Aeneid scholars

The real theme of the Aeneid was….

• the founding of Rome and its subsequent rise, under Augustus, to its greatest glory.
  - Gransden

In the patriotic temper of the age, it was…

• Natural that Virgil should have chosen an early Roman theme
  - Jones

Dido’s tragic flaw is….

• Her love for Aeneas
  - Moles

Love is a …. and is often…

• Passion, …. Destructive
  - Moles

-Furor → dangerous from Roman pov

Though Aeneas is commanded….. he is…

• by a higher power…. not compelled
  - Camps
  - sort of is (Pietas → duty to the gods)

Humans seem to be….

• entirely subject to divine will - Braund

Aeneas desperation to save his father and son is an…..

• “emblem of paternal hierarchy” - Oliensis
  - wives and mothers left behins
  - paterfamilias and pietas

Augustus portrayed himself as…

• The father of all the citizens of Rome - O’Keefe

  • Saw himself as a moral ‘refounder’
    - Lex Julia

The progress of the hero towards his goal, throughout….

• Trial, temptation and hazards of war - Camps

fate are gods are consistent and….

• benevolent towards the Roman state - Camps

The central moment in the Aeneid, the …… is the vision presented in..

• vital turning point between the heroic past and the conception of new rome

• the underworld

Wallace-Hadrill

In Turnus, Virgil created an….

• Old style Homeric hero dedicated to personal glory
  - Gransden

- Turnus was overwhelmed by Furor, particularly at the end of his life and in the killing of Pallas
- Glory in trying to marry Livia

Virgil makes no attempt to…

• Show the Italians in a negative light, “they are treated with admiration and sympathy”
  - Williams

- Italians are still the ancestors of Rome
- Turnus still somewhat shown as a noble warrior
- People of Evander and Pallas shown with great respect
- have a senate and ae basically “proto-roman”
- Juno sort of gets her wish in the end
- the italians merge with the trojans, keeping much of their culture

the Aeneid is dominated by…

• Fathers and father figures
  - Gransden

Camilla brings about…

• Her own downfall - Gransden

- “is glamourised by the plot”

On killing Turnus
- it would seem….

• poetically just - Camps

- Aeneas had promised Evander he would protect Pallas (became a paternal role model)
- only right to avenge him
- Turnus was standing in the way of Rome
- posed a threat to the city’s future

Virgils theme is that war is….

• maddness, and that it spares no one who engages with it
  - Gransden

the shadows of…. hangs over the first 4 books, and for romans would have been…

• Romes wars against carthage

• Dark and oppressive shadow

- Nelis

Aeneas makes no active choice, overcome by…..

• Mad passions, he slaughters Turnus - Emma Buckley

Furor overwhelms even great warriors
dangers of war and violence

What does Feeney assert about the relationship between the Aeneid and Augustus on history:

the power of teh Aeneid to impose meaning and shape history reflects Augusts’ power to do the same

Virgil wasn’t a….

Misogynist -Jenkyns

Essentially, the Aeneid is a… of…

• National poem

• of characters and ideals

• Williams