Silvia's Stag on the Tiber: The Setting of the Aeneid's casus belli.

Much has been written on the various aspects of casus belli in Aeneid 7, but the setting of the episode (in which Ascanius shoots a stag with great horns) remains unclear. This paper proposes a new reading of this crucial juncture by situating it on the river Tiber and contextualizing the fluvial setting within the wider structure of books 7-9. The role of the Tiber is significant because the Italian landscape is a major theme in the second half of the epic and the Tiber features in several key episodes, e.g. Tiberinus appears to Aeneas and directs him to the site of Rome. The history of the river is tied up with the larger history of early Latium. The river shares many affinities with the stag in terms of legal status, visual representation, and mythic significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]