Aeneas' Character
Adam Parry says:
“Aeneas from the start is absorbed in his own destiny, a destiny which does not ultimately relate to him, but to something later, larger and less personal: the high walls of Rome…And throughout he has no choice. Aeneas never asserts himself like Odysseus. He is always the victim of forces greater than himself, and the one lesson he must learn is, not to resist them.”
R. Deryck Williams says:
“Aeneas has to be the social man, the man who through his care for others succeeds in leading his group or his society, not aiming to achieve personal satisfaction by surpassing others in excellence, but to use his qualities in order to achieve their success… we may all decide personally whether (Virgil) has been successful in his new creation – and may well decide that he has not; but we must not judge Aeneas adversely because we think he ought to be like Achilles.”
C. J. Mackie says:
Aeneas’ general concern to facilitate fate is the cornerstone of his pietas.
K. W. Gransden says:
Aeneas is a complex characer, pius but also a great soldier, perhaps Troy’s greatest after Hector.
Philip Hardie says:
What is often perceived as the colourless quality of Aeneas’ character is largely the result of the roles forced on him by the plot of the Aeneid: rather than being strongly driven by an internal desire or ambition, he is forced into a mission by circumstances beyond his control.
David Ross says:
it can be argued that Aeneas has been created as a mere emblematic automaton, a wooden puppet lacking in genuine human emotion.
Ross sees this in Book II, where Aeneas simply follows signs from the gods, but considers that Book IV reveals a more emotional side to him.
Historical Context
J. Griffin says:
Virgil does more than just praise Augustus with the Aeneid. By praising virtues of a ruler, you are able to put pressure on them to exhibit those same virtues.
Virgil was not able to set the narrative around Augustus himself, because epic poetry required divine characters and duels in combat. Neither would work for him. Instead, he picks a mythic ancestor and tells Augustus’ story through allegory and glimpses into the future.
Griffin notes about Actium that by placing it in the middle of Aeneas’ shield, he was able ‘to evade the awkward problems posed by some rather unheroic events and to create a strongly symbolic image – not the shiftiness of civil war but the brilliantly clear outline of a clash between Western civilisation and the barbaric glitter and animal deities of the East.’
Adam Parry says:
there is a sense of loss in the Aeneid – when Aeneas loses his wife Creusa, Palinurus (the helmsman), Dido, Anchises, etc, which gives a mood to the Aeneid of frustration, loss and sadness.
Depiction of War
W. H. Semple says:
War must be portrayed at least somewhat positively, as war and the making of empire, was very positive for the Romans, particularly for Augustus. Aeneas must be portrayed (at least to an extent) as a “primeval ancestor of Rome, a prototype of the historic qualities by which many great Roman soldiers and statesman, and especially Augustus had consolidated their country in strength, unity and peace.”
Virgil “is not a man of war and is describing war, not from life as does Homer, but from a distillation bended by his imagination from reading Greek poetry and history. Virgil in truth hated war.” Semple argues you can see this from Virgil’s earlier works (the Eclogues and Georgics) where the civil wars left a “deep mark, partly in the sadness he feels at the destruction of human happiness and prosperity and at the desolation caused in the countryside.”
Eve Adler says:
Aeneas’ Italian peace settlement in Book 12 represents in small the universal peace settlement to be concluded by Vergil’s contemporaries. This settlement, indeed, is Aeneas’ founding of ‘Rome’. Aeneas does not choose the site of Rome, does not erect any walls or buildings there, and does not institute any laws or political regime in any usual sense. He founds Rome by making a peace settlement in Italy.
R. Deryck Williams says:
So powerful was Virgil’s sympathy for the defeated that it often seems to conflict with the triumph of Rome’s achievement
Fate and Destiny
K. W. Gransden says:
Certain events are predetermined, though the precise moment and circumstances remain flexible, and this flexibility allows for the continued operation of human free will
David Ross says:
Fate and the gods are everywhere throughout the poem, seeming to be always in control
Depiction of Women
Colleen Reilly says:
“Virgil portrays characters in a way that serves simultaneously as a threat to traditional gender roles in Roman society while also providing an example of ideal Roman values.”
Ellen Oliensis says:
The uncomplicatedly virtuous women of the epic, Creusa and Lavinia, prove their virtue precisely by submitting to the masculine plot of history – Creusa by accepting her relegation to the past, Lavinia by not resisting her exploitation for the future.
Virgil associates the feminine with unruly passion, the masculine with reasoned (self-) mastery
Task 1: which of these scholarly points might you be able to include in the following questions?
To what extent do you consider praising Augustus to be the only purpose of the Aeneid? Justify your response. [30]
‘The portrayal of warfare and its effects are completely negative.’ Discuss to what extent this is true of the portrayal of warfare in the Aeneid. [30]
‘Aeneas lacks any ordinary human emotions.’ Discuss how far you think this is true of the way he is portrayed in the Aeneid. [30]
Task 2: here is a quilt set with shortened versions of the points for you to learn: