Epic Encounters? Ancient Historical Battle Narratives and the Epic Tradition

VIRGIL AND SALLUST:AENEID10.354–79 ANDBELLVM CATILINAE58–60

“…17 The Eclogues were written under the patronage of Asinius Pollio, 18 who shared with Sallust both a literary consultant and a Thucydidean style, 19 and in the Aeneid Virgil depicted Catiline, pendentem scopulo, and the younger Cato, dantem iura, alongside each other on Aeneas' shield (8.668-70). 20 Several recent scholars have suggested various ways in which Virgil may have been indebted to Sallust, 21 and it would not be at all surprising if, as he wrote about the conflict between Etruscans and Latins in Book 10, the events of a more recent civil war came into his mind.…”