Powell Anton. - Virgil the Partisan

First published in 2008 by
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2008 The author

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To

Hans-Peter Stahl

CONTENTS

PART I
Studying Virgil and The established partisan: The Aeneid

PART II
Partisan in the making: The Eclogues and Georgics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My numerous debts are gladly acknowledged. Many of them, taken together, serve for me as a reminder in microcosm of the historic sophistication of Manchester and its region. Accordingly, and from afar, I thank first Ernest Buckley from Milnrow. Scholar, technician and diplomat and formerly Rural Dean of the Clun Forest Deanery he has designed and typeset every book from the Classical Press of Wales, and made the Presss priorities his own. I am fortunate to know him. Lucy Holden, formerly prize-winning classicist of Edinburgh University and more recently Head of Classics at Withington Girls School, over years gave practical and moral support to the writing of this book. Ian Lambert, from Failsworth, initially my student at the Working Mens College and subsequently a wise friend, helped me on points of psychology. Ian McCannah, from Old Trafford, by his enterprise and integrity created in London a professional organization which underpinned the finances of the Press, and of my own writing. The polymathic classicist Daniel Ogden, once of Manchester Grammar School, has read the book in draft and much improved it in structure as well as detail. Rachel Williams, an animatrice of Classics at Manchester Grammar School, has contributed to the book in detail; her exceptional students informed and encouraged its author.

Much research for the book was done in France, in the superb library of the Ecole Normale Suprieure, Paris. Colleagues of the Ecole to whom I am indebted are Francis Prost, Monique Trd and Franois Menant. From other French institutions, three colleagues are to be warmly thanked for their intellectual generosity, and practical kindness: Pierre Brul (of Rennes II), Jacqueline Christien (Nanterre) and Nicolas Richer (ENS, Lyon). The ideas and the friendship which I have encountered in France have been an inspiration.

I have benefited from the unfailing friendship of the philologist Michael Benskin (of Oslo) and the mathematician Susan Friedlander (of the University of Southern California). Michael Lipton, development economist, inspired by his virtuoso combination of intellectual methods. Merle Lipton taught me much about the politics of South Africa. Stephen Mitchell in Swansea created enduring structure for a University of Wales institute. Annette Davies, also of Swansea, provided remarkable intelligence concerning academic psychology.

Three senior Latinists kindly improved this work. Philip Hardie showed characteristic generosity and patience in the face of my unconventional approach to a revered ancient author. His judgements have been taken to heart. John Trappes-Lomax, textual critic and friend of many years, improved content and style throughout. And Leofranc Holford-Strevens fortified the author both by his interest and by his valued criticisms.

Ioanna Kralli, hellenistic historian, gave valued encouragement as well as practical support in Athens.

I thank my daughters for countless forms of encouragement, all the more inspiring because they would not have seen it as such. Annie Powell said, over years, that she was looking forward to the appearance of V the P. Eva Powell, after a childhood resolutely committed to the Rug Rats, the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, when sixteen told me unexpectedly with maximum coolness that she was getting quite interested in Athenian democracy.

I record my gratitude to each of my parents: to my father, the Germanist Hugh Powell, who used both determination and finesse to ensure that his son should have a Classical education; and to my mother, who in my childhood always answered my questions.

Finally, I have had the honour to know two classical scholars who each have been an example in their field, each a master of architecture and of detail: Geoffrey de Ste Croix and Hans-Peter Stahl. The former showed that, if only in rare cases such as his, partisanship was compatible with the highest standard of argument. To the latter my debt is even more obviously personal. Without his intervention as (then) a stranger, an article of my own on Virgil from 1992, which now appears a sketch for part of this book, would probably have been as far as Latin poetry was concerned a permanent sheath for my quill. I hope he will not regret his responsibility. Until the mid-1990s I had known of two separate Stahls: the author (in German) of perhaps the best argument on Thucydides of the twentieth century, and the author (in English) of a definitive study of Propertius. But these Stahls were one and the same. This may inspire others, if only as would-be epigones, to attempt to combine Greek with Roman studies. It is for many reasons that the book is dedicated to him.

PREFATORY NOTE

The text of Virgil followed is that of R.A.B.Mynors. References to Appian are throughout to his Civil Wars. Servius is used almost indiscriminately to refer to items in the Servian corpus. Dates are BC unless otherwise indicated.

CHRONOLOGY

The tables below show main political developments referred to in this book, alongside conventional dates for Virgils own activity.