The Aeneid
by: Virgil
Characters in the Aeneid
Aeneas - The protagonist of the Aeneid. Aeneas is a survivor of the siege of Troy, a
city on the coast of Asia Minor. His defining characteristic is piety, a
respect for the will of the gods. He is a fearsome warrior and a leader able to
motivate his men in the face of adversity, but also a man capable of great
compassion and sorrow. His destiny is to found the Roman race in Italy and he
subordinates all other concerns to this mission. The Aeneid is about his journey from Troy to Italy, which
enables him to fulfill his fate.
Dido - The queen of Carthage, a city
in northern Africa, in what is now Tunisia, and lover of Aeneas. Dido left the
land of Tyre when her husband was murdered by Pygmalion, her brother. She and
her city are strong, but she becomes an unfortunate pawn of the gods in their struggle
for Aeneas’s destiny. Her love for Aeneas proves to be her downfall. After he
abandons her, she constructs a funeral pyre and stabs herself upon it with
Aeneas’s sword.
Turnus - The ruler of the Rutulians in
Italy. Turnus is Aeneas’s major antagonist among mortals. He is Lavinia’s
leading suitor until Aeneas arrives. This rivalry incites him to wage war
against the Trojans, despite Latinus’s willingness to allow the Trojans to
settle in Latium and Turnus’s understanding that he cannot successfully defy
fate. He is brash and fearless, a capable soldier who values his honor over his
life.
Ascanius - Aeneas’s young son by his first
wife, Creusa. Ascanius is most important as a symbol of Aeneas’s destiny his
future founding of the Roman race. Though still a child, Ascanius has several
opportunities over the course of the epic to display his bravery and
leadership. He leads a procession of boys on horseback during the games of Book
V and he helps to defend the Trojan camp from Turnus’s attack while his father
is away.
Anchises - Aeneas’s father, and a symbol
of Aeneas’s Trojan heritage. Although Anchises dies during the journey from
Troy to Italy, he continues in spirit to help his son fulfill fate’s decrees,
especially by guiding Aeneas through the underworld and showing him what fate
has in store for his descendants.
Creusa - Aeneas’s
wife at Troy, and the mother of Ascanius. Creusa is lost and killed as her
family attempts to flee the city, but tells Aeneas he will find a new wife at
his new home.
Sinon - The Greek youth who pretends to
have been left behind at the end of the Trojan War. Sinon persuades the Trojans
to take in the wooden horse as an offering to Minerva, then lets out the
warriors trapped inside the horse’s belly.
Latinus - The king
of the Latins, the people of what is now central Italy, around the Tiber River.
Latinus allows Aeneas into his kingdom and encourages him to become a suitor of
Lavinia, his daughter, causing resentment and eventually war among his
subjects. He respects the gods and fate, but does not hold strict command over
his people.
Lavinia - Latinus’s
daughter and a symbol of Latium in general. Lavinia’s character is not
developed in the poem; she is important only as the object of the Trojan-Latin
struggle. The question of who will marry Lavinia Turnus or Aeneas becomes key
to future relations between the Latins and the Trojans and therefore the Aeneid’s entire historical scheme.
Amata - Queen of Laurentum and wife of
Latinus. Amata opposes the marriage of Lavinia, her daughter, to Aeneas and
remains loyal throughout to Turnus, Lavinia’s original suitor. Amata kills
herself once it is clear that Aeneas is destined to win.
Evander - King of
Pallanteum and father of Pallas. Evander is a sworn enemy of the Latins, and
Aeneas befriends him and secures his assistance in the battles against Turnus.
Pallas - Son of
Evander, whom Evander entrusts to Aeneas’s care and tutelage. Pallas eventually
dies in battle at the hands of Turnus, causing Aeneas and Evander great grief.
To avenge Pallas’s death, Aeneas finally slays Turnus, dismissing an initial
impulse to spare him.
Drancës - A Latin
leader who desires an end to the Trojan-Latin struggle. Drancës questions the
validity of Turnus’s motives at the council of the Latins, infuriating Turnus.
Camilla - The leader
of the Volscians, a race of warrior maidens. Camilla is perhaps the only strong
mortal female character in the epic.
Juturna - Turnus’s
sister. Juno provokes Juturna into inducing a full-scale battle between the
Latins and the Trojans by disguising herself as an officer and goading the
Latins after a treaty has already been reached.
Gods and Goddesses
Juno - The queen of the gods, the wife
and sister of Jupiter, and the daughter of Saturn. Juno hates the Trojans
because of the Trojan Paris’s judgment against her in a beauty contest. She is
also a patron of Carthage and knows that Aeneas’s Roman descendants are
destined to destroy Carthage. She takes out her anger on Aeneas throughout the
epic, and in her wrath acts as his primary divine antagonist.
Venus - The goddess of love and the
mother of Aeneas. Venus is a benefactor of the Trojans. She helps her son
whenever Juno tries to hurt him, causing conflict among the gods. She is also
referred to as Cytherea, after Cythera, the island where she was born and where
her shrine is located.
Jupiter - The king
of the gods, and the son of Saturn. While the gods often struggle against one
another in battles of will, Jupiter’s will reigns supreme and becomes
identified with the more impersonal force of fate. Therefore, Jupiter directs
the general progress of Aeneas’s destiny, ensuring that Aeneas is never
permanently thrown off his course toward Italy. Jupiter’s demeanor is
controlled and levelheaded compared to the volatility of Juno and Venus.
Neptune - God of the
sea, and generally an ally of Venus and Aeneas. Neptune calms the storm
that opens the epic and conducts Aeneas safely on the last leg of his voyage.
Aeolus - The god of
the winds, enlisted to aid Juno in creating bad weather for the Trojans in Book
I.
Cupid - A son of Venus and the god of
erotic desire. In Book I, Cupid disguises himself as Ascanius, Aeneas’s
son, and causes Dido to fall in love with Aeneas.
Allecto - One of the
Furies, or deities who avenge sins, sent by Juno in Book VII to incite the
Latin people to war against the Trojans.
Vulcan - God of
fire and the forge, and husband of Venus. Venus urges Vulcan to craft a
superior set of arms for Aeneas, and the gift serves Aeneas well in his battle
with Turnus.
Tiberinus - The river
god associated with the Tiber River, where Rome will eventually be built. At
Tiberinus’s suggestion, Aeneas travels upriver to make allies of the Arcadians.
Minerva - The
goddess who protects the Greeks during the Trojan War and helps them conquer
Troy. Like Juno, Minerva is motivated against the Trojans by the Trojan Paris’s
judgment that Venus was the most beautiful among goddesses.
Apollo - A son of
Jupiter and god of the sun. Apollo was born at Delos and helps the Trojans in
their voyage when they stop there. Because he is often portrayed as an archer,
many characters invoke his name before they fire a shaft in battle.
Summary
On the Mediterranean Sea, Aeneas and his fellow Trojans flee
from their home city of Troy, which has been destroyed by the Greeks. They sail
for Italy, where Aeneas is destined to found Rome. As they near their
destination, a fierce storm throws them off course and lands them in Carthage. Dido, Carthage’s
founder and queen, welcomes them. Aeneas relates to Dido the long and painful
story of his group’s travels thus far.
Aeneas tells of the sack of Troy that ended the Trojan War after ten
years of Greek siege. In the final campaign, the Trojans were tricked when they
accepted into their city walls a wooden horse that, unbeknownst to them,
harbored several Greek soldiers in its hollow belly. He tells how he escaped
the burning city with his father, Anchises; his son, Ascanius; and the hearth
gods that represent their fallen city. Assured by the gods that a glorious
future awaited him in Italy, he set sail with a fleet containing the surviving
citizens of Troy. Aeneas relates the ordeals they faced on their journey. Twice
they attempted to build a new city, only to be driven away by bad omens and
plagues. Harpies, creatures that are part woman and part bird, cursed them, but
they also encountered friendly countrymen unexpectedly. Finally, after the loss
of Anchises and a bout of terrible weather, they made their way to Carthage.
Impressed by Aeneas’s exploits and sympathetic
to his suffering, Dido, a Phoenician princess who fled her home and founded
Carthage after her brother murdered her husband, falls in love with Aeneas.
They live together as lovers for a period, until the gods remind Aeneas of his
duty to found a new city. He determines to set sail once again. Dido is devastated
by his departure, and kills herself by ordering a huge pyre to be built with
Aeneas’s castaway possessions, climbing upon it, and stabbing herself with the
sword Aeneas leaves behind.
As the Trojans make for Italy, bad weather
blows them to Sicily, where they hold funeral games for the dead Anchises. The
women, tired of the voyage, begin to burn the ships, but a downpour puts the
fires out. Some of the travel-weary stay behind, while Aeneas, reinvigorated
after his father visits him in a dream, takes the rest on toward Italy. Once
there, Aeneas descends into the underworld, guided by the Sibyl of Cumae, to
visit his father. He is shown a pageant of the future history and heroes of
Rome, which helps him to understand the importance of his mission. Aeneas
returns from the underworld, and the Trojans continue up the coast to the
region of Latium.
The arrival of the Trojans in Italy begins
peacefully. King Latinus, the Italian ruler, extends his hospitality, hoping
that Aeneas will prove to be the foreigner whom, according to a prophecy, his
daughter Lavinia is supposed to marry. But Latinus’s wife, Amata, has other
ideas. She means for Lavinia to marry Turnus, a local suitor. Amata and Turnus cultivate enmity
toward the newly arrived Trojans. Meanwhile, Ascanius hunts a stag that was a
pet of the local herdsmen. A fight breaks out, and several people are killed.
Turnus, riding this current of anger, begins a war.
Aeneas, at the suggestion of the river god
Tiberinus, sails north up the Tiber to seek military support among the
neighboring tribes. During this voyage, his mother, Venus, descends to give him
a new set of weapons, wrought by Vulcan. While the Trojan leader is away,
Turnus attacks. Aeneas returns to find his countrymen embroiled in battle.
Pallas, the son of Aeneas’s new ally Evander, is killed by Turnus. Aeneas flies
into a violent fury, and many more are slain by the day’s end.
The two sides agree to a truce so that they can
bury the dead, and the Latin leaders discuss whether to continue the battle.
They decide to spare any further unnecessary carnage by proposing a
hand-to-hand duel between Aeneas and Turnus. When the two leaders face off,
however, the other men begin to quarrel, and full-scale battle resumes. Aeneas
is wounded in the thigh, but eventually the Trojans threaten the enemy city.
Turnus rushes out to meet Aeneas, who wounds Turnus badly. Aeneas nearly spares
Turnus but, remembering the slain Pallas, slays him instead.
In
the aftermath of the Trojan War, about 1000
B.C.
setting (place) ·
The
Mediterranean, including the north coast of Asia Minor, Carthage Italy
Theme
The primacy of fate
The sufferings of wanderers
The glory of Rome
Prophecies and predictions
Insight
Virgil wrote the Aeneid 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.
Prophecy and
prediction take many forms in the Aeneid, including
dreams, visitations from the dead, mysterious signs and omens, and direct
visitations of the gods or their divine messengers. These windows onto the
future orient mortal characters toward fate as they try to glean, sometimes
clearly and sometimes dimly, what is to come. Virgil’s audience, however, hears
these predictions with the advantage of hindsight, looking backward to observe
the realization of an already accomplished fate. As observers who know about
the future, the audience is in the same position as the gods, and the tension
between the audience’s and the characters’ perspectives therefore emulates the
difference between the position of mortals and that of gods.
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