Verg. Aen. 2. 351–352: evocatio under Troy?

Abstract

The article concerns two verses from Virgil’s Aeneid which are uttered by Aeneas as he witnessed the the fall of Troy and noted that the city had been abandoned by the gods. Macrobius and Servius consider these verses to indicate that before the assault on Troy the Achaeans performed the ritual of evocatio, which a commander had to accomplish addressing the tutelary deities of a besieged city and asking them to take the attackers’ side in exchange for worship on their part. The article’s aim is to criticize this interpretation and to offer a possible reason for its emergence.