Key Figures and Concepts from the Aeneid

Flashcards covering key figures and concepts from Virgil's Aeneid.

Achilles

Greatest Greek warrior.

Aeneas

Trojan leader who led surviving Trojans.

Aeolus

God of the winds who Juno asked to shipwreck the Trojans.

Agamemnon

King of the Greeks, Menelaus’s brother.

Anchises

Aeneas’s father.

Anna

Dido’s sister who tells her Aeneas is leaving.

Ascanius/Iulus

Aeneas’s son, Cupid disguises as him.

Augustus

First emperor of Rome, commissioned the writing of the Aeneid.

Carthage

Dido’s city in North Africa.

Creusa

Aeneas’s wife who died in Troy.

Cupid/Amor

Venus’s son, disguises himself as Ascanius, makes Dido fall in love with Aeneas.

Dido

Queen of Carthage, from Tyre.

Hector

Aeneas’s cousin; his ghost told Aeneas to leave Troy.

Hesperia

Means 'Western Land', the place where Aeneas was told he was destined to go by Hector in a dream.

Homer

Greek author who wrote the Iliad and Odyssey.

Iarbas

King of Gaetulia who helped and wants to marry Dido.

Iliad

Greek epic written by Homer that details events of the Trojan war.

Julius Caesar

Murdered by the senate, predecessor of Augustus, related to Aeneas & Venus.

Juno

Queen of the gods, hates Trojans because of the Judgement of Paris.

Jupiter

King of the gods, father of King Iarbas.

Latium

City in Italy Aeneas is destined to go to.

Mercury

Messenger god, sent by Jupiter to tell Aeneas to go to Latium in Italy.

Odyssey

Greek epic written by Homer that details the obstacles a famous Greek faced after the Trojan war.

pietas

Duty to one’s country, people, and gods.

penates

Small statues of household gods; Anchises carried them.

Punic Wars

The fulfillment of Dido’s curse towards Aeneas & his descendants, the Romans.

Pygmalion

Dido’s brother who killed her husband.

Sychaeus

Dido’s husband, murdered by her brother.

Troy

City in modern-day Turkey, the location of the war between the Greeks and Trojans.

Tyre

Where Dido is from, in modern-day Lebanon.

Venus

Goddess of love, mother of Aeneas and Cupid.

Virgil

Author of the Latin answer to the Greek epics, the Aeneid.