From Caieta to Erato

Abstract The first chapter explores the series of interconnected panels at the beginning of Aeneid 7 that reveal Vergil’s extraordinary vision for Aeneid 7–12. An examination of the entire sequence from the epitaphic commemoration of Aeneas’ nurse Caieta (A. 7.1–4) to the invocation of the Muse Erato (A. 7.37–45) reveals how intergeneric interplay with amatory and sepulchral elegy articulates the conceptual and aesthetic framework of Vergil’s ‘Italian Iliad’. Vergil’s poetic gestures to Caieta (mors) and Erato (amor) in the opening sequence have crucial programmatic implications. The clear structural correlation between the two framing devices associates mors with amor and sets the linked pair in productive tension with arma, the primary matrix outlined in the culmination of the proem.