Nisus and Euryalus - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Nisus and Euryalus are a pair of friends serving under Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

in the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

, the Augustan epic

Augustan literature (ancient Rome)

Augustan literature is the period of Latin literature written during the reign of Augustus , the first Roman emperor. In literary histories of the first part of the 20th century and earlier, Augustan literature was regarded along with that of the Late Republic as constituting the Golden Age of...

by Vergil. Their foray among the enemy, narrated in Book 9, demonstrates their stealth and prowess as warriors, but ends as a tragedy: the loot Euryalus acquires attracts attention, and the two die together. Vergil presents their deaths as a loss of admirable loyalty and valor. They also appear in Book 5, during the funeral games

Funeral Games

Funeral Games is a 1981 historical novel by Mary Renault, dealing with the death of Alexander the Great and its aftermath, the gradual disintegration of his empire...

of Anchises

Anchises

In Greek mythology, Anchises was the son of Capys and Themiste . His major claim to fame in Greek mythology is that he was a mortal lover of the goddess Aphrodite . One version is that Aphrodite pretended to be a Phrygian princess and seduced him for nearly two weeks of lovemaking...

, where Vergil takes note of their amor pius, a love that exhibits the pietas
Pietas
Pietas was one of the Roman virtues, along with gravitas and dignitas. It is usually translated as "duty" or "devotion."-Definition:The word pietas is originally from Latin. The first printed record of the word’s use in English is from Anselm Bayly’s The Alliance of Music, Poetry, and Oratory,...

that is Aeneas's own distinguishing virtue.

In describing the bonds of devotion between the two men, Vergil draws on conventions of erotic poetry that have suggested a romantic relationship to some, interpreted by scholars in light of the Greek custom of paiderasteia

Pederasty in ancient Greece

Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged relationship between an adult and a younger male usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods...

Background

Nisus and Euryalus are among the refugees who in the aftermath of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

flee under the leadership of Aeneas, the highest-ranking Trojan to survive. Nisus was the son of Hyrtacus

Hyrtacus

In Greek mythology, Hyrtacus is an obscure character associated with the Trojan War. He was a comrade of King Priam of Troy. Hyrtacus married Arisbe, daughter of King Merops of Percote, after Priam had divorced her to marry Hecabe. Hyrtacus's son by Arisbe was named Asius and fought at Troy. In...

, and was known for his hunting. The family cultivated the huntress-goddess who inhabited Mount Ida. Euryalus, who was younger, has spent his entire life in a state of war and displacement. He was trained as a fighter by his battle-hardened father, Opheltes

Opheltes

Opheltes is a boy from Greek mythology, the son of the Nemean king Lycurgus and Queen Eurydice."When their son was born, Lykourgos consulted the oracle at Delphi in order to find out how he might insure the health and happiness of his child...

, of whom he speaks with pride. Opheltes seems to have died at Troy.

After their wanderings around the Mediterranean, the Trojans are fated to land on the shores of Italy. Some members of their party, especially the matres ("mothers"), are settled at Sicily before the Italian war, but the mother of Euryalus refused to be parted from her son and continued on.

Characterization

Although Nisus and Euryalus are inseparable as a pair in the narrative, each is given a distinct characterization. Nisus is the elder, more experienced man. He is swift and accurate (acerrimus) in the use of projectile weapons, the javelin (iaculum) and arrows.

Euryalus is still young, with the face of a boy (puer) who hasn't started shaving, just old enough to bear arms. He was more beautiful (pulchrior) than any other of Aeneas's men at arms. Euryalus maintains a loving relationship with his mother. He refuses to see her before he leaves on his mission, because he cannot bear her inevitable tears, and yet his first concern amid promises of rich rewards is that she be cared for if he fails to return.

Plot and themes

The foray by Nisus and Euryalus is a well-developed, self-contained episode that occurs in the "Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

ic" half of the Aeneid, set during the war through which the displaced Trojans established themselves among the inhabitants of central Italy. Vergil introduces the characters anew, but they have already appeared in Book 5, at the funeral games held for Aeneas’s father, Anchises, during the "Odyssean

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

" first half of the epic. The games demonstrate behaviors that in the war to come will result in victory or defeat; in particular, the footrace in which Nisus and Euryalus compete prefigures their disastrous mission.

The five runners are, in order of imminent finish, Nisus, Salius

Salius

In Greek and Roman mythology, Salius is an Acarnanian who in one alternative tradition was the legendary founder of the ancient Roman priesthood of the Salii....

, Euryalus, Elymus

Elymus

In Greek and Roman mythology, Elymus was the mythical ancestor of the Elymians, natives of Sicily. Elymus was a Trojan, a natural son of Anchises and a brother of Eryx....

, and Diores

Diores

In Greek mythology, Diorês referred to three different people.*The father of Automedon.*The son of Amarynceus *The son of Aeolus, who married his sister Polymela.Diores is also the name of an ant spider genus ....

. Nisus, however, slips in the blood from the cattle sacrificed during the religious rituals that preceded the race. Recognizing that he can't recover his lead, he trips Salius to hand the victory to Euryalus. Nisus shows himself willing to sacrifice his own honor in order to help Euryalus, but the gesture demonstrates not only his loyalty but a willingness to cheat. Salius objects to the foul, and is given a consolation prize. Nisus receives compensation for his bad luck, and Euryalus gets the winner's prize. The incident is treated as comic, but becomes ominous in light of what happens to the pair later.

Although the night raid of Nisus and Euryalus has a discrete narrative unity, it is closely related to major themes of the epic, such as the transition from boyhood to manhood, also present in the characters of Ascanius

Ascanius

Ascanius is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and a legendary king of Alba Longa. He is a character of Roman mythology, and has a divine lineage, being the son of Aeneas, who is son of Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of Priam; thus Ascanius has divine ascendents by both parents, being...

, Pallas

Pallas (son of Evander)

In Roman mythology, Pallas was the son of King Evander. In Virgil's Aeneid, Evander allows Pallas to fight against the Rutuli with Aeneas, who takes him and treats him like his own son Ascanius. In battle, Pallas proves he is a warrior, killing many Rutulians, and compared to the Rutulian Lausus,...

, and Lausus

Lausus

Lausus was the son of the ousted Etruscan king Mezentius, and fought with him against Aeneas and the Trojans in Italy. He appears in Virgil's Aeneid in Books VII and X. When his father is wounded by Aeneas, Lausus steps in between them, and Aeneas strikes them down...

, and the waste of young lives in war. Nisus and Euryalus's killing spree through the camp of the Rutuli

Rutuli

The Rutuli or Rutulians were members of a legendary Italic tribe...

is one of Vergil's most brutal descriptions of combat. The poetry of Euryalus's death—"as when a richly hued flower is cut down by the plough and withers as it dies, or when the rains beat down the poppy's head, weighed down on slack neck"—recalls the ending of Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

's Carmen 11, a poem about bitterly disillusioned love.

Amor pius

In portraying the amor of Nisus and Euryalus, Vergil draws on a Greek model of love between men

Greek love

In the history of sexuality, Greek love is a concept of homoeroticism within the classical tradition. It is one of the "classically inspired erotic imaginings" by means of which later cultures have articulated their own discourse about homosexuality...

. In the Roman military, homosexual behavior among fellow soldiers was harshly prohibited, in keeping with Roman values

Mos maiorum

The mos maiorum is the unwritten code from which the ancient Romans derived their social norms. It is the core concept of Roman traditionalism, distinguished from but in dynamic complement to written law. The mos maiorum The mos maiorum ("ancestral custom") is the unwritten code from which the...

that defined a citizen's political liberty in part by freedom from physical compulsion, including sexual use. Among the Greeks, however, there was a long tradition of idealized homosexuality in a military setting

Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece

When the topic of homosexuality in the militaries of Ancient Greece is discussed, the Sacred Band of Thebes is usually considered as the prime example of how the Ancient army use homoerotic or homosexual relationships between soldiers in a troop to boost the fighting spirit of their militaries, or...

. Although the relationship between Nisus and Euryalus initially conforms to the Greek model of the erastes and eromenos, their shared military exploits transform them into solidly Roman viri, "men." By describing their love as pius, Vergil endorses it as "honorable, dignified and connected to central Roman values." The elevated

High culture

High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...

decorum of the Aeneid excludes explicit sexuality in general.

Background

Characterization

Plot and themes

Amor pius

Further reading