Nisus and Euryalus
Aeneid Book IX Night-time sortie
Warning: there’s gore in this one, and I’ve decided not to tone it down.
The sides are chosen. Aeneas is armed and gathering the Etruscans, who have a bone to pick with the Latins and Rutulians. Meanwhile, Juno is being … Juno. She sends the goddess Iris down to Turnus to tell him that Aeneas is away from the camp they’ve built, and that now would be a very good time to attack.
Messapus and his men are in the front, Turnus and his army in the middle, and the sons of Tyrrhus, whom the harpy Allecto got killed by the Trojans in a misunderstanding to kick off this whole bloodbath, are bringing up the rear with their country folk who’ve beaten their ploughshares into swords.
I’m wondering how long Aeneas and his people have been there. To read Virgil, it seems like only a few days, and yet, they have built an entire walled town, complete with turreted walls, moats, and earthworks. In addition, yes, some of the women ended up coming with them. Have they been there weeks? Or months?
Caicus, whom we last saw on the poop of the one of the Trojan ships heading for Carthage back in Book I, is on lookout duty, and sees Turnus and his armies headed calmly and implacably towards them. Aeneas left orders for them not to fight if they were attacked before he got back, so they head inside the walls and shut the gate. Even though it makes them feel ashamed and angry to do so.
This is going to come up over and over again, and it’s something that I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around. Why would you feel ashamed that you’re following orders, especially when it’s the obviously right thing to do strategically as well? They’re supposed to let Turnus choose the when (now!) and the where (out in the open!)? Awfully nice of them to want to accommodate the enemy so well.
Anyway, ashamed and angry as they are, they still follow orders. Whew! Which makes Turnus mad so he starts talking trash and insulting them. And when that doesn’t work (I was actually worried it might), he decides to burn their ships, hoping that will get them to come out. Jove’s mother, Rhea, comes through and saves the ships by turning them into sea nymphs, who then swim away. Which does at least keep the Trojans from coming out from behind their walls to try to save them. I wonder if Aeneas et al will get the ships back?
I was actually impressed by how well Turnus handled the Trojan ships transforming into nymphs. He tells his people that the fates and Venus have gotten the Trojans to Italy, but from here on in Turnus has his own fate to fulfill. And by the way, even though they didn’t burn the ships, the ships are still gone, and the Trojans just lost their escape via water.
Nisus and his best friend Euryalus, who we last saw on Sicily in the foot race in Book V, are itching to fight. I think the close friendship of Nisus and Euryalus is meant to echo or riff on the relationship between Achilles and Patrocles. The love between them is described both as amor (which I’m starting to interpret as like Greek eros, although perhaps not quite as overtly sexual) and dilectus (more like agape or Platonic love). I think just as with Achilles and Patroclus, you can take or leave the sexual aspect, as long as you keep the “blood brother” aspect.
More trash talk. It’s getting late in the day, so Turnus has his soldiers relax on the grass, eat, drink and play games (of dice, apparently), intending to attack in the morning after everyone’s rested.
Not a good idea.
Nisus and Euryalus have been doing a lot of hunting in the area, and they’re sure they can find Aeneas and bring him back. They present their plan to the men Aeneas put in charge while he was gone, Serestus (last seen in Book I when Aeneas revealed himself to Dido) and Mnestheus (second place winner in the boat race in Book V, captaining the Seabeast). Turns out that getting Aeneas back was exactly what they, with Ascanius, were talking about. The two of them leave the walled camp after dark.
Apparently, no one is on guard in Turnus’s camp. Everyone’s asleep.
At one point, Nisus decides they have kill people to get through, and now the Aeneid really turns up the gore. Nisus kills Rhamnes1, who is the auger to King Turnus, three bodyguards, a charioteer, Remus, Lamyrus2, Lamus3, and and Serranus4 . None of them wake up first, and Virgil describes Remus’s death in detail: Nisus beheaded him leaving the man’s trunk to spout dark blood. The ground and bedding were soaked with warm blood.
Now Euryalus gets in on the act. He kills “nameless ranks” and Fadus5, Herbesus6, Rhoetus7, and Abaris8. Again, Virgil describes one death in detail. This time, one of them actually woke up and was conscious: Rhoetus. He is struck dumb by terror when he sees what’s going on and doesn’t actually sound an alarm. Euryalus plunges his blade up to the hilt in the man’s chest, and draws it backwards, streaming death. Rhoetus “belches out his crimson life, wine mixed with blood.”
These names will all bring to mind places or people or battles to my first century Roman soldiers. Euryalus grabs some booty and they make it out of Turnus’s camp. No one ever sounds the alarm and I’m not quite sure if the gore-fest was actually necessary.
But now, their luck turns. They run into a troop leader called Volcens, leading three hundred horsemen, on their way to join up with Turnus. Both run when he hails them. Nisus makes it, then finds out Euryalus got lost, and retraces his steps to find him, which reminds me of Aeneas going back into burning Troy when he discovers he’s lost Creusa. He comes across Euryales, fighting Volcens and his men, looking like he’s losing.
More gore-filled descriptions of Nisus killing two men with javelins, one javelin snapping in two in Sulmo’s9 back, who rolls on the ground vomiting a hot flood and convulsing, the other splitting Tagus’s10 skull in two, showing the brains.
At this, Volcens, who hasn’t been able to see where the javelins are coming from, decides to kill Euryalus, causing Nisus to give himself away, and ask for mercy because “Euryalus didn’t kill those men.” Maybe Nisus is hoping they’ll both be taken prisoner? I’m confused.
Volcens kills Euryalus, and now we have a death described sweetly:
his neck
Collapsing let his head fall on his shoulder --
As a bright flower cut by a passing plow
Will droop and wither slowly, or a poppy
Bow its head upon its tired stalk
When overborne by a passing rain.
Translated by Robert FitzgeraldNisus goes berserk, going straight for Volcens and managing to kill him before he dies from all the wounds he takes from Volcens’s troops on the way there. So much for getting Aeneas.
But the main thing is that the young men were brave and loyal to the end. And Virgil praises them:
“Fortunate, both! If in the least my songs Avail, no future day will ever take you Out of the record of remembering Time, While children of Aeneas make their home Around the Capitol’s unshaken rock, And still the Roman Father governs all.” Translated by Robert Fitzgerald
And I guess I don’t really get it.
Nisus sacrifices himself and the mission without any possibility of saving Euryalus. And these two won’t be the last to do that sort of thing in this book.
Greek town on the Attica coast NE from Athens, most important sanctuary for goddess Nemesis, safe passage for Athenian food supplies during Peloponnesian war, birthplace of Antiphon around 480 BC, who founded a school attended by Thucydides.
Sea fish. Compare to Mnestheus’s second place ship, the Sea Beast.
Recalls the son of Poseidon. King of the Laestrygones, Skin-Reapers, cannibalistic giants who ate many of Odysseus’ men and destroyed 11 or his 12 ships; mythical founder of Formiae in Latium, on the Mediterranean coast, halfway between Rome and Naples. Family of Aelii Lamii traced their origins to him. Lucius Aelius Lamia, a man of equestrian rank, who assisted Cicero in the suppression of the second Catilinarian conspiracy. He was banished for his efforts in 58 BC, but was subsequently recalled. He supported Caesar during the Civil War, and served as aedile in 45. He was praetor elect for 43 BC, but died in unusual and tragic circumstances. Lucius Aelius L. f. Lamia, a friend of Horace, was consul in AD 3. He was appointed governor of Syria by Tiberius, but never permitted to administer his province. He succeeded Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus as praefectus urbi on the latter's death in AD 32, but died the following year, and received a censor's funeral.
Gaius Atilius M.f. M.n Regulus Serranus was consul for the first time in 257 BC, with the patrician Gnaeus Cornelius Blasio, and prosecuted the First Punic War against the Carthaginians. He defeated the Carthaginian fleet off the Liparaean islands, though not without considerable loss. He then obtained possession of the islands of Lipara and Melite, which he laid waste with fire and sword. On his return to Rome, he received the honour of a naval triumph. He was consul a second time in 250, with his patrician colleague being Lucius Manlius Vulso. Legend says he was plowing in the field when the delegation from Rome informed him that he had been re-elected consul (Aen. 6.844. In this year, the Romans gained a brilliant victory at Panormus, under the proconsul Lucius Caecilius Metellus. Thinking that the time had now come to bring the war to a conclusion, they sent both consuls to Sicily with an army of four legions and two hundred ships. Regulus and his colleague undertook the siege of Lilybaeum, the most important Carthaginian possession in Sicily; but they were foiled in their attempts to carry the place by storm and, after losing a great number of men, were obliged to turn the siege into a blockade.
Cuspius Fadus was an Ancient Roman eques and the 1st procurator of Iudaea Province in 44–46. After the death of King Marcus Julius [Herod] Agrippa, in 44, he was appointed procurator by Claudius. During his administration, peace was restored in the country, and the only disturbance was created by one Theudas, who came forward with the claim of being a prophet. The gens Fadia was a plebeian family at Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned around the time of Cicero, but they did not obtain any of the higher offices of the Roman state under the Republic. Gaius or Quintus Fadius, the father-in-law of Marcus Antonius, was a very wealthy freedman. Fadia, the first wife of the triumvir Mark Antony, to whom she bore several children.
Roman supply base in Sicily during Punic wars.
A mythical king of the Marrubians (around Lake Fucinus) in Italy, who married a second wife Casperia, with whom his son Anchemolus committed incest. In order to escape from his father's vengeance, Anchemolus fled to king Daunus.
Calls to mind Scythian high priest of Apollo and a renowned magician. He chanted the praises of Apollo, his master, so flatteringly that the god gave him a golden arrow on which he could ride through the air like a bird. Therefore, the Greeks called him the Aerobate. Pythagoras, his pupil, stole this arrow from him and thus accomplished many wonderful feats. Abaris foretold the future, pacified storms, banished disease, and lived without eating or drinking. With the bones of Pelops, he made a statue of Minerva, which he sold to the Trojans as a talisman descended from heaven. This was the famous Palladium, which protected and rendered impregnable the town wherein it was lodged.
Town sacked by Hannibal in 211 BC.
Tagus river in Iberia.
You are ashamed because it makes you look like a coward. An actual coward in your place would do the same thing as you do, and use the orders as a shield against just criticism.
I suspect the actions of the Trojans could be explained by the Roman concept of *virtus* (valor, masculinity, excellence, courage, character, and worth), an essential quality for leaders. Tricky commanders had better show physical courage, or their men will desert/reject them as effeminate(?)/weak. Often, that's the only way you're getting men, who practice physical violence, to follow you into battle, Ms. Mary. 🤷♂️ Anyway, thanks for sharing these sections of the Aeneid. 🙇♂️