Chariots in the Aeneid

In this paper I argue that there is a course of imagery relating to chariots and charioteering which runs throughout the Aeneid. This ‘chariot-image’ has reference-points in previous Greek and Roman literature, the institutions of the triumph and the Circus, and draws on the interchange of metaphor between ship and chariot. The development of the chariot-image reflects, and in a sense (drawing on the metapoetic image of a ‘chariot of song’) structures, the development of epic itself. It begins with Juno’s chariot in Carthage, and Neptune’s chariot from which he calms the horse-winds of the storm in book 1. I argue that it culminates in two climaxes, which take place at – and affect our interpretation of – two of the ‘ends’ of the Aeneid itself: the first, a climax of concord, in Octavian’s triple triumph on the Shield of Aeneas, where the triumphal chariot, the solar chariot on the temple of Apollo, and possibly the Circus Maximus are all allusively depicted; and the second, a climax of discord, in the battlefield chariots and the warring bulls simile in book 12. I also argue that the Aeneid’s course of charioteering imagery mirrors that which Damien Nelis has argued for in the Georgics, and that which may have been present in Ennius’ Annales.