The ekphrastic History of Rome: complementarity of geographical description and Aeneas’s shield in Book 8 of the Aeneid

Abstract

Book 8 of the Aeneid offers a broad account of Roman history from the protohistoric origins of Janus and Saturnus to the battle of Actium. The historical narrative develops over two long descriptive passages: one related to Evander and Aeneas’s walk around Pallanteum and a second passage that is the description of Vulcan’s shield. The present author's hypothesis is then framed with the premise that these passages are both ekphrasis that can be read and interpreted as complements. This approach allows us to understand the Virgilian view of history as a series of foundations based on the development of Roman urban geography, from meaningful natural geography, in association with chronological accounts of important leaders and their actions. Additionally, both passages are woven around the theme of order and complementarity: a geographical order and a chronological one. Both representations depend on each other to express their full meaning; that is, the consideration of urban geography as a reservoir of memory and Aeneas’s shield as organized narrative history.