Nisus and Euryalus: exploiting the contradictions in Virgil's doloneia

Abstract

The contradiction in the reception of the Nisus and Euryalus episode arises not from misunderstandings of the episode by one set of readers or the other, but as a contradiction created by the intertextual nexus that the « Aeneid » establishes with other literary texts. The peculiarity of the episode of Nisus and Euryalus is an allusion to the peculiarity of Il. 10, the Homeric Doloneia. Allusions to other literary texts (Aen. 9, 226 alludes to Lucretius 1, 86 and Aen. 9, 227 to Lucilius, fr. 4 Marx) create negative connotations. Furthermore, the Doloneia enters the « Aeneid » in Book 1 (1, 469-473) as an example of a biased text. Thus Vergil foresees the pessimistic interpretation and the resistance to the bias of his text. But Vergil also foresees the optimistic interpretation and the political uses of his text.