1. Juno hates the Trojans for several reasons, and torments and foils them whenever she can. Does this enmity seem to have any legitimate basis?

2. The gods tell Aeneas that he must leave Dido and pursue his mission. Generations of readers have condemned Aeneas for abandoning the devoted woman. Is Aeneas's leaving justified? Consider that Juno and Venus (for different reasons) conspired to make Aeneas and Dido fall in love in the first place.

3. Much has been written about the last scene in the poem, in which Aeneas starts to take pity on the vanquished Turnus but then suddenly slays him. Is this act consistent with the characterization of the hero?

4. Does the human-like behavior of the divine characters in the poem render them less believable as actors in the epic drama? Would this poem be improved by the removal of the gods and goddesses from the story, or do these supernatural beings add to the force and substance of the narrative?

5. Apart from Aeneas, which of the central male characters plays the most important role in the narrative? What actions and character traits determined your choice?

6. What elements of the passage concerning Aeneas's journey to the Underworld strike you as the most effective in creating an image of the ancient concept of the afterlife?

7. The Aeneid is famous for the "Vergilian melancholy" that pervades it. What sections of the text tend to support this reading of the epic? Is Vergil, as many scholars claim, really such a pessimist?

8. Do the characters seem to have free will? That is, do they appear to act primarily of their own volition, or is everything they do determined by the gods or by circumstances? What are some examples of free will, if you believe that they have it?

9. Does the story of the fall of Troy in Book Two suggest that the Greeks were more clever than the Trojans, or that they were simply unscrupulous?

10. Vergil seems to have been writing at least partly on the assumption that the founding of the Roman Empire was destined to happen. What evidence for such a belief can be found in the text?