Aeneas and Turnus

‘colourless quality … result of the roles forced on him’

PHILIP HARDIE

‘mere emblematic automaton’

DAVID ROSS

‘a complex character, pious but also complex’

K.W GRANSDEN

‘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’

DERYCK WILLIAMS

‘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.’

ADAM PARRY

‘So powerful was Virgil’s

sympathy for the defeated

that it often seems to conflict

with the triumph of Rome’s

achievement ….’

DERYCK WILLIAMS

‘[Turnus] is a

kind of foil to Aeneas,

representing an older

individual heroism’.

Robin Sowerby