The Aeneid

Key Facts

Full title - The Aeneid

Author - Virgil

Type of work - Epic poem

Genre - Heroic epic; mythological story

Language - Latin

Time and place written - Around 20 B.C., probably in Rome and in the north of Italy, and perhaps in Greece

Date of first publication - Virgil died in 19 B.C., before he finished revising the Aeneid; it was published after his death.

Narrator - The poet Virgil, although Aeneas himself assumes the narration in Books II and III, when he gives a retrospective account of his adventures

Point of view - When Virgil controls the narration, the point of view includes the actions of the gods as well as the human story; Aeneas, in his storytelling, does not have this access to the gods' perspective and relates events only from his own perspective.

Tone - When treating the glory of Rome, the epic is solemn, celebratory, and honorific. When Virgil depicts the victims of history--those who suffered in the course of the founding of Rome, like Dido--his tone is tragic and sympathetic.

Setting (time) - In the aftermath of the Trojan War, about 1000 B.C.

Setting (place) - The Mediterranean, including the north coast of Asia Minor, Carthage, and Italy

Protagonist - Aeneas

Major conflict - Aeneas is fated to travel from the ruins of Troy to Italy, where he will establish a race that will lead to the founding of Rome. Juno, harboring feelings of vengeance against the Trojans, impedes Aeneas's mission by inciting a romance between Aeneas and Dido and then a war between the Trojans and the Latins, causing suffering for the hero, his fleet, and many whom they encounter on the way.

Rising action - The epic has two parts: Aeneas's wanderings in Books I-VI, and his struggle to establish himself in Latium in Books VII-XII. In the first half of the epic, Aeneas tells the story of the siege of Troy and his escape, causing Dido to love him. In the second half of the epic, King Latinus offers the hand of his daughter, Lavinia, to Aeneas in marriage, and Juno responds by inciting rage in the hearts of Queen Amata and Turnus and then opening the Gates of War.

Climax - In the first half of the epic, Venus and Juno contrive to isolate Dido and Aeneas in a cave during a hunting trip, and there the two lovers consummate their affair. In the second half of the epic, Turnus kills Pallas, inciting the lethal vengeance of Aeneas.

Falling action - In the first half of the epic, Aeneas leaves Carthage for Italy at Mercury's prodding, causing the heartbroken Dido to kill herself. In the second half, the war between the Trojans and the Latins is narrowed down to a duel between Aeneas and Turnus. Aeneas wins, and, after considering sparing his enemy's life, he decides to kill Turnus to avenge Pallas's death.

Context

Virgil, the preeminent poet of the Roman Empire, was born Publius Vergilius Maro on October 15, 70 B.C., near Mantua, a city in northern Italy. The son of a farmer, Virgil studied in Cremona, then in Milan, and finally in Rome. Around 41 B.C., he returned to Mantua to begin work on his Eclogues, which he published in 37 B.C. Soon afterward, civil war forced him to flee south to Naples, where seven years later he finished his second work, the Georgics, a long poem on farming. At this time, Virgil's writing gained him the recognition of the public, wealth from patrons, and the favor of the emperor.

Virgil lived at the height of the first age of the Roman Empire, during the reign of the emperor Octavian, later known as Augustus. Before Augustus became emperor, though, internal strife plagued the Roman government. During Virgil's youth, the First Triumvirate--Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus--governed the Roman Republic. Crassus was killed around 53 B.C., and Caesar initiated civil war against Pompey. After defeating Pompey, Caesar reigned alone until the Ides of March in 44 B.C., when Brutus and Cassius, two senators, assassinated him. Civil war erupted between the assassins and the Second Triumvirate--Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus. By 36 B.C. only Octavian and Antony remained, and they began warring against each other. At the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., Octavian defeated Antony and his ally Cleopatra of Egypt, finally consolidating power in himself alone. Four years later, he assumed the title Augustus. Virgil witnessed all this turmoil, and the warring often disrupted his life.

Immediately after finishing the Georgics, Virgil began his masterwork, the Aeneid. He was fortunate enough to enter the good graces of Augustus, and, in part, the Aeneid serves to legitimize Augustus's reign. The Aeneid tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas's perilous flight from Troy to Italy following the Trojan War. In Italy, Aeneas's descendents would go on to found Rome. In the epic, Virgil repeatedly foreshadows the coming of Augustus, perhaps to silence critics who claimed that he achieved power through violence and treachery. (Whether or not Virgil truly believed all the praise he heaped upon Augustus is a matter of debate.) When Rome was at its height, the easiest way to justify the recent brutal events was to claim that the civil wars and the changes in leadership had been decreed by fate to usher in the reign of the great Augustus. Yet the Aeneid is by no means a purely political work; like other epic poems, its subject stands on its own as a story for all time.

Virgil did not invent the story that Rome descended from Troy; he crafted the events narrated in the Aeneid from an existing tradition surrounding Aeneas that extended from the ancient Greek poet Homer through the contemporary Roman historian Livy. In Book XX of the Iliad, Aeneas faces off with Achilles, and we learn about Aeneas's lineage and his reputation for bravery. However, in that scene, he is no match for Achilles, who has been outfitted in armor forged by the divine smith Hephaestus. Poseidon rescues Aeneas from certain doom and praises the Trojan for his piety. Poseidon also prophesies that Aeneas will survive the Trojan War and assume leadership over the Trojan people.

Ancient accounts of Aeneas's postwar wanderings vary. Greek art from the sixth century B.C. portrays Aeneas carrying his father, Anchises, out of burning Troy.