The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the first century B.C. order by Emperor Augustus to glorify the empire attributing a mystical phenomenon. Virgilio embellished a rewriting, more than a continuation, of the Homeric poems taking as starting point the Trojan War and the destruction of the city and presenting the foundation of Rome and its folklore. Virgilio worked on this piece from the year 29 A.C. until the end of his days in 19 A.C. Virgil, on his deathbed, commissioned the Aeneid to be burned, either because he wanted to disassociate himself from Augusto's political propaganda or because he did not consider it was one of his best works. So, we now wonder: is the Aeneid a celebration of empire or its critique?
Virgil's heroic epic, the Aeneid, in twelve chapters (or “books”), tells the story of the Trojan prince, Aeneas's journey in search of the land where he is destined to build the city that will one day become the great Roman Empire (The New Yorker, pg. 3). After the destruction of Troy, Aeneas leads a small band of survivors in search of a new home in Italy. Unfortunately, as they sail on their way, they get spotted by the goddess Juno. Juno hates the Trojans because of an old grudge, and because they are destined to become the Romans, who will destroy Carthage, her favorite city. Conspiring with the god of the winds, Juno whips up a storm, forcing the Trojans to take refuge in – you guessed it – Carthage. The Aeneid, was arguably, the “single most influential literary work of European civilization for the better part of two millennia.” (The New Yorker, pg. 3)
In this epic, Virgil often inserted glimpses of Rome’s future military and political victories, along with The Emperor Augustus making an appearance. According to the New Yorker, the thing that the author was trying to implicate was that the real-life empire arose from a “god-kissed” mythic past. His fellow Romans and Augustus admired and loved his work so much that after a century of Virgil’s death (in 19 B.C.), the people of Pompeii were writing lines from the epic on the walls of shops and inside their homes. From then on, people still haven’t stopped quoting it and has been a classic in Western art and education. One scholar (his name was never identified) said that Virgil “occupied the central place in the literary canon for the whole of Europe for longer than any other writer.” (The New Yorker, pg. 3)
Steele Commager, who was a professor of classics (including Horace, Virgil, Catullus, and Propertius) at Columbia University, talked about the price of Aeneas’ success throughout the Aeneid. He said, “ If, then, the Aeneid is a story of success, it is also a story of what success costs: the cost to the land, the cost in lives- and it is characteristic of Virgil that we should remember not the victors but the defeated, Camilla, Nisus and Euryalus, Pallas, Lausus, Turnus, even Mezentius… -and, finally, the cost to Aeneas himself. He is reborn, to be sure, as the ideal Roman incarnate, but by this very fact he becomes increasingly isolated from any human contact. He loses his wife, his father, even his nurse Caieta; the only human relationship he is allowed is with his son, and that seems less personal than dynastic.” (Steele Commager, ed., "Introduction" to Virgil, Collection of Critical Essays, 1966). I agree with what Professor Commager said because in the epic, many of the closest people to him have died and didn’t have many human relationships, apart from his son. It has become less personal, and more about his destiny to found Rome.
Viktor Poschl said, “Unlike Homer's heroes, the figure of Aeneas simultaneously comprises past, present, and future…. In the Aeneid we see for the first time the tragedy of man suffering from historical fate. The hero is never allowed to belong completely to the moment. If and when, as in Carthage, he seems to be caught up in the moment, a god reminds him of his duty.” (Viktor Poschl, The Art of Vergil, 1962). I agree with this statement as well because it seems that Aeneas was never really allowed to be completely in the moment. He gets so much into the moment of telling his story and falling in love with Dido, Queen of Carthage, that A GOD had to remind to not get distracted and remind him of his quote on quote, “destiny”.
There are a few similarities between Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. When he was writing the Aeneid, he gathered some information he learned from his studies of the Iliad and Odyssey and created a national epic poem for the Romans. He used hexameter verse (a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic meter in classical Greek and Latin literature), book division, genealogies, and underlying themes to come up with similarities between the Romans and the Greeks.
Comparing the Iliad and books seven through twelve of the Aeneid, the first similarity to highlight is that both Achilles and Aeneas have a pivotal friend in who dies in battle which causes a similar reaction in each of them. Achilles’ dear friend Patroclus died at the hand of Hector which caused Achilles to emotionally react in a way so as to not respect Hector as a worthy enemy on the battlefield. Aeneas’ friend, and son of the King who treated him so kindly, Pallas was killed at the hands of Turnus. We see at the ending of the Aeneid that Aeneas has the same type of reaction that Achilles had toward Hector. Another interesting similarity to note is that both stories have a point in their war where the fate of either side is to be decided by a single battle between the two pivotal people. The two pivotal people are also both fighting over a woman (more so in the Iliad than in the Aeneid). However, both fights in both of these stories is thwarted by the gods. In the Iliad, we have Paris and Menelaus fighting over Helen and Aphrodite brings Paris back to his room to keep him safe. In the Aeneid, we have a potential battle between Aeneas and Turnus, but when the two parties are making sacrifices, a goddess stirs the hearts of the warriors and the battle continues.
Between the Odyssey and the Aeneid, they both have significant similarities as well. One similarity is that both epics are told by the heroes themselves, using flashbacks. In the Aeneid, Aeneas’ journey was frequently interfered by Juno, Queen of the Gods. Like the Aeneid, in the Odyssey, Odysseus’ journey is continuously bothered by Poseidon, God of the Sea. In both epics, both men were aided by on person only. In the Aeneid, Aeneas was aided by his mother, Venus, Goddess of Love, Sex, Beauty, and Fertility; In the Odyssey, was aided by Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. As both heroes tell their stories, they express emotions of heartache as they mourn the loss of their comrades. Aeneas and Odysseus have also taken a trip into the underworld to retrieve information from the deceased.