Ruines en série dans l’Énéide de Virgile

Abstract

Virgil’s Aeneid contains three depictions of ruins : the walls of Troy in book 2, Cacus’ cave and the citadels of Saturnus and Janus in book 8. This article proposes to read these three passages as a coherent thematical series structured by effects of intratextual correspondencies. It brings into light a cyclical vision of History according to which the destruction of buildings linked to the memory of past ages prepares the advent of Romulean Rome and Augustan Peace. The reader’s eye is prompted to go past the melancholy inspired by visions of ruins to acknowledge a process of destruction/reconstruction according to a kind of necessity both historical and moral.

Keywords

• Rome
• Troy
• Hercules
• Palatine
• Capitole
• Ecphrasis