Servius on Paris’ First Wife (AP Vergil Week Continues)

Things are getting really strange with Servius (=Jacoby Abas 46, f1)

Servius  on Virgil, Aeneid 9.262

devicta genitor (sc. Aeneas) quae cepit Arisba]

“Which his father took once Arisba was conquered…”

“(And yet, according to Homer, Arisba sent aid to the Trojans and was overcome by Achilles)…the city is called Arisba after the daughter of Merpos or Macareus who was the first wife of Paris. According to some authors, Abas, who wrote the Troika, related that after the Greeks left Troy, the rule of this city was given to Astyanax. Antenor expelled him once he had allied himself with the states neighboring where Arisba’s location. Aeneas took this badly and took up arms for Astyanax; once the expedition was prosecuted successfully, he returned the kingdom to Astyanax.”

[[atqui secundum Homerum Arisba Troianis misit auxilia et ab Achille subversa est …]] dicta est Arisba ab Meropis vel Macarei filia, quam primum Paris in coniugio habuit. quidam ab Abante, qui Troica scripsit, relatum ferunt, post discessum a Troia Graecorum Astyanacti ibi datum regnum. hunc ab Antenore expulsum sociatis sibi finitimis civitatibus, inter quas et Arisba fuit. Aeneam hoc aegre tulisse et pro Astyanacte arma cepisse, ac prospere gesta re Astyanacti restituisse regnum.

Several details of this are strange. First, the fact that Paris had a first wife, though not strange on the surface, is rarely mentioned. Second, Astyanax’s survival after the fall of Troy is far from typical—the typical tale is his murder at the hands of Odysseus. Less surprising but still worth mentioning is the antagonism between Antenor—who is depicted in some sources as being friendly to Menelaos and Agamemnon—and the surviving heir of the house of Priam. Finally, I find it touching that Aeneas would take a break from all of his own troubles to help his cousin’s star-crossed son.