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| The protagonist of the Aeneid. Aeneas is a survivor of the siege of Troy, a city on the coast of Asia Minor. His defining characteristic is piety, a respect for the will of the gods. He is a fearsome warrior and a leader able to motivate his men in the face of adversity, but also a man capable of great compassion and sorrow. His destiny is to found the Roman race in Italy and he subordinates all other concerns to this mission. The Aeneid is about his journey from Troy to Italy, which enables him to fulfill his fate. |
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| Aeneas’s father, and a symbol of Aeneas’s Trojan heritage. Although Anchises dies during the journey from Troy to Italy, he continues in spirit to help his son fulfill fate’s decrees, especially by guiding Aeneas through the underworld and showing him what fate has in store for his descendants. |
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| The queen of Carthage, a city in northern Africa, in what is now Tunisia, and lover of Aeneas. Dido left the land of Tyre when her husband was murdered by Pygmalion, her brother. She and her city are strong, but she becomes an unfortunate pawn of the gods in their struggle for Aeneas’s destiny. Her love for Aeneas proves to be her downfall. After he abandons her, she constructs a funeral pyre and stabs herself upon it with Aeneas’s sword. |
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| Aeneas’s young son by his first wife, Creusa. Ascanius (also called Iulus) is most important as a symbol of Aeneas’s destiny—his future founding of the Roman race. Though still a child, Ascanius has several opportunities over the course of the epic to display his bravery and leadership. He leads a procession of boys on horseback during the games of Book V and he helps to defend the Trojan camp from Turnus’s attack while his father is away. |
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| Trojan priest of neptune: "Do not trust the Horse, Trojans / Whatever it is, I fear the Danaans even bearing gifts." Immediately afterward Laocoön and his two sons are viciously slain by enormous twin serpents, the Trojans assume the horse has been offered at Minerva's (Athena's) prompting and interpret Laocoön's death as a sign of her displeasure. |
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| trojan king. In Virgil's description, Neoptolemus first kills Priam's son Polites in front of his father as he seeks sanctuary on the altar of Zeus. Priam rebukes Neoptolemus, throwing a spear at him, which misses. Neoptolemus (achilles son) then drags Priam to the altar and there kills him too. |
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| The goddess of love and the mother of Aeneas. Venus (Aphrodite in Greek mythology) is a benefactor of the Trojans. She helps her son whenever Juno tries to hurt him, causing conflict among the gods. She is also referred to as Cytherea, after Cythera, the island where she was born and where her shrine is located. |
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| The queen of the gods, the wife and sister of Jupiter, and the daughter of Saturn. Juno (Hera in Greek mythology) hates the Trojans because of the Trojan Paris’s judgment against her in a beauty contest. She is also a patron of Carthage and knows that Aeneas’s Roman descendants are destined to destroy Carthage. She takes out her anger on Aeneas throughout the epic, and in her wrath acts as his primary divine antagonist. |
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| The king of the gods, and the son of Saturn. While the gods often struggle against one another in battles of will, Jupiter’s will reigns supreme and becomes identified with the more impersonal force of fate. Therefore, Jupiter (also known as Jove, and called Zeus in Greek mythology) directs the general progress of Aeneas’s destiny, ensuring that Aeneas is never permanently thrown off his course toward Italy. Jupiter’s demeanor is controlled and levelheaded compared to the volatility of Juno and Venus. |
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Virgil opens his epic poem by declaring its subject, “warfare and a man at war,” and asking a muse, or goddess of inspiration, to explain the anger of Juno, queen of the gods (I.1).
Juno harbors anger toward Aeneas because Carthage is her favorite city, and a prophecy holds that the race descended from the Trojans will someday destroy Carthage.
Juno holds a permanent grudge against Troy because another Trojan, Paris, judged Juno’s rival Venus fairest in a divine beauty contest. Juno calls on Aeolus, the god of the winds, directing him to bring a great storm down upon Aeneas as he sails south of Sicily in search of a friendly harbor. Aeolus obeys, unleashing a fierce storm upon the battle-weary Trojans. |
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| the gods follow different personal/political rules than humans, shades too |
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| The god of the winds, enlisted to aid Juno in creating bad weather for the Trojans in Book I. |
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action v. words authority needs no words for action, BUT...
The good statesman uses words for
action : Vergil compares Augustus to a god; wordS and actions, word as action |
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| Aeneas' first naming (storm scene) |
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| Aeneid is named by the first line |
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| Fall of Troy (Aeneas' recount) |
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| after cupid shoots dido, she asks aeneas to tell the story |
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Dido's sister; As a last effort, Dido sends Anna to try to persuade the Trojan hero to stay, but to no avail.
Dido writhes between fierce love and bitter anger. Suddenly, she appears calm and instructs Anna to build a great fire in the courtyard. |
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| Dido's former husband, killed by Dido's brother for his gold |
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| the son of Jupiter Hammon (Hammon was a North African god associated by the Romans with Jupiter, and known for his oracle) and a nymph. He became the king of Gaetulia. According to Virgil, he fell in love with the Carthaginian queen Dido, who rejected his advances in favour of Aeneas. |
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| Dido's city, Juno's favorite, part of the reason she has a vendetta. |
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Aeneas reminds his companions of previous, more deadly adversities they have overcome and the fated end toward which they strive. Aeneas remains unaware of the divine machinations that steer his course.. he later learns his fate claims to be responsible for staying true to fate when he leaves Dido. personal + political both effect fate...Suffering/injustice, Cost -> Foundation, Rule/dominion...see "anger" (fate is cause of juno's anger)If fate would let me live the life I chose, If I had power over my decisions,
I would have stayed at Troy, where I could tend Beloved graves. |
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| one leads to changes in the other, both contribute in the unveiling of fate |
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| helmsman of a ship of the Trojan hero Aeneas, whose descendants would one day found the city of Rome...price to pay (requested by venus to neptune) in passage to italy from sicily he loses his life |
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| Aeneas visits a temple to apollo in order to pray for landing in Latium. the sibyl is a priestess there who tells him to find a golden branch, if it breaks off a tree he can visit his father in the underworld |
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| "Dis" - Aeneas asks sibyl to go there to see father. sees many ppl that have died there |
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| anchises' prophecy/parade of roman history |
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| Anchises greets him warmly and congratulates him on having made the difficult journey. He gladly answers some of Aeneas’s many questions, regarding such issues as how the dead are dispersed in Dis and how good souls can eventually reach the Fields of Gladness. But with little time at hand, Anchises presses on to the reason for Aeneas’s journey to the underworld—the explication of his lineage in Italy. Anchises describes what will become of the Trojan descendants: Romulus will found Rome, a Caesar will eventually come from the line of Ascanius, and Rome will reach a Golden Age of rule over the world. |
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| from which shades send false dreams. entrance to underworld in Cumae = avernus aneas returns through ivory (lies) instead of horn (truth) |
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