Aeneid

In The Aeneid, Virgil demonstrates the values of the Romans by creating an epic similar to that of Homer’s Odyssey, yet with different ideals and views. Also illustrated in Virgil’s epic is the conflict between the gods’ will and Aeneas’s desire. He struggles internally with his thoughts and externally with Dido and her biddings. Ultimately, the gods’ will is the path Aeneas chooses to follow, to ensure his son achieves glory in the future. In the Aeneid, Virgil uses Aeneas to show that in the…

Both the Aeneid and the Odyssey are classic pieces of literature that have withstood the test of time without losing their significance. Even though these two pieces were written by different authors, many years apart, the two epics share many similarities in both form and storyline. Let’s take a look at the similarities that these epics share. Before we look at specific examples of these two stories similarities, I would like to first review the individual storylines. The Odyssey is an epic…

Virgil’s The Aeneid and Ovid’s the Heroides both portray love as a destructive force through the story of Queen Dido and Aeneas. In The Aeneid, Queen Dido’s consuming love for Aeneas leads to her destruction. Originally portrayed as a strong, powerful political leader who “moved / Amid her people, cheering on the toil / Of a kingdom in the making,” (Virgil, Aeneid 21:685-687) love reduced her into a “maddened lover” who “roamed through all the city, like a doe / hit by an arrow.” (Virgil, Aeneid…

Love can drive people to do crazy things. It can cause you to lose hope and act irrational. There is no better story to prove this than the Aeneid. At the time of Caesar Augustus being emperor in 27 B.C., there was no national epic to rival that of the Greeks. Setting out to write it, Virgil wanted to tell a different side of the Trojan War story, than the one that was portrayed in the Iliad. He told the story through Aeneas, a man who was at the Trojan war and went to Carthage during a…

Propaganda is information, usually of a biased or misleading nature, which is used to promote a political cause or point of view. Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, describes the backstory for the foundation of Rome and the majestic future which was soon to come. Aeneid, the protagonist in the poem, is alluded to be Augustus, and by doing this it gave the people of Rome a heroic image that Augustus could be envisioned by, and the people of the future a vision of the ruler that was. I believe…

In the Odyssey, Homer discusses various topics significant for the Greeks of that era such as hospitality, devotion to gods, faithfulness to one’s spouse, or determination to return home. On the other hand, Virgil’s Aeneid is focused on war and ancient Roman values such as pietas, which stands for loyalty or devotion, or gravitas, which is one’s ability to speak with authority. Furthermore, Sophocles’s play Antigone deals with a character that has to choose between the contradicting laws of the…

The Greeks and Romans believed in an Underworld as a place where the souls of the dead live. Book six of the Aeneid and book eleven of The Odyssey are two stories that describe the underworld as where all the dead, live. Virgil’s description of the Underworld in Aeneid is a very elaborated setting where there are many different levels an individual can encounter depending on his or her sins in life. While, in book eleven of the Odyssey, Homer’s Greek description of the underworld is a place…

In Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas’ continuous pietas and subservience to the gods and fate lead him to the foundation of Rome; however, even though he follows the authority of the gods, Aeneas shows true heroism and human characteristics by following his own morals, values, and freedom. For Aeneas to be able to reach his fate, the gods had to interfere multiple times in order to help him achieve the qualities he needed to found Rome. Because Aeneas is a man that follows the traditions of revering the…

Human agency is demonstrated in Homer’s The Odyssey and Virgil’s The Aeneid through the story arcs of the characters of Odysseus and Aeneas. In the Odyssey, although Odysseus’ fate seems to be predetermined by the gods, it is actually influenced entirely by Odysseus’s own choices. In the Aeneid, however, Aeneas does not possess the same free will as Odysseus; his destiny is determined by the will of Zeus. Homer establishes the independence of the choices of mortals over the preordinations of the…

In Vergil’s Aeneid, the idea of the gods feeling typically mortal emotions, particularly anger, is emphasized heavily. Soon after Juno urges King Aeolus to release the winds under his control, so that she can attack the Trojan sailors, Neptune becomes aware of the chaos they create. In this passage, he addresses these winds using rhetorical questions, carefully-chosen verb forms, and various forms of parallel structure. These devices all create a sense of anger mirroring that of Neptune: utterly…