Tolkien and the classical world

Decline and fall: the shattered ruins of the Roman city at Baalbeck

The classical scholar Guiseppe Pezzini writes that "narratives of decline" are common in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. This is seen in Hesiod and Ovid, as the gods became more detached from the lives of mortals.[4] Pezzini sees Arda's decline from its First Age "filled with Joy and Light" down to its "Twilight" Third Age as echoing the classical theme.[4]

J. R. R. Tolkien built a process of decline and fall in Middle-earth into both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. The pattern is expressed in several ways, including the splintering of the light provided by the Creator, Eru Iluvatar, into progressively smaller parts;[5][T 1] the fragmentation of languages and peoples, especially the Elves, who are split into many groups;[6] the successive falls, starting with that of the angelic spirit Melkor, and followed by the destruction of the two Lamps of Middle-earth and then of the Two Trees of Valinor, and the cataclysmic fall of Númenor.[6] The theme is not exclusively classical; the whole of The Lord of the Rings shares the sense of impending destruction found in Norse mythology, where even the gods will perish. The Dark Lord Sauron may be defeated, but that will entail the fading and departure of the Elves, leaving the world to Men, to industrialise and to pollute, however much Tolkien regretted the fact.[7][8]

Plato's tale of decline in Kritias from the "decadent magnificence" of Atlantis to the humdrum life of Athens is "unambiguously and intimately" linked to Tolkien's Númenor, since Tolkien made the comparison himself and actually wrote of "Númenor-Atlantis" in his letters.[4][T 2] The destruction of Númenor earned it the Quenya name Atalantë "the Downfallen";[T 3] Tolkien described his invention of this additional allusion to Atlantis as a happy accident when he realized that the Quenya root talat- "to fall" could be incorporated into a name for Númenor.[T 4]

The commentator Charles Delattre states that Tolkien's tale of Númenor is a retelling of the myth of Atlantis, the only drowned island in surviving ancient literature. Multiple details align: it began as a perfect world, geometrically laid out to reflect its balance and harmony; it abounds in valuable minerals; and it has unmatched power, with a strong fleet able to project control far beyond its shores, like ancient Athens. Númenor's pride, too, writes Delattre, matches the hubris of Plato's Atlantis; and its downfall recalls the destruction of Atlantis.[9]

• 
  Map of Arda in the Second Age, showing Númenor in the Great Sea, Belegaer, between Aman and Middle-earth.
• 
  Tolkien wrote of Númenor as Atlantis.[T 2] Athanasius Kircher's 1669 map (inverted, North at top) places Atlantis between America and Europe (Hispania, Spain).

Tolkien scholars have compared the fall of Gondolin to the sack of Troy, noting that the city was famed for its walls, and likening Tolkien's tale to Virgil's Aeneid. Both have frame stories, situated long after the events they narrate; both have "gods" (Tolkien's Valar) in the action; and both involve an escape.[10][11][12] David Greenman finds it fitting that Tuor, "Tolkien's early quest-hero", escapes from the wreck of an old kingdom and creates new ones, just as Aeneas does, while his later quest-heroes in The Lord of the Rings, the hobbits of the Shire, are made to return to their home, ravaged while they were away, and are obliged to scour it clean, just as Odysseus does in Homer's Odyssey.[11]

Greenman compares and contrasts Idril's part in the story to Cassandra and Helen of Troy, two prominent female figures in accounts of the Trojan War: like the prophetess, Idril had a premonition of impending danger and like Helen, her beauty played a major role in instigating Maeglin's betrayal of Gondolin, which ultimately led to its downfall and ruin. Conversely, Greenman notes that Idril's advice to enact a contingency plan for a secret escape route out of Gondolin was heeded by her people, and that she had always rejected Maeglin's advances and remained faithful to Tuor.[11]

Alexander Bruce writes that Tolkien's tale parallels Virgil's account, but varies the story. Thus, Morgoth attacks while Gondolin's guard is lowered during a great feast, whereas the Trojans were celebrating the Greeks' apparent retreat, with the additional note of treachery. The Trojan Horse carried the Greeks into Troy, where they set fire to it, paralleled by the fire-serpents which carried "Balrogs in hundreds" into Gondolin. Tolkien's serpents are matched by the great serpents with "burning eyes, fiery and suffused with blood, their tongues a-flicker out of hissing maws" which kill the high priest Laocoön and his sons. Aeneas and his wife Creusa become separated during their escape; her ghost pleads with him to leave when he searches for her, and he travels to Italy; in contrast, Tuor and Idril escape to Sirion together, eventually sailing from there to Valinor.[10] Marco Cristini adds that both cities are fatally attacked during a feast; their heroes both leave their wives to fight, and both see their kings die.[12]

Tolkien appears to have based one scene on another classical source, Euripides' play The Trojan Women. Maeglin tries to throw Idril's son Eärendil from the city wall, just as Hector's son Astyanax is thrown down from Troy's walls. Tolkien changes the outcome: Eärendil resists, and Tuor appears just in time to rescue him by throwing Maeglin from the walls instead.[10][11]

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  Tolkien's fire-serpents are paralleled by Virgil's great serpents that kill the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons
  in the fall of Troy.[10]
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  Maeglin's failed attempt to throw Eärendil from the city walls contrasts with Euripides' account of the throwing of the young Astyanax from the walls of Troy.[10]

Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, discusses the real-world prototypes of Gondor. She writes that like the Normans, their founders the Númenóreans arrived "from across the sea", and that Prince Imrahil's armour with a "burnished vambrace" recalls late-medieval plate armour. Against this theory, she notes Tolkien's direction of readers to Egypt and Byzantium. Recalling that Tolkien located Minas Tirith at the latitude of Florence, she states (with other scholars[13]) that "the most striking similarities" are with ancient Rome. She identifies several parallels: Aeneas, from Troy, and Elendil, from Númenor, both survive the destruction of their home countries; Aeneas's descendants, the brothers Romulus and Remus, found Rome, while the brothers Isildur and Anárion found the Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth; and both Gondor and Rome experienced centuries of "decadence and decline".[14]

Judy Ann Ford adds in Tolkien Studies that Gondor is distinctive in Middle-earth in having cities built of stone: "the only culture within [the Anglo-Saxons'] historical memory that had made places like Minas Tirith was the Roman Empire."[15] She comments that Tolkien's account of Gondor can be seen as the decline and fall of Rome, but "with a happy ending", as it "somehow withstood the onslaught of armies from the east, and ... was restored to glory."[15] Ford draws a parallel between this and Jordanes's tale in the 6th century Getica of a happy ending for Rome. She comments that the Roman empire's seat of government moved from Rome to Ravenna in 402 AD, just as Gondor, also under attack, moved its capital from Osgiliath to Minas Tirith. Ford suggests that Pippin's description of Minas Tirith's towering Hall of Ecthelion matches Ravenna's 6th century Basilica of San Vitale; and that his unfamiliarity with such a style of building, reflected in his limited architectural vocabulary, would precisely mirror a Germanic visitor's impression of a Roman city.[15]

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  In Roman legend, Aeneas escapes the ruin of Troy, while Elendil escapes Númenor.[14] Painting Aeneas Flees Burning Troy
  by Federico Barocci, 1598
• 
  Minas Tirith's towering stone hall of Ecthelion has been compared to Ravenna's 6th century Basilica of San Vitale.[15]
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  The 410 AD sack of Rome by Alaric's Visigoths contrasts with Gondor's siege and rescue in the battle of the Pelennor Fields:
  Rome "with a happy ending".[15]

A classical source that Tolkien "might have borrowed"[16] from, though there is no direct evidence for this, is Plato's Republic. Its second book tells the story of the Ring of Gyges that gave its owner the power of invisibility, as Tolkien's One Ring did. In so doing, it created a moral dilemma, enabling people to commit injustices without fearing they would be caught.[16] In contrast, Tolkien's Ring actively exerts an evil force that destroys the morality of the wearer.[T 5]

The scholar of humanities Frederick A. de Armas notes parallels between Plato's and Tolkien's rings, and suggests that both Bilbo and Gyges, going into deep dark places to find hidden treasure, may have "undergone a Catabasis", a psychological journey to the Underworld.[17]

The Tolkien scholar Eric Katz, without suggesting that Tolkien was aware of the Ring of Gyges, writes that "Plato argues that such [moral] corruption will occur, but Tolkien shows us this corruption through the thoughts and actions of his characters".[18] In Katz's view, Plato tries to counter the "cynical conclusion" that moral life is chosen by the weak; Glaucon thinks that people are only "good" because they suppose they will be caught if they are not. Plato argues that immoral life is no good as it corrupts one's soul. So, Katz states, according to Plato a moral person has peace and happiness, and would not use a Ring of Power.[18] In Katz's view, Tolkien's story "demonstrate[s] various responses to the question posed by Plato: would a just person be corrupted by the possibility of almost unlimited power?"[18] The question is answered in different ways: the monster Gollum is weak, quickly corrupted, and finally destroyed; Boromirl son of the Steward of Gondor, begins virtuous but like Plato's Gyges is corrupted "by the temptation of power"[18] from the Ring, even if he wants to use it for good, but redeems himself by defending the hobbits to his own death; the "strong and virtuous"[18] Galadriel, who sees clearly what she would become if she accepted the ring, and rejects it; the immortal Tom Bombadil, exempt from the Ring's corrupting power and from its gift of invisibility; Sam who in a moment of need faithfully uses the ring, but is not seduced by its vision of "Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age"; and finally Frodo who is gradually corrupted, but is saved by his earlier mercy to Gollum, and Gollum's desperation for the Ring. Katz concludes that Tolkien's answer to Plato's "Why be moral?" is "to be yourself".[18]

The shepherd Gyges of Plato's Republic finds the magic ring, setting up a moral dilemma. Ferrara, 16th century

Elena Capra writes that Tolkien made use of the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, both for The Hobbit's Elvish kingdom, and for his story in The Silmarillion of Beren and Lúthien. That in turn influenced his "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". In Capra's view, Sir Orfeo's key ingredient was the political connection "between the recovery of the main character's beloved and the return to royal responsibility."[19] Sir Orfeo is in its turn a reworking of the classical legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.[19]

Tolkien related the Haradrim's mûmakil in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to Pyrrhus of Epirus's war elephants in his invasion of ancient Rome.[20]

Charles Oughton likens Tolkien's Battle of Helm's Deep to Livy's defence of the bridge by Horatius Cocles. The heroes Aragorn, Éomer, and Gimli hold off the army of Orcs; Horatius holds off the army of Etruscans at the bridge. Oughton finds multiple matches between the two accounts. Several of these are not present in Thomas Babington Macaulay's poem "Horatius" which retells Livy's tale, though Oughton suggests that Tolkien did make additional use of Macaulay for some details.[21]

The classical scholar J. K. Newman compares the myth of Elendil and the defeat of Sauron with Jason's taking of the Golden Fleece. In both, a golden prize is taken; in both, there are evil consequences – Elendil's son Isildur is betrayed and the Ring is lost, leading to the War of the Ring and Frodo's quest; Medea murders Jason's children.[3]

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  Orpheus and Eurydice in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome by Annibale Carracci, 16th century
• 
  Tolkien related the Haradrim's mûmakil to Pyrrhus of Epirus's war elephants in his invasion of Rome.[20]

This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings.