The Aeneid

Author: Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC)
Translator: Robert Fagles
Publisher: Penguin Books (2008)
Bought from: Book Depository


Introduction

The Aeneid is an epic poem composed by Virgil in Latin and is his most famous work.

Virgil, full name Publius Vergilius Maro, is considered one of Rome’s greatest poet. Centuries later, another great Roman poet, Dante, would make Virgil his guide through Inferno and part of Purgatory in The Divine Comedy.

Virgil linked the well known tradition that Rome was founded by Romulus (c 753 BC) with the mythology of Troy. He described how Aeneas and a band of Trojan survivors of the Trojan War landed in Italy (c 12th century BC). According to Virgil, Aeneas’ son Ascanius also known as Iulus founded a line of kings who ruled from Alba Longa until its last king Romulus founded Rome. Virgil also wrote that this line of kings became the progenitors of Julius Caesar’s family, the Julii.

Virgil wrote the poem during the tumultuous period when the Roman Republic gave way to the Roman Empire under the reign of Emperor of Augustus, Julius Caesar’s heir. Virgil’s ‘legitimatization’ of Julius Caesar, and by extension Augustus, must be a political statement.

It is believed that Virgil wrote the poem between 29 BC to 19 BC. Some scholars believe that he died before completing the poem.


What is it about?

Aeneas is the son of Anchises and Venus (Aphrodite). Anchises is a second cousin of Priam, the last king of Troy. Aeneas escaped the fall of Troy with a band of followers. The first part of The Aeneid (Books 1 to 6) is an account of the group’s journey. The second part (Books 7 to 12) chronicles Aeneas’ wars in Italy.

The poem begins in media res with Aeneas’s fleet harassed by Juno in the waters off Sicily. Juno has been an implacable enemy of the Trojans because the Trojan prince Paris snubbed her in favour of Venus and Minerva (Athena) in the Judgment of Paris and another Trojan prince Ganymede became Jupiter’s cup-bearer. She has also learned of a prophecy that Aeneas’ descendants will destroy one of her favourite cities, Carthage.

Aeneas lands in Africa where he meets Dido, queen of Carthage. He narrates Troy’s last hours, including the wooden horse ruse, Priam’s death and his own desperate dash to safety carrying his father on his back. He lost his wife but came across her ghost who left him with these parting words:

“A long exile is your fate ...
the vast plains of the seas are yours to plow
until you reach Hesperian land, where Lydian Tiber
flows with its smooth march through rich and loamy fields,
a land of hardy people. There great joy and a kingdom
are yours to claim, and a queen to make your wife.”
(2.967 – 972)

Aeneas continues his story and recounts his encounter with two other survivors of Troy, Hector’s widow Andromache and Priam’s son Helenus. Helenus, a prophet, revealed to Aeneas what lay ahead and told Aeneas to seek out the Sibyl Deiphobe.

Aeneas and Dido fall in love but Jupiter (Zeus) reminds him of his destiny. Aeneas leaves and Dido kills herself after cursing Aeneas to an early death and prophesising the Punic Wars and the coming of Hannibal:

“If that curse
of the earth must reach his haven, labor on to landfall –
if Jove and the Fates command and the boundary stone is fixed,
still, let him be plagued in war by a nation proud in arms,
torn from his borders, wrenched from Iulus’ embrace,
let him grovel for help and watch his people die
a shameful death! And then, once he has bowed down
to an unjust peace, may he never enjoy his realm
and the light he yearns for, never, let him die
before his day, unburied on some desolate beach!
That is my prayer, my final cry – I pour it out
with my own lifeblood. And you, my Tyrians,
harry with hatred all his line, his race to come:
make that offering to my ashes, send it down below.
No love between our peoples, ever, no pacts of peace!
Come rising up from my bones, you avenger still unknown,
to stalk those Trojan settlers, hunt with fire and iron,
now or in time to come, whenever the power is yours.
Shore clash with shore, sea against sea and sword
against sword – this is my curse – war between all
our peoples, all their children, endless war!”
(4.764 – 784)

Aeneas continues on his journey and lands in Cumae, on the island of Euboea. There, Deiphobe guides Aeneas into the Kingdom of the Dead, echoing Odysseus and anticipating Dante. Aeneas sees the ghost of his father. Anchises narrates the future (in reality, history relative to Virgil). Anchises also describes (6.823 – 8.69) something that is remarkably like the idea of reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Fortified by what he learns in the Kingdom of the Dead, Aeneas heads towards Italy and the rest of the poem describes his alliances and battles against the local tribes. The poem ends, somewhat abruptly, when Aeneas kills Turnus, the leader of the tribes opposing Aeneas.


Finally

The first half (which recalls The Odyssey), with its flashbacks and flashforwards, is more interesting than the second half (which recalls The Iliad).


Et cetera

Many years ago, I saw the statue known as Laocoön and His Sons in the Vatican Museum. The marble statute was unbelievably detailed and the image stuck with me. I remember wondering what could have caused the serpents to assault the man and the children. Book 2 of The Aeneid tells the story of Laocoön who warned the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse into the city. Minerva sends two sea serpents to silence him and pave the way for the Trojans to bring the wooden horse into the city with disastrous consequences.

Another character who play a major role in the wooden horse episode in Sinon. He is a Greek soldier whose lies help persuade the Trojans to bring the wooden horse into the city. In Dante’s The Inferno, he is punished in Circle Eight: Bolgia Ten, where along with other False Witnesses (Falsifiers of Words), he is condemned to suffer a burning fever which make them “seem to smoke / as a washed hand smokes in winter” (Dante, The Inferno XXX.92 – 93).