Book 12

In the final passage of the Aeneid, Aeneas says to Turnus, “Do you think you can get away from me while wearing the spoils of one of my men? Pallas sacrifices you with this stoke- Pallas- and makes you pay with your guilty blood” (340).

This last scene in the Aeneid exemplifies the image that Virgil intended for Aeneas to be remembered in. Aeneas kills Turnus, “seething with rage… [and] burying his sword in Turnus’ chest”, however seconds before he had considered allowing Turnus to live (340). After seeing Pallas’ belt on Turnus, Aeneas was overtaken with a new surge of vengeance and finally kills Turnus. This final scene was preceded with countless fighting between the two men with ample opportunity for Aeneas to kill Turner. Thus, I believe that Virgil was very deliberate in the circumstances of Turnus’s death. When considering the significance of this death, I thought that Virgil may have been attempting to inspire the same type of loyalty into Romans listening to the Aeneid. Throughout the epic, Aeneas has proven to be a hero, and he was likely idolized by Romans in 19 BC. His loyalty expressed in his inability to forgive Turnus for killing his ally is an example that Virgil intended for the Romans to admire. In a time with constant civil war, Virgil deliberately created an epic hero whose final act is vengeance for the death of his friend.

Aeneid Books 10-12

“And in the center of all this slaughter Camilla raged, an exultant Amazon, one breast bared for battle, a quiver on her back. Whipping javelins from her hand, or wielding a heavy battle-axe for hours on end… Whom did you strike down first, fierce girl, whom last? How many dying bodies did you leave on the earth?

These lines from page 293, starting on line 770, depict Camilla as a powerful warrior, and also emphasize that she is a woman. She is shown as the leader of this battle, who is fierce and strong. When she dies, the troops disperse, and the battle pauses. The Latin troops are lost without her. This is quite a strong and countercultural role that Virgil gave to a female for his time. Female gods are also given a strong role as Juno and Venus essentially control the warfare. Other women, however, are portrayed as much weaker or as possessions. Queen Amata is shown crying about the prospect of Turnus fulfilling his duty and going off to battle, and Turnus brushes her off and insinuates that she is bothering him. Laviania is also depicted in a typical womanly fashion, as a possession that can be married off to whomever will be best for the kingdom. One could also look back to Dido to see an unflattering portrait of a woman. The contrast between the different roles that Virgil creates for the women in his epic is quite strong, and makes one wonder what Virgil’s view of women was, as well as how these women fit in with the ideal of a good Roman woman.

"How to Be a Stoic"

Please find below a link to an article in today's New York Times re: Stoicism and how to practice in the modern world. Happy reading!

How to Be a Stoic

A Peace Offering

Dear fellow classmates,

Unfortunately, what I would like to talk to about cannot be summed up neatly in one coherent quote. However, it is confined to pages 194-196. In this area of Book 8, we see the first instance of camaraderie between the Trojans and the Greeks. Aeneas addresses the king with "Noblest of Greeks, it is my good fortune / To make my prayer to you and offer boughs / Hung with sacral wreaths.../...Our bloodlines branch from a common source. / Relying on this, I did not approach you / Through ambassadors or artful overtures." As we can see, there has been a clear attempt to look past history and join together in order to defeat their common enemy, the Latins. King Evander replies with equal friendliness and even goes as far to mention and complement King Priam. Though their alliance serves to advance and make the story interesting, I think there is an underlying reason for it that ties back to the fact that the Aeneid is a creation tale. The Greek and Roman cultures undeniably have many similarities--as we know, most of Roman civilization and culture was adopted from the Greeks. I think that by including this alliance Virgil is attempting to mend the broken relationship by the Greek and Roman ancestors during the Trojan War. The purpose of creation stories is to shed light on why things are the way that they are and how they came to be. It would not make sense for Rome to have thousands of Greek customs while holding a--for lack of a better term--historical grudge against the Greeks. Virgil is effectively trying to justify the similarity Roman culture has to Greek culture.

Book 7

The god's in this story use their power to play with lives and to make their "team" win. Can the gods change fate though?
King Latinus contemplates if this is the person that the oracle spoke about from line 307 to 311:
"This," he thought, "must be the foreigner whom the Fates have destined to be my son in marriage and to share my power equally. His descendants will excel in virtue, and rule the world with might" (pg. 170).
King Latinus believes that this foreigner that has come must be the man that the oracle has spoken about and so he welcomes Aeneas with open arms and even gives him and his army gifts. Of course this upsets the gods that aren't for "Team Troy" so they try to get involved and stop this from happening. Books 8 and 9 go into more detail about how the war is turning out, but even with all of the power that they have, can the gods control fate? I know we haven't finished the book yet, but I believe everyone already knows the answer to this question.

Passion vs. Duty

Dear Classmates, 

In the first book for the reading today, Book 4, I found a common theme: passion versus duty. The internal conflict Aeneas is facing is best illustrated and compacted on page 88, "Aeneas, Jupiter's message / Still ringing in his ears, held his eyes steady / And struggled to suppress the love in his heart. / He finally made this brief reply: / 'My Queen, / ... / And to order my priorities as I see fit, / The welfare of Troy would be my first concern, /And the remnants of my own beloved people" Here, Aeneas is verbalizing what he sees as his duty given to him by fate and Jupiter. He has to suppress his love for Dido because he cannot fulfill both his destiny and be in love with her. Furthermore, he was only able to fall in love with Dido when he abandoned his duties and mission to establish a new homeland for his people. Today's colloquium is about constructing the roman hero so if we look to The Aeneid for this, the roman hero thus far seems to have a duality in their identity. They are sometimes a person and sometimes a hero. When they are a person they succumb to human feelings such as love and grief as Aeneas does in his relationship with Dido, when they are a hero they put their duty to their people first and work for the greater good, sacrificing love and other human experiences for honor and glory. Book four essentially explores what this metamorphosis from human to hero might look like.  

Aeneid Book 6

My fellow classmates,

"There are two Gates of Sleep. One, they say, is horn and offers easy exit for true shades. The other is finished with gleaming ivory, but through it the Spirits send false dreams to the world above. Anchises escorted his son as he talked, then sent him with the Sibyl through the Gate of Ivory."
This quote, found at the very end of book 6, pages 160-161 to be specific, makes me think heavily back to the plenary lecture where the idea of Virgil taking subtle digs at Augustus during the writing of the Aeneid was brought up. The passage quoted occurs as Aeneas and the Sybil are coming back from the underworld, and are returning to the ships. When reading the books assigned for today, this is the area that stood out to me the most. Why would Virgil have the hero, the ancestor of Augustus, return to the world through the gates designated for spirits to send false dreams?  Perhaps it is just because the plenary was recent and its message is partly in my mind, but I see this as Virgil hinting that this bloodline that Augustus claims is not actually intact. Aeneas continues his quest and his adventures, but never fully returns from the underworld, and in that way, Virgil is showing that there is no real relation between Augustus, the man who at one time took his land away, and now is telling him to write the epic depicting his lineage as related to the gods, and Aeneas, the hero and the son of a god. I know this could maybe be seen as a bit of a stretch, so I would love to hear all of your ideas, what do you think the purpose or outcome of Virgil's inclusion of this is on the story, or in the world in which he was writing?