Passion coupled with duty can drive nations to prosperity, or if the forces are separate the they can lead to ruin..These forces are so powerful that even the greatest and most powerful societies of today and in the past are swayed by passion and duty’s influence. Those civilizations of the past wrote national epics tackling these forces, two of those books being the Aeneid and the Iliad. The Aeneid discusses four particular civilizations, each of which interact with the forces of passion in different and similar ways. The civilizations that the Aeneid and Odyssey discuss are Rome, Greece, Troy, and Carthage. All four of these civilizations can be classified into two categories, those with equal passion and duty and those with an imbalance
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These civilizations are seen to have very pathetic outcomes. Carthage comes to mind as it the enemy of the mighty Rome. Carthage in Aeneid is ruled queen Dido, a person who is essentially only focused on passion. Queen Dido being so ruled by her passion and not her duty to her country kills herself in a very dramatic fashion. This leaves her city without a leader, and in the long term Carthage eventually gets razed by Rome. Many individuals had the capability to save Carthage, but the overall society was not focused on their duty or patriotism(passion). According to Extra History, one example of this type of person was Hannibal Barca. Hannibal Barca was a genius strategist who almost destroyed Rome; before he could do that, the government, having a passion for their wealth and no duty for their country, called him back.
After accounting for both sides of the equation, passion and duty are shown to be powerful forces. Passion alone made Dido take her own life and Carthage fall in the long term; and duty alone made Aeneas just dies in a river. On the other side of the spectrum, where the two forces mingle, the civilizations thrive. The examples being Rome lasting for a little over one thousand years, and Sparta being revered as one of the most powerful civilizations known to date. To finally conclude it has been demonstrated that passion combined with duty raises civilizations over those who have the forces
These civilizations are seen to have very pathetic outcomes. Carthage comes to mind as it the enemy of the mighty Rome. Carthage in Aeneid is ruled queen Dido, a person who is essentially only focused on passion. Queen Dido being so ruled by her passion and not her duty to her country kills herself in a very dramatic fashion. This leaves her city without a leader, and in the long term Carthage eventually gets razed by Rome. Many individuals had the capability to save Carthage, but the overall society was not focused on their duty or patriotism(passion). According to Extra History, one example of this type of person was Hannibal Barca. Hannibal Barca was a genius strategist who almost destroyed Rome; before he could do that, the government, having a passion for their wealth and no duty for their country, called him back.
After accounting for both sides of the equation, passion and duty are shown to be powerful forces. Passion alone made Dido take her own life and Carthage fall in the long term; and duty alone made Aeneas just dies in a river. On the other side of the spectrum, where the two forces mingle, the civilizations thrive. The examples being Rome lasting for a little over one thousand years, and Sparta being revered as one of the most powerful civilizations known to date. To finally conclude it has been demonstrated that passion combined with duty raises civilizations over those who have the forces