The Aeneid

ABOUT
- Written 19 BC by Virgil
- Epic poem
- Mirrors Virgil’s view of Roman values of his time
- Aeneas representative of Augustus in some way – justification of Augustus’ power.
As a mirror image of ideal Roman values and a reminder that Octavian is a
descendant of not only the founders of Rome, but of the Gods.
- 29 BC Octavian returns to Rome after managing to stop the civil wars and eliminate
foreign threat of Antony + Cleopatra. This triumph is described to us in Book 8 on
Aeneas’ shield.

Essay themes
- Leadership
- Identity
- Power
- Responsibilities

FOCUS ON Aeneas’ identity as a Roman (as opposed to Homeric) and responsibility Aeneas to
his men, his family, and his Destiny.

Themes of the Aeneid

The concepts of Pietas and Furor are pervasive themes in ​The Aeneid​. In order to understand its
significance, we must know investigate its historical context. Virgil’s Rome was harsh. Despite
Augustus’ entry to power coming with the end of civil war in 31 BC (and the ​Pax Augustana ​to
come), memories of the disorder, chaos, and destruction of war were still fresh in Virgil’s mind -
after all, Virgil began writing ​The Aeneid​ only two years after Augustus seized power through his
victory in the Battle of Actium. Virgil therefore uses ​The Aeneid​ as a mouthpiece to the Roman
public that Pietas - symbolized by the Roman Empire - will always triumph over Furor.

Pietas = piety = dedication to duty. Pietas was a distinctly Roman value and it was imperative for
Virgil’s contemporary Romans to adhere to the values of Pietas. In the Roman world, the notion
of duty encompassed several areas of life. This dictated that the perfect Roman
statesman/leader/member had to tend to:
- Duty to the Gods - obeying one’s destiny is a part of this, one’s fatum. Destiny is
associated with the will of the Gods
- Duty to the Empire/Emperor
- Duty to the mean who you lead/the army
- Duty to your family.
Pietas is order, rationality, duty, and control.

Furor = disorder/lack of self-restraint = the absence of duty. Furor is the antithesis to Pietas. In
the same way that it was important for Romans to adhere to the values of Pietas, it was also
important that they avoid committing furor at all costs.
The fundamentals of furor are:
- Lack of self restraint
- Passion
- Lack of rationality
- Fury or violence (to an excessive level)
- Chaos/the lack of order

Roman vs Homeric hero

The Homeric hero and the Roman hero are pitted against each other in ​The Aeneid​ and
equipped as a sort of character arc for Aeneas. The Homeric hero was more focused on personal
glory and the continuation of their family name, whereas the Roman hero’s focus lay more
towards the importance of the State over prevailing their lineage. Thus, the Roman hero
accepted wider responsibilities in name aiding the State reach her potential, as they recognised
that when the hero dies, the State would continue to live. Through this, we are able to see the
differences that contrast the two types of heroes presented to us. This also means that we can see
how these aspects crucial to the contrasts between Homeric and Roman heroes relate directly to
the themes of pietas and furor. In order to wholly become a Roman hero, Aeneas had to undergo
the learning process of controlling the furor of the Homeric hero (particularly seen in Book II).
In doing so, Aeneas increasingly came to embody Pietas, which can most frequently be seen
when he is fulfilling his destiny and obeying the wishes of the gods.

The Glory of Rome 

Virgil wrote the A​ eneid​ during what is known as the Golden Age of the Roman Empire, under the
auspices of Rome’s first emperor, Caesar Augustus. Virgil’s purpose was to write a myth of
Rome’s origins that would emphasize the grandeur and legitimize the success of an empire that
had conquered most of the known world. The ​Aeneid​ steadily points toward this already realized
cultural pinnacle; Aeneas even justifies his settlement in Latium in the same manner that the
empire justified its settlement in numerous other foreign territories. Virgil works backward,
connecting the political and social situation of his own day with the inherited tradition of the
Greek gods and heroes, to show the former as historically derived from the latter. Order and
good government triumph emphatically over the Italian peoples, whose world prior to the
Trojans’ arrival is characterized as a primitive existence of war, chaos, and emotional
irrationality. By contrast, the empire under Augustus was generally a world of peace, order, and
emotional stability.
The Golden Bough 
According to the Sibyl, the priestess of Apollo, the golden bough is the symbol Aeneas must
carry in order to gain access to the underworld. It is unusual for mortals to be allowed to visit the
realm of the dead and then return to life. The golden bough is therefore the sign of Aeneas’s
special privilege.

Founding a New City 

The mission to build a new city is an obsession for Aeneas and the Trojans. In Book II, Aeneas
relates the story of Troy’s destruction to Dido, who is herself recently displaced and in the
process of founding a new city of her own. In Book III, Virgil relates several attempts undertaken
by the Trojans to lay the foundations for a city, all of which were thwarted by ill omens or plague.
Aeneas also frequently uses the image of the realized city to inspire his people when their spirits
flag. The walls, foundation, or towers of a city stand for civilization and order itself, a remedy for
the uncertainty, irrationality, and confusion that result from wandering without a home.

He was not blood thirsty like Achilles and was not so violent. When Troy falls apart, Aneas is hurt
and disappointed, “In my mind a fire is burning; anger spurs me to avenge my fallen land, to
exact the debt of crime.” However, he controls his urge to “satisfy the ashes of his people” and
continues on his journey for better pastures. [1](Ae 48-50). He was imbibed with the Roman
virtues of forgiveness and restraint.

PSE
Beginning of the poem he is visited by Hector, “Now Troy entrusts you her sanctities and her
Guardians of the Home” – followed by reckless action, doesn’t obey Hector’s order, rather, he
stays and fights

https://www.shmoop.com/aeneid/power-quotes.html

quotes about power and duty/responsibility. The importance of responsibility to maintain

power

(Aeneas to Sibyl)
“There I shall inaugurate a temple all of marble for Apollo and Trivia with festal days called by
Apollo’s name; and for yourself, benign Lady, there shall also be in my realm a noble shrine.”
Aeneas forgetting his duties / Dido

“scene of passion” “forget their royal duties”

 
Aeneas, “How fortunate were you, thrice fortunate and Aeneas demonstrates his wish to die
when more, whose luck it was to die under the high walls gloriously in battle here – Homeric Hero.
Juno’s of Troy before your parents’ eyes!”
storm
scatters his
ships

 
Aeneas to “Let me go back to the Greeks. Let me return to Aeneas’ demonstrates the Homeric values
the Trojans the battle and fight once more. We shall not all die of:
he this day unavenged!” ● Die gloriously in battle.
discovers ● Vengeance.
during the ● Bravery.
Sack of Troy

 
Aeneas to “Maid, no aspect of tribulation which is new to me Aeneas is unperturbed by the Sibyl’s
Sibyl can rise before me, for I have traced my way prophecy of his future tribulations.
through all that may happen in the anticipation of
my inward thought.”
Sibyl to “So therefore you must lift up your eyes and seek By collecting the Golden Bough, Aeneas
Aeneas to discern this bough, find it as it is required of you, demonstrates his strength and courage as a
and pick it boldly.” hero and leader.

Anchises to “You have come at last! Your father knew that you Aeneas, as the rightful Roman hero, has the
Aeneas would be true! So your faithfulness has overcome ability to travel to the Underworld.
the hard journey?”

Anchises to “But you, Roman, must remember that you have to The strength and success of Aeneas and the
Aeneas guide the nations by your authority, for this is to be future Romans lies in their ability to
your skill, to graft tradition onto peace, to show command nations.
mercy to the conquered, and to wage war until the
haughty are brought low.”
Aeneas to his father – Virgil here distinguishes Aeneas for his piety
Did you suppose, my father,
That I could tear myself away and leave you?
Unthinkable; how could a father say it?
Now if it pleases the powers about that nothing
Stand of this great city; if your heart
Is set on adding your own death and ours
To that of Troy, the door wide open for it.

(Aeneas to his men)

“We have forced our way through adventures of every kind, risking all again and again;
but the way is the way to Latium, where Destiny offers us rest and a home, and where
imperial Troy may have the right to live again. Hold hard, therefore. Preserve
yourselves for better days.”

(Jupiter):
"[…] young Romulus
Will take the leadership, build walls of Mars,
And call by his own name his people Romans.
For these I set no limits, world or time,
But make the gift of empire without end." (1.371-375)

Anchises to Aeneas
(Anchises):
"Roman, remember by your strength to rule
Earth's people—for your arts are to be these:
To pacify, to impose the rule of law,
To spare the conquered, battle down the proud." (6.1151-1154)

(Aeneas) to Huntress (Venus in disguise)

"I am Aeneas, duty-bound, and known

Above high air of heaven by my fame,

Carrying with me in my ships our gods

Of hearth and home, saved from the enemy.

I look for Italy to be my fatherland,

And my descent is from all-highest Jove." (1.519-524)

“Duty-bound,
Aeneas, though he struggled with desire
To calm and comfort her in all her pain,
To speak to her and turned her mind from grief,
And though he sighed his heart out, shaken still
With love of her, yet took the course heaven gave him
And went back to the fleet.” (4.545-551)

“Now daylight left the sky, and the mild moon,

In midheaven, rode her night-wandering car,
But duty would not give Aeneas rest:
He held the tiller still, still shifted sail. “

(Aeneas):
"Poor fellow, how
Could rashness take you this way? Don't you feel
A force now more than mortal is against you
And heaven's will has changed? We'll bow to that!" (5.602-605) – religion

"I am Aeneas, duty-bound, and known

Above high air of heaven by my fame,
Carrying with me in my ships our gods
Of hearth and home, saved from the enemy.
I look for Italy to be my fatherland,
And my descent is from all-highest Jove." (1.519-524)

Virgil’s Aeneid is thought to contain a political message. There are two primary interpretations
of what this message may be: one as “pro-Augustus”, and the other opposing this, as
“anti-Augustus”.

Aeneas is the founder of Lavnium, his son Ascanius ruler of Alba Longa - of which ROme is
descended from, until the birth of Romulus (also descended)
PSE OF AUGUSTUS’ TIME
Seneca – “He was a merciful ruler, if one considers his career from the beginning of his
principate […] as a young man he was subject to fits of angry passion, and did many things it
pained him later to recall.” – indicative of not always favourable portrayal of Aeneas / Augustus

SSE
- during the Pax Augustana, there was a fierce revival of ROman religion seen in it’s
temples eg Ara Pacis. These temples had been destroyed in civil war. Many citizens
believed that this was caused by the absence, or lack of Pietas.
- During battle of Action Virgil completed a series of poems known as the Georgics. These
were a didactic series of poems which describes to us the horrors of civil war and pray to
the Gods that Octavian saves Rome from these hardships.

Through this we see how Augustus is meant to be portrayed as a saviours, as a sort of Messiah.

The role of the hero has not only become to save civilisation, but to found a city - PARALLELS.
WILLIAM ANTHONY CAMPS – British Classical Scholar
file:///Users/clarafrank/Downloads/Appendix%205%20for%20WA%20Camps%20reading%20
(1).pdf
“Virgil had announced in the prologue to his Georgic the intention to make a poem on a grand
scale that should honour Octavian down the ages.”

SIMONE GREBE – German Classical scholar

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41587284.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A31374a796cab2b9f3baf
e3537a08d53d
“As Hannah Arendt writes in her influential essay, "All authority derives from this foundation,
binding every act back to the sacred beginning of Roman history, adding, as it were, to every
single moment the whole we – “
“According to the Aeneid , it is the wish of the Olympian gods that Roman history culminate in
Augustus.”
“Thus, Vergil's epic is a piece of propaganda, though a very sophisticated one, in that it
reinforces the divine foundation of the Emperor's auctoritas.”
“To create the principáte. Both Aeneas and Augustus founded political and cultural order out of
disorder. They brought back stability and security after a period of war and destruction. Aeneas
was able to establish a new home for his Trojan followers with the help of the gods. Vergil's
likening of Augustus to Aeneas suggests that Augustus, too, can create order out of disorder,
with divine support – this is the positive message of the Aeneid.”

TAKEN FROM WIKIPEDIA – DO NOT USE

The ​Aeneid​ was written during a period of political unrest in Rome. The Roman republic
had effectively been abolished, and Octavian had taken over as the leader of the new
Roman empire. The ​Aeneid​ was written to praise Augustus by drawing parallels between
him and the protagonist, Aeneas. Virgil does so by mirroring Caesar with Aeneas and by
creating a direct lineage between Aeneas and Augustus.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.208.212&rep=rep1&type=pd
f

— Aeneas and Achilles as contrasting heroes.