Virgil

• discuss the biographical events which resulted in Virgil's support of Augustus.
• describe Virgil's process and subject matter as a poet.
• discuss Virgil's relationship with Augustus and his motives for saving the Aenid.

The Aenid: Significant Themes and Characters

• discuss the Augustan desire to link Roman literature with classical Greece by: describing Virgil's use of Latin; explaining the significance of Virgil's repeated assertion that Augustus descended from the mythical Trojan Aeneas; identifying the (very deliberate) similarities between first the Odyssey, and later the Iliad.
• explain how, despite its many Greek references, the Aenid is "a thoroughly Roman poem."
• identify the historical events depicted in the Aenid.
• discuss Virgil's tendency to revise history as seen in his depiction of Dido.
• describe the first role of the city according to the Aenid's protagonist, Aeneas.
• explain why the mythic characters Dido and Paris might serve as warnings to the Roman citizen.
• explain why Romans believed it was the city's duty to spread civilization.
• explain why Romans were often welcomed invaders.
• recognize, in the first lines of Virgil's epic, that the city is the real hero; explain how this focus "skews the portrayal of the human contenders in one very specific and exclusively Roman direction."
• explain why "an exchange as that between Hector and Ajax in the Iliad—Trojan and Greek fighting to a draw, proving their prowess, and exchanging gifts" would not be possible in the world of Virgil's epic.
• discuss Aeneas as "the victim of divine politics."
• contrast the Greek and Roman heroes by comparing the epithets attached to their names.
• contrast the Greek and Roman heroes' relationship to self-discipline by comparing the visits of Aeneas and Odysseus to the land of the Cyclops.
• discuss Turnus as a "Greek-style hero" who functions as Aeneas' foil.
• explain how Aeneas' rage is in keeping with the values of the Roman (as opposed to Greek) hero.
• explain how Creusa's shade serves as both "an apt image of her insubstantial value when compared with the larger enterprise of founding Rome," and "a model of Roman devotion to duty."
• discuss the role of marriage in Roman society/myth as revealed through Aeneas' marriage to Lavinia.
• contrast the maternal relationship of Thetis and Achilles to that of Venus and Aeneas.
• identify the ways in which Juno and Juturna interfere with Roman victory.
• explain why, whether loved or hated, "men are victims of the terrible goddess."
• compare Juno's interference with Jupiter's plan for Rome to Poseidon's interference with Odysseus's return voyage.
• explain why Dido finds herself situated between pro- and anti-Roman extremes.
• explain how Virgil connects Dido with both Nausicaa and Calypso.
• describe the parallel between Dido and Cleopatra as it would have been perceived by Virgil's contemporaries.
• recount the events surrounding Dido's death.
• explain how, in the deaths of Dido and Turnus, "we see the poet burying with honor a set of values long admired by, but no longer appropriate for, contemporary Romans."
• explain how Did, like Cleopatra, "becomes an emblem of what happens, both to the individual and to the state, when women are allowed to rule."
• use the example of Camilla to illustrate the Roman conviction that "females, especially those with armies at their command, must be defeated to ensure social and political order in Rome."
• draw on comparisons between the Iliad and the Aenid to demonstrate how, in the Aenid, "human action is ultimately an illusion."
• explain why the Vesta and the Eternal Flame are "the most significant things Aeneas can reclaim from the ruins of Troy."
• use the example of Dido and Aeneas to explain why even love (between humans) is a function of divine politics.
• identify Cumaean Sibyl's role in Aeneas's journey through the Underworld.
• identify the sources/structure of Virgil's Underworld.
• recount Aeneas's meeting with Dido in the "Fields of Mourning."
• describe the division in the Underworld as explained by Anchises.
• explain why, for the Romans, "to get overly upset about the pains of life in the present world is to take the short view."
• discuss the future of Rome as described by Anchises.
• explain why some scholars believe that Virgil's conception of "Rome Triumphant" is ironic; provide evidence to suggest that this conception is not ironic.
• explain why Aeneas's trip to the Underworld is both obligatory and out of character for Greek myth.
• compare Zeus's use of the scale to that of Jupiter.
• compare the meeting of Achilles and Hector to that of Aeneas and Turnus.
• explain why come contemporary readers feel that the Aenid's final confrontation paints Aeneas in critical light.
• explain why "the very same gods who condemned both Achilles' and Turnus's behavior apparently approve of Aeneas's."
• identify the surface resemblances between Achilles and Aeneas, and discuss the important differences lurking beneath that surface.

The Aenid: An Overview

After studying this section of the chapter you should be able to discuss the conflict between humanism and war as it appears in the Aenid.