Download Aeneid as propaganda

The Aeneid as Propaganda
A ‘Roman poem’, a document of Augustan imperialism?
The problem: how could Virgil have been taken in by Augustus’ thinly-disguised military despotism,
and have prostituted his art by lending support to such a regime?
Possible answers
1) Simply to say that he unfortunately did, and regret the fact that this mars his poetry for modern
readers. BUT this approach is devoid of historical imagination and avoids the issue.
2) To stress Virgil’s ‘reluctance’, cited by several biographical sources; to say that he was pressurised;
to say that he subtly shows dissent by his sympathetic portrayal of Rome’s enemies and victims.
BUT this ‘reluctance’ might have been as much to do with artistic problems (what can modern epic
be like?) or religious/philosophical ones (what do the stories say about human nature?) as with
political ones. In particular, it is wrong to read the simple human pity for victims (for example, the
basic human question as to whether Aeneas was right to kill Turnus) as a kind of disguised antiAugustan political cynicism. We can hardly be convinced by an interpretation of the poem which
wants us to believe its ‘real’ meaning is so diametrically the opposite of its apparent meaning.
3) To say that C21st cynicism about Augustus is overplayed. Granted, he gained his position by
ruthless violence, but that was universal in the life of ancient states. The old Republican
constitution could not run a large empire; a figure such as Augustus was needed, and he seemed
to promise peace and prosperity in a genuine Roman tradition. Virgil was sincerely grateful for
the end of decades of indecisive civil war.
This third answer seems most satisfactory to me. It can cope with the problems of suffering victims
and the ambiguous / pessimistic thoughts inspired by Aeneas’ final act in Book 12 by saying (as above)
that Virgil is operating at a higher level than the merely political. Even the best rulers are fallible
because human. I am content to imagine Virgil – a strongly religious and in some ways pessimistic
thinker – believing that Augustus was the best you could get in a fallen world.
A point to extract and link with other issues about the epic: The Aeneid is immensely complex and
almost every passage has several layers of meaning. Of the whole poem it can be said that at the first
level it is a story about a journey from Troy in the heroic age; at the second level it is about Rome’s
subsequent history, especially her contemporary Augustan achievements; at the third level, like all
great literature, it is about the nature and purpose of human life. Likewise, Aeneas is a character in a
myth; an ideal Roman; and a representative man.
Therefore, a weakness of the ‘Augustan propaganda’ view is that, even if this claim were true, it
would only be dealing with one small part of one level of the poem’s total purpose and meaning.
Conversely, ‘propaganda’ normally suggests something crude and one dimensional, simply and overtly
designed to make one point. Even the most hostile critic could not dismiss The Aeneid as propaganda
in that sense, for it is difficult to imagine a piece of literature written for one purpose - inspiration and
genius do not work like that.
Virgil with two Muses: North African mosaic
It is also important to separate the charge of propaganda from a) the fact that the work was welcome
to Augustus and Maecenas, even if not strictly commissioned and b) that Virgil might have sincerely
and independently wanted to express his love for Roman history and tradition.