Non-Trojans under the Influence of Atomism (Epic Losers)

This chapter examines scenes in the Aeneid in which non-Trojan characters are associated with atomism and atomic imagery. It argues that prominent non-Trojan antagonists are described in atomistic terms in order to associate their opposition to the Trojans with the chaotic, non-purposeful motion of atoms. Lucretian atomic imagery appears in the description of Dido’s death at the end of Book 4, and in the fighting that takes place in the Italian countryside in Book 10, including Turnus’ removal from the battlefield by Juno and Mezentius’ defeat by Aeneas. By depicting the defeat of these characters with the language of atomic phenomena, Virgil aligns the enemies of Rome’s historical and imperial teleology with an Epicurean cosmology that is similarly opposed to narratives of fate and fixed authority, both national and divine.