Aeneid Publius Vergilius Maro, Born

¶ … Aeneid

Publius Vergilius Maro, born in 70 B.C. had a long and close history with the future emperor, Caesar Augustus, and according to legend, Augustus wanted a heroic poem to justify his rule over the Roman Empire, thus, Virgil wrote the "Aeneid," 19 B.C. (Royal pp). The first half is regarded as Virgil's "Odyssey," for it tells of a Trojan warrior named Aeneas, who roams the Mediterranean following the fall of Troy and eventually establishes the city of Rome (Royal pp). The second half is Virgil's "Iliad," for it recounts battles in Italy and connects Roman history with the heroic age of the Trojan War (Royal pp). Aeneas, whose main virtue is piety, braves battle and death to seek a new city for the Trojan gods (Royal pp). Robert Royal notes that part of Virgil's genius is to recognize another ethos, "one that acknowledges something like divine providence in history, especially in the fated nature of Rome" (Royal pp). Virgil writes:

Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,

And in the doubtful war, before he won

The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;

His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,

And settled sure succession in his line,

From whence the race of Alban fathers come,

And the long glories of majestic Rome.

Virgil pp).

Although Virgil announces in the first few line that Aeneas has to bring gods into Italy, Royal writes, "force and religion run up against a limit in the classical cosmos because the neediness of all living beings finds no final remedy among men or gods" (Royal pp). According to Eve Adler, "It would be folly to hope for the disarming of the erotic passions by reason...Dido in spite of her philosophic tutor, certainly pious Adeneas, and ultimately even Jupiter himself are subject to the furor of these passions" (Royal pp). The Fury Allecto takes on the form of Calybe, the elderly priestess of Juno, and appears to Turnus in his sleep and tell him to burn the Trojan ships anchored in the Tiber, so as to persuade King Latinus to give him Lavinia as a bride (Butler pp).

As Aeneas watches his city burn, he encounters Helen, who he holds responsible for the threat to everything he holds dear, his gods, his city, and his family (Bond pp). Barbara Bond notes that because Aeneas's defining characteristic is pietas, which involves a sense of duty and reverence for propriety, it is Helen's offense against the gods that first holds his attention (Bond pp). The first offense he mentions is that by her very presence, she defiles the city's holy place, for in his mind she is designated as a sacrificial victim and it is his duty to destroy her (Bond pp). He justifies this by depersonalizing her "successively to a mere woman, an animal, an otherworldly force, and an object...denies her semi-divine status as the daughter of Leda and Jupiter and secures her in the patriarchal hierarchy by referring to her as daughter of Tyndareus" (Bond pp). It is his mother, Venus, who stops him, telling him that the disaster is not Helen's fault and that he has other duties and priorities, reminding him to his senses and helping him to pass his first test of placing duty before feeling (Bond pp).