Untitled Flashcard Set

Review Guide: Aeneid Books 1 & 2


Major Characters

  1. Gods & Goddesses

  • Aeolus – King of the Winds, and himself a god, who Juno goes to in order to stir up a storm against the Trojan fleet 

  • Ceres (Demeter) – goddess of agriculture; when fleeing the burning city of Troy, Aeneas and his family meet at a secret meeting spot that is an old altar to Ceres. 

  • Cupid – god of desire and attraction and the half-brother of Aeneas; in Book 2, his mother Venus sends him to make Queen Dido of Carthage fall in love with Aeneas

  • The Fates – divine beings who have destined Aeneas and his Trojan refugees to establish a new homeland in Italy, which will one day become the Roman Empire 

  • Juno (Hera) – queen of the gods, wife of Jupiter (Zeus), supports Carthage and tries to prevent the Trojans from fulfilling their destiny of finding Troy; in Book 1, she sends a storm against the Trojan fleet, which causes them to land off the Libyan coast, near Carthage. In Book 2, she is one of the goddesses who turns her back on the Trojans. 

  • Jupiter (Zeus) – the leader of the gods; he serves as an agent of the will of the Fates

  • Mercury (Hermes) – the messenger god, who Jupiter sends around to communicate with mortals 

  • Minerva (Athena) – goddess of wisdom and a supporter of the Greeks against Troy; like Juno, she also turns her back on the Trojans though they go to her temple pleading to be saved from the Greeks

  • Neptune (Poseidon) – God of the sea, and traditionally a supporter of the Greeks; he betrays his own priest, Laocoon, in order to ensure Troy’s downfall; he has hated Troy ever since a previous king didn’t pay him back for building the city’s walls 

  • Venus (Aphrodite) – goddess of love, and mother of Aeneas and Cupid; she pretends to be a female Carthaginian hunter to point Aeneas in the direction of Carthage and gives him an invisibility cloud of sorts that prevents the Carthaginians from seeing him on his way to the city (though he can see them). 


  1. Humans

  • Aeneas – leader of the Trojan refugees, who have been wandering the Mediterranean Sea for 7 years since the fall of Troy

  • Achates – Aeneas’ second-in-command; he travels with Aeneas to Carthage 

  • Anchises – Aeneas’ father; because Anchises bragged about having relations with the goddess Venus (after he promised not to), Jupiter struck him with a lightning bolt, making him unable to walk well for the rest of his life; Aeneas carries him on his shoulders as they flee the destruction of Troy 

  • Anna – Queen Dido’s best friend and main serving woman 

  • Ascanius – Aeneas’ young son, also called Iulus (Julius); Cupid takes on his appearance in order to get near Dido, so Cupid can make her fall in love with Aeneas 

  • Cassandra – daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy; she was a prophetess of Apollo who was punished by the god after rejecting his sexual advances; her curse was that no one would believe her prophecies or advice; in Book 2, she tries to warn Aeneas and his fellow Trojan warriors not to bring the Horse into the city of Troy, but no one listens to her; this curse is broken when the city is destroyed. 

  • Creusa – Aeneas’ wife, who was killed fleeing from the destruction of Troy; she appeared as a ghost to encourage him to abandon his search for her and lead his family from the destroyed city

  • Dido – the Queen of Carthage, who falls in love with Aeneas; she fled her homeland of Phoenicia after her brother Pygmalion killed her husband, the wealthy Scychaeus, to get his money

  • Hector – dead Trojan prince, whose ghost warns the sleeping Aeneas to wake up and flee from Troy’s destruction 

  • Helen – the (in)famous wife of Menelaus, then Paris; Aeneas is about to kill her during the destruction of Troy, as punishment for the ruin she brought to his city and family, but his mother Venus stops him 

  • Ilioneus – another Trojan warrior, who is the first Trojan to introduce their group to Dido 

  • Laocoon – a Trojan priest of Neptune warns his fellow Trojans not to accept the giant wooden horse that the Greeks have left for them into the city of Troy itself; he and his son are killed by sea serpents, which are taken by the Trojans as a sign that they shouldn’t listen to him

  • Pygmalion – Dido’s murderous brother, who killed her husband and would have killed her if she hadn’t left Phoenicia 

  • Pyrrhus – also called Neoptolemus, he is Achilles’ son, who murders king Priam at an altar to the gods in Troy, as vengeance for the death of his father, who was killed by Priam’s son, Paris. Crimes like his murder of Priam lead to the gods turning against the Greeks, and scattering their fleet and cursing many of its leaders (as discussed in The Odyssey). 

  • Sychaeus – Dido’s deceased husband, who appeared as a ghost to warn Dido to leave Phoenicia to escape the same fate at her brother’s hands

  • Sinon – cunning double-agent, who pretends to have fled the Greeks but is actually tricking the Trojans into taking the Horse into the city walls; at night, he lets out the Greek soldiers from their hiding spot in the Horse

  • Ulysses (Odysseus) – cunning Greek who is the mastermind behind the Trojan Horse; Aeneas thinks he’s heartless for all the pain he brought Troy 



  1. Important Locations

    1. Carthage – city in Libya, in northern Africa, that was settled by Dido and her fellow Phoenicians and is destined to be the archenemy of Rome

    2. Tyre – City in modern day Lebanon (then Phoenicia) where Dido fled from

    3. Hesperia – Greek word meaning “western land,” referring to Italy 

    4. Latium – the city in central Italy that Aeneas is destined to establish (from this comes the name for the Latin language) 

    5. Tenedos – island off the coast of Troy; the Greek fleet hides behind this island to pretend that they have left Troy for good, but they sail out from this island to attack Troy in a surprise nighttime assault, destroying the city 


  1. Additional Notes

  • Pietas = word meaning “duty” or “reverence” and refers to the duty that an ancient Roman had to his or her religion, nation, and family. Aeneas’ sense of duty to fulfill his destiny, to establish the civilization that will one day become the Roman Empire, drives the plot of the story, even as it brings him much sadness and personal sacrifice. 

  • Octavian Augustus, the Roman emperor during the 1st century BC – 1st century AD, hired the Roman poet Virgil to write The Aeneid as a patriotic epic that described the history of the founding of Rome and supported his rule as Rome’s first lasting emperor (Caesar). Virgil, who had seen his fair share of violence during his lifetime, was clever enough to communicate any political commentary against Augustus in a subtle way and only read three select passages to him. 

  • Book 1: Seven years after the destruction of Troy, Aeneas’ fleet is forced to land on the coast of Libya after the goddess Juno conjures up a storm against the Trojans. Aeneas and his second-in-command Achates go to explore this mysterious land. Aeneas’ mother, the goddess Venus, arrives disguised as a female hunter. She tells them that they are near the new city of Carthage, which is being built by a group of Phoenician settlers led by Queen Dido. Venus tells them Dido’s tragic backstory before sending them on their way with the help of a cloud of invisibility. Aeneas and Achates walk to Carthage, which is wonderful new city under construction. Aeneas becomes emotional, thinking about the loss of his city of Troy. Aeneas and Achates arrive at the Temple of Juno, where Dido is holding court, just as another group of shipwrecked Trojan refugees have arrived. Aeneas identifies himself, and Dido warmly welcomes all the Trojans. At a feast that night, Dido asks Aeneas to tell her about how Troy was destroyed.

  • Book 2: In a flashback, Aeneas tells Dido how Troy was destroyed. After Achilles’ death, the Greeks pretended to leave Troy but instead hatched a clever and complex plot – created by Ulysses (Odysseus) to trick the Trojans into bringing in a large wooden horse into the center of their city. Inside this wooden horse were the Greeks’ top soldiers, including Pyrrhus, Achilles’ vengeful son. A double-agent Greek named Sinon convinces the Greeks to bring the “Trojan Horse” into the city despite the complaints of the Trojan Laocoon. At night, the Greeks sail back to the city, Sinon opens up the Trojan Horse, and the Greek soldiers within open the city gates and start slaughtering the citizens. Aeneas is warned in a dream by the ghost of Hector to take his family and flee from the destruction of Troy. While fleeing, Aeneas’ wife, Creusa, is separated from them. Aeneas returns to the city to look for her, but her ghost appears to him and warns him to flee the city, because the Fates have destined him to travel to Italy and establish the most powerful civilization of all time (the future Roman Empire). Aeneas takes her advice and flees, now the leader of what is left of the once mighty city of Troy.