Art and Death in Virgil's Aneid
In the beginning of Book VI of the Aeneid, Aeneas and his men draw towards the coast of Cumae, nearing an Euboian settlement. While his men disperse into groups to various parts of the island for fuel and supplies, and to take some leave from their journey, Aeneas journeys to the temple of Apollo. There, as he stands before the gateway of the dead, he sees various scenes carved by the inventor Daedalus of his many inventions. In addition, there is a place upon the gates wherein there would have been carved a relief sculpture of the death of Icarus – but isn’t. This suggests that the art of Daedalus is related to the theme of death given its appropriation as the gates of Tartarus, and the absence of Icarus’ death suggests the possibility for rebirth, even at the gates of death itself. This idea of death and rebirth is enforced to emphasize what the entire Aeneid is about: the death and rebirth of the Aegean culture as the founding of Rome after the fall of Tro!At the juncture in the narrative wherein we are introduced to the gates, Virgil takes over as the narrator and addresses Icarus, remarking on how overcome he was with grief that he couldn’t carve the fall of his son. This relationship of art to de
However, in the interest of a consistant stance on all fronts, we should approach this in the same way we have proven that the shape of the arch is significant. Virgil addresses the dead soul of Icarus when describing the gate: In that high sculpture you, too, would have hadYour great part, Icarus, had grief allowed. When he passes through the gates, perhaps it is read to convey how he must finalize within himself, before he founds the city of Rome, the loss of Troy and the loss of the life he led before embarking on his journey. 47-50)Since our passage of study refers to a significant work of art within the narrative, it is imperative to make note of art’s role in Roman culture. The absence of Icarus’ fall from the gateway, under careful reading and reasoning through an art historical consideration, only furthers this into plausibility. It is art that summons this idea of self-recognition into being, by providing for us a metaphor for the larger narrational content. I am supposing this not based on literal evidence from Book VI, but simply from reading Book VI in context of where it is placed in the narrative. Will take the leadership, build walls of Mars,And call by his own name his people RomansFor these I set no limits, world or timeBut make the gift of empire without end(Virgil, tr. 1015-1018)And so on …Look now, my son: unde these aspicesIllustrious Rome will bound her power with earth,Her spirit with Olympus. A rendering of Icarus’ fall wou!ld only pay tribute to death, and in respect to our analogy of the fall of Troy throughout this discourse, would suggest that one should pay tribute to defeat. As well as the chronology of events in Book VI in relation to the books which come after it, there is a tie-in of an art historic context(since ideas of art in such a period would be different from our own) that further cements the singular idea: that the gates of Daedalus, in their absence of the death of his son and in the!ir placement as the gateway to the underworld, are a reference to the death of Aegean culture and the coming, or rebirth of that culture into, what is, fundamentally, Rome.
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