Juno, Venus and Jupiter

Aeneid Book X

There are a lot of good battle scenes in this book. I’m probably going to be working through this on my own – how the encounters go, the sword strokes, and so on. I’m not really sure I can write battle scenes, but I’m studying up, and we’ll see how it goes. I’m probably always going to be more relationship than action oriented in my writing, even when my backdrop is battle or technology. Does that even make sense? We’ll see.

So I’m at Book X of XII, and there are scenes on Mount Olympus where Jove, Juno and Venus are finally all together and talking about what they’re putting the poor mortals through down there. Juno has been the main villain, stirring up warfare out of wounded pride, even when she knows she’s not going to win. And at this point, from my point of view, she’s just doubling down.

She makes a great villain. Poor innocent Turnus being attacked by Aeneas! Except, of course, in a sense he is innocent. Virgil made clear that Latinus was already expecting to marry his daughter to a foreigner and Turnus had been disposed to at least give the Trojans a hearing, before Juno sent Allecto down to stir things up. And even then, Allecto had to provoke accidental bloodshed to get things actually started. Juno is clearly lying about her part in all this.

But Venus hasn’t been innocent either, although her motivations feel less evil. She’s not motivated by wounded pride, but by love for her son. And yet, Venus actually started the whole ball rolling by bribing Paris with Helen if only he would pick her as the most beautiful of the three goddesses: Juno, Venus, and Minerva. Much is made of whether Paris was guilty of stealing Helen, or of whether she was an unfaithful wife, but the immediate cause of Juno’s enmity was Venus giving Helen to Paris.

Jupiter decides not to back either side, and let the mortals fight it out. He does get a jibe in:

Iunonem interea compellat Iuppiter ultro:
“O germana mihi atque eadem gratissima coniunx,
ut rebare, Venus, nec te sententia fallit,
Troianas sustentat opes, non vivida bello
dextra viris animusque ferox patiensque pericli.”
-- Virgil, Book X, lines 606 - 610

At this point Jupiter slyly said to Juno:
"Sister and wife, too, most delightful wife,
As you were thinking -- not amiss, that thought --
It must be Venus who sustains the Trojans,
Not their good right arms in war, their keen
Combativeness and fortitude in danger."
-- translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Book X, lines 850 - 855

With only two more books to go, I still don’t see how Virgil is planning to reconcile what Juno and Venus have done. And they are both very important goddesses during the time of Augustus Caesar. Juno was part of the Capitoline Triad, which consisted of her, Jove, and Minerva. And Augustus Caesar claimed descent through Venus through his maternal great uncle, Julius Caesar.