A. Powell, Virgil the Partisan: A Study in the Re-Integration of Classics - Other Literary Studies

French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Powell, Virgil the Partisan: A Study in the Re-Integration of Classics
Other Literary Studies

Anton Powell, Virgil the Partisan: A Study in the Re-Integration of Classics, Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2008. xi, 309 pages.

  • ISBN 9781905125210
  • $69.50

Reviewed by Román Facundo Espino (Universidad Nacional del Sur) in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.03.37.

Publisher's Description:

Virgil has been claimed as an ancestor by partisans of recent centuries: he has been seen as a forerunner of Christianity, as a gentle 'national poet' following World War II, as a kindred spirit for opponents of the Vietnam War, and recently as a critic of man's damage to the natural environment. However, most - except the young - feel that Virgil was not often concerned to express support for Octavian-Augustus. This near-consensus of literary critics rests on the tendency of political historians to skim the period between 44 and 31BC, and thus to ignore most aspects of Octavian's contemporary reputation. This book applies a historian's eye to the poetry of Virgil's work. It challenges the orthodoxy that Virgil was a faithful follower of inherited literary genre. It attends closely to his deviations from poetic tradition, and argues that - after the Eclogues - those deviations form a pattern: Virgil has identified, addressed and sought to palliate, structurally and on a grand scale, the ugliest and most damaging aspects of Octavian's reputation. His Aeneas steals the clothes of Octavian's most powerful and popular opponent, a man - unlike Mark Antony - little noticed by modern historians. This study insists on the need to combine scholarly disciplines: to argue closely from Virgil's Latin, and from Greek literary genre - and to inform such arguments with a knowledge of ancient political writing and of contemporary coinage. The Virgil who emerges is a more purposive, bloodstained and courageous individual than most have wished to see. Powell's book aims to become a reference for all those who address - in whatever spirit - the question whether Virgil was deeply engaged in the politics of his time.

Anton Powell is Director of the University of Wales Institute of Classics. He is the author of Athens and Sparta (1988, 2001); as founder and (with Stephen Hodkinson) as director of the International Sparta Seminar he has edited five volumes of its proceedings. He is also (with Kathryn Welch) editor of Julius Caesar as Artful Reporter (1998) and of Sextus Pompeius (2002).

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements and Prefatory Note (ix)
Chronology (xi)
Part 1: Studying Virgil and the established partisan: the Aeneid
1. Studying Virgil: several types of circularity - and an escape (3)
2. The theft of pietas (31)
3. Recovering Sicily (87)
4. The peopling of the underworld: Aeneid 6.608-27 (133)
5. Aeneas, sex and misery (149)
Part 2: Partisan in the making: the Eclogues and Georgics
6. The Eclogues (181)
7. The Georgics: the fate of the Muses (227)
8. Conclusion (283)
9. Bibliography (291)
10. Index (301)

This compelling study by Anton Powell engages directly with the long-standing critical debate surrounding the political orientation of classical poetry, situating itself within the broader tradition of historicist classical scholarship. By challenging the orthodox view of Virgil as a detached artist or conventional court poet, the volume bridges the often-divided disciplines of literary criticism and ancient political history. Scholars and students of Latin literature, Augustan poetry, and Roman history will find this interdisciplinary approach particularly valuable for rethinking the complex intersections between art, ideology, and political propaganda in the ancient world.

The book will prove especially useful for researchers addressing whether the author of the Aeneid was deeply involved in the turbulent politics of his time. By examining close deviations from traditional poetic genres alongside contemporary coinage and political writings, Powell invites a re-evaluation of how ancient texts reflect and actively shape partisan conflict. It offers essential reading for anyone seeking a more rigorous, historically grounded perspective on classical texts and their reception across subsequent centuries of European literature and political thought.