Greek/Roman Belief In The Aeneid

The Greeks and the Romans may have considered it sacrilegious to dissect or mutilate human corpses for various religious beliefs that they held. Two of these beliefs are shown in Vergil’s Aeneid, both in Part II, in which the protagonist, Aeneas, prepares to enter in, and journey throughout the underworld. The first example of a possible illustration of a Greek/Roman belief is Aeneas’ sacrifice of a lamb to Night and Earth, and then a sacrifice to the god of the Underworld with whole carcasses of bulls. The gods were considered immortal and powerful, so men provided ritualistic animal sacrifices to earn their respect and favor. Perhaps the Greeks and the Romans believed that dissecting human corpses would be mocking animal sacrifices, or that mutilating a human corpse was not showing the gods adequate respect or sacrifice. …show more content…
Deiphobus was “a mass of wounds, most horribly mangled…head mutilated with ears torn off…a barbarous disfigurement” (p. 187). Deiphobus had been killed and mutilated and his body in the underworld showed his disfigured body. This demonstrates that the Greeks/Romans did not necessarily believe in any resurrection, but that the body would forever remain mutilated. Because the Greeks/Romans believed in animal sacrifices and believed that dissection of the body would affect the spirit and body forever, it makes sense that dissection would be considered sacrilegious. Based on these religious beliefs, the principle of animal sacrifice would not be strong enough to convince me not to practice dissection, because I know the medical advances that are made possible by dissection. However, if I believed that my deceased friends and family’s spirits and bodies would be mutilated forever, I would view it as dishonoring the dead and would not practice