The Aeneid was written by Virgil, that guy from the Inferno, around 30 BC
and it was meant to serve as a sort of
continuation to the Iliad and the Odyssey, both written by Homer more than 800 years previously.
Virgil was commissioned to write the piece by Caesar Augustus,
who demanded that the poet write him a kick-ass
power ballad glorifying him.
Virgil, on the other hand, was a clever bastard who
didn't like Augustus all that much
and instead opted to write an epic glorifying Rome, while
surreptitiously mocking Augustus the whole time.
Our hero, Aeneas, is meant to parallel Augustus in actions and certain key events
to serve as a sort of historical insert character for the Caesar.
This might be why Aeneas is described as a really swell guy
But in practice acts like rather a knob head. So, our story begins shortly after the events of The Trojan War
where we see Hera absolutely losing it and raging against the Trojans.
Strangely enough, not because of their actions in the war itself,
but instead because there is
*in deep voice* a prophecy
*fantastic guitar riff*
That's right!
Apparently, It was foretold that not only would Troy would survive the aggressive tan the Achaeans gave it,
But it would live on as an immensely powerful empire in Italy, known as Rome.
Hera objects to this because the prophecy also states that the Romans will bring about the destruction of Carthage,
which is her favorite city.
Anyway,
We learn that an intrepid young hero has managed to escape the flames of Troy,
and is sailing for Italy, known back then as Hesperia, along with a whole fleet of refugees.
This hero is Aeneas, who you may remember as having been
an immensely unimportant player in the Iliad.
He was that guy, who Aphrodite dropped when Diomedes, shot a spear through her wrist.
but Aeneas carried the distinction of being Aphrodite's son,
as well as the Rome's favorite hero and ancestral founder
so I guess he's the hero of this tale
So Anyway,
Hera, or as the Romans called her Juno,
is having none of this Aeneas surviving nonsense
and calls upon King Aeolus for help. As you may recall, Aeolus appeared briefly in the odyssey
He was that King who gave
Odysseus that magic bag of wind.
and Juno bribes him with the offer of a
sexy nymph wife, if he unleashes the fury on Aeneas' fleet.
Aeolus, amazingly, turns down the offer of steamy nereid loving,
but for some reason still does as she asks and Aeneas' fleet is devastated by
the resulting hurricane. But this in turn pisses off Poseidon, oh I'm sorry,
I meant Neptune. God, this is more confusing than those stupid Percy Jackson books
Anyway, Yeah
Neptune is all like *deep voice* I'm the only Deity who gets to make life unnecessarily
complex for a hero of the Trojan war is me! And banishes the storm leaving the damaged Trojan fleet to sail to a port in
Libya. Neptune then presumably went back to tossing Cyclopes at Odysseus. So Aeneas manages to dock his fleet
And then he gives a nice little rousing speech to the rather disheartened Trojans.
Although, He's mostly talking out of his ass, as he has no idea where they are or really where they're supposed to be going.
So Aphrodite, alias Venus, sees her darling boy having so much trouble being so perfect and beautiful all the time
and runs off to Zeus, aka Jove,
and is like *high voice* dad and/or nephew ,
It's just not fair! Why did you let Troy get all smashed up
Where's my baby boy supposed to live now and Jove slash Zeus is like *deep voice*fear not my daughter and or auntie for you see there
is
a prophecy *fantastic guitar riff*
So Jove explains, that Aeneas is destined to lead to the founding of Rome, the most kick-ass of all Empire's ever. Clearly they did not
Yet have a prophecy regarding the founding of America
*sped up Star Spangled Banner on a Electric Guitar*
so Venus drops down to Earth disguised ,as a huntress, to give aeneas directions to the nearest city which happens to be Carthage ruled by
Queen Dido. If that name sounds at all familiar
She showed up in Dante's Inferno in the second circle of hell, so yeah, I'm sure this story is gonna
go great for her.
So, Aeneas and the Trojan refugees head to Carthage, where Queen Dido happily invites them to rest up offers to repair their ships and even
suggest that if they need a place to stay that Carthage is always open to them
Then Dido is like, Oh Aeneas, what to tell us some of your awesome adventures over dinner?
but not at all like Odysseus did when he reached Phaeacia, and Aeneas is like sure thing, babe. It all started shortly before my city caught fire
So Aeneas recounts the final days of the Trojan war which really started getting interesting when the Trojan army roared into the Greek camp only to
find it entirely deserted save for an enormous wooden horse
and a lone Greek kid named Sinon or
Sinon? Who they promptly captured Sinon claims that the Greek army ran off leaving him behind as a sacrifice to appease the gods
So they'd let them set sail.
Fans of Iphigenia will note that this is in fact a strategy that the Greeks have employed previously to great effect and with absolutely NO NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES.
anyway, they asked about the horse and Sinon
is like "that is an extremely complicated monument to Athena be careful if you damage the statue at all
She'll get pissed and strike you down with Great Vengeance on the other hand if you take it into your city
She'll favor you and next time you'll beat the greeks for sure!" So the Trojan King Priam is like seems legit
And they drag the horse into town. Before I go any further,
There's an interesting bit of symbolism to note the Trojan horse is described as a monument to Athena and in a strange way it is.
Athena is the goddess of wisdom, yes,
But she's also a goddess of war as such her cunning is often manifested into complex strategy and avoiding direct
confrontation, as opposed to the manifestation of war that Ares represented which was rather more brute force and ignorance.
So while the use of the Trojan horse is seen as a deceitful tactic,
It is undeniably a valid strategy and a brilliant one at that. In this way, it really is a tribute to Athena.
Okay, that's it for the analysis part, write your own damn paper. Anywho-
The Trojan horse turns out to have been full of bloodthirsty Greeks
Spoiler alert by the way. So Aeneas, faced with the prospect of his beloved
city being turned into a flaming warzone, does the heroic thing and runs very far in the opposite direction. Our hero, everybody.
Well, that's not entirely true, he does put up a pretty good fight. Then he runs into Helen and considers brutally murdering her for events entirely beyond
her control. Our hero, everybody!
But Venus convinces him not to kill Helen, explaining that the war and the ruin of Troy weren't actually her fault.
You're goddamn right, it wasn't her fault, Venus!
It wasn't her fault because it was your fault for kidnapping her in the first place!
Helen hasn't done a damn thing in this entire stupid epic cycle!
*sigh of anger* Anyway,
Aeneas flees the battlefield and builds a fleet to escape. Then he goes island hopping until eventually reaching the foreign safe haven of Carthage.
And if that sounds eerily reminiscent of the entire first half of the Odyssey... Well it should. Here are the only important things that happen along
the way.
Apollo whoops, I mean uh...
Oh, I actually do mean Apollo. Anyway, Apollo is like, "Yo, Aeneas. Go fulfill the prophecy." *epic guitar riff*
And sends him to the land of his ancestors, that is, Italy, which isn't a thing yet.
So, Aeneas is rather confused as to where he's really supposed to go.
Aeneas manages to get cursed by a harpy who dooms him to be unable to find Italy until the crew gets so hungry that they
have to eat their own tables.
Oddly specific.
The text does not elaborate on why exactly the Trojans didn't attempt a little table nibbling whenever they were having trouble finding this stupid place.
Aeneas, on his way to Scylla and Charybdis,
lands on the Island of the Cyclops, where he runs into Achaemenides. If the name sounds
unfamiliar, that's because he didn't exist before Virgil retro actively wrote him into the Odyssey, where supposedly he was one of Odysseus's as crew members.
And because Aeneas is just so perfect,
of course he takes him on board, despite the fact that Achaemenides is a Greek, and therefore one of the enemy. Anyway,
that's pretty much the end of Aeneas's story.
Yeah, he didn't bother recounting how he made it past Scylla and Charybdis. Guess it was just that easy for him.
*sighs* So Dido finds herself falling in love with Aeneas.
But she's all conflicted and stuff because after her husband Sychaeus died, she swore she'd never love again.
But Juno once again spots a golden opportunity to keep the Trojans from reaching Italy. If she can get Aeneas to stay in Carthage
with Dido, she won't have to worry. So she schemes to exploit the one thing that Venus is vulnerable to: playing matchmaker.
Yeah, that's right. Venus knows Juno is playing her,
But she just can't resist the urge to set her son up with a sexy foreign queen. Christ, okay.
I'll spare you the gory details.
Suffice to say that with both Juno and Venus conspiring to set Dido and Aeneas up together, they carry on a whirlwind romance and immediately
get sort of married. So Aeneas relaxes in luxury for a while -- hey, just like Odysseus,
how about that? But Jove gets antsy with all this loafing around and sends Hermes--
Yeah, no, they use Hermes in the text.
So Jove sends Hermes down to give Aeneas a verbal kick in the rear to get him back on track to fulfilling the prophecy. *angel trumpets*
So Hermes pops down and sasses Aeneas back into action and Aeneas immediately resolves to sneak away
so he won't have to explain his actions to his wife. Because that would be awkward?
Well, it doesn't matter anyway since Dido catches him trying to sneak off and demands he explain himself. So he's like, "But Dido,
I can't stay with you. I have to fulfill ... the prophecy." *ominous chorus*
So Aeneas runs off and Dido commits an impressively over-the-top suicide.
So first, she sets herself on fire, along with all of Aeneas's possessions,
and then she stabs herself with his sword. Then, with her dying breath, she declares that the
Carthaginians will forever be at war with Aeneas's people.
Blue: Ooh, I covered this in my Roman Republic video.
This is reference to the Punic wars of the Romans and the Carthaginian's fall-
Red: No!
Blue: Oh God not the face Red: My video!
Aeneas, having sailed away during all the commotion,
lands on the shores of Sicily and in light of this recent and terrible tragedy, holds funeral games...
for his father because it's his one year death anniversary. Way to prioritize your loved ones, jackass.
So, while the men are engaging in those healthy sporting and 100%
heterosexual activities, Juno sneakily persuades the Trojan women, who by now are rather sick of all the sailing nonsense, to burn their ships so that
instead of continuing to search for Italy, they'll be forced to settle in Sicily instead.
This is actually a pretty great idea so the ladies set the boats on fire and all the men folk freak out and try to
put it out. When that doesn't work, Jove does what he does best and summons a massive thunderstorm to put out the fires instead.
So, crisis averted, right?
Well, yeah.
But even Aeneas has to admit that all this sailing around is getting pretty old. So he gives the people too frail or too bored
to continue sailing to Italy the option of staying and founding their own city right there in Sicily. So Aeneas, with a greatly reduced crew,
Sets off towards Italy once more, and this time around to ensure that no more
Shenanigans happen, Neptune grants them safe passage
straight to Italy, so yeah, Aeneas and the Trojans finally reached Cumea sitting on the coast of Italy. Hey, they did it!
But since they don't actually know where Italy is or what it looks like they don't realize they did it.
So then, [Christ] then, Aeneas has to travel into the underworld --sound familiar?
Well, it should. So Aeneas descends into the underworld. All the dead Greeks flee him because clearly
Aeneas was such a first-tier hero in the iliad that every Achaean would know and fear him. And then he talks to his dad
and Anchises who tells him the prophecy
according to the prophecy
Aeneas is destined to lead to the founding of a great city in Italy that will rise to become a great empire and usher in
a worldwide golden age. For the record, the ones who actually do the heavy lifting are Aeneas's descendants Romulus and Remus.
So Aeneas pops back out of the underworld, and they sail up the Italian coast to Latium which Virgil tells us is currently
ruled by King Latinus who has a single daughter Lavinia who is currently being pursued by a ludicrous number of aspiring suitors. And if that
one woman being pursued by a ludicrous number of aspiring suitors while her real husband is coming up the coast sounds familiar,
Well it should. Of these suitors,
the most desirable is a Latin bloke named Turnus, but Latinus is informed in a dream that his daughter shouldn't marry a Latin,
but instead a foreigner, a very specific foreigner. Cut to Aeneas eating pizza on the beach, okay?
It's not pizza per se
But it is toppings on flatbread so it's basically pizza. Anyway, one of Aeneas's men is like, Hey check it out--
We got so hungry we ate our bread table plate things and Aeneas is like, The prophecy!
As you may recall that harpy from earlier that we glossed over said they wouldn't find Italy until they ate their tables,
And now they're in Italy sort of eating their sort of tables and things just keep getting better for Aeneas, since as soon as Latinus
lays eyes on him, he decides that the lad is the perfect
foreigner to marry his daughter to. So that's it right? Aeneas is destined to marry Lavinia, and cause the founding of Rome and then everything will
kick ass forever? Well yeah, but first
There's this war thing. Yeah, remember how determined Juno was to ruin everything? Well,
She's ba-ack.
Juno sends a fury (Alecto) to mess with Latinus's wife and make her oppose the marriage between Aeneas and Lavinia then Alecto zips
over to Turnus and infects him with the rage virus or something, and then it's off to war we go. That sounded pretty
familiar, huh?
So this is the part of the book where Virgil
transitions seamlessly from shamelessly ripping off the odyssey to shamelessly ripping off the Iliad. At this point,
It would be easier to list all the things in this war that don't directly parallel key events in the Trojan war.
But that isn't my job, so here are all the things that could be generously described as mirroring key events in the iliad:
Aeneas gets a pretty hearty relationship going with this kid Pallas
Who's the son of this Arcadian king Evander. Their relationship is meant to emulate that of Achilles and Patroclus albeit significantly less romantic.
The war is Initiated because of
a woman being married to one man, as opposed to a different man due to the intervention of Venus, no less.
Hephaestus, known by the Romans as Vulcan (no relation), forges Aeneas a shield. Sound familiar? Well, it should.
Two Trojans embark on a nighttime stealth mission into the enemy camp.
They end up dead though, so that's a difference. Jove gets mad at the Olympians, Juno, specifically, for screwing over the Trojans.
Aeneas' buddy Pallas gets brutally murdered in a rather
Patroclus-like way by the Hector-like enemy leader Turnus who takes his gear. This prompts Aeneas to an Achilles-like rage
which is temporarily interrupted by
the suggestion that the war get resolved by a duel between the two leaders of the armies. After some shenanigans,
they finally get them in the same place to try and kill each other, but that is interrupted because...
a goddess intervenes and coaxes a soldier into chucking a spear at one of the leaders provoking all-out war once again.
Then Aeneas burns the unprotected enemy city to the ground. Hey, remember when he was really mad about that happening? GottaI love hypocrisy.
Finally, Aeneas, enraged by the murder of his buddy Pallas and the fact that Turnus is wearing Pallas' gear, murders the now-wounded and helpless
enemy. Wonder what Hector thought of that. The combination of the last two events successfully transforms Aeneas into that which he hates the most: a cross
between Achilles and Odysseus, which is a historical fanfiction all on its own, and more importantly, not one I'm remotely interested in.
*repeat of fantastic guitar riff*