The Aeneid Terms

Aeneas

A Trojan prince and the hero of the epic. He fights in Italy to find a new future for his people.

Vergil

A Roman poet who wrote the Aeneid. He frames Rome’s origins as Fate-driven and ties Aeneas to Rome’s later greatness.

aition

An origin-story explanation for why something exists. The Aeneid gives an aition for Rome’s beginnings by tracing Rome back to Troy through Aeneas.

telos

An end-goal or purpose that a story aims toward. The Aeneid’s telos is Aeneas reaching Italy and setting up the chain that becomes Rome.

Maecenas

A wealthy Roman noble and close advisor to Augustus. He funded and protected poets like Vergil, helping shape the pro-Augustan literary world behind the Aeneid.

Alba Longa

A later Latin city founded by Aeneas’s line (especially Ascanius). It is named in the opening as a step on the path from Aeneas to Rome.

Lavinium

The first city Aeneas founds in Italy, linked to the “Lavinian shores.” It is the immediate “landing point” of the Roman origin story in Book 1.

Etruscans

An Italian people living north of Latium. Through Evander (and his son Pallas), Aeneas is connected to them and forms an alliance against Turnus and the Rutulians.

Julius Caesar

A powerful Roman leader from the late Republic. After his death, he is treated as divine and called Divus Julius.

Pompey

A late-Republic Roman general and Caesar’s civil-war rival. Anchises warns about internal Roman war by naming Caesar and Pompey together.

Marc Antony

A Roman leader who fights Augustus (Octavian) and allies with Cleopatra. He appears on Aeneas’s shield in the Actium scene as the “enemy” of Augustus’s future order.

Augustus

Rome’s first emperor and Julius Caesar’s heir. In the Aeneid, prophecies present him as the peak of Rome’s destined rise and peace.

plebeians

The common people of Rome (ordinary citizens, not nobles). They matter because Roman society is divided between plebeians and elites, the world the Aeneid is written for and points toward.

Latium

The region in Italy where Aeneas is fated to settle. Although Latinus is initially welcoming, Juno stirs Latium’s people into war against the Trojans.

Campania

A region of southern Italy around the Bay of Naples. Important because it conrtains places like Cumae, which Aeneas visited in Book 6.

Cumae

A Greek-founded coastal city in Italy near Naples. It’s where Aeneas meets the Sibyl and enters the underworld.

clementia

Mercy or restraint, especially from someone with power. It becomes a tension-point when Aeneas must choose mercy versus vengeance at the end with Turnus.

imperium

The power to command and rule. In the Aeneid, it refers to Rome’s destiny to hold authority over the world.

pietas

Aeneas’s core virtue: duty to gods, family, and destiny. The opening flags him as famous for pietas, and later Lausus’s “pietas” for his father becomes a tragic example.

fasces

A bundle of rods with an axe, symbolizing a Roman magistrate’s power to punish. In Book 6’s Roman future parade, the fasces show up as a sign of Roman political authority.

Livius Andronicus

An early Roman-era writer who translated Greek stories into Latin. He matters because he helped start Latin epic, the tradition Vergil later perfects in the Aeneid.

Ennius

A major early Roman epic poet (author of the Annales). He matters because Vergil is writing “the” Roman national epic in a tradition Ennius helped create.

numina

Divine powers or presences attached to places, forces, or gods. The text explicitly uses “numen” language (like Janus as a numen) to show how sacred power fills Italy.

Penates

Roman household gods, “spirits of the pantry,” carried as sacred guardians. Aeneas brings the Penates to Italy, making Rome’s future feel religiously sanctioned.

genius

A person’s guiding spirit or protective divine presence. In the Aeneid’s Roman religious mindset, it fits the world where spirits, numina, and household gods shape fate and identity.

Nisus

A Trojan warrior and close friend of Euryalus. He leads the night raid in Book 9, and both die in a mission that turns into tragedy.

Euryalus

A young Trojan warrior who goes with Nisus. His death is one of the poem’s most emotional “cost of war” moments in Book 9.

Juno

Queen of the gods and Aeneas’s main divine enemy. She persecutes the Trojans because she hates them and fears their descendants will destroy Carthage.

Anchises

Aeneas’s father and a major voice of guidance. He anchors the mission by explaining Rome’s future in the underworld vision of Book 6.

Venus

Goddess of love and Aeneas’s mother and protector. She argues before Jupiter and begs to keep Ascanius safe from the Italian war.

Dido

Queen and founder-figure of Carthage. Her love-story with Aeneas sets up lasting hostility between Carthage and Rome in the poem’s logic.

Sibyl

A prophetic priestess of Apollo who guides mortals. The Cumaean Sibyl (Deiphobe) leads Aeneas to the underworld in Book 6.

Turnus

Prince of the Rutulians and Aeneas’s main human rival in Italy. Aeneas kills Turnus at the end, sealing the victory but leaving a bitter moral aftertaste.

Evander

An Arcadian king living in Italy and an ally of Aeneas. Becomes a core ally of Aeneas, and connects him to the Etruscans (via Pallas)

Allecto

A Fury sent to inflame conflict and madness. Venus names Allecto as Juno’s tool who runs wild through Italian cities to stir war.

Camilla

A fierce warrior for the Italians. Killed by a Trojan and avenged instantly by Opis.

Pallas

Evander’s son and Aeneas’s young ally. Aeneas explicitly kills Turnus “for Pallas,” turning the finale into an act of vengeance.

Latinus

King of Latium and father of Lavinia. Turnus addresses him directly during the political fights over war versus peace.

Mezentius

A brutal Etruscan leader who fights against Aeneas. The text notes he was expelled from the Etruscan community.

Lausus

Mezentius’s son who tries to save his father. Aeneas even calls out Lausus’s pietas as the thing that drives him to a doomed act.

Punic Wars

Rome’s wars with Carthage that end with Carthage’s destruction. The poem builds this into Juno’s motive, since she fears Trojan descendants will destroy Carthage.

Vulcan

The divine smith who forges weapons and armor for gods and heroes. He makes Aeneas’s shield as requested by Venus.

Ascanius

The son of Aeneas and Creusa. He also goes by lulus and his lineage leads to Rome.