Virgil And Aeneid

There are two origin myths for Rome. These two myths were created separately but later were joined together by the Romans in order for them to become basically one long tale. The chronologically first myth was the most popular in ancient Rome. The myth of Aeneas was told through Virgil’s The Aeneid which was arguably the most popular poem of Ancient Rome and it has long been considered the national epic of the Roman Empire. The tale of Aeneas, a Trojan hero who fought the Greeks in the Trojan War, fled Troy when it was attacked by the Greeks. After he and his crew experienced a long trip they eventually landed in Latium (modern day Tuscany). Aeneas then married the daughter of King Latinus, which made King Turnus of Rutuli very angry because …show more content…
Some examples of these are the social institutions. The smallest group was the family. The family was regarded as the most sacred of all institutions. The leader of the family was the paterfamilias or the father. He ruled over the other family members and his power even extended to life and death. The other family members would include; sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, and also adopted children. They would all remain under the father’s power until he died. Sometimes the family may have had other members such as “clients” who saw the family father as their patron or slaves who served the father. All Romans had pride in their family and ancestors. The next largest group was a gens or clan. A gens consisted of multiple families which all came from a common ancestor. The members of a gens were joined with one another by common religious rites. The members were also governed by a decurio who led the gens in times of war and led religious practices. The second largest group was a curia which was formed by a number of gentes. When different gentes wanted to unite it was common for them to begin worshipping a common god. The leader of these larger groups were called curio. They were commanders when there was war and they served as magistrates in peace time. The curio had a council who would consult with him. These larger curia would make up almost a kind of small state. There was still one larger group then the curia and these were the tribes of Rome. Tribes were made of a collection of curiae and the main purpose for uniting into a tribe was for defense. Every tribe had a rex or king who served as priest of the tribes religion, commander during war time, and magistrate of all major disputes in his tribe. Three of these tribes formed all of the Roman populace.