 On the queen’s civic duties and the outcome of these offerings, cf. D. Nelis,Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, Leeds 2001, 144-145. 45 We should remember that the abducted Proserpina was the intended bride of Pluto; the kidnapping had a nuptial dimension. The scene of Dido’s invocation of Ceres for assistance in matters essentially marital is suffused with the image of Proserpina’s marriage to Jupiter’s elder brother.

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translate a traditional Greek epithet of the goddess46. Ceres is essentially asked to give her blessing to a new union; Juno, the preeminent Roman patroness of marriage, receives special attention as part of this solemn appeal to the immortals. The prayer is misguided; a union, however, will indeed be secured between Dido and her beloved Aeneas – a union that will spell untold grim consequences for the future47. In Book II, Ceres was intimately associated with the loss of Aeneas’ wife; now, in Book IV, she appears prominently in the context of Dido’s infatuation with the Trojan hero, and the queen’s internal debate with respect to fidelity to the ghost of her own lost spouse48. Beyond considerations of marriage and family life, there is also the larger question of city and state; Troy has fallen, and Aeneas and his fellow exiles now find themselves in the midst of a nascent city, a new foundation in North Africa that seems to offer the promise of security and even a sort of happiness (at least for Aeneas). Ceres, Servius observes in his commentary on the present passage, was noted to have been the first to marry Jupiter, and to be in charge of the foundation of cities – a detail that is of significance in light of the detail about est urbe egressis tumulus with respect to her temple49. The temples that Dido visits are not abandoned; they are the young, busily occupied sacred sites of a new city. They are also now the locus of prayers that are doomed to be of sad import and tragic resolution. Fittingly, when Dido sees Aeneas’ Trojans as they prepare to make their exit from Carthage, the poet compares the busy Teucrians to ants that plunder grain and crops as they make their preparations for winter and the season of death (IV, 402-407)50. Dido seeks union with nothing less than a dead culture; her husband Sychaeus met his death by violence, and her new infatuation is an exile from a city that was destroyed and will not rise again. The Carthaginian bees were in a better state before they met the Trojan ants; as for the Trojans, the bread they brought to Africa was corrupted, and now all they can do is plunder the grain of Carthage as they prepare for departure and escape. 46

See further here A.S. Pease, Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quartus, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1935, ad loc. Pease exhaustively considers the problems posed by the listing of deities in Dido’s prayer, including the question of whether or not Ceres, Apollo, and Bacchus are meant to evoke some Punic triad. 47 The poet offers a strong exclamatory comment on the pointlessness of the prayer at IV, 65-66 heu, vatum ignarae mentes! … / quid delubra iuvant?. 48 And Dido, like Creusa, will mark the end of a book with her death; see further M.C.J. Putnam, Virgil’s Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid, New Haven, Connecticut 1998, 95. 49 Cf. further B.S. Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres, Austin 1996, 45-46. 50 In the Georgics, ants are indeed pests that plunder grain (I, 178-186); see further B. Gladhill, Ants, in VE I, 99-100. The Carthaginians were compared to bees as they saw to the development of their new city (Aeneid I, 430-436); the bee recurs in Virgil as a key symbol of rebirth and renewal. The Trojans are the natives of a dead city, and they will be reborn, in a sense, as the Romans who will see to the end of Carthage – and so fittingly enough, they are compared to the insect that is associated with destruction and devastation. Looming over all is the sentiment that there may not be, in the end, a valid hope for rebirth and renewal: the Carthaginian bees do not presage lasting life, and Dido’s prayers to Ceres will not be heard.

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We next meet Ceres (after a fashion at least) in the infernal regions. Aeneas sees the shades of Trojan heroes, of victims of the violent upheaval of the Trojan War. Among the Trojan ghosts of the underworld is one Polyboetes, who had been sacred to the goddess: … Cererique sacrum Polyboeten

(VI, 484)

The identity, perhaps even the orthography, of the hero referenced here is uncertain51. One might be tempted to associate Polyboetes with the temple of Ceres from Book II, though Virgil does not make any such association clear; the hero’s name may indicate that he was rich in oxen, but there is no readily apparent onomastic point beyond this appropriate enough connection to an agricultural deity52. He may have been a priest of the goddess, though this is uncertain53. Ceres is once again associated with the fall of Troy; the goddess’ temple was prominent in the departure of Aeneas and his cohorts from the doomed city, and now the same immortal is referenced in the miniature catalogue of heroes who did not survive that fateful night. Interestingly, the briefly mentioned ghosts serve as prolegomena to the more extended treatment of the mutilated Deiphobus – the last husband of Helen. Any nuptial associations of the goddess are cast here in the ominous context of the deadly union between the Trojan and the Spartan lovely; once again, marriage is depicted in a profoundly grim light. Polyboetes may have been rich (at least in livestock), and he may have been sacred to the god – but his death came all the same amid the devastation of Troy. At the very least, the brief but effective reference to the goddess underscores the death of Troy and the failure of the goddess to secure new life for the doomed city – Proserpina, after all, wishes to remain in the underworld. All of the mentions of the goddess in the first, Odyssean half of the epic are thus tinged with some hint of trouble or grim circumstance: the first meal after a shipwreck, where admittedly the Trojans are safe for the moment, at least; the banquet in Dido’s palace, where already the immortals are conspiring to turn Dido’s heart to favor for Aeneas – a favor that will have dark consequences for Carthaginians and Trojans alike; the loss of Creusa on Troy’s last night; the hopeless situation of the infatuated Dido; and the dead devotee of the goddess. The second, Iliadic half of the Aeneid returns to the image of Ceres as the goddess of grain and of agricultural life. Once again the Trojans are observing a 51

See here the helpful notes ad loc. of N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 6: A Commentary, Berlin 2013, with reference inter al. to the question of warrior priests in Homer and cyclic epic (and cf. also the commentary of R.G. Austin, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Sextus, Oxford 1977). It is unclear whether or not Polyboetes was borrowed from cyclic epic. It would seem that the mention of Ceres is original to Virgil. 52 Cf. F. Fletcher, Virgil, Aeneid VI, Oxford 1941, ad loc. The allusion to oxen may serve to highlight the sacrificial nature of these Trojans victims. 53 Cf. Conington’s good note ad loc., with reference to the somewhat parallel case of Cybele’s devotee Chloreus at XI, 786.

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meal of sorts – a meal that will be marked by the apparent fulfillment of the prophecy of the Harpy Celaeno about the “eating of the tables”54: Aeneas primique duces et pulcher Iulus corpora sub ramis deponunt arboris altae, instituuntque dapes et adorea liba per herbam subiciunt epulis (sic Iuppiter ipse monebat) et Cereale solum pomis agrestibus augent. consumptis hic forte aliis, ut vertere morsus exiguam in Cererem penuria adegit edendi, et violare manu malisque audacibus orbem fatalis crusti patulis nec parcere quadris: ‘heus, etiam mensas consumimus?’ inquit Iulus, nec plura, adludens. ea vox audita laborum prima tulit finem …

(VII, 107-119)

The passage is not without significant difficulties of interpretation and disentanglement55. Celaeno’s prophecy in Book III was linked to the fashioning of a new city (III, 255 sed non ante datam cingetis moenibus urbem); the Trojans were to be compelled to consume their tables before they could encircle their destined new city with walls56. The present context is more lighthearted and relaxed than the parallel meal on the strand from Book I – but the forthcoming war in Latium looms large57. And just as Ceres was prominently featured by the repetition of some form of her name at I, 177-179, so here the poet twice references the goddess. There is no mention here of any “corruption” of Ceres’ bounty such as that noted in Book I; instead, there is the hunger caused by a lack of sufficient food (penuria … edendi). Significantly, the start of the war in Italy will come with the setting into angry motion of the hearts of rustics: VII, 481-482 … quae prima laborum / causa fuit belloque animos accendit agrestis. And Iulus – the youth who playfully recalls the omen of the tables – will be the one responsible (however unwittingly) for the commencement of the war58. The Trojans consume the 54

“Throughout the poem, different levels of success in achieving settlement are indicated by the success or disruption of meals that the Trojans at on their various arrivals.” (A. Syson, Fama and Fiction in Vergil’s Aeneid, Columbus 2013, 107-108). 55 Cf. N. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 7: A Commentary, Leiden-Boston-Köln 2000, ad loc.; W. Kühn, Götterszenen bei Vergil, Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1971, 101-102. 56 On such Virgilian ring compositions with respect to prophecy, see G. Williams, Technique and Ideas in the Aeneid, New Haven, Connecticut 1983, 75-76. 57 The forthcoming war does not necessarily, however, relate to any alleged sacrilege of the Trojans in the consuming of food that may have been sacred to the gods. For detailed consideration of the problem, note H. Boas, Aeneas’ Arrival in Latium: Observations on Legends, History, Religion, Topography and Related Subjects in Vergil, Aeneid VII, 1-135, Amsterdam 1938, 221-238. Still, note that the Trojan jaws are described as audacibus, and the food as fatalis. 58 See further here M.C.J. Putnam, Aeneid VII and the Aeneid, «The American Journal of Philology» 91.4, 1970, 408-430, especially 422-423. “On reacing Italy they are indeed compelled to eat the crusts due Ceres. Virgil’s words make clear that such action is profane. Yet it fulfills Celaeno’s prophecy, as Iulus announces …”

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bread of Ceres, and the rustics are soon enough roused to war. In an important sense, the reciprocal relationship between grain goddess and mortal laborers has been broken; the Trojans were understandably enough driven by hunger, but their jaws were daringly audacious all the same. And, too, we do well to remember that Celaeno’s prophecy may well deserve to be taken seriously; hunger may drive the Trojans to consume that which is sacred, and the sacrilege may find expiation only in the suffering of the future war. The meals of Book I were intimately associated with Carthage; interestingly, it is only here, in Book VII, that serious hunger is specifically referenced – the Trojans have not, after all, had nearly so bad a time en route from Sicily to Italy as they did before the unplanned landing in Africa (where the storm and tempest corrupted their bread)59. One could argue that the Trojans should not be so hungry that they are compelled to eat sacred cakes60. One final meal in the epic crowns the epiphanies of Ceres in the Aeneid. The scene is the meeting between Aeneas and the Arcadians Evander and Pallas; the goddess once again appears in conjunction with Bacchus61: tum lecti iuvenes certatim araeque sacerdos viscera tosta ferunt taurorum, onerantque canistris dona laboratae Cereris, Bacchumque ministrant.

(VIII, 179-181)

Ceres is here identified as a goddess of work and labor; she has done much to ensure that there will be bread for the present meal62. The participle laboratae in the genitive singular harks back to the only previous use of the laboratus in the epic: I, 639 arte laboratae vestes ostroque superbo, where the richly fashioned clothing is part of the array in Dido’s palace for the great banquet that the queen hosts in honor of Aeneas and his Trojans63. The canistris recall the banquet in Carthage; here again there is an atmosphere of plenty and abundance. The Virgilian meals (with their allusions to the goddess) are thus arranged in balanced sequence; the improvised, makeshift meals of the openings of Book I and VII (both of which are followed by the death of stags/deer, we might note)64 are followed

59

Cf. the lesson of the Georgics, where storms are described soon before the great declaration of the rites due to Ceres – rites that the Trojans pay no heed to in the Aeneid. The only Trojan mention of the goddess is Aeneas’ use of her temple as a meeting place for his exiles. 60 For a possible corrective to the view that the Trojans are ritually improper in their actions here, see Horsfall’s commentary, 111. 61 Cf. here G. Highet, The Speeches in Vergil’s Aeneid, Princeton 1972, 254-255, with reference to Lucretius’ views on how Epicurus deserves the title of deus more than Ceres and Bacchus. 62 On the religious context of the meal in light of the rites in honor of Hercules, see K.W. Gransden, Virgil: Aeneid VIII, Cambridge 1976, ad loc. 63 On the “rare transitive use” see C.J. Fordyce, P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Libri VII-VIII, Oxford 1977, ad loc. On the parallel passages see W. Clausen, Virgil’s Æneid and the Tradition of Hellenistic Poetry, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1987, 153 n. 22. 64 Note on this topos A. de Villiers, The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas, «Akroterion» 58, 2013, 47-59, on the “gradual desensitization” of Aeneas via the act of the hunting of game.

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by seemingly more relaxed, civilized repasts at the tables of foreign hosts – first the Carthaginians, and then the Arcadians65. The first mention of Ceres in the Virgilian corpus spoke of annual offerings to Daphnis, just as Ceres and Bacchus receive the veneration of yearly rites. In a neat close to a great circle, the last appearance of the goddess in Virgil is also associated with annual solemnities. Evander promises an alliance with the Trojans in the face of the war in central Italy. In the meantime, all will celebrate a liturgy: interea sacra haec, quando huc venistis amici, annua, quae differre nefas, celebrate faventes nobiscum, et iam nunc sociorum adsuescite mensis.

(VIII, 172-174)

The meal with the Arcadians is sacred; it is part of a rubrically precise ritual and religious observance. In the Virgilian progression we move from the annual rites for Daphnis to what in effect presages the loss of the Arcadian Pallas66. The yearly rites for the divinities of grain and wine (both deities who suffered losses) have been inextricably associated with the memory of Daphnis and Pallas, two figures of tragic loss and premature death. These images of early death relate to nothing less than the problem of the Augustan succession; agriculture and its labors will continue, but Proserpina’s union with the lord of the dead is without offspring, and Ceres has no descendants from the marriage of her daughter. Ceres emerges as a paradoxical figure of fertility that is rather arrested and without ultimate fruition. The exact meaning of laboratae Cereris is difficult to construe67. Certainly there is a hint of the labor of the goddess on behalf of humanity via the cultivation of grain; there may also be a hint of her great labor in quest for Proserpina before the reality of her daughter’s abduction was made clear. Evander’s Pallas will offer another example of the loss of a child; Evander will present another instance of a deserted parent in the aftermath of the death of the young hero Pallas. Two appearances of the goddess in Book 1 of the epic, then, both in the context of meals; these repasts are balanced by the two appearances in Books VII and VIII in similar contexts. Between the four meals there are four other mentions of Ceres: the two notes in the ring composition of the loss of Creusa in Book II, and the related details about the temple of Ceres that Dido approaches in Book IV, and the ghost of the Trojan who was sacred to Ceres in Book VI. The 65

Who, in a sense, return us to the world of the Eclogues – at least in spirit. And, too, there is a brilliant trick that links the meals in North Africa and at Evander’s settlement – the laboratae vestes. At XI, 72 tum geminas vestis auroque ostroque rigentis, etc., the Arcadian Pallas will be buried in one of two robes that had been fashioned by Dido (perhaps for Aeneas and his son). 66 Cf. the place of Hercules at X, 464 ff., as Pallas draws near to his doom. 67 “The gifts of Ceres which they had prepared” (R.D. Williams); “cunningly wrought” (T.E. Page); “dressed corn (i.e., bread)” (Papillon and Haigh).

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four references to the goddess amid meals thus frame the four references to the goddess’ temple and sacred rites68. The meals of Aeneid I are associated closely with Carthage; the meals of Book VII and VIII come in the shadow of the war in Latium. The Carthaginian sojourn will spell the loss of Dido; the Latin War will mean the death of Pallas – and Virgil will link both deaths closely in the narrative of Pallas’ requiem in Book XI. Nestled between the sequences of more or less ominous meals are the scenes associated with the goddess’ cult, scenes that take us from the loss of Creusa and the death of Troy to the failure of Dido to secure a lasting union between the Trojan exiles and Carthage, and the reminder of how a Trojan hero sacred to the goddess is now a mere underworld shade. Neither Creusa nor Dido will enjoy a lasting union with Aeneas; both Troy and Carthage are destined for death. The picture of the goddess that emerged from her appearances in the Georgics was one of both clear enough convention – Ceres, often linked with Bacchus, as patroness of agriculture – and also of particular interest in terms of her chthonic connection via her abducted daughter. As in the Aeneid, there was a reference to the “deserted” goddess, though the allusion to the celebrated myth of Proserpina came with the image of a mother whose kidnapped daughter wished to remain kidnapped. Caesar is not to covet rule in Tartarus; he is to remain out of the underworld, as it were – he is not to attempt some Orphic or, for the matter, Aeneas-like harrowing of hell. The abiding message is one of lack of rebirth and renewal; Proserpina does not wish to return to her mother, and neither Creusa nor Troy will endure in any lasting, tangible fashion. Dido’s Carthage, too, will be ruined in the aftermath of its encounter with the plundering, devastating Trojan ants. The goddess Ceres plays a distinctly important role in the drama of the Virgilian Aeneid, and emerges as a key figure in the epic pantheon – even as she performs her functions in an atmosphere of rather subdued, sober quiet69. Virgil’s first mention of the goddess came as he named Bacchus and Ceres in the fifth eclogue; the last comes amid the reception of the Trojans in Arcadia, as Ceres and Bacchus appear again, this time to close a great ring of reference to the divine patrons of grain and wine. Lurking behind the seeming convention of the worship of the goddess of the fields and the lord of the vine is a palpable sense of loss and the unsuccessful quest for rebirth and renewal. The seasons may re68

Again, Polyboetes may not be a priest of the goddess, but his status as one “sacred to Ceres” connects to the temples of the goddess and to her religious rites. 69 Beyond the scope of this study is consideration of the importance of the goddess more generally in Augustan/imperial propaganda; for the thesis that Ceres is the mysterious key figure on the Ara Pacis, for example, see Spaeth, op. cit., 125-151. “… Ceres was both a native Italic deity and a foreign Greek one … Ceres mediates between the foreign origin of Rome … and the city’s native origin … She serves here again liminally, as a divinity connected with the transition from the primitive villages of Italy to the city-state of Rome.” (140).

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turn in due course, but the Virgilian reader is left with a Proserpina who does not wish to be restored to her mother, and a Dido and Pallas who are lost forever in the advent of a Roman future – a future in which there will be no rebirth of Troy, but only ghosts such as the one detained by another mother goddess, on Trojan shores70. Lee Fratantuono Riassunto: La dea Cerere è una figura importante e sottovalutata nello studio della struttura dell’Eneide. Virgilio organizza attentamente le apparizioni di Cerere nel suo poema epico per evidenziare sia la morte di Troia sia la futilità della speranza in una reincarnazione e rinascita. Abstract: The goddess Ceres is an important and underappreciated figure in the divine machinery of the Virgilian Aeneid. Virgil carefully arranges the appearances of Ceres in his epic to highlight both the death of the old Troy, and the ultimate futility of hopes for Orphic reincarnation and rebirth.

70

Cf. Aeneid II, 788.