vultum dēmissa

Latin Learning Latin
1

Tum breviter Dīdō, vultum dēmissa, profātur (Aeneid 1.561)

According to Pharr (p. 64; appendix 309), this is a passive being used as a middle voice (common in poetry, according to appendix 309) with a direct object. “having lowered her face” (my translation, not Pharr’s).

I’ve seen some instead cite it as an accusative of respect (with a passive verb): having been downcast with respect to her face.

LaFleur in Song of War says it’s a middle with an accusative of respect. This seems (correct me if I’m mistaken) to confound middle with intransitive, so I think that if it is middle, Pharr is right that vultum is the object of demissa.

So this leaves (if I’m not mistaken) two options: passive with accusative of respect; or middle with direct object.

Are we to remain in limbo on this, or are there reasons for preferring one over the other (I’m inclined to Pharr right now).

2

I think it’s a false dilemma. Some would insist that the participle is not passive but middle, and vultum not acc. of respect but direct object. The objection to that is that Latin does not have a middle voice, but only active and passive. Greek, of course, has all three, and with vultum demissa I think the best thing to say is simply that the syntax is under Greek influence (as so much else in Vergil is).

That respects both the historical and the linguistic situation. There are many other examples of the construction in Vergil and subsequent poets, as I’m sure you know, e.g. (Iliades) tunsae pectora palmis less than a hundred lines earlier (481) and faciem mutata et ora less than a hundred lines later (658). I would resist framing the question in either/or terms. Not everything has to have an exclusive label pinned on it.