Week 05, Virgil

Notes on Virgil’s The Aeneid

There’s a strong sense of teleology in Virgil’s Aeneid—many noble gestures must be left aside because of the collective task to be accomplished. Aeneas’ personal actions seem to be always scripted by that larger task, haunted by necessity. In this sense, there’s a degree of sadness about the founding of the great Empire-to-be. Virgil understands what’s involved in the founding of empires, just like the man understood big banking when he said that robbing a bank is nothing compared to what goes into founding one.

As for the Trojans’ treatment of the Carthaginians, Virgil makes Aeneas and his men appropriate the good signs given to that people. Their founding period must be harvested to create the momentum leading Aeneas towards Italy. The legend of Troy allows Virgil to assert that the Romans are equal to or superior to the Greek heroes of the past. They may be younger, but their legends go back to the fall of Troy, Homer’s battlegrounds. The destruction of Troy is necessary to the founding of a new civilization. The Greeks can lend authority and serve as a mine of cultural materials, but ultimately it’s Rome that wins. Greek epic must be subsumed (as in Hegel’s term aufheben, participle aufgehoben—preserved and cancelled) into Roman literature and history.

Odysseus had a task, but Homer narrated its accomplishment by fully drawing out all of that hero’s dangerousness and tendency towards excess. Odysseus is familiar with restraint, but only because sometimes he doesn’t allow himself to be subject to it. Aeneas, by contrast, serves a task beyond his own horizons—he has to serve as the living agent of an entire people’s history, not just re-secure his own kingdom. That transpersonal goal forces him to betray Dido, a fellow exile who treats him kindly. Not everything he does is “pious” in a sense we can approve. Aeneas adheres to prophecy, sometimes to his own discomfiture. We might be excused for thinking that Virgil “read Freud” since so much of what Aeneas does seems driven by his status as an agent of civilization—his private erotic energy gets rerouted along lines favorable to Rome’s public, collective doctrine of imperium, not his own love life. At times, Aeneas is almost machine-like, driven by his dedication to the future Roman Empire. It may seem ruthless of him to leave so many friends and loved ones behind, first in Troy and then on the way to Italy, but he has no choice—Aeneas is a corporation man for Rome, Inc. He is the founder of an institution, so he must suit his words, actions, and even thoughts to the needs of that institution, repressing and redirecting his own private desires.

Of course, that necessity also means Aeneas suffers deeply, and seems noble and stoic in the worst of situations. For the Romans, self-sacrifice is one of the greatest virtues since Rome is bigger than any one person. Aeneas is endowed with insight into this (in the form of responsibility towards his crew and his people), and he bears it as a heavy burden. He is responsible for the success of a huge, impersonal order, and there will be little comfort for him either along the way or at the end. Odysseus’ desires are more immediate and personal—he wants to make his way back to his own wife and son, and reclaim his island kingdom.

The Aeneid isn’t really about Aeneas—it is about Rome. As Moses Hadas points out in his History of Latin Literature, no one said being an agent of destiny is easy (155). But Virgil believes in the Roman religion, and in the sanctity of Rome itself. He also seems to have been aware (as in Georgics IV) of Jewish millennialist prophecies, and he imports this messianic sense of history into his work on Rome. Augustus is a messiah-figure who first brings a sword, and then provides the prospects for peace and honor. Rome is on a divine mission of imperium, which will involve bringing order, stability, and civilization to the conquered and assimilated peoples. It involves making oneself and one’s civilization a model for others to follow.

The Aeneid justifies Augustus as the first Roman Emperor, and heralds a new day for Rome, with peace and stability at home and the export of Roman practices and ideals to supposedly less advanced peoples. (A modern analogue would be the French under Napoleon, or the British Empire.) The rationale we refer to as “imperium” surely developed over time, and no doubt there remained a strong element of profiteering and militarism in Roman conquests. But the ideological claims were also strong. The Romans felt that they had something worthwhile to offer others—improvements in their standard of living, and (to some extent) eventual citizenship.

But the celebration of peace betrays a strong need—times before Augustus were difficult and violent. Decades of strife preceded the civil wars that racked Italy before and after the murder of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE. Not until 31 BCE did Octavian (Augustus) defeat Marc Antony and Cleopatra to become sole ruler of what was now openly an empire, no longer a republic (even a dysfunctional one). Augustus kept up the semblance of Republican sentiment, but nobody really believed Rome would return to a republic any time soon, if ever.

Page-by-Page Notes on The Aeneid

Book 1

1-533. One of the first things Virgil clarifies is that Juno’s rage at the Trojans seems potentially infinite; she is a great lover of Carthage, the empire that will, in future, battle Rome for imperial supremacy. Juno goads Aeolus, god of the winds, to scatter Aeneas’ fleet before it can reach Italy. Venus complains to Jove about Juno’s tricks, and he promises her that Aeneas will accomplish his destiny no matter what Juno does (304-334): he will set in motion events and found cities that will lead to “empire without end.” Readers are soon introduced to Dido, who has come to Carthage as a result of murderously unpleasant event in her Phoenician homeland: her brother Pygmalion killed her husband Sychaeus for his wealth, and now she is determined to build her new city into a magnificent place.

533-95. Before he has spoken with Dido, Aeneas visits a temple in a Carthaginian grove and beholds images of his own struggles in Troy against the Greeks. This is what we might call a metanarratival moment, in which a work of art refers extensively to another work of art in that Virgil is reminding us of Homer’s epics about the Trojan War. It is also an ekphrastic moment since what is being described is a work of art carved on a temple. Art has a lot of power at this juncture—the images help Aeneas to move forwards in his quest for temporary refuge with Dido, on the way to founding what will become Rome. There’s irony in that fact that the temple is dedicated to Juno, who favors the Greeks, not the Trojans. But even in Juno’s temple, the Trojans hold their own. They have Zeus on their side (somewhat), along with Apollo, Aphrodite, and several other gods. In another sense, the legend of Troy, its artistic representation, makes action possible. Greek art makes Roman history go.

625-752. The Trojan remnant’s speaker, Ilioneus, pleads with Dido that defeated men don’t go plundering—true, but ironic since the Trojans will be responsible for much sorrow in Carthage before they leave. And of course the Romans will later defeat the Carthaginians in a series of devastating wars. He need not have worried about Dido’s intentions, however, since the Queen welcomes Aeneas’ men and pays homage to him once he becomes visible to her, freed of the mist in which Venus had enveloped him. Dido offers Aeneas equal terms in her kingdom. That kingdom is itself new—they’re building it just as Aeneas lands there, in fact. He will usurp all this energy, frustrating it at the source and stealing it for the benefit of the Trojan survivors.

782-908. Venus is worried about the ultimate outcome of Aeneas’ meeting with Dido, so she sends Cupid down in the guise of Iulus (Ascanius) to enflame the Queen’s passion. She wants to ensure that Dido remains an ally, not an agent of Juno. Dido invites Aeneas into the palace and asks him to recount his story to her court.

Book 2

1-338. The Wooden Horse-inspired finale to the Trojan War is here recounted—as the saying goes, “fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.” The lying Greek Sinon manages to talk his way into the good graces of the Trojans, telling them that the Greeks have cut and run—gone to fetch a statue of Minerva (Athena) and bring it back so they can regain her favor for their undertaking. The Trojans fall for the pitch this deft salesman makes, thinking to gain the favor that the Greeks supposedly sought, and the rest is history—or rather foundational myth. Still, Aeneas can’t afford not to engage in some deceptions and betrayals of his own when it’s his turn to carve out his destiny and follow the gods’ orders. Around line 482, however, Coroebus’ stratagem to don Greek armor backfires—at this point, the Trojans are not licensed to do such deceptive things.

339-565. Aeneas recounts the last hours of Troy. He is granted a vision of the great warrior Hector, who tells him not to play the hero but rather to save the “holy things” and “household gods” of his people. Aeneas’ first thought was to throw himself into the final battle and there lose his life honorably, but Hector is right: that is not Aeneas’ task. Virgil imposes strict limits on Aeneas as an individual hero. Only Hector might have been able to save Troy single-handedly—too late for that; Aeneas’ job is different. Single combat isn’t really his province, though we will find him engaged in just such combat with Turnus of the Rutulians in the final books of The Aeneid. Aeneas’ central imperative is to lead the entire people to new life and lands.

566-702. One of the most replayed scenes in ancient legend and history is the subject here—the death of old Priam even shows up in Hamlet, spurring Hamlet on to take his tardy revenge. Aeneas’ narration affirms Greek heroism in the sense that Priam taunts Pyrrhus (Achilles’ son, also called Neoptolemus) with Achilles’ chivalry towards a grieving father. But Neoptolemus’ slaughter of the old man shows that Achilles was the exception, not the rule. Homer sometimes portrayed the Trojans as feminine and weak, but Virgil represents the Greeks as liars and barbarians to counter this dig.

703-998. As Troy is consumed, Aeneas catches sight of the despised Helen, who is here treated, as so often, as the cause of the Trojan War. But Venus brings home to Aeneas the futility of clinging to Troy, and sends him off to gather his family. Now that the gods of Troy have departed from their burnt-out altars, what is left? Piety to one’s ancestors and the hope of a new beginning elsewhere, a new place for the gods to dwell and favor the Trojan remnant. But not everyone will be allowed to come along—Creusa must die with the old order, though her sad shade appears one last time to Aeneas, so that Aeneas may have his new Italian wife Lavinia as already foretold by Hector’s ghost. Pietas must be broadened to incorporate loyalty not just to family, but even more so to the state and its imperatives. Those who want to go with Aeneas are mostly young people, without strong enough ties to “ruined Ilium” to make them go down with the City. At the end of this book, Aeneas is headed for the refuge of the mountains, bearing father Anchises on his back. Aeneas has accepted his destiny, however painful it is to him as a Trojan warrior and hero.

Book 3

1-82. The Trojans sail, landing on nearby Thrace, realm of Lycurgus. Polydorus tells his tale: he was a gold-bearing emissary from Priam, and King Lycurgus betrayed him, siding with the Greeks. Now that he has been slain, the territory itself is haunted by his spirit, rooted to the land in the form of a tree.

83-175. Apollo’s Oracle speaks, but Anchises wrongly interprets the destination as the island of Crete.

176-230. A plague strikes Aeneas’s people while they stay on Crete. At last, Aeneas’ vision yields better advice: Italy is the destination.

231-319. On the Strophades, the Trojan remnant meets the Harpies, who, angered by slaughter of their cattle, prophecy that the Trojans will arrive in Italy, but will end up gnawing on their own dishes. (Not to worry—the “dishes” will turn out to be flatbread.)

320-592. They make landfall at Actium, in the heart of Greece. Priam’s son Helenus rules the territory, and Andromache, shipped here in slavery, is now Helenus’ bride; together, they rule Chaonia. Helenus gives Aeneas a sign to guide him in his task: where he comes across a white pig nursing thirty piglets, there he must found his city. Helenus also gives prophetic advice, telling Aeneas to avoid the hostile Greeks along the Italian coasts, don purple cloaks and do sacrifice, and watch out for Scylla and Charybdis. Aeneas also learns that he must visit the Cumaean Sibyl (in Campania, Northwest of Naples), who will tell him about the wars and ordeals he must undergo. Parting gifts and moving words from Andromache follow.

593-773. The Trojans sight Italy, and they make landfall and sacrifice. They see four horses, but are they to be interpreted as signs of war or peace? They continue sailing, on to Sicily, into the view of Mount Etna (on Sicily near the tip of Italian mainland’s “boot”) and the Cyclops’ territory, where they meet Achaemenides of Ithaca, a recent castaway and comrade of Ulysses. This hapless Greek warns the Trojans to stay clear of Polyphemus, begging passage with them. They heed his advice, and take him along. Unlike Ulysses (Odysseus), Aeneas seems content to remain “the man with no name” rather than to prove his prowess by taunting the now-blind giant kin of Poseidon.

774-829. Aeneas and his crew barely manage to avoid sailing through the Sicilian Straits, i.e. Scylla and Charybdis, but a south wind blows and saves the day. They go around Sicily instead, landing at the port of Drepanum. Alas, father Anchises dies, and her Aeneas ends his tale for the benefit of Dido and her court. In broad terms, it is the principle for which Anchises stood that matters (patriarchal continuity), not the person.

Book 4

1-140. Dido’s affections for Aeneas (instilled by Cupid disguised as Ascanius at Venus’ request since she wanted to make sure he received a fine welcome) are described as “madness,” and herself as prey to a hunter. In classical times, this kind of reference wasn’t necessarily a putdown, but in Virgil’s case it seems to be—Dido is the victim of a noble species of madness. She is not fully in control of herself, and (although the gods seem to be behind her lovestruck condition) the fact that her passion rages out of control is more than enough to seal her doom.

141-345. Juno contrives to detain Aeneas by marriage, and Venus slyly pretends to go along, perhaps knowing that her son will eventually be roused to set sail and abandon Dido to madness. King Iarbas is angry over the marriage to a foreigner when Dido, whom he had helped, has already rejected him. So he prays to Jupiter. Dido’s passion is not politically astute, and (with Rumor’s help) it destabilizes her country, stripping it of foundational purpose. The Queen tries to shape events according to an essentially private passion—something a ruler can’t afford to do. Jupiter sends Mercury to harangue Aeneas, and the tactic works—he immediately turns his mind to his role as guardian of his Trojans and renewer of Trojan power in Italy. The episode reminds me a bit of Circe’s captivity of Odysseus. Like Odysseus, Aeneas wastes a lot of time doing nothing while his kingdom’s danger increases.

345-593. Aeneas decides in favor of deception—he’ll just leave in mid-winter when Dido isn’t expecting him to sail. She confronts him, calling him a liar and cheat. He covers up by pretending that he never intended to deceive her and that besides, he wasn’t actually married according to Trojan custom. This is a low point for Aeneas, at least in terms of heroic quality. His will is not his own at this point, and he must sacrifice his private and personal desires for the greater good of Troy (and the future Rome, a kingdom he won’t live to see). He openly describes Italy as his “love.” The pursuit of kingdom and eventual empire can’t allow a female get in the way. Virgil seems entirely conscious of the contradiction here—Romans prize honor and loyalty above all, but the founding of the state in which those values are so highly prized was accomplished by an act of betrayal. That Dido is the leader of Rome’s future enemy (and not a Trojan or Italian) doesn’t entirely remove the contradiction.

594-876. This part is mostly about Dido’s “fatal madness.” The Queen tricks her sister Anna and gets her to make a pyre with all the artifacts of her love for Aeneas atop, and then ascends the pyre, feverishly thinks through the situation, and stabs herself. This is an emotional high point in the epic—but the character who gives fullest vent to unrestrained passion is doomed. Virgil acknowledges the power of passion, but dramatizes its harsh consequences and insists upon containing the passions. He also emphasizes the notion that the gods wanted it this way, so really there was nothing Dido could do. She’s a magnificent character, but it’s not in the fates that she should succeed. Aeneas isn’t entirely robotic here—as T. S. Eliot would say, “only those who have strong personalities know what it is to try to escape from them.” We are conscious that he is making a sacrifice. On 1105, Virgil’s teleological, typological emphasis shows: Dido’s scream and the subsequent noise is like the fall of Carthage itself—of course that looks forward to the final destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War in 146 BCE (see Polybius’ account: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/polybius-punic3.html). Juno is hardly unsympathetic, favoring the Greeks and disliking the Trojans as she does—so she sends Iris down to cut the necessary lock of Dido’s hair for passage to the Underworld. As for Augustan distance from Dido, the historical necessity of this is obvious—there’s perhaps even some cruelty in the magnificence accorded to this precursor of a people that the Romans crushed. Anyhow, it may also be that her passion represents an always potential danger—giving in to private, individual feelings at the state’s expense. To be Roman involves knowing what is not Roman, what one may fall prey to.

Book 5

1-74. It’s decided that since the wind has shifted unfavorably, the remnant might as well set ashore on Sicily’s coast, and visit their compatriot Acestes, in whose territory are buried the bones of Aeneas’ father Anchises. On the whole, what begins as a pious and almost light-hearted book in The Aeneid will develop into a genuine challenge of Aeneas’ leadership and determination. The book is part of a continuing process of winnowing out the Trojan remnant almost in the manner of natural selection: only the fittest and strongest-willed should land on Italian shores with Aeneas, there to participate in the founding of the towns and cities that will house the people whom posterity will know as Romans. Aeneas himself is not entirely certain what he should do at this point, and requires the assistance of the gods and his departed father Anchises to help him through this confusing, disheartening time.

75-663. Aeneas decides to hold some games if the ninth day proves sunny—a ship race, a foot race, a javelin hurling event, and some boxing to round things off. The competitions turn out to have some interesting twists, with Cloanthus’ prayer to the gods helping him win the ship race while some of the others barely make it to shore; runner Nisus cleverly turning his own fall into a victory for his friend Euryalus over Salius; and old Entellus having to be goaded into boxing the younger man Dares, whom he defeats so convincingly in a bare-knuckle match that Aeneas has to play referee and stop the fight. Acestes shoots an arrow that catches fire, which everyone takes as an omen from the gods, so he is granted the victory even though Eurytion has hit the dove that was his mark. Through it all, Aeneas does his best to make sure nobody’s pride is ruffled, and he distributes gifts to winners and even to those who don’t acquit themselves so well. Finally, capping off the whole event is Ascanius’ (his other name is Iulus) parade of youthful horsemen. The Romans of Virgil’s day prided themselves on their horsemanship, and we are told at lines 656-63 that later, in Alba Longa, this will become a tradition.

664-773. The games concluded, Juno sends Iris down to urge on the Trojan women who have become sick to death of wandering at sea. Disguised as the old woman Beroë, Iris adds her complaint about the seven years of wandering, and spurs the women on to burn the ships in the harbor, the better to force stubborn Aeneas and his men to take up with Acestes here in Sicily. She even claims Cassandra gave her this idea in a vision. When Iris makes herself into a rainbow, the women lose their wits and begin setting fire to the Trojan ships. Jove (Zeus) answers Aeneas’ prayer and sends a heavy rainstorm to quench the ships, and in the end only four hulls are ruined.

774-864. Aeneas himself at first doesn’t know what to do when faced with this disaster. Perhaps it would be best to settle in Sicily after all. But Nautes offers a better plan: use the misfortune with the ships as a means of thinning out the Trojan remnant, taking only the stronger and most willing along to the Italian mainland and leaving behind the old, the lame, and the unwilling. They are to live in a town that, Acestes willing, will bear his name: Acesta. With the blessing of the shade of Anchises, Aeneas is able to accept this rather depressing advice. And Anchises gives prophetic advice as well, explaining to his son that he must be guided by a Sibyl down to the Underworld and meet him there, in Elysium. Aeneas will learn his “entire race to come / and the city walls that will be made . . . [his] own” (817-18). But at present, Aeneas sets his hand to the founding of Acesta, and we find him naming its divisions in a fully Trojan spirit: Troy and Ilium. This naming decision indicates, apparently, that Acesta will not undergo the growth and transformation necessary for the Trojan remnant to become “Romans,” as of course Aeneas’ followers later will. Even though this infirm and unwilling group must be left behind, Aeneas shows a fatherly regard for them, and even weeps at their loss.

865-972. Meanwhile, Venus complains to Neptune about the shifts of angry Juno, who, as she says, pursues the Trojans even after the destruction of their homeland; she “stalks . . . / the ashes of murdered Troy!” (874-75), and it is she who inspired the Trojan women to set the ships afire in Sicily. It is Venus’ earnest wish that the remaining Trojans reach Italy and the river Tiber; they must have their city walls. Neptune points out that in spite of his dislike for the Trojans (he had helped build Troy’s walls, only to find that the Trojan Laomedon wouldn’t pay him for his work), he protected Aeneas when Achilles threatened to overcome him in battle during the war. Now Aeneas’ remnant will make their way to Italy, he promises, with the loss of only one man. And as it turns out, this man will be the trusty helmsman Palinurus, who is lulled by the God of Sleep into a fatal lapse of duty that causes him to be swept into the sea, where he cannot be rescued by his fellow sailors. Aeneas must take command—it isn’t in his power to prevent the decrees of the gods, and this was Poseidon’s price for helping him in his quest, even if Aeneas doesn’t seem to make the connection right away; he supposes that Palinurus’ death was due to a personal lapse.

Book 6

1-146. Aeneas speaks with the Cumaean Sibyl, who warns him how much risk awaits him in future. Virgil’s portrait of the Sibyl drives home the burden of prophetic insight—it’s clear that Apollo’s priestess is profoundly affected by the knowledge to which she is privy.

147-302. The Sibyl tells Aeneas about the Golden Bough he will need to gain entrance to Avernus, and warns him that burial rites are due to his lost comrade Misenus, which are duly effected, clearing the way forwards.

303-83. On through the entrance to the Underworld they go, and in the vestibule of the place they encounter allegorical figures such as Grief, Conscience, Disease, Dread, and Hunger, and there are Centaurs, Scyllas, Gorgons and Harpies there as well. Then it’s down to Acheron’s waters, where Charon does his work as ferryman of the dead.

384-438. Aeneas’ lost pilot Palinurus tells his story, but the Sibyl is firm in dealing with him, telling him that neighboring peoples will accord him the burial rites he seeks from Aeneas. The dead mustn’t be allowed to assert primacy over the living, and Aeneas takes precedence over him. Like Dante after him, Virgil is concerned to bring order to our perception of the underworld as an ethical universe. He sticks to concrete descriptions and categories, and Aeneas’ experience in the underworld is tied to the demands of Roman teleology. Things were much wilder and less clear-cut in Homer’s Odyssey, and Odysseus departed the underworld just before its terrors overwhelmed him. Aeneas behaves with piety towards the dead: Misenus will have his burial, and Palinurus will receive compensation. But Deiphobus, betrayed by Helen, remains in tattered “skin.” As for Dido, she remains hostile and prefers Sychaeus. It will be war to the death with Carthage. We are treated to a vision of the new line of rulers, especially Lucius Junius Brutus.

439-78. Charon’s distrust of Aeneas must also be overcome; the future of Rome is the subject to be addressed here, and that is more important than protocol in Hades. The Sibyl deals with this obstacle as well.

479-533. Aeneas and the Sibyl cross the Stygian river, the point of no return for the dead. They encounter the hellish judge Cerberus and view the region where those destroyed by love abide, the “Fields of Mourning.” Dido is among the shades there, and Aeneas finds that her anger is unquenchable even in death. The dead continue to hold on to the attitudes that characterized them in life, and again we see how conflicted the Roman concept of heroism is: we know that Aeneas had betrayed Dido, so this moment must be an anguished one for him.

554-637. Onward they go, and they meet Deiphobus, who rails at Helen and that wily Greek, Odysseus.

638-739. Rhadamanthus’ judgments are described—this is the part of the Underworld where dreadful sins are punished by dreadful means. In general, Virgil’s Roman Underworld is a well structured place, more so than Hades is in The Odyssey. At the Gates of the Cyclops, Aeneas and the Sibyl leave their gift of the Golden Bough for Proserpina. Now they are free to enter the region of the blessed.

740-785. First they come across Orpheus the Thracian poet and the line of Teucer, replete with Dardanus the founder of Troy, and others here, where they find also patriots and fine poets. Musaeus helps them realize their quest to reach Anchises, who will survey the future of Rome for Aeneas.

786-869. Anchises appears to Aeneas, and begins to unfold to him knowledge far beyond what is available to ordinary mortals: knowledge of how the heavens work, what animates them and therefore all living things, which are a product, says Anchises, of the fusion of the inner spirit governing sky, earth, the sea, the moon, the sun, and the stars. The teeming souls of a thousand nations to be become visible to Aeneas like “bees in meadowlands on a cloudless summer day” (816). Anchises explains that these souls await the forgetful-making waters of Lethe and reincarnation. So the text suggests that the source of life and history is spirit, and describes Lethean and Orphic purification. Anchises also says that even the punishments of the Underworld are not eternal—the sinners will, after a thousand years of purification, be directed to Lethe and granted their desire to enter new bodies.

870-984. Aeneas learns his personal future: his Italian bride Lavinia and their son Silvius, the latter central to the city Alba Longa that is to be the precursor of Rome. As for Romulus, his mother was the priestess Rhea Silvia, and his father Mars. So are Numa and his descendants, and the great lights of Roman history (Lucius Junius Brutus, expeller of the Tarquin kings, and many more) right down to Virgil’s own time, that of Augustus Caesar. the account covers Rome’s art of pacifying other people—one of its great strengths, according to Virgil’s Anchises, who says to Aeneas that the Roman way or art is “To put your stamp on the works and ways of peace, / to spare the defeated, break the proud in war” (983-84).

985-1039. Marcellus, Augustus’ nephew, is lamented in advance, by way of indicating both the joys of victory and the frustrations of dynastic hopes. Aeneas is sent back through the Ivory gate of false dreams. Perhaps that is the case because he must act more from impulse than from conscious guidance by the underworld. He must not be directed too closely if he is to accomplish his destiny in an authentic way. Structurally, Book 6 caps off Aeneas’ wanderings. Virgil will cease striving with Homer and his old stories.

Book 7

Brief summary. Book 7 announces that Aeneas is ready to move on to accomplishing the deeds of the new race forging itself out of the defeated Trojans. “Back to the future,” in other words, and the focus will be on human enterprise, although the gods still have an important part to play. King Latinus of Latium is about to embark on a course that his father Faunus’ oracle convinces him is deeply destructive for his people: circumstances drive him against his better judgment to offer daughter Lavinia to Turnus the Rutulian king rather than to the newcomer that the oracle says he must accept. When Aeneas and his people find themselves eating the flatbread that serves as dishes for their meal, the leader knows he has found the promised land. He is “home” at last, but of course Juno is there to ensure that things don’t go smoothly. She sends her furies down to stir up Turnus and anyone who needs stirring up to accomplish her anti-Trojan agenda. Turnus will become Juno’s champion against the hated Trojans.

Book 8

Brief summary, 716-858. Venus orders up a shield from the smithy of Vulcan, rather like the one Achilles’ mother Thetis had made for him. The literary device here is ekphrasis, the verbal description of a visual art object. Rome’s crises and founding acts, and heroism and law-giving, are central to this book. This path will end at Actium in 31 BCE, where the future Augustus Caesar will defeat “Asiatic” Mark Antony and Cleopatra. The book ends with a procession of conquered races, subjugated to the Roman people. Aeneas marvels at this expanse of mysterious futurity.

Book 9

1-89. Juno sends Iris to urge Turnus to attack. The Trojans show restraint in their battle plans and personal conduct, while Turnus behaves almost wildly.

90-143. Cybebe (Cybele) pleads with Jove to save the Trojan ships so dear to her because they were made from pine and maple trees in her sacred grove. Jove promises to turn the ships into goddesses rather than let them burn at the hands of the attacking Rutulians. Human strife must not be allowed to defile or destroy something dear to the gods, so Jove complies.

144-209. The narrative returns to Turnus’ fiery determination to win the day and destroy Aeneas.

210-515. Nisus conceives of a heroic act of volunteerism: he will break through enemy lines and get word to Aeneas about the Trojans’ situation. He and Euryalus are killed after they slay Volcens and several other besiegers. This vignette is placed in the middle of a book otherwise bent upon setting the tone for the narrator’s description of the clash of great armies; the story of Nisus and Euryalus emphasizes the bond (apparently homosexual) between these two soldiers, and serves to underscore the limits of heroism in The Aeneid.

516-600. Euryalus and Nisus’ head are displayed, to the Trojan’s great sorrow. Euryalus’ mother laments, and her wailing almost dispirits the Trojan army as they await the attackers in their fortifications.

601-765. The narrator begins with an invocation to Calliope to sing “carnage and death.” Turnus burns down a Trojan tower among the fortifications, and kills Lycus and Helenor when they try to escape. Mezentius makes a kill with his sling. Ascanius shoots arrows at the enemy, and hacks down Numanus when that soldier mocks him and insults the Trojans generally (684-85), accusing them of being soft. Apollo applauds the work of Ascanius, but disguised as Butes, he orders that the youth not push his luck on the battlefield, and the Trojan captains, recognizing a god when they see one, restrain Ascanius.

766-876. Pandarus and Bitias boldly open the gates, as if they could defend the whole fortified area all by themselves. The besiegers rush in, and Turnus makes some kills while the war god Mars frightens the Trojans. Pandarus closes the gate, but now Turnus is inside the Trojan walls, where he proceeds to slaughter as many Trojans as he can. But his exultant conduct causes him to miss a chance to exploit this near triumph for his whole army: his actions are impetuous rather than tactical, and this quality costs him a chance to rout the Trojan enemy.

877-923. The Trojan captains rally their men, who surround Turnus. The Rutulian escapes only by jumping into the Tiber, which purifies him of his battle-gore and carries him back to his own side.

Book 10

1-146. Jove, annoyed at the fighting when he had told the gods not to start any trouble, convenes a council. Venus is afraid he’s going back on his promises to her, and she pleads for Ascanius’ safety, no matter what may happen to Aeneas and his Trojan remnant. Let Carthage destroy this people in the future, she says, so long as Ascanius is safe. Are the Trojans to suffer a second fall, she wonders? Juno lashes out at Jove as well; she says that Aeneas listened to Cassandra’s nonsense—that’s what started all the trouble and made him attack King Latinus. She praises Turnus, thinking him a second Achilles, and even dredges up Paris’ absconding with Helen years ago. Jove pleads neutrality, declaring that as far as he’s concerned, it’s every mortal man for himself.

147-312. Aeneas’ forces are besieged while he’s away shoring up support from Evander and Tarchon the Etruscan king. The narrator provides a catalog of men and thirty ships sailing to the Trojans’ rescue. Aeneas’ ships, now as sea-nymphs, appear to him and warn him that his son Ascanius is trapped. “Seize your shield!” he is told, and the most eloquent of the sea-nymphs predicts that the Trojans will slaughter the Rutulians.

313-427. Aeneas uses his shield to alert the Trojans that he’s coming to the rescue, and they take hope. His crest flames, a marvel that further inspires them. Undaunted, Turnus is determined to turn Aeneas’ ships back and repel their landing. Now the fighting begins in earnest.

428-602. The fighting continues. Pallas rallies the Arcadians, but Turnus declares that Pallas will be his prize alone, and makes good on his boast. Jove warns Hercules not to intervene. Turnus offers a decent burial for the slain Pallas, and strips his armor, taking his sword belt as a prize.

603-714. Aeneas must rally the Trojans. He fights, refusing mercy to Magus, Tarquitus, and the insult-slinging Liger. Again the taunt is that Italy is not the Trojans’ home territory and that the Italians will give even better than they get. They claim to be even better fighters than the Greeks. The siege is broken at last: a key point in the battle.

715-814. Juno complains to Jove, asking now only some better deal for Turnus than the instant death that seems to be his lot. Juno creates a phantom Aeneas, which Turnus then pursues onto a ship that sets sail much against his will and to his extreme anguish and shame. Juno has to restrain him from killing himself while the ship returns him to his people. Apparently she still sees him as her champion, a second Achilles against the Trojans she despises.

815-986. Mezentius fights furiously, but is attacked by his own Etruscans, men who drove him from his kingdom out of hatred for his tyrannical rule. Aeneas wounds Mezentius, but his son Lausus intervenes—and act for which the narrator praises Lausus. Aeneas kills the young man, but leaves him his armor as a mark of respect.

987-1079. Mezentius and his horse Rhaebus go after Aeneas, who joyfully accepts battle with this fierce warrior. He kills the horse, which then falls on top of Mezentius and crushes him. Aeneas exults over the dying Mezentius at 1063-64, and the man asks for burial next to his fallen son.

Book 11

1-241. Aeneas must return Pallas’ body to Pallanteum on the site of the future Rome, and break the news to the young man’s father, Evander. A great mourning procession is part of Pallas’ funeral rites, which include the sacrifice of captive enemy soldiers. Aeneas feels that he has let Evander down by losing his son. Envoys from Latinus’ city come seeking burial of their comrades, which Aeneas grants. One of the envoys—Drances—obviously has no love for Turnus and would as well strike up a pact with the Trojans. After this interlude, Evander is informed by Rumor that his son has been killed, but he does not blame Aeneas; he demands only that the Trojan commander kill Turnus, the man who took Pallas’ life. Virgil seems concerned to dwell upon the costs of war in this section: in truth, warfare has always been at least as much about civilian suffering as about fighting on the battlefield, and that insight is on display here.

242-354. Back in Latium, Turnus faces a restive, resentful populace, who feel that his selfish demand for Lavinia in marriage is the cause of their troubles. Envoys inform the King that Diomedes won’t help them in their battles against the Trojans, and in fact the Greek thinks that Latium really ought to make a pact with Aeneas while it still can. He refuses their gifts and leaves them with that disheartening advice.

355-534. Latinus now begins to change his mind; his misgivings about this whole enterprise against Aeneas come to the fore. He broaches the possibility of offering the Trojan remnant gifts and a promise of ample land to build their new city. Drances steps in to dig the knife still deeper into Turnus, insisting that he give in to the king’s inclination and surrender his claim to Lavinia. Turnus, of course, finds all this talk of peace and blame revolting; he denounces Drances, says he would be only too happy to challenge Aeneas to single combat, and insists that while Diomedes may have refused aid to the people of Latium, Messapus, Tolumnius, and the female commander of the Volscians, Camilla (Italy’s own version of an Amazonian warrior) won’t.
535-705. Aeneas strikes camp and draws up his ranks for battle. Turnus is readying himself, too, laying an ambush for the Trojans, and Camilla joins him with a great desire to engage with Aeneas’ cavalry. We learn Camilla’s story—how she was raised as a shepherdess by her exiled tyrant father, the Volscian Metabus, and how, when he was being pursued by his enemies, he lashed his baby daughter to a strong spear and entrusted her to the winds over the rapids he must swim—her first experience of the spear’s flight that will come to define her life. Camilla is devoted to the goddess Diana, and a virgin. Diana makes the nymph Opis special guard for this young woman, and commands that she punish anyone who wounds Camilla. One might even say that this female warrior almost overshadows Turnus and Aeneas for the time the narrator grants her, and she certainly meets her doom in a heroic manner, one worthy (as the ancients would say) of a male warrior. In her devotion to chastity and purity, she rivals Aeneas himself.

706-891. Now the Trojan army approaches the walls of Latium. A back-and-forth battle ensues, but at last a great pitched battle is fought. Camilla revels in the action, making kills left and right with her spear, including the son of Aunus, one of the cheating tribe of Ligurians, according to the narrator. But soon Jove stirs up Tarchon the Etruscan to harangue his men, who are losing their battle to a woman. Tarchon himself daringly snatches Venulus right off his horse.

891-1068. Arruns, an Etruscan, “stalks” Camilla, determined to bring her down. As he and Camilla go round and round, Arruns prays to Apollo that he may kill this warrior woman and then make his way home. He gets his first wish, but will not get his second. The narrator describes the moment of the javelin’s flight through the air on its way to Camilla, and the spear tears into the area below her exposed breast. Arruns flees, terrified now that he has done what he set out to do. Camilla’s dying words to her sister Acca are that Turnus must now take charge of the battle to defend Latium. Diana’s nymph Opis kills Arruns for his deed against Camilla, but her cavalry flees when she is gone, and things look to be going the Trojans’ way. Turnus is furious, and wants to take on Aeneas in single combat, but night comes on and both armies dig in before the city, preparing for a siege and defense, respectively.

Book 12

1-129. Turnus continues in his desire to seek out Aeneas and settle matters violently between them. Latinus’ misgivings have only increased; he says he was wrong to have given in to Turnus’ strong desire for Lavinia’s hand in marriage, that she really should have gone to Aeneas. And now he wants to end the conflict before Turnus is killed. The Queen and Lavinia add their prayers and tears, with the Queen asking Turnus not to go into single combat with Aeneas. None of this works to undo Turnus’ anger or his determination to take the fight to Aeneas personally. This is a man he considers soft, unmasculine, a “Phrygian eunuch” (121), and he has no intention of letting him alone.

130-259. The armies are readying themselves, and Juno, seeing all that’s happening, sends Turnus’ sister, the water-nymph Juturna, down to protect him as he embarks upon his splendid fight with Aeneas. The opposing sides draw up, and Aeneas makes a pact that if Turnus wins, the Trojans will soon be off to Evander’s city Pallantium. But if Aeneas should win, he promises not to enslave the Italians but rather to live with them as equals. He will build a city to be called Lavinium after his prospective bride, Lavinia. Latinus promises to keep his part of the bargain, come what may.

260-372. But the Rutulian rank and file don’t put much stock in their champion Turnus, and the truth is that he’s looking rather pallid and pensive just now. Juturna spreads rumors among them, trying to ward off this single combat by suggesting that the people of Latium will indeed be enslaved if Turnus loses. She also sends one of Jove’s eagles to seize a swan and amaze them all before dropping it into the river. Now Tolumnius and others declare that this is the time for them all to take up arms, and collective fighting begins.

373-518. Aeneas is still intent on meeting up with Turnus, big battle notwithstanding, but the Trojan is promptly wounded with an arrow, and Turnus trains his fury on a swath of the Trojan forces. Meanwhile, the captains and Ascanius are trying to help Aeneas, and Iapyx the doctor does his best, but not even Apollo’s herbal remedies can fix what ails Aeneas. At last, Venus steps in with some Cretan dittany (origanum dictamnus, a symbol of love and birth; see the Wikipedia entry on Cretan dittany). This does the trick, and Aeneas tells Ascanius to study his father’s way of dealing with adversity, and always to take inspiration from him and from “uncle Hector.”

519-752. The Trojans charge, and Aeneas, restored to vigor, seeks after Turnus. Juturna drives her brother Turnus in her chariot, but tries to keep him away from Aeneas and the other Trojans. The narrator invokes the gods to help him sing the violent battle that swirls around these men and in which they participate. Aeneas, evidently knowing well that the nature of his overall task is collective rather than individual, sees no reason to spare Latium while he waits to engage one-on-one with Turnus, so he makes a frontal assault on the city’s ramparts and threatens to use fire as his weapon, which terrifies Queen Amata (Latinus’ wife and Turnus’ mother), and she hangs herself with her purple gown, thinking that Turnus has surely been destroyed in the fighting. Lavinia rends her cheeks, and Latinus tears his robes in anguish. Turnus, meantime, doesn’t know what’s causing all the lamentation in the city, but he seems to understand that his fateful hour has come. He recognizes his sister Juturna and knows what she has been up to, and he asks only for a quick death so that he will not have to see Latinus’ city burned down.

753-915. Turnus, stirred to shame by a soldier named Saces tells him he’s his people’s last hope, abandons Juturna’s chariot and charges through the lines. Everyone clears the field for the fight between Turnus and Aeneas. When Turnus’ sword breaks, he is forced to flee from Aeneas and seek another weapon. The two men circle each other five times, looking for an opportunity, but then Aeneas’ spear gets stuck in a wild olive tree sacred to Faunus (Pan), in a grove that had been cleared by the Trojans for battle. Turnus prays that the spear may remain stuck, but Juturna returns Turnus’ own sword to him. Venus then helps Aeneas pluck his spear from the olive tree, and now things are even.

916-1029. Jove asks Juno when she plans to stop persecuting the Trojans even though she understands that it’s Aeneas’ fate to do great things. He asks her to cease and desist. Juno defends herself by saying that it was for Jove that she gave up on Turnus, whom she seems to regard as a second Achilles against the Trojans. But she asks one last favor: that the Trojans will never give their name to the new city that will be founded in Latium. “Let Alban kings hold sway for all time, / Let Roman stock grow strong with Italian strength” (958-59), she prays, and Jove can hardly refuse her; he promises that the children of Latium will hold on to the old “words and ways” (967) and that these ways will include the ancient Italian religious rites. The Latin language, and the Italian people, will reign supreme, while the Trojan stock will be assimilated with those they have fought so successfully. This promise made, Jove sends down one of his furies to discourage Juturna from further protecting her brother Turnus, and she realizes it is time for her to steal away, go back to her stream.

1030-1113. Turnus and Aeneas are now left to the book—and the epic’s—final task: their own climactic fight for the future of Italy. Turnus tries to cast a huge boulder at Aeneas, but it falls short, and Jove’s fury continues to distract him, making his mind race and fill with incongruous thoughts and feelings. What is he to do now? As his mind runs riot, Aeneas’ spear strikes him down. Turnus asks no pity for himself, but can’t help thinking of his old father Daunus—will Aeneas send him home for the old man’s sake, or at least send his body back? Aeneas is almost ready to grant mercy to Turnus when his eye is caught by the sword-belt that the Rutulian hero had stripped from his victim Pallas, who of course was a great friend of Aeneas. In the name of his departed comrade, Aeneas strikes home with his sword, stabbing Turnus in the heart and ending The Aeneid. To conclude, the history that Virgil has given us after Book 6 is complex and at times painful: the founding of a whole race of people involves much loss, confusion, and sacrifice. The Trojan remnant’s actions drive home the point that when a new nation is founded, it is invariably established over the bodies and wills of another people who were dwelling in the newcomers’ promised land. Aeneas needed, and obtained, a special alliance with the gods to be successful. We know that Lavinia, Aeneas’ future bride, had already been promised to Turnus by the King of Latium, Latinus and that Turnus had leaned on Latinus to stir up a battle for the sake of keeping his word. But throughout, Latinus’ heart wasn’t really in this fight—he wanted a peaceful union with the Trojans. Nonetheless, the battle for the founding of Second Troy came on, and here in Book 12, Aeneas has killed Turnus, a strong, implacable Italian ruler who would neither mingle with nor be co-opted by the newcomers from ruined Troy. Turnus has his virtues, Virgil acknowledges, but he makes sure that it is Aeneas who will be recognized as the genuine proto-Roman hero. The Romans were a strongly ethical people, devoted to piety and law (our own legal codes largely derive from them, after all), but the accomplishment of Roman destiny really isn’t about the narrowly defined categories of right and wrong; a Roman would probably say their ascendancy was the will of the gods.

In the end, Virgil, in dialogue with Homer, has made sure to incorporate the highlights of the Greeks’ foundational narrative (the Trojan War) into the Roman story, while at the same time not allowing it to overshadow that Roman story. Ruined Troy doesn’t so much conquer Italy as get successfully assimilated into it. And while it’s sometimes said that ancient versions of individual identity rely heavily on definition and shaping by the larger community, it’s fair to say that Virgil has constructed for us a story in which a heroic individual experiences deep conflicts between his own desires and the great collective tasks imposed on him by fate and the gods. Aeneas must do what the group, the nation, demands—without that sacrifice, Rome could never, as Virgil tells the story, have come into being.