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Aeneid | Introduction

When Virgil was dying in 19 BC he asked for the unfinished Aeneid to be destroyed. The emperor Augustus refused the request. This decision affected the course of literary history and the development of western culture. Even in his own lifetime Virgil's poetry had become a school text. Early Christian writers who attempted to reject Virgil could escape neither his style nor his attitudes. Christian thought assimilated them both. The Aeneid and the Bible were probably the two most consistently read books in Western Europe for two thousand years.

The Aeneid was composed at least in part to celebrate ''truth, justice, and the Roman way'' and to promote the rebirth of the Roman way of life under Augustus. The Aeneid also universalises Roman experience, ideals, and aspirations. The Aeneid represents a pivotal point in western literature: Virgil drew on the whole of Greek and Latin literature to create this epic. He expanded the range of the Latin epic, using elements from most types of late classical literature, while refining the linguistic and metrical possibilities of the epic genre. Because of its generic inclusiveness and linguistic brilliance, the Aeneid spread its influence across every form of written discourse for centuries.

In the last two thousand years the Aeneid has been a pagan bible, a Latin style manual, a moral allegory, a document of European unity, a pacifist document—and one of the most-read and studied works of world literature of all time. Entering its third millennium, the Aeneid can still speak immediately to the reader.

Aeneid Summary

Book 1
Aeneas and his Trojans are seven years into their journey home from the Trojan War to Italy when Juno, queen of the gods and arch-enemy of the Trojans, has Aeolus, god of the winds, blow up a violent storm which drives their ships off course. Aeneas, with some of the Trojan fleet, lands in North Africa. Aeneas is a nearly broken man, but he pulls himself together and encourages his people.

The scene switches to the home of the gods on Mount Olympus. Aeneas's mother, the goddess Venus, begs Jupiter, her father and king of the gods, to aid her son. Jupiter replies with serene optimism. He promises the Trojans, through their descendants, not only empire, but a new golden age. Venus departs from Olympus and, disguised as a huntress, meets her son. She sends him to Carthage. There he finds the Trojans who were separated from him in the storm and meets Queen Dido, the founder of the city. Dido takes pity on the Trojans. Meanwhile, Juno and Venus, each for their own purposes, scheme to have Aeneas and Dido fall in love.

Book 2
At a banquet given in his honor, at Dido's request Aeneas narrates the story of Troy's last day and night. He tells the famous story of the Trojan Horse, left outside the city gates when the Greeks were supposedly departed, but actually filled with Greek warriors. The Trojan priest Laocoon warned "I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts." When Laocoon and his young sons were crushed by two enormous serpents who came out of the sea, the Trojans took this as a sign from the gods and brought the horse into the city during their celebration of what they thought was the Greek withdrawal. That night the Greek warriors emerge from the horse and open the gates to their returned comrades. Aeneas is warned by the ghost of his cousin Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors (killed by Achilles in the Iliad), who tells him to flee the city. As this section ends, Aeneas watches helplessly as Pyrrhus kills King Priam's youngest son before his father, and King Priam himself in front of his daughters and wife, Queen Hecuba.

Aeneas returns home to persuade his father to leave the city. He carries the crippled Anchises. Ascamus, his son, holds his hand while his wife Creusa and the servants follow. When Aeneas reaches the refugees' meeting point he finds Creusa has been lost in the confusion. He rushes back into Troy frantically looking for her. Finally he is met by her ghost. The ghost tells him that the mother of the gods (Cybele) has taken her under her care.

Book 3
Aeneas continues the story of the Trojans' wanderings. Slowly Anchises and Aeneas learn more about the promised land of Italy and the future that the gods predict for them there. The book ends with the death of Anchises. Aeneas is left alone with his young son to carry out the will of the gods as best he can.

Book 4
Aeneas's story is done. Dido, under the influence of Venus, is now hopelessly in love with him. Her sister Anna persuades her to forget her vow of fidelity to her dead and dearly beloved husband, Sychaeus. She loses all interest in governing her city. The ongoing construction of Carthage comes to a halt. Juno and Venus arrange for Dido and Aeneas to have to shelter together overnight in a storm-bound cave. Jupiter sends Mercury, the messenger of the god, to remind Aeneas of his duty to travel on to Italy. Aeneas is miserable, but accepts that he must follow the will of the gods. Dido begs him not to leave her, and ultimately commits suicide as the Trojans set sail, cursing them with her last breath and vowing her people to eternal war with those of Aeneas.

Book 5
The Trojans land in Sicily and hold commemorative games. Aeneas relaxes briefly, but disaster strikes again. Juno, in disguise, leads the Trojan women to burn the ships. At Aeneas's prayer Jupiter quenches the fire, but four are... » Complete Aeneid Summary