Mezentius

vol. XV p.1511-1514

Mezentius

King of the Etruscan city Caere, who played a particular role in Aeneas’ wars in Italy. The tradition about his acts and his fate is - to a point - generally consistent, though it doesn’t agree on all the details despite agreeing in the main matters; <30> only Vergil makes an exception, for composition and content based reasons. Since the relevant article in the Myth. Lex. (Woerner II 2943ff.) is very thorough, and new accounts and research aren’t available, I can be brief.

Before the discussion of the facts. there will be a short overview of the most important sources. <40> As far as we can tell, Cato was the first person who brought the character of Mezentius into the story of Aeneas in his origines (Serv. Aen. I 267. IV 620. VI 760. IX 742. Macrob. Sat. III 5, 10 = Hist. Rom. rel. 58ff. frg. 9-12 P; frg. 10-12 Jord.), according to Cauer Die röm. Aeneassage 122ff. it traces back to the tradition of the city of Alba, where they celebrated the festival of Iuppiter Latiaris, the deified Latinus, to remember Latium being freed from the Etruscan king Mezentius (Fest. p. 194). <50> According to the same scholar (p. 136f.), Liv. I 1ff. as well as Iustin. XLIII 1, 10 and Appian (a byzantine fragment in Mendelssohn Appiani hist. R. II 1183) followed the more recent annals (perhaps the description of a L. Caesar mentioned by Serv. Dan. Verg. I 267 also belongs here, on which cf. Norden N. Jahrb. VII 257, 5); the main thing that these have in common is that Mezentius survives the war. <60> Out of the other sources from the time of the empire, Ovid. fast. IV 877ff. gives a particular report which agrees with Vergil in Mezentius’ end, Dionys. v. Hal.’s detailed account I 64f. (cf. also II 5) seems to trace back to the same source as Diodorus’ and Dio Cassius’ accounts (Cauer 153ff.), as far as these can be reconstructed (cf. Myth. Lex. II 2950, 42ff.), <page break 1511/1512> which end the story with a victorious attack against Mezentius from Ascanius, and a definitive treaty. Alongside those, we find individual references in Verrius Flaccus (Fast. Praen. CIL 1² 316) and Fest. 194, 265 as well as Plut. Quaest. Rom. 45 and Plin. n. h. XIV 88 (according to Varro). The story in Verg. Aen. VII-XI stands alone, in which a complete picture of Mezentius’ character is painted out. Finally, a pictorial depiction of Mezentius needs to be brought up here, <10> which is in a fresco found in a columbarium on the Esquiline (Mon. d. Inst. X tav. 60. Myth. Lex. II 2944). On it, at the bottom of the south-side, as evidenced by a label, there is definitely Mezentius as an Etruscan warrior (cf. Liv. I 3. Dion. Hal. I 65) making peace with a Latin leader (likely Ascanius) (other interpretations subject to correction [?]), cf. Robert Ann. d. Inst. 1878, 234ff., esp. 247ff. Cauer 138ff. Myth. Lex. II 2946ff. Helbig Führer II nr. 1452 p. 192ff. Pfuhl Malerei d. Gr. u. Röm. II 906. <20>

Following this, the picture which literary tradition paints about Mezentius’ part in one of the most important events of Roman pre-history forms itself roughly like the following (cf. Schwegler Röm. Gesch. I 283ff.): Mezentius, called to help against Aeneas by the Rutulian ruler Turnus, appears with his Etruscan forces and fights with him in a battle, <30> in which Aeneas finds his end (only Vergil and Ovid have the opposite, where he instead falls at the hand of Aeneas). In a following battle, Mezentius is either killed by Ascanius (Cato), or at least defeated and forced to make peace (Livy, Dion. Hal., Cass. Dio). In many accounts, the demand made to either the allied Rutulians (Cato in Macrob. Sat. III 5, 10. Ovid. IV 884ff. Varro in Plin. n. h. XIV 88. Fast. Praen. CIL I² 316) or to the Latins and Trojans he was fighting (Dion. Hal. I 65. Plut. Quaest. Rom. 45. Cass. Dio in Tzetzes on Lykophr. 1232) has a particular significance, <40> which asks that they deliver him the first of all the wine cultivated in the country, but the latter dedicate it to Jupiter and therefore begin the annual festival of the vinalia priora on 23rd April (Fast. Praen. Ovid. fast. 265, where they are, however, incorrectly called the vinalia rustica; cf. Carcopino in Daremb.-Sagl. V 893f.). <50> The role which Mezentius plays in Vergil’s Aeneid is substantially broadened, psychologically hollowed-out, and inserted into the composition of the epic story (cf. Heinze Vergils ep. Technik 208ff.). He is called contemptor divom in two places (VII 648. VIII 7) and is a king characterised as a cruel avenger[?] (cf. especially VIII 483ff. and on it Serv. VIII 479 as well as Iul. Capitol. vita Macrini 12), as well as as a very valiant warrior (IX 521f. 586ff. X 689ff. 732ff. 762ff. 856ff.), <60> who flees to Turnus, banished by his angered subjects, and here he is in the foreground of the party of Aeneas’ opponents, until he is wounded by Aeneas and has to get himself away from the battlefield, but after his son dies protecting his father, he enters the battle again seeking revenge, and is fatally taken down by his Trojan enemy and robbed of his weapons. <page break 1512/1513> The poet gave him the epithet contemptor divom because of all his cruelty, mocking all human and divine laws, or because of his blasphemous speeches (X 743. 880); Macrob. Sat. III 5, 9f. explains this term used by Vergil by rejecting the interpretation given above, with reference to Cato in his demand for the wine which should have gone to the gods. <10> The specific scene showing the contrast between the king and his Etruscan subjects serves to indirectly characterise Mezentius (cf. Heinze 175), as well as as well as also amplifying the commander of the Trojan army’s actions (Schwegler Röm. Gesch. I² 290, 3), and the fact that he is killed by Aeneas before Turnus’ fall helps to achieve the necessary focus on the deciding duel between the two main rivals at the end, as well as the τέλος of the whole thing, Aeneas’ victory (cf. Schwegler 290, 4). <20> The repulsive aspects of Mezentius’ nature are illustrated through contrast with the likable personality of his gallant son Lausus (cf. VII 653f.), on the other hand, through the pain and lament of the father over his fallen son (X 845ff.), a certain warrior aspect of his character is evoked - which is rather colourless in the rest of the accounts of him, but is painted most vividly by the epic poet. <30>

Of course, the character of Mezentius owes its origin to the story of ancient Latium being threatened by the Etruscans, to the stories of battles which were actually fought by Etruscan kings to take over Rome and the whole area (Schwegler 329ff. Preller Röm. Myth. I³ 328ff. Mommsen Röm. Gesch. I 126. Ed. Meyer G. d. A. II 503f. 702ff.); moreover, the Etruscan Tarquins banished from Rome, whose family tomb also seems to have been found in Caere (CIL XI 3626ff.), fled to Caere, (Liv. I 60, 2) <40> which was in constant battles with Rome during the monarchy (Dion. Hal. III 59. IV 27). The story that often crops up about Mezentius’ demands for the first of the wine should also possibly be sorted into this context, <50> if this demand would have been a legal, so to speak, sign of dominating power, as Frazer would like to interpret it (Kommentar zu Ovids Fasten vol. III p. 401ff. with a number of ethnographic parallels to the divine kingdom - according to him, Mezentius himself was perhaps originally seen as divine), or more symbolically a sign which adds to his character of his ruling nature.

The name Mezentius does have the usual Latin ending, <60> but it goes back to an Etruscan root mes-, which is evidenced as being important for forming Etruscan names by W. Schulze (Lat. Eigennamen 193), and is formed with the help of a suffix -nt which turns up often in the Etruscan naming system (W. Schulze 100. 340. Kretschmer Glotta XIV 106. Trombetti La lingua etrusca 55f.). <page break 1513/1514> Since the letter z had disappeared from the Latin alphabet since App. Claudius Caecus, and only turns up again around the time of Caesar / Augustus, Cato and the Latin authors of the republic who followed him would have written Messentius or also Medientius, in accordance with the later grammarians (O. Ribbeck Rh. Mus. XII 419ff. Myth. Lex. II 2952f.); the latter, which was probably no longer the standard spelling for Vergil, <10> turns up a few times in the Vergil mss along with the spelling with the double z (Ribbeck loc. cit. and Prolegomena to the large edition). Also, in Dionys. Hal., the spelling with a single or a double σ is shown alongside the spelling Μεζέντιος, which was otherwise the usual spelling from Greek authors.

[Marbach.]