Jupiter and his "Partial Impartiality"

The Council of Gods, miniature on parchment. Latin manuscript of the Aeneid called Virgil Roman Codex, Vat.Lat 3867, folio 14, 5th century. From Aeneid X, 62-95. Photo credit: © NPL - DeA Picture Library / Bridgeman Images

This week, I finished translating Vergil's Aeneid! As a capstone project after reading the epic, I am now researching how the theme of divine intervention intersects with Vergil's narrative. Below is a paper that I wrote, and am currently building upon, about Jupiter's feigned rejections of divine intervention during the first 100 lines of Book 10, and how they manifest later in the Book:

Vergil begins Book 10 with Jupiter’s declaration at the only concilium deorum in the epic. Speaking to “the great heaven-dwellers” (caelicolae magni; 10.6) from a place of omnipotence, Jupiter addresses the fighting between the Trojans and the Rutulians with a forceful command: “The lawful time of battle will arrive, do not summon it” (adveniet iustum pugnae, ne arcessite, tempus; 10.11). Vergil employs the poetic construction of ne arcessite (as opposed to nolite arcessere) to emphasize Jupiter’s adamant prohibition of divine intervention in the Trojan-Rutulian conflict. Believing that the appropriate time for battle will be only when Carthage attacks Rome, Jupiter urges the gods to be impartial in the conflict, and Vergil utilizes his speech to open Book 10 with an emphasis on human action rather than intervention or manipulation from the gods. However, Juno and Venus refuse to cease their strife while Jupiter continues to encourage divine impartiality. For instance, Jupiter’s second speech in Book 10 hinges on the words “be he Trojan or Rutulian, I shall make no distinction,” (Tros Rutulusne fuat, nullo discrimine habebo; 10.108) presenting himself as the impartial king of the gods. Jupiter does not maintain this promise throughout the rest of the Book and epic, holding other gods to a standard of impartiality that he himself does not consistently meet. Vergil sets up this discrepancy at the beginning of Jupiter’s second speech (10.104) to question how serious he is with his lofty requests and promises of impartiality in Book 10 that are otherwise unattested.

During his second speech of Book 10, Jupiter promises to preside impartially over the Trojan-Rutulian conflict. Jupiter says that “whatever is the fortune today for each person” (quae cuique est fortuna hodie; 10.107) when remarking on the trajectory of the fight. By using the indefinite pronoun cuique (and also quisque) in line 107, Jupiter sets up his speech with vague language. In effect, he claims that he is uninformed about what each person’s fate entails even though he is the omnipotent king of the gods. Remarking on his identity as king at the end of his speech, Jupiter speaks about himself in the third person, stating that “King Jupiter is the same for all” (rex Iuppiter omnibus idem; 10.112). Instead of stating that he will impact the outcome of the battle, Jupiter remains impartial by promising not to tip the scales in either the favor of the Trojans or the Rutulians. It is ironic that Jupiter makes the claim that he will be the rex idem for both factions because the Greco-Roman gods are known to intervene – on account of their own biases – in mortal affairs. Throughout this speech, however, Jupiter presents himself as unbiased by holding the Trojans and the Rutulians to a similar standard. For instance, he states that he will “not absolve the Rutulians” (nec Rutulos solvo; 10.111), promising that he will neither support their cause nor punish them. Jupiter makes it a point to call out both groups to prove that he is neutral: Jupiter cites out the “evil mistake of Troy” (errore malo Troiae; 10.110) to blame Paris for starting the Trojan War. Jupiter’s use of the word errore highlights that the Trojans, too, have made mistakes and are also an imperfect group of “wanderers,” misguided by “false prophecies” (monitis sinistris; 10.111). 

By referencing false prophecies in his second Book 10 speech, Jupiter undermines his self-proclaimed identity as an impartial god. Jupiter begins this speech by saying “so receive and fasten these words of mine in your minds” (accipite ergo animis atque haec mea figite dicta; 10.104). Vergil repeats this line one other time during the whole epic, when the Harpy Celaeno gives a prophecy to the Trojans in line 250 of Book 3. Celaeno says that Aeneas and his men will have to eat their tables before having a chance at establishing their new city. This “table eating prophecy” comes true, in a less grave way than Celaeno presented, during Book 7, when Ascanius and the Trojans are ravenously eating wheat outside of Latium. Vergil chooses to echo the language of a prophecy in Book 3 (that turns out not to be what it seemed) in Jupiter’s Book 10 speech in which he uncharacteristically rejects divine intervention. When these two passages are taken together, Vergil seems to be casting doubt on Jupiter’s self-proclaimed impartiality between the Trojans, Rutulians, and the larger battle at hand. It is ironic that Jupiter repeats Celaeno’s phrase “fasten these words of mine” (haec mea figite dicta; 3.250 and 10.104) because her ominous words caused Aeneas to misinterpret the prophecy in Book 3. By the same token, Vergil implies that the indefinite language (cuique…quisque; 10.107) of Jupiter’s proclamations of impartiality indicate that he will not remain the rex idem omnibus that he has dubbed himself. 

Jupiter does intervene in the Trojan-Rutulian conflict when he chooses not to allow Pallas and Lausus to coincide in combat. Similar to how Vergil positions Aeneas and Turnus as antagonists to each other, Vergil equips Pallas and Lausus with similar strength and faculties to each other, making them adversaries. Although they are first modeled on the Homeric pair of Sarpedon and Patroclus, Pallas and Lausus do not duel because “the ruler of mighty Olympus did not allow them to meet each other” (ipsos concurrere passus haud tamen inter se magni regnator Olympi; 10.436-7). Here, Jupiter disobeys the command of ne arcessite that he gave to the council of the gods at the beginning of Book 10. In fact, Jupiter is escalating the conflict by ensuring that Pallas and Lausus do not fight each other but rather will be slain “beneath a greater enemy” (maiore sub hoste; 10.438). Jupiter is the subject of passus haud, indicating that he vehemently “did not allow” Pallas and Lausus to duel, in order for Turnus and Aeneas, much more skilled opponents, to kill each of them. Vergil refers to Jupiter as the “ruler of Great Olympus” (magni regnator Olympi; 10.436) highlighting his divine agency and power over the battle’s trajectory and of the mortal world. The disconnect between Jupiter’s initial speeches about impartiality and his clear instances of divine intervention calls into question how serious he is when he makes these promises. In Book 10, Jupiter says one thing and does another with respect to divine intervention, defying the standards of impartiality that he, himself, sets in his opening remarks.

Jupiter’s speeches about how the gods should be unbiased stand in stark contrast to his wife’s actions. Juno is the queen of divine intervention: her vendetta against Aeneas has led her to prolong him in Carthage by instigating his marriage to Dido, to enlist Allecto to wreak havoc in Latium, and to even manipulate the weather to thwart the Trojans’ journey to Italy. In her and Jupiter’s final conversation, he “forbid[s] her from trying any further” (ulterius temptare veto; 12.806). Veto echoes the connotations of abnueram (10.8), the verb that Jupiter used in Book 10 to state that he “had already forbidden” divine instigation of the Italian-Trojan conflict. Since that Book 10 passage is the only concilium deorum in the Aeneid, Jupiter’s use of the pluperfect tense is rather disingenuous because he had not, up until that point, already rejected divine intervention. Nevertheless, Juno has been working for the entire epic to circumvent Aeneas’ fate to reach Italy, and the first time that Jupiter explicitly uses the word veto to forbid her from doing so is at the end of Book 12. In addition, he prohibits Juno from only one action – opposing the Trojans’ victory. By saying nothing else about her intervention in other mortal affairs, Jupiter holds Juno to a different, less-stringent standard of divine intervention than the one he set at the concilium deorum, displaying yet another inconsistency across his speeches. By positioning the king of the gods at the center of his own contradictions, Vergil demonstrates that Jupiter’s requests and promises of impartiality in Book 10 do not ring true for the rest of the epic.