The Aeneid

by Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro—Virgil

Like most Roman poems, the Eclogues (a word that means something like “Selections”) have a Greek model.

his last and most grandly ambitious poem, the Aeneid, which he never finished to his full satisfaction.

The Aeneid is to be Rome’s Iliad and Odyssey, and it derives also from Homer its picture of two different worlds, each with its own passions and actions. One is the world of heaven above, in Homer the world of Zeus, the supreme god, his wife and sister, Hera, the love-goddess Aphrodite, the smith-god Hephaestus, the sea-god Poseidon and the others; and below, on earth, the world of Achilles, Patroclus, Diomedes and of Hector, his wife Andromache, and his father Priam.

Horace’s famous phrase, in medias res, into the middle of events.

Even before it became generally available as a written text, Virgil’s Aeneid was famous. A younger poet, Propertius, wrote in elegiac verse an announcement: Give way, you Roman writers, give way, Greeks. Something greater than the Iliad is being born. (2.34.65–66, trans. Knox) As copies appeared and multiplied, the Aeneid became the textbook for the Roman school and the medieval school after that.

But in addition to its literary supremacy, the Aeneid acquired a semireligious stature. It became an oracle known as the Sortes Virgilianae, the Virgilian lottery: you took a passage at random and it foretold your future. Often it was consulted in temples, as it was regarded as an oracle;

fourth Eclogue, which many Christians regarded as a prophecy of the birth of Christ,

both in the many borrowings from his work and also in the prominent role he plays himself in the Divina Commedia of Dante

R12307062032 It now becomes more apparent why Dante chose Virgil as his guide -- his idol. They were countrymen.

striking resemblances between Dante’s account of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso and Book 6 of the Aeneid,

Then one, Romulus, 330 reveling in the tawny pelt of a wolf that nursed him, will inherit the line and build the walls of Mars and after his own name, call his people Romans. On them I set no limits, space or time: I have granted them power, empire without end.

From that noble blood will arise a Trojan Caesar, his empire bound by the Ocean, his glory by the stars: Julius,

read the flight of birds for nothing. Look at those dozen swans triumphant in formation! The eagle of Jove had just swooped down on them all from heaven’s heights and scattered them into open sky, 480 but now you can see them flying trim in their long ranks, landing or looking down where their friends have landed

Libyan gods

the gods. They know right from wrong. They don’t forget.

Schooled in suffering, now I learn to comfort those who suffer too.”

the wandering moon and laboring sun eclipsed, the roots of the human race and the wild beasts, the source of storms and the lightning bolts on high, Arcturus, the rainy Hyades and the Great and Little Bears, and why the winter suns so rush to bathe themselves in the sea and what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl…

either the Greeks are hiding, shut inside those beams, or the horse is a battle-engine geared to breach our walls, spy on our homes, come down on our city, overwhelm us— 60 or some other deception’s lurking deep inside it. Trojans, never trust that horse. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, especially bearing gifts.’

At his command they raised this horse, this effigy, all to atone for the violated image of Pallas, her wounded pride, her power—and expiate the outrage they had done. But he made them do the work on a grand scale, a tremendous mass of interlocking timbers towering 240 toward the sky, so the horse could not be trundled through your gates or hauled inside your walls or guard your people if they revered it well in the old, ancient way. For if your hands should violate this great offering to Minerva, a total disaster—if only god would turn it against the seer himself!—will wheel down on Priam’s empire, Troy, and all your futures. But if your hands will rear it up, into your city, then all Asia in arms can invade Greece, can launch 250 an all-out war right up to the walls of Pelops. That’s the doom that awaits our sons’ sons.’

Plot complete.

Think: it’s not that beauty, Helen, you should hate, not even Paris, the man that you should blame, no, it’s the gods, the ruthless gods who are tearing down the wealth of Troy, her toppling crown of towers.

Raving, I blamed them all, the gods, the human race— what crueler blow did I feel the night that Troy went down?

Italy is the land you seek?

Rumor, swiftest of all the evils in the world. She thrives on speed, stronger for every stride, slight with fear at first, soon soaring into the air she treads the ground and hides her head in the clouds.

They will erect for you Nomentum, Gabii, Fidena town and build Collatia’s ramparts on the mountains, Pometia too, and Inuis’ fortress, Bola and Cora. Famous names in the future, nameless places now. “Here, a son of Mars, his grandsire Numitor’s comrade—Romulus, bred from Assaracus’ blood by his mother, Ilia. See how the twin plumes stand joined on his helmet? 900 And the Father of Gods himself already marks him out with his own bolts of honor. Under his auspices, watch, my son, our brilliant Rome will extend her empire far and wide as the earth, her spirit high as Olympus. Within her single wall she will gird her seven hills, blest in her breed of men: like the Berecynthian Mother crowned with her turrets, riding her victor’s chariot through the Phrygian cities, glad in her brood of gods, embracing a hundred grandsons. All dwell in the heavens, all command the heights.

R12307130400 Here Virgil teaches his readers Roman history.

turning our valor into deeds?

And opposing them comes Antony leading on the riches of the Orient, troops of every stripe— victor over the nations of the Dawn and blood-red shores and in his retinue, Egypt, all the might of the East and Bactra, the end of the earth, and trailing in his wake, that outrage, that Egyptian wife!

Rumor, already in flight with the first alarms of sorrow,

The most that valor could do, valor has done. We have fought the good fight with all our kingdom’s power.

R12307170025 Recall that Virgil wrote almost contemporarily with Paul, so this may have then been a popular saying.

Latium’s sons will retain their fathers’ words and ways. Their name till now is the name that shall endure. Mingling in stock alone, the Trojans will subside. 970 And I will add the rites and the forms of worship, and make them Latins all, who speak one Latin tongue. Mixed with Ausonian blood, one race will spring from them, and you will see them outstrip all men, outstrip all gods in reverence. No nation on earth will match the honors they shower down on you.”