Basil
DUFALLO Euripides' Hecuba
and Vergil's Polydorus: "Staging" an Alternative to the
Corrupt Murder Trial in Augustan Rome
Vergil's debt
to Euripides' Hecuba
in the Polydorus episode of Aeneid 3 has been evident to scholars at
least since Heinze remarked a series of verbal echoes
between Vergil's text and two passages in Euripides'
play: the prologue spoken by Polydorus' ghost and the
"trial" of Polymestor near the drama's conclusion. Recent
work has emphasized the ideological import of the
Vergilian scene. In Quint's reading (Epic and
Empire,
1993), Vergil uses Polydorus to develop a parallel in
Book 3 between the Trojans, confronted with painful
memories of their traumatic past, and Augustan Romans,
likewise in need of putting to rest the painful memories
of the civil wars. But Vergil's references to the
Hecuba would have
also recalled Augustus' efforts at judicial reform.
Vergil in effect replaces the conclusion of Polydorus'
story as staged by Euripides&emdash;Polymestor's corrupt
"trial"&emdash;with a pious funeral and the Trojans'
departure from Thrace, events more representative, he
suggests, of the Augustan emphasis on piety toward the
dead and social renewal than the event they supplant.
Vergil here opposes epic's emphasis on linear narrative
to tragedy's interest in exploring the ambiguous
implications of legal conflicts. By re-writing Euripides,
Vergil dramatizes, as it were, the social benefits of
relegating to the past the very types of corruption in a
legal system that Augustus took pains to correct.
Augustus'
influence on the judicial system included the reform of
corruption and other abuses left over from the late
Republic and perpetuated during the civil wars of the
30's BCE. Suetonius refers to brigandage, organized crime
under the façade of the guilds, blackmail, and
various technical and procedural impediments in the
execution of the law (Suet. Aug. 32.1-2). Tacitus admits the popularity
of Augustus' reform of the judicial system in the
provinces, where "feuds among those in power" and "the
greed of the magistrates" had left the public vulnerable
to system disrupted by "force," "solicitation," and
"wealth" (Tac. Ann. 1.2).
Recalling
Euripides' Hecuba, Vergil
directs his audience's attention toward a dramatization
of virtually the same kinds of corruption in a legal
"system" that the historians identify among Augustus'
chief concerns (the Latin adaptation of Euripides by
Ennius would seem to assure broad familiarity among
Vergil's audience with the Hecuba's "trial"
scene; cf. esp. fr. 211-12 V3). The similarity
of these influences to those deplored by Tacitus as a
corrupting presence in the Roman provincial justice
system is especially close. In Euripides, Polymestor's
greed and betrayal of Priam lead to the murder of
Polydorus and the attempt to disguise it (cf. Tac.
Ann. 1.2:
certamina potentium…avaritia…pecunia); Agamemnon
fears the power of the Greek host (cf. vi) and is convinced by Hecuba's
solicitation (cf. ambitu)
to grant her the personal vengeance she craves.
Euripides, although he is not Vergil's only source for
the Polydorus story, provides him with a memorable
staging of problems seen as endemic to Roman judicial
process.
In addition to
alluding to Polymestor's "trial," Vergil points to the
corruption of forensic inquiry though Aeneas' own
behavior. As Putnam suggests, Vergil portrays Aeneas "as
himself a form of corruptor" (1995, 52). This helps make
Polydorus' funeral all the more appealing as an
alternative to Polymestor's "trial," since the Trojans
themselves are implicated in a process of inquiry tainted
by corruption.