Download Max Pfingsten – The Aeneid

Max Pfingsten – The Aeneid
This lesson explores Virgil's Aeneid. It consists of a brief plot synopsis. We stop along the way to
look at a few important scenes and offer analysis where necessary.
The Aeneid: A New Epic for a New Age
The Aeneid is an epic poem written by the Roman poet Virgil between 29 and 19 BCE. Virgil
composed this epic for his patron, Augustus Caesar, the first Emperor of Rome. Augustus wanted
the Romans to have an epic of their own, a story that would be to Rome what the Iliad and
Odyssey were to Greece. He wanted to give the Romans a glorious and ancient history full of
Roman virtue and foreshadowing Rome's future glory. Yet Augustus's motives were not simply
nationalistic.
While Virgil was writing his epic, Augustus was in the process of replacing the ancient Roman
Republic with a new sort of government, the Principate, in which Augustus controlled all aspects
of the empire. A lot of people were unhappy about this change of events. The Republic was an
ancient and revered institution. Augustus needed a way to make himself and his new government
even more ancient, even more revered.
This was the task Augustus set before Virgil. 'Write me a Roman epic glorifying the Roman
people and Roman virtue. Oh, and be sure to work me, my lineage and my agenda into it.' So
Virgil set about weaving the Romans and Augustus into the mythical world of Greek epic. The
result was the Aeneid.
Rome's Glorious Destiny
In the Aeneid, Virgil tells the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero from Homer's Iliad. Aeneas is the
son of the goddess Venus and the distant ancestor of Augustus's family, the Julians. Virgil's tale
recounts Aeneas' quest to establish a new city for the Trojan people. From the beginning, we
learn that Aeneas is destined to settle in Italy and give rise to the mighty Roman Empire, to whom
all nations and people look in awe and wonder.
This is the will of Jupiter, king of the gods, and it is immutable. Though men or gods might
struggle against this fate, they can only delay the inevitable. Thus, from the beginning, Virgil
establishes Augustus's family as the founders of Rome. It is Aeneas' destiny to leave behind the
rubble of the old and lead his people to a new and glorious future.
The Good Guy: Aeneas, a Roman Hero
Aeneas accepts this destiny, though he does not understand it. All he knows is that this is the will
of the gods. Throughout the story, Aeneas is tempted to turn from his quest by the frustration of
mounting catastrophes or by the enticement of a friendly port. Yet Aeneas accepts the suffering
and hardship. He ignores the deepest wishes of his heart and obeys the will of the gods.
This makes Aeneas a very different hero from his Greek counterparts. Achilles is so selfish that
he lets his comrades die as he sulks about a slight to his pride. Odysseus left Troy with scores of
Greeks under his command. By the time he got to Ithaca, he was the only one left alive. Aeneas is
a different sort of hero altogether. Where Odysseus is selfish, Aeneas is selfless. Where Achilles
struggles against his fate, Aeneas accepts his destiny.
The Villain: Juno, a Vengeful Goddess
Yet not all the characters in the Aeneid are so stalwart and fatalistic as Aeneas. Several important
characters spend the story fighting tooth and nail against the will of Jupiter. The foremost of these
Max Pfingsten – The Aeneid
is Jupiter's wife, Juno.
Juno has it out for Aeneas and his Trojans. Juno lost a sort of goddess beauty contest to Venus,
Aeneas' mother. This divine beauty pageant indirectly led to the Trojan War. Yet even with Troy
sacked, Juno is still not satisfied with her revenge. Moreover, Juno is aware of Jupiter's plans for
Aeneas and the Romans. She knows that Rome will grow into a mighty empire and destroy
Carthage someday, and Juno is a big fan of Carthage.
For these reasons, Juno is determined to keep Aeneas from his destiny. So when Aeneas and his
small fleet of Trojan refugees approach Italy, Juno persuades Aeolus, the god of winds, to drive
Aeneas away from his goal. Aeolus complies, and a mighty storm scatters the Trojans. Aeneas
and his few remaining ships are driven south, where they wreck off the coast of Libya.
From Troy to Carthage: A Mini-Odyssey
Coming to the shore, they see a grand new city going up on the coast, its walls just rising from
their foundations. Aeneas, the father of Rome, has found himself wrecked on the coast of Rome's
greatest rival, Carthage.
There they meet the Queen of Carthage, the widow Dido. Dido welcomes Aeneas, the Trojan
hero whose exploits are known and renowned in her city. Dido is curious why the Trojans are still
wandering so many years after the fall of Troy. So Aeneas tells her the story of their adventures.
He begins by recapping the fall of Troy from the Trojan perspective. This account seems mainly
concerned with explaining why the Trojans were stupid enough to roll a giant wooden horse full
of Greek soldiers into their city. The trick was, apparently, a conspiracy of gods and men. The
Greeks left a single man behind - Sinon. Sinon told the Trojans that the Greeks had angered the
goddess Minerva by defiling one of her temples. The wooden horse was their way of getting back
in the goddess's good favor. The Greeks wanted the Trojans to burn the horse to the ground
because then Minerva would shift her anger to the Trojans. What the Greeks didn't want was for
the Trojans to bring the horse into the city. If they did that, Minerva would shift her favor to the
Trojans, and the Trojans would conquer the Greeks in turn.
This reverse psychology did not fool the Trojan high priest, Laocoon, who said 'What, are you
stupid? That thing is full of soldiers!' and hurled a spear at the horse. Minerva, however, had
never been angry at the Greeks; she was their ally in their trick. Minerva sent a pair of serpents,
who devoured Laocoon and his children, before slithering to rest beneath the shrine of Minerva.
This was enough evidence for the Trojans, who obediently dragged the horse into their town. As
Laocoon had predicted, the horse was indeed full of murderous Greeks who waited until nightfall
to kill off the guards and throw open the gates to the forces amassed outside. Realizing his city
was lost, Aeneas struggled to save as many people as he could. Though he was able to save his
father Anchises and many of his countrymen, Aeneas lost his wife in the chaos and bloodshed.
With no time to even mourn their dead, Aeneas and his countrymen fled to sea. After a brief
stopover in Thrace, where they heard of the treachery of the Thracian king - thereby justifying
Rome's later conquest of Thrace - Aeneas and his people made it to the island of Delos. There,
Apollo, the god of prophecy, told Aeneas he must settle in the land of his forefathers. Anchises,
Aeneas' father, interpreted this as a command to settle on the island of Crete, whence the Trojans
traced their heritage. Yet when the Trojans settled on Crete, they were struck by plague. Aeneas'
ancestral gods visited him in a dream to tell him that his true homeland was Italy. It turns out that
the valiant Trojans were actually Italians. This concept probably surprised the Romans of Virgil's
age as much as it did Aeneas.
Max Pfingsten – The Aeneid
Yet with his mission clear at last, Aeneas left Crete for Italy. Along his path, he encountered
many of the same horrors as Odysseus: the sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the cyclops. In this
section, we see a clear comparison between the Greek hero Odysseus and the Roman hero
Aeneas. Where Odysseus sacrificed his men to sail through the twin dangers Scylla and
Charybdis, Aeneas was unwilling to make this sacrifice and wisely sailed around. Where
Odysseus left men behind to be eaten by cyclopses, Aeneas rescued those men and took them
with him.
The Widow Dido
As Aeneas finishes his tale, Dido is moved by Aeneas' story. Dido is impressed by Aeneas'
bravery and piety. Dido is stricken by Aeneas' beauty. In short, Dido is head-over-heels in love
with Aeneas. Aeneas seems to return the feeling, and the two spend a rainy day making love in a
cave. After this tryst, Dido assumes that they are married. Aeneas and his people will settle in
Carthage and take honored places.
Aeneas, however, is aware that he cannot stay in Carthage. Aeneas wants to stay, but the gods
make it clear that his destiny lies in Italy, not Africa. As Aeneas sails away, Dido jumps onto a
huge pyre and runs herself through with a sword, cursing Aeneas with her dying breath.
The doomed romance of Dido and Aeneas became one of the most enduring themes in Western
literature, on par with Romeo and Juliet. With this tale, Virgil was attempting to explain Rome's
strange relationship with Carthage. When Rome was small and powerless, it received significant
aid from the Carthaginians, yet as Rome's power and ambition grew, its old ally became its chief
rival. Rome eventually utterly destroyed Carthage. Virgil's account suggests that they still felt a
little bit of cultural guilt over this betrayal.
Journey to the Underworld
Though stricken with grief for Dido, Aeneas leads his Trojans to Sicily, where they hold funeral
games in honor of Aeneas' father, Anchises, who died on the journey to Carthage. Anchises visits
Aeneas in a vision and tells his son that he has one epic journey left to make before he can settle
in Italy. Aeneas must visit the underworld.
In his description of the underworld, Virgil follows an ancient tradition of epic. Odysseus made a
similar trip to the land of the dead in the Odyssey, and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu sees the
underworld in a dream. Virgil's account is far more vivid than any of his predecessors, and it
would provide inspiration for later Christian writers like Dante. With Apollo's prophetess, the
Sibyl, to lead the way, Aeneas passes into the underworld. There he sees how souls are divided in
the afterlife.
People who were not buried properly cannot cross the river Acheron to enter the underworld. This
seems sort of like a precursor to the Catholic notion of Limbo. Across the river Acheron, the
recently deceased line up before Minos for judgment, just as Christians expect to stand before the
judgment of God. Beyond the great king lay the Field of War Heroes, where the shades of fallen
Greeks scurry in fear from Aeneas, and the Field of Mourning, where those who died for love
wander in grief, among them the recently departed Dido, who gives Aeneas the cold shoulder
when he tries to apologize for breaking her heart.
When Aeneas gets to the Fortress of Rhadamanthus, we gain a special insight into the morals of
Rome, or at least the morals Augustus wanted for Rome. As Aeneas watches people pushing
boulders uphill or being flayed alive, he asks the Sibyl who are these sinners to deserve such
awful punishments.
Max Pfingsten – The Aeneid
The Sibyl replies:
'Here in a prison-house awaiting doom Are men who hated, long as life endured, Their brothers,
or maltreated their gray sires, Or tricked a humble friend; the men who grasped At hoarded
riches, with their kith and kin Not sharing ever - an unnumbered throng; Here slain adulterers
be; and men who dared To fight in unjust cause, and break all faith With their own lawful
lords... Yon traitor sold his country, and for gold Enchained her to a tyrant, trafficking In laws,
for bribes enacted or made void; Another did incestuously take His daughter for a wife in lawless
bonds. All ventured some unclean, prodigious crime; And what they dared, achieved. I could not
tell, Not with a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, Or iron voice, their divers shapes of sin, Nor
call by name the myriad pangs they bear.'
Here we see the primary sins of Rome under Augustus:
Sins against the family
• Hating your brother
• Abusing your father
• Incest and adultery
Sins against your fellow man
• Greed
• Selfishness
• Refusal to help those in need
Sins against the state
•
•
•
•
•
Treachery
Installing tyrants for gold
Accepting bribes to sway legislation
Fighting in an unjust cause
Breaking faith with one's lawful lord
Yet Virgil's underworld is not just a place to punish the sinful. It is a place of purification. Once
souls have their sins stripped away through ages of torture, they make their way to the peaceful
Elysian Fields, where the blessed souls reside. This makes the underworld sound a lot like
Purgatory and the Elysian Fields a lot like Heaven.
It is important to remember that Virgil's epic was written decades before Jesus ever drew breath.
Christianity drew a great deal of inspiration from Virgil, and it is no surprise that Dante would
use Virgil as his guide in his own account of the afterlife, the Divine Comedy.
In the Elysian Fields, Aeneas is reunited with his dead father, who has a special treat for him.
Before them, a line of spirits await reincarnation. Anchises informs Aeneas that these are his
descendants waiting their chance to be reborn. With the foresight of the dead, Anchises tells
Aeneas the fate of each, from Aeneas' son and grandson, to Romulus who would found Rome, all
the way to Augustus, the proud emperor of a glorious empire. Now, at last, Aeneas understands
what he is fighting for. He knows why he could not settle in Crete or Carthage. Aeneas sees the
glorious destiny of the Romans and his progeny, and he knows that all of his struggles and
Max Pfingsten – The Aeneid
suffering will be worthwhile.
As Aeneas makes his way out of the underworld and toward his destiny, the epic reaches its
halfway point and Virgil changes gears. If the first half of the Aeneid was meant to be a Roman
Odyssey, with travels and adventures, the second half of the epic was meant to be a Roman Iliad,
with warfare and bloodshed.
Aeneas in Italy: A Mini-Iliad
Once Aeneas arrives in Italy, Latinus, the king of the Latins, offers Aeneas his daughter Lavinia
in marriage. Unfortunately, princess Lavinia is betrothed to a Latin warlord named Turnus. In the
end, like Paris, Aeneas has stolen a princess. However, unlike Paris, Aeneas isn't just some pretty
boy with a roving eye. Aeneas is a hero with a destiny.
This conflict between Aeneas and Turnus is established at the beginning of the second section. It
is absolutely clear that Aeneas and Turnus are going to have a duel to the death. Yet every time
the two seem ready to fight, Juno intervenes. She seems to realize that she cannot stop Aeneas
from achieving his destiny, but she is intent on delaying him and making him suffer. Virgil drags
this conflict out over six books.
Unfortunately, Virgil does not seem so inspired in this second half of the Aeneid as he was in the
first. It almost seems like he's just going through the motions. As we saw above, the underlying
conflict is essentially the same as the Iliad: a Trojan steals a princess, battle ensues. Yet Virgil
doesn't seem to be adapting Homer as much as he's simply copying the great Greek bard.
Just like in the Iliad, the tide of battle sweeps back and forth as various heroes take the field. Just
as Achilles' companion Patroclus fought valiantly and died, leading Achilles on a killing spree,
Aeneas' companion Pallas fought valiantly and died, leading Aeneas to a killing spree. Aeneas'
mother Venus provides her son with a divinely-crafted shield worked with intricate detail, just
like Achilles' mother Thetis did in the Iliad. And just as the Iliad ends with the death of the
enemy, Hector, the Aeneid ends with the death of the enemy, Turnus.
Lesson Summary
Though Virgil ended the Aeneid rather lamely, he had achieved the goals set before him by his
patron, Augustus. Virgil had created an epic for the Roman people, a story so like the Iliad and
Odyssey that entire sections might as well be quoted, at least in the second half.
Yet Virgil also showed some remarkable creativity. He turned some of these Greek heroes on
their heads to contrast the Roman virtues of Aeneas to the Greek virtues of Odysseus and
Achilles. He offered the most vivid glimpse of the afterlife ever offered by a poet. And, most
importantly to his patron, Virgil deftly wove Augustus's family and agenda into his story,
granting Augustus's new regime the legitimacy of the ancients and the reverence of myth.