Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC (between 29 and 19 BCE) that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is written in dactylic hexameter.

Story

Following the example of the Homeric epics, Vergil begins the poem with an invocation to the Muses and an explanation of the theme, and the root cause of the principal conflict of the plot, in this case, the resentment held by Juno against the Trojan people.

Related Topics:
Homer - Epic - Muse - Juno

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Also in the manner of Homer, the story proper begins in medias res with the Trojan fleet in the western Mediterranean, heading in the direction of Italy. Juno stirs up a storm which is on the verge of sinking the fleet. Neptune takes notice: although he himself is no friend of the Trojans, he is infuriated by Juno's intrusion into his domain, and stills the winds and calms the waters. The fleet takes shelter on the coast of Africa, where Aeneas gains the favor of Dido, queen of Carthage, a city which has only recently been founded by refugees from Tyre and which will later become Rome's greatest enemy. However, that lies in the far future; the Trojans are welcomed hospitably.

Related Topics:
In medias res - Mediterranean - Italy - Neptune - Africa - Dido - Carthage - Tyre

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At a banquet given in their honor, Aeneas recounts the events which occasioned the Trojans' fortuitous arrival. He begins the tale shortly after the events described in the Iliad, and tells of the end of the Trojan War, the ruse of the Trojan Horse, the sack of Troy by the Greek armies, and his escape with his son Ascanius and father Anchises, his wife Creusa having been separated from the others and subsequently killed in the general catastrophe. Rallying the other survivors, Aeneas built a fleet of ships and made landfall at various points in the Mediterranean (including Thrace, Crete and Epirus) before being divinely advised that he should seek out the land of Italy, where his descendants would not only prosper, but in time rule the known world. The fleet reached as far as Sicily and was making for the mainland, until Juno raised up the storm which drove it back across the sea to Carthage.

Related Topics:
Iliad - Trojan War - Trojan Horse - Ascanius - Anchises - Creusa - Thrace - Crete - Epirus - Sicily

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During the banquet, Dido realizes that she has fallen madly in love with Aeneas, although she had previously sworn fidelity to the soul of her murdered husband. Aeneas is inclined to reciprocate, but the Olympian gods insist that he fulfill his destiny and he has to depart. Her heart broken, Dido commits suicide by stabbing herself on a pyre. Before dying, she predicts eternal strife between Aeneas's people and hers; "rise up from my bones, avenging spirit" is an obvious invocation to Hannibal. Looking back from the deck of his ship, Aeneas sees Dido's funeral pyre's smoke and knows its meaning only too clearly. However, destiny calls and the Trojan fleet sails on to Italy.

Related Topics:
Olympian - Suicide - Pyre - Hannibal

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Aeneas's father Anchises having been hastily interred on Sicily during the fleet's previous landfall there, the Trojans returned to the island to hold funeral games in his honor.

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Eventually, the fleet lands on the mainland of Italy and further adventures ensue. Aeneas descends to the underworld through an opening at Cumae, where he speaks with the spirit of his father and has a prophetic vision of the destiny of Rome. Returning to the land of the living, he leads the Trojans to settle in the land of Latium, where he courts Lavinia, the daughter of king Latinus. A war ensues between the Trojans and some of the indigenous peoples of Italy, which is brought to a close when Lavinia's rejected suitor Turnus, king of the Rutuli, challenges Aeneas to a duel in which Turnus is slain.

Related Topics:
Underworld - Cumae - Rome - Latium - Lavinia - Latinus - Turnus - Rutuli

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Here the narrative of the Aeneid ends, but, as we have been told in the opening lines of the poem, Aeneas subsequently married Lavinia and became the ancestor of the Roman people.

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