Introduction to the Aeneidquotes from Elaine Fantham in Ahl edition of translation

Order of Importance

First, we will discuss what Aeneas and the mythology surrounding him was like before the Aeneid. (It’s pretty messy and vague.)

Then, we will discuss why Vergil chose to write about him and the significance of that choice.

Aeneas legend and some problems

Only educated people would have been familiar with the figure of Aeneas for several reasons:

Aeneas appears in the early Latin epics of Naevius (tells of Aeneas and his father leaving Troy and someone asks to hear about his escape {Dido?}) and Ennius (Aeneas not named, but his father Anchises and his prophetic wisdom discussed).

These poems survive in fragments, so we obviously we only have part of the story of the poems themselves and what other people have quoted.

Aeneas legend and some problems

Aeneas appears in Iliad 5 and 20 (only rich Romans would have learned Greek [via Homer])

In Iliad 5, Aeneas is attacked by Greek Diomedes, then protected by Venus (his mother) and Apollo.

In Iliad 20, Aeneas challenges Achilles to a battle, having been encouraged by Apollo. Saved by Poseidon, who knows that Aeneas must live to continue the Trojan line.

In both books, Homer shows that Aeneas is more discrete than courageous.

Aeneas legend and some problems

There are some surviving pieces in the material culture that suggest an early knowledge of Aeneas as a character from Homer, not as a proto-founder of Rome.

Some examples follow.

Terracotta figures (early 5th century BCE) and vase paintings of Aeneas and Anchises

Erich Gruen’s thoughts on material remains

Aeneas was a favorite figure in Etruria. The clustering of this activity in space and time suggests it was an artistic fad, not a foundation myth. “They exhibit interest in the tale of Aeneas’ escape from Troy and perhaps reverence for the qualities of pietas displayed in his deed, but they hardly prove that Aeneas was reckoned as a founder hero in Etruria” (Culture and Identity in Republican Rome, 22).

Gruen does not believe that the myth moved from Etruria to Rome.

Erich Gruen wrote a lot of stuff about Aeneas etiology (it is complicated)

Why does the Trojan legend become so important for elite Romans?

“[The embrace of Troy] enabled Rome to associate itself with the rich and complex fabric of Hellenic tradition, thus to enter that wider cultural world, just as it had entered the wider political world. But at the same time, it also announced Rome’s distinctiveness from that world . . . Troy persisted as a symbol, not a current reality . . . Romans could mold the Trojan image to their own ends” (31).

Julius Caesar’s use of legend

In several coins that he issued, JC used the images of Venus and Aeneas to promote his “divine heritage”.

Venus Genetrix obverse coin from 47/46 BCE

reverse of same coin with Aeneas carrying Penates in hand and Anchises on back

Caesar is smart

So, because he knew the only people who were familiar with the Aeneas legend and JC’s divine heritage were the rich people (who didn’t like him very much and wouldn’t have been impressed with his lineage anyway), he minted coins like this to solidify his reputation with the poor people and make them aware of this connection (Yes, that’s kind of ironic.)

Vergil’s life, poetry and relationship with Octavian Augustus

Vergil did not live a very exciting life because he was rather sickly. Very highly educated because his family was rich and he couldn’t join the military. Wrote two poetry cycles before the Aeneid:

Eclogues: pastoral poetry modeled after Greek poet Theocritus

Georgics: poetry about running a farm

Vergil’s life, poetry and relationship with Octavian Augustus

Some people think based entirely on their reading of Eclogue 1 that Vergil’s family had their farm confiscated when Octavian was trying to reward his soldiers with land. They think that the young leader in the poem who restores the shepherd’s pastures is Octavian and that Vergil wrote the poem to inspire Octavian to give his family back their farm. (Some really smart people think this, so that is why I am telling you. I think people can write fiction so well contextualized in their own time that it seems as if the event actually had to have happened.)

Vergil’s life, poetry and relationship with Octavian Augustus

Elaine Fantham on the Georgics: “The opening of this poem in 4 books proudly invokes Octavian as Caesar, destined to become a god, urging him to help the poet bring comfort to the farmers . . .” (xvii). At the end of Book 1, the narrator enumerates the difficulties facing the farmer brought about by crappy weather and the civil war instigated by JC. Only Octavian can provide salvation.

Vergil’s life, poetry and relationship with Octavian Augustus

So Vergil is the poet with the best relationship with Maecenas (Octavian’s arbiter elegentiae), has written extensively about and to Augustus, and really is the best poet of his generation. Fantham suggests it falls to him to commemorate Octavian with some kind of epic (since that was a Roman tradition). The current situation was so messy though (no one would attempt an epic about this particular civil war until Lucan about 100 years later and no one looks like a hero in it), Vergil had to go all the way back to Rome’s founding in order to “praise Augustus through his ancestry” (Servius).

Fantham is worth quoting here.

“ . . . by choosing to construct a narrative of questioning and struggle around the Roman ancestor who was known from Homer, but not known in too much detail, the poet gave himself the scope to construct an idealized founder and leader whose sufferings and moral decisions would be both a model to Augustus and to some extent a model of Augustus, suggesting to the Roman public an interpretation of their young leader’s achievements” (xviii). [You have something prescriptive and descriptive here, which is my favorite thing.]

some themes of the Aeneid

the cost of success, both in terms of human lives lost in battle, and the toll of success on a leader’s psyche.

importance of lineage (which the Aeneid tries to solidify) [the Julii always claimed there were 14 generations of Alban kings between Aeneas’ son Ascanius and Numitor, the father of Romulus, and Vergil’s account supports this.]