Snake imagery is also much in evidence in The Aeneid. At various points in the poem, it's associated with chaos and destruction. During the fall of Troy, for example, the sea god Neptune sends a couple of giant serpents to devour the high priest Laocoön and his sons. It's notable that the same Latin word, lapsus—meaning slithering—is used both in relation to the serpents that kill Laocoön and the movement of the Trojan Horse's wheels as they slink ever closer to the walls of Troy.
The link between snake imagery and cunning is further highlighted by the actions of Aeneas and his men, who disguise themselves as Greeks before launching a surprise attack on an Achaean warrior. Here, they are likened to a snake unseen among the rough brambles.
But despite this example, snake imagery is generally a bad sign for the Trojans. At the end of Book...
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2, two omens appear that convince Anchises, Aeneas's father, that it's time to leave the city. The first is a flame that appears over the head of Ascanius, Aeneas's son, which licks at his hair in much the same way as the twin serpents did earlier. The second is a falling star that "glides" over the rooftops just as the snakes glided, or slithered, over their hapless victims and the wheels glided beneath the Trojan Horse.
Hunting, fire and walls are just a few of the recurrent images of the epic. "For example, consider hunting in the Aeneid. In book 1 Aeneas is a real hunter who slays deer; in book 4 in a simile he is a metaphorical hunter of Dido and then again a real hunter as he and Dido engage in a hunting expedition. No doubt Vergil intended these three instances of hunting to refer to each other implicitly and to comment upon the story."
Then there is the imagery of walls. "Aeneas seeks "walls"-"Give walls to the weary and family and an abiding city" (Book 3, lines 85-86), he prays, hoping to rebuild Troy and carry on the worship associated with the city. Walls symbolize all the peace and security and continuity that allow human beings to live well.
Then there are the forces that destroy walls, above all expressed in the ever-recurring images of fire. Troy is engulfed in flames. The passion that is described again and again as burning in Dido will lead to the destructive force of Carthage, which almost destroyed Rome. Fire sparks from Turnus, as he resists the peace that will allow Aeneas finally to build his walls. Fire is everywhere associated with furor, which can be translated as madness, rage, or frenzy, and Jupiter promises Venus in Book 1 that the time will come when wars will cease, when Rome will rule a world at peace, when the gates of war will be closed, and within them Furor will be bound forever"
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