Seeing Marcellus inAeneid6

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper will examine the claims of theexcudent alii(‘others will hammer out’) priamel ofAeneid6.847–53 within the immediate context of the parade's end, where Marcellus, parading thespolia opima,is used to exemplify the claims made about fine and speculative arts belonging to the Greeks, and war and the arts of empire to the Romans. It will be shown that certain, highly specific memories of the elder Marcellus are cued by the priamel that run directly counter to Anchises’ claims. The paper will look at how these claims are spoken in character, and driven by specific narrative motives, and it will relate the mismatch of exemplified to exemplifier to certain larger patterns within theAeneidof things being left unsaid only to stand out all the more by being left unsaid. The paper concludes with a speculative essay on the necessary reductions and revisions that go into the making, and reading, of culturally instrumentalized monuments.