Finding and Defining a Place You’ve Never Been: Directions to Italy in the Aeneid

Kristopher F. Fletcher (Louisiana State University)

While the reader knows exactly where, geographically, Aeneas is going in the Aeneid, Aeneas himself leaves Troy with no such knowledge. Instead, he receives his directions in installments, which add little by little to his idea of where he is supposed to go; for example, the first reference (chronologically speaking) to where he needs to go is Creusa’s terram Hesperiam venies (2.781), which only tells Aeneas that he must travel west. While previous studies of the directions Aeneas receives (e.g. Tracy “The Gradual Unfolding of Aeneas’ Destiny,” CJ 48 (1953) 281-84) emphasize the narrative utility of such ignorance and its contribution to the drama of the poem, I suggest that this “unfolding” fits a larger purpose, one that depends upon the Roman conception of space and geography (cf. Talbert and Brodersen, edd. Space in the Roman World. Its Perception and Presentation. 2004): part of figuring out where Italy is, is figuring out what Italy is.

At the beginning of his journey, Aeneas has not even heard the term “Italy,” and the word – even when he first hears it (3.161ff.) – holds little meaning for him. As people and divine figures inform Aeneas of his destiny, they define his destination in increasingly specific ways, in terms that have some meaning to him, but are not always clear. This lack of unambiguous, quantifiable information leads to Aeneas’ perception of Italy as something that the Trojans must “follow” (instead of find) but that “flees” before them (e.g. 5.629: Italiam sequimur fugientem) and also to misunderstandings of their directions, as with their journey to Crete. Ancient geography was as much about conception of place as about cartographic coordinates, so these directions have to define Italy not only in terms of cardinal directions (as with Creusa’s reference to the west), but also in relation to people, namely who has been there, who is there, and who will be there; in short, place is not absolute, but relative. Thus, the directions Aeneas receives are a key part of Vergil’s larger project in the Aeneid, namely defining what “Italy” and “Rome” mean after Actium, in part by focusing on the different peoples who have ties with Italy, all of whom play a role in defining Italy in the directions Aeneas receives. Before he even gets to Italy, then, Aeneas has developed his own idea of what Italy is and what it means as a place, and this conception is essential to the journey, and to the poem. For Aeneas to find Italy, he must first define Italy.